Heavy Cargo

246 Marbles 
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
George Bernard Shaw

    There was an old man who came into the restaurant two nights in a row this week.  He was from Spain and he was traveling with his grown son.  He had such a joyful presence; it was a pleasure to be around him.  When he left the second night, I turned to one of my co-workers and said, “That is the kind of old person that I want to be.” 
    I’m constantly amazed that some people get heavier with age and some seem to get lighter.  To use the ship metaphor again (Marble 245), it’s as if some people constantly take on more cargo and some (like the exuberant Spanish man) consistently toss over cargo that they no longer need in their hold.  They travel lightly and it seems to allow them to take in each moment without judgment or points of view, just in sheer lightness of being. 
    I’ve been feeling heavy lately when I’ve been running.  I know that I am fit enough to run with greater ease but something is dragging on me, holding me back.  One day when I was running around the lighthouse on the seawall, I asked the question, “What is causing me to feel so heavy?” The answer that came was to see myself tossing unnecessary cargo away…  “It’s time to get light.”  The peculiar thing was, the next time I went for a run I was rounding the same corner of the seawall when I saw a man with a rope around his middle, dragging an old tire behind him, trudging along despite his cumbersome load.  The sight was so strange because it was exactly how I felt.  Time to lose all the old tires that prevent me from moving forward.

    Abraham Lincoln once said, “Every man over forty is responsible for his own face,” (to which I would add “and his/her own energy”).  I have often observed, from years in the restaurant business, that much can be hidden behind the freshness of youth, but as time gets etched on the face, so does a person’s worldview.  A bitter older person cannot hide his/her bitterness from the world. It’s as if we can’t escape becoming a walking, talking portrait of Dorian Gray.

 How do you want your face to read?  How do you want your presence to be?

Grad Quotes

247 Marbles -
A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd, "Salt from My Attic," 1928

    Yesterday’s marble about commencement speeches reminded me of my graduation, not from university (as I’m still in the process), but from high school.  For our yearbook, we were asked to choose a quote that would go below our photo and I valiantly chose the above quote. 
    It seems there are many who have identified with sailing a ship as a metaphor for life.   Henrik Ibsen wrote, “And what if I did run my ship aground; oh, still it was splendid to sail it!”  Perhaps this quote could be applied to post breakup land, and running aground akin to the disembarkment of a different type of ship - a relationship; Ibsen’s delight similar to the sentiment,”It’s better to have sailed and run aground than to never have sailed at all.”  Louise May Alcott wrote, “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”  Whereas I appreciate her belief in her ability to navigate whatever life throws at her, I’m certain that I no longer want to focus on surviving storms. 
    When I look back at my first marriage, I realize it was a safe harbor.  My ex-husband taught me a great deal about love and safety (and safety in love).  Whilst in port, I mended a few leaks that I had acquired in my earlier years, and I procured a crew that would later sail with me.  Yet somehow I could not set sail without leaving that relationship.
    I sometimes wonder if my life would be less tempestuous had a chose a lighter quote, for example Friedrich Nietzsche’s, “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” This latter quote may have led to a less stormy life.  The good news is I’m now more prone to choose daily dance for my personal motto. My goal is more joy.  

Do you have a motto, quote, or song that resonates with you?  Are you happy with it?  Does it represent who you are now?  Is it time for a change? 


Commencement Speeches

248 Marbles
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

Dr. Suess, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”

    Commencement speeches are the ultimate pep talk and remedy for the negative understudy seen in Marble 249.  They have an incredible buoyancy to lift even the heaviest of moods and mindsets.  Listen to a commencement speech when you’re low and you’ll have the feeling that you can tackle the world - Oh, the places you’ll go…
    Some of the familiar themes in these speeches include listening to your intuition, being true to yourself, not being discouraged by mistakes, and enjoying life along the way.  They may be hackneyed themes but they are usually delivered with personality and in a clever way so that it breaks through the conventions of the genre. 
    And why not obsess about commencement speeches post breakup?  A breakup is a type of graduation after all- -you’ve gone through a period of learning, it may have cost you a great deal of money, you’re saying good-bye to people that you’ve known during the process,  and, most importantly, you’ll take you’re acquired knowledge from the education of your relationship and commence a new stage in your life.  Maybe it’s time for a grad party to celebrate graduating from the school of Ex-man/woman. 
    Some of my favorite commencement speeches are:
  • Dr Suess at Lake Forest College: no youtube link but you might know his speech as his book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”

Could you compile a kit bag of uplifting speeches that speak to you? Could you use Youtube as a way to access people you admire and use them as your mentors?  Could you use their encouragement as pollination?

The Negative Understudy

249 Marbles 
There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people.
Robert Frost

    For the most part, my negative mind is only a silent understudy of my more functioning person.  Exception: PMS time when my negative mind emerges from behind the curtain to take center stage.
    These are several concerns voiced by the negative mind including:
What if your faith is misplaced?
What if it’s time to go to Plan B and you’re still stubbornly stuck on Plan A?
What if your belief in an abundant future is misguided?  You’re up caca creek, Girl, without a paddle.
    I try to overtake my negative understudy in various ways.  I assure her that I am well and that I can handle the performance.  She doesn’t budge from the stage.  I try the old hook at the end of the pole to drag her offstage but she’s wily and agile.  I try to flood her with spotlights and a feeling of well-being hoping she’ll shrink back into the shadows but she’s demonstrative and tenacious - after being a wilting wallflower for most of the month, she’s hungry for the extra limelight.   So I resign to allow her to strut and fret her hour upon the stage.  I watch her voice my fears with interest, trying not to overly engage with them.
    When the performance is over, I applaud and say, “I’ve seen and heard you.  I know you think you’re here to watch my butt but it’s time to get back behind the curtain.” I claim the stage and pray for the day when my understudy isn’t such a pain in the butt.

How do your fears rear their nasty heads?  What would it take to prevent them from ruining your performance?  
Remember Fear's acronym: False Evidence Appearing Real. 
As Eleanor Roosevelt noted, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."


The Golden Rule

250 Marbles 

    When I was growing up, my mother was a housewife and my father worked to buy the house.  In his eyes, he owned the house and when he would arrive home from work he would say, “The boss is home.” I listened to too many of his rants about the house being “his” and only once heard my mother respond claiming her legal rights to half the property.  My father had the mentality that because he made the gold, he also made the rules.  It was an interesting dynamic to be incubated in, to observe, and later to realize that my father didn’t have a legal leg on which to stand.  I hated their dynamic and vowed to never be in my mother’s situation. *
    Fast forward many years and there I was in an uncannily similar situation.  When Ex-man and I first reunited in our twenties, both of us had recently experienced a divorce - mine amicable, his acrimonious with bitter property settlements.  He was able to retain a multi-suite house and a condo by buying is ex-wife out of their properties (which he had originally paid for, he was quick to add). 
   When we got together, Ex-man was living in another city and when he moved back where I lived, we lived in the rental home where I had been living with my son, then a toddler.  A few years later we were sent a letter by the city, requiring us to move into Ex-man’s house (city tenancy laws).  By then Ex-man and I had a daughter together and we moved our little family into his house.  The house was in a cool area and Ex-man did a great job renovating our suite.  Yet, there I was, living in a house held tightly by a man who never wanted to split up his assets again (understandably so). 
    This situation could have been easily rectified had we had the cash to purchase something together and call it “ours”.  But high real estate prices, employment issues, personal debts, young children, and my decision to go back to school all factored to make a shared property not part of our reality.  He didn’t see the charge of our living situation and once told me, “Just consider yourself a renter.” So I lived feeling like a squatter in his house until several years later (when city tenancy laws had become more lenient), we decided to move into neutral territory - another rental house. 
    How did the little girl who vowed not to end up in her mother’s situation, create a dynamic that was remarkably similar? Sure, the details of my father’s claims and Ex-man’s entitlements were different, but the feeling was the same.  There was a lack of inclusion, an absence of generosity of spirit, a subordination to one’s partner, and underlying it all, the warped golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. 

What would it take to let go of my mother’s story and create my own, original story? 

*This is but one aspect of my parent’s relationship dynamic.  It took me years to deconstruct the paradigm so I could understand both sides vis-à-vis their gendered roles, religious beliefs, generational and societal contexts, etc.  In the process, I learned to love them as individuals. 

Seawall as Seewall

251 Marbles 
Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.
Peter T. McIntyre

    There’s a park in the city where I live that is bigger than NY’s Central Park.  It has a 9 km seawall that circles most of the path.  I run this “seawall” once a week with my newish running buddy, Ben.  Whether I’m alone, or with my running buddy, I think of the seawall as a seewall because of the many insights I’ve had on this oceanside path. 
    Today on our run, Ben noted that I was still having difficulty letting go of Ex-man.  It’s been almost four months and some of my stories still have Ex-man as a supporting character.  Ben asked me to come up with some pros and cons of having Ex-man in my life considering we didn’t get along well.  I told him, “He was neat.” “As in tidy?” Ben asked. “Yep.”  “That’s the first thing that came to mind?” “Yep,” I answered, although I know Ex-man has more alluring pros than being compulsively clean.  A list proves nothing as everyone has pros and cons to their personality.  Besides, lists are too left brain for me. 
    The list failed but the talk with Ben succeeded in uncovering one of the reasons I’m still holding on.  I told Ben, “Here’s the deal - I want to be right.  I want to be right about falling in love with Ex-man when I first saw him.  I want to be right about going back to him and having two kids with him.  On some level the breakup proves me wrong and I want to be right.”  That was a pretty hefty insight to uncover about myself - the underlying need to be right, whatever that means. 
    I’m applying for a Writing for TV course in my last year at school.  It’s possible that the episode with Ex-man is just an aired episode.  I can’t go back and change an episode once it’s aired, all I can do is work with what I’ve written and move forward.  No use trying to live in rerun land.  Onward, always onward.   

There’s a famous quote by Earl Gray Stevens that goes, “Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.” What other hidden beliefs keep you holding on to your past relationship with X? 

Family Breakup

252 Marbles
Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.
Dr Suess

    My daughter was sad tonight.  She wanted to know if her dad and I would ever get back together.  I told her, “I don’t know the future, but I doubt it.  What I do know is what I choose to feel today and I’m choosing to be happier.”  I think she sees this. 
    113 Marbles post breakup, the kids and I have adjusted into a routine. Although I miss them when they’re with Ex-man, I try to focus on enjoying them to the fullest when they’re with me.  I get as much writing and housework done as I can when they’re away and when they return, I focus on them, being their mom.  With no energy being put into a relationship that wasn’t working, I have more energy to focus on the relationships that are working – the connections with my kids.
    I have a friend who says that divorce is the best invention for kids when there are two engaged parents.  The kids get to experience two homes and two frames of reference with separate ways of being in the world.  Whereas I’m not sure that I completely agree with her, I do note the positive contribution that my eldest son’s stepmother and her family have been to his life.  I also know that Ex-man and his family have expanded my eldest son’s life considerably. 
    I cannot deny that the breakup with Ex-man was a family breakup.  It affected us, our children, and it sent ripples through our extended family and friends.  Yet I’m hoping that once we've adjusted, my younger two children will benefit from the people whom Ex-man and myself add to our lives…eventually. 

When Dr. Suess’ quote is applied to the marble context, it is a light way of appreciating what was experienced before the breakup. 
If there are children involved, is it possible that eventually the breakup could expand their lives in a good way?  If there were no children, is it possible that, once you’ve adjusted, the breakup will allow for space for expanding your own life? 

The Monday Morning Grouse Grind Club

253 Marbles

    I work with a German man named Marc.  We ride our bicycles home together after work.   He’s the safe, married type of friend (no threat to the marble commitment).  Marc is überfit and has recently coerced a few coworkers to form a Monday Morning Grouse Grind Club – a group committed to a weekly 3 km grueling hike to the top of Grouse Mountain. But grueling is relative - Marc does “mother nature’s stairmaster” with his heavy toddler on his back.   
    When I was at the bottom of the mountain on the first hike, the task seemed daunting, the peak too high.  The first quarter was difficult until I got my stride, regulating my breathing.  After the halfway mark, I became tired as the trail became rockier and steeper.  This was the most difficult part of the trail as the top seemed far away.  I gathered my gumption and focused on finding strong footholds.  The hike is a perfect metaphor for my life post breakup: I don’t have to know the future twists and turns but I have to continue to be aware of choosing the next best step. 
    Yesterday’s marble mentioned the three types of attraction that have to be present for a healthy relationship.  Similarly, I recognize three aspects in my life that have to be present for me to feel balanced: physical fitness, mental stimulation, and an awareness of spirit.  I find exercise is a great tool to help work through a breakup.  It is widely known that exercise decreases cortisol and other stress hormones and increases the feel good endorphins.  So after the challenging one hour hike, my mood was naturally boosted and the bonus was the view from the top of the mountain  - the ocean and the beautiful city of Vancouver,  2800 feet below. 

Do you get enough exercise?  If not, make a commitment to get your body moving.  When you’re feeling down, get your body moving and release the SAD with a little help from: Serotonin, Adrenaline, and Dopamine.  You’re guaranteed to feel better.  

Sex, or Lack Thereof

254 Marbles
Marrying for sex is like flying to London for the free peanuts and pretzels.  It’s not the point of the thing, is it?
Garrison Keillor

    I’ve known women who have never experienced a good lover in their lives.  A couple of them were married for years and while the marriage worked on many levels, their sensual sides just weren’t satisfied.  It’s not that I think sex is the reason for having a relationship, but it is an enjoyable part of life so why not experience a full life while we’re in these bodies? 
    One of my friends ended up leaving her marriage (not just because of the bad sex) and later started dating a man who was an amazing lover.  They didn’t end up staying together, but she became aware of her latent sensuality and knew that she would require this to be part of her subsequent relationships.  Whereas physical attraction isn’t the only area to focus on (it can’t even be used as a reliable thermometer - look at Ex-man and me, great sex, not-so-great relationship), in my experience, sex is one of the components of a great connection. 
    According to Toni Coleman, a licensed psychotherapist and relationship coach, there are three elements to relationship chemistry:
1.  Physical attraction - what initially draws us to another person
2.  Friendship - being able to relate to each other, see the world in same way, connect without too much work (what Kahil Gibran called spiritual affinity)
3.  Intellectual attraction - the ability to stimulate/challenge each other intellectually
Coleman claims that one or the other may be prominent in a relationship but all three need to be present for relationship chemistry.  Check her out at: http://www.monkeysee.com/play/6708-what-is-relationship-chemistry.
    So was staying with Ex-man like flying to London for the peanuts and pretzels?  Hmmm, I don’t think so.  I thought that if the peanuts and pretzels were good and if I loved the guy in the seat next to me, there had to be a way to make the trip to London work.  Turns out, I needed a different flight. 

Would you be open to a relationship with someone who is a friend who satisfies your spirit as well as physically and intellectually?  I call it the triple whammy. 
   

In a Perfect World

255 Marbles

    I have to let go of the idea of what things would look like in a perfect world.  These idealistic illusions have many manifestations but one includes the vision of Ex-man and myself as lovers -just that, nothing else.  Being lovers was the one thing we did really well.  In this perfect world, I could call him up and invite him over, or vice versa, and we would lie down together and love each other because we do love each other.  This perfect world looks a bit like Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson in the movie Elegy.  Very adult.  Very needs based. 
    This fantasy isn’t because I think sex is a magic wand that would solve all our difficulties.  This fantasy is because I’ve experienced considerable loss this past year and I’m not ready to say good-bye to this one area.  It’s not like I’m going to act upon my fantasy, but I miss him physically -  his soft places, his not so soft places – and I feel only slightly pathetic admitting it. 
    It’s mental boot camp to remind myself that despite that one area working extremely well, the other areas just didn’t work.  Being a very logical person, he never quite grasped my emotional side.  When we would discuss things and he would say, “From a logical perspective . . ., “ I knew we were immediately polarized.  His subtext was, “I’m logical and you’re not.”  As the poet Hafiz wrote, "Oh, you who are trying to learn the marvel of love through the copybook of reason, I’m very much afraid that you sill never really see the point."
     In addition, he saw the world as compartmentalized; I see the world as interconnected.  I relate to the naturalist, John Muir, when he observed, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”  My tendency annoyed him in arguments as I often saw the connections between what we were discussing and other issues and Ex-man was always reminding me to stay on topic. I rarely saw one topic, but many interrelated ones.
    So back to my fantasy, I’m 110 Marbles in, I’m missing a lover and because Ex-man was a good one, I’m missing him.  Can I allow myself to sit in this moment of perfect imperfection? 

What do you miss most about your past relationship?  Can you be okay with missing those parts for now while allowing the possibility of expanding into your future? 



More Dead Flowers

256 Marbles

    I went to see my Mom three days ago.  Five days before, on Mother’s Day, I brought her a gardenia plant for her room.  I thought the sweet-smelling flowers would override the stagnant smell of her room in the seniors’ home and add some life. 
    This week, I found the plant wilting and the flowers dead.  My mother smiled up at me from her bed and held out her shaky hand for me to take.  So much has changed and my mother, who was once such a great caretaker, is now being tended.  I looked over at the wilted plant with disappointment and sadness.  It’s not that I expected it to survive without water, but come on, five days?  Couldn’t it be sturdier than that?
    Understandably, the nurses in the home don’t water plants so I took the plant home with me and tended to it.  It is now revived and is sitting on my kitchen sill.  I feel that, in addition to the wee plant, I’ve taken a metaphoric baton from my mother – the baton that is passed from mother to daughter – the caretaker baton.  And then I’m aware of the guilt of not having the resources to care for my mother myself.  Sure, I take the gardenia plant home, but my mother is dying in that home.  Would she be more alive if I took her home with me?   
    I know that I sometimes judge myself against a “perfect world” scenario.  In a perfect world, I think that the woman who has given so much to me in my life should receive the same in return. I think she should have a home with people around her that love her but instead she has so much less - an institution with people who are paid to take care of her. 
    For a moment, I feel the energy of acceptance. My mother has dementia and needs full-time care.  I’m a mother of three who is in school and working a job.  Where would caring for my mother fit into this equation? Is it okay if the world is simultaneously perfect and imperfect? 

Are there areas in your life that you judge yourself for?  Could you allow yourself to be perfectly imperfect? 

Grieving Steps: Step 6 - Acceptance and Hope

257 Marbles
Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
Elizabeth Gilbert, “Eat, Pray, Love”

    It would be great if the post breakup grieving process were linear and there was the awareness that the acceptance and hope stage were waiting down the street a wee bit.  For me, however, the process has been anything but linear.  There have been intermingled days of sadness, anger, hope, isolation, and guilt in no particular order and sometimes a few of the stages have appeared in a single day.  Yet I realize that I don’t really know what acceptance is.  I know what hope is (Marble 347) but what is acceptance?  Is it surrender?  Is it letting go?  Is it the absence of resistance? Is it active or is it passive?
    I go to the dictionary to try to find the energy behind the word acceptance.   According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, acceptance is the “act of accepting” (not helpful) but to accept means “to receive willingly,” “to agree to,” or “to be able to hold.”  With these definitions, it has the feeling of going into a restaurant and being okay with whatever food is delivered to me, whether I ordered it or not.  I may be a vegetarian but I get served carpaccio (or raw beef).  If I’m in acceptance, do I eat the raw beef?  
    Perhaps I’m not looking at acceptance correctly.  Maybe the deal is, at this restaurant called life. we have pre-ordered but sometimes we forget what we’ve asked for so when it arrives, it may not look like what we wanted.  Perhaps we have to trust that it’s exactly what our body/mind/spirit needs.  But if it isn’t, can’t we boot the chef out of the kitchen and cook up what we really want?
    I’m still struggling with acceptance but let’s get back to what I know for sure.  What I know for sure is that Ex-man and I have broken up.  That is the reality of Now.  Nothing can change this reality.  What prevents me from accepting this reality is going back into the past “could have/would have/should have choices” and holding onto the future “could have been/would have been/should have been dreams.” But whether the breakup is the result of unilateral insanity, mutual insanity or both of us just being who we are, if I stay in the presence of now, acceptance feels like an easier goal to achieve. 
    According to the Livestrong website (http://www.livestrong.com/article/129455-seven-stages-grief-divorce/) acceptance is about realizing that the breakup has changed lives in “significant, unalterable ways and that things will never be the same again.” So perhaps it is about the absence of resisting what isn’t in order to accept the ability to create happiness with what is. 

Can you let go of the past to be in the now of post breakup reality?  Can you let go of your dreams of what could have been with X and be in the now of what is?  Can you accept now while actively making space for more happiness?

Grieving Steps: Step 5 - Depression


258 Marbles -
"And what would you do…if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.' What would you do then?"

Richard Bach “Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah”



    Depression can be one of the steps in the grieving process post breakup.  It is defined as extreme gloom and to me that word “gloom” echoes the feeling of depression - I picture being glued into a room, stuck in a stagnant sadness.  Whereas I’m not a stranger to post breakup sadness, I’m not familiar with depression.  I feel lucky that my sadness always has a buoyancy of hope to it - the feeling that the sadness won’t last forever.  I also am aware that as the time after the breakup increases, the periods of sadness decrease.
  
    I asked a friend what it feels like to be depressed and she told me, “It’s painful to get out of bed, nothing looks pretty or beautiful, there’s heaviness/pain in body, it’s like looking at life through gray-colored glasses, sometimes food doesn’t taste good (and sometimes food is the only thing that tastes good), there’s a constant drone of ‘I don’t care’ (an underlying ambivalence), celebrations (like birthdays) have no meaning, and sex drive can lower.” Hmmm, it seems like an overall loss of mojo. 
 
    Whereas depression can be seen as a natural stage in the grieving process post breakup, it is meant to be a stage and something that is passed through.  I believe that happiness is our birthright.  It is not dependent on how many mistakes/interesting choices we have made.  We are not asked to do penance for our past. 

If there is a feeling of being stuck in depression, is it working for you? If not, is it time to seek out someone (like a good therapist) who can facilitate juicing more joy out of life?       What would it take to allow more happiness in life?  What would it take to make space for more joy?

Grieving Steps: Step 4 - Guilt

259 Marbles
“Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and, then after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while."
Nora Ephron "Sleepless in Seattle"

     I was raised a Catholic, so this stage of the grieving process is pretty familiar territory.  On the surface, I’ve been angry and frustrated with Ex-man for instigating the breakup, but in at least one of the layers below, I’ve felt guilty for all the things that I didn’t do to prevent the breakup from happening.  I rerun the places where we’d get stuck, and I think,”What could I have done differently?”
     Guilt is a feeling of responsibility for some wrong, whether real or imagined.  I still feel that our inability to keep our family together is a wrong and I feel responsible to our children for how our choices have affected them.  If our children weren’t in the wake, the guilt would not be so strong.  It would be the termination of a relationship between two consenting adults.  There’d be a feeling of loss but there would also be lessons learned. 
     My son calls a guilt trip a “guilt trick” and perhaps it is a bit of a trick.   Whereas I cannot deny that the adjustment has been tricky for the kids, maybe the wrong of the breakup is more imagined than real.  When I’m in the guilt trick, I examine my actions to determine if there were ways that I could have made the relationship work, ways that I could have made Ex-man happier.  Whereas my intention was never to break apart my family, in the heat of an argument the stakes seem less apparent and neither of us tended to act in ways that promoted our intentions.  As the Hafiz poem of Marble 318 notes, we’d be like talking donkeys when we both had more beautiful animals latent inside.
     The bottom line of the guilt trick is, I would have had to have been a different person to be with Ex-man.  The truth is, I am who I am.  What if the wrong of the breakup is completely imagined and we were never supposed to stay together?  What if we were just meant to gift each other with children and family?

Can you let go of the idea of the breakup being wrong? Can you tease all of the good out of the relationship and leave the rest behind?  

Grieving Steps: Step 3 - Bargaining

260 Marbles
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.
Eckhart Tolle

    There was a lot of bargaining involved with my relationship with Ex-man.  I thought if I didn’t get angry at him, then our relationship would start working.  I bargained with him that I’d go into anger management to “fix” myself  but that didn’t really solve our relationship issues.   At the core, we were incompatible. 
    When he told me that he wanted out of the relationship, there wasn’t any bargaining.  If I’m being honest with myself, there was part of me that felt relief.  It was like being on the dance floor with a partner whose rhythm I just couldn’t get.  Sure, part of me thought, “Why can’t we learn to dance together?” But we couldn’t.  The underlying question was, “Do I really want to go through my life being out of sync and frustrated with my partner?” I’ve had dance partners where it hasn’t been so, and I’d like that again, pretty please. 
    If bargaining is a step in the grieving process during a breakup, I can’t say that I’ve experienced it with Ex-man.  Yet, when I look at the Marbles, there is a bargain in this whole process.  My agreement with life is that if I put away a marble a day for a year, by the time I’m done, I won’t feel the post breakup lousiness.  It’s not just a negotiation - I believe it to be true.  It’s just nature - when something dies, there is always something that grows in its place.  The marbles are my bargain in the grieving process.  

India.Arie has a song that goes, "Give me the courage to love with an open heart." Yet often breakups can feel like breakdowns or shutdowns, where it can be difficult to see the possibility of loving with an open heart again.  Could you make a deal with yourself to continue to stay open to expansion and possibility?  Could you stay open to allowing magic to happen in your life?



Grieving Steps: Step 2 - Anger

261 Marbles
Divorce lawyers stoke anger and fear in their clients, knowing that as long as the conflicts remain unresolved the revenue stream will keep flowing.
Craig Ferguson “American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot”

    Anger can be a relatively comfortable emotion for it has the impression of possessing a certain amount of strength.  Post breakup, it felt less vulnerable to be mad at Ex-man than sad.  I was angry at him for calling it quits with our relationship.  I was angry with him for taking so long to move out (nine months).  Then I was angry with him when he moved out and cut off communication and appeared to move on with his life.  Beneath all that anger at him, I was angry at myself for getting back into a relationship with him when we were both post divorce (we had also been together in high school).  I should have listened to my intuition and steered clear of him at our mutually vulnerable time but I didn’t.  Yet how much of all this anger was masking my sadness?  
    I was mad at Ex-man for pulling the plug on us despite the water in our relationship tub having turned cold.  I was upset because I felt the stakes were high (keeping us and our family together) and I felt that we hadn’t explored all options to make our relationship better.  Couldn’t we have turned the hot water tap back on? If the hot water tank was empty, couldn’t we have boiled water to add back into the tub?  We were two resourceful, smart adults - why couldn’t we get it right?
    The fact is, we couldn’t.  He was the one to pull the plug and I can’t say I’ve forgiven him for doing it, but the best thing to do is get myself up, step away, and dry myself off. 
   
Kahil Gibran wrote, “When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” This is often true with breakups, the one who you are angry at has once been your delight: a friend, a lover, a keeper of dreams.  What's it going to take to let go of the anger?

Grieving Steps: Early Stages - Denial and Isolation

262 Marbles 
You give yourself permission to grieve by recognizing the need for grieving. Grieving is the natural way of working through the loss of a love. Grieving is not weakness nor absence of faith. Grieving is as natural as crying when you are hurt, sleeping when you are tired or sneezing when your nose itches. It is nature's way of healing a broken heart. 
Doug Manning

    There is usually a grieving process with the loss of a relationship.  Sure, I’ve known a woman who felt only happiness once the divorce papers were signed, but the relationship had died a slow death over the years proceeding that moment.   Even after her initial relief, there were moments of readjustment that required a mourning of the relationship and her lost dreams for herself and her family.  
    Grief can be defined as intense sorrow or distress especially at the death/loss of someone.  I felt the effects of grief once Ex-man finally moved out despite the truth that the relationship wasn’t functioning in a way that honored either of us.  We had known each other for over a quarter of a century and this change in relationship has been a difficult adjustment, yet as Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.”  When you’re going through a breakup, however, it usually doesn’t feel like delight. 
    The first stages in the grieving process is “Denial and Isolation.” Often one of the parties will deny that the relationship has lost all respiratory functioning. I know Ex-man and I both went through a period of denial once he told me that he was moving out.  For a brief time, there was an increase in intimacy (including increased sexual intimacy). We were both in a stage of disbelief that what started out so well, and with so much love, could turn out so poorly.  This stage led into the reality of his plans to move out and his preparations to renovate the apartment that he would move into.  The period of intimacy dissipated and I became anxiously ready for the inevitable move out date. 
    After the breakup, I went into a period of isolation where I couldn’t be around too many people (as described in Marble 350).  It seemed to me that Ex-man was doing quite a bit of socializing, however, and hearing this (through the children grapevine) used to irk me.  The good news is that as the months have passed, I am definitely more surefooted when it comes to being in social situations.  As Diphilus noted hundreds of years ago, “Time is a physician that heals every grief.”

Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”  Are you still feeling the pangs and adjustments of the breakup?  Do you need some support to move through it?  There are amazing therapists that specialize in adjusting to breakups.  
It gets better…

Weed Thoughts Continued

263 Marbles 

    I spent some time in the garden this morning, ridding the flowerbeds of weeds and little dandelion shoots.  My daughter interrupted this session with a call from school.  She was distressed and asked me to come pick her up, right away.  I had never heard her in such a state, so I immediately washed off my garden hands and went to fetch her. 
    It turns out she had a presentation and she completely froze.  She felt stupid.  She was distraught with thoughts of what her classmates would think or say and how she would never live the experience down.  She was crying because she knew the material and she just couldn’t talk when she got up in front of the class.  I tried to comfort her and reassure her that everyone felt nervous about talking in front of a class.  She was worried about her nine-year-old reputation - she thought she’d be seen as a “dumb-ass.”
    I was curious about how hard she was being on herself.  I asked her, “Aren’t most of the kids in your class friends of yours?” “Yes,” she answered.  “Would you ever talk about one of your friends as harshly as you’re talking about yourself?” “No,” she replied.  “Then why would you think that they would have such mean thoughts?” She didn’t know but she knew that she couldn’t go to school tomorrow. 
    Then I realized that maybe my weeding session hadn’t been interrupted after all.  I told her that I spent my morning tending our garden, taking out all the weeds and dandelions before they had a chance to go to seed.  I told her that our minds are like gardens– filled with airborne weed-seeds.  It’s our job to take those negative weed-thoughts out before they have a chance to grow in our minds, establish roots, and take over our garden.  She looked at me like I had two heads (and perhaps through her tears I did).  What I do know is that when we were done talking, the situation wasn’t as charged for her.  Maybe I’ve planted a good seed that will grow roots.

Thomas Fuller said, “A good garden may have some weeds,” to which I add, “A good mind may have some weed thoughts.”  I am becoming more aware when I have weed thoughts in my mind and I’m noticing when I choose to water them and when I choose to discard them.  What do you usually do with your weed thoughts?

Mother’s Day

264 Marbles 

    It was Mother’s Day yesterday so I switched shifts to get the night off work.  The kids slept over the night before and when they woke up Mother’s Day morning, they were excited to give me their presents.  My daughter had a picture and a sweet poem and my youngest son had painted me a watercolor.  My eldest son loaded new songs on my iPod. 
    I was so happy with all the love in their gifts.  Then they gave me the presents from their dad – a deck chair cushion (a replacement for the one he plucked last week on Marble 273) and a hydrangea.  I know that it was nice of him to get me anything, but that deck chair cushion, well that’s still a sore spot.  
    I took a few moments in my bedroom in the morning to have a cry while the kids watched a movie.  I felt self-absorbed and petty for caring about a cushion.  It wasn’t just the cushion – it was Ex-man’s attitude about the cushions:  He didn’t want to split the set up and leave me with one but I wondered if he had been half as intent not to split people up, would we be in a different place now?  In an effort to reign in my melodrama, I called a friend who told me to let go of the cushion.  She told me, “You’ll find something better in your travels.”  For now I’ve removed all cushions from my chair and I’m admiring the refinishing job. 
    The rest of the day was great.  The kids and I went to a movie, played a game of Sorry and went to my sister’s for dinner with my Mom.  When we got home my daughter was tense and contrary.  When I tucked her in, I asked her,
“What’s up, Sweetie?”  The tears started, “I don’t like having a special day without Daddy.  It’s not the same.  It’s never going to be the same.”  My son chimed in and said, “My heart is sad.”  I asked, “How could we make it better next time?”  My daughter asked, “Couldn’t Daddy come for brunch?”  I told her that we could try that out next time. 
    I’m still playing the game of Sorry with my kids: Sorry that the two adults in their lives couldn’t have worked it out and kept their family (and deck chair cushions) together; Sorry that we haven’t given them the best representation of what love and relationship can look and feel like; and Sorry that our choices have affected their lives and made them sad when all I want for them is happiness. 

I’ve heard one definition of forgiveness that goes, “Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that the past could have been different.”  Can you forgive yourself for your relationship not working?  (This is particularly tricky when there is a family involved, I know.)

One hundred down…

265 Marbles -

…265 to go.  Ugh. 
    Rather than becoming overwhelmed at the pile of marbles still ahead of me, I’m going to take an inventory of some of the major awarenesses I’ve come to over the past 100 Marbles (okay, 101 if you include the Leap Year marble): 

1.  I’ve learned to KISS - Keep It Simple Sista.  Decide which battles are important with my kids and let go of unimportant ones like dinners that they won’t like until they’re in their twenties.
2.  What doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger - yep, it smarts to be broken up with (for the second time) by the man who I’ve known and loved since we were kids,  who I lost my virginity to,  who is the father of my children.  But marble by marble I’m getting stronger.
3.  I need more fun in my life - and thanks to some willing friends and my newish running partner, I’m starting to have more fun.  Being a parent and having fun aren’t mutually exclusive.  Yippee!
4.  Sometimes the place where you find yourself may not be what you expected but if you’re resilient and change your frame of mind, it can be just as awesome.  I didn’t expect to be a woman who only has her children half the week, but as a writer, a student, and someone who also has a job, the outcome is more than acceptable.  I’m actually a better part-time mother than full-time mother (yes, they are my children, always, but you get what I mean).  
5.  I have some weed thoughts, interesting worldviews, fears, and less than stellar opinions about myself that keep me from living the life of my dreams.  I’m hoping the next 265 Marbles will help me with these, awareness by awareness, choice by choice, action by action. 
6.  I’m learning to live by myself - scratch that - with myself. 
7.  I recognize and appreciate everyday miracles like angels in hardware store vests (Marble 324) and the smell of rain on warm cement. 

The list could go on, marble by marble, but these are the major shifts in perceptions that have allowed more room in my life for more of me. 

What are your major awarenesses since your own breakup? 

The Ex Magnet

266 Marbles

    Most people smartly flip the poles of their attraction magnets after a breakup so they become repelled by their ex.  I’ve never been quite so smart in this department.  My heart is prone to attachments, even when the attachments are in past tense.  I have to quiz myself on the verb to love: I loved my ex, I will never love my ex again. My heart’s rendition goes like this – I loved my ex, I still love my ex, I might love my ex in the future. 
    Needless to say, I’m prone to doing rebounds with an ex.  Most people think it's because loneliness sets in but it's not.  It’s because all the problems burn off in my memory and all I can recall is the love.  I know friends who conveniently have the reverse result post breakup– all the love burns off and all they can remember is the cruddy stuff.  Convenient for them. 
    A friend recently had an ex attempt to come back to her.  He wrote her with a query – would she get back together?  The letter was short and not sweet and included the sentence, “I’m willing to overlook your faults.”  Her red flags went up and the alarms sounded – lucky for her.  I broke my vow of silence (the one that tries to give no opinions about exes lest they reunite after too many ex-bashing sessions) and I asked, “Is it possible you’re looking for someone who doesn’t just tolerate you but celebrates you?” 
    For me, I have to try to keep my heart conscious of verb tenses.  Nope, it doesn’t work, so I’ll try to ensure that Ex-man doesn’t return for at least 266 marbles.

What would it take for me to continue to love my exes but to love them from a distance? What would it take for me to move forward and never go back? 

Starting with Soil

267 Marbles 
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 
Galatians 6:7

    I have a vegetable patch in my backyard that I weeded today.  Hoe in hand, I dug down deep and unearthed all the roots of the weeds that I didn’t want in my little patch of earth.  I tilled the soil with a scrupulous eye and a heavy hand and now it waits for the seeds that I’ll plant. 
    I shopped for the seeds this afternoon with my kids.  We chose peas, beans, carrots, beets and pumpkins (for Jack-o-Lanterns).  It’s exciting – a little possibility in every kernel. 
    When I returned from work last night it was midnight.  The light from the garage went on and I looked at my expectant vegetable patch.  Bugs and worms scurried from the surface to get to the safety of the soil. 
    The bugs reappeared in my dreams last night but this time they were in my house.  They were long millipedes that could stretch and shrink.  I chased them outside and said, “You’re not welcome here. “  It appears I’m weeding and exterminating my home as well. 
    I talked to a friend yesterday.  She was having a “bath with a toaster moment” - her Ex-man and her had a fight.  He called her names and her deepest fear was that he could be right - that she really wasn’t worth much.  It’s a belief  she holds deep underground - one that needs to be weeded – one that has roots that stretch where the sun don’t shine.   Once she’s done the weeding, she won’t need him or anyone to play that nasty role.  In the meantime her ex is, as Iyanla Vanzant has said,  “a beautiful child of God, cleverly disguised as a jerk.”
    I’ve seen two approaches to dealing with this type of weed.  The first involves using negative statements as a challenge.  “You’re a loser” becomes incentive to prove that you’re not, and in the process, there is an opportunity to gain more faith in oneself.  I know a divorced woman who was told by a banker that she “would never own more than a trailer in a trailer park.” The moment he made that prophecy was the moment she decided to prove him wrong.  She worked hard  and now owns a home with a beautiful garden in a lovely area. 
    The second approach involves a deep dive inside (a therapist can help here).  The curious gardener can gently prod to see where the root tentacles stretch.  Sometimes the roots can stretch back to our families or dynamics that were in place even before she poked her head out into the world. 
    I remember as a child watching my mother weed the garden.  I didn’t understand why she would pull the pretty yellow dandelions from the soil.  I asked her and she said,”They’re the weeds and weeds take all the energy so the real flowers can’t bloom.” 

Do you have any weed thoughts that are preventing you from fully blooming?  Do you need help in finding the roots and pulling them out? 

Secure or Insecure?

268 Marbles
The way to be safe is never to be secure. 
Benjamin Franklin

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.
Gail Sheehy

    I recently got an upgrade through my cellphone provider and was able to obtain a new iPhone.  I really like my new phone especially because my old one was annoyingly difficult to turn on - if I held the “on” button for a second too long it would power and I’d have to reboot it. 
    My new phone is awesome.  I purchased a little case for it from the internet - one that holds my credit card just in case I’m out and about and only have my phone on me.  I was using my phone at work when one of the chefs saw my credit card in the case and said, “Jackpot!” I looked at him as he continued, “You keep your credit card in your case?” “So?” I responded.  “I bet you don’t even have a passcode on it.” He was right.  I didn’t.  He continued to tell me how silly I was  not to have it protected with a passcode and to have it come with a free shopping spree a la credit card.  “What happens if it gets lost?”  “I’m not planning on losing it,” I responded and he walked away, shaking his head. 
I had a few more exchanges with various people that reiterated the same disbelief at my naivete. Finally I thought,”Maybe they’re right.  You never plan on losing something, but if I did, it would be better to block someone from accessing my phone.” 
    So I got a passcode and used it for about a month until this weekend when I was riding home from work on my bike and I noticed a scratched iPhone on the cobblestones.  I picked it up and saw the photo of a mother and child on the screen.  The battery level was low but when I tried to get into the phone, it required a passcode.  Damn, here I was trying to get this phone back to its owner and I was being blocked.   The best I could do for the person was put up a sign saying the phone had been found.  So far it hasn’t been claimed.
The event made me examine my worldview.  Why would I think that someone “out there” would be malevolent?  I could just as easily have the point of view that if I lost my phone, someone would try to get it back to me.  So I got rid of the inconvenient passcode and my phone feels a bit lighter.  

    Don’t get me wrong - I still think it’s wise to lock my bike and car as there can be those who are out to make a buck and I like having my modes of transportation in my life.  Similarly, if I lost my cellphone, I would cancel my credit card and give some time for the finder to call the “home” number on my phone before canceling my plan.  I still have my metaphorical yard fenced in, but the gate isn’t locked shut as I have some great neighbors.  I'm still playing with all of this - I'm aware that sometimes my possessions get heavy and possess me and sometimes they are a lighter contribution to my life.  Yet an awareness doesn't mean I've figured it out. 
    Security is defined as freedom from risk or danger (a human impossibility) or alternatively security is freedom from doubt, anxiety, or fear (rare but not impossible).  William O. Douglas once said, “Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.” The fact is, although I enjoy the objects in my life, they get heavier when I feel the constant need to protect them.  Erich Fromm said, “The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.” My phone may not be secure, but I’m able to tolerate its insecurity.  Lastly, safety expert Eleanor Everet noted, “For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind.”  All of this really isn’t about an iPhone or a car or a bike.  It’s really about how safe and secure I feel in this world.
This  breakup has shaken at the roots of my security, especially since Ex-man and my roots had grown together over years.  Yet I’m willing to entertain the possibility that maybe old Ben Franklin’s observation could be translated into the realm of relationships to read, “The way to be safe in a relationship is never to be secure.”  Safety doesn’t translate to objects coming or going or people coming or going.  My sense of security never has to come from a relationship but it can come from a state of mind - scratch that - a state of being. 

Carl Jung said, “Protection and security are only valuable if they do not cramp life excessively.” Do you need to be in a relationship to feel secure? Does this cramp the relationship excessively?

Dropping In

Marble 269
All I wanted to do was ride skateboards - I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. But I had this problem. I kept breaking half of my body skateboarding.
Travis Barker

    I was just talking to a friend who is an avid skateboarder.  She was describing what she learned from being on the edge of the hard cement bowl before “dropping in”.  Her first lesson was in facing fear.   She realized that she had to embrace fear and know that it was okay for it to be there and that it wouldn’t stop her from doing what she set out to do.  This may sound easy but think about it: most of our earliest memories about falling are from abrasive gray cement coming up against our pristine skin.  Most of us grow up acquiring an aversion to the type of pain involved in the showdown of flesh vs. concrete.  I remember my first scrapes as shattering the naive presumption that I was somewhat immune to pain - I was in a body and sometimes a body can smart - so the idea of battling pavement goes against natural sensibilities. 
    My friend told me that one of the ingredients needed to overcome fear of the bowl is doing it on faith that she would learn not to fall so often.  She said she wouldn’t entertain the idea of skateboarding if she thought she would fall every time -that would be foolish.  The idea is that you get better and that the falls are fewer and farther between.  The process becomes more fun and less of a lesson in humility and perseverance. 
    The next part of her becoming an avid skateboarder was to learn how to fall better so she wasn’t getting hurt - eg. Instead of falling on her knees, she would fall on her hips (a little more padded with flesh).  She committed to getting hurt without letting it hold her back and in the process she learned to choose how to fall.  
    I’m not sure why her story fascinates me so.  Perhaps it’s because she was a mother of two in her mid-thirties when she started skating.  Perhaps it is because I can respect skating as a metaphor for life: part of me can relate to being on the edge of the bowl before dropping in, wondering what fears are holding me back?  I know this breakup has shattered my comfort zone and brought me to a different type of edge.  What would it take for me to "drop in" to my life more fearlessly? 

There’s a Chinese Proverb that says, “Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”  Do you have fears that keep you from dropping in to life?  What would it take to let go of some of the fears?

My Medicine Chest

270 Marbles
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire

     There are many definitions for the word “medicine” but in our culture it generally refers to a drug that is used to treat disease or injury.  I tend to think medicine is anything that supports me when I’m in this uncomfortable state of post-breakup dis-ease.  My medicines are all the things that get me comfortable with being in my body, they help loosen places where my energy gets tight, they help open up my mind in the places where I feel constricted.
    My Breakup Medicine Chest is brimming with all the things that support me.  These include:
1. My friends and family and my new running partner who I play with, exercise with, and laugh with (Always laugh when you can.  It is cheap medicine - Lord Byron) 
2.  Exercise for my body - running, yoga, walking (A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world- Paul Dudley White)
3.  The garden that I’m creating (Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul - Luther Burbank). 
4.  A Chinese herbalist and naturopath to support my body 
5.  A massage therapist to rub my shoulders and release some of the physical tension
6.  My writing - marbles of therapy sessions
7.  Bottles of Rescue Remedy (a remedy composed of the essences of five flowers) that I use whenever I’m feeling stressed (If you don’t have some, I highly recommend it - it either works or is the best placebo I’ve ever experienced)
    I’m not sure if the medicinal techniques are part of the process of working through the dis-ease or if they are, as Voltaire suggests, distractions that allow nature to cure the unease through the balm of time.  What I know for sure is that they allow for more flow in the now.  They are good medicine. 

Examine the medicine that you have in your life.  Do they have side-effects?  Are there healthier medicines that you could use to help you through the breakup? 

Letting Go 101

271 Marbles
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.
Albert Einstein

    This morning I woke up with this question in my head, “Are you willing to let go of all you know about yourself?” Of course, it is slightly an odd question to wake up with - it’s usually more along the lines of, “Do you want eggs or cereal?”
    I tried to ignore the question, but it was persistent and kept resounding until I took notice.  I answered, “No, not everything.  I like certain things about myself.  I like that I write, bake, and garden, and, and-” Before I could finish, a response came from the amorphous voice, “No.  Are you willing?” 
    Hmmm, maybe that’s not such a stupid question.  I’d have to let go of all the glass-ceiling limitations I’ve put on myself.  I’d have to let go of all my beliefs about how much happiness I’m allowed to have.  I’d have to let go of my interesting relationship with struggle.  I’d have to let go of the need to have people like me, the avoidance of their rejection.  I’d have to let go of my stories.  I repeat: I’d have to let go of my stories, and how does that work for a storyteller?
    I found the above quote from the brilliant and timeless Einstein who I feel is a spiritual mentor as we share the same birthday.  I read it and instantly know that my morning question wasn’t coming from left field.  I picture a snake shedding skin and then realize it is more like a caterpillar giving up inching along the ground to become a winged air-surfer.  What about me is still the caterpillar?  What about my stories keeps me holding on to a certain outdated knowledge of who I am?  I’m not sure I can answer these questions but I’m willing to stay in the possibility that the stories may not be the whole picture.  The stories might be only what can be seen from the ground.  They’re not the aerial view. 
    So back to the morning wake-up question: Am I willing to let go of all I know about myself?  Yes. Yes because I want more space to become more of me.  Yes because I want to let go of the fears that hold me back.  Yes because I know that even some of my stories are limiting me.  Yes because this breakup is giving me the opportunity for a new beginning;  From breakup to breakthrough. 

Is your breakup asking you to let go of what you were so you can become what you will be? 

Dead Flowers

272 Marbles
    When my father passed away, he had refused food and drink: It was a painful process but he was old and his body was tired and done with living.  On the day he died, my sister and I sat outside the senior’s home with him in the rare warmth of the early spring sunshine.  He loved the sun and it was a good way for him to spend what was to be his last day. 
    The next evening, I was caught in that place between mourning his loss and knowing it was what he had wanted.  There was a knock  at the door and when I answered it, my neighbour handed me a bouquet of dead flowers and said, “These were meant for you.   They were delivered to me and they’ve been sitting outside on my porch in the sun all day.  Sorry but I think they’re dead.”  I thanked her and quickly shut the door. 
    In tears, I phoned Ex-man (who wasn’t my ex at the time), “Flowers, they’re dead, dehydrated, in the sun, delivered next door. They’re dead.  Like Dad.”  He wisely surmised that sometimes a flower is not just a flower.  “Put them out on the back porch and I’ll take care of them later.” 
    I took a deep breath and went to put them outside but I couldn’t.  A little voice inside said, “Put them in water.”  I placed what I thought to be terminally wilted flowers in a vase with some water.  A few hours later, all the flowers had completely perked up.  The bouquet was alive with color and fragrance.  My heart smiled as I felt my Dad’s spirit.

Not everything that appears dead is truly dead.  What is still alive from your relationship after the breakup?  Can you take the good parts of the spirit of the relationship and move them forward?  

More Plucking

273 Marbles 
In poker, when players make mistakes because something has upset them emotionally, it’s called “being on a tilt.” A player becomes so upset that he begins to make poor decisions.  A player can sometimes go on a tilt simply because his opponent is obnoxious or rude.  And a player on a tilt may begin betting with weaker hands than usual.  While it’s important to recognize when your opponent is on a tilt, it’s even more vital to understand when you may be going on a tilt and figure out how not to let your emotions get the best of you.
Michael Rejebian “We’re with Nobody”

    Today Ex-man came by to pick up the kids for the weekend.  He asked for a cookbook that was “his” then he went outside and saw my nicely refinished chair (Marble 294).  He noticed that I had attached a comfy cushion from one of his old deck chairs that he had left in the garage.  He proceeded to take it off so he could take the cushion to his house.  I proceeded to get upset. 
    It’s been three months and he still thinks he can come over and take what he wants.  I perceived his move as literally threatening my comfort especially since I had been enjoying the chair in the sunshine today.  I suggested that from now on he should email me prior to coming over and tell me if there is something he wants.  If it’s okay with me, then he can take it.  There has to be a statute of limitations for “plucking” what he wants from my home.  I have more feelings than a storage locker. 
    He thinks that I’m unreasonable.  Sure, I know that they’re only things, but sometimes things have significance.  There are two cushions – why take the one attached to my chair?  And why do it while he’s picking up the kids and I’m heading off to work?  I think he’s acting unreasonably. 
    I consider that perhaps this breakup is like a big game of poker and when Ex-man comes and does his obnoxious and rude plucking, it puts me on a tilt.  As Rejebian suggests, it’s imperative that I figure out how not to let my emotions get the best of me.  Yes, I recognize I’m on a tilt, but I’m just not sure how to get out of it. 
    If I consider this breakup as a game of poker, there has to be a winner and a loser.  Does this really work for me?  Sure there is part of me that wants him to lose.  There’s part of me that wants to twist my knuckle into his ribs until it hurts as much as I’ve felt hurt over the last few months (thankfully that part is pretty small).  But when I come back to what I know, I know that our relationship didn’t work and that the challenges/pain I’ve felt over the breakup are largely because I have a difficult time letting go and adjusting to the new norm.  When I connect to this place, I realize that this breakup isn’t really a game of poker because I want all of us to win.  I want my kids to have homes where there is less conflict, homes where they can thrive and grow.  I want Ex-man to go on to live a good life.  I want myself to claim the immense possibilities available in my new life.  Maybe the way to get out of the tilt is to ask myself, what would make us all win this particular hand? 
    I’m a resourceful person.  I enjoy finding uses for things that are available to me.  There is something about Ex-man continuing to come and pluck things from my environment that really bothers me.  I need to ask him to come and get whatever he needs/wants in one final swoop and whatever he doesn’t choose to take, he will have to leave for good.  That way he will have what he wants and so will I. 

Can you use creative thinking to come to a win/win option when there is a conflict with your ex or any other conflict?  When I look on the surface of this conflict, there is only ever going to be a winner and a loser.  Either he will get the cushion or I will.  But I can easily let go of the cushion if I’m not threatened by this dynamic continuing to happen.  Below the surface, I don’t want to keep nesting in my home and have Ex-man coming to pluck things from my nest.  The solution: a final swoop of plucking.  Win/win. 


Budding Plants

274 Marbles
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers are springing up, the season of singing birds has come, and the cooing of turtledoves fills the air.
Solomon 2:11-12

    When Ex-man first moved out, my garden was barren; we were at the tail end of a long, cold winter.  Two weeks after his departure, the spindly Daphne bush in the front garden went into delicate, fragrant bloom heralding the departure of winter and the approach of spring.
    Shortly afterward, the snowdrops started poking out of the soil followed by the crocuses and a few tulips.  These were all bulbs that I didn’t plant but were enjoying as auspices of life’s regenerative power, especially post apocalypse of a breakup.   
    After the wisteria episode (Marble 276), I’ve started taking notice of the somewhat bleak garden at the rental home where I live.  The garden needs tending and even the mail carrier left a warning note saying that she was finding it difficult to pass along the sidewalk to the house.  My school year is over and it’s time to don some gardening gloves and get to work.
    I can’t plant everything I’d like in the garden immediately - the spring bulbs I’ll have to wait until fall to plant (and all have to collect the other plants over time) but I make a list of plants, flowers, and berries that I’d like to eventually have in the garden.  These include: raspberries, blueberries, tulips, narcissus, anemones, alliums, poppies, irises, lilies, lilacs, lilies of the valley, sweet peas, hydrangea,  and of course wisteria (the house already has fragrant jasmine and hollyhock vines - yippee!)  
    I think I’ve always loved flowers.  One of my earliest memories is of me and my neighborhood friends deciding to open a “florist”.  Of course we needed inventory so we went around to all the neighbor’s yards and nabbed their flowers.  We went back to my garage and put the flowers in buckets of water and had an amazingly colorful display.  As the afternoon progressed, and the impending arrival of my father’s car in the garage became a threat, we realized that we needed to hide our pilfered blooms.  We took them and stealthily hid them in the ivy vine between my house and the neighbor’s.  When the neighbor found the floral contraband, the trail easily traced back to me and I had to go around the neighborhood and apologize for stealing the flowers.   
    I imagine my finished garden in bloom and I see myself snipping flowers from my garden to give to friends, and who knows, perhaps a new lover after my marbles are gone.  If I’ve moved from this house before I get to enjoy the blossoms, I’ll know that I’ve added something lovely to a home where I’ve lived.  It’s good to leave a place better than the way it’s found.  The little girl that I was somehow reminds me to be less possessive about my flowers.  She reminds me to let go, let go of the wisteria.  Let go.

What did you love as a child?  Do you love them still?  If so, is there a way to make space for more of that joy in your life?  



Riding the Wave

275 Marbles
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn

    About ten years ago I was visiting my parents when they were still in their house.  I had forgotten to bring a book so I checked out my mother’s bookshelf and found “Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul” - not my usual reading material but I was desperate.  In it, I recall reading a story about a woman who gave birth to a child with Down syndrome.  She told the story of how she had anticipated the birth of her baby but when her child was born, she discovered her baby had the genetic condition stemming from an extra chromosome.  She found the life adjustment similar to planning a trip to France, learning French, anticipating French food only to find herself landed in Spain.  Upon arrival, she found the country just as beautiful, but not in line with her expectations.  She quickly changed gears and learned Spanish while enjoying sangria and paella. 
    I found her resilience particularly inspiring as I have a personal tendency to hold onto things, including expectations.  Yet life has a tendency to act as travel agent and pilot (and pesky baggage-losing handler), and quite often paths will change mid-flight.  My curiosity, post breakup, is what would it take to be able to take these re-routes with greater ease?  What would it take to learn to let go and go with the flow? 
    When I ask these questions, I picture a surfer learning to ride the wave. I’m not a surfer, but I imagine that aside from the obvious balance of staying on the board, there is the discernment of choosing which wave to ride whilst continually adjusting to what the wave throws your way.  Just like life there is choice and the resilience of riding the wave,  Perfect equilibrium. 

Can I let go of all the waves that have broken and just ride the wave that’s under my feet?  Can I learn to choose to ride the waves that will bring me joy? 

Wisteria Hysteria

276 Marbles 
One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.
Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come.

Chinese Proverb

    I had to drop the kids off at Ex-man’s house today (the house that had been my home for six of the years we were together).  When I entered his yard, I passed under the trellis filled with the budding blooms of the wisteria I had planted there seven years ago.  It took everything I had to keep the tears back until I got home where I had a bout of Wysteria Hysteria. 
    When we lived in that house, I planted all my favourite flowering trees and vines: lilac, mock orange, rhododendron, jasmine, and wisteria.  I fell in love with wisteria in Greece where I would walk by a fragrant courtyard laden with the purple blossoms.  I knew that one day I’d plant a wisteria pathway to my own home.  Years later at Ex-man’s house I planted the vine and waited each Spring for the blooms to show.  Year after year, nothing. This year it’s a blossom extravaganza.  Is my lesson to be more discerning in choosing which soil to till? 
    The word hysteria is derived from “hustera” which means womb in Greek so perhaps I’m physiologically entitled to have my sad and angry wisteria hysteria.  I’m sad about all the things that I planted and had to leave.  I’m mad that the wisteria is not at my home, like I envisioned in Greece (it was supposed to be me that was smelling the sweet scented air from the trellis).  I’m upset that even if I do plant more where I’m living now, it will take years for it to bloom and maybe I won’t even be living here then, and once again, someone else will be enjoying the seeds that I planted.  (Yes there is a comfort in knowing that, as the proverb notes, I may have done the planting but my kids are benefitting from the beauty of the garden at their dad’s house.)
    I’d like a house of my own but even if I had one, change is a given and I may move from it.  So I’ll keep planting wherever I be.  What I do know is that whether or not it’s my nose that will benefit from the fragrance, the world will be slightly more aromatic because I continue to plant my seeds. 
    Stephan Girard once wrote, “If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today.”  Yet none of this is really just about seeds and flowers.  Living with an open heart means continually planting seeds and as life takes its inevitable twists and turns, I never really know which buds I’ll be around to see bloom.

Can I let go of all of the seeds that I planted in my relationship with Ex-man (except my kids, of course)?  Could I create a life where I am the sower of the seeds and the reaper of the fragrant harvest?

Single Mother?

277 Marbles -

    I’ve written how it was one of my biggest fears to become a single mother (Marble 300) and how now I’m in that situation.  Yet as I adjust to my new life, I’m realizing that I’m not a single mother at all.  I have friends who are single mothers and I’ve seen their lives.  They may have family as back up and those they can lean on for child-minding, but the responsibility of their children, the expenses related to parenting, the keeping of their homes, the balancing of their careers and every other detail of parenting rests on their shoulders alone.  Whereas I admire what it takes to coordinate all of the above, this is not my story.  Thankfully.  I don’t think I’d be cut out for it. 
    So I can’t say that I’m a single mother anymore, especially out of respect for true single parents.  To be clear, my kids’ dads are involved both emotionally and financially.  I’m able to benefit from the love and experiences of having a family yet I don’t have the sole responsibility of the role as parent.  In hindsight, I’ve chosen two amazing dads with whom to co-parent children.  For this I am extremely grateful. 
    There are some inherent disadvantages to the way my life is set up.  I do have to continually compromise with a person with whom I am no longer in a marriage/relationship (when it comes to decisions about the kids).  I am bound to stay in the same city as my Ex-men for as long as my children are growing up. I’ve kept my work schedule the way it is (working nights and weekends) so that we can break up the week, each getting the most time with the kids.  Yet this set-up works best for what is now my very extended family.
     Although Ex-man and I occasionally miss the mark of the cooperative atmosphere because of the rawness of our breakup, I’m confident that over time any differences will be ironed out with greater ease.  I know he is a good dad and that gives me a great deal of comfort.  So although I may technically be a single mother, I am not a single mother at all. 
     I used to have an art teacher in high school who said, "There are no mistakes in art."  She would encourage us to make bold, inspired strokes on our canvases and even when we didn't like what showed up, she would advise us to turn it into something beautiful. I see a similar analogy with living life.  Whereas I didn't consciously choose to be in this family situation without a mate, I see this as colorful marks on my canvas which I know I can turn it into art. 
   
There’s the old African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  If you are a single parent, who are your tribe?  If you don’t have a tribe, is there a way to connect to others, perhaps other single parents, so you can be supportive to each other?  There are often groups in communities whose aim is to make these connections.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, seek out connections to create your own little village. Your life is your canvas...