Texas has been getting pummeled with repeated rounds of severe storms. And Texans aren’t surprised. Because they’ve come to expect these epic storms. It’s familiar territory.
And once you’ve been a Texan (raises hand), you’ve always been a Texan. With a Texan’s memories and expectations.
These are some pictures of flooding in San Antonio, where I spent my formative years.
From a young age, I was schooled to avoid creeks and low lying areas during any kind of decent rainfall. In driver’s education, we spent the better part of a class learning about the signs of a flooded roadway and the repercussions of ignoring those signs. This was harder than you may imagine, as the literal measuring sticks at flood-prone intersections usually ended up underwater themselves. Even before I started driving, I learned alternate routes through the city that avoided the roads that had a tendency to submerge. That included a stretch of I-10 through downtown.
As a child, I watched with horror the footage of a school bus swept off the road by raging floodwaters, teenagers desperately grasping onto trees awaiting helicopter rescue. When I went tubing down the Guadalupe River every summer, I would stare up, way up, at the high water marks on the trees and rocks. I was stranded by water several times, unable to leave the house or unable to return.
As you can imagine, this stayed with me.
Even though Atlanta’s soil is actually permeable (unlike the slooow-draining limestone under a dusting of dirt that supports San Antonio), I still react defensively when the rain starts pounding. I mentally catalog potentially flooded roadways (a rarity here) and think about the closest high ground.
When my ex (also from San Antonio) and I purchased our first home in Atlanta, we viewed it with Texas eyes and insisted upon full coverage flood insurance even though we were not officially in a flood plain. We didn’t care. We saw that small, tame creek and didn’t trust it. Because we had both witnessed the incredible transformation of trickles into torrents in mere moments. In our ten years there, we never did use that insurance (although the flood map was redrawn a few years before we left and the house was deemed to be in the flood plain. Validation:) )
Of course, we didn’t buy the insurance with the expectation of using it. We bought it just in case. Protection against an unlikely but previously experienced outcome.
I didn’t have cheating, lying husband insurance.
Perhaps I should have. But that was an unexpected storm, one that I had never experienced and never saw coming.
Several weeks ago I let myself get down about my upcoming summer. I was in the midst of the end of school year crazies and a planned camping trip had to be canceled (along with several other weekends worth of activities) due to the constant rain that drenched Atlanta this past spring. I felt like I had nothing to look forward to this summer and all I could envision was hours spent working in front of the computer (which was pretty much how I spent last summer while finishing the book!). I allowed myself to be grouchy about the whole situation and found myself grumbling about the adventures that others had planned. Not exactly an attractive mood nor one that is likely to improve my outlook.
All I can say is that it is amazing what a different a few weeks and some awesome people can make. Well, that and some actual sunshine!
It started with my mom coming to my rescue after my whiny post. I had already booked a trip to San Antonio to see her in June but she knew that I needed more of a “vacation” feel than just visiting my hometown. She and our close family friend, Kay, worked to book a trip to the gulf coast while I’m in Texas. Not only is this precious beach time (Atlanta is pretty landlocked!) but it’s also a rare opportunity for the three of us to be together. For most of my latter childhood, it was just my mom and I. Well, two people, especially when one is a hormonal teenager, alone can get to be a bit much. Kay was frequently added to our family. She is like a sister to my mom and a cool aunt to me. She brought in needed energy and helped to mediate between my mom and me when it was needed. The last time we were together was two years ago when I last visited Texas. We went on a tour of various Hill Country Wineries. We sampled jalapeno wine, nicknamed a miniature donkey outside a wine tasting room a “burrito” and laughed more than is socially acceptable. All I can say is that Texas better watch out for this go round:)
Sardinian Miniature Donkey, Kew Gardens. (Photo credit: Jim Linwood)
Just having that coast trip on the horizon to look forward to was enough to break my funk. Sometimes it’s amazing how much of an impact a small adjustment can make. Just knowing how three days of my summer were to be spent made me see the entire expanse in a different light. I hope I can remember that lesson next time.
In the span of a few weeks, this has gone from a summer that I dreaded would be monotonous to one that is full of reconnection with my past and new adventures. And all I’ve had to do is say, “yes” to the opportunities that resented themselves. I’m reconnecting with old friends and teammates in Atlanta as we take advantage of the opportunity to leisurely lunch without cafeterias full of kids. I’m meeting up with my old boss and friend in San Antonio whose family adopted me for many holidays and birthday celebrations (he and his wife are two of my love mentors). I’m going to see Austin and Lake Travis (where I spent some time in college) from a new angle as I zipline over the lake (thanks to Kay!). And Brock and I will be returning to St. Marys (where we first talked marriage last summer:) ) to stay with our friends (and other love mentors) there.
Yippee!!!
On a more emotional front, I’m going to visit the youngest dog from my former life, who was adopted by a friend’s parents and now lives on a farm in Alabama. I’m excited about this, but also nervous, as I have not seen her (or any of the dogs, for that matter) since that life ended four years ago. I think tears will be guaranteed.
Glottis
On the new front, I spent yesterday tubing with a new group of friends. I will be going skydiving for the first time with another group of friends once I return from Texas (assuming I live through the ziplining!). I have my first girl’s weekend of my life in Tybee Island at the end of the month with an impressive group of women, only one of whom I really know.
I’ve gone from feeling grumpy to feeling grateful (and delightfully nervous about the sky high adventures!). I feel so incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such amazing people.
I feel like I’ve reversed my 20s and 30s in many ways. While touring a new friend’s college campus yesterday, it really struck me how I never did my 20s. I went to school, yet only lived the campus life for one year and even then, I was the one who would make all of the 8:00 am classes on time and would get annoyed when spontaneous parties broke out in the house. The rest of my college experience was spent working and going to school, often commuting quite a ways to reach the campus. Through all of that, I was with my ex. I never dated in my 20s. We bought a fixer-upper house at 22 and I was more concerned with the best toilet gasket to buy than finding the best blues and brews bar in town. I had friends but work and/or school was always my bigger priority. I stayed busy with occasional binges of fun, usually while on vacation.
Now, solidly in my 30s, my life has shifted. I now put more effort into finding, creating and maintaining relationships. I’ve learned that there is value in relationships and that time spent cultivating them is time well invested. I make sure fun is on the to-do list (and apparently get grumpy when it is absent!). At a time when many of peers are settling down and leaving the craziness of their 20s behind, I am welcoming some of that craziness into my own life and not just on vacation.
I don’t regret not living the life of the typical twenty something. I was happy with my choices. But there’s no rule that says that life has to take some predetermined path. That the 20s are about finding yourself and fun and the 30s are about settling down and getting serious. Besides, I’ve always found that I enjoy play more after the hard work has been done. I’m just getting better and sprinkling the play into the long sessions of work.
I feel silly now that I let myself get down. That I allowed myself to wallow in self pity. I may not have the finds that my student’s families do that allow elaborate vacations. I may not have the big family that rents a beach house for a month every year. But I have what I need and I have amazing people around me that remind me every day about what is important and make me aware of how rich my life is. My grumpiness has been replaced with gratitude and excitement (and a little healthy fear!).
It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to set work aside for awhile. It’s okay to create things to look forward to. It’s okay to say “yes.”
And if you hear any screams coming from South Texas this week, don’t worry; It’s only me going down the zipline:)
Planning a second wedding is quite strange. It’s like walking a familiar road after being absent from a city for decades – you think you know the sites and the layout but nothing is as it was.
I don’t want to think about the first time, endlessly reflecting on how it was done before. But I do, if only to make sure I do it differently now. The basic structure of the wedding is the same: private ceremony followed by celebratory dinner with loved ones. But the details are intentionally altered. My first wedding was on a beach; this one is in the mountains. The first date was in the winter and this one is in the fall. My first dress had straps and my hair was up. Now? Strapless and hair down and loose. A Thai restaurant is replacing the Italian that served the first dinner.
There is an unplanned difference between the celebrations that struck me yesterday as I was working on the guest email list (That’s right, wedding Evites. Don’t tell Ms. Manners). There is a good chance that my dad will be the only guest present at both. As far as my family, we’re small and spread throughout the country. My mom will actually be in Italy at that time (don’t feel guilty mom -go and enjoy yourself!) and I don’t think any other family will travel. I got married the first time only 6 months after moving to Atlanta. So, the friends at our celebration were coworkers that we had at the time since we had not yet developed any meaningful relationships in the new city and our friends from Texas could not make the trip.
This time around, the friend list is long and rich with history and meaning. I have friends that have known me through my entire marriage, supported me through the divorce and have seen me blossom again. I have others that have only known me after. Brock has friends that never thought they would see him marry until they saw us together and said they knew. Even the restaurant has personal ties, as they know us well, saw the evolution of our relationship and have hosted many a gathering for Brock’s martial arts students. We will be surrounded by our community as we celebrate. That feels good.
Having friends around means I also have a shower this time through. Something I’ve never had. The hostess texted me yesterday and asked me to pick a theme: kitchen, wine, bathroom, lingerie or camping. I had to smile at the last one. She is very much a city gal so I knew she threw that in for me even though it pained her:) I chose lingerie since it’s something I never buy for myself and I left all my collection behind in my old life. Plus, sometimes it’s nice not to be practical:)
It’s crazy that, even as I’m about to move on from the past in the biggest way possible, the past still follows behind, tapping me on the shoulder occasionally just to remind me it’s there. But even though it’s sometimes strange, I’m okay with my awareness of the past. I’m not trying to run away from it or bury it where it can’t be seen. I’m hopeful that now that the planning is done (yippee!), the past will take a polite step back and maybe not follow so closely.
That was all I had to say, accompanied with a dollar bill in an outstretched hand. Two words. A simple exchange. Yet I could not do it.
I wasn’t always shy. I remember riding on my dad’s shoulders as a toddler, waving and saying, “Hi” to everyone I passed. I remember visiting the cockpit in the airplane and flirting with the pilot in that way that little kids have. I was three.
But soon after, shyness washed over me and cloaked me in fear. I would hide behind my mom’s leg even while in the company of known people. I would protest about talking to my grandparents on the phone as though I was delivering some great speech to thousands of followers. Instead of making conversation, I would simply recite the alphabet since it calmed my nerves.
The shyness slowly grew until it reached an apex in my eighth year. It was bad. One afternoon, I asked my mom to call my best friend to see if she could spend the night.
She said no. Not my friend, but my mom. It was the best thing she could have done. She knew that if she enabled the behavior, I would be paralyzed through life; hamstringed by my fears. It was a tough lesson for me to learn. That afternoon, my eight-year-old body was on the floor, crying and screaming in protest. I was way too old for a temper tantrum, but that didn’t halt my attempts at creating a record-breaking fit.
The fears were imagined. All I had to do was pick up the phone, dial a number I had memorized, and say to my friend’s parents or brother, “Hi. this is Lisa. May I speak to – .” So simple. I knew the family. It was only a few words. It was such an easy request and one that could only receive a positive response. It was so simple, yet I made it into something insurmountable.
I don’t remember if I ever summoned the courage to call that day. But I eventually did. I learned how to work through that irrational shyness and speak up for myself. I realized that I could choose to let the fear overwhelm me or I could turn the tables and overwhelm the fear instead.
As adults, we don’t have mom following behind us, forcing us to face those difficult lessons. We have to be our own parent, holding ourselves accountable and refraining from enabling dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors. Your issue may not be shyness. Perhaps you allow yourself to be lazy or engage in excessive procrastination. Maybe you make excuses that prevent you from growing. Or, possibly you permit anger to drive you. Regardless of your personal struggle, think of how you would respond if you were your own parent. Would you allow the behavior to continue? Or, would you stop enabling the actions, thus encouraging a new way of being?
As for the vanilla exchange? It had a happy ending. I decided I wanted some ice cream from a booth at the Kerrville Folk Festival where I had my choice of two flavors pre-served in plastic cups: vanilla or chocolate. When I asked my mom to buy me the ice cream, she responded by giving me the money but she required that I complete the transaction alone. After an entire day sweltering in the intense Texas sun, I finally approached the booth, quietly uttered my two words, held out my sweaty dollar bill and walked away with a cup of creamy and delicious ice cream.
The booths at Kerrville. Scary, aren’t they? 🙂
I gained more than just a cold treat that day. I learned that I couldn’t expect others to come to my rescue. I learned that I needed to practice being assertive in order to have my needs (okay, wants in this case) met. I realized that my shyness was irrational and that others were not even aware of it. I gained confidence in my ability to face my fears. I am thankful for those lessons every time I face a classroom full of kids, speak in front of adults, engage in conversations with strangers and make media appearances. If it wasn’t for a mom who refused to buy the vanilla ice cream, I might still be hiding behind her leg.
The trucks in my high school’s parking lot were adorned with gun racks. Animal control had to be called to our neighborhood to capture baby wild boars that our neighbor had housed in his garage when he accidentally shot their mother. It turns out that wooden doors are no match even for a young boar. Venison was a common addition to the lunch boxes in the school cafeteria. Gun cabinets were viewed as essential furniture, their importance falling in place somewhere between a sofa and a table.
I grew up in Texas but I guess you could say Texas didn’t grow up in me.
My parents were more hippie than cowboy. I was raised in a peace-loving anti-gun household. I developed a wariness of guns. I stayed far away from them and felt anxious if one was in sight. This was a problem since it was Texas. Most of those gun cabinets in my friend’s homes? Yeah, glass fronts to show off the weaponry. I wasn’t fearful of all weapons. After all, I did become a fencer. But guns triggered (sorry, couldn’t resist) a fear in me that I chose not to confront.
Yup. We had one of these but ours was blue.
And then I met Brock. My fiance is ex-army. He grew comfortable with shooting during his service. Since then, he has taken several gun courses to improve his tactical training and to supplement what he practices/teaches with sticks and knives. He is good with a gun – he can send the target to the back of the range and when it returns, it will have a tight circle of holes in an intended area. He never pushed me, but he wanted me to become more comfortable around firearms. I agreed. I knew that my fear stemmed from ignorance. I also was in the early stages of confronting my fears, and this seemed like a natural step.
If my mom has read up to this point, she is probably shaking her head and wondering where I went wrong. Sorry, mom:) You may not want to read the rest…
For the first year we were together, my exposure therapy was simply watching him clean his weapon after returning from the range and handling an unloaded gun. Last year, I took my first trip to the range. I was nervous, but mainly curious, as I stood in the lobby/viewing area watching the shooters behind the layers of bullet proof glass. I was okay while I slipped on my hearing protection and safety glasses. I was fine until I opened that second door that led into the range and my body reverberated with the sound of a shot. It was visceral. My body startled and shook with every blast. It elicited a primal fear in me. I wanted to exit that door and never look back.
But I stayed. My whole life, I have been wound tight, jumping at noises and physically reacting to stressors. When I experienced so much loss from deaths in high school and trauma from the divorce, this tendency was heightened. I realized that the range was a huge desensitization opportunity – a time for me to be exposed to a sound and feeling that scared me yet carried no negative repercussions. I just stood there against the back wall for a time, watching and listening, still jumping at every discharge. And then Brock motioned me up to the booth.
He showed me how to tell that the weapon was unloaded and had me dry fire a few times to get used to the grip. He then helped me load it and coached me on how to breathe and fire. My mind emptied as I pulled the trigger for the first time. The recoil, although I knew it was coming, still surprised me. I reset and slowly shot the remaining 7 rounds. I don’t think I ever even made the paper target dance, but that was okay.
Yesterday was my third trip to the range, this time with a gun that is sized more for me. The sounds of the range barely bother me now, but I still struggle with relaxing while I shoot. I have a tendency to pull the barrel up as I depress the trigger. Interestingly, this only happens when the weapon is loaded.
I am reacting out of anticipation rather than reality. Yup. Still learning that one.
By the end of the session, I was starting to find the balance between a secure grip and an overly tight one. I was learning how to hold on and relax at the same time. I am still no sharpshooter, but at least more of my rounds hit my target rather than the ones next to me. I am still not comfortable with guns but they no longer have power over me in the same way. By facing my fear, I have gained some control over my reactions. I’ll never be a marksman and I’ll never have a gun rack in my car, but I also feel like I don’t have to avoid guns altogether. Not everything has to be all or none.
So, I guess now that the girl has moved out of Texas, a little bit of Texas has moved into the girl. You probably still won’t want to call on me in the event of a zombie apocalypse, however. I’ll leave that one to those who can actually hit the target:)
A quick note on gun control:
There are some who feel that the solution to society’s ills is to arm everybody. Others believe that the answer is found in disarming everyone. The reality? Neither option is a panacea and both are reactions born of fear. We want to control the bad things that happen. But the reality is that we cannot. And that is often scarier than any gun could ever be. There are no easy answers and there are no quick fixes. But I think we can all benefit from recognizing and confronting our fears rather than allowing them to speak for us.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 