Supposed To...

I found my first white hair this evening. 


I was supposed to be the proud woman who wore her grey hair as a crown.
I was supposed to be the wise old woman who had wisdom to give her grandchildren, grandnieces, grandnephews, nieces, and nephews.
I was supposed to be the woman who proudly declared who she was to the world, without bending to the will of others' preconceptions and expectations.
But,
I was also supposed to live a life where my mother didn't die when I was seventeen.
I was also supposed to have one marriage and three children (so said a palm reader to me once).
I was also supposed to have a husband who loved me for who I was and stayed with me and supported me throughout my whole life.
I was also supposed to have figured out what I wanted and begun achieving it by my 30s.
I was also supposed to live a life where I didn't start my life out living others' expectations as my own.

I started a journal a long time ago with the plan to hand it down to my children. It was a book of things I have learned over the years.  I wanted my children to know what I was like when I was young, in case I was so different by the time they were old enough to understand that there would be a major difference.  I do think I am not the same woman I was when I began that journal 10 years ago. 

 I haven't written in that journal in awhile, I think because I wasn't sure how to present any of the lessons I was learning while I was in the middle of them.  But I think one lesson can be summed up now:  I have learned that there is no such thing as supposed to. It's a myth. I'd even go so far as to say it's a lie - one we tell ourselves. 

"Lying to others might be wrong, but lying to yourself is just a tragedy"  Mary Allison

"Freedom is for honest people. No man who is not himself honest can be free – he is his own trap.” Unknown

"Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."  William James

It's easy to get caught up in the depressed attitude associated with self-deception.  It's easy to get caught in "this shouldn't have happened," but it's not productive or healthy.  I have moments when I double-over with the thought that this is not the life I wanted.  Sometimes I think I don't want life like this - without my parents, without my husband.  But what can any of us do but keep doing?  The reality is that this is the life we get.  There is no way that life was supposed to go.  It only goes forward from here.   

"I understand that it's hard for everyone, but one cannot give in to emotions... we'll have to draw lessons from the current crisis and now we'll have to work on overcoming it."  Boris Yeltsin

"And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great."  Genesis 26:13

Into the woods without delay...

I couldn't stop smiling for about a full hour this morning. I haven't been that happy in a long time.

You see, I FOUND THE WOODS! I found those trees and a path right through them. They are about a block away from me - totally within walking distance.  I spent an ecstatic half hour walking through them and exploring and just GLORYING in them. I am not actually in the metropolis, and I counted myself blessed to be out in a more rural area - lots of green and down in a hollow with trees up on the hills around me.  We're on a quiet, out-of-the-way street that loops back on itself. But today I realized I need not only green but beautiful shades of brown, too.   And maybe I've learned a little bit of the reason that I have missed them and they are more important to me than I have ever realized. How much I have been missing the woods!   Woods are one of my very favorite things, unequivocally.  The girl who grew up in Penns Woods has been out of the woods for years!  I don't know what I was thinking! 

As a child, I don't ever remember NOT camping (and not RV "camping" mind you, which I will steadfastly assert is NOT camping but taking a house into the woods).  My parents' honeymoon was a camping trip to Locust Lake State Park.  Camping was a part of my life from moment one. It's as part of my blood as writing and reading are.  Building a campfire is one of my favorite joys in life (and I put up with being teased as a pyromaniac because I love campfires so much).  Setting up a tent may be a pain (literally for me in some recent memory), but waking up in the morning, unzipping the tent and pulling myself out into fresh, crisp morning air is so totally worth it.  The sounds of nature all around me is the sweetest lullaby I've ever heard. The woods is anything but quiet at night.  Crickets are only the beginning. The sounds of trees swaying in the wind is so soothing! And I sleep better after being outside all day than if I were on the softest bed on earth. And, setting aside the occaisional accidental rock shelf when setting up a tent, mother earth provides the perfect balance of softness and firmness in my book.

And, of course, it is not just about camping.  I didn't go camping today. I found a hiking path. To be precise, I found an arboretum.  But, for me the greens, browns, and blues of nature are balm to my soul.  Canoeing, hiking, camping, outdoor concerts, sitting in parks or on tree stumps and writing, breathing in the fresh air and the loam earthy smell of the soil. Green has a smell and I love it!

I frequently take walks around my neighborhood loop. This morning I noticed, for the first time, a small road off the right. A neighbor drove down it, which brought it to my attention. So, I thought, I am in a place right now where I don't have anywhere I HAVE to be or anyone expecting me anywhere at any time. For the first time in a very long time in my life I have plenty of time to explore and, right now, I am feeling more adventurous and reckless than I have in a few years. As a result, I ended up finding a part of my neighborhood I never knew existed before. I found myself on a nice country road surrounded by yards and trees with squirrels and birds and bunnies. It was the perfect picture of a light spring morning, with the sun shining as it came up over the horizon.  I was content and cheerful.  And then ...

And then.

Then I saw the dead end and smack dab in the middle of it was a sign that looked "official". Years of United States State and Federal Parks have taught me to recognize signs like this. "Arboretum" it said, then listed "prohibited acts" such as fire building, etc.  Okay, so no camping, but still. I said out loud "Is there a path?", my excitement growing and growing as I realized what treasure I had just uncovered.  And, well, there was!   I stepped over the silver gray guard rail and into my heaven.

Yesterday I was discussing heaven with my friend Mary Sue and contemplating what it's going to look like.  I couldn't really say what I thought it would look like to me. It occurs to me now that it will HAVE to be a woods. Nothing else will really do.

So what, you may ask, is an arboretum?  I was confused. Maybe it was the excitement. I have certainly heard the word before, but I have little experience with using it.  I confused it with an aviary and was sort of expecting to see a bird wildlife refuge! But, no, it looks like a woods with a nicely-graded (mostly) path through it. A big creek runs on one side and a gulley/creek is on the other side. I realized it is the creek/flood gulley that runs behind my house.  Last week I hunted out a spot to sit in my "backyard" next to the creek.  This is a little farther away, but I enjoy knowing it's the so close and is the same creature. I have so much of it yet to explore, but I am thrilled to have found this gem. 

I am trying to find a way to stay where I am living now. The next few months will tell the tale. I think it may break my heart if I do have to leave, but I also realized (so many realizations lately, really!) that what I did when we first moved here was actively seek out the things that nourish my soul, such as the woods! If I can do it here, I am confident that I will do the same wherever I land.

I went into the woods to find myself,
To find the essential nature in myself
which I had left by the wayside.
I went into the woods to restore my soul,
to find my peace again,
and rest myself in the miracles of God’s creation
which we have taken for granted,
To make myself again
That which I once was.
--Ilene D.O. Swartz

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
--Henry David Thoreau

Obstacle Course Moments

When I was a kid, my dad told me a story. Well, truth be told he told me LOTS of stories. Thomas Oldham inherited the story telling gene. There was one particular, story, however, that has stuck with me over time, popping back into my head when the going gets the toughest.

My father graduated high school in the mid-1960s. Coming from a low income, somewhat dysfunctional family, he decided to go into the army to both escape his home life and find a stepping-stone to a better life.  This was just prior to the Vietnam "conflict" and I remember he told me they were two weeks away from the end of boot camp when they got the official word that troops were being sent.  But that's a story for another time...

Boot camp is a tough experience. You don't even have to go through it to know that. It's grueling. Back then it was even more grueling than it is now.  Dad's story said the days were filled with marches - I swear Dad told me they marched 20 miles some days, but that may be my faulty recollection (or his exaggeration). So in an effort to be fair, let's say he marched 5-mile hikes with full packs.  One night, they got to go to sleep, then were awoken and rousted out of bed. They were marched out to the obstacle course, which they had to go through (crawling under wire, through the mud, live fire overhead) in the dark.  Dad said it was so hard, being so tired, but that he kept thinking he had to find the energy somewhere, because at the end of it he would still have to march back. He told me he wasn't sure if he could do it. He was afraid he couldn't, but was prepared to try, because he had to do it. He said he honestly didn't know if he could.  Just as he was trying to gear up to do it, a truck showed up and drove them all back.

I always think of this story when I am feeling like I am out there at the end of my rope.  When I am struggling to hold on to things. By nature, I am tenacious. Sometimes I am too tenacious.  But that doesn't mean it's easy to hold on when you just feel like quitting.  When you can't imagine that you can do something, it's not easy to give up either. You get caught in that place. How good would it feel to keep going and prove to yourself (and others) that you could do it against the odds?  But if you do push, how bad would it feel to fail anyway - to find yourself on the ground in the mud - or to hurt yourself by trying too hard and then be unable to continue anyway in the long term?

That conflict has come home to me since I got the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia.  It's about learning limitations  and how to push past the without going too far.  If I push too hard, I feel it for days.  When I have flare-ups, they last for a few days rather than just having one bad day.  Emotionally, I have had a lot of "obstacle course moments" -- lately, especially. I just keep going, because I have to. I don't see another option. 

Every time in my life that I felt like I was at the end, I've found out one simple truth.  There really is no other option than to keep going.  You can sit down and let life defeat you, but you have to get back up eventually. At least I do.  And I guess that says more about me than anything else.  No matter how heavy my "pack" seems to get, I have to make that march back, even if it takes me a while.

Time for me to fly...

Lots of thoughts whirling around in my head. Thoughts, plans, possibilities, and hopes.  My animal medicine is Butterfly ( http://www.shamanlinks.net/Power_Animals.htm ).  I was convinced before this that, like a butterfly, I was hibernating in a cocoon.  Many people don't realize that a butterfly needs to push out of the cocoon at the end of that period of its life.  It's a painful process, but if a butterfly is helped, its wings do not get strong enough to allow it to fly once it is out. It will spend the rest of its life crippled and grounded. 

I have had some bad days over the last few weeks. I have succumbed to my physical illness more often. I have slept a lot.  Doctors who know about such things say that we work things out in our minds while we sleep. I think I have been working things out. I have been processing a lot of information from my life. 

It's easy to making sweeping generalizations about life when you are coming from a place of relative stability.  Philosophy isn't so hard when you've got a stable job and home life. 

I remember when I was in high school/middle school learning about something called the Heirarchy of Needs. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs,  )

I remember learning that the basic needs were food, shelter and clothing (with shelter including toilet & running water as well).  Looking  into it more now that I am an adult, I see it's more complicated than that, but the basic principle applies.  What do we really need to survive? Philosophy is allowed only after our more basic needs are met.  It's like thinking that what color the toilet is is something you can think about after you have the toilet. Or you can worry about what kind of jeans you are wearing once you have jeans to cover your body.

So, that's what I've been thinking - what do I need to survive and be happy?  Some people never really get the chance to ask that or to pursue the answer.  To build up, you first have to tear down. And, like a butterfly, it's going to make my wings strong enough to fly. 

Time For Me To Fly  by Reo Speedwagon


I've been around for you - been up and down for you
But, I just can't get any relief
I've swallowed my pride for you - lived and lied for you
But, you still make me feel like a thief
You got me stealing your love away 'cause you never give it
Peeling the years away, and we can't relive it
Oh, I make you laugh and baby you make me cry
I believe it's time for me to fly

You said we'd work it out
You said that you had no doubt that deep down we were really in love
Oh, but I'm tired of holding on to a feeling I know is gone
I do believe that I've had enough
I've had enough of the falseness of a worn out relation
Enough of the jealousy and the intoleration
Oh, I make you laugh and you make me cry
I believe it's time for me to fly

Time for me to fly
Oh, I've got to set myself free
Time for me to fly
That's just how it's got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye, but it's time for me to fly

(Oh, don't you know that it's...)
Time for me to fly
Oh, I've got to set myself free
Time for me to fly
Oh, baby, that's just how it's got to be
Oh, I know it hurts to say goodbye, but it's time for me to fly
Fly
It's time for me to fly

Things fall apart...

I've been trying to find a way to write about what's been going on in my life. It's a difficult time, and I've been having a hard time finding words within my own head and heart, let alone words that I can share with the world.

The last several years of my life have been rough ones.  The decade of the 2000s have not been very kind to me in general.  I have struggled with illness (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Gastroenterological diseases, obesity, Insulin Resistance (precursor to diabetes), anxiety, depression, and FINALLY I got the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia).  As a result of all this, I lost my job (which already not what I WANTED to be doing with my life anyway).  And in the midst of all of it, my marriage was falling apart.  Recently, it has come to point where it has fallen apart completely.  We're lucky that it doesn't seem to be a bad break-up, but I've been trying to wrap my head around the fact that it is a breakup at all. My world certainly seems to be disappearing around me right now.

I'm amazed I am not currently depressed about this, but I think I am just a bit numb at this point. I'm sure I will write more about all this as the days go on, but right now, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.

THE SECOND COMING by WB Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?