For the soul searchers, the deep thinkers and the coffee cup holders who are looking for a life perspective, a reason to find happiness or just a morning read… and….when things get hard… a little splash to ease the sting of life
Yesterday I was tired. Yesterday I had had enough… though the enough happened quite a while ago… I guess it just caught up with me… again.
Yesterday I was overwhelmed and consumed. I let simple words intended as good advice, to penetrate my skin and anger and frustration boiled from my core. I wanted to scream,
“Fuck you! Fuck your healthy diets and your exercise regimens. Fuck your 8hrs of sleep and your parenting books. Fuck meditation and any version of faith. Fuck every morsel of advise and tid bit of knowledge. Fuck good intentions and monumental efforts. All of it is for naught and bad shit happens anyway… no matter how many pews you kneel at or how many vitamins you take. So eat the cake, drink the cocktails and stop pretending that you have control. It’s all a lie anyway!”
Though I didn’t believe those words, I thought them. They bubbled up inside me from disappointment and defeat. That ‘one more piece of advice’ felt like one more empty promise from the universe waiting to happen, one more thing that I hadn’t done right, one more “You’re pretty good… but not good enough.” It wasn’t them, it was me. And in that moment I couldn’t see all that was right. I could only see inadequacy.
I didn’t scream those things that I thought. Instead, I held it in like I so often do. Sometimes I wonder with all the holding in I do, what will give first, my heart, my cells or my sanity.
Only this time I couldn’t hold it all in, and my self defeat came oozing out of my tear ducts- first one drop and then two… and then a stream, pouring down my face. I hate crying. It takes me to a place of vulnerability that is uncomfortable. Though I do it more when I’m alone than anyone knows.
I suppose the good thing about crying in front of others is that it always seems to shift the energy and it brings a glimpse of authenticity to the moment. Sometimes it also affords me words of affirmation from others- words that I cling to. And even though I hate how much I need them… I will re-read and replay them in my head a hundred times, bathing in them like a tub of glue, mending my broken pieces, until I feel whole, again.
Today the glue is still a little tacky… but the tears have dried and the boil within me has calmed again. Today is a new day. And I am reminded that all is not lost and blessings remain a bounty. The journey to ones best self is never easy or simple and it’s never a straight line. It’s a lot of ‘get back up and try again’s.
Though tired I still am…
Today I stood extra long in the steaming shower… again. Today, I turned on the sound machine… and in my mind, began building my meditative imaginary land of tranquility, again. Today I chose veggies over chips and water over wine. And I cooked and journaled and napped … again.
Perhaps tomorrow awaits tremendous joy and blessings and this shift will help me better receive that. Or perhaps tomorrow lurches another blow and today’s self care will give me the energy I need to handle it.
If worry is useless rumination of the past and anxiety is pointless fear of the future… then I have wasted far too much time in the wrong places. So, here’s to today… again.
Very few people know that 2019 was one of the hardest years of my life. For very personal reasons and to protect the privacy of those I love, I kept my tragedy contained to a very small circle.
Ringing in 2020 brought me some sense of hope, but to be honest, I was still knee-deep in shit. Surviving and caring for my family were my main goals.
So, when the pandemic hit just a few months later… while it was another added challenge, I largely felt as though I’d been through worse. So I tried to take it all in stride, another speed-bump on my already crappy road.
While the virus was scary, there was a much-appreciated silver-lining for me.
After months of wanting to curl-up in a ball and shut the world out, I was allowed, mandated actually, to slow down and stay at home. While many felt trapped in their own space, the shut-down offered me a much needed break and quality time with my family. It gave me respite. My family too-got a break from the busyness of the world. No more long commutes to far away schools and battling city traffic for doctors appointments and therapy. We could attend them in our quiet and happy little home. We could eat lunch together, every day. Family game night came many times a week instead of a pressured one. And we finally got a really productive garden in, after years of haphazard attempts.
For the first time, I was gifted the ability to work one of my jobs from home. I was afforded the time I needed to prepare our house to be sold. The stimulus check gave us just enough money to make the repairs we needed to. And the boom in the housing market gave us the perfect window to both sell and buy-landing us in our dream home.
Overnight, nurses became “heroes” and kind messages and free meals were popping up everywhere we turned. In many ways, it felt like a long-overdue acknowledgment- 16 years for me. Suddenly the hard work I’d been doing my whole career was “extraordinary”. While the work was hard, it felt good to make a difference and to be “seen”.
There was also a lot of hope. Stay inside for a few weeks and “flattened the curve”. “Do our part now so we can celebrate beating Covid this Summer.” While the scientists predicted another uptick and a grim winter to come, we focused on the longer days and sunny weather that had already begun to show. I was energized with hope, acknowledgment and my blessings at hand.
Despite the predictions many months ago, it’s hard not to feel like we failed-as a country and as individuals to contain this virus. With cold and dark days and the numbers climbing, hope is a scarce resource now. The side-walk chalk rainbows are long washed away and the drive-by celebrations feel stale now, while the morgues continue to overflow.
On the frontlines, the adrenaline has worn off. The quick sprint that catapulted us in the Spring has dragged into a painful, seemingly never-ending marathon that I didn’t train for. And this harsh Winter, is still just beginning. The “Heroes Work Here” signs are sagging. The ‘thank-you meals’ are long gone. And the lines on our faces, from the masks and the stress, are deeper now than ever.
I am sad and lonely and really fucking tired.
I miss the people I love. I miss travel. I miss peace of mind and reassurance. I miss comradery.
I am in grief. Grief awakens old grief. And it is easy when we are “down” to replay all of our losses- a pathetic tallying of all of the miserable things that have happened to us. It’s easy to wallow in the darkness and allow ourselves to limply fall down the rabbit hole instead of climbing towards the light-because falling uses less energy. God knows, energy is one thing we’re out of – we’ve been running on fumes for a long time.
It is easy in this dark world we are living in, for my mind to fill with all of the forms of tragedy and grief that I am faced with every day….
Family members and friends who suffer (often silently) with mental illness and traumatic histories, some hanging on by threads and others, the ‘non-covid’ losses in the pandemic.
Loved ones and icons gone too soon, often without warning or a chance to say good-bye.
Foster children, more of them now than ever, as in-home abuse escalates. And the foster parents who take on heavy risk to welcome a new exposure into their household for the greater good – who minister to children, who instead of feeling rescued… often feel like they’ve lost it all. Because all children love their parents and even their abuse/neglect was something familiar to them. Their resources are dangerously limited now and family visits are more challenging than ever with covid restrictions.
Perinatal loss families who have suffered the greatest loss there is-the loss of a child and all of the hopes and dreams attached to loving and parenting that child, many of whom can’t even hold a funeral right now. Their supportive family are kept away by travel bans. I meet new, tear-stained faces every week, that I am enlisted to guide on their heart-breaking journey. And I worry for them now more than ever.
All families of loss, whose family members are locked away in facilities that are desperately trying to keep their patients and workers safe… who are denied the visits and home-cooked meals we’ve become so accustomed to as we minister to the sick, now trapped in isolation, saying hello through a window and “good-bye” on an i-pad.
The loss of safety and security… of innocence and independence… peace-of-mind, freedom and joy.
So here I stand, a grief worker by profession, and all the tools I hand to others, in my own bag are now dull. Getting fresh air and sunshine, the cold air stings and reflexively, I turn away from it. My gratitude list has lost its luster. Chronic stress has my joints aching and real, therapeutic movement feels like an insurmountable chore. Healthy eating habits and avoiding excessive alcohol have never been harder when you are cooped up inside and comfort foods are one of the few comforts you have left. Virtual meetings, whilst a much appreciated technology, after so many months, leave my arms aching now for a human hug.
Yet so many people have it so much harder than I do right now. My complaints feel selfish and petty. I know that I am bathed in blessings and yet everything feels so empty and so hard right now.
For many months, I thrived during this pandemic, making the best of what we had and seizing every opportunity I could. But like everything, that too came to an end. Now I’m surviving.
It was a quote I heard on an episode of “Call the Midwife” when an older Jewish woman who had survived the holocaust ministered to a young girl in grief… she said,
“You will feel better than this. Just keep living until you feel alive again.”
So that’s where I’m at today. With a new year around the corner, I am trying to be hopeful. I am reminded that I have done many hard things before and that nothing lasts forever.
One day, I pray soon, I….we… will feel better than this.
So for now, we keep trying. Along with the cookies and wine, there’s dark-leafy greens. Despite, the cold, there’s windows to sit in and steps to run the laundry up and down for exercise. And in my nightstand, there’s a half-empty journal that I’ll half-heartedly scribble my blessings in, again… lest I forget them.
I’ll continue to soak in every chance I get to interact with the people I love-virtual or not; and to stop and gaze at sunsets, Christmas lights and other small beauties. I’ll continue to grow the game closet for fun, interactive, mind challenging family time; and I’ll keep trying to say “I love you” more. Because now more than ever, tomorrow is so very uncertain.
For everything that is good and worthy in this world, I will keep living… because I know from grief journeys in the past, I will one day, feel alive again. And every lesson, every hardship will make me stronger and more colorful than I was before.
Let this New Year, let this time, be a transformative one. And let us awaken… more alive than we ever were before!
Blessings and Hope for the New Year!
this photos belong to Anthon Cauper – all rigths reserved by the author – solen_@hotmail.de
When I was a young girl, there was a line of books called “Fractured Fairytales”. They were essentially, a silly, every-day spin on the old classics. Cinderella wasn’t into glass slippers, but was more of a loafers girl. Prince Charming wasn’t a perfect suiter but had hang-ups. And in the end, Cinderella was better suited to one of his relatives instead…It was that sorta thing.
I haven’t seen the books in years, but the term came to mind the other day as I was finishing up another 12 hour day of providing bereavement services, after a 36 hour weekend of working in covid world and simultaneously mothering, wifeing and adulting. Reflecting on my job and my life as a whole, everything kind of melted together and “Fractured Fairytale” came to mind… Not in the silly sense that the books were written and not in the overwhelmingly tragic sense of a fairytale never coming to fruition or hopelessness… but in a life-like sense… where both goodness and tragedy reside, side by side.
My life in so many ways, is a fairytale. I am madly in love with my husband. We have two absolutely beautiful children together and several more through my husband’s first marriage and foster care, who’s love sustain us. Our house, whilst small, is ours and has blossomed lovingly from the work we put into it. I am well respected in my profession. We take fabulous travel adventures and play games almost nightly as a family. I’ve delivered babies and saved lives, which has provided me tremendous life/work satisfaction. And the kind words people offer me through my writing and my work, has me walking on clouds many days. For these things, I am the luckiest woman in the world.
And yet despite all the wonderful blessings, there are so many fractures…
While I am very open about things like my brother’s suicide, my parent’s divorce, foster care and the tragically beautiful work I do for a living, there are many aspects of my life that I do not share publicly, out of respect for the people I love, and in keeping my private and public life balanced. Some of those things have brought me life-shattering pain; pain, that I don’t believe I will ever recover from. For these things, I wonder why life has been so unbelievably cruel.
It is as if I am caught in this day-to-day see-saw… of celebrating my blessings and grieving my losses, bathing in gratitude and wallowing in my sorrows…
And I know that I am not alone. I know there are many people who carry tremendous burdens, burdens heavier than even my own, that few people know anything of.
I suppose every life is that way, to some degree. We all have private struggles and ups and downs… To love is to have great comfort and risk great pain; and very little success comes without some degree of failure…that is to live. No one is spared all loss and tragedy.
And yet my experience, both in my own life and in my work as a foster parent and nurse, has shown me that those highs and lows often seem disproportionately assigned in the world. Some people’s pendulum of successes and losses seems to swing much harder than others’ do. While some people seem to be able to skate through life with relative ease, others are dealt a hand that slams them with assault after assault, leaving them in a constant state of gasping for reprieve. While we all have challenges and hardships that create cracks in our lives, some people’s fracture lines are many and they run deep.
It’s become my life’s work to walk alongside those people. Because we never do know, what people are silently dealing with. And everyone needs a friend.
The next time you look at someone and label them as “having it all”, being “Mr./Mrs. Perfect”, “living a fairytale”… or better yet, the next time you judge someone for their “low” place in life, remind yourself that every fairytale has fracture lines and some are much harder to patch.
Still, it’s what we learn to take away from our hardships that make our fairytales that much richer.
One thing I have learned, is that life is part hard-work and part sheer-luck, part what we can control and part what we can’t. Working our hardest, we can improve what/where we can. But, we must also be willing to relinquish control over what we can’t.
When I reflect on my greatest highs, I see that I had a big hand in them- my career, my marriage, my family. That reflection reminds me that my hard-work was worth it! But when I reflect on my lowest lows, I realize, that very little was within my control- genetics, the choices and behaviors of others, accidents. And it gives me a small sense of relief. Not all of our misfortunes are ours to own and yet they impact us deeply. Whether they spontaneously befell me or I missed a signal, I was unable to prevent them from happening. Therefore, my only remaining energy must be dedicated to learning from them, improving from them, and working to heal from them.
That, gives me some control back and it carves out a sliver of goodness from the pain.
But it also gives me a lot of hard work to do. Learning, Improving and Healing… Changing… are hard! They require much more intentional energy and effort than silently mulling in regret.
They say that “regret, is wasting energy on the past, and worry, is wasting energy on the future”. These days, I don’t have any energy to spare. So, I am consciously working on remaining in the present. Sometimes, it’s an hour-by-hour struggle to do so.
It is easy to get lost in thought over the origin of my fracture lines- whenst they came and how, by god, I could have prevented them. It’s even easier still to wallow in self-pity over why I’ve been dealt the shitty hands that I have. And lord knows, it is just as easy to worry for the future- there is so much uncertainty, so much to be concerned about.
But those are the moments that I am learning to take a deep breath and center myself, bringing myself back to the present moment- where blessings and power lie in bounty.
Today I have the power to change what I am able- to seek help, to embark on the journey of healing, to work towards being my best self. Today, I am afforded the opportunity to acknowledge my fracture lines… and with great focus on my afforded blessings, pick up the mortar and begin to fill them in. The patchwork will always shadow under the surface paint, but perhaps the structure of my spirit will end up stronger in the end. And if nothing else, it certainly adds complexity and character, even if that complexity is one I’d rather do without.
When we are children, we dream nothing but fairytales… and no one ever tells us that amongst our innocent views, fracture lines are already running through them…
Some of my fracture lines are so deep, so pervading, that I would literally have given my life to prevent them. But that is the mindset of regret and useless bargaining. And what the implications of those lines will be on the future, is exhausting worry. So today, my fairytale is knowledge, empowerment, resources, opportunity, endless love and the beauty of another day.
Because despite the breaks and pain… life is worth living… and if you give it your very best, underneath the ashes… lies the gold of your very own fairytale, chipped and patched, but wonderous all the same.
Re-discover your fairytale today… your life is more beautiful than it sometimes feels!
I spent a week in paradise, searching a beautiful chain of islands for rest, for answers, inspiration and strength. I hungered for solace but my mind was plagued by busy thoughts. Too exhausted to move and too restless to sit still, I was tired of thinking and yet silence drove my mind into a feral beast that lashed in every direction.
Like a small child to its mother, I turned to the island for comfort but when she reached out to touch me, I turned my cheek. I yearned for her to soothe me, yet I resisted.
All week I combed the beaches, not for shells but for answers. Walking past thousands of perfect specimens, I looked into the vague distance as I fought with my demons and talked to my angels. Asking for guidance, I waited for an answer but my requests were met only by a nagging silence. In the most wonderful company, I felt alone. Alone, I felt tormented.
Tired of walking, I sat at the water’s edge with a fishing pole. The periodic taps of biting fish and the occasional fight of a catch helped to maintain the busy-calm that I was looking for. The views around me were breathtaking and yet my perspective barely extended beyond the minnows nipping at my toes. I was lost in my mind and consumed by my thoughts.
Soon, despite the fishing pole wedged between my side and right arm, my anxious hands found the sand and shells under the waters I sat in. And I found myself collecting miniature shells and lining them up on my bare thighs.
“For the doll house”, I thought. “With these tiny shells, I can make something for the doll house”. And soon, I was in-search for the tiniest of shells, hidden in the sand around me.
Finally, I was searching for something other than answers.
As the storm clouds rolled-in, I scooped up my collection and we headed home.
The next day my mind found itself in the same battle … no energy for busy, no patience for quiet. Again, I combed the beaches empty-handed and again, despite the beauty that surrounded me, my mind was drowning. Sitting along the water’s edge, my fingers once again found the sand beneath me. And then, as my fingers sieved through the powdery white sand, their tips found themselves on the underside of another tiny shell and finally, my angels answered. “Keep searching for tiny treasures”.
“Keep searching for tiny treasures”
Slowly, my mind began to work in a different way and the view ahead of me began to clear. Instead of searching for something I may never find, I rediscovered the tiny treasures of my lifetime.
I remembered my childhood home. Inside those walls, there was plenty of pain and heartache … but on summer nights, in the backyard, there were fireflies! A mason jar, a childhood crush and the sweet green grass that always grew too long made summer evenings there, magical.
I don’t remember most Christmas’s and I can’t recall a single first day of school … but if I close my eyes, I can take myself right back to the sound of crickets and those glowing, flying, tiny treasures.
Looking further back, on the years we lived in the trailer park, I remembered when my Dad brought home “Kool-Aid” for the first time. I sat on the table with my face planted over the plastic pitcher. As he emptied the seemingly empty packet and added the sugar, a mysterious, sweet smoke billowed out and stuck to my lips. Then, as he poured the water, the white powder, like magic, flashed into a brightly-colored drink. He was a magician and that was the best “juice” I’d ever had!
It was from the orange clay that surrounded our white and green aluminum home that we spent hours making the best “cheese pies”. They were sun-baked and carefully crafted by the hands of babes.
One summer, the seventeen-year locust came. There might not have been much work and we might have started to out-grow our tiny home …. but those giant bugs provided endless entertainment. We’d carry our pet turtles outside to the empty baby pools and watch them catch and crunch the unsuspecting insects under the hot sun for hours.
I lived my first six years in that trailer and those are some of my fondest memories. Artificial dyes and sugar, poor soil and pre-historic-looking pests were childhood treasures I’d nearly forgotten.
And then, there was that summer at my grandparents “beach trailer”. My brothers and I ran outside in the evening rain when we saw some toads sitting on the porch. Using a fishing bucket and our bare hands, we chased the bumpy, brown amphibians by porch light. By the end of the night, we were soaked and filthy with mud and we had caught a hundred toads! Past our bedtime, Mom finally called us in and tipping the bucket, we released our tiny, hopping treasures back into the wet, dark night. And we carried the pride of our catch into our dreams.
On a camping trip, I found a large shark tooth along the water’s edge where I was playing. Holding it tight in my hands, away from the other kids who were trying to snatch it from me, I raced across the campground to show my mother. I found her in the cabin, alone, crying, but she stopped when I opened my hands. “What a gift!” she said and she forced a smile. In my jewelry box, I still hide that fossilized tiny treasure.
It’s the extra pickle on your sandwich and two cherries in your milkshake. It’s the smell of fresh-baked cookies. A sunset. The warmth of blankets when they come out of the dryer. It’s a text that says “I love you, that’s all.” It’s a bird’s sweet song. It’s an innocent giggle and a satisfied grin. It’s two tiny hands holding a buttercup, “For you Momma”.
The world is speckled with tiny treasures waiting to be found- little creatures, yummy treats, beautiful sights, wonderful sounds. And every place, no matter how dark it may seem, hides its own secret stash …. if you’re willing to look for them. Past the shadows and under the storm clouds, these treasures will be waiting and the joy they bring you, can carry you.
With the same fervor that you seek such wonders, you must also seek to maintain a focus on them, lest you lose sight of them into the background of life and worry.
This week, I saw a Momma dolphin fishing in the canal with her babe. I saw a manatee feeding in the grass. I saw pelicans dive and an egret swallow it’s dinner. I held an infant shark and chased little lizards. I was surrounded by treasures and yet I couldn’t take them in, because I was distracted.
My ‘life lens’ was out of focus. Instead of looking too far ahead, I had to look around. By focusing solely on ‘tomorrow’s’ problems, I was missing the beauty in ‘today’. And a missed appreciation for the beauty of today is exactly what I’ll mourn when tomorrow finally comes.
As I make my way down the shoreline of life, I know I can’t predict what will lie ahead. While I won’t lose sight of the horizon, my focus is on ‘today’. I can’t change tomorrow and I can’t change fate but I can discover each day’s hidden treasures and allow these small blessings to carry me onto the next.
If I’m lucky, I’ll one day look back at a set of footprints that’s stretched far from view and I’ll see just how far I’ve come. My journey will make me stronger and wiser and more resilient to the changing tides and life’s harsh weather. My body will tell the story of a thousand difficult days, but thanks to my angels, my pockets will be stuffed with lots and lots of tiny treasures.
