gratitude

Much ado about nothing

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Thanksgiving was really nice. Mom and I felt like we had reclaimed the holiday (one of my favorites) after the last two years were disappointing, to say the least. Turkey sandwich for lunch yesterday, then a walk downtown to do some shopping and see the holiday parade and the tree-lighting in the park. Santa was there! Flew in from New York yesterday, apparently.  The parade was short – this is a very small town – but just as well as this is northern Michigan and it was cold. Not too bad though, considering Thanksgiving morning for the Turkey Trot it was 5°,  and there was hot chocolate and cookies to warm everyone up. Spirits were high, and  I was glad I went.

Today the resting begins. I have no plans to get dressed. We’re doing the day in the key of low, and probably tomorrow, too. To my mind, this is the best part of this weekend. I usually take this whole week off – 9 days off in a row for the price of only 3 vacation days! – but I didn’t this year, cuz I’m saving my leave time in case mom gets really ill again and I have to stay home with her for a while like last Spring. So this year I’m doing 2 days of LOTS OF THINGS! and 2 days of NOTHING!, and that’ll be good enough.

And the Nothing has started! Yay! Reading and lounging and I don’t know what else, but whatever it is it will not involve wearing pants or shoes. I will probably put up our little Christmas tree and put new batteries in the outside twinkle lights, but that’s the extent of my ambition for this dark November day. Perfect day for pancakes and a cup of tea, then soft music and reading.

That’s the plan, anyway. When mom gets up that plan could be scuttled, depending on how she feels. She has good days and bad days, and one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with in this situation is that when she has a bad day it changes everything, including whatever I had planned, and there just isn’t any  way around that. I grew up in a household controlled entirely by my mother’s health issues and here I am again.

I’m an adult now, though. I get it’s not all about me, and I’m pretty clear that I’m here for my mother and not for me. So her needs take precedence, and I just try not to hang on too tightly to my expectations, so I’m not disppointed all the time like I was when I was little. In fact, I try not to have expectations in the first place, but that’s easier said than done, for sure. I knew a guy once who was a pessimist and he said the benefit of always expecting the worse was that he was almost never disappointed and sometimes he was pleasantly surprised. 🙂

I am fundamentally an optimist, though, so I’m afraid I can’t easily stop my battered brain from hoping, but I try hard to keep an open mind and heart and just go with the flow. Not necessarily without disappointment, but without resentment, and that has made the difference. Resentment will eat you up and spit you out if you let it, and I let it for a long time, I’m sad to say. I’m older and wiser now, though, and I avoid the R-word at all costs. Therapy helped me recognize it and banish it, and I’m so deeply grateful for that. Now meditation helps keep it from sneaking up on me.

So I’ll hope that the NOTHING plan comes off without a hitch today, but if not, well, I’ll do what needs to be done. Whatever it is. That’s what I signed up for, and that’s just the way it is right now. It won’t be this way forever. Who knows where or with whom I’ll be next  Thanksgiving? There’s always the chance that this is the last Thanksgiving for my mom, or for me, for that matter. The future is not meant to be known. If it was, we wouldn’t be able to go on, would we?

Holidays mark time. Among all the non-descript days in the year they stand out in our memories. I know exactly where I was on Thanksgiving day last year, and the year before that, the years my dad and grandma were with us, and the year I had 12 people at card tables in my little kitchen and we played Uno after dinner. Unlike most of the rest of the days that just glide by in the busy-ness, holidays are special. Friends and family gather and we celebrate our human life and each other and all that’s good in the world. We witness the changes in each other in the last year, and remember those who are no longer with us.

Hopefully we spare a thought for those who are alone or homeless or who’ve suffered tragedy in the last year, too. Because holidays mark the bad years, too, sadly. They are guideposts through the year, marking our passage through the Grand Turn, our trip around the sun, for better or worse. This year we’re good, other years less so. All part of our lives, the good and the bad. There’s no avoiding either.

So Thanksgiving is over and now on to Christmas, which I’m less inclined to look forward to, but still, there are good things, and it serves as an opportunity to take stock, give thanks and celebrate life and love and the return of the Light. I’m not a Christian per se, anymore, but I’m all about the light and the Solstice and the turning of the year. When I was a practicing Episcopalian, Advent was my favorite time of year. The anticipation of light’s (and life’s) return is especially meaningful to us in the northern realms, where light and growth is scarce for much of the year.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, in whatever way you give thanks and mark time, I wish you well and I wish you much more of whatever it is you long for.

For myself today and tomorrow I’m wishing and hoping for nothing. For rest and restoration. Renewed strength for the way forward.

In my pajamas! Onward ho.

It’s not just about the turkey

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Happy Thanksgiving, American friends!

Yesterday I was speaking to a co-worker whose mom passed from cancer a couple of months ago. She’s trying to wrap her head and her heart around her first holiday without her mother, and I remember that sadness and confusion well, after my dad died in 2012. He passed on November 14th, and a week later, my mom and I were alone for Thanksgiving. It was weird and it was hard that year, and for a while after, but it has stopped being weird or hard 6 years later, and I didn’t really realize that had happened until I was talking to Amy about her mom yesterday.

It happened while I wasn’t paying attention, I guess. While I was just living and getting through the days. In fact, the anniversary of his death snuck up on me this year, too. Suddenly it was November 14th and I had the thought a couple of times in the morning that the date was somehow significant – someone’s birthday, maybe? – but it didn’t really register with me until later in the day:

Ah, that was the day my father left this earth.

I had a fleeting feeling of guilt that I’d forgotten, but then I saw it in a different light: I’m living in the here and now and that’s a good thing. I’m present to my life these days, no longer dredging up the past and the Litany of Loss periodically and plunging into depression as I once did. I simply don’t have time. I miss my dad, my Nana, lots of friends, pets, even some of my younger selves, but I don’t have the luxury of wallowing in loss anymore, and I’m lucky that my brain seems to be onboard the wellness train now thanks to medication and therapy years ago, and meditation recently, so it doesn’t go there as often on its own anymore, either.

I can control what I think about for the most part, and lately I try to think about what’s right in front of me. Right now. What needs to be done? Which thing on the list of things to do at home and at work needs my attention this minute? How are the people I care about in my life right now? I don’t think so much about what (or whom) I’ve lost. I think about all that I have. Not all the time, but as much as possible, and certainly more than in the past. I try not to think about what (or who) is not present in my life right now, and focus on what and who is and what I can do for them and for myself to make things a little better.

My Litany of Loss is long. So is yours. Human life is HARD, and our emotional and mental wellbeing ultimately comes down to how well we process and carry those losses: whether we go forward, slowly at first, but always gaining ground, until at last, some of our burdens can be safely left behind, or we are so weighed down by them that we can’t go on and life in the present seems impossible.

As we age, those losses mount up, and that burden is too much to bear unless you set some (or all) of it down. I remember lots of things about my dad – good things. Lots of holidays (he loved Christmas and Halloween more than anyone I’ve ever known!), his dry sense of humor, his beautiful singing voice, love of music, and the joy he found in entertaining people. I remember how much he loved me. Those are the things that matter, and I’m grateful that I can think of him and those things without pain. In fact, that I can think about all of the losses most days without tumbling into an abyss of sadness and for that I’m deeply, deeply grateful. That change was a long time coming.

Time heals if we let it. If we just let it flow – not try to stop it or slow it down – it will wash the pain away gently and leave behind gratitude and joy. Gratitude for the experience, joy in having gained the strength to move on, to be in the moment, open to what (and who) is here for us now.

Like waves in the ocean (or Lake Michigan) – let it flow. Life is beautiful, but loss is inevitable in this human existence. We are tested over and over, learning to let go, until it is our own life we are forced to release. Until then, in the immortal words of Dory:

Just keep swimming.



 


The sun came shining through

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I am inexplicably optimistic this morning. It’s Monday, it’s winter (6 months left to go, and it’ll get much much worse before it gets better), almost exactly 6 weeks to go til Christmas – my least favorite holiday – and I haven’t even started thinking about presents. I’m facing the prospect of a new year still with my mother and still in this job. There are other ucky things on the immediate horizon – a doctor’s appointment, our annual All-Staff Meeting at work, starting a gym membership cuz it’s getting too snowy and cold to be outside. (Ugh.)

Other icky winter things: Shoveling. Boots. Coats. Hats. Mittens/gloves. Cold. Ridiculous heating bills for the house I don’t live in, and outrageous water bills cuz I have to run the water in the kitchen so the pipes don’t freeze. Cold. Crap driving and crap drivers. Did I mention shoveling? Oh, and it’s COLD. But the worst part –

No sun. For days and days and days. ~shudder~

However, I have new tires, so driving will be less scary this year and I won’t get stuck in the parking lot at work everyday like last year. Yay! I get a longevity check in December and a raise in January, so I’ll be a little richer. Yay! I have 2 additional days off this week and 6 additional days off in December. Yay!

I have good books to read and I will get more for Christmas and my birthday and while I’m sitting inside for hours and hours, unable to go outside cuz snow and cold and wind, I can read, read, read! Possible this winter, unlike the past few years, cuz I have introduced my mother to the wonder of downloadable audio books that she can listen to on the phone I gave her (and she has finally learned to use), with EARBUDS. So we don’t watch DVDs so much anymore, and we can sit together in our cozy living room and read our books.

That is such a good thing! Yay! There are many good things, and today I’m in a place mentally and emotionally in which I can see those good things and be grateful for them. I haven’t been there for a few weeks, and I’m almost afraid to write that or think that or say it out loud, cuz generally when the universe has any inkling that I’m feeling good, it goes out of its way to kick me in the teeth almost immediately.

Paranoid? Ya, maybe. Whatever.

I had a nice weekend, including a long walk yesterday in the sunshine, even though I had to keep my head focused on the ice under my boots so I didn’t fall, and a shorter, snowier walk on Saturday that was nice, too. I had a few chores to do, but mostly I read and ate well and walked and relaxed. It was good. It was restorative.

Now it’s back to work, and so far it’s a crappy Monday, but it’s a short week as I have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, my second favorite holiday. (Easter is my favorite holiday – Spring, rebirth; I get giddy thinking about it.) Also, our best cook/baker brought in cake, so there’s that. Cake makes everything better. Always.

I bought a turkey breast and a frozen pumpkin pie and I’m going to be spending much of Thursday cooking, but that’s okay. Turkey and mashed potatoes and crescent rolls and Sara Lee pumpkin pie with Cool Whip. It’ll be awesome. We usually go out for T-day dinner, but as mom doesn’t leave the house anymore, we’re staying in – which I’m all about this year. What could be better than being in my jammies smelling turkey roasting and pie baking, hanging out with my mom and the cats? Turkey sandwiches and pie all weekend. Yay!

Then 3 WHOLE DAYS of not really that much that has to be done. Regular chores – cooking, dishes, blah, blah, but nothing that requires a lot of effort or even being dressed. Walking (I’ll put pants on) if it’s not too late November-y, (the forecast looks promising), and reading (new book from the library I got on my walk yesterday), and eating, eating, eating.

Perfect. The last two Thanksgivings were fairly crappy, so I feel like I’m due a good one. Two years ago our sewer drain clogged and it was not pleasant being in the house for 4 days. (‘Nough said.) Last year, our dinner out was hella expensive and not very good, so it was a big  disappointment, and mom and I got in a big fight about something and it overshadowed the whole weekend.

So I’m optimistic. There are things I like about winter, and things I like about Christmas, and I’m going to try to focus on those things and let the rest go. Soon it will be my birthday and that’s great, and then St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter and then Spring. Spring. Spring! It goes quickly, I know.

“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley

Welcome winter.

 

 

 

All or nothing at all

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I’ve been working hard this year on accepting what is. It hasn’t been easy, as most of what is is not what I would like it to be. Resisting is not only demoralizing, but exhausting, however, so I’ve been trying to just let things be and rest in the NOW.

As is. All of it.

I say “trying” because I’m not really very good at it. Mostly I’m overwhelmed at how wrong everything seems and how unhappy I am with most of the circumstances in my life, and then I feel ashamed because I don’t have it as bad as a lot of people; those in North Carolina who just lost their homes, for example, or several people I know who have died suddenly lately and left families and friends grieving their loss.

It’s kind of a spiral I get caught in fairly regularly, and though I try to just be still and grateful in order to stop my brain from spinning out of control, it doesn’t last long, if it works at all in the first place. Feel bad, beat myself up for feeling bad, feel worse.

Over and over again.

And now here it’s Fall. The end of everything that I enjoy about life, and the beginning of suffering through cold and ice and no color and no life for 8 months or so. Last winter was so bad for me I get choked up when I think about going through it again.

I keep trying to think of a way out – a way to “fix” what seems wrong, or a way to “disappear” that wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Sometimes I feel desperate for change.

But, I know, there is no way out.

There is only a way through, and that’s what I’m working on. Acceptance. Day to day, minute to minute. I have to remind myself constantly that all I really have to worry about is right now. Friday morning. Not winter. Not next month, or next week, or even tomorrow.

Just today.

It’s Friday and the sun is shining.  I’m not in danger, I’m not ill, I’m not homeless. I have a job, money, and plenty of food. I’m alive.

Easy to accept the good, harder to embrace the rest. It’s all there, though; it’s all life. A package deal. Never all good, never all bad. A mix of both, always. All or nothing. Not in equal measure, but both always there. I hate the expression, “It’s all good,” cuz it’s not all good. Clearly. But it’s all now. Present in every moment. All the good and all the bad.

Here. Now.

Life. Accept it.

 

Balancing Act

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I’m not really into working today. It’s gloomy outside and I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s a perfect day to be curled up on the couch with a cat reading and/or napping. I had a meeting with a department director first thing this morning, though, so I couldn’t take the day off, and so far it’s been a typical Monday, which makes me wish I wasn’t here just that much more.

If it hadn’t been for that meeting, I would have called in (actually I email) and rolled over and gone back to sleep for a couple of hours. I took last Monday off (pre-arranged) and it was really lovely. No Sunday night dread feeling, no Monday crap. The weather was beautiful that day, so I had a nice long bike ride and really enjoyed the day.

What was nice, too, was that I had taken the day off just because I wanted to. I didn’t feel the need to justify it to myself or anyone else. I wanted to do it, I did it, and I enjoyed it. Easy peasy. Doing something just because I want to is one of the things I have missed the past few years. My life is not as uncomplicated as it used to be, and there isn’t much time, money, or energy available these days to indulge my whims.

I’m focused mostly on what needs to be done in the next 10 minutes – cuz there’s always a list and plenty on it between work and home – and I forget to have fun. I forget to just be. I forget that there are things that make me happy that don’t require a lot of effort or money or time, and that I need to do them/have them.

All work and no play makes this girl depressed.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that I was wearing the same pair of earrings everyday and had been for quite a while. Kind of a silly thing, but it was a red flag to me that I was in “robot” mode, and that if I didn’t try to get out of it I would be completely emotionally paralyzed soon enough.

So I got out all my jewelry and picked out things I hadn’t worn in a while, and I’ve been trading off different rings and earrings everyday. Believe it or not, it makes a difference. Ditto food. I bought some different things at the store last week and I’ve been adding a forgotten favorite or something new to every meal.

Friday I went to the fish market and bought smoked whitefish paté, a particular favorite that I don’t usually allow myself cuz it’s expensive and high in calories, but man, is it good!

Saturday night I had a campfire. I made s’mores, and sat outside in the dark watching the flames and drank a beer. Yesterday I had fried potatoes with breakfast.

Just because I could.

Most importantly, I rode almost every evening after work last week and both afternoons this weekend I was out for 2 hours or so in the heat and the sun, turning the pedals and getting happier with every drop of sweat I shed.

It’s summer and this is my favorite time of year. I need more outside-enjoying-it and less inside-working/doing chores. The work and the chores need to be done, and sometimes even need to come first, but there has to be time for the good stuff, too, or life is just too hard.

So I had to work today, but when I get home I can have some crackers and whitefish paté, and maybe even a short bike ride if it’s stopped raining by then. After dinner and the dishes and the evening with mom, I can climb in bed with the good book I’m reading, and then (I hope) get a good night’s sleep. I’ll think of this as a good day, cuz there was time for everything, including and especially me.

My wild, messy heart

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I’ve been thinking a lot about connection and belonging, since listening to this TED talk by Brene Brown a few days ago. Belonging is not something I’m particularly good at, proven over and over throughout my life. I almost always feel more comfortable on my own. I was an only child, so entertaining and comforting myself were skills I learned early on.

I also learned early on that when you are connected to people, family especially, their problems are your problems and you can get caught up in the chaos forever. I discovered young, too, that if people think there’s something different about you or if they think you may need help, they will shy away. Having spent much of my life experiencing major depressive episodes 2 or 3 times a year, I found it was best to have fewer connections so that I could slip in and out of my life as necessary without losing too much each time. So, while friendly, I kept most people at arm’s length.

Depression made belonging to a group or club difficult, too, as there were times I couldn’t go to meetings or complete an assigned task on time. I usually ended up quitting fairly quickly, even if I enjoyed the people and the club, and finally I just stopped joining things. Ditto friends and lovers. Hard to maintain a relationship when you can’t be counted on to be the same person everyday.

Now my mother consumes my time, not depression, but the effect is the same. I have very few connections now. The ones I have are solid, but not usually a part of my daily life. They are busy people, too, and it’s hard to keep in touch or get together. That will probably not always be true, especially for me after my mother is gone, so those connections will remain and get stronger, I’m sure, and for that I’m grateful.

But then the question becomes where will I belong? Really the only group I’ve ever felt fully a part of is my family – my mom, dad, and grandma. For better or worse, I belonged to those people. I belong with my mom, now, just the two of us left. I know that’s where I’m supposed to be and that she is my “home.” Our family was not always a refuge for me, but it was always where I knew who and how to be and that I was loved. They took care of me and I took care of them, and continue to take care of my mom, and that’s what connection and belonging is all about.

Commitment. That’s really what it boils down to. Shared commitment to each other. Shared interests, common viewpoints, similar, if not completely shared, goals. I see you, you see me, we are the same. In order to have that kind of connection, you have to be clear about who you are and what you want, and you have to be willing and able to show that to others.

Vulnerability.

For me, and for most people, that’s a very scary word. Without it, though, you can’t really connect with another person, and you can’t really belong. At least, not authentically. If you can’t let people see the real you, then that connection doesn’t really have much meaning and it will break fairly easily. That’s what I’ve experienced most of my life, as I was mostly hiding, not living fully, and not connecting fully – or at all – in most cases.

That’s not me now, though, so the question becomes where do I find “my people?” After the last of my family is gone – my mother – where will I belong?

I think Ms. Brown has the answer in the quote above:

True belonging is not something we achieve, accomplish, or negotiate with others – it’s something we carry in our hearts.

I belong to me, first and foremost. I belong to the universe and the stars, the Earth, and the human race. I belong to my ancestors, and to my family as long as they live in my memory. I belong to my friends – the people I love and the people who love me – and to all the people I don’t know personally who have helped me on my path.

I know and love who I am – messy heart – and all, and I’m not hiding anymore. Here I am, all of me, ready to rejoin the world, life.

I belong.

How do you mend a broken heart?

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This has been a pretty intense week. All about life and death, really, nothing less.

On Monday my mom had an episode of some kind – I’m not sure if it was a stroke or a seizure – and she fainted. She was out cold for 2-3 minutes. She stopped breathing twice, and for several seconds I thought she was dead. She woke up, though, and over the course of that day came fully back to herself, though she felt a little like she had been hit by a truck. By Tuesday evening, though, you would never know it had happened.

On Wednesday I went to have an echocardiogram, cuz when I was at the doc for a physical last week she thought she heard a murmur, and was concerned that maybe I have a partially blocked artery. I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and in the past 2 years or so I’ve managed to control both with exercise and diet, and bring those numbers down. So I thought I was in pretty good shape, and honestly, I’m not that worried about something that’s going to kill me in 30 years. Cancer is what concerns me. I’ve had 2 middle-aged friends die in the past 2 weeks from cancer, not heart disease. I don’t know anyone who has died from heart disease, in fact; everyone I know died from cancer.

Laying there listening to the blood whoosh through my heart was sobering, though. I had a psychic tell me a long time ago that I had a broken heart; that’s what I was thinking about while the friendly young women was moving the sensor around my chest. Could there really be something wrong? Is my heart broken? I’m only 56. How could I be having heart trouble? I don’t have the results of the test yet, but I’m hopeful that it was nothing and that I’m as healthy as I think I am.

Then yesterday, I got word via Facebook that a friend who has been battling cancer for a few years had taken a turn for the worse and the doctors had sent her home to die. She was only 50, a recent grandmother, a bright spot in our little community – just a beautiful soul. Last night she died, with her very large family around her, and I just feel so bad about that. I will miss her, even though I didn’t know her very well. She always made me smile.

So near-death, worrying about death, and actual death in the space of 5 days. My head is spinning a little and my heart is breaking (figuratively) for Leslie and her family and friends. Through it all I’ve really been trying to just take it all in, let it be, and then let it go. So much sadness and loss in the last 2 weeks; but life goes on. My mom will die, people I care about will die, and I will die. That’s the reality of this Life, and there’s no getting around it.

Don’t take a minute for granted.

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Leslie Anne Miller Knoop 1967-2018

Rest in peace.

Rest in Peace

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Kate Spade. Anthony Bourdain. Julie Farmer.

The first two you know. The third one you probably don’t. She died this week, too. Unlike the other two, she didn’t choose to die. Cancer stole her life just as thoughtlessly and heartlessly as a thief in the night. She was 47 years old, beautiful and kind, and the mother of three children. She wasn’t rich or famous, but she had lots of friends and family – people who loved her and stood by her until the end, which was brutal. She was brave and loved life, even as she lay dying.

Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain took their own lives. For whatever reason they felt they couldn’t go on. We will probably never really know. To look at them from the outside, they seemed to have everything. We look at them in the media and think how lucky they are, how easy life must be for them. Money, and work they loved and were good at, travel, excitement. Awards and accolades, fame, luxury. They had everything we think we want. In the end, apparently, none of it mattered. It wasn’t enough.

No one understands depression and suicidal ideation better than me. Believe me, I get it. I’ve considered suicide on a regular basis since I was a teenager. I have deep compassion for anyone who makes that very final choice. Depression whispers in your ear – it’s hopeless, it will never get better, there’s only one way out. It convinces you that the problem is not that life is hard, and that it’s hard for everyone, even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside – the problem is you. You suck. You can’t cut it. You’re a loser. What’s the point?

Depression lies.

It’s like cancer, in that it steals your life, your mind, your joy.  Maybe Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain discovered that all the money, fame and success are not what makes life worth living. Those things are nice and they bring us momentary happiness and the buzz of millions of endorphins. None of us would turn any of that down. But it’s not what lasts. It’s not what gives us the strength to keep going when things aren’t so great.

To truly find joy in life and to make it through the hard times, you have to have one thing: LOVE.

Love for yourself, first and foremost. You’re fine. Life is hard for everyone. It’s not just you. You’re not perfect. No one is. We’re all just doing the best we can. Don’t compare yourself to others – you’re only seeing the shiny clean outside wrapper, not what’s going on inside. There is no such thing as a perfect life.

There is only your life and mine and what we make of it. You don’t have to save the world. You only have to save yourself. Don’t worry about what you imagine other people think about you or your choices. The only person you have to answer to is yourself. This is your life. It’s the only one you get and it’s short. Be kind to the part of you that’s broken, that tells you you’re less than or that you’re doing it wrong, or that you’re unloveable. Love that part of you and then let it go.

Love yourself and then you can really love others. In this life love is the only thing that matters. It’s not a cliche. It’s simply true.

Love yourself. You’re here on this planet and you’re doing the best that you can, and you’re awesome. You’ll be gone before you know it, so enjoy the ride. Don’t get off before your stop. You’ll be there soon enough.

Too soon.

RIP Julie.

Julie H. Farmer 1970 – 2018

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Truth be told

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Some of the most difficult things I’ve had to come to terms with over the years are:

  1. Life isn’t fair.
  2. You can still fail, no matter how hard you try.
  3. Not every problem can be solved.

Like most children, I learned the first one pretty early on. I wasn’t happy about it, and I’m still not, but I certainly know it’s true. Over the years and into adulthood, it led directly to a distrust of the idea of the Christian God, or any god worth believing in, cuz in my mind, what would be the purpose of a god if not to make life fair?

I was drawn to Buddhism, and more simply, mindfulness, because it starts out by telling you that life is hard. Period. No illusion. No Santa Claus god. No notions of good and evil, fair or unjust. There is only us, here now, and this life and being kind. Embracing everything and then letting go, cuz none of it matters ultimately. It’s all in the past. There is only what is, not what should be. Not only what’s fair, but what isn’t. All of it. Everything.

The second one hit me square in the gut almost 20 years ago when I lost my business and had to get a job and file for bankruptcy. Like most American kids, I was raised with the idea that if you worked hard enough, you could achieve anything. The American Dream! I was living exactly the life I wanted, the one I had worked for, for a while, and then BAM! It was gone. I was stunned. I had been so determined. I had worked so hard and I wanted it so much, surely that would make it so.

Nope. I fell to earth and landed on my butt with a resounding and painful thud. It took me a long time to come to terms that what I had been told and what I believed to be true all of my life to that point was not true. There it was again: Life is not fair. Add to that: It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you can’t make it so.

Ouch.

Even though I had struggled with depression since I was a teenager, that event and finally realizing that fundamental truth about life was the thing that made me decide I couldn’t go on. Prior to that I believed the I was the problem, Not life. That I was doing something wrong. I had hope that someday I would get it right and then life would be what I hoped it would be, what I thought it could be. What I thought it was supposed to be.

I always knew that people suffered horrible lives, especially in other countries and in other times. I was an avid reader and some of the books I read were about really difficult lives, but I guess I always thought they were just unlucky or they didn’t work hard enough, or something. I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I didn’t really think about it, or maybe I just thought that it would be different for me because…I don’t know.

I was absolutely convinced growing up that despite all evidence to the contrary, I would have a wonderful life once I got to be an adult and could take control of my life. I was raised in the Christian church and I fell for all those stories in Sunday school about right and wrong and God helping good people and punishing bad people. I believed all the stuff in school, too, about the American Dream and Manifest Destiny, George Washington never telling a lie, and Abraham Lincoln walking through the snow for 1000 miles to return a book cuz it was the right thing to do.

I had fought through the depression over and over again because I believed that I could have the life I wanted if I just worked for it. Then, suddenly that was all a lie and I felt betrayed and stupid and that there was just no point in going on with this ridiculous unfair life – in which bad people thrived and good people got screwed. Knowing that there was nothing I could do to change that – no matter how hard I tried – was more than I could take for a long time. It took 10 years of medication and 3 years of therapy to get me past it.

The third thing – that for some problems there are no solutions – was the last bastion of earlier life to fall. Living again with my mother and her health problems finally beat that one down. Not only are some of her medical challenges baffling, even to her doctors, but more simply, the challenge of living with her and caring for her has become less of a problem to be solved, and more of a truth to be accepted.

It just is.

She’s not a problem to be solved. She’s a person. My difficulty at times with this situation can’t be solved, either, it is just part of my life, something I have to embrace and then let go of, just like everything else. It’s another step on the path for both of us. We’re traveling together on this journey.

Life.

Not a problem, not fair or unfair, not good or bad, just what’s happening now and no matter how hard I try, I can’t solve it all for her, or for me, or for anyone. We celebrate the good things and mourn the losses, but ultimately it’s all the same. What is, and what was, and what will be.

Us. In it together. All of us just doing the best we can to accept the truth.

Life is hard. And beautiful. And painful. And amazing. So big sometimes it crushes us, and other times lifts us to great heights. It’s everything and nothing.

And that’s the truth.

Every bloomin’ thing

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Ahhhhh, Spring.

First bike ride of the season on Friday after work. I didn’t go fast or far, but it was wonderful, just the same. Yesterday I liberated the purple bike from the trainer and put it next to its siblings in the garage – no more indoor riding this year. Thank goodness. Nothing I love about bicycling has anything to do with being indoors or stationary.

When I got home, mom and I took a walk around the block and in our neighbor’s yard – the one in which they tore down the house this winter – we saw a little bunny. She was hopping back and forth to a bush on the property, under which, several years ago I had found a bunny nest while raking. So we thought maybe she had been born there last year and was now tending her own nest. Maybe there’s been a bunny nest right under our noses for years and years and we weren’t aware! A metaphor for life. I love thinking of her out there taking care of another generation – the future. New beginnings everywhere.

Too cold and windy for a ride yesterday, so I took a nice long walk and had the most amazing encounter with a deer that stayed with me all day. It was a young deer, a doe, I’m guessing, and while she was wary of me as I approached, she didn’t run and she didn’t seem to be afraid. I spoke to her softly, and she cocked her head so she could get a better view of me. We stood and talked like that for 60 seconds or so, then I said goodbye and thank you and quietly walked off. I didn’t hear her crashing through the brush behind me, so I don’t think she ran away. Very cool.

I have been trying to focus on good things lately – trying to train my brain to be aware of everything, not just the bad, which seems so pervasive lately – and these encounters felt like gifts in return for my attentiveness. At least I choose to see them that way, in order to convince the grey matter that there are rewards for positive thinking that are way better than for negative and fearful thinking.

Cuz I’m always scanning for danger. Always. That’s been the default my whole life – not without reason – but especially lately. Probably most people do that. Life is big and scary. But it’s also big and wonderful and lovely and awesome, and that’s the part I overlook so often cuz my brain is wearing itself out looking for the icky stuff.

Part of living in the moment  – mindfully living life – however, is trying to be aware of everything. All of it. The good and the bad, the scary and the wonderful. So I’m trying to expand my vision. There are sooooo many good things! Nature alone is the source of countless amazing, beautiful, awe-inspiring things, and you can’t beat Michigan in the Spring and Summer for being in nature. And **bonus** walking and biking – outside in nature – are wonderful and good for me! Win, win, win, win, win.

Welcome, Spring. So good to see you again.