A New Me

Conquering Fears

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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Today I did something that made me uncomfortable and in the process  I semi-conquered two of my fears. If we measure our days by doing things that provoke discomfort by intentionally facing down our fears; then there are very few precious days during our lives that we get to experience the elation that comes when we find that our fears really weren’t so scary after all. Oh, the power we give to things that don’t deserve it!

All my life I have been afraid of two things…heights and relinquishing control to others. Both make me break out in a sweat and I have spent way too much time giving these fears too big of a place in my life. I have avoided, rejected, over-analyzed and spent time over- compensating for those things (fear,control) that have had me tied up in knots.But not this afternoon. Today I made a change.

After spending eight hours visiting  and cooperating with a doctor, I promised my son that he could do something special. Turns out the thing he wanted to do was indoor skydiving. Frankly, it sent shivers up my spine and after his broken ankle this summer I feared a repeat. I really wanted to say NO but didn’t.

Yet, once inside the facility something strange came over me. I decided that I WOULD FLY too, come hell or high water. After all, I rationalized, it would kill two fears with one stone…flying HIGH and RELINQUISHING CONTROL of my body to someone else. And even through it was expensive, I found I could justify it by invoking  rule #378 from the Book of Life “Do it if the price of a shrink will cost you more.”

Now, usually I deny myself these “opportunities” to stare down my fears in a multitude of ways. Lifetime favorites include:

  1. I say we can’t afford it and “save” money by siting on the sidelines watching everyone else partake.
  2. I believe my kids should have these types of opportunities and deny them to myself because … (go back to #1)
  3. I convince myself I am too fat, too skinny, too uncoordinated, too old, too young…or any other such thing that would cause the idea to come to a screeching halt.
  4. Hey, someone has to take the pictures… don’t they? Damn straight and I am the perfect person to do it!

So instead of “listening” to my usual playbook of excuses I plunked down my Visa and before I knew it the time came to suit up. This didn’t mean that there were not plenty of anxious moments in between. As I watched members of the group ahead of us fly I began to list all the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this in my head. This included such things as:

  1. At my age, all my wrinkles would be pushed back into my face and with little bit of collagen I have left… they just might become permanent.
  2. That money thing again.
  3. Broken bones scare me along with signing release of liability forms which emphasize dislocated shoulders and other rather painful injuries that may occur should I be stupid enough to do this.
  4. The thought that wetting my pants could cause a floating vortex of pee spinning around me and the instructor was terrifying. I mean at least in a swimming pool no one knows but this could prove problematic and I knew that should it happen it would be up on YOUTUBE in 2.4 seconds!
  5. I might kick the instructor unconscious and slam my body all the way up the glass only to be stuck at the top of the tunnel… kind of like Charlie of the Chocolate Factory fame.

Then, just as I was about to go and ask for my money back, Paul with all the exuberance of an 8 week-old puppy said, “Mom, I am so glad you are doing this with me. We will have so many memories of this time together that we can share for the rest of our lives!”

And that was when I had my AHH-HAA MOMENT. That is when I realized just how much I had let my fears hold me back from more than just myself but I had let them hold me back from creating memories with the people I love the most. And so I did it! I got in that flight suit, I put on those goggles, I put in the ear plugs and I strapped on that helmet….and I had a blast!  And for several minutes I didn’t care how high I went, if I broke something, or if I should have bought  Depends…I let myself be free and I willingly let someone else take over.

Now this doesn’t mean that I have entirely conquered my fears but I have got them roped and tied. From now on am going to make a conscious effort to get into the Game of Life and not just watch from the sidelines. I have vowed that once a year I will actively work to decrease the amount of influence a fear has on me. And who knows, maybe even sometime in the future I may just decide to jump out of a airplane …according to my 28 year-old Aussie accented instructor I am a natural at this sort of thing and I wouldn’t want to let him down!

 

Gone Missing Two

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

One of the most beautiful cities in America has got to be San Diego, California. We spent the weekend here because Gracie had a swim meet. The city is warm, clean, and has a wonderful mass transportation system. Architecture here is widely held in esteem and The Gaslight District teems with great places to eat and shops that beckon you in to spend those hard-earned greenbacks.

The aqua blue water sparkles and when you head out onto the open seas often you will find yourself surrounded by super pods of dolphins who love to leap up as if in a synchronized ballet as they chase your boat. Big yachts and little dinghies all line the piers and make me sea sick just watching them as they bob up and down. Yes, unfortunately, I am one of the Dramamine girls.

I had picked up B at LAX airport and we headed down to San Diego together. He had flown in from Florida where he had been on business. The next morning we had the car brought up from the valet so we could put our luggage in it and head off to the event which was a ten minute walk away. When we returned five hours later the car was still sitting there…strange.

B goes up to the valet stand.

“Can I have the keys to my car?” he asks handing them his ticket.

“Is that your car?”

“Yes it is”

“Well, sir, you have the keys. That is why we did not move it.”

“No, I don’t have the keys. You do. You brought my car around so we could put our luggage in it. I never had the keys. Your valet kept them. They were never in my possession.”

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And so it went. No one had the keys to the car. Not a soul. All 200 sets on the board were checked. All 200 sets were pushed so lights would come on. No keys for 30 minutes. ANYWHERE. I emptied my purse just in case. That was a major ordeal but I did find a pair of missing eyeglasses, a coupon for a free car wash, and $7.38 cents in change; so it was not all in vain. But still no keys. Just as the discussion turned to hiring  a locksmith the trunk suddenly popped open…seems the keys had fallen on the floor and had been kicked under the desk. Keys found…crisis solved.

We headed back to LAX where B had left the car. The day he left Los Angeles he was almost late after being in standstill traffic for close to an hour. He raced into the airport,found a rooftop parking space and ran inside but now five days later there was no car to be found. ANYWHERE.

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You have to understand there are a total of seven parking garages at LAX.  Each garage consists of approximately five floors. We started at Garage 4 the one he swore he parked at. He turned white as a sheet when it was obvious that his car was not there and started muttering under his breath. I remained calm.We went through each and every floor hitting the horn button on the key fob. Nothing. Okay, well maybe it was Garage 6. He was in a hurry after all and it was also a garage that served American Airlines. I began to silently meditate.

We drove to the top open air parking where he swore he had been. Nothing. Same procedure…hitting the horn button as we went up and down floor after floor. Again nothing. B is more distressed while I remained calm and murmuring words of love and support. We have now been searching for 45 minutes and racking up fees as we go through each gigantic garage.

Garage Number 5 was our next place to explore. It didn’t have a rooftop but we went through it anyway. No car. B insisted that it was in the area but we had begun to wonder if perhaps it had been stolen by this time. We went to the attendant and inquired if they had anyway of checking what cars were parked where. Seems they did…only you had to know the license plate number and B did not since it was a company car.

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Enough was enough. By this time we all needed to pee. Badly. So we got out of the car, found our way to the bathroom and then joined B as he re-traced his steps. He swore he had come in through a walk-way over the street and when we took the escalator up there it was. We walked back through it and came to an open air parking garage and after searching a minute or so we located the car in a space that seemed to be inaccessible from Garages 4,5, or 6. There wasn’t even a proper marking of the space. WTH?

I have to say I was proud of myself. Whereas in the past I might have gotten frustrated and upset matching B’s angst as it rose. Instead, I made a point to be supportive and calm. While in the past I may have said something I may have later regretted like, “This is why you always take a picture of your parking space so you can find it again,” I remained mute of the helpful advice. So while pieces of me have gone missing (read the post prior to this) perhaps this is a good thing. And when trying to find and put the pieces of ME back together I think some empty spaces may be prudent so they can be filled with some kinder and gentler fragments to complete the puzzle that is the new and improved ME. The ME I CHOOSE to be.

 

Gone Missing

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 7 Comments

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I recently realized I have no idea who I really am. That is a hard thing to write at my age.

If you had asked me last year who I was and what I stood for I could have given you a laundry list of my good qualities, the bad ones, my likes and dislikes, my truths, my foibles, the things that I tolerated and the things that I could not. Now I have few clues. I am left holding a bag of pieces, a rope and flashing sign which reads detour ahead.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the definition of  a mid-life crisis because it seems as if I am wiping clean the slate and starting over. Only problem… the cleaner doesn’t do its job and all I am are left with is grimy streaks that just muddy things all up and make clarity a rarity.

Supporters of Sigmund Freud believed that a mid-life crisis was brought about by a fear of impending death. I will confess that thoughts of dying do not keep me awake at night but what I want written on my tombstone does.  I guess that is the writer in me wanting to make sure the final sentence of my life is THE perfect one.

Or maybe this loss of “ME” is as simple as early onset dementia. I cannot seem to remember ANYTHING anymore. In fact, I took one of those on-line memory tests and the outcome was SEE YOUR DOCTOR SOON… at least that is what I think I remember. It used to be that I remembered every telephone number in my head nut now I can’t even find the phone. Maybe who I was is now crammed into the junk drawer in the kitchen between the batteries and the eyeglass repair kit. Who knows…but I do know I cannot find myself anywhere.

When Grandma was 85 she told me that when she would walk by a mirror she would think, “Who is that old lady?” because what she saw didn’t match who she saw in her head which was a 25 year old girl. I laughed when she said it but maybe now it is my issue too. What I see doesn’t reflect back who I think I thought I was…that is before I went missing.

It is shocking to me that his has happened. I mean it took so long for me to “find” myself, a self that I was finally pretty comfortable in, only to lost myself again in the prime of my life. I had gotten used to salesgirls ignoring me, the total absence of wolf whistles and having to buy compression socks when I flew. But this…arriving home to a perfect stranger…  I wish I knew her better…it would make life a whole lot easier for all involved.

 

 

Have We?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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Have we fixed what ails us?

Are we walking the path together

In a straight line

Or are we only connected together

By a line of oxygen tubing

That keeps us artifically alive

When in fact our relationship

Is terminal

Have we fixed what ails us?

Will we ever again feel

That closeness

That is beyond mere words

With an ability to finish

Each others sentences and thoughts

So connected that

Random young couples see us

And say

“I want to be like them”

Their (our) love still shining bright

Like a beacon of hope

To all the lovers and dreamers

Who have their hearts set

On having it all…forever

I used to think we had it all

Even with all the chaos that

Is our life with kids who have

Major disabilities that add

An extra layer to the complexity

Of our middle-aged lives

Now I am finding it hard to trust

Anything we have

Because I am afraid

And unwilling to settle

For something less than 100% honesty

But the truth floats through the air

Like a ghost

Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs

That leave me feeling

Hungry and unsatisfied

With what I have consumed

Where once I never questioned

My own happiness

Now I wonder if it attainable

With you in my life

Because I no longer know who you are

What you are and what you want

To Me, to my heart and to my soul

Whereas I was once willing to let things slide by

My happiness included

Happiness is now important to me

I am important to me

And I want to know

All things real

And not have to guess at meanings

Anymore

Where does that leave us?

You started this process

Maybe I will be the one to finish it

Or maybe I will begin to trust again

Right now the future is unknown

But isn’t it always?

 

 

Sometimes Being A Mom Sucks Big Time

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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So today was Gracie’s big meet. For a 11 year-old who has only been in the sport 2.5 years she does remarkably well. She works hard. She practices 20 hours a week. She watches videos of all her favorite Olympic divers and she reads books on the subject. She is the hardest working kid I know but sometimes that just isn’t enough.

Today’s meet was the largest held in the world with 29 states and 5 countries represented. She woke up and ate breakfast. When we arrived at the venue Gracie started crying.Hard. Fast and furious. This is a kid who never cries and goes into a meet exuding confidence. Always. But here she was crying and all the parents on the team were looking at her with big ??? on their faces because they had never seen her like this. She was a mess.

“I feel sick. My stomach hurts.”

“I think that maybe you are just a little nervous. Give it sometime and you’ll be fine.”

“No. I am really sick. I am going to puke.”

“You weren’t sick 10 minutes ago. Are you sure you aren’t just nervous?”

“NOOO I am sick,” she wails.

One of her teammates walks over to her and tells her a story of how sometimes she gets butterflies before competing.

“It’s not that. I am sick,” her body being wracked by sobs.

Back over to me she comes.

“I can’t do this. My stomach hurts.”

“Okay, well here is the thing. I think you are nervous and I am afraid that if I tell you that you don’t have to compete the next time you have a competition you will be paralyzed by fear and you won’t be able to compete then either. So I just want you to go out there and do what you came to do. I don’t care if you finish last. It doesn’t matter to me. Just go out there and try to have fun.”

Bigger tears. Sniffles. Lots. More tears. Huge tears. Rapid tears.

What is a mother to do? Where is the manual on the best way to handle drama?

Coach and team take her over to the staging area. Five minutes later she’s back.

“I can’t feel my hands.”

I’ve always had a fear of drowning and at this point I swear I am beginning to feel water rising to ankle level due to the hurricane of tears.

“Listen if your hands are numb then I have to take you to the hospital.”

“Nooo!”

She sulks back to her team. Obviously this is getting me nowhere fast. Time to switch tactics.

Three minutes later she’s back.

“I’m dizzy!”

“Okay. So go scratch. Go tell your coach that your cannot compete.”

“NOOOOOOOO! I can’t let my team down like that!”

What is a mother to do? What can I say to this tween that will make a difference?

“It is not a matter of letting your team down. It’s a matter of letting yourself down and how you will feel if you don’t compete. What matters is you. I don’t care what you do and in 10 years you won’t even remember your scores. You have decide for yourself if you would feel worse competing or not competing. It is all up to you.Only you can make that decision and I am not going to make it for you.”

“Mom, I just can’t,” she squeaks… gasp, gulp and even more tears.

“Seems to me you have two options. Either you scratch or you suck it up, buttercup, and get out there and do your best in a situation that is not ideal. I will love you either way.”

So she competes and earns two 4th place finishes and one tie for 3rd. Not bad at all for all the tears. For all the “sickness.” For all the doubts. For all the fears.

Later as she stood on the podium collecting her medals she was relaxed. Happy. Calm. And as those medals clanged softly against her chest I realized that the medals I cherish most from this meet are not the ones that hang around her neck but the one that now rests within her head. It’s the one that will remind her that she CAN do what she sets out to do even if she has to work through her fears to grasp it in her hand. To me, that last medal is worth more than gold. I hope she will think so too someday and will treasure the memory of how she overcame all the crap going on in her own head to earn it.

 

 

 

 

California Dreamer

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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I am not a dreamer…at least not in the bedroom. I rarely dream during the night. My hypothesis for never reaching REM is that at my age I wake up three times a night to readjust my knee which wakes me up screaming and I get out of bed about five times a night to pee. I guess I should count my blessing that I don’t pee the bed yet but frankly at this point it just might be easier. What I do know for a fact is that all this up and down stuff adds up to a terribly disrupted sleep resulting in a state of dream denial. Until last night…

Last night I dreamt I was some sort of secret agent. A Jamie Bond type of girl if you will. I was thin (loved this dream just for that), younger (ditto), classy and looked exceedingly hot in a long dress with stilettos. There were bad guys, gorgeous girls whom I was trying to save, and then there was B. Yes, B! How he got into this dream I will never know but he did save me from the bad guy (wonder what Freud would say about that!) and then he promptly disappeared never to be seen again. (Ditto the Freud thing) It was comforting to think that he would save my life instead of taking the insurance money and skipping off with one of those other younger women with whom he would have sex three times a day…yet… where did he go?

Anyway, eventually, I found the missing “save the world” chip and slipped it under the skin in my foot, not bleeding a drop. I was amazing…and then I woke up to find I was 30 pounds overweight and wearing flannel. (No, Violet, it wasn’t flannel pajamas but a flannel I am testing for warmth on our trip to Tibet)

Now you may be wondering why I am writing an oddly disjointed post about dreams. It’s selfish really. I am wanting you to interpret my dream for me so I know what to do with the rest of my life…cause frankly I haven’t a clue. One can only hope in a moment of clarity you will find some answers for this girl who is California Dreaming.

 

 

 

Surprise! We Are Going To…

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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I’m not big into surprises. I like to plan my life in advance. If I had my way I probably would have every day of my life planned out in pencil for the few necessary erasures that would be required here and there. So imagine my surprise when B announced “I think that instead of taking this business trip to China alone I would love for you to come with me…oh and by the way, we will also go to Tibet… and Nicole is coming to babysit. So what do you say?”

Tibet. Place of my dreams. A place of full of “good” karma. A place so breathtakingly beautiful that I hear that you often just forget to breathe as you stand in front of the Himalayan Mountains in awe. It’s the place where dreamers, doers, climbers and athletic persons who are all in supreme shape go to test themselves both mentally and physically. And it’s where the base camp for Mt Everest is located which we will be visiting in the dead of winter. Frankly, I’m a little worried. Why?  I cannot do one pushup unless I plank against the wall. My idea of cold is 75 degrees and I have knee replacement surgery penciled in on my calendar for March 27, 2019. Oh and one more thing…I hate to fly. Seriously hate it and take out extra life insurance as a cushion. So why am I going?

I love my husband, that’s why. After a year of the “almost divorce” consisting of six months of fights, disappointments, therapy, sadness and worry; the fact that he wants us together at all is a huge testament of how hard we have worked to try and find each other again. It brings me joy to know that out of all the people he would want to spend his time with… it is me. Still. Again. Now. And even better, I want to spend time with him too as our friendship grows into something deeper and more meaningful to us at this stage in our lives.

I am also going so that I can challenge myself. No, I won’t be going for the summit but I will be standing there looking at a mountain that has spurred people to accomplish great things and brought them closer to “God” in whatever form you believe she/he takes. And I hope some of those feelings… the exhilaration, excitement, and the oneness with “another” will touch me in ways I have yet to experience in this lifetime.

Finally, I am going because I truly believe that travel is one of the keys to genuine peace with one another and within the world. Whether it is 2,000 miles or 200 ft; leaving your comfort zone is necessary for growth because it frees you from the tethers that keep you trapped within the confines of our own mind. Being away forces you to look outside yourself and sometimes dig deep within yourself to find answers to the obstacles you have put in your own way.

So, YES, I’m going to Tibet. YES, I will scamper on Everest! And YES, I will be going with the person I care about the most in the world! And if I die at least they can write on my tombstone “She summited in life just not on Everest.”

Getting Back To Life

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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When I started this blog I made a promise to myself that I would write everyday and have pretty much stuck to that come hell or high water. I made this commitment out of a primal need to express myself after B had talked about a “maybe” divorce. This was/is my safe place to vent those things weighing heavily on my mind. It was/is a place I could use to say the words I needed to say but not always to B because they were too painful and raw. Blogging was my escape from life in the sense I could look at my life as if I was an outsider and consider it as such. I thank everyone who has read what I have written and given me a nudge, a kind word, or pointed things out that I needed to consider. So many people have helped me on this journey.

Recently however, I have decided I must get back in the game of my life. In my “real” life I write magazine articles and since the “maybe divorce” I put those assignments on hold. I also stopped working on the three novels and a child’s picture book that are all in various forms of disarray. While the blog has been helpful in that it helped ensure that I didn’t check out all together, it has also taken up time that I probably need to use to complete what I started and finish SOMETHING… ANYTHING. So while I will continue writing, maybe still on a almost daily basis, I have decided to allow myself a little flexibility. We shall see what happens!

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Of course, now that I have written this I will probably blog more than ever…go figure!

 

 

Married Sex…Some Thoughts

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 7 Comments

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When I was single, sex was often a disappointment.  The number of sexual experiences which were wonderous, to the moon and back, totally mind-blowing, I got your back.. your neck… and your orgasm; were few and far between. Usually, I came into contact with men who fumbled. They were men with rough tongues, stabbing penises, callosed hands and hearts. And FYI forget the idea that French men are fantastic lovers based on my personal experience of several of them coming in my hand (pass the sanitizer please).  Give me married sex anytime.

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The great thing about married sex is if you are smart you have a chance to train your partner to be your own personal sex toy. “I little to the right, your tongue should feel like silk on a bed sheet and ahhhh that is the perfect spot.” And of course you receive that loving training back a thousand fold…yep, I’m selfish that way! Amen to that!

Married sex gives both partners a place to explore and feel safe. It allows you to speak in a language in which the partners are fluent with words known and shared only with each another. A private secret code in which pleasure substitutes for commas and semi-colons. And THE END is like the satisfaction you feel when you finally reach the last word in a fantastic book.

And while its true that married sex can sometimes get a little boring with some sexy talk, a few costumes and maybe a night or two away; most of the time you can both get your groove back on track if you just put the effort in.

So give me married sex anytime. At the very least it saves me a ton of money on hand sanitizer and it also keeps Mr. Potato Head happy. While at its best it allows me trust again and truly believe that we something that is worth its weight in gold and something I should keep fighting for. Either way…I win!

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Sit with the Frustration

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment
frus·tra·tion
frəˈstrāSH(ə)n/
noun
  1. the feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of inability to change or achieve something.

As I go back over the notes I have written during my therapy sessions one thing is abundantly clear. My therapist keeps reinterating that I need to sit with the frustration I am feeling and just be. Another thing that remains abundantly clear is I STILL struggle with this. I guess I am rather like a two year old… I want what I want, when I want it. And this means NOW.images-2

Coming from a family where life and death hung in the balance by only the newest that science could offer; that lack of control and unsettledness continues to effect me in ways that I am still unpacking and just beginning to understand. When you have life-threatening illness at your doorstep for years it doesn’t stop banging on the door just because the patient is doing better. In my case I was not the very ill child, my sister was. But in those days parents tried to protect their other children from “the truth” believing that they shouldn’t have those burdens put on them at such a young age. However, in my case, the lack of true understanding and knowledge lead to envisioning things in my mind that were probably worse than any real facts would have been. And basically since that time I have spent my life trying to mitigate surprises and always planning ahead. Frankly, this just doesn’t appear to be compatable with sitting in the silence, sitting with the unknown or sitting with frustration very well. I want purpose and I want action…NOW DAMN IT!

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Making this “sitting with frustration” even worse is that I am suppose to wait until B makes his own discoveries about himself and his own truths instead of spoon feeding my perception of the truth to him. His process is suppose to be his own process but like a famous Hollywood director I have the script already written and filmed in my mind about how the scene is suppose to go. And because feelings are on the periphary for him which makes any sort of immediate action of self-discovery difficult; I am afraid that this film is going to be WAY OVER BUDGET both emotionally and financially.

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And so I sit. Tired and frustrated. Tired of sitting. Tired of waiting. Tired of thinking about all this sitting when suddenly it occurs to me that B is probably just as tired of waiting for me to just sit. What a gift it could be it I could just be comfortable being in this limbo and in doing so freeing him up to make his own discoveries on his own timetable instead of feeling the silent pressure of my discomfort in sitting having to sit with my frustration. This realization sends a shiver of freedom down my stiff spine as I contemplate what it would be like to let others set their own timetables instead of trying to get them run on mine. And just like a passenger waiting for a delayed train getting annoyed at the situation isn’t going to change a thing and it certainly isn’t going to get the train there any faster. So today..a breakthrough… I finally “get” that I must tolerate this frustration without disappointment or anger because in the end I am not in control of it anyway.

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