I sometimes find it incredibly hard/difficult/challenging to acknowledge that I am enough. Just me. All by myself. I am enough. I am smart enough, kind enough, successful enough, generous enough, pretty enough, rich enough.   I have enough – money, time, education, resources, friendships, opportunities, things, ideas, food, work, love.  I do enough: volunteering, reading, resting, appreciating, cooking, talking, sharing, listening, thinking, cleaning, shopping, crying, laughing, learning.  So why do I keep trying so damn much to prove this to – of all people – myself??? It’s time to give myself a break; even I know that. So….

This past August I welcomed into my home a young Chinese woman who is here to work on her doctoral program at the local college.

Haloween decorating

Yawei is of the generation in China in which couples were only permitted to have one child, meaning she has lead the life of an only and somewhat spoiled girl in her small family.  She had never been to the United States before she came for school a few months ago. I have occasionally thought I was brave, but this woman is something else. Already I have learned much from her that I almost feel bad accepting the rent money!

Having her here has stopped me in my tracks to think about what I take for granted every day. I try to express gratitude daily, ever since I read somewhere this question: What if you woke up tomorrow and all you had was what you gave thanks for yesterday?  So anyway, I even had a gratitude challenge of sorts going on with my daughter for the past few months. Every day, we text each other 3 things we are grateful for. I try to stay away from just the material things, which  isn’t always easy.  Sometimes we mix it up and come  up with one thing we did well that day. That’s one way to remind ourselves that we are enough.  It’s similar to something else I read about recently called “praise work.” It has to do with when we seek approval outside ourselves, from others, which can border on neediness or co-dependency in the extreme.  If you Google “Praise work” it’s likely you’ll get results about praising others (especially employees), so why I haven’t heard of this or thought of it like this is just one more thing I am behind the times on, apparently.

Anyway, I am constantly reminded of how many things are great about my life, my house, my friends, my dogs, my community, my family, my country.  Yawei is like a child in some ways, full of  questions and unfiltered comments.  She is an industrious woman. She cooks all of her meals and takes them with her to school, meaning sometimes it’s late at night or early in the morning when she is clanging pots or the microwave is beeping. She is wide open to trying vegetables she has not seen before and can’t pronounce the names of.  She has been to every grocery store around to check out what each has to offer. She goes to the Outlet Mall several times a week. And she is diligent about her classes and homework, spending longs days at the college and signing up for tutors and taking recommended (but not required) English classes.

And she is learning about living with me, too. I recently had the opportunity to show her how I want the stove cleaned when she is done. Have you ever thought of how you explain something that seems so routine to you? Explaining why a shower needs to be cleaned when she says she  only uses clean water to wash with, or that scented aerosol spray doesn’t sanitize the toilet bowl, or that rugs can be “cleaned” by  shaking them out  or washing them. These  are just some of the things I have talked to her about.  Showing her what she does that is “teasing” to the dogs is another example of something I struggled with at first. Luckily, I didn’t have to teach her to drive but I have had to ask her to move her car that is parked too far into the road or in the middle of the driveway.

I am still at the laughing stage, as in “really?!??”  Sometimes it feels like I’m playing Scrabble and can’t come up with the right word because a letter is missing. I know she has good intentions and simply has not had to do these things before now. I love how open she is to learning, though, and it reminds me that I don’t know everything either. I imagine I would be in the same position if I were going to school in China and living with someone whose habits I did not understand.

About the time I wonder if I’m being played by her, I will hear her shout from upstairs, thanking me because the house looks so new and clean, and exclaiming how lucky she is to live here, and that she loves me…. I stop right in my thought and give thanks for her innocence and this chance for a do-over of sorts. A chance for me to let go of feelings of inadequacy, or of loneliness, or being taken advantage of. I am reminded that I have been given a place of honor to teach her what life is like in the USA that is not what you see on F-R-I-E-N-D-S on tv (which is where she learned her American “slanguage”). Whatever she tells her friends back in China will largely depend on what I have represented to her.

She has taught me to use chopsticks (I need more lessons), and to eat more vegetables, and to limit my sugar intake. She is a lesson in counting my blessings. She is an example of how joyful life is, and it’s not just limited to youth. She is curious, quirky, and competent at 27, a time when I was already a mother of 3 and acting all responsible all the time. It’s pretty cool that she is here to help me remember to be curious, quirky and competent today as well. We have a lot in common being two women on our own. Her life has changed dramatically in the past few months, as has mine in the past couple of years, and I daresay she is ahead of me in a few ways in accepting the changes and courting a positive future.

It’s is freeing to open myself up as much as I have opened my home up, to let the love in, to share my day, to give of my blessings. I am so grateful for this opportunity, this detour from the plateau I had found myself on.  I have this sign on my desk, and it’s so spot on!

There is something about someone dying that makes you question death, and now I know there is something about living that makes you question life, too.  Lately, I’ve been in the mode of exploring both, through questions, more questions, better questions, trying to not have to force answers. It’s a challenge sometimes for me to be patient, but today was one of those days it was easy.

I’ve accepted the New Age philosophy that if something keeps showing up in your life, you should pay attention. Over the past 40 years in total, but really over the past 20 years or so, and specifically over the past couple of years, I’ve been introduced to people, books, ideas, and beliefs that I’ve now accepted are meant to be for me. And that has to do with my worldview or belief system about what works and what doesn’t work for me, what is effective or ineffective.  When some words, ideas, people just won’t go away, it’s time to engage instead of ignore. Let it not be said I couldn’t learn a new trick, even if it took me a while.

So I’m working hard, consciously, deliberately, to move away from a mental model that uses judgment, conclusion, right and wrong, and good and bad, as the way to view what goes on around and within me. When what used to work doesn’t work any longer, I am pretty quick to make a change. When something comes along that is just different, outside the scope of my experience, interesting, and even exotic in some ways, where I used to hesitate I’m happy to report that I have opened up to further exploration. That’s a hard row to hoe sometimes. I’ve got a lifetime of conditioning to overcome.

But today I hosted a group of women friends to discuss and explore energetic wellness and an active consciousness of possibility for improved  health and energy.  I wish I had pictures to prove it, because in this day and age, it seems that those are requirements, but trust me – it DID happen!  I coordinated having two new friends come to demonstrate some complements of energy healing I’ve barely been acquainted with. I really liked how Mary, one of the women, gently explained that she wasn’t here to heal any of us; that we are our own healers, and she was here to help us figure out better ways to do that. I want more of that! Whether it is through releasing blocked energy, or clearing emotional trauma through the use of oils and crystals infused with frequencies, or anything else, one of the messages for me today was that times have indeed changed, and so have I, or at least I’m ready for change.

Equal to that, finding a supportive environment in which to do that is a blessing I am well aware of. I remember when my uncle George used to go to a local chiropractor, way back in the day, and there were whispers that he was going to a “quack.” But it worked for him and he kept going, and they found it hard to diss the results. There are still miles of imagination between other forms of alternative healing and the traditional Western forms of medicine, at least in my family history, but that, too, is changing. So for me to find a group of women I respect that were open to this gathering was way cool for me. Now when I have questions, or thoughts and ideas, I don’t have to go it alone, feeling strange about it, hiding it.  I have peeps!

Kevin was a traditionalist and conservative about quite a few things, and health was one of those matter-of-fact issues for him.  Take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning! But one of the ways he showed his love for me was to listen to me when I had “far out” ideas, or read a book I thought he should read so we could talk about it, or go see a movie that pushed the edges of the envelope. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is my all-time favorite book, and I remember when he tried to read it.   He didn’t “get it,” but still he honored me and wanted to learn what was so special about it for me. When we visited Washington DC a few years later, although he never did read the entire book, he discovered there was a Kahlil Gibran meditation garden not far from our hotel, and he encouraged me to go visit it (no, he didn’t go with me). That’s the kind of guy he was, letting me be me and do my thing.  We were pretty good at agreeing to disagree, but always with high regard and care. (You should have seen his face when I put Vic’s Vapor Rub on his toenails to help with the fungus, or when I got him to drink Throat Coat tea one time (and one time only) !!!)

I miss being able to talk to him about this new energy wellness thing I’m into. I’m learning, though, that I can still share it if I’m willing to accept that I can’t see him; that’s not my go-to way, though. The new way, the question is: What if he is here, and I just don’t see him? Am I willing to accept that I’m not alone, that he’s near still? I do have to be very conscious about this right now; can’t wait until it’s second nature.  Anyway, he would have been skeptical, I’m sure, but he would have listened and informed himself at least enough to have a reasonable conversation with me about it.  The poetic justice in this is that it was his dying that was the catalyst to a different way of thinking for me.  Being here on this earth without him physically has given me the time and the space and the urge to do this kind of exploring. Luckily, thankfully, I have found support with new friends. I don’t miss him less, but I understand better this circle of life somehow because of this twisted (in a good way) connectedness. It feels right, and I know he would totally accept that.

So tonight I’m wearing a new frequency-infused pendant, and I even got one for Buddy because of his ailments and other aging issues. Three of my friends got their “bars” run and two were enthusiastic about it; the third one is still deciding.  I’m excited about thinking in terms of questions instead of conclusions.  I’m thrilled to feel accepted by my friends who are exploring this with me. And the next time I talk to Kevin, I’m going to tell him so, although I’m pretty sure he already knows how I feel. He probably just loves that he is the one with the answers now. And I’m okay with that. He earned that. I’m just glad he’s on my side still.