Happy 4th birthday Dai-Dai

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Today is a special day in my life. It was 4 years ago that my g’daughter Dai–Dai Catrina’s shining light entered this world. During these years, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to watch her grow from an infant, to a toddler, to a beautiful little girl. Instead of going over the last 4 years, I want to take you back to the day when we were blessed with a wonder such as she:

Daisy’s B’Day

September 28, 2006

Under a beautiful, golden yellow-orange sunrise, J. and I are headed to St. David’s for one of the ultimate blessings in one’s lifetime–the birth of a child. More importantly, (to me anyway) is the birth of the first child to my last child. Fortunately, I’ve had over nine months to acclimate my mind to the fact that “my baby” is a pregnant woman and a mother-to-be. During that time, I realized for the first time that until she became pregnant, I still looked upon BW as my baby girl, certainly not an adult and never a mom.

As it became more and more apparent that BW was pregnant, I felt part joy and part apprehension. At some point, I remembering looking at BW, big with Dai–Dai, as she laughed and giggled at some Dai–Dai antic. She was happier than I’d ever seen her and then she transformed before my eyes into a woman, a young woman, (far older than I was when I had my first child) but a woman just the same. My baby was gone, but in her place was a woman and soon to be, a mother. I have that image of her in mind during the remaining drive to the hospital.

Later at home.

Although I intended to journal my immediate thoughts and feelings throughout the day, I was too overwhelmed to write. Evening has come and I am home, exhausted from an amazing and exhilarating day, but far from sleep. At 8:08 A.M., Dai made her entrance into our world weighing 7 lbs, and 19 inches in length. Even at the hefty weight of 7 lbs., she is considered a preemie because her lungs are not fully developed. She is now safely ensconced in the neonatal unit, where she seems a giant compared to the other babies. As of yet, I have only seen her from afar but I can’t imagine a more beautiful sight than my 2nd g’daughter. I don’t have to hold her in my arms because over the past eight months she has etched her place in my heart, and I love her fiercely. Based on my last conversation with D, Dai–Dai is already improving and she had to be restrained to prevent her from removing the tubes from her nose. Her mother is doing well also. D, my son-in-law, packed his own suitcase so that he could remain at the hospital 24/7 with “his girls”. He did.

So much has changed during the past three years and it takes moments like this to remind me that along with the lows, there are events that can only be described as “infinite highs”–immeasurable blessings. My goal in life is to be thankful for all the moments, be they highs or lows because one is no more or less important than the other. (On days such as this, it is tempting to elevate the highs over the lows. It comes down to being grateful for all of my moments, and wringing out every lesson, every experience, every morsel of truth, every lie, that I can glean from each and every moment. Were it not for the lows, I would have no way of appreciating the immense blessings brought by days like this. It is on days like this that I treasure my role as a mother. Now, BW and I are equals of sorts — a mother and a g’mom vying to treasure every moment in Dai–Dai’s life. I hope that she’ll share.

Don’t Compromise Your Greatness!

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Image by DigiDragon via Flickr

Before I begin, I must clarify what this post is not. I am not a mental health care professional, and the intent of this post, is not to trivialize, disparage or malign those in the mental health profession or the individuals who truly suffer from the insidious illness that is “melancholic depression”. http://www.brighthub.com/mental-health/depression-mood/articles/81724.aspx. Anyone who suffers from any form of depression should immediately seek medical assistance. As you will see, this post only addresses these matters briefly.

During the past week or so, some days, the weather has matched my mood of late, melancholy. Many of the days were overcast, neither hot nor cold and perfect for wiling away or sleeping the day away. As I have much of the past few days, I choose to succumb to the latter. Before doing so, the word “melancholy” brings me back to younger days.

Since elementary school, I have had an intense fascination with the word melancholy. I had two favorite words then, “lucrative” and “melancholy.” In hindsight, “lucrative” was future economic wealth to a child from a single-parent home with a mother working furiously to raise, clothe and feed 4. “Melancholy,” however, was then and is now, enticing by its own right–at least to me. It is a beautiful word and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I ached to use it in a sentence but my 10 year old attempts were always feeble, even to me.

The problem was in the teaching. I was taught that the state of melancholy was one that I should not strive for, lest I be branded severely depressed or otherwise mentally afflicted.

My fascination and intrigue with the word grew, as did my puzzlement as to its true meaning. Scholar I am not, so I embarked on a brief internet search that might answer my questions. Webster’s on-line dictionary defines “melancholy” as follows:

Mel´an`chol`y

n. 1.

1. Depression of spirits; a gloomy state continuing a considerable time; deep dejection; gloominess.

2. Great and continued depression of spirits, amounting to mental unsoundness; melancholia.

3. Pensive maditation[sic]; serious thoughtfulness.

4. Ill nature.

a. 1. Depressed in spirits; dejected; gloomy dismal.

2. Producing great evil and grief; causing dejection; calamitous; afflictive; as, a melancholy event.

3. Somewhat deranged in mind; having the judgement impaired.

4. Favorable to meditation; somber.

I learned that all but two of the definitions listed above are in accordance with what I learned as a child. If one states, “I am in a melancholy mood.” Such a confession automatically imbues the speaker with a mental defect of some sort. In some cases that may be accurate, but based on the definitions for 3 and a.3, in many cases, such a label is a gross mischaracterization of the person’s emotional state.

Although “melancholy” has strong roots in the mental health field, it appears that the word is also frequently used in the world of poets and poetry. Since I have no expertise on either, I refer you to the following web page, http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Definition-of-Melancholy, for a lovely take on the word and a discussion and examples of its use in the realm of poetry. For my purposes, it is the conclusion that intrigues me. He states:

There is a devious sadness to the world in which we live – a sadness that comes to find us in the night, when we’re all alone under the canopy of a million stars. Something within us knows that we ought to be better – that our love ought to burn brighter and shine more fiercely – that our passion and conviction for life ought to be strong, and lead us through that nagging temptation to settle for the ordinary and mundane. Something within us knows that life was always meant to be lived to the full. And this something, when it comes to find us, convicts us of all the cheap and common things we often settle for. This feeling, in my mind, is the definition of melancholy.

Yes, this is the melancholy of which I speak and experience. The emotion differs from one person to the next, and the scope of sadness does as well, but it is so much more and a far cry from severe depression. Melancholy comes wielding a doubled-edged sword-a sword of truth if you will. One side bears a wrath upon us which, as the above author aptly quoted, “convicts us for all of the cheap and common things we often settle for”. It replays all of those instances in our lives when we failed to live up to our best selves, our true selves. We lament all the lost opportunities for greatness that we allowed to escape our grasp due to fear, or any number of self-limiting emotions. This side of the sword is our WAKE-UP call. The other side, however, serves not to convict us, but to remind us of our forgotten hopes, dreams and aspirations. It brings to mind that time in our life when anything was possible and we’d let nothing deter us from achieving those goals. It reminds us that greatness is ours to be achieved, to be embraced. To settle for less–well, that is where the state of “melancholy” steps in to remind us that: “It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us; Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”. Return to Love, Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992.

A Place Of My Own

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Everyone of us should have their own space. It needn’t be a room. It can be a corner, a closet, or even outdoors. The purpose is to have your own quiet haven within the whirlwind of a busy household. A spot that soothes you physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

I had just such a room; I called it my “yoga room”. I took great care in decorating that room from top to bottom, with input from noone else but me. The criteria for every single item that went into the room was that I had to love it–alot. It took 3 years to finish that room and when it was done, I cried tears of happiness, gratitude and accomplishment.

Months later, my health finally forced me to resign from my job as a litigation attorney, from any job really. It was then that my space became more than a mere space, it became to me, a sanctuary. Although the word sanctuary is typically used in reference to holy places, it is synonymous with haven, retreat and refuge. My sanctuary became my “safe room”. In it, I could laugh, cry, pray, journal, dream, cry some or none of the above. The choice was mine to make.

My sanctuary served me well for years, but then I had to let it go. My always healthy mother suffered a major health condition, after which, she had to live with me and my husband. My sanctuary became her haven for healing, her home within our home and it appears to serve her as well as it served me all those years. Sometimes, I miss my retreat, my haven, my sanctuary, but not for long, because I still have my mother. A place of my own can be replaced, my mother cannot.

The photo above is one taken by me of my favorite desk and computer that I use to write my posts to this blogs and to explore the internet. Yet, it has neither the look or the feel of my “yoga room”, but that is alright by me. I am confident that I will find another place to call my very own, but in the meantime, I am carrying my sanctuary in my heart.

Blessings and love, lydia marie

Pieces of Me

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Image via Wikipedia

Who am I trying to kid? I’ve wanted to create a blog for quite some time. I’ve read one book after another and looked at and read one blog after another. There are some amazing blogs on the blogosphere that address whatever topic that may interest you. The one thing that all the blogging books and how-to’s cautioned, “speak about what you know.” Speak. About. What. You. Know. Have I done that?

As I mentioned before, this blog was never intended to be one about my life with fibromyalgia, migraines or most recently pulmonary embolisms. In fact, my intent was to largely ignore those issues unless there was a compelling reason to discuss them. I began this blog as another way to decipher and discover the “inner” me. How can I ignore my health issues without ignoring significant pieces of me?

An archeologist excavates a site eager to discover and later study the artifacts left behind by earlier civilizations. Every artifact is of import in arriving at an understanding of how the civilization interacted, lived and ultimately perished. Likewise, I cannot pick and choose those pieces of me that I think are worthy of this blog. Like the other blog topics, fibromyalgia, migraines, are a part of me–of the totality of who I am. At this time in my life, they hold a major role in my life; it would be disingenuous of me to deny them a place in this blog. So, as I seek my way toward inner acceptance and ultimately, peace, my health issues are also ‘what I know.’