Category: Polly Hansen

This blog is about self-love, intimacy with others, and finding both. It is first and foremost, a spiritual blog that explores non-denominational spiritual evolution.

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When jewelry is a priceless gem better than a headstone

Years ago, when the woman who saved my life told me she had cancer and was dying, I burst into tears. My sobs wracked both our bodies as we hugged. She let me cry and held me until the tears subsided.

We were parked in the empty seminary lot, home to the Neo-Gothic chapel where she and her family attended mass on Sundays and where I also attended when I lived with them my first summer out of high school.

I had been abandoned by both my parents when I was a teen, had been living on my own, albeit with financial support from my father, and had graduated from high school as an emancipated minor, though there was nothing official about it. My parents and I had just gone our separate ways, first when I was fifteen and left home, and then again at age seventeen when my mom moved out of our shared apartment and let me stay behind so I could finish high school.

She taught me about personal hygiene, like washing your hands after using the bathroom

I met Pat the fall of my senior year and she took me under her wing. Took me clothes shopping, taught me about personal hygiene, like washing your hands after using the bathroom at a restaurant, and how to wash my face without flooding the bathroom counter. She taught me to change my sheets every week instead of once every couple of months, how to dust (I’d never dusted in my life), how to keep a checkbook. 

Even years before she died, before she had cancer, she believed in her mortality. She gave me a gaudy pin. It was silver-plated metal with white and pale blue rhinestones the color of her eyes. I’d never seen her wear it. We were standing by her dresser. She handed it to me saying, “I want you to have something to remember me by.” She said it was valuable and that a friend had given it to her. Someone I didn’t know. I took the pin wondering if she thought I’d wear it.

Did she really know my tastes so little? She seemed oblivious to the fact that this pin was not my style. But perhaps that wasn’t the point. The point is that today, every time I open my jewelry box and see that pin, I think of Pat.

Funky jewelry wouldn’t go over well with my wardrobe

I’m now past the age she was when she gave it to me. I’ve thought of wearing that pin, but funky jewelry wouldn’t go over well with my wardrobe. People would think it wasn’t a gag or a statement, just tacky. All this goes through my head whenever I see that pin. But Pat did know me. She let me cry in her arms when she told me she was dying.

She let me cry in her arms when she told me she was dying.

After we parted in the front seat of my car, I wiped away my tears and we gazed into each other’s eyes with such grief. “Thank you,” she said. I understood perfectly what she meant. Thank you for the tears, thank you for the sorrow, thank you for acknowledging that this was real. She was going to die sooner than expected. And I was the only one who had accepted it so readily. No one else–not her kids, not her friends, at least that’s what she said. 

Maybe I sobbed because I had only recently gotten Pat back. We had been estranged for seven years. But when my first born got critically ill as a toddler, I called her. She came to see me, and we cried in each others arms. She did not criticize or scold me. She said, “Thank you.” And I knew what she was saying. Thank you for calling me, for welcoming me back into your life. I forgive you. I am happy we can be friends again. I have missed you.

It’s time to be me and wear what I want to wear, tacky or not.

The other day I was wearing a royal blue sweater and thought, it needs a pin. And there was Pat’s pendant sparkling up at me from its long-held spot in my jewelry box. I picked it up and pinned it to my sweater and thought it looked nice. I thought I don’t care what other people think. It’s time to be me and wear what I want to wear, tacky or not.

My personal style is conventional. I wish I could be funky and wild, but that’s not how Pat dressed me when I was a teen. Once we got home from shopping, loaded with coordinated blouses and skirts, she took my hippie wardrobe of ripped jeans and tattered sweaters to the trash can. I never adopted her style of monochrome pantsuits, but I often accepted her hand-me-down sweaters, and I still have the muumuu she gave me that I love–navy blue with white stitching in a floral medallion on the front.

I still have the muumuu she gave me that I love.

I’ve thought of attaching the pin to a coat or jacket lapel, or pinning it to a hat, except I don’t wear hats. And so, the pin sits in my jewelry box. Every time I see it, I smile and remember her with love, just like she wanted me to.

It turns out the pin is a collector’s item made by PENNINO, an Italian costume jewelry maker established here in the states in 1908. I only just discovered that when I turned it over wondering if it was real silver and saw the tiny name etched in capital letters. It’s worth maybe a couple hundred dollars. But to me, it’s priceless.

Learn about my award-winning memoir, A MINOR, UNACCOMPANIED.

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Have Hope. Your Impulse Control Is Saving the World

I was walking my dogs the other day when we passed a telephone pole with a thin cable running down the side that had come a little loose. I wondered what it was for and what would happen if someone snipped it. And then I noticed every telephone pole had this vulnerable wire that, if clipped, would it cause chaos for the phone company and the neighborhood? And then I imagined myself doing such a thing, sneaking out late at night with a pair of clippers and wreaking havoc. 

That ability to do something rash, to make a difference, albeit a negative one, exists in all of us. But what about that impulse? Does that exist in everyone? What inspired that unbidden thought? I think it’s that choice fascinates me—the potential to do right or wrong, the proverbial angel and devil that sits on our shoulders. 

Nothing is stopping us, except the desire to live.

Most of us go through life choosing stability instead of chaos. We drive our cars on our side of the street and don’t veer across the line into oncoming traffic. It would be so easy to do. Nothing is stopping us, except the desire to live. That’s a huge desire—to live in peace and harmony. Otherwise, there’d be chaos left and right; and yet, every day, at least in most settled parts of the world, there isn’t chaos.

I’m talking about impulse control disorders.

Let’s go back to my telephone pole. What on earth gave me that idea to begin with? I guess it was noticing it was there and wondering what it was for. But why the impulse to disrupt its purpose? Why the thought of chaos? Why the thought of upsetting the status quo? To feel powerful? To see if I matter? If I have an impact? Do I exist? I wonder if that’s what these kids shooting up their schools are doing—having an existential crisis? They almost always shoot themselves in the end. Do they plan to all along? Such despair.

Is that why people choose to commit harm, because they feel powerless and want to feel powerful?

Does that mean I’m experiencing a certain amount of despair? Do I think, or at least does some small part of me think, I don’t exist, or questions my being? Shall I snip this telephone wire and find out? 

When I was a teenager, I often had impulses towards chaos. Like what would happen if I fell off this cliff, or dove into that crystal clear, but deadly cold water? Perhaps this unbidden telephone-wire thought was a vestige of my teenage impulse control disorder–a time when I had no peace, no power, only emotional upset, and certain impulses would distract me from that pain. 

Is that why people choose to commit harm, because they feel powerless and want to feel powerful? Or because it distracts them from pain? Or because they want everyone to feel the same level of pain? Maybe that’s why the current White House occupant does what he does—to feel powerful because deep down inside he feels like a squashed frog?

It’s almost like having the power of God

Choice. It comes back to that. I think I’m tempted to create chaos only as a thought experiment. I’m fascinated by my right to choose, which some say is God-given free will. It’s almost like having the power of God—the right to choose between right and wrong. It shows trust, whereas our government has taken away many choices.

This reminds me of the story about Satan tempting Jesus in the desert. Jesus makes a choice not to be tempted by unlimited power. And then again on the cross, when people taunted him and said, “If you’re the messiah, then save yourself!” If he could create miracles, believers think certainly he could have willed the nails from his hands and feet, sealed up the holes and walked away. Supposing he could have done such a thing, would it have been like a sober alcoholic taking one sip? Would Jesus have gone on a bender, healing people left and right, knocking down walls, punishing all the bad guys? Would Jesus have become destructive in his almighty power?

Would Jesus have gone on a bender, healing people left and right?

I didn’t clip the wire on the telephone pole

Maybe the Bible authors were making the point that Jesus chose peace. He chose sanity, he chose the status quo. Maybe the fact that Jesus didn’t do anything when he could have, if you believe, was the miracle. He knew it would have created havoc, would have sent him down that dark hole of power abuse. Maybe that’s the meaning of his last words, “It is finished.” He wasn’t tempted anymore. He’d passed the test.

I didn’t clip the wire on the telephone pole. Of course not. The point is, I could have. I could still. We could all do a lot of things we choose not to. Occasionally, we slip. The alcoholic drinks, the sexaholic looks at porn, the president in the White House smashes the government to pieces. Except that’s not a slip. That’s the plan. The reign of chaos is upon us.

However, I still have faith in the common decency and sense of humans, despite evidence to the contrary. Every day, we choose to drive on our side of the street. It’s a fact I don’t take for granted, and one that gives me hope.

Read last week’s post here: How to end self-inflicted emotional suffering

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How to End Self-Inflicted Emotional Suffering

A few years ago, I often got stuck in the old seeking-approval rut, the “I’m-not-good-enough” rut, the “people-don’t-like-me” rut. I rarely get snagged there anymore, except when I’m scrolling through social media posts and comparing mine to others, thinking I don’t generate as many “likes” as they do. Thankfully, the fall doesn’t last nearly as long as it used to. I pick myself up fairly quickly, dust myself off, and continue on my journey towards self-love. I do that with the help of spiritual tools such as readings, prayer, journaling, and admitting this fault to a trusted friend or two. 

In her book Comfortable with Uncertainty, 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, American Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrôn writes about suffering. “[We suffer when] we proceed as if we are separate from everything else, as if we are a fixed identity, when our true situation is egoless. Because we mistake the openness of our being for a solid, irrefutable self, we suffer.”  [From Teaching #27: “The Facts of Life: Suffering”]

We look for happiness in all the wrong places

Chödrôn goes on to say “[W]e look for happiness in all the wrong places. The Buddha called this habit ‘mistaking suffering for happiness.’ We become habituated to reaching for something to ease the edginess of the moment. Thus we become less and less able to reside with even the most fleeting uneasiness or discomfort. What begins as a slight shift of energy – a minor tightening of our stomach, a vague indefinable feeling that something bad is about to happen – escalates into addiction. This is our way of trying to make life predictable. Because we mistake what always results in suffering to be what will bring us happiness, we remain stuck in the repetitious habit of escalating our dissatisfaction.

Yes! Such as when I yearned for approval from others and wondered, How can I change myself to get people to like me? That is the “repetitious habit” Chödrôn speaks of, the addiction to easing the discomfort, to easing the “edginess of the moment” rather than simply sitting with it.

What happens when I focus on the discomfort rather than trying to make it go away?

And what happens when I sit in silence and do nothing? What happens when I focus on the discomfort rather than trying to make it go away?

I find compassion for myself.

And isn’t that what I wanted all along? Reassurance that I am a worthy human being?

I am humbled by my imperfections

I wrote a version of this article over four years ago and I see now how much I have progressed towards self-love and self-acceptance, which includes accepting my imperfections. I am humbled by them.

We suffer when we tell ourselves, “I’m not good enough.” Maybe I think my writing isn’t good enough, or my work ethic isn’t what it should be, or I eat too much, or I complain too much. I am not this or that, instead of, I am this or that. Period. I am this. Whatever it is. I am impatient. True. I am often frustrated. True. I am often wrong. True. I am sometimes unkind. True.

And I am lovable. Even likable. I am all these things.

And God still loves me. I still love me. People that matter to me most love me.

Like authors hoping to find their ideal readers

This seeking approval from others, which rises from that discomfort Chödrôn  speaks, no longer plagues me as it used to. Now, I seek my own approval, or rather, self-acceptance, which includes my many faults. Not everyone is going to like me. It’s insanity to think otherwise. As far as approval is concerned, it’s kind of like an author hoping to find her ideal readers. Not everyone likes the same kind of books. It’s the same with people. We need to find the people who like us despite our flaws. We don’t need anyone’s “approval.”

Today, I accept myself just as I am, and can change what I don’t like about me, such as my impatience, with awareness and practice. I don’t need anyone’s approval but my own. And God’s, which I already have. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to become more fully accepting and self-loving. It is my life’s journey. I hope it is yours, too.

A version of this article was originally

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Are you laying out clues without solving the mystery? 

As a reader for a well-known non-fiction lit mag, I read many trauma and travelogue stories. And now I understand why mine—a trauma story excerpted from my memoir, was rejected by this journal. One—my piece didn’t conclude anything, just laid out the pain in a day in the life of a homeless teen recently returned home to the same old, same old, which is why she soon leaves again, and 2) I didn’t edit it enough to work as a standalone.

There’s a kind of woe-is-me flavor to trauma stories that pushes the reader away with too much blunt emotionality. With travelogue stories, most of them come across as “aren’t I/we clever, smart, adventurous or lucky to have traveled here and met these people and seen these things,” with no deep reflection on the human condition.

Dig deeper to get at the gem hidden within

When I compare these thumbs-down submissions to what gets published in the mag, I see what is missing–an adroit, writerly and literary way with words, and/or just plain, clean writing. I’m not saying these authors are bad writers, but more that the pieces are underdeveloped, including mine. It’s as if the submissions I give thumbs down to are like a mystery that’s laid out clues but hasn’t solved anything. The author is just scratching the surface and goes no further. Dig deeper, that’s what I’m learning. Authors, me included, need to dig deeper into their work to get at the gem hidden within, to get to the deeper meaning.

Reading for lit mags is not a huge time commitment.

Reading for lit mags is not a huge time commitment, not that I’ve found, because I’m not expected to do a critique or make comments. Just read submissions, maybe five a week, and give them a thumbs up, down or neutral. I can make comments if I want to, but I’m not expected to.

If you’re an author and have your heart set on getting published by a particular lit mag, consider reading for it. You’ll get a better feel for the journal by consistent comparison of work that is rejected to work that gets published in the mag. It’s a valuable learning experience, one that is giving me a greater appreciation for the skills I must improve as a writer. I need to keep reading good stuff and continue writing deeper to uncover all that a piece can say.

Last week’s post:

https://pollyhansen.com/can-you-fail-to-communicate-clearly-with-your-soulmate/

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Can You Fail to Communicate Clearly with Your Soul Mate?

How is it that after forty-two years of marriage, my husband and I still fail to communicate clearly? We were standing in the kitchen, facing each other when he said, “This is not my problem; this is our problem.”

I was stunned. He was right, of course, but I hated to admit it. I have assumed for years that I communicate well, and that it’s my husband’s fault that he doesn’t understand what I mean when I say something. In that moment of letting the truth sink in—that I was just as much to blame as he was, I wondered, Is he truly my soul mate?

I thought about that for a couple of days, noticing how I felt around him–hurt and betrayed. He was other. I felt isolated and alone. But I also felt a singular sense of relief and identity. I realized I didn’t need my husband to “get me” in order to feel whole. In other words, I didn’t need his validation or understanding of me to feel good about myself. I am still me. It’s just that now I realize I must communicate clearly who I am to him.

So simple, so easy

Now, this may seem crazy to you, and perhaps it is, but here’s an example of how the dynamics changed between us after he made that shocking, life-changing pronouncement. After watching TV together, he got up to clear his dishes. I had an empty cup and spoon to clear. I started to hem and haw in my mind, not wanting to get up, but thinking I must follow his example and get ready for bed, but maybe he would notice and offer to take my detritus with him to the kitchen. Instead, I raised my cup and spoon. “Could you take these, too, please?”

“Sure.”

So easy, so simple.

I know, I know, that’s weird, but that’s what I have done. For years. I’ve had this lingering bullshit talk in my head—I’m not good enough, or I’m lazy, so I’ve got to do this chore (whatever it is) myself and not ask for even so much as a simple favor. Nothing could be farthest from the truth–me being lazy and all. I just have some bad thought habits. It felt so clean, simply asking, “Can you take these for me?”

I was practicing communicating clearly with my husband. I can no longer assume or expect him to understand me at all times or to anticipate my needs. And if I’ve done this with him, how many other people have I done this with?

Practice communicating clearly

For years, I’ve had this lingering bullshit talk in my head.

Clearly, some people may say no when I ask for a favor. That’s a chance I must take. It doesn’t mean I’m bad or unworthy. Plus, I think people like being asked instead of expected to do you a favor. Especially spouses/partners/friends.

The result of communicating more clearly with my husband has been that I am more considerate of him. Just as I want him to hear me out, I must do the same.

For example, these past few weekends we’ve been rearranging the living room. At first I said that’s looks horrible when he suggested an idea. We hired an interior decorator to help us. Best investment we’ve ever made. He was on the right track with many of his ideas.

Remain openminded, not judgmental

We looked for a new area rug. While selecting one online, he said, “Please tell me what you like without filtering it through what you think I won’t like.” After a frustrating search, we went to Home Depot to see the rugs on display. Instead of putting him down for liking something, which I have often done, if not aloud, then in my head, and I think it always comes out sideways somehow, I remained openminded. Lo and behold, we found a rug we both love. I was shocked. Neither of us was compromised our tastes.

How odd that seeing poor communication as a “we” problem and not a “his” problem has made me less judgmental and more openminded. Communicating clearly will take practice, but at  least I’m aware now that it’s never been that he doesn’t get me.

Just because we must work at communicating doesn’t mean we aren’t soulmates. Yes, he is vastly different from me. He’s not my other self. He is his own self, and that is the challenge—communicating with each other so that we understand one another because we are both so different. But understanding through clear communication is possible. And maybe that’s the soulmate part—we care enough to try.

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What Happened to Me Wasn’t My Fault

When I was sixteen and wound up homeless for three weeks in San Francisco, I was terrified. I had already called home to ask my mom for help. Perhaps she didn’t understand how deeply in trouble I was. I lied to her, told her I could fend for myself. I was afraid to tell her the truth, afraid to tell her what I really wanted: Come get me. I believed she would say no. She arranged a flight home for me; beyond that, I was on my own.

Miraculously, or so I thought, I ran into someone from back home, someone who I thought was a friend. He was older than me by twelve or so years. I asked him for help, asked if I could sleep on the floor in a corner of his girlfriend’s apartment where I would be out of sight, out of mind. No trouble at all, barely there.

Pain is a part of life, but is suffering necessary?

He said, no can do. Instead, he trafficked me to a stranger for four nights. That’s how I got the shelter I needed. Four nights. Was that painful? You bet. Excruciating. I suffered for years, believing I was bad, rotten to the core, that it was my fault.

Pain is a part of life, but is suffering necessary? Or is it a choice? What do I mean by that? I mean that we are powerless over fate, over misfortune. We feel pain. It’s when we hold onto that pain by stuffing it, silencing it, or ignoring it—that’s when we suffer. Or when we tell ourselves we are bad because of the bad things that happened to us—that’s suffering.

Self-forgiveness came through intensive therapy and a strong spiritual practice. I finally released myself from a life of shame and suffering. I learned that what happened to me wasn’t my fault. Yes, if I’d been truthful with my mom and insisted she come get me, maybe I’d have a different story to tell. But if I had been able to demand that, I wouldn’t have been homeless in the first place.

I learned that what happened to me wasn’t my fault.

The fact is I didn’t use my voice to say I needed help because I didn’t feel worthy of it. Today is a different story. I know I am worthy of support. We all are. I have learned to use my voice and ask for assistance when I need it, and to accept help when it is offered.

Today, I experience great joy.

Bad things happen to all of us. It’s the negative messages we inflict on ourselves because of them that causes lasting suffering. That and refusing to face the pain head on. With professional help, of course.

Today, I experience great joy. I know I am beautiful and lovely despite the things I’ve been through and the things I’ve done. (Hurt people hurt people.) Today I choose joy and love. I choose to face my day of reckoning, whenever that may be, with no regrets and no resentments.

We all come here to learn. Those guys who hurt me? Maybe they are sorry for what they did. And my mom? Maybe she was as clueless as I was. I’m not going to waste a second of my life, my precious life, hating them or anyone, or myself. Most especially myself. I love myself, and I treat myself accordingly. It took me many years of suffering to figure that out, but today, I suffer no more.

Read more: What Happened to Me Wasn’t My Fault

“The Foot at the Art Institute of Chicago,” The Ekphrastic Review, December 9, 2024.

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I Love Sleeping in the Guest Room, but It’s Dangerous

For the past week I’ve been sleeping in the guest room where I can cough and hack with impunity. Bronchitis. Normally, my husband and I share a king-sized, Sleep Number bed topped by memory foam. It’s a spaceship of a bed, one of our biggest investments, and we love every penny of it. But the guest bed, a queen and just the right size for me to stretch out in is also quite comfy. Even so, after several days, I began to long for my own bed, and I kind of missed my husband, too.

Or did I?

He sleeps with a c-pap machine, but when his mouth is open he snores. I reach over, lightly brush his face, he closes his mouth, and I go back to sleep. Sleeping in the guest room this past week I was relieved of that chore. The room is quiet and dark with no neighbor’s bright Christmas lights seeping through the blinds. Plus, I didn’t have the sound machine on and instead used my recording of ocean waves.

I decided to try sleeping in our bed again

As the days have passed, I’ve been coughing less, so, last night I decided to try sleeping in our bed again. Only I could not fall asleep. I lay there for about an hour. Heard my husband come to bed. The eye mask didn’t block the light completely as it did in the gust room. I woke several times, once to pee, which is normal, once to brush my husband’s face to get him to stop snoring. No. Twice. And a couple of times to repress a coughing fit.

I reported all this to my husband this morning as he fed the dogs, and I made coffee. We hugged, as per usual, and he agreed that he had trouble, too, falling asleep with me back in the bed. “Yes, I heard you cough a couple of times, but it didn’t bother me. I went right back to sleep.” But his sleep was broken.

I like our platonic/romantic relationship the way it is.

Or do I?

However, neither of us wants to get too used to sleeping in separate beds. We both realize the dangers of drifting apart. I already feel it. We rarely have sex anymore. I just don’t have the energy for it, or the interest. I like our platonic/romantic relationship the way it is.

Or do I?

I had an erotic dream this morning. Maybe I do want sex with my husband, just so we maintain a certain level of intimacy. But is sex necessary? I know some therapists would say, yes, unequivocally, and others would say, no, not necessarily.

But what concerns me more than whether or not we have sex is the fact that this physical isolation feels comfortable. Am I playing with fire, so to speak? Will my husband and I drift apart if we don’t make it a point to be physically intimate with one another let alone sleep in the same bed?

I have a solution to this drift

We do other things that are intimate—like have long conversations at the dinner table, but our sit-down dinners have become less frequent as more often I prepare meals he doesn’t care for, so he fixes himself a frozen pizza or burger and salad while I eat my tofu stir-fry, often at different times.

I have a solution to this drift, I’m just not sure I want to implement it, i.e., take time for physical intimacy, or have a heart-to-heart talk about what I’m feeling about me these days and him as I lose weight, and he gains it.

But is that really the problem? No, I don’t think so. We’ve been married forty-one years. In that time we have each continued to grow and make room for each other’s flaws and changes. Now is not the time to regard those flaws in myself or in him as being intolerable. I love my husband. I want to be friends with him. And we are. I want to keep it that way, and so I need to get off this flaws bandwagon I’ve been silently on lately and celebrate what I like and love about him—the way he sits in his room working through his frustration learning to play the guitar, the way he loves football and has taught me to do the same and loves teaching me about different aspects of the game, the way he washes dishes after dinner, the way he sings his heart out while we work on a jigsaw puzzle, the way we hardly ever run out of things to talk about, unless we just don’t feel like talking, which is okay, too.

We have each continued to grow and make room for each other’s flaws and changes.

I love this man who has been my friend since we first met when I was eighteen and he was seventeen. And then we became lovers several years later, and then spouses. I don’t want to take our love for granted. So, tonight, if I’m not coughing a lot, maybe just a little, I will crawl into our bed and give it another go–get used to him again, even though he was getting used to my not being there and disturbing him in the ways that I do.

We have both agreed that sleeping in the same bed is important. Not sleeping together will make not having that talk easier and seem less important. I don’t want that. I want to maintain and even deepen the intimacy we share. Besides, it’s nice sleeping next to my best friend. It’s something I want to want.

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After Sixty Years, I Finally Saw the Truth

One Thanksgiving my mother hid a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the dining room closet and made us kids promise to keep it a secret. The room was a mess of toys any other day but had been tidied and decorated for the feast. The table we used for art projects was extended and covered with a white linen tablecloth and crowned with Mom’s centerpiece of fruit and nuts. The brass candle sticks were polished and gleaming.

As we all sat around the table, and before Dad carved the turkey, Granny stood, closed her eyes, inhaled through flared nostrils, raised her chin, then launched into her traditional, impromptu grace: “Dear mighty, all-powerful, merciful God, You set before us this beautiful turkey that we poor, frail, imperfect creatures will enjoy through Your grace and goodness. May we be truly kind and good to one another, rather than the wretches we tend to be, and may we…” On and on she went until Mom was snorting with laughter. My older brother, sister, and I chimed in.

Granny opened her eyes and stared at us, unsmiling. “Why are you all laughing?” 

Mom was good at playing games, and even though this one felt a little mean, I thought Granny would be amused.

Mom slid open the closet door to reveal the spinning tape recorder. She quickly rewound it and replayed Granny’s prayer while the four of us giggled without restraint. My two aunts and one uncle, my father and grandpa remained silent. I liked Granny’s prayers, but Mom was good at playing games, and even though this one felt a little mean, I thought Granny would be amused.

Instead, she stiffened and straightened her shoulders. “That was cruel, Penelope!” I had never seen her so angry. And then she looked at me with injured eyes, and said, “And I thought you were my little darling.” 

I wanted to crawl under the table and never come out.

“It was just a joke, Mother,” Mom said, but the hurt buzzed in the air as we passed our plates in silence.

I’d been blind to the truth ever since that day

For years I blamed my mother for the pain and shame I felt in that moment. It wasn’t until I shared that story with a friend and mentor that I saw another truth I’d been blind to ever since that day over sixty years ago.

“What a heavy burden to place on a child,” my friend said, speaking of my grandmother. “Imagine the kinds of things she must have said to your mother as a child.”

I’d never considered that story from that perspective. I’d always blamed my mom for being cruel and sucking me into it. Goodness, yes, I’ve known Granny was a difficult mom, very judgmental, but only intellectually considered the matter. I’d never felt the scalding hurt because that day I immediately transferred the blame to my mom.

I was a difficult teen, to be sure.

This new perspective, that Granny had placed an undue burden on me, a little girl of seven, made room in my heart to feel compassion for my mother. How conveniently have I forgotten over the years that Granny’s advice to Mom when I was an unruly teenager was that she should let me leave home at age fifteen. That I would in all likelihood leave anyway, so why not with her permission? How I wish I could have eaves dropped on that conversation. How exactly did it go?

Poor Mom. I was a difficult teen, to be sure. She had no tools to deal with me. And wasn’t mentally healthy herself. Hadn’t I been just as clueless about how to deal with my teenage son? Not that he left home, or threatened to at age fifteen, but that I let him entertain girls in his bedroom, insisting that he keep his bedroom door open, but gave up when he kept closing it. That’s on me.

My prayer this day is that I let go of all resentment towards my mom. Yes, she was and is a narcissist, but she was likely raised by one. Granny is long dead; my mother soon will be. May she die with my having full compassion for her, and may I be forgiven for all the resentment I’ve held towards her.

She wouldn’t understand if I tried to say these words, written or in person, so I hope God conveys them to her for me, and that somehow the message gets through, and that she may die, and soon, with a little more peace in her heart.

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How New York Showed Me the Enormity of God

On a recent, rain-soaked evening, I hopped over puddles, holding my pink umbrella high so as not to poke New Yorkers in the eye with it. I had just spent two hours in a taxi to travel less the nine miles from LaGuardia Airport into Manhattan. A mile from my hotel, I asked the cabby to pull over. I could walk to my destination faster than he could crawl through traffic.

I was in New York for our company’s annual holiday party. I work remotely in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. Despite the destruction Helene visited upon us two months earlier and the ongoing recovery and clean up, I did not want to leave home. I love the mountains, and every day pinch myself that I’m so lucky to live here.

I’m not all that fond of New York

My husband and I moved to Asheville three years ago from the Chicago area. We’d lived in the same house in the northern suburbs for thirty-four years, but it had always been my dream to move to Asheville. After thirty-six years of me saying let’s go, my husband finally said okay. So you can probably understand why I’m so hesitant to leave the mountains, even for a thirty-hour whirlwind trip. Plus, I’m not all that fond of New York. Yes, it is a magical town, but it’s so big and dirty. And crowded. And congested. And expensive.

Thank God, I didn’t have to pay for any of it. It was all on the house.

My hotel was right off Times Square. I got lost there, disoriented by the blazing signs, walking from corner to corner, looking for a neon Hilton sign amongst the hundreds of flashing, moving billboards. I finally found it, dropped off my suitcase, and dashed off to find the office, hopping puddles and running, getting hot and sweaty because I didn’t want to be late for the party.

Mountains surround me instead of skyscrapers.

When I finally got to the office someone shoved a drink in my hands, gave me a hug and all was well. I went around hugging everybody. Forty of us, to be exact. And as we drove through the streets on a chartered bus headed for dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant located beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought, what a miraculous city. All these millions of people basically getting along with one another. Sure, there’s violence, poverty and crime, homelessness and misery, but look at all the people who live there peaceably, who go home to safety and comfort every day, and that’s all they want–to be left alone with food to eat and a bed to sleep in. Millions of people basically getting along.

It occurred to me as I looked out at the hundreds and thousands of lit up apartment buildings that we aren’t inherently bad people. Humans, I mean. I think humans are inherently good. It’s this free will God gave us that screws things up, and, at the same time, is the beauty and miracle of being human. God gave us free will but left that creative spark of divinity in each of us. Some of us feel it, are consciously aware of that spark, and some aren’t. I don’t know why. Why have some people evolved not to be aware of the divinity within themselves? I think most people are aware of it, whether they call it God or spirituality or something else. Maybe just being conscious of being alive is enough for many people.

So, as dirty and crowded and congested and impossibly expensive as New York is, its very existence gives me hope.

People pull together in a disaster

Thirty hours after I’d left the mountains, I was back home in them. It’s peaceful here, quiet and old, where mountains surround me instead of skyscrapers, where I have freedom to breathe fresh air and see nature. Still, each of these places are proof of the existence of divinity, because as frightening and overwhelming as New York City is, so was Helene and the destruction it left behind. But people pull together to help one another in a disaster. Is New York a disaster? It could be on the edge of one. Maybe it’s one waiting to happen, but it hasn’t, it doesn’t, because people are inherently good.

I’m not sure what I’m saying here, only that while I do not like New York, I appreciate it and know others love it, especially New Yorkers. I get that, and I get that many New Yorkers would go bonkers living here in Asheville. Both places have exquisite value.

I’m glad I went to the Big Apple, even though I was stressed out beforehand because I dreaded going. I’m glad I saw how so many millions live side by side, basically in harmony. And I’m glad it’s not my life. I live the way I choose. I chose the mountains thirty-nine years ago. And I am finally living my bliss. To each his/her/their own, and may God bless us all.

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Forty-One Years and A Lot of Personal Growth

My husband and I celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary this week.

“God, forty-one years is such a long time,” I said with a sigh as I sat across from him at the Mediterranean restaurant.

He took a sip of his wine. “I’m half-way through your memoir,” he said with a grimace. (It’s the first memoir I wrote titled Healing Motherhood Rage, unpublished.) “It’s really hard to revisit how absent I was.”

Absent while I raised the kids virtually alone and raged at them. I had undiagnosed, untreated postpartum depression. Possibly borderline personality disorder, too. My behavior was awful back then and so painful to read about now.

So why bother? Why re-visit all that sorrow? And why write down all that stuff in the first place?

Rage is as addictive as heroine or alcohol

Because I wanted to leave breadcrumbs for me and my children out of that forest. I was abused by my mom, and I swore I wouldn’t abuse my kids. I didn’t physically, but I did emotionally and psychologically even though I was trying my best not to. But all that rage reared its ugly head whenever I was hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

H.A.L.T. I tried to halt, but back then didn’t have that tool at my disposal; didn’t know to stop and consider: Was I hungry? (Eat something!) Was I angry about something else, not my kids? (Identify it.) Was I lonely? (God, yes. Call a friend.) Was I tired? (Always, but some days more than others.)

Our lives improved. It took years, and slowly, we recovered joy.

Rage is as addictive as heroine or alcohol. There’s that same physical rush of euphoria. I felt sick with remorse seconds after bursting out in anger over spilt milk, dumped clothes, tired, grumpy, slow-moving kids who clamored for my undivided attention when I had none to give.

Yeah, it was bad.

But I never gave up. I demanded attention both from my husband, and finally from the therapeutic community. I swallowed my pride and asked my mother for financial assistance to help pay for therapy because otherwise we couldn’t afford it. I looked at my behavior and delved into why I felt the way I did and worked to correct it. We got our kids into therapy. My husband and I went to marriage counseling. Our lives improved. It took years, and slowly, we recovered joy.

The willingness to admit my faults was key. Humility in facing my pain and my kids’ pain was essential. I had done wrong. It didn’t matter that I had been wronged. Well, it did, but that didn’t excuse my behavior. I’ve made living amends to myself, my husband and my children. I wrote about it to bear witness to pain and suffering, and that forgiveness and healing are possible.

Healing from mental illness takes courage and unceasing effort but the rewards are great. Forty-one years of marriage with my soulmate is one of them and loving relationships with my adult children is another.

Don’t give up. Carry On. You can make it.

Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder

Postpartum Support International