Family
Tomorrow marks a very important day. It is the long-awaited retail shop opening for my estate company. It is almost surreal that it is finally here after all the months, moving, money and monumental hurdles we have passed. But…it is here. The first day of what I hope to be my greatest adventure yet.
The journey has been full of many firsts. From placing first deposits on utilities, to making first assessments of what we wanted to see happen, to moving in the first truckloads of items. We experienced our first “oh great” when the bathroom ceiling caved in under the overflow of a strained water heater. We experienced our first sale to someone who came by to just take a quick peek at the store as we were moving in. There was the first full staff work day of shelving and sorting and laughing over several voices being heard from the depths of the piles every so often saying “oooh I want to buy this!” We went through our first challenge of rezoning so we could even have a storefront in the area we had chosen to make our estate home. We were never so excited as when the unanimous vote came through from the Planning Commission and the Mayor and Aldermen…and we knew we were really on our way.
This week was full of firsts in other ways too. My 6 year old granddaughter lost her first tooth and it was on the very day she started first grade. It is so funny to see her gappy little smile and hear the softest lisp when she talks or sings the songs she is learning in theater class. Her mom was a bit teary when she told me “This is the first time I will have my first child lose a tooth…ever.” I hadn’t really thought about that till she voiced it, but that is true. This is the only time the first of my grandchildren will lose the very first grandchild tooth. Ok, enough of that…misty here for a moment myself.
I thought a bit today about how that little ole tooth got loose enough to be the first tooth lost….what it had to go through, how it all came about. Lorelai has been growing teeth since the womb, even though we didn’t all see them. Enamel was forming, along with nerves and all the gooey little stuff that teeth are made of was there all along just waiting to “become”. She had to drink only milk for a very long time, then the teeth started to cut the surface and push out into the world of her mouth. Soft food was added bit by bit, then table food cut into microscopic pieces so she could chew with her tiny little tooth buds. Once the baby teeth were fully developed she could tackle anything and everything she wanted to eat.
Then…one day the tooth started feeling funny and not quite right. It kind of ached and hurt a bit. When she would chew it would zing her and zap her gums. She began to chew on one side trying to avoid using the tooth so it would feel like it used to and not hurt anymore. But eventually this wasn’t working because the tooth was loosening its grip in her gum. Her mom told her about the Tooth Fairy, how it all worked and in exchange for a tooth she would get MONEY. It made her change her whole outlook. That tooth suddenly had to go!
The next several weeks were spent wiggling it, touching her tongue to it every chance she got, pushing it and prodding it till one night this past week it finally gave way and popped right out. But it wasn’t because she was pushing and prodding and wiggling it. It was because, unknown to Lorelai, a new better tooth had formed and was making its way into her gum. It pushed its way to the surface and encouraged that baby tooth to leave.
And that is where I have been in this journey to today. Looking from the outside in, it appears I am doing something “suddenly” to most folks who know me. I hadn’t ever conducted an estate sale, but three years ago I found myself doing just that. I have never opened a storefront, but tomorrow…well, I am doing that. I haven’t decorated or staged a shop to sell vintage and antique items, and now I am. It would easily look like this business just popped up. But it didn’t.
I spent many years loving the old junk. I loved having it in my home, learning about it, buying pieces at yard sales because I couldn’t afford new stuff. People complimented me on clothing my family wore, or furniture and decor in my home, and I smiled knowing where it came from. I also learned a lot about the things I had in my home and educated myself on what a good buy was, and that is aiding me today. I spent much time three years working at my church as the back drop prop person for the church cantatas and children’s programs. I also spent two summers doing nothing but making bulletin boards for my church and the preschool where I was a teacher’s aide. So I became very adept at making something out of nothing and frugal backgrounds and staging are second nature to me.
As an employee of a local Christian Bookstore, I learned merchandising and how to set up booths and displays. When my family had a craft business many moons ago, I did the same there and spent much time putting up and tearing down displays quickly and effectively and making sure our booth stood out among the others, but was never the same any two shows. I also did professional organizing for several years and helped others get their purged items ready for sale, priced and even aided in the sales from time to time.
The most recent venture was a cleaning company where I did my own books, had a full staff, dealt with employee and customer issues daily, balanced spending against profit, did a business plan, and virtually anything that was done in that company went through me first. And all these things…from bulletin boards to business plans…were “firsts” for me then, but represented a wiggly tooth now.
All those places in my life, all those activities and moments had their day, then they were gone. It took them leaving and my life that I have now pushing through to the surface for me to know that they were all just bits of the puzzle, not the completed puzzle itself.
I could be wrong, this may not be the final thing I do. I may have yet another “tooth” under the surface and this business is only a means to an end. Time will tell. But I do know that life is not so much about the destination as it is about the journey. I also know sometimes you have to let things get pretty wiggly and scary for a while, move around a bit, and maybe even eventually fall completely away before the new growth can take up its rightful place.
But until I know differently, I will move forward…first one step, then another…till I reach that destination and I will not question the process. And with my personality, trust me…that will truly be a first.
It is Saturday morning and I am home. Tomorrow about this time I hope to be in exactly the same place, home. I have determined to take the weekend off, get some rest, catch up on some of life that does not involve the chase of the next cool thing I want to offer for sale in my antiques and collectibles business, and just find my peaceful place. I have decided to hang out with my dog, Charley, go nowhere, do nothing but home-ish things and rejuvenate for my next leg of the junkin’ journey. This weekend is all about coasting.
The last three months have been such a whirlwind I probably could spend an entire week describing them. There was no real time for personal refreshment, no time for meals with friends and spontaneous fun, no time for reflection and blogging…just no time for anything but doing the next thing, taking the next step, climbing the next hill. Looking back, I truly marvel over how it all, at least so far, has gotten done, there were no real missteps, no stumbling and faltering on the road I have traveled since April 1. It all just…happened…and somehow, control freak that I am, I stayed out of its way.
To backtrack a bit, I received a call around the last week or so of March from a friend I have known for years. He is a property manager in the area and had a vacated property for me to view. The former retail tenant had skipped rent, left it a monstrous mess and there were many new items in the building that needed to be sold or cleared out. My company came to mind and he asked me to do the business liquidation. I agreed to take a look, and we met the next day.
As I toured the building and told Jim what I could and could not offer in the way of services, I felt an overwhelming sense of something I couldn’t put my finger on. I could only describe it now as a feeling of coming home. By the end of the tour of the property, I knew this was going to be the next location for my estate company. It was large and open, had attached office space, a bay where I could park my trailer and get it out of my home garage, and was located on a busy highway in the historic district of my hometown. A few months before, I had starting praying for a place to open up at just the right time, in just the right way for me to relocate and I just kind of laid it all out there and said what I wanted it to have, how I wished it would look, where I would like to be. This property was like an artist’s sketch of what I had thought, and prayed about, so I knew when I saw it that it was where I was meant to be. Now it was time to convince the powers that be, a.k.a the property manager and owner, of the same.
At the end of the tour, I asked about the property and when the amount of rent was given, I knew financially it was astronomically out of my range at the present time. I had a lease at my old location for 6 more months, I was not in the position to pay double rent even if I wanted to, and well…it just seemed pretty impossible.
But Jim and I talked, and he in turn talked with the property owner and told him what I could offer in the way of rent which was far below what they had set as rent price and also included a request for 4 months of free rent. They came back with another price, I refused knowing what I could and could not do and said I knew I was asking for the impossible. But God came through for me…and they ultimately took my offer. I had a feeling they would…His business IS the impossible.
Since the day I signed the lease, I have been in a flurry of building and fire inspections, paying huge deposits for the building rent, deposits for utilities, filling out applications and getting costly signs made for board hearings to try and convert the zoning to suit the needs of my company, hoping the landlord at my old location would miraculously sublet my offices so I would not have that rent hanging over my head for 6 more months, and a host of other things that also seemed impossible to accomplish. But to date, all deposits have been paid, all inspections have been cleared, all paperwork is in order for the zoning hearings and the planning department is “in my corner” …(well so far). Within 10 days my landlord rented out my entire office space. No advertised vacant spaces had been rented in that building in over two years so this looked really impossible, but it happened. I had four months free rent at my new location, and no rent at the old location, and this amazingly was going to pay all those expensive start up costs, almost to the penny. As I read over this myself, I am tearful and pretty overwhelmed by it all.
There have been moments, if I had been faint of heart, I would have quit physically if not mentally in the middle of this road. Right after I signed the lease, my 2003 SUV had some issues and was in the shop….$2000 later she was on the road again, but the bank account was more shy than I hoped for, especially at that time of start up costs. During this same period of time, the new location had to be trashed out of all the non-saleable items that the former tenant had left, and it was trailer loads of items, not just a bag or two that headed to the dump. Several sales had to be staged…five in all I think…to liquidate the building contents. All my own inventory in the old offices had to be moved to the new location in the space of four weeks, and it was a massive amount of items. Two weeks in, I injured my arm and have only been able to lift it to my waist most of the moving time. I have had most of my help moving from Dwight, who has health issues himself, and 63 yr old Barbara, and somehow the impossible happened and it was moved. I had four estates that got processed and accomplished within the same 6 week period and impossibly, those were done, closed, and cleared. My oldest grandchild, Lorelai, had serious surgery during this same period of time. Sadly, Dwight and I lost Brendon, our oldest male grandchild during this same 6 weeks and were both under that stress and sadness. So many other things I could describe…ruts in the road…opportunities to detour and quit…but I knew one thing deeply in my gut. Most of a person’s growth of character, building of strength, and ultimate perseverance happens when you are in the middle of the road you have set upon.
We all have dreams. We all have the capability and the tools to make those dreams come true. The difference in those who only dream, and those who dream and do, is the way they handle the middle of their road. Because most of the road in dream making is lived in the middle. If you hesitate or you stop, the dream stops too. There is no elevator or escalator to the top, folks. It is all done in dusty sandals with a broken strap, and one step at a time.
Things aren’t always easy, but they are always possible in this life. There are times you just have to know that you know that you know…then lean in hard, and hang on. Those that hesitate and stop for a moment will get run over. Those that step back, often fall into a hole of helplessness.
One of my favorite motivators has been the story of the fallen donkey. A farmer heard loud braying one day and went out to investigate. He discovered his donkey had fallen into a hole in the road leading to the barn, and was so far down it would be impossible and quite costly in time and effort to pull him out, and in the meantime the donkey would be suffering and ultimately die anyway. He enlisted the help of some farmer buddies, and together they decided it was just better to throw dirt into the hole and bury the pitiful creature now to put him out of his misery. As they threw shovelful after shovelful of dirt into the hole, at first the donkey kicked and screamed, braying loudly and was fighting the dirt with all his might. Suddenly, the sounds stopped and the farmers assumed the creature had given up and resigned himself that he was destined to die in the hole in the middle of the road. But instead, the donkey realized the dirt was not an encumbrance, it was to be his way of escape. Each time dirt and debris and messiness was thrown into the hole, the donkey shook it off, let it settle a bit around himself, then climbed on top and waited for the next raining down. Imagine the surprise of the farmer when his little donkey lumbered out of the hole no worse for the wear and was free again to move on down the road toward the barn.
How we start our dream journey is important. Reaching the dream journey’s end is equally important. But most of the dream journey takes place in the middle of the road. And that is where the really important…and truly impossible moments…take place. When the debris begins to fall, and the difficulties come, it’s not time to be a quitter. That is the time to shake it off, climb up the hill of dirt, and wait for the next shovelful of testing that will take you to the top…and just press hard into that new beginning God has for your life.
Scanning the yard sale ads this past week, I saw one that caught my eye. The ad read “Moving sale, everything needs to sell. Flat screen TVS. Stereo, House full of furniture, 16 ft fishing boat, Honda Civic, China cabinet, large desk filing cab, printers, laptops, washer and dryer and a brand new deep freezer and much more. ” It sounded interesting enough to make the trip out, especially the house of furniture part, so I set out the next morning to check it out. When I arrived at the home, there was a sign on the door “open at noon.” I looked at my watch, the time was normal “business hours” for a sale, 8 a.m. A little miffed, I got back in the car and drove away fussily thinking ” I may or may not make the trip back. They couldn’t even get organized enough to put a time on the sale ad and then ended up having it the middle of the darned day.”
But as the morning wore on and noon approached I saw a clear path to go again, and headed back out. It was an inside and outside sale, so I entered the home. It was not well-lit, reeked of smoke, and stank of pet urine. Being a former cleaning lady, I was used to all those smells, but didn’t know if there would really be anything of value here for my estate clients. But I was already here, so I moved further inside. A yappy little chihuahua in a doggie muscle shirt named Bruce Lee was all around my feet immediately, and a young woman with an entire set of black front teeth called out from the kitchen “Come on in and look around, we are open”. I guess she felt I warranted that information due to the obvious question mark on my face. It looked as if everything was still in progress as far as living there…cigarette butts in the ashtrays, you could tell they had been eating in the kitchen and den, nothing looked staged or set up, nothing priced or gathered together, it was just a come as you are party atmosphere. I thought to myself…strike two.
I wandered around in the kitchen, then the dining room and finally into the main room and did find a few things to ask prices on. They were planning to get things labeled, but that hadn’t happened like she wanted, so I told her I would pile it all up and she could tell me at the end. Out the front window I had seen others start to pull up so I knew there would be a flurry soon of people pulling items together and I didn’t want to miss out on anything that might actually be of interest to me.
Down the hallway all the doors leading to the bedrooms were closed and I heard a BIG dog barking. “Are there items in there too?” I asked, remembering the words of the ad. “No, I think my son (motioning to someone coming up behind me) got everything out of the back already.” As I turned I was shocked to see the young man she was talking about. He was about 15 or 16, beautiful smiling face, clean and neat teenaged style attire. “I can help you with anything ma’am, I am pricing things and will help you get it to your car, too.” This person looked totally out of character for the picture I was seeing in this home like some kind of jigsaw puzzle piece that sort of looked like it fit, but just wouldn’t quite complete the picture properly.
As the next several minutes went by and people filed in and out, I gathered my items and pretty much kept to myself. But I couldn’t help but hear the woman tell bit by bit the reasons they were moving. Her husband had left her four days before, cleaned out the bank accounts and left her with no money, no way to make the impending rent and the landlord had caught wind of all of it and given them three days to vacate. The other people she talked to were very accommodating in response, a lot of “there, there, you will be alright” was heard…but I was watching the young man. He never disputed what was said, but I could tell as certain quiet looks came across his face, that was not the whole story. And I had a sad feeling knowing this beautiful, polite boy was going to help his needy mother sell all their belongings, pack up a few personal items in a car, and leave his friends and his life for what? Probably more of the same.
I was even sadder when I realized the father had evicted the mother out of his own life and marriage the same way the landlord was evicting her out of the home…and this young boy was suffering eviction that was not of his own making and was expected to leave everything behind and go because he was underage. This young man had experienced strikes one, two and three a long, long time ago. I had to wonder if he had possessed the power if he would have evicted himself a long time ago from all of it. Or was he was like myself and many others…unable to evict ourselves from a situation or circumstance we had become enmeshed in, blinded to the fact it was no longer serving us well.
In my life, I have been fortunate in my pursuit of interests and have learned many skills and participated in a lot of wonderfully interesting experiences. Many of those were made up of following the path of a current adrenaline-rushing passion. And the passions and pursuits have all varied greatly, which I guess if I believed in astrology, would be attributed to the stereotype of the Gemini, which I was “born under” and it actually does seem to fit. Flip-flopping from one adventure to another, chasing a big idea, dabbling in this and directing that, my life has been short spurts of gathering lines on a resume of sorts. I have been chatting with someone so many times in the past, remarking on one thing or another and how I was involved in this or that, and they will look at me in wonder, and say “Is there anything you HAVEN’T done?” It makes me chuckle a bit, and then I do seem to reflect a moment on what I have been exposed to and how much I have actually been a part of and collected in experience. And the funny thing is, I felt at home in every single situation. It wasn’t a fly into and out of plan on anything I did. I would think about it, have the opportunity to present itself, stay with it to the end of the current pursuit, then move on to my next one. I tend to be a bit visionary and also a big multi-tasker, so this is not really beyond my ken flitting from one thing to another and still maintaining composure, getting things accomplished and embracing the whole thing when it comes to learning a new job or hobby or pretty much anything I set my mind about.
I have done many things from catering to cleaning, directing choirs to writing as a freelancer. There has been crafting for money, speaking for ladies’ groups, traveling as a gospel singer, homeschooling my only child, leading a diet group, working as a teacher’s aide and the list goes on and on. And in each case it was always the same…I was always full in, always on board, always ready to conquer the thing. And many times I did get it conquered, but there were just as many times it almost conquered me because I refused to leave before I thought I was done, even if the handwriting was on the wall long before and the eviction papers had been served.
Having a bulldog mentality and personality can be very good…but at other times it can be lethal. There were certain times I hung on too long, stayed where I was past the time it was beneficial to me, or made some poor choices in my associations and decisions about how to go forward at any given time. The one thing I never did was remove myself from the situation or pursuit until I felt like I had done all and been all, and in many instances, the “pursuit” itself was finally forced to evict me when it limped to its bitter end or reached its usefulness quotient. Sad to say, that didn’t always work for me or benefit the rest of my life and the people in it. There were times I should have said goodbye to something or someone long before my own life got to a point of telling me to hit the road, so to speak, by bringing chaos and confusion into my life, introducing weird characters and situations into my daily routine, or draining me of my own unique essence until I had no other choice but to let myself get evicted by default. Like unwanted guests, I allowed myself to stay somewhere that I was no longer needed or wanted when it would have been so much better to serve myself eviction papers when the first signs of dysfunction presented itself and just move on.
Who we are today is the sum total of who we have been and what we have done all of our lives up to this point…this is a true statement. But one has to wonder…what would the beautiful boy be doing “now” if he had evicted himself “then”? I often wonder where would I be, and with whom, and doing what if I had not waited till the last minute to move on from those unfruitful places but had put something down and moved on in a more timely fashion. Today, I have a great desire to be a good landlord of my own life, but how? If the time comes that someone or something is not contributing to the rent, I have to resolve to step up, make a big ole fist, and start knocking on my own front door first. After all, it’s my job as landlord to hold me to my own lease on life.
Back in the 60’s, Dion recorded a song called The Wanderer. It was pretty popular on the charts even though it was kind of dark for the times. In an age of fun frolics, soda shops, drive in movies and summer parties, this song centered around a fella and his multitude of love interests. To the outside world, he looked like he was having the time of his life. He was embracing fun, carefree relationships with no strings, traveling from one place to another and from one woman to another…loving them and leaving them. But in reality this guy was leaving behind a trail of wounded hearts and perhaps a few broken dreams. More importantly, he was carving away a piece of his own emotional well being and personal integrity as he moved onto his next destination. As the song went on, he found himself even more lonely and with nothing to “call his own”. His calloused heart was the most wounded of the bunch, and his own future dreams were destined to crash around him as he never got much of anywhere… just round, and round, and round…
In a way this song reminds me of the story in the Bible about the Israelites and their journey toward the Promised Land. Once they left captivity and began their travels to the place that was waiting for them, the land full of all good things, marvelous foods, beautiful settings, family and friends and prosperity, we find them straying off mentally and emotionally. They become bitter and complain about the trip, about the manna (do we have to eat THAT again?), they get fed up with each other, and frankly probably become a real pain in the neck to God. And in His wisdom, the Almighty allowed them to wander from one place to another, circling here, recognizing this place (weren’t we just here yesterday?), complaining bitterly, sitting down refusing to go on, hungry, hot and tired, attempting to find the Promised Land on their own. At times, He even quietly looked on as they made a real mess of things. What was to have been an eleven day journey to contentment, security and an unbelievable life turned into a 40 year stretch of futility and hardship. And some never made it out of the desert at all.
Isn’t it sad to think that these people had been given the Promised Land, a perfect place for them and they wasted so much time and effort because they were not choosing to go the path God had set out for them to begin with? They thought they had a better way. Kind of like some of my former employees…
When I owned a cleaning company, I had several techs working for me. They drove their own vehicles to the homes and businesses and the office staff made it ultra simple for them to do everything exactly right to have a totally successful cleaning for their customer. Worksheets containing all the preferences of the customers, along with explicit directions to the home, entry information and so forth. These were given to each tech and they could ask any questions before setting out. If they followed their directions exactly they would never fail to arrive at their destination, on time, with all the needed supplies, and complete a cleaning that often would gain them a hefty tip at the end.
In all the years of running that company, it never ceased to amaze me how the normally sensible, intelligent and savvy people who worked for me could excel at so many things at home, raising fine families and even excel in our own company, but they often were the same ones who could not or would not follow driving instructions to arrive at the home. They would get caught using their own GPS, or more often would “think” they knew how to get there. Then the office phone would ring, they would be lost and trying to describe where they were, and the office staff would be in a quandary trying to figure it out and get them back on the correct path. If they were too far off the correct directions, many was the time they were taken off that job and it was given to another tech to handle. The original techs ended up losing their paying job assignment for the day and were sent home…all because they didn’t follow directions for their journey.
And I can’t say anything better about myself either if I am totally honest. I would give on site bids when a potential client would call. I would get the client name, address, figure I knew what I was doing and where I was going and strike out without even running a map online. I had done this, or something similar before, I didn’t need instructions, right? So off I would go and as I was driving and listening to the radio, I might let my mind wander about the grand kids, or what I was going to fix for supper that night, or drift to how I was going to have to fire someone later that week and suddenly I would look around and not know where I was…I had made a wrong turn somewhere because I wasn’t paying attention. And now…I didn’t have a map to refer to either to find out where I was. So I would go in what I thought was the right direction, and get more and more lost. It would draw near the bid time and a call would have to be made to the potential client I was trying to impress and I’d have to tell them I had taken a wrong turn. Total embarrassment would set in having to admit I was lost. And even more gut wrenching to admit right here….I owned a GPS and would only bring it out as a last resort. How silly was this? I had directions that could have been made available, I even had a specific tool I could begin my journey with in confidence, but chose not to use either of them. I had overriding power available in the way of a Tom-Tom when I did find myself lost, but no…I just knew I would get there on my own recognizance and power. I knew the right way…but I found in most instances I was more of a wanderer than my own techs. Eventually, I would pull out the GPS, set it, and yes, get there within minutes. Almost without fail, I was within a few blocks of where I needed to be but was circling all around it and never arriving because I had lost sight of the path and was too proud to admit it.
When I take a look over my years, I can see such a parallel in myself and the stories of the Israelites and the wandering techs. I have to hang my head when I consider the years I wasted off my good path chasing poor choices, bad habits, and at times the wrong individuals or groups of people, or embracing emotionally debilitating situations. Trying to fill a personal void in my own psyche or heart, I would think I knew what was good for me. I would go after it, not seeing what was really happening. I was allowing myself to get dragged off my true road to happiness by something that was bound to end up draining and damaging me as a person. Living a life without good directions and the will to follow them is like trying to draw water from a well with holey bucket. You keep putting things in and they keep spilling out all over the place, and all you do is end up wet, soggy and probably standing knee deep in a mud hole. Many times you even wake yourself up for a while, you regroup and step away from the drama and chaos, but something like an old addiction, or someone you think can fill a void in your life comes along, and you fall back into poor choices and habits. You find yourself holding that same holey bucket again, drawing from the same well, losing precious water for your own soul. Your days and months and years become wasted time circling around the good things and people originally planned and intended for your own life….and you go round, and round, and round. The work of filling ourselves can easily stop if we would just take the time to turn back to the right path and keep our eyes glued forward. We’d find ourselves at the door to a Promised Land flowing with our own babbling brook that never runs dry. We’d never have to draw our own water and fill ourselves up ever again. Years of habits and unhealthy responses are challenging to overcome. I know…my name should be Ima Wanderer.
It takes a great deal of dedication and focus to break old habits, learn to be grateful and quit complaining about life, and harboring bad attitudes. It takes something called trust to stop living out our poor choices and making the same mistakes over and over again and just go with the path that is good and clean and true. It might even look boring to others, and it might even become monotonous at times to me. I have come to realize I am easily drawn to dramatic personalities, distant dreamers, and shockingly addicted to creative chaotics at times. There have been more than a few with “Rosie” tatooed on their chest, so to speak, in my life by my own choices. I’ve also had my share of filling those positions myself in my own life. But, challenging as it may be, simple and lasting path adjustment is not impossible. I plan to stay on my ultimate path, even if I detour here and there when I am weak. Good living, clean love, overpowering joy, unparalleled peace, and a bursting open happy and sound life? It’s bound to be mine because it’s on my bucket list, and this bucket ain’t got no hole anymore.
I recently joined a ladies gym. It has been light years since I was a member of one so this is kind of a “new” experience for me in many ways. Times have changed, there are trainers on duty to help you instead of manuals placed on each machine (yeah it has been a long time since they did that, right?), music is piped in, and the treadmills and ellipticals have TV’s mounted on top so you can watch your favorite programs while you sweat. Yes, it has mightily changed. But one thing remains the same…it has to hurt sometimes to feel better and move forward.
While I was working on some of the weights one morning, I met one of the staff for the first time. She wandered over and said “I am the in-house trainer here….can I show you a better way to do that?” Of course I wanted her to instruct me and she proceeded to tell me that the weights I was working with for my back were set too light because I was doing it too easily. “It has to give you a bit of hurt, you do it slowly unlike the cardio machines, and you have to feel the tug and a bit of a burn to know it’s working like it is supposed to work for you.” I had already thought this, but was going by someone else’s suggestion on the weight amount. I moved the weight amount up to almost double per her suggestion and by the time I finished I knew I had been through a real workout, unlike the other days where I in essence was really sitting on my rear and just flailing my arms around more than anything. Nothing productive was happening at all and I was thankful she caught me early. I was willing to listen, and I could stop sitting and start really feeling progress and the moving forward that I was wanting to experience. I had not joined a gym to just sit down…I had done enough of that in the years since my last gym attendance. I thought about it and if I had not redirected and had hung on to the first way of working out, I would have been disappointed and hurt by not progressing steadily. A lot of wasted time and effort would have been all I had to show for the time and personal investment I had spent. I had sat down long enough….for years…I was there to get moving again before it was too late for me.
This got me to thinking about one of my favorite characters in the Bible, Job. Here was a good man who had everything; land, talent and skills, wealth, position, a large beautiful family, respect of his neighbors and friends…everything. Then one day, it all changed. Every good thing in his life was taken from him, and you find Job sitting on top of the ash heap mourning his losses at some point, and he looks as if he is settling in. Victim mentality? Perhaps, or maybe just giving up. But as the story goes along, God sends him people to talk with him, and he comes to a personal awareness of his position and the incredible waste he was participating in. He evaluates his current life, or lack of it, sees the wisdom of shaking off the dust and is found eventually moving on again. It was hard, and even at times almost unbearable for him to move on…but move on he did. He had come to the realization he could choose to find out God’s Plan B for his life, or he could sit on his ash for the rest of his days, a bitter man with no one or nothing.
I know I have spent far too many years sitting on my ash. Not that I didn’t have reasons to embrace my own season of mourning. I have had failed marriages and companionships, a company I have recently sold that was worth one fourth of what it was three years ago, financial woes that would have put down most people I know. There were strains in all kinds of emotional areas prompted by mean-spirited people, stratospherically chaotic circumstances, or… I am unhappy to admit…. encouraged by myself and my poor choices in many cases. I have ignored health and reaped the sad effects of my ill choices in diet and exercise, given up too much personal power in some of my relationships with others, and stockpiled years of stagnation in situations where I was living a victim mentality rather than a victor’s life. Most if not all these seasons went on far too long, in far too hurtful a way for everyone, and ended up with a burned, ash-filled life to show for it all. And more often than not, I found myself sitting on top of it, scooping the ash up and flinging it over myself and crying “woe is me” till I even grew sick of hearing it. I was a sight…and pretty much a real mess.
Are you sitting on your ash today? How long has it been since you were passed over for that promotion you just knew you were going to get? Did the company you had invested your working life in suddenly fold and you were in your mid-fifties and looking for a job again? Has your house been foreclosed on, your once perfect teenager been in and out of rehab for the last three years, or have you lost your only grandchild to an unrelenting disease? Are you bitter because a relationship you thought might be your forever love has not worked out, or are you still mourning the loss of your childhood because you were physically or emotionally abused?
How have you responded to those disappointments and hurts in life? When the good things started burning and the ash started piling higher and higher, did you just climb on and sit down, maybe flailing your arms around and trying to get someone’s attention, anyone’s attention, to let them know you were suffering? Those who suffered in the Bible were given a time to mourn their losses. Mourning was validation, it was good, but it was to be temporary. There is a time to feel the hurt and to experience the burn of disappointment and heart-breaking loss. But there came a moment when God directed them to get up already, brush the flakes of soot off themselves, and start over rather than sit in the ashes of their defeat for the rest of their lifetime. He wanted to give them their Plan B, but they couldn’t get it till they were ready to stand up again and start walking forward themselves first. It takes a lot of guts and more than a little emotional maturity to get handed defeat and disappointment and just decide to let it go, toss it on the pile with all the others, and set a match to it and just walk away on the path to continued personal peace. There were situations where I didn’t for a long, long time. There were moments I could, and moments I couldn’t without a bit of ash sitting first.
There are days when I am still very much a Job. I feel defeated and want to sit on my ash, be left alone unless I am moaning and groaning and needing some attention, and I just have no real desire to do anything else but be bitter and complain. But that would be a big mistake. I can’t move forward into a Plan B if I am just sitting down on that heap of nastiness and the sooty remains of what was my life. It is my time to start a new fire, burn off my old ways, and all the old reactions and responses when I am handed new heartaches and hurts. It’s time to watch the blaze burn as a bright new future opens up for me because I was willing to strike the necessary match.
Each morning, as I drive to the gym and into a new day, I use the time to assess the last 24 hours. What has been brought into my thoughts, will, and emotions that I do wish for my life? What did the prior day’s events, conversations, and offerings deposit on my doorstep that I do not want to remain a part of my Plan B? I shake off a little more of the soot and ashes and partake of a clean and fresh walk into my new journey as I hold each day, each part of my life with light fingers because I know it may ultimately end up on the burn pile. I will be real here…there are many moments of two steps forward and one step back. I find myself wanting to change my middle name to “Poor lil’ ole” when I experience an unexpected bump or even a breach in a relationship, or a dive in the bank account, or even a stress or strain physically. But those little bruises are there to build me personally and stoke a brand new fire. The only way to get a great Plan B is start building a new life, a stick at a time. Gather some people, experiences and things close to yourself if they fit the Plan, throw others on the burn pile if not, rinse and repeat.
In Isaiah, the Good Book says the Lord promises to turn our mourning into joy, and bring beauty out of the ashes. I am the only one who can discern when it is time to strike a match, toss it over my shoulder onto the latest pile of nonsense, and then swiftly walk away…or maybe even at times run. But, I remind myself daily I have made the decision that I will certainly refuse to go sit on my ash for long periods of time anymore. Embrace the hurt little lady, deal with it, and move on. Otherwise, I end up with only a dirty tearstained face, a burned rear, and a stinky attitude….and those just aren’t too beautiful to anyone, now are they?
Time for the gym….and time for feeling that beautiful burn.
My Mom and I recently went on a trip to the beach together. It’s always fun, and quite revealing, when you take a road trip with another person, but especially so when you are held hostage in a car with someone you have known all your life. You just get some of the best and funniest stories. One of the favorites from the last trip goes like this:
Several years ago, when I was a youngster, my Mom had some issues with her feet that drove her to the podiatrist. It was highly likely the damage was caused by wearing spiky high heels to work and everywhere else for years, and probably was made worse by all the dancing she did over the years in those shoes. The doc suggested surgery for her on both feet and while most patients would do one foot, recover, then do the other foot, my Mom, the consummate overachiever (I no longer wonder where I get that attribute myself) decided she would rather have the surgery on both feet and get it over with all at once.
When the surgery was completed successfully and the recovery was launched, the doctor had her come in for a visit to get fitted with “shoes” she could walk in if needed without her feet bending during the recovery process. By necessity, the shoes were made of a flat piece of wood with straps to hold them, much like a sandal, but with no bend or play in them at all. When she walked, it was in a Frankenstein-type manner, and a rather humorous view, to say the least. I was young, but I totally remembered those shoes. My sister and I even tried them on a few times, and almost killed ourselves trying to walk in them.
Christmas time arrived and all the galas and parties and events….and Mom was wearing wooden shoes everywhere. Now my Mom is a social gal, prone to attend events and much like me she is ready at the first “Do you want to go…” that falls from anyone’s lips. So when her ladies’ bunco group planned their annual Christmas party, there was no question Mom would attend. But even more interestingly, when we heard they planned to have a night of music and dancing at a local hang out, it didn’t shock us at all when she told Dad she wanted to go and might be dancing….wooden shoes and all. This was in a day and time when women in a group like this would go, dance, minus their significant others and just have a night of fun out, and my Mom was not gonna miss an opportunity. The other bunco women thought it was crazy for her to think about dancing, given the shoe situation, but she was determined.
My Mom has always looked young for her age, and being a petite brunette with big brown eyes and a classy lady in dress and style, she has always been quite the looker. So it was not surprising she was one of the first of the gaggle of women asked to dance. She accepted the outstretched hand of her prospective partner and as she is walking slowly to the floor she whispers to her partner “I want to tell you before we start dancing, I have on wooden shoes.” He laughed and muttered some kind of funny remark to her and she quickly said “No really I do, I had foot surgery” and she lifts the hem of her long skirt a bit so he can see the weird accessory. She continued ” So I will have to go slow, I think I will be fine and can slow dance, but I understand if you don’t want to dance with me.” The man grinned and said “Sugah, if you had four legs and horseshoes on your feet I’d still want to dance with you!” So they headed out to the floor to give it a whirl. After they started dancing, she was doing quite well, and her partner says “I bet you are a teacher.” People assumed this all the time for some reason, her manner I guess, but she shook her head no and said “But people ask me that all the time.” The man questions “Well, if you aren’t a teacher what do you do?” She never broke a smile and said ” I’m with the rodeo.”
This story came to mind again this morning when I got a message of a past acquaintance’s death. This was the third person in two days who had passed away and I was shocked at each one. The first, a former customer, was found in her home by a family member right before Christmas. She had been gone three days and no one knew. She was a nice lady, but a little odd. When my cleaning staff would arrive at the home in the past, she would have the front door unlocked for them and would retire to the bedroom for the entire time the staff cleaned, as much as 4 hrs. They rarely if ever saw her or had any interaction with her at all. The second was a former high school classmate, beauty queen type, sweet and kind to everyone, a talented dancer and teacher in my area for almost 30 years. She had lung cancer that went into remission then resurfaced into brain cancer. At age 50, it was such a loss to her friends, family and our community. The third was a round dance teacher and cuer, nationally known and beloved by all. She was shot down on the front porch of her home and the details even now are sketchy as to what happened, but the loss is devastating to the community of dancers and her family and friends.
I thought of Mom’s story and wondered of the three people who had lost their lives, who was wearing wooden shoes…
Two lived life right up till the end in the way they loved. They were doing the things that made them happy, spent time with those who made them smile and laugh, never turned down an opportunity to go and see and absorb life and what it had to offer to them. The third, lived much of a hermit existence, regretfully lonely and alone, and I sadly believe her end was not much different than her every day. She had no wooden shoes.
So many times, I have allowed less than perfect situations or circumstances to guide me in truly life altering decisions. Finances may not be quite what I think they should be to go away for a weekend of relaxation that is sorely needed immediately, so I chose to wait rather than just go when I need the getaway the most, and enjoy whatever I could for the amount I had to spend at the time. A person would come into my radar having quirks or weird little oddities in their personality and I would shy away from getting to know them better because they didn’t fit the criterion I had for those I associated with or allowed myself to spend time among. I lost potentially real and deep friendships because I wasn’t willing to step out of my comfort zone and let my guard down. Even now, physical incapabilities of the past might hamper my trying out new challenges or hobbies. I will be the ultimate loser in any and all of these scenarios. How simple the answer is for all of us…just get a pair of wooden shoes, try them on, walk in them a bit, and see our possibilities soar. We might end up with a different kind of odd footprint left behind, but more importantly we will end up with a better life walk in the end. One thing is for sure, it is always more fun to be a part of the rodeo itself than watching from the bleachers. If I am gonna get splinters as I go along anyway, I’d much rather get them in the soles of my feet…
One of my great joys in life is reading. I have always been an avid reader, even as a very young child. The school librarian was my best friend by the age of 7 and I was introduced to many a dusty little volume of the adventures of Dick and Jane, Laura Ingalls Wilder or Curious George. Biographies, field study books, poems or prose…it really didn’t matter. I read them all and could often be found with my nose in a book while the other children did cartwheels on the playground at recess or hurried to the local bike trail for races after school. I loved books because they were filled with windows of opportunity. I could be anyone and do anything, and happiness and contentment were found simply in the whispering turn of a page.
My favorite book as a child, and actually still to this day, is Harold and The Purple Crayon. I remember seeing this book for the first time on Captain Kangaroo. The story held instant fascination for me. Here was a boy, even younger than I, who drew his world exactly as he wished it to be. The book began with Harold as it’s sole character. Harold wanted to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there was no moon, so he draws one. He has nowhere to walk, so he draws a path. The book is full of many adventures and twists and turns. At some point in the story, Harold is looking for his room, and ultimately he draws his own house and bed and goes off to blissful sleep.
Most recently, I stumbled across another “purple crayon” book by Tim Ferriss, an American author, entrepreneur, angel investor and public speaker. He is most notably recognized for his book titled ” The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich”. It is a book that focuses on “lifestyle design” rather than the traditional “deferred” life plan we all know and blindly engage in, which has you work grueling hours and taking few vacations for decades and save money in order to relax after retirement. Frustrated by overwork and lack of free time, Ferriss took a 3-week sabbatical to Europe. While continuing travels throughout Europe, Asia and South America, he developed a streamlined system of checking email once per day and outsourced pretty much his whole life to virtual assistants. The genesis of the book came when he made his personal escape from a workaholic lifestyle and started living the life most of us only dream about….and doing it all within the confines of 4 hours per week. When I finished that book, I realized he was a modern day Harold….drawing his life the way HE wanted it, not the way everyone else thought it should be. And I started taking stock of my own box of crayons and found it to have become pretty bare. Lots of broken pieces, some colors even missing, no purple to be found. It gave me a moment of great pause in the knowing. How could I draw my own life the way I needed, with whom, for what if I didn’t even have a purple crayon in my box? So I have set about on the journey to find my own purple crayons…lots of them.
Ferriss had the goal of upsizing his life by downsizing his work. Admirable, but certainly not the goal I gravitated toward, at least initially. My purple crayon pursuit was more a social adjustment than socioeconomic, and personal more than paycheck driven. For most of my life, I have been pretty much allowed myself and my pursuits to be dictated by the rules of society and the basic mores of our culture. You get up early, you work till exhausted, you eat a little and sleep even less, you fit in family and familial activities while you can and if there is enough time left over at the end of the day then you can have 30 minutes or so of personal development, but certainly do not count on it. Vacations only come once a year, if that. Meals are meat, taters, one green veggie and an occasional dessert. You work until retirement, if you are a lucky one and have the wherewithal to retire some day, and then you sit on the porch and rock the rest of life away. You do it this way because THEY say so….whoever THEY is. But I one day realized THEY do not have a purple crayon in their box. It was high time I went on my own purple crayon search.
Today I choose to draw into my life only what I want drawn, not what society thinks needs to be there. I spend time with those who enhance my current and established life, not seek to rule or change it. If I want to hop in the car and speed down to the coast to take in the Shrimp Festival and enjoy a Jimmy Buffett Concert, I simply throw a few things in the car and go and decide on the way down when I will return and I don’t ask someone’s permission first, I just do it. I meander into Baskin Robbins, when I indulge in the creamy treat on occasion, and I pick one of the 31 I haven’t ever tasted rather than go to my “favorites”. You can’t know about something unless you try it at some point, right? If I want to wear esoteric Ed Hardy tennis shoes with distinctly tailored clothing to a meeting, I do and I don’t stop to worry if I look alright or will be accepted by those I come into contact with. When I go out to eat with a friend, I take his suggestions on what to order, even if it is out of my norm or even a bit past my palate’s comfort zone. If and when I have the financial ability, I plan to travel to every spot on the planet, given the opportunity, and experience everything possible in the way of new cultures, foods, friends and customs. I want to learn to paint, really paint, to play the guitar even perhaps badly, and write books that people will fall in love with while reading and weep when they are over. And I have made it my mission to befriend and spend my time only with those who have those same purple crayon ideals.
Life is short…we have heard that phrase so many times it has become a bit cliche’, but the truth of it remains. This is it, here on this planet anyway, and I don’t want to look back at my own life and regret not having gathered the fascinating people, unparalleled experiences, and deeply passionate love I want for my own just because I was too afraid or too timid to buck the system a little and live my moments outside the normal little box that becomes the road map for most folks. It is not my dying wish that my last words be “Welcome to Walmart” because I haven’t allowed myself early retirement from the presets on this life machine and gone off to new journeys and adventures even if it takes a bit of drawing it all in as I go. A truly awesome life is not for the weak-hearted or frail….it is for those bold enough to not only read about it, but step into it, with a fistful of purple crayons in hand. I see the sun is coming up and my breakfast awaits…time to draw in a Waffle House…maybe this time in Madrid…
I had lunch with a friend today. It was nice to catch up with what he had going on in his life and fill him in on what I have going on in mine. We were in the middle of a noisy little pizza place that had started to buzz with the lunch hour rush. As we were chattering away, (well I was chattering away, he doesn’t chatter) and I was getting to the funny part of whatever story I was regaling him with, I could see he was looking past me and a bit to the right. His whole face had changed, growing long and concerned and I thought I heard him say something like “Poor guy”. It was said under his breath and as my own voice was trailing off I started to turn and something stopped me. It was the stares of the people all around me at the other tables, including the children. A young man had sat at the table behind us and to the side, and his pretty partner had walked up to bring him a drink, and everyone quickly and uncomfortably went back to what they were doing when she walked up….but I could see them still stealing a glance their way with odd reactions on their faces. My lunch partner also looked back down at his plate and we continued on. Something told me to just stay focused on my meal and my own companion for the moment so I did.
Eventually I ran out of drink, and the machine was behind me in the restaurant. So I excused myself and turned, passing the table where the mystery boy was sitting and my heart ached in my chest when I saw him…he was a patchwork boy. Apparently the young man had been through a terrible accident or perhaps self-imposed trauma, a fire of some kind. He only resembled a human being because he stood and walked upright and was wearing clothing with a Yankees baseball cap perched cockily to one side on his completely hairless head. One of his eyes had been sewn shut, his face gave the appearance of being melted into a indistinguishable puddle , and as he ate, the right arm of his flannel shirt hung loosely at his side, flapping and empty. As I was coming back to the table I walked slowly and looked at the surrounding folks, still making their furtive glances when he looked down to eat his food, leaning in and whispering to each other. The mother in me wanted to run over and offer myself as a human shield from the stares and whispers, surround him with myself and keep him safe from the pain he would surely feel if he only looked up and saw the reactions of others. But as I approached the table I could hear a drift over of the boy’s conversation and he was animated and laughing although you could not tell this by his face…it didn’t move except slightly around the lips. I could see full into the face of his partner and you could see she was totally absorbed in him and his story, laughing lightly and reaching out and touching his hand as she enjoyed her lunch with him. They were both oblivious of how their moment in life was affecting those around them.
My companion and I finished lunch and eventually parted company for the day, but I could not shake the image of the patchwork boy as I went about my errands. As I was checking my emails later, I received word about a friend of the family who had tragically lost his wife today. Her leg started cramping and she thought it was a pulled muscle. Then it started swelling and they had to do surgery, but there was a blood clot. She started spitting up blood…her lungs were bleeding. Two heart attacks were suffered and doctors had to revive her several times. All were effects of drinking huge amounts of vodka for years, resulting in liver failure. They were testing her heart before shipping her out to another hospital for emergency liver transplant when her lungs started bleeding….she never recovered after that…
I closed the email and sat back and thought how tragic. I reflected on them, when they married, how they had made a seemingly great life out of two pretty messed up ones. Both came from some hardships and marriages that were not ideal, but when they had found each other they both seemed to have found the missing part, at least for a while. But something somewhere had happened, or maybe not happened, that turned her into a patchwork girl…a girl who was using pain patches to get rid of the hurt that would just not go away and stay away on its own.
So many of us live lives full of pain patches. Quilts of our lives are being sewn daily with people, and events, and loves and losses and gains. We always have a choice of what we use to fill the holes up with and sometimes those choices are wonderful, other times they are remnants of a past destructive behavior or habit, or perhaps a new pain patch that is not cut to fit us and our current lives at all. We drink too much and self-medicate to the point we don’t notice the holes in our life anymore or we simply don’t care about them. We become workaholics so we don’t have to go home to an empty house, or worse yet, go home to an empty relationship where there was once deep love and comfort that now gives only empty arms. We patch our pain with religion and spiritual rituals that are void of true depth and meaning and become an exercise in futility rather than an abiding relationship with our own Creator. We try to fill the holes in our heart with casual sex or shallow external relationships that cause more pain and more patching us up later. We come and go in our closest relationships…we long for love to the point that anyone and anything can come along and offer us their hand and we take it, whether it fits or not, and join ourselves to the quilt of another with a patch of pain rather than the smoothness of a right fitting silk or cool chintz. Then the years bring rips and tears to the fabric and the seams pull and we find ourselves in the middle of the same patchwork mess we were in before. Rather than gather ill-fitting patches of pain it would be better to have a quilt with gaping holes in it that may never get patched than settle for an ill-fitting patch of pain. But over and over, we search out experiences with people and things that will only bring us heartache, rather than bring us joy and complete our own life quilt.
The smiling patchwork boy had dealt with his lot in life and his outer quilt was still full of holes and patches, but he was ok with that. He didn’t need my shield from the stares, nor the pity of those around him. His patches had become a part of his life, and he realized this did not have to become ALL of his life. He was moving onto whatever his life might have for him next, and he was moving on holes and patches… and all. I’ve never been much of a seamstress, but I am thinking it is time to get out the needle and thread and then just patiently wait by for the right patches for my quilt to come along…
Yesterday ended the first official week of my retirement from the cleaning industry. It also marked my first official week of entry into the estate service industry. I am still not entirely sure how I feel about both of those facts. I had entered the cleaning industry full time over twelve years ago with the intention of being there forever, contributing and consulting, making money and spreading happiness and joy in people’s homes and businesses simply by giving them a clean place to “do life”. I envisioned my company large, even maybe franchising it, and I set about tooling systems and procedures and policies to support that big vision. And you know…I was successful at it, or so I thought, for a good deal of that twelve years. What began as a way to make a living became a life, and I had convinced myself that this life was what I wanted. But while I was enabling another person or family to live a good clean, simple happy life through my services and efforts, I was slowly but surely exchanging my own life and true happiness for big time worry in the process.
About three years ago, my cleaning company was at the peak of productivity and I had finally brought it to the brink of scaling to the next level. Discussions with a few people about franchising or at the very least opening another location in one of the nearby cities had taken place. There were 12 cleaning techs on staff, an operations manager, route manager, supply manager, and I had even added a personal assistant to aid in some HR issues and also schedule my company events and handle many of my personal needs to free up my own time. I was living it all in high cotton, or so I thought.
Then the page turned.
Over the next three years, my company experienced extreme crashing and burning in regards to the staffing which coincided with the same type crashing and burning in my customer base. This was very unexpected and hit me broadside. We were servicing almost 200 regular residential accounts a month (many of those getting cleaned multiple times in a month), 10 commercial accounts, scads of move in/move out and other add-on cleanings, and I was nearing an amount of revenue I had only dreamed about when I opened the doors. We were listed among the top two cleaning companies in the Tri-State area and it had become almost a formality to go out and bid the jobs because we had a closing rate of near 100% of anything we bid due to our reputation in the area. People were on a waiting list to get serviced. But….my staff was feeling like workhorses rather than thoroughbreds. At the same time the big economy crash came along and stressed our customers to the point of cutting back services. And still I plowed on not seeing that the reduction of customers was affecting my staff and they were growing restless in their daily work because they were feeling personal strain and insecurity in a company that seemed to be losing its market share. I proceeded with the idea that we just needed to add back in more customers, market and advertise more, take on the work that we would have refused in the past because it hadn’t fit our criterion of cleaning, and just move forward with my big vision. My mantra became “Trust me, I know what’s best for you.” Funny thing is, when the staff began quitting, and the customers starting cancelling services altogether, they were saying the same thing to me by their actions. I realize that now….and I also realize they were right, they did know best.
In my motivation to make it all work, to BE what I had created, I began to lose the essence of why I was there in the first place…to make life simple and better for a person and a family. And ultimately I was the one suffering the most in those areas. I had forgotten two very essential ingredients of success….caring for others begins with self-love, and self-love cannot be rushed.
How many of us work the plan only to find out we didn’t include our passions and dreams at all in that plan? How many times, in our attempt to do for another, do we throw our own needs and wants to the curb and think we will find self-fulfillment in something or someone else? We work to eat, buy things, gain fame or recognition, but we are building a life that is not sustainable really because it isn’t nourishing those real loves of our own life. We gauge our success on a bank account or how many people are working for us, titles we affix to those people or whether we have to check the bank account daily to make sure we have money for the house note. Or we base our contentment and our value on what we see reflected in another person when we are in a relationship, be it friendship or more. Then those things start falling away and not working, but we don’t see it right away. Our internal voice begins to shout to get our attention but we cannot hear it over our own voice screaming at others “Trust me, I know what’s best for you.” Rather than walk at a steady pace, we begin to trot a little and over time we pick up our gait because we finally feel something is not working and it must be because I am not running fast enough or not doing “something”. When we walk through life, we can see everything….the leaves on the trees, the flowers by the road, ants and spiders…but when we run, all we can see is a blur of these things. We know they are there, but we cannot experience them. And if there is danger or anything that needs to be changed or maybe even dismissed from our life, we miss it because we are running so hard. It’s difficult and nigh on to impossible to change your path or adjust course quickly if you are running rather than walking. And even worse, we cannot see the ruts and holes and we end up flinging ourselves headlong into a place we were never meant to be. We lie there, the dust settles and we think “What just happened?”
Life just did you a favor, my friend.
At this point, we either lie face down in the dirt or we get up and start walking again. In my case, I still had worry inside and unfortunately I wasn’t ready to get up right away. I laid there, cried and ranted, beat the ground with my fists, shouted out for help…but there seemed to be no one there to hear me. Epiphanies happen when you are lying there, if you let them happen. And I thank God mine did.
I realized I was running and fighting for something I really didn’t even want anymore. I wasn’t being nourished, my creativity had been relegated to the side of the road and I passed it every so often, but had not given in to stopping and pursuing that creativity in years. Happiness had been replaced by the worries of the day, and I dreaded getting up in the morning rather than looking at each day as a clean palette. I laid there in the dirt and remembered…I love to paint, to shop in thrift stores, make wreathes and beautiful things from nature, decorate my home, spend time with my family…where had all that gone?
Today I am at the beginning of the path once again, but this path is leading toward the things I love and starting at the right place…me. It sure is a lot better being “poor” in the bank account, not knowing whether the bills are going to get paid by a business you love, rather than for sure paid by a business you have grown cold in. And I am like a cold pig in warm slop…I love finding vintage items for my home and it is starting to look lived in again. I have started decorating and painting and even singing again and playing music while I work. I am gaining customers that have a love and common interest in the old and discarded, rusty and crusty junk that I do…and they see the same value in it. This is making all the difference to me. I have found my peeps! But more importantly, I have found me again.
Bob Marley was known for much, but his songs always spoke of the freedom and ease of life for someone who lives the moments and doesn’t worry too much about the days. I really don’t know if the type business I am enjoying now is going to “make it” or not…but I plan to gather the joy in this moment while I can, and just worry about those “do I stay or do I go” decisions when the time comes. But the day for my pursuit of happiness is now….and that is one thing I am not just not worried about anymore.
I was out with my grown daughter the other day and while I was driving I asked her to make a call for me. She scrolled through my contact list looking for a particular number and ran across the entry for herself in my phone. “Why does it say I.C.E. on the listing for my number?” she asked. I was kind of surprised she had not heard about this and explained that if anything happened to someone while they were out, the emergency personnel would take the person’s phone, scan through the numbers and try and locate a specific person to contact if there was an accident or other catastrophe. So often families don’t share the same last name these days, so they wouldn’t really know who to call unless they ran across an entry that said “Mom” or “Daddy”, or maybe ” My sweetheart”, or “Soul Mate” or some other cutsey name for a significant other. But they are trained to look for the letters I.C.E. which stands for in case of emergency. “You are my person” I told her.
Less than a week after that day, I was watching one of a billion reruns of Grey’s Anatomy.In the series, Meredith is always just short of a true love relationship with Dr. McDreamy because she suffers from abandonment issues due to an overbearing mother and alcoholic father who left when she was 5. Christina on the other hand is a robotic Oriental surgeon, excellent at her craft but not so great at warmth and emotion which constantly wreaked havoc on her relationship with her gentler, more mushy boyfriend. The scene opens with Meredith sitting forlornly at the bar and Christina walks in after making an appointment at a clinic to have a secret abortion. Her gentle boyfriend had not been able to take her distance and ended the relationship just as she had found she was pregnant. They were very new friends, and Christina had uncharacteristically shared this very intimate part of her life with Meredith the day before. Meredith really didn’t know why she had shared, but she had listened, giving no advice and asking no questions.
“The clinic has a policy”, Christina began, “They wouldn’t let me confirm my appointment unless I designated an emergency contact person…someone to be there just in case, and…to help me home…you know…after.” As Meredith turns to her, Christina briskly says “Anyway, I put your name down. That’s why I told you I’m pregnant. You’re my person.” Meredith looked at her intensely and said “I am?” “Yeah…you are.” And with that Meredith leaned over, placed her head on her shoulder and stayed there for a minute. ” You know this constitutes hugging, right?” the sterile, unemotional Christina muttered. ” Shut up, I am your person.” Meredith said, as the scene came to a close.
I have come to realize different phases in life each require a different person. It most often isn’t a spouse, or a family member. This is the one person you can talk to about anything, even the spouse and family member, and they will be right there loading the gun for your firing squad when you want to slay those who have crossed or upset you. They don’t always agree with you, but they do always support and encourage you in your own choices and decisions.
When I was in grade school, my person was A., a golden-haired shy little girl, very petite, neat and clean. We played at school, had the occasional sleepover, always sat next to each other at lunch. As time went on, we gathered other friends around us, but we always had this “thing”. Then one day, she came into school and told me she was moving when school let out the next week. I was devastated.
Over the next few years, I had other friends, some closer than others, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have that “person”. I even got to a point where I thought I didn’t need a “person”. I really didn’t want to begin all over training another friend in how to deal with my idiosyncracies and issues. I wanted A. back, or at least I thought I did. A. was safe. She was quiet. She knew me.
One day my next “person” came along. I was friends with a girl I had been in school with in grade school, but because A. was there too I had never really bonded with her in a close way. K. became my middle school “person”. We were in and out of each others’ houses, played games, sang and danced to Donnie Osmond records and tried real make up for the first time in the bathroom at school, unknown to both our mothers, or so we thought. We went to a lot of movies during this time and I remember going to see “Ode to Billy Joe”. K. had a thing for Robbie Benson at the time, so I begged my parents to go see the PG rated movie with her and they relented. Looking back, K. was either more worldly than me, or I was naive in spite of the world marching around me, but when the movie ended I had no idea what had happened in “the scene” that caused the bridge jump. My “person” had to explain it to me…boy, talk about embarrassing, but nonetheless bonding.
When we entered high school, K. and I remained friends but we drifted for whatever reason. We each got our own groups of friends, she graduated early, and I had met my next “person”, D. She was a beautiful, brown-eyed movie queen type, and all the boys flocked to her. Because I was her friend, and she was my “person” they flocked a bit to me too, by default anyway. We had another mutual friend, A., with big bosoms, long dark hair and pancake makeup. You never saw one of us without the other and soon we were dubbed “Charlie’s Angels”. Although I spent just as much time with A. as I did with D. overall, we never had the deep heart to heart talks, or shared the quiet silences of just being together. She called me Smitty, I called her DD, and we were a team. I knew difficulties she went through at home, she knew my failings, and we still were there for each other. She was my “person”. She stood up for me in my first marriage, and was there when my baby was born. But my heart was so broken when she got married and I wasn’t asked to be in her wedding. I found out later that it was because I had gained so much weight with my baby she didn’t want me in her wedding and had told a couple of mutual friends so it would get back to me. Funny, I had only gained 18 pounds with my pregnancy…but I lost around 125 when D. stopped being my “person”.
For so many years I didn’t have a “person”. I was wrapped up in child-rearing, homeschooling, trying to be a good wife and making a home. When the marriage soured, and we finally divorced after 22 years, I realized how much having a “person” was vital to survival for me and how much I missed that contact. I met K. through a ladies’ group on the internet. We both had relationships that were pretty textbook awful. But as soon as we met in real life the first time, we knew we were each others’ “person”. It is 13 years later, and although we live many miles apart we can pick up the phone and talk anytime about anything, or nothing at all. I have a “person” at the other end of the phone standing by like Captain Kangaroo’s sidekick Mr Moose….ready to drop ping pong balls on the insufferable moron who had rained on my day or made me sad.
Lately I have been feeling maybe I need another “person”. Not instead of long distance K., but in addition to…someone in town, close by to go shopping with, or talk to face to face. Someone ready to go see a movie or concert, or sit on the back deck and sip a glass of wine with me while the sun sets. There are days when you just need somebody to be with you, put their head on your shoulder and say “I am your person”, someone flesh and bones, someone flawed and imperfect, someone fun and crazy…or someone in case of “emergency”.
But I am not in a hurry, my “person” always appears at just the right time, in just the right way, for wherever I happen to be in my meandering through life. Until then, I am happy just being my own “person”, going through life carefully and diligently….and planning no emergencies anytime soon.
