Category: journey

Well shit

WarriorLara

rough-ocean-waves

Well shit!  One of those waves just came out of nowhere flooding over me.  The world around me fades away as tears flow out me as rapidly as waves of sorrow just crashed over me.

I am sitting in the early morning hours at the resort before any of the rest of my family is awake. I sit in the restaurant area sipping my coffee, reading,  listening to music, and journaling about the ebbs and flows of life.  I am listening to my power songs, the ones that have special meaning to me.  I’ve been smiling looking at pictures of our trip.

I’ve been musing about the ways in which our experiences of life can switch as quickly as the movement of taking one step.  All can be going fantastic, with joy and playfulness the key notes in our song.  Then with one step, one quick text, one word it can all change so drastically we feel like we must surely have entered another world completely.  Fear, sorrow, remorse wash over us dragging us down into the deep places within ourselves that we don’t want anyone else to see because we are afraid they will leave us alone there, unwanted and unloved and alone.

As I watch families slowly enter this vast cafeteria I remember our family’s last visit here 5 years ago.  Memory after memory of the ways in which Russell played with his kids and me, letting the stressful cares of daily life slowly fade away, are rushing through me. And I find myself in one of those places of such deep missing that physically takes my breath away. In this place I cry not caring who sees me and the outside world fades away. This place is the place of why? of what the hell has happened? of how can this possibly be real? where am I and how did I get here?

This is the place of my heart crying out to Russell “I miss you.  I’m sorry I didn’t show you the most real, deepest love I could for you every single day. I wish I had known then what I know now. I wish you were here to play, to love, to be joyful with again.”  This is the place that fuels my deep desire to always choose love – moment after moment, day after after day.  This is the place that leaves me wanting to text, call, email, shout out loud to everyone I love “I LOVE YOU!  No matter what, I LOVE YOU!”  This is the place that leaves me wanting to mend the tiniest of conflicts between myself and others so that I never again worry that I’ve left things unsaid that can never be said because it is now too late.

Breathe and ride the wave Lara.  Just breathe and ride the wave!

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

cropped-avalonfog.jpg

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!