Life

Three little words

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I’m clear about who I am, where I’ve been, where I’m going, and what I’m doing. What I realized this week, though, is that isn’t the whole story, especially at work. What matters in that arena is how others perceive me – correctly or incorrectly – and to a large degree, that isn’t up to me. I suppose that’s true in all areas of life, but to me it matters less in those other areas. I can do without friends; I can’t do without a job. Not now, anyway.

Acme Health Services hired a new Public Relations person, or in our industry-speak, a Public Information Officer, a couple of months ago. She’s really fabulous and enthusiastic and young. She’s brimming with great ideas and on fire with the desire to succeed in this job and spread the great news about AHS. I’m excited to work with her. She is not my boss, but I take direction from her regarding many of my job responsibilities, as I do the website and social media and all the promotional publications.

We went to a class together on Thursday to learn about using Instagram for business. I’ve wanted to add an Instagram account for a long time, but couldn’t really wrap my head around how our business would translate to that platform, but our new PIO has a great idea about how to go about it and she got admin staff approval and so we’re full speed ahead! The class was in a town nearby, and lunch was provided. I was looking forward to learning something new, and also the chance to get to know my new co-worker a little better outside the office.

So, the first thing I noticed when I got there was that I was by far the oldest person in the room – by at least 20 years. Whatever, right? Being older doesn’t make a difference in my mind, except I’m more experienced in business than any of these other people. A positive, as I see it. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, I’m thinking, cuz were all just trying to navigate this new way of marketing, so what does age or experience have to do with any of it? We’re all beginners.

And the fact that my new co-worker is at least 20 years younger than me? Why should that matter? We’re just people working for the same company, wanting to do the best job we can. We want the same thing, so we’ll work together! It’ll be great! I’m great! She’s great! We’re going to be GREAT!

Yeah, so I can be pretty naive.

First, before the class started and we’re eating our lunches, the two young women at my table, my co-worker and someone who had taken the third chair, knew each other, and are talking, talking, talking, about their kids and all the people they know in common and blah blah blah blah blah. I smile and eat my lunch, pretending that I’m listening and that I care and that it doesn’t bother me at all that they are completely ignoring me.

Then class started and it’s okay, though I actually knew most of the information the “social media expert” was giving us. Still nice to be out of the office for a while and to have lunch out, not something I get to do very often anymore. And then two things happened simultaneously:

  1. I felt sick. Really sick. Did I mention the name of the restaurant is the Cheese House? Cool! Did I mention I’m lactose-intolerant? Yeah, you can guess where this is going, right? It wasn’t pretty.
  2. When I excused myself, with a smile on my face, and absolutely no indication of why I had to leave, my co-worker looked at me in a way that let me see exactly how she sees me: old and irrelevant. See ya.

And so began one of the worst panic attacks I’ve had in my life, and I had to get out of there FAST. Fortunately, the class had run over the scheduled time at this point, so other people were leaving, too, and I scurried out of the room and straight to the bathroom. I was in there for about 20 minutes, trying to get my breath and waiting for the dizziness to pass, and when it did finally, I slunk out of the restaurant and out to my car, which was not very far away, fortunately, and collapsed in the driver’s seat. I sat there for another 20 minutes or so, and when I felt like I could drive, I headed out toward my town. As I passed a hospital on the way, though, I started to feel dizzy again, so I pulled into the ER parking lot and contemplated going in.

Not my first panic attack though, fortunately, so I knew I probably wasn’t dying, and I sat in the car for another 10 minutes or so. Finally the pain in my chest, the tingling in my limbs, the sweating and the dizziness passed and I put the car in gear and headed back out again.

One of my favorite old songs came on the radio and I was singing along, trying to feel better, until all of a sudden I was overcome with memories of when that song was popular, when I was young, and pretty quickly I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe and I had to pull over again, and wait until the worst of it passed. I started out again finally, cried all the way to my office parking lot, pulled myself together, walked in and continued my day.

Exhausted. Bone weary. But I was there. Damn it. Because that’s who I am. That’s age and experience. I’m committed and loyal and I see things through. I had work to do and even though I felt like crap, I went back and did what needed to be done.

As the afternoon went on, I kept thinking of all I wanted to say to that super fantastic clever and bright young woman:

I WAS YOU.

25 years ago, I was you. I was the super fantastic clever and bright young woman ready to set the world on fire and LIVE A FABULOUS LIFE! Despite years of depression, despite utter fall-on-my-face disasters in other areas of my life, I was always good at my work and for the 5 years I had my business, I was golden. I was smart and innovative and creative and soaked up information like a sponge and turned it into Wonderful! Brilliant! Amazing! projects for my clients. And when I came to Acme Health Services 20 years ago they were thrilled to have me, and I was amazing, and wonderful, and brilliant then, too, until…well, I don’t know.

When did I get old? When did I become irrelevant?

I didn’t imagine it. It was there. It was in her eyes and in the eyes of all the other 15 year-olds in the class. I said something I felt was relevant to what was being discussed, and they all turned around and looked at me like they were amazed I could speak, including the teeny-bopper conducting the class.

So, I’m comfortable in my skin, and I’m confident in my abilities and ready to go everyday. What worries me, is that it may not be enough. As someone pointed out to me the other day, I’m almost 60 (sounds so much older than 57, doesn’t it – gave me chills) and I guess there is probably a lot I don’t know about the generations behind me and how they think.

They’re running the show now, and that is as it should be, I guess, but they don’t appear to be interested AT ALL in what went on before they came along, or how much experience someone older has; in fact, I think most of them think there must be something wrong with someone who stayed in a job for 20 years. An eternity! My god, how could you stand it?

So there were other factors in the panic attack (one being the never-ending plumbing issue we’ve been dealing with at home that FINALLY was resolved yesterday after much stress and aggravation all week), and I’m going to address the 24/7 care-giving stress issue with my doctor in May. I’m thinking some good drugs, but I’m open to whatever she suggests. I’ve had my fill of ill-timed panic attacks and almost constant anxiety.

I have no idea what to do about work, though, and I’m really afraid at some point the bean counters are going to look at me and look at her and think, why do we need both of them? This is not the first time I’ve experienced the age handicap at work, and I know a lot of people have gone through the same thing. I get that my experience is not unique.

Somehow, I just never thought it would happen to me. Naive, I know. But that’s who I am – ever the optimist, ever the idealist, wanting always to believe the best about people and hoping that things will work out if I just work hard enough and try as hard as I can.

So, back to be here now, and one day at a time, and just doing the best I can. Whatever is going to happen will happen and I’ll deal with whatever it is.

Ultimately that’s all there is, isn’t it? Dealing with whatever is. Doing the best we can. Hoping for the best.

Life goes on.

 

Elemental force

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This weekend we had another house-falling-down-around-us event. I kept my cool and did what needed to be done and mom and I got through the day just fine. The plumber is coming on Wednesday and I’ll hemorrhage some more money and then we’ll keep going on as before until the next house event or health event or whatever.

I feel like something deep within me changed, though. Something shifted, and the death grip I’ve had on the future and my belief that I will survive this experience with my mother and go on has loosened. I think in order to keep going now I have to let go of any idea of a positive outcome, including emerging at the end with my health intact – mental, physical, emotional and financial – or even of surviving at all.

Hope has gotten me this far – the hope that this too shall pass and I’ll go on – but I have to let go of that hope and just do what needs to be done, with no thought beyond today and today’s needs. This has been a long journey, but the end is no where in sight, and I have to marshal my remaining resources, few though I feel they are, and just keep going, one foot in front of the other. It’s a waste of energy to keep looking ahead, to hope that things will change, that I’ll be free to go on with my life.

I may never get there and thinking about it, hoping for it, and planning for it is simply counter-productive now. It saps vital resources from the limited supply available, and compromises my ability to take care of my mother’s needs. Also, my near constant pre-occupation and exhaustion puts us both in danger.

Before the water event Sunday I had a go at trying to burn the house down completely. I boiled water in the tea kettle for breakfast and after I poured the water, I put the kettle back on the (electric) burner and forgot to turn it off. I went upstairs to eat my breakfast and answer an email and it wasn’t long before the smell of something burning wafted up the stairs and into my awareness. I ran downstairs, plucked the kettle off the burner and turned it off.

The kettle was ruined and the kitchen smelled horrible, but beyond that, everything was okay. A bullet dodged. When my mother got up I debated whether to even tell her about it, but I did finally, and she razzed me a bit, and we went on with the day, both feeling grateful that it hadn’t been worse. Then the water thing happened and that was not so easily remedied and that’s when I could feel something in me shift.

Fire and water.

Elemental forces are working against me now, and this whole thing is starting to take on a fateful tone. I was already stressed to the max from a really crappy week, and had hoped the weekend would provide a chance to recover a bit, but nothing less than FIRE and WATER said no. No rest for you. 

Okay, so I’m not really so paranoid as to think that anything is out to get me. But I do believe in karma and I do believe in fate – in the role it plays in karma. For the last seven years I’ve seen myself as the hero on this journey and assumed that I would complete the quest and go on. Karma would be exhausted and I would live out my (many) remaining days enjoying life. Tra la la.

In seven years, I have never even entertained the idea of any other outcome.

Sunday night I realized that other outcomes are not only possible, but as time goes on, they become more likely. There is no guarantee that I will complete the quest or go on, and so my only recourse is to just let go and let whatever is going to happen, happen. It is the need to believe in a certain outcome that is sapping my strength, making me constantly stressed and on alert for trouble, and so completely pre-occupied all the time.

This change doesn’t make me sad or happy, or anything. I feel nothing about it in particular, I’ve just noted that it happened, and I’m not really sure what it’s going to mean going forward. I hope it makes me feel less desperate and stressed and I hope it makes me feel clearer and present in each moment. My mother deserves that and so do I.

Whatever happens it’ll just be what it is. I’m done papering over things to make them prettier or more comfortable. Whatever happens happens. I don’t know if what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but I suppose that’s as likely to happen as anything else. We’ll see, won’t we?

All of us, trying to navigate our difficult lives and just trying to figure out a way to be okay; to not feel so bad and unwelcome and unworthy when we’re not at our best.

Somehow, we go on.

 

 

 

Of snakes and worms and an ill wind

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I used to work with a woman whose favorite expression of stress and anger was, “I could bite the heads off snakes.”

Yep. That’s just how I feel. Bring it. Cuz I’M READY TO GO. This has been an off-the-charts CRAPPY week.

Work is hectic cuz everyone’s on Spring Break, and we are getting ready for a company-wide event of some consequence in a couple of weeks here at Acme Health Services. Those of us who DID NOT go on vacation to some warm sunny locale are stuck here doing extra work for those who did, and there’s a certain level of feeling and attitude in the building which has been rising all week, and is now at a rather uncomfortable pitch.

Good times.

Evenings are not much better cuz of having WAY too much to do and not enough time to do it, and I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope of improvement for the weekend in that regard, either. Trying to fit in ALL the needs – my mother, the cats, the incredibly-old-and-falling-down-around-us house, the daily/weekly chores, bills, etc. – and tacking on the end getting to the gym and trying to spend time with friends and have some semblance of a life that I might actually enjoy is just fecking impossible.

And sleep? Yeah…not so much.

It’s wearing on me. It’ll be seven years in November since I moved in with mom. Seven years. 12% of my life. It’s not that I regret the time I’ve spent as caregiver to her – I don’t. It’s the right thing to do, and I’ve learned a lot in that time. It’s been a good thing in many ways. This is what I signed up for. I didn’t read the fine print, though, about duration and wear and tear, and that’s where the trouble is.

What I’ve been wrestling with this week is all that this endeavor has cost me – what I’ve lost in those seven years, including my health to some degree – and wondering how much more I can take. I’m ready to move on, but I’m not finished here yet, and that’s disheartening. I alternate between feeling sorry for myself (unhelpful), and feeling like the lowest wretch on earth for essentially wanting my mother to die, which is the only way to gain my freedom and regain my life as I would like to live it for whatever time I have left on this planet (even more unhelpful).

Really good times.

Then there’s the advice from well-meaning folks, that doesn’t have anything to do with anything even remotely resembling the reality of my life. Trust me, the last thing I need to hear right now is “You’re doing it wrong.” That’s where the snakes come in, and I’m ready to just take a chunk right out of anybody who wants to get in my face right now, cuz I’m SICK TO DEATH of people thinking they know me or what’s going on in my life BETTER THAN I DO.

But then I have to step back and take a deep breath and think about all the people I’ve alienated over the years with unsolicited advice, and remember that these well-meaning co-workers and friends are trying to help, and that I left myself open to it by telling anyone anything about any of it in the first place.

Alex Dumas said: Sell your confidence at a high price, if at all; to be strong, keep your own counsel.

Smart guy, our Al. Too late for me and my big mouth, though, so I just smile and say “yes, for sure, oh really? okay” and then I go somewhere and eat worms. Now, if worms were good for high blood pressure, I’d be all set! Alas, not so, though, and neither is alcohol or ANY of the things I really like to eat and in the past soothed my ruffled feathers, so I’m left gnawing on carrot sticks feeling ornery and put out and just generally like I wish I had some snakes, cuz I would tear those babies RIGHT. UP.

Did I mention the weather and the wind and the lingering cold and general cloudiness and ickiness of early Spring in Michigan? No?

Well, such good times! And don’t even get me started about Mercury Retrograde…

So, anyhoo, that’s my week. How was yours?

A new season

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The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Just when you think Winter has broken your heart, Spring asserts herself and repairs it with sunshine and warmth. Thank goodness! Spring completely turned my head yesterday and sent me spinning. My spirit was soaring all day. I wanted to hug the whole world and sing with the birds. I couldn’t bear to be inside, so I went for a long walk. The sidewalks have been icy the past few weeks, so I haven’t been out on my route for a while. I encountered several neigbors on the way and we were all just smiling, even while we were talking about the latest outrageous actions of our local government. The transformation has begun and I’m telling you: I’m smitten. We all are.

It`s only March though, and this is Michigan, so I had to remind myself not to lose my head completely, and though I was tempted, I didn’t put the snow shovel away just yet. We’ll most likely have at least one more major snow storm; last year we got two feet in April. Winter doesn’t give up easily here. We have a long way to go, but we’re headed in the right direction and that makes me giddy.

Friday I saw a robin building a nest in the juniper bush along the driveway and yesterday the buds on the magnolia tree down the street were standing proud on the branches. A local farm posted on Facebook this week that they have started sap collection, and soon they’ll be making luscious maple syrup for sale in the local shops. When I was a kid there were buckets on all the maple trees around town, and my friends and I could reach in and break off a hunk of the sweet ice inside and eat it like a popsicle.

The ice cream/burger stand opened for the season Friday and people stood in their parkas and boots and waited in line for their first delicious shake or cone since it closed last September. When I was out filling the bird feeders I saw skunk scat on the patio, and while Pepe Le Pew and his ilk are not my favorite neighbors, knowing that they’re out of hibernation makes my heart lighter. The flowers in the picture above came from the grocery store, but their cousins will be poking their green heads through the soil in my flowerbeds in 6 weeks or so.

I expect to see Clover, the bunny who lives under the big cedar in the backyard any day, and soon I might get a glimpse of this year’s babies. The lilac bushes in the backyard are sporting ever so tiny green leaf buds. The promise of new life is everywhere.

It’s back! Life. Color. Sound. I can’t get enough of it. It’s intoxicating! 

Many times in my life I’ve felt left out. I’ve lived a somewhat unconventional life, and I often have felt out of step with the current culture, even with my friends sometimes.

But I have always belonged with nature; with the wild things.

I fit in with the animals, who only want attention and love and don’t care who I am or what I have to offer other than a scratch under the neck or a nice long pet on their silky soft heads.

I fit in at the river, with the herons and the turtles. I fit in at the lake, on the sand and in the clean blue water, looking for shells and watching the sunset. I fit in anywhere there are trees. Or flowers. Or thunder. When I put seed in the feeders the chickadees say hello and thank you! They don’t need to know anything about me. They don’t care how I’ve lived my life. They take what I have to offer and it’s enough.

I love people – I have good friends and I enjoy their company. I need people – I wouldn’t make it as a hermit. Life with humans sometimes requires too much of me, though, so I take some time away and go to the lake, or the river, or the forest. I walk and breathe and hear the birds and see a bunny or a young deer, and my battered psyche and tender heart are instantly rejuvenated, restored. I smell the green leaves and the freshness of the wind off the lake and I’m renewed.

Winter, to me, is starvation. Six to seven months of drudgery and death. No color. No life. It’s prison. Deprivation. My soul is on life-support by March every year without the wild things to sustain me.

And then comes rebirth! It’s starting and it’ll be complete in a couple of months. I’m so grateful I could cry. But I’ll sing instead: a lively tune about life and color and renewal.

Welcome Spring. You got here just in time.

 

Lumping along

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Love is - Williamson

I’m just slogging through, trying not to do any damage today. My plan for the day is sloth and subterfuge. Yesterday was a long, mind-numbing adventure fraught with stress and emotion and today I’m still recovering and processing. I’m not the least bit interested in any of the tasks on my to-do list at work, so I’m just sort of a lump in a chair staring at a screen.

I feel snarly and slightly bruised so I think avoiding people is the best plan. I don’t want to piss anyone off and I don’t want to be pissed off, which is a very likely possibility in any human interaction today. I’m fortunate in that my office is pretty far-removed from my 80 co-workers, so with the exception of my officemate and the conversation we had this morning when he came in it’s fairly easy for me to go the whole day without speaking, at least at work.

I’ve perfected the art of dealing with my mother while experiencing any kind of mood, so the hour that I’m home making our lunch should be fairly straight-forward and then this afternoon, when my officemate is gone (part-timer) I can crank the tunes and continue my lumpish day. I think going to the gym after work will inject some vim into my brain and body, so that at least then maybe I’ll be a more animated lump.

There’s always hope. LOL!

Last night, after a very long day which had sort of already brought me to my knees, I had the opportunity to witness myself in action 25 years ago, made possible by a younger woman in my book group. She dominated the conversation cuz she was passionate about the subject and was rude without meaning to be to everyone who tried to challenge her position. She was judgmental and felt justified in being rude to people because they were wrong. She was sooooooo condescending it set my teeth on edge. It struck me half-way through the meeting that I was exactly like that when I was younger, and I was always stumped as to why I alienated so many people.

I felt such a deep level of compassion for her as she waded in deeper and deeper, oblivious to the effect she was having on the group. I know she didn’t mean to come across the way she did, and that it stemmed from her own harsh judgment of herself more than anything else. She’s still convinced utterly that there is RIGHT and WRONG and that all things and all people, including herself, fall within those boundaries. Her very survival depends on being RIGHT.

It made me really sad. She sets herself apart and doesn’t understand why she feels so alone. I wanted to kidnap her for the evening and shower her with my hard-fought wisdom, but I knew that was inappropriate and that really, there was nothing I could do for her. She’ll have to come into her own wisdom in time. She would never believe that I understand how much she hurts.

It was startling though, to see my own behavior and pain in her so clearly. I am grateful that I feel and act so much differently now, but my heart aches for her and all that she has gone through, and will continue to go through in the coming years until finally she surrenders the need to be RIGHT and gives in to the reality of simply being human; until she can feel compassion for herself, and in doing so, feel compassion for others.

It’s really something, this life, isn’t it? We are all challenged everyday to open our hearts and minds, to live life in its fullest measure, and to fulfill the potential of the human spirit.

And it’s just so, so, hard.

Trust in me

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Adapt

Thanks to Karen at YSM|ink, I’ve been thinking about trust.

Such a big thing, trust. Such high stakes. Get it wrong, and depending on who you’re dealing with, it could cost you your life. For me, with the expectation of one person, the stakes have not been that high, but the risk of being hurt is present with every single person I encounter, and most people I know have turned out not to be worthy of my trust. I don’t think that’s unusual. Humans are unreliable. What we do best is adapt, so nothing for any of us is the same all the time, including our willingness to betray someone else’s trust if it suits us to do so.

In this life, the only two things that are always true are:

  1. Nothing stays the same. This too shall pass.
  2. Everything and everyone ends sooner or later.

Other than that, it’s all up for grabs. What I finally came up with this morning, laying in bed opening to my heart’s reaction to the idea, is that trust is just another expectation, really, and so not something I invest emotional capital in anymore, and that’s okay cuz I was never very good at it to begin with.

Not that surprising, I don’t think, for someone whose first experience of life was loss. Being taken from my mother seconds after birth did not set me up for a lifetime of trust. I have no idea how my baby brain and heart processed those first few weeks of life, but I’m sure trust in anything or anyone was not in the mix. It never got much better, really.

I was trying to think this morning of a single person in my life who had not betrayed my trust and I couldn’t come up with anyone until I thought of my grandmother – my Nana – who I really don’t believe ever let me down. That’s it, though, she’s the only one. Family members…friends…co-workers…nope…not a single person in the parade of folks passing through my 57 years of life has proven worthy of my trust.

Some have been flaming, banner in the sky, heart-deadening betrayals, others much smaller, but all have done damage. Some years ago, one quite recently. Some of the people I counted on the most. Some surprised me, others didn’t. They all hurt, though, and changed me in some way.

So trust is not useful to me. Trust is an expectation that someone won’t hurt me and that’s just setting myself up for disappointment, like all other expectations, because it’s unlikely to ever be true. That’s just not the way human beings are. We think of ourselves first, and ultimately, if it comes down to me or you, I’m going to choose me. That’s simply human nature and to expect something different, to trust that someone is not going to hurt you at some point just isn’t realistic.

I don’t ever feel safe with people. With the exception of my Nana, I don’t think I ever have. Not completely. I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop my whole life. But here’s the surprising thing I realized this morning:

I think that’s a good thing.

Does that surprise you? It surprised me this morning as that was not at all what I thought I was thinking or feeling. Hmm…

I have allowed people to hurt me and that’s too bad. I was naive and just so desperate for human connection and validation that I left myself open to abuse. I put my heart in other people’s hands and trusted them not to break it as if it were their own, rather than learning to trust myself and to take care of myself; to stand on my own. It took me a long time to figure out that was a bad idea, and that’s too bad, but I forgive myself for my naivete. I didn’t know better.

Now I do.

The trick is to keep my heart open to connection with other people without expectation that they won’t hurt me. I don’t want to seal myself off from the world because it’s scary and I don’t feel safe. I’ve never felt safe, and yet here I am. I’ve survived being hurt – repeatedly – and lived to tell the tale.

And I will continue to. People will continue to hurt me and I’ll continue to be okay in spite of it. I trust myself. I trust my ability to survive. I trust my ability to adapt and keep going no matter what happens. I don’t like pain, and I’m not looking for people to hurt me, any more than I’m expecting them not to hurt me. I like people and I will continue to be the best friend I can, the best daughter I can, the best me I can be.

Beyond that, no expectations other than life – and people – will be as they should be. We are each here to walk our own way, to learn and to grow. Throw karma into the mix and everything’s on shifting ground. I can be scared and afraid to move, or I can be scared and just keep going, trusting in my ability to adapt. There is no such thing as safety. There is only this life, and taking the risk to live it as fully as possible.

It’s the only way.

The law won

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I love you

I was astonished to hear about the college admissions scam, in the way I’m always slightly surprised when I remember that some people who seemingly have everything are willing to risk it all to have more. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve thought about it a lot in the past 2 days since the story broke, and what I really can’t wrap my head around is why the parents, especially the celebrities, didn’t think they’d get caught? Why would you risk going to prison for something that could have been accomplished in other ways? Spend money on a tutor to help your kid bring his grades up, for example. Spend your money on a better prep school. Instill in your child the idea that school is important and that you have to study to get into a good college. Teach them that money can’t buy everything and that some things are worth working hard for.

What it all really comes down to is privileged people thinking they’re entitled to something the rest of us aren’t. Not a new concept in the US, certainly, especially considering the person who currently holds the highest office in our government, but as Americans, that’s just not the way we’re supposed to do things. We’re all equal, right?

Right?

Ask your black neighbor if they’re surprised by this turn of events. Ask a poor child or any person of color, in fact, if they’re surprised by the assumptions of wealthy white people that they matter more then the rest of us.

I doubt it.

I’m not surprised by the attitude – I’ve encountered it personally many times living in a resort community most of my life – but as I said above, I am surprised at the level of risk involved for what seems to me to be a small reward. One day you’re a fairly wealthy actress/celebrity living the dream life, and the next the FBI is at your door. Prison awaits you, and you know that, but you risk it all and go ahead and break the law to get your kid into a particular college?

Wait a minute…what?

Exactly. You had it made and you blew it. Accept that your kid was too lazy, or not a good enough student to get the grades to get in. Accept that you’re like everybody else. Accept that life happens to you in the same way it happens to every other human being on the planet – there are consequences to your actions, and not everything is going to go your way. Life will humble you sooner or later. There will be a reckoning.

I guess maybe you don’t understand that if life has, indeed, gone mostly your way cuz your parents or you paid your way through the hard stuff. But just because karma hasn’t caught up with you yet, doesn’t mean it’s not going to. Sooner or later it’s going to have its way with you and you’ll find out that it’s true for everybody. Karma is an equal opportunity experience. It doesn’t discriminate. It is though, I believe, especially tough on people who don’t quit while they’re ahead.

I have compassion for all involved, cuz they’re going to pay a big price for their cluelessness, and their kids are going to pay an even larger price in some ways. The humiliation is epic. This is an opportunity for self-examination and growth, though, so if they recognize that they will ultimately benefit, but it’s going to be tough sledding until they get to that point. It’ll be painful and that’s too bad, because it really didn’t have to happen, but I suppose most crime is that way.

But I also have to say that it gives me hope to know that laws still matter in this country, even for the wealthy and celebrated, and that karma works. It does my heart good to know that there is order in the universe, after all. Not always, but sometimes, and for me right now, that’s enough. Cuz for 2 years I’ve been watching someone in power run roughshod over our democracy and our laws and it’s made me quite sad and feeling hopeless about the future of this country.

But this week, our laws worked, and someone who thought they were above the law was proven wrong. That makes me happy and hopeful that we might just survive as Americans and as humans going forward.

This week the law confirmed that we are all equal in this country still, and that is as it should be. Thank goodness.

 

Transitions

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There is some spring-ish weather forecast for the end of the week — 52° F on Thursday, oh my! — but it’s snowing today, and I’ll have to shovel the driveway this afternoon so I can get out and go to work in the morning, in the dark, thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

Yee. Ha.

I love Spring, but the transition is hard, what with the industrial strength mud and ice and rain, rain, rain. Winter doesn’t give up easily, so I’m not too excited,,,yet. Last year the worst storm we had all season came in April — two feet of icy snow the consistency of sand that defied shoveling and nearly did me in.

So, though I feel almost desperate for Spring, as I do every year at this time, I know it ain’t over yet. It’ll take a while for all this snow and ice to melt, and it’ll be 2 months or more before the temperature will be above 50° with any regularity, at least 4 months, maybe 5, before I’ll be experiencing one of my favorite so-hot-I can’t-breathe-properly bike rides on the trail by the lake.

I’ll bundle up and get out for short rides on those 50° days, and I’ll enjoy them, but there will be a part of my brain, as always, that is cursing the cold, and asking myself why on earth I don’t live somewhere warmer. The answer to that question is simple – cuz my mother won’t leave this place and I won’t leave her.

Still I ask it, and 100 other questions over and over. They all start with Why, not who or what or how, cuz those are all “doing” words, and I’m limited — by many factors, not just my mother — in the amount I can do to change anything in my life right now, but I think about what I would change all the time.

I try not to — I want to be in the moment, accepting what is — but I forget, and before I know it my mind has fast-forwarded to 5 years from now and what I think I’ll be doing and where I think I’ll be doing it. That is, unfortunately, where I seem to be happiest lately — in the future.

This is an improvement over years past, when what I thought I wanted most was not to be somewhere else, or doing something else, but to be someone else. That is painful beyond measure, and I’m so grateful for the drugs, therapy and time that eased that burden finally.

I’m sitting here now, typing this, watching the snow fall out the window in the hall, and I realize that when I can just get back to the gratitude, that’s where all the answers to those why questions are. There is finally peace in just letting it all be, and allowing the gratitude and relief I feel for simply being able to experience life fully, on any terms, to fill my heart. It is in gratitude that I find happiness and contentedness with what is, and where I am and who I am.

Honestly, I find it hard to be grateful for snow, or winter in general, or losing an hour of sleep. If that’s the price of admission, though, I’ll pay it. If I can find happiness in shoveling the drive for the 50th time this winter, then, man, I’ve got it knocked! It’s there if I look hard enough: I am alive, and healthy enough to shovel my own driveway. I have a house and a car that necessitates a driveway, and a job that requires me to keep it clear of snow.

Not everyone is that lucky. Really, I don’t need to go much further that the first one, do I? I am alive. That in itself is a gift — this life — and I honor it by showing up and fully giving myself to every minute of it.

What more could I possibly need?

Still hoping Spring comes quickly, though! What does your forecast look like?

The real deal

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I’m tired. My heart hurts all the time lately, and I don’t know whether that’s anxiety or something more deadly, and it scares me, but I don’t know what to do about it. Most days my stress level is through the roof, and I’m sure my blood pressure is higher than my doctor would like it to be, but I don’t know what to do about that, either. I go to the gym, I get plenty of exercise, I watch what I eat, I do all I can to take care of myself. There just isn’t much time and there’s so much to do and to worry about. There is so much that is just not the way I would like it to be.

Stress at work, stress at home. Even the weather is stressful. Winter just won’t quit, and I’m worried about the snow on the roof, keeping the driveways at both houses open, and about possibly losing power this weekend in the predicted ice storm and what I’m going to do with my mom if that happens.

There is no time at which I feel on top of things; no time that I can take a deep breath and just be. I try so hard to embrace it all, to let it all be what it is and be okay with what it is; to keep my mind and my heart open and present in each moment. Sometimes, though, even that is stressful. I find myself thinking ahead or worrying about something in the future and I think Damn! I blew it!

Lately, it’s when I start feeling sorry for myself, and/or beating myself up for not being who I want to be in every moment, that the alarms start to go off. Thank goodness. I didn’t have those limits when I was younger; those red flags that tell me now that I’m headed for trouble, that I’m overwhelmed and sliding down the slope straight into the abysss.

Yesterday I heard the alarms, saw the red flags, and instead of ignoring it all and trying to soldier on, I said wait a minute. What do I need? I sat still and listened, and the answer was: TIME. So I took the afternoon off from work, and got a couple of big things done at home, and I felt better about the weekend and the resulting shorter list of things to do, and less overwhelmed in general, thanks to my decision to take a few hours’ vacation time.

I was not a wife or a mother when I was younger, so I get that I’ve been lucky that my time was mine mostly for the largest part of my adult life. I really try to avoid feeling sorry for myself or heeding the siren call of resentment telling me that it’s not fair that this is the way my life is now.

Of course it’s fair, and more than that, it simply is what is. Never in my life have I been clearer about what I was doing and why I was doing it. Living with and caring for my mother at the end of her life has been the hardest, but best part of my life in many ways. Despite the fact that much of the time lately it feels like it might be the end of my life, too, I know that it is the right thing to do, and the best use of my time and energy right now.

I hope it’s not the end of my life, but if it is, at least I know my life will not have been wasted. Major karma between me and my mom, and I feel confident that we’ve cleared that up, and beyond that, honestly, what else do I have to show for 57 years on this planet? Nada, zip, zilch, zero. I was too caught up in faulty brain chemistry to contribute much for most of my adult life. I was becoming who I needed to be now, I guess, and I take comfort in knowing that I made it. If nothing else I was able to take care of myself and stay alive long enough to be able to take care of someone else and for me, that’s enough.

So my challenge is just to maintain my health; manage the stress as best I can, continue to do the things I know I need to do – the gym, eating properly, getting as much sleep as possible – and just keep going. Keep listening for the alarms, and watch for the red flags. Put my needs first when I need to. Meditate. Practice mindfulness as much as I can remember to. Acknowledge my gratitude as often as I can remember to.

I’ve come across several articles and blogs this week about self-care. It’s on all of our minds, whatever path we’re currently on. But writing about it, reading about it, or talking about it is not the same as doing it. Taking the afternoon off yesterday was the real thing, and it made all the difference.

What do you need right now? Listen to your heart. What is it telling you?

The Thing Is

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The Thing Is
by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love. © BOA Editions, Ltd., 2002.

That is the thing, isn’t it? The secret, the very essence of this human life. The moment of your resurrection: To love life even when you have no stomach for it.

To say: I will love you, again.

Life is so hard and it breaks us over and over again, but we forgive and go on. Despite the mind-numbing weight of disappointment and grief for all we will never have and all we will never be.

I will take you, life, I will love you, again. It’s the again that causes my breath to catch in my chest. Yes. Again. I will get up after falling, after being brought to my knees by the crushing weight, and I will keep going. Again.

And again.

As many times as it takes until life is finished with me. It’s the again that matters. We all love life when things are going well; when everything makes sense and you feel like you finally understand and have some aptitude for getting along day by day. That’s the easy part. That’s the part where every gift is wrapped in gratitude and joy fills every fiber of your being.

Then there are the other parts. The times when it doesn’t seem possible to bear another day, another moment, another second of the pain and the slippery, twisty, unapologetic weight of ALL THAT IS WRONG. In your life, in the life of someone you love, of someone you just met or don’t know at all. Sometimes all that anguish just penetrates your skin and inhabits every cell and you stumble. You are unable to carry your heavy heart – the burden of the obesity of grief – another step. The harsh blows life deals all of us cast you to the ground and bruise your soul so deeply you don’t think you will ever rise again.

But you do. It takes time for the bruises to heal and the pain to subside, but you rise slowly, gingerly, carefully cradling your tender heart, and you go on. And in doing so you say to life, Yes, I will love you again.

You forgive life, other people, and yourself and you go on. Maybe you can set the weight aside for a while, maybe leave it behind completely, or maybe you’re still carrying it and it tires you, but you go on. You keep trying. You keep doing. You keep giving.

You offer life what’s within you – all that’s yours to give, all that you brought with you in the hope that it will be of use, be valued, be loved. Sometimes your gifts are welcomed and your dreams are realized; more often they are thrown back in your face in a most devastating way.

You rail against the rejection, the loss, the pain of being tossed aside, of being dismissed by life so casually. You close up like a flower in winter, gathering in your soft petals and tucking them deep inside your center, waiting for the return of Spring, when you will once again risk everything and bloom.

Until then, you wait. Nurture your roots in the darkness and repair the damage to your battered heart. Because you know:

forgiveness
renewal
gratitude

will come again and you will say to your love, this life, I will take you.

Again.

Because that’s the contract. That’s the deal. What we signed up for. No good without bad, no happiness without sorrow, no gain without loss, and no renewal without death.

No courage without vulnerability.

No love without forgiveness.

No life without love.