Tag: empty nest

What a Trip!

I’ve neglected to mention that we have added a new member to our immediate family. During these unusually tough times, we’ve enjoyed such comfort and distraction and amusement from our current fur babies, Ralph, our Labrador retriever, and Josie, our rough collie, that we decided we needed another fur friend, to make our family complete. Well, I should say, the kids and I, decided that getting a new puppy would be a wonderful, uplifting experience, while having to remain so “holed up.” My husband was a very reluctant member of the puppy band wagon. Nonetheless, knowing me and loving me for decades now, my husband knows that I love “a lot” of my favorite things. We have four kids, and we have always had a menagerie to go along with the quartet of kids. So with my husband’s grudging blessing, about two weeks ago, we brought “Trip” (as in “third dog”, or in the spirit of this year of the 2020 quarantine, “instead of a . . .”) into our home and into our hearts. Trip lives up to his name. This little Boykin spaniel is quite the Trip! And as what always happens, with all of our dogs, Trip is quite besotted with my husband, which is something that Trip and I totally share.

The Wisdom of Charlie

My two youngest children were watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the other night. We’ve all seen this movie several times, but out of inertia and boredom and a little weariness of trying to find something else to do, I plopped down on the couch, to watch the film with them, yet again. This particular scene (shown below) with Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen really got to me during this particular viewing. I was honestly riveted, in a self awareness moment. It’s amazing that with any good creative work, whether it be a movie, a book, or a piece of art, you glean something new from it, every time you experience it. I have to admit, it kind of bothered me to realize that I was getting schooled in wisdom, from Charlie Sheen (who in the movie, kind of prophetically plays the younger version of his future self), but truthfully, my experience in life has shown me that our greatest wisdom often comes from the most unlikely of sources. Maybe the Universe designed it that way, so that the lesson would remain fresh in our minds, due to the unusual circumstances and irony of it all. Charlie’s wisdom that he imparts to Jennifer Grey’s character in Ferris Bueller, really applies to how I have been feeling lately. The crazier the world is acting and reacting in relation to all our united upheaval lately, has gotten me more and more into my “control freak” mode. I seem to only feel safe and secure when everyone sees things exactly how I see them. I have wasted too much of my precious time, lately, lamenting and groaning, when others don’t see things and do things “my way.” And who does that really hurt? As Charlie says, the problem is with me.

Restoration

How many of us are getting a little “burnt out”? I want this blog to be a place of positivism and respite, as it is one of my precious creations. I want it to be a healing, soothing place. This blog has been formed out the deepest, most loving, most connected, part of myself. But, I also want it to be “real.” I’ve noticed that a lot of my friends, family and acquaintances, and most definitely myself included, are getting a little frayed around the edges these days, even the ones of us, who have had the privilege of getting haircuts again. Some of us are developing signs of stress in our bodies with rashes, infections, mysterious aches and pains, and sleep issues. Some of us, are just a little more tired and edgy and cranky and sad. This morning, I saw that even one of my favorite astrologers, a strong woman who often seems to be spiritually “other-worldly”, has decided to take a month off from writing her weekly column, a publication which she has been writing endlessly, for over 50 years.

We’ve all had quite a bit of stress in the last few months, individually and collectively. It’s a lot to take in. It’s okay to say, “I need a rest. I need a break. I need to recharge.”

When your thoughts come into your head, notice them, but say, “Hey guys, I’m going to let you pass through without giving you any more energy or contemplation. My mind needs a break. I’m a little depleted.”

When your emotions come in, by way of waves, storms, fire pits, tornadoes, volcanoes or just a sprinkling of constant rain, feel the feels, but then say, “Hey guys, I’m going let you pass through without giving you any more energy or contemplation. My heart needs a break. I’m a little depleted.”

When your body starts whispering to you or screaming to you, giving you signs that your body is carrying your unacknowledged stress, don’t push your body. Nurture it. Nurture your body with rest, with wholesome nutrition, and with exercise that is reviving, not punishing. Say to yourself, “Body, I respect you. You are the vehicle that helps me to experience my life. I understand that you need a break. You are a little depleted.”

Today, let’s give ourselves a chance to rest and to recharge. Let’s not create artificial deadlines that tax our minds, and hurt our bodies and dampen our spirits. We humans are sensitive, sensual beings. Our senses have been barraged these last few months. It’s been an overload for most of us.

Today is a good day to “just be.” Imagine yourself plugged into your Source, the entire day, for charging. That’s all you have to do. Go about your life quietly, today, and keep the cord plugged in. Un-kink the hose, so that the Source energy can flow through you, and heal you. Follow your impulses that feel right and kind, from the deepest, most peaceful, most loving part of yourself. Follow your intuition about the self-care that you need today. If you get quiet, aware and honest with yourself, your current needs will become abundantly apparent to you. Give yourself the gift of honoring those needs. Bathe and exhilarate in your innate ability to restore, refresh and renew, yourself.

30 Self-Care Quotes That Inspire Us - Take Care of Yourself Quotes

In Support

I do not condone the violence, destruction and the looting that has accompanied the protests this week. However, I absolutely support the cause of stopping the undue violence that has been perpetuated on the black community in America by the police. Therefore, this is my peaceful stand. See you tomorrow. I share my prayers for peace for all, and a loving, fair solution to this sad state of affairs, without further escalation of pain for anyone.

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Soul Sunday

It is poetry workshop day, here at Adulting – Second Half. Yesterday was a day of highs and lows. I was thrilled with the successful launch of the space shuttle! Such a nerve-wracking yet exciting, prideful event to watch! Still, my heart felt very heavy with all of the pain our country is going through with these horrible, unjustified killings. I wrote today’s poem, yesterday, from a very emotional place. Please fill my Comments with your poems. It is great release.

For the Love of our Sons

To my sisters who are “mamas” of big, strong, handsome, young black men,

We share the “mama” part, we mamas of sons, but your burdens are greater than mine.

You and I worry about our boys’ health, and opportunities and decisions and loves,

But you also worry that the people who are supposed to protect our boys, might instead

Destroy them.

You have to teach your boys a lesson, I would never even conceive of,

You must teach your sons that they are often considered guilty suspects by their very appearance, and you must teach your sons to be wary of the people who I have casually taught my sons to mostly trust.

Dear mama, my sister in motherhood, my heart aches for you. Being a mother is such a vulnerable position to be in, from the minute we feel our babies growing inside of us,

we love them intensely . . . with everything we have.

You and I are no different in that regard. I know this with my whole, bare heart. Your heart beats for your children, as my heart beats for mine. Do our unveiled hearts look very much the same? I imagine that they do. Love is love.

A mother’s heart brims with Love. An overflowing Love is what a mother’s heart is made of.

But I have less worry, less burden than which you must carry with you every day.

You hold yourself with such dignity and pride and strength and a serene knowing-ness, which I so admire,

Yet I know that I could probably never, ever replicate your beautiful countenance.

Mostly because I’ve never had to try.

You must need that beautiful, intense, impenetrable armor of yours, to shield your heart. But honestly, how much distress can a heart hold before it breaks and shatters and bursts, the lovely, steely container that holds it?

I don’t carry your burdens. I understand that. I know that neither of us should have to carry anything. Our hearts should be light of load, as we carry out the request of the Universe, to nurture our precious sons into manhood.

I don’t carry your burdens. I can never fully understand. I won’t disrespect you, by pretending I know how you feel.

But I can offer you my heart and my hand and my arms to rest in. I can offer you my prayers. I can offer you my careful consideration in all of the choices that I make and the lessons I impart, which help to form this Life which we are all living in. Together.

We are co-creating this world together, all of us, and I want all of our sons to experience the complete fullness that their lives have to offer. This is what uplifts the world. When your son benefits, so does mine. When your heart is light, so is mine.

When your daughters have baby sons, I want your daughters to feel as nonchalant as I do, when teaching her boys about authority figures. I want that lesson to be a minor footnote and not of much concern. I want the beautiful wonderment of life to be the focus of her teachings. Mamas shouldn’t have to teach fear and defensiveness and undue submissiveness to their beloved children.

This outpouring is my long way of saying, please don’t think that I don’t care. I do care. I care very much. I want this sadness, despair and anger and travesty to end. I want this racism to be over now. I want all of our children to experience a life free of racism. I want racism to be thing of dusty history books, an account that is so shocking to our grandchildren, that they can barely comprehend how these injustices existed.

Dear sister in motherhood,

Tell me what I can do to help unload the burden of your pain.

Sincerely signed, a mama of big, strong, handsome, young white men

The Swimmer

My friend’s minister sends a daily text of encouragement to whomever wants to receive them. I got great comfort from today’s text:

Whenever we hear that things will happen “in time” we often feel that they will take “a long time.” Be encouraged: “the right time” can be sooner than we think.

I’ve noticed in myself and in others, the waves of patience, impatience, fear, uncertainty, hope, peace, calm, anger, wonder, bewilderment, resignation, excitement, boredom, rebirth . . . . . it’s all a lot, isn’t it? It’s okay to feel wonderful one day, and worried as hell, the next. That’s just part of being human. The text from the minister today reminded me of the parable of the guy who was swimming across the English channel. He was exhausted, breathing heavy and all he could see was the heavy line of clouds and fog over the water, the grayness that seemed endless. He started to think that his pain and his exhaustion would be never-ending, and that his adventure was pointless. He was all set to give up, but as he was slowing down his strokes, getting ready to signal for the boat to pick him up and to end his hard-trained for goal, the sun came up and the fog lifted and it turns out that the shore was only a few feet away. The swimmer realized that he almost gave up on his determined, meaningful journey, right before his moment of glory.

25 Never Give Up Quotes – Quotes and Humor

Friday Survival

Happy Friday everyone! We hope you enjoy... - Carrboro Police ...

Hi friends and readers! Today is Favorite Things Friday! On Fridays, I don’t go deep. Fridays are for discussing three favorite items, songs, websites, pet supplies, etc. Please check out previous Friday posts for more favorites and please let us know some of your favorites in the Comments section. Without further ado:

Oxyfresh Fluoride Super Relief Dental Gel – If you have sensitive teeth and gums, this concoction really helps with that issue. I like to use it particularly after using the Crest Whitening Strips. I mix a little of this with my regular toothpaste and my teeth sensitivity has gone way down. I order my tubes of this winning formula on Amazon.

High Noon Vodka Hard Seltzer – One of my best friends from college introduced me to this delicious, refreshing, low in calories, seltzer drink. The alcohol content is low, the taste is delicious (no aftertaste) and it comes in a variety of delicious flavors. High Noon is the perfect summer refreshment to complement any slow and relaxing weekend picnic.

Bakery Boys of New York cookies – The awesome little Farmer’s Market near my home that I recently discovered has a treasure trove of amazing tasting delicacies from all over. They carry a whole line of Bakery Boys of New York cookies. Our household is particularly fond of the Angel Wings (light pastry puff butter cookies) and the Mini Black & White cookies. Apparently, grocery chains from all over, carry these cookies because they are so delicious!

There has been a great deal of pain and negativity and fear and anger swirling around these days. This weekend, let’s all try to find our deepest peace. If we each can get to a calm, centered energetic state, that will emanate out into the world and it will help to neutralize some of this bleakness that we have been experiencing during these tumultuous times.

Be the Change Group – Issaquah Highlands

The Worst Day

My middle son is working on his medical school applications. He asked me to edit the personal essay section that he wrote. This filled me with pride, seriousness and a great deal of trepidation. You see, my middle son’s major motivation to go to medical school started mostly with an experience that he had in high school with his younger brother. My youngest son is epileptic and my middle son witnessed my youngest son’s very first grand mal seizure (now called tonic-clonic), while he was driving them both to school. That day was categorically among the very worst days of my life – of all of our family’s lives. I cannot convey, in words, the desperate fear and the pure helplessness you experience, watching your child seize, lips turning blue, praying for it to end, as you hold him, trying to stop him from hurting himself, as his body flails uncontrollably. Every second of one of these seizures, feels like an eternity. It is scary as hell. My son’s neurologist told us that a grand mal seizure is like doing the most intense workout that you have ever done, in the concentrated time span of a few minutes. The experience is terrifying and the aftermath, is exhausting and painful. My youngest son experiences headaches that last a day and an unfathomable level of exhaustion, after coming out of one of these major seizures. Luckily, my son’s seizures are now controlled by a cocktail of medications, which unfortunately also have a bevy of undesirable side effects, but that’s for a different blog post. This post is about my middle son.

My middle son loves science. He loves technology. He loves fast cars and understanding how everything works. My middle son was my child that I was always having to pull his hands off of the buttons that he wasn’t supposed to be touching and pushing. My middle son is talented, smart, and extremely dedicated. He is meticulous and yet underneath all of that heavy, responsible armor that he carries around with him every day, lies a big, old heart of gold. I think there was a part of me that always knew that my son would be attracted to the medical arts, but the day that he witnessed his brother’s first major seizure, and was able to handle it all, in such a self-possessed, astute manner, despite tears flowing down his cheeks, as he calmly called us, and drove the car down a grassy median, avoiding the rush hour traffic, to get his brother home safely to us and to the paramedics, sealed the deal. He knew right then, that he wanted to use the gifts that had been given, to become a good, talented healer. There are silver linings in the bleakest of moments. This I know for sure.

When the paramedics loaded my youngest son into the ambulance, as he was now coming out of his seizure, I stepped up into the ambulance to sit by him and to comfort him, on the way to the hospital. Before they closed the back door of the ambulance, I glanced back at my middle son, standing in our driveway looking up at us both. If a mother’s heart can be ripped into two, it happened to my heart, in that moment. Part of my heart was beating for the welfare of my baby strapped to a gurney, and the other part was beating for the comfort of my brave, young man-child, who handled the situation so heroically. I wanted to comfort them, and me, and the rest of us, all in a steely envelope of relief, but all that I had was a fleeting glance, conveying worry/pride/gratitude/awe all at once, before the doors were quickly shut.

While my youngest son recuperated at the hospital and we knew that he would be okay, my middle son assured my husband and I, that he, too, was fine. In fact, my middle son wanted to head back to school because he had an exam that he didn’t want to miss and a soccer game to play in that night. It was evident to me that he was back to his level-headed, matter-of-fact, goal-oriented self. But I could also see that he was in a serious state of contemplation.

This morning, I made small edits to my son’s personal essay about what events motivated him to get into the medical arts, the most consequential event, being the day he witnessed his adored baby brother’s first major seizure. This essay that he wrote for the application, is his story. It is not mine to change. The story is his perspective and each member of our family has a different “story” about that very same life-changing event that happened in the lives of our family, and each of its members. We knew that this experience would change and affect all of our lives in some ways, forever, but in my middle son’s case, the change for him, came mostly, in the form of an internal, directional sign, pointing forward to his purposeful calling in life. Life works and moves in us and through us, sometimes, in the most poignant and mysterious of ways. We have no choice but to accept this fact, and let it flow.

Surprise Package

Today I’m going a few miles away to pick up a special package. I’m very excited to get it. It is going to be a large, colorful, over-brimming package and it only cost me $20. When I ordered the package online, the website also gave me the opportunity to share the joy, by purchasing and sending one of these amazing packages to someone else. My package is going to be over-brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables, grown by my local farmers. The other package will be headed to a local food pantry. I love the idea of being able to support and to nourish my family, nourish other families, and also, our wonderful farmers, in such a simple and easy way. While my link is a local link, I understand that this program is happening in many cities, all over the United States. Google “Farm Fresh” to see what is available in your area. While this coronavirus situation is indeed, very, very painful, the silver linings that have come with it, are plentiful. In fact if you took all of these threads of silver linings, such as more rest and quiet time, the healing moments for the Earth, the long, lingering family dinners, and the pure appreciation of the simpler things in life, you could probably make quite a pretty, shiny silver scarf. When the vaccine is developed and all of this fiasco is put to rest, we could all still wear our shiny silver scarves, from time to time, as lovely reminders that even the worst of times, have lovely, glimmering, sparkling gifts of hope and joy and peace, to offer.

12 Quotes to Help You Find the Silver Lining in Every Cloud - The ...