LifePundit

You Have to Pay to Live

Paul has been bugging me to attend Sandler's Goals 2008 workshop, which was this morning. One of the problems with being a freelance writer and working at home is that your work expands to fill all your hours. When you add having aging parents who need visiting, if nothing else, and a child who needs picking up from school and getting driven to lessons, etc., pretty soon there's no time for fun.

I've sort of forgotten what I do to have fun. I think my idea of having fun is to not have anything on my to-do list. Actually, blogging is fun, but it could probably be filed under procrastination, though I am making a little money and intend to make more so let's call it "work that's fun." (Nice!)

Sandler sent a pre-workshop work sheet for me to fill out. You must understand that I have been through three different household dismantlements in the last couple of years as relatives have died or moved into facilities. That's three households worth of stuff that's needed to be sorted through, divided up and given a home. Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

So, when I came to the question on the worksheet that said, "If you found out you only had six months to live, what would you do?" my answer was:

1. Get rid of all my stuff so nobody else would have to;
2. Talk to my good friends -- and to Lily -- about how she can turn to them if she needs a woman to talk to; and,
3. ...... maybe travel or do something fun. Just what is fun?

I clearly need to add some fun in my life. Paul said, "That's pathetic."

Paul is big on goals. And achievement. And rewards. "What you need to do," he said, "is come up with some goals, and when you accomplish them, you get a reward. Like, if I make my sales goals, we'll go to France this summer."

(Forget the part where he didn't ask me where I'd like to go, but that's okay. He used to live in France and hasn't been back in decades, so he's due for a trip and fine, we'll suffer and go to France with you.)

But I'm getting off track. He makes his goal, we go to France.

I like this idea. He asked me what my rewards might be. I'm getting excited. "If I accomplish X," I said, "Then I'll get to buy that little (cheap) TV table I've been looking at. And if I get on a roll and have productive week after week, I might just have a regular Friday afternoon massage."

Paul's face clouds over. "What's the matter?" I ask.

"All those cost money."

And going to France doesn't?

A friend of mines father used to have an expression that is absolutely true: "You have to pay to live." I believe it. Paul doesn't.

We went to the goal's workshop and I did not die. I have my little goals page here all written up and sitting next to my computer. Number 6 is to keep blogging (and make more money, since I have to pay to live). Number 8 is to remember to do one fun thing, just for me, once a week. And number 10 is that I get rewards when I accomplish my goals. I'm not sure that doing Number 8, doing a fun thing, is a goal that justifies a reward in that it is self-rewarding. But all the rest do!

As do the major mini-goals that I'll have to meet in order to achieve the bigger goals.

Do good stuff. Get rewards. Have more fun. 2008 is looking good.

Trazodone is Not My Friend

I have trouble sleeping. My doctor subscribed a new drug for me yesterday, an old standby called "Trazodone." It's cheap and works great.

Unless you are in that small percentage of people for whom it creates nervousness, restlessness, insomnia, tachycardia and terror in the middle of the night.

That's me. I am undone today. Which way is up? Which way is down? The doctor said not to take it any more, and not to give it to my husband because it can cause priapus in men, which is a medical, surgical emergency, though my husband thought it was actually a good idea.

The only reason I'm writing about this is because I just wrote a paid post for Smellshorsey, and it turns out that I haven't submitted Smellshorsey for accepting paid posts, so I'm going to put that post over here since I already wrote it. My apologies.

I had to have one unpaid post between my last one and the next one, so this is it. My apologies again.

Hope you have a good night's sleep.

The Gift of Today

I'm taking a wonderful on-line course on "Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors" through WritersU, a Yahoo group. My expectations were low but this course is just what I need right now and I'm very, very glad I signed up.

One of the things Margie Lawson, the instructor, is teaching is to start out each day with positive thinking and to write down five good things about today for every today you are given.

This morning's things were heartfelt but kind of generic:

1. My family is healthy (this is no small thing -- I've learned of three other people being diagnosed with cancer in the last week);
2. I have work to do (a mixed blessing because I'd rather be working on my novel or blogging, but it's good that the world has a need for my skills and that I can earn money with them);
3. I got to take an early morning three-mile walk with a dear friend I don't see nearly enough of;
4. I believe I'm going to defeat my self-defeating behaviors, and this is exciting (procrastination, poor time management, biting off more than I can chew and not understanding why I choke), and,
5. The cold snap is over and it's going to be gorgeous and in the 70s today.

Before I met my friend for our walk, I stopped by an all-night grocery store to pick up roses and a birthday card for her, because yesterday was her birthday. When I was checking out, I was chatting with the cashier (I'm friendly -- probably too friendly because I don't get out much so I'm glad to see a human even if I'm paying them for the conversation) when a maintenance man from the city came over to bring the cashier an orange he picked on his trip to Florida over the weekend. They were small and scruffy looking -- home grown. He said they are wonderful, and I believe him. He is black. I am white. Times have thankfully changed.

And this stranger, who didn't have but about six oranges, insisted that I take one, too. I was touched by his generosity. It's tempting not to eat it, to let it sit in the fruit bowl on the table as a reminder of the kindness of strangers.

But that would be wrong. He gave it to me to eat. And I will eat it, almost like a kind of communion.

I should end the post there, on this blessing and mystery. But I came home to another mystery.

I welcome the unusual, but I'm not sure of what I think about my neighbor's black lab being tied to my fence. Who tied him there? Are they coming back for him? Do they think he's mine? Is it my neighbor's black lab, or one of the zillion around and somebody left him for me? And why oh why has he got a friend? Because if one black lab tied to your fence isn't enough, there's a second one hanging around. Both males. Neither neutered.

He is safe for now. I'll take him water if his owner doesn't turn up soon. One of the things I'm thankful for about today is that I don't own a black lab -- and I'd like to keep it that way.

Christmas Resolutions

I feel the dread of Christmas future. Christmas 2007. If I'm going to survive, I need to make some Christmas Resolutions.

We all know about New Year's Resolutions. We don't think about Christmas Resolutions. I think if we made Christmas Resolutions, we'd have a lot easier time come New Year's.

For one thing, we'd have fewer pounds to lose and fewer money troubles.

I realized the other night that I wish that I could just skip Christmas. It used to be my most joyous time of the year. Now I fake it for Lily's sake. I need to rediscover the joy of Christmas, because the celebration of my Savior's birth ought not to be something I dread.

This isn't going to be an essay about what's gone wrong with Christmas. There are things that can't be helped -- such as my parents' sad state of health or the pain of my mother-in-law's demands and manipulations (Boundaries, boundaries). But there are things that can be helped -- such as my attitude and my ability to say "yes" or "no."

I'm sure you have your own list of how you'd like Christmas to be different. Guess what! It can be. It's a decision you're allowed to make.

So I'm going to write down my Christmas Resolutions and carry them with me. I'm going to re-read them before I go into a store or any other stressful situation. (Yes, I find Christmas shopping stressful.) Why don't you do the same?

Here's my start:

1. Hallelujah! Jesus is born. You don't need to buy a thing.
2. Who are you trying to please? Remember that while Martha was busy cooking and fussing over the meal, Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet, enjoying the presence of her Lord. Be Mary, not Martha.
3. Food is available all year round. You can probably go to a Christmas party and have about three special things and be just as happy as if you ate the whole round of melted Brie with yummy stuff on top. Eat something healthy before you go to parties so that you won't be hungry and out of control. Find ways to celebrate other than food and drink. Like smiling and listening to carols and catching up with friends.
4. Cook everybody's favorite food for Christmas dinner. If it doesn't look like Martha Stewart's table, that's fine. Spaghetti goes fine with lobster and lobster goes fine with sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Honest.
5. Give what you can to the people who need it. I think I'll find an angel tree and buy some gifts for children of prisoners.
6. Don't spend more than you can, but don't be a scrooge. Have fun picking out toys for the children in your life. If you get lost and realize you're veering into buying some junky toy because you don't know what to do, get a gift certificate. Personal gifts are better but not worth going crazy over.
7. Send cards to friends you seldom see. It's a good time to stay in touch. If I see you on a semi-regular basis, don't look for a card from me.
8. Lower your expectations for yourself and everybody else.
9. Put on Christmas carols, get out the hot chocolate and have a fun time with your family decorating the house. This is not a contest. Do as much or as little as you want. Take pictures and look at old albums.
10. Go to church every Sunday. Keep focused on the reason.
11. Do something special for people who are alone or have suffered a loss in the past year.
    
12. Catch your child's cheer and spread it to your spouse.
13. If you have difficult people forced on you, welcome them but don't let them disturb your peace and joy. Deflect, set boundaries and take a walk if you need to. In fact, it is a possibility that extremely difficult people can celebrate elsewhere. If you're not going to make them happy and they contribute nothing (or worse) to the household's joy, what's the point? Remember that that is always an option. Being a Christian does not mean you are a doormat. Especially if you've been a doormat for a long, long, long time and you are still not pleasing them and they are still not contributing joy.

I'm sorry about that last one. I'm going to think and pray on that some more, and if Paul really wants to have these people, we'll have them. Playing Christmas carols really loudly ought to solve a lot of the problems. The dog may need a lot of walking, too. That really is okay. It's not up to me to make unhappy people happy. In fact, I don't have the ability. I may just leave and go to the nursing home and be with people I really can make happy. Truly, deeply happy. Just by showing up with a smile.

This list is off the top of my head. What's on your list? I'll bet you have ideas I can use.

I Would Go Crazy but I Don't Have the Time

Life is giving me whiplash this week. I received word that Mama has quit eating (typical of the end stages of Alzheimer's) and they're bringing in hospice. That same day, I had to give lessons to someone young and wonderful on how to use feminine products that require the ability to aim. If you have to ask, just forget about it.

Today I had to take Lily to the dermatologist for microdermabrasion. I sure hope it helps. They keep putting her on stronger and stronger medicine. Acne is expensive! Her beautiful face is looking better and she is encouraged.

I did get a mid-day lift: a voicemail from Paul telling me how much he's looking forward to spending the weekend with me.

I talked to my father, who is back in assisted living but mad because he's lost his cell phone, they haven't delivered his oxygen, and why haven't I gone to his garden to pick the curly mustard and the turnips, which will ruin soon?

When I got home, I had two voicemail messages from my MIL. The first was an offer to take care of Lily when my father dies. (!!!) It was all about my father in the past tense, and it was well-intentioned, bless her heart. Then there was the second message from my MIL saying she was sorry, she had the wrong decrepit parent, but that the same things apply when my mother dies since my MIL misunderstood who was doing the dying this week. (Her language was much more euphemistic but that's what it meant. And I do give her credit for offering to help, though generally her help involves a lot of "isn't this just awful for you?" statements.)

By the way, I'm not expecting anybody to pass away anytime soon. They just continue to decline slowly, and some days it feels like I'm going with them.

I've been exercising more (great for stress) and my feet hurt this morning. (I have formerly broken foot bone and plantar fasciatis, so I have to take good care of my feet.) That means I've worn my shoes out, even though they look fine, so I got a new pair. Wonderful, cushy million-dollar things that feel like I've got clouds on my feet.

Speaking of clouds, on the way home from school Lily told me how much my mother is going to enjoy seeing her family (the deceased ones) and all of Mama's dead pets when she gets to heaven. Lily said, "Grandma will have figured out all the fun things to do by the time you get to heaven, so you will have a whole lot of fun when she shows you. And then you can show me when I get there."

Christ-Haunted Landscape

A smellshorsey reader asked how I reach for God (or remember to reach for God) in all the busy-ness of life. I'm not really qualified to answer this question, because I do such a poor job of it.

There are a few things I have going for me. I live in the Southern U.S., which Flannery O'Connor called a "Christ-haunted landscape," and it is. This is the Bible Belt. You can believe in God in public here, and nobody will think the less of you. In fact, some folks use that public display of Christianess to enhance their standing. There's a fine line between letting people know you are Christian and using that little fish symbol to try to drum up business by snaring other Christians.

When I lived in Philadelphia years ago I was surprised at the absence of Christians -- even in the pews at church. I had a Catholic friend who was faithful and several practicing Jewish friends. I knew one passionate Christian who was Korean, and that was about it.

Since then, I became acquainted with a priest (not sure that's the term) who switched from the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Mission of Rwanda in America and is now a missionary in Connecticut. He said that he would rather be a missionary in Africa than Connecticut. Americans have so much stuff and so many distractions we don't need God. Remember the fruit on the tree in the Garden of Eden? We have so much low-hanging fruit now that we aren't even hungry for God.

Where I live now (the South) the world is peopled with extraordinary, quiet Christians. I wish I didn't have an anonymity policy here on my blog, because I would love to name names. You can't get to know these people (I'm talking about you, Tara, for one) without feeling the power of God at work in a life. And these aren't stuffy, no-fun people. These are people whose lives are lived so large that others flock to them for the passion and the laughter. Nothing dims their faith, not cancer or other trials.

On the other hand, it's not God that I seek. It's Santa. I want the God who grants wishes and gives toys. I wish I could believe in a prosperity gospel, where if I just give away a little bit and pray a certain way, I will prosper like Donald Trump. (Is that how he did it? What are these prosperity-gospel Christians thinking?) It would be nice to find a way to manipulate God, to make myself God. I would do things so very differently.

If God's not going to do what I want, then what? I wonder if I'm ever going to grow past this little sticking point in my faith. C. S. Lewis said that God is good, but he isn't safe.

I want a safe God. That's not who Yahweh is. He is good, but he isn't safe.

This struggle put me in the hospital. I wasn't going to tell that here. One doctor said I was in hormonal chaos, which is probably true. Others thought it might be my heart, but that checked out, even if it was running at 144 bpm at rest. So they sent in a shrink. (By the way, God's hands were all over this. I was carried by Christians when I could no longer walk myself.) The shrink asked me what was going on with me. I said, "I don't trust God anymore."

And I didn't. Why should I? I had all kinds of troubles. All kinds of situations where I couldn't see a way out or a happy ending. My Santa God had failed me. What was next? John the Baptist sent word to Jesus from his jail cell, "Is it you, or are we waiting for another?"

That's where I was. In jail, wondering how I had gotten it all so wrong. I was mad at the God I had, and knew there was no other.

My niece brought me a pen and a journal to my hospital bed. So I wrote and wrote. I told God what he was doing wrong and how very angry I was about all this. One thing I have going for me is that I have always talked to God honestly. I had been unable to sleep for days. (Hard to do with your heart racing so fast and so loudly.) And I heard a real voice in my left ear, and answer to all my rantings, ravings and anger. "Just rest, child, and it will be easy." (Those words are now my screensaver.)

I didn't believe this any more than you do. But I couldn't deny that I had heard it. The very fact of hearing a voice in your left ear is enough to put rest very, very far away, as what I needed to do at this point was run around the hospital and say, "Did you hear that voice?" But I didn't want to end up in the crazy ward, so I quizzed God some more in my journal -- and then sought rest.

My cardiologist was a friend and Christian who helped me give my heart rest. He told me it would be a long, hard slog, and it was and is. I wish I could say it all happened on faith and prayer, but God used other tools as well. I will probably be on Zoloft the rest of my life. I hope my honesty here will help others, because this certainly isn't the sort of thing you want to put on the World Wide Web. Yoo hoo! My meds are just right today.

That experience was a turning point for me. I had to quit looking for the Santa God and seek Yahweh. And I found out he was reaching out for me.

Christian friends continued to carry me when I couldn't walk the path myself. I found great help in scripture (the little I knew) and in singing a few different kyrie. At night Lily and I would lie in bed together and recite Psalm 23, then sing two kyrie we'd heard in church. It brought peace and the sense of God's all-encompassing presence.

Friends gave me books. One that was particularly helpful was Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind. (When I later saw her on TV, I almost had a heart attack. The woman dresses like Liberace and is an acquired taste.) Joyce is a lot more fundamentalist than I am, but her writing helped me greatly. I sometimes watch her TV show (a little goes a long way) and find her inspiring and energizing. And funny. Funny is always good. (Where I get into a problem is when she starts talking about why she needs a bigger jet....)

Other friends did other things to help keep me afloat. And my husband held me every night, keeping me alive. Helping me to feel safe enough to let go, to give in to sleep.

Eventually I let get of my need to control God, though I still find the idea quite attractive. And I'm here to tell you that holding God accountable does not pay off. No future in that. God is God and you are not.

I try to continue my growth through daily devotionals and always being in bible studies with other Christians and seekers. I learn so much from others, and the fellowship and support give me a taste of the Kingdom of God.

I also pray a lot (when I remember). Nothing is too trivial to bring before the throne of God. If it is on your heart, he wants to hear about it. He wants you to seek him out.

In fact, he's searching for you.

I'm always reading. A friend sent me a powerful book, The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, that is changing the way I look at things. God is closer than I thought. God's as close as the air we breathe.

I praise God for all the gifts he has given me, including hard times that brought me closer to him.

All of this is inadequate, but I'm posting anyway. Better to give an answer that falls short than to give no answer at all.