Thanksgiving is hard as a day. It’s loaded with expectations that often counter reality. Traditions dress up in their regal attire demanding a throned seat at the head of the table, often bulldozing the present feelings in the room. Pressure to do as before, to maintain the past or recreate magic from another time sits nearby quietly pressing on hearts. Those voices can shout so loud they drown out the voices of today that might be ready to embrace the difference, painting a picture of deep contrast washing out what could simply be contentment.

Thanksgiving used to be such a day for me. Traditions of family meant rotating houses and which side of family got this day or Christmas. Menus identical, a table full of food I could often eat one thing or two with so many food allergies, I always felt full but poorly nourished.

Those Thanksgivings have faded into the past, no longer celebrated the same since loved ones have passed. The glue came undone with divorce and death, family spread out no longer chained to the past. Tradition let go and secretly I’m a little glad. No longer tired to one idea or can be what it wants.

Part of this day each and every year there are tears for those who are no longer here. The missing never fades and the holes reappear. I wish for one more traditional dinner with food I can’t eat and expectations galore if only for this day I could make my Aunt reappear.

In recent years I’ve made thanksgiving whatever I’ve wanted,  small dinner with friends or a road trip of 2 with our furry companions. This year I want to set an intention, by being thankful for what I have I want to acknowledge the things that I’ve lost.

Traditions have changed and I find myself in different company year to year. I want my tradition to center on gratefulness on a deeper level than just a quick list.  To have a moment to reflect on life and creating a space that fosters thankfulness. Sometimes that is hard to do,  to be still for a moment and really just feel.  I used to be good at it,  it was easy to breath, to feel sorrow or joy or whatever was there at my fingertips.  These days stress reigns tighter with a lingering pandemic and social stress I find I’m so tired carrying so much tension that is hard to identify with invisible triggers.

The one thing I’ve realized I’ve dropped for myself is creating a space that elicits a mood to be reflective. Music, lighting a location or view can elicit my thoughts and shift them around. Lately my encounters feel more like appointments instead of simply time together to let life unfold. I feel busy even when I’m sitting still.

Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful, I want to live with a grateful mindset everyday not just one day a year.  This year I’m grateful for the reminder to myself to set a tone of intention and reflection on purpose instead of hoping it will show up in its own. 

Gratitude

“The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”.

For years I used to write everyday throughout November, listing things in life I was grateful for.  It started one year when I was living in a dark hole struggling to see light and recognize good things around me and about me and my life. I started small. “I am thankful that the sun is out and shining today”. At the time I wasn’t grateful for it, I just needed something to write a sentence about that wasn’t negative…and the sun shining was a deep reach at the time.

It was hard for me to contrast good with the feelings I was living in. Nothing felt good, it felt hopeless and dark, nothing seemed to carry much weight so the sun shining didn’t make me feel any warmer inside, it was just a string of words I put to paper for the “credit” of keeping track. It became a daily practice for me, writing in a little book, a single sentence about something…anything “the line was short at the grocery store”, “I hit a green light on my way home”, “I finished a page in a book I was reading” I could reach only so far and it was toward the mundane. There was definitely a gap, a canyon wide between writing a sentence of gratefulness and feeling any kind of gratefulness. I did this for years, one day and a time…it was painstaking and felt meaningless and agonizing like a math assignment I just couldn’t get my head around in high school, keeping me up until 11pm wailing about how I just couldn’t get it done.

Over time coming up with something got a bit easier “my dog was happy to see me when I got home from work”, “a kiddo I worked with said my name!”, “The sunset was gorgeous!”, “my roses smell delightful” and I felt a smile touch my lips as I finished my sentence. Adjectives started to color my phrases along with color, texture, touch, smell. People and their actions started to paint my day and when I wasn’t looking the slightest taste of joy started to spark inside my heart. I felt lighter and my days started taking on a new shape, I started to look for joy in the small menial daily annoyances that used to chide me. My heart grew lighter and I started to unburden myself of the weight of carrying around so much negativity. It wasn’t overnight nor was it really on purpose, but the action of stating something every day changed me over time.

The challenge grew from a little journal to my Facebook page, merging from a life of solitude and pain, to an attempt to open up to others and share my attempt to find joy and craft my grateful one liners into something bigger…maybe a short paragraph and of course a photo (mostly of my dog, let’s be real he’s the best thing ever!). The month of November is focused on thanksgiving and felt like a good starting place to increase my challenge for myself with the days leading up to Thanksgiving Day. Then it grew some more, into a real reflection and to more abstract ideas and things I find I am grateful for in this life, to really exploring struggles within myself and the process for overcoming those barriers. I shared on that platform for years, expanding my challenge to the whole month of November and I wasn’t allowed to “check it off” with something mundane, I had to work for it. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Forced myself to a schedule of inner reflection with no plan for what I was writing, just allowing a subject or thought to unfold on its own. I was wracked with stress some days, wondering what the heck I would come up with and it was always just there…a lot of the time it wasn’t really for me, but someone else would read it and find a jive. That was the real grateful I felt, connecting with someone else just as a human searching for something joyful expressed.

Since starting my blog I have completely fallen off of any gratitude journaling or marking those moments with an exercise and I have noticed that this year in particular, I have had a harder time with reminders that life is good. I still see joy in a day and in the mundane…but I don’t really search for it or make a practice of finding it every day…and I really haven’t challenged myself with writing. It’s gotten the brush off in the midst of other life activities and I miss the practice.  

Gratitude is a quality. A standard of excellence or distinctive attribute possessed by someone. I used to hone the quality of gratitude in my life on a daily basis. I wish I was in a place where I was ready for another challenge, a daily challenge to write so deeply in self-reflection and act out gratitude without necessarily feeling gratitude, but mostly I just feel tired. Digging deep is work, it used to come more easily than it does these days. My boss is always talking about work/life balance with schedules and I thought I had a decent balance with work taking up so many hours and life being free on the flip side, but maybe I am just realizing that life balance is on another scale without the contrast of work. Balance for activities, reflection, solitude, adventure, chores, errands, the mundane and then just being. Maybe the challenge I need to accept this go round of November is simply a space to just be for 5 minutes to collect my thoughts that circle wider than a run through of the day, the check lists, and the leftovers and tomorrows outlook. I lost that somewhere. If gratitude is a quality, the practice is what the rest is measured by, my quality of life feels lacking, and perhaps it is due to the loss of practicing gratitude.

I was hoping that somewhere in the keystrokes another part would take over and write the answers for me leading me to the metaphorical pot of gold and the energy I needed to accept the November challenge from the past, but instead I find that I don’t want the pressure of the past haunting me all month making me feel failure in an attempt I haven’t agreed to, nor do I feel like I want to do that again. Throughout the years that I have chosen to find gratitude and express it in my life, it has never turned its back on me. I have never lost its trail when I have gone looking for it and even here, putting pressure on myself to make it act a certain way and deliver me to some alternate universe, it lays it’s cards the same. Here in these keystrokes I have found deep gratitude for gratitude itself. Its nature remains in its integrity and a tiny smile is pulling at my lips while deeper down there is a tickle of joy holding hands with contentment. 

I had one once…for years and years.
She helped me unburden myself, heard my ramblings and tried to pin me in a feeling I’d stumble over in avoidance or a minimizing brush off. She helped me face myself without judgement, unloading my suite of baggage down to a functional sized day pack one feeling at a time. I was a marsupial in life, hording feelings deep in my pouch while refusing to acknowledge what was actually growing in there. The junk I kept wasn’t compatible with life and neither was I. It took those years to shift through the junk I’d stored up.  Some junk was mine, directly earned, and a lot more mixed in of unwanted donations from others I’d accepted only to ease someone else of the burden. After years of therapy I can say I’m now comfortable with boundaries, setting and maintaining them,  recognizing healthy relationships and capable of leaving a toxic one, and recognizing that feelings aren’t meant to be stuffed for later, but felt and released in the moment they arrive. This freedom allows me ro truly love others as they are without judgement. Thank you to my Therapist for all of that support.

Professionally I am labeled a Speech-Language Pathologist with a board certification and the alphabet M.A. CCC-SLP trailing my name on professional documents. The majority of the world has no idea what that means and I’m more commonly referred to as a Speech Therapist…even though what I actually do is still mostly unknown, simplified and watered down. There are SLP’s in the world that live life rigidly and correct everyone in the use of the alphabet…because it took a lot of work to earn those letters, but personally I think speech therapist wraps up a better definition for what I actually do everyday. (Mostly if something affects your airway-respiration, breathing, voice/vocal chords; your mouth-chewing, feeding, drooling, swallowing, articulation, speaking; your brain-lanuage, comprehension, attention, memory, hearing, reading, writing, thinking, cognition, executive functioning…SLP’s are likely in your face for rehab.)

Personally I work in pediatrics doing home visits for all my patients. The kiddos I see are typically atypical meaning they have their own bell curve of functional and vary from that seemly average 2 year old you simply can’t understand to kids who are more medically and developmentally complex; the autism spectrum with limited communication, picky eating and “odd” behaviors, infants just out of the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) born premature as early as 25 weeks old, ventilator dependent with tracheostomies, chair bound, non-verbal, tube fed, frequent seizures, paralysis, stroke, brain tumors, hearing impairments, to end of life complications/diagnosis and palliative care. My patients aren’t simple and I’m rarely bored. Doing home visits I don’t just see kids, I see families. I see the day in and day out, long term with extended family visits and suports, holiday celebrations, weekend plans, hobbies and interests, to the daily grind of coping, fighting, stress, fallout, hope, tears and exhaustion.

I’m supposed to have professional boundaries, no fraternizing! To remain professional and seperate…but I can tell you that line is only important for what I can’t take home and means nothing for how I show up. Going to someone’s home 52-104 times per year, I visit more often than most grandma’s,  I’m there more frequently than a best friend,  I bring with me a consistent and steady presence that cares about each kid, shares joy in baby-sized-steps of progress and in the disappointment with set backs. I listen to my families and that’s where my work starts, hearing how they feel facing life today in frustration, anger, pain or joy. They can’t do it alone,  and neither could I. We’re all meant to connect,  to be seen and heard…not just in the highs but desperately in the lows. I think speech therapist is a more descriptive term for what I do, it’s the therapy that counts in all of its layers.

Looking at our society and our nation today I struggle to watch the news and engage with current events.  I’m frustrated and angry with the “systems” we promote, caring more about being PC, self promotion and agendas than the people that those things hurt. We’ve become a nation that’s angry, pitted against our differences and isolated beyond recognition. We hate based on adjectives with a vocabulary of one: color, party, homed, poor, vaccinated, illegal, masked, armed, etc. We’ve forgotten our sameness, the one that unites our differences as an us, as American. We don’t need more agendas, division or hate. We need to hear again and learn how to listen; to remember we’re all human and are wired to connect, to be seen and heard and learn how to have our feelings and more conversations. We need less alphabets of importance and more therapists who care. We can all learn to be a “therapist”, someone who can listen withholding judgement, some one who cares and listens to understand rather than for solution, for those we find in our circle of care.

Sometimes I can’t sleep.
It comes out of nowhere.
Wide awake, midnight loses its meaning.
Still awake.

I don’t have voices talking too loud,
Or things left over from the day.
No family drama, worries about kids
Just unlistened to feelings rearing their heads.

Snow is coming and bringing with it short days of dread, I still have weeds that have overtaken my yard.  A whole year of them taunting and now they’re dead,  but still taller than the fence and won’t fit in my trashcan.  I used to have grass and enjoyed sitting outside. This year I missed all the sunsets to avoid puffy eyes and endless sneezing. My space of joy choked for real by the worst weeds I’ve ever seen.

Work is a tornado no matter what I do, reschedule here or accomodate there with distant trips just to make up the time I already spent.  Spending still happens, must I really retire? Overly responsible I get a pit in my gut, save for vacation…well not for this month, its just bills and more bills and the house eats a lot.

Fear creeps its head,  I haven’t acknowledged the reeper in a month or two, he’s back with a vengeance to remind me he’s there,  one slip from me and he’ll be happily fed. What am I afraid of…oh what am I not!? I could write a novel as long as a roll of toilet paper both front and back with irrational fears paired up with what’s real.  I make this list alone in the dark,  that’s why that guy fear showed up tonight,  he’s kind that way, never leaves me out, he’s so quick to share his ideas for my list, it’s grows extra fast with his hat in the race.
Conversations unravel from my head to my lips,  thoughts I’ve been thinking but haven’t yet said.  Not all are bad or terrifying, just having a say while I’m attending.

It’s mostly adulting,  I carry around to much. At the end of the day sometimes I simply forfeit. Being a kid I had no idea,  how I long to forget and feel 7 again. Sometimes its just hard to do everything myself.  I want to drop my real life and just stay in bed.

I hate competition and right around the corner I’m biking a race. Why the hell did I sign up for an activity that causes deep internal panic!? That’s probably the catalyst for my wide open eyes past the middle of the night…I wonder if there’s enough time before then to suddenly move to Australia?
It’s not the lessons learned,  the joy at the end,  the process of “training” or signing up with a friend…it’s literally the experience of being slower than everyone and stuck in a crowd with expectations. I pull over on trails so I’m always in the back,  no one on my trail to mess up my focus, keeping my own pace so I enjoy my time in the trees… why am I racing?? How is this me?

I work with kids on the autism spectrum and sensory disorders.  When they reach overload with agendas, work load, sensory or conversation they meltdown into screams until someone calms them…I get the spiraling build up of internal stress, I think that’s why I like them,  we hear the same noise.

I keep it in check,  I don’t meltdown outloud,  but inside I’m on overload the screaming is silent. I tick to many boxes without feeling the shift then all of a sudden the scale recognizes its been tipped. I’ve always been that way with regulation and pace. I deal with it myself until it spills out. I’ve cried tears of frustration on so many trails, working it out,  but sometimes those feelings follow me home sneaking out after dark.  Too big to give names or point a finger, yelling at the one who tipped the scale doesn’t really matter given the huge mess of feelings splattered all over the floor. Surrounded by glitter my feeling line the floor, no matter my next move in marked clean up takes forever.

Frustration and lonliness splotched in green, stress and fear stained yellow the blue in my tears, failures bleed red smeared orange by my attempts and bury what hope I had in a coffin of purple.

Who knows how long I’ve been setting these feelings aside not really attending to the depth they long to provide. With my feeling exploded into rainbow soup,  a mess on the floor I can no longer ignore,  they steal the sleep I’ve been using to avoid their chatter. I don’t want to listen,  but they’ve insisted they matter.

Hello 1am will you call timeout? I’ve got to work tomorrow and my pillow is lonely. Will you help me sing lullabies to these needy voices so we can all rest and find a new pace in the morning. Things will be calmer and less of a bother after tomorrow grows later with tonight leading the way. The mess on the floor might return to the sky waiting for light after the next time it rains.

It’s hard to learn new skills as an adult. My learning curve feels steeper and full of holes while my expectations skyrocket outside the range of normal limits.

As a kid I rode a bike,  mostly in my front yard, down the long driveway,  through the horse arena and around the block at grandma’s.  With my cousins we’d experiment,  tying jumpropes to our bike posts, we’d pull eachother down the hill on skateboards and roller blades, often ending up with road rash. We’d go at this for hours on repeat without getting tired or low on energy. Riding solo I’d bike down the long driveway,  cut left into the dirt to go down a corner into the arena and ride down piles of dirt making my own little “pump” track.  They looked so big,  but I’d ride through my hesitation with caution on the first round, followed by multiple rounds of confidence and joy on repeat until I was sated.

It never occurred to me that I was building muscle memory, bike body balance,  motor planning and execution of braking,  riding flow,  downhill body position and a bunch of other skills.  I was just 7 out riding my bike.

Fast forward 30 years. I’ve picked up mountain biking, with gear changes,  sharper slopes, seat dropper timing, cornering switchbacks, finding ridable lines over obstacles,  technical climbing and rocky decents all at a pace much faster than what I normally ride. I’m no longer just 7 and out riding my bike, I’m thinking quick and occasionally find a flow.

Frustration plagues me.  “Why can’t I get this!?”, “This is so hard!”, “That line is impossible!”, “Ah, it’s the boogieman!”, “I can’t do that,  it’s too hard!”, “Will I ever keep up!?!”. Then bad habits sneak in making it so much worse,  while I watch my friends ride faster and seemingly better every ride and I’m just stuck in impossible land.  “Maybe I need a new group” runs through my head all the time as though that would solve my issues, or I think “maybe this isn’t my sport and I should find something else”.

Today at the bike park I watched several small children collapse into tears, whining in their frustration. “It’s too hard,  my gears are too slow or they’re too fast, it’s not working!”, and another little boy lamenting the hills “I don’t want to ride it,  I want to ride on the street!” While he sobbed and sobbed.  I felt like I’d finally found my group.  Yes! I wanted to cry next to them and say “I know,  me too!” and purge my frustration with them so freely.  Watching some road cyclists attempt a bridge and pump track I saw their discomfort with an obstacle and their panic response to break instead of ride through. I saw a little kid throw his feet off his pedals in his panic as though it was equal to breaking.  Seeing these physical signs of panic in others comforted me. I’m not the only one out there caught up in a panic,  letting my eyes tell me lies instead of relying on my form and technique.

Yesterday I took a bike clinic with some friends. Riding through the parking lot with back to basic drills it was easy to sift out some bad habits I’ve formed and correct them with an instructor’s eyes on my form. Taking it to the trail, it only took a second for my worst habit to show up. “I don’t think I can do it.” Like a giant red stop sign in front of me,  I stop before I try,  putting a foot down and failing to commit. Rounding a switchback my eyes stare at the ground instead of where I’m going,  getting stuck and locked up. It’s literally the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. And I can’t really explain why or where it came from, a total body freeze up.   Each attempt getting harder as my emotions built up,  the instructor gently stating “you’ve had three years of stopping yourself at every opportunity and only 30 minutes of trying,  don’t let frustration get in the way!”

If only I was a child and could have released all my feelings at that moment causing the biggest scene of all time. It’s hard to learn new things as an adult. I expect a new thing to be easy,  to get it after 3 tries, to be as good as those around me,  to not struggle,  to not have to work at something,  to be natural.  And yet my biggest problem is that I don’t believe I can, I just stop, freeze. I don’t try,  I just accept failure. I don’t have to fix my form,  just my brain.

There was another kid at the bike park this morning,  riding the little pump track round and round as his dad watched. On his second lap he shouts out “I’m doing great!” with a giant smile on his face.  It made me pause. I can relate to the kids with frustrated attitudes and meltdowns, but this kid’s joy and positivity struck me…I want to relate to that.

Learning a new skill as an adult is hard. I’ve got some work to do.

Today I went to my first in person yoga class since before the time of covid. With the gym finally opening back up to workouts without self-induced-mandated-suffocation-mask-wearing while engaging in an exercise that is all about the breath, I felt I’d waited long enough and signed up.

Over this last year my body has communicated just how dependent I’ve become on yoga to ease my joint and back pain and allow my body to move with ease, especially with my work days filled with sitting in front of a zoom audience,  on the floor and in the car driving to patients houses. Sedentary isn’t my lifestyle of choice,  but somehow it took over when I was busy not noticing.

I was worried about how stiff I’d be,  or that I’d be starting over from scratch, like my first yoga class several years ago,  but my breath came back to me as did my flow. My only limitation was my depth of stretch,  range of motion and memory of being fully present in my body.

An entire year has passed since I’ve really found my breath, and felt presentand connectedwith my body… and with it came a realization that I can’t fit everything in like I did before.

Working from home on zoom left a lot of freedom to go outside everyday  to ride my bike and commit to activites after work hours without exhaustion and loosing battles with traffic.  The desire for human interaction made it easy to spontaneously have friends over to eat on the porch,  or plan a camping trip for and entire weekend last minute and still have time to pack and grocery shop.  I had time to call people on the phone or video call and talk for an hour or more when I was starving for connection and I had too many left over words at the end of the day. I didn’t feel dog guilt for leaving Ted alone all day,  he was at my feet from sunup to sundown on weekdays and the weekend. Working out wasn’t hard,  I just rode my bike and lifted in a friend’s basement, no gym schedule to follow. Life was slower and the days felt longer, flexibility was accessible even without yoga.

Fast forward to today and I’m overwhelmed in a heartbeat.  Traffic is back with a vengeance with a hundred out of state drivers and construction on every street! I live in my car driving every 45 minutes and have too many patients in a single day, I’ve lost my boundaries. The weather is obscene and biking is out more than it is in between 100° days of full sun and rain with muddy trails.  Scheduling time with friends involves too many overloaded schedules to find more than an hour together in a months time which feel filled with surface updates instead of depth. Dog guilt stares at me every morning from those beautiful almond brown eyes as I run around the house hiding bribes treats in multiple places to deter the lonely eyes from my own as I sneak out the door to work.

Lunch?!? Oh I always seem to forget where that fits in. Getting to the gym to feel fit again now comes with a signup early commitment or else the class is full…or late at night…so dinner is when??  And making time for a relationship, to really feel connected and be present to grow deeper together…

It’s only Tuesday,  but Sunday is already gone. I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do life.  It’s swallowed me up,  I feel overwhelmed… and I feel like it’s been simplified down to what’s important, but sped up to a speed I can’t keep pace with.

Breathe in deep.  Hold at the top. I’m stuck in this breath holding pressure in.  Let it go.

I’ve forgotten my boundries with my work schedule. I’m too quick to say yes to accommodate others needs at the loss of saying yes to myself.  I’m running,  but in circles with the world as it opens back up. I’ve forgotten how to keep pace with myself.  When was the last time I even felt like writing?

And another breath in. Breathing deep into the feeling of discomfort or tightness, letting the breath touch those places, bringing them space to lengthen and release. I’m right here again, I remember this pace. I’ve found myself again. And taking a big exhale, Let it all go.

I thought I made peace with you, 
I thought we were friends.

I heard your voice today running through my head,  but it wasn’t the voice I’d associate as a friend.

Negative,  judgemental,  snide and rude,
Playing with my fears you took them off mute.

The deep feelings I feel way down in the dark came gushing out to the light in front of the world.

I haven’t heard that voice in a while. I usually keep it to myself,  hashing things out at my dinner table alone until peace resumes and you’re laid to rest again far away in the dark.

Power isn’t yours,  but today you won.

I feel small,  worthless and lacking in value…simply put not good enough.

Where is my armor? Where is my suit of reason to put you back in your place? Was I sleeping and unaware of your poison leaking into my thoughts?

It seems so abrupt and out of place for such negatively to slap me so hard in the face.

Did I let my guard down in the wrong place? Did I get caught up in other feelings and forget to take the time to keep you in place?

Insecurity reigns when the throne is empty,  I must have been neglectful maintaining my post, which allowed you,  the imposter to reign.

Insecurity I hate you and your voice of pain. Calling my doubts out of question and into the light of fact,  it’s hard to see real in this shady light.

Is hard to remember that I will not drown when I’m kicking and paddling so hard against the tide when my nature says it’s better floating and letting it slide.

I am of value. I am of worth. I am worthy of kindness,  loyalty and love. I have my struggles and hard for me things,  I don’t need to compete to earn any of these things. 

I think I just heard your voice outloud coming from an unsuspecting place,  hidden in a joke… instead of a punchline it was a punch to the face.

It’s hard to be open, to let my guard down. To share your voice with others trusting they won’t let me down by siding with you.

Vulnerability might kill me, being intentionally see through… but I can’t live without it.  Insecurity back off, I’ve remembered… I’ll fight this to win it.

Insecurity you don’t own me.

Fractured.
Time has split again, before and… after.
The world keeps spinning as though nothing has changed, but hearts are broken and shock is played out.
News of you traveled, old fashioned by phone, to connect me to pain and my own fragility.
Time plays a trick calling me back, time travel is real and we’re face to face in 2010.

Your thoughtfulness of others was never unknown, you missed zero opportunities to demonstrate your love.
Feeding others, especially me, was a challenge you gratefully accepted, avoiding allergies to share meals that were healthy but tasted like love.
In the quiet space of our treatment “classrooms” you asked me hard questions about my life situations, what were my fears? You were so honest and direct, yet slow to share that some of those questions were asked by a mirror.
We had similar struggles and similar pain, looking inward to find solace and a way to escape. To find our hearts and set them free to breathe without burden.

Your perspective unchanged no matter the situation, you always looked to the light to find the silver lining, I don’t think you realized you were the ray of light shining in positivity, even if inside you were standing in a rainstorm.

Even though geography created space with us, you never dropped the ball. Commenting and messaging I always knew just where you were, still open with your heart and chasing understanding.
My heart breaks to know the memories will be what I carry, no longer will I have the chance to see you again nor steal a carrot from your lunch to try a new dip.
You always liked the things I wrote that poured out from my heart. These are the words I have for you…but it doesn’t seem enough.

You and I shared a mirror and looking at it now, I could be you and you could be me and is not right that you’re already gone. I can’t understand, still shock bound.

You leave a legacy of love, of honest integrity. Your children will always know how much you adored and loved them, as will the children you taught and supported, the families you cared for and the change your love made in their lives.

In your unexpected parting from this world you took a piece of my heart with you, leaving a hole that will eventually scar into the shape of your smile. I will carry your memory there and fill it with thoughts of you until it’s my turn to follow after you.

But for now I will sit here sobbing tears and allow my heart to break for you my friend, for Erin.

Why does a heart beat again?
Why does it go looking for safety in the hands of another?
Am I not a good keeper?

Why does it give itself away so quickly, escaping the walls of protection?
Is it oblivious to the pain it’s suffered, forgotten so quickly the moment a flutter returns?

A heart must beat if it’s to live, without a murmur it would die.
Upon its death how much breath is given up in every attempt to revive.
How many times must it suffer and die before it longs to stay safe and alone protected and sheltered in its home.

A chest broken open again and again left to chase after its wandering heart.
Ill content to be held in a cage as its purpose becomes frozen in time.
Love cannot exist in a heart bound up in a cage, for love is only itself when it is free.

How can my heart forget the care I’ve poured into its recovery, only to leave the second it beats again entirely on it’s own.
I cannot follow in its path, to many times I’ve been lead astray.

Practicality has erased all thought of romance, and yet this heart is too foolish to care.
The promise of hope is enough it seems for it to forfeit my wise counseling.

I know this story and it’s end, the color of jade I fear.
I’m set and ready for CPR, shaking my head in consternation.

No one is truer to you than I, no one strong enough to hold you.
This lesson it seems you will never learn and yet I cannot live without you.

I glued you back together one smashed piece at a time.
Breathing small to swallow the pain I felt handling your sharp edges.

How quickly you forget the past and surrender all your pain.
And still I haven’t found a way that I can live without you.

Traitor.

I haven’t felt like writing much lately. Lack of inspiration, missing a muse, or just brain exhaustion from living through pending stress. Whatever the reason, I miss writing. I find it cathartic. It removes cobwebs from my head and helps me center. Maybe writing itself is what I’ve been missing as a practice. It’s harder to sit still and just be with a shutdown city and winter darkness. Writing holds me to a place for an extended time, lost yet connected deep in my thoughts. My thoughts untangle in a flow that comes out in a voice I don’t always recognize as mine. I crave depth and richness in conversation, in a feeling or idea, especially with myself…I feel lacking.

I’m usually reflective in the fall, forward focused for the year to come. Ready with excitement to shape a new year and what I want to accomplish. The stillness usually sparks a burst of energy, freshness like spring cleaning when it feels as though anything is possible. This fall felt flat and that burst didn’t come. Here I sit in January without a list of what I want, delayed… when I run on time.

2020 is hard to remember, where did most of it go? Did I accomplish anything, or did I simply survive?

I don’t make resolutions, I find they lack staying power and have that nagging voice of “should” that I really don’t like to listen to. Instead I write a list with areas of focus. 2020s list holds similar contours as the years before, with small details as a hook for my values and priorities. Sitting still after a day of movment, reflection found its gaze on 2020, this list, magnetized to my fridge 365 days of viewing for every eye to see.

Professionally I had big goals to make some bigger changes. Feeling dull 12 years in, my profession felt lacking in passion. Feeding and swallowing knowledge has been slowly realing me in, along with supervision and teaching. I checked the list by supervising SLPA’s since February, and in the final countdown of 2020 I took a new job back into home health, this time with a clinical mentor for myself. I feel supported once again, no longer the big fish, in chasing down new knowledge, I get to learn again.

Physically I remembered I feel better when I am strong. Without the social connection of a class at the gym it’s hard to motivate myself to move, I get so distracted. I still got out for cardio by upgrading to a new mountain bike, and lifted a few things. My body missing the connection to my breath in a class of real life yoga. The goal of staying active matters and I don’t take it for granted, being out of shape sucks.

Travel wasn’t as grand with bigger trips canceled. I made it out of the country to the Galapagos just before the world turned mad. A cancelled trip to Hawaii left a short weekend with my family down in Santa Fe, with local mini weekend trips close to home in the USA.

Volunteering wasn’t as full as I’d have liked it to be, but I found myself more willing to donate to those in need in all the needed ways, not just by volunteering my time.

Financial goals snuck up on me with more specific details. The future collided with me as covid spread its fears, realizing the future is coming with its blanket of unknown. Putting thoughts ahead of myself I finally refocused on some goals that were bigger than my list. I caught up with myself, I’m no longer just looking at the past.

The biggest thing on my list from 2020, was my focus on relationships. I’ve been focused on the roots in life, being a transplant in midlife, it’s been hard to find a net. People and friends are miles wide, it’s easy enough to know others, but I longed for an inner circle of depth in the midst of social expansion. Being limited to smaller groups and ordering take out, I have my little circle of the friends I can’t live without. My family, so distant, learned to video chat, it helps with the missing when we see eachother more often, even if it’s only by wi-fi. Dating online found its death in my eyes. The dreaded hate I have for the unrealistic expectations and frequent, yet simple, rejection by swiping for dates pushed me out to meet people in real life, desperate for conversation beyond repeat texts. No pressure to date, no unmet expectations, just company with others who also enjoy biking. It’s made me feel human again, staying true to myself. Just like breathing I came back to myself choosing to be open and free, nothing more nothing less, just to be myself, giving love permission to find it’s own way to be let in.

The news rehash on New Years Eve of 2020 felt rather dull, flat, stressful and depressing. Living life like a yoyo back and forth between freedom and shutdown I feel that exhaustion is an understatement. Looking through my list with its view of 2020 it doesn’t look any less fullfilling than the years that came before it. I’ve had the ups and I’ve had the downs, like every year, time doesn’t keep track of when it’s enough, sometimes some things just get stuck.

I’ve finally worked out a list for 2021, and it’s ready for my fridge. Not much is different, perhaps it’s a little more honest, sharing more of the small things instead of general-ness. I hope 2021 brings good things, but if hard things roll in I know I’ve got those who will have my back, chase adventures with me, and hold me close. And that feels like a good place to start.