Category Archives: Relationships

My Rock

Posted on by

The time has come. All my “stuff” has been culled. I now have some gear stored at a friend’s house, a few boxes with pictures and mementos in my office, one bag of clothes, my bike, and my rock. stuff

The rock in the picture is red granite. It is very heavy and it isn’t going with me, I am going to put it in my office. I found the rock on a beach in Canada one summer when I was a little girl. We were on a family vacation and my dad convinced my sister and I that the rock was really a petrified dinosaur egg. He brought the rock home and we used it as a doorstop at our summer home on a lake in Maine when I was growing up. I believed that story and told it to my friends when they came over. I remember feeling so gullible when I found out it was a rock, but I knew how much of a tease and practical joker my dad was so I wasn’t really upset about it, I should have known better. I know I probably should give up the rock, but I just can’t.

The rock and all my other possessions that I am keeping are just symbols. They aren’t what really is important in life, they are just reminders of what is important. My real rocks are my family and friends, the people I love and who love me. My dad is gone now, but the rock is a symbol of the love he had for me. He loved me enough to tell me that story and carry this heavy rock all the way up the beach, took it back to Maine, and then kept it all those years while I was growing up.

It has been really hard saying goodbye to my friends. I am going to miss them more than they will ever know. Even harder is saying goodbye to my beautiful daughter whose amazing spirit and love for the world around her has kept me going for the last 5 years. She and I have a special bond which was born in the fires of adversity. We have laughed more the last week than we have in a long time, knowing the time is coming to say goodbye. She is a really special person.

The big revelation for me was understanding that she, and my friends, are going to miss me as much as I am going to miss them. It made me feel loved. I know they are cheering me on, but I also know that it leaves a hole for them and it makes me sad. The world is a small place and although I might not be physically present, I will be connected through Facebook, this blog, and hopefully some phone calls and visits. I need my rocks in my life, even if I am far away. And they need me.

Adventures with Nana

Posted on by

I remember very clearly what I was doing on this day 2 years ago.  I sat in my apartment on pins and needles waiting while 3000 miles away, my two beautiful granddaughters were being born.  spring-29Their names are Brooklyn and Charlotte and they are the most amazing, intelligent, beautiful, loving grandchildren on the whole planet. 

I sat here that day, waiting…and waiting…and waiting. I find that it is especially hard to be away from family during times that elicit strong emotions, things like births, weddings, and funerals.  You sit alone and wait for news while people who are physically there are caught up in the event and don’t necessarily have time or the capacity to send out notifications. But the really hard part is wanting someone to share the emotion with, someone who will feel the joy or the sorrow with you, someone to cry with, someone to hug. One of the hardest things about my relationship with Brooklyn & Charlotte is being the grandparent who is “from away”. Their other three grandparents live nearby and see them often so have stronger bonds with them as a result. I have to admit I am envious.

When my son and my daughter-in-law chose the girls’ names, I figured out a way that I could have a special bond with them of my own. I looked up the names Brooklyn and Charlotte as cities. There are 8 towns named Brooklyn and 6 named Charlotte in the U.S. So when the girls get to be about 7 years old, every summer we are going to take a vacation. Welcome-to-Brooklyn-Highway-Sign welcomeWe are going to go two towns, one of each. We are going to have our pictures taken next to the Welcome to Brooklyn or Welcome to Charlotte sign, do a little cycling, and figure out the special things those towns have to offer. I want the girls to realize that everywhere in the world is some place special. Adventure doesn’t have to be about traveling to exotic places, you can find adventure in your own backyard. The easiest way to be happy in a place is to look at where you live through the eyes of a tourist and find the interesting, funky things that make the place you live in special. That is the legacy I want to leave them with. I am calling these trips “Adventures with Nana”.

When you have children, you worry about everything. Where will they go to school, what if they get in trouble, what if they get a C in algebra, are they hanging around the “right” friends, etc. and those are all things you are supposed to worry about, that is what a parent’s job is. But when you are a grandparent, you only have one task, one thing to teach them about life. Your only job is to show them that, no matter what, they are worthy of love and belonging.

Happy 2nd birthday to my beautiful granddaughters. Nana loves you always and misses you more than you could ever imagine.

In the awkward intersections…

Posted on by

Until I was about 44 years old, I was proper.  I conformed to the conventions of whatever group I happened to be with in an effort to blend in, adhere to the norms, and to not be singled out.  Our society and culture, as well as the social groups we belong to, put norms on what we can talk about, how we should act, how we should dress, what we should look like and who we should be friends with. And for all of our bravado of saying we don’t conform, this is something all of us do.  For example, there are few heterosexual men that will wear an evening gown, high heels, and makeup in public. We get embarrassed when someone is walking down the street wailing at the top of their lungs because public displays of emotions are frowned upon.  To be a “hipster” you have to look, act, and dress a certain way.  All of those things are examples of conforming.  I just have to say…screw that.

Dirty-FilterInstead of being proper, I have become a believer in filters.  Filters keep out what you don’t want and let in the parts that you do. For example, coffee filters keep the grounds out yet still let in the delicious coffee.  One day I was having a conversation with Matt about a ski meetup I had joined while he was travelling abroad. I was telling him that the challenging part was when driving to the mountain with a new carload of people each week and having the first superficial conversation over and over, i.e. what do you do, where are you from, etc.  I complained that it didn’t allow you to really get to know anyone more in-depth because you never got to any “meatier” discussions.  Matt’s response was “so just start with the 4th conversation”.  HUH, I don’t understand?  He said, “when they get in the car just start talking about poop, or your last sexual encounter, or your stand on women’s rights. If they ride with you again, they will be your friends.  If they jump out of the car, you’ll know they really aren’t people you want to hang around anyway.  It’s a filter.”

That made me think about all the really great friends I have and what attracted me to them.  In each case, the people I am closest to moved into my inner circle of friends by saying or doing something totally outrageous.  I love outrageous, unrestrained people. Who to hell wants to hang around boring, superficial, predictable people?  Oh yeah, other boring, superficial, predictable people do.  I want to be unpredictable so I look for other people to mirror that for me.

One of my favorite stories of a friend who is unrestrained and who I love dearly is my friend Jenny.  Jenny, Tracy and I all went skiing one Saturday morning. Tracy and I were friends but we didn’t really know Jenny that well.  When we got in the car, we all had a story we wanted to share about how great our week was. Tracy had something good happen at work, I got a new grant, but Jenny wanted to tell her story first.  Jenny said, “I had the best week. I met up with this guy I haven’t seen since I moved here. We made out at the bar, I brought him home, we had sex all night, then in the morning, we woke up, made bloody mary’s and stayed naked on the couch all day.”  Silence. Tracy and I looked at each other and, as one, said, “my news isn’t that interesting after all.”   How could we not fall in love and be friends with a person like Jenny?  She has this fantastic sense of self, of her needs, and of what is really important in life.  She is fabulous.  And most of the women who hear me tell that story all say “I want to do that” but very few ever will even attempt anything so bold.

Relationships take lots of work and honest, open communication. We all want to be seen in a good light, but you have to willing to be real and authentic with people always, from day one.  Even when it is hard and you don’t want people to know that you have made a mistake, done something stupid, or are having a crazy moment, you have to just put yourself out there anyway.  You will enjoy life a lot more if you can just be your unrestrained self with people that can be that way with you in return.  And that means in all your crazy glory, even wailing at the top of your lungs while walking down the street. The people who are truly your friends won’t shy away from that.  If they can’t handle the authentic you…well why would you even care what they think?  Authenticity is a filter, it filters out those who we want to keep in our lives from those who we need to let go so that they can find what they are looking for in someone else.

I believe that we are pretty spectacular people and that if we know ourselves, we can then introduce ourselves to others in an honest, fun, specifically quirky way as individuals who are comfortable with our awkwardness… and that’s usually where we connect with people– the awkward intersections. ~ Rachel