This, I must admit, was my day today...

Otherwise, looking back on it, I must otherwise remain, speechless.....rp

It's Possible...

Two years ago today was the first day after my "honeymoon" which followed the two year anniversary of my marriage on August 1, 2009.  In just a couple of weeks it will be the one year anniversary of my divorce.
The details no longer matter, neither did the marriage, or the four year commitment that led to it.  what mattered was the aftermath, the mess he left me to clean up, and the effects that had on my children and I.
Gathering the fortitude to fix this one exhausted me, depleted me and pushed me face down on the floor sucking the carpet fibers of rock bottom.  Looking UP was easy. Reading the sign on the door of  UP saying it was closed for rennovations was not.

In my life I have had other disappointments and difficulties but never one this intense or mentally, physically and emotionally harmful. Never one this intentional. Never one that was shared with others in such a way that in order for him to service them, he intentionally harmed me and made me feel worse. He said it would just be a quiet thing, that he "sucked as a husband" and could or would not keep his promises. I never expected my life to then be hijacked to Neverland, where the little boys play with fire thinking they are kings of men.  I never expected to become a soccerball among his imaginary playthings, and for so much time be required to act as if it were all simply okay.

It was never okay.   There was unfortunately going to have to be time spent at the bottom, my reward for temporary insanity.  There was only one big problem. I didn't like it there, but I knew the piper had to be paid.  At first it was lonely there. Then I got up the guts to look around, and choose some reasonably friendly faces to reach out to.  I was surprised to find so many decent and kind people at the bottom. I began to listen to the stories, and realized that in fact I was not all alone and that no matter how bad you might think a thing is, there is always something out there that is worse.  The common theme at the bottom is loss. Not just the loss of petty objects such as keys or glasses, but loss of magnitude unimaginable. For some at bottom, loss seems to just lead to more loss.  In nursing school I never paid much attention to grief and its associated stages, (thank you Elizabeth Kubler Ross), but there, face down on the carpet at the bottom, I had my first real lesson.

The bottom is full of mirrors. You can try to avoid looking in them but sooner or later you are blind. No matter who you are, unless you truly die, you have to look. I learned at bottom that each mirror had a different story to tell, and a different lesson to learn. I learned at bottom that until you conquered the mirrors, you stay where you are. Now and again, someone at bottom scores big and a ladder drops down for them. If they are not timid, and are willing to risk what little might be left to them, they make the ascent to climb out. If they are scared, they remain at bottom, safe, trapped as before only with that much more regret. I was living in a house of mirrors. I did not like opening my eyes very much.

The first person I met at the bottom was a man named David. He had a colorful history and a collection of incredible talents. I did not think this man would give me the time of day because I could not see the value I could have for him.  I decided that rejection would not be as bad as never knowing. I reached out. He reached back. I had no idea what to do or how to behave. I think he found that amusing.  Looking back I think it was kind of funny too. He taught me quickly that there was no way around the mess I was in. He taught me that most of my mess was my own only added to by the one left by my former. He was lighthearted and kept a healthy distance but in his own way he grabbed up my hair and pulled up my head to look at the mirror that he stood beside. It was the mirror of the physical. "You are what you eat".   My heart sank at what I saw. I expressed my frustration and he just looked back at me and into the mirror and said..."Na, don't worry, this isn't horrible, I can help you with this." He was not joking, he laughed and smiled when he said it but he was very serious in his tone. "So much has to change, starting now, this second, there is no time to spare  for your life." I looked up at this man, who sort of looked like he could be my brother in another dimension, and instead of my usual nonsense talk, I said softly "okay". The changes he demanded were not personal they simply had to be. It was easier to swallow and be honorable to the agreement. Somehow at bottom, angry and lonely, change was less difficult to make. I did not see much of David, he seemed to have a passport to bottom that allowed him to float up and down sort of like an angel. He was never far away, and still even now, whenever I reach out, he is there. There is nothing like his smile, because you only get it when you know he likes what is in front of him. It is infectious, its delicious and when he becomes dark is not so difficult to become dark beside him. He met me at every level on the way up, and I now know I have a friend forever who will always be there when I need him to save my life. He knows the same is true of me.

Somewhere during the food wars, two other men joined David at that mirror. Ralph came first. He came and challenged my broken body to move again. I was terrified, but Ralph, while demanding and insistent on my trying, stayed close by to protect me from falling. Still, I looked at the floor every day. One day, Ralph grabbed my hair, and pulled my head up and said "Look at you. Look at what you have become." I opened my eyes and I really was not sure who was there.  Then I met Robert. Robert was there to look into the core of things. Not just the physical but the spiritual and the emotional. Robert put on pads and let me hit him. I hit him hard and for what seemed like forever. I started to cry. He said, "good". I wasn't sure about this road but I knew one thing, I was doing everything that man told me to do. He was unyielding. He was unwavering, and had a great sense of humor while he tortured me. Still, I pouted all around this way and that, and one day he grabbed hold of my hair and forced me to look at myself in the mirror. "Do you see what you have done?"

I did not quite see yet, because other matters were crushing me. One day I was dozing at bottom, when a man named Albert came up and said, "Why are you sleeping?  "Because my hands are tied and I am trapped". He was in his own world of hurting, but still he took the time to listen. I was broke and in unbelievable debt from the prior relational failure. More mess, with no way in sight to clean up. While I remained faithful to my physical changes, the ropes were squeezing me tighter than ever. I looked at the floor. Albert was a man faithful to God so he kept his hands out of my hair and simply said.."Mary, look at the mirror." I did not want to because the picture of my finances was ugly and embarassing. I cried like a baby in front of Albert. To this day I think he is an angel. He said. " I can help you fix this, but you are going to have to make many changes." Gee, what else is new?  I thought. I had begun to pride myself on openmindedness so  I listened to what he had to say. I never realized how many inappropriate things we can tie to our money. Albert taught me, along with Suze Orman, that money is not love, its not emotions, its not going to satisfy inner cravings. Money is money. Managing it correctly is the only path to freedom for most people. Albert created a budget for me, which I thought would be impossible to manage. It turns out he was right and I was wrong. There is something good about looking before I leap. Something wonderful about reaping the reward of self control and proper planning. Funny, the financial mirror started to postively impact the physical mirror, I never saw that one coming. Still, I looked at the floor, because I was internally angry. No, I was furious.

I kept hearing things, and finding out things, that I did not want to know. It kept my head focused on my losses instead of my gains and I was unable to see the balance sheet clearly. All  I could do was to keep up the juggle, keep the balls in the air, so when my ladder finally dropped down for me, I almost missed it. Along came Jim.  I really did not know much about him. He was only around a short time and said surprisingly little. It turns out he was only there to show me the last thing I needed to climb out. He had to drag me to that last mirror though, because I would not dare to look at it. He held me in his arms and stood in front of it. He was a man of demand and patience. He stood me in front of the mirror for what seemed like hours until I finally looked.  He told me that we would stand there until I told him I could see the pretty woman staring back at me. I was stubborn, he just thought it was funny. There we stood. The next day he dragged me there again.  I thought it over since I was hungry and so I finally lifted my head all by myself and took a look. There was a lovely woman in the mirror in Jim's arms. I squinted, because ...no..whoa...really??? He nodded and whispered, "really". "What do you see? We will stay here until you tell me." he said.  " I see me." I said. "Not good enough." he said. I looked harder and looked at him and said "I see a beautiful lady, and she is me." "Very good" he said. When he disappeared I realized how far up that ladder I had climbed. UP no longer seemed out of reach. UP, was finally once again open for business, and I was going dressed in a pretty outfit.

I realized what a lucky girl I am to have been sent four fairy godfathers. I probably could call them hairy godfathers and they would like it better. Every girl wants to be Cinderella and experience the impossible but if you ask me to do it again I will tell you I pass. Now and again even though I officially live in UP, I feel compelled to visit the bottom, because I let my guard down and am impossible to manage or deal with.  When I wallow on the bottom its because my prince has not shown up yet. Sometimes I think that is the fairy tale to begin with. The godfathers told me that I never needed a prince to begin with, and if one did come along, I should be for damn sure that he had what it took to take care of and manage me.

Yesterday a beautiful and brilliant best friend and I were talking about these things. She was the first person I met when I stepped off the ladder into UP. This is the kind of friend that everyone should have one of. One who mirrors you, and can be there, and often a step ahead. One who actually cares and thinks ahead to do the right thing on your behalf sometimes at the expense of herself.  This is not an easy friend to have. Loving her is a workout sometimes and that is what makes me think she is worthwhile.  This one makes it unnecessary for me to visit the bottom ever again because the mirror I need to look at lives in her. I treasure her, I cherish her. I love her. If it were not for the work of the hairy fairy godfathers, I would not have known how to notice her. One of these days, I have to thank the hairy fairy godfathers for bringing me to the place where I could recognize that happiness could come to me through a girl who would become my sister, and I could never be happier.

Don't Look Back

Don’t Look Back

Often in times in my life where I have encountered great change, or a negative event I stumble and trip myself up by looking back. I seem to want to process, to understand or to correct, when really there is nothing there worth my consideration. I am routinely not aware that I am doing it, and often have to have the lights knocked out of me in order to realize that what I have engaged in only serves to harm myself and to further impede my progress toward a better life. Generally, ruminating over past negative events is counterproductive and harmful to the whole person.  Also, looking back and longing for what is no longer ever going to be the natural order of things is inherently dangerous. 

I am sure by now a few of my readers will be chuckling, and one will be enjoying a belly buster. Fine then, that makes me a success. I would hope that one in particular might beam with pride that I finally get “it”.  It all brings to mind a time from my glory days, which, being a positive memory, I believe is profitable to dwell on.  I was practicing nursing on a neuroscience unit, new and fresh and immersed in what I was learning and doing each day. I was discussing negative current relational events with a lovely mentor nurse from India who embraced her own world of troubles and relational hurt  and simply stated: “Dear girl, when you put the garbage can on the corner each week, do you ever go outside and drag it back into the house again?”  It is wisdom I have never forgotten, and yet recently I realized that I never completely understood it. I immediately understood it to mean that of course you purge, eliminate or discard the “thing” or the “person” but I never realized until these past weeks that alongside that goes the rest of “it”.  Defining “it” , the waste, the damage, the hurt feelings and powerful assumptions made, all of these things should make it to the corner with the garbage.  There is no good thing to come from looking back.   I think it is the greatest paralyzer.  

These conclusions brought me a memory of a story from the Bible. It is the story of Lot and his family, who were living in Sodom and Gomorrah.  You can imagine by God’s perspective there was no good thing to come out of this entire city. I am sure the people living within its walls with no boundaries and with no limits could ever agree.  As the story goes, in simplest fashion there was by God’s perspective one good man in the city. One man worth the saving, a man called Lot, and by grace and command, his family was included in the one time offer for a ticket out of hellfire with just one irrevocable demand and command.  “Do NOT look back.”  One does not have to be a Bible scholar to realize that violating such a command would bring about an unlivable consequence.   It was not as if Lot did not prepare his family.  It was not as if as leader of his house he chose to leave out that information and leave it to chance . Lot was clear on the concept and clear in communicating it.  The line was drawn in the sand. Something bad is happening here, and it was time for this family to go.  From God’s perspective this must have been one of the greatest planned dramas in all of Bible history.  God had done it before with a flood, so it seems that Einstein’s definition of insanity may not apply here. One family was allowed out to head for the hills while the entire city locked down and imploded with great balls of fire to consume the sinners and scourge the land of their sin.  What a party town that must have been!   

So let us review the command. “DO NOT LOOK BACK.”  As it turns out, this is easier said than done for some.   Lot was the one good man chosen by God to be spared this horrible event, and since Lot was from a strong and vital bloodline, the bloodline that eventually leading to Jesus, it was imperative that he be spared to lead his children out of danger. 

Sodom and Gomorrah was burning. Fireballs were coming from the sky and Lot took the hand of his wife and commanded his children to follow him. They fled on foot towards the hills, all the while Lot reminding his beloved family of God’s one demand/command:   “DO NOT LOOK BACK.”

I always wondered what it was that compelled the woman to look back. Known infamously through the rest of history only as “Lot’s wife”, what happened next burned itself into the minds of every innocent Sunday school student in all of Christianity.  The common teaching is that she was simply a disobedient wife. Well, she was that.  I just wondered what made her do it.  Many people would argue that it might be Satan’s shot at trying to make the daughter look back, who God needed to continue the bloodline, others say that she was stuck to some behavior or relationship in the past. For whatever reason, probably a tangle of them, Lot’s wife stopped, and was compelled, and looked back.  The Biblical report is that she immediately turned into “a pillar of salt”.  Those that take things literally may see that as a pile of salt, or something like the picture here.

                                    

                                      

That is too pretty. It does not depict the self-destruction that happens as a result of looking back on the past against all better judgment and command.  Lot’s wife, harmed herself irreparably, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.  I do not think it makes sense to take this accounting literally. I think it makes better sense with more appropriate definitions.  I see Lot’s wife as having the need to stop and look back at a former life, one she liked, one she was happy in, and one she was attached to the relationships in. Lot’s wife did not realize that looking back on what was taken from her would be her undoing. I read where the Phoenicians used the phrase “pillar of salt” to define paralysis, as a physical one, being unable to move, as in a stroke or spinal cord injury. All we know is that she died unable to move and unable to participate in real living. She became someone benign, dead or not dead, it clearly never mattered. The lesson for me is that life can end as a result of looking back. It can stick you in a place, paralyzed and useless for living.  If the same God had intended for us to look back as a habit, our heads would turn all the way around and our eyes would not have peripheral limits. The limits are there for a reason, and heads and eyes are meant to face forward.

A dear friend of mine taught me recently and passionately that the past is never in the equation of real living. When we travel in any direction, the road signs always tell us how far we are from the place we are going, not how much ground we have covered since the place we left.                         

                               

Does knowing this make me NEVER want to look back? It is certainly compelling.  What I do know is that there is real consequence for doing it and the punishment is a loss of freedom.  I am not willing to accept or tolerate a fixed position at any point of my life so I just cannot look back again.  I will choose pillar of wellness over a pillar of salt any day. 

I am going to go out on a limb and say that looking back on the glory days and the good times can be very healthy. I was driving yesterday in unseasonably warm temperatures with the top down on my convertible, listening to music while soaking up the sunlight and much coveted Vitamin D.  I remembered the way the springtime felt in my younger days at the University of Rhode Island and all I could hear was music being blasted out an open dormitory window. The band was Boston and the song was:

Don’t Look Back

Don't look back
A new day is breakin'
It's been too long since I felt this way
I don't mind where I get taken
The road is callin'
Today is the day

I can see
It took so long just to realize
I'm much too strong
Not to compromise
Now I see what I am is holding me down
I'll turn it around, oh yes I will

I finally see the dawn arrivin'
I see beyond the road I'm drivin'

It's a bright horizon and I'm awakin' now
Oh I see myself in a brand new way
The sun is shinin'
The clouds are breakin'
'Cause I can't lose now, there's no game to play

I can tell
There's no more time left to criticize
I've seen what I could not recognize
Everthing in my life was leading me on
But I can be strong, oh yes i can

I finally see the dawn arrivin'
I see beyond the road I'm drivin'
Far away and left behind, left behind

Oh the sun is shinin' *and I wanna go*

Don't look back
A new day is breakin'
It's been too long since I felt this way
I don't mind where I get taken
The road is callin'
Today is the day

I can see
It took so long just to realize
I'm much too strong
Not to compromise
Now I see what I am is holding me down
I'll turn it around, oh yes I will

I finally see the dawn arriving
I see beyond the road I'm driving
Far away and left behind
Don't look back

I hope you enjoy the song as much as I always did and still do today. I carry with me the determination to avoid looking back on negative events  and to retain my focus on what is positive and important. For health and wellness, it is a vital and necessary change.

Resonant Partner   

Suckers

So this one just popped into my head today and I thought I would share it!
Here's to never giving up!

RP