change

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Change=Grief

Tomorrow is my last day at the Pittsfield Public Library. I get a bellyache when I think about it. Am I excited for my new job at the Bangor Public Library? Yes. Absolutely. It’s like a career change! A larger library, new colleagues, new patrons, new policies and procedures and problems. It’s a new adventure for sure.

Will I miss my old job? Of course. My colleagues, my patrons, my friends, and honestly, being a big fish in a little pond can be fun. But I won’t miss the politics, the building maintenance, and a few other things and people that I won’t mention.

Two days ago, as I drove to work, I started to think about my brother. He had been a patron at Pittsfield–I have many memories of him there. As I got closer to the library, I started to cry. So much so that I couldn’t breathe. You know the kind of sobbing where you can’t catch your breath and you start to gulp for air? Yeah. That.

I feel like I’m losing Phil all over again. I’m losing another place that holds memories of him laughing and pointing out books he’s read or listened to or films he’s watched. I’m losing a place where he existed.

Once I got to work, though, I was able to calm down and just do my thing. The Friends of the Library threw me a farewell party, so I cried often throughout the day as people stopped by to wish me well.

You know…I feel a little lost. Working at a place for 17 1/2 years is a lifetime. I’ve watched so many kids grow up and have kids of their own. I’ve attended funerals of many of my beloved patrons, have given baby shower gifts to others. I will miss so many of these beautiful humans. I’m tremendously sad that I won’t see some of my favorite littles grow up, and this might sound odd, but I’m also upset I won’t see some of my favorite people die. I will no longer be a part of their lives and I’m having a hard time with that.

But, like the sweet notebook these folks gave me says, love is letting go. And it’s time I do that.

I’m trying.

So…if you’re reading this and you’ve been one of my Pittsfield Library patrons, I want to thank you for allowing me to be part of your lives. It’s truly been an honor and gift to be a part of your journey all these years. You’ve also been a part of mine. So many of you have watched my boy grow up, have been with me as I tried to live in a world without my dear brother and parents, have watched me struggle with my husband’s health, but also have watched me become a runner–something I wasn’t when I started at the Pittsfield Library. You’ve watched me lose over 50 pounds and gain nearly 20 since I became director. You’ve also seen a variety of hair lengths and styles and eyeglass frames. Thanks for being with me through so many of my life’s changes and being a witness to this latest one.

Keep reading, my friends, keep being kind, and please keep visiting that great library of yours. Continue to let the powers that be know how much the library and staff mean to you and your community.

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart and soul, for all the love. ❤

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Courage to Change

I am shocked to see I have not blogged since January 1st. Admittedly, these past three months have been filled with…a lot.

In January, on my way to a 9-day vacation in Mexico with my beautiful friend, Becky, I got caught in an ice storm in Texas and was trapped there for nearly 3 days. While there, I read a fun mystery involving Bernie Sanders. I left it in the airport, hoping its liberal sense would permeate through the conservative air. I don’t think it worked. 😉

My time in Mexico was lovely. Visiting with Becky was the highlight, but also seeing iguanas in trees, attending an authentic Mexican rodeo, eating apples with lime juice, and drinking margaritas on the beach with my toes in the sand while chatting with one of my dearest friends. Of course, losing my glasses in the ocean wasn’t great, but being able to try out contact lenses was life changing. Next week I finally get fit for a proper pair of contacts and I’ll be able to wear sunglasses while I run. Exciting!

Another “event” that happened in Mexico–I used a Nespresso machine. This might not seem like a big deal, but oh my word, I fell in love with it–the taste, the convenience, the recyclable pods, all of it. Before I left Becky’s home, I ordered one for my house so my vacation could continue indefinitely. It’s truly a fantastic way for my day to begin.

Once I got back home, it was back to reality–work, committees, home chores, volunteering, all the stuff. Unfortunately, just a week after I arrived back home, my husband was off to Florida to help care for his father. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for my husband–navigating the hospital and family, lack of sleep for days, plus emotionally exhausting. He came home after 10 days, but my father-in-law entered into hospice care the very next day. He was able to go home but died from lung cancer just two days later.

Supporting someone who is grieving can be difficult, but living with that person is even tougher. I don’t know how my husband survived living with me as I grieved my brother and parents. There are never any right words or even actions, except to listen–which I’ve done, but I always think I should do more. Maybe it’s because I just want to take the pain away, but I can’t. I have learned to step away and leave him alone when it seems best but made sure he knew that if he needs to talk or hug or just be in the same room with me, that he tells me. I don’t want to hover, but man, that’s not easy. I’ve had to tell my son all of these same things because I all I want to do is stick with him and constantly check that he’s ok. I have to step back, take him to therapy, spend time with him, talk with him, and just let him know that I’m here.

Throughout these past few months, as my family has been navigating another loss while still trying to work and go to school, balance all of life’s responsibilities, and even visit a college my son is interested in, I’ve continued to hope for a positive adjustment in my life. I haven’t just hoped but have started working towards some changes. And now it looks like a major one is coming to fruition.

In my last blog post, I mentioned I need to change my work–either make changes at my workplace or look for something new. Amazingly, the Bangor Public Library, a large public library (large for Maine, anyways!), has hired me as their new Head of Circulation. Their current head of circ is retiring after 36 years–that is so much institutional knowledge I will never know, but I’m tremendously honored to have the chance to work for this fantastic institution, alongside their equally fantastic staff.

This is a tremendously bittersweet moment for me. My work as the Director of the Pittsfield Public Library (and previously as the Circulation & Catalog Librarian) has led me to people I’ve come to know and love as my family and friends. When I started there in 2005, I was still trying to get pregnant, I was 30 pounds heavier, and all my family was still alive. My brother and both of my parents used to visit me at the library. I still have specific memories of all of them in that building—the library even has several dvds that my brother donated. My son also spent many, many hours at that library. During one program, I had my boy strapped to my back as I walked around the library. When it was time to unstrap him, I couldn’t do it and a lovely older couple had to help me (the wife is still my patron–we still talk about that day).

I’m proud of the work I’ve done in Pittsfield. I’ve worked with dozens of organizations and helped connect them with community members that needed their services, I’ve matched patrons with books they’ve fallen in love with, and I’ve advocated for the library and the staff within the town government by inviting community members to tell their elected officials what the library means to them.

But it’s time for me to go. I know I can do more at the Pittsfield Library, but I need a new adventure. Working at an urban library will be a huge change and challenge, and I’m looking forward to it. I still have another month in my beautiful, small and rural library, and I hope to make the best of it.

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The Beginning

“The beginning is always today.”–Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist/writer)

My worry and laugh lines are embedded, but I’m still smiling.

A new year, a new you. Resolutions, beginnings, fresh starts. It all sounds marvelous, doesn’t it? And right now, at this moment, I have high hopes for 2023.

Like the past 5 years, 2022 had its challenges and health scares for myself, my family and some of my friends. A few friends suffered devastating losses of partners or parents, and others are waiting for those things to happen in 2023.

Although I expect some awful events to happen this year, I’m attempting to hope for the best and soak up many, many good moments that happen.

On New Year’s Eve, my husband, son and I talked about our goals and wishes for the upcoming year. The husband’s goal? Stay out of the hospital this year. (This is also a wish for him from my son and I!) My son has a few wonderful goals like getting his license, continuing to get fit and to be more of a leader within his LGBTQ+ community. My goal and wish were basically the same: to make and experience good changes this year. That’s a nice broad, vague goal, isn’t it? 😉

I made some significant changes to my life in 2022, including adding two major volunteer positions to my weekly schedule. Each is a 2-3 hour commitment each week, but I enjoy both of them and feel tremendously better about myself as a human being because of the work. I feel like I’m finally paying back the kindness shown to me over the years by paying it forward to those that need it right now. People often say how selfless volunteering is, but for me, it’s really selfish. There’s a high involved when you help others, and it can feel a bit like the running high. Typically, acts of kindness can increase your oxytocin and dopamine, which gives you a feeling of euphoria. This is actually called the “helper’s high.” Isn’t that awesome?!?

I’ll continue my volunteer work this year, but I’m also ready for some changes to be made within my career. I don’t know what this means yet, but I know my stress level at work in 2022 was higher than ever before. Some of that was due to staff shortages, but I also tend to spread myself too thin. That has to change this year. I’ve always told other library directors that your work is not your life, so sometimes you just need to leave this stuff behind, but I did NOT take my own advice. I just wanted my library to be better and better, and it is, but I don’t need to be involved 24/7. For my own wellbeing, a lot has to change there–more delegating, more boundaries, and maybe even a career change. I don’t know yet. I just feel like something big has to change in order for me to continue wanting to get out of bed each morning to go to work.

I plan to continue to run and train for a marathon again. Why the hell not, right? If my body goes kaput, it goes kaput. I can already feel something happening to my left ankle, so I doubt a marathon is in the books just yet. But I’ll still give it a shot. I hope to at least run 500 miles this year. Again, I’ll try but do my best to not be disappointed or discouraged if it doesn’t happen.

I’ll be traveling more as long as the universe allows it. Visiting my dear friend, Becky, in Mexico at the end of this month. A work trip to Wisconsin in April. Hopefully a drive out to the Christmas Story house in Cleveland this summer. Now I need a short trip for this fall. Or another summer trip to North Carolina to see my friend, Monica, and sea turtles hatching?

This year I hope to treat people a bit better or…differently. We just don’t know how long we have on this planet, right? I’m starting to treat some folks like it’s their last year. It may sound like a morbid way of treating others but losing people I love and working with hospice patients has made me look at my world in a different light. During my brother’s, father’s and mother’s last Christmases, I didn’t KNOW it was their last. Did I ever snap at them or lose patience with them that day? I hope not. Did I show them just that little extra dash of kindness? I don’t know. If I did, I wasn’t aware of it.

So, I’m digging deep to find a bit more patience and goodwill for my loved ones. Well, I don’t always have to dig deep, but sometimes it’s necessary. But within that good treatment of others, I’m defining boundaries for myself and for my relationships. I tend to love others with everything I have and I’m not sure I can continue to do that. Or maybe I can. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about the people I love fiercely, and I can’t imagine loving them any other way. It’s dishonest to do so. It doesn’t feel right not to love them with my whole being.

Huh.

Maybe some things won’t change after all. ❤

Happy New Year to all of you. May your resolutions, hopes, or dreams be fulfilled. If none of those things happen, I hope you feel loved and appreciated. Because seriously, just feeling those things certainly feels like a dream coming true.

Hugs to you all.

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Winds of Change

Remember that hug I was craving from my dad? Saturday morning, I had a dream that Dad was here and hugged me. Just like I remembered and longed for. I awoke lighter and in a much better mood than I had been in all week. I just felt…comforted. Throughout the rest of the long weekend, I tried to finish up projects at home or do a bit of cleaning that I had put off. It felt like something was changing and I felt more focused.

What I didn’t realize was that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was about to begin. (I may not be Jewish, but I love the thought and feeling of a new year.) It’s also a new school year, which to me feels like a fresh start, even if I’m not the one going to school. And 12 weeks to the day from his heart attack, my husband went back to work today. As soon as I got home, I ran to his office to ask how the day went. “I thought I was going to die,” he said. I reminded him that was an extremely poor choice of words since he nearly did die the last time he went to work! But, all in all, it wasn’t a horrible day for him. Exhausting, yes, but not horrendous.

Our son started high school last week, too–a huge change for us all, but also a cleanish slate for him. Some of his friendships have become more intense recently and he’s just beginning to make new friends, too. He wants to join clubs and actually do things outside of the home and a screen! He’s maturing, yet like most teens, is emitting hormones and emotional outbursts. It’s wonderful and scary and it all makes me hug him a little tighter each day, trying to hold onto every single moment that he’s here.

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

It seems, though, that everything around me is changing. I see some of my friendships and relationships changing, and I see that in others’ relationships, too. People in my community have left their jobs for other places, better for them but worse for us. People in the town where I work are having to leave because the healthcare services they need are no longer in that community. Yet new residents are moving in to both towns where I live and work and they’re happy to be there. Here in Maine, most people are masking again, regardless of vaccination status. More and more people are getting the vaccine and more people are dying once again–the majority being unvaccinated.

Yet…we all just keep trying to live our lives, day by day. Change is hard. No matter if the changes you’re facing are “good” or “bad”, change is a stressor. Major life-event stressors include marriage, moving, having a child–all good things, yet other life-event stressors are divorce, death of a loved one and job loss. Big changes are difficult, and no one ever put a pandemic on the list. I think it’s caused such a range of stress and emotion in each person, and continues to do so.

Maybe for some people it means they’re just done with certain humans on the planet. They can no longer hear what they have to say, nor do they care. And honestly, I think that’s ok if they’re not outright hurting those humans. It is their choice to be around people whose ideas are like their own, who stand for what they stand for.

But…I don’t think I can do that. If you know me and my husband, you know that I can’t do that. I live with and love a person with polar opposite views than mine on so, so many issues. And to be honest, if we had met when I was 30 instead of 22, we probably would never have married. I was open to new thoughts and opinions in my 20s, but now?

Yes, it’s difficult.

But the value of a human being is not just from their political or religious affiliation. We are made up of so much more than our views on an issue or a hot button topic. We are made up of acts of love and kindness–paying for that coffee for the person in line behind you or stopping to lend a hand to a child that fell of her bike. We’re made of shared moments like holding someone’s hand in a hospital waiting room or listening to stories of your mother from her friends and family after she’s left this earth or even that second when you catch someone’s eye and smile and you both know that you’re ok, at least for the moment.

I know I can’t convince you all (or any) to reach out and talk to someone tomorrow whose opinions you don’t agree with or understand. It’s ok. You don’t have to. But I do ask that you try and understand those of us that love others with differing points of view.

Or…don’t. I’d like to change your mind. I’d like you to think that there are more people out there with commonalities than differences. More good than not. But I don’t know what the right words are.

Do you?