Barnmaven

Get out of the shallows and into the deep

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess most of you don't know who Israel Kamakawiwo'ole was.

OK, maybe you didn't know five minutes ago, but you just got done on Wikipedia and now you know who I'm talking about.

Here's a little help for you.   This, by the by, is my favorite version of Over the Rainbow.  Because you care about my musical opinions.  You're welcome.

 

Iz was a big guy.  More importantly than that, he was an amazing talent.  He started in music at a young age and found his calling early.  He was married to his childhood sweetheart and left her and a beautiful daughter behind when he died at the age of 38 in 1997 from complications due to obesity.

But here's the thing:  I don't want to talk about Iz's weight, or anyone's weight.  Or maybe I do, but in a larger context that has more to do with Who and not What.  Because if you look at videos and footage of Iz and the only thing that strikes you about him is his size?  You are missing so much.

One of the things that has struck me watching this video is the images of the people of Hawai'i.  Their love for Iz is unmistakable; he was a beloved son to all of them. They would have loved him if he weighed 150 pounds because it was his talent and his heart that they loved.  And when you look at people in his videos, you see a people who are a hell of a lot less focused on what they look like than on how much they are enjoying their lives.

I don't have any scientific evidence that people in America a hundred years ago focused less on what someone looked like when choosing a life partner.  I also don't have any scientific evidence that people in countries that aren't bombarded by Hollywood and the glamour media the way we are don't focus as much on looks when forging relationships.  But I'm going to crawl out on a limb here and suppose that both of these statements are true.

Have you ever met someone whose list of requirements for a spouse looked something like this:

1.  Must be physically attractive

2.  Must make lots of money

Short list, although at least it has requirements beyond "must not live in mom's basement."

Thing is, if that's your list of must-have's, you are missing so much.  Partnering with someone means so much more than ensuring your financial stability, and frankly, in today's world, even people who used to have lots of money are suddenly finding the beach house in the Hamptons in foreclosure and their spiffy stockbroker job gone down the toilet.  And looks?  They don't last.  Not without lots of help from botox, scalpel and silicone.

Now let's be honest, my relationship scoreboard is somewhat on the checkered side, and yes, I'm divorced, and yes, I'm codependent.  I've also come a long way in my search for self-actualization and a while back had the A-HA moment where I understood -- I DON'T NEED A MAN.   I need to love myself.  I need to do things that fill my soul.   And holy mother of all that is good on this earth, it freed me from so much.

When I finally reached a point where I thought wouldn't it be nice to have someone to hang out with (NOT be addicted to, NOT marry, NOT obsess over and NOT rely on for my self worth), I opened myself to the possibility that was out there.  And I dated a little bit, and then I dated SG, and here we are.  And my list?  Isn't so much a list, but maybe something like a manifesto.

Pick the guy who will hold your hair while you throw up (through your nose, no less), wipe off your face and still kiss you goodnight (after you brushed your teeth, of course).  Pick the guy who thinks you are beautiful no matter what you wear and tells you so often.  Pick the guy who is so smart that his brain is his sexiest organ.  Pick the guy who makes you laugh, often.  Equally as important:  pick the guy who laughs at YOUR jokes.  Pick the guy who GETS you.  Pick the guy who shares your values, who is your equal, who will work hard for both of you, who likes to spend time with you more than he likes spending time with his friends but who isn't afraid to let you know when he needs his own time. Pick the guy who shares the chores with you not only because he knows its fair but because he likes to see you smile when you come home to a clean kitchen. Pick the guy who is confident and who understands the importance of caring for himself as much as caring for the relationship.  Pick the guy who, if necessary, understands basic wiring and can fix your bathroom fan.  Pick the guy who is willing to put up with all imaginable kinds of chaos in the form of children and animals because he is so into you that its worth it to him. 

Don't look at his car.  Don't look at his salary.  And, if I may suggest gently?  Don't look at his looks.  Because if he is all of the above?  Every time you look at him through the eyes of love you will realize that he is exactly the kind of handsome you waited all your life to find.  Maybe you just didn't know it.

We - Americans, Westerners, whatever - focus far too much on the things that will not matter fifty years from now when everything starts sagging and our children start bringing home their children and their children's children for us to love.  Money cannot buy you someone who will love you even when your chin occasionally sprouts long white hairs overnight.  He might drive a Ferrari and have windblown California Surfer Guy hair, but will he bring you the hot pad and a pain reliever when Aunt Flo's sister Carmine Cramps knocks you on your ass?  Will he look you up and down and give you an appreciative "Hmmm" when you walk out of your bathroom dressed for work EVERY morning?

When we constrict our expectations to the point that they are only able to be met by the best-looking and wealthiest among us, we limit our own ability to experience real love in the way that it is meant to be understood.

Open yourself to the possibility.  You may be surprised at what you find.

Briefly

Had a lovely email from the inimitable A.V. Flox, Love & Sex editor over at BlogHer.  A post I wrote over there (not here) has been featured on the Love & Sex section today.  I get to wear this awesome badge:

I just got back from spending a few days with a very dear friend, indulging my geekness at ComiCon '11 in San Diego.  Charles is also one of the few people I know who likes cemeteries more than I do, which means he likes them a LOT.  We had such a good time at the Forever Hollywood Cemetery, taking pictures of famous and funny gravestones.  My personal favorite:

Ummmmm....what happens when I press it?  Does something pop up?  Wait, maybe I don't want to.

My other favorite:

 

Based on some of the long conversations Charles and I had over the weekend, I have a long post percolating in my subconscious.  Look for it here in the next day or two.  Until then, enjoy:

 

Gravestones appear to me

To be paperweights for the dead

Keeping firmly in the ground

What shouldn't be up and walking around

                ~M. Hunt circa 1988

Douglas Fairbanks.  No ego issues there.

Johnny Ramone

Dee Dee Ramone.  Lipstick prints are not mine.

Charlie Chaplin's mom

Mel Blanc, better known as "man of a thousand voices."  Th-th-th-th-That's all, folks!

I think its awesome they included the shoe phone in the graphic. 

Estelle Getty from Golden Girls.  She was one funny lady.

Charles standing next to Darren McGavin's stone.  I loved Nightstalker as a kid.

Maila Nurmi, better known to the world as Vampira.  Charles is a huge fan.

Toto.  There's no place like home.

Noooooooooo!  Nietschze was right?

I hate talking about this

Another blogger had a post up last week questioning whether cultural norms had influence over the public behavior of children.  She noted that when driving through her suburb she couldn't help but notice that the children of some families who were - how do I say this the right way? - not white- were better behaved in public.  Aside from my distaste for the extreme overgeneralization about culture and how it is that you can identify simply from the color of a person's skin whether they've been in the You Ess of Eh one, three or ten generations (don't get me started, really.  To quote David Banner, you won't like me when I'm angry.) what really put the burr under my saddle pad was the smug tone of many of the commenters who had really well behaved children in public and of course that was the result of their fabulous parenting skillz.  And they all had anecdotes about seeing other parents who were clearly Not Good Parents because, well, you know -- THEIR CHILDREN DID NOT BEHAVE WELL IN PUBLIC.   Because CLEARLY, if your children don't behave properly in public YOU ARE NOT A GOOD PARENT.

So by this assessment, when my bipolar ADHD (and one with sensory processing disorder) children managed to sit quietly through an hour and a half long mixed English and Spanish with a confirmation thrown in Catholic Wedding, I am an EXCELLENT PARENT.  And when I took my kids to the grocery store and my son wouldn't stop running and shouting alternated with crying and begging for a hot wheels car, I was a TERRIBLE PARENT.  Because obviously both of these situations speak volumes about my parenting skills, and my children's special issues, which are invisible to people who don't know us, have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

When people smugly assure me that their children are well behaved because they are amazing parents, honestly, I want to smack them.  I would like to see someone who has never in their life had to manage a child in the middle of a bipolar rage take both of my children and successfully manage a two hour shopping trip through Wal-Mart.  You'll get a very special prize if you manage to make it through the store without a fight, a tantrum, happy yelling, angry yelling or a complete on-the-floor screaming meltdown.  Or all of the above.

Look, there are days when my kids do great in public.  Sometimes the stars align, the angels sing, God smiles down on us from heaven and the lions and the lambs lay down together in perfect peace.  We go to the store, we go to a birthday party or family barbeque and they have a good day.  We have a whole day where my kids don't try to kill each other.  We have a day where no one loses their shit.  Those days DO happen, and isn't it great if someone who has never met me before and probably will never see me again meets my kids on those days?  Because they will just know that I'm a Good Parent.

But on the bad days...

Look, SG is a dad.  His son is grown now, but by all accounts, his son was a pretty easy kid to raise.  He is great with my kids - he doesn't lose his temper, he never yells, he doesn't get all bent.  He's Mr. Calm and Easygoing 99% of the time.  He's not excessively permissive, he doesn't reward poor behavior and he expects good behavior.  Even so, if we are at the store and he is with us, there is no guarantee of good behavior.  Expecting my children to behave perfectly all the time is absolutely impossible.

So.

I have two points I wish to make here, and they should be obvious, but clearly according to the folks over at this other blog they are not, so here we go.

1.  Good parenting sometimes has very little to do with good behavior.  I have good kids, they are loving kids with a social conscience who want to please their parents and do the right thing.  They are also children with multiple diagnoses and invisible illnesses.  It is impossible for them to be perfectly behaved all of the time.  One of the hallmarks of a bipolar is the inability to modulate their voice.  I know bipolar adultswho still haven't figured out how to keep their voice from rising dramatically in volume when they are in a manic phase.  Children with ADHD are at times unable to manage their physical energy, and ADHD meds are time-bound.  They often don't last until dinnertime, and frankly sometimes on weekends I don't give them those meds because when they're not in school, the focus isn't a hard requirement and I like to give them a break when I can.   You CANNOT assume that a poorly behaved child is simply a little asshole and the result of piss-poor parenting.  You can't.  You can't see autism.  You can't see bipolar.  You can't see ADHD.  You can't see Aspergers, or Sensory Processing Disorder, or RAD or Tourette's or any number of childhood illnesses that originate in the brain and don't result in a pure physical marker that easily identifies that this is a child coping with illness.  YOU CAN'T.  So stop being an asshole and judging me and my children in public, 'kay?

2.  Similarly, you cannot, when driving by a family whose skin is a different color than yours, without actually stopping and talking to that family and asking them a lot of personal questions (which are none of yo' bidness) determine whether they are culturally acclimated, whether they have lived in this country for a short period of time or were born here, what parenting techniques they employ with their children and whether the culture you are assuming they come from is actually the one they are from.

I have found over the years that there is a wonderful community of parents on the Internetz who have kids a lot like mine, who don't overgeneralize, who support and console and cheer for one another, and who, when they are driving through their rich neighborhood or shopping at their local Wal-Mart, make no assumptions about children or parents by the behavior they witness.  When they see a frustrated mom coping with a screaming kid, they are more apt to give her a smile or a sympathetic glance - or even to put a hand on her shoulder and say "I'm sorry you're having such a tough day, I know its not easy." 

I have also found that the Internetz are chock-full of smug know-it-alls who lead Perfect Lives and have Perfect Children and are basically assholes.  Because you don't have perfect children, you are an inferior parent.  Their children are well-behaved, ergo they are Better Than You.   Eventually you get to a place where you can mostly discount them as ignorant, but occasionally you will have to write a long, pissed-off epistle of indignation just to get it off of your chest. 

I feel better now.

Outcomes not expected

After we first separated, my ex and I had a very complicated parenting schedule.  At the time I think it served both of our needs to be able to see our kids on an almost daily basis, and we felt it was good for them to have time with the other parent as frequently as possible.  A few months ago, he suggested we go to an every-other-week schedule.  I wasn't really sure I wanted to make that switch, but I also wasn't certain if I was just being selfish or if the way we were already doing it really was better.   I agreed to give it a try, and after we agreed together on holidays and so forth, we made the switch.

I have to admit, I think this is better.  Right now it works well for me, simply because I am picking them up and taking them to childcare near where I work three days out of the week, every Friday they spend the whole day with their dad and every Wednesday with me, regardless of whose week it is, due to work schedules.  I think its an easier adjustment for them to transition from the rules and the rhythm of one household to another one time a week rather than every day.  I think its giving them more stability in the time they spend with each of us, and a way to really enjoy their time with each parent. 

The one thing I really notice, though, is that every other Sunday, when they have spent a week with their dad and are making the transition between parents, is HARD.  In an I-lost-count-of-how-many-timeouts-they-had kind of way. 

"They're really tuned up," SG noted in that bemused tone of voice he adopts when he's coping with chaos.  "Yeah, I suppose that's one way of putting it," I replied. 

I think its natural for children of two households to have some difficulty transitioning, particularly if there are differences in parenting styles (there are) and in the structure of the households in question.  My ex and I have an informal understanding that we will not tell each other how to parent.  If my children complain that something I have forbidden them to do/play with/eat is A-OK when they're at Daddy's, I simply say "The rules at Dad's house aren't the same as the rules at mine."  There are other things I will allow that my ex won't, but I don't think either one of us is interested in having a tug-of-war over whose way of parenting is "right."  There are so many instances where it isn't a question of right or wrong, we're just Different.  And so I try to temper my reaction to the fighting and the hyperactivity and accept that I have very limited control over how hard it is for them to make the change in households.

Going into the divorce, there were things I expected, and my expectations were met.  I expected it would be painful, I expected it would be stress-ridden and emotional.  I expected my children to have a great deal of difficulty traversing the new road map of our lives.  I expected anger and bitterness and being so lonely sometimes it physically hurt.  I also expected there to be some positives, those things the absence of which is why I wanted the marriage to end in the first place.  And those were there, and to experience my home as a place where there was more peace and serenity than not was a revelation.  On top of those positives, though, were a few unexpected gifts.

Even with the injection of the noise and the chaos on these every-other-Sunday transfers, it is a relief to have them under my roof, to go to sleep at night knowing they are just a few feet away, to wake in the morning knowing I'll soon be rousting them out of their beds.  Their childhood years are finite, and every week they are not with me I know I'm missing something precious.  Something that has slipped through my fingers without me even being aware that it existed.  The ability to reach out and physically touch my children is something I no longer take for granted. 

Every other week, I learn to be a person who has children but who does not have them with her.  I learn to find that part of myself that doesn't exist simply to be Mother and I nurture her.  I go on dates with SG and we enjoy the freedom of being grownups without curfews.  I was so used to worrying about whether my kids were being good for the sitter or going to bed on time or trying to keep tabs on them if I brought them to a social engagement.  Its a different world to attend a party or have dinner in a restaurant when you aren't constantly doing a mental check on how the kids are doing and if you need to throttle down some energy or head a fight off at the pass.  Agonizing over the fact that my children are with their other parent isn't going to make the time between pass any faster.  I have learned to just accept it and find pleasure in the positives.

There are times, as always, I roll with the punches and life is simply about coping with too many things that are hard.  But more and more of late, there are days when life has much more richness and joy than anxiety and turbulence. 

Relatively speaking

About once every two weeks I browse through the "people you may know" feature on LinkedIn.  If you're a social media junkie, you know that LinkedIn is the business and career (i.e. clean and sanitized) version of Facebook.  People post their resumes and job experience, connect with colleagues and business contacts.  No friday-night drunken party pictures or gratuitous photos of children and pets, just all work, all the time.  Well, mostly, anyway.  Every once in a while I link my blog in a very discreet place on my LinkedIn page, followed shortly by a wave of fear that causes me to un-link saidsame blog.  I have nothing to hide.  I have everything to hide.  I'm not sure if I ever decide to go job-seeking that a prospective employer would be truly impressed by reading about my bleeding hoo-haw or my dogs or my very special and very challenging children.  (One of these days I'll post more about how I'm going to make a bajillion dollars when I create MyFaceLinkTwit+ and everyone migrates their social media addition to it.)

One time, before they added the feature where you can scroll through profiles of people who are connected to people who are connected to you they used to just make a few suggestions by name.  Once LinkedIn suggested that I connect to my Mother's cousin's daughter's husband, who I have not seen since 1996 and who lives in South Carolina.  How did you know, LinkedIn, HOW DID YOU KNOW???? 

So last week I'm scrolling through the list of people LinkedIn thinks I want to connect with, and I see a name that I recognize. Its the daughter of the alcoholic I lived with some twenty or more years ago, the daughter of the man who glued me to the path of the codependent, the daughter whose father owes the state of New Jersey some $54,000 in back child support.  Wow, LinkedIn, REALLY?  How did you know?

As it turns out, the suggestion wasn't that mysterious, she is the connection of a connection.  And then I look at my list of connections and I start to have that strange sensation of sinking into a swimming pool filled with marshmallows.  Goosebumps rise on my forearms as I consider the breadth of people represented in those several hundred names on my contacts list.  High school friends.  College friends, sorority sisters.  Ex lovers.  Coworkers current and past.  Business associates, fellow Bastards, fellow bloggers. 

All across the web, we are connected.  We are connected on Facebook, we follow each other on Twitter, we know someone who knows someone who knows someone who...fill in the blank. 

Connected.

Interrelated.

I think now, more than ever, the average non-adopted person can understand what its like to be an adoptee "in reunion" and living with relatives from two (or sometimes even more) families.  Adoption, divorce, remarriage, step-familying - my children have a brother from another mother, I will likely soon be acquiring another step-offspring, I have a brother and cousins by adoption and brothers and sisters and cousins by birth, because their father and I are both adopted, my children have at least eight sets of grandparents, and that's not counting potential future stepgrandparents.  But when viewed in the context of the world of social networking so many of us inhabit, it no longer seems strange, does it?

We may not be one people, but we are all on one planet.  Social Media has provided the material framework to prove what I've known all along - we are connected, each and every one of us, if not by blood and birth then by common acquaintance and if not by that then by common interest or common point of contention. 

And yet, more so than I can remember in my very brief lifetime, the dividing lines between people in my country are wider and more stark.  We live in a world where we can connect to one another at will, with an ease and speed never before known in the history of humankind, and the beliefs and the politics that we cling to drive us even farther apart.   The juxtaposition of these two concepts, our connectedness and our difference, flattens me with the irony it engenders.

Together.  One.

Apart.  Many.

Friends.

Enemies.

To quote Burns, I dinna ken how that may be.

Brain dump

Is it possible to be connected and yet disconnected at the same time?  To feel as though part of you is somewhere else entirely, digesting and analyzing deep and disturbing images and thoughts, agonizing over the things that keep going wrong, while all the while another whole part of you is fully in the moment, feeling the sun on her face and savoring the sweet sensation of holding her daughter's hand, the warmth of her lover's palm on the back of her neck, the laughter of children as they splash and play in the pool - is this just another way of being? 

-----

I was able, with a little detective work, to find some information on the man I found on Tuesday morning.  I know his name, and his age and I was able yesterday to contact his brother out of the state.  His brother was at work, but I spoke for a time with his wife and I learned that this man, this good man, had discovered recently that he had a terminal illness.  He didn't want to suffer and he didn't want to burden his family.  He didn't have a wife or children, but he had a good life and he had many things he enjoyed doing.  He was a good brother, she told me.  And this helps.  It helps me work blurring the images that keep crowding my mind of the shotgun and his legs and his feet in the hiking boots and his skin so pale in the hot morning sun.  The hat on the ground.  Those images have haunted me all week, almost constantly for the first several days.  The frequency seems to be lessening, and I'm thankful.

----- 

Mom, what's a sexual predator? my daughter asked me last night on the way home.  Where did you hear that term? I asked.  It was in the mail on that card, she says.  A notice from a citizen's group about a registered offender who has moved into the neighborhood.  I try to explain in a way that remarks the seriousness of this but also lets my child know that she is safe, that I will keep her safe, that no one is trying to climb into her window at night and take her away from me.  This world is such a terrifying place.  If it scares me I can only imagine what it does to my children.  I tell my children of their aunt and what happened to her and her siblings as a child.  They don't understand how her mother could let this happen, not protect her children.  They ask about adoption and why I have two mothers.  A long car ride is consumed by these discussions, and I am struck again by my children's sensitivity, perceptiveness, kindness and how much they depend on me to help them make sense of the world. 

------

I was thinking of starting to grow my hair out, not all the way but a little bit.  I held off cutting it for a while.  Then this week came along and I attacked it with the scissors and put it back to the uniformly short crop I feel so comfortable with.  And I realize that my emotions and my experiences almost always physically manifest with me - I cut my hair or I color it.  I get a tattoo.  I put black polish on my toes or I pierce something.  I buy a shirt that says something angry or shocking.  Always be wary when I'm wearing the black nail polish. 

 

Small moments

Aunt Becky's post at Mommy Wants Vodka today got me thinking.  I commented on her post that I think both the biggest things we do and the smallest carry equal measure of importance.  Then I started remembering.

I read an article in Prevention a month or two ago that discussed how we do some of our best thinking in the shower.  And why not?  We are warm, comfortable, relaxed.  As we go about the routine motions, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, things we could do with our eyes closed or in our sleep (and we often do, or at least I do) our minds are free to roam at will.  Drawing this thought out into greater context, there are a thousand things we do every day that lead our minds to larger places.  Thoughts that change the directions of our lives. 

It was a summer day nearly eight years ago.  My daughter was in the high chair alternating between eating little bits of ham and peas and throwing them on the floor for the dogs.  I was cleaning the counter and putting dishes away and singing to the song on the radio.  Landslide.  And as I sang the verses, relaxed and lost in my mundane tasks, the words I was singing lodged in my mind and changed my life.  But time makes you bolder, children get older.  I'm getting older too.  And from that moment in time, the idea of my son was born.  

It was a stormy day in the early spring.  I was working from home, tired after an overnight call with the software developers in India as we released the latest patch.  The rain was banging on the windows of my room and my mind was everywhere but thinking about the emails I was reading, filing, deleting, answering.  For once, instead of deleting the weekly email I'd been receiving from the logistics job site for literally years now, I accidentally clicked it open.  And I saw my job.  The one I have now.  The one I would have never known existed except for that small thing, that I opened the email instead of routinely deleting it as I had hundreds of times before.

I was tired after a long day at work and I didn't really feel like doing anything but stay home, but I'd been invited to go out to a birthday party, a party for someone I didn't know at the home of other people I had also never met.  I considered begging off, or at least convincing my date to come over for a movie instead.  I looked at myself in the mirror and decided it wouldn't hurt me a bit to put on a little makeup and a nice sweater and just go meet some new people.  I just didn't realize that one of those new people would be the man I fell in love with.

It was a sunny day in July, the morning after a big holiday.  I'd stayed up late, was tired and not in a hurry to go to work, but I wanted to enjoy the ride in.  This way I thought, or that way?  A random choice, and of course if you read my post from Tuesday you know the rest.

Small flashes of time that change our lives forever.  For the better, for the worse.  A chance meeting with the person who ends up being The One.  The choice to take one path over another on your daily walk, or to read something you normally would not.  A million small moments, added together, that make up the most momentous events in our lives.

Sometimes it has seemed to me as those moments occurred that I recognized them as the lifequakes they were, and other times they have taken me completely by surprise.  I'll sit amidst the boxes and wreckage of my life's latest Big Thing and started following the threads backward until I find the moment and wonder how things would be different without that small piece of time.

What was your small moment?  Where did it lead you? 

Making sense of this

Today I took a shortcut to work, up a gravel road through the hills.  At the tip-top of the hill, where you can see miles and miles of farms and houses and hills and rivers, cars on the highway and cows grazing in the pasture, at the place where sometimes lovers park at night and where hikers climb during the day and where hawks carry off small rodents and snakes burrow and coyotoes and foxes move about in pursuit of their daily business, at this place I found something terrible.

A car, parked.  A body on the ground behind it.  Someone I do not know, someone cradling a shotgun in his arms, the life already gone from him, hat on the ground a few feet away.  I did not see his face.  I did not want to look that closely, because the the moment I saw the gun, I knew I couldn't look any closer.  Some things do not need to be seen to be understood.

I notified the authorities and waited for them to arrive, to begin the business of documenting the details of this man's passage from one life to the next.  Facts, lined up like books on a shelf.  Name, address, date of birth, next of kin, cause of death, time of death.

But these facts will not tell the story of the person who was laying on his side on the hard, dusty ground up in the horse heaven hills.  They will not describe what thoughts went through his mind, what scenery his eyes beheld, whether he cried, whether he prayed, who it was that he thought of in his last moments with love or with hate or with despair.  None of that will be known to any of us.

Somewhere today someone will receive a knock on the door from a sheriff's deputy.  They will be asked to identify the body of a man they knew, possibly a man they loved.  One man's life is over,  other lives will be changed forever.  Was he a father?  A brother?  A son?  Does he leave a wife or a partner behind?  What was the tragedy that drove him to the top of the hill?  What obstacle in his life seemed so insurmountable to him that he could not face it?  Who will mourn him now that he is gone?  Will they be angry with him for what he did? 

And now, on the other side of the veil, in that place we living cannot see or touch, does he know peace?  Does he see things differently?

This is not about me.  I am fine. 

He is not fine.  Or at least, he was not fine.  Now he is somewhere else, and very likely has left behind some other people who are also not fine.  Not okay. 

Suicide is not the act of a cowardly person.  Someone close to me who lost a loved one to suicide told me of the reading and research they had done to try and make sense of their loss.  They learned that a person's body will instinctually attempt to resist the means of suicide.  Every instinct we are born with tells us NOT to pull the trigger, not to swallow the pills, not to kick the chair out.  The body will involuntarily jerk away from the bullet, try to keep breathing, vomit, struggle, even when the person who is attempting the suicide is dead set on taking his or her own life.  We want to live.  Even when we want to die.

When someone is living with suicidal ideations, there are patterns of behavior that are recognizable. 

They talk about suicide or about death.  A lot.

They say "I wish I were dead" or "The world would be a better place without me,"  or other expressions of how they feel their lives are meaningless, hopeless.

They isolate themselves from friends, family, coworkers.

They start giving things away, even things that really mean something to them.

They stop taking care of themselves, their homes, their appearance.  They may show a marked drop in productivity.

There is no way to know for sure if a person is suicidal, but if you know someone who fits these criteria, now would be a good time to offer your love and support.  To help them know that someone cares, to encourage them to take steps to getting well, like seeking medical or therapeutic help.

I took a shortcut through the hills today, and I saw something that makes me want to tell you something important.  I want you to know that if you are not fine then can call someone who loves you.  Or if you can't think of anyone to call, then call this number and talk to someone who is on the other end of the phone because they care about you and they want to help you:

1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

He was not a statistic.

I don't know anything about him, but I know that he was a person and I wish I had a chance to tell him that before he pulled that trigger.

 

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