Hi All,

Tonite is Monday night. I have not written in so long. I have been so busy with work, additional responsibilities and cool challenges that I think I've been coming home too tired to write or think. Well to some extent the dust has settled and here I am. I find myself back writing tonite because just today I learned about a dear friend's family members recent suicide attempt. Hearing that this young person had been close to attempting suicide really drove home to me how many people besides just my Dad struggled with this depression, this pain, this loneliness. I just sat there with my friend who was so very sad and felt sad with her. Sad for her pain, for his pain, for my Dad's pain, for mine. Sad that our loved ones felt so alone and in pain and that both of us in many ways were and are powerless to change that.

I thought about how we all can feel so alone sometimes and we go along feeling our unique aloneness until we walk straight into someone who feels just like we do. For me, I've had this experience over and over. I just keep walking into other people who have lost people that they love too. Sometimes they too have lost people to suicide and other times they have just lost people that they love and miss them, just like me. More and more often I wish we could all just give each other a hug and be nice to each other--knowing without having to hear the specific stories that each of us has our own story, pain, and inevitably loss.

Tonite I wanted to scream from my rooftop to this young kid...hey, my friend loves you. Heck, I love you. Life is painful and hard but we need you. I dont even know this kid and I feel like I need him. I mean, I do To the extent that we are all connected this kid is my kid. A struggling teenager who feels sad and lost and doesnt see how in a day, a week, a month he might begin to feel different. I think of starting a hotline where I will answer calls all day and convince sad people to not give up. A house where I will wear all white and walk clean and barefoot thru polished wood floors where sad and broken people will be loved, will heal. I think of my polished place in stark contrast to the Emergency Room. In stark contrast to Psych Wards.

I think about how in my white robes I can just let people be sad, and give them good food, and make them listen to good music, and walk outside, and draw, or paint or look at paintings. I think about bringing babies and young children in too to my big polished wood house and we could all wear white and just love each other. People who are addicted could stop. People who are broken could mend. And then when they were all better they could stay and live with us and help us help more people. We just be human together and be nice to each other. It's sad to think about how often I think about this place but it's my place and I'm not giving up hope for us yet. xxxK

Be Careful

Hi All,

It came to me right when I was tucking them in tonight--the idea: it is not about keeping them from getting hurt. It is not about keeping them safe. I thought it was but I was wrong.

I grew up afraid often. Some of this was a cautious temperament and some of this was being the first child to parents who had lost many children. I had a strong sense of the importance of being careful. The importance of not getting hurt was palpable. It makes perfect sense. After loss the fragility of life is top of mind. Be safe. Be careful.

I grew up in this way. Trying to be safe. I didn't think about in a totally conscious sort of way. I was a kid, I laughed, I ran around, I rode my bike but it was always there...be careful. I was told frequently the story of how as a toddler I had meandered my way to the basement stairs while my parents trimmed our Christmas tree that first year of my life and how my Mom came upon just in time to watch me fall all of the way down them. She said that if she hadn't called me name, "Karen!" and scared me that she felt I might not have fallen. It's clear to me and I am sure anyone reading this that the person who got the most hurt from that fall was the person who watched it. The kid who actually fell, me, has no memory of any of it.

40 years later, with my own children past toddlerhood I think about that story. I think about fear and my new understanding of just what shapes fear and the impact that it causes on those we are afraid for. The message is clear. Do not get hurt. Be careful. The world is something to be afraid of.

For years I complained, laughed, yelled, rolled my eyes or otherwise remarked about my Dad's constant concern for my well being. Call me when you get there. Call me when you are halfway there. Make sure you stop. Stop at every rest area. Don't get tired. Be careful. The world is something to be afraid of.

My kids at the moment are now asleep and tucked in. They are safe. I feel this way that at this time I can relax because they are safe. I can let my guard down now. I've done my job. I got them thru this...this scary life.

And then it occurred to me. I might have been wrong. Maybe it is about more then keeping them safe. Maybe it is about protecting them from the fear. My fear. Our real demon, and truthfully what could damage them more than the outside world. This idea: The world is something to be afraid of.

I lost my Dad to a scary illness. My Dad lost his Mother to the same scary illness. Both my Dad and I share the same legacy of sudden and acute pain. I understand where his desire to keep me safe came from. He just couldn't lose someone else and he was going to do everything within his power to insure he didn't. My anger at his lack of confidence in me was always there. Don't you trust me? Don't you think I can do this? He once said to me, I'm not afraid of what you will do, I'm afraid of what someone else will do. I don't judge him. I get it. I just wish I could have made him see then that believing in someone means believing that they will be able to handle what life throws at them. Ultimately, I guess he knew I could handle quite a bit and he got free of his fear in the only way he knew how.

The trick might be in not instinctively protecting my children from my own darkness and fear. Not hiding it or keeping secrets, but not acting on it either. Laughing. Feeling fear and trusting the world anyway and letting them watch the entire time. The next time I think "Be Careful"--I swear I am going to say "Have Fun." That's called breaking a cycle. xxxK



 

What I Know

Throughout my life I have heard the "write what you know" line. I've heard it so many times that sometimes I actually think, while writing, do I know this? What's true? What's my truth? I tried to write a post last night about the sudden loss of a friend of mine and I tried in that post to break down why it sucked so bad to lose her and why loss in general sucks so bad. I think I wrote it kind of well but I got lost in it and realized it got kind of weird and inauthentic. I felt like I was writing for an audience and not for my truth and I really don't like the way those kinds of post end up sounding which, to me, is usually kind of cliché and vague.

The real truth about sudden loss, for me, right now is that it becomes a part of one big loss and feels like someone ripped a Band-Aid off without asking me first. I know it may sound selfish or inappropriate to say that this loss somehow reminded me of my Dad, but its the truth, it did. I got kicked in the mouth again with the truth that people can die at any time and sometimes when we are not at all prepared for it. It's scary and sad and confusing to try to peal away the loss of my Dad from the loss of a friend from the loss of famous actor I liked. It's just loss. It's just fear. It's just powerlessness. And again my own difficulty with accepting life on life's terms even when I think the terms are fucked up and don't make sense.

Also, I think loss points a light on the things  in my life that are not going how I want. I think...life is short, what am I doing wasting time doing x. I don't have time to waste. I need to be doing more x. Less x. Etc. I end up feeling so darn sad. I guess I cant figure out what I should be doing more or less of. I just feel that it should all mean something. That it should count in some big picture way.

On Monday night I was helping Hazel make a mailbox for Valentine's. It was due the next day and she had woken up that morning crying that we had forgotten and I had forgotten. I reassured her that we would make a great mailbox that night and we did. As I was scrambling around after work in 5 degree weather to buy the stuff we needed I felt so discouraged. I felt like I try hard to do good work that helps others but that that Monday it was just futile and both my clients and my kid got the short end. I felt sorry for myself and for them simultaneously. I drove home ate dinner and then we began the birdhouse mailbox. There was a glue gun that I borrowed from a coworker, a bird, lots of red glitter, hearts, sequins someone gave us, markers. Hazel and I worked on it together and I hung in there for making it just like she wanted it. I burnt my fingers on the glue gun w the sequins. I repeatedly stopped myself from directing how it should be done, color coordinated, or made. Essentially I shut up for once and let her do it with me doing what she needed help with, like using the hot glue. It came out sweet and imperfect and sort of beautiful. We had this big talk about how it was ok if she didn't win an award because we both liked it and thought it was great.

Then after learning of my friend's death, having to deal with the police and very sad and scared children, I got a call from Craig that Hazel had won an award for her mailbox. She won "most creative." He said she was really happy and excited and that it was great. I hung up the phone and there was moment just sitting there where I felt ok, I felt good. It was the sweet spot--that's about all I know.

Happy New Year

Hi All,

Today is Monday and it's January 6. I've had trouble getting to my computer to write lately. I guess to be more accurate I just haven't wanted to get to my computer to write. I don't know why exactly. Maybe I just got sick of examining my grief or my life. As someone who is a compulsive examiner this is...new? concerning? both? neither? I honestly don't know. I've tried to be honest in my writing in this blog. I've tried to write how I feel and not consider how my feelings sound or seem to anyone except myself. So, that said, I think I got sick of my feelings for a while. I felt bad when I wasn't writing because I worried maybe there are people who read this to see if I am ok and wonder when I don't post but then I realized that I cant write for anyone except me. I seem to be selfish like that.

Anyway, that said, I seem to want to hear myself again or examine myself. The anniversary of my Dad's death was monumental in my healing it seems and in some strange ways closed a door that I couldn't quite shut before then. I don't really know what the door was. I don't know what the door meant. I don't know if will open again either. It is a new door and it is a mystery door. I know that for sure. My new mystery door is a trap door, a sliding door, a screen door, a rock solid wooden door, a glass door, a hidden door, and sometimes, maybe, a locked door. I have tried my best to learn all about this door. I have tried to lock it. I have tried to figure out how to unlock it. Truth be told, I cant seem to do either predictably. Sometimes I think the door is gone and then something happens, I hear a song, and the door is swung wide open.

Where does my door lead me? Does it move me forward or backward if I go inside and follow it. I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter because every time the door opens I find myself propelled inside of it, sometimes falling, sometimes walking, sometimes skipping, and sometimes, feeling my way around looking for light a light switch and hoping I don't get hurt before I find it.

The times I have felt closest to my Dad over the holidays were when I was doing things that I felt he would be proud of or enjoy too. During these times he was just my Dad and I didn't have his death right there in front. I just had him in front. These are good times. Good doors that I am happy to enter.Other times when I'm reminded of his death, when people talk about suicide, or when I cross bridges, or when something else triggers that idea. That is the trap door. I have fallen down it so many times that it is no longer that scary. I guess even trap doors get predictable once you fall down them enough.

Really, I guess that's the magic in healing. Not that the doors to pain or sadness disappear but that we learn where they are and we learn where they go. We learn that we can survive the fall because we do. We learn that we can walk inside and not break because we do walk inside and we don't break. It's painful falling. It hurts and it is scary and, trust me when I tell you that I understand how you might want to avoid it so much that you don't even go inside yourself anymore because you are too scared. The problem is that we have to go inside ourselves or we get lost. If we don't live inside of ourselves where then do we live? We live only on the outside of ourselves then. We live superficially, externally, and we begin...slowly to lose ourselves and then to lose everyone else too. So, I guess, I'm just here reporting back from my journey to say that I'm here and I'm ok.
xxK