Driving – I did it!

WarriorLara

driving.png

We don’t really know what we are capable of doing until there is no other choice before us.  Well, even as I write that first sentence I realize there is always, ALWAYS  a choice.  But when the choice is between doing it ourselves or not getting to do it at all it is amazing what can happen.

Russell was the one who loved long drives.  I like driving but don’t love it.  I like road trips and loved the trips that we would all take down to Sarasota, FL every year.  Mainly though I liked the driving part because I love napping in cars.  It drops me back into childhood when we would drive to Wisconsin as a family. Those trips were times for reading, playing the alphabet game, and napping.  Our family trips that Russell and I shared for decades were the same with lots of fun music added in – especially Jimmy Buffet and Bob Marley.

Last year when we drove to Florida for our beach vacation in July it was a shorter trip – only 12 hours compared to the 16 or 17 it takes to get to Sarasota.  It was a trip broken up by Kateri and Soren both sharing in the driving duties and us making lots of stops to keep me awake enough to keep driving.  When we traveled to Sarasota in December we flew down because the thought of making that very long drive made me want to curl up and hide under my covers, no matter how much the lure of the beach was calling to me. No way could I handle making a drive that is technically 16 hours but would surely take us 20 with all the stops I would need.

Not only have we made it to Orlando with me driving all but 2 of the hours, I actually really enjoyed the driving this time.  We stopped in Atlanta last night which was a good break splitting the drive into a 9 hour day and a 7 hour day (stopping for lunch always adds time).  I’m tired tonight but actually much, much less than I thought I would be. Instead I feel energized and excited for our adventures at Disney to start tomorrow.

My kids slept much of the way, as I always used to do.  I would drive maybe 10% of our trips with Russell driving 90%. I never understood how he would say he actually liked the driving and wanted to do it. I never understood until this trip.

As the kids slept I listened to my favorite songs; started listening to a Brene Brown’s book Daring Greatly which I am loving; let my mind wander through the opportunities currently before me for my life; allowed myself to be filled with gratitude for my children, my family and this trip; and smiled as memory after memory flooded through me of the dozens of trips Russell and I took on the very roads I drove mile after mile.  My heart rode wave after wave of memory simultaneously missing Russell and smiling at the joy of remembering.

What I couldn’t fathom ever being able to do a year ago has been a joyful experience in this time, in these moments.   The very thought of being strong enough to handle all that driving last year made me want to throw up.  Instead by saying yes I will and can do this drive has left me with filled with gratitude, renewed confidence in my strength and lots of new ideas.  I have at least 5 blogs posts that started writing themselves as  I drove, this one being just the first. I had some good conversations with my kids and lots of fun, silly moments that I treasure deeply.   And I feel that I am rocking my life right now.

Not too shabby for someone who believes car rides are really just moving nap time.  🙂

 

Tiny Steps

WarriorLara

tinysteps

Tiny steps forward are often all that I can take. As I keep stepping forward, baby step after baby step, sometimes slow as a turtle I end up making huge strides forward.

It’s okay to walk your path with quiet, steady determination. No matter what the world tries to tell us life isn’t a race.

I’m going to enjoy every step of playfulness and time with my family over the next week and a half. Joy, playfulness, gratitude, breathing space, listening to what I want, all of these are the steps I will take.

What tiny steps can you make today?

Get it Going!

WarriorLara

onestep.png

Wow, just WOW! I shared this a year ago with the additional question to myself if I should give myself and the kids a full year to learn how to walk again. Standing where I am today I can easily and confidently say “YES! It took a full year to learn how to walk again.”

We are walking tall and strong most days. Oh we still have moments, and days, that we are knocked back to our knees and find ourselves crawling along. But that is simply life. We are moving forward with new opportunities, new passions, and new hope. And we just keep trying!

In a few hours, Kateri Hannes, Demetri Peterson and I will be leaving to start our vacation. We will stop in Atlanta tonight where we will pick up Soren after his month long adventure in Colorado. My heart is filled with joy at the thought of us being all together again.

As we drive I will think of Russell Peterson often and not just because he was the one who did 90% of the driving on our trips. 🙂 He would have loved the trip we are undertaking – Disney for a week with a bunch of my family then onto Sarasota for a few days to visit with Barbara Peterson. Family, fun, beach, sun – it didn’t get much better for Russell and doesn’t for me either.

Though I will be tapping out of work for 12 days we all know I will be posting tons of pictures because it’s one of the things I love the most!
‪#‎livinglifeoutloud‬
‪#‎thistimethismoment

“Here’s where you belong. Right here.”

WarriorLara

Ahh, NIA tonight was a wonderful, celebratory time! My sister, Becca Caplan, joined us for the first time and I loved having time with her. We danced to some of my favorite songs, including “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing. Lots of playful silliness and joy!

Our final song of the night was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” As I laid on the floor for our final, restorative stretches I thought of the many mornings I played this song for Russell over and over ag…ain while he was in the hospital. I wasn’t sad thinking about it, simply aware of this special time I had each morning with him. As I relaxed deeper into the floor, softly singing along, I had the amazing and rare experience of actually hearing Russell’s voice in my head. I imagined him smiling, saying very gently and also with complete surety “Here Lara is where you belong. Here in your body, in this time and in this moment, is where you belong. The rest of where you are meant to be and what you are meant to do next will come when it is time. For now here, RIGHT HERE, is where you belong and where you need to stay. Belong to yourself, for now that is enough, more than enough.”

I nearly gasped out loud as it is rare that I feel his presence so strongly. I am aware of him much of the time, more often with smiles these days. But hearing his voice so vividly in my head, ah that is an amazing gift of a moment.

Once again I am stunned at what dancing at NIA and opening my heart to feeling what the music and movement pulls forth from me.

Feeling deeply grateful and a little bemused at finding both Russell and another piece of my self in the rainbow!

(Written May 31)

Avalon Speaks

WarriorLara

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AVALON…

From the very first step I walked this land as if it was my own.

I could hear the land speak to me saying “Yes, this is yours. And you are mine.”

The trees sway in the breeze inviting me to join their dance.

The creatures of sky and land call this place home.

People enter here feeling their hearts lighten and expand.

Avalon is a land that sings to me of quieter things, of sunlit skies and magical nights.

The magic of this place wraps around me like a form fitting shield protecting me from the world outside.

It is here, in this place, when all is quiet and still that my heart heals one little bitty piece at a time.

When the bustle of the day is done and Avalon settles into stillness I can feel myself truly exhale.

Only in these times of solitude can I feel the jagged, separate pieces of myself try to ease back into place.

Avalon speaks of healing, grounding, dreaming, being.

Avalon is sanctuary.

 

 

Where do I belong?

WarriorLara

 

phoenix.jpg       The question of “Where do I belong?” has been a very live one for me lately.  I’m betting that it’s been somewhere in my thought process ever since Russell died.  But over the last 2 months it’s been pressing closer and closer to the conscious, awake part of my brain.  or maybe it’s that I have been becoming more conscious and awake, hmmm.

For as long as I can remember I’ve felt deeply grateful to be part of lots of communities that I felt I belonged to.  I’ve spent much of my adult life being part of groups of people that I connected with in some way or the other.  Belonging to something has always felt a part of my life, starting with my family.  Somehow I always find ways to be part of vibrant, exciting communities.

In the past 5-6 years I’ve felt most connected, like I most belonged to, a few very loving communities – my family first and foremost, my WOW group, friends with a few people I have known for decades, a family faith sharing group, and Avalon.  All of these to varying degrees have been threads of love and acceptance that have supported me through a lot of ups and downs.  In each of these groups I have experienced a very deep sense of belonging that included the freedom to truly be myself.

What is becoming clearer to me day by day is that I don’t really know where I belong anymore.  Oh I still feel in all of these groups and many more that I can be myself, and that my journey is always seen as important by others.  I still feel a great deal of love pouring forth from tons of people supporting and loving me.  I still experience people welcoming me and wanting to spend time with me.  I even am increasingly feeling fairly settled and content with portions my life.

But there is also a very real thread of my reality that the very places I’ve spent the most time and have felt most deeply connected to – specifically at Avalon and with my closest family and friends – now feel just a little off most of the time. It’s as if I’m there but not there, looking into the party through a window from the outside.   Some days it feels very off and disconnected from me, leaving me with feelings of “I just don’t fit here anymore. This isn’t where I belong.”

I still want to belong in those places that have been home for me.  I want to feel like I fit there.  I try to do the same things I used to do that brought me such great joy.  Some are good, lifting my spirits and easing my heart. These I allow myself to rest in loving the feelings of contentment that flow through me.   Other things feel like nails on a chalkboard and leave me cringing and wanting to flee as far away as possible.  During these times I realize I need to rethink my life, structuring it new ways.

The biggest change isn’t the communities and groups I am part of. The biggest, most mysterious change is me.  I don’t feel I belong because in many ways I don’t anymore.  I am not the same person I was 15 months ago.  In many ways I really did burn to ashes like a phoenix.  As I am reborn from these ashes some of the basic, core parts of me remain but there is much that is new or will be new.

I find it challenging to be patient with myself as I am reborn. It’s very, very uncomfortable to feel like I might not belong in some places in the same ways anymore.  My fear that maybe I don’t belong at all in communities I’ve loved for years wakes me up shaking at night.   When I give into the fear I go to a very dark place.

Thankfully, some very wise folks have caught me in some “I don’t belong” spinouts lately.  Seemingly out of nowhere these spinouts have left me stunned and crying as words just fly out of mouth.  These women have gently and bravely given me the messages “Yes you, as you were before, don’t belong anymore.  Because you are a new you. And it’s okay to be figuring out where and how you fit now.  We still want you here with us. You do still belong here; you’re just learning in a new way in how you belong.  And that is okay!”

To be able to speak in shaking, trembling and terrified words of my sadness over feeling I don’t belong at the places and with the people I most love is a deeply powerful thing for me. It’s speaking my deepest fears out loud to someone and having them say “it’s okay. You will find a new way.” that is freeing me to keep step by step inch my way forward to a newly created life, a newly created me.

I may not know where I feel like I belong.  But I am deeply, profoundly grateful that there are others in my life who say with words and actions, we love you and want you to be part of us in whatever way you can.  What a gift that is to me!

Changing things up

WarriorLara

cropped-dancingangel.jpgIt is time for some shifts and some changes.  I’m playing with re-creating my blog site.  Figuring out how to reset things is a fun and also challenging undertaking.  I am working to keep an attitude of play, even as I navigate the inroads of design.

Watch for lots of new things to come soon as I step out in a new way.

Thanks for journeying with me!

 

Lashing Out or Reaching Out

WarriorLara

Anger waves just washed over me this afternoon.  First anger at myself, then anger at the AC repair guy, then at myself, then at him – over and over again until I could no longer decipher which wave was which.  Just as I was catching my breath in between waves the biggest, darkest wave yet came barreling towards me – anger at Russell for not being here to change the damn furnace filter. Anger at Russell for not being here for anything.  Anger at Russell for dying.

I haven’t felt angry at Russell very often over the past 14 months.  I know to the depths of my being he would not have left us if he could have changed anything that week.  Being sad is a common thread of life now.  Feeling confused is still a common thread. But being angry has not been one of the common threads for which I am very grateful.

Overall I have been feeling quite strong, hopeful, and clearer most of the time.  I have periods of feeling hollow and sad which can be quite intense. During these times I’ve learned to dive down into the deep to listen to what messages the dark has to speak to me.  Once I have stayed listening in the deep for awhile I’ve been able to pull myself up out of the dark places and embrace the light again.

With my increased strength and feelings of light and hope, I can be caught off guard by grief bursts.  I realized today that while I may feel stronger my outside skin/shield is still quite thin and easily penetrated.  So that punch in the stomach I felt in connection to the furnace filter easily triggered sadness and anger rising up inside of me.

My deeper reflections upon that grief burst of anger and sadness really started as I left my house a little while ago. Before I left the house all that was going on was feeling first the anger at myself, the AC guy and Russell and then feeling the first compulsion to write about what happened.  Then as I drove away from the house I started to play some of my power, healing  songs.  As the song   “Grateful” by Nimo Patel  played I felt myself breathe deeper, including exhales that I could down to my toes.   I began to dance in the car the 4 simple movements – hands raised to the sky, down to the ground, together at the heart, wide open – Carrie taught us at NIA to go with the song. Now I could only do it one handed so I could drive but as the words poured forth I could feel my heart open and the anger just slip away, leaving gratitude and love in its’ wake.  This song and the movements that go with it have a more powerful effect on me than any other song I’ve heard in years, including Rachel Platten’s songs which is saying a lot!   As my heart expanded, tears of love for Russell and all in my life just poured forth.

I sang and danced all the way to Target where I went to get furnace filters (smile) and a few other things.  As I walked around the store I thought of what had happened  and what that meant for me.  Then, as I stood waiting in line, the inspiration to write rushed through me like someone had just lit me on fire.  I quickly looked for any scrap of paper I could find and started writing.  I wrote the bits and pieces of this musing.  I wrote of the evidence of self-care and reaching out, rather than just lashing out, I had quickly taken when the anger first flared inside of me. The self-care of writing, talking with Kateri, putting stress away lotion and oil on, focusing on my breathe, singing along with a favorite song, dancing, crying, writing again, and staying open to receiving the mysterious more behind the trigger event.

I felt the power of my inner kraken awaken as I dove deep into the messages behind my anger.  I felt the power of my inner dragon awaken as I rose my voice to speak out loud.  And for the first time since this whole journey began I pictured in my mind and felt in my heart the twining together of Kraken and Dragon sharing their knowing and their power. They represent very different aspects of my healing and life journey, and yet in this they are twined together as one being. Both have the power to lash out in anger or reach out in hope and love.  The choice is mine.  Together they share their wisdom of the dark places and the light. They fly under water and through the air.  They hold it all as one. My heart fills with gratitude and love for the knowing that has washed over me on this day.

Wow, just wow. What a ride I am on!

 

Punch in the Stomach

WarriorLara

Blech, I’ve just had one of those punch in the stomach kind of moments. I had an AC company out to look at my AC that’s been leaking. Mind you it’s the same company that came out late last summer and fixed a few things for the same problem. At that point there was nothing major wrong and they said the fixed it.

Well it’s been leaking again so I called my home warranty service to have them back out figuring it was all connected to the same issue from last year. I only owe a service call through my warranty service so as soon as I saw the leak I called them, not even looking more closely at the unit.

When they got here it was the same guys who came last year. The younger guy is super nice and he asked how things were at home and the farm. The older guy is much more abrupt and barely listened to me when I told him where the AC unit was. Just started walking where he thought he should go even though it was the wrong direction.

The younger guy went to look at the outside unit while the older guy entered the house to go downstairs. Didn’t wait to follow me just barged in ahead of me. Breathe Lara, just breathe! The mantra started right away!

Inside it was discovered a hose was disconnected somehow though we never touch it. So I felt silly with that discovery though honestly not too worried about it. The guy started sounding really judgy right away, or I heard it that way. Just took a breathe and didn’t worry too much.

Here’s where the punch came. The guy then looked at the rest of the unit found the unchanged filter. I almost threw up when he mentioned it and had all I could do to hold back tears that had been nowhere all day. I said yes I will get filters as he said half a dozen times I need to change it every month. Over and over again he said it, completely ignoring anything I said to him.

You all know that I am quite a capable person. I can fix waterers, fencing, carts, jump start a car, do my own taxes, even do a few things with my lawn tractor, and handle a lot of things very competently. However, Russell ALWAYS changed the furnace filters. It was one of the few maintenance things that he was 100% in charge of so I NEVER think about it. It simply isn’t on my radar no matter how important it is to do. All I could think as this guy just kept being a judgy ass (again my perspective and triggered feelings) was “It’s not my job. Why the fuck did you die Russell?”

Thank goodness for the younger guy who chatted with me again as he finished up payment. He was as compassionate, understanding and encouraging as the other guy was none of those things.

I’m writing and focusing on my breath so that I don’t collapse into a full tear attack, refuse to leave the house, and then eat every piece of chocolate in my house. I refuse to have food be my comfort item anymore. And I refuse to collapse into a pool of tears over an insensitive person and furnace filter.

I often think of the need to create an online service for people who are grieving that could be a tracking system/reminder service for paying bills, changing furnace filters, renewing car registration, making dental appointments, etc, – all of those things that aren’t daily happenings but need to happen on a somewhat regular basis. People would be able to sign up for as long as they felt they needed reminders. I have several people who continue to send me email reminders when a quarterly bill is coming up. It is such a gift to help remind foggy brained grievers of things that otherwise might fall off the radar. I don’t know how to go about creating this kind of a service but I am 100% sure it would help a lot of people.

I’m going to get furnace filters today and marking my calendar for the rest of year to change it at the end of each month.

Let’s all be gentle with one another. We never know when a simple, easy item could be a punch in the stomach to one another.
‪#‎takingmylifeback‬
‪#‎foodasfuelnotrewardorcomfort‬
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‪#‎livingoutloud‬