Who Do You Know?

It may have been on my work reading list for a year, but I finally finished Who You Know by Julia Freeland Fisher. While the book’s focus is on the social capital of students and how schools can help them develop their networks, I could relate many of the concepts to my own life. In addition to the book, volunteering at the local homeless shelter has opened my eyes to the fact that there are people who haven’t been as fortunate in developing their networks and relationships. I feel blessed to know the people I do.

Below are a few concepts from the book that resonated with me. 

My strong ties

• Strong and Weak Ties: There are people who I am close to and share much of my life with…my husband, children, dad, close family and friends. These strong ties are the people who I confide in, who support me when I need it, and just plain put up with me on a regular basis. I also have a network of weak ties…extended family, friends from high school and college, past colleagues and students, and those who have impacted a portion of my life. These ties are not weak in a sense that they are less important, but the role they play in my life is different than the strong ties. (See Value of Networks below.)
• Inherited Networks: I was born into a specific social infrastructure. For much of my youth, who I knew was determined by my parents. My parents valued family so I knew my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even extended family. We also had a network of church friends. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that not everyone was as fortunate to have these types of inherited networks. As an adult, I added to my network from my college experiences, work experiences, and life interests.
• Value of Networks: The books shares how our networks help provide information, influence, social credibility, and identity for us. If it was not for the weak tie of a past boss who provided information (i.e., shared the opportunity) and influence (i.e., gave a recommendation), who also had social credibility with this person, I would not be doing the work I am doing today. I’ve received consulting work from the recommendation of some of my weak ties. While my strong ties are important for my personal life, it is often my weak ties that have helped me in my career.
• Technology: I resisted Facebook until 2009 when my brother refused to email me pictures of my nephew because that’s where he shared them. My LinkedIn account became active when I decided to look for a new job seven years ago. I know many people who have met their mate on a dating site. Texting, conference calls, and webinars are part of my daily routine. Technology has allowed me to connect and stay connected much easier than in the past. It has also made my work much more efficient. While I love these tools, I still have a strong desire to spend time with people conversing face-to-face.

Since finishing the book, I’ve reflected on my networks over the years. If not for an insistent business teacher in high school, I would not have started on a path that has led to so many opportunities for me in ways that I did not expect. Had I not worked my way through college, I would not have had the chance to learn so much from the individuals who took me under their wings. While I could make the argument that who I knew did not introduce me to my husband, in a round-about way it did…(If I didn’t have a college professor who found a summer internship for me where I met a good friend who convinced me to look for a local job, I wouldn’t have met my husband at said job.) 🙂

My favorite research from the book was a study done over more than half a century. People from Harvard grads to inner city individuals were interviewed. The study found that people who were most satisfied with their relationships at 50 years old were the healthiest at 80 years old. This may be interesting to me because I am 50 years old and love my relationships…all of them…strong and weak, short- and long-term. Each has helped define who I am, and I’ve learned so much from them. It may also be interesting to me because I hope to live to be at least 80. 😉

As our boys begin their adulthood, I hope that they work on strengthening their strong ties and continue to build their weak ones. Their networks, beyond what they inherited from us, are further along than either my husband or I were at their ages. Being involved in Young Life and the fraternity has introduced them to many people that can help them in their careers and in life. I’m proud of them for seeking out these networks and hope they know that their strongest tie (i.e., mom/me) will always be here when they need it.

The End of My 50 List

The end of 2018 closed out My 50 List. Twelve months of my life over. The 12 that I dedicated to doing things I put off for years. It wasn’t so much of a checklist (I didn’t complete all 50 items on the list) as it was an intentionality list. I intentionally made the effort to make as many of them happen as I could. For my family and friends who have been wondering how it all shook out, here’s a quick summary.

Travel

On boat to Lilac Festival

The list actually started because, for years, I said I wanted to visit or go to certain places like the Lilac Festival on Mackinac Island and hike on Isle Royale. Each trip had special significance because of the people I shared each of them with. I did all but hike Grand Island (Munising, MI). This coming summer, I hope my husband and I will be able to bike around the island.

Books/Movies

In addition to travel, reading and watching movies for pleasure were reasons I created the list. I read every book on the list, along with a couple of extras. I still have many work-related books on a list. Maybe I’ll get to them this year. ;-} In addition to reading, I watched more movies this year than I have since my senior year in high school. I love watching movies and would like to take more time to do so.

Food/Exercise

Cold run in April

I also love to eat, but this year I made a conscious effort to eat better. Overall, I think I was pretty successful, even if I didn’t lose any weight (not on the list – Ha!). I even tried a new food each month, most that I liked. [Pastrami, not a fan.] I enjoy exercising, but dealing with plantar fasciitis (or something going on with my foot/ankle) made it a little more difficult this year. I kept at it the best I could by finding alternative ways to exercise besides running and walking.

Successes

I completed 46 on the list (sort of…see Struggles). I started volunteering at the homeless shelter which I continue to do. Even with my foot issue, I was able to contribute 600 miles to my Run the Year group and completed 50k in running races. I had to do a cold 5k trail run at the beginning of December just to get those 50 in, but I finished!

Struggles

The weekly entries I tried to make for gratitude, positive things about me, and encouragement/inspire were hard to keep up. Sometimes it felt forced because I hadn’t done it by the end of the week or couldn’t remember if I did. I like to think I am grateful, give praise and encouragement, and think positively about myself, but regularly writing it down made me question that. Two of the four items on my list didn’t get completed. These were in relation to my heritage. While I did take an ancestry test, I didn’t learn more about my family history or Finnish and Italian words.

While I am still 50 years old until the end of June, the calendar year I turned 50 is over and with it My 50 List. I am not eager to create a 51 list, but hope to continue to do more of what I enjoy with family and friends. Thank you all for sharing in my list last year (or at least for putting up with me as I went through it).

❤ = love, sort of

Long before the heart emoji existed, many people, including me, drew hearts to express their love. I put hearts at the end of letters and in cards. I included hearts on notes to my parents and friends. I wrote hearts in my school notebooks next to names of boys I liked. While those hearts represented my love at the time, I knew very little of what love was.

Rarely do I hear the words ‘What is love?’ and not hear the song by Haddaway in my head or think about the Night at the Roxbury skit. Type in ‘love’ in Google and you will get 13.16 billion results. Songs, books, movies, news stories, psychological articles, nonprofits, sites that sell love/love-related items, and more. It’s quite a popular topic. Look at the definition of love and you’ll find it is a noun (e.g., a feeling, a person, or a score in tennis), yet it is shown through our actions (i.e., a verb).  

Love, of course, is more than a feeling. People fall in and out of the ‘love feeling’ all the time. When we love others, it doesn’t mean we’ll never get hurt or that we’ll never hurt others. We love our children, but they probably think we hurt them when they are disciplined. I’m guilty of hurting my husband, children, and friends by saying mean things to them. Having “tough love” by not fixing the mistakes our loved ones make is not easy to do either. It really is hard to love at times.

I want to love better. #37 on My 50 List is ‘Study love as described in the Bible.’ Throughout 2018, my studying consisted of morning devotions about love (some but not all). I also read the book Love Like That: 5 Relationship Secrets From Jesus by Les Parrott III. And I’ve read 1 Corinthians 13 in different translations. Yes, I could have studied more, and even though 2018 is over, I plan to continue to learn more about love.

According to The Message, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says [bolding is mine]

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This message seems counter to what we learn in our world today… it’s okay to be impatient with the waitress or the car in front of you or the cashier at the grocery store; every commercial encourages you to be better than others; keep up with the Jones’ of social media; be angry with others whose opinions differ from yours.

Since I was a youth, I heard and read the above Corinthians verses. Reading the words isn’t the same as living them and it wasn’t until about six years ago that I started to really internalize them. I asked God for years to give me patience. Then I read somewhere that God doesn’t GIVE us patience, He helps us through situations so we LEARN patience. I realized that I “coveted” more than I thought (e.g., better hair, more money, less weight, etc.). When I’m tired or stressed, I lash out at others. And I would love to erase the mental list of wrongs done to me. When I truly study the love list, I have much room for improvement.

As a physical reminder about wanting to love better, I chose to get a tattoo (#10 on My 50 List). The tattoo I chose is an infinity symbol with a cross and a heart, located on my wrist so I see it every day. It’s a reminder to me that I want to love continually but I need help in doing so and I get that help through my faith. I’d like to love unconditionally. I’d like to always follow the love instructions in 1 Corinthians 13. Yet I know that I will sometimes (maybe often) fail. And that’s okay as long as I keep seeking help from God to learn a little more about loving others. Even though I know I won’t be able to love perfectly, it’s something I will strive toward beyond My 50 List (and beyond the ❤ emoji).

Why Can’t I Sleep?

There are times when crawling into bed feels so good. The mornings when I wake up refreshed and ready to face the day. Those are good too. It sure would be nice if every night (or at least a majority of them) resulted in feeling completely rested.

Sleep really is a wonderful gift we’ve been given.

What I see many nights...

Our minds and bodies benefit from sleep. Sleep can reduce stress and depression, heal our bodies, and improve our memory. I know when I am tired, it is difficult to focus on reading, writing, and decision making. When our boys were growing up, we kept a consistent bedtime, as much as their busy sports schedules allowed. We usually avoided illness until there were too many short-sleep nights in a row. Even now when the boys are sick at college, I usually ask about how much sleep they are getting. It’s no surprise that it’s not enough to keep them healthy.

I don’t think I’ve ever pulled an all-nighter, but I have stayed up quite late to complete work. And there have been times when I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I’d get up just to write something down and go back to bed, falling asleep quickly. Other times I spent an hour or two in the middle of the night reading or completing a task. I never really minded this.

But, for the last few years I’ve had restless, interrupted sleep on a more regular basis. It used to be that most nights I slept like a baby. Now there are fewer of those nights each week. If it’s not my body aching or sweating, it’s my mind hopping from one situation to another. Things I forgot to do, things I need to do, people I love who are hurting or struggling, a problem I need to solve. All these swirl around my mind for hours, not allowing me to fall back into a deep sleep.

Wondering ‘what affects sleep,’ I, of course, Googled it. I was aware of most of the culprits. Stress has affected my sleep a lot in the past. I don’t drink caffeine, snore (much), or have sleep apnea or narcolepsy or restless leg syndrome. Nightmares and night terrors are not an issue for me. Hormones, alcohol, and food may sometimes be offenders or maybe it’s time to change our mattress. I also found this song called Who Needs Sleep? by the Barenaked Ladies. Anyone who has had insomnia can relate to it.

Unfortunately, something else I found was that this type of sleep is normal as people age. The National Sleep Foundation says, “As people age they tend to have a harder time falling asleep and more trouble staying asleep than when they were younger.” “Great” sarcastically just popped into my head. Looks like I’ll keep spending more time sleeping lightly. But how I love my deep REM sleep!

At this point I am not concerned enough to seek medical attention about the number of times I wake up at night, but it’s “nice” to know I’m aging normally. I’ll keep monitoring what I do before bed to see if any causes result in less sleep. And tonight I’m praying for one of those elusive long, deep sleep nights.

Learning through Life’s Struggles

There he was. On his stomach. Grunting and groaning, whining and fussing. His head bobbed up and down. His arms and legs whipped all around. He stretched and strained, but he could not move across the floor.

We bought a camcorder the summer our first child was born. Over nine years, we accumulated 30 hours of our life on tape. Not wanting to lose those memories, I recently converted the 15 8mm tapes to digital. Of course I had to start watching the recordings to make sure they were actually converted. 😉 Oh the hours of our adorable baby on those first few tapes! (Three for just his first five months!)

In that first year of our oldest son’s life, I watched as he strained to control his arms and hands, learned to swallow cereal, struggled to roll over, and figured out how to comfort himself. It took him more than one or two minutes, and more than one or two times, before he mastered each of these skills. To be honest, there were parts of the video where I was telling my younger self to put down the camera and pick him up! But it was in those struggles where his learning occurred.

Isn’t that life? We struggle with problems, obstacles, and pain in our lives. We complain when life gets difficult, forgetting that there is a lesson in each of those situations. The older I get, the more I understand how the struggles in my life have helped me to grow. I’m not saying I liked the struggles, but I am pretty proud to have successfully come out on the other side a wiser, patient, and more empathetic person.

Many of the lessons in my life have taken more than one or two minutes, and more than one or two struggles, to learn. Holding my tongue, being patient with others, and understanding that I’m not in control have taken many years to acquire (at times I still have to work on them). Through these life lessons, I’ve also grown in my relationship with God. My faith has become stronger as I’ve learned to trust Him when life is hard. Learning to trust God was a lesson in itself.

Our sons no longer have the struggles they did as infants, but they will continue to have struggles. Adult problems. Financial. Physical. Mental. Relational. Career. I hope they reach out to us when they are hurting. I want them to look for the lesson in each hardship. And I pray that they seek God to walk with them through difficult times.

What do you remember?

On the 30th of this month my mom would have turned 68 years old. While there are many times throughout the year that I think of her, my thoughts wander there more often in September. I wonder what advice she'd share with me about having adult children, how many wrinkles she would have on her face, whether her general health would be good, and who she would still be ministering to. I miss spending time with her, seeing her beautiful smile, holding her soft hands, eating her delicious home-made spaghetti noodles, and being amazed by the multitude of craft projects she had "going" at one time. 

Life gives us memories and reminders of those moments. I have a few pictures of my mom around the house. They remind me of special events or just the wonderful person she was. When I make pasties or spaghetti or use one of her recipe cards, memories of her fill my head. Often these memories are not tied to a physical object she owned or gave to me but rather stored in my mind, waiting for a trigger to bring them back like when I hear a song I think she would enjoy. 

While 11:11 reminds me of my late father-in-law and I think of my late grandpa when Stannard Rock is mentioned, not all reminders are related to those who are no longer with us. I think of my aunt when I see a rainbow, my in-law family when I see/hear fart jokes, and a good friend when I drive past an A&W. 

We gather all these memories through our life experiences, waiting to be found again later in life. Yes, there will also be memories of sadness, disappointment, bad decisions, and hurt. These are often the ones we want to forget. But to forget those painful memories may  cause us to make the same mistakes again or be less compassionate to others. 

At a recent memorial service I was listening to the grandchildren share memories of their grandma. As they reminisced out loud, we laughed and we cried. I left that service hoping that the memories I leave for my family, friends, and others are ones that are more positive than negative. That they still laugh when they think of things I did or said, even as they cry through the pain. For the pain is temporary, but the memories are forever.

Active Aging

Our trail companion

My husband and I started our empty nesting with a trip to Isle Royale National Park and the Apostle Islands (WI) this past week. Prior to children, we had been pretty adventurous people. We hiked, biked, rock climbed, white water rafted, and even spent a summer working in Alaska. I’ve been looking forward to returning to many of these activities after the boys were on their own.

During this eight day excursion we hiked, biked, kayaked, and walked. Throughout the trip I came to a few realizations about my current “adventurous” self. 

1. I’m not quite as “active” as I used to be [and that’s okay]. 
2. I still like the challenge of these activities.
3. I can [and want to] do these activities.

We saw lots of people with large backpacks going to Isle Royale on the ferry. I started to feel like a wimp as we chose to stay in the Lodge. Fred reminded me that it was okay. We had done plenty of tent camping in the past and it’s not like we were staying at the Ritz. (The Lodge was equivalent to a normal budget hotel room.) And he was right. When it rained the first night, I was thankful for my warm, dry room (with a bathroom).

Isle Royale

I try to remain active by walking, biking, and swimming. I know I could be doing these at a more intensive level and grasped that even more on this trip. Back in my twenties I had a lot more stamina both during the activity and for the entire day. I also wasn’t as sore and achy after physical exertion. During this trip, I found myself being more cautious with my footing as we hiked and climbed rocks. Where I used to bound down the trail or from one rock to another, my brain and body now told me to take it slow.

After spending 20 years raising kids and focusing on activities that interested them, I had begun to wonder if I’d find enjoyment in my interests anymore. Those fears were dispelled on this trip. Getting to the top of the trail and overlooking Lake Superior or exploring a sea cave in a kayak was still exhilarating (I even giggled when ducking down to go through a small sea cave...twice!). While the trail sometimes seemed long or the rain put a damper on the view, the feeling of accomplishment made it worth the discomfort.

Apostle Islands

Even though I’m not as active as I used to be and not nearly in the shape I’d like to be, I realized I’m still able to do these types of activities. More than that, I want to do them. It doesn’t matter to me if I’m slower than before, I want the challenge and the high that comes with it. I’m not sure we’ll go back to Isle Royale (there are so many places I’d like to see), but if we do, I’d consider hiking from one end of the island to the other (40 miles). There were lots of retired people enjoying the activities the outdoors provided. That gives me encouragement that 10-15 years in the future, I will still be able to hike, bike, kayak, etc. I hope Fred and I have many opportunities to continue to challenge our active selves in this empty nesting phase of our life.

Note to our boys: You’re never too old to explore new places. You would love exploring both of these places so put them on your bucket list.