It Sounds Like Joy

Ever notice how we human beings have ways of marking the passage of time? Sure, we have our calendars, our reminders, our clocks and gizmos. I’m talking about the not-so-obvious ways of marking time. The ways that mark time in subtle ways that leave you realizing after the fact how time has passed rather than noting it up front.

I am not a winter person. I like cool weather but I’m really a sunny, summer person. I mark my years mostly by noting the passage of the seasons. The months from January to the end of March are dreadful for me. In the region where I live winters are relatively mild, but temperatures can vary from a balmy 60 degrees one day to snowing and freezing levels the next. I find this pretty tough on my system. I’m always glad when Daylight Saving Time arrives. Even though I lose an hour, I can see that summer is on the way, and with it, some more consistent temperatures.

I’m also in a career field that allows me to not have to show up or punch a clock during the summer, while still receiving a paycheck. I am not paid for those days, but the pay for the days I do work is spread out over the entire year. So, in addition to the seasons, I mark the advent of time through the annual cycle of my job. For example, for most people the New Year begins in January, but for me, the New Year begins in late August. I know the New Year is coming up when I see close outs on summer swimwear and sales on school supplies. When others celebrate the New Year I am celebrating the halfway point in another year.

Some people count time by using holidays as markers. There are the usual fall festivities of Back-to-School leading up to Halloween, which a friend of mine swears is the official start of the holiday season. Then, of course, to make the longer nights and shorter days more bearable we have all the big parties like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s. we move trough the dreariest part of the year with fewer holidays, until we arrive at 4th of July; marking our passage already through half the summer and the year.

Tonight, as I lie awake listening, I realize that sounds can also indicate the passage of time by evoking memories of earlier times when the sounds were similar to the ones we hear now. Or, maybe, it is how the sounds differ that strike a chord in our memories, giving us pause to realize how much things have changed; to note the changes over the course of time.

Tonight, for me, is one of those “sounds” moments. In earlier posts on this blog I wrote of the sounds I heard late at night. These words were penned at a time in my life when I was experiencing the end of a very disastrous marriage. At one point, I lived in a trailer borrowed from friends. Now, almost five years later, I can feel the rumble of the semi’s and the roar of their tires on the pavement as I lied awake fearful and anxious wondering how we’d survive. At a later point, I was rebuilding life in an older home requiring a great amount fixing up. Awake late at night, I heard the gurgling hum of the pool pump and the sound of the occasional car passing on the highway a mile north of our old home. The divorce was final, the dust had settled, I was incredibly worried about finances, but I was safe and, in many ways, happier than I’d ever been.

Tonight as I lie awake, I listen. I hear sounds that are similar to those earlier times, blending with new sounds. I still hear the familiar sounds of tires on roadway, the tinkling magical sound of the wind chimes hanging outside my bedroom window, the cool air coming in from outside, and tonight…rain.

But it isn’t entirely the same either. The tires on roadway are now on a freeway, an interstate. The same one I lived beside in the borrowed trailer. Instead of a thundering roar of truck tires barreling by only a couple hundred feet away, I hear a steady soft roar reminiscent of the ocean, constant but not loud. It is muffled, but definitely there. Calming in its steady tones the distant roar of the freeway is a reminder of how things have changed and of how they haven’t. The wind chimes tinkle from a different home, a two story, larger, newer, easier to maintain. It has a dishwasher, and no yard, but plenty of spacious decking. Gone is the hum of the pool pump, the click of the hot tub heater kicking in, replaced these days by the soft sound of the breeze blowing through massive cedars.

So much has happened in the last five years. As I sit considering all that transpired since this time half a decade past, I’m astounded at what I’ve lived through. Proud of some accomplishments; embarrassed and ashamed by others. It’s all part of life and I’ve made my peace with my past. I ponder the passage of time tonight not with calendar nor clock, but with the simplicity of sound. The sounds take me back and move me forward simultaneously…and for the briefest of moments time stands still. I am, as I was back then, grateful, content, and filled with a strange, unlikely emotion that comes not from having things or lacking stress, but from being alive. It sounds like joy.

5 Lessons Learned From My 3-Year-Old Self

Just yesterday,it seems, I was three, toddling around my grandparents’ property in Idaho; following my grandfather everywhere and chasing the neighbors chickens from across the road. These were happy, carefree days. I was surrounded by people I loved, in a location I loved, doing the things I loved, whatever that is at three, and nothing in my world was amiss. I looked forward to each moment. In fact, I was too busy enjoying each moment I had no concern for the next. My old mind now recalls those happy times as the endless days of summer. There were no rainy days both literally and figuratively.

Fast forward 50 years and the landscape dramatically shifts. I’m no longer three, no longer quite so carefree. My free-spirited happy-go-lucky three-year-old self morphed into a middle-aged woman with worries. There are wonderful summer days aplenty in my 50-year-old life. There are also many, many overcast and rainy days too.

When did I grow up? When did I take on the responsibilities and cares that fill my days? How and when did I lose that sense of existing only for the moment without worrying about or anticipating the next?

These days, with a birthday around the corner marking the half-century milestone so many love to hate, I’m prone to pondering the reality of my aging and the inevitability of my ultimate death more often than ever before. Will I be okay financially after I can no longer work? Will my physical body age well so that I can remain active, mobile, and self-sufficient for as long as possible? Will my mind and my memories remain intact? Will my children be able to obtain the skills and educations they need in order to live well and take care of themselves as adults? I have replaced my 3-year-old ways of living in the moment with a 50-year-old’s ways of stressing out about the wrong turns in life and the reality that, at 50, I am again in a place of starting over without the benefit of youth, energy, time and a fairly clean slate to work with.

I’m aging. I don’t like it. Unlike being an infant and being unaware in my helplessness, I will someday be helpless again (oh, I do hope not too helpless) only this time, I will be aware of that helplessness and my dependency upon others. I will be aware of days when I was stronger, when I was healthier, when I was better able to cope independently. I think I will not enjoy being in that place. I am working hard now to avoid that by staying as active and mentally alert as possible.

I wonder often, of late, what these days will really be like. Like the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, I wonder when it comes to the latter years of my life will I be more like the Grasshopper or the Ant? So often, to date, I’ve foolishly chosen the role of the Grasshopper. I do not choose this path now, but I doubt myself. Can I adequately prepare for the winter years of my life at this late stage of the game. Am I even ready, beyond merely storing away for a rainy day, to weather all that I might encounter in years to come? Aging, especially aging well, is not for the faint of heart.

So, facing the reality of my humanity and my mortality, I pause to consider a few lessons gleaned from my 3-year-old self. These lessons don’t do anything to slow the inevitable ticking of the clock in its relentless march toward the future, but they might help make the the journey into the days ahead something far more enjoyable to look back on than my anxious 49.75 year-old-self is doing now. These ideas are not new, they are not profound, but they are, I think, helpful in creating the kind of perspective that creates the kind of life that leads to the kind of future I hope to live.

Lesson 1: Live in the moment. At 3, I really had no idea that the future existed. I lived in a perpetual state of “now”. I didn’t worry about troubles to come. I knew the big people in my life would take care of everything. In fact I wasn’t even aware that there was anything they needed to take care of for me. I spent all my existence exploring and enjoying the world immediately around me whether it was mucking around in the pasture in my Grandpa’s old galoshes or playing in the hay in the barn or chasing the neighbors chickens to see if they would fly. I enjoyed each and every moment as if it was new even though each and every day was much like the day before and the day to come. As adults we gain greater capacity to remember and learn and anticipate. That’s good, but we often lose the sense of wonder and joy that comes with being in the present without dwelling anxiously about what must be done next. I’m not suggesting we scrap planning or goal-setting. But backing off and focusing on being in the moment and appreciating that moment for what it is, instead of viewing life always in terms of the things that have to happen to get through the week or the month. I’m a planner and a scheduler, so this is always a challenge for me.

Lesson 2: Trust more. Worry less. My 3-year-old self didn’t worry about the future and the potential problems that could befall me. I now know that there were plenty of things that were worried about by the Big People in my life, but I was unaware of any of it. As an adult, I cannot pretend to be unaware or cavalier about challenges I face or business I must tend to. I do, however, need to trust more actively that the Big Person in my life is working out the details. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the last 5 years since my divorce, it is that things always have a way of working out and it is usually in a much better or more manageable way than I imagined, even if it isn’t perfect. I need to step back and trust more that this will continue to be so. Even if things go badly, my worrying about it won’t change anything. It also makes me and those around me miserable.

Lesson 3: Laugh. This needs really no explanation. 3-year-olds laugh enthusiastically and with abandon. As an adult, finding the humor and hilarity in even the most awkward or troublesome situations can often diffuse tension and release stress. Plus, it can be a whole lot of fun.

Lesson 4: Hang out with those you love. At three, I was very fortunate. My mother lived with my grandparents while she worked to save enough money so she could go to college. My grandparents owned a small department store in the rural Pacific Northwest community where we lived. I spent nearly all of my time with my grandparents either on their property or with them at the store. Later, when my mother eventually went back to school, I spent plenty of time in institutionalized daycare and I made good friends there. To this day, though, my best an most enjoyable memories were of the times I hung out with Grandpa while he went about his daily tasks. No fancy “play dates”. No movies. No trips to this or that whatever Funville. Just time together every single regular, ordinary day. These memories are the happiest for me now. I need to make sure I make the time to “just hang” with those who are most important to me. This is very different than rushing to and from planned activities with loved ones.

Lesson 5: Explore and Play. This is what kids do, don’t they? Without the aid of a gaming system, television, or lessons filling every non-school waking hour, Kia create things to do and games to play. They explore ideas, the backyard, the tool shed. As adults, we can too easily fall into the trap of going, doing, being and providing for everyone else that it is no longer fun. We lose our playfulness and our curiosity. We need to take time to just play. One little known fact from Three-Year-Old World? Coloring isn’t just fun, it’s incredibly therapeutic. If you don’t believe me, go get a coloring book and a big box of crayons and try it. Even better, color while hanging out with someone you love.

I wish time weren’t flying by like a madwoman racing Mach 5 with her hair on fire. I wish, in a way, to be three again. Chasing chickens and following grandpa around the yard as he irrigated the property and fed the dogs without a care in the world except to be happy and have fun. I know I can’t make time stand still and it would be foolish to disregard all responsibilities and obligations of adult life, but my 3-year-old self knew how to take each day at at time and live it to the utmost. I can learn from that person I used to be, by following these five lessons.

What lessons would your 3-year-old self teach you?

Anniversaries, Birthdays & Other Musings of A Convalescent

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.

~Author Unknown

I’ve recently been thinking about birthdays, anniversaries and other events that commemorate the existence or longevity of relationships, lives, and important activities. This year, as with every year, is filled with several such markers which will recognize the presence of something or someone my life. I will celebrate the birthdays of my children; once again taking time to reflect on how quickly the time has passed since they each decided to depart my womb and enter the world as individuals in their own right. I will celebrate the birthdays of other loved ones as I give thanks for their existence.

In some cases, these anniversaries recognize the time since something ended instead of marking a beginning. This year marks the eleventh year since my first marriage ended and the fifth year since the end of my second one. It will be two years since I gave up dating. I’ll also celebrate one year in my new home, which is also one year since I decided to give up the battle I was fighting trying to keep up an old ranch-style home that I could not maintain nor adequately afford.

In yet other instances, the dates signify transitions rather than births or deaths. For example, it really is inadequate (though it is true) to say that I gave up dating two years ago. I did, but that’s not the whole story. I also met a wonderful man who is somehow able to tolerate and even, most of the time, enjoy my distractedness and my quirks. This year also marks the second year since I realized and began working on some of my own goals and dreams, instead of continually being tied up with making others’ dreams come true. That’s a good thing. I remember the day and the place where I made some pivotal decisions for myself.  Decisions which are just now bearing fruit and taking me through more change. Each transition is just another step along the path I began very intentionally walking in 2010.

This year, as well as hosting some notable anniversaries and birthdays, seems as though it is birthing some events that I might later look back on and recognize each year. I wonder, will I look back in years to come on every Valentine’s Day and think, “Wow, just  (insert number here) years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer.  Will I speculate each year that it’s been this many years since that particular event, or that one, or that one?  I do not yet know these things.

What I do know is this:  events during the first quarter of 2012 have changed my perspective on life.  Before this, I was still facing the big half century birthday, but I was facing it a bit cavalierly.  I thought, “I look young for my age. I feel great. I surely shall live to be 90 or a hundred.”

Life changes on a dime.

The form of cancer I have is entirely curable.  Nobody ever wants to get cancer, but if you have to pull the cancer card in the Game of Life, the kind I have is the one to draw. It is probably one of the most curable especially if caught early, which mine was.  I had to have surgery.  I might have to have radiation (that’s a big might; the fact that radiation might not even be needed tells you how early stage I am). I won’t have to have chemo. I am incredibly blessed and just as grateful. But my odds of getting cancer again, have just increased significantly.  Going through something like a 50th birthday, at the same time as experiencing a cancer diagnosis, when your youngest isn’t even in middle school yet, makes you think.  It makes you think long and hard about the value of life and things and the people in your life.

At the same time, certain things become less important while other things (like getting well and staying strong) become more important. The daily requirements of life morph into this strange place where they are both extremely important and not at all relevant.  This is the most difficult aspect of all.  How to live daily in a way that is relevant and meaningful, when so much of the daily stuff we do doesn’t amount to diddly squat.  It is vitally important that I continue to maintain and do the daily things, but so much of the things we make issues over just don’t matter in the long run.

2012 seems to also be birthing events I might well look back on as markers.  I wonder if Valentine’s Day will now have a new meaning for me each year as the day I was diagnosed with cancer.  Will I look back and say, in years to come, that it was (insert the number of years here) years ago when I found out I had cancer, or I had my first surgery.  Or will I always think of January 6, 2012 (the day of that first biopsy) as significant?  I wonder.

I wonder about these things and I wonder, now, about other things.
Instead of counting the days since certain things have happened, I now begin to wonder how many days until…

Memorial Day Weekend…I Love You, Mom

Sometimes people aren't the only things we memorialize

It’s Memorial Day Weekend.  As with most places in the U.S., something is going on to celebrate in my small neck of the woods.  Whether consciously commemorating those who fought and died for our freedom, or whether using it as an excuse to drink more beer or sell more beer, something is going on.

I’m attending none of it.

Instead, I’m cleaning my garage.

It’s been 4 years…almost….since that stormy June day that I left my second husband finally concluding that no matter how much I desired reconciliation, it was simply not going to happen.  It was nearly nine months before that, during which I planned my escape from a  6-year marriage which I dub as The Nightmare I Couldn’t Wake From.”  This, after leaving a first marriage of 16 years which also failed miserably.

Now, nearly 4 years later,my second ex is remarried to someone he met online shortly after our divorce was final and with whom he ran off to Vegas to marry.  Our daughter spoke to her new stepmother once in person and a few times on the phone before being forced to accept a near stranger into her life as “stepmom.” My first ex remarried months after our divorce was final to someone I knew he was interested in even before we had separated. But I digress.

I’m cleaning out the garage.

Cleaning the garage is pretty easy if you have a “pitch it all” mentality, which I do.  I definitely intend to pitch it all.  I’m downsizing, streamlining, and getting rid of all the stuff I don’t need.  I’m planning to move in the next year.  I’m planning a big life change that will remove me from the places and things that are surrounded in painful memories of the last decade or so.

That’s why I’m cleaning the garage.  I don’t want to take the past with me into my future.

It wasn’t as easy a project as I’d hoped it would be.  You see, sometimes when you clean the garage, it is easy.  You simply say “It goes to Goodwill” or “That goes to recycle” or “That’s trash.”  This is all very simple when you are dealing with furniture, clothing, broken things that cannot be repaired, old TVs and the like.  It is quite a different matter when the stuff you have to sort through consists of five or six large boxes of pictures and memorabilia.

Cleaning out the real junk, the useless “stuff” was the easy part today.  I quickly filled my trailer full of stuff for the landfill, filled my Dodge Durango full of stuff to go to the Goodwill, and my recycling bin full of paper product that in this digital age I can easily re-create or find again online.

The tough part began when I started the ominous task, the task I’d delayed and procrastinated about for over four years, the task of sorting through the pictures, the mementos, the letters, the notes and cards from a lifetime…or was it two…ago.

My mother’s funeral…my second wedding…my son posing in front of the Old Faithful sign after a week of me frantically trying to keep him from impulsively using the Yellowstone Geysers as hot tubs because my husband had confiscated the meds (he doesn’t believe in medicating a child for ADHD…yet it wasn’t his child to make that decision about).  All of the many financial records I kept from my first marriage: the loan papers from a house I recieved no equity in when we divorced, the many other papers, pictures and mementos of a very unhealthy and cluttered life.

When I got to the letter, written in my mother’s handwriting dated February 23, 2002 before she died (obviously, it couldn’t have been after), where she penned these words:

“I have been intending to write to you….There are a couple of things I want to tell you.  I would imagine that as (your first ex) remarries, lives in better circumstances, drives a better car, and wears better clothes, as he takes nice trips, this will get to you a little…”

It took all my composure to not dissolve into tears on the spot.  Had I not had a houseful of kids and a significant other around…I might have enjoyed that luxury.  Today, I did not.  I simply put the letter aside so I could revisit it later.  Now, is that later.  And now, to be honest, I am wiping away tears as I write this.

This letter was written almost, but not quite two years after my divorce from my first ex. We had three children, he got the house without having to split the equity and he coerced me out of a boatload of other financial and custodial rights in the name of trying to be fair. I’m not bitter about this.  I made my choices, uninformed as they were, because I simply wanted out of a marriage that was sucking the very life out of me.  Even so, my mother, long before the events transpired had the foresight to call this spot on.

My ex has been out of the country with his new wife (something he never did with me, though he knew it was a dream of mine), he actually went on a honeymoon with her out of the country for their honeymoon.  For ours?  We ended up spending a weekend somewhere…insignificant in the country…probably in the state…and I can’t even remember it…it was that exciting.

Now, lest you think I am bitter, I am not.  It was a bad match, a bad marriage and everything about it reflects that.  It is what it is and it was what it was.  That’s over and done with.  The part that got me was that my mother called it spot on about the emotions I might feel after the fact.

How could she have known?

She knew because I was walking her same path…or at least a similar one almost 30 years later.

Her life in many ways seemed to parallel mine.

She continues with these words…and I must admit…I had to pause to grieve, to cry, to feel the sadness that comes with knowing I cannot talk to her now…when I’d most like to…

“I say all this to you because I know that you will feel a twinge as (your ex) has, and does, all the things you wanted him to do. Your story is long from completely written yet, and as you continue to struggle and he seems to be doing swimmingly, it will get to you from time to time. Character counts and ultimately shows since leopards can’t change their spots.  So, sweet (and she uses my name here) keep on being your very best and you’ll understand all this better in years to come. In all, try not be resentful at those moments and remember, you are your own person.

I am amazed that she dialed this right in long before it actually happened and, now, after the fact, when all of it has transpired exactly as she predicted in her casual letter to me…I am reduced to tears, once again regretting that I didn’t know a wonderfully insightful woman far better than I did.

So…this is my Memorial Day.  It is celebrated this year, not in honor of military heroes who do deserve honor, but instead, this Memorial Day for me, is celebrated, honored, commemorated, in paying homage to a woman who was an amazing soldier, who never gave up, who persevered through some of the most difficult things life can throw at a person and who defied death at least two or three times and lived to tell about it.

This Memorial Day for me, celebrates my mother (she passed shortly after that letter was written) who fought wars and won them by simply being the most authentic person she could be.  She is one of my biggest heroes in life and one of my biggest regrets in life to date is that I’d wish I known her better than I did.

Me:  I love you, Mom.

My Mom:  I know you do, Honey.  I love you too…and remember this…there are better days ahead. 

Hello? Anyone Out There?

Hello?  Anyone out there?  I know it’s been a while since we’ve talked.  I’ll totally understand if what I have to say floats out there like a balloon freed from the wrist of a toddler.  It floats freely, lazily, disappearing eventually.  None notice and none remember.

I’m okay with that.

After all, since my very long digital silence, I’ve come to one conclusion:  I must write for me and only for me.  Anything else is pandering to a crowd that likely doesn’t exist.

I’m okay with that.

Invictus…or I Decide My Response To The Darkness

I watched the movie, Invictus, last night…for the second time. No, I’m not going to review the movie, nor am I here to wax political about Nelson Mandela.  The poem, and the movie, resonated with me on deeper levels, more personal levels, for reasons of my own which are far removed from the movie.

Here is the poem:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley

No, I’ve not spent the very best years of my life confined in a cell barely larger than the width of my arms fully extended.  I’ve not been beaten or lived among the daily occurrence of bombs falling about my ears.  I haven’t gone off to school happily one day only by the end of the day to find  my parents were decimated when a plane flew into their office building.  I haven’t narrowly escaped an earthquake only to witness my home and a large portion of my small but beautiful country and a large part of it’s inhabitants disappear beneath the resulting tsunami.

No, I’ve been fortunate.  I am truly grateful.  Yet, saying that I should be grateful that I haven’t experienced worse trouble when I am experiencing my own trouble, is a bit like telling a child to eat everything on his/her plate because there are children starving in other parts of the world.  It denies the reality of my current experience and it doesn’t help those who are suffering in other parts of the world one little bit.

So, I’ll conclude with this, my own little trouble is enough for me to deal with right now.  I don’t want to eat it.  I really don’t feel like taking one more bite of it.  I’m full and don’t want to finish.  The starving kids elsewhere can have it.  Sadly, I have to sit through this particular dinner hour.  This poem is a bit like the other good stuff on my plate.  I can deal with the not so good as long as I remember to taste this once in a while.  After all, I choose how I deal with the unsavory aspects of my life and my choices chart the course for my soul and often determine my fate.

Not Just Another Auld Lang Syne

How does one look back on a year such as mine?  Three years ago, I ventured out into one of the scariest places I think I’ve ever been.  Post divorce, 40-something, straddled with debt that wasn’t all mine, looking forward to fewer years to earn back the losses than I had behind me.  While many would say I look good for my age, the fact that they had to add the phrase “for my age” said it all.  I was divorced, single with more children than most, struggling to avoid bankruptcy, and wondering how I was going to pay the bills and put food on the table.  I was frightened.  I was destitute. I was humiliated and ashamed.  I was alone.  To make things better, I blew an engine on one car, and dropped the rear differential out of another.  I had no credit, no cash, no clue what an engine or a rear differential was, and nowhere to turn.  I was terrified.  I wondered, often, how and if I was going to survive.  I was also 40-something and it was only a matter of time before the aging process we all must eventually succumb to, became no longer disguisable. Further, I still had children at home, lots of them, and would probably retire (if that was still even a possibility for me) with them at home.  Not exactly the formula for finding someone to spend your golden years with before you actually get to your golden years.

2010 dawned much like the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.  Dark, dismal, discouraging. Finances were tight and showed no signs of letting up for a long time to come.  Life in the dating world were disappointing at best, and completely discouraging most of the time.  In fact, online dating resembled something more of a leper colony than a way to meet decent people with whom I might share some common ground.  After just under 3 years of dating, I was ready to take it or leave it.  I mostly left it.  I was in and just as quickly out of three relationships this year.  I was less willing to hang out with someone who declared verbally that they were really into me but announced the opposite with their behavior. 

Sometimes truth dawns slowly like the early light of morning on an overcast day. I’d long been aware that I was capable of going places alone and doing things on my own. One simply doesn’t go through tough times like my last decade without realizing that somehow things will all work out.  The realization that I actually enjoyed being on my own, that I looked forward to those times alone, that I was okay with me, and that I wanted to be able to make my own decisions and chart my own course dawned gradually in my awareness, but it changed my thinking and, I believe, the course of my year. 

As I experienced the year, it seemed I spent most of the year alone even though I was either starting, developing or ending some sort of dating relationship for most of the year.   One would think this would leave a person with some sense of personal failure or inadequacy at worst and at best leave one feeling incredibly lonely.  One might think this would taint one’s overall assessment of the success or failure of a particular passage of time.  Not so, for me.  As I rewind through all the most poignant episodes of my year I am struck by the variation of emotions and experiences we are blessed with as human beings. I cherish these memories and revisit them as one might thumb through the pages of a favorite scrapbook.  There are disappointing and discouraging times to be sure, but there are just as many hopeful, encouraging,  joyous and exhilarating episodes as well.  The happier scenes lend far more color to the collage of my year than do those disappointing junctures.  The thought occurs to me, that in most of these memories I am in the company of those I care deeply about; a son, a daughter, a close friend, a long lost friend or family member, and, yes, those dates that passed through my life on their way to other destinations till finally one decided to walk along the path with me for a while.  I haven’t been lonely nor have I been alone.

From the snapshots of watching Avatar three times to starting an exercise program and fighting the balancing act between kids’ schedules, work schedules and my own personal motivation; from watching the World Cup on a big screen TV in a very crowded sports bar in a nearby town with my oldest daughter to traveling to Portland to see with my older sister and her daughter after losing contact with them over 30 years ago; from a birthday in San Francisco and 4th of July in Portland to front row seats at my daughter’s Seussical production where once again she and all the cast made me cry with their brilliant performances; from walking along the waterfront and across the bridges of Portland dreaming that someday I might own my own bike to a casual meet up over coffee that blossomed to a friendship among bike enthusiasts resulting in me actually purchasing my bike and later one for my daughter for Christmas; from reconnecting with classmates on Facebook to a fantastic 30-year class reunion which reunited me with several dear, dear friends;  from watching my son play a drum in the high school drum line that is almost bigger than he is to trick-or-treating with family;  from Thanksgiving dinners along the Portland waterfront with long lost loved ones to photographing places I once knew when I inhabited a child’s body and crying for all the regrets and lost moments with a beautiful woman I only wish I could have known better over the last 30 years; from starting out the year with more questions than answers to closing out the year with more answers and hope than questions and doubt, this year truly tops them all in terms of  the richness of the experiences I was privileged to partake in. 

The year has been an absolutely blessed one.

When so many of the years of my life have been difficult or painful to look back on, it is a gift to have a year that sneaks in like every other one does but which takes me by complete surprise leaving me with this sense that come what may life is good and confident that, like my mother used to say, “There are better days ahead.”

And though it is now the beginning of a new year, the celebratory champagne cheers long silenced,  I’d like to raise my literary glass and pen one last 2010 toast to the world: At this time next year, may you look back on more that is happy than sad, more hope than despair, more redemption than futility, more health than harm.  May you experience a rich year filled with peace, joy, love and blessings and may you experience it with those in your life that are most precious to you.  Cheers!

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

~ James Burns, 1788 (English translation, minimalist, from Wikipedia)

Author’s Note:  All photos in this post were taken by the author and will be recognizable and memorable to those who were there.  May our old (and new) acquaintance not be forgotten and may we all (and those not pictured though still very much a part of this author’s year) “take a cup of kindness yet” as we head together into this New Year. 

Facebook, High School Reunions, Birthdays and Aging

Note or disclaimer or preface or something:  I wrote this article, several months ago, long before the class reunion occurred.  I was going to post it, in advance of the reunion, but I hesitated, intending to go back and edit and re-work it. Call me chicken. Now that I’ve actually attended my class reunion, reacquainted myself with people I’d lost contact with, and heard some of their feelings about our 30-year reunion, I’m posting this, even though it is after the fact.  I looked forward to this reunion with hopeful anticipation, but also with a great deal of dread and anxiety.  I now know I wasn’t entirely alone in that experience.

I do know this for certain, after having attended the reunion:  We are no longer in high school anymore.  I also know my classmates and I have grown and matured into respectful, decent, thoughtful people.  Because of that, I know that my thoughts here will be treated respectfully and sensitively.  It is in celebration of all our successes over the last 30 years that I offer this series of posts as a humble treatise of gratitude for the part each of you have played in making me the person I am today.  Thank you.

My 30-year-high school reunion takes place this summer in a small dusty town in eastern Oregon.  Though there is likely more pavement there now than when I packed my bags and hustled out of there without looking back, the place is still rather small and somewhat dusty in comparison to the lush green venues of Western Oregon and other areas in the Pacific Northwest.  This is not to criticize the place where I spent most of my childhood.  The high desert definitely has a solitary rugged beauty all its own. It is just that I am a mountains, rivers, oceans and trees kind of girl.  I’ll take forest over sagebrush, and beaches over buttes, any day of the week.  Though, admittedly, wild antelope effortlessly bounding across the Oregon outback is certainly a breathtaking sight.  Even so, unable to fully appreciate it at the time that I lived there, I did make haste to get out of that part of Oregon as soon as I could do so and, as I mentioned before, I never looked back.  I subsequently lost all contact with friends and classmates from my high school years.

Facebook Reconnected Me With My Past in a Positive Way

I’ve recently reconnected with many of my high school classmates via Facebook, among them one of the very first people I met when at the age of 8, my family relocated from Hood River, Oregon to this tiny town. He ended up being one of my best friends all through the years, and, no, contrary to popular belief, we never once dated!  We walked to and from swim team together each summer, experienced the disco craze together (I can’t even believe we did some of those things now…the hair…the pants…the dances?). We played Kick-The-Can in my oversized backyard and went trick-or-treating until long past the age we should have. He was my marching partner at graduation, and that was the last I’ve seen of him until Facebook reconnected us. I’ve often thought of him over the years.  It’s been wonderful to see how he is doing and what he is doing and what he’s done in the last three decades, though honestly, I never pictured him on a Harley! He hasn’t aged a day and he’s really buff.  He makes me sick. 

Among others, there is the classmate I took Driver’s Ed with.  I was a horrible driver then  and she grew up on a ranch and had some driving experience.  She’ll be interested to note, my driving skills are still pretty bad though far better than they were then. She always amazed me with her daring and her devil-may-care attitude, when I was afraid of just about everything.  She still amazes me with her daring.  I know this because I’ve been privy to glimpses of her life 30 years later via Facebook. It’s been good to catch up and entertaining to see that though she’s changed a great deal in many ways (no, she doesn’t live on a ranch anymore!), she’s still the daring, devil-may-care person I once knew.  She cracks me up on Facebook routinely and if she’s at the reunion, I hope to share a drink with her as well as with my buff friend who makes me sick.

I recently “friended” the guy I hitched a ride with to the University we’d both call home for the next four years after high school. He was a good friend through both high school and college. I last saw him in 1985 when I got married.  I often thought of and wondered about my friend over the years.  After reconnecting with him on Facebook, it is evident that He’s as brilliant as he was when I knew him way back in the day…he  also makes me sick.

There’s the classmate who turned me on to one of the popular boy musical groups of the time. She first helped me develop my writing skill as we often wrote stories together in junior high, tag teaming off one another.  She’d write a page or two and stop then I’d pick up where she left off.  We wrote stuff that would make the authors of the Harlequin Romances blush. Had we kept those stories, I’m certain we’d be very wealthy authors today.  She lives in Spain and is married to the love of her life.  She along with Buff Motorcycle Riding friend, Fearless Driver Ed friend, and Brilliant Friend also makes me sick.

There are others, so many others.  The football and basketball jocks, heroes, I mean who lined both sides of the hallways during lunch forcing all the coeds to pass by while they eyed us.  I know I passed unnoticed, but it was excruciating for me nonetheless.  There were the cheerleaders who somehow always looked put together, when I struggled to even understand what looked good and what worked on my so-not-made-for-the-80’s body. There were my Drama friends, The Debate Team (those Master Debaters), the Band peeps, and there were the upperclassmen then later the incoming freshmen, and all the others who picked their parts and played their roles in what was our own High School Musical. I’ve often thought of and wondered about my high school classmates throughout the years.

And, no, they don’t make me sick, not any of them.  I’m teasing about that. But they do make me proud to know them.

Birthdays and Aging

Just the other day, one of us had a birthday and a Facebook thread developed around the theme of birthdays and aging. 

“Wasn’t it just yesterday,” I queried, “that we were all tossing our graduation caps in the air with shouts of excitement about the lives we anticipated as we looked out hopefully, expectantly, on life from the beginning of our adulthood?”

We anticipated so much then, now, looking back, we are look forward to opening our mail and finding our AARP cards so we can cash in on the discounts!

As one of us commented, “I guess that’s better than having the AARP status assumed without having to show the card.”  Yes, I guess it is.  Aging makes me sick, and, no, I’m not kidding about that!

This summer many of us, hopefully most, will migrate back to our dusty little berg from points near and far to meet face to face in the old tradition called the High School Reunion.  Having not attended any of my high school reunions (I was pregnant every time and easily the size of three of those high school linemen on our football team), I’m not quite sure what to expect.  I’m hoping it will be just as much fun as catching up on Facebook has been.  I’m hoping to enjoy meeting up with these people I used to travel the halls of our rural high school with so many years ago, slamming lockers, attending pep rallies, figuring out who was doing what for lunch and where.  I anticipate hearing their stories, learning of their journeys, meeting their families. It still blows my mind that we have kids, some of us grandkids and graying hair even.  It will be bittersweet experience for me too, since the last time I visited was for the funeral of my mom. There are others in my class who will not be attending.  We honor their memory.  This is also sad.  It puts me in touch with the finite and transient nature of this experience we call life.

Reflections about reunions~After 30 Years Is It Safe To Enter?

Reunions do this to us, though don’t they? The evoke a range of emotions which, for some of us, we thought were safely tucked away behind that closet door marked, “My Distant Past-Do Not Enter”.  Reunions ever so adeptly pry open those doors, memory by memory.  They force us to reflect on our personal past and what we’ve accomplished or failed to do that we wanted to do.  They, hopefully, cause us to celebrate the present and all the gifts we have.  Inevitably, reunions challenge us to consider the future, whatever we can make of it from here on out. If we are fortunate, we still have hopes and dreams to look forward to, only this time around a few more family members or loved ones to share it with that weren’t here three decades earlier.

There’s one other thing the advent of this reunion helped me realize.  As much as I used to think where I came from didn’t matter, I’ve learned that it really doesn’t in some ways, but it really does in other ways.  I’ve learned that even the most insignificant incidents can impact an individual in lasting ways.  While I personally played a supporting role in my high school drama, I learned a great deal from rubbing shoulders with those in my hometown.  Those memories shaped me and contributed to who I am today.  I am the better for it, and I am grateful for those I shared that small stage with during those formative years.

These days, I’m learning that just like I didn’t appreciate the solitary rugged beauty of the Oregon outback and the small farming community I lived in, neither did I fully appreciate the gifts, the talents, the strengths, and the personalities of  the people I grew up with nearly as much as I could have and should have.  It is time for that to change. I, for one, am looking forward to my 30-year-high school reunion. 

Some People, Like Books…

Some people, like books, grip you from the minute you, after noticing the engaging and artistically designed cover, open to the first page and begin reading.  You are instantly drawn in to the enchantment, the story, the drama.  You read these people books hungrily, passionately, from cover to cover without so much as a break for food till the story is over.  When the end ultimately arrives as you knew it would, as you knew it must, you read the last pages and the last words with a bittersweet sentiment.  These are the people books that bid farewell when you wish they could stay forever, yet you understand they cannot.  What’s more, you understand why they cannot.

Other people, like other books, fail to capture your imagination or ignite your passion , yet they provide valuable information and knowledge that you need.  These books you keep on the shelves of your life at the ready should you need to refer to them for the wisdom and knowledge they contain hidden among the pages of their past.  These books you don’t give up, nor do they  ever make it to the book exchange box. Instead, they inhabit a familiar and handy place on your bookshelf, ready and willing at any moment to be of service. These solidly familiar and resourceful books are always present though only occasionally does one take advantage of the vast store of knowledge contained inside the worn cover. The value in these people books is knowing they are there and knowing them well enough and long enough and closely enough, to feel comfortable tapping into their knowledge when the need in your life arises.

Still other people, like other books, are divided into segments and must be read in parts.  Some short inspiring bit here to begin with, then later, possibly the opportunity to read a longer, more heart wrenching piece later. These are the books you rarely read from beginning to end, feeling free enough with them that you can move around in any particular order not caring, if, or when you read the entire book.  These people books might sit in your life for years only being read a segment at a time as the opportunity or mutual interest arises.

Still, other people, like that rare book, are magical somehow. That outside cover, while certainly attractive enough, doesn’t jump out at you right away, but something about it won’t leave you till you’ve picked that book up off the shelf.  Cautiously, hesitantly, you study the cover more closely.  Internally, maybe, you even dare the book to interest you. After all, you just finished up with the best passionate read of your life and you are tired of looking for another story.  You’re tired of reading.  You dare this magical book, which you do not yet know is magical, to interest you.  You look at the front cover, you look at the back cover.  It looks interesting enough, as though it might be a good read, but you’re just not interested.  You put the book back on the shelf.  You mosey on your way.  Except now, you cannot leave that book.  You must return to it and glance at the first page.  You  begin, ever so cautiously and carefully to read.  The first few paragraphs and pages certainly don’t ignite your passion like throwing a match on a gasoline soaked burn pile, but something about the way the author has crafted this particular story draws you in.  You continue reading.  With each page you find happiness, you find surprise, you find adventure, and, yes, there buried among the pages you find heartache, sadness, tragedy.  You continue reading and find that this book contains plenty of its own passion, plenty of its own wisdom, plenty of its own strength.  Before long you realize that you’ve been reading this book for a while and you’ve enjoyed every minute, every chapter, every page.  These are the people books that come into your life gradually, and before you know how it quite happened they are an everyday fixture in the landscape of your life while never for a minute being relegated to the mundane-ness of the everyday. 

Some people, like books, will enter your life, become a quick read and leave your life and consciousness forever.  Other people, like other books are read quickly but make an impact that never quite leaves you though you might never re-read them.  Still other people, like that rare magical book, work your way into your life and you wonder what you ever did without them.  If you had to, you find that it would be difficult and painful to imagine life where they were not present.  These are the magical people books who continue to interest, entertain, challenge, comfort and provide companionship day after day without becoming so very daily themselves.  You never quite understand how they do it, but you are glad to be the benefactor of their particular magic.  These are the kind of books…people…a person can grow old with, and yet, never grow weary of reading.

Those Little Breaks in Life: Give Yourself Permission to Take One…or Two

There’s part of me that wants to call out in a high pitched, annoying, nasally voice, “I’m baaaaack!”, but how cliché is that? Instead, I just say I feel like doing it, instead of really doing it.  If you are a detail person, you’ve noticed that the last post before this one was dated April 6.  If you’re a relational person and you liked The Wild Mind, then you noticed I haven’t been writing and you missed me.

I Took A Little Break from Blogging

Well, not so little.  It was a big enough break to get me kicked off some of those rating sites and blog lists since I didn’t post anything in over 30 days.  It was a big enough break for me to finish up the onslaught of work projects, demands and deadlines I had going during the first half of this year. It was a big enough break to give me time to rethink things. A lot of things.

It is funny how the things we love can start out being a source of pleasure, an outlet, a form of entertainment and relaxation.  It is funny how these very enjoyable things can gradually change into something very different.  The once enjoyable and therapeutic activity can somehow turn its tame head and devour us.

Writing, blogging, became such for me.

It was my outlet.  A source for me to get my thoughts, my experiences and my perceptions, as warped or sound as they might be, out in some objective form so I could analyze them and consider them more carefully.  Anyone going through divorce, especially divorce after 40 understands this need to re-evaluate, to process, to heal.

Writing was also entertainment.  Playing with words is a fun thing to do, but playing with disguises, something the writer can expertly do while safely cloaked behind ink and paper, is another thing entirely.  Writing in this fashion while trying on a variety of personas, genres and perspectives helped take my mind off the pain of my own failures, the difficulty of the lessons I was studying in life, and helped me heal.  In this way, writing helped me find my voice.  When I began getting comments from the occasional reader, then regular comments from regular reader, I gained confidence and courage.  It was a good thing for me.

From Pleasure to Pressure

But then somewhere along the line, the process changed for me from something enjoyable, relaxing and therapeutic to something arduous, stressful and even painful at points.  It turned on its head and devoured me, becoming the thing that mastered and drove me, instead of something I enjoyed for my own purposes.

I found I could no longer write.  What I did write, I did not like.  I chose to take a little break.  I needed to sort things out.  I needed to step back.  I needed some time to mentally kick my feet up on the desk, lean back in the office chair and just dream. I’m not sure how much dreaming I got done with three kids at home finishing up the school year, me finishing up the school year, and another child returning from college, while still maintaining a home, a career and a social life, but as I look back on it, I was able to take that much needed break and begin doing some of the sorting out for myself in many areas of life that I needed to do, both personally and professionally.

I think there are times in life when we need to give ourselves permission to get off whatever treadmill we find ourselves on.  Sometimes, stepping back is easier said than done, especially in today’s competitive marketplace.  We feel, somehow, that we have to have our game on constantly, that we have to always put on a happy face, complete everything on the “To Do” list. If we are a writer or a blogger, it is easy to get sucked into the idea that we must always write the perfect piece, be up on our SEO, garnering for ourselves the ever-increasing readership.

It can become the demon that drives us instead of the outlet that heals us.

What is it in your life that drives you? Is there something you need to take a step back from?  What keeps you from stepping off that figurative treadmill?  Is it fear of losing to the competition?  Fear of missing opportunities?  Fear of being viewed as a failure or as incapable of “handling it”? Is it a sense that time is somehow running out?

For me, it was a bit of all of these things.  I made myself step back anyway.  To be honest, it wasn’t all that courageous a move on my part.  Circumstances conspired to make it such that I had no other option.  I had too much going on.  I had too many spinning plates in the air and I couldn’t possibly move from plate to plate fast enough.  I simply had to let a few of those plates come crashing down.  Blogging was one of them and it was the least significant of the bunch, I figured.

Sometimes, we just need to stop chasing the things we are chasing in order to recognize that the path we are running so frantically down is simply the wrong road in the wrong direction.