1. Truth: Two years ago today, my dad died. That grief is heavy, and it is connected to a lineage of other grief that came before and mixed with the ones that came after. These past two years have been especially rough. A long friendship unexpectedly came to an end, Dad was placed on hospice, Mom had a stroke that she only partially recovered from, Dad died, Mom developed dementia and would never live independently again, Eric’s mom died, and we had to move Mom to hospice care. This piggy backs on all the losses that came before that and sometimes it feels like I’m trying to swim while carrying a block of cement or trying to drink from a firehose. 

2. Truth: There is no there, there. My brother sent me a picture the other day of my mom and dad’s bedroom completely empty. The last time I stayed at their house, things were almost exactly the way they’d left them, like they would be coming back any time, like they still lived there. My father-in-law also recently sold the home he’d lived in with his wife, the place we stayed when we visited them, and now that home is not just cleaned out, it belongs to someone else and she is gone. My whole adult life until now, I always knew that no matter what happened, I could always go “home” again, that I could find refuge in either place if I needed it. Those places and some of those people only exist in memory now, and I feel a bit lost without the “home” and family that came before, that had remained intact, where I could return. 

3. Truth: You can make yourself a home. The life you make, the family you chose, the people and things you love, the places you rest and reside — even including your mind, body, and tender broken heart. I love mine — my tiny family, my small house, my little life. It’s everything I ever wanted, wished for, worked toward, and I gave that to myself, I allowed for that, I made it happen. AND, it is still true that I am so sad and being human is hard, and I’m able to make space for that as well. There’s enough room for all of it, the grief and the grace.

One wish: I was watching videos featuring Jane Goodall, who died yesterday, and one thing she said is: 

“I see us at the mouth of a very long, very dark tunnel. And right at the end of that tunnel is a star. That’s hope. But it’s no good sitting at the end of the tunnel and hoping that star will come [to us]. No, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves, climb over, roll under and work around all the obstacles that lie between us and the star.”

So my wish goes something like this: May we stay tender, may we keep our hearts open, and may we continue to look for and move towards the light, together. Don’t give up, kind and gentle reader, and I won’t either.

1. Truth: I’ve been thinking a lot about the lifecycle of a butterfly. It started because I was thinking about how it’s becoming clear to me that while I’ve done lots of study and made efforts to “heal,” I’ve skipped a step — a big step. I gathered all the information, the knowledge, and the help, I’ve done the practice, read all the books, but I didn’t actually allow the unraveling, the breakdown required to breakthrough and transform, to internalize and embody what I know, what I’ve experienced. I’m afraid I’m a caterpillar who put on a pair of fairy wings, those kind you can get at a costume store or in the kid’s toy section, made of wire and mesh and glitter and ribbons that you strap on by putting your arms through elastic loops. I think I’ve evolved but I’m still a caterpillar, wearing fake wings and believing I can fly. 

2. Truth: For a long time, I’ve thought what I’m feeling is burnout. And it was, in the way Andréa Ranae describes it: “Burnout is the result of consistently overriding who you are and what you need.” It’s the “why” that I got wrong. I blamed my job at CSU, then came COVID and losing Sam & Ang, then it was menopause, then my Dad dying and his death, which coincided with my mom’s stroke and resulting dementia. And yes, those things all contributed, but they aren’t the true source. It’s me, my insistence that I’ve dealt with it, that I’m through it, that I’ve “moved on.”

3. Truth: The only cure is to feel what I am feeling. Stop running from it, stop avoiding it, and let the crash happen. I have been afraid to feel the true depth of all those things that happened, thought I could name them, see them, and be done without the full heartbreak, the ruin and reorganization required to undergo a complete metamorphosis. I wanted to skip all that, the mess and the discomfort. And yet avoiding it is exhausting and no longer even workable (if it ever was), certainly not sustainable. 

One wish: May I keep my heart open to all of it, the grief and the grace.