In A Phrase

I considered a number of words for my "word" for this year. None felt right. The words that came to mind made me feel like I had to work at something, to change or get better or resign myself and give in. After all the thoughts I went through to let go of the past, I wanted to give myself a chance to feel where I am now. I want the feelings to keep flowing, no matter what they are.

So I settled on a phrase for this year: keep moving. Get on the treadmill, play with the grandchildren, get out of bed, make the phone calls, keep going. I remind myself that I don't have to produce something new or accomplish something big. If I move my body and keep my brain working and let my emotions move through me, then I am doing what is best for me right now. 

I didn't know three months ago how much I would need those words. In May I really missed my mom; I was sad and angry that I was still feeling such grief. I reminded myself to keep moving - let the feelings come and move through me as many times as they needed to. 

I often feel stalled and indecisive. Keep moving. Put in a load of laundry, rearrange furniture, make a simple meal, go for a drive.

I talked last month with my osteopath about the anxiety I was feeling. As she worked with my body we talked about how I was getting stuck in my head and that I can move into my body instead, deep belly breathing and grounding through my core. There are exercises I can do to stretch and balance and improve my flexibility.

Keep moving. Do what I want to do and not what I think I have to do. Find enjoyment in the simple things. 

I can't make big decisions right now, about what's next or where I want to be beyond the next few days. There are dates on the calendar to spend time with grandkids, which are times to look forward to. 

I hear from others at this same point in their lives that they are asking similar questions and feeling the same uncertainty. We can listen to each other and know that we are not alone, which helps me immensely. I commented on Jacqueline's blog that the silence and solitude has not helped me. Her most recent blog post beautifully reflects on the questions she has been asking herself.

Today I saw a quote on Instagram that spoke to me: Not every day has to "count." Some days your purpose is to make it to the next one. That counts too.

The journey continues....

Still Here

My word for last year was "begin." My goal was to give myself permission to start things even if I wasn't sure of what the result would be or where I would wind up. It worked. Many things are still in process; that's okay because I got started.

In October I challenged myself to begin to seriously look back at regrets, disappointments, mistakes, and goals not met. My goal was to change my thinking. For longer than I care to admit I have looked back to review what I did that brought me to where I am, sometimes at what worked and more often what didn't. Honestly, I was tired of that routine. It was time to change what I had always done. 

I was pushed to dig deep because my mom would have been 88 years old last October. She was 20 when I was born, and I was dreading my next birthday: I didn't want to be caught in a decades-old pattern of looking back with regret at things I couldn't change. I did what I did and each decision led me to where I wound up. I love my kids and grandkids and wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. I want to feel differently about myself. I want to go forward in a different way.

Every time a thought about the past came up, I examined it until I was tired of thinking about it. I looked at what I did, why, what had led to the decision, what the result was, and what came after. I exhausted all the should-have's, could-have's, what-if's, and why-didn't-I's. I didn't deny any thought; when anything came up, I followed the chain of what happened before and what came after. Every single time. 

Eventually thoughts would occur to me and pass through quickly. I had already looked at every angle and accepted that what happened...happened. 

I didn't know how long the process would take but was determined to stay with the challenge until I could move on. It was getting easier.

Then on January 31 I read the following in Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening:

"Dropping all we carry - all our preconceptions, our interior lists of the ways we've failed and the ways we've been wronged, all the secret burdens we work at maintaining - dropping all regret and expectation lets our mentality die. Dropping all we have constructed as imperative allows us to be born again into the simplicity of spirit that arises from unencumbered being."

Begin. Things will change. It is worth the effort.

The journey continues.... 

Summer Wrap-Up

Last week we had our first days of fall-like weather. Tuesday started off with clear skies and cool temperatures, and by noon it was pleasantly warm. Then clouds moved in with showers by late afternoon. This summer was one of the wettest summers anyone can remember. Two-thirds of the days in June brought rain and better than a dozen days in each of July and August. 

Luckily it did not rain the last weekend in August. That was the time my family decided in May that we would get together to celebrate my mom, their Grandma Ellie. I had some ideas about how the weekend would go but knew I needed to stay flexible. With my sons and their families and my daughter with her daughter, we had four kids ages two to nine and seven adults to consider. We were all in and out on Saturday and together for dinner, where I proposed a toast to my mom and remembered how fond she was of my kids and their families. 

The weather cooperated both days. Sunday we had tickets to a Portland Sea Dogs game, the minor league farm team for the Red Sox, and an event that my mom would have enjoyed as much as we did. The seats were perfect, and there was enough action and food to keep the kids happy. We didn't realize it was a double header until the end of the first game, so we had twice the fun. The day closed out with dinner at Applebee's, where I commented that my mom would have enjoyed the day and I thought there was a good chance she had a hand in how well everything worked out. 

It was the perfect way to wrap up the summer. 

June had been a time to work through so many thoughts and feelings I'd had over the past year, putting words to my grief and frustration so I could see it all in one place. For me, writing is a way to make sense of what I don't understand or connect what appears to be unrelated.

In July I was ready to create an album of the photos my mom had collected since she was a girl. I made new pages for an album she had and cross-referenced photos so each one was labeled and dated. The process of finally getting the photos mounted had been months in the making and felt like such an accomplishment. It was a way to bring together the people and events in her life that made her happy, that she wanted to remember. 

In the process of putting all the pieces together I had time to think about how my relationship with my mom had changed over the years. Neither one of us gave up on trying to understand the other. It wasn't always easy and there were times that we knew the other was frustrated and unable to see a different perspective. I realized that we had come to forgive each other for the hurt we felt, the misunderstandings and disagreements. We didn't ignore the past, but we were able to see that it was the past and we couldn't change it. 

In my Mothers Day card to my mom just days before she fell and was hospitalized, I wrote:

We stand where we are/ Because our steps brought us here/ Thank you for walking the way with me. 

I have that card now and am grateful that I had the chance to share what I felt. In recognizing the growth in the relationship with my mom, I have had time to think about the things in my own life that I wish had been different, decisions and choices that I would make differently now. Then I applied the meaning of forgiveness to my own life, giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.

With that, in July of this summer, I forgave myself. And like I've heard so many times, when the student is ready the teacher appears. For me, in so many ways....   

On July 31 I read a quote by Alden Howlan that someone posted on Instagram:

"The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise."

The journey continues....

Forgiveness

The word forgiveness can evoke a variety of emotions. Fortunately, through the years I have discovered authors, Anne Lamott among them, who write about forgiveness in the vein that it is something a person does quietly for themselves. It's not something you say to someone else ~ it is introspective, personal, and something that has been hard for me to name and define for most of my life. 

I have practiced the intention of forgiveness for many years without calling it forgiveness. I forget that until I run across something written or work through what I'm struggling with until the "aha" moment when I think, "Wait, that's forgiveness," which is what happened this past week when I found a saying on an undated slip of paper in a drawer.

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." It gave me chills. I had to google the saying to see who to credit with the wisdom ~ Oprah's name is attached to it. 

I had been struggling with something for days, tearing up at night when sleep wouldn't come. When I found the slip of paper, so many things fell into place, retroactively and in the present....

So I pulled out a journal I started 25 years ago. It's called a Journal of Gratitude and has a place to write a few lines under each day of the year. I use it to record quotes that have meaning for me, words of wisdom from movies and television shows and books and people I know. Last week I wrote this definition of forgiveness under the date December 6. 

That's the date my father died in 1996 from a sudden, fatal heart attack. My mom found him when she returned to the house to have coffee and talk with him; she had finally moved out that summer when he slapped her for the last time. Ten years earlier I had written my father a three-page letter informing him of my boundaries as far as he was concerned. It boiled down to three things: he could visit my home but he could not argue with my mom or hit her when he visited; he could not raise his voice to me or my children; he was no longer allowed to smoke in my house. With the help of an excellent therapist I had given up the hope that the past could have been any different with my father. I set aside his past behaviors and set forth the parameters for future expectations in my home and in the presence of my family. He chose not to visit for ten years, and when he did come to the state he did not stay at my house. I didn't engage when he talked about the past or justified his behavior. 

In 1986 and 1996 I didn't call my action "forgiveness." That would have sounded uppity to me, like I was somehow superior. That's not how I felt. Instead I felt like I had surrendered. I remember feeling desperate to do something to save my mental health, and this was all that was left. I knew what I had decided would impact my relationship with my mom.

And it did. She could not comprehend what I was doing. She did not understand what I was doing to protect my children. Again, with the help of my excellent therapist, I came to understand that my mom had not protected me and my siblings from my father, which my therapist explained was the job of a parent. I fought that idea tooth and nail for weeks, but I had to connect my anxiety and panic attacks to the kind of mother I was, a mother who was not a mother like my mother was. To get healthy and be there for my children I had to be a different kind of mother, and to me that meant that I had to admit that my mother did not take care of me. I did not say that to my mom; for decades I talked around that by explaining that it was what I had to do to take care of myself and my family.

Through the decades after my father died my mom and I worked through the process of letting go of what we couldn't change from all those years ago. In 2007 she had a stroke and sometime around then was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. She had remarried in 2003, moved to West Virginia, and stayed busy with him and part-time work. After the stroke it took years to find the best medication and get the correct dosage regulated. With the health issues she had started feeling anxious. She shared with me that she never understood what I was going through all those years ago, and that was an opening for us to talk more honestly about a range of experiences and feelings. She didn't hide her anxiety from me, and I was able to share the strategies I used to cope then and now. Those conversations added a new dimension to our relationship. We continued to talk honestly with each other right up until she died.

Within my sorrow in the last year has been a deep sadness that my mom had not been happier in her adult life. I do miss her - the cards she sent, our phone calls, and the sporadic in-person visits. My sadness was about more than that; as I've looked through photos of her with family and friends in her first 18 years I see a girl who is loved grow into a young woman who laughs with friends and enjoys experiences with family. She graduated from high school, got a good job with the federal government, and shared an apartment with a friend. 

As I have written posts this month and started putting my mom's photos in order, that sorrow has been front and center. What I realized this week is that where my mom is concerned I had given up the hope that many things in our past could have been any different. However, deep within my grief and below my consciousness I have been mourning the life she lost when she started the life with my father. Once that realization rose to the surface I considered what that means, what I could do to relieve the pain I have been feeling. Then I found the slip of paper ~ forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.  

Can I forgive my mom for staying with my father for 41 years? I am getting there.

The journey continues....

Make The Trip

Last Saturday I took a trip to central Massachusetts. I had been preparing for weeks to drive 200 miles to the small town of Turners Falls, and I decided that the predicted heavy rain would not keep me from going. It took an hour longer than it was supposed to, and I felt a sense of accomplishment when I arrived. The purpose for the trip was to donate fabric, satin binding, yarn, and pattern books that were new and usable, things I had had for years or had inherited and hadn't used. There is a small shop in this small town that is making a name for itself in that it offers sewing/craft materials that will benefit from finding homes with people who will use what others have donated. They also offer classes and opportunities to gather for sewing, knitting, and crafting. The place is not on my way to anywhere but it was worth the trip.

From Turners Falls I headed to the Boston area to catch up with my sons and their families for Fathers Day. My sons are a pleasure to watch with their kids. I could not be more proud of them.

I decided years ago that when I got the idea to go somewhere I should go. I love to drive. I love to travel. If I make plans, and I am able, I follow through. 

Sometimes things happen beyond my control. Then I wish I had made the trip earlier, which often wasn't an option, but I feel sorry still. 

In early 2022 I made plans to travel to West Virginia in the summer to see my mom. My younger son and his family were also planning a trip to visit. In fact, from the hospital I talked to them about moving their trip to later in the summer until Grandma Ellie was settled in a rehab facility. The last time we'd visited was 2019, and we had scheduled different weeks to go to spread out the socializing for my mom. I have wonderful photos from those visits and am so glad we went when we did. The pandemic put off travel for the next two summers but last year we felt secure enough to plan the visits. Best laid plans....

I have been thinking this week about two other times my family has lost someone important to us, just as we were planning a visit. In 1982 Ken and I and the kids were going to Maryland for Thanksgiving. Ken has a large family and we were looking forward to seeing everyone. Just a few days before we were due to leave we got the call that Ken's mom had had a sudden fatal heart attack. We were devastated. Of course we all gathered but that day and all the gatherings after that felt the loss of Grammy. 

Just three years later we lost one of the most important people in our lives, a dear friend of Ken's family for decades, the man who started as a neighbor and became a mentor and friend to 12 year-old Ken who introduced him to travel, specifically to the state of Maine. We couldn't have been closer to Linwood if he had been a blood relative. When we moved to Maine we chose to live in the city where he had a home and started a business when he retired. We still talk about how glad we are that we had the years we did with Linwood. We spent holidays and birthdays with him and ordinary days in between. In 1985 I was home with my 6 year-old daughter and 3 year-old son, getting ready for Christmas and waiting for Ken to get home from work; it was Christmas Eve and we had plans for dinner at Linwood's. The call came that Linwood was with friends when he had a heart attack and died before anything could be done. We cried for days. All these years later we remember fondly our times with Linwood and share stories with our kids and grandkids.

The lesson for me through the years has been to take the trip, make the visit, and listen to the inner voice that says, "Go." I've never been sorry I listened.

The Thread

My daughter shared a poem "The Thread" with me several years ago, handwritten on a light pink piece of cardstock. I set it up my desk, on one side by the calendar and then the other by the pencils. I stick it in books I'm reading so I will come across it at random. This week I found it in the back of my day planner. I have read it many times over the years, and each time the meaning I find reflects what is happening in my life at that moment. Today the idea of the thread as grief occurred to me. The loose thread is a garment of grief that has unraveled and is slowly taking new shape as something different. A thought to ponder....  

Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads
finer than cobweb and as
elastic. I haven’t tried
the strength of it. No barbed hook
pierced and tore me. Was it
not long ago this thread
began to draw me? Or
way back? Was I
born with its knot about my
neck, a bridle? Not fear
but a stirring
of wonder makes me
catch my breath when I feel
the tug of it when I thought
it had loosened itself and gone.

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

From: The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov

Heavy

Going along and going along...and then wham. Today I was tired and my back was sore. Mid-morning I couldn't be up any longer, so I laid down on my bed just for a moment. I fell asleep for an hour. I can't remember the last time I laid down during the day without being sick. I only do that when there isn't anything else I can do. And today was one of those days.

I've been meaning to look through the books I have of Mary Oliver's poetry because the perfect one always shows itself. Tonight was no exception.

Heavy

by Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it--

books, bricks, grief--

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard

the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled--

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep waves,

a love

to which there is no reply?