Honey

Today is the LAST of the Italian holidays, and tomorrow my kids go back to school. Their bedtime has been progressively prolonged, so last night we watched a Jackie Chan film until about 1 am until I got a text message that the Blues Brothers were on, so I told Sofia and Jordan, "Time to go to bed!" We were all in bed together and I just didn't have the energy to ship them out to their islands, so Sofia decided to sleep at the foot of the bed and Jordan flat out begged to watch the Blues Brothers after having taken off his ear. After evaluating the risk of dealing with a tired Jordan today, I gave him back his ear and we hung out watching The Blues Brothers together. Don't want to scandalize anyone, but it was my first time watching it...amazing- especially with Jordan dancing next to me. We hit the sheets at about 3 and I'm writing this in a megastateofcoma.

Obviously the first thing I do when I wake up is not go brush my teeth, get dressed or eat breakfast, but check my emails and I was not disappointed this moring. Got two of the most remarkable letters from two remarkable people, who I would have never expected to receive emails from...so, thank you- really- so much.

Today, I would like to talk about E*G*O.

A person's ego is responsible for 99% of the pain in his life and the life of his kids. The size of an ego varies depending on your childhood, profession, family life, amount of money you possess, etc. By introducing yourself to your ego and becoming aware that it is responsible for your temper tantrums, road rage, level of generosity and capacity to love...you learn how to have conversations with your heart.

Once upon a time I called a man "Honey" in the middle of a volleyball game against a team of Jewish Russian men. The entire team of Russian men began calling this man "Honey." Now a man with a super-huge ego would have 1. Told me to shut the hell up or 2. Taken on the Russian men for calling him "Honey". Instead, we wiped their asses off the floor and went home together laughing.

Having now experienced a separation, I can pretty much say that the majority of separations are nasty because the parties involved are so busy trying to destroy each other that in the end, they destroy the kids..for what? An extra couple of hundred dollars a month?

I changed my name back to Jodi Michelle Cutler.

In a previous blog post, I said I wouldn't do that, but I changed my mind. The name change thing makes me feel extremely vulnerable, yet at the same time I don't mind the vulnerability. I'm no longer a Del Dottore, my kids are- and I love that- but I'm not. The Del Dottore name enriched me, so I'm taking all that I lived, learned and loved for the past thirteen years and I'm placing it in the Cutler Bank.

Your ego is that barbed-wire fence surrounding your heart. It protects you from pain and suffering, but it limits your ability to grow. I would like to grow some more.

image c/o rollingstone.com