Smart Man

"Well, then how do I know when to ignore what you're saying and when not to?"

"That's kind of a big hole you're digging for yourself there," I reply.

Dearest one grins at me and I grin back. End of conversation.

I'd been telling him something I thought was both sweet and funny that I'd read online and he responded with that muffled 'uh huh' that told me he was completely oblivious to what I was saying. When I called him on it he said I'd told him that story last week and it must be my sometime alzheimers acting up. I said I couldn't have told him last week because I'd never been to this blog before. Oh. That's when he said the above sentence and started digging a hole for himself. A shallow one because he instantly went mute. Smart man. Turns out the little tidbit I was reading him was something he'd heard before (one twin sticking thumb in other twins mouth) through his work. Too bad dearest one didn't have a twin. He could have saved him some digging time this morning.

Lord Have Mercy

"I'm trying to be an advocate for everyone."

Those wise words came courtesy a far away friend today.
She then talked about how late in life she's learning it, having spent a great deal of her life being an avid 'us and them-er'.

I've watched and learned from her ability to look at someone with an undesirable quality and comment that perhaps that will be one of their frailties they'll always have. A lifelong thorn in the flesh. Or rather, being a lifelong thorn in the flesh to others because of that besetting behaviour that will probably be with them to the end. She never condones what shouldn't be condoned and she has undending mercy towards their very human ways.

"Mercy triumphs over judgement." James 2:13
I always think of this verse every time I come away from the Sacrament of Reconciliation knowing full well that without God's mercy I'd be sunk.

Trivial

I traded the severe pelvic pain of last night for a fever this morning.
Dearest one imitated my whiny, wimpering self this morning
and made us both laugh.
Whiny and whimpering over such trivial symptoms seems just a tad lame on a day like today.

Dog People

Often as I go for my walk the energizer bunny trots right at my heels. Occasionally she runs ahead or lags behind if she finds something of interest. When she runs ahead and turns around to look back at me she reminds me of Bob from The Biggest Loser. It's as if her look tells me that I'm not pushing myself hard enough and to walk a little faster, will ya? Yesterday she ran a little ahead of me quite a bit. There's something about a little dog being able to go faster than me that's just enough incentive to try and catch up.

Last night the energizer bunny sat on the edge of dearest one's recliner and craned her neck for almost an hour waiting for him to come home from work. Every time she heard a vehicle she cocked her head and strained to see if it was him. In all fairness he was late and she knew it. Finally I phoned him to see how far from home he still was. Soon he was pulling into the yard and the energizer bunny did her happy-oh-so-happy-to-see-you dance. She howls like a coyote and nearly turns herself inside out when she sees him.

As we were going to sleep last night dearest one said that tonight he'd call and I could put it on speaker phone so she could hear his voice. As soon as he said that he muttered, "I'm not even 50 yet and look what I'm doing." We both chuckled. When we first got the energizer bunny friends of ours asked us if we were going to become one of those dog people. Visions of people treating their dogs like children and talking baby talk to them just about made me retch. Horrified, I say no as emphatically as I could.

And while we don't talk baby talk to the energizer bunny, we do talk to her (and honest to God she understands.) While we don't treat her like one of our kids I will concede that less than a year since she came into our house, we're well on our way to becoming dog people. And instead of that making me feel like a loser, it feels like I've found something well worth hanging on to.

Who Am I?

"Who am I if I'm not in control of everything?"

That's the question that popped into my head today while I was reading the memoir of this addict. He was writing about his struggle with who he would be without his famous hob knobbing girlfriend.

I've written here lately about feeling like my recovery is getting sloppy. This morning I was able to identify a few behaviours that were contributing to that feeling. When that became clear I was able to simply let go of them. I also picked up my Big Book for the first time in a few weeks. I read several daily reflection type of books but there's nothing like the Big Book to set my head straight again.

It's a little embarrassing to share with you the question at the beginning of this post. The question itself grabbed my attention though, enough that I put the book down and sat in silence, mulling it over for a while. I need reminding that there is a God and I'm not it. Which is what not being in control is all about for me. That and a lack of trust. Admitting that part doesn't bother me, it just is.

Painful Transformation

There's a great contest going on over at Motherhood Is Not For Wimps where one leaves a comment about who their favourite author is and why. The winner gets a signed copy of The End.

Last week I saw Scibona's book highlighted on this blog and I promptly wrote it down in my notebook where I keep a book list of must reads. Of course I entered the contest, too. I felt a little embarrassed when I was done because I wrote more of a blog post than a contest entry. Here it is:

"A friend of mine recently told me how she was sharing a bench outside a grand church with another good friend when they started talking about what they'd say if Jesus suddenly appeared. My friend was quiet for a moment and then said, "Pick me, pick me." We talked about how hard it is to live any other kind of life other than one where we want to be first. Rather fitting for this contest, no?

When I first read the question I thought I needed to pick someone like Flannery O'Connor and try to impress the heck out of you Salvatore. Someone else had recommended your book just last week and I promptly put it in my notebook where I keep a list of books I want to read. But the sad fact is, other than reading her collection of letters called The Habit Of Being, I haven't read one single thing by Flannery O'Connor.

This past winter my adult daughter wrote and produced a one act play based on warped messages I gave her about sexuality due to my own story of childhood sexual abuse. While she was writing the play she was reading My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. She mentioned in her play notes that she felt like she'd gone through her own crucifixion while writing the play. Watching the play made me feel like I was going through my own. Not long afterwards I saw a copy of Potok's book in a thrift store. Wondering (and scared to know)what the crucifixion was that my daughter had gone through while writing her play I bought the book and read it. The best fiction reveals myself to me. Sometimes it feels like a slap in the face and sometimes it's gentle yet persistent. I often think of the mother in Potok's book and pray that I will stop waiting at a window. People can speak the truth to one another all they want and it often falls on deaf ears. Fiction, at its best, speaks truth but gives one enough distance to really hear it. It was as if I could hear the voices of my adult children trying to talk to me while reading My Name Is Asher Lev. That book, and so it's author, will always hold a place in my heart for its part in my ongoing transformation. Transformation that is both painful and welcome."

I've been reading the comments over there and here is the one I hope wins the book. I have no idea if it's okay to quote the comment right here or not so apologies if I'm breaking the rules.

"Lumpy Says:

September 8th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
My favorite Author is my eleven year old son, John. He fills five cent Wal Mart one subject notebooks with the most beautiful, inspiring prose I have ever read. Everything is from a perspective of a bright child soaking in the world around him and laying it out in the way only a child could. It is honest, it is painful, it is joyous and when I read it sometimes it overwhelms me with the pride and sadness that goes along with being a mother.
He has written about the pain of watching his Aunt die of Breast cancer at 40 and of his other beloved Aunt going to fight in Iraq. He describes in glee of his favorite prank, which is to soak Mom by wrapping elastics around the sink sprayer so when the faucet turns on, the user gets soaked. His frustrations with his world are so valid and seem so painful at times, but they never are bigger than the things he writes about that make his life wonderful. His description of a summer day that I let him play outside until well after dark with his best friend Jake made me fell as if I was running barefoot with the boys, teasing their sisters, their brown legs carrying them from tree branch to the corner store for a freeze pop. It is honesty, it is love, it is confusion and glee all on paper and nothing beats it."

I thought that comment showed a mother's beautiful heart.

Treading Water

At the end of June I made an inner commitment to show up here to the page on a daily basis. I feel good that other than oldest son's wedding last month I've done it. Occasionally I bail and post a quote from one of my favourite books because I can't stare at a blank page one minute longer. Sometimes lately I've either written the post before I go to bed the night before or at least started it.

Tonight (Sunday night) is one of those nights. As I sat down to write I looked out the window and saw the lights of a combine in the field across from ours. I've seen evidence of a bear sharing my walking path nearly every day this past summer. At the end of our property is a tree line and when I walk past that line I ring my bear bell extra loud because it feels like I'm entering no man's land. Edging the road there is a field of oats and bears love them. The resident bear isn't waiting for them to fully ripen either because his latest evidence told me he's gorging himself on under ripe oats. Evidence left right near the end of our driveway. Oh vey.

I feel like my recovery has been wobbly lately. I left a comment on UT's blog back in June that recovery is like writing an ember letter every day of your life. The constant reflection on how it is within me is necessary if I want to make progress. And I do. And I am although progress sometimes feels akin to treading water.

Remember how I wrote about making an amend that was 30 years in the waiting? I had been chomping at the bit waiting for a response. Making amends isn't about getting a response. (I need that tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.) Maybe I'll accept that now after getting a very short response that was so incredibly crude it made me shudder. There was a current of hostility underneath that creeped me right out. Note to self: making the amend is my part of it. Period. Nada. The end. Dearest one assures me that based on the response the guy is still hurting 30 years after the fact and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend Karen this week. I remember looking at all her knicknacks on the shelf in her diningroom this past June knowing that soon it wouldn't matter one little bit what she owned in this lifetime or not. I know that buying stuff will not advance my inner journey one bit. I also know it's not whether or not I own stuff that's the issue, be that a stack of paper (I love me some paper)or a diamond ring - it's my attachment to it that causes problems. I'm still mulling that over and still trying to grasp that Karen really is gone. I miss her.

I realize this is a helter skelter kind of post. I was hoping if I got it out of my head then maybe I could avoid having insomnia tonight. Speaking of which, it's past my bedtime so time to sign off on this 'ember letter' of sorts. Good night (or rather good morning.)

Ego Driven

"Convinced that people lack inner guidance and wishing to 'help' them, we feel obliged to tell others what we think they need to know and how we think they ought to live."
~ Parker Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness

This quote about sums up my behaviour yesterday. Lord have mercy.

I'll Have A Cheeseburger Please

"I'm going out for supper."

With that I picked up my keys and turned around only to find dearest one looking at me rather quizzically. He'd just eaten leftovers for supper and the remainder was still out on the counter for youngest son to devour. I have a myriad of food allergies so I often cook one meal for them and another for me. I'd cooked enough for me at the beginning of the week to last me until lunch time. That was 5 hours ago. I didn't bother taking out anything for supper. I was still feeling resistant. It's not often that I wish we lived in the city but last night I wished I could just pick up the phone and order in supper.

I will never be crowned the Queen of Spontaneity. Which is why dearest one looked at me like I was a stranger. After he found his voice he offered to cook me supper but I declined. While I'm no longer the world champion control freak I used to be, neither do I easily take it in my stride when plans change on a dime (or a $20 bill in this instance.) But last night I looked around the kitchen and decided I. was. not. cooking. In moments like that I envy those of you who do live in a city and can order whatever food you're craving and have it delivered to your doorstep. The closest eatery is a 15 minute drive down the highway one way or 25 minutes the other. I thought about how much gas it would take to drive there and back, thought about how much ambition it would take to cook a meal and promptly got in my van and started driving. I have to say I enjoyed every bite of my cooked-by-someone-else meal.

I was walking out the door to head home when I saw something strange tacked to the community bulletin board. In amongst the signs of things for sale like bales of hay and Heinz 57 puppies was this neatly folded tan coloured tea towel. Pinned to it was a note that said it had been left behind at the community fair last month and if the owner saw it, to please take it home. I smiled to myself that such a method of finding the owner could be had in this day and age. I stood there looking at the tea towel wondering if it's owner was spontaneous. I nearly giggled out loud at the thought. Suddenly I didn't mind living far away from delivery pizza or take out Chinese food.

Avoiding The Ditch

"It's not the size of the step that counts, but the fact that I take it."
~ my favourite recovery guru Earnie Larsen

"I don't want to do yoga. I don't know why I am so full of resistance. I'm not going to listen to it, I'm going to do yoga today if it kills me." Don't tell anyone but I talk to myself sometimes when I'm all alone. The above was what I muttered as I angrily changed out of my jeans and into my yoga clothes. I felt pretty pissed off at myself for giving in to the resistance for 3 weeks already. Tomorrow, tomorrow had been my mantra up until that moment. The cost of chanting that mantra was an increasing tension setting up shop in my upper back, neck and shoulders. A tension that dissipates with regular yoga sessions.

I've been in a slump when it comes to doing those things that promote a healthy recovery. My self care has been slipping. Yesterday was one of those days when I was able to stand back a bit and take a look at what was working for me and what wasn't. And not doing yoga wasn't. Earnie Larsen's quote about baby steps helped me move from inaction to action. After years of either taking giant almost-fall-down-at-the-effort steps or none at all, I've learned that any movement, however small, is worth it.

After an hour of small movements my yoga session was finished. As expected, my body is knotted all up and it will take more than one go round to release all the built up tension.

Self care is my first line of defense in preventing a relapse in any of my addictions. My slack attitude towards self care kept setting off warning bells that I kept ignoring. Until yesterday.

Sometimes recovery feels like learning to drive. The very first time I drove a car I remember having a hard time keeping to my side of the road. There seemed to be so much play in the steering wheel and I'd over correct and whoosh I'd be over the center line. Then I'd over correct the other way and nearly hit the ditch. These days when I drive I make barely noticeable movements in the steering wheel to keep on my side of the road. I don't think I'm all over the road in my recovery but before I made small movements yesterday, I was inching closer towards the ditch.

Uncharted Territory

Twenty-seven years ago today dearest one and I met on a quiet street in a province half way across the country. We'd been penpals as young teenagers. We married when I was still a teenager. By the grace of God we've stayed married for 26 and a half years already.

Of course there's a long story in between then and now. Which is what happens when you take an atheist and a farm boy, raised in a conservative religious home, and put them in a marriage together. Especially when farm boy hasn't told atheist how he was raised and atheist doesn't tell him she's an atheist. But then we'd only spent a few weeks together in person before we ran off and eloped.

By the grace of God we're still together.
Our marriage is in uncharted territory.
This past year has brought an honesty and vulnerability the likes of which we've never braved before. It's scary but good.

We always remember this day.
A day of new beginnings.
Like every day is.
But this one is extra special.

Hold The Applause

I try hard not to let the past define me.
There was a time when that was all I knew how to do.
Lord knows that in some Christian circles they applaud real loud for doing so.
If you'd asked me who I was I would have answered with one or more of the following:
Abused child.
Sexually abused child.
Sexually abused teenager.
Alcoholic.
Teen bride.
Abusive mother.
Homeschooler.
Chronically ill woman.
The list could go on.

The work I do in therapy and spiritual direction is helping me drop these labels.The more I heal, the more their impact on my day to day life shrinks.

We are all so much more than a label.
Even. my. brother.

As I sat down this morning to write about my visit with my brother yesterday a questioning thought came into my head.

"Are you going to make him into a them?"

Why yes, yes, I was going to.
Before You wrecked that plan by asking me such a question.

Before my brother arrived yesterday I felt a seething anger.
After he left I went immediately to my counter where there were fresh baked muffins, and stuffed one into my mouth. I wanted to stuff 6 more in in rapid succession but I didn't. That gaping hole inside felt like a screaming cavern.

I was going to write about everything that transpired between the anger and the muffins. Nothing more than ordinary and sometimes strained conversation. Telling body language. A sadness about what is. And about what may never be.

I often rant to my family about people who either want to make me an 'it' or people out of their comfort zone an 'it'. It's always other people I rant about doing that of course. Reading this book challenged me to change years ago. Change that is still in the works, obviously. This morning as I sat down to type I got a reminder that to embrace humanity, means embracing not only my own, but my brother's, too. Knowing that doesn't magically make my anger disappear. It doesn't mean I condone his actions. It doesn't make me want to eat less muffins. But it does mean that if I distance myself from his humanity then I reject something of myself in the process, too. It reinforces my identity as a victim.

I'm still feeling a bit stunned by that question popping into my head just as I was getting ready to write this post. I try to be open to guidance. Some days I swear at its arrival. Sometimes I get rendered darn near speechless. And some days I write a totally different blog post than I'd planned.

Sometimes

"I got that for you," my mom says excitedly.
I look at her and think to myself, "you sick, sick woman."
I don't say anything.
I don't encourage her glee.
I make a mental note to myself to put this on the growing list of
what not to do as a mother of adult children.

This morning my older brother is coming to see me. We live 600 miles apart and in the past 28 years since I've left home, he's stopped in for coffee once for about 10 minutes. He has good friends who live in our area and he and his wife come to see them every so often. I never know he's been here until after the fact. I think that's weird and at the same time totally normal because we haven't worked at any relationship in the past 30+ years since he left home. C'est la vie.

My mom, in her infinite manipulation, pinned him down a few weeks ago when she learned he was coming up here to see his friends. She knows it bothers me that he never stops in. What she can't grasp is that it's really none of her business. So she says to him "And what day will you be visiting Hope?" And with that he gives her a date. When she was here last week she was so excited to tell me she had wrangled a commitment out of him. A commitment I never asked her to get.

Last night I was doing up the last of the dishes and wondering if my brother would follow through. Right at that moment the phone rang. It was my brother calling to get directions to my house and to tell us when he'd be here today as planned. Planned by our mother, that is, although neither of us say that.

In a few hours he'll be on my doorstep. His wife of 30 years has never been to our home. I have no relationship with either of them and I feel like I'm about to entertain strangers. I have no idea if he really wants to come see me or if he's simply keeping his word to our mom. Fr. Charlie encouraged me last week to simpy be myself, to speak my truth. I suck at small talk. The deep stuff I can do in a heartbeat. The small talk gets stuck in my throat. I don't know if they'll be here for 10 minutes or a few hours.

This will be the first time I'll be seeing my brother since I've been going for counseling to heal the wounds of childhood sexual abuse. He was the first perpetrator. Sometimes I wonder if he remembers that incident.
The one that changed me at my core.
Sometimes I wonder.

It's Really Him

Yesterday I drove half an hour to attend Mass in a bigger parish.
Slipping into a pew right behind two rows of older women,
I watched as they jostled and teased each other, obviously comfortable
in one another's presence.
Just before Mass began a young mother, carrying a tiny baby,
came in with her husband and toddler.
She sat in front of me a few rows up.
Her face was framed in between the shoulders of these elderly women
and I watched as she bent down to smile at her baby.
Such a look of tenderness and love radiated from her.

A few minutes later, I saw a young girl,
on the cusp of puberty, lean against her father's shoulder and
rest her head.

It's not often I go to Mass in a bigger parish. In our own tiny church we gather around the altar to receive the Eucharist. Every time I am in a bigger parish I look at the line of people waiting to receive the Eucharist and think to myself we are such a motley crew. Every one with a story. Every one with a need. Every one moving towards a moment of grace.

Yesterday as I stepped into the aisle, the young couple with their tiny baby were in view. Behind me a little boy must have been watching them, too. I heard him ask his grandma, "Is the priest going to bless the baby?"

Before I got to the front of the line I heard the tiny white haird woman who was assisting the priest with communion, hold up the Body of Christ and say with quite the emphasis, "The body of Christ!" She said it in such a way that she was simultaneously saying, "Do you believe it?" and "It's really Him." She said this over and over again as she held up Jesus for each one, each time with the same devotion and zeal.

There's that Christmas song that asks "Do you hear what I hear", "Do you see what I see? For several years now I've been praying for the ears to hear, the eyes to see and a heart to respond to God. For a brief moment in time yesterday that prayer was answered.

Looking Like Myself

"Who in your family do you look like?"

It's after the wedding and we're standing around visiting. Some of dearest one's family is meeting my parents and sisters for the first time. I look at my sister-in-law and say, "You tell me." Before she can answer my older sister pipes up that I look like one of our great aunts. I feel a momentary zing within me at her comment and then it disappears. My sister-in-law muses out loud about my lack of resemblance to my parents or sisters. I say nothing.

"It's too bad she doesn't look like anyone in the family." I'm 5 years old and visiting my granny. She's talking to my mom as if I'm not playing at her feet. Then she says, "If anyone, she looks like Magdalene." My 5 year old self shudders inside. My great aunt Magdalene has the ugliness face I've ever seen.

I let my granny's comment define me for the next 40 years. I used to get teased and sometimes bullied because of my looks in school. I was the butt of jokes, given a nickname based on my hooked nose. Several years in a row I told my mom that all I wanted for Christmas was a nose job. She would laugh at my request; she had no idea how serious I was.

Over time, as I found refuge in my addictions, the ugliness I felt on the outside was matched by the ugliness I felt inside. Shame and guilt can do that to a person. Twenty years ago, on a bike ride with the first woman I met in AA, I told her that I looked in the mirror as little as possible. I especially avoided looking myself in the eye.

I was mulling over all this yesterday on my way home from town. One of the relapse prevention strategies on my post treatment plan is to look in the mirror twice a day and say, "Thank you for being you." I still smile when I say it or think about it.
God, that's a miracle.
I realized that all over again yesterday as I was driving and it made my heart swell with gratitude. Big tears then rolled down my face and soon I was sobbing in one of those all out ugly contorted crying jags. I almost short circuited the tears but instead I took a deep breath and cried for several miles. I tried to talk, to give voice to the gratitude I was feeling.
To whisper to God a simple thank you.
I let the tears do it for me.
Just typing that makes me tear up all over again.

I don't know when I stopped wishing for a nose job for Christmas. I hardly ever remember that I have a hooked nose. (I can see all you who know me on facebook going to scrutinize my photo right about now!) Once in a while I see a child staring at me and then I remember. It no longer makes me shudder, though. When I worked in a school I once had a student impulsively reach across the desk and touch my nose, like she was checking to see if it was real. She asked me why it was like that. "It's just the way I am." It's simply part of who I am, not the whole of who I am.

Sometimes in meetings people introduce themselves as a grateful alcoholic.
In the beginning I didn't get it.
I was still feeling too much shame.
These days though, I do get it.
Without the addiction there would be no recovery.
And look at who I get to be in recovery....
I get to be me, hooked nose and all.
At last that's all I want to be.

Blessing Enough

I feel in a bit of a funk this morning.
That means it's time for a gratitude list.

Biggest thing I'm grateful for this morning is that I can breathe.
I'm not short of breath.
I have an adequate spoon supply to get me through my commitments today.
I slept through the night last night.

For five years breathing was often an effort.
I was short of breath almost any time I moved a muscle.
Some days I could talk or breathe
but not both at the same time.
My spoon supply dictated my life.
And insomnia's been my companion
for most of the last 2 weeks since my friend passed away.

I had the greatest chat with my sponsor last night.
We laughed.
A lot.
We always do.
I can cry with her as well.
And swear up a storm when I'm really upset.
She'll listen no matter what state I find myself in
and share her experience, strength and hope with me.
It feels good to be loved for who I am, warts and all.

I have food in my fridge.
Money in my pocket.
Love in my heart.

It hasn't always been that way.
I have a friend who reminds me every so often
of the time when she opened my fridge and all that was in it
was a jar of pickle juice and a few wrinkly potatoes.
Those were dark times.
I remember going to the food bank
and most of all wanting some fruit and vegetables
for my then small children.
Only daughter was 8, oldest son was 6 and
youngest son was 4.
There was no money to buy food.

We've been through that once more
about 10 years further down the road.
Produce was still the food item I missed the most.
It was during this dark time in our journey that
a family member was killed.
I don't even know if I can call this a dark time.
It felt like the darkest time.
It was not a fun time.
I would not raise my hand and volunteer to go through it again.
But it sunk my faith into the depths of my being.
I know that I will be okay no matter what.
Embracing that belief only came in the midst of the worst of times.
A time when I was given the grace to know that God
still had my back.

I don't pay much attention nowadays
when people talk about God blessing them.
Or Satan thwarting their plans.
If I would have had my way in the worst of times
I would have waved my wand and made all the painful parts go away.
I would have orchestrated it so that life was all blessing.
Even to those who believe in the prosperity gospel bullshit.
I don't equate God's blessing with circumstances.
I'm breathing.
That's blessing enough.

I pray daily for God's will to be done in my life,
acknowledging that I have no idea what God's will looks like.
I just know whatever unfolds
Jesus hunkers down beside me
and waits it out with me.
And that sometimes what looks like the worst possible scenario
may contain something that will change me forever
for the better.
I no longer believe God orchestrates stuff like that
as if he has some lesson to teach me.
I lost that belief when I no longer needed to go around living my life
with a "I'll show them" attitude.
Oh yes, I may swear up a storm, throw something at the wall,
scream and holler my way through circumstances I. don't.like.one.bit.
I haven't lost my humanity.
But I don't know what's best for me.
And I trust in a God who does.

I'm not in a funk anymore.
Typing all this and remembering how it's been at times
has given me a much needed change in perspective.
Here's to a day
where breathing
is enough.

Keeping Pace

You know those commercials where the energizer bunny just keeps going and going and going? It's really too bad our pugaboo didn't come with an off switch. We made the mistake of letting her sleep in bed with us last night. If you'd asked me a year ago if I'd ever let a dog sleep in my bed I would have given you a good long stare that said when hell freezes over.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the dog pacing up and down the length of the bed right between me and dearest one. A noisy pacing complete with snorting and flying spittle. She got put back in her kennel asap and I was awake for the next 4 hours.

The dog has energy to burn this morning while I am dragging my sorry ass around. And I mean dragging.
I need to hang a sign on my bedroom doorknob that reads, "No pugs allowed."
I can just see youngest son rolling his eyes and saying, "Ya, right. That'll happen when hell freezes over."

Repairing The Damage

It was my turn to have vehicle trouble today.
Last night only daughter and lover boy finally made it home
60+ hours after they left here. Dearest one has their car trouble figured out already. A simple fix. One their mechanic in big city far away should've been able to diagnose and fix with mechanics 101 under his belt.
C'est la vie. And a big tow bill to boot.
My van will be a simple fix, too although I think dearest one is at the point where a bullet hole through the next vehicle to break down will do the trick quite nicely.

It took several hours for my tow truck guy to arrive but thankfully I had a good book to read in the meantime. Fifteen minutes down the road we drove past a big truck that had flipped on its side earlier in the day. It certainly put my puny car trouble into perspective. My van simply slowed to a stop, it didn't have to hit the ditch and roll on its side first.

My appointment with Fr. Charlie went well.
Hashing out the details of the past week helped me see just how much changing I've done since I came home from rehab. It feels good. It feels worth every one foot in front of the other step I've taken.

Part of recovery is making amends for hurts inflicted. There's someone I've wanted to make amends to for as long as I've been sober. This month's step is about being willing to make amends. The willingness has been there but the opportunity hasn't. The other night I was talking to my mom, who mentioned she'd been talking to his mom, when I asked for the umpteenth time if she knew where he was living. Nope. It dawned on me that maybe I could find him online. So I went searching and found a few people with his name who might live in the right area. I queried with vague details to see if one of them was him. Tonight one of them wrote back with one little sentence that told me they were indeed the right person. That sentence was about the very thing I needed to make amends for. I guess we've both been carrying that incident with us for 30 years now.

One of the oldest amends on my list has now been made.

Fixing broken vehicles is so cut and dried.
Take out broken part, replace it with a working part
and go on your merry way.
At the worst the vehicle is beyond repair and you buy a different one.
Or you walk.
Well, except I live in the boondocks so that's not exactly an option.
But you get my drift.

Fixing broken relationships.
That's not quite so easy.
I have no control over my school mate's response to my amend. For all I know he still thinks I'm the same bitch that he did when he stopped talking to me that day 30 years ago. For tonight I can let go of that.

Fr. Charlie and I talked today about the difference between being sorry because one feels bad about what they did and wants to feel better about themself as opposed to being sorry because one's actions harmed the other person. I told him I've made countless apologies to others in order to make myself feel better. Apologies made without ever letting myself gaze, let alone look, at the hurt I inflicted and how my actions damaged relationships. Most of my apologies over the years have been self pity driven.

I don't know how it is for other people. How it happens that they get courageous enough to want to change. How it is that they become willing to stop repeating the same old habits that get them the same old results. While part of me feels embarrassed that I only figured out today that apologies made out of self pity really don't heal much, at the same time, I'm thankful that such a realization is possible.

In some ways I'm not much different than the mechanic who was unable to fix only daughter's car. It would be easy to sit here and think he's a dumb ass because he kept replacing the same part without fixing the problem. I'm sure every time he tightened the last bolt and stepped back to look at his work, he felt a sense of satisfaction that all would be well now. What he lacked was the ability to see that he kept putting the part in backwards.

Tonight I feel more empathy for him than anything.

Wound Care

I am on the home stretch as far as appointments go at the sexual abuse centre.
Originally they ask for a one year to 18 month commitment and in November it will be one year since I started seeing a therapist there. Yesterday we talked about where we both thought I was in the process.

It was a good appointment and I came away with some direction, some idea as to what is left to delve into. It's not going to be fun but I am determined to face what needs facing and do what needs doing. I survived the initial abuse. That's the most important thing. The rest is wound care. I don't mean that to sound cavalier, this healing work has been the hardest work I've done in the whole process that was jump started when I went to rehab last year.

I do, however, have a deep sense that I am okay, that I will be okay, that who I was created to be is a bigger part of my conscious living than ever before.
Thanks be to God.

It's A Wrap

It's the middle of the night and I've been laying awake for over an hour already. I've had more bouts of insomnia since my friend died than I've had in the past 6 months. With all the hoopla around the wedding I fell into bed exhausted every night and slept like a baby.

So let's try to empty the nooks and crannies. Usually insomnia wreaks havoc when I go to bed with too many thoughts vying for my attention.

One of the funniest things I heard on the weekend was when my older sister said that they took turns pulling straws to see whose turn it was to be the backseat driver. She travelled with my parents and they all took turns driving. Remind me never to travel in the same vehicle as them. Dearest one has said from the beginning of me coming home from rehab last year that he knew I'd really changed when he got to the outskirts of the city and I hadn't once tried to tell him how to drive. There's hope for all of us if I can stop being a backseat driver.

Only daughter is still stranded in a city far away. Hopefully tomorrow her car will be roadworthy again and she can make it the rest of the way home. If not, then a family friend will haul her old car to her and bring the broken one back here. Dearest one had fixed up a new-to-her car for her return trip. The old one was old and on its last legs but obviously still is more dependable than the newer one. Eventually she'll make it home.

Oldest son and his new bride had minor car troubles yesterday. Thankfully their car righted itself without any need for mechanics or money. There's another week or so left of their honeymoon before they'll be back in town.

Youngest son made his way back to work yesterday after taking an extra day off to recuperate from the wedding. He was his brother's best man and had a busy weekend as well. Next week he returns to college and a different routine. At least we won't be going all different directions as he and dearest one can travel to town together.

Dearest one is feeling a tad overwhelmed this week. Students start back next week and he has lots of stuff to get ready before then. Combine that with taking 3 classes himself, plus teaching full time and getting a talk ready for a men's weekend and well, he is more than busy.

I spent yesterday in my pajamas. A fully lazy day. I read a book and took a nap and basically did nothing productive. Today I have an appointment at the sexual abuse center and tomorrow an appointment with Fr. Charlie. Friday is an at home day but the weekend is busy between AA commitments and a 25th wedding anniversary celebration for one of dearest one's siblings.

It's still hard to believe my family was actually here. There are lawn chairs still sitting around the fire pit and several times yesterday I gazed over that direction and closed my eyes and remembered how it sounded and looked to have them here.
It was wonderful.
It went too fast.

Kind of like life itself.

C'est La Vie

The dew is darn near frost on the grass this morning.
It dipped below freezing here last night.
That's so bizarre because I got a sunburn at the wedding.

It's too bad this is an anonymous blog because otherwise I could post photos
of the bride and groom and all the fun. Some of their friends have them up on facebook already, though.

Dearest one is back at work, youngest son is, too.
Only daughter had mechanical problems with her car
several hours from here yesterday. So she gets another
day off while that gets fixed.
Just a little while before she was stranded at the side of the road,
she and lover boy stopped for lunch. Across the street was one of those AAA places where you can buy coverage for things like needing a tow and all that jazz. She jokingly said that she should go across the street and buy some for when her car broke down. She didn't. Not too far down the road a rad hose blew and the car lost all its anti freeze.
C'est la vie.

When all the hoopla of the wedding started late last week
I knew it would feel like it was going by too fast.
I told myself to simply enjoy every moment as it arose.
I did pretty good at that.
It seems a bit surreal that my family was really here.
That my sisters and my mom and I all worked in the kitchen together.
That we sat around a camp fire and laughed and ate and had a good time.
There were kids running around or sitting on the grass gabbing with their cousins.

Today is a pajama day for me.
I'm tired, but not too tired.
I have several good books to read
and a dog that is lacking some serious lap time.
The rest of the week is full of appointments and
extended family celebrations of other kinds.
This is my day to do absolutely nothing.
I'm going to nestle in and enjoy it.

Icing On The Cake

"So what are your plans for the day," my older sister asks me this morning.
We're settled in comfy chairs at the bed and breakfast 10 minutes down the road from my place.
"A walk, some yoga, some writing and a nap."
"Oh God, a nap," my younger sister groans.
She has a 10 hour drive ahead of her today, with 5 kids ranging in age from 10 to 16 in the van with her. That's enough to make anyone groan even with terrific kids like hers.

But here I am, typing away at the public library in the city an hour's drive further down the road. When I got back home from saying goodbye to my parents and sisters, nieces, nephews and brother-in-law, dearest one asked if I'd like to come to town with him. He had a few things to do at the office and then we could go for lunch and buy some groceries. We've hardly seen each other in the past three days. And not without other people in the mix, except at night when we fell into bed exhausted, hardly aware of the other person. That's what happens in a king size bed - you can sleep and roll over and not know you have a bedmate. Dearest one said a few times during the night he reached over and then reached over further to see if I was still in bed.

The office work is done, lunch is finished and dearest one is sleeping for a bit in the van. This is the third day in a row he's had a migraine and the last day for a week that he can take migraine medication. Three days running is the limit before side effects make it dangerous to ingest any more. I hope that with getting back to a regular routine he'll be pain free tomorrow. He asked if I'd park the van somewhere while he had a nap and slept enough until the medication kicked in.

So here I am.
A library is my second favourite place in the world.
The first is home.

Libraries have always been a safe, comforting haven for me. And today I picked up 5 books, in less than a minute, from the new books shelves. That's like icing on the cake to an already great day.

I do look forward to waking up tomorrow, making my way into the kitchen and fixing breakfast. I'll carry it into the office and eat it while I write a blog post. Then the energizer bunny and I will go for a walk.

Life is good.
Very, very good.

Freedom

Celebrations are so much better from a place of sobriety
than with all the booze in the world.

I cannot remember when I've had such fun.
The past three days has been full of fun, laughter and love.
Dearest one and I danced to our hearts content.
The first time we've ever danced without me being totally drunk.
We had a blast.

I still have company and more family stuff for tomorrow.
Until that's over this little tidbit will have to suffice.

Two things stand out for me right now.

First...after oldest son was married
he was standing with dearest one when he
looked across the pond (it was an outside wedding in a beautiful place)
and saw his new bride. He stopped and said, "Wow. That's my wife."
And he started to cry.
He is so tender hearted and I love that about him.

Today my older sister and my parents left a beautiful gift bag on my bed.
They stayed at our home a few nights ago while we were getting ready for the wedding
a few hours further down the road.
As a thank you they bought me this angel.
My sister picked out this angel from a line called Eden's Angels.
The one my sister picked for me was called Freedom Angel
The little card with it said this:

With the freedom to dream,
we have the Faith
to pray for the courage
to be who we really are.

That little card sums up this past year for me.
Today is one year since I came home from rehab.
What a year it has been.

Curling Up

All manner of my family is traveling today.
Making their way slowly northward.
I've moved houses 3 times since my parents or sisters
were here to visit last time.
It doesn't seem real that they'll be in my home.
But they will be.

My mom said my oldest brother is going to stop and see me
sometime in the next few weeks as well.
He's been in my home once.
His wife, never.

Every family has things that seem normal to them
but not to others.
Some of it is, in the end, very normal.
And some of it is bizarre.

I feel the edges of perfectionism gnawing at me today.
Wanting to feel control over something.
I am not my home.
I am not my yard.
I am not my body.
I am not my kids.
There's a lot of self talk going on within me today.
And nigglings of self doubt that
I've never really changed at all.

It's cold and rainy today.
Good weather to do some baking,
some self nurturing.
Weather that lends itself to relaxing
with a cup of tea.

I have a list on my fridge
that my counselor and I came up with
of positive self soothing behaviours.
With the rainy weather
and sorrow over losing my friend
I look at the list and choose curling up in a blanket and
rocking back and forth.

I can only change me.
Lord have mercy.

Their Own Path

This morning the energizer bunny sat right at my head,trying to lick my face, while I tried to go back to sleep. She thinks anything covered up with a blanket, be it feet, a toy, my head, is something to attack and play with. Eventually I uncovered my head, looked at her and groaned, "You're one of those morning people aren't you?". Well, not exactly a people but you get my drift. I gave up, or in, and got up.

It's chilly enough this morning to wear cozy flannel pjs and have a cup of tea with my breakfast. A much welcome rain is coming down as I type. The rain guage shows half an inch of the wet stuff in the past 36 hours. We are in desperate need of it.

This afternoon is the funeral of my friend. I've been in tears quite a bit the last few days as I try to grasp that she's really gone. The energizer bunny sat on my lap and was such a comfort. She can get such a look of concern on her face. She would fix it if she could.

My friend was often at the mercy of a lot of judgement of good church going people. It didn't turn her off faith but it did wound her. She talked often of not knowing how people facing the health issues she did, did it without a faith in God. She credited God with her amazing progress post transplant. Sometimes I wanted to scream, absolutely scream, when people would ask me about her faith journey. They assumed much because she didn't go to church, because she and her husband had lived together for years before they married, because she smoked until she got sick. And sometimes they would blame her sickness on her smoking when her illness was not in the least related to smoking. It was an immune system response where her body attacked it's own cells. Non smokers get the same disease all the time. So do underweight, overweight, and in shape people.

But judging others feels good. God knows I know that because of how judgemental I can be. I have to remind myself often that I never know the full story of someone else's journey.....that I'm not God.....that minding my own business and living my own life takes enough energy without spending it passing judgement on others.

While I was cleaning up the office this week I kept running across little pieces of paper that had quotes on them. Some made it into my computer notebook, like this one:

"The most compassionate thing I can do is allow (them) to be on their own path."

Lord have mercy.

Waiting and Walking

"The hope on the other side of despair is the unique gift of God to those who walk the journey. It is hope not based on anything in particular working out. It is a hope that comes to those who wait and walk at the same time.

It is not just a hope; it is The Hope; a gift not founded on circumstances or successes but a gift that declares that Reality can be trusted after all. Someone is Good somewhere. Goodness is at the beginning and the bottom of all of this. Goodness will win out.

~ from Richard Rohr's Near Occasions of Grace

Let Me Sleep

"Sometimes we wake up grumpy and sometimes we let her sleep."

They should have let me sleep this morning.
I am not a morning person at the best of times.
I'm not exactly a night owl either.
Just give me my sleep and no one will get hurt.
That about sums me up today.
It can only get better.

If you want to read some food for thought kind of posts today
try here and here and here.

As for me I'm going back to bed.
Have a good day.

Taking The Edge Off

We had a lovely water fight last night.
Dearest one was chasing the cat out of the garden with playful squirts
of the water hose.
I told youngest son to just wait and see
that his dad would try and get as close to me as possible with the water spray without actually hitting me.
Eventually he did just that and then miscalculated and got me wet.
And we laughed.
I went and got an ice cube and had youngest son put it down his dad's shirt.
At one point younest son took the watering can and started watering my flowers.
He suddenly turned and poured it right over my head.
Then over his dad's head.
Then over his own.
We all ended up wet and laughing.
Laughter takes the edge off the grief.

Baby Stepping My Way To Sanity

I just wrote out a day by day itinerary for this week.
I'm writing this Sunday night and posting it as if it's Monday morning.
Does that count as taking life one day at a time?
I think it will have to be a baby step by baby step kind of week.
Looking at the whole picture feels overwhelming.
Today I hope it is cool enough to do some housework. We've had 30C and a couple for about 4 or 5 days in a row now. That's about 90F and then some. The air conditioner is not keeping up with the heat. Sitting still makes me sweat, never mind moving.
I tend to clean a room and put what I don't know how to want to deal with in the next room. Then I do that with each room until all the left over stuff ends up in the last room. Housekeeping does not come naturally to me. Slobville does.
Tuesday will be more housework. There's carpet stains to get out (I found the greatest cheap cleaner for this)and a bathroom to scrub down. Bedding to wash and floors to clean.
Wednesday is my friend's funeral.
Thursday only daughter and her lover boy come home. She hasn't been home since Christmas. It will be his first trip here.
Friday my parents will come here and spend the night while we travel a few hours to a different province for the wedding preparations.
That would be the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.
Saturday is the wedding.
Sunday my parents and sisters will be here for supper.
Monday I will wave goodbye to family and promptly cry.
Yep, I think a baby step approach is my only sane choice.
I'm thankful that I know that's an option.
Otherwise it would be dramaville around here.
I'm so glad to know I only have to do this step by step.
That's manageable.
For today.
Er, tomorrow.
Or on a Sunday night writing like it's Monday morning kind of day.

Rose Scented Comfort

Friday night I returned a call to another AA member telling him I wasn't coming into town the next day so no, I wouldn't be able to chair the meeting for him. We chatted about other things for a bit and then he asked if I would be willing to be a speaker at the treatment center this coming week. Every week AA does a speaker meeting at the center where two people share what it was like (when they were drinking), what happened (how they found recovery) and what it's like now (how working the 12 steps has changed their lives). I would have loved to be one of those speakers, this week's meeting being nearly a year since I finished the program there. However, I had to decline due to family obligations that particular evening. I trust another opportunity to share at the center will come my way if it's meant to be.

This phone conversation took place before I found out that my friend Karen had passed away. When that phone call came my first thought was that I needed a meeting. I talked with my sponsor and left it open for us to go together to the meeting the next morning. I went to bed pretty sure I was going to stay home. I slept poorly that night. The next morning I was watching the energizer bunny be her cute self when I remembered Karen's small dog and how it had been her constant companion these past few years. How much joy it had brought her and how much that dog was going to miss her. Tears welled up as I thought all this and I thought to myself yet again that I needed a meeting. I had just looked at the clock to guage how much time I had before I had to decided whether I was going to go when the phone rang. It was my sponsor asking me if I was going to the meeting.

Just over an hour later we were both warming chairs at the meeting. That the doors were open, that someone stepped up to chair the meeting....I was so grateful. I told the chairperson that I'd no idea that between the time I talked to our friend to decline chairing the meeting and this morning that I would be the one who would need a meeting the most.

Yesterday I realized how safe I feel in the rooms of AA, especially my home group. I can cry in front of these friends and feel no shame or embarrassment about it. I could simply be myself without pretense, which included sharing how I glared at someone this past week with a fuck off times ten glare. How strange that recovery depends on letting go of pretense when often letting go of pretense in a faith community will get one ostracized. We have things a bit screwed up there I think. No wonder Philip Yancey talks in his book, Church,Why Bother? about how church should be more like an AA meeting. [Okay - I'm off my soapbox,now.] I looked at the guy who chaired the meeting and thanked him for opening up early, for chairing the meeting when he had other plans for the day.

My sponsor and I spent a few hours together after the meeting, having a leisurely lunch, and getting a few errands done. We sat in her car at the end of our time together and dabbed rose scented cuticle moisturizer on our fingers. That scent always reminds me of our Blessed Mother. Who better knows what grief is all about?

Last night in the dusky moonlight dearest one and I went for a walk.
That is my favourite way to spend time.
It was a comforting day all around.
Thank you for your prayers.

Relaxing Rigid Ways

One week from today oldest son will be married.
I had a dress hanging up in the closet.
One with a deep blue/purple hue.
It made my eyes look that colour, too.
But it stuck to my belly.
The belly that, with a 60 pound weight loss,
is on it's way to China.
Too bad there isn't an Olympic sport for that.

So with just over a week to go
I found a new dress.
One which floats over my skin,
relieving me of the feat of trying to
suck in my belly for 12 hours straight,
(underneath a girdle and all).
The new dress is navy with a beautiful beaded front.
I'll be able to put it on and
forget about what I'm wearing.
That's been my guiding mantra in clothes shopping this past year.
"Do I feel comfortable and confident in this?"
It's good when I ask myself that before I shell out the money.

This period of my life is my first experience
of wearing clothes that flatter my figure
without it triggering feelings of being slutty.
It's a foreign, but getting more comfortable feeling,
to celebrate this body of mine, however saggy it's becoming,
by wearing clothes that don't make my body
look like it's a tall, rectangular box.
I no longer hide my curves
as if I'm ashamed of them.
I walk differently now.
There's a confidence to my step
that is brand new.

There's something hopeful about breaking rigid ways of being
half way through life. Because of the childhood sexual abuse
my perception of sexuality and absorbing responsibility
for anything remotely connected to sexuality were warped.
How do we even begin to challenge warped thinking
when we believe it's normal?

A few months into counseling
to help me heal from the sexual abuse,
I related an incident to my counselor
where I was walking through a parking lot,
on the way into a store, when
a strange man said hello to me.
Instantly I took all responsibility for his hello.
Believed I must be sending out a vibe, a bad one.

I was in grade three when one day a boy I was helping
with his spelling, looked at me in such a way that I knew
he had a crush on me.
My instant sense within was of how much power that gave me.
I never challenged that conclusion in over 35 years,
until my counselor pointed out to me that
"no" I didn't have power over all men.
I'm almost embarrassed to type that,
her words were a brand new thought to me.
She gave me several reasons why a man could say hi to me.
Ones I never even thought of,
was not capable of figuring out on my own.

Hmmmm, I wasn't aware this post
was headed into this territory when
I started typing.
Sometimes when that happens I push
the delete button and start over.

It's only in this past year
that I've started to inhabit
this body of mine.
Started to be in it comfortably
instead of being detached from it
as if it was something to reject.
It's been a relief to learn
and believe that I'm more than a sexual being without
having to reject my sexuality in the process.

I also know when I start typing posts
in this poetry like pattern
I haven't the emotional energy to try and make
sense out of formal paragraphs and coherent sentences.
That I could be detaching somewhat from that deeper place
that I'm learning to live from.
That most likely has more to do with my friend's death
than anything else.
I didn't sleep well last night.
Morning came way too early.
I can feel the tears lining up in my body
waiting their turn to be released.

For today I can do this.
Thank God I don't have to navigate
this journey all by myself.
Thank you for being a part of it.

Phone Karen

The handwriting's mine. Written between cocoa and ferret food on my grocery list. I wrote it in a hurry one day last week hoping that if I put it on paper where I could see it, I'd remember to call. I never did.

Karen passed away yesterday.
I found out this evening.

We hadn't known each other long in terms of years of friendship - only the past 5 years - but we shared a bond of understanding that was of the forever kind. Although we lived in neighbouring communities our paths hadn't crossed until then. It took the internet to get us connected. When I was first having health issues and trying to get a diagnosis I posted a message on a forum for people diagnosed with PH, an illness bandied about by one of my doctors. One of the people on that message board wrote me to tell me that Karen lived close by and might be a good contact person for me. Was she ever.

Her story mirrored mine to some extent. She spent 4 years trying to get a diagnosis only to be told by one doctor to go home and get a life because there was nothing wrong with her. By the time she got diagnosed with PH her disease had progressed so far that medication couldn't halt it's progression. She was soon put on a waiting list for a double lung transplant. Fucking, fucking doctors.

Karen was my cheerleader. Because she had been doubted by doctors, which fed her own self doubt about whether it was all in her head or not, she was so supportive as I tried to get a diagnosis of my own. When I had a doctor look at me and tell me either I had all these funky things or I didn't and maybe I was simply hormonal (and he leaned towards the hormonal conclusion) Karen was there to listen to me cry and vent. In turn I could listen to her as she still doubted the seriousness of her illness, still worried that the fever she had or the abdominal pains were all in her head and she shouldn't bother the doctors. She knew I understood how it screws with a person's mind when the powers-that-be send you home like a chastened child. There was always a hint of this self doubt no matter how sick Karen got. I think it only left during the times she ended up in ICU.

Karen was there as I gave up on getting a diagnosis and stopped going to the doctor. She had done that herself at one point, too. She was also there to listen as my health declined. Eventually I got to see the doctor who was instrumental in getting her a diagnosis. This doctor believed me and told me she would be with me no matter how long it took to get it figured out. Figuring it out took 9 trips of 1500 kms each between June and November of that year plus a 10 day stay in a hospital far, far away. Eventually I had the gold standard test for PH and was found to be borderline. I remember the doctor telling me that even if my numbers had been higher he wouldn't do anything about it until the numbers got much, much higher. The medicine needed to treat it was so expensive that the government wouldn't pay for it before then. I looked at him and said, "so it's a crap shoot really - take me to the brink and then see if the medicine will bring me back." He nodded.

He did run every test he could. They even flipped me upside down for a second spiral CT scan of my lungs looking for the place where my blood vessels were bypassing picking up the oxygen. He was the doctor who referred me to a cardiologist who was so thorough in her listening that it led to a referral to a geneticist and eventually to a diagnosis. A diagnosis that scoops all kinds of funky health issues in because Elhers-Danlos has to do with the glue(collagen) that holds everything, even yours eyes, together in your body. When that's defective there's a never ending list of things that can be funky. I was thankful that funky won out over hormonal. Karen and I had a pet name for the doctor who had previously dismissed me. He had once treated her like a piece of crap, too.

Karen was the one who told me about the spoon theory to help others understand what it was like to lack the energy to do the simplest of tasks. We got so that we could tell by each other's voice how many spoons the other had.

Karen got her new lungs 4 years, 5 months, and 2 days ago. Her husband called on the way to the waiting air ambulance that would take them to a far off city to have the transplant. That transplant gave her several years of a much more normal life although she still spent way more time in the hospital than most people do in a lifetime. A year ago she spent every significant holiday and celebration from Christmas to Easter to Mother's Day to Father's Day to her birthday in July, to her wedding anniversary in August, in the hospital. We joked this year when she made it past several of those events without being hospitalized. Even throughout those days in the hospital she would call and be more interested in what was going on with me than talking about her. She had the greatest contagious giggle and even after she'd broken vertebrae in her back from coughing too hard, she still ended up in giggles. She'd sound like this....giggle, ouch, giggle, ouch.

Sometimes when she would call from the hospital I wondered if this time would be the last time I talked with her. I've lost count of how many times I thought to myself, "this is it, she won't make it through this time." only for her to bounce back once again and surprise even the medical team.

She fought to make it through when her daughter got married last year and when her parents celebrated their 50th anniversary soon after. How she summoned up the energy for either is a miracle. Sometimes she was let out of the hospital just days before the event.

About a year ago she brought up the subject of her death. It was the first time we had that conversation. In the time since she alluded to knowing she wouldn't be here to celebrate her 50th birthday or her 25th wedding anniversary. No too long ago she worried outloud about her remaining siblings because she thought that for sure within 10 years neither she or her parents would be here. Both her parents are battling terminal illnesses of their own. She felt bad that she would be leaving her husband alone.

I last saw her about a month ago. We didn't see each other in person very much. But we talked on the phone pretty much every week up until about a year ago. Even though we didn't talk as often we still connected regularly. I knew if I didn't hear from her for a while it meant she was most likely in the hospital either here or in the big hospital far away where she had her transplant. Sometimes her husband would call and let me know where she was and sometimes I had to wait until she was strong enough to talk on the phone then she'd call and away we'd go again. She always called eventually. I thought this time she would, too.

When I started this blog I wrote a post that explained how I chose the blog's title. I had just been diagnosed after several years of doctors and tests galore. Back then I could choose between breathing and talking but couldn't do both at once on the worst of days. Sometimes Karen would hear me take a breath between words and point it out to me. She always encouraged me to listen to my body. She could hear things in my voice that weren't on my radar screen. It's good for me to remember that. Life has changed so much since then.

When we saw each other last month she was surprised by my weight loss and I was surprised by her frailness. It was as if she'd come full circle from post transplant back to a pre transplant state of health. Her home care nurse helped her to the couch and got her oxygen straightened out before leaving us to visit. We sat on the couch and watched her favourite TV shows together. It was a comforting distraction. It was easier when talking on the phone to avoid thinking about her death. Seeing her in person made me face that she wouldn't always be here. I haven't grasped that reality yet. I'm remembering her voice in my head as I type and hoping it will never fade.

Tonight I opened up the file that holds all her emails. I only was able to read a few of them before I closed the page. I had to stop when I read the following:

"You know, I loved turning 40. My husband had a surprise birthday party for me which was great and although I was diagnosed with PPH, I was thrilled to be 40 years old."

Karen turned 47 last month. She cherished every day she had since diagnosis.
Tonight I will go to sleep in the same bedroom as she once slept. Ironically I live in the same trailer that she lived in over 15 years ago.

I stood at the kitchen sink tonight, the one that she'd once stood at too and let my tears fall into the dish water. I know goodbye isn't forever but tonight it feels so final. Breathe easy Karen, breathe easy.

Owning My Own

To be able to bypass my head and speak from my heart feels like a gift. Even if I don't always want to embrace what my heart then reveals, I still recognize it as progress. Yesterday in a counseling session, as I explored why I felt anxious about certain things, I knew I had bypassed my head and got to the heart of the matter when I could feel the tears forming in my chest and start to well up in my eyes. At the same time I said the word shame outloud. I knew from my body reaction that I'd finally figured that one out. What had looked like it was about many other things ended up being about one thing and far from what I had said it was on the surface. On the surface it was about other people. Ha. Beneath the layers of talk and thinking was my own issue. A feeling of shame about something I did to someone else 35 years ago. A malicious act that I then had told in public 20 years later. What I'd been certain was about someone else's behaviour ended up being about my own shame that I'd carried for so long and was projecting onto them. Thank God that my counselor has enough patience to listen to my bullshit until I get to what lies beneath it.

No wonder peeling back those layers that resemble an onion often brings tears to the eyes. I'd been feeling anxious about someone else's behaviour for several weeks already. Had tried to talk to them about it, putting the owness on them to fix my anxiety. What I'd really wanted was for them to toe the line. My line. They deftly sidestepped that and put my anxiety back on my shoulders. Damn. After I saw where the root of the problem lay yesterday I was able to go back to them last night and tell them where my anxiety came from. I think that's called owning my own shit.

A Dangerous Thing

"Let me tell you something, hope is a dangerous thing. It can drive a man insane."

~ Red in The Shawshank Redemption

Yesterday I picked about 8 gallons of peas from my garden. To help pass the time while shelling them I watched the above movie for the first time.

It got me thinking about the first stirrings of hope in my life. Just over 20 years ago I reached out to God and asked for help. It felt like the biggest risk I'd ever taken. I remember wondering what would happen if God turned his back on me the first time I screwed up. Then where would I be? Hopeless.

I remember rising from my knees relieved that I no longer had to try and change on my own strength. I felt hopeful. No matter how badly I've screwed up since then, and there have been major screw ups galore, there also has been a glimmer of hope that change was possible. There have been prisons of my own making. There have also been chains broken by the grace of God.

For today I can do this.
Thankfully I don't have to do this alone.
Some days feel more hopeful than others.
Just a glimmer is enough for me.

A Hint Of A Smile

There's a pureness to the morning air today that evokes a sense of contentment within me. A little bit of a chill combined with the sunshine make me feel grateful to be alive. Although being grateful for something that comes easily isn't really a big deal - the weather doesn't drive me batty very often - 40 below and snow for a week will do it - but little else does. I am glad to live in a part of the world where we experience all four seasons. Well, okay - they all make an appearance even if only for what seems like a day or two for the warmer ones and like a great aunt showing vacation slides for the coldest part of the year.

I've been gardening and mowing lawns and enjoying the summer sunshine this week. Usually by now we can see a few leaves starting to turn colour. That hasn't happened yet. I've sometimes wondered if the trees that leaf out the earliest in the spring are the ones to lose their leaves the earliest in the fall. One year I'm going to mark some of those trees and see if my ponderings bear any weight.

Dearest one came home yesterday from work absolutely exhausted after twelve hours straight of patient care and emergencies. It was so busy he missed all his coffee and meal breaks. When I went to bed last night, only a few minutes behind him, he was already sleeping. I thought he was waiting to scare me. It was so dark that I couldn't see my way to the bed. I said to him, "Did you pull the blinds?" Then I took a closer look and realized it was simply dark out and that was what was making it pitch black in our room. Then I said, "I know you are just pretending to be asleep. You're waiting for me to crawl into bed and then you're going to growl at me and scare me." Total silence from his side of the bed. I'm thinking he's really going to try and scare me this time. When I did finally find the bed and crawl in I was a little disappointed to find out he was truly fast asleep. We would have ended up in laughter had he really been waiting to scare me. He has this growl that has a hint of a smile in it and while I pretend to be scared we both secretly like it. I am so grateful for his sense of humour. Without it I would be far more serious about life than I am already. I envy him that ability to have his head hit the pillow and sleep to follow a few seconds later. This morning he asked me when I had come to bed.

I got him back real good once when he scared me. I waited a good long while before I pulled this trick. It was pitch black, not unlike last night, and I hid behind a wall that jutted out a little bit making it so he couldn't see me. I heard his footsteps coming and at just the right moment I jumped out and scared him. He was so startled that he nearly punched me before he realized it was me and not some intruder. That happened over 10 years ago and it still makes me laugh. It's not often that I get him back for all the hijinks he pulls. As you can see I savour each opportunity I get.

The next time you need to visit the emergency ward, have a stay in the hospital, or visit someone who is a patient there, say a little prayer of thanks for the nursing staff. Dearest one enjoys his job so much that many days he can't believe he gets paid to do what he does. Then there are days like yesterday when he's really glad there's a paycheck when all is said and done.

An 80 Year Old Live Wire

I met the most lovely elderly lady the other day at a social function.
Her wispy hair looked a little matted, like she had put a hat on when her hair was wet. Her back was so hunched that she'd lost the ability to lift her head straight up to look at you. Instead she turned her head to the side and then looked up as far as possible. Her movements reminded me of a little bird. But her eyes. They were so full of life and humour and energy that I liked her immediately. What she lacked in youthfulness of body she made up for in her eyes.

We spent some time talking about gardening and canning. She has already put up 120 quarts of fruit this year. When she told me that I said, "Oh, and peaches aren't here yet." She told me that one of the local stores would have them this very week and how much they were for a ten pound box. I haven't done any canning in several years but one summer I did can 160 pounds of peaches. When I told her that she said, "You must have gotten 50 quarts at least." I smiled to myself. 50 quarts is exactly how many jars I had when I was done canning those peaches.

We ate our meal together and there was a lot of laughter. She's a live wire, a term mostly reserved in my mind, for little kids. Which is something to aspire to when one is 80+ years old.

Sane and Simple

It's dark enough at night now to see the stars again. From my pillow I could see the stars twinkling like Christmas lights through the trees during the night. I found that comforting. Throughout my childhood, when we would come home late on a clear night, we would look up at the stars.

In less than two weeks my parents and my sisters will gather at my house for supper. They live 600 miles away and are coming this way to attend oldest son's wedding. It will be the first time in my adult life that my parents and sisters will be together at my house. I can count on one hand the times any of them have been to my home in the 28 years since I left home. My parents are ageing and their health continues to decline. I am expecting this will be not only the 4th time they've been to my home, but also the last time they will make the trip.

One of the gifts of recovery is that I can stand back and take a simpler approach to having them here for supper. It will be the day after oldest son's wedding - which is taking place several hours from here - a day when I am expecting my spoon supply to be not quite up to par, so supper will be a weiner roast and salads with watermelon and ice cream for dessert. I am grateful that I can make a simple and sane choice. There was a time when simple and sane was outside my realm of possibilities.

Part of the Serenity Prayer talks about accepting the things I cannot change. Despite my inability to dictate the weather I am hoping to share a clear and starry night with my family.



PS: For all you Olympic sports fans - I was yelling at the TV last night watching the US 4x100 swim team go for the gold. That was a nail biter of a race.

Safety and Reality

"Silence makes us vulnerable because when we stop making noise, we lose control: who knows what thoughts or feelings might arise if we turned off the television or stopped yammering for a while? Laughter makes us vulnerable because it often comes in response to our flaws and foibles: who knows how foolish we might look when the joke is on us? We can share silence and laughter only when we trust each other - and the more often we share them, the deeper our trust grows.

The soul loves silence because it is shy, and silence helps it feel safe. The soul loves laughter because it seeks truth, and laughter often reveals reality."

~ Parker J. Palmer in A Hidden Wholeness

Dearest one and I have gathered weekly with a small group of friends for the past 7 years. What started out as a book study (the book study is nearly finished now!) grew into a safe place where we could share deeply with one another. As a result we've become comfortable with silence and laughter in one another's presence. We've shared through the years of raising our children, most of us either have all adult children or nearly so, and are now sharing the journey of ageing parents. Two of us will soon welcome daughter-in-laws to our families within a week of each other.

Seven years ago, when we began to get together, we all attended the same church. Over time that changed. Our friends have not only walked beside us as dearest one and I embraced our faith within the Catholic Church, they have been supportive of our choice to do so. Together we've shared the seemingly roller coaster ride of addiction, depression, job changes and job loss plus many life changes. We've opened our souls to one another in a way that we realize more and more is not only beautiful but rare. I wish everyone could be so blessed.

It's All Just Temporary

Last night brought some welcome relief from the heat wave we've been experiencing this week. Temperatures in the plus 30C range are quite a bit warmer than normal for this time of year in my neck of the woods. I am not a heat fan. Our little air conditioner was working overtime just to maintain a livable room temperature yesterday. When the rain fell last night and the air cooled rapidly it was a welcome reprieve. Today is supposed to be back up to 30C. C'est la vie.

My funky signature at the bottom of my posts lately is courtesy of a heads up from MPJ.It was fun to create. Yesterday as I was cleaning up around the house I must have come across close to 10 different objects with the word hope on them. I love me some hope.

Last night we enjoyed new potatoes and green beans from the garden. Raspberries from the same flavoured my breakfast yesterday, too. What a privilege to walk out the front door and spend 5 minutes picking enough goodness to help nourish this body for the day. It's been several years since I was healthy enough to do the work to maintain a garden. It's a gift to harvest her bounty.

Now that the Olympics are on I will be hoarding the TV remote more than my fair share. There's some irony in becoming a temporary couch potato in order to watch Olympic athletes show their muscles, discipline and skill. Go Canada Go!

Sharing The Treasure

Here are 3 good reads and 3 new to me blogs:

Creative Defiance

A Moving Letter ht to Owen

Interview with Heather King

A Room Of Mama's Own

Rae's Confessions

Trudging The Gentle Path of Happy Destiny

Go Deeper

" Embrace change -- knowing that life is always being reconfigured.
Befriend the person you are striving to become.
Welcome new paths. Enjoy the detours.
Strive to go deeper rather than just forward.
Know that most unnecessary demands come from the unfinished parts of self.
Beware of speed. It is often one's undoing.
Wholehearted is the way. Halfhearted will kill you.
Harness your evolvement.
Let go of what is outlived to make room for the unlived.

~ Joan Anderson in The Second Journey