Joy

For the second morning in a row, I've woke up happy to be alive - looking forward to the day ahead.  I've been reading "The Book of Joy", a little bit each night before I fall asleep. If you haven't heard of it, the book is co-written by Douglas Abrams, through interviews and hanging out with the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during a weeklong birthday celebration/gathering. It isn't religious, but spiritual.  The chapters are very short, powerful, and lead me to contemplate what my purpose is here on earth. I've felt a subtle shift in my attitude toward life that is mostly unexplained, unless I give this book some of the credit. I didn't realize I had been looking for joy, until it found me.

December has been my most dreaded month for the past ten years.  I've fought depression, relived the saddest year of my life and frankly felt pretty darn sorry for myself. (You can read about some of that year here) Each December brought with it the promise of plenty of sweet treats to feed my weepy spirit and I alternated between compulsively eating sugar laden goodies and hating myself throughout - especially when my current favorite jeans refused to zip, despite laying on my back on the bed, struggling. I bought progressively larger sizes of cheerful holiday tops to hide my sad sugar addiction.

No more.

The joy I feel at the beginning of this December lies partially in a trimmer body, not thin, but 30 pounds lighter than last December. Having to buy new jeans that actually stay up - instead of falling off - makes me joyful in a way that I can see.  Being able to bend over, from a standing position, to tie and untie my shoes gives me pleasure. Purging my closet and dresser of dozens of items too large, and donating to a homeless shelter, increased my joy. At the bank I was waited on by a former student who exclaimed as she literally ran around the counter to give me a hug, "Mrs. Babbitt!  I didn't recognize you!  You look ten years younger than you did when I was in your class!" I'm not lying - Maddie gave this old gal some real joy!

I am also taking steps toward giving up a life long dream of buying and selling antiques and treasures, after finding out that the workload exceeds the benefits! I wrote briefly about the beginnings of that adventure here. I'm now working to move as much from my garage to my space downtown as possible, with hopes of great sales.  I will move what is left back to my garage on December 31. I'll either sell or donate whatever I decide not to keep. Just knowing I have an end date makes me happy.  It was fun, at times, but not quite enough fun, or profit, to want to continue.

Yet the greatest joy lies inside me this morning - writing and awaiting my daily 7 AM brisk walk with my neighbor and her dog, looking forward to the fresh air, the mostly sleepy and sullen middle schoolers we pass each morning, waiting for their bus. There's a smile on my face, leftover from the couple hours I spent yesterday with several retired teachers at the nearby IHOP, as we joyously ate  from the senior menu, laughingly shared our adventures during the previous month, and attempted to fix the current political chaos. 

In all areas of my life - spiritually, physically, emotionally - I am grateful that joy has found me. Retirement is the best, and due to strategic financial planning, we are comfortably living much the same as we did while working. In the past year we have crossed eleven National Parks off our bucket list, with spring plans to visit a few more. Both daughters are doing well, enjoying their teaching assignments, and their significant others, and their cats. Chris' family continues to grow, and there will be another great-granddaughter around December 13th. 

I set a goal in October to return to blogging and post at least once per month. These posts will mostly be picture prompts from my childhood, and fictionalized responses - with what truth I can remember woven in. Here is October, and November posts. It is my hope that I will move toward publishing some of the writing I do each morning in my journal, which is where today's post came from. 

I have been found by joy, and life is good.

Grace

Daughter Jess made this for Mother's Day 2009.

Merriam-Webster definition of grace:

a: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification 

b: a virtue coming from God 

c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace

I'm with Anne Lamott - I do not understand the mystery of grace, but I do recognize the change it made in my life.

I don't do a lot of God posts. I truly believe to each his own when it comes to belief systems, and faith, and pretty much most things.  I try really hard not to sit in judgment regarding the life choices that other folks make for themselves.  

But, I am pretty amazed by this whole concept of grace - and what is implied in the context.  I think of the fluid grace of a dancer, or a gifted ice skater.  Grace was the rule before meals in childhood, a hurried through rote prayer that meant little to me, just something we did before picking up a fork. Once upon a time I even had a student named Grace.

Recently, in the course of a series of events I've experienced, I've been drawn back to reading a portion of the Bible each morning; meditatively reflecting on what I get out of it, and where I am in the space of my world that day.  Grace came up a couple days ago.  

There are times, even at the ripe ol age of 65, when I feel like I still haven't "grown up".  I have all these feelings of being "less than" or "insufficient", or "incomplete" when I think about what I haven't done with my life yet, or what I should be doing with my life now.  (Often these can be as mundane as "Sheesh, don't you think it's about time to mop the kitchen floor?" or "You're retired!  Get out there and volunteer!") The meditation I read discussed the idea of recognizing incompleteness as a kind of open space - allowing grace to flow in.  I hadn't ever thought of it in quite that way before.

One of the hard things I've been dealing with has been food, as in, eating too much of it.  I haven't always been overweight - I was a skinny kid and young adult.  I drank more than my fair share when I discovered alcohol, and smoked more than my fair share when I discovered cigarettes, but I stopped both of those bad habits 29 years ago.  Yep, that's when the weight began to creep up.  And, somewhere along the way, food became my reason for living - quite literally - as I was either cooking, eating or dieting.  Many of the early years after smoking cessation I was chasing toddlers, which kept my weight mostly manageable, but the girls didn't stay little long enough, I guess.

March 15, 1996 - on the 9th anniversary of my last glass of wine, my step-mom of 35 years, died of complications of Alzheimer's.  I didn't know it then, but I was plunged into what would become a many years long depression, that was managed with food.  I gained 80 pounds in less than a year.  I didn't know I was depressed, I didn't recognize that my step-mom's death triggered emotions related to my own mom's death when I was nine.  I just ate. I was a miserable lost soul.

Twenty years later - my life still revolves around food - big surprise!  I've been on nearly every diet known to man, lost and gained back small mountains of weight, and I'm still obese.  I've attempted exercise while dieting, and sometimes while not dieting, with little success. I walk every morning with a neighbor, and take longer walks with retired colleagues, and stay the same, or gain and lose the same 10 pounds. In my heart of hearts I know, with a sinking, sick feeling in my gut, that I have a problem that can't be fixed without intervention.  My theory - and I'm sticking to it, despite not wanting to - is that I have a sugar addiction that was fed by alcohol while I drank, and is impossible to quench sober. I crack the window, admitting weakness and Grace gallops in to the rescue.

"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are, and does not leave us where it found us." Anne Lamott

I've been on this path before, striking sugar from my world and pretty much hating every minute of it. Because . . . I love sugar!

Something is different this time.  I wonder if it could be this mysterious thing called "Grace"?