Circle of Life

This week has been a range of emotion. So much joy because of the birth of a friend's baby and so much sorrow because of the death of my friend Barbara A. Baker. The baby and her family have their own story to tell.

Today I'm thinking about Barbara.

I know Barbara from grad school in Cleveland. I can't remember the exact moment we met, but I do know it happened early on. Both serious students and workaholics, we got each other. But Barbara wasn't like the other students in grad school She was in her mid-50s, had kids and grand kids, had worked her entire career as an accountant and knew exactly what having a degree in nonprofit management was going to do for her. She was focused and driven and intellectually curious and good at what she did. I liked being around her. Luckily she saw something in me too because we became friends.

Barbara was regal and had eyes that absolutely sparkled. A striking redhead, she was always pulled together and dressed beautifully. But she was also unexpectedly irreverent and non-judgemental and fun. She loved to dance and ate snickers bars for dinner.

Even though it had been months since we talked, I miss her. The world looks different now. Her presence is missing and I feel it, despite the fact that the sun still rises and sets just the same as it did before.

Barbara A Baker, you were a class act and I vow today to honor you by living my life even more fully and meaningfully and happily. I will miss you and remember you always.

Change of Seasons

It's that time of year when the leaves go from green to gold and the world goes from light to darkness. I know many people look forward to the holidays and the cooler weather, but this change scares me to be honest. I don't do well with winter. Sometimes I am able to hold myself together, but I can remember whole years where this part of the year was spent curled up in bed waiting for spring. I don't like that. It is destructive and wasteful.

So I fight. Fight to keep myself together. Exercising regularly helps. As does having trips and fun activities planned. Last year was really good despite a harsh winter in DC. As winter approaches I strive to be mindful and aware and do everything in my power to fight the temptation to get under the covers and never come out.

But if I can't fight it anymore, I sure am glad to have my Kindle!

Finding My Voice

For most of my life I have been a voracious journal writer. It began when I got a “fill in the blanks” journal for either a birthday or Christmas when I was probably 7 or 8 years old. I still have that journal which reveals, among other things, that my favorite outfit was my Dukes of Hazard t-shirt and a denim skirt and that my favorite song was “You Light Up My Life” by Pat Boone. Yes, I was cool in that way only those of us who grew up in the 70’s can understand.

Since then I’ve had many, many journals and have written off and on for most of the last 30 years. I have a record of all of the important (and unimportant) milestones of life. Like how I felt while my mom was sick and dying and then dead. Of college – undergrad and grad school. Of 18 months in France. Of two years in Senegal. I wrote about it all and there were long periods of time where I wrote daily. It’s a very thorough record of a very solitary life.

For me, journals have been a place to share my unique viewpoint, and work out issues I didn’t feel like I could say to other people. Sometimes, particularly while traveling, I used journals as a way to remind myself where I’d been and what I’d been doing, but mostly my journals have been a place to share my deepest darkest secrets. I never edited them thinking that perhaps they’d be read by others. I used them as therapy. Intended for me, and me, only. And writing came naturally, like eating and breathing. I HAD to do it. No question.

But over the last several years, my drive to write in a journal has all but disappeared. There’s no denying that there is a direct correlation between the dissolution of my marriage and my interest in writing in my journal. For some reason, during this period in my life where for the first time I was failing to achieve something I’d set out to accomplish, I lost my voice. Over a course of 18 months I did the most soul searching I’ve ever done in my entire life (or hope to ever do again) and hardly a word of that process is recorded in my journal. And I’m not really sure why. Perhaps it is as simplistic as me not wanting a record of what I perceived then as failure. Or maybe it’s something else.

All I know is that while I “force” myself to write in my journal now, that automatic need I used to have is all but gone. And I want it back but I don’t really know how to get there. That was one of the intentions behind starting a blog, but it hasn’t made a huge difference. So far…

I guess what I’m saying is I want to refind my voice. I’m trying to refind my voice. And I’m going to refind my voice. Starting today. It might take a while but I want it back.

Why is this so important? Because I know only too well that sometimes life ends too early and all you’re left with is the words that were written. My mother’s journals are literally my most precious possession. If the house were on fire and I had to grab one thing, those journals (and not my own) would be what I would take. It has meant everything to me these last 22 years to have her words, written in her handwriting to go back to time and time again. I read them, and re-read them and re-read them again. And each time I do they mean something new to me, as time passes and my experiences change.

I know that I don’t have anyone in my life who loves me the way that I loved her, but I still think perhaps my words matter and it means something to me to leave a record for the world to know that I was here. I existed and mattered and had a lot to say even though most of the time there was no one there to hear it.