Tag: challenges

Illogical Conclusions

I once read about a woman who had the peculiar habit of cutting the ends off a ham before roasting it in the oven. For no good reason. When one of her children finally asked why she did that, the woman didn’t have an obvious answer.

“It is what my mother always did,” she replied. “But why?” her daughter insisted. So the woman asked her mother. “Why did you always cut the ends off the ham before you put it in the oven?”

“Well, it was the only way I could make it fit in the baking pan I had.”

Have you ever explored where your personal beliefs come from? The ham roast example is pretty specific, I realize. Need a more generic example?

“Girls aren’t good at maths.” “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.” “No one in my family ever went to university.” “A woman’s place is in the home.” Granted, those “beliefs” are all a little dated. My age may be showing.

Be that as it may, there are still a whole bunch of people who earnestly believe, “A woman can’t do … [fill in the blank].” It is such small and limited and exhausting thinking. Exhausting because it is an uphill battle to confront and overcome such thinking. Not only in others but often in yourself.

We conduct our lives and do certain things we do based on our beliefs. What we believe, guides and informs our daily life. To keep things fresh, I find it a good practice to challenge my beliefs occasionally.

I have had a nagging belief in lack for my whole life. The belief was instilled through suffering traumatic losses in my young life. That pain and chaos created all kinds of dysfunctional issues and drama around acquisition and money.

I would spend, then regret my spending, then take things back to the store and then get mad because I either needed or really wanted what I’d bought. I’d go back to the store.

I’d have a full-blown argument in my head about the merits of either buying something or saving the money right there in the women’s clothing aisle. Talk about exhausting. I was lucky I wasn’t committed.

Make no mistake. Letting go of our beliefs can be painful, too. No one likes being “wrong.” Or even if we inherited the belief and are merely following the dictates of the family and culture we grew up in, it can still hurt.

Aside from your whole guiding belief system, there are millions of lesser beliefs we might take a look at and toss. A timely one for me is the fear and losses of aging. I am at that juncture but have never been more happy and at peace with myself and my life.

Yet I am bombarded daily with a dazzling array of products and procedures that will reverse this dastardly process and vague hints of irrelevance and looming discard that accompany my advancing years. Poppycock.

Yesterday I watched the movie, Nyad. Starring powerhouse actors Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, I first noted how lined their faces have become. And that there weren’t heaps of make-up applied to cover that.

Nyad is the story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad who – at 64 – managed to swim from Cuba to Florida, a distance of some 110 miles. The producers took great care to make it not look easy.

In fact, Diana Nyad eventually only succeeded after four previous failed attempts over as many years. The online movie bumpf around this film makes a lot of noise about Nyad’s achievement breaking down stereotypes of age and gender.

The other word it uses – and I encourage my female friends to consider adding this to their own personal belief system – is that older women can be pure badasses. The stereotype of sweet little old ladies (SLOL) who quietly fade off into the distance is a belief worth tossing.

I take heart from the great ladies and role models out there who have turned the SLOL archetype on its head. Old AND sexy. Betty White. Carol Burnett. Sophia Loren. Ann Margaret. Helen Mirren. Judi Dench. Elizabeth Hurley. I could go on.

Overriding beliefs I’ve had all my life, that I have looked at closely and see no need to let go of are these: never give up and never say never. Because by giving up it is then and only then, that you are done.

I believe then as I always have that “what will be is up to me.” You should, too. As for society’s insidious perception that we may getting too old to take on new challenges, I like to quote my Dad in response to the naysayers and feet of clay people: “Up ‘em.”

The Power of Two

My son – my eldest child – got married yesterday. To a beautiful, elegant, intelligent bride. I was not there. None of his family was. That was by choice and not an antagonistic one.

The couple deliberately sought and got the privacy and simplicity they wanted as they exchanged their vows. Family watched the live-streamed event at Ottawa City Hall from a great distance on our computers. Technology, eh?

Our society creates so many false expectations and financial demands around weddings. So much so that it didn’t surprise me when I read many divorces take place because the couple seems to forget that a wedding is followed by an actual marriage. Which is way different.

For years, I pooh-poohed the importance of having an intimate, loving relationship in my own life. If I’m honest, fear held me back in single, celibate check. I figured if you can’t skate yourself and everyone in your family is a really bad skater, don’t head to an ice rink and make a fool of yourself.

My parents made a complete cockup of their marriage. They both brought a bag full of unprocessed issues and dysfunction to the table. Within that marriage’s walls, three daughters were dutifully born one after the other.

I was number one. A precarious perch to hold in any family dynamic. That place in the siblings’ birth order is loaded with expectations and often imposes a sense of excessive responsibility on that child. Perhaps even moreso in the specific circumstances of my birth once my origins became clear to me.

Unearthed in counseling, the wise woman listened patiently to my seemingly endless tales of maternal betrayal. In one pivotal session, she stopped short, looked up from her notepad and piercingly asked: “Is there any chance your parents had to get married?” My world flipped. The immediate sense of potential truth I had shook me to my core.

That night, I called my father and uncomfortably asked him the question. His response was sheepish, but honest. “We were going to get married anyway.” It was a sweet phone call tinged with sadness.

Then I called my mother asking the same question. I might just as well asked her if she routinely drove pins into small helpless animals for sport. She shrieked at me and called me down and accused me of all manner of foul things that I even DARED to ask such a question. “How could you!?” Her response was my answer.

I married my children’s father under a Sword of Damocles. My mother was clearly upset leading up to and at the event itself. Still she didn’t say a single negative word. Instead, she smiled too much and too broadly, paced about the room and looked decidedly drawn and anxious at the little wedding ceremony we managed to have.

That marriage was not a great romantic story. I believed the guy I married was the ”boy next door.” Plucked carelessly from the available pool surrounding me at the time. Safe and harmless, I reasoned. We would have one of those loveless marriages of convenience. We’d raise good kids. He would be the chief cook, bottle washer and cheering section to support my rising star.

Since I was not in love with him, I believed he could not hurt me. That delusion was emphatically ripped away after my son was born. In spite of two university degrees, it turned out my real education was only just beginning.

My mother’s abundantly and publicly supported my son’s father. And I, like a hapless beast who finds itself being sucked into quicksand or a tarpit, faced the dawning realization my mother was my mother in name only.

The flimsy bonds of attachment I had had to her already unravelled in an instant. Never marry or have children to give your parents grand babies. The ensuing years were difficult and traumatizing.

Such is the unwelcome gift children inherit from unhealed, immature parents. “Growing up” isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. In our family’s convoluted and dysfunctional dynamic, the damage and scarring continued well into adulthood.

My greatest regret was the trauma and deprivation foisted upon my children. They were born into circumstances they had no control over and didn’t deserve. What child does?

So my son and his bride’s decision to marry yesterday after his own faltering first attempt was and is – as all important ventures are – a victory of hope over experience.

I feel the same about my own marriage. Truly a “whodda thunkit” situation. After years on my own, I was blessed in my dotage to find someone I can love and laugh with. I love and appreciate my husband beyond my own understanding. We treasure each moment we have together and all the more because we know our time together is limited.

There is a simple happy moral to the story at this point. The bonds of intergenerational trauma in my little family – while far from being fully healed – have at least been confronted and challenged.

My two children and me – and their father too, to be fair – have committed to and follow our own healing path. Admitting there is a problem, they say, is the first step to overcoming it.

For Cameron and Shaar, I wish them every imaginable positive experience and joyous occasion their formal union now opens to them. They have had a pretty phenomenal run as partners.

I wish them the strength and wisdom they will need to face and overcome inevitable challenges and disappointments that will come into their lives.

I support their growth, their love, and their boundaries. It is their life and their show. I am happy to be invited to watch that show occasionally and take part in the assigned parts I am given as I can.

From where I sit, the vows Cameron and Shaar took today exhibit a maturity and commitment that will serve them both as they evolve in their married life.

In ideal relationships, we believe love will give us the security and support to help us heal and grow. I wish that for both of them.

Let the future unfold as it will in the spirit that abounded at yesterday’s lovely and intimate ceremony.

Much love and good wishes on your forward path, you two. God bless and Namaste.