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Did Dad Really Have It Figured Out?

I’m one of those people who had a great dad, and believe me, I know how lucky I am. During my growing up years and after, he was a strong and steady presence in our family and in my life. Dad was a positive thinker before positive thinking was popular. He was quiet and humble but had a great sense of humor and steel-blue eyes that twinkled when cracking one of his dry jokes.

Dad was always content. Dad always knew the right thing to do. Dad didn’t have any problems. Well, at least this was my innocent, childhood perspective.

After a few years of navigating adult life and having become a parent myself, I developed more realistic insights into the world of adults. The reality that Dad wasn’t just my dad but was his own person, took greater hold in my understandings. And although as a child I assumed he had “Life” all figured out, as an adult with my own struggles and disappointments, I realized that Dad had probably had them, too. In spite of this growing awareness, it wasn’t until one day in my fifties that I became suddenly and more acutely aware of what life was probably like, for Dad.

On this day, my young granddaughter and I had gone for a fun, one-on-one outing of shopping and errands. While driving along and chatting, the topic of conversation found its way to my dad, the great-grandpa she’d never had the chance to meet. Upon thinking of how to describe him, I decided to provide an overview of what I saw as the highlights, or major events, of his life. She listened attentively. As I shared his story, listing events one after the other, I realized that many of the things he had experienced would be considered, by most, to be traumatic. The passing of his father whom he adored, when my dad was yet 13 years of age. As a result, his being sent from his home state of Arizona to live with older relatives in California, and his trying to create a life there in spite of being a painfully shy teenager. His serving in the Navy during World War II and while at sea, receiving a “dear John” letter from his first wife. Of course, I had to explain to my granddaughter that this was all before text messaging, email, or any way in which he could quickly get in contact with his wife. I continued on with his story (there was more), and then it all hit me – there in the CVS parking lot – that my dad, my positive-thinking Rock of Gibraltar, had actually had a very hard beginning to his life. Upon this realization, I couldn’t help but start crying. (So much for the fun in this outing!) “Grandma?” my granddaughter asked, “Are you all right?”

When I was a child, I just had no idea of all the things that Dad had already faced down in his life. Eventually he met my mom, began raising our family and worked hard to establish his own sheet metal business. In spite of this stability, life’s challenges didn’t just magically disappear. There were still problems to deal with and battles to be fought that, as a child, I had little understanding or concept of.

But now, of course, I can see the more complete picture. I’m aware that although it seemed he always knew the right thing to do, I’m sure there were moments when he was winging it. Just like me. Though his countenance was frequently serene, surely there were moments, in his quiet introspection, when he felt sad, lonely or haunted by the past. And although it seemed to me that Dad was almost always happy and had no problems, I know now that Dad had no shortage of problems.

This more realistic view of my childhood and my dad’s life doesn’t make me sad. In fact, it gives me great comfort and provides me with inspiration for my life today. The comfort comes in knowing that if Dad was able to face hard things with such grace, so can I. If he could make winging it look so good, hopefully, so can I. If he was able to be an example of strength and comfort in spite of what surely must have been his own insecurities, I am inspired to try to do the same. Like Dad, I sure don’t have this thing called life figured out, but between what I’ve learned from my own experiences and lessons from both my parents, I’ve got what I need to keep working on it.

Kind Of Missing My Old Life

Was it I, in a column written a few weeks into the pandemic, who extoled the virtues of working from home? It’s true, fewer cars on the road is helping our environment, and the time we used to dedicate to commuting has freed us up to do new things with our time. As for me, evenings are less hectic with no lunch to pack or outfit to pick out for the next day. Oh yes, this work-from-home lifestyle has its perks, but now nearly four months into it, I’m finding that the reality of how different it is from the life I had, is beginning to settle in.

Readers familiar with my story will recall that within the last year I’d been led to my dream job. I looked forward to going to work every day and when setting my alarm at night, was excited to wake up the next morning. I’d suit up in my business attire, grab my travel mug filled with hot tea and off I was for the 50-minute drive to work. Along with my fellow commuters on 101, I would watch the sun come up each morning while relishing this peaceful start to my day. Once at my building, I’d run into other workers bustling about with the same end-goal as mine – helping people figure out what they want to do with their lives. Sharing the same space, we were able to experience each other’s energy and enthusiasm; mingle and share ideas. Ask questions and learn from each other. Provide a listening ear when needed. Sit side-by-side and have lunch together! My co-workers and I made a great team. We are all working from home now, and we have managed to still be a great team. But it is different now.

I remember the day we closed our offices. We gathered in a conference room while our supervisor explained that our work function had been determined to be “non-essential,” and we would be closing our doors. Although we’d been witnessing the escalating pace of the closures around us of schools, stores and restaurants, and the cancellation of national events like pro-basketball games, we struggled to absorb its meaning and process that this was really happening. And then, we were all sent home.

My agency was quick to meet the challenge handed to us and begin reinventing how we deliver services. Like millions of other businesses and agencies around the country, we are working on finding ways to serve our clients while keeping everyone safe. It’s been exciting to watch and to be a part of this effort, but – and I’m just going to say it – I kind of miss my old life.

Last week I visited the office to pick up materials. It felt empty; almost like a ghost town. I miss the connections. I miss seeing people in their offices. I miss listening to a colleague answer a question I’ve just asked them, while standing two feet away and staring them in the face.

No doubt I am counted among the extremely lucky to still have a job. And my engagement with the people I help, though done remotely now, still brings me deep fulfillment. But allow me to share a recent experience which stirred feelings in my heart of how life used to be. It happened while driving to the East Bay on some business. Perhaps I felt it because my journey began on the path of my old commute, but while out on the road, visiting office buildings in another city and taking care of important matters, I had the feeling of being in the “big, exciting world,” again.

It was a tingling sort of rush that left behind a question: “How can I get this back in my life?” But what, exactly, was “this?”

Inside of me a voice said, “I want to go somewhere!” But where?

“I want to do something!” But what?

“I want to be with people!” I’m not sure how that will happen.

It’s likely I’ll be working from home for a good, long time. So other than forsaking my blue jeans to don myself daily with dressy attire, the question remains: how can I get this feeling back into my life? When I find the answer, you’ll be the first to know.

Turning the Titanic Around

Click! My photo was snapped by my husband as I posed with my bike. Having just been retrieved from the garage, it had not seen the light of day in some time. That would change today – I was going for a ride! Dressed in a yellow summer blouse and my black and tan stretch pants which frequently doubled as pajama bottoms, this was my best effort at looking athletic. It seemed appropriate to mark the occasion with a picture; let me take you back to the fall of 2017, to explain why.

During that season I was going through a hard time and, for whatever reason, began to turn to food for comfort. I recall a particular moment which has come to feel like an iconic memory of setting my foot upon this course. I was visiting my daughter in Arizona. She and I, along with her husband, went to Red Robin for dinner. For those of you who have never been to Red Robin, I’ll just tell you that it’s a fun restaurant with a great, high-energy vibe, and their specialty is juicy, delicious hamburgers (warning: reading further may make you hungry!)

Before the visit, I had already started gaining a little bit of weight. No big deal, but I knew it was time to reel in my appetite and head back down the scale, not up. In spite of that, I ordered a cheeseburger and fries, and reasoned with myself that I would eat just half of it. But I didn’t stop at half the burger, or half the fries; I just kept going and ate the whole thing. I knew all the while this was not a good idea, but looking back now I can see I was feeding something inside that could never be satisfied with food. I gained five more pounds on that trip and after I got home, I kept eating. When I finally came up for air over a year later, I had gained a total of 26 pounds.

Now I’d like to say a few things here.. People gain weight. It happens. And it probably happens more easily as we get older. Certainly we don’t need to be the perfect weight to feel ok with our bodies, even embrace them. But what I did was not healthy. Additionally, gaining weight that fast was out of character for me, and that helped me see that something bigger was going on. Over the course of my adult life, the normal pattern had been for my weight to go up and down by a few pounds. When I felt it had gotten a little too high, I would find ways to lower it. I had the mental horsepower then to stay focused and keep myself healthy.

But this time was different. This time, I got my butt kicked. Was it because I was older? Maybe. Sometimes when we’re older we just get plain worn out and worn down as we continue to take on and deal with life’s battles. Tiredness was probably part of the picture, but I knew there was more. During my period of crazy food behavior, new “reward pathways” were being created in my brain, resulting in an addiction to certain types of foods. One way it could be visualized is as a brook that continues to run along the same path, carving away ever deeper through the soil until it eventually becomes a river. I learned quite a bit about the science of addiction and reward-driven behavior from an excellent book, “The Hacking of the American Mind,” by Robert H. Lustig, which I highly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the topic. The bottom line for me was that my behavior had created something like a factory in my brain that was now running 24/7 on all cylinders.

I came to realize it was now or never to reclaim my health and hence, my life. Well, the “never” part of that statement is not actually true, but now is certainly much better than later. Turning things around now will help me stave off diabetes, heart disease and a host of other extremely undesirable outcomes. But the reality is that an effort like this can feel like trying to turn the Titanic around. I can’t just “go on a diet,” because I’ll likely end up right back where I started. A comprehensive plan is needed, and that takes us back to the bike.

I’ve always loved bike riding; now I’ve brought it back into my life. Aside from being wonderful exercise, it will help me stay in the right mindset to incorporate other good practices into my life. On the trail that first day I realized the date was June 1^st. Although not technically accurate, the arrival of June has always felt to me like the arrival of summer, making this a day of more than one new beginning. I saw others on the trail, walking, jogging, riding bikes. It felt good to be a part of that. My work is cut out for me. I hope I will be successful.

There Are Some Things We Just Can’t Change

The Covid-19 situation has taken front and center stage of our lives, conversations, even our thoughts. Don’t you find you’re thinking about it or talking about it almost all the time? And while the situation has presented us with some challenges that are new, have life’s other typical problems just gone away? No, I would say, unfortunately not. Challenges before are likely still challenges now, in fact some may have even intensified with the lock-down.

As an observer of life, it’s my belief that one challenge commonly shared amongst people, is a desire for things to be “the way they should be.” Frequently, these kinds of situations involve other people.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard from the time I was very young: “You can’t change others, you can only change yourself.” It is interesting the spin that my young mind put on that phrase. My interpretation of it was something like this: “We can get others to change if we change ourselves.” You see, I somehow assumed that the goal we were seeking when changing ourselves, was to get others to change.

Then somewhere in my forties, I had an epiphany that changed my perception of this phrase and what it meant. Hands down, I think the best thing about getting older is the ability to start figuring things out.

Without my knowing why, a friend who was also a co-worker, grew distant. She was someone I liked a lot, so over time it became a disappointment. I tried to help us get the “old magic” back, but nothing I did seemed to work. On a particular day that my unhappy feelings had grown to a climax, I was struck with this thought: “Forget it! You’ve tried everything you can, and you can’t make her change. It’s not worth your feeling unhappy over anymore, so just forget about it.” This was a breakthrough because on the heels of that thought came the epiphany: Hmm… what if this is what “You can’t change others, you can only change yourself,” really means? My mind began to formulate a new, possible definition: “I do what is necessary to take good care of myself, and what the other person does is beside the point.”

Could it really be that simple?

The idea felt revolutionary, even freeing. Worrying about just myself could be a lot less stressful than trying to manage another adult human being, someone capable of making their own decisions. This day was the beginning of more insights to follow. Over time I would grow to better understand self-care, happiness, freedom, and co-dependency. (Ah, codependency, a topic worthy of future columns). It’s been a long journey but as said earlier, the best thing about getting older is getting wiser.

Many times in life we are faced with a problem of the worst kind – one that has no solution. A problem that has a solution is something I don’t mind at all. Seriously, I never met a problem I wasn’t willing to throw all my energy at and beat into submission! But a problem with no solution? What do you even do with that? Well, here’s an idea for your consideration. If we are able to let go of trying to change a circumstance that just won’t budge, and instead, focus our efforts where they can make a difference – on choosing to let go or adapt in a new way – we may find the “fix” we are desperately seeking. Some might struggle with this approach, thinking it to be selfish, but it is far from it. It is actually a loving way to deal with other human beings. Live and let live.

Of course we will always look for opportunities to influence, lead and mentor. But if what we have to offer is not being received, it’s not our responsibility to force the situation. No one on this earth has that much power. Someone close to me once shared his philosophy. He said, “Here’s what I finally learned to do when facing a circumstance I’ve been trying to change for years, and it just won’t change.”

“Ok,” I said. “What is it? I’m all ears.”

“Two words,” he said: “Quit trying.”

I thought to myself, excuse me? “That’s it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Quit trying. You can stop driving yourself crazy and start thinking about other things. And sometimes, the universe will work it out for you and you’ll end up getting what you wanted, afterall.” On this note, I’ll share that my coworker-friend has been back solidly in my life for some time now.

So, let’s chill; cut others some slack and cut ourselves some slack. One thing’s for sure, when this pandemic is finally in our rear-view mirror, life will still be putting challenging situations squarely in our path ahead. Recognizing we have options in how to deal with them, can bring us the peace of mind we desire.

When an Old Friend Finds You

“Hi Cindy this is Deana, your childhood friend.” It took me a few moments to fully process the words staring up from the Messenger app on my phone. When it sank in that this really was Deana, a childhood friend I had met at age four, I wanted to jump with excitement. I had been trying to find her for a long time, and now it appeared that she had found me.

Deana and I met when she and her older sister Jody moved with their parents into the house across the street from mine, in Southern California. Weather being its usual ideal conditions, I was barefoot, wearing a sundress and climbing a tree when the two of them ventured over to say hello.

We were instant friends; playing together almost every day for the next ten years. We’d set up Barbies on the front porch or play yard games like freeze-thru or red-light-green-light with all the other neighborhood kids. One of our favorite past-times was to role-play being girlfriends of the Beatles. There was always a debate over which one of us would get Paul.

I moved away the summer after I graduated from junior high. Deana stayed behind and went to the local high school; I started a new chapter in my life in Northern California – new friends, new school, new everything. Former school chums in those days really had to make the effort to keep track of each other. There was no texting, social media or internet searches to help with that task (how did we survive such barbarity?) In spite of the obstacles, Deana and I stayed in touch into our early married years and the births of our first children. She became a nurse; I was mostly a stay-at-home mom. Eventually, life took us apart.

I thought of her from time to time through the years and wondered where her path had taken her. How was her career going? Was she still married to the same man? Was she still living in Southern California? As the years passed, my desire to find her grew. After the advent of Facebook I tried finding her there, but to no avail. The years lingered on with a question in the back of my mind that would bubble up every now and then: how can I find Deana? Then the day came that I received her message; it led to email contact which eventually led to a long phone call. Our reunion and catching up on each other’s lives has been joyful for both of us. An added bonus has been to get back in touch with Jody, whom I also share many memories with. Because of the COVID-19 situation it will be some time before we can all get together in-person, but we know that that day will come.

Reconnecting with childhood friends has not happened often in my life, but on the occasions it has, it is like filling a hole inside of me that I didn’t realize was there. Why is that? Perhaps a tender memory of another “years later” reunion which occurred a few years prior to my experience with Deana, can help explain it. She was someone I had known in high school. We chatted at our 40th high school reunion and, upon finding we were now living not too far from each other, exchanged phone numbers. On the night we finally made time for a phone conversation, we talked for an hour and a half. We spoke of old friends and old happenings that I had long forgotten. As we talked, I lay on my bed like a school girl, and then, something magical happened inside of me: the familiarity of her voice and the warmth of our conversation somehow transported me back in time to my younger years. And while I was there, I uncovered a part of myself that had been buried. A part I’d forgotten even existed – the “old me,” the “me” that I was before the fetters of all these years of life and adulthood had taken up so much real estate in my head.

It is no doubt that we’ve all had true and special friends come into our lives throughout the years. But it’s the old friends, the ones who knew us way-back-when, that have the power to make us feel young again.

Life’s moments that take our breath away usually come unexpectedly. Being allowed to step back in time and “feel” again who we used to be, is a gift. We don’t need a time machine for this! If you’d like to try, seek out an old friend; someone who you loved being with, whose memory makes you smile. Someone who made you laugh; with whom you did crazy, frivolous things that you are far too sensible for now. Find that person and walk with them back into the past. Perhaps you, like me, can experience the “you” you used to be.