Falling

There's something amazing about letting go of the outcome and learning how to be better at the Now.  The Here.  The During.

Falling takes you from one place to another place.

Whether it was an accident or a planned departure, a leap of faith or a calculated exit, a jump in with both feet or a heel slip over the edge.  Falling takes you somewhere.

Falling makes me feel isolated.  I'm all alone in this.  How did I get here?  When will it be over?  I don't always know what to look for when I'm trying to stop falling.  I  see people standing next to me in line, or sitting across the table from me and they look so still.  So grounded.  They don't even realize, that on the inside, I'm crashing right in front of them.

I tend to hold it all in.  I think I'm trying to protect people.  To preserve their joy.  And I absolutely am not helped by the, "It will all work out.  You'll be fine.  You'll get through this." comments.  I don't want people to feel bad for me.  That.  Does.  Not.  Help. 

I have started to write about falling.  That seems easier.  For me.  It's still isolated because I get to roll it all out at my own pace and it's less messy.  It took awhile for me to be ready to write about struggling because I was afraid of the half-hearted commentary again.  I shouldn't have been afraid.

The posts that I've written that have received the most comments are the ones about falls and struggles.  But readers didn't say, "You're strong, you'll be fine.  This will pass.  It will all work out."  They didn't say that.  They said, "Thank you for sharing.  I've been there.  I'm there now." 

And it helps.  But not for the reasons I expected.  It's quite amazing really. 

Sometimes, it seems to me, the help you find at the end of your own arm isn't there because you cried out for someone to save you.  More often the hand is there because that person was falling right along beside you.  They know how it feels.  They are there too and they simply extended their hand.  I'm down.  You're down.  But we're not out yet.  It's not over yet.

There's something amazing about letting go of the outcome and learning how to be better at the Now.

Leader

I lead...lots of things actually, but specifically, I lead a meeting every week.  A meeting that I used to attend, but now I lead it.  I stand up in front of them and say, "Come along.  This is the way."

A big part of the way I lead is to try and meet people where they are, before inviting them to come along.  You can't give good directions from way out in front.  You've got to get close to people.  It's quite frightening actually.  For me.  Close means honest.  Close means truth.  Close means real.  And close, in a small town, means no hiding.

Sometimes they ask me, "How do you do it?  How have you been successful?"

I don't always know how to answer.  Should I start with the big picture or the small picture?  The main idea or the details?

Leading someone somewhere is different from giving them a set of directions to follow.  When you're leading you've got to go along with them.  Out ahead of them, but not too far, or they'll lose sight of you and get lost.  Out ahead of them falling in the holes and tripping over the bumps but then having the knowledge to call back and say, "Watch out!  Don't do what I just did."

Leading someone somewhere means you get there first.  Sometimes just by an instant, but still first.



For me.  For this journey...I have arrived.  And now I lead others toward this place where they want to be.  It's hard and sometimes they quit.  But the honest thing I tell them when they ask me those hard questions is,

People don't quit because it's hard, they quit because they don't realize it's worth it.

Rocky

"Things have been a bit rocky lately."  

That's what we say when times are tough.  

It's been harder to get through the day.  Like a path that's difficult to walk on. 

Simply recognizing that the road is rocky means you've seen smoother times.

Rocky.  A rough road.  But not impassable.

Harder to walk through.  But possible to walk through.

Not something you'd want to have to do all the time.  But doable.

A road always leads somewhere.

 

Race

Behind every race is a story.   But I'm not going to fill up this space today with the whole story of my race.  I'm going to give you the short version.

The short version of the story is Yes.

Yes I will sign up.
Yes I will show up.
Yes I will line up.
Yes I will start.
Yes I will keep going, even when it feels like I can't go anymore.
Yes I will cross the finish line.
Yes I will not let that be the end.

Yes is the short version of my race story.

Yes is the short version of many great stories.

It's not about winning.  It's about finishing.  There were 237 women who crossed the finish line before I did.  There were more than a thousand women who followed me across the finish line.  There are countless women who never said Yes.

Family

Where did I come from?  My parents?  My parents’ parents?  Their parents?   Was it a place?  Was it always that place?  Or maybe a time?  Or the time before that time?  Who is my family?  What’s their story?  Is it a name?  Was it always that name?  What was the name before that name?  Before that?

How far back in my lineage do I have to go before nobody knows?  I’ve been pretty far down that list of names and dates.  We’ve got people in our family who know all of it.  I’ve gone far enough back to realize I don’t care how far back someone knows something about somebody.  Far enough back to realize that’s only part of the story? 

No matter how long the story is, no matter how much of it is known…it’s only the first part.

What brought me here and where am I going?  I’m learning painfully scraping along the journey of releasing, without forgetting, where I came from.  And all of a sudden there are new things I can do.  Things that I didn’t think I was supposed to be able to do.  Because of where I came from.  Things I didn’t know I wanted to do.  Because of where I came from.  

There’s the family I came from, and the family I made.  The man I chose and those precious children?  We made them.  They are of us.  We are of them.  These things we made are making us into who we are. 

That’s the next part of the story. 

I left one family.  And made another.  That’s just simply the way it’s done. 

As if any family ever gets made any other way.

Dynamite

So they set out to build a road.  A road to pave the way.  To pave the way to places that had never been explored.  They packed everything they could think of to help them on their journey.  It was going to be epic.

They had no idea what was out there.  So much ground to cover.  So many challenges to encounter.  Deserts that threatened to lay them bare. Jungles that nearly swallowed them up.  Trees to step around. Animals to run from.  Wide open spaces where it seemed like nothing could possibly grow.  Thick tangled messes where it seemed like nothing could possibly pass.

And there were amazing treasures to behold.  Unobstructed sunsets unlike anything they had ever seen.  Glittering rivers that held more bounty than they could believe.  Amazing scenes that they could never forget.

So they made their way.  To pave the way.  The lot of them with their baggage.  They hauled their equipment for making the way.  Day after day.  And left a ribbon of road stretching out behind them.  That others could follow.

Until one day they came to a huge mountain.  It loomed over them. An immovable obstacle.  And the Captain of the group said, "This is unlike anything we have seen before, but we must pave the way.  We must go forward.  We must go over."

So the men strapped their equipment to their backs.  They loaded their heavy baggage and headed up the mountain to pave the way.  But they could not move ahead.  They lightened their load.  But they still made no progress.  It was one step forward and two steps back.  One of the crew said, "Captain, we are not equipped to climb this mountain.  We do not have the right tools.  We do not have the right experience."

And the Captain proclaimed, "We cannot go over.  But we cannot go back.  We must go around.  Let us find a way around.”

So the group traveled east for days and days.  And the mountains got taller and taller.  And there did not seem to be a way around.  One of the men said to the Captain, "This cannot be the way.  We must go back to where we started and try the other way."

So they retraced their steps to the place where they had first met the obstacle and they tried the western route.  More mountains.  And endless chain of the same overwhelming obstacles met them at each step.  They had traveled for many days and nights when one of the men said, “Captain we have gone so far and we have not made any progress.  We have gone from east to west and side to side.  We have walked for days and days but we have not gone forward.  We have not paved the way.”

The Captain was defeated.  He said, “This mountain cannot be conquered.  Maybe this is the end of our journey.  Maybe this is the place we are supposed to be.”

And there was a tiny voice from the back of the group that said, “Captain, there is another way.”

“What is this way?  There does not seem to be another way.”

And a young man came forward with a box that read TNT.

“Captain.  This box contains something amazing that will let us go through the mountain.” said the young man.

 

And the company laughed.

 

“Boy, you have no experience!” 

 

“Ha!  What do you know?”

 

“You have been nowhere.  Done nothing!  This cannot possibly be true.”

“Nobody goes through a mountain.”

And the young man said, “I assure you Captain.  The contents of this box will allow us to go through the mountain.  It will take down parts of this mountain.  It will be destructive and I cannot imagine the perils that await us on the inside, but if we are careful, and we learn as we go, we can make our way through to the other side.”

The Captain said, “Boy!  We have had this box all long and you said nothing?”

“Yessir.   We did not need this box the cross the river.  We did not need this box to cross the desert. The contents of this box would not have made the sunsets more beautiful or helped us to gather the treasures along the way.  We have not needed it yet.  But we have had it all along.  Yes.  And we need it now.”

So they began to go through the mountain.  It was slow.  And it was treacherous.  The men were terrified and the way was dark.  But it was forward.  And that felt good, because they had not been moving forward for a long time.

Before they knew it the first cracks of light began to show.  And the cracks became beams of sun and the beams became spaces to gaze through.  When they finally emerged from the other side of the mountain they looked back on the immovable obstacle that had stalled their progress for so long.  

The Captain proclaimed, “That is one huge mountain.”

And the young man said, “No sir, actually, now it has become just one more thing we had to get through.”

What is your mountain?

What have you carried with you all this way 

that will make that mountain 

just one more thing you’ve got to get through?

Laugh

 

I know this woman.  Not terribly well, but I do know her.  I follow her posts on Facebook and I have actually spent time with her.  In person.  

 

This woman.  This mother, wife, friend.  I rarely see her laugh.  That bubble up, burst out explosion of air that speaks joy without words.  The break in a calm facade that starts with a wrinkle of your nose and sneaks out, head thrown back, that's funny!

 

It makes me sad that I cannot call to mind a time in our recent history when I recall her laughter.  So.  Sad.  She has funny things in her life, I'm sure.  Happy people.  Time.  

 

I think perhaps, these days, she is missing the one thing you cannot laugh without.

 

Breath.

 

 

 

The following excerpt has been reposted from its original location on TheMiddleBit.blogspot.com in July of 2010 because I found myself writing the same essay all over again.  And that didn't seem necessary.

 

"You can hold your breath, 

but you cannot pretend you don't breathe."

                                        -me

Even as he speeds back to me I can feel myself clawing towards the surface.  Mouth gaping in a silent scream.  Chest burning, ready to explode with my need for air.  The harder I push the father away it seems.  He's been gone for weeks now...the Father, my partner, my Love, my air... and I've been holding my breath.  Blah, blah, blah...I can function without him here, yes.  But it's not natural.  You can hold your breath.  I can hold my breath.  It is my choice.  My ability.  Yes. 

I'm better at it than I used to be.  That's how it is with learning to hold your breath.  The more you practice, the better you get at it.  The longer you can go without air.  So yes.  I can go longer these days.  I'm better at it.  But it keeps getting harder too.

Because now it's not just me.  It's me and three little girls.  And the part time job.  And the house guests.  And the old black dog.  And the new puppy...what was I thinking?  Oh that's right, I wasn't thinking...thinking is a non-essential function when you're just trying to make your breath last longer.  I've learned that if I stop doing all sorts of things...like cooking, and reading, and shopping, and blogging... while I hold my breath, I can go longer before I start clawing towards the surface.

We do hold our breath sometimes.  We do dip just below the surface for a time and go without the things we need, because by doing that we gain something.  We can be enveloped by that water that lets us fly as long as we know at some point we're going to have to come up for air.  Because that same liquid that supports our unburdened flight, can also become too much.  If we stay too long it can swallow us up just as easily as it lets us fly.  You can take steps to stay beneath the surface, to go without air.  You can learn to live differently.  But even the fish needs air.  If you're going to live, you need air.  You need the things you need.  To be yourself.  And having him here is a big part of being me.

So now he's back, the one I needed, and I'm not holding my breath any longer.  But I'm not breathing easy yet.  No, not yet. Because when you do break the surface, and take the breath you've been dying for, it's not just a breath.  It's a gasp.  Deep.  Frantic maybe.  A bit of taking in as much as you possibly can because you've gone without.  And that can be both good and bad.  It takes some time for my breathing to return to normal when I've gone without air for so long.  I was doing just fine here without him, as unnatural as that was, just fine.  Restricting my movements, less of everything, just so I could make my breath last.  And now my gasping to have my needed one back is a new struggle.  I need him to do all those things I wasn't doing while I survived.  And do them quickly.  Now!  Please.  Faster.  More.  Now that I have my breath back there's no limit to what needs to be done.  Right?  Wrong.  It takes some time for the breathing to return to normal.  Just give it time.  Catch your breath.  Breathe easy because pretty soon you're going to do it again.

 

"You can hold your breath, 

but you cannot pretend you don't breathe."

                                        -me

  

 

 

...and when you're holding your breath...you cannot laugh either.  Exhale my friend.  Exhale.

  

Change

What’s that glass jar full of Mom?

Change.

What’s change Mom?

You know…nickels, dimes, quarters, pennies.  It’s called small change.

It doesn’t look small Mom.  It kind of looks like a lot to me.  You could really buy something with all that.

I guess you’re right.  When you put it all together it is a lot.

Wisdom.  From the mouth of the child.  Small change.  The parts of our dollars that are just leftovers.  Collected in the bottom of the washing machine or the cushions of the couch.  Forgotten.  Not enough to do much with…

Unless you start collecting.  And the small change begins to add up.  To quite a lot actually.

Small change.  Like...well jeez, your pants are too short, it’s time for new shoes, you need your bangs trimmed again, your library bag is so heavy today.  You roll them all into the days and weeks as they go past.  Minor adjustments and tiny accomplishments.  Not much by themselves.  But then they start to add up and omigosh your baby’s not a baby anymore.

What about each small change we make in our life?  When we are on a path of making ourselves into something new.  Those little shifts in behavior.  Those insignificant differences.  Many of them are forgotten as they fold into the daily routine of our lives. They don’t seem like much on their own.

Unless you start collecting.  And those small changes begin to add up.  To something you can really do something with.  To quite a lot actually.

Maybe at first small change will barely fill your hand.  But if you start collecting, someday you won’t be able to hold it all in.    

Uniform

Uniform.  Same.  Or perhaps all alike but not the same.  Uniformity is not conformity.  No it is certainly not.

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become?  Do we rise to the standard of our uniform?  Or choose it because we have already achieved a certain standard?  A sameness.  Does your uniform say who you are?  Or do you say who you are by the uniform you choose? 

 

I’m not resolved on my idea this week…and this is possibly certainly why my essay is 5 days late.  I was overwhelmed by references to uniforms this week.  I kept changing my mind about what I thought.  Where to start?  How to finish?

So…a story of two pilots as a start.  And then a bit of a rant.  Because they really do seem to be about the same thing. 

The first time I met my sister’s husband, he was in his uniform…his flight suit…a bag, I believe they call it.  He was instantly US Airforce, badass fighter pilot, Maverick and Goose (and yes, I know they were Marines), academy and polish, and all the other bits rolled into one.  He was only his uniform because I didn’t know him.  He has spent the last 13 years becoming something else to me.  Husband, father, Christian, grill master, late night beer runner, boater, Wolverine fan (yuck), and all the other bits rolled into one.  It’s kind of wild how he started as a uniform and became something else.

The first time I met my friend Tammy she was sitting cross legged on the floor of a Community Ed center where our two youngest children were attending a Mommy and Me class.  Dressed to the nines in sparkly coral wedges and this flashy yellow raincoat she was instantly classy and polished, mommy of boys and caring parent (I mean she was on the floor after all), and all the other bits rolled into one.  That’s what she was when I met her and since then she has added foodie, mother of a daughter, fun wife, power shopper and master party host to her list of designations.  Well, last Monday she came around the corner in the hallway of her very sparkly home in her other uniform.  Her pilot’s uniform.  Pressed and buttoned up.  Gold bars and shiny buttons.  I just kept staring at her.  I was trying to be covert…but there was staring.  It was wild how she started out as one thing to me and instantly became something else.  She was really that thing all along. 

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become? 

   

I don’t wear a uniform to do my job…but I do have standards.  Of dress.  And grooming.  And behavior.  I was ranting just the other day about a fellow shopper in my local grocery store.  It was 10am on a Tuesday and she was there with her two children so presumably she was in the first shift of her very noble job as a SAHM.  (That’s Stay At Home Mom for you uninitiated.)  Grocery cart full of produce.  Reasonably well behaved urchins.  Coupon accordion file opened in the cart.  Nice.  However, this rant was about the fact that this woman was in her pajamas.  She felt that it was appropriate to go to work on this particular Tuesday bra-less in a lacy tank top, fleece pants with pink monkeys on them, fuzzy slippers and a scrunchie.  This.  I.  Do.  Not.  Understand.  She was out of uniform.  We SAHMs don’t even have a uniform!  But if we did, this would not be it!

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become?  Do we rise to the standard of our uniform?  Or choose it because we have already achieved a certain standard?  A sameness.  Does your uniform say who you are?  Or do you say who you are by the uniform you choose? 

I do not know.