Poop-a-loop. It seems…..that as hard as I try to make my life simple, sometimes life is just hard.
And I don’t try to make it hard. But lately, lets really face it.
Life is kinda hard right now.
When life is hard the thing I really, really, really like to do is blame someone.
OHHHHHHHHH blame so fun. It really is.
Blame takes all my fear and anger it rolls it up into a flaming ball that is so easy to hold in my hand and launch.
Launch.
I don’t care where its going but its going to be good- its gonna hit with a BOOM and people are gonna know.
That I’m angry.
And my flaming blame ball hits. I feel its heat. Its wrath, MY wrath. My Power….BAHAHAHAHHAHA.
But.
Like pouring lighter fuel on a fire, it only singes some eyebrows and is done in seconds.
It’s awesome. And then unfulfilling.
And leaves me wanting more.
So let’s launch another.
And another.
And then I don’t know why I’m launching, why I’m SO angry…….only that it feels good.
For a second.
But life as blame is hard.
It’s almost as hard as life as joy.
It’s harder to create a big ball of joy to throw at someone.
Joy is squishy. It does not conform to one shape.
It has no rules, it cannot be contained. It requires time and thought.
It does not create a BOOM. God, I love a BOOM.
I’ve seen a lot this week. Battles between maskers and unmaskers. Vaxers and Unvaxers
I still have not seen my mountains.
Mice ate my Mercedes.
I’ve seen desperate people chase a plane to escape their country.
Stop.
I’ve seen desperate people chase a plane to escape their country.
And I have to focus on that last point. As I sit here, in my house….knowing that my loves are safe, and fed and I have few discomforts and I don’t have to race a plane……
I have one job……What can I do to de-escalate the blame?
I think I’m okay. I think you might be okay. What can we do, as people in a safe space, what can we do to stop the blame?
And so you’re back from outer space I just walked in to find you here with that sick look upon your face I should have changed that stupid lock I should have made you leave your key If I’d known for just one second you’d be back to bother me
Lordy.
How are we back here?
How? I want to be super angry. I want to school some people on public health; small pox, polio, seizures, erectile dysfunction and how science solved these issues. .
But anger gets us nowhere and perhaps fuels additional anger so instead I am channeling my inner newly vaccinated, hopeful, Springtime Heather.
Rewind back to March 22, 2021 Heather.
Oh, she was so sassy and unshaven…..because she really had not gone anywhere for a year.
My Vax date was March 22: 11:45 am MST
I printed out everything. Every notice, every request for information….I filled it out,
Signed, sealed delivered. I’m yours.
At 11:00 am MST, I jumped in my car and drove to the Adams12 Fairground and waited. And cried in my homemade RBG mask.
And thought- thought about the past year.
How much had changed- plans that were canceled……I thought of my entire at-risk family, how much l love each and every one of them and how fortunate we all were to come out of this and get a shot 12 months later.
Waited.
So Grateful.
For that first COVID shot.
And then I got bored.
And switched from Aretha to Hamilton
I am not throwin’ away my SHOT!
I am not throwin’ away my SHOT!
Heck ya Ham BONE! This nonsense is over. OOOOOVVVEEER. We were all gonna get our shot. We were gonna kiss each other; super sloppy on mouth. No tongue……’cause that’s weird.
I drove my car into this great big garage where a lovely woman took my information as I cried.
She asked if I was scared.
Heck no lovely 12 year old nurse, I’m not scared I just love you. And I love what the HELL ever you are shooting in my arm if that means I can love on my Granny, and my family….
Can I go on vacation? Someday? Your sloppy bun is super cute.
She stuck a needle in my arm and let me take her picture. First shot done…..the rest of my life…..right ahead of me….save three more weeks and another shot….
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
I am not throwing away my shot!
And today Heather?
F*cking Delta.
And just like the virus, the talk now seems more harmful, contagious, deadly to a society that just…..wants…..to…..move…..on.
Being scared is hard. Wanna be super scared? Come sit in an ICU where no one has the answers. Come sit where you have to face the reality that you have absolutely no control.
I got joyfully, proudly vaccinated 5 months ago.
And I promise I have not grown a second head nor do I feel a need for brains, extreme violence or human blood.
But I do……..
I do feel a need for connection.
Community. I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeddddddd that. I need it without fear. I need it without anger.
I need to love on my sweet nephews who are about to start elementary school. My sweet, smart boys who think farts are super funny and cats rule the world and cannot get vaccinated yet.
We said goodbye tomy Gran this weekend. It was lovely and sad and heartfelt and full of family. I had the honor to share my thoughts at the service. I thought I would share with you 🙂
Earlier this year my Gran, my mom and I all qualified for AARP.
It was a magic moment.
I grew up with my Gran.
And my Gran grew up with me.
It was lovely.
And terrifying.
I got to know my Gran in a way few people have the luxury to know their Grandparents.
I had a gift. Perhaps the most precious gift- the gift of time.
I lived 50 years, five months and 28 days with my Grandmother.
Very few people get 50 years, five months and 28 days of unconditional love. I stand in front of you having unconditional love withdrawals. If anyone would like to pat my head, hold my hand, and tell me how beautiful I was a baby, I would really appreciate it. Seriously, there are applications in the back.
How amazingly lucky am I to have had my entire life with my Gran.
She is a part of who I am. I would refer to my Grandma at work. Something would come up around a Veterans organization or a nonprofit and I would say, “Well I was talking to my Grandma about this…….”
And everyone younger than me in the room would give me a look……… “No you weren’t. You were not talking to your Grandma about this because you are old and old people do not have Grandmas.”
But I did.
I had my Grandma for 50 years, five months and 28 days.
When people heard of her passing, the stories shared were amazing….a contagious laugh, a mischievous spirit, a tad irreverent and joyful.
So very joyful.
My Gran chose joy.
My Gran. At 25 she became a widow with two small children. It was 1956- a time when women could not open a bank account.
Women could not buy a house. They could not establish a line of credit. And she was grieving a terrible, terrible loss.
She was 25.
I think when life hands you something so hard when you are so young you can either retreat or you can declare to the universe that this will not destroy you.
I do believe my Gran made this declaration with a resounding yawp; determined to make the best of life when life presented her with the very worst.
And so she did.
My Gran chose joy.
Perhaps chose is the wrong word.
She owned it.
My Gran was big when you should be small.
Naughty when you should be nice.
Loud when you should be quiet.
And the more you asked her to hush, the more she was unable to restrain herself. To ask my Granny to be any less than who she was like asking the sun not to rise in the morning.
Beautiful, amazing, and unapologetically unconventional
She told me……ladies did not pass gas.
She told me……ladies fart.
And as we all tried to block out some really stinky holidays; holding a nose at Christmas Eve, wondering why that scented Christmas candle isn’t working as it should, we were laughing uncontrollably, wiping tears from our eyes and hoping
Hoping.
That you did not inherit Granny’s super tiny bladder.
My Gran was a full grown up with the bladder of a two year old.
I say this because incidentally, I have inherited said bladder. It is a constant struggle- do I laugh or do I pee my pants.
Usually it is the later.
“Tell me about yourfamily.”
“Well, they fart and then laugh until they cry and then try not to wee their pants. It is a family trifecta.”
And. It is a beautiful trifecta.
My Grandmother worked her life as a solderer.
In full disclosure I had to google what it meant to be a solderer:
To solder: To solder is to apply an alloy; a copper or a silver, to a joint to unite two metal objects together- without heating those objects to the melting point.
Solder is also referred to as anything that joins or unites.
Of course my Grandmother was a solderer.
Because my Gran was solder.
She was able to join and unite so many people around incredibly random events.
She could- heat up a group to almost…almost….but not quite to the melting point and fusing them together.
No wonder Honeywell and Martin Marietta loved her so much.
My Gran became a Hospice volunteer when her sister Annie died. She loved this work. In my own memories, I remember her talking about this work more than any other career. Perhaps this was her way to let others know, they could still chose joy.
This joyful woman found my Grandpa Al and in June they celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary. The day she passed we sat with Grandpa and gazed at their wedding photo;
She was 26. So much life already lived and so much life ahead.
“Youth is a gift of nature, but age is a work of art”.
How lucky I was to be a part of that tapestry.
Yes. 91 years. And we can say she lived a full life and it was her time and blah, blah, blah. But I will fiercely miss my irreverent, loving, lippy, naughty, joyful, flatulent, tiny bladdered, perfectly imperfect grandmother.
There are five more days left in July and I am hoping they pass quietly into August. For those who know my July, you know it is fraught with loss and love and hope and an underlying tide of grief more evident in other months.
Granny’s passing was just another notch in July’s belt. I refuse to buy July a bigger belt.
I’ve been working hard my July’s. Giving them credit and remembrance where it is due at the same time allowing myself space and grace. It’s been a process. And it has been work.
Conscious work; journaling, allowing time for myself, checking in on my emotions, my Hubs, my relationship to this world and the people in it…….I don’t think any of this comes to us without a conscious effort.
Thursday after we lost Granny, I met a dear friend for a swim in a lake.
I love open water swimming. I love how small I feel in the middle of something so much bigger than myself. I am vulnerable yet strong. I am at the mercy of the elements. I have no choice but to swim. And so, I swim.
I think of Samantha when I swim in open water. The sense I rely on are gone. I can’t see more than four feet in murky water. My hearing is compromised. Samantha’s senses……all connected to her brain, never worked the way they should. I believe she lived her life navigating through murky water- vulnerable to the world.
I swim. In this murky lake and suddenly evolved Heather no longer exists. I am prehistoric crocodile Heather whose only concern is breathing.
This is the best way to navigate July. To Breathe.
I usually veer way off course when I swim in open water. I am right side dominant which leads to swimming in a circle. But this lake has a yellow rope. The yellow rope lies six feet below the surface- I never clearly see it…I just kind of see it. Following the yellow rope requires concentration- I stare into a deep abyss of murky water and search for the yellow. And that is all I think about- the yellow rope.
And breathing. Breathing is good too.
And suddenly, I have swam across the lake. Evolved Heather realizes she now has to swim back. Crocodile Heather jumps back in thinking about the best place to get a breakfast burrito.
I try to look beyond what I can see in the water- I think of Gran and her last days….Sammers and her last days…..and I follow the yellow rope and I breathe.
Back on land, my senses jump back into place. I smell like a lake. I hear my phone. I see the sun reflecting off the flatirons. Crocodile Heather forgets how to start a car, find there is no room for her tail and so I stop.
Stop. And breathe. And search for the yellow rope. And a breakfast burrito.
On February 14, 2021, I posted that I was changing jobs in the middle of a pandemic. Here I was, all giddy and nervous….leaving something familiar that I knew well for that bright shinny penny at the bottom of the pool.
You know what that experience was?
It.
Was.
Awesome.
It was fun, terrifying, a bit out of my comfort zone…..I learned something new but offered expertise as well. It was humbling to work with such super smart people. Crazy that they chose me…..it was a lovely gift.
And then I quit.
I KNOW right???? I’m not a quitter. Only quitters quit. But that’s what I did. I up and resigned after four whole months.
Because this job market is crazy. And us 50-somethings think it’s only crazy for those young whippersnappers in the global digital space. But you know what? It can be crazy for us subject matter experts 25 years in the industry too.
It was funny being courted for another job after four months. I felt like I was on job Tinder. This is not me. I don’t leave. I have been at the same job for 15 years. Only quitters quit. What about insurance? I just qualified for my 501K match. I just learned the Apple IOS system and GSuite….kind of.
And after years of committed job history, it was terrifying to tell my new manager that I was leaving after four months. They took a chance on me.
And so we talked. We talked about this opportunity, this job market, the lovely gift I had been given during these four months.
And my manager said, “You were meant to work here so we could get to know each other. It’s okay. Our paths will cross again.” And then she told me how great this time has been and how fortunate SHE felt to have worked with ME.
Well Hells Bells. Butter my biscuit and call me for dinner.
I will always think of this interaction with grace. I will always hold this person and her leadership style in the highest regard.
In a time when people are leaving their jobs in record numbers for other opportunities……in this super hot job market where a 50-something gray haired lady can change jobs twice in the first half of 2021, it’s important to remember who we are as employers and employees.
How do you make me feel? When I hand in that resignation, you as a manager are in charge and represent the entire company- after four months of service or after many years. We all remember that last interaction.
My baby toe hangs out with the rest of my toes. Most of the time I don’t consider my baby toe. It is not an outstanding, necessary, appendage. At the same time it is not problematic but it is there ….it is a part of me, just like my big toe, my pinky, my ear lobe, my back molar, my grief……
My grief.
It is July.
And for those of you who have known me for a couple trips around the sun, you know that July is a complex, bittersweet month for me. I can be as testy as a cat on a hot tin roof or introspective and welcoming…..almost manic at times and under the covers the next.
Hello July.
To give myself grace……(a practice I have embraced lately), July saw the births and the deaths of my Littles- both Jack and Samantha. We ride for Children’s in July, we raise money in the name of our kiddos….it is a month. A month of Love and Loss.
What is grief if it is not Love and Loss?
And as time moves further from my loss, I struggle to find it’s place. And my place.
Yesterday our son would have been 16. I did not know Jack beyond the 9 months in my belly but I miss the wonder of who Jack could have been. Who he would have been had he time in this world.
The medical world says he would have been sick. Sick with mitochondrial disease. But we didn’t know that….in my wonder-world he could have been anything…..stinky, lippy, driving, tall….so tall given his genes. A great skier….
Amazing. I can wonder him as amazing. And so I do.
As the calendar turns to another July, 16 years have softened the loss. Time has weathered my response- there is nothing dramatic or catastrophic but the time must be recognized for me. For my Hubs. For our own relationship.
In 16 years, Grief is now a part of who I am and how I move through the world. It is not good or bad but my natural history. It is me….just like my baby toe or my pinky. It is not my whole lens of my eyesight but a part of my cornea that can dull or sharpen my perspective.
And like any body part, sometimes it needs attention.
Happy July Grief Baby Toe. I embrace you.
And Happy Birthday Jack….you amazing, tall, stinky, awesome skier. I miss who you could have been.
I love ALL of my time with my nieces and nephews but as they grow older and find their voice, their eye, their person…. watching these Littles become grown amazing people is really fun. I fall in love with them all over again….from cuddly toddlers to thinking, feeling, artistic people….
I want to have great coffee with them at a hip cafe.
My niece…..Miss Y graduated last weekend with a 4.6 GPA at Cornell.
When Miss Y was four she requested patent leather shoes for her fifth birthday. Her sense of fashion never looked back; it took her to Cornell, Manhattan, New York, Paris, Fort Collins (hehehehehe) and soon back to Paris.
She designs amazing clothes.
I love clothes…..so that bond, you KNOW that bond is there.
But spending this time with her, I got to know her work, her art, her vision, her passion…..And it’s really cool. So cool I found myself saying, “hey, when your home, can I take you to sushi and can we talk about your views on feminism, your struggle between self-reliance and self-doubt, and the absolute beauty in your vulnerability? Please, please, pretty please?”
Exerpts from Miss Y’s notebook….sketches, scans and a childhood photo…
This week I watched her pack up her locker; yards of muslin from practice projects, beautiful sketch upon sketch, handmade patterns with calculations on the side…..I had the honor of watching the artist pack up four years of creative energy.
And then she shared her thesis with me, and her portfolio, and her final film. I was left speechless of this independent young artist…..this side of her I barely knew but want to know more. In an excerpt from her thesis below, she speaks of her journey during Covid; perhaps in a way that speaks to many of us
In the beginning ideation phases, I prefer to explore alone. Months of quarantine in my childhood bedroom apart from the surrounding chaos gave me the chance to reconvene with myself. To be brave, to exist without judgment. To clearly, intentionally, explore the intimate and painful experiences, that though never mentioned, informed every bit of my work. I spent March – August meditating on forgiveness, September – December trying again and again to formulate what I was getting at, and January – April bringing everything to fruition.
I personally stopped writing during COVID because the external world was too exhausting- it took all of my head space just to process.
And when Miss Y’s teammates questioned her ability to plan cohesion her answer was “How can it not be cohesive, its all come from my hands.”
The very best art does not start with the purpose of cohesion. It does not set to please anyone- we do our best work when we can bear our soul. I applaud her hands.
Here are samples of her brilliant work. If you would like to see more, send me a message
As an aunt, I stand by and cheer from the sidelines. I am not in the trenches as her parents are. I can swoop in, swoon, love admire….having only a brief summary on the hours, blood, sweat, and tears spent hand-tailoring the amazing ivory jacket.
I do know it’s fun to get to know these adult people- admire their wisdom, insight and amazing talent- to want to get to know them better as adults; super cool adults.
I have not posted a delight in two months. I have thought of this space often. I have thought of writing often. I have tried to process so many thoughts……..
But I must admit it, my headspace was full. I underestimated the energy it would take to leave a job after 15 years and start at a new company. It has been a wonderful, gratifying process but it required attention and headspace.
I thought I could write the morning of March 23rd as I drove into Boulder- the morning after the King Soopers shooting.
I thought I could write on March 29th when the Derek Chauvin trial started……perhaps address the trauma I felt when hearing testimony…..and the trauma many of us felt.
I could not write. It took too much energy to put emotion into words.
So I did not put anything into words. I processed. Embraced my therapist. Embraced my family. My friends. Swam. Skied. Cried.
I missed this space but not the energy it required. Alas…..I was a bit tapped.
Let your knitted sweater go. The very best project you can focus on? You.
This Little Ladies 90-year old heart is feeling a little tired. A tired heart at 90 lands you a couple nights in the hospital. A tired heart requires a visit in the hospital. Gratefully, Colorado opened up COVID restrictions TODAY and I was able to spend this afternoon with Granny and my Mama in the Cardiology Unit.
I make absolutely no qualms about how lucky I am to still have my Granny in my life. As I grow older, this time becomes a precious gift; her stories, her naughty sense of humor and grandparent love……
Grandparent love is pretty awesome. Grandkids really cannot do ANY wrong in the eyes of a grandparent. Imagine still having that carte’ blanc at 50. It is a delightful gift.
I am grateful that she is getting the best care tonight. That albeit tired, she is still able to banter with the nurses in a way that still makes her granddaughter blush (for those who know me, you KNOW this is a feat).
And I am delighted this precious gift is a part of my life.
Welcome to Samsmom. I'm Heather and this is my journey as we navigate love, loss, rare disease, hope and resilency. Our family carries a POLG-1 genetic mutation that took my two children, Jack and Samantha and most recently, my brother Ryan. It's not an easy place to be, but here we are- with humor, love and grace, here we are. 