Spirit In Gear

When Old Dreams Land in Real Time

An old dream of mine materialized several weeks ago.  Much to my surprise, I felt disoriented when my dream came true.  The dream didn't fit me in real time quite as I imagined.

Allow me to back up. The dream takes birth a dozen years ago.  It is a materialistic dream.  Some of you may have a penchant for a BMW Z4 Roadster, a cruise around the world, a vacation home at the beach.  I confess that I wanted a larger diamond.  Not an extravagant diamond - I wanted an upgrade from 1/2 carat to 1 carat. 

Back when the dream began, we still faced financing 8 years of college for our two daughters.  A larger diamond seemed like a frivolous expense we could not afford.  But I knew exactly what I wanted when the time came.  I had spent time looking at diamonds and knew the 4 "c's" backwards and forwards.

Fast forward to present time.  Money is saved.  My husband and I trek out to the jewelers to look, learn, and examine numerous diamonds under magnification.  I make several trips, do additional research, and compare prices.  I finally find my dream diamond at the price I want to pay.  I am thrilled with the selection! 

I wait a couple of days while the new diamond is set in my wedding ring.  With great anticipation I pick up the ring when it is ready, placing it on my finger.  I look down at the diamond and feel an immediate sense of dissonance.  I feel confused and unsettled.  What comes up for me is that I don't deserve this.

It takes me several days to work through what is really going on with me.  I feel unworthy of the larger, brilliant diamond.  In my head I had easily justified the cost.  Inside me, I feel like an imposter.

I finally realize that I may have upgraded my diamond, but I did not upgrade my sense of worthiness to make room for this dream come true.  Likewise, in my real estate investing work, we find we need to often upgrade the electrical in the houses we rehab, in order to place a central heating/air unit. 

This story is not about diamonds.  It's about energy alignment.  We have to remember to make room energetically for the dreams we desire to materialize.  I made room financially for the diamond, but not internally.

It takes me several days of processing to "update" my worthiness.  A loving spouse helps.  It also helps me to read snippets of guided writing I received in late August:

[You] have money to indulge yourself with.  Yet you struggle with spending money on the 1-carat diamond you have always dreamed about.  The diamond itself isn't important, it's what it represents, which is your openness to give to yourself.  It's a wonderful practice to take your generous heart and turn it back upon yourself.  If you can be even just a little bit supportive and generous with yourself as you are with everyone else, imagine how much peaceful and happier you can be.  And that is the real gift you can offer to others, being happy.

Fortunately for me, the "worthiness" upgrade kicks in.  What a difference I feel internally.  Now when I look at my new diamond, I feel a sense of awe and gratitude.  Without a doubt, I can say that diamonds are (one) of a girl's best friends!

What happened for you when one of your dreams came to fruition?  Was it what you expected?  We'd love to hear about it!

[Photo Credit:  Blue Nile] 

Embracing My Gray

I first confessed to an envy of silver hair in The Gifts of Age, back in the spring of 2009. 

Since that time you could say I've embraced my "inner gray," the confidence to be myself, to be my age.  Now if I could just embrace my outer gray. 

My goal is to sport a head of au natural hair by the time I turn 60 in August of 2011.  However I had no idea it would be such a pain to grow out my permanent hair color.  My hairdresser and I began our color strategy March 1st.  At that time she used semi-permanent hair color to touch up my gray roots, instead of permanent hair color.  She said the semi-permanent dye would fade in 4-6 weeks.

My healthy hair has a mind of it's own, apparently.  The semi-permanent hair color hasn't faded one bit and remains stubbornly perky and colorful.  Plan B began two months later, when my hairdresser switched brands of semi-permanent color.  Darn!  It still hasn't faded.

Earlier this month we went to plan C.  She is using a very light semi-permanent color to blend in with the gray roots.  It's called "low-lighting."  Only problem I can see with this strategy is the demarcation that becomes more noticeable as my hair grows out.

A couple of days ago I googled this topic and found innumerable articles on growing out the gray.  It sounds like we are on the right track.  But with my chin-length hair, this will take a long time.

Yesterday I took a measuring tape to my hair.  Measuring from the bottom, I have 5 inches of permanent hair color.  Moving up, there are 3 inches of semi-permanent color, and then the new low-lighting which accounts for about an inch or so.

Unfortunately I have learned from my hairdresser that we can't just dye the 5 inches of permanent color gray while we wait for the roots to grow out, since the part of my hair is already colored.  So it will take until early next year, I estimate, to be done with the last vestiges of the permanent color.  This should prove interesting.

Of course I could speed up this process by cutting my hair very short.  NOT!  Maybe wear it an inch shorter, but that's it.  I guess I'll just have to tough it out.

If you are still reading this post, more power to you.  In the perpetually young culture we live in, I find myself in a tiny minority of women who want to go gray.  I can afford the money for hair color.  I can make the time for it.  Just don't want to anymore.  There's something freeing about not having to pretend to be five or ten years younger.  Freeing in the sense that I don't have to use my energy to think about it anymore.  That's a big deal for me.

Wish I had the ability to see into the future - to see what my gray locks will look like.  Will I need to use  a temporary rinse when my daughters get married in the future?  Or not?  Only time will tell.  You can bet there will be a future post on life in the "gray" lane when I get to that point! 

Any gray-haired readers in the blogosphere who'd like to share their perspective?  Or wannabees?

[Photo Credit:  Getty images, shown on www.momlogic.com]

One Week Makes a Difference

Seven days separate these pictures. 

Picture number 1 was taken Saturday, Feb. 13th in South Carolina.  We experienced a snow dump a la twilight zone.

Picture number 2 was taken Saturday, Feb. 20th, 7 days later, same location.  The difference - 60 degree weather.  We ate out on the deck for 3 days straight!  No coats, jackets, or sweaters.

Nature has quite an imagination!  She makes me believe that more is possible.  What can we learn from Nature's example about life?  What comes before action?  Imagination.  Belief.  Using our inner eye to see the impossible.  To use our heart to feel the impossible.  Then to connect "inner knowing" with "outer living."  C'est impossible?  What do you think?

Playing with Imperfection

Eighteen days into the new year, I've finally stopped messing up my checks with the wrong date of 2009.  With just a little bit of practice, 2010 easily rolls off the pen now.

I slip into this new year without any desire to make a resolution of any sort.  Instead of focusing on "fixing" myself, I feel a quiet appreciation for me (for both my good points and weaknesses), and my life (with its delights and its challenges).

Bless Patti Digh for reminding us that You are not broken.  You don't need to be fixed.  What if, as Patti asks, we focus on potential rather than flaws.  She concludes her post with realization that 2009 was a fantastic year because she loved and was loved.  Notice what she didn't say!

In the past 18 days since the new year began, I've been playing with imperfection as I try new things:

- I am learning Quick Books.  I bought the software a year ago and finally installed it.  Now that I have a new year of business expenses unfolding, I am open and eager to learn a better way of keeping my business books.

- I received an Ipod as a Christmas gift.  I'm learning how to make playlists so that I can listen to what I want, no matter where I'm at.

- Yesterday I bought a "flip video" to use in our real estate investing business.  I'm sure we will have a few laughs at our first attempts with using the video, but how cool this will be to have the ability to upload videos to our multiple websites! 

- I'm stepping out of my comfort zone of what I am supposed to look like by updating my business wardrobe with some fun, and sophisticated pieces. 

What I mention above focuses on external things.  What I have a harder time articulating is the softer way I'm starting to hold myself inside.  The way I'm easing up on myself internally.  The times I can consciously slow down the mind chatter to lighten up.  The ways I ratchet down the self-induced pressure to do, do, do. 

Playing with imperfection becomes easier when I relax on the inside. 

What are you playing with in this new year?

[Photo Credit:  Ilker]

Moment of Respite

I'm sitting in my father's condo in Ohio.  It is quiet and peaceful.  The skies outside sport fluffy clouds amidst the blue.  Temperatures are delightfully mild.

I enjoy this respite.  It keeps me grounded in the present moment.  Something I find hard to do while my father lies in the ICU.  Later this morning my siblings and I meet with Dad's medical team to discuss end stage treatment.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.  He went in for surgery 4 weeks ago.  The schedule called for a brief stay in ICU, followed by a week on the surgical floor, and a few weeks convalescence in a nursing home.  For his first surgery ever in his 83 years, Dad did well.  Although the pathology report came back with a malignancy, it is the secondary infections that are killing him.

Amidst my return trips back to my hometown to see Dad, I attended my 40th high school class reunion a little over a week ago.  We were a small class of 59 growing up in a small midwestern town.  It was a poignant, heartfelt reunion.  I found myself talking  with classmates that I never talked with in high school. 

I believe it has a lot to do with being older.  Life has seasoned and weathered us with good times and bad.  We've all experienced loss, and been humbled at times.  Dare I say we have mellowed and aged with distinction and grace? 

There is something about "cycling" back through the formative years, revisiting the physical scenes of our successes, failures, triumphs, and humiliations.  It's like reconnecting with a part of myself I haven't been in touch with for awhile.  

I struggle with watching my father slowly die in the present.  I don't want to let go.  In my head I know that the older generation moves on.  We take over the elder position while watching our children and grandchildren move along the life cycle.  From birth, to life, to death, and back to life again.

Amidst my sadness and loss, a multitude of friends, extended family,  and colleagues reach out to remind me that we are all connected.  As I sit and write this, I allow their love, prayers, and positive energy to reach me, and support me.

There are many things to be grateful "for" but, as I ripen with the seasons of life, the many reasons blend into a sacred mystery. And, most deeply, I realize that living gratefully is its own blessing.
- Michael Mahoney

[Photo Credit:  Dani Simmonds]

 

Texting in Middle Age

I finally succumb to the pressure. 

For the past few months I've received text messages from a business colleague who apparently forgets I don't have texting in my cell phone plan.  As a result, I've paid additional charges to AT&T.  My recent cell phone bills make it clear to me that it's cheaper to add texting to my plan than to pay a la carte.

So it's official.  I now text, heaven forbid.  Last weekend, while sitting in an open house for a property we have for sale, I practiced creating text messages and learning how to punctuate.  Tedious, I must admit.  While I came away with some basic skills, I also came away with a sore neck that required a trip to my chiropractor this week.

I'm not sure texting is a good thing.  Oh sure, my adult daughters are thrilled that Mom can now text.  And it was exciting when daughter #1 texted me that she had landed safely in Chicago on her return home from Europe.  And with the flurry of texting that went on with daughter #2 last weekend, my husband was sure I'd run through my plan in no time flat.

Yes, texting can come in handy when I need to get someone's attention.  Like yesterday when I texted 3 business colleagues about an offer made on a property and told them to get the details in the email I sent.

There's also a little thrill, I admit, when my phone goes off to indicate I've rec'd a text.  This will wear off quickly, I predict.  The part I find less thrilling is having to compose a reply using the keypad of a plain old cellphone.  I'm fatigued after sending off the message.  My friend has an IPhone and with the ease of that keypad sends me texts several paragraphs long!

Unlike texting, I think that email is one of the greatest advances ever created.  I pride myself on being one of the first out of my circle of friends, family and professional colleagues to use email back in the early '90's.  In spite of spam and other abuses of email, I still derive great value from it.

In my middle-aged opinion, texting has a place . . . but a much smaller place in the large scheme of things.  I grew up during a time when people hand-wrote letters to one another.  When talking long distance on the phone was a luxury (I always called collect to home while in college).  We learned to communicate the old fashioned way.  Call me old-school, I still like to hear a person's voice.

On the other hand, my daughters live in a generation addicted to texting and other forms of electronic communication.  My kids sleep with their cell phones, and my niece admits to be compulsively attached to her Blackberry.  One of these days the American Psychiatric Association will include obsessive texting in their diagnostic manual. 

Since it doesn't hurt to broaden my perspective, please leave a comment and share how texting has affected your life.  If you don't text, tell us why.

In the meantime, I'll text when absolutely necessary, but no more. 

[Photo Credit:  John Lee]

What I Know . . . About Change

Yeah, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, I tell myself.  This time, however, my latest "game plan" for change takes a lighter tack.  Boogey on over to 100 Bloggers to read What I know . . .

Life in the Fifties Lane

While "snowed in," I've taken some time blog-hopping to my favorite sites to catch up on a couple of weeks worth of posts. My insides feel warm as I listen in on the thoughts of my online friends.  I imagine I'm up in a balcony looking down at a party, quietly observing and enjoying the conversations going on.

At the same time, I feel like an outsider.  I don't experience that as a negative so much as an awareness that I am in a different place in life.

I look with awe upon people like Liz, Troy, Phil and Rosa for their energetic and prodigious postings and extensive community building; my envy goes to Jory for her ability to speak with powerful transparency, and to Tony Clark for his artistic and resonant style that speaks to many.  I feel tickled by Kammie's energy and touched by Kirsten's affirmations, and cheered by Starbucker.  I feel a kinship with Rick and Dick because we share similar life philosophies, perhaps because we're closer in age.  And Halina, I take great comfort from her soulful wisdom.  These are only a small sample of the many wondrous bloggers I read.

What I am understanding is that we each need to be who we are, where we are.  Today I am not the same person I was in my 20's and 30's.  Nor do I have the same body - darn!!  I still have a lot of energy but desire to direct it differently.

So much of my energy during my 20's and 30's and even 40's focused on proving myself, and being there for others. Today, in my 50's I am learning to get into step with my own "timing" and to be there for me. It's having a sense of checking in with myself before I accept an external "rule."  Sometimes that means I blog frequently, and at other times I don't.  (Dick Richards also discusses blog pauses.)  It's taking the time to separate out the nagging pressure of ego-shoulds with what fits me instead.  It doesn't feel easy yet, nor have I stopped comparing myself to others.

I'm enjoying my new business, the stimulation it brings, the networking with other investors, the partnerships, the deals we get under contract.  It's almost like a game.  I devote time and focus and energy and money to it.  But I don't take it all so damn seriously like I did my previous careers and businesses.   I'm not chasing after Success with a capital "S."  Been there, done that.  And I predict I'll make more money with this attitude than I've ever made.

I don't have great ambitions to make a huge splash in the blogosphere, or anywhere for that matter.  I'm grateful and happy for all those who do make a big splash in positive ways so that many can benefit. 

Okay, I'll admit there's a part of me that says I'm "supposed to" care about that stuff and play "bigger."  But it feels rather hackneyed.  While I've been involved in personal development all my adult life, the buzz words don't motivate me anymore.  Now, from the perspective of middle age, it's the time I have with the people that matter - people like family, daughters, friends that take paramount importance in my life. 

I don't crave more information from outside, tempting as that is for me.  Instead, I strive to hear my own voice, and connect to others from that place.  As Alexys says in her post The Right to Fly, "Blogging is a clearinghouse of thoughts.  Thoughts that may go unheard if they don't have an outlet."  No matter my age, I still need to know that when I put something out there in a post that it lands somewhere.

The 50-something years gift us with wisdom, perspective, and a quiet confidence and assurance that we can tap into.  I've always been a late bloomer.  I still have lots more blooming to do.  The difference - I need to honor my own tempo now and slow down to take in the scenery.  Along the way I'll do my best to remember to trust myself.  That's all I really need to do.  The rest of life will get handled in due time.  And that's all for now from this baby boomer.

The "Stuff in the Basement"

"Stuff in the basement" is a metaphor that Rocky uses, in the final Rocky Balboa movie, to describe the emotions and longings that sit buried in his gut, awaiting release and expression.  It is also a reflection of the losses and changes life has brought his way.

Now that I've seen this movie with my husband, I find this phrase, "stuff in the basement," stuck in my brain.  Rocky's "stuff" is intertwined with who he is, not unlike the stuff that sits in an actual physical basement.  Just two days ago, my 80 yr. old father sat in  his basement, going through boxes to determine what to pitch, what must be saved.  In just a few weeks, my parents move from the family home into a condo.  So many memories to sort through and let go of in this latest phase of change.

My sister relayed in a phone conversation that Dad (an eternal pack rat) found a letter from the admissions office at Notre Dame, dated back in the 1940's.  Notre Dame University agreed to admit my father if he signed up for 4 years with the Naval Reserve.  He declined, went into the army, and attended Ohio State.  (Thank God . . . chances are my parents wouldn't have hooked up, producing me!).

Allow me to segue back to the movie.  In this final Rocky movie, we find Rocky widowed, long retired from boxing, working in his restaurant, visiting past haunts, and longing for a close relationship with his grown son.  Guess that describes middle age in a nutshell.

Rocky gets the itch to box again, in small, local events.  Promoters, however, approach Rocky to box in an exhibition with the current heavyweight champion in efforts to boost the popularity of the latter, whose own fans boo him.  Rocky has a lot to think about, needless to say.  Without a doubt, he knows he will face tremendous physical pain if he agrees. 

When Rocky's family tells him he's crazy, he tells them:  "What's crazy about standing toe to toe and saying I am?"  (Do we ever outgrow that need?)

In the end, Rocky uses the "stuff in the basement" to fuel his last boxing stand.  And who is Rocky?  He is courage.  He is heart.  He is Spirit in Gear.

My husband and I were a young married couple when we saw the first Rocky in 1976.  I loved this inspiring underdog story.  I cried during it.  Rocky's theme music rang in my ears.  The four sequels were easily forgettable.  But Rocky VI brings it all back home.  Rocky makes us care.  And how fitting that Rocky and I find ourselves in middle age together.  Wisdom and poignancy permeate the film. 

Today is the first day of a spanking new year.  It calls to us to let go of the old that no longer serves us, and to embrace the new.  Now I ponder, what stuff do I have in my basement that cries out for expression?  What stuff in my basement do I need to rid myself of once and for all?  And where in my life do I need/want to say I am?

Happy New Year to Us All!

Do You Know What a Koan Is?

I thought I was asking a question.  I found out I created a "koan" instead.  That's what I get for thinking out loud.

It happened when I left a comment on Halina Goldstein's Have I Changed? post.  My ruminations about personal change led me to ask at the end - Does what passes for change indicate we're showing our true colors or hiding them?

Halina commented that this was not a question but a koan - "A riddle with no logical answer, used to confound the conscious mind and allow spontaneous insight."

I'm still awaiting insight on this particular koan on true colors.  If anything, it raises even more questions for me, much like Dick Richards describes how every sentence can be a "doorway" to more questions in his post on writing. 

For those of you who enjoy riddles, I'd love for you to share your spontaneous insights!