I Can't. I Won't. I Must. | Mamalode

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I Can't. I Won't. I Must. | Mamalode

 

Feeling Desperate?

Desperation is certainly an emotion that is felt by humans more than once throughout our lives.  It isn't solely a depressed emotion, or a poor emotion, or a lonely emotion.  Desperation thwacks us all--ALL. Perhaps desperation feels worse when things, the big things, are what's causing it.  Perhaps someone has lost a family member or a whole family.  Perhaps a single mom can't pay the bills or feed her children.  Perhaps a beloved job has been lost.  Perhaps a family home has burned to the ground, or someone has received news of a terminal illness.  These big things; family, money, jobs, homes and health are usually what give us comfort and keep us going.  However, if these things are all of a sudden taken from us somehow, I am sure--I know--it would feel like we've been set upon a surf board on a 80 ft. wave with a massive rip current underneath.  Nothing on which to lean. So what would help us keep our balance?  

This is a question I have been pondering over the last week.  There are so many who don't have the safety and love and security of family, work and home and health.  What keeps them going when the big things are gone?  What would keep me going if those big things suddenly disappeared?  More importantly, besides the big things, what are the little things I would miss if I suddenly disappeared?  

So for the last 48 hours, I have been paying attention to my days, my hours, my minutes, my split seconds.  I took stock of my life's little joys, and what I've found is that when putting my mind to it, there are so many wonderful seemingly insignificant things in this world that bring a sense of satisfaction and even happiness that I have never really even considered.  

Take yesterday for instance, I made homemade spaghetti sauce with meatballs.  As I was preparing the food, I imagined never being able to do that particular task again.  What I found was that there were so many things that I'd miss: the smell of garlic on my fingers after dicing, the tangy taste of sauce on my tongue while sampling, the pure feeling of satisfaction when a recipe comes together, the super smells that waft through the house when using a crock pot.  All of these I'd miss if I were suddenly gone.  

Last night, after a taxing day with my daughter, my husband gave me a foot rub and while that is one of life's BIG pleasures, I tried to break the act down into the small things that just make life spectacular.  I learned that even without a sweet husband, there were amazing things about my feet (yes I said my feet) and that rub that I'd miss if I suddenly disappeared.  Don't you just love the feeling of relief you get when you finally sit down after a long day and kick off your shoes?  What about rolling your ankles in circles as they rest on an ottoman or flexing and pointing your toes?  I found I loved to sit with the left side of my left foot resting between my big and second toe on my right foot. The cotton-candy smell of the lotion that my husband uses I realized is quite decadent and certainly makes me feel happy.  Even its consistency is one that I never really stopped to think about.  It isn't that runny lotion that one buys in the drug store, but the kind that feels like frosting in your hand and stands at attention before getting applied to your skin.  Lotion and feet--life's little pleasures.  Whodathunkit? 

This morning, when feeding the dog, once again I imagined what it'd be like if I couldn't do that anymore.  I instantly knew that I'd yearn for the clicking of the dog's nails on the ceramic floor produced by Charley's joyful reindeer-type leap.  Even the sound of the kibbles hitting his bowl makes a sort of music.  And even now, sitting here writing away, I am thinking about the miracle of my brain and how it sends light speed messages so that my fingers move easily along the keyboard and that I love the way it feels when my nails click away on each key's smooth surface.  Currently there's a bird in my front yard cawing with a chorus of crickets behind it and a little breeze is billowing my sheer curtain through the open windows.  All of this is usually background noise and distraction but today I hear it differently.  I see it differently.  These are earth's tiny miracles that I have taken for granted for so long. I am sure without a shadow of a doubt that I'd miss all of this if somehow it or I were to disappear tomorrow. The small things can sustain us a bit if we let them.

I know, I do know that life is hard, the news is bleak,and the world seems to be crumbling.  But perhaps...perhaps, if we can zoom in on what once we thought was the mundane like cooking dinner, feeding the pet, sitting on a couch in our living room, lotion, and yes, even feet, we may realize that there is so much to life that we can lean on when standing on that shaky surfboard.  There are many things we'd miss if we disappeared into the ethers.  So when desperation knocks on our door some bleak day, when life's BIG things trouble or leave us cold, you and I can try and lean on the little things, the everyday things that I now know are not just noise, and details and things that I completely ignored, but instead are small miracles and necessary joys without which life just wouldn't be the same.  

After doing some thinking, I'd love to have you add what small things you'd miss if you could no longer experience them.  Let's help each other appreciate life's small miracles!

 

Robin Williams' Suicide: What only those that are depressed know.

Robin Williams is dead.  The funny man, everyone's uncle, thespian extraordinaire...killed himself perhaps as a result of an all too prevalent disease; depression.  As expected, the world came out wearing black, mourning, lauding, crying for this brilliant brilliant light of man.  I, like most people, read tweets, posts, watched CNN, unhealthily wading through text and mass media alike to try and make some sense of something so senseless. As I read, one line kept showing up...over and over in one form or another; "If you are in pain, please seek help."  "If you are thinking about killing yourself, find someone to talk to." "Here is the suicide hotline's number."  I have to tell you that the cavernous pit in my stomach grew a bit larger because although these words were written or spoken with good intentions, they show how deeply depression is misunderstood.

As a fellow clinically depressed human, let me assure you that many of us are talking and talking and talking to therapists on speed dial, to our pastors, to our best friends, to our doctors, to God.  As Daphne Merkin so eloquently stated in her 2009 NY Times Magazine article, "I have sat in shrinks' offices going on four decades and talked about my wish to die the way the way other people may talk about their wish to find a lover."  We talk.  I promise you we talk.  We also take medicine and exercise.  We stop eating foods with unnatural chemicals.  We sit ad nauseum in front of UV lights in the darkness of winter.  We take vitamin supplements. Hell some have even subjected their delicate minds to electric shock "therapy" to rid themselves of the malignant drowning-in-a-deep-thick-black-bleak-mucky-mud-feeling that is a favorite companion of this horrific disease.  

But here's something that many don't know...especially people who aren't depressed, who haven't had a run in with this dire foe.  Sometimes all the talking, the meds, the running and eating well, spending time with loved ones, even time in a psychiatric facility--it isn't enough.  We sometimes have bouts where nothing works--NOTHING, and it is those times that are the most daunting and haunted for those of us who try to function in a society that sometimes stigmatizes or rejects the searing physical and emotional pain that one feels when in the midst of that crushing remoteness. 

When depression pitches a tent, when it decides to stay despite all measures, it is suffocating in its presence.  For me, every inch--from the hair follicles on my head to the numerous bones in my feet-- prickles with excruciating merciless pain and burn with the distinct feeling of one million matches being pressed against the totality of my skin. My limbs and head feel like they weigh thousands of pounds.  It is a monumental task to lift myself out of bed each day and move through what used to be simple air, oxygen and hydrogen that instead feels like a massive sucking sludge.  When I lay down at the end of the day the exhaustion is inexplicable and a concrete slab of anxiety presses down on my chest making it impossible to breathe.  When depression fights to stay, it follows me into my sleep permeating my dreams making them real and vivid and murderous.  It raids my subconscious and brings to the surface every fear that's buried there.  I wake in the midst of a panic so fierce that I am sure my beleaguered heart will explode into tiny bits, and then...and then I wake up. I do it all over again; a twisted Ground Hog Day movie that refuses to end.  Is it any wonder that some choose to end the cycle themselves?  

So in honor of Robin, for his laughter and his legacy, instead of sending someone to the nearest hotline or hoping that the clinically depressed reach out to someone, please...reach out to them, stay with them, ensure them that you'll never leave, that you'll be there for as long as they need you.  I am lucky. I have that--ten fold.  Don't get me wrong, so many have left--"friends" telling me that my life just drags them down--depression is not for the weak. It takes great strength for both the depressed and those that love them to not waiver in their resolve. Remember, those that are depressed don't want to be that way.  We are working, working every hour, every minute, every millisecond to navigate a life with this disease. So, for Robin's sake, to end the stigma of this disease, and to understand it just a little bit more, if you know someone whose depressed, reach out with an ear, a hand, an unwavering friendship. Be a light in that unending blackness.

The Definition of Dad--Ed Fisher's Way

There is this man and he loves.  There is this man and he teaches love.  There's this man and he wears love on his sleeves, in his smile, in the sound of his warbly voice, in the way his eyes twinkle at each and every human at which he gazes.  There is this man and he IS love.

Ed Fisher, lovingly called 'Pops', has forever changed my definition of "father."   A father loves you through all your mistakes and missteps.  That's Ed Fisher's way.  A father loves being with you and makes you feel as if you are the only one in the room, as if what you have to say and what you think matters.  That's Ed Fisher's way.  A father is a provider not just monetarily but one who gives of his time and a listening ear, a funny story and free "I love you's" each and every time you come and go.   He is a man whom you worship, and one you idolize.  His mind is occupied by God's word and the immense love he has for his family. He doesn't look outward for glory and laudation, for his family is enough...is more than enough...and you know that by the look of pride he has for each and every member. That's Ed Fisher's way.  Ed is a father that is never out of reach.  He's there, with a warm hug and without judgment or scoff.  He'll sit on the couch and sing you his favorite hymns just as easily as he'll sit under the dining room table to play hide and seek with his grandchildren. That's Ed Fisher's way.

Always the quintessential father, you never have to worry about falling from his good graces, as the word "rejection" just isn't in his vocabulary. You don't have to act or look or speak or think a certain way.  You don't have to be talented or pretty or handsome or ugly or broken or sad.  You don't HAVE to be anything. He loves us without conditions.  He loves us despites our not's and no's and nothings.  He loves because that is what a father--a true and real and consummate father--does.  He loves.  And no matter where I am, no matter what mistakes I have made, no matter where I go even if I trip and fall on my way, I can count on this father's steady, unwavering love.  This dad's love anchors me to Earth and let's me rise above it as well.  This father's love give me strength and an unending need to be as good as he makes me feel.  I love you, Pops.  I am a teacher, a writer, a thinker, and a seeker.  I am your son's wife and your granddaughter's mother, but one of the titles that I am most proud of, most fortunate to have bestowed upon me is that of Ed Fisher's daughter-in-law, Ed Fisher's daughter.  I thank you, dear father-in-law, dear father, for loving me like I was worth it.

To the Woman With The Raised Eyebrows: I did not abandon my son

To the Woman With The Raised Eyebrows,

“How’s your son doing?”  You posed this question to me in the middle of a Walmart aisle even though you are merely an acquaintance.   It didn’t surprise me though.  When you live in a small town, a town in which you grew up and now live and work, news travels fast whether it be true or false.  It was no secret to many that my son had been in lots of trouble for the last year; getting kicked out of school (from the district in which I teach), being put on probation, using drugs, as well as many other parental nightmarish things.  I was used to the questions and had gotten pretty good at being vague, or so I thought.  

“Pretty much the same,” was my canned answer.  This is the answer I give to those who don’t really deserve an answer.  These words help me to replace my anger at the audacity of the asking by those who have no business doing so.  And so, it was the answer I gave to you as well,  “Pretty much the same.”  

Usually that ends it.  That phrase is a signal that there really is nothing to talk about.  It’s a signal that I really don’t want to say much.  It’s usually a signal to change the subject which is what I tried on that day we ran into one another.  

“How’s your family?” I asked.  But you didn’t want to let it go.  For some reason, a reason that I may never know, you pressed forward saying,  

“Oh dear!  How do you handle that when you have a small child in the house?  How do you keep her from all of the things he’s doing?”   

And I don’t know why but I instantly felt defensive. I am ashamed of myself.  I shouldn’t have felt that way.  But I did.  So I answered your question when I should have been strong enough to tell you that those logistics were really my family’s business and not yours.  

Instead I blurted out, “She doesn’t see him. We don’t see him. He doesn’t come to our home.  So she doesn’t know about ‘all of the things he’s doing’.”  

And that’s when it happened.  Your eyebrows raised to the ceiling  and out of your mouth came what I am sure is the reaction that many parents would have about our decision to not see our son.  “What do you mean you don’t see him?  How could you abandon him? If his mom won’t help him, who will?”  

I felt my neck get hot and an iron fist begin to clench in the very center of me.  Angry words began to line up like soldiers in my brain.  But I took a deep breath and I reminded myself that you were ignorant.  Your questions proved that.  You had absolutely no information about my son and our relationship and so instead of letting those war words fly, I chose to forgive you.  Right there in the middle of Walmart...I forgave you, wheeled around you, managed a “Yes, I guess that is one way to look at it,” and pushed my cart heavily laden with groceries and guilt down the aisle away from you.

But I want you to know...I want parents who haven’t experienced the things that I have experienced with my son to know...that the decisions that parents with troubled teens make are personal and agonizing and made with unconditional love and aren’t to be judged by anyone.  You don’t get to do that until you have lived with each and every one of us, until you have seen the backroom deals, the pleading, the letter writing, the bargaining, the visits to the hospital, to the principal, to court, to the police stations, the days of crying and the nights full of terror.  

Our decision to use “tough love” on my son came after every other method had been exhausted.  At the end of our rope, we spoke to a therapist who suggested what we knew all along; that my son, whom I love with all I have, will only change, will only seek help when HE thinks there’s a problem, when HE is ready and not a minute before.  She also helped us to see how necessary it was to tell him that as long as he continued living the lifestyle he was living, we couldn’t allow him in our home, that we wouldn’t pretend that all was well because to us and FOR him, all wasn’t well.  

Make no mistake, my son knows we love him.  Part of “letting him go” was to also tell him that when he was ready to live a different lifestyle, when he was ready to get help we’d move mountains to assist him.  We’d be his biggest cheerleaders. We’d use every resource and walk every step of the difficult journey with him.  But until then...until then...we just can’t support the life that he was choosing.  Loving someone unconditionally doesn’t mean that we don’t set boundaries. Had we continued to accept his behaviors as if they were alright in our world, we would have been sending a message to him that he could keep on walking down that dangerous path.  

 

So, my dear  Woman With Your Eyebrows Raised,  don’t ever make the mistake that being tough means we’ve abandoned my son. Tough love is just that--love that is tough--on BOTH the family AND the individual.

  

Graduates! Be Selfish!

Congratulations!  Such a milestone—finishing high school! Your family won’t have to tell you of their unending admiration for you.  Those feelings for you, they’ll wear on their sleeve and tell you over and over of their pride and unabiding love.  However, there IS something that they might NOT tell you, something important that you need to know before you pull out of your driveway and off to your new adventure--something so essential that it must be heard by every graduate. 

Although you probably learned the opposite all your life, let me tell you that these days after high school are ones in which it is essential to be…selfish.  That’s right.  It is time to think only of you.  You are enough, and you are worthy, so very worthy. 

You are worthy of an intellectual journey all your own.  Drink in all that your professors have to say.  Take advantage of educational experiences abroad.  Join clubs.  Act, sing, dance—Grab those four years of literacy, mathematics, history and science and squeeze the life out of them.  You are worthy of the best that education can offer.  Your brain is capable, your thoughts valuable, your contributions endless and needed.  Yes graduate, you are worthy. 

You are worthy of loyalty and love without compromise.  As you move into adulthood make a promise to yourself that you will seek out those who see your value, who know your goodness, who build you up and would never tear you down.  When you find them, hold onto them, because you see they are scarce in this world.  But scarcity does not mean that you settle.  You will need those that are true to you on your life course.  You are worthy of nothing less. Never ever accept anyone who isn’t keenly aware and fiercely protective of your worth. 

You are worthy of finding your purpose.  Take your time.  Let it come.  There is no rush.  Experience life to the fullest, try new things and someday…there it will be…your reason, your destiny.  And whatever it is that you find, you are worthy of exploring it to its highest possibility.  Don’t let anything stand in the way of who you want to become, of your earthly purpose.  If you fulfill that, everything else will fall into place.  

You are worthy of self-interest.   Your empathy and kindness is something to be celebrated indeed, but be sure it doesn’t cost you more than you can pay—your sanity, your peace of mind, your ability to do what you want to do, see what you want to see, go where you want to go.  The selflessness that you carry within you is admirable, but let me suggest or even urge that over the next few years, as you enter into adulthood that you remember to put yourself first more often than you do now.  You and your needs are worth it.  Rumi says to “Respond to any call that excites your spirit.” This quote should be the battle cry of the young!  I am certainly not saying “go ahead and be selfish”.  I am simply saying that words like “what is it that I want for myself?” and “I won’t take part in what wouldn’t be good for what I need right now,” are words that should move to the forefront of your mind.  Believe me, when you start your career, when you marry, when you have children, when your parents age there will be plenty of moments where selflessness and sacrifice will be necessities and must-do’s.  But at 18…it is perfectly ok to do what is best for you.  Don’t ever forget that that doing for yourself is something in which you are worthy. 

And finally great, gregarious graduate, you must think about yourself and know your worth because despite what the fairy tales tell us, there are NO knights in shining armor whose sole purpose is to rescue damsels in distress, no princes on white horses, no magical fairy godmothers.  You only have you and your sense of self-worth to get you to where you want to travel, to pull you up by the boot straps when you slip and fall.  Only your worthy self can turn your saddest days into happy ones, and your darkest places into light.   When it comes right down to it…down to the nitty gritty…YOU are all you’ve got.  

A Response to the Woman with a Louis Vuitton Bag

A few days ago, HuffPost Parent published an article by Anjali Joshi who made the decision to use her Louis Vuitton handbag as a diaper bag in

"an attempt to break out of the rigid mommy mold that society imposes on me and show the world that I am a woman like any other who exists not only for her children, but for herself too.”

This idea, that a handbag could possibly define us as women, has dogged me since reading it. This is my response to her and any other woman who thinks that her worth is solely a result of what she wears and the material possessions she has acquired.

So you own a Louis Vuitton bag.  You saved and scraped from a meager teacher’s salary, and when you had your son you made the decision that you’d continue to carry it, and the reason for that, you say, is very simple.

“My bag is an attempt to break out of the rigid mommy mold that society imposes on me and show the world that I am a woman like any other who exists not only for her children, but for herself too.”

I agree with the sentiment above.  Oh how I agree.  It is tough on mommies to maintain some semblance of the woman before...the woman that’s still there under the Lifesavers, McDonald’s toys, juice boxes and used tissues that now occupy a once pristine handbag.  But, I am concerned about the idea that said handbag (albeit a Louis Vuitton) be the sole thing that represents you as the woman “who exists not only for her children, but for herself too.”  A handbag?  A handbag is going to help preserve your role as a woman? Is that truly the symbol you want to use to represent you, the one you want to use to break you out of your mommy role?   I’ll be blunt.  I don’t like the message.  Not one bit.   

We’re treading on very thin ice here.  Haven’t you heard the news?  Women are second class citizens when it comes to work and pay and positions of power.  Espousing that material possession help us to remember who we were before children just helps to feed that kind of cynicism.  Women are so much more than fashion and makeup and shoes and high heels.  We are so much more.   My dear fellow mommy,  preserving the woman you are OUTSIDE of mommydom can be achieved in so many ways other than hanging on to a meaningless piece of merchandise.  What about the career you dreamed of?  How about volunteer work, a cause, or some sort of political involvement?  Dance in a production!  Sing on stage!  Get involved!  Get involved!  Your passions before your child are probably still the passions that you have running deep and full throughout your entire being.  Find a way to make them a real part of your world.  Find a way to be both the fantastic mama AND the woman with dreams, aspirations, wants and wishes.   Endeavors, not material possession, are what will help remind us that we are more than just a mom.  BEING the woman--allowing her to be or become through action will represent you (and other women) in a way that speaks to our potential, to our drive  to our successes and achievements so much more than clutching a bag (a material possession) from days gone by.  

And what about your son?  What message does the idea that “my handbag makes me a woman” give to him?  Don’t we want the future men of the world to learn that women are just as ambitious, just as capable, just as deserving of equal pay and equal consideration?  Like it or not it is our job, the moms of the world, to teach them to respect, revere and see as equals the opposite sex, and I am sure...absolutely sure...that a handbag will not be the symbol of that revolution.  We must choose well the decisions we make to preserve and uphold our rights to be women as well as mothers, and I hope for your son’s sake, and yours as well that it becomes clearer to you that you, your wishes and your dreams are far more worthy and eons more valuable than even a Louis Vuitton bag.