It is supposed to suck

The best, most enduring part of the relationship with my beloved has been a friend I gained through him. She lives two time zones away and we’ve never actually met face-to-face, but she is one of my True Friends. We live very different lives and we stay in touch regularly by phone and over Facebook (of course). She often stuns me with her practicality and elemental wisdom when I need shoring up. She did it just a few minutes ago.

I had a DAY today. You know what I mean? Lots of emotional stuff going on underneath lots of tasks and responsibilities. People at work needed a lot more of my attention than usual (I manage 20+ engineers) because we’re in annual review mode. Also today, my dad’s younger brother underwent his third head surgery to remove the regrowth of an astrocytoma that got right up next to his brain stem. My uncle and I are quite close but we grew apart when my dad got sick and needed all my attention. His initial bout with the brain tumor happened at the same time Dad’s bone marrow cancer showed up. My aunts and I decided that they would tend to him and I would tend to my pop. The brothers each survived and reconnected after they recovered, thank goodness...at least for a little while.

Also today, my mother had an appointment with a cardiologist. I mentioned in some other places that she has severe dementia (Alzheimer’s). She started feeling really lethargic a few days ago, accompanied by two falls in less than a week. My brother got her an appointment and they went in today. The doctor’s office was in no hurry and they were there for hours. An 80-year-old dementia patient and her family got to cool their heels for four hours. I’ll probably say more about that in another blog, but Good God. And all that waiting was just to get tests ordered, which still have to be scheduled — you got it — by my brother.

I walked out of work this evening and realized I was quite numb. I called my friend just on the off chance she could talk. She picked up immediately.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked.

“Yes. You have my full attention. What’s up?”

“My dad’s brother had his third brain surgery today. I really felt the worry and concern...”

“...because taking care of your dad was a buffer and he’s not there anymore,” she knew what I didn’t.

I felt exactly 10 super-salty tears form and fall.

I told her I didn’t tell anyone at work what was going on with my uncle or Mom. That I didn’t want to tell any more dramatic stories of loss or death or drama. That I was tired of being the person with so many sad stories. 

I admitted that it really hadn’t done me any good keeping it to myself, that it felt like I was carrying a big rock around all day and that my heart hurt. She immediately countered with the idea that asking people for help was actually a gift I could give them because I do a lot for those around me. She also suggested putting the tiniest bit of space between my hands and that rock to allow the rock to fall of its own volition. 

The upshot was the last thing she said before we hung up.

“This stuff you’re going through. It’s hard. It’s supposed to suck.”

My rock fell and hit the ground.

“You have got to lighten the f**k up!”

The idea for this blog came to me years ago before my beloved left our relationship (a story that will unfold as you and I get to know each other).  

What matters now is that he and I had a magical time when he was on a trip to Spain and we stayed connected by writing. Long, gorgeous, vulnerable letters across the ocean. OK, well, it was email, but the fact that we were farther apart than ever and had an ocean and way more time zones between us made it super romantic.

The high point was his trip to La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. He had fallen in love with both me and Gaudi and got it all mixed up and I could see it in his photos and hear it in his words:

Light. LIGHT. Up. UP. For God. And everything. 
La Segrada Familia
Mind-blowing. 

I was as intoxicated as he was. I got fixated on one of his photos of the ceiling of that cathedral. It was full of colors, textures, light and shadow, humor, youth, age...it was All the Things. And it was Up. Gaudi designed it so that everyone has to look up and beyond to see the very best parts...a playground of divine and human. The whole thing still gets me drunk with love and God and magic.

“You have got to lighten the fuck up, Ward,” is something I’ve always said to myself when I get too serious or freaked out about things going on around me. My beloved thought it was great that I called myself out and he started calling himself out, too. It can make things funny really fast and at the very least it brings perspective. It gets me out of my own way, pulls me up enough to take a breath, resets my mood. It has been a key phrase in the navigation of my grief. Getting some perspective helps everything.

I suppose I was a little disappointed at first to find out I didn’t write like a novelist, but I’m coming to terms. My writing group told me once that I write like a photographer and capture images in a dense collection of words and then move one. After finding this out and thinking, “Lighten up, Paige,” I think I’m in fall-back-and-regroup mode and am going to throw away the caution and just get busy. 

It all came together from there.  Perspective really is everything!

Whatever happens, don't judge it

I really thought I had everything set for EnlightenUp to launch last year and I could NOT have been more wrong. I had it in my head that it was going to be polished and planned and well thought-out with a content plan and everything. A blog about sharing things I have learned over the years as a counselor and manager. I even had a bloody visual theme laid out. I spent lots of years doing marketing and “PR PR, dahling” (points if you know the reference) for startup companies and it made me get too focused on cultivating an audience and making the content fit who I thought you were.

Then two things happened. First, my creative writing group handed me my head when I read some of the new material to them. They wanted to know who wrote it because they were used to hearing me at our monthly meetings, writing in the moment from different angles and POVs. I had polished everything until it was a bright dull and they gently but firmly told me so. They stopped me in my tracks and I adore them for that.

Secondly, my father died. Yeah. Ten weeks ago now. I knew I would eventually write about his decline, but I didn’t want to start my bright and shiny new blog with “my dad is dying.” Even though it’s what I needed to write about and what so many people were actually *asking* me to write about. I’ve been a grief counselor for almost 20 years now and it turns out losing a parent made me a babe in the woods. Amateur hour. The only part I remember about helping people navigate loss for all these years (that I can actually put into action for myself) is, “whatever happens, do not judge it.”  

So here I am, taking off all the polish, abandoning the content plan, writing with tears running down my face and putting it all out there. Writing in the moment, for the moment.

Welcome to Enlighten Up.

La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona