what i need.

i must admit that it has been odd not to write here on my blog lately. there is something happening in my life, something that isn’t one of those things one can share on a blog, that has spun me around a bit. something that really has more to do with someone else’s journey, yet, it deeply affects me too. it is all i have wanted to write about. mostly because i am seeking a chorus of people who might say, “oh yes, i know this. it will be hard. you are not alone.”

to dance around something feels odd and almost fake, but i am going to ask that you simply give me the space to do this. sharing the details is not for me to do.

those of you who have been stopping by for a while have probably noticed that i don’t talk about my family too much (as in, this aspect of my childhood is something i had to seek therapy about or when that happened when i was a child and on and on) because those things are deeply private. i do reveal a lot about myself here. but, i tend to reveal things that are just about me, and tend not share intimate details about the other people in my life that are their own pieces to share.

over the last few days, i have realized that because this is my place to come and be fully present, i do want to share some pieces of my childhood, of what is happening right now, of what has lead me to this place, to this moment. so for a while…maybe a long while…there will be this overarching theme of how this non-specific “something” is affecting me and those i love.

february 3 was the second anniversary of my dog traveler’s death. i didn’t dwell on it too much because i spent the day making my way across the country to chicago where another friend and i surprised our friend missy for her 30th birthday. the joy of being part of an oprah-like surprise moment is some kind of fun. keeping the secret and then sharing that moment with six of my dear friends was something i will keep close to my heart always. a perfect moment really. it was a whirlwind of a quick trip, but one that filled me up with all the good stuff that time with friends who have known you more than half your life can give you. (thank you girls.)

returning home though, i was back in the quiet. back to being alone most of the time. back to the place where each day is leading me closer to the time of my grandmother’s death. even though i love spring, and it makes me so happy that the tulips are peeking their way up through the soil, my heart aches because i cannot call her to tell her that the days are warmer and that i can smell spring in the air. this was her favorite time of year. last friday, i walked outside to the backyard with millie after it had just stopped raining and it smelled like the air on a cool spring day outside my grandparents house in south carolina. i could hear myself protesting as she would have demanded that i put on a sweater and my shoes and walk around the yard with her, so that we could see what was happening out there in the world of plants and birds and small animals. that moment last week was like a little whisper from her. it didn’t invite tears, just a smile.

still, i can feel an ache in my chest as i wish she was home so i could call her and say, “i cannot believe this is happening. can you? i am so overwhelmed right now.” and she would listen and then ask me about my plants or what i have been cooking lately. and then we might make plans to talk again soon. i would hear her voice.

back in november, my teacher told me about a workshop that she thought i might be interested in. it was a workshop for yoga teachers at her studio. another friend encouraged me to go, so i have had it in my head for weeks that i would be attending. when this past saturday came around and it was time to go, i realized i had only a vague idea of what the workshop was going to be about and wasn’t quite prepared for what i found when i opened the folder sitting at my seat in the circle at the workshop.

the topic: grief and loss.

the teacher was anna rhodes; a psychologist who studied with, worked with, and was friends with elizabeth kubler-ross. i learned so much in this workshop…and i will just share and share here as the waves of new understanding hit me. i still feel a bit raw from the experience and the combination of it with the other things happening right now.

reflecting on the workshop, i came to realize something important. the timing of my grandmother’s death has greatly affected me. although i know she was old and sick with something the doctor’s could not diagnose. although the timing of her death came as a surprise. although she was “just” my grandmother. although it has been almost two years and on and on…i still feel a bit stuck in the pain of the timing of it all. a few months prior to her death, we had just moved across the country from the only area i had ever lived. several people, and my dog, had been diagnosed with cancer. i didn’t have a full-time job or real sense of self-identity in this new community. my dog had just died of cancer. throughout all of this, the one person i could count on to be home to just chat with me, to answer questions about what to do with a yard and how to plant things, to brainstorm what to make for dinner, to cry about how much i missed traveler, that one person was suddenly gone. she wasn’t available to answer the phone for me to tell her that she was dead. she wasn’t there to say “i’m sorry you are going through this” as i wept about losing her. this is a huge piece of the agony i still feel. my life shifted so much in a few short months, and she was the one constant through it all. and with her death, that constant was taken away. forever.

anna talked about how as people who take care of others, we have to listen to what someone says when describing their pain and grief. people say things like, “i can’t catch my breath.” “my heart feels torn apart.” “my mind is going crazy.” “i can’t remember anything.” we have to listen to this, because this is the reality of how they are feeling physically and emotionally.

hearing this was a true “aha” moment for me. for the last, almost, two years, i have been thinking and sometimes saying that my heart feels broken. literally broken. that when i saw my grandmother in the funeral home, i felt my heart break. and each time i have to remind myself that she is dead, and i have to envision her in that funeral home again to remember, it feels like it breaks again. this is what is happening.

i talked to anna afterwards and she said, “you need to tell the people who take care of you that this is what it feels like so that they can do things for your heart.”

the people who take care of me.

i am a bit stuck at this phrase. but, this has caused me to have a new awareness of what i need.

what i need.

i need to be held. a lot. i need to rest in between my husband and our crazy, furry golden retriever and just feel safe. i need to be honest that my heart feels broken. i need to share my story again and again. i need to seek support in ways i haven’t in the past. i need to wrap myself up in warm blankets and wool sweaters when the chill sets in. i need to be held. i need to have someone pet my head. i need to surround myself with little things that invite happiness. i need to remember what it is that makes me happy. i need to create and push myself. i need to be held. i need to be honest. i need to share all that lives inside me. i need to tell my story. i need to sit by the sea. i need to let another take care of me sometimes. i need to be held and rocked and caressed. i need to be held. i need to be held.

and i am trying to find ways to share what i need and let go of the guilt that comes with asking. to just be honest and let the people who take care of me know what i need.

(whispering now)…maybe you could try this too. we can each try it. and be there for one another in this new experience of realizing and then sharing what we need.

sitting in the quiet

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.
Sylvia Plath

i am sitting in the quiet right now. breathing. trying to remind myself that i have all the answers inside me...that i just have to be still enough to hear them.

true essence

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
Ambrose Redmoon

You. Hold on tight to what you know. Sit for just a moment and take a breath. And notice what you know to be true. What you know to be real. What resonates deep within. Breathe. Just notice. It may be that only shadows of what you know to be true appear today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. But, when the moment comes and you make the choice to hold on to courage by your fingertips as you acknowledge the fear that lives within you…that moment that is today…that is the moment when the shadows shift into the glowing flame that is your heart. That is the moment you begin to become the true essence of yourself.

a prayer

Tonight, I want to share a prayer in the form of a quote from a wise man from my favorite show, The West Wing:

“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’”

- John Spencer as Leo McGarry on The West Wing (Season 2, Episode 10)

May all people who feel as though they are in a hole realize they are not alone.

You are not alone.

just keep going

I wrote this earlier today, before I had a conversation that shifted my thinking a bit. Still, I want to share these thoughts…and then in another post or two or three, I will share the shift and some other stuff that happened in between last week and this moment right now…

********

As I mentioned in a post last week, I lost a bracelet that meant a lot to me. Buying that bracelet was, for me, a way to buy myself a little gift that would remind me that I am on my path. A little talisman to say, “you are doing it girl.” And I wore it, literally all the time, for almost a year. I think I took it off once to show it to a friend and once as it didn’t quite go with a dress I wore to a wedding last summer. The bright colors reminded me of how I am inviting color, creativity, and awareness into my life. Wearing it all the time, it became a bit like a wedding ring to myself in bracelet form.

Last week, I wrote a letter directed “to the Universe” about this missing bracelet. I could have addressed this letter to myself, to God, to fate, and on and on. I actually don’t use the word universe when I think of a higher power. I usually use god, especially when I pray. Though I think of god as like the collective energy of all that is and was. I think of god as all that I know and all that I could never understand. In that moment though, universe seemed to be the word that fit. I tend not to specifically talk about religion on my blog, partly because I find that there are two topics that can invite people to quickly make assumptions about another person when discussed. These topics are, of course, politics and religion. My blog isn’t really a place for me to go on about these two topics, though I do bring them up occasionally.

That said, last week, when I wrote the letter to the Universe that I posted here, I was actually crying as I wrote it. Almost a week later, I have taken a breath, of course, and see that it was just a bracelet that I lost. At the same time, I know that I deeply understood that then.

However, last week was one of those dark weeks. A week when I wasn’t doing my practice and was feeling overwhelmed by a lot of stuff in my life. I was feeling a bit misunderstood. I wanted to pour out some of the guts of life that had been stuck in me a bit. I wanted to just feel sorry for myself even knowing it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I wanted to feel sorry for myself about the last few years because I haven’t really let myself do that as much as I need to because most of the time I don’t see much point in that.

People often say, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” I can hear an adult figure, can’t remember who, saying this about a friend from high school when she lost her brother in a car accident when she had already lost her mother to cancer. I remember thinking, “that is shit” but heard it so many times that I started to think maybe it could be true. But, right here, in this moment, hear me when I say, “I think that is shit.” I don’t think it is about how much you can handle. There is no “handling” of it all, there is only breathing. You just get up and breathe. You just go to sleep and breathe. You do what you do. You can only go on. That is your only choice.

This is what I have been doing. As we approach the second anniversary of Traveler’s death, which means we are approaching the second anniversary of my grandmother’s death, which means it has been almost three years since I saw my grandmother alive, which means I will never see her alive again because she is dead, I know my only choice is to just keep on going.

I don’t mean this in a melodramatic way. I mean this as truth. And some of you are nodding as you read this and know what I mean. I don’t mean that I don’t see the beauty of my world. Hell, I find gratitude in my day, every single day, as part of my personal practice now. I see it. I know it is there. But the fact is, my life is different because I have been in the middle of this big fucking wide hole that is grief. I have sat in the middle of it, pitched a tent in it some days, chosen to take a walk around it on other days. This is how it goes. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean that life isn’t different. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you have forgotten. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you don’t also see all the good stuff.

Last week, I was having one of those moments when I wanted to simply say, “I need to take a little rest here. This is getting too hard.” But, of course, it isn’t too hard; it is what it is.

You take another breath.

I do get that all I lost was one little piece of materialism. Yes, it is replaceable. I get it.

I am a person trying to, struggling to learn the lessons all the time. Last week, I was feeling dizzy from trying to learn all the lessons. I had spent quite a bit of time upset about how I can’t seem to learn them. How I think I am trying too hard. How I get that the lessons are there for a reason. I was finding my way back to that place where the words feel stuck in my throat because I can’t just be honest about something; instead, I have to try to package it in a way that I think will protect other people because I am so busy thinking about them and not thinking about me that when I try to say it, the words only confuse instead of explain. Last week, I was trying to work my way through it. To move forward. To find my way instead to a place where I can speak about what I really need, feel, and so on. I felt like I was spinning, spinning in circles. Sharing some of this today is an invitation to myself to stop letting the words get stuck…

As several people hoped I woud see, I, of course, see the lesson. I see the irony of losing a superhero bracelet and that, as Andrea told me when I ordered it, I had the superhero power in me before buying the bracelet. I so get it.

But really, I also get this: Sometimes something isn’t a lesson you have to learn in one specific moment in time or just because someone else really wants you to see it. Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that meant a lot to you during a week when you were already feeling really bad. Sometimes you just need to feel bad about losing that bracelet and let go of the need for a lesson in that moment. To let go of the need to please someone else who wants you to see the lesson. Sometimes you need to realize that every single moment of your life isn’t a lesson. Otherwise, someone like me, might become completely paralyzed, unable to move because of all the lessons I am trying to learn in a single moment.

Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that means a lot to you, sometimes people die, sometimes life is confusing, sometimes it gets a little dark until you find the light…and you just keep going and going.

You just keep finding your breath, breathing in and out, and you just keep going.

And you just keep seeing the lessons even when it looks like something isn’t a lesson, even when you have to admit that you know it is one.

You just keep doing the best you can.

note to self. ten years later.

(found tucked into succulent wild woman. written at the end of my junior year in college.)

take a breath

The Buddha says, "Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all."

[updated to add: my talented husband snapped this photo in our backyard a couple weeks ago. a buddha wrapped in snow.]

dear universe:

i think you already know that i do the best i can. even when the best i can is not that great, it is still the best i can do. i didn’t rage at you when four loved ones were diagnosed with cancer in one month a two years ago. i didn’t rage at you when i sat at the dining room table staring at the phone after the vet told me traveler had cancer and became the fifth loved one. i didn’t rage at you when, even though we put him through chemo and got into debt and prayed and prayed that he would get better, traveler died less than three months after his diagnosis. i didn’t rage at you when my grandmother got sick and the doctors couldn’t diagnose her. i didn’t rage at you when she died the day before i was supposed to visit her. i didn’t rage at you when my good friend lost her husband who had also been my dear friend. i didn’t rage at you when all this was happening when i had just moved all the way across from the country from my family and i didn’t know anyone and i didn’t have full-time work. i didn’t rage at you when i felt sad, misunderstood, and confused. i didn’t rage at you when things didn’t meet my expectations. i didn’t rage at you when other people hurt my feelings. i didn’t rage at you when i hurt others. i didn’t rage at you when i found myself suddenly sick and scared. i didn’t rage at you when the doctor told me it might be cancer. i didn’t rage at you when i had the icky procedure that scared me. i didn’t rage at you when we couldn’t go and see my family for Thanksgiving because of that procedure. i didn’t rage at you when other people in my life were diagnosed with cancer. i didn’t rage at you when we couldn’t see our family for Christmas because of the snow in Colorado. i didn’t rage at you when both my computers died. i didn’t rage at you when life just generally felt sucky.
nope.

i either raged at me or just felt sad.

over the last few years, especially in the last few months, i am trying to shift my way of looking at things for real this time. i am trying to seek out the good stuff and not be so negative. i know that i am changing and growing into someone i want to be. and i think that you might have taken the time to notice that. but even if you don’t notice, i am going to do it anyway.

but yesterday, yesterday was the last straw as they say. yesterday, i lost my superhero bracelet. the one i have been wearing every single day for a year. the one i don’t take off. ever. not ever. ever. yesterday, i lost it. i have looked everywhere in, around, and inside my car and house. i even drove 25 miles back to the mall where i think i lost it yesterday. i even walked all around the parking lot looking for it and talked to the lost and found and went to Nordstrom and looked in their lost and found.

so universe, here is the deal. if someone needed it more than me. if someone found it and saw it and its beauty and super special powers. okay. i get it. that is great. but still, i am just a little over this “liz will be fine” shit. i am a little over this “liz can handle it” shit. yep.

so if you could show me where it might be, that would be great.
otherwise, let in some light okay.
it is getting dark in here.

sincere regards,
liz