My Heart Goes Out to You Today

  Valentine's Day  - Continuing my tradition of adding to the blog section of Lumigrate.com on 'special occasions and holidays', I was eagerly awaiting the dance performance that Analii Cunningham told me about when we got together after New Years for a fast walkNtalk meeting. I update the information on Lumigrate regularly about her ongoing classes AND encourage people to work with her individually; she has devised a unique way of addressing dysfunction in the pelvis and trunk areas, which greatly reduced my overall pain and need for medication, supplements and whining  in 2011.  Gotta  that  !

Beyond Boundaries Dance Collective 's winter dance concert had an overall 'heart' theme.  Analii's piece was titled 'Surrendering', which appeared to me to be about surrendering your heart/self in a peaceful way and was simply beautiful! A few pieces later, four dancers peformed "The last beat of my heart" and I thought did an amazing job 'dancing out' how the four chambers of the heart work together .... and slow, then stop.  It was very moving.  It was simply a very special 'vibe' in the experimental theater at Moss Performing Arts Center at Colorado Mesa University (CMU); last Valentine's Day it was a mere 'college'!  The show sold out both weekend nights so it is GRATE to see such  of the arts!  If you're interested in seeing photos, Dawn Morrow, a local photographer whose name I know from Facebook has 83 photos which were fun for me to look at, and I think those who did not attend might find them enjoyable too.  The link is: www.facebook.com/events/184113805026398/

I got to thinking that it was 25 years ago that I slipped my Christmas card tradition over to sending Valentines.  It had been a very busy summer and fall in 1986/7, with illness, marriage, blending a family, the murder of my friend Christine on New Years Eve 1986.  By February I was ready to reach out and tell EVERYONE I knew that I loved them for whatever their place in my life was.  I bought boxes of Valentines like we would give in school as kids, and bigger envelopes and wrote/copied a mass letter explaining the previous year and why I felt it was important to tell people they were loved; you never know when someone will pass!  Christine had sent a Christmas card saying her folks were going to vacation with her and her husband's family at their place on Maui, Hawaii, and then she'd fly back to Colorado with her parents and would call me to set up getting together.  

Instead of having lunch with her, I had afternoon after-funeral time with our high school classmates and others who had turned out en masse for her funeral.  Christine had been one of the 'most loved' in high school -- kind to all, bubbly and 'open', but with a serious side which had lead her to have applied to, and been accepted into, medical school.  Her goal was to be a psychiatrist to children and adolescents, along with her husband, Danny, who was already in medical school.  I'd been to their wedding; this was so devastating.  

But the previous dramedies and chronic stressors in my life, on top of excelling at work and having many demands, had made me in a mode of 'blocking' my emotions about what had happened.  I motored through it, stayed cheerful and strong, and got back to my life as if it was a tea I'd attended.  Soon after, a close coworker and then my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly within a week of each other.  Three Catholic funerals in the first 10 weeks of the year, and I wasn't even 27 yet!  I'd always wanted to be 27 -- I thought that is the age people would start taking me seriously but I wouldn't be so old that I had to be too serious.  This was NOT what I had expected at this point in my life! 

What I learned from Christine, in talking with her friends after her funeral, was she had really set up a plan for staying in touch with friends when she moved to Hawaii after marrying someone she met getting her undergraduate degree. I made a commitment to myself that day that I would not let the cost of long distance phone calls, letters/stamps, or the time involved in writing and mailing them keep me from staying close to those I love.  Many of us were very close growing up, like family -- what I call 'framily'.  

I wasn't going to write about this today until I attended a training at 7 am related to medication compliance, and the MD sitting next to me had said she recorded her patients with ADD/ADHD when they had taken and had not taken their medication, so they could see the differences in their behavior.  She LIT UP  afterwards when we had a chance to say hello to each other when I said I was an OT -- "my sister is an OT", she said.  I asked her how she got the idea to have her patients record themselves.  She said it was her son, who had inadvertently left their home camera on which caught his interaction with his mother, one they'd had a disagreement over about if he was being respectful or not.  When he realized he'd recorded the event, he reviewed it and came to her and apologized after he saw how he had acted, which was completely different than his perception from within the situation originally.  

Today, I loved having the opportunity to learn from a big organization's lead pharmacist, and to have the opportunity to have something to offer them and have it be appreciated, related to this OT's experiences related to medication compliance.  To have the opportunity to see a creative physician share a tool she has used to help her patients with their compliance, and to have the 'coincidence' of talking with her afterwards and finding out she has a career in what Christine had planned to do with her life.

Ironically, Analii was born and raised in Hawaii and her unique background being raised in the place she was, with a background in dance and yoga -- the physical body, allows us to bring something unique to people here in the Grand Valley of Colorado. She came to Colorado to get her degree in dance at the University of Colorado, I learned from the program; Christine went from Colorado to Hawaii to receive her Masters in Nutrition. There just seems some symmetry at play, but perhaps it's because I'm trying to find some validation of the things I believe I'm seeing as 'making sense' in my older age.  

Somehow, 25 years after sending out the Valentines in the mail, which were a BIG hit and started a tradition for many years of a Valentine's Email, I am finding my peace with things being as they are. With the help of some new friends. I love having Lumigrate as a platform to communicate from our contributors, information which is helping increasing people with their wellness. Not only the 'users'/readers, but the providers as well!  

My  goes out to each of you reading this.  YOU are part of our success! Have a wonderful Valentine's Day! May our love keep going forward for each other! "We are all connected" ~~ Mardy