Tag: inspiration

Gaping

Our only daughter, our youngest of four kids, and the last to leave the nest, takes off in about a couple of weeks, for a fabulous new job opportunity, in a state that is a two-day drive from us, in a whole different time-zone. Lately, my sweet friends and relations have been sending me texts, kindly asking me how I’m doing and how I’m feeling. My pat answer has been, “Doing well, just trying to soak her all in. Smiley emoji. Thumbs up emoji.” Perhaps I should go with the more truthful, modern answer, “I don’t know. It’s complicated.” But, I won’t. I don’t want anyone to try to poke at my carefully created shield. I’m still in “mother-mode.” I’ve got to be my daughter’s cool, calm, collected safety net. I’ve got to be that reassuring presence that tells her (and tells me) that everything is going to be okay. And it will be. I know this from the bottom of my heart, but still . . . How am I feeling about all of this?

I don’t know. It’s complicated. It’s a complicated mash of every feeling under the sun that I’m still trying to keep under the lid of my shield – a shield that protects others from a violent storm of emotion that would only inevitably be followed by that way too uncomfortable cloud of discomfort and cringe which just hangs in the air after any kind of explosion of passionate feelings, and also a shield that protects me from an intensity of feelings that I’m not ready to feel yet. I have so many feelings flying around, under the radar of my carefully crafted shield, that I have even witnessed myself having strong feelings about those feelings, all swirling around, all at the same time. And right along with this massive, swirling cone of conflicting emotions, I have an internal high and mighty judge and jury telling me which of these feelings are “correct” for me to have, and which of these feelings are “wrong” and “shameful.” Honestly, a statement that has always been hard for me to grapple with is “Both things can be true at the same time.” This is a hard concept for me. I like cut and dry. I like logic. I like “truth.” I get annoyed when people use the term “that’s my truth” too much. It seems like a cop-out to me. I like to believe that there are actually a fair amount of factual truths that just can’t be denied. And yet, when it comes to feelings, I’m having to come to terms with the idea that “eight million things can be true at the same time.” And that is the truth. And that’s okay.

How am I feeling about all of this – my youngest now really and truly embarking on her adulthood and moving far away from me, bookended by two of her brothers’ weddings, all in the span of a few short months?

Overwhelmed. Happy. Sad. Nostalgic. Relieved. Excited for them. Excited for me. Excited for my husband. Worried for them. Worried for me. Worried for my husband. Tired. Proud. Impressed with myself. Disappointed in myself. Hopeful. Out of sorts. Organized. Disorganized. Astounded. Needy. Ecstatic. Protective. Patient. Impatient. Grateful. Scared. Small. Big. Guilty. Enough. Not Enough. Supportive. Not wanting to be supportive. Listless. Astounded. Scattered. Lost. Found. Misdirected. Accomplished. Agitated. Confused. Insecure. Exhausted. Lonely. Craving solitude. Reflective. Empathetic. Energized. Fearful. Confident. Faithful. Old. Newly young. Free. Righteous. Curious. Doubtful. Even sometimes angry, and maybe even a little envious of all the new experiences that my children all have ahead of them. Open. Assured. Defensive. Questioning. But mostly, I feel gaping. I feel totally gaping with Love and Vulnerability. Gaping. Yep, I feel absolutely gaping wide.

How am I feeling about all of this change in my life? (shield goes up)

Thank you for asking. I’m good. I’m just trying to soak my daughter all up before she leaves. Smiley emoji. Thumbs up emoji.

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

Last Week It Happened

It happened. The first of our four children, our eldest son, got married last week. It was the first marriage of any of our children. If you think that your own wedding was lovely and magical, you can’t even imagine how incredibly magical the marriages of your own children will be! I’m still floating on a cloud. I am still thanking the Powers That Be, for the pure foundation of love our son has found and created with his beautiful bride. I am still thanking the Powers That Be that our whole family has been a witness to their beautiful love and the divine ceremony and celebration that cemented their wonderful union. We are so very blessed and I feel it tingling in every cell of my body.

“A bride is the most beautiful poem ever written…” – Oscar Wilde

“To get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” – Mark Twain

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” – Nat King Cole

I have often told myself, in these most recent years in which our children have grown up into adulthood, that my job now is narrowed down to just love my family. Love them. Love them. Love them. I have already birthed them, fed them, guided them, taught them, scolded them, protected them, prayed for them (this will be ceaseless), sheltered them, prodded them, cheered them, advised them, comforted them, fought for them, and occasionally even apologized to them for my shortcomings, and now, our four amazing adult children are capable to do all of these things for themselves and for each other. I just need to narrow my motherly duties down to Love now. And this is the easiest thing for me to do. It comes naturally. Love them. Love them. Love them. I love my family ceaselessly and I am so grateful for the outward celebration of our love that was experienced, happily and beautifully, just a few short days ago.

“I think that enduring, committed love… is the most noble act anyone can aspire to.” – Nicholas Sparks

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

Savoring

Our youngest graduated from college last weekend. Our eldest son gets married next week. This week has been a combination of wrapping up loose ends/taking an exhale/and recharging the batteries. As I have been waking up slowly each morning, I’ve envisioned my bed as a soft, safe charger, much like my iPhone gets charged each night. I’ve insisted on going to bed early and keeping the schedule light this week. The graduation and its celebration went off magically. And I am pleased and I am relieved. I am hoping the same for the upcoming nuptials. I’m honestly relieved that the wedding is finally around the corner. When I’ve mentioned this pining for months now, to anyone in earshot of me, that I really can’t wait for the big events of this year to just be here (we have another son getting married in September), I get a lot of admonishment to not wish my life away, and to just totally savor it all. And this annoys me a lot. This annoys me because I am a savorer. I pride myself in that fact. I savor my life and most of the moments in it, but too much anticipation gets to me every time. And not in a good way. I do not do well with “limbo”. I savored my daughter’s recent graduation AND I am relieved and happy to have it completed successfully. I relish in the surety of a plan that is well executed and is then relegated to being a fond memory. I don’t feel too sad when planned events, vacations, reunions, celebrations, etc. are over because I know that there will always be more (and this is because I am a savorer and I have proof of that in my many, many, many savored memories). Like the quote below says, once you’ve added an experience to your memory bank, it’s yours. It cannot be lost. It’s in your “vault of you.” Your experiences become shapers of you. Maybe that’s why I hate limbo. I keep wanting to pull all of the scattered pieces of myself, past and future, back into myself. It’s like my future self can see ahead and is always yearning to be more and more fully and wholly me.

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

Soul Sunday

“The Safe Box”

Soon, I will be handing you the safe box of your life,

Similar to the ones I gave to your brothers when they embarked fully

into the horizon of their own adult lives.

The safe box will hold your birth certificate,

A paper token of the most intimate moment, you and I ever shared.

The safe box will hold your passport,

A stamped pamphlet of epic family adventures,

And brave escapades of your study abroad experience,

that you ventured out on your own, sending apprehension to the wind.

(I am so proud of your courage and your unapologetic lust for life.)

It will hold the aquamarine I purchased for you when you were a toddler,

A gem, for a gem of a girl who has turned into a dazzling, sparkler of a woman,

as I knew you would.

The safe box will later hold signs and tokens of major moments in your life to come:

Marriage certificate, deeds to homes, birth certificates of my grandchildren yet to be.

I now pass the safe box of your life fully unto you, for your own good keeping.

The time is now.

You are ready. (And I am trying to be ready, too.)

Please hold tightly to the safe box of your life. Keep it secure.

It holds important things and tools to lead your life fully and freely.

But most importantly, it holds a piece of my heart that will never, ever leave you.

No, that’s not really true.

That little, vital piece of my heart was never really ever kept in the safe box.

That ferociously beating little piece of my heart always was,

And it will ever and always be,

with you, my precious baby girl.

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

Time, Heart, Action

Hello friends. I’m sorry that I haven’t been writing much. Crunch time is upon our family with my youngest’s graduation from college and my eldest’s wedding, both in a few weeks from now. However, I came across this quote the other day and I knew that I wanted it as a new exhibit here at our thought museum, Adulting – Second Half. It is attributed to Ziad K. Abdelnour. See below:

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

What Makes It Work

“Shared values are far more important than shared interests.” – Nancy Caciola

The above quote is true of any relationship, romantic or platonic. You trust and respect people who share your same values and you get inspired by, or at the very least, curious about the many varied interests and passions and hobbies that different people have, which occupy their time and minds. Having different interests keeps things intriguing and vital, but having different values, keeps things guarded and suspicious and often disappointing. You usually can tell people who share your same values because people put most of their time and energy and resources into what matters to them most. You usually just feel intuitively more natural and comfortable when in the company of people who share your same values. You typically feel drained or on edge or even defensive, with people who don’t share the same values as you. However, the worst you ever feel with someone who has different interests than you, is perhaps nothing more than a little bored.

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

Consolation Prize

Jay McInerney has a new book out. People of my generation will probably remember his breakout novel, Bright Lights, Big City, a book about being young and wild and full of grief in New York City. Jay McInerney is currently 71 years old. I was reading an interview which the New York Times had with him and this quote stuck out to me:

“There is consolation in old age in sensing that you may have experienced some of the best.”

He said this in the context of imagining the idea of being able to be young again in New York City, but realizing that it would never be the same as he remembers it when he first experienced it in the 1970s, when he was in his twenties.

I do believe that one of the best gifts of aging is believing and knowing that you have experienced things and events that will never be able to be replicated in the exact same way again. And these experiences are sacred, for that very reason. And age has a way of softening memory and focusing on the positive and putting a warm, fuzzy frame around it all. We all believe that our own favorite experiences were better than any youngster could ever imagine or experience themselves. And those youngsters will grow up to be oldsters who believe the very same thing. Each generation feels sorry for what the generation below them “missed out on.” Perhaps there really is a slow degeneration of all things bright and beautiful, but more likely, as Jay McInerney says, the belief that “you may have experienced some of the best” is just a lovely “consolation” prize that comes with the territory of growing old.

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

Joy Train

Like so much of the rest of the world, I’m in total awe of our amazing Artemis II astronauts. They are everything you like to see in human beings. I adored watching footage of Victor Glover’s hero’s welcome to his neighborhood. I so admire his unapologetic professions of his Christian faith. I loved seeing the excitement Christina Koch’s pup showed when being reunited with her. And today, I watched the speeches that the Artemis II crew made in Houston. I soaked up everything which they had to say, so full of gratitude and love for their families, for each other, and for everyone at NASA who supported their mission. The words that struck me the most though came from Jeremy Hansen and I had to transcribe them and add them to this thought lab which we have going on here at Adulting – Second Half. Here is some of what astronaut, Jeremy Hansen said:

“Joy . . . . I think you saw a lot of joy up there and there was a lot of joy up there . . .We have a term in our crew that we coined a long time ago, “the joy train.” We’re not always on the joy train, this crew, but we are committed to getting back on the joy train as soon as we can and that is a useful life skill for any team trying to get something done.”

And this:

“Love . . . what you saw was group of people who loved contributing, having meaningful contribution and extracting joy out of that . . . And what we’ve been hearing is that this was something special for you to witness. . . .I would suggest to you, we are a mirror reflecting you and if you like what you see, just look a little deeper. This is you.”

The reason why anything resonates in our deepest selves is because we intuitively know that it is a part of us. These astronauts showed bravery, resiliency, sacrifice, contribution, joy, teamwork, gratitude, awe, faith, hope and love and we all reverberated with it. And this is because, as Jeremy Hansen said, the astronauts mirrored the best parts of our own shared humanity. These astronauts mirrored the best parts of ourselves. They’re not in space anymore, but I imagine the Artemis II crew is definitely on the joy train. Let’s join them and let’s stay there as long as we possibly can.

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

Strings

Last night my husband and I attended a Billy Strings concert. (these are the beautiful things you get to do as an empty nester – attend a concert in the middle of the week, sitting in decent seats that you can better afford, without having to find a babysitter) Billy is an incredible bluegrass guitarist whose music my husband discovered when we were watching Willie Nelson’s birthday special a few years back. He got hooked on Billy’s incredible skills, and now he plays his songs all of the time. I don’t complain. It’s great music. We purchased our concert tickets back in January. And I’m so glad that we did. The concert was sold out.

The Billy Strings concert was a crazy experience. Billy has a loyal following that quickly put me in mind of the Deadheads whom I knew back in high school, who spent their summers gleefully following the Grateful Dead around the country. People whom we talked to, while standing in line for our merch, were in awe that this was our first Billy Strings concert. One woman said that she was getting goosebumps hearing that fact. Another said that she was incredibly jealous that we got to have our “maiden voyage” because hers was just that good. They regaled tales of their many Billy Strings concert experiences and assured us that it was okay to wait in the long line for merch because he always starts at 8:05 on the dot, and he did.

The interesting thing about all of this is that Billy is only 33 years old. As one fan told me, “Yeah, he’s just a baby. He’s our modern day Hendrix.” The concert did not disappoint. I spent most of it on my feet. Billy and his band only took one break and many of their songs go on as long as 15 minutes. Billy Strings has won numerous awards, including a grammy. He’s honestly a musical phenom.

What really got me to thinking though (instead of just singing and dancing), was what the woman sitting next to me said. “Do you know why Billy’s so good at what he does? It’s because he had a sh#tty childhood. We coddle our kids too much these days and they don’t reach their potentials,” she said to me with conviction. I knew about Billy Strings’ tough history. His father died of a heroin addiction when Billy was just two. His mother remarried (Billy attributes his stepfather as the man who gave him his bluegrass start), but his parents soon got addicted to meth. Billy ran away from home at the age of 13, and for a period, he, too, was addicted to hard drugs. When he went back home, his family achieved sobriety for a period, but sadly, in 2025, Billy Strings’ mother died of an overdose in her sleep.

So anyway, this statement about Billy’s childhood has been in the back of my mind since my fellow Strings fan said it to me. Is this statement true? No one has a perfect childhood. So the real question is, did the tougher parts of your own childhood make you or break you or a mix of both? Many people who experienced terrible childhoods end up on skid row and no one can blame them for it. But the ones who transcend their childhood abuse, use it as a hardcore motivation to give themselves everything that they didn’t get as children. When I asked AI for some examples, this is what its first statement said:

“Many notable figures overcame severe early childhood trauma—including abuse, extreme poverty, or parental loss—to achieve remarkable success. Examples include Oprah Winfrey (poverty/sexual abuse), Jim Carrey (homelessness), Charlize Theron (witnessing her mother kill her father in self-defense), and Howard Schultz (growing up in public housing). Studies suggest up to 75% of high achievers experienced difficult childhoods.”

I made it one of my major missions to give our four children a healthy foundation. Our family life wasn’t perfect, but I would confidently say that my four kids would probably all categorize it as “good.” Did I do them a disservice? I don’t believe that’s true. Even good childhoods go through trials. Our own family was hit hard by the Great Recession and we had to move to a whole other state when our eldest son was in high school. We discovered our third son had epilepsy when he was fourteen, and while this has affected him the most, it has made a mark on all of us in our family, particularly about the fragility of life.

I believe that the bigger point of all of this is, if you take the perspective that you can alchemize anything bad that has happened to you, into some sort of motivation/skillset/drive/ambition/compassion for yourself, then perhaps the hard things that happened to you, in some sense, also bear gifts, for you and for others. If you can turn your sagas into songs and your trials into trajectories, like so many others have, then you’ve won. Things that were expected to swallow you whole, instead catapulted you to your highest self. That’s why so many spiritual tomes warn against labeling anything “good” or “bad”. Good and bad can come from the same experience. Sometimes “good” or “bad” is just a matter of choice of perspective.

I don’t know if Billy Strings would trade his “sh*tty childhood” if it meant that he would not have the ability nor the ambition to take his innate musical talents to where they are today. I don’t know if Billy Strings had an amazing childhood if that would have made a difference one way or another, of him following his musical gifts to as far as they can reach. All that I can say is that I am utterly grateful that Billy Strings shares his gifts with us, however these gifts came into being.

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

Integrity

I did a deep-dive on the Artemis II mission this morning. I needed to bathe in some uplifting news. One of our sons drove to the other side of our state to see the rocket launch occur last week. He said that it was one of the most inspiring, hopeful, patriotic experiences of his life and being a “science geek” that wasn’t his first intention nor expectation of his adventure. Our son said that there were people from all over the United States (and all over the world, for that matter) there to experience the ground-shaking, anticipatory, excited, energy-filled moments surrounding the launch.

Today, I read more about the astronauts on the moon mission. The most moving story of the week has been the astronauts decisions to name two newly found craters on the moon. The first one they named “Integrity”, which is the name the astronauts have given the ship which they are travelling around the moon in, and the second crater, one that the astronauts claimed to be incredibly “light-filled”, is named “Carroll” for the beautiful wife of Commander Reid Wiseman, who passed away in 2020, after a five-year battle with cancer. Carroll was the mother of two lovely daughters, a neonatal nurse and as it turns out, a fellow alumnus of my beloved college, James Madison University. Commander Reid Wiseman has been lovingly raising their daughters on his own, for the last six years.

I pray that the Integrity and its leader, Wiseman, and its brave crew members arrive safely back to Earth at of this end of this week. We need Integrity back to Earth more than ever, don’t we? We need our holes filled with light. We need the quiet dignity of true visionaries and selfless leaders who know that we humans are most powerful when we work together for the mission of valuing and keeping sacred, the sanctity of our incredible planet, for all of its inhabitants. In a world full of loud and bombastic “look at me, what’s in it for me?!” energy, there is also, not too far out there, a place which our astronauts have shown that we can physically go to and explore. This place is the quietness and the vastness of space, surrounding and holding and embracing our precious planet, no matter what shenanigans we get carried away with, down here on the ground. May we put our direction away from the loud distractions and more towards the awe of the quiet dignity that holds us and guides us and supports us, no matter what is going on with us. May Integrity come back safely and soundly to Earth at the end of this week. And may we embrace her, as space continually embraces us.

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