Category Archives: Letting Go

When in Limbo, Install Another Theme

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IMG_0370I’ve been here before, fifteen years ago. It was right before I was hired at my last job, where I worked for fourteen and a half years. I was deep in that limbo phase, between identities, full of discord for the not knowing. It was yet another exercise in letting go – not the first, and definitely not the last.

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Most people who have a blog know that the way that it looks is called the theme. There are thousands of themes out there to choose from – many are free and some that might be more technical have a cost. But the great thing about them is that in most cases they are super easy to change. All you have to do is search themes, upload one you like, and then click “activate.” When you have several already uploaded, you can switch back and forth just by clicking activate, and you can even preview how your website will look with that theme using your existing content. It’s fun and exciting! If you don’t like a theme, you can always immediately switch back to one you do like. And if you decide that you won’t be using a theme again, you can delete it. And check this out! If you delete a theme accidentally, you can just as easily upload it again. Why can’t everything in life be that simple and straightforward?

I know. Because it’s life. Life is messy and unpredictable, complex and untheme-like. But as I sat at my desk this morning thinking about how I feel being in the middle of a job search, seeing the gray, threatening sky out my window, and experiencing that discord at the uncertainty, telling myself that I really didn’t want to write a blog post about that, I saw a note that I had written to myself just the night before. But I saw it in a different way.

I had been installing an update to the theme for this website, and I jotted down some instructions that the theme developers had given in a video tutorial. The first step in the simple process was to install another theme, such as an existing default theme, not a new one that needed to be uploaded. That theme would be up for just a minute while I installed the update.

So I sat there and stared at that phrase in my own handwriting – install another theme – and it only took a few seconds to hit me. That’s what I needed to do for my outlook. It’s not just about changing my attitude, it’s about embracing a whole new outlook on my life. Sure, every day I try to be positive and tell myself I can’t wait to see what life has in store for me with my new job, whatever it will be. And if I “install another theme” in my life, it will affect the appearance of everything in it, all of my “content,” not just how I feel about going through a job search. Because we are so much more than what we typically use to define ourselves.

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Fifteen years ago, I didn’t install another theme, and one was installed for me. I know that I was meant to be where I was, and I “bloomed” where I was “planted,” as the saying goes, and although this time around I fully intend to let go and allow whatever is meant to come into my life to do so, before that happens I’m going to install another theme. Something to do with identity, purpose, and more sun, even if it’s just on the inside.

[photo: a walking buddha at the Marble Temple in Bangkok]

5 Ways to More Positive Family Relationships

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My first vlog! I’ve been wanting to try this for a while and decided to give it a shot. (This is also my entry in Brendon Burchard’s video contest.) I hope you might find something worthwhile in it, or at least enjoy my foray into the YouTube realm : )

Grief, the Holidays, and Posthumous Love

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My dad in 2009 with his 3rd grandchild (my nephew)

About four years ago, I was on the phone with my dad and he enthusiastically suggested that he come up for Christmas.  As he lived 700 miles away, he would have flown and then stayed with me. And this would have been fine except for the fact that at the time I hosted the extended family Christmas dinner with my mom and her side of the family. And at the time, my divorced parents were not exactly on good terms. I opted to avoid any drama and encouraged my dad to come up for a visit in the spring.

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The holidays are supposed to be the hardest time after a loved one is gone. Last year was the first holiday season since my dad’s death, and it was very hard. I kept replaying that conversation in my mind, wishing I had thought, To hell with any stupid drama, I haven’t had Christmas with my dad in eight years, and we’ll make it work. And now another year has gone by and I still feel the same way. Still regretting that I put him off just to avoid potential awkwardness and tension.

Because now he’s gone, and I’ll never be able to have him here for Christmas again. I’ll never get to see him in his red sweater that looked like cashmere but probably wasn’t. And his grey tweed pants (he called them slacks) that he wore with it. I’ll never hear him singing Nat King Cole Christmas carols again. Never hear him say, “Christ is born!” when he answers the phone and be able to say, “Glorify Him!” in response. Never clink glasses with him again, toasting the day with Cinzano. Or eggnog later by the fire. I’ll never again get to hug him when he leaves to go home.

So I go out to my living room and start flipping through my photo albums. I see him on Easters, Christmases, family barbeques. I see him when he came up to visit each of his grandchildren after their births. I see him on trips, or just relaxing with his cat. I see him in the red sweater. I see him clinking glasses. I realize that I had many Christmases with him. And even though in his last ten years on earth he lived 700 miles away from me, I still saw him a lot during that time.

I need to let go of my regret about what would have been his last Christmas in my home. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a while, and I know that many other people have similar regrets, especially around the holidays. We beat ourselves up that we should have done something or shouldn’t have. We can’t go back. We can’t change it. Beating ourselves up isn’t going to make any difference! Does it bring them back? Does it make us feel better? Does it help anyone? No. It’s not serving any purpose.

This morning, after I had started writing this post, I received an email from my brother. He was thinking about Dad too, and missing him. He forwarded a notice that Dad’s favorite Trappist Belgian beer is now being carried at a local wine specialty store and commented on how happy Dad would have been, especially since before he died he had personally requested them to import it. And as much as I know my brother misses our dad, he spent the bulk of the email celebrating him instead of mourning him. I know Dad would prefer it that way. I know he’s not standing up there, leaning over a cloud, yelling, “I told you I had cancer! You should have let me come for Christmas that year!”

*

Grief and the holidays are unwelcome bedfellows. But missing our loved ones at certain times of the year (even more than we usually do) is something we can’t change, just like we wish we could change whatever it is we beat ourselves up over. I feel certain that for most of those things, we’re not being held accountable up there in the sky. We hold our hearts hostage instead of opening them up to all the posthumous love raining down. It’s there – every time I hear a Nat King Cole song, clink my glass, or see a red sweater. I’m letting go of the regret and, as always, holding onto the love.

The Value of Going with the Flow

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I didn’t learn to swim until I was 9 or 10. I’m not sure what the reasoning was behind that, especially since, growing up in southern California, I was surrounded by beaches and pools. But it might have been even before I learned to swim that I learned how to jump waves in the ocean. I loved how the motion of jumping would lift my body over the swell, just floating up and over it. And then came my favorite part – being up to my shoulders in the ocean, I would move with the tide as it rhythmically pulled and pushed me, back and forth, outside of my control. I felt soothed and at peace. In the ocean or in life, I learned early on to go with the flow.

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I’ve received quite a few emails since my last post asking how things went at the supported living home that we toured, and I am pleased and relieved to say that things went very well. The house manager was friendly and sincere, genuinely caring about “the guys” in his charge, three of whom also have epilepsy. And “the guys” were great – most of them were just a little older than Nigel, and at first meeting, so similar. Nigel mentioned that he had a lot of books, and one of the guys asked what kind of books, so Nigel listed H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, two of his favorites. Another guy chimed in and started rattling off titles by those authors, and Nigel nodded or said, “Yeah, I’ve got that” to each one. They were completely in synch. Another guy asked if Nigel had any Louis L’Amour, and he said no. I wondered if Nigel was familiar with Louis L’Amour, but then when we were leaving, he went up to the guy who had asked him, and Nigel said, “See you later, my hombre.” The other guy smiled and they shook hands and clapped each other on the back, like they had been friends for years. And, as I so often do for various reasons, I felt very emotional because I realized something.

Nigel had found his tribe.

He’s had friends over the years, kids in Boy Scouts who had taken him under their wing, who truly cared about him, and they’ve been such a blessing in his life. Then recently, by default he made a friend from his social skills class who has Asperger’s, and they both love movies. But this was different.  Of course it’s wonderful that he felt so comfortable at that home and immediately fit in with the guys there. It went better than I could have hoped, and I’m very grateful.

But seeing them all together, interacting, seeing their sameness, stirred something in me.  They are all individuals of course, but their level of autisticness is the same. Standing there in that living room surrounded by young men with autism, it struck me that I’m no longer “waiting to see” how Nigel will be “when he gets older.” This is how he is. This is who he is, who he has always been.

My greatest hope for Nigel was not that he would learn to talk (although of course I hoped and prayed for that too, like mad), but that his adult life would be happy and fulfilling for him, whatever that looked like, and that he would be appreciated for who he is. And whether this would be his “forever home” or not (he still very much wants to go to film school), I think my hope for his adult life would be fulfilled there. Not only would he be appreciated, but understood, and accepted. And, I hope with all my heart, happy.

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In this ocean of life, in which we ride waves or jump them, or stay on shore to watch, all we can do is go where the water takes us. We certainly can and should fight the current if we find that we are getting into unsafe territory, but rarely do we get to that point if we are paying attention. Most of the time, we can just stand in the water with our feet still on the ground, and sway with the tide, open to whichever way it might take us and whatever opportunities it puts before us.

Honoring

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“How do you honor yourself?” The question hung in the air expectantly; no one was quite sure how to answer it. We had to give it some thought.

I was attending a small dinner party at my boyfriend’s house, and one of the guests, a friend of his who plays the viola in an orchestra, had asked the question. He was in the middle of a demonstration of the work he does with Alzheimer’s patients, a combination of group discussion and music interpretation. We – my boyfriend, his son and daughter, Nigel, and another friend – sat on comfortable couches in the living room and thought about what it might possibly mean to honor ourselves.

*

The question couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time for me. As some of you might recall, I had taken on a seasonal job a few years ago, when I began homeschooling Nigel, to help make up for lost income in drastically reducing my work hours at my regular job. For almost five years I have done the quarterly royalty calculations for an independent music label, one that works with 50 artists. I compile sales reports from various sources, calculate each artist’s share, and prepare statements for them. And I’m able to do it from home, which was essential while I homeschooled Nigel for a year and a half. But more than three years ago he went back to regular school, and I went back to my regular hours at my day job. I also kept the side job, and it really helped to get caught up on bills. I had next to no free time, but I had no debt for a while, and that was great!

But I started noticing that I wasn’t writing much at all. And I stopped blogging. My depression reached the worst level ever and even after I got that taken care of, I still felt agitated because I didn’t have the time or the energy to do what I loved, what fulfilled me. I wasn’t taking care of my soul. And now, a week after the dinner party, I know that I wasn’t honoring myself.

I’m actually finishing up a round of royalty statements next week (one reason I haven’t posted in a while). It was supposed to be finished last week, but there have been technical difficulties with the software program so the process has dragged out even longer. The work is causing so much anxiety that I really don’t need in my life and taking up hours that could have been spent writing. Don’t get me wrong! I’m very glad that I’ve had the job, and very appreciative – I’ve had some close friends be out of work in the last couple of years, and they are always in my thoughts. One thing I’ve learned as a special needs parent is to take nothing for granted, especially not employment.

But I’ve also learned, many years ago, the oxygen mask principle (although I rarely apply it). And so, in the spirit of taking care of my emotional needs first, I’ve decided to let go of my seasonal job, even though I’m heavily in debt due to short-selling my house, even though to most people I’m shooting myself in the foot, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. I’m finally going to honor myself.

*

In the living room that night, we took turns giving our tentative answers, most of them involving some facet of respect. Of course we all know how to honor someone else, or how to live with honor, but how to honor ourselves? Sadly, that involved a lot more discussion, a lot more figuring out. And I, for one, don’t think that it should be that way. It’s something we should know, and put into practice as often as possible – honoring our needs so that, ultimately, we can help others with theirs.

Namaste banner available from West Wind Flags.

A Different Kind of Help

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“It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” – Charles Dudley

“On a spiritual level you will experience a different mode altogether. Your attention should turn to others and their needs; find ways to be of help and give time and energy to worthwhile causes. You must lighten your burden of questions and doubts and the best way to do so is by directing your attention to another direction, away from yourself.” – from my numerology report for 2011

A few years ago I was into numerology – numbers don’t lie, and all that. I’m not sure that I really believed all of it, but I did notice some uncanny coincidences in the reports I would find online and where I was in the epicycles. That part definitely resonated with me. At the time, Tarot.com offered numerology reports two years in advance, and I downloaded my report for 2011 long before the last decade was over. I read it and filed it away, and then around February I cleaned out some files and found it.

At first, the part about helping others perplexed me – selfishly I thought, if anyone needed help, I did. I knew I was depressed and, after over a decade of single parenting, I feared a complete breakdown. I stopped blogging and spent a lot of time watching X Files episodes with Aidan. And then my dad’s cancer accelerated, and with my siblings, I took care of him in his last weeks, days, hours, and minutes, and  I thought, Ah. This is what the numerology report meant by helping others. I returned home a different person.

But I still didn’t feel like that was it, and my attention turned inward again as I grieved for my father and tried not to think about the fact that my 15-year-old son had decided to live with his dad, 700 miles away. Shortly after his birthday, Aidan flew back here with Nigel, and we enjoyed a short, four-day visit with him. I took some time off work, and we went to Crater Lake, where my mom is an Interpretive Ranger. We spent time with my sister, my niece and nephew, and had dinner with my aunt and uncle. We watched some more X Files and Aidan showed me the ropes with my new iPod. And all too soon I found myself driving him to the airport, going through the motions of waiting in line to check his bags and get my pass to accompany him to the gate. But because he is now 15, they would not give me a gate pass. “He just turned 15 last week!” I pointed out, wielding his passport. “He’s my son, and I’m not going to see him for over two months!” I pleaded, aware of the fact that I was probably embarrassing him. I knew that he would be fine on his own, but I really wanted to wait with him at the gate. They spouted off something about policy, and I turned away, willing myself not to cry. I took a deep breath and motioned Aidan over to some seats near the line waiting to go through security. We sat down and I told him that I had a letter for him that I had wanted to give him at the gate before he boarded, but that I would have to give to him now. I handed it to him, and he opted to read it right then, so I sat there as he read the words I had so carefully chosen to tell him how much I loved him, that I unreservedly supported him in his decision, and that if he ever changed his mind I would be so happy to have him back. He thanked me and hugged me, and then we waited in line, my heart in my throat, trying not to be angry at the airport personnel. When it was time, I hugged him tightly, breathed in his scent, told him I loved him, and kissed him at least five times. “I love you, Mom,” he said as I backed away, trying to smile.

I watched him as he went up to the counters, put his jacket and shoes in the gray plastic trays, took the full-size X-Box game console out of his roller as instructed by security, walked through, and efficiently repacked everything on the other side. He’s been in airports more times by age 15 than I had been by age 30. He’s a pro. I watched him sling his messenger bag across his chest, check the monitor to see which gate to go to, pull up the handle on his roller, and head off. I was so sad – yet so very proud – all in the same moment. I knew I had helped him by letting him go with love.

Back at the house, Nigel and I had dinner together, just the two of us at the table. We talked about how strange it would be with Aidan gone. We watched a movie together, and then Nigel opted to build some Lego. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I sat down on the couch with a National Geographic magazine, and, as if on cue, the phone rang. It was one of my good friends, another long-term single mom, who had been out of work for several months. She, with her daughter, had been living about three hours away in a larger city, trying to find work. She ended up losing her house and her car and decided to come back to southern Oregon to temporarily stay with friends-of-friends whom she did not know well. It turned out to be a negative environment, so I went to pick them up the next day, and my friend and her 12-year-old daughter came to live with us.

Nigel had been asking me for three years to let him have the much larger “game room” (as we call it), where he keeps his massive Lego collection, for his bedroom, and he was ecstatic to move his things out there so that T’s daughter could have his old room. I moved my desk out of the office and into my bedroom so that T could have the office as her room. Within days of being here she has lined up two job interviews and, through another friend, a car fell into her lap yesterday.  I know she was meant to be here.

I also know that this is more of the help I’m meant to provide for others this year. That’s obvious. But the truth of the matter is – and I have told her this several times – that her being here is helping me just as much as it’s helping her. Nigel is benefiting immensely by having a friend in the house who matches his current emotional age. She’s a sweet and insightful girl who is happy to watch movies with him and patiently listens while he narrates whatever they’re watching.

And then there’s this – I never realized how much I would benefit from having a nurturing adult in the house, after all these years of going it alone. I never realized how much I needed her here until she came. I just wanted to help out a good friend in need. But the fact is that her mere presence has calmed my spirit and “lightened my burden,” just as my numerology report said it would. I suppose it’s a no-brainer that in helping others we help ourselves, but I never knew just how true that is until now.

Fifteen

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I woke up this morning, blinking my eyes and stretching, with “Let It Be” running through my mind. You know – the song by The Beatles. I lay there a minute, listening, absorbing, wondering why it was in my head, and then I knew. It was a really big day, and I couldn’t be there for it.

Aidan, my younger son, my baby, is fifteen today. And today is also his first day of high school. Those two things are big enough already, but here’s the piece de resistance – his high school is in Los Angeles, 700 miles away from me. He is fifteen, and he has chosen to live with his father now, a decision that I accept with love.

For nine years (perhaps longer, subconsciously), I knew that this day would come. I remember the summer that he turned six, the first summer that he went for several weeks to visit his dad, who had moved to L.A. from Oregon six months before. Aidan came back to Oregon after the visit confused and angry that he had to leave his dad to come home, that his dad lived far away. At age six, Aidan was not able to identify and verbalize his emotions surrounding this, and he lashed out at me and told me that he didn’t love me and didn’t want to live with me. I knew that he was hurting, and that I was the parent he could take it out on. He was just six years old, and it was the only thing he could do. I ached for him more than myself. And it was then that I knew – one day, he would go.

But I knew for sure last year in September, when he started talking about it in earnest. Not just talking about it, but telling me that he planned to go to high school in L.A., and that his dad was very happy about it. Although supportive, I put off dealing with it emotionally, thinking that things might change, but deep down, I knew. And in January I realized that I had just six months left with my younger son in my daily presence and decided that I needed to focus on him. I alluded to that in my final blog post at Teen Autism, and from then on I spent about five evenings a week with Aidan – playing board games, reading together, talking, or watching movies and X-Files episodes.

And my beautiful, sweet son not only wanted to spend that extra time with me, he made it a priority. He cut down on his X-Box Live time with his buddies in favor of board game nights or movie nights with Mom. And I wasn’t the only recipient of his familial attention. Aidan made it a point to spend extra time with Nigel, really hanging out with him doing the quality time gig, and doing it sincerely. He got down on the floor and built Lego worlds with Nigel, doing something that most teens (himself included) had outgrown years ago. Aidan talked with him about movie ideas and patiently offered suggestions. Without verbalizing it (at least not when I was around), he seemed to realize that the longest he and Nigel had ever been apart was five days while Nigel was at Scout camp. I wasn’t the only one who would be affected by this big change, and Aidan knew it.

But that’s the kind of person he is – empathetic, patient, intuitive, proactive. Like his brother, he’s a different sort of teen, but in different ways. He couldn’t care less about sports, but he loves to bodysurf. He reads voraciously, mostly science fiction, but also National Geographic, J.R.R. Tolkien, Get Fuzzy, and Game Informer. He’s not into any current music – whatsoever. He can’t stand most of what his peers listen to. Aidan’s into old rock (CCR and AC/DC) and classic metal (Black Sabbath and Dio). He even likes Journey and still loves Bob Marley. When I mentioned that today was his “Golden Birthday,” he didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care. And I love that. I love his hair and his clothes. I love his mind and his heart. I love everything about him, even his rigid eating habits and his nonchalance about his grades.

This is the baby who slept in my bed for nine months. This is the three-year-old who wasn’t talking and needed speech therapy. This is the seven-year-old who said he feels like he has two lives. This is the ten-year-old who told me he’s always felt like the older brother. This is the teenager who needs the space to carve out his own identity. And this is the same six-year-old missing his father.

And so, I am letting go and letting it be. That’s what the past year has been about – preparing for this moment. For a while I tried to fool myself by pretending that he’s going away to college four years early, but I don’t need to do that anymore. I miss him, of course, terribly so. But he is doing what I have always known he would need to do, and I honor that. He is fifteen, and he is on his path. He always has been.

Happy Birthday, Aidan, my amazing son. I am so happy to be your mom and so blessed to have you in my life. I love you more than words could ever say.