Old year toast: To Us

I think I tend to feel melancholy on the last day of the year because even though it’s mainly a way to measure passing of time and mark events in life, it is still an ending.

Sometimes I’ve wanted to celebrate and eagerly anticipate the new year, but honestly I haven’t felt like celebrating a new year’s arrival since the end of 2016.

I thought this year I might like to pick a city three hours ahead, toast for the heck of it at 9pm my time, and just go to bed early. But, I’m not sure if that feels right either. Going to bed early is still definitely a good idea though.

I think my soul needs to sit quietly for a time today. The temptation is to sulk, which will help nothing, but a bit of purposeful reflection may do me some good. It’s been a year full of good, and quite a bunch of bad. Perhaps I need to acknowledge this in order to put it to rest and move on to the new possibilities.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty, and quite frankly still a lot of bad that needs to be traveled through. Maybe that’s why the new year holds no particular excitement for me. But I will hold on to a quiet, unquenchable hope, the embers of fire in my deepest being that refuse to be put out no matter what. Sometimes those embers are cooler than at other times, but they’re still always burning, waiting until they can be full ablaze again with new kindling.

Maybe that’s my metaphor for the end of one year and beginning of another. It’s time to clear the ash away and keep it from snuffing out what’s still good. Time to find and bring in new kindling so the embers can create new fire. And then it will be time to place larger, longer burning firewood in a strategic manner to get the most of the fire for as long as possible, shifting and adjusting the wood structure of my life as needed.

This reminds me of a favorite song, Embers, by Owl City, which helped me through emotionally tough times when it was released and is still a heartening reminder.

So, I have my word for the new year. Perhaps it’s time to say a strange thank you to my old word, accept what it helped me with and what it didn’t really do, and contemplate the new word for 2019. Its time to embrace the ending, and remember it’s not final.

And when I wake up in 2019, I have a playlist to wake up and energize my emotions and my body for whatever lies ahead. Please feel free to use it as well or take it as a springboard to custom make one for yourself. Let’s be our best.

A toast to 2018, and to 2019. And mostly, to us.🥂

New Year, New …

Everything? 

I’m sitting on my delightful sunroom contemplating who I want to become this year. What I want to accomplish, how I want to spend my time, how I want to find peace. 

Peace with myself, peace with DeTickles, peace with my personal boundaries. 

Basically, I’m in search of my zen.

So, every year for the past several years instead of new year resolutions, I have chosen one word to remember, to challenge me, and to guide me as I live out being myself more fully and becoming more who I want to be. 

This year my word may impact my health most of all, mental, physical, emotional.

DeTickles is a huge strain, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, temporally, repeatedly. Acceptance and moving forward will perhaps be my greatest assets if I can keep hold of them. 

I live a basically sedentary life, but I used to love dance — I was student and teacher of Irish dance for about six years, and did a couple other dance styles besides that over the years — and occasionally a sport and I would make enjoyable, if not particularly skilled, acquaintance. 

And I struggle with high blood glucose numbers, my “good” cholesterol was just a little bit low recently, I have risk factors for other chronic health conditions (so far so good, knock on wood), and my back near constantly hurts or is stiff. I turn thirty this year. I believe I can achieve better and I want better for myself. 

So, after talking with my wonderful endocrinologist, I am devising a plan to begin running. I never thought I would see the day when I would join the athletic gear wearing crazy people who are up with the sun for a run and shower before work. Smart goofs.

Folks, I am not a morning person. 

But something tangible needs to change. I refuse to believe I am old, yet my body feels like certain things are failing, when they don’t have to if I’d give them a little love in action. 

Yoga, I think, will be my friend too. I even found videos on YouTube geared toward gamers (because the ones that say they’re for people without flexibility, aren’t!).

Wish me luck, but also I’m keeping in mind that this is something I want for me, all for me, and that’s okay. There would be other benefits, but this is one time I can and should focus on myself, and really just have set aside me time.

It’s time for me to embrace that I’m worth the effort.

I remember Mama

The last year and a half have been a non-stop whirling of good and hard and painful things.

In 2016 I adopted the Old Man, was diagnosed with DeTickles, and became engaged to my best friend. This past spring we had our wedding, and this summer I experienced something harder than my diagnosis day.

A month ago my mother slipped away from this world quietly and when loved ones were near but not paying close attention. It’s just like her to be happy to leave us to it when the room is filled with laughter and reminiscing.

I was holding her hand.

I miss her greatly.

What else can be said? It’s a loss I can’t fully explain or understand, though I will speak in favor of counseling. It helps.

I spoke at her service. I knew I would always regret it if I didn’t stand up to say something about who my Mama is, how she treated everyone, and how she raised me and my brothers. She loved well and fiercely.

I loved cuddle time sitting in her lap for long stretches. I loved the conversations we had about serious things and silly things. I loved sitting next to her on the couch as we colored together during one of my last visits.

I loved seeing her bright and joyful at my wedding.

At her service I took the podium to honor my mommy. Here is what I said:

My name is Dorathea Chaplin; I am Mary Lou’s daughter, and growing up, most of you probably knew me better as Dotty.

The essence of my mama is complicated and beautiful, and therefore hard to capture, but as I was thinking over her life and who she is a few things stood out to me.

First and most, my mama is the most caring person. She wanted to make everyone she met feel like the most special person in the room, and she was good at it. All my life I watched her do that with cashiers, bank tellers, strangers anywhere around town, on trips, meeting my mother-in-law, and really anywhere and everywhere she was.

Mama made sure everyone had what they needed, and especially if it was food…
Which was always delicious…

She was gentle but she was also fierce, and that never contradicted her loving heart. She had a protective sense and counseled many people, including myself, and she would do anything to give those who needed it a safe space to take rest in.

And my mama was one of the smartest people I knew. She was inventive, creative, educated, and an absolute wiz at logic puzzles which she loved spending time on.

She had the fortitude to homeschool her not-always-willing children while taking care of her parents. And with determination and strength I could never comprehend she would drive me to my classes when I needed rides even while in the process of undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I remember she said she loved that little extra time she and I had to spend together… and I did too.

She was proud of what she had done and had every right to be, but also never cared to take center stage. Her biggest delight was in seeing others taken care of and surrounding her with their happiness.

I’ll never be able to say enough, and she probably wouldn’t want all the fuss. But I will say I am so happy she’s paving the way home for us. I bet when the time comes she’ll be part of the feast preparations when we all join her. And in the meantime…

…Mama,

I saw you smile.