Letting go -- again

That old lesson of letting something/one go seems to constantly be in front of me, but a blogging friend posted a poem the other day that really helped me understand the concept in a new way, easier to wrap my head around.

It said:

To "let go" does not mean to stop caring.
It means I can't do it for someone else.

To "let go" is not to cut myself off.
It's the realization that I can't control another.

To "let go" is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another.
It's to make the most of myself.

To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.

To "let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To "let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

To "let go" is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.

To "let go" is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To "let go" is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To "let go" is to fear less and to love more. 

--Unknown--

It's not new, it' s just new to me. The quote is all over Google.

Perhaps it feels relevant because we are on the cusp of change again: our youngest princess has moved to the Seattle area with her family to start a new, hopefully better life, although it's been a rocky start since her husband's (felony child-abusing) ex immediately filed a declaration that resulted in her receiving the three older children temporarily, and creating great turmoil. A court session tomorrow should result in V and D getting the kids back, and visitation mediation happening via phone. Nonetheless it has been difficult all around, especially for the kids, who have lived full-time with V & D for more than four years now. We've been on board to listen and soothe and comfort, and help as we are able.

Perhaps it feels relevant because I have worked hard to 'let go' of Princess #1 and my tendency to want to micromanage her life and choices, and for the most part am succeeding. Doesn't mean I'm sleeping all that well at night, when the ice weasels come out to play, but I'm not in her face all the time anymore -- healthier at least for me; it has got to be less frustrating for her. Her choices and decisions are hers to make, not mine, and the consequences of those choices also are hers, and I am not going to make them mine. The poem above helps me feel less like I'm abandoning her or that I don't care, because I do, very much. But I am not the responsible party here.

That said, I spent a good bit of July and August on the car search and ended up reasonably happy (although my tendency to second-guess myself after the deed was done appeared at least briefly). That's done. I've let it go. (really)

And we're looking at some changes in our lives too, although until it is actually fact I am not saying exactly what it is in this forum. These are good things, though. 

Another thing I'm in the process of doing is letting go of all the people I used to be: a very busy career woman, an active church and choir and committee participant, an involved mom with a school-age child, a do-it-yourselfer who painted, papered, stripped wood floors, made most of my clothes as well as R's dresses and tops. I'm not there anymore; I'll never be there again, nor do I want to go back. 

I confess to having some ideas of making some simple clothing again, since I find it hard to find styles I enjoy in colors that are pleasing, and especially for a reasonable price. I will probably end up volunteering in some capacity eventually, although nothing is singing loudly to me right now. I want to nurture my creative side again: I've been so caught up in managing R's affairs and illness and the business details of that for so long, and there is always something around here to clean out or tidy up or cook or fold, and so I've procrastinated finding my creative self for a long, long time. I want to let the need-to-ought-to-do stuff slide more and spend more time reading a novel or even beginning to write one, finishing the charm necklace I started two years ago and do more repurposing of my old jewelry., I want to put my ideas for landscaping our yard into action and start getting the bones in place.

 

I do not want to spend more time worrying about other people's lives and how they could fix them if they just listened to me. I want to let that go. All of that.

And I'm also beginning to accept where I am on the great wheel of life. I have fewer years ahead of me than are behind me. My butt-time career is really over, and I won't be climbing any more corporate ladders, not that I ever really did, with so much of my working life spent in non-profit and public sector areas. While I'm pretty tech-savvy and I read a lot about pop culture, I'm not in the main target audience for anything except Medicare supplemental insurance and walk-in bathtubs. I don't offer opinions anymore to anyone who will listen, and sometimes I'm sorry I opened my mouth when I do, partly because I'm realizing that disagreeing with a long- and strongly-held opinion is pretty useless and usually merely frustrating.

Life is short, too short to spend one more moment doing things and saying things that don't much matter to who I am. I'm letting go of the desire to please people, sometimes just by not saying what is in my head and at the back of my throat, but most definitely by not putting myself in a vulnerable situation in the first place -- i.e., doing something somewhere with people that I don't really care much about. I'm letting go of other people's expectations of what I will do or how I should act, and am resolved to be just who I am.

Yes, it IS all about me from now on!

 

(Well, that'd be me and my honey. But he loves who I really am, warts and all, and encourages me to be more me. It doesn't get better than that.)

That's my new plan for the rest of 2011 and forward into 2012. Be who I am now, let go of my need to control and please, seize the day for the good that we find in each one, and let regret go.

Powerless over others' actions

A recurring theme in these now years of blog posts has been letting go of issues that are not mine to deal with: acknowledging that we are all powerless over people, places, and things, and then letting them go, putting the responsibility where it belongs -- which is not on ME.

I keep working on doing that. And I keep working on not worrying about the outcome of others' actions, and to not feel (or act on) the great need to step in front of that speeding train to keep them safe.

Some days I am more successful than others.

According to one astrology site, a change is coming this week. Hard as change can be, it needs to happen for me.

Not that I want drastic, awful, horrible death-in-the-family change, please, oh please not. Just a shift towards the positive, towards good growth and constructive actions.

And more letting go of things and situations that I am not responsible for, that I cannot cure, that I cannot control. Trying to manage my own thoughts and actions and life is enough: I am not responsible for the outcome of others' choices.

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Spring is springing. Our harbinger tree began leafing out this last weekend (right on time) which means that the other trees will soon bud into green life. We've had daffodils springing up here and there for a couple of weeks now, and many flowering trees (some of which lost lots of blossoms in the cold and wind we've had recently) but the little tree that unfurls its greenness first has always been our true indicator of spring.

While I do enjoy the lovely mild temperatures and the pretty green grasses that make this area so beautiful in the spring, I can't help thinking about the heat that I know will follow all too soon, and I confess that I prefer the woodstove, the rain, and the green grasses -- even the weeds -- to the crispy brown fields and searing 110-degree days that are always a part of our summer.

Our weeds are definitely thriving too -- we have not yet done the spring RoundUp blitz that beats them back from the house and along the driveway, and need to do so. If I can just go out for 10 minutes each day and pull weeds, it'll help: we're now past the stage where they are little sprouts that would hardly be seen once hit by the weed killer, and into full bushy mode, where they'd lay in dead heaps on the ground and REALLY look crappy.

Rhubarb is coming up in the (also weedy) garden but I'm not ready to think about getting into the garden just yet, nor about the plants in the pots close to the house. Later.

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I'm not doing well on my intention to write a book so far; some better on taking care of myself. I'm loving my weekly yoga class and can feel strength building in legs and core -- I only wish we had it twice weekly but am grateful for even this. Loving the monthly massages that so slow me down and release the bad kinks.

It takes time to break bad habits too, and I'm working on that -- most especially the one about letting things go. I'm grateful for time and security to do that. It will come, just as those hot days of summer will come. Meanwhile, we take things one day at a time -- doing all we can, where we are, with what we've got.

Reverb 10 -- There is no try. And healing is in process.

For Dec. 18 -- Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn't go for it?

Well, it won't be skydiving or bungee jumping, I can assure you of that. Heights are not my thing. Neither is reckless adventuring. And yes, I know it can be perfectly safe if done correctly.

I'd like to try to do the same things I've not succeeded in doing in 2010 -- exercise some daily, or at least more days a week than not -- treadmill or yoga. Lose 20 pounds. Finish organizing the office and clean out the closets and drawers. Get rid of the stuff in the attic that is just there because I didn't do anything else with it.

Start the book. Figure out what it should be and just write.

2010 was not my year for trying things. It was a year for patience, for perseverance, for resolution, at least in some areas.

It would be good to expand that in 2011 to include try.

However, Yoda says, "Do or do not...there is no try."

Maybe that's a better way to approach this new year.

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For Dec. 19 -- Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011?

I was physically healed (my wrist) through patience, through persistance, through just putting one foot in front of the other and showing up. It was definitely drip-by-drip, and it took a good six months.

I don't know that my psyche was healed. It was definitely skewed by that accident and the subsequent change it brought to my life, among other events. I think I've been in a slow healing ever since, actually, and as I approach this new year, I know more about me and where I am in this life journey than I did last year at this time. It's definitely been a year of change and transition.

There are scars I bear from wounds not fresh but which still need some healing from the inside out. There are disappointments and sadnesses that need further soothing, continued healing. I make progress; I am not done with them. But I am learning to release.

Re-evaluating

My right wrist is in a lovely purple cast and there is a plate in my wrist binding the broken bones permanently together. I have become increasingly amidextrous and can type with my left hand and using the right middle finger. I can shower, even put on makeup sorta kinda, but I can't open cans with my manual canopener.

I've had lots of help from my beloved Tony and Princess #1 and from a few friends, though many have offered. I've taken lots of naps. I've watched lots of television. I've read. I'm healing. This will not last forever.

But it's thrown me completely into what lifecoach Martha Beck calls a death-rebirth cycle. I've been reading her Finding Your Own North Star and while I haven't done all the exercises, it has been a revelationary process. I'm taking it all in, sitting and thinking, and just being rather than doing much of anything.

We go through the death-rebirth cycle and the subsequent dreaming, acting, living ones many times in our lives, and I guess this is time for yet another for me.

For one thing, I am not writing/meeting deadlines for anyone right now. I can't take notes, can't type well nor effortlessly (which makes it tedious and tiring), and had been having trouble buckling down to actually do stories anyway. So I asked a friend who is ripe and ready for this kind of challenge if she would like to take it over, and all the editors eagerly embraced the idea. It works for me, for her, and for them. Definitely the right thing to do.

But that leaves me without an identity I've had for some time -- not unwillingly, mind you, but still an adjustment, and with some loss to be dealt with.

I can just hear what Beck calls "everybody' chiming in with "geezeopete, Beth. It's not cancer, it's not a brain tumor, it's not a hip or worse. Get a grip!'

So shut up, critics. I know all this.

But I also think a change has been brewing for a while, and this event pushed me into it. Time to look at where I am now, what's important to me, what I *really* want to do now, how I get there, wherever it is.

This has made me feel my age more than I ever have. I have long known how fragile we are physically; this and a few other, hopefully minor, health issues that I'm getting checked out have made me more aware that we only get so much time here, and how do I want to use that?

One thing I know for sure: my husband is the light of my life and I am soooo grateful to have ther relationship that we do. It is a rare gift. I believe, and we both cherish it -- all the more because we spent a lot of years individually without it, not believing that we would ever be lucky enough to have it. I want time with him, as much as the Universe gives me, and I will do what I must to keep myself (reasonably) healthy and alive in order to have that.

As for the rest -- I'll figure it out eventually. The Universe aklways points me in a direction if I listen and look and stay open. Sometimes it is clear. This time it is not. I'm emotional at anything, I have flashes often of people and events from my life, and I'm trying to understand why and what I need to learn from that. I think of my parents at this age and wonder if they, too, tried to understand where they needed to go next.

Perhaps I'm overthinking -- and I have done that in the past. Perhaps I'm looking for signs that aren't there and won't be.

It is a time for re-evaluating what was and finding the path through what is to what's next.

PS I purchased Beck's book. I have not been paid to recommend it.

Managing time

With another birth year celebrated this past weekend, I have been a bit introspective about life in general, my life specifically, and what I want for this coming year.

It's not for lack of subjects that I haven't written since Oct. 30. And it's really not even for lack of time. I'm examining time management -- what I do with the time I have every day, the same 24 hours we all have.

Back in my late 30s and 40s, I managed time rather well, between managing a household, a school age child, a job and half hour commute each way, chorus rehearsals, church meetings and rehearsals, grocery shopping, and the usual household stuff.

You do what you gotta do, I suppose, and mostly I think I did pretty well. Yes, I probably immersed myself in lots and lots of 'doing' but that's what was required at the time.

I don't seem to be as efficient these days. I know I spent more time than I should on the computer, poking around, reading blogs, writing a bit, researching, playing a stupid game or two. I still have the grocery shopping and assorted errands, and I help daughter #1 manage things that she has trouble with or is hesitant to do by herself.

My mother always seemed to have a clean house (of course we helped by cleaning our rooms without fail every Saturday, as well as other chores), things organized, cupboards and drawers that weren't jumbled, and still had time to play bridge, walk, and for many years, she was a teacher and still did all that. She and Daddy square-danced for years, attended church every Sunday where she worked in the library and he sang in the choir, had an active social life with a couple of groups.

So why are my cupboards and drawers jumbled, many with stray crumbs in the corners? Why is my office desk covered with papers and piles of source material for stories? There are two or three baskets full of magazines -- Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, Sunset -- that I am sure I'll go through one of these days. I have a box with old Christmas cards stashed under the desk, and my laundry basket always, ALWAYS has a dozen socks whose mates have gone on vacation -- but you can be assured that if I throw them away, I'll find the mate the next day.

My house is not dirty. I dust, vacuum, keep counters clean, and -- okay, I'll confess that sometimes I do leave dirty pots or dishes from a late evening dessert snack soaking in the sink overnight -- but I do try to keep the kitchen reasonably tidy. My bed is made every day, but there is always a stack of magazines on the floor and books on the table next to my side. We always have newspapers and magazines on the ottoman in the living room, although I try to put them in the recycling bin every night or at least straighten the stack.

Somehow I'd assumed that by the time I got to be this age that I'd be an excellent housekeeper and that it would all be effortless.

But it isn't. And I'm not.

The office is right now a catch-all for stuff I intend to sell on eBay, the aforementioned source materials and notebooks filled with interview notes, mail that needs shredding or answering, scraps of paper that have phone numbers or Web sites on them. I have a beautiful new workbench waiting to be assembled, but first I have to clean everything else up and rearrange my desk and computer station, and hopefully eliminate at least one or two pieces that are currently holding printers or files. I LIVE in the office most days. It's where the treadmill is, the computers, the photo equipment, the eBay goodies. But it's a mess.

It should have been cleaned by now, my inner critic says. I should manage myself better and not spend so much time reading stuff online or playing that stupid Facebook Bejeweled Blitz. I'm an ADULT, ferpetesake, an old one at that! I ought to know better. Priorities!

Sixty used to feel pretty old to me when I was in my 30s and 40s. Oh, I knew plenty of 60-somethings who were very active and had a really good time with life, and they seemed to have life pretty well figured out. Yeah, issues sometimes threw curveballs at them, but overall, life was good.

And I guess that's where I am. Overall, life is good. Yes, I need to work on time managment and getting the office cleaned up and crumbs out of my silverware drawers. But what I also know is that life is short. Spending time writing notes to a friend who is sick is more important. Reading something that inspires me and makes me smile is important. Walking on that treadmill and watching a tv show on hulu.com while I do it is important. Being there for my daughter is important, and being there for my husband is important. Taking care of me is really important, even if papers clutter the desk.

Meanwhile, I'd sure love to ask my mother how she did it, why she managed her time the way she did, and what she'd change if she could. I wonder if she felt like she had it all together when she was my age. I wonder what age she felt inside when she was in her 60s. I wonder if she liked her life the way it was.

Quietly contemplating choices

After a couple of days of turmoil on all fronts, lots of fear and ice weasels, lots of reading about coping and consequences, we are in a place of relative calm tonight.

Our child is safe and okay, and has made some decisions about where she wants to be. For my part, I am determined to give her back the power I've assumed on her behalf over the last few months, and to stop treating her as though she were an errant teenager.

For this moment, I believe what she is saying is the truth.

And if it is not, that too will eventually come out. Truth always does.

But everyone deserves at least a couple of do-overs, y'know? So this is one.

I do have a problem with control: I like knowing what is going on and alllllll the details -- always have, and that has caused problems in my relationships with my daughters in the past. If I really get honest about it, I think I see the "right" thing to do, and I push and push to have it go in that direction.

For me, the hardest thing is to let go of that control. While I say "I am powerless over people, places, and things," I often don't actually ACT it. or believe it, I suppose

My brother would agree that I am and always have been fairly bossy. (ooo...that is SO hard to admit, especially where I know he's going to see it)

And I also have to admit that my own life has not always been a textbook of the best or the right way to live. I've screwed things up pretty well any number of times. No, I never suffered horrible consequences like getting thrown in jail, getting arrested, gravely serious injury (although I bear a few scars here and there, and there are a few instances I really don't like remembering), or doing injury to others, at least injuries that are visible.

But I'm sure I gave my mother and father more than a few sleepless nights, and caused my ex some major heartburn. I'm sure I lost a few friends -- although I'm not sure that they were all that great a friend to begin with.

So the lesson I need to find in this is to accept the consequences of my own behavior, of my own choices, and to let go of the need and the desire to direct the choices and lives of others -- my daughters, my dear husband, or my greater family and friends.

It simply is NOT MINE TO DO. Not mine to manage.

Whatever my daughters choose to do in their lives are theirs to manage and to live with. I will never, ever stop loving them. But I am not responsible for their choices. I cannot control their mistakes. And we ALL make mistakes.

Mine in this instance was probably in jumping a bit too quickly to conclusions, and trying too hard to control things.

If there is risky behavior from either child, it is they who will bear the consequences. I cannot save them from that, try as I might. And to jump in to either condemn or rescue is equally as bad.

So tonight I will turn my attention to myself, and ask for the serenity to accept those things I cannot change. And for the wisdom to know the difference. I don't lack for courage, but wisdom to know has definitely been an issue in the past. I just didn't realize how great an issue it still was.

And I am grateful that she is safe and okay for now, that she has made a CHOICE to be where she is, and that her people radar has kicked in enough, at least, to override her stubborn nature and allowed her to see the danger.

I will turn my worries and fears and control over to the care of God/dess, and try to keep myself on the path to serenity. This is a journey. It matters what I do every day. But neither will I beat myself up unnecessarily. It is about progress, not perfection, and I am working on my own issues.

Thank you for your prayers and your love. It is all that which has brought this to be where it is tonight, of that I am sure. Keep them coming -- and I will hold you close in my heart and in my prayers as well.

Passages through time

The third anniversary of my mother's death was Thursday -- Oct. 30 -- and according to pagan tradition, the "veil" between the worlds thins on Oct. 31, so the spirits of those who have left this earth are closer to us.

I spent much of the day thinking about her, about those last hours of her life and her peaceful passage into the next dimension. While I miss her, the raw grief has diminished. Time heals. And I've also come to better accept death as a part of the life cycle, I suppose.

While I am spiritual, I'm not sure what I really believe about spirits. I have, however, felt loving spirits around me from time to time. Those presences have comforted and helped me through some difficult moments. If it's just my overactive imagination, I don't care -- it's sort of whatever works.

There are churches who believe in "spirits" and explain bad things or actions as a "demon" being in you -- actually, we had that experience not long ago when a mental health professional attributed a demon with the source of unhealthy behavior. THAT was scary to me, frankly -- not because I believed there was a demon, but because the professional blamed the demon for inappropriate actions -- as if you can absolve yourself of responsibility for your actions because of a demon?

But the title of this post is Passages, not spirits. I'll leave more of that to another day.

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And we are in November -- our birth month, the transition month from autumn into winter, of losing the leaves as the earth prepares to sleep for some months. I like November. I like the rain, the blustery winds, the promise of hot chocolate and cider, the preparation of feasts for Thanksgiving, the sharing of lives and gratitudes.

I don't like that we're seeing lots of ads for Christmas already, and that seems to be the focus for any retail store. This month is the gratitude month, and I like to savor it first. Christmas will come in all its gimme-gimme-buy-spend-expectancy all too soon.

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Both Tony and I have now had cataracts removed from our eyes, and we each see better than we have in years -- me since early childhood (if even then), and him for at least 20 years. While I know it is not so easy for everyone, we are tremendously grateful for renewed clarity of sight. I still cannot get over the fact that I wear neither contacts nor glasses at the moment, other than occasionally using cheaters to see fine print. Yes, I'll probably have something for driving. But for normal sight -- especially for computer work -- I see better than I ever have without any correction. That is truly a miracle, and I am grateful to doctors and nurses who performed the operation, and for those who have worked through hundreds of years to perfect this procedure.

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Election Day is tomorrow. We all voted by mail this time, and will watch along with the rest of the country to see what happens tomorrow. I confess to being very nervous that another election will be determined by hanging chads and Supreme Courts. And while I can't wholeheartedly support either candidate, I believe Obama may offer my generation better healthcare options than McCain. And I'll tell you, that's a HUGE factor in our lives right now, as it is for the millions of other babyboomers as we count down to Medicare and Social Security.

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We entertained my ex and his new wife this weekend -- they were here to see our daughter, and it was a very pleasant visit. Actually, his wife, Susan, was a high school student of mine when I taught in a tiny Missouri town back in the early 1970s! I liked her very much then -- she was a good student, loved literature (I taught English), and enjoyed analyzing words. We also knew her in college -- she attended the college where my ex and I both worked at that point. They reconnected last winter and it was practically love at first sight. I'm very happy for them both, and I still like her very much. And I'm grateful that he and I are friends and that we both want to do the best we can for our daughter.

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Each 24 hours is a gift: it is all we have, this moment, this day. We get to determine how we spend it, what we do in it, how we look at it. In this day we get to choose if we want things to remain the same, or if we want to take steps to change a part of our lives that we don't like. Change - meaningful change -- doesn't happen in just 24 hours (generally anyway), but we can take a step to help move it along the path. That's what I tell my daughter. That's what I tell my brother. And that's what I tell myself. Every day.

What do I want to change? What can I do in this moment, this day, to help that happen?

Watching the cheese move

I think I've mentioned Who Moved my Cheese? in previous posts. It was very popular in the late '90s and has become the basis for leadership training and much more.

There have been a few situations in our area lately that have made me remember the book and reflect on change and the fear of it that so many people have. The "we've always done it this way" mentality is very prevalent especially in smaller towns, I think, and especially with people who have always lived in them and have never known anything else.

Change can be frightening and confusing sometimes, and cause people who are generally fairly easy-going to dig in their heels and stubbornly resist even change that might benefit them.

Those of us who have lived other places and have chosen to move here sometimes have difficulty being accepted by the "natives." There are two camps: the old-timers and the newcomers. If the newcomers often embrace and welcome change -- such as in new businesses moving into the area, or additions to old traditions -- we're regarded warily, suspiciously, and conflict may arise. The oldtimers feel that their way of life is threatened, that nothing will be the same, and prefer to maintain traditional ways even if they no longer best serve the community and its residents.

I suppose I'm a newcomer, because the cheese is moving in the north state, and there are a bunch of mice who are very unhappy about it. I didn't bring the change; I'm not necessarily advocating it; yet change is inevitable. Nothing stays the same. Not even in a small town.

You know I'm a huge believer that we make our own destiny. We either find new cheese and survive, or we die because there is no cheese where we are. Complaing and whining and filing lawsuits and advocating protest marches will not stop the change. Telling the world how you wuz done wrong isn't going to make much difference in the long run -- or even the short run. It's annoying, it's fruitless, and you WILL starve.

Find the joy, folks. Find the joy in every situation, even when it's hard to see, and find the gratitude. There is new cheese; fresh, tasty cheese that is yours to find, even in the most difficult of situations. Find it and live.

My 10th anniversary

I left Birmingham, Alabama -- my home for seven years--10 years ago yesterday. I arrived home -- my childhood home in Springfield, Missouri-- the same day and spent two days there with my parents and brother before I started my trek to California and a new life.

I *had* to do it. I had known for some time that I needed to be elsewhere, in a different life, because I did not want to say, at some hopefully far-distant day when I'm near the end of my life, "I wonder what would have happened if..." I did not want fear to keep me from fully living -- fear, nor complacency, nor indecision, nor codependence, nor the expectations of other people. I did not want to settle for the life I had.

I visited California on a business trip earlier that year for 10 days, and knew almost from the moment the plane touched down that I needed to be here. I'd never had any desire to live here until that time. And after that, I explored every possible avenue to find a way to come. Persistence paid off -- that, and some colleagues who believed in me--and my company created a job for me in the Bay Area where there were two offices.

It was the best move I ever made.

If I'd been told then that 10 years later I'd live in a little town in northern California with a husband I adore, living on land with a house I got to plan, and that I'd sell real estate, I'd have wondered what they were smoking. And dismissed it as pure fantasy.

What I've learned in the past 10 years:

• I can do just about anything if I'm willing to work at it and am patient. And persistent.
  
• I am a loving and very loved woman who has discovered wonderful things about this body -- and a little more about taking care of it.
• There are soulmates. I never expected such love to come to me, and I am deeply grateful every single day for my husband.
  
• If you wait to seek happiness until you have a job, a house, a car, a child, lose weight, stop smoking, whatever -- you will never have it. Life is in this moment: it is all we have, one moment at a time.
  
• If you don't like where you are, who you are, or what you have, change it. You are the decider of your life's path, and of who you are.
• It is never too late to change. Not until you are expelling your last breath.

I'm sure I'll think of others -- but the essence is here. Life is a gift, every day. We are fragile, but we also have amazing strength. It is not a dress rehearsal: we seldom get do-overs.

I am grateful and blessed. Thanks be.

Back to the past

We spent much of our recent trip visiting our past: seeing family in Nashville and Birmingham, friends in Birmingham, and for Tony, a visit to the far distant past in his hometown of Livingston, Tenn., where he'd not set foot since 1977, and with former classmates and even a teacher he hadn't seen in -- oh, golly, we CAN'T be this old -- some 42 years.

It was a return to familiar climates, too, for both of us. I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, too far north to be classified as "southern" and yet Missouri was a border state in "THE WAR" (for Southerners, there was only one important war), so there are traces of Southern culture everywhere.

But it was green, the trees were not blue and scrub oaks but sycamores, maples, pin oaks, maple leaf oaks, pines. In Birmingham, kudzu swathed trees and hillsides in the tangled, large-leaved carpet. We had several thunderstorms and rainstorms throughout the week that freshened the air and didn't make us instantly think of fire danger. Yes, it was humid, moreso than here, but not really oppressive until the last day or so. The heat wasn't excessive. The nights were the soft, warm dark with choirs of frogs and cicadas dueling for loudest volume. It felt very familiar to us both.

Both Tennessee and Alabama have had a drought this year, and it's just been in the last month that rain has relieved it. We were told of recent terrible smoke from Florida wildfires blanketing the Birmingham area and causing asthma attacks by the score, dying lawns and restricted watering in both cities. Summer weather in the south usually includes a brief rainstorm every afternoon, so this was a very different weather pattern. We enjoyed our rains while we were there and the smell of the air after the storms.

We recalled summers of our pasts throughout the week, with sweat that drips down your back, your nose, and dampens your clothing instead of evaporating quickly as it does here. My already straight hair fell limply against my damp neck and forehead, and I remembered again why I almost always had short hair or got permanent waves in the summer. That part I don't miss.

For a few days, Tony was immersed in memories of people long dead, of boyhood in a small town, of high school and college classes and people and buildings and towns and highways that were no longer there, and by the time he came back to the hotel after an afternoon of visiting and talking with former classmates, he had a bit of the deer-in-the-headlights look about him. It's hard to reconcile all at once who you were with who you are, I think. Going back again won't be so difficult -- and we will go back again. It's a beautiful area.... real estate there is incredibly less expensive than anywhere in California, and there are wonderful lakes and rivers there too.

I thought often of my parents as my brother and I talked and laughed and listened to music and went different places, and I'll bet he did too. We ate one of Daddy's favorite meals -- "hotdish" -- which is a baked spaghetti-like casserole with tomatoes, peppers and onions, hamburger, and cheese. We visited the Country Music Hall of Fame which included a few video clips from "Ozark Jubilee," a TV show that originated in Springfield and to which we both remember going as children. That museum is incredible and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

There was more past in Birmingham, but that'll wait for another day.

It is in looking back that we can see how far we have come, how much we have learned about ourselves, and sometimes gain clarity about choices we made then that forever changed our paths. It is good to look back and remember, but gently, kindly, both for our loved ones and ourselves. We are shaped by where we came from, but it is not who we are now.

It was good to come home to this life, this reality, after living in all those memories for a week. I am grateful for the warmth and caring with which we were greeted by every single person we spent time with, and grateful for the love which has surrounded us in this journey through life. It is good to remember that constancy and to celebrate it.

I finished Jennifer Weiner's The Guy Not Taken, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. and started Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey. Plus a bunch of local newspapers! A great reading vacation!

Embracing change

Oh, I know I sound like a broken record -- "Change change chaaaannngeeee......change of foo-ools"
(Yes, I know it's "chain." I'm taking literary license.)

We're back from 10 days visiting our pasts and our present, and, potentially, our future. And change looms large today. It's technically our last day in real estate, as Tony starts a new opportunity tomorrow, and we're shutting down our little firm. The cheese moved, and we're finding new cheese.

So we've done lots of looking back over the last couple of weeks, and I'm sure you haven't read the last of it. As for the new opportunity, it means the end of our working across the room from each other and the relative freedom to control our time, but it also means positive cash flow, a chance to do work he's very good at and enjoys doing, and time off that will actually BE time off (every time -- save this last 10 days -- we'd go out of town, we'd inevitably get an offer or request to show or some real estate concern, which meant we'd have to take time to deal with it remotely while we were "on vacation.") It's a good thing.

I'll still be working from our home office -- cleaning up the remnants of our time in real estate, doing various freelance writing gigs that are coming my way, eventually working to grow that business a bit. I've freelanced at various times in past lives and always enjoy it. It's familiar ground, and will keep me as busy as I want to be.

So that's the biggest change I've talked around in the past several posts. A door opened; we walked through it.

I rather like change. It keeps the mind fresh, thinking of possibilities, of consequences, of ways to grow and learn and become. In every instance, change in my life has brought me good things, even when it's been hard. I believe that this new opportunity will do the same.

I am grateful for all the friends we've made in real estate and the learning experiences it's provided. It's been an interesting ride, and one that's allowed us to add some good skills, to learn about ones we didn't know we had, and to transition between who we were into who we are now. And now it's on to the next life lessons.

The times, they are a'changing....

I knew something was going on in the universe. It's that old meddler Mercury again, messing with data and machines and schedules. It's a good time to catch up on projects, and that's what I've been doing -- finishing up a number of things undone, although some of them are likely to keep coming back for a while.

Communication is where I've noticed it most, though, especially with our daughters. Phone calls made and not returned. E-mails sent into the ozone. Misinterpretations of innocently-written words, or actions. Eh.

It'll be over in another week or so, until the next time, and I suppose it hasn't been too bad. Change is coming, though -- I see it, I feel it, I can almost smell it.

And maybe it's time. Of course it's time! What am I saying...

When you stop changing, you're dead -- and I've known some folks who had a pulse, but sure weren't among the living. Change brings us growth, sometimes painful. It stimulates, challenges, rewards, irritates, frustrates. Every so often, we need to invite change into our lives to shake things up, so we don't stagnate in thinking and being and doing.

Mercury sort of pushes that along three times yearly by making sure we check and double-check, or suffer the consequences. You think once, twice, and yet again. And then leap.

I'm grateful for change and for growth tonight, although it's easier to take when it happens to ME, and not to my children. I'm watching painful change from afar, and it remains to be seen if any growth happens as a result. I'm praying for that for them.

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Fire is still raging in the Tahoe area. This has been such a dry year that it is especially worrisome -- Mt. Lassen already looks bare, and it's just June. Since we've been here, it will lose the snow by sometime in August, perhaps, but this seems early. Friends who just camped in the mountains said that their usual campsite was dry-- last year it was a wide, rushing stream at this time. It is a time for caution and care.