7.3.2010

For most of my life,
I have let Fear define me.

Now: it is my fearlessness,
my freedom,
and my faith
in Love.

For that, I am grateful

Picking Up the Pieces

After a disaster, or some sort of nature-made upheaval, there is a time in which you step back and survey the destruction. After the recent storm here in Iowa, a short-lived thunderstorm that toppled over trees and powerlines, pieces of my roof were ripped off. I took pictures of the scattered tiles around my backyard and made the appropriate calls to the insurance company. The kids and I piled up all the tiles we could find, I thanked my lucky stars that the roof was mostly in tact and there was no water leaking into the house, and then off we went to a movie. The clean-up was pretty much out of my hands: my dad took care of meeting with the roofers later in the week while I was at work, and a few days later it was fixed.

But the aftermath of my divorce has been a little different. There are no insurance companies to call and no clean-up crew. And after three years apart, and only one year living under different roofs, the debris is still scattered across my house--which used to be our house--and I can't get motivated enough to pick through it all at once, so it comes in waves.

Like tonight.
By now, things that were once "ours" are relegated to the basement storage room. It's a mess. There are boxes everywhere, and even just piles of random stuff lying on the floor: photo albums, books, kids' items that they have outgrown or will one day make it into a scrapbook--if I ever get around to making those.

I went in the storage room to look at my old computer, a Gateway my parents had bought me when I was a single parent living with them while in graduate school. I got out of bed to see if my old PC had an ethernet port in it--having some idea about connecting it to my cable modem and rehooking up my wireless router so that I could carry my mac around with me. Finding nothing but a modem port--which I already knew was busted--I stood and stared at the mess around me.

I shuffled a few things around and found a book that I'd taken from my Mom's shelf years ago: Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. I flipped through the pages and came upon his teachings on marriage, which I had first read before I ever met my exhusband. Gibran talks of allowing for space in togetherness, letting the "winds of the heavens dance between you." He also talks of individual strength, saying that "the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

This was the kind of marriage I had always longed for, and yet it was not the marriage I participated in. My longing for space has been with me since I was little--I came into the marriage with this unmet need. Additionally, my individual strength has waxed and waned over the years, and when I gained it back I was no longer the woman who had said "I do."

I put the book down and picked up a thick baby blue photo album. Our son's newborn photos: My exhusband was skinny in the photos, looking very young and excited. I was about 30 pounds over the 30 pounds of baby weight, and looked exhausted. My son's beautiful images, with his bright brown eyes, couldn't shake the trepidation with which I held the photos in my hands. I didn't want to look at them. I didn't want to remember.

And when I put the photo album down, I turned and reached for the red and gold goblets that had been surrounded in bubble wrap since we moved back to Iowa nearly 6 years ago. They were from Pier 1 Imports. Tall, glass champagne flutes with a deep red coloring at the base and gold painted designs weaved around the glass. I bought them--a year before I met my exhusband--because they reminded me of the intricate henna designs young women have painted on their hands and feet before their weddings. I wanted to drink from these beautiful glasses on my wedding day; I wanted them to represent the beginning of an exotically beautiful and rich relationship.

I wasn't the type of girl who spent a lot of time dreaming up her perfect wedding day--collecting ideas for dresses and picking out color schemes. In fact, I was pretty certain I was never going to get married. But these glasses were magnificent, so I bought them. And months later, when I became engaged and began planning a wedding, these glasses became the centerpiece with which I was going to work around.

But I didn't have that wedding. I had a different one. There was no red and gold. I wore blue and white and laughed nervously through my vows as our immediate family looked on. We had lunch at a restaurant that put us down for the wrong date in their calendar, and we had to wait in the lobby as they set up a table for 15 in the middle of a crowded room. I brought the glasses with me--along with some sparkling cider because I was nearing the end of my first trimester--and we toasted, drank, and celebrated the beginning of the next adventure.

But two days later, the adventure turned into a marital screaming match. In a fit of anger, I threw my keys at our apartment wall and shattered the chain of beads that my five-year-old daughter had made for me--my name spelled out in block letters. She and I picked up the beads, each of us in tears, as my new husband locked himself in the back bedroom. Recently, all three of us on different occasions had said that that day marked the time in which we knew--in our hearts--that we had made a mistake.

But I would never take back those mistakes, not with the beautiful children and the amount of wisdom I have gained. And tonight, I unwrapped the glasses, and gingerly ran my fingers along the sides to follow the golden swirls. I cried a little. I was also tempted to throw them and watch them shatter--a dream lost; a symbol of something that never was. But instead, I carried them into my office nook and placed them on the window sill.

I am not sure how long I will keep them there; I am also uncertain if I will ever let them go. In some ways, they give me a bit of hope that the ideas I once had about a relationship allowing for both togetherness and space can exist (if I work to make that happen), and can include a kind of exotic beauty that is etched in these glasses. The flutes are tall, elegant. They look strong, and yet they are fragile--much like my own heart. And now, they stand apart like Gibran's pillars, so that the "winds of heaven dance" between them and the strength of hope is restored.

6.11.2010

When I was 13, I took a trip to Wacky Waters with a group of girls. Stuffed into a big van--complete with shaggy carpet trim--we blasted music, ate twizzlers, and gossiped during the hour-long drive. I was excited, and a little nervous, but knew I'd have a good time with my friends.

When we got to the water park, we split into a couple of groups. I already had a fear of heights deeply embedded in my psyche, and my friend Anna stayed with me as we toured the kiddie pool and its slides. Everyone else, however, went straight for the big one. The Daredevil slide twisted and towered over the park, and I just knew it would be terrifying.

As the afternoon went on, I watched my friends repeatedly climb the Daredevil staircase. Anna, kind enough to stand by my side for the first hour or two, decided she was going to follow the others and brave the skyline views. I stood at the bottom, watching them from a distance--feeling alone and left out--listening to the squeals of laughter that echoed through the tubes.

My thoughts, like a ping-pong match, volleyed between: I could go up there and I'll never make it.

And then Anna came out from the bottom of the slide, her wet face glistening in the sunlight and her smile broad. "Come, on!" she hollers out to me, "you can do this! It's SO MUCH FUN!"

She jogs over to where I'm standing and wraps her left arm in mine. "I'll be with you all the way up there," she says, and she gestures over to our friend, Casey, to follow us. Casey's arm entangles my right arm and the three of us walk to the bottom of the Daredevil staircase. Casey whispers in my ear: "I'll go first and wait for you at the bottom, and Anna will come after. You can even close your eyes as we walk the stairs. We'll hold you. You'll be safe."

My friends are good to me. Even at 13, they understand the need to face fears. They understand that I'm scared, and also that I'm frustrated because I know I'm missing out on something I could enjoy just as much as they do.

So I climb the steps and the first few flights come easily. The line of people waiting for the slide is long, and I find that the further into the air I step and then have to wait, the weaker my legs become. About halfway up--holding tight to Anna and Casey, I begin to look out. I am taken aback by the majestic view, despite the sensation that I'm falling. More than 50 feet in the air, the crowds across the park start to blend into a mosaic in motion. Once at the very top, I let go of Casey and Anna's arms and hold on to the railing and breathe--slowly and fully. I'm standing higher than I've ever been in my whole life. My knees are weak, but I feel the blue sky surrounding me, and as I look out beyond the park at the rolling hills of the Iowa cornfields I feel a sense of comfort. It is midsummer, and the crops are solid this year.

Casey is up next, and a jolt of fear pierces through me. I begin to salivate as the lump in my throat quickly thickens and my breath staggers. Before the lifeguard gives her the signal to go, Casey turns to me, looks me in the eye beaming with excitement and says, "It's so fun. You'll love it." I immediately don't believe her and I watch, in horror, as she disappears down the blue tunnel and squeals.

It takes mere seconds for Casey to reach the bottom, and the lifeguard to my right gives me the signal. Anna is still behind me and I turn to her.

"I can't do this," I tell her. "I need to get down." But the long line of impatient and rowdy teens behind her are not sympathetic.

Anna holds on to my hands encouragingly and tears begin to well up in my eyes. "You made it all the way up here. That's amazing," she encourages. "Going down is the fun part and it will go so fast. Trust me. You'll want to do it again."

I don't believe her, either. I'm afraid of heights, I'm afraid of speed, and I'm afraid of spiraling out of control. But I'm also afraid of the kids behind her who are now unkindly urging me to get going. The lifeguard pushes up the rim of his red hat and tells me I've either got to go down the slide, or get out of the way.

I look to Anna. "Go," she whispers. And I free her hand from mine. I reach out to the top of the tube and hold on to balance myself as I sit. I'm afraid to let go. My heart races, the tears are now flowing effortlessly down my face, and the noise behind me grows--the pressure mounting as the cool water flows under my thighs and behind my back.

The water builds up around me, and in a split second, I release my grip and flow down with it. Faster and faster I slide--alternating between darkness and light as the tube around me opens up in intervals--allowing the sunlight to hit my face. I'm screaming. I am screaming from a place deep inside myself, the blood-curdling sound of fear and I feel completely out of control. I try to stop myself midway down, my arms flailing trying desperately to grab hold of something--anything--but it's no use. The water pushes me on, and I gasp for air between screams.

And in another flash, it's over. I'm forced into the pool with enough momentum to make me stand and jockey me around to gain footing. As promised, Casey is there waiting for me, her arms spread out wide like a proud mama who has just watched her toddler go down the park slide on her own for the first time. I fall into her arms heavily, hold tight and begin to sob.

"You did it!" she cries, "You did it!" and she tries to jump up and down in the shallow waters as I continue to convulse, releasing all the fear from my gut. And then I hear Anna splash behind me, being released from the monster I just tackled, and she wraps her arms around me from behind.

I am sandwiched between pride and comfort, and I am spent. The lifeguard at the bottom of the slide toots her whistle at us and motions to us to get out of the water. Anna and Casey lock their arms around me once more to guide me out of the pool.

I sit on the concrete and wipe away the last of my tears. I am proud of myself, yes, but I am also emptied of energy.

"Wanna do it again?" Casey snickers at me, her sly smile giving away a piece of her adventurous nature that we hadn't fully been introduced to yet.

I look sideways at her, my breathing finally returning to normal. "No," I say. "Never again."

And they laugh, easily and comfortably.

That day entailed one of the scariest and proudest moments of my life and I return to it often to find courage. My current self now understands that the moment of letting go and allowing the current of water to carry me back into the safety of my friends who loved me would have gone a little more smoothly if I didn't fight it. The scrambling to grab hold of something when there was nothing there produced more fear, and in some ways I want to go back now so I can do it again--relaxing and releasing control--allowing the water to guide me.

Water, and its current, is often used as a metaphor for life. Water is powerful: Something to be cautious of and revered at the same time. And in order to survive its current--its twists and pulls--you can't fight it. You have to just let go.

This morning at the office, my friend Shea notices I had been crying. I am struggling with the same feelings of that 13-year-old girl standing on the side of the pool watching life experience pass her by.

"You miss him," Shea surmises.

"Yes," I whisper. "And he offered to buy me a plane ticket to fly me out there next weekend." The weakness in my voice is apparent.

"So, go!" my dear friend urges. "Get a direct flight, no puddle jumpers, and I'll drive you to the airport." I'm walking behind her now, through the doorway of the room where we get our coffee. And she stops and turns to face me.

"You can do this," she tells me.

"I haven't been on a plane since 1995, Shea. How can I DO this."

She smiles, her eyes as sly and confident as Casey's were years ago.

"Because you can."

Beating Down the Walls

Some days are harder than others. It is true that even in this new life of positive thinking and conscious living that I have feelings of sadness, defeat, and often fear. What I have come to know is that feelings of any kind are just our signals. They tell us when something is Right for us. They tell us when something needs to change. And most importantly, I know that they must be felt--not ignored or avoided--so that they may flow through me instead of weighing me down and rendering me useless, overwhelmed, or exhausted.

I cry much more now than I ever used to, and it's a wonderful kind of release: in an instant tears can express any anger, anxiety, or sadness that I feel (as well as positive emotions like gratitude and love). In high school, there was a period of time in which I physically could not cry--the anger and repressed sadness too heavy to let out in tears. At 16 years old, my frustration at the darkness of the world around me took hold. I was bitter, angry, and tough. No tears would come, but hurling words and punching mailboxes and walls became a typical behavior for a time. My knuckles would bruise--and similar to the odd satisfaction I was also receiving from scarring my own skin by scratching it with a paring knife--relief would come and I would know I was alive.

It's hard for some people to get a sense of how physical pain can relieve emotional pain. I don't even know I fully understand it. For me, in the few instances in which I cut my skin--carving angular designs into my leg and once even, on my left breast--there was a deep sadness inside that I was not able to express in words or tears. I wanted so badly to feel something other than the dark, roaring turmoil in the depths of my gut, but I was often speechless and afraid to let others know that it even existed within me. And as the burning sensation in my skin progressed with each small stroke of the blade, I felt that somehow I breathed easier.

But the relief was always short-lived. I wasn't actually acknowledging and releasing the negative emotions built up inside me. Luckily, even as a teenager I learned some better coping skills because I had a great network of supportive friends and parents who still showed me love when I pushed hard against them. I remember one night in particular, in a fit of rage after a high school football game I got out of my car in the church parking lot that was across from the field--not even bothering to shut the door--and began wailing on a tin shed. I have no recollection of what made me so angry at the time, but as I heaved one blow after another and my knuckles began to bleed, my best friend came out of the car to stop me. She held my arm, she talked me down, and that small intervention brought me out of the spiraling madness inside my own head.

Sometimes, all we need is someone else there to open our eyes to what we are doing to ourselves. Someone that is there watching us, accepting us, and loving us despite our anger and pain--or even because of it. Someone who can pull us out of our own way. This is why friendships and love--in its truest sense--are imperative. Others help us see who we are: the good, the bad, and the sometimes ugly, and they can help us take down our own walls from the inside--brick by brick--instead of trying the beat down the walls outside of us.

And for that, I am truly grateful.

Stepping Fearlessly

"Do you want to walk in fear, or do you want to walk in love? " asks my dear friend, Dr. Tanya English. I'm not sure if she is the one who coined the phrase or not, regardless, I often hear the words in her voice inside my head. It's a question I pose to myself in the midst of worry or confusion. It helps me to see the intention behind my thinking patterns--to know if I am making choices based on fear or based on Trust, openness, and desire. The latter, of course, being the kinds of choices I wish to now make.

Fear is restrictive. It causes tension in the muscles and in the mind. Fear-based thinking doesn't allow for change or new ideas. And for many of us who are habituated into fear-based thinking, it's often what comes up first.

I was recently invited to take a trip this summer to West Virginia for a music festival, and although I was immediately excited about the prospect, some anxieties quickly crept up. In my 12+ years of mothering, I have yet to take even a weekend vacation without my kids--let alone a camping trip up in the mountains for an entire week. I used to be afraid to leave my children for any length of time because I worried that something would happen to them. And I wanted to make sure I was always near enough--just in case.

One thing my divorce and the subsequent taking turns at child-rearing has taught me over the last year is how to let go of worry and simply Trust that my children will be all right outside of my watchful eye. And they are all right. They are better than all right. They survive without me hovering. They survive, and even thrive, in the hands of others. And their absence often makes me appreciate their presence that much more. So, when I think of leaving them at their dad's for a week while I take a summer road trip, I breathe easy. My perception shifts: they--and I--walk in Love.

When I first read about this music festival that takes place in the mountains in West Virginia, my other knee-jerk, fear-based thoughts were "how am I going to get up there?" and "what if I freak out and can't go any further." My last ride into the mountains years ago had me stuffing my head under a sweatshirt, hiding tears from my then 4-year-old daughter. I began to wonder if I was going to be reliving that scenario. And camping? The closest I had ever come to sleeping in a tent was hanging out in my friend's backyard in 7th grade until my parents came to get me at midnight. So "how will I shit in a port-o-potty?" and "who is going to tell the mosquitoes to leave me alone for 4 days?" suddenly seemed like really logical questions to have.

But I stopped myself and posed a different question. That one about walking in fear or walking in love. I thought about all the amazing adventures I could have on this trip, like seeing parts of the country I've never been to and the prospects of jamming with some incredible musicians. I thought about how luxurious the scenery would be at nightfall and the tranquility that would wash over me as I doze off to sleep under a starlit sky. I thought about all the notebook paper I would fill, being able to catch the wind of inspiration at any given time.

I also thought about the company I would be keeping along the way, and realized that a part of me was fearing my own fears. Having been ridiculed and unaccepted by others in the past for having anxieties, I realized I was worried about my fears being intolerable to my travelling companion. But that, too, is fearful thinking. Instead, I needed to simply allow myself to feel the fear and then still choose to walk in love. Only from there can I accept my Self wholly and step into another grand adventure. It is one step at a time, this shift from fear to love, and when I step into life with an open heart, what I find is that I am met with the same openness and acceptance as I emit.

Affliction

About 3 years ago, I decided I wasn't going to settle for anything less than what I knew was right in my heart. I was teaching middle school reading--a job I both loved and hated, I had a failing marriage, a father recovering from cancer, and my anxiety levels were skyrocketing.

I had spent so much of my life being afraid--afraid of making people angry, afraid for my and my children's safety, afraid of not having money. I was afraid of traveling--by car, by plane, by boat. I was afraid that I'd get sick, or hurt, or die. I was virtually afraid of anything out of my own control.

In the process of trying to gain some semblance of control over my life, I developed obsessive compulsive disorder (this began just a few months after my third child was born). It was slow and harmless at first. As a family, we had taken turns picking up every virus that travelled though Iowa in the fall of 2006. I was tired of laundering sheets filled with vomit and stuffing my newborn with antibiotics, so I became more aware of where illnesses lurked.

Around the same time, there were spikes in the number of food poisoning cases around the country. Salmonella and e. Coli were showing up in peanut butter, spinach, and dairy products. I was beginning to feel sick every time I ate, and I wondered if I had contracted one of these awful intestinal bugs.

As a result, I began being more vigilant about washing my hands and using hand-sanitizer in my classroom at school. I started shying away from potlucks--questioning who had touched the food, where it came from, or how long it had been sitting out. By the time summer of 2007, rolled around, I had dropped 15 good pounds of baby weight just because I stopped eating all the cookies and candies that sat in the staff lunch room. But it wasn't because I didn't enjoy the homemade treats, it was because I was afraid of the germs that might have infiltrated them.

Meat--being the most common source of e. Coli and salmonella--was the next to go from my diet. After months of inspecting every piece of meat to make sure it was completely cooked before I put it in my mouth, I simply crossed it off my list of acceptable foods to eat. No more beef, chicken, pork, eggs, or fish. I didn't have to worry about was was in it if I wasn't going to be eating it. Thus began the rules (the obsession) and the subsequent rituals (compulsions) to ease the anxiety of breaking, or even thinking about breaking the rules.

In addition to a list of foods I would not eat, there were other rules to ensure that my relative state of good health remained constant in addition to making sure that nothing passed into my body that I hadn't deemed acceptable. I required myself to sanitize my hands after handling money, after touching doorknobs, after using the phone, and after shaking hands. I used toilet paper to lock the bathroom stall door, and my pinkie fingers to handle cupboards and drawers. If someone coughed or sneezed while walking down the street, I held my breath as I moved through the space in which he or she had just walked. However, most heart-breaking of all, was the fact that I stopped kissing my children. I held them, but I couldn't kiss them. The anxiety was too much.

Yet, while I focused on holding so many things at bay, my perception of fear began to shift. Though preoccupied with controlling food intake, managing germ exposure, and creating mantras for easing anxiety, I began a journey of finding an individual strength I'd never had before. I faced larger fears by starting a new career as an editor, filing for divorce, and going after a dream I'd long forgotten--music. I let go of expectations for who I was supposed to be and start believing in who I wanted to be.

And as each new song was written and mistakes of the past forgiven, I was able to let go of one of the rules I was punishing myself with. I understood that the only thing I had control over was my Self. I couldn't stop my ex-husband from being angry, no more than I could stop a train at high speed. I couldn't change the mistakes I'd made in the past any more than I could prove what would happen in the future. I finally settled into the realization that the only moment there is, is Now, and that I had a choice to make: I could choose fear or I could choose Trust.

So I chose--and continue to choose--Trust, despite its vulnerable state. And while I can not yet claim complete recovery, I can say that I have returned to eating lettuce from restaurants, sharing pizza with friends, and only washing my hands on appropriate occasions (in the bathroom, before eating, or after taking out the trash). I eat without anxiety: savoring flavors and enjoying a sense of being full. I live each day now with a sense of wonder, instead of confounding dread. And best of all, and as often as I can, I embrace my children and kiss them goodnight.