So far June has been a weird month. This morning I’m thinking it all has to do with finding “place.” The 2nd would’ve/should’ve/could’ve been my mom’s 70th birthday. Four plus years after her death I still have some conflicting feelings about how she passed and the years leading up to it. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly have those resolved. What I do know is that with her and my dad both gone and no siblings, I feel displaced, untethered, orphaned. My in-laws have also been visiting the last few days and we celebrated my mother-in-law’s 75th birthday. I don’t begrudge the celebration or my husband having his family, but it does highlight my lack. 

June has also brought the start of a new coaching position for me. On paper I have a new place: new school, new team, new opportunities. Exciting stuff, right? When I agreed to move forward my husband’s rule was “No tears.” I’ve already broken that. Finding my exact place is proving a bigger challenge than I thought. Though I am still working with my coaching partner of the last several years, someone who has also been a good personal friend, our dynamic isn’t the same. We’ve gone from both being head coaches (he boys, me girls) working in tandem with each other, to being head coach and assistant. There’s an awkwardness of not knowing what my voice is, or my exact role. I excelled at relationship building and developing the team culture for my girls in the past. I grew to be an adept running coach as well and expanded my knowledge base gaining confidence along the way. Now I show up and have limited responsibility, and uncertainty in what I’m supposed to be doing. The kids and the parents that I’ve met so far have made me feel welcome, but I feel like I’m stumbling along not sure what my actual interactions should be. While I understand the practicality of my head coach saying going into this that we would have to figure it out as we go, I didn’t anticipate it feeling so damn uncomfortable. 

We’re taught sometimes that it’s a good thing to leave our comfort zones, that true growth happens when we muddle through discomfort. But then how do we know when something is the right fit? How much time do we allow to pass in the uncomfortableness before we decide it just isn’t working or what we want? How do we deal with the ick of feeling like we don’t belong…at least not yet?

A couple weeks probably isn’t enough time to make a determination. In my coaching past I’ve asked girls to dig deep into foreign territory stretching themselves both physically and mentally. I’ve asked them to believe big things and to commit to working hard to achieve big goals. At the heart of my coaching was always the push though to find place, to build an environment where they each had a role to play and a family to surround them. Right now I’m the foreigner entering the new territory trying to establish my place. The discomfort is real, but maybe necessary? Only time will tell.

To be continued…

Last week I had the new experience of watching a dog give birth to ELEVEN puppies. We had somewhat inadvertently bred our male yellow lab with our best friends’ female black lab. When we got the parents as puppies the long range plan had been to mate them after they were two years old. While they technically are now two years old, in an ideal world we were waiting for one more heat cycle, but nature, or instinct, had other plans. We didn’t realize Piper was in full blown heat when we got all our dogs together for a normal playdate back in March. I turned my back on them for a couple of minutes, and well, was a little mortified to discover them in action. What, though, were the chances it was going to take on the first encounter, brief as it was since I insisted on breaking up the arrangement? A little over a month later and Piper was showing definite signs of pregnancy, with only about three and a half weeks to go. Not only were they not entirely planned for, the puppies would be due the day before our friends’ daughter graduated from high school. 

There was an element of denial, but what we thought was hopefully enough preparation. On Tuesday we took Piper for an x-ray to see how many puppies to expect. We placed our bets, mostly going conservative as it was such a brief mating and her first litter. The most common guess amongst all the family members was 7. Seemed reasonable. The vet techs brought in the x-ray and said they counted 10 skulls, but were waiting on confirmation from the doctor. Doc comes in and reiterates the count of 10, but maybe 11. Back at their home my friend and I counted again. Definitely 10 skulls, but what about this “extra” spinal cord that doesn’t appear to be attached to a head, that kind of trails off the x-ray boundary?

Still thinking we have a few days until the delivery, everyone attempts business as usual until Wednesday morning when I get a text that the dogs are acting weird, would I come over and sit with them while friend goes to an appointment, just in case. While I’m getting ready to head over, I get a frantic text saying Piper’s water has broken. So much for plans. I hurried the 3 miles to their house and walked in to my friend completely wigged out because the cat had chosen that exact moment to bring a mouse in and drop it in the whelping box (kiddie pool). Thankfully I’m not super squeamish and the mouse ran under a blanket so I could grab it and throw it outside. Now…how long to wait for the puppies to come?

Online sources led us to believe it could still be hours until the first delivery. Nope, an hour later puppy number one, a healthy, hardy yellow male came out. In our excitement and lingering panic, we probably helped a little too much, but all in all it was a successful delivery and he remains the biggest of the litter. Then we waited. And waited. The vet the day before had said call if more than 30 minutes passed. Everything we read in the book my friend purchased and online said not to worry until 4 hours. At 2 hours, 15 minutes, puppies two and three arrived together, but one was stillborn. We posited that maybe that’s why there was a delay, cleaned up the healthy pup, another yellow but female, and assisted in making sure both puppies were nursing. We intend to let Piper handle that birth more independently, but the stillborn threw us off a bit. Okay, next round would be better. 

My husband came over, brought us some lunch, and decided he wasn’t getting any more work done for the day so stayed to see how the rest of the births would go. Another two hours passed and we decided to sit within eyesight, but try not to stress out mom by hovering. Let nature take its course. Next thing we know my friend’s older son walks by and says “There’s another puppy…no, wait, there are two more puppies.” Crap. Rush over and sure enough, Piper had given birth again, this time to a tiny chocolate female, and another yellow female. Now I was really wondering if the double births were happening when one pup wasn’t strong enough. But small as she was, the little chocolate was feisty and willing to nurse. The remaining six puppies started coming about every 30 minutes or so and were all thankfully healthy and hearty, and mom was getting the hang of cleaning them up herself and nursing in between. Total labor and delivery was about 8 hours. At that point all human family members were home and we decided what we had read about providing a calm, quiet birthing environment was overrated. Our dogs were used to chaos and activity and that probably felt more normal. 

Five days later, the 10 surviving puppies are continuing to grow and gain weight and Piper has been a rockstar getting the hang of motherhood. She knows where all her babies are at any moment and will retrieve one from your human lap if she decides to do so. We’re supposed to be calling them solely by their collar colors and not naming them as they will eventually go to other homes, but we each have our favorites and have nicknamed a couple of them. The first boy is “Baby Blue” but also “Porker” since he continues to be the biggest; “Little Miss” is technically “Yellow” but she’s taken a little extra care so I’ve also named her “Peanut.” In keeping with Peanut, I’m calling the only other chocolate, a bigger male, Charlie Brown. We get pick of the litter and had said ahead of time we’d like a chocolate so I’m not really concerned about naming our potential new family members. 

Our friends may beg to differ as they are bearing the brunt of the care and initial stress of the unplanned adventure, but I think there’s something to be said for letting nature take its course. I’m a planner too, and I generally hate change, but sometimes we get in ruts and we need a little shaking up. Sometimes we need a distraction that forces us not to worry about situations outside of our control. Sometimes we need to see that someone else should be allowed to take the reins of care. Sometimes we need to be reminded of what’s really important…family and being there in the moment, being there for each other, remembering the fun times and ties that got us to this place. And sometimes we really really just need to cuddle a puppy…or 10!

Change. Not my favorite topic. Last week I was pondering wide open spaces; looking out at horizons that seemed endless with little navigational guides along the way. As I was discussing that thought process with someone, they said, “You’re in the ‘trembles.'”

The” trembles” are what happens when you are trying to move forward in pursuit of new horizons, but you’re having to trust others’ roles in that process. Imagine a rope bridge over some kind of chasm or gorge. You have a general idea of where it’s going, but you didn’t build the bridge, and you’re not sure of it’s stability. There’s fog in the distance blurring what’s actually at the end of the bridge. (Think of that scene in Jurassic Park III, you know the one, where the precarious bridge starts rocking because there’s a freaking pterodactyl coming at the character…that kind of fog.) You have a guide, but they are ahead of you and you can’t see them very clearly; and it turns out they are only crossing for the first time too. They’ve got enough of the boards past their own weight and they trust it’s going to hold, but really, how do they know for sure? What if they make that final leap and one of those ropes isn’t secure enough to support a second traveler?

In my scenario there’s a swiftly flowing river below, and the fall is theoretically survivable, but I’m going to be swept downstream and I don’t know where that will end up either. I’d rather successfully pass the bridge even if each board forward wobbles a bit, even if the guide is at times purposefully making it sway just to test my stamina. If they make it and the bridge does fail, do I know if I’d try to hold on and climb my way up, or would I let go and let the current take me?

Perhaps in life we’re safer never stepping on those bridges; never experiencing the trembles. But sometimes what lies behind, staying in the status quo is scarier than possibly falling, or encountering a pterodactyl.

Grief is a weird and fickle beast, and like the proverbial elephant in the room, it can only be ignored for so long. In a span of less than four years I lost my mom, I moved across town after twenty-one years in the same house, I lost my dad, I had two major surgeries with organ removals, I quit my day job of fifteen plus years, my son graduated college and moved out on his own, and I ended an eight year stint of coaching. Oh, and yes, in the middle of it all there was a pandemic to navigate along with the rest of the world.

I’ve think I’ve avoided truly grieving each loss along the way. At times because I was afraid, at times because it felt self-indulgent, at times because I didn’t feel like I had the space to do so while managing other responsibilities, at times because I didn’t think the people around me could handle it, or would think less of me for not being strong enough to suck it up, and ultimately because wide open spaces aren’t easily navigated.

• Fear – My life verse is 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound mind (or self control).” I am afraid of grief largely because I fear losing control or my soundness of mind. What if I go down that path and I don’t know how to come back? What if the path doesn’t have an end? Wide open space to a horizon that doesn’t seem to reach a boundary. 

• Self-Indulgence – Grief feels very me-centered. With regard to losing my parents I think this has been unavoidable: I don’t have siblings, my grandparents are all dead, and my remaining aunts and uncles are distant. Who would share my feelings and memories and wonderings? Even when we find others who have had similar experiences, no two stories or relationships are truly the same, so grief is bound to be unique and lonely. A wide open space that is being navigated solo with no set path trampled by others who’ve gone before.

• Responsibilities – This one is a two-edged sword. Often our responsibilities get in the way of our grief, and often they are our life preserver helping us keep our heads above the open seas. In the direct after of each of my losses I dove into my responsibilities: my job, my coaching, my looking after others, packing and unpacking our homes, etc. Sometimes I knew I was consciously avoiding grief, and sometimes these tasks were what kept me moving forward so that depression didn’t take hold. But as one of my favorite songs states, “Every breaking wave on the shore, tells the next one there’ll be one more…” No matter what I used to fill my head, heart, and time, those waves were going to continue to break. As the song goes on to say, I needed to let them sweep me off of my feet and learn to navigate that tide, rocks and all. 

• Others – This one may be the hardest open space for me personally. This may be because in losing my parents I have also had to come to terms with some misconceptions I had about their relationship with each other, and their relationships with me. I’ve been left with questions that may never have answers. My ability to trust my own judgment has been hampered. I do worry what others think. I assume their patience with my processing has limits and I don’t know where those limits are…another wide open space that I’m fearful of navigating, or even beginning to traverse. I put a toe in that water, maybe even wade out knee deep, but my feet stay planted, ready to turn as soon as the floor feels the least bit unstable.

It’s possibly a tad ironic to use an analogy of unnavigable spaces today. We have every imaginable device literally at our fingertips to help us find our way. GPS is native to our cars, our computers, and our mobile phones, which may as well be an extension of our own bodies. We are too used to being able to find our way. While I enjoy the discipline of reading a map or following a trail marking system, I still pull out “the Google” if I question my way in the woods while out on a run, hike, or bike ride. I can read signs on the road, but it’s just easier to have Siri tell me where to turn, letting me know in advance which lane to be in. And speaking of Google, or the internet, we also have at our disposal a compendium of information and answers to more of life’s questions than we may ever need.

Unfortunately, grief doesn’t operate within the bounds of modern technology. We have to experience, navigate, and answer it “unplugged.” Each of us has to tackle the wide open space  like a pioneer with little to go on but just the constantly changing lay of the land. Certainly it’s conquerable if we are willing to dive in and let it surround us; if we are willing to lose our footing  along the way and learn to swim.

Are we ready to be swept off our feet

And stop chasing every breaking wave

The sea knows where are the rocks

And drowning is no sin

“Every breaking wave” u2

This is a location that I have run previously but decided to tackle on the mountain bike today solely for the purpose of capturing the main trail on video to look at as a possible cross country practice course. Not my favorite place to bike, but somewhat easier way to grab the footage for further examination.