Diarrhea of the Life

As much as I hate to admit it, I need to focus on something other than trying to make enough money to pay my bills and my car insurance. I'd be lying if I were to say that I didn't desparately need those things.  I'd also be lying if I denied that it was my fault that I don't have the money to pay them But, that is not the point.It's not the point because, I could dwell all day and night on my present situation and how I got here.  I knew that if I quit my job without having another one and did not get another job right away, that I would face some financial difficulty.

I was facing financial difficulty anyway while I was working my but off.

I need to focus on something else. My situation is out of control and out of my hands, even though I created it. I'm not upset that I created it  I'm tired of trying to climb out of it. It's like trying to dig your way out of grave with a fork I'm not dead. Nevertheless, I'm tired as hell of digging.

So, what do I do?  I created this mess, as I have most messes in my life. Most of the time I've resolved the messes or cleaned them up, just to find myself facing another one not to long after. If there is diarrhea of the mouth, then I have had diarrhea of the life.

Is there a cure other than death? I think so.  One of the cures is to sit and wait rather than just grab any solution that comes by. To slow down and think about the action that you want to take and why you want to take it.Not act out of desparation or desire for approval or hurry to get comfy. Thinking...I think, taking things in stride and considering is the cure.

I'm putting my fork down right now and will thinkuntil a more efficient way to get out of this hole comes to me.

Lady in Waiting

I've decided that I have to wait for the things that I really want. Wait.  That word has taken on a whole new meaing for me and I wait...on another level.  What am I waiting for?

Not sure.  I am waiting to calm down and not be so appalled by what I see going on in the world today. The corruption and dishonesty.  A culture where people are more determined to hate than to love.  A world where people are so much more willing to embrace a lie rather than the truth.  The frightening part about this is that people can tell the difference between a truth and a lie...they would rather believe the lie if they think it's beneficial.

I am waiting, not to care about it.  Or to realize that I can care about it but not do anything about it.  I am waiting for God to come down and say,  "Okay, you guys...this thing that I created...Life...I was just kidding. "It's really an awesome and pleasant experience and you guys get to go to paradise...no holds barred.".  God is going to do that one day...just probably not today.

I am waiting to be understood.  I am waiting to understand.  I am waiting to get this unconditional love thing perfectly correct...How do you do that again?  I am waiting for people to say...Okay...I was wrong.  Let me get this right.  I am waiting for human beings to behave as intelligent and civilized as they claim to be and stop trying to compete with God.  I plead no contest.  I am waiting to be happy.  I am waiting to create.  I am waiting to be financially sound.  I am waiting to be the person that God would have me to be.  I am waiting.

We are all waiting.  Except many of us don't know it.  I know because everytime I slam into a proverbial brickwall in my life, I have to wait.  Sometimes I have to wander until I find the gate... the opening and sometimes I wait until the gate...the opening miraculously appears.  I am waiting.  I don't want to wait.  But, somehow, I know that sometimes that is what is necessary for me to do. Wait.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

50 Things That I Am Thankful For

1. Life
2. My children.
3. My Father.
4. My sisters and brothers.
5. That I can type this.
6. That I will soon be gainfully employed.
7. That I am an independent thinker.
8. Books.
9. That I can see.
10. My nieces and nephews.
11. My nieces and nephews children.
12. That I know who Obama is.
13. That I can drive.
14.  That Sarah Palin is not President
15. Twelve step programs.
16. The ride to Boston.
17. Jesus and his wisdom.
18. That I know that there is a God.
19. That I appreciate being here on earth.
20. That I am not trying to travel to Mars to live.
25. That I love to write.
26. That I know how to write.
27. That I am African american.
28. That I see beauty all around me...even when no one else can.
29  For quiet time, prayer and meditation.
30. For Stormy and Zora.
31. That I can walk.
32. That I can laugh.
33. That I got a chance to spend time with my family in Boston.
35. That I can dream.
36. For Agatha and Sam.
37. For food.
38. That I don't live in China.
39. That I don't live in a Third World country...but even if I did, I could probably be able to find 50 things to be thankful for.
40. Joe and Yolanda.
41.That I live in a house.
42. Possibilities.
43. That God loves me.
44. That I discovered Theresa of Avilas Interior Castle.
45. Creativity.
45. The moon, the sun, the stars.
46.To have known and lived with Nana, Mother, Aunt May.
47. Warmth.
48. Socks.
49. People.
50. The holidays.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

I've Lost That Bloggin' Feelin'

I was kind of excited when I started this blog.  That was when my life was going the way that I wanted it to. Most days I don't feel like blogging.  Now things ain't goin' like I want them to. I often sit in the corner in life when things aren't going my way and wait till someone says it's okay to get up.Things just can't always be the way you want, that is just life...in living color.

My thing is to try to take things in stride.  As I'm writing I'm thinking..."if things were always the way you wanted them to be, what would you have to strive for...what would be your motivation for making your life better?" I'm surprised that the question came to mind.  But, it has always been adversity that has spurred me to action.  Now, I'm learning to wait in the face of adversity.  Wait until I know it is adversity. Wait until I know what  I can learn.  Wait until I know what it is that I want. Just wait...Sometimes that is what you have to do.

It is hard to wait sometimes.  It's hard to wait when you are hungry...when the bills aren't being paid and your're lights stand to be turned off.  It's hard to wait...to even develop the courage to follow your dreams.
But, I keep getting the message to wait...even in circumstances as dire as mine.  The most difficult thing to do is to follow this bidding. I don't know where it's coming from.  It's just instinct. I guess.

What do I want?  I remember taking off with my life and just running with it when I was younger.  I had know idea where I was going...just an idea of where I wanted to go...No idea how to get there.  The thing is even if you know where you want to go...there are no guarantees in life. So, does it even help to know or is having and idea enough?  I read in the paper a couple of weeks ago about a young woman who wanted to be an actress her entire life. When  she got old enough she went to Hollywood and landed jobs doing commercials and took off with her career.  She decided a few years thereafter, that she wanted to be a doctor to help people.  Go figure.  I suspect that she learned to make a distinction between her job and her calling...

I am waiting...I will wait.

Question Marks

What if Man is able to colonize Mars?  What if the guy who got convicted on only one count of terrorism gets out of jail in 20 years? What if we are able to make fake sperm and women are able to have babies without men? What if Sarah Palin wins in 2012? What if black peopl stop shooting each other? What if the Repuplican party developed compassion? What if the Democratic party developed guts?  What if global warming simply progresses faster and faster.? What if scientists could stop the aging process?  What if for every trick of technology there were no adverse consequences.? What if we could grow human beings like we grew corn? what if the economy improved? What if China wasn't going to take over the worls?  What if Africa came to its' senses and treated each other like brothers and sisters?  What if Spiderman was real? What if Will  Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith weren't married and didn't have Jaden and Willow?  What if life was easy? What if all stores had free items?  What if you could just knock on someone else's door and ask them for food and they give it too you? What if it rained hard for 40 days and 40 nights? What if animals could talk?  What if  fish had dominion over the world?  What if everyone woke up one day and was another race or color? What if there was no red Koolaid. What if the sky was teal? What if there were no God? What if there is a God? what if animals could talk?  What if  people actually strived to understand themselves?  What if we could outsmart cancer cells?  What if there is a cure for cancer and men supress it? What if America wasn't so greedy?  What if  the human life span was only 6 months? what if we only had two fingers and two toes?  What if we lived  constantly asking ourselves, what if?

Not Feeling So Groovy

Ever since I quit my job, I've being going through some type of weird emotional up heaval.  At this point, my bank account balance is 0.60 cents.  My electricity is about to be cut off, and I have been struggling to find people to give me references because my boss at my last job-- who offered to give me a good reference-decided not to.  I would be upset but I made the decision to quit my job without having another one, because I needed a breather.  A long breather.  And, frankly, I'm not ready to go back to a steady job.  Not now, maybe not ever.

We are enslaved in this world by materialism.  That's is the purpose for most peoples choice of proffesion and work.  Altruism has gone the way of the dinosaur.  And most people work to support a lifestyle.  I just can't do it, not anymore.  Not for anyone, not for anything.   That is too superficial a way to live. .

I've done it., but I never really achieved that "bling" status that most people are looking for. I will be struggling to eat if I don't land a job soon.

I've always had a plan.  But after so many plans, you find that life happens at it's own pace and decides at the last minute to take it's own course sometimes.  I'm tired.  I talk to people and it seems that the words go right past them without ever making an impact on me or them.  We are a bunch of  capitalistic zombies, just walking around lookng for the next heart to rip out and chow down on.

I know that this seems grim.  But, in the war of spirits.  The battle is on.  I haven't given up or given out.  My issue is that the courage of my convictions have resurfaced at an odd time in my life.  I looked at my daughters facebook page yesterday and she had writtten,
"In a world where you can be anybody but yourself..."
My response was,
"To be anyone but yourself, is to live life as a coward".
She replied,
"Yes!"

By Jove, I think she's got it.!
The truth is,  it is impossible to be anyone but who you are. We betray ourselves when we refuse for our own reasons- or societies, for that matter- to honor that.

My cable was turned off Saturday. My lights may be turned out today.  I may be evicted from my home tomorrow.  
I'm still me and I'm still here.


I

Time....

I wonder why people often say...I don't have time.  I've discovered (by accident I might add) that there is always time.  As a matter of fact, time is all we have...I mean what else is there.  We're using up all, the air, all the water...you can't use up all the time. You know why? Because, time is infinite... there will always be some. If there is always some, then how can there ever be none?

I made this observation, because even though I don't have a job and have eliminated the bosses and co-workers from my life that annoyed and irritated me to no end, I still have a tendency to rush.  I noticed that yesterday.  I stopped journaling and started to do work on mturk and odesk and I was rushing to the computer like I thought the world would end if I didn't reach it in time. 

What this tells me is that people pleasing is a long standing habit that I have developed from birth.  It is embedded in the very fabric of my personality and soul and I need a people pleasing exorcist to get it out. It really gets on my nerves.  Now, you ask, "What's wrong with people pleasing? I mean so many people walk around talking about pleasing God ...Looks like you gotta try to please somebody."

What's wrong with people pleasing versus pleasing God is that God is a lot easier to please than people are.  People are never satisfied, especially when the source of all their gratification comes from outside of them.  I don't have to do a heck of  a lot to please God.  He, She, We, They, It just wants me to acknowledge Him, Her, Them, Us.  How many people do you know are happy with the fact that you just know that they exist?   I can't think of one.

Anyway, I want everyone or anyone who reads this to know that I really missed my blog and pretending to have a captive audience.  Well, I do have a captive audience.  But, that's another blog.  Much love, peace...I see you!

Okay...My Daughter...Again

She returned yesterday to get her stuff.  I felt a slight relief and I felt kind of sad.  I had walked around earlier in the day trying to inventory her stuff. She was so attached to her stuff that when she left all of those things, I was incredulous.  But, I left as much of her posessions the way they were. (Except, I broke my thong sandles and borrowed a pair of hers to wear around the house.  I'd hoped she wouldn't notice.  If she did, she didn't say anything).

I looked at the back stilletos that are lined up against her wall in her room.  I remember leaving many places in a hurry in my life.  I've always left in a hurry, without thoroughly planning where I'm going.  I've ended up here...Where the hell am I?

Actually, I'm not sure wether I should answer that question now or save it for another blog post.  I'll save it.  On with my daughters stuff. I used some of her gel yesterday on my hair because the curl q's in my head were coming undone.  I wondered if she'd notice.  I had borrowed a pair of her earrings and I'd slept in her bed, trying to preserve some essence of my daughter.  I don't know why...it's not like she's ceased to exist.

But  do I really want her back?  The way that she was?  When she came to get her stuff, I noticed a distance that between us that I'd never felt before.  I took a bath when she came.  I had been napping and it was noon and I ran some hot bath water and sat there for a while.  I got out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel and she came to my room door and asked me if she would give me a hug.  I told her to just give me a kiss on the cheek because I was in dispose. 

She walked into the room, kissed me on the cheek and proceeded to look for the cat that she begged me for and then left for me to take care of.  I don't remember wether she kissed me or not. 

I suppose I still have a little anger at my daughter because she left all of a sudden like.  A sudden breaking a way that I was neither warned of nor was ready for.  One thing that I have to realize is that it's not her fault. I had been preparing myself for this break all my life.  But, not so abruptly.  But, how can you really prepare for any event in life? Life is so full of unexpected stuff and twists and turns.

She's growing, I suppose.  And I will be glad for the day when...if. Maybe, I should just be glad for this day...is

Rimes and Reasons?

What is the point to this blog.  I'm not sure.  I just know that it feels awesome write in an open forum and leave it.  Maybe, someone will benefit, maybe not.  I like blogs that help people.  Blogs that people talk about things in that help and give valuable information. I do not like blogs where you think someone is trying to impart good information and then they are just trying to get you to buy something or get you on their network marketing team.

The internet is full of phony, lonely people who put their life on display because they want to just...well...MATTER.  (Oh hell! Am I one of those people? Probably.  I'm definitely alone alot but not necessarly lonely.  I like being alone...people get on my nerves sometimes.)

Anyway.  I really couldn't think of anything profoundly meaningful to write so I just decided to write this.  And if you read it...okay.  If you don't you won't know what I said anyway...so, okay too!  I like blogging...the tap tap of my fake fingernails on the keyboard and the quiet solitude and the fact that I'm writing is enough for me to continue.

Plus, it's just good writing practice.

And it helps me keep up with myself...(Sometimes I can't make out the scrawl in my journal, especially on a bad day.)

I'm going to go make some priorities...I think I'm scared of priorities...I'm going to clean my house.

Salon

I am sitting in a salon, waiting to get my hair twisted. i have been promising myself that i would loc my hair, but i kept chickening out. I am told by the hairdresser that i have to let my hair stay unwashed for a year. Not sure that i can hang with that. I'm not that disciplined. Well maybe i am more disciplined than i thought. Maybe i can learn some semblance of discipline. I will see. The hairdresser's name is Rea. I really don't think that the keyboard of a samsung was made to blog on but, trust me, i am trying like hell. At this point my thumb hurts. But i'll keep trying...

My Daughter Again?

When I was raising my daughter, many people would tell me that they preferred to raise boys rather than girls.  I begged to differ on many occasions and although I thoroughly enjoyed raising my girl child I now understand why they say this...

MY DAUGHTER HAS GONE STARK RAVING MAD!

She is disrespectful, angry and downright hateful.  I asked her yesterday if she was hiding something from me. ( Because that's how she behaved when she was a teenager and was hiding things from me.The thing is, she's 24 and I suspect she is.  I texted her.  Boy did she get mad! She said I was picking fights and that wasn't going to make the cut.  All of sudden she seems to have turned into a total stranger overnight.

She accuses me of doing things that I didn't do.  Because, I ask myself...Did I do that? Like my car broke down and I asked her if she could loan me her car for work.  She loaned me the car and I used it for about a month. Then, she demanded it back.  I told her that I would return it and just buy  myself a new car.  She says forget it and buys herself a used car and tells me that I can keep her car.

Then she says that I wasn't going to return her car anyway.  She fabricates reasons to justify her actions and does not take responsibility for anything.
Nothing I can do about it or her.  I'd like to slap her.

She is staying over her aunt's house right now. She didn't take all of her things.
She only took some of them.  I wish she'd come get them all because the prospect of her showing back up on my doorstep on a regular to get anything is just too painful. I've made more sacrifices or this child than either of my other children.

I don't feel that she owes me, I don't appreciate her attitude towards me.

Deja vu. It's me and my mom all over again.  The difference is, she doesn't know me well and has created in her head who she thinks I am based on what my family says about me.  I tried to get to know my mom but she wouldn't reveal to me who she was.  She's my mom and I'm still me.

I don't like her.  I wonder if I will like who she becomes? 

The Single Step

Yesterday, I decided that I would become a writer.  Just like that?  No.  I've been agonizing over this for the last 44 years.  Ever since, I could write.  I didn't pursue it because I was afraid.  I didn't think that I could be successful.  And plus, my family had decided that I should go to medical school and become a doctor.  I wanted to at first, but I was afraid to pursue that too and after a while, I started getting involved in too many other things: raising a family,  a nursing career, trying to make lots of money...

I'm the ripe old age of 52 today.  I have been such a malcontent.  I mean 16 years ago I moved to Georgia and it has been no picnic trying to carve out an existence down here.  The culture is vastly different from home, which is Massachusetts.  And though I've adjusted, I've never felt completely a part of. 
But, I've had difficulty feeling completely a part of anything in my life.  It's not that I'm that different from anybody else...well, I don't know what it is.

I want to write as more than an outlet.  I would hope that I could publish a book or two. If they never become bestsellers that's fine with me.  I just want to publish.  My brother, who is a Vietnam vet, recently wrote an autobiography and found a publisher for his book.   He said that one publisher said that they could not handle the content in the book.  I am almost reading my brothers novel and the truth that he tells in that book is intense.

See, that's the thing about this society.  We have so blurred the lines between tactfulness and outright lying that people can't recognize the beauty in telling the truth.  I want to follow my brother.  I want to do what he does....in my own way.

So, I sit here.  I'm not sure exactly how to proceed except, that I will proceed.  I don't know wether I will be successful in my endeavor or not, but I haven't defined what success is for me yet. 

I am beginning my journey of a thousand miles....

Okay...My Daughter Myself?

an lions and tigers and bears and o my? i just had a fight with my daughter about her disrespectfulness and how she behaves towards me and i became enraged and hit her windshield with my fist as she drove.  fortunately, neither the windshield nor my fist broke.  i was really upset with her but decided that  i would stop being upset with her because I am just wasting my energy and storing up bad karma for myself.

The argument was about the fact that she was disrespectful.  Of course she didn't take too kindly at my calling her disrespectul After all, she's 24.  She says she is staying with A this week and I told her that maybe she should just move in with her auntie. I think she is.

I will miss her as she. But what I think I really will miss is she as she was.  I vibrant and loyal teenager the yes mommied me into the rebillious and resentful 24 year old that she is now.

I often recount to myself how eager I was to have a little girl, despite the fact that I thought she was going to be a little boy.  My determination to avoid the creation of the same relationship that I had with my mother, basically resulted in my recreating my relationship with my mother. Despite my efforts to give her all of the love and attention that a mother could give, she now voices the same complaints that I had?

How could this be?

I've heard throughout my life that if you don't know your history, you are doomed to repeat it. I'd say even if you know your history...you are doomed to repeat it...in one way or another.  I believe that we are on a crash course with fate the day that we are born. (But, Ill save that for another post). The forces of genetics. and learned behaviorare just too strong to override.  Regardless, I can still choose to do somethings differently.
One of the thing is to let go of my daughter.  Another thing is to cling to God, and  myself.

I'm still a little hurt by some of the things that my dughter said to me.  But, I'll get over it.  In the meantime,  I get to learn some new skills like: continuing to t take care of myself, loving her  and wishing her the best.

scattered and confused and continued

what  i realize is that much of my life has been grounded in fantasy and the future... when this or that happens, the cinderella complex.  and then they lived happilly ever after....after they graduate school, get a good job, get married, have children and buy the house with a white picket fence, plus or minus a dog, cat and/or hamster. i've strived to do all of those things.  all my life i've been like a five year old at a tap dance recital looking out at the audience with a big grin and waiting for a standing ovation... while tripping over my tap shoes.

and somehow, i've grown into a fifty year old who has traded in her tap shoes, taken a bow with her back to the audience and walked off stage...so now what?

i no longer have my future or my self esteem, grounded in what i do or own or associate with.  i've plucked my life out  by the roots.  and i've decided to recreate my identity from the ground up. so who am i without all that stuff? t we not only are born with  but acquire more as we walk this lifes journey so that we can look good to everyone else.  we all walk around with blankeys of fantasy that we keep patching up with bits and pieces of reality depending on what we are willing to accept and deal with. (I'm convinced that everyone on earth lives this way..  I'm tossing my blanky too... at fifty two, you don't really need one if you know who you are ( well maybe I need to hold onto mine a little longer. it has served me well). and even with the uncertainty, i'm totally willing to brave the elements with out it.

okay, so what happens when you detach from all this stuff.?..addictions are what they are. money, food, houses, clothes...planes, trains, automobiles.  my addictions are the house that i live in but don't own, coffee, the internet, people pleasing, reading, dissarray, sugar, and other foods, music used to be one of my addictions.  i still listen to it but i am no longer one with the beat. i can love it without depending on it. also.  so far i've managed to wean myself off of coffee.  it is rough.  i don't like the taste of it anymore as my body detoxes and when i get upset or want to finish a project it doesnt help to have a cup of coffee by my side anymore.

writing used to be an addiction but now it's a passtime.  it's almost like a magic mirror that puts me knows to knows (nose to nose) with myself wether i like me or not.  so now i build an identity.  why?  i've always worked hard to hide and be invisible.  maybe, i'll just stay in hiding. what do you need an identity for when people go around stealing them all of the time?

scattered and confused

i'm in virginia with my long lost friend. i met her when i was about 20 and we've been friends ever since.   that was about 32 years ago.  she's another one of those people that i kept asking back then, why she wanted to be my friend. my self-esteem was so low, at the time,  i couldn't imagine that anyone would want to be bothered. i don't remember what she said, but we're still friends. she made me laugh and infused me with courage and wisdom that she had developed from many of the trials and tirbulations that she had experienced in her young life. she's only 4 years older than i.

i hadn't seen her for 12 years, didn't know where she lived and one day my daughter was sitting on the couch reading to herself, a plaque that hangson the wall in the living room. it reads,"  some people walk into your life and quietly go. while others stay awhile and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same"... .  i said to my daughter ."do you know that k gave me that  when i was leaving boston?"  and my daughter replied " really...where is she?"  " i don't know," i sighed "i sure wish i could find her. "  my baby girl  proceeded to do some sleuthing on facebook and the rest is history.

(i hadn't quit my job yet). 

anyway, i was talking to k a couple of days after i quit my job and she said i seemed scattered.  " i am", i admitted.
and i wasn't sure why except, i had made a couple of important decisions besides quitting my job (and that's a whole novel in and of itself).  one was that i would focus more on my insides than my outsides and that i would attach myself to the ephemeral and eternal and begin to slowly detach from  the earthly and temporary.  i did not know why i made that decision, nor did i know the magnitude of the decision that i made.

thus...  scatttered and confused.
everything that we identify ourselves with makes us who we are.

if we shed those things then who do we become?  initially, we become scattered and confused...(to be continued).

First, I Quit My Job

I don't know what I was thinking for staying on that job so long.  I look now and think back to the harassment and abuse I endured and I must've been out of my mind.  My boss,  was an elderly southern white lady who must've thought we were back on the plantation.  Oops! Have to be careful what I say in my blog, cause the powers that be... the society gods may not be pleased with my comments and forget them.  Okay?

I don't think I was foolish for quitting my job but, many people preobably think I am. But, hey, you can't please all the people all the time.  So, what's next on my agenda.  I'm not sure but I know that I have goals. One, is to write some novels, short stories and plays and poems and get published.  Another is to take all the money that I make writing all of my novels and short stories and plays and poems and travel the world over.  Meet new people,  learn every language that I can speak and just enjoy life in general.  Oh! and help as many people that I can along the way.  To inspire, and be inspired.

Sounds pretty simple, but is it a worthy goal? I think it is. But, where do I start?  Here now.  I just finished reading Susan Jeffers book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.  She suggests you make a life planning grid and update it regularly.  I haven't made my gird yet. But.I will.  It looks like a hard thing to do.  It's probably not that hard but I don't really want to think about my life right now, cause all we are is dust in the wind.  Ecclesiastes and whoever wrote that song must've really  been depressed.

I;ve been described here lately by my closest travelers and companions as scattered and confused.  And as much as I would like to disput that claim, I  have to agree.  I am.  Just that...scattered and confused. Well who wouldn't be at 52 in financial ruins and finding that you don't want to be in the career you've been infor years?  I mean when I came to that realization it was like what the...?  We latch on to our daily lives llike hungry sharks, refusing to let go wether we should rightly have it in our mouths or not.  That's what I was like with nursing and anything else that fell into my lap.( Notice, I said fell into my lap. 

When I blog, It's like having a conversation withsomeone who is not there.  Oe with myself except I can't see my face, just the keyboard, my boobs and my hands.

I'm on my way to where I want to go.  All I need is  Good Orderly Directions.  Which I'm sure that I will find as I continue on this journey.  From here to there.
D

I Am Still Here

Okay, enough of the still already.  I took a little hiatus from blogging my stuff because I thought that it might be a good idea to consider where I might be going with this.  And with the threat of Big Brother looking over my shoulder and damming me from ever doing anything meaningful in my life again, I decided that I needed to consider the consequences of blogging honestly about my life and blogging honestly about my opinions about my life and life in general and the  screwed upness of society.  and blah, blah, blah.

Well, where do I start.  I have made drastic alterations in my life within the past to weeks without really knowing where I'm headed.  I quit my job (without knowing what I wanted to do next. I reconnected with two old friends.  The first was a best frined that I'd lost contact with and the second was an old high school aquaintance that I used to make out with.  (he actually taught me how to kiss...what fun!)  My best friend, I have found is disabled as the result of an accident in which she slipped on some ice.  The high school crush, was just a a teenaged passing fancy, that I'd hoped to date but which never happened.

Well, I talk to my friend every night.  The boyfriend, crush or whatever is more sparadic texting with sexual inuendo and incomplete and unsatisfying conversation.  The last time that I spoke to him, which was the day before yesterday, he talked about his belief in alines.   Oooookaaaayyy!.  I tried to argue him down but could not get a word in edgewise.  He's passionate about extraterrestrials...and when someone is passionate about something...then where hte hell's the argument.  Huh?

My friend and I argue about everything just like we did 52 years ago when we first met.  Her son is grown and she has a grandduaghter.  I have two grown children and one elementary school kid.  The crush decided at some point the he would repopulate the entire northeartern aspect of the United States.  I ain't mad at him.
This is not all that has happened in the last few weeks, when I was not blogging but carefully ruminationg about why I was still working the job that I was on and pondering not only the meaning but the usefulness of life andliving.

I'll stop here for now.  I communicate best, I've found when I'm using my hands.

I'll keep you posted on whatever I decide to do with this blog....Welcome back

Still...Forget It

I didn't succeed in my stillness project.  The thing...you see... was that I was going to be still and come to realizations and revelations that I needed to come to.  I would calm my soul and the sea would cry out and I'd mermaid fantasy my way into reality and ride my fantasy rainbow to a pot of gold and live happily ever after.  Big NOT.  My life is steeped in denial.  Not as deeply steeped as before but, still stewing in it's own juice. 

I looked for answers to my lifes issues that were right there in front of me.  I was trying to be still when it was time for me to move.

I realize now that I was not able to be still because I needed to move out of the position that I was in, circumstances if you will and into other circumstances.  I needed to leave a job, I needed to change my diet and I needed some downtime to take care of myself and realize that wether I'm still or not that time just moves on.  Sometimes, it's necessary to be still and sometimes it's necessary to move.  And so I moved...albeit willingly but reluctantly.

I left a job that I was being held hostage in, I'm working on the diet change (it's difficult), and I'm starting to feel better about the fact that I have to take care of myself.  I'm blogging too...I slowed down or stopped for a minute there.

So, I awaken this morning  to a gray sky.  And sleeping children-an adult girl and a boy child.  I'm not ready to rock and roll yet.  I'm trying to blog.

I have many questions in my mind about many things.  Yesterday, my son went to a birthday party at the Bosnian peoples house.  I reluctantly sent him and he was real excited and enthused about going.  He put on his orange plaid shirt and black fedora and decided that he was going to wear it, regardless of how much cat hair adhered to it..  I was kind of distraught about the fedora but I let him wear it anyway.

A long lost friend that I haven't talked to for twelve years.  A long lost boy friend..or would be...or possible boy friend  that resurfaces.  A returning adult child.  And missed trips to Martha's  Vineyard.  Man do things pile up if you don't clean out your closet periodically.

Peaceful...I'll settle for that.

Damn Those Coffee Gods!

I haven't had any coffee today.  I want some...but the consequences of drinking that stuff are dire...even decaf has it's adverse side effects.  One thing I like about coffee though is the smell...or as they put it on the Maxwell House coffee commercials years ago...the aroma.   I bet if I went to a cafe and just sat there the whole day and sniffed coffee scent I'd be just as happy as if I drank it....NOT.

Coffee makes my stomach burn and I have to take massive doses of ranitidine to keep it from really paining me...not only that I have a stricture in my throat and have to go to the stomach doctor every so often to have it dilitated or dilated or however you want to say it.  Either way, this is probably a result of guzzling massive doses of coffee every day since I was sixteen years old and couldn't seem to motivate myself to get out of bed except for the fact that coffee existed on earth and the coffee gods would beckon me patronize the coffee pot each morning...until I was a basking in a hyperactive euphoria.  Back then I wished coffee cups were bottomless... some days for me they were.

I would walk into the cafeteria at the prep school that I attend..leaving a trail of hardened sleep peeled  from my eyes that I had failed to dislodge with the two minute water splash that  I mistook  for a wash up in the morning.  I couldn't see much through the slits that I called my eyes at that time of morning, but somehow I  feel my way to the coffee cups...grab one and get to the coffee spigot to fill my cup. To offset the bitterness of the coffee, I would add lots of cream and sugar...until I felt it was perfect.  Then I'd stagger to one of the cafeteria tables, look out of the window...(I like to sit near the window) and converse with the java gods until my cup was empty...Boy.  How I miss those days. (It was like meditating).

I sit here today...trying to avoid the coffee pot.  I have run out of coffee and coffee creamer..  When my son made a trip to the store last night I chose between coffee and ice cream...neither of which I should be consuming... in an effort to kick the coffee habit I chose ice cream.  I'm trying to stop consuming sugar because in the land of hyperness...it affects me worse than caffeine...but damn it I love sugar too.

But, that coffee pot beckons to me louder than ever. I can't wait til tomorrow, cause when I go shopping, I'm going to get a big bucket of decaf.  At least then, I'll have a choice as to wether or not I will drink coffee. Maybe...if those coffee gods don't tempt me too much, I'll limit myself to one cup or just two.

Still Trying The Still Project...

Okay, so this is supposed to be day 3 of my still thing.  And I am still messing up  I am logging my stillness or trying to log it in a journal.  But, I didn't journal yesterday.  I hit the ground running because I had not completed my work.  My work from work.  I'm very tired.  And I keep letting my boss talk me into working for her.  I want out.  I really do.  But I guess...not just yet.  I'm not exactly in angst anymore.  I was for a while. I was perplexed about life when I started this blog and what it had to offer or whether it had anything to offer.

I knew that I something to offer. But being pessimistic about life obliterates anything that a person has to offer. (I'm not sure that I even understand what I just said...but I will pick that sentence apart later).
What I'm trying to say is that if you expect life to give you anything without giving anything you won't get much.  Being a pessimist keeps you from giving because pessimism causes anger and resentment and bitterness and unforgiveness and you tend to hold onto things...

I'm not that interested in what the world has to offer anymore because what I found out ibs that you get what you give.  If you give beauty...that's what you get.  If you give ugly...that's what you get. Beauty and ugly avail themselves quite willingly.  It's a natural law of the universe. 

I've learned to enjoy giving without looking for rewards because  the reward lies in giving.  It's the most amazing thing.  But still...I am going to try to still myself for 30 days straight... Again.  I will start over today and see if I can tweak my stillness project to actually work for me.  I think that what I was looking for the first time around was something. I won't look for anything this time and see what comes. 

I'm a little scared this time because I'm not sure what will come and if I let go of my expectations willingly, that means that I'm giving up control of my stillness...which I don't really have control over in the first place.  But, the illusion of control is so strong that it is a part of me.  I have to let it go in order for this to work

STILL...

Still Trying 2

Hard.  That's the only word that I can use to describe trying to be still for 30 days.  The difficulty does not come from being still...it comes from trying to define what stillness is and being.  Humanity is so accustomed to moving around and trying to fulfill it's illusions of reality that we create a virtual world that is destined to crumble from our vivid imaginations of what we thing safety and security is. It is hard to be real...hard to be still.  It's hard to be real still.  I've been moving about like a pot of heated molecules.  I'm boiling.

What made the task of stillness even more daunting is being engaged by my children of whom all three are home.  I wanted to sit, journal, ignore and shush them, but I couldn't.  All extensions of  me (to a certain extent)  I see why I've drivien myself insane for the past 52 years,  I understand why they move around all of the time.  I couldn't shush besides they are a worthy and enjoyable distraction. .  My life has been steeped in vicariousness...which helped me to escape my own personal pain..  I owe my children....infinitely for saving my life.

I'm tired today.  I fell off the sugar wagon and ate browny and donuts.  I was tired before then but after I ate all of those sweet things, the fatigue has descended upon my like so many vultures on a decayed carcass.  It's eating me alive.  So, I need to get back on the wagon and continue my sugar free journey which will make my life much sweeter (only God creates paradoxed like that).

I'm becoming a lover.  A lover of God, life, people, myself and whatever I can gain the courage to face head on.  In the words of the late great Scott M. Peck, "Life is difficult" but in my own words, life is lovely. We have only to look through the fog of our virtual reality to see it.  But most of miss the lovliness, because we prefer fantastical lives and we are rarely if ever silent or still.

I'm going to try my stillness project again.  Starting over.  Today.

Still For What?

I don't feel good.  I'm dying inside.  I don't like this feeling of fatigue and raw exhaustion. Every so often I get angry too.  I got mad at my daughter last night when she said she was going to go live with my elder sister.  I told her not to come back home when I fixed the air conditioner.  I don't think it was so much her going to stay over there as it is she lied about it when I asked her.  "I don't know", she said.  I knew that she was not telling the truth. I felt a little betrayed.  It is so typical of the family that I grew up in.  All of my buttons went in and I told her to stay over there and when I got enough money to fix the air conditioner that she couldn't come back home.

She's twenty five.  She can do what she wants.  I was wrong.

To say that I'm unhappy is an understatement.  Miserable is what I am.  I hate working for this company and I want to move on but am finding it absolutely difficult to move on.  When I passed in my resignation, they held on to my legs and begged me not to go.  I conceded, I regret it.  I need to leave that place.  As long as I'm there I feel bogged and weighed down.  The job is not that hard.  I have allowed everyone to heap their baggage on me. It sucks.

What do I do?  I'm still now.  It does not feel peaceful or good.  As long as I'm on the move, I can't feel anything.  That's what has kept me there.  My job is a dark cloud hanging over my head, raining acid and eating away at my core. My boss doesn't get it. I don't get it.  Who in their right mind would stay still for that?

How can I get mad at my daughter for betraying me, when I keep lying to myself? 

THINK about it.

I Am Still (A Little)

I am still- a little.  I can be still if I want to at will.  I have to focus on myself and forget everyone else. Focus is the key word here.  Anxiety comes when I think about what everyone else needs or how I want the world to be or I enumerate my troubles and worries.  When I think about needing to lose weight or how I'm going to try to fix the upstairs air conditioner or when I think about how diabolical and hateful people are.  When I realize that I cannot eat all of the sugar or drink all of the coffee that I want or can't travel  he world over or keep my house clean.  Or when I realize that God want's me all to himself...

That last one really scares me (Better he than the devil).

More than anything else, when I realize how far away I am from being who I want to be. Well maybe I'm exaggerating- probably not that far.  (I'm a little depressed today I guess, but I can be still).  I don't have to jiggle all over the place emotionally or try to solve all of my problems today, or trying to adjust myself to someone else's liking.( am I a sucker or what)?  ( I do need to go to the pharmacy and pick up some medication that I should have picked up a few days ago though).  It's not like I don't have resources.  I have people knocking at my door asking me to work... but I don't want to.  So, what do I want to do?

Be still.

Still a Gift

If stillness is a gift, that means I can't grab it off of the shelf anytime I want to...I have to wait for it. Someone has to give it too me. Obstacles assault my reception...lack of acceptance of my powerlessness, lack of surrender,  lack of patience.  I wanted to hurry up and be still. To calm the emotional pain and fear.  Stillness is beginning to come to me, periodically for short periods of time.  It is a hard to describe.  The calm of still that I feel is nothing like I've ever felt before.  To be perfectly still is to access a portion of my being that seemed inaccessible.  Still...serenity is present within the stillness, it is like floating on water on my back in a pool and even though you see nothing, you are conscious of everything.  Glimpses of stillness...

I'm not sure that I'm supposed to think of these things.  If I were completely still all of the time, I am sure that my heart rate and respirations would slow to an almost undetectable rate.

I'm tired.

Still?

I'm growing impatient with this stillness project. It shows, though, how little control that we as human beings have...over anything.  I can be still...make a decision, not to decide.  Hold everything in my life that's external in cue...but it's the internal stillness that I crave.  The quiet peacefulness, that allows me to see the world through the Creators eyes, not just my own and to get closer to God.  Why do I want this?

Because I know that my own efforts to guide and live my life are inadequate and inefficient.  Storms in my life don't just come, I tend to unwittingly create them.  Some peoples storms just happen, like when someone gets sick or robbed or someone's house burns down, but I tend to orchestrate mine. The disorder in my life...all the way round.  The conflict with wanting to change careers (actually that is an unexpected storm).  The marriages that I didn't have or thought I had. I have often struggled to control the events in my life. Only to find that the more I try to control, the further control of my life seems to spiral out of reach.

Right now,  today is the worst that I can remember my life being.  My finances, my house, my job, my lack of career satisfaction.  I say that I want to be happy...but what is happiness...really?  I have to be still.  Because, if I keep moving, the mountain of chaos that is my life will come tumbling down on me, crushing and smothering me in it's ruins.

Anxiety begins to greet me each morning staring at me with this big grin on it's face.  It reminds me of that song by Billy Holiday "Good Morning Heartache". Except I don't invite it to sit down...I try to ignore it until it disappears.

I will wait for stillness.  I will wait...In order to wait though I have to increase my capacity to be patient). I thought of stillness as a place to hide at first but it is not a place to hide, it is a place to become visible. (Not sure I understand that paradox).I have experienced small episodes of stillness within the past couple of days, (minutes and even seconds) and I think I know what heaven is like.  But, I have to wait for this gift.  It's difficult but what else can I do?

Except be still. Externally still until...

But Still

I can't continue to work like this. When I say that what do I mean?  I can't continue to bouncing off of walls like this.  I can't continue to work seemingly purposeely. Ican't continue to wander aimlessly through life...doing the same thing over and over and over again and expect different results.  I can't continue to expend my energy and not replenish my energy. 

So, if I can't continue to work like this, how can I continue to work?

I don't know.  That's where quiet, or stillness comes in.  I guess it will come to me.  I don't have the psychic capacity to figure anything out or go with the flow. I'm waiting to hear from the depths of my core and it spits out these   That's where stillness comes in.  I had an experience of stillness yesterday that helped me to understand where my anxiety comes from. I'd had insominia for three nights.

I realize that anxiety comes from deep down inside.  It is triggered by external events.  It's already there.  It takes something external to draw it out.  I can control it. I used to think that I was required to be afraid of any and everything.  Now I know that I'm not required to be afraid of anything. 

Stillness.  I had insomnia and made myself sleep... I think that the thought of being still surrendering frightened me because a part of me thinks that I controls things.  Maybe, it's the little girl part that was made to responsible or blamed for things beyond her control . I don't know.  The things that I should be responsible for I am not responsible for because I'm so busy being responsible for everyone and everything else.  No one asks me to do those things. 

The still life.

I Am Still

I'm not struggling to become still anymore.  I have become still for a few minutes. A haunting still  greeted me this morning when I opened my eyes. A perception of stillness as a negative event, a bad omen or an unwillingness to do anything worthwhile had taken hold.  I often stilled myself out of anger or emotional angst, frustration.  I have used stillness as a weapon out of a need to avenge myself and make people wonder, to confuse. My motives for desiring stillness have changed. I need stillness, I'm not sure why. I just know that I need it. Initially,  I thought "I can accomplish more in stillness, than I can in motion".

But stillness is not about accomplishment.  It just is. And I just need to be.
I'm still a little afraid. As my quest for stillness continues.  I will honor, cherish, savor it.

I  have to remember that it's a gift.  I know that I have forgotten, when I decide what my endpoint will be.   God cannot work on me if I'm running to and fro.  Miracles take place when you're in motion, but if you are moving too fast or too much, they are hard to recognize. So I have to be still....He decides the endpoint.

Still.  I'm a little afraid. It is like fasting from the madness of life .  I've had a steady diet of chaos for the past 52 years of my life.  I need a mental a spiritual vacay.  I sit on the shores of stillness and calm myself as I watch the tide advance and recede.  The gentle cradling of the water and consistent of rhythm of the water swaying back and forth are like a lullaby...they sing me to sleep.

Still...I feel a sadness as I wave goodbye to all those washed out to sea by the demands of a material  that is determined to compete with God. .  I sometimes wonder why it is like that.  Joy sits right in front of us for the taking, yet we so frequently and unknowingly choose misery. Not for ourselves, but for others.  I am on a new path.

I unwillingly visited the doctors office yesterday and I received antibiotics for a sinus infection.  I don't feel well still.  I havent' started the antibiotics either..  When I think of the parts of my life that I have ignored in favor of other things, I begin to wonder what I was thinking.  Or whether I thought at all. How could I have sacrificed myself to so many people, places and things and have nothing to show for it?  I'm tired.  I want to rest but with this job there is no rest.  Now what?  I can't continue to work like this. 

I think...I will continue to be still.

Awakening to Still

It makes no sense to cater to the desires of a world that is blind and has no insights.  Yet, I do it everyday.  My job,  the stores,  modern trends, opinions, politics.  I woke up still this morning, the amazing thing is that my desiet upre to resist the stillness was very strong.  Thursdays, we have meetings at work about the patients.  Not much is really discussed, but I am often called on the phone, to make sure that I dial in.

I set my alarm clock  for 8 am this morning so that I could get up and dial in.  I don't feel well so when my clock alarmed, I got up, shut it off and lay back down for a few minutes.  When I opened my eyes, two hours had passed and the enthusiasm that I thought I'd have from sleeping for a couple of more minutes had not appeared either.  But, in it's place was a sense of peace and I found myself having to choose between savoring that sense of peace and running downstairs, grabbing a cup of coffee( coffee is a real peace breaker) and dialing in to the meeting--hich my contributions are often minimized, non-existent or ignored.  I chose to savor the peace (with guilt and a dysfunctional sense of responsibility trying to nuzzle their way in)

Stillness is not only a way of being, but it is a sense of being. A sense of being that I have rarely if ever experienced before.

Whatever the external consequences of resisting the biddings the world, the internal benefits outweigh them.
Catering to the bidding of my soul takes courage, time and discipline.  The world is averse to peace and stillness and that's too bad.  It doesn't know what it's missing.

I look forward to more stillness...Still.

Stiller

I am ill.  I realized that when I came home yesterday and passed out on the couch for 4 hours against my will. When I awakened, the couch and I were soaked.  I felt like I had gone swimming and didn't dry off when I got out of the pool. I am weak, my legs and chest hurt.  I have no more physical energy. I haven't much of a choice but to be still. ( I won't call my little sister who was sick this weekend and try to tell her what to do. She recently got out of the hospital and was shopping for shoes for my nine year son at Payless when I called her yesterday.  Ay-yi-yi!)

Yesterday, I went to work and I felt horrible while I was working.  On the drive home I kept swerving and I couldn't figure out why. I was dizzy. It's amazing how much of your bodies messages you can ignore.  I've seen people run past themselves right into the grave.  Ignoring all signs and signals of a sick body until the body screamed for attention and then it was too late to answer...no time to mend broken fences, no time to fulfill unfulfilled dreams, no time left.

I'm praying, not to go out like that.  I am still in the process of being still  I have enlisted the help of the Divine, but the final decision belongs to him.  I think that we need times of stillness to stay in contact with God and ourselves.   I lose myself and am constantly rushing past myself and my Higher Power, to do other things. Realizing that my actions are futile without Divine help.  So, still... 

Stillness, would give me a break from the chaos, internal and external, it would keep me in contact with the One who matters most.  And it would give me some insight into my life's instructions.  I already have some insight but I have to work on acceptance.  In stillness, I can focus on accepting my mission.  It's scary. It's more scary when you doubt. That's why I want to be still.  I'm exhausted from expending my own energy through my own will.

Still.

Still Not Still

Stillness is a gift, not a priviledge.  I am learning that the hard way. Not able to still myself, I decided that I would wait for stillness to come, like sleep during the night.  I can feel it waiting in the wings...but what is it waiting for?  Maybe, for a change in my attitude, my motive.  Maybe it's waiting for me to surrender my will more completely, or waiting for me to develop a greater sense of patience rather than harried and harangued urgency at every opportuintiy.  Maybe it's just not time.

I will wait as long as I have to. Previously,  unbeknownst to me this is a process.  The process of becoming still. A process of becoming...still I always thought that I could grab stillness at will. Like a can of soup when I 'm hungry or a glass of water when I'm thirsty...but it's not that way.  Spiritual hunger and thirst has to have a clear path, I guess.  I don't know.  I felt a small bit of stillness today as I was falling asleep on the couch. It was familiar but I forget now what it felt like.  But, I know for a moment I was still. blo
I just continue to sit and wait and watch and blog and take naps until I can recognize still, touch it, describe it. 
Struggling to be still is an oxymoron, that's what I've done in the past.  Struggling defeats the purpose, defeats the process.  I have often thought that not struggling, was being still but it's only not struggling.  I have struggle d throughout my life.  I thought that that was what was required to survive.  Not sure, I ever knew what was required to actually live.  So, I continued to struggle.  If I stop struggling, I'm sure that I will be closer to stillness, but I won't be there yet.

I'll wait.

Still Not...

I'm tired after working a long weekend.  It was only two days...but it seemed like the longest two days of my life.  My back hurts, my body hurts...I ate too much sugar over the weekend,  and drank too much caffeine.  The funny thing is...since I started this stillness experiment,  when I eat, I seem to get fuller faster.  I don't know if it's my imagination or not yet.  But, last night I didn't binge myself like I do when I don't eat all day.  I didn't eat all day yesterday. I didn't want to stop and I was speeding past myself. 

Speeding past myself, is how I have lived for the past 50 years.  The first two were steeped is self-exploration. Maybe the first three.  Anyhoo.  I've done stillness projects before and I could just shut everything out.  But, I can't seem by sheer will just do that now.  I'm not sure why but suspect that it's because I have allowed any and everything to shake me up for so long it's hard to stop moving around.  It's like the world is an earthquake and I'm in the center of it going along for the ride. 

When I used to make myself still it was a resentful, angry type of still sort of like when a baby clamps his lips together to keep you from spooning food in its mouth.  That's the best way that I can describe it.  But, that's how I would keep chaos from making me crazy, I'd just shut down initially accidently but then on purpose.  And now I want to shut down, and I can't, because I have surrendered, my abilities as many as I can to God.

Maybe it's not time. 

I know that my patience meter is about 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.  I didn't realize how impatient I can be until I started this. Now I see.  It's amazing how much of ourselves elude us during a lifetime. ( I think about this when I think about Lois...my best buddy. But, that's another blog post.).

I rememeber a time when I thought that everything was just cut and dry.  It's gone...that time.  Thank God!
I'll just wait for the gift of stillness.  I never thought of it as a gift before.  I always thought of it as a tool.

Wow!

Stiller

I'd like to be quiet.  As quiet inside as I can.  But I'm still interpreting what quietness is, means.  Mystic people call it quietude.  Is that the same that as attitude? Pulcritude? Latitude? Longitude? Maybe...I could call it stillitude. I had to look up the suffix tude...and the definition was state, quality or condition. I started my stillness project again yesterday.   I still have a long way to go.  I am not sure how far I'll get because, when I started doing this a month ago, it only lasted seven days.  I still want to try at though , just to see if I emerge a calmer quieter, more patient stiller person. Shielding myself from the aggravation of the small things in life and being able to face more openly , the big things in life.


But I have many questions in my head still.  What exactly is stillness? Internal stillness?  Is it quieting you thoughts? Is it abstaining from making life changing decisions? I kind of know where stillness is supposed to take me, but I can't really tell what the vehicle that I'm supposed to be riding in looks like? I just know where I want to go.

The Still

I've decided to do a project where I will blog for thirty days straight on being quiet and still and see what I gain...or not.  I mean being inwardly quiet and still  not making snap decisions and not impulsively reacting to every threat that the world brings.  I am OMG'ing myself into an early grave.  Wake up call #1 here recently has been my little sister, my youngest sister...the baby of the family having a spontaneous pneumothorax while trying to run the world.  The One who really runs the world has strongly suggested that my sister take a break while He handles thing.  A badly needed break.

I've had to take breaks from running the world.  I finally quit one day when I realized that I couldn;t prevent the tsunami's, earthquakes and global warming that are constantly shaking things up.  I couldn't prevent the suffering from those disasters either so I figured that I'd let go.  I wasn't doing that good a job anyway. 

One thing that I noticed is that, while I was always buisy, I never seemed to accomplish much and the things that were my responsibility to handle most often went undone.  So while I tried to wish away the disasters of the world, I was creating my own internal disasters, and I realized that with my own internal ruins piling atop one another...I am absolutely useless to myself or anyone else.

So, I sit still, looking deep down into the rabbit hole of my internal being and becoming familiar with what's contained, housed there.  Scary prospect, but the external distractions of life and society more often than not leave many of us staring in the mirrors at strangers. 

I've discovered by default that the most frightening existence in life is one devoid of self knowledge.  I have to be still and quiet so I can familiarize myself with the rhythm of my heartbeat.  That to me is a life still...worth living.

I Reach For Calm

Some mornings I reach for calm and calm eludes me.  I don't know why. It's almost as if I wake up choosing to dance to rhythm of the beat of the world or the beat of my heart.  I think that when I was much younger, I had that energy to dance to both. It appears now that I'm older and beginning to realize that my time here on earth is going to start winding down at some point,  I don't have the energy to dance to both, so I have to choose.  I have danced mostly to the worlds music, which begins to become monotonous at best and plain tedious and boring at worse.  I want to do something other that what I have been doing.  Change course, outlook and just plain old enjoy life...I think that that God put us here for.

The thing about it is that you have more naysayers coming at you when you decide to forge your own path...How you gonna do that? You have to work and pay the bills? Must be nice....Are you rich?
That last one I can answer.  Heck, yeah  am.  We all are.  We just spend so much time trying to achieve goals conceived and rubber stamped by society that most of us don't count or value the riches that we have right there in front of us. 
Heck yeah...I'm rich in love, ideas and creativity.  The world is a big wonderous play ground  and I've been dying to get out there on the jungle gym like I did years ago.  Hoist my knees up over the bars and hang myself upside down so that I can see the world from a different view hang my hands down over my head and continue to reach for calm.

How I'm going to do it.  I don't know.  I just know that I am

A Mean World

I'm perplexed at the lengths that human beings go through to degrade, demean and oppress one another when life would be so much easier if people would love one another.  Love is so much sweeter and flexible than hate.  Yet we choose hate time and time again to lead us to the depths of despair that we know as life.  I look at postings on facebook and twitter. People post words all of the time, but do the really understand the magnitude of what they are saying?  It seems that in modern day time, we are a bunch of cowards parading our bravado in empty words to strangers on the net that can only put a name to an avatar or picture (neither of which may be true). We are going backwards. People began communication by writing by chiseling symbols on cave walls.  We chisel symbols on our laptop screens, but our ability to communicate is decreasing.
How do we teach our children to live in a world where everything is disengenuous and virual rather than genuine and concrete,
And how do people miss the lessons that the past have so diligently and blatantly taught us.
I know I'm talking in general here but these are just morning thoughts after a day of hard work and an evening of mild to moderate partying and fire works, on a fourth of July evening.
I love life and everyone in it.  People who work hard to make others feel "less than",  do it because they feel "less than".  It's hard to see with all of the makeup and fanfare and media and money.  But it is there... up close and personal. if they would only look into the camera lenses and recognize who is staring back at them...Maybe, they would begin to understand the magnitude of the despair that they are working so hard to spread, and then start on the road to becoming happier people.

Vicarious

When I heard someone say, You can only be as happy as your unhappiest child, it brought me nose to nose with the vicariousness in which we parents unspeakably live our lives.  Raising children is more often than i admit wrought with unspoken expectations of perfection and ultimate illusional control, with I have unknowingly saddled my children with` knowing that not I nor any other human being will ever achieve.

My heart bleeds for my unhappiest child and when i look in his eyes, I see more of my past self, youth than I do of his.  I had trouble remembering as he approached his 21st birthday, that though he came from me, resembles me (mentally and emotionally and spiritualy) at that age, he is not me. Though I hate to admit it, he is a separate person from me. Entitled to ive his life in whatever way he chooses and also prone to making mistakes--just the way that I consistently and often vehemently reminded my mother and when I was a young girl.

The similarities are that I was very rageful and defensive.  Just like he is.
I had extremely low self esteem--I declared myself a certified mysogenist, which I thought was cool--just like my son...(Until I later discovered that I was included in humanity. Feeling kind of defeated  just decided to admit I hated myself too-- for some reason it didn't bother me back then). I was arrogant --just like my son.  I felt that having a high IQ made me smarter than everyone else--and entitled to consider but disregard anyone else's opinions or feelings everyone was else unworthy to be in my company ( those were some of the loneliest years of my life--.just like my son). I didn't know that I was miserable at the time and thought that that was how life just happened--to be. Hell, just like my son.

And then, I started to grow up.

What I've learned since then is that you have to work at life, it doesn't happen to you. We do and always have happened to life. I can be as happy as I want to be.  It took me a long time to realize that I could choose happiness.  It is taking my a lifetime to discover HOW to choose happiness.

I don't have to bask in the indefinite oil spill of misery and haphazard process ultimate self discovery that my son is going through.  That is his process.  I've had my own time to do that.  I can only help him navigate his way through life's disasters, if he will allow me to..  One of the most difficult things about parental vicariousness is understanding that our children are and have always been separate human beings. I don't believe that the purpose of raising children is to make them the sacrificial lambs, to cleanse of all our past msitakes.

The life that some parents claim that they give to their children, ibelongs indeed, to their children. I have to admit, that I sometimes have difficulty remembering this. I also have difficulty remembering that: I am different from my son.  I am female-unlike my son. I am 52 unlike my son.  I have a career-unlike my son. I grew up in a two parent household -unlike my son. I've raised three children-including my son.

Our journeys may be inexorably linked as parent and child,  but not our destinies. He is
entitled to his own life, his own mistakes, his own misery, his own happiness. I confidently wait for the day when he makes his best choices on his own behalf. As, I have struggled  to learn to do.
.

My Dysfunction

It is the most disastrous and dysfunctional enviroment i've ever worked in but the cuddlefish in me says that I'm gong to just stay here blend in and make myself comfortable. By the way, that cuddlefish moved every which way...But the environment was not the right one.  The scientists even moved the environment around to see if they could elicit, the correct response but no way. Cuddlefish lesson #2: NO ONE IS COMFORTABLE IN A DYSFUNCTIONAL ENVIRONMENT-not even the people who are the source of the dysfunction.

I have often been used to chaotic environments and felt alive and well in them.  I don't like dysfunctional environments anymore but my low self-esteem still whispers softly (but less frequently) to me, you deserve to be abused and used and besides these people need you to make themselves feel like big people because you are smarter than they are and it makes them feels like kings and queens to try and control you and if they take the time to be bothered with you at all you owe them because you  are insignificant. (I don't really believe this anymore but old habits die hard and so do old belief systems),  So, is that nuts or what?

I have given so much of myself away so often that it has been a way of life  I've gotten better at preserving my emotional and spiritual integrity,  but in no way have I mastered the skill.  I keep looking around for people to love me and take care of me but, even when I find them, they can't give me the love and care that I feel that I need. Besides, everyone's definition of love is changing and evolving at different speeds.  That's why it's important to love yourself first, that way you can define love in whatever way you want.

I am perfectly capable of loving and taking care of myself but oh what a difficult task.  I will keep working at it until the day my heart stops beating and my lungs collapse. <~~~~~(Extreme do or die statement).
One of my favorite sayings is: "It's a long road from here to there"...I'm closer but I am no where near:THERE.

My Internal Cuddlefish

The other day i watched a short video about a cuddle fish.  a cuddle fish is  jelly fish octopus like fish that can change it's skin to fit any environment-the color and the texture... in the sea that is.  The video showed the fish in varied  environments changing the texture and the color of its skin.  When white rocks were  placed in the environment. It was even able to mimc the color of the rocks and the sand it was on.  But when scientists took a piece of fabric and placed it under the critter, it tried real hard but was not able to mimic the fabric accurately.  It changed the color and size of it's stripes but was only able to mimic to a certain extent and never really got the stripes right.
So, it was only able to blend in ,  protect itself in an environment that was natural for it. 


Watching that cuddlefish thing, kinda reminded me of myself.... I'm soft, flexible and often try to mimic environments that are unnatural to me.  That cuddle fish even stretched it's arms in the direction of the stripes to try to blend but try as it might, it couldn't do become a piece of stripe fabric.( it was kind of funny). Anyhoo...as i was saying,  Always tryna blend in in places that I'm really not welcome.  I've always thought of myself as pretty versatile.  But, when you really get down to it, I don't care how versatile a finite being is at some point or another it comes nose to nose with it's limitations, as I have with mine.  Limitations serve multiple purposes. Two that I've discovered are:1)They  allow room on the road of this journey for the other guys and 2)They keep you safe and healthy.  If you are not aware of them or ignore them, it leaves you on a collision course with the other guys that above all things can open to many things that make you unsafe and unhealthy.
Everybody probably has some cuddlefish in them at some point n their lives. Some people will simply be cuddle fish all their lives. It's good to be able to think outside of the box but it makes life much easier if you are outside of a box that you are familiar with...that is yours.

 I'm kinda cuddlefishy.  R U?

Why I'm Addicted to Coffee

The coffee gods summon me every morning as I awaken and guide me to the coffee pot. If there is no coffee, I hastily drive to the store to get a cup as if I fear that they will run out.  Love coffee...and the I've sacrificed myself to it every morning since I was sixteen years of age.  It all started when I was in prep school and my english teacher Ms. Palmer would set up a coffee bar in the room.  I would rush to the table and make a cup of spiced tea.  Instead of focusing on the book discussion at the time, I would focus on the tea, the aroma of spices floating through my nostrils, I would focus on the taste of spices and orange tang flowing over my tongue and down my throat...and when the cup was finished, I would focus on deciding wether or not I should get another cup but sometimes class was over and I would just forget! It wasn't coffee but it had caffeine in it and it was a great way to start the day.

I graduated to coffee later, and became addicted.  I depend on coffee to wake me up, love and appease everyone and  be interested in the days events.  I bet if you find 10 coffee drinkers, they are the nicest people in the world and they are chronic people pleasers.  Maybe I'm wrong but I swear that I've unfairly depended on the coffee gods to motivate me and make everything okay. I thank them because for years -as far as I was concerned-they did provide me with a savory escape. But, examining my life lately, really looking at it and  thinking about it, it's time for me  to wave a teary goodbye to the coffee gods.  They've been really good to me over the years but I have to kick, well maybe modify, this addiction so that I can retrieve the pieces of my personalitiy that are so near and dear to me.

I thank Ms. Palmer and I sure miss that spiced tea.

Return to/from Home

Whoever said, "Home is where the heart is", hit the nail right on the head.  I am just returning from Boston where I was raised and I really wanted to stay.  I didn't want to come back to Georgia.  Not that there is anything wrong with Georgia.
I'm just not sure where my loyalty lies.  I've lived in Georgia for the past sixteen years and have vowed to go home to Boston many times, but I've stayed, not out of a sense of loyalty, but out of sense of complacency...I guess. 

I enjoyed my trip to good ol' Boston there and found it extremely difficult to leave my sister, brothers, nieces and nephews.  I'm back here in good old Georgia and I can't believe that my desire to go back home has waned considerably since I walked through the door. 

So where is my heart?  I may have left it in Georgia so that it'd be waiting for me here when I got back.

I don't know.  I have met many people who have lived in Georgia for many years without ever becoming passionate about being here. Maybe they were just passionate about being and if you are passionate about just being, maybe it doesn't matter where you are?  I have stayed, but I'm not passionate.  Too many issues here (where? my heart?).  Yet,  my feeling is that it doesn't really matter where I am...Does it?

I'm going to have to think over and muse these things again.  And take that picture off of my profile...my sister says it's dreadful.

Priorities

I'm setting my own priorities today.  I've been making everyone else's life my priority.  My job, my children.  I have to speed up slow down to everyone else's pace when I don't gauge my own.  And I frequently, I forget the importance of gauging my own pace.  Then, I have to deal with the fallout.  I'm dealing with fallout now.  So, today, I will take my time and put what I can on the back burner.
There are no fires today and these out of body experiences that come with losing myself in other peoples affairs are getting old.

I'm too old for this.  I know that something in my life needs to change.  I will sit and wait and look and develop the courage to do what I need to do.  I will continue to do the things that make me feel complete and whole and not the flesh eating activities that society forces on us.

I'm tired today.  I overslept and Dante was late for school.  My legs are numb from running from here to there.  I forget who I am when who I am depends on the likes and dislikes of those around me.  Forgetting myself...me is a luxury that I just cannot afford.

A Change Needs to Come

When I wake up in the morning, nose to nose with anxiety, that is a signal that something about my life needs to change.   That anxiety is tapping me on the shoulder waiting for me to turn around and look at my life because the way that I'm living it is not working.
My daughter came to stay with me for the weekend and the house is filthy.  I've been trying to catch up with my job ever since I got it and I'm still behind.  And no matter what I do, I find myself in a crater.  I need to let it go.  But what do I cling to if I let this job go? So much about this job reeks that I just can't keep torturing myself like this.  The buddy system exists there, like when you have a really tight circle of buddies and they hide each others mistakes but when you make one they just make sure that everyone knows.  If you are in the circe of buddies, you can kill somebody and no one would ever know because, your buddies who are usually in adiministration cover for you.
I sincerely believe that is why healthcare delivery suffers so bad in Georgia.  I'm genuinely afraid to get sick  at home or in the hospital.  When you fall sick in Georgia,  you are definately risking alot.  I'm tired.  I'm not angry.  I've kind of accepted the corruption that I've seen in this agency.  The resistance of people to do the right thing is just a sinister cloud that hangs over the world these days.  I expect to see archangels flying through the sky on white winged  horses any day now.  ..
Anyhoo. My daughter said she had to leave cause the house was too dirty.  When I got home she was gone.  At first I was mad and I thought "how rude".  But, when I think about the nausea that comes when I'm confronted with someone elses squallor, I fully understand where my baby si coming from.  I fully applaude her for saying, I can't deal with this and leaving.

I wish I could do that.  I am uncertain as to what to do with  this job.  The inconsistency, the exhaustion, the sabotage is really not worth the effort.  I'm definately going to look for something else.  I can't keep hurting myself like this.
Gotta change somethin'.

My Friend In Deed (Part 2)

The last time I chatted with Elise was in January.  She said that she had joked with her husband that she was going to divorce him. 

She said ,"Yeah, he says that I wasn't going nowhere and he would kill both of us"
 I said, "Elise, make sure you have someplace safe to go".
  "Awww, he's just kiddin'" she assured me,  "He ain't gonna do nothin', he says stuff like that all the time". 
I told her, well he shouldn't say things like that". 
Somehow, I got this fleeting sense that her husband was abusive.  Elise hid thatwell.

She didn't look like herself and I commented on how tired she looked. She explained that with the kids and taking care of her husband who was like a kid, she was indeed exhausted.  I walked out of the office door thinking to myself, why would a husband say that jokingly.
Domestic violence killings are all too common in the United States.  We sneerand criticize other cultures for cruelty to women and we talk about how horrible it is.  Women's organizations often champion civil rights and human cruelty violations visited on women in other countries, and I know that that is a good cause.  But how can we go to another country and try to mainatin the freedom of women there when we are still making strides here.  Massachusetts has an excellent domestic violence program there. Meny resources exist for women to impove their lives apart from an abusive spouse.
Domestic violence policy leaves a lot to be desired in terms of protecting women and children from crazed spouses. I have had experience with this.  Protecting yourself here can be a daunting task Filing a restraining order takes lots of time and effort.  When I filed against my last X, I discovered that the office was open only a few hours weekly.  I had a two year old son that Ihad to take with me.  And the caseworker told me that Ishould have found a babysitter. I am still incredulous. 

I ended up missing my court date because I had to drop mychildren off to school and on myway to the courthouse I was stuck in traffic. Domestic violence victims usually children and a poor support system.  The message that that court hours for filing and the lack of support and the ignorance of the advocate, sends a clear message in a patriarchal environment that women who are abused by there husbands are non citizes. It is likely that the woman has low self esteem and or suffers from depression. This is enough to discourage the most resilient of us.

I wish I had sat a little longer with Elise that day: to let her know that I understood what she was going through, and also tolet herknow that there are resources and support systems to support her in Georgia (however inadequate and shoddy they are.  Butall of the wishing in the world won't bring her back. 

I've often said that a true hero f first champions her own cause.Elise was trying to champion her cause by finally filing divorce proceeding against her husband.


She died a true hero.

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My Friend In Deed

I went to the auto insurance company today to pay my bill. It had been a while since I had talked to Elise, my agent so,I decided to stop in. For the past three months or so,  a couple of young men had been running the office. The last time I stopped in,  I was getting used to doing business with them.  But I always hoped to see, looked forward to sitting down and chatting with Elise when I was there. 
When I got there, an African American woman sat at the desk.  I found out that her name was Alexandria later.  I said to her, " Boy, it looks like everytime I come in here there's somebody new at the desk."
She smiled and answered proudly, "Well, I'm here now.  Hope I can stay for a while".
"Yeah", I replied.  Then I asked, "Where is Elise?" I haven't seen her for a while?
She said, "Oh, you didn't hear about what happened?" 
I sort of chuckled and smirked thinking thatshe was going to come up with some unfounded or unbelievably, gossipy rumor. But instead  she replied, "Elise is dead."  For a minute I thought she had gotten Elise mixed up with someone else.
 "What?" I said staring through her as if I thought that I'd be able to see the lie that I knew she was telling me fade as it escaped from her mouth.  "What?".
Her words grew softer and softer, and became almost inaudible to me as she spoke, bouncing off of me, hitting the wall and sliding to the floor.
 "She died.  Her husband, killed her and then killed himself.  Right there in the parking lot.  I tried to sit with my hands in my head for a minute. But the horror cut me so deep that the pain was too overwhelming to sit through.
 "Oh my God.  Oh my God!"  I stood up and walked to the window.
 At first I wanted to run outside and scream my lungs out but I just kept saying,
"Oh my God",  in an effort to just begin to process what I had just heard.
 And then came the flood of tears.
I'm still incredulous.
Elise was the kindest and most giving person that I had ever done business with.  I'd gotten to know her over a period of four years.  She always smiled and always had something funny to say. She was more than an insurance agent.She was my friend.
I apologized to Alexandria for the melt down.  I was embarassed at the public display of grief, but I couldn't help it.  I was overwhelmed.  I still am.
 I try not to question God but I began to wonder, that if he had to take someone, why couldn't it have just be  her husband.
Why..of all people. Elise? And why that way? .
I remember her saying to me once that he threatens but he would never do anything.  I remember telling her that she needed to make sure that she protected herself.  I remember.
.. And I hurt.
I wanted to be angry and blame God, but I had to remember that He knows best and that we all have choices.
And then I decided to thank God...Thank HIm for allowing me to meet Elise and getting to know her, for allowing me to come to appreciate and admire who she was and learn from that.  And most of all I am grateful to be reminded of  the fact that we are all living on borrowed time and that is worth the effort to try to make the best of whatever time we have here, because regardless of what choices we make, the time is not ours.  I have often said, "Our children are loaners." If your really think about it...We all are.

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Changing Life

I tried to tell my elder sister that when you become a middle aged malcontent, job hopping is not the answer.  Your soul, not your pocket is screaming for a change.  I think I offended her, because she came back a few hours later and said something like, I'm satisfied with the spiritual changes in my life...or something or other that I didn't hear quite clearly.  Matter of fact, it took a couple of hours for me to even realize that she was referring to what I had said earlier. 

I'm a malcontent, that means that I am not happy with my life.  I slept in this morning and when I woke up, I realized that I have to make a change.  I have to make some changes in the way that I live my life.  It's kinda scary to think about but it's even scarier to continue in the manner in which I am living.  I just can't keep this up.

I'm kinda living and pretending to be happy but I am like a candle slowly burning out.  It's not the first time that I've burnt out, but it will be the last. That's my promise to myself.

I'm tired of dancing to the undanceable rhythm of societies drums.  I had a dream that someone stole the company computer out of my car and hacked into it making all of the data in it into comic strips.  I had gone to visit a patient as in pay a social call and I had left my computer in the car. It was the red car that was impounded about a month ago when it broke down on the side of the highway and I had not money to have it towed. 

Now I don't have the money to get it out of tow and I've been drivng my daughters car for the last two weeks.

I'm tired.  Trying to hang with my mege-energy sister has drained my energy. I'm tired of drinking cup after cup after cup of maxwell house and tea, when I can't find the maxwell house or have run out.  So what do you do? I have to have money to pay my rent.  I have to have money to buy gas to go to work, I have to...

I'm going to change something, I have to I know what it is....but I won't say.

After, I discovered my computer in the dream (the thieves had put it back), it caught on fire in my car  via spontaneous combustion then eventually the whole car blew up. I asked people to call the fire department but, apparently no one did until the car blew up.

I can't wait for my car to blow up to do something about my life.  The time to fix what is broken is now. It's urgent.

I'm starting today.

From Here to There

As I've decided to journey, by journal/blogging my angst, it is not easy or easier.  I still feel guilty sometimes writing what I'm writing and fearing what people will think about my views.  Forget them.  I'm moving on.  And I have to go where others dare not. So, here we go.

I woke up feeling really bad.  I fell  of of my QuikTrip Cappucino wagon the other day.  I have stopped drinking it because it makes me really hyper.  An the other day, I just went and got a cup and added it to the already 4 cup coffee pot that I drank that morning. 

I love coffee, but the false energy that it provides me with doesn't feel so good anymore.  I guess because I'm older and have my own energy source. Or maybe it's because my brain chemistry is different or maybe my body just can't keep up with the energy false energy that caffeine provides.  Nevertheless, I decided to overload myself with coffee and became very jittery and nervous for two days.

Then, in order to help myself ...I went to the store and bought lots of sugary things and then I drank milk (drinking milk, for me,  is the kiss of death. It makes me very sleepy).  I just went craving crazy.

But I feel better this morning.

A little.

I want to write for a livng.  How do I get where I'm going? I read all of these Zen and motivational blogs this morning by young, handsome, men.. not necessarily white?  What is it that a young handsome man with children and a wife can tell a mid middle aged african american woman single parent twice divorced about changing her life that she will listen to and will help her?

I don't know.  I'll just keep reading.

Write from the Heart

I find that if I stop to think about what I'm writing about for too long, I start to tweak it and it becomes disingenuous... I don't even know  if that is a word, but that is what my writing becomes if I stop too long to think about it.  That clever "critic" come in to the room, looks over my shoulder and says things like, "you shouldn't write that, that sounds silly, people are going to thing you're crazy!"

It's amazing how I've learned to quiet that voice, but not completely block it out. ( My heart thumps loudly in my chest as I'm writing this.  My mouth goes dry and I gulp). Journeying to the center of my angst can be a sometimes treacherous and bumpy-to say the least- journey.  It never occurred to me how many lies we tell ourselves daily, to keep ourselves going, to make ourselves and others comfortable.

I have had to be committed to telling the truth while writing this. I have probably typed  some deceiving editiorial while typing this blog some mornings.  I have only to go back and look at my previous posts to see what they are.

But, one thing that I'm aware of is that my truth is not necessarily someone else's.  That's different from lying.  The problem with American society or societies in general is that we have a tendency to impose our truth on someone else, while denying theirs.  That is counter-productive and dangerous.  Not only, for the person imposing that truth and denying it, but also for the person being imposed upon and denied.

Statistics state that only 10% of the population  actually thinks. (My best friend who is now deceased told me this, to explain the madness that occurs these days, I'm not sure where the figure comes from, but looking at the state of the world these days, I wouldn't doubt it.).  That explained to me how we can allow our children to be sent to war, leave ourselves open to become prey for financial predators and how we can allow our lawmakers to run amock contrary to our best interests and say nothing.

This not intended to be a political blog. These are just some questions that popped into my mind on a Monday morning as I'm coming off of the weekend working, and going to work this morning. What are you thinking about?