I didn't believe...

 I deserved to be happy. Insert eye roll. I get it, that phrase itself is overused, trite, gag-inducing. But hear me out, perhaps it's really just misunderstood. Maybe what I didn't understand was what "happy" itself meant. Not the dictionary version, but the living it, feeling it version.

Ready for another rather obvious insight? We sabotage our own happy. We do. And I think because of that, we're bringing up the generation behind us to not even know if happy exists for them. We've turned it into an unattainable "unless it's picture perfect, then we all know that's a filter, so it doesn't exist" emotion. We've improperly labeled happy. 

We expect it to be something to attain, something to aspire to instead of something we feel. We confuse happy with stuff and clout and attention and success. That means that there has to be more stuff and clout and attention and success in order to stay happy. There's no enough, and I believe one can't be truly happy if one is constantly having to collect it.

Maybe what we need to look for is contentment. I've always loved that word. To me, it means "enough" in the most beautiful way. It's a state of being where we aren't always searching, where what we have is all we need and if something else comes our way, then that's just gravy. And I love gravy.

We all know people, maybe we are people, who seem to have contentment within their reach...they just need to stretch their fingers a little further. But suddenly, as if hearing a sound behind them so compelling they can't ignore, they make an abrupt turn and walk away from it. It's so frustrating and heartbreaking to watch. Like "Dude, it was right there! Finally. How could you leave it?" I've been that dude.

For me, and undoubtedly for you, it's fear; sometimes it's shame. We don't deserve it, because we've done this and this and this. Now, I know it can be doubt or confusion or insistence on being a martyr, but all of that is still fear or shame. I firmly believe it. 

It becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy. Something feels "right" and "good", and we're afraid of it so we do something to destroy it, which creates shame, shame creates unworthiness, so we stop looking for it. When it finds us...this "happy" or "content" we can't trust it (fear) because we don't deserve it (shame) and on and on.

Some of this is rooted in things that happened to us and some of it comes from things we've done to ourselves. And we did that to ourselves because someone did something to us. Around and around it goes... where it stops...

It can stop, with us. Not all of it. Not all the time. Not happy all day every day but happy every day. We have to figure it out so we can help the kids coming up. We've created a world where joy is unspeakable because it's unattainable not because it's full of glory.

Everything is awful. Isn't it? People are absolutely mean. No one cares about their fellow man. If what you are living is hard, just turn on the tv and see even harder. Families torn apart by hate and anger. Empty seats at tables because of senselessness. Loss and loss and loss. People giving as good as they get, except it isn't good they are giving or getting.

Except... the stories of sweet children making Valentines for the people in nursing home. Organ donors. Couples being married for 70 years. Videos of babies hearing their daddy's voice for the first time. Animals being rescued. Momma's kissing newborns. Mindy's countdown to spring in the midst of her grief for her husband, reminding us that the light does always return. Dancing for mourning, beauty for ashes, laughing through tears, coffee in the morning with your love, pizza with a dear old friend. A baby learning to walk. Laughing until your stomach hurts. Holding hands. Petting a dog. A bird singing (not too loudly and not to early in the morning). The smell of fresh cut grass or drying leaves. Someone finding their voice and speaking their truth and taking their power to move and inspire others. Being secure in your beliefs. Music, art, touching words. The sound of my husband saying "hey baby". The smell of chicken frying. The perfectly round cookies my mom bakes. The smell of the ocean. The quiet of snowfall. Hope. Love. Grace.

Joy unspeakable.

We deserve it. Our kids deserve it. We have to show them. They have to know they are worthy and no matter what they've done, they can have it. In the middle of the storm, you can find a place of peace, you can find the laugh, you can find the sweet, sweet spot where happy is. You won't find it in comparisons to others. You won't be able to see it if you are constantly looking toward what is next...what you have to attain or gain or collect believing that happy is in that thing or job or person. It's right here.

Happy is in finding contentment in the right now. I'm not asking you to find it in everything. This isn't a "happily ever after" story. I'm saying to pick one spot and live on that spot. Hold it and nurture it and watch it grow.

I know it's possible. Want to know how, because I'm doing it. Not always perfectly and not always successfully, but it's happening. Sometimes I'm reaching for it and shame or fear calls my name and I turn away from it. But sometimes, oh beautifully, my fingers close around it and you couldn't take it away under any circumstances.

Want to know another way I can prove it can be done? Read back over the paragraph about all the exceptions. I bet you felt something. I bet one of those things resonated  with you. I bet you thought of at least one thing more. You felt a spark. Give that spark oxygen. Talk to it. Build on it.

We need happy. We need contentment. We have to show our kids that having and doing and getting isn't where it's at. It's in being. It's in living now with what you have while carrying the hope of what will be, letting it motivate us, of course, but not letting us miss what is surrounding us in this moment. Because right now is full of good stuff.

I used to be afraid to have a good day, because a good day made the fall into a bad day worse. The comparison was too stark, too harsh. I wonder how many happy days I missed. Perhaps I spent so many days looking for fresh hell instead of seeing the lovely I deserve.

Not today. I'm not doing that today. I'm going to stand up, walk into the sunroom, see the birds and smile at my husband and just feel it. Just feel the unspeakable joy.

I recognize my place of privilege in writing this. I'm sitting on my couch in my warm home with my WiFi. I'm going to make an early lunch with the things in my well-stocked refrigerator. I'm healthy and so is my family. I am what the world unfairly most rewards with the exception of being a woman. I am unafraid in so many ways that I take it for granted. I recognize taking any of those things away considerably alters my ability to find contentment. Which leaves little room for me to not acknowledge that it is easier for me to find.

It's been a year...

in a lot of ways. It's been a year in the - wow that was...uh...something - way and it's been a year since she had to leave.

We, my family and extended family started 2020 with the profound and immeasurable loss of my brother's daughter, Delaney. That had quickly followed us closing 2019 with the birth of Delaney's son and the lovely wedding of my husband's oldest child.

Great love and then great loss, as the story of humans frequently seems to play out. Come and go. Laugh and cry. Give and take.

I've reminded myself and my stepdaughters (and lovingly they've reminded me) that we have already lived through the immediate impact of Dee's death. That first moment of knowing is not reproduceable, thankfully. However, one does relive it in a million different ways. Of course, moving forward carries great relief in knowing that we'll eventually learn to carry the grief we will never be able to truly put down. We somehow become accustomed to the weight. But moving forward is also  moving away -- from the sounds and sights and smells of them. The essence always lingering, but their hands unreachable.

I couldn't change the calendar from January 2020 until well past the first of July. She existed in January, but not February, March, April, May, June.

My husband and I went to Fort Morgan, Alabama at the end of February. It's our favorite place. The Gulf was made to seem small in comparison to our grief. We came back to a pandemic, a shelter-at-home. We came back to confusion and fear and anger. And I, so full of loss, had no room for those things.

My immediate family took it seriously. As a group, we chose to trust experts and our guts and our own common sense. (I said ours, not yours.) We social distanced, wore masks, washed our hands, but we didn't hoard toilet paper. We followed what is part of our family creed; we loved our neighbor as ourselves in the best way we saw fit.

We were called stupid and sheep, directly to our faces and indirectly on social media posts meant for the general population. And we understood and believed it to be true, that we are sheep, we all are. We just follow different shepherds.

All the while we grieved. We met and adore Dee's son and his father and his family and family of choice. We did this while being isolated emotionally and physically. Forcing ourselves not to focus on Dee not being here with that precious little man...not to think about all that she was missing. But we still did think all those things.

I watched from afar my mom, Dee's grandmother, bend to grief and then rejoice, as is her grieving process. Always believing that Dee is in her future now, just as she was before she was born. I watched the burden of a lost child settle in the corner of my brother's eyes and the way he now carries his body. I watched my sister-in-love pick up the broken pieces of her children and her husband all the while trying to hold herself together. I watched it from six feet away. Oh the irony of it being six feet. The permanent physical distance between us and Dee.

Out there beyond our personal hell, people were losing and grieving their loved ones, jobs, homes, businesses. I wanted to look at it, see it, weep for them, but I was still in my own world of loss. I couldn't see it for that.

Grief, to me, is constantly near drowning. You come up just long enough to rake air into your lungs, only to be swallowed by another wave of it. Over and over and over.

Meanwhile, our country is on fire, and I struggle to focus because grief is selfish. I'm busy watching my nephews and niece stumbling at times to move forward because the path of deep loss isn't smooth. I'm watching my stepdaughters bob up and down in their own waves.

So perhaps that's why I wear the mask. Staring into the deep well of our loss and finding it unthinkable that I could cause that to a fellow human. Thinking about how deep that well would be if something happened to my mom, my FIL or my stepdaughters' mother. If I'm wrong, no harm done. If I'm not...there's that deep well I couldn't bear causing someone else to fall into.

Remember how I changed the calendar from January to July in one motion? August brought the loss of my husband's aunt. On the day of her memorial his aunt's nephew, my husband's first cousin, his first playmate, his first best friend suddenly went too. He left three little women reeling in the wake of their dad's death. They still are nearly drowning in their own river of grief. My dear old friend, KMC, his ex-wife, was left holding the pieces of her family together not knowing how or where or if she herself fit in. Trying to fix the unfixable in her girls. 

My husband, still steering me through my grief, now wears a blindfold of his own, yet still manages to hold my hand and keep me moving forward. Add him finding his job has an end date. A job with people he cares for and respects, a job that gave his family before me and now me a comfortable life, will end sooner rather than with a retirement party. He's worked since his was 11 years old. He's had a full time job since he was a senior in high school except for the time he was in trade school for six months. Now he's being told that his loss is for the greater good, and like many, he's wondering about our good...his good.

Give and take. Sow and reap. We went back to the Gulf and it seemed bigger in November than in February.

And our country is more on fire and it would get worse. Things no American has ever seen or experienced or imagined have happened. I moved through it with a vague awareness. Aware enough to vote, aware enough to fear and be ashamed, but only aware enough to feel not act. Because grief, my friends, continues to make me selfish.

A little girl I used to babysit, who is now all grown, lost her only child -- her adult son. I know only peripherally the weight of the loss she was just assigned and will forever carry. I know that many many parents were suddenly, needlessly assigned their burdens -- many family members lost their loves without a proper goodbye this year. Knowing that becomes part of the weight of the loss. Others grief reminds you of your own.

We moved through the Fall and the election and the mess of that into the holidays that already have huge holes in them because before if she wasn't at the table, she was at least out there, but also because of the distance we needed to keep so hopefully we can try again next year without more empty seats. 

Grief has holes in everything...the spaces they took up. Everything is missing something. It's missing them. It's writing and thinking and talking in streams of consciousness instead of more linear, the way we were taught in elementary school to do those things...beginning, middle end that circles back to the beginning. I can't write (obviously!) or think or talk that way right now because the ending is too fresh and painful and lonely. Because almost constantly, in the background, I hear "Delaney is gone."

My friend, CS, put a shell on a rock on a beach in memory of Delaney. It's just a lovely, poignant gesture. I've visited that shell often in my mind. Is it still there? Did it travel out to sea? Did it pass the sea turtle Delaney helped find its way to the water shortly after it hatched? Is it beautiful sand now? Did I pick it up at the Gulf and it's now in a jar in my house? I hope it's still there. Sunning itself. Beautiful and a little out-of-place, like our Delaney always was.

Between the "hello little bitty pretty one and goodbye sweet girl" there was so much love.

We're nearing the end of this cathartic wail. We're nearing the end of the year since she had to go, but never the end of the grief. I feel myself moving toward the anniversary of her dying thru no power of my own -- a simple yet profound flip of a calendar page -- and I feel myself adjusting to the weight of the loss. Some days even being able to carry it gracefully.

I guess there is at least a beginning, middle and end to this writing. It does circle back to the beginning. As I said, it's been a year in many, many ways.

P.S. I'm okay. I am. The players on my team are the best and my bench is deep and my husband continues to hold my hand and my heart so gently. BCL.

I rest easier in the assurance that Delaney will be waiting for me. She'll be standing at the gate, opening it for me...pushing when it's clearly marked pull, because that's just her way. 

I've been trying...

to start this blog for several days. I've been trying to write thank you cards. I've been trying to make myself shower, brush my teeth, look people in the eye, leave my house. Some days I manage to do all those things, and some days I sit and stare. Grief is a hell of a cage.

People who know me know that my 21 year old niece, Delaney, died January 30, 2020. She has a son who was six weeks old at the time. Everything was in front of her, and then she was gone. To say it's a profound and devastating loss is an understatement. I ache for what she's missing. I ache for everyone who loves her.

Because we do still love her. That love doesn't go anywhere. In some ways it intensifies. It has nothing to bounce off of. Delaney isn't here to receive our love, so it pools up and spills over and multiplies. Love is made to be given and received, so when you can no longer give it to someone and receive it in return, it sits waiting and it can overwhelm you.

Grief is the absence of many things, and right now, at the beginning, there's nothing to fill those absences, or rather the things that fill those spaces are heavy and heartbreaking. 

The absence of breath is always startling to me. Of course, they do not look like they are sleeping. They look gone. But somehow I stood there holding my breath waiting for hers. I remember watching her little chest rise and fall while she slept as a baby. Somehow my heart hoped that magically her chest would rise and fall and she'd look at us and roll her eyes at our tears and complain about her makeup and her outfit and her lack of cleavage. She'd throw her head back and do her "you people are so ridiculous" laugh. I hoped she'd just come back. Just breathe, Dee.

Of course she didn't. She couldn't. She's gone.

There's the every day absences too. The lack of text messages and phone calls. The loss of the sound of their voice, their smell, how their hands feel. Not being able to tell them, show them, give them something you know they'd like. Not being able to make them laugh.

There is also the fear. Will I ever feel happy again? Will I ever not feel guilty when I do feel happy? Will I ever wake up and not think about it immediately? Or fall asleep to it? What's normal going to look like? 

Will this grief ever stop feeling like a cage? I feel panicked by it. I can't get away from it. It will come on me with hurricane force, and I just want to run away from it. I want an evacuate myself from my own heart. In those moments, I feel desperate and trapped and terrified. 

I just want her to stop being dead now.

Grief is also the absence of time, yet the acute awareness of it. It's been 2 days since she left... two weeks... soon two months. Yet in the middle of all the time marking, it seems to just disappear. It's just day after day after day of not being able to see the end of it. It's also knowing there is no real end of it, because she won't ever stop being dead.

Grief is always feeling concerned that you are burdening others with it. That they are tired of you being sad, of you talking about it, blogging about it, posting about it. It's feeling that because they aren't in the middle of it, they don't know how freaking heavy it still is. Grief is worrying that people don't think you are handling it well. That people don't understand that perhaps they are hearing you talk about it, because you have to say something or you'll break. It's being afraid that the people who love you most can't love you through this. 

Grief happens on your timeline. Even losing Delaney is personal to each of us. None of us will ever truly heal; we'll just adjust and live with it. It will come up. The waves will continue to roll in and out and sometimes they'll make us feel as if we're drowning. Yet we'll not want to speak about it, because we're certain you're tired of hearing it. We believe that you believe we should be completely okay; and if we're not, we should just push that down inside and smile through it. We believe that you are judging us as weak or dramatic or pathetic. 

And you'll be afraid to bring it up. You'll be afraid that we're having a "good day" and not want to rattle us. You'll see the look of fear on our faces in the grocery and know we just can't handle a conversation that starts with "how are you?" and really means "how ARE you?". You'll be afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Grief scares us. It paralyzes us. Grief doesn't fight fair. 

The truth is, if it's not your loss, you do move on. You'll sincerely check in and make sure we're doing okay. You aren't being cruel; you simply aren't in the cage with us. Until you are.

Because we all end up in there. Grief swirling around you, fear, desperation, hopelessness with it. 

We're all alone in it. The swirling, the hurricane, the cage. Grief is internal and private and personal. Oh my, it's so hard. Fortunately, in the midst of it, through the wind and the water and between the cage bars, we see our help. We see you sometimes crying with us, encouraging us, and we see you walking towards us, into the middle of our hell offering to steady us until we can plant our feet and stop just trying to survive and start living with the grief.



Thank you to all my people, whose faces I see guiding me home. Eternal gratitude to my family, friends, Big D, my SBJs, the Julies, The Haggards, and neighbors, who have encouraged and listened and supported us. Most especially, to my Shannon who from the moment I got the phone call reached for me and held me tight. BCL.

I'm fat...

as hell, apparently. It's not as if I didn't know I've gained weight. It's not as if I don't see myself in the mirror after I get out of the shower. It's not as if I don't realize my clothes don't fit. I'm aware of my weight gain. I'm also aware that I'm 47 years and 7 months old and my skin is sagging; I have sun damage on my face; I have wrinkles around my eyes and between my eyebrows and across my forehead. I am aware of all these things. Trust me. But why do strangers, friends-of-friends, people I might know because they know my people feel comfortable telling me I'm fat and wrinkly? Oh right, they're trying to help, and it's on social media so it doesn't count.

We've all received the friend request from a person whose name seems familiar. We check with whom they are friends and find commonality, so we accept the request. They aren't looking to be friends; they are looking to improve your life (a life they know nothing about) by making you look younger or keeping you from being so dang fat. Yes, I can unfriend them or unfollow them, but the damage has been done. I've already read what you think of me. You think I'm not enough the way I am. You think I need improvement.

Let me be clear, I appreciate the hustle. I love that you are providing for your family. Hats off to you. I'm not talking about the people with whom I'm actual friends posting offers on their timeline. It's THEIR timeline. Get your money, honey. I'm talking about folks who don't really know me sending me direct messages or a friend request, so they can sell to me. 

Maybe you've seen me walking my dogs and noticed my butt is big. Maybe you've seen me in the grocery store in yoga pants and my husband's t-shirts, because my clothes are so uncomfortable I can't wear them, and I refuse to buy another size, because I know how to get in shape (move more, eat better) and am determined to do it. Maybe you just saw my face in my profile picture and thought it to be a little too round. Thought that I could use some help. I'm sure you had my best interest at heart. I'm sure you were thinking of a bill you needed to pay, and this is your job, so you should be doing it. I'm sure you wouldn't walk up to my chubby, lined face on the street and tell me I'm looking old and you have the solution or I'm looking overweight and you can help with that problem. I'm sure of this, because no one has done that. But scrolling Facebook, you felt comfortable offering (inadvertent?) subtle criticism along with a your simple solution. 

What you didn't see, I'm assuming, in that picture is my genuine happiness. My husband loves me. All of me. And I may not be thrilled with my body, but after lots of hard work mentally and emotionally, I love me too. Do I want to BE fit and healthier? Yes. Does that mean "skinny"? No. A weight loss plan that doesn't including moving more is just weight loss. It's not a healthier lifestyle.  It's not making me stronger. It's not building muscle and helping my balance, which will truly serve me as I age. It's just simply looking better, so maybe people who don't know me won't think of me as fat anymore.

What you also don't see is the hysterectomy scar running most of the length of my stomach. I got that scar last August. I went into the hospital and they cut me open like a c-section, but we didn't leave with a baby. Nope. I left brokenhearted, feeling a little less like a woman, mourning the loss of potential motherhood via my own body, this time for sure and forever. My husband left with a wife who was sad and broken and he unable to fully remedy it.

So I ate and I sat on my ever-growing butt. After a hysterectomy you literally feel the empty space where your uterus once lived. Your organs feel like they are moving to fill in the spot that's now empty. Did you know that? Sitting here, writing this nearly a year out, I can feel it. That blank space. So, I tried to fill that emptiness with the S'mores blizzards and cake and potato chips. That obviously doesn't work.

See, I know how I got into this shape. You don't. You weren't here for that journey. I appreciate your wanting to help me reach my goal weight, lose 40 pounds in 40 days, de-bloat my belly. But I don't need that. I don't need someone else commenting on my body, because for several months now, I've been telling myself how disgusting my stomach looks. How jiggly my thighs are. How my butt looks like it has a shelf on each side. I've been avoiding going out because of it. I've said it, and your simple offer, says that to me. As unfair as of me to feel that way it might be, it does. I know I'm reading a lot into a blanket sales pitch, but that's how communication works, it's what the listener gets out of it. I get out of that "marketing" that I'm overweight and need help.

My value isn't my weight, I tell myself. You're the sexiest woman I know, says my husband. You look so pretty, say my stepdaughters. But somehow, your voice telling me I need to lose weight and do it fast is louder. That's my fault, not yours. You're just doing your job. You're just trying to help. But I gotta do it myself for myself. 

Here's my point, if you don't know me, don't friend request me to sell me weight loss products or anti-aging products. I have real friends who are selling the same thing, as do most folks on Facebook. If I want that kind of help, I'll get it from them. Again, if we're friends, SELL YOUR STUFF. No harm. It's the stranger whose intention is to remind me that I need improvement, physically, that can cause hurt.

Today while walking my dogs (and picking up their poo - my goodness DO THAT if you have dogs. Geez, I shouldn't have to say that but my lawn says otherwise), two women in two different vehicles smiled enormous smiles as I crossed the street. One gave me a huge wave. Two women I don't know. While I was walking and trying to remain invisible, ball cap pulled down, over-sized shirt to cover my butt and gut, feeling fat because another person sent a message telling me they could help me lose weight, these woman saw my face. They saw it and smiled. True, real smiles. I walked a little faster. I held my chin up a little more. I felt encouraged.

So maybe do that. Encourage each other. Send me a message saying you think I'm doing great. Or send one that says you are struggling and need lifted up. I promise you, I'll encourage you in anyway you want me to. I will give you my best smile and a big wave and a "way to go, I see you working at your goals". I'll most certainly be cheering you as you walk through your hell. I'll not focus on your scars and wrinkles and weight, I'll be too busy cheering your success and joys to even notice.

Again, I'm not against the hustle. I struggle with strangers acting like friends to sell me something to change my body when I've not asked for it. That hurts. It shouldn't, but it does. Perhaps just think about it for a moment before you hit the friend request button.

Words...

like shoes, matter. They wound and heal. They can share your fears, loves, joy, sorrow. They give and they take away. They love and they break hearts. When they are whispered, they can make you smile with delight or blush with embarrassment. When shouted, they can excite and encourage or destroy and incite. They save you and they escape you. They can be heaven and they can be hell.

I have a love/hate relationship with words. Their meanings seem to change depending on who is using them. Their relevance decided by the youngest among us. We can manipulate and convince folks that lies are truth. Sometimes, I can't find the right ones, good or bad, to tell you exactly what I'm trying to tell you. Frustrating, that's a word that fits. 

I remember being young and thinking the descriptors my parents used were, like totally gross. Can you imagine saying "You dig, man?" or "That's so groovy!" Conversely, I cringed when my mom would use our current vernacular.  "Jump back" out of my mom's mouth would make me roll my eyes. And now, some of the phrases my stepdaughters' use would be absolutely mangled in my mouth. They say "extra" to describe things not just ask for more mayo for their fries. It's all very confusing and makes me feel so antiquated.

I have noticed, though, that some words which have always had the same definitions, important words, heavy word, have now become throw-aways. Due to overuse or incorrect context (in my opinion), their meaning is diminished. So much so, that when we use them as they were originally intended, they can't express our depth of feeling or our intent. And we're left without the words we need.

Friend. Best friend. Remember what those meant before the age of social media? Best friend is the first person I told when I got my period and lost my virginity. Best friends are the ones who showed up when my dad died, when I lost my babies, when I had a hysterectomy. They were there when I found my big, crazy love. They cheered for me from afar when I married. They are on my team, even when I'm not, 

They've also shared everyday little things.Their friendship is made up of thousands of moments and memories. They've been there and done that with and for and to you. They hold your memories. They are gentle with your heart and your mind, but they are also a leopard print shoe in the tush when you need it. You have argued and disagreed and taken breaks from each other, but you always, always find your way back, because that's what true and loyal and real friendship is made of. You find it hard to have a new "best friend" when you've had a real one. (Of course, a life change can create an opportunity for a new best friend.) You find it impossible to use the phrase so easily when you've experienced the love of a kindred spirit.    

Friend or best friend has now become a "confirm" click on a keyboard. Instead of years in the trenches with someone, sharing and trusting, it's a thumbs up. If we get real, some of our "friends" on social media are really just people we knew whose life we want to search. We want to see if we are better, smarter, more successful than they are. We want to complain about their world views, they hairdos, and what they are up to. We are friends in order to pick them apart. 

So friendship has devolved into simply a pass-time. A word with less meaning. Best friends change daily. They become the person in the latest selfie with you or who you spending time with this weekend. I'm concerned that if the word loses its meaning, soon friendship will too. I hear words like "we're close friends" and what that means is "we talked crap about the same person" or "we sat beside each other at a ballgame".

There are times when I think the word "friend" simply isn't big enough. It doesn't say everything I need it to say. I also think that about the word "love". We use the same word to describe how we feel about ice cream as we do about how we feel about our dogs. We love our spouses and our children, but not in the same way. I love my bed. I love moisturizer. I love my husband. Those things are not equal, yet one word is all we have to describe how we feel. I'm thinking that started long ago, just like what we're doing with words like "friend". It meant something big, something particular and then we decided to toss it around like candy at the end of a parade route.

I looooove that chair. I looooove you man. I'll love you forever. Love isn't a big enough word for how I feel about my husband. I try to think of words that do describe it and find my vocabulary lacking. What if we had different words that described the love of a friend, how you love your pets, what you feel for you children? They would be so specific and so precious, we'd all understand. We'd all know what you meant when you said it. No confusion. And you would feel satisfied when you used the word that their depth or type of feeling was being clearly expressed. 

Literally...don't get me started on that. Unless you are in that moment dying, you aren't literally dying. Hater is used to describe anyone who doesn't agree with you, not necessary someone who hates. Hero is someone who bounces a ball and also someone who defends our country. Patriot, well that's anyone who agrees with our politics and yells it loud enough. We've robbed these words of their intended use.

Words need their weight. They have to have heft and intensity and poignancy. They must have true meaning. We are charged with making them do their jobs. We must keep them real and true. We can't just toss them out without their definitions motivating their use and keep ourselves true to their purpose. We need to find ourselves more frequently at a loss for them instead of just grabbing on and using them without thought. Even me. There's really no hell here. Not in my life or my writing. Fresh or otherwise. There's literally friends and best friends instead of hell. And always the search for the word that explains love.

What would you do...

if that thing, the belief that winds you up and makes you raise your fist, was suddenly gone? I'm talking about you winning your cause, then what would you do? What if the fire in your belly was suddenly put out?  Would you become part of the solution or would you find a fresh hell?

My timeline is absolutely full of people posting what they are "pro" or "anti". Guns, family, America, walls, Veterans, confederate flags... and on and on and on. What if the thing you are PRO or ANTI (capitol letters, hundreds of memes, "I hate..."), was resolved in your favor? Then what?

The thing I'm seeing most lately is anti-abortion or pro-life. There's a difference, you realize? At least to me. In the broadest of terms, anti-abortion means you don't believe any abortion should ever be performed. Pro-life means believing all lives are sacred and it's our duty to care about all those lives. Even if we don't look like that person, agree with the person, their lives are still something we cherish. No matter what they have done, if you say all lives are sacred then you certainly must behave that way. Right?

I'm not here to talk about abortion or anti-abortion. I'm not going to try to convince you to think one way or the other. I'm not going to judge anyone for believing what they believe. I'm here to talk about calling oneself "pro-life" when one really means "anti-abortion". I'm asking you what you are really doing to make an abortion unnecessary for someone else? I'm asking you what are you really doing to help the women who are making the decision in this moment whether to terminate their pregnancy? Are you actively part of the helping or simply doing the judging?

I see many rants/pictures/reposts of absolute rage and hatred towards women who have abortions. I see "murderer" "trash" and "sluts". I read comments from women saying if they met a women who had an abortion they would "beat the $hit" out of them. Women who have abortions should be stabbed, shot, drowned, tortured and burned. If you are "pro-life" how do you reconcile that with wanting to kill women?

I've read stories of women who have chosen to terminate a late-term pregnancy because their child would come into the world gagging and clawing for air, seizing and writhing in pain. I've read about men who've had to chose who dies... their wife or their baby. I've read about a mother choosing to save her own life because when she said she'd do anything for her children, she had to pick between dying for one and living to take care of the others. And I've read the comments. The absolute hate and vitriol and "I would never" from women and men who have no idea what that must have felt like. Instead of "Christ-like love", I see hate on a demonic level. Jesus forgives, but commenters don't. 

I read posts about people marching and I wonder how many crisis nurseries the money spent (fuel, hotels, airfare, food) could fund. I see the protesters outside of abortion providers and wonder if there isn't a more helpful way they could spend their time...a way that could actually provide a solution for a woman who believes this is her only choice.

I read the posts online and I wonder what else that person is doing to help. Because frankly, posting hate and rage and passing along information that is sometimes true and sometimes propaganda doesn't seem to be ending abortion. 

If you really want to end abortion, truly end it, outlawing it won't do it. It just won't; women will have them illegally. So you're not really ending abortions, you're just ending legal abortions.  What if we focused our time and energy and money on making abortions due to economic situations unnecessary? What if we created a true alternative? You can say adoption, but look at all the kids in foster care who never are adopted. Look at kids with special needs who can't find a home. 

The abortions I'm discussing here are specifically women who make this decision based on their economic circumstances. Based on research, women have abortions for multiple reasons, often chief among them is financial inability to care for a child. So let's just work on that for now.

What if abortion due to lack of financial capacity to raise a child stopped tomorrow? Would you be done or would you step up and help all those women and men who carried their babies to term and now don't have the ability, means, or help to take care of that child? Are you doing that now?

Are you offering the woman walking into the clinic a ride to her prenatal appointments? Will you take her child to school when she can't? Will you take that child into your home when its sick so the parents don't have to choose between taking off work to stay with them because daycare won't take a kiddo with a fever and putting food on the table? Will you help with clothes and toys, books and medical expenses? Will you pay school fees and help get their kid to ball games? Will you do all that until the child is 18? Or will you stand with your signs screaming and name calling?

Which do you think is the more effective approach? Which do you truly think will change a woman's mind? Social media posts or actual help? What are you doing now? 

Will you volunteer at a crisis nursery? Will you be more understanding of the parent using SNAP or WIC or will you continue to post about "deadbeats" and "the government tit"? Will you text about the mom in the doctor's office using a medical card? Going so far as to snap a quick picture and post with the comment, "This is what's wrong with America." Will you call for the mother to be drug tested, because she must be a druggie to be on government assistance? Will you march for free birth control or will you loudly joke about "keeping their legs together" if they can't afford a child?

Will you be aware and grateful if you are fortunate enough to have parents, family and friends who supported you when you became pregnant or are still helping you and/or your partner take care of your children? Will you judge the mom who takes her 16 year old daughter to get birth control? Will you be righteous because you have help and support and belittle those who don't or will YOU become the support? Will you donate coats and clothes and toys without having to show everyone on social media that you did? Or will you take pictures of the parents and kids receiving your "charity" caring more about your recognition than about their dignity?

I do pray to end abortion. I do. But I know that prayer has to have legs and helping hands. Condemning and judging and hate flying from your mouth and fingertips absolutely will never end abortion. It won't or it would have already. Doing, being, supporting and helping might. 

When you see that little momma in front of you swiping her SNAP card, instead of taking inventory of what she's wearing and what kind of cellphone she is using, how about seeing if you can help? Entertain someone's children in the waiting room instead of posting about "trash" on public assistance. Ask the single parents you know if they need help getting their children to and from school/appointments/sports or if they need a break. How about instead of posting, you start helping.

Believe me, I understand the outrage. I also see the heartbreak. I also know that people will do what feels like the biggest payoff for them. For some people, it's relishing the delicious feeling of righteous indignation. It's the rush of the rage. For some people it's feeling superior. "I'd never do that; I'm better than you." For some people it's hiding their own regrets by getting everyone to look at someone else. I understand it, but it creates no change. It solves nothing.

If you were doing all of the above things, then you probably wouldn't have as much time to carry that torch and pitchfork; you'd be too busy cradling a baby or dropping someone's child at soccer. You'd be too busy bearing one another's burdens to press post and contribute to their hell. 

And days of ...

auld lang syne. Do you know what it means? Times long past. That's what it means. It seems like this time of year we all seem very melancholy about how it used to be. We become nostalgic for the loveliness that was visited upon us over the past year, and we pause and get a bit misty eyed as we begin to shake off the dust of the old year and walk hopefully into the new.

But not this year. Our nostalgia for "times long past" reaches further back, beyond 2016 which is now scorned and disparaged and, dare I say, hated. Frankly, I see why. The performing arts community has lost some beloved members, our country seems divided in ways those of us fifty and under haven't experienced. Divided by money and power, race and religion, popular and electoral, gender, sexuality... the list goes on and on.

One of the saddest divides seems to be between those who hope and those who are in despair. There are those who are frightened and confused and oppressed. There are those who have become embolden -- for good and for bad. There are those whose voices now roar and those who have been reduced to a whisper -- again for good and for bad. Those who are seemingly irrecoverably lost, irreparably broken, irreversibly hurt. And we wish for old times past when they were whole. When we were all whole or at least we were more whole.

But in the middle of this darkness, fear, despair, gloating, greed, rage and arrogance we find beautifully bright lights. These lights, the people who carry them will show us the way home... the way to the before we broke ourselves, individually, as a community, as a nation, as a civilization. It was not perfect, our humanity, it really never was but it was striving to do better. I believe that most people have a centering spot inside them, sometimes deep but often near the surface, that wants this world to be good for everyone. We all want to leave it better than we found it. We have to start acting like it.

I've always tried, when writing this blog, to not accuse or judge or sway a person's thinking. I believe free-will was given to us after we begged for it from the Divine. When writing I imagine walking you over to a window and asking you to look at the view from there. Sometimes you are familiar with it and have embraced it. Sometimes you haven't. It's up to you at that point to decide if that view is how you want to see what's out there or not. It's up to you. I'm not here to make you feel and think and believe as I do. I'm here to offer my perspective.

Here's how I'm looking at my 2016. I do come from a place of privilege... white, middle-aged, Midwestern, Christian, straight married woman, so take it as you may. Here's the view out of my window, because honestly, it's all I've got.

2016 is the year...

I found myself engaged, married, infinitely loved, divinely favored, truly blessed. I found myself stuck in an airport with my patient and loving husband. I found out that the wife must carry all the things. I've learned that step daughters will bring you joys unspeakable and that they will repeatedly scare you with a loud noise all the while taking video to put on Snapchat. I found that St. Croix isn't my cup of tea, and that sunrises with coffee and my husband are.

My hair will never not be gray in some spot. My feet now reject my highest of heels and sometimes any heel at all, but looking at my shoes color coordinated on the rack is enough. That figuring out what's for dinner for more than just myself is hard, yo.  That you will find peace and contentment in folding laundry when you allow yourself to be grateful not just for your clothes but for the people for whom you are folding them.

Girls use lots of toilet paper. Taking a vacation to the beach with my husband and his girls and my brother's family was a dream come true and that I seriously suck at beach volleyball, but am awesome at fetching wet sand for sand castles.

Today when I accidentally gave my husband an anniversary card instead of a birthday card, he laughed and told me he loved me and that it was his very favorite card aside from those his daughters have made him. I found that even when I make a mistake... small or large... I'm loved and accepted. And that it will likely be a running joke for a while.

The kids in my life will never again be the age they are. The urgency I feel for this or that will wan as I find a new something to be passionate about. That drama is usually created by those of us who constantly point out drama. That there are people I don't need in my life and those I want with me every sunrise and sunset. Some people won't be here this time next year, so I better be grateful and present for them now. That I'm not guaranteed the next 365 days.

I learned that we have a lot of work to do to make the world a better, safer place and I should start with my corner, my mind, my heart and my mouth.
I learned that you cannot take away someone's fear.
I learned that I'm entitled to my beliefs, but expressing them also requires me to be responsible for them.
I learned that you never change someone with hate or ridicule, but by love.
I've learned that I have so very much to learn.

2016 took a lot, broke a lot, hurt a lot. Oh but didn't it have some high spots for you? I do hope that as 2017 creeps over the horizon, you have a small sense of nostalgia for moments this past year that were shining and beautiful. I know I do. So as we count down to the new year perhaps we purposely take the love and laughter with us, while also using the heartbreak to motivate us to do better this time around the sun. Let's keep in mind the song just says "times long past" not happy or perfect times... just times.

Here's to loving and learning and finding the fresh in 2017 and leaving the hell behind. Me, I'll probably be fast asleep, holding my husband's hand when 2017 dawns. That's a perfect beginning.