Archive for the ‘Remembrance’ Category
How Do We Go On?
Some days are better than others. Some nights, too.
Last night, I had one of the worst nights in recent memory. It seemed like everything was in an uproar — my physical pain was high, my grief level for my father (and, of course, for my husband) was very high, and I was yet again at the same point I often am: Is this all there is? Is there nothing more?
Not to mention the biggest question I ponder daily: Am I doing any good in this world at all?
I believe the unexamined life is not worth living. But my quest to find meaning and purpose in what I do, lately, has been ground down by life circumstances beyond my control. If I had the financial wherewithal, I might consider a vacation…just to get away, to clear my head, to give myself some chance to rest and recover.
But I don’t have the means.
So, I’m trying to give myself a break in other ways. I don’t know yet if what I’m doing is viable, even in the short term. But listening to more music, reading more for pleasure (even if it’s just a frothy romance, if it makes me smile or laugh, it’s worth whatever price I’ve had to pay to get it), and doing what I can to help others (or at least not to hinder them) has to at some point make a difference even if I can’t see it.
I was reminded a few days ago of something that happened when I was in my teens. I was in religious education — CCD class, as I was raised Catholic — and I was a bit older than most of the other students as I wanted to ponder for a few years whether or not to get officially confirmed in the religion. (This was a big deal at the time.) My parents were not happy together, and were on the road to divorce; worse, I felt like I never fit in, and my skills in music, writing, and teaching did not seem like they would ever lead me in a prosperous direction. (I guess prosperous is a matter of opinion.) I often felt like giving up, yet I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. But as the chaos around me continued to grow, my personal belief in myself faltered.
Then we had an exercise in CCD class. We had to pick names out of a hat, keep them secret, and write something positive to them for a few days to a few weeks. We could do anything we liked, so long as it was positive.
I can’t remember what I wrote to my correspondent that I’d picked out of a hat. I do remember what the young woman wrote to me, who’d picked my name out of a hat. She sent me pictures of rainbows, poems (not romantic ones, though I wouldn’t have known the difference back then!), and quotes of stuff I’d said when trying to be encouraging that had inspired her. I had no idea that anyone saw me that way, especially as I didn’t see myself that way whatsoever.
When the day came where our correspondent had to come up and introduce themselves, I still remember the young woman coming to me. She was fifteen, I think; I was seventeen. I’m going to call her “Alice,” here…anyway, Alice came up to me, and said she’d always appreciated me. She knew my situation was difficult. (I don’t know how, because while I did discuss some things, I was still deep in the “I don’t know what to say or how to say it” phase of adolescence; sometimes I wonder if I ever got out of that phase, in fact, but I digress.) She wanted me to know that at least one person saw me not only as worthy, but as inspirational…and she reminded me that God (as Catholics believe in a male deity, though some priests including writer and priest Andrew M. Greeley, believe in the Holy Spirit as Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom) loved us all.
I have never forgotten what she said, what she did, or the various ways in which she did it. I also remember how floored I was that she saw me that way.
So, when I think about having a rough night, or two, or twenty, I do my best to remember Alice and what she told me.
I do believe the spirit is eternal, I do believe the Goddess loves us all, and I also believe that we’re here for a reason even if we don’t know what that reason is.
I’ve struggled a lot in recent years with many things. But I’m not yet willing to give up on myself or my talents, no matter how difficult it may seem to use them.
Please wish me well as I continue on this quest to find a meaning, a purpose, a goal, or a decision that matters…not just to me, but to those I care about as well.
Discussing Other, Alternate Timelines
Folks, the last several weeks have been extremely challenging. I am unable to say why, as what’s going on mostly does not pertain to me…let’s just say it’s a family health crisis and be done with it.
Anyway, I knew I should write a blog, but about what?
I could write about sports — the Milwaukee Bucks made a coaching change, mid-season, which is quite unusual — but that didn’t seem right.
I could write about politics — some of what I’m seeing from people like Rep. Elise Stefanik of NY (R) is extremely disquieting. (Rep. Stefanik seems to have the attitude of “Vice President or Bust” and is doing her best to ingratiate herself with former POTUS Donald Trump despite her past voting record, which shows at one point she was a moderate.) But again, that didn’t seem right…though I do admire Nikki Haley’s pluck in refusing to get out of the Republican primary, mind you. (She’s right that only two states have spoken. There are 48 states and a number of US territories, plus the US emigres abroad, that have yet to vote and thus indicate a preference.) While Haley is almost certainly not going to win the Republican nomination, any more than Bernie Sanders was going to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, Haley can highlight important issues to voters and ultimately make a positive policy difference (if nothing else).
And while that was a long digression about politics, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I am a SF&F writer, no matter how little-known, and thus I think about a lot of stuff most other folks don’t. I’ve done this for a long time, mind you; my Elfy books, which feature alternate universes (where the Elfs lived — don’t call ’em “Elves” as that’s a swear word to them– and the Elfys were created, among other races), were not the first time I’ve ever thought about alternate universes. I may have thought about them even sooner than age fourteen, which is when I read Philip K. Dick’s classic MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which features an alternate universe where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II.
I’m not the only one to think about this, of course. There are other writers who’ve discussed this in various ways, such as Doris Lessing and the more recent book THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz. But my own ruminations lead me to how my own, personal timeline could’ve been changed by the following events:
2004: Instead of dying after four heart attacks, Michael has one heart attack and survives with brain and body intact. He does cardiac rehab, which I fully support him doing, and we get another ten-twenty years together rather than two. More books of different types result, and at least some of Michael’s artwork survives. (In this timeline, I have one piece of Michael’s artwork. That’s it. It was a brief drawing of what the uniforms looked like in his Atlantean Union universe.)
But even if Michael had still died in 2004, I had another possible better timeline with which to work, as follows:
2011: Instead of dying of a massive stroke, my good friend Jeff Wilson lives despite the heart virus that nearly killed him. He does cardiac rehab and anything else they suggest; after six or eight months of treatment, he’s allowed to leave the rehab hospital (really a nursing home). During this time, we start to date, long-distance…maybe I even manage to visit him in Fort Collins while he’s in the hospital, as it’s under the threshold of altitude that I can tolerate. (Jeff knew I get high-altitude sickness at about 7000 feet and it gets worse the higher up I go.) Books and stories follow, and whether we ever progressed beyond a very solid friendship or not, things would’ve been much better all the way around for both of us.
And even if Jeff had still died in 2011, I had yet another possible, better timeline to work with, as follows:
2014: A good friend, someone I had no idea that was interested in me, makes a play and I respond. (This happened in real life, though not in 2014.) Things progress. Books and stories follow. The relationship is serious enough to perhaps lead to marriage, and despite some major difficulties, we manage to overcome them and forge a life together.
Of course, that timeline didn’t happen either. So how about this one?
2020: Covid-19 does not happen. Millions of people do not die. (If this was lab-grown in China or anywhere else, it does not escape the lab.) People are not shut in for weeks, months, or years; there is no such thing as public-shaming over mask-wearing (I believe masks can help, especially if you, yourself, are ill and don’t know it; you won’t give it to someone else that way. But shaming people is wrong.) There’s no such thing as kicking people off public trails because of fears that they might get Covid…one of the dumbest things I ever heard, yet it happened to a good friend of mine in 2020. (I wish that hadn’t happened to him, too. As we found out later, Covid is not likely to spread outside with the same frequency as it’s going to spread inside with the greater density of people to work with.)
And as we all know, unfortunately that timeline didn’t happen either.
I’ve avoided some of the obvious ones, mind you. (Some folks may be asking, “Why not go back to 2000 and have Gore win instead of W.? Why not go back to 2016 and have your choice, Hillary Clinton, win instead of Trump?” Or even this: “Why didn’t you eliminate the war in Ukraine?”) I think many others have gone over those possibilities, and I wanted to make you think more about smaller, more personal decisions rather than stuff like that. (Well, with the exception of Covid, of course, though Covid caused more small-scale upheaval than just about anything in the past fifty years in my own not-so-humble opinion.)
So, what other timelines could you have had? What other timelines do you wish you would’ve had? (I know I wish Michael would’ve lived. Everyone who’s ever read this blog or known me in any way whatsoever should know that’s been my most fervent wish.) And is it still possible to create a better timeline in the future than the one we fear may happen? (I hope so, otherwise I’d not do anything, much less write this blog.)
Life, Prayers, Friends, Frustration, and Futility
I know I haven’t blogged in a bit, but the last few weeks around Chez Caffrey have been hectic, to say the least. I’ve been hip-deep in one edit, chin-deep in another (don’t ask), have nearly completed a third edit, restarted a fourth edit…and carved out a bit of fiction writing time for myself, too. (Not as much as I wanted. Not as much as I would’ve liked. But some.)
And, of course, I have had all the usual Real Life Issues (TM) to deal with, too.
Sometimes, I feel utterly frustrated. I want to be able to do more. I only have so much energy; it’s a finite amount, and some days it seems like it’s trickling away without my notice. There’s only twenty-four hours in a day, and it seems like I need at least twenty-six to get everything “normal” done (I know; define normal). That’s before writing, of course, so if you add in writing, along with music composition (which has taken a back seat the last few weeks as well), I’d probably need at least thirty-two hours in a day to do everything I feel I must do.
Which, of course, is flat-out impossible.
Because of the recent “sadiversary” observance (which I’ve discussed elsewhere here at my blog), too, I have been reminded of how much faith my late husband Michael had in me. He believed my writing, my music, and my music composition all mattered. He wanted me to succeed, to thrive, to be happy, and to be creative (not necessarily in that order).
I wonder, sometimes, how much I’ve managed to do in this regard. Life gets in the way. There isn’t enough of me, and there are way too many different things that must needs doing, stat…then add in the fact that a couple of my friends are in major distress right now, plus another one is watching his spouse die by inches and can’t do anything except be by her side as she no longer recognizes him…well.
Frankly, I have felt extremely frustrated over it all. I have wondered if life is just a futile thing, because there are so many things I can’t do and so many things I wish I could do (such as restore my friend’s wife to health). I believe we, as human beings, are striving toward something — empathy, creativity, passion, purpose, maybe all of it? — and yet we face so much frustration along the way.
Is it worth it?
I think so, or I wouldn’t be here now, blogging about it. I believe life is not only is worth it, but it matters so much, so intrinsically, that it’s nearly impossible to plumb the depths of just how much it matters.
That said, there are moments where I wish I could do a whole lot more than I am. There are moments where I wish, just for one moment, I could hear my husband Michael tell me that yes, what I’ve done makes sense, and yes, what I’m doing makes sense, too, and yes, what matters is that I’ve given it my best effort.
As I’ve always done. Yes.
He knew that, about me. And he knew that about life, too.
Some say that life is all about the journey. I think that’s only part of it. Yes, we journey along, and yes, we learn things on our own journeys, too. But it’s also about figuring out what’s important to you, and how to go about doing those things while pulled in seemingly a million different directions.
So. I’ve felt frustrated, and wondered if life matters, and thought about futility for the past week-plus. (Yes, some of this would’ve come up because of the “sadiversary” observance. But I think much of the rest has come about due to my friends’ various struggles, and my wishes that I could ease their burdens in some way as it doesn’t seem like I’ve been able to do a lick of good in any regard.)
What do you do when you feel frustrated? What do you do when you think everything is just futile, or pointless, or just not worth it?
I know what I do is go on. I put one foot in front of the other, do my best not to fall, and just keep going. Even if the direction doesn’t seem right, and even if sometimes I need a course correction or two, I just keep on keepin’ on.
But before I go, I would like to ask a favor. Please, if you have energy to spare this week, pray for my friends. Pray because they are good people who need good things to happen rather than the bad things that have accumulated over the past few months (months that have seemed like decades, at least to me). Pray because no one deserves to feel so terrible for so long. Pray because human beings should care about one another.
I’ve never asked this before, and I may never ask it again. But I need to ask it now, as way too many of the people I find meaningful and wonderful in my life are struggling. I can’t do much to help other than listen, which of course I’ve done…and pray, which I have been doing for a while. My prayers, however, do not seem to be anywhere near enough to positively affect the outcome.
That’s why I chose to blog today and to discuss all this difficult stuff. I want to help my friends, dammit; I want, somehow, to give comfort to them, and the feeling that their lives aren’t hopeless or meaningless or worthless.
Does anyone else feel this way? If so, tell me in the comments. Please.