The Power of Now - Being Grateful

I picked up my old copy of The Power of Now just to see where I am on the spiritual spectrum.  This book helped save my life quite literally because he talked about the voice inside as the ego.  You have a listener and a talker up there whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

We stay so busy with listening to the talker we create a life in our head that isn't exactly the truth our personal version of the truth.  If that truth gets bad enough and you can't cope you  you have some sort of awakening. Also could be called a mental break of some kind. I think this happens when the version of life you had in your head doesn't match a hard punch of reality. 

Then the ego we created to run our lives is not use to being seen as helpless and just keeps pushing and trying to find a solution to the unsolvable problems until there is no place to go. For me it was a number of things mostly grief that I ignored - the loss of the life I thought I would have even if I wasn't happy there at least I thought knew where I was going.

I am awake now as in "the power of now" when I have too much time on my hands like I did over Thanksgiving I can drift into what I wish had happened instead of what happened.  This is great for my book but bobbing up and down in the cesspool of the past can leave me  rotten. I feel hungover and worse I feel dead inside.

When I went black before I was in this state everyday all day for what felt like years. I was a zombie just doing things that I knew I did before but not really sure why. When I feel this even for a day I panic and think it is back to stay but I wake up the next morning feeling normal or normal for me anyway. 

I didn't ask to have an awakening.  I did always want to be enlightened when I thought it meant peace a tranquility all the time. I didn't know without the burden a giant ego telling me all the time that I needed to being doing something better or I should be further along or happier that I would have so much time.  I still have that but only in small doses. 

Eckhart Tolle says that we would be better off without the idea of time. It would make us less anxious about everything.  I get that because we are always thinking about something other than what we are doing right now. I have decades I hardly remember because I was overbooked all the time. I felt like I was being chased and if I stopped it would be over and I was right.

I am happy most of the time unless I compare myself to other people's full lives and wonder what I did wrong. I talked to a guy at work yesterday and I told him I wasn't too busy and he said to enjoy it. He lost his wife last year and three sisters and a cousin so life is short and we should try to enjoy it. That made me stop feeling like I should be working harder and enjoy the freedom this season brings me. 

What I should want - Being normal

It is Thanksgiving and I have opted to be alone. This is some scary stuff inside the head because it messes with all those insecurities that our society gathers around holidays. In my mind it says "look what has become of you - your life is a failure - you have nobody".

In the program it has a saying " you mind is like a bad neighborhood never go there alone". If I step back and ask myself am I a failure? The answer is no I am happy to be on my own doing things that I love. My self worth is not tied to making sure I have people around me.

If you have been here before you know I have hosted literally hundreds of group invents over my life and a lot times I have felt alone and more like a caterer than someone participating in a something I was a part of. This is who I am and now that I don't feel like I have to live up to the picture in my head I can relax and appreciate being me.

I got two invitations at the last minute one that surprised me last night a coworker called and offered to let me join her family. The other an old friend that was a part of my life when I first found the 12 steps. I just can't do it anymore be somewhere just to prove to myself that I belong. I have seen her one on one a few times lately and this is what I prefer. A more intimate moment with good conversation.

It doesn't help that I am not food focused anymore.  I don't long for those special dishes that I use to make for other people. Is it wrong to not go because I don't want to be there? Does this make me anti social. Someone at work said they were staying home instead of making the five drive the usually make to be with her husband's family. She can be with her own family this year. Doing things because we have always done them is easy. Our brain loves "the same" it is harder to choose again because it feels awkward. 

I only feel bad about myself when I say "a normal person wouldn't want to be alone on a holiday".  The normal ship has sailed a long time ago. I have spent my whole life trying to figure out where I fit in creating a life the I thought looked like a normal life and being unhappy most of the time. I would tell myself "you should be happy - you have the life that other people would be envious of"  I didn't feel the joy I was suppose to have. 

I find on most days now I am singing out loud. I might not be excited about what is on my to do list but I don't feel trapped anymore. If I am unhappy it isn't because there is some magical place in the future that will eliminate this.  I can just decide what to do next or if I want I can choose to do nothing. 

I am working on my book once again. One day last week I got up and pulled it from a basket and read through it. I was inspired to add to it and work on organizing it. It is difficult because even though it will be fiction it is filled with my own memories. It makes it hard to continue without taking an emotional break.

I am thankful today for having all day to myself to be creative. I once heard a monk say they spent 6 months of the year alone. I could never do that I just want to spend time with people that have good energy.  I feel like I have spent too many holidays having the life drained out of me because I thought I had to because this is what normal people do. 

I think Covid has changed us all to want more meaning in this short life we have on this earth. It make sense to me that the younger generation doesn't want to work so hard. This will work itself out and a balance will be found work can give you joy.  It has taken me a lifetime to do what I want instead of what I think I should want.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Being Alone - We hate change - The holiday

I am use to spending time alone but around the holidays my mind can slip into some sad places if I let it.  I do indulge myself a little here and there wishing things could have been different. I am spending Thanksgiving alone this year at least that is what I am saying now.

I was invited by an old friends house to join her and her normal group of holiday friends to have a vegan dinner plus Turkey.  I use to be part of the center of this group long ago when the world was younger and so was I. It was the only time in my life that I felt like I belonged and didn't have to worry about being myself. Over the years it got complicated.

The actual holiday meal wasn't that great emotionally. It was stressful and included a few non recovering alcoholics. I really don't like big meals with other people even though I catered these events in both my marriages. 

I am naturally and introvert even though I like people but only one on one. I liked putting together events but never enjoyed actually attending the event. So the questions is - Will I go? Maybe an opportunity to go back to my past. Yuck.

I don't believe you can successfully go back to any where in your life.  I prefer to limit this kind of return to a place in my head where my imagination can make it all perfect. I can build the room around my own happiness and all the characters are on their best behavior. 

The last real Thanksgiving I cooked someone said to me "this is bland" since they had just gotten out of the hospital after stomach surgery I thought it was appropriate. That was the end for me after cooking thousands of meals with love and care I quit just like that.

Sounds drastic and it kinda of was but I am like that. I can do something or be someone for a long time and then suddenly I just can't do it anymore. This is probably a bad analogy and I have probably written it before and apologize in advance. In my 30's I ate Lean Cuisine for lunch every day for years. One day I pulled one out of the freezer and I a sick feeling and through it in trash. I have never touched one since. When I am done I am done.

I have a lot of guilt about this being done part it has occurred with people as well a Lean Cuisine. In the words of a counselor "there is a long period of time between this is great and I am out of here."  She was talking about my ex's and their sprints out of my life without every actually talking about being unhappy ever. I guess I have done the same.

This isn't totally true I have tried to have the discussion that this isn't working with many people but let's be honest.  We want to believe in the fantasy we have created around the people in our lives and we want to believe everyone is happy and nothing will every change. It takes courage to speak up. People don't want you to burst their bubble and no one wants to believe you don't love them just the way they are. 

Even if you do love them sometimes it ends up from afar because you aren't getting what you need. You have had the life sucked out of you and  you just runaway as fast as you can. I have been run from and I ran when it felt like - What is the point ? - No one is listening. 

It is like - "You can't change the rules now after all this time!" This is when things end or people find away to be happy either with someone else or something that fills the void. Couples who brag about their long relationships that literally do nothing together unless it is for a public event. This isn't conscious it is just no one thinks anything will ever change.

I will be alone this Thanksgiving and I feel grateful for that. I don't want to just go through the motions of showing up to be able to say I had some place to go. Most people don't really get my life but I have been mostly happy alone the past few years. I am writing - painting - drawing and of course working and it feels satisfying. It is only during the holidays I feel awkward when people find out I will be alone. I only say when I am asked.

I am not a hermit because I love the complexity of the stories people have about their lives but I feel comfortable with who I have become and will spend the extra time off creating. 

I will probably write again before the holiday but if not - Happy Thanksgiving.

Poker Face - Cold as ice - wasting time

Every time I write here I think I should stop.  I started this blog during the great recession when I spent six days a week in a shop alone waiting for customers to come in.  They did come in once every couple of of weeks.  I had hours upon hours to kill and I was suffering from a mental breakdown that I didn't know about. Brought on by the stress of my relationship ending - having to move - menopause - and ultimately Hashimoto's disease. 

People just mostly thought I was nuts.  I didn't have insurance or money so I did not go to the doctor until the worst of it was over. I am stubborn and self sufficient and can seem others put together on the outside when I am falling apart on the inside. The catch phrase "never let them see you sweat" is my motto. Ask my ex's they will say I am cold as ice but only when I am losing everything and there is nothing I can do to stop it. 

I didn't want their pity or guilt even though with both endings it was followed by emotional breakdowns I held my poker face until they weren't watching and then dissolved into my grief. Hey "If you don't want me then I want to make sure you think I don't need you". Sick I know but this is how I have battled the storms of my life. 

I cry at sappy commercials and can't watch parts of movies where I know someone is about to get emotionally hurt. This is why I watch movies over and over because I know how things are going to turn out. 

This blog has helped me to stay alive when I wasn't sure it was really worth it. It has helped me to have compassion for the actors in my story and to have compassion for the me the person who helped write the story. I have done my best with the skills life gave me even if I hurt other people and myself along the way. 

I have built my life around the circumstances of my childhood.  I believed the words of other mere mortals and took them as gospel and lived my life thinking something was wrong with me. This sounds crazy to me now so I guess I am making progress.

Getting older - something I was sure would never happen to me - makes see how much time I have wasted trying to sort this out. This meaning "what is wrong with me?" 

My life is pretty empty now pulling away from the relationships that don't really support me. I feel more free than I ever have but in the back of my mind I sometimes I think "you have no one".  This a disturbing thought but not disturbing enough put myself out there.

About this blog - If you are interested in the words I put here - let me know. 

Do I want to be a star? Repeating the past

Things have slowed down in my life.  At work there isn't any critical work to be done so it has given me the opportunity to focus on other things. I wonder for myself is this a good thing or does this give me time to hash over the past yet another time.

I did some writing today and a few things surprised me first that I admitted my own lack of respect for my ex.  In relationships sometimes the other person becomes a non person. Like just a cast member in the play of your life. I think we all do that with relationships that last a long time where the other person doesn't seem to really participate. 

This came to me while describing my daddy's relationship with my stepmother. He was there to make her life as pleasant as possible. He wasn't seen as someone with wants, needs and desires because he never expressed those to anyone. This was a product of his upbringing you are in the supporting role and never the star - be invisible. 

With relationships the roles are established early on and unlikely and almost impossible to change once chosen. The star is the star and no one would dare try to take that role. We all want to be the star but sometimes the responsibility of the the success or failure of that role is too much pressure. I have played both roles in most of my relationships being forced to make things happen and also sitting on the sidelines while someone else took the spot light. Making things happen from behind the scenes.

I have lived with someone who refused to participate unless they had a list of what they were suppose to do. I have lived with someone who just did what they wanted as if I didn't even exist in the relationship. This was when I was living with active alcoholism and the drink along with the star personality over shadowed everything.

The problem with being the supporting staff you don't know you are unhappy until there is a break in your endless responsibilities. With my daddy my mother was forced to make all the decisions even if she included him in every decision. He would just say "whatever your mother says" This was my last relationship and I felt like everything was dependent on me. The happiness of the relationship depended on me. When I ask for input or responsibility I was met with sulking. It was exhausting.

When my daddy met my step mother she was only too glad to call the shots and he was happy to fall back into his comfortable supporting role. He did what he was told and was invisible.

This isn't anyone's fault we choose the people that feel familiar to us. The pattern of our choices are usually some version of where we have been before. If we are growing we pick a little bit better version than the previous. No one can convince us that this is true because often after meeting someone it is too late we are already in love. The dopamine of new love has flooded us and we are unable to stop ourselves.

I met someone shortly after my last relationship ended. A healthier version of my ex-husband and it was bad news. I remember my counselor saying "this is the same relationship"  I said I know but it is too later for me.  Luckily I came to my senses and decide to stop things where they were. More pain on top of my already broken heart.

I have created my own play and when I am alone sometimes I look back and wish things had been different mostly that I had been different. I wish I had been less committed to sticking things out when I wasn't happy. I wish that I could have admitted to myself that I wanted and deserved something more instead of waiting for the other person make that decision for me by leaving.

Is reflection on life a good thing or is it just wallowing in the past. I think both sometimes it give me insight into to my part of the past but it also makes me feel like - where do I go from here?  When I am not busy killing time with life's responsibilities I can see that it is short and I want to make the best of the time I have left. What do I want my play to be about?

I see dead people - The past looking back at me

I am dedicating 4-5 hours on my days off to draw.  I spent the past two days drawing myself in the mirror the only live model available.  It is really better to draw from real life if you can but nowadays who can do that?  I use to see all these self portraits and think "how self absorbed artist must be"  Funny the judgments you make. Looking at myself I kept thinking I have seen those lips before - Who's lips are those in the mirror?

I realized that they belonged to my Uncle Gene. I take after my mother's side of the family not like my sister who takes after my daddy's side of the family. I know this because I spent hours last week drawing my sister.  She was always prettier than me in a more classical way. I did get my mothers blue eyes but she got the olive skin and the symmetrical more petite features. Okay I have a big nose or at least bigger than her.

When you look at someone's face for hours even your own you really see them. Drawing people from my past or present really feels like a form a meditation. I feel like I can feel their spirit and I have been practicing sending healing towards them or for some people forgiveness  especially today towards myself.

My mother's side of family was plagued with alcoholism from my mother's granddaddy who died in a bar brawl to all of my uncle's except Gene. He was the only one of the four boys who went to college briefly.  He got a scholarship to a christian college but really got interested and all religions and was told he had to choose between his trunk of books on different kinds of religion or the way of the Pentecostals. He left immediately with his trunk.

He was a hard man and worked for the sheriffs department his entire adult life. He liked driving fast and carrying a gun. He liked making people behave too working as a bouncer at night for extra money. He worked all the time because he married a woman with five boys.

She was Mormon and all the boys were under twelve.  She was a clerk at the courthouse and they hit it off.  She was only 4' 8" and none of her boys ever grew any taller than that. She wanted to be married in the Mormon church but he refused.  They were married for 15 years and divorced then later after he retired got back together again. They did get married the second time in the Mormon church and he spent is last years working in the temple in Utah every day.

When I realized where I had seen those lips I went a retrieved a picture I think from their second wedding.  I know he loved his family but he was hard on them because that was who he was. To us he was just our funny uncle who was really smart and read non stop. 

The death of my mother devastated him and he said that he stop believing in God for awhile but in the end he ended up doing God's work in one of the largest denominations in the world. In the end you go back to the beginning to what you learned early and in his case that was trusting God.

I come from some really strong stock on both sides of my family. They both were hard working stubborn principled people. That generation lived through things I can't imagine. My grandmother, after the death of her husband, had to raise nine kids on her own. She said she never remarried because she didn't want someone else treating her kids badly. 

I meditated on my uncle's life today and for every life he touched. He meant well and hopefully did more good than harm overall.  We all do our best even if it isn't that great sometimes. 

Making space work for me - Time out

I am spontaneously taking this week off. The timing is about as right as it is going to be with work and I have some big projects coming up at the end of the month. I am not going to try to see my family - they are not vaccinated and my other family is waiting for their booster shots before seeing anyone. After my recent exposure staying home seems reasonable to me. 

I like staying home and giving my life a little space. I deal in physical spaces every day in my business but this is space to regroup in my personal life.  As everyone has learned with the pandemic space can be awkward with time and no plan.  Even though I love being on my own I have to resist just filling my day with a to list.  For me after a day or so I began to relax and enjoy the freedom.

I am working daily on honing my drawing skills realizing that practicing and studying will eventually take me where I want to go. If  I use the 10,000 hour rule and practice one hour a day it will take about about four years to get where I want to go.  This does seem daunting but really what is one hour a day in the scheme of things.

I wrote down some goals or future intentions. I like putting my intentions on paper and it has worked for me past. I have found those list years later and seeing some of those intentions did come true. I am a visual person and I like to see the words.

I am inspired right now although it feels like things in the rest of my are shifting. I have prepared the best I can without a crystal ball so that is all I can do. I feel that even though I have been through a lot in my life that I have made it under extreme circumstances.

This week I will do whatever I feel inspired to do and if that is nothing that is okay too. We need time and space to step back and make decisions on what we want and it is hard to do that when we are just getting through each day.

With the pandemic a lot people are re-evaluating what is important and have gotten use to a different life and staying home with the people they love. We have be forced to reflect on our world and decide do we go back to the way things were or do we keep this quieter world we have found. Maybe we can combine both who know. 

Breaking lifetime patterns - Starting over - self appreciation

I have always looked for some kind of confirmation from other people to be sure that I was good enough. Especially from the people closest to me just waiting for them to say " what a great job you have done."  This makes me think about when I was a kid and my mother made me clean my room and I would show her the result and she would point out something I missed or comment that it was my room and I should keep it clean for myself.

This was my family mind set and my sister has also parented the same way.  No one ever says a good word of encouragement and for a child you hear "you are not enough."  I think this leads to trying constantly to meet the expectations of those around us. People love it too and they love you until something happens and you just can't be your old pleasing self anymore. 

You hit a wall of being used up. You don't know you are used up until it happens. I watched the movie "The Breakup" last night which is painful to watch. I have been in this kind of relationship many times. For my part I would quietly do the things that I always did seeing myself as being the best person I could be for the relationship and the other person doing just what they wanted all the time. 

It is their right to do this and it was my right to imagine I was participating in an equal relationship.  This isn't just the happily ever after relationships even friendships can feel so one sided. They like you because you are reliable and will always be there if they need something. 

I don't think anyone is to blame it is just a good match.  I do think it is my fault that I didn't know I need to be appreciated. Being appreciated was like getting approval from my mother who always withheld that appreciation. By the time my stepmother came alone I was eager to please and when I pleased her then good things happened sometimes.

I think my point is with this post is that these are patterns laid done in our brain early and when they are repeated we think they are a part of who we are permanently. It is the repetition the makes them harder to get rid of. I have chosen to change this pattern.

I realize I have been my own worst enemy though out my life. First I always wanted something or someone to make me feel better about myself.  I wanted someone to make me feel like I was safe and secure. My long term relationships have been mostly with stalkers who made me feel in the beginning that I was really perfect. This filled the emptiness and self doubt I had about myself. I loved that intensity that quickly faded when they found out I was just a regular person.

I found out that I could not show weakness of vulnerability. This was the kiss of death when you are suppose to be perfect. Unfortunately life dishes out things you just can't cope with and sometimes you do need help. This is when you find out what kind of relationship you have.

I am happy today without those people in my life. Would I try again with someone new? Sure. I am not thinking a relationship is something I need but maybe something I want. 

I am my own mother now giving myself encouragement when I need it and even praise for a job well done. When I am lonely and tired I just rest and call someone. I don't beat myself up for having a down day. I know that tomorrow will be better. 

I use to want perfection or at least productivity every day but sometimes I just need to rest and recharge and leave my to do list for tomorrow. I can do this without worrying it is the start of a pattern of laziness.  I have accomplish a lot in my life and now I am focused on becoming a more accomplished artist.  This is just for me and I am having a blast. 

Controlling my ADD and OCD - Being enough - You bother me too

 I have had an up and down week - really up on Thursday afternoon when I worked on straightening out my new studio room.  Because I am ADD with a little OCD  mixed in I can spend a lot of time getting ready to do something. Organizing is my thing and getting everything just right is my game.  What happens when I do get it right my mind wants to constantly tweak it over and over. 

This makes me an excellent designer and I have an eye to get everything just right. Unfortunately when I am trying to accomplish a task the actually task never gets done. Always in a state of preparing for something not doing the thing.  After a lifetime of living with this I just make myself dive in and start working even if it is in a heap of mess on my desk. I just focus on the task and stay with it until I am finished. Blocking out my surroundings.

I did take the afternoon to organized and sort through all the stuff I have carried from other rooms to the studio.  I had a ladder in there with a bunch of tools where I replaced the ceiling fan last week with a 2 x 2 flush mount led light with 5000k bulbs.  The problem with getting older is there is not enough light ever. Now I am able to see perfectly with the daylight bulb.

I have been practicing portrait drawings from the 100 faces in 10 day challenge. The challenge is over and I am doing more like 10 faces a week. I have be drawing tiny little faces for some reason which is really different for me. I am using mechanical pens to get the details.

Now for the rest of the down part of the week starting with an angry man yelling at me because the price of what he wanted is higher than what he imagined. This is my world with pricing and the expectation of others. Usually it isn't the in my face kind of reaction - no mask either. 

The week went on and Wednesday without knowing it I was exposed to Covid by a coworker. He had it before but has never worn a mask. It is rare that we interact but he came into the office where I was talking to someone else.  It was Friday afternoon before I found out I had been exposed. I have been vaccinated and hope that between that and my excellent immune system I will be fine.  I exposed my customer on Friday they were not wearing mask. 

It is tricky out there because all this is so complicated for the brain. We just want a clear choice and we want to just dig in to one thing.  We were made to make simple choices every day to stay alive. That is how we operate not really weighing 20 options and then carefully deciding what is the right one. This is why we only listen to people that agree with us or even look like us because that is the way we are wired. 

I just heard a scientist say for someone to change a childhood core belief it takes 2 years. It isn't fun to be the person questioning their beliefs.  I have spent my whole life analyzing the beliefs I have in my head and figuring out where they came from and whether they serve me now as an adult. 

I know too much now to accept the status quo. I have done too much digging and now I can no longer live in a fairy tale. Being awake hasn't made me happier but it is too late to go back now. I am peaceful and happy most of the time. I accept people where they are unless they are in my face or in my space and then I will stand up for myself. 

No one really knows how they appear to other people especially me.  I have worried about this all my life because I am not everyone's cup of tea an acquired taste one so called friend said. Since I have found happiness in my own solitude I have stop really worrying about it. This has felt like real freedom to me.  I have always felt like I was a bother to people in some way. Now I say - so what! They bother me a lot of times too so I am over it. 

This is what birthdays do to you they tell you - your time is running out so you better get on with it so I am doing art and loving it.  I am pretending I am in school and practicing every day and watching videos about art.

I woke up today tired and a little cranky my new neighbors are having celebrations every Saturday night on their back porch. It was going on until after 1 am.  It is just talking but we live on a small ravine with water and it echos. No music just loud voices of discussion. I am sure they have no idea how loud they sound.  When I had meditation groups on my porch I would say "don't say anything here that you don't want the whole neighborhood to hear."  This is what happens with sound and water. 

I feel better after writing so I am off to do a few chores and some art. 

Spiritual Awakening - Being empty

Last weeks post that didn't get published...

I woke up late today and took my coffee out to the porch.   I heard a loud screeching noise from a flock of birds.  It is very wooded in the back and I noticed a large owl sitting on a branch with dozens of birds flapping around him.  He didn't look like he was that interested and was ignoring them. I wondered what it would be like to get that kind of reception where ever you went. 

We are different from the animals in that we have psychological feelings and the animals don't. I am guessing the doesn't sit around and thinking "why don't these birds like me?"  Maybe asking their mate "what can I do to be more liked?"  She might reply "stop eating there children for a start." 

I think we are the only ones plagued by self awareness and are worried about what other people think of us. We really mostly care about our inner circle but in general we expect everyone to like us. My mother taught me early on that not everyone would like me.  Mostly because we were persecuted Pentecostals.  It was expected that children of God would be outsiders in this world and not understood by the world.

I was comfortable with being on the outside for many reasons. I did help that I could lean on the religious angle to back me up.  It definitely didn't help the way I dressed and the fact that I couldn't participate in the dance session we had every Friday. 

It is funny now that I don't really fit in with the God's chosen group either. I never could buy the whole story that we had the answers and everyone out there was going to burn. I remember asking my daddy "what if we are wrong and those other churches are right?"

 It didn't make sense to me that we would be the lucky ones and all the other nice people were doomed. He was not happy with my many questions and it was the beginning of me having to choose between us and them.

I have lived my life on the fence which is a very insecure place. I haven't been able to believe without question anything really. I can always see the merits of both ideas if you are in the chosen group what better way to feel safe and secure.  It doesn't explain when bad things happen to good people. The story of Job it is all just a test. The holes in all the different  beliefs are the same.

I do believe we all have a spirit and some carry negative energy with them. Their brain has locked in on some event and they are stuck. Eckhart Tole said that he was so stress and agitated that is mind just couldn't take it anymore he had a spiritual awakening.  This is a story many people tell about there spiritual awakening. 

I have experience this myself I had a steady obsessive mind manically looking for the answer to my unhappiness and the negative self talk just kept searching for the answer and then there was nothing. One day I just woke up empty and calm and I have been that way ever since.

I read about this medically that when the brain reaches a point it can't function it basically snaps to protect it'self. I couldn't function any longer where I was and I needed a correction. It felt like nothing I had experienced before. Someone said to me pointing to some books I bought "the person that bought those books is gone aren't they?"  "Yes" was my answer I have no doubt that who I was before "the awakening" has been replaced.

First replaced by nothing and then slowly moved back to the person I was as a child. Without the imprints of sorrow and loss that being human lays upon you. It is an awkward place to be because you can see easily where others are because you have been there but you know you can't really help them. I want to shout "it isn't real" the pain you feel you are causing yourself with the words in your mind. 

I feel like the owl in the tree today just doing my own thing while birds are flying around me screeching. I don't even hear the screeching anymore. I care deeply that others suffer and offer words of encouragement but when your mind is in chaos - you can't hear me - I can't save you.

I do believe those that become addicted probably have a mind like mine.  One that can only be tamed with some kind of substance. It only works temporarily and then you want more. The answer I think is recognizing it is both physical and emotional and dealing with both sides of that is the only answer.  

Art - Finding freedom within

I have been feeling pretty great since I started back doing some art. When this happens I always want to analyze it and ask why now and why art? About six months ago I contemplated packing up all my supplies and getting rid of them. I told myself "you will never feel inspired to do that again". 

This wasn't really in a bad way but I thought maybe I was holding on to a part of me that wasn't there anymore.  Maybe I was ready to move on. I have bought tons of supplies over literally decades and done nothing with them. A moment of inspiration where I imagined myself sitting down and painting or drawing. I could never bring myself to find the joy I knew growing up where creating was all I wanted to do.

When I was child even before my mother got sick I was exiled to our basement and I created non stop. In high school I turned to art as an outlet for the pain I felt being used by my family as a their personal live in servant. Art was freedom and the other students mostly outcast and mostly high were not judgmental and I was just another person struggling through life.

The art world in general can also be competitive and we were all divided into two categories by the teacher talented and not so talented. I am my own worst critic and I could see that I belonged in the second group.  I took this to heart but it was confirmed when two of us were asked to paint the backdrop for our school play. We spent days on it a bright beautiful and colorful sunset only to find that when the curtain was raised someone talented had painted a sad gray sky with boats. 

I dropped out of art after that. Our art teacher should of told us but she was in her 20's and probably couldn't face us. My thoughts about myself had been confirmed I wasn't good enough to be an artist. 

It always amazes me how we internalize the things that happen when our brain is still forming and how adults have no idea how their actions and words can change lives for better or for worse. 

I feel free these days like I have never before.  I have accepted that I am that girl in the basement creating non-stop. I have tried to be many other things to fit into this world but nothing really stuck.  I have to create and I do that with my work and I can visit the outside world while I am doing it. It has taken me forever to accept who I am and enjoy everyday.

We can see that the world we have created in our head is mostly fiction and can be re-written to reflect the life we want for ourselves now. We can forgive others for their careless words or thoughtless actions that changed us.  We can forgive ourselves for internalizing these things and believing them for the decades that followed. It is our own voice that decides to give those words meaning. 

I woke up at 7 this morning made myself an espresso and have drawn one portrait and completed one pen and ink drawing. I am no longer holding myself back and carrying around the voices of my childhood in my head. I am happy to be the girl in the basement creating.  

Art and the creative process is healing and I believe a form of meditation. I can let go and just let it all out. 

  

Immaturity - Looking for a cure for deep sadness outside myself

For some reason this time of year is my favorite it seems like even if it is hot outside the light is changing. I feel more energized and feel like I need to do some housekeeping. Not literally even though I do like order I am not a clean freak.  When I was young waiting for my drinker to come home I spent that time cleaning and watching the clock. This broke me of my cleaning obsession.

My sister recently said that I should spend more time at the beach.  She lives in the mountains so the beach seems like the perfect solution to anything.  I have lived near the beach since I was 17 and I did go not for real pleasure but as a place to grieve. I associate the beach with all those years and I not that person anymore. I was grieving a lifetime of loss and now I just deal with loss and grief everyday as it comes up. 

I don't feel lost and alone anymore and I am not waiting for the people that say they love me to do the right thing. I thought their love would cure the deep sadness I had inside left by the loss of my mother.  I picked people who had the same idea that I could cure their deep loss too. They left me because they thought someone else would cure the sadness. I interpreted this as "I am not lovable".

This idea I thought was based on facts and I didn't realize that it was also based on immaturity. I have been without adult support since my mother got sick.  My dad took living in the present to a whole new level more like out of sight out of mind. I didn't mind and knew how to take care of myself.  The only problem was that my expectations of life and dealing with people stayed from that eight year old perspective. 

It didn't help that I am strong and appear confident even though inside I am sensitive and can see and feel every emotion in any person around me. If your sad then I am sad. I think this is something I was born with I can also see motives behind emotions. The subtle manipulation between people even if they don't realize it themselves.   

I stayed true to myself until I ended up in a bad situation when my dad remarried. I am smart and realized I had to become who she wanted me to be to survive. It worked to begin with but then as with all sick people the rules changed and I could not keep up. At 14 I became seriously depressed and slept when I was going to school or doing chores. 

This was the eight year old in me trying to survive.  I felt trapped in this sadness and my life was a prison. I did try to escape but I was too young and I was brought back and the situation got worse. This was the beginning of my feeling shut down and I have repeated this situation with all my adult relationships.

When your in a situation where there isn't any way out your mind just blows a casket. For my own analytical mind it just kept looking for a solution a way out. This was the first time I thought it would be easier not to be alive. I never acted on this because I really felt too paralyzed to do anything. 

I felt totally trapped with no way out of my own misery. I have felt that feeling my whole life like I am not where I should be and worse I am not like other people who can just mindlessly go through life not thinking about too much.  

When I have been in relationships I felt stuck and stagnant doing routine things that felt like a weight tied around my neck under water. I tried to speak up but everybody liked that I was taking care of them and I liked feeling needed. Nobody thanked me for my service and the eight year old was expecting something in return. 

I can do a lot and I enjoy doing it but I also get tired and any routine is the death of me. I have wanted love all my life and I have experienced it but it felt conditional. Life is conditional is what I wish my eight year old understood all those years. You should do what you want and either people love you or not.

You can't do this until you know your own worth. I needed to be needed to prove to myself that I was lovable. This wasn't love it was other people being happy to have me do everything for them who wouldn't? Don't get me wrong I have been loved and I was the one who gave them everything without demanding anything in return. I was earning their love. 

I have always felt like a servant in my relationships when I wasn't performing then support and love was withdrawn. As an eight year old I blamed myself for not being good enough and tried to make myself better never realizing that this does not work. 

I have been happy for awhile now an only recently have felt a since of true freedom. Taking care of myself for myself and only interacting with people that love me "just the way I am". 

My job gives me the opportunity to do for other and get paid.  Even with that I don't take on anyone that doesn't at least respect my time and energy. This has made me much happier and the kind of customers that end up with me are happier too. 

I will say that I didn't know I was trying to buy love in my relationships.  I just thought I love these people and I want to take care of them.  Even when they stopped being worthy of my love. That is hard to write but it is true everyone doesn't deserve my love and attention. I can be kind but I can draw the line when it is warranted. 

This has turned into a long complicated post but it feels right to share this today. I want to let you know that we have all been selfish and self absorbed just trying to sort out the overwhelming sadness our eight year old self feels inside. 

I have ask myself a million times "what is wrong with you?"  I thought it was something to be fixed and it really has come down to immaturity. I have worked hard to looked at my beliefs about myself and ask myself where they came from and if they are really true now.

I also can look back and see all that I have contributed throughout my life and be proud of those things. Today I tried to encourage people that cross my path. I don't accept the pain of others as my own anymore. I can love them from afar if I need and be there as an adult without strings attached.

I deserve better - games our mind plays on us

I am working on my art and feeling great today.  It is my birthday three day weekend and I have been waking up earlier and working on a portrait drawing method called "Atelier" I think that is the right spelling.  It is a drawing method that is very mechanical and tedious and a real challenge.  The point behind it is that your own eye doesn't really see what is there.  It fixes things that it sees based on what it has seen before.

This made me think that this is the way we see life in general.  Our version of the truth filling in the parts that we don't understand or really can't accept.  We all do it explaining away what someone meant or why they hurt us.  We just can't imagine they did those things on purpose.  Our version is easier to swallow and keeps us in the game.

I watched a psychiatrist explain that when you get stuck for a long time it is usually because you don't want to make the other person out to be the bad guy.  We take on the behavior of the other person as our fault.  Instead of saying that the other person did not treat us right and we didn't deserve to be treated that way no matter where they were coming from. 

This is me I have always blamed myself for not being good enough. This was disguised by my explaining away someone else's behavior instead of just letting them go first physically and then emotionally. 

For me it is the thought that "I deserve better" in my own mind I was never too sure that was true. I had labeled myself as a problem early on because to my family I was a problem. I felt honored that people would be my find friend or my partner for that matter.  I was so lucky to find people that would put up with me. 

I worked hard to keep those relationships by being of service. I would anticipate the needs of others hoping to keep those relationships alive.  I wanted to be loved and I learned early if you do stuff for other people it makes them happy and they definitely like you better.

This of course is giving with strings attached and it is often very one sided.  It is at the core of all of my suffering and it leads to the draining of my soul and my energy.  Nice people are good to have around when you need them. 

I am not saying you shouldn't give and I have given a lot but when you are doing it because it is expected or because it makes a you see yourself as a nice it can ultimately drain you of all your energy.  

I have given to those I have loved and it never occurred to me that it wasn't without strings. I saw my mother give until she was invisible and then she got sick. She was taught that this is what God wanted her to do. In all the pictures of her she wasn't smiling and if she was it did not seems genuine. She had to get sick to be taken care of. 

I know now that my mind as well as my eyes tell me what I want to see and hear.  It is nature's way to deceive us when reality doesn't quite measure up. I have painted a rosy picture many times when I just couldn't handle reality. I am happy to have found a new passion with my art something I have wished for all my life but never thought I was as good as a real artist should be.  

I had a good birthday and heard from a lot of people that love me just the way I am. It is nice to feel free and happy without the inner critic running my life. Happy birthday to me.

The punishment of being me - What is wrong with me

I have always been a person that needed to know how things work and more importantly why. I have spent most of my life lost in this search for answers and a general understanding of my world. Feeling like an alien in this world an wondering what is wrong with me.

I didn't ask for the brain I got but it is the one that I have to live with. I have spent most of my life asking myself  daily  "what's wrong with you?" This began early when I just wasn't interested in the mundane routine of our household. My mother in frustration ended up just banishing me to the basement to entertain myself and I happily did.

When I got to school it got much worse.  I remember standing in the hall the first week of school without a clue of what I had done wrong. My teacher was a college friend of my mothers so this was going to be ugly when I got home. 

I didn't try to fix myself until after my mother died. Until then I had learned to accept the punishment for being me and took it all in stride. When my dad remarried there was psychological  punishment for being me. Before being physically punished just seemed like part of my routine and I didn't really see the connection between my behavior and the punishment.

This is where the self loathing began. In my logical mind I did everything everyone told me to do as perfectly as I could and still it was not good enough. I was not good enough was and without my mother I was isolated with people who did not love me an made sure that I understood that every day.

I did leave which was the best thing still but I knew something wasn't right about me. All of my relationships were with guys that had a lot of their own issues of not belonging. They drank they had anger problems and I understood this and I knew could help them. 

I started my road to recovery through the 12 steps and it helped me discover the me in my head that would never be happy. I thought this was spiritual and could be fixed with prayer and meditation and it definitely helped. I stopped taking myself so seriously and I became "my brothers keeper" I stayed so busy I didn't have time to listen to the voice in my head.

This works until it doesn't and I burned out. I was at the bottom thinking again "what is wrong with me?"  I have come back from this but my life is empty of the people that I supported who could not support me. It is okay I did this to myself the caretakers and those that need to be taken care of are two different personalities. 

I have learned through all the years that it is just the brain I was given.  There isn't anything wrong with me because I am not like other people.  I could pretend but that takes too much effort. I do realize that I can do things that change my brain that is based on pure science. I can also take care of my body knowing that what I eat affects my emotions more than I ever imagined it could.  I don't like it but it is not worth trading in happiness for sugar. 

I guess my point is you have control over 80% of what goes on in your head. The brain is bent towards fear naturally more for some than others. The primal fear of being someone's meal. We create a path in our brain early in our childhood and our brain chooses this path over and over again because it is easy.  We have to make new paths with daily out loud proclamations to over write these old paths. This really works. 

Writing here helps me to see where I have been and how far I have come. I do get lonely sometimes for the distraction of chaos but there is still enough to show me that it isn't what I want. I am re-inventing myself or just returning to who I was as a child. I have pulled out all of my art supplies and doing something ever day. Even when I would prefer to binge watch something.  The path of my child hood a well worn path. 

Denial - "We can't handle the truth"

When I got into the program I didn't really understand what I was doing there. When my counselor ask me if my husband drank a lot I couldn't honestly say what was a lot. He was never drunk at least the way I had seen drinking growing up.  My uncle the family drunk drank until he passed out on the floor. Not my husband he had great job and he was smart and the world was in love with him and so was I.

He had become a stranger to me as the drinking had increased but I couldn't see it. I was in complete denial with the evidence right in front of me. This is the number one coping mechanism for all humans if you don't acknowledge it then it isn't happening. We live in the pretend world in our head. La La La - I can't hear you! 

It takes something horrible to break through a well dug in persons fantasy especially if they have a strong personality.  From my own perspective I had tackled some major stuff and I was too strong to admit that this was happening to me.  

I am sad to say we have had a lot of deaths here close to home of those who chose not to get vaccinated. One family hit especially hard and now everyone is devastated. There is no going back and a lot of lives will be affected forever and there is nothing to say. 

Maybe it is denial.  I understand that it is easier to just pretend that everything is fine then to face something we have no control over. If we find other people to join our own fantasy it makes the story in our head even more legitimate.  

That first meeting someone told my story and I felt the first crack in my denial.  At that moment I saw the truth but the damage had been done and my marriage was over.  How could I have deceived myself all those years?  I had to eventually forgive myself for being human. I couldn't handle the truth because it meant that I wasn't in control and I was about to lose everything. 

The pandemic has put us all into a position of feeling helpless and some have chosen to just pretend it isn't happening.  I get it but in the end is costing lives and there is no going back. Just because it hasn't happened to me doesn't mean it isn't happening. 

These days I still don't completely trust the story I tell myself. I know that my view of the world and my life is only real from my perspective. I question everything knowing that I am capable creating a world that only exist in my head. 

Staying in the flow - Accepting where I am

I have felt on the up swing the past week even with hearing the news that in didn't get for the Master Gardner program. They said  they had double the usual applicants since they didn't have it last year. I am sure I am probably one of the few with a full time job.  I didn't take it personally and figured that the timing wasn't right.

Since I started my spiritual journey I have focused on flow. Someone described this as putting your boat into a stream and letting the water do the work. You can only do this when you can resist wanting something and trying to force it to happen. In the old days I spent every waking hour trying to manipulate something or worse trying to manipulate someone working every angle.

I thought this was being smart and worse I thought I was helping people. You can't really help people learn what it is they have to learn. You can support and comfort them but no one can go down the road we must travel we have to go alone. We long for it to be easier or to know the future but we this isn't possible. We can choose to let go or we can exhaust ourselves preparing for the wrong thing. It is never what we think it will be.

I been in mourning the past month and I feel some deep inner changes occurring. I heard someone say that life's natural rhythm makes changes every seven or ten years.  That has been true for me re-inventing myself or sometimes being forced to re-invent myself. 

I have accepted the mourning period and know that we are always dealing with the reality of where we are and with age we can see clearly what we have lost and acceptance is slow. We can decide not to waste anymore time on the past and decide what to do with the rest of our lives. This is freedom.

I feel like I am preparing for something spiritually. I do think that subconsciously we are always working things out. Our inner spiritual self knows what needs to be dealt with and our conscious self never gets to whole picture. We have to trust God or the universe that we are going in the right direction.

We have to take care of ourselves and not judge ourselves. What we know about energy and how we don't have clear boundaries between us makes it easy for me to understand why we feel the ups and downs without knowing why. 

The turmoil of the what the whole world has experienced the past year effects us all. We are all in it together and the only way to find peace is to focus on inner peace. Be kind and respectful to those you interact with every day especially the ones closest to us. We can't know when our time together will be over.  

Dark night of the soul - starting again - who am I now? exhausted

I wrote a post yesterday that didn't make the cut so here I am today.  I listened to a message today that I felt brought up some things for me.  It was really about suffering and the growth that occurs during suffering.  When I had my "dark night of the soul" a glamorous way of describing an emotional breakdown I had to decide where to go from there.

I wish I could describe the freedom I felt when I finally let go of the outcome of my situation and accepted my state of mind. I was trying so hard to not feel bad and trying to be the person I was before that I was exhausted day and night. I was barely operating and I was amazed the not too many people really noticed or maybe they did by mostly avoiding me.

When something rocks your world for me it was the loss of the life I thought I would have it can be too much. It manifests itself spiritually, physically and emotionally. It is a deep sadness that goes beyond emotion to the point of feeling nothing. 

The coping skills I used in the past didn't work anymore.  I couldn't be busy enough, work harder or even use the spiritual search to get through it this time. It terrified me and in the morning I would look in the mirror and did not recognize the person staring back at me.

I thought I was unique in this experience but this is a story of many spiritual seekers the absence of faith and what to do with this emptiness. The desperate need to be rescued when you are at your bottom and you feel abandoned by everything that feels familiar. Where are you God?

I didn't really have the strength to believe in anything. I had to just let go and quit trying or believing and I had to quit running. I remember the day it happened to me a calmness came over me. I surrendered to who I had become in that moment. I thought "okay this is who you are now so just accept it" I immediately felt relief from trying to fix myself. I started just walking through each day without expectation.

It was a long walk and it changed me forever. I am not the person I was before because I can see that all the things that I thought were important don't really matter. When I had dinner with my neighbor it made me realize I am no longer interested in seeking anything but peace. I am not looking for the for the meaning of life. 

All I could think was "I use to be that person but she is gone" I don't miss her because I know it was me that was seeking something more than those things and I have found that for myself. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger and happier if you let it. I had to stop trying not to feel bad it was the resisting that really hurt.  

The mind gets locked into "I don't want to feel this way" I rejected every part of my life during my dark night of the soul. I didn't take care of myself while I was resisting. When I let go I slowly came back to life and started to love and take of myself. I am changed forever and find it hard to relate to the things people worry about today but I know I am complete and whole from my experience. 

If you feel like you are alone in your sadness and suffering don't give up hope. It is in the struggle to remain the person you were before that drives the suffering. It is the running that drives addiction of all kinds. We have to stop running and turnaround and face the enemy in our thoughts. 

We have to face the false beliefs we have about ourselves and see them for what they are lies we have been listening to all our lives. It is our belief in these lies that keep us stuck and once we are stuck our minds just wants to go there. To a place that is familiar a suffering that is familiar. The thought that "I am broken and can't be fixed" this is where we feel the most comfortable. We can choose to be the past or we can choose to start again this moment and be who we want to be. 

Drama - Crazy Makers - Peace

I have gotten through my grief and feel happy again. I have to remember that with every dip I always come back higher than before it began. My spirit is processing something and if I can just hang with it I will reach the other side. I am always changing and if I don't resist it will happen quicker.  I just have to trust myself and all the work I have done to find peace. 

I had a curious dinner with my next door neighbor. Only the second time I have been in her house.  The first time I was invited it was when I was in my darkest place without any social boundaries. Someone ask me how I came about living next door and I told them my story. I was so raw then and didn't have the energy to consider how the other person might receive what was said. That was ten years ago and since then her husband passed from a long term heart problem. 

If is not likely that if you are asked a question that anyone really wants to know a sad answer. No one wants to hear that you aren't well. During this small get together the topic of the day was food and the latest heart healthy recipes. In contrast I was trying to decide if I wanted to live so it was awkward for everyone.

This week during our 3 hour dinner we found out we have a lot in common but most of what we have in common was the person I was before. She loves astrology - acupuncture - meditation - psychics - liberal politics.  She even has a program to do your chart based on your time of birth. I used to use all these things as a way to encourage myself to try to feel better. I am at peace now not looking for outside answers.

All spiritual roads lead to same place is what I know now. All these things are interesting and entertaining but they are not a destination. When I was girl I used astrology books to make myself feel better about who I was and even hid one under my mattress. Astrology in my world was of the devil but I loved hearing good things about myself it was the only positive input I was ever going to get. The beginning of a life where I had to pat myself on the back to keep going. 

Once my stepmother was plundering my room as she often did and found my book and I was grounded for a few months. I bought another one and kept it at school.  I learned quickly that life was only about survival.  You can only trust yourself and sometimes not even yourself. I have used many methods to find security and safety for myself.  Hanging the serenity prayer in my first apartment at sixteen. God has taken care of me even though I haven't always believed in God.

What I do believe in is something greater than myself at least my physical self. I do believe that there is a higher self within us that is outside the limitations of our conscious mind. This spirit is always trying to nudge you towards what is right for you. It is only drowned out by the basic human fears that we face everyday. We run towards anything that can give us temporary relief from feeling uncomfortable.

Throughout my life I have learned to first see how my own thoughts were hurting me and then start to change those thoughts with whatever means possible. I am not helpless in an irrational world I can focus on bringing my own mind and body to a place of harmony and gratitude. 

Our emotions are mixed with the people around us like it or not.  If we can feel secure in our own peace others people will not be able to affect us.  This takes stepping back from the crazy makers in our lives and knowing that we can choose to not get caught up in the drama. Drama only works when it is fed.

It is hard to break this cycle and it will make them try harder to bring you back in but it is your choice. It is always your choice even if you feel trapped by your circumstances you can decide to just choose peace in your mind. Physically the other person can sense the change and it will disengage them even if it only for a moment. 

I think with the recent dip I have moved through another spiritual level. I have reached a point where I can just trust myself to be enough for any situation.  I can stop thinking I need to be more or I need to be like someone else. I know myself well and my inner self will guide me through the ups and downs and I will be alright. Life feels random but the more grounded in peace that we are the less we will be shaken by it.  

Someone has to leave - Embracing Sadness - Grief

I was watching TV and heard the owls calling back and forth and decided to go out on the porch to listen. They called back and forth a few times and then one called out and the other one didn't. It made me think of relationships and how they sometimes just stop and one person calls out and the other one doesn't answer and it is over.

I have been in a spot of grieving for whatever reason. It is good sometimes to stop and grieve but most of the time life really doesn't give you that luxury.  I passed the man who lost his wife a few weeks ago in the hall and said hello. He smiled as he always does trying to appear like his life wasn't in shambles.

We all do this we run from grief and bury ourselves in the next thing. It makes other people more comfortable than showing them we are not alright. No one wants to know you feel sick and that you can't imagine waking up another day with yourself.  

We are no match for grief you can run fast and hard but not forever. Someone I knew told her husband that I should just get over my grief when I lost the life I thought I would have. He left her the following year and I am sure she understands better now. It is hard to lose it all at once just like death you are left with a shell of of life. You are starting from scratch. 

I know death is worse than the ending of a relationship but is it? How do wrap your head around someone choosing a life without you. Deciding that no matter what you gave to the relationship it wasn't enough and you weren't enough. How do you decide that you are enough when clearly you weren't. I do think if I had made different choices then maybe I wouldn't be alone now. 

It has been along time since my breakup and it seems ridiculous that I still have grieving to do. I think the last year coupled with the pandemic being over has made really think about what I am going to do with the rest of my life. Maybe triggered by recent funerals. 

I can't change the past and the decisions I made or decisions other people made that affected me. I think it is okay to grieve from time to time. I imagined a different life for myself but I have to work with what I have. I don't regret anything at this point but as time goes on I want to find happiness for myself.

I went for a check up today and discussed my recent sadness.  My doctor suggested trying hormones and I agreed. I will never be as sad as I was before and I compare any depression to that now and it isn't even close. Some grief and sadness from time to time is normal if you are not staying so busy you just push it down. It will bubble up in anger or sickness so it is best to just let it out.

I am not afraid of sadness anymore because I have been there and come back.  I can face it without fear and know that it will pass and if I embrace it it will pass quickly. I am going to be kind to myself instead focusing on making it go away.  

Rebuilding your life from scratch - Finding a way

I have so many drafts in my box for this blog it embarrasses me. I have been drifting in out of some low level of sadness.  Attending two funerals in the past two weeks is something to be sad about.  Neither person I was close to but I understand loss and how when the crowd disperses you are really left alone to rebuild your life from scratch.

The ministers words of treasures in the sky were meant to sooth the crowd but sounded pretty hollow to me.  Everyone means well but their is no soothing a father left with a daughter of sixteen. 

My sister was sixteen when my mother died and my dad had no skills for even taking care of himself let alone me and my sister. Back then women ran the household and the men deposited their checks and drove the family where ever they were going.

My mother had prepared us for her departure teaching us life skills so we would survive so  when the bills went past due for a couple of months my sister took over for my mother. When I looked at my co-worker's daughter sitting in his office this week she look like a baby. She is a star soft-ball player without a care in the world until last we when her mother was found in the shower.  They think from a brain clot.

On the other hand my uncles death was  not expected but predicted he has been sick for a lot of his adult life. He has left a legacy of addition with one daughter and her three daughters and their spouses left to manage everything. The preacher preached to them directly because they have all been in and out of jail and ending last week at the hospital with his daughter being escorted out after making a scene. 

Her own mother passed about ten years ago and now she will be left in charge of what was theirs. The service was strange and sterile and didn't convey the real character that my uncle was.  In his family the only introvert other than my grandfather who was a bootlegger in his 20's.

The rest of the family including my deceased aunt stuck to the straight and narrow for good reason I guess. My grandmother was the main bread winner and worked in a mill for 25 years to make sure the kids were fed. The church hadn't seen my uncle since his wife passed and with his daughter in charge of the funeral there was only one person that spoke followed by three country music songs.

I went because my dad's side of the family are really the most like me. They were neglected by us growing up because my mother's side of the family were all drinkers and always in crisis.  My mother the youngest took on the roll of crisis manager and we didn't have time for my dad's family. They were silent sufferers and would never ask for help.

My mind has been all over the place for awhile now looking for meaning of some kind. Today a friend came by and helped me to retrieve some pavers offered to me by my neighbor and we wore ourselves out moving them. This is what I need to distract myself but I did tweak my back. 

I am going to my other neighbors for dinner tonight.  I don't know her and the last time I was in her house I was in the middle of my breakdown and didn't make a good impression.  Since then her husband has passed and we will try again.  We do have a lot in common and she did invite me so I am keeping an open mind and hoping for the best.  

Snakes and Swampy places - Depression

I have written five drafts that never got posted because I have had a number of weeks of ups and downs bordering on depression.  A sense of underlying sadness that I can't really contribute to anything in particular.

I did have my minor oral surgery and they did use twilight at my request so maybe that messed with my brain.  My sleep has been disturbed since I had the second vaccine but I can't be sure that either one is causing my mood change.  I have noticed on the nights of good long sleep I am my old self again.

With depression time can seem to go on forever when I am locked in the repetition of bad thoughts in my head.  The occasional negative comment from myself to myself is normal but when I go to familiar repetitive places of the past I feel like I am back on the old race track going around and around with no option to get off.  

In the midst of all this I have been cleaning out my jungle in the back yard.  This is not an exaggeration I live on a small inlet off the river. It is a circle with maybe ten houses on it. The oak trees and miscellaneous vegetation is so densely packed in that you cannot see the other houses. 

We all own a pie shaped piece that grows non stop and not easily tamed. Once a new owner  spent weeks and used serious machinery to fight back the vegetation and within a few months it was back and no one has tried since. It will never be a suburban backyard. 

I have started clearing my own piece of the pie.  There are snakes and mud back there where the river water ebbs and flows. I have put on my knee high Hello Kitty galoshes armed with my hand saw and started pruning. I was surprised that after the first four hours I could really see the difference. I have a high porch because the house sits on the hill. The front of the house at street level I can almost see the water from the porch. 

I am really looking at my neighbors water view. Just like me the last ten years for her has been full of heartbreak.  Her husband had severe heart problems and passed two years ago. She has done even less maintenance than me and when I moved here the side of their house was covered with vines.  We have zero lot lines and the side of her house is the right side of my driveway. In my compulsiveness I slowly removed them.

Clearing the back reminds me of what it is like to recover from something. It reminds me of being so lost that you can't imagine things could or will ever be different. It is a slow process healing from life's devastation. Losing someone or losing the life you thought you would have can leave stuck for a long time. 

It can't be done quick like the guy that spent so many weekends clearing everything. It is really about just starting somewhere that makes the view a little better. With one nine each blade and determination I can see the water and the possibilities. I can say to myself that I am not where I was before even if I experience a set back.

Recovery just like my jungle has snakes and swampy places that seem terrifying.  I have experienced these things before and know that am stronger now and will emerge better than ever. I have created a clearing that gives me hope for the future and I can trust myself to just keep cutting away the obstacles to mental health.

My neighbor has come alive after mourning her husband's death. She is writing and has a guy that regularly maintains her house for her. We have both spent the last decade focusing on the small moments right in front of us and being afraid of the future. 

I get mad at myself when I have a slip and immediately look at the lives of others and wonder why I couldn't have made better choices. Nobody gets what they want and even when they do they don't realize it. We make choices and then other people make choice that affect us. 

We can be content with the day and the life we have before us and create a new clearing that gives us hope for the future.  We can make sure we take care of our physical selves and know that we don't want to waste another moment being unhappy. 

   

Ignoring hidden problems - Moths every where

I have written three post but wasn't committed enough to post them.  I have felt a little unsettled for the past few weeks. I am working around the house today eradicating a growing nest of moths from an Asian rug I purchased a few years back.  I is hot and humid here and wool isn't something we have around much and this is why.

I have had this problem on and off for years and I have done everything to stop this from getting out of control. I lost the battle this year maybe because I am not willing to douse my rugs with pesticide for my sake.  Today I drug my 10 x 7 rug out on the driveway to survey the extensive damage. The colors are still vibrant but it has got to go.

I bought a synthetic cheap rug to replace it today.No insect is interested in plastic.  It was under a rustic driftwood dining table I haggled for. I can't just leave it bare it makes the room feel cold. I paid a decent price for the used Asian rug and it might end up in the basement doused with pesticide.

It did occur to me that maybe the funk I am feeling is just like that rug infestation. It has gone ignored for awhile doing unseen damage evidenced only by the occasional small harmless moth. Waiting until seeing moths in every room and being forced to face the destruction. This is how I live my life pushing things down until I just can't ignore it any longer.  

I have been happily slammed for the past year glad to be distracted emotionally from the reality of what is going on in the world. When I finally took off for a week I replaced work with my to do list for my personal life. Since I have been back to work I am feeling less comfortable with the pace of things and wanting more for my life. 

When I feel like this I can't help but think about the past and the people that are no longer in my life. I can't change the events of the past that led me to where I am today. I can't change the past but I can decide not to let it eat at me. I have been hurt and I have hurt people.

It is time to go back again and forgive the past my part and the part of others. We will always have those memories and from time to time we will wish for a different outcome. This is normal and every time this happens we have an opportunity to heal these hurts.

Each time these hurts surface we can see where we are in our process of forgiveness. We can once again let it go and know we have done our best even when sometimes it wasn't good enough.  We can be kind to ourselves and appreciate the progress we have made. 

It doesn't matter how long it takes or if we wait until we have a house full of moths we always do our best.  You notice  I am still not ready to get rid of that rug all together.   

Triggers from the past - I don't belong anymore

I am off today and sometimes struggle with whether I should work or not.  This only happens on the Mondays I am off and never when I am off Saturday and Sunday.  It rained all weekend and I was in a funk yesterday feeling trapped inside instead of working in the yard which is my favorite thing this time of year.  When I don't have specific plans I feel like I could be working. 

I had a little bit of an emotional trigger with that came up while I was working through an old Sudoku puzzle book. I found it mixed in with my travel books and decided to see if I could still do them.   

The book starts out light and easy then moderate and then demanding.  The past few weeks I have been proud of myself for bringing my brain up to speed so quickly and was looking forward tackling the demanding.  When I turned the page they had been filled out. The first couple completely and the the next two with tiny little numbers in each box. It was my ex's hand writing so tiny and distinct. I forgot when we traveled we shared these books. Back then I didn't believe I was smart enough to do the demanding one. 

I was surprised by the feelings that washed over me when I saw that tiny print. The next day I made things worse because I had an appointment near my old house and I couldn't resist a a drive by.  I was happy that I felt nothing being there it is no longer my part of town and the yard and house looked a bit neglected. I am not there to take care of those things.  

That night I pulled out the book and erased the ones that had been filled out but not completed. I know now I can complete the puzzles on my own. It is funny how things can trigger emotions from the past and for me I have learned just to lean into it instead of resisting the feelings, This will make them pass quicker. 

My life is not the life I had imagined I would have so many years ago. I am happy with the life I have created for myself even if occasionally I wander back into the past. It is normal to do that it is only when you think you could have done something to change it that gets you into trouble. Everything is always changing and it is when we resist we get in trouble. 

I have finished two demanding puzzles and I am moving on. I did actually go out today and buy and plant some more flowers. Work will be there tomorrow waiting for me. 

Enjoying spring - Wishing things were different

I have spent this we doing what I want to do which is plant and plant some more.  I have planted about 75 flowers in my front yard they don't look like much but, in about a month they will be spectacular.  I of course will be back in work mode and probably won't notice.

It feels great to be just doing what I want for a week.  I normally take my precious time off traveling to see my family who can hardly fit me into their busy schedules. My sisters kids are older now and sometimes they take some time with me and that feels good. 

In our family we are about getting things done. For my sister it is cerebral more than physical and for me it is both. It seesaws to the extreme one way or the other and I find physical jobs rewarding because you can really do both at the same time.  

Unfortunately as I get older and happier I feel less interested and making a trip in hopes that someone will spend a few hours with me. I think I have healed the hole in me that felt like I should belong somewhere with someone.  They are my family.

I have found that you can be in a crowd or in a relationship and feel completely alone so what is the difference. My friend from grammar school who I talk to once every couple of weeks ask me if I had spoken to anyone this week. This is her way of worrying about me and my solitude. I have always enjoyed my time alone but always felt guilty about not wanting to socialize. 

I have spoken to people this week in fact I went over to someone house and had dinner last night.  Someone from my early program years they were a big part of my thirties and it was a special time for all of us. Most of the core group has gone their separate ways but recently we have reconnected.  

If we continue to grow our parts don't fit together like they use to anymore. I have felt this through out my life but refused to acknowledge it. In every relationship things become routine and starts to feel forced. When I have tried to make it work and it doesn't it starts making me feel sick inside. Ultimately I am there in body only not wanting to be honest and just get out. 

I wonder why I am different than most who relish the bonds of a lifetime. Maybe I was made too independent with my mothers death. I knew I was on my own and that seemed natural. I learned to just get things done without counting on anyone else. 

The relationships I have had were only good if I fulfilled a long list of things that had to be done to make the other person happy. This was never two ways as long as I did everything right without expecting anything in return all was well. I eventually felt like what they really wanted was a servant. I did these things originally out of love but without appreciation or even acknowledgement it felt life a burden and resentment grew.

I have enjoyed this week so much and I think it is because it is without the guilt of feeling I should be different then I am. With the pandemic I have felt less guilty about enjoying my time alone. I am not asking myself why I am alone. 

I understand my family and I do wish they had more time for me but it has always been this way. I use to be a person that could pretend that things were different than they are but I had an awakening and you just can't go back. Accepting things as they are instead of the way you wish they were is spiritual maturity.  Besides I can be ignored during the holidays and the food will be better. 

  

Avoiding Suffering - Finding Joy

My mind is always trying to simplify things which is different than it use to be when complicated thinking kept me from living my life. I was always out there in the future or worse reliving the past over and over trying to gleam some knowledge that would help me avoid some future disaster.  Did this work?

This is a laughable question.  We think we can out think life and prepare for what could be coming but what happens is something that wasn't on the list at all. We think with self improvement we can spot our own flaws and avoid the same mistakes twice.  Does this work?

This another laughable question. I blame my analytical mind for wasting most of my life trying to solve the puzzle of  human existence. I thought if I tried hard enough I could avoid repeating the mistakes of others and repeating my own mistakes and avoid suffering. 

When something unexpected either something small like a bad day at work or something big like loss of someone you love it feels personal. In my own life I took it personally but even worse I felt responsible and didn't have the maturity to see that it wasn't something I had done. Thanks to my upbringing I thought when my mother died God was punishing me for not being a perfect. I was strong willed and I needed to be to change this seemed logical to me.

Then I got a new mother and she hated me and treated me with constant disdain. I tried to be good but nothing I did was good enough. I did everything as perfectly as I could but I was not lovable.  I didn't belong so I left.  I jumped into any relationship that made me feel secure even for a moment. I attracted those that wanted to possess me this made me feel loved and protected. Like me they all had the same problem of not being enough. 

I looked every where for  the part I thought I had missing. I never found a place where I fit. I couldn't accept the failings of my life and of my relationships. The Al-Anon program taught about acceptance and I accepted the shortcomings of other but not myself. I knew if I worked harder I could get the life that played out in my head. 

My failures intersected a decade ago when I  lost everything that I thought defined me. I had done everything to the best of my ability and it hadn't worked. I had no where to go and my mind could not grasp the situation and it broke. I had nothing left to begin again.  

After a lifetime the person I had been was gone. I fought hard at first to pretend I was still there but this made me feel worse.  Finally I heard "let go" and I did.  I thought at that moment I would die but it was quite the opposite I felt nothing. The whirling thoughts in my mind disappeared and it was quiet for the first time. It felt weird with nothing there but I got use to it and then I started to enjoy it.

I told myself "okay this is who you are now - it isn't so bad" I had no labels for myself that I had to live up to. At the time I didn't even imagine a future for myself. I just stayed where I was until I eventually moved on. First small things caught my attention while things that I use to love faded altogether. Without much effort mainly just in time I became a new person or who I was beneath all the along.

Today I am happy and I don't waste time scolding myself for my flaws. I also know that I will face what ever comes when it gets here. The future is unknown and only our ability to bounce back is important.  We can't live happy lives if we are always bracing ourselves for the worse.  We will miss the joy today has to offer us and see the people that may not be part of our lives in the future. 

This is something I do regret about my constant forward and future motion I missed the real moments life had to offer.  I spent my waking hours focused on the future and the pain I carried with me instead of just being there. Nothing stays the same as time marches on so love moments instead of planning a future that is only in your mind. The future is today. 

This is a time of year that we celebrate miracles and I consider myself a miracle. I did not believe that I could be happy again. I didn't know that I could start the day singing and not just surviving. I am grateful for my journey even though I lost a lot years.  I don't plan on losing another day on the future.