Talking in San Diego

I've just returned from a wonderful overnight with my friend Mel to visit our mutual friend Jan in San Diego. Mel and I talked non-stop in the car on the way down. Once at Jan's house, the conversation expanded to include our friend, and went even deeper. Jan prepared a magnificent brunch, which we followed with an afternoon on the beach in La Jolla, still talking and laughing, embraced by the sun. Later, we shared martinis and snacks, Mel did a podcast interview for Jan, for her website, and then we went out for Italian and talked some more.

Sleep was deep and sweet. Breakfast was good. Our morning conversation picked right up where we'd left off the night before. Three happy women, long-time friends, our lives full of new projects and possibilities at middle-age. Our lives shaped by, but not defined by, our losses, some in the past, and some ongoing.

To begin with, we're all starting to lose our sight. We're losing words more often, and sometimes, losing out on the nightlife we are no longer up to. The only thing we're not losing, it seems, is weight.

And that's the way it is with loss. As Stephen Sondheim says in his lyric from A Little Night Music, "Every day a little death..."

The list of what I've lost: inumerable scarves, mittens, eyeglasses. My great-grandmother's engagement ring. Several roles to other actresses. A marriage to infidelity. A sister to Cystic Fibrosis. Many times, my self-esteem and sense of self-worth. A friend to an aneurysm. A couple of others because, I don't know why, they left without telling. Several I lost in my divorce. Yes, I lost my grandmother to old age, but first she was lost to me through betrayal by her only son, my Uncle. I've lost my mind several times to anger, and to grief. There's more, but that's enough for now.

Mel has lost two husbands to divorce, a Hollywood career to ageism, and is losing a father to Alzheimers. Her mother was already lost to her years ago through narcissim. Mel recently lost her beloved cat Spencer after 16 + years of true companionship.

Jan has recently separated from her partner of many years. Her best friend, who has come back from cancer twice in the last ten years, is now lying in her final coma. The company that published her most recent book folded on the eve of the launch, and now she's on her own with 7500 copies in a storage space, and no money or personnel to help promote it. And all this comes on the heels of a near-death experience only two years ago, in an automobile accident.

We have a friend whose marriage 'suddenly' ended five weeks ago. We have another recovering from two bouts of breast cancer, whose sister died of Diabetes in between. We have another friend whose father abandoned her and her family at the age of three, and who was raised by a schizophrenic mother.

Alright, I'll stop this litany there. I just want you to know what we were talking about. Not at all in a poor me kind of way. We talked about those losses, ours and our friends', because they are part of our history, how we got to be who we are. We talked about them, and the losses in Iraq and Darfur, at Virgina Tech and in the environment, because that's how the world is getting to be what it is. And though we may feel momentarily defeated by these losses, both personal and universal, we are also mindful of them, of what these losses have to teach us. We are fascinated by them, and by how to survive them. We share them with each other hoping that we can give each other hope. We give each other a roadmap to who we are beyond the pain we've already borne.

We survive by being friends with each other, and by making new ones to bring into the circle when others leave our lives, or die, or move away. We survive by making choices, large and small; by understanding that we always have the choice of how to respond to our losses. We can create new joy or bog down in ongoing despair. We can choose to be bitter or forgiving. We can choose to throw on our make-up and stride out into the world, or stay stuck. We recognize that as we choose, so do we live.

I learned this first from watching my sister live with, and die of, a chronic-terminal illness that lasted for 26 years. Faced with increasing pain, physical limitations, and the death of several friends in the final years of her life, she took her cue from Viktor Frankel, and his book, Man's Search for Meaning. Even when her world diminished to the size of the bed she lay dying in, she still found the power to survive those final hours by making her own choices, when and where she could. Her last words were, "I'm not giving up."

So, in addition to talking about loss this weekend, Jan and Mel and I also talked about choice. And because we understand our power to choose, Jan, and Mel and I chose joy this weekend. We chose music and laughter, healing conversation and fresh ideas for the future, faith over fear. We chose gratitude, for each other, for being alive, and yes, even for our losses.

The history of the world, and all its people, is a history of loss, and a history of those who come back swinging. Living, as Emile Zola said, out loud.

I'm one of those, and so is Jan, and so is Mel.

Which are you?

“There is no happy ending. But there is the day. The sun, the rain. The chance to say I love you. The willingness to forgive. The courage to remember. The opportunity to be kind. The ability to laugh and to be generous. The fact that we can choose our joy in each moment, no matter what. This, in itself, is the miracle.” ~ from "Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister's Memoir."

PS - Please visit www.janphillips.com to find out about "The Art of Original Thinking"