Joy

 When all that's left is the shell of what once was, where is the joy?  

When all you hear is the clamoring and the bickering, who speaks of joy?  

When everywhere you look there is damage, how can you find joy?  

This is the truth of where we find ourselves.

Surrounded by wreckage. 

...after a December Friday with so much loss.  The wreckage is sacred ground.  

And someday the rebuilding will have to begin.  

Love and joy are the foundation blocks.

My own child asked me, "Will they have Christmas in Connecticut this year?"  

I started to respond with a complicated, adult type of answer.  An answer wrapped up with all of my grown up baggage about motherhood and love, mental illness and being safe at school, holidays and how hard it is to struggle with loss.  

And then I stopped.

Answer the question you have been asked.

"Yes, Love.  They will have Christmas in Connecticut this year."

Love and joy are the foundation blocks.

A father in Newtown was asked, "Can your town recover from this?"

He replied, "We're going to have to.  We have so many children left."

Yes

Yes is not maybe.

Yes is not I'll try.

Yes is not I might.

Yes is not probably.

Yes is not possibly.

Yes is not perhaps.

Yes is not it could be.

Yes is not there's pretty good chance.

Yes is not it's likely.

So many other words to choose from...

don't say yes unless you mean it.

Yes is I will.

Yes is I am.

Yes is I do.

Yes is yes.

 

Wicked

It's a tragic story really...

A troubled teen wildly overreacts to the empty threats of an elderly neighbor and runs away from home.  No mention is ever made of her parents contacting the local authorities or making any attempt to locate their missing child so we are left to assume she was unwanted to begin with.  She encounters some catastrophic weather and loses conciousness for an unknown period of time when she hits her head during the storm.  Upon waking, she discovers that she has unknowkingly committed a homicide during her blackout.

She is pursued by the grieving relative of the deceased and receives a tip from a local charlatan about a man that can help her get out of town quickly.  Walking the dizzying streets of this unfamiliar city, she is serenaded by some suckers singing about a world made of doughnut holes, attacked in the woods and ultimately duped into joining a gang of hoodlums who it turns out are victims of organ trafficking and psychological warfare.  They too are directed towards this local ring leader who might know how to procure them some replacement organs.

After several encounters with dangerous wildlife and an opium trip that lasts for an undetermined amount of time, the teen and her gang locate the residence of the man they seek.  The plan to flee the city undetected nearly fails when he is exposed as an imposter and turns out to be a completely incompetent imbecile that tries to distract the teen from his deception by suggesting she ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes by bashing the heels together and destroying the red glitter.

Then she wakes up and it turns out it was all a dream.  Or a bad trip.  The truth is perfectly unclear.

Things are not always what they seem.  Are they Dorothy?

Wicked right?

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.

 

Focus

To focus.  This was the job for this week.  To get caught up on the late posts, think about the current post and plan for the coming weeks.  To focus.  Good plan.

But then it was Saturday and college football was on and I was lured away from the computer by the blow of a referee's whistle.  I got distracted.  But when I went to the TV and tried to focus on the game, I was distracted again.  By the fact that one team was outfitted entirely in pink sneakers.  And the other team was sporting pink gloves.  And the refs were all wearing pink hats.  And the coaching staffs, of both teams had on pink visors.  And I could no longer focus on the game.  Or the blog posting.  I was distracted.  Again.

The pink hose down of October brings up an annual rant for me, and for this I do not apologize.  This year, instead of my classic rant about month 10 of every year being coated in pink, I am going to pick a new fight.


Ahhh Facebook.  Either you love it or you hate it, but if you are a user, then be ready...the suggestions to post a status are coming.  I guarantee it.  It's October and the world seems to think we need a particular focus this month.  The posting suggestions will come in the form of a silly game asking you to reveal your bra color in your status or to look up your birth month and your favorite candy bar or to disclose where you hang your purse when you walk in the door.  All in the name of shocking people or making them laugh to raise breast cancer awareness.

Pay attention.  Bring to the forefront.  Heighten awareness.

Have you played these games in the past?  Because that's what they are...games...and cancer is not a game.  If you feel the sting of my words just a bit...that's just fine with me...I meant that.

Here's my question...

If you played the game, how exactly was your awareness of breast cancer raised?  Did you post about your favorite candy craving and then go donate a dollar to your favorite breast cancer charity?  Did you wink wink about getting dirty in the foyer and then call your gynecologist to schedule a mammogram?  Did the color of your bra make you more aware?  Did it focus your attention?  At all?

A stop sign raises awareness too.  It proclaims boldly, in red, that you'd better pay attention Sweetie.  There's something coming at you from any given direction that can kill you if you don't stop here and focus a bit on your situation.

You wouldn't blow through a stop sign with a smug nod and a joke about a fake pregnancy.  You don't creep into a busy intersection displaying your bra color or talking about hooking your bag on the banister.  You stop.  You focus.

Do you realize how ineffective it is for me to tell you about my brassiere?  Does the fact that its blue today make you stop in your tracks and look in every direction because there is this thing called breast cancer and it may very well be coming at you from any direction and it can kill you so you should stop and focus.  Be aware.  My brassiere doesn't make you aware.

Well here's the stop sign ladies.

Go ahead and play the game.

But make sure you focus on the point.








Once you see what is possible, what could happen, even if only for an instant, you can't not see it anymore.  Ever.  It is sharply in focus.  It doesn't have to stay your focus.  But you can never not know.  My acidity with regard to this subject is not necessarily shared by my sister and co-contributor of this blog.  But that's what last week's post was about.