Take a Chance (or at the very least think about it)

by Tracey Flower

November was a weird month (and the first half of December too). An off month. A lost month. I didn’t write, not here and not enough, at least not for my own self. I did plenty of writing for the Vail Symposium’s winter brochure, which I absolutely loved doing, and to be honest I can’t go blaming my lack of posting on that. There’s really not much to blame it on, it was just a weird month and I just didn’t write.

But I’m back now and that’s what counts, right?

As I write this and look back at November, while safely tucked away into December, I shake my head at that month, and at myself in that month. I worried a lot in November. I worried about work and not having enough of it. I scraped the bottom of the barrel financially and ran on fumes. I worried about that. I fretted over my weight and over my complexion. I worried about finding a place to live as the December 1st expiration date on my summer residence approached. Once my roommate and I found a fabulous new place to live (that makes numbers 10 and 11 if you’re keeping track) I worried about how I was ever going to afford it.

Whew. That’s a lot of worry.

I don’t think I really realized how much of it I was carrying around, however, until I got a phone call the other day regarding a part time job prospect. See I’ve realized the only way I’m going to pull myself up from my financial rock bottom, the only way I’m going to afford my fabulous new place is by obtaining extra employment. But I’ve been worried extra employment won’t leave me enough time to balance all the things I love in my life.

Lately, worry has been showing up everywhere.

In that phone call I was presented with an opportunity for part time work that I can do in my own time, something I can balance with everything else I care about. I hung up the phone and felt unbelievably light. I felt dizzy with relief and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how much of a burden I had put on myself with all that worry.

As I was reveling in my relief, and shaking my head at myself for being so so silly, the guy came to clean the beer lines—I should mention here that I was at work, at my full time job bartending on Vail Mountain. Now, I should know this guy’s name by now, I’ve known him for years and he comes several times a season to clean and rinse the beer lines, but I’m terrible with names and that’s that.

We chatted about summer, about how it was and wasn’t, and how it’s always too short around here. He asked where I worked this summer, which prompted what has become a regular monologue on how discouraged I have become with the employment opportunities in the Valley, how I need something consistent for summers, or better yet, a year-round job. How I’ve thought about moving to Boulder in a year or two, but that I love living up here and if I did make that move, at least in the next couple years, it would likely be career-oriented. I babbled on and on, stopping when I realized I had gone from sharing to complaining.

The Beer Line Guy then told me that 10 years ago he had been in my shoes, bartending in Steamboat Springs, moaning about the exact same things. Feeling stuck. So he decided to take a chance and make a change. He started his beer line cleaning business (and whatever else it is his business does, I’m not totally clear on the details) and it turned out to be a smashing success. His advice to me, take a chance.  Make a move. You know what you want so do it.

Hmmmmmm. Beer Line Guy has a point.

Then I went to a yoga class in which the instructor told me the exact same thing, take a chance. You have the power inside you. Just take. A. Chance.

I’m not quite sure what to do with this advice yet, what chance to take or where to go with my dreams. But I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it a lot.

So that’s where I am after all that worry and at the end of 2011. Ready to bid adieu to the sweet year that was and welcome in a new one warmly. Ready to see what comes up and what chances are mine for the taking in 2012.

Practice Makes Perfect

by Tracey Flower

I have to admit something.

I don’t post on Flower Blog as much as I’d like to, or even as much as I know I should.

But I’m trying to do better.

(Ahhhh balance. Photo Credit)

My goal when I started Flower Blog was to post bi-weekly; two posts a month. Some months have sprouted more, some less and I’ve rarely, if at all, hit a stride with the bi-weekly thing. After two years I’m still very green in the world of blogging. I’ve still got a lot to learn and have a lot of growing to do. And I’m well aware that in order to achieve great success in the blogosphere I should most certainly post more frequently and more consistently.

Sometimes I procrastinate. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I’m just too lazy. And, sometimes, just when I think I’m getting close to hitting that stride, life happens and I miss a step. Like, for example, this past winter when I got an internship with the Vail Symposium. Yep, I’ve spent the past six months as a 28-year-old unpaid intern, a venture that has left me working six-day weeks—and sacrificing some of my evenings too—to write press releases, website copy, articles, and volunteering at programs. It’s been a crazy busy blur but paid off with my first by-lines in the Vail Daily (six of them in fact) and the satisfying knowledge that I’m working toward becoming more than just a bartender. I know Flower Blog fits in there somewhere, somehow, between working for money and working for passion, I’m just still trying to find my balance with all of it.

I’m going to keep working on finding my stride in this, my third year of blogging, with this posting thing. After all, third time’s the charm, right? And if I’ve learned anything from my Yoga practice it’s that the operative word is just that; practice. I’m not perfect but I’ll keep trying and keep doing the prep for each pose along the way and, eventually, I’ll conquer blogging (and maybe even a headstand).

In the meantime I need your help on a couple things.

I love and appreciate your comments so much and because of that I’d like to ask a couple favors. First if you’re a fellow writer or blogger and you have any advice that might help me find my blogging stride give me a holler and share the wealth of your experience. 


Second what should I write about next? I’d like to write some posts on topics you want to read about. Is there an old post on a subject you’d like to read more about? Is there an idea you’d like to hear me wrap my writing brain around? I’d like to know. So throw out some suggestions.

This One's for the Girls

by Tracey Flower

“Don’t laugh at me but maybe we could be each other’s soul mates. And then we could let men be just these great nice guys to have fun with.” ~Sex and the City’s Charlotte on soul mates

I’ve been thinking again lately about the phrase “soul mates”. I saw a re-run of Grey’s Anatomy the other day where Meredith (Grey, the Grey in Grey’s) called Christina (her best girlfriend) her “soul mate” and Derrick (aka McDreamy, Meredith’s husband) “the love of my life”. This makes sense to me and is right along my line of thinking when it comes to that weighty phrase.

Girls just wanna have fun: myself and a few of my ladies

It’s no secret that friendships between women are unique. Any of that catty crap and mean girl-ness aside, when women form a bond it sticks and it holds across miles, hours, and oceans. Friendships shared between women are unlike any other relationship. There is a level of understanding, of comfort, of intimacy in these relationships that we don’t share with our boyfriends or even our mothers. We share everything from clothes to mascara (even though most women’s magazines say you shouldn’t, due to germs and stuff I guess) to deep dark secrets. We fight. We say things that are very honest and sometimes very awful. We yell and then we don’t talk for days. When we do talk again we know that what we’ve got here is one very solid, very genuine friend. We pop bottles of champagne at the premier of Sex and the City: The Movie and understand that that show was always as much, or perhaps even more so, about the relationship between those four women as it was about their relationships with men.

When I got that fateful message back in May that would change the course my life was on at that moment (yep the one from The Guy) the first person I called was my friend Claire. Now, it wasn’t long before I was racking up phone minutes to each and every one of my lovely ladies, my soul mates if you will, and sobbing in my parent’s kitchen to my dad, but first I had to call Claire. I needed someone who would understand both the emotional sucker punch I felt and my desperate desire to still hold that relationship and myself together in that moment. I needed to talk to someone who had been with me every single uneven cobble stone step of the way during that relationship. I needed someone who would listen and be levelheaded, someone who would support me but not hesitate to question me if she thought I was making a mistake, and who would never say I told you so because chances are she never even thought it because she trusts my judgment and supports me to a fault. I needed to call that person who is nearly impossible to track down on the phone, who often doesn’t respond to a text for days, but who called back the second she got my voicemail because, I’m quite sure, she knew exactly what I needed from her without me saying so. If that’s not a soul mate, I don’t know what is. (And I called her again, sad and lonely and desperate, a couple weeks later from Melbourne as I fell apart and wrestled with the decision to stay there or go home).

I’ve had two serious relationships and at one point during each of them I thought it would last forever. Neither of them did. In the wake of the end of my last relationship I did a lot of kicking and screaming and feeling sorry for myself as one by one more and more of my girlfriends got paired off and married.

And then I got over it. For me life got a whole hell of a lot easier when I admitted that I don’t believe in the idea of “The One”, that I hadn’t missed my fate with either of those failed relationships, and that I had better take the time to find and invest in all the other wonderful bits and pieces of life that fulfill me because, well, frankly that’s the only way I’m ever going to feel complete. That, and I realized that in my girlfriends I already have several very near and dear soul mates nailed down (you know who you are).


And you? Who are your soul mates?

In Defense of my Inner Girly Girl

by Tracey Flower

A male friend of mine recently saw my stack of fashion and beauty magazines on my coffee table. He gave me a disapproving look and a short lecture about reading such useless fluff. I laughed him off and told him to let it go, it’s my thing. I have to admit, though, his comments kind of bugged me. I’ve been reading fashion and beauty magazines since I was a preteen. I used to buy Seventeen and clearance makeup from MacDonald’s Drug Store and spend Saturday afternoons studying the magazine for tips on how to apply the makeup. And it makes my day every month when I find a new issue of Glamour in my post office box. I’ve never really thought twice about these little guilty pleasures but after my friend’s comments I can’t help but wonder; is this something I’m supposed to be ashamed about?

I’ve always been a girly girl. My dad likes to tell a story about me on my first day of Kindergarten. I stood in front of my dresser with all the drawers open, threw my hands up in the air and declared, “I have nothing to wear.” Not much has changed since then.

I like to shop and get all dolled up. I like to get cozy with a cup of tea and read about boots and handbags (and the real life stories in those magazines too, it’s not all fluff, you know). And I like to give myself facials and pedicures. It just plain feels good and, more than that, it’s part of who I am and I’m not going to apologize for just being myself.

Why, then, do I feel the need to defend my guiltless enjoyment of my guilty pleasures?

Perhaps it was the conversation my fluff-hating friend and I were having before he saw my magazine stash. I had been going on and on about all the things I want to do with my life, mainly travel, write and change the world. I gave this grand speech about how I want to make something good of my recent heartache and use this as an opportunity to grow and really better myself. And more than that I want to help other people because there are so many people who have it even worse than me (I told him this as if I had stumbled on some grand original light-shedding idea). I think he believed me until he saw my magazines.

I really do want all those things for my life. And I really do want to put some good out into the world. Stories of violence and poverty absolutely break my heart and I feel compelled to do something somehow someday to help ease the pain of others.

BUT I think it’s equally important to take care of myself, of my pain and my happiness.

I was in a yoga class a few months and the instructor shared a quote that is very relevant to my argument here but unfortunately I have forgotten the exact wording (and the quoted’s name but I’m pretty sure it was either Ghandi or the Dalai Lama). The message, however, was along the lines of this; you should go out into the world and take care of others but you first must take care of yourself because you’ll never be able to help others if you don’t first help yourself.

Embracing my inner girly girl is part of taking care of myself. I must also exercise, go to work, sleep, meditate, and write (and, yes, maintain a balance of those things and more). The magazines I read might be full of fluff and it might seem frivolous to paint my toenails or shallow that I get so very excited about finding the perfect boots on sale but it’s part of who I am and taking the time to nurture that part of me supports my mental health (and helps me hang on to at least a little bit of sanity), which in turn ensures that I can better focus on putting some good out into the world.


What about you? What guilty pleasures do you feel guiltless about? What silly things keep you sane, ensuring that you can better focus on putting some good out there?

On Goals, Forgiveness, and Turning 28

by Tracey Flower

“Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course we wouldn’t fall in love or have babies or be who we are. After all seasons change. So do cities. People come into you life and people go. But it’s comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart and, if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.” ~The ever-wise, albeit fictional, Carrie Bradshaw (“Sex and the City”)


Many folks take the start of a new calendar year as an opportunity for fresh starts and change. Personally I think it’s more appropriate to make resolutions on my birthday. It feels more natural to take stock of my life that time of year, to review lessons learned in the past year, and to make a few goals for the year ahead.

A year ago last week (my birthday was Tuesday) I turned 27 and decided I was going to make the year all about me (The Year of Flower I called it in my journal and aloud to a select group of friends). I don’t have any dependents, not even a dog or a goldfish, to rely on me; my life in general is already pretty much all about Tracey, but for most of my adult life (aka my life since college) I have been in some form of a relationship. I moved to Colorado for a boyfriend and shortly after we broke up I started another serious relationship and, as my 27th birthday approached, I started to get the feeling I wasn’t totally making decisions for my life based on what I wanted and needed.

My birthday last year came just days after the guy I was in love with left Vail to move home to Australia. Our relationship over the past few months had been complicated and tumultuous and because I was so invested in, so wrapped up in, him emotionally I found my day-to-day actions and decisions were heavily influenced by him. It seemed like the perfect time, then, when he left and my birthday arrived for me to take charge. 

I made myself a list of goals. First and foremost I was going to get my head straight about that relationship. The first goal I wrote in my journal then was to be “happily single.” We had left things very casual and, although he was on my mind when I wrote that, I was fed up with myself for letting another person inadvertently control my thoughts and decisions to the extent that he had. I also wrote that I wanted to learn to cook, to get fit, to get paid to write, and to travel somewhere new. The Year of Flower was going to be a good one.

The first half of the year, the first third really, went exactly how I had hoped it would (OK except for the cooking part, I’m still working on that one). I will even say it was the happiest, the most content, and the most confident I have been in a long time. The last four months of the year, however, were a complete disaster. Quite honestly they were the worst four months of my life (if you read Flower Blog on a regular basis you know this. If you don’t now’s probably a good time to catch up. Start here). As I approached my 28th birthday last week and mentally reviewed the last year, and checked back in with last year’s goals, I realized I was right smack dab back where I had been a year ago. And that pissed me off.

I got my heart broken. No shattered. No ripped out, stomped on, and shoved back into my chest all achy and torn apart. And for that I was pissed. My anger wasn’t directed at The Guy though; or rather my anger was no longer directed at him (don’t you worry three months ago I was oozing anger toward him). I was pissed off with myself. I was pissed that I let myself, in the year where I was supposed to be taking control, find myself in a position (with a guy who had broken my heart once before) where I could get as hurt as I did. I was pissed that even while I thought I was finding this great balance in my life, while I thought I was being unapologetically selfish and, dare I say it, finding myself, I let my love for this one stupid guy ruin everything. 

My dad told me a few months ago, when I was at my very worst, that even as I struggled to figure out how to forgive The Guy (not because he deserves or even needs my forgiveness but simply because it’s very tiresome to carry around that much anger toward someone for any length of time) that I was also going to have to forgive myself. At the time I had no idea what he meant (the situation wasn’t my fault, I had done nothing wrong). I think I get it now, though.

There’s a line in the book Eat, Pray, Love that goes like this; “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” The author tells herself this when she realizes she has fallen in love with a man after a year spent traveling solo, doing some serious soul-searching, and finding her balance. I agree with that, but I would take it a step further and say sometimes you have to become unbalanced for love even if it means risking your heart. Because apparently, OK admittedly, you'll learn some serious lessons about life and yourself. I don’t know if acknowledging that counts as forgiving myself, because to be honest I’m still a little pissed, but I think maybe it’s a start. And with that shaky start I begin a new year.