Enough
When I was a teenager, I once had a dream in which I kept standing on chairs, only to be told by other people, “Nope, still not tall enough.”
I am a short person. Vertically challenged. Petite. No matter how you dress it up with a title, let’s just call it what it is: I am short.
And, while I have been quite aware of my “lack of tallness, “this dream tapped into not only the height issue, but the larger self-worth concept.
Indeed, the question centered on one word: enough.
Enough is enough.
“You Didn’t Clap Hard Enough!”
I admit it; I have not had a great track record with grace. My experience, since childhood, was one which heavily favored earning rather than the unconditional application of love, personal value and yes, grace.
No matter what I did or did not do- concerning anything- it seemed it was not enough.
When I was a college theatre major, I performed a monologue from Christopher Durang’s “'Denity Crisis” in my acting class.
Back then, as I memorized and performed it, the struggle with grace didn’t quite click for me.
But, years later, I see how the playwright’s humorous account of a Peter Plan play, indeed, captures the spiritual wrestling match grace versus effort embodies.
“...You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that Peter's about to drink, in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says that Tinkerbell's going to die because not enough people believe in fairies, but that if everybody in the audience claps real hard to show that they do believe in fairies, then maybe Tinkerbell won't die…. and so then all the children started to clap…. we clapped very hard and very long…. my palms hurt and even started to bleed I clapped so hard…. then suddenly the actress playing Peter Pan turned to the audience and she said, ‘that wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.’ uh..well, and..and then everyone started to cry. The actress stalked offstage and refused to continue with the play, and they finally had to bring down the curtain. No one could see anything through all the tears, and the ushers had to come help the children up the aisles and out into the street. I don't think I was ever the same after that.”
How many of us can echo that last sentence in our own lives?
“I don't think I was ever the same after that.”
Life, inevitably, deals us some trauma, pain or negative experience which reinforces how, indeed, we did not clap hard enough.
Perhaps our marriage failed...
Perhaps someone died...
Perhaps we lost our career, our financial stability or our reputation...
So now, our personal Tinkerbell, because of imperfect life, is dead.
This business of earning grace, love and worth can wreak havoc. It drives many of us, in some attempt to self-soothe, to reach for our pet addiction. We reason no matter what we do or do not do in life, it’s not “enough.” That places us in paralysis.
We ask, “What’s the point?”
We come from a survival place of just getting through this wretched thing called life. We believe the best we can hope for is, while paralyzed, is to numb and comfort ourselves with our beloved addiction.
So, we throw away grace. We even accept doom.
It is exactly in this frame of mind grace becomes all the more relevant to us.
Not easy. Not understandable. Not even comforting.
Rather, prepare to groan here, it is a mystery.
I know: cop out.
Or is it?
Part of the notorious mystery of grace, complete with its uncertainties and frustrations, is the realization we are not in control. So, that immediately nullifies any earning of something which was never ours to earn in the first place.
“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”
Romans 11:6
That’s a challenging thing to wrap our finite minds around. Let’s face it- we live in a cause and effect world. Logically, if we do “A,” then we should get “B.”
Grace however, repeatedly tells us we’ll get “B” even in spite of our action or inaction regarding “A.”
Now we have alphabet soup.
It drives us bonkers. For we want to be in control. And when we push that agenda, we risk a resemblance to a most unflattering character...
Any guess on who this is?
Oh...I don’t know... Satan?
(Sorry, my SNL Church Lady tribute, circa 1980’s)
We may chuckle at this, but, come on, let’s get real, our prideful need demands we take care of it all.
We call it multi-tasking, being goal- oriented or doing some trouble shooting. Whatever we call it, it still seems to possess the same root motive: we want to run our own lives, completely, according to our specifications, not some Higher Power’s.
But none of us would even exist, let alone, survive our catastrophes, were it not for this Higher Power.
We fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
Still, it doesn’t nullify our reality of needing help with, yes, even our efforts.
Accepting grace as something which is beyond us, in spite of us, doesn’t change its powerful importance in our lives.
He is not looking down on us, just waiting to proclaim our doom by stating, “‘that wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.’”
Rather, this is more like it...
Perhaps, we have some growing up to do in the grace arena then.
Perhaps, through wisdom and maturity, we can come to a changed definition of the word “enough.”
Perhaps, we need to apply grace to our imperfect recovery journeys AND our imperfect human selves.
It’s not on us to embody this word; it’s The Almighty, wonderful, baffling and mysterious as He is.
And, with that, maybe we can finally experience some Tinkerbell resurrection in our lives.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
Family Photo
It was about how things looked.
When I was eight years old, I went fishing at a family member’s lake home.
Photos were taken.
And that, years later, is what gets my attention.
At first, I had fun during this summer occasion. I loved hanging out with my grandpa. There was photographic evidence of my happiness.
And then, something changed, as was documented in the next photo.
I “should” have been happy. I was with my grandpa, and I had just caught a fish. It was a moment to celebrate, right?
But it wasn’t. Because, right before the image was snapped, a family member yelled at me, “ruining” the moment.
And it captured much of the theme of my family system.
Moments of celebration, holidays, and happy times were somehow compromised and replaced with abusive rage, shaming name-calling, and fear-inducing yelling.
Like this fishing photo of me at age eight, it was a case of “before and after.”
Before (The Posing): Oblivious Depiction.
“Before” represented the pressure-filled, image-obsessed focus on appearing perfect, happy, and aesthetically pleasing. Never mind that the truth was abuse, tears, and fear. Never mind that the occasion wasn’t happy.
If the camera captured everyone smiling, that was documented proof enough. It looked good.
Therefore, all was well. There was nothing to face, confront, or change.
Image Over Truth: The Prize.
The photograph itself can be its own trophy. This is the assertion that it’s more important that things look a certain way, not how they are.
This requires mandatory cooperation.
It can be a gradual process of grooming, set up over years, decades, and even generations. The appearance of happiness and flattering images is enough. Truth doesn’t need to support the façade.
Spirits are expendable for the system’s good.
Breaking the Spirit…
The lurking threat is always there though; “don’t get too happy.”
“Don’t be too much of your honest self.”
My “before” smile, next to my grandpa, with fishing pole in hand, was, I guess too truthfully happy for comfort.
I needed to be cut down to size.
Therefore, the yelling, the shaming, and the embarrassment.
A person needs to have their spirit broken. That was the emphasis here.
This spirit breaking tactic can exist with subtlety or obvious communication. But there’s always, seemingly, the “walking on eggshells” undercurrent. It’s the constant threat.
If it happens to be hostile against unpleasant emotions like sadness or anger, amongst individuals, it is a bit alarming that the same can be said about happy and joyful responses as well.
That can be the maddening, despairing, and confusing “reality” many of us are forced to adhere to.
“Don’t show anything apart from what we want to see from you.”
That seems to be the punishment sentiment.
And many of us collide with it after we show a real moment, one we weren’t permitted to display.
After (Seeing What Painfully Was).
And that brings us to the “after” experience of the minefields known as dysfunctional systems, individuals, and concepts of “image.”
The consequences of our real experiences, showing up somehow, is reflected in our crest-fallen and fearful faces… and our psyches.
Recognizing this debilitating reality can be traumatic, even years or decades later as we can, with time and distance, reflect on what we went through. Many of us do not discover until years later that we were abused. It was “normal.”
It is trauma to learn that “normal” was, indeed, abuse.
The photo was not happy. It was toxic and was not anything we should have experienced as children or as adults.
Breaking the Spirit…
“Breaking the spirit” is a collective tactic of control, manipulation, and support of abuse.
Why was this allowed?
Our human spirits, usually, at some core level, beg that question of our lives.
If things were, indeed, “normal,” there would be no need to question our experiences.
But it should not have happened. Our spirits were not created to be broken. The idea that breaking needs to happen is abuse.
It’s not an image that should be captured. It’s not photogenic.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
Perspective
In high school art class, I was taught the definition of perspective:
“Two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon.”
And, to get a more tactile lesson in that definition, my art teacher had us students draw our high school hallway, capturing that perspective.
So, there we were, a bunch of ninth and tenth graders, perched at various points of the hallway, our 18 X 24- inch sheets of paper taped to gigantic drawing boards that could be used to bludgeon someone.
And, from there, with our pencils and rulers, we endeavored to capture that illusive perspective line. No easy feat. I learned an art class lesson very early; draw LIGHTLY. It was hard to thoroughly obliterate a mistake of a dark line, even with the thickest of pink gum erasers.
Furthermore, the challenge of capturing perspective’s line, on the first attempt, was usually incorrect, meaning, what was supposed to resemble the flow of a long hallway, quickly became the row of lockers colliding into the opposite wall.
Two seemingly parallels lines meeting at a vanishing point on the horizon?
Hardly.
It was more like you’re never going to be able to open your locker again.
For the few weeks we students were doing our artsy sit-in, probably, while being fire/safety hazards. And, I have found myself learning a few lessons, beyond the drawing of a hallway, ever since.
The Seemingly Never-ending Row of Lockers:
They seemed to stretch for miles.
With my trusty-dusty ruler, I had to carve out several of these sliced buggers while, again, making sure that they, somehow, met at a vanishing point on the infernal horizon. These drawn slivers of locker had to be spaced accurately. You couldn’t just have a three-inch block of locker next to a two- millimeter slice. They had to TAPER!
TAPER!
As I was lightly drawing with my ruler and pencil, I kept thinking about the school lockers. How many instances of bullying, getting shoved into them and getting sexually harassed near them have occurred, since the dawn of high school time? I know I experienced a little of my own hashtag Me Too back in the day.
As I was sitting in the exact same spot on the hallway floor, day after day, I started realizing how much lockers were a metaphor for life.
Each locker was a contained space. Each locker held something: unique, personal expressions of its master. An athletic calendar of upcoming events, a photo of a boyfriend or girlfriend tacked on the inside of the door, books, lettermen’s jackets, gym clothes, maybe an unwieldly instrument like a trombone for band practice. Each locker was a representation of a life, positioned next to another locker, representing another life.
And so on, and so on…
But, as I was vexed with the task of drawing locker slice, after locker slice, it also occurred to me how much lockers represent something more universal and philosophical.
Uncertainty? Monotony? Tediousness?
Life going on, regardless? Yay.
Who, in their adolescent mind, really thinks about boredom, the disappointment, the loss, beyond that of high school experiences? It can be further challenging as the “adults” force feed teenagers glimmering promises of pristine futures, limitless achievements, happily ever after, perhaps?
I know, I know, I know. You can’t break it to ‘em just what life actually is. Each person needs to find out for himself/herself.
These lockers just captivated my attention, way back when. If you focus on something for long periods of time, other thoughts show up.
And, no matter what age or stage we find ourselves in, past high school, there is still that row of clustered sliver blocks, lockers, representing us, veering toward some point, which, one can argue, is our mortality.
Decorate your locker with that!
The Floor:
You know the scene in the 1991 film, “Terminator 2?” There’s just endless road, lurching forward, ominously predicting how cyborgs were going to kill all of humanity? Well, that’s how I viewed the hallway floor as I went about my art project back in the day. It’s was smooth, polished green, and it seemed to keep going, always with the threat of tripping you up.
It appeared to be more menacing than the lineup of endless lockers. After all, there was no personalization here. To quote the band, REM’s lyric, just “three miles of bad road.”
Fantastic. Higher education.
I couldn’t quite get a handle on the hallway floor, this buffed, jade-green surface, for which many a times, I’d tripped and fallen, splat, onto it. Being uncoordinated didn’t help; slippery Minnesota winters, trudging in pools of melted ice further also created obstacle courses, en route to the lockers and classrooms.
But, overall, I suppose what got my attention was how the floor represented the path, life’s path. It just stretched before us, yes, tripping us up from time to time. There would be falls; there would be injuries. Graduating from high school would not- and could not change that.
So, hit the ground running, hit the polished hallway floor running, hit whatever pathway we encounter running, sooner or later, well, life happens.
Breast cancer, for me personally, was just one bit of evidence to support that theory. Although, yes, I was always uneasy with my breasts, no one ever told me, as a young person, that this experience would be part of my hallway floor, my path, the ongoing stretch of life set before me.
Sometimes, disease, illness, loss and death are the floors we must walk on.
Exit Sign:
As that high school student, drawing the hallway, my vantage point had an Exit sign within my sight line. Nothing extraordinary about it. You’ve seen one Exit Sign, you’ve seen them all.
It was positioned to my left, so, I proceeded to draw it in the top left corner of my paper. A simple, slightly rectangular box, with “Exit” written in it. Not much to write home about.
I thought my little sign was adorable. It made a statement. And it wasn’t just, “Go! Get out of here!”
No, rather, it was, “This is the way out.” Simple, less violent, no teenage stampeding, crushing bodies trying to escape the hell of high school.
I was enduring high school. Most of us do. It’s a time fraught with angst, bullying, rejection, awkwardness and lonely insecurity. So, naturally, we’d probably do anything we could to escape that.
All things are subject to change. It’s a universal truth, Inevitably, life does change, some way, somehow. Signposts, signaling an Exit here or there, prompt us to acknowledge and remember we will move on a have different experiences.
For me, personally, high school would end and an era of eating disorders, in their full expression, would begin throughout college into my young adulthood. And then other transitions arrived: marriage, my writing career, loss of one parent, caregiving to another… and cancer.
No one could prep me with a big enough Exit Sign for THAT one.
Yet, here I am, supposedly, in Survivorship mode, navigating the uncertain reality of what the ultimate Exit may mean. Yes, I think about how I once so innocently drew that little sign on the top left side of my paper, never entertaining how much thought I’d give it later.
But eventually, you and I do give our personal Exit Signs a lot of thought, don’t we? Something ends, something “phases out.”
And we need to start over again.
Vanishing Point on the Horizon:
Back during that high school art project, as we sat at the end of the long hallway, there was the destination apex, where, supposedly, our two seemingly, parallel lines met at a vanishing point on the horizon.
When it came to the literal high school hallway I drew, that was represented by a large window at the end of the smoothly polished jade-green floor.
A window- well, there’s a metaphor, huh? Let’s look outside. What’s beyond it? What does the world look like, from here?
The trick, in drawing the beast, was that, on sunny mornings, blinding sunlight would stream through. You had to be careful, looking directly at it. No one here was a wise Native American elder, practicing the ritual of staring at the sun until his/her retinas burned out, while simultaneously, achieving an enlightened vision.
Hardly. Remember, we’re a bunch of teenagers. One needs to lower that expectation a bit.
Still, as I averted my eyes, trying to capture the window, noting how the entire end of the hallway was Madonna’s white-hot set in the “Lucky Star” video, I couldn’t avoid one simple truth:
There is more.
Perspective.
We don’t always see everything when we think we should see it. That, I guess, is what hindsight is for. When you and I are finally mature, wise, compassionate enough to handle the deeper truth in life, then, the vision revelation often comes…
“Oh, so that’s what that was.”
If we try to force things, before we’re ready, we can burn ourselves out. Our retinas may be intact, but something else can be destroyed, if not seriously damaged.
We’re not ready for “it” yet.
Hopefully, we will be someday. But today- now- is not that day.
And, until we are, we need to keep learning the lessons our spirits were assigned, our cosmic homework.
We don’t get finished, actualized, enlightened, all, in one fell swoop. It’s a series of smaller vanishing points on the horizon, smaller, “Oh, so that’s what that was” revelations.
One after the other.
“Draw what you see, not what you know:”
This quote was uttered daily by my high school art teacher and it sticks with me, to this day.
In the drawing context, the point she was trying to hammer home with us was to not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, we may know there’s an ear or a flower in the still life’s vase, but are we actively experiencing drawing the shape and the line of what is before us?
No, we, instead, want to go full steam ahead and draw what we believe is that ear or flower. We’re not in the moment, experiencing it with our pencil. We are assuming instead. Assumption rarely leads to great art.
Going beyond art class, my teacher’s wisdom is the gentle reminder to experience what I’m going through, not make assumptions about what I may or may not encounter. I have yet to master this skill; I can be a bit of a control freak, wanting answers.
Cancer was a doozy for me, therefore, in that department. I don’t know, I REALLY don’t know, what the future will look like. Sometimes, I’m uncertain about my present.
And the past? Well, I’ve had to face it and challenge myself with what truly happened. That’s more painful than just assuming the tale I’d like to believe.
So, yes, I’m currently in a state of challenging the past, present and the future. Although I’d like the tidy, fairytale, “happily ever after,” I have to face and live “what IS.”
I need to draw WHAT I SEE, AND NOT WHAT I KNOW.
And, the irony in doing so is this: I discover, learn and know more from practicing the “what IS.” Truth over story.
Eventually, when you and I face what we see, we, inevitably, stumble upon something. Some personal revelation. Some lesson.
I’ve read some affirmation statements, encouraging us to rejoice, to make the best of things when we find ourselves stuck in a hallway, known as our life circumstances.
Don’t worry. Soon, a door will open and ta-dah. Chin up. That kind of thing.
I don’t know how realistic that advice is. Some hallways are quite brutal. Waiting is the equivalent to agony.
Perspective: “two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon:”
Not all of us draw our high school hallways, trying to get the accurate look of 3-D dimensions from lockers, doors and floors.
But ALL of us can achieve perspective. What do the issues, events, people and places mean to us?
What vanishes from prominence? What emerges as predominant?
No two perspectives are exactly alike. They are fingerprints; they are snowflakes.
A challenge, perhaps, is to recognize that, to find meaning from it. To face what intersects, what disappears and what remains visible.
Perspective. More than just an artistic term.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
https://www.elephantjournal.com/write-for-elephant-journal/instant-confirmation/?up=2267453
The Authentic Type?
As a college theatre major, I once took a television performance class. The students were asked to serve as the casting director and label what “type” of look each filmed student had.
Concerning me, several classmates made comments like, “exotic,” “a foreigner,” “a gypsy.” But one comment stood out:
“She looks like that woman from ‘Misery.’” (After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, my professor mercifully named the actress, Kathy Bates).
And then, everyone chimed in with “yeah, she’s a great crazy woman.”
Um… thanks?
As a theatre major, I was cast- or rather, typecast- in certain roles. I was the “character actor,” rather than the ingénue.
Still, I couldn’t get past the ingénue’s mystique. I associated that type with beauty, a/k/a, inherent worth.
And, since I linked beauty with extreme thinness, well, things went awry. Hopelessness, despair and wrong views of my personal worth started the ball rolling. Physical and emotional complications, like full-blown eating disorders, an irregular heartbeat and suicidal thoughts were also some fun highlights.
Types. Do we believe only certain characteristics are worthy? What types do we covet- and what types do we disdain?
A 1929 Armand beauty ad once promoted different beauty types, touting its “Find Yourself” campaign, complete with each female type’s matching names. Here are those descriptions…
The Cleopatra Type: “Masculine hearts pound when she goes by.”
The Godiva Type: “Anglo-Saxon, blond, winsome and how!”
The Sonja Type: “Dark and mysterious, she has a way with her.”
The Cherie Type: “She brings the boulevards of Paris to America.”
The Sheba Type: “Dark-brown hair and a queenly air.”
The Lorelai Type: “Blond and aggressive, she ‘gets her man.’”
The Mona Lisa Type: “Light-brown hair and a devastating smile.”
The Colleen Type: “She has more pep than a jazz band.”
Within that extensive list, however, there is not one mention of an “Authentic” type. That’s probably by design.
Inauthenticity is more profitable. It can create a spirit of competition emphasizing aesthetically pleasing, surface values, rather than the more significant matters of life. Everyone gets obsessed with appearance, so they miss other things that are happening around them. I know I was not preoccupied with world affairs and helping my fellow man.
Rather…
“...They were now competition for me. If I could be thinner than these women, then I’d be better than they were as well… Competition grew between me and any thin girl or woman. Mirror, mirror: I had to be the thinnest one of them all. It was life or death importance, anything less than that was unacceptable. Gaining any weight, whatsoever, meant failure, simple as that...What I didn’t realize at the time was that my eyes and mind were incapable of seeing anything but a distorted image...”
(Excerpt from “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death Of An Eating Disorder”)
However, no matter what I did, I could not attain that coveted standard. No matter what, I never felt “beautiful.” I never felt valuable.
And, of course, I never felt authentic.
Breast cancer has since radically shifted my sense of body image.
Now, gritty reality, loss and potential death have eclipsed any kind of type, ingénue or otherwise.
Yeah, this was real. This was happening.
Breast cancer targeted every element of my femininity and self-image. Most impactful? Well, I no longer have my breasts. How’s that?
I’m not the first woman to come to this brutal confrontation; sadly, I won’t be the last, either.
Nevertheless, my breast-less body has provided me an education nothing else could. If I no longer have this, arguably, most identifiable, feature of womanhood, am I still a woman?
I say yes, and, yes, doing so has been hard-won. I face my breast-less chest daily. I am getting used to this newer, different version of myself. And I’m choosing to love and it.
I am not my breasts. I am not a physical attribute. There is far more to me than a physical body.
However, it is within my best interest to embrace, not reject, my physical body. My body is what it is. It’s not bad; it’s not ugly, no matter what “type agenda” tries to convince me otherwise.
And this has been a powerful shift for someone, like me, who once held such a narrow definition of beauty and worth. It’s all opened now. Rediscovering and accepting oneself, the actuality of it is personal, difficult and ongoing…for the rest of one’s life.
That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.
Grief and fear exist, in my life in a different way now. I have had to mourn not just the loss of my breasts, but the changes forced upon my life. There’s no willing it away; it’s a byproduct of a life-threatening diagnosis. One’s mortality become real; death becomes real. I’m not constantly pre-occupied with these thoughts and feelings 24/7, but, nevertheless, they are there. And, of course, being a particular “type” does not create immunity from this newer normal.
That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.
Physical discomfort, likewise, is a newer reality in my breasts’ absence. Surgery simply did not just remove these body parts. It also left a scar, with its scar tissue, along with a change to how my chest looks and feels. Think plastic-y breastplate I cannot fully take off. That feeling. Being a “Sheba Type,” other any other offered possibility, like the Armand ad promises, cannot do anything to change that experience.
That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.
I am more direct now. And this is probably the greatest transformation to my person, even greater than losing my breasts. Authenticity presents itself in such rawness.
Before my diagnosis, surgery and treatment, I had the luxury of not needing to face my issues head-on. Yeah, sure, I’d been in therapy for my eating disorders and abuse experiences, but I was merely skating around various issues. I could still play the game, play the role, play the type.
Now, I’m facing things, with less flinching than I was before. Call it mortality, perhaps, yet again. Call it age. Call it maturity (well, that one may still be up for debate).
Whatever it is, there has surfaced a different boldness to tackle things. I don’t have the time, the energy or the will to avoid getting to the point.
I’m now more involved and earnest in this process because, let’s be authentic, my life may not be as “lifelong” as I previously thought.
Mortality.
No one gets out of here alive.
I’m not doing it perfectly. For anyone who’s been in recovery from anything in life, we know it’s an imperfect, ongoing process.
That’s authenticity and I’m learning it, day by day.
Now, it’s less about being some delicate expression of a beautiful girl or a certain “type;” it’s more about being authentically me, beyond image, beyond presumption, beyond the pleasing scripts we so often find ourselves voicing.
Authenticity. More than a type, more than a look. It is a way of being in the world and, day by day, you and I make choices concerning it.
How real are we? How honest?
You may not be going through a major health crisis, but right now, you are going through something, aren’t you?
How are you playing into a type?
And really, is it working for you?
It’s time to question the importance of type versus our authentic selves.
Where’s the disparity? Why do we need the shell of a type instead of simply being ourselves?
Each of us is worth participating in our own unique authenticity. No image, manipulation, personal experience or other individual’s opinion are required to qualify that.
Therefore, right now, let’s dare to type ourselves as authentic beings of integrity. Its effects are everlasting.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
The Happy Phantom
I can be a bit of a festive decorator. And Autumn is the kickoff to that.
September had barely turned it calendar page and I was buying some Halloween accents at the House of Target. Specifically, a cute little package, containing two small ghosts, labeled “Grow Ghosts.”
This little guy pictured here.
Cute is my Kryptonite and cute faces, forget it!
Singer, Tori Amos has been a favorite artist of mine. She exploded onto the music scene in 1992 with her incredible album, “Little Earthquakes.” A music critic once sang her praises, recommending the album to anyone who wants to understand women better.
True that.
One of my favorite songs on the album is “The Happy Phantom.”
Some of its lyrics…
“Oo who
The time is getting closer
Oo who
Time to be a ghost
Oo who
Every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will we pay for who we been?”
Years after I first became familiar with the song, it has popped up again, because of not just my little Grow Ghost guy here, but also because of my two years and going cancer diagnosis reality.
Now, the whimsy of the song (and yes, it is whimsical), adds more poignancy for me.
But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
Back to My Grow Ghost guy.
Once I got this package home, I wanted to get cracking at it. I have a terminal case of the big kid in me. I’d probably decorate Easter eggs now if I could. Alas, wrong time of year; I don’t think I can find any of the PAAS kits now.
Anyway, the instructions directed me to soak this cute little happy phantom in a bowl of water to allow for the magic to happen. Simple enough. The instructions recommended a full 72 hours to let the ghost do its thing.
And the instructions also chastened, “be patient.”
(Uh-huh. Antsy me? No problem).
Anyway, for the next three days, I checked out its progress. Day one, it was barely budging. Day two, there was an increase of an inch. And finally, day three, it had doubled in size.
When I took this not-so-little Grow Ghost out of the water, dried him off (he was quite slimy) and set him out on display, that whimsical smile, now enlarged, kept bringing my attention back to Tori Amos’ song.
“Oo who
The time is getting closer…”
Mortality.
I’ve written about this subject matter before. Cancer brought that to the forefront for me. My diagnosis reminded me that death is a part of life. Cliché, I know.
But “The time is getting closer” for all of us.
“…Oo who
Time to be a ghost…”
Likewise, each of us cannot avoid the reality that our temporary shell, our human bodies, will be shed. We may not look like the cute little Grow Ghost. We may not resemble the familiar Halloween costume of a sheet over ourselves, but you and I are spirits, transcending the body. Recognition of that fact can, therefore, place us in a position in which we are willing to embrace being transparent, “see through,” with ourselves, others, life and truth, in general.
I know. It’s a tall order.
We choose how we’ll respond when it is, indeed, “time to be a ghost.”
How am I responding, thus far?
Well, I swing the gamut between epic freak outs/crying jags, to settling into an emboldened form of assurance/confidence. For me, now, there’s no point in hiding or lying. Neither will prevent the ghost from happening.
“…Oo who
Every day we're getting closer…”
One day less.
What will this day look like? What can I do with this day, cancer, or no cancer?
I remember, as a kid, reading Sylvia Plath’s book, “The Bell Jar.” I was struck by how this female character, grappling with her mental health, mused on exactly how many showers/baths she had left to experience in her life.
I, likewise, muse on things.
How many days do I have left in this thing known as my life on the planet?
How many sunrises and sunsets?
How many birthdays and holidays?
How many times will my cat cuddle with me?
How many encounters with the special people in my life will I experience?
How many more times will I tweeze my eyebrows?
Every day, I am getting closer…
How much am I a Happy Phantom about that reality? It varies, from day to day. Nevertheless, my spirit is preoccupied about the “how many left” question.
I can shove it down. It still pops up like a beachball held underwater.
“…The sun is getting dim…”
Ah, yes. What’s the opposite of day, with its sunshine?
Night.
Night, with, seemingly, endless silence and its pitch-black atmosphere.
Dark night of the soul, in five, four, three, two…
Ever have one of these suckers?
Insomnia has plagued me most of my life. Cancer, however, has made those days of garden variety tossing and turning seem downright quaint.
Just too much caffeine. Worried about how I’ll do on a test. Anxiety about paying a bill.
Oh, how innocent.
Cancer, since 2017’s diagnosis, has made, well, the dark night of the soul a little pricklier.
Again, death thoughts. Nothing but fun death thoughts, lying awake for hours. I have tried escaping it, from time to time, by watching Netflix, journaling, reading, but I usually struggle in the concentration department.
Because, cancer. Because, death.
Because, insert humanity cliché here.
Yep, c’est moi, blinking in darkness.
There is nothing new under the sun (note my pun) about this.
The sun gets dim on all of us.
Cancer just makes things more real. Survivorship doesn’t eliminate the death threat. It can sometimes be, at best, a semi-colon. It’s a pause, the gentle, dark night of the soul reminder that “this isn’t over yet.”
Dark night, dim sun. Same difference. No escaping either.
I know. This is a fun pep talk.
But often, in the middle of these many dark nights, I’ve used it as that very pep talk.
Again, cliché alert. This is not a human experience, solely picking on one person with the death reality. Each person dies.
Needlepoint that on a pillow.
Do what you want, but that freaking sun is getting dim.
No amount of busying oneself or denying it will change it. The ghost needs to appear at night, not during the day.
“…Will we pay for who we been?”
Going back to my little Grow Ghost buddy, the smiling, enlarged novelty item soon reverted to its original size after just a few days.
Just like that.
Why did it do that?
Should I overanalyze it like I usually do about everything else?
Sackcloth and ashes? What did I do wrong? What did Ghost-y do wrong?
Was any progress made in vain?
The simple, yet, extremely dissatisfying answer was this: he was just returning to his original state.
Anticlimactic. No judgment, just matter-of-fact reality.
Cancer- death- imperfect life beg questions of us, don’t they?
How do we return to our original states? What will that look like?
What IS our Karma? Our reward? Our punishment?
“…Will we pay for who we been?”
This is a squirmy question to think about.
Faith has been a large part of my life. And, while beliefs have changed over time, the core remains. I believe there is a Creator. No one certainly could just hatch by themselves.
So, what, exactly, is each person supposed to do with that?
Principles of good and evil, sin, atoning, making amends…where’s the line drawn, separating “our side” from “Divine stuff?”
Cliché humanity rears its head again.
Cancer can really get a person examining such cliché minutia, like their lives, their souls, depended on it. And I am ever a part of that cliché now. I’m digging deep, searching for that elusive inner peace. That’s a large chunk of what it’s all about, right?
Peace with oneself. What’s meaningful? What can we let go of?
How do we return to the former incarnation of self, as Ecclesiastes 3:20, so succinctly, states?
“…all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”
No matter what my flaws, faults, sins, efforts and accomplishments are, I will return to my original state.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Am I a happy phantom about that?
Do I possess the same whimsical grin as my Grow Ghost buddy?
Sometimes I do. Sometimes, it’s sackcloth and ashes time. Sometimes, it’s an ugly cry.
Cliché.
Dag-nabbit! Just cannot get away from the cliché!
Doomed to humanity. Film at eleven.
The Challenge: Write Your Own Lyrics:
Each of us needs to face what is. Not what we desire, hope for, cling to, but what is.
What is? Temporary life. Mortality. Imperfection.
Yet, despite those things, we can write our own songs, known as our lives. What will that look and sound like?
How will we haunt the world when we’re gone? I’m not talking about shouting “Boo” or rattling chains. I’m talking about the unique impact we have on this thing called life. What will that be? When you and I have moved on, being fully spirit, what remains?
Death is democratic; life continues, in spite of mortality.
For some of us out there, this is good news.
For some, it, perhaps, is an insult.
Regardless, spirit: yours, mine, ours (in the vast humanity context of things).
The trick and/or the goal, perhaps, of it all? To find our phantom happiness with that.
To live and to let go, in a meaningful way, so that we can say, like Tori Amos sang…
“And if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom…”
May we all be members of this Happy Ghost Choir.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
Friendships: Silver and Gold…Really?
If you were a Girl Scout, perhaps, you remember this friendship song. In my troop, we usually sang it right before we joined hands and wound ourselves into a cinnamon roll hug.
Anyway, this song has been imbedded in my head ever since. As I’m typing, I’m humming it. And, in recent days, it’s prompted a challenge to that friendship ideal...
“Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other gold.”
Really? Should we focus on that? Accumulating- hoarding- friends?
Popular culture is all aglow with Marie Kondo and her art of tidying. She encourages each of us to get rid ourselves of whatever doesn’t “spark joy” in our lives, while we roll our socks and t-shirts. An anti-clutter principle is employed in her method: if it no longer fits your current life and you don’t want to carry it into your future, release it.
Therefore, I started thinking about “Kondo-ing” my relationships, a very anti-Girl Scout friendship song thing to do.
I had expelled bags, boxes, papers, clothes and material clutter. I felt better, having done so. However, I was still overwhelmed, distracted and drained. Why? Look at my sock drawer! Look at my closet! Look at the freer, emptier space in my home! Surely, new, fresh air was circulating, right?
Not quite. I heard the song again.
“Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other gold.”
Hello, Clutter of my unprofitable relationships. Relationships akin to that fluorescent green crop top I purchased, believing with complete confidence, I’d wear it real life. Or that jaunty hat. I tend to look like I’m doing a bad impression of Diane Keaton in the movie, “Annie Hall.”
Still, it could not be denied. My so-called friendships were taking up space…and mocking me in the process.
So, why do I keep these relationships around? Well, like the stuff of clutter, I found there to be similar excuses, pleading for their right to exist.
1) “I might need this someday.”
It’s that dress, the one that does not fit. The “go-to,” even though I haven’t gone there in years. But I hang onto it because “it’s always been there.” Familiar. Comforting. A safety hatch.
I had a once-close friend that fit that bill. I thought we were inseparable. We shared eerie similarities, both coming from an “only child” world view. And those suckers have been hard to come by for me.
Anyway, I moved away years ago and we stayed in touch by phone for a while. And then, things trailed off. The calls lessened. Even Facebook messaging screeched to a halt. No “explanation.” After attempts by phone, email and social media, I got the message. The two of us “once-close” friends…weren’t. No explosive argument. Just life moving on. Time to let go.
Most of us women live and die by our relationships. It starts early. How many best girlfriends did you go through by the time you reached the third grade? How many times do we proclaim, “Friends forever?”
“People come into your life for a reason, for a season or for a lifetime.”
I usually roll my eyes whenever that gets quoted. But sometimes, it’s dead-on. I struggled to hang onto a temporary “seasonal” person, trying to make then a “forever” variety. It doesn’t work that way. The incessant attempts to stay connected frustrated, drained and blocked me.
Indeed, for each person you and I cling to, who is not a willing party, we say no to someone who is an enthusiastic candidate.
We need to admit truth. The “we” that represents us plus them has changed. And we cannot change it back.
2) It’s not that bad; I can still get some use out this.
I had a purse that was kept together by safety pins. But I was convinced I could still use it. Straps would give way in public. I’d scoop the purse up and once home, try to repair it with still more safety pins. The thing was still falling apart.
In one friendship, I was free counseling. Repeatedly, I chose to be on the listening end of the latest tale of woe, a bad divorce and other assorted drama. Yet, whenever I managed to slip in an issue or two of my own, all of a sudden, she “had to go.” Until the next crisis. She had a wicked sense of humor and whenever it wasn’t about the crisis du jour, we could have some great back and forth. But alas, the lion’s share of our discussion was me as a sounding board, her as a patient.
I stayed connected to her for those few fleeting good conversations. I convinced myself, “If I can just get through this hump, it’s all good. Just hang on.”
It was not about devotion. It was about some sick need that gets met from the dysfunction.
And it wasn’t just my friend’s needs. No, I got my need met from the crisis-heavy discussions. I was the comfortable therapist, nonchalantly peering in on someone’s problems. I was safely at a distance. My issues must not have been “that bad,” because I never felt an urgency to plead for them to be heard.
But that became more difficult to maintain after my Breast cancer diagnosis. Now I needed to be heard and the status quo, one-way therapy did not work. After fifteen years, it was time to end things.
3) It over-promises, yet under-delivers.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
Years ago, I bought some high heels with leopard print all over them. They were fabulous and hobbled me every single time I tried walking in them. I was Bambi struggling on the frozen pond.
But I believed they were a staple; animal print, after all, is a neutral. They’ll never go out of style. I can always count on them.
I had a twenty- year friendship with someone who I thought was a supportive person.
Yet, once again, I placed myself in a situation to chase someone who really wasn’t interested in being caught. I tried to reach her by phone. She was always “busy,” “en route to a conference,” “in a meeting.” When I finally got ahold of her, voice- to- voice, the obligatory “what’s going on with you” question surfaced. And I finally had the chance to tell her about my Breast cancer diagnosis. She was shocked, asking why she never heard about it.
I had posted about my diagnosis on social media. We were also Facebook friends. I was not hiding.
After that voice- to- voice recap, I tried, again, to reach her by phone, to no avail. We kept setting up times to speak. She kept cancelling, again, citing “busy.”
I heard- and felt- something different. I was not a priority relationship in her life.
I get it. Busy.
We’re all busy. Life is busy. But come on, somehow, in life, you and I find the time, make the time for who and what are truly important to us. Once is an event, perhaps. Twice, a coincidence. But if a behavior keeps happening, that is a pattern; that is a habit. Actions do speak louder than words.
Clutter, here in this kind of relationship dynamic is represented by the accumulation of experiences in which we are not treated as an important priority. I believe that too often, “busy” is code for “I’m not interested in you.”
Again, does it keep happening? When you walk away from this person-or this attempt at connecting with this person- how do you feel?
Pay attention to that and declutter, if necessary.
4) I don’t know. (Is ambivalence the silver or the gold? I can never keep it straight).
Once, upon receiving an online clothes order, the company threw in a gardener’s bag for free. For customer appreciation. The bag was yellow and came with a set of tools, to boot. I hate gardening. But, don’t look a gift-bag in the mouth, right? So, I added it to my closet. And never once used it. It didn’t spark joy. It was just there. Mocking me with its abundance of pockets, just perfect for holding the gardening tools.
Social media gives us the illusion of “friends,” from different eras, from different walks of life and from different locations. But how many are exactly that? Friends? Maybe counted on one hand, maybe even two?
I have accumulated clutter on social media. I’m guilty of allowing this relationship hoard to exist. I’m in the process of culling my list of individuals “following” me. Because, let’s face it, there’s no following going on with some of them. I have gotten rid of many “people of my past:” theatre comrades from my college days that I’ve never met for coffee, a few stray acquaintances from a passing interest like axe throwing (don’t judge, please).
And, yes, unfortunately, some of my supposedly true-blue friendships have also gone by the wayside because, apart from the internet, there is no evidence of the two of us in each other’s lives.
Does this sound like I’m an impossible person to know, let alone, befriend? Perhaps. I’m working on my internal, emotional clutter.
But I think there’s a bigger issue we all share. Some people just need to exit our lives. No yelling, no fighting, no crying jags need to always occur. Sometimes, things just end.
Instead of singing the Girl Scouts’ friendship song, maybe we should start singing “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen” (Yes, I know, it’s an insufferable earwig. Many of you have probably heard a toddler belt in out at high volume in your minivan. Sorry).
Still relationship endings can be okay. When we end a friendship, another will surface in its place, sooner or later. And, in the meantime, we can clean ourselves up a bit. We can address why we’ve gotten comfortable allowing this clutter to exist in the first place.
What need or excuse does this person fill?
What is comfortable about him/her?
What is masochistic about this dynamic?
How are we the sadist in the relationship?
Clutter obscures everything.
It could be possible that the true, meaningful relationships are from people we deemed least likely. Or, maybe they are people we have yet to meet. Regardless, we have a difficult time seeing anything silver or gold in its quality, if distracting quantity is all around us.
So, we need to ask…
Does this person truly “spark joy?” How?
Are they interacting, supportive and healthfully involved in my life?
Do they still fit in my life?
Why is this person still here?
Is this relationship silver? Is this relationship gold?
That is the song we need to sing.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse
