Breaking the Loop

The loop. We all have at least one– maybe more than one, maybe more than we want to count. The loops that repeat in our heads over and over about how we feel about ourselves, about something we regret we did or said, how we think others see us. They can be endless while sending us into a downward spiral that paralyzes us.

Yes, those loops.

Those are the kind of loops that are meant to be broken. They don’t do us any good so why do we hang onto them other than we’re just so accustomed to them that they are a habit, the kind of habit that needs to be broken.

It takes a little work– I won’t deny it, I’ve spent years cutting my loops and throwing them in the Wednesday trash pick up. But once you learn how to break the loops, you become more aware of them and can stop them before they paralyze you.

The key is finding a way that works for you to stop them so you can break them. In fact, the universe might be trying to break them for you and you just don’t realize it (that phone call or text message that comes through while you’re looping? It’s probably there to help get you out of your head).

For me, I’ve learned to distract myself from the loop. The loop is negative and I know it, but I also know how hard it is to stop myself from the negative fearful thinking that ruled so much of my life. If I’m looping. I force myself to think of something happy and that means switching my mind to thinking about whatever writing project I’m working on or something that I’m sewing. Maybe even a drawing/painting that I’m not quite sure how to get onto paper.

This happened recently– I caught myself in the loop and then moved my thinking to what I was going to write the next day in the latest novel I’m writing. What would happen next in the story? What pieces was I missing? Where was I stuck that I need help to change or make happen?

I found that I instantly felt better and the loop had been thrown in the trash. Sure, the loops keeps trying to come back, pesky things that they are, but I keep breaking them. And the best part? It’s actually forcing me to spend more of my mind and time being creative. I've come to realize how much time I’ve wasted thinking about things that don’t deserve the loop.

Knowing Myself

I’m sure it’s no surprise that that’s me in the photo above. My mom hung this photo in our hall– she had every reason to be proud of it, not because I was in it but because of sunshine she caught bouncing off the water. And the bright colors I’m wearing. That’s me, still today.

When I look at this photo I’m reminded how well I know myself. And how important that is for continuing to forge forward in my life- and navigate all the challenges that come with forging forward.

I don’t like the pandemic. In fact, I hate the pandemic for a lot of reasons as we all do. But I still believe that we’ve been given an opportunity to make positive changes in our lives. The hard part is many people aren’t sure how to do that, especially where to start.

So let me help you.

Start asking yourself questions– Who am I? What do I want from life?

You might not have answers to either of these right away and that’s okay. Remember, sustainable change, the kind that lasts, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long, slow road. But it’s worth to stay on it.

Ask those questions as you’re driving, cutting vegetables for dinner. Write them down in a notebook and then jot down answers as they come. You don’t need to write in sentences and things might not make sense right now. That’s okay!

First you need to throw it out to the universe so the universe can throw the responses back to you.

And listen.

You never know where the answers might come from, but the more you ask and the more you work at listening, you’ll find they are right there in front of you waiting for you to acknowledge them.

Keep Looking Up– and Ahead

This is how this morning felt– like there was an endless staircase, only going up, ahead of me. I didn’t really want to run or swim or tackle the long list that awaits me. It’s January and, while I continue to step forward in my life, it’s a lot of work to keep my feet going forward rather than stopping when it feels like this month could be more endless than usual (why can’t it be 28 days like February?).

The losses keep coming– so many deaths, not many from COVID in my life, but from other causes or people who are, well, old and it’s their time to move on. I have the sense that many people aren’t supposed to travel with us in our different world.

We have all changed. The world has changed. I heard a quote yesterday that said, “We have to figure out how to stitch our past to our future.” We have to weave them together without many loved ones, without familiar routines that we miss, and the pieces of our lives we thought would always be there for us. While this virus feels endless, it will end, but everything will not be the same.

We have to find how to make it with this “new” world and “new” life. We need to find our happiness in new things while we’re still grieving all that we have lost. Obviously, seeing how people are struggling to cope, this isn’t an easy task. However, our focus should be on making do with the new rather than continuing to look back at what was and what won’t be again.

We all have choices. We can stay where we are, stuck and unhappy. Or we can grin and bear the discomfort and find a new path ahead of us. What we can’t always see is how great a new path can be. But we must take those first steps to find out.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

While I didn’t get to to mention it yesterday on social media, my birthday is really about the Feast Day for Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I had some birthdays along the way that were awful for a variety of reasons. I wasn’t aware of the significance of Guadalupe until I came to New Mexico and slowly found her becoming part of my life. When I’m at church– even in another town or state where there might be a Guadalupe statue (because I travel mostly between New Mexico and California where she is part of the culture), I will light a candle and say a prayer to her.

I always ask her to guide and lead me, to help me with my writing, and to make sure I do the things I’m supposed to do. I believe life has larger, more significant things for me to do and I don’t want to miss them.

The inspiration is coming fast and furious and I’m holding on during the holidays, hoping I can harness it when everything quiets down in January. I’m starting to realize that it’s like Guadalupe is constantly whispering in my ears ideas and bringing me inspiration.

Yesterday, however, the day that we share, was about honoring the last year, the prayers, the inspirations, the accomplishments. While I continue to be inspired, it is important to take that day, that step back, and acknowledge all that’s happened. With her in my life, my birthday has become a more meaningful and spiritual day.

I did that with mass in the morning and a small dinner party with some of the more spiritual people in my life, especially Veronica who is from Mexico and knows more about Guadalupe than I ever will.

Thank you, Guadalupe. I look forward to what we’ll do in the year ahead with you continuing to lead me.

The Ember of Hope

As I approach the 28th anniversary of my sister Denise's suicide later this month, I debated what message I would want to convey. I didn't know right up until Greg hit play on the video recording, but here it is, very reflective of where my journey is today.

The Path Forward

In the last ten days, five of my friends have lost a parent, two of them were moms that I had known a long time because the friends have been in my life since I moved to Albuquerque in 1994. And three of those friends have now lost both of their parents, a club that I none of us wants to join, but it’s inevitable that we will. We just hope it will be later than sooner.

While all our journeys are unique because our relationships with family and all the people in our lives are as unique as we are, I know that for some there is peace a parent is out of pain (emotional and/or physical). And for everyone, this is a gaping hole in their lives. For most of us, even if we didn’t have perfect relationships with our parent (really, who does? A parent’s job is not to turn us into a mini version of them, but to help us forge a path for each of us to be the unique person and have the life we are supposed to be– but that usually comes into odds with so much of who they are), typically there is no one in our lives who loved us as much as they did. I don’t know that I fully understood this until after my parents died, particularly my mom.

After the loss of a parent, we are faced with the reality that there will be no new memories nor anyone to share the past with. I often want to ask questions, wondering about things I didn’t think about until it was too late. We are, for good and bad, who we are because of them.

There has been much loss and pain during this pandemic. I know that mine started with Hattie’s death just a week before the first shutdown. It’s been a continued spiral of realizing that there is much I can’t hang onto as the world spins forward. If I choose not to spin with it, I will end up stuck and that will be more painful that letting go and letting it take me with it.

As I was swimming early Friday morning, thinking of another set of friends where the husband just found out he has terminal cancer and some other changes in not just my life, but in all our lives, I realized that somehow I will have to find a way forward. I will have to let go of so much. Maxine was the mom I used to see my at pool parties (mom of my friend Jim whom I have known forever and whom introduced Greg and I), usually finding her in the kitchen near the end doing the dishes and shooing me back outside to my guests. I am sad because I didn’t get to see her all last summer since we couldn’t gather. I feel like I was denied something, the very something I worried about when the pandemic started– the deaths of people in my life whom I wouldn’t get to spend time with before they died (I’ll also add that none of these deaths was virus related).

But I have no choice if I want to forge forward in my life, the very thing I write and speak about here. There is so much luggage that we’re still letting go, leaving a baggage claim or some getting lost because it’s not supposed to go on the next leg of the trip with us.

It’s okay to mourn what we’ve lost. However, somewhere in there we still need to go forward, to remember the good that we had, to be grateful for it, and then let it go because its path forward isn’t the same as ours.

Our Stories

A day soon to come will mark nineteen years since my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling, was published. As I reflect on this journey, what I instantly see– my thoughts also prodded by watching Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” discussion with Dana Carvey about how a comedian can’t just get up and make people laugh anymore, it’s about who the comedian is now, too– I’m thinking about the nineteen years I’ve spent sharing much of my life story. And this has also changed with the addition of social media.

While it might see like I have shared all of my life, I haven’t. There are aspects that remain not under wraps, but perhaps their time to be shared isn’t yet. Some of that is because other people are involved and there is too much pain for them to share. But there also is a portion of my life that I don’t share because I don’t quite understand it. Instead, some of it I work out to some extent in my fiction writing that I work on five days a week. The rest I leave alone, trusting that one day I will share when I do understand it. Or maybe not.

Growing up with my need to be a writer, I never saw that I would be sharing my story in such a close personal way. However, Denise’s suicide changed everything for my family and it was Mom, whose words echo in my mind, said, “Tell everyone and anyone. Maybe we can help someone with her story.” I always joked that I’m sure she didn’t think I’d write a book about it, but it did give us all (I believe) some meaning to our loss as we did help others through it.

But as life has continued to forge forward, I continue to share what I believe is helpful for others, while leaving the rest of it until I understand it. I sometimes feel like I need to see it in the rearview mirror, when I have past it, to understand it in a way that I can share with others. For some people, I know they might think that I should share as I’m going through it as it might make me more relatable, but something tells me that I need to understand it before I share it. That’s the message I’ve continued to recieve particularly in recent years as it’s become less about sharing the story of my sisters suicide and more about what I have done with my life and how she remains in my life now.

I don’t believe that everyone has to tell their story. When it comes to grief, loss, and life, we must all travel our own journeys. While I’ve always been a person who wanted to know what motivated people, I understand that sometimes people are protective of their stories. After all, it’s all we really have. For that reason, we should respect those who choose not to share.

However, in my life, which I realize isn’t the same as everyone else’s, there is an intersection of my life journey and what happens to me and how I can share that to inspire others.

Kate Spade: The Initial Inspiration for Chelle Summer

Quite honestly, I'm not sure where to begin. Two of my worlds collided today with the suicide of Kate Spade.

What most people don't know is that I stopped buying Kate Spade products partly because she had sold the brand and each time Greg and I went into one of the stores on a trip, we agreed that things didn't look new and inviting.

However, there was a bigger reason than that: I had started to create my own brand, Chelle Summer. Initially I had wanted to call Chelle summer "Michelle L." and when the lawyers came back and told me that Fossil owned "Michele" with one L, they were clear that I could never win against such a large company. I was so disappointed that I had to come up with a new name but at some point I thought of Kate and how awkward it must have been (even though she had chosen to sell it) to see a brand with her name on it while she might not have always liked what the new brand had to offer. Chelle Summer was born and I quickly realized it was a better name than Michelle L., while also allowing somewhat of a separation from my own name.

When I look back on the time when I purchased my first Kate bag (in this photo), I was facing many challenges of my own trying to move forward after a divorce and two moves across the country. What I didn't see then was that in looking at what the brand offered and her style of which I had been aware of for so long (but couldn't afford to buy), I was slowly realizing what I would want my own brand to be. Kate was the initial inspiration for Chelle Summer (with Trina Turk taking the lead later). Kate made me feel that I didn't have to settle for what I saw in the marketplace, that I could create my own items and I also could choose to wear bold prints and colors.

I obviously don't know what led her to take her own life, but with vast experience in suicide over the past twenty-five years I know that there is never just one answer. It was probably a combination of events and thoughts that made her believe ending her life was her only way to find peace. The irony of this is that early this morning on my walk as I was contemplating my own life journey that's following my surgery this past Friday, I realized that for a period of time I'm not going to find peace as much as I would like to. I'm working to embrace some challenges ahead of me (mostly writing related) to fulfill the prayer to God that I've been asking to help me go forward and be the person I'm supposed to be.

I also understand how as a creative person it can be challenging because you're in your own world where sometimes you can think too much. It's why I work hard to balance my life of running/walking early in the mornings where I have several people that I chat with and why I host so many pool and dinner parties. Those keep me balanced while also allowing me to have that time create and be alone in my thoughts.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around her suicide. That's the honest answer. But I also know that life is hard and overwhelming at times. That's also one of the one reasons I post so many blogs and photos about moving forward. I see it that if I have something in my life that helps me go forward, maybe it can help someone else, too.

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.

Forgiveness and Sending Love

One disappointment we often face in life is the reality that some people we feel close to or cherish aren't supposed to remain in our lives. There are a variety of reasons why it happens but the reality is that it doesn't matter. What does matter is how you move forward without the people with whom you believed you were supposed to travel with through life. If it feels painful to think about them, then send them love.

Yes, that's exactly what I wrote– you saw right. Send them love.

That may feel counterintuitive when you feel so much pain (after all, it is a loss to your life) but you'll be surprised at how much better you feel because you sent them love. 

And if this is someone who hurt you– yet you can't seem to let go of them despite all that hurt they caused– sending love is better than hanging on by continuing to contact them when they don't want to talk to you. Or when they cause you pain each time time you talk to them. 

Finally, sending them love doesn't mean you forgive them for how they treated you or ended a relationship or whatever the story may be. Forgiveness is about freeing our own hearts to move forward. We don't control what others do, just what we do.

So next time thinking of someone brings you pain, no matter what the reasons are for that, send them love. And free yourself to move forward. 

The Rearview Mirror: Twenty-Five Years Later

I wasn't going to write about the twenty-fifth anniversary of my sister Denise's suicide (which was Sunday) mostly because I don't feel the need to acknowledge it. But a funny thing happened yesterday and it made me realize that passing the anniversary of her death is so much like much of what else I experience in life: I'm not supposed to write or talk about while I'm going through something but rather after it happens. The writing and sharing for me comes at a different point of the journey rather than in the midst of it. 

While there is always much anticipation with the anniversary of a death, I wasn't feeling that at all. All I could think was how I couldn't believe twenty-five years have gone by. I know a lot has happened, it just doesn't feel possible that we have reached such a milestone. And it is a milestone because I realize many people out there who have experienced a suicide, especially recently, are thinking, "Will I ever get there? My pain feels so unbearable right now I can barely think about the next minute."

And that's where this post comes from because yesterday morning I got up and went for a run with my dog Lilly and it wasn't until about halfway through it that I remembered what day it was. As Lilly and I kept running (up a large, imposing hill, I might add), I also realized that Denise's suicide is separated from the life she lived. While there was a time when her suicide was at the forefront of my mind or even my thoughts of her, it's no longer there because when I think of Denise, I think of everything we shared together. And those shared life experiences are where I focus my life today: writing, creating, sewing. 

Then during my run, I heard one of three songs that I believe Denise sends to me– "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash. Laugh all you want but this one brings back happy memories of roller skating in the basement of our house on cold, snowy Midwestern days when we couldn't do it outside. Instead, we'd skate circles upon circles across the concrete floor while listening to the radio.

Sunday was a good day, I got a lot done, there were some good basketball games from the NCAA Tournament playing in the background. And somewhere along the line a mantra stuck in my mind:

"Keep writing and you'll get where you want to go."

A message from my sister on the anniversary of the day she might have ended her life, but on a day that reminds me how meaningful she was and still remains to my life. And how much hope I have for the future.

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.

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.

Turning the Holidays Around to about Others

My mom worked hard to make sure we had great birthdays. While they were nothing compared to the over-the-top parties I see parents do for their children now, she invested a lot of time in making big signs that she hung in the kitchen and coordinating our birthday parties.

But what she couldn't control were the emotions of my dad whose unhappiness in life constantly enveloped our house and often ruined Thanksgiving because they would have an argument about something. And there were extended family get togethers on my mom's side where too much drinking too place. You know how it ends– even if you've never experienced one yourself, you've heard the stories from others. Everyone gets mad at everyone else. 

When I was married the first time, my then mother-in-law, visiting from Texas, once got up and left the dinner table right smack in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, my then father-in-law running after her out the door. To this day, I don't think we know what made her mad.

So holidays haven't always been the happiest occasions for me. Until I figured out how to make them about other people.

When Greg's entire family (all nine!) decided they wanted to spend Thanksgiving in Albuquerque with us this year, I was happy to cook because it meant I could create something for others and enjoy that process. I'll admit I was tired by the time ten days ended and the last of the family returned to the east coast. However, it was an uneventful holiday– there was no drama and everyone enjoyed the company of each other. What more could you ask for?

When my birthday rolls around next week, it'll be the same. I'll go to 12:10 pm mass to celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe and then Greg and I will gather with a group of friends at a restaurant for dinner (tacos for all!) to celebrate not just my birthday but Guadalupe's feast day. 

I don't have the expectations I used to have of my birthdays and holidays. I try to think of something fun to do, something that will make me happy while in some way giving to others.

And that makes them happy and memorable days for us all.

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.

Longing and Gratitude

On Friday morning, shortly before 8:00 am, I was driving toward the mountains to Four Hills, for an estate sale. If you've read my book, The Green Dress, that's the area of Albuquerque (although not called that in the book) where Sally's house was. 

While I don't feel sadness now for the deaths of my parents and my sister, I do sometimes just simply miss having them here on earth. As I was driving I was thinking about them and I looked to my left where the Sandia Mountains sat, looking a bit hazy in the early morning sun. As my car took me towards the mountains, I could see the rocks that make up their jutted mass on the eastern edge of the city.

And it was in that moment that I began to feel grateful to see such a cool sight, a beautiful sight, of nature. The longing quickly passed and I found myself lifted up in that moment. There was nothing to be sad about. I quickly remembered that my parents and my sister are still with me, all is well, there is nothing to long for.

Once again, a little gratitude topples any any emotions that might hold us back from truly being in the moment. Where we should be. 

Be Fearless

While I don't know why, I have let fear drive much of my life. I can see it when I travel back on my memories of various events. In particular it cost me being a better runner and it was after high school that I vowed I wouldn't ever let fear hold me back again.

But I know that I have still done it and now as I undergo a change in my work situation, I'm finding myself remembering how often I have worried about various things and how I worried endlessly only for them to work out. And then I've wondered why I put so much energy into worrying. 

Why do we worry so much? Is this a life lesson we're supposed to learn? For me, I believe it's more about learning to trust, to have faith, to know that I don't have to soak up my energy into fear. Instead I need to be fearless.

I know that life is short, it's something that drives me daily to make the most of each day. The less the fear we have, the more authentic lives we are living.

Don't wait. Don't let fear hold you back. Be fearless and make whatever it is you want happen. That's exactly what I'm doing.

What keeps you going?

When I was a senior in high school, I remember going through a challenging period that spring. Without looking back into the extensive journals I wrote, what I can best recall is that I was a little worn out on the routine. There was a long day of school and homework and then track practice. And while I was learning how to set goals, work toward them, and accomplish them, it felt a little monotonous.

I remember feeling attached to a television show called "Island Sun" (Hey, I can hear those snickers from here!). It starred Richard Chamberlain as a doctor in Hawaii and I believe he had a son. I couldn't tell you anything else about the show except that those were the days when we had to wait another week to see what happened next. There was no bingeing on anything like we take for granted now.

My wise track coach Marty Bee told me that if that was the thing that kept me going, that was okay. And since then I have always asked myself that during times when I feel depressed, bored, or challenged in some way. There must be something small that keeps us going and we can use that to propel us forward until life starts to feel more hopeful or happy or peaceful (whatever it is we believe we are lacking).

I have always said that I believe we all have an ember of hope burning inside of us. Unfortunately, many times that ember doesn't seem to be burning because of the constant barrage of life events we are faced with. But in times of challenge we should always take a step back and look around us. There is always something we can see or think of that keeps us going. Symbols of hope– that's what I called them when I doing talks about moving forward through grief.

What are your symbols of hope? I asked people. We often forget that it's the little things in life, the sunshine, the change of seasons, the time we spend with people, that keep us going. Sometimes we get caught up in the challenges and difficulties and forget what's right in front of us. 

And once we let go of our challenges and focus on whatever is keeping our ember burning, we realize how much better we feel. And hopeful. We can feel the ember burning brighter.

Positive Thoughts Only

There is a reason I post very little that's negative here on my blog or on social media. It's not about anyone else, but about me and how I realized the negative posts made me feel. 

Some years ago I had a run-in over a payment with the group that handled our health insurance. It was during my first marriage and my then-husband was a sales rep and owned his own sales organization. That meant we didn't qualify for other insurance providers at the time, but there was a state health alliance where we could get insurance and something happened with a payment and to say I was mad was an understatement (I don't remember all the details– testament to how much I try to let go of negativity so it doesn't simmer and boil over). It was during the early days of Facebook and I posted my anger there. 

It didn't take long for me to realize that I actually felt worse by sharing it. Usually we think that by sharing something, we can let go of it. Not always. I felt worse and I realized it wasn't what I wanted to put "out there." 

My life is far from perfect, but I choose to share what I believe are the most interesting aspects of my life: what I create, the fun things I do, enjoying being with my dogs, what it is that makes me happy. We all have good days and bad days and I found that by sharing what makes me feel good, I actually feel better. I might start a day feeling awful because I didn't sleep well (a normal occurrence for the bulk of my life), but by posting a positive message, I feel better.

It's the same when I am feeling tired, but need to run errands. Interacting with people, talking about the weather, just being connected gives me energy I might lack if I had stayed at home trying to keep myself interested in what I need to do.

Many times I've also found that after I've been through a challenge, that I share it here and talk about how I worked through it. I usually don't need to share what I'm going through, however, at some point I might post what it was and how I managed the challenge. That I also believe can be helpful to others.

We all have reasons for what we choose to post and for me it's about helping myself keep focused, inspired, and motivated. I do that with positive thoughts. And positive postings. And know that they can inspire others to be positive and feel hopeful and happy, too.