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. 

I have a friend...

She has two beautiful children, runs a successful salon & photography business and is an amazing example for living off the land.  Her family lives in this beautifully decorated cottage (which she of course decorated herself and by beautiful I mean looks like it should be pictured in a magazine.  It's that perfect!) where they can, dehydrate and grow their own food. Not only does she have all these awesome skills but she is an amazing Mother, Wife and Friend.

Now, I cannot imagine where she gets all her energy from (But for that I blame my sensitivity to caffeine and my inability to imbibe in delicious caffeinated coffee without wanting to jump out of my skin) but I do aspire to be more like her.  It seems like she has it "together" and I'm all over here like "I washed the dishes today!"  LOL.  But for real.

Aspiring to be like her and the amazing qualities I believe she possesses would have, in my life before my thirties, made me feel inadequate.  I would look at all the things she had succeeded at and then at my own life and feel like I came up short.  Today I look at her as an inspiration to help me to be a better version of myself.  It is so easy to measure your life to other people's standards.  To see their successes where you have failed and the things that have become good habits for them that you are still struggling with yourself.  In this comparison we fail to see them in their completeness.  We don't see the things that they struggle with, the failures of their heart or the sacrifices they have made to get them to where they are today.


The older I get I realize my circle of friends gets smaller.  I think in your thirties you really begin to understand your mortality (something that in my twenties didn't really seem to exist), that the time is short and you should spend it with those you bring out the best in you.  I hope you all have a friend who inspires good changes in you, who helps you reach for your dreams and is happy for your successes.   I hope you have at least one friend who sees the beauty in your struggle and understands your story.  I hope you surround yourself with people who want the best for you, who make you want to be a better version of yourself and who appreciates you, flaws and all.

I have a friend who inspires me to see life from a different perspective, who allows me to see the possibilities of my focused energy, who makes me better.   Thank you, Sari.



*If you would like to follow her and her family's adventures please check them out here: themoreonesows.blogspot.com

Living

Sometimes I have a lot to say.  I'll write draft after draft and continue to revise them until they are "perfect."  I can think of 3 that are waiting for perfection right now.  Other times I have little to say, but a lot of living to do.  It's been one of those weeks.  Here are a few snap shots of my favorite moments.

*Why buy your kids toys when all they really need is their imaginations and a big box?   Seriously.  They played with this thing more than any of their toys.*

On that note, hope y'all have a fabulous week.  I'll be back with more words soon.

Keeping Up Appearances

I'm guilty of putting up an image of what I want other people to think my life is like.  Most of us are, but are we willing to admit it?  Do we even see it?

When I was in the process of divorcing my first husband I thought "keeping it real" with myself and others meant complete honesty.  While honesty generally in the best policy, being too honest was a problem for me.  It wasn't just about telling the truth for me, it was about telling too much of the truth.  Not everyone needed to know why my marriage fell apart.  I didn't need to justify myself or tell them every detail about why it didn't work.  Being honest was a good first step, but learning to guard the details of my life was an important lesson as well.

I really struggle with the things I post and if they are appropriate.  Do I want people to know this about me?  Am I being too vulnerable?  What kind of message am I putting out there?  A lot of posts become drafts that never get published.  I don't want you to take me the wrong way.

Like you I am human and 100% flawed.  I judge people and people judge me.  I take things the wrong way and I get offended.  It's part of life.  I don't think everyone should think like I do (I also don't force my beliefs, religious or otherwise, on people) because then the world would be a boring place with only one train of thought.

Is there more to life than what I post on my blog and social media?  Absolutely.  There are struggles I don't write about, because not everyone needs to know everything. 

However,  I believe in putting my best food forward.  I believe in keeping up my own personal appearance because people will treat me only as well as I treat myself.  But how much of that is for my own self preservation?  How much of that is putting on airs?

Keeping up appearances... is it worth it?  Is it a projection of who you want to be or is it a refusal to let go of who you used to be?  At the end of the day are we more of who we want to be or stuck in the same patterns of putting on a lie of who we want others to think that we are?

Sometimes when I look at other people's lives it makes mine feel inadequate.  I haven't quite gotten it "together" like they have.  It's ironic when I first started writing this post I had no idea where I was going, but now I get it...  It's easy to see with eyes from the outside looking in because I only see what you portray.  I only see who you appear to be.  Just like you see me.  It may look sparkly and golden from the outside, but we all know everything that glitters isn't gold.