Dredging Up the Past

I was recently given a "homework assignment" by my Oldest Son, who is going to counselling. He wants to deal with his childhood, understand it, confront it and (I hope) find some peace once he has some guidance as he walks through and relives the sequence of events which has led to the present day.

I did not want to go there. I've dredged up the past in order to try to give my son the information he needed to get through a trauma. I don't deny the life we once lived. I pull what I need from those days and bring it into the light when life hands me a reason. But I don't go back and relive it. I don't want to feel the emotion that goes with those stories. I need to stay detached from that world.

I finally faced up to the task yesterday morning. I started writing down what I remembered. Then I started digging through old letters and pulled out my journals. I reread the words I wrote when I was living the moment.

It was a little bit like reading about someone else, though hearing the sound of my voice tell the story took me back to those moments. I didn't sink down and lose myself in them. I simply recalled and remembered from a distance.

I am grateful I wrote myself through those moments. It gave me the opportunity to purge myself of the emotions in the moment. But the act of writing it down brought a different perspective to what was happening, even when it was new and raw. And there is hope that these "written in the thick of the moment" ramblings MAY be of some use to my son as he reads and (hopefully) understands the other side of our story.

One piece of writing is old. It is very old (1994 or 95). I read it and thought of the ripple effect of our past within our family:

If He Could See Us Now

... a man's voice was on the other end of the phone line ... the questions, the voice, the "unknown" triggered an emotion in the young boy's mind. He hung up the phone, deflated. He sighed out loud, "I thought it was my dad." ...

... a young man. Eager, yet terrified to step towards adulthood is tentatively learning about cars in a mechanics class. He feels a betrayal. So many of his classmates know so much more than he does. Their dad had taught them. So many emotions lie beneath the surface. But one seems to rear its ugly head the most ... anger.

... the responsibilities of running a household and family on her own, she wrestles with the trials, triumphs and day-to-day mundane ... alone. Whether it be a moment of devastation or one of jubilation, she longs for a partner to turn to. To share the moment. Another day, like all the rest, is over. Sleep will bring comfort ... dreams of the future.

...somewhere out there is a man. Alone in his own way. Possibly masking it with another drink ... another "toke" ... running ...

Does he know he's not alone in his pain and his grief? Does he know he'll never be able to run away from it? Does he ever wonder about his family and their pain? Or is he too busy masking his own?

Years go by and like the ripples from a pebble tossed into the stillness of a lake, his influence in their life is a constant.

She had tried to run from it too. For a while it seemed to work. She inched towards independence and distance from the life they had lead. A life, that no matter what pain and devastation it wrought, that kept bringing them back to each other ...

The cycle of abuse is seemingly endless. The good times SO good ... the bad times so devastating. It affects everyone ... the ripple in the lake ...

From the outside looking in, it appears so black and white. "They" see the family torn apart ... "they" know the answer. But ... when the family does the "right" thing and separates, does the outside world feel the ripples?

There's a longing inside her. A longing to "solve" the past. To spread the word and help someone learn from her experience. It wasn't good enough to protect her children from a future exposed to the havoc of an abusive relationship. The had already been exposed. The seed already planted. The ripple ...

The anger the young man feels slips out from time to time. An anger that's always under the surface. He can "justify his actions because it's "someone else's" fault ... .. ... Her blood runs cold at his response ... What will trigger his anger next? Who will be wounded as the ripple continues to affect the calmness that surrounds the lake?

Has your life been affected by abusive behaviours? Are you one of its victims? Are you masking the pain in any addictive behaviour? Are you running?

Those who are inflicting the pain of abuse are usually victims too. It's a cycle. it's NOT an heirloom one would choose to pass along to their children. But unwittingly that's what happens.

No matter if you'r a victim or the one inflicting the pain, STOP RUNNING! Remove yourself from the situation. Get help. Find support. Talk. Confront the issue. Get help. FACE the pain. If you don't face it, it will never go away. Don't allow another generation to toss another pebble into yet another peaceful lake.

She wishes he would get help. Get healthy. Get to know his children. She wishes he could acknowledge that he understands she did what she thought was best for everyone. She hopes that what she did wasn't in vain. That future generations will not suffer because she didn't learn sooner the toll it would take on her own children.

She prays the anger the young man feels will be dealt with in a positive way. Before it affects the people who touch his life.

She's sad the young boy never knew his Dad, but yet relieved. The ripple can't touch him. He didn't feel the pain. He felt the loneliness instead.

She longs for the ripple to calm into the stillness of the lake. She's tired of fighting the waves.

The "young man" who was in and around the age of 16 when this was written is presently 39 years old. He's still feeling the ripple effect of a life he was removed from 30 years ago.

The "young boy" is 30 years old. The ripple effect has touched his life and his relationship with his brother, though it may have strengthened the bond he has with his mother...

She is still alone, a little lost at sea at times, riding the waves from a ripple from long ago when necessary but longing to find her way back to shore and stay there.

The man is facing his own mortality. The sequence of events which could follow a dire or terminal diagnosis has the potential to toss yet another pebble into the lake which has not yet stilled.

The ripple effect is seemingly without an end.

Gotta Fly Now!

If I was to sit still and let my fingers fly freely across the keyboard this morning, this post would most likely be a to-do list for the upcoming weekend. I have places to go, people to see and things to do. And they start with my need to leave the house in about a half hour. So I must write fast if I am going to keep up this morning writing habit.

My morning inspirational email was about "facing fears". It was a reminder of the years where I did exactly that.

One year I took on the task to compile memories for Mom's family and that undertaking literally changed me from the inside, out. It rerouted my thoughts, helped me feel as though I truly belonged within this family of ours and it gave me the courage to do it all over again with Dad's family.

The scariest thing I ever did was pick up the phone and tell Mom's sisters I would like to write down and compile their memories. It was a life changer. I think we all won that round. It was a wonderful way to get to really know my family.

Another year, I signed up for Zumba and Bellyfit. Alone. A friend did not accompany me through those rooms full of strangers. Some people go on solo vacations. Me? I signed up for a few fitness classes. Same thing.

Confronting the fear of doing something on my own. That was huge for me. It motivated me in ways that scared the socks off me.

Unfortunately the timing of going "sockless" and a health scare with Mom happened in and around the same time. The sequence of events are intertwined within my mind and I can't really tell what scared me the most. Facing Mom's mortality? Or taking the final test to become a Group Fitness Instructor?

Life took a tumble after that fateful year. It was a slow decline. I never fully recovered. I never felt inspired to do so.

Until now.

It's time for a change, my friend. It has to start from within. And gosh darn it! I feel a power within me at this very moment in time that makes me think that this could be the time I break free of the year that broke me. The year 2011 was the beginning of my decline. The year 2018? I read someplace that it will be the year I break out of my cocoon and start to fly again.

Speaking of flying ... I must soar now. I've got much to do and little time to do it. I've gotta fly now. Cue Rocky's theme song "Gonna Fly Now" and you have it. I hear the trumpets playing. Maybe I'll guzzle down some raw eggs first.

And I'm off!

New Habits are So Time Consuming!

New habits are time consuming. I believe I've heard it said that the best way to kick an old habit is to replace it with a new one. Doing one thing instead of another takes away the temptation to do what you want to stop doing, with an added bonus of keeping your daily regimen intact.

This new exercise thing has added a half hour to my morning routine. I gave up sleeping in that extra hour in lieu of making time to exercise, while (trying to) form a new habit of getting up at 6:00 a.m. This is good.

The writing thing? It feels harder.

In my old life, I woke up early to intentionally make time to write. My daycare family walked in the door at 7:30 a.m. and everything I managed to get done in the day from that point onward was a bonus. I placed writing first and everything else was second priority.

I now appreciate the fact that my daycare days forced me into some good habits and routines.

I believe what I miss most about my daycaring days is "quiet time". Once my little people were all sleeping &/or still and quiet, I took my laptop and worked on my word puzzles like my life depended on it. Getting those puzzles completed satiated me in a way I assume a smoker may feel after having a cigarette. It was a need. It had to be done. I felt better while doing it and relaxed when I was done.

I would squeeze in time to write in our daycare blog during that time of great quiet. If there was still time to spare, I would cruise the Internet and (most likely) find myself in the thick of my Facebook feed looking for adult input into my very child oriented days.

In this renovated life of mine, my mornings are still too short. I have been running behind on my puzzles by almost a day for several mornings and this morning I just "had" to catch myself up. I believe this is what may be called an addiction but it is not a negative thing so I'm not going to berate myself for it. I must simply find a new place in my day for it.

This thing called cleaning is another thing I have not delegated time for. Once again, back in the daycare days of yore, I had a basic cleaning routine. At my peak, I washed swiped down the kitchen floor every day after lunch. I kept on top of day to day tasks, did basement chores on Thursday and upstairs cleaning was done Friday. It was not uncommon for me to be vacuuming while the kids ate their afternoon snack, so we could head directly outside and I would come into a clean house at the end of a very long day. Yes, I even vacuumed daily back in those days.

I sat down each and every Friday afternoon and mapped out our lunch, snack and supper menu for the following week and on the weekend, I bought groceries accordingly. I baked, I cooked, I froze leftovers and I seemed to have a readily available bounty of homemade muffins, slices and cookies to offer a guest who may drop by. Yes, I even had guests back in the olden days.

Man! That does not sound like me at all. In my prime, I did okay.

There is no need for much of the routine I had in place back in those days. Vacuuming cat hair, cat chores, laundry, cleaning bathrooms and having a clean kitchen are about all I really expect of myself. And I'm doing all of those jobs in a very slap dash and half hazard way.

One thing at a time. Like this:

Maybe I need to add "vacuum cat hair off of living room blinds" onto my weekly chore list. Yesterday, the bathtub. Today, the blinds. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Doing the Hard Things

Each Sunday night, I glance at the week ahead and make a mental note of all the "hard things" I have to confront in the week that follows. My Monday morning mantra consists of something like "Only five more days...". I don't follow that thought with the actual words "until the weekend" but it is how I live my life.

What a sad state of affairs for a 57 year old adult. To admit that my life has not grown past the school child's view point of counting down days until the weekend. So instead, I have slightly rerouted my thoughts to tell myself "Only three hard things..." to do before I get to coast within a hard work week. Which is NOT hard. It's just me. I know this.

Yesterday was a big one.

Washing my hair, a doctor's appointment, working off-site and mentoring another bookkeeper type person through the books that have been taken off of our plate and put onto hers, which was followed by the need to buy groceries on my way home at the end of my work day.

I left the house around 8:30 a.m. and got home sometime in and around 8:30 p.m.

I felt a little bit like a wet dish rag at times but mostly I felt a little bit invigorated as I mentally stroked each one of these "hard things" off of my to-do list. Taking on the day one hard task at a time, I found myself inching my way out of the doldrums I have been resting in this past long while.

One hard thing at a time.

My definition of "hard things" has changed. Hard things are things like:

• getting out of bed
• making my lunch
• tending to cat chores
• taking out garbage/recycling
• brushing my teeth
• tossing a load of laundry into the washing machine

I am happy to say I have added a few extra hard things onto my list and so far (four days in) I'm taking on one or two more hard things per day. 

• exercising
• vacuuming before I exercise so I don't come out of the experience spitting cat hair
• writing

Yes, writing has become hard. I hope to resume my previous habit of writing each and every day. Even if it is only a little. A small habit, repeated becomes a better life (as long as the habit is a positive one).

I need to incorporate cleaning into this new positive habit forming lifestyle I am trying to rebuild. But hey! Rome wasn't built in a day.

This morning, my additional "hard thing" to do, was to clean the bathtub. I was a tiny bit certain that a bad run of bathtub cleaning products that I didn't like was the beginning of the end of having a clean tub. A bad spray nozzle. A foul smelling product. The inability to empty three almost empty bathroom cleaners. The repetitive nature of the job. Cleaning a tub is a little like making a bed. Why bother? It's just going to get used again.

But after acting on an impulse to purchase the bathroom cleaner my aunt's housekeeper specifically requested, I finally (six months later?!) bought this lovely product:

With this (even lovelier) feature:

It sat unused in the bathroom cupboard for a few weeks before I took it on its maiden voyage this morning. And the job didn't hurt a bit. If I still like it after the can is empty, I may add one more positive new thing to my new, renovated life. 

Does anyone out there have any tips, tricks or products that alleviates some of the pain of housecleaning? If so, please let me know. I need all the help I can get.

One hard thing at a time. I may be able to find who I used to be in here somewhere.

Let There Be Light!

As I saw the last of daylight slip away yesterday, I had to take a picture. This is what it looked like at 5:55 p.m. on January 15th:

I googled this when I got home. Yesterday was 8:16:31 hours long. We have gained 32 minutes since our shortest day. It may still be cold and snow and wintery outside. But the sun is staying out a little bit longer each day. We are gaining ground. 

I've changed my mind about January. I used to feel it was the longest, coldest, dreariest month of the year. I wish to amend that to December. 

We are still losing daylight hours in December. It contains the shortest day and all the shortest days around it. There is all that Christmas season "stuff" to contend with. 

It's always darkest before the dawn. I am starting to feel the effects of sunshine. Let there be light!

Exercise First!

In keeping with yesterday's post and theme, here is a picture of the way my morning has started:

Yes. I did it. I found some Beachbody exercise videos with Debbie Sieber on YouTube. Debbie Sieber's DVD's were my initiation into early morning exercise habit a decade or more ago. So when I found her and tried out one of her core busting routines yesterday [note to self: "Your core is busted!"], I knew she will be part of my way back home.

Yesterday's trial run at exercising in the living room was a good start. I found out where I'm at and know I have a long road ahead. "This" didn't happen overnight. So it won't change quickly or easily. All I can do is start to reinstate some good habits back into my life and be satisfied that I am doing the next right thing. One day at a time.

So the second thing I did, was decide to make some homemade chicken soup with the leftover chicken bones from Christmas.

It was easy to throw the bones into a pot and simmer lightly all afternoon. One quick text to my son who was at work (he works in the produce department of a nearby grocery store) and all I had to do was wait for him to come home and our soup would be a peel, chop and a boil away from completion.

I thought my intention was clear. What do you think? How much celery would you have picked up if you received this message? This is what my son came home with:

Two "bunches" of celery. I moaned with the idea of so much celery in the house. He said, "If you would have said 'two sticks of celery', I would have known what you meant."

He disappeared downstairs momentarily and googled the term "stalk of celery" to find out he was right. I knew I had been calling one "stick" of celery a "stalk" for as long as I have had the need to describe an amount of celery. So I had to double check his facts:

"We were both right!" I gleefully announced. We chuckled at the miscommunication as the soup with all its added vegetables started to simmer and finish cooking on the stove.

I was quite hungry by this time since I had not snacked the afternoon away. So I decided to snack on celery and dip as a first course to our chicken soup supper. It sounded so good that my son decided to go for some peanut butter on his celery.

I ran out of chips three days prior and I have missed the sensation of something crunching between my teeth, so the celery provided some satisfaction as I snacked on my rabbit food before supper.

The excess celery in our home may end up reinforcing a good snacking habit. But honestly? The first thing I thought when I saw so much celery in one eyeful was to send out the message, "Caesar's anyone??"

Since I don't have vodka or clamato juice OR any of the required seasonings to make a Caesar in the house, I think we'll stick with salad dressing and peanut butter to help alleviate our excess celery.

One good habit at a time. It's all a person can do. I'm starting "Day 2" and feeling better already. The universe is helping me along. Two bunches of celery did not walk into this house on their own. It was meant to be.

Exercise first. Write second. And in the writing, I had an opportunity to relay a silly little story to remind me that laughter is a very important ingredient in living a good life. I feel better already...

Welcome to My Morning - Chapter One

Here is a picture of the moment I'm in:

Jan 14, 2018

It is a good moment. 

It is eerily similar to another photo I accidentally inserted into this post and was startled to see our cats were missing:

Oct 22, 2017

What is different besides the addition of a few cats, an unfinished puzzle and some place mats for the table? The difference is in the way I feel.

In October, I was still working in a state of hyper drive. I felt focused. I had a defined purpose, things to do, ongoing obligations and a sense that when I accomplished all I had to do, I would feel completely at peace.

What has happened instead, is after I did all I had to do with dealing with Mom's estate and no reason to return to her home, I am wandering through my life aimlessly. Without purpose. Without intention. Without a driving force to propel me into action and feel the satisfaction of a job well done.

I have used up all my excuses to stay withdrawn from life as I know it. I am doing what must be done to get through the day. I am fulfilling my obligations to the world in a half hearted, lack lustre way. 

I have been in contact with a few friends this past week and as I summarized the lethargy I'm feeling, I was surprised to find I am not alone. 

Once our conversations switched from a superficial "I'm fine, thanks. And how are you?" and we started talking "real", I heard my thoughts, feelings and emotions echoed by those I call my friends.

We are of similar age and somewhat similar stages in our lives. We are hovering in our later 50's, retirement is either a reality or something we hope to attain in some way or another within a ten year time frame.

As I relaxed and let the words spew from my mouth with abandon, I heard myself saying, 

"I know I will most likely have to work until the day I die, but I have reached a point where I want what I do, to have meaning. It is less about the pay cheque and more about doing something that has purpose. I want to recreate what was good about my daycare years. I want to turn my home into my work place. I want people to come and go through our door again. I want to create a business where our home is an oasis in the Saskatchewan prairie landscape, where it nurtures and houses others, while it creates a drive within me so I want to cook, clean, maintain and enjoy our home again."

I have been through this phase many times before. This is the part of my life where the life as I knew it was upended and I had to reinvent myself and start anew. It has always been hard and uncomfortable. Each and every time. But when I came out the other side of this evolution, I was always, always grateful for all that had brought about the unwanted, unplanned but necessary metamorphosis.

This time is different. I told my friend, 

"I'm running out of story lines. I don't want to write another chapter within this little life of mine, let alone a book!"

I heard a version of "Amen, Sister" from my friend's reply. We thought we were done with the hard stuff. We are in our later 50's, gosh darn it!! We thought we had already earned our wings. We are ready to fly. We don't want to reinvent ourselves, our world, our livelihood and our sense of purpose. Again. We've been there, we've done that!

C'mon, Life. Really now? What do you have in store for us? It must be very good because this cocoon feels like one of the hardest ones I've had to break free of.

I know some reinvention is necessary. This is debilitating. I must return to that which worked for me in the past, to get me up off the couch, away from the chips and chocolate and moving towards taking a leap of faith off a new cliff.

I need an action plan. 

I will start by writing regularly. I have written my way through every hard transition I've walked through. Writing is my therapy.

I must start moving again. Exercise is nature's very own anti-depressant. It will be soooo hard. But I must. I will try. I will.

I have a doctor's appointment made. I skipped my annual physical this past year but now is as good as an excuse as any to check in with my doctor and tend to my body. 

I will tell my doctor that I feel I am fighting a depression see where that conversation takes me. As I said, this feeling is not new to me. But the hole feels broader and so much more comfortable than it has felt in the past. My children are growing independent of me. I have fewer years ahead of me, than I have behind me and I am losing the battle to fight for myself. 

I may need to find some tools to help me beyond this moment. I have a deep seated feeling that this will not be the last time life presents an "opportunity" to reinvent myself.

The worst part of all of the above is the level of comfort I am feeling within this safe little cocoon of mine. I don't know if I really want to fly any more. I just want to coast.

But I want to enjoy the view. Whether I'm flying or simply coasting effortlessly through these next years. I want to enjoy the view.

There is still much work to be done. My story is far from over. I may as well create a good one while I'm at it.

Welcome to my next new chapter. It is not my last, so I may as well call it what it is: 

"Chapter One" (again)...