Saying goodbye to winter

This winter has been unsettling for me. Each year, my attempts to brave the snow and ice that come with the holiday season are met with a fuzzy blanket wrapped around me and a steaming mug of tea. While my hot flashes have settled down for the foreseeable future, the new need for warmth was even more significant this year with the bitter sting of personal loss: Loss of friends, loss of family, and the absence of things I thought I’d have or hold by now. However, as the days are short and the darkness prevails this time of year, I find myself feeling lost in the chill of winter – as though something on my journey through midlife had been left unfinished. I had successfully cleared the shelves of my belongings, shared my stories with loved ones, and unburdened my soul of emotional anchors to my past. I had focused on what was within my control, but I remained restless and unsettled, and I could not understand why.

Thus far, my journey into midlife had been about loving and letting go of so many things: the hope and expectations I once held for myself and others, the role of sacrificing mother and wife, as well as listening to my heart in the perspective of age and beauty. Over the years, I have done the work necessary to move on. It was only until the loss experienced by a close friend that it came to me. In letting go of what I was leaving behind, I had forgotten to say goodbye.

Living a mindful life involves acknowledging each step on one’s journey. The value of each moment can only truly be savored by the attentive traveler. Unfortunately, so many of us focus on the road ahead that we forget to turn around, survey the distance we had covered, and embrace the experience that brought us to where we are today. I had lived a life with meaning. Letting go of my past, I still needed to say goodbye to my former self, and all that I had accomplished.

So, as I do most every New Year’s Eve, I took quiet account of my prior year. I reluctantly accepted the evolution of friendships that ended. My heart recognized the slow disappearance of family traditions as the ties that bound us all together were breaking. I wept, feeling the frosty cloak of intolerance of a country whose diversity and richness was disappearing. I wrote down my thoughts, my commitments for the coming year, and said farewell. Sending my wishes into the unsettled world, I committed to move forward, following my new course that lied somewhere between that which I could control and that which I could not.

No matter what, I begin the new year with an open heart. I will say goodbye to this winter of my discontent and keep an eye toward adventure. And I say hello the woman I am ready to become.

40 Shades of Green

My husband and I recently returned from a long awaited vacation to the British Isles. It was time to take a break from our jobs, our family stress, and we left the heat and humidity of a midwestern summer behind to discover places like Ireland, and its breathtaking green hills and rolling landscape. It was just the two of us this trip, cruising our way to a new port of call each day, content with letting others take us on adventures to castles, misty overlooks, and an occasional pub. It was good to get away from the obligation of regular life, and the day-to-day rut in which we’d found ourselves at home. While serving as our vacation photographer, I captured every nook and cranny of palace walls, gardens, and local “color”. I wondered what life would be like living amongst the sheep, the gardens, and felt a little jealous of what seemed a simpler life. Everything was different than home. Somehow, back home was no longer the haven I needed it to be – and I felt a longing for the change the “greener” grass could provide.

Life sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking. Growing older is something for which you’re never truly prepared. I sought the emotional contentment that mindfulness could provide me as I transitioned from working full-time mom and wife, to working empty nester. My search for a new “norm” led my friends and I to ponder, “Is this all there is?” Why does the grass always seem greener on the other side of midlife? Where was the freedom and fulfillment I sought at the end of the proverbial rainbow?

The older I get, the more I long for the days when I was younger, in better physical shape, and more tolerant of change. I hadn’t expected the breathtaking view of green pastures to push me into such uncomfortable emotional territory. Looking at my family, my marriage, and my life driven by my societal obligations, I used to ask myself, “Am I enough?” But now, amongst sheep and dairy cows, I found myself asking, “Is this enough?”

After a day abundantly filled with Irish splendor, our tour group returned to the bus. As if our day had come full circle, we sat back in the same seat as when we set out, ready for our tour to be done. On our drive back, we were told a story of an American on vacation in Ireland. Overcome by the beauty of the lush green and the variations of shade with every turn, this man took to his guitar to write a love song. It’s hard to say if Johnny Cash felt more for what he discovered but left behind or the future that lied ahead.

Again I want to see and do
The things we’ve done and seen
Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar
And there’s forty shades of green

It may take me a while to decide how felt about Ireland. However, knowing that forty shades of “what could have been” will continue to remind me that each day is filled with possibility I cannot ignore. And for that, I am grateful.

Midlife in the rearview mirror

I recently celebrated my 60^th birthday. It was bittersweet, as up until now, I considered myself middle-aged. Not too young, not too old…just right. But as the clock ticked toward this milestone, I was slowly reassessing my midlife momentum into the inevitability of growing “old”.

People say that you are only as old as you feel. These days, however, I’m not feeling the same as I used to feel. I look in the mirror at the aging visage of my soul, which has been changing with each passing day. When did my freckled dots align with the creases of my smile to become a weathered roadmap to growing older? It felt like I was headed straight past the midlife point of no return without a witty comeback. With a heavy dose of snark and sass, I was speeding down the road to “older but wiser”. No chance to turn around, I was following the wrinkled path across my face that was most certainly leading to midlife destruction.

I am proud to say that during these past several years, I’ve worked hard to clear out the baggage of my younger days, which served no purpose other than to block the path to my next adventure. I’d also spent a lot of time wiping down the cobwebs that had covered the windows to my soul. Once cleared, I could finally gaze into the light of the mindful, meaningful woman I’d become. I can now proceed unencumbered, carrying the knowledge I’d curated from my middle years like a GPS to my next destination. But who was I going to be when I got there?

With the odometer marking my journey into the wisdom of my age, I am headed down a new road. I am shifting my lessons in mindfulness from maternal angst into something bold. Am I guided by the lines in my face and the curves in my road? Most definitely. I can’t get to where I need to be without them. And it’s time I put this car in drive.

The road from Christmas Past

When I started this blog, I needed time in my life to reflect on lessons I was encountering in my midlife. These unsettled feelings posed questions for which I had no answers. My personal journey prompted an unpacking of my emotional baggage to understand the heaviness I felt and brought with me everywhere I went. Since then, I’ve cleared out my closets, shared family pictures, and passed on heirlooms with the stories behind them. As for the pages of the person I was and who I had become, they were moved from my bookshelves to those readers in my circles. Letting go of these things was difficult, but I found it easier than letting go of my long-held expectations of myself and others. While my mind was free, it was not until this past Christmas that my heart became lighter after learning a painful lesson of love.

I am the oldest sibling and I considered myself to be my family’s “kinkeeper”, the family member who (often unconsciously) takes on the role of keeping the family connected to our traditions and to each other. I felt a sense of responsibility to share the memories and traditions of my past with my children as they grew, as well as create new, meaningful traditions. Birthdays and holidays and family trips were documented through pictures and mementoes and these were often revisited with fondness. Hosting our family Christmas was a time where our blended family came together, weaving our traditions of Santa and stockings and multiple households into a cherished memory for years to come. However, this Christmas holiday would be different. After much thought about what it might mean to us and to our feeling of family, my husband and I concluded that we were no longer able to host this event. It weighed heavily in our hearts, knowing that to me it meant letting go of the cycle of tradition that came with this time of year.

The reality of being an empty nester is that family grows up and leaves home. As kinkeeper, I felt the pressure to carry on our traditions in spite of these changes. Wanting everyone to remain connected, my expectations intensified – and with it, my frustration. It’s the frustration you feel when someone doesn’t show up in the way you want, and it affects the mood of the group. Nevertheless, as children grow and become adults and maybe have children of their own, the family dynamic changes. I saw less of my kids, and felt more distant. I experienced a sense of loss, like no longer being able to see who they had become without me. But, if I could just hold on to Christmas, I would be ok.

In the end, I had to let go of the cycle of expectation that came with Christmas. I had to be ok with my family creating their own traditions, some of which I was no longer a part. The family Christmas celebrations that were to come would not look the same, but it was time for me to be content, knowing that our family would carry on in ways meaningful to them. Could I continue to create new memories and new traditions with my loved ones? Of course! But on my journey to mindfulness, my suitcases are now lighter. I’m leaving behind the worry that I’ve not made a difference in their lives and am looking to the road ahead. I’m also excited for next Christmas, whatever it looks like, where each moment will be a present for the holidays to come.

Garden of my discontent

Now that the spring weather is warming my botanical soul, I have returned to the outdoors. The final touches of installing our new sprinkler system here at home whisper promises of a more luxurious yard filled with flowers and plants that will not wither and die before summer hits. We live in a woodsy community, and the suburban custom of manicured lawns and exquisite edging along the landscaped beds is not a part of our plan. It seems that bulbs have been my “go to”, as I know I will lose the regular battle with the weeds and clay and tree nuts that cover our yard. So, I continue to work and plant bulbs like they were plastic eggs at an Easter egg hunt. Each one presenting a pop of color, the iris and tulips and hyacinth present a surprise for the one who discovers them. Every spring, I embrace these flowers as moments of happiness each victorious year they appear.

After the contemplation and self-reflection of the new year, spring inspired in my family the desire for our renewed sense of well-being. This Easter, we hosted a small brunch and while catching up with my girls, I found that both of them had independently discovered a trending perspective of how to let go of pinning your happiness on the actions of others. I too had found this nugget of Mel Robbins’ “Let Them” theory, which espouses the practice of letting others do what they will do and not taking these things personally. Being lovers of life but givers of too much, my daughters and I all found ourselves impeding our happiness by internalizing the feelings and actions of others, the result of which was that things never seemed to occur the way we expected them to. Taking things personally and allowing our happiness to hinge on something other than our own actions resonated with each of us. This needed to stop for our own mental health. It was a simple, yet profound truth. But while my girls were finding their way to a more peaceful state of mind, I was stuck.

It wasn’t until later, after this had weighed heavy in my heart, that I realized how much my own mid-life could benefit from this decision to “let them” – Where I had taken on the mantle of family memory-keeper, I could let go of the expectation that others carry on my work…and accept when they did not. While I worked to mend broken family fences, I could let them remain, understanding that family dynamic changes and with that the purpose of these fences. It dawned on me that in many areas of my life, my expectations for a happy life carried with them a belief I had failed in some way. I was taking things out of my control personally, and my peace of mind was leaking through my emotional sieve. And Mel Robbins was telling me I had to be ok with it. But was I?

I ended up working out this frustration in my garden, wrestling with my feelings of unease about letting go of what was making me unhappy. Still believing that I could fix just about anything with hard work and tender care, I pulled each weed from my yard like it was another personal obstacle to my happiness. Just digging out one more stone, breaking up another clod of clay, I was making the landscape of my life beautiful, right? Wasn’t everything I was doing demanding a successful outcome? A beautiful garden, blossoming with family and love in the way I wanted?

It was in the middle of my sweaty tears that I came to understand that while some flowers might bloom as a result of my efforts, others might not. My hard work might be for naught… but I wouldn’t know it until it happened. I had to be ok with what I did in the moment, and not hinge my happiness on how other people responded. In the end, I had to love my garden, weeds and all, and be ok with my time there. Be good with the improvement to my home. Find the happiness that came from sharing it with others.

So was I going to be happy if my flowers bloomed? Yes! But if they didn’t? Well, let them. I already played in the dirt and breathed in the moments of my mindful midlife. And during these spring Saturday mornings, with a trowel in one gloved hand and a brunch cocktail in the other, I’m ready for anything.

A last goodbye

Someone close to me died recently. She had filled her life with love and fun and upheaval and all the things that create one’s personal story. She fought valiantly to hold on to the life she’d made, and when she said her last goodbye, we mourned the empty space in our lives that was filled with this person and all she was. While the circle of life continued, we paused to reflect on our own.

When you’re young, life seems to be a race with the prize at the end of it, promising the feeling of success and gratitude. The walking stick we carry as we journey could be our faith, or simply our plan, and it helps us pace our effort, steady us in troubled times, or measure out our achievements in all we set out for ourselves. However, by the time midlife approaches, we seem to look ahead with less intensity and look back more to what we’ve ezperienced along the way. The well-paying job is no longer the proud accomplishment of a young professional but a means to an end to support family and friends in need. The lean and fit body achieved at the gym is no longer a testament to devotion to one’s health as it is more the promise given to loved ones. The value of being present for years to come is worth more than the immediate satisfaction of the weekend party. The young are writing their story, but at what point did I shift from looking forward to all I had yet to do, to looking back to all that I had not done?

Death can come at any time, and regret is a terrible thing – a constant reminder of the road not taken. However, it is the people in your life who eventually become the measure of one’s success, the chapters in your story. The pictures at the memorial service shared a life filled with challenge, fun times, and love. Our recent family loss made me wonder how I would be remembered by others, and how my story would be told. I wept, understanding that the loss I felt was being shared by so many others.

This journey to mindfulness has been instrumental to me, allowing me to release many of the earlier expectations I had placed for myself. In midlife – I love differently, trying to accept more of what is and letting go of what may never be. I shift my personal perspective from one of overachiever to one of memory maker. Finally embracing the story I’d written until now, I love myself more. This self-acceptance will allow me to fail less and accomplish more.

Death and inevitability is not easy. Learning that while moments in life may be a constant, how you look at them can change. At some point I too will say my last goodbye, and hope that my history will have been written into the hearts of those who are left behind.

The road to gratitude

When it comes to my drive to work, I can be a creature of habit. My normal route was closed for what could be many months, so I had to find my way in unfamiliar territory. A particular route was suggested to me and after driving it one morning, my outlook changed from uncertain to clear. This was, what seemed to me, to be a direct path from my morning coffee to my day’s activities. I don’t have the best sense of direction without recognizable landmarks, so I couldn’t wait for a less stressful commute.

I began driving this new route, paying attention to new landmarks I encountered along the way. In my midlife, I wanted to pay closer attention to the world around me: trying to see things for what they were, rather than just in the context of my life. My morning would connect me with park, a small casino built within an older looking building, a police station, and an urban mural (that has a nasty pothole that woke me out of my daze one day). As a fan of cultural history, I appreciated my mental meanderings of what this area might have looked like 50 years ago. Was the police station I passed built before the casino? Wasn’t that convenient, I smirked. The park was big with green grass and I considered how thought must have gone into placing this urban gem. I noted the pedestrians up early as I navigated my way to work, wondering if they had to be at work too.

It was after I’d become acclimated to my drive that I felt more confident in my route. My estimated arrival time was consistent, my intuition for timing the stoplights just right was improving. My path was clear, my commute relatively unhindered, and I knew I could get to where I needed to be. But what about that park, where I never seemed to see any children? Or those pedestrians, whom I’d now noticed becoming more prolific, not just walking, but standing in lines at specific businesses waiting for them to open? I noticed them daily, somehow stuck in that place, not seeing if they were able to move on to where they ultimately needed to be. Or was that where they needed to be? It certainly wasn’t the dilapidated old brick church, that had been boarded up to keep people safe from harm (or rather, keep it safe from people to harm?) I wondered if the lines were for those seeking assistance. Maybe they did get to where they were going.

I do not commute every day, so my experience is always a little different. The street remains the same, as simple and direct as ever, as well as my morning affirmations. I see where I need to go, but the things I notice, the people I see, and the places I pass are all different. They are different, yet in the flow of the morning I see patterns. Fences where I wasn’t expecting them. Lots of convenience-oriented shops, catering to people always on the move. And not much car traffic but always lines of people with slow steps of those who seem a little hesitant. Yesterday, I reminded myself of how fortunate I was to have a place to go and way to get there. I saw a man near a bus stop whose journey was likely not over, but had not yet begun for the day. He was partially covered, asleep, no doubt soon to wonder where his path would take him that day.

The road to gratitude can be found on any map. You just have to be willing to start your day.

Turning the page

While in the throws of cleaning out my home library of books, I lost an afternoon wandering through the pages of my past. Although a house fire years ago robbed me of much of my literary collection, I was able to bring the paper survivors with me into my midlife. I found so many good memories of my times as an avid reader. My shelves had become a home to all the parts of my past including my academic required reading, including Advanced French text and beginning Russian – complete with little floppy records reminiscent of those 1970s cereal boxes that affixed the promotional pop hit on the back. My early sci-fi reading adventures of Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny, Orson Scott Card and others filled out the empty spaces, along with other childhood favorites like Anne of Green Gables. With each page I perused, I was taken back to yesteryear. I relished those days when I found a quiet spot to read on the backyard patio, or when I remained tucked into bed staying up past midnight because I JUST couldn’t put that book down. I often found myself jetting to some foreign land on some historical adventure. I was a literary explorer and these books, like family photographs, represented treasured pieces of my life I could not release from their place in my home and in my heart.

I had developed my life around being a reader and the books I collected. Like the Nancy Drew series I cherished as a child, my books were a testament to the adventures I’d lived. As a college student, I often frequented the used book stores for wartime paper back novels like Ellery Queen, Mike Shayne, and Agatha Christie. Perusing one shelved book, I found a hidden a note made by a store manager…”Save for Lauren”. My life as a reader evolved to not just reading but collecting these treasurers, hoping that one day my future generations would cherish these as much as I did as they discovered the world beyond their backyards. But alas, as my children grew to leave the nest, and their children grew…the world would change so much that my paper adventures had been replaced by digital voyages. I wanted my love of books and these stories to be just as special for my family as it was for me. But it had not come to pass. I paused to wallow in a bit of grief, seeing the meaning behind these books slowly fade.

What was I to do? I knew I had to make room for midlife on these shelves. There was no more need for things to collect dust and crumble into disrepair. However, between these pages were memories to share about me, my life, and where I wanted to go next. But, I had to ask myself, what was it about these books that I dearly wanted to share? Did I care if my grandchildren would want to read about nuclear war? Or 1940s war-time detective stories? Or meditation tips from the Dalai Lama? Rather, would these be the memories I transformed into my so-called life as the mother and grandmother I wanted to be for my future generations? After much reflection, I needed to lift the burden I carried of being the memory-keeper for my family and live the midlife I was meant to enjoy. Filled with fun and the very adventure my young reader days had built.

I finally took a dust rag and wiped down an emptied shelf. Saying goodbye to family was hard, but turning the page to my next mid-life adventure was what I was meant to do. Was my library empty? No. I just said goodbye to one shelf for now. I’m making room for the next edition of my midlife.

In search of wonder

It was after a recent conversation with a friend that I had come to ponder the adventure of midlife. It seemed that in all that we had become over the years, our life journey was often about an ongoing search for bigger and better things. Whether it was the bigger house for growing a family, a better job for making a vacation possible, or the support of the eventual goals of children as they charted their own paths – it was always about finding more.

Understanding that every parent’s journey is different, mine was often busy with the job of lookout: signs of a fever, family passions to support, or my kids’ falling grades. My world was being on guard, ready to respond in a time of need. Little did I realize that this mode of always being on watch takes a heavy toll as you are not often open to the joy of what is happening all around you. Always monitoring, ever managing, it is easy for the wonder in the world to pass you by.

When my household said goodbye to my children and we became a home of two, I was able to take the time I’d made for myself to cultivate my friendships, family relationships, and seek out new and fun experiences I’d not been able to do before now. Some of my friends who are retired share that retirement allowed them to travel and accomplish things they’d put off doing in their younger years. But retirement is nowhere close for me, just as winning the lottery to fund my exploration is a realistic option these days. So after a quieter life of dinners and trips and volunteer work, the discovery of something new wanes and routine rubs the shine away from our world. The sparkle is seen through a lens of practicality and I had to ask: Is this all there is in midlife?

I reflected on this question for quite a while. Even as I interviewed for a new job this past year, I noted how much I focused on all that that I had accomplished to set me apart from other candidates. And that dreaded question, “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?” Truth be told, my real answer wasn’t going to impress anyone, but reflect how I saw my midlife search for joy. I wanted a job that fulfilled my desire for challenge as well as work-life balance. I wanted the ability to explore what I had missed in my early years. What about all that I hadn’t seen in my life?

I’d determined that my longing for newness, for wonder, was not in finding something unexperienced, but rather unseen. Being on watch would mean something very different to me now, as I work to rediscover the joy I’d missed the first time around. Realizing that I would need to be mindful in these next steps on my journey, I enjoyed my granddaughter’s recent amazement at her space-oriented birthday gift. Upon learning we had sent her name “into space” through a NASA program prompted her imagination as she shared that the “aliens would now know her name”. I found my limited exposure to the wonders of the world had just been expanded and that my reinvigorated search for wonder had just begun.

I see you…

One of the commitments I made to myself as I became an empty nester was to find a place to contribute, outside of work. I wanted to be intentional, appreciating the moment and supporting my desire living mindfully. I have always believed that small things can make a big difference, and after having become better at maintaining personal boundaries around my time, I felt it was something to help me grow within my community. As with many people these days, I’m guided by recommendations from friends or information I review in the media. So when I found grassroots organization whose goal was to inspire others to “pay it forward”, I leapt at the chance to see what I could do. My life had been filled with doing for others, whether it was family or friends, but now I wanted to see how I could make a difference simply my inspiring random acts of kindness connected with my midlife spirit. It was not about what money I could give, or blocks of time to dedicate, but how what small thing I did could make a difference to someone else.

I found Kansas City Heroes by chance, but my connection with them was intentional. As the movie quote goes, “I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career…” I felt I could help not by becoming another set of hands in something big, but trying to do something with what I did best – understanding the process and helping make good things better. While I was confident in what I could offer, what I didn’t expect was that it would change how I looked at my community.

A big part of how Kansas City Heroes inspires others is by finding pockets of population where need is great, and trying to create a connection between someone who is inspired and those who receive the act of kindness. Because one of these populations is the houseless community, I began to learn more about the daily struggles these folks face. While I have been settling into my home developing how I might better attune with my midlife, other people are transitioning from having nothing to needing something as they seek a better life, not having the seeming luxury I did. As my friend and founder of the organization has shared with me and others within the group, often these folks just want to be seen. Paying it forward can be as simple as having a water bottle to give to the person on the street corner on a hot day. It can be giving someone a ride to a critical appointment that will make a difference in receiving benefits or experiencing a delay that could be deadly.

Scary words, but at the same time empowering. Understanding I have the ability to do something means I have a responsibility I can’t ignore. These days, I look at my community differently. Instead of feeling the warmth of a common quilt, I am looking at the seams and in the tears where it’s not as warm. I have learned that when these edges fray, it is up to us to help stitch them back together. It is up to us to pay attention to those who are unable to stay connected. So these days, I’m learning to sew. And I’m driving with a case of water in my car just in case.

I see you, Kansas City.