Real Life Matters

“When people have . . . problems, it’s time to stop asking what’s wrong with them . . . and time to start asking what happened to them.”^[1]Hari, Johann. Lost Connections (p. 140). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

If you tell your physician that you are feeling anxious and maybe even a little depressed, there is a good chance that they will listen politely for a short while and then reach for their laptop. Big Pharma has done some amazing things to advance modern medicine. Promoting a more holistic and nuanced view of anxiety and depression is not, however, among them. Indeed, given the time pressure that insurance companies impose on physicians generally, it is often necessary for a physician to prescribe the latest SSRI than to try to get to the root of what’s happening in their patient that is causing them to be anxious and depressed in the first place. Medication has an important role in our health, but it would be wrong to expect that it can cure our sadness.

The truth of the matter is that many of us are anxious and depressed for reasons that are readily understandable. For example, you may need to deal every day with a difficult boss. You may be at a loss about how to handle a problematic family relationship. You may have a hard time saving enough for retirement or even putting food on the table. Like me, you may have a diagnosis for a chronic disease for which there is no cure. All of us are trying to figure out how to co-exist in a nation stirred up by the media and by leaders who profit from the chaos of our political differences, which seem only to be growing. We make things worse for ourselves when we feel bad about feeling bad – like there is something wrong to feel out of place in a world that has gone mad before our very eyes.

Turning off my phone, I lie on my back on the floor (my favorite place) and take deep breaths. I muster up as much courage as I can find within and lean into the grief and losses I have experienced on the path of life. I have learned the hard way that running from problems only makes things worse.^[2]Pain is necessary. Suffering is optional. Indeed, it is helpful for me to remind myself that all emotions need to be felt so that they can be moved gently through my mind and, especially, my heart.

For the most part, grief is not a problem to be solved, not a condition to be medicated, but a deep encounter with an essential experience of being human. Grief becomes problematic when the conditions needed to help us work with grief are absent. For example, when we are forced to carry our sorrow in isolation, or when the time needed to fully metabolize the nutrients of a particular loss is denied, and we are pressured to return to “normal” too soon. We are told to “get on with it” and “get over it.” The lack of courtesy and compassion surrounding grief is astonishing, reflecting an underlying fear and mistrust of this basic human experience. We must restore the healing ground of grief. We must find the courage, once again, to walk its wild edge.^[3]Weller, Francis. The Wild Edge of Sorrow. North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition.

Today, during the cold of winter, I walk on this wild edge of grief and loss. I seek to encounter the layers of meaning within my deepest, truest self.

Do you remember the Tasmanian devil from the cartoon Bugs Bunny? I used to spin and buzz around, leaving a cloud of dust like the Tasmanian Devil until I managed to achieve the next shiny thing on my list. Then, without waiting longer than necessary to identify my next target or obsession, I would move on. Fire! Ready! Aim!

Four years into my retirement, these days I move mostly in a state of calm from one small project to another. I’m not afraid to take naps. There is lots of quiet – in fact, my life now is mostly quiet. Like the tortoise and the hare, I just plod along every day.

With her many friendships and other relationships, her spiritual direction practice and now the Journey Center of Michigan, Jennifer remains in perpetual motion. It’s all good. We are simply in different seasons of life.

Moments of calm are balm to the soul. Silence at this season in life is mostly comforting, giving me ample space to savor the stillness. I can sit for long stretches of time, reading a book while Freja naps, occasionally chasing rabbits in her dreams. It is healing and therapeutic to just be.

“Nearly all habits that lead us to calm exist in one place: the analog world. The more time we spend in the analog world, as opposed to the digital one, the calmer we become. We best unwind in the analog world, acting in accordance with how our ancient brain is wired.”^[1]Bailey, Chris. How to Calm Your Mind (p. 7). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

For the last few weeks I have managed to keep myself off of Twitter and TikTok and almost all news sites. I still look at NPR once a day, but I’ve stepped out of my addiction to the 24-hour media outrage machine. I avoid alcohol and most artificially sweetened foods. Strolling down the aisles of our grocery store, I am amazed by the Frankenfood I still crave. Instead, there are loads of berries and veggies in my cart. This phase may not last forever, but it feels great right now. The key is to keep junk food out of our house. If it is here I will eat it.

As a result of these changes, the micro surges of dopamine upon which I have been dependent, have faded. They have been balanced by more serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. These are the calm, happy chemicals. I would be lying if I told you that all my anxiety about the future in particular is gone, but I don’t generally let it stew. Mostly I am able to make it go away by biking, running, and going to the gym.

Research suggests dopamine leads us to crave two things that compromise calm: more accomplishment and more stimulation.^[2]Bailey, Chris. How to Calm Your Mind (p. 77). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It has been awhile since I last posted to this blog. I am in no rush. And that’s the point.

I just finished the new Memoir, Spare, by Prince Harry. Once I picked up the book, I could not put it down. Harry’s ghostwriter, JR Moehringer, is an outstanding writer.

Before going further, let’s press pause and consider whether it matters that Prince Harry’s memoir was actually written by a ghostwriter, and not Harry:

“Spare” provides a version of Prince Harry’s story, but getting access into his soul requires it being written in his own words.

Words create reality. God created the world through words: “and God said… and it was.” We are defined by our words. Our own words.

Whether you are a master stylist or a literary lion, you can only be truly known by others from the words you choose to create your personal identity. No artificial intelligence and no ghostwriter, no matter how great, can fully convey who you really are.

Which, in the final accounting, makes you the true – and only – real author of your life. And which makes the royal memoir sweeping the globe a mere ghost of what it might have been had Prince Harry actually been the author.^[1]https://aish.com/prince-harry-didnt-write-spare/

I can only imagine the pain and grief experienced by Harry. Because of his status as a royal prince, he has not had an easy life. No one is exempt from loss and trauma. Very few people – only two, in fact – have lived to see their trauma played out in the media, fueled by the untimely death of their famous mother, relentless paparazzi, and dubious backroom courtiers with nicknames like the Bee, the Fly and the Wasp.^[2]Harry, The Duke of Sussex, Prince. Spare (p. 365). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

One of Prince Harry’s biggest beefs is the spinning of falsehoods by greedy and abusive journalists. At the top of his list is, you guessed it, Rupert Murdoch.

“It was around this time that I began to think Murdoch was evil. No, strike that. I began to know that he was. Firsthand. Once you’ve been chased by someone’s henchmen through the streets of a busy modern city you lose all doubt about where they stand on the Great Moral Continuum.” ^[3]Harry, The Duke of Sussex, Prince. Spare (p. 199). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

After years of being harassed, I can imagine it being hugely cathartic to punch back at the paparazzi. Also, I can see Harry wanting to get his side of a very dysfunctional family story out there, setting the record straight after years of feeling stifled by his family and minders. Perhaps he is hoping that the energy behind his personal story will dissipate through publication, like air after a lightning strike. Harry will have taken back his life, and spared his beloved Meghan from a repeat of history involving a fatal car chase and the paparazzi.

It is easy to empathize with Harry. The release of Spare into the wild will, however, only stoke the fire. It’s Newton’s third law. For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.^[4]https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/newtons-laws-of-motion/#newtons-third-law-action-reaction Indeed, the King of England has now asked Harry and Meghan to vacate Frogmore Cottage. Disgraced Prince Andrew will be moving in – in case there is any doubt about where Harry and Meghan fit in the new royal pecking order.

Please don’t read this as being critical of Prince Harry. Spare seems to be a vital step in his chosen grieving process. Through the passage of time, I trust and pray that the next steps will eventually make themselves known to Harry. He may then be invited to set down his pen and sword and rest upon the higher power of grace, surrender and forgiveness.^[5]God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I don’t pretend for even one minute to understand what turmoil Prince Harry has experienced. But I suspect that freedom and peace lie on the other side of his personal mountain of pain and grief.

“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

“Grief is like a stream running through our lives, and it is important to understand that loss doesn’t go away. It lasts a lifetime. It is our relationship to a particular loss that changes. It won’t always hold the same intensity for us, or take the same expression. But the grief as a natural human response to loss will remain, and our resistance to it will only intensify the pain.”^[1]The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
https://a.co/hUwsEbc

It is sometimes a challenge for me to remain engaged and optimistic. When I’m feeling blue, my mind seems to gloss over the progress being made every day in the field of neuroscience research. I allow the parade of horribles in, marching freely around the darkest corners of my mind. My mind tends to ruminate on two topics: (1) the various mistakes I have made in the past; and (2) my fears about the progression of my Parkinson Disease in the future. I recognize that both of these things are totally outside of my control. But that does not stop me from trying to control them anyway. My tendency for perfectionism is relentless, even if it is knowingly pointless.

It is easy to fight and resist – to ruminate and isolate. These approaches, however, get me nowhere:

“In death and in life, should we “hope for the best” or “expect the worst”? What if instead, we cultivated a non-judgmental attention and commitment to being with the truth of whatever is present? Suppose rather than choosing sides, we developed the mental clarity, emotional stability, and embodied presence to not be swept away by the cycle of ups and downs, of hopes and fears? Balanced equanimity gives rise to a resilience that is fluid and not fixed, trusting, adaptable, and responsive. Perhaps we might accept our past, ourselves, others, and the continually changing conditions of our lives “as is” — neither good nor bad, but workable.^[2]The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
https://a.co/agOhuct.

I would love to become resilient, trusting, and adaptable instead of resistant, guarded and stuck. I can choose to stop resisting, and accept what is.

We tend to protect ourselves from the experiences and situations we don’t like. But there is a sense of liberation and confidence that gets built up within us when we do the opposite, when we push away nothing.^[3]The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
https://a.co/a5H4Jib

And thus we get to the point of this post:

An integral part of healing is letting go. But there is no letting go until there is letting in.^[4]The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski
https://a.co/4Xcwda1

I am learning every day to make peace with my situation, and to not fight it. Indeed, I do not want people to say at my memorial service someday – hopefully many, many years from now – that I battled Parkinson Disease. Rather, I want to be remembered for how – in my best moments – I allowed this disease to change me into a better, more loving and accepting version of me. I want people to remember that I did my level best to let the wild energy and chaos of my brain be transformed into peace, and acceptance – love, and rest.

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” – Lao Tzu

Fresh into our new life as empty nesters, Jennifer and I are on a mission to re-organize. We have been discarding lots of stuff that we no longer want, or need. What remains goes into into stackable, 65 quart Sterilite latching boxes. These fit perfectly on our storage shelves. We affix to each box a simple numbered label. We then add the number, contents and location of each box to a spreadsheet.

So far, we have filled and labeled 90 boxes, which does not even include the stuff in our offsite storage unit. Yikes. We have a lot of stuff! The self-storage industry in the U.S. generates $39.5 billion annually. Looking at things positively, we are doing our part to keep the industry on track to meet its 2023 revenue targets. A tiny house is definitely not on our bingo card, though the appeal of a tiny house is something that has always resonated with me. I am sure I am not the only one.

Taking away stuff from our lives is inherently challenging. The human brain finds it much easier to add stuff than to subtract it. Science bears this out:

[M]y team embarked on tens of thousands of hours of research. We experimented, discussed, wrote, presented, and repeated. And we discovered that humans overlook subtraction. People don’t think of the other kind of change, even when subtraction is obviously the better option.^[1]Klotz, Leidy. Subtract (pp. 16-17). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.

For the first time in years, we are now able to fit both of our cars in the garage for the winter. Mari Kondo was right – there is something magical in keeping what brings us joy and discarding the rest. Indeed, the process of discarding, and then re-organizing what we have, has been deeply satisfying.

If you are feeling an urge to tidy your world, either a lot or a little, Kondo offers an approach that reduces potential friction in the process:

It is crucial not only to tidy by category but also to follow the correct order, which is clothes, books, papers, komono (miscellany), and finally, sentimental items.^[2]Kondo, Marie. Spark Joy (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up) (p. 6). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.

Jennifer and I came across several boxes of old photos and albums needing to be sorted. Reviewing these photos quickly brought to the surface powerful emotions buried deep inside of me. It is impossible to look at old photos without being pulled into the rich mystery of the past. My heart overflows with gratitude, reverence and awe. I thank everyone whose life has touched mine along the twisting path of time. Each of you has a place in my life. Even if we have not seen each other, or spoken in years, none of you can, or ever will be, taken away from me.

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” — Albert Einstein

Every six months I visit my neurologist. I am always a little surprised during these visits, hearing myself say things out loud that I am often reluctant to acknowledge. During my most recent visit, we discussed my life’s pace, which has slowed dramatically since I stopped working in 2019. On one level, this is discouraging. As each month passes, however, I have grown to get used to moving through each day at a slower, more measured pace. If I breathe deeply and pay attention, I can experience things that would otherwise be out of reach, like the joy of watching a Sanderling running up and down the beach on Lake Michigan at sunset in late September.

The Sanderling starts life in the high arctic tundra, and migrates south in the fall. Exactly how this tiny creature finds its way from the arctic to the south across thousands of miles, and back again, is a mystery:

It now appears that birds may visualize the earth’s magnetic field through a form of quantum entanglement, which is just as bizarre as it sounds. Quantum mechanics dictates that two particles, created at the same instant, are linked at the most profound level—that they are, in essence, one thing, and remain “entangled” with each other so that regardless of distance, what affects one instantly affects the other. No wonder the technical term in physics for this effect is “spooky action.” Even Einstein was unsettled by the implications. Theoretically, entanglement occurs even across millions of light-years of space, but what happens within the much smaller scale of a bird’s eye may produce that mysterious ability to use the planetary magnetic field. Scientists now believe that wavelengths of blue light strike a migratory bird’s eye, exciting the entangled electrons in a chemical called cryptochrome. The energy from an incoming photon splits an entangled pair of electrons, knocking one into an adjacent cryptochrome molecule—yet the two particles remain entangled. However minute, the distance between them means the electrons react to the planet’s magnetic field in subtly different ways, creating slightly different chemical reactions in the molecules. Microsecond by microsecond, this palette of varying chemical signals, spread across countless entangled pairs of electrons, apparently builds a map in the bird’s eye of the geomagnetic fields through which it is traveling.^[1]Weidensaul, Scott. A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds (pp. 8-9). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Navigating thousands of miles from the arctic each fall is just the beginning of the mystery surrounding migratory birds:

Researchers have found that in advance of their flights, migrant birds can bulk up with new muscle mass without really exercising, something humans would love to copy. Because a bird’s muscle tissue is all but identical to a human’s, the trigger must be biochemical, but remains a tantalizing mystery. They also put on so much fat (in many cases more than doubling their weight in a few weeks) that they are, by any measure, grossly obese, and their blood chemistry at such times resembles that of diabetics and coronary patients—except that they suffer no harm. Nor do birds flying nonstop for days suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation; they can shut down one hemisphere of the brain (along with that side’s eye) for a second or two at a time, switching back and forth as they fly through the night; during the day, they take thousands of little micronaps lasting just a few seconds. Researchers have found dozens of similarly extraordinary ways in which a bird’s body copes with and overcomes the stress of long-distance travel.^[2]Weidensaul, Scott. A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds (p. 9). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Each of us is on a unique migration through life. Like everyone else, my own migration is shrouded in mystery. How quickly will my Parkinson’s disease progress? What treatments for Parkinson’s are on the horizon? Will these treatments be available to me? When will a cure be discovered? If a cure is found, will I even be able to take advantage of it?

These questions are profound, and, most of the time, too much for me to handle. So instead of dwelling on the overwhelming, I break up my flight on most days into small, manageable bites. Completing a daily journal checklist, I am prompted each morning to set a single priority at the beginning of each day.^[3]One thing each day does not seem to be a lot until you factor in that there are 365 days in a year, which translates to an impressive list. Thanks for the inspiration, MacSparky!

I pick a priority each the morning and write it down. Today, my priority was to finish this blog post.

I stretch my wings and join the Sanderling in flight over the horizon and into the unknown.

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” – Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

In high school, I studied trumpet with Alvin Belknap. He played trumpet in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. I loved having him as my teacher. But he didn’t love having me as a student – at least at first. One day, I arrived for my lesson and went down to his basement studio to warm up, as usual. He came down a few minutes later, crossed his arms and said: “Tim, I can tell that you have not been practicing. I don’t need your money and I really don’t need you to waste my time. So, I’d like you to put your trumpet in its case, get in your car and go home. You can call me in two weeks, and I will think about giving you additional lessons.”

Mr. Belknap knocked me right off my pedestal. For those who knew me then, it was overdue. I had been skating by in life without really trying. The tough lesson I received from Mr. Belknap changed me forever. I went home and practiced like crazy. I called Alvin Belknap in two weeks and he kindly agreed to continue teaching me how to play the trumpet. It was as if our difficult conversation had never happened. This time, however, I focused and did my very best to be the best trumpet player I could possibly be. My interaction with Mr. Belknap was a watershed moment.

While studying at North Park College in Chicago, I played in the orchestra and our conductor, Thom Wilkins, inspired me to do my very best. To this day, he remains an inspiration to many.^[1]This recent speech by Thomas Wilkins is excellent. While at North Park, I was also able to take private trumpet lessons with Luther Didrickson, a professor of trumpet at Northwestern University. I simultaneously feared and admired Mr. Didrickson. He was a legend.^[2]http://www.hsutrumpets.com/luther-didrickson/.

Many of us need at least one teacher who cares enough to demand the very best that we are able to offer. Great teachers intervene at just the right moment, changing the trajectory of our lives forever. Less enlightened teachers can cause terrible emotional damage. It should be no surprise that the most demanding teachers are the ones we remember. Their impact persists long after they are gone from our lives. Indeed, they never truly leave us.

At this stage of my life, I do not have a music teacher looking over my shoulder, inspiring me to practice every day. My trumpets now rest in their cases in our basement. My guitars live in our storage unit in the dark. Nevertheless, the lessons I learned with these instruments carry on within me as a legacy to where I have been, what I have learned, and who I am today.

“Storytelling is the fundamental currency of medicine.” — Suzanne Koven

“Emotional immaturity in parents guarantees that their children will experience significant emotional neglect. However, this emotional deprivation is often a silent and invisible experience for children. These children will feel the emptiness but won’t know what to call it. They’ll grow up suffering from emotional loneliness, but won’t know what’s wrong. They’ll just feel different from people who seem truly at ease.” ^[1]Gibson, Lindsay C.. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (pp. 112-113). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

“The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is as fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn’t show on the outside. Emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describe. You might call it a feeling of emptiness or being alone in the world. Some people have called this feeling existential loneliness, but there’s nothing existential about it. If you feel it, it came from your family.” ^[2]Gibson, Lindsay C.. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (p. 7). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

Andy

Growing up, my family lavished love and affection upon Andy, our beloved dachshund. He was a happy, albeit confused little dog, doing his best to make sense of the instructions he received from us about how to behave. Rules changed from moment to moment, leaving him perplexed for most of the time. To make matters worse, we did not establish any routine to keep Andy safe. For example, when Andy needed to go outside, we simply opened up the back door and let him out. No real effort was made to keep him contained in our back yard. If he decided to make a break for it, and run around in the neighborhood after dark, so be it. He was free to do so. It was all part of the “hands off” parenting style championed by my mom and dad. Unfortunately, the consequences of this arrangement were both tragic and predictable. When Andy failed to return one dark fall evening, my sister and I went out to find him. We discovered his body in the middle of a nearby street in our neighborhood. He had been hit by a car. We were too upset to handle retrieving Andy from the street. We enlisted the help of a neighborhood friend. He reluctantly helped lift Andy’s body into a cardboard box with a shovel and we brought him back home. It was all very traumatic. I carried a photograph of Andy around with me in my front jeans pocket for days. My mom and dad and sisters all grieved his untimely departure. Without him I felt so alone and vulnerable. I missed him so much.

Clamming Up

“Emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness. They use coping mechanisms that resist reality rather than dealing with it. They don’t welcome self-reflection, so they rarely accept blame or apologize. Their immaturity makes them inconsistent and emotionally unreliable, and they’re blind to their children’s needs once their own agenda comes into play.” ^[3]Gibson, Lindsay C.. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents (p. 1). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

Growing up in my family was an anxious, lonely experience. My mom and dad were physically present and provided for us both food and shelter, but I have no recollection of feeling emotionally safe with either of them after about the second grade. I knew I was loved by my mom and dad. I also knew that, because of their own personal challenges, I was ultimately on my own. When Jennifer came into the picture, I was amazed at how close and affectionate she was with her own family. They hugged and talked and debated about everything without ceasing. They even talked in the bathroom!

In contrast, I realized at some point that any personal information I chose to share in my home would eventually be used against me. So I clammed up. As a coping strategy, I limited conversations with my parents, especially my mom, to matters that were superficial and innocuous. This, of course, had the distinct drawback of making me feel even more isolated and lonely. All human beings need meaningful relationships and a supportive social system. People are meant to be connected to others. ^[4]Is it any wonder that so many relationships have broken down in light of social media, which has made us wary and skeptical of even genuine attempts by others to reach out and connect?

Learning How to Live in a Safe House

“Instead of having a well-integrated sense of who they are, emotionally immature people are more like an amalgam of various borrowed parts, many of which don’t go together well. Because they had to shut down important parts of themselves out of fear of their parents’ reactions, their personalities formed in isolated clumps, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together. This explains their inconsistent reactions, which make them so difficult to understand. Because they probably weren’t allowed to express and integrate their emotional experiences in childhood, these people grow up to be emotionally inconsistent adults. Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children. One woman described her mother’s behavior as chaotic, “flip-flopping in ways that made no sense.”^[5]Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

I am still learning how to be more emotionally connected and physically affectionate with my family. I will be honest and say, even today, that being connected in healthy ways still doesn’t come naturally to me. I can easily articulate the benefits of living in a healthy, connected network of family and friends. Sometimes, however, I drop the ball. My coping mechanisms have deep roots in my childhood experience. I tend to swing back and forth between engaging when I feel safe, and withdrawing when I feel anxious, or overwhelmed.

Gratitude is a key part of healing. I am deeply grateful that people around me choose to accept me, in spite of my flaws. I am also grateful for my family of origin, and for all of the good times that we shared together. My mom and dad did a heroic job for providing for my sisters and me, even while fighting their own unique personal battles.

Accepting the good doesn’t require us to ignore the bad. Indeed, bringing the two sides of life together makes it possible to have a more nuanced view of the whole, which is the first step toward healing and inner peace.

“Perfectionism can be caused by a fear of judgment or disapproval from others. Early childhood experiences, such as having parents with unrealistically high expectations, may also play a role.“^[1]https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-you-may-be-a-perfectionist-3145233

If there is one thing that makes me uncomfortable, it is falling behind the pack. I absolutely dread being the last one in line while hiking, biking, or kayaking. Being in last place somehow allows the broken part of me to seep up to the surface. It whispers: “See. I told you. You cannot keep up with the pack. Everyone can see that you are unable to perform at this level. You clearly do not have what it takes.”

For most of my life, I have measured how I am doing in comparison to everyone else. The roots of my fixation lie in my deep fear of making mistakes. Early in life, I internalized a message from people I trusted that it was not acceptable to make mistakes. To this day, any mistake I make has a tendency to cascade quickly in my mind to a sense of failure or dread. This tendency persists despite any “success” that I manage to achieve in a material sense.

Living with Perfectionism

What is it like to live with someone who is a perfectionist? Hint: it is not fun. A perfectionist inflicts needless suffering on themselves and others by:

– feeling anxious about everything and spreading this anxiety to others

– keeping a detailed scorecard on everything

– refusing to accept or even acknowledge mistakes

– overreacting to mistakes

– feeling a strong urge to blame others for mistakes

It is not wrong to aspire to excellence. Pursuing excellence focuses the mind on behavior, and not on outcome. Perfection, on the other hand, is impossible to achieve. Pursuing perfection inevitably leads to anxiety and frustration. It also prevents us from accepting life on life’s terms. It robs us of peace.

Give Life Balance, or Life will Give Balance to You

I will never know why I developed young-onset Parkinson Disease. It has occurred to me that my body and brain simply could not cope with the unrealistic demands I placed upon them. As they say: “Give life balance, or life will give balance to you.” But it is pointless to perseverate about such things. Indeed, my tendency to beat myself up over getting Parkinson Disease only proves the point that my belief in lie of perfectionism still exists.

So I will now give myself some sorely needed advice: “You are not to blame for your diagnosis. No one is to blame. In life, shit happens. You are not alone. Be grateful for what you have and don’t look back for very long, unless it is to remember all of the amazing people that have helped you along the way.”

On Sunday, Annika left our driveway on the way to her brand new adventure in Chicago. Mimicking what the girls did when they were small, I ran alongside her car in the street until she reached the top of our cul-de-sac, smiling, shouting and waving. As she rounded the corner, I could not hold back my tears. Our oldest daughter was now in the driver’s seat, moving away from her childhood home.

When I walked back down the street and up our driveway, Jennifer was waiting for me. Like me, she was in tears, sobbing. We stood in our garage, filled with boxes of all of Annika’s stuff, holding each other in a poignant embrace, each of us acknowledging with our tears that things would no longer be the same.

Jennifer and I are again empty nesters. This time, however, is different. Annika will not be returning after the next semester of school. Indeed, she graduated in 2020 at the beginning of COVID, giving us two bonus years with her. Now, her studio lights and recording equipment have been carted off in boxes. I am sitting in the basement in front of a computer that I have not used for months. I can hear Jennifer’s voice upstairs in the family room, but I can’t make out any words. Our home is so empty without Annika’s boundless energy and quirky ways.

Before she got in the car, Jennifer, Annika and I spent some time together in prayer and reflection. Suddenly, waves of memories came flooding back, as if Annika’s life was flashing before my eyes in a fast moving picture. I found myself recalling, in vivid detail, taking Annika to learn how to swim in the Costick Center pool nearby. She was so small and our time together in the pool was filled with joy and tenderness.

Words cannot describe how grateful I am for it all. One season has ended, and another is beginning. Malin will graduate college at the end of this month. After the summer, she plans to head off to Sweden for her own adventure. Our girls are growing up. They say that life doesn’t stand still, and we know this to be truer than ever before. I understand from others that we will get used to this new arrangement. But for now there are lots of aches, sighs and tears.

I realize that we are not the first parents to embrace a child before they set out on their own. But these are our girls! It seems like just yesterday when they waited for me to arrive at home after work. Let’s play run and jump! This game involved each of our girls clapping a signal, then running down the hallway toward me. Then they would jump up, and I would launch them into the air. They would squeal with delight, landing safely on our king-size bed. Malin would sometimes cut in front of Annika to get a double run and jump. Annika was usually a good sport about this. We would all laugh and smile with the simple joy of being together and having fun.

Now, the hallway upstairs is silent and Annika’s bedroom is empty, except for some things hanging on the walls to remind us of our shared history here. I love our family and this sacred place. I cherish all of the memories gone by, and those memories yet to be made.

“If These Walls Could Speak” by Amy Grant

If these old walls
If these old walls could speak
Of things that they remembered well
Stories and faces dearly held
A couple in love
Living week to week
Rooms full of laughter
If these walls could speak

If these old halls
If hallowed halls could talk
These would have a tale to tell
Of sun going down and dinner bell
And children playing at hide and seek
From floor to rafter
If these halls could speak

They would tell you that I’m sorry
For being cold and blind and weak
They would tell you that it’s only
That I have a stubborn streak
If these walls could speak

If these old fashioned window panes were eyes
I guess they would have seen it all
Each little tear and sigh and footfall
And every dream that we came to seek
Or followed after
If these walls could speak

They would tell you that I owe you
More than I could ever pay
Here’s someone who really loves you
Don’t ever go away
That’s what these walls would say