Nana

The older I get, the more I seem able to accept some changes while at the same time becoming more resistant to others. Strangely, it's the big things in life, like moving, death of a loved one, relationship changes - that I seem to flow with and accept more readily than the small things. Morning routines, small creature comforts, etc. need to be the same or I find myself feeling out of whack.

My grandmother passed away this morning. She had a massive stroke over a week ago that seems to have banished all of her identifying personality characteristics and struck her down to just a hollow shell of a human, left only with lizard-brain functions. Just enough to emulate an emotive person behind the seemingly sightless eyes and now silent mouth, but not enough to convince us she's still really there. It was a devastating thing to witness, but while we were all horrified at what she had to suffer through, I think our real horror is knowing that if she knew that we were seeing her like this, she'd be inconsolable. I know she doesn't want to be remembered that way. Nobody would. That wasn't her, it was just the remnants. As harsh as it sounds, as soon as I saw her so incapacitated, without her hair and lipstick done, all I could think was, "go to the light, Nana! You don't want to be here anymore!" I felt like there was nothing left here for her, and I wanted her suffering to end quickly. I'm surprised that I was so analytical and accepting about it, almost detached. But I think that's because I'm not going to be selfish and mourn MY loss of a grandmother, as much as I'm glad she's not suffering now, and is back with her parents, siblings and husband, whom she has dearly missed since each one departed this earth. 

So I'm going to write about how I will choose to remember her, and hope that with enough time and Malbec, I can maybe banish the memories of her last sad days from my memory forever and replace them with all of the good ones she gave me as a child.

Nana (as we called her) was trained as a hairdresser as a young lady. And make no mistake, she was a BEAUTIFUL girl anyway. All of the siblings (her 3 sisters and one brother) in that family were very good-looking, funny, and smart. I can't remember a time ever seeing Nana without her hair done perfectly. Lipstick on, when fancied up a bit for church, but never garish or attention-seeking. She was just a very proper lady. She loved to attend church, her vegetable and flower gardens, and she loved to sing. She always fostered my love of music. She loved her birds - she would watch for hours one she called "Jenny Wren" outside of her kitchen window, and tell me all about her comings and goings. Like everybody on that side of the family, along with the good sense of humor came a very stern Austrian disciplinarian side to balance it. There was to be absolutely no bs whatsoever when you were around her or her sisters. You behaved, 100% of the time. And if you didn't, you'd get a sharp word that stung, being delivered from the lips that so frequently praised and encouraged us instead. We would do anything to stay in the sunshine of their good graces. We were fortunate enough to have moved to a house right next door to Nana and Pupa when I was 6, just as my sister was being born. So I had a built-in babysitter who was family - the perfect arrangement. Or so it seemed to me, anyway. Her very opinionated personality sometimes clashed with my mother, who was always a free spirit. But this isn't exactly a newsflash, a mother-in-law not always getting along with a daughter-in-law, especially when grandchildren were involved.

One of the funniest memories (now) is how Nana would insist we kids spend the night at her house the night before school pictures were taken so she could do our hair. Remember, she was trained in styles and techniques that were about 40-50 years older than I was. Frequently, I'd end up with a frizzy perm, bowl cut, or baby bangs for my school pictures. Between the outdated, age-inappropriate hairstyles she gave us and the hippie remnant clothes my parents were still allowing me to dress in, those pictures are just stupendous. I still hide them from people some 35 years later. But she meant well and it clearly gave her great pleasure to do that for us. 

Another good memory was that on our birthdays, we'd always get a phone call and she would sing the entire "Happy Birthday" song to us. You knew if you answered that phone call on that day, you couldn't get a word in until she was done singing. Conversely, when we called her on her birthday, she fully expected us to do the same for her. (I learned not to call her when I was with friends I might not want to sing in front of.) I could tell she always cherished those calls and took a genuine interest in what was going on in my life. In her later years, when she became hard of hearing, I know it pained her to miss out on details of what we were saying, but she was too proud to admit it. So sometimes she would either pretend to have heard what I said, or would just cut me off completely and change the subject. While at first this was frustrating, once I realized where the behavior was coming from, it just made me sad. 

Like that line from the Eagles' song "Desperado": "You're losin' all your highs and lows...". Is that what old age is? A steady, slow descent from possessing a full range of senses to that cone narrowing, giving you tunnel vision, selective hearing, and a fixation on those little things in life, like that one bird living outside your kitchen window? Is that what's happening to me already, at 41? Without my certain little rituals and routines, I feel "off"? And in a few years, maybe it will make me straight up cantankerous, and I'll start doing everything I can to avoid a disruption in my now-rigid routines?  Am I starting to lose my highs and lows from too-loud house music, or am I still hearing the full range of sound?  That stuff scares the hell out of me. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be what others (including myself) think of as "old". But here I am, accepting the death of a grandparent, a major life event, without much of a ripple in my calm (sadness aside, of course). But I'm sure I'll manage to get bent out of shape over minor travel inconveniences on my way home for the funeral, like not being able to fly on my favorite carrier or not getting an aisle seat. Apparently that's just where I am in life now.

What many people don't know about my grandmother (because it really never gets mentioned, as if it's not a factor) is that she was born with a hip problem and one leg significantly shorter than the other. Her sisters told us tales of pulling her in a wagon to school because she couldn't keep up. She wore a shoe with a 'lift' - a huge platform heel - almost all of her life. She had multiple hip replacements. She walked with a very pronounced limp and frequently, a cane. And she NEVER complained. Not once. Not about the pain, not about the inconvenience, not about how 'unfair' it is to be born crippled, not about the probable ridicule she suffered at the hands of the other children, not about having to use orthopedic shoes, not about the surgeries. She complained about NOTHING. And she had far more to complain about than most, had she felt the need to indulge herself. But she never did. She was downright stoic when it came to bearing the load she'd been given in this life. She had a family who loved her, a husband who cherished her, children and grandchildren who needed her. So she was always there to hear our little whines and gripes, but never unburdened herself to anyone that I knew of. Maybe in her prayers, but I have a feeling she wouldn't even complain in private. She lived through the Great Depression, she saw her parents work hard to provide, and she was grateful for what she had. When I start feeling sorry for myself or want to complain about the banalities of life. I need to remind myself of the role model I had in her and maybe suck it up just a little bit since clearly she was way tougher than this army chick right here.

She may not have been a perfect human being, but none of us are. She was a very good grandmother, archetypal even, and we are so fortunate to have had her in our lives. She made the best after-school peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches ever, and sometimes those little creature comfort routines really are the important things in life.

Rest in peace, Nana. I will see you in every bird that sings and flower that blooms.

dodging bullets

Have you ever felt like life was just an exercise in dodging bullets?  Metaphorical ones, of course (for most of us); the situations that come screaming at us too fast to fully analyze, but we're forced to choose a course of action and live with the consequences anyway?  Sometimes we don't even get a chance to make the choice; the gun is behind us, and by the time you hear the report of the shot echoing through the room, its path has already been carved through your life regardless of the plans you already had in place.

Sometimes when it happens, you can't believe your luck.  I mean, clearly, who wants to be shot, right?  You can see it right at the moment it happens, like a near miss in a car accident.  "Phew, glad I'm ok!"  But other times, that bullet might be disguised as something else, something actually desirable.  Something you might want to be hit with, like a tossed bouquet of flowers, some kind of love bomb.  You are all lined up to receive it, and BAM! some completely average-looking heifer leaps in front of you and intercepts YOUR bouquet.  You hate her for it, you are hurt and indignant and feel left out since you just *know* it had been destined to be all yours, not hers.  It's only after days (weeks, months) of tears and self-pity that you look in the rearview mirror and realize that the shrapnel and fallout from that love bomb would have messed you up so much more than you could have anticipated.  That "average-looking heifer" was your new BFF from the universe, taking a bullet for you because you didn't recognize it for what it was, so blinded you were from the glare coming off of its tip.

I missed a big one last week, .50 caliber at least.  My company had a RIF (Reduction in Force), and a rather large one at that.  After years of acquisitions, we had a lot of duplication of roles and were becoming top-heavy.  Cuts had to be made to keep us running in a lean and efficient manner, and management emphasized that those cuts were not a reflection on individual performance.  While I understand the need for these types of actions, and have survived dozens of them in my career, each one is like a tremor that cracks the foundation you are standing on.  I have left companies in the past because even though I knew I was a valued contributor, watching good friends (including some who I felt did a better job than me) lose their jobs in a seemingly arbitrary manner was creating some kind of corporate PTSD in me that I just couldn't live with. (See earlier blog post about this very thing here.)  Paranoia enters, which is the best fertilizer for growing self doubt.  Once you are doubting your security, you become hyper-aware of every nuance of your coworkers:  did my boss just surreptitiously roll his eyes at me?  Did that salesweasel who hates me because I have ovaries throw me under the bus?  Did my coworker rat me out because I don't have a decade of experience with our product?  Am I going to be cut because I'm "geographically undesirable"?  Next thing you know, you're sporting new baggage under your eyes and are too tired to work because you're losing sleep due to all the insecurities the situation has created.  Now you really ARE in danger of being cut, RIF or not, because your performance is slipping.  It's a negative cycle that I'd like to avoid, but this seems impossible to do in corporate America, particularly in software companies where the ebb and flow of industry trends, acquisitions and mergers, and the whim of seemingly capricious upper-level management all combine to control the next tremor.

This was the first major action of its kind since I've been at this company for the past 3.5 years.  The only thing I know for sure at this point is that it won't be the last.  The smartest thing I could do is have a fallback plan, just in case, but the mere thought of opening that particular pandora's box is exhausting - polishing up the resume, fielding calls and emails from scads of recruiters...ugh.  I'm just not motivated.  I'll be having lunch with my boss tomorrow, and I'm sure he'll be as reassuring as possible whilst not going too far and outright lying to me about job security.  One of the things we plan on discussing is a possible plan for me to spend more time in the beltway to be more accessible to the team.  My idea, not his.  (Although they have been haranguing me to relocate back to the area since my divorce, I've put them off every time.  After this RIF, I'm suddenly more willing to entertain the idea...)  

Lately I've been wondering if the universe isn't conspiring to somehow pull me back to the beltway for some future event or situation not yet on my radar.  After escaping my second shitty marriage (both of which I consider to be bullets I took the full force of but recovered from, stronger and wiser), I pulled some Matrix shit and dodged a few more, and the universe definitely helped me out there.  Some I was smart enough to dodge on my own, others, I had to be shoved roughly out of the way of, scraping my knees and elbows on the way down and taking one hell of a bruise on the ego to avoid.  But it worked.  I'm currently bullet-free, left only with some scar tissue and lessons learned to protect me from future shooting sprees.  Not only am I bullet-free, I'm just FREE.  Single.    Unfettered.  Unattached to anything except the house and financial responsibilities I'm tied to in Jacksonville.  It feels good!  It's been a long time since those major winds of change blew in my direction, and spurred me to put on my gypsy outfit and start thinking about what I really want and where I really want to go/be/do.  That particular breeze is definitely back, blowing my hair back and ruffling my skirt.  Feels good to be restless again, and so fitting that it always seems to happen in Spring, when nature herself is already changing things for the better.

The last time I lived in the beltway started out as a rough time in my life, became one of the BEST times in my life, then ended without fanfare as I moved to Miami with my starter husband, onto bigger and better (well, at least warmer) things.  Despite it all, I really have nothing but fond memories of my time in DC.  It's an amazing, dynamic city.  Over the past few years, I have also been fortunate enough to continue to travel there for work and maintain my friendships with some very important people in my life, and even make new friendships I'd like to explore and possibly develop further.  Is this why work has been pressuring me so much?  I need to be there for next steps to happen for my career or personal life?  Or is Jacksonville, although geographically the largest city in the U.S., just too backwater to contain me?  (Wow, that sounded pompous.  Sorry, but after living in two major markets, there's really no other way to express that thought.)

Of course I don't have those answers yet, and I won't pretend to.  What I've learned up to now is the best thing I can do is pursue opportunities when they are presented to me, even if they seem difficult or unlikely to pan out.  The only regrets I have are the things I haven't done or given a chance, and I don't want to start having those now.  

Gotta go, I have a suitcase to pack.  My plane leaves in a few hours, and I want to be prepared for whatever comes out of the firing chamber next.