A Welcome Back: Finding your roots

Recently I stumbled upon the song "Welcome Back" when searching for another show's theme song.  Now I've heard this song literally probably one hundred times, but when I heard it, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia.  Longing for the memories of times I never had--hat tip to a sarcastic comment to a YouTube commenter about Time In a Bottle.  But I digress.  At that time, as imperfect as it was, my nuclear family was together.  My parents and my second oldest brother were still alive.  I still had my whole future ahead of me, even as troubled, uncertain and not secure as it was at the time.

I had spent so much time trying to escape the shadow of my childhood and my early adulthood.  I don't necessarily blame anyone for it (as dysfunction often or usually has generational roots), but I was raised in a very dysfunctional family.  My dad was an alcoholic and my mom struggled with esteem issues.  With each parent, the issues had a generational root.  This dysfunction hurt my socialization and hindered my ability to fit in.  Furthermore, due to the times and issues my own parents faced, I was subjected to childhood sexual abuse by a "church camp counselor" and someone else whom I similarly held trust for.  Furthermore, my parents divorced when I was 15, leading me to effectively be the second parent in the household.  If that wasn't bad enough, I had a severe generalized anxiety disorder take hold when I was 17.   What could have been a time for me to savor, learn, and thrive was instead mostly a time to 'survive'.  The good times I held on tight to as I know they were a reprieve from the dysfunction.  As the good times came to a close, I dreaded and then mourned their passing.  Though I'd always had a firm set of beliefs, I didn't truly start to find myself until I was in my mid to late 20s and began the process of healing at that point.  It wasn't truly healing so much as effectively covering the wounds from being exposed.  Though I remembered my childhood, in some ways, I pushed it and my early twenties away as a time to forget.  I got married in the middle of this process and completed a process of starting a new life.  Though I remembered my childhood, I continued to push it away.

You can only escape your past and roots for so long before you have to come to terms or peace with them.  As long as I had my 'new life' up and running, it was easy to just ignore my roots.  But, just like lunch and recess end in grade school and you have to get back to class, life has a way forcing you to 'get back to class'.  For me, my 'get back to class' moment started in 2011 with my divorce & all that went with it, my job loss and my brother's suicide.  I started to really process backwards at that point, but was I was still fighting to survive until 2013.  In 2013, my divorce was finalized and my job situation stabilized.  This allowed me to shift more towards process mode.  I had my "Welcome Back" moment on flight out to Salt Lake City for training.  I was all alone heading towards a city I didn't know anyone in with only my iPod to keep me company.  I had started to listen to the music of my childhood and my early adulthood leading up to my marriage.  As I was listening I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia and sadness.  I was literally remembering where I was and what I was doing during at the time that I embraced each song.  I had built a new life starting in my mid-twenties and had largely pushed aside my old life, without having effectively processed it.  I wasn't that my new life was a fraud so much as it was a new chapter in a story, where the old chapters were not completed or built up properly (processed).  But, it was just me, a plane full of strangers and my music.  This was a very bittersweet moment.  I could have put away the music, but I knew that wasn't the answer.  So, I continued the search.  I realized that the 'old days' though not perfect had their moments too and that they shouldn't be shunned.   Really, it was like another turning point.   I was in the beginning the long road to learning to embrace the past without the weight of the hurt.  I had been able to move forward much earlier with some level of healing, but some or much of deep healing wasn't there yet.

After my divorce, I'd moved back to my hometown and though it had changed a lot, the memories were still there.  Shortly afterwards, it became clear that dad was no longer in a position to take stay  at home, even with help.  He kept falling and no one could be there 24/7 to help him.  After his final fall at home, the staff a the hospital and I encouraged him to move to a nursing home.  But what to do with his place, my birth home?  He would pass away within the next two years, but in the meantime, it need a caretaker.  I eventually moved back there to watch over it, manage it and his affairs in the last year of his life.  I had literally moved in the room of my teens.  As a teen, my education was my 'ticket out', but 25-30 years later I can come face to face with the place of childhood and specifically.  Once again, bittersweet, but it gave my time to see the place (and maybe my childhood and teens) in a different way.

In Welcome Back, Kotter, the man character, Kotter, was a remedial student in a group called the "Sweathogs".  Life had brought him full circle and now he was a teacher at his high school.  Ironically enough, he was teaching a new group of "Sweathogs".   But, instead of being a troubled teen, he was now a man who had learned from and could now impart knowledge and hope from experience to the same type of kids he used to be.   Just like Kotter, I saw the old 'hangout' from a different perspective.  I didn't 100% embrace it like Kotter, but I was able to look at it more objectively.  It's been 5 years since my dad passed away and since that moment ended.  But, I still look at it as learning experience.

So, what can we learn?


Embracing the Past, finding your inner Kotter

• Realizing that the 'old days', even as rough as they may have been, still had there moments.  (Jewels in the Darkness).
• Realizing that you can push back on processing the hard times, but eventually it is healthiest if you face them.  You don't have to face them on their terms.  As an adult, with life experiences, we don't have to see things as we used to.   The bully of your childhood might have been a jerk, but he may have been dealing with his own inner demons at home, for example.  Time and wisdom can grant you that clarity.  
• Realize that that was a different time and place and you faced hard times as best as you knew how at the time.  Sure we can look back and think, I should have reacted differently, protected myself better, etc.  But, that's looking at things from an 'adult' perspective.
• Realizing hard experiences you faced early on have
• Given you the confidence or strength to face adversity throughout life. 
• Given you the ability to pass on hard-earned wisdom.  

Aspects of the past or your roots may not be pleasant to face.  But, instead of avoiding them or pretending them it is best if you are able to welcome them back and consider them part of who you are.  You don't have to live in that place, but you it is best if you are able to mentally able to 'visit' it without living in the hurt.  Just because the roots were imperfect doesn't mean they can or should be ignored.  Just as with a tree, treating or addressing damaged roots, can improve our long term health (physical, emotional and spiritual).  So, just like Kotter, welcome your roots back.

- Rich 

 

Wisdom to Know...

I believe in life, we hear sayings and understand them on some level, but don't necessarily deeply or totally appreciate them for awhile if ever.  Once such such saying for me is the Serenity Prayer.  I suspect anyone who has been going to church for a long time, been involved in a support/recovery group and/or is a person of faith has heard of the first part of it:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can; 

and wisdom to know the difference.

Not everyone however is familiar with the second part of it:

Living one day at a time; 

enjoying one moment at a time; 

accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 

taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it; 

trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will; 

that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

forever in the next. 

Amen.

Anyway, I've heard it many times and maybe I have really 'gotten it' before, but haven't expressed it clearly as I will no. Below, I'm going to focus on the first part of that prayer as I understand it.


Serenity

• Calmness of mind.
• Untroubled of heart.
• Doesn't mean no fear or disquiet, but it means they don't rule you.

Accepting the things I cannot change

• To me this usually means tabling my expectations of others people or circumstances.  
• Expectations might be quite understandable such as wanting a healthy relationship with you child, your siblings, your parents, etc.  It doesn't matter, the expectations have to be let go if unrealistic.
• Expectations might appear to be within reach but if you were honest, would see that they aren't.  It doesn't matter how in reach they appear to be, if they aren't, it's time to let the expectation go.
• Expectations that we will be understood.  If we are fortunate, we will have that friend and/or lover that pretty well understands us.  Life is so complex as is human interaction there is no feasible way to expect anyone other than our Higher Power to totally 'get us'. It doesn't matter how much we want it, it's time to understand that we will never be fully understood by anyone except our HP.  In short, time to let that expectation go.
• To me, this means actually accepting what I can't change, rather than just saying or trying to convince myself that I have 'accepted' it. 
• To me this requires an understanding of what accepting is.
• Recognizing the validity/reality of what is to be accepted.
• Consenting to the reality of what is to be accepted.
• Words and actions showing that acceptance.
• Your focus is not on the person/situation.
• Any thoughts about the person/situation may pop up, but do not linger.
• You can have feelings about the person/situation, but you just can't live in them.
• To me this requires an understanding of what not accepting looks like.
• Saying you've accepted something, but your words give lie to that supposed acceptance. 
• For example, you say your over someone, yet every chance you get you badmouth the other party.
• Saying you've accepted something, but your actions give lie to that supposed acceptance.  
• For example, you say your over someone, yet when you think no one is watching, you stalk them on social media or elsewhere.
• A tendency to be triggered about the circumstance that needs to be accepted, even if it infrequent.

Courage to change the things I can

• To me that means recognizing any blocks in the way of making the change.
• All the courage in the world cannot help if you haven't identified the blocks in the way of change.
• This may require prayer, meditation, counseling or other means to draw out the nature of the blocks.
• To me that means being able to push through those blocks.
• This means a willingness to face any blocks or demons that are in the way.
• This can mean asking others, including your HP for help, strength or support in facing the blocks.
• This doesn't necessarily mean waiting until the fear subsides (it may never).
• It means walking through the fear.
• It means talking through the fear.
• It means focusing what is on the other side of the wall rather than the difficulty in climbing the wall.

Wisdom to know the difference

• Sometimes we know when what we can change and what we can't--and for that matter should and shouldn't--but need to be honest with ourselves.  Wisdom starts with a willingness to be honest with ourselves.
• Sometimes we don't know the difference and need to ask our HP, meditate, ask for advice, etc. for help in discerning.  In other words, we have to be open to our HP and the resources he places in our path.
• Gaining wisdom in life isn't a one-time event, but a life long process.  Gaining wisdom over a specific circumstance or situation likewise may occur over over time rather than all at once, though we might have a crystallizing moment.

For me the path to serenity is a long and continuing one.  I still have a long way to go, but I'm still on the journey and am willing to be on that journey for the rest of my life.  Perhaps one of the biggest blocks is wisdom (or willingness) to know the difference, hence the blog title.  Anyway, while I would love utopia, I know I'll never have it in this life, so I work to rest my hope in my HP that He will grant me the first part of the prayer while I keep in mind the second.

I hope you'll take what you can and are able to use out of this blog and add whatever need as in life, "your mileage may very".  Have a blessed day.

- Rich

Out of the darkness and into the light.

Amazingly enough, we just have to realize that some truths are universal.  Like as in everything else about human nature, we can crack open a bible and find that nothing is new under the sun.  But, I digress.  Just as His chosen people were called out of the darkness and into the light...

(originally posted 2/23/15, my father has since passed away)

1 Peter 2:9 (KJ21) 

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

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As many of you know, my dad has later stage Parkinson's.  He has little ability to do much for himself.  He gets most of his feedings through a tube and sometimes is allowed to eat yogurt.  Sometimes, he has his coherent moments and his incoherent moments.  Suffice to say, he needs constant care or supervision.  Anyway, I visit him when I can, when I don't have my daughter as he's never been big into grand-kids.   Yesterday, I visited him and I ran into this character who called himself "New York"--real name Juan.  Anyway, I asked him about that and he's originally from the Queens/Brooklyn area.  Interesting story.  He felt like his life path was meant to take him out of New York.  He expected he'd go to Mississippi at some point.  Anyway, he was hanging in St. Louis visiting people he knew and was playing a pickup game of basketball.  He alluded to the fact that he played D league basketball in his younger years.  Those are like NBA minor leagues is what I've heard.  Anyway, unbeknownst to him, someone was fixing to do a drive-by.  He was like, "While everyone else was diving for cover, I was jumping for the ball."  Long story short, a few got hit, but none as bad as he did.  He sustained a shot to his spinal cord and was rendered a paraplegic.  He was initially saying to the ambulance driver that he needs to go the hospital to get patched up so he can get back to hoops.   Some might take that as denial or not grasping, but it sounds like with him it was a never say die spirit.  Long story short, he could have lived with relatives, but he choose at this time to receive long-term care at my dad's nursing home.  He felt a calling, almost like that's where he needed to be.  

I was fascinated by his story.  3 days in town and his life was changed forever, yet he chose not to be bitter at God or St. Louis.  His family back in New York, was like out of all the people we least expected something like this to happen to him.  We were having a good spiritual discussion and I said maybe God knew that you out of all the people you know could have handled this.  In other words, if this was fated to happen, a lessor person would have folded.  He said his grandpa said something like that.  He also said that in a way, he felt like God was telling him to slow down.  So, he's the one who picks up the spirit of residents like my dad.  Out of darkness comes light.  Could have dove inward and been bitter, but instead gives back after having so much stolen from him.
----

So, he's working on my dad.  Getting him to come to terms, etc.   Now my dad is 'old school' prejudice I want my boys to marry blonde haired, blue-eyed Aryan woman type.  He actually said that. Not to make excuses, but I have an idea of the environment he was raised...  Anyway ex was a brunette and had brown eyes and offered to dye her hair and get blue contacts, but he was like you know what I mean.  (LOL)   I love my dad, but don't always like him, but he's one the lessor likely candidates for an NAACP, diversity awareness type award.  But a funny thing happened, "New York" is a considerably younger African-American male with a lot of tattoos and yet he choose to befriend my dad.  My dad counts him as a friend.  Perhaps my dad can better appreciate those different than him.  A part of me is amused and a part of me is like wow, God works in mysterious ways.  So, anyway, I talked it up with New York and said, you know if there is anything you can do to help, work on his spirituality and coming to terms with his health issues (rather than being delusional).   I think I might take some time out to just visit this cat outside of a dad visit.  :-)

----

Does God wish for bad things to happen to us?  I am fairly sure He doesn't.  Does He cause bad things to happen?  Once again, I'm tending to think no.  Does He allow?  Well God, being God does have ultimate say.  Healings occur where the prognosis looks grim.  People come into our lives at the seeming right moment.  We nearly avoid tragedies from time to time.  So, I believe He can and does step in, especially when we pray to Him about our concerns.  But, as with free will and us not having immortality.  He doesn't control us and bad things happen.  However, I am of the belief that He uses bad circumstances, our darkest hours to change us, to allow an opportunity to grow, to offer us freedom.

• My brother's death was a wake-up call to me to not bottle things up, to stand up where I would not have had the strength or insight to, to reevaluate to make sure I didn't go down the rabbit hole he did.  Perhaps, as bad as it was, God used the shock of his death granted me life in a way.
• My mom's sudden passing last year gave me the opportunity to grown and mature.  Someone had to step up and say, I will make sure it is paid for, it is done right.   I wasn't asking for it, but in life, our role are revealed.  Out of love for her, I was not going to fight my role.  Knowing that I could handle this trial by fire made me realize that I was stronger than I thought.                          

Most people, if they look hard enough have a circumstance or two (or more) in which the darkest hour has the potential to have a silver lining:

• A new path opens which you could never have anticipated.  Meet new friends, develop new support networks.
• An opportunity to realize strength where you didn't realize you had it.  Burying a loved one.
• You wake up and realize the path you were on was leading you to destruction.  For example, a drinking buddy gets killed and there but for the grace of God, could it have been you with him, the next time.

As a corollary, understanding and appreciating the silver lining doesn't mean you are grateful for the dark clouds, it just means God has given you the wisdom to see good come out of bad.  For example, it was hard to watch my late brother descend and it was equally as hard seeing good out of it.  But, I have to trust God that he's in a better place and that God used that as an opportunity to shake things up in my life.  I will always remember him and wish things hadn't turned out the way they did, but I can take away the silver lining without guilt.

(If you like this post, look at Finding Jewels in the Darkness for similar thoughts)