All That Is Next…

Do you ever walk by a mirror or see your reflection in the window of your car and think, “Who the fuck is that?” Like, seriously…what actually happened to my face? Why is there a line there? And what is this black hair doing coming out of my chin?

Yeah. Me too.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook a few weeks ago. She wrote a few paragraphs with a photo of herself stating what she likes about her appearance. And it occurred to me that this was an act of bravery. 

How many of you can find ten things you like about your physical appearance? Your body, your face, your hair – what do you like when you look in the mirror?

Alright, maybe I was being kind of ambitious. Is ten too many? How about eight. Still too high? Do I hear…six? Anybody have four? Three?

So I know we don’t exactly live in a society that encourages us to compliment ourselves, especially in a public forum. But, this is just between you and me. So think about this, please: what do you like about how you look?

As for me, I have four things I can admit aren’t bad. But I am sorry to say, all four things are conditional.

• I like my hair. It’s good hair, even if it is prone to go flat in overcast weather and my bangs took 45 years to train.
• I like my eyes – they’re a good color and bright…but they’re starting to get these heavy lids as I get older. I don’t love that.
• I like my smile, even though I think my mouth is too small.
• I like that I’m tall, even though scoliosis has robbed me of a couple inches and gives me a crooked back (and my BACK actually used to be one of my best features).

Sadly, my list of what I don’t like is much, much longer.  Anyone else feeling me on this? I mean, in addition to the impossible standards of beauty I’ve been struggling to live up to for what seems like my whole life, it’s hard to watch myself get older, too.

SIDE NOTE: I think it should be noted that age does bring with it a certain attitude that releases you, at least a little, from things that once mattered so much in your twenties and early thirties. For instance I am willing, at the ripe age of 45, to run to the store even though I have not showered, wearing no makeup, hair either not combed or tucked into a hat, in torn jeans and a t-shirt with ketchup stains on it. I would have DIED before doing this at 23. Now: IDGAF. As we become more “invisible” as women, ironically, we are released from needing to put out so much wasted energy.  You gain a certain acceptance of yourself. You also let go of what you need to look like to run to Vons.

AND YET…and yet…in the twisted game life plays on us called AGING, while at the same time we gain this modicum of acceptance, all of a sudden there are new things to dislike about our appearance. New OLD things: gray hair, crows feet, marionette lines and jowls and everything else gravity was working on (while you were worried about cellulite). I mean, really, Face? You needed to add a line there? 

We are being challenged as a society to change our thinking and it’s beginning to be reflected in our advertising. The trend towards Body and Image Positivity is remarkable and way past due. It’s wonderful to see the game change – we can value age/wisdom, variation in body types and variation in beauty.  I love this shit.

Think of the impact Social Media has had: there is a push for truth, a call for a more genuine and realistic representation in advertising. There’s been a calling out of the industry for presenting impossibly idealistic images as the standard. We want REAL! We want to see OURSELVES reflected in the pages of your catalog! Stop airbrushing out the cellulite! Don’t soft focus all the wrinkles and signs of aging. Show real size models! We aren’t all a size 2, and we can’t look like we are 17 forever.

I am great at admiring and appreciating varying qualities in others, but it’s so much harder to value them in myself. I think it’s just a matter of reprogramming. One of my former students is a body positivity role model, pro-surfer, and all around bad-ass. Bo (see her website here ) has often posted messages that hit me right in the heart – the student has literally become the teacher. Bo is amazingly brave and her message is one for all of us.

I don’t know how or when I internalized an impossible standard for myself (which is surely something I share with many women -and men, too) but I am a product of my generation. Being a teen in the 80s (totally superficial) and 90s (hello, Supermodels and airbrushing) I internalized many messages about what I was supposed to look like. I hung images of supermodels on my bedroom walls, then starved myself and made myself throw up to be thin. I was desperately ashamed of my body, which I felt didn’t fit the ideal. I mean, where was J.Lo when I needed her? Her ass started a movement.

Shame can so quickly become internalized, and yet takes so long to undo from your wiring. I still catch myself comparing me to an image I’ll see – one that I hold as ideal in some way. And if I’m feeling down, I’ll pick myself apart.

I believe there is a duality that exists in us: Intellectually, we know our value isn’t tied to our appearance – and yet, we sometimes treat ourselves as if it is. I mean, I love me. But, man, sometimes it’s so hard to love me, or at least the me reflection.

And I don’t think I’m alone. Even as we push towards honest, truthful images in our advertising, our own Social Media pages aren’t always so real or honest. We all want to present our best side, show ourselves in the best light. I’m photogenic? Yeah, sure,  cause I delete all the bad pics, People! ::eye roll::

I read today that we often teach what we are striving to internalize ourselves. I definitely see that in these pages and in my attempt to reveal a truth here – love for myself does not always actually extend to love FOR myself. I look in the mirror and have to fight not to despise what I see. I want to be thinner or have less this and more that. I want to look like the perfectly lit, airbrushed version of myself that doesn’t exist. I want to erase every line, every dimple, every bulge.

So. On International Woman’s Day, I am challenging myself, and extend a challenge to you. When we catch ourselves disparaging our appearance, let’s counter that negativity with a compliment. I mean, I no longer have the energy to be mean to me. Do you? Time to be brave.

So, I love my eyes. The crinkles around them show the life I’ve lived – the laughing I’ve done. I think my eyes show that I’m happy. My mouth fits my face, which is round and soft. My shoulders are strong. My legs are strong. I can run pretty far. So, yeah, my body may not be perfect, but it’s super capable. I made two babies, and I made them well! Yes, making humans takes a toll on a body, and that’s okay. (100% worth it, as all moms know). I am healthy and fit, and yeah, I’m soft some places. But I think I’m supposed to be. I can also lift shit you wouldn’t believe. Strong AF. And mostly, even though it can’t be seen, I love my good heart.

The age that creeps into our faces can be so hard to see. But, that age is well-earned. It’s the reflection of a life lived. A life. 

And if we aren’t getting older, we are just dead. So (let’s try to) celebrate those lines and sags and for the love of all woman kind, STOP picking other women apart. If we can learn to lift one another up, and see the FUCKING BEAUTY in all this ripening we’re doing, well then I think we can reprogram the wiring after all.

So tell me now, Dear Reader ~  Be nicer this time…

What do you love about you?

 

So you know how some people seem to have a story that they never get over? Something they have to tell over and over and over….and you listen to them talk and you’re like, sheesh. You’re never going to get over this, are you?

Yeah. I might be talking about you.

And I’m for sure talking about me.

But the ones I am really talking about are the ones who are still telling a story from like, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. And they’re still pissed. Or they’re still sad.  Or still want to know but why? You know the person I’m talking about – cause we all know at least one. They’re stuck.

For example, I’m thinking of someone I used to know who has never gotten over her ex-husband. Rather, she’s never gotten over the circumstances of her life with her ex-husband. Now, she’s been divorced from him for over thirty years, and granted, their marriage was far from ideal. In fact I would have to agree with her that it was a shitty situation – from the way they got together (she got pregnant at 18) and how she was treated when he brought her home (she was from another country and his mother was anything but kind to her). But thing is,  I DID agree with her. Every. Single. Time. She told. The story.

And it wasn’t (isn’t, cause I’m sure she is still telling it) just me she told that story to repeatedly. Within ten minutes of meeting her, she would tell you some part of the narrative. Anyone who took an interest in her got treated almost immediately to the saga that had been her life.  And if you knew her over time, you’d hear it more than once. And the sad thing is, she is a remarkably interesting woman, with so much more to her than just this story. But it became her identity. She’d been broken by that life she’d led. She couldn’t differentiate herself from an event that happened in her life.

I get it. I was thinking about this because I realized recently that I no longer need to tell certain stories. About five years ago I had my heart broken badly, and I suffered in a way I hadn’t expected. I needed to tell that story for a while. I think I grew to understand as I processed it, and telling the story was part of that process, part of my healing. And even though that experience is part of who I am today, and I am beyond grateful for how I grew out of it, I don’t need to tell it anymore.

It is true, though, that some stories will always need to be told.  I lost my brother, which will alwaysbe part of my story. My parents, well – they lost a child – the unimaginable. That’s a story that they – we – may always need to tell on some level because it’s not something you ever really get over. However, I have watched the story evolve for each of us. Not the details of his death – the event and its impact on us is unwavering. What evolves is how we, as ever-changing and growing humans, accept its impact on our lives. Losing someone like this is not a thing you can ever make sense of. It makes no fucking sense, believe me. But, accepting a loss like this changes you. I look at my parents and I marvel at them – at how they manage to not be stuck there. I’m so proud of them for that.

Not to sound to new-age, self-help, growth-mindset jargony, but if you’re not growing from the experiences in your life, you will end up like my former friend who is still telling that story about what happened to her over 30 years ago.

(Please note, I am not talking about people who have experienced extreme trauma and have PTSD or other psychological issues related to events in their lives – obviously shit happens that can scar and stay with us forever and I in no way intend to imply “just get over it” works for all trauma or heartbreak…) I will say, however, there are some remarkable examples among us of people (and animals…) who have been through some shit and managed to keep moving on. Easily? Nope. But the inspiration found in these examples is undeniable, in my opinion.*

Look, we all have baggage. We all have scars from our past. We’ve all been hurt and we’ve all been the cause of some hurtin’ at one time or another. I think it’s when we don’t deal with things – by that I mean, go right through the pain and process it and accept that you may never understand why something happened, or why someone behaved the way they did. Truly, they may not even understand it themselves (’cause a lot of people just aren’t that deep or introspective, let’s face it).

Don’t get stuck in an old narrative, trying to make sense of something done.  Even your circumstances now don’t have to be all there is to your story.  Let the lesson come and then move on. It doesn’t have to be who you are. You can decide which stories have power, and which simply don’t. And we are back to my favorite story to tell – let that shit go. :). 

So, Friend. What story are you still telling?

Cover Image by Shawna Erback – https://www.etsy.com/shop/erback

*Examples of people overcoming some serious shit (and you guys, Malala isn’t even on this list):

https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/14-stories-of-overcoming-the-odds

And don’t even get me started on animal stories, especially dogs. Talk about surviving hard shit (and the dodo kills me…)

https://youtu.be/w8V7_CBCmQk

I write a lot on these pages about love and loss and letting go and holding on to hope.  I’ve learned something about myself as I’ve gotten older. One, I am terrible at letting go. And two, I am incapable of giving up.

Those two things sound the same but they aren’t. Here’s the difference.

Letting go is necessary to being able to embrace what’s next. We are, all of us, guilty of holding on to something that needed to be released long ago and we do this for as many reasons as there are people.

Not giving up means that once you release your “stuckness” by letting go, you continue to believe in your worth and your value. You fight for your own happiness. Live the life you imagined (or at least as much as possible minus the million dollars and the mansion).

I held on to a marriage way past its prime. My reasons were good, I thought. I had a family. I wanted to keep it together. I had to learn that the dynamics that develop between two people in a marriage can be more harmful to a family than to break up and live separately, providing two happy households. Exposing my kids to the dynamic between my ex and me was not good for them; it wasn’t healthy for any of us.

When I let go, I did it for all of us. Took one for the team. That was what I did for my family. Yes, it was hard. Yes my ex re-wrote history and hated me. No, my kids didn’t understand cause they were little*.  Ultimately, though, it was the best thing for all of us. It was at this time that many people called me “brave” and “courageous”.

Now, those aren’t words you can generally use to describe yourself. Right? You can’t call yourself brave. You can’t be all, “Look at me, I’m so brave!” But you can decide to be brave. And when I see someone taking action in their life like this, I recognize that it took guts to leave, or change, or grow, or say no, or make the “unpopular” choice within their tribe. I recognize the courage.

So then, can you see the difference between letting go and not giving up? I let go of that scenario, an ideal I had in my mind and heart about what family meant, because I wasn’t willing to give up on happiness – my own, my children’s, and even my ex’s.

I believed, and I still do, that there was a happier life for me, for all of us. I certainly don’t mean to make it sound like once I decided to let go it was clean cut and easy. Not by a long shot. There were times I looked back and thought, did I leave something behind? Did I mean to let that go? (Generally, I’d spend ten minutes with him and go, oh yep, yeah, I meant to drop that like it was hot.)

*Note that while its true that my kids didn’t understand at the time, there were benefits even to them that came from splitting, and that now, at 15 and 16, they do see that and understand.

I am living proof that happiness is meant to be yours if you don’t give up. Finding your path isn’t always easy and it isn’t always clear. There are wrong turns but you course correct and keep moving forward. It’s natural to question your choices, but, when you run a race, you don’t head back the other way – you keep running forward. You left things behind for a reason – the things you left behind weren’t right. 

One of my favorite quotes is from a letter of love advice John Steinbeck wrote to his son, Thom. He said, “And don’t worry about losing. If it’s right, it happens. The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

Let go and keep moving forward. Trust yourself. Trust that the path ahead holds more for you than what you left behind. And trust that your happiness isn’t selfish. It matters – and affects the ones you love too.

*-outlook by Rupi Kaur Milk and Honey https://rupikaur.com

All That is Next.

The title of my blog was born because while one chapter of my life was ending, I was hopeful about what was next.

At the time, I figured what I really wanted to do with this blog, besides practice writing, was mostly just muse “out loud” to whomever wanted to listen. Mostly I wanted to think aloud about the things important to me – things my friends and I sat around and talked about; our kids, thoughts on relationships, love, friendship. It occurred to me that there was a lot to say about the end of a marriage and the beginning of what comes next. And so, “All That is Next” was born.

I recently found a bunch of files belonging to my ex husband in our old filing cabinet. It was mostly things like old taxes, certificates for classes he’d completed, cards from the kids.  I boxed it up and gave it all back to him. Except for one file: Letters from Dayna. I kept that for a couple reasons. For one thing, I figured if he’d wanted it back he’d had seven good years to ask for it. Yes, technically they belong to him, but frankly, I think these letters have more value to me. Secondly, I really wanted to read what I’d written – a peek into the not so distant past.

Besides that I am an anthropologist at heart, these artifacts are a treasure to me. I have a feeling he’d probably burn them. I wanted to learn from them.

When you end a marriage or partnership, as many of you probably know, there are times that you ask yourself: Did I do everything I could to save it? Could I have done more? This is no more true than when you share children.

Reading through the old letters, I know the answer is yes. It’s all there – the end of the marriage. How hard we fought. I think he’s forgotten, honestly. But we truly fought hard, each of us in our own way, to save it. I know now that some things just aren’t meant to be saved – by hanging on so tightly, we only tore each other up all the more. It would have been so much kinder, so much more graceful to just let one another go. But we couldn’t – because of our disillusionment, maybe our ideals (my ideals? my stubborn refusal to let go?)

My fierce desire to keep my family together, which I thought at the time was in everyone’s best interest (It’s NOT, People. It’s really NOT) led me to hang on with a death grip. Finally, that realization that we were actually hurting everyone more by hanging on was what allowed me to let go – and I did it for all of us. 

I think your 40’s brings you some wisdom if you’ve paid attention. You give fewer fucks. You expend less energy where it is wasted. You let go of people who exhaust you and don’t feel so guilty about it. You (hopefully) learn to forgive yourself your failures and let go of the shame. I fought hard to keep my marriage because I didn’t want to fail – I didn’t want to fail my kids, my husband, my parents, his parents, my first grade teacher…(I mean, apple polisher for life…) But seriously, the shame of failing ran deep in my bones for a long time. And you see your kids hurt and feel like you caused it. That’s one giant ball of fuuuuuuucked up shit to get over. But staying in a bad relationship doesn’t do them any favors – in fact, that’s worse.

Reading those letters back now, I’m kind of – I think the word I’m looking for is satisfied. Even if we did beat each other up a fair amount in the end, I’m proud of the success of that marriage. We made two pretty amazing people. That’s not failure. Staying in something dysfunctional because you should, continuing to take any kind of abuse or poor treatment to save even a shred of something, maybe because you think it’s all on you – that’s where we go wrong.

Mostly – mostly – I am proud of us for letting go. I might be a little prouder of me here, on account of he seems to hate me…So, I think it’s safe to assume he doesn’t see things quite the same way. But you know what? That’s sort of my point. I know I let go for both of us, and I know it was the right thing. Even if he never sees it that way, I’m willing for that to be the case.

Why? Because I understand something he may not ever be able to:  we could only have had the life we had with one another. And now, we each have lives we can only have apart.

Our marriage served its purpose, and then it was time to move on. We created two beautiful humans and I will love him til the end of my days for giving me that. My children are my heart and soul. I am grateful for the time shared with him, even as I am grateful – truly – that it is done. He is remarried and seemingly happy, which makes me happy for him.

The life I have had since we ended I could only have had because we ended. And it’s been full of love, and happiness, and yeah, even some heartache. And I am thankful for it all because it lead me here.

So as I look ahead, I am poised to accept all that is next – there are things/people/experiences I can only know because of where I am now. It’s exciting at the same time as it’s terrifying, and undoubtedly it will be filled with love, and happiness, and of course, some heartache.

Because that is life – right? We don’t get to control how much of any of it we get. But as the steward of this one and only life I get,  I intend to make it happy, which means embracing all the joy, and yes, all the pain.

Don’t take that to mean I’m all zen about endings, or completely at peace when I don’t get what my heart wants. I have to work to let go, remind myself to hope. But I want to live this way – to accept the thorns along with the roses…

To let a new life happen…and to truly look forward to all that is next.

(Poem, From Salt by Nayyirah Waheed. Link below)

http://nayyirahwaheed.com