06/15/2022
6/14/2022 - Check out the screenshot of this cute post between me and Les. So much love there.
Iâm struggling to get this post out before June 14 is over. Traditionally I wake up in the middle of the night and make my post around 4-5am on 6/14. This year, I didnât wake up. Itâs a sign of the times. It seems like everyone on planet Earth is overwhelmed.
I have been wanting to write about Les for a couple months. I had so much energy to write in April, so much on my mind. I should have written then but didnât want to break with tradition. Maybe Iâll have to write more than one post in the future if that happens again. One thing I have noticed is that itâs getting a little safer every year to grieve the loss of Les because Quinlyn is older. I think Iâm letting it out little by little because I had to be my best for her when she was young.
Although Les was effectively my angel, and we had a perfect relationship, I remember having years that felt tough like this when we were early in our relationship. Years could feel energetically hollow and dreary. We started dating not long after the Twin Towers fell. Terrorism definitely put a damper on senior year of high school. We did a study abroad in Italy while the US was invading Afghanistan and there were frequent protests all around us. We got engaged during the recession. My mom lost her house at that time and my dad got in with a bad crowd. I remember having years while we were together where everything felt like the world was ending. 2022 feels a lot like those times - there is the same fear and frustration in the air everywhere I look.
When I look around at the type of suffering that is happening in this Covid era, what I want to say to everyone is, âIt isnât going to feel this way forever, but probably not for the reasons that you thinkâ.
When Les died, everything retrospectively made sense. The reason certain doors had closed so relentlessly, so mercilessly, the reason that the chips landed the way they did⌠It all ultimately made sense in the context of him dying. The world didnât change or become more merciful. Rather, I learned what it feels like when it all stops.
It might not be the reset that you are looking for, but at some point, life as you know it will just stop. Cancer will make it stop. Loss of a job will make it stop. Divorce. Death of a loved one. Whatever it is, at some point, life will wind around and around in a circle around you and eventually end up doubling up on itself. When that double-up happens, life will screech to a halt.
Part of the reason that life can feel so hard is that it is unclear for how long we are going to have to be tough, resilient, gracious, merciful, cunning, scrappy, willing, and hopeful for, all the while with little or no mercy from life in return. That day when life finally doesnât *just* close a door, but rolls the end credits and prints âGame Overâ on the screen, can be cathartic. At least for me. I gained so much perspective by having my whole world end. Going on and on in life with no breaks, no resets, is really hard. Sometimes big, painful resets create some objectivity in life where it is really needed.
When Les got sick, it was so methodical how thoroughly and completely life shut every door in our faces. Oh you like to eat organic and live a really healthy lifestyle? A lot of alternative therapies donât work on blood cancers. You like to run or walk in nature for exercise? You wonât be able to walk for a number of reasons. You are a programmer and need to use your hands? You will have peripheral neuropathy. You want more kids? You will be sterile after treatment. You want to use a s***m bank? Well, only if you are ok with the genetic risks and being collected post the initial emergency-level treatments. You love the sun? Youâll need to avoid sunshine for the rest of your life if you get a bone marrow transplant. You want to hold hands with your spouse and sleep in the same bed? The chemo is strong enough that it will affect your wife any time you touch her. You can wear gloves to hold hands? Well only if youâre ok with the amount of chemo exposure that then transfers to your breast-fed baby.
If you feel like this is happening in your life, like every question you ask gets answered with a ânoâ, then itâs time to pay attention. Instead of getting mad when doors are closing, start to look around and take notice of where you are. What is ending? Where is the perimeter of your life right now? Instead of being upset when a door closes, if it is a pattern, start to expect it. Tell yourself that everything is closing, and everything is going to keep closing, until you get to the end of an era. Figure out what the parameters are for your current life and work within those, taking notice of the bounds of your territory. Start to think about the stories you will tell, the framing you would use if this was the end. If your life just stopped, with this being the sum total of what you had accomplished for that era of your life, how would you tell the story? Now here is the advice - start telling the story that way *now*.
Why? Why should you tell the story now in the way you would tell it if the end credits had just rolled? Because it will empower you to understand what the heck is going on amidst chaos. If you keep trying to tell the story a certain way while all these doors are closing, you might be missing the point.
Of course, there are exceptions. If youâre an inventor or a movie star maybe you have to try something a gazillion times and only at a gazillion and 1 will it work out. For most folks, though, I would like to reference the âEff yes or noâ article that went around a few years back. If you arenât getting an âeff yesâ from life, itâs a no. I know life isnât the same as a relationship, but there are some similarities. https://markmanson.net/f**k-yes
I feel like it has become so popular to stop working on yourself. Les took every moment in the hospital to improve upon himself. He wrote something like 140 thank you cards while he was in the hospital - cards for absolutely everyone under the sun. The cards werenât so much for the folks at the hospital, they were for him - for his own mental wellbeing. He drew a self-portrait, wrote his name on it, and had the nurse tape it to his door so âeveryone would knowâ his name and recognize his room. He did that for him, but of course the staff all felt like it was for them and it really endeared them to him. Everyone smiled in Lesâs room. Les recorded yoga classes from the sun deck of the hospital. He did arm balances on concrete planters. He did a dozen dances from his hospital room and got friends and strangers alike to send him videos back. Goodness only knows what he could have done with TikTok at his disposal. He also came out of the ICU and was like, âWell, I canât walk without a walker, so letâs see how dang far I can walk with a walkerâ then charted 1.5 miles around the hospital floor for a proud new personal record, even though he hadnât had to use a walker a few days prior. Les accepted the circumstances he was in and then slayed them.
âGive me coffee for the things I can change and wine for the things I canâtâ has been the theme of 2020-2022. Or maybe, âwhine for the things I canâtâ would be even more accurate. I feel everyone is so burned out that itâs hard to have a conversation with anyone anymore. One thing I think that Les would probably remind everyone of in this situation, though, is that there is always room to change yourself.
Les was someone who was always changing. Every day he learned something new. He was so engaged in cultivating who he was. Les believed in lifestyle artisanship. He believed in crafting the life you want through your attitude.
Eckhart Tolle talks about acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm as ways to approach situations in life. He writes, âThe modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all â from the most simple task to the most complex.â Les was fully engaged in the vigilance that Eckhart calls for. He was downright enthusiastic. Eckhart says, âEnthusiasm means there is a deep enjoyment in what you do plus the added element of a goal or vision that you work towardâŚWhen you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressedâŚStress always diminishes both the quality and effectiveness of what you do under its influenceâŚUnlike stress, enthusiasm has a high energy frequency and so resonates with the creative power of the universe.â
There is one quote from Les that it took me years to understand and it applies to the Eckhart quote above. Les used to write, âTo live wild and free is the gift of a joyful life.â I always thought he had it backwards - shouldnât you live wild and free so you get to have a joyful life?â What he meant was that if you live joyfully, if you approach any goals you have with enthusiasm versus stress, then you get to live wild and free. Being joyful isnât the product of living freely. Living freely, having release from stress, is the product of living joyfully.
Depending on how long you live, you might have to wait a heinously long time to experience the sort of closure that I am talking about. With 2 out of 3 men and 1 out of 2 women getting cancer in their lifetime, though, you probably will have a chance sooner than you think. Lesâs goal was to live a wild and free life and he succeeded. He was a great snowboarder, great artist, fantastic horse trainer, amazing dad, amazing partner. I would encourage everyone (myself included) to think about the energy you are bringing to the world, notice the parameters you are working within (particularly if youâre getting a lot of closed doors), and make sure, when you have a goal, youâre working on it with acceptance or enthusiasm. Take note of how you would tell the story of this era of your life if it ended right now. Doing so will help you take stock of where you have been successful, even if you have hit a lot of road blocks along the way. Less whine and less wine. More Les.
