Tag: weddings

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.

The Vibration

This is the time of year for commencement speeches. And I’m a sucker for them. I remember years (and years and years) ago, I was on a team of college textbooks salespeople, and we were at a convention with a long schedule of motivational speakers. My boss groaned at the start of every speech. And I pretended to agree, but honestly, I was rapt. I’m always looking for nuggets of wisdom. I’m always looking for the emotional connection of a room full of people resonating with the same ideas and the same values. I love the shared rhythm of nodding heads and hands wiping away tears, sometimes in unison.

My aunt sent me Eric Church’s 2026 commencement speech for UNC and I just finished watching Conan O’Brien’s 2026 commencement for Harvard. They both used their unique talents of music and of comedy to make poignant points in their speeches. They both spoke of the vital need for humility. They both spoke of the reality of how much difference, the other people in any one person’s life make (even the haters), to form anyone’s individual success in life. Two men, from two very different walks of life and probably having many different ideas about life and politics, still spoke mostly of the things that matter the most, to most of us. And it resonated.

Maybe there is a deep universal reason why we so desperately cling to the rituals of life. I just attended the last commencement (at least for a while) of our four children, when our daughter graduated from college this month. I also just attended my eldest son’s wedding. And in both of these situations, I felt the borders of myself getting fuzzy, like I had melted and I was stirred in with everyone else who was attending these events with me. I felt like I melted into a sea of shared pride, hope, awe, and understanding that it is in these stirring moments in life, when we unabashedly let emotion rise to the surface like a wave, that we really all are connected in the ways that are truly crucial to our humanity. People sometimes have a hard time with the concept that everything in this world is really just energy vibrating, and we are all just a small little blip of this vibration. Still, it is in the “big” rituals of our lives that we all seem to naturally step into this same vibration, and that vibration is universally understood. We all feel it. We all know it. It can only be love.

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

Formula for a Great Life

“winning = knowing the most love. I know you just threw up a little bit in your mouth but I have to tell you the truth and that is it. If you know how to love people with abandon and you know how to let people love you back, you will have a great life. That’s not my opinion. That’s not fake news. That’s what the research tells us.” – from Kelly Corrigan’s commencement address

I think this is why people love weddings. Love wins at weddings. People are so open about their joy and their happiness and their love for each other at weddings. People more easily put away their differences, their insecurities, their inhibitions and their self-consciousness while celebrating a marriage. People show their love for each other with great abandon at weddings and everyone feels the celebration and the connection. Kelly Corrigan makes a great point, though. Sometimes it is really easy to love others, but it is harder to let other people love you back. But that’s not the meaning and fullness of love. When you don’t let others love you, you are robbing them of sharing their lovingness. Love is not a one-way street. Love is. Love has created everything. Love is all that there really is, and when you live your life, knowing that formula, not just at weddings or other celebratory events, but in every conscious moment of your daily living, you can’t help but have a great life. There is no better feeling, no better way of being than to throw caution to the wind, and to inhabit and to become love, with wild abandon, every single day of your life. If you don’t think that your life is going so great, try adding some love to the mix. Try narrowing down your everyday life to what makes you feel loved, loving and in the essence of love. The formula works and it is available to all of us. It is the natural core of our very being.

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

Anesthesia

My daughter-in-law hired a “day of wedding coordinator” named Anastasia for the wedding last week. My daughter-in-law’s mother’s Autocorrect feature on her cellphone, constantly changed the name “Anastasia” to “Anesthesia”, which while amusing, was actually quite apropos. I don’t know if I have ever met a more calm, soothing, serene woman than Anastasia in my entire life, particularly at a wedding. Anastasia was like an eight-armed goddess as she sewed, handed out flowers, took instant photos, steamed dresses, and calmly reminded everyone where they should be at any given time, all at once, and all of the while, maintaining the aura of pure peace and serenity. Whenever we had a question or concern, we would joke with each other that Anastasia would magically, and instantly appear, sometimes out of the fireplace, or the floorboards, to answer the question or to solve the problem, calmly and confidently. It reminded me of a long time ago, when we were on the Disney Cruise with our four young children. It was at that time that I started truly believing that Disney magic was actually the real deal, when again, the beyond cheerful crew and smiling staff appeared almost miraculously and instantly, in order to solve any issues or upsets, with just a wave of Tinkerbell’s wand. Throughout the day and night, my daughter-in-law kept repeating that Anastasia was easily the best money spent on the wedding.

It was at one point during the evening, right before the wedding was to start, that I blurted out, for no particular reason, “I WANT an Anastasia in my life.” Then, a second later, in a lightbulb moment, I blurted out, to no one in particular, but to anyone in earshot, “I think that I am my family’s Anastasia.”

My middle son, about to take a bite out of a piece of the pre-wedding pizza, matter-of-factly stated, “You are, Mom.” Then he continued to joke around with the other groomsmen.

This was one of those personal a-ha moments that came out of left field for me. It occurred to me, just in that very moment, that our family always did have a live-in Anastasia. It was me. We moms are our families’ “Anastasia/Anesthesia”. Now I’m not going to pretend that I ever pulled it off with such placid and tranquil vibes that the real Anastasia imbued. I’m not go to pretend that I never had a meltdown in a crisis. But overall, I fully understood that it was my job to make sure that our family’s schedule/celebrations/sporting events/ceremonies/appointments/feeding times/surprise emergencies, etc. etc. were all handled, and executed in a timely manner, day after day. I was the one who made sure that the Venn Diagram schedule of each member of our family, happened and flowed, in the best way possible. And all of my other fellow moms did the exact same thing for their families. And sometimes, we even pulled it off, with totally unruffled energy, making it look simple and seamless. Damn, we were good. Damn. We are good.

When our four kids were little, it was never the physical work that made me totally exhausted (although it certainly added to the mix), it was the mental exhaustion that got to me every time. I would often wish that someone would just hand me a timed schedule, and a to-do list, and a recipe and a plan for what to make for dinner, all which I could accomplish in a tranced-out robotic state and still have time and energy for my own interests and hobbies. (My husband will be forever scarred by the one time that he called me at a McDonalds to ask me what exactly he should order for each of the four kids, on a rare Mommy’s Night Out. Let’s just say that I didn’t have a serene response.)

I’m not writing this in “victim-mode.” This choice to be the matriarch of my family is the best decision that I have ever made in my entire life. I would make the exact same decision again and again. Being the female head of my family, is my honor, privilege and my greatest pride. However, lately, I am starting to get a better understanding and a closer-up glimpse, that it really is time for me to start pulling way back, scaling down my self-described duties, in order to just really put my focus on being a lighter-duty Anastasia – a concierge, mostly for myself. This is a strange adjustment. This transition doesn’t happen instantly. It starts slowly when one kid moves out, and then another. It becomes more obvious, when the kids graduate and find loving, responsible adult partners who are looking out for them, too. It’s the realization that the grocery cart doesn’t need to be nearly as full anymore. It’s the mental and emotional shift of being an active creator of the life of your family unit, to becoming the more passive experiencer/observer of the expanding lives of your family. It’s the realization that your family has now become plural. There are multiple sprouts growing in the family garden now. Your family is becoming “families.”

As a mom, I will always be an Anastasia/Anesthesia in some form or other. It comes with the territory. It’s a hard habit to break. Something tells me, I’ll pull off a serene Anastasia a little bit better with my future grandchildren. I certainly hope that I have the opportunity to try.

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

Blessings

+ Yesterday was our daughter’s birthday and she happens to be visiting us. We had a delightful day together, mixing in shopping, eating and errands. It’s been my favorite Monday of the year so far. We did her birthday “freebie” tour and loaded up on treats from Starbucks, Sephora, Panera and others. When she was a little girl (our daughter turned 22 yesterday, so her “little girl stage” was definitely a little while ago) and I’d be taking her along for chores and errands on her various birthdays, she never failed to chirp out to anyone in earshot that it was her birthday. And she always ended up with a pile of smiles, treats and well-wishes, even before she had a phone full of apps offering birthday surprises. This unabashadley accepting the deserved joy of her birthday, is a long-standing tradition that I hope that my one and only little girl, keeps up for the rest of her life. Joy is free, and it is here for the taking.

+ I know that the blog has been quiet lately. I’m in one of my “soaking it all up” stages in life. With our two sons’ weddings and our daughter’s college graduation quickly approaching, I’ve done everything that I can to internally slow down and to make sure that I am capturing what these “moments before” really look like, feel like, and seem like, to me, both externally and internally. I’ve been trying to capture the entire picture in slow motion, and to sit with it all in gratitude and wonder. Soaking it all up feels like a giant crescendo or wave, filled with emotion, memories, perceptions, hopes, fears, surprise, pride . . . . it’s like taking the biggest swallow of life that you’ve taken in a long time, and trying to just hold it in your mouth for the amazing flavor of it all, before it is just another bite from just another banquet of your life, finished and left to digest as a memory. “Soak it all up” moments are so ripe and poignant, aren’t they? Sometimes they are bigger than the events that mark the turning points. I imagine that these past winter Olympians felt so much more in the awe and the build-up of the opening ceremonies, than even when the medals were given out. I think that we humans inherently know to slow down and to soak up so much when we are babies, and when we are elders, and during all of the times in our lives that clearly demarcate a before/after. We soak up all of “the before”, in order to take in as much of it as we possibly can, so as to better bring it forward and to assimilate it, into the still unknown of the soon-arriving after.

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

Soul Sunday

Happy Mother’s Day! I know a lot of my readers are mothers, and truly wonderful mothers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And to my own beautiful four children, you make me so proud. I love you with all of my heart. It is my greatest joy and privilege to be your mother. Last night, my husband and I attended a wedding and as I looked around at everyone and mingled with people I’ve known for several years, it occurred to me that every stage of mother was in that room. There were pregnant women, women with their first babies, and a young woman talking about being at her child’s little league game, late into the night, on her own birthday (and every one of us mothers, whom she was telling the story to, were nodding in knowing recognition and understanding). There were the proud, excited middle-aged mothers of the bride and the groom, and there was a table of older women, presumably grandmothers and maybe even great-grandmothers. Maybe the reason why weddings have such beautiful energy and an aura of hopefulness like no other event, is because they are filled with strong women who deeply understand what it is like to be a willing, unending, unbreakable channel of the Universe’s greatest Love.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

733. What was your last big achievement?

I Do

We just arrived home from the wedding which we had attended last night. I’m tired, but happily so. There are few experiences in this world that are more beautiful, hopeful, earnest, and comforting than weddings. How lovely it is to see two people commit to be there for each other, in full support of each other throughout their shared journeys throughout their lifetimes. Many wedding traditions have changed throughout the ages, and it is true that not all marriages last, but during the celebration of the uniting of two people, the whole space around them is elevated. We attendees to the wedding are all delighted to witness a couple of our fellow human beings bare their souls to each other, and also to say to all of us who care about them and to Creation, “I’m going to take care of this human. I’m going to be there for this human through it all. This human is very special to me.” And we all feel happy that there is another twosome in this world that have committed to having each other’s backs in the most intimate, devoted, exhaustive way that it is not possible to do for everyone who we each know and care about. Marriage elevates us. It elevates our world. And you see a microcosm of this in any wedding event. You look over the sea of beaming faces and you see the elderly, and the youth, and everyone in between, and you realize that marriage is a huge part of what has made our humanity what it is today. Our biggest celebrations and traditions in life are always about love. Weddings encapsulate the act of love, not just the feeling of love, but the act of committing to actually being love in one of its most gracious forms, as a caring, dedicated, devoted spouse of another being. Weddings are wonderful.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1863. What song would you say best sums you up?

Furry Friday

Today we are going to a wedding. I always scour a couple’s wedding registry for something that I believe that the couple will have for a long, long time. I look for an endurable item. I think that it bodes well for the marriage, to use an item, or to see an item, and to remember your special day every time that particular item meets your eye. My parents’ friends bought us this large, unusual, beautiful salad bowl for our wedding and to this day, it sits out on our kitchen counter, holding apples and oranges. We’ll be happily married for 30 years in October.

I only bring this up about “special items” because on Fridays on the blog, I discuss the “special items” in life which make life more interesting. Favorite Things Friday is here! This Friday’s favorite I learned about from our dog groomer. She groomed Josie, our rough collie, the other day in about half of the time that it usually takes. (Josie is probably related to wookies. Her hair is similar to Chewbacca’s. Josie has A LOT of hair.) Anyway, our groomer said that she started using a new brush that has become a game changer for her business. It was invented by a Doodle breeder. The brush is called The Doodle Brush. You can buy The Doodle Brush on Amazon. I purchased one and haven’t used it much yet because the dogs were just groomed, but I trust my groomer. She knows her stuff. At $55, the brush is not inexpensive, but my groomer insisted it’s worth every penny. If you live with a furry critter (or two), this is a brush that you must check out.

Have a delightful weekend, friends! See you tomorrow!

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

520. How modern are you?

Being It

The son of one of my best friends from college is getting married tomorrow. He is the first of our group of friends’ babies to get married. It feels surreal. As you age, you get little markers along the way, reminding you that you are aging. (a lot of these markers have landed on my face in the form of wrinkles and bags) But every once in awhile, as you are moving along your life, you get big flashing lights that are determined to get your attention. They seem to scream: “You, my friend, are definitely in a different era of your life!”

I remember clearly going to this young man’s parents’ wedding. We all went to college together. There were a slew of weddings back then. And then, after a while, there weren’t many weddings to attend at all. Everything evolved to baby showers. And then there was a long period of supporting each other as we raised our families, sharing our joys and our griefs along the way. And not too many years ago, the graduation notices of the children of my friends starting coming into the mailbox more and more frequently. The Christmas cards we receive every year seem to have more wedding pictures on them, and now the darling babies featured on the front on the cards are often the adored grandbabies of our friends.

It is not lost on me that the major milestones that mark the turning of the seasons of our lives, are the milestones that show where all of our loving energy has been invested. The milestones in our lives show the growth of our relationships and of our endeavors, and the branches of where our lives have grown and spread. I’m not sad that I am crossing into this new era of my life. I am perhaps a little (naively) surprised, but I am not sad. I delight in everything that I have experienced and grown wiser about in my life. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful to share this journey with others who help me to reflect on, and help me to realize all that life really is, which is to say, can mostly be whittled down to one pure thing – experiencing, living, and being Love.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2101. Can you do any fake accents? If so, which one? (This reminds me of a “No Horse Pucky” story. Let me start by saying that my husband and I have power of attorney for each other, and I handle all of our monthly bills. One month, there was a problem on one of my husband’s credit card statements that I was trying to get rectified. The customer service people told me that my husband would have to call about it, but my husband was out of the country on business. So, I thought to myself, “I’ll just lower my voice and pretend to be my husband.” Simple. Problem solved. I practiced a few times and I called back. I did my spiel in my “man voice.” The patient customer service person listened and then said to me, “Ma’am, we really are going to need to speak to your husband.” So fake man accent, is clearly not one of my talents.)

Wired Wisely

So this morning I have some appointments, and so I felt some angst about figuring out what I would write about in the blog today. (I am typically good about limiting my commitments in my mornings because I like to have my mornings devoted to leisurely reading and writing and thinking, but sometimes I have no choice.) Anyway, my email today from the Daily Inspiration included this quote:

Kevin Kelly is the editor of Wired magazine. Oh boy, I love a quote like the above that really makes me take some time to ponder it. So immediately after reading the quote, I felt the need to learn more about Kevin Kelly. I found out that he wrote a book in May called “Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. (Kevin Kelly is 71 years old.) So of course, I’ve already downloaded this book to my Kindle as an early Christmas present to myself (When I looked at excerpts from Kevin Kelly’s X page, this book is clearly right up my alley!) I take the above quote to mean that we enjoy our passions for ourselves, but they become our purpose when we make our passions our gift to the world.

Here’s another quote from the book:

My husband and I have often discussed why it is that many famous bands and singers seem to have their “heyday” of amazing songs, and then they kind of stop creating really great new stuff, and they rely on their old standbys to retread again and again at their concerts. Is it possible that these rich and famous people may have lost their hunger? How do you stay hungry if you have reached a certain level of security and fame? I love the idea of “Stay hungry.” It is another one of those “simple, but not easy” edicts of life.

And here are a few of my other favorites to share, before I go hop into the shower:

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