Category: General

Poised in a stiffened stance,

my eyebrows knit,

lips tight with a crooked corner,

I heard:

“Well, I’m coming from a good place,

whether you believe it or not.”

No.

The truth is

you were never going to come from there.

You never were.

It’s midday Monday, and I can hear him snoring from downstairs.

When you’re aware, you listen more closely and set a marker for where you are.

Today he’s sleeping really soundly in the middle of the day. Like he is immediately after dinner with his plate and fork still in his lap.

Sleeping and listening to sleeping

And setting a marker: the last Monday in February. Midday.

Just a plan
isn’t just.

When you were low or spent, you could’ve used a plan
like this
or any.

Schemes aren’t just for Gen Z hotshots.
Dreams aren’t just for mini-adults.

Just a little scheming plan to lift your eyes
can power a big shift.

Look up.
Scheme up a tablespoon of hope.

Storming in
Swooping in
Falling in
Arriving at the gate of 60 looks different for everyone–
Like it does at gate 25.

Whether you plan to lower your shoulders or pick up your pace,
you deserve to experience a soft landing
for a moment or for 30 more years.

Land softly and praise your body, mind, spirit and best helpers.
From ease, you can chart your last third
clear-eyed.

When we last spoke, COVID was coming. So, here’s my update and soulful reckoning: for the last 18 months, I’ve been working to keep my family alive. Not writing. Working to save my family.

All manner of activity in the U.S. stopped in March of 2020, and everyone, especially parents and their support systems, had big changes to navigate and care decisions to make. My grandchildren–one in first grade, one in early preschool–came home to start various types of in-person and virtual learning, and my daughter began her work-from-home adventure. I stepped in as her Monday through Friday, “wake-up til tuck-in” helper at her home.

I’m a senior now–I turned 62 in April–so there wasn’t enough of me left after 12-hour shifts to write. I devoted my time, energy, talents and toil to our two-year-old grandson, cooking, baking, gardening, and keeping two households “picked up.” I put on makeup and dressed at my 7 A.M. alarm and drove over to our daughter’s to work. At the end of the first two weeks, I thought the new schedule would kill me: everything except my ear lobes was in screaming pain. But I slept in when I could and fiercely clung to my afternoon naps, and I got stronger. A 62-year-old Fibromyalgia survivor beat the odds, and she’s grateful. And she’ll do it again if she has to.

Our second-grader went back to her elementary school classroom this month, our toddler went to preschool, and I’m re-inventing myself, too. What a kick this Life is, right? What a kick.

Ask me about what I experienced and especially what I learned in 2020-21, and my list tends to be long. Yes, life is complicated, Love, and can be downright scary. Yes, life can be a struggle, Love, but it is a glorious fight with tremendous victories if you give it your best. Yes, life is fragile, Love, but it is also stronger than COVID, chronic illness, devastating loss and Hell itself. And worth every bead of sweat you give, every tear you shed, every answer you make to every righteous Call to Action.

All in all, I’m still the Ecstatic Appreciator I was pre-COVID. Peel away all of the fear and sadness, doubt and madness, and you’ll still find me steeped in a sweet cup of gratitude tea. I’m so grateful for my Papa Bear of a husband, for the means to maintain our home in safety and comfort, to afford doorstep delivery of food and household goods, to stay on good terms with loved ones who’re close and far away.

And after 18 months of this new normal, you ask: do you value this life? Yes, Love. I’m still deeply, truly in love with life. As much as I’ve ever been. Here’s part of how: I look for the helpers, like Mrs. Rogers taught little Fred, and I pray for their strength, prosperity and peace. Try it. Look how your neighbors are still keeping faith. Look at the healthcare warriors still in their noble fight, still at their caring work trying to heal us. Look at the activists marching in our streets, insisting we value our common humanity and align our actions with our ideals. Look at the artists and influencers who share their inspirational art, music, poetry and silly TikToks.

COVID keeps swirling around us–surging back with a Delta Variant–but we’re not giving an inch in our fight against it. We adjust because we must. Pull the kids out of school again and warm up the Virtual Learning classroom if push comes to shove. Yet, even in what appears to be retreat, we keep fighting to love and protect–in prayer without ceasing.

So today, I’m inhaling joy, exhaling fear and embracing life. And praying that, if you haven’t, you’ll get the vaccine and wear a mask. And keep saying, “Yes, Love!” to life.

With love and light,

Dr. Mell

Tomorrow, October 4th, I have the distinct privilege to sit down for an interview with Treshia Coleman, a social media influencer and dear friend in Birmingham, Alabama.

Treshia’s brand includes a social media presence “Talk to Treshia,” and last year, we agreed to discuss Treating Trauma Beyond Triage during October 2019, the month we focus nationally on domestic violence.

As a survivor of domestic violence, I know the lingering pain associated with physical and emotional abuse. What has fascinated me during my personal quest for healing is how people are transformed following trauma to experience Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG). Treshia and I are talking about PTG during our conversation tomorrow—particularly as how it impacts victims of domestic violence and their families—and we are going to explore the concept of the Transitional Character.

A transitional character, defined by the late marriage and family scholar Carlfred Broderick, is a person who, in a single generation, “changes the entire course of a lineage. This is a person who is said to break the cycle that has asserted emphatically “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation.”

Their contribution to a healthier legacy than the one to which they were born is nothing short of astonishing to me. Broderick dramatically describes the act of standing in the gap to heal a family legacy of abuse, addiction or abandonment as the choice of an individual to somehow “metabolize the poison and refuse to pass it on to their children.” Incredible.

I hope you’ll search Talk to Treshia or Treshia Coleman on Facebook and Instagram and follow her. I sincerely hope, if you’re interested in some of what I’ve described as a preface to our conversation tomorrow, that you’ll download the talk and have a listen.

Best wishes to your own healing! Please be well.

Thanks so much, Y’all,

Doc

Happily, with a giddy heart and silly grin on my face, I am celebrating that I am 59 ½ years old today. Around, ‘round, ‘round the sun so many times, I should be dizzy. Wait, strike that last part.

The significance of 59 ½ calls back to my 20s, so let me give you the back story before you decide that this celebration doesn’t make sense.

I was an educator born to educators. My family had more than many in my hometown, but my parents were born into disadvantaged circumstances—my Dad, bless him, was born into abject poverty—and I am one of their five children. By the time I’m in my 20s, I’m a young educator still in grad school with two little kids, and I’m married to a narcissist/nutcake who tries to control me with, among other things, money. (That whole marriage and the ensuing PTSD fallout is a memoir-length story for another time.)

Here’s where I am then: I’m not making a lot of money, I’m catching Hell instead of Help from my husband, and I’m getting bombarded with all kinds of well-meaning advice from my parents, older brother, mentors, friends and CPA about how critical it is that I set up and save in one of these new-fangled I.R.A. accounts. (This is the mid-1980s, y’all.)

I’m pinched week-to-week, not buying clothes for myself, keeping expenses to a bare minimum, but I’m listening to people who know from experience and training that saving is essential. I’m listening to them, but am living the reality of “How in the cat hair can I SAVE when I don’t always have grocery money?”

So, the sales pitch for these I.R.A. accounts is that they’re low-risk, tax-sheltered investment tools that you can cash out without fines for early withdrawal after you reach 59 ½. I’m 25, living close to the bone, facing the likelihood of an expensive divorce from my domestic terrorist, and I’m trying to calculate how I can possibly save and not touch money until I’m as old as my parents. WHAT?!

Still, I find the seed money, open the account and put away whatever I can.

Well, today I’m 59 ½ years old, and I feel a sort of rapturous joy. I’ve never saved a boatload of cash in that I.R.A. or anywhere else, but my current, loving, generous, hard-working husband and I live a very comfortable life, and I have arrived at 59 ½. You’d better believe I’m celebrating today. My heart is so full.

Next year’s party when I have another zero-ending birthday at 60 will be fabulous. I’m lucky to be alive and look forward to my Sizzling 60’s. But for today, I’m struck by how marvelous life is, how I arrived here from there, how much good fortune I have been blessed to experience, and how amazing life is at 59 ½.

When you don’t know exactly how to start, you just begin.

I’ve been a ghost on my own blog. For much, much longer than I would’ve imagined. My nature is to persist—even when it hasn’t always made sense or seemed advisable. I’ve plowed through very difficult circumstances in the past when I was convinced that I would conquer whatever stood in my way by sheer force of will. Convinced that my strength of character, my courage and my strong voice would move me on.

Imagine my surprise—my bewilderment, and ultimately, my consternation—when I fell silent here.

This new reaction to very difficult circumstances is a complete departure from who I’ve been and how I’ve navigated life. I don’t know whether this about-face has served me well. I think I’ll explore that here.

I just know for sure that today—finally—I’m appearing again on my blog. Stepping forward. Willing myself out of myself. Finally.

What you allow is what will continue. The question is “Will you allow your life to continue to expand from 50 to 100+?”

If your answer is no, you already tend to resist the harsh losses that come your way: a trusted friend moves away, a trusted doctor retires, a pet/friend/family member passes away. Your “no” becomes a sort of unending grief in your life because this life, while glorious and wonderful, hurts sometimes. Beyond a period of time during which your spirit processes the loss and finds solace, you stay stuck in the sadness and even turn it into anxiety and dread. The soulful life you enjoyed before the loss shrinks.

If your answer is yes: “Yes, I want my life to continue to expand,” you still grieve the small and large losses that confront you. The difference in these choices is that, if you choose yes, you’re a better candidate for membership into the Big Adventure Support Group, and potentially, you remain a more open-hearted person seeking a fuller, more soulful experience of being alive.

The phrase “shrink resistant” doesn’t mean that you harden your heart and “armor up” against the flow of life. Hardening your heart toward life is how lives shorten and happiness fades. Shrink resistant can simply mean that, as you seek a balance between allowing your spirit to feel the sadness of loss and the joys of gracious living, you find a stoppage point for your grieving and allow your spirit to keep opening up and inviting more and more love in. This is my prayer for you.

Consider this positive affirmation to stay open: “I allow my spirit to live freely and stay open to life and love.”

To you with love always,

Dr Mell

Bold moves aren’t just meant for 20 year-olds. Pushing past our cozy comfort zones moves us to clarity and connection no matter what age we’ve achieved. As long as we keep seeking big thrills throughout our entire lives, we continue to have breath-taking moments and draw closer to our best lives each time we reach.

As we change, grow and age, we keep searching for where we truly belong. Those moments, places and spaces lead us to and through our Big Adventure. What an awesome life this is!