Peace in the Present

It’s so easy to get caught looking backward or forward, or a combination of both. Then when we wonder why we’re feeling bad– because we’re nostalgic for the past or wishing we were in the future where maybe things will be different. We don’t realize that our pain often comes from not rooting ourselves in the present.

I realize there are many people who believe the present is where their pain resides, however, we also have to remember that looking back we see things differently than they probably were and if we look forward, we’re looking toward things that haven’t happened yet and that can either be painful (our fear) or exhilarating (our hope for a better future). And so the vicious cycle begins– we look back, we look forward, and yet we don’t look around right where we’re at.

When I find myself anxious, maybe the worry that I missed a boat somewhere or the hope that I so badly want certain things to happen, I remind myself to stop and look around, to see where I’m at in that particular moment. That’s when I find a wave of peace and the anxiety retreats like an ocean wave.

It’s easy to look past what’s right there, the beauty of our surroundings or the people we’re with. Nothing is ever perfect, but we should always grasp the present moment. After all, soon it will be in the past, too.

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.

The Story Changes

I spoke at the high school where Greg teaches at two health classes a week ago. It had been some years since I’d spoken at a high school and I worried about how to tell the story of Denise's suicide, now thirty years in my rearview, to students who are fourteen/fifteen, two lifetimes for them removed from it happening.

But as I began to speak and weave parts of her story leading up to her death as well as the immediate aftermath for us, something struck me– how much the story has changed in those thirty years.

I first spoke at schools about three years after she had died, maybe less than that. Comparing it to having thirty years of happenings to share, I wondered how I filled the time previously. But I spoke in more detail about the events leading up to her death and the immediate aftermath. Those are the very things that I now weave into the story, more sidebars to other parts of what I share.

When I was living back in Naperville after my divorce and not long before I moved back to Albuquerque, my high school health teacher, Mazz, asked me to speak at his advanced health classes (there were two). Even then (now more than ten years ago), I worried what I could say that might inspire them.

After I finished speaking, a girl came up to me and told me how much she appreciated my story because they were all seniors getting ready to graduate and hearing all that I had been through made them see, “That no matter what we go through, we’ll be okay.”

I had been so focused on working through my challenges that I didn’t see how they could help others. Now it’s time to share how I made it happen.

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.

Building Blocks

Autobiographies have always been my thing. At the core of what motivates me, you’ll find it’s figuring out what inspires others. This was part of the basis behind writing my newest book, Route 66 Dreams– in searching through the depths of figuring out who I am, I wondered how I arrived at the place I’m at. More specifically, what has motivated me to get here and what motivates me to keep going?

Last week, I mentioned that between my arriving at a new decade and effects of the pandemic, I’m finding some of those motivations and inspirations have changed. I still feel like I’m standing in a hallway of doors that have closed and waiting on some to still open (a few have opened, a few have cracked open leaving me hopeful, but not always sure what’s coming). I know that it’s up to me to open to new inspirations and motivations, yet I am still aware that it can take time to see them or become aware of them.

There is something else, however, that I’ve always understood from my own life experiences and reading those of others– we often look at someone and say, “Wow, look at all they accomplished!” But we also often don’t look close enough to see the places in their lives where– and I don’t want to use the word “failed” but instead say “things didn’t work out as planned.” While we are motivated when good things happen (it’s almost a relief for me to feel the movement under my feet, like standing on a surfboard and finally hitting the wave just right to ride it to shore). Yet sometimes the bigger motivation for us is when things don’t work out, when bad things happen, when life changes course in a way that we didn’t want or embrace. Yet it’s the way that led us to something bigger, to seeing we were capable of much more than maybe we even dreamed.

We must take time the time– and energy!– to be reflective. Yes, there is pain in reaching back to some things, maybe some things we thought we had pushed the door closed on, and yet maybe there’s still something to learn from them before we push them closed for good.

I was out running one morning last week when it occurred to me that things had changed, that I was going to have to forge a new way forward. And yet in that searching, I realized that there is a little side road through my past I need to take. I’m not really sure why, but I do know it’s one that keeps lingering, like where old Route 66 runs alongside the interstate. I’m hopeful that taking this journey another time will be a huge step forward.

Harnessing Fear

It has taken me a long time to make friends with fear. And I admit there are some days that I really struggle with it.

I don’t know what has created the fears I have of a variety of things. I do know that somewhere I along my life path I had to learn to embrace it because it wasn’t going anywhere. Probably what helped me the most was running competitively because it was there that I had to learn to push myself. This didn’t always go so well, however, I can say that I learned so many of the skills that I parlayed into everything else I have accomplished.

After all, we need to skills that we build– much like building blocks– to get better, to learn, to move forward. We have to start somewhere and then we keep adding, the blocks getting higher, not making a hard wall to climb but making a wall of skills we can use.

The caveat in all this is that it’s so easy to let fear get the best of us. Believe me, I know this well. And it’s the disappointment– repeated many times– that finally taught me I didn’t want to feel that way again. But that also meant I had to teach myself how to overcome it.

Self talk, taking little steps, setting small goals, were all part of embracing fear. And reminding myself that if we break it down, fear is simply not knowing what’s going to happen.

While for multiple reasons I can’t surf at this point in my life (although I am hopeful I will be able to again), surfing taught me a lot about forging past fear. The first time I got on a surfboard was one of the most intimidating things had done. After all, me of all people surfing? But I did it. I was never very good at it but I kept trying, kept reminding myself to be respectful of Mother Nature or she’ll teach you a lesson (she taught me a significant one once when I allowed the wave to get between my surfboard and me and the board walloped me in the face).

Even though I can’t surf now, I use what surfing taught me to do other things in my life as I build Chelle Summer, as I write more books and market them, wanting people to read them and enjoy them. We all have fear, but the key is, how can we use it to help us go forward?

My Changing Orbit

This week I’ll begin to send our holiday cards, a rite of the season I enjoy and always have. My list has morphed and changed over the years as people have come in gone in my life, something I don’t like but I understand.

Growing up, I lived in a very transient corporate town where families tended to stay about five years and then the dads were transferred and the families moved on. Sometimes you kept in touch with people, sometimes you didn’t. And sometimes Facebook brought them back into your life (one of the positive things that social media has done).

But as someone who wrote about my sister’s suicide and traveled the world speaking about it, grief, and suicide prevention, I also have had quite a few people come and go from life. They needed to hear my words but sometimes they are ready to move on and unfriend me because they don’t need the reminder or my words or whatever it is I provided them. I have learned to accept that, that I am not always supposed to be part of the long journey of someone’s life.

This year, however, I am very aware of the many losses by death that are shrinking my Christmas card list. These people were usually older (none died from Covid) and if I didn’t have contact with their children, I often didn’t know about their deaths except through the obituaries (if they had one). Just a few days ago I found out someone I knew had died in August when her invitation to my Chelle Summer Holiday Preview was returned for lack of forwarding address. I somehow missed her obituary in August and, while she was 85 and we had a great conversation the spring, I am still sad that she has died.

I remind myself that she is happy– she is with her parents and her husband again. I know that when her husband died, she was sad but she told me she reminded herself that Corky was with God and that made her happy. I know that Sally is with God and she is happy.

Because the list is shrinking and I feel like a chunk of my life, particularly here in Albuquerque is gone (mostly relationships that hover around the time of my first marriage), I’m also grateful for the new friends I have made over the last year or so. The list is shrinking in one place but growing in another.

I also am reminded that there are stories for me to tell– that there was so much I learned and that these people taught me. My hope is that I can take that forward with me as my orbit morphs and changes and I try to go with it.

Setting Intentions

While I often don’t realize it at the time, in the rearview mirror after a significant event has happened in my life, I can see that I had set an intention. And that intention was fulfilled.

There are several of these that come immediately to mind– the first that I became aware of was when we had to pay for the second printing of my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. My first husband had helped me pour quite a bit of money into my suicide-related work and I didn’t think it was fair to ask him to do more. But I was $1,000 short and had no idea where it would come from.

A business-friend-acquaintance had asked me to attend a workshop held by Microsoft locally. It was something web related (this was circa 2004 and things were very different– web sites as we know them were still in their infancy). As the workshop went on, it turned out I was in the wrong place. I was supposed to be around the corner with the “users” while I had been in the workshop for the “resellers” which included my friend.

I didn’t realize this until later and just stayed and listened to a bunch of stuff that really made no sense to me. However, there was a raffle– there would be three prizes and the first person would get the first pick. One of those was a server worth almost $1,000.

Yes, you guessed it, I got picked first so what did I choose? The one thing I didn’t need but knew I could resell easily unopened on eBay. And there was my money.

This also happened with what I call my Australian dream. I had wanted to visit Australia since I was in fifth grade. Now I’ve been there three times. And somewhere along the line, my eyes opened to surfing. I didn’t really ever think I’d get on a board, but now I own a board.

When people say to me, “Well, I’ll never do that”– even though they clearly want to do it, I respond with, “You never know.”

Because I know. The intention is out there. You never know how and when it will be fulfilled. But somehow it happens.

The Patience of the Unknown

Fr. Josh, a priest I know, said once that he was praying to Mary because he needed help with patience and that was something obviously Mary knew well. It didn’t resonate with me at the time, but as I have found myself drawn closer to Our Lady of Guadalupe (essentially, the Mexican Mary) and on Thursday, December 12, I will celebrate my birthday on her feast day, I have awoken to what she is teaching me this year.

I have been writing recently that my job will end in late January and I’ve been busy trying to gain both traction and momentum as I await for new windows and doors to open. After all, I know well that if you want doors and windows to open, you need to work hard, too.

But in all of this, has been much frustration as I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels, taking more steps back than forward, and feeling a start-stop-start-stop with all that I do.

Then one day it occurred to me, maybe it was because yesterday is the celebrated Immaculate Conception, that Mary didn’t know why she was called on to be Jesus’s mother. And that’s when what Fr. Josh said to me several years ago about praying to Mary to learn patience better made sense.

I feel like I know what I’m supposed to be, to do. I feel that I am supposed to be more, to do bigger things. And yet here I stand with a gorge separating me from where I want to be. I ask and ask and ask to cross it (and I’ve recently decided that it’s a gulf and that maybe I should swim across it), but it’s still start-stop-start-stop.

Every year this time I feel closer to Guadalupe, I feel a stronger sense of meaning on my birthday, that the day is more than, well, my birthday. It’s a day– and time– that Guadalupe comes closer and brings me messages for the journey, while we also are in the thick of the waiting and magic of Advent.

Patience. The unknown. All the things I hate. And yet Guadalupe is saying, “It’s coming. I’m with you. Keep walking with me. This journey will make sense and you’ll get across that gulf. But not on your schedule. On God’s, on mine.”

Stay the course, I often tell myself, just as we did particularly when running cross country. Stay the course. It will come, it will happen. Patience. The lesson has to be learned first.

Taking a Step Back

I am easily irritated by many things, especially when they seemingly get in the way of my list of items I want to complete in one day. Don’t get in the way of my grocery cart and make sure you use your turn signal if you’re going to cut me off in traffic.

But I have learned to take a step back when what feels like continued derailment of my day is wreaking havoc with everything I want to accomplish. I have also learned to take a step back when someone irritates me. Or when people in my life react in unexpected negative ways.

While I might not like it, there is always a reason that things are unfolding the way that they are. I might not understand it now, or even in the next ten years, but I believe at some point I will get it when I reflect back in the rearview mirror.

Thinking that way has made it easier for me to cope with many situations and also to remember that we’re all navigating something in life and not to take it out on others (well, except when you blatantly cut me off in traffic and I’m driving faster than you– but maybe we’ll address that another day– I usually try to move on by turning up the radio and singing along with an eighties station).

I also have learned that somehow the list gets completed. Maybe not on my schedule but clearly someone else’s– let me poke the sky at the universe for that one.

In the meantime, often the best we can do is roll along and remember that a step backward is really several steps forward in own growth. There is much we can’t control in our lives, except our on reactions. That’s where taking a step backward matters the most because eventually– by doing that– we’ll be taking two steps forward instead of anything backward at all.

Keeping the Dream Alive

I have this memory of my sister Denise. I’m not exactly sure where we were, somewhere in Florida, and we’re playing in the waves. I was in high school and she was in junior high. I remember us laughing and the sense of feeling free that we had, a trip Mom had taken us on when she worked for Midway Airlines.

On this past Friday morning while I was out running, I missed Denise. But as I thought about it more, I realized what I missed is not being able to share Chelle Summer with her because so much of what she and I did together– drawing, making houses and clothes for a our Barbies– and the late 1970s into early 1980s and the styles of that time– form the nucleus of Chelle Summer.

And then I remembered that she is with me. We can’t have a conversation, which is what I felt I wanted when i was thinking about her, but she is still part of this journey. I just wished I could share with her the influence our time together has on what I’m doing today– share it in a way where we have a two-way conversation.

Then I began to think how there probably would be no Chelle Summer if she were here. I probably would be a sports journalist or something similar. While I will never truly know, I’m not sure I would have tapped into our style and fashion history to build Chelle Summer.

The reality is that I can’t bring her back and because of that I’ve tried to embrace the journey as much as possible. This has become more prevalent to me in each passing year and the more I embrace it, the more creative I’ve become. So in a sense Denise is responding by helping me choose what I create.

And that’s enough for me, even on days when I doubt everything, that I am keeping the dream alive. And I won’t give up until I get where I want to be.

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.

Resting in Prayer

I will be the first to admit that I live a fairly hurried life, much to my own choice. However, what many people don’t realize is that I pray twice a day and it’s during that time– especially during my second prayer– that not only do I rest, but so do my requests for my life.

I have written before that my first prayer takes place on my run with Lilly around 5:00 am every day. That time is set aside mostly to say thank you for everything that happened the previous day and throw out any requests as well. It also helps the run go faster by keeping my thoughts centered.

Then after the dogs have been fed, but before my shower, I sit with a lit candle for five minutes and that prayer is devoted to throwing out my requests. In the colder months, I do this at my desk, however, in the summer, I let my feet rest after my workout on the top step of the swimming pool.

Not only are my feet resting in the cold water, but so are my thoughts, my requests, my hopes. And I am getting a rest before I venture into the rest of my day.

I’m not perfect at prayer– I will be the first to admit that I am easily distractible– but it’s a consistent effort on my part to rest and let go of what who and what I want to be. Plus those five minutes allow me to center myself for the day ahead. Resting in prayer helps me recharge and reminds me what’s important and not get caught up in drama or negative thoughts.

I am more productive– and happier– because I take the time for this rest.

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.

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.

The Push and Pull of Letting Go

Letting go is one of my biggest challenges (along with being patient!). It's not just that I want things to happen, it's also that I'm willing to work to make them happen. And yet much of the time it's not on my schedule. I'm a doer, I'm not a person to step back and let things unfold in front of me. I try to do as much as I can to make the unfolding happen.

But reality (yep, there's that again) is that there is much that can't happen if I don't let it go. If I keep something at the forefront of my mind, if I continually thing about it, what I'm doing is holding it back because I can't let it go.

I don't want to let it go because that means– gasp!– I'm giving the control away. However, I can't count the number of times that I've forced myself to stop thinking about something, stop asking for it. And the minute I turn around, my mind and work elsewhere, it reappears.

When something we want- especially to accomplish- feels as if it's stagnant, somewhere we need to balance how much we work on it and the letting go of the rest. There is only so much I can do, and accepting that is hard for me because I want certain things (particularly in my professional life) to happen. But life is also about balance, especially balancing working hard and letting go of the rest. 

And the day I master that? I won't be the only one watching it unfold. Until then, back to balancing I go.

The Authentic Life

I sometimes forget what a challenge it is for people to live an authentic life. And when I say that, I mean to live the life they believe they are supposed to live. It's something I strive for daily and I think that because I've worked so hard to make it happen– while not completely as I do have a full-time job and I'm not yet devoting my entire days to my writing and Chelle Summer– that I forget how much work it's taken to get where I am. And I believe that in my future I will be working full-time for myself; it's what I strive for daily.

I also had forgotten about this photo– one of a series that Lois Bloom had taken for me, I believe not long after I'd gotten my surfboard. We were talking not long ago and I don't remember the rest of the conversation but I did say to her, "You know you were the reason that I realized I could own a surfboard and make it part of my life."

It was all because after she and Sam picked me up from LAX when I flew in from Chicago (where I was living at the time) to speak at a conference, I told them that a friend had asked if I was going to surf on the trip. I said no, that I didn't have a board, nor had I brought a swimsuit. 

"Why not?" Lois asked, turning her head to the backseat where I was sitting in the car. "You can rent a board. You can buy a swimsuit."

She was right– I did all of the above, spending the next few days on a rented board after taking (yet another) surfing lesson. And from there I bought my own board. 

While my shoulder has kept me off my board for about a year now, surfing is part of my life. I worked to carve it in just a I started to carve in time to write early in the morning. And I've carved in time to working on my sewing projects and building my Chelle Summer brand. 

I watch less television, I go to bed earlier so I can get up earlier, but I've made time for what makes me happy. It's the first step to living an authentic life: just like being taught to brush your teeth means that eventually (hopefully!) it become part of your daily routine, so is making time for what makes me happy. I long incorporated running into my life and I often say it's as much as part of my routine as brushing my teeth. But teaching myself that also has helped me figure out how to add in writing and creating to my daily routine, too.

I know that none of us are promised anything. We have this moment now and we don't know what's ahead. And while we can't always control some of the responsibilities we have, we still have the opportunity find some time for ourselves because by doing that, we're creating our own authentic life.

A Short Time on My Soapbox

I spent the latter part of last week at the American Association of Suicidology conference in Phoenix, my first conference since I handed the presidential gavel off to Bill Schmitz four years ago. I try to fill my days with creating, whether it be through writing, sewing, or other like projects. However, in the recent weeks between multiple suicides at my high school and the uproar of the Netflix television series, "13 Reasons Why," I've tried to stay out of any discussions, believing my time is best spent continuing to throw inspiration out there rather than sitting here typing opinions.

However, I found my soapbox and today I'm offering a little bit of my perspective before I put the soapbox away again.

I haven't seen "13 Reasons Why" and nor do I plan to watch it or read the book. Instead, I'm offering my thoughts about what I believe is missing in our culture– a message that hasn't changed in the four years since I became a past president of the American Association of Suicidology.

We've spent a lot of time and energy looking into why people kill themselves. Yes, it's important, absolutely, but in that same time we still know much less about how people cope and how we can help them cope when they think that the only way to end their pain is to end their lives. What I have learned from the twenty-some years since my sister ended her life and I was forced to face intense grief for the first time in my life, is that no one grieves the same. I also believe that to be true when we are faced with challenges in our lives: we're all going to work toward finding hope in different ways because we are, well, different people. 

What I do believe is that we can do is help people find the start of the hopeful journeys. Give them ideas, help them begin to learn coping skills so that when life hands then a challenge, they know at least how to find hope. It might not feel like hope is there, but it is. Often it's just that the light is so dim we can't see it. We should allow them to express their pain, let them know that we know they are hurting. But then we should help lead them toward the light, even slowly.

We are all faced with challenges and difficulties, some of us seemingly more than others, but learning from them and using them as springboards for growth is what makes us stronger and helps us to someday look back at the road behind us, hands on our hips, and know that we have come a long way. And then continue forward on the road.