Leave the Door Ajar

Picture of a door that is slightly ajar, open enough to see a sweet, brown puppy

Is nothing sacred? I thought, as they head-butted their way through the bathroom door.

Early on, it was my puppy, all floppy ears and fluffy tail. She’d used her considerable nose to push her way through the door, which had been slightly ajar. What’s doing? she seemed to say, with a tilt of her fuzzy head. With that, she sat down and took a nap.

Then it was my toddler, all cherub cheeks, binky and blanket in tow. He’d barge in like a mini-caveman and sit on the floor by the “throne.” Want some company? he seemed to ask. With that, he’d lay on the floor with his blankie and take a nap.

Finally, it was my cat, all wild whiskers and stealthy feet. He looked like a tiny, tuxedoed man, with dark pants tucked into white tube socks. He seemed to say, Are you aware that my food bowl is only 99% full? With that, he’d put his head down on the bathroom rug and take a nap.

“This used to be single occupancy,” I’d say to my audience, all of whom would just look at me, bemused.

I realized some things are sacred. These moments. The slow pace of time. The invasion of space. The crumbs and legos and dog toys strewn around the living room. Those moments were golden, although at the time, it didn’t feel like it. I often felt as if there were things coming at me from all sides and I never had a moment to myself.

We’ve all been through a lot lately, with COVID fatigue, political clashes, and the general sense of distrust that has set in.

It’s easy to slam the door, to shut everything bad out, but sometimes, when you leave the door ajar, good things come toddling in.

Noodge No-More

Nobody knows they’re a noodge, do they? I didn’t realize I was one myself until one day when my son was fixing his bed frame and I stopped in to offer “encouragement.” I’d say, “What if you tried it this way?” He’d say, “That won’t work, Mom.” I’d offer, “Do you need a wrench for that?” Finally he said politely but firmly, “That’s not helping. Please stop now.”

My version of “help” was really not helping. Sometimes when you don’t know how to fix an issue, you flutter about, making it even worse. Maybe that’s what’s going on with negative emotions that just won’t let up. 

That nagging voice in our heads that we call guilt really doesn’t see itself that way. In fact, it regards itself more as a quilt, seeking only to cover you with a patchwork of memories so you don’t make the same mistakes again. 

And fear is really a deer, lost in the woods, trying to find its way home. It doesn’t want to harm you; it’s just trying to navigate the unknown alone.

God embedded us with these emotions, so there must be a reason for them. Maybe it’s just to learn that our feelings — and in fact, most of the people in our lives — are trying their best. 

So, I know I’m a noodge at times, but I’m learning to scale back my fluttering and s/mothering of those I care about. Harping isn’t helping. Someday, I’ll be a former noodge. Maybe I’ll do a PSA to help others to deal with people like me. It might even help you as you deal with all those misguided emotions that hassle you relentlessly. Be patient with them, but be direct when need be, as my son was with me. “Move along, now,” you can tell them. “I’ve got this.”

Get Past the Past

For some reason, a small, sweet moment crossed my mind this morning. When my son was younger, he had friends over to play video games, and, as I put away the laundry, I realized they were talking about me.

You wouldn’t believe what those kids said about me! Never in my life! Well, it’s not what you think. As it turns out, they weren’t kvetching at all.

One of his friends had asked Cole, “Why is your mom always so nice to us?”

My son called me into his room, amused. “Why ARE you so nice to my friends, Mom?”

The other boy said, “Yeah. Moms aren’t usually like that. What’s up with that?”

“Well, I love my son, and I want him to be happy,” I said. “When he has his friends over, he’s happy. I think it’s good to extend hospitality so you guys feel at home too. It’s nice to show people you care.”

There really is a secret to being in a positive frame of mind all the time, and it’s saying what I actually mean. It keeps me emotionally in balance. 

My motto is: Be truthful but tactful. If it’s not important enough to mention, it’s surely not worth holding a grudge over. Say it, so it doesn’t go on lay-away. Don’t put it into storage so that you can make an appointment in your mind to be mad at someone again later. Speak at the moment an infraction occurs. 

You did this thing. It was inappropriate. Or, You said something that hurt my feelings. Get it off your chest so you don’t harbor it in your heart.

Love your loved ones, starting with yourself. Don’t hurt your heart with hate. Speak your mind. Clear the air. Get past the past and let new blessings in.

Oddly Enough

It’s just been me and my son in our house since he was eight-years-old and he’s 20 now. Oddly enough I’m still 29! (And I have been for the last 25 years.😏)

Well, it’s just been us and our (late) pet-partners, Sheena, the black lab/border collie mix, and later on, KitKat, a former street-cat tabby. 

So I’ve always put my son first and my own needs on the back burner.

I realized the other day that he’s probably doing the same thing for me.

In trying to take care of each other in this way, it’s led to a bottleneck in terms of actual communication. As an example, something as simple as setting the temperature in the house can lead to a mutually neutral response.

“Cole, honey, do you want me to turn on the AC? Are you too hot?”

He’ll answer, “Are you too hot, Mom? I’m okay either way.”

So I realized we need to work on communicating with each other. 

Oddly enough, the answer is for each of us to put ourselves first. I’ll aim to be more declarative, saying instead, “Honey, I’m hot, so I’m going to turn on the air. If it gets too cold for you after a while, let me know and I’ll adjust it.” And he needs to do the same. 

You can’t get what you want until you can put it into words. Take care of yourself so you can be there for your loved ones.

Carrying On

When I was driving my son and his friends everywhere during his school years, I couldn’t wait for him to reach driving age so I wouldn’t have to be their chauffeur anymore. As it happened, soon after he got his license, I had to take myself off the road due to my visual impairment. It turned out to be a tough decision, though, since not being able to drive anymore really limits your — wait for it — autonomy.

As I thought about all of the things taken from me by my MS, I’ve come up with a theory. Instead of calling them deficits, I’m wondering if it isn’t really just the unorthodox method by which my psyche has tried valiantly to protect me.

Trauma from the past we’d just as soon forget getting us down? Inner me waves a wand. Poof! Don’t remember things anymore! Have some memory issues!

Don’t want to feel this bad ever again? Poof! Don’t feel things. Have some neuropathy!

So what if I have to Google “how to hard boil an egg” every time I want to make an egg salad sandwich. I’ve let go of the guilt of not being able. Everyone else can do X. I can’t. Okay, I’ll focus on doing Y. What I can do is tell you my stories and offer encouragement to get through your own hardships. When I’m not sure if my thoughts make sense on the page, I can always rely on Lori and SueBE to proofread for me. Find your team and you’ll find your way. I focus on what I can do, and do it.

We’ve all got our share of dark clouds in life, but the silver lining is this: you’re still you. You’re still here. You’ve got the chance every day to carry on.

Musical 🎵 Pun-spotting Ahead

My son is in college with the goal of working in music production, so the next thing on his To-Do Liszt is to get an internship in the industry. So, without too much fanfare, I’d like to propose that some dear reader in the music business give him a hand.

Do you know how many points I’d score if some music mogul reading this offered my son a job? It’d be off the charts! Then he’d have no choice but to visit me every so often, even after he hits it big on a grand scale. The important thing is to really get a Handel on the skills he’ll need so he doesn’t end up Haydn some 9-5 job.

So here’s my pitch: he’ll write you a song, and you send him money! Everybody wins! 🙂 Here’s a sample of one of his songs: 

stay here pt2

Barring that, perhaps you know of an internship position in which he could learn the ropes, kind of a bridge between school and the rest of his life. That transition can be major, and sometimes we fall flat when we first go solo.

There’s an old saying: Get a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. I’d love it if he got a great gig, preferably close by, so he can always bring me presents (let’s call them “royalties”); well-paying, so he can pay off my mortgage (maybe he can write a nice house music song to do so); and working with people who are upbeat.

I’m probably preaching to the choir, but life is a collaborative composition. If you can help someone out on the road of life, whether it be a lead on a job in their field or just a kind word, you’re part of a larger movement. That’s humanity in harmony. Thanks for listening. Be Bach soon!

Stop Running in Place

My son and his friend are going to see a concert in Washington DC, and when he told me, I said, “That’s nice, honey, have fun.” I assumed he’d be taking the train.

This morning I realized he was taking our car on this road trip. Oh! That’s a three-and-a-half hour drive. In our old car. I love my car, Carrie (pronounced Kahr-ee, if you would), but she’s been through a lot. Six recalls thus far. She’s been in an accident and is a bit banged up. Is she up for this challenge?

There’s no spare tire in the car, which concerns me, but he countered that he’s got Triple A. He said he’d be careful and that I shouldn’t worry. Okay! Check.✅ Then I won’t. Har har. I offered some snacks and juice for the road, and he and his friend were on their way.

Then I looked out the window at the latest iteration of varmint-trap the wildlife company had set for my resident groundhog, Grady. They’d come out last Thursday to set the first trap, and he dug his way out it. Then the next day, they set two traps, pushed together. He dug out of that one too. Today, they covered the ground with some mesh wire and set up two more traps.

At this rate, if Grady finds his way out of the trap, I’m just going to call it a sub-let and start charging him rent!

You can’t fix everything that’s broken in life in one day. You can’t cover your kids with a golden shield to protect them. All you can do is this: all you can do. Worrying isn’t the same as doing. When you stop running in place, you’ll be amazed at how much ground you can cover.

Remember the Warmth

Today is Mother’s Day, and even though my own mother is no longer with us, I still think of her often. When I was growing up, she made it a point to quote literary giants during the course of the day.

If I was dragging my feet getting ready to go to school, she might ask, “How long, O Cataline?”

If my brothers and I were misbehaving, we might get an earful of Shakespeare: “Assume a virtue if you have it not!”

Now, of course, this was said in a playful way. When we really crossed the line, she knew how to tell us so, in standard, and might I add, quite colorful, New Jersey English.

But it was really helpful to have a former English teacher around when I had to write an essay or got stuck on the origin of a word. “If you know Latin, you know English,” she would say.

On the other hand, I came to realize that I was nowhere near the refined, cultured lady that she was. “Enunciate!” she would say. She tried to improve and educate me.

When she would ask if I knew where that “O Cataline” reference was from, I’d say, “Cicero?” She would nod, then shake her head. “It’s pronounced ‘kick-er-oh.”

I wanted to say, But I’m not some ancient Roman, Mom. We live in New Jersey. Why can’t we say it regular? Or as some of us say in Jersey: reg-ya-luh. Still, I secretly enjoyed those conversations. Sure do miss her.

Let’s implement a new rule: for every memory that crosses your mind that makes you sad, come up with two thoughts that lift you up. It’s what your mother would want you to do.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Small, Quiet Moments of Kindness

In my day, sonny (cue nostalgic music), we used to quietly hold the world together with a pat on the back and a kind word. Nobody noticed but that one child who scraped his knee on the playground who we helped up. Or that person in the grocery aisle who couldn’t reach a can on a shelf, so you got it for them.

As short as I am (5”4), there was an older lady even shorter. She couldn’t reach the can of peas on the top shelf so she looked at it, looked at me, and tilted her head quizzically. She didn’t have to ask. In fact, she didn’t. She just knew a kind face when she saw it.

When my son and his friends were younger, they were amused by what one young man termed Ruth’s Random Rules. One such rule is that when anyone sneezes, everyone is to say “God bless you.” Don’t believe in God? Okay, say “Gesundheit.” Or “Salud.” Even, “I acknowledge that you have sneezed and you are in the same general vicinity as I am; now I shall go back to ignoring you.” Whatever you have to say — but in this home, young men, we shall be civilized.

Another one was that the boys were required to take our dog into the yard every hour on the hour. They thought they were doing me a favor and doing a nice thing for Sheena, which is true. But they were also getting exercise. I wanted to codify it so they had an excuse to take a break from the video game, a real reason to get out into the yard on a sunny summer day.

If you do your best and treat others with kindness every day, those small moments accumulate into a big bunch of blessings.

Resolve the Energy

Faithful readers of our humble bloggie know that I lost my pet partner, KitKat, recently, so forgive me as I ramble on with stories about him for the next few posts. He meant so much to me and my son, and I realized today he was not just a cat. He was a counselor.

My son has dealt with exhaustion due to a medical condition his whole life. It’s affected his quality of life immensely, and, as a mother, it’s pained me that I can’t fix it for him.

One morning, I couldn’t wake up Cole, so I cried for a moment in the kitchen. My cat came into the room. “I don’t know how to help him. He’s not sleeping well or feeling good. I don’t know how to help him live well,” I said to my cat as if he understood.

KitKat came over to me, bumped against my leg and stayed there, waiting.

Pet me, he was saying. You feel good when you pet me. So if you feel good, you’ll be in a better mood. Let go of what you can’t solve now.

Still tightly clenched, I went over to the couch in the living room and he came to sit near me. As I patted his furry head, he purred. The tension was dissipating, and even though I still didn’t have a solution to this fatigue that never went away, I felt my shoulders start to relax.

You can’t reach out and grab hold of life with your hands clenched. Even if you’ve been running in circles for the whole week, find a way to have a day of rest. Lay your burden down and be at peace. If you can’t solve the problem, resolve the energy. You’ll find that things will look brighter tomorrow.