The Choice to Move Forward

While there are a great many lessons that came from the suicide of my younger sister Denise, probably the most profound one was that I couldn’t stop living my life because she had died.

I was twenty-one when she died and when I would speak, I always said that before her death the world was my oyster. I knew I was bound for greater things than even I could see in front of me. But after she ended her life, I felt like the oyster shell had slammed shut on me. The key was I had to figure out how to push it back open, to see the open road and everything beyond that hill in front of me again.

In meeting people in the thirty years since Denise died, I have encountered countless people who have chosen not to move forward. These are people stuck in their grief, stuck in the pain, and many times refusing to budge from where they are. I wasn’t going to be one of them.

I have always known that I can’t change the past which means I also can’t bring my sister back. And when she died, I was twenty-one, I had a long life ahead of me. I wasn’t going to be destroyed by the loss. Life is short (Where have these thirty years gone? Heck, where has October gone?).

That’s not to say it was easy as it wasn’t and some days it still isn’t. As our world continues to evolve, and not necessarily in good ways it seems lately, I have to really reach inside myself and remember that I pried that oyster shell open once and I can do it again. Yet I also don’t want to have do to it again so instead I look up and ahead of me. I look at the view. I see the hope. I see the vista that stretches for miles.

And I remember that’s why I continue to forge forward.

Being True

I believe this to be one of the most challenging aspects of life– being true to oneself.

I have watched so many people throughout my life and witnessed their disappointment and sometimes anger at how things have turned out for them. I learned early (although I’m not sure how) that it was going to be a difficult road if I wanted to be who I believe I was supposed to be (and still do). I saw that it meant I wouldn’t always fit in and when things would happen, like when I wasn’t included in things, it was painful and often took years before I understood– having been able to take steps backward by then to survey the entire scene– that it was because I was different, I had a different road to walk, I had different things to accomplish.

There have been many things I could have done to make this road more like everyone else’s, dreams I could have sacrificed, but somehow I understood that wouldn’t be me.

I have been struggling with this new decade I have entered, not for the reasons I see other people struggle with it– mine is because I’ve had so much loss especially in the past two years (not to COVID– everyone has died from other illnesses and some from natural causes). I feel this sense that life is even shorter than it felt before. And there are things that have always motivated and inspired me that are now gone, things that had been with me for a long time, people who were important to me.

I am still motivated and inspired, don’t get me wrong, there aren’t enough hours in the day for all I want to do which is the other side of this dilemma I face– hitting this new decade and figuring out what’s most important to do and how to spend my time.

While I look at what doesn’t fit anymore, it’s also about making sure I stay true to who I am, have always wanted to be. When I’m out running early in the morning, it’s when I think about it the most because I’m usually in prayer (and trying to kill time while getting those miles in). By the time I finish, the list is long and the sun is shining in my office with the summer light giving an extra boost to the color that surrounds me.

I know I’m true to myself then and I use those moments to soak up the positive energy to keep me fulfilled for the continued journey.

Positive Self Talk

When I started running when I was twelve, I had no idea there was a mental side to training. Quite honestly, I thought you pretty much just went out and ran as hard as you could, pushing yourself as much as you could, that it was all about your physical body and nothing else.

But I was lucky to be quickly introduced then and through my teen years to things like self talk and how much running is about telling yourself you can do it, you can push yourself to run faster, longer. And how you learn to let go of whatever else is distracting you, bothering you so that you can keep your focus on the race. It was about learning to let go of everything that had happened at school that day (and/or at home) and “staying the course” as it was often called.

I’ll be honest and say it took me a long time to master these skills and I still haven’t in many ways. However, I do know that I use them daily to push myself to accomplish whatever tasks are ahead of me and to keep me moving forward when sometimes it feels like it would be easier to sleep in, lounge on the couch, to give up.

Last week here in Albuquerque we had wind. Then we had more wind. and yet more wind. One would have thought it was spring with all the wind we had. I woke up at 4:00 am as I usually do and the last thing I wanted to do was go run in that wind. And then swim in the wind (the gym where I swim has an outdoor heated pool).

That’s when the self talk started. First I had to get myself out the door into the cold and wind with Lilly. Then when I returned home, it was Ash’s turn for his run. And, finally, my run without the dogs.

I patted myself on the back but I still had to get myself to the pool.

I always say that I run because I can do it out the front door– if I went to the gym to run I’m not sure I would ever have developed the routine that I have. It’s hard to get in the cold car and drive to the gym. But I kept reminding myself that I could do it, that I had swum in worse conditions. And that when I was done, how happy I’d be that I’d accomplished the full workout in less than ideal conditions.

The wind made the water feel a little cool; I used that as incentive to swim faster. I tried to think of other things to make the time pass and somehow I made it to my 1,150 yards and climbed out of the pool, knowing I could stay inside the rest of the day if I wanted to.

It wasn’t easy, but each time I do this kind of workout, it makes it easier the next time I’m faced with a challenge. I don’t know that any of us ever master positive self talk but I know it’s helped me accomplish a lot more in my life than if I hadn’t had those lessons. I was lucky to have them early.

Home

I don’t believe I can ever write enough about the importance of home because I don’t believe many people understand how important home is related to who we are/who we become. And the choices we have about making home a place that makes us happy.

While I understand that life isn’t about physical objects so much as it is about what happens inside our minds, nourishing all sides of ourselves, home is our shelter, our rest, our inspiration. Home is a place where we live the routine moments of life that make up more than the big events.

Someone taught me long ago that you sow your seeds where you are planted, that no matter where you are, you make the most of it. Her words have always echoed in the back of my mind, even when life wasn’t what I wanted or that I wasn’t really where I wanted to be. Still, it was important to take care of home.

And it’s why I spend the time making changes, updates, surrounding myself with what makes me happy. I love to explore the world, but I also love to come home and just be.

Watching the pandemic play out, I saw many people who realized that home wasn’t necessarily what they wanted it to be so they made changes. Others chose not to. To me, it was an opportunity to make home better because that bodes well for the future, especially for the others who share that home with you. It might not be obvious, but you’re giving something to them, too– a piece of yourself.

Movement

I have a whacky workout schedule and I often hesitate to tell people how much I do daily because I understand how whacky it looks from the outside. But there’s more to it than the need to add steps and workouts to my Garmin watch.

There are three segments to the running part of my workout – I run Lilly, then I run Ash, and then I go for my run (which has gotten slower of the years and isn’t helped by the very cold mornings we’ve been experiencing this fall and winter season). But I trudge through my nearly six miles each day, walking some on weekends.

Then, five days a week, I quickly change after I get home and head to the gym pool with Greg where I swim for 45 minutes.

By the time we get home, I'm done and I can sit down to write and sew and do other activities that require being still. The best part is that I have a feeling of satisfaction that I’m not getting from a lot of other areas of my life because of the pandemic. That’s why I do this whacky thing five days a week.

Movement is partly what has saved me in the nearly year since the pandemic started. While I am not able to do some things in my life that are important to me, especially in my personal life (having dinner parties) and in my professional (taking Chelle Summer to event), at least when I run and swim I feel like I’m moving forward in some way.

The pandemic has forced all of us to rethink not just what’s important to us, but how we maneuver through life when we aren’t able to do the things that help us be hopeful and joyful. And sustain us in the routine of life. For me, one of those aspects has been a several-hour workout, but one then allows me to relax (in my head, at least!), knowing that I’ve completed that part of my day and I can now move into the next part.

The Shadow of Sibling Loss

Over the years I have listened to many stories and read many stories of people who have lost siblings. These weren’t necessarily to suicide which means that sometimes they happened in early childhood. My sister Denise ended her life when I was 21 (she was just two weeks from her 18th birthday). At the time I thought I was very much an adult, however, now I understand how young 21 really is.

So when I think about sibling loss in childhood, It seems to me it can extend to about 25 because we’re still trying to find our place in the world (not that some of us every do as that seems to be a major mission some of us are on in this life) and we’re still separating ourselves physically from our families of origin.

There are many stories of sibling loss that weren’t discussed within families, as if the family just picked up the next day and moved on. For the surviving siblings, this was often painful. However, I don’t believe any parent did it out of malice. They had their own pain and were afraid of hurting their surviving child/children more. And there were other families where the death was openly discussed and the person always remembered.

I was lucky that Denise’s suicide and life were fairly openly discussed in our house (I don’t say completely as I was watched my parents struggle to talk about it with each other and like many families that have suffered a loss, in some ways it widened the gorge that already existed in their relationship. What helped, for me, was that we continued to let Denise exist in some way– as she should– even though her time with us on earth had ended.

Now that I’ve spent many years processing her death and while I don’t often talk much about it as I don’t feel the need to, what I mull over in my head is who I’m supposed to be in this life and how her death is part of that. But what I wonder is how much the path has been altered or made even more important to me to find since her death.

I don’t necessarily believe my path is about sharing Denise’s story although I understand that is part of it. Now that I’m continued to process and grow, I see it’s really connecting our childhood and what we shared in a different form through Chelle Summer. But there is also the writing aspect of it, the need inside my head to not just tell stories, but share them with the world. What I don’t know– and I don’t know that I ever will in this life- is if that need because stronger because of Denise’s death or if she hadn’t died, that I might never have pursued it so intensely as I continue to do (because I’m not where I want to be with it!).

I’ve heard the stories of many accomplished people who lost siblings young and how they were able to take their pain and sadness and turn it into something. What isn’t often obvious is how it ties into the loss. Maybe they were aware of it, maybe they won’t. Or maybe they are like me and were able to do something with it although maybe not what they thought it would look like. And then eventually the path wound us back to where we were before the loss.

Still after all these years, so many questions. The shadow is always there and always will be. I am not clouded by sadness in my life. My sister is with me and I know she and my mom in particular continue to keep me inspired. My biggest wonder comes from my drive and how those of us who have traveled this road find the strength to not just keep going, but truly make sure our lives are well lived because our siblings didn’t get that chance or ended their lives before they took off.

Routine

I get up no later than 4:30 every day, including weekends.

It’s quirky, I know, but it’s what sustains me, especially in times like we’re experiencing now.

I’ve also been working at home pretty much my entire working life since I stopped being a high school teacher. I knew early on that going to an office or school wasn’t my bag and I worked hard to find my place in this world where I could make a living (translation, pay the bills) and have that flexibility.

Many people are seeing the challenges of working from home right now, but I have always used them to my advantage. I do laundry and dishes when I take “water cooler breaks.” I’m able to accept deliveries and not let things sit on my front porch. The biggest challenge is that when we do leave, the dogs aren’t used to being alone all day so we have to find house sitters who come and go, not work all day and are here at night.

But in that framework of being home all day, I have a schedule that I adhere to most days, Monday through Friday. I have lists, I have piles, I know what I need to get done first. I try to do all my desk work in the morning and sew in the afternoon.

My routine isn’t for everyone, but I do know that we have to have some sense of routine, especially as the weeks are turning to more weeks during this time. The routine at my house has been turned upside down in some ways because Greg is now working from home as well.

However, because I already had a routine in place and because he’s usually at home in the summer, I realize the changes are minimal. And the fact that there was a routine and schedule makes it easier for him to adhere to something as he gets used to teaching online.

Everyone needs some schedule in their lives, it’s partly what wards off depression. Make sure you do something you need to each day and do something that brings you joy each day as well. This might feel like a huge interruption in your life that you don’t fee like you can get past, but it’s all in how you look at it. It’s an opportunity to do things you haven’t had time for (those things at home, that is) and in that process keep a schedule that also makes you feel productive and happy when the end of the day rolls around.

Finding Joy in Life

My friend Bonnie taught me so much about not just sewing, but life, too. However, there’s a vision of her that saddens me and yet also is a reminder to me of the importance of how we live our lives. She shared much about her life which– like many of us– was littered with disappointments and losses. Her mother had disappeared at some point after Bonnie was married– mental illness taking over– and Bonnie was never able to find her again. Her daughter Sadie suffered some of the most extreme bipolar that I’ve been exposed to.

There were many other things, but I know those two haunted her and I have a vision of us sitting in her crafting room in the later evening hours, her smoking a cigarette, and her face filling with sadness as she shared stories about her life. I knew she was disappointed at much of how her life turned out, finding happiness in cutting and drying her lavender for potpourri, making quilts, devouring a new copy of Martha Stewart or a quilting magazine that had arrived in the mail that day. Or the show and tell she insisted we had when I would arrive for an evening of working on a project.

While he never said it, I also had the sense that my dad was disappointed with life, too. Quite honestly, I don’t really know what his goals and dreams were. My mom said once he wanted to leave her and take off for California and another time she told me that he was an enigma. He shared little, letting his pain simmer while he drank another beer and smoked another cigarette.

I get it. We get older and we question our decisions. Did we choose the right next chapter? The right next road? Did we miss an opportunity because we chose something over another? The routine of life can bog us down. The bills that force us to keep showing up for work rather than be the footloose and fancy free we believe would be more exciting. It’s easy to let sadness and anger boil over when we seemingly believe the grass is greener on the other side.

And that’s when it’s important that we reach back into our lives to find that time that filled us with hope, a time when we believed the world was our oyster and nothing (nothing!) would get in the way. When I feel down for whatever reason (I work at home– I am left alone with my thoughts much of the day– that isn’t always a good thing for someone who has been taught from my doctorate to dissect a lot), I reach back to that time in my life. I might play a song, bring back a memory. Just something that reminds me that I’m not where I want to be. And I can still get there.

Stay the course. The dreams are still alive. The joy is still there. Sometimes it gets lost and it’s up to us to uncover it. Never forget it’s always there waiting to be found again.

Life and the Ocean

I really hoped that on this LA trip that I would finally get to surf again. It’s been several years since my shoulder started to pop out (subluxation) and I’ve been scared in the water since the time it happened while I was paddling in the surf.

In the year since seeing an orthopedic who told me to go on with my life, that he wasn’t going to do surgery (not that I wanted surgery) because I would only lose range of motion, I’ve been doing exercises three times a week on a ball, hoping to strengthen my shoulder. After a dismal June gloom trip to LA in June, we decided we’d try one more time before soccer and school start again for Greg. The weather was perfect, the water comfortable, and I had lugged Orangey, my surfboard, down the hill from the parking lot to the beach.

Yet as I stood at the water’s edge I was scared. I knew I needed a day where the ocean looks like glass and I could paddle around without worry of getting tumbled around. However, I wasn’t going to get it. I thought I would swim a while and get my courage up. That lasted until I got tumbled around and– bam– the shoulder popped out.

Instead, I found myself standing at the water’s edge again, my arm popped back in, but sore, and knowing that it wouldn’t happen on this trip.

I started to ask myself what I’m so afraid of, why I chronically have dreams where I’m back in high school and late to class or can’t get my luggage packed on time to make an international flight– all signs, I’ve read, that I’m afraid to seize an opportunity. I have certain goals in my life that I want so badly to achieve and I’m constantly asking myself what’s holding me back from getting where I want to be.

The ocean is such a good metaphor for life. When I first started surfing ten years ago, I remember my fear of getting past the breaks in the ocean– in many ways right back where I am although for different reasons (the fear of my shoulder popping out). The breaks are the events in life, the ones that we have to traverse or plow through somehow.

As I write this I don’t have all the answers. But what I do know is that I’m constantly asking to move forward, to learn what I must learn to to move forward. And when I reflect back on the eight years since I first climbed onto a surfboard, I see what life taught me about moving forward as I navigated the end of a marriage, a divorce, and moving forward from all of it.

Now, when I’m not sure that I will ever surf again, I see that life is teaching me other lessons about continuing to forge forward, even in the face of the unknown. I don’t like them, yet I know that if I learn from them I will move forward, onto what’s next for my life.

Life is too short to not pay attention to the messages the ocean gives us.

Clinging to Hope

It's easy to feel hopeless but I believe that when we do, it's because we've fallen away from what matters most to us.

There is a fire inside of all of us, although sometimes it only feels like an ember, barely lit. It's up to us to find out how to make it burn brighter.

Some days it's easier than others and part of the reason much of what you see me post on social media is what I create is because that is one of my symbols of hope. Being creative makes me happy. Just as writing does and hosting a party.

While I had planned to write this blog before our party today, after it was over I was thinking how helpful it was to be taken out of my head. It's easy for me to think too much and doing something for others (even opening up my home and making everyone ice cream) and spending time my friends reminds me to be in the moment and just enjoy laughter and good conversation. 

A good ice cream cone doesn't hurt either.

Hitting the Reset Button

This weekend is Memorial Day, the official kickoff for summer. And also the time we plan everything that we're going to do this summer. However, what usually happens come Labor Day– the end of summer and start of fall? Often we find ourselves looking back on summer and wondering, "Wait, I had all these things I was going to do! What happened?"

The end of May is the perfect time to hit the reset button, both on what we had hoped to do this year but also what we want to do this summer.

Have we made headway on those goals we planted the seeds of back in January? If not, it's the perfect time to rethink them and maybe tweak them so that we're more likely to accomplish them. If the goal was too big and we easily felt lost and gave up, how do we break the goal down into smaller pieces to make it more manageable?

And if we have made strides in accomplishing our goal (or goals!), what do we want to accomplish next? How do we keep ourselves interested to keep moving forward? What new goals can we set?

Many people see summer as a time to slow the pace down– and that might be our goal for the summer– reading more, spending more time with our families, doing more creative activities.

Whatever you do this weekend, take a little time to reflect on where you're at and where you want to go this year. The start of summer is the perfect opportunity– and a three-day weekend!– to step back and make sure you don't reach Labor Day wondering where summer went. And everything you wanted to accomplish with it.

Choosing What to Share

I spent a good part of yesterday working on two paintings (when I wasn't folding laundry and that I did because Greg was gratefully painting the trim on the outside of the house so I didn't think it was fair that he did that and fold the laundry). At some point I took a break from painting and I picked up my phone to check social media. But before I hit the button to take it out of sleep mode, I looked at the phone, wondered if I really needed to look at anything, and ended up putting it back on the counter where I had left it previously. Then I returned to my painting.

I am the first to admit that social media has played a huge part of taking my messages forward, particularly in my days working to help the suicide bereaved. I realize that if you lost someone to suicide today, you will have a drastically different experience than me because you can easily connect to people via the internet whereas it took me years to find other bereaved siblings. And now my messages have changed to sharing how I've moved forward through my losses by using my creativity, at least the visually creative aspects of my life (sewing, painting, cooking, etc).

However, I also know there is a line for me of what I choose to share, when I choose to share it, and how much time I spend looking at it.

While it might seem that what I create visually is how I spend the bulk of my time, the reality is that my writing is still what's most important to me. It obviously takes longer for me to share that so in the meantime (as I wrote about balancing goals last week), I share the visually creative items. I also found out in my early Facebook years that if I shared what I was writing, I never finished it.

I stopped talking about my writing because I realized it was something I have to keep to myself until it's completed. Most people in my daily circle of life don't know what I'm working on for the same reason. And yet there are many times I so badly want to share things but I know the time isn't right so I let it go (and probably post a photo of Lilly instead!).

When I went for my last spiritual direction visit with Fr. Gene, at the Norbertine Abbey here, one of things I told him was how I find that I'm not supposed to always share the journey that I'm on, that instead I'm supposed to wait until it's over when I can look back at the road and reflect more on it. It's only then that I can see what it is about my journey that would be most meaningful for others to read about.

And in that same vein, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about letter writing. One line stood out for me where the woman said that even though we seemingly share more of our lives by constantly posting on social media, we aren't really sharing of ourselves like we did writing letters.

Writing letters was one way that I honed my writing skills early and now I'm finding that as I've pulled back in sharing some aspects of my journey, they are instead finding places in my manuscripts. Once again, it's about balance and deciding what I should share now and what I should save for later, to be shared in another way as part of a bigger project.

Big goals, little goals, keeping them all in check

I don't talk about it much on social media but I spend part of each of my work days writing. That might be actually writing, revising, reading, researching, or some other aspect that goes into creating a novel. It all ebbs and flows based on what I need to do.

I have given myself this year (2018) to focus on not just Chelle Summer but also the writing part of me. However, writing isn't really something that transforms well into social media photos so most of what you see if related to the visual creative side to me, Chelle Summer.

Last week was a challenging week and I had a really hard time getting much accomplished. Now Greg will tell you that I do more before 7:00 am than most people do in a day but, to me, there is always more I want to do. Part of that stems from the losses in my life and the sense that none of us are promised anything, that life can change in many ways in an instant and we better make the most of the day ahead of us.

While last week I was able to keep up with things, meaning keeping the desk clean, email caught up on, and the house vacuumed, there wasn't much happening on the creative side. By the end of the week I was feeling a little depressed. Until I tried a new recipe for Rice Krispie treats on Thursday.

And when I did that, I was reminded that when you are working on big goals, the kind that might not manifest for a least months if not years, it's important to balance that with smaller goals, giving you a sense of accomplishment in the meantime.

So as I continue to mold manuscripts (yes, there is more than one) like a piece of clay, I sometimes need to remind myself that I also need to do smaller creative endeavors that move quickly and let me stand back and have that sense of accomplishment while I'm working on something bigger.

On Sunday I purposely chose two items that I knew I could finish in a day (a painting I had started and two pillows I was making) so that I could walk into a new week feeling that I was already on my way to a much more productive time.

It worked.

Questioning Faith

Recently I had my monthly spiritual direction visit with a priest here, Fr. Gene, and one of the things he happened to say was how he has come to understand questioning faith is part of the faith journey.

It took me a moment to absorb what he had said because it was the first time I could truly admit how much I doubted faith for so long.

Growing up, it was expected that we would go to CCD class, make our first communions, and then we could stop once we were confirmed. But I can now freely admit that all these years– and throughout high school after my confirmation– I doubted the existence of God. However, my mom had such steadfast faith that I never felt I could say I didn't believe. I knew I was expected to and kept it to myself.

It wasn't until my first relationship break up in college that I had to figure out where to lean for support and I started to attend church. Reflecting back, I now see that Mom set in place a coping mechanism for us by making us complete all our sacraments. Maybe I didn't need spirituality (my chosen word for it– I see religion as more meditative and choose to use the tradition aspect of it that way) then but it was there when I needed it.

And when my younger sister died two years later, I had a church community to fall back on because I was attending church fairly regularly at that point.

I believe that things unfold the way they do for a reason and that had I learned the lessons I wish had been taught to me (especially about letting go of my worries and giving them to God/the universe), my life journey wouldn't be where it's supposed to be today. A good example of it is writing this blog at this particular time. The whole idea probably never would have occurred to me had I never doubted my faith.

However, I also see that I was questioning my faith early in life when some people might be faced with the same questions later in their years. But as they were early for me, it's allowed me to explore and do other things I might not have been able to without the previous journey.

Our life journeys aren't interstate highways that often stretch for miles in what looks like a straight line (like through Western Oklahoma or any of the other Great Plains states!). Often we can't see where we are going which can be frustrating but that's the key part to trusting the journey.

I can't say that every day I am filled with complete faith but I understand the importance of trusting the journey, the universe, God. There is only so much I can do and life has taught me that by letting go of what I can't control and keeping my focus in the here and now and what's right in front of me, makes all the difference in the world to my outlook on life.

Balancing Social Media

Some years ago, I remember reading an article by Martha Stewart on how to manage the time one spends looking at email. Her suggestion was that you took certain times of day to look at it and stuck to those so it didn't interfere with other aspects of your life.

Obviously this was before smart phones and social media seemingly took over the time we spend engaged with the technology in our lives (and today most of my email is comprised of "commercials" rather than much that needs responding). 

However, it does still hold true with social media and because of the possible negative effects that social media can have on our mental health, it's even more important that we find a schedule that works best for us and stick to it as much as possible. 

While I seemingly have a big social media presence because of the work that I do– selling books and products I make– I don't spend as much time on social media as one might think. At some point in the last year when my job was turning to part time and I didn't have to be glued to my laptop or phone checking emails, I realized that also meant I needed to back off on the time I spent looking at social media. In my world, 2018 is my "year of creating" and if I'm keeping one eye on social media, it severely cuts into my creative time.

Because I've had much loss in my life and sometimes I get frustrated that professionally I am not totally where I'd like to be, I also found that I couldn't spend so much time looking at what other people were doing. It is much like what I learned from running competitively– it's you against the clock, not you against everyone else. I have to remind myself of that often so I stay focused on what I'm doing and not worry myself over what others have/are doing and I don't. (I know that I have a great life but the reality is that we can't have everything and I've had to make choices along the way as well as some choices that have been made for me and sometimes there is a little sadness that there isn't a place in my life for everything.)

In the mornings I post– and I do the social media for my church so some days there is an added step– and I'm a little more lenient with myself as I settle in catching up on a variety of things because I start writing or head out for errands (yes, estate sales, too). But by late morning I really try to limit my social media check in as little as possible and take as much time as I can through late afternoon to write, sew, and other creative pursuits. 

I also know that there are days where my brain turns off and it needs a water cooler break so in the evenings I might check in more often but I'm trying to do a better job of putting the phone down and instead picking up a magazine or book. And I remind myself that if I look at social media too much one day– as I wrote a few weeks ago regarding anything we set out to do and don't seemingly accomplish– I can always start over fresh the following day.

It's easy to let it take over our lives, however, like anything else there is a balance to it. For each of us that will be different and the key is finding what works for each of us. There are benefits to social media– I get to be in contact with people with whom otherwise I wouldn't be and it has helped me reach many suicide bereaved people as well as share what I create and find. 

The key is that I have to walk away to create more to have more to share. That's what I remind myself when I habitually pick up my phone in a quiet moment and then reach for a magazine or book instead.

The Building Blocks of Coping Skills

In the last week, I received several messages from friends who were in some way affected by a recent teen suicide and/or attempt. In November I spoke with a reporter The Naperville Sun– the very newspaper for which I wrote a column on good causes several years ago while I was living in my hometown for a short time.

I'm not going into specifics but there have been multiple suicides at my high school over the last year and much as been said about the concern that the students are feeling too much pressure to succeed and feel unable to live up to that.

In the article above (which was then reprinted in the Chicago Tribune a few days before Christmas) I gave my opinions as someone who grew up in Naperville and whose younger sister died in the same town. In my first book about sibling suicide I cited the environment as what I have always believed to be a factor in my sister's death: the pressure wasn't something she coped with well.

Denise and I were two very different beings, beyond the fact that I had blonde hair and she had brown hair (and that by the time I graduated from high school– which was the end of her freshman year– she also was taller than me). I won't say that I did well under pressure because all the pressure came from myself which is another story for another day. But I thrived in the busy environment of having multiple tasks to complete– school, running, writing and editing the school newspaper. I was involved with the activities that interested me and I believed were important to creating the life that I wanted to have.

But this isn't just about Naperville. Our suicide numbers are up. Way up. We have more resources, we have better medications, we have more crisis lines. And yet we are losing more people to suicide.

So once again I'm hopping back on my soap box.

There's a long list I could go down of which I still believe coping skills are missing from the diets of many young people. Couple that with social media and either a self-indulgence of oneself or the feeling of inferiority that one isn't good enough next to what others' lives appear to be. And don't forget to sprinkle in the lack of personal communication– texting has replaced actually sitting down and having a conversation with the people around us. 

My husband who is a high school teacher and coach and I had a conversation last week and he said, "It's not just coping skills but building on coping with challenging situations." 

Something challenging happens in our lives, especially early like maybe we fall off the bike before we finally actually are able to ride it successfully. Learning to do things and learning how to cope with disappointments (we didn't win the essay contest we thought we had surely nailed), help us the next time we are faced with something especially as they get seemingly bigger and more integral to our lives.

I have often said that high school running taught me much about how cope with disappointment. That pressure I put on myself that I mentioned earlier caused a lot of disappointment early in my life. Now that I'm older (and hopefully wiser) I can see how I have used those disappointments as building blocks to each experience I've been faced with since then. 

However, I should also add that my parents allowed me to make mistakes. They didn't run off to the school and fix everything. In fact, they fixed nothing. I would have been embarrassed if they went to the school to complain about a teacher or situation. That was up to me to figure out.

Finally, it's why my social media is filled with what I create, what inspires me, what makes me happy. Many days can be challenges for a variety of reasons (as I type this I have a bag of frozen popcorn resting a hurt knee– I haven't been able to run much in the past three weeks– one of my seemingly life-sustaining activities). 

As I said in the interview, life is hard but it's also great. We have many opportunities and we never know what's around the corner which is every reason why we should hold on for tomorrow. And we all have an obligation not to just to learn that for ourselves but to pass on what we've learned to others particularly people younger than us. That in turn gives us purpose. 

The Holistic Health Plan

From the outside, I know that my lifestyle looks like a lot of work. I am up at 4:30 each morning (although do sleep until about 4:45 on weekends– I know, it's very late compared to the rest of the week!) to run and run-walk my dogs. I do a five-minute morning prayer before I shower. I plan most of the meals in the house and make a concerted effort to make sure that we're eating enough vegetables and keeping it as balanced as possible. I go to mass nearly every weekend and spend an hour with a priest at a monastery here once a month for spiritual direction. And each day I try to spend some time doing something I enjoy even if it's just a short time reading. This morning I had my yearly physical and blood work done. I go to acupuncture with my Chinese doctor twice a month where she works to me balanced with a slew of needles, cupping, and burning moxa while I rest.

But there's a reason for it: three years ago I had a group of fibroids removed from my uterus, including one that was the size of a golf ball. It was at that time that I realized I needed to make changes in my life. Outwardly all looked well, especially because I was just a few months from getting married. But clearly something was wrong inside my body.

While I have been running since I was twelve, there were a series of life events that had taken a toll on me: my sister's suicide when I was 21, my parents' unexpected deaths (among other close losses in my life), and then my first marriage where my then-husband was hit by a drunk driver and suffered a head injury. While running– and also walking the dogs– helped me through that, I now see that it wasn't enough and that's when I believe the fibroids began to grow.

Instead, I thought the way to cope was to do more: remodel the house, add more dogs, add a pool, get a doctorate, write more books, educate the world on suicide and grief. None of that I regret, I just look back now and see it was all a way of coping. By moving forward, I could manage the drama that surrounded me and keep it from suffocating me. There was no way to completely emotional cope with the roller coaster of living with a brain-injured person and my body instead resorted to doing it physically.

Just taking care of one part of ourselves is a start but it's not enough. We are holistic beings– and if you were in Maz's health class at Naperville North High School I know you learned this well. Although I admit I neglected all but the physical for a long time– and if we want to be healthy we have to work at it.

Don't think I jump out of bed each morning because I don't (and Greg will attest to that). But I will be the first to admit I love to be out in the quiet darkness, looking up at the still-night sky which is often clear here in Albuquerque. It's there that I start my day in prayer, in gratefulness, as I ask for help to make the most of the daylight hours ahead of me. I learned a long time ago that a new day, as the sun comes up over the mountains, is the same as the chalkboard being wiped clean; I can start over again.

What looks like a lot isn't in the scheme of my life. It's nothing compared to what the alternative would be if I chose not to work so hard at staying healthy holistically. I wouldn't choose it any other way.

Starting Over and Over and Over....

There is no such thing that says we can't start over. More than once.

The new year has passed us by and my guess is that many people have left their resolutions in January, long forgotten, especially after attending a Super Bowl party last night. And next week Ash Wednesday pops up on the 14th, starting us on forty days of Lent, another opportunity to make change in our lives. So why not start over?

Every day I have certain goals I strive to achieve and, well, I don't always do a great job making them happen. There is the five-minute prayer that I often find myself distracted (I believe this will be better when I'm back outside sitting with my feet in the swimming pool and not near my laptop which makes it too easy to open my eyes and see who is texting me). But every day I strive to listen to the silence better because I know I'm missing a lot of messages by being so easily distracted.

One of my other goals is that no later than 11:00 am (if I'm not running errands, on a call, etc), I try to leave my laptop/ipad/phone and go work on sewing projects. Again, easier said that done because there are so many distractions. 

However, each day I tell myself I can try to do better tomorrow because I know that practice eventually does make perfect. After you've made over 100 handbags, you get to be pretty good at it. Trust me, this I know. My mom played piano and her words about practice often echo in my head. I know that if I keep at it, eventually I'll get there. Not every day has to be perfect either. By making an effort I see myself forging forward and the easier these new tasks become.

As I start over again.

When the Journey Isn't Clear

I have to laugh. I couldn't think of a topic for this week because my life is very quiet right now. I realize that isn't a bad thing but I'm a person who is used to many irons in the fire and running from place to place. I know this time is a gift to write and create– which is what I'm doing– but it seems like many times I have written over the years about what it's like to not feel as if the journey is completely clear.

I have been at many points in my life where I felt complete clarity of the journey but doing things like working on a degree or writing a book with someone else gives you smaller goals along the way because you're not on that journey alone.

This time is different though. After I finish this blog, I will go and write a few pages on a manuscript I've started and then I have a slew of aprons to finish that I had cut out some time ago. While a few of them are custom orders, most of them don't have "homes" yet (translation– they haven't been sold) and I don't know if any will when I post them later in the week. 

So it's a strange place to be– I am working hard, I am making things happen...but yet I don't know what the end result will be. However, I do believe I am on the right road, even if that road doesn't always feel so defined or that I'm following someone else's directions (like in the photo attached). 

Life usually isn't spelled out for us, especially when we choose undefined roads. And even though we aren't always sure how we'll get there, we know the journey will be worth it when we arrive.

Thanksgiving

Before my friend Bonnie died– just three weeks after my dad in January 2006– each time I would go to her house, she usually had something to share with me. She was in her late sixties when I moved across the street (although I got to know her better in the years after I had moved a few miles away) and I would often spend evenings with her sewing or working on some other crafty project. One time she had my first husband bring back nautical rope from a trip to Portland, Maine (he worked for a company based there) and she gessoed the yellow rope white and we made shell wreaths. That's the sort of things Bonnie liked to do.

Often she would have pages in marked in Martha Stewart's magazine for me look at or family items pulled out to share stories about her family or her husband Greg's family. 

The tablecloth above was given to me after she died by her daughter Sadie who wasn't into giving dinner parties and had no use for it. I'm not sure the last time it was used– or the matching napkins. Bonnie bought it in Middle East (most likely Saudi Arabia) during the time they lived there because Greg worked for an oil company. 

When Bonnie was dying of cancer, I spent as much time as I could with her and at some point she started to ask me which of her things I might like to have. Or she offered certain things she knew Sadie wouldn't want (sadly, Sadie– who has since died, too along with Greg and Bonnie's son Gordon)– had a prescription problem and just about everything Bonnie gave her was sold to pay for drugs, including many quilts that Bonnie had made. 

One afternoon as we sifted through fabric she asked me if I would like her dining room table. There was one reason for this, one thing I really wanted was a table that would fit twelve people around it. I have no idea who those twelve people would be, but I just liked the idea of having that many people around one table. 

It was never mentioned again because she died not long after that and I didn't bring it up because it wasn't my place to. I'm sure she never mentioned it to Sadie, simply because she was on a morphine drip and didn't always remember what we had discussed. The table got sold, but the tablecloth and napkins were given to me.

In the nearly eleven years I've had them, I've never used them. My current table doesn't fit that many people and with the many losses in my family, I haven't had reason to put that many people around the table. Any family events I had before my mom's death when I was living in Illinois were at her dining room table (now in the loving hands of my sister Karen) with a tablecloth of mine or Mom's. Bonnie's tablecloth always was pushed to the bottom of the drawer.

However, on Thanksgiving this week, I will gather the entire David and Delcia Rusk family at my dining room table (we'll be bumping my desk– which is my parents' kitchen table and a leaf for it) up to the dining room table. I'll cover it with Bonnie's tablecloth and we'll use the napkins that match it.

We'll top the tablecloth with Greg's and mine wedding china combined with Delcia's mother's china from Argentina. 

It feels more significant than ever to recognize Bonnie in my life. My mom was the one who instilled my creativity in me, always encouraging me to write/draw/create/sew, but it was Bonnie who took it to the next level teaching me so much more. As I continue to forge my lifestyle brand– Chelle Summer– forward, all that Bonnie taught me is going to yet another level.

Using her tablecloth is a way of saying thank you.