Lizabean

renovations

"Renovations", November 2010

There is meaning hidden in the small changes of everyday life, and wisdom to be found in the shards of your most broken moments.  At the end of the dark night of the soul is the beginning of a new life.  –Elizabeth Lesser in “Broken Open”

A poem written a while back.  Thought I'd share:

 

Burn away my anger,

Cremate my hatred,

Disperse the ashes of my drawn out indifference

Embalm the secrets of my heart

 

For there you will find the purity of my longing

To belong-

To love-

To live-

To breath-

In each moment

As each moment is.

 

Burn away my attachment,

Burn away my expectations,

 

Embalm the secrets of my heart.

Waking up

"Sheltered from this winter's storm"  February 2011
So I’m not sure when it started.  Was it the moment the nurse  handed me my freshly cleaned newborn and said, “Diapers are in the bottom drawer, just let us know if you need anything?"  Or was it when my former husband told me, “I think we should separate.  I’m 99% sure that I want a divorce”…  At some point in the past few years, and it doesn’t really matter when or how or why, I woke up and my life began again.

 During that time I’ve read a plethora of self-help books, participated in intuitive healing, worked with a therapist, and thrown a variety of adult-tantrums along the way, that I can assure you.  But here I am.  Fully participating -to the best of my ability- on this thing called living.

 Brene Brown’s  book “The Gifts of Imperfection”  is my current tool in this whole “Liza wants to grow, live life with more joy and peace and doesn’t quite know how the hell to get with that program”.  She writes about authenticity, about letting go of perfectionism and aiming for connection.  She encourages letting go of comparisons and challenges this whole idea of “fitting in”. 

She writes, “Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the emotions.  To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees- these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain”. 

So here I am, stepping out into that vulnerability, allowing the discomfort of the unknown to surround me and swallow me whole.  Trusting that life will continue to guide me as its challenges poke, prod and shape the person that I am.

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Last week I attended a diversity training for my workplace.  We talked about feeling priveleged and feeling like an outsider.  The common theme that shined through was how relative it all is, how we all know what it's like to feel both ways.  And for some reason, that gave me more courage to be more vulnerable.  It reminded me that no matter what I do or say or feel, I am not alone in it.  We've all been there, in varying degrees.

"The light of winter's end", March 2011

I was stagnant, those long months of winter.  Stuck.  Unmoving.  Unchanging.  Slowly withering, both physically and in spirit.

Then someone told me, "This life is not just for other people.  You belong here, too." 

I belong here, too.

So simple, so needed, so perfect. 

 

 

 

 

for the love of letting go

"Duality",  October 2010

Sometimes the weight of raising him alone, of working at a place I don’t want to be just to get by,  it’s overwhelming.  I tell myself to “dig deep”.  To find the inner strength to make do and to make do with a lightness, with peace.

And here we are in November.  I just don’t like this month.  It comes with its shorter daylight hours, its promise of months of cloudy, cold, dreary weather.  And it comes with its reminder of the sorrow that hit two years ago.  And I think I need a shift in perspective.  Perhaps November comes as a cleansing.  A letting go in time for a winter of reflection, a spring of newness and growth. 

 I recognize this overwhelming need for a plan, this desire for control.  And I pause and wonder…what if I just let go?

Let go of this idea of a family I want for myself and my son

Let go of this idea of what I want my life to look like, my day-to-day existence

Let go of this idea of what a fulfilling social life looks life

Let go, let go, let go, and let go…

 And open my eyes to the love I feel for my son, for my friends, for my students, for my family, for our world, really.  Accept that this is it.  This life.   Right now, right here.  This is how it is and about the only thing I can control is how I look at it.

Joy is here, peace is here, sadness, love, anger, trust, respect.  All here. 

 And there, my smile, my hope.  They return, these occasional strangers, and remind me that all is well.

 

 

unopened

 

It sits there, untouched, taped shut, collecting dust.  The remnants of bitter-sweet memories.  Ill-timed news today, brought me back here.  To this closed off "corner of my heart".  I look up at that box and consider opening it.  It's the emotional release, I think, that compels me.  I ache for the familiarness of mourning, of letting go, of something resembling full closure. 

Part one of said-closure: my wedding band is at the bottom of a lake, my wedding dress re-used, I secretly hope, as some freak Halloween costume gone horribly well in its spookiness.

Part two of said-closure:  a letter never sent.  Written mostly for me.

Part three of said-closure:  time.

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I always hesitate to post these things but  feel like someone out there may benefit from reading it.  From feeling less alone in her/his own particular journey.  And, yes, that someone could very well be me. So I accept the vulnerability and hit "publish".

Been dreaming

"The light of hope, the hope of light", March 2010

I'd like to live bravely.  To be loud and laugh and lovable without the cloud of shame that seems to seep into my joints, clog up my vessels and squeeeeeze my lil' heart.  To be courageous and self-assured in my goodness, in my worthiness, and in the value of my contribution.

I guess I continue to dream of a life in which what I do is actually valued, that my own personal strengths are seen as a commodity.  I joke that it'll probably be easier to remarry then to ever find a job in which I will feel safe to admit my weaknesses, build on them, and to actually be valued by my strengths. 

Does that environment exist anywhere?  In your work place, in your home, in your school or in your child's, in your communities'?

How do we build that? 

2.0.1.0.

The first decade of this new century, they were the years of him and me.  Our story as a couple, seperate branches intertwining and looping together, forging what we both thought would be a lifetime together.  That particular story ended yesterday.

For me, anyway.  I can only speak for me.

The first spring together, he broke my foot.  I, in full adolescent genius, gave him a piggyback ride down a not-so-very-steep hill.  And tripped.  At least the remaining knobby scar serves as a funny reminder of what first connected us.   

The death of us occurred a year ago and as people around me cheered the new year in a few nights ago, I felt somewhat numb.  A new decade.  Am I really ready for this?

I think so.  2009 is complete.  A year of survival and healing and growth.  So much growth.  My branch plummeted forward, upward, all around.  I look back, with an odd mixture of sadness and relief that his did not join mine on this particular part of the life journey, knowing that it took a sharp turn away from mine.  I can no longer see his.

As it should be, I suppose.

Although this winter has only just begun, I find myself looking forward to newness that will come with spring.  On the good days, the great ones,  I feel ready to burst.  Blooming in the happiness and confidence I have found in myself this past year.

There are the overwhelming moments, the times when I still feel like a complete stranger to myself.  But then there are such pure moments of peace. 

2010 will be another difficult year of this transition, that I know.  But I know it will also be a magical one.  How can it not?  With this one in the mix:

 

"I see what I see", mid-August 2009

 

"The nourishment of forgiveness",  mid-August 2009

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My mother gently said that she hoped I could eventually forgive for my own healing.  At the time, I could not fathom it.  I can easily forgive with an apology, but without? 

And then I simply allowed it to happen.  The ability to let go of the pain, to not allow the memories of each heart-breaking word and action play over and over and over again in my saddest moments.  The ability to not condone the past, but rather, ever so keenly, accept the present.

And I am free.  Forgiveness saw to that.

 

"Following his lead", mid-August 2009

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While it is my responsibility as a mother to educate him about this world, wisdom reminds me to keep my eyes wide-open for all the profound gems that he graciously teaches me.

Do we burn or do we glow?

 

"The glow of my growth", Mid-August 2009

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A dear friend played a song for me yesterday.  My response upon hearing the first refrain:  "Shut. up."   The artist's words say it perfectly:

"The day he left her she couldn't speak,

stared out the window the better part of a week.

She lived her life through him for such a long time,

when she looked inside herself she wasn't sure what she'd find.

She had to open the door a little wider, now,

She had to dig a little deeper inside her somehow.

She walked into the fire,

alone and scared stiff,

Now she says his leaving was a strangely wrapped gift...

What is it that we're really made of?  How else will we ever know? 

Till the Hand puts us in the fire-

do we burn or do we glow?"

        -Red Grammer, "Strangely Wrapped Gifts"

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I glow.  Thank God, I most certainly glow.