Category Archives: Lifelong learning

Fertilizer

Meet “Bernadette,” my indoor Hibiscus that wildly thrived during our hot midwestern summer on my patio. She has a sister outdoors but we simply don’t have enough room to bring her in. My husband helped me choose which outdoor plant gets a chance to thrive indoors this winter based on two simple things: our indoor space availability (exactly ONE north-facing window) and our combined capacity to haul it in. You see, our big, beefy, son, Mario, moved to Colorado to begin his adult life one year ago today, leaving Mom and Dad behind to painstakingly manage the few “bulky projects” on our own on the rare occasions we both have the will and the strength.

I have many friends who are master gardeners. They talk to me about “cutting back” and “dividing” and “fertilizing” and “overwintering” green things as if I somehow share this common language and love for growing things with them. To be honest, I feel lucky beyond measure any time a plant like my blooming hibiscus comes along and decides (completely independently of anything I do) to grow alot and hang in there with me for more than one season. When this happens, my heart returns to a core memory of being a child in 4-H and growing a sunflower in a coffee can as a “summer project.” That was a wondrous thing of beauty and sheer delight, watching MY seed grow daily before my eyes and blossom into a very large, geniune sunflower. I wish I had a photo but I will never forget that unique feeling of love, accomplishment and satisfaction. That sunflower may have been the first thing in my young life (besides a barn kitten) I invested a part of myself in with the hope that would be enough to nurture and sustain it.

“The Little Prince” reminds me of the feeling this season of life – new empty nest, adult children (and new son in law), aging body, long term marriage – actually means: those relationships and saplings I have spent years “tending to” are significant, thriving and emanating love BECAUSE of the time I have spent “fertilizing” them. This is the proper measurement of a “life well lived.”

I’m grateful my hibiscus reminded me of this at this particular moment in time. It’s tempting at age 60, after a life of devotion to my home and family, to look at what is left – children living independently across the country – as “nothing” when the opposite is true: it reflects the result of me pouring all that I had and all that I was into the life that we lived for a brief time. I fertilized my family very well.

Not only that, I did it with a hidden disability that did not have a name until earlier this year – ADHD. What that means to an adult woman is very different than the stereotypical “hyperactive gradeschool boy who cannot sit still in class” we have learned about. I have survived the challenges of adult life, relationships, motherhood and employment with an underfunctioning prefrontal cortex (the executive function command center of the brain) and an overfunctioning amygdala (the “fight or flight”/hypervigilant, big emotional response part of the brain meant to protect us from predators). It’s been ALOT, a journey riddled with many misunderstood challenges and mishaps because girls with ADHD (myself included) learn to mask their differences by mimicking “normal” behavior and responses of neurotypical peers. It means I am tired from a lifetime of pretending to be “normal” and hiding the shame of that “big secret” daily. I hid in alcohol (which didn’t work much). I hid in plain sight to such a degree that even the people closest to me responded in utter dismay: “You can’t POSSIBLY have ADHD because you have been able to manage your life so well.” On the surface!

This year, I also became a huge fan of amaryllis bulbs that thrive inside a wax casing – all they need is sunlight (and love, I would argue) to grow. I gave several away as gifts and made sure we had one in the kitchen for Christmas and Easter. Then by summer I became enamored with my patio hibiscus. As this year of massive transitions draws to a close, I recognize now the significance of these small living things I have nurtured during a time I believed I was losing so much. I woke up many mornings thinking of the word “Drifting” – both captivating and horrifying, for it seemed to me I could spend the next 30 years doing just that. And I need a new purpose.

I spent alot of time with an old friend early this fall in her community garden, helping her tend to the beautiful summer squash, tomatoes and eggplants she had been tending all summer. The reconnection with my friend after first meeting her when I was just 23 – now, I am 60 and she is 79- has been reviving and comforting to me in ways I haven’t been able to articulate. In late August, right after my daughter’s wedding, together we celebrated a mutual friend’s 100th birthday. Imagine the fertilizer from life our friend has required to reach her ripe age – and, in turn, the life-giving, awe-inspiring fertilizer her energy and spirit continue to give to those lucky enough to know and love her. It is with deep appreciation and recognition of the gift of a long life and memory of past periods of growth and learning I embrace this opportunity to reconnect with Myra and Rosemary, two of my pillars of inspiration throughout my adult life. It is an honor to be considered worthy to share time with them now. And the lessons from their fertile lives and minds continue to nurture me.

The heart and spirit are always “tending to” something that spurs us onward, it’s just not always obvious in the moment. My very happy hibiscus reminded me this morning I have been “living” when I thought I was “drifting” this year all along. And that whatever modest nurturing I think I have to offer has been enough to support a long marriage, two beautifully thriving adult children, and now one happy little hibiscus in my dining room named Bernadette.

And Suddenly the Universe said, “Wanna Take a Second Look at That?”

I’m coming up on my 11th Sober Birthday in a few days (June 8). Today Google Memories showed my husband a photo of flooding that claimed our basement the morning we were set to visit my homebound Mother in 2015. Against all rationality, I insisted we move forward with our plans and deal with the water issue (it was $20,000 in repairs) later. For me, this was just more chaos in the Crazy Stew that was my life: 5 days from declaring myself powerless over alcohol, raging perimenopause, unhappy teenagers, husband struggling to provide a living for us and new part time job being forced to wear skinny jeans, chunky heels and $200 blouses selling boutique clothing to the 1% (many of them mothers of my daughter’s friends). Sure, bring on the flooding, I thought. And off we went for another fairly miserable trip sitting in my mother’s hot bedroom for 2 days!

A calm nervous system was not in my vocabulary in those days. I believed it was my job to react to everything and hypervigilance, cortisol and adrenaline were my sources of energy. At night, a bottle of red wine soothed things, I believed, so I could get up the next day and do it all over again. Looking back at that flooding, I now see the water catastrophe as a portal to a new beginning. There was no NOT dealing with water and my cocktail of coping simply wasn’t working any longer either. Change was literally washing over my household and it was time to seek help and understanding. But what kind?

It was easy to point to a dozen or so very sensible reasons why my drinking had gotten out of control but, in my mind, I needed to get to the quickest solution (and avoiding pain was a goal but my goodness the Universe has a sense of humor). Only now, 11 years later, do I have a full understanding of that broken woman who walked into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on June 8, 2015 and asked for help. Today, social media and medical experts are highlighting exactly who I was and what I was going through at the time but in those days there could only be one simple reason why things were super dysregulated: ALL MY FAULT. A recent diagnosis of ADHD has revealed to me my brain was being hijacked by hormonal imbalances during perimenopause. The estrogen that played such an important role in regulating my ADHD symptoms (and there are many: emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitive dysphoria, impulsivity and poor executive functioning) had become erratic and so had my life.

A narrative soon developed about my alcohol use disorder and this shaped my self image for the next few years. I was a person who reached for a substance to avoid pain and, to recover, needed to develop the ability to sit with discomfort. Practicing “the pause” before reacting became a new fascination. I was accustomed to having big emotional reactions to things (often pointed out to me as my fault) and then stuffing them down in shame – and drinking to soothe my nervous system – on repeat. Sustainable recovery was going to require an infrastructure that did more for me than just prevent me from getting drunk – I knew I was going to have to discover who I was in this new phase of life and create supports to protect the person I was becoming.

But it never occurred to me that the constant internal buzzing feeling – not being able to ever fully shut my brain off – could be ADHD. It would be many years (7!) before someone who was caring and who knew me well suggested I might want to get evaluated. Even then, I waited another FIVE years before making an appointment for an ADHD evaluation. And meanwhile, I rode the menopause rollercoaster completely without any support because hormonal replacement therapy did not agree with my stomach. Learning there was a link between addiction and ADHD and midlife hormonal shifts for women has been both liberating and crushingly devastating – I often wonder what life might have looked like if I had learned much sooner and gotten the support I needed.

And back to narratives: I did silly things like allow a journalist eager to write about “Mommy Wine Culture” use me to create a very unflattering picture of a woman so utterly incapable of managing herself under peer pressure she succumbed to a cliche and let wine drive her personality. That’s absolutely not what happened and the story didn’t show all the ways I worked tirelessly to get better so my family could do better – but I allowed a person to shape a narrative for her personal storytelling career and it landed badly for me. I didn’t feel like a “role model” for other women struggling to get sober at all after that article came out. I felt like I had been duped by a manipulative has-been (she ultimately lost her job for repeating the pattern with my story on several others). It would be many years before the pattern of giving away too much of myself to people who were there to use me changed.

But change it has. 11 years later, I understand my sobriety journey has been kinda “bass-ackwards,” so to speak, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have been honest, authentic, dutiful in my pursuit of what is best for me and also for my family – and it has all worked out beautifully. I’m on a wonderful medication for ADHD that supports dopamine regulation and each week I meet other “late diagnosis” women and men from all over the world, like me, who had very similar experiences. And most of us see more positives than negatives in learning – kinda sorta late – about our wonderful, creative, imaginative, quick-acting, neurodivergent minds. I am happier than I have been in years and really, truly grateful.

This morning I was taking our dog for a walk when I stopped and turned around to gaze at my beautiful home of 16 years (the longest I have lived anywhere). Suddenly the heart shape created by our 100 year old oak trees became visible to me, as if to invite these words and celebrate more than a decade of living authentically and working to stay sober. It felt like the universe was saying, “Wanna take a second look at your life and see the love and goodness that surrounds you?”. I’m glad I did and I hope you take a second look.

Speaking of second looks here’s Days 1 and 4,015 sober – I can’t believe they are the same person!

Decisions, Devotion and Destiny

Today marks two years since my Mom passed away. I still hear her voice but her singularly calming, practical presence is missing. Her bluntly honest remarks often caught people off guard or made them laugh (if not a little bit uncomfortably). I don’t know too many people who are both blunt and smart. Generally, I just feel disappointed with the world and miss Mom especially because her confidence and clear communication was always one thing I knew I could rely on in this world.

I have become permanently impatient with people who are reluctant to make decisions – or more precisely – accept responsibility for making them, when it seems like such an important time to respond to the urgency in our world. The last 3 jobs I have held all curiously presented the same set of frustrations: people “in charge” who wanted authority but either had no desire, impetus or wisdom to exercise their authority. I would bring important issues to leaders that impacted my day to day (and would result in wasting resources if left spinning indecisively) only to be pushed off for some future date when making a decision would become clearer for them. What? I remember thinking, “Dude, you are literally being PAID to make DECISIONS. Like, that’s your JOB!” as I walked away in frustration. But the universe continued to present this frustrating set of circumstances to me over a period of several years in jobs I grew to strongly dislike – so there must be a good reason, eh?

I have concluded that this lesson repeatedly appeared in my work life because there was something else I needed to be doing. Primarily, listening to my own voice and cultivating the “meaning” that I found so disappointingly missing elsewhere – within myself. As a woman approaching 60, it’s fair to say I have spent two decades devoted to my family. Not just the person who made sure tasks were completed – but real, geniune, from the heart devotion – the kind you feel towards your first love. As an empty nester, I’m still very devoted to children. On this rainy morning of the anniversary of my Mom’s death, I just returned from delivering a birthday package and cake from Birthday Connections to a child in need who currently lives in a domestic violence shelter. I feel really good about having the privilege to be in a place in my life where I can play a small role in uplifting another person and be true to something I feel devoted to in my heart. I think Gen Z’ers would call this “Alignment.”

A new friend of mine surprised me yesterday with a “Yahrzeit” candle – a memorial candle in the Hebrew tradition to light on the date of a loved one’s passing and keep lit for 24 hours of remembering, honoring the deceased, performing acts of charity in their memory, etc. I had already intentionally chosen to volunteer today for Birthday Connections as a way to honor my Mom, who successfully nurtured and raised seven children. But the Universe really wanted me to “get” this lesson, so my friend Shelly, who has experienced much loss, generously opened her heart and gifted me this beautiful and gentle tradition. I am so grateful and deeply comforted by her kind act. In the Christian tradition, lighting a candle is a form of “devotion” – recognizing the sacred in another person and memorializing their goodness through prayer and remembrance. It isn’t even noon yet and already I can say I have fulfilled the mission of this day – and will spend the next several hours in gratitude and restful contemplation.

We are all born to discover our unique gifts. As Ralph Waldo Emerson beautifully writes in an essay:

“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.”

The gift of intentionally (decisively) honoring my Mom’s memory today and practicing devotion in her memory by supporting a local child in need brings me to my final thought – my destiny. I honestly am starting to believe that my destiny in life is to be a “feeler of big feelings” and conduit for people who may not recognize or articulate their own. In other words, I’m the uninhibited person in the room who will say something awkward that is maybe cringe but also funny – and potentially touches another person’s heart so that healing can begin. So far, I have been fortunate to be able to recognize mostly good things from the painful experiences I have had in life. And without fail, honest and good-hearted people have met me along the way to help me make sense of recent losses and pain.

I will conclude with a thought about recovery. Lately I have been thinking that I have not been very “emotionally sober,” even though I do not drink alcohol anymore to survive big feelings. There have been a couple of major losses in a short period of time in my life and many days, I find myself “growling” at the world instead of living in gratitude and bowing in reverence towards my good fortune. This is why I am considering going back to a 12-step recovery program and actively working the steps of AA. An old friend has recently reappeared in my life and kindly offered to accompany me as I start this journey over – in search of emotional sobriety. Rolf Gates, a brilliant yoga instructor and recovery writer, writes in his “Daily Reflections on Addiction, Yoga, and Getting Well”:

“Much of early recovery was like finding the bodies trapped in the snow after an avalanche. Frozen in their last moments – new boots, worn parkas, bits of scarf. My sadness was overwhelming. My 12-step sponsor, Henry, knew this about me. He was kind to my sorrow. There were no answers for what broke my heart. There was no getting any of it back….

….Henry would look at some broken part of my life, lift an eyebrow, and drawl, “what is was like.” We would laugh until tears came to our eyes at what it was like and would be no more.

Reflection:

Life has put people in your life who have not been afraid of your sadness. Thank them with your heart. Maybe thank them in person. Who has helped you laugh the laugh of freedom?”

The people who are appearing in my life who are not afraid of my sadness are helping me heal and discover new ways to use parts I have previously discarded and labeled “broken.” To me, this is a destiny worth fighting for and enjoying.