Month: December 2020

I hope you are taking time to relax and safely spend time with your family. I will be back after the New Year to discuss a bunch of topics that have been on mind! Until then however, relax, enjoy and spread love..

See you in 2021.

Learning to take care of yourself is a must. Today this blog is very personal and not so much advisory. Writing is healing and I need to start my healing process. For the first time in my 30-year professional career, this week, I reached my breaking point. It wasn’t just the work that was overwhelming me, that I can almost do in my sleep. It was the fact that I haven’t truly dealt with my anxieties and grief as well as I thought, and it came knocking on the door ready to collect.

I must wonder when I stopped processing the losses. I’ve sat up these past few nights and have really dug into my past all the way back to when the first major blow hit me, the loss of my Grandfather, at the age of 16. That was devasting to me for so many reasons and such a pivotal moment in my life for others. It changed me. His death and the timing of it really shaped the personality of who I am today and how I interact with others and that is not a cliché. 

Prior to his death we were awfully close, and I spent a good amount of time with him. As a teenager, I used slang language which he did not understand and in doing so I said something about a picture of my mother which he thought I was insulting her, I wasn’t. Our disagreement got heated and I left and didn’t speak with him for several months. I couldn’t take the separation, so I swallowed my pride, went back, apologized, spent the next week in his face and then he died.

Since then, I made it my business to not hold grudges or keep my distance from those that I love. I’ve lost so many loved ones, family, and friends, and I don’t have any regrets. I do feel however in this last year, with COVID-19, like many others, no sense of closure and that has me on edge and reflecting, re-living feelings that I thought I processed.

I’m going to be fully transparent with my woes today so that I can hopefully help somebody else out. Twisting the top on pandora’s box is dangerous but I’m hopeful in my life it will be extremely healing and allow me to recharge and regroup.

Another combination of losses, a cluster if you will, that I have never truly processed happened in 2015. It was a loss of many things, including life. For starters, my Mom died.  As if that was not a big enough blow to knock you down, my Husband came home from Afghanistan after several years on contract work, ON THE SAME DAY MY MOM DIED.  How does one process excitement at reuniting with their spouse and sorrow of losing their best friend/parent?

He came back with his own issues that I could not be fully present to help him with in the immediate and shortly thereafter, less than 3 months, we got a double whammy that I had Lupus and his best friend/brother was diagnosed with colon cancer. His brother was close to me as well. A great support system to me and my Mom while my Husband was overseas. His passing rocked us.

And the losses keep coming…. Since the week of Thanksgiving, I have been informed of 5 deaths. 3 are personal to me. I don’t even want to say how many people have been lost since the start of 2020. At some point, the dam was going to break. Mine just did.

I made the wise decision to take a leave of absence from work to gather myself. I must go back to at least 2015 and process. Then I need to forward to 2017 when my sister and I made back-to-back trips down the turnpike for funerals. I had a birthday party, my 45^th and my dear friend was there. A week and a half later, she had transitioned.  It is a lot. There were so many people.

The anxieties that I worried about with COVID-19 and the election/transition; they are still there. That makes this next step of my journey more intense but not difficult. The hardest thing to do is to step forward and say, I’m not ok.  I did that. Now I’m doing the work.

Pray for me and keep yourselves safe! The world is still turning, and the pandemic is real!

I love you all and until next time….

I have had a serious issue with migraines my entire life. They tend to come more frequently when I’m heavily involved in projects and dealing with stressful situations around me. I’ve had my share of medical treatments and drugs and for the most part, as I have gotten older, I’ve gotten it under control. 2020 has made it resurface in a way that only another sufferer would understand.
We are 26 days away from the end of this year. People are wishing it away as if on January 1st, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. a switch will be flipped, and life will be grand. I know better than to assume that. This has been the most interesting year of my life. The highs were highs and the lows nearly broke me. The great thing is, I’m still standing.
So many people have lost their lives this year and I don’t know if there was ever a true mourning period given the fast and furious succession of the losses. Not all losses were so deeply personal and close to home but there have been a few that have rocked me to my core and made me investigate a future where they will not be there. It changes you and makes you look at your own life and wonder what have you done to make an impact on this world?
Everyday I look around and see history in the making. We are part of a story unfolding that will be told for generations to come and I wonder, how do you want to be remembered? What impact are you making now on the world, or even your own family and is it going to leave a positive or negative legacy for those to hear about long after you are gone?
2020 is a year no one will EVER forget. It is the start of a new decade. It is the year of a global pandemic. It is the year of an unprecedented presidential election along with subsequential state and local elections attached. It is the year we watched a black man murdered on video by a cop and said, ENOUGH, and began to fight systemic racism in a whole new form. 2020 is not your average year. It has caused you to review everything about yourself and about your life and make changes. Some were forced and others were voluntary. Death, hunger, and homelessness decided to show up in a major way when it has been here all along. It forced us to look at ourselves as individuals and decide who we are and who we want to be.
In 2020, did you do anything to fight systemic racism? Whether you are Black, Brown, or other, as a decent human being, seeing video after video, was it too much for you? HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED? Did you participate in any of the local or state elections? Your vote matters. What happens to this country matters. Are you okay with the choices being decided for you or did you try and have your voice heard? HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED? Have you worn your mask, washed your hands and practiced social distancing to keep not only yourself but those that you love safe during this global pandemic which is real? Or do you believe it’s a hoax and people are dying/disappearing so that the government can get more money? HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED? Have you reached out to help a neighbor/friend/stranger, who may be struggling, perhaps they lost their job or need a little extra food to get by? Maybe you are the one who needs a helping hand. Have you told anyone and not suffered in silence? HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?
Standing on the sidelines ignoring the obvious hurt and pain of others is not an option. We are in this together. Even if you are in your own pain. I started this out by mentioning my migraines. I suffer and some days they are bad. Truth is, I would rather have a migraine, than a broken heart. I could not in my good conscience sit by and do nothing in 2020, 2021 and beyond when there is so much to be done. I know I can’t do everything, and that is why I have a team around me for the big stuff. I just don’t ever want to look back over my life and think, wow, I had the opportunity to make a difference, and I didn’t. Sometimes, all it takes is a phone call to check in on someone.
What’s your legacy going to be? How do you want to be remembered? Will you be complacent, or will you get involved?
I love you all!
Be Safe
SIP A.B.!