Things I Can’t Carry

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Last week in a post I titled tilting I wrote of many beloved people for whom I pray, but I did not say exactly how I pray, and the method is important. The problems are bigger than I can fix and, for at least some of the people, the struggles are part of a necessary growth process. I can’t plead for that to be taken away, because they need to grow. I want them to grow, yet it is hard to only be able to stand by and watch. So my prayers this week were lists of things that I am putting into God’s hands. “Please carry this because I can’t.” is the gist of most of my prayers this week. And He has. He has carried the things, carried me, sent friends to serve me, sent me to serve friends, and generally provided a sense of calm progress through all of the things. I really do mean all, because there was an unending stream of thing after thing after thing, every single day, all week long. It was always some little hurdle at the end of the day that tipped me into tears. I would cry a bit and then He would show me what to do next and onward we would go.

The capstone of the week was Howard’s hard drive failing. This is the sort of event that usually would tip me into a swirl of fear that our livelihood would be destroyed by the failure of one piece of hardware, which is ridiculous. The emotional blow was real though. Howard lost some data which will be time consuming or difficult to replace. Instead of fear, I felt completely calm and strove to help Howard think through options and solutions. Computer recovery will spill into next week as will many of the other things. It will all be fine. The big things are all necessary and the rest is just the ordinary frustrations and tasks which accompany life. I move onward, carrying what I can and handing over what I can’t.

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Finding Levers to Remove Anxiety and Depression

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When I had my first panic attack it was an extraordinary event. I choose that word carefully, because anxiety manifesting as body panic was an event outside my usual experience, thus: extra ordinary. Unfortunately it was an experience that lacked any of the positive traits that the word extraordinary usually implies. There was nothing fun or exciting about it. All I knew for sure was that my body was behaving in an alarming fashion. My heart raced and beat irregularly; my breathing constricted; I was cold; and I could not stop my hands from shaking. I knew that something was wrong, so I saw a doctor who found nothing in the physical data to explain my experiences. He suggested stress. I remember him suggesting it, but the suggestion rolled right off of me only to be remembered months later after I had already figured out that anxiety was the problem. I found ways to de-stress my life and the anxiety went away. Mostly. Until it came back and I realized that I had to address it instead of trying to ignore it out of existence.

It is easier somehow with an extraordinary event, some thing we can point at and say “That is outside of usual bounds.” But most mental illness does not manifest suddenly and dramatically. It creeps in, becomes part of the fabric of life, erodes what we consider normal. I saw this with my anxiety. After entering with a bang, I adapted to it, got so used to it that I hardly even noticed it anymore. “I’m better now.” I’d say, while adjusting my schedule to give myself extra space. If pressed, I would acknowlede that if it ever again got as bad as that original onslaught, then I’d have to do something. I wonder now why I did not take that lull as a chance to dig in and find ways to heal. Truly heal. As I’m trying to do now in the wake of the second extraordinary onslaught. I’m a year and a half into that healing process and I’ve still got terrain to cover.

Howard’s periodic depression has been part of the patterns of our lives ever since I first met him. We built our lives around it, planned for it, explained it in a dozen different ways. “Everyone has good and bad days” I assured both him and myself. Eight months ago Howard began to call out his depression for what it is. He started recognizing it as a thing to be faced and changed. The more he called it out, the more we saw it, and we had to wonder had it gotten worse or were we just noticing instead of ignoring? We spoke with our regular physician and got on the waiting list for a psychiatrist. Howard has been amazing through this process. I’ve watched him spectate and analyze as he carefully deconstructs his old coping mechanisms. We’re beginning to build new ones and I am very happy to see him healthier in both mind and body. It takes amazing courage to look at a long standing pattern and choose to change it, particularly if there is no extraordinary event to spur the change.

I think Howard’s courage is what lets me be so calm as I look at my daughter Gleek and see the patterns around her. Just as our family structure has been built around his depression, it has also bent around Gleek’s intensity. Her ADHD was diagnosed years ago and treatment helped, but more is needed. Over the last two weeks her anxiety both at home and at school has pushed out of the ordinary. Her teacher has noticed, the school psychologist has noticed, and my own observations concur. She needs something different, more than I can fix by making sure she eats well and exercises; more than me helping track her homework, buying her books on stress management, more than yoga sessions, a sand garden, and long rambling talks at bedtime where I help her sort through her thoughts. As I type this list and it gets longer, I see how very hard we’ve been working to give her good coping strategies. And it has worked. Gleek is amazing. She is able to spectate and analyze with a maturity beyond her twelve years. Her innate strength lets her keep it together and choose the least destructive coping mechanisms when the anxiety strikes. After all of that, she still needs something more, something different. I’ve scheduled a full evaluation for her. We’ll be re-visiting the ADHD diagnosis and considering possible treatments and therapy for anxiety.

One of the hardest parts about mental illness is that it all takes place inside the brain. It is tempting to believe that we can just think our way out through willpower and motivation, but this is like trying to move a rock with your bare hands. You can do it if the rock is small, but sometimes it is a boulder sunk deep into the ground. Then willpower and motivation must be applied to a lever, for example: a treatment plan formed with the advice of psychological experts. The first step to finding the right lever to remove your rock is being willing to admit that this rock is in your way, that it needs to be moved, and that you probably can’t move it by yourself. The lever you need may be a lifestyle shift, medication, therapy, service to others, restructuring relationships, or seeking healing through faith. Finding which life changes you need–and applying those changes–requires great motivation and willpower. The answers are as individual as the people seeking them.

My family has some rocks we’ve been walking around for a long time and I’d love to take a jack hammer to them, but I’ll settle for some good levers and a solid team willing to help. Now is a good time to get started.

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Friends When Needed

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Two days ago I wrote about people you need in your parenting village, but it is not only parents who need villages. In the past week I have been greatly blessed–more than once–to be brought into contact with exactly the person I needed, even when I didn’t know I needed them.

I saw her from a distance in Sam’s Club. She was a long-time friend with whom I have very infrequent contact. I almost said nothing. She had not seen me. I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, in fact I was feeling the opposite of social. My head was full of things and I wanted to think them all through. But her name flew out of my mouth and she turned to me with a smile. Within three sentences our conversation dove straight past chatting and directly into the heart of our lives. Her current struggles mirrored mine. We stood in the aisle at Sam’s Club for forty minutes and when we parted we both felt lighter.

The letter arrived in a pile of bills and I opened it last, because I like to savor the best bits. The friend who wrote it to me had no way to know exactly what my week had been like, but her words brought tears to my eyes and helped me on a hard day.

It should be easy to call my friend and say “I need to talk” but somehow that call is difficult to make when I know for certain that talking will lead to crying. Instead I emailed and scheduled a brunch get together, warning her that I intended to unload piles of thoughts. She cheerfully told me that it was a wonderful idea. So we met. And we talked. And we took turns crying. But there was less crying than I expected and more laughing. I returned home feeling lighter.

This time there were two letters nestled among the bills. The last responses from my Month of Letters missives. I’d abandoned sending daily mail sometime toward the end of February when everything got to be a bit too much. But these two friends wrote back to me. I opened the letters and read, happy to hear how they are doing, and to hear the answers to questions I asked in my own letters.

I stood at my kitchen sink, pondering my day, when I felt I should call one of my friends. Our friendship was built on in-person visits. We weren’t really phone call people, but I looked at the clock and knew I had half an hour before it was time to pick up kids from school. It was exactly enough time for this call. I knew it without knowing how I knew. So I called. And she needed to talk, even though before my call she hadn’t quite realized she needed to talk to me. Our conversation wound down after about twenty five minutes and we said goodbye. I hung up the phone feeling lighter because I’d gotten so many answers lately and it was nice to be the answer someone else needed.

Six conversations with six different women, all of whom made my life a better place this week. I am so very grateful for my village.

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People You Need in Your Parenting Village

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It takes a village to raise a child, or so the saying goes. I’ve found this to be true, but in modern society the village is not something that everyone has automatically. Some do, but others of us have to construct our villages, carefully acquiring the connections we need. Here are some of the people I’ve found very useful while raising my kids. Often a single person plays more than one role or even shifts roles through the years.

Grandparent figure: This is someone who adores your kids and thinks they are wonderful no matter what. They are older so that the kids can learn not to be afraid of age and to respect those who have attained it.

Parents with kids at the same developmental stage: These are your go-to people for commiseration. They really understand what you’re dealing with and can share notes and ideas for how to survive.

Parents whose kids are older than yours by a decade: These are the people you go to for advice. They let you know that there is life after your current parenting stage and because of them you can picture how your life will change in the coming years. So can your kids.

Parents whose kids are younger than yours: You get to play mentor, which is a nice way to pay it forward, but it also lets you see that you really have gained some expertise. Your knowledge is useful. Playing with younger kids also can help yours learn useful empathy and nurturing skills.

Friends with no kids: They sometimes make you jealous, your kids may sometimes annoy them, but they help you remember that your whole existence does not revolve around parenting.

Young aunts, uncles, or babysitters: These people are adults, but they still have the energy of teenagers. They don’t have kids of their own and so are glad to swoop in and run around with yours for awhile.

Teachers: They educate your kids, but more, they have a wealth of experience dealing with large groups of kids who are exactly the same age. They can reassure you that your kids is normal or alert you if something is not.

Doctors: This one most people acquire early, but make sure your doctor is one you respect and one who is willing to listen to your instincts about what your child needs.

Friends who parent the way that you do: Your families blend effortlessly and trading babysitting is easy because you trust the way things will be handled.

Friends who parent differently than you do: Because it is good to learn that your way is not the only way and in fact other ways may be even better.

“Elders” who will teach morals and values: This could be religious leaders, school administrators, or a teacher; it is someone outside your immediate family who the kids can respect and whose respect they want to earn in return.

Watchers and guiders: These are school psychologists or resource teachers who help diagnose problems and apply solutions when the kids are away from home.

Librarians: They may not actually work at a library, but they suggest books, loan books, share information, and informally teach kids in a non-school setting. In fact some of the knowledge may not be book-ish at all, but instead by hands-on.

People who are different from you: They may be disabled, differently-abled, of a different ethnicity, or of a different religion. The point is to let your children see that different is not necessarily bad. It also forces them to examine how they want to live rather than just living one way because they’ve never seen anything different.

I’m sure I’ve missed some valuable village roles here. I don’t have someone in all of these roles all of the time because relationships wax and wane over years. People move away and new people enter my life. But I am forever grateful to the people who have reassured me and even more grateful to the people who have carefully pointed out when something was out of the ordinary and needed to be addressed. I am so very grateful for my village.

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Small and Simple Things

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I was standing at my kitchen window when I saw them, a spot of bright in a world of dead grass and gray sticks. They poked out from the grass that I failed to clear last fall, determined to be themselves despite their surroundings. Crocus are hope embodied. They are the first flowers each spring and I rejoice when I see them because, even if it is still cold, even if the sky is still gray, even if it snows, I know that winter is going away.

Seeing these small beauties was a gift today. Yesterday was flow, I was carried through things which could have shipwrecked me. Today I am not carried. I walk on my own feet, sorting, working, trudging my way forward. I am doing one necessary task at a time because I am too tired to hold more than one thing in my brain. Remarkably, I have not spent today rethinking all of yesterday’s decisions. Either I’m confident that I chose right or I’m too tired to fret. It doesn’t matter. There are crocuses blooming in my garden and we’re on the edge of things getting better.

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Good Days are Not Always Easy Days

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On the morning after three hours of sleep I expect the day to be a disaster. The fact that it was not I can only consider a series of small miracles doled out to me as I flowed from one task to the next through the day. Flow really feels like the right word, because I have been carried through this day from rolling out of bed, until this moment when dinner is simmering on the stove and I have my first moment of quiet to get on a computer. I have three hours left until bedtime and I pray that I can keep riding all the way through without ending up beached or shipwrecked.

Early morning class for Kiki was followed by a battle over breakfast with Gleek. Link had a slow and grouchy start because of bad dreams. I dropped him at school and headed for an early morning meeting with a couple of Gleek’s teachers. There are matters of concern and we needed a plan for them.

(Interrupted here by more evening stuff. Began writing again in the kid’s bedtime lull while they read before lights out.)

On the way home from that meeting I stopped at both the grocery store and Walmart. Shopping lists had been accumulating, filled up with lots of small but important needs for the kids. Having these small things perpetually incomplete had been wearing on all of us. I came home to unload. Then I went back out to Sam’s Club for prescriptions and the last few stock-up items. While there I ran into a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years. She was exactly the person I needed to talk to today, and I was just who she needed as well. We stood near giant bags of beans and talked for forty minutes. It was going to make me late to pick up Kiki, but then Kiki called to let me know she had her own ride home. We scheduled lunch next week for more talking time.

As I drove home I saw Link on his walk home from school and picked him up. Then he and I sat down to do some homework for which he needed my help. It was paused while I fetched Patch from school. On the way home Patch mentioned he felt sick. I didn’t pay that much mind, instead I fixed myself some food, the first since breakfast. I retrieved Gleek from choir and had a pause before she and I had to return to the school to meet with her teacher. Gleek needed to be apprised of the plan.

Then there was dinner, Kiki’s friend visiting, Gleek’s homework, Patch demonstrating that he has stomach flu, a girl scout delivering cookies, a relative stopping by to pick up stuff, Family Home Evening, and carefully shepherding Gleek through the evening because she’s particularly intense today.

This sort of packed day usually ends up with me collapsed in an overwhelmed heap. Instead I see clearly that each part of the day was exactly what it needed to be. Each challenging thing was an important step from where we are to where we intend to go. I’ve been calm and assured, even during the hard bits. I’ll probably do my collapsing tomorrow. For now I’ll just be grateful for today.

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Scheduling March

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I sat down and counted. During the month of February there were 20 school nights. These are nights when it is important to run life on schedule so that homework gets done and people are in bed on time so that they can get up the next day for school. Out of those 20 school nights, only 8 of them were not disrupted by a non-routine event. More than half of our school nights had something unusual going on, something that pushed dinner late, prevented homework, required adjustment, or delayed bedtimes. This makes a joke out of the concept of “routine.” I look ahead to March and know that somehow I need to keep more of the evenings free. Either that, or I need to do a better job of taking breaks earlier in the day so that I am not worn out by evening. I’m not sure how it will all work out, and I’m torn. Part of me wants to plan it all and defend my plan. Part of me thinks I should trust and follow inspiration to flow through my days. I’ll probably split the difference: Making focused lists and tossing them aside as needed.

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Tilting

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I tip my head one way and my life is over-full with good things. I tip it in the other direction, and I want to cry about how hard everything feels right now. Some of the desire to cry is a direct result of “over-full” but mostly it is because so many of my dearly beloved people are currently experiencing times of struggle and growth. I see the struggle. I see the shape I hope for them to grow into; I know how I grew through similar trials; but I can’t do the growing for them. I can’t even shout instructions without inhibiting exactly the growth I would most love to see. Instead I love them as hard as I can, and hope that the force of that love will somehow be carried to them and loan them strength. That, and I pray.

I pray for those in the midst of a crisis of faith. I pray for those who collapse in panic when the world gets to be too much. I pray for those who need to learn to soften when dealing with difficult people. I pray for those who drift, in need of a purpose and direction. I pray for those who need gainful employment and don’t have it. I pray for those stricken in health. I pray for those who lay awake in the dark, late at night, wishing sleep would come. I pray for those whose minds become a regular battleground between hope and despair. Yes I have specific people in mind for each of the “thoses,” Their stories are not mine to tell, but they all weigh on me and I wish I really could be the fixer of all things and the finder of all solutions. I am not. I am not. I am not. I have to repeat it to remind myself that I must not try to be. When I try to be the fixer of all things, then I am a “those” who ends up curled in a ball, panicked and fighting despair.

Instead of the fixer, I must love and pray. I must carry hope for those who can not carry it for themselves. And I must remember to tilt my head in the direction where life is wonderful and all my beloved people, all my “thoses”, are in a temporary struggle on their way down paths toward amazing things.

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Fragments from Today

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We put chairs in our front room. It is part of the ongoing project to remodel the room; a process that started with paint and will not be complete until I’ve done some woodwork. The paint was nice, but the addition of a pair of chairs from IKEA transformed the space into a welcome place to sit. We had a chair and a horrid little love seat, but mostly the room was used as a dumping ground and staging area. The effect was magnified today when the new couch was delivered. Now, instead of squished seating for three, we have pleasant seating for five or lounging space for a smaller number. Someone has been sitting in the space pretty much all day long. I sat in one of the chairs in the sunshine, glad for the sunshine, glad for the chairs, and looking forward to doing the finishing work that will make the room be nice. I also feel a small measure of joy that the chairs are are a little bit bouncy and they are named Poang, which is a bouncy sort of name. People keep flopping in the chairs, bouncing a bit, and then proclaiming “Poang!”

I don’t always have answers or solutions, sometimes I feel that as a gaping void that I ought to be able to fill somehow. There are times when I weep because I can not fix the troubles of my beloved people. Other times I see the void and I stand back because I know I can not fill it. This is a new capability for me, to stand back at a safe distance while sympathizing and agreeing that things are hard. It feels uncaring. It feels like I am locking my heart away and being selfish. Except, my previous habit of throwing myself across gaps meant that the gaps did not feel so challenging. They seemed a small thing, part of the patterns of our lives. When I learned to stand back was when we began to see that the gaps as problems to be solved; when we began to fill in the gaps, change our routes so we didn’t hit so many, change the landscape so that they closed up. The moment I stopped rushing to fix everything is when I learned that love means letting others struggle and grow.

I’m starting to see the end. The snow is melting, the sun is brighter, and daylight is coming earlier in the morning. Winter is drawing to a close. Howard is in the final stages on two large projects. We’ve exited the muddle in the middle and are beginning the final rush to the end. I got my redesigned copies of Cobble Stones 2011 back from the printer and they look good. I’m doing a final editing pass on Cobble Stones 2012 before sending it to the copy editor. Howard’s kickstarter has funded and is in a stable pattern until the final rush at the end. I began the process of setting up the kickstarter for Strength of Wild Horses. These projects have been brewing and simmering for months and we’re finally starting to finish them off and call them done. It feels good.

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An Audio Interview over at Black Gate

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It has been a long day full of things done and I’m at the beginning of a week where I have many things yet to do which I don’t want to forget. So my head is a bit full. Fortunately I can point you at this interview that Howard and I recorded with Emily Mah. It is long, an hour and 11 minutes, because we talk about all sorts of things. It is a good thing I was able to say good things then because my brain is out of words today.

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