Maybe it's a byproduct of hitting 40, or just another aspect of the ways in which my life has changed so much, but I find myself being drawn to reading other bloggers "lists".  You know, like, "Things to Accomplish before 40" or "Resolutions I've Kept" .  Labeled under any variation, they are all lists of things that someone is wanting to do, to become, to see, to experience, to have, or to gain.  I find myself in conversation with both friends and strangers and the topic inevitably comes up, "what place haven't you been yet that you'd love to go?" or "is there some 'thing' you want to do that you haven't had the chance to yet?" or some similar vein.  There is usually always an answer, and it usually comes out quickly.

New Years is approaching and the time for resolutions - another chance to make lists of things you want to do, become, experience, or change.  I'm not one for making resolutions, but I've been thinking so much about peoples lists that I am seriously contemplating making my own 'list' or 'resolution'.

Here is the thing though... I don't want to make a list of things to aquire or experiences to gain, but a list of things to give up.  Emotional housekeeping, soul purging, pest removal, or even the dumping of baggage - pick any cliche you would like to, slap any label on it that you find fitting, but what I'm going to work on is a list of things to stop instead of things to start.

As I turn 40, one of the things I'm going to give up, to let go of, to remove from myself, is the constant fear of 'being' wrong.  Not of giving a wrong answer to some question, but the fear of committing an action that causes someone else to be uncomfortable, irritated, angry, or even allows them to dislike me a little.  I realize finally what my dad used to always say: You Can't Please Everyone All The Time.  The constant stress and anxiety of trying to do so, and the constant failure, isn't productive at all.  The weight of the effort combined with the rate of failure hasn't given me more or better friends, a richer or fuller life, or been rewarding in any sense.  So, sheesh, it's time for me to be a little more engaged in reality and commit the actions that feel right to me, to trust my self, and to know that even if I do something that irritates or annoys someone else, my actions themselves don't define the person that I am.

Focusing on a list of things to stop doing is going to be transforming, maybe more than if I'd crossed off a to do accomplishment.   How about you? What would you like to stop doing?

        

Time is such a mysterious little devil.  How a 10 hour stretch of time can extend outward, endless, dragging by in agonizing drips and dribbles is as real as the way a four day span can dissapear before you've even tasted the pleasure of it's potential.  Holding time is a little like holding rain in your bare hands, never entirely sure you actually held it there except for the wetness left behind as evidence. 

I was searching through long ago packed boxes - although "long ago" is a relative term I suppose - boxes packed by others in my absence, packed for me by treasured friends, and I kept getting caught up in small bites of memories.  A photograph here, a scribbled note on a scrap of paper, an outdated and overflowing calendar trigger memories of time past. 

It is not just the memory that is triggered, that bittersweet recollection of some pre-experienced event, that draws my attention to the concept of time passing, but it is the sudden knowledge of how often in the past I've paused and told myself "don't forget this moment!" and then tried to saturate my senses with the moment at hand... and how many of those moments that are lost to me now.  Time, slipping away from my grasp like raindrops rushing away - always replaced by more time, more rain, more grasping.

I think one of my earliest memories is of being  3 or 4 years old and being teased by my brothers.  I'm certain I didn't pause in that moment and tell myself to remember, remember, remember the scent of the air, the sunshine coming through the window and illuminating dancing dust motes, the feel of the carpet under my bare knees, yet I can clearly remember those fragmented images. 

Those images, as well as feelings of helpless rage at being teased, are as vivid to me as is the memory of last night when I stood outside in the cold crisp peace to gaze up at the moon.  When I close my eyes, although I am currently in a musty overheated room, I can smell the sharp hint of snow on the breeze, still feel the way my arms rippled with goosebumps and my toes immediately lost sensation as I stood on the not yet frozen ground, and the eerie sensation of watching the moon watch me.  Yet, I can't remember the last time I shared a tender moment with the man who I was supposed to be married to until death.  I can't remember his voice, not even when I try.  I can't remember what it was like to look into his eyes, to share a sidelong parental smile over a childs head, or the feel of his touch.  Mysterious devil, that thing called 'Time', and equally mysterious is 'memory' itself.

I want now not so much to hold onto moments that are passing, but to fully immerse myself within each moment that is given to me.  I want not to worry about remembering a moment, not to grasp at time even as it is slipping away, but to engage in time as it comes and as it goes so that even if I can't remember a moment, I will know intrinsically that I have HAD each moment.  Time will escape me, memories will be evasive, and I cannot hold onto every moment and store them up as treasures, but I can experience each moment to it's fullest capacity whether it be full of joy or grief.

I think I'm going to let go of time.  I'll stop frantically grasping at what I can't hold onto anyway, and focus my energy on tasting raindrops. 

        

        

Today is a day for being a small child - a day for sinking into the comfort of letting someone else be fully responsible for all aspects of physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.  It is, then, so unfortunate that I am an adult today... because I am solely responsible for all of those things on my own.  Yesterday was a day in which sunlight shone from my heart and my smile just wouldn't quit... it's ridiculous how one day can be so different from another.

I will allow the child within me to speak it's needs, and I will make time for my grown up self to pamper that child.  I will wrap myself in a fluffy bathrobe and wool socks, sip hot cocoa with marshmellows, and watch old familiar movies that make me smile: The Muppet Movie, Kindergarden Cop,  Princess Bride, Sister Act (both I and II).  I will eat buttered toast and make a nest for myself with my harem of pillows while I journal with colored markers in a brand new notebook.  And I will smile at myself and be gentle and nonjudgemental. 

And then I will do laundry and pay bills and return to the reality of adult-hood because tomorrow? Tomorrow I will get to hold my REAL children close to me, run my fingers through their hair and make mugs of cocoa for them while they make nests of comfort out of my pillows.  And in that moment I will be so full of gratitude that I am indeed an adult and am able to comfort my children while they are still able to be comforted by me.

May you find your own comfort this day, and your own moments of being able to comfort when the need arises.  Be gentle.

        

You can change this. 
You can dig down deep and find the boy that met the girl on the steps of the courthouse. 
You can find the husband who held his wife in his arms while she birthed their first child. 
You can find the father who cried in the middle of the kitchen and talked about sharing parenting equally. 
You can find the father that knows his children need both parents. 
Dig deeper, because there are layers of anger and pride and fear that are thick and cemented with grief and loss. 
Dig, and find the father who was thankful when this mom worked tirelessly to create an education plan for the child who needed it.  That mother is the same mom who is here right now, contemplating holidays without her children, going weeks without giving them the love she needs to give, and the love they need to recieve. 
That mother is the same as the one who birthed her babies without medication and intervention because it was safer. 
That mother is the same one who cooked every single thing from scratch so her child wouldn't have to take artificial medications.  That mother, This mother, Me, is the same one who taught her daughters to trust their father with their secrets, who forced a shy dad to coach T-ball for his son, who couldn't imagine living without her children, and would never do anything to cause them harm or fear. 
That mother is the me, those children are ours, and you can change what is right now - if you want to.  It's about what you want to do, what you actually have the power and control to do.  The truth is right there in that.  For them, not for me or you or us but for them - for the boy who wrote his mom a song and played it for her on his guitar.  For the girl who can't stop touching her mommy when they are together.  For the children who are what they are because of their mother.

The black and white papers? They are what I'm minimally entitled to, not what I'm restricted to - YOU can change it.

        

At first I am dismayed by the thought of driving three hours in the dark.  In spite of my rising anxiety to break away from this place already, there is a 'been there done that' dread of what lies ahead.  Once I am in the car and backing down the driveway however, all negative feelings suck themselves into the vortex created by the open moonroof, the driving beat of Creed, and the fantastical illuminating light of the full moon. 

Within seconds I am outside the tidy neighborhoods and cruising the deserted winding roads towards the mountain.  The moonlight is bright enough that there is no need for high beams on these two lane back roads.  I think of the man in the bar, with the tatoos and the shaved head and the wide easy grin.  I think of his deep kind chuckle and the way he'd made the drunken old pervert dissapear so quickly.  I wish, for a moment, that  I could share this moon with him - the way it uncovers shadows and reveals what isn't seen in the daytime.  I think of him and of the moon, and taste loss, while I drive further and further up the mountain.  I crest the top of the pass and the view is something from a dream. 

Bare branched trees are silvered in moonlight.  The road ahead appears liquid in the eerily bright night.  The temperature has dropped and the air rushing in my open windows bites and stings instead of cools and clears.  I close the windows but leave the moonroof open.  I turn up the heat, and the music.  Creed has gone and now Switchfoot blares from the speakers into the vast and wild night.  The taste of loss is suddenly bitter as the moonlight illuminates not only the vista before me, but shines light into the hidden valleys in my memories.  I see disregard, I see disinterest, I see denial.  I see a lack of action from the first moment, and my own innate intuition covered over by weak justifications.  Exposed, vulnerable, I shiver in the cold and the white light.

The beauty of the moonlight is sharp, clear, and provides a clarity I hadn't had before.  It stings, the sharpness of the sudden light. I clear the pass and begin the descent, the moon no longer leading me but staying at my left as a friend, a companion - I am not alone.

At the bottom of the mountain I begin the winding and blind drive through dense wooded back roads, only half marked with tired worn paint lines and random reflectors.  The occasional barn glows with warm light off in the distant, or a house close to the road has one dim light still shining - no competition in this blank night, the moon long ago hidden behind some other mountain.  I drive, and drive, and drive.  The music has stopped and only the sound of the wind keening through the open moonroof sings to me.

Then I see the moon again.  Subtly, the road has lightened.  I am less straining forward against the seat belt, less tensely gripping the steering wheel, less clenched against potential leaping deer.  I am leaning back, loosely holding on, relaxed.  And then I am dialing out of the blue, out of the moon.  I am dialing and the one who answers is a friend of the moon.

The man in the bar fades from my memories.  The man with tatoos and a shaved head, the man of Pervert Removal and Lady Protector is no longer a bitter taste but a slow smile and a shake of the head.  The voice on the other end of the phone says, "Can you see that moon! It's so beautiful" and I smile quicker, bigger, and I say, "Yes! I can see the moon!"  And I am glad to have someone to share the moon with - and doubly glad that the one I share it with is one who can see it even without me. 

Oh moonlight - brighter than I knew, and showing more than I wanted, but all that I needed.

do you see the moon?

        

Autumnal roads call
But I sit instead of drive
Broken tie rods suck

He plays his guitar
Her heart sings along with mine
Those days flew by fast

Their voices echo
I weep tears of suffering
Morning brings no joy

In the dark I type
Memories keep me awake
Sorrow in my breath

Hardly gained now lost
My broken heart deserted
I am all alone

Autumnal roads call
I ache to drive winding paths
Broken tie rods suck

        

I wonder what they will remember of this time, what feelings will have been formed, shaped, scarred, and been permanently altered because of this.

I wonder where their anger will lie, for surely there will be anger. How could there not be anger in this?  I imagine them, angst filled in college, desperately scrabbling to find all that they've lost in the arms and heart of someone else, or coldly pushing away every opportunity for love and connection as a way to protect whatever they have left.

I wonder what they think of, late in the night when they can't sleep, when they are fresh with grief from saying goodbye again, or being dissapointed by the absence of the one who only wants to be with them so badly I can taste it in every breath I take.  Do they think I don't love them? That I surely haven't tried hard enough to be with them? Do they think something horrible, something far worse than what is? Do they believe the one who tells them only his perception - watered down by fear of truth, bound too tightly by the very things he tried to escape when HE was angry and hurt and in college?  Do they ache with confusion, with guilt, with fear, with need? 

I wonder, as I lay awake in the weak light of the morning, are they brushing their teeth well enough? Did they floss? Are his nails cut? Is her hair pretty today?  Do her clothes match, do they fit her body the right way?  Did he put on something clean or just grab it off the floor?  I think about the untouched bottle of vitamin I bought them, the homeopathic immune system support they didn't take and the pneumonia he got.  I cried, for days, knowing he was sick and I wasn't there to monitor his fever, listen to his cough, entertain him when he was well enough to be bored but still to sick to go to school.

I wonder what they think of, if they think of me at all.  And I wonder in 10 years what we will talk about, what accusations will be unleashed, what sorrow will have to be waded through, what feelings of betrayal they will discover lay deep under their childhood memories... betrayal I will never be able to explain because they will have never been me, abandoned and betrayed, and so unsure of myself, so unloved and untreasured -

My kids, the ones I wonder about every moment of every day, THEY have been LOVED, they have been TREASURED.  If they ever face something like I have, God please don't let them have to do that, they will be able to stand up to it with something foundational and intrinsic... something bigger and deeper than whatever it is they go through.  And maybe then I will know, inspite of how much sorrow or anger they might harbor toward me for things they don't/can't/won't  understand, then I will know that the strength they draw on to face their adversity is strength I loved right into them. 

I wonder if there will be forgiveness, softening of hearts, acceptance?  I wonder if there will ever be pride, belief, understanding?  I wonder if there will be peace for them, peace and security and stability, if they will know it for what it is, if they will know their own truth, their own selves, their own path.

I wonder...

        

Stuffed French Toast Brioche
overflowing
with creamy marscapone
and
tart sweet strawberries
dipped forkful by forkful
into orange-honey syrup
sticky sweet and the scent of which I swear still lingers
on my fingers.

and the man with the tiny little puppy
cradled in his arms
walking by and nodding hello
just like so many other people who all seemed to know
you
like the girls who can't stop giggling,
or the ones who smile slow,
and knowing -
the boys who nod, so cool,
and reach out their arms, hands fisted, to tap your knuckles,
then smile when you walk away
like little boys who were smiled at
by a celebrity.

The music
the good stuff as well as the awkward almost embarrasingly bad stuff
so loud that
it was what I felt
and not
what I heard
that lingers behind in my memory
and in my heartbeat
and in my breath;
the way my body moved to the rhythms in a way
I never knew
it wanted to.

The sunshine on my bare shoulders
wind whipping stray strands of hair from under the small black helmet
and stinging my eyes
as I saw the spedometer
hit 90
at the same time the big man
a passenger in a small car
leaned out and grinned
and gave a thumbs up
and your grin
was there on your face
for quite awhile afterwards.

Stark reality
and a little bit
of bitter fear
and such phenomenol courage
blended with adventure
and freedom
and curdled anger
buoyed up by grief, but not denial or avoidance
absolute honesty
like the flashes of red leaves
on a yellowed tree...
weeping sustained for the moment
by distraction -
such relief!
and, such fun...

Stuffed French Toast Brioche
Wide eyed 'children'
Music that moves me
Grins that turn sad eyed adults into purely joyful pre-schoolers
in a flash
and the distraction
of the changing of leaves...
the way that no matter what happens, the advent of the seasons
still comes
and everything still changes
and it is always
in some way
so beautiful
even when you begrudgingly let go
of the season past,
that you can't help but be filled
with peace...
and THAT is why I laughed
when we said goodbye.