The Evolution of Suffering

Posted on by stilllearning2b
suffering

In the beginning, I embodied the pain.

It was thick, viscous. Its foulness touching every part of my being until I no longer knew where I ended and the suffering began. I could no more escape its malevolent embrace than I could pull peanut butter from a child’s hair. We were one, the suffering and I. My anguish kept it fed and in return, it kept me company. I may not have had my marriage but I had the suffering that was left behind.

But slowly, ever so slowly, the anguish started to fade. The loss grew more distant and hope grew ever closer. Starved of its preferred sustenance, the suffering started to wither. Its suffocating heft grew to more manageable dimensions and its once viscous nature grew thinner. Weaker.

I felt the pain.

I would have moments, even days, where the suffering was unseen. But its absence was always short-lived and my brain had a trigger-finger that would herald its return at the slightest provocation. My body held the memories like the discs in a juke-box, ready to play with the touch of a button. As long as I didn’t approach, I was okay. But as soon as I recounted the tale, my voice would tremble and the pain would come rushing back as though it had been lying in wait.

And so I kept telling the story. And with each retelling, the heartache faded a little more. And the suffering grew weaker. My once constant companion became like a distant friend – we may keep in touch on Facebook, but we have no real need for face to face.

I remembered the pain.

And yet I kept living. I would revisit earlier writings or conversations and marvel at the emotions I carried. I would reflect back on those endless nights and my emaciated and shaking frame. I could speak of the suffering, but only in the past tense, for it no longer touched my soul.

Unencumbered, I learned how to trust again. How to love again. How to be vulnerable again. I learned to tell the story without emotion. Because it didn’t happen to the Lisa of today. It happened to the Lisa of yesterday. And I no longer recognize her.

I appreciated the pain.

Not for the suffering it provided, but for the lessons hidden within. It is a path I would have never chosen, yet it has led to more glorious pastures than I could have ever envisioned.

If you carry it too long, suffering will weigh you down and seek to asphyxiate you with its heft. But carry it long enough, and that weight makes you stronger. Lighter. Better for the experience.

Everything changes.

Even suffering.

‘Cause He’s the King

Posted on by stilllearning2b

In my freshman year of high school, I had an art class during the last period of the day. The art teacher’s six-year-old son attended the elementary school next door, which released an hour earlier than the high school. Every day, about five minutes after the start of class, the door to art room would open and that small kid with a big personality would stride into the room, greeting the teenagers as though they were his friends.

On one day in particular, his personality had the entire class entertained. He walked in as usual (except this time with a Superman cape tied around his neck), proceeded to the front of the room and placed his hands on his hips. By this point, all paintbrushes were down and all eyes were on him.

“I have an announcement to make.”

We started chuckling at the idea of a kid barely out of diapers making an announcement to teenagers (who, of course, know everything).

“I named my penis last night.”

I looked over at the kid’s dad and noticed the blush spreading to his hairline. I don’t think genital epithets were on the lesson plans for that day.

“What’s his name?” called a kid from the back row.

“Elvis. ‘Cause he’s the king.”

 

I could use a dose of that confidence right now. Okay, maybe a bit more “king of the world” and a bit less “king in my pants,” but you get the idea. I envy that confidence found in the young. Before they have time to be hurt. Or to fail. When they can wear a Superman cape and believe that it really does provide super powers.

 

I’ve been on spring break this week and I’ve been using the time to finalize the preparations for my next career. And it’s real now. I’m no longer just in training for the next step. I’m taking it.

And maybe I should be wearing a Superman cape. Or at least some super hero undergarments. Because I’m scared.

It’s hard leaving something you know for something you don’t. It’s hard leaving the comfort of confidence for the fear of starting over. It’s hard releasing what you have been doing even when you know that it is past its expiration date.

Put me in a room full of math teachers, and I quickly emerge a leader. Throw me to the lions in the form of a group of teenagers, and I can tame them. I can factor any polynomial, write songs to help kids remember and write a pass to the nurse’s office while simultaneously writing a lesson on the board. In my teaching life, I may not be king, but I know where I stand and I am confident in my knowledge and abilities.

But just because it was right for me then doesn’t mean it is right for me now.

Just because it is known, doesn’t mean it is all that I will ever know.

I hate the feeling of not knowing the answers. Of being the novice. I used to read the textbooks before the start of the semester so that I wouldn’t walk in a complete neophyte. But there are some things you can only learn by doing. Some things that cannot be mastered through books or courses alone.

I keep thinking back to my start in teaching, to those first days in a classroom with only the most minimal of substitute training. I was petrified, yet the students never knew. I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned more every day. The uncomfortable feeling of being an imposter was fleeting and was slowly replaced with an expanding confidence.

And it will be that way again. After all, new is always temporary.

 

As I work to gain the confidence to release the old to embrace the new, I have so much empathy for those of you that had to make the decision to leave a dying or dead marriage. Even though my divorce was an end I never wanted, I’m sometimes thankful that the decision was made for me. I didn’t have to make the difficult choice to release a hold on the known and drop into uncharted territory. I just had to figure out how to survive once I was in free fall.

And since I might get some strange looks if I wear a cape with my heels, most superhero underwear comes only in kid’s sizes and I refuse to name any part of my anatomy “Elvis”, I’m going to have to go with something a little more subtle – a new background on my phone. And I’m breathing:)

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Remodeling

Posted on by stilllearning2b

My grocery store of choice is currently being remodeled. They ran the numbers and decided that it made more financial sense to remain open during the construction and perform the construction at night when the store is closed. Of course, this also makes for a much more protracted process. Every evening, the closing employees have to drag shelves out of the way and move some of the product to a holding location. Then, every morning, the early crew moves the shelving back and restocks the product.

I’m friendly with many of the morning employees there (that happens when you go grocery shopping while other people are still sleeping!) and they are tiring of the project. They’re frustrated at making progress only to have it wiped out again the next night. They feel stuck. Motionless yet always moving.

I’m frustrated too. Even though I spend less than an hour a week there, I don’t like the experience at the moment. Nothing is in the same place from week to week. The aisles shrink and grow, breathing like a huge set of bellows. The produce bins seem to be playing musical chairs and their contents are bruised from additional handling. Even the atmosphere isn’t as nice. It’s generally a very well-kept store with good lighting and nice floors. But now? It feels dark and dingy, the floors a calico pelt of stain.

 

But, like all transitions, it’s temporary.

Change always requires some discomfort.

To make things better, you often have to strip them down.

Change can be unsightly. Ugly even.

Remodeling makes us face our assumptions and expectations.

It breaks habits. And that can be painful.

 

Progression is rarely linear; there are usually steps backwards as well as forward.

Change is frustrating. It’s hard to accept being neither here nor there.

 

But without remodeling, the knowledge born of experience could never be used to build a better future.

Without remodeling, nothing adapts to meet changing needs and demands.

And without remodeling, everything stagnates after a time.

Not just grocery stores.

 

Extraneous Solutions

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When we lived in our rental house, I used to spend a significant amount of time on the weekends writing at the Starbucks down the street. I would settle in to a seat, latte on the left, notepad on the right and laptop at center stage. I had an office space at the house complete with a door that sort-of closed and a desk by a window. But, for some reason, the space never felt welcoming. Perhaps because I knew it was a temporary home, a not-so-brief stop on the way to establishing roots. Or maybe there really is something to the energy of a house being “off.” The woman that cleans for us once a month said about the rental, “No matter how much I clean, it always looks dirty.” She’s right.

Regardless of the reasons, I didn’t feel welcomed by the space. It felt almost like sitting a middle school lunch table with a group that is giving you the cold shoulder.

So I chose to sit somewhere else.

We’ve now been in the new place for seven months. My office set-up is very similar. And yet the energy is completely different. The room calls to me, invites me in with open arms. For the past seven months,  I have not carried my laptop to the coffee shop. Even after being snowed in for a week, I still wanted to be in my space.

The coffee shop is now unneeded.  An extraneous solution.

And so I let it go.

I uncovered another extraneous solution recently as well. In my old life, I had a garden that nurtured my soul as I tended its blooms. When I had to walk away, I mourned the loss of my plants. I missed my daily walks to talk to them and tend to them. My soul felt like the hole left when a root ball is yanked from the soil.

So I found a solution. I purchased an annual pass to the botanical gardens and replaced my daily walks in my own garden with weekly walks within the public space. And even though I was not the one to nurture them, the plants were kind enough to nurture me.

Yesterday, I received my annual renewal notice for the gardens. And I realized that I have been a stranger to them, that I have not visited in many months. I now have my own yard, not yet a garden but a still a space with possibility. And I would rather spend my time tending to it than on regular visits to the public space.

The membership renewal went into the garbage. It has become extraneous.

 

Life is always in flux. The needs of today may not be the needs of tomorrow. It’s all too easy to allow extraneous solutions to clutter our lives. To keep doing something because we’ve done something. But that answer may no longer fit your current circumstances. Make the effort to find the solutions that address your current problems, not the problems of your past. Make sure that your time, money and energy is going towards the needs of now rather than the problems of yesterday.

If there is a need, fill it. If it’s extraneous, eliminate it.

A Woman I Used to Know

Posted on by stilllearning2b

The student pulled a clipboard from the bin.

“Who’s Mrs. —?” he inquired, reading my old married name off the back of the clipboard.

I smiled, “Oh, just a woman I used to know a long time ago.”

Ain’t that the truth.

 

Many of the items in my classroom are labeled with my old name. When students ask who she is, I’m vague. Most have concluded that she is a retired teacher who gifted many of her classroom items to me.

In a way, they’re right.

She’s certainly retired. Not from teaching, but the old Mrs. — is no longer around. There are those who remember her and tell stories of those days, but they are behind us now.

Mrs. — has been replaced.

No, that’s not quite right.

She’s been transformed.

 

One of the more difficult aspects of a major life renovation such as divorce is that we struggle to imagine ourselves any way other than we are in that moment. If you asked the old Mrs. — who she was, she would speak of her role as teacher and tutor, she would talk lovingly about her husband, she would tell stories of her dogs and you would be cautioned from getting her on the subject of plants.

In those days when all was washed away, I remember feeling homeless in my soul. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Who I would become. I knew I would never be the same yet I couldn’t imagine anything but what I was.

And that was a scary place to be. Not the old me anymore and yet not the new one either. A limbo of self.

Scary and yet empowering. Because when you’re rebuilding your life and your identity from the ground up, you have the power of choice and the wisdom of experience. And that’s a powerful pair.

And the main choice I made was to be happy. Not happy because of the tsunami divorce. Happy in spite of it.

Everything else was secondary.

 

And now, here I am. Mrs. again. Dog momma again. About to plant again.

On the surface, much may be the same.

But beneath?

Everything has changed.

Because you can’t go back.

But you can always move on.

 

The old Mrs.— has retired. And now she’s just a woman I used to know.

And if you happen to see her, please tell her thanks for clipboards.