Pepper Panache - Advice about living with grace and faith following divorce for the Sassy Pink Peppers by Patty Swyden Sullivan

Excellent question. I am your Pink Pepper Consultant. I come to you with open heart, nonstop keyboard-tapping fingers, and a monthly column; Pepper Panache. The topics will vary, but each column is designed to open minds to new possibilities.

I insist the next question needs to be, “Why am I, Pink Pepper Consultant title notwithstanding, doling out advice, guidance, attempts at puns, or my version of how to best live life?” Answer: I have walked the walk, done my homework, taken really good notes, and now it’s my turn to pay forward all the good that came my way when I needed it.

Pay forward is a simple philosophy. It means when someone bestows acts of kindness upon us, we in turn find someone else to pass on the kindness. The chain of kindness lengthens link by link.

One early act of kindness that came my way was from Sis.* Sis, sprung from the same loins as me, manages to be one step ahead of me in life, love, and pop culture trends. She had been divorced a number of years before the demise of my marriage. No sooner than I replaced my phone in its stand after delivering the “he’s gone” announcement to her, she was at my door armed with multiple cartons of Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream, Cary Grant movies (my personal favorites Philadelphia Story and An Affair to Remember), and, of course, advice.

My competitive-sibling ego wished foolishly that her wisdom was on par with a certain Madame Lucinda’s palm reading. Months previously, M. Lucinda had predicted a major change in my life. Silly me, I thought she was referring to THE change; hot flashes, night sweats, and the ever joyful fog brain. Wrong. The major change was a young hottie usurping my place next to what I use to naively refer to as “my husband, the rock-me-steady comfort machine.”

But Sis’s oracle proved deeper than Madame Lucinda’s. Sis didn’t merely dispense clichéd predictions. She offered me information I could use to transition through divorce, as well as, any other change life decided to throw my way.

Sis said I needed to become better equipped to live a happier, fuller life. And she was here to help me accomplish this. Wow, I thought, what a great Sis. She is going to fund breast augmentation for me. Wrong again, Sis was referring to helping me become more mentally equipped to enjoy life.

Her lesson in epiphany began by explaining that after living through one year of divorce, I would stop comparing what I did on special days during my marriage (such as holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, or even that-time-he-and-I-spent-the-night-in-front-of-the-fireplace-during-the-ice storm-with-nothing-but-embers-and body-to-body-heat-conduction-to-ward-off-the-cold-whew-we-are-talking-inferno-fighting-cold) with how I was spending my unmarried days.

After two years of being divorced, I would begin to restructure my life; the typical year when the “move on moment” occurs. During this year I would only occasionally glance back at my previous life, secure in the knowledge that I have something to move on to. I would discover that moving on might not only be exciting, but also meant that I had the opportunity to make dormant dreams come alive.

Sis reassured me that the third year would be the year of laughter and dancing. Because in the third year I would be so busy with the life I had built, looking back would take too much attention away from all the fun I was having in the here and now. Wow, talk about a piece of cake! Bring on the divorce!

But then, as all mentors do, she cautioned me by adding that people react differently to detours in life. Some have quick reflexes. Others delay action a bit longer. Still others, grip on so tightly that they wildly swerve at the last minute to avoid an ill-placed cliff.

“Unfortunately,” Sis said, shaking her head. “There are those who don’t take any action. Over the cliff they go. Kerplunk.” Remorse dramatically covered her face. “Now, this does not have to happen to you.”

“Three years is a not a formula; it is a model to be worked out individually. And just when you think you have conquered the past, gained footing on the present, and secured the wisdom to foresee the future, you will be the most vulnerable. Because when you think you know it all, you know the least. Only when you can appreciate the fact that life is dynamic and you understand the need to prepare yourself for its constant shifting nature, can you become the human wonder that leans into the curves of life’s road with ease.”

At this point she lowered her voice to the solemn intonations of a member passing on the secret password to a closed society:

“Perspective,” she elongated the word and sat back into her seat, letting me feel the full weight of the baton that she had passed to me. She timed the silence hanging over us perfectly. Just as I opened my mouth to question the magical powers of perspective she began speaking again.

“At an arbitrary point in time, maybe for you it will be two years, maybe five, you will reach a higher summit and appreciate the difference another five years will make. Time + Attitude = Perspective.”

Guess what? Sis was right. Her words actually changed my life by changing my perspective.

I am on one of many summits yet to come in my life. It has been a decade since I was divorced. In that time, I have seen my children grow up and move out, I lived the life of a single adult, kissed a few frogs, found my prince, published several stories and articles on relationships, and became a trained and approved domestic relations mediator, life coach, and speaker. I have learned that personal experiences shared by those facing the same situations can be enlightening, bonding, tearful, and at the same time, full of laughter.

I have also learned that studying divorce and the aftermath of divorce reveals patterns of behavior and emotions. Some are predictable. Some are unique. All teach us about ourselves and give us options to consider. Most of all I have learned what my sister predicted: what we feel at one year or two years is drastically different from what is felt a decade later. Seem like a long way off? Try blinking your eyes. Whoops, you missed it.

The significance of time, attitude, and perspective is that when we are aware of how they impact our growth we can gain control over our lives. And instead of being buffeted by winds blowing us off our course, we can re-direct our energies to goals we have set for ourselves AND we will be able to react with confidence when unexpected events force us to re-route.

*author’s note: I have melded siblings and friends into one representative sister.

This column is a platform for looking at the world with open eyes, minds, and attitudes. We will learn how to live less narrow lives. And we will keep our most important relationships close at hand, and well-tended, if we choose, for the duration of our lives. Together we will trade stories, opinions, and advice. In other words, we’ll schmooze.

There are people in your life who’ve come and gone
They let you down you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby; life goes on
You keep carryin’ that anger; it’ll eat you up inside, baby
I have been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thought seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, you don’t love me anymore...

Anthems stir us up, validate our feelings, and deepen our emotional attachments to country, causes, and self-image. Sassy Pink Peppers’ (SPP) fabulous web site encourages us to crank up the volume to energize ourselves through the sound and lyrics of song. I love all of the songs on SPP.

Another anthem I like is Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were.” It is a melancholy ballad, but it, too, forms resolve in me to remember both good and bad moments—moments that time has ‘water-downed’ resembling paintings by the Impressionist, Monet.

On the other end of the spectrum is Gloria Gaynor’s mega-belt ‘em out tune: “I Will Survive.” This tune definitely possesses the sensory stimulation of a Picasso.

But, women, there is still yet, another category of song I want to nominate as an anthem for 2006. Babs, Glo, you are songstress legends. You are queens in my heart and I burst with pride by simply sharing your gender. However, I am holding up Don Henley as a poet, composer, and singer who haunts me with his words that get down to "The Heart of the Matter".

An age that is void of Grace forces Love down into a dark, airless dungeon. Bolt the shackles, blow out the torches, leave Love to rot in the dank corners where rats bite at its toes; gnawing through ankles and spitting out cartilage. Been there? I have. I have been both the victim of graceless acts and the perpetrator.

My soon-to-be ex-husband came back to the (as opposed to ‘our’) house to pack up our (well, it is) stereo and collection of albums (those big round black dinner-plate size discs that came in cardboard envelopes we could actually open without a sharp instrument that existed before hermetically sealed CD’s.) We had agreed he would get possession of them, but there was something about watching him physically remove these musical milestones from my world that triggered a petty reaction from me—if emotional rage erupting out of every pore can be considered “petty.”

He was bending over picking up the albums; the sight of his hind-side taunted me into action. Can you honestly blame me? There it was smugly poised, practically sashaying back and forth in my face, and I swear I could hear it egging me on with an annoying sing-song rendition of “Sha Na Na, Goodbye'.” If there was a name for this phenomenon it would be called auditory figmata imaginatum. It inflicts those of us who squelch hysteria by conjuring up pseudo calm.

Well, before reason could control me, my foot was midair flinging itself in the direction of his self-satisfied/off-key gluteus maximus. Unfortunately, my foot’s radar malfunctioned. Instead of hitting its target, my foot overshot, slid underneath his bottom cheeks, skidded between his inner thighs, and landed solidly on some rather delicate anatomy. Not a pretty sight or sound. First, his body slumped. Almost simultaneously, the immediate hand-to-wound placement occurred—HIS, not mine—finally the horrifying sound a male makes when pain couples with the realization that hostile contact has been made upon his love missile.

When the involuntary banshee wailing subsided, he croaked, “I thought we were going be amicable. What happened?”

“Well, let’s see, um, could it be “what happened” was the annihilation of my life as I have known it?” I queried.

His response was to crawl inch by inch across the room. I vigorously displayed the #1 gesture by pumping my extended index finger in the air. Too bad he couldn’t see it. My view, however, was spectacular: his humiliated hinny disappearing through the door.

Makes a good story, right? Unfortunately, the last paragraph is fiction. It is pure literary license taken to revise history and make the ending zing. The truth is he did not succumb to crawling or leaving me to enjoy his backside being hit by the door on his way out. He maintained grace. He understood my outburst. Luckily. Very luckily. I could have ended up in a particularly unflattering orange jumpsuit.

By his grace in understanding, in refraining from retaliation or from escalating my heated emotions; he emptied the dynamite powder from my arsenal and rendered me harmless—both to him and myself. The real ending doesn’t have the same punch that writers are taught to end with, but this is my life not just a story. The real ending was the best of all endings; one that allowed for a positive new beginning.

Let’s go back to Don Henley and his question: “How can love survive in such a graceless age?”

In an age of disrespect, anger, insults, or acrimonious outrage with all of the people in our lives; parents, children, siblings, steps, bosses, co-workers, or even the exotic-featured Latin clerk at my grocery store. Another short confessional:

I am in her checkout lane when her register tape runs out. She is new on the job, doesn’t speak English, can’t get anyone to help her, and there is a person a head of me and behind me trapping me in line. I begin to tap on my cart handle and pointedly stare at my watch while umph-umphing. My frustration mounts as I realize I will be late picking up my 15 year old daughter—the self-proclaimed poster child of neglect from parental abdicators— who will undoubtedly unleash her obligatory negative attitude as soon as her bottom hits my car seat. As my blood pressure raises encouraging venom to spew, the guy behind me beats me to it. He starts yelling that the nation’s borders need to be guarded by vigilante’s armed with semi-automatics. Ouch, that comment sidelines me. How can love survive? Como puede el amor sobrevivir?

I am confident no SPP member would ever—even under pressure, lack of sleep, worry, or stress—lose their grace. But I do, I have. When I do, I later feel shame, but it’s too late. It’s out there contributing to the overall absence of grace in our lives. My lack of grace sucks love out of my life into a black hole of ugliness. And with each fall from grace a miniscule change occurs within me. A bit of ugly climbs in making itself at home. How many falls until I am unrecognizable?

This month’s effort is about Faith. Faith can be spiritual, loyal, blind, or the only straw we have left to grasp. We can dish up faith in whatever size rests easy on the stomach. Over zealous faith can delude us into thinking we can sit back and wait for whatever life has in store for us. This strength of faith can leave people in our lives feeling a bit queasy over our lack of involvement in our futures.

On the other hand, skimping by with only a morsel of faith leaves us cranky, cynical, and downright waif-like. Finding a nice balance between faith and self-reliance is satisfying without over indulgence or deprivation.

February’s story has to do with my best friend. We are like sisters. Her pain is my pain. Her joy rings out within me. Her story of faith has many facets; faith in herself, faith in others, and faith in following a path without a specific destination.

“Sally” has had three very difficult years because of circumstances beyond her control. She and her family have high profiles in the community, are big contributors to charities, schools, and in general have shared the bounty of their life with all who know them and with hundreds who have never met them.

Last fall, after a three year investigation, her husband was indicted for illegal activity in involving a total of 11 defendants. It is a circus. All of our friends are behind her husband and recognize his innocence, but we know that he has a very tough road ahead of him which of course, affects Sally. Not only does she love him and anguish over the negative public attention that is on him, she worries about what will happen to their life if he is not acquitted, if he goes to jail, and most importantly she worries about her children and the consequences of this case on their lives.

For a long time she believed that she could erase the charges against her husband, as easily as hitting a compute delete button which we know doesn’t really erase anything, but merely banish information to some mystery place in cyberspace. If only she could convince the powers-that-be to correctly interpret the documentation her husband’s innocence would be unarguable.

After exhaustive attempts failed to change the opinion of the prosecutor, Sally fell into a deep depression. But she leaned on faith to get out of bed each morning, seek counseling and adopt healthy habits—eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep—to restore her mind and body. She clings to faith that her family will survive. She embraces faith and together they face each day. She exercises faith in her husband and in the resilience of her children. Sally learned that she does not possess the control to prevent legal and emotional fallout. The only thing she can control is to set an example of faith for her family that they can adapt to whatever comes their way.

What did she do? She enrolled in a real estate class, a simple act that took a great deal of effort for someone under stress. It is important to know that real estate wasn’t a whim. In the past, Sally often thought that if one day she needed to earn money, real estate fit her personality and interests. She didn’t have a plan of what she would do after she completed the course. She relied on faith that once she prepared herself, the job situation would follow. More important, enrolling in the class served an immediate purpose to give her a place to go in the morning and have something to concentrate on besides lawyers, trials, and the possible loss of her life as she knows it, because thinking about those things made her crazy.

Not long after she finished her classes and passed her exams, her phone rang. A friend of a friend had heard that she had her real estate license. The caller needed someone immediately, that very day, to sit on model homes in a new subdivision. It was a temporary position that would last four months, but if she does well, she will be the agent for their next subdivision. A career is in the making and will help keep her balanced as the next eighteen months reveal her husband’s future and her own. She paired self-reliance with Faith and found something durable to cling to.

If you are reading this and saying to yourself, “That kind of thing never happens to me, I could take a hundred real estate classes and the phone would never ring.” I can’t fight you on that negative approach. Negative thoughts are too strong, ugly, and damaging.

But if you said to me that you were doubtful life could fall into place for you that easily, I would be encouraged. Because where there is doubt, there is a tiny crevice for faith. All we need to do is every once in a while let faith out for some air. Let her strut her stuff. Then we can make the choice whether or not to shove her back into her crevice and give doubt free reign again. If we choose doubt, we won’t feel as alive. We will droop a bit, become a tad cranky, and I could possibly strike a deal to trade my oldest child for a bar of chocolate. In general we won’t be much fun or very productive. But it is our choice.

The thing I like most about Faith is her undying light. When she is with me, people spot her immediately and are drawn to her. On the other hand, when I am with doubt, people tend to skirt around me, shielding their faces to avoid eye contact.

I think the two career paths most stereotypical for women to pursue after an unexpected change in their lives are: writing (my chosen path) or real estate (Sally’s). The world is jammed full of realtors and writers. Some of these professionals barely scrap by on what they earn. Some are in the million dollar club or top the New York Times best seller list. So choosing these paths pretty much puts Sally and me in the category of middle-aged clichés. We counter-acted the percentage of failure due to the sheer volume of realtors and writers by putting our belief that faith can increase the odds in our favor. We put Faith in ourselves that we chose careers based on our personalities and interests, Faith in hard work, and finally, faith in the ability to walk towards an uncertain future knowing that whatever materializes we will do what it takes to re-invent ourselves all over again. Faith that we will not only survive, but thrive.

Whether your dream is to become a rock star (my daughter’s), adopt a baby from China (Meg Ryan), run marathons (the former Mrs. Lance Armstrong), start a single women’s social group (Terri Matheis), or fill-in-the-blank-with-your-own-dream, the first step is the hardest. First, let Faith in. Make her your friend. Keep her with you at all times; talk to her, embrace her, and then listen to what she has to say. She has the inside moves on anything you want to tackle.

[A small caveat about becoming a rock star; besides faith you need to be able to play an instrument, sing (marginally), and be willing to undergo multiple body piercings. Tattoos on the hiney have no credibility—they must be visible emblems on your face, neck, forearms, or at the very least ankles. What? You can, you will, you do? Then you’re good to go; email me your website.]

And remember, you don’t have to buy into faith 100%, but put her together with a touch of insight, a hint of gut, plus a side of analytical thinking, and you will have the whole enchilada tantalizing you with its spicy sauce and yummy melted cheese. Dig in.

Life; what a crazy gal. Just when you think you know her, she changes her hair style, gets a face lift, or worse grows a second head. Whenever I become confident that I am on intimate terms with her, bam, she betrays me, lies to me, cheats me, and challenges my sanity. Okay, sometimes she tosses me a few bones; great kids, good health, and I did win a hundred dollars once on a scratch lottery ticket. Actually when I add up all the pluses and minuses, she has been pretty darn good to me. But, must she be so darn unpredictable. Why can’t she simply follow my lead, do as I say, yield to my will?

What I hate most is when life, being the fickle gal that she is, makes an abrupt turn and I have to instantly shift directions to keep up. I don’t like that!! At all. I don’t like having to adapt to her plan when I have a perfectly good plan of my own. I don’t want pizza when I promised my stomach Chinese.

And why must I be the one to cave in to her demands? Why can’t I decide when and how I want to move on to something new or unexpected? I even wrote a poem about it (you may wince now.)

Poetry:

Changes

Metamorphosis sounds like a disease
Or a condition at the very least.
Still, I confess, I would miss all the pretty butterflies.
Caterpillars give me the fidgety, fuzzy, crawly creeps.

But my life is a different story.
I want to be in control.
Let’s obliterate sudden dips in the road.
Unplanned events are not intriguing mystery guests.

I often wonder, is this a test?

I don’t wish to try my resilience or
Give my creative juices a squeeze.
I don’t want to adapt to new circumstances,
Put me back in my rut, please.

I won’t complain about boredom
I love the steady hum of tedium.
The hypnotic lull of repetitive motion
Calms and reassures my challenged emotions.

If I must propel through the unknown moor
At least provide a map of the territory to be explored.
Give me a reason for all the work I must do.

Promise that after I survive the valley and master the hill
I will find beauty, grace, and if not a rose garden or two,
Please let there be one solitary sun-resplendent daffodil
I am due.

If I can adapt to change, let go of past events, and move forward, ANYONE can. Before I became a learned professional, I was an insecure rut dweller. Adventure was an alien concept. The following examples are painfully true experiences:

Yes, I can speak on letting go; of innocence, dreams for my daughters, aged parents, husbands, friends, and careers. I can also speak of moving forward to new careers, finding my soul mate, peace of heart, and discovering what it means to grow mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. I know the devastation when a heart breaks and the thrill of a heart growing bigger and stronger, deeper and more vibrant than ever before.

Sunday, March 12 th, at 7:00 PM I will be on the telephone for live chat. The topic will be Letting Go with Panache. We will discuss specific tools to let go, and why it is worth doing it. It will be an informative and entertaining session. Please join me and bring along your stories, questions and thoughts, I want to hear them and so do others.

Last month’s column and Teleconference dealt with the subject of letting go. This is a very large topic to cover in a short time and since there seems to be an interest in the topic I am going to devote the next several columns to various phases of letting go.

First, thank you to the Pink Peppers who tuned in to listen on March 12 th and who asked some terrific questions about how and when to let go of past lives and move forward to a rich and fulfilling future..

Before I list steps to take when you are determined to let go of the past, let me give you a few cautionary statements:

Over the next few months I will take each of the ten steps and elaborate on how to accomplish them. This month due to the length of the column I am going to end with a short message about mantras:

I chose a verse from Jeremiah in the Old Testament: For I know the plans He has for you; they are plans for joy. Every time my thoughts began to drift to the past, devising plans to reverse the present back to the past, or getting my ex to see the error of his ways, I would stop those thoughts and replace them with the above paraphrase. After a while I shortened the phrase to JOY. I visualized the letters in capitals. They blazed in glory in my mind. I never told anyone about my mantra. I felt it would lose strength if I talked about it.

I WORKED the mantra. It did not pass through my mind like a feather floating idly in the breeze. I focused on it, saw the word in my mind, identified individual letters J O Y, and let joy into my heart as I visualized. This is an active process.

Several weeks after I employed this technique, my mom brought me a small gift. She said she had been window shopping and came across this beautiful beaded pillow—the kind with a hanging cord that is meant to be displayed on door knobs or lamps. She immediately thought of me and impulsively purchased it to give to me. Spelled out across the front in capital letters made of magnificent gold beads was the word JOY. This was most definitely a “goose-bump” moment in my life.

Ten years later, a happy marriage to my soul mate, and an incredible new life, this pillow still hangs on my bedside lamp. The power of mantra; believe in it, exercise it, and start to eliminate thought patterns that keep you connected to the past and unable to move into the joyous future that awaits you.

Life was bearable again. I had moved past shock, anger, disbelief, and fear. I had rebuilt my life using my own materials and resources. But I was not quite where I wanted to be mentally. I continued to rage far too many battles with the Ex in my head, arguing moot points of morality, responsibility, and betrayal. Intellectually I was ready for the last bit of fight in me to dissipate, but emotionally I required a shove.

It was during one of my power walks that I realized what had to be done. I needed a different image of the Ex. He was an amicable person. Everybody liked the Ex. He was a veritable people magnet. And except for the one tiny detail of disillusioning his children, robbing them of an intact family of origin, and of course, smashing my dreams, not to mention heart, to smithereens, well, even I had to admit he is a good (choke) person. I absolutely had to stop thinking of him as the bad guy who ruined everything. What good was it doing anyone?

I started focusing on his good qualities. Not with a broken heart of a lost love, but as a life-long friend, who wanted him to be happy. I totally disagreed with his choices, and most likely always will. I guess we could also debate the pros and cons of abortion, prayer in school, and who will win the pennant this year. Regardless of my beliefs, he believed in his decision to leave. He believed it was best. He had said leaving was akin to his very survival. It is not as if I could cage him and coerce him into an in-house father and devoted husband.

But how could I achieve this monumental task of shifting from thinking of him as evil incarnate to okay guy? I honestly had no clue. But I was determined to keep my eyes, and mind open to an opportunity to reveal itself to me. And one did. Ridiculously, it was an incredibly simple motion that gave me the push I needed to take that final step to freedom.

We were attending a play in which our younger daughter was performing. She had told us about one scene where an extremely loud stage pistol is fired. The Ex and I were seated together and we were maintaining a civil decorum. The action on the stage was approaching the moment where the gun would be fired—she had given us a description of the preceding dialog. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the Ex plugging his ears. I turned to face him, his eyes were squeezed tightly shut and he was hunched over. The shot rang out; he grimaced and remained in his clenched position several seconds longer than necessary. I swear I did not laugh, but I did grin. My Epiphany had come.

This man could not possibly be the same man to whom I had relinquished complete power over my personal happiness. The sight of his recoiled body protecting himself against what? Nerve damage? Involuntary jumping at the sound of the blast? I don’t know. However, his vulnerability and concern for self, propelled me past the need to waste any more time blaming him for destroying three lives. I would take back control of my heart and well being.

Obviously this silly little scenario would have gone by unnoticed by me at any other time in my life. But I was actively looking for an image of him that I could use as a hanger for all of my leftover frustrations. The timing was right, the visual worked, and my spirit was willing to finally rise up and be me by myself and on my own.

The unexpected bonus of this epiphany was that I gained back all my happy memories of our life together. Up to this point they had been stuffed away, tainted with the bitterness and disappointment of the “F” word—failure. I had spent a total of twenty-eight years with this man. I met him when I was seventeen, a child, dated him for five years, married him and had our children. I did not want to lose twenty-eight years of my life. I wanted them back.

When I was able to drop the blame, those years once again were mine. They are a part of who I am what I have become. I love my life, all of it.

Being able to look back freely without resentment, and to know there was love, joy, and laughter, as well as, tears, fears, and disappointments, is such a gift. Well worth the price of letting go.

Do you have a story or thoughts you would like to share? I would love to hear from you!

The first step in Letting Go is making the decision to DO IT. Timing needs to be considered. Most of us want the devastating feelings to stop immediately. This is not realistic and is the subject of an entirely different recovery process—grief. Initially we must grieve for our loss. After a period of grief is complete which varies from person to person, we can contemplate letting go.

The grief process does not officially begin for the spouse who is left until the date the divorce becomes final. Many people count the date of separation as the beginning of grief. It is not. And, grief does not end with a final curtain dropping or the rolling of credits. Grief has a way of sneaking up from behind during sentimental or other vulnerable moments, but this time around grief is contained and short lived. Everyone who is at this point in divorce recovery, step up to the plate. It is time to let one go over the fence and out of the ball park. It is time to Let GO.

Making the decision to let go isn’t about saying the words. It is a commitment to practice letting go until it is accomplished. Making the decision to let go is proactive instead of sitting and waiting to be “over it”. People get stuck in the waiting mire for years.

I am choosing a date for all of us on the calendar. I get to pick because it is my column. Drum roll:

Mark it on your calendars, at home, at the office, and on your computer. Start looking forward to leaving the past and crafting the future. Anticipate May 20 th with feverish excitement. Count down the days one by one. May 20th celebrates moving upward from the plateau we have hit. We have gone through many stages since the divorce, but we have stalled out on an emotional sand bar. May 20 th is the day we are going to stretch our emotional muscles, stimulate our creative juices, and reach out to embrace the best parts of ourselves and the world around us. WEAR PINK. And smile, a lot.

Luxuriate in the freedom of May 20th before you even get out of bed. As you begin to stir, eyes still closed, rake through your mind to orientate the moment; what day of the week is it? Where do I have to be this morning? Are the kids here? Allow the excitement of a special day to traipse past your mental list. Grab it. Relish in the delight that May 20th is Emancipation Day.

I am confident that each of us can plan our own unique way of celebrating the decision to let go. However, I am the original OCD driven drama queen, so I will insert a few rules that must be strictly adhered to on May 20 th.

Whichever method you choose (and if you have time, do all three) it is important to concentrate on the act of releasing. You are not saying goodbye to the past. You are relaxing the grip you have on it. You are opening up, relaxing, and releasing. As Whitley from the old TV program Different World use to say “Relax, Relate, Release”

Making the decision to let go is a state of mind. Assume it, reinforce it, be conscious of it, and never forget that making this decision is an act of your free will. Feel empowered. You have the power to make this decision and follow through with it. When the sun goes down on May 20 th, you should rejoice about taking back control of your life, thoughts, feelings, and looking forward instead of backward. You want to feel a tremendous lifting of a burden, exhale a huge sigh of relief, and experience the joy of taking a proactive step.

Making the decision to let go is just the beginning; we have to follow through with the actions of steps 2-10.

Patty’s Personal Journey Entry from the Day She Chose to Let Go (10/11/97)

I dreamt of spending my life with one person. Someone to father my children, build a lifetime, and sit with at the end of the day, holding hands reminiscing about the shared peaks and valleys of our lives. How can I give up on that dream? Who will I dance with at my daughters’ weddings, and ooh and ah with over yet-to-be grandbabies?

Sue told me about an attitude she adopted many years ago when an unwanted job transfer dictated a move across the country. She decided to look at the move as a broadening of her world. She was not losing anything from her previous life, she was merely adding to the dimension and scope of it with a more encompassing perspective. Why can’t I put my divorce into that same view? I can. I am going to LIVE my life without binding it up into a tightly compacted ball. I remember taking old golf balls from my dad’s golf bag when I was a kid. My brother and I would split open the white waffle out casing to retrieve the mass of rubber bands intertwined layer over layer that made up the core of the ball. We would light a match to that sphere of rubber and watch as each strand was burnt through causing the bound wad of bands to burst, pop, and jump all over our driveway. What a hoot for ten and twelve year olds. Even then, we recognized the thrill of busting loose. I don’t want to be contained. I don’t want to be defined by what was. I am not done with life. I have so much more I want to DO instead of HAVE BEEN. I am taking a leap of fait, and setting fire to the ties that bind me to the past.

Ladies, we will occasionally hear the distant buzzing of the past. Pesky Past-lash challenges all of us. P-P as he is known for short, will taunt us that we aren’t strong enough to swat him away. We are. You will. We all will. Tell P-P you have taken the first step and you feel terrific. Inform P-P that each day you will be working the program and moving further and further away until P-P is but a speck of grit on a dusty bumpy back road that you can’t wait to exit and glide onto the smooth slick surface of the Interstate. Fuel this imagery by seeing yourself roaring onto the high way in your 2006 pink corvette, hair blowing back, shades on, and the stereo blaring your favorite anthem. Side note: My top three picks are (in no particular order) Changes, David Bowie; Everything is Coming Up Roses, Ethel Merman; and for sheer high way yelling power: The Bitch is Back, Elton John.

Pink Power, ladies, let me know how you are faring. Send in your plans or ideas for your May 20 th celebration and come back in June to better understand what holds you to the past. AND as always, if you need to vent, question, receive a pat on the back, I am but an email away.

The second step in letting go is to identify why you want to stay connected to your ex spouse. Ladies fair warning. From here forward my attitude gets sterner. Can you take the heat?

If you are grasping the computer screen shaking sense into me by stressing these words to me: “Patteeeee, I want to stay connected because I LOVE him, because I miss my life, because I am stripped of my rightful future, why wouldn’t I want to stay connected to him?” To you I say that I have a rebuttal; keep reading.

Or if you are spitting at the computer screen hissing to me, “I have to stay connected because SOMEONE has to make sure he gets HIS for what he has done to me.” Go get a cold towel and come back to complete my column.

Maybe you are crouching down in your seat and meekly reaching for the keyboard to type in your answer to why you want to stay connected. Your fingers tremble as you peck out the words: I don’t know how to face the future.” Don’t worry; I am going to help you do just that.

And then there is that one SPP who silently sits back and doesn’t answer at all, because she is still trying to fix her divorce before the whole world finds out. It’s okay. I am going to give you the tools to scrub that indelible capital D that you have stamped on your forehead.

Ladies, whether you are still in love with him, fear an unknown future, grieve for the loss of your family unit or being part of a couple, or are determined to extract a pound of flesh from your former husband all you are accomplishing by staying emotionally connected is retarding your own growth and healing process. You are hurting YOU, not him. Let’s be kind to ourselves. Let’s let go!!

Love is not something that descends down upon you like a sparkling shower from Glenda the good witch of the North’s magic wand. Love begins with attraction, develops through intimacy and is dependent upon being tended to, nurtured, honed, and shaped into patterns of daily life. Love does not exist as an entity. It is not a noun—as Oprah and so many other experts declare—it is a verb. It only exists when active. What this means is if you feel that you are “still” in love with him, then you are actively promoting the state of love. You are putting fuel into the act of being in love. STOP IT. Choose to not stoke the fires of this feeling. Remember the movie Moonstruck? Remember how Cher’s character responded to Nicholas Cage’s character after he tells her that he is in love with her? She slaps him across his face and orders him to “SNAP OUT OF IT.” It is a realistic declaration. The more you proclaim that you have no control over your “feelings” the deeper your mind buries itself in denial.

Think of putting a block on your feelings of love this way: you feel an urge (maybe for double fudge chunk brownie ice cream; will power keeps you from devouring two cartons. Will power blocks the urge. Feeling love is a state of mind it only becomes a state of heart when you act upon it. Stop giving into acts of love. Begin acts of courtesy, common sense, and good will toward your spouse in place of attempts to keep the love in his face and yours. Each day lessen your grip on the fact that you still love him. And please don’t spend energy defending your reasons for staying in love with him. It doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Not him, not your friends or family. Your children only want to know that you don’t hate him. They don’t want or need you to be in love with him. It only causes them pain. Pain because they can’t make him return your love.

Anger is another means of staying connected to an ex spouse. If you are angry with him you keep him in your mind and heart even though the heart is filled with flames of wrath instead of passion. Let’s explore for a moment what you will gain if you are able to punish him, expose him for the rat you see so clearly, but others miss or dismiss because it is convenient for them to stay friendly (or open-minded) about this family-man-turned- monster. And I am not being patronizing here. He is a monster. He has defiled your family, life, and future. What punishment is strong enough? Do you want a public hanging or is a private emasculation satisfaction enough?

The truth is no amount of pain that you witness your ex experience is going to lessen your pain. Won’t happen. You may feel a temporary leveling of the playing field, but after he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and moves on, you will feel worse than you did before. Because he can do something you can’t; recover from the end of your marriage. Plus the damage you do to yourself by wishing for his comeuppance or trying to make his life difficult in any way available to you that might cause him some minor annoyance or irritation ultimately will come back at you with vehemence. You will be the one to suffer the bigger consequence. You will have become less of a human being. We become what we present. Present something of beauty, not degradation. Keep your eye on the prize—a life filled with joy, happiness, and peace of heart as well as mind. You can’t do that with a heart full of anger.

Fear is a debilitating nemesis. We are “paralyzed” by fear. How can anyone possibly let go if they can’t move? Breaking down fear into elements that are manageable is very difficult. Fear is that insidious force hiding under the bed. As soon as you turn on the light he disappears; only to return again with the dark. If you can’t catch a glimpse at him you can’t identify him—define him. If you don’t know your enemy, how can you beat him? It is ironic that the most formidable resistance to letting go preys upon the weakest us in our weakest moments. It is even more ironic that what has to happen to defeat fear is becoming strong all on our own. Facing fear is a solo experience. Fellowship helps; having a Sassy Pink Pepper going through the same experience is fuel for your will power, but at least once we all need to get down on our knees in the dark and check under the bed. Eye to eye, steadfast.

Willing yourself to move is the first step. WILL yourself to take control over fear. Reclaim your life and begin making plans. It will take time to build up to the point where you can make financial plans, social plans, career plans. Start by making small decisions. Make a plan for one day and follow the plan. Decide to drive to a park, get out, and sit on a bench for thirty minutes. Take lunch or a cup of coffee. Buy the coffee at a place you have never been before. Smile at the counter clerk. Ask a few questions about your coffee options. Smile again, say thank you for the information. Go to a florist. Ask questions about purchasing an arrangement to send a friend who is recovering from a traumatic experience. Consider the florist’s ideas. Decide whether or not to buy it (for yourself) or not. Keep practicing. It can become a game you play to best yourself. Figure out new challenges and then meet them. Stare down fear. Don’t blink. Look him squarely in the face and tell him you are taking back control of your life, emotions, and future. Plan some way to annoy Fear every day, something simple on busy days, more elaborate schemes on empty days. But don’t stop picking at him, nagging him, frustrating him. You be the thorn in Fear’s side instead of him in yours. And before you know it: Halleluiah Sisters, she is free from her paralysis. Rise up, she can walk!!

Humiliation from what you fear others perceive as a failed marriage is self-imposed punishment. Why be so cruel to yourself? Remember we are our own keeper. We need to be kind to ourselves. If it has been a long ingrained personality trait of yours to care too deeply about what others think or to keep too rigid a code of behavior for yourself, letting go of humiliation is going to take will power, too.

The best piece of information I can give you is philosophical. I believe we define our own reality. What I mean by that is others take their cue from us as to how to see us. If we hand out clues that we are in a pathetic situation or we feel shame or we feel victimized then those around us will treat us in the protocol befitting those situations. If on the other hand we hold our heads up high, put one foot in front of the other, smile, ask those around us about their lives, their problems, and we carry ourselves with grace, then our reality is there is nothing to feel ashamed about being divorced.

Another handy adage to keep in the forefront of your behavior is that truth will out. We are a composite of our lives. No one act or factor defines us. Old friends know you; have an already formed opinion of you. You can either better that opinion or lessen it. New friends are sizing you up just as you are them to determine whether or not they want to be friends. I would choose someone who looks me in the eye, not someone who slinks quietly around me.

Love, Anger, Fear, Humiliation are but four reasons women want to cling to the past following a divorce. You may not fit any of these. Your reasons for hanging on to the cliff of divorce recovery or pausing too long on a plateau may be different, but the key is to figure out your reason. And deal with it. If you are not in an emotional state where will power has a foot hold, seek outside help. If you are coming along with us on the path to letting go, you must know your enemy and defeat him. If you are on this journey with us, you are at least one year and one week past your final divorce. Otherwise, read with us, but keep the information in a safe place until it is your time to Let Go.

Next Month we will combine steps 3 and 4 of Letting Go with Panache. We will discuss changing thought and conversational patterns that have choke collars around our necks. How tacky is that?

Remember I am here for you anytime by email. If you have a rebuttal remark, think I am out of order, or want an elaboration on any of the topics above, please contact me. I want your thoughts. If you have anything else I can help you with, I am here.

This column is a combination of steps 3 and 4 of letting go. They fit together nicely and I thought if I wrote an extra long July column combining two steps it will give you plenty to think about in August as well!! I am taking the next month off from writing to finish the CD Letting Go with Panache. It will expand on ‘Letting Go” and be in a format where you can pop it into your car as you drive or at work or home on your computer and go to the track that best fits your needs for that day. I want to be your personal cheerleader for recapturing the best of you and letting go the worst of him. I hope it will be of benefit to you.

Are you feeling low? Blues got you down? Other people’s good news drops you like a two-ton canister of cement into your citiy’s sewage system? Your level of energy can’t power up a glow stick? Here are a couple of corrective behavior to surge juice through your synapses and purge your system from mental viruses. We will have you up and running at full tilt in no time at all.

Two big blockers of energy, both creative and positive, are thinking and speaking in negative or redundant thought patterns.

Language defines us. Here are examples of power draining thoughts that ruminate through our idle minds:

He is a b__head.
He needs to feel…
He needs to get…
He needs to lose…
I don’t know if I can stop…
Why didn’t he fight for us?
Why aren’t divorce settlements fair?
Why can’t the world see him for the b____ he is?
What will I do about money?
What will I do about the kids?
I wish I was in that convertible with Thelma and Louise…
I wish I had Lorena Bobbitt’s guts and knife…
I wish I had an untraceable Mercedes that I could run him down with, again, and again.
Why don’t I get more sympathy?
Why do my married friends party on?
When will it be my turn to grasp and hold onto the brass ring?

Instead how of the above entertaining but self-defeating fantasies, how about replacing them with these:

I am going to celebrate my freedom from living with someone who did not value our marriage.

I will carry love, trust, faith, joy, and respect for myself with me at all times.

When we repeat statements in our minds true or not, they become reality to us. If I tell myself a hundred times a day (not an overestimation) that I am stupid, it is unlikely that I am going to place very high on standardization tests; I can’t help it, I am stupid.

If I tell myself I don’t know how to negotiate life as a single, I am going to be a stumbling, timid, insecure person who most likely will start every conversation with an explanation or apology about my ineptness.

If I tell myself the possibility exists that something good may happen in my life, I will begin to look for signs of it. Signs I might miss if I am convinced my life is so bad I may as well be shackled in a light deprived dungeon blocking out any hope for visibility or clarity.

I didn’t know how to walk out of my own home. I tilted. I thought I was developing a neurological condition. Or was it that the ground had suddenly shifted? Had I missed a news bulletin? Was this the Madeira Fault finally cracking up? Or is it me that is splitting apart? Whatever the reason was, I did not know how to compensate for the change in the center of my gravity. I learned to go with the tilt.

One day I as I listed to the left while grocery shopping, I picked up two Kansas City Strips for dinner. “Whoops, put one back, dim brain we are eating for one now. And then it hit me. I was tilting because in my mind “I” was still “we.” I tilted because my brain continued to believe that an arm existed for me to wrap mine around every time I went somewhere. HEY, no more. I am me. I may prefer an available arm, but I don’t need one. Two are plenty, three is superfluous.

The one poem I had to memorize in high school has stayed with me through my life. Maybe you know it, too. The words help straighten me up when I start to lean into the empty space to the left;

My head is bloody, but unbowed. (I also must admit assuming the fetal position on occasion)

Wisecracks aside, I do believe my soul cannot be touched by earthly beings. I, with the Grace of God, can choose to succumb to adversity or keep me, ME.

My dad use to tell me when I would complain about a job I hated or a teacher who gave me grief that no one owned me. I can be compliant to their human qualities good or bad based on my own decisions. If the end result is worth biting my tongue, suffering a few blows to my ego to get to accomplish my goal, I could choose to do so with dignity. I cheer myself on to victory over oppression by exerting the strength of my inner core. A place that others, even partners, own no key. If I was a prisoner of war at the mercy of a harsh enemy, they could torture and kill me, but they could not own my soul unless I gave it to them. We enter this life alone, we exit it alone, and we need to be comfortable with our solitary presence.

I remember having lunch with a friend, a very good friend, about a year and a half after my divorce. I was rambling on about the latest in a series of offensive behavior I felt my ex was perpetuating. My friend listened carefully, slicing her salmon with her fork and delicately placing a piece of it in her mouth. She chewed slowly as she listened to the litany of evil my ex recently unveiled. Forty-five minutes later when her plate was clean and mine hadn’t been touched; I paused for a drink to wet my over-worked mouth. She interjected at this opportunity to ask me what was new in my job. Nothing, I told her and resumed my rather well thought out presentation of every wrong move the ex had made in the last three years. This time she reached her hand out, placed it on mine and asked, “What are you doing for fun these days?”

“Fun?” I looked at her blankly. “How can I have fun with all of this going on?”

I was lucky to have such a good friend. Some of my other acquaintances’ simply tired of my monologues and stop taking my phone calls. My daughters ran from the room every time I began a sentence with, “Can you believe…” They had no way of dealing with my self-indulgent rhetorical questions about you know-who and you-know-what.

There comes a time when discussing divorce issues during social encounters become, well, BORING, to the listener. No matter how polite they are.

Not only is talking about yourself and related divorce issues an alienating form of communication, it too, like thinking in the language of divorce reinforces a label as surely as branding yourself. You are defining yourself as a one dimensional person; I got divorced, my life revolves around the fact I got divorced and its unbearable consequences. [I am not minimizing the very real issues of child custody, financial considerations, home displacement as well as social displacement, conflict with ex over medical, legal, and physical issues. Air these out with professionals; therapists, mediators or attorneys.]

Limit your divorce topics to one or two friends or family members that you can occasionally (and for very short bursts of time) discuss issues you need reality checks on. Don’t force them into supporting your view unconditionally. If you are venting, vent into a tape recorder. If you truly need some orientation on a complex issue, listen with an open mind as to what they have to say. Defending your right to your opinion of your ex, your settlement, betrayal, or other similar topics doesn’t make you right or wrong, it simply makes you dogmatic and determined NOT TO LET GO.

It is your choice. You can be a victim of divorce, an angry freedom fighter for all divorcees, a withdrawn hand-wringing caricature of the forlorn. Or you can be a role model of resolve, reinvention, inspiration, and beauty. The choice is yours. Changing the way you think and speak are Herculean tools that make it easier to distance your thoughts from divorce, transition your energies to the future, and create an empowered woman that people are attracted to, seek out, and spread the word about the incredible friend they have who has control of who she is and what she wants.

Remember what we are trying to accomplish by altering thoughts and language. The purpose is to take YOUR FOCUS off: DIVORCED, VICTIM, VINDICATOR, LECTURER, PROSLETYZER, you pick the label. Because none of these characteristics helps us let go or feel good about ourselves. They root us into a place of displeasure. Rip those roots out!! Free up your time, energy, and resources to move into your future. A future you can shape into whatever mental form you desire.

Don’t let the well-rounded human being that is the essence of who you are to be buried under divorce clutter. The less words from your mouth about your divorce or ex, the fewer thoughts ruminating through your head ingraining in your mind and the mind’s of others that your life has burned down to one remaining cinder—a divorced woman. The faster you can dispense of the verbal and mental divorce debris, the faster you can reveal the brilliance of your life in total.

We alone define who we are. Give the world the appropriate cues and signals and they will buy what you are selling. Sell something attractive, sell something of value: YOU.

I hope your summer has been lazy, long, and restful. Do I hear groans or laughter? Whatever the summer brought to your life or left behind, let’s mark the official end of summer with anticipation. Fall is a delicious season filled with color, scents, and most of all anticipation—probably developed from a life time of school beginnings.

I have a couple of big items I am anticipating this fall. The release of my CD, Letting Go with Panache, which is dedicated to the ladies of Sassy Pink Peppers, a new business; Becoming Nana; an online shop and a retail showroom located in Brookside, a shopping and residential area in Kansas City. Boy, taking personal and financial risk is certainly one way to feel alive. I am so alive I am reverberating. Don’t get too close to me or you might get caught up in my personal electrical storm of misfiring nerve endings.

But, enough shameless self-promotion (did I mention SSP members receive a special discounted price off Letting Go with Panache? See shopping page beginning September 15th).

This month’s column is a discussion of one of the many topics that had to be cut from Letting Go with Panache due to length. As it is, what was supposed to be a one disc seminar turned into two and I had enough material for four discs. I may be dishing up leftovers for a few columns. Yum.

Today’s selection is reflections on the end of your first serious romance following divorce. It happens. The question is why and what can we learn from this additional pain and heart ache?

This is one way it may have happened. You worked hard to overcome your shock and disappointment from divorce. Slowly, you mustered up the courage to begin socializing. A chance meeting at Starbucks, a dedicated search of online dating candidates, clubbing, blind dates, and then voila, you met a man that rekindled heat in the nether zone (ala Weeds, on Showtime). Or you bounce back from divorce with a vengeance to skip the grief and hit the scene meeting a man who made you laugh and served up alcohol, fun, and all kinds of lovely life distractions that kept you afloat for a dreamy period of time. The scenarios can come in a multitude of flavors and special effects, but after the drama has played out, you are left with a relationship that ends. Whether you pulled the plug or he left you naked, wet, and towel-less, the result is your feeling; NOT AGAIN!!

Recovering from a love post-divorce is brutal. Is there anything positive that can be culled from its agony? For those of us who believe in the adage that their MUST be a pony around here somewhere, I think if we sweep out all the manure we will at least find hoof prints.

I have a couple of theories on the “transitional” relationship. Both of which do in fact serve a purpose even if they are harsh lessons.

When we suffer a significant loss, our brains try to rectify the loss. Our brain is accustomed to patterns we have established. Using a pop-culture expression, after a loss we are pushed out of our “comfort zone”—the above mentioned established patterns. Our poor little brains don’t know what to do with these prefabricated nerve routes that no longer serve any purpose. As my very wise, then18 year old, daughter told me following my divorce, “Mom, you have all this love you are used to pouring into dad, and now you have no place to pour it into. PLEASE, don’t monsoon all over me!” Bingo.

What happens next? A man comes along. Let’s call him Receptacle. Basically that is what he is. He becomes a container for all of our leftover patterns of expressing love and other habits of our former relationship. One hitch, this man may not be the same size and shape (get your mind off sex, I am not speaking anatomically here, this is a figurative metaphor) of our former receptacle. So what happens? Either the new man cannot contain all of the behaviors you pour into him and he overflows and heads for the hills to avoid drowning, or he is a bottomless pit that if you fed him relationship patterns from now until the earth boils from Global Warming, he would not be an adequate partner for you.

So you break up—he with you or you with him. Either way, there is another huge disappointment to overcome. It is time to for you to retrace the steps of grief. If your grief journey was speedy following your divorce, you may find this trip more arduous. If your grief following your divorce was a thoughtful period of growth, you may have a better perspective to handle this breakup. The main thing to keep in mind is that this transitional relationship does serve a purpose. This pain is not for naught. In order for you to be of prepared mind and soul to meet your true partner in life, you have to filter out all of the qualities (yours and a potential partner) that DON’T WORK.

First, we have two people who are attracted to each other and feel the call of love. They are not very similar in personalities. One likes hockey—to play and watch—one prefers long walks in the park. Each detests the others past time activities. Or one person is a saver, one is a spender. Does this mean that they are doomed? Of course not. But for this relationship to work there needs to be a lot of compromise or independent time without penalty to the relationship. If one quality they both share is independence, this could be the perfect match.

The second relationship is one where there are many shared interests. Both love sailing. Both love to save money. Both love making whoopee with the lights on. Sounds like a sure deal right? Not always. Maybe one person believes in the core of their being that monogamy is a myth. The other believes a relationship cannot survive without it.

We all know that any relationship requires hard work, daily—sometimes hourly—nurturing and attention. But some relationships are inherently easier than others to sustain. I believe the difference between them are knowing who we are, what our acceptable standards of giving and receiving in a relationship are, and getting to know—not assume—what a potential partners standards are for the same qualities. I would never tell anyone that the relationship they have chosen is doomed or unmanageable. But I will tell them they have their work cut out for them. That the woman involved most likely will have to bite her tongue, curb her needs, and make other sacrifices. I choose not to do this ever again. I choose to find a mate that stands toe-to-toe with me on my values of human kindness, grace, spiritual need, generosity, forgiveness, romance, money, and most important to me, family.

If you have suffered through a disappointing transitional relationship, count your blessings. How much better is that than to have married him? Or spent a decade on him?

Here is Patty’s rule of compatibility; when you fall asleep at night next to him or waiting to see him the next time, are your thoughts of peace and contentment or are they “tomorrow I am going to try…[insert what you feel needed to be done to improve the relationship]”

And whatever you do or have or have lost, don’t give up on love EVER. If you really want it, if you really know yourself and what you need in a partner and what you have to bring to a partner, you will have a beautiful relationship with someone you haven’t met yet. Don’t waste a lot of time on the wrong person, on feeling lost and alone. Enjoy every day, because this one thing I can absolutely guarantee you, tomorrow will be different. It may make today look like fantasy land we wish we could return to or have us feeling like we won the lottery. Whatever exists today is not going to exist forever; so you might as well not anguish over it too greatly or take it for grant it, ever. Get those spirits rallied ladies, and get out there. Life is waiting for you. Dish it up!!

HELLO, MY NAME IS PATTY

I am practicing what I preach today. And it is not coming easily. I have to let go of a relationship that is causing unbelievable pain. To be more precise, I have to let go of the feelings of responsibility for this relationship. My emotions are so raw that I cannot yet write about the relationship itself in specifics. I am breaking one of the first rules of writing; no holds barred. If a writer spares feelings or protects a person or subject matter the piece is compromised before it is even put down. A compromised composition—fiction or nonfiction— rings hollow.

But I am asking you for pass today. I will share my struggle, but not the nature of the relationship, because it is simply too soon and I am indeed protecting someone. I will tell you this is not a romantic relationship. It is a blood relationship.

The drama between me and “M” has played out for decades. The hurt, disappointment, betrayal, and regrets have piled on top of me so compactly that I feel as if there is no air left for me to breathe.

It is time to let go. So why do I hang on?

Running through the list of possibilities from Letting Go with Panache, I would select “I can’t stop loving this person.” Paraphrasing it to “I cannot stop feeling responsible BECAUSE I love this person”

If I follow what I have preached to the dear ladies of Sassy Pink Peppers, my plan should be to stop indulging in ACTS of love. Well, I broke that rule this morning. I caved. I gave in to the cries of M that played on my feelings of love. I am making a public declaration that I will not do it again. Because doing so causes such a backlash of pain and more disappointment that I can no longer bear it. I have had it. Not with M, but with M’s behavior and choices. Our value systems cannot co-exist. I learned to drop my expectations of M coming around to my values a few years ago. I thought in accomplishing that major feat that I had accomplished letting go of the emotions that occur when those expectations are not met. But M continues to drag me into his values. He does this by putting himself at risk, bobbing up and down in front of me like someone waving wildly from the ocean depths for help lest they drown. How many of us can walk away from a drowning stranger, much less someone we have a history of love and life.

IT’S NOT TOUGH LOVE; IT’S REFUSING TO SPIT IN THE WIND

I am going to ignore those flapping arms. The next middle of the night phone call with life and death consequences that become my responsibility because I answered the phone will be met with, “I am sorry that you are in this situation. Call me back when you have resolved it.” And I will hang up. I have been unable to do that in the past for fear that I will have night sweats the rest of the night or lay next to the toilet waiting to be purged of the guilt and stabbing fear. I know that in the past I have not be able to be kind to myself until I heard from M again which could be months. I would hang in angst until I knew that I had been forgiven. The longest period of time that M has spent “underground” lasted 15 months. Fifteen interminable months.

M will not respond to my rescuing him by growing up, becoming responsible, or stop from putting himself at risk. I still will not hear from him until it suits him. In addition, how does my rescue mission alter the outcome of this latest emergency? It could make it worse and then I will have more guilt to bear. The best course of action when a loved one continues to live their life at risk is to step back.

I hear someone asking, but what about possible good? What if M means what he says this time and this help could turn his life around? Possible good does not trump possible harm. Consider a physician’s oath. It begins; FIRST DO NO HARM.

It does not begin; FIRST SAVE A LIFE.

Let’s say my helping M improved M’s life immeasurably. Highly unlikely, but for examples sake, it did. Hoping to improve M’s life does not warrant risking M’s life—at least not by my hands. Does this make sense?

MESSAGE TO “M”:

I have told you so many times before and reneged. I am telling you now in a public venue that I will not be your safety net or stooge ever again. You are responsible for your life. I love you and wish you well.

Ladies, these are my last words. No more scarce breath expended to defend my reasons why I won’t cow to M’s demands or hysterics. I will ACT. I will change the way I think and speak concerning my pain over M. My pain from M. I will hang up the phone. I will look myself in the mirror and say I did the best I could. I will do the best I can, again, once M begins to participate in his rescue.

And if the worst outcome happens and M is lost forever, I will not carry that guilt. I will know that I saved the ones I could. I will know that the life boat can only hold so many, and those who will not paddle, will be left behind to drift out to sea.

MY DEAREST LADIES

I will not leave you on such a profoundly sad, but honest note. Holidays tend to bring out the sadness, drama, and crisis for many people. When it is someone we love we need to stand strong. I would never withhold my arms to comfort, but I will withhold my finances, enabling, blind eye, or worse yet, implied approval of a chaotic uncontrollable lifestyle.

My mistake with mishandling this latest crisis of M’s was that I was caught off-guard. Something those of us who love a person at risk must never do. So why did I do just that when I know so much better. Because, I grew complacent. M has had a good run of healthy behavior. I stopped practicing my crisis rules. The rules work if they are in place when we are challenged. They work because we don’t have to rely on REACTING to a situation; we automatically assume a role reading from a mental script. I have been practicing all day today. I will continue to practice once a day and never stop. I will practice until the words rise immediately to the surface when I need them. I will type them out and keep them by the phone, on my night stand, in my purse, on the tip of my lips.

“I am sorry for your situation. Call me when you have resolved the problem. I love you.”

CLICK, GOODBYE, GOD’S SPEED

Most of the thoughts expressed in the above commentary are derived from my 12 week Family-to-Family Course with NAMI. NAMI is the National Organization for the Mentally Ill. This includes anyone with addiction illnesses, depression, ADD, bipolar, borderline personality disorders, OCD, and many other illnesses. As you can imagine the divorce rate is extremely high among this group. What is even more tragic is that many of these illnesses are genetically linked. Divorcing a spouse is traumatic; divorcing a child is a parent’s nightmare. NAMI does not teach tough love. NAMI gives structure and perspective to chaotic lifestyles due to mental illness. NAMI knows we will not stop loving our family members, but we must take back control from those who have none. Refusing to be drawn in to demands is not withholding love. Our arms are open, but we will not be manipulated or aid in unhealthy choices.

One of the many ideas I learned in my NAMI program is that mental illness is not an excuse for rudeness. I have mastered that one. I am still working on hysterical pleas. But I am getting there.

Anyone who feels they can benefit from information or help about these problems, I urge you to contact your local NAMI affiliation or go to the web site www.nami.org.

Ladies, sadness, frustration, weighing consequences and other burdens exist. What do we do about them? We arm ourselves with preset values. We don’t make excuses for abandoning the values we trust and respect “because just this once I am going to set them aside to help the one I love.” Practice. Our parents’ generation calls it taking the high road. See it rising above you and place one foot in front of the other and remain steadfast as you role model for the one you love.

I WILL NOT LAY BY THE TOILET AGAIN