On To 2021!

Pay close attention now. 
Start gradually moving towards the exits in small groups. 
Make no sudden movements. 
No loud noises. 

Don't. Touch. Anything.
The last person out, please close the door carefully and quietly behind you. 
If we do it right, 2020 won't notice us leaving until it's too late to try to follow us into the new year.

Yup, it's been a humdinger of a year. It's not the hardest I've lived through, but it is the one where I've had the most company in my attempts to keep an uncertain balance as things kept tipping around me. This time, most of the world is keeping me company as the planet does its wobbly spin. (There are definitely those who would beg to differ. Kate's dog, Sylvester, for one. He thinks it's been the best year ever! The people were home A LOT. He got lots of walks and hugs and consistent attention. He is now less anxious, more playful, better behaved. His life is GOOD.)

A few years back, I was in a stuck spot, and tried to imagine how life would be some nine months out. I thought things would be better, calmer, easier. I couldn't have been more wrong, and part of me is still convinced I jinxed the outcome by trying to skip over the hard parts I knew were between where I was and where I wanted to be. So I try not to do that anymore.

I think, when I look back on this year, it'll feel like one long detour; a convoluted journey down a side road which somehow managed to land me right close to where I started. There were interesting sights along the way - not the ones I'd anticipated, but good ones all the same. There were hurdles and dry spots and ice cream and moments of joy.

But in many ways, I feel as if I'm right back in the liminal space where I started the year, on the bridge between the known shape of my life as it was and the possibilities of the new shape it will morph into during the coming days. (Staying in the old shape is not one of my options.) I'm doing my best to look forward to those possibilities, to let go of the mighta, coulda, shouldas which arise when I spend too much time gazing back down the road I've just finished traveling.

I've gotten a good head start on moving on this past week. The quiet isn't as overwhelming today as it was the first few days after they moved out. I'm kind of liking the part where it stays clean(er). The cats are doing their job - they've given me something to fuss over, keep the house from staying too tidy, and come to purr at me at random intervals, so I don't feel too lonely. My days are managing to fill themselves with worthwhile things.

That's not such a bad place to start a new year.
Here's to a less interesting 2021!

Christmas Present

Merry Christmas!

This year, I've received the usual slew of Christmas letters from organizations I support. Their flavor has been different from the usual, as they address the uncertainty of these COVID times. My favorite included a new (to me) poem from John O'Donohue:

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

His words speak to my heart.

This will not be my first quiet Christmas.

Unlike many people I know, I will not spend it completely on my own. The kids moved on to their new place just a week ago - that's close enough for me to still include them in my COVID bubble. They will come over later today for the traditional John Christmas lasagna dinner. (Honorary Italians that we are...)

They won't stay long, we need to work around the baby's sleep schedule, but they will be here and that adorably stinkin' cute toddler will fill my heart with his presence. I will get to see him tear some wrapping paper, see if he pays any attention at all to the contents of the packages he opens. He will bring with him the promise of a good time to come where the air will be kind and blushed with beginning. 

Tomorrow, which I will spend alone, I will try to hold onto that promise, use it to kindle my own hesitant light. It's been an interesting week. I feel much the same mixture of churning emotions I did when I first sent my kids off to college. Joy mixed with sadness, leavened with pride and a bit of fear.

I've worked hard on the castle this past year. I'm not sure how one sends a house off to school, but my mixed feelings around letting go extend to the building. My hands have been an essential part of the effort to grant her a new life; to bring her back from the brink of falling apart at the seams. I am proud of the work I did. Almost all of my time since April has been spent there and it will take some time to shift gears, to begin to figure out (again!) how I want to spend my days; what I want to do when I grow up.

I will do my best not to let the wire brush of doubt scrape my heart as I work to find my sense of self; to find a new balance in my life. I get to start just after winter's solstice, with the promise of light returning. I get to start at Christmas time, with its story of new life in the darkness.

I get to start again - a chance stolen from too many this year by the blasted virus - and will, after lying low to the wall until the bitter weather passes.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas Past

We finally got a few days of honest winter around here last week. No snow, but cold enough that I needed a real winter coat to venture outside. The sky was gray, the air crisp, the smell of the cold reminded me of home.

I stepped outside the other night to walk over to a (properly socially distanced and COVID-aware) holiday gathering, and was transfixed by the beauty of the neighborhood. People have outdone themselves around here to decorate their houses; the lights are varied and beautiful and speak to me of hope for better days to come.

As I walked home after our lovely gathering, I took a trip down memory lane.

I remembered a cold Christmas Eve, coming home from mass.  My rear was freezing cold as I sat in the back of the station wagon, but my heart was full as we headed home to open our gifts. We were all there, old enough to know how to sing in parts, and sing we did. I can still hear the sound of the old carols. Mom on the melody - her strong voice carrying the tune, Dad's low, growly, off-key voice riding along. Tony on tenor, Julie and I on alto, and the everyone else singing as the spirit nudged. Surely the angels rejoiced along with us that long ago evening.

I remembered another Christmas. Mom made Julia, Colleen and I matching floor-length flannel nightgowns that year. All I'd wanted for Christmas was a Giggles doll, and Santa had been able to find one for me. It was one of my life's best moments (so far). That Christmas morning, as I sat amidst the debris from the wrappings of gifts for eight kids was strewn about the floor, covered in soft warmth from neck to wrists to toes, playing with the doll I'd wanted so badly, but hadn't expected to receive, I was happy. Completely happy.

Today, too many of those faces are gone; I'll not see their smiles again. The hair of those of us who remain is better kempt than it was that morning, but thinner and tending towards gray. Time has etched its mark on our faces. It matters not. The joy of those distant moments lives on.

As I finished my walk and arrived back home in the present day, I carried the memory of joy through the door and into my waiting bed. I slept a good sleep that night, my mind and heart still partway back in the time-place before I knew deep sorrow. 

While I can't stay there in the past, it's good to know I can visit once in a while. It's good to see their faces and hear their voices once again. 

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams....

Grief Storm

Saturday had all the necessary ingredients to be a good day.

I started the day with a massage - a good, deep-tissue, 90 minute relaxation session - then came home to take a post-massage nap. After I woke up, I went over to the castle, and walked in just in time to hear the "whoosh" of the burners as Albert worked out the last of the installation kinks that he'd been fighting for almost three days, and fired up the new boiler. We'd managed to get it in before the temps dropped low enough for long enough to bring the house down to freezing; the plumbing and the plants were safe. *huge sigh of relief*

So, why did a random comment from my brother a few hours later - that the castle's problems will very shortly not be my problems - have me running from the place one short step ahead of a storm of tears?

I was fit company for no one that evening as the storm raged in my soul. Fortunately for the health of my relationships, I was alone as I fixed and ate dinner. I texted the kids to let them know food was ready if they wanted it, but didn't want to talk to anyone. I was unaccountably angry, and any words I would have said would have been hurtful.

After I ate, I sat down on the sofa under a blanket with a glass of wine, put on a headset, and listened to my favorite calming music on repeat. I took out my journal and proceeded to try to figure out what was lurking beneath my over-reaction to an innocent (and true) comment. It took me a while, but I finally managed to dig on down to the real reason I was crying.

Turns out the answer was:  Libby.

My heart follows the rhythm of the seasons closely. I hadn't been watching the calendar, but it had, and the day after tomorrow will mark the second anniversary of her death. The tie-in to Ted's remark isn't overly clear to me, but I'm pretty sure it goes along with the fact that none of the problems she had before she got sick are still her problems. She's beyond problems.

I carry a good-sized chunk of survivor's guilt - why is she dead while I am still alive? Why her and not me? We share many of the same genetics. Why was my cancer the sort that could be beat into remission and hers the type that, despite early detection and good care, bulldozed an unstoppable path through her systems?

My kids are grown, hers still need her.

Not right, not fair.

I didn't try to stop or avoid the swirl of emotions. I just kept writing, naming the feelings as they surfaced and acknowledging their presence. Eventually, several hours later, the winds calmed, leaving my eyes and heart sore but also more at peace.

It's not right and it's not fair. But near as I can ascertain, what's right and fair have very little to do with who dies when in this world. Maybe someday I will learn the whys behind the reasons I'm still here and she is gone, but none of us gets out of this alive and the best thing I can do to honor her is to live the days I have.

Libby, I miss you. lots. Where ever it is your spirit has travelled, I hope you are happy and at peace. I hope you're having fun.  Love you....... ... .. .