Tag: love

  • Unsolicited Bits of Advice

    Unsolicited Bits of Advice

    I have experienced so much in my life.  Some good and some not so good. Some expected and some truly surprising. Some came from struggle – some from luck or serendipity. And so much of all of it either led to, arose from or is simply grounded in my children. Any way you slice it, my experiences most certainly affect the lives of my children – in one way or another.  While I am forever grateful for that, they are no doubt laughing and rolling their eyes at that comment and thinking with immense sarcasm, “Great, thanks so much for that Mom”.

    Sorry my lovely babies (yes you will always be that to me), but I will tell you with 100% certainty that if you have children it is almost impossible not to put your life on the back burner so they will be happy. It is hard to shake the immediate inclination to provide them with whatever they need, to protect them from any potential hurt or danger – no matter their age.  Again, if they read this there is likely such extreme eye-rolling that their eyes might get stuck in the back of their head. 

    Nonetheless, here are some things about lifelong parenthood that I remind myself daily:

    1. Support every bit of them – the good, the bad, the ugly – to the end. Even when you don’t think you can or should or it’s difficult.  Do it so you can  say “Ok then I did that.  I started it and have given them all I have.  Now it’s their turn.” This may seem counterintuitive in some circumstances but when I say support – I mean always have their back.
    2. Let them make mistakes but be there when they fall.  We all make them and we all fall.  Being there to pick them up, dust them off and gently nudge them on to the next step is worth a mint. They – and you – will remember it forever.
    3. Celebrate them. Even if it causes eye rolling and is resisted. Every step they take is a thread woven into their story and is cause for cheering.
    4. Try not to take their words and actions personally.  Try not to be offended and remember that they think they are far smarter than we are.  In some ways they are far smarter than we are.  But in the most significant ways they are still blindfolded and creeping their way down a dark hallway, trying to find the right door.  Even though they say they don’t want us to take their hand and show them the door, in their heart of hearts they will welcome the lead.

    And then there is this. The good, the bad, the ugly, the surprises, the struggles, the luck – all of the experiences I have had throughout my life have led to these little bits of life lessons. Even though some are hard to pull off on any given day, and I mean really hard, I believe in them all.

    1. Always trust your instincts – believe in your gut
    2. Don’t be deceived by flattery 
    3. Each day is a gift in and of itself – so don’t waste a minute of any one of them 
    4. Never put all your eggs in one basket
    5. Be forgiving. If someone hurts you remember that they are probably hurting too
    6. Try not to be irritable or angry and if you are don’t let it define you. It’s such a waste of time and energy
    7. Be strong, take charge and don’t let others make decisions for you. After all it’s YOUR life
    8. Remember who you are
    9. Remember where you came from
    10. Remember what your dad would say 
    11. Remember what your mom would say
    12. Don’t resist change
    13. Give yourself permission to cry. A lot
    14. Laugh. At anything and everything. It’s the best medicine there is
    15. Regardless of the situation, its twist and turns, don’t regret anything and don’t turn away
    16. Always be yourself. Don’t apologize for it and don’t pretend that you are something you are not. Being you is the greatest gift you can give yourself – and everyone else.

    Above all else remember: be authentic. this is your life. it’s your story.

    TELL IT

    As I write this I can hear music in the background and am reminded of one of my all time favorites. Take a listen . . .

    The Indigo Girls. 1989

    Closer to Fine

  • Paradise

    Paradise

    Paradise lost.  But maybe just maybe I have found it.

    Its February 22, 2020, just before the pandemic, and winter school break for my children.  This year is a bit odd.  My daughter, a junior in high school is in Spain on a school trip.  My son, a freshman, is with me this break.  We have traveled with our best traveling vacation friends to Turks and Caicos.  

    For several years now, each year we try to go somewhere together.  Our sons are best friends and we are too.  This year, however, is spectacular. I have never been to this island – or many others if I’m honest.  And it is beyond what I would have imagined.  My girlfriend, who missed her calling as an extravagant vacation planner, hooked us up with an amazing HomeAway stay.

    We are near the beach but not on it.  The view is amazing from every window in the house.  There is a beautiful pool in our backyard – I use the word loosely because “yard” is hardly what it is. It is a veranda overlooking thickly settled lush green woods and the crystal clear water beyond. This area of the house serves as an anchor each day from morning til night.  This is where we gather to relax. To cook and cocktail. Where the kids go when they are beach burned out or “chilling”.

    I know this is an embarrassing phrase for me to use – me the “Mom”. But I am hard-pressed to find a term that better describes the atmosphere.  There is only peace here.  Quiet wind, blowing through the palm trees and the distant roll of the ocean.  It is most definitely a place to relax, refresh, and reset.

    It is 100% chill.

    The family we accompany are seasoned travelers.  They travel many times throughout the year to many different countries and islands.  It is their priority – travel and experiencing life in different places of the world.  I admire this so much.  They are giving their son the best gift – the desire to live globally and experience life in travel. 

    Until recently, I haven’t quite had the same need to travel in the same way.   Make no mistake, I have always loved a good vacation.  Typically one where I don’t have to DO anything.  I can just run, sit on the beach or poolside, read, write, and just unload.  However, these vacations have sparked a new desire to travel. 

    I have learned from these friends the importance of creating an experiential life.  One that is not focused on “things” but on spending time with good friends and experiencing different environments and ways of life.  I see how this creates gratitude for the life that we otherwise live every day.  The comparison can be so vivid that it is almost too much to see or acknowledge.  By this I mean that when I compare the way I exist on these trips to the way I exist in my everyday life I want to run screaming from the everyday.  Especially now.

    Thanks to the world we currently live in, escaping my everyday has become a priority for me.  In these times of distress and uncertainty, the need to run away increases with each day.  I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that, in addition to our current world reality, my age has something to do with this.  I approach so many things from a different perspective – one that I haven’t before had.  The sense that there is no more time to waste.  Time isn’t marching on – it has marched on and left me in a place that resembles nearing the edge of a cliff.  I now feel that the space between me and the edge is crucial and I want to fill it with joy – as much as I can anyway.  And now for me that joy involves letting go of things that don’t fill my cup.  Things that bring me anxiety, stress, disappointment, anger.  Some things I can control.  Some I can’t.  So the ones I can are on the top of the pile.  As I weed through them I intend to fill any void with experiencing more of the world. 

    I want to see first hand the beauty of the globe.  I think for me this is a way to release the limitations that I have in every day life.  I am fully aware that the ability to experience these things and leave the sometimes hell of our own reality behind, is a privilege for sure.  It is also a gift I hope to give myself.  

    I would never before have said that I necessarily deserve a gift.  But now that I can see the edge, I am embracing the idea that it is more than OK to accept gifts, from others and most importantly from myself.  And I should say that gifts don’t mean things.  Well, to be honest, anyone who knows me knows that sometimes they do.  But more importantly now for me they mean words and experiences – anything that brings joy.  We all deserve that.  And at this stage of the game I am allowing myself to accept that it’s OK for me to be included in the “we”.  

    Maybe it is the times we’ve had with these friends.  Maybe it is an escape from reality.  Maybe it is getting older.  Whatever it is, I am embracing it and hope to start experiencing the world and my life in a way that brings me some measure of joy every day.  After all, life is far too short to live without it.

     

     

  • Lurve, Choices & Wistfulness

    I suspect that I am not alone in feeling like my mind, heart and soul sometimes gang up on me and present my past to me in unusual ways. Sometimes through dreams, the sense of deja vu, new experiences that seem to recall past events long forgotten and sometimes just plain old memories resurfacing at random intervals. Naturally these recollections include people – some I’d like to remember fondly and some I’d like to pretend never existed in my life. Either way it can be disconcerting to suddenly remember events that elicit old feelings and emotions and bring ghosts with them. Even when they are good ones.

    Being who I am, a self proclaimed ‘Doubting Thomas’, I naturally assume that, “Uh oh. I must have made some tragic mistake or my mind wouldn’t be dredging itself and bringing these people and events to the surface”. And although this is likely just the nature of being human – lately it has made me wonder about whether or not it should give me pause to think about who and what is cropping up and the impact it may or may not have on my life now and in the future.

    I am fully aware that I have led a very fortunate life. That is not to say that my life has been a walk in the park but I will say that overall I’ve been pretty lucky. With some exception, I had a pretty normal upper middle class childhood. I was lucky enough to go to a great college and law school. Have solid jobs that, if it weren’t for certain self-imposed weaknesses (a/k/a superpowers), allow me to live very comfortably. I have had and do have extremely wonderful and supportive friends. Some who are lifelong and some who were there when we needed each other and then we parted ways.

    I have been lucky to have fallen in love several times. Some of those times equate to what Woody Allen called being in “lurve”. That’s pretty special and doesn’t come around much. Nor does it necessarily last. But experiencing it is a wonder and something to be very grateful for.

    I’ve been around the marriage block a few times and, as a result of one very special marriage, have three amazing and perfect children. I was lucky enough to be able to stay home and raise all three of my babies and then reenter the workforce. As any woman knows, it is a gift to be able to stay home with your children but it also puts you a little behind the 8-ball once you start working again. I could write a whole post about that issue but that is not what this one is about.

    So, while I can admit that I’ve been lucky, I can also say with certainty that all of my choices have not always been the right ones. As a human, I think that making life choices is somewhat of a crap shoot. And that has to take into account whether there is really any choice at all or if it is all just a matter of fate. But as usual I digress. Let’s avoid fate for now.

    Some decisions are made spontaneously and some take years. In both circumstances the result is not always what you would expect or necessarily want. Rarely do we get a do-over when we find that what we thought we wanted did not exactly hit the mark. But if we are lucky, we learn to move forward, accept the consequences and keep the ball rolling. Sometimes it can be hard to even find the ball and then have the strength to push it. But with luck – and a good therapist – we carry on.

    Even when we “carry on” – and this is really my point – the universe will throw something in your way and raise a memory that isn’t easy to shake. Memories of lost experiences and people can be melancholy. Some people you never, ever forget. They stay with you no matter where you land and that can sometimes be reassuring. Like the loss of your parents. As hard as that is to accept when it happens, there is something comforting about always having them present with you in some way. Sad but comforting. Wistful.

    Some experiences that have ended and the people with them – once remembered – make me particularly wistful. Not because I am necessarily sad about the loss – whether it was due to my own decision, another’s, or fate. I might even know that whatever caused the loss ended up being the right thing. But even knowing that, it can be hard to shake the feeling of melancholy that the memory brings. And that makes me wistful.

    I find that it it can be hard not to immediately think “Oh shit, why am I thinking about this now? Where did THAT dream come from? And why did I make that choice in the first place? What was I thinking? What a mistake. And now it’s too late.” As if the memory and the emotion it evokes are telling me that I should have turned left instead of right and what a dumbass I was for for ignoring the left option.

    This of course only applies to choices we have actually made – not ones that were made for us.

    Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it applies to all left and right options. Those we made or those that were made for us. And maybe it doesn’t actually matter. Because the fact is that the result is here. This is where we are. Where we have landed. And where the future begins.

    Nonetheless maybe the lesson is that it’s ok to be wistful. Maybe that is what makes us whole. All of the lurving, losses, successes, choices, fates interventions, combine to create the you that is you. And you encompass all of it.

    Beauty comes in many forms and maybe the sense of our past lurves, choices, fates curve balls – all of it – however it happens, make us wistful. As they randomly show up they are beautiful simply because they were. Because they happened. We experienced them and that is enough.

    It is also not lost on me that all of these lurves, choices, losses, successes, exist in one or another of the many Karen’s that drive this bus. There really isn’t just one of me. There are many and each one holds a part of me that carries one or maybe many of these encounters.

    And each encounter is sometimes unexpectedly followed by a moment of pause.

    To remember.

    To mourn.

    To appreciate.

    To treasure.

    To learn.

    To do something different next time.

    Or maybe just to stay the course.

    It is all provocative. And how lucky are we for that gift. Right?

  • Karen #9 – “Mom Karen”

    Karen #9 – “Mom Karen”

    This has been said so very many times and sounds so “old fashioned” – maybe even trite. I remember my mother saying it and rolling my eyes so hard that I thought they’d end up staying forever at the back of my head. But now I see the absolute truth in it.

    There is no better, more gratifying and more bittersweet experience than being a parent.
    It is 100% the best and hardest job that you can have.

    Said by: Every mother who ever lived

    Over the years as I’ve watched my children become young adults I can recall so many tiny moments that passed so swiftly you might miss them if you blink. I never blinked. They made me smile, and often simultaneously cry, and now those moments are embedded in my heart. There are millions of them, all swift and almost imperceptible. I wish I could find a single word to describe the feeling. Bittersweet is the closest I can come up with.

    I just recently came across something I wrote several years ago and now as I’ve experienced a million more of these moments I am adding to the Kitchen Table the newest and 9th version of Karen – the Mom. So funny to me that I haven’t added her to the Kichen Table until now. I guess because it’s been only recently that I am, sort of, on the other side of “raising” my children – although that really never does end does it? Nonetheless I am seeing much of this from a distance that I haven’t before.

    Mom Karen is so different from all the others but uses pieces of each other Karen as she maneuvers throughout motherhood. In a nutshell Karen 9, Mom Karen, is

    Proud, Fiercely Protective, Defiant and a Strong Mother Fucker.

    She is also . . . . . .

    the eye rolling bitch. . . .

    the lawyer. . .

    the little girl. . . .

    the incapable and incompetent one easily challenged. . . .

    the fearful and shy one. . .

    the runner. . . .

    the wearer of armor. . . .

    the comedian. . . .

    Every minute of motherhood requires a certain characteristic which often needs to be chosen carefully because if you misjudge the situation and approach it from the wrong direction – you will only make whatever it is far, far worse. And you will undoubtedly hear the dreaded “Oh my God M . . . .o . . . m! How could you say that!? You totally don’t get it.” And then you are in danger of the “shut out”. No Mom wants that. Believe me I’ve had to crawl back from the motherhood abyss more than once in order to try to help my children in the midst of one struggle or another.

    For me, the most important Karen around the Table within #9 is the one with armor. This one is ready to battle at a moment’s notice and will not stop until there is justice or at least until whatever has ruffled your child has been crushed like a bug. It is fair to say that facing off with a mother is a dangerous game. After all where do you think the phrase “like a mother” came from?

    Something that doesn’t really show up in any of the other Karens but I find #9 to be is wise. Sometimes a “wiseass” but that is likely part of the Karen Bitch and doesn’t apply here. I don’t normally think of myself as being wise but I see that the simple act of living brings some level of this whether you know it or not. With age comes perception and the ability to see things in a way that comes only with experience and that includes joy, pain, anger, frustration, love, loss – all of it. Lately I find myself trying to convey this wisdom to my children so they might avoid making the same mistakes I have. I think I have always been honest with my children about my mistakes – sometimes to a fault. So, I figure since they’ve seen them first hand maybe what I’ve learned from these mistakes will help them turn left instead of right and skirt around them. I am not sure that it really gets through and there is part of me that knows that they’ll have to make their own mistakes and figure it out on their own one way or another. But the protective mom in me tries anyway. I think it’s part of the job description. So, I’d add wise to the list of #9 traits.

    Anyway, I digress. I meant to finally put in writing a few of the indescribable emotions that mothers like me feel as we watch our children fly from the nest inch by inch. Here are just a few that are at the top of my list.

    It is impossible to describe or express . . . . .

    * the feeling I get when I leave my son in the arms of his kindergarten teacher after she pried him out of mine and drive away trying my damnedest not to look back.

    * the feeling I have when I see my son coming down the street on his two wheeler for the first time smiling with pride.

    * the way I felt when I picked up the phone and didn’t recognize my own son’s now deep voice.

    * the feeling I have when my daughter runs to me with her arms wide open and the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.

    * the feeling I get when my son writes the shape of a letter in the air grinning from ear to ear.

    * how I feel when I drop my son at sleepover camp for the first time – watching him as he turns back once, twice, three times. And then doesn’t.

    * how I feel when I see a picture of my daughter and see myself in her face.

    * the startling moment when I look at a picture of myself at age 3 and think “Oh my God, if I change the hair that is the face of my youngest son”.

    We see the passage of time every day in so many little things: turning the page of your calendar, sending birthday cards, getting the oil changed in your car, doing laundry, driving to work and then home again. But none are so great as noticing the moments of your children growing up right before your eyes. So, I will say it again. There is nothing you can do or accomplish that will be a greater privilege and often the greatest of frustrations than being a mother. And every little moment is worth a thousand more.

    With love and gratitude for these 3 gifts.