The Way We Were

I have spent most of the quarantine on a huge project that has occupied my mind, my hands, and my heart. I have gathered up every single photo in my home, begun sorting & scanning, tagging & uploading, then finally filing digitally as well as physically. Since our family are avid photographers and since I inherited both of my parents' collections, this ads up to an enormous amount of photographs dating back to the 1950s. Some of them have been carefully preserved, dated and subject identified, but the majority were stuck in albums or haphazardly tossed into boxes over the years. To my credit, my own personal pictures, especially those from my daughters' younger years, were among the aforementioned, making them easy to sort & file. (Thank you, younger self!) Still, the task is daunting and several times I've closed the door to my craft room closet, thrown up my hands and declared myself finished, announced to my family that they will inherit the mess and can do with it what they wish. But that doesn't last long. A day or two later I decide to peek in, grab a stack, take a deep breath and begin again.

As you might imagine, the process has been not only challenging physically, straining my eyes, my neck, my back as I sit for hours sifting and scanning, but it's been emotionally draining as well. I've dredged up so many lost memories, dusted off forgotten moments in time, become reacquainted with old friends & lovers as well as past versions of myself I thought I'd left behind. Some of this has been happy and exciting, some absolutely wrenching. Letters from my mom, cards from my dad. Journals and calendars filled with stories, snapshots of my life at various stages. Adorable toddler. Awkward, angsty pre-teen. Young adult. New mom. Divorced mom. (Repeat). So much stuff, so much emotion! It can be overwhelming, so I check in with myself, only do as much work in one day as my body & heart feel able. I aim for an hour a day and then see how I feel. Sometimes that's enough and I move on, but other days I can spend four or five hours back there, holed up with my music & memories.

I get so caught up in the task, immersed in whatever era I'm working on, that when I emerge & pass by Beren, sitting in our dining room/pseudo office, I'm surprised to see him,  this person who wasn't a part of "that" life, at least another than a couple of snapshots & calendar entries from one blissful teenage year. Yet here he is, as is my current home, belongings, pets. And as I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, it's not the ten-year or 20-year or even 30-year-old self I see reflected back at me. Who is this older woman, and how do I reconcile her with those other versions? Is she who I expected to be, oh so long ago when I painstakingly sat and preserved those photos, those mementos, knowing that one day I'd be doing exactly as I am right now?

Probably not, and that's part of what I'm processing. As painful as this is, I also am driven, almost manically so, to complete this task, to have my life tidied and in order before...? Before what? Yes, before I die. Morbid, perhaps, but the reality is that I am on the other side of middle age and all that that entails. My memory is already not as sharp as it once was, and if I don't record the stories now, they'll be gone forever. I don't want my children to inherit a mess of random bits of my life, of their lives, without rhyme or reason. I want to sort it out before I pass, leave behind order instead of chaos. In thinking of it this way, I'm not "just" doing a mindless organizational project, or even a therapeutic exercise for myself, it's a labor of love for my family. A gift to them. And it's that mindset, that goal, that keeps me going, photo by photo, memory by memory, moment by moment.

Rapunzel~

This past Friday, my Lily graduated with her Masters in Social Work! Thanks to the Coronavirus, we had to cancel our family trip to be there with her which the most disappointing, heartbreaking part of this experience thus far. We all so wanted to watch her walk across the stage, receive that hard-earned diploma, cheer and weep with  pride. Take her to lunch after, raise a glass of sparkling cider in her honor. Instead, we had to do that through a virtual commencement and a Zoom meeting. 

It certainly wasn't the same, and not nearly good enough for her, for us, but we made the best of it and look forward to a real celebration once we're together again. (soon, goddess willing). 

Today is Mother's Day, and I'm filled with mixed emotions. Excited to drive to be with Kali &  Bambi & babies, but am missing Lily so much, nothing feels complete without her. I'm also missing my own mom, and am thinking how proud she would be of Lily, and how happy she was on her own graduation day. It was "only" an Associates Degree, but she was the first in her family to have any type of formal education, and she was very proud of that fact, as well she should be. I vaguely remember her own graduation day, but can't recall the date. I'm guessing 1986 or early 1987..

Congratulations, Mom. Your namesake accomplished something amazing! I wish you were here to see her. 

Rapunzel~

A New Day

Eight years have passed since my last post, and wow has a lot changed! I won't attempt to catch up on everything, just jumping in where I am now, and the stories will unfold as they see fit to do. I'm not even sure why I'm writing here again as blogging has become a bit passé, no? It seems to have been replaced with various other social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, to name a few) it seems unnecessary and perhaps even redundant to also blog about one's life. Yet, here I am, doing just that. And it appears I'm not alone, I see other friends return to this format or to other ways they have expressed themselves in the past. One friend is blogging after a long absence. My daughter has created a virtual zine. Maybe it's nostalgia, a yearning for a simpler time, or the general trend toward less clutter, busy-ness, which for some of us includes idle screen time. Or, maybe it's the pandemic. Maybe we want to memorialize this, this insane moment in history, one which will be discussed, debated, dissected by generations to come. Maybe we want to leave our marks in some way, tell our stories in our own voices. Maybe we are facing our own mortality. Or, perhaps we simply have more hours now, stuck in lockdown, to think, to dream, to write, to create. To breathe. 

Whatever the reason, I see this collective inward turning as a good thing, a bright spot in an otherwise dark & scary place, and hope that on the other side we are better, stronger people for have taken this pause to draw inward a little, then reach out in the ways that feel most comfortable, most relative, to ourselves.  

So, as for myself, well, to be honest, there has been some relief mixed in with the anxiety and fear. Underneath the constant undercurrent of stress & worry, deep down, there's a peacefulness that comes with the realization that my social calendar, limited as it was, is now completely bare. I no longer feel the pressure to go out when I don't feel like, to socialize when I'd rather stay home alone, go and do and be something that isn't really who I am! I have kept my circle really small, and my commitments minimal, but still..there were many days when I would have prefered to sit on my couch and read rather than go out to dinner, for coffee, to lunch..whatever I felt that I needed to do to keep up with what was expected of me socially, societally. I always suspected that I was an introvert, but once I quit drinking two years ago I realized just how much that was true, how often I used alcohol to force myself to do things I'd have preferred not to do. With that came more knowledge about myself, and eventually acceptance for not being the someone I pretended to be. Or tried to be. Or felt pressured to be. I stopped apologizing for not being her, and summoned the courage to say no. No, I don't want to go to happy hour. No, I don't want to go to a restaurant where there is nothing healthy/vegan on the menu. I choose not to sit at a crowded bar and listen to loud music while squished up against drunk people. No, no, no. No, thank you. I found my voice, and discovered that the sky didn't fall after all. My real friends & family still love me even though I am sober now. My husband, though admittedly misses the "fun" times of drinking with me, didn't leave me and we have found other ways to enjoy each other's company that don't involve alcohol. Nothing bad happened, and so many good things did! 

So, all of this to say: I had already been a little bit isolated. I'd already turned inward, discovered new past times and picked up long lost hobbies. Baked and cooked, read & crocheted. Cleaned & organized. Embraced my homebody nature. That part hasn't been hard for me. Except, and this is a HUGE exception: my family. I miss my children and grandchildren desperately. Which is why, after 8 weeks of being apart, I took a calculated, careful risk and went to see them last week. And it was everything. Everything sweet and wonderful and poignant and beautiful and heartwrenching and I will never, ever forget the moment when A ran to me, arms outstretched and gave me the biggest, best hug I have ever had. Grabbing all of my grandbabies, holding my daughters tight, something I never really took for granted but is even more precious now. 

Now, we wait. We keep doing what we have been for the past couple of months, sit tight, be safe, be careful, stay healthy. Wash hands. Wear masks. Hope & pray that this passes soon while wondering what the "new normal" will look like. In the meantime, I'll keep looking inward, deciding what I'll bring with me from my old life, and what parts I'll leave behind. I think I'll keep writing, for myself, so that I will remember. 

Michele~