Can You Relate?
It is already December as I write this to you. The last of 2022 is rolling along. I get this crazy nostalgic, panicky feeling about this time every year.
It is a strange combination of joy in the season, the lights, the bustle, the generosity and good will that naturally seems to come out around this time of year. And of course, the inevitable questions – have I left anyone out? Will they like the gift I’ve chosen for them?
Then there is the serious one - the self reflection - did I live this year in the best possible way? Will I look back with a smile or regret that I let it just zoom by in a haste to get to the next “to do” thing on the list?
Not to be a Debbie downer right before St. Nick hits the chimney, but what prompts that last question is the memory of 2008-
December 8, 2008 to be exact. I was staying with my mom. She was ill. We all knew it and pretended not to. I accompanied her to her third, final and terminal, cancer diagnosis. The 45 minute ride home was excruciating. Mom was stoic, no words, no tears, “no surprise” was all she said in the car. My step-father, always stoic, drove in silence. I was grateful I was in the back seat. It gave me some liberty to feel the inevitability of what was coming. Not a lot. Mom had little tolerance for depressive emoting.
As we neared the house, her only other words were, “call your sisters and get them down here for the weekend. We are going to have a cryfest; get it all out at once and close the book on this sh*t.”
In accordance with my mom’s instructions – which by the way NO ONE disobeyed –my sisters gathered for the “cry fest.” The only thing we didn’t adhere to was letting it be “all over with.” But we damned sure hid our defiance from Mom! It didn’t help that Christmas was my mother’s favorite time of year.
It was a beautiful weekend - if I can say that. God gifted us with snow. Unusual for our area. My two sisters and I went outside, in view of the window, allowing mom to laugh at our pitiful snowball fight. We gathered enough to make “snow ice cream.” We laughed. We cried. We drank. We hugged each other even more than normal and said “I love you” about once an hour I think.
One year later I was decorating an empty house, alone. My only son was in college and my now ex-husband had just moved out, almost exactly to the day he had proposed 20 years earlier. Did I mention it was a big ass house?
Oh well, enough for the melancholy
I got all “F this,” went festive and spent a fortune on new decorations. Out with the old traditional red/green; in with the sparkly. I went all teal, lime green and silver that year!
My answer to life then was, can you guess?
J U S T – K E E P – M O V I N G and everything will be ok. The unspoken goal was to stay too busy to notice the emptiness, sadness, loss. I knew (or rather feared) that if I ever slowed down long enough to feel what was there – I would never get out of bed again.
Most nights I woke up almost hourly, my mind racing with anxiety about what I needed to do next to avoid the thoughts that I had failed at my life.
Fortunately, luckily, blessedly, universally guided, inspired by God, synchronistically driven - any and all those wonderful things – whatever you choose to call them,
I found a way to not only live, but really live.
I can tell you now with complete transparency, that if I had known then what the next few years would bring, I might seriously have gone back to bed! LOL.
BUT, I can also tell you, being on the other side now –I am so grateful I didn’t.
I worked my you know what off, reading, researching, (JUST FLAT ASS SEARCHING IN GENERAL). Adding to the 20 + years I had already racked up trying to save my marriage.
And then I discovered 3 simple secrets:
Find your passion
Understand you can’t change the world or anyone in it, except you
Let go of the past (including that sense of failure or deep desire to blame) in favor of a future.
I share these three things with gusto – ALL THE TIME.
Why?
Because I effectively condensed
the “Top 10 most stressful things that can happen to you in your lifetime”
to a 3-year period.
Talking about being an overachiever!
AND I not only survived, I thrived. I am now lovingly married, living my dream in an amazing house an hour outside Paris.
Are you saying to yourself - “Yeah, easy for you to say. You don’t know my circumstances.”
And, that’s so, so true. I don’t.
What I do know for sure is that we all have a history. We’ve all had rocky roads, suffered things we didn’t deserve, worked really hard to turn it around and maybe, perhaps, it didn’t go the way we planned.
What I also know is that every woman I’ve ever been in a personal relationship with, worked with, coached, or taught - fails to see her beauty. She shys away from owning her accomplishments, her strengths, her gifts. 99% of the time she is focused on what she perceives to be her failures, her flaws, her stories of “not good enough” or “too much” or “damaged, broken, unlovable.”
I know those stories aren’t true and they don’t work.
I also know that if you get clear on what you want and take one - itsy, bitsy, tiny step - every day (on some days that may just mean getting out of bed) YOU CAN DO IT TOO.
Still don’t think so?
I’M GOING TO CHALLENGE THAT.
YOUR LIFE:
Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper and put 0 on the left and 100 on the right. They stand for years. (imagining that with today’s science you could easily live to 100) Now, plug your age on the line, how many years are left?
NOW
Plug in every accomplishment to date. Everything.
Look around you. What do you have now - that at one point in your life was a desire or dream?
What have you accomplished, created, gathered?
Who have you loved?
Who do you still love?
Who loves you?
Who are your friends? Neighbors, colleagues?
Who did you support this week, yesterday?
What stranger did you smile at or say hi or thank you to that smiled back at you?
I am betting you have SO MUCH LIFE AHEAD.
And I know that you were divinely, magnificently created. I know that you have a role to play in this world. I know there are things only you can bring. ONLY YOU>
You have so much left to to do with your one wild and precious life.
The only question is, darling one, are you willing to be who you were always meant to be?
This is your year. It’s your time to dig in, smile and see who you really are.
Start now.
To steal from Karen Lamb – “A year from now, you will wish you had started today.”
PS – Here’s a link for a complimentary call. Happy dance all around! (Oh yeah, and don’t forget Aunt Dorothy’s gift.)