Footprints in the Snow

I am feeling oddly giddy about the season we are in at the moment. Darkness lingers longer in the morning allowing me to pad about our dimly lit house with a sense of peace. Night arrives sooner which coincides nicely with my personal preference to power down early. And our first dusting of snow has reminded me of what I love about the upcoming weather ahead. Footprints in the snow.

I have stopped window-gazing lately so I haven't been spotting our neighborhood rabbits as regularly as I did once upon a time. But I have seen the odd one so I know they are there. There is simply no evidence of their presence.

Last night, my daughter arrived home after dark and told me to check out the oddly suspicious "rocks" in the neighbor's yard. Rocks? I was not in the rabbit mindset so it took a minute to clue into the fact there were rabbits next door. One big one and a small one.

What a happy moment it was as I gazed at what I am almost certain was a mom/baby combo. The baby was facing Mom, ever watchful of her movements. Baby tried to be still like Mom but its youthful exuberance trumped the "rock" pose and baby ran a small loop around Mom and eventually landed back in the same rabbit print in the snow. This happened twice before Mom decided it was time to move on. Baby leapt at the opportunity and raced across the street. Mom was in hot pursuit and they were checking out yards out of my view when I lost sight of them.

Ahhh! It is the season when even if I don't actually spot the rabbits, they leave evidence of their presence. Even when we have faith in what we cannot see, it lightens the spirit just a little more to see proof that what we believe to be true is fact.

Math Nerd

 It is a very good feeling to wake up early on a Saturday morning. What is most surprising to me is that I would actually opt to continue working today if I didn't have other plans. 

My work week ended on a good note (two uninterrupted work days resulted in two days tending math puzzles and spreadsheets which are my idea of fun). I actually have the desire to open my office door and carry on with my little math projects this morning (how does one define "nerd"?).

I tackled hard things within my home office setting this week and tamed the demons I knew were waiting for me bright and early Monday morning. There is nothing like slaying dragons to boost your adrenaline and enhance one's confidence level.

Oh, how those untamed dragons can deplete us. To run and hide from them takes an onerous amount of energy. To armor up, plan one's defense and take forward action? Exhilarating!

Numbers and me go back to my humble beginnings. I can picture Dad sitting at the kitchen table 'figgering' on paper and with his trusty little Arithma calculator ...

What I wouldn't give, to sit across that very kitchen table and talk with Dad again. "Whatcha figgerin', Dad?"

I feel a little less nerdy and a little more connected to myself and my genealogy when I remember Dad and his business sense. When I went through Mom's papers after she died, I found oh-so-many of Dad's calculations. His writing. His numbers. His thoroughness (I have the ledgers where he accounted for every penny spent, down to the cost of screws, for his farming deductions). I couldn't keep everything but I kept some.

I liked math in school. It made sense. Once you knew the basics and added layers of information onto that, it was relatively simple stuff. Black and white. Balance to zero. Checks and balances. Something I am always looking for within this little life of mine when I feel like I am on shaky ground.

If I hadn't gotten married and had a child as soon as I left home, I most likely would have chosen to pursue an education in accounting. What happened instead, is I became a bank teller and my career fell into my lap in the way it was intended.

Accounting and accountants without the personal touch of customer contact, face-to-face encounters and getting to know the story behind the numbers is not me. I didn't know this when I was 18 years old and entering the world of banking. I was shy and awkward. Customer contact was a skill I had to learn along the way.

My Grade Two teacher's comment in our school year book said simply, "Shy, except when she reads." Who knew this would translate into "Socially awkward, except when she works with numbers.", in my adulthood?

In my unwritten book "Defending My Life", I will defend my career path as the perfect fit for me. A mix of numbers and face-to-face interaction with customers taught me everything I needed to know. It was the foundation on which the rest of my working life was built.

A life of numbers without the personal touch isn't for me. Yes, you could lock me in a room with an Excel spreadsheet program and math puzzles to solve and I would be happy. But at the end of the day, I need my people.

No regrets. 

When you look back on your life, can you find the basis on which you built your "today"? Can you find solace in the choices made, which brought you to where you are? 

Even when the road is uncertain and one hits a few dead ends along the way, every detour has brought us to where we are right now. May you find comfort in knowing you are exactly where you are meant to be. Even when where you are isn't where you want to stay.

Cheating Myself

I love mornings. The time of day before the rest of the world wakes up. Everything I do is by choice because nothing is expected of me in those pre-workday hours. I revel in the quiet. That space is near and dear to me. Yet when I started slipping down the slippery slope of woe-is-me-ness lately, I see now, the first thing I abandoned was my precious morning time.

I turned on the repetitive loop of my Netflix favorites which lulled me back to sleep. Over and over again, until I could sleep no more. When I finally got out of bed, I felt the weight of the day on my shoulders which made it oh-so-hard to move. So I would turn on the computer or TV or any form of electronic diversion so I didn't have to think my thoughts. Doing the "hard things" that constitute my morning felt so very hard.

It isn't rocket science, but I finally figured out this small piece of the puzzle may be a good place to begin. Again.

I started getting out of bed by 5:00 a.m. or shortly thereafter. I would not allow myself to turn on my Netflix sleeping pill if the show would end after 5:00 a.m. If I woke up before that time, too bad, so sad. I would have to either fall back to sleep (if I was tired), lay there thinking my thoughts (if I didn't feel like getting out of bed) or simply get up. This was easier to accomplish than I imagined it would be.

The gains are so very well worth the loss of those two morning hours that I can never get back.

I expect little to nothing of myself in those bonus hours. By taking the burden of expectation off my shoulders I find myself puttering away at those little "hard things", to get them done and over with before the day expects something of me. Every little thing I cross off my small to-do-list makes every step forward easier.

I have not yet started writing to purge my thoughts before I start censoring myself, as Julia Cameron suggests in The Artist's Way (three handwritten pages as soon upon waking as one can manage). I don't enjoy listening to my uncensored self. I tend to be whiny, self absorbed, nit-picky, repetitive and weigh myself down with should-do's-that-rarely-get-done. Those morning pages may be cathartic but they haven't worked their magic with me. Yet.

Instead, I like to insert a little outside input (blogs &/or podcasts) into my thoughts and let that brew. I like to do a few mind exercises (word and number puzzles) and see if there are any morsels of insight that may trickle out my fingertips here. It's my personal formula, subject to change but it seems to be working. At least for now.

I love finding a podcast that speaks directly to me. More often than not, Glennon Doyle's "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast is a positive interaction (among Glennon, her sister Amanda and wife Abby) that fits the bill. The topics are thought provoking, their interaction is light and humorous and (very often) hits close to home.

I have so many Glennonisms that are my go-to-quotes and stories when I'm trying to find my way. When I speak, I often preface my sentence with "As Glennon says ...". In fact when my daughter was quoting one of my often repeated mantras to someone, she later asked "Was it Glennon or you who came up with that?"

The lower I feel, the less I can absorb. It is akin to too much rain falling on dry land. Nothing is absorbed. I'm flooded with that which should nourish my soul but nothing is seeping through the cracks. 

When I start my day early, there is enough of the dew from overnight to soften the soil which leaves a little more room to absorb the nourishment that comes from a morning shower of positive input.

When you know what works for YOU, do not deny yourself. Take back a little of what you know works, sit back and see if you can feel a difference. 

Defending My Life

The book within me that keeps writing itself is named "Defending My Life".

The theme of defending my thoughts, decisions, way of life and basically my entire essence has been the gift of daily, repetitive conversations with a person with a failing memory.

I can edit my answers on a daily basis. And I do. It started as a way of entertaining myself. To repeat the same answer on repeat is energy draining. So I started thinking deeper, looking further and wondering if what I always thought held true. 

It amazes me how the brain functions. Though no two situations are alike, what I realized about the person I do know is though the actual memories fade fast, the emotion tied to the lost memory lingers. 

I can almost be certain that when today's conversation rolls around to "What are you going to do when you leave? Who will you see? What will you do?" and my usual answers are "Nothing, no one, not a thing", what will remain from yesterday's conversation is "Why don't you like talking to people?". 

My 85 year old companion has a more active social life than I do. Activities in the condo she lives in begin at 7:00. In my world, 7:00 equals the end of my work day and all I want to do is go home, crawl into my pajamas and turn off the world. 

The feeling I have at the end of my day takes me back to my daycaring days. When the last child went home, I ceremoniously locked the door, closed the blinds and sighed a huge sigh of relief. I was done. I was depleted. I had nothing left. I was "closed for business".

My close of business has been extended from 5:30 p.m. (in my daycaring days) to 7:00 p.m. (in my current role). Physically, I do less than I have ever done. Mentally? I am spent.

I am "on" from the moment I open my office door. My bookkeeping duties vary by the day but that can change on a dime. One phone call, one email, one piece of mail can (and does) change the trajectory of my day. 

Best laid plans have been thrown out the window so many times that I have stopped planning. This is not a good thing. Angst is the word that describes the way I walk into far too many days. 

I close everything down at 3:30 to spend the supper hours with my senior friend. After being "on" all day, I am more than ready to turn myself off.

That is my defense. In reality, I think my priorities are skewed. I remember how energized I used to feel when ballroom dancing was my passion. I was transformed the moment I walked into the dance studio. I was so busy learning the intricacies of dance steps and technique there wasn't room for any other thought to enter.  I felt complete fascination and enjoyment in the moment I was in.

Passion. Laughter. Music. Movement. Physical contact. Challenge. Community. These are important elements for living a good life.

Ten years from now, will I have the ability to defend this portion of my life? Right before Mom died, she asked me about my ten year plan. She saw the writing on my wall. She foresaw this moment. I'm five years ahead of schedule. I should have aimed for a five year plan.

Life is full of ebbs and flows. I'm ebbing right now. This is not the end of my story. I'm back in the messy middle. Again.

I didn't think I would have to keep reinventing myself until the end of my days. I thought there would be a time of coasting. Perhaps that is exactly right. I have coasted for quite some time now. I'm sitting on a precipice and wondering which way to forge onward. There is no clear path. Only bush. 

Sitting on the edge of a choice is one of the most uncomfortable places for me. Especially when there is no defined choice. There is no decision that needs to be made. Keep coasting? Or seek the path hidden behind the bushes.

When I look back on this moment in time, I don't want to find a seed of regret that was planted because I was too scared to move.

Who Am I?

I may be having a late-life crisis. I don't know. I'm struggling. That is all I do know. Not struggling in a hard, life defeating way. Simply struggling to find the piece of myself that breathes life into my soul.

Writing has been the backbone of who I am, how I help myself, how I find myself when I'm lost and how to see answers unfold before me as I put words to the page. If I don't write, who am I?

I have always worked. Work always has its challenges no matter what I do, where I work or how I find a way to pay the bills. My work life has always been cyclical. I despise new jobs, not knowing what I need to know and struggling to meet the demands of a job. I love the middle. The part where I am comfortable, know my way around and I feel mostly satisfied at the end of a week. Then there is the end. The part where I'm searching, feeling "this" isn't right for me any more. Where do I go next? I have landed on my feet at the end of each one of these work cycles but I'm aging out and my desire to start a brand new job is nil. I don't want to start anew so I can't end this cycle. Maybe that is exactly where I am meant to be. Because if I don't work, who am I?

I am also nearing the end of my active parenting role. I will always BE a parent but my well worn phrase these days is, "I want to be a parent, the noun. I don't want to actively parent, the verb." I feel so ready to have my adult children show up on my doorstep (and vice versa) and just chat on a adult to adult level. We are all human, so there will always be the back and forth supportiveness that comes with the role of parenting. I will not abandon my adult children but I'm ready for each of us to live independently of each other. Once my last child leaves the nest and I find myself alone, who will I be if I'm not parenting?

I feel so ready to be done working yet the financial feasibility of living life without a regular paycheque is daunting. On days when anxiety rises to uncomfortable levels, I pull out my spreadsheets, update my net worth and try to guess what my financial needs will be when I stop working which stops me cold in my tracks. Working to age 70 and beyond seems to be the only consistent answer I come up with. Thus, the end-cycle of my present day work situation will most likely be followed by the need to start anew. I have fretted about my finances since I was a child. Always dreaming of how I would save up for the next goal, pay the bills, pay off debt, attempt to save regularly. If I didn't worry about money, how would I feel? 

Little stuff. The annoyance of cat hair verses the love of my favorite furry friends. If I didn't have cats, would I be content?

Home ownership and maintenance. The demands of owning a home are without end. I watch home renovation shows and long for low maintenance, minimal possessions, a four season sun room and convertible spaces to allow for overnight guests. City verses small town living. Having two homes to choose from, where would I choose to live? Where do I want to be to BE when I finish working?

I spent my entire childhood wanting to grow up. I grew up and discovered being an adult is hard work so I shifted my focus to the day when my children would leave home, I would be done working and living in a house that felt like home in every nook and cranny.

If all my wishes came true and I was living that idyllic life, who would I be when my days are not filled with what fills them up today?

Who WILL I be when I grow up?

No answers today. Only questions.

Anniversaries

Congratulations to all who have wedding anniversaries they are celebrating. 

Some couples are still united after a lifetime of creating a life together. Others have lost their life partner. Loss comes in so many forms. Death is the most final but divorce, dementia, deterioration of the relationship/body/mind/soul in a physical or psychological manner still result in loss of the life one may have dreamed of.

As I think of the wedding anniversaries I didn't celebrate due to divorce, a year doesn't pass when the date rolls around and reminds me of the life I thought I was going to have when I married over 44 years ago.

We were starry eyed and in love. We knew others didn't believe our marriage would last but we were determined to prove they were wrong. As we sat side-by-side on my husband's truck bench seat, we saw our future lives as two grey haired old souls still sitting side-by-side in any and all future vehicles we would own.

I remember how we laughed together. We spent a lot of time in that truck. Driving. Dreaming. Drive-In movies. Drinking. Dining at the A&W drive-in (insert vintage image of car hops with food trays that clipped onto the driver's window). Bush parties. Youthful shenanigans I never in a million years dreamed a nerdy girl like me would ever have.

Waiting for the phone to ring, back in the days when telephones were wired into a wall, before call display or answering machines. The anticipation of a call with a boy's voice on the other end of the line. My fearful attempts to call him. 

He drank too much. I thought it was just part of being young. There was one instance of foreshadowing our future while we were dating. It wasn't a huge deal but looking back, I now recognize the significance. 

We were young. We thought we could conquer our world together and tame the demons that seemed to rear their heads when alcohol was involved. 

The good times were incredible. Unfortunately the bad times matched the intensity of the good. Making up and the aftermath of the worst of times almost made it worth the pain involved to get to the other side. I was naïve and in love.

One of the most heartfelt gifts I gave my husband was a Zippo lighter - with a Lifetime Warranty. I promised I also came with a lifetime guarantee and would be around as long as the lighter. I thought if I could love him enough and reassure him of my unwavering commitment, he would become more of the person I fell in love with. [Foreshadowing moment I just realized - Zippo lighters come with a Limited Lifetime Warranty] Apparently my guarantee was also of a limited variety.

When we loved, we loved hard. When we hated, we hated with the same intensity. To say I loved him as much as I hated him at times, would be the truth. I knew the end had come when I simply felt indifference.

The young, starry eyed girl who fell head over heals with someone she thought she could heal by simply loving him wanted to honor those wedding vows "Til death do us part". But when a wave of consciousness of what that destiny would mean to two children raised in the-environment-that-was-our-marriage surfaced, I was done.

I doubt I would have seen the light if I was looking out for only myself. It was the vision of what our children would grow up believing was "normal" that bred the indifference I finally felt when I gathered up our children and left.

There was a deep sense of "knowing" I would die an early death within this marriage. By saving my children, I saved myself. And we (for the most part) lived happily ever after.

I missed being part of a couple. I loved being married. Being a wife. Building a future together. Looking towards the future and seeing "us" together until death parted us.

I raised our family. The scars our oldest carries due to his exposure to life-as-we-knew-it prior to the new life we created weighs on me. Our second-born child, an infant when we left, still had a less-than-ideal-childhood, but a childhood I can live with.

Yet, when wedding anniversaries become a topic of discussion, it is the memories of the life we truly believed we would build together that rises to the surface. Two people who believed their love could conquer all. I think of the toasted BLT sandwiches we made as we unloaded our groceries; the frozen fries I cooked in the oven while my husband ran out to buy KFC gravy to go with those fries so we could experience eating out on a budget; it is the times we watched movies together on our brand new VHS player; making up in the middle of the night and sharing a cup of tea. I remember how good it felt to be loved and to reciprocate that love in the only manner I knew. 

I believe he loved me as much as he was capable of loving. I loved him as much I could in return.

We were two young kids, believing we knew more than we did, drunk on love (whatever love is) and when life was good, it was very good indeed. We celebrated very few anniversaries together. Forever was not our destiny. But I never forgot the life we believed in. 

May your anniversaries carry the wisp of hope and vitality you brought into the forever-ness of  the future you believed in. Together or apart, those who have been important to us continue to live within us. Until death parts us. And beyond ...

I Miss Me

I have just spent the past hour revisiting old blog posts I've written. I stood up from the table and thought to myself, "I miss 'me' ".

I miss the part of myself who takes time to be still and let words freefall from my fingertips.

I miss long walks.

I miss being still with nature.

I miss my own pep talks.

I miss ... me.

Life is full of commitments, big and small. The drudgery of doing-what-must-be-done. Work. Being in a state of "on" as one navigates the world.

I come home from my day, immediately put on my PJ's, settle in front of the TV and savor the quiet hum and light emitted from the digital display. I have heard this is the equivalent of sitting down in front of a fire and I'm going with that. It appeases my soul to believe losing myself to an hour of television at the end of a committed day is good for me. The snacking food I opt to add into this equation? That's on me. 

If I'm not eating, moving or talking I fall asleep. I was missing out on the little pieces of enjoyment I used to savor when I decided to banish myself from mindless eating in front of the TV, reading or at the computer. My clothes sure fit better when I was eating "intentionally". I believe I even felt better. 

I have slipped back into old habits the past few months. Doing what it takes to get through the day. Rewarding myself with mindless eating in front of my "virtual fire" (aka: TV). I'm fine. But I could be better.

I needed to read a little pep talk from myself. 

As much as one thinks one may want advice, the only person who is in control of one's actions, thinking and motivation is yourself. 

I needed to hear my own words circled back to me and describe the me I most enjoy being. 

What is your inner voice telling you? What do you know that no one else can tell you? Personally? I think I need to go for a nice, long walk. Would you like to join me?