Something is in the air - What is coming

Sometimes you just feel like you are on the edge of something. You don't really know why but there is something in the air. This time of year especially for me I get a little more time for reflection since it is way past getting anything major project done before the holidays. 

It  is a beautiful day here at least 70 degrees and I felt for a moment inspired to go to the basement and get my wreath for the front door.  For a moment I looked at all the boxes marked Christmas and then decided to pull them down one by one. I had a whole box of lights marked 2012 and decided to open it. 

Each set of lights inside had been carefully wrapped in loop and tied with a twist tie. This is when I thanked myself for being on the OCD side of life.  I was able to just plug each group of lights in and see if they worked and all but one still did. I put them back in the box to carry upstairs along the wreath. 

When I got to the top of the stairs I stopped and thought "do I really care about this kind of stuff anymore?" I wonder what happened to the person that lived and loved this kind of stuff? Is this what happens when you get older and you have less people in you life?

Sometimes I wish could go back to being that person.  The truth is that person hasn't existed since I was a child and maybe that is how it should be. In my twenties living with active alcoholism I demanded that my husband help me go all out decorating for Christmas. I remember we spelled out NOEL over the garage using about a million nails. He thought I was nuts and maybe he was right. I wasn't happy.

I couldn't let what was happening in our real lives affect the perfect Christmas. We would go to a Christmas tree farm every year and cut down our tree. The first year we split I made him go with me anyway thinking this would re-kindle our love and he would leave his girlfriend for me. Can you imagine how pleasant this was for us. I do think this shows he did at least respect me to agree to this. He could have just been terrified to cross me at that point. 

I have to admit I don't let myself get attached to anything or anybody these days.  Dealing with the pandemic and being ask to isolate has been a perfect match for me.  Before I would feel guilty for not making plans or seeing anyone over the weekend but now I can hide behind the pandemic.

I see plenty of people during the week and do have conversations over the phone so the quiet is nice. The question of the day is will I put up those Christmas lights? Maybe. 

I feel neither happy or sad today and have spent the day doing errands and watching Hallmark. This makes me both in the spirit of Christmas and brain dead at the same time. Those people with perfect lives and great jobs and oh those decorations. 

While I was out today I did buy pumpkin to make dog biscuits for my co-workers.  I did this last year and it was a big hit. It always keeps me from contributing to their sugar consumption. 

I am grateful for where I am in my life today.  Although I feel 2021 will have some good changes in store for me.  I hope I am ready. 

  

Friends - Change - Renovation

I have written a few post over the past few weeks but lost interest before I posted them. I am coming to the end of my renovation and this weekend I will be putting the house back together. The kitchen is beautiful.  I still don't have gas because the gas man tripped over his dog and broke his foot. He gave me the name of another company where his sister in law works and they are going to squeeze me in on Monday.

I took a spontaneous trip over the long weekend to visit my childhood best friend.  We have a long history including her mom letting me live in their garage when I left home.  There was no room in the inn at that point. We were five adults, one kid, two large dogs and three cats living under one roof.

It was complicated with 5 vehicles parked in the drive way.  I slept in the garage with the cats and the car it was heaven to me.  I was free from the emotional roller coaster of living with my dad and my step mother who thought I existed as free labor.  Leaving after my dad threatened to have me fired if I didn't quit my job and babysit full time so my step mother could go back to work.

My friends mom was at one time my own mother's best friend.  Both of our families were Pentecostal but we didn't attend the same church.  We lived on the same street but my friends mom was a person that focused on the bad things that were happening in the world.  Instilling in my friend a lot of fear.

Her husband left her around the same time my mother died.  He ran off with his secretary and my friend's mom never married again.  She didn't let her fears keep her from living and some of her happiest times she spent playing piano at a inner city church for the homeless.

What I loved about her is that she always had a plan.  When we were kids every Friday night the family drove to the park and had a picnic dinner.  Anyone that wanted to come was welcome and this ritual continued even while I was living there.  She was a godly woman who never remarried because she felt it was sin in gods eyes to divorce.  She never tried to control her kids and I think my friend was the only one of her kids affected by her fearful side.

I always felt welcome there we all took care of ourselves and I bought my own food.  I never wanted to be burden since she so generously let me stay there that summer. I was happy to be able to just live my life without being some one's Cinderella cleaning and babysitting.

My friend and I haven't been close for most of our adult lives.  We are very different people she lived at home until she married in her 30's. She quit work to home school and raise her kids. They moved out to a rural area to get away from crime.  So far out I thought something was wrong with my GPS.

I don't have any judgments about that everyone has to find there own happiness.  When her kids were young and she had to be right about everything she tried to preach to me about my life.  I had just met my ex and we were living in sin.  Time has passed and we both know more and are less right about things. When her mother passed away I went and stayed with her. It seemed the same as always polar opposites just hanging out. We have history.

Our mothers were opposites too and so it seems appropriate that we are the same.  Her kids are leaving the nest now and both her parents and the other woman have passed she is feeling a little lost without so many responsibilities.  I think it is interesting that we are both the same people we were on the inside that we were when we were kids. We still fit the same way which is nice.

It feels like to me that we start out one way in life and we decide that we are going to be different or life circumstances change us.  Then as we mature and relax we come back to the person we were when we were kids.  We know none of our rigid thinking really matters and we live and let live.

I think my renovation represents what is going on inside of me mainly a fresh start mixed in with who I am at the core.  My kitchen is simple and calm with a big splash of color.  It isn't what I would do for a customer but it fits me and I love it.

Saying goodbye - Permission to go

A friend of mine just called to let me know her mother passed away yesterday after a long struggle with some form of dementia not diagnosed as Alzheimer's.  She has been in a group home for over a year after keeping at home became impossible. My friend had to fight her brothers over the idea of strangers taking care of their mother.  Her and her sister were the ones seeing her every day and the fact that she was not eating and becoming less and less lucid.

The past few months they have felt the end was near and had been making burial arrangements. My friend celebrated her own birthday a few weeks ago and they decided to have the kids  meet and celebrate at the facility.  We had talked about this a few months back after her mother was asking about her brother. Until then he hadn't wanted to visit her there. We thought maybe she needed closure before moving on. She had a good day that day and did recognized everyone.

It did remind me of when my aunt died.  She was sick with a lot of different things including dementia.  She spent the last few years of her life in her living room first in a chair and then the last few months in a hospital bed set up there.  She was the oldest of nine kids and the last one to pass.  She wasn't a nice person and damaged just about anyone that came close her except me. In the end it was just myself and her caregiver. 

I think she found peace before she passed and during our last visit she said she was seeing Jesus and the other passed relatives like her sister's ex husband who had been gone since the late 70's. 

Her caregiver was her favorite person then me.  I think I knew too much about the pain she had caused so many people.  When the caregiver called and said she was in a lot of pain and she couldn't understand why she wasn't letting go we discussed what the secret hospice pamphlet said about closure in the end.  How the dying want to say goodbye.  They want to make things right and they won't go until they feel everyone is okay with it.

 At the end of the conversation it dawned on me that it was the caregiver she was hanging on for. At the time the caregiver was in her early 50's and her own husband had passed suddenly of a heart attack.  She was in grief when she took the job with my aunt it was her whole life.  She stayed 24/7 the last few weeks and I was glad she wanted to do it.  I said to her on the phone "she is waiting for you to give her permission to go" she thought that was nuts.  She said "I told her she could go that I would be alright"  I said "but you have got to mean it."

We hung up and I got in my car to go over there and she called.  She is gone she said.  She told me she went in there and said "I will be alright if you go I promise."  I was shocked at the news.  I had no idea she was going to do it right then. 

Having dealt with the deaf of my mother at 11 it is not so scary to me.  I do believe there is more than just this life at least for our spirit.  I am not sure about streets of gold but some place that is easier than this life sometimes turns out to be.  No one but me and the caregiver came to my aunts funeral. It seemed appropriate since we were the people that took care her in the end.

When I got the call today I could hear the sadness and relief in my friends voice.  She has been grieving her mother's death for years but there will be more. It seems that grief is never quite finished with you.  At least her mother will have a large family with great great grandchildren celebrating her life. She was loved and will be missed.

Life - On your own

I have off line for awhile and today is the first day I am collecting my thoughts and feelings to write.  Many things have beeb happening here My friend went to the emergency with bowel pains and almost three weeks later finally emerged from the hospital disease free but 25 pounds lighter.

He doesn't have any family here so I stepped in until the immediate crisis was over about two weeks. I was happy to do it until I started getting the impression that there wasn't an interest in participating in doing what was required to get out. A retreat on his part and this made me feel alone and helpless.

I decided that because I was the sole support that he didn't feel like had to really engage in what was happening.  I felt I needed help and called his brother to come.  Luckily he is a contractor and slow right now and he was able to come quickly. I called for back up with friends locally which I thought was healthy for me since I usually handle things on my own.

All of this has put a distance between us redefining our relationship. We have be friends for over 25 years now.  It is a comfortable relationship but not intimate emotionally for the most part.  We are similar in our spiritual beliefs and our time together is spent eating and talking about our daily lives. 

I accepted a long time ago that this is the way we would be it is similar to many other relationships I have had. Starting with my Dad and my two long term ex's.  Like our relationship indifferent to the fact that I have emotions and feelings.  That just because I am extremely capable doesn't mean that I don't have needs or wouldn't like be thanked or feel appreciated every once in awhile.  It is rarely that anyone ask me how I am doing and it seems I attract the kinds of relationship that don't acknowledge me.

I can admit that I don't exude neediness in anyway and I have learned to be fully self supporting declining outside contributions. My mother died when I was young and I learned that you are on your own so you just better get use to it. I don't attached too easily and since my last relationship I haven't gotten attached at all even to an animal.

I have taken care of a lot people in my life. In my personal life and even in my jobs mostly in the background making everything runs smoothly. Making sure everyone was getting there needs met. I was exhausted all the time for really decades.  I am not that person anymore. I won't let bad things happen but I also won't give my life away to manage someone else.

With my friend we had a conversation in the hospital that sounded like dependency. Like we were going to do this together.  I knew at that moment that I wasn't willing to be the sole support. This is when I felt I needed to call for help and back away. With in days of having other people evolved his spirits were better and he started to actually wanted to get out of the hospital.

His brother left this week and emotionally and physically he is on his own. I made some food and will see him today. Other friends locally have be visiting so he is not alone.

The truth is no one can go through these things with you. When I was sad only a few people were even willing to spend time with me. Healing takes time and people ultimately go back to their own lives. It is the nature of any crisis.  We are left alone to accept what has happened.

He will be healthy again if he keeps eating.  He does not have a disease and the only therapy he needs is eating which most people would be happy to do. I know he has had a shock and it will time for him to come back if that is what he wants.  I love him and will not let him go hungry but I cannot make him want to get better.

Dealing with the now - Destination Happiness

This morning I have had a few things swirling around in my head.  This isn't unusual it is the second day of two days off and I have been alone.  Because it is Monday there is some underlying stream of consciousness telling me I could go to the office or work here at home.

This good versus evil has plagued me since I started working Saturdays 14 years ago. Now that I only work every other Saturday I only have to deal with it every other week.  I know in my heart that I will not work today.  It isn't good for the spirit even if you love your job to not take a break.  Time away from the sameness a chance to work on some of those other circuits in the brain that us workaholics neglect.

Of course my usual go to activity is watching TV but this weekend I did not give in and decided to work on a few indoor projects. The treasures I bought from the thrift store needed to be rehabbed. This kind of day makes me feel like my old self the task oriented person I was before I decided there was something wrong with me or at least before I cared so much.

It is hard to find peace especially if you have an analytical mind. The idea that there must be a solution for what ever suffering you are currently experiencing.  Your mind constantly searching for a way out of what you perceive as unhappiness.

I watched a program on the life of Buddha last night. It made me think this suffering is the ultimate unsolvable problem and has been going on a long time. That humans have trying to find a solution for it since the beginning. The Buddha at first thought starving himself was the answer but when this brought him only more suffering  he found that abandoning the search and accepting what is in front of you is the only solution. Nirvana wanting what you have in this moment.

I am not saying that we can't change our circumstances and that we should give up but in each moment we can see that this is but a moment and we are already here so we can just live it. Knowing that it will change and when does even if it is the best we can imagine that moment will pass too.

The minds idea of  "destination happiness"  robs us of today and for me I blamed myself when the happiness passed.  I thought that when I had it I must have been doing something right and when I was unhappy and lonely I must be doing something wrong or worse that there was something wrong with me. Right?

Life is not complicated we are complicated.  Life is a string of events that we sometimes can't control and it is our thoughts about these events that decide what we do and how we feel next. Feeling sadness or fear isn't the problem it is idea that some how we can escape these feelings that makes us lose time and miss the moments we have now. Moments we can not get back.

I want to be happy.  Even that statement is a future statement I think this is what the message of the Buddha was just be where you are and know that there is nothing wrong with you. You are just living and experiencing what all humans have experienced. Life.

Warriors and Heros

Today I had a chance to see some real emotional suffering going on at work. I feel really grateful tonight for my own spiritual journey and the things I have learned about myself.  It showed me where I have been and helped me to see how far I have come.

I credit the 12 steps for getting me started on this journey to freedom and I credit myself for having the willingness to question who I believed I was and whether the person I was should or even could change.

The thought never crossed my mind that I had a problem.  I did have problems but these were things that randomly happened to me that were totally out of my control.  I just mostly felt unlucky and learned to live with a life full of crisis.

I became a warrior in this life.  Every day I got up and put my armor on and was ready to do battle. I would slay you before you could get me. The rare times I didn't have my own battle I would take on other people's injustices. I became your hero whether you wanted my help or not.

It was a tough life but I lived for the challenge. It was all I knew until Al-Anon. First the steps made me see that life was more than just war. The real war was inside of me I was my own worst enemy or at least my thoughts were.

Life isn't about what is being done to you it is how you feel about yourself when things are happening to you. I thought I was just unlucky or worse I thought that I was causing these things to happen to me. Every time something happened to me it was just more proof. I was the common denominator. I expected the worst and I got it.

Even when things were good I couldn't trust that they would last and they never did. This idea that things happened because of who I am is pretty self absorbed and not in a good way. I was too emotionally immature to see that life just happens and nothing stays the same forever. People leave because they are taking care of their own needs.  Sometimes it might seem selfish but maybe it is just having self worth.

My self worth depended on how many people needed me. In my personal life having people stay with me proved that I had worth so when they left it proved that I didn't. I didn't understand that this was a no win situation.

The recent years that I spent depressed I believe it was because I was left again and my mind told me that if I could be left after 13 years that surely this was the final proof that I was not lovable. I knew I couldn't go back to being the warrior so I gave in to those thoughts and retreated for as long as it took.

I had to give up all the ideas I had about myself and accept that there is no such thing as truth. The truth is what you believe in each moment and every one's truth is different.  I had to change my truth to something that didn't make my happiness conditional on what other people thought about me.

It isn't easy to live this way. Playing the part of someones hero can be very seductive it is a lot easier than just being your ordinary self.  No applause for that. But I don't want  to go back to where I was and besides maybe it is important to let people be the hero of their own lives. All I can say is that it is working for me.

A New Life

So life is getting more complicated every day but in a good way. I am loving my new job and I can feel each brain cell awakening one at a time. I am so happy to know that they haven't gone missing permanently.

I haven't had a chance to write mostly because I have been carrying two computers around in my car and frankly I have been too tired to get them out of the car at the end of the day. I don't feel comfortable writing at my new job because I am on the their network.  Besides I am crazy busy when I am there anyway.  I wouldn't feel guilty otherwise because I am commission based so my time is my own.

The next bit of news is I have a new roommate. She is new to the program and is just getting out of a relationship. My sponsor who is also her sponsor let me know she was looking for a place to live. She is moving in this weekend and right now her teeny tiny dog is sitting next to me on the couch while I write this.

She has no furniture and will be taking over the upstairs. I had one of the "this is your life" moments when I cleaned out the upstairs closets. Yuck. It was good for me to get rid of some of the past. My down stairs looks like I just moved in. This is what I am doing today my favorite thing, organizing.

My life has completely changed in one month. I have moved on finally after all these years. I don't envy my roommate just starting the grieving process. It is hard to be rejected it is hard to be forced to re-think your story. The story you thought would be yours forever. It never works out that way ever. Life just comes along with its own ideas about the way things should be.

I will be back to posting more regularly once I can leave my computer set up at home. It all very exciting and I am happy to have what it takes to embrace change.

The future meets the past

I watch a lot of TV it is a habit sometimes good and sometimes not. I watch shows that I record mostly about design or other creative things. I am a night owl and have a lot of time on my hands. Lately this habit of watching TV has become monotonous.

Sometimes I force myself to shut it off and see what happens. Mentally the thought of actually taking on a project or even focusing on a book seems like too much effort. Occasionally in the wee hours I practice some yoga stretches to pass the time.

The other night I decided to turn the TV off and sit in my studio. I put on some old music by Lucinda Williams. I heard one of her songs on a show I was watching last week and I missed her.

Her music is pretty dark and I listened to it a lot when my marriage ended more than a decade ago. I saw her live a few years ago and she was so wasted she was reading the words of her own songs from a book on the podium. She kept starting over. The crowd was supportive and most were just as wasted. It was sad.

I could relate to the pain in her songs back then. Songs about people she had lost in her life. I felt addiction had taken my husband from me. Those wounds have long been healed and it actually made me feel good to not be affected by that music anymore.

That night I was feeling free to began again a fresh start. It reminded me of when I was 17 and rented first studio apartment. By that time in my life I had already lived in my friends garage and my alcoholic uncles spare room. The latter ended when he hocked my clock radio and stero to buy booze. He said the neighbors came in a stole the items. Nice.

The apartment was about the size of my art studio is now but it was a refuge from the crazy people that had been in charge of my life. I didn't even have electricity the first few weeks but that didn't matter I was free. I knew I was gonna make it. I didn't know how but I knew I would. That is how I feel now.

I have been afraid for a long time. I had lost the confidence I had in myself for awhile. I had gotten use to thinking I knew what the future held for me and when that changed suddenly I couldn't accept it.

I went down into that black hole of resistance and stayed there until I was sick of it. I didn't want to start over. I felt I didn't have it in me. It wasn't fair I didn't deserve it. Who does? It happens all the time.

When I look back on my life I can see I have had a strong spirit. I have faced many challenges and nothing ever stopped me from moving forward. I just didn't want to do it again. I don't know what I thought I could do about it as long as I was breathing what choice did I have?

You can't ever know how things will turn out in life. Just when you think you got it all figured out something happens. If we want to live rolling with the punches is the only real choice we have.

Digging in doesn't change the facts of the situation. Letting go of something we have no control over anyway, isn't much of a sacrifice when you think about it. The time it takes to let go is up to us and in the end it is quite humbling and freeing at the same time.

Passing storms dead plants and worms

I worked in the yard yesterday taking care of some long forgotten dead potted plants. I was forcing myself to just be still where I am, without giving thought to anything but the moment. That didn't totally work.

A friend had given me five flats on dwarf mondo grass six months ago. Her daughters nursery was closing and they were going to pitch them out. I knew how expensive they are because my ex and I had paid for a landscaping plan that called about a hundred of them. We never filled in the patch because even then we thought they were too expensive.

I thought wow free mondo grass. I wanted them but really didn't have a place for them in my new life, but took them anyway. In my depression I never got them planted. They have been dead for months an unidentified plants have sprouted up through the pots.

When I dumped the pots they each had worms in them so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

The whole thing made me think of how at one point in your life you can really want something and then by the time it shows up you really have no use for it. You have changed, your life has changed and you really can't remember why it was so important in the first place.

I have accepted that a lot went to waste while I was away emotionally. I feel like I am cleaning up after a storm. Happy that the storm has finally passed and ready to face the mess it left behind.

Stuck - Delta Dawn

I woke up this morning singing that old song Delta Dawn...what's that flower you have on could it be a faded rose from days gone by. Where did that come from? Does it mean anything or is it just a short in my brain.

It is a sad song about a woman stuck in the past wishing and waiting for an old love to come back. ... Did I hear you say he was meeting you here today to take you to his mansion in the sky... Is he dead? This could be a long wait.

I have been that woman many times and I can go there pretty quickly when I look too closely at where I am now. Right now I am at work sitting in a pile of endless details. Alone no customers and nothing the least bit interesting to work on.

It is life. It is being an adult and it is what I am not getting paid to do right now. The not getting paid, doesn't help with the motivation factor. Today life seems like an endless series of monotonous tasks. I am a child today wanted to be entertained.

Let's get back to Delta Dawn. The belief that only one person or one thing will make you happy is a tragedy if the possibility of getting that thing is slim to none. It is a self made prison the longing for what was or could have been. Do you really know it would be happily ever after or maybe worse than you could ever imagine.

I knew a Dawn once she was in recovery. When we met she and I had an instant connection. She was a part my life for awhile and then she slipped away without a word. Sometimes life is like that. Those of us in recovery are the healthiest of the sick people. But it doesn't mean there isn't still plenty of work to do.

I still miss her an hope she is happy where ever she is today. I feel better with a little writing under my belt and maybe I can now tackle a few mundane chores.

For Vicky - Finding Love

I feel compelled to write this today. I have gone back to my work three times and I can't shake this feeling that I must write about this so here it is. This happen almost 2 years ago but this the message is clear.

Untreated Al-Anons can die from their disease. It might not be from a dramatic over dose or under a bridge somewhere but it is a death related to a disease that affects us all.

The disease isn't so easy to spot it masquerades as kindness and giving. Giving until it hurts until our own health is in jeopardy. It is putting everyone first in hopes that someone will notice and make us feel worthy of love. Showing our value to the people around us to get that love and approval we so deserve.

My friend Vicky was like that and it ultimately killed her. In her love life she had a man that told her regularly not to get attached to him because she wasn't his girlfriend. On the job she worked 12 hours a day and took a 10% pay cut from a boss that would call her day and night. She gave her kids everything.

She was sick physically and emotionally. She was a Type II diabetic that should have been taking especially good care of herself but ultimately ran herself into the ground to take care of others.

We met after she worked in our office for a couple of weeks and we had and instant connection. Being raised in an alcoholic home and had been married to an alcoholic I tried to get her to go to meetings but it didn't happen. She was too busy taking care of everyone else.

She called me one day to take her to the doctor she had been sick for a few days and didn't want to ask her boyfriend because he was busy. She couldn't drive because she was too sick. I took her to the doctor and he said to take her to the emergency room. I did and we were there for eight hours before she got a bed. When I left at 1 AM she was getting antibiotics and waiting for a room.

She had massive heart failure and a stroke and was never conscious again. None of her family came that night or the boyfriend. I was the only one there a person that only knew her casually. They didn't even have a memorial for her.

I found out that because she was run down and dehydrated her organs failed. If she had taken care of herself she would still be here. Her death changed me forever. It showed me that you can't give yourself away to get the love you need. You have to love yourself and find a God you trust to fill the void.

So what is the point of this post. Love yourself take care of yourself be a friend to yourself a loving parent to yourself. Always putting other first can kill you it is a family disease.