The Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life

Why I Don't Have Children: The Great Mother's Paradox

It's a question that eventually comes up with nearly everyone I know and often it's offered in a tentative way. How could someone who just drips maternal energy have chosen not to have kids? I obviously love them so what gives?

It's a really good question and not one that causes me any discomfort so file this under "Everything You Have Ever Wanted to Know About the Dragon Slayer but Were Afraid to Ask."

The Year The Dragons Came to Call or How I Earned My Slaying Stripes

One need only scratch the surface of my family with your fingernail to see revealed a devastating array of pains: the murdered and the murdering, mental illness, incest, infidelity, suicide, unwanted births, loveless marriages, spousal abuse, child abuse, disability, illness, divorce, job loss, disfiguring injuries, financial pressures, estrangement, mob bosses, infertility and abortion.

Is mine a typical American family?

I don't know.  All I know is that if is mine and if the karmically inclined among us are correct, I chose them.

Makes a person wonder, "What the hell was I thinking?!"

And yet, here we are.

Adventures of an Unlikely Superhero (Part Seven/Final): Slaying the Ghost of Three Dragons Past

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Like the mythic Ferryman transporting me across the River Styx, my surgeon delivered me to the banks from which my hero's journey would begin. There, instead of Cerberus the three-headed dog, I met a Dragon named "Thou Shalt."

Cleverly disguised as a procession of hospital roommates and staff, make no mistake, this was a Dragon. Representing my greatest vulnerabilities, it would take superhuman strength and courage to face this beast head on. As I was transferred to my hospital bed, Thou Shalt awaited to begin the Superhero initiation.

Adventures of an Unlikely Superhero (Part Six): The Almost-Fairy Tale Marriage

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Just as I was resigning myself to my apparent fate, I was granted a gift. Among my colleagues was a very unusual man. He was artistic, sensitive, funny, adorable, and wickedly intelligent.

I always felt complete in his presence; not completed by him, but complete within myself. He celebrated my intelligence, openly expressed his respect for my work and, unlike Joey and the men who followed, he made me feel his desire to be with me had everything to do with me. This man became my husband.

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part Five): A Ladybug's Life Is Overrated

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I knew my choices were putting me on a path I didn't want to be on. Despite my angst, part of me really wanted my marriage to work. We went to counseling. I endured the pain of seeing the impact of my actions on him. I made no excuses. I sought to regain his trust, but when I returned to his home after graduation, a deep, deep sadness overcame me.

We simply could not be what we wanted each other to be. We did not share the same outlook on life. We differed on how to deal with his children as they acted out with increasingly upsetting behaviors. He wanted a very traditional marriage and I wanted a career, friends, intellectual stimulation...I wanted what the women in my life before me wanted and never achieved.

As no woman in my family before me had sought to do (although my mother was soon to follow), I divorced my husband.

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part Four): Dance of the Misfit Poets

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While I was as subject to raging hormones as any young adult, I never really viewed sex as an end in itself. Even in my late teens I saw sex as means to what I really wanted: deep philosophical conversations about the meaning of life.

Naturally inquisitive and introspective, I was drawn to the tragic character. Angst-filled and searching? Brooding? Charismatic misfit poet? That was the man for me! This penchant for the lost soul, coupled with my firm and lovely figure, made me the perfect companion for the man in mid-life crisis.

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part Three): I Was a Teen-aged Greg Brady

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As if to rub salt in my pre-pubescent wounds, early adolescence was not kind. The unfortunate emergence of the Greek uni-brow on my forehead, coupled with a Dorothy Hamill wedge cut gone terribly wrong, made me a shoo-in for ... Greg Brady.

I still recall a favorite teacher giving me and another class helper little necklaces that "looked like us" to her. Blond-haired, blue-eyed "Muffy" got the cute ladybug necklace. I, with my frizzy mop and matching eyebrow got the owl. I resigned myself to my fate. Whip smart but not cute. I had a growing realization that cute was better. A lot better.

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part Two): The Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius

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I was born in 1962 on the cusp of a cultural revolution promising a world where "peace would guide the planets and love would steer the stars." Of course, the Enjoli woman was there with some guidance of her own. Vamping it up on the most remembered perfume commercial of the era, she inspired us to "bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, never let you forget you're a man ...'cause I'm a woman!"

At my age, I thought bringing home the bacon meant I could go grocery shopping by myself. Since my mother didn't drive until well into her 30's, this seemed very exotic and progressive to me.

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part One): Ambition — For a Woman?!

"Ambition? Julius Caesar had ambition and look what happened to him!"

Those inspiring words were beneath my grandmother's high school yearbook photo as she prepared to meet the world upon her graduation.

I was sorting through my grandmother's possessions after her death when I first read her sentiments, and my reaction then was the same as it is today...to laugh and shake my head. This woman with the barbed tongue and slightly bitter outlook on life was indeed my grandmother.

The same at 18 as she was at 68, I loved her for the unapologetic way she expressed her opinions. Born long before the age of political correctness, she spoke with refreshing candor. Despite the relative freedom of her tongue, however, for many women of her generation questions of ambition were indeed pointless. Her destiny was to be a wife and mother and keep the house white-glove clean. True self-determination was denied her.

Little did she know that a mere two generations later, barely the blink of a socio- evolutionary eye, a young woman would emerge from her lineage whose destiny was to become: Ta-da ... a Superhero!

This is how it happened.

My Moment of Truth: Integrity, Commitment and the Choice to Attain Self-Respect

Late summer, 1990. Sitting alone at a table in a coffee house, waiting for a friend to arrive. Last few nights in town before I leave for my doctoral internship in a career I set my sights on at the tender age of 18, my first marriage evaporating behind me.

Transient man with a pack of Tarot cards asks if he can do my reading while I wait.

Always up for an adventure, I say, "Sure".

He proceeds to lay the cards out before me, takes a deep breath and begins to interpret their meaning.

Lying before me is the Death card. (I've got some good news and...).