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.