Where grief lives

I left my house to get to work before 7 this morning. My daughter arrived home from work after I went to bed. She lets me know she’s home with a kiss or a hello from the doorway. I do the same, only this morning, I wanted to see her sleeping face and breathe her in for a moment before I left for the day. We pass one another in slumber.

I reached down and kissed her. With her eyes still closed she reached her arms up to me without lifting them from the blankets. She mumbled “I love you, Mom” and I lost her back to sleep. I back quietly and quickly out of the room and tears of grief come to my eyes. My body remembers a similar goodbye 11 years ago when I lost my mother. She too reached her arms up but had no strength left for her thin, frail body to raise her arms. ‘I have to hug you” she said. I leaned down and kissed her forehead, knowing I would lose her soon. She waited for me to arrive, a 24-hour, across-the-world trip. One of many I had made in the previous four years. Leaving my then young children at home, sometimes not knowing if she would be alive when I arrived.

Her battle with cancer lasted four valiant, knowable years. I spent hundreds of hours in the hospital with her. Sitting, chatting, and letting the family know what was going on. My MD father didn’t stay long in the hospital. As a doctor, he had inhabited hospitals all his life. It was too hard for him to be there. This was his grief. I understood, although we never spoke about it. Not through the two bone marrow transplants and the several remissions.

And the skies opened up and howled

After she lifted her arms, my mother closed her eyes and soon slipped into a coma. Those were the last words I ever heard her say. There were noises later, but nothing human sounding as she left this world. It was July and there was a magnificent thunderstorm. My father told her she could go and her pulse got stronger. She wasn’t a big fan of being told what to do. And the skies opened up and howled. My daughter is fearless just like my mother. And hugging her is similar to hugging my mother. It helped me tremendously in my grief when I was missing my mother so profoundly that first year. I think having children helps in the healing process.

She is the next generation – the correct order of things – as I have been losing people all of my life. Grief is as familiar to me as a hug. And I feel lucky to have known the people I have lost. It is my hope to always keep them alive in my heart and memories. My grandmother left paintings and sculptures and an odd sort of whistle she used to use to call my baby sister to her in the mornings.

When we get stuck in our grieving process, that is when it’s time to take stock (Tweet it!)

No one can say how long one can grieve. Some people never move on and back into life after someone they love dies. It’s a sad situation to become immobile between the past and the present. In some ways, I believe this speaks unkindly of the person who passed through our lives and is now gone. It sounds trite, but how sad our loved ones would feel if they could see that we could never move on in our lives without them.

My mother left a life well lived and no regrets except that she would not get to see her grandchildren grow up or have the old age my father had promised. She was a positive upbeat person and never once said “Why me?” when the diagnosis of Leukaemia was delivered.

The more love you give, the more you have

Every meal was the best meal for her. Every tennis game, a joy. Each season, the most wonderful. Each visit with a friend, the most joyous. My mother grew up in poverty with an absent, alcoholic father. Her single mother, my grandmother, taught her the secrets of life. One of the most important being “the more love you give, the more you have”.

Someone asked me once, “How you get over loss and grief and get back to normal?” I laughed. This isn’t the right question.

When you lose someone you love, there is no going back. There is just a new normal – living without them

And you talk about them. Share stories with the people who knew and loved them. Some of those other people will find this exercise too painful. But I believe it is important to the healing process. The pain and grief speaks to the impact these special people had on our lives.

Some helpful things I learned during the process of grieving:

1. Express your grief out loud. Don’t feel you have to hide your feelings. They need to be felt.

2. Don’t try to put on a brave face. You are finding a new normal and that can be painful. So why pretend to be happy?

3. Explain that you have had a loss. Don’t feel obligated to attend other people’s happy occasions if you can’t be happy for them.

4. Keep them (the people you have lost) with you in your heart.

5. Carry on their legacy by taking up their cause – and live each day to the fullest.

Sometimes when I’m sad and filled with grief – and wishing I could share something with my mother, I smile and realize I know exactly what she would have said and how she would have reacted. And I feel blessed for having had her in my life for as long as I did.

Over to you: How do you handle your grief on a daily basis? What small things get you through?

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

Are you struggling through an unexpected life change? I’m now taking applications for 2018 Coaching and I’d love to hear from you! Sign up below to receive my coaching application form straight to your inbox.
[magicactionbox id=1256]

Break free from pain and live your life again

People have told me their secrets all my life. Most of the time, I don’t even have to ask any questions. Or maybe just one question.

“How are you really?”

People just tell me stuff. Deep personal stuff and day-to-day life stuff.

It comes as naturally as breathing.

It may be a deep-felt empathy. An immediate connection? Possibly other people see a kindred spirit in me and feel safe. I have certainly faced my own pain and challenges in life and have mostly overcome them through hard work, asking for help, and a dogged tenaciousness.

It started before I was born. After a stressed pregnancy, my mother delivered me at 31 weeks. That was 50 years ago. The doctor on duty told my mother I would be born dead. Many babies didn’t make it. I was lucky and came out fighting. And I have been rooting for the underdog ever since.

When my marriage broke up, I became the go to divorce expert in my community. My marriage may have been tumultuous at the end, but our divorce was as amiable as one can be. Soon after that I started to coach people and wrote a book of poetry to track the progress of my journey. More recently, I created a DIY program to help people get through their own divorces.

At the end of 2017, I received a note from an old boyfriend. I was 23 when we met. These days, I have a son that age. This man and I had been together on and off for a few years way back in the 80’s and I realized even then that although I was good for him, he wasn’t good for me.

Here is an excerpt from that note:

“I want you to know what a positive impact you had on my life — It was your influence that made me follow up on Law School and I have been an attorney now almost 30 years.

So thank you for that. You seem very grounded in your writings and happier than the average person. I hope that’s true — it’s been at least 25 years since we spoke– it means a lot to me to be able to draw the strands of my life together. Our relationship was a big part of helping me find my path — not only professionally, but in all my relationships since we knew each other too.”

Thanks to Facebook and teaching at a college, I have gotten quite a few of these notes over the years. It’s nice to know you have had a positive impact on people’s lives. And after my own divorce, I started quite by accident helping other people through their own separations and divorces.

But now I feel that it’s time to branch out.

Many times in my life, I haven’t know what I wanted to do but knew exactly what others needed. Maybe I have a heightened sense of empathy. Or being able to see the whole picture when someone else can’t?

Fortunately for me, we as a species are great storytellers. It’s how we make sense of the world. Maybe the people responsible for writing the Bibles knew this. Novelists and actors know this. Like feelings, our stories need to be told. And these stories need to be told often enough to take the sting out of them and for us to move on as people.

When we hold onto our stories and secret them away, they eat away at us, whittling us down bit by bit until that one story too horrible to tell stops our whole life. Keeping these personal tragedies close to us – making them sacred – keeps us stuck. They leave many of us emotionally immobile and unable to heal.

I knew I was onto something when my own counselor asked my advice about her personal situation. I couldn’t believe it. I was paying this Medical Doctor huge sums of money to help me with my own PTSD after a benign tumor was removed from the lining of my brain, and she’s asking about what to do with her newly retired husband.

Seriously?

But of course, I offered what I thought was sound advice.

When I was in college I was a peer counselor. In graduate school, I was the person my classmates turned to when they were having a difficult time in their lives.

When my children were small, other mothers would call me before they would reach out to their own family doctors.

And since my own divorce, I have been coaching and counseling people through the rough times and move on.

When my kids were younger, their friends were in and out of our house all the time. They would often ask me for advice about getting along with their parents or sometimes about their new relationships. My favorite refrain at that time was “at your age, it shouldn’t be so hard”. It has been many years and these young adults still thank me for helping them grow up.

For the last five years, I have been teaching at a local college. My favorite comments from former students are “you taught us so much more than English.”

So now I do this for a living.

And here is what one of my clients said about me recently:

“A year ago, I connected with this wonderful life coach and counselor Tamara Mendelson, and I wanted to share the love. If you are looking for any kind of mental health support and life stuff, I warmly recommend reaching out to her. She’s wise, kind, and not a pretentious psychologist – comes from a place of experience, care and strength.”

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

Are you struggling through an unexpected life change? I’m now taking applications for 2018 Coaching and I’d love to hear from you! Sign up below to receive my coaching application form straight to your inbox.
[magicactionbox id=1256]

Choosing happiness after divorce

Can you make a difference?

The sixth largest economy in the world, that we call California, is in flames. This time southern California. At the end of summer, it was the Northern part of the state.

Hurricane names have used up half the alphabet in 2017 alone and Puerto Rico and six other Islands have been devastated by flooding and the aftermath of these giant storms.

I have lost count of the number victims of mass shootings in Las Vegas, Florida, and a church in Texas.

Then you have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that happens when the days get short and people don’t get enough sunlight. It also causes vitamin-D deficiency and depression.

On top of that, we have the expectations of the holiday season and if you’ve just gone through a breakup or divorce, all these things are compounded exponentially.

There have been so many natural and man-made disasters that Facebook has developed a way for users to report themselves as safe.

What do we do if you are drowning in sadness? If our internal electricity is on the fritz? If we are lonely? Alone? Isolated?

Happiness as a choice

For many of us it’s a choice. I’m not talking about grief or loss of a loved one – grieving is on its own timeline. I’m talking about a personal disaster of some kind getting you stuck and staying stuck in that place of pain and recrimination.

And if you chose not to wallow in sadness indefinitely, It is all about getting unstuck.

Emotional pain is a human condition and finding little pieces of happiness every day is the way to move forward as a human being.

Divorce is a big huge bag of pain. Even if it was your idea. (Tweet it!)

It should make it easier, but it doesn’t necessarily make it less painful.

Being happy is about protecting ourselves from too much ugliness. Not a “burying your head in the sand” kind of protection, but not internalizing every-single-thing that happens in the world.

No need to bathe in sadness. Wear happiness or joy as a shield of sorts.

I used to watch the nightly news, read a daily newspaper, pick up a news magazine weekly. I was constantly and continually updating myself on current events and cultural happenings.

In our information saturated world, so much of the news out now is gossip. Regurgitating and revealing every minute detail about people that should be private and certainly not front page fodder.

I’m not talking about the recent deluge of sexual misconduct allegations. That is news and as a “me too” person myself, a long overdue reckoning.

Or the news about refugees fleeing their home countries all over the world. Regular people, risking their own safety and their lives to try to find a better life for themselves and their families. That is reporting on the human condition is monumentally important.

I am talking about Hollywood, pop culture that shows the “have-nots” how much “the haves” have. These details do nothing to improve our lives. They are like junk food for your brain.

Choosing happiness is a mindset shift

Instead of watching the freak-show, try to do something positive to impact the world around you.

We only get 24 hours a day. Use them wisely. Be protective of your time. I just spent 12 minutes watching the lecture of a woman I respect and admire.

So this Holiday season, don’t get sucked into things that don’t matter. How about spending time with people who fill you up emotionally?
If you have an hour, educate yourself on something that is important to you. Find out what’s really going on in Yemen. Help build a well in Africa. Make sure every child has a meal at lunchtime in your own community.

Have you considered volunteering your time to a worthy cause? Clean out a drawer and donate to someone less fortunate. It’s almost impossible not fret about the state of the world. But you, with one charitable act, can make a difference.

When the hurricane hit Houston, a woman on social media was soliciting for a charity to buy those people who lost their homes new underwear. No, I am not kidding. To lose everything all at once? And flee your home and not even have a pair of underwear to your name?
I followed the directions and picked out packages of little boys and little girls underwear (on Amazon) and it was all anonymous.

And you know, it made me feel a little better knowing that some little kids in Houston had Superman and Wonder Woman underwear to start their day on the first day of their new reality.

So this next couple weeks, when the luckier people in the world will be celebrating holidays, celebrate yourself for the new life you have chosen or been given or pushed into after your divorce. Look for the little things that make you happy. Treat yourself as you would a cherished loved one. Use your time wisely and be kind to yourself.

And whenever and wherever you can – choose happiness. When you wish people Happy New Year, mean it.

 

 

 

 

5 ways to celebrate (and enjoy!) the holidays after divorce

Every day can be difficult after a breakup or divorce. Celebrating the holidays after divorce can be a miserable time fraught with emotion and disappointment. There’s no getting around the fact that your first Christmas/ Hanukkah post-divorce is going to feel all wrong – holidays are all about family and tradition.

There are five rules I’ve developed over the years that can make the transition into the holidays easier and happier for all concerned.

Here are my 5 rules to celebrate (and enjoy!) the holidays after divorce!

Invent new traditions

There is nothing sadder than trying to keep traditions alive without all the people that used to participate in them. This is especially true if you and your ex are not on good enough terms to be in the same room. The children will feel the tension and the only thing you will be celebrating is when the meal is over and you can return to your own corners.

Decorate sugar cookies with your kids before they head off to your ex’s celebration. Ask your kids what they would like to do. Their ideas may surprise you. Harry Potter marathon anyone? Experiment with a holiday dish you’ve been wanting to try but never made because your ex turned up their nose. Wear your pajamas all day long. Just be okay with whatever you decide.

If being with your family is too much for you, skip it this year. You and your children can make other plans. There is nothing more uncomfortable than having people discuss your divorce and your social life over a family dinner or at a holiday party.

Decorate

If you have never decorated before, this is a perfect time to start. If you have boxes of old ornaments, choose only the ones that bring you joy. Think about what you can do to liven up your space. If money is tight, streamers and paper chains are a good family activity and participation is a good way to get everyone into the spirit. It’s not about the stuff. It’s about being together.

For example, a poinsettia is an amazingly hardy plant with bright red and green leaves. They are available everywhere and will last for months with very little care. Most kids love to hang streamers and with colored paper and a little tape or glue you can make homemade streamers.

Masterclass: Navigating the 5 Stages of Divorce

Sign-up to reserve your seat in this LIVE Masterclass with Tamara Mendelson on December 3rd at 1:00 pm EST (that’s 6:00 pm London!)
[magicactionbox id=1176]

If you are not a DIY person, a couple candles and a happy upbeat saying on a piece of wood is festive. Soap in shapes you like. A few hand towels with snowmen on them. A snow globe from a trip or your own hometown. Use the good dishes. A mug with a saying you like filled with candy on the table.

Don’t be alone

If the kids are celebrating with your ex on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or First Night of Hanukkah, join someone else’s family celebration. Don’t sulk at home! Unless your dream for a perfect holiday includes binge watching your favorite movies in cozy pajamas with hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Be proactive, be proactive, be proactive

The holidays should not come as a surprise. They are mostly on the same days every year.
The day after Halloween, Christmas decorations go up and people start talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Hanukkah, or whatever they plan to celebrate.

It’s just a day. 24 hours. If you have kids, don’t fight about who gets whom when and where. It just adds to the stress of an already stressful time of year. If you aren’t a fan of the holidays, try to think of the ways you can include things that you want to do.

Do the work before the day. Don’t wait until the morning of to suffer. Talk to a counselor, clergy, friends, and family and make sure they all know how you are. Make plans and try not to wallow. It’s a difficult time of year for lots of people and you will only be alone if you want to be. If people don’t know your situation, they can’t help.

Get into the spirit of giving

Keep in mind the things you are grateful for. They can be small things, like not having your uncle Harry’s nose. Your sense of humor. Or larger, more soulful things, like the fact that your friends and family are healthy and safe.

Being grateful and counting your blessings is a documented way to start feeling more positive.

There are so many people in need right now between floods, shootings, and fires. It’s a great time to donate things that you no longer want or need. Being generous doesn’t mean writing a check necessarily. It can also mean donating your time as well as unwanted or unneeded items.

There are churches, synagogues, community centers, and all sorts of charities that run programs all year but especially during the holidays. Sometimes helping others less fortunate brings the spirit of the holidays home in a way spending money or buying presents can’t.

Throw your own party

Sometimes too much family time isn’t a good thing for everyone and an excuse to have some fun might be just the tonic other people need.

How about a desert and eggnog competition? A chili cook-off? This could be a great way for people to gather together and blow off some built-up steam. It can be a random day and not on the actual holiday so as not to compete with other events and guarantee a larger turnout.

Or maybe try an ugly sweater party or a light brunch before all the other festivities happen. It’s your time to take the holidays back and do what you want with the people you care about.

It’s not about the day. It’s about the spirit of the season. (Tweet it!)

Peace on Earth. Send light into the universe. Joy begets joy.

Be kind to yourself.

Now over to you: What will you do to make your post-divorce holiday season a little brighter this year?

5 strategies to battle empty nest syndrome after divorce

We may not be husbands or wives anymore, but we are parents for life.

Even if they don’t live with us all the time, and don’t need us in the same ways. Even though we have an empty nest.

For the first 30 some years of my life I wasn’t a parent. I was an older sister, a babysitter, a cousin, a camp counselor, a peer adviser. I may have had nurturing tendencies and I loved babies but was happy enough to be able to hand them back to the parents when I had my fill.

Now, I am lucky and blessed to have been a parent for 23 years now. That’s a long time to have a job. And the job description has changed dramatically over time. It started as a 24 hour a day job to try to satisfy the unmet needs of a being who couldn’t communicate with words. Some of my first marital arguments were over child rearing. Parenting can be the best job ever but it is also physically and emotionally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

You can also do everything right as a parent and still things go wrong. We blame ourselves even when our children are adults, making what we think are bad decisions.

After divorce, we move from a home with a family to a one parent home. Once our children are grown, we move to a home without our children. All of these changes may even take place in the same geographical home — but it’s not the same home.

What do we do when parenting duties become few and far between? (Tweet it!)

When you get fewer requests for meal or a ride, a recipe or a definition of a word. Giving less occasional pep-talks, or being a sounding board when they want to talk to someone with more life experience.

We’re kind of out of a job. At least day in and day out. I have heart to hearts with my kids every now and then. Mostly I listen and try to give advice when needed and encouragement always. But now, their friends or spouses are the center of their social lives and they live independently.

So what do now that we have empty nest?

Make your space over for yourself

You no longer have to decorate for your family or your relationship but for you. Use colors you like. And photos or pictures you love. That home office or workshop you always wanted? You have the space now, so use it. I’m not saying do a big remodel, I’m just saying if you want to move the glass table with sharp corners into the living room, go ahead and do it. Use your grandmother’s china whenever you want.

My daughter has a great room in my new apartment, but she doesn’t spend much time there. She prefers her father’s large house and garden that provide her friends a place to hang out undisturbed. I have a small outside space. The apartment I rented is pretty much just for me. No competition with my ex. His girlfriend is kind to my kids so I can’t really whine about her decorating choices.

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

Sign-up to receive a printable action plan for embracing your life
and letting go of pain after divorce
[magicactionbox id=994]

I have a closet full of old framed pictures, photographs, and art. I didn’t put any of them up on the walls, preferring to wait and live here awhile. The pictures I did put up are of my kids as babies. They embarrass them but I love them so they are on the walls. I have a few boxes of stuff that belong to my son and someday he might go through the stuff. For now, it sits and waits and that’s okay.

Spend time with other people’s children

We’ve all heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” And over the years, I’ve spent some time with other people’s children. Lots of kids call me Auntie, and I am not related. It’s true. You can do this informally with friends or family. All kids could use a sympathetic ear and a little extra adult time. I know someone who hired herself out as a Grandmother for people whose parents were not around much.

You could lend yourself out informally, for lunch dates or pickups after school or attending performances. Or find a more formal way to do it through a church group, or Big Brother or Big Sister. You could find a youth group that needs an advisor. A choir that needs a director. A sports team that needs a coach.

Some hospitals need people to hold babies. Foster parenting is a possibility as well. Libraries need readers for children. You could help kids with homework. It very much depends on how much you want or need the interaction.

Acknowledge your feelings

Parenting is about change. It’s important to take the time to think about your accomplishments and not just about the loss. You aren’t losing your children, you are just moving to a new type of relationship. And as they grow up and pair off, you will see them differently.

If you feel down and your sleeping or eating habits are being affected — or you feel depressed — get some help and talk to someone. It’s not an easy transition and some of us need some extra help.

What have you always wanted to do but couldn’t with children at home? A friend of mine bought a motor home and says she will travel around in it until her kids have kids. She also adopted a puppy and posts pictures of him on Facebook.

Plan an adventure

It’s expensive to travel with a lot of people. A round trip ticket to someplace warm this winter isn’t so expensive. Maybe you have wanted to visit that old friend from college or middle school? Or maybe a cousin you’ve been meaning to invite or go visit. This is the time to do it when your life is a bit quieter and a bit simpler.

There are all kinds of travelling groups out there advertised all over the internet. Go with your Church group to Israel or Greece. Follow your ancestors path to wherever you eventually landed.

Meet some new people

This goes along with the new hobby or new interest. If you put off getting yourself out there to date because you have kids at home, maybe try dating light. A coffee, attend a lecture, take a class.

Let your friends and acquaintances know that you’re looking to meet someone nice. Make sure you remind them that someone being divorced isn’t the only thing you need to have in common.

Now over to you: how did you handle empty-nest syndrome after your divorce?

What to do when everywhere you look is dark during divorce

It’s been a tough week for humanity. People losing their lives or livelihoods or whole neighborhoods and everything they have worked for their whole lives. It seems like half the world is flooded and the other half is parched.

And we sensitive beings can only watch in horror or write a check or send another kind of donation. And count our blessings. It’s hard to count your blessing when your own personal world is dark as well.

It’s hard to do anything with forward momentum when you feel stuck and sad and paralyzed. That’s what a divorce feels like.(Tweet it!)

At least it did to me. And that was after years of disappointments, unfulfilled promises, and working hard to be the best partner I could be. It was never about me. Not really.

That is how I felt in my marriage near the end. I didn’t see anything to look forward to other than my children. The idea of my life stretching out before me as a series of stupid fights and unmet expectations and heartache just depressed the hell out of me. There were days that I could hardly manage to get out of bed.

There were two things that did tip the scales for me. A good counselor who helped me learn tools to cope with my broken heart and the feelings of shame and helplessness. And writing a book of poetry to chronicle my experience through the five stages of divorce. It’s called Divorce Poetry: Breaking Free. And at the beginning of the book, I didn’t see much hope.

Now I help other people through this blog and one on one counseling and my book is out there on Amazon for anyone who wants to read the story of my journey. It’s raw and real and a labor of self-love.

BROKEN HEARTED

The pain has finally split my heart in two
Halves that will not be again together
The break was ragged want to seal anew
Some are lost to me now and forever

My ravaged heart still beats a different time
I do not recognize the new-formed flow
Why did I not see the heart was mine?
Concentrating on my breathing deep and slow

And with two pieces I will now go on
The path unknown to me and so unclear
The sore muscles from overuse are strong
The worst is past and nothing left to fear

Although I cannot see my way ahead
Hearts are blind; I’ll use my eyes instead.

Often during my separation and divorce, I couldn’t articulate what I wanted to say verbally so I wrote it in a poem. It has always been the way I have dealt with strong feelings. My mentor always talks about how to deal with big emotions or roadblocks. “Make some five-minute art,” she says. I believe it gets you out of your head long enough to see things a bit differently.

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

Sign-up to receive a printable action plan for embracing your life
and letting go of pain after divorce
[magicactionbox id=994]

I don’t mean Rembrandt kind of art. I mean taking a piece of paper and a pen and drawing stick figures. Or writing “roses are red violets are blue.” Knitting, pumping iron, singing a little song, humming. A client of mine who is a lawyer wrote a brilliant haiku at my request when she was going through a divorce, and I am quoting loosely here, no title:

When you think about
Your husband’s plane crashing
Time to get divorced

Okay, so no Pulitzer Prize here. But it serves a purpose and we laughed about it for an hour. It also got her to see how ridiculous her situation had become. She didn’t really wish the father of her children ill will. But she did need to get away from him and end her marriage.

I brought poetry to couple’s counseling. It was humiliating. My ex charmed the counselor and explained that he had no idea why I was so unhappy. I poured my heart out and she called me a trouble maker. Okay, so we picked the wrong counselor. But it was too late by then. His happiness was always more important than mine. And the fantasy he conjured up in those sessions was a reality check for me.

So how about this week, you make a little art. Take pictures. I would love to see what you’re up to. There is something about keeping your hands busy that frees up your mind to deal with things.

Back to school this week, so go buy some colored pencils and draw a train or scribble. Playdough is good. How about baking? Draw on a picture in Instagram. Snap chat if you feel like it.

Or play your favorite music and sing at the top of your lungs.

Do something for you.

Joining our private FB community, Breaking Free, is a great start.

Navigating bitterness after divorce

Is joy your singular motivation?

An angry bitter life is a choice.

What will you choose?

I have spent most of the month of August travelling. And yes, for those of you who have followed me, that was after my son’s surgery and a postponed move from a house to an apartment. There are a few boxes left to be unpacked and I brought a set of dishes back home that was very special to my mother. I put them in my luggage, wrapped very well, and didn’t break one.

My interactions while travelling were with a large very diverse group of people. Remember when air travel was fun? No, I don’t either. Have you been to an airport lately?

Bitterness abounds – how will you combat it?

I heard a lot of complaining and anger in totally inappropriate situations. When did yelling become okay in polite discourse? When someone asks a question, is screaming the response of an adult? Those airline counter personnel and TSA folks are just trying to keep us all safe in a very unsafe world, and making their days longer and nastier doesn’t really help the process.

Long lines, intrusive searches, more long lines, inadequate air conditioning, way too many people in a small space. Cell phones ringing and people talking loudly into them. Everyone gets cranky, but not everyone totally loses their shit at a stranger for the smallest infraction. It’s exhausting. It’s unkind and it doesn’t seek joy. It raises everyone’s blood pressure. And what kind of example does it set for our children?

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

Sign-up to receive a printable action plan for embracing your life
and letting go of pain after divorce
[magicactionbox id=994]

I’m not sure what it is that makes people feel so entitled to spreading bad behavior. Politics aside, I don’t think we should accept rude as a way of life. No one wants to get yelled at, but sometimes we need to call people out on their outbursts. Or if that’s too risky, then try to lead by example. Be kind. Let someone in line ahead of you. Everyone eventually gets on the plane.

I asked a woman with two small children if I could help her by breaking down her stroller near the entrance to the plane. She looked at me with shock on her face and then blushed and smiled and handed me the stroller and picked up her toddler and walked onto the plane.

Did that cost me anything? I remember travelling with two small children. It was not an easy task.

Empathy is an art form that we need to bring back

Think about it. Who in your life responds with anger (besides a teenager) ? I had the good fortune of being around a lot of teenagers at a family event. They were snarky, but not all the time and for goodness sakes, their brains aren’t quite developed.

I mean adults. Co-workers, family members, people out on the street? There is a lot of anger out there. And it’s frightening. We see new examples every day.

I believe that bitter and angry is a choice. This year I am not going to join the impolite, angry, and bitter ones. The victims and the blamers. The “Why Me” people. There is no room for joy in the life of a blamer. We can all be grown-ups and take responsibility for our own mistakes as well as our triumphs.

Bitter and angry can be a weigh station as we’re working through a loss or a tragedy. Not a place of permanent residence. All of us who have gone through a separation and divorce have howled at the moon, maybe yelled at God, or been furious with our exes. But then it should pass. Or at least evolve into some kind of acceptance.

Bitterness after divorce

When ending a marriage, or a relationship of any kind, blame is where a lot of people go and stay. Being the wronged party can garner sympathy and a certain amount of kinship.

Staying in victim mode after divorce won’t get you closer to your goal of living a better life. Bitterness is ugly and toxic.(Tweet it!)

All people have pain and loss. Our goal should be to live as truthfully as we can bear and forgive ourselves so that we can forgive others.

One of my goals this year is to complain less and enjoy more. Simple? easy? We’ll see. Won’t you join me in the quest for joy?

Relationships are hard, even the good ones. Not admitting fault out loud is okay, especially if it’s a legal battle. But inside, in your heart of hearts, you must be willing to look at the truth. We are imperfect beings. Living messy, imperfect lives. But the examples we set for the people around us have profound long-term results.

This year, I choose joy. Do you?

Now over to you: How will you choose joy this week?

How keeping score costs you precious time and peace of mind

How long can you hold on to keeping score?

How long can you stay mad?

An hour, a day, or a year? A decade? Where does it get you?

Everyone has had their feelings hurt by an unsympathetic comment. An insult by a rude co-worker, a thoughtless remark by a family member or friend.

It is perfectly reasonable to be hurt by other people, but how long we hold onto these hurts can directly affect our ability to be happy.

I’m not talking about abuse or neglect here. I’m talking about the little and big things that happen to us every, single day. Someone pushing in line at the grocery store or cutting you off in traffic.

We all know stories of families who don’t talk to one another for years. To perpetuate these feuds takes emotional energy and time away from pursuing more positive relationships. If relationships are toxic, whether you’re born into them or married into them, you owe it to yourself not to let these negative situations define you.

52 ways to move towards joy after divorce

Sign-up to receive a printable action plan for embracing your life
and letting go of pain after divorce
[magicactionbox id=994]

The only thing that we as human beings have control over is how we respond to situations.

It’s the height of summer and many of us are traveling. We’re visiting family in far flung places. We’re attending weddings, graduations, and other happy occasions. These reunions can be joyous and life affirming. They can also be minefields of old hurt, tamped down emotions, and old business that has had another year to fester.

For the last 20 years, I have been returning to my hometown with my children to visit family and friends. And revel in the temperate rain forest that is the Pacific Northwest of America.

Like all families, there are certain relatives or whole branches that no one talks to or talks about. People are not perfect and our feelings are fragile. Those who know us most intimately know where our weak spots, how to push our buttons. And they push them.

Everyone ends up keeping score from time to time

Sometimes it’s a financial situation or inequity, sometimes it’s something someone said or did years earlier. Could be a feud that has nothing to do with you.

Holding a grudge takes a lot of psychic energy. They are negativity that we carry around like a badge of honor.

Is it better to be right and unhappy? Is being right more important than having peace of mind?(Tweet it!)

We as human beings all have pain. Each one of us has been treated with insensitivity or unkindness. Some of us were bullied or abused as children or adults, loved unequally, left, cheated on, lied to, or deceived.

The slights can be real or imagined but they hurt either way. We spend too much time reviewing and rewinding and reliving these situations. And we almost enjoy being the hurt party and holding on to that resentment. We love knowing we were right. Keeping these wounds open wastes precious time. They grind us down with negativity and resentment.

So, this summer was we gather together with friends and family, each of us has a choice. Life is precious and short. Dwelling on every little thing that anyone ever did or said to you robs you of the ability to experience joy.

Now over to you: how long did you keep score after your divorce? Are you still keeping score? Are those feelings serving you?

On living alone and moving house after divorce part 2

Last week, I finally moved. I’m only about 1.2 miles due north of the last place I lived. I’m down to five boxes or six boxes left to unpack. I have had tremendous help both paid and unpaid. I am bruised and scraped and haven’t really slept well in my new place yet.

The house I raised my kids in was sold six years ago. The house I lived in after my divorce was a good place for teenagers to hang out.

But this place is mostly just for me and that feels strange.

The computer is working. The cable is working. The internet is working. And I’ve done it all myself.

Moving is hard work both mentally and physically. I like the new space. I see green out every window and my stuff seems to fit okay in this new house. But it doesn’t feel like home yet. It’s the first place I’ve lived in 20 years in which my kids’ requirements were not the first thing I considered.

Speaking of kids. My son is about 12 days post-surgery. He has a plate in his clavicle and can’t raise his arm yet. His pain level is tolerable and the baby skin that peeks out from his still-healing abrasions makes me wince inside. He is flying back to Africa tomorrow to finish the second half of his one-year contract there. I have mixed feelings about his return.

Nights are longer here. It might be the heat and humidity. It could be the noise from an unfamiliar air conditioner. The bumps and bangs and barks in the night. Not being able to find my way around in the dark. The one cat I wrangled to the new place likes to cuddle or walk on my chest at all hours. He weighs 20 pounds.

On the stress of transition

I am feeling the stress of transition and can’t remember the code to the front door of the apartment building so I walk around the back.

The neighbors are an interesting group. Young families and a lot of older folks. I have had several visits from people telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing with the garbage, fire door, elevator. And someone keeps rolling up my welcome mat and throwing i in the corner. Change is hard.

The kitchen works except for the cooktop that an electrician needs to install. I know my new address by heart as I have been doing a little more take out than usual and that’s kind of fun. The washing machine walks on the slick tile and it’s hard to get the door open. I called the plumber too.

The few pieces of art I have will be put up this week when my daughter comes home. And I keep reminding myself that transitions take time. Change can be painful and scary. I read on Facebook this week (thanks B) that the key to happiness is low expectations. I laughed and realized the only one putting pressure on me to have everything done and perfect is me.

It takes time to make a home. And when you live alone, even longer to feel that you’ve done it right.(Tweet it!)

Now over to you: Have you moved houses since your divorce or did you stay put? How do you think that has impacted your post-divorce journey?

We make plans and God laughs

When I planned to write this blog post, I intended it to be an update on my move. A post about my graceful transition into a much smaller, newer, nicer apartment. About eventually getting motivated to finish all the packing. Organizing the changing of the cable, phone, internet, water, and electricity on my own. Except that I didn’t go anywhere.

And I didn’t execute any of those plans.

I didn’t move last week. I’m not even completely packed.

Instead, I got a phone call from my adult son in the middle of the day. He told me everything was okay and not to worry.

Generally, I am a calm person. But these are not the words a parent wants to hear. Word of advice here to the almost adult and adult children out there. Don’t start a sentence to your parent with “not to worry” or “be or stay calm.” Our worst-case scenario is based on years of parental fears and sometimes well founded, documented events.

Here is a recap…

Son: “I’m calling to let you know that I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

I took a deep breath, searched my memory for where he might be, and could not remember exactly where he was on that day.

“What happened?”

Son: “I fell … on my arm, I was on a bike. (his voice was calm but laced with pain) But I’m okay.”

“Which side?” (he’s left-handed)

“Left side.”

“Can you move your arm?”

“No.”

“Can you rotate your shoulder?”

“No.”

“You probably broke your collarbone. Are you on your way to a hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Is your arm immobile?”

“Yes, well mostly, the roads aren’t too good…”

A day and a half-later, I picked him up at the airport at 4:00 AM. My daughter was with me. He is a handsome boy but he was broken. He was bent and had the sheen of travel and pain mixed up together.

By the time we got home, it was close to 5:30 AM and we had an appointment with a surgeon the following morning.

On unexpected moments of motherhood

It had been a long time since I tucked him in. I woke him at a little after nine. No one got much sleep. Except my daughter (his sister) who thought she had done her duty by driving to the airport, so we left her sleeping.

I helped him up and pulled his clothes away from his wound. He was scraped and scratched all the way down his left side. At the hospital in Nairobi, they had put long adhesive strips of plastic over the gauze. I steadied myself and peeled them off slowly so his wounds could get some air.

They were slick with blood. I didn’t react, just blew on them a little and helped him on with his shirt.

My ex-husband and I went with him to the various meetings. The orthopedic surgeon wanted the abrasions to heal for a few days before surgery.

My original move date was the 5th of July. The first open time on the operating room schedule was July 5th at 2:00 PM.

It took me a couple of hours to change the move date. Half a dozen phone calls and a couple of trips to the bank and new landlord and the old landlord. I was kind of on autopilot. I put off the move until the 11th.

The morning of the 5th arrived. I was exhausted. It was a long, stressful day and our son did his best to entertain us before he went into surgery. The nurse told me he was old enough to go without his parents. I laughed at her.

On sharing parenthood moments after divorce

After he went in, we tried to distract ourselves with phones and work and walking around. Made some small talk. But mostly we worried. Surgery is scary and my ex-husband and I have very different approaches to all things health and medical.

There was no question that we were both going to be there for him. We split the pre-op visits almost in half. After the eleven hours we spent in the hospital on the day of the surgery, I had no problem having my ex check him out the next day.

His significant other and mine didn’t come to the hospital. We never talked about it. Her presence occasionally surprises me. But this time, it was just the parents. For us, sometimes it means just the parents.

In the waiting area, we sat together watching the monitor. It was a monitor like the one in airports only instead of planes landing it had the status of patients as they went from pre-op, to operation, to post-op.

When we finally got the text from the Doctor after the surgery, we hugged each other three or four times and jumped up and down. The relief I felt was like a wave washing over me. I had to lock my knees to keep upright.

My ex-husband has evolved into a great cook. He brought sandwiches that I didn’t want but ate anyway. Later, he wouldn’t let me pay for coffee or dinner. And we laughed when we saw our son in the recovery room because he came out of surgery with only one sock.

We’re divorced, but we’ll always be bonded by the shared memory of our son as a toddler.(Tweet it!)

Running across the kitchen floor with one sock, the other grasped firmly in his sticky fist.

Over to you: when was the last time life changed your plans? I’d love to hear!