With every intention of accomplishing some meaningful tasks for the first time in more than a week, I shuffled into the kitchen. After all, every productive day starts with some nourishment for the body. That’s what I’m told people’s grandmother’s tell them, anyways. I never met either of my own grandmother’s but the advice of other people’s seems solid enough. For the record, I wash behind my ears, too.
Heading into day seven of what the doctor casually referred to as a virus (and I have begun dubbing the exorcism of viruses, though I don’t feel saved from anything yet) I was pretty sure someone’s grandma would recommend some soup. Surely this would help energize me for the day ahead. After all, it was Monday and I had a to-do list that had been forming itself in my head all weekend long.
I proceeded to fight harder than anyone should ever have to with my canned good cupboards. I was determined to locate the can of soup that was sure to save me from the last of this “virus” that I am increasingly convinced is the latest plague. By the time I found the can of soup, I was dizzy with exhaustion. As I crossed the kitchen to grab a pan to heat the soup in, I became short of breath and fell into a violent coughing spell.
The effort it had taken me to prepare someone’s grandma’s suggested can of soup had not only robbed me of my energy but had stolen my appetite as well. As I stumbled through the house in search of my inhaler (from the casual doctor who calls plagues a virus) I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Ouch.
The reflection staring back at me was humbling. My most recent coughing spell had drawn all of the color from my face. Near-constant coughing spells for the past week had been so intensely violent that they had actually split my face open in several places. Today’s coughing spell had re-opened them, causing pain I liken to being burned.
Had I, only moments before, seriously been considering completing a work shift? Suddenly I was more alarmed by how completely unaware I had become of my own state of being than I was of the clear evidence of my desperate need of some serious self-care. Neglect was written all over my face. Something had to give or it was going to be me.
It took me nearly an hour to work up the guts to let someone down. It took me that long to give up on the idea of perfection. I have adopted a persona of endless strength in the face of what are often some abnormally difficult circumstances. It wasn’t intentional, I’ve had to adapt. Unfortunately, sometimes we adapt to the detriment of our own well-being.
So I did the thing I never do. I emailed everyone but family that was expecting me this week and told them that I was out. That’s right, down on the mat. In the hour before I composed these emails, I made a list of the three things that were important priorities for me to tend to this week. The only rule while making this list was that I had to be on the list. My hope is that it is a long time, if ever, that I experience seeing a reflection in the mirror that I have neglected to the point where I am of no use to others again. If I do, I hope I am strong enough to surrender and drop the priorities from my plate that can wait for another day.
Are you guilty of self-neglect? If so, what does picking yourself Up off the Mat look like for you? Let us know in the comments section!
She messaged me to check in. I responded right away, telling
her I had been sick with the flu. This was my way of apologizing for my lack of
communication recently. At this point I still thought it was my lack of
presence that was the problem. Admittedly,
I had been absent from many of my regularly scheduled activities for several
weeks. More than that, I hadn’t seen much of my friends or family, either.
I told myself and those who asked that my state of
near-isolation could be boiled down to feeling under the weather. That response
seemed to get me by until she didn’t respond how I had expected her to. For whatever
reason, I had anticipated the generic “feel better soon” message back. Surely
at that point, I could continue my isolation in peace. She had other ideas as
she saw through my short responses.
My phone rang with another text. “Have you reached out to
your fellow Pranic Healers for healing?”
I knew already she had known the answer to this question
before asking. The short answer was no but I knew that wasn’t going to suffice.
Instead I opted for a weak attempt at humor with, “I hadn’t thought of that…” I
hadn’t thought of that. She proceeded
to connect me with a fellow Pranic Healer who was glad to offer me relief.
It should be noted that I myself am a level four Pranic
Healer. I could write numerous blogs about the rapid healing I have experienced
through Pranic Healing and Twin Hearts Meditation but that is not what this is
about. I knew that the Healer that this friend put me in touch with would
likely connect me with much relief from healings I have experienced over the
course of five years. The question was, why hadn’t I asked? I am glad to offer
healing to others who are suffering and have done so on many occasions. It was
not until my friend asked me why I had not reached out for healing for myself
that I realized that I could count on one hand the times I had asked for help.
I went into the healing session with this question at the
top of my mind. When my friend had asked me why I hadn’t reached out, the
question had hit me in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t feel I had wronged her
or the practice of Pranic Healing that I had grown to love so much; I felt I
had been shorting myself. The healer she linked me with provided healing, then
reached out to see how I was feeling. I thanked her for the session and
explained that regrettably, I had not experienced much relief with my symptoms.
Sleep still eluded me, my sinuses were still a mess but mostly, I still didn’t
want to face the world.
It was then that the Healer hit me with it. She asked the
question I did not know I had been waiting to hear. “What exactly is going on?” Such a direct question. Later I found myself
trying to remember the last time someone had been so specific when asking about
my well-being. I gave in a little,
telling her that I had been sickly, had begun a new semester at college and
that my mother was on hospice. She side-stepped the invisible wall I had just put
up and probed further.
What followed was an unleashing of a cascade of emotions I
had been carrying intractably on my own for months. Suddenly, for an oddly
blissful moment in time, I was able to say the unsayable about the realities I
am and have been, shouldering. The conversation started with me saying, “these
are the things I cannot say,” and ended with me saying just those things. How
liberating it was to tell her what it feels like to start a new semester
without my only sibling, while caring for my mother who has been on hospice
since December. I was overwhelmed by how much lighter these things felt with
someone to bare witness to them. Acknowledging these truths had once felt like
an indulgence, a betrayal to the strength I have become known for. In this moment,
speaking them out loud liberated me.
The weight we carry in our lives threatens to become a part
of us that we carry for longer and in more solitude than is necessary. No matter how heavy or awkward the load we
bare is, life and the responsibilities that come with it continue to nag at us
like a pack of toddlers that missed both snack and nap time. If you can picture
that scene, you can begin to picture what those who are grieving, in the
process of losing a loved one, or recovering from trauma endure as they face
each day. Do not get caught up in the illusion that they must not need help if
they appear to be managing all that they have on their plate. Lot’s of us have
a great game face.
I was unable to locate my game face the day my friend
reached out to me. Because of this, I had retreated to an isolated state,
trying to decide which weight in my life was most important to pick up next.
Fortunately for me, both my friend and the healer were willing to reach more
than halfway to help me figure out how to rise again, carrying a bit less
weight this time. Some days we are the healer. On such days, we should reach
out to both the weak and to the strong. Other days, we require healing. On
those days, may we be strong enough to reach out for healing.
She asked me why I hadn’t been doing any blogging lately. Our tired, all-knowing gazes met each other’s. In that short pause following the firm but loving question she had presented to me and for every day since, I have been answering her in my head.
It is mid-January. The Maine winter has been so draining already
that it feels as though it should be at least late February by now. Getting Up off
the Mat, fighting the constant call inside of me to just lay down on it for a while
to rest my soul-well, it doesn’t lend itself to creative inspiration. I hate to
admit it but practically living in my pajamas for my entire winter break
probably hasn’t, either.
“She” is my mother. It may go without saying that she knows
me better than most. I could state the obvious even further by saying she,
better than anyone, knows when I have been down on the mat for too long. She’s
the reason I got myself together and made goals for myself, like starting
college. Witnessing the perseverance and at times, downright tenacity she has
practiced in her own life is how I have learned to get Up off the Mat repeatedly
in my own. People who say I am the strongest person they know haven’t met my
mother.
Keeping in mind the bravery in which my mother faces every
day, the writer in me started penning a draft about the latest happenings in
the way of getting Up off the Mat. Guilt set in about the current state of my
life. The over-dependence on pajamas, the to-do list that I couldn’t face from
under the covers, the messy house that made me want to hide my head even more.
It was time to get up.
I started by planning my weekend. It seemed that if I made
some plans with some other humans who are likely to be wearing clothes fit for
social interaction, the likelihood of “graduating” to day-clothes myself
increased substantially. With a plan for my clothing crisis in place, it was
time to plan for being out of bed. Guessing that my weekend company might want
to eat, I did the grocery shopping I had been putting of for, well, long
enough.
When I returned with the groceries, I looked around my house
and realized it wasn’t fit for company or a potential rest on the mat. In about
ninety minutes, I was able to locate counter space, the bottom of three trash
cans and enough pet hair to convince me that my child may have a litter of
huskies in hiding.
As I cleared the clutter from my life, from my mind, the guilt
I had experienced when I was assessing the state of my life began to lift. I
began to feel more comfortable in my home, which allowed room for gratitude.
Who doesn’t love clean sheets and floors? I laid down to sleep last night
filled with that gratitude and a sense of accomplishment for the first time in
weeks.
I had no plans of yesterday being the day that I decided to
get Up off the Mat. Maybe it was the push from mom, maybe it was just time. For me, rising from my slump meant cleaning a
filthy house, taking a shower and putting on clothes fit for the public. What I
do know is that those efforts count. Every trial, every stumble, every rising,
counts. I have been fortunate enough to have my mother to teach me everything I
need to know about taking a hit from life and getting up to fight another day. Who
in your life has taught you to get Up off the Mat?
How do I stay positive after repeated hits from life? Throughout the past several years; or should I say, through brain surgery, the loss of my best friend of twenty years and the recent loss of my brother, many close to me have asked a similar question. Others simply make statements regarding my strength and tenacity.
You have to know, these claims about who I am are part of why I write. We all have many versions of ourselves on rotation. Some versions get shared with the world, others get kept in the more private parts of our day. We often cope with the “darker self” in solitude. I suppose different people do this for their own reasons, but it started to weigh on me when people started to view me as “the strongest person they knew.” Was I only showing the world my successes and not the challenges that deserved just as much credit for my achievements? Viewing it that way made me feel like a fraud of sorts. I didn’t want to give others who were struggling to get Up Off the Mat the wrong idea about the grit it took to get myself up again after each fall.
Just this morning I was feeling low. Weekends, when things slow down, tend to be tougher on me in the way of memories and those I miss. Also, someone I love is very ill and that has been heavy on my heart. The weight of racing thoughts became heavy and anxiety set in. I craved a good cry but the tears would not release and sat heavy in my throat instead. I thought, as I often do, of calling a friend. After three years of tragedy, talking it out seems a futile effort at times.
Instead I put on some music, which has long been of comfort to me in times of anxiety. The tune wasn’t right, I couldn’t find a Pandora station that matched what was on my heart. Frustrated, I stepped outside into the morning air for a breather.
Right away I saw him. First I noticed his rusty-red feathers, then his fire red beak. The beautiful male cardinal jumped from one branch to another while looking right at me and chirped the most beautiful sound. I said a quiet hello to him and he chirped again. I felt the weight that had been on my heart lift. Instinctively, my hand went to my heart, my gaze still following the cardinal. Love filled my heart as I silently thanked him for coming back to visit after such a long absence. I took several more deep breaths of gratitude before he flew away and I went back inside, my energy successfully changed from anxiety, to hope.
As I fixed my next cup of coffee, I remembered something a friend told me once. She told me it was impossible to feel anxiety when you were experiencing gratitude. I took that message to heart at the time and have carried it with me ever since. It is not that I am incredibly strong or an exceptionally positive person. What I have learned is that life will knock you down to the mat repeatedly and without warning. It even attempt to pin you to that mat until you are sure you are done for. A lesson that has penetrated even deeper for me is that there are countless reasons to get Up Off the Mat, and a beautiful cardinal in the morning is as good a reason as any.
Have you ever looked back, holiday celebrations behind you and gotten the feeling that the people in your life truly understand you? It could be a thoughtful gift, a sentiment shared, or quality time spent. You just know when you are with people that have taken the time to get to know you in an intricate way. They know what digs at your soul and they don’t touch it. These people also know what lights you up inside; they keep giving you more of it and you don’t even have to ask for the refill.
I, like many others, needed the above-mentioned refill often through this holiday season. The first holiday season since losing my brother had not been a void, I was looking forward to facing. I went through the motions of holiday preparations with a weight on my chest that threatened to crush me at any moment. Never one to stay down, I pressed forward. I did this in part for my son and partly because I feared the grief would “catch me” if I stopped for too long. Unsure of what the grief would do with me once it had me in its grips, I pushed forward and did my best to plan festivities sans the traditions my brother and I celebrated. Then Christmas Eve Day came.
I prepared the normal holiday treats with a heavy heart. Would anyone even show up? Maybe it was too soon yet to set myself up for possible disappointment. I carried on. I baked everything I knew how to make, my brother heavy on my heart. “He’s not coming, he’s not coming” echoed through my head. I looked up new recipes and made some of them twice, my grief-stricken brain still playing tricks on me. “He’s not coming. They may be too busy with their families to stop by.” I looked up cookie recipes I had not made before and made those, too.
One-thirty in the afternoon on Christmas Eve Day arrived and the all-day gathering was set to begin in thirty minutes. I was still preparing a cheese platter when my fiance alerted me that the first guests, long-time friends that I had not seen since the summer, had arrived. A short time later, my neighbors arrived, with a box full of food in-hand to contribute to the party.
Family and friends continued to arrive late into the evening. All brought warm smiles and hugs with them; every single one seemed to know what I needed in each moment. I caught myself looking around my home, observing all the love and celebration happening around me and I felt a deep sense of understanding and peace for the first time since I had started to dread Christmas.
Celebrating Christmas or any other day without my brother will never be okay. There will never be an event big or small that the heaviness of his loss is not felt or noticed in. What I learned about getting through my first Christmas without my only sibling is that there are things that were true when he was here that will forever remain true after losing him. My brother would never have left me or any of his loved one’s to fight this battle on earth alone. If he were here, he would stand by us all and celebrate our lives with us in the biggest way possible. Since his passing, I believe more and more that he has left us all in the best, most loving hands possible. If we are willing to get “Up Off the Mat” and reach out for these hands as we move forward in 2019, I believe we have no reason to be afraid of any challenges we may face.
I’ve never been a dates person. I forget important days, such as my mother’s birthday and the date of my father’s passing. I miss appointments more than a grown adult should and writing-related deadlines are the only ones that have ever spoken to me with any authority. More than that, I’ve long had a hard time understanding those who can remember important dates and those who attach emotions to days on the calendar. When it comes to loss, I had a hard time understanding what to me looked like scheduling a day to experience feelings of loss. I’ve lost people who were important to me and the pain didn’t seem to hit me on any day or any time of year. What I do understand is that with loss comes a wisdom and a development of empathy. This is what I found when my time on this earth was cut short with the passing of my brother. He was forty-two.
The days have gone by with a cold
swiftness that hasn’t left a lot of time for grieving in the three months since
his passing. It should be said that I haven’t wanted to set time aside to feel
what it is to be without my only sibling, my favorite person, my biggest
inspiration. Certainly, I have cried plenty of tears and even screamed at the
universe in anger more than a few times; but that is not the same as looking
ahead at a future without him. It’s not the same as letting go.
How do you let go of the person who
has stood by your side for all thirty-nine years of your life? The one who has
taught you about life, love and what a man should be? That was my brother. The
thing about a Big Brother is, even when your parents are tired of your
shenanigans and tell you to “get lost,” you’ve still got your big brother to find
your way again with. He never let me down on that front or on any other. My
brother was the rarest of big brothers, he wanted me around. I never knew that
wasn’t the norm until I got older. I never knew just how fortunate I was.
As we enter our first holiday season without him, I have found that the 25th of December hollers at me from the calander; its tone more harsh each day it draws closer. Memories from nearly four decades of holidays spent together play in my head like a movie that I’ll never catch the ending of. For the first time since I said goodbye to him, I have no choice but to look forward and try to picture each Holiday without him here. Now I’m starting to get the significance of dates. I understand this so deeply, I’ve been writing him a letter in my head for weeks. A holiday letter, if you will:
Dear Big
Brother,
The Holiday season is coming again. I
know it can be a stressful time for you. I worry about how you worry, and you
worry about how I worry, so we’ll call each other several times a day until we
get through it, okay? I’m going Christmas shopping on Saturday. I know you’re
busy but keep your phone on you okay? One of the things I love best about this
time of year is that we can get away with calling each other so often, with
holiday prep as our excuse. Really, I know we both miss dad and we need the
extra laughs. Thanks for thinking of that, and thanks for taking my calls. By
the way, who’s getting mom the gag-gift of ribbon candy this year? It’s become
tradition at this point and you never forget it-though you always say it’s from
both of us. Mom will unwrap it and we’ll laugh and laugh. She’ll insist that
she loves it and the box of gifted ribbon candy will collect dust all year.
Hey, remember that year when we were
kids and mom asked for a robe for Christmas? You made it our mission to find
the ugliest robe we could, and we succeeded admirably. Remember how we laughed
and laughed as we wrapped this huge terrycloth robe, covered in purple hearts? Poor
mom wore that hideous thing for years. She claimed to love it as much as the
ribbon candy, but the ugly robe never collected any dust.
Remember how I was always the first one
awake on Christmas morning? I would wake before daylight, just after mom and
dad had finally gone to bed. Mom and dad would always tell me to go back to sleep
and wait for my brother to wake up. By the time you were a pre-teen, I had to
get creative with waking you, as I was too excited to wait! Remember that year
I put my porcelain piggy-bank near your pillow and dropped coins in it until it
finally woke you? You weren’t impressed then, but we found the humor in that
rude awakening for years to come.
I think we lost count of how many times
the family dogs knocked down our Christmas tree but eventually we got smart and
started hanging it from the ceiling. In later years we would offer this up as
advice for other’s and they’d look at us like we were crazy. But that was
Christmas in our house.
Hey Bro, do we have everything we need
for our annual Christmas morning crepe breakfast? You have mom’s recipe, right?
I’ll be there in the morning and we’ll start cooking. You flip em’ and I’ll
fill em’, right? I already picked up the Rum for the rum-nogs, anytime after
noon is cool to start on those, right?
Wow Bro, I bet you can’t wait to tell
mom how great her “chicken” is for Thanksgiving dinner. I can see the scene
now, all of us twenty years younger. She would slave over a Turkey dinner all
day and present it to us. We would tell her how great the chicken was, and she
would respond through gritted teeth, “It’s not chicken!!” We never could take
her anger seriously and she never could stay mad at us. She also never seemed
to catch onto the fact that we in fact knew what bird she had prepared. We just
enjoyed the reaction. Secretly, I think she did too.
Remember that Christmas Eve we spent in
Woolwich? You, Jen and I stayed up all night long while you assembled Lucas’s
new toy kitchen. It had approximately one billion individual pieces as I
recall, all fused together in plastic rings. It took hours beyond what you
expected to complete it. Lots of dads would have gotten frustrated. Some may
have even quit and completed it another day. Not you, Big Brother. You joked
your way through it, keeping us laughing with you until your son had an
assembled kitchen set to wake up to on Christmas morning.
I bought all the ingredients for your
favorite pie today. You know, the ones you ask me if I’m making every year
because they are your favorite? One blueberry pie and one apple-triple berry.
I’d never forget your pie, Big Brother. I love all parts of Thanksgiving Day,
but nothing beats seeing you come through the door full of Thanksgiving dinner
but craving my homemade pie. I’d never forget to make you that pie, Big
Brother.
I could write an almanac of holiday memories with my brother in them. A series on the ways he touched my life on days that didn’t seem significant at the time. Insignificant because he was my big brother and he had been there on days that were important and days that were ordinary for my entire life.
Maybe it’s because holidays
themselves tend to stand out in our memories. Maybe it’s because to me, my
brother was a real-life savior; a true holiday miracle during what were not
always easy times growing up. Maybe it’s because I am convinced that his life
here on this earth held true spiritual meaning. I know he played the role of a
saint in my life. Maybe it’s just because he’s my brother and I miss him but
with Thanksgiving passed and Christmas fast-approaching, I understand the
weight that a date on a calendar can hold. It’s not about “scheduling a day to
be sad.” Facing the holidays without your loved one is like revisiting every
season you’ve ever celebrated while being slapped with the reality that you
will never celebrate with them again. To those of you reading who can relate,
may you find peace and much love this holiday season. To my Big Brother, here
is your soundtrack: https://youtu.be/eciUuLE7ehc
Up Off the Mat 