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On Life, Loss and the Universe’s Math

March 28, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

My nephew Michael was born a little while after my Nana passed away in the early 90s. I remember at the time thinking it was an odd minus-one, plus-one situation. Some sort of weird cosmic math where one is taken away to make room for another.

When I was pregnant with Connor, my cousin took her own life. It was shocking. Horrifying. But, maybe because of the overlap (I was already pregnant), that time I didn’t think about the math.

Yesterday, Michael was in a serious car accident and he’s now in a coma. He and his family—my sister—live in Australia and they feel so very far away. They are so very, very far away. And I sit here, three months pregnant, feeling helpless and wondering why the universe seems to require things to be just so perfectly balanced.

Michael is young, having just finished high school. He’s smart, athletic, and cute. He’s also a really, really nice kid. Why does he have to have his life threatened when others are allowed to live on and contribute nothing to the world except pain and anguish? Why does that perfectly balanced math have to come from within my own family?

It just makes me think. Connor climbed into bed with me early this morning, curving his small body into mine. He was restless, though, as was I after a night of lying awake and wondering about things bigger than I that I don’t understand. My small boy pressed his cool cheek against mine and rubbed my wrist. I felt his soft hair and his little fingers and the in-and-out of his quiet breathing.

I kept him with me there in the quiet darkness of a day not yet begun and wondered how I can keep him safe. But I can’t. Ultimately—ironically, unfairly—none of us can do that for our children.

We just have to hope the universe isn’t quite so picky with the math.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: anxiety, family, hope, The Universe

New Life

March 14, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

When I chose my one word for 2012 – VIBRANT – I had a moment where I wondered if perhaps it might come to mean more than just joyously living life. It was wishful thinking at the time – a what if and not a when.

Now it’s a when.

Somewhat to my surprise (but certainly not unwelcome) I’m pregnant.

My reaction to this, and the roller coaster of emotion over the last several weeks, could potentially fill this blog from now to my due date. (But don’t worry – I won’t subject you to quite that much navel gazing.) I will share one story about a reaction that was most unexpected given that this is something wanted and hoped for, but mostly I’m hoping to move on in a much more positive frame of mind than I’ve been in of late.

If you read my post yesterday, you’ll probably wonder what on earth had me so worked up. I wonder that a bit myself, actually, as I knew I would once I got past that milestone. You see, I started a new job in the middle of December, which puts me not quite at the three-month mark. Total newbie. And I’m replacing someone who was away on mat leave for a year and then returned, on a part-time basis, only to resign a couple of months later to stay at home with her son. The team I’m leading has had a rough time with having a manager over the last couple of years (or not having one, as the case may be).

I know, this is more important. And people will understand. And what are you going to do, anyway?

I know all that.

But somehow over the last six weeks I’ve managed to work myself up into a state of guilt and unbridled angst over this. “Screw you” is not a life philosophy I subscribe to. (Not that anyone who leaves a job for any amount of time due to pregnancy or parenting does…) I’m not even past my probation period – not that I had any concern about being fired as a result of this announcement, but it’s all just so…new.

So instead of continuing to add to my already ever-present nausea with a stomach in knots, I decided to come clean. Better to have it in the open than stuck in my head, I figure. And besides, given how fast I’m already expanding it wouldn’t have been a secret for long.

In any case, it went well. I’ve told them and now I’ve told you.

And now, joyously, all those words that have been walled up inside me can be set free.

Coming on or around October 13, 2012 to a blog near you.

Image credit: SanShoot on Flickr

Filed Under: Happy things, Pregnancy · Tagged With: anxiety, family, going public, hope, living life

Sliding Towards Happy

March 8, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

I suppose it’s natural that after selling one’s house and quitting one’s job and moving to another city away from one’s parents (one’s main source of support) that one would eventually come to a point where things feel somewhat less than hunky dory.

Or that’s my experience, anyway.

A few weeks ago a good friend asked how the transition was going and whether it had been at all hard. “Not at all,” I told him. “I don’t feel like I’ve even looked back.”

I’m one of those people who likes change. I love new places and new things and anything that gets me away from the stagnant ordinary. I get bored way too easily.

I’m also one of those people who doesn’t like to lose what’s overly familiar and who ticks along best with a routine.

These two ways of being are not mutually exclusive. They’re also not the perfect recipe for existential equilibrium.

Throw in stubborn and a dose of high standards and I’m pretty much screwed.

Things were going really well and I hadn’t at all questioned our decision to do this. However…I mentioned that I lowered my anti-depressant dose about three weeks ago. I did that for all sorts of reasons, and in large part because I don’t want to be dependent on this medication anymore. But I am.

I blame the ramping-up period of getting on to this medication for my breakdown earlier this year. Turns out coming off is no picnic either.

I knew within a week or so that coming off wasn’t a good idea. But once you’re in the crap, you kind of don’t want to lose the withdrawal days you’ve already invested, you know? So I kept going with the lower dose, praying that it would even out and I’d find myself again.

I didn’t.

I’m now at the end of week two of being sick with this horrible cold that’s going around. I missed a bunch of work last week and found myself very glad for the excuse of illness that allowed me to stay in bed a bit more than usual. Wanting to stay in bed is never a good sign for me. But it’s one that’s so easy to ignore. What is not easy to ignore, however, is having a record-breaking fight with your husband. In a restaurant. In front of your son.

Oy.

For a minute it felt like we were right back to the horrible state we were in a couple of years ago, except this time we were in it after having made a major decision that left us in a totally new world. Totally stuck, in other words.

It was awful. This past weekend was awful.

But my husband, bless him, was able to ask me if having lowered my medication dose was perhaps not such a good idea, and I was able to rail and say No, it’s not and but I don’t want to be on it and I’m scared.

And then I upped the dose again.

It has been immediately, noticeably better. Which, frankly, pisses me off. I will resent this medication for the rest of my life, whether I ever come off it or not. (I know, not a constructive way to feel, but there you go.)

But I suppose better is good and good is better than wanting to run away into the mountains and hope nobody notices you’re gone.

So that’s where things stand. The whole lot of suck from earlier this week is gone—or temporarily beaten back, anyway—and I feel like I can cope again. And maybe when I get over being sick I’ll be able to look a little farther afield and find my happy again.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: admissions, call for back-up, depression, hope, meds, meltdown

To Make an End is to Make a Beginning

December 30, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

~T.S. Eliot

Happy New Year. Wishing you all good things in 2012.

Thank you for being with me this year.

R xo

Filed Under: Better world, Happy things · Tagged With: expectations, hope, my wish for you

On the Road to Wisdom

November 27, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
~ Khalil Gibran

At the beginning of this year I did two things: I started this blog and I joined a One Little Word class. I thought I’d write here a bit and see where it went, and here I am almost a year later, fully immersed. I thought I’d dive right into the One Little Word class and do all the exercises, and almost a year later I haven’t done many of them but my word is fully immersed in my life.

I had a tough time choosing the word, and was skeptical about the common “the word will choose you” reassurance. Initially I thought I’d choose “improve” as my word because that’s what I wanted to do in many areas of my life. But thinking that was a good word was really a symptom of my problem, and luckily I came to my senses and realized that was too self-critically negative.

And then my word chose me.

I don’t remember how it happened. It just came to me one day, I think, and that was that. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I do now.

Seek.

verb, sought, seek·ing.

–verb (used with object)

1. to go in search or quest of: to seek the truth.

2. to try to find or discover by searching or questioning: to seek the solution to a problem.

3. to try to obtain: to seek fame.

4. to try or attempt (usually fol. by an infinitive): to seek to convince a person.

5. to go to: to seek a place to rest.

6. to ask for; request: to seek advice.

7. Archaic: to search or explore.

For too long I was too proud to weep (figuratively, anyway, or at least in public) and too grave to laugh. I lost sight of what was important.

Actually, I don’t think I knew what was important.

I do now. In part, at least. I was seeking something I didn’t know was lost, and now I’ve started to find my way back to it.

I was seeking myself.

This search (journey? quest?) has led me places I would not have anticipated a year ago, and now a new stage is beginning.

A new home.

A new place.

A new start.

I look forward to where seeking wisdom will take me, and what part of myself I will find on the way there.

Linked up with:

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