ANYTHING GOOD IN ME, I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER

 

 

I am past 78 years old, and it has hit me.  I have many not-so-awesome qualities but I also have some awesome qualities.  Anything good in me, comes from the mother that raised me came from those 14 years I grew up in this community.

I have recently moved back to my hometown.  A small community; related to most by adoption, knowing who was safe and who was not, surrounded by Good, Good, people.  Every kid could be disciplined by any other mother.  We were kids raised to please others.  We grew up disliking confrontation.  We grew up giving and receiving service. We worried about each other.  We grew up more like family.   We knew a few whispered secrets but knew not to share what we might have overheard.  We, also knew, what we knew, everyone knew anyways. 

My mother taught school for 43 years.  She raised my brother and I on classical stories. She taught me to read by the time I was 5. (That was not common in those times).  She played classical music and had me tell the stories I heard in the music.   She showed, through modeling, how to cook Divinity, bread, lovely meals, setting a proper table, how to dress (she wore a dress every day of her life until she was 75 and joined an exercise group.  She used only lipstick; arch, arch, fill in bottom.  She curled her hair every day.  She was a woman of sacrifice.  She worked as a teacher to support her parents and family.  She married an older man in order to have children.  She lost a baby girl and adopted me, then had my younger brother 2 ½ years later.  She was an honorable woman, sad sometimes, and, as an older parent, had to have been so worn out bringing us two up.  Her life was one of total service.  I get that from her; the service, sacrificing, perfectionism, and a strong bond with children, whether they return it or not.  I cannot imagine babies close to 50 years of age. 

Before she died, she told me how proud she was of me.  That was a tremendous blessing in my life because I was a handful, believe me.  I was unlike her in so many ways, yet, I have retained some of her goodness. 

I am so grateful to have been brought up by her.  She maybe thought I would never be exactly as she wished, but I try, every day to be more like her and I actually see it as my children and grandchildren visit.  I sense her loving them through me. 

©Carol Desjarlais

 

Nesting: Enduring

 

I Got Something I gotta share with you:

Last year’s word was Courage.  Little did I know what that was going to mean…to take.  It was going to include many health issues.  It was going to include huge degrees of life changes, it was going to include remaking myself, resetting, reexamining, and learning how to be calm and peaceful and learning to live quietly with a great deal of grace.  It would include settling in.  I have been quiet, I know.  I dropped blogging, doing art, and was going to have months of sorting to get to a place of nesting. 

I spent Spring and Summer having test after test to figure out why I was having strange numbness come on the right side of my body.  It was as if my right side had gone to sleep, like a foot does betimes.  Heart showed a build-up of calcium.  But it did not cause the numbness.  My oxygen level was 81% at best. Several lung tests showed that I have scar tissue at the bottom lobes of both lungs...from previous pneumonia and covid.  It may or may not cause the numbness but it was not an absolute. More meds and the numb spells have diminished.  Then it was my knee and the next and the next until the bones caved in and pinched a nerve causing incredible vicious pain and leg spasms.  More drugs.  For now, things have settled.  I am tired of tests and treatments and I await a bunch of brain scans. 

Life handed me reasons to put on my big girl’s panties and make one of the hardest decisions I have had to make.  I was beaten down by drama, disrespect, and chaos of not ‘being with my tribe’.  No one stood beside me nor braced my back.  I had to move away and take care of me for once in my life.  Agism is a terrible thing in so many ways.  The years I have left, I have to allow myself to be more self-centered.  Even typing it sounds so nasty to me.  I am not a selfish or self-centered person.  It felt so cruel.  I knew I was abandoning my partner to his end years of being unattended to…to the wolves.    It took me months to finally make the decision, or basically go down in defeat in a battle that was eating me alive.  So much disrespect.   Dealing with others’ addictions.  I was burned out. I had done all I could do.  The weeks and months after I left, I had to simply let happen what would happen.  It felt so cold-hearted.    It still does.  I do not ask, any more how things are going.  I cannot help.  I cannot rescue.  I cannot solve his problems anymore as I have my own to deal with. 

I grapple with who I am when I am not in service of someone.  It has taken me months to try to sort it all out.  I am such a service-oriented personal.  I dedicate myself to and in someone and it is very difficult to withdraw that.  As I finished (ok, I may never get finished, but nonetheless) sorting out the bins and boxes and try to fit a house in an apartment, I began to feel the sense of needing to be in service of something.  I joined the dual-town library board.  It does not require much.   I help out with movie nights, plan to get involved in art activities, and go to a meeting once a month.  I gather up my art students and take them to the movie.  I have become a surrogate grandmother to several families and love the relationship of being “Big Bad Wolf” to a little neurodivergent boy.  (My maiden name was Woolf” and ShirRae has my honor gift of a Wolf hide, with head, on her upper stairwell, that he is enraptured with.)  He has always called me Big Bad Wolf because I played a pretend game of Big Bad Wolf outside in the yard;  hiding behind trees, wide-eyed, and thrilled with the adventure.  I am only doing what I can.  I will be teaching two main art classes in January, for larger groups.  I am beginning to paint again.  No need to go top speed and cram every moment full of ‘stuff’.

This year’s word is going to be ENDURE.  Not enduring as in being victimized. Enduring, as in gently accepting life that is vetted so that outside ‘stuff’ doesn’t come in.  Then simply dealing with myself.  Solo Aging, in a way, except I am cloistered, safely, in my daughter’s basement suite.  I have family support, and for the first time in decades, I am, where my kids gather.  Here, I can watch Bridgerton, for the fourth time, I can paint, I can create, simply, as I recreate myself.  I am taking care of business I have not thought to deal with.  I bought, “Oh Shit, I’m Dead, Now What?”, an end-of-life planner that includes finial wishes, final preparations, and a book that will help my kids figure out my details more easily:  A legacy of sorts.  I am becoming more resilient.  I am enjoying life more.  There is more joy, more laughter, more enduring love. 

And, so it goes.  I am happier than I have been in a long long time;  totally soulfully happy.  I intend to blog often.  I intend to try some new crafts and art.  Maybe I will even do flowers and environment.  I can, if I want.  I won’t if I do not.

Come, share this journey with me. 

©Carol Desjarlais 1.5.26