Lord, Give Us Strength

 

 

Change is so difficult.  Yes, we have hard it a million times, but this is striking me, now, personally, in a huge way.  I used to multitask, used to be able to have a whole string of lists and thoughts n my head all at once.  Not any more.  I am being, somehow, whittled down, pared down to the core, and I cannot seem to string thoughts any more.  Any bit of change seems dramatic and full of “what ifs” and uncertainties. 

In our 20s, 30s, 40s, even 50s, we do not imagine what we are going to be needing to deal with in our 70s, 80s and 90s.  We never seem to give a thought to what kind of ‘courages’ we are going to need.  Yes, we have been warned about wrinkles, but we did not consider whole-body issues.  Physically; an unsteady gait, for instance; and aches in places we were not even aware of, and loss of fine motor controls and more loss of most important body organs:  intellectually; the real issue of “I can’t find where I put my_______” memory lapses:  Emotionally;  we lose our whole-body ability to adapt, to change, to accept surrender to all that our aging body demands; more people, in our life, die in their 60s and more in their 70s and we are rushing through our late 70s filled with negative wonder and loss of self-esteem and identity and, even, purpose:  Spiritually;  if we are, in deep reality, afraid of death because it has so many unknown, for sure, really, that, when it draws near the international lifespan age, we begin to want to KNOW, more assuredly, the what, when, where, how of it all because, suddenly, trite words and religiosity does not really comfort us.  In all of this, it takes courage to accept what is and find a way to deal with it.  Courage, I say, is what it takes as coming closer to it seems to accelerate and our ability to control the quadrants of our life extinguishes more and more every day.

We lose the ability to go out and window shop, never mind we are less able to go out for lunch with friends.  Either we or someone in our group cannot go because… because... they find it easier to just stay home.   We begin to become less mobile; we become less clear about even what danged day it is because every day begins to be the same; we cannot even have a normal conversation because our ‘normal’ (and everyone else’s) is all about our changes in being.  We spent way too much time thinking rather than doing.   

In our late 70s, it seems to me, that we are identified as “survivors” even as we walk in a more hunched over being, shuffling forward into more unknown every day.  That we have survived indicates that we have been resilient enough to go through life’s ever hard times and we, actually, need to be admired for such.  We are’ Recoverers’. 

Life, itself, is recovering from so many things in all four quadrants:  physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  We have navigated through our own personal ’dark nights of the soul’.  Life can offer up so many difficulties but so much joy.  We begin to define JOY in many ways.  One friends, on saying “good morning” instead says, “well, I woke up this morning, so I’m doing pretty good.”  We never thought that that would be a sense of joy. 

We never thought of how much we have to be more rigid in our patterns of iving so that, with short term memory starting to slip, we have to put things where we will find them.  The Bee Man has a table near him with all the things he might need throughout the day.  He asks me to keep his morning pills on the table where he eats breakfast.  We start to focus on keeping things ‘in their place’ and stricter routines. 

I need to keep some adventure in all of this.  I refuse to eat the same thing day after day or when going out for dinner.  I vary things I do during the day.  I begin to chat to strangers, to catch their eyes and smile, to listen to more people.  I do activities that nourish my brain and spirit with new and different activities.  I work on problem-solving because there can be a whole lot of necessity to solve problems that come up during a day. 

We stop competing with others and set up little competitions for ourselves.  We have to find a way to surrender to adaptability, to be as competent as we possibly can be.  We need to find ways to be of use to others.  We need to be seekers of adventures, no matter how small, in order to build our sense of self and identity and sense of esteem.  We re al here, right now, because we are supposed to be.  No matter the ‘frailing’ of our body, mind, heart and soul, we are exactly where we are meant to be.  We have made decisions and now we live with the consequences.  Finding joy in our ‘consequence; is huge.  It takes courage, dear hearts.  It takes courage! 

Let us, every morning, wake up, and take a big breath, give credit where credit is due, for being kept safe during the night, and focus on being our best and worth keeping us for this new day.

©Carol Desjarlais1.23.25

 

Seeking Peace Amidst Chaotic Episodes

 

 

I had a girlfriend who said the worst thing she ever experienced in our first 50 years, was that her family room fireplace smoked up the house…then… she lost her husband to cancer.  She was able to define “worst thing”.  I, on the other hand, had many “little worst things” comparison.  I never “lost” a husband, but I “left” a couple” and then became a legal widow a couple of years ago.  (We had not seen each other since 1986 but he refused a divorce and I, being Me, thought staying legally married would keep me from making a mistake again.)  My “little chaos’s” were divorce and walking away.  I had every reason, in my life, to be a crack addict or a serious alcoholic, because I had any of the problems in my life that true addicts and alcoholics gave as reasons for why they were what they were.  Lots of heartbreaks and heartaches in between.  The way I kept afloat was to put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on.  I am too old for this crap now though.  I do not resurface as easily.  Part of living on the edge is found n a quote I found, somewhere, “The only easy day was yesterday.”

This reminds me to remember that yesterday/the past was the past and nothing can change that.  Every new day is a new challenge, a new beginning, and worth putting your all into it.  THRIVE as best one can in every new day.  I put this word up on my bathroom mirror that reminds me.  To promise oneself to thrive takes courage… some days that courage is foremost, for sure.  I have to learn to let be what is.  I do this, very aware that, in a moment, the emotional environment can change at a moment’s notice. 

As I enter a new day, I have to not predict nor cause to happen, anything negative.  I have to prepare for a door to open and negativity come rushing in but not focus on it.  Simply prepare for it.  Prepare a positive ay to deal with sudden negative interruptions.  For instance, I know that there will be negativity but a doorway away and I have to learn to walk away so that negativity does not rise in me.  It feels rude.  It feels foreign because I am a welcoming person.  But I have to remember that I am taking care of me and face on negativity is not good for me.  Panic rises and I lose control of my own nervous system and move into panic mode.  Panic mode means that I do not handle negativity well.  So, when I feel it rise, I have to remember the courage to thrive and simply go in another room away from it.  Who would welcome in negativity?  To thrive, I must do what I must do and, preparing for it to happen and my reaction to such needs to be practiced.  After the first few times, it gets easier and less guilt-ridden. I have to remember how hard my whole body, mind, heart and soul reacts when it feels negativity’s potential to attack and by staying in the moment, I can take control of self.  Self is all I have.

Once I have walked away, I have to reframe my thoughts to focus on self-care rather than the moment that senses negativity.  I am not retaliating with negativity.  I am walking away, saying to self that I am working on selfcare.  It takes courage for me to do this.

I know, professionally, that one has to destress as soon as possible and do something that allows for immediate cool-down.  It is then that I will turn to my arting.  That is a place and space to let everything around me fade into some background as my heart and soul moves to express itself.  It does not mean that I paint or make something negative.  It means I turn to make the moments following panic into peace.  Self-talk is helpful.  I am proud of myself.  I am courageous.  I have done something positive with negativity that has come.  Then, sink into creatin’s compassionate activity.  As I de-stress, I feel the negativity peel off me and I can sense a type of victory over negative self.  That is huge. 

Another thing I am noticing is that, I am tending to withdraw (remember I used to post every day?) and become numb in a way.  I let a whole day slide by with little effort or purposeful activities.  I am having to force myself even to go out for dinner with my partner.  I notice that I am talking to him less and I seem to be a lost planet in this life of mine and with those I care about.  I am sort of skimming the surface of life.  I have not been baking, doing much painting, nothing but pure minimum of housecleaning.  That is so not me.  I have to get busy and DO.  I am timidly stepping out to do a couple of new activities with a group.  That is typically not me either.  But I am enjoying new activities with new people.  It, too is a way of skimming. 

If you know/notice someone who is “skimming”, realize that they cannot make themselves maintain contact.  It is time for those who love them to give them a call, invitation, something to draw them back into who they mean to be.  Do not take it personally.  It is not you; it is that they are delving into their Quiet for courage to simply keep going.  A couple of cheerleaders makes a huge difference.  I have those kinds of people.   They notice.  They give me the cheerleading I need to keep on keeping on as I gather up the flung bits of self that is necessary for me to thrive 

 ©Carol Desjarlais 1.18.25

 

Seeking Peace Amidst Chaotic Episodes

 

 

I had a girlfriend who said the worst thing she ever experienced in our first decades, was that her family room fireplace smoked up the house…then… she lost her husband to cancer.  She was able to define “worst thing”.  I, on the other hand, had many “little worst things” comparison.  I never “lost” a husband, but I “left” a couple and then became a legal widow a couple of years ago.  (We had not seen each other since 1986 but he refused a divorce and I, being Me, thought staying legally married would keep me from making a mistake again.)  My “little chaos’s” were divorce and walking away.  I had every reason, in my life, to be a crack addict or a serious alcoholic, because I had any of the problems in my life that true addicts and alcoholics gave as reasons for why they were what they were.   I have made it through to this age raw and real.

The older I get, the more serenity and peace I crave.  I have gleaned things that led me too feeling the chaos whether they hurt or not.  Many people, places and things have been set aside.  But, here I am again, deep in the throes of having to glean yet again.  All of us have our own personal definition of chaos in our lives.  My chaos is not your chaos; your chaos is not mine.

What I seek, in my elder age is liberation, self-imposed, from circumstances that cause us to feel bombarded.  When such moments appear, or threaten to appear, we have to simply walk through it.  Change, of course, is more difficult as we age, but change is what we walk through and towards.  I refuse to become bitter and more broken.  I am not a victim.  I am being given an opportunity to make better.  I am starting to find that living in the present moment helps, emotionally, so that the chaos I am in does not magnify.   

The act of letting life happen has an end goal...peace and happiness, relief.  Life has taught me that things end and things renew.  Outer chaos is going to happen and we cannot control that.  I can only control my reaction to it all.  In fact, the reality is, every one of us has issues with “controlling” self.  The example of getting our ducks in a row and there being a pigeon is more true that first thought.  I know that, sometimes, we cannot even find our ducks and sometimes it is best to let the little beggars go their own way.  Change is transformation and we, sometimes, need a new pond.

Elderhood means that we have learned lots of lessons and now we even have more lessons to learn.  Want, need becomes huge.  Sustaining the personal needs that we have come to find has changed, is okay and we are enough and it is enough.  Life is not easy.  It never was and never will be.  We come the other side of chaos knowing that we need to be grateful for the times when chaos does not drive us.  Life is personal development training, after all.  Over and over we read and are told to have compassion for ourselves, but we let compassion slide and we feel the chaos at extreme levels.  We hear, all the time, about healing, and yet we objectify it or put that responsibility on others to heal.  We should not compare ourselves to any others, but we should afford the positive aspects of compassionate healing from life for ourselves. 

It is imperative to acknowledge the problem for what it really is; that we are suffering in some way, and what that WAY is.  Then doing what is right, for us, to ease that suffering.  We can go back and discover the lessons from walking through the incidents of chaos of the past.  In doing this, we gain some courage to keep on keeping on.  We need to find ways to discover beauty where we forgot to look.  We have gotten through many incidents.  Our reactions to those incidents are where the ongoing problems may arise.  It is those reactions that we had that made the difference in healing from those things.  If we have not healed form earlier incidents, they raise their ugly heads in future incidents.  The crux of chaos is not the people, place, nor things… it is the growth and healing of changing our reactions.  This is tough for me, probably for you too.

I do art every day, when I am not stuck in the mire of chaos.  I have had to walk away from chaos-makers and that hurt, a great deal.  But my own peace and serenity has been compromised because I allowed such to stay in my life longer than should ever have been.  Walking away has never been way for me.  But walk I must because, if things do not change, I cannot remain.  It takes a huge amount of courage.  Sometimes I feel like I just cannot summon enough.  But, as I heal, it becomes easier.  I bypass the confusion and fog of uncertainty and I take one small step towards an ultimate goal of dying with peace and serenity in my life.

©Carol Desjarlais 16.01.25

The painting is done in my large art journal;  gouache and pen