55) Go For the Yikes

Luck, the Inevitable, and a Whole Lotta Love

Hello, welcome to new subscribers. I started this last week and thought I’d be wrapped in a day or so, but life…if some of my time references seem off, that’s why.

Writing during a rainy night here in England. It’s nothing like rain in Texas. Thunder is rare, haven’t seen any lightning. It just relentlessly drizzles and streams or pours from the sky like a broken shower head. Back in Austin we get storms. My house would shake with sharp cracks and beastly roars, the lightning flashing a few seconds of full-on, blue-tinged daylight in the middle of the night. It’s all to do with heat and colliding molecules and I did my usual deep dive but it’s too much to impart. I’ll just leave you with this little factoid: the temperature of the air in a lightning channel may reach as high as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun. It’s fascinating stuff and now I think, along with my other missed careers, being a meteorologist would’ve been cool. I need more lifetimes.

Part of my shtick as a coming-of-aging woman is my jewelry. It started with a few sentimental rings and as I collected things I liked or that had meaning to me, I began to curate pieces that I didn’t have to take off. Taking jewelry off means an increased likelihood of losing it, and so with this logic, I wear my chosen rings, bracelets and necklaces all the time. Sometimes a piece gets swapped, but there’s generally eight rings on my hands, a stack of eight bracelets and a watch, and several pendants around my neck. I make jokes when people mention it, saying it’s my aging strategy: “Don’t look at this (crepey-saggy-mottled skin-cuticle-picked-nails bits) —look at THIS (turquoise, amethyst, diamond, gold etc.)

The problem with never taking something off is the attachment level. I get sentimentally attached to jewelry anyway—I have my grandfather’s wedding ring, my dad’s ring, a couple of pieces my dad and mom or exes bought for me—but it starts to feel like a part of my body when it’s always on. The other day I swapped my favorite gold and diamond horseshoe ring to the other hand for some reason. And now it’s gone. Of all the rings to lose, my good luck horseshoe ring. A gift from my dad.

I’d made a rare visit to see him and his wife in Lubbock. He saw me admiring the ring in a shop and later on slipped it into my hand. “Don’t tell her I bought it for you” he said, referring to his wife. Which is telling, and sums up the nature of that particular triad of a non-relationship. If you’ve read my book or read this essay I published here last month on Father’s Day, you know what this deal is about.

The attachment was strong, I love that ring, I love that in his scared-of-conflict, step-mom-p-whipped sneaky way, my dad wanted to show me I mattered to him. Losing it made some deep buried, primal superstitious cave lady mind come to the forefront. Maybe this meant bad luck. As it does, my more rational, philosophical, soothing myself mind kicked in and I decided maybe someone who needed good luck would find it. (nice try KV) I’ve not gone crazy looking for it, I figure it’ll show up or it won’t. I don’t want the frantic, hopeful disappointment of a forensic search.

The reason I’m writing about it though is this: On the day I saw my good luck ring was lost I got a massively huge bit of great news. The luck is holding. Can’t tell you what the good news is yet, but trust me, it’s good. I still miss my ring.

sigh

Lately I’ve been struggling with my inability to make someone I love (not romantic) be happy. I’ve tried with all the persistence and determination I have (a lot.) It’s so plain and obvious what it would take for my subject to elevate their existence, to experience more freedom. True, what it would take are big changes, radical leaps from a present reality into a free fall of trust and faith. I realize this can seem impossible, so I offer rational and simpler baby steps that can lead to transformation. I’m a good advocate, I don’t nag relentlessly, I’m just always ready if the door opens, to walk through and insert a perspective or insight in hope that maybe this time they’ll see.

The challenge is really about accepting that subject whom I want to see happy is incapable, or refuses to facilitate the changes necessary to get there. I went through this with my mom for most of my adulthood. Eventually I did stop trying to be responsible for her contentment and happiness. It took therapy and self examination—but it’s still a melancholy thought to imagine what might have been.

I’m not co-dependent or neurotic; my concern isn’t all consuming and doesn’t get in the way of my own happiness. It’s key to not let another person’s behavior affect your own well-being and I have decades of recovery that help with that. I have ample supplies of forgiveness and, in theory, I believe each person gets to be who they are make their own choices and judgments about how their life is lived.

But an altruistic desire to want your loved ones to thrive, and the ensuing dismay when they just can’t is one of the more complexities of certain human relationships. Or maybe I should say relationships with certain humans. It seems like the choice becomes to either distance myself, love from afar or just love fully with a big giant side of heartbreak.

I’m curious if this dilemma resonates with some of my readers and how you tap down that longing to see a loved one change their ways?

When I moved to England in January, one thought above all others haunted me. It was posed as though I were talking to myself, which I suppose, I do sometimes, as an internal dialog. The conversation went like this:

Me: You are moving to another country, quite far away from the relationships, family and friends you’ve built over your entire life.

Also Me: Yes, yes I am.

Me: You are doing this at a time of life when people you cherish and love could conceivably need you. A time of life where people tend to face illness, loss, death. How will you be able to be there for them when they need you?

Also Me: Um. This is very uncomfortable and I don’t like it. But here is the thing—I can’t live my life based on what might/could happen. I can’t not follow the paths that are calling to me. I will figure out what to do when something bad happens. And maybe nothing bad will happen for a long time.

Me: Fair enough. You’re right of course…but stay ready.

Also Me: Besides, I have family in England that might need me as well, and I might need them one day.

Me: The latter is true, if you think they’ll be there for you, great. But most of your family have support in place. And, most of your loved ones in the US also have immediate family, blood or otherwise, who could step up. You know the vulnerable ones I’m talking about. The very few that would rely on and need YOU. There are a few where YOU are the one who could, and should, and will be there.

Also Me: Yeah. This is all fucked up shit to have to consider, but I gotta think about it. Like when I had to make a will and trust and all that. Ugh.

Both “me” and “also me” then agree to shove this unpleasantness back in the fear box and put it high on a shelf at the back of the coming-of-age closet and hope that catastrophic contretemps, rotten timing, bad luck, and the grim reaper would find other people to pick on.

Seven months into my move, and it’s happened. I arrived Thursday in the US to try and be of service to a dearly beloved in a time of crisis. I’m grateful to be single, healthy, basically unemployed but reasonably financially stable and in a position to go do this. I’ll go back and forth until the outcome has resolved. I feel gutted sick with heart-shattering sorrow. I devote much of my time to studying philosophical thought and perspective on suffering and loss, researching and reflect for hours every day.

I will write more about this when it’s appropriate, and only include it now because it’s all consuming and in real time.

This has been all the hard stuff with the sad overlay, I have more stuff to discuss, but it’s got a more yikes patina to it. Have I shared with you one of my most important coming of aging tips? This is the one that really keeps me feeling like I could be years in front of 65. Go for the yikes.

Go for the yikes. At 57, I was convinced by a first time film director, Derek Ahonen, to take a supporting role in his first film, The Transcendents. I was terrified. I tried to talk him out of wanting me. He insisted, said he’d had me in mind for the part when he wrote it. I was still terrified. I did it anyway. I memorized lines, showed up feeling like a fraud and excruciatingly embarrassed. In all that, I left a little space to have fun—and that’s what happened.

It was an amazing experience. The big bonus discovery was how blowing up my comfort zone seemed to set the clock back. No wonder: Young people are fearless and try new things. Old people get stuck. Noted here: For the first time, I just went and looked at the IMDB user reviews and was so pleasantly surprised. If you want to watch me in a weird film, here ya go.

That same year, I was invited to be the keynote speaker for a significant event, the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign and fundraiser. Again, I tried to excuse myself: what could I say, what do I know about heart disease, why would anyone want to listen to me? Again, the idea terrified me—standing in front of a room of people without a guitar or playing songs? Just talking? Yikes!

They wanted me and I stopped resisting; figured out my angle, wrote my speech, memorized it and delivered it close to perfectly. I learned how much I loved connecting with people in that way. I learned again how going out of the comfort zone feels youthful. I went on to do many more keynotes and public speaking appearances.

Go for the yikes!

All this is background stuff to announce that I think it looks like I’m going for another yikes and opening for a good pal on his UK club dates in November. Terrified. I’m a band person, not a solo person. But I have the songs, I can pull them off, and maybe an out-of-comfort zone yikes is just what I need.

Thank you for your time, attention, subscription, or follow. This substack, connecting here, being read, keeps me writing. It’s holding shit together for me, so I appreciate you helping with that. xK