I’ve traveled a lot this fall on business:  Vancouver in September; Nevada in November; and last week, New York.   I’m a new experience and culture junkie, so stepping out of my element into other people’s known has always brought me a lot of joy.  This trip shaped up to be no exception.

Although I’ve been to New York several times, I’ve never been to Brooklyn.  As I toured Park Slope, the Beastie Boys, No.  Sleep. ‘Til Brooklyn! popped into my head and I found myself smiling.  Even though Adam Yauch — born and bred Brooklyn USA — grew up in the Midwood neighborhood about fifteen minutes away, I saw one of my favorite bands in a whole new context, and I totally got why the city deserved the lyric.

Park Slope is kind of old world, and story book perfect with it’s brownstone’s, quiet streets and food co-op where 35,000 of its local residents, including celebrities like Maggie Gyllenhaal, work to purchase organic food.  The middle school bazaar I attended had stroller parking and I found myself thinking a lot about what it would be like to raise one here.

My crazy schedule has left me raw and emotional without the ability to put up a wall of protection for the curious onlookers who wonder how I could possibly be single at my age.  “You’re a pretty girl,” I’ve heard again and again, as if that’s the key qualification for a relationship.  Usually this kind of exchange makes me defiant — I’ve never understand people who can’t be alone — but truth be told, these days, I’m in the mood to be coupled, even though it makes me feel queasy to admit it.  It’s probably why I got so emotional at the airport.

As I waited for my baggage, I watched a young soldier greeted by her sister, brother-in-law and two best friends.  They couldn’t hide their relief or love.  The girls were giddy — it was the first time they had seen their friend in uniform — and I imagined them as three little girls and wondered if this is what they thought the future held in store.  The sweet little old lady who sat in the aisle across from me on the plane, and who thought I was coming home from school for the holidays, was found and hugged by her daughter.  Even the bedraggled, 50-something who reeked of cigarettes and alcohol and who quipped that she needed a drink because she hadn’t seen her husband in two weeks, was greeted by said husband at the gate.

And then there was me…alone with my coat…wishing my small dog could drive.

It’s not like I haven’t had my share of airport love.  The summer I turned 20, I spent it in London and when it was time to come home, my mother and one of my good friends were were there with a bouquet of balloons.  When I moved to Los Angeles, my best friend drove me to the airport and cried.  Over the years, I’ve been sent off or greeted more than a few times, because that’s the thing, I’m always going somewhere.  These days though, I find myself wanting to stay.  I want to put my arms around someone I care about when I come home.  I want to talk about the adventures (and misadventures) that I’ve had along the way.  I want to stay put, plant seeds and grow roots.

What about you?  What do you want for your life in the New Year?

I’ve had some revealing conversations with a few fabulous women over the last week. One got married for the first time at 47; another is 41, newly single and never married; and yet another is 38, and never been married. All are beautiful, intelligent, accomplished and warm.

But like most of the women I’ve observed who are late to couple, they have one big thing in common: a crazy mother. Or for those of you who have sat in a therapist’s chair — a mother whose behavior is crazy which makes the relationship with said mother, CRAZY.

Lee Sharkey, Ph.D. who directs the Women’s Studies program at the University of Maine at Farmington says that no relationship is as primal as the one between a mother and daughter. In an article for Discovery Health she was quoted as saying, “Women grow up and our energy is largely turned toward men, but the original love relationship is with a mother.”

I buy that. My mother raised me alone and growing up I felt like I was “married” to her.  I was the confidante who listened to her problems about finances and men. I dealt with her violent outbursts when she drank and depression when she didn’t.  I wasn’t sure where she ended and where I began.  Subconsciously, I decided that intimate relationships were exhausting, dangerous and stopped me from getting what I needed to, done.

Fortunately now that I’m grown up, I’m safe because I can run. I run away from situations or people when I feel trapped because as a little kid I felt like there was no escape from my mother and the orbit of all of her drama, her bad decisions.

Trouble is I’m not a little kid anymore and I’m tired of living my life in reaction to the woman my mother was (and continues to be, although I now know that’s her story, not mine) and what she believed. I don’t believe every man is the anti-christ. I don’t believe all of them cheat.  I don’t think fighting is fun.  I’m tired of running.  In fact, I’m looking forward to being loved and supported by someone who accepts me for exactly who I am.  My mother however has become the excuse I peddle when I’m afraid, so that I don’t have to risk my heart.

So I’m working on reminding myself that what I used to think, has come undone.  I consciously remind myself that relationships bring joy too, like the ones I’ve had with friends I’ve known and loved, who have supported and understood me for 20 years or more now.  I remind myself of the couples I know who are amazing together, who have built their lives based on shared values and goals.  Most importantly, I remind myself that all of this is possible for me because even though I’m my mother’s daughter, I am first and foremost, me.  My choices are different.  My life is my own.

So if your mama is crazy and she takes up too much of your emotional time, I invite you to do what I did and divorce her. Or at the very least, divorce her behavior and how it makes you feel.

If you’re angry with your mother, haven’t forgiven her, or are living your life in reaction to the dumb things you think she did, whether that be screwing around with a married man; staying in an abusive relationship; marrying for money; being needy, desperate or terrified of being alone…

Stop it, now.

You came through her but she doesn’t have to be your ball and chain, unless you want her to be. Your life, and the way you live it, is meant for you and you alone. Get to know yourself and then let the kind of love you want to have in your life get close to you.  Why?  Because you deserve it.

Can you relate? Is your mother crazy? Has your mother influenced your view of relationships?

By the time Kiev banned non-Ukrainian singles from adopting in 2008, Anjelica’s memories of her orphanage years had largely faded, although she still recalls, with delight, towering sunflowers reaching up to second-story windows, and, with a shiver, bladelike icicles hanging from eaves in each of her winters there.

The orphanage is still there, full of lonely children facing precarious futures.

Another country is China, for the last two years the largest “source” nation for adoptions by Americans. Beijing recently reopened the door slightly — but only to single women willing to take “special needs” children, such as the ones who are… READ MORE