emotion

Better Than When We Started
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash

Motherhood has taught me to speed up.

I push the cart at the grocery store a little faster, and walk briskly through Home Depot for fear of tears or fussiness. I gobble down meals because the baby always seems to need to eat right when we sit down.

Tending to my little one’s needs first requires putting my own rhythms on the back burner. Instead, I find pauses in ten minute intervals to eat a banana, respond to an email, wash my hair, or write a blog post before bed.

We moved this last weekend, and boxes are everywhere. Piles of ‘to be put away’, ‘to be hung on the wall’, and ‘to donate’ muddy the new white carpet. We step around gobs of brown, crumbled packing tape and whisper ‘Hey, where’s the toothpaste?’ when attempting a new bedtime routine.

I want to move quickly to find homes for our belongings, but the sense of urgency here is not serving me. I get interrupted with the need for a bottle, a diaper change, or breathing through a fear of what’s coming next. The desire to organize perfectly cripples me.

One of my to-do’s this week was to clean out the old house. I asked a friend to help, and she graciously said yes. When I dropped the baby at my mom’s, I was in a hurry. I wanted to scrub and vacuum, and turn over the keys. I wanted to be ready to leave behind the home we called ours for the last seven years.

However, when I walked in the door to do drop-off with the baby in her carseat, I burst into tears. The emotions from the last three months came bubbling up, no longer tolerating the stuffing down I’ve been attempting. I could no longer speed up this part of the process.

I texted my friend, ‘late again’, and when I was ready, she was in the driveway with her vacuum to help me suck up and wipe away our last marks in the house. I cried as I cleaned, and my friend nodded as witness. Endings are never easy for me. I have a lot of feelings.

However, I chose not to speed up this good-bye.

I inventoried the changes we had made. We painted every wall, built a laundry room, re-did the kitchen, updated the baseboards, landscaped, gardened, planted, and raked, and built bookshelves. In those walls, we lost a parent, trained a puppy, had over seven jobs between us, survived a pandemic, experienced pregnancy, and brought our baby to her first home. We made that house our home.

Walking from empty room to empty room, I vocalized my thanks for my happy memories, and touched my heart for the painful experiences the walls witnessed. I said thank you for housing us, for our growth, for the opportunity for two to become three.

As my friend swept the front porch before we closed the door, I shared the phrase repeating in my head – “Leave things better than when you found them.”

I can proudly say Dylan and I did just that.

Slowing down to say goodbye to our first home and leaving it better than when we started – beautiful things.

Real

william-zhao-bjKNo2O7sAo-unsplash

I sent a text pleading today. Standing on the fading back porch, I typed with tears in my eyes.

“I already lost a parent, I don’t want to lose you too.”

The black letters clicked as my fingers pressed into the digital screen.

My thumbs seemed numb, typing heavily as emotion welled in my chest.

I could have picked up the phone, but hiding behind typing and screens felt safer.

Grief slipped between my sentences as I passed my Covid anxiety from my gut to the pocket where his cell phone lingered.

Crying in the kitchen, Dylan hugged me this afternoon and I whimpered, “I just don’t want to lose anyone else.”

On Instagram, and blogs, and videos across the world grief experts are sharing comfort, perspective, and expertise for those new to loss. Coping mechanisms creep up in posts and in video chats and healthy ways to channel our triggers seem to zip in the spaces connecting us on the internet. As someone who writes extensively about my experience with life after loss, I’ve been wondering and waiting for epiphanies to come.

What wisdom can I share to help the newly bereaved? The same lessons apply to the panicked, the hurting, the newly unemployed? What responsibility do I have as an “influencer” who is using personal pain to help guide others?

I’ve stayed quiet because I don’t have much.

I return to the basics and I encourage myself and others to find comfort.

Soothe yourself with warm blankets and cups of tea. Splurge for the brand-name tissues as you wipe your eyes. Light a candle. Nourish yourself. Take a slow walk around your neighborhood. Wear a mask.

And today, when my own imagined panic crept in like fog moving over the mountains, I let the wave consume me. I felt the overflow of emotion leak up out from my chest and onto the laminate floor.

My grief wounds drip fresh with the fear of loss not yet real.

I imagine thousands around the world are feeling the same.

Rather than whisper antidotes and remedies, tonight I give permission.

I’m not an influencer. I’m a human living an experience of life after loss. I finger my scars and I breathe deeply and remember I am human, prone to loss and intense experiences in an aching world.

I give myself beautiful permission to live in this uncomfortable, seemingly horrible space.

I give you permission to ask for a hug. To send pleading text messages and grace for the tears sure to fall. I welcome the beauty found in the permission to accept a warm embrace, even if the arms wrapped around your shoulders are your own.

Pandemic life is scary and hard. The fog licks our fingers and faces and leaves a chill in our bones.

Give yourself the beautiful permission to feel all of this. To weep in the kitchen. To send the texts and express your love and ask for what you need.

At the end of the day, I only want to influence real.

Real is beautiful.

July Favorite Things – 2019

New month. New favorites.

I want to hear about your gratitude lists and what’s bringing you joy!

These are some things bringing me joy this month.

  1. Ursa Major Skin Care
    I like using natural skin care products and many of them are amazingly expensive. Not this stuff. The face wash leaves my skin feeling fresh and the balm leaves me moisturized and happy. The scents are refreshing, natural and light. And all the products are within my budget.
  2. No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffie

This book is charming, smart, and gives me hope for the workplace. As someone who cries at work, I’m encouraged people are leading the charge to encourage more empathy and healthy coping mechanisms in the spaces we spend most of our time.

3. This foccacia recipe

Even though it’s 94 degrees out, I’ve got the oven and the air conditioning on. And if you need me, I’ll be eating this delicious bread. Scared of yeast? You can’t go wrong with this stuff perfect for the amateur baker.

4. Watermelon Cucumber Cooler

I gave up alcohol for the month of June and have been drinking this instead. Mix with some sparkling water and lime for a refreshing after-work drink. If you’re feeling fancy I suppose you could add some tequila or vodka. I won’t tell.

5. Rainboots

Because Colorado can’t make up it’s mind. Bring some joy to the afternoon thunderstorm with these fun galoshes.

Have a joyful July.

Blue

I’ve been listening to podcasts. This is a new development, as I have a hard time sitting down and focusing on audio for more than ten minutes at a time. I guess I’m more of a visual learner. A few weeks ago my mom sent me this one on grief. Counselor and Author Patrick O’Malley shares patterns found in his work counseling grieving people. His biggest take away – people don’t want to forever move away from grief, but rather they want people who are safe to talk to. Safe to process with. Safe to listen to their story.

I want people to listen to my story. I know, as they all have been damn well telling me, this is going to affect me for the rest of my life.

Mr. O’Malley also says that our culture gets grief wrong because we attach negative or positive labels to the process. If a person is grieving and they are having trouble getting out of bed, can’t go to work, or continues to be sad, this is bad. Negative emotions = negative experiences of grief.

If the opposite is true, and a person is functioning well – working, going out with friends, remaining connected – we equate that with a successful handling of loss. Congrats, snap your hands, you’ve moved on. The reality of living with grief lies somewhere in the middle.

Over the last year and a half I DID function. I went to work, spent time with friends, and the grief gremlin still lived within. I can still be really sad, foggy, and confused. On the outside, I was living in the positive. On the inside, I was struggling, yet because I wasn’t visibly falling apart or unable to function it seemed like things were moving along just fine. This spectrum of grief as bad and healing as good is damaging to those who are working their way through it.

Today, I listened to this new podcast “The Other F Word – Conversations About Failure.”  The title drew me in immediately, as any opportunity to reference the REAL F word makes me curious. But no, here they are talking about the other one – failure.

Sam Lamott’s Episode hones in on how harmful our projections of perfect can be. How when we hold in our stories we miss out on honest, authentic living. His approach suggests that, as humans, we are all going to flow through positive and negative. We need to be more honest in our responses to the question ‘How are you today?’

He says, and I’m paraphrasing here, that it can be freeing to answer with ‘I’m feeling a little blue today.’

“BLUE IS BEAUTIFUL,” he said, “the sky is blue, and the ocean, and many beautiful things.”

My eyes filled with tears and I nodded along. Blue is beautiful too.

Mountains. Clouds. Rain drops. Flowers. Plums. Peacocks. Ice. Sharks. Payphones. Jazz. Blueberries. Birds. Emotions.

All blue.

I’m trying to give myself grace and combine Mr. O’Malley and Mr. Lamott’s wisdom. Because today, I feel a little blue. This does not mean I am bad. An important distinction. It is ok to feel shitty, to not be living in bliss. Grief and experiences of emotion are not negative.

My mom is back where we spread my Dad’s ashes and I didn’t go this year. I ache for family vacations that will never be the same. I miss that mountain valley. I wish I was there and I could read Dad a poem or two. Thursdays I work out of the office and my heart usually feels a bit heavier when I’m working alone. Every time I turn on the news something ridiculous is happening in our country. People are hurting. This makes me sad as well.

I will get up after I click publish, and I’ll go sit outside to watch a softball game. Life will continue and my emotions will pass. I’m learning though, that there is beauty in the bravery it takes to say ‘Today, I’m just a little bit blue.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Learn more about Patrick O’Malley’s new book Getting Grief Right by clicking below.

Zoom In

The world hurts. The world aches. This blog was created to alleviate some of that internal tension for myself, to look for the silver lining, and the good amongst the struggle, the suffering, or feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. On every level, I am learning, we have the choice to acknowledge the broken parts of our lives while striving for peace and enjoyment.  You know that video from elementary school that starts with an atom and magnifies and magnifies until you are stuck in the middle of the cosmos? This one? 

I’ve been thinking about how we are called to examine ourselves and the connections on each level of magnification. Where do you stand, and how does your world expand or contract based on your own power of ten?

On a macro level, it is no surprise that our world is struggling. The refugee crisis that is unfolding has caught my attention in ways that are new to me. I’ve always loved history and quite often said if I was given the opportunity to go back in time, I would search for an adventure during World War 2. The thousands upon thousands of stories that come from those years peaked my interest since sixth grade. Twentieth Century Politics was my favorite class in high school and I was shocked by the way one book written by Marx could influence so many lives through political repercussions leading us to where we are today.

Now, however, I am realizing that tomorrow’s history is created in the present. The political conflict that is occurring now will be in textbooks when my children reach high school. These choices that leaders are making are affecting trajectories now, and that potential is of monumental size.  These are lives of individuals, families, societies, that are living today. The ‘then’ expressed in history textbooks has caught up to the now – at least in my almost fully developed frontal lobe. I send empathy and compassion to those attempting to rebuild, to strive for something good, to make sense of things that seem unfathomable overseas.

As I zoom in a little bit, and reflect on community connection, waves of sadness hit me too. A young man my brother grew up with lost his battle to mental health this week, and I was shocked by his passing. Pain on a micro level ripples here too, in our own little communities that are supposed to be free of these social issues. I’m learning no, the suffering is here too, in our own circles, with our own friends, with our co-workers, and women in our book clubs.

I am not claiming I can begin to relate to these stories, these struggles, or the tremendous questions that arise out of situations like this. Rather, I am asking myself this week to zoom in. Zoom in and think about how my actions can help or hinder other’s struggles. Zoom in and allow myself to cry, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, while we try to make sense of these situations that are never perfectly going to make sense. Zoom in and recognize the beauty in feeling all of your emotions.

…….. the emotions related to your own relationships

……… the emotions related to situations outside of your control

……… the emotions of simply being human

The beauty in feeling the confusion, the grief, and the gratitude for the knowledge that by acknowledging these emotions, they too shall pass. Find someone you trust to process with. Or perhaps schedule a time to cry in your planner. Either way, allow yourself the space to find release.

Sometimes, you can plan when tears will cleanse. Other times the process of emotional release catches you off guard, and you have to weep. Keep weeping, keep feeling, keep searching for the beauty in the feeling not so very beautiful. This dance of zooming in and zooming out helps us find our place.