It has been two years since I have written here. I really want to get back up to par, and start to write again, but I see that things have changed a bit, and I need to do more exploring to figure it all out. I might even start a new blog, if I have a problem with it here.
The greatest news, I suppose, is that I am still alive, and doing well. It has been nearly 11 1/2 years since I was diagnosed with the Stage 4 Neuroendocrine Cancer. I am grateful to still be here and to still be in relatively good health and spirits.
I will do my best to get through these holidays, and check in with you. It is my goal to get a regular blog up and running for 2024.
I wish all of you a happy holiday season, and look forward to catching up with you all very soon.
With all the good intentions that I have had over the years, I find myself in these last eight weeks of 2021 not knowing where the time has gone and having let so many things fall by the wayside.
This blog has fallen into that category.
As I begin to explore again, I realize that nothing is the same here, and I do not recognize how to do much of anything. Part of me wants to scrap the whole idea of the blog, but even that seems nearly impossible to do.
There is so much to catch up on…so many things I want to share. Yet, fear continues to loom over me.
And then, there is the point of technology having grown past me by leaps and bounds.
Perhaps, I will be able to figure things out again…learn new things…tell the stories that are mine to continue to tell.
Time will certainly not wait forever for me, though (for now) I am still here to tell the stories…
I have neglected so much this year, least of all this blog. To those who have come to follow me, read my words, and more, I apologize. I recognize that it may not be necessary, as we all go through our periods of inactivity, shutting down (a.k.a. depression), and general times of “what the hell is next?”
As I peruse a bit, I see that the site, and how to post has changed. Nothing seems the same, so I am on a bit of a learning curve (and will be), until I can jump in and get my feet wet.
This means this post, and the next few, will be a bit “old school,” and require reading. After all, it has always been my style to write words–and lots of them–and can be rather intimidated by the technology that helps me to communicate what is bouncing around in this tiny brain of mine.
Rather than go back to rehash much of anything since I last wrote, I may catch up with a few things here today, and start anew with the new year.
One of the biggest changes in my life this last couple of years was that I rescued a 10-year-old dachshund minpin named, “Honey.”
Honey: Home from the groomer, soon after she came to live with me.
Honey came to me purely by serendipity, as I was not looking for a pet. It had been over 20 years since I had a creature living with me. The previous owner was going to put her down, and I looked at this neglected animal and was going to bring her home to get her back to “normal,” then find a good home for her. We all know how that works out. It was a done deal.
Honey is ill, however, and was diagnosed in August with congestive heart failure. We celebrated her “adoptaversy” on November 2nd, so we are coming up on 14 months together. However, her time is coming up much too quickly. She has good days and bad. We take it one-day-at-a-time, which is a constant reminder that is how we need to live life anyway.
So, here we all are, entering into 2021, with our stories to tell, and the stories we don’t want to read or tell ever again.
Stories do need to be told. Stories of all kinds.
One of my goals for 2021 is to resurrect the ways that I can share my thoughts…my stories. Hopefully, you will go along for the ride.
Perhaps, you will also be able to help me learn all these new-fangled bells and whistles that keep me from having the confidence to jump ahead.
Wishing you a gentle passage from 2020 to 2021. Be safe.
September 17th, 1975. I was living in Austin, Texas. I was barely 20 years old.
I had been released from the Air Force just two months earlier, which was something that I did not want. But at that time, under the circumstances, that’s what happened.
I also had been married 17 months earlier to someone I only knew for 25 days. It had been a stupid, impetuous decision, and one that I wish I had not made in my life for reasons that I will not discuss here today.
Labor was very tough. In 1975, we certainly were trying to be better-equipped for the birthing process with Lamaze classes, but that assumed willing partnerships with the coaching father, and also with the medical team. There was little support from either, so it made it even tougher, but when it came down to the actual birth, I remember other women rallying around and helping me through it.
When I look back on my life, there have been a lot of struggles. I don’t remember a lot of easy or good times. Birthing a child was one such struggle, as it is for many of us.
But the one thing I remember that gave me great joy was at 3:03 p.m. Central time on September 17th, 1975, is when I heard the doctor say, “Congratulations! It’s a little girl!”
It has been 7 years since I wrote this piece on Xenophobia. I wish that I could say that we, as a nation, have become kinder where differences are concerned, but I think that we have lost some ground recently.
It was in 1971. I was 15 years old and in the 11th grade. My English teacher, whose name escapes me, gave us vocabulary words each week.
It was in this class I first learned the word, “xenophobia”—hatred or fear of strangers, foreigners, and their customs or culture. Though the word was new to me, the concept was not.
With all of changes we faced in the 1950s and 1960s, and as media coverage became more prevalent, there were daily reminders of the challenges faced by so many people as inequalities in human rights were exposed. The leaders of the time were no longer willing to sit on the sidelines and remain silent.
At home, there were family members who perpetuated the beliefs that were taught to them decades earlier—people who came from a different culture, ethnic background, or skin tone were to be looked at suspiciously, avoided, feared…
I could not go without sharing this post from five years ago that I wrote for my mother. Two re-posts in one day…but I think she is worth it. Happy Mothers’ Day to all who are mothers…
It seems like yesterday that I turned 18 years of age and could not wait to leave home. That’s what children are supposed to do, right?
And there were many bumps and bruises along the way as I maneuvered (sometimes) aimlessly through this maze of life, unaware too late that time is limited.
I know others who also lament that time passes too quickly, while memories of better times fade.
Yet, the dense fog of hurt, sadness and pride seems to roll-in and hover endlessly. And when that fog finally starts to lift, it is often too late.
Too late to say what needs to be said. Too late to say, “I’m sorry.”
Too late to say, “I love you.”
I am so grateful to have spent Mothers’ Day 2011 WITH my mother. There were far too many other years that I simply sent cards and/or flowers. Oh, to be…
There isn’t a year since my mother passed away that I don’t fight the urge to pick up the phone to call her. I wrote this post three years ago, and I feel the same today, wishing I could hear her voice again.
It has been (what feels like) forever ago since the last time I saw my Mom. Yet, it is difficult to believe that it will be four years next month since she passed from this earthly world.
On the eve of Mothers’ Day, I find myself thinking about the last Mothers’ Day that she was alive.
I flew down to California to spend a few days. She was still in a rehab facility, and we were trying to come up with a plan to get her back to her home.
I do not remember a lot about that day. In fact, my memories might be inaccurate, as I was making the trip down every couple of weeks to do what I could. Some of the details (below) about who was there and what all transpired is now a bit fuzzy for me.
I do remember that several of her friends and family…
I am just as guilty as the next person of not following through with what I say I want or will do. It is not easy to admit the truth of this, especially as I become irritated or “butt-hurt” for others doing the same. I suppose when it comes to others and how I react, it is directly tied to those experiences from many years ago.
Now, I can immediately hear some of you out there yelling, “Get over it already! Stop living in the past!”
I get it. I am yelling it with you. I do not always understand how the circumstances of the past can rear their ugly heads and grab me when I least expect it. Or maybe it is that I really do expect it?
I have vacillated throughout life between “ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away” mode and “look-at-it-dead-in-the-eye-and-take-it-on” mode. It is classic all-or-nothing behavior. And yet, it irritates me when I behave this way or I see it in others.
I believe that our past does not define us, but that it does influence us in ways that we do not always see or understand. But the beauty in being aware of our past is that we can choose to look at our own patterns of behavior as we relate to others and what we decide is important in our lives.
In these last few months, I have allowed myself to fall into a bit of a funk. I have allowed what certain others feel, think, and do to affect my own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
One of my automatic thoughts (of which I have been unaware) has been, “If they don’t care enough to (fill-in-the-blank), as they said they would, then why should I?”
What I now recognize is my reaction that I learned in my formative years. It bore deeply into my core, which has given me trouble throughout the years in feeling valued, and has transcended into a limiting belief that value comes from others and whether or not they treat me a certain way or follow through with me in a way that they say they will.
The worst part of it? I do it, too. Guilty. I have done it to others. AND I do it to myself.
Life is a series of lessons and awareness. Understanding our past, and taking responsibility for our current thoughts and behaviors will give us more tools and knowledge to help us as we move forward in our lives.
I am at a stage of life that I am growing weary of having to revisit some of the same lessons. If I am going to get “butt-hurt” at anyone for not doing what they will say they will do, I might as well look in the mirror. But even this guilt-move is fruitless.
Today is a new day to consciously follow-through with what I say that I will do.
And today starts with shaking off clouds of funk, taking a good look at what I have neglected, and getting showered, dressed, and out for an early morning walk.
Cute kittens are my enemies. I really don’t like them very much because they are insidious in the way they creep their way into my heart.
They do everything in their power to make me want to like them, acting as if they want me to adopt them. They offer humor, playfulness, occasional cuddling, and so many other things that make them so appealing.
But then… the evil little creatures prick me with their claws, they will rub all over me with their fur, they will sometimes lick my face or hands.
If these things happen I swell up with large bumps from the little claws, my eyes swell shut, my lungs decide to overreact, and I can end up in the hospital.
It’s easier if I just could learn to hate these little devils. Being allergic to them is my hell.
We all have encountered those who go on about how people “should” do this or that, citing common decency and religious values. However, they do not blink an eye when they act out the ugliness within their hearts, somehow able to justify the disparity in their messages from their behavior. I have always been extremely frustrated by those who have mastered talking the talk, but who will not walk the walk.
I do not claim perfection in my life. I know how easy it can be to make the wrong decisions. It is also true that none of us is perfect, and we will trip up from time-to-time.
However, if there is one thing I have learned in life is that I need to pay attention to do the right thing, even when no one is watching.
This also means that when people ARE watching, one does not have to amp it up in order to try to impress or compete. Many others will recognize it for what it truly is–ego-driven sanctimony.
All we encounter in life is an opportunity for us to learn and grow. I truly believe this to be truth. However, in the words of a wonderfully wise and dear friend, “…more that the lesson is (theirs) to learn, and (they refuse) to even consider the possibility. Whatever may come, don’t feel you must follow through…it’s OK to walk away…”
Perhaps, “walking the walk” is also learning to be okay with walking away.
BEYOND THE CHALLENGES OF LIFE 