From Ashes

As a child I absolutely adored my Mother.  I looked so much like her that people in our small town called me "Little Paulette."  I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I was shy, but she could talk to anyone in any situation.  I wanted to be just like her.  We often went on trips to Oahu and even to California, just the two of us. We were best friends, two peas in our own pod.  I always thought we would be that close.


I was 10 when my parents got divorced.  It ripped everything I thought I knew about family apart.  A few months after their divorce was final I went to temporarily live with my Grandparents.  Not long after my Mom met someone new and remarried and I stayed with my Grandparents.

I don't want to go into too much detail about that time period, because we both have our own sides of the story (which are equally valid and extremely painful).  But by the time I graduated from high school our relationship was strained at best.  I had lived with my Grandparents for seven years at that point and I felt like they were my parents.  The closeness I once shared with my Mom was a long lost memory. (I did see her very often, but we barely spoke.)

I moved away to college with a lot of resentment in my heart.  We not only saw each other less (because I now lived 500 miles away) but our interactions were painful.  They often included angry emails sent back and forth as well as few and far between forced phone calls.  At this point I considered my Grama to be my Mother and was all but "done" with my non-existent relationship with the woman who had given me life.

I called my Grama every single day when I lived on Oahu.  She was my person.  She constantly tried to find ways for my Mom and I to get along.  She would often cry to me about how we needed to get over it and try to have a real relationship.  Every night when she said her prayers she would pray for us.

We had this kind of relationship for over a decade.  By the time I moved to Washington I didn't even want to try anymore.  There was so much pain contained in those years. I couldn't let go and I couldn't forgive her.  My stubborn heart & pride did not allow me to believe we could have anything better.  What could we possibly have left to offer one another?

Then Ayden was born. After I had him the uneasy feeling of not having a real relationship with my own Mom was unbelievably difficult to overcome.  I just wanted to move on- with or without her.

We didn't have any semblance of a normal mother daughter relationship at this point.  But it wasn't because she wasn't willing to try, it was because my heart wasn't ready.  So she waited... patiently, with an open heart until I came to her.  We had some very honest conversations about the things that happened, the ways we felt shunned by each other and the anger and hurt we held onto for all those years in between.  My Mom acknowledged my pain and apologized.  But the genuine, heart felt apology I thought I  was waiting for all those years didn't come the way I had anticipated.

I needed to forgive not only her but myself. And I needed her forgiveness as well.

We didn't immediately become  friends.  But for the first time in so many years I could imagine a place beyond the hurt and see a future where maybe we wouldn't feel like enemies.

I cannot pin point the exact turning spot (it most certainly did not happen overnight).  We worked at it.  We made phone calls, we sent emails and pictures.  We opened our hearts to what we had both wanted all along but were too hurt to pursue.

It's been almost ten years since we started to repair what I thought was lost forever.  I am beyond proud to say that today I couldn't imagine not having her as my ally, my sounding board and one of my very best friends.

I know it may seem impossible that we could have what we have  now.  But let me tell you, forgiveness is the best gift I ever gave myself.  Not only did I lighten my hearts' load, but I was given the priceless gift of my Mom back.

So you see, not everything that dies is dead.

At the end of 2014 when my Grama took her last breath, it was no coincidence that the people she chose to share that last most precious moment with were my Mom and I.  There was no one else in the room, just 3 generations of women who my Grama fought hard to keep together.

In the time since her death my Mom has stepped up, not to fill my Grama's shoes, but to continue her legacy.

Mom,
Grama would be so proud of the woman you have become.  Generous with the most precious gifts of all: your love and time. Any time something happens in my life, whether good or bad, I know I can count on you.  I had amazing Grandparents.  Now, my kids are lucky enough to have that with you too.  I couldn't wish for anything more and I am so happy that Grama kept faithful in her prayers for us all those hard years. I love you.

If it doesn't exist...

For months I have been thinking about this... hoping somehow the platform I felt like I needed would just appear out of thin air.

A few weeks ago I finally told my F.H. that I wished I had some place to talk about the issues that are important and of interest to me: parenting, grief, the mind-body connection, writing, marriage and my love for all things beauty.  While I was talking to him I realized what he would say before I was even done (and if you know my husband you know how hard working he is and how if something doesn't exist he will create it).  If you think that what you want will magically fall into your lap, you are wrong.

I don't know why I always seem to think that it will, but I definitely believe that something will just "happen" at the right moment.  But as much as I believe in that I know for a fact that that shit is few and far between.  So instead of sitting here silently wishing this existed I told myself:  "If it doesn't exist: make it!"

A personal downfall of mine is my ability to come up with many excuses of why I can't do things.  (seriously if I spent half as much time actually doing shit instead of thinking about all the reasons I can't I would be super productive)  I am a HUGE procrastinator.  I can work really hard once I get the ball in motion, but finding the motivation to get off my ass and do something is the hardest part.  I'm lazy.  I like naps.

I am time rich, but am not really doing anything to propel my life further.  I am that way though, when I have too much of something I generally take it for granted.  I have always, for as long as I can remember, wanted to be a writer.  If blogs and shit existed when I was a tween/teenager I would have thousands and thousands of posts by now.  Now it seems like since all this is so easily accessible I fight with myself to write the "right" things... the things that people will want to read.  But there are so many stories in my heart that my fingers can barely keep up these days.

So, duh, Tari, the platform you need to talk about all the issues you love is HERE.  And let's be extra cliche and say "If you write it, they will read."  LOL.  Well, hopefully.  But if I don't write it than no one will read it, right?

So... here I am creating my own informal platform to talk about all the shit that runs through my head on the daily, the things I struggle with, the people that are most important to me and how to get through life in spite of all the voices in my head that tell me I can't.  (and to be clear I don't hear ACTUAL voices, but you know what I mean.)

I'm tired of excuses and I'm tired of waiting for these good things to happen to me.  I constantly say that I wish I had half the work ethic F.H. does.  He has so much ambition and doesn't waste time.  I really admire that about him. I always wished I could be like him, but since that doesn't come naturally I haven't ever really been inclined to you know, just do the work.

So... here I am, actually jumping into this writing adventure.  No more excuses and no more stopping myself from doing what I love.  Stay tuned, my friends.

Hold On and Let Go

4 SHORT years ago.

My oldest is halfway done with elementary school today.  When did that happen?  He is also very close to the halfway point to being an "adult" and in just as many years as he has spent with me he can go off and start his own life... without me.

I know this all sound selfish but you cannot show me a mother that is 100% happy about her child growing up.  I never thought I would be that mother, nor did I think I would be a mother at all (but that is a story for another time.)  The intensity of my love for my children surprises me still.  My heart swells with pride and aches at the same time as I watch them grow up and away.

This is what parenting is about: nurturing, loving and teaching your children to survive and thrive in the world.  It is bittersweet. 

Come Fall I will be dropping two kids off at school. While I am proud of the people they are becoming, I am also mourning the loss of their little kid years.  I understand that these transitions are a part of life and that I will get used to it, but bare with me as I type through teary eyes.  Be patient with me as I simultaneously learn how to hold on and let go.

When Love Transforms

We buried my Grampa on Friday, December 5, 2014.  The next morning before the sun came up my Mom and I held my Grama's hands as she took her last breath.  It was the hardest day of my life.

People don't like talking about grief.  It's almost taboo.  Sympathy ends long before grief and it seems many of us are left alone going on a journey that even we don't understand. 

What does grief look like?

Sometimes it is sitting on the floor of your kitchen crying your eyes out.  Sometimes it is happily remembering a moment long ago, a dream that they are still alive and sometimes it is not wanting to get out of bed in the morning.  The burden of life after their deaths sometimes feels heavy, other time it feels like maybe it didn't happen.  Like a life before you understood a loss so painful that even months later you cannot possibly wrap your brain around it.

We have ideas of what grief is supposed to look like, how it is supposed to act and the time frame it is supposed to be over.  "They" say not to wallow but at the same time not to avoid your feelings.  "They" say to keep yourself busy, but not too busy because you might be pushing away your pain.  "They" say time heals all wounds.  But how can you ever recover?

All I do know is that "they" are never clear and "they" never understand.  Grief is chaotic and exhausting.  It is complicated and unyielding.  It comes unexpectedly, in the middle just when you started to feel like you had it together.  When I think about how I initially gave myself 30 days to "get over it" it makes me laugh... we are going on 90 now and I have no idea how this process will go.

 I wish people would stop telling me how to get over it.  But what I wish the most is that people would stop pretending like it didn't happen.  We often discount each others feelings.  We don't want to hear about loss, like it is contagious or something.  Maybe because we know that sooner or later we will suffer some kind of loss too and we cannot go there. 

Grief is the price of love.  What my heart feels now is proportionate to the 32 years we shared.  The pain is the price of all those years of love.  For all they gave me, for all they sacrificed for me, for raising and loving me... there are no words and no price too great to pay for the two people who loved me just like they were my parents. 

My life is by no means terrible.  I have a very beautiful and blessed life.  It is a bittersweet walk of happiness and sorrow now... loving people who are no longer here with us.  It is loves greatest transformation... love that outlasts death. 

Rediscovering myself

It's amazing how a seemingly small thing to someone else can be a giant thing to the next person.  It's hard to see ourselves through someone's eyes.  We make assumptions and we think we know how they will react because we "know them so well."  But we don't ever truly know someone, do we?  We are all ever evolving creatures... never quite the same one minute to the next.

In the thirty something years I have been alive I have come to know (and generally disdain) that things are constantly in movement.  The only constant thing in life is change.  As a Cancer I crave predictability and stability.  I want things to stay the same.  I have a hard time dealing with the reality of life and that things change every single day.  It makes me anxious.  It has also made me become the "responsible one."  I don't want to change too much because there are people who I think need me to be the same.  Yes, I have made my fair share of mistakes.  But I am less likely to take uncalculated chances because I don't want to disappoint the people who depend on me.

As a teenager I was a good kid.  I followed 99% of the rules, came home on time, didn't sneak out, did well in school, didn't partake in questionable activities because I was "raised better than that."  I "knew better" because my biggest fear was disappointing my Parents and Grandparents.  As the oldest child I have always felt the weight of being a role model for my brothers and sisters.  My Parents/Grandparents counted on me for this and I played the part mostly perfectly.

I grew up feeling responsible for everyone and everything.  Even though I know that my siblings are their own people I still feel responsible for the things they do or don't do.  I think "if only" I could have told them or taught them better then none of these bad things would have ever happened.

Not only has this mindset given me a heavier burden to bear it has also led me to become very narcisitic.  Why should everything the people I love do reflect upon me?  Why does everything come back to being about me?  That's a hard question to ask yourself.  It's even harder to look in the mirror and wonder who you really are.

I am a grown up.... with kids, a husband, a mortgage, two dogs, etc. (you know... all the markers that mean you have grown up responsibilities)  And at 31 I only have a small idea of who I really am. 

There are so many things that I am liberal about: my religious views, my parenting views, body modification, so on and so forth.  But there are things that I am so close minded about without even knowing quite sure if that's how I really feel about those issues. 

I think most of my searches for "truth" ended when I came to a conclusion about an issue and then never revisited it.  I thought "truth" was a one time journey and that once you got to your truth it would be forever.  So much for the ever evolving mind.  It's so absurd to me that I thought I was the knew it all.  How crazy to think that the world should revolve around my thought processes?  What the heck is wrong with me?  And how did I get here?

The last 2 weeks have been full of soul searching, trying to re-evaulate my thought processes, trying to pull away the emotions tied to certain topics and to really feel how I feel without thinking that what everyone else does has to do with me!  I often hear "Why do you take it so personally?"  It's in my nature, I wear my heart on my sleeve.  My Cancerian ways simply  can't help themselves.

When the people you know and love give you constructive criticism about yourself it is unnerving.  It really makes you question your relationship (especially the one with yourself!) and how you are going to move forward with them.  It's hard to separate myself from my opinions.... even harder to acknowledge that I am forever a work in process and none of my "truths" are ever final. 

So here I am trying every day to be more open to change, to be more accepting of other people's choices and to realize that it's not all about me.  It's a small step in the right direction and hopefully one that will bring me to a place where I no longer feel like I'm being pressured to be who other people want me to be.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out who I am along the way.

Channeling My Favorite Woman

My writing and my thoughts have been centered on Home and my Grama.  She is, after all, my very favorite woman.  I find so much of her in myself that it's startling sometimes. 

My Grandmother, for the most part, raised me. When I talk about going Home, it's their house my mind sees.  So many of my favorite memories are about her:  her generosity, her kindness, her patience and her ability to be in her 60s raising a teenager.  It was no small feat and I am eternally grateful to my Grandparents for it all.

As a child my world revolved around my Grama.  She was my favorite, the only one I felt who understood me and I cried every time I couldn't be with her.  I remember having a hard time adjusting to kindergarten because all I wanted to do was spend my days with her.

(My Grandma, on the far right with her sister & nephew in the early 1980s)

I channel a little bit of her everyday... when I cook dinner, while I crochet, when I laugh with my kids and while I think about having canned peaches and vanilla ice cream for breakfast.  (Seriously... she spoiled me rotten!)

She used to write me letters... more than once a week when I was in college.  It was the first time we had lived farther than 5 minutes apart.  She would send me stamps, ten dollar bills and notes that told me to be careful and to make sure I  knew my worth.  Although she tried to bribe me with a brand new car if I stayed in Hilo, in the end it was she who convinced my Grandpa that letting me go away for college would be best.  I can only imagine how painful it was for her to see my leave, but she was always my number one advocate. 

"The days are long but the years are short" is a quote we most often hear referring to parenting.  I think of this everyday while I watch my kids grow and wonder where the time has gone.  It seems like they were just babies.  In this way I also think about my Grama and how much younger she was when I was younger.  She was always gardening, crafting, cooking, cleaning and taking care of us, her family.  Each time I go home I am reminded of my mortality, but mostly of hers.  It's frightening, truly heart breaking to think of a life without her.  I know death is inevitable, but even as a small child I would worry about what would happen if I lost her.

Thus far I have had 31 amazing years with her.  The last 13 have been from a distance, but she has never left my heart.  She's still my favorite woman and when I make everyday life choices I base them on the love she has shown me.  At the end of the day if I can love unconditionally, just like she loves me, then I'll have made her proud.

In Abundance

A few weeks ago Favorite Husband was off to have drinks with some friends. And I felt jealous.  Not that he was leaving, but mostly because I didn't have the same kind of opportunity.  My lack of friends nearby has often made me sad.  Besides FH (favorite husband of course!) my bestest (yes, I know that's not a "real" word) friends live thousands of miles away.  I do know a lot of people here and have my fair share of acquaintances but it seems everyone is in this parenting/marriage stage of life and we all don't have much time to pursue friendships.

After focusing on it for a long time I came to the realization that finding new friends is like dating.  It involves trust, patience and hoping you have the right chemistry.  It also requires being vulnerable and letting your guard down.  Was I ready for all that? 

Instead of lamenting about my lack of friend outings, I started to focus on myself. I started to do things that made me happy (reading, writing, crocheting! -More on that later!).  Sure, I thought, it might be a lonely time, but I do have my husband & the kids.  I have a very supportive family back home and the few friends that I do have (even though some are very far away) are of the highest quality. I decided that was enough.  And just like that my focus shifted from what I wanted to being grateful for the awesome people I already had.

And then abundance appeared.  It appeared in the form of a Bountiful Basket gifted & delivered to my doorstep by my dear friends at themoreonesows.blogspot.com.  (Thank you for all your kindness Sari & Erick), a lunch date with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile, a play date with one of Ayden's friends and his family and then SURPRISE! a new friend appeared.

Driving today to meet said new friend I thought about how really blessed I am.  It's a good time in my life.  I have everything I need and most of what I want.  I am living in abundance and I couldn't be more grateful.