Plugged in and turned off. Or on.

My daughter's iPhone 4S took a hissy fit yesterday after almost three years of faithful service. The decline happened slowly. It kept less and less of a charge over time. Finally, she had to recharge it four times a day (or keep it plugged in), and there were other difficulties that made it kind of 'high maintenance' for her. But she loved her iPhone so much that when Apple went to a more bells-and-whistles and a less reliable-and-dependable iPhone a couple of years ago, she refused to upgrade. 

"It's my baby," she said. She didn't even upgrade the operating system on it. (I envied her after I made my software upgrade - but there was no going back; the deed was done). 

So she took it in to the dealer to avail herself of the extended warranty. After two to three hours of frustrating back-and-forth, the answer came in. Water damage from humidity (last time she dropped it, it was into a snowbank and was 2 years ago, and she got it out right away and dried it off before water could enter). Water damage. One of only two things the warranty didn't cover. 

Ouch. 

But - she needed a phone - and since Steve Jobs passed away, it appears that Apple hasn't come up with anything that even remotely compares to the 4 and 4S. So-o, she switched to a different (Android-type) phone. Some things she likes better, and she knows that she will eventually like this phone as much as the other one; others, she sits and pouts and says, "I miss my baby." 

I get that. 

But I also get when it is time to say goodbye. In electronics and with people.

When the other party needs constant recharging, constant checking, constant stroking, constant reassurances that things are okay - and punishes you when put on "standby" even for a short time ... perhaps it's not all that healthy. It's plugged in all the time - but that means you're tied down. And turned off. When only ONE person is being "fed" in a relationship, it's time to seriously take stock.

Not that relationships are anything like cell phones ... are they? Okay, SOME similarities. 

It's difficult. It's hard to let go of something that - for a while - has brought you some happiness. Even if that happiness was mixed with pain. When there is a growing sense of obligation rather than appreciation, it's time to re-evaluate. When you're constantly feeling "less than" (in other words, less important than) the other person - how is that healthy? 

Image "Low Battery" provided by
David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Perhaps it's time to recharge your OWN battery. Perhaps that caring for that other person has kept you running on empty and it's time to take some time for yourself. You can't give away what you don't have; replenish the reserves. Getting your identity and strength from another human (who has limitations just like you) drains you in ways that you may not realize. Finding out who you are and feeding that person inside (getting plugged in and turned on) will go a long way toward figuring out where that other person fits into your life. If at all. 

Unplugging the other person from your battery might seem cruel, selfish, and un-giving - but until he or she finds out how to self-charge, that draining will keep on happening (if not with you then with the next person who pays attention). Plugging into your own energy resources will feel awkward at first - it always does - but you are the only you that you have, and it's important to look after you.

It's amazing how freeing that is. It might not feel like it at first, but there is an energy build-up that slowly makes itself known - and upon which you can rely.

I know because I've lived that. I've had to remove people from my life who were sapping me of strength. Sometimes I miss those people - but I don't miss the feeling of being constantly given the message "Low Battery." 

Food for thought, at the very least.

Careful

When I was much, much younger, the older generation was constantly looking out for the younger one and if they felt the youngsters were being too reckless, the first word out of their mouths would be, "Careful!" 

I think it conveyed a notion of loving concern for most people. However, for some, "Careful!" meant that the person saying it didn't trust the other person's judgment. We were also taught - though not outwardly expressed - that while it was okay to look out for someone else, looking out for ourselves was suspect, if not downright selfish. 

Putting someone else first is wonderful if it comes from love and a genuine desire to see that person happy. But if it comes at the expense of our own health or happiness, or if it comes out of a sense of duty or obligation, is it really all that healthy? I leave that part of the discussion for another time. 

When I first started on this lifestyle of getting unwrapped, nearly 6 years ago, one of the first things that my therapist asked me about was how I spent my time. When I listed what I did in a day, he asked me how much time I spent on myself ... because that had been missing in my list. I had to admit that not only did I NOT spend time on myself, but that on the rare occasion that I did, I always felt guilty for doing so, because of that same implicit message I'd gotten when I was a child. 

Photo "Washing Hands With Soap" by
jackthumm at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

This extended, over the course of many years of course, to the most basic routines of self-care. To my surprise, I discovered that I'd given up (unless I felt really gross) washing my face every day, brushing my teeth every day, etc. I'd just gotten out of the habit (so busy looking after everyone else that at the end of the day I was too tired to do much else except fall into bed). 

That's when I decided to start with something small, something that wouldn't take a lot of time. I started to brush my teeth every day. It took time to incorporate this into my daily routine, but I persevered. 

Doing that one small thing for me ... sent my inner self a message: I'm important enough to spend time with, to spend time doing things for. 

Sounds kind of basic doesn't it? Yet I needed to tell myself just that. It gave me the courage to continue to work on the things in my life that I'd let slide because they were unseen. Except that I became more aware that they were there, because I was cluing in more. These were things I had allowed to choke out the Life that was in me, to squeeze out the me that I could have become, to the point where I didn't even know who that person was.

Now, six years later, my self-care routine includes washing my face AND brushing my teeth. Sometimes (though not as often as I would like) it even includes flossing! 

And that's not all. The routines are just externals. I'm more comfortable inside my own skin - and I know who I am now - so that I have resources to give to others out of a sense of wanting to do it rather than feeling pressured or manipulated into it. In fact, I can even tell when people are doing that to me, and I can give myself the permission to say no. My emotional tank can't be running on empty when I agree to do something, or it won't get done.

Being careful for me now means being full of care. I look after myself as much as possible. Care for myself spills over into caring for others. 

That works for me.   :D

Point of view

The other day, I got a chance to watch somebody do something that I didn't have the courage to do: talk to a complete stranger who (by all reports) could have become angry and violent given the subject matter of the conversation. 

I was supposed to have talked to the man... but basically, well-ll-lllll .... I chickened out. This person I was watching had offered to talk to him for me - and had asked me if I wanted to watch and see "how it was done." I jumped at the chance.

Every fear I had nursed about this conversation never materialized. The man was polite, courteous, and even understanding. That was amazing enough in itself. However, what was even more amazing for me was how my friend approached the conversation.

Instead of fear and trepidation, there was confidence, friendliness, and humor. 

I thought a lot about how the conversation went with my friend in charge, and how it might have gone with me at the helm. I didn't like what I saw... but I did start to understand what the difference was. It was "point of view."

Later, after the conversation was over, I told my friend about my epiphany, my inner realization about the point of view determining the course of a conversation, a social interaction, a task. 

You see, my friend actually expected things to go well. There was an inner confidence, a belief that most people would be nice and that there was no need to worry. (I don't have that.) There was also the fact that my friend stayed "in the moment" and didn't play the "what if" game. (I do that all the time!) 

Point of view, or perspective, or mind-set, determines a great deal of things in life. It can cause us to be adventurous or reticent, thoughtless or thoughtful, confident or fearful, trusting or suspicious, and everything in between. My friend was always told that she could do anything that she set her mind to, that the world was a wonderful place, that her own opinion of herself was the only one that mattered, and that people could be incredibly sweet. I was told that I was a screw-up, that the world had it in for me, that the most important thing in the world was what people thought about you, and that my feelings and thoughts didn't matter at all. 

Photo "Serpentine Pathway Stones On A Park Walkway"
(concept) by arturo at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

We came at this conversation - and I came to realize that we come at life - from two completely different points of view, based on our own experiences in our growing-up years. Suddenly, in the presence of my friend (after the conversation was over and I realized that all went well) I remembered someone saying once that we create what we believe ... because what we believe determines how we act, and also it determines how others react to us. I have no doubt that if I had talked to that man, he would have become irritated with me because I believed that he would and because I would have therefore been apologetic and hesitant with him, stumbling over my words. And therein lies my problem. 

My problem lies within me. It lies in my own point of view - created early on in my life by people whose own point of view was warped and distorted, and adopted by me because I didn't know any different way to be.

The good part of all this is that through this experience, my problem - which had been "out there" and quite cloudy and hard to grasp - gelled and came into clear focus for me. That is the first step in doing something about it.

Yes, I will make this a matter of prayer - and of focused self-talk using what I know to be true instead of what I have been told by those who don't know any better. But I also know that if I need help or focus doing that self-talk, I can ask for help. I don't need to struggle through it alone.

That's something those people in my early life would never have suggested because, well, "What would people think?" I'm learning not to listen to that tired old song. And now that I know what to ask for, you can bet that I'll be asking for it. 

And I'll get there. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Turn It Around

My husband, my daughter and I were at a restaurant recently. It was one that has booths - since we need extra room to sit - and while we were eating, a family came in and sat down at the booth next to us. I recognized one of the people. After they'd been there for a while, they all got up and traded seats so that the person I had recognized was no longer facing me.

Par for the course, I thought. After all, I look like a mess - I didn't take much time getting ready because we were running late. I don't blame this person for not wanting to have to look at me. 

I mentioned this to my daughter after we left the restaurant. 

She's been going to therapy and her therapist has been challenging assumptions that she makes about herself and about other people who do things in her presence. 

She stared at me for a second or two, and gently rebuked me. "ORRrrrr," she said, "this person could have moved because the seat might have been uncomfortable. Or there might have been a draft under that seat and not under the other one." 

Her response kind of set me back on my heels. I did a double-take. She grinned, and said, "CBT." 

Cognitive behavioral therapy - a type of psychological retraining of the thoughts - is big on "re-framing": restating things in such a way as to challenge previously long-held beliefs about the self, and about others' reactions to the self. Such thoughts are referred to as "negative automatic thoughts." (NATs.) And she expertly re-framed my NAT about other people's perception of my appearance ... in order to help me to see other possibilities. 

Photo "Little Boy Covering His Face"
courtesy of David Castollo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

A lot of people do what I did. More people than those who are willing to admit it, filter others' opinions of them through their own beliefs about themselves. Many of us don't really have all that great an opinion of ourselves, and this carries through to the things that we think, believe, and say to (or about) ourselves. This kind of thinking can lead to serious mental health issues.  By far the most common mental health issues are depression and anxiety.

For people who are chronically depressed or anxious (or both), common self-talk messages are: 
"it's always been this way, so it will always BE this way." 
"I'm so stupid. When will I ever get anything right??" 
"Yeah things are fine NOW, but what if _____?"
"Oh GREAT. NOW what?" 
"But if I don't agree with him/her, he/she won't be my friend."
"Nobody wants to spend time with me. I'm not worth their time." 
"Why do things like this (fill in the blank) always happen to me?"

These types of messages start way back when we're children and someone slaps a sticker on us (it doesn't matter if it's a gold star or a black mark) and we start to define ourselves by what others think about us.

Statements like the ones listed above have kept me and sometimes continue to keep me wrapped in rotting grave-clothes that others have put onto me from my past, and which I keep wrapped around me (even if they restrict my potential!) because ... well, because it's all I have ever known. The rags keep me from being exposed and vulnerable, and may well be an attempt to get other people to reassure me. But is such thinking healthy? 

No.

The trick is to turn it around, to see other possibilities, to "counter" the self-destructive talk with the kind of message that builds up, that encourages, that heals. Sometimes things happen because they just happen! Sometimes people make mistakes; it doesn't mean it is the end of the world or that I'm stupid. It just means I'm human. People can and do like me for who I am; I don't have to change who I am to fit what they expect from me. I do have value and my emotions are valid. If I wouldn't let someone "talk that way" about one of my friends, why do I think it's okay to talk about myself "that way"? 

Why would anyone?

Point taken... and thanks, sweetie. :) 

Flash Back - Flash Forward

OH NO.  Not again.

It's happening again!  

Please don't make me go through this again - please....

But the memory crashes in unwanted, unbidden, and the events of that pivotal day tumble like blurry slow-motion video footage - surreal but yet so real that I can feel the weight of every word, every thought, every emotion. They are like billows - giant ocean waves - and there's nothing I can do to stop them.

I'm terrified because (in hindsight) I know what the result is before I even see it again - but still - the scene plays out: the phone rings, I answer, and I hear a familiar voice tell me news that no parent should ever hear. "There was an accident ... a head-on collision ... she was killed instantly ..."

The tumult of emotions - the grief, the shock, the incredible horror and sadness, the disbelief and the anger - all descend. No, no, NO! I don't want this - I want it to go away, to stop, PLEASE STOP...

But it doesn't stop. The wave crests, washes over me. I struggle to keep from being bowled over, to remember which way is up - "Look for the light. The light is up. Reach for it ..." My head surfaces for a second; I gasp for air as the current drags me downward for another repetition of that scene - that awful moment - or vignettes from the minutes and days that followed. "Remember. This too shall pass. Feel the feelings, process them, it will get better." 

Illustration "Sketch Of Woman Crying" by
luigi diamanti at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

In a cruel plot twist, the video in my head stops rewinding and replaying, and hits fast-forward ... showing me all the things I wanted to see but will never see: her finding a soul-mate and getting married, her having children of her own, her phoning me to ask me about potty-training ... all gone. 

I cry. I remember how full of life she was - I let myself feel how deeply I miss her, and hot tears fall and make tear-drop-shaped stains on my shirt as my shoulders heave up and down. 

I find some way to honour her. I find a song on YouTube that makes me think of her and her zest for living every moment. More sobs, acknowledging a future she and I will never have. I remember that someday, I will see her again. She'll wrap me in one of her big bear hugs, and lift me off my feet like she used to do.

It helps. I give myself the space I need to deal with the aftermath. I allow myself to grieve, to breathe, to look after myself, to reach out if I need to and to receive help from those who care about me.  Prolonged isolation is not my friend, even if I need some alone time at the beginning to get through the flashback and the flash-forward.

And the wave subsides. Someone throws me a life-line and pulls me to safety. I am able to let go, to relax. 

For now. 
Until next time.

Choosing wisely

There's a scene from the 3rd Indiana Jones movie (after all the scary stuff where the bad guy picks the wrong grail and ... well, we won't discuss that, but the knight does comment, "He chose poorly..."), when Indy gets to choose a specific cup (the Holy Grail) among several ornate cups and other containers on a large table. He picks a clay goblet, saying, "This looks like the cup of a carpenter," and plunges it into the basin containing the water of life. 

He takes a drink and looks at the old knight. "You chose wisely," the old man states slowly. 

Choosing wisely. 

As a new year begins, there are millions of people making resolutions, promises they might fully intend to keep. And some of them will. Most of them ... well, did you know that in the gyms and health clubs there's this term known as the "resolution rush"? That is, the glut of gym memberships people buy right after the holidays so they can lose that pesky five pounds (or more) ... and after that, most don't use their membership or get their money's worth out of it. At one time I did get a gym membership - and I used it for about two weeks. After that, I lost interest - because it wasn't something that meant a great deal to me. It was outside my routine, and I was already doing too much other stuff to fit it in.

I'm afraid I have Garfield the cat's attitude about exercise - whenever I get the urge, I just lie down til it goes away. Besides, I've yet to see anyone exercising for its own sake who looks happy while doing it. Unless, of course, they're already skinny and they just THINK they're fat because they have five or ten pounds to lose according to some chart somewhere (those types just drive me around the bend - it's like they're masochists or something, and there's always something at least a little bit judgmental - intended or not - about their attitude toward people like me.) 

But I digress. 

Photo "Daily Planner With Pen" courtesy of
BrandonSigma at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Setting goals is a laudable thing - if those goals are short-term, can be achieved and measured, mean something to the person, and are easy to remember. 

Platitudes and esoteric statements - like "I will be a better person" for example - are too hard to measure, depending on whether or not the person is a perfectionist. Who decides what's better? How much better? Is that realistic? With all the other things going on in that person's life, could that goal be achievable, or would it mean he or she would have to give up something important?

i could say, "I will lose a hundred pounds this year," but unless liposuction or gastric bypass surgery is in my immediate future, that's not going to happen. It's not realistic. Any time I've put a number on my weight loss goals, I've ended up disappointing myself. And unless I have the energy to devote to the changes I'm going to need to make, it's pretty well pointless to start talking about even losing ten pounds. I might lose it - but I know I'd gain it back. 

Besides, my weight issue is only an external image thing. I'd rather work on something inside of me, something that will have long-lasting effects. The last five years, that something has been setting boundaries and enforcing them, respecting others' boundaries, letting go of the need to control other people, and learning to forgive myself.

I like what a fellow blogger has done - she picks one word. It's easy to remember, once chosen, and she doesn't have to go to some book or recipe card to remind herself. It's just one word, after all. She doesn't give up the previous year's word because that's become a part of her mental makeup - and it's not like she expects to apply that word in every situation (because she's human) ... but it's a word that will recur, that will guide, that will remind her to do what it says more and more often. 

Because I'm so wordy, perhaps one word might not do the trick for me, but one small, short phrase or sentence might. 

I've thought about something like "Pursue excellence" - and while that is a great idea, I might get myself bogged down in how that plays out for me in the everyday. The same thing goes with "Help someone" - often I don't get the chance to do that every day, and I think often enough about that anyway. I could choose "Learn something" - but there are days when I don't learn anything ... or what I learn is not helpful to me or to anyone else. Besides, I think I've cultivated a teachable spirit over the years. 

Photo "Sun Ray Behind Dark Cloud" by
Sura Nuralpradid at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

So after much deliberation, I think I've hit on something that will speak to my own tendency to see things in a negative light. This is choosing wisely for me because negativity is something that is a recurring problem and it has the effect of discouraging me and also those around me. 

The phrase I think I've chosen is, "Look up." By this, I don't mean physically looking up all the time, but keeping an attitude that is more positive, that remembers that I'm not the centre of the universe. Looking up reminds me that there is something higher, something that supersedes my plans and those of other entities like systems or governments. It reminds me that even on the cloudiest, darkest day, the sun still shines even when I can't see it. It reminds me that there is always help, courage, strength, and love in the One who is higher than I, and that in every circumstance, I can look up to Him for what I need. Even if all I need is to remember that He's with me.

It also reminds me that I can choose to look for the good in things - and in people. In my own inner life, it is something simple that I can do to become more aware that I am not alone, that I am loved and cherished, and that I am important. 

Yes, that fits me this year. It will help me to choose wisely.

The Annual Drive

Christmas Eve, and all that is left of the church service is the smell of smoking wick from several dozen candles, and murmurs from the little pockets of conversation as people leave the building. 

We pack up our things and load them in the vehicle, and drive home to unload them before piling into it again for the Annual Drive.

2013

Someone brings a Christmas CD. We put it in the player and take off to view the Christmas lights in and around our city. In some areas it seems that folks try to outdo each other to create jaw-dropping displays. Others are more quiet, understated, and yet hopeful ... a few electric candles in the window, the muted twinkling of the Christmas tree from inside the house, showing through the window. 

As the music plays, we join in the singing, each one putting in his or her part until we feel the stirring of that elusive Christmas spirit in our hearts. 

After about an hour or so, we head back and we have something hot to drink - a little cocoa usually, topped with marshmallow bits. We watch our own Christmas lights reflect and twinkle amid the decorations. We turn on some soft music (or we tune in to the Fireplace Channel) and we sip our warm drinks and enjoy each other's company. Later, we might watch a Christmas movie on TV before turning in for the night.

We have done this tradition for over 20 years. Last year, we did it with one less among us ... so we asked a close friend to join us. We felt free to feel what we felt, no matter what that was. And we will again this year. 

This year, we don't have the luxury that the initial numbness (shock) of the loss brought. Its cold, harsh reality seems to dare us to plunge into the abyss. But a big part of Christmas is about never needing to be alone again. So, we reach out to others, and we share what we have. And though it feels ... different ... we can still be grateful, still know peace, still laugh and enjoy quality time together. Not just this night, but any night we want to. 

Because we're family. Because we love each other. Just because.

Happy Holy Days

The holidays have always been a mixed bag for our family. As with most people, the stresses of Christmas shopping, combined with the extra expense, the social and family obligations of visiting and extra cooking all combine to increase the background noise that can make everyday stressors seem more ... stressful. 

But those are normal. Every family feels those to one degree or another, depending on how much fun it is to do the social thing, and on how accomplished a baker one is. 

Last Christmas, we went through a lot of the motions as a family because - well, because the youngest member of our family was spending her first Christmas in Heaven. But at the same time, we didn't want our own personal tragedy rob us of experiences that we'd later regret not having. So - with minor adjustments - we still cooked, still baked, still put up a tree, still had presents and carols, and still attended the Christmas Eve service. We still had friends over for a Christmas meal. It was hard, and we had to make some adjustments because our grief was so very fresh - her accident was only about two months before Christmas - but we did it and we survived. 

The name of the game was survival. And because of the love of friends - and each other - we did survive. 

It's been a whole year of firsts. Wednesdays - the day of the week it was when the police came to our house - hurt for months. Easter: no egg hunt for the first time since she was two. Her first birthday after the accident - July 16. Wow, that was hard: she would have been 22. Thanksgiving was so overwhelming, just a couple of weeks before the first-year anniversary of her death. All I could hear in my head was what she'd said to me the previous Thanksgiving: "Don't give up on your Thanksgiving spirit, Mom. Look at me. I'm homeless, I'm living in my car, and I'm thankful for you, for Dad, for God, for my friends." 

But we survived. We even celebrated BOTH Thanksgivings - the first with a dear friend sharing our 'unexpected' turkey meal, and the second with just the three of us and a ham dinner with sweet and sour mustard sauce.

And now it's Christmas-time once more. And we wonder if we'll ever have "happy holidays" again. We have discussions about what traditions will make the cut this year - and which ones are just too stressful to keep doing. Some things we are keeping. Others we are letting go. 

The grief is always under the surface - potentially just as searingly painful as the first day. Most days it's completely submerged; other days - or should I say at other moments, usually when we least expect it - it leaps out at us from behind a door or in the face of someone walking down the street who looks like her or dresses like she did. Today there was a moment when I was listening to a children's choir perform and they started to sing, "Somewhere in my Memory" (we hear it every year when they air "Home Alone") and the lyrics that talk about happy faces, happy people and family being all together ... reminded me that we weren't all together, and I had to get out of there, tears streaming from my eyes. 

The thing that has made this holiday season a bit more bearable is concentrating on the "holi" part of "holiday". Concentrating on the real spirit behind the Christmas season (the Holy Days, Christmas being Christ-mass or celebration of Christ) has helped to ground us and make the decisions about what to do and not to do a little easier. It'll never be the same, that's sure, but it can still be good. 

And yes, there can still be happiness and joy in the season. It's tinged with sadness because the circle is broken, but that is a given. It's okay to be sad; it's okay to acknowledge how much we love her and miss her. But it's also okay to laugh, to enjoy life, to enjoy each other, and to share what we have. 

And that's how we have decided to spend the next couple of weeks or so.

Progressively unwrapped

In one of my previous posts, I talked about personal guidelines that I have established, over the course of the last five years, for my own reactions to life and to people's (including my) behavior.

Lately it seems as though I've been having to reinforce some of these, especially the last one, where I walk away from relationships with people who consistently make me feel "less than." 

Some of these folks are persistent, and apparently will stop at nothing - including recruiting other people into their campaigns - to draw me back into the place where they are controlling and manipulating me again. (Fortunately, now I see what they're doing well in advance, which gives me a chance to regroup.) So, I've had to re-draw some boundaries. Again. (It happens; some folks just don't take no for an answer until right around the hundredth time, LOL) 

When I speak of graveclothes, (and I frequently do speak of them on this blog) I mean those things that others - by their reactions to my existence or to my behavior - have wrapped around me so tightly that I internalized them, made them a part of who I was and the way I thought about life. These were / are things over which I have had no control and which then gained the power to control me - things like "what will people think" and "if only" and "what if" and "nobody likes me" and so forth.

The more often I refuse to be bound up again by the old smelly graveclothes of being victimized or of trying to make everyone like me, the easier it becomes and the more free I am, free from being that chameleon that turns into whatever someone else wants me to be ... or of blending into the surroundings so that nobody notices me and therefore won't hurt me...again.

I'm more free to be me. To have my own thoughts. To hold my own opinions. To occupy space in the world. To be visible. To exist. 

Photo "Happy Jumping
Child" by chrisroll at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

For you see, for the longest time I didn't believe that I had the right to exist - not like other people who could get away with saying or thinking whatever they wanted and not getting slapped down for it. I'd been treated that way for such a long time - as far back as I can remember - that I thought it was normal. 

It wasn't. 

And when I got into recovery from that wilting-flower "don't-hurt-me" mind-set, I started to learn that who I was, and what I thought and believed and said as a result, was okay. Part of the reason I started this blog was because I had started to believe that I had something worthwhile to say, that I could actually contribute to the world, and make a positive difference if given the chance.  I also learned that if I made a mistake, it wasn't the end of the world and I could actually learn from it. (I know, duhhh...) 

This kind of thinking was alien to me before. I lived according to the rules of the chameleon: hide, blend in, disappear, change to fit the circumstances, and when all else fails, freeze and hope they don't notice you. I lived not in the present but either regretting the past or being afraid of the future. 

These are powerful forces. 

Until they're not. 

That process took some time ... and I'm still running up against hangers-on in my life where the graveclothes cling to me.

But for the most part, today, I live in the freedom of being who I am and of not caring what this one or that one thinks or believes or says. And this new lifestyle is so important and precious to me that it is well worth defending, well worth looking back once in a while to see how far I've come and remembering that "old me" enough to re-affirm that I never want to go back to that. 

Not ever. 

For, as my post title indicates, I'm more and more free as time goes on, as those things drop off me, as I learn to live in the now and to be who I am. 

Freedom might be something that a few people take for granted because it's all they've ever known - they have no idea how fortunate they are - but there used to be a huge bull's-eye on my back and now that it's fading away, I don't ever want it to reappear.

Never Alone

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others,
 for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness, 
 and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you
 are never alone."    - - Audrey Hepburn

You know, it's funny - I guess it ISN'T funny - what people will say to others without thinking it through. 

I was having a conversation with a dear friend earlier today. This lady has been my friend for about 15 years, and she is the kindest, sweetest soul who came into my life when I needed such a soul in my life. 

And right now she's hurting - mourning the loss of a family member. A family member who just so happens to be a beloved pet, one she has had for over 17 years. And she was telling me what some folks have been saying to her. 

They don't bear repeating. Suffice to say that the comments have been dismissive and unthinking, diminishing the importance of her pain because the loved one she lost had four legs instead of two. 

I wanted her to know that she was not alone. That there are people - fortunate, sensitive, and beautiful people (like us) who see the good in others (no matter what the species), who speak words of kindness (yes, even to such unthinking humans) and who have walked the path that she is walking now ... who know the pain of losing a beloved family member, be that two-legged or four-legged. For ... as I told her earlier, grief is grief, and it means that we have loved someone or some creature enough to feel something when he, she or it leaves. (Queen Elizabeth II once said, "Grief is the price we pay for love.") 

There is much to be said - when someone has experienced a recent loss (especially of a pet) and a person just can't understand "why there is so much fuss about it" - for silence, for being comfortable with NOT understanding, for NOT giving "pat answers" that might snuff out what little bit of hope the person might have. 

Photo "Lonely Woman On The Beach" by
Sira Anamwong at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Loneliness kills. The pain of loneliness is something that outlasts physical pain. A person can feel isolated and abandoned in a crowd, and he or she can feel the loneliest when nobody appears to understand his or her experience.

Let's sit with those who've experienced a loss, and let them feel the pain, talk about their loved one. 

Let's just LISTEN. That's all. 

That's the most comforting thing a person can do is just to BE there and let that friend know that whatever he or she feels is normal. It's normal!! It's healthy to be sad when you've lost someone. The important thing for a grieving person is to know that that person is never alone, that there is someone to talk to, that there is someone who cares. That "being there" can give someone a tremendous gift: dignity ... self-respect ... the feeling that what they feel and think matters.

There is no need to ask questions in those moments of fresh grief about "what happens now." The time will come when those questions can be asked, but not now. Not yet. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Feelings are not bad or good. Feelings ARE. And people have a right to feel them. Being told that we shouldn't feel bad (or good) is a form of abuse that reaches down into the core of who we are. We were hard-wired for feelings, for relationships, for love. And when we remember that we are not alone in this experience, it makes getting through it so much easier.

Life is not a competition. It's a journey. It's better to go through it together in cooperation than trying to prove who's right and who's not.

It is better to look for the good in others, to speak only words of kindness, and to let each other know that we are never alone.