Month: September 2019

Proof that you’ve been hit

by Ashley filed under Divorce

“Jackie wants a black eye, some proof that she’s been hit” – Dr. Dog.

Last night I had a dream that I came upon a gas station where he was involved in a confrontation with a group of men. He swung first, but they were swinging back and he was in danger. I remember looking at the welt forming on his forehead and having a sense of relief come over me… now people would see him hurting… Know he was in pain. Maybe they would help them. Maybe they could help him. He’d never let me…

I read a book my mom (bless my mom) bought the boys about worries following the divorce. In the book a little girl has been shoving all of her worries into one big Santa Claus size bag. Of course the bag gets heavier and heavier to lug around and the bag is invisible so no one even knows to ask her if she needs help carrying it. Through a chance meeting with a wise older woman she discovers that if she takes the worries out of the bag and acknowledges their presence that they’re not all that daunting. By discussing them, she’s able to let them go, to empty her bag.

It’s a simple book with a simple message but it reminded me of those lyrics by Dr. Dog and how we all – to varying extents anyway – carry invisible weights that would never show outwardly if we didn’t openly discuss them. The lyrics take it a step further, calling us to question how life would change if that bag of worries were all the sudden visible; if internal pain showed up on our bodies in the form of bumps, bruises, visible ailments. I question what I would look like, what the people I love would look like, what the people I’ve lost respect for would look like.

What if those who suffer internally were forced into wheelchairs, unable to walk. Or maybe their ailment only required them to need crutches. Whatever the degree, how different would life be if we all knew and could see their handicaps? Surely people see someone in a wheelchair and know they may need to hold the door, offer a push up a hill, and so on and so forth. No one disagrees on what the needs are and the magnitude of the problem because the handicap is there for us to see and the resulting limitations are perceived relatively the same amongst most.

If we were forced to see, we’d be forced to confront. And if we’re forced to confront, we’re suddenly accountable. With nothing hidden, perhaps we would see that we’re all suffering something. Maybe the healing comes in communal suffering… “we’re all in it together now, as we all fall apart”…

If only we could see what’s on the inside. If only the person in desperate need of a life saver was visibly drowning. It’s a rabbit hole, filled to the brim with an abundance of “if only”…

And so, here we are, handicapped by things only we can acknowledge, things only we can chose to discuss, or not; cans of worms we can keep the lid on, or open. Our health relying on our own self-awareness, on our willingness to embrace vulnerability, on our own inner strength.

Ain’t that a dangerous thing?

As for me? The more I talk, the better I feel. My worries are still heavy and I carry them with me but I’m not carrying them alone. And the more I share, the more I’m able to release. And that is everything.

The Great Appendage

by Ashley filed under Life

My therapist pulled from this story during a couples session many months ago and it’s stuck with me ever since; she used it to speak of happiness within versus happiness based on external circumstances. Saving it here for myself, really. But maybe someone out there could use it too. And if you’re in Orange County and need a recommendation for a therapist, do check in with me. She’s everything. Here’s the story…

There’s an old story of a simple country fellow who had to go to the big market town for the first time. He had managed to remain all his life in the little village where everyone knew him and where he knew most everyone. Now, something else was demanded of him and he had to step out into the wide world. He had heard travelers tell of the hordes of people and the rush of activities in the market city; he feared that he would become lost amidst so many people. So, he went to seek advice from a friend who was more experienced than himself. He blurted out his questions along with his fears. “When I go to the city I will have to stay in one of those big inns where all the workers and travelers stay in the same room. I will have to sleep in a room full of strangers. I have never done that before and I am afraid that I will become lost and confused. I will know myself when I lay down to sleep; but amongst all those people, how will I know which one I am when I wake up?” His friend saw a chance to play a trick on him, as people often do when someone indulges in their innocence or foolishness. The friend advised him to first go to the market and buy a large and colorful watermelon. He instructed him that before going to sleep he must tie the watermelon to his ankle. After that, he should take his rest. The friend went on to explain that in the morning when he woke in the company of strangers, he would be the one with the watermelon tied to his foot. The foolish fellow thought for a while, then asked: “What if during the dark of night someone unties the watermelon from my foot and ties it onto theirs? How will I know which one I am if the watermelon has been switched?” At that point, his friend was wise enough to become silent on the subject.

It’s a simple story of a simple-minded fellow, yet more and more people seem to depend on a watermelon, or a degree, or a certain home address or prestigious title for proof that they are in fact an individual and someone of worth and value. Ironically, more and more people fear becoming victims of “identity theft;” as if the watermelon approach is taking precedence over the sense of a true identity that is seeded in the soul. The statistical view of the world, the massing of people and the obsession with appearances makes the dilemma of the country fellow an increasingly common experience. Modern ideas tend to follow the fears and concerns of the fellow whose identity is but an appendage to his life. Either the presence of a unique soul is considered impossible to prove and therefore not to be believed or else the soul is deemed a blank slate to be conditioned by one’s life circumstances. If our identity has been determined by other people and by forces outside ourselves; then our sense of self will be like a colorful item that we purchase in the world-wide market and tie onto our bodies. If our identity in this world can become nothing but an appendage to be manipulated and adapted to outer circumstances, we are in increasing danger of losing it or having it taken from us. In forgetting how the soul is seeded to begin with we can be in danger of becoming completely lost in this world, both empty within and completely disoriented as well. Without a genuine sense of an inner life and deeper self we become increasingly subject to those who cleverly manipulate the marketplace as well as the elements of politics and even the premises and promises of religion.

Meade, Michael. Fate and Destiny, the Two Agreements of the Soul (Kindle Locations 1193-1201). GreenFire Press. Kindle Edition.

Maui

by Ashley filed under Divorce, Travel

More than ever before, I’m called to write. It’s clearly my way of releasing, of sorting. Sometimes life sucks you in like a vacuum and you find yourself circulating and spinning in a bowl full of dust and debris only to be emptied out into a trashcan and left to clean yourself off and find your way out. I suppose writing is the dusting off and the actual work – the therapy, the attention to self, the reclaimed awareness, and all the work that goes with stepping through the stages of grief are the climb out.

I remember when Hooper was a baby, a mere 4 months old, and we decided to take him to Maui. And it remember it being somewhat miserable. A different set of four walls. All these years later and no set of rose colored classes can alter my memory of it. Our first born, our world rocked, and with it an unforgiving state of adjusting. And re-adjusting. Because man, don’t the struggles seem to change as soon as you get the hang of it? It’s like ordinary life but in a fast forwarded version.

I digress.

I grew up going to Maui. There was the year my parents took us on a joint trip with my aunt and uncle; pictures of all 4 cousins in our Hawaiian dresses, strings of shell necklaces that hung below our belly buttons and already wilting flowers behind our ears. There was the year we went with both grandmas and I can remember one wearing a shiny silver sun visor and the other, an obnoxious gold. Paired with glasses you thought only came with cataract surgery and I can remember my super-self-conscious high-school-aged self wanting to walk 10 steps ahead. There was the summer, in our early 20s, just my sister and I went. We got a taste for the nightlife and I wore lipstick and we took pictures of ourselves dressed up.

When Willy and I started a family, it became an annual thing. We’d join my parents and we had our routine of beach in the morning, naps in the afternoon followed by pool time and a glass of wine right as the local AA group formed a circle on the grass just in front of our condo. Sometimes the irony makes me giggle. Sometimes it makes me cry.

Willy had moved out just days before we left, after much coaxing; a torturous few months of emotional turmoil that I presently label the hardest days of my life. Oh what a whirlwind the previous few months had been. Or maybe it was years.

And so this year we were one member unexpectedly short. The empty seat on the plane, tangible evidence. A routine broken by two less hands hands; one less body and a sudden inability to be in two places at once. The older boys whining about having to stay in while Sonny napped. I tried setting my lawn chair halfway between the pool and the condo; true symbolism of a mom turned stretch Armstrong… which is quite literally no-mans-land because I was unable to save a drowning kid and unable to hear a crying toddler. But there I sat, for a false sense of security and an offering of the false message that I and I alone could do it all. An attempt at shielding them from the inconvenience divorce has brought to their life. I would have been better off with a whistle and a monitor and perhaps two of those long darth vader swords like they use at the airport to direct traffic.

Stretch Armstrong, an analogy of my life these days.

This trip was filled with so much hurt and pain and release and hope and countless brain cells hard at work trying to sort it all out. A collection of pieces I didn’t know how to fit together. A puzzle I’m sure I’ll always struggle to finish. Van started sucking his thumb again, something he hadn’t done since his infamous days of “handhat” when he was a toddler. But there were also nights spent in the water as the sun went down, memories of turtles swimming up next to us. Popsicles most nights and POG juice with dinner. Sand in our beds and sun-kissed shoulders. One on one dates with mom and communal dinners. Crabs that were caught and pain – even just small amounts – that were let go.

The needed space, the needed warmth, the needed nostalgia. Time needed with my parents, my boys; my immediate village. None of it took the pain away and I took NyQuil most nights to sleep but there is something to be said to grieve in paradise, surrounded and held up by the people who brought you into this life and the little people you live for.

In spite of it all

by Ashley filed under Divorce

Being okay with divorce does not mean there’s no struggle but rather that the struggle is a necessary part of the equation that will ultimately lead to growth. The mess, the heartache, the confusion, the uncertainty, the stress, I fully believe will bring us all to a better place if we invite the struggle. I’m inviting the struggle.

I got a text from my girl Shelby yesterday that reminded me of just this… and it tied in so perfectly with something else I had read recently about happiness — the general point of both being that happiness does not mean that you ignore the negative emotions in your life; but rather you acknowledge them, you do what you can with them, and you continue to grow in spite of them.

I’ve always felt that way — and in a weird, twisted way, tragedy has always excited me some… because there is so much potential for growth in times like this. It doesn’t make the hard days enjoyable but it certainly makes them worthwhile… knowing that they’re necessary and not going away. I know that accepting that and working within those parameters and continuing to grow anyway is where my superpower lies… to feel it all and wake up the next day still ready to get up and take the bull by the horns.