Accepting the life we have

It is Monday, a new week is here. And I am going to try to approach life in a new way.

This morning as I was having my morning coffee I was texting back and forth with my dear friend Katya. As our conversation went on — she posed a question and asked how I would respond — what I came to was that I need to get out of the mindset that if I’m not making money doing something it is not worthwhile. We hold ourselves to these standards in life and judge ourselves so harshly. The facts are that I am not able to work outside of the home and due to some of my life limitations I am not able to do consistent paid work inside the home either. But, as I come to realize, that does not negate the life I am living, what I am giving in the world, how I love and am loved. I wrote to Katya…

“I believe my blog matters, taking care of my babies matters, being a mother and a grandmother matters, and making my garden and sharing it with the world matters. It all makes for a pretty full life…”

Why do we judge ourselves so harshly? What I need to do is to look at my life in terms of what I do do, not what I don’t or am not able to do. This change in perspective might help me in ways that I have not been able to see.

I will no longer be signing up for endless webinars that are all about starting an online business (and presumably making lots of money). I am simply not able to do that. It has taken me a very long time to come to accept this but it is true. What I can do is to do what I am doing. If I am able to do a little bit of this or that and make a few dollars along the way that would be nice but right now my focus needs to be to celebrate and fully live the life that I have. I am not giving up on life by accepting the limitations that I do have while finding joy in what is possible. This is a whole new way to look at life. I haven’t quite figured out how to do it or what it all means. It is something I must explore.

Today I started the day having coffee and communicating with my friend. I have taken care of my wee pugs and watched the birds at the feeders. I blew off the deck and took more food out for the squirrels. I made a light lunch, talked to my sweet daughter Rachel who called to say hello, am writing this blog post. I think I haven’t quite come to what all I want to say here. I think I will take the pugs out and curl up with them and read for awhile. I will come back to this later. Something is coming, some thoughts, but they are not yet here. It is important to allow things the time they need to come to fruition…

It is later now. It got dark and rained all afternoon. I did indeed curl up with the pugs in our big recliner and read until my eyes were heavy. We took a nap. I rested more than slept for awhile and then turned on the light and read more. The little ones stayed snuggled up to me. I am reading a book that I am really enjoying and would never have read had a special not popped up when I went to amazon a couple of days ago to look for a movie or series to watch. 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for $1.99. (It’s usually $9.99 a month) You can read all the Kindle books that are in the program for free with the membership. I won’t continue on after the 3 month promotion because frankly there aren’t that many books I’d care to read in the program but I thought it might give me something different to look at. I am reading a novel called “Digging In” a best-selling novel on amazon by Loretta Nyhan. I am really enjoying it. I don’t read novels much anymore, I prefer non-fiction like May Sarton, Anne Lamott, Natalie Goldberg and others, women’s journals, letters, and memoirs, but I used to read a lot of novels. I think I will return to them again.

At 6 with the rain letting up a bit I got the dogs out and got them their dinner. I am sipping a small glass of wine and will make an omelet for dinner when I get this up. I have an online meeting tonight at 8:30. Afterwards I will watch the news shows I enjoy that come on late on MSNBC. I don’t have cable anymore, haven’t for a year, and I had watched so little television by the time I gave it up I didn’t care but I loved MSNBC’s news programs starting with Rachel Maddow at 9 (I usually watch the rebroadcast at midnight as I will tonight because I will be in my meeting until 10.) and then Lawrence O’Donnell at 10 and Brian Williams at 11. After I got rid of cable I found out I can watch MSNBC on my phone and I was delighted. I usually “watch” them with the phone propped up on my desk here as I do other things, and settle into the chair with the pugs about 11 and watch/listen until I start to fall asleep. It’s funny, I was never a person who watched the news until the presidential election in 2016. I started watching Rachel Maddow that year and got hooked. I absolutely love her.

What does this all add up to? It doesn’t sound like much. I think that I am in a period of adjustment, and as I sit here I realize that this is huge. Almost 20 years ago I knew a young woman who wasn’t even 20. I was writing and publishing a lot, she took my journal classes, she was young and sweet and hopeful. Today that “young woman” is married with children and has a million dollar company. On some level it devastates me. How did she, how did so many others, move past me? Build big businesses online making a lot of money while my marriage ended, and I had multiple breakdowns, struggled with bipolar disorder, came into a little money when my mother died that allowed me to buy this house and my car and get a little life going and a business started only to lose everything with a devastating house fire not to mention having realized, over the last two decades, that the mental health issues that I have struggled with since I was young were not miraculously going to go away.

I have times when I do better, then times when I struggle more, and it is something that I will deal with for the rest of my life. There will be no million dollar company, I will not produce a book a year as I had always imagined I would, I will be 64 one week from today and I have to come to terms with my life as it is. And, if I am able to have a life in which I find any peace, I am going to have to celebrate this life that I do have. Given the circumstances I have had a hard time finding a way to celebrate my life. It hasn’t amounted to what I thought it would and I am stymied by both my extremely limited income and my inability to make much at all — and how would I even do that? — because I would lose the few benefits I need to survive? How do I come to peace with this, and go on? I simply do, and will, because I have to.

First, there is the shock, “Oh my God, does this mean my life will never be more than this? When I had so many dreams, when I believed that it would be other than this, when I believed that I would do work in the world that would enable me to help others and live comfortably and not have to be afraid?” And then comes the realization, the time of acceptance — I think this is where I am now — “Yes, this is what it means.” But then we come to a crossroads and we have two choices. We can give up on our life and live a miserable life for the rest of our life or we can say, “This is my life, this is the truth of my life, these are the facts of my life, as they are. I will now accept them, I will be grateful for what I do have, and I will make the most of these things. I will make the most of them, even find joy in them, I will take what I have and move bravely into each day. I will do what I can. It will be enough.”

This is where I am now, and I am still afraid. I was just thinking that this is all not so different from Kubler-Ross’s 5 stages of grief. I believe that I have been going through these stages — Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance — in regards to having to come to terms with the death of the dream of the life I thought I would have, but, having been moving through these stages I am finally, I believe, I hope, coming to the time of acceptance, and I will move on from here into the days ahead, and I will see what I can do and be and create in the life that I do have. I don’t have all of the answers yet, I am only beginning to relax into the new reality. I’m not sure where it will take me but I think I will be okay. I’ve said I would be okay in other posts, but truth be told I didn’t really believe it, I couldn’t imagine it. Now I know I will. Being okay is a choice. I will be okay, and I will celebrate these things that I do have. I will celebrate my life. It is a life worth celebrating, and I’m going to figure out how to do just that. It will take me time, I will be uncertain and afraid along the way, but I will find my way. There is no other choice. I have begun.