Month: December 2018

The Year Of Me

In retrospect, I think I would have to declare 2018 to be the Year of Terri.  I know it is more than a bit self-absorbed, but I’m afraid that is sort of the nature of this blog.  After all, isn’t it found at www.terrilabonte.com?  The website address should give it away.  Surely, you must be used to reading my endless angsting over the trials and tribulations of my life by now? 

What makes this blog post different is that I am actually celebrating something about my life this time.  In 2018, I gave myself permission to make things all about me.  I have to say I am quite pleased with the results. 

Everyone always tells you that you need to take care of yourself, especially when you are going through a rough time or are immersed in caring for someone else.  They tell you that it will help you be a better caretaker.  They tell you it will refresh you for whatever difficulties you must bear.  They tell you that you deserve it. 

While I understand the benefits of taking care of oneself, I always seem to have practical reasons for not actually doing it. Time is a finite quality and life sometimes seems to have a way of using up that finite quality on more pressing matters than me. 

There is also a stronger, more sinister, and uglier reason for not taking care of myself.  It isn’t that I’m a saint.  I’m not that selfless person who is so committed to the welfare of others that she doesn’t even want to take the time and energy to do something for herself.  It is quite the reverse.  I really, really like to do things to make myself happy.  In fact, the dirty little secret about why I avoid taking care of myself is that I am afraid it would be all too easy for me to slide down that slippery slope of selfishness and become one of those horrible, self-involved, spoiled people who lives for their own perceived entitlements.  I cringe at the thought of that happening to me.  I honestly don’t think I could live with myself if I allowed me to be as selfish as I think I am probably inclined to be. 

When my mother was ill, I was doubly afraid that doing anything for myself would drive me right over the precipice of selfishness.  It was often so hard to be with her and watch her decline, I knew it was taking all my discipline and archived love to journey with her.  I was afraid that, if I stopped for a second, I would never have the strength to be able to start again.

After a year of listening to everyone telling me that I needed to take time off and take care of myself, I finally decided to try living a little differently after my mother’s death.  I decided to give myself some time to indulge my selfishness… to do things I wanted to do, buy things I wanted to buy, behave as I wanted to behave.  To guard against my fear of transforming into an intolerable, worthless human being, I gave myself a deadline of a year. At the end of the year, I vowed, I would make a concerted effort to rejoin the world community and become a better, holier person. 

Then the miracle happened.  I didn’t need to make a concerted effort.

In 2018, I converted to the Episcopal Church.  I went to California on my own to scatter my mom’s ashes and see loved ones. I continued writing my blog.  I published my book.  I hosted three parties, including cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I joined Facebook.   I participated in several fun activities around my community.  I bought two sets of Lennox flatware just because I wanted them.   I took a trip to Texas to see a dear friend of mine from Hawaii who was working there.  I’ve ordered a number of purchases from QVC that weren’t hugely expensive but were more than I would usually spend for such items. I went to Discovery Cove, my “once in a lifetime” experience, for the second time. I spent ten beautiful autumn days in New England.  I got tinkified at Disney World.  I bought a $100 fake fur coverlet because I’d always wanted a good quality faux snow leopard blanket.  These are just the indulgences that I can recall right off the bat.

You can see I had a rather madcap year of pleasing myself.  It is exactly the kind of thing I feared would turn me into a ranting, self-serving, horrible megalomaniac.  It didn’t.

It turns out that “they” are right when they say taking care of yourself helps you do a better job of taking care of others.  Nearly all of these activities that I thought were so selfish actually opened the door to me being a much better, more connected, more empathetic, and more effectual person.  They also, strangely enough, strengthened my Christian walk.

In converting to the Episcopal Church, I really thought I was doing it because I wanted to feel more alive in my faith.  I wanted a livelier faith experience and a stronger feeling of God’s presence in my life.  When I read that now, I can see that my motivations were initially pretty me-oriented.  I wasn’t thinking about how I could serve God and His family better.  I was thinking about how I wanted to feel. 

Despite this initial motivation, my walk towards conversion led me to a much deeper, more intimate, and more service-minded connection with God and His people.  By allowing myself to go down this path in the way I did, I allowed God to bless me with an extra helping of grace.  Also, it opened my heart to becoming involved in ministries.  Without having to “discipline” myself to volunteer after my year of self-indulgence, I organically began to participate.  I deliver meals to the homebound.  I presented a discussion program at a women’s group meeting.  I am slated to help launch a faith enrichment program at my church in 2019. 

Joining more activities in my community has also led me to projects to help others.  One of my new activities raises money for books to support a local early learning and literacy center. 

My walk into the Episcopal Church and joining more activities in my community also helped me be a more secure, comfortable person.  That may sound, again, like a benefit to me.  It was, but it also helped open that closed door inside me that keeps me from doing things that I am naturally inclined to do.  I think I am a fairly empathetic, thoughtful person. However, in the past, I often didn’t act on those feelings for fear of being intrusive or being rejected.  In my new, self-centered persona, I am more able to reach out to others and let them feel my heart. Writing and publishing my book has also helped me grow in that way.

Facebook helped me connect with old and new friends.  I have also been able to use Facebook to reinvigorate my Thankful Thursday project from my working days.  By sowing thankfulness each Thursday on the Facebook field, I think I am brightening life a little tiny bit.  I am also able to spread the love of God in that endeavor.  The whole project seems to be getting a little traction, so maybe the internet winds are blowing the thankful seeds further than I realize. 

In pursuing my fun, friends, and travel activities, I find I am regaining some of the spirit that was always me before sadness quelled it.  I feel better and, as a result, I am a better companion for everyone who loves me.  I love better and, therefore, I am easier to love.

Yes, 2018 was the Year of Terri.  I am hoping 2019 is, as well!

What will you do to make 2019 the year of you? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Happy New Year! Thank you for reading!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

PS Why not start the new year right by ordering a copy of my book, Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement? If you enjoy the blog, you will like the book! It is available in paperback and electronic versions. You can get it at : https://secure.mybookorders.com/orderpage/2076. Use the promo code terri for a 15% discount. You can also order a copy at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but the discount code will not apply.

Second Christmas

I woke up this morning with a heart so heavy it felt like it was dangling lethargically somewhere in the vicinity of my left kidney.

Everyone says that the first year after losing a loved one is the hardest. I can certainly understand that. All through the tail end of 2017 and 2018, the “firsts” bombarded me. I experienced my first birthday without my mother. I experienced my first Christmas holiday season without my mother. I experienced my first Mother’s Day without my mother. I experienced August 22, which was my mother’s birthday, for the first time without her. I experienced the first anniversary of her death.

In addition, there were many challenging activities related to her death that I had to plow my way through in that first year. I told friends and relatives of her passing. I arranged for her cremation. I packed up her personal items from the nursing facility. I scattered her ashes. I applied for life insurance proceeds. I closed out her affairs.

Now that I am in the second year of orphanhood, I expected life to get a little easier to bear. For the most part, I think it has. It has been a year filled with a certain harshness that has been hard to overlook. On the other hand, it has been a year of great satisfaction in some ways. I’ll be writing more about that next week.

However, the Christmas season this year has been much harder on my psyche than I thought it would be. At first, the sadness surprised me, but I came to realize it makes perfect sense.

Last Christmas, I expected to miss my mother bitterly. I knew I would feel bereft and broken. In a world where most people love Christmas, my mother was a uniquely committed Yule-a-phile. She never met a Christmas decoration she didn’t like. She purchased truckloads of presents. She gathered her family to her heart like toys in Santa’s sleigh and draped us with holly. She let her wacky side run wild, embracing oddball traditions and creating serendipitous surprises.

People who know me would say that description sounds a lot like me. Trust me, the angel doesn’t fall far from the Christmas tree. I am only a faded carbon copy of my mother and her addiction to all things ho-ho-holiday.

Strangely, I floated through the holiday season last year without unbearable pain. There certainly were times when I was sad, but, for the most part, I managed well. I was easy on myself, anticipated moments of grief, and allowed my Christmas season to be gentler and more peaceful than usual. I cocooned myself in the warmth of that gentleness and enjoyed that kind of Christmas. It wasn’t that I tried to avoid celebrating Christmas because the whole holiday thing reminded me too much of my loss. I just settled into enjoying simplicity and doing whatever felt appealing in the moment.

Last year, my mother’s death was still so fresh. I felt shell shocked. I was processing my grief through a veil of relief that my mother wasn’t suffering anymore and that the job of accompanying her as she died little by little was finally done. I think my psyche was more wrapped up in the close of that painful chapter than in the close of the entire book of my mother’s life. I was so glad to turn the page that I didn’t fully experience the sinister finality of slamming of the book’s cover.

This year, the finality of the loss has had time to resurface in my brain. I am no longer as vague and relieved as I was last year. I just miss my mom being with me and doing the things we used to do. As a result, this holiday season has felt much sadder. And I think that is a good thing.

One of my biggest fears when my mother was ill was that all the difficult times and suffering were overlaying the lifetime of joyful memories I had with my mother. I felt like I was not only losing my mother in death, but that I was losing who she had always been in life because I could no longer fully experience the joyful memories. If you’d like to read more about that fear, you can visit my blog post I Miss My Momma. You can access that post by clicking this link:

I Miss My Momma

I think my sadness in this holiday season has to do with the joyful memories returning to take their rightful place in my mind and heart. You can’t miss what you don’t know, right? I think the fact that I am sad that my mother isn’t here to “do Christmas” with me means that I am remembering and cherishing the times we had when we were together. I’m okay with that. There is nothing that can change the fact that my mother died. There is nothing that can change the fact that most everyone will go through the death of one or more parents in their life. There is nothing that can change the fact that it is sad when we miss the people we love. Since there is nothing we can do to change any of that, I’d much rather be sad sometimes than forgo the joy of remembering and re-experiencing the happy times!

To all of you are experiencing loss this Christmas, may you be blessed with peace, hope, and joy.  That is what Christmas really means.  In a Christian perspective, it is about the beginning of our redemption by Jesus.  In a secular perspective, it is about allowing the warmth and love of this world to fill your heart and comfort you.  Please allow my warmth and love for you travel through cyberspace to fill your heart and comfort you.

 

Terri/Dorry 🙂

 

 

Always Always Land

Many of you probably remember my dilemma over whether or not I should give myself permission to run headlong into my second childhood and get bippity-boppetied. Everyone who knows me was kind of dumbfounded that I would even hesitate over this opportunity. It was a bit surprising, even to me.

The night before my date with the pixie duster, I got a text from a friend asking if I was excited. I responded that I was, but, to be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt. I was happy and looking forward to it, but I don’t know that I could really say I was excited or enthusiastic or anything like that. In fact, I had a kind of flat feeling about the whole thing. There was something blocking me from completely letting go and getting giddy.

It took me awhile to realize what it was. My mom should have been there with me.

My parents called me Tinker Bell from the time I was born. My mother called me by that pet name my whole life. It was a special thing between us. We enjoyed a lot of great experiences together. Many of the adventures we had after moving to Florida involved trips to Disney. I pushed her around Epcot on a regular basis. She especially enjoyed the flower and garden festival. One of my all-time favorite memories of her was when I took her to see the Osborne Christmas light show at Disney Hollywood Studios. We were so happy that night. We visited Tinker Bell together in the Magic Kingdom and I have the photo to prove it.

It just seemed to me that, if I was going to go get tinkified, it didn’t make any sense that my mom wouldn’t get to share the experience. I realized that my hesitation about the experience had never been about spending the money or looking silly. It was really all about not quite knowing how to revel in this specific experience without my mother.

After I had this epiphany, I consciously decided my mother would have loved that I was being tinkified and she would want me to enjoy it for both of us. I decided to throw myself into the experience, whatever it ended up being. I would feel whatever feelings came up and I would just let the day unfold however it was going to unfold. I wasn’t going to try to form any expectations or manage the process. I was just going to live it. I was going to be excited.

I did make a couple of preparations. For one thing, I had two very dear friends accompanying me. I called them my “pixie posse.” They volunteered to come along and observe while I was still deliberating about whether or not to do it, long before I realized why I was so hesitant. They wanted to come with me to enjoy the day and to support me. I’m sure they were thinking it would be a fun outing for all of us. On the day of the tinkifying, I leaned into their love instead of wallowing over the loved one that was missing. I also wore my “mom” ring. Right after my mom died, I bought a silver and diamond ring sculpted into a heart formed by two angel wings. I wear it when I am going somewhere or doing something that I think my mother would especially enjoy or when I really, really want to feel her close to me. I knew my tinkifying trip was going to be just such an experience. I was documenting this whole experience on Facebook, so I posted a picture of the ring with an explanation of its meaning.

The day turned out to be wonderful. I did feel waves of momma sadness often during the day, but I’ve learned that sadness and pain don’t have to be the same thing. These waves didn’t hurt. I just surfed them when they crested and rode them to the shore. Then, I paddled myself back out into the happiness. For the most part, I spent the day feeling joyful, playful, free, giddy, and excited. I was Tinker Bell. I was rocking the Pixie Hollow world. When I saw the pictures, I felt pretty for the first time in my life. Not just pretty for me, but pretty… full stop. Momma would have loved it. It occurred to me that this is the way my mother saw me every time she looked at me.

When my brother read my Facebook post about the “mom” ring, he replied that I should keep the ring on always because my mother loved doing stuff with me. He also reminded me that Momma is with me all the time, in everything I do. I believe he is right. She was with me at the pixie dusting and she is with me in Always Always Land.

What have you done to make sense of living when a person you love has died?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  

Have a thoughtful day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

P.S. I’m sending an extra special portion of love to those of you who might be having a difficult time facing the holidays with loss weighing on your heart.  It is hard, I know.  As a friend of mine tells me, it is important to learn how to be happy and sad at the same time.  I wish and pray for your happiness to find a place in your heart.

Shopping Season

I’ve been shopping. Imagine that. And it isn’t just Christmas shopping, either.

In addition to the other pratfalls in my keystone cop tour of New England, I seem to have lost about 30% of the wardrobe I brought on the trip.  It went missing somewhere between Maine and Massachusetts.  I am sure the jeans, three blouses, two bras, and one sock are enjoying their extended vacation in one of the many lovely inns we frequented in our travels.

I think it was probably all that moving from one hotel to another practically every day.  Despite my best intentions and organization techniques, it doesn’t surprise me that some of my clothes did not find their way back into suitcases.  As I pointed out in my blog on October 17th (http://www.terrilabonte.com/2018/10/twenty-two-and-a-half-winks/), I am not a great sleeper.  Max is an even worse sleeper.  We are both even more inept at it when we are on vacation.  Neither one of us slept much ‘during our New England trip.  Nearly every morning, we had to pry ourselves out of bed in the wee hours to get ourselves and our luggage ready to board the bus.  This meant functioning (or disfunctioning) on about four-and-a-quarter winks on a pretty regular basis.  In my sleep deprived and harried state, I am sure that some clothes that I intended to transfer from my overnight bag to a laundry bag in my suitcase just decided to stay in bed.

I am not going to dignify the disappearance of the single sock with a comment.   Heaven knows, I lose single socks regularly in my own clothes dryer at home.  The fact that I lost one in New England barely ripples my radar.

The other missing articles of clothing are a bit more significant.  The loss was a bit disconcerting, but the up side was that I had an entirely acceptable excuse to go shopping. Replacing the bras was not a huge problem.  It was pretty easy to walk into one store and simply buy the same size, style, and brand I lost.  The jeans were tougher.  The missing jeans were not new or particularly expensive, but they fit really, really well.  I am mourning that loss a little.  Sure, I could walk into any department store and buy more jeans, but finding a pair of jeans that actually fits my bizarrely shaped backside is rather like hunting the elusive unicorn.  I have learned that I cannot really hunt for a pair of jeans like that.  I must be patient and wait for the jeans to find me.

I have been out shopping several times, maintaining the fiction that I am only trying to replace the three blouses that got lost on vacation. However, I find myself running into the same problem again and again.   As I roam the department stores, my eyes keep lighting on true autumn clothes.  I keep pulling sweaters, jackets, and corduroys off the racks.  As I view myself, in the safety of an air-conditioned fitting room, draped in cool weather weight fabrics in fall foliage colors, I have a hard time not purchasing those garments.

It must be a conspiracy.  It is freakin’ Florida. There is no autumn.  Why do they even display such items?  Probably because I am not the only one who hauls out the cozy the instant the mercury drops below 90 degrees.  I have lived in Florida almost four years.  You’d think I’d learn my lesson. Florida may be in the same time zone as the Northeast, but it is certainly not in the same clothing zone. Yes, it may get cool enough to don a sweater for an hour or even a day, but the weather is just teasing.  By the next day, the mere thought of wool will be enough to send my sweat glands into overdrive.  I have numerous articles of clothing in my closet that I have worn only once or twice because the climate in Florida just won’t cooperate.  Just because I am no longer sweating while actually in the shower does not mean it is sweater weather.  By the time we have our eight days or so of winter and it is chilly enough to justify something heavier than a t-shirt, it is usually January or February.  By then, autumnal-colored clothing doesn’t seem quite right either. 

At least, before I went on vacation, I could tell myself that I could at least wear those seductively cuddly clothes in New England.  Now that some of those clothes apparently decided it was too hot to return to Florida, I truly have no excuse to buy a rust-colored corduroy skirt and three sweaters.  Yet, I did.

Heavy sigh.  Please, somebody stop me before I buy yet another article of clothing that it will never be cool enough to wear.  I clearly have a problem.

What do you feel compelled to buy that just isn’t practical for your lifestyle?  How do you resist these urges?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  

Have a warm and cozy day!

Terri/Dorry

Extra, extra… read all about it!!!  My book, Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement  is a suitable gift for all occasions.  Besides being entertaining and informative, it is rectangular and easy to wrap! Perhaps you would like to visit https://secure.mybookorders.com/orderpage/2076 and order a copy or several.  If you use the promo code terri , you will get a 15% discount.  You can also order at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com, but the promo code will not apply.