Life's Too Short

The day I set myself on fire, I knew I had a problem.

The morning began like most.  The alarm clock began its annoying bleet-bleet-bleet at 4:00 a.m.  I quickly groped for the clock radio, as not to wake my husband, Jeff, or Spike, who was sleeping in the center of the bed on her back with her hind legs spread-eagle and her front paws in praying mantis position.  I took a moment to envy her carefree existence.

Still exhausted, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and mentally fumbled to understand why it was that I was getting up so early.  I had begun this insane routine a few months back in hopes of actually catching up on all of my work—warped logic not only because it didn’t work, but also because I didn’t give a rat’s ass about my job. 

I was thirty-seven years old and spending sixteen hours a day working for a CEO with whom I didn’t see eye-to-eye, in a company at which I didn’t feel I could be myself, in an industry that held no appeal for me.  Go figure. 

I had joined this small video game publisher six months prior as vice president of marketing, leaving behind the more stable environment of an educational publishing conglomerate.  Initially, when the recruiter’s call came through, I laughed.  Video games?  Me? 

Then the compensation package was quoted and I stopped laughing.  I thought about the hefty increase in salary, the potential for a big bonus and an even bigger stock payout.  I also thought about the thrill of coming into this “turn around situation,” and how invigorating it would be to join the management team that would foster positive change within the organization.  But mostly, I thought about the money. 

In a matter of minutes computerized war games had gone from being a senseless form of violent entertainment, if not a bit of a joke, to being, well, not so bad.  After all, they were just fantasy, I told myself, a way to kill time and relieve stress. 

“Oh puh-leeze,” I could hear my conscience chortling from deep within me.  I ignored the little bugger and signed the employment contract the day it was offered. My plan was to do this job for a couple of years, work hard to help the company succeed, vest my stock options, and take the money and run. 

Then I could solve world hunger.  

By the end of my first month, I knew I had made a huge mistake.  But the embarrassment of leaving so soon after starting, and the promise of big bucks kept me miserably in place.  I slogged my way through work, day after day—and often on the weekends, too—trying to focus on the positive.  But none of the rewards, including the money, offered any sense of authentic joy or lasting satisfaction. 

Realizing that the snooze button was due to activate soon, I turned off the alarm and slipped out of bed.  After a quick shower, I pulled my freshly fluffed and heated robe from the dryer and wrapped myself in it.  I walked to our small second bedroom, where our makeshift meditation area was and sat cross-legged on the floor preparing to “om” my way to a state of centered calm.  Lately I found that I needed this brief bit of time to just sit with my thoughts—or lack thereof—before launching into the world of animated violence. 

As I lit a match to light a small candle, I accidentally dropped it.  In the split second that the match fell downward, I assumed it would simply burn out as it hit the heavy fabric of my robe.  Instead, the oil-based coating of the fabric softener caused a bluish flame to immediately engulf my entire lap like a flambéed dessert. 

 “HONEY, I’M ON FIRE!” I screeched. 

Jeff launched naked from the bed.  At the same time, I managed to stand up and was pulling the burning robe off my body as I made my way toward the bedroom exit.  We almost collided in the hallway as I threw the robe to the floor.  Jeff made a flying tackle and easily extinguished the flames. 

I stood—naked and in shock—two feet from Jeff—naked and in shock—as he lay on the floor covering the terrycloth culprit.  Our eyes met and we simultaneously broke into uncontrollable laughter at the absurdity of the situation. Then, just as quickly, I melted into a mass of heaving sobs.

“Life is…(sob)...too short…(sob)...to work…(sob)...at a job…(sob)...you hate!”

Having completed this insightful observation, I sank to the floor.  Jeff crawled over to me and wrapped me in a hug.  He rocked me in his arms and told me that no amount of money was more important than my sanity. 

I resigned the following week.  


Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!  

Mom Always Took Good Notes

SHORTLY AFTER I MOVED TO BOULDER, Colorado, my mother stopped by my home and handed me a thick document. Across the top and in all caps it read LAUREN’S LOG.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s what happened,” she said.

I thumbed through page after page to see that everything she’d written in her blue notebook during the worst two months of my life was now typed up and organized, each separate date an underlined heading. Single-spaced, the pages totaled forty-seven.

“Forty-seven pages?” I asked, incredulous.

“You have no idea,” Mom said. “Hell, you weren’t really there half the time!” She laughed at her own joke and left to resume her morning errands.

By then, I was getting used to these whirlwind visits from Mom. Rarely a day passed that she didn’t stop by to give me an interesting article she’d cut out for me or to pick up an empty Tupperware container that had held the soup she’d dropped off two days earlier. I thought the frequency of her visits was tied to the excitement of finally having one of her four grown children living in the same neighborhood, let alone in the same time zone. Today, however, I believe these visits were Mom’s way of reassuring herself that the nightmare was over—that her youngest child, the one who would’ve been voted Most Likely to Laugh in the Face of Adversity, was still alive, and indeed laughing again.

I stood alone in my kitchen staring at Lauren’s Log, my head buzzing. I’d been told that Mom had taken copious notes and collected scraps of paper with others’ notes during what I now refer to simply as “the train wreck,” but I was taken aback by the abruptness of actually receiving them. Over the past six months anecdotes had been doled out—gradually and tentatively—by those who’d been with me as I lay unconscious and unlikely to live, or as I screamed from physical pain so great I wanted only to die. As if putting together a jigsaw puzzle with no photo on the box to guide me, I’d taken each detail, each story, and figured out where it fit into the larger picture that was unfolding, the richness and depth of the scene not yet taking shape. I sensed that in my hands I held fistfuls of additional puzzle pieces.

I tucked the document under my right arm and climbed the stairs of my new home, clutching the railing with both hands to pull the weight of my body up each step, slowly and one at a time. Reaching the second floor, I paused to catch my breath, then wobbled precariously to the overstuffed chair in my home office and sat, exhausted.

I began to read, and ten pages in I was choking back tears for these people: the baby, the husband, the new mom. Oh my god, oh my god, I said under my breath over and over and over again. I felt like I was watching a movie and was suddenly transposed from the audience to the screen. Holy cow, this is me, I remember thinking, as if discovering this fact for the first time.

I had no idea how unprepared I was to look back, naïvely believing that because I was alive and breathing and moving more each day, I was healing. I had no idea that the wounds to my psyche were far greater than the wounds to my body, that the true healing hadn’t even begun.

Lauren’s Log helped fill in more details, but the bigger picture revealing purpose and meaning wouldn’t emerge until I began to write about it, presumably to give encouragement to others in similar situations. With ten years of hindsight, I now know that I wrote Zuzu’s Petals for me, and in so doing gave myself the final piece of the puzzle.

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This is the Introduction to Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances by, well, ME! Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Zuzu's Petals FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!  

I Am

On January 25th, I woke up and knew it was going to be a crappy day. I asked my daughter to get herself ready for school and wake me when it was time for me to drive her there. I e-mailed my personal trainer and cancelled my first appointment to launch a workout routine. Even showering felt like too much effort.

I dragged myself through the day with a general sense of exhaustion, but I hesitated when I was about to cancel my evening plans to attend an advance screening of a new documentary with a friend. I had already cancelled attending her birthday party the week before, so I decided to pull myself together and fake my way through our date. And boy, am I glad I did.

“I Am” is the latest film project of director Tom Shadyac, whose credits include directing Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty, and Liar Liar. Being a big fan of the “stupid humor” genre of movies, I was curious about the more serious, thought-provoking side of Tom. After a cycling accident left him struggling with both physical and emotional recovery, Tom began to question the value of the many outer trappings of his Hollywood success: the homes, the private jets, all that pricey “stuff.” Was it really what made him happy? Or was he, as he suspected, part of the cancer that infected society?

Tom rid himself of most of his possessions – including his 17,000 sq. ft. Beverly Hills mansion – and moved into a simple neighborhood comprised mostly of trailer homes. Riding his bike to work each day, he launched his latest (and self-funded) project. Setting out with a small film crew, Tom asked an array of "significant thinkers" two questions: What’s wrong with the world? And what can be done to make things better?

Instead of receiving confirmation about the competitive “dog-eat-dog” nature of life, Tom discovered what was right with it: that we’re genetically predisposed to connect with one another, to feel and display empathy, to cooperate, to be our brother’s keeper. As one scientist he interviewed put it, we are “hard-wired to respond” with compassion when we see someone in need. Another said, “What we do at the individual level really does impact at the global level.”

I couldn’t help but think about blood and organ donors, most of whom have no personal ties to the people whose lives they’re saving. Just like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings, the blood donor rolls up her sleeve and sends a profound ripple effect into the lives of the patient and his loved ones. Who’s to say what good blood and organ recipients will create in the world once given that second chance? As Tom concludes, love is a force. And being a blood or organ donor is one of the most profound displays of love possible.

Following the movie screening was a question-and-answer session with Tom, during which his irreverence, joy, empathy, and pure humanity poured forth. I didn’t want to put Tom on the spot with my question, so I waited until most of the auditorium had cleared out to approach him, though I already sensed the answer to my question. Not only are he and his movie promoter, Harold, regular blood donors, but Harold also donated a kidney to a complete stranger – an Ethiopian immigrant with whom he continues to stay in touch. Why am I not surprised?

I left the event feeling reconnected to people and reinvigorated about the work I do. January 25th – as it turned out – was anything but crappy.

Lauren Ward Larsen is the author of “Zuzu’s Petals: A True Story of Second Chances,” which shares her story of becoming a 200-pint blood recipient and the unexpected life that unfolded as a result. She is also the president and chief ambassador of the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers. She can be reached at llarsen@americasblood.org, or via her website at www.laurenwardlarsen.com.To watch the movie trailer for “I Am,” go to www.iamthedoc.com.


Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!