coronavirus Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Really Funday-Monday

My husband and my daughter both have off today, so we’re going out to breakfast! This is my favorite kind of Monday.

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Interesting quote to think about today:

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” – H.G. Wells

I can cringe thinking about a few times in my my own life when feeling jealous of someone’s ability to feel absolutely free to be themselves and to do what they want to do, led me to “hide” this fact behind a cloud of moral superiority and judgment. I think that we have seen a lot of this going on in these years of coronavirus, and extremely divisive politics.

But I have eggs and bacon waiting for me, so I’ll let you finish that thought . . .

Have a great day, if you want to . . . !

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Finishing Touch

So far you've survived 100% of your worst days. You're doing great. | Happy quotes, Encouragement quotes, Life quotes

This latest surge of coronavirus in our country has brought back some gloom and doom into our everyday conversations. But we will make it through it. This too shall pass. The interesting thing is that when you reflect back on your worst days, you realize how greatly outnumbered the worst days are, by your good days (or at the very least, by your normal, average days).

If someone asked my kids, “What does your mother always tell you?”, I hope that “I love you,” would be the first thing to pop into their minds, to give as their answer. I tell my children that I love them, all of the time. I think that’s so important for them to hear regularly. “I love you.” I also believe that my kids would say, “My mother always tells us to ‘Finish Strong.’ ” When raising children there are so many beginnings and yet also, so many endings involved. At the end of any school year, at the end of any games or competitions which they were involved in, at the final days of their summer jobs, I would always repeat the mantra, “Finish Strong.”

Lately, I have been repeating, “Finish Strong” to myself, quite a lot. My youngest child just started her senior year in high school. This is my final year of full-time mothering, which has been my main task and duty, for the last 25 years of my life. There are going to be a lot of easy, fun, celebratory days, in this coming year, but there will also be some “worst days” sprinkled in. That’s just the way of life. And I believe that we will survive, and even thrive through all of it. I believe that everyone I know has the capacity to “Finish Strong.” And I must model my own words to my children, if these words are to have any meaning and wisdom and worth. “I love you. Finish Strong.” Say these words of confidence and conviction often, to your loved ones, and most importantly, to yourself.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Slight Yellow Haze

This couldn’t be more apropos to where I live right now. My neighbors drove by the other day and I thought they got a new car. I was wrong; the pollen made their black car look grey.

When I first moved to Florida and I ended up at the doctor’s office every two months for sinus infections, my doctor told me that I live in one of the two worst states for allergies. Hawaii and Florida are the worst states for allergies because something is blooming, all of the time, all year long. She also mentioned that by driving a convertible, it was like I was driving in a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up all the pollen as I drive along. (I decided that the inconvenience of sneezing and wheezing was worth the freedom of toplessness.)

There are few things more embarrassing than having an allergy attack during this pandemic. I feel like wearing a sign saying, “Chill. It’s allergies!” I watched this poor woman struggling in the grocery store the other day. She was sneezing and sneezing and sneezing, right into her mask. Blech! Poor thing.

It's bad-------- | Allergies funny, Ecards funny, Someecards

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

We all know that change is the only constant, but change usually does come in quite subtly, doesn’t it? The few, shocking, sometimes devastating, “change your life in a moment” times, are thankfully pretty rare, but at least those changes are obvious.

We just made the last payment of our second son’s undergraduate college education. He graduates from college this April. Two down, two to go. It’s surreal, reflecting on that fact. There is a long period of time when your kids are in their elementary school/middle school ages, that you think that things are never going to change. Each year seems mostly “the same old/same old”, until your first child goes to high school. From then on, the changes go into warp speed. (Interestingly, the changes in my face and my body, seemed to have gone into warp speed, at the same time that my kids started into their high school and college years. Everything is interconnected, right? It’s so not fair.)

We’ve all gotten a hard lesson in change this past year, haven’t we? A lot of these changes have more of the “in your face” variety. (you remember your face, right? It’s that part of your body which spends a lot of its waking hours underneath a mask.) What have these past year’s changes, changed in you? What have you learned about yourself this past year? What has changed for the better? What has changed for the worse? What changes would you like to see in yourself and in the world, going forward? These are the questions which I am pondering for myself, lately.

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Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Way Showers

I went to an “event” yesterday and I actually woke up feeling like I have things to write about. When you actually go and do things, you end up having stories to experience and then, stories to tell. Life felt a little “normal” again, for the first time in a long time, yesterday.

Yesterday the “event” that I attended, was my daughter’s first high school tennis match, of the season. And she won it. But it was a complete nail biter. She was down 3-6, came back 7-6, but then she and her very worthy competitor, ended up tying 8-8. They had to play a tie breaker, which my entirely exhausted daughter ended up winning, 11-9. My nails are bloody nubs. When the match was finally over, I was reminded of the author Glennon Doyle’s most famous quote, “We can do hard things.” I told my daughter what I liked best about her victory, was that she will always have the memory of it, in her back pocket. When she is struggling with any difficult situation in her life, she can think back to this moment, and know for a fact, that she is full of fortitude, perseverance, and calmness under pressure. She can do hard things. She has proven it to herself.

Yesterday’s tennis match wasn’t exactly “normal.” We have good winter weather here in Florida, therefore the matches are held outside. There was no communal snack table, no hugging, no high fives, nor any handshakes after the matches. Each competing duo was handed a fresh can of balls before their games. I was starkly reminded that it was during tennis season last year, when the reality of the coronavirus pandemic was truly setting in for all of us. At the last high school tennis match which I attended (in March of 2020), the coach told the players that the rest of the season had been cancelled. He also told them, that after spring break, they were not likely coming back to school. Unfortunately, he was right.

While I was at the match yesterday, I also partook in one of my other vices – eavesdropping. I have mentioned on the blog before that I like to eavesdrop. I am not proud of that fact, but I own it. As I was watching my daughter play, I overhead a group of high school girls talking. One girl said, “I have this condition called ‘anxiety’.” That statement started a chorus of statements: “Anxiety! Oh yes, I have that! My therapist says I have that, too. I hate anxiety. I can’t sleep! I can’t drive.”

Wow. At that moment I wanted to run over and group hug all of them. But of course, I couldn’t do it, because 1.) Covid and 2.) I was eavesdropping, which is a rude and hurtful thing to do. So, I just sat in my deserved little cloud of sadness, and I reflected a little bit. And I thought about the blog that I was going to write today.

I would like to pretend that these girls’ anxiety issues were all concerning this awful pandemic, which has a lot of us people, all wound up in tight little balls, these days, but I would be lying to myself. Quite honestly, I am sure that I could have overheard that conversation, at any time during all of the years which my children have been in high school, starting around the year 2010. Three of my middle son’s classmates committed suicide in high school. My daughter’s class just lost a classmate to suicide a couple of months ago. I know for a fact that my own children experience anxiety. I’ve witnessed it, first hand.

I believe life is mostly meant to be savored and enjoyed. I truly do. But do I live that? Am I an example of that? Do I model a life that is mostly “peace and joy”? Do I take any responsibility for my own peace and joy, or do I act as if I am a victim of circumstance? These are hard questions. The answers are hard to face sometimes.

Over the years, the women before us have fought hard for the rights which we women have today, such as the right to vote, to serve in the military, and to become vice president of the United States. It is easy to take these gifts for granted. In our “Declaration of Independence”, we were all promised the right to “the pursuit of happiness.” The women before us, worked hard and tirelessly, to make sure that we women had the equal right to “the pursuit of the happiness.” Are we doing our part in that quest?

I believe that happiness is a by-product of what we do. Is what I am doing on a daily basis bringing me happiness? Do my relationships with the others in my life, bring me happiness? Does my relationship with myself bring me happiness? Am I living to my own standards, or am I trying to live to the impossible standards of “fake world” as depicted on social media? Do I have a strong connection with my spirituality, a faith that makes me feel whole, not one that separates me from others with the sense that I am “holier than thou”?

Why are these questions important? They are important because I am a model to my daughter, and I am a model to your daughters and to your granddaughters, and to that beautiful group of girls, discussing, in earnest, their shared condition of anxiety. Kids listen to what we do, not what we say. Kids are excellent at honing in on hypocrites. After raising four almost grown children, and having made many an eloquent lecture (that I myself, was pretty impressed with), I learned that those loquacious words fell mostly on deaf ears, especially if I wasn’t walking my talk.

What are we modeling to the women of the future, friends? If I am honest, that group of girls, could have easily been me, and any one of my group of friends, in any of my various stages of my life. And that’s okay. It’s good to have friends to lean on for support. But it is also good to have friends to savor life with. It is good to have friends to laugh with, and to sit with, in awe of the pure beauty of each other, our friendships, and of the incredible, nature all around us. What are we modeling to the women of the future? “Don’t feel anxiety, girls, but I just changed my outfit fifteen times, because I feel so insecure about how I look. Don’t feel anxiety, girls, but it is important that you look lovely, have a great job, raise amazing kids (because if they aren’t amazing, it is all your fault), and sustain a romantic, exciting, successful marriage through it all. And if any of these areas of life are faltering, I judge myself mercilessly. But please don’t feel anxiety, girls. Seriously, life is fun, once you are doing a perfect job at getting good grades at school, getting into a good college with an athletic scholarship, landing a cute boyfriend who treats you well, and still being able to fit into your skinny jeans. Then, you can be just like “me.” Isn’t life fun? Why do you have anxiety, girls?”

Our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters, our friends’ daughters will learn to have less anxiety, when we are the way showers of life lived with less anxiety. Our daughters will practice self-care, self-acceptance, and self-love, when we are the way showers of self-care, self-acceptance and self-love. Our daughters, our women of the future, will learn to have meaningful, purposeful, interesting lives of love and wonder and peace and calm, when we show them that this is possible. Our young women of the future will learn to love and to savor themselves, and to savor the very act of just experiencing life, when we teach them that they are lovable just because of who they are, not for what they do. When we show our girls, that life is a wonderful journey to be experienced in awe, in hope, in joy, in peace, and in exhilaration, our example gives them permission to live life the way it was meant to be lived. Will they still experience some anxiety? Of course. We all will. Anxiety is a part of life. But it can be a small footnote. Anxiety can mostly be experienced as a flutter in our stomachs, as a sign of exciting things to come. And let’s remember, when we are living in the fullness of the gift of just experiencing the astonishing miracle of living a human life on Earth, anxiety is easily noticed and then it is just as easily let go, as nothing more than a passing sensation.

Think of a young woman whom you love with all of your heart. Think of how joyful you want this young woman to feel, most days of her life. What does that look like? Do want her to think that she has to have a Louis Vuitton purse, work in a job which she hates, to make the money to purchase that purse, have her stay in toxic relationships that make her feel terrible, just for the sake of having relationships, and to spend hours of her precious life, photo shopping her real life into a fake online picture, to make her life appear “perfect”? Is this what we believe will bring our future young women happiness? What are we modeling to the women of the future, friends? Let’s choose to be the way showers of the wisdom we have obtained. Love and happiness is an inside job. Life is mostly meant to be enjoyed. Savor life. You don’t have to win at it. There is nothing “to win.” Life and love is given to you freely. Happiness is yours, as a by-product of doing and experiencing what uniquely brings you joy. You are an important piece of this tapestry called Life, and so is everyone else. You know this fact. I know this fact. Let’s live it. Let’s be the way showers to our young women. Let’s make the path easier and lighter and brighter for our young women, as it was made easier for us, by the mighty women who came before us. Let’s let anxiety become a barely noticeable footnote, in the otherwise amazing adventure of living Life. It will be good for our future girls. It will be good for us. Let’s be purposeful in our duty. Let’s be Way Showers.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Broken Crayons

“Trauma breaks you into pieces. Healing teaches you broken crayons still color.” – Inner Practioner

I don’t think there is anyone on Earth, who can say that this coronavirus situation hasn’t caused them any amount of pain and trauma. If there is such a person, they are either in deep denial, or a complete sociopath. Even if your own life has been relatively unaffected, it still breaks one’s heart to see the news stories of others who have lost loved ones, to this disease.

So with the assumption that my readers are people of feelings and empathy, I am going to go with the idea that we all have suffered some amount of trauma, concerning the coronavirus. It’s okay to admit that you have undergone some trauma. In fact, the only way to heal from any kind of trauma, is to admit to yourself, that it actually happened in the first place. That is usually the hardest part. If you keep trying to artificially scab over, or put a band-aid on a festering wound, it won’t heal properly. You’ve got to dig deep into the wound, pull out all the growing infection, and administer the correct daily medicine, for the pain to properly heal. This is what allows the trauma to be a thing (or a scar) of the past, and not an ongoing, unconscious driver that negatively affects elements of your every day life and relationships.

I think that the reason why a lot of people choose denial, versus dealing with their trauma, is two-fold. First, people think that it is strong to gut through situations, keeping a stiff upper lip. Somewhere along the way, we got the strange notion that admitting that you have a problem, makes you weak. How messed up is that! It is the opposite of strength, to stay in denial about a situation that has caused you pain. Still, we often choose to stay in denial because we fear that if we squarely face everything about how a certain trauma has affected us, we are afraid that we will fall apart at the seams, and stay stuck forever. And that is the second reason, why we keep our traumas, unfortunately, all bottled up.

When we finally get brave enough to look at our traumas honestly, and with sincere acceptance, that is when the real strength and healing begins. That is when we fully understand that broken crayons are still able to make the same vivid colors and artwork that they did before. And you know what else? Typically broken crayons end up being stronger than when they were whole. They aren’t as fragile. It is much harder to break a small piece of a crayon, than a long, elegant, fresh crayon, just coming out of the box. Also broken crayons recognize themselves in the other broken pieces, and that is where the truest compassion arises, giving the artwork of life, an even deeper depth of color, and meaning, and emotion, and joint, mass strength.

What’s a little broken in you, since the pandemic started? Has the pandemic triggered old, unhealed traumas in you? Have you allowed yourself to shed some cleansing tears? Have you reached out to others for support? Have you allowed yourself to be a little broken, realizing that even the most “perfect crayons” have little imperfections and will wear down a little bit, over the years? (Remember that the shrinking down of a crayon, comes from love and use, over the years. Everyone knows the favorite crayon in the box. It is the one crayon that is barely there, from being so useful and loved so much. It’s the “Velveteen Rabbit” of crayons.) What if, right this very minute, you had your favorite crayon in front of you, in your hand? You know the one. Your favorite crayon is that “go-to color” that you always looked for in that big, old Crayola 64 box, and you always tried to incorporate it somewhere in every one of your “masterpieces”. My favorite Crayola crayon was called “Burnt Sienna”. Now, what if, right now, you took your favorite crayon between your fingers and you broke it like the “Karate Kid”? (Don’t pretend like you never did that. Or at least, don’t pretend that you never witnessed that naughty boy in class who you secretly had a crush on, breaking the crayons with one hand, as you feigned shock and disgust, but secretly thought that this move was kind of cool and daring. . . . .until he got his dirty mitts on the Burnt Sienna crayon.) So now, your favorite crayon is broken right in front of you and you are required to draw a lovely picture of your life. You are drawing a picture of a path, leading into the sunshine of your future. The path is your life. It must be drawn in your favorite color, the one that really speaks to you, from the depths of your soul. So you pick up your broken crayon, and you cradle it or put a little tape on it, and you understand that while the crayon is a little broken, it can still draw your path in the very color that you had been envisioning that path to look like. And now you also have a little spare piece of crayon, in your back pocket, for those times in the future, when the path gets a little rocky again, and you need to draw on, a new direction. It is almost as if, in some ways, the brokenness of the crayon, has multiplied its capabilities. You now have the knowledge, that came from experience, that you will be ready for that rocky piece of road, up ahead in your path, because you now have the inner depth, and the experience, and the acceptance, to know that broken crayons will always have the ability to draw and to color, until they are completely used up, and then disappear into the horizon, and into the completed master piece of Love.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Headed Home

My husband said in our family text chat, that he thinks that 2021 is going to be like 2020, in reverse. We asked him for clarification and he said that spring was the big turning point in 2020, of having to accept the coronavirus, and all of the changes it was making in our lives. My husband thinks that spring of 2021, will be the big springboard of taking us much closer to “normal” again.

Before my husband gave his own explanation, I immediately envisioned the long hikes we have taken as a family, over the years, in many of the National Parks. Living through last year, was much like climbing the uphill part of the hike. The uphill part of any long, challenging hike is exhausting, frustrating, full of trepidation and yet also, anticipation. Sometimes you feel like you aren’t going to make it. You keep wondering, “Is this hike ever, ever going to end?” You start to concentrate on just the next step and then, the next step. Then, when you finally reach the summit, or the pinnacle, or the destination of your hike, the views are clear. The relief is palpable. One time, after my husband and I climbed to the top of Camelback Mountain in Arizona, I literally started sobbing at the top of the mountain. I felt so much relief, release, pride, exhilaration, and exhaustion, all at once, and the emotions hit me like a hurricane. So, in staying with my hiking analogy, we’ve come to the destination of hope, with this virus. We have a panoramic view of hope. We have created effective vaccines, but we still have the hike down the mountain, of getting everyone vaccinated, and assimilated back into some close form of our previous normalcy. The downward part of the hike is usually so much easier. It usually goes so much faster. There are still tricky, slick areas and you must be careful, but it always feels surmountable. And the destination at the end of the hike, is a known entity. It’s your family car that reliably takes you back to your loving, warm, safe, comfortable place that you call home. Friends, we are headed home. Doesn’t that feel good?

Everest

In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people ever to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Before that time, it was believed that this feat was not even possible. By the end of the year 2016, 4,469 people had successfully climbed to the top of Mt. Everest. Some of them more than one time. In 2018, the most people reached the summit in any one year, 800 people, to be exact.

This year, we have proved that a safe, effective vaccine for a deadly virus can be made in less than a year. In fact, we have proved that more than one vaccine for a deadly virus can be produced in less that a year. What has been a devastating disaster, has also proven to be a beacon of hope and wonder and proof of our amazing, inventive abilities. We have helped future generations who may have to go through pandemics, by our successes and our mistakes, throughout this ordeal. This is why we study history. Studying history is not about memorizing dates and names. It’s about learning from our experiences, and providing a template for the humans who come after us. Is it possible that a far deadlier virus is likely to come to this Earth, in the future? Is it not also likely, that because of our experience with the coronavirus, and the vital necessity to find a vaccine, we will prevent lives lost, not only now, but also into the future, with our better, expedient vaccine creating science and techniques? I recognize that this fact, does not take away from the pain and the terrible losses which we have suffered throughout this COVID crisis, but it gives some meaning to all that we have been through. Those who died, did not die entirely in vain. Their deaths lead to the deep sense of urgency, to find a way to stop the spread of the virus, quickly and effectively. And we did it. We created several effective vaccines in less than a year. This has never happened before.

On a personal level, this is a reminder to never say never. Don’t lose your dreams. Don’t lose your clear visions for yourself, for your family and for this world. Be a believer. Don’t stay mired in “impossible.” Anything is possible. Study history. Be inspired by the visionaries, the inventors, and the desirers for a better world. Be the change you want to see. Believe that the best is yet to come. Believe in the best of yourself and of others. Climb your own personal Everests, and create a life that heals and nurtures you, and safeguards you from negative forces. The world will be uplifted for your own uplifted being. Step into the power that has always been inside of you, and inspire others to do the same. If we use this year, and the hard lessons that came with it, to help us to step into our higher powers (as so many of us already have, in so many ways), nothing will have been in vain. Nothing. And the world will shine like never before.

Indicators

My daughter and I were in the car the other day, and an indicator lit up on my dashboard. My heart lurched. I felt kind of panicky and uneasy. It turned out to be my low fuel indicator. I needed to get gas. I hadn’t seen that indicator in so long, it alarmed me. Just another crazy thing about this pandemic situation, I suppose. My response did make me laugh out loud, so that is a good thing.

We were driving home from giving blood. We were hoping that we each had miraculous coronavirus antibodies, but alas, the test results came back today, and we didn’t. However, I did get smacked upside the head with the reality of my pandemic pork out. I’ve let calories be my units of comfort. I realize that I have needed too much “comforting” this past year. I tried to avert my eyes from the scale, but it lit up like my dashboard indicator. “Wake up and smell the coffee, lady” seems to be the message all of the way around.

I saw this on a sign the other day:

“We are responsible for everything that goes into our mouths and everything that comes out of them.”

I think that sign was tailor made for me. I need to be more cognizant on both accounts. I suppose it is good to enter the holidays, with a good reality check. Watch what goes into my mouth and what comes out of it, keep up my oil changes (in both my car and in my body- by regularly giving blood), and recognize when I am low on fuel and running on fumes, before the brightly lit indicators start happening. These are good things to recognize before the thrust of the holidays is upon us and the warning indicators get lost in the jumble of brightly colored twinkle lights.

Witness to My Own Life

Unfortunately, instead of coming together during this pandemic, in some ways, there has been a fair amount of divisiveness and judgment and anger, coming from every angle, towards and against each other. Perhaps this is just a way to release a lot of pent-up angst over this very difficult year and the people around us, are our most easy targets. I know that many people have felt judged for being too carefree with their actions and their responses to the virus, but I also know that at the opposite side of the spectrum, many people feel judged for being too careful or too fearful. This post by C. Joybell C. made a lot of sense to me, for those of us who have felt judged for being cautious, at times.