Lightning Mother

Thunderclouds are full of tiny shards of ice that collide and wreak havoc on each other’s electrons. Since the state of electrons is in a frenzy, ice particles that have more positive charges drift upward while the particles that are more negative drift downward. Static electricity bursts from this transfer of energy, and eventually a bolt of electrons leaps from the negative to the positive side to even things out. That is the lightning you see in the deep dark of the cloud’s belly, or flashing across the sky that stays a second so you can see how far it reached. Most of what you see is negative lightning, and its flashes stay within the sky.

The positive charges in the top of the cloud start getting restless, but in most cases negative particles at the bottom of the cloud keep the bolts from hitting earth. However, when the wind is feisty, and has the wherewithal to throw around, electrons can be moved out a place, and those positively charged ice shards find a path straight to earth. Did you know a positive lightning bolt can produce close to a billon bolt of electricity?

Mitzi has the hair of a storm cloud, and the past of one of the glass shards that keeps losing and gaining. She lives next door, and she and her husband are both retired. She lost her daughter years ago to ovarian cancer and honors her memory in some way every day. During our weekly coffee visits, she tells me stories about how they used to hike together in California, how her husband is driving her crazy, and gives me meal inspiration by telling me what she’s cooked. Sometimes she just comes over and watches the cataclysm of three young children, a huge dog, and two parents who work at home. Her huge black Staffie mix, Maximilian, and my golden retriever, Vincent, often run up and down the fence together. We take them to doggie daycare together. In the summer they will both drive us crazy trying to go out when they sniff the other is out.

When I first met her, I was trained to think I’d somehow failed if the house was a mess. The house is always a mess. The house will probably always be a mess… at least for the next few years. I think I apologized for the first two months we began having coffee together. She always said, “My dad told me you’re there to visit the person, not the house.” She often drives from her driveway to mine, because she wants to, in her little blue car with the personalized plate that says ‘Mitzi’.

“I always have to tell them it has a z in it, and it’s not short for anything.” She said once, and after a sip of her coffee, continued, “And they always think it’s Misty. I am not Misty, I am Mitzi.”

I’m a bit of an orphan, and Mitzi and her vibrant blue hair carefully took me under her wing. We are both birds who are used to flying alone, so this was like learning a new kind of flight for both of us. It took over a year before I saw the inside of her house, but now after two she can ask me and my husband from help if she needs it. I’m still learning how to do that. My past taught me that asking for help usually meant you were diving into a debt that was vast and unending.

Carl Jung said, “Life really does begin at forty. Up until then you are just doing research.” At 36, it looks like I still have a bit of time to learn new behaviors, and ways of thinking, and I don’t intend to waste it. Whenever I worry about the timeline of my lifescape, Jung usually has something wise to say that makes me feel good in my journey. He’s the one that explained why life was a journey in a way that made sense to my mind and put perspective on some of my past experiences.

I spent most of my life in and out of books, trying to make sense of my life through the stories of others. Through folktales and poetry, I could understand how a feeling felt, but it wasn’t safe to feel it where I was raised. Often, I’d run out into the forest and pretend I was a changeling, and I was only pretending to be human. Sometimes I was a unicorn who lived in the forest and could protect all the creatures within it. Mostly I played anything I wanted, because I was in the forest, and I was liberated from being a shard of glass thrown around in the storm of my household. For a time, I was safe. Safe in a place sacred for me. The trees kept the world out for a while. The love of a tree never changes, and in the swirl of the breeze, you can hear them all laughing at the silly human children we all are to them.

The trust and love that Mitzi has shown me has given my lonely and wounded inner child the twinkle of stars in a sky that was only storms before. In her love, I am safe. In her heart I am something special and precious. Sometimes, when my amygdala relaxed, and I remember to be grateful, I feel our steps were guided together by a gentle fate who knew we’d cherish each other. Wind and lightning go together, and neither of us is afraid of flying or making a bit of thunder.

In this love, I’ve had a place to grow and flourish from a place in my heart I never thought I would. I’m learning what parts of my identity I want to keep, and what to let go of. I'm also okay with changing. Erik Erikson theorized the age range of 18 to 40 years was a psychosocial crisis of intimacy verses isolation. There been times in the last couple years where isolation didn't sound like much of a chore, but I knew learning what healthy self love and intimacy looked like to me would be better in the long run.

Learning how to be your authentic self comes with a lot of discomfort, and realizations of just how much of yourself you’ve given up for relationships that don't benefit you emotionally. You also realize how liberating it is when you don’t have to put up any walls, speak without watching your words, and that forgiveness and mistakes are made of clouds. Some clouds are delicate as lace, while others are dense with storms, but they always leave the sky after things settle. You get to choose what clouds go in your sky, flowers go in your garden.

I’m becoming my true self, learning what healthy love looks like, and I have a sacred friend walking by my side who is happy to be part of my story, and the story of my fabulous little family. Pretty damn lucky.

And according to Jung… I haven’t even started yet.

The best is yet to come.