Crackin' Wise

Change and Stability

Humans are complex and far more mutable than we are comfortable with admitting most of the time, not least because while our own mutability can be freeing, mutability in others can be genuinely frightening. In a dangerous and changeable world, we crave something to hold on to; we need stability. Without it, we are left continually, frantically re-evaluating and unable to progress. Yet, without change, without the new, we cannot progress either; our  adaptability is perhaps our greatest strength as a species. As with all things, the key is balance. Remember to hold the hands of those who love you and whom you love as you change, so they may come with you; we, none of us, are on this journey alone. 

An Anxiety Primer

I waited an hour after I woke up this morning for the nausea to abate sufficiently to attempt the daily race to get my teeth brushed before my overactive gag reflex kicks in. Why was I so nauseated? Oh, that’s just my anxiety. See, I had a good weekend. Not great, just pleasant; there was some work, some play, little strife, a fair bit of happiness and contentment. As I lay my head down on Sunday night, my stomach was already tight with an unnamed dread. My body began to show the signs of imminent doom and my anxiety whispered, “Maybe one of you won’t make it till morning.” I told it to shut up; I’m well used to its nastiness. But my body doesn’t listen to me. It listens to the anxiety.
At who-knows-in-the-morning, as I sat on the toilet (anxiety triggers the bowels, you know), I debated taking one of my ultra-low-dose Xanax pills. (Long story short, my dad had a rare, fatal reaction to mind-altering medication that I am paranoid will turn out to be hereditary, so I am skittish about medication.) But I worry (oh, yes, I am very good at worrying) that I will build up an immunity to them, so I resist as much as I possibly can. (Plus Xanax is addictive, so, you know, don’t wanna go there.) I knew that if I just waited it out, I’d (probably) be okay.
I had a nice advantage this time; my children had the day off school, so I wouldn’t have to worry that someone would show up there and shoot them, a concern I’ve had anywhere from every day to once a week since exactly that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary when my oldest son was the same age as the children that died there.
No, today, I just had to worry about my husband driving an hour to work the morning after a snowfall. He is exceedingly experienced at driving in general and driving in the snow, specifically, so I manage to worry only a little bit. Still, I will text him to make sure he arrived safely, when the first-thing meeting he told me about should be over. With luck, he will reply immediately. He often doesn’t hear his phone or forgets to turn the ringer back on, so I’ve gone many an hour half-terrified that something had happened to him. Here’s an example, when I decided to use emojis to demonstrate the emotional effect of his delayed response:

This morning, as every morning, my last words to him were, “I love you, goodbye!”, just in case you see. I had to say it twice, because the first time I forgot to tell him to drive safely, which I always try to tell him in bad weather, just in case. Yeah, anxiety means a lot of “just in case”. And, hey, it works; I know that my last words to my father were “I love you, goodbye!” and that has given me a lot of comfort over the years since he died. There are some upsides to this condition; I also have amazing attention to detail and I’m great with structure, which comes in handy with a spouse and a child with ADHD in the house.
Now, teeth brushed, I’ll be able to go about my day. I probably won’t worry again until my husband is due to come home, well, unless the boys go out to play in the snow; then I’ll have to worry about them a bit. This is the constant undercurrent of worry in my life, over which I have no control; I do not bring it forth and I cannot make it go away, only ignore and minimize it as much as possible, without suppressing or failing to acknowledge it, which makes it worse quite rapidly.

Here are a few tips for supporting someone like me:

1. Accept right now that there is no easy fix. I promise; we looked. We’d’ve found it by now. If it seems “obvious”, don’t say it. Just don’t go there.
2. Be patient. My life is just like yours, but I’m swimming through a quagmire of anxiety. It sometimes slows me down. Remember, though, that all that swimming has also made me much, much stronger. In internet parlance: “I am a delicate flower, dammit.” Treat me accordingly.
3. We all have things that trigger our anxiety. We can probably tell you what they are, but if you notice something we haven’t, feel free to gently and supportively point it out, if you are close enough to us to be sure you are correct. Helping us avoid or work around triggers is awesome and probably the most useful thing you can do. For example, my husband makes almost all the phone calls to strangers, because that’s very hard for me. I still do it sometimes, because exposure therapy does seem to help with anxiety, but it needs to be under my control, when I feel ready and able. 
   

In the end, we’re all just doing the best we can to get through life with as little tragedy and as much love as possible, so, most of all, be kind to each other.

What They Said.

While struggling to decide how to share my story about depression and suicide, a lot of people shared stuff that I identified with. I will eventually tell my personal story, but today I think I'm going to share the wisdom of others.

Love, we're told, heals all wounds. Love makes the world go round. Love is the holy balm, the essence of life itself. And I would say yes to all of these statements... yes, but. Yes, but there are limits to love. I believe in love. And I also believe in luck....

But here's the thing: People are mentally ill all the time. People are depressed all the time. Even if people are not actively experiencing a mental health crisis, they're living with mental health conditions. Mental illness is not something you get over or heal from. It's something you manage, to varying degrees, and it's always part of your life, and it expresses in varied ways.

Suicide is not a weak decision. It is a decision that takes an incredible amount of strength to make, actually. Someone isn’t weak if they end their life. They are desperate. There is a difference. It’s okay to feel angry at the person for dying. It’s okay to question, to rail against the forces that caused this. But it isn’t weakness. Mental illness isn’t weakness. It’s a disease, a pervasive, sometimes awful disease. The person doesn’t deserve anger and skepticism forever. They deserve compassion. Their family deserves compassion.

For Robin Williams to have lived with his demons for an indeterminable length of time is truly heroic. He has formed an enormously successful career, held down the day job, worked through relationships with people, drugs and alcohol, parented, been public, been private, all whilst wearing the enormous coat of depression. It is an enormous task. It can be like holding a tsunami, using every fibre in every muscle not to give in to its strength. That takes equal strength. It takes superpower! He has held the tsunami for year upon year. He held it back trying to prevent it from taking him under and instead of saying "poor guy, it got him", perhaps we should be saying "Oh my god, what a hero! He held that tsunami for so long, he held it away from people as much as he could, some people got sprayed, some got soaked, but millions felt the sun instead of the water, he held it on his back and he did it for years."

Suicide is a decision made out of desperation, hopelessness, isolation and loneliness. The black hole that is clinical depression is all-consuming. Feeling like a burden to loved ones, feeling like there is no way out, feeling trapped and feeling isolated are all common among people who suffer from depression.

People who say that suicide is selfish always reference the survivors. It's selfish to leave children, spouses and other family members behind, so they say. They're not thinking about the survivors, or so they would have us believe. What they don't know is that those very loved ones are the reason many people hang on for just one more day. They do think about the survivors, probably up until the very last moment in many cases. But the soul-crushing depression that envelops them leaves them feeling like there is no alternative. Like the only way to get out is to opt out. And that is a devastating thought to endure.

Until you've stared down that level of depression, until you've lost your soul to a sea of emptiness and darkness... you don't get to make those judgments. You might not understand it, and you are certainly entitled to your own feelings, but making those judgments and spreading that kind of negativity won't help the next person. In fact, it will only hurt others.

Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.

― Sally Brampton, *Shoot The Damn Dog: A Memoir Of Depression*

"None of us can truly know what we mean to other people, and none of us can know what our future self will experience. History and philosophy ask us to remember these mysteries, to look around at friends, family, humanity, at the surprises life brings — the endless possibilities that living offers — and to persevere. There is love and insight to live for, bright moments to cherish, and even the possibility of happiness, and the chance of helping someone else through his or her own troubles. Know that people, through history and today, understand how much courage it takes to stay. Bear witness to the night side of being human and the bravery it entails, and wait for the sun. If we meditate on the record of human wisdom we may find there reason enough to persist and find our way back to happiness. The first step is to consider the arguments and evidence and choose to stay. After that, anything may happen. First, choose to stay."
- Jennifer Michael Hecht

Be kind. Be gentle. Love each other.

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Walking an Invisible Dragon

This article I read talks about how casual and incorrect “jokes” or references to many serious conditions like bipolar disorder, depression, celiac disease, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder cause a cultural effect that devalues the seriousness of these conditions. Naturally, early responses include suggesting that people who share this view need to lighten up or have a sense of humor. We do have a sense of humor; if we didn’t, these things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. But there’s a tipping point and, in all the cases the author listed, it has been reached; this humor has now become detrimental to the very people it once demystified. I know this for several reasons; first of all, I have intimate knowledge of a couple of these conditions myself, second, I know people with some of them as well and finally and most importantly, my son has ADHD.

Back before I knew what I was dealing with, I laughed at all the “ooh, butterfly” lines, too. We’ve all been easily distracted and we can all empathize with that. Here’s the thing; that’s being easily distracted. ADHD is NOT being easily distracted. That’s where all of these things fall down; they describe the closest experience someone who is neurotypical has to what the actual condition is. The problem is that those experiences are often not even in the ballpark, and that, over time, people who haven’t encountered people with the ACTUAL condition start to think that the “jokes” are actually close to the reality. If we lived in a world where everyone was fully and completely educated on even the rarest of conditions, then it wouldn’t matter, but we don’t. We live in a world where people really think that the parent of a child with ADHD just doesn’t discipline enough. I’m here to tell you that I went to lengths I never thought I would go in disciplining my child. One of the things I have had to do since his diagnosis (at the age of six and a half) is work to undo all the damage that “discipline” caused. And that’s just one of many very inaccurate ideas that people have about ADHD that spring from pop-culture concepts and jokes.

I have learned to hate the “ooh, butterfly” line. If ONLY it was that easy. If ONLY it was that simple. So I thought about creating a better metaphor, something that would give people a real idea of what it is like to live with ADHD.

Having ADHD is walking an invisible dragon.

Most people are walking invisible dogs on permanently attached leashes, okay? They go through life and their attention-dog sees this over here or that over there and tugs them over. Now, some people have Chihuahuas and aren’t going anywhere they don’t want to go. Some people have Great Danes and WOW can they get hauled around, but some solid tugs and maybe a stern voice will eventually pull them back.

My son walks an attention-dragon. The thing FLIES, people. And all he can do is hang on to the leash for dear life and try to enjoy the ride, so that’s what he does. He’s laughing on the outside, but he knows that he is completely out of control. There is NO tugging that dragon back. It’s about 300 times his size and it can fly. I’m left standing on the ground, yelling at him to come back down, and he would like to, he really would, but he can’t, no matter how hard he tries. There have been times he’s wrestled that beast till he was in tears. Times that my fighting to hold on to him almost tore him in two.

My son takes medication that turns the dragon into a Great Dane for a number of hours. Now, Great Danes are still hard to manage, but they are miles easier than dragons and life is tremendously better for everyone. Someday, he’ll be better at controlling the dragon; most adults with ADHD don’t need medication anymore. (And just think about how amazingly strong they must be, to be able to wrestle that dragon all on their own and mostly win. My husband is that kind of person.) But, for now, my son is an eight year old kid with a dragon attached to his arm, a dragon I’m stuck fighting to keep hold of my sweet, gentle, brilliant child without hurting him in the process in a world where people all seem to think he’s being tugged by butterflies.

It’s not butterflies, people. It’s dragons.

P.S. I decided to have my son read this before I published it. He liked it, agrees with it, and thinks I understand him. It’s a good day.

A Surprising Gratitude

So, when I started my Facebook account, I decided that I would use it to post a daily gratitude. I had a friend who did them and I always enjoyed that about her; I thought FB was a perfect format for it. I was right; my practice has continued for years now and it makes a real difference in my life. But that's not what today's post is about. Today, I'm moving my gratitude here because I need just a bit more room and a bit more permanence for this one.

For much of the last couple of weeks, our life felt a like the inside of a pinball machine. My husband severely sprained his ankle while on a business trip to the other side of the world and developed a clot (also known as a DVT) on the flight home. We were in and out of the hospital several times over a matter of days. It was not fun. While I am slightly worried about jinxing myself, things have finally calmed down. My husband is stable enough to return to work, although he can't drive yet, so I drove him to work this morning. Yes, this is all backstory, and, yes, there are many gratitudes in there that I haven't mentioned, but I have thought of them!

On my trip back home, I found myself listening to a song that was, gently and soulfully, expressing dismay about the frequency of divorce these days. As I listened, I felt for the artist's pain in watching marriage after marriage fail. And then I had a thought and today's gratitude was born.

I am grateful for divorce.

"What?!", I expect some of you are thinking. The thought even passed through my mind for a split second till I began to explain to myself and things started making sense, so keep reading and we'll see how well I get this out of my head.

It is important to know some things about me. My parents were happily married till the day my father died (so it's not because I'm a damaged or bitter child of divorce). I am, as I mentioned, happily married myself. It is our first marriage; no divorce in my history or his. We have, in fact, been married for almost 18 years. It is generally observed that we are a pretty inseparable couple; people have even been known to do that thing where they squish our names together because we are such a unit. That didn't come naturally, by the way; it was a conscious and deliberate choice on both our parts to shape our lives so that we always came towards each other rather than away. This was in part because we are very different people in a lot of ways. The most compelling aspect of our early relationship was our off-the-charts chemistry; just the sort of thing that usually spells disaster (I was even fresh out of another relationship!), and we knew it. Our courtship was passionate, brief, and tumultuous. My husband-to-be was sure I was The One; I was...dramatically more skeptical. But down the aisle we went and, unlike the fairy tales, things just got more complicated from there.

In the course of our eighteen year relationship (I told you it was a brief courtship), we have been through many, many things that are often cited as a cause of divorce; infertility, infidelity, dishonesty, a child with a disability, major financial problems. I've walked out on him, he's walked out on me. There were a couple of times where our relationship held on by the slenderest thread. That said, we have never not loved each other deeply and passionately; we've only been reduced to wishing we didn't a time or a two. Everything we have been through has made us better and stronger.

So when I say I'm grateful for divorce, you can be sure it's not because I think marriage should be easy or because I don't appreciate that going through the hard stuff can deepen your relationship.

I'm grateful for divorce because everyone should be able to have a marriage like mine.

My husband was in China for nine days. Two months ago, he was there for two weeks. That's a lot of time apart for us and, while we endured the first one with relative equanimity, this second time was pretty much pure agony. We were on fire to be reunited, only to end up in an emergency room with barely time for one kiss.

In the last several days, I have been reminded again and again just how deep and passionate our relationship is, and seen it grow even deeper and more passionate as my husband (who is generally a very healthy person) gets a look into what it's like to live with pain and limitation, which I do on a daily basis. He keeps saying he doesn't know how I be me. That makes me smile and love him more, of course, because, in all these years, he's never given me a hard time because of my limitations, even though I know they frustrated him sometimes.

I could go on, but what I'm trying to say is that we have a love for the ages; the kind of thing books are written and movies are filmed about; a sweep you off your feet epic kind of thing. Not because we are particularly special, but because we got lucky and found each other and knew we had something worth keeping.

Divorce allows people who have made a mistake the freedom to correct it.

While my husband came from a relatively quiet dating history, I had, in fact, been engaged twice before. In both cases, a slightly different series of events could have led to me being stuck in a marriage that would, at best, be mediocre and probably miserable, especially if I didn't live in a time and place where divorce was a feasible option.

I am glad I didn't have to go through a divorce to learn what not to do, but there are plenty of people who aren't so lucky. I think of my own children, who aren't even on the cusp of puberty yet, and I imagine how I would feel if either of them were stuck in a marriage that was not even bad, but just meh. My heart would break for them. No one should have to settle for "meh"; this is not to say that one never should; sometimes that just the thing for someone, but they shouldn't have to.

I am grateful for divorce because it opens the door to a better, brighter future in ways we haven't even begun to imagine.

I empathize with the song I was listening to; it is sad when marriages end, even when you are just observing it, because relationships are complex and far reaching in many ways and because people of good heart always root for true love.

But I think we are in a transitional period. I think human beings are learning, as a species, what it is that makes a relationship worth keeping. It may take us as long as a couple of centuries, but we are finding our way to the place where everyone ends up in the relationship (or relationships) that are right for them. Imagine what a world would be like where that was true; where everyone, everyone, was in a relationship as deep, as passionate, as beautiful as mine (and maybe yours). Imagine the magnitude of joy that would permeate the world. Imagine how fulfilled and at peace we would be in our hearts. Imagine the gift that divorce could ultimately bring to us as a species.

I am grateful that I got to start imagining that gift, that future this morning.

P.S. I am also grateful for the mind-bendingly awesome marriage that my husband and I have worked hard to build and maintain and will, all things being equal, enjoy till our (hopefully far in the future) dying day; inexpressibly grateful.

 

Coping Ideas

Over on Dreamwidth (where I keep my bird oracle blog), someone by the handle of lizcommotion posted a Giant List of Cope. As she encouraged people to do, I'm going to snag and personalize it for myself. I think her format is definitely a keeper! Please share your coping ideas in the comments; we all need all the inspiration we can get!

Distraction (things that distract from the stressor/emotion)

• listen to comedy or old time radio
• play games (virtual or physical)
• immerse myself in someone else's problem(s)
• learn something new/research something
• photography
• exercise: dancing, walking, weight training, etc.
• birdwatching/treehugging
• gardening
• work/craft
• do my nails/take a bath
• clean/vacuum/dust/do laundry/etc.
  
• read, read, read
• read good news (goodnewsnetwork.com, dailygood.org, happynews.com, google "good news stories")
• go thrifting
• watch a TV show/movie

Expression (things that help externalize the feeling)

• journal/blog
• singing/listening to related music
• talk to someone I trust to listen without judging, even if that's my cat/dog/turtle/teddybear
• create/perform a ritual or ceremony
• consult tarot, oracle, runes, etc.
• consult books, sacred texts, even google, on the topic
• draw/collage/make art
• write poetry/fiction/a letter

Connection (things that help get support from others)

• phone/Skype a friend
• support group
• partner/family time
• moodscope.com or other mood charting and communicating method/resource
• call your therapist/psychiatrist
• invite a good friend over
• social networking online
• go to a temple/church/coven meeting or a social organization you are active in
• call a hotline

Meditation (things to help relax/stay grounded)

• deep breathing/meditation/guided meditation
• read on the topic of relaxing/staying grounded
• massage
• walk a labyrinth or other active meditation
• tarot or oracle reading
• light a candle
• create/perform a soothing ritual/ceremony
• hot shower/bath
• drink decaf/herbal tea slowly
• spend time in nature/garden
• yoga/stretching
• calmingmanatee.com, calm.com, or google "calming" or "calm"
• listen to relaxing music
• cuddle a pet or maybe a partner or child or friend

Oklahoma Tornadoes

 

This is a guest post by my dear friend Amy. It was written for her friends, and you'll notice a couple of signs of that, but this is such an excellent post on the topic of tornadoes that I thought it should see a wider audience. Read it and pass it around. No wisdom is so useful as practical wisdom.

Amy writes:

So, tornadoes being butts. I've said before: I like you, tornadoes, when you are frolicking out in fields in the middle of nowhere; I like you a lot less when you barrel into communities and kill people.

That said, this is so cynical, but yesterday I thought, “Well at least it’s not more people killing people,” after the steady barrage of shootings and terrorism we’ve been having throughout 2013 /:

Of course people are still finding human scapegoats for their emotions in the tragedy, like criticizing senators about how they are handling the budget for relief funds, and I’ve also heard a few people criticize the local schools for being open at all when there had been storm warnings all morning (apparently not realizing that in tornado country, if school is out of session whenever there is threat of a tornado, you might not have much of a spring semester), or questioning why schools aren't equipped with state-of-the-art storm shelters. (My bitter response on behalf of most rural American schools being: Yeah, we'll get on that. Right after we scrape up the money for textbooks that aren't from 1992). And of course there will always be that obnoxious fringe who will chalk it up to God’s wrath upon whatever they heck they find politically distasteful. (Or global warming, for that matter, as if Oklahoma hasn’t been Violent Tornado Central for centuries*). But I like to pretend those people don’t exist . . .

*Which is to say I believe the earth is warming, but I DON’T think it is to blame for every single weather disaster. Tornadoes showing up in weird places and/or at weird times of the year is one thing, but if you live in a tornado-prone area, you really can’t be all that shocked when there are tornadoes, nor that periodically some of them are severe.

On the bright side...

Actually, the way I see it, the human response to the storm was exactly right. The tornadoes came during the day when citizens were alert, and the National Weather Service was able to give 16 minutes’ advance warning to Moore (the hardest-hit community), longer than the current average of about 10 minutes’ warning and much longer than pre-1970s warnings that were barely better than looking outside and seeing the funnel cloud yourself. I’ve been reading so many reports of citizens who did exactly what they were supposed to, getting into basements or, in the absence of a basement, hunkering down in internal closets and bathrooms with mattresses and helmets as is recommended by experts-- which saved their lives. Miraculously, though service was spotty, cell phone reception remained stable enough to facilitate the rescue of many trapped survivors. Plaza Towers Elementary School is cited as having been one of the most structurally-sound buildings in the county and they followed school storm safety procedure to the T, and surely this is why the majority of children survived the direct hit. After reading a chilling soundbite that the Plaza Towers search and rescue was now to be considered a recovery mission (ie: they did not expect to recover any more living children, only bodies), initial projections of the death toll were substantially lowered overnight as more survivors were pulled from the wreckage. There is much to be thankful for.

On Sunday, while this was all just a vague prediction of stormy weather in the plains early in the week, I happened to watch a documentary about the 1974 Super Outbreak and the major changes in storm forecasting it precipitated like Doppler radar (they used to use old WWII physical radars and tracked storms by hand!), a vast connected network of National Weather Service prediction stations, a huge increase in civil warning sirens, and the widespread adoption of school tornado drills. I don’t even want to imagine the consequences of this storm in a pre-1970s world.

Of course, knowing that people responded just about the best they could also kind of makes it worse, since it highlights that no matter how well we prepare, nature still has the upper hand. Advance warnings can get people to basements and interior spaces, but in an EF4 or EF5, even a basement won’t necessarily save if you if the entire house goes right down on top of you. And as we saw with Joplin and the April 2011 outbreak in Alabama, triple-digit death tolls (such as surpass even the Super Outbreak) are still possible when humongous storms meet populated areas, especially when basements and cellars are not a common thing in the area due to the terrain. And even in the relatively small death toll of the Oklahoma outbreak, 24 dead is still 24 people (9 children!) whose loved ones will never see them again ):

Preparedness

Like I said, I think the people of Oklahoma did exactly what they were supposed to, but the importance of preparedness is worth repeating. Now that I live in earthquake country-- where by the time you know the disaster is coming, it’s already happening-- you can’t even imagine how much I envy the prospect of a 15-minute advance warning and having a reliable safe place to go in the first place! But I get frustrated with how flippant some people can be about storm watches and warnings* as if every time a siren goes off it’s some personal attack on their time, and not because they live in a tornado-prone area and, golly gee, sometimes there's a tornado and the community is doing them the service of warning them. I’m sure occasionally there is a false-positive tornado identification, but let’s be real here, you’d much rather be warned about a tornado that doesn’t not exist than not warned about one that ends up running over your house! And the verified tornado may be on the other side of the county, far away from you, but if there’s a tornado that close, even if that one doesn’t come up to visit it’s exponentially more likely another one could fall out of the sky on top of you. And is it really that much trouble to hang tight in your basement or closet until a warning is lifted? You know, in the interest of not dying? Bring your iPhone and play some goddamn Angry Birds for twenty minutes while you not die. Be honest with yourself, was what you were doing before the warning really that much more important? More important than not dying?

*Not to mention confused about their meanings and the advised course of action-- though that may be a flaw of the weather service for choosing ambiguous terms. (I know they're considering changing them?). A WATCH means there is no tornado, but conditions are likely, so keep an eye on the sky and weather updates, and get your bearings (know where everyone in the family is, don’t travel out too far from home or other safe spaces) in case conditions change rapidly. A WARNING means a tornado is on the ground somewhere in your county and you should take shelter immediately. It does not mean, like my sister once believed, that “A tornado warning is warning you about the tornado coming, and a tornado watch means you can actually watch the tornado.” Lol.

And for chrissakes if you’ve got several DAYS to get out of town in advance of a hurricane and everyone is telling you to GTFO . . . GTFO!


Pay attention to civil alert sirens. Know when there are scheduled tests so you can ignore them, but any time you hear it outside the scheduled time, pay attention! If you live somewhere outside earshot of civil warning sirens, invest in a weather radio or subscribe to severe weather alerts on your phone. Frankly it's a good idea to have a second way to check the weather no matter what the circumstances. Oldschool battery-powered radios are nothing to scoff at when power, cell, and Internet service could all be cut together.

If you live in tornado country and you’ve got an accessible choice between a residence with a basement (or cellar) and without, get the basement! XD Or get to know nearby neighbors and see about using theirs in an emergency. (But be reasonable; if you're considering dashing across a field to a distant neighbor in a rural area, or driving to a friend's all the way across town, you’re better off in your bathroom). If you don't have a basement, plan ahead about which interior closet or bathroom would be safest to ride out a storm. It sounds silly, but consider grabbing a bike helmet, especially for kids!

If you live in a mobile home, research shelter options in your area. The park may have its own designated shelter, or you may have use of a neighboring brick-and-mortar building for this purpose. Know that inside your mobile home is basically the worst place you can ride out a storm. Don't stay there. You're better off lying in a ditch. Literally.

If you live in an apartment, investigate the best place to go in a storm. Is there a basement? Is there a windowless space on the first floor? Can you make a friend on the first floor and hang out in their bathroom?

If you’re driving, if you can get out of your car and inside a sturdy building, do it. If there’s nothing around you and you’ve got enough distance, you may be able to evade a (small) tornado by driving away at a 90-degree angle to its path-- but by the time you see the tornado, it’s probably too late for this, especially if you can’t go off-road. Get out of the car and get away from it. It’s counterintuitive as fuck, but STAY OUT IN THE OPEN. Lie in a ditch (like the drainage ditches on the side of a highway) or as flat against the ground as you can. Do not hide in or under your car, which will likely be blown over or even picked up and thrown. Do not go under an overpass, where wind speeds will be as much as doubled by the windtunnel effect through the enclosed space.

Find out about the storm procedures at your child’s school. Do they practice storm drills? How soon into the school year and how often? Where are the safe places students directed to? Schools generally don’t have shelters or basements, so the safest place is an interior hallway-- no windows, no exterior doors, no glass-- on the main floor when possible. (A school I student-taught at had students on the third floor go to a hallway on the second because apparently there simply wasn’t enough room on the first. This kind of freaked me out!). Bathrooms are good, too. Gyms, cafeterias, and auditoriums-- large rooms with a wide, relatively unsupported ceiling-- are not. (My elementary school once put us in the gym and I was like WTF?). I read about one family in this tornado who actually pulled their kids out of school to bring them home for the storm. I wouldn't really advocate that, since you'd have to have the time to get there and back before the storm hit, time which you probably don't have-- but I will say I wouldn't think you were crazy if you kept a child from catching the bus to school or waited to leave home to drop them off if the weather looked super bad at the time.

If there's violent storms in your area, plan around them. If you feel like it could be dangerous, even if you're not *sure,* wait a while before you leave home or send family members out. Violent storms can sweep in very suddenly-- and are often over in just as long, so it's really not a huge inconvenience even if nothing dramatic goes down. Don't be on the road if you can help it. Keep the family together if possible, but don't try to travel to one another during the storm; plan ahead about ways to get in touch and safe places to meet if a disaster occurs when separated. Don't wait until an emergency is declared, but gather animals-- who are often difficult to corral in a panic-- into a safe place just in case.

You guys know I love to watch storms. But when I watch storms, I stick close to home, minutes from the safety of my basement. Because I love weather, I keep up to date with the progress of storms as a rule, even when they're still states away-- but I still jump when I hear that siren. Frankly the reason I still haven't seen a tornado is because I do play it safe; I missed seeing a funnel cloud drift over the lake because I was in the basement tracking updates from the weather service, exactly what experts agree I should have been doing. And I'm someone who knows a far bit about the anatomy of a tornadic storm and the safe place to be around a tornado (but still would like to learn more before I go out looking for one specifically!-- better get on that, since it's on my 26 before 27, lol). If you know very little about them, definitely your best bet is to do the safe thing and follow recommended advice about storm watches and warnings. Don't take the risk!

Forlorn Corn!

Sometimes, someone else says the absolute most perfect thing in the absolute most perfect way. This is one of those times. Go read Hyperbole and a Half, aka Allie Brosh, on Depression. Do it now. (Bring tissues!) Come back when you're done.

...

It was FORLORN CORN! Forlorn corn, people. It's my new mantra/battle cry/code word.

I've been there; in fact, I go there fairly regularly. I understand, and now more people will, and that is indescribably awesome.

Thank you, Allie. There are no words.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Happy Mother's Day! I don't know about you, but my husband kind of mucked up a bit on this holiday this year. He's busy making it up to me today, but when I came across this article this morning, I was glad!

Don't Even Thing About Divorcing Until...

And, as pointed out in the comments, it really would be a good idea to read this list BEFORE you get married, too!

Heroes and Saviors

Three years after the day-light murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of Sunday Leader newspaper, “there has been virtually no investigation into this crime,'' his wife has alleged. She wants an international investigation into the murder.

The following is what I wrote three years ago, upon learning about Lasantha.

It's been a long time since I listened, really listened, to Christmas music. It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I'm not Christian…

Funny how those few words, in the society I live in, carry so much baggage. Someone asked my new son's name, and said, "A good Christian name...", when I mentioned that his middle name is Xavier. In our case, it's strictly because the X makes it kind of cool and my dad, who died, liked it. But, in thinking about it, it occurred to me that I could think of it as ex-savior, and that works for me, because I chose not to be a savior. Yes, it can be a choice, and I chose not, arguably the most selfish choice one can make. (Although it helps that I knew I would fail.) I didn't want to save the world; I wanted to share my life with someone and raise children, and I am. I still sometimes struggle with the guilt, though, like when I read about people like Lasantha Wickrematunge. Let him tell you his story in his own words: And Then They Came For Me

Real heroes walk the earth every day, heroes that should leave all of us humbled and weeping with their grace, their courage and their sacrifice. He was such a one.

A savior, in the vernacular of my language, is a supreme hero, one who literally heals all wounds, literally keeps everything and everyone safe. Heroes are not good enough for human beings...we long for something even more awe-inspiring and comforting. We long to be saved. We cling, so many of us, to the dream of someone who will bring us goodness and light, who will stay close by us forever and love us, who will bring joy to the world. We are all little children in our hearts, looking for someone to soothe our hurts, to bathe us in unconditional and unfailing love.

We rarely think much about what it might be like, what it might take to BE a savior. We barely grasp, generally, what it takes and what it means to be a real hero. If we did, we might all sit and cry and cry because it is simply more than anyone can imagine to choose a role like that. It must be thrust upon the savior and that is the cruelest act of all, to demand such a thing of anyone.

Some few of us know the dream for what it is and look tenderly upon the vulnerable hearts of others that know not what they really ask as we accept that no savior is coming for us…nor would we wish for one, knowing what we ask. We may have the hearts of heroes ourselves…perhaps the first courage is the courage to refrain from seeking a savior, to go out on your own in a fickle universe and, as another hero said, be the change you want to see.

End a Creative Slump.

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain!

Personally, I prefer to celebrate the secular Halloween holiday, but I usually squeeze in a nod to Samhain as well.  Today, as a gift, have this spell I designed during my Magic and Wisdom Bonanza!

End a Creative Slump

 Get a piece of larch wood. Carve it (carefully!) into a rough key shape. As you carve, concentrate on opening your mind to inspiration. Burn the key (safely!) to ashes, asking that your creativity be freed from its blockage. Take the ashes (in a clean cloth) to a crossroads and scatter them in the middle. Go out and get a peridot; you can just get the stone or you can buy a piece of jewelry if you like. Carry or wear it for a month (keep it on your nightstand at night) and concentrate on remaining open to inspiration and creativity should return to you. When you have moments of inspiration/creativity, no matter how small, do not let them pass; stop what you are doing and engage in your creativity.

 

The Value of Cowardice

"There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice." - Mark Twain

This turned up in my daily quotes this morning, and serves as a timely inspiration for this month's post. You see, my oldest son turns 6 tomorrow, and he has been utterly fearless since infancy. As an adult, his fearlessness will allow him, like his father, to be bold, to take life by the horns and turn it his way, but, right now, it often serves as a way to give his grandmother a near heart attack. (Mom, that is, I, am already pretty inured to his lack of fear.) A little caution, such as the very sensible amount his little brother displays, would definitely not go amiss at this stage! But each child is an individual, and I know that, like his father, his fearlessness is part of who my oldest is, just as my youngest's tendency for dramatics is irrevocably linked to his deeply passionate personality...and I know where that comes from quite intimately!

Human beings are still simple beasts at heart, and we would, as a rule, very much like a nice black and white world, where courage is always good and cowardice is always bad, but evolution is wiser than we are by far, and there is a reason all those so-called negative qualities keep hanging on, generation after generation. I think, when it comes to cowardice, good ol' Mr. Clemens hit the nail on the head. A little internal fear of negative consequences can go a long way towards preventing really stellar moments of stupidity.

Being too giving is just as bad for your average human as being too selfish, albeit in very different ways...but there's a place for those that can't help being one or the other, too. In the end, the social species that we are needs this diversity to be successful; there are moments when we need that hard hearted bastard and moments when we need that bleeding heart hippie; we balance each other out in the end and we're all the better for it.

There are a lot of damn stubborn people out there; but it's those of us with innate, intense levels of determination that can make it through the hardest times, that can survive in the face of insurmountable odds because we simply refuse to give up. We are complex organisms in ourselves, but as a species, we are a kind of giant complex organism; some of us are the heart, some the liver, some the white blood cells, some red, and so on. It is wise, as often as we can, to take the long view, to remember that sometimes a person serves as a dire warning to the rest of us, sometimes as an inspiration, and both and all have their place in a vast and complex universe.

Bueller? Bueller?

Twenty five years ago on June 11, a movie called Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released. I was just on the cusp of becoming a teenager, and I didn't see it in the theater, but when it was released for home viewing. I sat in the comfort of my living room and identified with the stressed out Cameron and longed for the freedom of Ferris. All these years later, certain lines from the movie have penetrated deep into the American psyche, the title of this post foremost among them. Looking back, I wondered what wisdom I could pull from this old friend of a movie to share with you. I found plenty!

Ferris: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

This, of course, is the movie's tag line, summing up its whole message. It's a good one; I think I've pretty much covered how much I agree with it in last month's post. But there's more!

 Ferrus: Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond.

Did I mention I identified with Cameron? Yeah. Back in my pre-enlightened days, I was a giant stress ball, too. Trying to please everyone and do the right thing so hard and somehow screwing it up anyway? Not fun. I don't recommend it.

 

Ferris: Four thousand restaurants in the downtown area, I pick the one my father goes to.
Cameron: We're pinched, for sure.
Ferris: Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.

Son of a bitch! There it is; my most recent life lesson sitting there in a movie from 1986, like I could've known it all along! My husband taught me this. No, he's not a con man, but he does have a hell of a lot of confidence, and I have been continually shocked at how much he gets and gets away with because of it. The problem? You can't fake it. If you are genuinely confident, genuinely bold, you will be a lot more successful, as a rule, than if you aren't. So my first advice to almost everyone is: work on your self esteem. Be bold! Again, life is too short for anything else.

Ferris: I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?

That said, remember that even the bold don't always get what they want. They don't sit around being miserable, though; they DO something about it.

Cameron: The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion.
Ferris: It is his fault he didn't lock the garage.

That said, the bold and confident need to remember a few important things. For one, a little humility is crucial.

Ferris: Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off people.

For another, don't forget to appreciate your friends!

Cameron: You hit me. Look don't make me participate in your stupid crap if you don't like the way I do it. You make me get out of bed, you make me come over here. You make me make a phony phone call to Edward Rooney? The man could squash my nuts into oblivion. And-and-and then, and then, you deliberately hurt my feelings.

Also, don't forget to choose friends with a really good sense of humor. They'll need it!

On the other hand, friends of people who really live, who give life their all, tend to pick up on the vibe eventually. I know I'm a different person now than I ever would have been had I not hitched myself to my spouse's star. It worked out pretty well for Cameron, too.

Cameron: I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong, I'm going to defend it.

Sometimes, you just have to take the wheel.

Sloane: What are we going to do?
Ferris: The question isn't "what are we going to do," the question is "what aren't we going to do?"
Cameron: Please don't say were not going to take the car home. Please don't say were not going to take the car home. Please don't say were not going to take the car home.
Ferris: [to the camera] If you had access to a car like this, would you take it back right away?
[beat]
Ferris: Neither would I.

Take the lead in your own story, and make your own happy ending.

Cameron: Ferris Bueller, you're my hero.

What's your glue?

I was reading the April issue of Good Housekeeping magazine (my grandmother passes her issues on to me), and I came across an article titled, "How to Save a Marriage", by Amy Finley. It's a decent article, but the bit of great wisdom in it was this:

(She and her husband went to France and holed up in a friend's out-of-the-way place to reconnect.)

"France was something that Greg and I shared — not just our memories of it, but our appreciation of it. It was a kind of glue for us, and that gave us a foundation for changing our behavior. For another couple, the glue could be faith, nature, a love of great books.

One of the glories of marriage is the collective out-loud dreaming: staying up all night talking about your hopes and plans for the future. Though the term "intimacy" has become conflated with that other awesome form of staying up all night together — sex — this is true intimacy: trusting, sharing. When you're falling apart as a couple, look for the glue."

First, for the record, sex could be the glue, too, or part of it, anyway. But, aside from that, I think this is a crucial question to ask and to answer.

The first thing I did was attempt to answer it for myself and Tom, my spouse. Right away, I knew it would be a little tricky, because he and I are radically different people in many, many ways. But just as quickly, I thought about how we both have this drive to go forward, to sieze life and really live it, as tumultuous as that can sometimes be. That night, I asked Tom what he thought. After a few minutes of thought, he said, "Passion." He went on to say that he didn't mean just our sexual passion, though it is considerable and a big part of our relationship from the start, but, generally, that we are passionate, and I agreed. We both are very passionate people, and, of course, that ties in with my immediate thoughts about our forward-driven, seizing life approach, something that is hardly possible without a certain amount of passion. So that is our glue, and it is powerful enough to overcome, well, pretty much anything; trust me, we've tested it!

This concept can apply not just to romantic relationships, but friends, family, and even co-workers; looking for the thing that you can share, really share, can provide a base from which to negotiate almost any difficulty. Start with what binds you, focus on that, go back to it over and over, and you'll find a path through most challenges.

Even if you aren't facing challenges, if you and your best friend are getting along swimmingly as always, asking this question can enhance and deepen your relationship, even help you see how you can help each other thrive even more.

What is your glue?

Dealing with Bad Stuff: A Primer

I am pretty good at dealing with bad stuff. I want to help you all to be able to be better at dealing with bad stuff, if you are having difficulty doing so. Thus, I compose this primer. Allow me to give you some of my qualifications. (Feel free to skip forward when you are satisfied with them.) I grew up ostracized, ridiculed, and occasionally tortured for being your typical mentally sophisticated, socially inept individual. The high school I attended was a minimum one-knife-fight-a-day school. (I passed up the chance, halfway through, to move to the upscale-drugs-only school, and don’t regret it, btw.) I spent my teen years scraping the bottom of the barrel for dates, and it showed. When I moved to college (despite adamantly not wanting to go), my last relationship decided to get all stalker-y on me. College sucked rather less than life had to that point; significant amounts of fun and self-development occurred. Eventually, I got married. Not too long after that (but unrelated), my best friend of over a decade dumped me via phone call. Then the spouse and I decided to have a baby, since all I had ever wanted to do my entire life was be a mother. There followed eight years of infertility and two miscarriages before we finally got lucky. In between the two miscarriages, my marriage almost fell apart, and I engaged in an immediate and radical personal behavior change to prevent it from doing so. (Later, my partner learned that it takes two to tango, and has made some changes of his own.) Then, on the day of my baby shower, my beloved father shot himself dead. Under a month later, I gave birth to my son, healthy and happy. Then I had two more miscarriages, and finally had my second healthy, happy son. Since then, I’ve developed and am currently in treatment for hyperplasia. I also have a few chronic health problems, at least one of which leaves me with chronic pain. I’m leaving stuff out, so if these aren’t enough for you, feel free to request further examples of how much bad stuff I have had to deal with.

In spite of all that, I am an extremely happy person with a lot to celebrate in my life. I am optimistic, generally upbeat, friendly, warm, loving, open, patient, and quite well adjusted. How, you ask, do I deal with all that bad stuff so successfully? That’s what I’m here to tell you!

1. I know that life is neither fair nor unfair; it simply is. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, and vice versa. This is because there is no one carefully measuring out reward and punishment; life is just a thing, happening. There is nothing personal about, for example, my infertility. It just happened. We can have an effect on life, can learn to maximize the positive and minimize the negative. However, on a fundamental level, bad stuff happens. Don’t take it personally; it isn’t.

2. I know that I am in control of my life and my choices. I can’t control what other people do, think, and feel. I can’t control what nature/life does. I can control how I prepare for and react to these things. I can control everything that I do, think, and, to an extent, feel. All these things are choices that I make, and they can and will have an influence beyond just myself.

 2.a. This is for all of you screaming “No one can control how they feel!” Take a deep breath. Now listen (okay, read.) If you spend your time thinking about bad, negative things, your feelings (assuming you do not have a mood disorder) will be bad and negative. If you spend your time thinking about (and doing) good, positive things, your feelings, overall, will be good and positive. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I did wrong (aka “everything”), and all the bad things in my life (no friends, poor health, etc.), and I was miserable. When I chose (CHOICE!) instead to focus on thinking about the good things in my life, or even just the neutral ones when I couldn’t think of good ones (what needs to be done, how am I going to do it, gee, that was a fun story I read, you know, I did a nice thing there, the air smells good today), I found myself feeling, overall, good and positive. Ya gotta MEAN it, though, folks; no "this'll never work" attitude, or it won't!

2.b. We have far more choices than we realize. Each and every thing you do is a choice, from playing a video game for six hours to going to work every day. Some choices are no-brainers; no work means no money means no food or shelter, so, you know, gotta have an income (but some people who really hate work go “off the grid”, live off the land and trade for goods; it IS a choice.) But the vast majority are very much optional. Examine the choices you make; if they don’t make sense with what you want in your life, stop making those choices. Human beings slip into repetitive behavior patterns quite easily; breaking them requires effort and conscious thought. Make sure the patterns you are in are good for you. If they aren’t, make different choices till they are. I chose to spend a large amount of my time writing this essay, because I hope it will help someone. Just putting it out there means that, forever after, it has the potential to do some good. Knowing that is good for me; I feel that I’ve done something good, and I’ve reached outside myself and remembered the rest of humanity. It can be surprisingly hard to make the choices that are good for you; sometimes you really have to force yourself. Do it.

2.c. Preparing is about maintaining your own stability, mental, emotional, physical, financial, as much as possible. There are myriad ways to do this; find the ones that work for you. In my case, I keep a journal (online); I have a good support network of friends and family; I’m still working on finding the right exercise program, but know a lot about what I like and what I don’t; and I have a budget with a built-in cushion. That doesn't mean, especially in today's economy, that I don't get stressed about money, but I know I'm doing everything I can, and that makes it easier to let go of the stress.

2.d. One of the most important points here is this one: You have control over how you react to what comes your way. Once upon a time, I spent all my time glooming over my miseries. I hurt my back; my boyfriend didn’t really love me; nobody loved me, everybody hated me; I couldn’t do anything right…and on and on. I wanted, and got, sympathy and, more often, pity, because I believed it was the closest I could get to love. This way of reacting maximized the bad and minimized the good. Now, when bad stuff happens, I deal with it, and the emotions it raises, but I don’t maximize the events. I don’t wallow, even when I’m tempted to and no one would turn a hair if I did. Life, I decided, is too short. Yes, I've lost four children, and I’ve grieved (denial is bad for you!), but I’ve also remembered that I have two children that delight me daily, and a great many other things worth celebrating, and I choose to focus my energy on those things. I choose to move on, as life does. Forward is definitely the better direction.

3. (At last!) Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, honey. Be honest with yourself. Human beings lie to themselves all the time. It’s the easy way out of dealing with things and you can function reasonably successfully doing it, which is why it’s so common. But some people, like me, just aren’t good at it, and they keep trying, and it backfires. Even for ones for whom it works, the odds are that one day it’s gonna come up and bite them where it hurts. Really facing yourself, being utterly honest, is extremely difficult…but it can have amazing results.

The crucial moment in my life occurred one night, alone in dorm room, when I faced all the inner me that I’d been desperately running from my whole life. I looked the monsters I’d created…the ones that screamed things like “YOU ARE THE MOST SELFISH BEING ALIVE AND DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE!”…and I said, “Fine.” Just that. Okay, I said, you win. I’m SELFISH. There. I said it. Happy now? And I cried. And all the other things I feared and hated about myself came tumbling out and I looked at them all straight in the eye. One by one, I admitted the things I’d denied for so long. And I accepted them; they were part of me, after all, and denying it had only made them worse. I decided that night to be who I was, flaws and all, to stop hiding and trying to be something I wasn’t. If I was that selfish, if I WAS a monster and didn’t deserve to live, well, in time, I’d know that, and then I could commit suicide in peace, ‘cause no one would care, although, of course, if I WAS that much of a monster, I wouldn’t end up committing suicide because I wouldn’t care. (Gotta love those catch-22s!) Not surprisingly, I wasn’t that much of a monster. My flaws, in the light, were nothing like what they had been in the dark. Yeah, I have a selfish streak, but I’m also, and not inconsistently, one of the most giving people most folk have ever met; that part of me is just as true, just as real, as the selfish part. The rest of my flaws are similarly balanced out. I am a human being, imperfect, and so is everyone else, and that’s okay. It’s part of what makes us unique, and being unique is what makes interactions worth having, what makes life, really, worth living. If we were all perfect, what would we have to learn from each other? What would we do? How would we grow? Nothing, to my mind, could be more wonderful than imperfect, vibrant, growing, creating, learning, sharing life, and I’ll take wonder over perfection any day. Accept, even embrace, imperfection. Now excuse me while I go eat the last piece of cake. ;)

4. You can never have too much compassion. Most world religions try to teach this incredibly important lesson, but, somehow, it seems to get through the least often. Part of this, I think, is because, before you can really feel compassion for others, you have to feel it for yourself, and most religions don’t get that part across successfully at all, in part because so few people are ready or willing to hear it. You can’t feel compassion for yourself if you’re busy denying your own truths, if you can’t or won’t face who you are. So here’s another reason to be honest with yourself. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve accepted yourself fully for who you are, you can look at yourself and feel compassion. Poor, silly thing, so afraid not to get her share that she takes more than she should; there’s no malice in her, she’s just afraid. We are all terribly vulnerable beings, from the outside in. The vast, vast majority are just trying our best and are genuinely trying to do the right thing. Lots of us (us, not them!) screw that up in really horrid and horrible ways, but we’re trying. That’s what compassion asks us to remember; that, for all their flaws and errors and monstrosities, other people are just that; other people, trying. My stalker-y ex was a sad, lonely person, and I was one of few people who gave him love, and he just didn’t want to let me go. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have gotten a retraining order if things had progressed; compassion doesn’t mean you have to be stupid or weak. But compassion allows understanding, kindness, and good will to grow and prevents or heals anger, hostility, and ill will. Compassion allows me to forgive, to let go of pain and anger and…you guessed it…move on.

Now I know some of you have skipped to the end without really reading, so here’s the short version. (Then go back and read the long version!) Life is neither fair nor unfair; it just is. Don’t take it personally. You are not in control of life/nature or the thoughts, actions, and feelings of others, but you ARE in control of yourself. Everything is a choice; make the choices that are positive for you, no matter how hard they are. Minimize the negative and maximize the positive. Be honest with yourself, even brutally so. Accept, even embrace, imperfection, both your own and that of others. You can never have too much compassion; start with yourself and then find it within yourself for everyone else. Deal with the bad stuff, move on and celebrate the good stuff. No regrets.

Life is stunningly short; make it wondrous, beautiful, and fulfilling. When my head is laid down for the last time, I will know only joy and peace. So can you. Go; live; love, celebrate and be happy. That’s what I’m going to do.