Sometimes even I have very little to say on a Saturday morning. Just let the swell of the day carry us where it may.

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“What was your greatest challenge?” asks Marsha. “How did it make you better?”

It might be hard to imagine I can answer, born into privilege as I was. Intelligently fed, beautifully housed, formally educated. What possible difficulties could I face?

But the Internet has convinced me that everyone struggles with something. We read of and from people who write, cook, paint beautifully  Get to know them better, they’ve got their stuff. An editor with a great job? She’s confused and worried. The chemist? Might be angry. People’s lives surprise you.

So it was with privilege. Even abundance requires sorting out.

Between the ages of 20 and 23 I was bulemic. Imagine a blonde-haired Princeton girl, sneaking multiple Snickers from the candy bin at her eating club. Reads like a scene in a first novel, doesn’t it? We’ll avoid a description of the subsequent purges, they don’t make for good vignettes, and would never transfer to television very well. You see, even now I feel some disdain for my behavior.

I never consciously got over the eating disorder, just found myself one day at my lonely New York kitchen table thinking, “I’m going to eat whatever my body really wants. I bet that will work.”

It did.

I wrote recently about cutting back on alcohol. Moving from heavy to moderate drinking took much more effort than giving up milkshake prohibition, but in both cases I was well-served by paying attention to the needs of my body, and putting aside shame.

Neither of these behaviors comes naturally to the High WASP culture. I had to quiet some voices.

Often people are challenged by what they don’t have. That feels true and honest, to me. I’ve been challenged instead by my relationship with satisfiable wants. By the search for useful ways of dealing with anxiety and impulse. Where to go when the only limits are those you set yourself? And what to do about living up to your advantages?

So, at the highest level of abstraction, once you find abundance, you become your own challenge.

How so? Everyone will experience this differently, everyone will come to a different conclusion. But I do believe we all owe good manners and a promise to do better as we go. More than this, well, of such choices are life stories made.

One last question. Did learning to manage food and alcohol make me a better person? Oh jeez, I don’t know. We’d have to define “better,” of course. I know I’m not more Good – Good is big and hard and for the great of spirit. But I’m certainly happier. And happiness has brought some calm; calm has encouraged gratitude and generosity. For today, I’m going to hope that’s enough.

Photo via Flickr’s Creative Commons, the photostream of dolorix

Please join Marsha and the other bloggers at http://www.splenderosa.blogspot.com/2013/04/by-invitation-only-april-2013.html.

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For today, I recommend visiting Flwrjane at Small But Charming for Flowers in the House, and the Karen Millen website for a blowout sale. Millen makes great narrow trousers and even narrower dresses.

See you soon.

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And Kathryn, you who lost your house, please let me know if I can give your email address to Meredith of True Wind. She’s got something for you. We all wish you well.

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One strategy relies on ninjas. Kick and twirl your way through opponents. But this requires hurting people, which I don’t really care for.

Sturdy Gals fight more like slow giants, called down from the hills. I imagine a fantasy tale, where the clever heros are running out of arrows.The horner (to use my long ago small son’s term) blows his call for help. Slowly, rocks all around rouse themselves, becoming giants, joining the fight. Winning the battle, eventually.

Rock giants win because they don’t give up. Enemy soldiers throw firebombs, giants lumber on. One foot up, one foot down. Next foot up, next foot down. Generally they’ve got things hanging from their shoulders by the time they breech the walls.

I read by way of Tory Burch that Arianna Huffington said, (it sounds funny, I know, but they are both highly successful women entrepreneurs), “Very often, the difference between success and failure is simply perseverance.”

I agree.

It was motherhood cured me of my ninja dreams.  When I was home with small children, some days I woke up and thought, “I just can’t do this.” But immediately I’d realize, “Well, I can’t stay in bed, there is milk to pour.” And up I’d get, first one foot on the bedroom floor, then the other.

The slog comes to us all, at one point or another. In those times you only need endure. In those times, I think it’s OK if you can’t do anything more. If you find yourself faltering, I recommend a few almonds in the pocket for protein. A secret, when rocks giants wake, they transform all the nearby pebbles into nuts.

Have a wonderful weekend.

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Has the New Year started with a rush for any of you?

Time off work is always sweet but difficult. So wonderful to take yourself out of the tumble. And yet, as you laze on the moral equivalent of lawns and meadows, a torrent of work rushes on. Fast.

So the end of vacation arrives. You rouse yourself, still a little sleepy, and put a toe slowly into the waters. Only to look around a few days later, blinking, to find yourself surrounded by canyon walls and far from home. Or pushing yourself bodily through a reedy marsh, if you jumped first into mountain foam and splash. The context switch from granite to mud takes everything you’ve got.

All of which metaphorical reaching is simply to say, “Well, River of 2013, did your mother teach you no manners? You are supposed shake hands, look your guest in the eye, and say, ‘How do you do?’ Only then can you demand their full attention.”

I suppose river deities are notoriously ill-behaved.

No hard feelings. Nice to meet you, 2013. Yes, since you ask, I wouldn’t mind a glass of water. I hope you all are finding your New Year’s feet, or that, more likely, you managed never to have them swept out from under. A wonderful weekend to all.

Image via carfull…Wyoming’s photostream on Flickr. Let’s take back the territory ceded to Instagram. Go Marissa:).

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Photo by oschene, via Flickr

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Dove via tommylees, on Flickr, holly leaves via Clkr.com. On Dancer, on Prancer, we’re just going to take a little nap here on a fence.

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The country got started via the right to vote. Let’s keep doing it. And I’ll promise to get better at Photoshop by the time the next election comes around.

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