Month: January 2023

There is a tiny yellow crocus in this picture left of the big tree, taken January 21.

I suffered needlessly recently all because I was afraid of what others might think of me. I thought I was long past that kind of suffering and well able to speak up for myself and ask for help.

Apparently, I’m not.

I was donating platelets for the first time. It’s a process that takes about two hours sitting in a chair with a needle in each elbow. Blood is taken out of your body, platelets removed, and then recirculated back into your body. The blood going back in has cooled quite a bit, thus causing shivers. I was too timid to ask for an extra blanket. All the nurses and technicians were so busy, rushing here and there. I suffered through more besides being cold—pain, numbness, dizziness. I didn’t want to come off like a nagging prima donna, so I didn’t speak up right away.

While it may have been true that they ought to have been more attentive, it is equally true that I didn’t take care of myself either. I allowed myself to suffer to the point of unbearableness and accumulated a well of resentment while doing so, hoping someone would notice my suffering and come to my rescue without my having to ask for help.

I have spent my life waiting for others to pay attention to me, to take care of me, to notice when I am vulnerable and need care. I expected my mother to take care of me when I was little and as a teenager. When I asked for help, she gave it resentfully, or gave such little assistance as to be scandalous. Like when I was homeless in California at age sixteen. I finally called her for help, fearful she wouldn’t care and tell me it was my own fault. I got into this mess myself, I could get out of it. She didn’t say those things. No, she had been worried. She sent me a plane ticket via general delivery at a post office, but not enough money for a motel, food, or transportation to the airport.

In hindsight, I believe she should have given me those things and more–called the cops, called in social services, come out to get me herself. But back then I thought the help she gave me was sufficient and that I needed to suffer. I ended up in a dangerous and painful situation in the days it took me to get to the airport in time for my flight. I didn’t know how to take care of myself. I knew what I wanted but didn’t think I had the right to ask for it.

The platelet donation was the same dynamic on a different level. I knew what I wanted but was afraid to ask for it.

I am thankful for these painful lessons because they bring these old beliefs to the surface so that I can become aware of them and humbly ask God to remove them. But that also means that I must stand up for myself. I must take care of myself and stop waiting for Mom or anyone else I’ve substituted in her place to take care of me.

These lessons are uncomfortable and painful, but I’m worth the trouble of asking for help when I need it.

I’ve been getting these messages to let go of my memoir, to stop beating a dead horse, to let go of old ways. My daughter gave me two things for Christmas—a silk eye mask that allows me to sleep in comfort and darkness, and “The Book of Runes” by Ralph H. Blum, who was a cultural anthropologist.

Consulting the Oracle is none other than finding Wisdom deep within yourself. Playing with Runes helps you to do that. There’s a game you can play called “Rule of Right Action.” It’s where you draw a Rune from your bag of twenty-five Rune stones and receive its guidance for the day.

I played the game for the first time today and drew Kano Reversed. “It calls for giving up gladly the old and being prepared to live for a time empty. It calls for inner stability and carries the warning not to be seduced by the momentum of old ways [minor success with my memoir?] while waiting for the new to become illuminated.”

This Rune points to “a death of a way of being that is no longer valid and puts you on notice that failure to face up consciously to that death would constitute a loss of opportunity…Some aspect of yourself is no longer appropriate to the person you are now becoming.”

And as if that weren’t strong enough of a message, I then opened my Overeaters Anonymous daily meditation book which I haven’t opened in years to today’s date of January 15. It reads: [W]e have discovered that humility is simply an awareness of who we really are today and a willingness to become all that we can be.” It goes further to say, “I realized what character traits and behaviors have outlived their usefulness to my life. I saw that the old ways of reaching out to the world [rewriting and trying to get my memoir published, perhaps?] have kept me from reaching my full potential….I pray…to be willing to surrender and allow the natural progression of change to unfold in God’s time. I can even enjoy myself in the process.”

That is a motherlode of guidance for one day. I shall endeavor to pay attention to it. So for now, instead of working on an old story about my childhood, I think I’ll go read the Modern Love and Tiny Love Stories in The New York Times and try not to feel envious of the writers who got published.

"Through our hopes and fears, our pleasures and pains, we are deeply interconnected."
--Pema Chödrön, "Comfortable with Uncertainty"

When I was a teenager, I was uncomfortable with uncertainty. It felt like acid eating me from the inside. In some respects, that’s what I craved, to be eaten away so that nothing was left of me or the pain I felt.

Today, I accept uncertainty as a way of life. However, there are some things of which I am certain, which makes all the difference in how I feel about living in this world. I know that I am loved unconditionally by my children, my husband, my dogs, and tremendously by my God. Perhaps, this last awareness is what allows me to embrace uncertainty and all that I am, and all that life is.

When I was a teen, being me was fraught, as it is with many teens, with heartache and self-doubt. Being happy, whole and self-confident was an unattainable dream. I’m glad to have lived through those days and to have come out the other side of adulthood with all those desirable aspects in my possession.

“My mom let me leave home at age fifteen. She even typed a letter and had it notarized at the bank giving me her permission to travel alone.”

My mom let me leave home at age fifteen. She even typed a letter and had it notarized at the bank giving me her permission to travel alone. I started from the Midwest, traveled to the West coast, to the far Southwest, to the East, bumming rides, hitch hiking, staying with friends, staying with strangers, doing what I had to do to survive. When I arrived home half a year later, my parents were divorced, and my mother was living in a new apartment. She said, “You stink.” I did. I hadn’t bathed in days or washed my clothes in weeks. But she said, “I’m glad you’re home,” and that was that. She didn’t ask me how I was doing. Wasn’t curious about my experiences. Perhaps she was afraid to know.

Fear and anguish cause us to hide from so many of our realities. In recovering from such experiences, I’ve had to face the reality that I wasn’t protected by my parents, and how harsh and gut wrenchingly painful that fact was. I’ve had to face the rashness of my choices, the reality of my isolation and grief. The reality of self-loathing. Facing all of it was a kind of death. What I have gained is myself.

I found the courage to forgive myself, and my mom. (My dad died years ago. I forgave him, too.)  She has never apologized for her mistakes as a mother. Never asked me how I felt. Never wants to listen when I broach difficult topics. I pray for her and for all people who run in fear and blindness from the pain that would show them the way to their better selves, if only they faced their emotions. It takes guidance in therapy and/or prayer, but most of all it takes bravery and courage. That’s what it takes to find oneself.

Bravery and courage.

I never take for granted the desire within me to be whole and to be a wholesome home for my family, my friends, and everyone I meet. May we all endeavor to make good homes for ourselves and one another.