Operation Sanity: Fall 2012

REMEMBER:

1. Mommy is still rooting for you!
2. Go the library if the house becomes too distracting
3. When utilizing your home office, begin your day with a clear, direct, and regimented schedule of tasks that you planned the night before. Turn off the internet connection and get to work!
4. It’s OK to continue sewing, so-called “pleasure reading,” and indulging in an occasional(KEYWORD!!!!) guilty pleasure that is a total waste of time. Mine is watching Basketball Wives {hangs head in shame} or reading Yoga Journal and Lucky. Grad students who act like they are so academically devout aren’t better than me. In fact, they’re probably miserable or lying.
5. As Mini-Me says, “You’re my Mommy not a machine.” Take care of yourself! Lean on your sisters, friends, and mentors. Ask for help! Remember that you ALWAYS  feel BETTER after you run and do yoga and LOUSY after you eat M&Ms. As I take care of myself, I promise to be mindful of burnout. Before I reach that point, I will set any offenders on fire and refuel myself with the energy of the blaze.

Although I started reluctantly, I know this is going to be a great semester!

In a Room of My Own Tending My Mothers' Gardens: The Only Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart...

Broken hearts, burnout, and weary spirits are inevitable. Internal conflict changes us. External conflict may even rearrange our countenace for good or bad (the choice is our own). However, Alice Walker's autobiography says it all in the title The Only Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart.

The only forward motion I could make in the past year was in a circle as I dealt with so much uncertainty, self-doubt, indecision.

It's time to move forward broken heart and all.

Mourning, but Qualified to Live…

The wall that I hit after my last post in April was thirty feet thick, and it looked like this: 

I was in Target picking up an Rx only to see this display. I ran to the restroom nauseated and in tears at the reminder of my Mother's death. "She was only 51!" That was the litany that replayed in my mind...

Emotionally the wall I faced began to mount, and I felt like I had to dig my way through with a teaspoon. I was dreading my first May without my Mom: the days that lead up to Mother’s Day, the day itself (I slept through most of it), and the residual May mushiness. June couldn’t come quickly enough, but NOW June is here.

The smallest tools are more powerful than we may think; because, the teaspoon worked.  I see the sun.

I have gardens to tend...

The Problem with "Non-Trads," Part II

It’s been a month since I lost my mother due to the complications of a cerebral aneurysm.  I actually wrote my last blog post from a neurosciences center in New Jersey, as I prayed and waited for mountains to move. They did move but not in the direction that I thought they would.  Being the conscientious and consummate scholar that I am, I brought my French study materials with me to the hospital waiting room.  But there was no way that I could focus…

Needless to say, I failed my class. Since I could not produce proof of my Mother’s illness and death in time I could not get an incomplete grade (gotta love academia). None of it mattered and I told the department so.  This small setback will not keep me from my ultimate goal. 

But I will miss my Mommy cheering me on as I cross the stage to become Dr. Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton, Ph.D...

She believed in me, even as I marched in my high school graduation six months pregnant…

I kept an impromptu log of my feelings on Facebook during this ordeal:

7.31- dancing through this storm, to the dopest rhythms of thunder & lightening that only the Most High could compose

8.9- swaying to the sweetest refrain: "peace for despair..." in a melody that's so soothing & so healing -- it's a balm for my vexed soul courtesy of my Creator

8.13- still dancing through this storm to the dopest rhythms courtesy of the Most High--"The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17)

8.18- experiencing a debilitating pain so deep that it rocks my soul; but when I close my eyes I realize that I'm being cradled in the arms of my Creator. I still hear that celestial refrain & soothing rhythm: "beauty for ashes"

8.19- not going outside in the rain to hide my tears. I'm going to join in with the heavens to mourn the loss of her celestial presence. The raindrops fall to the rhythm of a continual refrain: "peace for despair."