8. Weekend Wisdom

"And as she fell apart her shattered pieces began to bloom-- blossoming until she became herself exactly as she was meant to be..." 

-Becca Lee

7. Weekend Wisdom

"Sometimes the journey has to be traveled alone in order to appreciate the strengths that lie deep inside of us."



- Steve Atchison

6. Buying Flowers

As I write, there's a vase of lemon yellow and electric pink roses sitting on my dresser. When I stand in line at ALDI's I survey the day's inventory of cut flowers. When the roses are looking good, I choose a bouquet or two. The dozen roses in my room cost me $8. A small price to pay for a spark of beauty in my home.

I mother myself by allowing this frivolity to balance out the overarching and overwhelming bents toward pragmatism and practicality that generally rule my choices and my spending.

During courtship, I was showered with flowers (on one particular occasion, two dozen red roses were delivered to work). Once married, the floral parade abruptly stopped. I was scolded for not watering the flowers I'd been gifted. I was punished for my perceived lack of appreciation.

Buying myself flowers is an act of healing, but it's also a subversive act. It's tripping a wire in my brain. It's disrupting the message that for a long time reinforced that I didn't deserve to have this splash of beauty. That I wasn't worth the effort.

The frugal part of me also delights in the fact that I am accomplishing this with so few dollars.

5. Generosity

The morning I graduated from college I was doing final dorm room move-out cleaning. My parents stood by as I moved the vacuum around the square of space I'd called home for the past nine months.

A friend came to my open doorway. "Julie, could I borrow your vacuum when you're done?" she asked.

"Sure, I'm finished. Here, you can have it now," I offered the vacuum without thinking.

She pushed the vacuum down the hallway to her room.

"That is an expensive vacuum," my mom said in hushed tones. "We don't share things like that. I've loaned things and had them returned broken." A lecture ensued. (The vacuum was returned without incident.)

The impulses I've had to be generous in adulthood have had to first run through the filter of that encounter years ago. I have questioned my desire to be generous and whether I should act. Twenty years later, and maybe precisely because of that moment, I hold my possessions lightly. I know the risks of sharing material goods—they might not be returned or might be returned a bit more used—and yet, I choose to share anyway. I've decided to take the risk with sharing my heart too.

I mother myself by honoring this generous impulse. It feels GOOD to share what I have. That dorm room scene set the parameters for my own philanthropy: Give what you can. Give when you can. Give without an expectation of return.

I am gratified to see how another generation is moved by an impulse of generosity. I took my daughter shopping at IKEA to spend a birthday gift card. In the shopping cart she placed three polar fleece throws to give to homeless people who are cold this winter; a surprise for me (pack of three journals, a spiral notebook, and a pack of three pens); and two glasses to fill with candy to give to my co-workers. I cannot remember what, if anything, she bought for herself. I was struck by the need to remind her that it was okay to shop for herself with her birthday money.

"It makes me happy to buy gifts for my friends," my daughter answered. If I recall, there was also a mention of random acts of kindness in her explanation.

I recognize the feelings she described. It's what makes being generous feel so good.

4. A Hand to Hold

This is the strangest form of comfort I have found. Some nights when sleep didn't descend on me immediately, I felt loneliness the most acutely. The future seemed vast and uncertainty loomed so large that it stamped out my imagination's ability to consider the possibilities (things seem bigger and more worrisome when I'm tired). The bed was too big, and I was swallowed up in it's emptiness. On those nights, I really wanted a hand to hold. This thought comforted me. And then I got sadder because there wasn't one to hold. Then I got a really strange notion: what if I held my own hand?

Could that be a comfort?

I felt silly and glad I was trying this in the privacy of my own room. My right hand clasped my left. I closed my eyes. I sighed deeply. I scanned my mind and body to detect a reaction. Was this helping? Did holding my hand make me feel less lonely?

The answer was yes.

This small act of mothering myself lifted the weight of feeling so alone. It eased the burden that made this loneliness feel like a permanent condition.

I held my hand a lot, and in doing so, I learned about the importance and steadfastness of being my own best friend. In an unexpected way, holding my own hand taught me about the wholeness I could muster from within.

And in time, I've found that this practice has soothed that particular ache for another's hand to hold.  I'll hold my own hand forever, but it feels like progress that it's no longer such a deep need anymore. Mothering myself in this small way has led to great healing.

3. Massage

This alone time reinforced the fact that hugs are few and far between. Hugs were hard to come by long before my divorce, so touch deprivation is not a new thing for me. While I am grateful to have an affectionate, snuggly child, a mama needs more than the embrace of a school-ager sometimes. I have a great friends at church who hug me every Sunday. But I need more healthy touch than even that provides, so I enrolled in a monthly massage membership.

I read an article recently that outlined four things that neuroscience has determined helps people feel happy. Hugs are one of them. (You'll hear more about the article later in the series.) I was pleased to learn that according to neuroscience, if hugs are in short supply, massages are a good substitute.

Once a month I spend an hour (sometimes more) in the expert care of a massage therapist who helps ease the tension of too much desk sitting, migraines, worries over money, and whatever creeps into the muscle and fascia of my body.

I am grateful to both therapists (depending on their schedules) who make that hour's oasis a safe, nurturing, and restorative time. I float out of the room after they have worked out the kinks and tight spots that inevitably make their way to my neck, back, arms, and legs day-to-day and week-by-week. I breathe easier and am more conscientious about how I move and lift my always-heavy bag for a day or two after every massage. 

These massage appointments help me take stock of my physical and emotional health. I am genuinely happy. Instead of fixating on what I don't have in great supply (hugs), I have learned to concentrate on what I do have (massages and the embraces of my daughter and my amazing friends.)

2. Books

I was the lone reader in my family growing up. Reading made me feel isolated because there wasn't anyone who loved to read with whom I could share what I was learning and experiencing. At the same time, reading gave me a sense of belonging and expanded my network as the characters became cherished friends.

On occasion I would ask to be read to. Reading snuggled up together wouldn't happen, but the details from that time are fuzzy. In adulthood I was asked, “Remember when you asked me to read to you when you were little? I just couldn't. Reading to you reminded me that I was never read to as a child and it made me so sad.”

It was a missed opportunity for both parent and child. Reading together could have healed those hurt places in one, and fortified the bond for both.

I kept reading solo in those years, and the more I read, the more I loved the pastime.

I mother myself now through reading in two ways: I allow myself long stretches of reading on weekends when I'm alone, and I snuggle with my daughter and read to her when we are together—I've even read to her when we're apart via Skype. 

In a funny twist of fate, my daughter is also not a reader—yet. But she likes to be read to. She appreciates the closeness that reading together induces. So do I.