Success

 

There is a natural order to everything.

Before there is success there must be attempts. It is not possible to win a race you never start.

Everybody fails sometimes, even many times.

Failure is a given.

Especially the person who never tries. 

If it is important enough to you, you keep trying. Try different ways, at different times, with different things and the  possibility of success becomes greater and greater.

Of course there are things that are impossible. You cannot turn a dog into a zebra, but eventually you will figure out something better to do. Then you do that.

And that is success!

Heaven

 

I have often wondered if the Christian idea of heaven were true, would that mean I am going to spend all eternity with the man I married?

That idea does not sound like heaven to me. 

We spent nearly thirty years trying to live together with very distinct differences of opinion that caused great anguish for both of us. I can't imagine that being heaven.

Last night I had a dream. In the dream my husband and I were separated and living in different parts of a large place. I had crammed all my things into a long corridor in between his place and my daughter's. 

In the nature of dreams, lots of events occurred that had nothing to do with him, but eventually I was so exhausted we met in the space next to my room.

He stood there tall and strong and I let myself fall against his chest, My ear to his heart found comfort and total peace. We decided to get back together.

Of course this man was nothing like my real husband in anything but name. He was taller, kinder, more empathetic and exactly the kind of person I could easily love. 

Maybe that is what heaven does?

Morphs the monsters in our lives into our dream person?

Somehow . . .

Rat mazes

 

As I wander crazed and lonely 

through the dark hours of the night

I ponder deeply on the causes

of my fate and personal plight.

Simply showering in my tub

billowing curtains hug me tight

I need weights to make this doable

but the prospects are not bright.

Magnets from the fridge are handy

But their strength becomes a fright

Now the magnets hug each other

Stuck together what a sight!

I turn to Amazon, who else?

Pricey magnets a delight

Now at least I shower better

In the rat maze of the night.

Miracles

 

Miracles are convoluted things. Beyond the understanding of mere mortals.

Born of light, bursting with power, not bound by time or place, they might as easily be missed as marveled over.

It requires an understanding of indiscernible things to perceive a miracle, let alone understand it.

We want miracles to be glorious showy things, granting us our deepest wishes or validating some religious concept, and if it were up to fairy godmothers and good witches that might be the case. But those are mythical creatures and miracles are a force of nature! Maybe greater than nature!

The simple miracle of existence is beyond our true grasp. Imagine how much more complex the finer tuned ones are.

And still, the world is full of miracles.

Time to re-root

 

I used to love to grow flowers and plants.

My gardens were full of bulbs, seeds, and bushes that bloomed at different times of the year, but indoors I liked to experiment.

I discovered that if I broke off a piece of my favorite coleus it would almost instantly send out new roots into a glass of water, creating a brand new plant. Later I could take that plant and do whatever I wanted with it.

I think my life has been a lot like those shoots.

I do something with my whole heart, put my entire being into it and when it is over, or fails, I take that piece of me that is left and try to re-root it somewhere else.

It would be easy to give up, to say I have failed at those things I loved in the past, but I don't think that is really true. I just took them as far as I could and then had to yield to fate or whatever when it was time.

I am once more sending out roots in a new place, a new way, a new life and even though I am nearly three quarters of a century in age, I don't believe it is too late.

A beautiful life

 

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the love and joy I feel when it comes to my children and grandchildren.

You might find that odd since I almost never see them in person at all. They live all across the country, from coast to coast, as far from me as it is possible to be.

And yet they fill my heart with the bits and pieces of their lives that they share with me.

My eldest is getting married next June and she just bought her dress. I was able to see this via video calls.

My older son just performed on guitar with my granddaughter with both of them singing, "Alleluia" and it was heartrendingly beautiful.

My youngest calls me nearly every day on his way home from work and we share our day, our dreams, our lives.

These are the moments that define a beautiful life.

Simplicity

The simple pleasures of not using up the gas in my car, or spending money on anything cannot be expressed in plain words.

Fully experiencing them requires eating eggs for the next two days thanks to a mistake by the water company who billed me twice and having to double up on the rent for one week then pay a deposit and this month's rent on top of that. Add the new bill for internet in my new apartment and life is rich.

But poor.

Thanks to all these fortuitous events I am not required to grocery shop or go anywhere until Wednesday when social security once more fills my coffers.

September will feel as if I have won the lottery!

Beautiful concept

 

Looking for love was something we were brought up to do. My generation often went to college to get that infamous MRS. 

The world was full of movies on love. West Side Story, Romeo and Juliet, My Fair Lady, Camelot, the list goes on and on, but real love isn't that cut and dried. 

Romance is easy. A girl can fall into romance so easily. She can write her own love story and fill in the details.

But it takes two for true love and I don't think I ever met the man who was meant to be my true love, my now and forever love, the one and only person willing to know me and share himself, who was worth walking through fire.

I know the love I have for my children and I have never experienced anything remotely close to that with another adult human being.

I think that kind of adult love is very rare, and I realize it is something that grows out of time, but I doubt if it is something I will ever know in this life.

Still, it is a beautiful concept.

Little steps

 

The last two years were a whirlwind of deceit. Exciting, romantic and ultimately devastating. It ended in financial ruin, a job that I loved, but that nearly killed me, and ultimately this move,

Waiting to find out if I could make the move was probably one of the most stressful periods of my life, but I am here now.

In the beginning all I could do was sit in my big chair with my feet up and try to take care of myself. Fixing food was a challenge. Showering was difficult. Anything else was almost unthinkable. Just getting to and from the bathroom was painful.

Every day now, I find myself doing more and more of those simple things I once took for granted.  Preparing food, standing up to shower, taking my trash down the hall to the chute, painting, making a birthday card for my niece and nephew, the things that add quality to my life.

It will be three weeks tomorrow since I got the keys to what may be the best move I've ever made.

God circle

 

I dreamed that my sister opened a tread on our staircase and we discovered the God circle.

It was a circle of old gods forty feet high, carved from sandstone.

The feet had narrow ankles and very wide toes that spread out across the base until they touched each other, almost like duck feet. The legs were simply a pillar and the top was carved to look like a shirt.

On the very top were smiling heads. One was John Ritter. Another was Woody Harrelson. Neither of those actors has any meaning to me that I can think of. I couldn't see the other heads, but there were at least six more.

My sister and I were trying to sleep on a fold out couch near a window in a trailer. We could hear a raging storm outside and feel the cool air from the open window blowing on us. The overwhelming feeling was one of fear. Where were our brothers, Tom and Henry? Where had Mom taken them?

In my waking life, both my mother and Tom have passed on, but Henry is alive and very successfully living a few miles away from me.

It seemed vitally important, in the dream, that I had discovered the God circle and that I remember what it looked like, but I have no idea why.

Why?

 

Sometimes the right words pop up at just the right time.

Because you are alive

Anything is possible.

Thich Nhat Hahn

This is the reason to keep on trying to eat right, drink enough water, move around more. Hope is an amazing gift.

Otherwise I tend to lean towards: I am already pretty old and my kidneys are pretty bad, so why try? Why bother to buy new clothes? Why think about redecorating? Why bother to fit in?

I've already made some progress.

Last week I grocery shopped and had to come home and go to bed sick.

Today I just had to rest a bit.

They said my brother would die before he was three years old. He lived to be sixty five!

That's why.

La dolce vita

 Isn't that what we all want in the end?

A beautiful sweet life where we can explore our most cherished dreams.

As long as there is breath there is life and every little second counts.

I have found a place I can afford to live more than decently and now I am figuring out how to settle in.

There are so many things to do when moving.

I have changed my address, registered to vote, figured out how to do my laundry here, even met a couple of people in the elevator and at a potluck. I have tried the local grocery stores and figured out things only older people need to figure out.

Now I need to regain some strength in my back and the journey continues.

Pedigrees of the past

 

We are all the product of our past, our family, the circumstances that generated our personalities.

The stories we heard growing up about our magnificent ancestors, the Indian princess, the student of Paderewski, the first woman doctor in Germany, the swashbuckling pirate? Those are the tales that families used to pass down. They were the pedigrees of the past.

The alcoholic father, the enabling mother, the compulsive obsessive grandmother? These are the things no one ever wants to mention, but they shaped us just as surely as those other glorious stories spun by hopeful people on hot summer nights.

Ultimately, it is not the stories we heard, or even the ones we tell that shape our lives.

It is our own determination, our own perseverance, our own grit and love and sweat and tears, that brought us to this place we are at today.

We have learned which family members are there standing behind and beside us and we are standing shoulder to shoulder with them too. 

These are the building blocks of success. The stories are just food for thought, something to feed our imaginations and add a little spice to the things that truly sustain us.

Once upon a time

 

Peter Pan goes by so many aliases. 

Right now he is hiding out in the trees of Appalachia, surrounded by his band of boys who do a lot of carpentry work when they are not kayaking, rafting and canoeing.

Wendy is making leather crafts and weaving fairy hair when she is not with the  boys.

The youngest Darling has been returned home where he plays video games near his attic window.

And the crocodile creeps around like a ticking bomb looking for things to destroy.

While here in the Heartland Alice has awakened in Wonderland where most things are wondrously white and shiny and the air conditioner keeps everything cool.

The world lies at her feet, waiting to be painted in dreams and memories and served up with tea and cookies.

Everywhere you look the familiar fairy tales are replaying themselves with new faces and old stories told time and time again.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows

 

Thanks to the untiring help of my family and friends I am moved! In fact, I am completely unpacked, which is not to say I won't rearrange in the future, but I am as settled as you can imagine being in four days time.

Everyone has gone out of their way to make this easy on me, including the staff of our building.

I have been to the local MacDonalds to use the internet until it was installed yesterday. I have been to the local Walmart and the local Kroger. I have even been to dinner at my brother's house already!

I have unpacked in between bouts of sitting in a chair with my feet propped up and a heating pad on my back, but it has still been fun. All my boxes are torn down and out for recycling.

Tomorrow I go to a potluck to meet some of the other people who live in this building and I'm looking forward to it.

After so many months of worrying about money, struggling to work, and trying to persevere until this happened, I can hardly believe I am here.

But I am!

Cobbling

 

Yesterday I had a doctor appointment after which I filled the car with gas and went to the grocery store for a couple of necessities. Then I went home exhausted!

Today I am resting. My back is still very problematic and I am not feeling great. I think, maybe, I am just scared. Of what? Scared of a move that is taking me away from the town I love and a life that is over into a new kind of life that may be my last chapter.

I am cobbling together all the resources I know of to make this possible.

Some dear friends sent me a large check in April to help and it is one of the main reasons I can do this. My niece and nephew found the place I am moving to and they are moving all my things there at the end of this week, but tomorrow I drive down to sign the lease.

While I am there my brother and sister are going to unpack what I already have in my car and then take my brother's dolly over to my nephew's house, so they can use it Saturday.

I am trying to rest as much as possible and still have things ready to go. Most of the apartment is long packed. Most things are clean. It is only my peace of mind that keeps faltering.

I am striving to be positive.

Jaded lessons

 

It is only in the great open spaces of a starry night that I hear my lover's passion,

Feel the unbearable aching deep within some part of me that knows more than this.

Fulfillment so satisfying I shall evermore seek its presence in corporeal moments 

No longer existing upon my plane? 

Or perhaps they never existed. Perhaps these are the memories of another space, another time, another place that has imprinted upon my soul, or whatever it is that is the real me, the everlasting me, the infinite me.

Yet I know it is real. I have always heard the echoes of its whisperings, remembered its impossible touch, known the all consuming ecstasy of its being around me.

A lifetime of searching has only brought me jaded lessons from imperfect lovers impersonating the impossible, the perfect,

The one true love.

In and out

I am struggling to find my center.

It is easy when everything goes along smoothly, but when there are  thousand moving pieces and they include both my body and my belongings, it gets trickier.

My kidney doctor keeps changing my blood pressure medicine and that affects my blood sugar as well as my hearing and energy level. 

My back and feet and knees were totally stressed out when I tried to go back to work and are just starting to recover. In order to protect what is left of my kidneys I cannot use most anti-inflammatory drugs

Financially I think I'm going to squeak by thanks to some very good friends who sent me a huge check this spring. I've been able to hold onto it for this move.

I know this move is necessary and actually a blessing in many ways, but trying to let go of the nagging voices in my mind that keep warning me something bad may happen is not easy.

Breathing in I take in the calm.

Breathing out I smile.

The next generation

 

People who work for money sometimes seem to think that the people who don't are not working, but that is far from the truth.

There may be people who simply lie about and travel and eat and do nothing, but most of the people I know and knew, who stay at home, are doing the jobs that working people cannot do when they are away from home or working all day.

They are caring for the next generation of people, giving them values and experiences, taught by example, that take an infinite amount of time and patience. They are spending hours reading to their children, doing puzzles, teaching them how to control their tempers and let their souls soar. It is a full time job. 

They are volunteering in the classrooms and school libraries to help teachers who are already overloaded.

They are cleaning their own homes, doing their own gardening, taxiing their, and other people's children, to sports events, music lessons, art lessons, doctor appointments, dentist appointments and preparing healthy nutritious meals for their families. 

They do not have babysitters, nannies, or sometimes anyone else to help them when they are exhausted. 

Stay at home parents work hard!

Working away from home is hard too, but there are trade offs. It may not be possible to stay at home and raise a child and some people do not have either the patience or skills to do it, but never make the mistake of thinking they are just stay at home parents.

These are the people creating the next generation, the people who will run the world when we grow old.

Reliant

We have all told other people to call us if they need anything and most of us mean it, but also for most of us, it is a difficult thing to ask for help..

I am in the process of moving next week and my back is a mess. I moved some furniture and strained a muscle, or maybe pulled a tendon. I am okay as long as I don't stand up or bend over.

Now the true test.

I have had to call on family and both my sister's family and my brother's family are going to help as much as they can. They both live out of town.

Now the problem.

I have to really stay off my feet until then so even cooking an egg is painful right now. My sister is going to come up and bring me food I can quickly assemble so that is possible. It means an extra trip for her, but she is willing to do it.

I am so grateful for all the help.

I never dreamed of being in this position.

Remember the pain

 

Memory is an exotic animal.

I remember things that happened when I was two years old, but I forget to avoid the actions that caused me so much pain a day ago!

What is it that drives me to do things that harm my body? 

I know it is partially guilt.

I feel like I should be working around the apartment, packing, doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking a meal.

If I had a broken back and was wearing a cast, that might validate that I need to rest, but a strained back doesn't show and I am embarrassed by how little I am able to accomplish right now.

I have been to Prompt Care twice in nine days. The second time they gave me enough muscle relaxers that I could take three a day instead of only one. That really helped, but it leaves me feeling that I am healed when the pain stops and that is a false assumption.

Today I vow to remember the pain I am in when I get up and move around too much.

No matter how little that is.

Pain!

The day before yesterday I was in so much pain I was willing to die. Yesterday was not much better. I went to Prompt Care on the fourth of July and they would only give me enough medicine to partially ease the pain for a few hours each day. They told me to wait until Monday and go to my primary care doctor.

Today I seem to have it under control. What a difference that makes!

This is turning out to be a turning point in my life.

When I had to go back to work I thought it was worth it to stay here in this apartment. Now, after forcing my body to do things it was no longer able to do and catching a very bad case of Covid in spite of being totally immunized, I realize going back to work was the worst mistake I've ever made in my life.

I honestly didn't think I had much choice. Rent everywhere is outrageous and I'm on a fixed income, but thanks to family I found a rent subsidized apartment. I just hope it isn't too late. I am trying desperately to regain my health, but I think I was trying too hard.

Trying to balance mental and physical health is always a bit tricky, but once a body begins failing to stand up to its old standards, it becomes critical.

My family has promised they will move me no matter what. Even if I can't help carry things to the truck. I have already packed as much as I can until that day comes and it's a good thing, because I have barely been able to get drinks of water, or get to my bathroom for the last three days.

Today was better. The pain seems to be under control if I am very careful not to move the wrong way, or put any pressure on my joints for more than a minute or two.

I have never felt this vulnerable in my life.

Death

Death sells. 

It is powerful advertising for the drug companies, hospitals and funeral homes. Fear mongering pays. 

It is wrong to live worrying about death, because it is inevitable and dying began the day I was born. 

The truth is today is always the first day of the rest of my life. There is no other real option.

Who knows what came before birth, or what comes after death.

Perhaps I have already lived a thousand years, or have a million to go.

Making the best of what is, could be the best way to influence what will be.

And since I don't know if there will even be consciousness after death, let alone life, I need to just accept that what will be, will be.

Searching for the beauty and peace of each moment is, at least, possible. 

That is what I want to focus on.

It is happening

 

I have an apartment! I will move in July 27th, 2024!

Today I filled up the back of my Fit with boxes and decorative pillows.

It's just a start, but I can't really put anything else in the car until I know whether or not my granddaughter and I will be going to a band concert on the 24th. I need room for her and her lawn chair.

My nephew and family are going to help me, so he will tow a trailer filled with my meager amount of furniture and we will put more things in his and my sister's cars.

This is happening. I just have to wait until closer to the time to notify utilities on both ends and get my internet set up in the new apartment. I can do things like register to vote and change the address on my driver's license online.

It's been an agonizingly slow process, but I think I'm organized.

My octopus personality

I am supremely sensitive to almost everything!

The list of things I am allergic to, or that produce unwelcome results is very long.

It encompasses everything from the air I breathe to medicine, clothing,  foods and even the people around me.

A conversation with someone can keep me up all night. I pick up on other people's feelings and moods like an octopus in the ocean.

I have always had this sensitivity, even as a child. 

The quirk of an eyebrow, the slight change in a smile or voice, the darkening of the eyes. the body posture, let alone the actions of anyone and anything affects me.

I've tried to mediate all this with a small amount of success.

So . . . when my doctor tries to find a new blood pressure medicine, he is up against impossible odds. I have a hard time knowing when my symptoms are due to the medicine or the trauma of needing the medicine, or fear of the medicine's effect on me.

Add two or more problems (like high blood pressure and high blood glucose) and finding the results is factoring not adding.. It is not just one drug or two, but also all the others I take as well as my emotional reactions.

An octopus may have 8 tentacles reaching out, but I have a hundred feelers always ready and waiting.

Bad

 

I am entering a period of my life where parts of my body are failing. Not all and not completely yet, but enough that it has brought me to a realization.

Deep down inside I feel not like I am aging, or my health is failing, but that I am a bad person. A person who has failed to do the right things the right way and this is some kind of divine retribution.

I have not been the ideal human, eating only to live and exercising in precisely the right way. But I think it goes far deeper than that.

I simply do not consider myself worthy of the people around me and the life I have lived.

There are all sorts of reasons for that, but I am trying to put that in the past.

In the present I know, intellectually, that I am okay, maybe even more than okay.

It is emotionally, where I come up short.

And those feelings give me nightmares at night, sorrow and despair during the long hours of the day while filling me with regret overall. 

I am trying to be more realistic from this point on. I am probably no more and no less bad, or imperfect than most people. They are just more accepting of themselves.

I am not bad. I am just overly critical.

Traversing the unknown

 

As the, still unknown time, to move away comes closer I suffer from all sorts of thoughts and conditions.

Most of all I am feeling anxious. So many things to coordinate depending on how everything moves. Nothing is a given except the fact that I AM moving.

I am never sure whether my ailments begin in my head or my body, but either way it feels real.

I can only pack so much and still live here, which I must, so I am trying to compact what cannot be packed permanently for the move.

When I see my nephrologist on Thursday it will either ease my concern immensely or double my anxiety. I'm hoping for the best. My regular doctor complicated everything the past two weeks by neglecting to get an order through in time. Twice!

And to top everything off this heat wave is costing me a fortune in air conditioning. 

On the other hand, at least I have air conditioning!

Abortion

 

I had a bizarre thought while watching a horror show the other night.

What if by eliminating a woman's right to an abortion they are trying to guarantee the birth of the anti-christ, to remove any chance that it might be mistakenly aborted?

To the right people that might be worth any amount of human suffering. These people would not care if the living children were fed, or cared for.

They would only care about their own ambitions.

Heaven

 

My mother died thirty eight years ago today. She was too young, 58 years old, but she had eleven aneuryisms in the main aorta to her heart. She also had less than a third of a kidney left. By the time they realized it and rushed her to St. Louis via plane, she was too far gone to survive.

It is easy to think about dying when you are young and healthy, but a little more complicated as the time draws nearer.

I would love to believe that I will go to heaven and be reunited with everyone I love in a beautiful place, but my innermost soul tells me I will return to the dust I came from. I don't know if I will be conscious of my self, but I expect to blow with the wind over the prairies and rivers, the mountains and oceans with all the rest of creation. 

I hope it is the great feeling of belonging that I have yearned for all my life and never quite found. 

Being part of a whole so immense, so complicated and so eternal might actually be heaven.

Success

 

People within the same family may seem to have the same values and yet, their children turn out massively different.

I think everyone wants their loved ones to succeed and tries to give them the tools to do so.

The difference may be in the expectations.

I wanted my children to have the manners, the experiences, the curiosity and the desire to achieve whatever their hearts desired. I gave them the encouragement and the opportunities to play different sports, different musical instruments, and participate in those things they loved at school.

I tried never to set a goal, hoping they would reach as high as they wanted to .

Other people are more focused on protecting their children. They allow them to quit out of fear of failing. They don't encourage them to reach too high because they might not succeed. They enable them when their fears rise up and threaten them rather than urging them on.

So many of the goals for children under twenty are there to help them find out who they are. Not being the best at any of them, or even discovering they are terrible at some of them will not really affect their long term abilities, but not trying and giving it their all teaches them to fail. 

Learning to avoid failure is not the same thing as success.