Category: Writing a Book

Nada Christmas

I believe I have solved my Christmas ennui. This holiday comes after a very rocky and tumultuous pre-season. For the world at large and for me.

I honestly don’t think I can handle one more story about Gaza. Every time humanity survives a major global fiasco and declares “Never Again,” a new set of horrors rise up again.

I shake with mortification about the assumptions of younger me. To be fair, I think every 21 year old believes they can save the world. It is probably designed that way so we can continually relight the internal fires of ambition and hope as we struggle to get a toehold in life and on our feet.

Life changes us. All of us. One way or the other. Our ambitions don’t necessarily change but they narrow. We trade in our ambitions to save the world and focus on saving ourselves. We shift our focus away from helping faceless masses to supporting the individuals who are born or led to us.

I am not saying we should or do move away from sharing our wealth with causes that deserve our attention. It is just that it becomes necessary to make sure our own boat is solid and floating before we try to save the ill-fated Titanic.

I have done nothing for Christmas this year. And I want nothing. As I was dithering about this and wrestling with my old inner compulsions at this time of year, I came across a most helpful blog post.

Beloved writer Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion on PBS fame published a post that popped up at just the right time for me. His stories about Christmases past resonated deeply with me as he recounted the fruitless hours he spent on finding “perfect gifts” that received an at-best lukewarm reception from the recipients.

He made a most convincing argument for escaping the commercial allure of the season. In his case, he will spend Christmas at sea with his wife and daughter and no presents. He is right about one thing.

At a certain stage we are all going to declutter the accumulated possessions of a lifetime. Either we take charge and see to that process while we are still able. Or, as many do, we leave the planet and foist the unwelcome task on obligated family members.

That lacks grace and consideration. A truly loving legacy is to leave behind clean closets and organized photo albums. Not shoeboxes full of unidentifiable and unwanted keepsakes that only you wanted to keep.

I took a page from Keillor’s blog post. Today we depart for parts south on a holiday road trip to places I have long wanted to see. Not a long holiday. Just the weekend and Christmas Day. But long enough and far away enough to temporarily sever ties with the weight of holiday expectations.

That’s good enough for me. It pleases me to consider that thousands and thousands of young families with small children out there to pick up the slack. Most children still shake with anticipation and excitement about Santa’s upcoming visit. It is a joyous, fleeting and delightful life stage. Until one day it isn’t.

Your kids choose to spend holidays with their lover’s family. Pals elect to get together and make Christmas their own way. Soon, you are planning a Christmas cruise with other girlfriends. Christmas, as we once knew it, is over.

It is not necessarily a bad thing. Christmas is a loaded season emotionally precisely for its history and traditions. I have newly widowed girlfriends facing their first Christmas without their husbands. Estranged parents make excuses or lie outright to peers about the amount of contact they have with their adult children.

I have one searingly honest friend who has never enjoyed the Christmas holidays and cannot wait until this “joyous” season is over. That joy is not universally shared by a long shot. Having to keep up appearances and fake feelings of joy at a difficult and emotional time of year can make it even worse.

So I am planting a new stake as a way to “celebrate” Christmas this year. Taking care of those nearest and dearest to me without much fanfare at all. Their company and outreach is all I hope for. I can say emphatically as I get older that truly is all that matters.

At the end of the day, holiday celebration is a deeply personal and individual choice. Rebel that I am I will be celebrating my own version of “holiday cheer” with my husband by leaving town.

Santa Claus is coming and, now that I’m all grown up, I don’t think there is room for both of us. If you’re lucky enough to have little ones in your life at this time of year, then enjoy them with gusto. It is a fleeting phase.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Happy holidays to those who celebrate other mid-winter traditions.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, and however you choose to do it, focus on making it yours.

Yoga

I went to a yoga class this morning for the first time in what feels like forever. Man, was it good to be back in a studio.

Yoga is often misunderstood as a mamby-pamby exercise routine characterized by weird and exotic names, pretzel twists and breathing work that is based on the philosophy of Eastern religions. It is marked by chanting and incense and all manner of distinctly un-athletic activity.

While parts of that are true, it could not be farther from the whole picture of what yoga is and offers practitioners. Of course, there are some pretzel twists if I’m honest. But they are sooo satisfying.

I reconnected this morning with muscles in my anatomy I had forgotten were there. Hamstring stretches. Spinal twists. Deep and focused belly breathing.

Speaking of flab, it flabbergasts me how easily once taut muscles can dissolve into lassitude.

I must compliment the yoga teacher for her gentle but rigorous teaching approach. This session was no walk in the park but neither was it boot camp for Navy SEALS. I had done a lot of yoga in my previous life.

I even completed a sixty day marathon once where I did one yoga class every day over two months. That took a little commitment. I got to explore a lot of different Yoga disciplines over that time period in the Rama Lotus Yoga studio: Vinyassa, Hatha, Iyengar, Vini, Ashtanga wore me out! Thankfully, there really is something for every age and fitness level.

I cheated once or twice (in my opinion) by taking part in a Yoga Nidra class. All we had to do for the entire class was lie prostrate on your back on the floor. I love Yoga Nidra.

I find it funny, though, how busy your body can be even when you are doing nothing. Every knot and pressure point and tensed up muscle makes its presence known when you’re simply lying on your back on the floor.

I came to love yoga for its health and energy benefits. Other than swimming, not many sports appeal to me. Competitive sports are for other brave souls.

Yoga kept me limber and flexible for a good long time. To me, that is one of yoga’s greatest gifts. Muscles need to move and yoga postures address all of them.

Don’t be put off by the weird posture names. Downward Dog. Sun Salutations. Tree Pose. I was put off by the names, at first, and I definitely have my favorite practices. Yoga is great in that it offers a diversity of choices so you can find and settle into the preferred practice you want to actively pursue.

I was once heavily into Bikram yoga. That is a special branch of “hot yoga” and is practiced in a very hot room. Its’ creator has since come into disrepute for the “touchy-feely” license he took with students.

But the foundations of Bikram yoga are solid. A steady progression through the twenty-six postures from start to finish that gently stretch every part of your body for a complete and deeply satisfying exercise routine.

I hope I started on a new path today. Day One of what I hope will be a revived weekly yoga practice. Baby steps however.

I don’t want to commit the familiar mistake I make of jumping into something with too much enthusiasm. That tends to burn me out and could threaten to put me off an otherwise engaging and beneficial activity pretty darn quick.

I was heartened to discover that by reengaging in a “first step” back to something I previously loved and was committed to, it may once again become a regular habit.

After today’s session, I am heartened and encouraged that a regular yoga practice may take root again in my life.

Time will tell, of course. But it was a decidedly promising start.

Insomnia Blues

Insomnia is a fairly common and most aggravating condition. We’ve all had bouts of it.

In my case, insomnia seems to be entirely held in sway by my brain. I am a ruminator. My mind latches on to things and won’t let go.

It may be an idea I am trying to process. Or plans for a room I am eager to decorate. Or a relationship problem I can’t seem to satisfactorily resolve. I feel stuck so I try to think my way out of the problem.

That is sort of what insomnia is. Getting stuck in wake mode. (I said wake not woke, not that there is anything wrong with that except it is a whole other blog post.)

I try all of my trusty “go-to” solutions. I eat a banana. Something about ingesting carbs at bedtime helps you sleep? Or I warm a cup of milk. If at hand, I throw in a little vanilla and nutmeg to jazz up the taste. In milk, I believe, is an enzyme called L-tryptophan and it aids sleep.

Maybe I just made that up. I know for sure there is L-tryptophan in turkey. You know that, too, if a huge turkey dinner has sent you off to la-la land for an hour or two. Even if you don’t sleep, you are hardly likely to jump tall buildings in a single bound.

Some families have deep and disturbing memories of Uncle Frank’s drifting off into sonorous snoozing at the holiday dinner table just after the dessert course. And the liqueurs.

Other tried and true methods include watching TV (preferably some unbearably predictable serial cop show where the plot is so formulaic, you can be put to – or called to – sleep without even starting the episode.)

Reading is another favorite insomnia slayer. If I’m lucky. It depends on the book. I usually select an interesting but not too riveting novel of some sort. Page by page, I feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier.

When I am at the point where I can barely keep them awake, it is time to close up the book and put it away. The novel’s work with me is done for the night.

I also play meditation videos but with only the sound on. I darken the computer screen. I slip on a stereo headband, zero in on some sleep meditation that will introduce me to my spirit guides or instantly cure my anxiety.

Tall orders. I have yet to meet any spirit guides personally and my anxiety is usually generated by my inability to get to sleep. So if a meditation video eventually does put me to sleep, problem solved. The anxiety gone.

So I faced that last night. Went through my mental Rolodex (remember those?) of quick and easy fixes. Warm milk? Check. Banana? Check. Reading a not-too-interesting novel? Also check.

They were moderately successful. The only evidence I have, of course, is that I did finally slip into sleep and have awoken feeling fairly refreshed and well-rested ready to face the day.

Take that, insomnia!

We have girded our loins and are ready, willing and able to do battle with you. And at any time you care to announce and intrude with your irritating – and blessedly infrequent in my case – presence.

Sacred Space and Place

The word “sacred” is done to death. The word is bandied about with what seems like very little spiritual ballast to help us access it these days.

As I have come to understand sacred space, it is a place we carve out to commune with ourselves and with Spirit. Or more accurately perhaps, the Spirit within ourselves. Or, as in some traditions, a Higher Power.

Now there’s a lot of assumption going on right there. “Communing with Spirit” is off-putting to many. You can’t taste it, hear it or see it. Not with our physical senses at any rate. But open yourself up and you can surely feel it.

There are two reasons why a call to sacred communion is off-putting, I believe. Connecting with “Spirit” assumes you believe there is “One.” You must also believe that “Spirit” is available to you and willing to spend time with you. (Who am I, we may ask, for Spirit to talk to lowly me?)

The second reason it is often off-putting is that notions of Spirit are fragmented and compartmentalized in our lives today. Where do we even go to connect with “Spirit” if we believe in one? Church? Or a synagogue or a mosque? Somewhere where someone in fancy clothes with elevated connections to “Spirit” grants us access?

Here’s the thing. What I believe is that Spirit is an inherent part of “who we are.” It is universal and inborn in every one of us and is included with membership in the human race. That other stuff – the fancy garments and learned sermons – is a form of religious theater.

It is vitally important to some people. The dogma of church and religious teachings grounds many people in their lives and guides their actions. I have no quarrel with that. But I will say it is likely a little narrow in terms of what Spirit actually is and does.

I don’t care how much one studies or learns or how old and wise they get, the fundamental mysteries of life remain fundamentally mysterious. No one to my knowledge has cracked the code of how Earth came to be in the form it is and what it does.

There are no answers to devolving the “miracle of birth,” except from a strictly scientific and biological perspective. And let’s admit it. That comes up a little short in the “explanation” department.

So today I was touched once again by the teachings of my dear old friend Joseph Campbell (in my mind’s eye only; I never met the man.) He talked about the crucial need to create a sacred space in our lives. His prescription was to carve out a space or even maybe an hour a day to do nothing.

No chores. No phone calls. No conversations. Nada. Just focused me time. To play your favorite music (no matter how bad it is in the opinion of others.) To go inward. To write perhaps. To just be. And see what comes up.

Hah. Nice try with a quasi-OCD, Type A, get ‘er done kinda gal. But I am working on it. And I have experienced sacred spaces and places before. Sustaining them seems to be an issue.

Joe Campbell says it is important to carve out sacred space for ourselves now because our capitalist system focusses almost exclusively on social and economic activities. When First Nations roamed North America, they inherently understood that everything about them was sacred. The land, the skies, all of nature.

They acted accordingly. No wonder they were such a threat to the invading white Europeans. Europeans “triumphed,” in fact, because, they had little to no sense of spiritual relationship to the land and nature. What a high price we have all paid for that disconnect.

Spirit lives in all of us. It may be dormant or temporarily absent or out dealing with some other poor schmuck who has appealed to it for succour. We can disconnect from “Spirit” through our deeds and words. But it is never dead, dead.

I believe Spirit supports and encourages life and loving. Our worldly pursuits may cause us to lose track of that fact. In my healing journey, I often said, I abandoned myself, but god (as I choose to call Spirit) never did. When I was acting contrary to the laws of love and connection, the disconnect was painfully evident.

It is how I understand clinical depression. A disconnect with the essence and vitality of who we really are. Sure, part of it may be brain chemistry. (Who devised that in the first place is the obvious question?) But Spirit heals from within.

Great spiritual leaders have always know that and preach about it. Religious leaders? Well, it depends on how spiritually driven their beliefs and actions are. Among the best I ever knew was Rev. John Hogman. John was half of the ministerial tag team at Fairfield United Church in Victoria, BC with his wife, Rev. Michelle.

John’s sermons were consistently marked by his ability to connect the relationship between the scripture Jesus Christ proselytized and our everyday life. A song that was popular when Rev. John was on the planet was Joan Osborne’s One of Us: “What if God was one of us … just a slob like one of us … just a stranger on the bus … tryin’ to make his way home.”

So it would appear I need to tune up my Spirit communion skills. To carve out serious “me time.” To move more into the camp of human “being” instead of human “doing.” To reacquaint myself with a sense of awe, joy and wonder.

Because after all the money has been earned, the lectures have been delivered, the books written or read, what else is there??

Spirit and the Great Mystery. Even if I don’t “know” what the heck it is.

Near Loss Experience

What is a wakeup call? When do we get them? And why?

Having nearly lost access to my blog recently, these thoughts came to mind. I was forced into a position where I had to reflect on how I would feel if a certain something (or someone) I cared about were to leave my life permanently.

In part, my spiritual beliefs have helped me understand loss better. We don’t really lose anything it turns out. People who are taken from us live on in us. No, it is nowhere near the same as sitting down with them for tea or hearing their voice.

But the voice and memories they left us live on inside us. When my Dad died, someone sent me this in a sympathy card: “Now he is no longer where he was. Now, he is always with you.” I can conjure up my Dad in my mind’s eye whenever I want to.

I think about how much time and energy we put into “protecting” our possessions. Insurance. Wall safes. Safety deposit boxes. Alarm systems on our doors and windows. Certainly all are valuable for our peace of mind (and to legally comply in some cases as it is with auto insurance.)

I am struck not only by how much I have lost in my life but what replaced it. The family of origin I lost was replaced by dear, lifelong friends. I’ve made a safe and stable home to replace the one I never had as a child. I replaced low self-esteem with consistently decent behavior that has built a solid sense of self-respect. The lost love of my childhood was eventually replaced by a solid and mature love relationship.

Are all of these replacements equivalent to what was? No they aren’t but it doesn’t matter. To start, human beings are infinitely adaptable. It is our collective superpower as a species. Those who let go of the past and accept and build on what is in front of them right now are survivors.

To feel joy in the present, we cannot constantly grieve for the past. Doing so is a form of emotional sickness. Of course, we have strange ideas about this sometimes. A widow fears sullying her late husband’s memory by dating again or falling in love.

Yet, we hear that in the healthiest relationships, spouses pray for a new beginning for their partner if they should pass. We are given the time we are given with someone or something. When it is over, it is time to let go and move on.

In your own time, of course. It is ludicrous to think that there is a deadline by which to stop grieving. Most people who have suffered the loss of loved ones never really do “recover” completely. That is part of loving.

Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays can all bring back memories. Instead of slipping into grief and depression, we could turn those feelings around and use those occasions to honor and celebrate what we once had with them. This can also be painful and may bring tears. But, of catharsis.

It is a reframing and acceptance of grief to recognize its’ inevitability in all of our lives. Go to the graveyard. Leave flowers. Or raise a glass of fine single scotch whiskey in their memory. Pour some on their grave (not too much, of course! Fine spirits should be savored by the living, after all.)

It all circles back to the need to live each moment in the present. I have been as guilty as the next person of running around doing a bunch of things instead of carving out time and settling in for a chat with a friend.

I have improved. There are phone calls I will not make unless I have a free hour to talk. I still write letters and send cards occasionally. We forget the impact of the literal written word in our high tech age.

Not only do I love sending cards, I love getting them. Someone has taken the time to pick out a card, write a note, find a stamp and put it in the mailbox. That’s a mighty loving gesture right there.

Access to my blog was finally restored after a day of minor panic and frustration. It was a wake-up call to secure my writing output somewhere that it might be safe and accessible even if the internet crashes one day. (Wouldn’t that be something? Life as we know it would come to a complete standstill.)

And even if it was lost, would it matter? Sadly not. Like my life, these musings are but a grain of sand in the grand scheme of things. They are only important to me because they are mine. If you find something in here that resonates, that pleases me. We are all – as my friend said to me just the other day – “walking each other home.”

That makes me exactly like all of you. We are all most interested and indeed, called upon to nurture and protect what is ours. While we can and while we still are able.

One day, we won’t be here to do that. If we are lucky, there will be a few folk out there who will carry us in their hearts until their lives come to an end just as we carried those who went before us.

In this way, we throw our two cents worth into the infinite and self-replenishing fountain of love and wisdom of the ages. For others to carry forward. In perpetuity.

Technical Glitch

Today was weird and terrifying.

I lost my blog. Now a blog is not a thing you can misplace like a purse or a set of keys or eyeglasses.

But I did. I went to open it after clearing my browser’s cache. I went looking for it. I could not find it. Some damned link was broken

Today I learned a hard lesson – as have many others – about my dependence on technology. I am at its’ mercy. So many of us are its’ mercy.

It occurred to me I have not so much as printed out all of my blog pages.

Perhaps that’s an old-fashioned idea. Paper copies!

I am not even 100% sure if I can download them to a thumb drive. (Are thumb drives still a thing??)

Today spoke to that horribly uncomfortable feeling I have occasionally about technology. We are slaves to anonymous masters. It seems to be the way it is.

After today, I personally felt my vulnerability to the technology powers that be out there.

It accomplished one thing. I am not going to leave my creative output out there in the cloud where it could easily be blown away by the whims of some anonymous techno administrator.

For a writer who talks and writes a lot about boundaries, I learned another vital lesson about them today.

My writing. My filing cabinet. Waterproof and fireproof.

Call me old-fashioned. I’ll happily accept the compliment.

Christmas Spirit Contagion

Ten days until the BIG day. And I am utterly unprepared.

The true spirit of Christmas is weighed down by incessant messages of commercialism and self-interest. We may have to dig down a few layers to find Christmas spirit. I am personally convinced it is still out there. Opinions vary on how to access it.

A combination of worldly and picayune preoccupations can obscure the true message and meaning of the season.

Finding complete addresses and stamps to send Christmas cards or packages to friends and acquaintances. And before the mailing deadlines.

The mad rushing around to make sure every designated loved one has a gift under the tree. The laying in of food and baking supplies to create sweet seasonal offerings.

I am trying to do Christmas differently this year. I am doing this by not doing much of anything. If there is a key gift I wish to share with loved ones this year, it is me being calm and present.

Whatever other messages Jesus Christ was trying to convey, I am pretty sure running yourself ragged and inviting near bankruptcy wasn’t one of them. It all circles back to how we have been trained to express love and appreciation.

For my Dad, it was with money. You could tell how much he loved you or how good he felt about himself by the size of the Christmas check.

For my mother, it was the little elements that signified a “real” Christmas was underway: barley toys, and special Christmas baking. Bought not made. We’d lay in fruitcake (dark AND light) even if no one really liked it or ate it. Throwing out fruitcake after the New Year was another part of our regular holiday traditions.

And chicken bones – not actual chicken bones but a confection of chocolate and cinnamon produced by a homegrown candy shop back where I grew up in Canada.

This year, I hope to find my Christmas spirit in contemplation and prayer. Or at the very least, peace and quiet. There are Christmas traditions I enjoy but none more than having nothing to do and nowhere to go. And nowhere else I would rather be.

There will likely be a Christmas Eve church service we attend this year. The sheer beauty and enjoyment of singing old Christmas standards within a community of others has always been a surefire path to loving and peaceful feelings. A revival of the spirit at the very least.

These days, I am not in a place where I can lay my hands on chicken bones or barley toys. Just as well. No one should eat that much sugar.

This year, we will create our own Christmas. All of us always do but it varies from year to year.

The traditional Christmas fir tree is replaced by a tabletop rosemary tree with ribbons instead of ornaments.

I used to be hard on myself for not living up to all of the Christmas expectations. There is a flutter of guilt I recognize for deliberately abandoning traditions that feel more like obligations.

Choosing to celebrate Christmas quietly luxuriating in the peacefulness and joy of the season seems like a much more authentic response. 

And possibly what JC would advise. I mean, he just hung around being idolized on Christmas Day. And I bet he didn’t feel even a little bit guilty.

Happy holidays, everyone.

When Someone Says It Better

What Jodie Foster says here is what I deeply believe.

Surely we are not the only ones? 

Is it reasonable to assume a whole lot of people are collectively chafing over the current lack of logic and balance in our lives? Are we to assume we need to continue living our lives as we are because “that is just how things are”?

Surely the pendulum will swing back to a semblance of humanity and sanity? Lofty ambition, I realize.

Maybe sanity is a life we can only achieve individually and encourage its tendrils to spread further.

I live in hope. Something’s got to give.

“My philosophy is that what people say about me is none of my business.”

I am who I am and what I do.

Expect nothing and accept everything.

It makes life easier.

We live in a world where funerals are more important than celebrating the living, marriage is more important than love and looks are more important than the soul.

We live in a packaging culture that despises content.”

Jodie Foster (one of my heroines)

Auld Lang Syne

I finally caught up with an old friend last week after a number of false starts. Hung up with mixed feelings.

Full disclosure: I have been under an enormous strain these past few months for a number of reasons. I have lived with a PTSD diagnosis for a long time. Some of the strain in my life has been deeply triggering. I am trying to navigate and resolve those feelings. There doesn’t appear to be a quick fix.

Here’s how triggered PTSD manifests in me: I talk my fool head off and mostly about me. I can’t fully explain why I do that or what that feels like. It is as if I am fighting for my life. It feels like I MUST make my position and feelings known and clear to whoever I am talking to. I desperately seek validation and reassurance.

That is compounded as I am terrified of not being heard. I am terrified that some crisis will happen because I didn’t warn someone strongly enough about what I see is about to happen. Not that I have ultimately been listened to anyway. To the listener, of course, it comes off as self-absorbed poppycock.

The listener isn’t wrong. Especially when they have no idea of the strain you are under or have been out of your life for a while. Life intervenes. Stuff happens.

So it was an odd phone call where the dynamic quickly shifted from “girls catching up.” She transitioned into “counsellor” mode and I was relegated to being “the patient.” It felt icky.

No doubt it was discomfiting on her part to engage in a phone call you thought would be a cheer-filled catchup only to find you are faced by a barrage of well-worn, existential complaints. And not for the first time.

I have had to navigate this dichotomy my whole life. Raised without solid boundaries or a clear and solid sense of self, I have erred on the boundary crashing front in extremis. I have had to identify and learn for myself what most of my peers picked up just by living at home.

Nowhere has this been more troublesome than in intimate relationships. I used to have a no-fail relationship management strategy. Before things got too close and intimate, I’d blow the relationship up. I’d break it off or create an irresolvable situation. By so doing, I was able to keep the pain of self-disclosure and exposure at bay for years. Sure, it was lonely. but it worked.

So I am on the phone with this old friend and desperately hoping she can sense and hear my pain and I spew my inflamed and irritated feelings all over the conversation. In a healthy and reasonable response, she backs off, shuts down and changes gear.

I am no longer the “old friend.” I am the supplicant. A problem to be solved. An object of pity and sadness. The Margot that drives her crazy. I gotta tell ya, that summary sucks.

And yet I clearly see how we have evolved into this place. We have hardly talked but a few times to catch up in recent months (years?). She has walked with me through a dozen major and minor crises in my life (largely self-created) over several decades. Her comparatively stable upbringing is the calm and centering counterpoint to my chaotic upbringing.

But I am a peripheral friend. An artifact of our college days. Outside her core of sensible and compatible friends who are calm and centered like she is. She has been a good friend nonetheless but time is having its way with us.

No longer the easy and familiar camaraderie. No longer the unspoken understandings that write the shorthand of longtime familiarity. Not much idea either of what is going in each other or in our lives that makes conversation fluid and empathetic.

I’m not grieving exactly. Our friendship is not finished. I am having to adjust to how it has altered. And why it has altered. My self-absorption and rumination would be part of it. But also our lives have changed in ways neither of us can fully appreciate. How could we? We haven’t seen each other face-to-face for years.

The loci of her life and of mine have separately shifted to the point of being unrecognizable to each other. I have not visited or even seen the new house she and her husband moved in to over two years ago. Even members of a kaffeeklatsch are more intimate.

I love her dearly and have always been profoundly grateful to have her in my life. But there have been periods of strain between us (some longer than others). Sometimes I marveled that the friendship held up at all.

i’ve always harbored the nagging feeling of being on the rim of her life as something of an interesting oddity. But trusting she found me bright and engaging enough to make a continued friendship worthwhile.

We talked about the weirdness of our last phone call. She found it weird, too. She identified an old and objectionable pattern in me where negative emotions took me over and ruled the day. I will try not to make that mistake again.

She is to be forgiven for not wanting to tolerate how pain manifests in me as it can be contagious. And it’s pretty self-absorbed. She likely has no idea how humiliating and upsetting it is to know my childhood deficiencies still manifest inappropriately.

I was heartened a year or two ago when she sent me something of a personal manifesto in an email. She wrote about carving out her own space and reclaiming her soul after a life devoted to serving others. She wanted to figure out how she wants to be and what she wants to keep in her life moving forward. Right on, said I.

My old saw: nothing in life is constant but change. She is now a long-married, happily retired professional woman who gallivants about North America and the world in her retirement while she and her husband still can. I am happy for them. It is a well-deserved coda to a good woman’s life.

Our friendship will continue. Most probably not apace. I received no signals that I’ve been kicked to the proverbial curb (yet!) in her emotional and psychic sorting process. I will try to be more careful and considerate in times of personal stress and strain. She is quite right. She doesn’t need that in her life.

It is an old and valuable friendship that has been through many shared experiences and challenges. The friendship is still there and still valuable. It has simply changed. Which was inevitable and up to me to adjust to. I’m learning the adjustments just keep on coming as we spend more time on the planet. Such is life.

Love you, old friend.

To Each Their Own

As soon as we’re born, we all get some challenge to wrassle with. Some affliction or obstacle that we have to overcome or learn to live with. I’ve observed certain obstacles seem to run in families.

In our family, it was alcoholism and mental health. If there was an upside to being born in an environment where those issues were at play, I learned stuff. Of course, I learned a lot of stuff I didn’t necessarily want to know but we don’t get to choose what hand we are dealt. The learning is lifelong.

Alcoholism is generally regarded in society as a “personal failing” or “a disease.” Alcoholism is often systematic with deep roots in a family’s history or the surrounding society. Ireland and drinking are practically synonyms.

Booze is an especially treacherous opponent because it works. Alcohol can numb our pain and make us feel better even if only temporarily. And temporary is all most people need. A stiff drink to “settle” your nerves. A celebratory toast. Or four. A bridge in social groups to ease discomfort or self-consciousness.

Like many other afflictions, it can be hard to pin down the exact moment when booze shifts from being a “friendly visitor” into a monkey on your back. Dealing with alcoholism myself, there were a few turning points. I lived the dynamic with booze that AA calls “cunning and powerful.”

As my drinking got worse, my body absorbed it more easily and I once experienced a blackout. It is alarming to not have any recall of a particular event or outing. When I saw the car in the driveway one morning and had no idea how it got there, I knew my choices were to heal or to die.

I have read that the Universe can be quite systematic in showing you that you are going off the rails. When you are just starting to head in the wrong direction, it may just jostle you a bit.

You might get klutzier than usual. Maybe break a few things in your house. Lose stuff more frequently. Or you might come down with frequent head colds. if you aren’t paying attention, the jostling can get worse.

I was in a relationship that I should not have been in for a bunch of reasons. We were in a car accident in the early days and had a minor fender bender. Some months later (same relationship), we hit and killed a deer on a back country road. Severe damage to the car.

The third accident – after the relationship ended and we were talking about reuniting – nearly killed us. We were broadsided by someone who ran a red light. Totaled the car. I was concussed and suffered a broken collarbone.

It was only in retrospect that the pattern of increasingly severe accidents became clear. It sure feels like I was being given a message to get the hell out of there.

Emerging from an unstable childhood with excessive drinking and wacky adult behavior all around me prepared me to be flexible. It probably made me resilient. I can easily spot dysfunctional wackiness in other adults (of the deleterious kind – not that of the fun and harmless wackos whom I love dearly).

Other families may have a history of DNA challenges that shape them: Huntington’s disease or MS or autoimmune disorders or ALS or a certain birth defect. The list goes on. Each family and family member has to accept and prepare for the possibility of that affliction popping up in their life up the road. No family is spared though the afflictions vary widely.

The good news is that we can grow out of these restrictions and learn how to manage them as adults. In my case, I gave up drinking almost a quarter of a century ago. I sought out counsellors for years as I tried to raise my family alone and recover from a rocky childhood.

Other good news is that whatever challenges we faced in our family can put us on a path of growth and exploration as adults. I could do nothing about the circumstances into which I was born. No one can. But I had and have ample choice in choosing what I had to do to live with it.

Choice is freedom. Those of us who came from difficult backgrounds where healthy choices were scarce may better appreciate our available choices as adults. Then it is up to us to improve our own lives and leave those circumstances in the dustbin of history where they belong.

There is usually no choice to change our inherited challenges (such as carrying a defective gene). As adults, however, our job is learning to carry whatever that burden is and face it with grace.

Then one day, you may get the chance to support someone else in similar circumstances who may benefit from your insight and knowledge about that issue. If you’re lucky.