Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50

Midlife Fiction

I’m Struggling with Forgiveness

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A few years ago, when my dad died, my family blew up. My mother made a decision regarding life support, and a sibling panicked. In fear and desperation this sibling repeatedly attacked the rest of the family over the course of the next year and a half, then dodged responsibility for the destruction, and now has become almost completely estranged, even moving to another state.

I know I should forgive this person, because everything you hear about not forgiving is bad. Selfishly, it would probably be healthy for me to do so. I even wondered if I might have gotten sick from harboring this caustic anger. Stupid thought, I know. It’s just biology, chemistry, genetics. But you wonder if there’s a connection, because I have been the angriest of all of my family.

However, when I consider forgiveness (which, I should point out, has not been requested by this abuser), I feel like I’m on the verge of slipping backwards, to the bad old days. To forgive would be an act of self-negation.

Let me explain. For most of my life, I put up with – indeed, took care of and nurtured – mean and abusive people. It’s what I learned, growing up in a well-meaning but misguided family. I was taught to try to see the good in everyone, to forgive, to rise above pettiness. These are high-minded standards. Throw in a lot of Catholic-style guilt and you have a pretty good recipe for becoming a door mat. I grew up thinking that if you had a sadness or heartache or tragedy in your life, hell, that was practically a claim ticket that you could bring to my door and cash in for nurturing, love, and monetary support!

Around the time I turned forty, due to maturation and the love of a good man, I started figuring out that I was as good as anybody else, and I began to value myself as much as I do others. At first it was really hard! I felt mercenary. Calculating. But I progressed, and now I’m healthy. Therefore, to accept abuse makes me feel like I’m going back to the bad old days, and rejecting all that I learned.

My Dad always said “family is everything.” I’m struggling with the thought that he may have been wrong.

I think instead that love is everything, and light, and positivity, and support, and kindness. That’s where I go these days, toward the company of those who love me and treat me well. In recent weeks I’ve clung to the love of the rest of my family, and my friends, and the people I don’t even know very well who have opened their hearts to me. I know this is what will help me heal, and I believe this is what I need for all the rest of my life.

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I Am So Grateful

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To all my sistahs who have recently sent me your wonderful, kind words of support, I want you to know that I’ll still be in touch. I don’t know what the future holds but even during recuperation, I’ll have access to my laptop. You know me. You can’t keep me offline.

Here’s what I think will happen: soon after October 1, I’ll have surgery, and then we’ll know if my problems are benign or – not. But no matter what, I’m going to keep blogging. Some will be about my situation because I know you’re worried, but most will just be about the usual navel-gazing I’m known for – the unexamined life and all that.

While waiting for the surgery, I am riding an emotional roller coaster. In trying to maintain my sanity I’ve been meditating, and I’ve cut out caffeine and alcohol. Boy, that’s tough; most days I really could use a drink! But this is a healthy decision. Did you know alcohol actually increases long-term anxiety? More on that in a future post, no doubt.

To stay upbeat, I also watch comedies, read happy things, and think about the impending birth of my granddaughter, Ella Marie Morgan, who is due on Oct. 5. Her parents Amy and Daniel are in the picture. Both are elementary school teachers. I promised I would watch Ella full time when Amy goes back to work in February. It’s a scary and thrilling proposition. When I agreed to it, my son did that manly, surreptitious sniffly thing. You know, because men don’t cry.

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Never Too High or Too Low

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Our President has been called “No Drama Obama.” And he frequently says, “I never get too high or too low.” I’ve noticed that phrase slipping into the common vernacular; you especially see it when an athlete is interviewed about his or her performance.

After a couple decades of watching diva behavior (from both genders) elevated to an art form (see: Housewives, Jersey Shore, et al) I’m glad that we as a country seem to be settling down. Maybe it’s because that pig-in-the-python, the Boomer demographic, is causing the rest of the country to mature a little.

This is one of the coolest things about getting older. By the time you’re middle-aged, you’ve lived through a lot. You’ve suffered pain; been stunned by cruelty and shocked by abuse; and you’ve watched gape-mouthed in wonder at the narcissism and selfishness in the world, sometimes on a global scale (see: Zimbabwe; Mugabe). You’ve endured the sleepless nights, the run to the ER, the drama of family ultimata (yes, in my case it’s plural, unfortunately.)

And now, when that stuff comes up? Yawn. How different from when we were younger. The drama about killed us sometimes, didn’t it? But now I’d rather take a nap.

Kindle readers, send me your comments at Lmspreen@yahoo.com.

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Boomers: Too Old for Goals?

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Recently, I wrote this: “…sometimes I think I am foolish for racing around with my hair on fire in pursuit of this passion, because I am 56…”

Do you wonder sometimes if you should stop trying so hard? Are we Boomers of an age where we should relax, nap, read, take more heed of the passing days ? Perspective is such a hard thing to grasp. My mom is 85 and says, “Oh, Lynne, you’re so young yet!” To see it from that angle makes me feel like lacing up my running shoes. But then on the other hand, how many years will I have to enjoy my sweet husband, to travel, golf, and just sit and read, maybe go to a movie with him? He’s 63. Per his family history, he’s got 20 years. That’s probably 15 of good health. Right now we’re in good shape, but who knows? And every minute I spend in my office pecking away at this keyboard is a minute I lose with him, forever.

I got a boost from Sly Stallone, who was interviewed in Time Magazine. The interviewer asks “Are there any more goals you wish to accomplish?” and Stallone replies, “There are always goals. If you don’t have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life. People think retiring is fun. Well, maybe, but if you have a certain kind of fire inside, there is no end in sight.”

It doesn’t solve my dilemma but it does make me feel better about my ambition. Yo, Rocky, thanks!

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Are Your Friends Bad For You (Part 2)

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Earlier we talked about the importance of entering into friendships consciously. Now to another tough question: What if you were raised by negative people? How might that change you?

My folks, as loving and supportive as they tried to be, were fearful and insecure people. I was raised in an atmosphere where we anticipated things would go wrong. Friends would turn on you. Rich people weren’t to be trusted. Employers would toss you from your job in a heartbeat. Politicians were crooked. Other world powers would destroy the USA if they could.

Of course, there’s an element of truth in all of those fears, but we were raised to expect such things to happen, and it changed all of us kids, I am sure. For one thing, I wonder how much it contributed to my chronic anxiety. For another, I sometimes wonder if I’m addicted to drama, as much as I hate it. For a third, when something horrible happens in my world, there’s a tiny part of me that savors it, that wants to fire up the crack pipe of negativity and take a long, slow hit.

A friend of mine who was literally tortured as a child, says with confidence that those hardships made her who she is today. My reaction is: bullshit!! That’s just a rationalization to ease the pain and regret. Who might she have been today if she hadn’t been hurt mentally and physically by her family? What heights would she have scaled with her incredible artistic and musical talents?

Some of us are living our lives in a haze, unaware of our prejudices or the knee-jerk beliefs we adopt to insulate ourselves, subconsciously protective. So here’s the big question: Are you now the person that you were meant to be, or are you the person you were made to be?

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Are Your Friends Bad For You? (Part 1)

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When I was a young woman there were so many things I didn’t know. I remember wishing I had an owner’s manual for evaluating whether I was making smart choices, or how to operate wisely. For reasons too lengthy to go into here, I didn’t.

Now at middle-age, I know so much more (and yes, I have more to learn, but that’s another post). One of the things I found to be true was that a negative person can drag down a positive person much more quickly than a positive person can pull up a negative one.

Along those same lines, my friend Tammy Coia shared this yesterday: “Think of your 5 closest friends.  We become who we surround ourselves with.  If we are surrounded by negative thinkers, guess what, we become more pessimistic.  When we surround ourselves with positive thinkers our thinking becomes more positive…” And then Tammy ends with this most insightful of questions: “Examine who you surround yourself with and why you choose them (or did they choose you?)”

I emphasized the last few words because the question gives me chills. As a younger woman I sent out signals to manipulators and cons that I was non-judgmental, kind, and eager to help damaged people realize their potential. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, in balance, but I didn’t know when to quit. So the users lined up outside my heart, and I reeled them in on my tractor beam that said, “Pretend you love me and I will let you sleep on my couch while I go to work and earn money to feed you and pay the mortgage.” Now I know the answer to Tammy’s question: they chose me, and I was inadequately prepared to realize it or deal with them in a balanced and healthy way.

To end at the beginning: when I was young, I lacked a lot of information that would have made life safer and easier. Now that I’m older I’ve learned some important skills, and one of them is to surround myself with supportive and positive people. For the most part, I choose them, but if such people (like Tammy) happen to choose me, that’s the icing on top.

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