Sunshine’s Promise
The sun shines over us
after a long gray sabbatical,
gracing us with its much longed for presence,
entering with a welcome given to the prodigal son.
We open our curtains and lay out our feast
of smiles, manic joy and renewed hope.
Possibilities awaken, some new, some forgotten,
like the buds at the tips
of the branch of barren trees,
they tease with color against the endless brown.
Earth softens with a crackling sound,
stretching and releasing from winter’s icy grip.
The carefree breeze frolics and dances by,
touching our cheeks, as we close our eyes;
the blush of butterfly kisses left behind.
With the leap of excitement and anticipation,
our hearts follow earth’s lead,
the cave of hibernation opens,
renewed energy and hope lure us out,
as we set out to energize and rejuvenate.
The promise of color awaits.
Embrace the Sunshine
Today, a woman I know said she was depressed. Depression is a woman’s form of anger. My heart went out to her. I know the feeling. I fought it all of my life. Although I don’t define myself that way, I know it is still there. It’s like the residual effect of it. Like the grass that is left lying flat after a hard summer rain. The sun is shining, but I know that the skies were once dark and angry over my world.
What do you say? How do you fix for someone else what has taken twelve years of counseling to heal for yourself?
I always feel I am full of advice, like someone standing in the kitchen, as someone else is cooking. I can yell, “Don’t forget to cut back on the salt in that recipe,” and it may help that small aspect of the outcome, but it by no means makes a tasty dish. That person may forget another ingredient or put in too much of another. Life is a lot like cooking.
So when this person shared her feelings, all I can do is offer books that I have read and that once encouraged me and gave me hope. I tell her to write it down, journal her feelings – even the “bad” ones. So many people don’t want to write down the bad feelings, because they say they are afraid someone might read them. I tell them to use a password on the document. They still seem hesitant. Maybe they are afraid if they write it down, it will be too real. But it is a method that I have used to capture the pain and make it stand still long enough to wrap my arms around and hug it till it no longer hurts – or at least, not as bad.
Somewhere over the past twelve years of counseling, I have realized that life is full of choices. The biggest one is to choose to be happy. I used to feel sad, and I would sit with that sadness and wonder where it came from. I’d loll it around in my mouth to see just what it was made of, thinking if I just knew its components, I could break it down, then heal each tiny piece. And maybe that helped a little. Like owning it. Maybe that’s when I did the healing.
Even so, I feel the best tool I have acquired is the choice to change my perception. When I feel loneliness creeping in, I remember all the times I have been surrounded by people and smothered and overwhelmed by their needs, and I embrace the aloneness and thank the Universe for the opportunity to nurture myself. I will admit that when I feel that old familiar sadness knocking at my door, I might crack the door just a little, look out and ask it what it wants, but most times, I just walk away and tell it no one is home. Then I get busy doing something that makes me happy, like writing a story or working on a quilt or reading a good book.
This evening, when I was fixing dinner, I opened up the cupboard to put some spices back, and I saw the trays that I made to sort the Mexican from the Italian and so on. I smiled inside. Those trays make me happy. And as silly as this sounds, I looked at my spices and I felt blessed. But I think that’s the key, you know? Instead of looking at life like one huge picture, break it down into little things. Little things mean a lot. I think that’s where that saying comes from. There was a time when I would have been angry or resentful that I was home alone cooking for everyone, while they were off having fun. Instead, I let myself enjoy what I was doing.
I think of the scene on The Sound of Music where they are all sitting in Maria’s room, because they are scared of the storm. She tells them to think of happy things. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.” I practice this a lot. I used to think it was denial, but now I realize, it’s just perspective.
Don’t get me wrong – things still make me sad, but I just don’t stay there. I pray. I sew. I write. And I thank God and the Universe for all the pain that I have had, the rough roads and the long journey, because it opened me up and let me spill it out, heal it up and now have compassion for myself and for others.
I guess my biggest hope is that I can give hope. I know I don’t have all the answers, because we are all different with different histories and experiences and perceptions of the experience. Regardless, though, I know that life doesn’t hand us anything that we cannot persevere through. We are here to grow, and pain is the catalyst that gets us there. The key is to heal the pain, move up through that narrow stem of the flower, till your face is kissed by the sun and becomes the flower. And then – embrace the sunshine!
Am I Old Yet?
The other day, my friend (I’ll call her Fran) and I were talking about our adult children. Just typing that, I do wonder – is that an oxymoron? Adult children? Anyway, as we discussed her son’s recent brush with bancruptcy, I heard her say something that ended with or included the phrase, “kids these days.” How many times did you hear your parents or grandparents use that phrase and think, as you rolled your eyes, “Oh my gosh, they are so old.” I mean, it is one of those phrases that could easily be found hanging out with, “when I was a kid.” Of course, I swore I would never be so closed minded not to have compassion for those less experienced in life than I, and I would always realize that time moves on and things change!
Even so, I find myself, in my fifty-year-old aged wisdom, shaking my head and wondering why younger people do the things they do or act they way they act. And then I wonder, did I do those things? Was I ever that irresponsible, lazy, inconsiderate, self-centered, naive, stubborn, wreckless – well, you get the point. Any of those words that “old” people use to describe “young” people who are not acting from what we, as experienced and aging adults, might know how better to do in or with whatever it is they are doing “wrong.”
As a parent sitting back with my hands tied behind my back, I realize where all these judgments come from. They come from parents who love their children, but who can no longer control them and worse yet, we can no longer rescue them or save them from themselves.
Fran was talking about the tension her massage therapist told her she needed to let go of. Her therapist told her she needed to shut off her brain. She could not help her son by worrying about him. But I could see the real problem – Fran wanted to save him from himself. Just like when he was little and wanted to run across the ice in his high top white leather toddler shoes with the slick bottoms. She wanted to swoop him up and carry him across it, pull him close to her breast and bury her face in the folds of his sweet neck, and if she would fall, she would catch him on her soft stomach, and the only one that would get hurt would be her.
That is the life of a mother, though. We spend our whole lives making the best life we can for our little creations. They are this wondrous extension of ourselves, or so we think. Then they grow up. They move out. They get married. Suddenly, it seems, they don’t need your hand to hold. And they not only ignore it as you reach out, sometimes they defiantly swat it away, stating that they are grown up now and don’t need a mommy, never noticing that maybe you still need them.
We are left to stand by and watch helplessly, as if this lion of a life has just ripped off the most favorite part of our body and is carrying it away. The blood pours from that open wound at first, and the pain, well, a tiny scratch hurts, but we are talking excrutiating pain. As time goes by, the wound starts to clot and heal, and remarkably, when at first you felt you might not survive, a new skin forms. I felt my forming, and I realized that what I was growing there was a callous. Hard, scaly skin was never something I found appealing, so I have been trying to keep it soft, keep my heart open and realize that – this is life. A natural progression.
I will be fifty-years-old this year. I know, I can’t believe it either! Here’s an old, run into the ground question – Where did the time go?
I was looking at old photos of my kids the other day at my mom’s house with my two younger sisters present. I couldn’t control the emotion, and as I looked at them, I wept. I’ll never have my dark haired, darling daughter’s little hand to hold again. I’ll never look down into my oldest son’s crystal blue eyes framed with blonde locks again. And I will never fasten red IU bibs up over my youngest son’s chubby belly again. Oh, I could go on and list the many, many things I miss about being a mommy. But my cheeks are wet enough. My husband will be home soon, and I’m sure he really doesn’t want to hear about it. I told my sisters to treasure every moment (yes, another worn out cliche’).
Anyway, as my children have gone on to make lives of their own, and I watch them teetering on the edge of life, I remind myself time and again, that I was once young and made many mistakes to get to the place I am now. There is no growth without at least a little pain. So is that what I would want for them – a painless, stunted life? No, definitely not. So with that, I have buckled my seatbelt, and I am ready. And they know, if they need me, I am here!
Darkness and Light
I walked down the sidewalk, the streetlights still aglow, the daylight not bright enough to trigger their daytime retirement. I noticed a band of eerie blue-green color across the sidewalk and realized I had seen that there before. The shadow of the pole, which I felt should have just been a darker shade of gray, was given color by the overhead lights. It had been a long time since I had seen it, then I realized why it had returned. Winter’s short days are back.
My feet splashed through the standing water, and I held my hood up over my hair, so as not to smash it. I was trying to let it grow, but days like this were a trial. I had an appointment for a trim on Wednesday that was teetering more toward a cut. Opening the heavy wooden door, I gave the outdoors a last glance, and wondered just how many more days we would have of the dreary rain.
Last week we had a power outage. A wet, heavy snow had dumped five inches of white weight on the power lines. Forty-eight hours of no electricity. It was so depressing. I never realized how energized I am by electricity. The darkness surrounded me, the cold pervaded my winter attire, and I felt my mood sinking lower and lower. It was a rather apocalyptic type feeling. As wrapped up in my own misery as I was, I still found myself thinking of the people out east who had recently undergone a lengthy power outage. When I had heard about it on the news, I had thought about the inconvenience, but I didn’t realize the effect it would have on the spirit. Not until I was experiencing it firsthand.
Our power came back on Thursday night, but it took me a few days to gather in enough light to lift my spirits. I’ve never been one to dread winter, but if this is what this upcoming season has in store for us this year, I am a bit worried. Living without electricity is not an experience that I want to repeat.
It’s funny, the things we take for granted. Lights seem like a given, something we are entitled to, not a luxury. I don’t take them for granted now! Yes, I will say it, the old cliché, “You don’t know whatcha got till it’s gone!”
The rain is turning to snow tonight. I watched the flakes fighting for center stage, as the rain spits back in the fight. I am hoping the snow wins. It, at least, reflects what little light the gray winter skies emit. And then the ground would freeze. My dog seems not to notice the rain or the mud. She comes in soaking wet, covered in mud up to her hips, and I must stand and wipe her down and clean the mud from between her toes. I have to say, though, she is getting used to it and has become much more tolerant of my touching her feet. Hopefully, this will hold up through her next toenail clipping.
After work, I came home and felt so lacking in energy. I thought I would lie down, but as I did, I felt antsy. I got up and removed all of the Christmas presents stashed in the closet. I sorted through them hoping that the Christmas spirit would lift me up. Finally, I decided I just needed some exercise. I got on my treadmill. With my pink ear buds in my ears, I let the music from my IPod move me into motion, and I sang along at the top of my lungs. That’s the nice thing about being home alone – no one can make fun of your off key A Capella performance. And with my headphones on, I sound just like Beyonce. Well, maybe I feel like her, but if my son were home, I am sure he would tell me to leave the singing to Beyonce.
My energy level and my spirits seem to have gotten a jumpstart tonight. Each season brings about a need for a shift of perspective. Summer and its warmth and brightness spoil us. Fall and winter require us to make our own light. I think I am ready now. Treadmill, IPod and laptop. Pump it up. Sing it loud. And write it down!
“Jesus died o…
“Jesus died on the cross for us!” He said it over and over. I kept thinking, what does that mean? I heard it enough in church, and of course it comes up around Easter, but I guess when people say that, it doesn’t really mean anything to me. Not to be disrespectful to Jesus or the people that worship him, but it just doesn’t resonate with me.
I was raised as a Catholic. My mother took us to church, rain or shine, three feet of snow or scorching heat. As a young Catholic girl, I wore my doily on my head, learned to genuflect, and memorized the Hail Mary and the Our Father. I learned when to kneel, stand and sit, as part of the Catholic mass, and when I was old enough, I learned to confess my sins – even though I made most of them up, because I didn’t really know what sinning meant – and I made my first communion, that I might receive the body of Christ.
There was a feeling I got sometimes, deep within, of a presence of sorts, but no words could ever describe it. People take words too literally, and what I felt was not anything one could paint in a picture or type out on a typewriter. It was a deep feeling, a sense of something much larger than myself, and when I was in church, if I wasn’t too busily, preoccupied with my knees sticking to the vinyl kneeler or thinking about what I was going to do after church, I would become aware of it. And when we prayed the Rosary, all the words being said together, heads bowed, I felt it more powerfully than ever. All that energy focused in the same place.
When I grew old enough to realize that I could have a say so in whether or not I went to church, I started to resent that obligation. I hated the way I felt guilty or even like I was going to be punished if I didn’t go to church. And I took my children to church, without the right motivation. It was “the thing to do.” Plus I lived next door to my mother and had a close relationship with her, so I knew I would hear about it if we didn’t go.
It wasn’t until I left the church that I found my spirituality. Free will, I found meant not just whether or not you choose to sin, but it meant the freedom to let go of all I had been taught, and to find a way to get closer to God, without “following the rules.” I began to meditate and feel the presence of my soul. I learned to listen to the voice within. I learned to forgive – first myself, then others – through this centering on love and compassion. Most importantly, I have found a trust in knowing that if I open my heart and let the energy flow, a peacefulness comes over me and everything flows much smoother.
All of the these new concepts and practices that I have come upon through a great teacher are the same teachings that I feel Jesus taught. And like that feeling that I got when I kneeled in church, I find that feeling over and over and sometimes continuously, as I walk in nature or sit in the quiet.
People like to put names and labels on things. It is their way of feeling they have some sense of control over it, I guess. I have no name for this presence I feel – only that I have never felt so connected to it, as I do now. Call it God, Goddess, Universe, Creator, the Great One, Soul, or Jesus Christ, or Buddha – does it have to have a name to be comprehended?
What I practice does not fit one religion. There is no church, synagogue, or temple that I must attend to confirm my spirituality. I don’t need one. When I step out my back door, I am met with Nature’s grace – the perfect place to pray. When I lie in the dark at night, I am never alone. Even as I sit typing this, I feel it. It doesn’t leave just because it has no designated place to be felt or name to be called. And the only rule that I need is the Golden Rule.
Someone I love very much lectured me recently. This person is afraid I am going to hell, because I don’t praise Jesus Christ. This person said, “I feel sorry for you, because you don’t know Jesus Christ.”
Needless to say, it hurt to be berated in the way that this person approached me – there was a lot of violence and desperation in this person’s voice that made me feel attacked. At first, I cried and felt extremely sad. I was sad, because I didn’t want this person’s newfound faith to come between us just because I didn’t want to put the same labels and restrictions on my faith. I was sad, because part of me want this person’s permission to believe differently. Like most people, I, too, appreciate someone agreeing with me, but I am not willing to turn away from what I have found to be the most powerful and meaningful belief that I have ever experienced just to gain another’s approval.
I went home and did the only thing I could do. I took it to my heart in meditation, and I found compassion for myself and for this person who felt if I did not put my spirituality into the same words that made him/her understand what he/she was feeling, that I must be wrong.
I think the saddest thing about the people that call themselves Christians is that they obviously think everyone else is wrong, which to me means that they are breaking one of their own Biblical rules – Judge not, lest you be judged. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be out there trying to convert everyone to find spirit their way! The Christian way. Maybe what they feel is not powerful enough to stand on its own.
I could get into a lot of disputes about religion, but I choose to approach with a compassionate heart, realizing that everyone has to find their own way. Words shouted at me about fire and brimstone only scared me in the opposite direction.
I try to lead by example. Live from my heart. And if someone is inspired by my actions or my approach, finds healing or happiness from my inspiration, then I feel I have fulfilled my purpose on this earth.
Heaven or hell? It’s a choice. And I think it is a choice made now. Like glass half full or half empty. I know lots of people that go around shouting about Jesus Christ and they are the least joyful people I know, and I know what they are choosing, even if they don’t think they are.
Choosing a loving approach, with compassion, trust and creativity as the base, I choose Heaven! That is – if you have to give it a name…..
Recipe of Love
Monster Cookies. I had fantasized about making them for years. So long I don’t even remember where I experienced them or received the recipe. A big, thick, hearty cookie with mixed flavors and textures; M & Ms, chocolate chips, peanut butter and oatmeal to name a few. I wondered where that recipe was. As the wind gusted like an old man sighing outside the door, I imagined it to be a lot colder than it actually was, increasing my mood for baking. I found myself sorting through my piles of recipes collected over the years and stashed away for a day such as this one.
My creativity seemed to be at a pause, lately, and I had spent the weekend cleaning where I didn’t normally clean and organizing things that had been left unorganized. It felt good to be getting these chores done. I grabbed the stack of papers that I had stuffed behind the cookbooks and recipe box on the shelf and began to leaf through them. Yes, I thought, I should organize these, and while I am doing so, I will find that Monster Cookie recipe.
Flipping through the pages, reading ingredients and directions, I was salivating like a hound dog watching someone eating a steak. Each recipe sounded better than the last. I began to sort them into piles. Recipes I didn’t think I’d ever make. Recipes I would make someday. Recipes I wanted to make soon. I know it doesn’t sound like the traditional way to sort recipes, by food group or by parts of the meal, but it worked for me.
I remembered a folder I had made for recipes I had been given and had previously made and started going through those recipes, as well. As I went through each one, I realized that each recipe evoked a memory. Some were photocopies of handwritten recipe cards. Others were handwritten on scraps of paper or notepads. I was saddened by the lack of signatures or names on these recipes. I said aloud, “I wish these people would have put their names on these before they gave them to me!”
Some handwriting was recognizable, like the handwriting on the sugar cookie recipe from my mother-in-law. Some were recognizable by the recipe. The main thing I realized was that these recipes, given to me by caring, sharing people in my life, were like little pieces of that person – like a fingerprint. My mother-in-law had written a few ingredients, then over to the side were a couple little lines pointing to the word, “CREAM.” I smiled. Her personality was shining through those letters.
I realized, as I continued to sort, that each handwritten recipe showed each person’s personality. My grandmother’s recipe for oatmeal bars listed the ingredients in random order, and she states, “salt to taste,” and I wondered if she tasted her batter, which I would never do for fear of salmonella poisoning; something not so prominent in her day.
Going through my recipe collection left me feeling loved and warm. Like a family photo album, I treasured the faces and the memories of good times that were represented there.
I eventually found the Monster Cookie recipe, handwritten by me on a piece of brown notepad paper with an advertisement of a printing company at the top. Reading the ingredients, I remembered why I have never made it. 12 eggs, 3 lbs. of peanut butter, 18 cups of oatmeal…..well, you get the point. Maybe I’ll cut it in half. Even if I don’t make it at all, though, I found a sweet treasure in my pile of recipes.
Bring It On
Going with the flow is not something that has ever come naturally to me. I tend to make a mountain out of every bump in the road. It reminds me of when I was a little girl. We lived beside my grandmother’s field. Many times, we headed across the field to visit her, or sometimes we would cross the field to the woods either to explore or in winter to go sledding. The walk there was never long. I had my eye on the ball, so to speak. It was coming effortlessly toward me.
Yet every time I headed home, it seemed the distance had grown. Somehow I didn’t ever feel that my legs could carry me that far. The heat of summer seemed oppressive and unbearable. If it was winter, the snow seemed higher than my legs could step over. Defeat held me captive. Through tears and with the force of the inevitable, I forced myself to continue on.
Looking back, this could truly describe how I have made my way through life. Everything has been an effort. Each event seemed to hold too much unknown; too much self-doubt. In the present, I can see how it affects my day to day. I keep a grip on the known, things I have conquered and mastered, and feel my little girl tired legs and the fear of failure that accompanied them each time a new experience looms ahead, like a mountain I will surely not be able to climb.
I find myself in admiration of the people that seek out challenges in their lives. People that can get in their car and drive to cities they have never driven to, to places they have not visited before, as if they were just brushing their teeth for the thirty thousandth time of their life. My husband always seems that way. He can see a new experience and be the first to raise his hand, eager to step out of his box and head into the unknown. Me, I like to wait, plan and prepare. I guess in a way, this makes us a good match. He’s ready to jump in, and I am always standing there with the life preserver when or if he finds the water was a bit rougher than he had anticipated.
Even so, I find that I make myself a bit tired. Tired of the worry that I carry like an anchor in my back pocket. The “what if?” that rules my life. It is a handicap that keeps me in this “safe” and boring place in my life. Knowing I will get up and have coffee and head off to a job that I know (and am thoroughly bored by) and coming home to my house and all that occupy it are securities that I think most people take for granted, but I truly appreciate and feel blessed by these things. After a while, though, I realize I need to step out into the world, maybe switch things up a bit, because without challenge or new experiences, it all gets a bit dull. And besides, when you stand in the same spot for too long, the terrain around you changes. Then suddenly, you find yourself in a world, once known and cherished, now different and uncomfortable. Yet even that discomfort can be a known comfort and trying to leave it, to adjust myself to it, the knot in my stomach grows.
All the hesitation and trepidation in life has taken its toll on my body. It’s like I have been swimming upstream in an effort to stay in the known. Yet no matter how many times I conquer the unknown, throw the anchor from my pocket, and let the water take me, and say to myself, “See, what were you worried for? You DO know how to swim!” it is still my knee-jerk reaction to hesitate and worry or even to just STOP.
My wish is to rid myself of that distrust of life and the universe. To find that calm place of trust that nothing will be put before me that I will not be able to handle. To believe in my inner strength, knowing that those tired little legs have grown strong and untiring and have proven time and again that there is not a mountain that I cannot forge and stand at the summit and say, “Now that was not so hard.” Actually, I would like to stand at the summit without even saying that, because even saying that reveals some self-doubt. Maybe I would just come to the summit, look around and take it all in, see the land below me and the sky above me and just feel I am a natural part of it all – that the climb was really just a lazy river ride.
I guess knowing how to do it, knowing what that natural approach toward life and its many hills and valleys is, that trust of self and the unseen supportive forces, is the “unknown.” I want to enter into it. Give up the known worry. Enter into trust. Let life take me higher and to live it to the fullest. Bring it on!
Adventures – Big and Small
It’s been a while since I’ve had anything post worthy. Life seems to have picked up its pace, and I seem to be busy, busy, busy.
This morning, though, I woke with the urge to post. It was like something inside was screaming – GET OUT THERE!
So here I am.
Fall is peaking in the door, as the rain dribbles from the sky on this September morning. My husband is dressing for an annual 100 mile bike ride. His friend turned 50 last year, and for his birthday, he wanted to ride 100 miles. So they did. It was an all day event, and it was tough, but not as tough as they had thought it might be. Since it was so do-able, they have made it an annual thing. I made my homemade energy bars for him to share with the group. I am sure they will be a hit. What can I say? I love them.
I guess my urge to post comes from some part inside that is probably a bit envious of his trek. He is off on some great adventure, and I am off to the office. No great adventure. Just the same old routine.
In this day of lay offs and people searching for jobs, as the world finally realizes that technology is taking over the need for people, I am grateful for my job. I need the money, the insurance, and then there’s that fact that I know this job. I have worked there for four years and I pretty much have it down pat. That’s the up side to it. The down side? Well, with any routine comes boredom and monotony. My job is so monotonous, I have had to take to wearing a brace on my mouse clicking right wrist. It is black. It matches a lot of my clothes.
Funny how with security comes monotony. With monotony; boredom. So there you have it.
My husband, in comparison, is a self-employed contractor. No job security there. No monotony. His life is like a ship sailing unchartered waters. He requires that. I always tell him he would be stabbing himself with the letter opener by now if he were to try to hold down my job. But lucky for him. I have all the benefits that make his life easier.
So off he goes on his bicycle. Riding 100 miles to adventure and comraderie.
Me, well, this is about as adventurous as my life gets. As far as my fingertips take me…..I think it is time to work on a more exciting path with my writing.
With five minutes to spare, I have a piece to post. Okay, small adventures will have to do. It’s off to the office for me.
“Don’t Forget to Remember Me”
“Eighteen years had come and gone,” Carrie Underwood filled the room. I had resorted to the stash of songs I had burned to disc. My treasured IPod, a gift from my oldest brother a few years back, had gone on the fritz. So when I prepared for my treadmill walk to a more fit body, mind and soul, I couldn’t just pop the IPod in the dock and rock out to the same old playlists. It had become a habit to go with my exercise ritual.
Being forced to step out of my routine, I had reached in the drawer and popped in an old CD. As I sweated and climbed, ran and trudged, I sang along and reminisced about the songs and the era from which they had originated. As I cooled down, I joined Carrie, as she sang about my life. The life of kids moving away and moms doing what they can from so far away. And most of all, the hope that we will not be forgotten. Tears streamed down my face. I wondered, will it ever end? Will I ever stop missing my kids?
My son married a couple of years ago and lives a couple of hours away. His life is about his wife, his two step-kids, his dog, his job, his friends. Although I am sure he would be here every weekend if that fit in his life, his commitment is elsewhere now. He has football games and soccer games, and I know the struggle that goes with being there for your kids and still maintaining some autonomy. I see him living his life just like we lived ours, pretty much, anyway. I relish our visits and look forward to the times we get to be together and rekindle the past.
This summer, my daughter, who is so unbelievably close to thirty years old, got married. It has been a big change in her life and who she is. And in the subtlest of ways, it has affected who she and I are together now. My place in her life has changed. The change is not obvious to anyone, I am sure, except to me, but when we visited last, I sensed a difference in the energy present. I realized there had been a release. A letting go.
Although when I think of it, I mourn the loss of the past, I also am grateful that things seem to be moving into the healthy space that they are supposed to. I would never want my children to hang onto the past and try to be there for me instead of moving on in their own lives. And in their moving forward, I find the freedom to move into the next phase of my life, as well.
I still fight the urge to tell them to fill their gas tanks before they leave town, but my husband has been great in teaching me to let them be the adults that they are, and that includes letting them make their own choices, make their own mistakes, and then letting them take responsibility for their actions – which at the smallest end of things may be running out of gas if they choose not to fill up before hitting the road.
My kids know I will always be there for them. They know that their happiness is one of the most important things in my life. But this summer, it seems, has been about moving into the next phase of our lives. Separate. Apart. Yet supported from afar by the silent bond that one can only feel. It is the bond of love set free.
In the song, the mother’s last reminder to her daughter leaving home is, “Don’t forget to remember me.” I can imagine saying the same thing, or at least thinking it, years ago as my children left home. And sometimes, I admit, it is still a pretty strong sentiment. Yet I know that no matter how much time passes between visits, we carry each other in the safest place of our hearts. There is no such thing as forgetting or even remembering. It is a constant that needs no reminding. Our love is like that. And we are so blessed!
Looking for Love
I think every young girl has this innate desire to be “the one.” We all start out life thinking that someone is going to come along and love us more than we love ourselves. Someone who will think “we hung the moon.” They will cherish us, revere us, put us on a pedestal. Take care of us, love us and never, ever leave us.
I guess these dreams come along just about when we see that our parents aren’t as great as we had once thought. When our needs become more than just hugs and food, and we see that our parents can’t fix everything. They get angry with us or disappoint us with their actions. Their humanness is revealed. I think about then, somewhere deep inside, we start to think, “there’s got to be someone out there who will love me totally and just love ME alone.”
So along comes romantic love. We take our dreams and wrap them up in his eyes, and then whether it be a few months or seven years, it happens when we realize that this man has not fulfilled that longing inside. So we have babies, because, as anyone knows, there is no purer love than that of a baby or a dog. They have no hate or resentment, we can meet their needs, and in return, they will smile and cuddle up to us. But somehow it is just too simple. It is not enough. We still feel that longing. And then the babies need more and more and cry and leave us feeling inadequate.
So we come to the conclusion that we have just been turning to the wrong guy. We either break up with the first guy or just sneak around his back, adding a whole new element of “ours.” Affairs are like that. They are fantasies that no one else knows about, so no one can taint them with their truth or their reality checks. We live in this made up world, reeling in our fantasy of love, till we or someone else bring the truth to the table – and then we see that it was not real either. It was not that love that we had shaped in our minds and had been seeking out. It was all just a projection.
For many people, not just women, but that’s what I am, so I can only tell it from the female perspective, but for many people, this trend, this pursuit of love, will continue on for their entire lives. You hear of people being married several times, others who have several affairs, and some who have a consumption problem. All of them, though, have one thing in common; they think that the craving inside is going to be satiated by some source other than they themselves can provide.
Well, anyone reading this can predict what I am going to say next. We have to find that feeling inside. We have to give to ourselves what we are wishing to feel from someone else. Our inherent love, the love that some might call God’s love, others will call it soul or Universe or nature or whatever, is the only love that will ever fulfill and never disappoint. Yet, you and I will ask, how do I find that? How do I get there?
Personally, and I have found this to be true for so many others, as well, seeking out this love is a scary thing. It means entering into a world of accepting. Many of us have experienced this love and turned away, time and again, because we have a difficult time accepting. How many times have you been offered a gift and you say, “Oh, no, I couldn’t, but thank you so much anyway”? Yet, I have found that it is very easy to give. I have often thought I could give away anything in my life – except my house and my loved ones. Yet, if someone came up and said, “No strings attached! You can have this million dollars!” – I would probably hesitate. I would think it was stolen or something. There would have to be some ulterior motive. No one just gives things of value away without conditions. We are programmed to be suspicious of love – and rightly so – but there is the love inside that is there for the taking and all of our programming keeps us holding it at a safe, comfortable distance.
I have been down this road and have finally reached a place where I realize that the best way for me to feel that love inside is to be creative. When I write or when I quilt, I am transported to that place of quiet, peaceful, exciting, anticipatory fulfillment. Some call it “the zone.” When I am there, it does not matter if the world is falling down around me, I know I am where I need to be. Isn’t that a lot like new love? I mean, who hasn’t been so wildly smitten and in (new) love that they would have walked through a million lightning bolts with barely a flinch to get to the person they had projected that onto?
It’s an amazing thing to realize that what I have been looking for has been right within me that whole time. The things I had been avoiding were the things that would bring me what I had been looking for.
I guess some of us have to take the hard route. We don’t believe what we already know, because we already know it, and if we already know it, well, it can’t be true, right? It was too easy. So we find ways to make it richer, more dramatic, so therefore, much more valuable.
Well, looking back, I wish I would have spared myself and those around me all the drama and the scars that I inflicted upon myself and others in my searching. Even so, I am sure that I picked up a lot of wisdom to share along the way, and that’s worth a lot. Too bad I didn’t realize my pockets were already full!! I could have been spreading love instead of pain!
Life still has its ups and downs, and there are times I still forget what is right within my reach if I just go there. Even so, now that I have weeded every other possibility out, I can get down to the real stuff. I am sitting right in the middle of a garden full of love. And whether I am alone or amongst others, I know this love and where to find it. As we came from creation, we are here to create!
