Lately I have been reading a series of books by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun. Chodron came to Buddhism later in her life. Like me, she often found herself suffering from chaotic and disordered emotions. The intensity of these  emotions was often highly distressing to her, overwhelming her already raw and sensitive psyche. She yearned for something solid to hold onto- something to ground her emotions- but any sense of  long-lasting solidity continued to elude her. Buddhism helped Chodron make peace with the ultimate groundlessness of life and provided her with a much needed framework for accepting, and ultimately shrinking,  the power of her emotions.

The particular Chodron teaching I have been working on this month is restraint. Restraint not in the pejorative sense of repression or shutting down (survival tools I have unintentionally relied on far too often) but in the healthy sense of taking a deep, intentional  pause. The first aspect of restraint is to understand and respect the power of emotions and how, unharnessed, they will run us around in circles. Understanding and respecting their power allows us to see how we increase our pain and confusion, how we bring undue harm to ourselves and others, by yielding blindly to our emotions. Restraint asks that we approach our emotions with mindfulness. It asks that we look directly at our emotions as they arise so that we don’t create a reckless chain reaction whereby our emotions grow from minute to expansive. We learn to become bigger than our emotions. We leave things minute. We keep them tiny. We learn to pause. Pausing allows us to stop impulsively repeating the same reactions over and over and over again. Pausing requires a great deal of practice and attention because we are programmed by Western social norms to fill up space rather than silently sit within it. We are taught to move on.

I was fortunate to have a grandparent who lived to be over 100. As she neared the end of her life she told me that the most important piece of advice she could offer me was to “not be ruled by your emotions.” My Grandmother had witnessed some of my more explosive and unruly emotions, especially as a teenager, and I recognized in her advice genuine concern for the reactive way she saw me respond to life. In that moment,  I believe she saw a warning light hanging above me. I believe she saw that I might  be in trouble with life if I didn’t find an anchor in something larger than my emotions.

Untamed emotions can cause extreme harm to the human psyche.  We can live with only so much untethered rawness before it is no longer pleasurable or desirable to be here in our bodies, tied to earthly life. When my emotions become too chaotic I find myself wanting to disappear, to evaporate. In a real sense, I start to wish to die. The physical world feels frightening and ugly and filled with harm. My thoughts and feelings become unwelcome intruders intent on separating me from loved ones and from life. Self-hatred rolls over me like a two-ton tank until I start to imagine ways out.   Restraint asks me to recognize this as the signal that it is time for a serious pause. A life saving pause. It is time to take deep breaths and remember the teachings of restraint.

This week I have been reading the following teaching from Chodron’s wonderful book When Things Fall Apart.

Well being of mind is like a lake without ripples. When the lake has no ripples, everything in the lake can be seen. When the water is all churned up, nothing can be seen. The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don’t feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what’s there.

Most all my life I have unintentionally  given my emotions the power to run wild, to churn up the lake.  Doing so has caused me untold hours, months, and years of  loneliness and sadness. I don’t want to continue spending part of my life wishing I wasn’t here. It is far too painful a feeling. I want to take the reins of my emotions. I want to transform the rough sea in my mind so that, instead of dangerous, choppy waters, I encounter a still and peaceful lake. I want to be, as Pema Chodron says, a warrior of restraint. I want to want to be.

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I was addicted to cigarettes for 33 years. Never once did I go a day without cigarettes…even if I had the flu or it was 10 degrees out or I was dating someone  who hated them. Nothing could stop me from smoking. It was usually the first thing I did each morning and often the last thing I did at night. It was a hard core addiction and it sat on top of me like a ten-ton weight. In fact, up until I quit, I was pretty much convinced I was incapable of doing so.

I wish I could say I quit for health reasons but, truthfully, I quit because no one else in my life smoked anymore and I was ashamed of it.  Ashamed of always being the one to have to sneak off for a cigarette. Ashamed of how I smelled after smoking. Ashamed of watching my teeth turn more and more yellow as the years passed. Ashamed that everyone else I knew who’d ever smoked had successfully quit in their 20s or 30s. Ashamed that I based social plans and travel and all sorts of other logistics on whether I’d be able to smoke. Ashamed that I was a complete and total slave to it.

Given how deep my addiction ran,  I carefully and deliberately set a plan in motion. I told my family, friends, and co-workers that I was quitting. I went to see my doctor and was prescribed Chantix (which I eventually had to stop taking because of bad side-effects). I set a non-negotiable quit date for myself and threw out all remaining cigarettes, ashtrays, matches, lighters, etc. when the day arrived. I found an on-line support group before my quit date and educated myself about nicotine addiction. In short, I made my quit the single most important focus in my life.

The first week or two were like something from the Twilight Zone. I’m not even sure how to describe it except that it was surreal and horrible. I cried, I walked 8 miles a day, I called friends and family, and I lived on the cessation support site 24/7. Those two weeks felt like a nightmare – one that seemed to last forever. But eventually the nightmare ended and I felt a slight but tangible return to life. The next month or two was a series of intense ups and downs. I often felt lonely and abandoned and without solid ground beneath my feet. Daily living  felt strange and unfamiliar. I missed cigarettes like I would a best friend. I truly mourned them and pined for them. Some days I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.

So I exercised like a demon, stayed close to my support group, and continued to make the quit my priority. Now, at 6 months, I can hardly believe I’ve made it this far. I certainly can’t say I never miss cigarettes because I do. Several times a day still. But it passes.  And I am happily getting to know this new body of mine. A body that takes full, deep breaths. A body with no disconcerting flutters in the chest.  A body that no longer feels beaten up and run down.

Thank you so much to all of you who have given me such support and encouragement and have celebrated my milestones with me. I am blessed beyond measure by the amazing people in my life.

We’ll both see you again one day, dearest boy, and will love you always. I hope you are chasing squirrels with your brother Ben.

Like many a younger sibling, Jill bore the brunt of my emotional teasing and physical roughness for most of our childhood. I locked her in closets, pinned her down and tickled her, wouldn’t let her hang out with my friends and me. One day I even pushed her out of the house naked. Oh, my lord. What I wouldn’t give now to undo those moments. I’m ashamed, mortified, and appalled. Jill deserved an older sister who would protect her, nurture her, include her in things. But perhaps that’s the older sister of  fantasies. In reality, older siblings are often mean and nasty bullies in childhood.

Thankfully most of us grow out of that.  And all those ugly, immature moments morph into a unique shared experience that can bond siblings for life. After all, who else knows so many of our youthful secrets? Who else knows the horrid details of the fights we had with mom and dad? Who else knows about our hideous clothing and disastrous hair styles? Who else can instantly recognize the first notes of a song we played over and over again on our record player or recite dialogue from favorite television shows? Who else remembers our braces and retainers and acne and ridiculous crushes? Who else can reminisce with us about family vacations and holiday fiascoes and sneaking a cigarette after school and trying our first beer?

Perhaps more valuable than the bond from shared memories, however, is the closer friendship that can blossom during adulthood. Not all siblings are fortunate enough to experience this transformed relationship. Some siblings split apart in later life, often from opposing  loyalties or family dysfunction or differing life views. Some simply drift apart from lack of effort.

I have been extremely blessed to have only grown closer to my sister through the years. As adults we have shared the sadness of our father’s illness and death, the pain and confusion of soured romances, the challenges of depression and ill health. I have watched her bloom as she met and married her wonderful husband. I have seen her transform into an amazing force of nature through becoming a mother. I have seen her as a daughter, a career woman, a friend. I have seen her create a warm and nurturing home for herself, her husband, and their two boys. I have seen her grow into someone I am so honored to know.

But what keeps us just as close as shared life challenges and journeys is the abundant humor we have always shared. Quite simply, my sister is one of the funniest people I have ever known. Belly-aching laughter has fueled our closeness time and again through the years. My sister constantly enriches my life by making it a more joyful one, marked with frequent guffaws of silliness. When I’m old and gray and sifting through life’s many memories, laughing with my sister will be among the most treasured.

Today marks my sister’s 44th birthday. It is an enormous gift to enter middle age with her. I feel safer and less alone just knowing she is on this journey, too. I lucked out in a big way when it comes to my sister. I couldn’t have known it then but September 17, 1965 turned out to be one of the best days of my life. Much love to you, Pooper, on your birthday.

Sometimes quitting is exactly what our bodies and souls need to do in order to let go of that which is harmful, toxic, or simply outgrown. I quit a 33 year smoking addiction nearly 7 weeks ago and it has been a journey beyond journeys.  And a journey that’s really only just begun.

The first few weeks of my quit were all about withdrawal. Getting the nicotine out of my bloodstream, out of my muscles and tissues, out of my nervous system. It was hell. Truly. One day I might be able to write about it in greater detail but, for now, it remains a messy blur of tears, anxiety, depression, emotional free fall, and sheer survival. I relied heavily on my family’s and friend’s love and encouragement,  exercise, the friendship of strangers on an internet smoking cessation support group, more exercise, computer Pacman, and still more exercise. In fact I exercised myself right into a sprained back.

Once the nicotine withdrawal was complete the mental and spiritual work began. Mental work because recovering from any addiction requires changing one’s moment to moment thoughts and beliefs. Spiritual work because ending an addiction also requires a committed, long-term overhaul of one’s core self-esteem. After all, at the root of any chemical addiction lies a belief -at some level- that one’s life does not have value. Changing this belief is now the single most important job I have, if for no other reason than -without such change- I will always be susceptible to chemically addictive behaviors.

Quitting smoking is bringing other life lessons as well.  I try, every day, to remind myself that I was a cigarette addict for 33 years. That’s 1,716 weeks. It would be naive to think I would get past this struggle in just 7 weeks. It’s going to take time and patience. And that is one of the greatest emotional and spiritual lessons I am learning …patience, patience, patience.  I can’t think of a better gift to come into my life.  Patience was never one of my virtues. Now, I try to start each day with a deep breath and with faith that, as long as I have patience with myself and the process, I will be okay.

My quit -and all the deeper issues surrounding it-  has been the focus of my life these past 7 weeks.  And it will continue to be my focus until I have reached a point of security with it. Even then, staying quit will always remain one of the most important commitments I’ve made.

The summer of 2009 started out much like other summers. I hadn’t moved homes or changed jobs or relocated to a new city. I started the summer thinking the biggest news would be where I went for vacation or what great books I’d read or what new hobby I might pick up. It turns out the theme of my 2009 summer is that I am a big quitter. And sometimes in life that is the best thing to be.

Now, for someone who is fortunate enough to have never been physically addicted to something, it may seem a bit melodramatic and self-pitying to lament the extreme difficulties of quitting smoking. After all we did it to ourselves, right? No one forced us into this nasty addiction.  A difficult quit is simply the price we must pay for our own bad choices and behavior. For those lucky souls I say “there but for the grace of God…”  Life is messy and addiction, of any kind,  is but one of its many messes.

I always knew quitting cigarettes would be difficult so I prepared for my quit with great diligence and seriousness of purpose. I met with my doctor and discussed the various options for quitting aids, settling on Chantix – a medicine designed to curb physical cravings. I talked to my family, close friends, and co-workers about my quit,  thereby making it less likely that I would give up without a serious fight.  I also wanted to prepare them for any foul moods I might display in the first few months. I joined an on-line support group that is filled with great camaraderie and excellent information. I decided that exercise would be critical to my success and committed myself to walking and sweating my way through the pain.

As difficult as I knew it would be it has been 100 times harder. The first week was something I can only describe as hell. I felt as if I was in a nightmare and all solid ground had been ripped out from under me.  A frequent misunderstanding about quitting smoking is that it is simply the giving up of a bad habit. Oh, if  it were only that simple.  The biggest culprit in cigarettes is nicotine and the power of a nicotine addiction is almost beyond compare. If one were to inject the small amount of nicotine contained in one cigarette directly into the bloodstream it would kill you instantly. Nicotine has the capacity to grab its users by the throat and not let go. Why one person becomes so potently addicted to it while another does not remains a mystery. There are plenty of casual, social smokers out there whose systems do not seem to react to nicotine the way long-term smokers do. But when nicotine gets you, it has you.  And getting it out of you is one hell of a ride.

One of the reasons so many smokers describe cigarettes as relaxing, comforting, soothing is because smoking curbs the intense and unsettling craving that nicotine creates.  Any feelings of relaxation are simply the relief of that craving. A nicotine-addict smokes in a vicious, never-ending cycle.  Each cigarette creates a later need for another unless the cycle is eventually broken. But breaking the cycle is so excruciating that many people give in and just decide it’s easier to smoke. And, you know what, it is.

I wouldn’t wish that first week of a nicotine quit on anyone. It literally brought me to my knees. It only takes about 3 days for the nicotine to leave the bloodstream but those are 3 of the longest days imaginable.  For me, it felt like 3 weeks. It takes another 2 weeks for the nicotine to get out of all the tissues and muscles of the body and about 4 weeks for one’s brain chemistry to return to its pre-nicotine addicted state. Add to the mix the plethora of chemicals now added to cigarettes to keep people addicted and those are some serious physiological adjustments for a body and brain to go through.

Since I am just 2 weeks into this thing I am only beginning to take on the monumental emotional and behavioral changes that an ex-smoker experiences. They say the whole first year after quitting is a period of major personal adjustment. Many ex-smokers divide their adult lives into two phases – before they quit and after they quit. It is that pivotal of a marking point.

I start each day now in a conversation with the universe, asking – no, pleading- for the strength to see this through.  I am raw, vulnerable, and my guts feel splayed out for all the world to see. I am also finding reservoirs of toughness, self-care, and determination that I never knew were there .  Quitting smoking is, after all, not an event but a journey. And, as my on-line Tennesseean quit buddy says, this journey ain’t nothin’  for no sissies.

Mostly, though, I like to let him know that my mom’s okay. I think he would hate worrying about her growing old alone and I like to reassure him that we’re here, all of us, making sure that she ages in the full support of her family’s presence and love. No need to worry, I like to tell him, we’ve got it covered.

My dad died at age 60 after a long, courageous struggle with multiple sclerosis and diabetes. His life was not easy. In fact, it was exceedingly hard. But I like to remember that, mixed in with the tragedies, there were joys.

My dad grew up an only child, raised by a single parent – my Nana. His father deserted them when my dad was still a toddler and never contacted them again. My Nana was a schoolteacher and tried her best to provide for the two of them but often had to leave him in the care of relatives as she took teaching jobs wherever she could find them. This was the 1930s and work was not easy to come by. When my dad was a teenager they left North Carolina and moved to Virginia, where my Nana had married a rather rough and tough southern man named Kermit. Though the details are fuzzy I get the feeling Kermit was none too nice to my Nana and that my dad was witness to this.

My dad grew up around a lot of old-school southern racism and seems to have wanted out at the first available opportunity. He joined the army and spent several years stationed in Germany before returning to America and attending Virginia Tech and Georgetown on a GI bill. After finishing college he chose not to return to the old environs and instead set off to New York where he began a career in management consulting. There he met my mom and marriage and children soon followed. It seemed some long-needed domestic happiness might finally have found its way into my dad’s life but, sadly, trouble wasn’t far off.

From the time my dad was in his twenties he’d experienced some sporadic but disconcerting neurological problems. Double-vision, sudden episodes of temporary paralysis in his hands, unsteadiness on his feet. Every doctor he saw chalked it up to something different and no clear answers were available. Shortly after my parents were married he had a week long episode of near total blindness and the doctors thought he might have a brain tumor. This was pre-CT scan/ MRI days and diagnosing neurological problems was often a sophisticated guessing game at best.

As frightening as these episodes were they would each eventually resolve themselves enough for life to carry on in a mostly normal, healthy manner. My brother and I were born in somewhat rapid succession and my dad’s career blossomed. My parents had moved from New York to California and life was looking pretty good. Then, several days after my younger sister’s birth in 1965, my dad’s legs collapsed out from under him while playing golf with some buddies. He couldn’t get back up and was admitted to the hospital for a number of weeks while a plethora of tests were performed, some excruciatingly painful. Spinal taps of 1965 were nowhere near as refined as they are today.

I think so tenderly of the enormous fear my parents must have felt during this time. Still in their thirties, three young children -one a newborn-, a recently purchased first home, a career in full throttle and my dad’s body in seeming free fall. The news was, of course, not good. Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system and affects each patient in a different way and with varying degrees of severity. It can range from fatigue and weakness to paralysis and blindness and everything in between. This great unknown must have hit them like a sledgehammer. My mom recently told me of a day when she’d gone grocery shopping, shortly after the diagnosis. She had a cart full of food, my infant sister perched in her carrier, and was headed to the check-out line. All of a sudden a crushing wave of fear and sadness came over her. She grabbed my sister, abandoned the cart, got herself safely to the car, and sat behind the wheel – sobbing. Knowing my mom, it was probably one of the few times she allowed herself to break down. It catches at me even now to think of her having to live through that moment, distressed and alone.

The news never got much better for them. My dad continued to work for another ten years but his body was slowly crumbling. He did everything he could to make himself mobile – a cane, a walker, handicapped devices in the car- but eventually it was too much. He was becoming incontinent and urinated in his pants one day at work. His speech was beginning to slur and the fatigue was unrelenting. After a decade of non-stop battle, his body began to deteriorate quickly. By his late 40s he was in a wheelchair and had been let go from his job. My mom began a career with the MS Society and became our family’s breadwinner. My dad’s legs were now fully paralyzed and a crippling depression set in. The next decade was a long blur of hospitalizations, experimental treatments, home nurses, and physical decline. A broken hip, type 1-diabetes, bed sores, infections, bad drug interactions. My parents lives had gone haywire. The one blessing was that, when the end came, he was at home with my mom and sister at his side.

My dad has been gone for 20 years now. So much has happened since then, to all of us. He’d be so pleased to know he has a namesake grandson, Charlie, who looks very much like him. He’d be thrilled to know we’re all healthy and that mom is still kicking ass at 80. I’m not a religious person and have no particular beliefs about God or the great cosmic beyond. I do believe, however, that I will see my dad again. More importantly, I believe my mom will.  And when she does there will be no wheelchairs or hospital beds or insulin shots or medical crises. Instead, she will find him gently moving in a light and ease that was lost to him here on earth. I hope that my dad truly is free now. Untangled. Unharnessed. Unencumbered.

My dad loved politics, bridge, Balzac, vermouth, German food and music, his green Firebird, the beach, golf, and boardgames. And those are just the things I remember. No doubt there is so much more. That is one of the sadnesses of losing someone before their time – all the things about them you will never have the chance to know.

You are loved so much, dad. Then. Now. And always. I am so very proud to be your daughter. Happy Father’s Day.

Silly or not, our hair plays a big part in our physical identity. Most women, and some appearance conscious men,  know the cringe-inducing feeling of having a bad hair day. No matter how you wear it, comb it, play with it, douse it with products, it remains a mess. Many men know the shock and upset of losing their hair by middle years. Looking at recent photos in my college alumni magazine I barely recognized most of the men I’d gone to school with. Only a few of them still had more than a few strands left. Women can easily spend $1,000 a year just keeping their hair a color they are happy with. Add in all the cuts and styling products and the cost doubles.

For me, my hair identity is always based on length. I’ve had extremely long hair, seriously short hair, and everything in between. I tend to chop off my locks when I want to outwardly express a sense of inner change or transformation. The act of ridding myself from the weight of longer hair feels in sync with ridding myself of other, more personal weights.

So today I chopped it off, leaving only inches behind, and oh-my-lord it feels so good. Light, clean, simple,  easy.  And so unbelievably freeing. I love running my fingers through it. Plus, I think it looks kinda hot. Most excellent.

Getting rid of so much hair today meshes perfectly with other areas of my life in which I am also shedding weights I no longer want or need.  Something has lifted.  My newly refreshed head is happy – both inside and out.

Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected a gay soldier’s challenge to the archaic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. A successful challenge to the highest court could have ended this ridiculous, hate-filled charade once and for all. The Court, however, rejected the challenge with the endorsement and encouragement of our President, a man who promised -throughout his campaign- to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

James Pietrangelo, the former Army infantryman and Arabic language specialist whose case the high court refused to review, spoke today of his deep disappointment in Obama. “He’s a coward, a bigot and a pathological liar. This is a guy who spent more time picking out his dog, Bo, and playing with him on the White House lawn than he has working for equality for gay people. If there were millions of black people living as second-class citizens, or millions of Jews or Irish, he would have acted immediately upon taking office to lift the ban.”

Elena Kagan, Obama’s Solicitor General, argued in the administration’s brief to the court that “the ban on gays serving openly is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.” Isn’t this the same argument every right-wing bigot has used for years? That the very existence of gays in the military will somehow disrupt and undermine national security. The same argument, by the way, that was often used for maintaining racial segregation in the military.  Shame on you, Obama.

When Bill Clinton originally devised ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the majority of Americans, Democrat and Republican, opposed gays serving in the military. Politically, “Don’tAsk, Don’t Tell” was as big a leap as Clinton could afford to take. Gays and lesbians were disppointed but understood the larger political forces at play. Now, 17 years later, over 70% of Americans support lifting the ban – including 58% of Republicans. Obama does not have the political excuses  Clinton had. He does not have the excuse that Americans are not ready for gays to serve in the military. He does not have the excuse that removing the ban could cost him the next election. All he has is his own homophobia.

Between Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural convocation, his close associations with the frighteningly homophobic Donnie McClurkin and Reverend James Meeks, and his continued assertion that marriage is between a man and a woman (even though five states have legalized gay marriage just since he took office) I am beyond angry.

I guess you could say I’ve pretty much had it with Obama’s homophobia. Then again, I was for Hillary all along.