On This Path

They did the whole 5k!

We were in the first group to start and were the last 3 to finish, but that only added to the beauty. Special emotion added with Ephraim’s physical therapist since kindergarten, joining us in the final stretch to cheer us on and encourage and congratulate Ephraim, the PBHS student who came and joined us to the finish. A fun pre-race picture at the rainbow arch. A new friend letting them paint his scrubs! An old friend high fiving them.

Let me be a truth light into lives,
my words and actions contradicting
lies of a culture that’s become
devised of negativity and living in
disguise.
For these days are numbered,
but the future – ours, remains, for the
taking, embracing, helping to sustain
those suffering, searching underneath
the pain of confusion, bewildered,
needing hope to regain faith it
can change.
May my life scars be the stars
leading travelers through the night,
a purpose far more worth it than the
fight for more to own and to be known
for power and ranked success alone.
Alone, yes alone, feel so many souls,
that have been twisted and turned,
with the blindfold sewn on, than let go
to walk on, to hold on to wanting…
and wanting.
YOU have words of justice, that can
be thrust into trustless places, and raise
up the broken pieces and repair them
with precious graces and faith in each
trace of a moment – say them.
The prayers that we share, the most
powerful warfare against despair.
Raise them up.
Breathe in peace that the dissonance
in the distance is ours to dissipate
with great reward.
Let me be a truth light into lives.

I asked for clarity and it was given to me. Power thought, from prayerful meditation – choices that have not brought the results we hoped for are not a victim of wasted time, but a catalyst for time reallocated to learning. We live forward. Much more to write on this soon. Tonight, on 38 Eve, I prepare to bid farewell to 37, though not its lessons. I am excited for the story in my eyes to be further realized in my efforts to remain rooted in hope. I look forward to help Face It Forward with the amazing people in each and every one of you. You are! May I live truly and fully, honoring both the child and adult in me. I want to sew gratitude in my steps, for the impact each person has made on me. I am going to own the sensitivity that is a challenge because the raw hurt I feel for the person living on the street or the couple fighting in the store has the ability to drive goals of change. I will continue to meet people who will hold me accountable to nurturing myself too. Yes, 38 is great.

#futureforward

As I prepare internally for the offering of this race – I turn to God in thanksgiving for those who have fought and overcome Cancer and for the support networks of loved ones and caregivers and Myriam Loor and all the volunteers and contributors to this event. I thank you for the ability to run and the amazing people in my life who bring me hope. I ask for healing, of body, soul and heart for all those affected by Cancer and all who face any physical and emotional challenge, sometimes so depleting. I pray especially for all those who struggle with mental illness. I pray for the memory of those who have gone before us, both those taken by Cancer and other illnesses and tragedies. May we find comfort in faith and love. God, please let all who read this lift up their intentions. May I carry them along with the names on the handkerchief around my ankle. I run today not for time or place or even start to finish, but those first steps forward, knowing that we all need them for various reasons in our lives. Let me be whole in You.

“Do not let it define you.”  We hear this a lot.   It comes a lot in response to previous relationships, challenges not quite completed, and the assessment that comes from the opinion of others.  I don’t necessarily agree, though.  Not to be confused with letting another person define us, I think each and every thing we have gone through defines exactly who we are.

Yesterday, I flew from my home, from the airport where I first held my children’s father in my arms, to a place that is hard to revisit.  I watched my children leave to be without me for two weeks.  I drove the roads that were once ours, under an overpass, to view the cityscape of Nashville that I once smiled upon, music on the radio “the ghosts of the past I thought I’d have”.  The GPS could not rescue me from this lost.  The tears fell heavy.  I drove to the hotel my wedding reception was in almost 11 years ago, past the gas stations, shops and places we had eaten.   Even after we have stopped missing someone, a part can still grieve for a life that didn’t get to be.

On the seat next to me, a hat with “Unbreakable” on it.  That was not how I felt, but that is how I am.  I know this.  We must all know this about ourselves.

The first time I went on a plane was 13 years ago.  I was 24.  I went to New Orleans, long before Katrina, and had my picture taken alone with a “Hurricane,” on a sidewalk somewhere near a stretch of market where I bought a ring of independence, to remind myself of confidence.  I sat along the Mississippi and, though raftless, thought about choices and the struggle to determine “right” and “wrong”.  I journalled thoughts of new beginnings.

Now, so many towns passed later, I type feverishly in a hotel room, and still hear a solo trumpeter echoing from Bourbon Street.

Yes, we are very much defined by all that we have gone through.

Today, I watched the morning light seep in with the complete and hurting awareness that the pain was still very real.  I wanted to go home.

I will visit the grave site of my dear friend who passed away in the spring today, an angel whose words brought so much comfort during confusion.  I will thank her for the support.  Her incredible family together with me last night, we embraced carrying on.  That is what we do.  We grieve for the loss of what was to be and take those steps forward to what will be, driven by the experiences that have, without a doubt, indelibly defined us.

Through the tears yesterday “I Want to Live Like That” came on, and I pep talked myself into remembering that this hurting is a part of the opportunity to learn, to teach and to testify to love, hope and faith.  I gave myself permission to keep feeling sad.  A pretty sleepless night, I powered-up to work remotely from this hotel room and thanked God for the opportunities I have been provided with to keep growing.

So how do these things define me?  God knows.  Webster and I, however, are still working a little on that one.

Valentine’s day, you’re not far away, but you don’t scare me. The dancing and singing stuffed animals can rush toward me. Rose thorns dangle precariously close.  I will not choke on a chocolate or slip on the heart boxers that have fallen off the shelf.  No paper cuts on candy boxes or carefully folded cards.

Valentine’s day, you don’t scare me.  I will not trip across a satin sheet.  No memories from another year will keep me from being productive.  No other hands lingering together will weaken the strength of mine.

I’ll take the full day of work and the knowledge I am beautiful as who I am.

You don’t scare me Valentine’s day because you don’t own love in an arrow or a lipstick kiss.  And there will be those words said carefully to someone who needs them on your day because it is that day and that is good for that moment.

You don’t scare me  Valentine’s Day.

I am not, not afraid because of what may be. I am not afraid because of what is.  I will not escape the pop culture of it all around me, but I will resist that it not seduce me into a desperate longing.

I may dance again with a lover or I may never know that touch again.

But…the heart that says my love, beats in my chest, to the rhythm of my life, not to be defined by singlehood.

And I may miss…and I may cry and I may even feel alone.

I am love, though, greater than I have ever known.

Sometimes we need to take a step back to get a better running start to the top.  To look at everything again, to build up strength and…let the pieces and peace come.

Then, it is time.

No one’s life is a mistake. Let us live each day in appreciation and expectant curiosity of our whys.

Before me in the driveway, sun shining bright, my suv.  And an insurance appraiser telling me that he has determined it “totaled,” the cost to repair it not worth it.  As a writer, personification comes fairly easily, but I am not without awareness that my 2002 Toyota 4Runner does not have feelings.  Still, I feel sad for it, sitting there, its value being determined by what is seen, not knowing the other truths about it.  Maybe because I have felt that.  We all have.

10 years after the events that brought that truck to me, after its journey home to New York, from KY,  a place that now seems twice as far away, rear damage is now by the words Hopkinsville, KY.  It is a seeming reminder that life goes on many turns and the marks of where we have been never really disappear.  Maybe it is fitting to say good-bye to it as I commit to the now.

This vehicle knew me in the befores, durings and afters, and so it seemed only natural to continue with it through the whats-to-comes, as I see new turns and new faded words on bumpers.  I had decided I would drive it until it would not go anymore.

This truck  could have driven me across the country or down the road, the distance is measured by what happened in me.  Even just a vehicle, its time with me covered so much…growth.

It was a youth minister with me, cleaning the highway many times.  A place to start in prayer.

I drove to see my mom in the hospital each day, as she recovered from her Cancer surgery.  I cried the way home many times,  sometimes hitting the steering wheel.  Sometimes just holding it tight for comfort.

The truck brought my son back to me from the NICU he had been in for 3 days, while I ached to be with him.  It brought him home from the hospital and to the doctors’ appointments that marked our days, looking for what to do with his diagnosis.  EEGs, EKGs, MRIs…more blood tests in those early years than many have in a lifetime.  Specialists, eating in the car, changing diapers in the back.  Home from a 48 hour test at the Children’s Hospital.  Digesting new information and trying to make decisions for next steps.  They call its color “Pearl Blue”.  It was just the blue of our truck, waiting in the parking lot, time to go home.

It brought my daughter,  so tiny, home from the hospital, her big brother staring at her in awe.  Yes, I had enough love for her too. And, no, it would not take away from my love of him.  My daughter and I spent hours in the truck after dropping her brother off at his special program every day.  We played in it, slept in it, and waited….We bought her first pair of glasses, at 9 months old.

Infant seats, to car seats to booster seats.  In another 8 months, it could have seen my son sitting in it without anything, my son whose unknown future is not as important, though not far from my mind, as his amazing smile and the way his kindness touches people.  The day he reached from the back seat and asked for my hand and began to pray before his first weekend away at his dad’s house, the sun shining in the window on his face.

My daughter, still small for her age, in the parking lot, sitting on my lap, looking at me through her glasses, touching my face and asking me  if I thought I would ever love a man again someday.  I didn’t know, I told her, but I was glad for that moment with her, her raw and honest questions and comments (sometimes so very challenging) because I know she is going to make her way.

The special edition features of my truck are the marks that tell the story of a life that keeps going.  A scratch, a juice stain, the sand from the Jersey Shore in a crack where it can’t be reached.  The echoes of hysterical laughs, hard cries and powerful conversations.

Family vacations,  which changed.

In the challenges of 2009, it held me as I came to hard realizations, staring at my cell phone in confusion.  It moved stuff.  It was deemed mine.

In the process that followed, it drove me to the necessary appointments and helped me to work out the details and emotional impact, as I would head back home, more wearied than expected.  Wondering.  Keep your head up, Deb.

On January 1, 2010, I brought my first own dog to the vet, barely breathing, in the back of the truck.  He had seen me through the loss of two marriages.  The vet carried him out to my truck after having put him to sleep.  He laid him in the back of the truck, where I had sat with my children’s father.  Where I had nursed and changed infants, where I had brought home food for my family.  He looked so peaceful.  The vet, who has known me since my childhood, hugged me and reminded me of how many people loved me and to not let all that was unfolding take away from who I was.  He closed the back door for me.  I brought my dog home, the end of his journey, at the start of a new one for me.

In the summer of 2010, my best friend and I put our road bikes in the back of the truck and went to the Catskills for the weekend, a powerfully meaningful trip, where emotions were shed on a ride through the mountains.  A friendship going strong for over 25 years.

I laughed a little when the appraiser complimented me on how well I had taken care of my truck, remembering the dog’s upset stomach and the thorough and intense cleaning that followed.  I left it out in the sun to air out.  The sun became a torrential downpour, with everything, including the sunroof, open and me inside on a work call.  “Why are there puddles all over the floor, Mommy?”

Consistently kept clean, it took me longer to get to giving it a good clean this summer after our annual trip to the beach. It reflected my life being a bit out of order. When I finally did clean it up a few weeks later, in late August, the lingering odd smell still remained.  Sometimes we have to face our limits.  Not long after, a mouse was found in the air filter during a service check.  Yep, that will do it.  Smell gone.  An accomplishment.

It took me to see my father after he had fallen from a roof  onto pavement, unsure of his prognosis.  Home again thanking God he was going to be okay.

It made numerous trips back and forth to the city before I finally gave it an EZ pass.

Pre-school, Elementary School. Little League, Upwards Soccer…new beginnings.

The truck is in the backdrop of many of the moments that have shaped me sharply over the past 10 years.

It has carried my camera equipment, my teaching bag, new business supplies, and my resume.

It brought home a new guitar and a new dog.

I have received happy and horrible news in it.

I have been in a dress and heels in it and sweatpants and a t-shirt.  It drove the same either way.

I have seen new places and revisited favorites.  I have parallel parked it easily…and not so easily.

What it may sometimes seem my life has lacked in personal financial and material gain, it has exceeded in expectations of learning.  I spent a lot of time in thought in that truck and it never judged me for my openness, my vulnerability, my anger or feeling weak.  Talking to myself, to a friend, to God.  Hearing my children’s happy stories, hearing me reprimand them, hearing us move on.  My once sleeping children in the rear view mirror are now more likely to be speaking energetically…or teasing one another…or telling me they love me.

A month ago, I had a pivotal moment in my life, standing by the door of my truck on a sidewalk on a street in NYC.  A moment that could not be measured for what it was, but only for the impact it had on me.  Not without awareness of the way my perception of it stands out in the world of relativity that we live in, I can still hear the rain on my windshield that afternoon and what it said to me.  How very rare those moments and feelings are; it has stayed with me in a way that has not been easy, though truly part of my journey and some changes.   So, I acknowledge it…because I want to own those feelings.

Almost always a person more inclined to share thoughts pretty openly, it becomes troublesome at times when it is not expected or is seen as being the result of lacking clarity or forethought, but it is indeed a defining characteristic, like the bumps and bruises on my truck.

Sentimentality soaked as it is to say it, my truck has been a safe place.  A place of escape and homecoming.  I can’t quite imagine myself with any other vehicle, picking my children up from school or heading off to a meeting or adventure…of sorts.

Still sore from the impact of the crash, being hit from behind, I know how much worse it could have been when I see the damage.

My 2002 Toyota 4Runner’s value will never be a matter of the cost of repairs versus its book value to me, but that it protected me and my children and that I loved it for what it was.  I did not pull up next to a Mercedes or Lexus and feel envy.  My truck has been reliable and useful.  It belonged to us, the children and me, and would go with us wherever we went.  I don’t want to forget to be grateful for that and for what we went through with it in the past 10 years, all of it.

———–
3 years later – https://onthispath.com/2015/08/22/35-months/

Yesterday, I had a funny thing happen, in the midst of thinking about those I know who are holding on through stumblings, including me, that reminded me of something we know, but sometimes forget.

————-

My son really likes Gatorade. A lot. I don’t often let him have it because of all the sugar. When he gets to have it, he is very happy. Yesterday was one of those times. Helping me with a few errands, I told him he could pick out a drink.

“What would you like to get?”

“Gatorade.”

“Okay.”

Quite happy and determined he walked to the drinks and right over to the sports drinks, found the Gatorade and looked at all the rows, thoughtful. He looked up and down, side to side. Then he carefully opened the cooler door and selected the same one he always gets – red. He carried that bottle with pride to the cart he had already told me he needed to push. He placed it into where it would be “safe,” after looking over the sport bottle top it had admiringly. He took the money from me to hand to the cashier at checkout and carried that bottle of Gatorade out to the car with the wide smile he is known for and a genuine look of deep appreciation. He noted to me how he was going to really like drinking it and thanked me. I caught the smile from him with ease. His smile has a way of travelling to other people’s faces.

He climbed into his seat, buckled himself in and held his Gatorade before him. His. Gatorade.  With all his challenges, so happy about a drink.

While I put the rest of our purchases in the back seat, he set to work on the cap. He twisted it. The seal broke. He pulled the sport top up. He leaned his head back and…he brought it down, confused. Twisted the cap again, pulled up harder than before. Leaned back his head and…he brought it down, yet again confused. Only somewhat aware he was having trouble with it, I climbed in.

“Open it? Help me please.”

“Sure.”

It was another chance for me to make him smile. I leaned back to the get the bottle from him with confidence. I twisted and pulled and leaned back to test it. Nothing was coming out. I studied it and turned it around, pulling and twisting. Testing. Hmmmm…..

“There’s a thing on it under the cap,” he said.

Of course.

But I had not thought of that. So I took off the cap peeled off the seal easily. The cap went back on smoothly. The Gatorade flowed. He smiled. I backed up the car.

I laughed at myself twisting and pulling that cap with force, as if that is what it needed and certainly I COULD do. All it took was a different approach that required little effort.

…………

Obviously, this story does not intrigue me for its informative nature of how to hydrate. How many times have all of us been twisting and pulling at a cap in our life, seeking the relief, when it was not going to go that way? It was going to take a different approach, and, to get there, often a moment of pause or voice of reason. And it is actually not that unusual for it to come from some place we don’t expect or in a situation that we don’t see coming.

I think of that first refreshing sip he took like the moment (okay there are usually a lot of them because we are a stubborn crew, us humans)…moments that we have clarity. It doesn’t mean it is the last time we will seek it or try to force it out of a way it is not coming, but we see something in ourselves and our places that makes sense.

And with this Gatorade story I thought about the people I had been holding in my heart and about that they…we will get the sip. And I felt like God was telling me to offer this potential bottle of Gatorade, so to speak.

During challenges, I have heard all the statements from loved ones about not defining myself by circumstances and how I am a strong and incredible person. I would gather you have heard some of the same. I am not unaware of my qualities, but in the mirror alone, it was often failure and rejection that looked back at me. Being reminded of our greatness sometimes does not ease the blow of what it feels has been lost.

Maybe despite the odds or maybe because of them, I have re-found myself in unexpected places and found that relief can sometimes come without all of the twisting and pulling, so to speak. I have my moments of feeling pretty good and my moments of curling up and feeling low. Yeah, healing and overcoming the questions are definitely easier said than done. Sometimes we make poor choices trying to find our way out of some of those confused places in our minds. There are leap pads we sometimes can’t see when we are in the fog of the swamp.  I have been truly blessed with some key people in my life that are willing to lovingly tap me in the head with the flashlight if shining it doesn’t help.

I have learned a couple of lessons helpful for me.

First, when making choices, if I choose a path that was not a deliberate path of selfishness or with a to disregard humanity, I can feel comfort that even if it does not work out the way that I would hope, or if I realize there was another possibility, I should dismiss regret (as much as possible).

Second, when faced with overcoming disappointment and looking to hope, it is important to not look at a specific outcome I want as the answer to that. Nothing should come before our ultimate fullness in faith.  When we place too much importance on the things that we really have no control over to bring us “happiness”, we surrender our ability to find peace in our faith.

While I write this, it does not mean I have perfected it or even come close. I am working on it, though. It leads me to strive for what feels right and not just feels temporarily good. That is a lifetime effort.

And so as I pushed the button that shared my blog, I sat in anticipation and awe of the place I am in.  I looked around this house (that I may not live in that much longer – it’s okay I don’t need this much to clean anyway) and it seemed more mine than ever before.  Everything felt a little bit less intimidating – for a second.  This begins for me, the acknowledging that I deserve to embrace something that I have always wanted and to say in a public (really, really public) way that I have something unique to offer and I think it is worth presenting.  That’s power.  That’s growth.  In confusion we often mix up confidence with arrogance.  Certainly, the lines can be blurry.  Any one of us can say we are amazing, though, and should – every night before bed in awe and in gratitude.  When I say that I am amazing it doesn’t come with a sense of entitlement. It comes with a sense of opportunity.  I mean it as it refers to a part of the role that we all have to play in being part of this big…experience.

We’re all looking for something.  Even those with incredible faith and/or confidence, have something they would like to find.  In the looking we encounter ourselves at our best and our worst, doing what we feel we need to in order to get to our goal.  I’m not proud of everything I’ve done.  This is not a post for true confessions, so I will not go into a lengthy list of my transgressions.  I have done what I can to move past the things I have done and the things that have been done to me. ( Please note I said I try my best.  I would be painting a very untrue picture of myself if I did not make clear that I have work to do on forgiveness, of myself and others.)  Some days I plod.  Some days I skip.  I always go on. I have been thinking a lot lately about the shape of my life, from birth to now, and in the present.

I’ve been wondering about the things that hold me up and the colors of my personal walls.  Why is it that after so many years and accomplishments there are still things that result in me holding myself back?  Do I continue to give credit to things that have hurt me and allow myself to take on offense I should not even acknowledge…or is it something else?  In doing this blog I am making a huge leap out into the realm of more confidence, but what are the ways we find that confidence?  The battle against our self-doubt and our search to understand what it will take for us to find peace is something that seems to come in the most unlikeliest of places sometimes, at least for me.

Over the years, I think some of my most inspired writing happened in difficult circumstances. This is not unusual, but I think it can seem very paradoxical.  Inspiration and feeling like…garbage don’t seem to naturally go hand in hand.  However, being run down often brings me to a kind of acute focus.  I think it is when we are at those low points, where we feel stripped of the reinforcers of our value that we are used to (a person, specific goal being reached, etc.), that we must continue onward with what is at our core.  We don’t have the energy that superficiality sucks out of us, so we have to face head on what really is and who we really are (whatever that means).

12 years ago, I sure wasn’t looking no strong when I was on the bathroom floor vomiting (before you think this is going to take off into a story of hard partying days there was no night before filled with escapades), and I did not feel the best about myself or what I could accomplish in this world.  The poems and journal entries that I wrote afterwards, though, spoke of strength and a belief in hope and grace.   I read them now and think back to that period in my life in a kind of bewilderment.  Now if a light had come down through the bathroom ceiling that night and an angel literally appeared at that moment and led me to lift a pen in a  weakened state, this would be a different story and the inspired writing would be expected. There was not any bright light.  There was clarity, though.  There was a sense of awareness.  I knew I did not want to continue to feel that way and did not want to spend my life on my bathroom floor (though that would have made for a very unique blog).

When we are left with our essence, which many are today – in a time when unemployment and divorce rates are high and the news seems to steadily march forward with tragedy and conflict – we can find something else out about what matters to us.  We can recognize that we not only should not, but cannot define ourselves by external factors and things that are beyond our control.  The loss of something or someone.  Harsh words spoken to us.  Health problems.    There’s nothing worldly that is worth surrendering our real value for. Yet, we do it all the time.

In the middle of a lot of changes (I’m not a huge fan change and some of them are fairly big) I was looking for an outlet and floundering in ways that were not productive.  I wanted to fight back against the feeling that a part of me had slipped away, to reclaim what was actually still here in me all along.

By hitting the share button, I became more myself than ever before because I reached to hold onto my story completely.