Author Archives: Pat

A few truths I’ve accepted

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Grief, Transformation, Uncategorized

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I read a posting on Facebook the other day.  It said:

When I look back on my life, I see pain, mistakes and heartache.

                When I look in the mirror, I see strength, learned lessons, and pride in myself.

The author is anonymous, and it was posted by trustyourjourney.com.  I could have written that, except that I see a whole lot more than just pain when I look back on my life…and yes, I’ve had my share (and then some) of hard times along the way.  I remember good, easy, soft times as well.  It takes more than mistakes or heartache to shape a strong, bold, brave woman!  Regardless of the path you’ve taken, here are a few truths I’ve learned and held on to, through a divorce, a child’s long hospitalization, a second marriage, having both of my parents pass away, and now “solowing” for the past year.

 1. Love doesn’t die.

I still love my husband and my parents, all of whom have died.  I even hold a special place in my heart for my ex-husband, because of the good times we did share. We had 3 lovely babies  who have all become wonderful young adults,, so it wasn’t ALL bad.  Which is in itself proof that we can love more than one person at a time.  The dreams will change, the reality will change, but the treasured feelings of having been loved, accepted, cared for, trusted, and supported do not change. I can’t see Kevin or my parents the way I used to, but I can talk to them and feel their presence. I also am not unloved, as proven by the family and friends who continue to be in my life, actively.

 2. Grief doesn’t have to last forever.

I know people who continue to grieve 10 and 20 and more years after a significant loss in their lives.  I hurt for them, because it doesn’t have to be that way.  I’m not saying grieve and forget.  I’m saying that the work of grief can be productive and run its course, so to speak.  Here is what I have discovered in the past year.

Grief is a solo journey, an individual process.  It starts when you experience some kind of ending, and then you wander along an emotional path through hills and valleys, until you have a new beginning of another kind.  The ending can take some time, as in a deteriorating marriage or through an illness, or it can be abrupt as in that phone call in the middle of the night that changes everything.  The wandering time takes quite a bit longer.  Maybe you remember, or maybe you try to forget; you cry, you get angry, you are confused, you feel out of sorts; auto-pilot takes over for a bit and it’s hard to regain control.  You might experience guilt, insecurity, or any number of other emotions…including occasional happiness, relaxation, calmness, forgiveness, focus, anticipation.  Even when you start to feel some energy, some confidence, some optimism about the future, there’s not a straight path, but it does get easier…if you let it.  And then you’ll start thinking about what’s next, and making plans, and getting on with the business of life.  It’s when you can let go of the person you used to be and the way your life used to be, that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s the new beginning. It may not be clear, but it’s there.  Will there still be times when a song remembers when, and you’ll feel sad? Or a new wedding reminds you of the daddy that won’t walk down the aisle?  Or the new baby that reminds you you’re still going to have to face this other grandparent on and on and on at birthdays and baseball games? Sure.  But that shouldn’t  sustain  continued, ongoing, grieving. Unless maybe you tried to take a shortcut on the wandering path (by ignoring your feelings, for example) or  never completed your letting go of who you used to be (the anger took up too much room maybe?).

3. The grief experience is a gift.

A gift of time, of freedom to feel your feelings when everyone else will understand – at least for a while, an opportunity to reflect and repriortize and reorganize your Self and your life.  I would bet that the majority of people spend at least a few days planning a vacation, depending on where they are going.  And I would bet that most people spend at least a few days researching good deals when buying a car or a washing machine.  But how much time do you spend considering whether or not your life is On Purpose, what makes you happy, why you do what you do every day?

This past year of grieving has taught me more about myself. I have been confronted with who I am without him, with what is really important, with how valuable time is.  I am more deliberate right now, I think more critically, and I live more deeply.  I appreciate more, I am more selective.  I know I used to spend a lot of time complaining about trivial things and did nothing about them.  I know I also spent time whining about bigger things – and also did nothing about that.  I used to think I had time to figure it all out someday, so I was a pro at fulfilling obligations at work, conforming to society’s expectations, seeking approval, doing my duty.  And it wasn’t as if that was bad, but it didn’t have enough meaning for me or leave any room for what I wanted to do.  I was given a clear message when my husband died that my clock is ticking too.  I don’t know when my time will be up here, and so if there are things I’d rather do, people I’d rather be with, places I’d rather go, then that time is now. This awareness, this clarity, this no-doubt-about-it confidence is a gift unlike any other.

 4.  Finally, there is life after life.

For him, and for me.  My belief is that my husband is in a better place, a place his spirit  needed to be more than here.  His life was about him; he was the lead actor, and I had a supporting role.  My life is about me, and I get to play the lead.  I am still here.  It’s up to me what the rest of my life will be like.  I want to be happy, do meaningful work, be a blessing to someone every day.  No one wants me to forget him, or for me to get on with things so it’s easier for them. We all want to know that we all will be okay, and the way to prove this is for me to get on with my life.

I’ve learned more than these 4 truths, but these are the main ones: Love Doesn’t Die; Grief Doesn’t Have to Last Forever; Grief is a Gift; and There Is Life After Life.  If you are grieving or know someone who is, be encouraged that every ending is followed by a new beginning. The wandering time in between may be longer or shorter because of all the many variables that affect individual grief, but the outcome will be similar.  Remember, all who wander are not lost!

We are all Connected

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

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As I said in my post earlier this week (Remembering Dad), our grief (at least, my grief) is tied to other events in our (my) past. I can’t simply remember Kevin without remembering times we had together with my family, and how he bridged and buffered my relationship with Dad.  Which conjures up the fact of my Dad dying in the same year, which made me an orphan because my Mom died in 2002, and my Mom and Dad had lost a baby boy at age 2 months, and sisters of my Mom and my Dad  had lost infants or young children that I remember. And on and on and on.  My post resulted in Baby Greg stories from my sister and my cousin, which then led to obtaining a copy of my baby brother’s death certificate.  And this communication eventually opened a question about my grandpa’s brother who is apparently buried in a cemetery in Hollywood, California, near where my daughter lives. Along the way, I had a conversation about an aunt who is sick with early stages of Alzheimer’s, and who is taking care of her, etc., and circling back to my grandpa’s Last Will & Testament, yada-yada-yada …. so maybe a Weyer (Girls??) Weekend is in order to share some stories of family lore and who-knows-what-else. All because my husband died over a year ago and I am seeking a new life with new meaning on my own. Although my brother says I’m not really alone because he has my back.  So we are all connected. We can’t not be, and it’s not just the Weyers and Farmers. although we do happen to be doubly connected. (A different story.)

This isn’t the first time that this kind of thing has happened.  It’s a “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” sort of thing, isn’t it?  We hear about closing doors on the past, or opening windows of opportunity, and a life should be examined yet lived in the moment, and Boom! Plenty of things don’t make sense until they do, and sometimes they just don’t.  Here I am trying to get centered and back in touch with myself as a “solowingnow” woman, and I find myself going back in time 20, 40, 50 years ago. But that’s not all.  Last spring I also had a “past life regression” experience, in which I went w-a-y back in time to before I was born this time, to WWI.  And over Christmas I had a tarot card reading that foretold the next 6-12 months.  (It’s all very good!)

What I am hoping to find  with these remembrances and filling in of some gaps and taking things to another level is some patterns, some pieces of me that remain solid and true, no matter my relationships or my environment, and some pieces that are evidence of development or learning or growth beyond memorizing my multiplication tables or being able to read and write.  The part that I am most fascinated with has to do with how I think, what I think about, what I believe or question, why I do what I do… well, wait, I have an answer to that one. Neale Donald Walsh in his book Conversations with God, says “The only reason to do anything is as an expression of who we are.”  That I believe inside out and upside down, all the way to the bank.  It makes complete and total sense to me. But who am I? That is where the hard work comes in, and the sabbatical gives me the time for that introspection and exploration.  What I’m after is the peace of mind that comes from being in harmony – thought and action. But I’ve lived a lot of my life out of a sense of obligation or expectation, or by default because I didn’t know what else to do or because I didn’t think any other options were realistic.

So I allow myself to feel my feelings, and to wander back in time through photos and memories and stories remembered by others.  It turns out the ones of Kevin are happy ones right now…the cushion I rest on as I explore what made me who I was when I was with him, and who I am without him. I believe he is with me still, soul to soul, to push and catch me as need be. He always wanted me to be happy, and he is still helping me figure that out.  But obviously, I had a life before him too, and I don’t want to dismiss that as inconsequential.  It made me whoever I am. I’m glad he was part of my life, and I’m glad I can give time to those memories of him without becoming a wet rag or a victim of widowhood.

We experience life alone together, finding along the way  little dots left by others or leaving our own everywhere, until we connect those dots and discover how to interpret the pictures we see, so we can again move through more time, somehow boundaryless, but shaped by our collective past and our individual journeys forward.

Remembering Dad

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Grief

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Dad k id_collage

Today is the second anniversary of my Dad’s passing.  He liked to project a tough guy image to us kids, so he wasn’t the Father-Knows-Best kind of dad. In fact, I was often disappointed in his parenting.  I feared him when I was a kid, I challenged him as a mother myself, and I came to accept him near the end of his time on Earth. But I felt as if a bee had stung me at the loss of opportunity for a better relationship.  I felt sad when I got the call, but I don’t recall much crying or despair.

His death made me an orphan, my mother having died in 2002. Her passing, too, was the end of an opportunity for a my-mother-is-my-best-friend relationship.  I didn’t cry much when she passed either, although I did sit on my couch and cry for about three days a month or so later.  She died in late September, and that year I didn’t feel much like doing Christmas. That was also the year I got married to Kevin, which was my second time.  I remember a story my Mom once told me, how when she was diagnosed with cancer in 1978, she begged God to let her live to see all her kids married and settled down.  At that time, Diane was 11, Theresa was 14, and Jeff was about 17.  Peggy and I were already graduated from high school and out on our own.  God granted that wish, but just before the last one got married (Diane), I got divorced.  And so I guess “all” her kids weren’t married.  But then I remarried in July 2002, and now we all were married, so she died in September, a new cancer having taken her. I felt guilty for a while over that.  If I hadn’t gotten married, would she have had more time, time to watch her first granddaughter get married the following year?

Kevin died the same year as my Dad, and that was when I started really examining grief and its various dimensions. I had previously experienced the death of all four of my grandparents, several aunts and uncles, some cousins, even a baby brother.  It was the baby’s death that I focused on.  I began to wonder how my parents functioned having to give up a 2-month their first boy (but third child) to a rather sudden pneumonia. How in the world did my mom have time to grieve his loss when she also had a 1 year old (Peggy) and a 2 year old (me) to take care of, plus she was pregnant again almost right away? How did Dad go to work every day? I don’t remember them ever (ever!) talking about Greg, although there were a few pictures of him with us girls.  One time the subject came up and my Uncle Ray said something about Greg dying from crib death,  and my mother (for once in her life) came unglued. She jumped up and yelled at him that Ray was wrong, that Greg died of pneumonia in the hospital.  I remember the chill that followed her outburst; I was maybe 9 or 10.  Before that my cousin Sharon, a twin, died of Wilm’s Tumor, a stomach cancer, when she was 5 and I was around 12. My cousin Deborah also died as an infant, when I was maybe 8 or so.  So it’s not like there wouldn’t have been opportunities to grieve together, but I just don’t remember it.  I do also have one other memory, of my Mom sitting in the kitchen, looking out the window, and looking very sad but not crying. That made an impression on me, and based on the house we were in (down by the river) and the fact I wasn’t in school makes me think I had to have been less than 5.  I know my Mom had her happy moments after that, and I have pictures to prove it, but I think my Mom always had a sadness about her, too, and I think it came from Greg’s death. When my youngest son was born in 1985, Mom came to visit, and she brought me two baby outfits she had been saving. They were Greg’s…from 25 years earlier. Her only comment to me was “Here. I have no use for these anymore.”  And that was the end of that conversation.

I talked to my sister Peggy about this recently, and she agreed Mom and Dad never talked about Greg.  But yet, she recalled, we always knew we had lost a brother; it was not some revelation we happened upon.  So someone must have talked about it out loud at some time.  I then asked my stepmother Delores if Dad had ever talked about Greg to her. They were married for over 35 years (my parents divorced after 18 years of marriage). She said he never did, and when she asked him about it once, he declined to talk.  So then I called my Aunt Lorraine, who was Mom’s best friend, and she also said neither Mom or Dad would talk about it, but that it was the way things were back then (BTW, this was 1960).

Both of my parents died of complications from cancer – my Mom had lung cancer this time (a sarcoma in her hip the first time 24 years earlier; my Dad had bone marrow cancer and lung cancer.  Both had been given a life sentence of just a few months, and so our grieving started then. By the time we watched them waste away as the cancers attacked them, I was relieved that our collective suffering was over.  Mom had some denial and anger (after all, she had quit smoking 9 years earlier) but no more bargaining with God.  Dad had been in declining health anyway for years, with various heart attacks, strokes, arthritis, and blood issues, and he seemed to be ready to get on with the business of dying. Mom was 70 w hen she passed, and Dad was just days shy of his 82nd birthday.   In contrast, Kevin, at 54,  went to bed one Sunday night and never got up again.

The point of this is that while grief is expressed differently for each person who has left us, there is a connection, between all of them and me, and even between each other.  No matter where I lived, or how old I was, or the relationship I had.  The past is the past, and it only exists in memories.  I choose to remember my Dad as someone who was a child once, and grew up as a result of the parenting he received. His life was shaped by his experiences as a soldier, employee, father, etc.  He did the best he could at the time, I’m sure. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I too have been shaped because of who he was.  I learned about patience, ambition, independence, acceptance, perseverance, service, and probably a few other things. He was once a small town mayor, an alderman, and Commander of the American Legion; I probably inherited some of those genes somewhere along the way.  Anyway, I believe in life after life. He continues to influence me, and I think he is a better father now, now that he knows better/different.

That is why I recalled one other memory just last night. I was little enough that he still picked me up now and then. I had gone with him to the Pantorium Cleaners to pickup dry cleaning. The man behind the counter said to me, “Why, you must be Louie’s girl. You look just like him.” And Dad swung me up in his arms and smiled and said, “Yep, that’s my girl.”  So, Dad, thanks for this memory. I trust you are free now from all the aches and pains of your life here, and that you are happy. Say hello to Greg, and Mom, and Kevin, and the other Kevin (Farmer), and Grandma and Grandpa and the rest.  And remember to send a white feather.  Like it or not, I’m still your girl.

2015: the year in review

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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The quote on the page of my personal journal for one year ago, December 31, 2015, is by Lao Tzu: When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.  Next to that, I wrote: Who am I without you?  I still have no definitive answer one year later, but clearly, I am not the same person. Here are a few quick looks back:

 

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A look at my calendar shows that I was certainly active, literally in every month of the year.   I had 4 personal  trips to see siblings or kids, and also was able to add on personal days to 5 of the 6 work trips I took so that I could see family and friends.  Seven times I had company visiting me.  It’s no wonder that I was in desperate need of some quiet time by November when I left my job.  But being involved with my family is a significant, non-negotiable part of who I am, and so is supporting them. A new baby, a wedding, a few birthdays…and giving of my time to show people around this area, were the times that saved me when I obsessed about my priorities and considered the uncertainties of this Solowing future.

A look at my checkbook shows that I also didn’t stay home too much even when I was in town.  I ate out several times every week; I spent quite a bit on gasoline going hither and yon; and I managed to buy about two dozen books.  I also spent a huge chunk on restyling the house – from paint to furniture to floors.  And when I felt like I was unable to stop worrying about having enough, living by myself in this big house with no safety net of a second income, far away from everyone, I gave some money away to those who needed it more than me. I ended the year with a positive bank balance and no income for the foreseeable future but I feel okay about that.

If that’s all that went into the equation to describe a year in the life of me, it would be an acceptable balance.  But it’s the intangibles that tell the story of the subtle changes in me. A year ago I tried to run away, and now I am staying home.  I stopped crying somewhere around spring, and last week with my daughter I laughed so much it nearly became a giggle-fit and I had tears (of joy).  I was sleep deprived and lethargic until late fall, but now I can stay up until 10:30 or 11:00 and don’t even need a nap the next day.  (Seriously.)   For months, I couldn’t concentrate and read more than a page or two in a book, but now I am back to reading 2-3 books per week. (The current ones are The Brothers Karamazov, and Simple Abundance. Last week I read The Enlightened Gardener while on vacation.)  But the big deal is that I even am on this sabbatical for this coming year: that I found the strength again to trust myself to walk into the unknown, and I gave myself permission to examine my life, to listen to my own self tell me whatever it has to say, to be open to … well, just to be open – heart, mind, and soul.

The past doesn’t exist anymore; it’s gone; it’s only memories now. I have fully blessed Kevin’s passing, and at the same time, blessed myself here in the present.There are differences in New Year’s Resolutions, bucket lists, vision boards, goals, and everyday to-do lists.  I think I’ll work on a little of each today and tomorrow, and ring in 2016 as a girl with options.

My last Christmas gift from Kevin

21 Monday Dec 2015

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As Christmas will be this week, I can’t help but remember last year’s Christmas and, of course, the last year.  Right before he died – a day or two maybe before – we had been talking about what we each had on our List for Santa.  Kev smirked a little and said he had already gotten my gift. This was before Thanksgiving. It would not be unusual for him to be done with his shopping by then.  After he died (Nov 23), I was preparing to go to South Dakota for the funeral service and wanted to take some of his things along for his children. My sister Diane and I searched for whatever gift he might have hidden for me.  No luck.  When my daughter Renae came home from SD with me, we were setting  up a few decorations for when her family and my son and his family came back for Christmas.  She and I also looked again for a gift he might have gotten  me. I even checked his bank account for any “unusual” expenditures.  Again, no luck.  There was no gift from him under the tree last year.  So I am sure he was bluffing.

But yet, he did give me an incredible gift…and more than one really.  First, he gave me the gift of time.  I didn’t “open” that until this sabbatical, but taking 2016 for myself is something I just would not have done if he were here.  Second, because of his passing, I have come to understand grief better than ever. I have more compassion for people going through it and  other milestones I know nothing about. Third, I have started and continue to examine my own life: my priorities, my emotions, my needs, my desires. This time of reflection might have happened to some degree, but probably not now and not to the depths I am going. Finally, the memories I have of our time together are more meaningful. I am reminded daily of something we did or he said or … and I am grateful for the life we shared.

I miss him, yes, and I’d take him back in a heartbeat if I could.  I believe, though, in life after life. I know the essence of him is still  here. I am blessed to have him around me at all times now, not just when his physical body was available.  I realize that my grief is not the sum of how much I loved him or we loved each other; it is a reflection of my beliefs about life and death and love and heaven on earth.  The gift he gave me is the opportunity to know this to be true in my heart. Thank you, GM, for that. You make me want to be a better woman still. Love you, your PQ.

Que Sera, Sera

19 Saturday Dec 2015

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I envy those who have known since they were kids just what they wanted to do when they grew up.  Back then, we didn’t distinguish between “doing” and “being,” although the question was commonly interchangeable: “What do you want to be/do  when you grow up?” Doris Day’s answer in her song, Que Sera Sera was “whatever will be, will be.”  I am dissatisfied with that answer still.  I feel like I am spinning my wheels trying to figure it out before it’s too late for me to do (be) something great.

In my analysis of the possible options, I have listed all of the jobs I have held since I was a kid, from babysitting to volunteering at the library, detassling corn, cashiering, legal secretary, analyst, administrator, and sometimes consultant and presenter.  I’ve looked for themes, for peak times, for common threads, for some light to shine on the path and show me what’s ahead  Nada. Zip. Zero.  I can’t see the forest for the trees, apparently.

I’ve also reviewed older and more recent journals I kept. I have looked at the titles of the books I’ve collected. I considered how my musical tastes have changed. My favorite places. The most fun pasttimes. Movies I watch and watch again and again. Who I like to spend time with. How I spend my money.  While that trip down Memory Lane has been an interesting one, so far there has been no revelation.

Except one: I like happy endings, which are almost always the result of some productive change along the way. And I always seem to find one, whether it’s at the end of a book, a project, a j ob, or a move.  So I trust that there is another happy ending in store for me.

That kind of trust is hard to come by sometimes. It’s a knowing, a sense of fait accompli, a foregone conclusion.  I just have to be patient. I can’t just wait around, and I also can’t force the reveal.  I have to make myself ready for that eventuality. Which is what this sabbatical is about.   I keep reading, keep learning, keep observing, keep resting, keep reflecting, keep meeting people, opening myself (preparing myself) a little more each day.  As William Bridges said in his book, Transitions, first there is the ending, then the wandering in the neutral zone, when there is a letting go of something, and finally a new beginning.  I’m wandering toward that new whatever-it-is, but remember, all who wander are not lost!

BTW, I’m reading an interesting book, Wander Woman, by Marcia Reynolds.  It’s about How High Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction.  Unfortunately, no easy answers. I guess I will have to still do my own wandering, and accept Doris’ answer: Que sera, sera!

 

Music’s touch

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

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I am normally one of those people who gets in the car and turns on the radio, does her morning getting-ready routine to music, reads with music playing in the background, and usually has music in her ears while she walks around the neighborhood.  Then for much of the last year, I was so distracted I had to turn off the sound of everything so I could hear myself think. I learned to value silence.  My favorite quiet time is sitting on the back deck with coffee in the morning, with just the music of the birds and the leaves rustling in the trees. That’s when I connect with myself for a few minutes. I call it my “gratitude meditation” time, when I recall my blessings.

I have missed my other music, so I finally got my old stereo out of the  closet upstairs and brought it down to the living room where I can listen all I want.  I got it in 1992, and it has a turn-table that still works.  Frank Barone was right – there’s something about listening to old albums, with all their scratches, that is part of the experience.

And then yesterday I read an article in the May 2012 issue of Speaker magazine. It’s titled “The Healing Power of Music.”  According to the author, Rita Young Allen,  the body responds to music and can change your metabolism, circulation, blood volume, pulse, blood pressure, and moods. She quotes an oncologist who claims “sickness is a manifestation of the body out of harmony.”  Researchers have documented the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing effects of music.  They don’t understand exactly how this works, but it does…and has as far back as the Ancient Greeks.

I think they are right. Music has long been a source of joy for me, and I’m happy to now again let  it work its magic on me.  Oh…the next article in the magazine is on “embracing your inner rebel.”  Hmmmm……

So my new favorite version of one of my old favorite songs is Barrett Baber’s The Voice performance from Monday night, Silent Night. Check it out on iTunes or Thevoice.com.  And let me know what you think.  (I’d post it here but haven’t figured out how to do that.)

 

Some habits I need to break

11 Friday Dec 2015

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Wow, I had no idea how habitual my routine had become.  I said when I was preparing for this sabbatical that I was going to get rid of my alarm clock.  Until this week, I have not used it, and that’s been a very good thing.  But now I’ve used it three days in a row because I have agreed to some early morning commitments (like an 8:00 am veterinary appointment I had scheduled when I was still trying to not miss too much work, and breakfast with a friend).  Here is what I have learned.

  1. The buzzer alarm is ANNOYING. It is a rude, jarring way to wake up.
  2. The radio alarm is slightly less annoying, but it’s strange to wake up to some man’s voice in your bedroom, when you’ve finally adjusted to sleeping alone (or with two dogs who don’t talk that way).
  3. My natural rhythm is to wake up around 8:00 am, give or take half an hour.  My preferred routine is to take care of the dogs’ needs, make coffee, have a bowl of cereal, read a little, and take my time gently introducing myself into whatever “work” I have planned for the day. If I get up earlier than that (via alarm clock), I do feel a little on edge for most of the morning.
  4. My natural sleepy time if I get up around 8:00-ish a.m. is around 11:30 pm, give or take half an hour. When I get up before 6 am (as I have done for tooooo many years), I am ready for bed before 9 at night.
  5. When I’m feeling most productive is around 10:00 am (for a few hours), and again about 3:00 (for a few hours), and once more around 7:00 pm (for another couple of hours).
  6. I still think like I’m tied to a Monday-Friday work week.  I find myself “preparing” for Mondays on Sunday night, with the buff-and-polish routine (nail routine, for example).  I also notice that on Fridays, I am planning two days “off” and waiting until Monday to start reading or writing again.

What I need to do is, first, check out some apps for my iPhone that will wake me more civilly, with a meditation or affirmation or nice chiming sound.  And second, consolidate all my appointments into one calendar or planner system, and depending on what the purpose is, not schedule 8:00 am meetings.  At least until I feel like I have given my sleep-deprived body adequate time to reset its internal clock.

And then I need to be open to the idea of having my “weekend” during the week when the stores aren’t so busy, and the traffic patterns have changed.  Today I scurried to get my car washed and my hair cut once I realized it was Friday; these are chores I would normally have tried to fit in on Saturday morning.  And then I also became aware that I don’t need to agonize over not having started my Christmas shopping yet, since I have way more than just two weekends to get it done in…I have 14 days or 10 days if you take off everyone else’s weekends!!

It’s interesting how I conditioned I am to those getting-up and getting-going routines.  I am going to work on that mindset in the next few weeks and look for some sustainable alternatives.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Dreaming, Traditions

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Stockings hung by the fire with care
2015 Christmas tree; new elves
3 years of Speaker Mag

The past week has had its share of holiday fun. The stockings for me,  Buddy, and Bo made it to the fireplace, along with the snowman mantel runner I haven’t had out in a few years.  The small tree found a home on the landing upstairs, and I got some help decorating from a few little elves. Even though I’ll spend Christmas with the kids, I think it’s important for my own holiday spirit to put on at least a little show.

Finally, an early present to myself. I went to an auction by the Virginia Chapter of the National Speakers Association and was high bidder for 3 prior years’ worth of their monthly magazine. Good info, plus bonus CDs of interviews with national level speakers, and if nothing else, I can use them in creating new vision boards as I think about 2016.

My Own Deflategate

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Budgeting, Grief

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Yesterday and today have been full of So No Fun detail work. Having brought home all my STUFF from the work office, I had to make room for it. I still have two boxes of papers and files to do something with, but the office is primarily done.  It’s a good thing I decided to tackle it now, because one of the files I came across was my “exit interview” file from work, which contained all the info about COBRA rights for continuing health insurance and converting my life insurance to individual policies.

Memories from the last 20 years overwhelm

So, first, cleaning the home office closet. I had previously stashed boxes I hadn’t taken time to cull through when we moved in almost two years ago. Out came boxes of pictures and the trivial collection of things from my office in South Dakota.  Memories jumped out as soon as I opened the first box.  Eventually I made headway, and some boxes were transported upstairs to the Diva Den, a/k/a my craft room and the place for all the other stuff I don’t know what to do with. More boxes and tubs had to be gone through to make room for the “new” boxes.  But these were the more personal things – old love letters, family and school pictures, cards from flowers delivered by a florist, even my old high school ring and Girl Scout sash – complete with badges and pins.  For some reason, the flood gates opened, and three hours later I was on the phone to my sister Peggy to get help in stopping the tears. I was overwhelmed with the crap (that’s a Kevin word for anything of mine he would not have saved) to be sorted. And I was deflated with the idea of starting over again in my life. It felt like the last 20 years have just – poof! – meant nothing.  I’m right back where I was in 1991 after my divorce, trying to figure out my future. Thankfully, Peggy was successful in helping me calm down, and she even convinced me to not just torch everything or toss it. This morning I felt better (even though I did throw out three bags of papers and old letters).

Obamacare turns out okay for me

Now, today. I got out the COBRA paperwork and tried to read it. Then I went on to the Health Care Exchange thing site. Still confused, I called a neighbor, Dee, who has worked in the individual policy-insurance field for a long time. Eventually, I got on the phone with the people at the Health Care place (after a 39 minute hold, if you can believe that). Another 30 minutes after that I was signed up for health insurance through the Obama plan, at a sweet discount since I’m not earning any income,  especially when compared to COBRA rates.  But I still had to go back to the COBRA plan for coverage for the month of December.  All in all, four hours of my time, and nearly $800 spent.  I’ll tackle life insurance tomorrow…

And taxes due today

…because today is the Virginia deadline to pay the second half of Personal Property Taxes for the year.  I had to talk to the Commissioner of Revenue and the Treasurer’s office, each twice, because Kevin’s Chevy truck (turned over last January) and the boat (sold in October) were still on the account.  It was another deflating hour retelling the story of Kevin’s  death, and getting the records all straightened out. The good news is that they waived a $353 delinquency for not paying the truck taxes back in June!

I think I’ll go out and treat myself to supper tonight.  I’ve earned it. Mexican sounds good.