Category: Motherhood {At-Home}

Things I’ve Learned About Myself Along the Way

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More and more, probably because of the lull that I had in writing, hardly anyone is reading what I write.

Ironically I stopped writing around 2015 at a time when life was falling apart — our business partner imbezzled, we were bankrupt, our family was in shambles, my mom was diagnosed with dementia and I was her medical POA, and I went back to work, in the company, to help Tom.

My kids were of the age where it mattered what I said about them. I didn’t want to be the writer that regretted telling my kids stories. I couldn’t yet write about the business. Stuff with my mom was complicated. And I was busy!

I gave up my career at a local non-profit to (more closely) raise our kids. But truthfully, mainly, we were just trying to save money on daycare with three kids in diapers and one in middle school. The American dream. Although my “staying at home” was a good choice that I’m glad we made because I can see now how that time was important both to my kids and to the person that I was becoming. I was a workaholic before I quit. And long after. Those were hard years.

It was hard to be at home. This was before social media dominated people’s days.  Before cell phones were attached to us. From 2001 to 2015, I was lonely, hurting, a recovering alcoholic, a workaholic, depressed, anxious and bored.

As I have written copiously about I suffered from depression, and my husband suffered from my depression. This morning he was sharing a song with me, there’s many he’s written, about my depression from his perspective. It’s so sad. I’ve hurt him. The lyrics are beautiful. (See below.)

So I’m comfortable with a small readership, hello reader. I still don’t know what I’m writing for but I have learned a few things about myself in the last decade.

One, I have copious courage and it’s built into my DNA and I don’t fear the opinions of others. I’m more afraid of the idea of sounding stupid or ignorant than of expressing myself. I love expressing myself. Not verbally persay. I’ve gotten more introverted and anxious since retirement. I loathe it, and shall have to overcome it.

Two, I’m an empath. My heart breaks for people. Injustice hurts me, physically sometimes.  I haven’t learned how to control it or protect myself from it yet.

Three I’m generous. I’ll give away the shirt on my back if it would help. I’ll give my last $20 in my wallet. I’ll give generously to a charity as I’m moved. Not frivolously, but carefully. Not when asked directly, that makes me uncomfortable, but as people talk about the needs around me I give.

Four, I love learning. That’s saving me in my “migraine retirement.” Everything I read or listen to leads to further learning. A million more authors, topics, places, and histories. It’s endless. I have a disorganized library at home. I love saving used books the older the better.

Five, I see. The world. People. Hearts. Pain. God.  Bad. This trait has a through line to 1-4. Sometimes that includes my photography or travel. But lately, it has stalled as I’ve been working on my migraines and trying not to despair of ever traveling again. I have a dog, my husband’s dog, who is old but still with us, very anxious without one of us. Tom’s waiting till Comet dies to travel. So I read and collect travel novels. Would love suggestions for the first place to travel to. Or I may go alone.

Six, I can be wise.

I observe well, I am unafraid to express myself, I read, and I may have things to say. We’ll see.

P.S. About my accident, my face is healing with very little scarring. I’m fortunate there.  Now I’m afraid to go for a walk. It’s annoying.

IN THE MEANTIME BY TOM HANSON

In the mean time I am waiting
Through the winter without you
On this thin ice I am skating
Am I falling through?

In the desert I am crawling
In the mean time without you
Is this penance, is it stalling?
Don’t be cruel, don’t be cruel
I miss you

In the mean time I am fading
Won’t you tell me what to do?
A single word persuading
And I’ll wade through
A world of blue
And the waning moon

I know who you are
Yes I know what you are
And I know you won’t go too far
In the mean time

Now in your mean time I’ll be waiting
In these long days without you
Pray your rainclouds will be breaking
‘Cause I miss you
You know I do
I need you

I Took A Hard Fall– Quite Literally.

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Snow globe collection.
Before my fall, I gathered up some of the decorations on the kitchen table.
The forlorn tree.
I tripped.

I tripped while walking two nights ago. I have to go tomorrow for a tetanus booster.

Honestly, if there was ever a reminder of human frailty, it is a lack of balance. Today, I hit bottom. I’m sad. My face is mincemeat. My shoulder aches.  My chin aches. The inside of my lip is the worst. I’m lucky I didn’t bite it through. I’m lucky I didn’t break my nose. I’m fortunate I didn’t snap teeth.

I was bundled up for the freezing temperature, dearly regretting my follow-through on a resolve to get more exercise. I was watching a man walking backward down the street and marveling at his temerity. The next thing I recall is slow-motion falling. I felt my face hit the cement. Of course, I looked up to see if he noticed. Tried to stand. Felt dizzy and disorientated. Touched my chin.  That hurt. I turned around after picking up my headphones and glasses, which both flew off. My phone was in my hand. My other hand was covered in blood. I looked down and blood was dripping down my coat. Rivulets of purplish red on black. Drip, drip, drip. What the hell? Long story short, called home for a ride because of all the blood. Enough to draw a lot of attention, and I felt embarrassed.

Two days later, I look a mess. My chin is warm to the touch, scabbing, and it hurts. I am in pain all over, feel exhausted, and can’t take down the Christmas decorations. No one offers to help. This depresses me more than I’d like.

I feel like women all over the world wonder if Christmas would even happen if they didn’t exist. It certainly wouldn’t be celebrated the same way. I’m tired and want to let go of many things. I desire fewer possessions and no longer want the pressure of continuing traditions and family legacies. I’m ready for the next generation to decide what’s important to them and take a journey into my painting.

I regret ending on such a down note, but I’m hurting. Until next time.

A beautiful painting that evokes memories of home, whether from the past or the future.

Hello, I’m Spinning

I’m not ok. It’s taken a long time to admit to myself. Holly has been gone seven years.

It makes sense to admit it here. Where the wind howls around the dust-filled corners of this blog from lack of new words. Perhaps no one will read this. Do people even have blogs anymore? I don’t care. I’ve always written for myself.

I’m spinning. I have no coping mechanisms. I’ve been “saving” old books or buying depending on your perspective. But I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. No recreational drugs– too risky for me. I don’t drive my car recklessly or gamble. I guess maybe I’ve been overeating, that was my mother’s thing. But it’s more like the sedentary life is killing me. 

I don’t have “faith.” To me, I mean that I no longer live my life as if I need or believe in God. I’ve always been exceptionally hard on myself but this truth seems especially important to admit for some reason: My life is secular. I have not entered a church in more than a year before that it was before Covid. I have no relationship with discipleship. That’s just a church word for mentoring done by someone spiritually wise with someone who is less so but yearns to be worthy.

Unless you count my bookshelves and the authors who speak loudly and profoundly. The same goes for the influence of friends. Na da. Even my lovely partner is silent with me. I’m fairly convinced he loathes me, for I have felt angry, sullen, and isolated. I’m so judgemental that my adult son pointed it out to me more than once; I’ve embarrassed him. That humiliated me but in the best way. In the way that your heart knows already and wants to do better.   I tried a rubber band to stop my mouth, at least so that he wouldn’t hear what a terrible person I’d become.  This was hard to stick with. That snap hurts! Plus, what do I do with my head which won’t stop criticizing me? I lost my sister (a different sister than Holly) because she couldn’t hear my sarcasm, anger, and meanness any longer. She walked out of my life. I probably deserved it. It’s my penance for turning into my dad when I’m around her. I can’t say her name because her final straw was my talking about us on Facebook.

The last time I saw Holly, was in February 2018 in Couer d’Alene, ID
My mother and I de-boning the Thanksgiving turkey.
My kids.

I miss my parents. I never realized I’d miss them when they were dead. I think I hated my parents my whole life. There were many reasons, simplified it was for the control. And the neglect. “Emotional whiplash for breakfast, honey?” Lack of trust to make decisions, any decisions, from what to wear to what or if I’d attend college, to whether I could date a Black friend, have a lesbian roommate, or move overseas. I was not to: Be unique. Or be original.  Because there was a ” right way” to think,  to be, to believe, to live. 

Pick, pick, pick. Criticism. Correction. Outrage. Disappointment.  I’m fairly certain the only thing my father was proud of me for was the Urbana job. For my mother, it was marrying Tom. He’s “A good man” by which she meant not a controlling, angry, abusive bastard like my father. And I was a good mother, she thought.  But I was an alcoholic and workaholic, and I barely remember when my kids were little because of it– like her and my father.  I’ll never forgive myself.

So why do I miss them I wonder? Because childhood would bring Holly back to life. And I would protect her this time.

This is year six.

Do you remember when I last saw Holly? It was around this time, six years ago, in late February 2018, and despite the challenges she was going through, she was determined to keep her kids’ lives as normal as possible. She drove over to Couer d’Alene,  ID, from Washington with her kids. We had about half a day, so we ate breakfast, let the kids swim in the resort’s pool, and hung out. It was inspiring to witness her strength, but I recall she was pretty depleted from all the adversity she faced with the divorce. Although I was feeling drained from our social commitments and meetings, I remain grateful for the last memories and Tom and I having had the opportunity to be there for her during such a difficult time.

I have been struggling with migraines for the past three years, which has been quite discouraging. Despite receiving countless recommendations from various individuals, I have tried many remedies with some success. However, my life has been heavily impacted and many activities have become difficult to manage with migraines, including travel, communication, productivity, reading, writing, creativity, work (both personal and professional), shopping, cleaning, caring for others, and taking care of my own well-being. According to my neurologist/headache specialist, the headaches I’ve been experiencing are likely a result of the chronic stress I’ve been under for the past decade.

I “retired” to tackle migraines head-on, not to mention it had become impossible to work. By now, I presumed I would be better at spending my time doing something fun and creative, but that didn’t happen, and I have a chronic illness because otherwise. I find myself once again nosediving straight into a mental health crisis. If you know my story, you comprehend how frightened I am.

Yesterday, I acknowledged to myself that I need a non-negotiable daily routine. I began with walking. Cleaned my study for the first time since Christmas.

I’m thinking, for self-care:

Sleep hygiene by setting a bedtime and wake time, getting sunlight first thing, movement, nutrition, eating breakfast, getting dressed for the day, limiting the people and things in my life that vex me, spending time in nature a couple of times a week, and stress management.

How do you manage self-care? What are your daily non-negotiables?

Melody

The Monster was Caged & Resting

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I asked my son to write about his depression. I am trying to save him.

I want to know what it is like to be inside him. Him specifically because every person’s suffering is different. I know the exercise of putting words down on paper heals.

But I know depression only too well. It chases me. It’s never far. Though it’s been a good long while. The monster has been resting.

It’s been glorious to wake without it heavy on my bones.

If I’m lucky enough to live a while in peace, I fill my mind with other things, books, music poetry, and people who tell a different story one of liberation from the destruction, heavy, crushing demolition.

When I slow down now to remember – for I told him I would write, too and put down the words of depression – it feels like letting a monster out of its cage to play a while. A dangerous game. The monster only wants to kill. But if I visit, like in the zoo, perhaps I can view it from a safe distance.

Depression is dogged, relentless. It won’t let me sleep well, and the more fitful the sleep, the longer the dark days awake. Depression hurts me in my bones. It’s a deep ache, heavy, as if I’m full of sand. Each step, each breath, each thought more difficult than the last.

Yesterday, I heard it knocking, I learned I’ll be seeing someone, a family member, who has declared me unfit, unworthy of their love (and time), and the monster came to sit on my chest. Instantly, I was immobilized by anxiety. Meanwhile, it laughed deeply and ironically and climbed on top of me.

As I drove through the Wisconsin countryside, fighting to stay awake from a long day, a great big, emorphous tonnage of a monster crept up and pounced. I feel it now, the next day. On my ribcage. I can’t see it, only I feel it make itself at home on my ribcage. I can’t fling it off, too heavy, but also like water between my fingers, shape-shifting, magical but hideous.

So I am in danger right now. I’m at risk if i keep it to myself. I’ve never achieved anything important by myself when it comes to this monster.

I can distract myself, but that’s a dangerous addiction for me. I can retell my worthiness to myself, but the monster on my chest is about my value, and I’m no match on my own.

But pride always keeps me from speaking. I’m mute against the danger, the suffering which I know will come in the days ahead if I don’t speak aloud. “I am in danger.”

As I chase something truer than her lies, I’m already tired.

I’m already afraid.

I’m already beaten.

I know one of these times the monster will win.

Do I fight?

For now, she settles in. Ignores me. That is her superpower satisfied with scaring me close to death then slowly crushing the air from my lungs. I know if I don’t fight, she’ll more than ravage. Or maim. More than lay waste.

She will consume and kill me slowly, as asphyxiation finishes the job.

Right here, in this moment, being tired already, I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll go sit in the sunshine. That’s a microchoice toward life.

Just Tears

I’ve been on a winding path. One that’s taken me through valleys (yes, more than one) and to even lower places that I didn’t want to crawl out of because these days, just showing up for the people in my home is enough. I can’t be expected to be happy too.

I’m imagining a world in my daydreams where there’s no guns that kill sisters and no fractured families due to generations of anger. Where siblings don’t have to protect their heart by cutting off relationship with each other. Where friends don’t die of cancer. What children aren’t depressed. Where our body’s patience for our mental anguish doesn’t cause daily migraines. Where kids don’t have to think they’ve become adults via murder.

My thoughts are winding just like the path. I thought I’d stop living after I was done raising all the children in my house.

Not die physically, of course, but just lay down in a grassy spot by the path of life and see if it mattered that I don’t get up. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t create. Don’t write. Don’t challenge ideas. Don’t be me.

I think the God that I thought had forgotten me has different plans, I don’t really want to hear them.

But as I sit in my first church, since before Covid, I’m melting. I can think of no other way to describe my insides, which were solid stone. I sit, and I feel deep inside me the flow of water starting. I sit in church and weep. Sometimes shuttering sobs threaten. Mostly quiet trickles, eyes closed, tears stream from me while I do my best just to BE. Open.

My church, this church, has a chorus of singers that makes me feel like I’m actually with Jesus. In a way never before in my life it’s just Jesus and me and I’m weeping all my rage, and disappointment, and fury, and exhaustion, and fear–oh my God so much fear that something terrible is just around the corner.  As if I’m a mole being whacked and each time I’m stupid enough to raise my head with any hop, whack. Whack. Whack.

Jesus does want me alive. For now, that’s enough.

If Anyone

If anyone was likely

To die early, it was me.

The black dog brought me close

More than once. But she’s gone and I

Must live, a mother who lives

Forever.

Violence and Mental Illness

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As many of you know, we have mental illness in our family lineage. The details don’t matter in this case, I think. But it is important for people who know nothing about it to know that mental illness can be in any family and violence is not directly correlated with it. Despair and lack of hope, maybe. Many things come together, mental health being just one of them, to create a situation where a person does a violent act.

My brother in law was a mostly gentle person in my experience. Of course I wasn’t married to him and my sister is gone, but from our lived experiences I believe she would agree. Verbal abuse is something that did occur which was painful to be a child in their household. But my sister struggled with verbal anger too, a legacy from my father.

We were verbally abused most of our lives into adulthood up until his death.

When we asked Holly if she was comfortable with Paul having a gun in their home, she said she was because he kept it in a safe. I am sure she was thinking a child wouldn’t stumble on it, don’t we all think that about guns at home? Keep them away from the kids. She was offered a restraining order during the divorce which she declined. She did not believe he was violent in that way.

But he murdered her. He took his gun, did some target practice (we didn’t know this until afterward from the police), tricked his way into Holly’s home, laid in wait upstairs and then killed her.

I have many sleepless nights thinking about that. Of course, we could have said something. We just listened, when more than a year before her murder when she told us about the gun. Paul was not a violent person. It was shocking to us that he thought he needed a gun in a suburban neighborhood of Seattle. But we just listened. At that point I didn’t know my brother in law very well. He was depressed for many years through out their seventeen years of marriage. A few times I tried to help.

“There’s no shame in seeking help. Antidepressants do change you. They don’t feel good. I am struggling with that myself, for much of my adult life. I don’t like how they make me unable to feel much. But they also help me out of the passive suicidality of major depression.”

Our situation is unique. But aren’t they all and I suppose that’s my point. The people that are out there killing, who have mental illness of some sort in their history, are unique humans. Their upbringing, their financial situation, their lack of healthy relationships, their solitude, their access to mental health support, joblessness, access to medicine, therapy, doctors all create a moment of time where anything is possible. And being poor, to get help almost impossible to resolve.

It is more difficult to get mental health support in this country than to buy a gun.

Psychology Today

Mental health support needs to be continuous, it is very dependant on the person’s access to help as well as all the things I listed above.

For many years we fought the system to get our daughter help and when we in our most despondent, when all we could think of was to take her to the ER, we were told she has to be a direct threat to herself (actively suicidal) or to others. Do you know how hard that is to prove? Much less wanting to declare that about your loved one.

Mental health and violence to yourself or others is an impenetrable labyrinth.

My Very Little Faith

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cropped-2796253209_98caa0e57e_o.jpg1.

As it turns out I have A Very Little Faith. Perhaps I am a product of my human father who believed personal greatness was achieved through his tenacious hard work. Having a false humility, showing off A Very Big Faith, I saw that it was one that didn’t fundamentally change his character. Not really. This was my experience.

Still doubting his own goodness at the end of his life, my father died longing to hear “Well done.”

2.

All of my life I have feared the thought of not really knowing. What do I believe? Feared this very thing: A Very Little Faith. Consequently my prayer life has been frantic and hapless.  There’s a weariness in faith achieved by your effort. And yet, this is faith. Not knowing, striving.  the balance needs to be in how much is human effort and how much is laying down, in relief, our human need.

When strife hit us it struck like a cold winter’s storm. Those of us who live where the seasons always come know that winter is expected.When adversity came and set up camp in our lives, at first I thought, “Of course.” And “I deserve this, somehow.”

3.

Then, as time went on, I came to understand something entirely different. A realization about myself that only adversity has brought. I’ve done a lot of my spiritual life in my strength. The work of living with clinical depression and occasionally overcoming at least for seasons. The strength of mothering with depression. The control required to get sober. And stay sober for seven years. And live sober daily. All me.

Our child three years in and out of psychiatric hospitals. A great effort required me to find and work with all kinds of doctors, psychiatrists and therapists. To wrangle with the school system. All to advocate for my child’s current and future health. To hold on to hope in the middle of destruction and pain, singular sorrow, a mother’s grief, all took my personal strength and wits. There is the constant not knowing how to receive help and not allowing others in, to protect my child’s privacy, How does one receive encouragement and take help for a while to share the load? Almost impossible. Layered atop it, helping my mother in the last two years of her rapid decline, physically and mentally. All required doggedness and charity and choosing to do the right thing.  Too much of me.  And over time this has weakened me, isolated in unhelpful ways, the searing fear and solitude.

4.

Prayer then is what? I have struggled to understand. My Little Faith drove me to my knees, humbled. Hurt and pressed in by all this pain.  Call it suffering if you like, most people would but I’ve become uncomfortable with the comparison.

As if life isn’t just hard. For good people and bad alike, life brings good and bad things. Calling it suffering presupposes that somehow I don’t deserve hardship.  And that’s not the point. It simply is what it is.

5.

I don’t want to know how will it all turn out?  That question remains unspoken, becomes the greatest test of My Very Little Faith. Erroneously, for as I said, life is hard. For good people and bad.

Will we be okay?  Will she grow out of her mental illness?  Will he or she ever grow up to work and live on their own?  Will the business survive?  Will I stay sober?  Will I ever be free of depression? How will my mother’s last years disappear into the fog of her memories?

I don’t ask God to explain.

I think it, I wonder about it. But these are not prayers.

I’m afraid to pound on God’s chest which assumes an intimacy I wonder if we have ever shared.

Turns out I have A Very Little Faith.

6.

I do have Hope. An unreasonable belief that we will get through this.  Life may yet give us a reprieve. Life may not.

This is the tension of being human. Hope, I suppose, is a freedom to not be dejected by it all. To not be destroyed. Ultimately, to be content in this, too. To grow comfortable with life enough to pray something altogether different.  I accept this.

Hope is believing God is good and longs to share goodness with us all. Do I know what this means, not really. Is it enough to believe that God is faithful to us? To let go of the how, the why and the when, all existential?  Hope is based on the premise that God only gives what is good, which is not the same as gives all the good things that I can imagine to ask for.  Peace is found in the release of open hands, willing for anything to come–the unimaginable. Even something better than my limited imagination and Very Little Faith allows.

The unseen is ahead, the future is unclear, the mist heavy and yet the person of hope finds peace which is beyond intellectual understanding.

The prayers of a Very Little Faith faith weakens my soul. Corrupts the possibility of a good future. All my attention on the present moment and not on the One who is good beyond my comprehension.

Whether we ask and we question, or we rail against God and we ask again. Or we thank or praise. It comes to this. Is it a prayer made in hope or A Very Little Faith?

7.

For months now, even years, my spiritual life is stagnated by fear of more pain than I can handle. My Very Little Faith holding to a pattern of foggy, doubting emptiness.

Henri Nouwen says, in this moment “Spiritually you are dead. There can be life and movement only when you no longer accept things as they are now, and you look ahead toward that which is not yet.”

How much of the spiritual life is wrongly asking but not hoping for what is not yet? What we want will surely never come. For we long for peace, for comfort, for good health, for success and happiness for our children, for all the good things we feel promised somehow.  Not promised by God, surely but by a fractured, ill, witless weak culture. We subconsciously buy in and are subsequently dismayed with our lives. Or are we thinking wrongly again. Yes, with certainty.

And in the end people of A Very Little Faith are compelled to open our hands to God in hope.

Simple hope. This, then, is A Very Big Faith grown in us without our doing anything at all.

Amen

P.S. I’ve been reading With Open Hands (Ava Maria Press, 1972) by Henri J. M. Nouwen which has heavily influenced the laudable parts of what I’ve thought here.  The foolishness is all my own.

I’ve been honored to be a part of a collaborative book titled Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels. I wrote on my ideas of prayer based on my understanding of 1 Thessalonians 5 that we are to pray without ceasing.

disquiettimecover

Award-winning religion columnist Cathleen Falsani (Chicago Sun-Times, Religion News Service, Orange County Register) and Jennifer Grant edited this labor of love, the new anthology Disquiet Time.

In their words:

At its conception, we wondered,

“What if we asked a subset of our most intelligent, inventive, and faithful (and/or scoundrelly) friends to reflect in a deep way about how the Good Book has affected them?”

We decided that we needed to give them room to be snarky, to dig deeply, and to stray away from a PG rating if needed.

And so, almost two years after our first, funny email exchange about the idea, we present a book comprised of more than forty contributors including Dale Hanson Bourke, Eugene Peterson, Margot Starbuck, Jay Emerson Johnson, Debbie Blue, Brian McLaren, Amy Julia Becker, Karen Swallow Prior, Christian Piatt, Carla Barnhill, and many other talented writers and Island of the Misfit Toys-souls who describe themselves as Christian, post-Christian, Jewish, Zen Buddhist, Anglobaptist, or “none of the above.”

That’s kind of the point of Disquiet Time.

I do hope you will look for it.

It’s not about theological or ideological labels or conformity, but, instead, about hearing stories you might not otherwise have been in the room to hear.

It’s about giving thoughtful people the opportunity to tell their faith stories, as rough or incomplete or irreverant or sincere as these stories might be.

Read, enjoy, and be a little braver when you tell your own story of faith and/or doubt.

The book launched last week and (although our publisher Hachette and Amazon are currently arm-wrestling, and Amazon isn’t making it easy to order Disquiet Time), our friends at independent booksellers, and Barnes and Noble and iTunes (among other generous and author-loving places) will cheerfully honor your order of our book.

New: A Solemn & Ordinary Life. #Self-Care in Living with Depression

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profile_36488479_75sq_1396225512on one level, her day-to-day life had become solemn and ordinary;

awkwardly commonplace, when

{self-care} is at the top of her To Do.

she thinks.

what kind of person needs that to do?

—

a person that deep down disgusts herself. she starves herself all day long until her hungry body confused enough to relentlessly hoard calories. a person that starts smoking in her forties then quit overnight. in the not too distant past was a falling down drunk. she does not remember much of childhood.

her daily heartache now is that she cannot remember details of her baby’s early days

when she was addicted to work, driven. Still, three babies sucking at her breasts for six years were fed by a body starving itself. staying home to be with Them she became unrecognizable to herself, depressed and before long, a decade was gone.

she was a missionary’s kid, a girl that went numb. living in denial of all the fear and heartache at home, her superpower was discovered early, invisibility. a middle child, the peacemaker, and the “sensitive one.” she pretended. always hiding from The Rager, they were all concealers and secret keepers.  Mother was ill. it was not a conscious choice to slowly evaporate.

—

she finds herself intensely staring down forty-eight;

the Rager is dead and gone. now she is a care giver to her elderly, addled mother and those precious children grown into teenagers.

she is unable to remember how—sitting at her kitchen table which never holds hot meals,

classical music is jangly and bombastic,

strong, hot coffee,

the summer rain falling outside the bay window is cold.

She writes

To do:

1. self-care. 

 

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{rough thoughts on love and mortality in the middle years}

I have no business writing when I need to be packing, preparing, paying bills, picking up prescriptions, cleaning house, and washing laundry, readying myself and the family for me to leave town.  These are very drafty thoughts on aging parents, ailing friends, launching teenagers, and being human.  

 016-20120504_0189.NEF

Love and Mortality in the Middle Years

Our middle years—carry

the work of tending to ailing parents

and sometimes losing,

nursing them respectfully and without impatience.

That is love of a child.

 //

Our middle years—rambling side by side with good friends,

you and I, fighting illness and the frailty of being human.

Growing into who we were going to become.

That is the love of a partner and friend.

 //

The human toll of ageing all the while launching

children to fly! The human ache of

watching lives unfold.

Let them fly, let them flail.  Breathing hope into their

youthful lungs. Speaking truth all the while

shaking your head as they roll their eyes in disgust. Wobbly legs

running out and away.  Knowing this

is what they are meant to do.

That is the love of a parent.

 //

We all need wisdom, grace upon grace and more joy (oh, for more joy!).

In the midst of relentless sorrow and loss,

your doorway remains open.

In this middle space of anticipation, of letting go

in more ways than is reasonable or comfortable,

all of which is profoundly difficult

and is the principle achievement of being human.

 //

Middle years: Caring and holding,

loving and letting go.

All this is the Life and Death of the middle years.

This is love and mortality

in the middle years.

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{When the Truth Hurts: “Being Broken” is Not My Life’s Metanarrative}

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Rilke says to celebrate the questions.

1.

A truth has circled me like a persistent fly, zooming in close and then away again. When I stare straight at it, it becomes momentarily clear. Then suddenly it’s gone disappearing into thin air.

The truth hurts almost as much as my perception of my Being Broken has wounded me, at least at first.  Perhaps that is why we sometimes stay stuck in a static and gray malaise.

Recently the fragments came together – swiftly, an epiphany—through the help of a friend.  What I had struggled for so long to understand now made perfect sense and then it was echoed by several other people reinforcing what I heard.

2.

There is a sacredness in tears…They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.  Washington Irving

The last decade has included repeated seasons of depression, ongoing recovery from addiction, and spiritual upheaval. These were all things I had to pass through to become who I am today. I am grateful.  Through it all I learned that I am resilient.

I have been stuck.

I’m finished with being stuck in regret, wishing that I had made different or better choices, and imagining who I might have become, and thinking of life with different parents or greater personal fortitude or less fear or more gumption. We don’t get to choose our parents or our family of origin with its dysfunctions and ghosts.  It’s all too easy to look back and wish, wonder or hope for something unattainable.

I have lived long enough in the shadows of my father‘s rigid control and in the murky, gloomy regret of my mom’s life. I love them both, but I don’t want to become either of them.  No matter how afraid I am, I will forge my own path.

Finally, I have admitted to myself that I am afraid of the future, of autonomy from children, and of a purpose greater than what I can plan or believe for myself.

3.

The years have left their mark on me with many gray hairs and furrowed facial lines. I turn 48 in September and we’ll be married twenty-one years in June; we have three teenaged children and an adult child, who are all learning to fly.  I love being a mother, but while my children learn to fly I will also grow some wings.  I will search for my voice. And find it.  This is frightening for me.

In 2001 I walked away from a PR & Marketing job I was proud of and was successful at by any standard; I was thirty-five years old with three babies under four.  I turned my back on my leadership and creative talents. I hid them away. Now I see that I have been like the servant in the Gospels who buried and “protected” her talent and waited.

I accepted a lie that “Being Broken” was the metanarrative of my life – the only narrative I have to offer others, as if it safeguarded me from the uneasiness of finally rising up afraid of my authority.  I began to believe the lie that I was broken beyond usefulness, because of the years I spent addicted to booze and healing from the illness of depression.

The hard truth is that my brokenness has consumed and side tracked me. I came to believe in my aching places that at forty-seven years old my life was over.

Every time I imagined otherwise or began to dream fear took over.

4.

Finally it’s time to kneel hard on my father’s grave and say: Daddy, I’m sorry for many things but most of all for how I wanted to hurt you. But this bitterness became a virus in my soul telling me I am the failure you were afraid I’d become.

Only this hasn’t hurt him. It’s become my self-fulfilling prophecy—an obnoxious, stench of a lie that I’ve been living. I’ve been scared to open my mouth. I’ve been too insecure to believe I have anything unique or worthwhile to say or give. I have been waiting for validation from my dead father that will obviously never come and that I don’t need.

I thought I was no longer trust worthy. I’ve written BROKEN on my body; a lasting tattoo reminding me that because daddy said or thought so, I wouldn’t amount to anything. My father has been the Puppeteer controlling me, even now his power looming though he’s been dead eleven years.

It’s time to find another image to prick and stain on my skin!  To mark myself with promise.  I am a blank canvas full of dreams. I want to believe in me again, to stand up and clear my voice and shout, even if it is shaky and quaking at first. This new thing has been a long time coming.

It is also true that I have used my words and my pictures, quietly seeking to tell a story to help others.  And in my little corner of the universe I have made beauty out of shards of my pain.

So I say out loud, I am worthy to speak and it matters little my pedigree or that more than a decade of my life seem to have disappeared like a vapor.

5.

“I think I need a job” I spoke hesitantly to my friend. She asked why, saying “you’re an incredibly gifted writer and a photographer.” “My life feels wrong.” I replied. “I want to contribute. Perhaps I want a paycheck. And I am lonely at home.” I added this as an afterthought.

This friend brings out the best in me. The ME she sees, I don’t see for myself.  I tell myself and out loud I tell her, “I am all these bad things.” And she gently laughs and tells me honestly who I am.

I ask her, “How do you have the courage to do something new? What do you do with your fear?” Changing the direction of our conversation completely, she asked the question that changed everything.

“Melody, what do you have that’s uniquely you?” Her question forced me to peel away truth from my regrets, self-doubt and fear.

It came quickly and quietly: “I have my words and my way of thinking. That’s what I have to offer. That I know is true.”

We all get stuck or believe in our own mediocrity.  Perhaps your life isn’t quite as ambiguous as mine.  But I believe this is true for everyone.  As we face our daily challenges, we have to keep believing that there’s a greater and enduring purpose to our life.  It may not be a grand opus we’ll compose. It may be much more humble and much less exciting. But whatever it is, it is important for each of us to discover.

It’s never too late.  None of us are too broken.  We only have today.  What will we do with this day and days ahead, together they become our life..

6

Deep into that darkness peering,
long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting,
dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

Edgar Allan Poe

Today has been a long time coming—growing out of distress, blunders, and discomfort. I still have a lot of spiritual work to do, but I accept that embarrassment and shame will be a part of the past and the future is a blank canvas.  The uncertainty of tomorrow forces me to deliberate, knowing that life can be snatched away in a moment.

I’m uncomfortable with generalizations about gender but I wonder if this is a particularly female instinct? To have a proclivity toward self-doubt, a desire for external validation, (for me especially) a Daddy hole the size of the universe, to imagine that your life could serve no purpose and to believe that you don’t have anything unique to contribute.   Male or female, I know all people experience these doubts at one time or another, Perhaps it is middle age that bring a wondering if your life could be over, when it could be just starting again.

Taking a decade long break from a career is a frightening proposition that is traditional to women.  Combine that with my particulars, the idea of believing in my future takes faith.

I believe, help my unbelief.

I’m taking the first shaky steps toward a future still unwritten. My life isn’t over.

Perhaps another way to look at it is that I’m only forty-seven years old. It is time to dream.  I have a unique voice and a way with words.

I intend to use them.