How It Feels

I didn't go into politics - or even business, for that matter - for a reason; one that, if you know me, you probably already know: I do not have a poker face.  I am not at all good at, as they say on Saturday Night Live, strategery.  I don't like office gossip or sneakiness or favorite-playing.  The way I prefer things to be in my work place is when, as my dad used to say, it is what it is - because what else would it be??

Unfortunately for me and for a whole lot of other people who live and/or work in the same school district I do, though, we have been involuntarily drawn into a situation over the past couple of years that has come to involve a lot of the undesirable aforementioned things.

As a result of the citizens of the city voting to give up their school district and the resulting imposed adoption of that system by the county school system, people in my area are talking about budgets and politics and outsourcing and other things that have regrettably become a very large part of the equation in public education.  One thing I haven't heard much talk about in meetings or in the media, though, is how it feels to have been swept into this maelstrom.

This has been the most difficult, most stressful year of my nineteen-year long career with the county school district.  I am proud of the efforts of many of my coworkers as we've entered into what can only accurately be described as a battle.  At times, I've felt sure that I want to do everything in my power to stay with the district, to continue the work I've started, and to try to control what I can in hopes of protecting my coworkers and friends - and ultimately, the students.  But, at other times, increasingly as the actual date of the change approaches, I feel as if I am in danger of going down with the ship.  Like a lot of my coworkers, my health and my personal life - and my overall happiness - have suffered a lot during this past school year because of the impending "merger" - a term, by the way, that really gets to a lot of us on the receiving end of the punches.  To merge means to join forces, to unite, or to team up, and to me that implies that an action is taking place between two roughly equal bodies, a situation which, in my opinion, this is not.  Always a fan of running metaphors, I liken what's going on here to a runner that has dropped out of a race who later asks an accomplished runner if he can train with the better runner.  One of them needs improvement; one doesn't.  One needs help; the other was fine on his own - and, in fact, is likely to be slowed down if the less skilled runner joins him on training runs, even though the faster runner may still be willing to take on the job of coaching the slower one.  It isn't a merger; it's more of an adoption.

In the district of people who did not get a vote in this decision, our leaders and our administrators are scared for their own jobs, for their livelihood actually, and it feels like there's an "every-man-for-himself" mentality that I have never before felt in this job.  Watching the process unfold in slow motion over the course of this school year has felt a bit like Chinese water torture, and in many ways I am glad to see the year come to a close, although I feel a distinct sadness at the same time that my job and this school system - both things that I have loved and have put my heart into since I was 25 years old - will certainly never be the same after end of this school year.  

Everybody knows that educators in this country generally don't make a lot of money.  They don't win Oscars or Pulitzer Prizes or get big raises or promotions or even get much recognition by their bosses or their "customers," unless, of course, a scandal of some sort is featured in the media.  The rewards we get come quietly and often only if we are looking hard for them, but most of us are lucky (and diligent) enough to see them, and we are glad to have this as our chosen career.  We realize that there is no other profession that would allow us to have such a part in shaping the minds of children in this way and to impact their future on such a personal level.  Teaching is about so much more than teaching - and I don't mean politics and jerrymandering and elbow-rubbing; it's about the power of relationships.  It's about the connection that can be made between one person and another person or between a person and a lesson, a link that can only be developed when the learner knows that the teacher cares about him or her.  When a mutual respect has formed between the teacher and the student, that's when the best kind of learning occurs.

But in an environment when educators are scared for their jobs, when school staff members know that they and/or their coworkers and friends may end up on the chopping block at any moment, when program cuts aren't a "maybe" but a "when," it's hard to be positive every day.  It's hard to focus on the lessons that need to be taught - and on the children who are the most important part of the equation.  From either side of the argument about what's fair or who deserves what from the limited funding available in the district now, one thing is for sure: teaching and learning have been hindered, and that doesn't feel good to any of us.

This is mostly a blog about grief and perspective, but I guess it's also about enduring and overcoming life's challenges, and I guess that's what has to be done in this situation as well.

What I've Learned About Mothering

Sometimes people say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger; I have to say, though, that that's a sentiment with which I cannot agree.

I don't feel stronger as a result of the challenges I have encountered, but I do feel changed - and I recognize that I have learned some things from those experiences.  Much of what I've assimilated is on the pages of this blog, and I suspect there is even more to come, from grief and perspective and just life in general.  Many of those things, I am realizing, can be valuable, useful lessons, serving to make me more solicitous, more introspective, and more appreciative of what I have - all of which are easily applied to perhaps the most challenging thing in my life: mothering.

From the road I've traveled, I've learned that the life I have won't last forever; it will change in many ways, some over time and some quickly, some for the better and some tragically, and that because of that I need to work hard to appreciate and remember each day.  

I've learned that it's easy to take it all for granted - and sometimes to wish it away.  I've learned that at some point there is an end to the sleepless nights, the piles of laundry, the hectic mornings filled with things like looking for a missing shoe and packing lunches and kisses goodbye, the nerve-wrecking parent-teacher conferences, the disarray of toys and books scattered everywhere, the lazy summer mornings that stretch into afternoons, the shopping for what I hoped was the perfect birthday or Christmas gift - the Tickle Me Elmo or the Jessie Cowgirl doll or the Furby that I stood in long lines to buy, ready to elbow my way to the front of the aisle to get my child what I thought her childhood wouldn't be complete without.

What I have loved most of all was seeing the trust and happiness in my children's faces, hearing their infectious giggles, feeling their hand in mine, and recognizing things in them that they had learned from me.  Little by little, those days of not being able to shower or go into the bathroom by myself have transformed into closed bedroom doors and teenaged eye rolls of embarrassment that only a parent can still interpret as love, and somewhere along the way it hit me that it's impossible to go back and do one single minute over; I can't take back words said in anger or exhaustion, and I can't rewind the time from even one day to allow myself to better remember or to better react.  All I can do is hope that what I've made up on my own and what I've figured out with the help of those who have advised me or in some way mothered me has been right, or at least right enough, and then try to do my best with what comes as time marches forward, as we go through more proofreading, conflicts with friends and teachers and roommates, texting, phone conversations, choices of class schedules and fashion purchases and even more important things, being sure to celebrate the victories - both big and small, and just trying to keep up with everything.

These days I'm amazed when I think about how I used to think that mothering a baby was so easily definable as the hard part; it's really all the hard part, especially, as I now know, letting go as they make their own decisions, watching them stretch their wings, realizing that they are their own people, swiftly moving towards adulthood and independence, despite the feelings of joy and relief I get when they occasionally come to me for help.

When I look at the hundreds of family photos from over the years, I remember and I cherish the special moments captured on film - the birthday parties, the school programs, the first days of school, the Christmases and the Easters.  But the moments that I treasure the most when I think back are those that no one thought to capture on film, the everyday moments, those from days that I think were accurately and brilliantly labeled along the way as perfectly ordinary.

I wouldn't trade them for dollers or barbies either!

Bittersweet

Following is a guest post written by my sister Nancy:

Bittersweet...

I've often heard that word but have never felt that I had an appropriate time in my life to use it, until 6 weeks ago. 

Giving birth on March 24, 2013, to my firstborn was hands down both the most amazing and the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  I had envisioned the moment of his birth in my head many times over the previous 9 months and it always played out perfectly, except for one crucial part ... my dad wasn't present.

The day I found out I was pregnant, even with as much excitement as I felt, I remember thinking to myself, "This sucks - it's so unfair that my dad won't be here or ever know his 7th grandchild."  I tried not to let myself dwell too much on that fact over the months ahead, but always in the back of my thoughts I felt very bitter.

On the day of my son's birth, I tried to keep it together so as not to make the special day sad, even though Dad wasn't there, but to make sure it was memorable.  I grasped tightly to one of my dad's handkerchiefs (or "hankies," as he called them) during my entire labor process.  I kept hearing my oldest sister saying to me "Remember this, remember this!" and I wanted to focus on especially that.  My whole life I strived to make my dad proud of me and he always told me that he was, and I know without a doubt that he was with all of us in that delivery room that day at the exact moment of my child's birth and that he was so proud of me, my mom, and my sisters knowing that life really does go on - just not always the way we envisioned that it would.  There was complete joy and happiness, and there were big smiles again in our lives and yet another legacy to carry on the family name. 

The nurses allowed Nancy to wear her Brain Cancer Awareness bracelet during the entire labor and delivery process.

I look forward to having Crosby's aunts, uncles, cousins, and Gran-Gran telling detailed stories in honor of his Gramps so that my son will know my dad.  I've decided that I'm not going to waste precious time being mad or even bitter that Dad wasn't physically there for that big moment in my life; instead I will embrace the fact of all the people I love most on this earth were by my side. 

Bittersweet...

Happiness and Perspective

I heard a line from the AMC TV show "Mad Men" quoted the other day on the radio.  The commentators were discussing the topic of materialism and how they feel it has affected our children's generation as a whole.  On the TV show, which is about an advertising agency in NYC, the agency's Creative Director Don Draper is disturbed by his observations of the actions of people whom he feels were motivated by their greed for money and success.  Don starts to reconsider his own definition of happiness and in the process comes up with the line from the episode that was being quoted on the radio:  

"What is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness."

lippsisters.com

That quote got me started thinking about the way so many of us set up happiness to be something that isn't really obtainable - or at least that isn't sustainable.  Maybe that's what makes some people feel like rats running on a wheel, as if they are "caught up in the Rat Race," always chasing after one more thing instead of taking the time to appreciate what is already in their possession or what has already been achieved.  

Something I've learned over the last couple of years is that happiness is a feeling that is often easy to attain in the moment but difficult to maintain over time.  Happy moments can be both big and small; happiness can come when its arrival has been anticipated, or it can come by unexpectedly, as a welcome surprise.  For most people, happiness is transient; it ebbs and flows depending on so many other factors.  The way one feels going into a situation or even at the start of the day does not necessarily determine the way one feels at the end; in the same way that you can start off on a run feeling great and end up limping home, you can wake up happy and end the day feeling miserable.  Happiness is unpredictable and oftentimes completely out of our control, which is exactly what makes it a defective goal.  In many cases, it's nothing more than perspective.  

It also strikes me that happiness isn't something that translates into goodness; a bank robber or even a serial killer can feel happy with what they have done.  A life can be full of happy moments but be lacking in meaning and impact, yet another reason that in my opinion happiness isn't a suitable goal.

Another lesson that I have gotten from life over the past couple of years is that during those times when happiness is in my grasp, when I am fortunate enough to be in the midst of joy, pleasure, or contentment, I need to breathe it in, to savor it and to remember it, because life is nothing if not uncertain, and we need all the reserves we can get.  

Happiness

Sometimes happiness is really just as simple as making a choice to appreciate and be grateful for what one has, instead of thinking about would have/could have/should have been, instead of worrying, instead of comparing what one has to what someone else has, and instead of wishing for something more or something different.  To me, it seems that happiness comes much more from perspective than from reality.

"Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances." ~Anonymous

One of the things that has brought me the most meaning in my life has been motherhood.  It has also brought me considerable happiness, even though not every moment of every day is filled with sunshine and singing.  In the words of an extended family member of mine, "Mothering is the hardest and the best thing that you will ever do."  I'm sure this extends to fathering, too.  Parenting is difficult, but it's an investment, a legacy that will continue far longer than the days we have left on this earth.


When I think back on some of the biggest moments of my life - graduations, weddings, vacations, things like that - so much of what happened then is a blur, and I don't think that the only thing that plays a factor in that is my increasing age and decreasing capacity for remembering things.  I wonder if I was present enough in those moments; I wonder if I took the time during those events to breathe in the happiness and the joy that I was experiencing.  If I did, maybe I should have done even more of that, enough to make more of what I felt in those moments carry over to my memory. If I didn't, I am regretful that I might have been thinking more about things that I perceived as being not just right, or about things that were bothering me or stressing me out in the moment, or about what came before or what was to come afterwards.  In either case, one thing I have learned is that sometimes all I can do is try to learn from the past - and try to do better in the future.

I thought about happiness and memories and perspective a lot during my sister Nancy's labor and delivery a couple of weeks ago.  "Remember this," I said to her several times during those hours before and just after she became a mother: "Remember this; be sure to remember this."  I hope she remembers it all -  and I know I will, because it was nothing short of wondrous.   As the newest member of our family was born, everyone in the room knew what happiness was: it's being together with the people you love, it's the warmth that comes from working together for a common goal, it's the promise of good.

"Remember this."//

As Lao Tzu said, "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

What I Have Come To Believe - Part 2: A Quest For Patterns and Control

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances. ~Martha Washington

Before my dad got sick, I felt lucky.  I felt happy.  And, like anyone else, I expected that my luck and my happiness would go on and on.  For the record, I still feel lucky, largely in part to the perspective imparted to me by my dad during the first 42 years of my life, and I feel happy overall, despite the bruise of grief and sadness and loss I have felt in my heart since my dad went on ahead.  I don't still think that happiness - or anything else, for that matter - is guaranteed, though, and I have to say that's been a really shitty realization.  Unlike most things about which I think that knowledge is power, this kind of knowledge sucks; it's weakness, doubt, and fear, all rolled up into one.    

I like control.  And on that note, to prove my point, I will even admit - and to all my old slumber party friends - you're welcome; you know it made things much more interesting all those years ago - I pushed the thing around on the Ouija board (I looked it up; it's called a planchette) so it would spell words to form a message. 

But now I know that there is no real control in life and that no one is immune to tragedy.  I guess that's part of growing up, to realize that, but I just feel like I wasn't grown up enough to have to deal with it yet - not that I ever would have been "ready."

Sometimes I try to make myself feel better by trying to make sense of things with the notion that everything happens for a reason, but in reality it's a product that I just can't buy anymore.  I think it's easy to say that things happen for a reason in retrospect, once we've had the time to find what often turns out to be a needle in a haystack; finding some good even in a very bad situation is our way of trying to survive emotionally, like putting a band-aid on a skinned knee with the intent of making some of the pain go away and hoping that the wound will heal with as little scarring as possible.  

When something bad happens to us, we want to know: who or what is to blame?  It seems like there should always be someone or something that caused it, as I've said before, some cause-and-effect relationship to everything that happens in life. But, what if, as often happens, there ends up being nobody and nothing to blame?  What if there is no explanation for what happened?  That's really something that seems impossible to reconcile in the aftermath of tragedy.

Personally, I don't believe my dad was "chosen" to have brain cancer - what kind of reward would that be??  I think that, like the majority of other tragedies and diseases out there that befall other innocent people, it just happened, and my family got through it the best we could figure out how to, based on our skill sets and our perspectives, both of which (especially the latter) we had in large part due to my dad.

I think it's human nature to try to organize things - not necessarily physical things, but intangibles and events in our minds, in an attempt to make sense of them and to find a pattern of some sort, which can be a source of comfort and give one a feeling of control, of being able to predict what's coming next.  One way that we attempt to do that is with the use of platitudes like "Live life to the fullest" or "Live each day as if it were your last."  

For the record, I hate the expression "Live life to the fullest." It angers me because I find it senseless: what does that even mean?  What are our other options - living to the quarter (quarterest?) or to the half (halfest?)??  If I sleep late every weekend or don't work my ass off to get that next promotion at work, am I not living life to the fullest?  And about living as if there were no tomorrow - does that mean I don't have to pay my electric bill or my taxes or watch my weight or weed my flower beds?

Another common way that we try to establish a pattern or even just attempt to ease our minds a little when something bad happens is by looking for things within a bad situation that we can label as Silver Linings.  Lately, I've been wondering if maybe the whole Silver Lining concept isn't just a crock, though.  I wonder if there is any research out there that shows that humans are genetically programmed to look for that in every situation.  I wonder if Silver Linings are just over-optimism or fluff, especially when I stop to consider the fact that in pretty much any given calamity, the people involved would be far better off not having had to endure the situation and not being left with whatever is being touted as a Silver Lining than they are with the tragic event and the Silver Lining.  Is using a "it could always be worse" type of Viewfinder to examine difficult situations just a way of using the tragedies of others as reflections of our own "luck" or as a way of ranking which rung we are on on the Ladder of Good Fortune? Is this obviously skewed logic necessary to survive?  Sometimes, for me at least, it's hard to get past the opposite of at least.

Here's a story about a man with brain cancer who says he feels lucky to have been not just able to finish but to win a marathon after having pushed his young daughter in a stroller the whole way:

BRAIN CANCER PATIENT WINS GUSHER MARATHON

To be honest, when I first read this article, I thought, "It's so unfair that this guy got to keep running after his diagnosis when my dad didn't; he's so lucky to have been able to keep doing what he obviously loves for at least long enough to accomplish this feat!"  But then I thought: Is he lucky?  Is it fortunate for him that at least he got to do one big thing on his bucket list?  I guess so - if he thinks it is.  But technically it would be luckier if he didn't have terminal cancer - and I'm sure that he would trade that marathon win for a clean bill of health in a split second.

Sometimes, what it comes down to is in the face of disaster is not how you got there or how you got through it but what you can pull out if the experience. What you choose to decipher and to take away from what you went through.  The perspective that you allow yourself to be given, so to speak. 

As I learned from Dad long before he got sick, it isn't what happens, it's what one's attitude about and one's reaction to what happens that  we can control.

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than the facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, the circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past ... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convince that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our attitudes."  ~Charles R. Swindoll

Measuring the Course

As far back as I can remember, one of my dad's routines after he got home from a long run was to immediately jump into the car to drive the route he had run to measure the exact distance of the course.  (This was WAY before GPS systems existed.) Most people would probably choose to sit down to rest as soon as they could after a strenuous workout, but Dad was the kind of person who couldn't stand to let grass grow under his feet.  He taught us to have honor and priorities, to set goals, to set our mind to doing things and then to follow through. WAY before Nike said it, he used to say “Just Do It” whenever he heard someone make an excuse for not doing something they should have been doing; I remember so many tough runs when he would tell me to tuck in behind him so that he could block the wind for me after he'd said “Put your head down and let's just do it.”

If Dad could have “driven the course” at the end of his life, if he could have had the opportunity to examine what he had done and the choices that he had made along the way – I wonder to what he would’ve made adjustments.  Not much, I would venture to guess, and I think that’s pretty damn remarkable.  I'm not sure there are many people in this world who would be able to say the same.

Here's a question with some Food for Thought: What would your biggest regret be if today was your last day of life, and how can you attempt to right that regret?

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last few weeks or months of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, and later she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  Ware writes of the clarity of vision that people often acquire towards the end of their lives and of how others can learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five end-of-life regrets, according to Ware:

"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."  Looking back over the course of their lives (measuring the course), people often recognize that certain dreams they've had that have not been fulfilled, making this the most common regret of the dying.  And, as we learned when my dad got sick, by the time a person realizes that he needs to hurry to try to realize those remaining dreams, his health (and sometimes other obstacles) often restricts those goals from being attainable.

"I wish I didn't work so hard." Ware says that this was a regret shared by every male patient she cared for (and some of the women too).  What they wished they had done instead of staying late at the office so many times was to have gone to their children's ball games or school programs or to have spent more time with their spouse or other loved ones.  

"I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."  Ware says that many people reported that they had suppressed their emotions in order to keep peace with others.  They regretted not having told someone that they were angry with them - or that they loved them.  Sometimes this is a regret that can be addressed in the final stages of life, but many times the years that have passed since the issue began make it impossible to right on down the road.

"I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."  In the midst of our hectic daily lives, it's easy to lose track of people who have meant so much to you and whose impact you may not realize until it's too late.  Again, sometimes when the person who is dying expresses this regret, loved ones from the past can be contacted, but many times it isn't possible.  

"I wish that I had let myself be happier."   The realization that death is near can give a person new perspective on things, and one of the things that is commonly realized is that happiness is a choice.  The clarity that often comes at this stage of life helps people to see the good in their lives much more clearly than they did before.  Other things like material goods no longer seem important.  People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible, but it is not money or status that hold true value for them as they near the finish line - it's love, both given and received.  

Happiness - Pursuit and Perspective

I remember the first time I had a running injury that affected not just my running but also bothered me in when I wasn't running.  I remember lying in bed at night with my foot throbbing and thinking about how I hadn't appreciated being injury-free before I'd gotten hurt.  In time, the foot got better and the pain went away; I went back to running and back to not taking much notice about how lucky I was to be pain free.

That's kind of how it works when someone you love is seriously ill.  Except that in many cases, I would venture to guess, that perspective sticks ...  

... because seeing a loved one suffer physically and emotionally and going through all the things that grave illness entails changes a person, not just for during that time period but forever.

Since my dad's diagnosis and his subsequent death ten weeks later, I've begun to view happiness as the absence of sadness -  and goodness in life as the absence of, well, badness.  

People talk a lot about the pursuit of happiness, the quest for the Holy Grail, thinking they will be happy if ... if they win the lottery, if they get a promotion, if they lose weight, if this or that happens.  I've been guilty of such myself in the past.  

But that was Before. Before Cancer.  Before Loss.  Before I knew.

And so here's another perspective for people who are perpetually in search of something more: conducting such a vigorous search for happiness or peace or satisfaction or whatever it is they are looking for eventually becomes a self-defeating quest; the crusade itself is a constant source of stress and anxiety that is likely interfering with the attainment of that very objective.  Instead of always looking for something more, something "better," it might be helpful if they take a few steps back and consider how lucky they are to have their everyday lives, to be in the midst of the usual stress and chaos, rather than the alternative, which I guess is either being completely alone with nothing or no one to care about - or trying to cope with such extraordinary problems that going back to those everyday things becomes the goal with happiness as the reward.

In the thick of the usual day in-day out struggles, it's so easy to get caught up in thinking that life is tough, that things aren't great, that there is something better out there that you wish you had.  But when adversity comes along, especially when it affects your health or that of your loved ones and especially when it is life threatening, you realize that you just want to go back to having things the way they were.  Your perspective becomes that you didn't need anything more, because life was already good.

I think that's what tragedy gives away, or at least that's one thing that we can choose to take away from tragedy.  Once we've been through it, we have that special realization, that insider's knowledge that things could always be worse, because we are all too aware that, because adversity can be lurking just around the corner, we need to appreciate the calm, the ordinary, and the mundane, and that happiness is not something that we need to pursue - it's something we need to recognize in what we are already fortunate enough to have.