Being halfway through our class and in the throes of a lot of reading and written homework, it is reasonable that my mind is going full-throttle in the perspective of all of this stuff we're studying. It's all about how we are made in the image of God, and since God is all good and God can and has already conceived of everything (everything we can imagine already exists), then when we pray "correctly", or put ourselves into the "right" frame of mind - fully conscious of our Divine connection and the Divine Power within us - then we can cause anything we want to be manifested.
This has really brought up a lot of interesting and self-sabotaging things I've been telling myself for years, and I'm changing them - things around health, relationships, and what I think is possible in general, how much difference I think I can make in my own life.
I've known from Landmark Education, the Option Institute, cognitive psychology and years of spiritual study that we do indeed create our reality, but this has been more in terms of psychology, how we do that in our immediate perception of the physical world, and less in metaphysical terms. For example, one of my wasbunds was pretty suspicious of people, and saw the world as a place where you had to always be on your guard, because he believed people would take advantage of you at every opportunity. Even if someone were objectively doing something incredibly kind, he would see that act according to his expectations and world view, always assuming that the person had some malicious ulterior motive. Since he believed that everything that the voice in his head said was true, and since it always spoke to him from this perspective, this was his unshakeable reality: it was just the Truth for him, and anyone who saw it differently (i.e. me) was just naive or downright stupid.
My experience of the world is quite different, because my world view is different. I believe that most people are going to behave in ways that I would call "good", and I am aware enough to acknowledge that my not believing it about certain other types of people doesn't make it objectively true; that doesn't say anything about them, only about me.
We are supposed to choose three quotes that jump out at us from our reading assignment each week, and the "problem" I've been having is just limiting myself to only three. Each week I have at least twice that many that really light me up, for example:
"God's Will most certainly is toward Abundance. If we enjoy life, God is that much more completely expressed; the world is to that extent a happier place in which to live. There is no God who tries men's souls or beats them over the head with a cosmic club, seeing how much they can stand. There is no sin but a mistake, and no punishment but a consequence. [...] Every man must reap as he sows." (italics mine.) Ernest Holmes, Living the Science of Mind, p 138-139.
My wasbund reaped a world where he had to constantly be on guard and protect himself against other people's bad intentions. I reap a world where most people are safe to interact with and will be kind to me.
What are you sowing? If you aren't sure, just take a good look at what you're reaping.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
"There Should Be a Door There!" or "The Truth Shall Set You Free"
When I worked with addicts years ago, one of the things that really stood out about most of my clients was the difficulty they had with accepting life the way it was. They had a really hard time taking life on its own terms, hence the necessity, beauty and effectiveness of the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
No matter how much they banged their head against the wall of a situation or circumstance, insisting THERE SHOULD BE a door there, that's not where it was; nor could they create one there no matter how long or how hard they banged their head against the wall. The most predictable outcome was going to be a headache, not a new door.
There is no freedom in stopping at the point of insisting things should be different than they are, because they can never be what they're not, and getting stopped at wanting them to be what they're not isn't enough to change them.
Hence the analogy of the door. You see, even if it's not where we might ideally want it to be, there already is a door in the room. Once we accept that's where the door actually is, once we accept the truth of it, there is always something we can do with it: we can paint over the existing paint or strip the paint off and stain it, cut it in half and make it a dutch door, or any number of other choices.
Friday, January 6, 2012
BEaUty. Be YOU.
Some years ago my son Trey came up with this idea as a campaign for self-esteem. The idea is not like the DOVE campaign, not just for young females, who can get into some particularly self-destructive behaviors when they don't feel they fit society's limited definitions of beauty, but for anyone and everyone. Trey is transgender, and has had many experiences as an outspoken GLBT spokesperson that have either highlighted difficulties with people who - due to society's incredibly effective brainwashing - judge those who don't fit some predefined norm of "beauty", or that highlighted the acceptance and love that can also be out there from people who haven't succumbed to that.
Trey set up a Facebook page called BEaUty. Be YOU, as a public forum for promoting the idea that true beauty is about authentic self-expression, about expressing your
inner beauty and your gifts, and not being bound by cultural
expectations regarding physical appearance. We did a sort of contest for a logo, and a friend of mine who is a graphic artist in England "won" the context, so her logo became the page's official logo. The page was quite successful for some time, until Facebook suddenly deleted it for a reason we were never able to find out.
Thank you for your support!
Namaste
Relationships Part 1
I'm sure this topic is going to show up in many, many forms, but we'll see what this one turns out to be about.
I've been spending some time on the site Yahoo! Answers, since I love giving advice and seeing what other people are dealing with in their lives. I would guess that most of the people who post in the single and dating area of the Relationships topic are between 13 and 18, as most of them are along the lines of "How can I make my crush notice me," "I've been dumped, I'm heartbroken, how do I make him/her take me back?", "I'm really shy, I think this boy/girl likes me" (with a voluminous list of overanalyzed glances and behaviors and a "what-does-this-mean?") + a "so what should I do/say?"
I know about childhood magical thinking, that everything DOES revolve around us, everything that happens around we caused somehow, even the really "bad" stuff. Given the number of people who never learn that we can't make anyone love us, take us back, listen to us, "get" us, appreciate us, or do anything else for us that we want them to do, I wonder how the rest of us ever do learn that. I'm also a little heartbroken for these young teenage girls who are desperately trying to figure out what they need to change about themselves so that their crush who isn't noticing them at the moment, will.
There is a rating system for the answers, and I am pleased that mine often get picked as the best one. I love being able to share with these girls that what will be attractive about them to other people is confidence, self-esteem and happiness; but very importantly, just being themselves. There is a lot less stress when you just accept who you are and trust that you're ok, rather than trying to twist yourself into knots trying to be what you imagine some other person (who in this case they barely know, if at all) wants anyway. I know this is a tall order for adolescents who are trying to figure out who they are and if/how they fit in, but there's no time like the present to start.
Stop calling yourself a loser just because you're the last one in your group to be dating. Stop calling yourself a loser just because the person you have been calling your best friend chooses someone else for science lab once. Stop calling yourself a loser just because you're shy and you think you're the only one who's nervous about talking to new people - or anyone. Stop calling yourself a loser just because you're not the prettiest or cutest person in school, or in any of the cool cliques.
Or you may end up like one woman with no self-esteem who posted that her fiance broke up with her three months before their wedding, because of a text she got from an old boyfriend who she swears she is just friends with (while the fiance is getting sexted by some skank at 2 am.) But hey, she really loves him and just can't live without him; and besides, he really loves her son who needs a good father figure, and she really can't understand why would he call the police on her when she showed up at his house in the middle of the night with a GUN, screaming, crying and begging him to take her back. How can she make him take her back, she asks, after going on and on about what kind of asshole calls off the wedding only three months before? o.0
Where do you even start? LOL I listed all the red flags, all the ways that this relationship is NOT about love - REAL love, love that is accepting, supportive, trusting, and patient. What they have is poor communication (sending and listening), not talking things through patiently, respectfully and calmly; not trusting, jumping to the worst conclusions, insecurity on both sides, no self-worth apart from the relationship... and what kind of role modeling is this for her young son? Best she get some help figuring out why she doesn't think she has a life outside of someone who is clearly cheating on her and doesn't have the patience or the willingness to give her the benefit of the doubt so they can work through the issue of the ex; figure out what she needs to do to love herself enough to set higher standards for a relationship, THEN she'll have a shot at happiness and provide good role modeling for her son.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Starting a Business
My mother's main annual visit to Tucson encompasses the month when the International Gem and Mineral Show is in full swing. This past February, our first in Tucson, after much arm-twisting and begging (HA!) she dragged me kicking and screaming (double HA!) to any bead lover's paradise, where she bought hundreds of dollars' worth of beads, threw them at me and ordered, "Make me pretty things!" (Ok, not *quite* like that...)
I made her eight sets - necklace, bracelet and earrings - which she absolutely loved. She also wrangled a few other pieces that I had made for myself, but hey, she had paid for the beads and was letting me keep any I didn't use for her, and I could make more for myself anyway.
Before she went back home to Albuquerque at the end of her month, she had a party at which she displayed my artistic talents. Her friends were very impressed, and all evening I heard, "You're very good at this, you should do this as a business!" Naive fool that I was, I figured okay, what a great idea: people love my stuff, so it should be a piece of cake to have fun designing and making pretty things that people will be lining up to throw money at me for.
*Cough* Oh, were that life would be that simple...
First I had to figure out which hoops I had to jump through to be properly set up as a home business in Oro Valley. No help there, as the Small Business advisory office (which is apparently one person, one desk and one phone) never got back to me after I left a message asking for help. Being the creative type and not the most organized linear, professional business person, it was a definite challenge to be unstoppable about finding out what I needed to do. It took many weeks and ended up involving setting up a corporation, bank accounts, getting business cards and an internet domain name, and getting an Oro Valley business license, which required that I draw out a plan of my house and show exactly where my home business is located within it, which then allowed me to apply for an Arizona business license, all of which then allowed me to get a Federal Identification Number - the prize that would entitle me to not pay tax on my local purchases, and at future Gem shows. My husband was very proud of me for not giving up, as based on the past, that was the predictable outcome.
In the meantime, I basically spent from February to June on the internet ordering beads from eBay and making lots and lots and lots and lots of pretty things. We had just moved here the previous October after living in Minnesota for many years, it was a huge transition for us, and I pretty much had no emotional or physical energy to go out and get a life other than attending our spiritual center - besides that, all I wanted to do was make jewelry.
Artistic and creative expression is very fulfilling for me and by July I had stockpiled quite an inventory, but I was wondering how I was going to start selling my items, ideally before the season of art fairs started again in October. I consulted with some artist friends on Facebook, who ended up directing me to Yessy, a site for selling handmade art. I got a gallery there and proceeded to start uploading my items.
I did sell a number of things to spiritual center members before I became official, and later sold quite a few things to friends over the internet. One friend, a former high school classmate, ordered several necklaces and pairs of earrings for his foundation's annual silent auction. He took them over to a friend's business and showed them around, selling all three necklaces on the spot for more than double what he had paid - so of course he had to order more! His second round of purchases was kept under wraps until the auction, where they did very well. Another friend bought a set made with pink seed beads to match the pink dress she had bought for her anniversary cruise with her husband, and another bought 6 items to give away as Christmas gifts. Recently I sat down and figured out how much I have actually sold, and was surprised as how fast it has added up, but I am still seriously in the hole considering my initial investment.
By the end of the summer I had planned to get organized to do some juried fall art fairs, but was going to have to get a tent and two more tables that I have no storage space for, along with setting up my full display and sending in pictures of that along with a few pictures of my best pieces. I got stopped about the tent and the tables; besides the lack of storage space it was still way too hot to go outside and set all that up anyway; I wasn't sure how to best display the large number of items I had made, and I wasn't sure about what kind of merchant account to set up for accepting credit cards, since there are virtually no fairs in the Tucson area between April and October. I had heard about accounts that could be gotten on random months as needed at a very high monthly rate, but the only alternative I was aware of was accounts that have to be gotten as a long-term contract, which would be very expensive if I'm not selling much for 5-6 months at a time. (I am now looking into getting a Paypal business account, but the buyers have to have an email address, and with all the older people in this area, some number of them won't.)
By the time I started getting really motivated to get past all that, I fell and badly tore the ligament in my right wrist. Being right-handed, this was the kiss of death: now there was no way I was going to be able to even get ready to apply for any fairs, let alone actually do any. When I started feeling better from that, we went back to MN for our planned annual visit, where I got really sick from mold and came back to many weeks of bad coughing and laryngitis. It lingered so much longer than I would have normally anticipated, I felt I couldn't make any plans or commitments to register for any fairs, because I had no idea how long it would take till I could talk to customers - and I still had no storage for my needed fair items, which involved contacting the HOA to make sure I could put something against a side of the house that would be visible from the street.
A friend offered to have a jewelry sale for me at her house in November, but things came up for her and we had to change the location to mine. I spent a whole week getting set up, figuring out what new pieces weren't priced and entered into my handwritten inventory, putting together sets, organizing and reorganizing the displays, matching up price tags with pieces I had been wearing, etc.
Between us we invited close to a dozen people, and when the day of the sale came not one single person showed up! Honestly, although I did wish it had turned out differently, I was truly not the least bit unhappy about how it did turn out, even after all that work. During the week I had a strong sense that the point of this whole exercise was for the Universe to show me all the ways I wasn't organized yet, and give me an opportunity to upgrade in those areas; so instead of being upset I was very excited and grateful for that. Another friend came over later that week, and we spent hours reconciling my finished pieces with my inventory, as I had discovered many errors while setting up for the party.
Since then I have been changing over my inventory from being priced with tags with strings that keep getting tangled up in each other and other pieces of jewelry, to using "barbell" adhesive strips that only adhere to each other at the ends, and are untangle-able. I still am unsure how to best put prices on my earrings, so in the meantime am just keeping them on their racks, each rack having its own price. I also haven't quite figured out what to do with the pieces I do wear regularly, as it isn't going to work to have to take off the adhesive tags each time, make new ones each time, or have the old string tags keep getting tangled up.
The last things I need to do for getting organized is to transfer my handwritten inventory to the computer, and then upload all the rest of my several hundred pieces to my online store, which currently has a small fraction of the total inventory in it. I have also transferred my domain name to a hosting server, so my stepson (?) can finally make me a very simple website with my business logo, directing people to my online gallery. (I can't really afford to pay for it, but if anyone else wants to volunteer you will get credit for it!)
My store is at www.yessy.com/AnitaSummers, if anyone wants to go take a look; please just remember that a good 3 to 4/5 of my inventory is not up yet.
I made her eight sets - necklace, bracelet and earrings - which she absolutely loved. She also wrangled a few other pieces that I had made for myself, but hey, she had paid for the beads and was letting me keep any I didn't use for her, and I could make more for myself anyway.
Before she went back home to Albuquerque at the end of her month, she had a party at which she displayed my artistic talents. Her friends were very impressed, and all evening I heard, "You're very good at this, you should do this as a business!" Naive fool that I was, I figured okay, what a great idea: people love my stuff, so it should be a piece of cake to have fun designing and making pretty things that people will be lining up to throw money at me for.
*Cough* Oh, were that life would be that simple...
First I had to figure out which hoops I had to jump through to be properly set up as a home business in Oro Valley. No help there, as the Small Business advisory office (which is apparently one person, one desk and one phone) never got back to me after I left a message asking for help. Being the creative type and not the most organized linear, professional business person, it was a definite challenge to be unstoppable about finding out what I needed to do. It took many weeks and ended up involving setting up a corporation, bank accounts, getting business cards and an internet domain name, and getting an Oro Valley business license, which required that I draw out a plan of my house and show exactly where my home business is located within it, which then allowed me to apply for an Arizona business license, all of which then allowed me to get a Federal Identification Number - the prize that would entitle me to not pay tax on my local purchases, and at future Gem shows. My husband was very proud of me for not giving up, as based on the past, that was the predictable outcome.
In the meantime, I basically spent from February to June on the internet ordering beads from eBay and making lots and lots and lots and lots of pretty things. We had just moved here the previous October after living in Minnesota for many years, it was a huge transition for us, and I pretty much had no emotional or physical energy to go out and get a life other than attending our spiritual center - besides that, all I wanted to do was make jewelry.
Artistic and creative expression is very fulfilling for me and by July I had stockpiled quite an inventory, but I was wondering how I was going to start selling my items, ideally before the season of art fairs started again in October. I consulted with some artist friends on Facebook, who ended up directing me to Yessy, a site for selling handmade art. I got a gallery there and proceeded to start uploading my items.
I did sell a number of things to spiritual center members before I became official, and later sold quite a few things to friends over the internet. One friend, a former high school classmate, ordered several necklaces and pairs of earrings for his foundation's annual silent auction. He took them over to a friend's business and showed them around, selling all three necklaces on the spot for more than double what he had paid - so of course he had to order more! His second round of purchases was kept under wraps until the auction, where they did very well. Another friend bought a set made with pink seed beads to match the pink dress she had bought for her anniversary cruise with her husband, and another bought 6 items to give away as Christmas gifts. Recently I sat down and figured out how much I have actually sold, and was surprised as how fast it has added up, but I am still seriously in the hole considering my initial investment.
By the end of the summer I had planned to get organized to do some juried fall art fairs, but was going to have to get a tent and two more tables that I have no storage space for, along with setting up my full display and sending in pictures of that along with a few pictures of my best pieces. I got stopped about the tent and the tables; besides the lack of storage space it was still way too hot to go outside and set all that up anyway; I wasn't sure how to best display the large number of items I had made, and I wasn't sure about what kind of merchant account to set up for accepting credit cards, since there are virtually no fairs in the Tucson area between April and October. I had heard about accounts that could be gotten on random months as needed at a very high monthly rate, but the only alternative I was aware of was accounts that have to be gotten as a long-term contract, which would be very expensive if I'm not selling much for 5-6 months at a time. (I am now looking into getting a Paypal business account, but the buyers have to have an email address, and with all the older people in this area, some number of them won't.)
By the time I started getting really motivated to get past all that, I fell and badly tore the ligament in my right wrist. Being right-handed, this was the kiss of death: now there was no way I was going to be able to even get ready to apply for any fairs, let alone actually do any. When I started feeling better from that, we went back to MN for our planned annual visit, where I got really sick from mold and came back to many weeks of bad coughing and laryngitis. It lingered so much longer than I would have normally anticipated, I felt I couldn't make any plans or commitments to register for any fairs, because I had no idea how long it would take till I could talk to customers - and I still had no storage for my needed fair items, which involved contacting the HOA to make sure I could put something against a side of the house that would be visible from the street.
A friend offered to have a jewelry sale for me at her house in November, but things came up for her and we had to change the location to mine. I spent a whole week getting set up, figuring out what new pieces weren't priced and entered into my handwritten inventory, putting together sets, organizing and reorganizing the displays, matching up price tags with pieces I had been wearing, etc.
Between us we invited close to a dozen people, and when the day of the sale came not one single person showed up! Honestly, although I did wish it had turned out differently, I was truly not the least bit unhappy about how it did turn out, even after all that work. During the week I had a strong sense that the point of this whole exercise was for the Universe to show me all the ways I wasn't organized yet, and give me an opportunity to upgrade in those areas; so instead of being upset I was very excited and grateful for that. Another friend came over later that week, and we spent hours reconciling my finished pieces with my inventory, as I had discovered many errors while setting up for the party.
Since then I have been changing over my inventory from being priced with tags with strings that keep getting tangled up in each other and other pieces of jewelry, to using "barbell" adhesive strips that only adhere to each other at the ends, and are untangle-able. I still am unsure how to best put prices on my earrings, so in the meantime am just keeping them on their racks, each rack having its own price. I also haven't quite figured out what to do with the pieces I do wear regularly, as it isn't going to work to have to take off the adhesive tags each time, make new ones each time, or have the old string tags keep getting tangled up.
The last things I need to do for getting organized is to transfer my handwritten inventory to the computer, and then upload all the rest of my several hundred pieces to my online store, which currently has a small fraction of the total inventory in it. I have also transferred my domain name to a hosting server, so my stepson (?) can finally make me a very simple website with my business logo, directing people to my online gallery. (I can't really afford to pay for it, but if anyone else wants to volunteer you will get credit for it!)
My store is at www.yessy.com/AnitaSummers, if anyone wants to go take a look; please just remember that a good 3 to 4/5 of my inventory is not up yet.
Monday, January 2, 2012
The New Year
After getting feedback for some time that I should start blogging for a variety of reasons, and as I got directed to this site from a friend's blog on Facebook, I decided today was as good a time as any. I don't consider myself a particularly great writer, but I do think I think about a lot of interesting things, and have had a lot of interesting experiences (which will be the subject of some blogs,) and thus I begin.
I am 54 years old, married for the third time, to the Keeper Husband. I never dreamed I would be married more than once, since for my parents it was "till death do they part": married in their early 20's, they had 46 years of marriage until my father died from a level 4 glioblastoma, an incurable form of brain cancer. My parents' marriage was volatile at times mainly (in my perspective) because of my mother's issues, but overall I believe they were happy and loved each other very much, and that was my role modeling.
My first marriage was to another assimilated Jew like myself; we were married for 14 years and had two children. My second was to a Catholic who attended a Unity spiritual center, and lasted less than 5 years. TWO divorces? Eek!
While growing up, I also never imagined I would have the lengthy health issues I've faced. I had my first bout of ulcerative colitis at the very early age of 10, then had only an occasional flareup until I was reaching the end of my second pregnancy at age 35. At that point I was sick on and off for the next 11 years, the last 3 being chronic and increasingly severe, until I was hospitalized on New Year's Eve of 2003 weighing 95 lbs.
I had lost 30 lbs in the previous 4 weeks, losing 2 lbs every day at the end, and was literally dying of malnutrition and dehydration, because - as we were soon to find out - my colon was almost completely shredded.
The following week I had a permanent ileostomy performed when they removed my colon. (Most people have heard of a "colostomy", which is when there is still some colon left. No colon is called an ileostomy, because it ends at the ileum.) What this means is that the end of my intestine permanently sticks out of my abdominal wall and is covered by a medical pouch 24/7, which I poop into and empty several times a day. I completely change the entire pouch a bit more often than once a week.
Remove the diseased colon and I'm done, right? WRONG... Four years after my surgery I was almost completely crippled with horrible pain inside my entire body and out, and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Turns out I have a propensity for inflammation: eat the wrong foods, get too stressed, get physically injured, or get exposed to the wrong chemicals (inhaled, topical or ingested) and my body would go crazy. After receiving excellent care from my friend Dr. Lucia Lein in Shoreview, MN, a brilliant alternative doctor, I eventually reached the point of my pain being at about a 1 or 2 most days, down from the original 10. I have continued getting great care from Dr. Brett Brimhall, of Brimhall Wellness Center in Mesa, Arizona. (In some circles he is considered to be one of the top natural doctors in the country.)
Another thing I never expected during my "normal" white bread upbringing: that I would have a transgender son. My second child was born Rachel, from the age of 2 starting insisting he was a boy, he was supposed to have been a boy, and that when he grew up he was going to be a boy. His dad and I tried to explain that it doesn't work that way, and assumed that he was probably going to be gay (which was fine with both of us at the time) but the joke was on us: on September 23, 2010, a Hennepin County judge declared him legally male, and approved his legal name change to Trey.
I read other blogs and newspaper articles about parents who are condemned by the religious right for "allowing" their children to be trans, or "turning" their children into trans people, and I can say with complete confidence that it does not work that way. Although I had watched plenty of Oprah I had never really plugged in what transgender was, least of all that I had a trans child myself. Almost his whole life he would get extremely excited whenever anyone mistook him for a boy, and starting at about 7 years old begged to be allowed to wear only boy's clothing. For a few years he did think he was gay because he didn't know about transgender then, and could only identify that he liked girls and definitely did not feel like one himself. He figured out who he is by attending a GLBT group at his high school, and has never looked back.
He does have some effeminate mannerisms, but from attending a U of MN support group for trans teens and their parents (The "Trans-parents" bwahahaha) I got much better at not being "binary", or going straight into labeling people based on their looks or behavior. Gender identity is much more fluid than that, and I enjoy catching my old brain trying to pigeonhole people.
I also never expected to lose my only sibling, my older sister Diana, to suicide. This is another topic I'll be blogging about at some point, since this experience had a profound impact on my beliefs about that choice.
The last thing I'll mention that I never dreamed I'd do in my lifetime is the level of travel I've enjoyed. My mother has always been very gung-ho about travel, and her joy of it has enabled my children and me to have experiences most people can only imagine. Trey turned 8 in the Galapagos Islands, and the children were 10 and 13 when we went to Antarctica with Wasbund #2. My daughter Sara has been scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef thanks to my mother, and I have been to every continent except Africa - about 27 countries, including to India twice, Japan twice, France 8 times, Denmark, Peru, the former Yugoslavia, very remote islands in the western South Pacific (Melanesia and Micronesia,) and many others. I was also an exchange student in France and Germany.
When William and I were putting our house on the market in MN, I had many boxes of memorabilia to go through in preparation for our impending move. I spent days reading printed out emails, letters, magazine and newspaper articles I had written, etc.
Having so much of my life distilled right in front of me was amazing: at age 52 I recognized that I had already been through more than most people go through in several lifetimes, between the health issues and almost dying, 19 years in 2 abusive marriages, the extensive travel, the deep level of friendship I enjoyed with so many incredible people, the variety of jobs and interests I've had, the level of personal and spiritual growth I've accomplished... I just sat there and felt an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude. I came into this lifetime to play on "fast forward" and am certainly achieving what I had set out to do!
I am 54 years old, married for the third time, to the Keeper Husband. I never dreamed I would be married more than once, since for my parents it was "till death do they part": married in their early 20's, they had 46 years of marriage until my father died from a level 4 glioblastoma, an incurable form of brain cancer. My parents' marriage was volatile at times mainly (in my perspective) because of my mother's issues, but overall I believe they were happy and loved each other very much, and that was my role modeling.
My first marriage was to another assimilated Jew like myself; we were married for 14 years and had two children. My second was to a Catholic who attended a Unity spiritual center, and lasted less than 5 years. TWO divorces? Eek!
While growing up, I also never imagined I would have the lengthy health issues I've faced. I had my first bout of ulcerative colitis at the very early age of 10, then had only an occasional flareup until I was reaching the end of my second pregnancy at age 35. At that point I was sick on and off for the next 11 years, the last 3 being chronic and increasingly severe, until I was hospitalized on New Year's Eve of 2003 weighing 95 lbs.
I had lost 30 lbs in the previous 4 weeks, losing 2 lbs every day at the end, and was literally dying of malnutrition and dehydration, because - as we were soon to find out - my colon was almost completely shredded.
The following week I had a permanent ileostomy performed when they removed my colon. (Most people have heard of a "colostomy", which is when there is still some colon left. No colon is called an ileostomy, because it ends at the ileum.) What this means is that the end of my intestine permanently sticks out of my abdominal wall and is covered by a medical pouch 24/7, which I poop into and empty several times a day. I completely change the entire pouch a bit more often than once a week.
Remove the diseased colon and I'm done, right? WRONG... Four years after my surgery I was almost completely crippled with horrible pain inside my entire body and out, and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Turns out I have a propensity for inflammation: eat the wrong foods, get too stressed, get physically injured, or get exposed to the wrong chemicals (inhaled, topical or ingested) and my body would go crazy. After receiving excellent care from my friend Dr. Lucia Lein in Shoreview, MN, a brilliant alternative doctor, I eventually reached the point of my pain being at about a 1 or 2 most days, down from the original 10. I have continued getting great care from Dr. Brett Brimhall, of Brimhall Wellness Center in Mesa, Arizona. (In some circles he is considered to be one of the top natural doctors in the country.)
Another thing I never expected during my "normal" white bread upbringing: that I would have a transgender son. My second child was born Rachel, from the age of 2 starting insisting he was a boy, he was supposed to have been a boy, and that when he grew up he was going to be a boy. His dad and I tried to explain that it doesn't work that way, and assumed that he was probably going to be gay (which was fine with both of us at the time) but the joke was on us: on September 23, 2010, a Hennepin County judge declared him legally male, and approved his legal name change to Trey.
I read other blogs and newspaper articles about parents who are condemned by the religious right for "allowing" their children to be trans, or "turning" their children into trans people, and I can say with complete confidence that it does not work that way. Although I had watched plenty of Oprah I had never really plugged in what transgender was, least of all that I had a trans child myself. Almost his whole life he would get extremely excited whenever anyone mistook him for a boy, and starting at about 7 years old begged to be allowed to wear only boy's clothing. For a few years he did think he was gay because he didn't know about transgender then, and could only identify that he liked girls and definitely did not feel like one himself. He figured out who he is by attending a GLBT group at his high school, and has never looked back.
He does have some effeminate mannerisms, but from attending a U of MN support group for trans teens and their parents (The "Trans-parents" bwahahaha) I got much better at not being "binary", or going straight into labeling people based on their looks or behavior. Gender identity is much more fluid than that, and I enjoy catching my old brain trying to pigeonhole people.
I also never expected to lose my only sibling, my older sister Diana, to suicide. This is another topic I'll be blogging about at some point, since this experience had a profound impact on my beliefs about that choice.
The last thing I'll mention that I never dreamed I'd do in my lifetime is the level of travel I've enjoyed. My mother has always been very gung-ho about travel, and her joy of it has enabled my children and me to have experiences most people can only imagine. Trey turned 8 in the Galapagos Islands, and the children were 10 and 13 when we went to Antarctica with Wasbund #2. My daughter Sara has been scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef thanks to my mother, and I have been to every continent except Africa - about 27 countries, including to India twice, Japan twice, France 8 times, Denmark, Peru, the former Yugoslavia, very remote islands in the western South Pacific (Melanesia and Micronesia,) and many others. I was also an exchange student in France and Germany.
When William and I were putting our house on the market in MN, I had many boxes of memorabilia to go through in preparation for our impending move. I spent days reading printed out emails, letters, magazine and newspaper articles I had written, etc.
Having so much of my life distilled right in front of me was amazing: at age 52 I recognized that I had already been through more than most people go through in several lifetimes, between the health issues and almost dying, 19 years in 2 abusive marriages, the extensive travel, the deep level of friendship I enjoyed with so many incredible people, the variety of jobs and interests I've had, the level of personal and spiritual growth I've accomplished... I just sat there and felt an almost overwhelming sense of gratitude. I came into this lifetime to play on "fast forward" and am certainly achieving what I had set out to do!
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