Finding Things

This morning, I cried.

I looked at one of the final boxes that I had not unpacked after moving to Rhode Island a year ago, and something caught my eye.  I almost dismissed the need to open it thinking it was just some of this and that.

Well, I couldn't be more wrong.

In that box, it was filled with memories and precious things.

Things like reminders of the good work I have done in the world that I buried under my self-esteem, my forgetting due to shame.  I also found artifacts from my darling daughter's early years.  Things like mementos from her first birthday and other babyhood treasures.

I also found my missing Christmas ornaments. I thought that they were lost forever, and with them, some of my herstory.

I cried and cried.

Last holiday season, as Lila and I began our tradition of decorating our tree in our new home for the first time, I couldn't find my precious ornaments.  My heart deflated and sadness filled it back up.

I love my things.  I know it isn't very zen of me but my things have stories attached to them. And, I only keep things that have good stories.  Like my red velvet chair that I have moved countless times.  It reminds me of when I arrived in Portland, Oregon in the fall of 1995.  Starting one of the biggest adventures of my adult life.  It was one of the first pieces of furniture I purchased for myself. Like my $20 paper Ikea lamp that I purchased on a shopping trip with my friend, Carla. She is my favorite travel companion and one of the most generous souls I know. It is with me here in Providence.  Like the butterfly ceramic cup that my longtime friend, Dottie, gave to me during our last visit in Pennsylvania a few months ago. I have known her since 1987 and we remain friends.  The sculpture I picked up in Baltimore, Maryland when I went to visit Lesley, a friend who is no longer in my life due to some unspoken hurt. But I have that art that I look at everyday and I am reminded of that visit in 2007, when life was really shitty but that visit brought me joy.

The list goes on and on.

We are warned not to be attached to our material things but mine are filled with love and I wouldn't change it for the world. It is my history and reminds me to a certain degree of my belonging, especially when I feel lonely, forgotten, invisible.

I quickly sent a text to my darling daughter about the find and she is thrilled, too.  In four months, we will stand by our second tree since moving to Rhode Island and decorate it with our history.  I know that there will be moments of tears because of some much that is behind us but there will also be joy because we are together making a new history.

This is a lesson for me. A lesson that the impossible can certainly be possible, which is something that I will always need reminding, especially during times of transition.  What I love about that is, it is like a little treasure of goodness that can fill a room with hope.

Merry Christmas!

Let's Make Lemonade

One of my favorite summertime drinks is lemonade.  You take something that is awfully sour and turn it into something sweet.  You can even jazz it up with some ingredients like lavender or liquor.  What a beautifully versatile drink.

I think lemonade and life have a lot in common:  You can change it up depending on what you add to it or keep it just as it is.  I am the type of gal who likes to mix it up, I've come to learn.  But with anything out of the familiar, it is a risk, and risk-taking can provide some big wins or big losses.

When I was younger, I wasn't as cautious about a lot of things.  I think that is the case for many of us.  We learn to be fearful as we grow older and I lost my optimism and throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude over the years.  Many people who know me would gasp at such a reflection but I struggled for many years trying to regain an inner sense of my can-do attitude.  

It took a lot of work over a period of time, but I got my groove back.  It is how I moved across the country to a city I've never been to; how I followed my passion to produce a podcast about the arts and find some funding to help support it; it is how I committed to writing a book for women over 40 who think the world can go eff itself for thinking it can pretend we don't exist or matter.  

One of my always present intentions is to make choices that make me proud but also my daughter proud.  A lesson or nugget of wisdom I hope to share with her is to dream big and go for it.

Over the past year or so, I have made it a point to welcome failure as one of the realities to embrace.  No one I know likes that "F" word.  With baby steps, I have been pausing to look at what didn't work and find the wisdom I can carry forward from the experience. And it is due to that shift in perspective that has led me to pursue something I have wanted to do for eons but lacked the confidence to do it: launch my own business!

After years in the nonprofit sector, I've learned a thing or two, and the knowledge applies in any part of the country.  I am taking my two decades plus of across-the-board experience and offering it to organizations who want to raise the bar on getting their message out into the world.  All nonprofits want to do that but lack the capacity to do it.  My role is focusing support for those who lack the resources.

More to come later!  I have a plethora of skills that came out of success and failure.  I remind myself that we have to fail in order to learn.

I'm failing my way to happiness.

Secret of Life #06112019