Menopause and Infertility

So hey there loves.
Yesterday was menopause day, aka CD 366. One full year with no period.

The past year has been filled with chin pimples and fading hair, skin that is thinning everywhere, showing the impact of gravity and estrogen loss.

As someone who lived, it seemed, cycle to cycle for so many years.  A late cycle would bring hope then torment and sadness. The year before last was a year of long periods, of wondering more than once if maybe, just maybe........ but then a panic would set it, what if? and what if I had a loss? And I think that might have happened but I did not check with sticks or temping... just waited things out.

Once, my first long cycle, I was sure I was pregnant. And the mixture of emotions was profound.  Amazement.  Fury. Hope. Fear. and then, when the bleeding started, such immense loss.  And then, the next time, I mostly felt loss, that I was officially out of the zone of possibility, no way for a good outcome even if... and to feel my body changing, to see it changing.... well, some changes are easier than others.

So today marks perhaps the first day of not wondering.
A feeling of in between. No longer that.  Not yet wholly and fully this.

Maiden, mother, crone. and the middle one holy moly mo-cro.
I am both.

not a day goes by where I don't feel wonder, even if it is wonder and madness.

So here we are.  in the middle of the middle.

Offering Solace

This space, as you all know, has saved me more than once. Helped me find myself when I was lost, sat with me in the muck when all I could do is sit. Helped me by letting me know I am not alone. A lot has changed, the blog based community has shifted, and I know so many of those with whom I was journeying have left the land of blogs and moved into other spaces, online or in real life.  But for me, this is home. When I think of where I found myself it is here. And when I think of you all, I think of friends who know the inner workings of what it means to struggle, with identity and challenging bodies, and plans that don't work, and many that go sideways.  Today I want to share a story that is not mine, because it sliced down into the raw in a way that I had not allowed in a long long time. And I wanted to share, for those who can listen. If you have resources and current blogs or facebook groups where Katie can find community please share with me in the comments or with her on her facebook feed (link below).  This is a candid video she shared, live, on facebook after her ectopic pregnancy burst her tube. And I want her to find the support I had. The love I've felt.  The not aloneness you all have offered me.  

*** 

So.

Life - as we all know-- is filled with the soft and the hard, the sweet and the bitter, the lost and the finding. And sometimes someone's story cracks me open in a way that reminds me of the power of telling our stories, raw and beautiful and true. So that others can heal, so that maybe we can too, so that we can speak the unspeakable, and we refuse to be held down by the weight of the untold or maybe even untellable secret wounds.

Saying that we are hurting when we are hurting is one of the most powerful ways to remind ALL of us of our humanity. Our compassion. Our fragility and grace and strength and resilience, all at once, breath by breath, miraculous.

I found Katie Lasky on facebook not so long ago and I am not sure how. But she is a gift and a voice to be heard. And shares a story to be honored.

I warn all of you, that this video is hard. And those of us who have experienced pregnancy loss, tread lightly in your own spaces and make good choices for your own hearts. 

And there are now fundraising links for Katie and her family on her FB feed. 

https://www.facebook.com/katie.lasky.92/videos/10158941679880080/?pnref=story

As above, not always, as below

So here we are.
April.
Snow still up over my boots, but a serious melt happening right now. The sky is full of clouds saying rain soon, rain soon, rain soon, as if that is a surprise. The earth is heavy with water right now, while on the other side of the earth, this rain, this snow, this water would be traded for gold.

So here I am.
Kate.
Snow still up over my boots, and life happening both above and below ground. Above ground, I turned 50. Della is growing fast, and teenagering already, and Doug is nearly ready for his seasons away at camp.  And I am not ready for that, not really. But here we are.

Below ground, I feel a little more stable. New medication holds the wolves of panic at bay. And I am returning slowly slowly to something that feels more like I used to. At least more like I used to.  But different. I'm different. And I can feel the change in my bones.

I do not want to live wary. (I choose this word, not warily)-- I do not want to live in fear.
I don't. I don't want to live waiting for the wolves to come and steal my happy, steal my autonomy, steal my sense of safety.  I don't want to feel as if my grip is tenuous. I want to feel strong and rooted and ready and able.
And I am shoring those up, digging deep, nourishing myself, and trying not to freak the fuck out when a windstorm comes and shakes the whole thing down and down and down.

I want to tell you about parenting and how, at 50, I am still panging with whateveritis that hurts when pregnancies are announced, and when little ones are passed, arms to arms, and the beginnings, so sweet, leave a longing.  I want to tell you we talk about adopting and how, here I am, knees and soul creaky, imagining and not being able to imagine. Not with this child, not in this lifetime, and then I feel bad for feeling that. As if I should be open.  But my openness is to not knowing what will come. Right now my heart is open in the direction of a family member needing extra love. And maybe that is what I am built for, yes, extra love-- here and here and here and here.

I want to tell you I am working hard at work that pays me with people I love. And I want to say that that is enough. But it isn't. I want to be creating more, writing, learning, self-directing.  My financial fear is still in place, month by month, we make it. Have more than most on the planet, and yet, we are of that group that is one emergency away from catastrophe. So for now, I kiss the ground in gratitude, and make lists of things I want to do when I have time, when I allow myself time.

I want to tell you I am taking care of my body, eating well, and walking and spending time outside. But my last two foods were potato chips and potato chips, and I walked to get them at the kitchen counter but I don't think that counts.

I want to tell you that I am flourishing in this post infertility era, this mid life, this amazing life, and I am and I'm not. there is no post-infertility. there is no post loss. there is life after, yes, but it is never "post", it does not recede. it rides shotgun. and I have come to realize that is what this is. a companion of sorts, a thing that is part of my experience that is not undoable.

I want to stay and write all day, I ache for this ache ache ache for this
but now, the timer is going off, the one that keeps me on track (HA HA HA HA HA)
and, coincidentally, also means my egg is ready to eat. the one I have boiled and will peel and will imagine it is anything other than what it is.

My real books just came.

My books, my real books just came. Not the proofs. Not proof #2 or #3 or #4.
Holy shit people, my book is on Amazon.

This, for me, is beyond huge. Getting this work out into the world feels crucial, and yet, getting it out into the world means telling my story out loud.
Funny thing about this: folks say YAY! what's your book about?
and I choke.
I am happy. I am sad. I am complicated and complex. This is a heart wrenching and yet cathartic and healing thing to do, to offer, to expose.

So. I am being gentle with myself, and hoping that the book finds its way into the hands that need it, and that my words, my journey, somehow offer solace to someone else.


***

A Field Guide to Grief: If you’ve lost your partner to suicide

Available now in paperback, or Kindle
by Kate Johnson
Link:http://amzn.com/1511433442

 

Losing a partner or spouse to suicide is shattering. This small book speaks directly to the survivor, starting from the beginning of the grief journey. Offering compassion and acknowledgment, survival tools and suggestions, these are kind and wise words from someone who’s been there.

 “if you have lost a partner to suicide, you will find a new friend named kate in these pages. out of the hard-won wisdom of her own loss, she offers you this field guide. a field guide, truly, as the pages feel like a field… breathable, open, + paradoxically peaceful. the rhythm of it all works beautifully between the ebb of uncluttered white space + flow of helpful words… a needed + good book for anyone walking through this heart-rending loss.” –rachel awes, psychologist, author, + art playgroundist rachelawes.com

“…a lovely resource for folks who are fresh into big pain. I’ll be happy to recommend this [book] to my clients.” –Dr. Martha Jo Atkins honors the deeply spiritual experience of death by providing compassionate witness to the dying, and support for healing transformation to the bereaved. marthaatkins.com

My note to you: This is a difficult book. A sad book. A real book informed by love and understanding that in grief, there is no time to sift through case studies and anecdotes. I get right down to the core. It is about acute grief and navigating the immediate experience of loss. It is about living with grief and living with loss and the loss of identity. It is about self protection and permission. It is about survival. My own experience was one of breath-by-breath choices, to keep moving forward, to not lose myself, to choose to heal and go on, over and over and over again. If you need this book, I am so sorry. But if you need this book, I am so glad you have found your way here,  and I hope beyond hope that my words offer you solace.

 

If you are not in grief and want to support me by buying a book, please do (and thank you!). Please consider donating it to an organization or individual who works with folks in acute grief. A funeral home, for example… I could have used this book the second day if not the first. Someone else may too.

like a window

grief opens grief like a window

like a can opener

stirs silt from the bottom

shakes loose parts newly or incompletely mended

rattles around, making noisy messes, reminding me acutely of things that hurt to remember.

As I think about the brilliance lost in Robin William's heartbreaking choice, I think too about the losses we all share, those who have loved someone who has made this nearly unthinkable decision. And while I am so very sad for Robin, that this felt like the only choice he had left, I am more sad for his family, those who loved him, all of us who felt somehow connected to his wry smile, his tenderness, his humanness.  It exposes our collective vulnerability somehow.

After losing a beloved to suicide, 11 years ago this past weekend, I have finally gained solace of a sort during hard work this past year... a hard won healing. Tender always, but a new sense of something like peace, I guess... a still point of understanding I did not have before-- before, suicide was simply unthinkable, unimaginable, and my loss, the world's loss of my beloved, was totally beyond my comprehension.

Now, after experiencing being taken down by anxiety into an underworld of desperation-- I understand things I did not understand before.

I sought help, took it, take it, seek it. And thanks to this intervention I have returned home to myself.

But I understand now, desperation, in a way I did not.

I understand just wanting to make the pain stop. And simply not being able to stand it. Feeling lost, taken over, alone.

And I wish for all who feel lost, to reach out, get help, allow help in. Please.

In this moment, I sit with this sadness, with the echos of my own loss, my own grief, and let it (as best I can) move in and through... knowing, after all this time, that it will move like water, downstream, if I allow it to pass through my knowing, my heart, my memories, and not try to hold on for the sake of having something to hold on to.

Journeys: the day after

waking to a flat cloudy sky

the long dark morning of late fall, the slowest dawn

a stillness

it hits me that it was not a dream

my grandparents used to live on long island sound, on a bluff with a view out over the water. one cold winter, the sound froze.

and where there had been motion, there was suddenly a jarring stillness.

yesterday when I came home, alone, my eyes moved to all of his places-- seeking a glimpse

the kitchen under the highchair

the strange spot on the shoes by the door

the closet

the bed

the bathroom rug

the tub

all night my eyes kept vigil, seeking the tell tale slink or flicker of him.

"I see his tail" Della said once. And then said she was just pretending. But in that moment before she confessed, my heart leapt, as if.

as if.

today, I am busy and grateful for the busy. but my eyes seek the motion that has always been. the quiet company. My friend Lorraine reminds me that he is here differently now, and "here" has expanded into everywhere. But my eyes and heart ache for the familiar, the furry presence, the small reassuring movements of breath and tail and whisker.

august anniversary

10 years ago and the memory is both sharp and muddled

I have a story my self tells myself. the moon was near full, but the day was rainy

and it was years before I was ok on sundays or mondays or on nights with a big moon. I could not even look at it.

today is saturday, and it is not rainy, and the moon is thin and waxing. my life’s a million leagues away from that life, but I am still the same kate. this is still the same heart.

I sometimes talk about my “past lives”, seasons from this lifetime that feel nearly separate, like chapters. But the truth is, this is my mosaic. This is my tangle. This is my weft and weave. There is no metaphor that captures the dimensions of this kind of human evolution, the one that is in each one of us, in heartbreak and success, in growing up and into and out of and beyond. There are things that keep us grounded, but there is the urge to keep seeking; the feelings of nesting and those of setting out. Achievement and beginners mind. All that we know informing us, humbling us, with all that we don’t yet know and all that is unknowable.

the thing about grief, for me, is that the loss is still a loss. It did not happen today. but today it is still lost. and there is all this space for whatiffing. all this space for the wild thicket of guilt and horror, of astonishment, of disbelief.

so yes, I mark this day with a heavy heart. no matter that my life is filled with wonderful things. no matter that my heart is filled with love. i hold both, the full and the empty.

there is an ancient japanese art of mending, Kintsugi, that believes that mending can be as beautiful (if not more so) than the original vessel.

today, i hold this image cupped in my hands.

broken, yes, but mended and mending with a thousand golden seams.

Losing Papa

Doug's grandpa died early this morning.
He was grandpa and father and friend. He was bedrock. It is hard knowing that this loss brings every other kind of shift away from all that could be counted on, a house that was home will be gone most likely, and all the history that it contains.
But memories, those will last if we're lucky.
The smell of caramel cake, and a deep throated laugh, the world's most horrendous teeth...
I will always remember our visit in March, he met our amazing Della, and I rubbed lotion into his hands. And I confess, I took longer than I needed to, imagining all those hands had touched.

Journeys: the way this has gone

Driving up north on Route 3 is a slow rewind through spring.

Back to buds and near bare branches

back to just the gentlest haze of color on the hillsides

snow in the shadows

last week I drove up, 4 hours each way through fog that broke open into ragged-bottomed clouds, the bluest sky, then the hardest rain.

I was looking for a cemetery that I did not find.

Instead I found myself pulling off the road without choosing to, into a gravel parking lot, taking a right turn at the bottom down a dirt road.  Into a smaller space, where my fingers turned the key, opened the door and then I was walking thorugh the woods on a path from my memory

through it, I guess

drawn by it

to turn down a path obscured by a fallen log

through the scent of lemony evergreens (hemlock?) 

the first time I ever walked those paths without a fishing pole, without Jeff.

down to the river, down the bank,

hands into the cold water by the falls.

A large water bird flew down the river, fast and low. Black and white and silent.

The day pulled me apart in ways and places I did not expect, and had me laughing, and swearing, as I went down each of a hundred roads, over a bridge (YES), up a hill that turned just so and opened up (YES, said my body, HERE) only to find that no, it was not the right place. the lump in my throat gathering so much unexpressed and inexpressible

sadness

frustration

loss, and lostness

I drove and drove and drove. I drove for two and a half hours, down roads, up roads, across bridges.

Rain so hard I could barely see.

Rain so hard it turned the dirt roads to muddy slides

I felt my tires slip a million times and each time felt a very different depth of alone-- I was not anywhere that anyone would find me and my signal had been lost 2 hours south.

Then I simply ran out of time.

Drove home.

Could not have been more exhausted.

***

Yesterday, I drove up again. Armed, this time, with different information. My first trip triggered memories, memories of a specific stone, one that was insanely easy to search for on google.

I went with a map, with a plan.

Back through the craggy mountains at franconia notch

back by the old man in the mountain, who fell the year Jeff died.

back up and through and beyond into the strange wide open that is the great northern woods.

I drove to the cemetery on the map. 

Found the stone of memory.

Left the twig of hemlock taken from the fishing spot. Left the pinecone. The stone is of Mettalak, the last of a tribe.

But it was not the cemetery. It is not the one, all those many winters ago, where I stood by the side of the road and threw snowballs laced with ashes over a snowbank too high to climb.

It wasn't. 

So said my body that felt no sign of him, did not feel him in the way the road had been worn down below the grade of the stones. 

So said the sign that noted the road is closed December-May 10th. 

I could not have driven that road.

It was february and the road would have been impassable.

There has been no simplicity in this journey. And that moment, there was an opening back into curiosity.

The wind was howling and the amazingly bright clouds were moving so fast their shadows felt almost tangible.

I got back in my car, and decided to drive back in a different direction, taking different roads, wondering if I would trigger more body memories that could help me navigate. 

Eventually I turned back onto pavement, and I immediately realized I'd turned the wrong way, and I heard, no it isn't. So I drove a mile at most, back to a cemetery I had found last week. One that said yes in every way except the lack of the stone that I had remembered.

But this time, I knew it was the right one. 

I got out and walked.

I looked on the ground, for what, fragments of bone? my wedding ring? I put a stone in my pocket.

I got back in my car, and turned toward home. 

It is high there, and the mountains fall away in all directions, and the light and shadows were moving so quickly with that wild wind, there was more than I could see.

Dark pines are nearly black against the spring green of new buds,

and the hillsides, that amount of open, 

I pulled off to let a truck pass, and to my complete surprise, cried a different way than I usually do about this. It was about the beauty, I guess, and my luck at the gift of just being able to witness.

Witnessing the shadows moving so fast, the light, on that hillside, that one. The one with the bright spring buds, the ones with the dark pines.

light, in three parts

Am sitting with sun coming in
tea warming me after an unexpectedly COLD shower (ug)
and just am trying to gather myself together.

I was going to be taking a goal oriented trip today, a solo trip. A long-ass drive trip. An all-day-in-the-car trip.  An at least one-part-shitty, one-part-maybe-healing kind of trip. But then I realized I was not ready, not really, and I am trying to be ok with that.  I try not to dwell here on shitty history, but sometimes it just is what I am dealing with. This year will be the 10 year anniversary of Jeff's death, and I realized, somewhat to my own surprise, that I was maybe ready to do some things I was not even able to think about a short while ago. One is to find a place to have a marker. A touchstone in the most literal sense. And this must be in the upper reaches of the state, in a place I know he loved. And I was going to go today to meet with a cemetery sexton to talk plot selection, etc. And it turns out, not surprisingly, that the place I picked from the map, upon further reflection, is not the right place. And yes, there is a right place. I have been there before, just long ago and far away. I will remember it when I see it. But I need to go, first. I need to go and look and feel my way toward the place I am remembering. And that will suck differently. Then I can talk plot and narrative arc and denouement. I was to leave well before dawn today to get there for a meeting time, then home again I hoped by dinner. Instead, I am here.

Here.

My beloveds are off eating pancakes, and I am needing to work since I can (I cannot when Della is here, our place is too small, and we are too interactive), and instead of diving into work I just played a bit with something I've been wanting to learn to do-- text along a curve

And I am stoked since it just simply worked.
Yes, I am an engineer by training, but I know no one more persistently thwarted by technology. So when I have success, it is like the biggest surprising YES ever, since my view of technology is that it should either be completely transparent (JUST WORK), or delight me. And this view persists, oh how it persists, in spite of my repeated experiences to the contrary.

So while I gather my expectations for the day while practicing more than a bit of self compassion, I wanted to write since I have been missing words here for a while. Sharing lovely images of Della is wonderful, (see below where Doug helps her look little for just a little longer), but words heal me differently and sometimes I forget that it is important not to hold it all back and down and hope it just magically resolves. There is healing when I let the light in.

another from easter

Just for now, not for always

snow and stillness
motion now just snow falling off of wires and branches
drips dripping from icicles
otherwise, it is the kind of still that feels nearly unnerving, like looking at a frozen ocean. It reminds me of the million tiny movements that we get accustomed to... movement of trees, sky, grasses....even light.
This milky sky and shadowless ground.... so     very     still

***

thank you all for your great recommendations for Della's hair-- coconut oil! Frizz 'Fro indeed-- what a perfect description!
for your support about reading/videos/longing.... the one thing I know is that whatever I know today may or may not have any bearing on tomorrow... Della changes, and changes and changes, and it is for me to be sensitive, aware, and adjust.  Re-offer the food re-offer the book and activity that may not have been right yesterday. The ruts are often mine based on concluding rather than just resting in the moment.  This is our truth right now, I need to remind myself. Just for now. Not for always.

We memorialized my grandmother this weekend. And I swear, I feel as if she is just in the next room. I keep waiting for her to pop in and see if we need anything, tea or cookies... her voice is so present in my heart. My favorite moment from the service-- ok, there are three:  Della, in her big voice, pointing at the minister saying Who's that man? And then calling him a superhero (standing up high, wearing a cape-like-object, he really did look like a super hero);  a sudden loud organ chord that had us all levitate and then laugh....;  and the most beautiful bells.  I had never heard anyone play the bells, not alone, not christmasy, and wow... it was totally hauntingly lovely and emotionally right on.

Doug's beloved grandpa is suddenly failing, so Doug is off on a plane today after deciding, scheduling, getting more phone calls, and changing the flight to be much sooner...  This is such a sad season of transitions and losses I don't like it one bit.  Papa (Doug's grandpa) is a real character, I mean it, the kind if I wrote him everyone would think I'd gone too far, was too extreme...  I will always think of his laugh, head thrown back, full throated, joyful.... as he recounted how he met Doug's grandma.
We were all going to go in April. At least, that was the plan. Plans, shplans... we will change what we need to change, knowing the whole time that those things are not at all the things we would change right now if we could...

I-me

Flurries today, little snowflakes flying in all directions, sunshine one moment, clouds the next... but it is warmer all of a sudden, and there is just the faintest breath of wind.

I feel like I have my feet more underneath me today- feel more gathered up than broken down.

I know so many of us have written about this, how new grief so often brings up old grief, and sadness begets sadness. It is easy to get lost in it. Undertow.

Instead of resisting this time, or pathologically searching around for pockets of unhealed hurt to poke, I just leaned into it with compassion, yes, I said, yes, I know, I know. This *does* suck. That did suck. There is pain and there was pain.

And for once, the knots loosened instead of tightening.

I am an avoider of pain. I hate pain. I know, most of us are.
I am an avoider of things I do not want to be true.
I have no peace with the fact of loss. Except, maybe, this time. This time there was something to feel peaceful about, a bigger loving over arching something that said, no more suffering.
And this is as true as I can know it to be.

***

Now I want to write about Della for a moment, how she refers to herself as I-me.

I-me
I-me do it.

Covers a lot of bases.

She is into big time possession mode-- things are hers, not to be shared, and sadly missed when gone. These things include things at daycare so it is more than awkward.

She is dreaming now, and tells us her dreams sometimes.

When she wakes, she often says things about the previous day as if we are in mid-conversation.

Yes, we are still co sleeping.

Yes we are still nursing. Weaning will happen when we're ready, or when one of us is. And right now, we just aren't.

She is magnificent.  She is fierce and determined and funny and bossy and tender.
Nice boots mom!
Good job dad!
She pats me and my heart melts.

I cannot believe her immensity ever wasn't here, being, visible.

Today in my new groundedness, I am able to look up and see the snow falling down, in no way linear, back and forth, crisscrossing, meandering, no rush....
and am trying very hard to imagine embodying that kind of non-effort, even for a little while.

Mindful Healing, Day 20 Truth

So, yes, this month of Mindful Healing is not going to be a whole month after all, not a month of posts anyway. It turns out that (*SURPRISE*) thinking/talking/writing about grief and healing is profoundly difficult.  It has positive power (yay transformation!), but also an unavoidable power to keep me pulled down, when really, I am wanting to be pulled up. No, not like a flower, more like a sock.
So.

Here we are.

I want to offer this to you:  healing can come from focus, but it can come from rest. It can be all about intensity, work, process... it can also be about letting it be, leaving it alone, stopping the incessant poking.

Of course, this is how I got into my encapsulation problem, where I created pockets of brand new grief, tucked in there, covered in scar tissue and optimism, created by the false hope that avoidance would result in some miraculous behind the scenes healing.
So I am not advocating avoidance.

But I am advocating being true to yourself.  As I am about to be right here, right now.

We survive our losses by whatever means possible. Breath by breath by breath by breath. I made myself eat. I slept when my body and mind allowed. I moved. I got clean, got dressed, went into the world. No, not every day. No, not always well. No not always.
Often and often with surprise, memories kick in for me, like stepping on a hoe. It is sudden, it is intense, it is difficult. And then there are anniversaries that are tailor-made for emotional slogginess. And oh, this year I wanted so much to do something, anything, that would make this time of year less shitty.

This year I made a promise to myself to do something differently, and I did. And it has been wonderfully and surprisingly healing. It has, indeed, been mindful. It has been transformative. I have come up with some new grief management skills that I will use forever more.

This morning, I woke to a starry sky at 4am, cold clear air.  A need for socks and a sweater. And a feeling, deep down and true, that I am done with this for now. This particular inquiry. I need to stop poking, however productive it has been. I need to let it rest. Let me rest from it as well. I survived the anniversary, and I am ready to not be working on it with such intensity, however mindful, however gentle and well-intentioned.

So,
there you have it.



Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Mindful Healing, Day 15 your story

For those of you along for this journey, I wanted to write about telling our stories. Specifically, the twin challenges of working/living/loving alongside those who know your story, and those who don't.

It sucks rocks to have to tell your story to someone new. It sucks to watch their face register the pain of the new information, it sucks even to feel the compassion. And oh, how it sucks to tell it.

It also sucks to have folks who have known you through your loss continue to feel like you are broken,  or in need of protecting, or to feel that somehow they continue to see you through the lens of your loss. It makes it very hard to move forward.

But it also is hard to feel broken, feel in need of protecting, and in the midst of living through the lens of our loss, while others feel it is time we move on, get over it, focus on the positive things that are happening in our lives.

It sucks rocks to be someone with this story.

But try to remember, there is power here too (hidden maybe)- power to connect, power of compassion, power of sensitivity that others don't necessarily have...

No wise words here, just yes, I get it.
There are no secrets here. No tried and true. Just suckitude.


***
We awoke this morning to a vibrant glowing orange sky.
As we watched, it got brighter and brighter, then lightning, thunder, and a slow turn from orange to gray as dawn truly turned to sunrise.

This week of travel and no daycare has resulted in sporadic time for anything external-- full time Della means no time or chance to post.
I'm rolling with it, since this time is a gift.
Time in the car means time to think. Time away from the computer feels like half relief, half panic. So many things piling into my inbox that need the kind of attention I don't have to offer in this moment.
Learning to let it be, oh my, is so challenging!
But the thinking has been fruitful, and the time with Della is intense and wonderful.
I will resurface next week.

Mindful Healing, Day 11 Transformation

By date, this is my hardest day.

But this year, by the mere (and mighty) act of deciding to transform this month into something positive, something mindful and intentional, not something that I am at the mercy of moment to moment...well, something shifted, something transformed, something happened to loosen a grip on my heart that has been holding tight for 9 years.
9.

I do not know what in me has finally allowed this transformation to occur-- maybe it was time passing, maybe it was being tired of feeling so at the mercy of memory and regret, maybe it was just luck that I stumbled on some combination that is allowing me to put forth positive energy while, yes, still remembering.

I'm still actively shoving things aside, don't get me wrong.
But each time my heart wants to put a timeline on this day versus that one, or wants to replay things I know to be true, things I saw, things I heard, I am finding it *easier* to jump off into a memory I believe to be positive. One I can hold that is not about me, not about the loss, but just a good memory. I know I am lucky to have one. I know I am lucky to have this work.  I am lucky to have this outlet, this one, here on blogger.  I am lucky that I can talk about this at all. I am lucky in a million ways.

But for me, the past nine Augusts have always felt like minefields.  Ones I knew to be strewn with mines, not just the possibility, but the certainty. It was a question of when, not whether.

This year, through this act of mindfully cultivating healing and self care each day, gentleness, compassion, all I can say is wow.

It has been transformative for me.

I questioned and question whether this is the right forum for this particular series, but I am connected to no other population that has experienced nested losses quite like this one. I hope that by writing it out, reminding us all to extend ourselves some latitude, gentleness, compassion, and awareness of how complex loss can be, maybe some of you are feeling a little more healed or at least feel that incremental healing is possible.

That would be my wish.  That we all can heal a little bit more, and let positive transformations happen, even (or especially) when they are totally unexpected.

Mindful Healing, Day 10 Breathing

There is a deep fatigue in loss, isn't there? There is so much to carry.

Sometimes, things spiral. Memory, regret, longing.

What if, for this moment, and maybe the next, we just try to be mindful of our breathing. We don't have to try to do anything else. We don't have to be anyone else. We don't have to pretend or imagine or regret. We don't have to wish or long for...
We can just be.

A few days ago I posted a short audio meditation as an assist for "I am here, in this moment" (under 3 minutes long).

I'm going to post it again here, because really?  The only way through anything is breath by breath by breath.
And not every moment has to be filled with heavy lifting.

Today I invite us all to return to this moment, to breathing in this air, to breathing out this breath. 

Hosted by kiwi6.com file hosting. Download mp3 - Free File Hosting.

Background music is Healing Relaxation With Tibetan Singing Bowls

Mindful Healing, Day 8 Identity

As part of our healing process, it helps to admit that with our loss, came the loss of one or more identities, roles, personas, facets of our selves as we were, were becoming, or hoped to become.

There is such power in projecting forward our hopes for ourselves and our lives and our loved ones. We connect to an outcome, or the status quo. 

I introduce myself-- I am Kate, I am a ____ usually filled in with workstuff

but really, aren't we all a million different things?

Some of these are contextual

some are permanent

some are transitory

some are things we can have or achieve again 

and some are not

Like innocence, loss of identity can be staggering.

Who am I now? is such an existentially frightening question.

In the moments after loss, this can be profound.

But it turns out, for many of us, there are longer term implications too. 

We will forever be the person who experienced the loss.

So, I invite you to join me in an intention-- 

just for today I will honor the lost parts

and I will hold myself gently in cupped hands, light streaming through the seams, glued imperfectly... no, not back together, but into something new.

Mindful Healing, Day 7 Innocence

With loss comes loss of innocence.
Suddenly, there we are.
We cannot unknow it.
We cannot undo it.
We cannot not have it have happened.
We cannot ever be the person we were before.

Wisdom comes, yes, but the expense. Oh, the expense.
Fear can come too-- fear that something like this could happen again. Conscious fear, unconscious fear, ride shotgun, whispering worry.

But it cracks us open to a different kind of compassion. A different way of knowing. A different way we can connect to other people.

It is one of the things that makes this medium, this internet, so powerful.  We connect over countless miles, different cultures, different languages, over losses that are somehow shared experiences. Not replicas.  But over the solace of hearing
Yes, I have been in that trench.
Yes, I have fought that fight.
Yes, I have been wounded too.

There is such a profound potential for connection, for offering and receiving compassion.

Just for today, imagine extending yourself the same compassion you would extend a stranger-- gentle understanding, room for whatever is coming up, support, kindness.

I think of the stones that line my shelves, the ones worn smooth from untold waves, of salt and sand.
The ones I picked up warm from the sun, piled into my pockets for comfort.
Their velvet softness a response to a billion minute collisions.

Mindful Healing, Day 6 Collateral damage

No loss is simple.
When we lose something, there are often many other things we lose along the way. Faith, hope, expectations, dreams, a future we envisioned, peace, identity.

Today I invite you to acknowledge that there might be unresolved pieces, futures and dependencies you might not even know you had started to create, build up and build on. I invite you to acknowledge them even if you don't know what they are.

This is not about intention, or lack of intention.
This is not about setting ourselves up.
This is not about foolishness or delusion.
These pieces-- doesn't it make sense that they are the natural byproduct of hope?-- ideas and emotional connections cast forward into a future with some expectation (however unconscious) of how things might be or become.

This is about all the things that come along for the ride when we begin down a path.
Yes, our fears are along for the ride too (go check out Sprogbloggers most excellent post).
But this post is about all of the things that line the sunny side of the road, all of the good things we imagine that will be.

The fact is, I know of only some of my pieces of hope. But I am still, all these years later, realizing just how many there were and are.

So how do we best deal with this unfinished business? This hope, or that one, that we suddenly realize or eventually realize is tied up to what we hoped would happen? These bits that are not central to the loss, but are often central to who we are and who we let ourselves become?

I think the best we can do is hold ourselves gently and offer heartfelt compassion to both who were were then, and who we are now. We did and we do the best that we can.

I think that we need to be more gentle with ourselves when we catch ourselves in our whatiffing. In our whatmighthavebeens. In our ifonlyies.  In our perhaps unfolding awareness that our loss means the loss of so much more.   Be gentle--Your future, as you envisioned it consciously or unconsciously, shifted out from under your feet. You may feel out of whack in ways that you cannot explain, or in ways you cannot articulate.  These places of unmet hope, of unmet expectations need healing too.  They may need a bit of attention, perhaps even a bit of grief, a bit of letting go, even if we do not know all that they are, or all that they impact.

Be aware that there might be an undercurrent holding you to these nested losses, that these too might be links we hold as connections to what we lost. So it is not necessarily as easy as brushing dust from our hands, saying There, enough of That.

I offer this intention and invite you to do the same:  

Just for today, even if I do not know all of the details of all of the repercussions of my loss, I admit and acknowledge that there were plenty.  

I will accept (for today) the fact that some I will know, and some I will never know.

But no matter what, I will be gentle with myself as they come up, and release them as best I can. 

I will also meditate on releasing all of the tangled bits I will never fully know, imagining combing them out, perhaps twining them around my hand, imagining placing them lovingly in a basket tied to a balloon, imagining releasing them. 

Mindful Healing, Days 3-5 First do no harm

I'll be mostly offline until Monday, so I'll offer all of us this seemingly simple assignment for the next few days:

Let's be gentle with ourselves.
Let's be mindful of when we are doing more harm than good. Even if the harm is disguised as habit.
Let's try to make choices that lighten and simplify...
and let's give ourselves permission to not make decisions that we are not ready to make, to not make plans, to not say yes, to not say no.  Let's give ourselves permission to buy time, say, we'll see, to wait until we know more or know more clearly what we truly want or what we can truly handle.
For the next few days, imagine that we are a close friend. How would we treat us? What words would we choose to speak? What support would we offer? What diversions would be create? What laughter would we find? What gentle touch, what compassion, what kindness would come?

Give yourself that.
Go on, try it.
I'll try too.

See you monday.