Are You Ready for The New Year?

I have never been as aware of my thought processes during the holiday season as I have been this year.  I have often ignored much of my life where blatant or obvious emotion was concerned because I probably was not  strong enough to face whatever my thoughts were at the time. This I believe is probably the source of the holiday blues phenomenon.

I can identify with Lewis Carroll's character Scrooge more now, than ever in my life.
When I was little, I just thought he was a mean man who was getting what he deserved, being scared to death by three ghosts. Then, I grew up to be a lot like him.

I believe that there is a little bit of Scrooge in every adult.
In that, we are all frightened by our ghosts of Christmases-past, present and future at some point or another.  And most of us have a lot more to deal with than three. (Trust me on this, I'm speaking from experience). Add to that,  the ghosts of Thanksgivings and New Years to the mix, and you have a ghostly party that would drive the most sane appearing of us absolutely beserk.

After what I've been through this past year, my ghosts have been boogeyin' in my face this whole holiday season.  Actually, they've followed me around, the entire year.  Some of them I've shooed away, some of them I've made friends with, and still others wait in the wings for me to recognize or notice them.

I'm not sure what events will present themselves to me this year. But, I know that come what may, if I'm courageous enough to look my ghosts in the eye, I'll get through it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Illusion of Christmas

It seems like we go through our loves creating illusions...society as a matter of fact supports this while we ignore many of the painful truths that exist today.  I guess this is a way of coping. But, eventually the realities of life are distined to bite us all in the butt, if we choose to close our eyes to them and ignore them for too long. Harmful reality.

Harmless, illusions exist.  But many people don't make a distinction between harmful and harmless. 

One of the most common illusions during Christmas that of Santa Claus.  Many people state that they don't tell their children that Santa Claus brings their gifts...after all why should he get all of the credit if he's not real? One of the most difficult things about growing up in this country today, I think, is that children are forced to face reality way too early.

With a country at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, global warming and a messed up economy...why should our children be saddled today, with the burdens that adults who claim to be grounded in reality created?  I know that I bought my sons things for Christmas and  if thinking that a fat guy in a red and white suit magically worked his way to our rooftop with a bunch of reindeer and rudolph leading the bunch, and that he shimmied down the chimney with his gifts makes him happy...I can delay the truth for a while.

Children deserve the luxury of their fanasies...

Being Sad

I'm not sure I like blogging.

My daughter told me not to put too much of myself on the internet because of the ways people view stuff like this.  I don't really care how people view things. Just because someone else thinks that this is not a good thing to do doesn't mean that it's not.  I'm sad a lot.  I don't like being sad.  And with the statistics regarding depression in this country, I bet a lot of other people are sad but don't say anything and are afraid to talk about it.  (Look at Michael Jackson...and Rush Limbaugh). Blogging my feelings has been very therapeutic and I'm just really getting into doing this.

We, live in gravely dysfunctional society. With dysfunction often comes distortion of the truth.  We don't particularly like the truth.  I don't think my sadness comes from depression sometimes as much as it comes from coming to terms with the way this society runs things.  And I can probably be happy regardless of what is... orhappens around me. But I ruminate about stuff alot.  Maybe I look too closely at the state of things or identify too much with other people's troubles.

We live lies everyday and go on with our daily lives ignoring it.  Or, behaving like it's the truth or...we don't even attempt to distinguish between what is true and what is not.

When I saw Obama make his Pulitzer speech this morning I was a little dismayed. He must feel like a real hypocrite.  I mean how do you win a Pulitzer peace prize and justify tanking up a war all at the same time?
As much as I love Barack Obama, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes or Michelle's for that matter, right now. or Malea's and Sasha's.  It must be hard as hell being the first black president in a country as racist as this one. And the thing is, many people get mad if you say that the country is racist.

Our country was built on racism...and people get an attitude if you say it out loud.  Some people would say that I'm un-American for saying that.  It's not an opinion though.  I'm going by what I see.  Especially in the way that Barack Obama is treated as president.  It's sad that the best and the brightest in this country appear to be the most closed-minded. The moral majority...Republicans.

What exactly is American anyway?

That's enough to make anybody sad if you really think about it.

My House

My house is a mess.  Not only my spiritual and emotional house, but my physical house.  I don't know why I feel the need to explain my madness to the world.  I am beginning to realize that the basis of this blog is guilt.  Just like everything else that I do in my life.  I don't owe the world and explanation for my madness.  It's not the world's business.  I don't owe the world anything.

It has taken me up until now to figure that out.  Does the world explain to me why it is in such a mess? No.
I just have to live in it.

I keep apologizing for being me, when I am a gift to the world.  

Now, that's really insane.

Self-Compassion

At times, I'm going throughout my day and a feeling of abject sadness comes over me out of the blue...no pun intended. I've always mistaken this feeling for grief of something past, maybe a lack of love or compassion for myself.

But, while journaling the other day I decided to look up the exact meaning of compassion in the dictionary.  It is defined as: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. After thinking about it for a few minutes,  I realized, that I do have compassion for myself and I have the desire to alleviate my distress.  But the sadness comes attached to a helplessness as to how to do this for myself and perpetuates, this paroxysmal depression and misery. It is a state of mind that feels impossible to correct.  It is equivalent to "the faith without works is dead" phrase that I hear church people quote from the bible all of the time. Can you make that connection?

Then I looked up the word empathy (1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it 2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner). This chilled me through and through. Then, after thinking about this, I realized that I have a tendency to transfer all of my compassion for myself to other people by overempathizing with them.  That's why it's so difficult for me to take care of myself.  What a revealing, but painful breakthrough.

Where do I go from here?

How Do You Choose?

At 51, I kknow that I have choices. I can if I want...I don't have to...Maybe I'll.  How do you choose what is good and right for you?  I know that if you choose what is good and right for you, then, what is good and right for others will come about at your behest. That's a huge guarantee, but I still have trouble choosing what is good and right for me. For one, because I still have a warped sense of entitlement, and two, I just feel guilty when I go to try to choose what is good for me and exclude the opinions of other people, including my children? Then, is it good for me, if I don't consider the people who are not capable of making their own decisison?  Everything, that I have done or decided to do was based on how it would effect my ability to care for my children.  It's basically just been me, them and God. And so, what do I do?

I have been hearing the phrase "your still young"... since I was 20. Okay, so when do you get old and when is it too late, to live your dream life?  Probably when you're dead...

I guess that's when it's too late, when you're dead. 

So, I will continue to try to choose what is good and right.  For me first, and hope that it will benefit others.

This issue came to me this morning because, I visited someone with cancer yesterday.  The person was so distraught.  Questions about her life came to the fore, that the person had never thought to ask herself. She discovered early signs of the cancer because she was taking care of her disabled son.  She, felt so guilty because she had not gone to the doctor earlier... But she was taking care of her son.  I talked to her for a long time, until the tears came...

I hugged and consoled her.  But, I wanted to know more about her cancer.  What type of treatment she was getting, what type of cells her tumor consisted of  and how they might react to the cancer and radiation she was getting, so that I could better help her with her symptom management.  I felt so helpless, despite my ability to give her comfort and support...

So, I thought maybe I should go back to school so I can help other people too.  I enjoy nursing and oncology is my specialty.  And I'd like to learn more about cancer.

I have decided to write.  Can I do both? Or am I trying to accomplish too much? Will I neglect my son in the process? What will I add to the world if I go to school? What will I take away? Am I trying to escape something?

Probably.