Mountain Climber

I’ve started a new chapter. I’m facing a new mountain. I’m not just talking in my novel, but in my life.  How many chapters does that make it now?  How many mountains are behind me? Let’s just say on Sunday I’m turning (45) forty-five.  Wow.  I don’t feel forty-five, and yet I feel like I’ve already lived a hundred lives.  How many times have I started over? How many mountaintops have I crested? I can break my life into several different segments, each filled with adventure and tragedy, love and hate, hurt and healing.  Some of it terrible, but some of it great.  I feel I’m both blessed and cursed.  Where am I now?  What new valley do I enjoy now?  What new mountain do I face to climb?

I look around me and I don’t recognize much of me.  I’m living in someone else’s apartment, surrounded by someone else’s things, in someone else’s town.  At moments, this reality is overwhelming and I cry for my space, I cry for my familiar things stuffed away in some storage unit.  I often feel my life is stuffed away, melting in the heat, locked away, confined, and forgotten. I had begun discovering myself, gathering things around me that were mine.   It’s always “soon” I’ll have my space.  “Soon” I’ll get my things back.  “Soon” I can get back to my life.  Yet, soon keeps getting pushed back one extended lease at a time.  It was just supposed to be for a few months.  In a couple weeks it’ll be a year.  In my experience… soon often never comes. I feel helpless, trapped and wonder how I got here, why I’m here, and how long will I have to stay?

Other times, I’m grateful for where I am, because I’m not alone and I know my best friend and roommate loves me and all the mess that I am.  The confined space is suffocating me, but her presence, her love, and her acceptance helps me when I fall into that panic mode.  I love having her around, I just wish we had a bigger apartment.  Being confined into small places stirs up childhood and other nightmares. Sometimes I can’t breathe and become filled with anxiety.  She also works from home, which means during her work hours (which are late afternoons) our small space becomes even smaller because I have to be quiet and stay in my room. It’s not so bad when I can go outside, go explore my new city, go enjoy the beauty of nature.  But it’s July in Florida and hotter than hell, and being outside during the daytime hours literally makes me sick.  I mean, puking-my-guts-out-and-getting-overheated-or-burned-to-a-crisp sick. My confinement becomes even smaller, and I feel like I’m locked away in a jail cell.  Sometimes I can literally hear the slam of a thick, metal door, and the sound of sliding steel as the lock catches.  Even the door to my bedroom gets stuck sometimes and is hard to open, which causes my feeling of confinement and panic to rise. I know it isn’t real, just a ghost image my mind uses to torture me, but I hear and feel it. 

I miss my things. I miss my space. I miss my kids. I miss the mountains. I miss the woods. I miss a lot of things.  But, I don’t miss the isolation, the feeling of being lost and forgotten and unnecessary. After 20 years of marriage, 18 years of church service.  After two decades of hard work to climb the corporate ladder.  After 25 years of motherhood.  I felt like none of it mattered, all the sacrifice I made was for nothing.  No one cared.  I had nothing to offer anymore, so I wasn’t necessary and became forgotten, tossed aside. I just wanted to be loved, but it seems I could never do enough to earn that from anyone. I walked away, and no one stopped me from leaving.  Then my body turned on me too.  I hit bottom a couple years ago, as low as one could go.  I faced death, and he almost won, but he didn’t.  I’ve been fighting to pick myself up from those deep trenches, ever since.  I can’t express or explain or even describe what it’s like to prepare to die.  I didn’t prepare, I imploded. But this blog post isn’t about staying in that dark place.  On the contrary, I’ve posted all the darkness above to lead to this point so that you can see the light.  There is light, there is hope, and there is freedom.  Yes, I’m still in a small confined place, and some days it’s very over-whelming.  BUT, I’m also in a good place because the doors are not locked.  I am not alone.  I will have my space, but this time it won’t be a place of darkness, of sadness, or of loneliness.  I just have to hold on for a little while longer, and “soon” will happen before I know it.  Yes, I’ll still have days of panic.  Yes, I’ll still have days of extreme anxiety.  But, I don’t have to face those days alone.  I still miss my kids, but they’re grown and living their lives without me and finding their way in this world.  My ex-husband has now remarried.  My ex-church has accepted the new couple and replaced me very easily.  My ex-in-laws now have a daughter-in-law in whom they can be proud.  Those chapters in my life are now closed.

So, yes, I’m starting a new chapter.  As with every new chapter, it takes a little while before you get to the inciting scene, the moment when everything changes.  The beginning of a climb is often slow and the size of the mountain seems overwhelming and a huge obstacle.  It won’t be until I reach near the summit before I will feel victorious, but I have my eyes locked onto my goal, onto my target, and though it will be a difficult climb and push me to the edges of my strength and will, I will succeed.  Do you know how I know?  Because this isn’t the first mountain I’ve climbed, nor is it the biggest or toughest mountain I’ve faced.  The biggest difference …I’m not climbing on my own.  I have two wonderful people in my life right now that have their own climb to make and we’re climbing together.  This time, I’m there to lend a hand when they need it, and to grab a hand when I need one.  I don’t know what struggles tomorrow holds, and I’m sure there will be many, all I know is that I don’t have to face them alone. 

Till next time,

~Mountain Climber

Change

Change starts with the individual.  If we set our eyes on our neighbors proclivity for/against change, it will skew the changes we dare to make within ourselves, and therefore prevent any true change from occurring. 

I'm sick... I mean, I'm literally sick of the boxes we put around other people.  We see a victim and a terrorist in every box.  There is no right side of hate/anger/victimization/terrorism. It's all hate.  Hate is the true offender. 

I'm so sick of the violence committed in hate. I'm also sick of the repercussions committed by victims of hate, who now in hate, commit the same acts of violence. 

I'm so sick of the ignorant white community who think there isn't a race problem in this world, not just the United States, but in many different countries, involving many different races.  Blacks are not the only victims of racism.  ALL races, including white, have both victims and terrorists.

I'm so sick of the ignorant black community who think there's no compassion or action in this world against the violence committed against their race. Whites are not the only ones who commit racial hate crimes, and blacks are not the only ones standing firm against them. 

I'm so sick of religious and class wars, racism, sexism, human slavery and trafficking, drug abuse, sex abuse, child abuse, animal cruelty, waste, environmental and corporate greed, gluttony, poverty and disease. 

What can I do? We will never be free of these plagues, the evil and hatred  we humans commit against one another.  I can't save the world.  I can't change my neighbor's mind. ALL I can do is love my fellow human being.  Love them as I love myself.  Love them regardless of their color, their sex, their status, their religion or their heritage.  Grieve with them, fight beside them, show them mercy, love, and compassion.  I'm not talking about letting someone hurt or walk all over me, because just as much as I will love them as a fellow human being... I will also fight against their hatred and anger - no matter their color/religion/sex/status.

If ALL you can see is the hate and the differences between us - you are blind.  That anger, even as a victim, will take root and the result will be just another strain of hate.  You will become what you currently despise. 

I hate what this young man did in Charleston.  I hate it with every fiber of my being.  My heart hurts for those victims.  This young man committed this terrible act of terrorism in hate.  Don't let your own hatred, your own anger, your own prejudices, your own hurt make you bend to his level and become the next instrument of hate.  Because YOUR actions will either lend toward furthering the divide that already exists or else serve as a healing balm to breach the gap. 

Choosing to love and not focus on color, isn't ignoring the race problem.  It's helping create a human solution... one individual at a time. Before you hit the streets, before you make your signs of protest, before you start lopping every person you know, and many you've never met into one box or another - stop. Close your eyes.  Stop being black, white, victim, or crusader - and then open your eyes and be human - no matter if your neighbor does likewise or not.  You change YOU, and then YOU will affect the world around you. Hate will NEVER change hate.  Anger will NEVER bring about peace.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Melancholic Optimist

My emotions are all over the place today.  Perhaps it’s because my hormones are running rampant - my baby girl turned twenty, a budding relationship seems to have withered, I work all the time and it doesn’t seem I get anywhere, yet at the same time appreciated and admired for my abilities, talent, inspiration, and professionalism. I miss my kids like crazy. So many things have changed, yet some things still remain the same.  At the same time I’m excited and energetic this morning.  I had a GREAT workout, pushed myself a little further, a little harder (having gained over 2 lbs this week – I’m thinking because of the crepes), one of my writers are about to launch their first book, got a lot of editing done on another writer’s manuscript, my collaboration on my own current WIP is still going strong, and my prospects for the future are wide-open.

I suppose this emotional roller coaster has been coming on for the last few days.  It always happens when I’ve been with the “family”.  Friday night, I helped my daughter celebrate her upcoming 20th birthday with my ‘former’ family.  I’m beginning to hate those gatherings, because they remind me of what I left behind, what I left to pursue, and what I’ve not yet obtained.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret for one second my decision to leave, but there are some things my decision cost me that hurts me to the deepest part of my soul.  For a brief moment in time, I had my family back. Then as we all climbed in our cars and went our separate ways, I’m reminded I don’t have a family anymore.

My children love me and I will always have a relationship with them, and they will always be my family.  But when I decided to separate from my husband, I lost something that was very precious to me – all the rest of the family I had. Having been estranged from my parents and siblings, my husband’s family became mine.  So, when I left him, I lost them too.  Their lives continue on without me.  They still all gather together to celebrate every birthday, holiday, and special event.  I wasn’t invited to the last two – because they didn’t involve my children.  That’s okay, I know I’m not part of the family anymore, and that was my choice.  They have their Thursday night dinners and their Sunday brunches.  They’re there for each other, see each other almost on a daily basis, take vacations together, their lives keep moving forward, without skipping a beat, not falling apart without me, not even missing me for that matter.  I go home alone, eat alone, sleep alone, work out alone, vacation alone, go on my adventures alone, celebrate my victories alone, and mourn my failures alone.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself or even sad that I do everything alone. I’m actually growing fond of being alone.  It was new for me, having never been alone in my whole life.  It’s taken some getting used to, but I am, and there are lots of things about it that I’m learning to enjoy, especially the part where other people’s decisions no longer keep me from doing things I truly enjoy.  But, I’m angry that I haven’t reached many of the emotional goals I’ve set for myself.  I’ve accomplished a lot in these last few years – done some amazing things that I’m so proud for accomplishing.  I know, without any doubt, there’s nothing I can’t do.  It doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll find a way.  It’s those things that I can’t obtain by sheer determination and hard work that continue to allude me. Those things that depend on someone else.  Will I ever trust someone else again? I don’t know if I can.

I want what everyone wants – to matter, to be loved.  Being with my former family is a reminder that I didn’t matter.  I’m not needed, not wanted, and their lives continue on without me.  Even to my close friends I have now, who happen to all live in separate parts of the world very far away from me, I essentially don’t matter.  Should I disappear tomorrow, they may miss my drama, but their lives will continue on without missing a step, because I’m not an integral part of their world.  I couldn’t have made it these last couple of years without them, but they in turn have never needed me.  So, what happens when I don’t need them as much anymore?  Will they just disappear from my lives too? It’s what I feel happening all the time.  I hear from them less and less every day. That’s what I fear. Yet, at the same time, know that if they do – I will survive.

I had a friend ask me lately why I let people so easily walk out of my life, why I don’t fight to keep them in it?  It’s simple really.  Holding onto someone that doesn’t love you and want to stay in your life doesn’t help you – it only hurts worse.  The pain of losing someone breaks your heart, but it’s not as destructive as much as loving someone that doesn’t love you back.  That destroys your soul.  I’ve already had to restore my soul from death a few times before – I don’t want to do it again.

So, on this Monday morning filled with emotional madness, I smile, and I cry, and I breathe.  I tell myself it’ll get better.  I take a moment to be thankful for all that I have been given.  I wish my daughter a happy birthday and try to impart a few words of wisdom. I exercise.  I go to work, and I live one moment at a time – and I choose to live the best I know how.  It’s all I can do. Who knows what will happen in the next moment.

Till next time,

~The Melancholic Optimist

Change Your Glasses; Change Your World

One of the best motivational books I ever read was "Battlefield of the Mind" by Joyce Meyer. While it's based on Christian fundamentals (which I don't understand when or how those fundamentals have become so wrong - some Christians and their interpretations maybe... but the teachings and fundamentals are sound - in my opinion) it started a change in my life, because I started to see how I thought about how my thoughts affected my reactions to things, and how things changed or didn't change in my life because of how I thought about them.

This book is filled with wonderful philosophical quotes that sometimes I'd have to meditate on for months because I really wanted to soak them into my very being.  Here are a few of my Joyce Meyer favorites:

“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”

“Our past may explain why we're suffering but we must not use it as an excuse to stay in bondage.”

 “Asking for something is easy… being responsible for it is the part that develops character.”

 “Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”


These are some hard truths,  yet simplistic in their nature.

My biggest achievements have come when I've changed my glasses.  What I mean by that is  - things have changed in my life when I've changed my perception of the world.  I was angry and hurt for so long, all I saw was anger and hurt, the ugliness of life and society, the cracks in the window.  I failed to see the beauty outside the frame.  This reminds me of a phrase in a Jack Johnson song, "Breakdown".  (You can't stop nothin' if you've got no control of the thoughts of your mind that you keep in, you know.  You don't know nothin' that you don't need to know;  the wisdom's in the trees not the glass windows.) But, once I learned to breathe, my vision changed and my focus moved from the cracked glass to the beauty around me. 

I can't fully express, and I'm a writer, how that has changed my life.  Yes, there are still cracked window panes in my life and I'm not ignoring them or pretending they're not there.  But, I'm replacing those windows and spending much more time looking out beyond the frame.  One positive thought at a time, one idea of hope, one mustard seed of faith at a time is changing my life, changing my view, changing my world.  While not all will agree with me, especially those in my past who I've made a change to leave behind, I define these changes as progress.

What about you?

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Right in the Middle of My Life

Picture by T.L. Gray - Olympic National Park 05/30/2013

For my 42^nd birthday this past week, a dear friend of mine gave me a book called, “Finding Your Own North Star” by Martha Beck.  For those of you who know me, you’re aware I’ve started a company called North Star, so the title of this book fit perfectly.  It isn’t the title alone that grabbed my attention, but the opening paragraph.  In addition to the partial quote above, it goes on to say: “I don’t even want to remember how scary that space was – makes me feel like I’m gonna die or something.  I’m only telling you about it because a lot of good came of it in the long run.  So anyway, I don’t even know how I ended up so far off course.  I felt like I’d been sleepwalking.”  - Dan, age 41.

I've made this statement quite often, especially among some of these blog posts.  According to Beck, the above is a loose rendition of the first twelve lines of The Devine Comedy written in 1307 by Dante Alighieri.  Changing course in the middle of life seems to be a common theme throughout history.  Moses was forty before he began to free the Israelite slaves, Abraham was already married and well-seasoned when he separated from everything he knew to wander into the wilderness, and even Jesus himself was thirty-three before being called into the desert and starting his short-lived ministry. 

Beck goes on to claim that everyone is on a journey, searching for three main things in life – truth, love and joy, and these aspects she calls collectively the “North Star”.  Everyone knows the Stella Polaris is fixed in the heavens and doesn’t move. Everything else moves, but this a fixed central point.

“You may think you’re utterly lost, that you’re going to die a bewildered death in the Dark Wood of Error.  But brush away those leaves, wait for the clouds to clear, and you’ll see your destiny shining as brightly as ever: the fixed point in the constantly changing constellations of your life,” Beck writes.

Wow, that’s exactly how I feel… utterly lost and hopelessly bewildered; like a bit of my soul is dying every day amid the pain, confusion and worry of this mid-life shift.  I don’t know what tomorrow holds and I fear meeting even the basic of my needs, but in the middle of my fear, with shaking hands and wobbly knees, I march forward.  The pain of my heartbreak is so thick and so strong, I can barely breathe at times, but I move onward. 

I pray I can brush away these leaves - the ones tussled in my hair from falling on my face - and look skyward to see the clouds of my despair parting, because I really need to find my “North Star”.  I know it’s there, I’ve seen it before; I’m lost without it.  I don’t want to wander this wilderness anymore.  Beck writes that when we can’t see our North Stars, we have built in compasses to help guide us in our search for our true paths.  The following chapters of this book promises to help us discover and learn how to use and rely on these inner compasses, so that when we find ourselves once again (for there will be many) lost, cloudy or off course, we have to go on faith and trust our inner compass in order to stay close to our right life,  and live the life we were meant to live.

That’s one hell of a tall order, but right now I’m taking a chance on faith and trusting Beck knows what she’s talking about.  What do I have to lose?  Will it be painless?  Not in my experience.  According to Dante, the way back to la verace via, the true path, lay directly through Hell.  THAT I understand, but fighting and surviving Hell was always worth the effort when I knew what I was fighting for or against; knowing  that purpose (North Star – destiny) helped keep me focused no matter the pain.  I need that again, I need to find and be reminded of my North Star.  Perhaps the name of my company means much more than I initially realized? 

Do you know where your North Star lies?

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Milestones

The measure of life is usually described by the number of years we’ve existed, however I’m beginning to understand that time isn’t the real measure, but by the experiences we’ve had within that time is what truly make up our lives.  These moments are what we call milestones. 

By definition, a milestone is a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc. Some of the most notable milestones are: birth, start of school, graduation, first job, first love, first heartbreak, or leave for college, or graduation from college, marriage, the birth of a child, retirement, or death of a loved one.  These are the events we remember most which mark our passage as we journey through our lives.

Being a writer also has its milestones which measure the life and experience of our artistic adventures.  Some writers place a few milestones in front of them, to set as a goal to reach, while others just make note of them as they pass.  Either method is neither right, nor wrong.  Which method you choose really doesn’t matter because, like with life, most of our milestones happen beyond our choosing, planning or expectations.  We will cherish some and despise others, but combined together they will make up and mark our artistic life.

Can you clearly see some of the milestones you’ve passed already as a writer?  Do you see the milestones in your immediate future?  Do you strive or hope for certain milestones?  I just wanted to give you a little something to think about. Sometimes we need to take a moment to reflect where we’ve been and set our sights on where we want to go.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray