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Our island – supper as a haven.

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When my husband and I have supper together at the dinner table, I like to think of it as our island. It is our special place where it is just him and me. We don’t talk about work or family or troubles. Our island is just for happy things.

These days it is especially important to have a moment of calm. These days there’s a new rule – no dead people on the island. There’s too much going on about his Mom’s memorial service, the estate, and family drama. Because of this, we have started having dinner at the table more often.

It is like a sabbatical in the middle of chaos. It is like a holiday in the middle of the week. It restores us and resets us.

At a minimum, I want us to eat at the table once a week, on Friday evening. Anything extra is good too. Previously we would sit in the living room and watch television. We don’t watch broadcast television. We have DVDs of television series or movies. Sometimes it takes several evenings to watch a complete episode. But while we are eating in there, we’re not really spending time with each other. We’re not building up our own relationship.

Through this new experience we are learning how to re-create ourselves as people and as a couple. In fact, after the dinner prayer last night my husband added something to the prayer. He prayed that we not allow drama with family to get in between us. That is unusual for him to add something to the prayer, and it is a beautiful thing for him to add. It is a good reminder that we chose each other. We didn’t choose our family. If our family is being difficult then we don’t have to allow them on our island.

Near, far.

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“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”

This is further proof that “absolutes” aren’t absolute at all. Old phrases aren’t rules for life. They can cancel each other out. They are like two hands clapping – the truth is somewhere in between. Sometimes the truth is a little of both.

I know a couple that ended up getting a divorce when she switched to working from nights to days. They ended up spending more time together and realized they didn’t like each other at all. They had been together many years, but apparently not in any meaningful way.

I know another couple that grew to resent each other once they retired. They had been married for 40 years by that point. They spent so much time together at that point that they got in each other’s way and interrupted each other’s routines.

Think about any old phrases you hear. They aren’t always “truth”, but just a slice of it. Read up about other cultures, and see what old phrases they have. What do they see as “truth”? How does it compare with our version, with other versions?

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”
– Alexander Pope

Broken heart

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When patrons hear that Jeff died of a heart attack just 7 weeks after his wife died, they often comment that “He died of a broken heart.”

No, he died because he didn’t take care of himself. He died because he spent his time taking care of everybody else and not himself.

He ate meat-laden breakfast sandwiches every morning. He got fast food for lunch. Sometimes he didn’t eat supper at all. He ate cookies and drank tea all day long. Everything had sugar or caffeine or both, and lots of it.

He knew his blood pressure was high, but he didn’t do anything about it. He had unusual pains and didn’t feel well, but didn’t go to the doctor.

I suspect he thought that if he took time off to go to the doctor, then he would be taking time away from us, his coworkers. He didn’t want to inconvenience us and make us even more short-handed.

You can’t make us more short-handed than being dead.

He had OCD. Constantly trying to fix things, to control things. The one thing he could control, his health, he didn’t.

Maybe if he had taken the time to take care of what he could take care of, he’d still be here.

He had a lot of stress, what with having two kids to deal with – children that weren’t even his legally. His wife had two children from a previous marriage, and they’d never gotten around to having him adopt them. They were worried about dealing with the kids’ deadbeat dad.

He drove an hour one way every day to go to work. His wife liked where they lived, but he couldn’t find work there. He put his needs aside. That was a long drive, and a lot of stress.

It was always about other people. He just liked to make people happy, he said. His dad was the same way, and he died young too.

What would make us happy would be for him to still be here, and well, and balanced, and happy.

Me Me Me

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My father-in-law’s dementia has progressed a lot faster than anyone could have anticipated. It has gone about five steps ahead of where it should have at this point.

I believe it is a coping mechanism. I believe that he does not want to deal with the fact that his wife is dying and so he is not dealing with it. I believe also that he is very upset that all the attention is going to her and not to him.

This is a way of drawing attention to himself. This is a way of making other people notice him and take care of him. It is quite embarrassing that this adult man is reverting to childlike behaviors.

He has always been a needy, vain, controlling person. There is one “family” picture in the house – all the other pictures of him are with famous people. He’s always talking about all the famous people he has met. He never talks about family gatherings or vacations. He always has to have the latest, best things. He bullied his wife and then his sons for years.

Outwardly, he is an old man. Inwardly, he is a little boy, always seeking approval through being associated with other people. He cannot stand on his own.

He is in a nursing home and he says he wants to go home. But he doesn’t understand or want to understand that no one is there to take care of him. The person who would take care of him is herself needing to be taken care of. She has nurtured him and put up with his tantrums and rages his whole life, it seems. But now, because of her terminal cancer, she is the one who has to be taken care of. She is the one who has a home health nurse and a hospice nurse coming to the house.

While his needs need to be acknowledged, ultimately he has to learn that it isn’t all about him. There’s some middle ground where people say you’re great and you know you are. There some place in your head where you don’t have to have other people tell you that you’re awesome. And maybe part of it is not having to think that you’re awesome. Maybe just being average is okay.

Bad seeds

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I think it is very dangerous to spread news about young boys and guns in school. The stories about mass shootings at school where boys are killing strangers just encourage more of the same, rather than preventing it.

I think the media mentions it in the news so that everybody else knows what to look out for and be careful. But the problem is that when they spread the news they’re also telling other boys here’s a thing to do. People who never thought about taking a gun and killing random strangers at their school now have that idea in their head. It’s not that the rash of it spreads on its own, it’s that we plant the seeds.

So now, kids who feel ignored and overlooked have an idea of how to get attention and be noticed. Any attention, even negative, is attention. Attention is energy. That is what everybody wants. Being famous for a bad thing is still being famous. And, briefly, they feel powerful, which they have not felt before.

We have to address that sense of powerlessness and give everybody the attention that they need. Every person has the chance to grow up into a beautiful flower. Ignored, abused – they will grow up into misshapen weeds.

It is our choice.

All people need to learn how to express themselves and how to respect others while they express themselves. All people need to learn how to self-soothe and not rely on others for their self-esteem and happiness.

Achieve this and we will have peace.

Waiting in the middle

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I’m back in the waiting room at the VW dealership. I’m waiting until they get the time to work on the car. I wonder why I even make appointments, because they always seem to be delayed. Back again for a valve. Last week it was gaskets. A month ago it was the battery. The car is old, after all.

I’m reminded of the Jewish prayer for use in the bathroom, about openings and cavities, that if just one of them ruptured or were blocked, we’d die.

I’m grateful it isn’t one of my openings or cavities that is ruptured of blocked. That would require a trip to the hospital, and surgery, and a long recovery period.

I’m grateful that the dealership is just 20 minutes away and not an hour, like the lady next to me.

I think there is something about being grateful that is good, but also something about acknowledging the pain and loss. This is my day off. This is really early in the morning. I don’t quite want to spend the money on this. We’ve spent too much money recently on this car.

So maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. Not happy, not sad. It just is the way it is. Not forcing myself to be happy and grateful, not getting stuck in sadness and loss. It is, and being happy or upset won’t make it change or go faster or cost less.

Maybe this is what Buddha meant about non attachment.

Not wasting energy on transforming the situation into something it isn’t. Accept it for what it is, and understanding that what I know is limited. The middle way, of no extremes.

Let go

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You have to let go to gain. How can you get new things with your hands full? You have to take everything out of the room to redesign it. I’ve gone through a lot of cleaning-out recently, and none of it has been planned by me. I see it as a gift from God. I’m learning that if I can’t control it, I should accept it as being Divinely ordained.

God has a plan. And I don’t know it. I have an idea of what it is.

I don’t want to work for myself. I am afraid of the risk of standing alone, having to figure out to pay taxes on a small business or to trust someone else with it. So is that what I’m being called to? Or is that what I’m being directed away from?

More and more I can see the source of illness in people. It isn’t about curing disease but preventing it. Disease is just a symptom of a dis-function.

I like the shaman on Northern Exposure. He lived with his patients for three days, eating what they ate, doing what they did. He stepped into their shoes in the most real way. Only then did he know why they were sick. People have to learn how to work with what they have.

Feeding them good food while they are in a rehabilitation center is only part of it. They have to learn how to provide it for themselves when they get home, and how to make good choices when they are at a restaurant.

They will not have the stress of dealing with people who aggravate them while at the center. They have to learn how to speak up for themselves and set boundaries when they go home or to work.

It is about past, present, and future, all at once. This means addressing past trauma and mis-learned lessons in the present, to create a healthy future.

Marry out of strength, not weakness

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When you have half a person married to another half a person they don’t make a whole, they make a half. When you have one solid person married to another solid person they make something amazingly strong.

People shouldn’t try to marry to find their other half. They should marry to get even stronger. They shouldn’t marry in order to have someone “complete” them. If you have to have someone else to make you whole then you aren’t whole to start off with.

If you want to get married so she will cook and clean for you, you don’t need a wife – you still need a mother. If you want to get married so he will protect you and keep you safe, you don’t need a husband – you need a guard dog. If you want to get married so someone will cheer you up, you don’t need a spouse – you need a therapist.

Marry out of strength, not weakness.

If you marry out of need and loss and lack, then you will grow into that and get even more needy and even more empty. It will be like getting crutches for your broken leg. You go years with those crutches, and your leg never gets used and gets weaker and weaker. Then when the crutches go away, you can’t stand at all.

Private property

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It seems like people have forgotten some of the basic rules of what it means to be civilized. Remember in kindergarten the phrase “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it.”? That lesson apparently doesn’t translate to everything.

These days property owners have to put signs on the property saying “private property no trespassing”. Otherwise, if someone comes on to their property they are liable for anything that happens. This seems completely backwards. If it is my home and my property it isn’t yours. If I have not invited you on to it then you shouldn’t be there. Private property owners shouldn’t have to put a sign up at all.

Their “sign” is the fact that it is their property.

In whose hands?

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Some of us started talking about our deceased coworker, and I mentioned that his death of a heart attack at 42 just furthers my belief that I need to take care of myself. I said this to the coworker in my department who is obese. She has a Y membership and has been maybe four times. The last time was about a year ago. She eats the same way that the dead one does. About monthly she says she “really needs to go back to the Y.” And she never does.

She said “It is all in God’s hands.”

No, it isn’t. We have free will, and sure, Jim Fixx, the guru of running, died of a heart attack. People die when God chooses. But they have a vote in it. They can take care of themselves. As my chiropractor says, we can’t add years to our life, but we can add life to our years.

We are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. This includes our bodies.

The other person in the department smokes constantly, and is out sick a lot.

I’m afraid I’ll be left by myself. I’m afraid they will both die and I’ll be stuck. It takes a long time to train a new person. We joke “It’s all about me” is our phrase in that department, and that sounds self-centered, and it is. But it is true.

But there is something deeper going on.

To not take care of yourself because you think that it is “all in God’s hands” is bizarre. Let’s compare it with the phrase “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” You shouldn’t do something you know to be stupid just to test God.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. They are killing themselves, and they know it. But to drag God’s will into it? That takes their own power out of it. It means they are helpless to do anything about it.

What a life of victimhood.