sueeeus

a hummingbird in December

I’m taking it as a sign of some sort.  It will present itself eventually.  I hastened to clean and fill the feeder, in the hopes it will soon return.  My mom loves birds.

~*~*~*~

I’m going to tell you my dream, Mama.  And some of my thoughts.  I want to hear about your dream, Mama, and what it looked and felt like from where you are.  We will compare notes!

We are in the spirit, so we present ourselves in joyful child form, sparkling little girls.  You with your platinum curls, golden eyes, and milky white skin, me with my wispy brown waves that won’t stay out of my face (I get that from you, by the way).  We are wearing fluffy dresses and roller skates, regular Shirley Temples!  I take your hands and we clasp them criss-cross.  We are in the spirit and I assure you that we can do this.  After all, I saw it done at Teatro Zinzanni!  We are on a circular pedestal and we begin to skate in a spinning circle, round and round, faster and faster.  We are joyful little girls, skating our hearts out, giggling with delight.  I’ve explained to you that as we spin, we are weaving a web of light, and we are opening a portal to heaven.  Because we are getting ready to do some healing work.  We need a strong beam that will serve as a funnel, a tornado of light that will draw the poisons and sufferings out from our beings and incinerate them with the fire of heaven.

We spin together, round and round, faster and faster, and we weave a funnel like a beehive, with thick honey golden coils, but it’s not enough.  We need a pyre with the strength of a hurricane for what we are to do.  The dream changes, and we are no longer little girls.  I’ve summoned the siblings and we are all here, your tribe, all of us, in the spirit.  We are joined together hand in hand, encircling you, tenderly.  You are a slight and elder form, seated on a cushion or a couch, maybe your hospital bed.  You glow with an ethereal platinum light, and we, your tribe, glow brightly with a golden white light.  You are not strong and we radiate a cushion of warmth that surrounds you and holds you so that you can rest and float and allow the poisons and sufferings to flow out when heaven’s gate is opened.  Our hands clasped, we form a tribal circle and dance around a blazing fire.  It’s a magical display, a joyful pow-wow.  There is so much energy as we dance and celebrate and rejoice and love.  The fire blazes stronger and stronger and the golden tendrils of light weave together, stronger, tighter, stronger, tighter, forming a blazing tornado of golden white light.  The tornado blazes, tended by the tribe.  You and I are back to little girl form, two Shirley Temples, seated in the center of the tornado, where it is quiet and still.  My arm is around you and I’m the big sister now.  You feel lost and afraid; you are small.  I hold you and comfort you and assure you that I will protect you, that you don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have to know what to do, you don’t have to know who to be or how to be.  You can just rest and I will hold you and take care of you.  I’ve got you.  We are in the spirit, I say.  See?!  You relax and melt into my embrace.  I brush a wisp of your platinum hair from your sweet face.  Now we are ready.  I hold you, you beautiful, pure, innocent and precious child.  You are wrapped in my embrace, and we are wrapped in the holy blazing embrace of heaven.  We are in the still place where time and space have no meaning.  The space between.  Where our molecules and our energy are distinct, and we swim about through the waves and fields of the essence of our being.  Here we find the poisons and sufferings and draw them out, out, out, like the way a log jam collects and grows and is gently yet persistently carried downstream towards a waterfall, the poisons are pulled through the blazing tornado, seared, clarified, and absorbed into heaven’s embrace.  We swim and stir up the waters to release more sufferings.  We extend our reach to embrace those near us, our beloveds; we are all in the spirit in this cosmic goo, so we beckon their sufferings out and away, to send them back to become one with heaven, too.

There were other dreams.  So many dreams.  I showed you my chedvah place with the bright pea pod green grass and blue blue sky.  I showed you my sleeping diamond-skinned dragon mother-ship.  We climbed inside the ship, two little girls, and hid and played.

And I helped you see, from my eyes, how worthwhile your life has been, how you always did the best that you knew how to do, how your part brought about deep and widespread blessings, and how thankful I am for you.

~*~*~*~

Somewhere in the night I had a moment of conviction in which the clear act of faith is to go ahead and book the vacation rental house for our summer celebration of life and family, and to boldly assume that we will celebrate her birthday together in February as planned.

I hope she feels strong enough to continue earthly living.  For myself, I think about the sunset years, and there is a hope to share the sweetness of age with my dear sisters.  I wish for my mom and her sister to be able to share more of their sunset together.

And selfishly, we all wish for Mom to want to hold on, because we’re just too tired to process more loss right now.

He has gone back to the river of souls.

~*~*~*~

Sail on, little bird.  Sail on, my dear baby brother.  Thank you for shining your brightness in the world, for the time that you had to shine.  I’m the lucky one, that I got to be counted among your beloved.  We are the lucky ones, your beloved.  We love you so.

~*~*~*~

We are so connected, my tribe.  We seldom see each other, or speak with each other, but our ties run deep, not constrained by space and time.  We feel each other, as though we are networked together.  And so we are.

~*~*~*~

Such an inescapable anguish!  We know he wouldn’t wish this on any of us, my brothers in arms, and we are so acutely aware in this moment that we don’t ever wish this on each other, this inevitable part of living.  We don’t want each other to suffer.  We love each other too much, too deeply, and want to protect each other from such anguish.  To the extent that we chide with each other that we need to make a joint pact such that we can all just go at the same time and spare each other this part of things.  And then we laugh.  Because we know that it’s all just a part of things, and the thing that is important to remember in the here and now is just that, the here and now.  Live fully, here, now.  Joy in this day.  In this very day.  Love now.

~*~*~*~

I’m trying to find a way to describe with words the expression of these feelings.  Something like the way that all colors blend into one to become pure white, in a similar fashion, all emotions blend into one to become pure white love in its most raw and ragged form.  It’s blazing with a radiance that can almost not be looked upon, and the flames are ragged and jagged explosions, bursts, that radiate outward from the core, which is, I suppose, the main line, the spirit of God.  Exquisitely unbearable.  It’s a feeling that’s almost too painful and too exhilarating to feel, each extreme emotion pulled to its outermost ragged limit, to the point of shatter, and there they all coexist, all the emotions, as all the colors, on the verge of explosion, barely contained.  Raw.  Pure.  Love.

When I retreat to find that place of healing, I think it’s my version of prayer.  I described it, in part, before. 

There’s another version in which I’m not in the physical plane at all, so there’s no figure, no spinning, no tornado.  My non-physical self finds the heart-spark and I visualize breathing on it, deeply and gently, carefully coaxing the ember to emerge and grow.  I breathe my emotions out, feeding the glowing white ember, and it becomes stronger and stronger and warms me and nourishes me at the same time.  There’s a flow happening, kind of like a toroidal Fibonacci thing, and I suppose that figuratively my heart is at the center, and there comes a point where the center opens up (sort of like the way the jaws on a chuck open to release a drill bit), and the flow becomes more like a fire hose, bright white light, sort of like that scene from the 5th Element, where she completes the circuit.  Then I am breathing long deep steady breaths, and it’s as though I’m a vacuum cleaner, this firehose stream of bright light, pulling people’s struggles out and away from them.  It’s sort of like lucid dreaming, in which my physical body is doing one thing — the breathing — and some part of my mental self is monitoring the whole scene; it knows that my soul self has gone out to take care of a few things…  My spirit (?) then scans for anguish and sends tendrils out from the main stream to reach out and connect to those pains so that they can flow out from where they are causing suffering.  In those moments, it seems as though I’m channeling, that I am in the spirit, and that I draw those sufferings away from these people who are crying out in their innermost hearts, and those sufferings are drawn into the stream where they dissolve and become shiny new energy, ready to launch new dreams.  All the while, tears flow, and I feel as though I am healing (because my own emotions are flowing out and away from me), and that I am helping others to heal as well.

Sometimes I wonder if this is my calling, the thing that I’m supposed to be doing.  Maybe I’m a healer.  Nobody needs to know that I even exist, for me to do this work.

There is another version of healing trance that I can describe.  It’s like the first one, in which I visualize myself spinning, arms spread, spinning around and around, sending waves of light, love, comfort, and harmony out from my extended hands, weaving a tornado of protection around me.  I stand in the center of stillness and catch my breath and gather my strength.  When I am filled with strength, I envision myself, sort of like an Olympic figure skater, spinning so fast and then pulling the body in tighter and tighter, spinning faster and faster, tighter, so tight, all that spinning energy gathering speed deep and close in.  Spinning faster, faster, tighter, smaller, more and more concentrated, a cyclone, like nuclear fusion, faster, tighter, smaller, until it’s almost infinite energy bound in an infinitesimal point…   ….and then POW!  It’s a pulse explosion, and I send a blast across the cosmos and it surges over and through everything in its path as it radiates and washes a blast of healing energy out through the dimensions, cosmos, layers.  It sounds megalomaniacal, now that I describe it.

~*~*~*~

Those have been the forms my prayers have taken, for some years.  I have two new forms that have emerged since Tuesday last.

~*~*~*~

It’s like the others, in getting the ember going, and the tendrils of light are like threads, and I begin a looping crochet stitch, weaving a chain mesh until I’ve completed a circle and then begin the next circle, interweaving each new loop, and the chain begins to take form and grow strong, and then new weavers come, all of those who are pouring out their love right now, their spirits find this thread and they all begin to weave their light threads into a web of healing light, a fortress of love pouring into my brother, seeping into all the areas where strength and healing are needed.  All of the looping and interweaving continues, building a glistening, radiant cocoon, while concurrently, the beloveds are all joined arm in arm like a ring of children, dancing in a circle, singing a loving song, spinning an outer shield of pure white light up and around the weavers, around the cocoon.  We are all in the spirit, channeling our love together, nourishing him, nourishing each other.  We heal each other as we heal him.  And he heals us.

~*~*~*~

The other vision begins like the figure skating one, only we are here together, and he’s on a hoverboard  or skateboard thing and I’m on skates.  The first time, it began with just me, and then we found each other and teamed up.  Now, we meet back up and say, time to get back to work.  This, because I keep falling asleep from exhaustion.  I am so fatigued that my body just stops.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to sleep deeply, and now I don’t have a choice.  I wake up, and go about my day in a sort of a detached state, doing the things that I have to do, but with a sense of hurry, because I need to be able to stop and be quiet and still and try to find my way back to that place, because we have so much work to do.  I get back, and we skate about, looking for all the places that need to be attended, and we infuse, we fortify, we weave new connections.  The beloveds have arrived, and we’re all skating up, down, in, around, our trails of golden light fusing new pathways.  It’s kind of like the enchanted cleanup scene from Beauty and the Beast, where all the enchanted ones dance about in a joyful and exuberant display, pixie dust sparkling here, there, twinkle, poof, all the while the place being put back into order, tip top.  He leads the way on his hoverboard, spinning loop-the-loops and figure eights, this way guys, follow me!  We laugh and skate and make a golden new network to let the love flow where it needs to go.

Sometimes it takes tragedy to remind us of love.

Reflecting on past moments of crisis, and  how I navigated through them, it seems that I kept on doing the thing that I was doing.  I went to work.  I think, maybe when the emotional stuff is beyond what I am able to process, I shift it behind a veil where I can keep an eye on it while continuing with life as usual.

So today I worked and dove into very focused and detailed tasks, to keep my mind fully contained.  It helped me today, but now it’s night, and now I am finally alone with my thoughts.  Now I can let tears fall down my face as I begin to wrangle all of me into concentrated loving attention that I can send out in waves to the people I love most in this world, my family.

I’m startled by every text notification ding.  I’m afraid to look and I’m desperately hopeful to look.  I’m similarly alarmed by the sound of the phone ringing.  I realize that I must hold my breath and not release it until I know who’s at the other end and why they’re contacting me, because I find myself exhaling when the determination has been made, and after that it’s difficult to catch my breath.  I can’t get enough air.

We all feel so helpless.  There is nothing we can do besides love and hope.

He wants to live!  He sure got a lemon of a vehicle, and figuring out its quirks has taken such toll, but he’s tried so hard to figure it out and give it what it needs.  He’s doing his part!  He’s done everything the doctors have told him to do.  He wants to live.  Or he wanted to, before this.  I don’t know if he wants to now, because this…  …this one’s ravaged him hard.  Is he in there, pounding his fists and shouting at us, hey, I’m right here, don’t worry, I’m just looking for that danged short so that I can fix the circuit and get this machine back online.   I hope.

There is so much love!  A steady stream of friends have come to the hospital to see him and wish him well and give their love.  He is a fine, fine person.

My family is aching.  The arms of my heart are wrapped around them, holding them tight.

I just recognized another interesting thing about emotional crisis.  Exhaustion.  Feeling like I’ve only barely begun to process the emotions, yet nearly overcome with exhaustion, to the extent that I feel that I could collapse or pass out.

I left, to save myself.

I didn’t stay, to protect them.

~*~*~*~

I read somewhere recently about human survival instinct, how a drowning man would pull you down to save himself.  It was a cautionary tale, not to advise against heroicism or altruism, but more to be aware of the tendency in some people to out-prioritize their own needs with others’ needs.  There can come a point where one is over-depleted and can no longer help others or themselves.  Don’t get to that point.  It could be a long journey back.

~*~*~*~

Right now, he is fighting for his life.  Maybe he’s not fighting.  Maybe he’s just in between right now.  He IS alive.  His heart is beating.  He hasn’t woken up.  Maybe it will be like a reboot, and things will just come back online soon.  That is my hope.

I keep waffling between my inner knowing and my outer doubting, through the certainty that he’s coming back, born again with important tales to tell of his time in between, in the allness, of being in the light and being the light.  He will be renewed and convicted and impassioned by the things he learned in his time away.  He will want to return, to share these important things with us!  And then the physically constrained thoughts surface, in the form of doubt and despair, that his physical body is overwhelmed, that he will decide he’s too tired to fight to come back.

Some of my siblings are assembling.  Those who can are on their way to be with him, in person.  I’m home.  I took the day off to be still and weave an entangled web of love through the ether joining with them, healing with them in the only way I know how to help right now.  I can’t go.  Not yet.  My physical self can’t be around them, where I will be faced with the outer doubting and crumble in the combined fear and sorrow and helplessness.  My internal self is with them, where I am strong, where I can draw from the energy of heaven, and build my strength, as I’m joined through the ether with them, weaving a golden web of light around us all.  Healing us.  Protecting us.  Nourishing us.  Warming us.  Strengthening us.  All of us.

~*~*~*~

So many of us, my siblings and I, seem out of phase with our physical selves, these vessels that contain us, like we are strangers in a strange land.  Foreigners.  These physical bodies seem so unfamiliar, like we just can’t seem to align our mental selves with our physical selves.  We are bewildered when we encounter health issues, surprised by their appearance, which is no surprise at all to those on the outside looking in.

~*~*~*~

An epiphany.  Wanting and needing so desperately to focus my thoughts and intents on him, this brother I barely know, finding my untamed thoughts constantly turning this into something about me, wrestling with the ensuing self-disgust, jolting my thoughts back.  What about them?  How terrified and shaken they must be, especially those closest in the lineup, those who grew up with him.  Recoiling at my self-absorptive ugliness forced me to think of them, to look at things through their eyes, and to have compassion for the turmoil of their shaken hearts in the face of this tragic uncertainty.  We have so many complex interrelationships with and amongst each other, some alliances, some factions, some solid, some fragile.  Through it all, we have a certain thread that bonds us all, something deep and internal.  How they need assurance and hope and comfort.  This I can do.  What they need, I can give.  This is where I am strong.  I tap into that thread and connect it to the mainline and let the love and healing flow.  We feel each other’s love, which isn’t constrained by time or space.  We are connected.  I send them strength, from the inside out.

~*~*~*~

I had to save myself, to help them.

Put your dreams away for now, I won’t see you for some time…
I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind…
Mama once told me “you’re already home where you feel loved”
I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind…

Oh my brother, your wisdom is older than me.  Oh my brother, don’t you worry about me!
Don’t you worry, don’t you worry, don’t worry about me…

all you need is love … love is all you need

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Again.  I’m making a serious effort to understand myself and the way I form my thoughts and the channels that I follow… I’m very conscious of time these days. I’m very aware of the years. I’ve arrived at this place called mid-life. My indentured servitude spans nearly 30 years. I have two young children. It’s up to me to shape them, form them and prepare them for life. And how can I do that, if I don’t have it figured out myself?! There’s a whole new generation of young people in my life, looking to me for guidance, and what can I give them? I’m fumbling along under a facade waving the fake it till you make it flag and hoping that nobody notices that I really don’t have it all going on. (To be fair to myself, I do actually have almost everything going on –I’m just trying to wrangle this emotional thangggggg…..)

I’ve been thinking about human behaviors. I’ve been observing the way insecurity manifests in people and myself. I’ve been thinking about self destructive thoughts a lot lately, and wondering where they come from, why they’re there, how to obliterate them, etc… It occurs to me that they are entirely manufactured! Not that that is any big news. I’ve known that all along, but somehow I am beginning to let it sink in, that any negative thoughts originate within myself. So if they’re coming from me, I can change my mind, and turn that ship around.  Easily enough said.

Certain thought streams tend to short circuit to emotionally unattractive destinations.  I intend to repair my mother board so that my thought streams lead to healthy destinations.

One of the show stoppers is that dangerous zone of caring what others think.  Why so much concern?  Why ANY concern?  Judgment…   It’s such a slippery slope!  The reality of the matter is that I don’t know what another person thinks or feels. Those thoughts are entirely theirs. Am I spending my time passing judgment on the people in my sphere?  Or  do I simply love them?  Ummm.  I simply love them.  So, uhhhh, hello?  Stands to reason, doesn’t it, in the most simplistic way, that not too many, if any for that matter, are spending time passing judgment on me.  Why would I bother to waste any brain space on wondering or dreading what others might think of me?  Good grief! And even if I were to play the devil’s advocate, what kind of ugliness might someone dredge up on me?  Her.  Yeah her.  She goes to work every day.  Yeah.  Imagine that.  She pays her bills.  Amazing. She lives within her means.  Unbelievable.  She takes care of her family.  Whoa.  She saves for a rainy day.  What the what?  She tries to make people smile.  Crazy.  Oh sure, she gets emo once in a while. She’s a sensitive creature with an empathetic nature, so of course the travails of others can take their toll if she’s not careful, but she’s wicked smart and kind of funny, so hey.  She’s all right.  Mmmmm hmmmmm, yes ma’am.  She’s all right.

Seriously.  It’s ridiculous to waste time and life energy on wondering what others think, and worse yet, assuming what they think.  That’s a one-man-band, honey.  It’s ALL IN YOUR HEAD!!!!  SMH…

Okay.  Sure.  I have issues.  Daddy issues.  I’ve written about it before.  WHY DIDN’T HE CARE ABOUT ME?  WHY DIDN’T I MATTER TO HIM?  etc etc etc.  The thing is, I did matter to him.  I just didn’t recognize it.  Where he could display his love, affection and admiration to and for my sisters, somehow he was unable to convey it to me.  Maybe, all along, I’ve felt irrelevant only because I’m not the charming vivacious spitfires that my sisters are.  Maybe it was difficult for him to find a way to reach me.  Who knows?!  But the fact is that I’ve carried an invalid assumption along with me for most of my life, that I somehow just don’t quite measure up to what I should.  And don’t you see?  That’s the comparison game!  Comparing myself to my sisters!  We are apples and oranges (as well as peas in a pod).  Oh how I love my sisters!!!  They are amazing people!  And we are beautiful in our differences and in our similarities.  As beautiful and amazing as they are, I am as well!  I just wasn’t tuned in to the same bat channel.  So I didn’t get the message.  That is SO tragic!!!  Fifty years old and only now just dawning.

Anyway.

One way or another, this post was meant to be about love, and how you’re home where you feel loved.  All this blah blah blah about the great “why am I the way I am?” question, but the crux of the matter and the bottom line is that happiness is that place where we feel home, where we are home.

I feel home.

This.

This is what life and love are all about.  This is everything.  Now is now. I’m living it. Now! I laugh, I smile, I hug my children. I listen.  I act silly.  I cook. I eat. I work. I take care of business. I keep up my home. I do laundry. I do dishes. I love.

I am happy.

cherish is the word I use to describe…

The word popped into my head a few minutes ago, and I had a train of thought I planned to explore, but have since forgotten.  Still, I will hold the title and keep on writing. Maybe it will come back to me.

There are so many interesting thoughts of late that I want to capture and ponder.  My boys spent three weeks with their dad.  Unprecedented.  During that time, I had the opportunity to take a grown up camping vacation.  I haven’t had so much grown up time in YEARS!

It was hard, to be separated from my boys for so long.  I had a few tearful moments.  I sort of wished that I had been able to plan ahead for that particular window of time.  I might have spent it differently, rather than work through the first two weeks.  I was ecstatic to be able to go camping, though.  It was important to me on so many levels.

When I picked up my boys, the early evening sun was shining and the color of their eyes in the sunlight was dazzling and mesmerizing.  Their eyes are a grey green rainbow of sparkling color.  They are so beautiful — they take my breath away.  I wanted to take a picture and capture those colors and that beauty, but my phone camera skills are lacking.  The emotion of the moment was pure joy.  Reuniting with my boys.  Oh how I lufffffff them.

~*~*~*~

While camping, I experienced a plethora of thoughts, sensations, and emotions.  Granted, it was likely due to a mixture of erratic blood sugar control, substance consumption, and the heat.  One day, I had a series of out of body thoughts that I found perplexing and worthy of further exploration.  It was almost as though I had a starkly defined split personality.  On the one hand, I was so peacefully content that I had found my way to this stage in life where I have the most amazing, comfortable relationship with a truly decent, kind, loving, capable, intelligent, fun and interesting man, with whom I can clearly imagine growing old with and loving deeply until the end of time.  On the other hand, there was this nearly over powering persona that I’d call Doom, who stood by, authoritatively looking down on me, telling me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t live like this, that it couldn’t be real, that I should just walk away and spend my life alone where I belong.  It was such a strong and defeating sensation, so physical, in fact, that I could almost feel myself being compelled to stand up, start walking, and just leave it all behind.  All the while, the other persona (who I will call the real me) looked on with disbelief and horror, saying, good grief, you’re not buying into this bullshit, are you?

In the end, I reasoned with myself that I have no control over another’s thoughts or feelings, nor do I wish for such control.  He’ll never purposefully hurt me.  If he loves me, he loves me.  If he wants to be with me, he will be with me.  If he decides we don’t fit after all, he will say so, and we will part on kind terms.  There is no need for fear or anxiety or second guessing or anything at all.  And the converse holds true in all cases.  I will never purposefully hurt him.  If I love him, I love him.  If I want to be with him, I’ll be with him.  If I decide we don’t fit after all, I will say so, and we will part on kind terms.  He isn’t worried or concerned about us.  It’s all very simple for him.  He loves me, he respects me, and that’s that.  Similarly, I love him, respect him, and that’s that.  So why does this nemesis of a personality emerge?  I suppose it’s a manifestation of fear, and it’s not welcome here!  I have to acknowledge that it tried to grip me, though.  I’m also grateful that he’s not saddled with these ridiculous emotions.  He is so very steady.  Unflinching.  Unwavering.  I truly admire that in him.  He is solid.

~*~*~*~

I wrote this ages ago, and it’s been hanging out in my drafts, along with the 200+ spam comments attached to my Presence and Life post that I can’t for the life of me figure out.  Search engines are blocked.  Somehow there must be a thread or fragment somewhere that the bots have found.  I don’t find it when I inspect my code, so I am perplexed.  Maddening.  Anyway.  Even though the moment is long over, and my emotions haven’t taken too much of a dark turn (in general) since then, I think it’s good to be able to preserve some of these thoughts for further exploration, should they ever resurface.

The photo is taken from the cover of this year’s journal.  I was diligent until mid-July, and not a word since.  Interestingly enough, that time frame seems to coincide with the time frame when my kids were away.  I’ve either been too busy, too stressed, or having too much fun to bother with daily summaries.  Certainly, life overall has been wonderful, as evidenced by the lack of lengthy self-psychoanalyzing posts (since June, at any rate).  One of these days I may find my way back to blogging about the beauties of this simple life I’m leading.  Facebook and Snapchat, while fun, are nowhere near as fulfilling, and the seeming constant monotony of working through difficult emotions makes for a very lopsided blog.  So.  Posts of alpaca adventures, tree felling, trail blazing, carburetor rebuilding, farmer’s markets, fantastical Lego creations, gorgeous grey-eyed kids, road trips, country vistas, water sport shenanigans, and such may be on the horizon.  Or not.

I’m glad that I wrote about exploitation the other day.  It helped me process thoughts more productively.

Exploitation suggests an offender –the one exploiting, and a victim –the one exploited.  It absolves, somewhat, the one exploited from the responsibility of the situation.  Not that I am advocating transferring responsibility for a situation to someone, anyone, or anything other than myself….

Now that some thoughts have had a chance to mill about outside of the coulda woulda shoulda trap, I’ve finally been able to get somewhere.  Now I can and do reclaim responsibility for all of it.  Maybe I was a victim, maybe not.  Well, that man on the train had no right to invade my space, and that Iranian dude had no right to amuse himself with me in the manner that he did…    ….and that ex boyfriend really had no right to do me while I was asleep.  Had I woken up and gotten involved, well hello, that would be a different matter altogether (what’s better than barely waking and reaching for the one you love, and moving together in union and harmony in a semi conscious state?  How sexy and amazing is that?!), but I did not (wake up or respond in any way), and he proceeded, so yeah, he had no right to do that.  I was curious, truth be told.  Curious as to whether he would proceed or not.  It was a test, I suppose, and he failed….    Anyway.  I am not a victim.  I don’t know why or even how some things happen the way they do.  I am no longer hungry for an explanation for any of it.  I’ve decided to let it all go.  It’s something from the past, and the minute that it became history, it lost its power over me.  I don’t know why it took me almost 25  years to figure that out, though.

I’m learning the value of the now.  The only moment for which I have complete control is the moment that I’m experiencing now.  Now!  I am who I am.  I am who I choose to be.  I am who I want to be.  I can draw from the wisdom that has accumulated through the years and the experiences of other times, and I can choose to let all of the experiences be just that.  Wisdom.  Nothing else.  They can’t bring me down.  They aren’t an anchor, holding me down or holding me back.  I don’t want to be sad.  I don’t want to be angry.  I don’t want to be depressed.  I don’t want to be gloomy.  I don’t want to be hurt.  I have no desire for vengeance.  Besides all that, I’m a firm believer that good things come, always, always, always, somehow, from the ashes and anguish and sorrows and tears.  Always, good things come.  So in addition to that certainty, I now have this revelation, this added bonus, this wellspring of effervescent joy.  This is my moment, my life, this time that I am breathing, this instant.  This is mine!  This is my life!  I’m not going to be duped into allowing the past to steal my present.  No more!! And I’m not going to let the future steal my present either.  While I may have some input as to what my future holds, there is absolutely nothing that is certain.  Nothing except for the now.  My now.  My present.  This is what I have.  It’s all that any of  us has.  I’m claiming it.  Owning it.  It’s MINE!  This is life!  THIS.  IS.  LIFE.

brown eyed girl

I am exactly who, what, and how I want to be in this very moment.  I am good!  I am kind!  I am loving!  I am gentle!  I am strong!  I am smart!  I am capable!  I am resourceful!  I am responsible!  I am lovely!  I am fun!  I am creative!  I am happy!  I am healthy!  I am joyful!  I am alive!

Hello world.  It’s me.

Me!

I’m tired, I’m worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I’ve made mistakes
I’ve let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

I’m feeling worn today.  As though the myriad fragments of thoughts of recent sorrows and former sorrows are all pooling together and finding their way to the surface, wanting to break through.  I’m feeling like a meltdown is pending.  Or else in progress.

I know that I’m tired, physically, and that a good long sleep would likely make these feelings go away.  Maybe they’re not so large at all, and would be nothing, if I could rest some more and let them drift off to a safe and peaceful place where they can feed my wisdom, but not hurt my heart.

So many of us are working through such struggles.  Some of monumental proportion. Some, not so much, but in their own estimation, they are monumental.  The struggle exists for us all.  Add to that the burden of misperceptions and misunderstandings.  All these unnecessary emotional struggles!

I think about the role I’ve played in other people’s lives.  The things I’ve done to give a helping hand.  Small things.  Big things.  In some ways and at some times it’s been sort of like helping a child learn to swing or ride a bike.  I give them a push, get them started, explain how to pump the legs or pedal the bike, so that they can go forth on their own.  Sometimes a push is all that’s needed.  And sometimes the push does little at all.  If they just move forward on the original momentum without adding their own force of pumping or peddling, whichever the case may be, inertia eventually wins and all things come to a stop.  In real life, with my own kids, in the same example of trying to teach them to swing or ride, I find myself frustrated when they give up and don’t try to propel themselves.  They want the easy road.  Mama, keep pushing!  But I don’t want to push any more.  I want them to learn and become self-sufficient.

In the adult world, I guess the wise thing to do is acknowledge that when another has allowed inertia to set them back to where they were, the consequential struggle isn’t my responsibility or my concern.  It would also be wise not to conclude that my efforts were ever wasted.  I shouldn’t rue the choices I’ve made, because always, in some manner, something positive and good comes.  Even if it doesn’t look like it, or seem possible.   Always it does.  Always.

It’s hard to watch the struggle.  I don’t know why so many people don’t believe in themselves.  What is there that can’t be done?  So much can be accomplished if one just tries.  Maybe we don’t know where to start, or how to start, but if we just try, we can get somewhere.  Maybe it’s not the right direction.  Then adjust.  And maybe that’s not quite right.  Adjust again.  Just keep on.  Almost anything is possible.

Of course, this only pertains to the struggle of managing our own lives in the realm of things that can be controlled.  It has nothing to do with the struggle of coping with things that are dumped on us from who knows where for who knows why.  Like cancer.  Or mental illness.  It’s an unfair battle.  The only thing I can see there is to do, for those who are caught in this kind of struggle, is to fight, and keep on fighting.  My heart aches and weeps for the unfair battles like these that people are thrown into.

I’m struggling with my own job of single parenting.  Wanting to nip things in the bud, and not knowing how to.  Wanting to impart harmony and peace, cooperation and consideration.  Not knowing how.

I’m struggling with my own sense of self.  I know who I am, but I wonder if anybody else does.  I spill out pages upon pages of words that describe my emotional being.  I have this cloud of emotion I’m swimming in right now, and I can’t fathom anybody else being able to understand it, and therefore understand me.  And that adds a sense of loneliness to the whole mix.  But why would it even matter if anybody understood what I feel and why?  This is just a part of me.  It’s my own journey.  It’s mine.  Why would a sense of loneliness even surface?  By definition it’s supposed to be singular.  Because it’s just me, and I am only one.  And that, by extension, makes me wonder how togetherness is possible, when it’s almost impossible to completely understand one another.  Maybe that’s the crux of it.  I want to understand (everyone, everything).  And I want to be understood.  It seems that I want the impossible, therefore the crushing awareness that what I want I can’t have.

I don’t know.  I’m blathering on about I don’t know what.  Today is my departed brother’s birthday.  Probably that has much to do with what I’m thinking and feeling.  He would be 44 today.  I miss him.

And I’m tired.