IF YOU WEREN'T WITH HER

... here is what you said:

1. It's excusable for a man, even the president, to say things like, "Grab them by the pussy," and "I did try and fuck her. She was married."
2. It's excusable for a man, even the president, to mock women's periods and publicly call women unattractive, ugly, nasty, a piece of ass, fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.
3. It's excusable for a person, even the president, to mock veterans and disabled people.
4. It's excusable for a man, even the president, to shamelessly walk in on a group of teenage girls in their underwear.
5. Twelve accusations of sexual assault are nothing to be concerned about.
6. It's excusable for a person, even the president, to be on his third marriage, even though God himself said he hates divorce.
7. It's excusable for a person, even the president, to classify all Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, criminals and rapists.
8. Keeping out immigrants and refugees is a good idea, even though the Bible is full of immigrant/refugee heroes, including Jesus.
9. Global warming isn't the threat that 97 percent of scientists warn that it is, citing impending droughts, stronger hurricanes, decreased water availability, and flooding that will endanger infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems.
10. Character is really just "personality," and it doesn't matter for a leader.
11. Trump will be a champion for the "unborn," even though in the past, he claimed to be "very pro-choice."
12. There doesn't need to be tighter gun control, even though the U.S. leads the world in mass shootings and gun deaths, and there were 64 school shootings in 2015 alone.
13. Marriage equality should be opposed, even though this nation was founded on religious freedom and the truth that all people are created equal and are endowed by God with the right to pursue happiness.
14. Paid family leave, child care, and equal pay for women do not matter.
15. Girls and women can be anything they want to be, except they can't.

NEW PASSPORT

I was renewing my passport the other day when I had to make a decision: Should I select the standard 28-page booklet, or go all in and order the 52-pager?

I had spent the last decade as a travel writer and editor and had filled my previous 28-page passport with stamps from all over the world: 27 countries on five continents. But now I had lost my job, to my great distress, and had no upcoming trips on the calendar. With no clear professional prospects and my identity in a state of ambivalence, I was planning to care for my 18-month-old daughter at least part-time, if not full-time, which wouldn’t leave a lot of room for world travels. Watching with a degree of self-pity as my former colleagues continued to share their jet-setting exploits on social media, I thought, in Eeyore voice, I had better get the smaller passport.

But, as thoughts occasionally do, my reverie began to wander into more positive territory. Passports are valid for 10 years, and a lot can happen in a decade. I thought back to 27-year-old Erika, applying for a new passport with her married name, mostly broken in by that point, like a pair of new jeans after a few washes. She had just started a job as associate editor of Destination Weddings & Honeymoons magazine and had the passport application expedited in anticipation of the globetrotting to come. She never dreamed she would land this job, let alone go on to become editorial director of the magazine and three others.

She also didn’t know she would try to start a family, only to keep running into roadblock after crushing roadblock for four years until finally, she would hold the phone, trembling, as the nurse announced that the IVF had worked.

She didn’t know how much you could love a tiny human, despite sleeplessness and endless demands, how she would rush to lift the baby out of the crib and feel her weight and smell the top of her head, how this child would be so much more amazing than anything she had imagined during the dark night of infertility, how each tiny achievement—a roll, a step, a word—would feel deserving of an Academy Award, would be infinitely more riveting than the most radiant island sunset.

And she didn’t know how conflicted she would feel day after day, month after month, as her daughter grew and blossomed while she struggled to keep all of the plates spinning—work and family and household and friends—except the one plate that was crucial to the success of all the rest: herself and her own sense of wellness and peace.

So what will the next 10 years bring? What new gifts, what losses, what struggles, what serendipities? What will happen with my career, my family? Where will I fail? Where will I succeed? What kind of person will Elin turn out to be—what will drive her and bring her joy? What kind of person will I turn out to be?

There’s no way to know. We’re working on some plans, for sure. But the outcomes are beyond our control. And, as my dad always says, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

Is it likely that I’ll travel to foreign countries much in the next couple of years? No. But beyond that … it’s possible. Anything is possible. It doesn’t cost extra to choose the 52-page book, and there’s no penalty for not filling the pages. But they’re there, in case you need them, if life happens to roll in that direction—of wanderlust, of discovery. Fifty-two blank pages of possibility, waiting for the next decade to be written.

I’ll let you guess which option I chose.