June 15th would have been my mom Rita’s 85th birthday. I marked it on a plane between the coasts watching Broadway and baseball, celebrating milestones with the three kids she taught to read and write.

The past three and a half years have contained a fair amount of loss, grief, and stress, both anticipated and straight out of left field. In many ways my personal life has either mirrored or precipitated my chosen professional path.

A few months before my mom died, our family counselor Glenda leaned extra close into the zoom camera during one of our weekly sessions and fixed me with an impassioned stare. “Honey, I want you to listen to me.” She is the kind of therapist who has no problem giving people advice or addressing clients as ‘honey’. “You must live NOW. Do not wait. Not for your kids to launch, or your bank account to grow, or for your body to look like you want it to in a bathing suit.” (I added that part in my own head). “Go on dates now. Protect your own peace. Take that trip. Write your stories. See the shows. You have zero guarantees of life or health. DO. NOT. WAIT.”

We call Glenda our “good witch” in our family because she is pretty much always right. So, I believed her. I got busy living life. Sometimes it was a bit misguided, especially right after Rita died (like applying to nursing school and running a marathon without training). But that is also life…trial and tweaking and learning.

I got certified as a yoga and meditation teacher and presented myself as qualified to teach free senior exercise classes around town. I got tattoos. I started hanging around witchy women. I trained as a death doula. I did forest bathing, candle making, storytelling on stage in front of strangers, cold plunges in the ocean in January. I v-logged. I blogged. Then I left social media altogether and never have looked back, so far 😊. 

Most impactfully, I let go of relationships that required me to be anything but my most purely authentic, goofy-ass self. I also decided to be fully transparent with my kids about my failures and vices, risking their opinion of me. My parents were of a generation where they were taught that whatever your flaws, trials and mistakes, you don’t share them with your kids, or they won’t trust or respect you.

I decided when Rita died that I was done with that approach. I wish she had opened up more with me about the times she struggled and fumbled and had to show up and apologize in life. It would have normalized the truth of what it is to be an adult and a parent. But I also get that she was so much earlier in the history of women’s rights in this country. Rebelling against her parents by going to college and getting her PhD was risky enough.

Some of the fallout from my choices has been both painful and costly. I have lost touch with countless people partly due not being on the “socials”. I have also ended relationships with some of my immediate family. Yikes. At the same time, I have gained many new precious relationships, including 50 plus senior citizens who laugh and move in community with me and each other twice a week in the basement of the Tigard Senior Center.

Living in “live mode” has risks associated with it that not everyone can safely afford to take. I am acutely aware of the privilege, resources and safety nets that allow me the privilege of this choice. In a way, this makes it feel that much more imperative that I follow this path of self-acceptance and try to create space for my clients and my children to feel safe doing the same thing in their lives. When I am met with rejection or judgment, I can always tell myself that I am simply doing what my therapist told me too…😊 

In what ways are you leaning into permission to live in your own “live mode?”

I would really love to hear.