Only in Darkness can you See the Stars

I really want to write about happy things.

After my last post, I thought, enough. Enough griping and whining. Enough talking about how terribly hard it all is. Enough feeling sorry for myself.

Let us talk of cheerful things again. Music, and magic, and art. Dreams for the future, hopes for my children, little moments that make life wonderful. Cake, and friendship, and how cute Yetis are.

However. Twenty twenty-four is just not working with me. It is not ON BOARD with this plan.

Around Christmas, my previously healthy mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. It’s only been a few weeks but we are already at the point of palliative care.

About the same time, we found out my oldest kid, Captain Jelly Belly, would be having surgery this spring for an ongoing medical condition that will require several months of recovery and physiotherapy.

Meanwhile, I got the flu, only it was some kind of Devil Germ that went rogue and caused a liver infection that landed me in the hospital for a couple of days, and I’m still struggling to recover from it now.

Did I mention I started a new job and also bought a house in there too?

January was, shall we say, challenging.

But I continue to cling to the resolution of cheer, peace, good things. I am doing my best to look up, look forward, and find the beautiful. I’m reading a lot of good books. I’m drinking a lot of tea and cherishing the quiet moments that being forced to rest have brought to me. I’m looking back at family memories and feeling so, so lucky to have sisters to go through this with.

I’m gathering my strength and getting ready to fight my way to the calm that will inevitably arise after the storm.

So let’s not call this post yet another in my long line of gripes and whines. Let’s call this post The Last Of An Age. The last marker of a bad time, the in-like-a-lion, out-like-a-lamb stylings of the year 2024.

Next time you see me, I’ll be smiling.

Something New

I signed the separation agreement two weeks ago today. There in black and white, the legal record of my failures.

We’re still getting Christmas cards addressed to the five of us. I just don’t know how to tell people, still. Word has spread among those that I see often but it’s the long distance friends and family, the Christmas card set, that still don’t know. In their minds we remain unbroken, a festive photo on a card with no blemishes.

I used to send cards every year, with a chatty and fun newsletter and cute photos. But I stopped last year. No amount of glitter could cover my shame.

I still feel that. I slink away from neighbors at the grocery store, leave messages on Facebook unanswered because I’m embarrassed. I have baggage, as certified by two lawyers and the government of Canada. There’s a giant heard of elephants in the room that stampede around me everywhere.

I always assume they won’t know what to say to me now that I’m half of a whole, and I can’t put that burden on them. I’ll be invisible to avoid spreading the weight of it to anyone else.

I still chose that. I ran towards that liberation with open arms. No regrets. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be sad sometimes, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be lonely sometimes.

There is good stuff here though. A group of my mom friends from the neighbourhood dropped by a few weeks ago with a card letting me know they were thinking of me, and a Christmas gift. I was moved, and I was seen. I still have a place here. People can just be so beautiful sometimes.

And other friends who never really knew me as Married Lynn have been great, meeting me for coffee and making me feel like I’m still welcome in polite society.

So for 2024, I think it’s time to stop skulking and stop feeling Scarlet Lettered. It’s time to own it, live it, be it.

This is a real chance for a fresh start. Let’s move on and see where it goes.

La Vie En Rose

This fall, Air Canada had a crazy, unbelievable sale on tickets to Paris from Ottawa, like, less than $400 return.

My fantastic, beautiful, wonderful friend DoubleBias sent me some links. She said, “You deserve this.” She said, “You’d love it there.” She said, “You need this.”

And she also provided me with a full itinerary based on her own recent trip there, and many inspirational photos, and frequent pep talks, as I am not a confident or experienced traveller.

So I was left with a decision: what kind of person am I?

Am I a person who jumps on a last minute flight deal to spontaneously jet off to Paris? I have to admit, that does not fit the picture of Historical Lynn. Historical Lynn is careful, nervous, requires a long lead time to the new, lots of planning and panicking in advance.

But maybe Historical Lynn isn’t who I am anymore. I recently had a great chat with an old friend who also recently went through a divorce. He said that it seemed to him, lately, that those who knew him as a teenager or young adult were the ones that really knew him; that he was rediscovering those friendships and finding they made him feel like his true self.

I’m not sure I was a fully formed human back then but I see what he means. Back in the days before I knew how to conform, how to be responsible, how to present a pretty picture to the world, I was a little rougher, a little (LITTLE) more spontaneous, a little (LITTLE) more daring.

So in a nod to Prehistoric Lynn, I did it. Little Miss Sunshine (not so little any more) came along for the ride.

We had a marvelous time.

Coincidentally, we went during the week of my 53rd birthday. It was a banger way to celebrate, gotta tell you. Coming full circle, integrating the past Lynns, and figuring out what that means for the future – it’s been a good year.

Clean

The other day I was visiting a friend at their house for the first time. This house was clean.

Not just in the sense that it was recently dusted and there were no dishes in the sink. That, but also no clutter. The kitchen counters were bare (how?). The living room looked like a magazine shoot – not just elegant but no knickknacks, no magazines. The family room TV hid behind a cabinet and the blankets were folded in a corner, the coffee table a smooth shining expanse of nothingness.

It was some kind of miracle.

The next day I was hanging out with my cousin and his wife and they got to talking about how retirement is looming, so they’ve been aggressively cleaning out their house. Garbage bags full of stuff on its way out, their basement emptied and ready for house showings. The possibility of living abroad or travelling with literally everything they owned a real possibility.

I admit I was envious of both.

My house is in need of a cleaning on the surface level, and also underneath. Everywhere I look there is clutter – bank papers waiting for me to magically understand them before I can somehow find space for them in the filing cabinet, counters covered with an assortment of 50 types of tea and vitamins I’ll forget to take otherwise. Puzzles overflowing the so-called puzzle nook, waiting for my attention, and books – so many books! – stacked beside beds and family room chairs and next to bookshelves that just cannot accommodate them.

Oh, to live life clean, to live life with such focus and direction that you wake up each day to a clean slate and can decide what to think about, instead of having a million thoughts thrust upon you.

But the truth is, that’ll never be me, because I’m a scatterbrain, and I honestly don’t mean that in any kind of negative way. My brain scatters to the four winds at all times. Plans for tomorrow, next week, next year all live in there at once. It’s a tornado of creative projects and words coming in and words coming out and new thoughts and forward motion. It’s this but also that and that as well, and did I mention this other thing?

To me the world is so full of so many amazing things, so many experiences, that I want them all (cue Barbra Streisand: the world is juicy, juicy, and you see, I gotta have my bite, sir). And if my house is a visual representation of the inside of my brain – colours swirling, silly trinkets flashing, every outfit I tried on this week that didn’t quite fit and so lies discarded like a parade of who I was and who I might be again lying on the bedroom floor – then that’s maybe not so bad.

Sad Out Loud

October was a hard month.

It’s been more than a year now that I’ve been doing the separation dance and we’re still not agreed, which seems like madness. There were some tough meetings and events in October and for the first time this year, I felt it.

The sadness of being The Bad Guy.

I am not one who sees the world in black and white. There are many sides to every story and my own point of view is just that, my side of things, one perspective only.

I’ve always trusted that over time, others will come to see me for who I am, will form their own truths and get to the heart of things. But I am learning that is not always true. Those that shout their own point of view the loudest are often rewarded with the Truth Label.

I have to admit it does all seem convincing. I’ll wear the Bad Guy label if it helps actually move things forward.

I cried a lot in October, alone, in my house, and one thing my World of Greys point of view tells me is that I have my own learning to do, my own growing to do. Maybe I’m not the Bad Guy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some changing to do, as the main character in this life.

One thing I know I don’t do well is share. I don’t share my joys, I don’t share my sadness, even with people I’m closest too. One feels too much like bragging, the other feels like too much of a burden for others to carry.

But I’ve been invited out lately by a few old, dear friends I haven’t connected with in a long time and I’m learning to say yes, yes to coffee, yes to movie nights. I’m daring to trust them with my sadness and to share. To actually admit to it being hard and me being weak, to be vulnerable.

Not gonna lie, it’s quite scary, but I’ve been assured by many online therapy sites that it’s the right way to build a community and move forward. To share my World of Greys with others and stop feeling like the world will only ever see me as the Bad Guy, to quietly spread my own truths.

I am changing, my life is changing, the world is changing, and I feel like the key thing here is to take the wheel and drive it forward in my own way, on a better path, towards a better me.

See you all there.

Making Friends

The internet has figured out I’m single again, so I’m getting a lot of ads now on Instagram and YouTube for dating sites.

But what I really want is a connection site for gal pals. Buddies. Hang-out friends.

How do you make friends when you’re over 50? I was at the grocery store the other day and saw a lady about my age, with tattooed arms (same) and a Taylor Swift concert tee (same) and raggedy greying hair like a Macbeth witch (same) and I was like, I want to be your friend.

I was thisclose to handing her my number on a card and running away but it was just too stalkerish and weird. No one does that.

It was probably naive of me to imagine that I’d get to keep all my same friends after the split, and I have lost many, and am still losing some, and it hurts more than I thought it would. I have learned that while I never wanted any of my friends to have to choose, for my own mental health I have done some choosing on their behalf, and that has meant more endings in a year full of endings. Every new leaving brings more tears and more mourning and more raging against the lack of light at the end of the tunnel.

And I believe I may have mentioned this but there is just too much new right now and that sucks too.

I know I need people, and that means new friends, and that means horrifying things like leaving the house and exploring new hobbies and speaking to strangers. Honestly, THE WORST.

Where’s match.com for making friends? I feel like Leslie Knope would be all over this.

More of this, please

Starting Over

I feel like this blog used to be a shiny, happy place and I do apologize for the bleakness lately. Maybe I’ll write my way to joy, or at least Kit Kat my way to joy.

But really, it’s been a hell of a week.

My laptop hard drive imploded. Ironically, while I was trying to back up the 2TB of data that lived on there that was otherwise totally NOT backed up.

I lost years of storytelling. Family photos going back to 2001. My kids’ baby books that I’d updated since they were born. Fiction and non-fiction writing, completed, published, and in-progress.

I lost the graphic design work I’d done for every website I’ve ever worked on. My will. Taxes for the past 8 years. Documentation I wrote for dozens of clients.

I lost several creative works-in-progress I’d spent hours and hours on. Patterns for projects I’d created from scratch.

I cried about it, a lot.

(Before you ask, yes, I took it to A Guy, and said Guy confirmed it’s dead-dead, toast-toast, goner-goner, nothing can be recovered.)

Meanwhile, I met with my lawyer, and my banker, and they both sadly and gently told me to brace myself and prepare for the worst and think about cutting back.

And just then my gas fireplace quit, and my microwave/hood fan died, and I had to do several other major repairs on this house that I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to keep, and I feel like I’m bleeding money, and bleeding tears, and generally just bleeding, bleeding, bleeding.

It was unfortunately a rough week for all three kids too. School transitions, new places to live, hopes and fears but mostly fears.

It’s not a week to fall apart but screw it, let’s do that.

I already had too many new stories going on. Too many blank pages to figure out how to fill. Too many pivot points and rebuilding efforts and new-new things to juggle.

Deep breaths. One worry at a time. One fresh, blank, empty hard drive to try to see as a beginning, not an ending.

It’s the strongest, truest reminder that there is no going back, there is only forward, and you get on board with that or you bleed out.

Rare and Magical

I know I’m not the most optimistic person about love at the moment.

I mean, several months ago, when it became clear my marriage was kaput, my friend’s son got married (hi Lee Ann!). She showed me the pictures and the wedding was absolutely gorgeous, romantic and fun. The bride and groom had been together for years and were perfect for each other.

But still, a little part inside me was screaming at the bride, run, Shawna, run.

(I do realize my own baggage was a factor there. It’s probably a good thing I was not invited or I may have had a Speak Now moment.)

But still, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to love someone, and more than that, what it means to be partnered with someone.

It seems the very height of improbability.

I mean, here is someone you have to feel completely at ease with. They should give you that feeling like when you get home at the end of the day and sigh, slide out of your work shoes and into sweats, fully comfortable. This is not someone you have to be guarded or fake around. They’ve seen the best and the worst and they know who you are, and they’re still here.

But this is also someone you have to trust enough to be there when you call for help. Whether it’s hiding the bodies or finding a way to make that year exchange in Spain you always wanted come true or making you a cup of tea when you Just Can’t Even, you know they’ll be there. They are comfort and support, they got your back, they are your person.

And on top of that, they also have to be someone you are physically attracted to, someone you’d like to get your hands on. Someone snuggly who you really want to make feel good, who is hot enough that you can get past the icky parts of bodies and go straight to the delicious parts, on a regular basis.

It just seems like something magical and rare and quite unlikely.

I mean, I’m not saying it can’t happen.

But I am saying, if you have it, understand the miracle it is that you found all these things in one other person, and maybe figure out their love language if you haven’t yet, and buy them flowers or tell them they did a good job today or give them a hug just because or book a date night with them, as is their preference, from time to time.

Holding the Bear

We have a card game we like to play as a family, called Pit.

The way Pit works is, everyone gets a “hand” of cards of mixed resources. Then, at the shout of Go, everyone attempts to make trades of cards in their hands at once, back and forth, trying to get a matching set of one resources. There are no turns, everyone just yells out trade offers like in a real stock exchange pit, until someone has a set and calls an end to it all. It’s delightfully chaotic.

One catch is that there are two special cards in the game. The Bull card is wild, and you can use it in place of any required resource.

The Bear card is bad news. When holding the bear, you cannot declare a winning set, even if you have one in your hands, and it counts as negative points against you on your journey to the eventual win.

We used to play this game at holidays as you can play with many people and it’s suitable for a wide range of ages.

But we rarely play anymore and that’s because we have a problem, and that problem is this:

I hold The Bear.

When you have The Bear, the goal is to trade it away to some sucker as fast as possible. Get someone to believe you’re offering two wheat when really it’s a wheat and a bear. Get someone to buy in that your offering has “never been seen” and then giggle with relief when they take The Bear off your hands.

But I can’t do it. I can’t pass The Bear to anyone else. If someone gives me The Bear, I just hold it in resignation.

Eventually my kids in particular caught on to this and realized what was happening. And now we don’t play any more – or at least, they won’t play with me – because me holding The Bear spoils the game.

It’s an ironic thing that I can’t pass on The Bear because I just can’t hurt them. But it’s also, apparently, no fun.

Good or bad, I have to say, “She Held The Bear” might be the best description of my personality of all time. Please put that on my gravestone.

It’s who I am, I’m a bear-holder. I’m starting to see it’s not always a good thing. It’s definitely not always an appreciated thing.

But I’m not sure, at this point, if I’ll ever be able to change. Acting in your own self-interest is a hard thing to learn, it seems.

I Don’t Ask for Much

My mother used to say this thing, from time to time as I was growing up, which was so funny. It was this: “I don’t ask for much, but just this once…” And then she’d ask us to do her a favour of some kind.

It was funny because sure, she didn’t ask for much with words. But she asked for things by expressing disappointment when things didn’t go her way, or reacting with stress and distress when everything was just too much. We learned how to read the signs and work around her, how to be quiet and good and just the way she needed us to be for everything to run smoothly.

In short, she didn’t have to ask; we molded ourselves to her needs until it was second nature. She might not have asked, but we were giving her things all the time anyway.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the fact that I don’t ask for much, or perhaps don’t ask for enough. That I have the right to ask for more.

I came across this meme and I thought, yes, this is it, this is me:

But then I got to thinking – if I told my kids that I don’t ask for much, that I only ask for the barest minimum, would they laugh? Is that a funny thing to them, because they’ve learned all my tells, all my little signs that they are asking for too much, that there’s too much weight on my shoulders, and so it’s time for them to be smaller and quieter and the very lowest of low maintenance?

Is “not asking for things” just another form of high maintenance?

It’s confusing.

I can say this: I’m a grown up now, this is my house, and what’s the beauty of being grown if it isn’t to take the space you want, be as badly behaved as you want, and make a few waves? Eat cookies for dinner and laugh very loudly and let everyone else just deal with it for a change?

Well. I can be low, mid, and high maintenance all at once, can’t I? There don’t appear to be any rules anymore.