Being present in my own life

On December 31, I began a post about my resolution for 2015. But I was conflicted about it, so I waited. And waited.

A phrase took up residence in my brain: I want to inhabit my life more fully.

I may have seen this phrase in one of your posts; less busy-ness and more meaning have been big topics here and on Facebook, especially among women. I tried to put it into different words. I want to be more present in my own life. But the original phrase still speaks to me.

I love my life and all the opportunities it provides me. I'm not looking to change direction. But in the midst of winter doldrums, I felt as though my great life was going on without me. I was letting opportunities go by, spending time on escapes like computer games and sleeping a lot. My office was strewn with stuff that had accumulated for more than a year. My best energy was going into my continuing obligations to the carousel. Peter and the grandkids got a watered-down version of me. I got a watered-down version of me.

As the new year approached, part of me wanted to grab hold of my wandering attention and flagging energies by scheduling every day, assigning myself, say, an hour of housekeeping, 30 minutes of physical exercise, a few hours devoted to carousel responsibilities, and others to something new and fun.

But another part of me resisted. Life can't just be a series of tasks. What, I asked myself, is my most compelling priority? What single concept can provide focus and passion so that the daily activities will fall into place of their own accord? 

Just days into the new year I found that I could not have scheduled my life even if I'd tried. My youngest brother, David, had entered hospice care in mid-December, and January became all about finding the right days and times to visit, and about withdrawing into a cocoon after each visit to process what was happening. And then as I drove home one afternoon I began to experience terrible tooth pain. So now I was juggling pain and medications and dental visits, which were real enough for me but irrelevant and annoying as I strove to be present for my brother. At the end of January, he died. I will write much more about him another day, when I can focus just on him. But this post is about something I learned during the course of his final journey.

My time with David was rich and fulfilling, in large part because he was such a good, gentle, thoughtful person. But also because when I was there with him, I learned to be totally focused on him, totally present for him. As he grew weaker, his reality was right there in his room. Things we used to talk about--politics, the news of the day, stories from various parts of our lives--were no longer relevant. It had taken me a couple of visits to get the hang of it, but we both were in the moment.

Twice David told me about having night terrors, waking up with his heart pounding because he'd been fighting death. He said when he realized it was a dream there was a split second of relief, and then the realization that he really was dying. He had many good conversations with friends and family, but he never told anyone else about the dreams. I took that as a kind of gift, a sign that our visits were meaningful to him as they were to me.

After each visit I found myself exhausted. I think this was partly because I'm an introvert and partly because I was so sad. I would go off by myself to think back over everything we'd said, everything I'd learned, exactly how my brother had changed since the last visit. I had to take it all in, think about it, feel it, process it.

And one day I realized that I was doing just what I needed to do, and just what I had (sort of) resolved to do. I was present, in the moment, with a person I loved and who was my top priority right then. I was paying attention to him, and also to myself, to my responses. For the past couple of months, just when I'd thought I should get busy and get more things done, I have understood my limits and fed my need to be quiet and listen.

So that's my intention, not just for 2015 but for life. I will focus on inhabiting, or being present in, my own life. I want to be more aware, more in the moment, with the people I care about. I want to spend my time doing things that matter to me. I want to make use of the riches all around me, and that includes husband, family, friends, blogging, tap dancing, and so much more. And yes, it also includes napping from time to time.

Eat dessert first...

Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

A week ago, I updated my Blogger profile to declare this my motto for 2012. I'd had something more serious in mind, but I couldn't quite settle on the wording. I realized there was some ambiguity in my goals, and I decided I was okay with that. Hence this flippant motto. Or is it?

I don't want a lot of goals right now. Caring for my grandkids - growing with them - is my top priority, as it is for my hubby. Our days of full-time daycare will end when the kids start school (Augie begins all-day kindergarten in fall 2012 and ViMae in 2013). With this limited window of opportunity, we intend to continue to throw ourselves into the task.

To us, that means responding to the kids - to their interests and passions, to their developmental phases, to their behaviors that call for praise or encouragement or, um, coaching. We take the initiative to expose them to lots of things, but we're always watching for what seems to capture the attention of one or both, and before you know it we're buying books or finding YouTube videos or researching field trips.

They liked the birds at the feeders, so we got bird books (and an iPad app) and learned a lot about birds ourselves. They enjoyed Lego Duplos, so we amassed the world's largest collection of zoo pieces. They love books; our living room overflows with them. Augie drummed on every surface in our house, testing the sound qualities; we got him a drum kit and then expanded it with "wooden blocks like Karen Carpenter's" and "a floor tom like Gene Krupa's" and "a ride cymbal like Levon Helm's." (YouTube really is a fabulous resource.) They like building forts out of cardboard in the living room, staging impromptu marching-band performances through the house, and dancing in front of the mirror, and they insist that we participate.

So here's the thing. My goal is to contribute everything I can to their happiness and development. That means being playful, curious, flexible, loving, and healthy. I was going to make it my stated goal to exercise more in order to build up my stamina to keep up with the kids. But that felt pedestrian and uninspiring.

I've had a lifetime of serious goals. Self-improvement goals, measurable work goals, always goals. For most of my life I felt obligated to do my work first, before I could play. I didn't always DO that, but the obligation weighed on me, so even when I did play, I often felt guilty. Over the past year, a full year of retirement, I've let go of that sense of obligation. I work hard while the kids are with us, and then I mostly do what I want. My motto for 2011 was "Follow your passion, feed your bliss." I threw myself into life with them and allowed myself the time to revel in it.

I've become newly aware that time is fleeting and we are not guaranteed either time or good health. "Life is uncertain." 

So, even as I do what I can to preserve Peter's and my health and to build my strength and stamina, I'm going to "eat dessert first" - figuratively. I'm going to do those things that seem most important, or most rewarding, or most meaningful to others. Sometimes those things will be the most fun - like dessert. Sometimes they may not be quite so appealing, but I hope they will be memorable, and that as a whole they will make a wonderful and lasting course, following the entrees and sides dishes that have made up my life to date.

In other words, and I know I'm pushing the metaphor beyond all appropriate limits, this time in my life is the chocolate-souffle-apple-crisp-creme-brulee topping off years of chicken breasts and broccoli. Yum.  

Living well in 2010

I've been drafting a bunch of new year's resolutions, but something about the process didn't feel right. Today when I read Abode One Three, a single sentence jumped out: "...a best-lived life is more than an adequate replacement for plans, for resolutions." That resonated with me, and I stopped trying to generate goals that are specific, measurable, and on a timetable.

For a very long time, my life was dominated by goals and objectives, assignments and deadlines, 50-hour weeks at the office and precious little personal life. My husband has spent much of our nearly 25 years together trying to get me to enjoy the moment, to celebrate an accomplishment, to indulge in any one of my favorite renewing activities before tackling another work assignment on a lovely Saturday.

In February 2007, our first grandbaby was born. When I held that baby, nothing else mattered. Now there are two, and it's still that way. Meanwhile, I cut back on both time and responsibilities at work, and some huge, toxic pressure dissipated. I began living in the moment, enjoying life as never before, and blogging as a way to savor and record the experience.

My resolutions, such as they are, are about trying to maximize the bliss, minimize the stress, work through the transition from the working world to retirement, and honor the important relationships in my life. I've identified a half-dozen areas where my attention needs to be directed in order to live life as well as I can.

* Be the best grandma I can be. Spending the energy, thinking up new Wild Rumpus Daycare activities, reading and counting and drawing and dancing and making music and rolling around on the floor and playing ball and taking excursions...it's rewarding for them and us! This is an unexpected, unparalleled experience, and it will only last a few years. I don't want to waste a single minute!

* Get active. I need to build up my energy, strength, and stamina in order to do--and enjoy--the things that are important. It's hard to get out for walks when it's 10 below and icy. But a combination of aerobic dance moves, yoga, pilates, and lifting small weights--when I actually do it--gives me better energy to do more of everything else. If I want to dance with the grandbabies now AND at their weddings, I'd better get fit!

* Choose a retirement date. I'm working part-time, mostly for the health care benefits. I'm looking into possible ways to further reduce hours, work at home, or flat-out retire in the coming year. If we win the lottery, I'm outta there.

* Identify health care plans for after I retire. It sounds impossibly ancient: I will be eligible for Medicare. I have to research and choose among a dozen different plans. More difficult: my hubby, covered under my workplace policy, is younger and will not be eligible for Medicare for a few more years. He had a cancerous lymph node two years ago, so getting accepted will be tricky and expensive. We were so hoping for a public option!

* Do things that feed my spirit...gardening, blogging, sewing, photography, and maybe even playing the piano again. Being with friends and family...and also being alone. I always did enjoy solitary pastimes; as an adult I discovered I was an over-the-top introvert who needs tons of alone time for my own well-being.

* Pick up a bigger share of the housework. True Statement: My husband does just about everything: cooking, shopping, dishes, laundry, snow removal, grass-cutting, cat litter, recycling, composting, etc. I feed the cat and decorate the house for Christmas. Our son-in-law vacuums weekly so the floors are clean for the grandkids (a great trade-off, don't you think?), and on rare occasions I've been known to dust. The combination of 20 hours a week at the office and 20 sharing in daycare wears me out. But Peter devotes 30-40 hours to daycare, plus a fulltime job--which he does at home at all hours of the day--and still does the housework. It's time for me to pitch in (sob) and wash dishes once in a while, or mop the kitchen floor, or wash the shelves in the china cabinet. Yes, I do know how good I have it. When he proposed, he said he was already keeping house and he'd just keep doing it. So I let him. Damn, it's time for me to step up.

That last one is going to be the hardest. How about you...are you owning up to one really difficult behavior that you intend to change but wish you didn't have to? Will we all feel better once we behave better?

I'm just not a morning person

Every fall when we go off Daylight Savings Time, I resolve that instead of taking the extra hour of sleep, I'll keep getting up at the "old" time. I'll get an earlier start on the day, and it should be painless, right? But to make it work, I'd need to go to bed on the old time, too, and I just never do. I'm a night person. I like the quiet hour or so after the news, and after my husband goes to bed, to just read or play computer games. I do get up more cheerfully than ever before when the kids are coming, even when they come extra-early. And my office hours include only one morning a week. So maybe I'll just let go of that whole resolution thing here and now. There, I feel better already.