Starting Over

“If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

― Mary Pickford

Those who die young are denied so many opportunities: the chance to live out their lives fully, often making mistakes, hopefully learning from them, and growing into more mature, evolved people. Eventually, if we’re lucky, we arrive at an age of wisdom when we can pass on learned lessons to others.

Learning to live well is a skill that many of us aspire to, especially as we grow older. Some of us are aware of the wreckage we left behind if we were burdened with demons like alcoholism or other forms of addiction.

Since I was a teenager, I struggled with various forms of it: eating disorders and amphetamines, which I craved because they relieved me of my depression, the underlying cause of my misery.

I, nevertheless, proceeded through life doing what my parents expected of me: marry a suitable guy and raise children. My husband, children and I lived a privileged life in the Foreign Service. But I wanted a career, and my husband did not approve. Rather than work it out for the sake of us all, I insisted on a divorce and moved back to Virginia with our children.

And so continued a period of years where I received great satisfaction in the classroom. But I was a far less successful parent. The kids were hurting badly, but did well enough on the surface for me to rationalize their pain.

Annie, my middle child, however, turned to drugs when she had barely graduated from college, and has been in and out of that hellish life for twenty-three years. Hence, the wreckage I spoke of.

During my years of teaching, I met the man I’ve been with for thirty-one years. Both high school teachers, we weren’t looking for love, but love found us. I eventually traded my food obsession with alcohol and embarked on thirty years of drinking. Ironically, Gene was a recovered alcoholic, but he knew better than to try and stop me, that the desire to stop had to come from me. I was a functional alcoholic, but not at all healthy spiritually.

My real work was soon to begin.

Yet I needed to learn to let go of Annie. “Let go or be dragged,” they say.

I needed a change of scenery, so Gene and I left Virginia and moved to New Mexico. We enjoyed a decade of living in “the land of enchantment.” But Annie was still floundering, and I stepped up my drinking. I couldn’t bear the pain of losing her.

My son and his wife helped me to wake up.

“Mom, please move up here so you can be closer to the children and watch them grow up.”

I bought a home on Camano Island, an hour north of Seattle where my son had moved. Life was good. I had begun publishing memoirs while still living in Albuquerque, and the catharsis I needed to begin the healing process had begun.

Spending many weekends down in Seattle at my son’s house, I was regularly drinking in his basement. I was not ready to work on myself and give up my thirty-year habit. Then one day he and his wife confronted me.

We sat down together, and he minced no words:

“Mom, we know what you’re doing in the basement. All our vodka bottles are empty.”

Immediate shock, humiliation, and the realization that I had not been fooling them all these years.

I said very little, just that I was so sorry that I’d been behaving so recklessly. And from that day I’ve never thought about drinking alcohol. At last, this student was ready for the teacher, happy that I’ve remained teachable. I had to believe that I was worth the effort to stop drinking.

It’s a fortunate person who has evolved enough to realize that he needs to change in order to live his best life. I am one of those fortunate adults.

Starting over after a long life of substance abuse isn’t as daunting as it sounds. I feel blessed, on the contrary, to have a second chance at life, living sober and reaping all the accompanying rewards.

This is personal transformation at its best. Gratitude fills my heart every day as I move forward, doing the next right thing.

Lighting Candles In Greece: Lessons In Faith

I was on the tour boat in the caldera of Santorini and we were approaching Oia at the end of the day, hopeful to catch the sunset from that end of the island. Oia, and most of the towns on Santorini, looked like horizontal white jewels, sparkling against the sun’s rays, perched atop this rock in the Mediterranean. It was a stunning sight and can only be appreciated like this from down below.

We disembarked and decided to forego the smelly donkey ride up to the city, deciding to walk up. I was immediately drawn to the Church of Panagia Platsani. After entering the cathedral, I went right to the candles and lit one for my estranged daughter, Annie. I found this to be wonderful nourishment for my soul. The cynical me said, “Oh well, another money maker.”  But the believer in me said, “Listen to me, God. I’m talking to you now. This is my prayer.”

I’ve heard it said that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening to Him. I did a lot of praying in Greece, in many Greek Orthodox churches. I spent a tidy sum of money, money I could have invested in souvenirs. But I chose to invest in prayer in the country where I began to lose my daughter thirty-five years ago.

“Losing my daughter…” We learn so much by craning our necks and looking backwards. We gain so much clarity through hindsight.

It’s very hard, this practice of letting go, and the faith I’ve been gradually acquiring these past many years has been a lifeline. It’s kept me from permanently free falling into despair—that black hole of uselessness—as I’ve been letting go of having Annie in my life. Only a mother can know the glue that binds her to her child, and all mothers must let go of their children. “They come through you,” Kahlil Gibran says, “yet they belong not to you.”

Letting go is a constant discipline for all of us. But letting go when your child will be coming back is one thing. Letting go when they’re gone—that’s something else. My girl has a brain disease and has been pumping her body with substances that have caused a lot of brain damage. It’s a very cruel thief, substance abuse. It robs you of yourself. My daughter Annie no longer resides in that body.

So I light candles in the country where circumstances threw her into a tailspin of depression. Her parents divorced and she rarely saw her father afterwards. Annie got through adolescence adequately, but she was a grenade waiting to explode. When she was twenty-one and a college graduate, she plunged into the dark world of drug addiction and has remained in that never-never land ever since—that fantasy world where what you want never comes and so you need to get more…

My faith has come to me, not like a burning bush, but in increments over my own years of recovery from this.

The Seasons Of Our Lives

“Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.” 

Earth’s renewal is manifest all around the globe. Seasons around the world are remarkably varied, depending on climate and geography. Where I originally come from, New England, we have four seasons, distinct from one another. The chilly autumns at that latitude create the deep reds in the leaves in Vermont, for example, whereas the leaves blanketing the Rio Grande River, due to the heat, rarely achieve that color.

I lived in the Rio Grande Valley of Albuquerque for a decade, and though we had four seasons, they were noticeably different from New England, both in their timeframes and their intensity. One could say that New Mexico is a land of extremes, never made more clear than by the prominence of its seasons.

In Albuquerque, the leaves change color from the frosty night air. This is a welcome change from the brutal heat of the summer. But there, the leaves turn saffron yellow, not the reds I used to see in New England.

In New Mexico, autumn is a gorgeous and productive lingering—well past Thanksgiving. It’s harvest season and the farmer’s markets overflow with abundance from the ground. Many holidays come in autumn and on the cusp of winter. These are always poignant times of the year for me, but now more than ever they are times to take stock and savor all that I have.

Winter drops like a curtain, and a couple of weeks before Christmas, Mother Nature lowers the boom. Winter is bitter in the high desert. Where I lived, there was very little snow. Sandia Mountain, across the rift valley from my farmhouse, attracts all the “weather.” At nearly 6000 feet, the air is cold even with the sun shining, though the temperature rarely drops below freezing.

Winter rings in differently state to state. But universal, in the areas where cold weather does settle into our bones, is the wish to smell spring in the air. This is where geography affects the heralding of spring in the Rio Grande Valley. Powerful winds blow up from the canyons like invisible giants blowing away everything in their path. My first experience of this had me amazed and flummoxed by the fierceness and ferocity of the winds, wondering what happened to the gentle spring times from my youth. But they would come soon enough.

I finally enjoyed watching the trees coming out of dormancy and preening like peacocks, their colorful buds in bloom. I thrilled to see the first flowers peek up from the ground. And gradually I saw the resurgence of nature in all its glory. It is the season of renewal, of new beginnings, as though the earth were starting over.

But spring in Albuquerque ends with an intensity of heat and humidity that is unexpected in one of the driest states in our country. This is because the monsoon season is preparing to unleash itself where it is most needed. Summer is ushered in by the skies opening up to a kaleidoscope of colors at the end of each day. This is when I take cover on the patio to listen for the thunder preceding the deluge of water soaking our gardens. On one occasion it was hail the size of golf balls killing all our tomatoes. Buckets of rainwater cause the gutters along the streets to overflow.

The monsoons leave as abruptly as they began, and July and August settle into an oppressive climate of high temperatures and dust filling the air. The blazing sun, which is a God to the indigenous people of the Diné tribes, became my enemy, and I took refuge inside my house, free from the enervating heat that sapped me of my energy.

By September, as the earth’s axis started to point in the other direction, the intensity of the sun weakened, and the relief of cooler nights began, though the days remained hot.

And so began the cycle of seasons starting over. Autumn and all its colors began to peek though the curtain of summertime dust of brown and gray.

Time is relentless; it doesn’t stop for anyone. Time may be finite, but endless are the possibilities we can do with it. As long as we have time in our lives, we have the chance to start over, just as the sweetness of my honeysuckle hedges signaled the starting over of summer.

Life goes on, and we with it. Whether it’s the seasons we observe, or the seasons of our lives, we are always starting over.

Walking Through Cancer: Part 20

Midway and Beyond

Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone this year, with 2025 freshly starting. After the year I’ve had on the health front, and the rest of the country on all fronts, it’s time now to take stock if we haven’t already and plan for the year before us to be a good one. Maybe not on all fronts, but I’ll settle for remission from my lymphoma after treatment ends on February 3rd.

To that end, my oncology team at Fred Hutch Cancer Center never misses a step in my monitoring. A midpoint PET scan was scheduled for January 6, and I always dread those tests. They don’t miss a thing. The radioactive dye they inject into me and allow to marinate for an hour reveals all the “hot spots” in my body. Hot spots are where many infections reside, and cancer cells in particular love them. So with some trepidation I looked at the results, remembering that I still have two more infusions to go.

My tumors are mostly gone, and that’s good news. Ninety percent of them have disappeared. I felt this had been happening, just based on how I’ve been feeling since my treatment began in October. The CHOP chemotherapy formular has been working to fight the proliferation of t-cells in my blood, which had been sapping my strength. They’re not all gone, I’m not there yet, but hopefully two final infusions will zap the last tumor in my groin. Maybe the PET scan in February will show me in remission. Six infusions seem to be the magic number.

Mindful that t-cell lymphoma tends to be refractory, I’m aware that whatever amount of years I’ve been granted may come to an end eventually. But why think about that? If fighting a deadly cancer has taught me one thing, it’s to focus on the here and now and utter appreciation for whatever good is happening in my life. When have I ever been motivated to behave this way? When have I ever learned to fully appreciate all that I have and all that I’ve been given? It’s like being a “grateful” alcoholic. If I hadn’t found the tools to help me be the best person I can be, I probably would have lived my life pretty much operating at 50% of my potential. Now I have the opportunity to be better and do better. And that all translates directly into improving my relationships. This is the basis for my happiness, how I relate to other people, and the end of my isolation.

I just celebrated my seventy-seventh birthday. This is quite a milestone! Every new year asks us to take stock, and I believe birthdays do that as well. But past birthdays are just that: milestones. The journey they mark is the thing.

“Age is irrelevant.  Ask me how many sunsets I’ve seen, hearts I’ve loved, trips I’ve taken, or concerts I’ve been to.  That’s how old I am.”

Author unknown

Walking Through Cancer: Part 19

The Rewards of Friendship

It’s part of the human condition to take things for granted sometimes. We have a myriad of excuses, of course. We wouldn’t want to do periodic self-assessments to see if we need to change anything. The older we get, the more set in our ways, the more prideful we become. We’re doing fine, we say, it’s young people who need to shape up and emulate us!

This is why I am a “grateful alcoholic.” If I hadn’t been a substance abuser and had to face terrible personal consequences because of it, I might never have tried to change my character. Enter Twelve-Step recovery, a guide for living that helps us be the best people we can be.

That’s it, just a few guidelines to follow, many of which strangely echo the Golden Rule. Most of my childhood friends don’t remember me because I was very unhappy in that town. When we moved away, I never looked back, and neglected to keep up with them, sure that it would be of little consequence.

My oldest friend in northern Virginia was my best friend for years. Our children grew up together, and we were a constant support for each other. But after I moved West with Gene, I dropped her as well. Out of sight, out of mind?

But I’m happy to say that I reached out to Gail recently and we arranged a Zoom chat on her account. First, the amends. I was so sorry for carelessly discarding her like I did. “No apologies are necessary.” she offered, “we all have busy lives.” And we proceeded to chat as though no time had passed. What a gift to us both to reconnect like that. And all because of cancer.

Cancer can be a deal breaker in some ways. It was telling Gail about my cancer that was the conversation opener in my email, and something she responded to, predictably, with love and concern. It can serve as a motivator in so many ways: from valuing our days as though they were numbered—and living accordingly; to making amends to people we’d been avoiding because we can do it later.

It has to do with vulnerability. Allowing myself to be vulnerable is hardly a sign of weakness. I’ve been told over and over from people who’ve read my memoirs that it’s a particularly appealing trait. If nothing else, it evens the playing field among friends and acquaintances. No more need to compete. We are all equals.

Before I went into recovery, my outside didn’t match my inside. If I had any friendships at all, most of them were pretty superficial. But as I’ve become more comfortable in my skin, I’ve become more honest with everyone.

And the rewards? Many more friends, an end to loneliness, and deep gratitude that I have been given a second chance to live life better than before. I’ve enjoyed such a wonderful life. And now I have the good sense to appreciate it and reap the rewards.

Walking Through Cancer/Part 18

                                          Testing My Mettle…Yet Again

Last spring when I had raging carpal tunnel syndrome in my hands AND a viral mouth infection so severe I couldn’t eat anything but pablum, I whined that “it never rains, it pours.” Well, those two maladies were a walk in the park compared to falling down the stairs and breaking my humerus three days before my first chemotherapy infusion.

“God,” I said looking up as though that were where He lived, “You are really testing me. Geez, isn’t t-cell lymphoma bad enough without having to cope one-handed with my arm in a sling?”

It’s a good thing I couldn’t see Him because I knew he was smiling, sure that I would meet this challenge just fine. And I would have slugged him, I was so mad.

At myself, of course. I talk about remaining teachable and I think THIS time my self-will has wrought a bad enough consequence to make me stop in my tracks. How did this happen? I failed to turn the night light on, was nearly finished barreling down fourteen steps in slippery socks, missing the last one, and plummeted onto my left side at the base of the stairwell.

My first thought: I will not be defeated by this. I got up and was grateful I could walk without pain. More gratitude: it was my left side and not the dominant right. I went to my phone and called 911.

Camano Island Fire and Rescue was there right away and whisked me off to Skagit Regional Hospital in Mt. Vernon. X-rays were taken, and I waited in the outer area for my friend to come and take me home. Oh, did I mention that Gene had just that evening flown to San Francisco for the memorial of a friend? Timing…

I was quite alone in my house, but not for long. The front door was constantly revolving all weekend with friends coming over to teach me how to wear a sling, cut up vegetables, open bottles for me, perform a myriad of tasks reserved for two-handed people. I’m so grateful for them.

My son took me to my first infusion the following Monday. He held his tongue, but I knew he was furious that I could allow such a disaster to happen at the start of my chemotherapy. When Gene flew back the next day, more dismay and head-shaking that I could have been so careless.

So there you have it. This occurred on October 17, just eight weeks ago. It was fractured badly and the ice cream is nearly off the cone. Still quite painful, it’s not going to heal on its own. So I saw a shoulder surgeon this week and he’ll schedule surgery for as soon as possible, when treatment is over.

The sooner the better, so I can get through rehabilitation therapy and hopefully get back to paddling my kayak this summer. Am I too ambitious? Nah.

And I’m nothing if not determined…

Walking Through Cancer/Part 17 conclusion

A Changed Life

It’s a fortunate person who has evolved enough to realize that he needs to change in order to live his best life. I am one of those fortunate adults.

Spending many weekends down in Seattle at my son’s house to bond with my young grandchildren, I was regularly drinking in his basement where I’d been sleeping. I was not ready to work on myself and give up my thirty-year habit. Then one day he and his wife took the time to confront me about it.

We sat down together at their dining room table, and he minced no words:

“Mom, we know what you’re doing in the basement. All our vodka bottles are empty.”

Immediate shock, humiliation, and the realization that I had not been fooling them all these years. If this intervention had happened years ago, I’m sure that I would have responded like this:

Full of indignation, I would have shouted, “How dare you speak to me like this? You owe everything you are, your education, your trips, the love and support I have given you since the day you were born, primarily to me!”

But on that day, April 25, 2017, I responded differently. I said very little, just that I was so sorry that I’d been behaving so recklessly for so many years. They never asked me to join AA. That was my decision. And from that day, I’ve never thought about drinking alcohol. At last, this student was ready for the teacher. I’m so grateful that I’ve remained teachable.

Since then, my life has improved exponentially. I continue to be devoted to my Al-Anon groups. But, a “double winner” I am called, I also attend AA meetings even more frequently. Some of the meetings are just for women, and the other ones I attend with Gene. This awakening on my part has brought Gene and I closer together. He had endured my drinking in all our years together, but knew better than to pressure me to quit. That desire had to be born deep inside of me, and not to please him, or my son, or anyone else. I had to believe that I was worth the effort to stop drinking.

My relationships have improved since I’ve given up alcohol. The twelve steps are essentially tools to help us realize our potential as human beings. The ‘God steps’ I spoke of earlier are a lesson in humility, where I let go of my arrogance enough to admit my powerlessness over people, places and things. The next steps involve looking at ourselves honestly and becoming aware of our defects. This exercise is followed by sincerely making amends to people we have wronged.

Finally, “having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

This is the transformation I write about in all three memoirs, and it’s a glorious one, indeed.

Walking Through Cancer/Part 17 continued

                                                         Healing

When I was seeing a counselor at work in Virginia, she suggested I try a 12-Step group called Al-Anon.

“Oh no, that’s not for me,” I responded, convinced that I had all the answers to Annie’s problem. Yet I was desperate for help, and was willing to try anything, so I began attending a regular Saturday morning meeting. But I was essentially paying lip service to a program I was too arrogant to believe in. I felt I had all the answers and was unable to accept her substance use disorder as a disease I had no control over.

The first three steps of all the 12-Step programs are the “God Steps.” We admit we are powerless over whatever it is that we are trying to free ourselves from; in my case, trying to control my daughter. But I needed to learn to let go of Annie. “Let go or be dragged,” they say in Al-Anon.

After six years of attending meetings, and still unable to save her with the only kind of love I could offer, I suffered the clinical depression I spoke of in the previous segment. That’s when Gene and I left Virginia and moved to New Mexico. We enjoyed a decade of living in “the land of enchantment.” But Annie was still floundering, and I stepped up my drinking. I couldn’t bear the pain of losing her.

My son and his wife had moved to Seattle for work, and they started having children.

“Mom, please think about moving up here with us so you can be closer to the children and watch them grow up.”

This was a no-brainer for me and Gene. We had spent the early years of our lives together paddling canoes all over the country, so being near water to continue that pursuit would complete us. It was the one thing that was missing in the desert of New Mexico.

I quickly sold the condo I owned in Virginia and bought a nice home on Camano Island, an hour north of Seattle. Gene wasn’t quite ready to let go of his orchard and the sunshine of New Mexico, so we went back and forth between our two homes for four years. But we eventually got tired of all the fence-sitting and made a decision to sell our little pueblo house to live full-time on Camano Island.

Life was good. I had begun publishing award-winning memoirs while still living in New Mexico, and was about to publish my second one in 2020. Having joined Story Circle Network in 2013, I used their publications to write  a number of short pieces and see them in print. Story Circle Network is an outstanding and versatile organization founded by Susan Wittig Albert back in the 1990’s, specifically as a venue to encourage women to find their voices and write.

Between that and publishing my memoirs, the catharsis I needed to open my eyes and begin the healing process had begun.

Walking Through Cancer/Part 17

   No Spirit At All

Learning to live well is a skill that many men and women aspire to, especially as we grow older. Some of us are aware of the wreckage we left behind if we were burdened with demons like alcoholism or other forms of substance abuse. Even addictions like gambling, sex and workaholism can interfere with a more functional life.

Ever since I was a teenager, I had struggled with eating disorders, which seems to be a common theme among many young people who grow up in an alcoholic home. That led me back in the 1960’s to diet doctors and amphetamines, which were easy to acquire. And I loved them because they relieved me of my depression, the underlying cause of my misery.

I, nevertheless, proceeded through life doing pretty much what my parents expected me to do: marry a suitable guy and raise children. My husband, three children and I lived a privileged life in the Foreign Service, living overseas for fifteen years. But I wanted a career, and my Cuban husband did not approve. So rather than work it out for the sake of us all, I insisted on a divorce and moved back to Virginia with the children.

This was a very heady time for me. I landed a job teaching English as a Second Language in Arlington Public Schools, and threw myself back into the teaching career I had begun years earlier in Nicaragua. My children were ten, twelve, and fourteen at that time, and I essentially left them alone to raise themselves. Their father was very generous with child support, but he was so angry about the divorce that all he gave us was money. He refused to share custody with me. And that did a grave disservice to our children.

And so continued a period of years where I received great satisfaction in the classroom. But I was a far less successful parent. The kids were hurting badly, but did well enough on the surface for me to rationalize their pain. Annie, my middle child, however, turned to drugs when she had barely graduated from George Mason University, and has been in and out of that hellish life for twenty-two years. Hence, the wreckage I spoke of. I did have her in therapy early on for about ten years, but to no avail. I eventually suffered a nervous breakdown from my repeated attempts to “save” her, and took early retirement from a job I adored. Another price to pay for my self-absorption.

My partner and I moved to New Mexico to start over, and enjoyed a decade running an orchard and selling produce at the local markets. But I had years earlier in Virginia traded my food obsession with alcohol and embarked on thirty years of drinking. I was a pretty functional alcoholic, never missed a day of work, but no more evolved spiritually than the man in the moon.

My real work was soon to begin.

Walking Through Cancer/Part 16

                              

                                         The Graveyard Shift

This is bizarre. It reminds me of when I had carpel tunnel syndrome last spring: I was in such burning pain that I couldn’t sleep. But that passed with time, and this insomnia will, too.

My new sleep schedule: I fall asleep between 7:00 and 9:00 at night; then I’m up at 11:30ish; I watch videos until my eyelids start drooping, usually a couple hours; then fall back to sleep until, if I’m lucky, 4:00 am, when my day begins. I drink a mocha, check emails, etc. At 5:00 I eat breakfast; at six I can start the work of the day: my writing. This consists of my daily gratitude journal and for the past six months my cancer diary. It’s pretty long, over twenty-five chapters, both before and after my diagnosis.

By 10:00, I start to fade and take a nap, about an hour. But before I nap, I eat a sizeable protein snack. After I wake up, I work on my computer until 12:00, lunchtime. Well, I guess some things coincide with real life! I go downstairs to watch Nicole Wallace, and even though the news is depressing, I love to listen to her  guests, especially Tim Miller.

Then I’m ready for another short nap, another snack, more writing, and then dinner with Gene. So, you see the routine is trying to glide into some semblance of normalcy. If I could just sleep through the night…

Why the insomnia? I only take prednisone for five mornings in a 3-week infusion cycle, so I’m not convinced it’s that, though it has a monstrous reputation. Then I read an article called “Why Do Cancer Patients Have Anxiety?” Geez, ya think?

Out of boredom, I started playing Dr. Google again. I read that my type of non-hodgkins lymphoma is not only incurable but has a very poor prognosis. Tell that to the lady who whizzed through 6 miles of Disneyland without getting tired!

The truth is that they are making huge strides in cancer research every day. Right now I’m undergoing my first line of treatment. My oncologist also has me in a clinical trial concurrent with my chemo. The theory is that if I go into remission, it might last a few years longer. Dr. Poh gave me a gold star when I saw her on Monday.

I believe in my heart that remission awaits me. I just don’t know. What I do know is that t-cell lymphoma is usually “refractory,” meaning it will come back with a vengeance, resisting the chemo I got before. This is when I’m glad it’s nearly 2025 and not twenty years ago. There are a number of new treatments they will surely try. But, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m only halfway through this first line of treatment. February 3 is my last infusion. We’ll see what the PET scan shows, if  Dr. Poh can claim me to be in remission or not.

Fingers crossed!