51 Christmases...

I'll have celebrated this year. Fifty-one. I don't, of course, remember the first one, (I was six weeks old after all), nor do I remember the second. That's the one where my mom went to the hospital and came home with the very best gift, my brother. At this point, many of them run together. I know they weren't always Joy to the World, but neither were they all hell. Perhaps that's part of the magic of Christmas... as time passes, the hell fades and you're left with the merry.

What I remember most is the feeling. I daresay that's what most of us remember. Sitting on my couch tonight watching Christmas movies with my dogs and my husband, I can feel it. I can feel the merry and bright. Every year is different, the food, the people you are with come and go, the gifts, but the heart knows it's Christmas and even when our heads aren't exactly clear enough to see it, the tiny spark of the Christmas spirit remains. Even when it's bad, we can close our eyes and remember how it felt to really feel Christmas time. 

I do remember particular gifts, the square green box of beaded necklaces that my friend SLT helped my mom pick out, the boom box, the underpants and turtlenecks. We got a lot of necessities, because there wasn't a lot of budget for luxuries in our house, but somehow my parents made those gifts magical. My mom would put numbers on the gifts, so we couldn't snoop. Living in a mobile home gave them few places to hide the presents before they were wrapped (my sister somehow seemed to find them!), and there weren't stacks and stack of them, so my mom always wrapped them beautifully and made it an adventure to figure out whose package was whose. My mom did a beautiful job of balancing Santa and the birth of Christ. We always knew what was important to our family. We marveled at how a man in a sleigh could deliver gifts in one night as well as the miracle of a baby born in a stable.

The year we three Huber kids began to doubt Santa, he stopped by our house. There was a knock on the door, and the jolly, bearded guy himself was standing on our little porch. He asked us what we wanted; told us he knew we'd been mostly good...we should keep our room cleaner (TRUE!), and I shouldn't talk back (how did he know?!), Stacie shouldn't be so bossy (no comment) and Randy should put Dad's tools back after him used them. That Santa knew because he was real.

Later that night, my parents left us "supposedly" asleep in our beds and went to visit my Uncle Don and Auntie Pam down the street. We had been told to stay in our beds no matter what, and if a kid was ever going to do what their parents told them to, Christmas Eve was the night. It was the seventies, we lived in a very small village and there is no doubt in my mind our neighbor, Gary, was always watching out for us, so we were perfectly safe. Not long after the folks left, we head rustling in the living room. Magically, of course, we didn't hear the front or back door open, so it absolutely couldn't have been Mom and Dad. It had to be SANTA. We three were all too scared of forfeiting whatever Santa brought to even peek into the living room. We were vibrating with excitement waiting for our parents to come home. When they did, they were as surprised as we were by the packages under the tree. They had been gone! Ask Uncle Don and Auntie Pam...they had been with them the entire time.

That Christmas, I do not remember what I got. I can't tell you what was in a single one of the boxes. I can tell you about the smell of wood smoke from the stove in the living room. I can tell you how my dad smelled of coffee and tobacco. How my mom smelled of Jergens lotion, the cherry and almond kind. How the homemade hot chocolate was the exact right temperature. I can tell you how my little heart pounded in my chest as I felt my belief in something wonderful grow. I remember how it felt to snuggle up with my sister and fall asleep. How everything seems lit by firelight in my memory. How beautiful and treasured that memory is.

There was the year we got ten-speed bikes when we never in a million years expected anything that grand. There were the lean years when we knew how hard our parents worked, but that sometimes things are just hard to make happen. There was the year my mom gave us blankets on Christmas Eve and told us, again, the story of the Christ child being wrapped in swaddling clothes. We didn't know at the time that the blankets were necessary because heating fuel was so expensive, we'd need them to keep warm.

We never, ever felt like we received less (even when that teacher made us write a report telling everything we received for Christmas and made us read it in front of the class -- if you're a teacher, please don't do this) but even then, we knew Christmas was about the feeling not the things. If you read what I've written so far, you maybe think that it was about the gifts for us. You'd be mistaken. You see, out of 51 Christmases, I've described four times I remember gifts, because Christmas really wasn't about Santa or gifts for us. It was about the spirit of it all. It was about the feels.

I don't know about you, but when I was little it never occurred to me that Christmas wasn't on the weekend. Christmas break made every day a Saturday, it seemed. I just assumed Christmas fell on the weekend. We'd go to my Grandma Huber's on the Sunday for lunch. There was turkey and my grandma's perfect mashed potatoes and my mom's noodles and homemade rolls. We'd have to wait until the dishes were done to open the gift our grandparents (or more likely my Aunt Ethel) got for us. There were so many of us there, the house would feel like the middle of summer. We'd go in the breezeway just to cool off. We'd sit at the kids' table and use the broken crayons that were kept in an old cigar box to color page after page in the big coloring books Grandma always had. We'd eat that old fashioned hard candy and no matter how many of us there were (literally dozens) my sweet, tiny grandma would let us sit on her lap and feel the soft skin on her arms as that wrapped around us so tightly.

My Grandma Elsie made candy. I mean all kinds of candy. Not cookies... fudge and things covered in melted chocolate or almond bark. Peanut brittle that stuck to your teeth. She made so much candy that one year we found a pan of fudge she'd put in a spare closet to cool in July. She had one of those ceramic Christmas trees she'd painted herself and later a fiber optic tree that sat next to her red lava lamp. We'd go over Christmas day and eat candy and tell her what Santa brought us while my grandpa snoozed in his recliner. When we were older they would be traveling to Florida or Texas in their motorhome, but Elsie would always call with a Merry Christmas and "what did that old Santy bring you this year?"

We always had real tree. Dad put it in a bucket of rocks, and it invariably fell over at least once after we decorated it. My mom always, always said the tree looked better after it fell. She'd tell us to squint our eyes and look at the lights, how they all ran together and looked so warm. We had a cardboard fireplace that was the centerpiece of our holiday decor. She'd put "angel hair" that was made of spun glass on the top and little things she found here and there that told a Christmas story. A little wooden nativity. A green glass stocking that once held Avon perfume. A green Christmas tree that was an air freshener. Little ornaments that she put in the corner cabinet in the kitchen that she made look like different floors of a house. In her mind, as she decorated it, she created a story about the different levels and then would tell it to us, and we'd add to what she started with using our own imaginationss, sometimes arguing with each other, because someone else's story didn't fit ours. Mom always found a way to mix them all together and make them all fit.

My dad always was the last to get up on Christmas morning. The man never slept past dawn on any other day of the year, but he seemed to stay in bed FOREVER. FOREVER probably being 5 a.m. He'd get his cup of coffee and sit on the couch by my mom while we opened gifts. My mom would make waffles for breakfast. She hates the smell of pancakes and waffles lingering in a house, so it was a labor of love on her part to make them. I remember seeing my parents sitting on the couch together and having just a small realization that they were people outside of being our parents. They were a couple, and on Christmas Day, their love seemed a little brighter.

As I got older, of course, Christmas changed. It always does. We become the givers and not the getters. The year my dad died, my mom and I didn't put up a tree or cook anything special. We sat on her bed and watched movies all day. I remember how quiet is was. No smell of coffee and tobacco. Not waiting for him to stagger down the hall, wiping the sleep from his eyes. That's one I'd like to remember a little less. But such is life. The hard days living in the memories, too.

I remember years of wrapping gifts for my nieces and nephews. I remember wrapping presents with my sister-in-law and brother until we were slap happy and doing more playing with the toys then putting ribbons on. I remember the year the kids and I made ornaments with their hand prints on them. Tiny little fingers wrapped around the bottom of a glass ball. My mom found them this year, the ones we made her. Gavin's, Sydnee's and Delaney's And she can trace her fingers across the ridges of paint their little hands made and feel that Christmas.

I remember helping my brother with his light show in his yard and Sydnee talking to the lighted reindeer, because she imagined they were real. She was making her own Christmas story, just like her Moo Grandma did years and years before. Landon jumping up and down and squeezing my face because SANTA DID COME! Gavin getting Christmas pajamas and being less than thrilled. Delaney saying "you cannot be this dumb" when I was trying to help her put the lights up for the big tree in their front yard. She was wrong. I could be that dumb.

When I married, my husband and I wanted to have our own Christmas traditions. We started by getting a real tree. The first one we could barely get through the front door and it gave my poison ivy. The next one had very few needles a week before Christmas even arrived. I remember how awkward the first Christmas with my husband and his girls felt, but by the second one, they felt like Christmas  to me. Candlelight and cocoa and the scent of pine. Their laughter and their voices quoting lines from The Grinch and Elf.  Driving around looking at Christmas lights and ooooing and awwwwing. Creating our own Christmas magic.

All of these things... the cardboard fireplace, Elsie's fudge, Evelyn's soft skin, Randy waking us at 4 a.m. and falling asleep on our floor waiting until Mom said it was okay to get up, Stacie passing out the presents, the smell of waffles and coffee and tobacco and pine, how my heart skips a beat when my husband's fingers brush mine as he hands me the coffee mug that says "Mrs. Santa", how awkward MPG is while opening gifts, the way Michaela always loves anything we give her. Sitting on the couch with Gavin and Sydnee and Landon and Delaney eating Christmas cookies they had baked. The sound of the Christmas bells from the church down the street. The messages that say "Merry Christmas, I love you" from Mandy and Danny and Addie and Alison... all of those things are the real Christmas to me.

While family and friends added their own magic to my Christmases and I'm so grateful for that, my mom is where my Christmas spirit was born, in that little house with that wood stove and very little else. I can't imagine the sacrifices my parents made to create those memories, that magic. I'll never be able to fully express my gratitude for it. I just hope I've created even a small measure of that magic for those I love. Not by the gifts, but by the spirit.  

This year, we have a tiny little girl who won't even remember this Christmas, but it will be the one all the others are built on. Every year we'll add memories and magic. And hopefully on the Eve of the Eve of her fifty-first Christmas, all is calm and all is bright, because when she looks back on them all, she remembers the spirit of it, the love, the feeling. I hope she is reminded of the shiny parts and the harder ones, because there will be hard ones, fade in the glow of Christmas lights. No hell. Just magic.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. May your heart be light.

There are certain...

times in our lives where we are expected to "rise to the occasion*". We are expected to perform feats of superhuman strength be it mentally, physically or emotionally, because the circumstances call for it. These can range from remaining level headed in the face of a medical crisis to doing 12 hours of work in an 8 hour day, to running on very few hours of sleep over many, many days while caring for a tiny human, to conducting oneself with dignity in the face of the loss of a loved one, to making a magical Christmas while also trying to run your daily life. The expectation is that we will do what has to be done and are stronger for it and proud of what we made happen under sometimes extraordinary circumstances. That's a lot of pressure.

Who in the fresh hell decided we have to always rise?

Google inspirational quotes about perseverance or not giving up. Wait, don't. You'll throw your back out rolling your eyes. Or worse, you'll feel a demand to perform under duress in an unhealthy way. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger! What? Those are the options? Death or strength? Humans are more nuanced than that. Our coping abilities are so incredibly varied and subject to external and internal forces, that it's not always as simple as "do or die".

When I think about people "rising to the occasion", I have immediate images and memories of situations where I've witnessed just that. My friend at the hospital when her then husband was in a horrible car accident that killed his cousin... I can vividly hear her wailing when she was told the cousin hadn't survived and then her pulling herself together to go see her critically injured husband, who was too injured to be told about the profound loss.

I remember another friend writing the words "Please come. I need you." to a friend when her son was having a life threatening medical crisis. "Please pray." came another message. "I'm scared." Then her taking the lead in finding the best care for her child and receiving her miracle.

When my SIL called to tell me about my niece... "Lisa. It's Delaney. She's not going to be okay." through tears. Her voice breaking while she knew what she was telling me was breaking my heart. Crying with me on the phone. Then calmly explaining the information she had while continually offering me support and then carrying our family through the next several days and weeks.

Let's visit about this, I said the three memories I shared with you above were examples of people I know "rising to the occasion". When you read them you likely admired the part where they performed as expected in the face of adversity. They carried their burden and made things happen and took care of what needed to be taken care of. But what if the real beauty is in the reaction not the action? The wailing and the admission of fear and the breaking voice, because those are some of the realest moments I've ever experienced.

Yes, they all had to get on with it. Things needed to be done. Incredibly important things. But before that, before the doing, somewhere in the pause, in the sharp inhale because it hurts so incredibly much, in the moment before the cry when our brains have processed what our hearts can't quite yet hold, is the real rising. It's where we are so raw and wrong side out that we are being almost involuntarily honest. Perhaps the motion forward after that is all acting. It's doing what I'm supposed to do and what's expected. It's suspending the reality to do the work. For me, the getting things done isn't nearly as courageous as the hurt and fear being laid bare. The stronger isn't in the surviving necessarily, it's in the moments after we find out and the moments before we start to act, it's the part where we're living it not surviving it.

Those are extreme examples, but most of us experience the pressure to push through regularly under less intense circumstances. That daily pressure adds up. Day after day living with the expectation that we will always do what needs to be done and what needs to be done right this very second. We're expected to make things happen while making it all look so easy. We get a "well done!" with an undercurrent of "we'll do this all again tomorrow".

What if I don't want to? What if I'm tired of rising and performing and carrying and having pressure applied? What if I don't want to choose between death and strength? What if I don't want to always become a diamond?

I saw a post by a lovely friend MRR that, in essence, said people are telling us they are struggling, hurting, frustrated or in desperate need of help and oftentimes our response is "you've got this", when they've just told us they don't. It's reflexive to tell someone "you can do it" when they've said they can't. We want to cheerlead, and we truly believe they can and likely they will, but what we've really done is tell them they aren't feeling what they say they are. Bigger than that, we've let them know that they aren't safe asking us for help, because all we'll offer is an inspirational quote. What we should be telling them is it's okay to not be able to handle everything that we've been given. It's more than okay to ask someone to hold something for us. It's okay to do what you can and leave the rest. 

Somewhere along the way, we've decided it's a virtue to spread oneself so thin we almost disappear. We're expected to figure things out and stay on top of things and handle things and not complain. We've all become professional jugglers and more and more things get thrown at us and we're expected to keep them all in the air. Make the appointments, do the shopping, over-perform at work, cook, clean, fold the laundry, run the errands, care for the kids, visit family, make time for friends, wrap the presents, practice self-care, quality time with partner, cheer at the ballgames, put the damn laundry away, keep up with current events, voice your opinions, make informed decisions, be informed, floss, let the dogs out and in and out and in...and don't forget to breath and grieve and move on and never forget.

We're expecting ourselves into a nice little breakdown, and we're putting expectations on other that are driving them in the same direction. We cannot just say, "It'll be okay." because one day it might not be.

What's the answer? No seriously, I'm asking what is the answer? There are things we simply must do and things we have to get through. But maybe right now, in the most wonderful time of the year when we are all feeling the pressure to make it magical, we give ourselves permission to just simply NOT. We take one thing off our list every day. I mean obviously feed those kids and yourself and pay those bills so you keep warm, but maybe don't curl the ribbon on the presents. Or maybe you put your 8 hours in at work and close the door behind you and let it go, because it will be there tomorrow. Maybe don't fold the underpants, just throw them in the drawer. Don't make the bed. Say no to an invitation you're not thrilled to get, don't bake the cookies...don't and don't and don't. 

It could be like a good kind of peer pressure if we all agree to do less. Now, by all means, if you can't relate to what I'm writing then keep doing exactly what you are doing. If it works for you, I'm cheering for you! But if you are like me and you're feeling overwhelmed and then feeling like a failure because you're feeling overwhelmed, we could decide we've risen enough for now. We could decide we are exactly what the occasion needs just as we are. We don't need to be or do more. Perhaps if we all start doing a little less of what's giving us hell, we could do more of what is truly wonderful. Sometimes, the beauty and strength really is in the pause.

Of course, I realize the privilege in all of this. There are people who wish they had what I'm complaining about, but that doesn't make what I struggle with invalid; it just makes it mine. 

* Is it just me or does this phrase make you picture a loaf of unbaked bread in a tuxedo? Just me, huh? Cool.

We're apparently...

in the season of gratitude. That sounds charming, doesn't it? Gratitude. It has a great flow, lots of vowels and consonants with a funny word in the middle. It looks great on signs hanging in one's dining room. Grateful, thankful, blessed...we're all supposed to be feeling that all the time but especially over the next few days. I mean the holiday has the word THANKS right at the very beginning of it. If you can't find something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving when the fresh hell can you?

   We've all seen that part in movies where the family gathers around the table for a beautiful feast. The turkey all golden brown like it just returned from a week at the beach. The table beautifully set with mounds of sides (the BEST part of the meal is the sides). The family dressed casually yet beautifully (no stretchy pants is unrealistic), smiling at each other, folding their hands and saying grace. Then they go around the table and say what they are most grateful for that year. What a beautiful scene. No pressure, right? I mean the people they love the most are sitting right there and they have to say what they are most thankful for that year. How could that go wrong? 

    Yet they all manage to do it. They all come up with a sweet and heartwarming yet concise statement of what has been their biggest blessing that year. No one repeats each other; everyone's seems similar enough to cover the big ones (family, health and love) yet enough different to keep us from scrolling through TikTok. Then, inevitably, someone stands up and raises their glass and gives the absolute perfect toast summing up everyone else's but of course more eloquently and with an added punch of sentimentality that makes everyone say HERE! HERE! Just precious.

    Here's how that goes in most houses, gathered around the table, you have the ones with social anxiety (yes, you can have that even with people you are familiar and close with) who start to squirm and are unable to focus on what other's are saying because they are so stressed about having to speak up and out and get it right...the ones who are just phoning it in because this part is so cringe...the ones who are hangry because dinner is an hour and a half later than expected due to the underestimation of the time it takes to peel 20 pounds of potatoes and because Aunt Becky was an hour late, as usual...the ones who did ALL the work to make this a special day and it's ruined because it's not living up to the expectations they had in their head...and the ones who always go last and pontificate and preach and otherwise go on and on and on trying to reproduce the HERE!HERE! part of the movie while the rest of us are starving and everything is getting cold. I mean COME ON...just say "my family" so we can all dig into those potatoes!

    And who carves a turkey at the table? Too messy and time consuming when there's butter rolls to gobble! (See what I did there? Turkey...gobble)

    Okay, it is lovely to take a few moments to sit with those we love and be grateful for them and everything we have. It's important really in some ways so that we realize the great privilege we have and generally take for granted in our day-to-day lives. Recognizing that we are blessed is necessary if for no other reason but to encourage us to help where we can and give what we're able to others.

    But, because of course there's a but, what if it's been a hard year and we just can't see it? What if in this season we just can't see the sweet in our lives because we're living something incredibly bitter? When one's life is a pile of rubble, how do we pick through it and find the shiny bit that we hold up for others to see? How do we say we're grateful for THIS when THAT is so broken?

    Maybe we don't. Maybe we shouldn't have to. Maybe it's unfair to expect ourselves and others to find the good when our burdens are so heavy that finding the good seems like another stone to carry. 

    Sit with me on the porch and let's talk about the sadness and the hardships this season can also bring, because they are numerous and overwhelming. They create a circle of shame...I'm supposed to feel X because it's the holidays but I'm so frozen in Y and Z, I can't, so I probably deserve X, because everyone has something be grateful for, but my X is so big I can't see anything else. My X is so devastating that it's taking up all the space, so perhaps I deserve X because I'm not counting my blessings.

    Or those of us who have had something wonderful happen (say...the birth of a child or grandchild) and yet we still feel the heaviness of something else in our lives. A loss, a life change, a lack of serotonin (not a joke, it's a real thing especially this time of year). We know we should be living in bliss...over the moon...happy as a lark, but we're still struggling, because something really amazing doesn't erase something hard.

    The added pressure this time of year exacerbates the bruises and breaks we've experienced. Those wounds can be brand new or old ones that have never or can never heal. We miss people in a different way during the holidays, don't you feel? We count how many Christmases we've not been able to spend with them. A friend who has a son in the military can tell you exactly how many and which Christmases her son has been home for in the past decade. Not many. We count how many years since our last Thanksgiving with a loved one. Or we ache to our bones because this is the first one without them or the second or the whatever number, because no matter how many it's been, they can all still be so hard. We feel their losses more deeply right now, because the empty seat is enormously empty...it's a visceral reminder of a pain so profound we can't verbalize it.

    Grateful isn't always easy, and sometimes when it is, it's only able to be felt on a superficial level. Let's imagine the scene around the table in our real lives, shall we? Sister says "family and health", brother says "same", Aunt Betty says, "my children and family and that my bursitis in my hip isn't acting up today", Mom says, "being here together, good food and a healthy family" and Dad says, "You guys and jobs to pay for all this grub, now let's eat it!" I mean, which is more realistic, mine or Hallmarks? And you know what? Both are okay. Both are valid and right.

    What's also right and valid is the one who sits staring at their hands with tears rolling down their face because they are heartbroken for whatever reason. The one who is so concerned about the daughter who isn't here with her feet under the table because she's out there somewhere doing things that are causing destruction to herself and her family. The one who misses him so much because it's the first holiday without him but also feels guilty because they can see a glimmer of hope that they won't always carry the intense loss in this way. The one who thought they'd have a baby to shush and hold and feed this holiday. The one who does have a new little stocking to hang, but also carries the fear that because they received something so wonderful, the universe will take something else.

    Here's the thing...all of those things exist around almost any table. Just like the foods we eat at that table...bitter and sweet...our hearts can hold both. Our hearts can also at any given moment only have space for one of them.

    So here we are, finally, at my point. If you feel bursting to the seams with gratitude this holiday, that's incredible and beautiful and valid and equally important as those who don't. You shouldn't have to dim your joy because other's can't find there's in this moment. Be reasonable, of course. Don't make us all sit there starving while you list all your recent acquisitions or every "atta boy" email you received this year, but do feel the depth of thankfulness as fully as you need to. To be fair, we have to allow those who feel intensely grateful this year to be just that, because life can be hard, yo, and we should celebrate when we feel we can.

    Also, equally importantly, we need to allow space for those of us who simply cannot name something. We shouldn't expect them to or force them to mumble a platitude when their hearts are barely holding together. We should let them sit quietly at the table or in their own homes without badgering or pressuring them to BE THANKFUL DARN IT...COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS...FIND THE SILVER LINING! Because some things are just too big and dark to see through or around. Sometimes what we are so deeply ungrateful for is so immense, we simply cannot carry another thing. And that has to be welcomed at our tables too.

    So maybe this year, during this season, we allow grief or loss or fear or heartache or the sadness we can't name to have a seat. Perhaps we at least try to put it at the table with the weird cousin who eats with his hands and puts ketchup on mashed potatoes. We allow it to be there; we acknowledge it as a guest, unwelcomed and persistent, who is simply part and parcel of the human experience. Just like we can be grateful any day of the year but especially on Thanksgiving, we can also be bereft on any day of the year but especially on Thanksgiving. There's room at the table for all of us and all of that. If we can fit both the delicious sage dressing and the gross sweet potatoes, we certainly have room for all the emotions the holiday brings with it.

    Let's be gentle with each other now and always, but especially now. As for me, I'm grateful for a new little person who will in a couple of years sit at our kid's table, and I'm missing my Delaney and my dad ever so much this year. Maybe in part because of that new little one, my heart feels heavy for my dad who never truly got to experience Grandparenthood and my niece who didn't get to mom nearly long enough.

    See, I can do both at once. My heart is overflowing with joy and love and gratitude...but the space that's always full of Dee and Dad and my Grandparents still comes uninvited. And that's okay...it's because I loved them so big and hard, I wish they were here to see me count this new blessing. Bitter and sweet, they both exist often simultaneously and either can consume any moment including a holiday. Let them come, whether you bring them or someone else does. Because pretending they both don't exist doesn't erase them, it makes them louder. Don't hide your gratitude or your sorrow this year. Make room for the heaven and the hell...just don't make room for that cranberry jelly stuff...no body is grateful for that. 

MLG 11/17/22 my heart is fuller because of you.

Hurt people...

hurt people. That's one of those things people say to make us feel better when we've been wronged or to make us feel better when we're the one doing the wrong. I do believe it tends to be true. Of course, not everyone who has been hurt, hurts and not everyone who hurts us has been hurt. But we've all been hurt and, frankly, we've all done some hurting of others. The second part of that sentence tends to make us uncomfortable, but it's still true. We are all part villain and part victim. I'm the bad guy in other people's story* and maybe you are the antagonist in mine. We've all done and said things that have done harm. I mean, we can't all be the victim all the time, right? Someone has to be doing the hurting. Someone has to be the one giving the hell.

When someone has done something to me that has created a wound, I do (usually) try to understand why. Is it me? Am I the one who caused the initial hurt that's now being reflected back to me? Is this person simply lashing out at me, because I'm the closest or easiest target? Do they feel safe expressing their anger or sadness or hurt with me, because they trust me to understand and forgive? Or are they just plain mean? Usually, it's not mean, it really is a bad seed someone else planted in them and for whatever reason, they are reaping it all over me or you. Or maybe I am the drama.

When I was in fifth grade, we had a new principal. He was a younger man and, in hindsight, I can easily say he was earnest, serious and desperately wanting to be taken seriously. He was a bit more than necessary. I remember distinctly on a warm day at the beginning of the school year he was giving what I truly believe he thought was a profound and inspiring speech to our class. He walked up and down the rows the entire time he was addressing the students of whom he was now in charge. I remember feeling very snoozy and overly warm and bored out of my mind. I was fighting to keep my eyes open and sweating like, well, a kid in an un-airconditioned class room during late summer. My glasses began to slide down my nose. As the principal walked by, he took his middle finger and pushed my glasses up my nose, the tip of his finger ever-so-slightly tapped against my forehead between my eyebrows.

And something inside me exploded in white hot rage.

It was embarrassing, of course. Girls shouldn't sweat (keep in mind it was the early eighties). It's likely only the classmates sitting to my left and my right saw, if they even did. It wasn't the embarrassment as much as the tap of his finger on the spot of skin at the top of my nose. This man touched me. Now let me be clear, it wasn't something nefarious, it was a simple gesture meant, likely, to be helpful and at worst to assert his authority and make sure I was paying attention to his dutiful droning. But to a little girl like me who was terrified of men, who had been touched in terrible ways, who couldn't tell anyone what was hurting, it was a match dropped in gasoline.

I sat in that chair hearing nothing but the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears, the rest of his bloviation lost on me. All I could think about, all I could feel was that hot, angry, shameful spot at the top of my nose. It felt on fire. And that fire began to spread and grow and it started consuming the part of me that could control my reactions to men. It burned through my desperate need to be nice and liked and made me a heat-seeking missile toward men. 

Interesting isn't? I had endured horrible touching and suffered in silence without so much as a tear. I didn't make a sound at that, but this...this fingertip to my forehead caused me to get very loud, very quickly. A few minutes later, our class went to P.E. and that is where 10 year old hurt Lisa, hurt someone. 

Our P.E. teacher was a man. He was actually an incredibly kind and encouraging man. He had a wife and children. He was doing his job and working with kids who were of varying athletic ability and interest. Yet he showed up week after week to teach. And I was there, week after week, putting him through hell. Now, I realize I was a kid, and, because I'm pretty ashamed of that behavior now, perhaps it wasn't as bad for him as I feel it was. But perhaps it was. Maybe, I did hurt him. The incredibly harsh things that came out of my mouth, the attempts to undermine his authority, the blatant disrespect...I feel almost sick thinking about it now. If I were he, I would have hated me, even though I was a kid.

But if he felt that way, he never let me know. He ignored it for the most part, and when he did address it, he didn't yell, he just told me to go sit down and be quiet. Sometimes, he'd send me in to wash my face and calm down. He never sent me to the Principal. He just kept showing up and doing his job. I'd like to think that maybe I wasn't that bad, but I know I was. It's a big regret of mine. I can tell myself that I was a kid who was betrayed and broken, but I still can't excuse my behavior to myself. 

I was a hurt person who hurt a person, right? No. It's not right. It's really, really not. And yes, I was a kid and he was an adult and yada yada, but it's still wrong. Just because you were hurt doesn't make it excusable to hurt someone else. We still have to be held accountable for our actions. We can't excuse it or ignore it or explain it away, because if everyone who is hurt goes around hurting people, then everyone will keep being hurt and keep hurting and the ride won't ever stop. Hurt people who hurt people are still absolutely wrong for doing so. Full stop.

Adults now use that little saying to allow them to perpetrate all sorts of emotional damage on others. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in triggers...see above with the finger to the glasses, BUT I believe my triggers are my responsibility to address and monitor and regulate. Grown Lisa knows that the fire that was lit by the simple, innocuous touch was about something deep and terrible. It was about ME not him, but it also wasn't about the teacher who bore the brunt of my rage. 

Let me be clear here, kids who have been harmed are not to blame for the way they process and deal with what happened to them, again, full stop. I do believe we have to start teaching personal responsibility and accountability for behavior at some point, so that the hurt doesn't perpetuate hurt. We have to start somewhere, yes? We cannot dismiss transgressions against others simply because we've been transgressed against. (Forgiveness without boundaries is also unhealthy, but that's for another day.) 

We need to start listening to what people aren't saying out loud, but their behavior is screaming. We need to ask what was created in them that is now creating damage to others. We need to help them find and then heal their villain origin story before they become someone else's. As importantly, we need to not allow them to go unchecked. They can't go around causing explosions without so much as a look back. Hurt people don't get to hurt people without repercussions. They can't or everything and everyone will go up in flames.

I've thought about that teacher a lot lately. He didn't know I was hurting. I'm absolutely positive that if he did, he would have helped. He didn't know, because I couldn't say. All I could do was be mean. All I could do was hurt, because I was hurting. But I'm so very sorry. Adult Lisa is so incredibly sorry for what 10 year old Lisa did and said. So, yes, we should try to understand why someone is lashing out, acting out, and hurting others. We need to gently walk back with them until they find that point where someone caused the hurt that creates more hurt and help them put that fire out before it consumes them and those around them. Even when we are burning, we must choose not burn others, because lighting someone else on fire won't put out the flames of our own hell.

*This is a different story for another blog. If you think you know, you probably don't know the truth.

You've heard said...

comparison is the thief of joy, I'm sure. I wish I'd heard that when I was younger. My lands, the amount of time I spent comparing my hair, clothes, skin, body, accomplishments (or lack thereof), grades, inability to shoot a lay-up or actually do pretty much anything athletic to my peers and my siblings probably, embarrassingly, adds up to years of my life. Now, don't get all weird and start with the "not all comparisons...". You understand what I mean, and if you don't, you're either choosing not to, or this particular porch visit isn't for you. And that's cool. Maybe the next one will be. Because you see, I'm okay with not being everyone's cup of tea, because, to be fair, not everyone is mine.  

I think about what I could have been doing during that time instead of stealing my own joy and I almost roll my eyes out of my own head at myself. I still compare myself to others, but on a much smaller scale than I used to. I do believe with age comes maybe not necessarily wisdom but at least some clarity. I'm not racing anyone except the mean Lisa in my head who wants me to live in a constant state of "you're not enough" or "you're too much". Mean Lisa's voice seems much quieter now. She tends to only cage rattle when someone outside of my own little brain says or does (or doesn't say or doesn't do) something intentional or not that makes me question myself.

Those questions, at their core, are about the validity of my life choices or the space I'm currently occupying. Should I be doing more? Should I have more? But ultimately the question ends up being "Should I be more?" Since Mean Lisa is pretty freaking abusive, she wants to isolate me with these thoughts. She compares even the fact that I'm having those thoughts with others. "I'm sure SHE doesn't toss and turn at night about THAT." "I'm sure they don't second guess things the way YOU do." 

I'd like to be noble and say, "I hope I'm the only one." but, truthfully, I hope I'm not. If comparison is the thief of joy, then companionship is the bearer of hope. I know I'm not in this alone. People I love have talked to me about their own self-doubt, about the Meanie who lives within them. If we're all in the same boat with this, we need a bigger one.

Remember being a teenager and having your entire life ahead of you, and being in some kind of all fired hurry to have it all planned out? My wedding colors were going to be pink and yellow (Egads!), I'd have three kids, write speeches for the President, and have a sunken living room with a sectional (we called them pit groups in the eighties). With the exception of the pit group, none of that happened. Seventeen year old me would have been so disappointed in myself. Now that I think about it, Mean Lisa is 17 year old me. She's also an echo of every mean girl who made fun of my clothes, hair, body, etc. The good news is, those voices are less intrusive now. I can tell them to shut the fresh hell up, and they do. Because we are in control of what we think about ourselves, if we chose to exercise that control.

Now that we know who the thief is and who the bringer of hope is, there's one more meme we need to create. Expectation is the death of contentment. Okay, so I'm of course not talking about expectation of behavior (i.e. don't be a jerk, obvi) or expectation of performance at your job, or expectations of behavior within a relationship or honoring your commitments. I'm talking about the expectations we put on ourselves to have, be and do. "I should have more..." "I should be more..." "I should do more to have more and be more." 

Round and Round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. WHAT it stops is contentment. It's the capacity to stand in the middle of your life and feel peace. It can make us take for granted the things we do have, what we are and what we've done, because we're expecting the next thing. Man is that lesson hard to learn, especially now when all we see is MORE than we are. Cleaner and bigger houses, wide smiles, adorable children, well-trained pets, magazine-worthy decor, perfect marriages...perfect lives. We certainly know all of that is curated for public consumption. I can't count the number of times I've taken a picture of my dogs doing cute things immediately after cleaning up a puddle of pee in my dining room. (MOOSE!) We know it's not the entire picture, yet we try to recreate it just the same.

My older step-daughter knew from a young age that her passion is teaching, and she has worked her cute booty off to make that happen. She's brilliant at it. The kids in her class are incredibly fortunate to have someone so dedicated. Her path wasn't always easy, but it always had a direction. She is thriving. It's a beautiful thing to watch. Just because someone's life seems to be a "natural progression" doesn't mean that it hasn't been hard-fought and without struggles. MPG has consistently persevered and created that progression. I'm constantly amazed by her tenacity. 

My younger step-daughter's path has been a bit less of a straight line. The girl has been all over the place. (Disclaimer: my younger step-daughter knows I'm writing this and whole-heartedly approves of this message. She's looking to encourage with this, just like I am. So for real leave the porch if you can't understand that.) She has tried on several hats while searching for her passion. Let's see... nurse, respiratory therapist, math professor, business major, insurance sales, cosmetologist, and now she's majoring in kinesiology. DID I MISS ANY MAB?

As people who are fully invested in her success, we sometimes want to say (yell?) "DECIDE ALREADY!" My goodness kiddo, pick something and do that. Have, be, do and have, be, do it right now. And I know she's felt that from us. I know she's felt the frustration and displeasure, but what it really is on our part is fear. What if she doesn't ever have what she needs? What if she's never what she is supposed to be? What if she never does what we all expect her to do, which is settle down and ease our worries? Because while we all want joy and contentment for those we love, what we also selfishly want is for them to be sorted out so we don't have to fret about them.

It's not just our expectations of ourselves that can destroy our contentment; it's our expectations of others that can not only kill their contentment but our own. Right? I mean if I'm constantly expecting people to fit into the boxes I've assigned them arbitrarily and even selfishly, how am I ever going to be at peace? If folks aren't being and doing and having what I think they should, how can I know contentment? And how can they when they feel us pressing in on them to settle down and follow the path? We steal our peace and theirs. We are not only our own Meanies but, terribly, theirs as well.

Ugh.

It's so hard to not think that our route on the map is always the best one. We came up with it, so it must be. But our route is ours and someone else won't have the same experience following it. Perhaps there's more traffic for them, or they hit every single red light. Perhaps they enjoy a more scenic route. Or maybe they see the value in taking a more direct way in order to get where they are going because they are ready to be there. Saying "the joy is in the journey" isn't always fair or accurate. For some people it is a joy and they find their haves, bes, and dos along the way, and for others it's being at their destination so they can have, be and do in the place they've been moving toward their whole lives that brings their joy. Neither is wrong. Neither is better. Both are valid. Expecting others to use our map ruins the journey for them because where we are going isn't ever where they are. Each life path is unique and fresh. Realizing that for ourselves and for others actually translates to our being able to see the part of others' journeys that hold joy and helping them when they breakdown or hit traffic.

As usual, all of that has been headed here. The midlife crisis thing is a real deal for some of us. Maybe crisis is a misnomer. Perhaps we should reframe it as a midlife refreshing. This summer I struggled with it. While I am absolutely content in my very joyful marriage (no comparing/no expecting), I found myself wondering if this is all there is professionally. I have several wonderful people in my life who are experiencing this same thing. Empty nest, loss of partners to divorce or death, loss of careers, direction, motivation and on and on. Lots of loss and empty. And man, that is some scary hell. The question, "Now what?" plays on repeat. So does, "It's probably too late for me to do... or be... or have..."

Again, ugh. There are times I've wondered if perhaps I had taken the long and winding road to get to my destination, I wouldn't feel so lost where I'm at. I didn't know what my passion was, so I picked a job. That's a very hard thing to come to terms with. Writing it is weird, because it doesn't feel entirely honest. The truth is, I think I did know what it was, but I was too scared to do it. Or maybe I was so busy expecting to have everything figured out that I didn't take my time to find out what would give me fulfillment and contentment, in other words, to actually figure it out. I think maybe I'm taking baby steps to get and be and have what I've always wanted. It's scary and exciting and refreshing, even if I did wait until mid-life-ish to change course.

Folks like my older step-daughter KNEW her passion and moved heaven and earth to make it happen. My younger step-daughter hasn't always known. Maybe she still doesn't, but she isn't settling. She's still seeking. She's still driving us mad with her twists and turns, but it isn't about us in either case. It's about their individual journeys. It's about them cutting a path, climbing over and under and through to find where they belong. And it's our jobs to worry and care, of course, about those we love but also to encourage and cheer and help them change a tire when they need it. We can point out the obstacles, but we shouldn't be removing them or forcing them to re-route because it's what we want. That obstacle may be steering them in a better, truer direction. Recalculating, make a u-turn, recalculating...I hate when my mapping systems says it, so I shouldn't be saying it about anyone's life.

Here's the fresh in all of this, I am excited about where I am going and what comes next, but let me be clear, I am so incredibly content with where I am. Which is, once again, sitting in my bed in the middle of the night*, dogs and husband snoring softly, hand on my leg, talking a little fresh hell with you.

*DU if you are up reading this, I hope you are content with your cereal choice and it brings you joy. You deserve it.

We've all had...

things in our lives or in the lives of people we love that are just so profoundly overwhelming we almost can't say them aloud. They can be good things or bad things. Like when my husband found out he was going to be a grandfather, he, perhaps unknowingly, whispered the words, "a grandpa" as he let them take hold and settle in and alter who he was. He has a new moniker, a new superlative for the shingle he hangs outside himself that attempts to describe all the things he is: son, brother, uncle, welder, dad, husband...grandpa. It's a beautiful moment when someone opens a welcomed gift life gives them. If you're the one giving that gift, it's even more lovely. It's like holding out your hands and showing them heaven. As life sometimes works, that of course means sometimes the hands open and what we see looks a little more like hell. 

I read a quote the day the hands opened and I found out my niece wasn't going to live. "We are all just walking each other home." -- Ram Dass. I don't even remember where I saw it. If it was you who posted it, thank you. I've run my fingers over that like a smooth stone dozens upon dozens of times since then. And not just about sad things and hard things, but I've come to see that walking each other home happens in the light and the dark.

I see us all headed in a general direction together on a wide expanse of hard-packed dirt road. Along the way, there are forks in that road. Sometimes those forks lead to gentle slopes with spectacular, breath-taking views. Sometimes they are dark and overgrown to almost impassable and you aren't sure where you will end up or if you'll find the way through. Both times we call out to our people, to the ones who walk with us and to the people who've taken those similar paths before us... "Come see this...it's beautiful" or "Come with me...I'm scared. I'm lonely. I'm grieving. I'm broken." 

The truth is, while I firmly believe we are all in this real life production together, we are all very much the main character in our own stories while being the supporting cast in everyone else's. And while we are all on the road together, walking each other home, no one else walks in our footsteps. We are all somewhat alone together. While that may sound disheartening, it shouldn't. Being alone together means that looking to the left or the right, you will find someone there and even if that person is scared, you still have someone to be scared with. Alone together is better than alone, alone.*

Think of it this way, if it's night and the power goes out and you can't see anything but dark, you would find comfort in knowing that one of your someones is in the dark with you. Maybe they aren't afraid of the dark. Maybe they have a better sense of space, a better memory of where things are so they can guide you around the chair leg that could surely break a pinky toe. Maybe they know exactly where the flashlight is. Maybe they will sit in the dark with you for as long as it takes for the light to return. Maybe you are the someone who isn't afraid, who knows how to navigate, who will share their light, who will sit until they can see again. Be that person. Be the sharer of the light. We need to be people who are as willing to help shoulder the burden or shout the good news as easily as we share the gossip and the scandal.

When someone is going through hell, we don't want to say the wrong thing. Maybe because we've had people say the exact wrong thing to us and felt it burn as it went into our ears and swam around our brain and slammed into our heart in a way that fueled the angry part of going through a hard patch. I think we all so much want to be the person who says the thing that heals the wound, and we just as much don't want to be the person who says the thing that makes the cut deeper.

I think back to the times I desperately searched people's faces and words to find the ones that made my hurt or fear or uncertainty lessen... "It is well with your soul. She's in your future now. You will find a way to carry this." Or the words that increased and confirmed my greatest joys... "You were born to do this. You are exactly where you were always meant to be. He's who your dad was talking about when he said you would find the very best man for you." I think back, and I so very much want to wrap those feelings of safety, optimism, hope, comfort, peace around my people, my fellow travelers. I want them to know their good and bad are seen and acknowledged and felt by me, because I want them to know I'm rejoicing when they do and mourning when they are. I want them, the ones sharing the road with me, to feel what I felt from others. That in their aloneness, (because no one else feels your exact joys or sorrows) I'm together with them. I'm either cheering for them or ready to carry with them.

I'm up in the middle of the night talking to you, because I'm thinking about the people who have walked with me. I'm hoping that they know I'm walking with them too, that we are walking with each other. My heart and my mind is heavy tonight, because I have a dear friend who has a family member who isn't well. I've typed and deleted the "not well" several times trying to find a softer way of saying it. Trying to find words that convey the enormity of the situation without dramatizing it. Trying to recognize the weight they carry without dwelling in the unknown. Trying to stand beside her in the certain hope that everything is going to be okay without silencing her need to say the scary things, so she can see them outside of her head and know that the fear isn't always the reality. When I see her, a lump forms in my throat. All the things I want to say, all the things I don't know how to say, all the silly and trite and unhelpful things, the platitudes that don't feel sincere but are the things everyone says when they don't know what the right thing to say is because there is no right thing. All of that sits in my throat. And she knows this because she's swallowed those kind of words for me too because she has never failed to walk toward home with me. I don't want to fail her.

The joys are easier. They are. Cheering, if you really love someone, is so natural it happens without effort. 

Hard stuff is, well, hard. It requires your best effort. If you really love someone, you stay with them through their hard stuff. You show up for it. You don't veer off the path and wait for them at the end. You just don't.* 

I guess the point of all of that is this, even when I am standing here with a lump in my throat that contains all the things I want to say, all the help I want to give, all the things I shouldn't say because they won't help, the point is...I am standing here. I am right here looking at your face and seeing your pain or sadness or fear.

And the moment you take a step, because you will take a step, it's inevitable, I will follow you even into the dark. I'll bring my light. I'll carry it because your hands are full. I'll run along side you even when we can't see where we are going. I'll go because you are. Because that's what love does. Love sometimes travels through hell to walk you home.

*I'm not talking about toxic or abusive relationships here. You know better than to think I am, I hope.

I have a lot of...

feelings, like, all the time, feelings and feelings and FEELINGS. I have feelings about the sunrises and how I feel when I drink coffee in the morning with my husband (always from matching cups, because I would definitely feel something if they didn't match). I have feelings when my stepdaughters and son-in-law have feelings. I have feelings about my dogs, the weather, my shoes, good food (or bad), my friends, my family, my garden.  I have ALL the feelings about ALL the things, apparently. So do you, right? I daresay, even "what fresh hell is this?" has a feeling to it. Or perhaps, it is a feeling unto itself. 

My favorite oldest stepdaughter, MPG, is wonderfully pregnant. Oh my, do I have big, beautiful feelings about that. Next level joy and excitement mixed with constant worry for the little mama and her little one, layered with the absolute knowledge that she and her husband will be outstanding parents to that little girl. And then I have feelings about it being a girl and everything that means in our world. (Don't worry, this blog isn't about that.)

MPG, the expectant mother, is a pre-kindergarten/kindergarten teacher. She helps her classroom of kids express their feelings by using an imaginary bubble of colors. Sometimes their bubble starts getting red, and they need to reset so they can figure out why they are so upset. I like that. Thinking of my emotions outside myself as a color hovering over my head. Wouldn't it be so much easier if that were real? We could see if someone was sad or scared or thrilled instead of trying to guess. So when someone asks you, "Is something wrong? Are you upset?" You can't get away with "No, I'm fine." when you really, really aren't.

For years now, as a person who has lived with depression (and tried to die from it), I've often been aggressively aware of my emotions. I feel the need to assess them almost constantly, to name them, to keep track of how long I've felt whatever I'm feeling. Sometimes, when I've had several days or weeks of apathy, I start feeling about my lack of feeling. Is exhausted an emotion, because, dang, I get so exhausted of my emotions.

As always, I've said all that to say this... sometimes, I feel something because I feel like that is how I'm supposed to feel.  It's not even a conscious choice. It's almost like my brain or heart or whatever is steering the ship at any given moment starts running a formula. A plus B equals C. It must, because that's the expectation. It must because if it doesn't there's something wrong, right? 

That's why much of what we watch is formulaic. I mean, Hallmark makes bank on those Christmas movies because they follow a well-worn path that evokes a consistent set of emotions all leading to the happily-ever-after ending. I'm not knocking it (no Mackenzie, I still won't watch them. Michaela and I will be over here...uh...not watching them.) There is comfort in knowing how you are supposed to feel and when you're supposed to feel it. Things like that give us a break from having to wait to see what happens next in our own lives to know what kind of sentiment to express next. Our real lives don't stay on the well-worn path. They twist and turn and sometimes head straight for a cliff.

Think about this... hometown team comes from behind and wins, you feel....? Survey says?! Elation and pride! They suffer a crushing defeat...heartbreak and pride. 

Now try this one...I'm sitting in my bed at 3 am, writing this blog. My husband is sleeping (trying to) next to me, his hand on my leg. Six and a half years of marriage, and I still love the weight of his hand. It's so dark, I can barely see his face in the light of this computer screen.  A cool breeze comes from the open window, because fall has made an appearance. I can smell the dampness from yesterday's rain. All is still and quiet except the soft snores of our dog curled up at my feet. 

Did you ick or awwww? It's okay. You feel what you feel about it. Unless you don't. Unless you feel what you think you should feel about it. Our emotions have so many layers. They are born from our past and present. What's happening to us at this moment? What from our past colors how we see things now? We can feel indifferent about the hometown team analogy, because we have a lot going on right now that seems more important than sports. Or we can feel that deeply, because we used to love to watch our kid play basketball in junior high, and now she's grown and off making a life for herself, and we miss those feelings of elation and pride or heartbreak and pride that were tied to that part of our lives.

The one about my writing in bed...if you've lost your partner, that could be an absolute gut-punch (I'm sorry if I did that to you.). If you are struggling in your relationship, reading that could just flat out make you furious (red bubble!). You could feel totally grossed out. (I can just HEAR favorite youngest stepdaughter now...ewwww, STOP IT!) Maybe you can relate, so you did the awwww. Or it could be all of that or even none of it. You do you, boo. 

We're almost to the point, I promise. This week I started a new job. My second new job this year. My third job in 32 years. The first job lasted 30. I have big feelings about it. It's scary, it's sad, it's exciting. It's a lot.

My first day at this third new job in my lifetime was Monday. With a week of hindsight, I can say I like it. I'm optimistic that I will love it. It's challenging and different, yet familiar enough to be somewhat comfortable. At the end of the first week, my brain is exhausted, but I feel a sense of pride that this old girl is learning new tricks. Pride isn't something I've given myself an allowance to feel in the past. But this Lisa allows it now. She let's me feel what I'm feeling without as much expectation and judgement. I don't have to feel what the formula says. I get to just be in it.

Want to know the crazy part? I didn't give myself permission to really decide what I feel until just this past Monday. Seriously. The first day of the new job, I had an epiphany of sorts or rather I was given one. That morning, I happened to run into a beautiful soul who reads this blog. Her daughters are longtime friends of mine. When I told her about my new job, she and her husband immediately cheered. They literally cheered. She asked how I was feeling, and I said what I believed was expected, the A plus B equals C answer...excited and nervous. Because the unknown plus change equals excited and nervous, right? That's how someone would write that scene, yes?

When I answered DKD's question with "excited, nervous" she simply said, "I find the older I get, I don't really get nervous about most things anymore." Wait. What? She doesn't WHAT?! She didn't realize how wonderfully profound that statement was. I sat with it for a moment and realized I really wasn't nervous, or rather I was only nervous about figuring out where to park. And I wasn't really nervous about THAT, I just didn't know where to go. That's not nerves, that's a need for information. The people that hired me weren't going to kill and eat me if I made mistakes. They could tell me I wasn't working out for them, but I wouldn't die from it. I've had years of experience, and most people genuinely hope you succeed, especially, I'd think, people who just hired you to do work for them. I felt solidly good about starting this new job. Huh. That's something good new, not scary new.

I wasn't nervous, yet I felt that I should be, because I've always thought that my self-confidence would be seen as arrogance, so it was important to be nervous in order to show humility. That's some kind of algebra or geometry or whatever other math is out there. That's fancy calculator math. It's self-sabotaging math. I thought that my formula A plus B equaled C, when in truth, it equaled nonsense. So how do we get to DKD's level of not-nervousness? Perhaps we start by not putting expectations on other's feelings. We stop believing we need to have an opinion on what someone else's answers to their own equations are. We stop saying things like "They moved on rather quickly, don't you think" or "Did you see what she was wearing? Who does she think she is?" or "He seems a bit full of himself, bragging about that." We let people feel whatever the fresh hell they want to feel, because we don't have to have feelings about other's feelings. Hey, eyes on your own paper.

Maybe in not assigning a faulty formula to others, we can begin to re-write our own emotional spreadsheet. We can actually delete that thing altogether. Instead, we can just be and feel and act in a truly unadulterated, authentic way. 

If someone wouldn't have shown me a new way to emotionally math, I would have convinced myself I truly was nervous, and I would have acted with that nervousness. At worst, that might have caused me to fail before I started, at best, it would have made me miss the goodness I felt walking out to my car in the spot where they told me to park when I simply asked them. I would have missed that very good beginning. 

I certainly wouldn't be sitting in this bed, writing this blog, with my husband's hand still on my leg, my little dog snoring, and the sky even darker, because it's just before the dawn. 

As for me, the bubble above my head is the color of sunrise with a hint of coffee with too much creamer in a blue cup that matches his. It's the color of possible and hopeful and excited with little to no nervous and certainly no hell.

Thank you DKD. I will carry your wisdom in my heart and call up the sound of you cheering me on when I'm truly feeling I need it.

If you would have...

asked me when I was in my twenties what the primary motivating force in the universe is, I would have said love. Easy right? True? Well that's subjective. Now that I have more experience, I'd certainly agree that love can be one's driving force, but as with most things, it might be a little more complicated than that. 

Money motivates, yes? I mean you can't eat love, so you need money; therefore, you work to make money to meet your needs. For some people, that's enough. Meet your needs, take care of your family, save for the future. Cool. Some people need more than just enough money, so they do more things that make them more money, and that's cool, too.

Recognition motivates. Some people are driven by the need to have folks know their names. They need for people to know the good they are doing in the world or about the big life moves they are making. I mean, that's why we all have social media, right? To share things. To be a little bit famous. Other people are motivated by a cause. They do things because of something we see as bigger than us...for the greater good.

So those are all obvious, but now that I'm a bit more self-aware and honest, I realize one of the things that moves people is shame. Sit with that for a second. Think of what you immediately thought of when you read the word shame. I would wager that almost everyone seeing this had an immediate reaction. I did. A highlight (lowlight?) reel of things I've done that are shameful starts to play. Shame has weight. I feel it as I type. It can paralyze you; it can make you into someone you wish you weren't; it can make you do things you wish you hadn't to cover it up; and it can even kill you. Shame changes how you believe others see you, but even more so, it changes how you see yourself.

Shame is often coupled with a secret. We certainly don't want people knowing what makes up the darkest parts of us, the corners of our lives that are scary and dirty. The ones we try not to visit until they start screaming at us in the middle of the night. "Why didn't I?" "Why did I?" "How could I have..." Shame eats at you. Oh you can go long periods of time without it showing itself, but it's always there, waiting. It wears you down, doesn't it?

Sometimes the disgrace is not even caused by us. Being sexually assaulted as a child had absolutely nothing to do with anything 8 year old me had done. I didn't ask for it. I didn't create the monster who did it, yet shame and fear kept me silent for almost two decades. That secret shaped parts of me that are still disfigured and disordered. Even though it's not something I hide anymore, there are things that create panic in me because of that. And my inability to completely overcome that experience causes an entirely new type of humiliation. Other people can build shame in us that should be theirs instead.

Shame makes us believe many untruths about ourselves. We're not worthy of good things. We're unlovable. We're an imposter. Shame makes us believe others see us differently, broken, worthless when the truth is, we see ourselves through the lens of regret. It makes us see ourselves as different, broken, worthless.

Now we know, logically, that's not real. It's a distorted vision of who we are. We can know people who love us deeply; we can express our own self worth when pressed to do so -- I'm kind. I contribute to my community. I care for my family. I work hard. We can even find our sameness to those around us. But that thing that we did/said/had/took/gave is like an itch you can't scratch. You carry on, but you're never truly permanently comfortable.

I think about some of the things I've done and said in my past, and I wonder how anyone could like me, let alone love me. My husband knows things about me no other human does, and that man thinks I painted the sunrises just for him. I have dear friends and family to whom I've said things that make me physically duck and cringe when I think of them. I've been selfish with them. I've been absent when they needed me. Ugh, the way I treated my mom when I was in my thirties...I just can't. And yet, they care for me in a way that makes me feel like some kind of prize. I wonder what I've done to deserve such care, such devotion, such love. I can name things I've done to not be worthy of those things, but why they give them to me anyway eludes me.

Except...perhaps they feel something similar. Perhaps they have had moments where they believed someone couldn't continue to love them. Perhaps they all carry secrets they believe make them unworthy and unlovable. I can't for the life of me think of any. I can hold my oldest dear friend Julie M. up to a light, and I can't see a single flaw. I can sure count mine. Somehow, she is still there. After 46 years of friendship, she would still check the YES box on my note asking if she's my bff. KGC has known me since fourth grade. She carries much of my history. I feel no judgement, only acceptance. No appearance of looking back, just continual forward motion.

My husband, well, he knows everything. Yet he squeezes my hand in the middle of the night. He tells me I'm the good stuff, that I'm his bestest good friend, that he loves me with a love that is more than love. He held the trashcan when I threw up after my hysterectomy. He stood quietly while I railed and screamed and cursed with grief in my backyard. He asked gentle questions about my reactions, so he can help protect me from my own demons. He knows things about me that I almost can't bear to think about. And he's in our bed right now sleeping peacefully knowing who I am and what shameful things I've been capable of in the past, still loving me fiercely and profoundly. He's seen me, really looked deep and seen me, and found me more than worthy.

I say all of that to say this, perhaps I was right in my twenties, about that one thing at least. (Definitely not about the stacked bob haircut or frosted brown lipstick.) Perchance, twentysomething Lisa knew that the supreme motivating force in the universe simply, profoundly is love.

I know I promised our visits would not be all live, laugh, love. This isn't that. This isn't love is blind, love conquers all...blah, blah, blah. This is love sees and knows and ultimately understands. Love knows your shame, it sees all the hell you've created and it picks you up and carries you through it.

Hello...

I haven't been here for a while, because for a long time, I felt I had nothing of merit to say. At first it was because I felt incredibly boring...middle aged/menopausal woman - blah...happily married - yawn...stepmom to two adult children - nothing new to see here. Then it was because I was so terribly, profoundly, deeply grieved, and someone else's grief does begin to exhaust folks who aren't in it with you and even those who are. It also seemed, suddenly to me, the entire world got so brutally LOUD. I didn't want to say something because I felt I had nothing. Nothing interesting, nothing that did more than simply add to the noise.

Here's the thing (because there's always a thing) yes, I know there are many, many, MANY important even life threatening things happening in the world. Of course we should raise our voices and vote our conscious. We should fight injustice, and hold accountable those who abuse their power and privilege to oppress. We should also listen to those who have been running the race and fighting the fight for generations. We should, and I do...but I won't here. Not really. Not overtly. I simply can't. I don't have the answers, and sometimes I don't even know how to ask the questions. I cannot be a voice who speaks without full knowledge or authority. I know reading other's research doesn't equal doing one's own. Hang in, because it's not about this.

I am aware that not using this space to move toward equality and justice and right is born out of privilege. In all honesty, my life doesn't depend on it. It doesn't mean I don't care; it means I don't have to live every second like it does depend on it. That's privilege for anyone who is confused. I will boost other voices I believe can speak to the issues I hold dear on other platforms, but I won't pretend that anything I write will have any real value. I won't insert myself into places where I have no footing, where I'm a distraction. I won't add to the sound without adding to the substance. 

So now that I've hopefully explained what this place is and what I won't do, let's figure out what I will or what I hope to do. I hope to encourage you to look at others through a softer lens, the candlelight filter perhaps. I also want to encourage you to take a gentler look at yourself...to allow grace when needed, forgiveness when earned, love when merited, and joy when possible to yourself first, so you can extend those perfectly lovely things to others in a real way.

Let's not get confused, I'm not all live-love-laugh/coffee o'clock and wine-thirty/boss babe either. First, coffee yum/wine yuck so that would never work. I'm too much of an introvert to boss anyone, and I've lived-loved-laughed in the nineties - I'm not wearing that trend again. Like ever.

Now that I've written my mission statement of sorts, the disclaimer I guess, let's actually do something here, but do let's keep with the theme because every English teacher I've ever had said that's how this is supposed to work. Here we go...finally.

I notice posts/memes/missives floating around about how we used to go to Grandma's house on Sunday and spend time with family doing something called visiting. For those of us who have forgotten what that is due to isolation, ball games, work, laundry, genuine malaise, flat out dislike of people in general or whatever you've been up to, visiting is being in the presence of others, making eye contact, listening and talking, reminiscing, telling jokes and stories, laughing and crying with other people. You remember, like together with people who do not live inside your house. Spending time, which is finite and valuable, not just with each other but on each other.

People my age (ugh - that's just -ugh) remember stopping by someone's house (Don't do it. I mean it. I'll be in my panda nightgown for sure.) or seeing circles of lawn chairs in people's yards, gatherings on porches, the "adults" lingering around the table just talking. Just...visiting. We don't do that, not really. We pontificate, proselytize, and regurgitate* the headlines we read, the "research" we've done, the sound bite we found oh so clever and we "look at this meme -- boy that says it all." No. It doesn't.  (Unless it's that weird white cat thing with its arms spread. That one really does say it all.) We argue and silence and shout over, and yes, sometimes those things are not just necessary but mandatory. But, I believe true and real human interaction that seems to not move a cause or ideology forward is still incredibly necessary. Our souls need it. Lately, those moments of ease of conversation are often the only parts that remind us that we are all people trying to figure it out. Failures and successes, joy and sorrow, fear and bravery...we are all made of stories, experiences, beliefs, hopes, losses. We are all beauty and ashes.

That's what I want to talk about, sitting on my porch with you (not really, not yet, panda nightgown is super comfortable). This place can be my existential porch swing. We'll start here and see where it goes.

I want to know what's planted in your garden - literally and figuratively. I want to hear KP talk about Disney. SDK about Newton Eagle Football. CS about glorious shoes (sole sister for real, pun intended). DG about waterfalls. JM about her freshman. KGC about things that gross me out, man. HBF about her plans for next summer with no travel ball. KL about mid-century modern everything. JGM about her brother.

Add your initials and your thing. I want that. I don't want a headline you read; I want the headline you live.

Welcome back. I hope you sit for a moment and visit. If you don't like the topic, no worries, it'll change shortly. Leave your shoes and your drama at the threshold - they'll be there when you leave. Hopefully, you take with you a little bit of peace and at least a small measure of "oh that was nice". Maybe you'll even lessen some of your burden, because it's been replaced with a different perspective. In other words, leave some of your hell and take some of the fresh.

See you all soon. Don't forget your shoes.

*KMG hates the word p*ke more than I love an alliteration. Respect to her.)