Vulnerability

Something To Think About. . . . .

"Vulnerability is not about winning, and it's not about losing.

 

It's about having the courage to show up and be seen."

 

                                           ~ Brene Brown

 

 

 

 

Get Lucky

I know the Grammys were Sunday night but the music is still rockin' and rollin' for me.

 

I'm Up All Night To Get Lucky. . .

 

 

The Grammys are a blast to watch because everyone is so out there in their creativity and hopefully your favorite singer, song or group wins something.  I think people like to watch it because they imagine themselves standing there before the cameras singing some of the songs or in my case I imagine myself up there on the stage dancing the night away.

 

You don't think about being in a band and singing any of the popular songs? Come on.  Next, you will tell me that you have never picked up a hairbrush or any other kitchen utensil and pretended it was a microphone and that you don't ever sing when you are in the car or in the shower.

 

It's okay 'cause we all do it!!  I even have male friends who pick up brooms and play them as though they were guitars.  Music takes us to a spontaneous healing place and makes us feel some kind of wonderful.  I think it's almost impossible to  think about anything stressful when you're singing or dancing. 

 

One of the songs that got a lot of attention (who were those two robots?) and more importantly, awarded Record of the Year was Daft Punk's dance song, "Get Lucky."  And just for the fun of it, here's hoping you get lucky today:

 

 

 

Pulling Together

I began writing Cry Laugh Heal in December 2010 to start an online discussion about grief and resilience, in particular to talk about the many ways we process it and how we can arrive at the realization that we can find strength and a different kind of future through our pain.

 

My husband died in 2003 and I found that grief was not a topic most people wanted to talk about.  What a surprise right?  Of course, it was a subject I could go on and on about but in general it really makes people feel very uncomfortable and they would much rather talk about anything else. 

 

I decided that by going online I could help myself and hopefully others as we tried to figure out what loss feels like and how we can somehow go on with other lives without that loved one being with us.

 

It is a difficult path but when you reach out to others it can make a difference in your outlook on what to do next.  Psychologists often cite isolation as one of the many dangers of grieving.  I am not totally self-reliant and, as far as I know, no one else is either.  It's a wondrous thing that we need each other.  Truly it is.  Loneliness is not a sign of weakness.  We as humans are hard wired to connect with each other and loneliness is a signal that we need to bring people into our lives.

 

Being vulnerable can be scary but I have found through an honest discussion of my grief feelings that it has given me a sense of renewal; a feeling that I can go forward as I continue to process and extend my hand to others because we are all in this blessed life together.

 

Yesterday, a wonderful friend sent me a link to a post from another widow who through her writing was extending her hand to others and letting them know that she can still can be taken back to those feelings and memories many, many years after her husband's death.

 

I am sharing below the touching post today from Carol Joynt (www.caroljoynt.com) and thank her for opening up and sharing her vulnerability:

 

01/27/2014

This Is A Rough Week

 

I write this for lots of reasons but in particular for a woman I met last night who just lost her father.

We sat next to each other at dinner. We talked about death and grief for  quite a while. And that's what this is about. Death and grief and healing and moving on.  She's worried about her mother, now left without her soul mate after 34 years of marriage. 

 

That's why it's  a rough week for me. At this time 17 years ago, my husband of 20 years was spiraling toward his death, which came on the morning of  February 1. I held his hand as he died.

 

Yes, 17 is a lot of time. But, then again, it isn't. No matter how many years pass, these few weeks of winter, with their tell-tale signs, bring back the three weeks he was on life support at the Washington Hospital Center. I shuttled back and forth between home and the waiting room, usually in a daze, when I wasn't sleeping on the waiting room floor, or crying, or begging God and doctors. Outside was ice and cold and an overall bleak landscape. As now. So it comes back in memories stirred by January.

 

The loss of a loved one is awful in duplicate, triplicate and  a compound of that. I wouldn't wish my loss on anyone. But you do move on. The pain does become less sharp. I mean, what's the option? 

She asked me what I miss. I miss being loved, having the best friend, the reliable other, the person who had my back,  who believed in me when I didn't, who made me laugh when I couldn't, who was a handyman and a bon vivant and was happy just staying home, the three of us. I thrived on his view of the world and his sense of humor. The fact he loved me as much as he did was the cliché: wind beneath my wings. These aren't small values. 

 

Every day since is uphill. But you do it. Me and every other woman and man who has  lost their soul mate.

 

So, if I'm not all smiley this week, or if I seem inappropriately morose, it's not you. It's me. A brief pause in the past. And then, forward.

 

A New York Lesson

To have an uninterrupted block of time in which to read is to me a pure, unadulterated luxury.

 

Don't you just love that word luxury?  It just rolls off your tongue and sounds a bit sinful.

 

Reading for pleasure is healing and similar to putting your foot on the brake of life, stopping your normal crunched up, sometimes scattered daily routine, and allowing your mind to travel elsewhere.  When I find a book that has a compelling story line I am mentally gone and immersed in the characters and their lives and lose all track of the passage of time.  This past weekend, I found myself with two mornings in a row of relatively quiet hours in which to read and I used every second of it to enjoy a collection of short stories called "Good Bye To All That."

 

Essentially, the book is the work of 28 authors writers pouring their hearts out about why it was absolutely necessary and essential for them to live in New York City to become writers of importance, writers extraordinaire, and of course we all know that this kind of thing can only happen in New York City right?



My Favorite Building:
The Chrysler Building in New York City



Unfortunately, we also know that the best laid plans sometimes don't work out and then painful adjustments have to be made.  Usually this means leaving New York City, for at some point, even the most ardent of Big Apple lovers can get worn down by New York City and its frenzied pace.

 

But in between the arrival and the departure a vast amount of wisdom is learned by these authors about the hugs and punches of  life and each one lays bare their vulnerability in chasing their dreams and they write about how their New York lessons have stayed with them no matter where they ended up living after leaving.

One that particularly struck me, is a short story titled "Homecoming" by Mira Ptacin.  The author explains how she and her husband now live in a quiet and rural place called Peaks Island, Maine,  population 800,  years and years after living in New York City where they unfortunately practiced the selfish habit of constantly putting their careers first, always to the exclusion of their marriage.  While still in New York, Ptacin and her husband saw many red flags along the way signaling to them that they needed to spend more time together but none matched the impact of the sudden death of a childhood friend's father.

The loss forced them stop and wonder and think about what was actually important to them and eventually they ended up asking themselves a series of questions about what would happen to them if they got sick, who would take care of them, who would even care if they got sick or worse.  It made them re-evaluate their lives and they decided it was time to save their marriage or else pretty soon there would be no more marriage.

Loss can starkly show you what's truly important and what is a waste of your precious time.  Here is Ptacin's insight about the simplicity of life that she says she learned after her tragic loss:

"Brent's funeral was held three days after he died.  After the burial and as the sun was setting, we gathered at Brent and Rosemary's home.  We walked there from Andrew's childhood home, too, and we stayed until nearly 2 am, drinking on their wraparound porch, exchanging stories, eating Doritos, passing photo albums, and handing out tissues.  This went on for three nights, and kept going even after Andrew and I left town.

Here are some of the things I learned at Rosemary's that first week after leaving New York: I learned that when a widow is crying and smoking a cigarette, you let her cry and if you speak, it's to ask if you can get her another Diet Coke.  I learned that no one cares that much what you do for a living, but they will be grateful if you stay up with a six-year-old and watch Dennis the Menace because his grandfather is dead and he cannot sleep.  Rather than get into a political debate about the war, you thank an Iraqi veteran for his service.  You do not check your BlackBerry in the middle of a toast, and when someone hands you a crying baby, you hold it.  I learned that ice cream cake make grandpas feel really special, and when a neighbor invites you to swing by the food pantry during her volunteer shift so that she can take a look at that nasty poison oak on your shin, you go, and wait patiently until she can get free to see you.  I learned that you don't judge someone's worth based on what they can do for you and that you aren't expected to ask, "How can I help?"  Instead, you just jump right in."

That's exactly right.   

You just jump right in and embrace love and the whole range of magnificent feelings that life sends your way.

For when you put love first, you are home. 

Weekend Antics

Beautiful Deserted Rehoboth Beach

Hey everyone!  Hope your weekend was full of unlimited amounts good times or at least full of what one of my guy friends calls antics! Mine certainly was!! 

 

Three of my best friends treated me to a weekend at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware and it was a blast; and I don't mean a blast of wintery cold but a blast of the healing powers of true friendship!!  Snow and ice and chilly winds surrounded us in our 23 degree climate -- because after all it is January on the East Coast -- but we didn't care because it was a weekend of great conversation, delicious food (Thank God Grotto was open!), unique shopping destinations and no schedules.

 

When in Rehoboth, Dewey or Bethany Beach,
You Have To Go To Grotto For The Pizza

No schedules.  Which in real life means we didn't have anyone telling us we had to be anywhere at any particular time.  We could go where we wanted, when we wanted, for how ever long we wanted to be there and that is my idea of freedom.

 

I have known and treasured these three best friends for decades and they are the salt of the earth.  I am lucky to know them and have them in my life and being with them can cure anything that life hands out!  We all love The Beach no matter what time of year it is and love to eat all kinds of seafood and just hang out, shoot the s$&t and enjoy each other's company.

 

As the saying goes, friendship isn't a big thing -- it's actually more like a million little things that are said and done and shared while living our lives and it all comes together in some kind of spontaneous combustion and makes time with those special people what life is all about.  The weekend was all about the chi or the flow of friendships and good times and it was a simple and as easy as that.

 

As I drove over the Bay Bridge to Rehoboth and tried to catch quick glimpses of the icy Chesapeake Bay, I said out loud to myself in the car:  "That's it stress.  I am leaving you far, far behind.  I am moving in to a stress free zone this weekend and you are not invited."

 

Life can change you, your personality, your expectations, your beliefs and your desires but hopefully you are not changing so drastically that you lose yourself and your friends don't recognize you.  They may be changing too in the face of life's experiences and increased responsibilities but at the end of the day you are all in it together and the reservoirs of strength that comes from good solid friendships and knowing that your friends have your back is what moves us forward and comforts our souls. 

Freezing Friday

Wow!! What a week!

Between the snow, the ice and the polar vortex of winds hitting the Washington, DC area, it's seems as though it's been a battle of the elements every day.  Fashion has definitely gone by the wayside and staying warm is the priority.  Sometimes the sun is out but I'm not feeling too much difference in the temperature.

 

I am not really a winter person at all but this chilly cold season does teach me to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.  I can't change it so I've got to go with it and get on the other side of it.

 

I try to look at it as another lesson in a different kind of resilience.  As in: I can't control what Mother Nature decides to bring to my area of Planet Earth but I can control my response to her events. 

Snow People Visiting The U.S. Capitol

I can stare and curse at the frozen snowy icy car or I can go out and start it, warm it up and start clearing it off.  It's all about taking a deep breath and just doing it.  And that's when I put one pair of gloves inside another pair of gloves and the same with socks.  It's the only way to make sure my fingers and toes stay warm and toasty.  I don't know about you but if my hands and feet get cold, I'm a goner.  I just can't take it.

So for those of you in warm and tropical climates, I wish I were there with you.  But seeing as I am not, I will be dealing with my Freezing Friday, staying bundled up and taking it a step at a time.

Grandma Drummer

I know it's a little early in the morning to listen to the rhythm of a set of drums, but I couldn't resist posting this short video of Mary Hvizda of La Crosse, Wisconsin.  Check her out for she is having such a blast!  She is a great reminder to me of the necessity to jump into every day and follow my passions.

  

 

Better known as "Grandma Drummer" to the folks at the Coalition Drum Shop in La Crosse, Mary has reportedly played in a lot of band since was 16 and still can't get enough of picking up those sticks and beating out a crazy drumroll on those skins.

 

They say she comes in to the music store every couple of months, plays the drums for awhile and then she's on her merry way.  Don't you love it!!

 

Our passions are healing and make us authentically us.  In other words, they keep the creative juices flowing! Studies show that finding meaning in one's life, whether playing music, volunteering at a hospital or school, working at a fulfilling job, or any other activity that makes you feel positive, is an essential part of having a lifetime of good mental and physical health.

 

It doesn't matter what your passion in life is, the important thing is to find it, pursue it and embrace it; just like the amazing Mary Hvizda: