Tag: life

To Be Present

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August is on the downward slope and September will be here before we know it. I’ve seen any number of memes about the pull to the coziness of fall–hoodies, warm beverages, nestling under blankets amidst the soft glow of low lamps when darker evenings appear. Kids are going back to school; parents are mixed with relief and grief. It’s such a challenge not to plan, be forward thinking, eye always on the future, but every season is rich unto itself.

Last night I took the fixings for a tarte a la moutarde to my cousin’s and her family. Now don’t tune out yet. Yes a “mustard tart” sounds kind of gross and a little insane, but it is probably one of the most exquisite summer dishes I have ever made. Dijon, gruyere, herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, and fresh garden tomatoes sliced up all on a crust with the edges rolled up. The combination of flavors is heady. As my good friend Holly would say–“restaurant quality.” The time at table with their family, my family, was so good.

In conversation with my cousin, we discussed “being present” versus “flow.” As introverts who value solitude, I could relate to her struggle with longing for flow–that place where we step outside of chronic consciousness into body, creation, and spirit (best I can do) and be physically, mentally, emotionally attuned to this moment in time. Many of these moments in time are brutal for reasons stemming from the personal to the collective. Some of them are boring and tedious. Some of them break our hearts. Bryan talked a lot about the importance of “being here now.” It takes discipline and effort. I find all the easily available tools of dissociation right at my fingertips. I’m not immune. But dissociation is neither presence nor flow.

What can I conclude? To continue to hunt for the joy nuggets of the moment and savor them in real time like we did those tarts last night–ripening tomatoes, produce to share, flowers in glorious reveal, eye contact with a friend over a bawdy joke, phone calls and texts from nieces and nephews, puppies, saying I love you–these help keep us grounded in the right now in ways that comfort our hearts.

Pumpkin spice, cozy blankets, and dark evenings will come soon enough and they will be worthy of savoring, too. Right now, every hot, dusty moment of August and the bucketloads of tomatoes will be plenty of joy unto itself.

[If you like what you read and want to say thank you with gifting me a coffee… 🙂 …you’re welcome to do so here: https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Lubbers-1]

The Stories We Tell

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When I was little, I remember my Mom saying my oldest brother, Todd, was the artist in the family. He showed early talent and seemed to enjoy it. I guess that settled it, role of artist filled, go find a different thing. Upon reflection as an adult, I don’t think my Mom was trying to exclude anyone else from the idea or opportunity to be an artist. Rather she was trying to encourage my brother who had a lot of self-doubt, as teenagers often do. Nevertheless, the act of restating that story had an impact. I couldn’t be an artist. Todd already was “THE” artist of the family. Turns out, all four of us kids are creative and like to make things whether it’s painting, pottery, woodworking, jewelry-making, or music. Sometimes the stories we tell don’t tell the whole truth or paint the full picture.

This past Saturday, cousins of mine on the Moore side of my family put a lot of time, work, effort and love into putting together a family reunion. We haven’t had one in over 30 years. Right now, that’ll be part of the stories I won’t tell. It was great seeing many cousins I hadn’t in a long time. Overall, it was a positive experience; I’m glad I went. While there, I was reminded of one of the stories we were told and apparently folks still tell that I’ve decided to reconsider and look at as an adult. “Aunt Trudy was so spoiled” is one refrain I’ve heard all my life.

Was she, though? Aunt Trudy, my Dad’s baby sister, was the youngest of eight children. Those eight kids spanned a lot of years. (Rawr, Grandma and Grandpa…GET IT!) Anyway, she was born in the early 1950s. Things were a little more stable economically in our country than the 30s and 40s. She had indoor plumbing and flooring as opposed to an outhouse and dirt floors. She also had one niece older than she was and many nieces and nephews near her age or just a little younger. They were often dropped off at the farm for Grandma to watch while their parents worked. In the stories I’ve heard, Aunt Trudy wouldn’t share her candy, she got to have nicer things, etc. From a little kid’s perspective, that would seem grossly unfair. From an older siblings perspective, it would seem this kid had all kinds of luxuries.

I started thinking about it from Grandma and Grandpa’s perspective. How would I want to communicate or demonstrate to my child that they were not the same as a grandchild? What would I do to make sure she knew where she fit as lots of kids were coming in and out of her home, dividing her parents’ attention away from her? Would I let her have more privileges than the grandchildren? Would I let her keep some things to herself? Why wouldn’t a parent’s first obligation be to their own child? That makes sense to me and I think Grandma and Grandpa did admirably.

It really does come down to perspective though. Nowadays, dropping the kids off for the grandparents to offer free childcare is a lot more rare. I don’t know that Grandma was compensated for her labor. I don’t know if the older kids brought extra groceries to help out with the food bill. I do know that my older cousins got the privilege of spending a lot more time on that farm with grandparents who were younger and had more energy. Spoiled is a relative term.

At the end of the day, Aunt Trudy busted her chops raising her kids primarily alone. She often worked two jobs. I spent the summer with her before her big surgery and I watched as she got up early to fold clothes and keep the house tidy, work a shift at the Forest Service, come home and do a couple of therapeutic massages as her second job, make sure the kids were fed, the house was picked up and folding more laundry before bed. She maybe slept six hours a night if she were being decadent. She always decorated her home for holidays and made the best treats, peanut butter fudge or tapioca pudding were some of my favorites. She was fun and made sure her kids had fun memories. She was kind. And she died in her early fifties of brain cancer. In my opinion, if anybody on this earth had a right to be spoiled it was her.

I used to think my older three sibling had it best because our parents were together, young and energetic, and the kids had each other as best friends and playmates, but they also had hard times that I didn’t experience. On the other hand, I got benefits and privileges as the youngest that they didn’t, but I know of a certainty not one of them would have traded places with me in my adolescent years. Perspective, grace, and gratitude are the antidotes to feeling like you didn’t get as much as someone else or something you felt like you were owed.

Ooph

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[A head’s up, this post contains the subjects of womens health, mental health, depression, and passive suicidal ideation. If this is too much, feel free to skip and go listen to https://youtu.be/x2bd1zp_q6Y?si=TRB_f28QAZvKY8Jz]

I’ve been sick the last week with Covid. The bilateral hip pain, the fever, the inordinate amounts of sweating, the coughing and phlegm, you know, the symphony of the body’s response to an unwelcome guest–all of it fairly typical. I was sick in February, too, but the difference between these two bouts is night and day. In February, I felt like I deserved to be sick, like I wasn’t good and what was the point in getting better. This time, I felt like I can’t wait to get better and go hang out with my friends, do house projects, have the energy to paint and create. Similar physical symptoms, polar opposite mental and emotional symptoms. Why should this be? Well let me tell you a little story…

Last summer, I decided to get the Mirena IUD. There are lots of reasons for such a decision and this post will be plenty vulnerable and intimate I don’t need to go into that too. Just know, that at the time, it seemed like a good course of action for me. Over the next nine months, I would discover that it was a horrendous match for me. If you’ve been following along here, you’ll remember I had a particularly hard winter and didn’t know why. The response to being sick in February was disproportionate and not my customary reaction to illness.

Since last September, my emotional responses to life circumstances swung wide and wild. Emotional lability is a nice way to describe what felt like hell. I wanted to escape the feelings, the world, myself. It was untenable. The parts of me that developed in chaos in childhood started to take over during the uncertainty. I began to invent things to worry about. Do I have throat cancer? Am I dying? Seriously, chronic intrusive thoughts became ever present. If I have throat cancer and am dying, do I deserve it? What do I need to do to be ready? Make a to do list, Becci.

While all of this was happening, I ended one job and started another. I did house projects. I continued to visit friends and family. I sought solace in art and music and the routine of every-day living. I was also proactive in trying to figure out what was happening. Urgent care visits. Primary care physician visits. Blood draws. Tests. Anti-depressant prescription. Exam room tears. Pleas for help. Calls to my sister who helped me map out when the worst of the intrusive thoughts would happen. Monthly, it so happened. Right around my cycle, to be specific–that’s when the lies in my brain would be the loudest. It’s scary to have thoughts that are so outside the norm to become daily, hourly, common.

Many women have success with the Mirena IUD. They rejoice in no periods. The simplicity of it. 10 years and nothing to worry about in terms of buying feminine hygiene products or worrying about pregnancy. That sounded amazing to me. About 5-7% of women who have used this form of birth control self-report depressive episodes, depression, and worse. Guess who fell into that percentage? This gal. The anti-depressant helped, but the thoughts still came right before my period. At the follow-up to check how the anti-depressant was doing, I explained that I wondered if I should get the IUD out and see if that would help. We schedule the removal and got the sucker out. Within one week I felt more like myself than I had in nine months. It was that quick. I have had loss, heartache, emotional highs and lows this summer subsequent to its removal and the emotional response has been more in line with me, with my personality. Yes, I’m heartbroken, sad, joyful, elated, relieved, the gamut of the human experience minus one thing–I don’t want to die.

What’s the point in telling all this? Being so vulnerable about something so terrible? A friend of mine recently told me my writing gave him space to write and communicate his own thoughts and feelings after a tragic loss. If this post can shed light on something someone else is grappling with and help them fight through it to the other side, then my nine months of agony and understanding it afterward will have been well worth it. Friends, if your body and brain are not behaving like you know they should, don’t stop fighting for yourself. You are your own best advocate for your health, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. Many of my peers are navigating perimenopause and menopause. The shifts in hormones have a lot of these similar effects. There is the right thing for you. Whether its HRT, diet changes, exercise changes, a move to the seaside or the Kentucky bluegrass, keep searching until you find it. We need all of you here to navigate this world. We need your questions and your curiosity. We need your humor and your insight. We need your problem-solving and creativity. We need your light, your joy, your love. Don’t go. Keep fighting through it. You’re worth it.

1995/2025

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From seventh grade on, I grew up in a small town in Southeastern Ohio called Athens. I could dazzle you with my fifth grade state report knowledge and talk about how Ohio is the 17th state of the union, the first of five in what was known as the Northwest Territories at the time. Athens is so-named because it has a university built on a hill and founded in 1804—Ohio University.  
My dad got a job at the medical school there as a means of affording higher education for his children. It was scary to move somewhere new, leave old friends and familiar spaces, family, community and create something new. Athens has a way, though. It’s special. It embeds in your heart—the space, the people, the humid air. I was fortunate to make life-connections in this town. I am lucky I got to spend time with them these past few days.

While I didn’t know everyone at my 30th reunion, there were folks I didn’t have classes with or who moved in different circles, there were those I’ve treasured since I was a kid and others I’ve grown to love more and more as an adult. My heart is full and I am reminded that we all carry our own pain. Some of my classmates lost parents when they were young. Others, like me, in their 30s and 40s. Some are facing very recent loss or the prospect of aging parents needing more help with chores and care, whose health and momentum are slowing down pointing to heartbreaking inevitabilities. We all are walking this human experience with love, joy, loss, fear, and heartache.
I wish I had understood that better as a teenager. I hurt from loss and heartache then, was anxious and insecure—and I erroneously thought I was the only one, blinded by my own circumstances, desperate to be seen and loved while simultaneously hiding, afraid of being really seen at all. Life, given half the chance, helps remove the blinders, reorients the placement of self, and showcases that not only are we not alone in experiencing the fullness of humanity, it is our ability to share it (both the joy and the burden) that makes it wondrous and bearable. The things that carried me then, that carry me now are kindness and humor, antidotes to poison and ego. I appreciate the sharp wit, the clever word-play, the bright sparkling minds of my peers. That coupled with big hearts for others, for the world and the simplest small gestures of  kindness to others, to me make them a marvel. 

I wish I had more time to see more people to tell them all thank you. I love you. You matter. You made and make life better. I’m sorry I couldn’t squeeze it all in. Thank you to everyone who made this so special. I sit at the Columbus airport with a very full heart.

Aunt Daisy

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My heart is heavy, broken, and full all at the same time. Don’t ask me how that’s possible; it just is. My Aunt Daisy passed this weekend after struggling with complications arising from an autoimmune disorder. I was able to join her family, along with my sister, and nephew to say goodbye. I would like to take a moment to honor her memory and share some things that matter to me.

My Aunt Daisy had a quick wit and a delightfully wicked sense of humor. The master of a dirty joke or double-entendre. It’s no wonder she and my Dad, her big brother got along so well.

In the last years of his life, my aunt and uncle welcomed my Dad into their home, providing a space of familial comfort, laughter, emotional safety and what my Dad described as a “big black hole of love.” In that time, she encouraged and persuaded my father to mend his rift with me—a gift beyond measure.

Aunt Daisy was an RN who later pursued and achieved her Master’s degree in nursing. She was astute, knowledgeable, deliberate. She was a caregiver both as a profession but also as a core piece of her identity.

My auntie was an incredible cook, a fantastic baker, a mushroom hunter, a fisherwoman. She was a loving and beloved wife to my Uncle John. She took care of many of her nieces and nephews and I’m lucky to have had the time with her I did. Most of all, she loved her babies and grand babies.

Human beings are complicated, multi-faceted, adapting, evolving creatures. No list I can create will tell the full story, but I can say for certain I know she loved me and I her. I can also say it was my honor and privilege to get to be with her and her family this past weekend. Doing the very hardest things with great love, I believe, constitutes a sacred prayer. I got to bear witness to those sacred prayers and offer my own as well.