Living Vicariously Through an Oft-Repeated Story
I love a story with a moral. I adore a story with an uplifting or inspiring message. Where I didn’t expect to find either was in the boiler plate, “boy meets girl in an unlikely place, or hates her on sight, only to find common ground and love by the end of the movie” theme used in most Hallmark and Lifetime romance movies. Yet the more I watch and re-watch them, the more I see the messages hiding beneath the fluff, and skillfully embedded in oft-repeated and re-woven story lines.
I’ve found a lot of things in unlikely places, not the least of which were the ideas for my three novels-in-progress, as well as my children’s book, which also awaits another edit and rewrite. The only thing that came to me as a somewhat dubious gift was the topic for my memoir, though even that has produced a lot of surprises along the way.
No one’s life runs as smoothly as a Hallmark movie, even with the predictable and repetitive dramatic moments they add to give the story a smidgen of relatabilty. There are always twists, turns, and lessons learned along the way. Quite often the most important ones involve something painful, and thereby, memorable. My life has certainly been no exception, though everlasting love is a story line I seem to have missed, unless you count the long line of cats who’ve owned me over the years.
Every Chapter Has Value
It isn’t that I don’t believe in true love, else why would I binge watch so many sappy, romantic 
movies. As I look back, it was more a matter of having a barge-load of baggage to slog through in this lifetime; all of it necessary and important. Letting go of it has always been my albatross, but one I finally started cutting loose over the last couple of decades. Old habits die hard, and for awhile, I tried to replace what I’d given up with more baggage, until I finally realized I was sick and tired of carrying around what amounted to a bag of dead, stinking fish heads.
The wiser among you might ask how I could have dragged a load like that around for so long before realizing the pointlessness of it all. In the first place, you’re probably more enlightened than I. In the second, I come from a long line of martyrs, and honestly believed I deserved to not only wear what amounted to a hair shirt, but to repel people so I could live out my life as a pariah. It took some doing, and a whole lot of pain when I emerged from my self-imposed cocoon to realize most of my beliefs were pure crap, as were my assumptions they’d come from reliable sources.
In truth, they came from people who were as brainwashed and self-deprecating as I was for my first 40 years or so. Hindsight opened my eyes to the fact they’d allowed those beliefs to ultimately destroy them, and to make me realize I no longer wanted to tread the same path that took them down their own rabbit holes of loneliness and misery. They may have succumbed to the tradition of binding themselves in marriage ’til death did them part, but I don’t believe they ever found their happily ever after.
Defining “Happily-Ever-After” On Your Own Terms
One thing I have learned is “happily ever after” doesn’t have to mean you found the love of your life, settled down, had babies who grew up, and gave you grandchildren to dote on you in your twilight years. Sometimes it means finding your true self, reveling in the person you found, forming true and lasting friendships, building a community, and above all, following your passion.
For many of us, finding our own passion and joy means living a less-than-extraordinary life for years; even decades before realizing massive demolition had to occur before rebuilding on both a firmer foundation, and in an entirely different style.
My walls began to crack when I was 36, in a miserable marriage where the only shining spot was my beautiful, 4-year-old daughters. I woke up one day, said to myself: Life is too short to be this unhappy, and filed for divorce a shortly thereafter. I had no idea what the road ahead meant, but knew somehow it would be better than what I had. At least I had a career that, while iffy at times, paid enough to keep my daughters and me fed, clothed, and housed.
The first few years were indescribably hard mentally, emotionally, and physically. I was always stressed out, in need of sleep, and desperately lacking a proper diet. The last was on me as I simply didn’t care enough to put any energy into maintaining a healthy diet while trying to keep the rest of my life from tipping me into a swirling pit of despair. All too often, I found solace in a pint of Haagen Dazs in the wee hours after I danced until the bar closed.
Making the Most of Life’s Twists and Turns
My mom’s suicide when the girls were 6 widened some of the cracks in my protective walls, and
gave me another reason to keep going, if only to avoid losing the same battle that had led to her ultimate and irrevocable surrender. At times, my only motivation was sheer stubbornness and a raging desire to be more than my mom. For a long time, I told myself a little white lie: I didn’t want to leave my daughters with the same legacy. In time, that lie became my ultimate truth.
By the time my dad followed my mom for reasons of his own, my walls were getting flimsy, and I was holding them and myself together with chewing gum and baling wire. The only way I saved face for the next 6 years was by continuing to keep everyone except my daughters at arm’s length. As long as no one got close enough to see the cracks, the lies I perpetuated continued to survive, if increasingly unstable as time went on.
It was my eldest daughter who gave my walls the final, fatal shove that sent them toppling. She did me the biggest favor of my life by forcing me to start writing about my experiences. Though I’m still working on clearing the rubble and strengthening the new, improved structure of my life, the experience continues to teach me a lot about myself, as well as the rest of humanity.
Learning to Be a Participant Instead of an Observer
No one is meant to walk through life alone. We all need opportunities to help other people, but also to allow others to help us. The lies I’d been told about hard work and self-sufficiency had kept me from letting people see my true, imperfect self for too long. I’d cheated a lot of people of the opportunity to get to know me, to be there for me, and to form bonds. But then, I didn’t know how.
It scares me to look back and realize I almost passed that legacy on to my daughter Heather. She truly is the stronger of the two of us because she resisted building the walls our family history dictated, and threw herself out into the world in all her vulnerable, real glory. I ached every time she got kicked, bruised, or battered. I tried hard to protect her and fight her battles. Thankfully, she resisted my efforts and we’re both better for it.
I’m no longer depressed, downtrodden, or angry. I find the positive in the world I encounter more often than not. In fact, there have been some who deemed me “too positive”. I can live with that a whole lot better than I could the person I’d become until a couple of decades ago. I’ve found at least one of my purposes in life, and am open and willing to find more in whatever time I may have left.
Most of all, I enjoy every minute of my journey now; of the new chapters I’m adding to my story. In the past, I slogged through far more days than I now care to admit , but even those seemingly miserable steps led me right to where I needed to be. The difference now is I’ve learned to appreciate the tough roads, and even the times I wasn’t the most likeable person on earth. They were necessary. But more importantly, they’re part of my past.
Enjoying the Blessings Life Gives Me For the Asking
My gratitudes today are:
- I’m grateful for all the roads I’ve traveled that brought me to where I am now.
- I’m grateful for my daughter Heather without whom I may never have gotten here.
- I’m grateful for my parents’ choices. While difficult at the time, and even for decades afterwards, they were necessary for my own personal growth.
- I’m grateful for the stories I’ve told, and the ones I’ve yet to tell.
- I’m grateful for abundance; love, joy, friendship, happy endings, community, connection, vulnerability, peace, health, harmony, balance, philanthropy, and prosperity.
Love and Light
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental 
health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward
Some people feel the need to rant, or to meet every opinion that contradicts theirs with an argument. I’ve decided I need to let them rant or fume, but save my own sanity, and refrain from adding my opinion to their rant; which often means fuel to their fire. It’s taking me a long time to learn I don’t need to push my opinion on others, and especially when we are on opposite sides of an emotionally charged issue. Neither of us is going to change our view by being shouted at, preached at, or browbeaten, so why engage at all?
or worse, scratching my head in confusion. Learning to sit back and wait until I see a more complete picture, or, if it’s important enough to me, doing my own research has kept me out of many battles I wasn’t meant to fight in the first place.
my share of people, and try to see those episodes as lessons rather than adding them to a list of regrets that will only keep me from doing better next time. Of the many things I’ve jettisoned over the years, my own duffel bag full of regrets is the one I’m happiest to be rid of. It’s a heavy load I could never possibly fix or change, so it’s only purpose was to weigh me down, and slow my forward progress; sometimes bringing it to a standstill until I remembered to drop the heavy stuff.
in fact, how much I was responsible for doing exactly that; for my family, for the people I’ve wronged in the past, and for those who will cross my path in the future. I’m even doing it for people I will never connect with in person. In short, I’m changing the ripples I create by my own actions.
I live by a lot of adages and affirmations these days:
I’m finding the healthy habits I established both pre- and post-quarantine are becoming engraved in stone. I might think to myself, I’ll skip something like cleaning up the kitchen, or brushing my teeth before bed, or washing my face and brushing my teeth after breakfast before doing my Facebook Live for the day, but it seems I can’t do it any more. I can’t undo the habits I’ve been performing diligently for so long.
process for things that were no longer available, and that I wouldn’t get back for an as yet unspecified amount of time. It wasn’t unlike the much longer process I went through after leaving my last full-time job.
It hasn’t been entirely bad so far. I spent the better part of one week binge reading seven Mercedes Lackey books on Kindle. My friend parked her motor home beside my house (my property has RV access) instead of where she’d originally planned on the street near her condo, because she works in a hospital and needed to distance herself from her significant other to protect his health.
weekly ballet classes. There again, I’m surprising myself. I would have told you even a week ago that balancing on one leg was something I simply couldn’t do. The classes give me a chance to wobble around in the privacy of my own home (mostly) but to also discover that by following the instructions from my teacher, I can actually succeed where I was certain I’d fail.
There are days I still feel like I’ve accomplished nothing, yet if I look back on the day honestly and uncritically, I always find something I took off my plate, or something good I did for myself. Sometimes, it’s just washing my face, brushing my teeth, taking all my supplements, posting daily gratitudes and doing a Facebook Live but there was a time those things didn’t get done every day, and it wasn’t so long ago. More often than not, I get some writing done, or an administrative task crossed off, or another area decluttered.
In all the time I’ve been working from home, life’s been pretty simple. No commute. Dress however I like. Go to the gym when I’ve finished my morning activities. Dance a couple of nights a week. Maybe somewhere in there I meet a friend for coffee or lunch. Errands on the same day every week.
chances, is worse than when I used to have to get ready to take my twin babies out of the house for any length of time. I can’t even imagine trying to do this with children in tow. They are among the worst at social distancing in the first place, and can’t wear masks if they’re under 2 according to the 
Sure, it’s a choice right now, especially in the county I live in, to be more diligent than required. I see how overworked and stressed my friend is, and know only by practicing things like social distancing, mask wearing, and over-the-top personal hygiene can I do my part to help keep the flow of patients down. The part I do might be small; even minuscule, but if each one of us was excessively diligent, it might save a few of the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers from either burnout, or succumbing to the disease themselves.
steps I’m taking to simply acquire food, and a few medicines and supplements I can’t easily acquire online. My processes need to change yet again so, if nothing else, a trip to the market doesn’t elicit severe anxiety and resistant behaviors. It’s especially irritating when the activities in question are things I’ve done without a second thought for decades. How has adding a few steps turned them into some of the most stressful parts of my month?
The solution is to engage in more practices which offset the errand-induced stress before and after I leave the house to make those necessary trips. Instead of focusing on what’s causing my anxiety, I need to turn my attention to those things which have, and always will relieve it.
There’s nothing like forced isolation to make you realize how important it is to have, not just friends, but close friends. When you don’t have the option of going out to your usual haunts to hang with friends, sharing a mutually loved activity like dancing, life becomes an endless slog from one faceless day to the next without people to talk to via phone, text, Zoom, or Facetime.
to plant vegetables and herbs. But because of friends, I not only have tools to make the job easier, but someone who is more than happy to get out of the house and do a little mowing fairly often. The dandelions cringe when they hear the mower firing up, as they know it’s time to have their little heads shorn yet again.
new, but heady experience for me. I know it seems odd for someone to learn so late in life the value of friendship. But the person I was raised to be, and who never questioned what I’d been taught in some areas wasn’t big on connecting with people. She didn’t feel comfortable letting anyone see her soft, mushy insides. She hid it all behind a thick crust; a wall that by her mid-40’s had achieved epic proportions.
Sometimes you get so caught up in all your duties, responsibilities, and self-imposed challenges you forget to be kind; to your family, your friends, people you encounter at work or while running errands, and most of all, to yourself. In the limitless agenda you set for yourself, you barely leave room to breathe much less, for taking time to be kind.
Like forgiveness, kindness has to start with yourself. Until you can be kind to yourself; quell the anger and hurt you’ve carried inside for years; maybe even decades, you can’t be truly kind to others. In the first place, kindness has to come without reservations or expectations of something in return. In the second, it has to come from a heart that’s truly open. As long as you’re beating yourself up over imagined past transgressions, you’re locking the door on the part of your heart that knows how to give unconditionally.
times I sent my daughter Heather off in tears, or worse, gave her the silent treatment when she displeased me, and I cringe in horror. I hope and pray she learned from my mistakes, and will see that horrific family pattern end with her generation. I would rather her children grow up knowing only kindness, compassion, and even a little patience (something both Heather and I struggle with).
COVID is giving so many a chance to be kinder and more compassionate. For many. this could be the cataclysmic event that gives them a chance to turn around, face their demons, and tell them to get lost. But so many others will get stuck and succumb to the lies. If you’ve learned to face your own, you can’t help but recognize the signs and symptoms. Exercising the kindness you learned when your own feet were to the fire is essential now. It truly is your responsibility to help those who struggle, and above all, to avoid responding to the outward cruelty and hate with unkindness of your own, unless your goal is to add fuel to the fire. If so, you’ll only become part of the inevitable forest fire, consuming everything and everyone in your path who doesn’t wield the sword of kindness and the shield of compassion.
With increasing frequency, not to mention volume, I’m seeing the inboxes on all my email accounts filled with exhortations, and sometimes even pleas to part with my own dwindling cache of cash. Some are open and honest about it while others….aren’t.
service that, in my mind anyway never was, and never will be essential. Many are using tactics I’ve always considered repellent. Things like:
I’m the type who, when faced with a new level of expertise will hang around for awhile, watching and listening. If I see some value in what’s offered, I may dip my toe in the water (read: purchase one of their less pricey options). I may even, after watching and listening some more, invest a little more time and money to see if what they offer is a good fit for me.
afraid or ashamed to admit it”. Maybe they are, and maybe they truly are legitimate. The fact remains, they’re too rich for my blood. I’ve also spent too many years padding someone else’s retirement to fall victim to one that may not involve being at an employer’s beck and call, but yields the same results.
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