50

It's one thing when your older sisters turn 50, as mine have over the past few years. "Older" is right there in their labels, not as a put-down but as a statement of fact. When your closest and 'oldest'  (meaning longest serving) friends start doing so, however, it's a bit of a cold slap in the face. 

So happy to get to celebrate with this beauty!

Two weeks ago my darling Diva had her Canadian 50th birthday party before whizzing off for a lovely family trip to Mexico for the actual day. Diva and I have moved in and out of each other's orbits since we were 11 & 12 respectively. However, it wasn't until we both moved to Victoria, shortly before her 40th, that we really became bosom friends. In fact, celebrations of that major birthday were the first photos I posted on Facebook. And now, suddenly, in the flash of a moment filled with love, loss, grief, near misses, dodged bullets, changes, samenesses, weight lost and gained, dreams attempted and postponed, new goals and old habits, here we are celebrating 50. 

I can't believe someone took this picture before
dragging us out of there. 

The day after the Diva's party one of my earliest chums, a man I haven't seen since we were teens, also posted about his 50th birthday party. But but but ... the last time I saw him he was 16. How can this be? Even more confusing, how can the boy I sat in this puddle with be a father, husband, leading firefighter? How can things change so much while I still feel so ... me.

It still breaks my heart that Dale didn't make it. Bobby has. The Rons will, God willing. And late next month it will be my Shiney. The day after Freckles clocks out of 50 Shiney will log into it. My other half since I was 3. My sounding board. One of two people I can tell anything. She will turn 50. And then it will be only me waiting for that milestone alone. Oh no, of course not truly alone, but without the company that has done these things with me for so long - they've all gone before. 

Perhaps my incredulity is a factor of being the youngest child. I never clung to my actual youth since the teen years weren't a joy for me, but there is some call of "I'm not ready" that is seeping ever louder through my daily life. Some resistance. Some feeling of loss. I question almost constantly how I've gotten this far with so many backwards steps. I feel the heavy impossibility of fixing my mistakes with so much time gone. I dread the future having wasted so much of the past. And yet the alternative, as we all know, is even less appealing. We have lost so many too soon. I know what their families would give to see them age.

And honestly, this isn't so much about physical age. I'm very clear I lucked out on the ageing gene lottery. I haven't taken the care of my body that I could have, and yet 'almost 50' is not what shows in the mirror or in photos. But the creaking and the aches. The moaning cacophony of this body. Those too are a reality much like the shortening of time.

It turns out I have nothing to say here. Nothing new or clever or witty. I just wanted to share this impending doom that isn't a doom at all. In fact, it's quite meaningless in so many ways. "Just a number," so they tell me. "It's all in how you feel," they console.

I feel old. And I feel sorry. And, I feel oh so grateful, especially to think of all the friends I've had for lo these many years and to celebrate their milestones with them. 

Is openness selfish?

I’m here – I’m in Kingston Jamaica. I’ve been here 4 days. In SKWiD training one of the conversations is about whether or not to share negative things with our people back home – what good can it do (feeling supported), and what bad (worrying loved ones who can’t help; being disappointed in their inability to help). I’ve been reflecting back on that conversation this week as I navigate the steaming miasma of a new country, essentially a new language, all the endings I left behind, and all the questions that lay ahead. 

Nothing about Kingston is negative, so far. It’s not that. Yes, it’s hot. Yes, we sometimes are locked out of the water supply for (knock wood) short periods. Yes, I’m learning to navigate systems in a place where everything still looks the same to me. It’s early days, and Kingston is a rewarding challenge. 

The only real struggle I’ve had is feeling isolated. We are in training all day, which means I can’t get to the necessary government office to get the tax registration number I need to get home Internet. I am home alone by 5 every evening, and in bed hours earlier than I normally would be just because there is no loneliness in sleep. Except, of course, when there is. Damn dreams. 

My roommate arrives tomorrow, but I don’t expect her to fill those aching gaps. She is a stranger-roommate. Not a son. Definitely not a lover. Not my champion who for years has reassured me at every turn that I can do anything. Not even yet a friend. I know myself well enough to have anticipated that this would be my first, and perhaps my biggest, hurdle. And I know that sharing it may be a selfish act, but there it is. I am not just alone – I am lonely. 

I seem to have lost by two best friends somehow this summer. They have left large holes. I have a lot of love in my life, but it’s hard to feel it across a large continent and a wee sea. I feel it reaching, but not within reach, at least not yet reliably so. I know it's there ... 

The upside is, I am learning to stand tall on my own. To cross traffic where pedestrians have no rights. To cook with local flavours and ingredients. To turn on the boiler in the morning or enjoy my cold shower (mostly that). To include sunscreen and bug spray in my morning routine. Once I get over the ache of what was, I’ll be even more ready to celebrate what is.  

I am on a grand adventure – I have been blown away by the people of Kingston, their patience with my inability to understand their accents, the amazing customer service everywhere, how nicely put together people are at their businesses, the food, my 5-month home ... I haven’t seen a lot of the city so far, but I am so excited already with the opportunities to learn and grow and explore. 

I didn’t expect to be this lonely this soon. I didn’t expect to feel so shut in when the sun goes down completely by 6:30 and I’m encouraged to stay in my apartment. I know this feeling is very transitional, but it was surprisingly fast. 

As always, music is my friend. Tonight I have been listening to this on repeat while I scrub the kitchen:

 

Do not worry – I am happy. I’m proud of myself for being here, for seeing that my life wasn’t what I wanted or needed and doing something about it. It’s just hard, sometimes, to keep looking forward. I am using a cliche as a mantra. I wonder how you say it in patwa. 

every new beginning ...

And so it begins. The die is cast. The bearing is loosed in the Rube Goldberg machine. It matters not where the bearing lands; what number comes up. It matters only that it has begun. 

---

The couple beside me - so earnest, so young, so tacky, so lost, so happy. Playing grown-up together - she in her push up bra, platform heels, mini skirt, high-pitched giggle. He in his dressy jeans and 'not a T' shirt. They got engaged today, on this her birthday. You can see they want to enjoy the complimentary champagne the waiter has brought them, but ... they give up and ask for Caesars. 

The menu is a challenge. She just wants steak, but doesn't see it listed. There's sirloin, and tenderloin, but those are foreign words to her. He will take care of her now, as he has promised to do for always. "Just look for anything 'Angus'," he coaches her. She also doesn't know what chimichurri, aioli, or demi glace are, but at least she's willing to try what the waiter recommends. She's relieved when he tells the waiter "she doesn't like any red in her steak, but don't make it tough." The waiter understands. Is a pro. Smiles without a hint of malice or judgement. 

They can't stop checking their Facebook congratulations between bites. Reading to each other who said what. He has more comments for now, but knows she'll have more once she posts a picture of the ring. Her parents have weighed in online. Dad says she's too young. Mom says they already had kids by her age. Dad is right, but it doesn't matter now that the ring is on her finger, now that the status is updated. 

---

I wish them well and take a backlit photo for them. Cynic that I am, still I wish them well. The die is cast. 

the richness of words

It would be difficult for someone of my temperament to sit in the quiet, dark privacy of a movie theatre absorbing an ode to books, words, stories and the hunger for them and come away without a sense of urgency about living in honour of them. 

I spent this afternoon alone watching The Book Thief in a small theater, second row from the screen. It wasn't how I had planned it, but it was what was meant to be, I suppose, and it was perfect.   

The timing was ... telling. Just last night STG and I had been talking about 'A Year of Living ...' - the kinds of challenges that seem to be rising in popularity and that, for some reason, call to both of us in some way as a way to add some richness, challenge, growth in our lives. I had just discovered last evening Brittany, Herself and read her hilarious and thought-provoking post about having sex with her husband every day for a year. This on the heels of reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, chatter about the guy who spent a year living Biblically, and some blog post I read (the headline of) the other day about a former pastor who is spending a year as an athiest. Year-long personal challenges are all the rage, and we pondered what we each individually might do. And yes, STG was a fan of the sex-every-day idea. 

In part of that pondering, STG asked the inevitable question, "well, what makes you happy?" and I answered pro forma "singing, writing, reading." But I couldn't make of that something that I could/would do every day for a year. Something was lacking. It isn't just the reading and writing that I enjoy, it's the luxury of space and time to savour the words, to revel in them, to share them, and to be restored by them. 

In The Book Thief the love of words and stories and books is so clearly seen as a humanizing influence that result, in the words of young Liesl, in 'people being people.' They form bonds between people that form the basis of survival. They are a bridge to being ... something more both individually and relationally. They are calming, moving, healing. 

I sat through the movie as though I were Liesl - so drawn to books that I become unaware - or uncaring - of the danger that may lay in their acquisition. I am not. I am not an adolescent German girl in a city on the brink of war. I have not survived that kinds of human trauma. I am not a made-up girl.

On the drive home the question that kept banging about my head was why did I abandon them? I know what made me happiest - the time my life was richest, in many ways - was when I was in grad school surrounded by and immersed in reading and writing and teaching writing. I didn't just read - I was challenged to read with more insight, and to develop a new facility for  sharing my learning with others. I read new things, and discussed them with the people who had recommended them. I spent my days and evenings with people similarly immersed, devouring existing works of art while often creating their own. Words oozed out of us. An observation from the top floor of the library became a poem. A personal revelation during a reading became the basis of an essay. The more I read and wrote, the more I wanted to read and write. Life expanded with the wealth of words at my disposal. 

I think about those days - my sons so young, life so full yet having time for friends and lovers, my ability to work all day and come home to write, being simultaneously exhausted and alive - and I wonder what's missing now. I am older, yes, but so are my sons, so shouldn't that balance out? Shouldn't I still have the internal resources to work all day and write at night? I read, yes, but it seldom seems to fill me to the point that I have enough in the tank to let it spill over onto the page. Is what's missing the conversation? 

I am sorry I didn't fight harder to stay in the classroom, both as a student and as a teacher. As grateful as I am for the life I have, that nagging doubt never really leaves me. I could have this wonderful life with all that's great in it, and still be in the classroom. I wonder what that would take. 

*No, I still don't know what I'd take on if I were to take on a year-long personal challenge.
*Yes, if there's anywhere you can still see The Book Thief I highly HIGHLY recommend it.
*Yes, I am still looking forward to reading the book - as much as I am a book snob, I am not the kind of book snob who thinks that movies are better/worse than books. They are different mediums that I also enjoy, and that I judge on different criteria.
*Yes, apparently I did forget to review The Happiness Project when I read it and I will get on that ... along with 6 other pending reviews in 'draft' mode. 

turning myself inside out

I recently read a blog post, one of many written on the subject in the last while, that made clear for me that for my whole life I’ve misunderstood a core part of who I am. Of the 23 possible signs you may be an introvert listed in the article, I identify with about 20 of them. Because I am not shy, because I am a joiner, because I am not only unafraid of but actually seek out the spotlight – the bigger the audience the better - I’ve always believed I am an extrovert. In fact, I didn’t just believe it, I celebrated it. I took pride in it. I was grateful to be an extrovert, and truly believed (and still do) that extroverts have an advantage in our culture. 

Singing for 900 - no problem.
Talking to the girl singing with me, not so much. 

Inside of that identity, reinforced and heavily outlined until it became almost a caricature, there was a core ‘me’ that never got to be expressed. Oh, that’s not so accurate – she got expressed, but only ever as a reactionary breakdown. After enough denial and stepping over, the neglected introvert in me would come out swinging, alienate people, and force a retreat to whatever sanctuary was available. 

I now recognise that reaction – before getting to the breakdown stage – as something that I refer to as getting ‘peopled out.’ It’s a weird sensation – I can be surrounded by people I love, whose company I enjoy, and just want to run away. I become anxious, and then i become quiet. It seems odd that I got to my fourth decade before I figure this out. I am not an extrovert. I am an introvert with extrovert tendencies. The clues are all there – I’d rather speak or sing to a room of several hundred people than be alone in a room full of strangers with whom I have to make small talk. I can do the latter, but it drains me (put me in front of a crowd, though, and I’ll float home). I hate the phone – those people who prefer contacting me by phone I will move to email as soon as possible. My default setting is to let my written words speak for me – honest, but one step removed. 

Recharging on the Irish coast.

The favourite trip I’ve ever taken was when I traveled solo for two weeks, starting with a week in a cottage on the edge of a seaside village. I love social media, but even there I keep the elemental me protected, and every once in a while I have to shut it down, stay offline for a while, and (as you may have noticed) stop blogging. I am familiar to a fair number of people, and trust few of them to know me. It’s no accident that I’ve had the same best friend for more than 40 years. I adore my sweetheart and my sons, yet as I write this, I am in a happy place – a hotel room by myself, with the city passing by outside my window. It is one of a series of happy places throughout my life that all share the key features of solitude and quiet - the crook of a tree on our farm, the library at my grandparents' house (or really any library), the garden, secluded rock outcroppings along our nearby ocean.

Sometimes playing shy just feels right. 

I suspect that, as with so many human behaviours , the introvert/extrovert tendency is more of a spectrum than a strictly either/or proposition. And, also like so many other elements of life, the secret is likely balance. It’s something that The Man has helped me to recognize – I am better with people when I have time to myself. It’s important for me, with a job that requires putting myself out there, to have at least one day on a weekend where we don’t do anything. During times of higher stress, my response it to need more alone time, not more people around me.

I suppose this is not that earth shattering to most people, but when you’ve spent a few decades thinking you’re some lable, but not being able to integrate your whole self into that idea, it’s pretty liberating to have a new understanding of who you are.

when Carrie met Charlie

This morning I was pondering why we have this understanding that the only 'successful' relationships are the ones that last forever. For some reason that thought brought to mind my grandparents, or at least my story of them and I'm still percolating on why that is.

Christmas 1969: such a 60's looking group

I never really knew my maternal grandparents - not the way I had a clear sense of the grandparents on my dad's side. I can see my maternal grandparents only dimly, through faded 'snaps' and memories that are distorted through time and other relationships. And yet, I have this sense of them - of the romance of their story.

It may be only a story - the romantic imaginings of someone who was too young to see the truth of it - but it still moves me. There's no high drama, no Romeo and Juliet, no Antony and Cleopatra, no Rose and Jack, but in many ways it's a romance that is so much deeper than any of those tragic narratives. 

My Grandfather is truly the stuff of legends in my life, by which I mean that I mostly just have stories of him to go by. Grandpa - Charlie - died when I was only 6, and I'm not sure if I actually remember him reciting poetry or have just heard stories of , and inherited, his love of language. For years my mom had a cassette tape of Grandpa reciting 'Winnipeg Station' (an early 20th century Canadian prose-poem of which Google has failed to find me any trace). Grandpa was, in my mythology, the first of us to co-opt our Irishness. My version of him invents limericks and recites Yeats and was one of the few people to really read, understand and enjoy Joyce. Although he was born in Prince Edward Island, in my version of him the green hills of home he cherished were across a broader sea. I also believe that he suggested my VERY Irish names (Shannon Coleen), although that too may be just part of my personal fiction. Grandpa made his living as a carpenter, but from all accounts he was what we'd now call a Renaissance man - good with his hands as well as his wit and his heart.

Grandma - when she was still Carrie Bell Campbell - left school in Grade 8 to help her parents on the farm. The youngest of a string of farm kids, as Carrie's siblings married off her help became indispensable. In her 20's, when other young women were meeting beaus and starting families of their own, Carrie was still at home caring for her aged parents. When she finally met Charlie, at a church meeting, she was able to be courted (in a proper and ancient manner we can only imagine today) only because of the death of her mother. I imagine that in Carrie's eyes Charlie was, comparatively, a man of the world. He was college educated and had worked in the United States. He'd held a variety of jobs - as a salesman, a labourer, and a carpenter. It was working with wood that he found his milieu. I'm not sure what Grandpa did for a living when they met in her small farming community, but I assume they wasted little time in the dating phase of things. She was in her 30's already; he was ten years older. 

A double first Christmas 1968: my cousin Troy and I, born 8
months apart, in the seat of honour.

I don't know much about those early years. Their first child died in childbirth, an event that Grandma still spoke about with tears in her eyes and anger in her voice (she blamed the doctor's incompetence) when she told me about it 60 years later. Two boys followed. Grandma was 41 when my mom was born and had another baby boy 5 years later.

By the time I was born, Grandpa had already retired. I never knew them not to live in what we then called an 'old folks' home,' though my mom has shown me the house they lived in in Kelowna when she was a young girl. Charlie always wore a fedora and a button down shirt, even to go to the beach. They were always old to me, yet I remember them holding hands; Carrie was a great hand-holder.

Although I had much more time to get to know Grandma, I still have a sense of mystery about her: what were her dreams? Did she resent those years on the farm? Did she long for the openness and stability of Gilbert Plains when they followed work from town to town in BC? Despite her limited formal education, Carrie too liked reading. I don't know if that was always the case or if it was the result of living her middle years with a reader. She took up bowling when she was 80, which was probably about the time she first wore 'trousers.' When she was 91 she suffered a stroke, then recovered so remarkably from that you'd have thought it never happened.

Grandma's last Christmas, and still so proper.

Grandma was 103 when she died, and by then few people alive still called her by name; she was mom or grandma or Mrs. Fuller. The girl Carrie had been subsumed. She had waited so long for Charlie, but they had only 40 years together bookended, for Grandma, by 30 years alone. When her Charlie died, Grandma bought two cemetery plots and bided her time. She told me, late in her 90's, that she was ready to go. She had outlived a son, her siblings, many of her friends, and her sweetheart. It was lonely to be a survivor.

Grandma never, as far as anyone knows, so much as looked at another man seriously. Oh, she could be a great flirt with waiters and store clerks, and there was that one time she bought a large cubic zirconia ring and tried to pass it off as an engagement ring at Christmas (did I mention her mischievous sense of humour?). But really, she had had her great love.

We are so addicted to grand gestures in our culture. We want over-whelming emotion and obstacles to over-come and John Cusack with his boom box. And yes, when I say 'we' I mostly mean I. But there's something to be said for that quiet sustaining love, a love that goes on for three decades after death. There's something to be said for a legacy of love. 

no words

I can't sleep tonight. My bed feels off - the sheets writhing with imagined insects, my skin hyper-alert to every cat hair and dust ball collected on the sheets through the day. It's too warm, and yet lacks comfort. And my brain. My brain is recounting all the death that seems to be every where I look of late. So close, and getting closer. 

My Grandma's death in May was a respectable death. A tolerable one. We who loved her knew she was ready, had her faith and a long life well lived to guide her on her way. But since then ... it's just loss after horrible unsupportable loss. 

Local children being snatched from their mother's arms by cancer - Justin Plunkett. Baby Molly. And friends of friends being robbed of their hope and dignity before finally giving up their lives to cancer. Nearly every day on Facebook it seems someone new is mourning someone stolen from them. Babies and children, or adults in the prime of life, all with much living left to do.

And tonight my sons' cousin - my former nephew and one time adorable ring bearer - is being kept alive by life support machines. At 31, this husband and  father of 2 young sons had what we think at this point (and I may not have the most accurate information) was a massive heart attack while on summer holiday visiting his mom. His young wife performed CPR for 20 minutes until the ambulance arrived. 

I ... I have no category to put this in. Someone who was once dear to me, but through the violent disruption of divorce has been severed from my family tree. And yet he is close kin to my sons. It's a bizarre situation allowable only in this broken-down modern world. How do I offer condolences to my one-time sister-in-law who watched her only son fall to the floor? How do I console the niece-I-no-longer-have on the devastating loss of her protective big brother? Will a card sent with her cousins contain any meaningful solace?

And then there's that other issue. How do we keep death at bay? How do I keep my own sons safe? How do I stop that worst of nightmares of outliving a child? 

I wrote earlier tonight

death feels too close these days

& like only living fully will keep it at bay

I crave softness for my loved ones and 

compassion for the world

... but that will not help me sleep. Sleep is for those who haven't seen the death peering in the window. 

lost: one sparkle. if found return to owner

Someone I trust and respect asked me on Saturday when the light went out of my eyes, when I stopped thinking it was okay to express myself, when I lost my sparkle, and if I knew what it would take to bring it - and me - back. She reminded me of the time a couple years ago when I had spontaneously sung ‘This Little Light of Mine’ solo and acapella in front of 100 friends, acquaintances and strangers just because it was my  song. She wondered, with compassion and concern, where that Shannon has gone.

When I mentioned that conversation to UberCoach, she concurred, and mentioned that while the blogging challenge has been a great way for me to write everyday, I actually haven’t been sharing myself. The posts, for the most part, have been quick, perhaps shallow, and very safe. I guess that explains the sharp decline in readership in the last month. 

It really got me thinking. I don’t know when I decided (again) that it is not safe for me to share myself. I know that it’s a relatively recent resurrection of a fear that was conquered for a good long while and that came back like a zombie phobia in the last twelve to eighteen months. It’s also tied to my weight gain – I’m heavy-hearted and it shows in my body. What’s funny – by which I mean annoying – is that I also feel very small. Why can’t my body express that? Sheesh. Anway. 

Somewhere along the bumpy ride of the last two years I made a series of decisions – it’s not safe to be open with people. There’s no point dreaming. You can’t trust anyone with your innermost secrets. Why bother  fill in the blank  (planning for a real holiday/getting fit/paying off debt/eating well/writing from your marrow) when it will all come to naught.

Really, I suspect there isn't any one point where I made these decisions – and I know that there were specific moments where particular relationships became unsafe. Thoughtless comments. Being gossiped about. Shattered promises. Dropped connections. They all add up. But I don’t know which straw broke my back. I just know that I am no longer someone who stands in front of a room singing my theme song. And, if I did do that, my theme song right now wouldn't be ‘This Little Light of Mine.’

When you (meaning I) have to hide one part of yourself here, and another part there, pretty soon you are spending all your energy trying to stay safe. I don’t know what it will take to regain that openness. But I promise I won’t give up the search. 

See - sparkles 

storms

There are storms that are romantic. Dark and stormy nights spend safe and sound in a room with a view, a fireplace, and someone strong to hold you. Those are not the storms that will kill you, unless you’re the first Mrs. Rochester and can’t escape the attic. Those storms are the storms we chase now and then. Optional storms. Valued-added storms. Storms that keep west-coast resorts open in the winter.

The storms that really wear you down are the smaller storms, the recurring storms, the ones that just keep hitting and hitting when you’ve not yet recovered from the previous waves. These are the storms that will drown you. Not with a roar but with a whimper.

pain

It’s time for a very flawed, very brief, very reductive lesson in Buddhism.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Dang. I still have to write another 84 words, but really that’s all there is.

Okay, let’s try this - when you have depression, particularly chronic, recurring, desperate depression, people out there in the sunshine think it’s all in your head, but it’s really all over your body. Your bones ache. Your joints moan and creak. Your muscles are fatigued without ever being used. Sometimes even your teeth whimper. You suffer. And, you have pain, and none of it feels optional.

It’s very very confusing to feel something that is ‘just in your head’ all over your body.

starvation

There are many ways to starve. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the biggest tragedies of our society. We are starved for love, for affection, for connection. We yearn to be ourselves, and to be known and accepted as that self. We hunger for knowledge (though it’s always surprising how few seem to as eagerly pursue wisdom).

We live in such a constant state of want that it’s no surprise how few of us experience and express our gratitude, how full our lives are, and the many ways in which we are truly rich.

We starve – physically and spiritually – stuffing the emptiness with mental and physical candy floss.

insanity

They say that it’s insanity, this repetition of actions and thoughts and patterns. Insanity, or perhaps just habit. Or a circular argument. Nobody thinks the zen monks are crazy for carefully tracing circular paths in their isolated gardens. Repeating their motions, perfecting the moment and the motion and the result.

It’s not crazy, the search for perfection, or for happiness – not that they are one and the same, or even on the same spectrum. It’s not insane to fall down 99 times and get up 100. To dream after the death of a thousand other dreams. It’s not crazy. It’s the best kind of human.

if it makes you happy ... who cares?

A dear friend of mine has been in a ... challenging ... relationship for a while. There are no bad guys and no victims, just a fairly complex relationship with some difficult circumstances. I've supported her when she says it's what she wants, and I've supported her when she says it's not at all what she wants. And yesterday, I said "all I've ever wanted in this is for you both to be happy." It was sincere, but it wasn't really the truth.

I realised this morning, with Sheryl Crow resounding in my head, that happiness is really among the least of my concerns - for my friend or for myself. Happy is, in most cases, a fleeting, somewhat vapid feeling that comes and goes like so many other feelings. 

Most feelings are nothing more than butterflies, if they are pretty ones we like, and moths, if they are icky, in their flickering ways. They're really not something worth getting all worked up about (which is ironic coming from the girl who is terrified of moths, but that's a story for another post).

Feelings may be universal, but they aren't real - they're nothing more than a convenient short-hand. So when I say 'I just want you to be happy', what I really mean is something so much more.

I mean, I want you to go to sleep at night sure that the good outweighs the bad. I want you to know that all the hard work actually makes everything else worth while. I want you to be confident in your choices, knowing that they are consistent with your values and will contribute to the future you want for yourself. When I think about it, I'm indifferent to individual happiness, and really interested in people continuing to grow, to learn, to succeed and to be content in life. 

It's also true in my own life; I often say that STG makes me happy, but that's hardly a worthy acknowledgement of what it means to me to spend my life with him. Happy is a DQ Skor blizzard (no, really!). Having the love and support and good humour of a giving, patient man - one who I can piss off, or be pissed off at, and know that the underlying care and respect are still there. One who encourages me constantly to be the most honest portrayal of myself I can muster, to break down walls rather than building them, to ask for and accept help, and to offer it in return. Well, it may not always make me happy, but it sure does make me confident in myself and in us. 

STG doesn't make me happy - he allows me to blossom. And that, at the end of the day, is what I really mean when I say I hope my friend is happy. I hope she blossoms. And that you do too. 

a pox on perfection

Perfection, it occurs to me, is the silent murdered of happiness. And I'm guessing I'm not the first to experience that. If you saw my life, you probably wouldn't think I strive much for perfection - my hair is frequently long past its cut-date. I'm perpetually 10-30 pounds overweight. I often have wrinkled and/or spotted clothes on (they could be freshly laundered, and I'd still manage to get something on them by the time I get to work). Try as I might, my home is never quite clean. And as for the stuff that really matters - my relationships - well, honestly, it's probably a good thing I have other things to distract me from how imperfect I am in relation to the people I really love. 

I had a little (okay, not that little) melt-down last night. And for the life of me, I couldn't REALLY articulate what it was about. I was tired. Am tired. And behind with work. Unpacking in our fabulous new home seems to be taking forever, though in reality we've only been there 9 days. I was making dinner & doing laundry & dreading working more in the evening and the weight of the spare room full of boxes was weighing on me, and I was texting with BB2 trying to support him and BLAMMO. Sniffles turned to tears. Weeping turned to snot-covered everything. Poor STG was left wondering whether to hold me or leave me alone. He wisely did some of each. 

It doesn't happen that often, contrary to popular belief. I'm actually a fairly tough cookie. But every once in  a while the weight of my expectations shatters me - lots of expectation I have of other people, although those are merely feathers compared to the Sisyphean expectations I have of myself. It's never reality that gets me - it's always looking for what I think I should be/do/have rather than celebrating how rich my life is and acknowledging myself. 

It's maddening, in both senses of the word. The truth is though, I've always thought there was some beauty in brokenness: in decay and the rebirth it inevitably leads to, or in the way fractured glass reflects and refracts the light. I've often thought it'd make a good photography project, if I was talented enough with a camera. Alas, another imperfection. 

For now my wearing away and refinement shows in my life instead of in pixels. And I hope that the end result of the process is similar - that I'm being refined rather than worn down. That the editor in me will recognize that sometimes what you remove makes the rest that much more beautiful. 

some other beginning's end

I've been packing and shopping and planning and laughing with STG about our move in 2 weeks. We're creating quite the love nest for our selves, and we're both so very excited. And yet, I have a certain sadness I've been denying. And this morning I dug around a little and put my finger on it: as Semisonic so articulately sang at the end of every bar night for the past 15 years, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

I do know who I want to take me home, and that I want my home with him. I also know there's something I'm giving up, as is he, in having that happen. I keep joking that we'll see who gets to alphabetize the spice cabinet, but there is something to be said for independence. That's the obvious issue.

There's more though ... there are things I thought would happen here in my little apartment-for-one that haven't happened. I'm okay with letting them go to move on to the life that's waiting for me, but I think it's also okay to say goodbye and bid them adieu while I'm still here. 

What really feels like giving up rather than letting go is that when I moved here, the impetus for moving here, was that my BBs were not thriving living at home anymore, and I thought it was time to nudge them from the nest so they could learn to fly on their own. They didn't. They haven't. And now I am - I am about to move into something close to my simplest of dream houses with a man who makes my future look very different than it did when I moved here. And my BBs continue to struggle. Part of me feels like I'm abandoning them even though they don't live in the home I'm leaving. They will still be welcome. They will still know how to reach me. But ... it will be different.

I also haven't taken care of myself the way I said I would when I moved in 23 months ago. I did at first - walking to work, practicing yoga, living life in such a way that I didn't need sugar to fill me up. Soon enough I'd lost 40 pounds without even thinking about it. And then all hell broke lose. And I couldn't move off the couch. And my primary medication was sugar again. I regained 30 pounds. It's just a barometer, that damn scale, of whether or not I'm taking care of myself in other ways. I'm not. And I still can, even when I share all my meals with someone with different food needs. I can, but right now I'm not. 

But maybe that's just an excuse. Maybe all I'm really worried about is having someone I'm accountable to, and someone whose interests and cares and opinions and feelings I have to pay attention to. That's never been a huge strength for me, but I'm willing to give it a try. 

I'm excited to be moving in with STG. To be creating a new size and shape of family that includes our off-spring who will all come and go from our home. We will plant gardens, grow roots, explore the world, fight over things that don't matter, and cling to the love that does. 

And I'm okay with saying good by to the life that I planned that never was. Mostly because the life that is waiting for me is so full of sunshine and love and bursting with goodness I never even imagined. 

good air in

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Henry David Throreau

The team at Write on Edge, the writing community I joined in 2011, sent out their New Years resolutions this week, and while they all sounded good, Nichole's really stood out for me: "My resolution is to walk away from the computer and find inspiration from life more. I plan to live by Thoreau’s quote ... ."

I to have been feeling like it's time to push my chair back, fling open the curtains, and go forth into the big wide world. Monday night -after my first bike ride of the year and finally getting some fresh air in my lungs - STG and I spent the evening planning our summer vacation ... and it's going to be a good one! I am absolutely buzzing with anticipation of the sunshine, the sea air, the hiking and biking and wine training and sight-seeing we have planned. 

I'm finding more and more lately I just want to step away from the electronic life and get out. Our trip is all about being out and about in the world, but I have 7 months before then to practice. And yet, even as I write this I have the TV on, my computer on my lap, and my iPhone sitting beside me. It's too much. It's a bad habit that creeps in further and further and makes me think I'm connecting with people when really I'm just hiding behind my computer screen, popping out as a persona instead of being a person. And instead of some times just being on my own. 

So, I'm scaling back. Facebook has lost its lustre for me. Twitter is following suit. I enjoy my blog, but find drafts are sitting in draft mode longer and longer. And the TV ... well, I'm very much leaning towards cancelling cable altogether, though I would miss the cooking shows.  

Miss Lady gave me a yoga pass for Christmas, so I'll be re-visiting that practice soon and am very much looking forward to it. It's time to stretch my wings again, move my body, reconnect my body and my brain - to stop surviving and hiding and get back to my very beautiful life. 

My mom sent me the lyrics to this song a few days ago, with the suggestion that I find the video. And so I did. It's a good one, timely, and oh so true. And everyday I feel a little more alive again.

Sara Groves \ Less Like Scars

It's been a hard year 

But I'm climbing out of the rubble 

These lessons are hard 

Healing changes are subtle 

But every day it's

Less like tearing, more like building 

Less like captive, more like willing 

Less like breakdown, more like surrender 

Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel you here 

And you're picking up the pieces 

Forever faithful 

It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation 

But you are able 

And in your hands the pain and hurt 

Look less like scars and more like 

Character

Less like a prison, more like my room 

It's less like a casket, more like a womb 

Less like dying, more like transcending 

Less like fear, less like an ending

And I feel you here 

And you're picking up the pieces 

Forever faithful 

It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation 

But you are able 

And in your hands the pain and hurt 

Look less like scars

Just a little while ago 

I couldn't feel the power or the hope 

I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing 

Just a little while back 

I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping 

You would come

And I need you 

And I want you here 

And I feel you

And I know you're here 

And you're picking up the pieces 

Forever faithful 

It seemed out of my hands, a bad, bad situation 

But you are able

And in your hands the pain and hurt 

Look less like scars 

And more like 

Character

removing the wall

So I've started work on a new offline project, and even though it's offline, and I'm not even deciding what shape it's going to take until I get the words out, it seems I can't stop censoring myself.

The document I'm drafting it in is password protected. No one has access to this computer but BB1 and I, and he can't access the file. Yet I can't stop censoring myself. I know what I want to say ... and I know it wants to be said ... but something keeps getting in the way.

Even when I was talking about the project with Dive Moe I was more open than I'm being in my writing. It's frustrating, really. There's no point in writing my story if I can't even admit the truths to myself. It's like my default way of communicating has become ... filtered.

Then again - there's no deadline. I can write what I can write today. And tomorrow I can peel back another layer. Maybe that'll work. Maybe step by step I'll remove the dam.

I know this isn't much of a post. I just wanted to tell y'all what's up.

a terrible thing to waste

I was just daydreaming - something we're told as children is a waste of time. Something I've probably even told my own sons now and then to snap out of. 

It was a great dream - I could almost feel the breeze that wafted through our open windows carrying freshness and the smell of ocean salt. The space was one of light and love. It was an impressionistic dream - short and soft. Full of promise, and a reminder of who I am, what matters to me, and what I'm doing here.

It left me ... happy. No, that's not accurate. It left me deeply satisfied. This moment - life as it is now - is what I have that will help me get there. And it's still there - that future life that is in process. I don't have to strive, or to fight against what is. I just have to remember that dream. And remember TO dream. 

It's a relief to know that I can still dream. I had thought that I had forgotten how to, but apparently that's not so - phew! What scared me about thinking that I'd forgotten how to dream was knowing that without a dream - without that seed of a future, I'd end up with just a default life. We are not here to survive - we're here to experience and share and grow and learn and laugh. 

I find it easy still to slip into a funk. Although life is ticking along, the reserves aren't yet quite where they need to be to fend off occasional bouts of melancholy. Today, however, I learned of one of the tools in my tool belt that I can pull out as needed. And you can bet I won't be telling anyone anytime soon that daydreaming is a waste of time. 

What I Didn't Say

"It's not that I believe your lies, it's just that they sound so pretty dripping from your round lips," she murmured into his shoulder. 

He wanted to be offended, but there was too much truth in what she said for any such response to be believable. 

"At least I speak," was all he could come up with. "All you do is consume  words." 

She sighed and kissed him again. Knowing that the lies would continue for as long as she was there to listen. And sometimes some truth would creep in. 

If only I was as brave as my characters. And as willing to call a spade a spade, a lie a lie, and a beautiful lie a magnificent slight of tongue.  

Another Post, Another Layer

I had ten days off at the end of 2010. Ten days in which I intended to get out all the vestigial effluvia of the year. Ten days to write and read and create and dream of 2011. Ten days to have the conversations I've been avoiding, to lament the losses and celebrate the wins and to blog about it all. 

I didn't really do that. I didn't read a lot. And I wrote even less. I thought a lot. And had one or two (mostly incomplete, mostly text) beginnings of conversations. 

And since then. Since 'the big beginning' of 2011, I've been even quieter. Partly it's because I stirred up some stuff that I wanted to sit with. And partly it's because I'm still sorting through what I want 2011 - and this blog - to be. But it really has occurred to me like I haven't quite got my head in the game and I'm not sure why. 

I think my hero blogess at Redhead Writing may have nailed at least a part of the puzzle today though when she wrote: 

We’re richer and more complex than our protective outer layer, the one we let people see each and every day.

I often feel like I pour my guts out in this venue in the hopes that someone out there will read and see and that maybe I'll touch something in them and they'll similarly want to reach out and touch something in me. But, honestly, it's not really exposing all that much of a soft underbelly for me to admit that as a 42 year old woman living alone I'm lonely. I think you probably know that without my writing about it over and over and over again. 

Which is why Erika's statement resonated for me. What I've been letting people see - not just on my blog but across the broad spectrum of my life - is just the outer protective layer. I remove a mask, become familiar with what's underneath, and find eventually that it too is a mask - perhaps more refined, or thinner, but still a mask. They are like the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, and no matter how angry the king gets, I can't seem to get to the end of them. 

I'm richer and more complex than the SCWInk you see here. More capable. More satisfied. And more fulfilled. Somewhere along the way, just as Bartholomew's final hat is one of surpassing beauty, I hope to find the prize. And, in the meantime, here goes another mask. Thanks, Erika, for the reminder.