Be Ready as Best you Can

As I watch my Facebook feed fill with pictures of my friends’ kids, almost grown up in their caps and gowns preparing for high school or college graduation, I am always taken back to those times in my life. There you are, right on the cusp of the beginnings of your life, or what you think your life will be.

This year was different for me, because while hearkening back to those times, I am also finding myself in this frustrating point of life where I just get angry because life seems so unfair. It is unfair to watch good people suffer with disease or horrible pain or loss—sometimes one after the other, while truly awful people, people I know to be manipulative and malicious, just skate through life, seemingly without a care. It’s not like I just learned this, there have been instances my whole life. But lately, so many people I know and care about are struggling, and I want to make sense of it all.

The thing is I can’t. You can’t. We just can’t. It is life. Life is fragile, hard, and yes also beautiful and precious, but the truth is, it isn’t always fair. It won’t ever be.

I have written a time or two before about commencement speeches that have touched me or meant something to me. A few years ago, I wrote a poem that makes me believe I was having similar feelings when I wrote then, also.

Today I decided to write my own commencement speech, even though I have not currently received an invitation from a university to give one, and I doubt any are forthcoming. It’s the best way I knew to combine my own nostalgia for this time, along with the wisdom I hope I am gaining with another year behind me.

So here it is, Entitled:

Be Ready as Best you Can

Life is not fair.

I don’t say this to discourage you. I say this to you as a challenge for this next stage of your life, as you sit in these seats in caps and gowns, excited about the next chapter.

Be excited. Do whatever it is that calls to you in the small hours of your life, in between the things you think you have to do. Make the thing that calls to you the “have to” of your life. If you don’t, you will always wonder, you will always wish, and when you find yourself older and wiser, you will know it is what you should have done. Many years ago. The good news? It’s never too late. But don’t wait.

Because, I will say it again, life is not fair. None of us is guaranteed another day, another hour. Whether you are religious or not, whether you fear death or not, whatever you believe, all of us are on borrowed time.

As I stand before you, I am farther along this path of life than you. Your path may be remarkably different than mine. You might get lucky. Everything might go just as you planned. But then again, it might not. Be ready for this, as best you can. Know that you might not get your dream job, but the one you get may be where you were destined to be. You might not get married as soon as you would like, but you may find that the wait was worth it after all. These sad, perplexing moments will be the threads of your life that weave together a pattern you couldn’t have foreseen. And at some point, you will be grateful for that. You will surprise yourself and be grateful that it wasn’t all so easy.

Know this: absolutely no one I know-- friend, acquaintance, co-worker,  or family member has ever said to me: things in my life went just as I planned. Anyone that does say that is probably not being honest with you or themselves. Everything will not go as you plan.

Be ready as best you can.

Let yourself mourn the losses of your life however you need to. It will make the victories that much sweeter.

Know that life and people will break your heart more than once in your lifetime. In fact, many times. Each time, you will feel that you can’t survive the pain. But you will. It will change you a little each time and teach you things you wish you didn’t have to learn in such a painful way. You won’t be able to see things clearly until much later when you look back and know that coming out on the other side of heartbreak made you stronger.

Take every chance you can. Don’t hold back. Because what will holding back get you? There won’t be photographs of you holding back, or friends sitting together laughing, remembering when you held back. There will be memories and mementos and stories handed down of all the chances you did take, the things you tried that scared you, that excited you, that made a dream come true, that ultimately will make you who you are.

There will be an a-ha moment when you finally become who you were meant to be. I can promise you, it is not right now. You may be far away from that moment, or you may be closer than some, but you will know it when it happens. When you have hurt enough, laughed enough, cried enough, experienced enough, and learned enough, you will have a moment where you sigh, take a deep breath, and know that this is it. Who you were meant to be. It won’t be an ending, it will be a beginning. You will relax a little more, quit trying so hard, and appreciate things more. It will hit you how precious it all is, and how hard you fought to get where you are, wherever that may be.

Be ready as best you can.

Everything is harder than it looks. Work, marriage, parenthood, and balancing more than one of these things at any stage in life- it’s all so much harder than you can imagine right now. But, it’s been said before, the best things in life are hard. And these things, the paycheck, the spouse, the children, they will also make up the most amazing, fulfilling, life-affirming moments. These moments will be more beautiful than you can imagine-- they will take your breath away.

I know now more than ever, that life is not fair. I watch friends struggle with disease, threatening to rob them from their young children, and I can’t make sense of anything. Years ago, I watched my best friend suffer as her three year old was diagnosed with leukemia. You cannot find any kind of fairness standing in a pediatric cancer ward. All you know is life is fragile, precious, and at times, so unfair. My friend’s son is healthy today. He is whole and healed. These moments will happen too—when you weep through laughter over amazing things, miracles, it seems. Hold onto those moments. They are rare, few, and far between.

So tonight, when you watch the last of the day fade away- your graduation day- take this with you: life is not fair. So, there’s absolutely no reason that you shouldn’t do everything you want, be everything you want to be. You have no excuses. If life were fair, it would all be spelled out for you, which steps to take, what not to do. If life were fair, you would know all the hours and days you have left, and there would be plenty, so why rush—why take a chance? If life were fair, it would be easy, lovely, and effortless.

But it’s not, thank goodness. It’s an unpredictable roller coaster ride, and you can’t ever see what’s coming next. You have no warnings, no guarantees, no map to follow from one stage to the next. Open your eyes, hold on, and be ready for all the surprises, catastrophes, and overflowing happiness. It’s all coming.

It will be wonderful, sad, and achingly beautiful.

Be ready as best you can.

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Half of My Sky

For so many years, its weight was all my own,
endless blue days and dreamy dark nights

all at my fingertips, and on my shoulders… alone.

Expanding out before me, above me,

bowed by the weight too heavy for me to bear.

Gray misty mornings I somehow pushed to rise,
through dewy tears of loneliness

and repeating, ever-changing seasons, 

but still...

it was all me, all mine, alone.

And then, half the weight lifted.

Your arms took half the gray days, half the cloud cover,

half the rumbling days of thunder, and thick storms.

Your heart brought more blue skies and

helped show me the best 

of the brighter seasons.

You are half of my sky-- holding it for me-

bearing more weight when I am weak, 

sharing the beauty when I am strong.

It is ours together, broad and wide, 

sheltering us, glimmering above us... ours together.

We have braved our own storms, and at times, 

our sky felt low and heavy, but it never fell.

We held it high enough …together.

We endured, saw the next sunny morning, 

felt the ocean’s spray, saw the other coast greet us.

We knew we were strong enough for anything.

We are.

You are half of my sky, holding half of my world above me, 

bright and blue, large and wonderful.

And in turn, I will always be half of your sky.

Through all of our days and nights,   

the blue skies, dark clouds, gray storms, and the sea of stars,

I will be here, holding my part,

my half...

with all of my heart.

 

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Searching for Sea Glass

Last year on this date, my husband Shea and I were a week away from setting off on our big adventure-- moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. I wrote about all the hope and possibility that lay ahead of us, and how excited we both were about the future. We were both nervous—Shea even more than I—as he had never been where we were going. I had lived here before, in the very town we were moving to. Our townhouse actually sits less than a mile from my former apartment, the little one bedroom I lived in –fifteen years ago- which seems unbelievably long ago now. Time has flown. This past year has flown. 

What we didn’t know was that once we left South Carolina, once we headed out for our adventure, everything would go wrong. I can’t even begin to explain or remember all of the little things that went awry, but the big things are burned into my memory: our corrupt moving company holding our belongings for ransom, finally giving them up only after an emotional battle and thousands more dollars of money that we had to borrow, finding out that the same moving company had kept many of our belongings including our mattresses, which left us struggling in our first weeks here on an air mattress until my first paycheck.

Then, while I was gone on my first business trip, Bear encountered a foxtail – something we knew nothing about- but once he inhaled it- cost us almost $1000 in an emergency veterinarian bill. (goodbye to the rest of the first paycheck!) Those first few weeks were horrendous, and Shea had to deal with a great deal of it alone, in a new city where he knew no one, while I was a few states away, working. Then, to top it all off, while I was on that trip, I took a tumble down a small flight of stairs, luckily breaking nothing, but the fall left me in such pain for the rest of my business trip, that I spent part of every day in the restroom in tears, and cried myself to sleep every night. This was contract work, and I refused to go to the ER because I knew no doctor would let me continue to work, and our financial situation was so perilous at that moment that I couldn’t risk being sent home. I waited to visit the ER after my trip once I got home, and came out hobbling on crutches, but relieved I had made it through and gotten paid. 

I kept waiting for the moment when we would turn the curve and our fortunes would change. I kept waiting to see the light in Shea’s eyes and know that he loved it out here as much as I always have. I kept waiting for him to find his next career direction and see the light at the end of the tunnel he has been waiting for. I kept waiting for my job situation to settle down and for me to feel I was really where I was supposed to be. The contract work dried up, and I finally found a full time position. But for the most part, for most of these things, I am still waiting. 

I have had more than a few challenging times in my life, so I know this is not the lowest point. There have been days in this last year, though, when things have felt bigger than me, bigger than us, and I have lost faith in myself. I have doubted the decision to bring us out here. Even though it was both of us deciding, it was me who started this chain of events, it was me who suggested bringing us here—all the way to the other side of the country. We both loved living in Myrtle Beach, SC, a place that held a lot of childhood nostalgia for us, and where the people that are truly family to us live. I cannot express how much we miss Aunt Marlene. We would be in her kitchen celebrating Easter with her and other family members tomorrow, and not doing that will be a hole in our hearts. I had assumed that by this time, we would be able to afford to fly back for holidays, and we are just not at that point yet. 

The truth is, we were struggling back in SC, and we are better off financially here, even if we are still struggling. It’s hard to face that, especially for Shea, who doesn’t know anyone else here, and I know he feels so disconnected from the world at times. Changing careers is so hard, and navigating through that has been more challenging than he or I could have ever imagined. 

I have wanted to write for months, to spill my soul out and share what has been going on in my mind and heart, but I haven’t been able to find the words. Working has left me drained and while I am so thankful for my job, especially now, I come home exhausted and unable to summon the creative energy to do the thing I love and honestly need to do most when I am trying to work through a hard time. I know creative people all struggle with this. We have to pay the bills, so your art-- whether it’s writing, painting, music—it becomes the thing you do on the side unless you have been lucky enough to find away to make it your livelihood. 

On the train ride home, standing in the middle of dozens of people every day, I find myself getting emotional thinking of all the time ticking away. I am not writing my novel, I haven’t even written a blog post in months. It has been overwhelming lately. I tell myself I will make the time, I will stay up late, I will carve out time on the weekends. But I can’t summon the words at exact moments. They come to me or they don’t. Lately, they haven’t. 

I wish I could say I see all these hopeful changes just around the corner for us, and that within a few weeks, we will be out of this rut, full of purpose, and without any doubts of our choices and our place in the scheme of things. I know that won’t be true- unless a winning lottery ticket finds its way to us. 

I have to keep myself focused on what we do have. I tell myself all the time that it’s like being at the beach, looking for sea glass among the broken shells. You have to look really hard to find these beautiful, cloudy blue-green pieces of glass, little gems among the wreckage of the ocean, but they are there. Right now, my pieces of sea glass are that we both have health insurance, we are both ok health-wise, Bear is healthy and happy and loves it here- as do all of the animals, we live in a great place near beautiful walking trails, I am working full time, and we can pay the bills- barely- but we can. Tomorrow and the next day and the next, we will have plenty to eat, and we have a roof over our heads. We have each other. And although things have been rough and we have struggled at times, we know and love each other more every day. Some days are harder than others. Some days are good. We laugh, a lot. 

It has become this weird little mantra for me when I am having a bad day…look for the sea glass…a way to remind myself to look for the positive things. I don’t even know if the analogy makes sense to anyone but me. 

Sometimes the pieces of sea glass are really hard to see. Tomorrow, I am promising myself I will take a few extra moments to look harder to see them, to wait for the sun to catch the colors and show them to me. I know they are there, hidden among the broken shells of my life right now. 

Here's hoping in a few months, it's not as much of a struggle to find them. 

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Four Years with Bear

I could have gone somewhere else that day. In the hours before I arrived, Bear could have been chosen and adopted by someone else. He had been in front of the pet store, along with a few other dogs from a local shelter, for hours that day. Who knows if he had been through the process in the weeks before.? I don’t know how anyone could have walked by and not scooped up that adorable 12-week-old fur ball.

Whatever you want to call it- coincidence, fate, destiny—whatever it was, four years ago today, Bear became mine and I became his.

I look back on many decisions and cross roads in my life with doubt and curiosity. What if I had taken this job instead of that one? What if I had made this choice and not the other? Some of those decisions haunt me, because I believe there might have been a better outcome if I had made a different one. I can’t ever know that, and I can’t truly regret the decision since I don’t know, but in quiet, private moments, I wonder.

The snap decision to make Bear mine is one I look back on with absolute certainty. It was the worst time for me to have brought a dog into my life- if you looked at the situation logically. It turned out to be the best timing for my life, my heart, and the very soul of me. It sounds melodramatic to say these things, to say and believe that a little furry being of 12 weeks could save someone, in every sense of the word. But he did. Only after I had signed the adoption papers did I find out that I saved Bear—really saved him. The day I adopted Bear was his last chance. He was due to be put down if he didn’t find a forever home that day.

It is hard to believe he has been with me four years. In that time frame, my life changed completely. Beautiful things happened, beginning with Bear. He was the first piece, then came all the steps that have led to today. The time has flown by. In the last six months or so, it has worried me—just the speed of it all—how fast time is going with him. How fast and how short of a time I know we will have with Bear in the scheme of things. It seems macabre and foolish to think and worry now. Bear is only four, we have many years left with him. But I truly cannot imagine my life, our lives, without our Bear. 

When my husband and I started dating in November of 2009. Bear hadn’t yet been with me a year. From the moment Shea came into my life, he and Bear were instantly in love with each other. The bond that Shea and Bear have sometimes takes my breath away.  There is such a fated connection between them, that I cannot help but believe that all of this was meant to be. Me, Shea, and Bear—all the moments, all the choices--all planned somehow. Bear has been such a huge part of our lives, there with us every moment, and any time away from him not the same for us. Not as rich, not as complete.

My husband is definitely the love of my life. But Bear is the other love of my life. I call him the furry love of my life. The joy he has brought to my life, the comfort he has brought to me in times of pain and loss, is so hard for me to explain. When a person gives you comfort, you can share the words they said, you can explain their acts of selflessness. But how do you explain how an animal knows things he shouldn’t know? How his expression reveals so much? How he shows up at your side before you know you need him? He can’t tell you these things he knows, he just “is”. How can you explain how you have watched him pull your husband out of dark moments when nothing and no one else could? How do you explain that to someone else?

Other dog lovers know. If you are one, you are probably nodding now in recognition of those moments.

Bear has a good life. He is spoiled by anyone’s standards, and is loved beyond measure. He always has a full belly, although he would lead you to believe otherwise. He can be incredibly stubborn, imaginatively sneaky, and so unbelievably smart that it takes Shea and I a few moments to catch up and believe he has understood something we have said, or referred to. He can be frustrating, demanding, and incredibly naughty.  He is insanely jealous of the three cats that also live with us, and alternatively is extremely possessive of Shea and anyone, including me, who takes too much of his time or attention.

We truly treasure all those moments. We know we can’t have Bear forever, or nearly as long as we would like. Right now, he is healthy, happy, and sleeping nearby--probably dreaming of endless slices of cheese, or a romp at the dog park. He is the main reason we laugh every single day—true, deep, instantaneous belly laughs—every single day. We are so thankful for that.  So thankful for Bear.

We always celebrate this day, January 17, as his birthday. This was the day he became Bear, and we both started the next best chapters in our lives. Today Bear will get a special meal, some toys and treats, and a trip to the dog park and an unbelievable amount of hugs and kisses. Due to being spoiled, Bear might think this is a day like any other day. To me and to Shea, it is so much more. It’s Bear’s day, but we have truly received the most incredible gift: Four years with Bear.

To see the previous posts in this series, click below:

Three Years with Bear

Two Years with Bear

Rescued

*January 17th is Bear's official adoption day, but due to a bout of horrible migraines the last few days, the post was delayed. 

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my house to yours! I hope everyone has a beautiful holiday full of love and joy.

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Before and After: The Tragedy in Newtown

I don’t have anything new to add to this conversation. I don’t have any wise words about why a young man chose to kill his mother, then 26 innocent people at an elementary school, then take his own life. I have assumptions regarding mental illness, pain, being at an age when serious mental illness often takes its strongest grip, and access to guns that should only exist in the military or on the movie screen. But those are assumptions. They help me reason through moments when I want so badly to understand, but in the end, they are just guesses.

Nothing in recent memory has upset me as much as the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I have cried when watching television coverage, I have wept when reading articles detailing events that no kindergartner or first grader should ever experience. Most troubling, out of nowhere over the past week, I have shed tears when simply thinking about all that happened. How will the parents that lost children ever get those images out of their heads? How do they somehow find peace after losing a child so senselessly? How will the surviving children ever again see school as anything but a war zone- a temple of fear- a place of loss and terror? How will the community ever lift this cloud of grief? How do you contemplate, plan, and attend countless funerals in such a tiny town- all leading up to the Christmas holiday?

One thing that struck me from the beginning, on that Friday when the news was just breaking, was what school was for me at that age. It was a safe haven. I absolutely adored kindergarten especially, but all through my elementary years, school was my safe place, my favorite place. I knew what to expect, there were no unplanned shifts in tension or trouble as there were at home. I still had my own anxieties, but they had nothing to do with not feeling safe or worrying gunmen might come into the building and harm us. It’s bad enough for the children that have been exposed to the news about Newtown, and then must return to their school building and hallways, trying to readjust to the new normal the world has created. But how in the world will the children that survived this massacre in Newtown, who actually witnesses their teachers and friends murdered in front of their eyes, ever wall the hallways of any school now or later in life, without flashbacks and fear, looking over their shoulder on the way to the library for lurking dangers?

This breaks my heart. Their innocence is gone. Children are thankfully resilient and mighty, and have an ability to face the sadness life gives them and make it part of their new being in a magical way. But, I fear this is almost too much to ask, even of the most resilient child.

What I am thankful for in all of this madness is that we, as a country, are finally talking about gun control. To be clear, as I always try to be, I am not in favor of taking away all guns from everyone. I only want automatic assault weapons that have no business in anyone’s hands off the market. Illegal. Nearly impossible to get. Will it solve all the problems? No. Will we never again have another tragic shooting in a school or workplace? Sadly, I doubt that will be the outcome. But, I believe strongly that it will lessen the numbers and instances. One other thing I have learned is that if you are on the other side of the gun argument, I cannot change what you think, and you cannot change my view. I am not going to try here. At least we are all talking. At least I am seeing a shift in Washington, and I believe newer laws and restrictions will come out of this tragedy to make a difference.

This tragedy changed things because so many of the victims were so young, so innocent, so defenseless. But honestly, in the face of an automatic weapon, we are all defenseless. I couldn’t help but think about the parents of victims of other school shootings such as Columbine, other parents who have fought for gun control after the loss of their child in such a senseless manner. I am sure these parents are happy to finally see gun control discussed, but I wonder if they aren’t thinking—“why wasn’t my child’s death important enough to make this happen?” It’s a fair question. Maybe we wouldn’t be in such pain right now, maybe we wouldn’t have lost 20 six year olds if this had been addressed earlier.

After Columbine, I remember there was a lot of anger and hatred for the gunmen. Everyone was lashing out at their parents, assuming they were somehow responsible, that they knew everything their children were planning, or that they were so neglectful that this tragedy left blood on their hands. I was part of that group that could not believe the parents had no idea what was about to happen—the weapons, the planning, the anger. For a long time, I kept that opinion. Then, I read Susan Klebold’s heart-wrenching essay. Later, I read the book Columbine by Dave Cullen, and I realized that the truth is far murkier.

After the tragedy in Newtown, I didn’t see the same public reaction of absolute hatred for the gunman. I saw the reaction more towards the true cause of any tragedy like this—mental illness and gun control. This is where the concerns should be. Until we figure out what is breaking people, what is bringing them to their knees and to the point of making a decision to kill innocent people in large numbers, we won’t be able to prevent future tragedies.

I wish I knew an answer. I wish I could turn back time and bring these tiny children back to their families and make the community whole. I wish I didn’t think about what their last moments were like- how confusing and terrifying everything must have been. How, I am sure, they wanted their mommies and daddies in such scary circumstances. I wish their parents didn’t have to have those same thoughts, which must torture them in ways that are unimaginable.

All I can do now is hope for their healing. Hope for some peace in a tiny town that couldn’t have seen evil approaching in such a horrible, final way. Hope that whatever change we bring about as a country helps guide some lost souls to a place of healing instead of lashing out at the world in such deadly actions.

Truly, all that is left to do is hope.

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