I've been recording and watching Oprah's Super Soul Sunday programming, which features interviews with spiritual leaders and others with whom Ms. Winfrey has had a spiritual connection throughout her years as a television host. Immediately after the show she features 'The Best of the Oprah Show' with related content of a spiritual nature. One of her more frequent guests who offers guidance and instruction on growing into your full, whole self is Gary Zukav. His most famous book, The Seat of the Soul was one of two books that I found very helpful in weathering some turmoil during late summer/early fall 2012.
The recording I watched last night talked about fear. Every action we take is either founded in love, or founded in fear. I think my whole marriage was based in fear. The most basic fear was of being alone, but partnered with that was my fear of divorce. My 'god' turned out to be keeping the structure and trappings of family and marriage so I could feel safe, protected, whole, like I did when my parents remarried.
So what did my life give me? I knew how to live on my own, for sure, because I had made it on my own through college, graduation and moving to my first full time job. But the underlying fear was always there; I just wanted to be married, to have a family, to feel safe, to feel protected, to breathe easy, to coast.
Turns out I felt very alone in marriage, but the mere presence of a husband gave me an inkling of hope, or in most cases the ongoing vision of my planned fantasy of how our lives were going to be some day. When he didn't behave according to my fantasy, which was most of the time, I was filled with disappointment, frustration and resignation. For years. But even if things weren't the way I planned, imagined and fantasized for them to be, at least they could be, they might be, one day, if I could just figure out how to make that happen.
I could envision everything except for what reality was. Reality is that we really are alone with each other. Nobody can be in our head with us. We can bridge those gaps through listening to the other, really listening, putting ourselves in the other's shoes, as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird says, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." Harville Hendrix gives excellent examples of the process in his books, Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Have.
I learned how to fear being alone as a child, where we all learn our habits. Not that I had bad parents or anything. We're all at least a little dysfunctional, and I believe we're all just trying our best with the life skills we have. Life just keeps pushing us to become our best version of ourselves.
Was it my sadness over having to share my mommy when I wasn't even two, and again before I was four? Was it the times I was sent to my room in tears for punishment? Was it Mother's distance as she struggled to find herself in emotional isolation? Was it feeling my safe world crumble and feeling abandoned by both as my parents divorced when I was fifteen? It doesn't really matter now. One of the many things I have learned from counseling is that only a child can be abandoned. Only a child can be abandoned. A child, not an adult, so I might as well just chase those feelings away, they don't count any more.
No matter how much I felt abandoned, rejected and completely alone that day in October when my husband moved out of our family home, I wasn't. It took me a good five years to intellectualize that fact, and another several months to really believe it. How did you get there?
The general rule is a year of recovery for every five years of marriage. So that meant four years. When my counselor told me that I was speechless, terrified. How could I even survive four years of this hell on earth? Every month presented another crisis to face on my own. Some days, well, many days, I just wanted it to end. I cried for my old life back, ached for it, longed for it. Anything was better than this. Why? Why is this happening to me? Answer: This is happening FOR you.
The first year of separation was filled with very dramatic lows, and some highs as I crossed those bridges my attorney told me about. I couldn't even say 'divorce' until several months after having the signed document in hand, more than three years after the separation. For months I could barely fathom driving my kids to the house where he lived. I was in total denial because it didn't fit the vision I had for our lives together. That vision was very deep.
If only I had been more accepting. If only I had been less critical. If only I hadn't been so manipulative. If only I hadn't tried to always run the show. Ahh, but that's not the whole story. It takes two to tango. Plus for a while I got to be the victim. I was surrounded by compassion, by emotional support, by empathy, by sympathy. Part of me clung to all of that almost like a sweet victory, and it filled that big 'alone' hole. The other part of me felt ashamed, knowing that while he wasn't technically alone, he wasn't getting the support that I was, and I felt bad about that. I also felt very undeserving; it really does take two to tango.
The second year of separation was less about the terror, though there was that constant fear about 'making it.' Losing child support when my firstborn graduated, getting him off to college with unanswered questions about who would pay for what. Foolishly co-signing a student loan without the financial backing in case the worst happened and it wasn't being paid. Finishing my master's, getting my first job in nearly eighteen years. Using Mother's inheritance money to buy my own car because I couldn't afford to make the payments on the new van, which I gave back to my husband.
I also knew I could never afford to be in that big house. It felt cavernous, I felt alone in that house, because something was missing, according to my fantasy. I held on for so long believing if I just did everything according to the book, he would realize his mistake and come back and we would do the work and we would be ok. Deep down I knew though, that even if he did, I couldn't wait in that big house 'just in case.' I had to do things for my well being. The first flashes of self-care and autonomy.
Moving day was surreal. So many miracles led me to that day. An unexpected flood in the basement forced me to get rid of even more junk than I had originally planned. A close neighbor brought over her shop vac and we got as much water up as we could. A dear couple came by and helped me for hours to fill the dumpster I had rented. So much tenderness. A pastor who counseled me in those early months told me, 'God touches us through human hands.' So maybe I wasn't so alone?
My new home was where my daughter's best friend was born and raised, a cape cod that was just perfect; a house that had been filled with a loving second marriage. Almost every element was original, including the pristine, avocado green, double oven and cook top. It felt like my childhood home, cozy and comfortable. I was driven to get things in order quickly, so the kids would feel normal, as normal as they could having their home completely changed.
Going into the third year, I finally got full time employment, a new career. Working part time at the bank as a teller had been the perfect transition. By the time of the interviews I had grown to the point of recognizing that God had a plan for me, and that if I could still myself enough, my gut would whisper my directions. I began to absorb the meaning of Psalm 119:105 that my pastor counselor had shared with me, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." "Picture a boy scout flashlight taped to your ankle," she said, "How far ahead can you see? Just far enough not to fall into a hole or step on a snake." Wow.
So I had prayed for those jobs, not just, "Please God let me get this job," but, "God please help me let you guide me in the direction you wish for me to go." I was learning! Again I felt God's loving presence in my life. I wasn't altogether alone. I received two job offers on the same day, including the one I wanted the most. So many miracles just for me.
Full time employment combined with full time mothering is not a good mix. How do you decide what actions to give up? Gone were the slow mornings after getting the kids off to school. Those chores I had always done myself because I was 'at home;' it was clear that something had to give. Teen aged kids don't take well to extra chores. The soccer games didn't stop (two teams), two schools' worth of chorus and band concerts, teaching church school, replacing the water and air filters, yard work in the summer, three dogs and a cat. Alone.
The whole household sensed my overwhelm and reacted accordingly. My new life, for the foreseeable future, was NOTHING like the life I had planned. Depression set in. It's said that depression (not clinical depression) can be viewed as a good thing, it's grieving of the old to make way for the new. It was as if my body, mind and spirit had finally given in to three years of mixed terror, anxiety and plain physical exhaustion. I went on medication to bridge the gap and aid in my recovery.
The pets' reaction was to pee on the oriental rug, pull dishes off of the counter, rip the screen on the back porch. I came home one morning to what looked like a murder scene. One of the dogs had broken a dish and cut his tongue on the shards and there was blood everywhere. The cat had decided the litter box was definitely NOT where she was going to drop her tootsie rolls and the dogs considered it candy, even when their tummies did not.
How many nights was I awakened by a vomiting dog, I do not know. Every week I had another story about the 'damn dogs.' They would get in the garage and rip up the garbage. I didn't have the electric fence installed right away and they would do the same to the neighbor's trash. Neighbors threatened to call the police because they would bark in the early morning, or after 10 p.m. when I would let them out. As much as I thought I needed to for my own sanity, I didn't have the heart to separate from any of them; it was too much like losing more family.
I consider this period the time that things moved from acute to chronic. The medication did help. My oldest daughter faced troubles of her own and I still occasionally grieve that I was unable to be there the way I think would have had I not been distracted by just trying to survive. She needed me and I was only able to give just a little, not enough. We both muddled through though, I believe the better for it.
I finally learned not to answer a nasty gram with a nasty gram. I was ready for closure. I negotiated the settlement with a firm stance on how I needed things laid out. I actually did the final step myself to complete the divorce paperwork. I hired someone to cut the grass. I began to feel settled in my new career.
There were days of very deep sadness, and so many tears. Grief over the fact that I would never have one of those 35 year marriages. Grief over the humiliation of always attending the concerts and school events alone. Grief over not being able to share big events in our children's lives with their father the way we did when we were together. Grief over the fact that I wanted to be in a healthy relationship that was not materializing. Grief over the realization that those plans I had created, that fantasy, was just that. No more hope.
When I reached the end of that magical fourth year I expected sunlight and birdsong. I was always a smart kid, quick to achieve, so I expected this would be the same. I was wrong, very wrong. I had to accept that this process of healing was happening in its own time.
Just as I approached the five year mark, I started to have fewer days of envisioning suicide. I knew full well that I would never do such a heinous act and cause my children suffering, but at the time, just envisioning it seemed like a little escape from what seemed like a life in prison. I would be jolted by the title of the Peggy Lee song that my Supernatural In Literature professor once quoted, 'Is that all there is?'
And so I experienced first hand that life gives us the same life scenario again and again, until we are able to do the work and learn the lesson. I didn't get it right the first time, and this past summer I got a very uncanny re-do. It didn't have anything to do with a romantic relationship, but I finally learned that going the extra mile, driving myself to exhaustion, pushing myself beyond my comfort zone to get what I want (in this case approval) is no guarantee of anything other than sore feet, tiredness and discomfort, so why not just stop and listen?
Being able to recognize this repeated lesson as a do-over cut the terror phase to just a few short weeks.
Having experienced several incidences of a traumatic event turning out ok in the end, softened the anxiety of the limbo phase and opened my mind to resources that I could use to calm my anxious heart.
Recognizing that it was my undisciplined thoughts and feelings that allowed me to feel humiliated and degraded led me to a place beyond my ego to the peaceful understanding that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Experiencing the tension in my shoulders, the anxiety in my heart and the heaviness in my bones as I allowed my negative, fearful thoughts to run the show showed me the option to decide not to let those thoughts and feelings be in charge. With hard work, I was able to replace them with the other truth, the truth based in love: It really WILL be alright. If I still myself, I open to the reality that God WILL show me the way, one step at a time.
And finally, believing the truth that these things happen FOR me, brought me here, to a new summit, where I can look back over those bridges, deep valleys and rolling hills and see that each step was intrinsically linked to the one before and the one to come.
In the words of poet Maya Angelou, 'When you know better, you do better.' That fear of being alone forever still comes by to visit from time to time, but my deep self replaces it with peace in knowing that this too shall pass.
I find myself in a place of discovery, like childhood where every new experience is one of wonder and excitement. What is my purpose? Right now it's to write this down and open the door to shared experiences with you.
What was your deepest fear? How did your life present you with opportunities to overcome that fear and replace it with love?
Monday, February 11, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
Move
You probably know by now that it wasn't my idea. I had everything for our lives all planned out. Midsummer, first came the pronouncement. Never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams did I even come close to thinking that divorce could happen. What about our family? What about the kids? You don't know what you're DOING! I've BEEN through this and you haven't, and it changed my life forever; ripped my safe home to shreds and things were never ever the same. (When you're 15, that really matters).
I just couldn't fathom it for weeks. Three weeks after the pronouncement I had a high school church mission trip to Indiana to chaperon with my two oldest kids. I begged him not to go to a lawyer until we went to our counselor upon my return; the one we just couldn't make time to go to years before.
Everything was surreal. I told no one except my sister, and ironically his 'closest' friend - a desperate move to indirectly influence him I suppose, because telling others would have made it real. During the mission trip I called my closest 'mom' friend - we'd raised our kids together. I had been her lean-to when she and her husband had gone through a very rough patch several years before, so I figured she could understand.
After the mission trip I attended a week long intensive group counseling event as recommended by the counselor. My purpose had been to figure out exactly, in black and white, what to do to turn this thing around, to make him see. Turns out it wasn't like that at all; it was all about me. It forced me to begin facing reality. When I came back I insisted that he move out of our bed at the urging of the director of the group event.
Of course the pronouncement meant his eventual move from our home. As summer ended and school began I was frantically reading books about how to save your marriage from divorce and they all said the same thing. There were even acronyms - Get a Life (GAL), OW, OM (other Wo/Man). Get a life. Ok, I'll just do that. I'll get a life so that he will come to his senses and then I'll be even better off and ready, because if I act desperate or clingy it just reinforces everything and pushes him away more..
Besides, he never follows through with anything. I wanted to believe that. Each morning he would come upstairs from his bed in the basement to get ready for work as I was getting the kids out the door. I began a daily morning walk so I wouldn't have to face him as he left for work. I could hardly bear to be in the house when he was there, especially if the kids were not there. Those walks saved me.
I began the 'Divorce Diet' in earnest, losing 23 pounds in about six weeks. My thoughts were manic and the only way I could calm them was by letting hymns roll through, or by reciting the Lord's Prayer. I prayed unceasingly. I read books, I searched the internet, I wrote emails to my family and I wrote in a prayer journal a dear friend had given me after I told her what was going on.
I didn't sign up for courses that semester, even though I was half way through with my master's. In September the news came that he had found a place; he was moving. I panicked. M and S came over as I sobbed; M rubbed my forearm just like Mama used to when I was sick. After they left I flat out told God that I just wasn't ready for this. I just couldn't handle it. I screamed and sobbed, I stomped my feet, my first tantrum in decades, a foreshadowing of times to come.
After that my feelings weren't at a fever pitch, but it calmed me enough to function. Just a few days after my tantrum, the news came that it fell through! No move just yet. I believe to this day that God answered my terrified prayer. It helped me to see even more clearly that I was not alone. My friends encouraged me to face reality when I explained the results of my prayer. I knew it would come eventually, sooner rather than later. I still made dinner every night; we sat together as if. I kept thinking, maybe, just maybe, if I do everything like the books suggest.
October. Another pronouncement. The move was happening, no doubt. In fact it was someone from church who was helping him out. New house, never lived in, unexpectedly renting. In my totally freaked out state it felt like a betrayal. The girls' fall birthdays, "couldn't you wait until early November, until AFTER I give them their parties?" The move occurred exactly one week before the first party.
He took the furniture I thought he would take; he did discuss it with me and I agreed. I still knew him so well, predicted how he thought, what his decisions would be. He did so many things 'wrong' - eliciting help from the kids to disassemble the larger furniture pieces and move things as I watched in a numb state of semi-consciousness.
When it was all said and done, I just told the kids, "Dad loves you very much; we're just going to pretend like he's gone on a business trip. You'll still get to see him."
I just couldn't fathom it for weeks. Three weeks after the pronouncement I had a high school church mission trip to Indiana to chaperon with my two oldest kids. I begged him not to go to a lawyer until we went to our counselor upon my return; the one we just couldn't make time to go to years before.
Everything was surreal. I told no one except my sister, and ironically his 'closest' friend - a desperate move to indirectly influence him I suppose, because telling others would have made it real. During the mission trip I called my closest 'mom' friend - we'd raised our kids together. I had been her lean-to when she and her husband had gone through a very rough patch several years before, so I figured she could understand.
After the mission trip I attended a week long intensive group counseling event as recommended by the counselor. My purpose had been to figure out exactly, in black and white, what to do to turn this thing around, to make him see. Turns out it wasn't like that at all; it was all about me. It forced me to begin facing reality. When I came back I insisted that he move out of our bed at the urging of the director of the group event.
Of course the pronouncement meant his eventual move from our home. As summer ended and school began I was frantically reading books about how to save your marriage from divorce and they all said the same thing. There were even acronyms - Get a Life (GAL), OW, OM (other Wo/Man). Get a life. Ok, I'll just do that. I'll get a life so that he will come to his senses and then I'll be even better off and ready, because if I act desperate or clingy it just reinforces everything and pushes him away more..
Besides, he never follows through with anything. I wanted to believe that. Each morning he would come upstairs from his bed in the basement to get ready for work as I was getting the kids out the door. I began a daily morning walk so I wouldn't have to face him as he left for work. I could hardly bear to be in the house when he was there, especially if the kids were not there. Those walks saved me.
I began the 'Divorce Diet' in earnest, losing 23 pounds in about six weeks. My thoughts were manic and the only way I could calm them was by letting hymns roll through, or by reciting the Lord's Prayer. I prayed unceasingly. I read books, I searched the internet, I wrote emails to my family and I wrote in a prayer journal a dear friend had given me after I told her what was going on.
I didn't sign up for courses that semester, even though I was half way through with my master's. In September the news came that he had found a place; he was moving. I panicked. M and S came over as I sobbed; M rubbed my forearm just like Mama used to when I was sick. After they left I flat out told God that I just wasn't ready for this. I just couldn't handle it. I screamed and sobbed, I stomped my feet, my first tantrum in decades, a foreshadowing of times to come.
After that my feelings weren't at a fever pitch, but it calmed me enough to function. Just a few days after my tantrum, the news came that it fell through! No move just yet. I believe to this day that God answered my terrified prayer. It helped me to see even more clearly that I was not alone. My friends encouraged me to face reality when I explained the results of my prayer. I knew it would come eventually, sooner rather than later. I still made dinner every night; we sat together as if. I kept thinking, maybe, just maybe, if I do everything like the books suggest.
October. Another pronouncement. The move was happening, no doubt. In fact it was someone from church who was helping him out. New house, never lived in, unexpectedly renting. In my totally freaked out state it felt like a betrayal. The girls' fall birthdays, "couldn't you wait until early November, until AFTER I give them their parties?" The move occurred exactly one week before the first party.
He took the furniture I thought he would take; he did discuss it with me and I agreed. I still knew him so well, predicted how he thought, what his decisions would be. He did so many things 'wrong' - eliciting help from the kids to disassemble the larger furniture pieces and move things as I watched in a numb state of semi-consciousness.
When it was all said and done, I just told the kids, "Dad loves you very much; we're just going to pretend like he's gone on a business trip. You'll still get to see him."
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Who Gets The Pew?
In our church, as in most I suspect, families sit at the same spot every week. For us, it was fourth row back, right hand side of the right hand side. Easy to walk up front for a reading, or slip into the back to help with the offering. Right in front of the pastor's wife, a couple of rows back from A and her parents.
We pretended at first. He told me he was going to get a divorce in mid-summer, just a few days after our last family vacation with friends that we had visited every summer for a few years. We sat together just like always until he moved out that fall.
We even had our church family portrait made in September, just before he moved out of our family home. My oldest daughter scolded, 'This is so fake.' One of the last times we attended church together I grabbed his arm as we both wept watching our son sing and play guitar - they call it special music.
I had such high hopes that he would come around and just wake up! See that this was all so wrong. He didn't, and maybe some of the circumstances were wrong, but having the chance to live a life of my own, not one that I dreamed up, planned and orchestrated for so many years, maybe that's right after all.
So who gets the pew? The one who goes to church the most often in our case; that would be me. What about after the game, if Mom and Dad aren't sitting with each other, which parent should I go to first? (I told her to go to the one she wasn't seeing that night.) When it came time to discuss custody and visitation, the kids just wanted to be told where to go and when.
He said it would save gas to ride to the soccer game together just after he moved out. What are you crazy? Are you KIDDING? Like I would even get in the car with you??? I did it once, forgoing my usual front seat for the back. Once and done.
I could blame it on myself or I could blame it on him, or we could agree that neither of us were in a place where we could just act as if nothing had happened even though everything had changed, or act 'normal' in a completely un-normal situation. I know for sure that I could not, would not, especially as things unfolded. How do you create a new normal when a family is disassembling and reassembling?
He did listen though, when I tried hard not to speak with an angry tone in explaining that referring to me by my first name to our son instead of the usual 'Mom' is disrespectful and discomforting. Many harsh angry words spilled forth in the emails, phone calls and meetings with attorneys, but if ever there was a crisis with one of the kids, and there were a few, we got our acts together and discussed things as adults. I am very grateful for that, and proud too.
Perhaps if circumstances had been different, if this had been a well planned, carefully devised process of dismantling our family life with solely the kids in mind (rare, but it happens I hear), we could be chatting frequently about the kids, comparing notes, sharing anecdotes. Circumstances weren't different. It was fairly normal as far as one-sided divorces go, maybe even banal; no public displays, no violence, no punctured tires or busted windshields. Just a lot of private (and on rare occasions, not-so-private) emotions, mostly difficult ones, but some occasional joy.
Another reason to convince myself to accept that things just are the way they are. It really does save an enormous amount of energy to accept life as it is today, live in the moment, just check in and see that everything really is ok. What's that cliche? Today is a gift, that's why it's called the present.
How did you work through all of those every day decisions?
We pretended at first. He told me he was going to get a divorce in mid-summer, just a few days after our last family vacation with friends that we had visited every summer for a few years. We sat together just like always until he moved out that fall.
We even had our church family portrait made in September, just before he moved out of our family home. My oldest daughter scolded, 'This is so fake.' One of the last times we attended church together I grabbed his arm as we both wept watching our son sing and play guitar - they call it special music.
I had such high hopes that he would come around and just wake up! See that this was all so wrong. He didn't, and maybe some of the circumstances were wrong, but having the chance to live a life of my own, not one that I dreamed up, planned and orchestrated for so many years, maybe that's right after all.
So who gets the pew? The one who goes to church the most often in our case; that would be me. What about after the game, if Mom and Dad aren't sitting with each other, which parent should I go to first? (I told her to go to the one she wasn't seeing that night.) When it came time to discuss custody and visitation, the kids just wanted to be told where to go and when.
He said it would save gas to ride to the soccer game together just after he moved out. What are you crazy? Are you KIDDING? Like I would even get in the car with you??? I did it once, forgoing my usual front seat for the back. Once and done.
I could blame it on myself or I could blame it on him, or we could agree that neither of us were in a place where we could just act as if nothing had happened even though everything had changed, or act 'normal' in a completely un-normal situation. I know for sure that I could not, would not, especially as things unfolded. How do you create a new normal when a family is disassembling and reassembling?
He did listen though, when I tried hard not to speak with an angry tone in explaining that referring to me by my first name to our son instead of the usual 'Mom' is disrespectful and discomforting. Many harsh angry words spilled forth in the emails, phone calls and meetings with attorneys, but if ever there was a crisis with one of the kids, and there were a few, we got our acts together and discussed things as adults. I am very grateful for that, and proud too.
Perhaps if circumstances had been different, if this had been a well planned, carefully devised process of dismantling our family life with solely the kids in mind (rare, but it happens I hear), we could be chatting frequently about the kids, comparing notes, sharing anecdotes. Circumstances weren't different. It was fairly normal as far as one-sided divorces go, maybe even banal; no public displays, no violence, no punctured tires or busted windshields. Just a lot of private (and on rare occasions, not-so-private) emotions, mostly difficult ones, but some occasional joy.
Another reason to convince myself to accept that things just are the way they are. It really does save an enormous amount of energy to accept life as it is today, live in the moment, just check in and see that everything really is ok. What's that cliche? Today is a gift, that's why it's called the present.
How did you work through all of those every day decisions?
Are You There?
We've all had to lament about dating after divorce, those of use who came out on the other side still single that is. There seems to be a pattern. Just a few months in (and my friends who ended up widowed seemed to feel the same way) and you're desperate to feel needed, desperate to be remarried. It seems to me that a lot of second marriages wind up as a result of that passion. Maybe that's part of the even higher divorce rate with second marriages.
If you read the book Crazy Time it describes the different stages post-separation/divorce, starting with hummingbird and ending with phoenix. I was still caught up in my self-righteous, 'This is not right, we promised GOD till death, God hates divorce' party line, when I read it through the first time. I was struck tho, by how uncannily predictive my actions had been to that point. I couldn't stomach the terror of the reality of divorce so I covered that fear up with my belief statements when I first read it. What it did was force me to let reality start sinking in.
Basically it's normal to have a fling of sorts, our hummingbird stage. For me, it was like high school all over again. So many emotions. We were both in the same boat; just seeing that someone could be attracted to me was enormous. Our scenarios were similar, we both recognized the pain of the other. It was great, until it wasn't, then it was, 'What was I THINKING?"
It was just what I needed. Except I kept going, ended that because there was something closer to home. He was perfect. I just knew it. I figured it all out. Yeah, he would need some time to adjust, but it was as if we were SUPPOSED to be together. I was going to make sure of it. Except that it seemed like deja vu all over again. Wait, I didn't want to be in charge, that's what I did when I got married the first time and I got really tired of that, why do I feel so miserable?
It took me eighteen months to come to the conclusion that 'nothing' was better than 'not enough.' It was hard to let that go, but just like when I knew I had to move out of the home I had raised my kids in, I knew I had to make a change. I knew, my gut told me that I would have to face my alone-ness, the thing I had been avoiding for probably most of my fifty years.
Fifty, divorced, raising three kids, navigating a degree and moving from stay-at-home mom to full time employee. Throw moving into the mix, getting the first one off to college, balancing the anxiety of a new career with two teenage daughters whose method of coping with the discomfort of seeing their mom struggle was to laugh when she demanded in a hissy fit that they help out around the house more.
So how about online dating? One site says 'more marriages than any other online service' another says they can scientifically connect you with potential mates, still others for the over fifty crowd. So many choices! The free ones, well, you get what you pay for. Even still, I know people who have had luck and are married. One counselor I met during my divorce journey shared that she met her soulmate second husband through the personals - before online anything of course.
What I learned about myself after a lot of tantrums with God was that I am a good catch and it will be right when it's right, and I will know it. So many people who have remarried with good, solid, loving relationships have told me that. For now, I prefer to be on my own, which means I'd better watch out. That's when 'the one' usually shows up, right when you're ready to let all of those hopes and dreams of true love go, not with resignation or complacency, but with excitement over working on those dreams.
Iyanla Vanzant, a frequent Oprah guest, has several inspirational books out, but the one that helped me along the way was In the Meantime. So in the meantime, I'm having fun learning new things, like how to write a blog, how to do my new job, how to have friends over casually and inexpensively, how to reuse my furniture in new ways, how to plan for a future with a significant drop in (alimony/child support) income, and all sorts of things.
Did you have a fling? Are you ok where you are? What are you doing to fulfill yourself? Did your soul mate show up?
If you read the book Crazy Time it describes the different stages post-separation/divorce, starting with hummingbird and ending with phoenix. I was still caught up in my self-righteous, 'This is not right, we promised GOD till death, God hates divorce' party line, when I read it through the first time. I was struck tho, by how uncannily predictive my actions had been to that point. I couldn't stomach the terror of the reality of divorce so I covered that fear up with my belief statements when I first read it. What it did was force me to let reality start sinking in.
Basically it's normal to have a fling of sorts, our hummingbird stage. For me, it was like high school all over again. So many emotions. We were both in the same boat; just seeing that someone could be attracted to me was enormous. Our scenarios were similar, we both recognized the pain of the other. It was great, until it wasn't, then it was, 'What was I THINKING?"
It was just what I needed. Except I kept going, ended that because there was something closer to home. He was perfect. I just knew it. I figured it all out. Yeah, he would need some time to adjust, but it was as if we were SUPPOSED to be together. I was going to make sure of it. Except that it seemed like deja vu all over again. Wait, I didn't want to be in charge, that's what I did when I got married the first time and I got really tired of that, why do I feel so miserable?
It took me eighteen months to come to the conclusion that 'nothing' was better than 'not enough.' It was hard to let that go, but just like when I knew I had to move out of the home I had raised my kids in, I knew I had to make a change. I knew, my gut told me that I would have to face my alone-ness, the thing I had been avoiding for probably most of my fifty years.
Fifty, divorced, raising three kids, navigating a degree and moving from stay-at-home mom to full time employee. Throw moving into the mix, getting the first one off to college, balancing the anxiety of a new career with two teenage daughters whose method of coping with the discomfort of seeing their mom struggle was to laugh when she demanded in a hissy fit that they help out around the house more.
So how about online dating? One site says 'more marriages than any other online service' another says they can scientifically connect you with potential mates, still others for the over fifty crowd. So many choices! The free ones, well, you get what you pay for. Even still, I know people who have had luck and are married. One counselor I met during my divorce journey shared that she met her soulmate second husband through the personals - before online anything of course.
What I learned about myself after a lot of tantrums with God was that I am a good catch and it will be right when it's right, and I will know it. So many people who have remarried with good, solid, loving relationships have told me that. For now, I prefer to be on my own, which means I'd better watch out. That's when 'the one' usually shows up, right when you're ready to let all of those hopes and dreams of true love go, not with resignation or complacency, but with excitement over working on those dreams.
Iyanla Vanzant, a frequent Oprah guest, has several inspirational books out, but the one that helped me along the way was In the Meantime. So in the meantime, I'm having fun learning new things, like how to write a blog, how to do my new job, how to have friends over casually and inexpensively, how to reuse my furniture in new ways, how to plan for a future with a significant drop in (alimony/child support) income, and all sorts of things.
Did you have a fling? Are you ok where you are? What are you doing to fulfill yourself? Did your soul mate show up?
Flew the Coop
Indoor game, Thursday 8:50 p.m. Senior year, last kid at home. My last year after twenty plus years of driving to gymnastics, wrestling, Taekwondo, swim team, and over 15 years of soccer. As I braved the wind and flurries tonight to drive to the facility I really didn't have to push myself that hard, even knowing that as always I would join the other parents alone, singularly. It gets better. It still stings when I let it, but I've learned to keep all of that to myself - the humiliation of it all, a very public rejection. Everyone else is used to it and I need to be too.
I really didn't have to push myself because now especially, I can see how precious these moments are. I took a 45 second video of her on the field, just a snippet to hold onto. I will attend my last indoor game forever in the coming weeks, and my last club game in a few short months, then my last high school graduation. I sound like Eeyore. I'm sure I will have to grieve the loss, just like all of the other lasts. But that's ok, because there are always firsts too, and those can be pretty sweet.
She was just telling me a few minutes ago about how when she texts, she re-reads it and mouths the words as she does so, and her crazy friends tease her about it. She asked me if I ever did that, one of her usual questions - does this ever happen to you? (Am I normal?) She was sitting at the computer, and I was standing over her, trying really hard not to watch 'The Bachelor'. I despise the way that show trivializes relationships, but the drama pulls me in every time.
She's eighteen now, long dark hair, a gaggle of girl and guy friends that she adores; top student, agile athlete, accomplished musician, shy and quiet but self confident. She's the epitome of the young woman I always dreamed of being.
I watch her mannerisms while she demonstrated her texting quirk to me, and in an instant I was pulled back to that time when she was a tow-headed, sometimes screaming Mimi, her face softened by ringlet curls. Remember when they were little and you just looked at them in awe and with eager anticipation of who, how and what they would be when they grew up? I was living that in reverse. There she was, in the flesh, this beautiful young woman with the world at her feet.
Thankfully I got to have similar but different flashes with my first and second born offspring. I remember the last time my son ever spontaneously grabbed and held my hand. We went for a rare walk in the neighborhood one evening, he was twelve. We just talked about things, nothing I could remember, just that I would never forget that moment.
A few years later when I learned that since turning eighteen he decided to smoke because he could, I took him for a walk on that same road and this time I took his hand, NOT telling him how devastated I felt because smoking is what killed his grandmother. After a lot of prayer and talks with friends and my counselor, I ended up telling him that it was his choice, and there was nothing I could do about it, and that I didn't like it, but that he must never smoke in front of the girls and he will no longer be allowed to drive my car if he smoked in it. That was six months after I found myself alone; a very tough time for both of us. He is approaching 24 and is living a financially responsible and independent life; I'm proud of how he has grown.
With my first daughter, it was just all the time that we connected. In fact sometimes I hear things I wish I hadn't. No, I can't say that, she gives me the pulse of her generation and forces me not to judge. I could never have told my mother the things she has shared with me, and I know that was because I felt so judged, something I am committed not to do with uncomfortable information. Time for me to stop parenting and step back, and remember how I was at 21.
When she was younger, before the divorce years, I would lie in bed next to her many nights as she went to sleep and she would talk to me, tell me her fears and frustrations. So many memories. She calls me regularly now, she's 21 and passionate about her school work and her future, and as a mother, I think one of the many great gifts she has given me that stands out, is her constant chant that her younger sister will always be her very best friend. She doesn't have to worry about her friend troubles, because she's always got her baby sister.
I'm supposed to let them go, and they are supposed to jump out and make it; not just survive, but fly. Just as when they took those first steps or that first bike ride, it involves some bumps and bruises. If I can keep reminding myself to give them encouragement and not criticism, they'll keep coming back and sharing. No more parenting!
Besides, I think I'm ready now. That's what this writing is for. I want to share what I have learned and learn what you have learned. It'll be nice to have some company as I find my next true purpose. It's like heading off to big-girl school where you get to stay and eat lunch and don't have to take a nap, ah the anxious anticipation and excitement!
I really didn't have to push myself because now especially, I can see how precious these moments are. I took a 45 second video of her on the field, just a snippet to hold onto. I will attend my last indoor game forever in the coming weeks, and my last club game in a few short months, then my last high school graduation. I sound like Eeyore. I'm sure I will have to grieve the loss, just like all of the other lasts. But that's ok, because there are always firsts too, and those can be pretty sweet.
She was just telling me a few minutes ago about how when she texts, she re-reads it and mouths the words as she does so, and her crazy friends tease her about it. She asked me if I ever did that, one of her usual questions - does this ever happen to you? (Am I normal?) She was sitting at the computer, and I was standing over her, trying really hard not to watch 'The Bachelor'. I despise the way that show trivializes relationships, but the drama pulls me in every time.
She's eighteen now, long dark hair, a gaggle of girl and guy friends that she adores; top student, agile athlete, accomplished musician, shy and quiet but self confident. She's the epitome of the young woman I always dreamed of being.
I watch her mannerisms while she demonstrated her texting quirk to me, and in an instant I was pulled back to that time when she was a tow-headed, sometimes screaming Mimi, her face softened by ringlet curls. Remember when they were little and you just looked at them in awe and with eager anticipation of who, how and what they would be when they grew up? I was living that in reverse. There she was, in the flesh, this beautiful young woman with the world at her feet.
Thankfully I got to have similar but different flashes with my first and second born offspring. I remember the last time my son ever spontaneously grabbed and held my hand. We went for a rare walk in the neighborhood one evening, he was twelve. We just talked about things, nothing I could remember, just that I would never forget that moment.
A few years later when I learned that since turning eighteen he decided to smoke because he could, I took him for a walk on that same road and this time I took his hand, NOT telling him how devastated I felt because smoking is what killed his grandmother. After a lot of prayer and talks with friends and my counselor, I ended up telling him that it was his choice, and there was nothing I could do about it, and that I didn't like it, but that he must never smoke in front of the girls and he will no longer be allowed to drive my car if he smoked in it. That was six months after I found myself alone; a very tough time for both of us. He is approaching 24 and is living a financially responsible and independent life; I'm proud of how he has grown.
With my first daughter, it was just all the time that we connected. In fact sometimes I hear things I wish I hadn't. No, I can't say that, she gives me the pulse of her generation and forces me not to judge. I could never have told my mother the things she has shared with me, and I know that was because I felt so judged, something I am committed not to do with uncomfortable information. Time for me to stop parenting and step back, and remember how I was at 21.
When she was younger, before the divorce years, I would lie in bed next to her many nights as she went to sleep and she would talk to me, tell me her fears and frustrations. So many memories. She calls me regularly now, she's 21 and passionate about her school work and her future, and as a mother, I think one of the many great gifts she has given me that stands out, is her constant chant that her younger sister will always be her very best friend. She doesn't have to worry about her friend troubles, because she's always got her baby sister.
I'm supposed to let them go, and they are supposed to jump out and make it; not just survive, but fly. Just as when they took those first steps or that first bike ride, it involves some bumps and bruises. If I can keep reminding myself to give them encouragement and not criticism, they'll keep coming back and sharing. No more parenting!
Besides, I think I'm ready now. That's what this writing is for. I want to share what I have learned and learn what you have learned. It'll be nice to have some company as I find my next true purpose. It's like heading off to big-girl school where you get to stay and eat lunch and don't have to take a nap, ah the anxious anticipation and excitement!
Saturday, February 2, 2013
How Does Your Garden Grow?
One of my dearest friends S has taken the Penn State University Master Gardener course. I almost took it with her but the timing wasn't right. Gardening is only one of the facets of S, but as I've grown I've come to see that its roots go deep.
Growing up in the deep south, the sun, heat and humidity baked the drive to work the soil right out of me, even though it's in my bones. My paternal grandfather was a farmer until the Great Depression moved his family into town to run a grocery store. Grammaw had bantam (banty) chickens, figs, a walnut tree, a snowball bush, and gave Mother a cutting of her white climbing rose that grew up the side of our brick storage room. I loved sticking my nose in those roses and inhaling. When I was six, Daddy cut down a perfect climbing tree, a large maple, in our front yard. I was overwhelmed with a sadness that confused both me and my parents as I wailed at their seeming callous treatment of such a majestic living thing. In the 70s, Daddy tilled a garden for Mother, who always researched and used the latest in technology - in this case ground newspapers as mulch.
I never recognized my penchant for growing things until moving to New Jersey, the garden state, where the weather was almost paradise in the summer. Just before leaving the even hotter climes of south Georgia, my sweet friend E did something to spark my interest that I shall never forget. She planted pansies by my mailbox just after my daughter was born. I was so touched that someone would put forth what seemed like such a great effort, just for me.
Before leaving, our mutual friend M, whose brother had lived in NJ had said, "Oh they have the BEST produce!" Surely it was impossible for any other state come close to a true Georgia peach, but those Jersey folks did! White peaches, yellow cherries, big fat broccoli, the sweetest, most beautiful orange-yellow cherry tomatoes I had ever tasted, Sun Gold. Once I met L from across the street, whose back yard was filled with color and textures that I never new existed, I never turned back.
It was in NJ where I discovered Community Supported Agriculture, and organic gardening, and best of all perennials. L was the queen of perennials. I was amazed by her processes, by the work she put into that garden and the results were breathtaking. It is a whole other world. She would have the grass cutter pour the clippings in the corner of her yard and over the week she would take the free, nutrient filled clippings and mulch the base of her plants. She would dead head, she would fertilize and each week it was a wonderland to see what she had planted and what was blooming.
Mother was dying, I was pregnant with my last child and when I left town with my two little ones to let Mama go, L did what any true master gardener would do. I came home to see that my little piece of ground and tiny seedlings had morphed into a tidy, weed free garden, just ready for me to tend to. Keeping those struggling plants alive that summer helped me to ride the unending waves of grief as I faced my baby's birth and my future years of motherhood without my mother. Just as the magic was beginning.
So how does your garden grow?
Perennials: Moving to Pennsylvania provided a new plot of land to plan and plant. S was my inspiration there, tirelessly adding garden beds filled with new and more amazing plants. My husband built a beautiful picket fence around the front and I spent years filling the periphery of that house with plants - blueberries, asparagus, herbs and veggies in the back, perennials in the front. Other than vegetables, I didn't want to 'waste time' or money with annuals; perennials come back every year, what a bargain! Plus we perennial gardeners know that we have to share, and every time my peach day lilies would bloom I thought of S, I still do. When I moved out I took those lilies, and my peonies and blueberries with me, and those 'delicate' peonies proved their worth again by surviving a second move. They remind me how tough, and beautiful and fragrant they are, each summer.
Sharing: Gardening became my respite from the harried life of trucking kids and running a household, and each new type of plant was like a child, teaching me as we grew together. I felt connected to my grandfather, my grandmother and my mother in that first Pennsylvania garden, and before my blind aunt died I had gotten some of her Memphis plants. One day I will plant a ginkgo tree in her honor. Aunt Lilyan had at least a dozen ginkgoes rooted in jars on the screen porch we had played in with our cousins years before, and on my last visit before she died, she proudly showed me one of her seedlings that towered twenty feet tall. Something really grand can come from a simple patient act.
Annuals: When you move into a new-to-you place, especially by yourself, it's important to add your personal touch. Those were tough times. Aside from the emotional trauma of significantly downsizing and leaving the home I had raised my children in, I hadn't yet found full time work and money was tight. This was a gardening home though, and that first May those beds and my pots were begging for flowers. That's when I really fell in love with annuals - boy scout annuals I bought from church. Worthy cause, instant gratification, for a very low price! Those tiny impatiens plugs were like bright pink flower-shrubs by the end of the summer. So many walkers in my new neighborhood would shout out how pretty they looked. My pots overflowed with color - planting gave me that familiar contentment of a purpose; watching them grow and bloom showed me the perpetual renewal of life even when facing challenges.
Mulch: I'm a lazy mulcher. My first attempt involved landscape fabric. In NJ, 9+ months pregnant trying to cut holes after clearing the mulch to plant bulbs. The weeds would come up through the holes, or even worse, grow on top of the fabric. I don't like lugging buckets of mulch from the driveway every spring. For years I watched my tiny neighbor A, lug big bags of pine bark nuggets and pour them around her beds. Just a few bags each year. Never saw her pulling weeds. My kind of mulching. I'm lucky to live in a small town where the hardware store can deliver a few dozen bags right onto my front porch, practically the same day. If they're good and dry they're not really that heavy, and a dusting of a few new bags over the base every year makes things look good as new. If the foundation is good, all you need is a little sprucing up to look good as new.
Straw: When I bought this house, my friends, the previous owners had an enormous vegetable garden plot in the back yard, covered with straw and ready to plant. After having some overgrown shrubs removed the next year I decided to do the same, except the excavator apparently didn't know the difference between straw and hay, so after that second summer I had a garden full of grass - the hay had sprouted. Then the weeds, taller than me marched in and took over. My garden told me it was too big for me to handle, time to downsize.
Raised Beds: Do you know a handy college kid or two? Two of my son's friends had graduated and were still searching for work. They built me two raised beds out of cedar boards in the early summer, scooping the soil from my wayward vegetable garden before the weeds had taken hold, then covering what was left in black plastic in preparation for grass the next year. We helped each other and I had squash enough to share with everyone I visited that summer.
Grass: My daughter and I cut the grass that first summer after the move. She's never minded that kind of work, well as long as she was in town and in the mood. I felt such pride in my new cozy home and I enjoyed going to bed bone tired after working the grass every week. Then I got a full time job in my field, and the next summer I felt so overwhelmed and yes, I admit, sorry for myself. I didn't ask to be by myself. Everyone else is married and can work together to do this crap, but I have to do it all alone. Life is so unfair. When my counselor suggested I consider paying someone to do the work I balked, after all I HAVE to do it all myself, I'm alone. Found out it was just a few dollars a week and only for the summer. I came home to freshly cut grass. I helped a son of the neighborhood with his new lawncare business. My flowers we calling me. Hmmm, I guess I don't have to do it ALL. Free at last!
Herbs: Ok I admit it, I mostly plant herbs for the fragrance. I do love to cook (but only when I love to cook) and fresh herbs from the garden can't be beat, even from ice cubes frozen at summer's end and thrown into that stockpot in midwinter. Really though, I get the most pleasure out of pinching a basil leaf, or stripping a sprig of lemon thyme, tickling rosemary and smelling my fingers, bending a lemongrass blade, shredding a chocolate mint leaf. Peppermint leaves are great for a summer mojito. Lavender buds plucked just before blooming made some great sachets one Christmas. Sage, well it's really good for my white turkey bean garlic soup recipe, but it's awfully pretty too, especially the tri-color variety. It's a tiny thing, that perfume at my fingertips, a little pleasure to be thankful for.
Friends: When you have a garden your plants are like your offspring. Tending to them, seeing them flourish and grow and get strong, clearing out the dead growth to make room for new is a worthy purpose. And the fruits of your labors, well what friend wouldn't want a vase of color and texture fresh cut from your very own garden for a dinner party, or a huge perfumed peony blossom for the dessert table? Those plants have a purpose, use them! Even if it's just a splash of winterberry in a mason jar, a forced sprig of forsythia, pussy willow or dogwood, or a tiny spray of Lily of the Valley in a bud vase to adorn someone's night stand.
I recommend the book Square Foot Gardening. It's got a boatload of creative ideas for very efficiently growing a nice vegetable garden.
The best place to buy plants? Not the big box stores, well except maybe sometimes. I love to make an adventure of it. I live in a rural area and there are at least a dozen places to choose from. I know where to get the best variety, where to get those exotic plants, where to get the best annuals, and the place that I have to go to, just because I like them so much.
Planting pots? Adding new landscaping? I am a shameless copy cat. Check out what neighbors, local businesses and of course Pinterest folks do.
No resources for custom built raised beds? Go to your local big-box hardware store and find all kinds of inexpensive kits.
Growing up in the deep south, the sun, heat and humidity baked the drive to work the soil right out of me, even though it's in my bones. My paternal grandfather was a farmer until the Great Depression moved his family into town to run a grocery store. Grammaw had bantam (banty) chickens, figs, a walnut tree, a snowball bush, and gave Mother a cutting of her white climbing rose that grew up the side of our brick storage room. I loved sticking my nose in those roses and inhaling. When I was six, Daddy cut down a perfect climbing tree, a large maple, in our front yard. I was overwhelmed with a sadness that confused both me and my parents as I wailed at their seeming callous treatment of such a majestic living thing. In the 70s, Daddy tilled a garden for Mother, who always researched and used the latest in technology - in this case ground newspapers as mulch.
I never recognized my penchant for growing things until moving to New Jersey, the garden state, where the weather was almost paradise in the summer. Just before leaving the even hotter climes of south Georgia, my sweet friend E did something to spark my interest that I shall never forget. She planted pansies by my mailbox just after my daughter was born. I was so touched that someone would put forth what seemed like such a great effort, just for me.
Before leaving, our mutual friend M, whose brother had lived in NJ had said, "Oh they have the BEST produce!" Surely it was impossible for any other state come close to a true Georgia peach, but those Jersey folks did! White peaches, yellow cherries, big fat broccoli, the sweetest, most beautiful orange-yellow cherry tomatoes I had ever tasted, Sun Gold. Once I met L from across the street, whose back yard was filled with color and textures that I never new existed, I never turned back.
It was in NJ where I discovered Community Supported Agriculture, and organic gardening, and best of all perennials. L was the queen of perennials. I was amazed by her processes, by the work she put into that garden and the results were breathtaking. It is a whole other world. She would have the grass cutter pour the clippings in the corner of her yard and over the week she would take the free, nutrient filled clippings and mulch the base of her plants. She would dead head, she would fertilize and each week it was a wonderland to see what she had planted and what was blooming.
Mother was dying, I was pregnant with my last child and when I left town with my two little ones to let Mama go, L did what any true master gardener would do. I came home to see that my little piece of ground and tiny seedlings had morphed into a tidy, weed free garden, just ready for me to tend to. Keeping those struggling plants alive that summer helped me to ride the unending waves of grief as I faced my baby's birth and my future years of motherhood without my mother. Just as the magic was beginning.
So how does your garden grow?
Perennials: Moving to Pennsylvania provided a new plot of land to plan and plant. S was my inspiration there, tirelessly adding garden beds filled with new and more amazing plants. My husband built a beautiful picket fence around the front and I spent years filling the periphery of that house with plants - blueberries, asparagus, herbs and veggies in the back, perennials in the front. Other than vegetables, I didn't want to 'waste time' or money with annuals; perennials come back every year, what a bargain! Plus we perennial gardeners know that we have to share, and every time my peach day lilies would bloom I thought of S, I still do. When I moved out I took those lilies, and my peonies and blueberries with me, and those 'delicate' peonies proved their worth again by surviving a second move. They remind me how tough, and beautiful and fragrant they are, each summer.
Sharing: Gardening became my respite from the harried life of trucking kids and running a household, and each new type of plant was like a child, teaching me as we grew together. I felt connected to my grandfather, my grandmother and my mother in that first Pennsylvania garden, and before my blind aunt died I had gotten some of her Memphis plants. One day I will plant a ginkgo tree in her honor. Aunt Lilyan had at least a dozen ginkgoes rooted in jars on the screen porch we had played in with our cousins years before, and on my last visit before she died, she proudly showed me one of her seedlings that towered twenty feet tall. Something really grand can come from a simple patient act.
Annuals: When you move into a new-to-you place, especially by yourself, it's important to add your personal touch. Those were tough times. Aside from the emotional trauma of significantly downsizing and leaving the home I had raised my children in, I hadn't yet found full time work and money was tight. This was a gardening home though, and that first May those beds and my pots were begging for flowers. That's when I really fell in love with annuals - boy scout annuals I bought from church. Worthy cause, instant gratification, for a very low price! Those tiny impatiens plugs were like bright pink flower-shrubs by the end of the summer. So many walkers in my new neighborhood would shout out how pretty they looked. My pots overflowed with color - planting gave me that familiar contentment of a purpose; watching them grow and bloom showed me the perpetual renewal of life even when facing challenges.
Mulch: I'm a lazy mulcher. My first attempt involved landscape fabric. In NJ, 9+ months pregnant trying to cut holes after clearing the mulch to plant bulbs. The weeds would come up through the holes, or even worse, grow on top of the fabric. I don't like lugging buckets of mulch from the driveway every spring. For years I watched my tiny neighbor A, lug big bags of pine bark nuggets and pour them around her beds. Just a few bags each year. Never saw her pulling weeds. My kind of mulching. I'm lucky to live in a small town where the hardware store can deliver a few dozen bags right onto my front porch, practically the same day. If they're good and dry they're not really that heavy, and a dusting of a few new bags over the base every year makes things look good as new. If the foundation is good, all you need is a little sprucing up to look good as new.
Straw: When I bought this house, my friends, the previous owners had an enormous vegetable garden plot in the back yard, covered with straw and ready to plant. After having some overgrown shrubs removed the next year I decided to do the same, except the excavator apparently didn't know the difference between straw and hay, so after that second summer I had a garden full of grass - the hay had sprouted. Then the weeds, taller than me marched in and took over. My garden told me it was too big for me to handle, time to downsize.
Raised Beds: Do you know a handy college kid or two? Two of my son's friends had graduated and were still searching for work. They built me two raised beds out of cedar boards in the early summer, scooping the soil from my wayward vegetable garden before the weeds had taken hold, then covering what was left in black plastic in preparation for grass the next year. We helped each other and I had squash enough to share with everyone I visited that summer.
Grass: My daughter and I cut the grass that first summer after the move. She's never minded that kind of work, well as long as she was in town and in the mood. I felt such pride in my new cozy home and I enjoyed going to bed bone tired after working the grass every week. Then I got a full time job in my field, and the next summer I felt so overwhelmed and yes, I admit, sorry for myself. I didn't ask to be by myself. Everyone else is married and can work together to do this crap, but I have to do it all alone. Life is so unfair. When my counselor suggested I consider paying someone to do the work I balked, after all I HAVE to do it all myself, I'm alone. Found out it was just a few dollars a week and only for the summer. I came home to freshly cut grass. I helped a son of the neighborhood with his new lawncare business. My flowers we calling me. Hmmm, I guess I don't have to do it ALL. Free at last!
Herbs: Ok I admit it, I mostly plant herbs for the fragrance. I do love to cook (but only when I love to cook) and fresh herbs from the garden can't be beat, even from ice cubes frozen at summer's end and thrown into that stockpot in midwinter. Really though, I get the most pleasure out of pinching a basil leaf, or stripping a sprig of lemon thyme, tickling rosemary and smelling my fingers, bending a lemongrass blade, shredding a chocolate mint leaf. Peppermint leaves are great for a summer mojito. Lavender buds plucked just before blooming made some great sachets one Christmas. Sage, well it's really good for my white turkey bean garlic soup recipe, but it's awfully pretty too, especially the tri-color variety. It's a tiny thing, that perfume at my fingertips, a little pleasure to be thankful for.
Friends: When you have a garden your plants are like your offspring. Tending to them, seeing them flourish and grow and get strong, clearing out the dead growth to make room for new is a worthy purpose. And the fruits of your labors, well what friend wouldn't want a vase of color and texture fresh cut from your very own garden for a dinner party, or a huge perfumed peony blossom for the dessert table? Those plants have a purpose, use them! Even if it's just a splash of winterberry in a mason jar, a forced sprig of forsythia, pussy willow or dogwood, or a tiny spray of Lily of the Valley in a bud vase to adorn someone's night stand.
I recommend the book Square Foot Gardening. It's got a boatload of creative ideas for very efficiently growing a nice vegetable garden.
The best place to buy plants? Not the big box stores, well except maybe sometimes. I love to make an adventure of it. I live in a rural area and there are at least a dozen places to choose from. I know where to get the best variety, where to get those exotic plants, where to get the best annuals, and the place that I have to go to, just because I like them so much.
Planting pots? Adding new landscaping? I am a shameless copy cat. Check out what neighbors, local businesses and of course Pinterest folks do.
No resources for custom built raised beds? Go to your local big-box hardware store and find all kinds of inexpensive kits.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Personal Finance 101
I'm not a financial planner and I don't play one on TV. I've got peeps and I'll fill you in elsewhere. I do have a background in frugality though. Not nearly as impressive as the kind that my dear friends E and M learned; their childhood situations bordered poverty and they each fought their way out, but that's for another day.
No, I'm just the child of a Depression child. A daughter of the Greatest Generation. Daddy had a paper route as a boy and unlike most of his peers, he had money to buy model airplanes, and the GI bill after serving during WWII to pay for his college.
Take advantage of programs that can help you build a better future.
Mother was the youngest by ten years in her family, and being one to dress nicely - she was from Atlanta after all, she was savvy enough to iron for her sisters and used the money to buy dresses that she would keep pressed and looking nice, and would rent them to her sisters for fifteen cents a wearing. She knew the value of a dime.
Figure out creative ways to earn money. Save up to buy nice things that will last longer.
We did extra chores each week - vacuum the cars, sweep the patio/carport or wash it down. We rotated. For that we earned a very hefty one dollar. I learned how to complain early. Being the firstborn, I felt it was my sovereign right. The movies cost $3.00, which meant it took three weeks to save up for one ticket and by then the movie was gone! Plus I liked to buy 45 records, and they cost $0.75 leaving me with an extra week to save for a movie; it was so terribly unfair. He did expand our opportunities to earn more, $4 for cutting the grass - fifty cents per side and $1.50 each for the front and the back.
If you want money, you'll have to work for it. If you want something, you have to save for it.
Daddy's frugality (he didn't like for us to call him a cheapskate or tightwad, the word was 'frugal') was notorious and part of the reason for their brief divorce. When they remarried the contract they agreed upon was that Mother would get a portion of his salary to spend as she chose, after she paid the bills they agreed were her responsibility. We kids knew all about that.
It's not fair to dictate how others spend their money.
What did she do with the little extra money she was now able to put aside? She invested in the stock market of course. Her success in the market, which for the relatively small amount she had wasn't much, was a bone of contention. Apparently she had a little higher growth rate than Daddy did. I do believe she was quite proud of that fact. She left me and my siblings the stocks when she died. I didn't want that money though, I wanted her. I didn't touch it for years, just let it grow in her investments, and boy did it grow.
Researching and investing wisely in the stock market can increase your wealth; sometimes it's best to let investments sit and grow.
That money grew the most when I decided to do something with it. I decided that I would only use it for others, not for myself. Call it timing if you want, but I call it getting back what you give. By the time I found myself on my own, even though I had given away 100% of its original worth, I was left with enough to finish my master's AND put a 20% down payment on this home.
"...give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
I never understood why we couldn't join the country club like all the other kids who lived in my neighborhood. We had to go to the public pool, well, later it was a nice water park that featured one of the very first wave pools in the US, and we swam every day during the summer so it wasn't SO bad. I wasn't about to tell Daddy that!
It's not about appearances, it's about getting the same or better outcome with a better value.
In seventh grade I asked Mother about those girls I envied who dressed in new outfits all the time, nice ones, from the upscale department store in town - believe me, I noticed, didn't we all at 13? Well Mother said that a lot of those families would have debt because they would spend too much on things, and, "We don't live that way. We only buy what we can afford." That was a real eye-opener for me; I had no idea.
Only buy what you can pay for.
New cars? Never! How embarrassing. Everyone else's family drove new cars. Daddy said, "Why buy new when it loses value the instant you drive it off the lot?!" I think they did it because they got tired of me using their cars to go to work all the time, but my parent's excuse was that since I had gotten into the Honor Society my they were going to give me some money towards a car of my own. I also had to use my savings ($150), and I was responsible for all of the upkeep. Daddy even showed me how to change the spark plugs. I loved that car and I took good care of it; it sold for the same purchase price five years later.
Take good care of expensive items and you can recover more money when you sell.
For college, we got a very generous eight thousand dollars up front - spend it wisely, honey. My freshman year I wrote two checks for $1500 for each semester at a private college and quickly did the math. I transferred to a nearby state school, $280/quarter and started with the coop program working full time every other semester.
If you can't afford something, make alternate plans.
When I got my first 'real' job after college I couldn't wait go to buy my first brand new car. I wasn't going to mess around with a lame used car. Daddy even went with me to pick out that Volvo I had dreamed about. Guess what? His value became mine and I bought a four year old 'new to me' car.
Buying used is a great way to save a lot of money. Nothing like reality to drive home the lesson that parents usually know what they're talking about.
In other words, money was a hot topic in my family of origin and those lessons have helped me get to where I am now. How did your upbringing impact the way you use money?
No, I'm just the child of a Depression child. A daughter of the Greatest Generation. Daddy had a paper route as a boy and unlike most of his peers, he had money to buy model airplanes, and the GI bill after serving during WWII to pay for his college.
Take advantage of programs that can help you build a better future.
Mother was the youngest by ten years in her family, and being one to dress nicely - she was from Atlanta after all, she was savvy enough to iron for her sisters and used the money to buy dresses that she would keep pressed and looking nice, and would rent them to her sisters for fifteen cents a wearing. She knew the value of a dime.
Figure out creative ways to earn money. Save up to buy nice things that will last longer.
We did extra chores each week - vacuum the cars, sweep the patio/carport or wash it down. We rotated. For that we earned a very hefty one dollar. I learned how to complain early. Being the firstborn, I felt it was my sovereign right. The movies cost $3.00, which meant it took three weeks to save up for one ticket and by then the movie was gone! Plus I liked to buy 45 records, and they cost $0.75 leaving me with an extra week to save for a movie; it was so terribly unfair. He did expand our opportunities to earn more, $4 for cutting the grass - fifty cents per side and $1.50 each for the front and the back.
If you want money, you'll have to work for it. If you want something, you have to save for it.
Daddy's frugality (he didn't like for us to call him a cheapskate or tightwad, the word was 'frugal') was notorious and part of the reason for their brief divorce. When they remarried the contract they agreed upon was that Mother would get a portion of his salary to spend as she chose, after she paid the bills they agreed were her responsibility. We kids knew all about that.
It's not fair to dictate how others spend their money.
What did she do with the little extra money she was now able to put aside? She invested in the stock market of course. Her success in the market, which for the relatively small amount she had wasn't much, was a bone of contention. Apparently she had a little higher growth rate than Daddy did. I do believe she was quite proud of that fact. She left me and my siblings the stocks when she died. I didn't want that money though, I wanted her. I didn't touch it for years, just let it grow in her investments, and boy did it grow.
Researching and investing wisely in the stock market can increase your wealth; sometimes it's best to let investments sit and grow.
That money grew the most when I decided to do something with it. I decided that I would only use it for others, not for myself. Call it timing if you want, but I call it getting back what you give. By the time I found myself on my own, even though I had given away 100% of its original worth, I was left with enough to finish my master's AND put a 20% down payment on this home.
"...give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
I never understood why we couldn't join the country club like all the other kids who lived in my neighborhood. We had to go to the public pool, well, later it was a nice water park that featured one of the very first wave pools in the US, and we swam every day during the summer so it wasn't SO bad. I wasn't about to tell Daddy that!
It's not about appearances, it's about getting the same or better outcome with a better value.
In seventh grade I asked Mother about those girls I envied who dressed in new outfits all the time, nice ones, from the upscale department store in town - believe me, I noticed, didn't we all at 13? Well Mother said that a lot of those families would have debt because they would spend too much on things, and, "We don't live that way. We only buy what we can afford." That was a real eye-opener for me; I had no idea.
Only buy what you can pay for.
New cars? Never! How embarrassing. Everyone else's family drove new cars. Daddy said, "Why buy new when it loses value the instant you drive it off the lot?!" I think they did it because they got tired of me using their cars to go to work all the time, but my parent's excuse was that since I had gotten into the Honor Society my they were going to give me some money towards a car of my own. I also had to use my savings ($150), and I was responsible for all of the upkeep. Daddy even showed me how to change the spark plugs. I loved that car and I took good care of it; it sold for the same purchase price five years later.
Take good care of expensive items and you can recover more money when you sell.
For college, we got a very generous eight thousand dollars up front - spend it wisely, honey. My freshman year I wrote two checks for $1500 for each semester at a private college and quickly did the math. I transferred to a nearby state school, $280/quarter and started with the coop program working full time every other semester.
If you can't afford something, make alternate plans.
When I got my first 'real' job after college I couldn't wait go to buy my first brand new car. I wasn't going to mess around with a lame used car. Daddy even went with me to pick out that Volvo I had dreamed about. Guess what? His value became mine and I bought a four year old 'new to me' car.
Buying used is a great way to save a lot of money. Nothing like reality to drive home the lesson that parents usually know what they're talking about.
In other words, money was a hot topic in my family of origin and those lessons have helped me get to where I am now. How did your upbringing impact the way you use money?
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