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.

Time vs. Process

We’ve all heard it– time heals all wounds.

If only it were true.

In all years my speaking with people after loss, particularly suicide loss, there have been those who had lost a loved one long before I had and their pain was much greater than mine. If it were true that time heals all wounds, they would have been leaps and bounds ahead of me. Instead, often they had been told to stuff their grief (mostly because it was suicide) into the back of the cabinet and move on.

Watching that pain was an integral reason why I worked so hard to process the loss of my sister, my parents, of my divorce, and the countless other losses that have happened in my life. When people ask how I was able to meet Greg and marry him and have such a good marriage, I tell them it’s because I did the work.

I trudged through the incoming surf and darkness like in the photo of the temple in Bali above. It wasn't pleasant ever and I hated every stupid minute of it, but I knew that if I wanted to go forward, it was what I had to do.

The processing road is rocky, but if you choose to stand still and simply look at it, things might get better for a time, but they’ll come back and eat away at you in a bigger, more painful way. It’s better to push yourself forward. You’ll find that sunshine, you’ll find the rainbow.

You’ll find the happiness. I know because I was there and I found it myself.

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.

Finding Balance

I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. I have this sense that some days I feel pretty good, like I can move through the day and my tasks with ease, but other days I find things to be a bit more of a struggle. Then it occurred to me that it’s because my stamina for being out in the world, for being social, for being out of my head, for not having so much time to be creative (which means in my head!), is not there. I did quite have quite a lot of human engagement in the height of the pandemic thanks to my outdoor activities (my block, my neighborhood community that I would see on my runs), but what I didn’t have were the social activities and as those have increased (thank goodness!), it feels like running a race and building my strength back up.

I am grateful that things are moving forward, that people want to spend time with me, to talk to me. But I’m also finding I need to find balance in that time “in the world” with the time “in my head.”

There is no past to return to– everything has changed– and in that change, I also turned a new decade. I am learning that I can’t say, “Oh, I need to go back to my old routine” as that routine is gone because so much about me has changed in the past two years. I can’t say I like all the changes– at least the ones forced on me!– but I also see good changes about making my life more what I want it to be.

I know that all our journeys through this are unique, as we are unique people, but we all have to find a way forward somehow. Despite everything that keeps happening, I am still hopeful. I just have to make sure that I take care of myself, that I continue to find my way forward, because life is too short to be stuck in one place.

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?

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.

Staying the Course

Today is the feast day of St. Elizabeth Seton and this reflection I found from Franciscan Media resonated with me:

"She had no extraordinary gifts.She was not a mystic or stigmatic. She did not prophesy or speak in tongues. She had two great devotions: abandonment to the will of God and an ardent love for the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote to a friend, Julia Scott, that she would prefer to exchange the world for a 'cave or a desert.' 'But God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.'"

After several irritations yesterday, I found myself looking for a way to forge myself forward while feeling a bit deflated. When I saw this reflection earlier this morning, I was quickly jolted back to where I need to be, the reminder that I have much to do, that God has much for me to do, and that I can’t let life get me down.

As we begin a new year, a good reminder for all of us. Don’t despair no matter what’s happening around you. Life is too short to get caught up in what keeps us down. After all, some of our greatest joy comes from accomplishing things that we don’t believe we’re capable of doing.

Letting go...to move forward

My candy thermometer broke last night as I was making a batch of prickly pear hard candy. Well, the truth is I don’t know when it broke. I was working on several things at once in my kitchen and the candy was near the end of my list. I got it started and watched the temperature climb– slowly as it does– and didn’t notice the glass top was missing until I was at 300 degrees and getting ready to pour the candy into the pan to cool.

While this might seem like a silly thing to blog about, the thermometer belonged to my mom and it was the only one I’ve used to make the prickly pear hard candy.

I don’t know why she had one– what she had made so she bought one– and I don’t think I ever used it until I started making prickly pear candy several years ago. I felt a little irritated, knowing I’d have to create another batch because I don’t know if the candy had glass or not, but mostly because that was a connection to Mom.

Yet something else occurred to me– perhaps this letting go was about more than using her candy thermometer. Instead, Mom is saying, “It got you started making the candy, but get a new one. You’re going to be making more candy and you need a new one.”

Many times we get upset that the objects that tie us to our loved ones get ruined, broken, or whatever. Yet those things happen so we can go forward, so we can let go, but mostly so we can let something greater come to us.

The Tribute to My Sister

After the event at church Wednesday night for those whose lives have been touched by suicide, a woman placed her circle on the tree and then caught me before I left the church. She told me she had lost her sister to suicide and wanted me to sign her copy of my book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. The cover was bent back, proof she had read the book, and before we parted, she told me how she tried to pay tribute with her husband to her sister each year. Then she asked me if I pay tribute to Denise.

I’m not sure why, but the question caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to answer. Finally, I said, the book, and pointed to it. She nodded and we parted. But I realized later that the book is not paying tribute to the life I had with Denise. The book is about her suicide, about moving forward and, to me, paying tribute would be about remembering the life Denise had, not her suicide. And the life I had with Denise.

My tribute to Denise is all of this– what I create, what write, everything you see on this web site. It’s a tribute to the childhood we shared, the creativity we explored together through coloring and making clothes for our Barbies on our grandmother’s old Singer sewing machine. It’s the inspiration I find in my daily life.

That’s my tribute to Denise.

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.

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.

Surgery in the Rearview Mirror: Reconciling Who I am Supposed to Be

Three years ago I was supposed to have ablation (where the uterus lining is burned out) which meant any inkling of having kids was over. However, because there was a golf-ball sized fibroid in my uterus that didn't show up on the ultrasound and because the sodium levels in my body were rising too high after the large fibroid was removed, my doctor didn't have enough time for the ablation. However, he believed that was causing most of my problems so I went on with my life with few problems, happy that I had taken care of it.

This past January I knew something had changed and we gave it a few months to see if it was a freak thing or not. An ultrasound in late April proved it wasn't– two golf-ball sized fibroids this time. My choices were to do nothing or to have my uterus removed. Because then it made sense that I was always running to the bathroom (the fibroids were pushing on my bladder), I opted to have the uterus removed this past Friday. It turned out I made the right decision because my uterus was full of fibroids and my doctor told me that once he saw all the fibroids in my uterus that it explained all my symptoms. 

But this surgery wasn't just about the physical problems I was having. I found out on a Saturday evening what my options were and on Sunday morning I was driving to early mass when I asked God to please help me learn what I'm supposed to from this experience (a blog I had recently written about) so I could move on from it.

To say that it's been a crazy journey is an understatement. 

I never had children– by choice because of certain things in my life, one being that I believe children deserve a lot of time and with the goals and dreams I have, I didn't believe I could give them that. I also was married before and because we divorced and a slew of other things had happened, it wouldn't have been a good situation if we'd had kids. I've had a parade of children come through my life but they never stay for any length of time. I seem to be just part of their journey for a short period and then they can go on. 

I know many women who had their uteruses removed but they all had had children while I was only birthing books, my goal and dream since I was six years old. There has been a lot of sadness over this but deep down I never really saw myself having kids. And yet now part of this journey is completely letting aspect go of that aspect of my life. Yet another loss for me to find hope.

Finally, my parents died when I was 35 and 43 and because they were older when they had my younger sister and I, I'm not willing to take the chance of not being around later as I sometimes feel parentless now (I have lots of "second parents" but we all know it's not the same without our "real" parents). I know they are with me although in a different way.

My life has been filled with loss and I realized that the way children have come through my life is much like life was in Naperville growing up. It was a very corporate transient town and I made friends only to have them move away four years later. It's a lot of work for me to keep grasping hope in the face of loss but that's why I choose to do work that makes me happy– creating through many avenues.

But there was another huge factor to this that most people don't know– I was deathly scared of spending the night in a hospital. I had successfully managed to avoid that since I was three and had a traumatic experience having my right eye muscle tightened. Several months ago I found my baby book where my mom had written it was traumatic for me and that I'd been allergic to the anesthesia (which then also explained why I had a rash after my surgery three years ago). Today there is no one to ask about the surgery because everyone involved (my parents, the doctor, my grandfather who was a charter doctor at that hospital) have died. Once more I had find my way through a maze of questions knowing I'll never really get the answers.

I can't explain how rattled the idea of having surgery and this time spending the night in the hospital left me. I felt as if I were facing one of my greatest fears in life. Somehow I did it but it didn't come without feeling constantly wound up and more tears than I would like to admit to. 

And yet something else came to play in this journey– my writing. I wrote 100 pages in May and I have finished the rough draft of a manuscript. So while there were times when I couldn't stop thinking about things like catheters and the fear of more surprises from my uterus as has happened before, I somehow managed to refocus myself to write 100 pages (and recover fourteen patio cushions). 

This current writing doesn't relate to what I was going through; it was all sorts of creative stuff for my manuscripts (yes, there is more than one) but it felt that because I had left that door open of asking to be open, God could let the writing through. In the face of my fear, it didn't paralyze me, instead it helped me push forward because I also hope that now that I have completely shut the door on having children, a new door will open, one that's been waiting for that to happen.

I believe everything happens to us for a reason– it's one huge way that allows me to go forward in the face of loss and change– and we are put right where we're supposed to be even though much of what happens to us doesn't make sense at the time it happens. I believe this is just one part of the journey that helps me continue traveling on this road of who I'm supposed to be.

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.

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 Hobbler

No one ever could have predicted that I would become a runner. While I was all legs growing up, I wasn't fast (and in those days it was more important to be fast than to have any endurance) and I was always picked near the end for any sort of team game.

But by high school, running took over my life and during my freshman year I paid a price for it with a stress fracture in my right foot. It was a challenging time of my life for many reasons but I bring this up because in January I once again hurt my knee and something from thirty years ago kept coming back to me. 

A year and a half ago, Lilly and I had an accident on the landing of the stairwell in the house. She was flying down the stairs, I was heading up the stairs and we collided– her head to my knee. While nothing hurt immediately the next day I couldn't run. And I didn't run for about two months.  But somehow I survived and all was well. 

Until January. 

I have no idea what happened but somehow I hurt my knee again, this time with no collision. My Chinese doctor cupped it and said it appear to be an old injury because there was no energy to pull out of it. 

Back to walking I went.

This was where my fifteen year old memory returned. With the foot injury, I wasn't walking really well (which led to a compensation injury in my hip) and I remember someone saying to me, "You shouldn't be running if you can't walk."

And it was my friend Art who told me of some advice he found in a magazine a long time ago: that if we aren't professional athletes, we'll have a lot more days of exercising ahead of us. Because of that, we should take the time to let ourselves heal.

So I did. I walked and iced and walked and iced. Finally I wasn't hobbling around anymore, back to walking like my normal self. I started to run a bit. And slowly but surely I'm amping it back up.

I often talk about how one of my biggest challenges is realizing that the world won't end tomorrow, that there will be enough time to do everything. And the same goes for running– I worry that one day I won't be able to run anymore so it's like I want to get as much in now as I can.

However, I have to slow down and remind myself. All is well. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. And once I do that, I can relax. Which probably also helps me heal quicker, too.

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.