Category: Let’s Be Real

Strangely Grateful

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when people lecture me on being grateful, I want to punch them in the stomach…I never do which is a good choice on my part.  I am growing up. I’m not sure anyone can look at anyone else’s life and decide whether you’re grateful or not. I think gratitude looks different in everyone.

I consider myself a “glass half full” kinda person. I look for reasons to be grateful. I put a positive spin on things, I’m excellent at reframing, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I work to be aware of my gratitude…and my attitude…which can have a rough edge at times. But sometimes shit goes down and I fear I may never be grateful again. The circumstances scream WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!!! And then I find myself grateful again, despite (or in spite of) my outer circumstances. I might surprise you. I shock the hell out of myself. I’m telling you sometimes I rise…me and the phoenix…fly baby fly!

Of course, all of this is leading to a point. I promise. I have the most amazing wife. She is literally my favorite person in the world…sorry P!nk. We got married on 11-11-11. We thought that would be a lucky day and its Veterans Day, so we got married on a Friday because our friends and family were off work. And now our anniversary is a national holiday…as it should be. Last year we weren’t able to be together for our anniversary, so this year we decided to start celebrating early. The plan was the beach…Treasure Island on Friday and Siesta Key on Saturday. We packed some bubbly (beer bubbles for her and Prosecco bubbles for me) and some snacks. It was a beautiful Friday. All sunshine all day. It was in the 80’s and so the water temperature was chilly but warm enough to swim. We floated out in the water and just hung out talking…about nothing really, and everything. 

When we were getting out of the water, I noticed there was a small step up out of the water and onto the sand…created by the tide I suppose. I walk with a crutch, and I use it at the beach and in the ocean. My point being that I was being careful and lest you think what happens next was alcohol involved, I had had maybe 6 ounces of Prosecco a couple hours earlier. So, I was steady on my feet…or as steady as I ever am on my feet. I started to step up out of the water twice and stopped myself because it didn’t feel safe with the waves. Finally, I took a step and as I did the sand gave way under me and I fell. I fell forward and on my outstretched left arm, which I heard snap and felt break. As a bonus, my elbow was also dislocated. This would be the time to tell you, or remind you, that I have an elbow replacement in my left arm. My interpretation of my elbow dislocating was that the replacement was completely mangled. When I cradled my left arm with my right hand, after I told Gayle to call 911, because I was definitely not okay, I could feel my replacement jiggling around…or my bones…or both. It felt like it was in three pieces. That’s a gross feeling. Even with all the surgeries I’ve had and the years of chronic pain, this is the first time I have ever told a medical professional that my pain was a ten…and I meant a FUCKING TEN!!!! 

People on the beach tried to help me stand up but I couldn’t take the pain of them trying to lift me under my arm. Finally, they pulled me by my shorts out of the water so I wouldn’t be knocked around with the tide coming in…I think it was coming in. I was getting wetter and colder by the minute. The paramedics carried me on a backboard to the ambulance. Slight side note, they put me on a backboard to the stretcher after I suggested it. I really think when you’re in a crisis you should not have to help the professionals with how to handle the situation. I’m making fun here, but they were great and very kind to me. Initially they were fixated on the idea of putting me in their wheelie chair thing and then confused by how they would roll it in the sand. So, the backboard was a welcome suggestion…a “good idea” even. 

Once I was in the ambulance, the EMT asked me if I had ever had fentanyl (I’m resisting the urge to make a bad joke here) and I said, “Yes, and if you have some I would like it NOW please.” Look at me still polite even while in raging pain. If I was a screamer or a crier, I would have been doing so much of both. Lucky for them I learned young to be quiet when in pain. No one wants to hear all that crying and whining anyway, even if your arm is in three pieces. Luckily the IV was put in quickly and a dose of Fentanyl followed. Five minutes later I asked for more. The first dose didn’t touch the pain. After the second dose I was able to relax the grimace that had become my face. I even managed to doze some during the 45-minute drive…I wanted to go to Morton Plant hospital and the EMT’s agreed…even though it was far. They really were great.

Then I got to the ER, got jiggled around, had X-rays, and some IV Dilaudid before I ever saw a doctor…at least I don’t think I had seen a doctor…my memory has a lot of fuzzy places. So, imagine my surprise when the doctor came in and said my arm was broken…that’s not the surprising part…wait for it…He said, “We’re going to admit you and you may have surgery tomorrow.” Now maybe I should have been prepared for that, given the circumstances, but I was not…not even a little.

Shortly after the doctor came in, I was moved to the surgical floor where some angelic nurses helped me change out of my swimsuit. I told them to cut the top off because I was not going to be lifting my three-piece arm to undress. They managed to get it off of me pretty easily, and without scissors. Turns out I had half of Treasure Island in my swim shorts. And that is the danger of pulling people, by their shorts, through the sand. Sand went everywhere. You could have built a small sandcastle in my room. I felt bad because someone from housekeeping had to come and clean it up. I just kept apologizing.

I did not meet my orthopedic surgeon until the next day. Dr. Andrew Boltuch, who my sister says is “too pretty” for her. There was more than one nurse who asked who he was after he left the room. He is very pretty…even a lesbian could see that. Not only is he pretty, but he’s also THE GUY for elbow replacements around here. Talk about serendipity…by the luck of who’s on call, I get the best specialist in the Clearwater/Tampa area…it might be all of Florida…or the United States…or the Universe! It’s hard to know.           

If you follow me, you know that I’ve had a lot of elbow surgeries, ten in fact. There have been repeated failures of the humeral component of my elbow replacement, and it has been revised four or five times in the past couple years. Including once when my joint got infected after surgery because of a sloppy stitching…and by that, I mean they left a fucking hole in my arm. That one surgery turned into three additional surgeries. Back to my point, my elbow is complicated. Even I know that. Dr. Boltuch told me that he had ordered a new humeral component with a longer stem so that it would go up beyond the fracture. He also ordered two cadaver bones to use to reinforce the fracture. So, there was no surgery Saturday. It took until Tuesday to get all the parts to put me back together again.

Tuesday, November 14th, I had a 6-hour surgery that began at 4:00 pm and ended at midnight. I realize that’s eight hours but that includes the getting me situated, asleep, sterilized, and then stapled back together parts. I love my doctor so much because whenever we’d ask him about the surgery, he’d think for a minute and then say, “It was so complicated.” I am hammered, glued, and nailed into place now. And except for the obvious healing pain, my elbow feels good. Better than it has in a couple years.

Now you may wonder, after ten surgeries and multiple revisions, why would I even consider having another implant put in. That’s a fair question and one my wife and I both asked. The doctor said he thought it was reasonable to try one last time with the new component parts and then if this one failed, he’d take the elbow replacement completely out. I would then be fitted for and wear a brace on my left elbow all the time. He said I’d have minimal use of my left hand. He also said that patients who have had that as their outcome are happy with it because they aren’t in pain anymore. Imagine that…no more pain. It made sense to me.

A small issue I haven’t mentioned yet is that the humeral component of my left elbow was already coming loose. When I would move my arm, the joint wouldn’t line up correctly and so I’d have to move it around until it was back where it was supposed to be. It was excruciating pain…although I only gave it a 9.5…because something could always hurt more…right? Anyway, I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon set for January to try and find out if anything could be done for my elbow…like injections or a brace. I had been told by the Mayo Clinic that unless something catastrophic happened to my elbow no one would ever do anything surgically to try and help it. At that time, I was already in pain every day…I’d say a 7 or 8…every day…every fucking day!

Now let’s be real…so far this story is pretty depressing. “Romantic day at the beach turns gruesome.” Some headline. I did start off talking about gratitude. And I did name this essay “Strangely Grateful,” so WTF?! The Fuck is that gratitude can find us, or be found, in the least likely circumstances. I was in excruciating pain all day every day because my elbow replacement was loose and moving around in me. With my history, no one was going to touch my elbow and I was depressed at the idea of living the next forty years in increasing pain. 

Enter catastrophic event…unplanned, unforeseen, and very unintended. I was being so careful. I am always careful because I don’t want to fall. That event, that catastrophic event, saved me. In that moment the best elbow doctor in this area (or the Universe) happened to be on call and happened to spend a good amount of time figuring out how to fix me. He had the answer for the chronic pain. Either this surgery works and I’m not in pain or the replacement gets removed and I’m not in pain. There’s no elbow pain at an 8 for the rest of my days. Catastrophe, serendipity, no more pain. I am grateful. I am fucking grateful! If my beautiful doctor wasn’t married, I’d marry him…well, if he wasn’t married, and I wasn’t married…and if I wasn’t a lesbian…you get the idea…we’d never be married. I do love that man and I am forever grateful to him for helping me. I can’t even imagine how complicated my surgery was, but he was in there for six hours doing everything he could to end my pain and leave me with a functioning arm. He came to see me after my surgery at 3:00 am to make sure I was doing okay. I did finally ask him if he ever sleeps because he does work some long ass hours.

Catastrophe, serendipity, no more pain. That’s my formula. Although a huge portion of the “no pain” is working through the healing pain to get to pain cessation. There are just never any good fucking shortcuts. So, catastrophe, serendipity, work your ass off, healing pain, no pain…at least not in that moment. I suppose the danger is in thinking we ever get to “no more pain” as a permanent place of residence. The amazing thing is that the catastrophe can lead to the end of your pain. I guess maybe our lives, if we’re really living them is just one catastrophe after another, with healing happening all around and within us…all the time.

Catastrophe, serendipity, healing pain, no pain…and never forget love. None of this means anything without love. The kindness we give strangers by pulling them out of the water by their shorts, the tenderness of professionals doing their best to ease your pain, the kindness of caring for another human being, the love of problem solving and mastering the complicated…all because we can. Because it is the kind and loving thing to do. Because in the end all that matters is how we love people. Divine is the task to ease pain. Let’s ease someone’s pain every day. Let’s be real…in the end love wins…always.

**Here’s a bonus “end of 2023” special for you…a little something for New Year’s Eve. At midnight open your back door to let the old year out and open your front door to let the new year in…don’t fuck up the order or you might get the same year over again. It’s an Irish tradition I’ve been told. I know I’m ready to open the back door and wish 2023 a fond farewell. 

Here’s to 2024 and all the catastrophes, serendipity, hard work, healing pain, no pain and love we can find, and we can share. Always share the love.

Happy 2024!

Does Absence Really Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is a well-known saying. We say it when we’re going to be away from someone, and it feels difficult. It’s going to be hard to be apart. It’s going to be scary. We say it to comfort ourselves and convince ourselves that everything will be fine. This past year, my wife has had to live between Colorado and Florida because she still has a job in Colorado. So, half of the year she was there and half of the year she was here in Florida with me. During that time, I thought a lot about absence and whether it makes the heart grow fonder. I’ve decided absence on its own doesn’t really do anything, except maybe, make us forget.

Just being absent doesn’t automatically expand our heart or deepen our connection. While my wife was gone, six to eight weeks at a time, I did things to remind her what she means to me. We FaceTimed every day, at least once, and sent texts throughout the day. I sent her cards, flowers, cinnamon bears, words of love songs, and I wrote her a love poem. I wanted her to know she was always on my mind. It occurs to me that what I did was make myself present…instead of absent. My heart grew fonder but not because of absence. My heart grew fonder because of effort and intention. I intended to remain as present as possible in her life while she was away. I made the effort to make that happen. So maybe, absence met with intention and effort makes the heart grow fonder.

On its own, I think absence, rather than making the heart grow fonder, makes us forget. Someone who has hurt you is no longer in your life, a difficult situation has ended, an abusive situation you’ve been removed from for years – years without contact with certain people or situations and we think we’re healed…the wounded part of us is all better. But is it? Not confronting something doesn’t make it healed. It makes it repressed or buried, possibly festering from lack of attention. Sometimes the absence of something doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, even though we think it does.

I have had a challenging relationship with my parents, mostly my mom, throughout my life – I sometimes think just the sight of me or the mention of my name pisses her off. It’s scary, at least to me. There was a period of time that I didn’t have contact with my family…about twelve years. I missed them. I thought of them often, especially on special occasions. I spent holidays with my own family – my wife, all of our children and grandchildren. Some holidays we went to Texas to celebrate with my wife’s extended family. And I missed mine.

After twelve years, I saw a picture of my parents on Facebook. I was startled by how much they had changed. They looked so much older and more fragile than I remembered them. I started thinking about their eventual passing. I didn’t want to have regrets about our relationship. Regrets that I hadn’t seen them at least one more time. So, I wrote a letter to my parents. I told them that Gayle and I had taken two of our grandkids to see The Harlem Globetrotters for a birthday gift and they loved it. I remembered them taking me to see them and I was thrilled…Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal. It was the best. I thanked them for that memory. I thanked them for taking me to see The Carpenters and John Denver. As an adult I realize that may not have been their first choice of things to do, but they did it anyway. I told them I appreciated that. That letter was the catalyst for reconnecting. 

I sent the letter when I felt like I didn’t need or expect any response. I didn’t want my letter to have an agenda. I also knew if I had expectations, I could end up hurt. My mom called me a week or so after receiving my letter. We had a nice conversation and I caught her up on my kids and grandkids. A couple months later, I drove with my daughter and her two kids to see my parents. We were in town for a few days and while we were there, we stayed in a hotel so everyone would have space for quiet and relaxation. It had been twelve years after all. Our visit went great. We talked and laughed and spent time looking at old photo albums. Remember when those were a thing? We left on great terms, and I continued contact with my parents through daily FaceTime calls.

Things with my parents were great, so great in fact that we invited them to move to Florida with us so they could be with family. We have wonderful extended family in St. Louis, and they have their own parents and families to care for. We wanted my parents with us so that we could take care of them. My hope was that they would never need a nursing home because we would have them with us, in our home. It was so perfect…in my head. My mom really wanted to be with us in Florida and convinced my dad, who acquiesced. My sister lives in New York and I had been in Colorado and my parents needed more contact than either of us could manage long distance. So, look out Florida here we come…turns out, right back where we started from.

We had so much fun when we first got here. We tried new restaurants and took drives along the Gulf. We laughed all the time. Then the honeymoon ended. Fuck. My mom was depressed and mean. We moved May first and by Mother’s Day I was sure I had asked someone who hates me to move in with me. She was verbally abusive to my dad and me. She said hateful things to both of us. I felt like she had stored up every negative thought she ever had about me, and once we were in Florida, felt like she needed to vomit all of it at me…usually while yelling it at me. I found out things she thought about me that really crushed me. I wish I could un-hear them but no such luck.

We forget. So, is this the forgive and forget type of forgiveness? I don’t think so. This is the I want the ideal in my head so much that I choose not to remember the past. I ignore what I know to be true. I ignore my perceptions and people’s warnings. This is the choice to ignore what’s real until reality smacks you with a two by four and knocks you flat on your ass…my ass. It didn’t feel like a choice. It felt real. I wanted it to be real. I wanted to belong to my parents, especially my mom. I wanted her to want me…to love me…to like me…me the person. But that’s not real. It’s not the experience of my life, especially here in Florida.

I came to realize that what I missed was the idea of my family, my mom. The mom who’s there after school with homemade cookies and milk. The mom who wants to hear all about your day. The mom who loves you as a daughter but also really likes you as a person. The mom who is proud of you just because of who you are, not because you went to law school. I had built up an ideal family in my mind and that’s what I was looking for. That’s what I thought I had gotten after a twelve-year separation. I thought I had achieved the “just moving forward” with my mom. 

Let me be real…it’s time for more therapy. I have personally assisted in the successful career of several therapists in my life. Doesn’t seem like therapy could hurt me. I’m already hurt. It’s time for me to separate myself from my mom, not physically, but emotionally. Everything she says hurts me and so I feel raw most of the time. I have to find a way to keep her messages out of me. Just because she says it doesn’t make it true. How long before I know that at my core?

I was so seduced by how well things went before we moved that I doubted myself and my memory of life with my parents. I wanted the seduction to be the truth, even though I should have known it wasn’t. I wanted to be able to just move forward. I forgot that my mom lives in the past. I forgot that she’s moody and depressed and won’t acknowledge it, let alone talk about it. I also let myself forget how volatile my parent’s relationship was…the fighting, screaming, throwing and breaking things, and name calling. My mom remembers every grievance she ever had against my dad. We lived in her reality of two or three stories that were supposed to show me that my dad was an ass. These incidences were from fifty years ago.

And here’s some reality, I didn’t really forget. I was in denial. Fuck. I didn’t want my memories and experiences to be real. I wanted to be wrong. It was easier to just blame myself. And so, I did. I blamed myself for every problem in my home. I rearranged the past to make it more comfortable for myself. It was so much easier for everything to me my fault. Simpler if I was the problem. If I was the problem before, and now I wasn’t, then everything would be good, right? Not so much. Just because it’s easier doesn’t make it true. I was thinking all sunshine and rainbows and instead got a hurricane of reality. The good news is the hurricane woke me up. The bad news is that I ignored everything I knew from my childhood and put myself right back in the center of the storm.

Absence didn’t make my heart grow fonder. It made my heart forget. I forgot. I tried to undo the past in my mind by blaming myself for all the problems. I allowed myself to be naïve about my parents, especially my mom. I wanted things to be good between us so fucking bad that I became blind and a bit deaf. I saw things as either/or instead of both/and. My mother can be kind and she can be mean. I can love my mom and still see who she is. Conflicting things can exist at the same time. It’s called cognitive dissonance. It’s holding two conflicting thoughts in your mind at the same time. Personally, I call it a mind fuck, but I’ll go with the official term. 

My thoughts about my mom are almost always conflicting. I remind myself that no one is one thing. No one is bad or good. We are all both. We are all shades of gray, and we change all the time. My history is to discount information that I don’t like and cling to what do. It’s time for me to do some rethinking and unlearning. I need to unlearn what I grew up believing was acceptable and rethink responsibility. I am not responsible for what went on in my house. My parents were the parents. And regardless of what someone else believes about me, it’s what I believe that matters. I decide who I am. I decide who I become.

Absence, on its own, is neutral. What we tell ourselves about absence is the story we create and the story we live. Instead of absence, I focus on presence. I need to remain present in my own life and in the lives of the people around me. I can be present even when I am physically absent. I can remain present in moments of cognitive dissonance. I can manage conflicting ideas and thoughts. And I can love imperfection…in others and myself. I can love humanness. I can love boundaries that allow me to be loving and safe. 

I live a life of intention and effort. I am thoughtful in my words and actions. I choose presence. I choose honesty and vulnerability. I choose moving forward. I choose love. In the end all that matters is how we love people…so I choose to love well.

Forgive and Forget…Really?

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

There was a prompt this morning in my Oprah’s “The Life You Want” calendar. Yes, I am the person who still keeps a paper calendar, two actually. I’m happy you could meet me. Check that off your bucket list. You’re welcome. Anyway, in the planner there was a question that I thought was intriguing, “How do I know when I’ve truly forgiven someone? How do I feel?” I found myself wondering how do I feel? And how do I know?

I have been thinking about the idea of forgiving and forgetting for a few months now. It started with a Brandi Carlile song in which she says that it’s harder to forgive than to forget. I got stuck on that idea and wondering if it’s true. I consider myself a forgiving person, so how do I know that I’ve forgiven someone, and do we ever really forget?

I come from a family that keeps score. And I mean a detailed accounting of everything you’ve ever done wrong. And not just that you were wrong but how you were wrong and exactly how wrong you were. There are family members who would be happy to recite your lifetime of egregious behavior and all the tragic results…usually none…only tragic to the scorekeeper. It’s Irish Alzheimer’s, you forget everything except the grudges. Do I even need to say that my grandmother was born in Ireland? Probably not.

The question Oprah asked before the knowing if you’ve truly forgiven someone, was “Is it possible to forgive and forget?” I don’t know. I believe we are capable of forgiveness. I also believe we are capable of convincing ourselves that we’ve forgiven something or someone when we haven’t. When it’s easier to believe we’re done with all that. We say we’ve forgiven, but have we? 

Forgive means, “an intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger or cancel a debt.” Now to forget means, “fail to remember, neglect to do, bring, or mention something, put something out of one’s mind.” It seems like forgiving is something you have to do. You have to try to forgive and work at it. But you can’t try to forget because then you are remembering in order to forget, and how could that possibly work? It’s confusing. To forget I must willfully ignore something but how can I forget when I am remembering in order to willfully ignore it. Maybe we can’t forget.

Forgiveness is deliberate. You make a decision to forgive, to release whatever feelings you have so they are no longer prominent in your life…or a main focus of your thoughts and feelings. Forget has many synonyms including disregard, ignore, neglect, overlook, slight…just to name a few. Passing over something without giving it due attention or willfully ignoring also describes forgetting. Those don’t seem so helpful. Forgiving takes extra attention and forgetting takes willful ignoring.

I’m not sure forgetting should be our goal. Ignoring, disregarding, neglecting, those are not activities we need to strengthen. It’s similar to repressing or denying our feelings. Trying not to feel because it’s less painful or to forget because it’s easier than dealing with your feelings or the person who hurt you. In general, repressing and denying are not the best practices for us. Those are the things we do that keep us stuck in patterns and habits we wish we would break free from. 

I know we can forgive. I don’t think we forget. We can’t erase our minds. Our memories are a part of us. All the events of our lives have shaped who we have become…and are becoming. Maybe forgetting isn’t in our best interest. If we forget, aren’t we at risk of repeating the same mistakes again and again? 

I think that the the actual memory of who or what did something bad to us is not the issue. It’s the meaning we attach to that memory, or the repetitive thought of that memory, that’s the problem. We give all of our experiences in our life meaning…we connect them to the story that we tell ourselves…it’s the story of us that we currently believe. That story makes it impossible for us to forgive, let go, and move forward in our lives. We’re stuck spinning the same story over and over again…until, maybe someday, we can do something new. Make a different choice.

About ten years ago I had a very close friendship end, and I didn’t know why. I tried to find out by calling, texting, emailing, and finally a handwritten letter.  None of which got a response from my former friend. I was left to make my own meaning out of that experience because I couldn’t get any information from the source. I have not forgotten that time in my life. When I look back on it there’s still a twinge of pain and sadness because of the end of the relationship. Have I forgiven her? Yes. Have I forgiven myself? Yes. I blamed myself for a long time, even though there no specific reason why I was to blame. After ten years I still don’t know what happened. That incident is no longer prominent in the story of my life. I have been able to file it away in a permanent “I don’t know” place and let it be. I have forgiven but I still remember…although much less often.

Now I can’t stop a thought from popping into my head. Thoughts come and go all day every day. I can’t stop a thought from arising, but I can stop myself from running wild with it. I can stop fixating on that thought and running down the rabbit hole of “you did me wrong” again…for the 4,000th time. I control my responses…always. Even when it all seems crazy, I have some shaky ass kind of control. I control the story line and I control me. I can run with the “I suck as a person” theme without any evidence to back that up or I can stop the thought in its tracks. I can relax, acknowledge the memory, feel whatever I feel, and then let it go. A thought never has to become a major motion picture in my head. I can just let it go. I can affirm to myself that I felt sad, hurt, betrayed, disappointed, traumatized…whatever all the feelings were. I can still feel those feelings, but I’m not stuck in their grip. I control me. Emotions do not control me. I control them. 

Our feelings change all the time. Sometimes it’s moment by moment. I am safe to feel all my feelings. Feelings are not a problem. Feelings are energy. Clinging to feelings or perceived wrongs is a problem. Keeping score does not help us here. Who wants to win the contest of the “most wrongs done to you?” My grandmother would have wanted to win and now my mom is up for the award. But why? How does that serve us? What does keeping score really do for us? Does it make us more compassionate or kind? Does it make us more flexible and loving? A big NO to both of those. Keeping score makes us rigid, unable to bend or to trust.

My problems arise when I make my feelings solid. When I don’t allow them to flow freely but instead, I hang on to them. I solidify my wounds and make them who I am…the most victimized person around, according to me. We might even have a false sense of righteousness…I’m better than you because you hurt me so. You done me wrong, as we say in the south, and now I will tell you all about it. Every moment of my pain described for you in excruciating detail. I have a firm grip on my pain and I’m not ever letting go. And if I can’t let it go, I’ll make sure you can’t either. 

Let’s be real…forgiveness is hard. It’s hard to let go of something or someone who caused us pain. It’s hard not to retaliate. It’s hard to go high when they go low. Forgiveness does not just happen. Forgiveness is a choice. It’s a choice to move forward. A choice to live and move and breathe. It’s a choice for freedom. Our own freedom and perhaps for the person who hurt us as well. It’s a choice to honestly assess what we lost. It’s a choice to let it go. When I choose freedom for myself, I choose it for you too. That’s the gift of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is not earned. It’s a gift. Maybe if I had to earn forgiveness it’d be easier for me to forgive myself and easier to forgive someone else. Maybe then forgiving would make more sense, or be easier, because I earned it…you earned it. I deserve it. Really no one deserves forgiveness, do they? We give a tremendous gift when we forgive someone who has hurt us, or we forgive ourselves. We let ourselves off the hook for something wrong or hurtful that we did.  And we let other people off the hook as well. We make a choice to leave the past in the past, where it belongs.

So, let’s be real…I’m choosing forgiveness…vulnerability and forgiveness…because forgiving is a vulnerable place to be. I choose to not to forget. What I remember instructs me. I will decide who I want to be. I make the choices, and I choose not to allow bitterness and resentment to define me…to become me. I am so much more. I am not stuck unless I choose it. I am fluid and changing all the time. To be alive is to be in a constant state of change. 

We learn by loving and by forgiving. I’m not going to forget. I learn by remembering. We learn by remembering. Let’s remember that love always wins. So always choose love.

I Am Fucking Exhausted…The 6th Stage of Grief

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

I did a 5-part blog and podcast on grief last year. I’m sure you know the stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I think there should be a 6th stage of grief…EXHAUSTION. Because grief is fucking exhausting! 

My whole body hurts with how exhausted it is from pain. This 6th stage is for any loss, any grief. I’ve written about chronic pain because I know chronic pain…and it is exhausting. I’m exhausted. I woke up this morning because I was in pain, and after a full night’s sleep I am still exhausted. Every ounce of me is exhausted. 

My dad died two months ago, and I’m exhausted. Exhausted and frustrated because I don’t think I’ve even begun to grieve his loss because I don’t have the time or the energy. I boxed up all of his clothes and donated them to hospice. It’s strange packing up someone’s life and giving it away. I don’t want all traces of him to be gone. My sister and I kept things that were important to us and things we thought would be meaningful to our kids. I had a dream that my dad’s baseball cap, which has been hanging on the kitchen chair for the past year, had moved to another chair. In the dream that was my dad letting me know he’s still around. And so, his hat hangs on the kitchen chair, waiting for him to move it. I’m really tired.

My mom has dementia and lives in a skilled nursing facility. She has good days and bad days – and they are either REALLY good or REALLY bad. Today is bad. I am the enemy she fights against. She says mean and hateful things to me. She hangs up on me several times a day…and, although it’s pitiful, I’ve tried to beat her to hanging up…although I won’t just hang up on her. I try and end a negative conversation first but she’s always faster than I am. It’s exhausting. I’m tired of trying to calm her and placate her. It’s exhausting. She’s exhausting. I found myself on the couch crying and telling my wife that I try to do everything for her but it’s never enough and it’s never right. I’m so fucking exhausted. I can’t even touch any of the grief I feel about her or my dad. It would require way more energy than I have – maybe more than I’m willing to give at this moment.

This week I found out that besides a separated AC joint in my shoulder I also have a torn rotator cuff. That helped explain the length of time it’s taking for my shoulder to heal and the amount of pain I’m still experiencing. I packed up my dad’s clothes, as I mentioned, and am in the middle of taking care of the financial stuff for both of them. We’ve also been trying to move my mom to a different facility where she would have more people she could interact with. I had the move all set up until the administrator, of the current facility, decided he knew what was best for my mom and told her she should go to assisted living. Of course, he didn’t tell her she can’t afford it and he didn’t consider her safety or needs because he doesn’t know her. He won’t do the paperwork for the transfer and now she only wants to go to assisted living. So, I’m having a pointless fight with this administrator, who is overstepping his position, and my mom is refusing to move…so that’s all fucked. I don’t really know what to do, what I do know is I’m exhausted. 

I think exhaustion is the 6th stage of grief. If you’ve ever experienced grief, it’s obvious, right? Exhaustion is the overlooked stage. Maybe exhaustion is the last stage coming after acceptance…you’ve come to terms with the loss but are so wiped out. You probably didn’t even realize how exhausted you were. I think exhaustion is woven in between all the other stages. There’s denial, exhaustion, anger, exhaustion, bargaining, exhaustion, depression, exhaustion, acceptance, exhaustion. It’s exhausting just reading all of that. And all those stages come and go as they please. I’m not sure how long it takes to feel like you are on the other side of grief…maybe there is no other side. Maybe we just adapt to the loss, and it becomes incorporated into who we are.

I am learning that exhaustion does not go away just because I accept a situation. Accepting chronic pain doesn’t stop me from waking up in pain. It doesn’t end the days where I am in so much pain, I’m afraid to take a step, because I’m scared of falling. It doesn’t stop the frustration of not being able to lift one leg to step into shorts because it’s agony…the lifting and the standing on one leg. It’s relentless. Its fucking exhausting. 

Accepting that my dad died doesn’t end the work that needs to be done. There are details to take care of…I didn’t realize how many details. And acceptance doesn’t help me deal with my mom’s emotions and grief. She was exhausting before my dad died. And accepting my mom’s dementia doesn’t stop the constant phone calls and complaints. It’s 10 am and I have already been hung up on 3 times. Acceptance doesn’t change that. I am exhausted. And in that exhaustion, I am trying to do the right thing all the time. But I don’t even know the right thing all the time. I am doing the best I can, although it never seems to be quite good enough. There’s always more – more to do, more to fix, more to appease, more to be responsible for…even if I’m not.

So, I’m exhausted, big damn deal. You may even be thinking, “Go take a nap!” This is not exhaustion that a nap helps or resolves. This is exhaustion in every cell of my being. Exhaustion to the bone. Now my natural reaction to all of this is to shut down emotionally…pull myself up by the bootstraps and march on. I don’t even own boots, but on I march. I’ll keep going because I don’t feel like I have any other choice. I’ll be responsible and keep moving forward…that’s what I do. As I write this I realize, I have totally shut down my emotions. I haven’t been feeling much of anything except pain and pressure. Pain in my body and pressure to keep doing…whatever needs doing.

I shut down inadvertently. I didn’t even realize it until now, writing about grief. A grief that I know I have not even touched…yet. So, what does shutting down do for me? It definitely does not end the exhaustion. It might even add to it because I waste so much energy trying not to feel. It cuts me off from myself and from caring for myself. I can’t care for what I refuse to see or feel. It creates a barrier between me and the people I love. It keeps them at a distance so that even if they could help, I’m not allowing them to. It causes doubts and confusion. It makes problems seem bigger than they are…it can make grief seem bigger than it is…or maybe more unmanageable is a better way to put it. I am fighting what already is…everything I’ve written about is already reality. I waste my time and energy longing for things to be different than they are. Now that’s exhausting…a waste of energy and exhausting.

So, let’s be real…sometimes I feel hopeless. I look out in front of me and fear that I’ll always feel as exhausted, sad, confused, and in the same pain as I am right now. But here’s the thing, I have no idea what the future holds…not 10 years from now, not even 10 minutes from now. There’s a line in the Indigo Girls song, “Closer to Fine,” that says, “And the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” I long for things to be stable and solid…something I can hang on to, solid ground to steady myself. But everything is changing all the time. If I can release this longing. Release this need for certainty. If I can lean into what scares me, then I can allow what is to be…as it already is…without all the kicking, screaming, and fighting. And I am closer to fine.

If I can stop looking for an answer, stop thinking I need an answer to save me…stop looking for the definitive…then I am fine. I am fine because I am here in this moment, just being in this moment, and I’m fine. When I try to change the past or arrange the future, then I’m really fucked. I’m fucked because I can’t but I’m still trying to convince myself that I can. I think maybe the answer is that there is no answer. There’s not one definite answer that works for the world. One answer that everyone is looking for. I don’t need an answer. I need a moment-to-moment strategy to live my life. And here it is…Stay. Just stay. Stay where I am. Stay with whatever feeling or situation I have in that moment. Just be where I am. Just be who I am. Just fucking stay. 

I need to release myself from the idea that I can take care of everything and everyone…I actually try to do that. Release myself and stay with whatever is there. I might feel scared or relieved, possibly pissed off, frustrated, discouraged, envious, abandoned, used, manipulated…you name it and stay with it…right where you are. Acknowledge whatever is there and stay with it. Look at it. Be curious about it. Be prepared to learn from it. We learn when we stay. We learn because we stay. Stay until you don’t need to anymore. And then, as Dharma used to say on “Dharma and Greg,” put it in a bubble and blow it away. Let go.

There you have it…my 2 strategies for life…Stay and Let Go. I knew I could be brief…too bad I didn’t start here; you could have been done in one minute. Seriously, it’s not bad advice. I’m learning to follow it myself. And behind the staying and letting go, always be guided by love…and some gentleness. It takes time to learn, and grow, and change. Love yourself through it. Love those close to you through it. Love those you’re not that crazy about through it. And people you don’t know or don’t think you care about…love them too. The only thing that will change the world is love. So, get to it. The world needs love. Desperately. 

Love must win…always.

A Letter to My Dad

~ Kai Raines ~ 1 Comment

Eulogy…that’s such a funny sounding word. Merriam-Webster says it comes from the Greek and means literally “good speech” and it is a “speech or piece of writing that praises someone highly, typically someone who has just died.” So that would be my dad. My dad died Friday, August 4th at 10:25 pm. It’s interesting that 10/25 was also his birthday. I’m not sure it means anything but it’s interesting.

My dad died. He died. I keep using that word, died, because the words we usually use, “passed away,” “gone,” “lost,” seem to understate what happened. Although I have to say, I used “gone” when I told my mom. Dads gone. That’s all that needed to be said. We use those other words as a way to somehow soften the impact of death or serpentine around reality. Now I’m a serpentiner (I feel certain that’s a word) for sure. I try to be gentle with people when I’m sharing difficult information.

My sister, my wife, and I had a meeting with my dad’s hospice nurse a few weeks ago. After we finished talking the nurse suggested that we tell my dad what we had been talking about, even though we were right next to his bed. He’d always close his eyes when we were talking as if that made him invisible. So, I started telling him that we were talking about how we needed more help caring for him and that things were progressing so nurses would be coming every day and…I don’t know what else. I was stumbling around. I stopped talking and my dad’s nurse looked at him and said, “You’re coming to the end of your life. It won’t be much longer now.” Or there’s that. Sometimes direct is better…shorter for sure. There is no good way to tell someone they’re about to die. It was hard to discuss my dad’s death with him. I felt like I would offend him by thinking he was going to die. As if dying was a sign of weakness.

I feel as though I am still in shock, or maybe denial, and that my dad’s death hasn’t really sunk in for me yet. That seems weird since I was with him when he died…can’t be much more real than that. Now my dad wanted no funeral or memorial service. He wanted to be cremated and then he said he didn’t care what we did with the ashes, we could just throw them away. I told him that I would follow his wishes but that I was going to spread his ashes in the ocean. I would never just throw his ashes away. I could make some inappropriate jokes now, and my dad would laugh his ass off, but I won’t.

So then does he need a eulogy? No service so no need for a speech, right? I don’t know. Writing always helps me and my eulogy to my dad could help me face life without him now…at least that’s what I think.

Now in a eulogy, the giver of the eulogy, usually talks about the person who died, but instead of talking about my dad, I’d rather talk to him. So, instead of a eulogy, I’m writing my last letter to my dad.

Dad,

I can’t believe you’re gone. The apartment seems empty without you. I still expect to sit in the family room with you and watch old movies. I kept a list of the movies we watched and ones I still wanted to watch with you. When I’m in bed, I swear I still hear you breathing in the next room. When I wake up during the night, I have to stop myself from going to check on you. For the last couple weeks, I was always checking to see if you were breathing. I knew at some point you wouldn’t be but I’m still not sure I was ready. Maybe I was as ready as I could be. Thinking about death is a lot different than experiencing it.

You were the person I went to when I needed help. You seemed to handle any news in stride. Remember when I hurt my knee and needed surgery? I called you from college to tell you. Now I told you and I expected you to tell mom. That’s how this was supposed to work. I wanted you to tell her because she did not take news as calmly as you. My system failed because although I expected you to tell mom…sometimes you did and sometimes not so much. This time fell under the “not so much” category and boy did the shit hit the fan then…holy hell. I’m smiling at the memory now, but I sure wasn’t then.

It’s funny now to think that I went to you for help or with difficult information because I was always afraid of you growing up. In my memory you were usually pretty laid back and easy going but when you got mad watch out. You got MAD! Scary mad. Remember when you ripped a post out of the desk in our kitchen in Wisconsin? You were so tall and had such a big voice. It was intimidating. You were intimidating. As you were dying your voice became really soft and for the last week or so you couldn’t talk at all. It took too much energy, or maybe you had said everything you wanted to say. The last words I heard you say were “toast and coffee,” which you said every night when you went to bed. Only we can’t meet in the morning for toast and coffee anymore.

I think you wanted us to be afraid of you. The old school thinking of “if you’re afraid of me then you respect me.” Now pardon me but you know I have to tell you that’s total bullshit. I didn’t respect you when you scared me, I avoided you. I got mad at you, and I held on to that anger for a long time. It’s hard to share yourself or be vulnerable with someone you’re afraid of or angry at. You told Gayle, (my wife), that you had Kathy (my sister) and I bring you the brush or belt when you were going to spank us to “humiliate” us. She was pretty shocked by that, and I was too. It worked. I was humiliated and unfortunately that created an almost insurmountable distance between us. I say almost because I think we managed to bridge the gap, especially this past year in Florida.

You would never say you were sorry for anything. You’d say that stupid ass line from the movie “Love Story,” like it was ideal advice. “Love means you never have to say you’re sorry.” What kind of bullshit was that? I think there are a lot of things and relationships that would have been easier if you had never seen that movie. Even though you softened as you got older, I don’t remember you ever apologizing. A couple weeks before you died you wanted to watch “Brian’s Song” with Gayle an I. You said we could watch together and cry together. And we did.

As we’ve moved through this past year, mom’s dementia got worse. She has horrible mood swings. It was hard to listen to all her angry words and accusations. Sometimes I think she says stuff that she knows will hurt me, like something about our relationship. I think she was jealous of our relationship. She told me that you always called me the “bad seed.” I wish I had asked you if that was true, but I thought there’d be no good answer, so I didn’t. I guess I didn’t really want to know. That would be soul crushing if you did. Who wants their soul crushed? I don’t think we would have gotten along as well as we did if you thought that of me. 

I remember growing up that if mom was mad at you, she was automatically mad at me too, even if I had no idea what was going on. I think she assumed I’d take your side. Maybe that was true. I don’t really know. I think that’s part of the reason I’ve had a hard relationship with her. She was unpredictable and I was always trying to figure out what I did wrong. Usually, I couldn’t come up with anything and I believe that’s because I didn’t do anything. You know I’m still trying to figure her out. Even as an adult if she was mad at you, she was mad at me. Made for some tense times here in Florida. We were frequently in the doghouse on the island of “what the fuck did we do now?” It’s very stormy on that island…the weather changes very quickly.

I think your sense of humor was my favorite thing about you. I will always remember how much you loved to tell jokes. You told them all the time. I was going through your wallet the other day and found the notes you had made to remember all the jokes you wanted to tell. I even recognized a couple of them. You seemed the happiest when you were telling a joke and getting lots of laughs. And you made yourself laugh too. I loved listening to you and Amy (my daughter) tell jokes to each other. You two cracked each other up. There was nothing better than listening to the two of you laughing uncontrollably. It made me laugh too. I think that’s how you liked things, lighthearted and lots of laughter.

I think I get my sense of humor from you. I think Kathy does too. We’re funny people. Seriously…funny. I used to love to make you and mom laugh. Remember when I used to pretend I was a balloon? This all happened in your bedroom when you were trying to get Kathy and I to leave and go to bed. We were teenagers then. There was a comedian on tv, at the time, that did this act and I loved it. I’d put my thumb in my mouth to blow myself up. Then I’d float around the room gently bumping into things that changed my direction. The main thing was I couldn’t get out the door. When I tried, I just bounced off and floated around the room. I remember laughing really hard at that. That and Kathy and I singing “Sisters” from “White Christmas” or “Let’s Just Kiss and Say Goodbye” by The Manhattans. Sometimes it was easier to make you laugh than mom. She did not always appreciate how hysterical we are…or were. I think we’ll still be funny…or I’ll still be funny, in the future. Although I don’t know, you might be telling jokes right now wherever you are.

Mom always says that you didn’t know how to love because you were raised in a house without love. I’m not sure if that’s accurate or not. Your parents died right before I turned 8 so I have limited memories of them and their relationship. I think mom was raised in the same kind of environment. She says all the time that grandma hated her and only loved her brother. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s certainly true to her. Maybe that’s why you found each other; you were trying to heal the same wounds. Although you can’t give someone what you don’t have, and I’m not sure how much either of you had to give.

You were never big on displays of affection. An “I love you dad” received the anticipated response of “back at ya.” It’s funny now. I’m not sure about growing up. I frequently felt like you were disappointed in me, not for anything specific, just me in general. That’s sad to me. I heard you talking to Michael (my nephew) on the phone one night this past year. You were talking about his new job and when you hung up you told him you loved him. I asked you why he got the “I love you” and not “back at ya.” You said because he earned it with the new job. That also makes me sad. I’m guessing you learned that from your parents, probably your dad. Maybe that’s why I felt you were disappointed because I was never earning the I love you. 

As you were getting closer to your death, I think you’d forget, and an “I love you too” would slip out in response to being told you were loved. It was like a game wondering what your response would be. When mom fell, shortly after we moved here, and I took her to urgent care because I was worried about the lump on her head, she ended up going to the hospital by ambulance. When I called to tell you, you told me you loved me. You said it like it was a prize on a game show. You told me I did good getting her medical help and you said, “So here, I love you.” I earned it.

Mom has told me that if you guys hadn’t moved to Florida you’d still be here. I don’t think that’s true. You told me if you hadn’t come to Florida one of you would have been dead. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m glad you came to Florida with us. I really treasure this past year with you both. I’ve reached a point in my life where my focus has become not having any regrets..any regrets about my relationship with you or my relationship with mom. And I don’t have any, especially with you. I got to spend a year with you living in the same home. I really enjoyed living with you, as long as we stayed far, far away from politics. Right!? I got to take care of you. Hopefully you could feel my love for you in all of those moments. I was happy to take care of you. Happy to be here for you, because you have been here for me, especially this past year. I know you’ve tried to intervene with mom when she’s being mean to me. And you paid an emotional price for defending me. I appreciated it more than you know. And you would ask me if I was okay and try to make sure I wasn’t taking what she said personally, but that was hard. It felt, and still feels, very personal. You understood that. 

One day when mom was yelling at you, you said, “Do you ever wonder how I feel?” I think that may be the only time I ever heard you use the word “feel” especially in reference to yourself. It’s sad to me to think of that and how much emotional pain you were in. I asked you, respectfully, one day if you ever thought about leaving mom over all these years. And you said no, and I especially remember this part…when I asked you why not you said, “because she always comes back.” You saw something at the core of her that you loved regardless of how she was treating you in a specific moment. Some core that always reappeared. That you always loved. I guess you did know how to love. It’s hard to recognize if you haven’t had it.

I was thinking about you telling me how you had changed my diapers as a baby and now I was changing yours and how you felt that was wrong. I wish I would have said the first thing that popped into my head at the time which was, “You never changed my diaper. That’s some bullshit dad.” We would have gotten a good laugh out of that, especially because I would have used the word shit.

Now dad, let’s be real…you gave me many things that are invaluable to me…my sense of humor is one of the best. My love of school and learning, always expanding my mind. To be true to my word and do the things I say I’ll do. To live without regrets, although I think you and I each take a different path to get to that point. I’m stubborn. One day mom told me I was stubborn, and I said, “how could I not be? I was born to stubborn and stubborner.” It’s in my blood. I’m a glass half full person just like you. You seemed to find the positive in situations and that was your focus.

Now some of what you gave me may have been unintentional, such as, my ability to apologize, especially to my children. The fact that I feel compelled to apologize when I have hurt someone. And I say “I love you” pretty freely. I always want people to know how much I care about them. I would never try to humiliate anyone. I care about other people’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions, including children. Children have feelings and they need to be heard. I learned to push my feelings down and appease people, so that they feel okay…regardless of how I feel or felt. I guess you seemed sort of impenetrable when I was young. I’m not sure it occurred to me that you had feelings…except anger and laughter…laughter isn’t a feeling, so maybe happiness, I’m not sure.

One of my favorite quotes is, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” Buddha said that. In my experience that’s really true. I think you’d agree. I think I took things more personally when I was young than I do now. I can see now that a lot of things people say or do are about them not me. Even if they say it’s my fault. Just because someone says something doesn’t make it true. Even if that someone is your parent. I cannot be responsible for everyone’s feelings. I have enough trouble with my own. Maybe you know that. 

Ultimately, I knew you loved me. I knew without the words, but the words were nice too. I loved spending the last year with you, and I know you know I love you. I hope mom knows too. There’s still time for me to work on that and I’m afraid it will take a lot of work. But I know that in the end, all that matters is how we love people. I miss you dad.

In the Event of My Death

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

We have lived in Florida now for about 15 months and 12 of those months my father has been on hospice. Last week my family met with my dad’s hospice nurse and his status was changed to “imminent” as in dying any day now. When did it get so close? Since that meeting I shut my world down. Now I sit with my dad and wait for death…wait for death to take my dad away from me…imminently.

It’s a weird thing to wait for someone to die. It’s uncomfortable and peaceful at the same time. I am a person with strong propensities and under stress they pop up…or pop out. I’ve been breaking out all my coping mechanisms. Comfort food and wine were first. And always I turn to reading. Books allow me to explore and question what’s happening around me and to open up to the present moment. One of the best things reading does for me is move me out of denial in a way that I am amenable to…sometimes I don’t even know what’s happening until I realize I am actually feeling my feelings.

“Bardo” is a Buddhist term for in-between time. After death and before rebirth. A transitional time…the gap or space between what ended and what is yet to come. My teacher, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, says, “This experience of the present moment is known as bardo in Tibetan Buddhism. Bardo in a literal sense means ‘interval’; it can also be translated as an ‘intermediate’ or ‘in-between’ state. Thus, we can say that whenever we are in between two moments, we are in a bardo state. The past moment has ceased; the future moment has not yet arisen. There is a gap, a sense of newness, of pure openness, before the appearance of the next thing, whether it is our next thought or our next lifetime” (Mind Beyond Death, p. 10). So, the essence of bardo is found in the experience of nowness, the gap between the end of one moment and the arising of the next one. 

Why is death so scary for us when we experience it all day every day? Something ends and something else begins, over and over again. The reality is that death and birth happen continuously. Every day is filled with small deaths. We are continually faced with endings…transitions between the end and the beginning. Our fear comes from our desire for things to be permanent and solid. We don’t like impermanence. We like sameness. We like the predictable, consistent, and comfortable. Our desire for comfort keeps us butting our heads into reality…get a helmet.

Pema Chodron, in her book How We Live Is How We Die, says, “What everyone can agree on, however, is that during our present lifetime, thing’s definitely keep going. And as they keep going, they continually change. Things are constantly coming to an end, and things are constantly coming into being.” Change never stops. The way to live with the fear of death is to embrace it. What we resist becomes stronger. I must open myself to the inevitability of death, and the fear that arises, and live in its presence.  Live with death in mind because how we live is how we die. Death doesn’t just happen at the end of our life; it happens in every moment. Impermanence. Reality will take place whether I like it or not. My dad is going to die. Everyone will die, including me. We can be open to everything whether we like it or not, because it’s going to happen, and then it’ll change. We are always in a bardo because impermanence never takes a break. There is never a moment that we are not in transition.

It’s strange knowing death is imminent. Of course, we’ll all die but we don’t usually know when that will happen. I think I prefer the mystery. As for him, I’m not sure what he knows. His whole life has been reduced to our family room. The family room is where everything happens for him…makes it an aptly named room. He gets a bath, nurses and aides come to check on him and up until a week ago he used to eat in this room. He isn’t eating or drinking anything now. He has to be changed every day and that has been the hardest thing for him, because sometimes that responsibility is mine. One day he told me that he used to change my diapers and now I change his, and he paused a minute and said, “That’s just not right.” But in a circle of life kind of way it is right…it’s exactly right. We need to take care of each other.

It’s a strange time when someone’s death is imminent…waiting for death…waiting for the transition. I wonder if he feels like he’s waiting? Or getting ready for a big change? He sleeps most of the time but sometimes while he’s sleeping his mouth will move like he’s having a conversation with someone but there is no sound to his words. I wonder if he’s talking to his mom and dad…getting ready to see them after 55 years. I don’t know who else he might be looking to see on the other side but he’s got something going on. 

At this point the only thing I can think to do is tell him that I wouldn’t have traded a single day of this past year being with him and my mom. There have been some challenges, but I wouldn’t change anything. I hope that helps him and eases his worries. He has told me more than once this past year that this is not what I signed up for, and I tell him it’s exactly what I signed up for. I hope he believes me.

Let’s be real…when we reach the time of our death, that’s not the time to try something new, something we always thought we’d try but never did, like meditation, or prayer, or who knows what. All we have at the end of our lives is what we had a second before the end. We aren’t suddenly a spiritual guru, if we have never cared about developing our own spirituality. We won’t suddenly be relaxed if we’re always anxious, or loving if we’re cruel. We won’t be able to be present in that moment if we routinely live in the past or the future. All we have is who we are, our habits of who we are and how we think. Our propensities. We’ve had a lifetime of building our propensities, the habits of our minds.

The only way to become comfortable with death is to develop our ability to remain in the present moment. Stay present with the little deaths that happen all day every day. Learn to live in the in-between state. Become comfortable with groundlessness, the uneasy footing of continual change. Facing these fears day after day is how we become comfortable with death, and with life. After all, living a life we aren’t present for isn’t really living at all. Let’s love ourselves enough to be present and love others enough to give them the gift of our presence. Never forget love. Love always wins.

“When the appearances of this life dissolve,

May I, with ease and great happiness,

Let go of all attachments to this life

As a son or daughter returning home.”

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Happy New Birthday Year

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

I recently celebrated my 63rd birthday. I have been thinking for a while now that each person’s birthday should be their own personal New Years Day. Instead of some forced midnight tradition on January 1st it should be an individual occasion, shared with people of your choosing. Certainly, when we’re born that’s the original new year, new day, new moment. Every single thing is brand new. You may have a muffled recognition of some voices or sounds, like people talking under water, but everything else is new. Every thing, every person, every experience brand new…that’s exhausting. No wonder babies sleep so much. 

Seriously though, on my Happy New Birthday Year I like to think about the past year and what I’ve learned and to think about where I’m headed, what I want to learn, what I want to change, what I want to be (if I ever grow up), not so much “what” as “who” and “how” I want to be.

What did I learn? That I can’t control everything and everyone, although sometimes I really want to. I don’t know what is best for everyone in every situation, although I often think I do. Other people’s choices don’t define me or make me good or bad. Sometimes things just are how they are, and everyone is doing the best they can, even if it’s not what I want. I continue to learn about loving, forgiving, and letting go. I learned more about being honest without being mean. Sometimes the truth is painful, but it doesn’t need to be intentionally mean or hurtful. I learned that people are allowed to have their own feelings and to feel them, even if I don’t like it or am uncomfortable with it. People having feelings is not an attempt to hurt me. Turns out I really am not the center of the universe…damn it. 

Continuing on…I’m learning that I can’t force people to have relationships they don’t want or to love people just because it makes me more comfortable, and I want them to. I get to have feelings too…all of them, even if my feelings make other people uncomfortable. It’s not my job to make people feel good, although I really like to. And people make mistakes and fuck up sometimes intentionally and more often accidentally. Either way they are still good people. And I don’t think it’s so much intentionally as it is unconsciously. Most people don’t set out to intentionally cause another person pain, but we do it all the time. That doesn’t make anyone a bad person. It makes us people who lack awareness. Awareness of what we are doing, why we’re doing it, and how it may impact other people. So much of what we do is habitual, and we don’t take the time to investigate why we do what we do. Everyone wants to be happy, sometimes we look for happiness in fucked up ways.

This next year I need to continue learning all the same things, in different configurations, but the same general ideas. I need to understand and change some of my habits, for example shutting down when I experience conflict. I do not like conflict, but it happens, and I need to be present with it. I need to feel my feelings even when they scare me. I need to worry less about my own comfort and more about my ability to be honest with myself and others. I don’t like other people to be uncomfortable, but I need to be honest and then allow people to manage their own emotions. Other people’s emotions are not my responsibility, regardless of what they think, or how guilty I feel…thank you Catholicism.

I need to stop allowing other people’s needs or wants to push my needs aside. I am allowed to need. I am allowed to meet my needs. I can be a priority to myself. It isn’t selfish to take care of myself. It’s selfish to expect other people to meet my needs, especially if I haven’t voiced them. People who love me do not need to read my mind. I can be open and honest about how I feel and what I need.

Here’s something real…I have 10 tattoos. I once had someone tell me I was the last person they ever thought would have tattoos, not sure what that meant. Anyway, I love when people explain their tattoos to me…why they picked them, what they mean. Now it turns out that these tattoos of mine cover everything I’ve learned, am learning, and need to learn. I watched a movie once that talked about our bodies being primarily water. A Japanese scientist,Masaru Emoto did an experiment by taping a word on the outside of a container of water to see how that word or intention might affect the molecular structure of water. He found that positive words, like love and kindness, formed beautiful, symmetrical crystalline structures when the water was frozen. When the words were negative, like hate and anger, the molecules formed disorganized, asymmetrical molecular structures.

So, what are the messages I put on my watery body to affect my molecules? In no particular order, they are the divine feminine or ground of being, endless possibilities, wealth, fearlessness, courage, the present, a lotus, equality, and my own symbol for integrity. It turns out I’ve put permanent symbols on my body of all the things I want to learn and be. So isn’t it serendipitous that any time I need a reminder I just have to look at myself. And don’t we always need to look at ourselves? The answer is right in front of me, well in front of me, or behind me. That was clever of me, and kind of coincidental.

Now the meaning of all those messages…Prajnaparamita, the great mother or ground of being, tattooed close to my heart…my ground of being. Not a white man with a beard, as God is often depicted, but a great mother, a divine feminine energy, a spiritual grounding. The courage to be present. Fearlessness, not having no fear but moving forward regardless of fear. And I am capable of so much…there are endless possibilities for me. Integrity meaning to be intact and whole. Wealth, not just physical wealth but spiritual and relationship wealth. A lotus, because it reminds me that out of shit something beautiful can grow…it doesn’t have to, but it can. That brings me to allowing. Letting go of my desire to control everything and allowing what is to be. Not fighting reality…a frequent pastime of mine. And equality…of course equality for all people, always. We should all have equality tattoos because that should be the ground under everyone everywhere always.

Let’s be real, I need to be more courageous. I think we all need more courage. I need to be courageous enough to be present in my life and the lives of those around me. I want to live fearlessly allowing what is to be. I have two more tattoos I want to permanently be a part of me, generosity and love wins. Wealth in any area of my life means so much less if I cling to it instead of spreading it around, generously. 

Love, integrity, allowing, spiritual grounding, generosity, courage, and more love. Love should the beginning and ending of everything we do, think, and are. Now stop, rewind, pause, and repeat, repeat, repeat. For love to win it has to be on continuous repeat, forever. In the end, all that matters is how we love people. May our ability to love, growbigger and deeper each Happy New Birthday Year…because love must win…that’s what’s real.

Only If You Let It

~ Kai Raines ~ Leave a comment

We’ve all heard the saying

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

You can wear it as a badge of honor

For all you’ve survived

But only if you let it

 

I prefer the saying

What doesn’t kill you makes you kinder

Taking difficulties and transforming them

Into kindness, compassion, gentleness

Growing softer instead of harder

But only if you let it

 

Circumstances don’t sweep into our lives

Bend and twist us

In ways not natural to us

Contorting our form

Forcing us to be remade

Or maybe they do…

You were married, now you’re not

You could walk, now you can’t

You used to remember, now you don’t

You had a house, now it’s gone

Change happens

Whether we like it or not

We don’t control change

It’s as certain as death and taxes, right?

 

Change happens with or without us

We don’t have to be ready

Or agree

Give our permission

When it’s done, it’s done

You can fight it

But it already happened

You’re fighting reality

Shadow boxing as if you see a foe

But it’s just air

We’re the fighter and the opponent

You against you

But only if you let it

 

To become stronger, kinder, anything “er”

We have to allow it

Surrender to a process we’re unsure of

Submit to transformation

Lean into the sharp edges

The places that scare us

The unknown and unwanted

The uninvited guest

The pain in all its forms

 

Now all the possibilities

All the adjectives aren’t helpful

We can become meaner

Nastier

A complainer

Unforgiving

Self-centered

Withholding

Miserly

Detached

Ungrateful

Philophobic

Not stronger or kinder at all

Quite the opposite

But…only if we let it

 

We don’t control change

We do control transformation

When something hurts

We can harden in response

Or we can soften

Become curious about the pain

Invite it in to teach us

Strength and kindness

Whatever else it has to offer

Lean in and allow

There’s so much to learn

So much to transform

But only if we let it

 

We decide

We can become so much more

Or so much less

Whatever we allow

We must let it

Gay By Design

~ Kai Raines ~ 1 Comment

I was watching a tv show the other day and this question was posed, “If you met your 18-year-old self and could only say 3 words, what would they be?” Immediately I knew mine were “Yes you are.”

My kids, all adults now, often wonder, out loud, how I could have ever NOT known that I’m gay. I fit all the stereotypes…I played a lot of sports when I was young, football with the boys in our backyard, basketball wherever and whenever I could. I loved the Dallas Cowboys and the Milwaukee Bucks. I had crushes on some of my female friends and on a whole slew of actresses at the time…Kate Jackson, Veronica Hamel, Kate Mulgrew…you get the idea. At the time, I never really thought about why I had crushes on girls and not boys. It wasn’t until I was in my 30’s that I realized I had been in love with a girl in high school. We were best friends, and I liked when she kissed me, but it never occurred to me to label myself a lesbian, or to even consider that I was in love with her. I didn’t know anyone who was gay. No one talked about being gay. No one even mentioned “gay” unless it was a in a horrible, homophobic joke. As far as I knew “gay” wasn’t a thing at all…it wasn’t an option in the world I was raised in.

I knew from a young age that I was expected to go to college and that college would be where I got my “MRS.” (I hope people don’t say that anymore.) I knew marriage and children were musts in my life and I never considered any other path. The first out lesbian I ever met was my freshman year of college. I’m not sure I even knew the word lesbian until college. I thought the lesbian (I have no idea what her name was) I met in college was cool. She was so at ease and confident in herself…maybe I envied that or maybe somewhere deep inside I understood that I was gay, but I couldn’t give it a label or a voice or claim it for myself when I was 18. She was lucky, or super brave…maybe both.

I transferred my junior year from Lake Forest College in Illinois, where I grew up, to the University of Colorado in Boulder. It was there that I met my future husband. We were married two years later and had three children together. My children like this part of my story way too much. We were married in the Catholic Church because I was raised Catholic. My future husband and I were into more evangelical churches and with that came very conservative beliefs, including no sex before marriage. Apparently, at 22, I preferred someone telling me what to think rather than figuring it out on my own. On our wedding night, my brand-new husband told me that he had known all of his life that he was gay. In response, I told him I had “kind of dated a girl” in high school. That was the beginning, middle, and end of the conversation. We did not talk about it again for seven years.

It’s possible we never would have talked about being gay if my husband hadn’t developed feelings for one his friends in the church we belonged to. He was so troubled by this that he confided in the pastor of the church and began attending events and counseling through an “ex-gay” ministry. When I think back on that now, I’m so sad for him and horrified that I ever supported him being a part of an ex-gay anything. My husband began a string of affairs. When he told me he met someone he wanted to build a relationship with, I told him I was filing for divorce. He was not surprised, perhaps relieved.

Divorce was scandalous in the church we belonged to…and being gay was over the top. He was definitely going to hell, and, in short order, I’d be going with him. He was outed to the whole church and kicked out of the membership. I wasn’t very sensitive to him back then. I was hurt and afraid. We had three children, five and under, and my very helpful “friends” were telling me that he would never see the kids, never pay child support and that he’d make them gay. Just the kind of support you need from friends. He didn’t do any of those things. He is, and always has been, a great dad.

After the divorce, I went to Seminary…conservative Baptist seminary…imagine the scandal now…and earned an MA in counseling. I chose Seminary because I wanted to study the Bible and learn about Greek words and what the Bible actually said instead of blindly following what I was told to believe.

I stayed very involved with the same church that had rejected my ex-husband. I was on the staff as a therapist, and I was part of the leadership of the church. I planned events and retreats, spoke at women’s events, and built a counseling practice. During that same time, I also spent a lot of time in therapy for myself. It was through that process, and graduate school, that I came to realize I am a lesbian. I’m not sure the conservative baptist seminary would use this information as a recruiting tool. I was thrilled at this revelation because it made me make sense to myself…and my obsession with Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone. With my newfound enthusiasm, I told the two pastors of the church, at our weekly staff meeting, that I was gay. Now I didn’t expect them to cheer me on, but I did expect understanding, support, and some sense of joy for me and how the pieces of my life came together. There were no more missing pieces, and no smashing pieces into places they didn’t fit.

“Joy” is not the word I would use to describe their reaction to me…I’m gonna go with repugnance. I was fired on the spot. They immediately took the key to my office and told me they could not recommend that anyone see me for therapy anymore. I was told I could make an appointment to move my belongings out of my office. And they said that the congregation would be told at a business meeting the next Sunday night. I was horrified and dumbfounded. The crazy thing is that both of these men had called me in crisis before and asked me to counsel members of their own families. But now, with one new piece of information about me, I was no longer qualified to counsel anyone. I was also told by the pastor that he knew I was gay by my haircut and the way I dressed. Both pastors said they were concerned I “hated men” because I was divorced. No stereotypes there, WTF!?

The pastors told me I could prepare a statement to read at the church business meeting, BUT I had to meet with the elders first and get their approval in order for that to happen. I’m sure you can guess what happened. I prepared a letter to read, and the elders said, “NO.” It was a big unanimous “no” and they told me I was being divisive. So, I sat through the meeting, silently, as they outed me to a room full of people, many who knew me and some who did not. When they finalized my ex-communication, I walked out.

I went home that night and turned my rejected statement into a letter that I sent to the whole congregation. I was not trying to be divisive, but I had something to say. I told them that I had learned that day, was what I had become to them, these people I considered my family. In the instant that they found out I was a lesbian, I was no longer a friend, colleague, counselor, and the person they called when they had a crisis…all they saw was me as I was now labeled and their judgment of that label. I was a lesbian and nothing else. An abomination. They did not want to hear that I had met someone and was really happy. If I wanted to be part of the church, I had to agree to be celibate for the rest of my life or attend conversion therapy. As fun as those options sound, I was not willing to do either.

My reaction to all of this was pretty much to tell them, and God, to fuck off. If they didn’t want me then I didn’t want them either. I lost all my friends and my job. The foundation of my life crumbled. The one friend I had who didn’t care I was gay, was pressured by other members of the church to end our relationship. She told me she couldn’t support my “lifestyle.” It took me eleven years to get to a place where I could even walk into a church without cringing in fear. I completely cut the spiritual part of me out of my life, and I functioned as part of a person…but not a whole one.

I was furious at the church and at God. I realized eleven years later, including many years of therapy, that I took their rejection as God’s rejection…but they were just people. People with harmful, hateful, bigoted ideas that they hammered into everyone under their control. God hadn’t really played into it at all. Gandhi said something about liking Jesus but not liking Christians because they are so unlike him. Seems accurate.

Sadly, I had been one of those people at one time. My ex-husband had too. We held those views. I held those views. I still feel ashamed of that fact. No doubt I couldn’t come out until I was able to think for myself and accept myself as I am. I had to address my own internal homophobia. Buddhism became my home. Kindness my religion. Inclusion and acceptance foundational in my thinking. Acceptance, not tolerance. I was never loved, I was indoctrinated. I was part of the “flock” as long as I believed and acted just like them.

When I got the boot, I found freedom. I found the freedom to love and be loved, to know and accept people for who they are, and to allow them to show me who they are. People know themselves better than I do, and I have no business trying to change anyone or make them feel ashamed of who God made them to be. I found the freedom to love and accept myself. I was free to own all the parts of me and my life…no hidden shame anymore. I am gay by design. I embrace who I am. I am grateful for my ability to love deeply, without conditions, because that was never a certainty. I am grateful for the ability to forgive others, and myself. Kindness, acceptance, and love, that’s what I know.

Broken and Beautiful

~ Kai Raines ~ 1 Comment

This morning I woke up in pain, actually I woke up because of pain. I hate waking up in pain and I wake up in pain every day. The degree of pain differs but not the fact of the pain. It makes me want to move and not move at the same time…because I’m not sure which one will help…maybe neither will. The amount of pain can’t be predicted. There’s the regular pain that getting up and moving might loosen up and help. Then there’s the wake me up pain from my elbow that goes from my shoulder to my fingers and from my back, that moves from my neck to my tailbone and shoots into my legs. It’s scary to start your day that way. Sometimes I just want to scream when I wake up.

I don’t always wake up because of pain but I do always have pain when I’m awake. Sometimes I wake up angry and sad. Pain is a hard way to start a day. Some days are better than others.There are definitely days I find myself wondering how I am going to manage this excruciating pain for the rest of my life. Now, I do tell myself to slow the fuck down and remember that I don’t have to live the rest of my life today. I just need to manage today…moment by moment…and sometimes that is hard enough. 

I found this shell on the beach one day. I fell in love with it because it’s broken but it’s beautiful. The break has healed, although the scar remains. It’s amazing really. The shell is still a shell, but it’s scarred. I am like that shell. We are all broken in one way or another. The world is hard, living is hard, and we all break, or get broken. I don’t think I’m the only person who feels this way. We all have things that feel bigger than us at work in our lives that we aren’t sure we can manage. Like the shell I found, we are all scarred physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually…maybe in multiple ways. And like the shell that broke, we heal. We have scars but we heal. The scars help us remember where we’ve been and how we got to where we are today. We are broken and beautiful.

Now before anyone freaks out, please hear me when I tell you I am NOT saying that I need to be fixed. I am NOT saying that you or anyone else needs to be fixed. Being broken is part of being a human being on this planet. There’s a million ways to be broken…chronic pain, physical illness, mental illness, divorce, death, loss, a destructive relationship, a dying relationship, problems with children, health problems or mental health problems of someone you love or care for, aging parents, end of life issues, just being alive issues…the list goes on forever because we are individuals with unique challenges in our lives. Even if the challenges look similar, we are unique people who handle circumstances, and brokenness differently.

I love the musical, “Dear Evan Hansen.” It deals with the suicide of a high school student, the attempt by another student, mental health issues, depression, grief, loneliness, isolation, belonging…it’s got it all, because it’s fucking high school…and high school has it all. At one point in the movie, Evan Hanson’s mom talks to him about when his dad left them and how overwhelmed she felt. She says, well, she sings, it is a musical, “and the house felt so big, and I felt so small….” I feel that way with pain sometimes. The pain feels so big, and I feel so small…but it isn’t just physical pain, it’s the pain of human existence…when it all feels so big, and I feel so small…what’s a human being to do?

When I share my brokenness with you I’m allowing you into my core… the scariest, most sad, hopeless, vulnerable places inside of me…the places where I am me, really me, unfiltered. Exposing my most delicate places, is not an easy position to be in or tolerate for very long. We are broken and beautiful…I am broken and beautiful. When we can share ourselves honestly, the brokenness isn’t so scary…because I am not there alone. Our brokenness makes us human; it makes us real. I think we are perfect in our brokenness…our scarred selves. We are more perfect when we can share our brokenness with someone else. We have he potential to ease each other’s pain. Hippocrates said, “Divine is the task to ease pain.” Maybe we become more divine when we help someone by talking about our vulnerable, broken, scarred places. You see, I’m real, just like you…and the velveteen rabbit.

Kelly Clarkson wrote a song called “Broken and Beautiful.” I’m guessing she wrote it following her divorce. Anyway, in the song it says, 

“I never held my hand out and asked for something free

I got pride I could roll out for miles in front of me

I don’t need your help, and I don’t need sympathy

I don’t need you to lower the bar for me.

I know I’m Superwoman, I know I’m strong

I know I’ve got this ‘cause I’ve had it all along

I’m phenomenal and I’m enough

I don’t need you to tell me who to be.

Can someone just hold me?

Don’t fix me, don’t try and change a thing

Can someone just know me?

‘Cause underneath, I’m broken and it’s beautiful.”

Can someone just know me…just know me. That’s what I want. It’s what we all want. To be known…the good, the bad, and the ugly. But how can we know each other? We have to be still. Be still and know….there is no knowing without being still.  We can’t know something moving past us at 100 mph.  We have to stop and be still…be still to know…to know ourselves, our spouse, our children, family, friends, co-workers, people in this country or in this world…there is no knowing until we’re still. We have to be willing to stop…because if you know me then you can love me…but not before. And I’m worth stopping for…and so are you.

I have lots of scars on my body…stretch marks from having babies, knee, elbow, back, shoulder, and foot scars from many surgeries. And I have a lot of other scars that you can’t see, unless I show you. All those scars help to tell the story of me…how I became who I am today.  I don’t need to be fixed but I do need to be known. We’re all broken and we’re all beautiful. We are all worth the time investment it takes to get to know each other.  Those scars quilt together the fabric of who I am and what has shaped and influenced me…past pains and triumphs…current pains and triumphs. 

I do not need you to tell me what I need to do to get “better.” “Better” isn’t in the cards for me…management is. I’m not your project and don’t need to be told how to be me. I’ve got this. I’ve had it all along. I need you to know me. I need you to love me without trying to fix me. Allow me to show you the most tender and vulnerable parts of me, safely. Let me be tried, scared, hurt, disappointed, frustrated. Let me feel my feelings. Don’t create a situation where I need to say “I’m okay” for your benefit…so you won’t be uncomfortable. I don’t need your sympathy or for you to feel sorry for me. After all I’m fucking Superwoman.

Please don’t judge me, label me, and put me in a neat little box built to ease your own discomfort. Know me without the filter of what you think about my pain, your interpretation of my pain, or what you think you know about me? Be still. For the love of God, please, be still. You can’t find me if I don’t let you, and I won’t let you until you’re still. Your stillness allows space for me to trust you and for you to see me. Really see me.

Let’s be real…it can be lonely being in pain, being broken. But it doesn’t need to be because we’re all broken and we all have pain. We don’t need to feel alone. We need to allow ourselves to be seen…to be known. For that to happen, we have to do two things: be still so that we can know and then, allow ourselves to be seen. We have to be vulnerable and willing to take the risk of knowing and being known. “Divine is the task to ease pain.” Let’s do that for each other…ease each other’s pain. When we know someone we can love them…really love them. And in the end, all that matters is how we love people. Let’s make sure love always wins.