Catching up - Life without G & H

I haven't been able write because I have been trying to catch up on the seven years of neglect in my house.  I cleared out my studio and installed cabinets that have been in my garage since I moved here. I save everything that I have some kind of vision for and generally beat myself up for being a pack rat. I am happy that I can finally make use of them.

I also couldn't write because the g and the h of my keyboard went out. A lot words use g and h so my writing looked like a secret code.  I purchased a wireless keyboard and ordered a keyboard replacement yesterday. 

My life has been on hold for a long time and I still feel guilty sometimes that it took me this long to heal. I thought I was healed a few times along the way but I know now that that wasn't true. I could be fooling myself again.

When I heard the words "give up the search" and felt instant happiness I was perplexed. Why would that make me feel happy.  Since then I have mulled this over in my mind.  I understood about giving up the spiritual search but now I think there is more. There is always more isn't there?

It is the wanting that has stopped.  The wanting for the life I lost and the wanting for my life to be replaced with something better. It is acceptance that what I am and what I have is enough. It is the acceptance that it is okay to not want what I have been told is normal and it is okay that other people do want it. 

Nothing outside ourselves makes us truly happy forever which is the part no one wants to own to. We fill our lives with what seems like bliss from the outside and then find ourselves feeling trapped. We think that we have made a mistake and start looking for something else. 

We are seeking a spiritual path to cope with our lives and what we think has gone wrong. We hope to identify the mistakes or flaws in our character that put us in this situation in the first place and to avoid future suffering. My own path did save my life but nothing can keep us from experiencing pain. We can learn that pain inevitable but not personal. The spriritual path is the path to marturity and acepting that everything can't solved and that somethings just are.

I have lived my life wanting something or someone to let me off the hook. I wanted feel for just one moment safe from all my insecurities. I wanted someone to say "there is nothing wrong with you just relax and everything will be okay".  I still want that but it doesn't exist. It does feel like it exist when you first fall in love and meet your first soul mate but no one has power over the future. 

You have to dig deep to find what makes you feel so insecure and the thoughts that instill terror. The kind of terror that wakes you up in the middle of the night. We avoid facing that fear with everything we have. I have spent a lifetime running from what I believed was the truth about myself.. 

For me the fear was that something was wrong me because I was never satisfied with what seemed to make other people happy. I couldn't conform and when I did it felt worse. This wasn't the core of my suffering the core had to do with not being able to change this about myself. I have never felt I really belonged anywhere. I have had times when I was included and I did feel safe but then I could clearly see that the way I thought about things made me an outsider.

I knew that I wasn't going to pretend to be someone I am not so I felt doomed. Being alone was more proof that this is what my life was going to be like. No magic cure for making me more like the world so it all seemed fatal. Until those word "give up the search" 

It gave me permission to do something I had already done but felt guilty about it. I had to admit I found the truth that I am who I am and there is nothing wrong with that. I could stop feeling that I needed to be fixed and set myself free. 

I am starting to feel good most of the time.  I do get lonely when I have a few days to myself and would like some company but I felt like that many times when I was in a relationship. I do fight boredom because my mind is in constant search of something more stimulating than what is offered with everyday life and chores. 

When I don't take myself or my day too seriously then I am content and even happy sometimes. I can find joy just appreciating who I am with all my imperfections. I can give up the search for a better me and  I can accept that the child in me will always want more. . 

 

Fathers - Healing

On the subject of  Father's Day. I loved my father and he loved me. I waited a lifetime for him to reach out to me and make me feel like I deserved to be loved, but it never happened. All of my relationships have been affected by the idea that my father didn't love me.  I felt that if I wasn't enough for him then I would never be enough for anyone.

I wasn't worth him taking the time to pursue me ever. After I left home at 16 he let me go and never looked back. Ironically I can be just like that too. I don't pursue but I wait until I am let go and I never look back.

This was just who my father was and it wasn't directed just towards me.  In recovery I got the courage to ask him why he let me go he said "every body's got to do what they got to do."  I knew at that moment that it wasn't about me.  I really wanted it to be.

It really felt worse because I knew I would never get the hole in my heart filled by the man sitting in front of me. I thought I would be forever broken  I thought he was the only hope I had for feeling normal.

It took another two decades (sorry) to get past that moment today I finally know it was this belief that I was broken that actually held me back. I thought had to accept the idea that nothing could be done about my brokenness and learn to live with it.

This was a big lie I told myself and I had plenty of other people telling me I had a perfect right to feel broken and hurt.  My friends and I were all the same it felt good to find others like me and this became my life's focus trying to make the best of my brokenness. Finding ways to find happiness despite the past.

I had to realize that dwelling on what I thought was missing made me miss the life I was actually living.  I was never 100% there because I was always trying to solve the problem of myself and what I was missing. Living with alcoholism helped because it gave me relief from the problem of me and put it on the problem of someone else.

I thought the best I could hope for was to deal with my feelings of the past.  Now I know I can choose to just think of my past as novel I finished reading yesterday. It is done it can't affect me today unless I want let it.  If I give in it might be because I enjoy identifying with the pain and suffering of the past. To me this was a habit I had done so long it was as natural as breathing. I see it now how stuck I was in my thinking.

When I go out in the world today I can be who I choose to be and if I want I can choose not to be that broken person in my head. Sometimes if I am with those that knew me before it is more difficult because they have their story of me and it hard for them to accept that I have changed. They may be holding tightly to their own story and it makes them uncomfortable that I have moved on.

I have lost some people in my life and I have given up others. I just don't fit with those living in the past or those that need someone to take care of.  I am no longer any one's project.

I am grateful for my past today but I am not going to live there. I am also grateful for my father who although he wasn't an emotional giant he did love me and said so even if i didn't believe him. He did give me the ability to fix all kinds of things and a curious mind.

I do agree with one thing my father said "every body's got to do what they got to do."

Death - 10,000 Miles

I watched the movie Fly Away this week and when the song played during the final scene I started bawling. It was a total surprise to me and I wondered what that was all about. The song is by Mary Chapin Carpenter and was really her first big hit.

The song is called 10,000 miles and is basically about someone leaving and promising to return. There was some much sadness in this song. I thought about the pain of losing what you didn't know you could lose. The song states even though I am 10,000 miles away I will return again some day. I say the last part is just wishful thinking.

I did get some sad news at the beginning of the week that has made me focus on loss.  The founder of our Art League passed suddenly from something I assume was medical since there were no details. He was young with a family and will leave a huge void personally and within the art community.

I am on vacation this week working on my house. It has been neglected since I moved here. I have evidently practicing being instead of doing. I am full up on being and plunging head first into doing. This week I cleaned the garage, power washed the porch and painted my deck three times.

While painting the last three days I had a lot of time to think about death and loss. It is something we will all get a chance to experience. With my own faith I don't fear death it can't be any worse than being left behind. The person going on at least gets all the answers but being left behind you are stuck with only questions and grief.

With any significant loss you are taken from a place of thinking you know what tomorrow looks like to total uncertainty. Of course the uncertainty was there all the time the loss puts it center stage. You can either embrace the clarity of the moment or you run like I did.

I just couldn't accept there was no safe place to go. I couldn't accept there was nothing I could do to prevent things from changing. I couldn't be better, I couldn't watch closer for signs of trouble I couldn't even pick a better person to spend my life with.

It is just the way life is and we have to learn to live with it. I have lived in fear of doing something wrong all my life and now I think what a waste of time. I worked hard to do everything right assuming that I would find happiness and safety.

Nothing from the past is hurting me now because I know now it wasn't my fault. Did I play my part? Absolutely, but so what it is just the way life is we do our best with what we have to work with. I can no longer grieve for what might have happened if I had done something different. I have wasted so much time thinking about what I have lost instead of seeing that it doesn't matter. Only what is happening today matters and bracing myself for the future sadness ruins the reality of today.

My mind has been stuck in the loop of the question of why.  My mind loves these unsolvable problems and once it takes hold it takes a miracle to break this loop of problem solving.

A healing has taken place in me that can see this so clearly now. I have been lost in my mind and now I can accept that there is no way to prepare I can just live and deal with what happens next when it gets here. I am free.

Sisters - Love and Hate

I spoke to my sister yesterday giving her the belated birthday wish. I thought about it once on Friday and opted to call her when I got to work which was a mistake. Neither of us keep up with those kind of things and rely on non family to celebrate or existence. I use to really want that to change but wanting it and having it are two different things. We both have created different live for ourselves and we both have seemed to accept this.

We are four years apart and during our childhood I was basically a boil on her butt. She was my idol for a long time until I realized she hated me. Maybe hate is a strong word but I don't think it was far off. I ruined her only child life. She was on her way to being a prodigy when I her younger brother showed up. I was suppose to be a boy and got that message pretty early.

The truth was it wasn't far off I hated most girl things while my sister represented all things perfectly precious in our family. She never got dirty and practiced the piano two or more hours each day. She had straight A's all the way through law school. Her only soiled grade was PE in high school and she cried. The number of books she brought home each day equaled the number I checked out from the library for summer reading.

She did a lot things to hurt me when my mother was alive. She told lies about me that got me punished. Once she threw away a small wooden guitar that she made during Vacation Bible School and I retrieved it from the trash. She told my mother I stole it from her room.  I got a whippin for that and obviously I never forgot it.

Being the first born she never had it easy. The piano practicing stemmed from my mother's desire to be a concert pianist. The grades really were just expected and part of the complete package. In her room everything had a specific place and her drawers were labeled. She kept it locked most of the time and she had to use a Bobbie pen to enter each time. This starter after the guitar incident or did I have my own Bobbie pin?

I had groovy beads in my doorway and had convinced my dad to remove my door completely. I think my mother was good with this because she had my sister to beam over. I of course wasn't that into approval mostly because I could never live up to the perfection of my sister. My room was pack to the rafters andmy walls were covered with black light posters. I regular rearranged my five pieces of furniture because I was bored with things always being the same. I did that last weekend.

I would like to say that after my mother died my sister and I grew close but the intensity grew worse hitting a high or low point depending upon your perspective when she was throwing my things down the basement stairs and I said "one more thing goes down those stairs and you will follow."

That was the turning point for us and she stopped trying to pull rank on me. I was young and never understood why she hated me so much. After moms death there was just the three of us and my dad was checked out with grief. He wasn't paying the bills. She assumed head of household and her desire for control escalated to a point that called for war.

We did join together once briefly when my stepmother started her own special ops campaign which made Cinderella's stepmother seem compassionate. That was her last summer home and we have never been close since.

It hasn't been easy for her and after my mothers death she had a breakdown of sorts herself. She lost the desire to be perfect without my mothers expectations. She really went the opposite. I once tried to get in her car and couldn't find the seat. I ended up just sitting on the trash and papers. She doesn't iron and puts her makeup on without a mirror.

Loss changed us all. I remember going into my childhood room one day and raking everything into the trash. The person I had been was gone at ten I was all grown up and needed a change.

I love my sister and she loves me. We have both found our own successes in life and a place in the middle of extremes. She accepts me and my liberal spiritual beliefs and I accept her need to keep me at a distance. She has a lot of fear about the future and is concerned that something terrible is going to happen. She is right but that is true whether we worry or not.

I can see now that she has had her own suffering the same as me.  I couldn't really have compassion for anyone while I was lost in my own hurt. A child's hurt. It is clear to me now and I am seeing the truth of my life for the first time. I have been lost but now I am found.

The last haircut - Freedom - Change

My hairdresser is retiring tomorrow at 75. She has Parkinson's and with surgery she has been able to continue cutting hair until now.  She a strong willed woman who still isn't sure whether it is the right time to retire or not. For the few of us that are still her clients it is time.

So I had my last hair cut this week. I was a little emotional to think she will never again cut my hair. She is an excellent hairdresser with 50 years experience and even with the aging years and the Parkinson's I have no complaints. Maybe just a few.

We are a tough breed those that have survived living with alcoholism and addition. We dig in and never surrender even when we have every right to do so. My friend is tough as nails and I have never heard her complain not even once. When she got the diagnosis ten years ago she said when they told her the news she said "I am happy it isn't cancer."

I won't say it has been all fun and games. Having  brain surgery isn't anything to take too lightly. I have to say I wasn't a great friend at the time. I had lost everything including my mind and was barely making it myself. Before the surgery we did have weekly meditations on my porch after dinner.

Four or five of us would gather around the table and hold hands and sit in silence. This sometimes would last and hour. It would end spontaneously one person coming out of it and then the rest. We were linked so closely at that time everyone seemed to need the support. When we came out of it we would go around the table and talk about what we saw or felt and everyone would comment. The after talks were very healing. I couldn't have made it without those nights.

My friend is a silent sufferer not like me. I don't know if it is because she doesn't want the disease to get top billing or because she doesn't want to bother us with the details. Of course we don't ask it is our way. My friends and I are all the same expecting that if a person needs help they should say so.

Fat chance of that we have too much pride and stubbornness to admit when we need something. Forever autonomous declining all outside contributions. This is why we feel so lonely sometimes because we don't want to depend on other people. The people we have depended on have let us down so we are better off relying on ourselves that trusting another. We are more comfortable being trusted than trusting.

I have learned through the program that you can trust some people. The friends I talk about here I have know 20 plus years and they are all still around. What I do know now is that you have to know who to trust and know that when you get disappointed it isn't about you. Sometimes the other person is dealing with their own crisis and can't live up to your expectations.

Just like me I failed these same friends when I lost myself. They were use to me pulling things together like I did those meditation nights. I always kept things going no matter what happen. I had been the rock but even the rock can be submerged by a big storm.

I am happy to be back now even though I am changed forever.  Everyone has accepted me the way I am even though I am different. When my friend got her diagnosis I went out and bought every book possible on Parkinson's. The other day one of my friends mentioned that to me and then he said " the person that bought those books doesn't exist anymore."  I said "that is true,"

I don't believe in regrets.  I believe you do your best even if it is not good enough for other people or even yourself. It is all you have on any given day. We get into trouble when we set standards for other people and for ourselves and we get hurt when they don't adhere to our standards.

Over the years I have been able to let go an forgive the past by imagining what the other person must have been going through to do the things they did to me. Sadly it was never about me it was about their own demons and I was just part of the fall out. I took those hurts and made them about me and believed I was a problem that needed to be fixed. When I couldn't find a way to fix myself I couldn't accept this and I crashed.

When I recovered it was because I realized this was what I believed. I believed I was a problem and there was no solution. With grace I found this lie I had been told and kept telling myself. I am not a problem to be fixed I am just me living in a world with people just like me just trying to find a way to be happy.

I am free today.  I am free to do what is right for me and to mess things up if that is what happens. I can know that I can't control really anything so I can relax and enjoy the moment and deal with whatever comes my way today without bracing myself for it.

Where is my mother? -Wanting

I realized today that I have spent most of my life wanting things that I didn't have.  This was true both in a material sense and a emotional sense. The ever elusive thing or situation that I thought would satisfy this inner longing that I had.

I thought this was normal and that it was my purpose in life to get those things. The trouble was that when I failed to get them I blamed myself. I was taught that if you put your mind to it then you can achieve anything.  This of course leaves out a big factor other people.

The problem with taking complete responsibility for your life and your circumstances is that when something doesn't work and there isn't a happy ending you feel life something is wrong with you.

You must keep working to improve yourself until you achieve the success you deserve. This is why self help and motivational speakers are so popular. Giving us the idea that we can control our destiny if we just keep a positive outlook. If we make a commitment to change ourselves everything will work our just like we want it to.

Everybody fails at one time or another even gurus and motivational speakers get divorced.  We don't have control of everything. We live our lives with other people who have their own will to do as they please with their life even if it affects us. Sometimes they don't have a choice it is their own destiny.

My mother died at 41 and this did altered my life in ways that I never imagined. I wanted what I thought I was missing every decade I was working towards finding that missing family. The child in me was sure that if I could find them I would be happy. I don't really remember my mother all that well. I have mostly memories of the whippings I got before she was sick.  I do remember good night kisses which kind of made up for it.

What I think I missed is in my imagination. She was strict and emotionally detached when she delivered those punishments. I knew I was a problem but I couldn't help myself I was curious and determined and when I made my mind up there was no stopping me.

I am still like that today. I realized today I have mothered myself my whole life and I must say overall I have done a pretty good job. I made a lot of mistakes but I did learn from them. In the early years I use to bully myself into doing what had to be done like my mother did with her punishments.

Today I am a beter parent I sit that little child down and explain why things have to be done the way they do and there is less rebellion. I list the benefits that might be achieved with good choices. On other occasions I give in and let her watch endless hours of TV and eat Hershey chocolate chunks. This goes a long way with to improve the trust between the two of us.

I don't miss my mother I miss the idea of what it would have been like to have a mother. I looked for her in every relationship.  I borrowed my in-laws when I had them and when they were gone more devastation for the child in me. In the program I found some mothering with my sponsor but in the end no one could satisfy what felt like was missing from my life.

I wanted to be somebody's priority and I believed that if I could find someone that loved me enough like my mother did, beatings and all, I would be happy. But everyone came up short compared to my imaginery mother.

Today I am celebrating the mother in me. I haven't been a perfect mother just like I suspect my mother wouldn't have been but a loving mother nevertheless. I can stop looking now and appreciate all we have been through together.

So today another breakthrough I have had a mother all this time. Someone that has brought me through the hardest time of my life. Someone that has helped me to mature finally to a point that I can be satisfied with myself and what I have accomplished.

Even with all that has happened to me I wouldn't have changed a thing. That isn't totally true I would have accepted less of the blame for being left behind. I wouldn't think there was something unlovable about.

I know I am a handful because I live with me. I can appreciate the endlessly curious unstoppable child that I am inside. This child has kept me going when nothing else could. I can be free to love and cherish what I have believed were flaws about me.

Happy Mothers Day to me.

Honesty - Permission to let go

I am starting to relax into my new life living without a long range purpose. Who knew I just needed permission to let go and see what happens. I feel lighter in a way I haven't felt since I was a child.

When I made my break or when I had my breakdown it was because I couldn't accept that I had absolutely no control over my situation. The life that I knew was gone and I felt like a stranger every where I went.

I tried all the soft places that had worked for me in the past but they felt sad and stale to me. I tried a few new things like meditation and even chanting. I found comfort in odd things like watching a movie over and over until the DVD started having problems. I just wanted relief.

I had never felt like this before. I reached out to my friends and some were there but because this went on so long many ran for the hills. I didn't blame them I would have run for the hills but I would have had to take my head with me.

I once had a guy say that it was painful to be around me. I told him to imagine what it must be like to be me. I did like his honesty.

When I felt deserted I turned on the few people that were still around. Anyone that it seemed might need something from me. I only could be with people that were emotionally neutral. No one that needed me to be anything or do anything for them. I thought if I could just be still and quiet it would pass.

I was right it did pass little by little until the day I woke up empty. Empty of the pain and empty of the person I once was a clean slate. Most of my friends were gone a few have drifted back but not too close. I am not the person I was before and they have to decide whether they like the new me.

I am not the woman that handles everything anymore. I am not a social directer or the person that cooks for a crowd anymore. I don't feel the need to please or define myself by the reflection I see in other peoples eyes. I have been to the bottom and to rise again I had to be empty.

I am still funny sometimes but not in the sarcastic way I use to be. I have no venom for anything or anybody. Even my ex's or my stepmother. I saw her picture on my sister's face book page this week. She looked old and a stranger to me all those years I carried those thoughts about in my head. Gone.

I getting to know the new me these days. I am not trying the find the person I was before she isn't lost she has just served her purpose.  I am gentle and kind to this new me. I got nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. I am free to sail quietly through each day and see what there is to see.