As the World Turns

Man, has it ever been a long time since I've done this. I think I forgot how. I guess I just wanted to leave my mark for the month of April.

Lately, I've been kind of stepping away from the online social scene -- even the ones that involve "real" friends like Facebook. I've become quite disconnected with this side of life. I guess it seems that for me, as my 3D life becomes more full, this one becomes somewhat deflated. Connections that were so close have all but faded. This entire world seems like a dream.

I'm becoming more settled in some aspects of my life, but more disheveled in other areas. Or maybe not more disheveled ... maybe it feels that way because it's more of a focus. Who knows how the mind works.

 I'm doing much better than I was! Sometimes I feel like just as I am making headway with my thoughts and my feelings and with the whole nature of how the Universe works, I come across land mines.

I'm walking along my jolly way and then, BOOM, something explodes in my face (like my car)  just waiting for my reaction. It's almost like it's a test ... this girl says she's changing her thought patterns, eh?  Well, let's find out for ourselves.

I'm human. In that moment, I see disaster. I don't see a way out. I see me 1 year  ago when I could barely breathe.

But then I just take that deep breath. And I close my eyes. And I remember that I fashion my life -- not outside circumstances.

I decide how my life will be and what I will focus on. It's a powerful thing when you realize that with just a little brain work, you can let the things that used to paralyze you for days completely roll off your shoulder with nothing more than a hint of residue.

It's the weekend of my 34th birthday. I'm astonished at how much I've evolved!  I'm happy with who I've become! 34 can only get better. 

I have 39 days until the end of the school year and yes, I'm happy! My agenda is filled with summer travel plans. 

I will write more often here as I've always found peace here.  Happy April!

You missed me

You know when you're in a relationship that just isn't working for whatever reason, but because you're in the thick of it you can't see clearly enough to get why or get out?

That's what blogging became for me - it's not you, it's me. No, really - for whatever reason writing became more of a daily chore. More about reader numbers and meeting some invisible, entirely self-imposed expectations than losing myself in the writing and in the companionship, the original reasons I got into this here interwebs deal. Silly, isn't it? I don't know how I got there, but . . .

It has also grown, um, weird putting my personal life on the internet, particularly with more real-life friends - hi, real-life friends! - (yes, I have a few) (pinky swear) - reading here, a sort of one-sided TMI experiment that made for some awkward conversations.

I've hit this blogging speed bump before, and this too shall pass. I'll find a new path, a different way to enjoy writing. I do miss the writing, the picture taking, and - most importantly - you all.

Until then, however, backing away seems like the right answer, and I'm really enjoying the time it has freed up for me to re-focus on the little big things: my students!

 

 

I Can't Allow all of this Crap to Dull my Sparkle!

This thing called life has taken me by the balls! Life is short, but sweet for certain. My close friend was diagnosed in December with
Brain tumors and died eight weeks later while calling out for me on his death bed. I started losing my hair in November, developed anxiety in January. My buddy died in February. Life has been a real freaking challenge to put it mildly.

Two years ago I went through what is my deepest ache-the one that left the floor and I intimately familiar. Yes, while seemingly trite it was my first, real, heartbreak, the heaviness loss of my daddy.

I'm acutely aware that what people struggle with in the larger scheme of life,cancer, murder, etc however, the dark hours that followed for me were as a result of this experience of losing my buddy. The point isn't that specific experience but the things that I carried from it as a result; you will not feel this depth of pain, to this capacity forever. Even when it feels like it now, the Gods above will grant you some respite before you crumble. And, the most important one was this; It is our job to lift people up. Caring, is not a "special personality trait" it is what we are here to do. If we aren't genuinely caring, unconditionally loving, connecting- holding and selflessly giving to those around us, what matters?

Meet Angela. She was the girlfriend of my buddy who ultimately made his last weeks hell. There is a special place in Hell for people like her who harm unarmed people.

When I was heaving in a ball, clutching my heart you were planning, scheming, sending prayers and notes. With no expectation, just to 'wave
hello' that you were out there, thinking of me. I didn't realize the expansiveness of what it felt like to be HELD until I went through that. But, the thing I also didn't prepare for was; In order for me to heal, part of what I needed to do was reveal to those dear, the parts of
me that were still aching.


While, I see infinite magic, miracles and awe in this singular precious life that we're living, I recognize and acknowledge that there is true pain and heartbreak happening. That we're all surviving and navigating through our own suffering. We're experiencing loss of our loved ones, our visions, our self-control, our fortitude. Our minds. We're hurting. We each have different degrees of pain, on different timelines, wearing different outfits. But all of us have it. Which makes this whole COMPASSION thing, pretty essential.

Be there before someone needs to ask. Rush to their side. Assume they need tequila. Or Starbucks. Assume they need you to listen. Assume they need a bowl of spaghetti. Be still and silent. Expand your own heart and test your humanity by beving brave enough to truly comprehend what they must be feeling. When the words on the tip of your tongue are just answers for YOU, reevaluate them and give words made for who's in front of you. Take yourself out of the picture. Reserve your need to find a solution, or be right, or make a judgment and realize that by presently being with someone the answers you thought you had for them, actually work both ways and that there's something they're teaching you too. Make a little more space in your heart!

In my situation, I only had a select few who knew to what level I was hurting because nobody could know how much I indeed cared for my friend. That was difficult. Only his mother knew and a really close doctor friend of mine.

Pour one out for your homie! Or dedicate a prayer, mindfully.

Send out a practice. A poem. A card that says, "...we'll find our 'happy.'" Send pears, or cabernet, bad chick flicks, or text messages full of emoticons.

Feed. Nurture. Nap with. Peel. DO THE HEAVY LIFTING. All for someone else.

...and if you are in the place of asking; it's okay.

Declare what you are and what you are not. What can be and what you need a little help with for awhile.

Give your pain a name and let the people who love you, snuggle up next to that distinct, bitter anguish and let them endure the thing with you. When you feel stale and vacuous, ask for a sip of their light to start the engines again. Then let them sweep you away from the ache, if even for a moment and make you smile again. Let them distract you. Take you on an adventure. Stimulate your senses, through food and music and newness. Let those around you make you feel alive again, when you're enduring the deepest opaque moments, when you think it isn't possible- feel. Alive!

There's a reason we have the ability to hold each other. So keep your arms open.

If sleep, or the night. If food, or the mirror. If loneliness, or the silence. If unanswerable questions, or the confusion. If the ability to make a five minute plan, let alone a 5 year plan is plaguing you, we're here.

When you need a ride. Someone to tell you a story. A partner in crime. Physical presence. A light. Someone to count to three for you so you can scream on four. A person to look you in the eyes and say, "...you're going to be okay." When you need these things, ASK. But more than asking, be these things. This is our job, it is part of the human condition to take care of one another.

Me

I myself

am made up of flaws

and

stitched together

with

good intentions

Adele - Someone Like You For Brian

Putting a Fork in it

The best way to never be disappointed? Don't expect anything from anyone.



This is what I keep repeating when I'm trying to convince myself that I have every right to be disappointed.


Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.


Expectations are a dangerous thing. They lead you down this road full-speed ahead and it's so hard to stop. It's this road where everything is as it should be in your head. A road filled with people who behave in the ways you'd want them to behave and who say the things you'd want them to say.


It's a road that has the people around you falling at your feet trying to do whatever it takes to please you.


This is the road that will tell you to eat the Nutella and that, no, it won't end up on your hips.


For the most part, this road has blockades on it with DO NOT ENTER ROAD NOT IN USE signs littering the entrance. But, somewhere along the way there must also be a sign that says:

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

Because sometimes, there I am. Back on the road. Looking in my review mirror and wondering how I managed to bypass all the warning signs. Yet again.

That road sucks.

Luckily for me, while it's still (barely) in use for certain people, it's become a very short road.

You Did This

Every so often I get a glimpse of you.



Sometimes that's enough to help me realize what I don't want in life. Sometimes that's enough to make me realize what I'm missing.


Sometimes that's enough to make me wonder why it feels like I found you in a dream.


I guess memories are funny like that. Once someone is gone from your life, it's hard to remember a time where they felt real. Even the memories are crowded with dream-like wispy clouds to make you wonder if it was all just in your imagination. All the feelings and all the experiences that came with the feelings.


Even though it doesn't seem real, it had to have been because I know for a tangible fact that I am forever affected by it.


By you.

She says Living Well....

". . . is the best revenge," or so my grandmother's maxim went, one of many sayings she loved to incite. The point wasn't so much the literal meaning of the words - I never could figure out who exactly I was supposed to be getting revenge against, for example - but rather, what I took from them was the joy and complete conviction in her voice as she spoke.

Memaw who was very much a mother in all the meaningful ways to me, maintained that she was 29 and holding up until the day of my Pawpaw's passing. So 86 is an educated guess, but it's telling about both her marvelously stubborn nature and adherence to appearances.

And yet she was not just full of pithy sayings and respect for formal traditions. Without complaint, she marched me to theater productions, special museum exhibits, and lunch at Woolworth's where I first learned to appreciate outrageously scrumptious Monkey Bread with strawberry butter. She bought me my first set of engraved Good Paper & demanded/taught me to write the "bread and butter" note. She was a great cook and seamstress and was on every board in the county. She was always busy but she ensured that my brother's and sister's and I had a top-quality education, and made many, many personal sacrifices to ensure that it happened. No library trip or book was denied, nor any other learning or cultural opportunity. Through her obvious eccentricities - and there were many, the lurid blue eyeshadow being just the frosting on the Estee Lauder caked foundation - and flaws and private demons, I always knew that she prioritized family in her funny, odd way above all else - and isn't that all that we can ask of a parent, really?

As any good daughter / granddaughter is prone to do, I spent my adolescence fighting all of this, my melodramatic exit from sixth grade being the first of my many Crimes Against Feminine Tradition. Because no sixth grader, particularly a painfully awkward one entirely afraid of actual boys, should be forced to learn the Virginia Reel but that's a subject for a different post. In any event, I struggled mightily against her teaching until I hit age 21 or so, when the feminine graces started to sneak in somehow.

It was then that I realized that I really did, and do, love Good Paper, and taking a stab at being nice to other people even when every fiber of my being doesn't feel like it (most of the time, that is), and appreciating the arts and incredible writing and all the other things that make each day a little more beautiful. I began the path to redemption in her eyes by becoming a teacher. I plan to greatly advance my cause back into grace by marrying the Grandmother-endorsed Doctor / Laywer/ and-or Respectable Businessman (any of the above being equally desirable), but I've come to suspect this lady business is a bit of a lifelong learning process.

So in Grandmother's honor, I raise my symbolic flute of Veuve - a love of champagne being a family tradition and all - and share with you my formal china and sterling silver patterns. Yes, my china and silver patterns. While this might strike some of you as odd or irreverent, it is the very highest form of tribute I can conceive of for this very special, independent lady. Because second to my becoming a well-educated, well-rounded woman of substance, or at least effectuating the appearance of same, the subjects most discussed over our NM or Four Seasons brunches since I've reached the age of majority were - formal china and silver patterns.

She is the best dancer, seamstress, make-up artist I know! She gave me the Farm but what I really want are her dancing shoes from Lord and Taylor! And I'm so thrilled to be going to Macy's for my first fur coat that you swear I need!

Memaw, you are incredible. There isn't enough Good Paper to tell you how much you mean to me.