mamaguru

I have privacy concerns about sharing what I’m currently going through under this name, so I have created another account. If you’d like to follow along, please let me know and I will message you the name.

Hope all is well with you.

We returned from Bolivia less than a week ago. Right after I booked our trip, I got some worrying news. I wasn’t sure if I should cancel, but then I was informed that I wouldn’t know for sure until after the trip. It seemed like the Universe really wanted me to go. I did and I blocked out the worry. This trip set my soul right and made a lot important life stuff clearer to me.

Now I am back and the news came in. It is the worst of the worst. I’ll get more details soon, but it will just be more bad news.

The trick is: how do I hold on to my good vibe?

My friend gave me Oracle cards last year. I did a reading right before I left and the bottom of the deck was Uncertainty. I carried the card with me to South America. That was the theme of my trip, learning to live with uncertainty and trusting that things always unfold as they should at the exact right time and not a moment sooner.

Controlling Me has resisted this lesson for years, but I know it’s wise and true. Right now, I’m feeling petulant. Whenever I read a book or watch a movie I get wrapped up in, I’ve always been keenly frustrated by how little time we get to spend in happily ever after. We suffer and struggle and finally gain the upper hand, only to watch hard-won smiles fade to black.

I’m a writer. I know the experts say we’d be bored if the story didn’t have conflict. But, ya know what? I have a very high threshold for boredom. Let me linger longer in the happily ever after.

Life doesn’t always need to be so damn interesting.

It has been an absolutely amazing 3 weeks in Bolivia! We’ve seen breathtaking scenery I’ll share at a later date. We’ve also met so many people from around the world. Parts have been quite rugged and altitude is no joke. We got up to 17,000 feet! Figuring out new cities when you’re dead tired from a bumpy overnight bus and weighed down with heavy luggage is hard.

But…

Hands down, taking this trip with my son was the best decision of my life. I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. There was a lot for my brain to handle and my Spanish is very limited. The week before our departure I felt a lump of dread and anxiety that was nearly paralyzing. If I could have backed out without losing money or massively disappointing my kid, I would have. I think this is akin to feeling like I definitely would have said yes to an epidural during labor if I was in a hospital rather than a maternity center, but still ultimately being happy with my choice.

This trip has healed so much trauma and renewed my confidence in a profound way. My trauma relates to my father’s death at an early age and makes it really easy for me to feel unloved, and in the worst of times, unlovable. There have been situations in my life in Miami that have pressed hard on that trigger and I have felt ganged up on about it. I fight back, but inwardly absorb the painful message that perhaps I am hard to love. Perhaps I am too hard to love.

But you know what?

I’m not. I made friends everywhere I went. People like me. I’m good at creating connections and breaking the ice. I needed a blank canvas to see this so I could know deep down how fucking amazing and lovable I am. With both of my parents dead, I have nobody to tell me that without reservation, but perhaps the lesson of adulthood is learning to tell it to myself and to find a way to believe it.

The other big takeaway is just witnessing a dream become a reality. I made something big happen! There was nothing and then there was a wild adventure nobody expected. I brought this idea to life! What else can I do? And it wasn’t easy. There were big problems to solve and challenging moments to get through. Still, I did it. I did it all with no help!

It’s been a joy to watch my son grow in sophistication and worldliness. He’s met people from a dozen countries. He’s witnesses abject poverty. He’s learned to navigate South American public transportation and adapt to all sorts of environments and realities. I know this will be a pivotal moment in the development of his humanity.

I will share more when I get home. At this point, I’m tired and happy to think about the Epsom salt bath and coffee with almond milk that await me at home. I am excited to move back down to sea level. And course, kiss and hug the two beloveds I left behind. I just wanted to say, to you, if there is some sort of wild inkling in your heart that would be absolutely impossible, an idea that nobody thinks is good:

Do it!

This is the Universe showing you the path to your happiness. It may only make sense to you. It may only make sense in retrospect.

Beautiful Bolivia 🇧🇴

These are the Uyuni Salt Flats, the largest in the world. It’s unlikely that we’ll get to see the mirror effect because it’s not the rainy season. The trade off is we get to see more of salt flats because it’s the dry season. There still might be pockets of puddles, so fingers crossed. This is the major sightseeing destination, but there’s a lot more to explore.

So excited.

I love Easter!💐🙏🏻🐇

Easter brunch is my favorite meal of the year for two reasons: 1) it’s so pretty 2) there is nothing to do afterwards. I don’t cook dinner, we just nibble on leftovers. Other holidays have evening meals and that honestly steals my joy. I always have one eye on the clock and just can’t sink into the moment. Once I finish making brunch, I can just sit and eat all day.

It was adorable when the kids were little. Boys in their dapper seersucker suits! The excitement of the egg hun ! Now I have teens, so it is less special. However, it’s easier. We don’t wake up early. I took a bike ride before brunch. I didn’t have to do a mad dash to hide eggs (because you can’t leave them out in Florida (bugs, heat, humidity). We eat whenever I’m done cooking so no more racing to get it done.

My mentor mom told me that you’re always ready for the next stage as your kids get older. That seemed impossible when they were scrumptious littles that I didn’t want to grow. But she was right. Although I am wistful looking at their old pictures—God, a lifetime ago—I’m also older and ready to not be so burdened to steer this ship. Their budding independence excites me and sets me free to re-engage with my own life, something I am ready to do.

On my horizon, I see beautiful possibilities. There is also a looming worry that only time will tell. For now, I’m looking up, up, up.

Four years ago I was hospitalized for acute confusion. A Facebook memory of a meme I shared from my bed with the alarm pads surrounding it popped up to remind me. Nobody knew I was in the hospital at the time. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Everyone was obsessed with their new locked down status.

And I was alone.

That is the most defining word for my brain infection and my whole Covid journey. It was just so bizarre to be completely separated from society. Other people felt alone too, but their experience was a part of a collective experience loneliness. My isolation was a complete alienation from all people in the world. The doctors couldn’t and didn’t help me. My brain crumbled and I was left in full awareness behind the rubble of confusion and impairment.

It went on and on and on.

For more than three years. I think I’ve done a good job of explaining it in my posts, but I also know that I can never convey what that isolation in the hospital, inside my dark silent bedroom, inside my broken brain felt like. It’s just an unparalleled experience. The closest thing it reminds me of was a solo hike I took through White Sands, New Mexico.

I had to sign a logbook at the trailhead to say when who I was and when I left. Trailhead is an inadequate word, since no paths can be carved on shifting gypsum dunes. But there were little poles I had to search for to keep my way. Sometimes I couldn’t see one, because they are far apart. I’d just keep walking and looking. Eventually, one would appear and I would know I wasn’t lost. I hiked in December and saw nobody for those seven miles. Smart phones weren’t invented yet, let alone selfies, so I snapped a picture of my shadow to say I was here. In the middle, I slowly twirled a 360°. I could see white dunes for miles in every direction, red mountains in the hazy distance. But I saw no living being at all. It was just me, alone on earth.

It was the most spectacular moment of my life

(until giving birth years and years later). It was awesome in the true meaning of that word. And a bit frightening. To be so alone on this vast planet. That’s a bit what it felt like to be inside the pandemic (pan, meaning all) but isolated from the collective.

I am a lot better now. But not all better. Some symptoms remain soft whispers. Some play peek-a-boo and startle me like a Jack-in-the-box. I wonder about dementia and old age. I already know what if feels like.

But, I am living and feel fully alive. I learned so much from these last 6 years (because that’s when my Mom died and my life veered off track). These have been the nitty gritty, down and dirty life lessons we all try to outrun. But they have also been the enlightening and transcending life lessons we long for.

And now I am ready to turn upside down.

More than ever I feel charged to create a life I love. My children are teens and their futures are so hazy but growing imminent. It’s a new phase of motherhood which has been such a dominant and defining force in my life for the past 16 years. They need less of me in terms of time. I’m also perimenopausal, which is the body and mind ringing every alarm to say: wake up and make your life what you want it to be. Time’s a tickin’….

So, I’m going to South America! Three weeks with my one homeschooled son. It will be my fifth continent. I can’t believe we’re doing it. I’ve dreamed of it for so long. I always feel most like my true self when I travel. It brings parts of me alive that just remain silent at home. It doesn’t feel like I’m ready because I’m not. But, that’s the point. We are never ready to live our lives. Readiness can’t be the qualifier. More and more, I suspect that bravery determines what your life looks like.

I once took a workshop years ago where the speaker recommended this life advice: Ready, Shoot, Aim. It sounds nonsensical, until you think about how much time we waste lining up our perfect shot at life. Sometimes that’s forever. We should just shoot and adjust the aim if it goes off course. At least we will have have taken our shot. Isn’t that better than being crouched down, under a hide, holding our breath, waiting for a perfect moment that might never come?

When I return, I will launch my new venture: a transformation coaching business. Transformation, the overarching theme of my life. I’ve created personal development online courses and a new podcast to reach others and share the lessons I’ve learned. This is such a big dream I’m bringing to life.

I am still afraid. I’m doing this on my own, except I feel less alone than I used to because I’ve learned how to be a friend to myself. Right now, I feel a bit queasy or is that butterflies? The adventure is about to begin…

Our lazy bum.

My Long Covid journey has been so, so long. After the fluster of tests in the beginning, the very beginning, back when it was called coronavirus, not Covid-19, back when it was thought to be only a respiratory illness, I have been medically and practically on my own. I watched my brain fall apart and slip through my fingers. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t hold on to a thought. My son thought I was dying before his eyes. I furiously scribbled life advice to my kids because I thought dementia was kicking in and I was going to be uncommunicative and placed in a care home.

It was three whole years of that.

I felt like Humpty Dumpty.

Except the kings men and horse never came. Try as I might, I couldn’t put myself together again.

Until now.

Here are the pieces:

* Dysautonomia/ MAST Cell Activation Syndrome caused by an overzealous immune response, trauma history, grief, and the ongoing trauma of the pandemic (Healed largely with awareness, meditations I developed, and NSREs- nervous system regulation exercises.)

* Nutrient Deficiencies, specifically Magnesium and B-12. I recently switched to the most bioavailabile magnesium supplement and got my B-12 levels tested. They were low. I’ve been supplementing, but I also began eating chicken after 23 years of vegetarianism. My body called for it. I had been depleted by back-to-back pregnancies with anemia, breastfeeding, an atypical rheumatic disorder, the massive trauma of losing my mom. I cannot tell you how different I feel now. Stronger and clearer.

* Perimenopause, Long Covid provoked an abrupt and intense onslaught of symptoms and I’m not alone. Studies have recently come out that show this relationship. Estrogen has a protective effect on the brain and much of my mental fog, memory issues, and new ADHD symptoms have lifted since I started HRT.

I still get sensory overload. I still have setbacks, but I think that has to do with neuropathways that developed during my illness. My brain created disordered responses to protect me and became good at them. Now I must patiently and diligently retrain my stress response. I hope that, in time, I will be able to.

Speaking of time, I believe that’s where some permanent damage has occurred. I just don’t process calendar time in a normal way anymore. It takes a lot of effort and attention to keep mentally moving all the pieces of my life forward in the week, month, and year. No matter how hard I try, I inevitably drop a ball. I am finding systems and forgiveness to deal with that. It’s funny that my sense of hourly time is perfectly normal. I know where I am in my day, but not my year.

Oh well.

What a trip this has been! There has recently been a flood of books written during the pandemic and they grate on my nerves. It’s jealousy. Nobody knows how very lucky they were to be bored. It was such a seat of privilege from where I sat. But finally, finally it feels like my crazy journey is in the rear view mirror. I have been afraid to jinx myself, but I am feeling quite short-tempered when it comes to fear these days. I’m so over it. It’s time to be brave again.

I am actively working towards building a life I love. In 2024, I will be launching my podcast and a transformational coaching and online course business. It is my big dream and bright future. A lot of what l learned on this dark journey can be brought to the light, shared, and be of service to others. I have never felt this certain of anything in my heart before. It buzzes with rightness. I am also going to travel. Big trips! I’m reclaiming the wanderlust that was so essential to my identity before motherhood. I’ve also been investing in my friendships, because I’ve always been a girls’ girl, but lost that in marriage and motherhood too.

I had a near death experience, but not in the short way we usually think of them. I lived near death for three years. We were side-by-side. It changed me, not in a dramatic way, but it deepened essential parts of me and clarified my purpose.

It is good to be alive.

…

At first the memories

were wonderful.

A fleeting moment unfleeted.

captured. treasured.

And then repeated, repeated

until I didn’t care

you were once a beautiful

bride. Where are you now?

Who? Who

should we remember

from this moment?

I shout into the oblivion.

Only the grieving know

how precious and pointless

recycled memories are—

all that’s left does not

create something new.

Six years passed

quietly and dramatically. I want to post:

I miss my mom.

But not with the old,

faded, beautiful photos.

They are so tiresome

even after they are perfected,

contrast boosted, edges sharpened.

I want to show her

as she is now:

six years past earth

in an unfathomable dimension

I visit often.

Who is to say

an earthly mother is better than

a heavenly one?

—A bias of the living

some moments, I escape.

~Rebecca Cofino

💕🙏🏻💕🙏🏻💕🙏🏻

Meet Chip! 🐾💕🐾💕

We rescued a dog for my son’s birthday! He’s a huge dog lover and we are trying to set him up as Chip’s primary human.

Chip is about 2 years old and was evaluated as being very social with other dogs. He seems pretty sweet and chill. We did a meet and greet with another dog who was 6 years old and we expected that dog to be more relaxed, but he was kind of hyper. I’m a bit apprehensive about adopting a new dog because I don’t want my nervous system to be aggravated, so chill is an important quality. There is a sweetness to Chip. He seems to like play and cuddles equally.

When we were leaving the shelter, he absolutely refused to come. He went from being very agreeable on the leash to a complete rock. We’re guessing he was afraid of being put out on the streets again. Poor thing. My husband had to carry him to the truck. He was nervous on the way home, but as soon as we got there, he perked up and happily explored. I think he is starting to understand that his life is going to be a lot better from here on out.

We read an AMAZING book in our History of Science class, BOMB, by Steve Sheinkin He is a former textbook writer repenting for the sin of making history boring by writing thrilling, funny, and accurate history books. He’s so good. This book kept us at the edges of our seats as it rotated between tales of the building of the bomb, Soviet spies in the US, and Norwegian spies dropping from planes and skiing in to sabotage Nazi plants also attempting to build the bomb. It’s a very special book that both kids and adults enjoy tremendously.

Here we are!

My babies are growing and now I’m becoming a little old mom.