Out on a bike ride near where my mom now lives, I point out the trees and colors I grew up with. Western Washington was often grey-green and drizzling – but on some days it could be sparkling turquoise.
Here’s one of those turquoise days – the view from one of my relative’s house.
Mixed Emotions – Can’t have the good without the bad
I think we’ve established that the Robot Aliens often came to help distract me from feelings I didn’t want to deal with – or even acknowledge. For me, going home is tough. Not so much due to any one person or event, but a tapestry of things I don’t like to face, consider, or mess with. My childhood, teenage and young adult years before I moved to California DID have good moments. I admit it. But they were overshadowed by the many, many, painful things that happened to me, or by actions I regret, or by the shadow of young memory that could not deal objectively with what went down.
California is sunny. It’s also filled with some painful memories and events, but all of these were experienced through adult eyes of free will and choice. My mistakes are easier to admit here. The choices were for the most part mine. I can look at my life here with more wisdom and understanding than I can in Washington.
For those of you who had, overall great childhood memories, this will be hard to understand. Even for those of you who are just used to standing up to truth with a steady hand and unbowed spirit will have a hard time relating to just how hard the past is for me to revisit. I have seemed so brave this year you’ve known me. But I am jelly. I’m tender, bruised, and I bend. I don’t want to feel what the robot aliens protected me from. But to not feel the pain, to block it out completely, to stop the visions of the past, likewise rob me of people and places I love.
Family
Mom and me – seen together, no one is surprised we are mother and daughter
All of my family is in Western Washington. For me to avoid that part of the world is to avoid them too. Collateral damage. Most of them cannot fathom why I’m not flying home all of the time like I used to when my dad was alive. They don’t understand that part of my growth lately has been allowing myself to process my past. While that’s going on, I couldn’t face up to how powerfully memories flood me back home. Not until now.
One of my primary goals in therapy has been to tolerate my own feelings so that I could visit unscathed. To build or rebuild family connections that have languished from both sides. Nobody means to drop out of my life. I don’t mean to drop out of theirs. But connections ignored tend to wither.
I wanted to see if I could bravely go and let the feelings be without having to cover them with denial, food, or other distractions.
My mom’s cat. Notice Mom still has a clay owl I made at 9 or 10.
Points of View
Something I have REALLY been working on with you BCs, as well as in therapy, is to realize that all humans have their own points of view. Just because *I* experience events one way does NOT MEAN that YOU, or other people, experience the same. I am unique in my POV just as you are unique in yours. My friends and family back home may have experienced the years that were so painful for me, in a different way. They may not relate to what I experienced, nor understand it. I need for that to be OK. Just like some of you still visit the scale and deal with your eating in different ways than I do right now, I have to be OK that I am different from you in that way. All I can ask is that you allow me to be me and to allow my experience to be true for me. That is also the key of dealing with my past.
I need to allow others to have their experience as valid while protecting my truth for me. So, no need to push my memories down others’ throats. Nor, do I have any need to validate their experience when it contradicts mine. I can simply allow that all versions are true for those involved.
This gave me a framework to experience the here and now. And I must say, I had a lot of fun this trip.
Here are some videos I snapped to remember some of these.
Farewell Mr. Nimoy
I meant to record Day 103 yesterday. But several melancholy events happened that made me cocoon a bit instead. One of which, was the passing of Leonard Nimoy. I’ve written and mentioned Star Trek many times. It was a show that meant so much to me growing up, because the people embraced difference. Also because knowing these characters made me a bit less lonely. One of my favorites was Mr. Spock, the logical half-Vulcan science officer, portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. I loved the flashes of emotion his half-humaness allowed, and the interplay of his friendship with Captain Kirk and the mock conflict with ‘Bones’ the Doctor. Mr. Spock was different in his environments. Both on Vulcan, his home planet, and among the emotional humans. I related to that ‘duck out of water’ feeling so well. Yet Mr. Spock was successful and valued. He made his way. He was inspirational to me, and I loved him.
I’ve never heard a harsh work around town about Leonard Nimoy either. In Hollywood, you hear about how actors treat others. He was always regarded as a fine person as well as a talented artist. I am so sad that era is over. As I grow older it is hard to lose family members, friends, and even stars I grew up with. Time is relentless. I guess it is a very good thing I’m learning to face my own demons while there is still time to reconnect with people who mean so much to me.
This is one of the sweetest things Mark has ever done! It made me feel so special and like he’d really missed me.
Thanks
Thank you to all of you BCs who DID keep the light on by posting and commenting. I will try to get a show out sometime this week and will catch up with your comments as I can. I’m off to animation voice acting class today and have some chores to catch up on around the house. It will take me some time to get back on my schedule. In the meantime, take care, because I have always, and will always, care.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Lovely Laurie, your an amazing woman, who I can only aspire to grow to be as strong and wonderful as you are !!!
Thanks for sharing your life, and your journeys with us =-)
AND I posted on that pic on FB but MAN! Please do tell your husband he is AMAZING! that is the most wonderful thing EVER
Thanks for saying that about Mark. I show him ALL positive comments. What made that moment SO special, is that doing something like that is not part of his usual repertoire. It was a TOTAL surprise. And Mark got a big kick out of the attention he got waiting for me, and all of the good answers he gave. Like, “You are beautiful 2, but I’m looking for the 1”. It was a fun moment.
Spock’s last tweet: A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP
A great light has gone out in the world. He always struck me as being so authentic and organic, whether he was himself or Spock. It’s hard to lose him after losing Rod McKuen, too.
You sound really good, girl. I’m guessing your trip, though probably not without its difficulties, was rewarding for you on some level as you put into practice what you’ve been learning?
Glad you’re back safe and sound. I would kill to have that view, btw. Is that Puget Sound?
Wow, I hadn’t seen that Cheryl. Thanks Sooo much for sharing it. I truly feel a loss for Spock’s portrayer. As you say, a light has left the world.
The view you mention IS the Puget Sound and is just a little north of where I grew up. We had a similar view, though we were much higher up the hill we lived on. But the rocky beaches and grey-tossed waves are part of my DNA. The blue in the photo is what Western Washington turns into on a sunny day. Rare and appreciated treasures those. I’ll tell you all more about my trip next show (when I can finally fit a recording session in). xoxoxoxox
XO♡
Xxxx
Good for you in facing the past. I found your observations about difffering “truths” really helpful. I do appreciate that it will take some time to balance your feelings and energy again and get back into routine. Take as much time as you need! Big hugs xoxoxox
Thanks Sue. I thought that was a tough lesson, that my 100% truth is not necessarily “THE” truth. But once I got it, it really helped me to have a good time in the here and now with my friends and relatives back home. xoxoxoxo
I do feel an existential panic when I hear of well-known people who have been a familiar name for most of my life passing away. How can it be that so much time can pass so quickly and take so much away?
It put in mind of this poem:
Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Oh, this poem SO fits the bill in what this all feels like. Each person who passes on makes me so aware of the spinning wheel of time. Even though there are those who pass young, all of this loss reinforces that my turn is a surer and surer bet. And even if I live a LONG, LONG life, the life I have known is over. Each day another bit of that tapestry unravels. But I need to remind myself that new experiences and relationships are always adding to my life’s tapestry. So though I regret the losses that fade away, I celebrate the new colors. Tough for an Eeyore type as I naturally am to see the good sometimes. But I’m working on it. I am not resigned either. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
happy Tuesday friends…
Hoping things are going great for you Laurie, and your doing well after your trip to ‘home’
I keep on keeping on.. some-days easier than others for certain….
wanted to stop by and say hi
Happy Thursday Dawny! I’m starting to come out of my haze and getting back to doing what I love. Been slipping into body focus lately, which ALWAYS means I am avoiding something else. In this case, it is doing what I perceive as responsibilities and chores – around the house, around the podcast… I let myself get overwhelmed and have spent some days in “I hate my legs” hell. Poor legs, they get the blame for EVERYTHING! Today I am much more satisfied with them. Hope your day goes great.