Crazy, Brave, or Something Else?

This weekend I threw a sleepover party for Katherine's tenth birthday.  Ten friends plus my daughter spent an afternoon, night, and morning together.

My friends' response to this was nearly unanimous: they said either "you're crazy!" or "you're so brave!"

I may be crazy, and I may be brave, but this is proof of neither.

I absolutely love that my daughter has such rich, deep, meaningful friendships - she's known many of these girls for her whole life.

I absolutely love that these families trust me with their children.

I absolutely love that my home can (barely!) fit such an abundance.

I love that in a world of consumerist craziness, my daughter's idea of heaven consists of a row of sleeping bags sandwiched together in a basement, lots of giggling, and home made birthday cake.

I love that I am not sick, and so I can find the energy to host such a gathering.

I love that I have my own relationships with each of these children, and so they listen to me.  Some came up and asked to help make breakfast (chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes, sausage - vegetarian and meaty, fruit, juice) and they measured and chatted and sang along with Brandi Carlisle with me as we cooked.

I love that my house is decorated with streamers, balloons, and happy birthday banners (one of which has been used every year since Katherine was one - it used to say "Happy First Birthday" and I cut out the word "First" to keep using it).

I love that I was able to say "Yes" when my daughter asked for a sleepover party.

I love that I am fully capable of doing it on my own. (Never mind that I'm on my fourth cup of coffee just to survive.)

I love that when the parents showed up for pick up and drop off, they said things like "My daughter has such a great time here" and "your home is so warm and inviting."  My house is not among the nicest in my friend group (it may be in the bottom half), but somehow....we always end up here.  I love that.

I love that one of my dearest friends, whom I have known since college, who does not have children of her own, came to help me with dinner and companionship, helping me to dish up tortellini and make caesar salad, because she has a special relationship with Katherine, too.  Another friend popped in after her date with her husband, and we shared some wine and conversation and laughter.  Wonderful.

I love that I felt strong enough to invite Bryan to come by to celebrate with our daughter.  I love that he said that he had no desire at all to attend....and that his refusal reminded me that it is actually easier to do these types of things without his growling presence.  (If he'd have come, I would have been pleased at the support that he was offering our girl.  His loss.)

I love that my life looks like these simple pleasures, that I have not lost sight of it in the midst of the pain of cancer or divorce.  I love that I know how to suck the marrow from life.  I love that I know how to enjoy a crazy sleepover, that my home was filled with laughing children, that my daughter has that kind of joy in her life.

It's not about bravery or insanity, it's about joy.  And I love that best of all.

A time to be born

Spring is here!

Despite the frost and fog, I have reached a spring in my heart, and it is my time to laugh, to be born, to mend, to seek.

Ahhhh.

As of 2pm yesterday, I am officially divorced.  My girlfriends and I waited for my turn, and we actually got shushed in the courtroom, which was just perfect, because it made me feel like a giggly fourth-grader.

The divorce itself was very anticlimactic - a small handful of questions, perhaps two minutes in duration total, and the deed was done.  It took longer waiting in line to get certified copies than it did to actually get the divorce completed.

I stepped outside the courtroom, and felt free.  I celebrated with those beloved girlfriends, and we toasted to Bryan's future (may it be filled with all good things) as well as my own.  I bought a bottle of champagne to share, we ate French food, we admired the views, we laughed.  Two of us even went to see live music afterwards, and it was fantastic.

I have reclaimed my name (although the name changes at every institution I work with will take ages, at least Facebook and Gmail know my real name now).

It's behind me.  And I am well.  I'm on the first page of the next chapter of my life, and thrilled to be here.  How will the story unfold?

Well, I know how it unfolds this week.  Busy at work, lots of projects going on.  And this weekend is Katherine's sleepover birthday party at our home.  Perfect: I can focus on my beloved daughter and her silly friends, and the house will be filled with laughter.  No ghosts of sadness will be able to linger, because there will be too much joy for them to stick around.

Oh, and I have a coffee date tomorrow before work!  No expectations, just coffee.

My heart is light.  Wishing you, whereever you are, no matter how lonely, that you find your place.  Today, I am in mine, and it is a gift.

*****

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

The Summer of Joy

It's pouring rain.

I'm still sad.

But I'm not called PollyAnna for nothing.

This is where I pick myself up, and make a plan to make it better.  I sent out email to my close friends yesterday detailing that Bryan actually did go out and find an apartment, and that Katherine is super excited because it IS in walking distance of our house.  I told my friends that I am feeling intense sadness, but that I intend to find my joy, and that I needed their help.  I told them that I intend to have parties here all summer long - impromptu ones with watermelon and kids in the sprinkler and dancing in the kitchen and drinking wine and grilling food and movie nights.  I told them that I need to fill my house with laughter and people I love, to get rid of this aching sadness.

One dear friend responded, "I'm in!  Sign me up for the summer of joy!"

Have I mentioned yet how much I love my friends?  How good they are to me, how they hold me up when I'm falling?  How when I lose my faith in the world and in myself, their kindnesses restore that faith?  How, when I know I can not take one more step, one of them steps in for me?  It is no surprise that a friend gave me this gift, these kind words that are a declaration of intent.  Summer of joy!

I hereby declare it the summer of joy.  I will reclaim my space, and I will breathe deeply, and I will wear sundresses and dance barefoot in the kitchen.  My problems won't go away, but I will still live in joy.

I have a bit of work to do to get there.  But now I know what I'm aiming for.

Summer of joy, here I come.

PS  In the northwest, summer starts after July 4.  It just is that way.  If you haven't lived here, you might not understand....but if you've lived here, you get it.  I have a couple of weeks to figure this out.

Diving into Icy Water

I am back from my lovely vacation.  It was a retreat to a dear friend's cabin, so there was no escape from cooking or cleaning, but there was plenty of nature, lots of downtime, time with friends, hiking, and swimming in a place like this:



...and swimming in a place like this:



People do NOT swim in the mountains and lakes around here in May, unless they are insane.  Katherine and I are insane, and we love it.  The weather was unseasonably warm, and the water was a constant (and expected) freezing cold, but we dove in anyway.  I jumped off a county dock and my feet brushed the seaweed at the bottom, and I knew I was alive.  We jumped into a mountain lake where I couldn't see the bottom, and the metallic-snow-smell of the water let me know I was alive.  Living, with a capital L.

And to share that with my daughter?  There's nothing like it.  Reveling in nature, and in the beauty of our region, and in the fact that our bodies are healthy and strong, and that we are together....well, when I slice through the cold water, I get a rush like nothing else, and when I do it with her my body hums the refrain "that's my girl!" and I'm not sure if I'm talking about her or myself.

                                                                     *****

I used to hike most weekends, pre-marriage, and I always swam at the destination.  (Some like to hike to mountaintops.  I don't mind that, but I prefer it if there is a lake to jump in to cool off from the hard workout of the hike somewhere along the way, preferably the middle.)  I was a known skinny dipper: if I got to the lake and there were others there, I'd simply swim out in my swimsuit, then slip it off and hold it while I swum around where nobody could see me (because often I'd be the only one swimming).  This made me giggle, and felt a bit like wearing sexy lingerie under my clothes at a business meeting: it was a gift just for myself, a delicious secret.

Bryan wasn't into hiking, and he didn't smile at me the way other men had when I dove into cold water.  (Prior to Bryan, more than one man had found my antics in cold water HOT.)  Bryan frowned.  He told me I was foolish.  He rolled his eyes.  He said he was tired and wanted to go home.

I didn't hike or swim much at all during our marriage.

                                                                       *****
Our friends thought about jumping in.  They watched us smiling, and shrieking, and laughing, and they said, "Oh we should join you that looks so fun..." but they did not.  This did not surprise me, because it's not for everybody.  I am used to swimming alone, even when the hike is with friends.  Katherine is the only one I've ever met who will join me every time, no convincing needed.

Swimming in a mountain lake isn't unlike what I need to do with my life right now.  I'm diving into the pain, convinced that doing so will remind me what it feels like to be free, and that the exhileration of it will compensate for the fear and the icy shock.

In one month, Bryan needs to move out.

In one month, I will be my own primary breadwinner for the first time in nine years.

In one month, I will officially 100% be a single mom.

I've been standing at the edge of this lake, wading until my feet tingle with the pain, but soon, the wading must stop, and it will be time to dive in.  I think that I'll be underwater for a while, and that I'll nearly faint from the cold, but I believe that I will emerge more alive than ever, more myself than ever.  I only pray that this is so, and that removing the dysfunctional relationship from daily view will help Katherine emerge stronger, more sure of herself, as well.

It'd be easy to add up all the pain;
all the hopes and dreams you watched go up in flames...
But not me:
I'm alive.
I'm Alive, sung by Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews
http://youtu.be/8VVpAqHJlQk

How I can be an optimist, despite it all

Over on the Daily Plate of Crazy, Big Little Wolf is having a conversation about how our principles and our pragmatism operate when we're at our worst.  I'm starting to see that principles, attitude, and pragmatism all come together in something that I think gets at the essence of who I wish to be.

 In her comments to me on my prior post, BLW wrote:

I say these things only to make this point: a good attitude is extremely useful (very helpful with our kids), but attitude and pragmatism are not mutually exclusive. Understanding that many of us are at our worst during and after divorce, we can prepare for that if necessary. We can also use that knowledge to understand that it's a painful process, with many tentacles, but pain often comes before healing - even if healing takes considerable time.

This is important thinking for a self-proclaimed optimist of the PollyAnna variety.  There are plenty of people who believe that optimism is for fools, and that it can be dangerous for its lack of pragmatism.  (Perhaps I should revisit Barbara Ehrenreich's book on the subject in another post, for she's covered it in great detail.)  But BLW points out, correctly, that pragmatism must be linked to optimism, and this is when it starts to get exciting.

I'm convinced that to dismiss optimism is to miss the whole point of being alive. I think it matters.  And I think that the best optimism comes with pragmatism, and the two operate hand in hand.

A fool disregards the facts, refuses to look, pretends that there is nothing amiss.  If that fool puts a positive spin on things, people call her an optimist, but at heart, I believe that she's more fool than optimist.  The Secret swept through America a few years back, proclaiming that all we had to do was declare our intentions and life would give us what we asked for; this is the ultimate in foolishness if you ask me.  (Don't even talk to me about how angry I got, reading it as a bald, breastless woman.)

A pragmatist, on the other hand, trudges through things, one foot in front of the other, acknowledging that life is difficult and that there are difficult tasks to do.  Pragmatism itself is not about joy, and so sometimes pragmatism is confused with optimism's opposite, surly negativism, but this is no more accurate to me than calling an optimist a fool.  It's tricky business, though, trying to make pragmatism and optimism meet. 

In divorce, optimists might believe that the future is rosy, that there is a new life waiting to be found.  Pragmatists, on the other hand, have a to-do list that is daunting, and they're too busy trying to figure out if they can pay the mortgage AND keep junior enrolled in piano lessons, and they have to cancel book club because they can't get childcare, and, well, who can blame them for being a bit joyless.

But it can come together.

Optimism, Pragmatism, and Principles

When I gave birth to my daughter, I knew that I wanted that baby more than just about anything, ever.  I had visions of our life together, of motherhood, of all I wanted to give her.  I knew I'd go to the ends of the earth for her, and that doing so was part of my deal with my unborn baby.  I wrote her letters before she was born, promising: "I will do whatever I can to keep you safe."

I didn't have to wait long to get tested as to how far I was really willing to go to protect her.

At the end of my delivery, everything went wrong.  My baby's heartrate dropped in panic inducing ways, and my own blood pressure went sky high into dangerous levels.  Two crash carts were called in, and the room filled with a dozen doctors ready to face the worst.  To say that it was frightening doesn't even touch on how I felt - I was in agonizing pain, and suddenly I understood that my life, and my baby's, were at stake.

 My gynecologist looked at me, and raised her voice to me (the only time she ever did so).  Get this baby out NOW, she commanded.  DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

Yes, ma'am.  I understand.  If I don't get the baby out, both of us are at risk of dying.  I understand.

My principles laid out, I knew what to do. My principle was clear to me from the onset: do anything to protect my baby.

My principles fed my attitude: my baby was worth whatever it took, and whatever I gave her was from love.  I would give her everything I had to save her, because she was worth it to me.  I would give her anything, including my pain, and maybe my life, with love.

And then pragmatism had to do some work.  As people called, "we're losing them" my gynecologist said, "NOW.  I mean it.  Get this baby out NOW!"  I knew something inside me was wrong, that things were scraping, that my body wasn't "right," but the pragmatist said, "We have to do this.  We will push with all of our might, and when we feel tearing, we will not stop.  We will bear down, and we will force this baby out."

When my daughter was born in the next contraction, her hand was above her head, and she scraped my birth canal; it felt like birthing a cheese grater.  When I tore, I knew I was tearing, and I kept pushing anyway, making the tear worse...but delivering the baby.  It was a physical feat, but more, it was a feat of will and desire.

And it was worth it.  So, so worth it.  Delivery complete, both of us left the danger zone we'd been in.  I had lived by my principles and done my best to protect my baby, taking a pragmatic approach (I was under no illusion as to how ugly it was going to be, but I did it anyway), and in doing so, uncovering the greatest joy I've ever known.

Principles + Pragmatism = Joy

I happen to be very, very, very fond of living with joy.  I'll go out of my way to find joy, to identify it, and to keep it.  And I have learned that if I apply my principles with pragmatism, I'll find joy eventually.....and this keeps me optimistic.  Eventually, if I apply my principles with pragmatism, I'll find joy.  There is reason for optimism!

It's not a secret.  It's not The Secret.  But my optimism is founded in the truth that I Know How To Find Joy.  If I live according to my principles (which requires first, knowing what my principles are, and second, taking a pragmatic approach to living by them), then I will locate joy....and that is why I can be an optimist.  It might not work out entirely the way that I want (I still do involuntary Kegals when I think about my stitches after birth), but there is joy in doing what I believe, and this allows me to approach life with optimism.

So how does all of this apply to divorce?

Divorce is it's own kind of ugly - I don't know how many (metaphorical) stitches I'll need by the time this is over.  I can already feel where I will tear, though.  And this leads me back to the inspiration for this post, BLW's words:

I say these things only to make this point: a good attitude is extremely useful (very helpful with our kids), but attitude and pragmatism are not mutually exclusive. Understanding that many of us are at our worst during and after divorce, we can prepare for that if necessary. We can also use that knowledge to understand that it's a painful process, with many tentacles, but pain often comes before healing - even if healing takes considerable time.

I know what my principles are.  They are:
- honesty to self and others
- compassion to self and others
- protect my daughter
- be a great role model for my daughter
- live the best life I can live
- make the world a better place

I already know that divorce is not my best time.  It's been an ugly road to get here, and I'm not okay yet.  I am operating low on Maslow's heirarchy, even as I fantasize about operating at the top.  And my ex is an angry, depressed person who self-sabotages and acts passive-aggressively and it's hard to have a logical conversation with him because he either shuts down or blows up, and I feel judgemental about him and angry that he put us in this position.  I know I'm in the danger zone for acting like this:



I know lots of people who wouldn't blame me (although the "cheater" label doesn't apply....I don't think....).  Sometimes he behaves badly, and I really want to act the way he does in response.  Who could blame me?

But I won't act like that, because then I couldn't look our daughter in the eye.  I won't act like that because it's not who I want to be.  There are days when I think he deserves it, true, but *I* don't deserve it.  I want to live with joy, and for that, I'm going to have to take the high road.

I have a lot of to-do lists.  We're meeting with the mediator soon.  And I've run the numbers more than I can count (thank you, Excel).  I have plan A: he pays what he ought to; and I have plan B: I get nothing.....and I'm determined to make it work even if it's plan B.  I'm working on keeping the house, but I'm talking to a realtor too.  And I know that whether I get plan A, or plan B, I'm going to try to live my values, and that will give me some joy along the way, even when I feel tearing.

And I've got an ace in the hole.

Childbirth introduced me to pain.  I healed from that pain, and marveled at my body's ability to do so.  But it was nothing.

My real pain looks like 15 surgeries related to breast cancer, several of them with more complications than I can list.  My real pain looks like the doctor telling me that it's 50/50 that I only had a few months left to live (yet here I am, healthy again).  My real pain looks like radiation burns that made my skin crack open and ooze unmentionable things....and it looks like caring for my daughter and my husband yelling at me in the middle of it as I was hunched over from that pain.  My real pain looks like riding a bus to chemo while my husband slept at home.

So, I know a thing or two about pain, and I know that it goes away: either you die and so you don't care any more, or you heal.  I have healed, over and over again.  I know how to heal, and I  know what it looks like.  I know that there can be unheard of complications, but still, eventually, I can heal.

So yes, I'm an optimist.  I believe that I can heal, over and over again, no matter how deep the wound, no matter how terrible the odds.  I'm a pragmatist, because I know how to thank the surgeon for her care, right before she cuts off my breast, and because I know that it doesn't matter how much I hurt, if my little girl needs dinner and nobody else is feeding her, then I need to make dinner.  And I know what I believe in, and who I want to be, so I let that guide my decisions.

Forgiveness falls in there somewhere, in the neighborhood of compassion.  All of the intentions in the world can not control every word that comes out of my mouth; I'm not infalliable, and I wonder what my ex would say if he read this post.  But I can say this with certainty: I try my hardest to do my best, and I apologize if I screw up.  Maybe it's optimistic to think so, but I think that is enough.

So, somehow, this is going to work out.  I will make mistakes along the way - oh, I've made many, including along that cancer path - but I believe in my ability to recover from them.  I will lose my optimism some days, and my pragmatism other days, but it's okay, because I won't lose what I believe in. 



I'm alive, and I'm glad to be alive.

No matter how many tentacles reach out to squeeze me.

------------------------------------


How do you hold your sanity when the tentacles of pain grab you?

What tools do you use to live your principles when you're tempted to throw them out?  What's your ace in the hole?

Are you an optimist?  How do you maintain optimism in a world that is often ugly?

I hope to hear from you.