Things I take from my friends

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so I have been told. But there was certainly a time when someone being a copycat was annoying and far from flattering. As I have grown, and developed my own style and way of doing things, I have become more and more comfortable in taking the express train on so many decisions that friends have forged a path down first. Some are delightful examples and others, dire warnings, but regardless, I benefit from their experiences.

My beloved, and locally famous, super automatic cappuccino and latte maker…lifted from my oldest, dearest friend.

The giant bottles of shampoo and conditioner with a pump in my master bath…lifted from a dear friend I have been so fortunate to reconnect with after a period of time we lost touch.

Barbequing a chicken to get the taste of the grill and then finishing it inside a day or two later…taken from a friend who has a husband that struggles with ‘cooking outside’.

Folding a set of sheets neatly inside a pillowcase so all the pieces are there when needed….gosh, I don’t even remember, but I know that someone showed me, I did not create that approach.

The things I take from my friends are all highly valued by me. It might be the savings in time or effort, it might be the delightful memory of using that item or experiencing that moment with them. The things I take from my friends are not always things….but the emotions of forgiveness, of caring, of being cared for and of being allowed to minister to them and in turn be ministered to when we are in that deep, dark aching hour of need that seems to stretch into days and weeks and months at time. But to a friend, it’s just an hour of loving you through the ache, hurt, pain or loss. It is that person who will let you be balled up in bed, unwashed hair and several day old pajamas and soothing words telling you everything is going to be all right one day. Though they don’t tell you which day. Just one day.

The things I take from my friends are the tools I put in my own kit to be there for others, to gird up my own loins, to feel ready to battle whatever comes my way….work, husband, leaky roof, truculent teen…the been there done that from others I care about gives me the strength to go there and do that. It’s not without a price. Sometimes it is I who has forged the way for others. That I have been that great example or that dire warning. It’s far more fun and rewarding to be the former, but somehow I feel my relationship grow when it’s the latter, because we can commiserate and laugh and deeply bond sharing stories of how we’ve overcome the challenges of our journeys in a way that the big wins don’t quite possess.

The things I take from my friends, I endeavor to give back in spades. I pray that I gave at least as well as I got, that I loved as much or more than I was loved and that all the things I was looking for in life really were not things, but the moments and minutes that bind us in that most amazing and inextricable way…through heartstrings that stretch and pull, but never break. Years may go without a word, but I’ll take them always in my heart.

That is what I take more than anything else…where ever I go, however long it takes to get there...I take my friends.

The Habit of Food

Recently at the airport I was visually and olfactorily (word of my making!) attacked by an amazingly delicious looking food. An everything bagel pretzel larger than my head? Yes, Please!

But why?

I was not hungry. I’d made a point of eating a container of skyr and plain oatmeal—a quick and easy breakfast that is also filling and delicious and best of all, sticks with me for hours!

That day, however, my mouth wanted what my belly did not need.

Queued up, I did, and as I stepped forward I asked myself why. What was I doing? I didn’t belong there and yet…there I was!

I got out of line and headed in the opposite direction and was faced with gelato and hand crafted pizzas and at 10a those late day items still voiced a very loud COME AND EAT MY DELICIOUSNESS.

Under attack, I headed to the ladies room. Washing my hands, gathering my thoughts and reflecting again on the power of influences outside of my belly that sought to fill said belly. And without needing the food would expand said belly! Had I been legitimately hungry, or in need of protein, I would have been fine shelling out airport dollars for needed food, which is NOT a planetary pretzel, but I did not need it. Not at all!

Even when I sat on the plane, safe from the sights and smells with their siren song of yum coming from virtually every angle of the concourse, I reflected back to that carb bomb and outrageous “serving size’ and being glad, thankful, relieved that it was away and no longer a temptation. But let’s face it, temptation is all around and the next one is a delicious glance or deep breath in away…

Being strong, for me, not just physically but emotionally and intellectually, as well has been a real driver for me. That day I was glad I stood strong. In all the days since I was glad I stood strong. I pray that I do each day going forward as I struggle against the ‘easy to break plan’ choices that swirl around me-all of us-constantly

 

My journey is not mine alone

I once told someone my younger son had never met a stranger. I’ve used that description countless times since his first words came tumbling out and they feigned surprise and said, very tongue in cheek, “Oh! So very different from you!” and it made me chuckle because I can strike up a conversation with almost anyone around me with great ease and equally great enjoyment. I love to hear from others and to share my thoughts and perspectives as well.

So it really comes as no surprise that I entered into what started out as a friendly chat in line for a bathroom, but it was surprising of what came from that chat.

When I queued up, the ‘line’ had one woman in it. She opened the door to peer in and then closed the door. My presumption was her child was inside. She said he’d “be a while” and I told her I would wait as I really had to choice and I said it with a smile.

About the time my last words were spoken a large, older woman came hurtling towards me at a pace I don’t think is her norm. She was clearly flustered and called out, a little too loudly for the quiet store, “I am in line next! I’ll be quick, but I am next!”

Ummmmmmm, okay.

I think she caught how aggressively she’d defended a place in line and calmed herself a bit before continuing. She shared it was her husband in the bathroom and he had special needs. I told her that I fully understood, as I too had issues and was recovering from some pretty serious surgery to help correct it and I was fine waiting for him and for her, but walking away and coming back would be too much of a challenge. I smiled, caught her eye and made sure she knew I was being factual and not playing on her emotions to let me go first.

The very young and the very old will ask questions of others that polite manners teach us not to ask throughout the majority of our years. Somehow that learned filter degrades at a certain age and the questions are back out there in full force. She asked me what I’d had done and while I have not shared a whole lot of this with many folks, something compelled me to share with her in detail. And So I did.

She got tears in her eyes and to be frank, that’s been a common reaction with the few I’ve shared my story with, so I didn’t expect what came from her mouth next.

“My doctor wanted me to have two of those surgeries over 30 years ago. But they wouldn’t do one without the other and I could not bring myself to have a hysterectomy and give up being a woman, so I have lived with it all these years. A few years ago I decided to do it and now, I am too old and can’t have it. The success rate is too low at my age. Medicare won’t cover it, we don’t have the money to pay for it with his (motioning to her husband) health issues and needing a caregiver full time. I have to live with this for the rest of my days.”

The tears fell from her eyes as she spoke. I was compelled to hug her on the spot. This former stranger in a shoe store on the Upper West Side embraced me back and told me I’d never regret doing this. She regretted not doing it when she could have.

I was a bit overcome, but this was her moment, not mine, so I willed my tears to stay in my eyes and not let them slide down my face. Two things were deeply reinforced to me in those 6 or 7 minutes of time

Regrets come more often from what we don’t do than what we do.

Sometimes sharing bits of yourself propels you on your journey, it doesn’t hold you back. The amazing thrust I felt from those few minutes were, and are, tremendously forceful.

 

Shifting down to speed up

I learned to drive in a 9 passenger station wagon, usually with 8 disruptive young passengers in tow. 

To this day, there really isn’t any standard vehicle I am not 100% comfortable driving, parallel parking and getting in and out of traffic in. My confidence as a driver is quite high. When the time came for me to have my own personal vehicle a 5 speed coupe was purchased. But because I’d been driving for over a year with my permit and freshly minted license and had not experienced issues, no one thought to teach me how to drive a car with a manual transmission. I had to figure it out for myself. And I did…or so I thought. But I did not realize that when you slowed down you had to shift down and then shift to speed back up. I thought my new car was dying on a drive a few days after purchase because I’d slowed from 5^th gear speeds of around 65mph to 20ish in a traffic jam. When I went to apply the gas, and return to the high speeds, of course I went nowhere because 5^th gear wasn’t where I needed to be.

I should have downshifted to 2^nd. I pulled over, gathered myself together and started out in 1^st without any problem. And then the light bulb went off in 100 watt fashion and I was never again flummoxed by the change of speed and gear. 

A lesson learned, for life!  I told you that story, to tell you this one. 

Our boys are 23 and 20. Today, in fact, our youngest is 20. 

I wasn’t one of those parents who bemoaned the fact that her children were growing up, moving out and starting a life of their own. From the minute they placed those boys in my arms in the delivery room, I knew my job was to raise them, love them, guide them, give them the ethics and morals to be good and decent contributors to society and understand the consequences if they were not and to help launch them from the nest when they were ready. Launching has been different than I imagined.

For our older son, my husband and I have had to more actively parent into his early 20s than we felt either of us had from our own parents. But I also feel that my husband and I were set to sail in a pond of adult life, where now our boys are setting out on choppy seas and there is more skill needed to stay afloat in that larger body of water, to be sure. 

Smart, he certainly is. And capable as well. And yet our older son has struggled with committing to a choice for any sustained period of time. He’s attended several colleges and does well, he was inducted into the honor society for instance. But he’s not been able to complete a degree, focus on a career, make any plans that last beyond 6 months and is frustrated by his lack of follow through and yet it doesn’t appear to propel him to actually follow through. 

So we find ourselves in the role of coach and mentor. Of encourager and of reality grounding responses. We want to celebrate the moments of forward movement, but at the same time feel we need to be there to help him from taking two steps back immediately after that incremental progress. We don’t want to be a source of negativity and yet we do need to keep him grounded in reality. He has not only champagne tastes, but ‘drink it in France at a private event of the vineyard’ tastes and yet his earnings to date have been more ‘6 pack on the bed of a truck by a river’ so far in life. I think he struggles with the desire to have the former while in the reality of the latter. 

And interestingly enough, of all the young men my son has been friends with for the last 15 years or so, only one has really fully launched. The friend with the least advantages has done the most with his life. Which of course leads me to wonder, did all the advantages that I worked so hard to provide and all the sacrifices made along the way equate to his being unable to start out in first gear and learn how to shift up in this life?  Is he unaware that he was cruising along in 5^th gear and needs to shift down, refocus and start out slowly but surely on his path in life? 

I see him sputtering, but he struggles with me telling him how to drive and so I find myself perched, waiting to hear the downshift and knowing he’s found his way down the road of life. But I don’t ever think I will fully take my eye off the road, but I do look forward to being a back seat passenger instead of a front seat navigator.