move to the next moment

"Walk don't Run"

Think back to Kindergarten or even first grade when your teachers would shout out to all the kids trying to get to the head of the line at lunch or for recess "Walk Don't Run."  Or even this morning as I dropped my two boys off at school "Hayden - Gavin- Walk Don't Run."  Such a simple idea that we all learned at an early age, but now it's vanished and everything has become "Run Don't Walk."

Jennifer Silvera sang tonight about Psalm 23, for those of us who may not remember it here's the link: Psalm 23

And the famous line:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,  for you are with me;

Notice the word walk through, not run, or jump, or sprint, but walk.  Something that was taught to each of us at a young age, but forgotten.  With this concept of "Grief", I've been running as fast as I possibly can to get through it.  Pushing it aside, locking it away, but never did I slow down so I could walk through it with "the big guy upstairs." 

Right now I take two steps forward and right away I'm taking two steps back.   This creates a stalemate, which has it's place with "grief,"  but it's how you move to the next moment that defines you. If you run through it what have you left?  Have you learned anything but how to push the pain aside?  If you walk through it do you learn about you, get a glimpse into what your potential is?   Or even realize what happened was part of the master plan. Cliche I know, but if God has a master plan could this be where the main character of the story either becomes the hero or not?  A bit of free will mixed in there of course.

I know it's not a simple task to slowly walk through a life filled with grief. Perhaps this pain is a stepping stone for you to realize what potential God has placed in you amidst  grief.  And only you can take it out of your back pocket and uncover it for those around you to see.

Think of it as one of those cool decompressed sponges shaped like an animal; you add water and slowly it grows bigger and bigger until it's "potential" is awakened.

I'm finding that I have been shoving my potential further back in my pocket not realizing that just maybe the big guy upstairs has an Idea of what he intends for me.  I hope I'm right In this otherwise I guess we'll all be laughing at my funeral.

For one thing it's a hard concept for me right now, he took a friend during the happiest moment of her life. So how am I to understand his point in this, another wake up call or a pure strike of lightning to awaken my soul.  I guess it comes down to a flip of a coin heads or tails.  Let's say heads a master plan. Tails simply a game.  And here's the flip...

So remember back when in grade-school your teachers constantly reminding you  "walk don't run". It's more than just a rule, it's a way to live your life: in happy times as well as grief times.

Apply it to your life "walk don't run"  because really this could be the last thing you ever read.  (now wouldn't that be depressing .)

I can't out run you

I've tried to out run you, I knew if I kept moving, jumping, and working you wouldn't catch me.  But you did, you lurked in the shadows waiting for that moment when I let my mind keep pushing this old body until it finally failed.

I'm tired. There is nothing left in me.  I haven't been this run down in a long time, but yet I keep trying to push forward.  Exhaustion is something I've lived with for many years. I destroyed my "flight and fight" system to become just "fight and fight."  Constantly running on high in order not to deal with "real reality" of my life.  And now with the holiday season setting in and me trying very hard to let everything sink in... it happened.  I crashed like I never have before.  

You see many of us who deal with this "grief" syndrome don't realize the affects/effects upon the actual body.  We are constantly tired, but yet we still push forward with whatever we have left in us because if we don't - "grief" wins, and that is something we cannot allow.

So we wake up, throw on our eye cream, dress to the tens, and put on that smiling face; in hopes we can thwart "grief" for a few seconds.  Starring at the mirror in front of me, I look into my 31 year old eyes, which now appear to be aging rapidly and speak in a soft dark tone - "I will win."

Fake it... to make it?

I've heard this saying "fake it to make it" many times.  From therapists, authors, and again while having tea with a friend - the look as she said it was exactly how I felt about it. 

How can you fake a feeling in order to make it real? Even to create the start of a feeling, by faking it? And then it hit me, I've done this for ten years and still even today.

You get to a point dealing with the sadness and pain of losing someone, that you can't stand having to answer the question.... "how are you?" Of course, you say "I'm fine" it's the polite thing to do, but inside your mind you are strangling this person across from you.   In order to save what friendships you have left (another blog post)  you "fake it", and then it becomes an addiction of sorts.

This addiction simply put is "faking it" to everyone. In desperation you "fake it" to yourself, in hopes that if everyone sees you as happy and okay, then really you are.  Sadly, it goes horribly wrong and actually destroys your mind, heart, and body.  It pushes you to the limits, struggling every day to push and push yourself to be "happy."  When really you aren't even close to that point. 

I will admit that even after seeing what it does to me, I still fake it.  I have to because who wants to be around a depressed, exhausted, and pissed off guy?  I sure don't, and I'm that guy...

All I want to do is to crawl back into bed and never come out.  It's over the past ten years that I've perfected the "fake it" aspect.  I turned my outside appearance into a picture perfect persona of the "fake it" method.

I lost over a hundred pounds.  I took the road of materialism; from clothes, parties, and spas.  I created a new intimidating extroverted and fun personality.  My outside appearance to the world was "he's got it together", not "what a mess."  It's the outside that you can fake, not the inside.  So this is where the flawed idea of "fake it to make it" comes into play.  Can you fake happiness... yes - will it ever become real?  NO.  Can you fake energy and make yourself have energy? NO. Can you fake accepting the loss of someone? Yep you can but never will it become true. 

Sometimes I wonder who these people are that recommend or even put faith into this idea. I wonder to myself, have they ever gone through this?  Have they suffered a loss so tremendous to their soul and life that they "faked it to make it?"  I truly doubt it.

Why?

Every day I push myself to understand why my father died tragically.  Why my mother suffered and died. Why I lived and survived when I shouldn't have walked away. And now, a friend from my past dies a day after giving birth. 

The news hit me like a ton of bricks, the tears flowed like nothing I've felt before.  She was only 36, married only a year, and a friend that even in my darkest days came to support me when my mother passed. 

It does not make any rational sense in why she died.  Her child will never know it's mother, never to feel her love, or understand who she was.  Everyone says God has a master plan, well sorry to say.. so far his master plan sucks.

I search for the answers desperately at this hour, a couple of Ballanvie's in my system, a roaring bar scene to help me focus my thoughts.  I cling to the glass, swirling the alcohol that dulls the pain inside of me.   I feel empty, sick, and desperately wanting answers. 

At this point will the answers to why all of these events have happened cure me of this dreaded idealism of Grief?  Probably not.  It's at this point that I cannot retreat and put up the shields that protected me from feeling.  I need to feel. I need to cry.  I need to live.

Guest Blog

Click Me

This past week I had an amazing opportunity to write a guest "blog" about my thoughts on "MOVE".  Click above to be transfered there. 

why is it so hard

A simple conversation with friends can be going so wonderful, until parents are brought up.  "Hey are you heading to your parent's for Thanksgiving?"  Is how simply it started.

I love to chat about everything, even families, but then there's always someone that forgets... "FRED DOESN'T HAVE PARENTS!"  I don't blame them, there aren't many of us that belong to the dead parents club at 31 and you just don't think of it. 

I struggle with the fact that I'm trying to make them feel better after the accidental blunder, when inside I'm dying.  My chameleon face appears and all is well, a few jokes and we are off on a new conversation.

Dealing

I’ve felt alone for so many years, each day searching for the “fix” to get through the day and on to the next. No motivation to jump out of my bed and greet the day with a big “HELLO!”

 

Rather, it’s been a struggle to find the answers to why my parents died. What purpose does God have in challenging me each moment, just to survive without curling up on the floor and never coming out of a self-induced coma?

I made the choice to move. To push through and pass the grief to maintain to the outside world an “I’m fine” attitude or, in my language, “I’m delightful.”   

It seems such a simple thing… to move. For me, ten years ago it was a struggle, until it became my focus. I used moving to literally jump over dealing with and accepting my grief.  It was a runaway train that grief could never catch, and with that, I was off.   

You see, grief lurks in the shadows of your soul, rearing its evil head when you least expect it. When it explodes, you only have a moment to choose how it will affect you. By moving, I could get through that moment and never let anyone see what was happening inside me.

Until now.   

Before, I moved myself through each moment so that I did not have to stop and think about the reality of my life. Now “move to the next moment” is the mechanism that works through those triggers; it assesses what is going on and allows me to breathe as it sinks into my heart. Yes, it hurts, and the pain is there, but each moment I move and face grief head on, not racing down the tracks.

Move to the next moment is my philosophy of living life on the volatile roller coaster of grief. It will never end. No, this is not negativity; it’s acceptance of what grief is. Fear. By getting to the next moment you can conquer fear; it’s staying in that moment that you allow fear to control you and your life.

 

A memory

I remember running down the hallway at the emergency room, frantically trying to find my father; finally seeing my family outside a room with the door shut.  The disbelief was contagious over my mother, brother, and sister’s faces.  “Is he in there” I said sternly towards them, my mother nodded.  I pushed through the door as if it was paper; the door hit the wall with a thud, which I can still hear today, as I found myself looking over my father’s body.

One thing that I have never told anyone is what happened next.  I spoke to him in one of the old German dialects that he taught me from my childhood.  It just came out years after I stopped speaking it; I dropped to the floor on my knees and spoke directly into his ear.

"My Papa, my papa… you cannot be dead, you cannot leave me here.  I do not know what to do, how can you leave me here.  I love you, my papa you cannot be dead."

Then I vowed to him.  “I will take care of them, and everything.  I will take your place and make you proud.  I love you.  Good-bye.”

I walked out of the room, looked back and wiped a tear off my face.  Looked at my family, and spoke “it’s time to go home.” 

“No, not old Fred…. Avoidant Fred”

“The old Fred is no more, I’m changing slowly but it’s like I’m finally dealing with the pain.” I said. 

Dr. M looks at me, and in a very stern grandmotherly tone “No, not old Fred, Avoidant Fred.”

It’s taken me nearly ten years to actually accept what I have let “Grief” to do me, my life, and family.

I made the choices along the way to not deal with it, or even accept that both my parents are gone.  Still to this day, I am constantly searching them out.  To see them, hear them, or know them. 

I have internalized all emotion and locked it in my own Pandora’s Box.  The box has slowly been opening these past few weeks, and very amazing to me to feel things that I haven’t felt along this path; pain, hurt, and sadness.

A picture of my father sits up high in my training room, visible from all angles.  The picture is of him on one of our many Germany trips standing in front of where my family comes from in Northern Germany (Langenfeld).  It gives me a sense of knowing somewhere in this world I belong, to know that is where my family started, to have history. 

This is a very large part of my “lostness,” my parents are dead.  I never had the chance or the choice to know them truly on an adult level.  There is no “parenting” or mentoring for me, to help me on making decisions in life, to ask questions about my childhood or even simply to see my boys and how amazing they are. 

I’m lost and at times along this journey, I’ve been terrified of this hellish rollercoaster never ending.  And in all honesty it may never end. 

"what hurts the most"

"What hurts the most" she asked, just after she called me "a beautiful disaster"

A girl that I had just met two hours ago, saw through my defenses while we sat and chatted waiting for our planes. My shocked look at her bluntness made her push even further. " Well... you lost both your parents is that it?" 

Was that it? Or was it the choices I made in trying  not to deal, accept, or rather hide my grief. It wasn't until a few days ago that I finally realized just how far I pushed to hide my grief.

I ran away from who I was, I created a new persona by losing weight, dressing differently, and gaining new friends.  I left "him" behind, in a subconscious ploy to alter my reality and "be happy".  Thrusting myself in an endless cycle of driving myself to pure exhaustion over and over again. 

It took a spark, not one but three of them to finally open this heart to the truth. The fear, hurt, and unknowing what this man is all about came tumbling down into a lonely soul.  And the long journey in finding each of the moments I've let pass by without ever realizing their importance begins.

Each moment I breathe; slowly... simply... to the next moment I move.

*A few days ago, an old friend posted on my facebook page after I posted a couple of pictures of my one and only love (passion) my saxophone.  "Now that's the Fred I remember", I agreed and began to play.