HOME for the Holidays...

"She'd sped out of town without turning around

She had to get away.  

Twenty years later she'd find her way...Back home."

excerpt from Home by Dorothy C. LeBlanc

I suppose I was a typical teenager.  Midway through my senior year of high school, I seriously started the countdown of months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds...until I would move out of my parents' home and be an independent college student!  Had we lived on a gravel road, I dare say that our neighbors would still remember the cloud of dust that overtook the neighborhood as I pulled out of the driveway, into my future.  I thought I could handle anything that the world sent my way.  I had no idea.  Who does?

Life threw me a serious curve ball several years back, and it conflicted with my husband's plans.  (I won't say where he was planning to go, but it rhymes with 'wishing'.)  Before he left to go 'wishing', he dropped me off at my parents' house with my young son in tow...and said he'd pick us up when he got back.  Simple as that.  I was uprooted from my adult, self-made home, and handed back to my parents for 4 or 5 days.  

I had been 4 months pregnant, and the baby had died in utero.  I needed somewhere to recuperate from the D&C...and from the cruel loss.  As badly as I needed to be nurtured, I was worried that my young son and I wouldn't fit into the routine of my childhood home.  My parents lovingly took their adult daughter and her child into their home, and into their hearts. 

That weekend,  I learned how to appreciate my mom and dad from the perspective of a grown woman, not as a child.  They were there for me.  They fed me and helped me take care of my 2-year-old.  We laughed together, we cried together, they helped me heal.  Five days later, I cried as my son and I slowly backed out of the driveway to head home.   

I know that, for some of you, holidays often bring stressful family dynamics to light.   That said, I would love to be able to go "home for the holidays" and see my mom and dad again...but they're both deceased.  For me, going home for a few days at such a tough time, planted the seed for the new relationship I would have with both of them into their twilight years.  

I'd be honored if you'd watch my video of this special song I wrote about my story called  "Home".  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiK4LIHbodc&feature=youtu.be

Until next blog post, peace and love to you...dorothy

friendship and the meaning of "less than 3"

Suffice it to say that the older I get (I'm 56 at the time of this writing), the more I realize all I didn't learn in kindergarten, or grade school, or junior high, or high school, or even college.  Scholastically and athletically I had always held my own, but facts and figures are so quickly forgotten after the tests are taken.  I never made the important honor roll, the social honor roll.  I kept to myself a whole lot, because I just didn't know how to navigate the interpersonal waters around me, secretly envying others who managed to tread bravely through all three terrains. FAST-FORWARD 40 years...

In hindsight, I'd say our paths were meant to converge.  Our friendship began as a lot of other adult friendships do, involving work.  I hired him to do some videography and recording for me, as I was embarking on my musical career.  It proved to be a wonderful working collaboration.  He truly believed in the work we were doing, as much, if not more, than I did!  But even more importantly, he believed in me.  In truth, I gotta say, that I didn't truly believe in myself at that point...

I haven't mentioned our age difference.  The year I graduated from college, he was taking his first steps.  That said, a time came when our digits were entered into each others' phones and we started regarding each other as more than merely co-workers.  We became friends.  Whenever I've struggled with my role as parent to my adult children, he's given me perspective.  As he's pondered his life direction following college and beyond, I've been there, sharing my own vantage point.  So THAT'S what this friendship thing is all about...having someone to listen and share and understand and care.  No matter what.  Unconditionally.  

I didn't learn to truly trust and celebrate friendship until I was in my 50s.  Maybe that's why it is so precious to me, and why I was empowered to commemorate its importance in song.  I wrote this song (entitled "less than 3" or "<3") in 2013 and debuted it at Life's a Song Workshop in Port Aransas, TX.  I'd be honored for you to click on the following link and give the song a look and listen.  I hope it touches your heart and strikes a chord.  And, of course, videography is by my friend...

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-eKCQogK3g

Until next blog, peace and love...Dorothy C. LeBlanc