Searching for the Stars

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
~Og Mandino

My friend's daughter just returned from a school exchange in Austria. From this end, it felt like four months of crises – hospitalizations, lost wallets, weird roommates. From my friend's daughter's perspective, for every down there was a dozen ups. Home now, she told my friend that she's most looking forward to a mother who cooks her meals, a shower that consistently rains hot water, a doctor to whom she doesn't have to pay a fortune then try and extract that money from a reluctant insurance company. In other words, she's looking forward to the things she formerly took for granted.
That's the way for most of us, isn't it? 
In the days following D-Day, I ached for the blissful ignorance I'd had. I missed boredom, routine, the status quo. I longed for the light.
But there I was. Cursing the dark.
A woman asked me recently how I survived. How, she queried, did I get through without going crazy, without knowing what would happen? 
And though I know it seems simple to me now, it wasn't then. Nothing is ever as tidy as we remember. But what I did (in between hysterical sobbing and paralyzing fear and numbness) was try to find the stars. They were there, sometimes obscured by the dark, but there nonetheless.
For instance, I recall a day we all rode our bikes to my eldest daughter's piano recital, followed by a backyard luncheon at the piano teacher's home. It was months after D-Day and I felt raw and exposed. But that day was...nice. All my children. My still-husband. Me. Kids plunking away at a piano. 
There was my mother's death. Horrible, of course, to lose her. She had been my rock. It was sudden but not unexpected. She'd had a chronic illness. But her death. It felt miraculous. It replaced my fear of death with something like acceptance. Not quite peace. But close. 
There were other stars in the dark. Moments when I loosened my grip and gave myself over to not knowing. Moments when the world seemed beautiful. Was beautiful.
Those dark days are long gone, though we've had periodical darkness since. A frightening time with two of our children and mental health issues. A health scare with my father. The death of my mother-in-law. 
But I'm more than a dozen years out from D-Day #1. Come to think of it, D-Day #2 was late June and it didn't even register – I hadn't thought of it until right this minute. 
But I still remember the stars as much as I recall the darkness. They were reminders that night always gives way to day. A gentle nudge to value the tiny things even as we deal with the big things.
Sunlight is lovely. But so are the stars. 

Thursday's Thought

"yesterday is heavy,

put it down."

Using your broken-ness to heal yourself and others

"We are never too broken to help other people,” she said. “That's probably one of the biggest lessons I've taken away.”
~Washington Post


"My advice to you is this – be kind – to yourself and to others. It is the simplest of remedies but remarkably effective. A small, bright act of kindness towards another human being is not only a gesture of existential hope, it also reconciles us with the world, and ultimately becomes the path to self-forgiveness."
~Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files

It's hard to sleep these days. News reports of caged children, of systemic racism, of environmental degradation often keep me wide-eyed and anxious. It's not unlike the early days post D-Day, though my concerns are more existential these days. Either way, however, it feels as though survival is no longer a guarantee. 

The antidote to my despair, I've discovered, is engagement. Not just any engagement – though a night spent among good friends absolutely helps – but going to where the need is great. Specifically, I've been involved for the past few years with various groups that help settle refugees in my city. (I'm in Canada, which opened its doors in the wake of the Syrian crisis and followed up by inviting more Yazidi people than any other country in the world.) 
I help them learn English, navigate the city, make doctors' appointments, get Internet service, source computers and clothing and toys. But mostly, I'm their friend at a point in their lives where they have few. 
What I've learned, apart from how similar we all are and how laughter transcends language, race, culture and age, is that kindness is, perhaps, the greatest force in the world. Not just to transform others' but ourselves.
I see it here, of course. I write often of how humbling and heartening it is to see each of you extend such kindness to others who wash up on our shores. But what you might not yet recognize is that by reaching out to another, by pulling her up, by sharing your story, by simply telling her that you heard her, that her story matters, you're healing yourself. Kindness is balm for the broken heart
It sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn't it? What possible difference can kindness from a stranger make when divorce looms, or gaslighting continues, or you're worried you'll lose your mom?
Except that kindness is ultimately all that matters. It may not be able to change the forces working against us but it can help us withstand them. Kindness tells us something important, something necessary for every single one of us to know: We matter. Our pain matters. We are worthy of kindness, of belonging, of love.
Healing can't happen without it.
So please know that your responses here matter. Indeed, they are what make this a safe, healing space. They remind each of us that out there – maybe across the world – a total stranger is moved by the pain we're in and wants to touch us, to assure us, to wrap us in warmth.
And please know that the kindness you extend, here and in real life, is more powerful than you might realize. When we remember back to the most challenging parts of our lives, those time when we weren't sure we could keep going, it is the kindness (or lack of) that we remember.
Your broken-ness doesn't make you less able to help others, it makes you more able. We use that broken-ness to show up for others, to lay bare our own pain. By showing our wounds, by witnessing others' wounds, we heal, inch by inch, heart by heart, betrayed by betrayed.

Thursday's Thought

Ask a Different Question. And change everything

One of my closest friends (and a betrayed wife) sent me a podcast the other day. It held all sorts of fascinating insights and research but nestled among it all was this:
If we change the question we ask, from "can" to "how can", it changes everything.
Consider: Can I get an A in Calculus? versus How can I get an A in Calculus?
Can I ever heal from infidelity? versus How can I heal from infidelity?
"Can" holds within it potential failure. While "how can" is about agency. It's Yoda yet again reminding us that there is no try. There is only do or do not.
Notice the language you use around infidelity and your healing. Are you telling yourself, with the words you use, that you anticipate failure? Or are you reminding yourself, without minimizing your pain or grief, that you hold the power for your own life? That you aren't trying, you are doing. And within that doing is your future self.
That future self can be one that prioritizes self-care and self-compassion, that holds room for her pain while trusting her strength and resilience.
Or that future self can be one who continues to feel powerless.
I don't, for one single second, blame you for his choice to cheat. That is entirely on him.
But how we heal from that betrayal is up to us. We can try or we can do. We can ask if or we can ask how.
There will be days when what we need is to curl up in a ball. But when we uncurl, let's ask ourselves not can we heal from this pain but how we can. Cause that simple change shifts the entire power dynamic back to  you.
Which is exactly where it belongs.

How to Reach the Shore When the Currents are Trying to Push You Back

Thanks to She Who Must Not Be Named's brilliant badass survival guide, there's a whole lotta us feeling fired up and ready to reclaim our self-respect and lay down some rules for anyone who wants the privilege of being in our lives (or as, SWMNBN put it, "He can either keep up and stay or fall behind and leave."
And, oh, how I know that feeling. Sleeves rolled up. "This time, things are going to be different!" Get ready for the new me – assertive but not aggressive, firm but not unreasonable. I will move mountains. Or, at the very least, get people to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher rather than leave them on the counter. Right? Can I get an "Amen"?
Except that, so often, it doesn't exactly go like that. A situation arises in which my newly declared rules can be enacted – I will state clearly what I need, I will enforce my boundaries, I will not let him twist my words – and it all goes to hell. I can hardly remember what the rules are, let alone how to enforce them. I get sucked into some discussion that may or may not have anything to do with what I originally set out to discuss. I find myself on the defensive. I find myself muddled. I find myself sounding whiny and screechy instead of firm and reasonable.
And then I beat myself up for being so bad at this.
It took awhile (I'm a slow learner) but I realized that what I was envisioning – a calm conversation in which everyone agreed with me – was not going to happen. At least, not without a lot more practice. Instead, I (almost) always encountered pushback. Or, as I've written before on this site, countermoves.
Countermoves are inevitable. They're part of the dance we've been doing for much of our lives but especially when we rewrite the rules. If you haven't been dealing with countermoves, it's likely because you've been just going along, being the good girl, not making demands, putting your wants/needs last or completely aside.
Rewriting the rules – ie. setting boundaries and following the badass survival guide – is going to create pushback/countermoves. 
What I've discxovered, that changes the whole dynamic, is to expect it. And not waver when it shows up.
What's pushback, you ask? Well, it's someone asking "what's your problem?" or "why are you in such a bad mood?" when you point out a lack of consideration or lack of respect. It's a response of "are you seriously asking me to xyz?" or "that's just not realistic" when you ask for something. 
The result?
A whole lot of us will back down, and question ourselves. "Am I being unreasonable/ridiculous/demanding/whatever?" says the little voice in our head.
The countermoves have worked.
They can take many forms. Anger, perhaps. Sulking. The silent treatment. Eye-rolling. Exasperation.
But all have one goal: To get us to erase our boundaries. To get us to go back to being acquiescent. To prioritize their comfort over our own.
That's the bottom line, isn't it? When we insist that our needs not only matter but take priority right now (not always but RIGHT FUCKING NOW), we're rocking the boat. It can feel terrifying.
But the overarching message of the badass survival guide was this: You must be prepared to put yourself first right now if you're going to heal from this. Or as She Who Must Not Be Named put it, "He can either keep up and stay or fall behind and leave." 
Notice the lack of wavering. There's nothing equivocal about that. He put her/you in this position and you're just swimming like hell for the shore. He can either keep and stay or fall behind and leave. But you are not going to stop swimming. Not now. Not ever.
He'll beg you to believe him when he gives you some bullshit excuse about why he's late. He'll insist that you're being difficult or unreasonable when you demand he quit the company where he works with her, or ask for a transfer. He'll call you "crazy" when you tell him you need to sell the house where she lives around the corner, or slept in your bed.
But if what you're doing is creating the conditions for your healing, or creating the conditions for your marriage to survive, then that's what you're doing. And he can either keep up or fall behind.
Either way...you're headed to shore.

Thursday's Thought