The Script Ended

World view mix

The train has become my philosophy lounge. Each morning we chew on a new topic or we tilt the angle of how we look at an older one. It has become a kind of continuous conversation truncated each morning when we all arrive on campus and restarted the following morning.

This morning it was happiness. Which morphed into meaning. Which evolved into how the search for meaning changes with age. I'm sort of sad to say that I am the granny of the group - hope its keeping me young hanging with all these 30 somethings.

Our's is not your usual vanilla morning chat. I wonder what the morning radio "personalities" back in San Diego would think of our subject matter? One thing is for sure, we never talk about Brad and Jen, or Brad and Angelina or Brangelina whoever.

People often ask me what it feels like to live in Paris. The best response I can give is that it feels like I live in the WORLD.

In the mix today were my Singaporean, French, Swede and Czech train buddies.

We hashed through happiness and were deeply into meaning when the ride was over.

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

Look forward to what?

From the time I was small I seemed to need something to look forward to. That little nirvana in the future kept me going in the present. I would count down the months, weeks, and days to THE DAY. Wedding day, baby due date day, moving day. I almost reveled in the agony of anticipation - it was sweet.

It struck me the other day that I don't really do this anymore. All those wise people out there, you know like the Buddha and other happiness gurus, tell us to live only in the now. That we have only the present.

I know I know I know. But that's not why I think that I stopped this habit. Though I wish I could say that I was so enlightened. No, I think that I may have just outgrown it. Do fifty-somethings count the days to anything anymore?

If I were to count the days to something what would that something be? I don't have a clue.

Oh of course there is stuff to look forward to in theory. My kids all getting good jobs, getting married, having babies. But all those kinds of things are in a different category.

I think that I need to come up with a goal to look forward to reaching. The ones I have are not getting me very revved up. They are too practical and grown up.

That's it - I need to stop being such a grown up.

Except my ex-husband already put dibbs on that one.

So what does that leave me? I know this all sounds very depressing but I don't mean it to be. I actually know what the answer is - make the present the goal. Do stuff everyday that make you want to jump out of bed and get down to it.

Any suggestions out there?

 

 

50 years (or so) later, I'm getting it

Sometimes, some things are just not okay.

I know that sounds obvious but the slow learner that I am, it has taken me about 50 years to get it. Like for most everything else, I can blame my childhood.

When I was a little girl, and then even not so little, my mom could talk whatever problem or hurt away. Poof - just like that -  her logic or her gentle dismissal of my sadness or failure or hurt told me that it didn't really matter and that made it all better.

I thought this was a great thing. Who wouldn't? The world was magically righted and the cloud was lifted. I could continue down my freshly straightened path.

The thought of a world without my mother there to vanquish evil was simply unthinkable.......... but I am quite sure that feeling is pretty universal. No, my emotional dependency on her wasn't the real problem at all. The REAL problem was a bit more subtle but lots more devastating.

I learned denial.

Now denial can take all sorts of forms but this particular kind rendered me fragile at my core. I was taught to believe that:

Nothing really bad can ever really happen so when something bad really happens it doesn't really happen so you never really learn how to deal with reality.

See how confusing that is.

The kicker is that bad stuff does really happen. Little bad things, medium bad things and giant bad things.

How awfully hard that has been to accept for me! And when denial is at work all sorts of other bad things seem to crop up inside.

Well the reason why I was thinking these things today is that I FINALLY am sort of getting this one. Daughter # 4 arrived back to Paris from the other side of the world last week spent to the core. She had just closed the door on a painful part of her young life and though it seems counter -intuitive, was really sad about it. This is logical because - No matter how much struggle is involved, we all cling to the familiar, and those struggles she had just left still gave her the security of the known thing.

As her tears flowed all my old training reared its helpful head - I wanted to make it all go away for her. Tell her, with my mother's supreme logic, how it didn't matter; point out all the shit she didn't have to deal with anymore, how the next step was so much better for her.

But I didn't.

Instead, I let her cry. I agreed with her that it all sucked big time. That I couldn't make it right.

Do you want to know what happened next? She faced it. I didn't deny her sadness so she didn't deny it either. We did not fix it. We couldn't. Neither could have my mother if she was still around. Just like she actually never did fix my problems but instead showed me how to throw a thick blanket over them and hide them in the corner.

A couple days later this same daughter walked into the room:

"Hey mommy, I feel so much better. And I am excited for my new plans too. I'm still sad about losing what I left behind but its for the better. For now at least."

Wow. It worked. She moved forward.

Someone just finally grew up a bit - and I'm not talking about the 20 year old.