2006_11 The Moon is Kicking My Butt

The moon is kicking my butt. I find myself all over the board emotionally. For years, I’ve contended that the full moon exaggerated whatever emotion was the prevailing one. I’ve also held that we just didn’t need as much sleep during the full moon.

At this point in life, I already deal with a range of emotions most days. But to have them exaggerated when I am on less than optimum sleep, is killing me. I am high with relief at having completed a home improvement task that was way beyond my league of expertise. Then I’m blue at not being able to contribute to a conversation on travel. It is not because I haven’t travelled; it is because I feel hopeless about ever traveling again. I go home to fight with my oldest son, walk the dog to create the illusion of leaving my problems behind, and then find myself completely blue. Blue because of the loneliness of raising teenage boys alone, blue because of the hopelessness of being financially secure again and able to take a vacation from responsibilities, blue because I do so miss taking trips to anywhere, blue from the overwhelming mountain of tasks I must complete before my life seems any simpler. Blue.

And yet, there is the moon, as lovely as ever. She is shrouded in a light layer of clouds, with both nimbus and cumulus framing her against the midnight sky. My heart feels her pull, as real as if I’d jogged the dog instead of walking him. Breathing is good, and creates the illusion that I can draw strength from her pull, rather than being thrown around emotionally by the pull. The air is cool, and stings as I draw in a deep breath.

The next day I am consumed with work and teenagers and school follow-up and attempts at exercise. I’m tired and sore from the work I did over the weekend, and stop for a moment to read the ten lessons from Noah’s Ark. You know the one – Don’t miss the boat, We’re all on the same boat, Travel in pairs, Stay fit in case someone asks you to do something big when you’re six hundred years old….. It ends with: Remember there is a rainbow at the end. And for the first time in forty-eight hours, the exaggerated emotion is peace. Sad perhaps, but also peace. Peace at knowing in my heart, that this is the right path. Peace at knowing that there is a rainbow at the end for me, but that I must first weather the storm. It may not be a pleasant path, but choosing it was the right answer. It was the right answer for me, for my boys, and ultimately, I believe, for my ex-husband. There is a rainbow somewhere down the road. It may not be the one I designed or dreamed or envisioned. But it is there. Lesson number two from my thirties: roll with the punches, keep your head up, and you’ll end up facing the right direction. Here at forty seven years old, I still need to keep my head up to be able to recognize the rainbow when I get there. Even if fleeting, I’m all about recognizing the rainbow.

So, the moon may kick my butt to ensure that I notice what must change, but she unknowingly creates a stronger element of peace. Resignation perhaps, but peace all the same. And I’ll not let it prevent me from watching for the rainbow.

2005_12 Breathe

Now that my boys are teenagers, I no longer see my life as hills and valleys. That may have been my life as a woman; but as a mother, it is one long canyon and cliff. Make no mistake: it is a high; it is definitely a high. But every day, I walk near the edge. Every day, I contemplate each step. Some days the going seems easy, and the view is spectacular. Some days I wonder how I’ll hold on, and how many will perish if I fall.

Tonight I made a difficult decision as a parent. My oldest was grounded. To his father, that included the Christian youth group, whose Christmas party was tonight. Because I choose my battles with the dad, just as I do with the teens, I let that decision stand. You see, he and I never contemplate parenting decisions together. This could not be construed as a partnership. I think about the consequences and lessons; my husband reacts.

But I digress. Mick was grounded for very good reasons. I would have included Christian functions in a category with school, as something that makes him better. I do not ground from events that improve people. Having said that, I’m fairly sure it is a battle I should have chosen. But I did not. As parents, we rarely know what is right. We take our chances, we do our best. It isn’t enough. We give it anyway.

I remembered taking calls from a friend when she was in love (with the man to whom she is married). They broke up often, due to many difficult differences in important topics: religion, politics, family. When she would call, the lament was the same: “I don’t know how to breathe; I’m not sure I can breathe.” True enough. I knew the feeling; I couldn’t help her a bit, but I could “be”. And so I did. I “was”. Tonight, I wanted so badly to call and tell her that I didn’t know how to breathe. I wanted to tell her that Mick was grounded, which included church group, and that he was on a hunger strike because “even inmates had the right to worship.” She knows him, she identifies with him; the humor would not be lost upon her. She would have laughed out loud at his creativity and ingenuity, and then felt sorry for doing so, and I would be able to breathe.  I wanted to ask if she had also been mean to her father, not just to her mother. She would tell me how sorry she was for the times she was mean as a teenager. And I would sigh heavily. And breathe. I wanted to know that this, too, would pass. I needed to hear that she had grown past being a melodramatic, manipulative teenager. Then I could breathe again.

I let it ring once. And hung up.

Tonight, she is Single Mom, her husband out of town, her kids young enough to be all-consuming at night. She does not need to help me breathe. That’s the beauty of girlfriends. Sometimes the really good ones can ease pain, can make you smile, while in the midst of their own bath-time crises. And because you know you could let the phone ring twice, you can breathe. 

2005 11 Thankful2005

Thankful 2005

This year I asked the boys to think of five things for which they are grateful. And in keeping with a sense of fairness, I needed to define my list as well. So here goes.

I am thankful for my family. I have friends who missed the opportunity to have a family, and while I have failed to create the nurturing and guidance I wanted for the boys, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to love them. 

I am thankful for my sister. Only she and God know most of my aches and disappointments and dreams and frustrations and accomplishments. Without her non-judgmental understanding, I would hide many truths from her. Without her ear, I would be less.  

I am grateful for the job I have now, for the security and dependability, for flexibility and good souls, for the dear friend who is fourteen cubicles away. I am lucky to be here.

I am grateful for the skills I’ve acquired, perhaps mostly through adversity, but acquired just the same. I am lucky to have confidence in those skills and understand those talents and know that I will always rebound, will always bounce back, and will always find someplace to add value.

I am grateful for my mother. For years, I joked that I come from a long line of women who worked too hard but had an incredible capacity for love. I am so grateful for those lessons that hard work wouldn’t kill me; that I am capable of more and will survive more than I think; and that happiness comes from loving, not from being loved. With that insight, how can I lose?

And having been the over-achiever, with further to go than most, and with obsessive-compulsive running deep in my genes, I had six things on my list. I am grateful for my faith. The grace God granted me to believe, the vision to see the world differently, the relationship with Him that sustains me. I know what gift was waiting behind every painful thing in my life but one. How lucky is that? And so I know, always, that if I’m willing to “bloom where I’m planted” and surrender to the adventure ahead, I will come away stronger, wiser, better able to help another, or fulfilled in the dreams I hold in my heart. Regardless of what the gift is, I know in my heart it will be.

1994_01 Lonely

Marriage is a lonely thing

Or perhaps it becomes lonely over time

My heart claims this is merely a stage in its life

And I want to believe

So I remain committed to this family, to this marriage

I believe this is only a step in evolution.

But I remember when we were best friends

When we could spend days together

  Because we cared about the same things,

  And wanted the same dreams,

  And believed the same ideas

It’s sad that it seems so distant

  And hurts

    To find myself so far away

But each time a storm is followed by a deep freeze,

  A few leaves are weakened,

  A few twigs are damaged,

  Making them unable to hold on

    During the next storm

Storms are natural;

I know that.

  It’s the frigid ice that kills.

Each silent cold

  Robs the tree of supporting life;

Each withdrawal of warmth

  Drains energy from its soul

The colder the storm rages,

  The less life flows to the limbs.

The longer the freeze,

  The more brittle become the branches,

  The lonelier becomes the heart,

  The sadder becomes the soul.

Yet with each storm it hurts less.

The hardier branches steel themselves

  For the next cold spell,

  And draw back from potential hurt.

It is self-defense that the heart pulls away;

It is Darwin’s law that the strongest survive.

The marriage becomes lonely as an act of preservation,

  Hoping for a new spring,

  The generation of renewed love and

  Some miracle to create life.

But in the meantime

I find it sad to care less.

I find the winter

  Hibernation

   

    Lonely

I have learned remedies and devised crutches for the loneliness. I do not apologize for any crutch that helps me to get through tough times. I am honest enough to recognize the crutch for what it is and to use it only until I am able to move on without it. The best crutch for loneliness is friendship, both real and perceived.

God invented girlfriends for those times when we need beyond what a spouse can provide. I truly believe that God never intended for the love of our life to provide for all our emotional needs: not all our personal growth, not our only forum for dreams, not all our physical support for daily life. We draw instead from a host of tools and souls. Once I really understood the role of girlfriends, I began to cut my husband some slack. He does not want to know on a day to day basis what I feel, what I am working on within, where I “scored”, when I lost. A girlfriend, on the other hand, loves to analyze with me, as it is in that analysis that she grows too. I absolutely understand now that you teach best what you most need to know. I think I stole that axiom from Illusions, but I understand it better every year.

This week I had the good fortune to walk for over an hour two days in a row with a dear friend. She is struggling in her new life with an infant. While she finds it amazing to be so in love with this miracle, she is challenged by a weeklong visit from in-laws very different from her own family. Okay, I know: and she’s different from the rest of us, how? She isn’t different. Many couples find that part of the attraction was the balance forced into their lives. That balance often comes from stark differences. While she understands her fiancé much better now, she is also exhausted by the negative attitudes, the lack of help, the condescension of their wedding and baptismal plans. She looks so forward to the arrival of her own family so she can be excited about the Lenten season, the baptism, their colossal wedding plans.

I’ve also learned a thing or two about negative attitudes. One is that if I let that negative energy flow through me, continue with my natural, almost “Pollyanna” approach, the negativity has nowhere to fester or grow or even to sustain its own life. If I refuse to acknowledge it, I also refuse to feed it, and it soon dissipates. I’ve finally learned to breathe, to pray, then to not walk as if on eggshells. Typically, the negative person gets bored, becomes part of the wallpaper, or joins life as I think it should be lived. Not always. It takes a considerable amount of energy on the front end to be who I need to be, to follow through being true to my natural exuberance all by myself. And I don’t always have that much energy, or the time to pray for it.

But, being who I am, I gave her my opinion: be excited if you want. They’ll either become wallpaper and allow you to enjoy your family, or they’ll watch, learn, experiment with happiness, change a little. Easy for me to say. But she tests it out, and thinks me some twentieth-century prophet. We teach best what we most need to learn.

So the next day, still basking in those praises, I was tested. I found myself in the very uncomfortable situation of my husband being over-involved in our son’s hockey team, very critical of the coaching style, to the point that he insisted that we move him to another team. Buy another jersey with only four games left, make new friends, explain why he couldn’t just “skate” for the remainder of the season. No. His father was adamant that he learn, improve, and that this coach’s style was too lackadaisical. He was angry, confrontational, and way outside of any comfort zone of mine. So I tested my purported approach. Having just reminded her of that approach, I could remember having heard it somewhere. So I chose to enjoy our time together as a family. I chose to live each day with the enthusiasm that comes naturally to me. And when the boys were tucked into their beds that night, I returned to whatever friend I could conjure up.

The clear, cold night is comforting.

I sit alone on the front step,

  Unnoticed by the Outside,

  Unmissed by the Inside.

I breathe the cold air in through my nose,

  The heat of anger out through my mouth.

I breathe the cold air in through my nose,

  The loneliness and resentment out through my mouth.

Orion is clear

                And reminds me that I am not truly alone.

The illusion of companionship is good.

Together, we share the beauty and peace of the dark,

                The calm and quiet of the cold.

Together, we remember the good of the past, the

                Good of the present, the good we expect tomorrow.

One more cleansing breath:

  Cold air, in through the nose,

  Hold the peace and comfort of God as long as possible,

  Then slowly,

    Ever so slowly,

    Breathe out the hurt,

      Breathe out the memory

                Forgive those who have caused pain,

                Ask forgiveness for any pain caused in return

                Ask for wisdom and strength and patience

                Remember that happiness comes from loving

                Not from being loved

                And prepare to return to the Inside.

Thin, cirrus clouds drift across the quarter moon,

  Reminding me that nothing is static.

  All is still changing, some things better, some things not.

The moon knows not how the clouds alter her appearance

  But she trusts and accepts and only changes from perfect to perfect.

I cannot control the outcome of all, regardless of good intentions.

    I return now to do the best I can.

    I return now

    To the Inside.