Amanda Dickson

She was the voice of my youthful longing, the one who helped me feel like I wasn’t going insane up in my bedroom with the ivy covered windows and the exposed radiator.  I loved Carly.  I loved her wide smile on album covers.  I loved her hippy purses and floppy hats.  I loved that she married James Taylor and mourned when they got divorced.

I haven’t thought of her in a long time.  The only music I listen to lately is something fast enough to keep me running.  But I noticed today when I was checking the rundown that sweet Carly turns 65 today.  And I stopped.  I want to think of her, to remember what she gave me 30 years ago, and what she gives me still.

She gave me Boys in the Trees . . . “Do you go to them or do you let them come to you? Do you stand in back afraid that you’ll intrude? Deny yourself and hope someone will see . . .”  And she gave me Coming Around Again. . . “I know nothing stays the same, but if you`re willing to play the game, it`s coming around again. So don`t mind if I fall apart
there`s more room in a broken heart . . .”  And she gave me the anthem of all of us who had our hearts broken by HIM . . . “You`re so vain, you probably think this song is about you. You`re so vain. I`ll bet you think this song is about you
Don`t you? Don`t You?”

I miss my sister.  I miss singing to Carly with her.  I miss the way the willow trees would rub up against my sister’s window.  I miss reading The Secret Garden and dreaming about the boy down the street.  But I don’t miss Carly any more.  She’s right here.

In my ipod.

Women think of debt like cellulite.  They don’t really know where it comes from or how to get rid of it, and they’re too embarrassed to ask anybody. 

This is my experience.  We women start to tune out whenever anyone starts talking about 401k’s or small and large caps or, heaven forbid, bonds!  We know we need to get our financial houses in order.  We worry about it constantly, sometimes to the point of affecting our health (and certainly our mood), but we don’t want to ask the wrong question in front of the wrong person.  We don’t want to feel stupid.

Introducing Imagine a Happier You.  Imagine a Happier You is a new website created by the Deseret Media Companies.  My CEO, a man named Mark Willes, decided that he wanted to use the resources of DMC (KSL TV and Radio, the Deseret News, Deseret Book, Deseret Digital Media and El Observador) to serve women, so he gathered women from each division and charged us with coming up with an idea that would help the women of Utah.  Imagine a Happier You is that idea.

We thought we’d address the issue of women and money first.  This year, we’re connecting women with resources to help them better manage their money.  And here’s the fun part.  We’re looking for three participants, women who are in a big, hairy financial mess (for whatever reason) and are willing to have experts help them out of that mess . . . in public.  We will follow these three women as they get out of debt or learn to budget or save for retirement.  They’ll blog regularly.  We’ll chat with them on the website.  I’ll do stories about them on KSL.  We’ll cheer for them as they get out of debt just like we do for the participants who lose weight on The Biggest Loser.

So – if money is an issue in your life (and isn’t it for so many of us?), whether your problems are large or small, log onto Imagine a Happier You and sign up, or start commenting, or just read.  I’ll be there.  And we’ll get some financial peace of mind together.

I read the epilogue first.  Gail Miller talks about her life with Larry, their falling in love, their struggles as a young family.  What I wish I could ask her, if we could ever spend an hour together, is “Was he too driven?  If you could have changed him (which we all know you couldn’t) would you rather he had spent more time with the family and less time being so driven – or would that have made him someone else?”  This is the question that haunts me in my own life. 

I, too, am driven.  I am nowhere near as successful as Larry H. Miller, not financially or in any other way, but I am driven.  As soon as I finish a book, I start plotting the next one.  As soon as I get off the air in the morning, I start thinking about the next day’s show, or that afternoon’s speech, or some other project.  When I’m lying in bed sleepless, I’m trying to think of a topic I could write a bestseller on, or maybe some form of passive income that would help my family.  My brain never shuts off. 

This drive, which feels quite normal to me if not pain-free, is a burden to my family.  I know it is.  My husband misses me, sometimes even when I’m in the room.  He misses my focus – on him and on the children.  My children may miss me too, but they have only ever known this me, so I’m not sure they can miss what they’ve never had.  I am pondering lately how much of my drive toward providing for the family, toward writing and broadcasting and producing, may be driving me away from my family.  Or is this just who I am – and they love me exactly as I am, maybe even because of who I am?

This is my question.  I wonder if it was ever Larry’s.  I wonder if Gail ever asked this question about her driven husband, her magnificent, powerful, yet humble driven husband.  Maybe there are some answers in Larry’s words.  I’m back to the book now.  The Foreward, by John Stockton.