Soul Friends

My last post was about my dad - a bit of a downer.  Today is one year since my mom (step-mother) passed over and although I thought about writing about her, I think that could also end up being more melancholy than what I want to communicate today.  Instead, I want to honor my oldest (not in age) friend, whose birthday was this past week. 

It was the summer of 1960.  My father, my two sisters and I were moving to the town where his business was located.  He had rented us a large house with a wrap-around front porch and a roomy, fenced-in front yard for our collie dog.  It was moving-in day when a tall, round woman with two little girls in tow appeared at the back door.  I was five at the time, ready to start first grade in a month.  The woman introduced herself as Clara and the dark-haired and brown-eyed girl hiding behind her leg as Debbie, her six-year-old daughter.  The younger, blonde girl was a neighbor's daughter, Robin.  Debbie and I watched each other with curiosity.Debbie, too, was starting first grade in the fall. 

When Clara discovered that my mom was deceased and my step-mother and father were divorced, she was filled with motherly compassion for me.  Debbie's big brown eyes got even larger as she tried to comprehend how the girl in front of her could live without a mother.  In the weeks that followed, before school started, Clara often invited me to their house on the next street to play with Debbie, and sometimes Robin.

Perhaps, because I had no mom and was accustomed to going to a child-sitter's house while my father worked, starting school was not scary to me.  But, for Debbie, that first day of school was terrifying.  Her mother walked Debbie and me to the bus stop the first day.  Debbie cried, but to ease her fear, I held her hand as we boarded the bus.  Unfortunately, we were in different classrooms and Debbie had to face the rest of the day alone, but I was waiting outside her classroom door at the end of the day and we walked hand-in-hand to the bus together.  That was the start of a friendship that has lasted almost 53 years. 

Debbie and I only attended two years of school together.  My father, one of my sisters and I moved to another state the summer after second grade.  Even during our two school years together, our friendship waxed and waned as we made other friends, but my family's move was still tramatic for us.  Unbelievably, those two third graders started writing letters to one another - letters that always started:  Dear, Debbie or Becky, How are you? I am fine. And from there we shared our experiences in two different schools in two different states.

Every summer, and during some Christmas holidays, my father put me on a Greyhound bus to go visit Debbie.  I loved those visits, especially the summer ones.  I stayed two or three weeks.  Debbie's mom showered me with the motherly love I was missing and Debbie and I and the always-changing foster children in their home spent hours playing in the summer sunshine.  When we were older, Debbie faced her fears of leaving home and her mom and came to visit me a couple of times.

Debbie and I were not always close. We always stayed in touch, we always saw each other at least once a year, but sometimes we did not like each other very much.  Debbie was living in the suburbs of a large city and I was growing up in a very rural area.  Our experiences were completely different.  As we reached our teens years, Debbie was hanging with friends that I thought were trouble.  She was hiding things from her parents and I wanted no part of that. When I visited, Debbie often went out with her friends and I stayed home with her mom, picking vegetables from their garden, shelling peas and talking.  Perhaps it was my relationship with her mom that kept our friendship intact during Debbie's adventurous teenage years, but, whatever was the glue that held our friendship together, I am eternally grateful that we did not drift apart as we often went our separate ways. I went to college, for awhile, and Debbie moved to another state and worked for her brother.  I moved even further away - more than 800 miles.  We both got married the same year.  Through all the years and all the moves and all the changes, we kept writing letters, even when we could not visit one another. 

Now we stay in contact with cell phones and emails and Facebook, but sadly, we rarely see one another.  We have birthday dates - I call her on her birthday, as I did last week, and she calls me on mine.  We drink a glass of wine and chat for more than an hour.  As the years pass, our friendship deepens.  We appreciate each other more with each birthday conversation.  We know that a friendship that has lasted this long, especially from such a distance, is a gift to treasure. 

We have supported one another through marital and family problems, births, deaths and adoptions, illnesses and accidents, happiness and heartache, and, although our life experiences have been completely different, we have always had understanding and compassion for one another's problems and we have celebrated one another's joys and triumphs.  There is no one I laugh so heartily with than Debbie.  There is no one I can so quickly reconnect with, even after months of no communi-cation, and feel as though we have been talking every day.

I wish we lived closer.  I wish we could have a tea together at least once a week.  I wish I could call her up and say, "Let's go shopping."  I wish we could take long walks together and sort through the meaning of life.  But, we can't.  We have different lives a long distance apart.  We have families and businesses and responsibilities that keep us where we are, restricting our ability to even visit.  But, I know that in spite of all these challenges, our friendship endures because we are soul friends.  Our friendship transcends our lives.  It is deeper and stronger than our physical connection because it is a soul friendship and for that, and for Debbie, I will always be grateful.

Walking Away

I have been thinking about my father a lot recently.  Maybe because of Brene Brown's writing about living an authentic life and dealing with shame and guilt in her book The Gifts of Imperfection and perhaps because someone shared with me their desire to cut a family member out of her life, as I did my father about ten years ago.

My father was a typical mid-20th century husband and father.  He expected to have a stay-at-home wife to raise his children, take care of his needs and provide him with a comfortable home life.  He was open to having several children, as long as he was able to pay for the bills and his wife was willing to take care of them.  I doubt if he, like most men of his time, even thought much about the consequences of having children, other than the cost.  His mind was on his business and children were his wife's concern.

Unfortunately, after the birth of four children and the death of one, his wife, and my mother, checked out of this earthly life at the relatively young age of 39.  I was an infant when she passed and my older sisters were 10 and 7.  Not only was my unprepared father left with three children, one a baby, but those kids were also girls - a fact that seemed to make the situation even harder for him.  His mother came from Chicago and took care of us for about 18 months - long enough for my father to find another wife, my stepmother who passed last year, to raise his kids.  That marriage failed quickly and again he was faced with three daughters to raise without the help of a woman since my grandmother's age prevented her from coming to his rescue a second time.  So, he did the best he could.  His best was not all that good in some ways, but he adequately provided for our physical needs.

My father was not the huggy, warm type of dad.  Not at all like those wonderful widowed TV dads who are wise, generous and loving.  He worked hard - rising at 4 AM to run his business, often working on Saturdays and Sundays.  He was impatient, demanding and unforgiving of mistakes and transgressions.  A glass accidentally dropped and broken was treated the same as if it were hurled purposefully across the room in a fit of anger.  I lost my greatly-needed eyeglasses when I was nine and, as punishment, he refused to buy me new ones.  I spent the next eight years sitting in the front of classrooms, squinting to read the chalkboard and books, and living with almost constant headaches until I went to live with my stepmother and she took me to the optometrist and I soon sported new glasses that allowed me to see so much that I had been missing.

My father had a temper, but he never hit us.  He would yell, he would slam doors, he would subject us to days, weeks and even months of silence for not acting or being who he wished we were.  My two older sisters left home as soon as they graduated high school, leaving me alone to deal with him.  Nothing I did was good enough, right enough or fast enough.  I was an A student, but felt like a failure.  When I was 14 we had a silly argument over who sang a song and he stopped talking to me - for months.  I became depressed; my friends and teachers worried about me.  A guidance counselor intervened and eventually my father allowed me to go live with my stepmother in another state.

At first, I was just relieved and happy to have him out of my life, but since my stepmother forced me to stay in contact with him, I soon fell back into the old pattern of wanting to please him and never being able to do so.  He visited me and I visited him a few times over the next three years.  Then, I ended up moving to the state where he had settled and we even lived in the same town for a couple of years.  He traveled a lot with his business, which allowed us to maintain an almost normal and friendly relationship.  Then I moved 100 miles away to go to college and within a year, I was married.  My husband I moved to another state.  My father visited whenever he was traveling through our city.  Eventually, after he retired, we ended up living in the same state again and for three years, my father resided in a mobile home on the property where my husband and I had built our home.

Living so close together was a bad idea.  Our tenuous relationship strained with the constant contact.  My father routinely invaded our privacy, using the "emergency" house key we gave him to enter our home whenever he wanted, even when we were sleeping .  He was rude and argumentative with my husband and my in-laws.  He told lies about us to my sisters.  My marriage bore the stress of the constant problems he caused.  My father became more and more combative, even speaking badly of us to the people in the small town where we lived.  After three years of escalating conflict, he moved to the state where one of my other sisters lived.

I was so relieved to be rid of him, again, but he was soon inching his way back into my life.  Knowing that he was not welcome, he became nicer and I let my guard down, again.  And, eventually, I would regret it, again.  Over and over that happened.  He quickly ruined his relationship with the daughter that he was living near and moved to another state to actually live with my half-sister.  She was so sure that she and dad could occupy the same house in harmony.  Wrong.  And, then it was back to my state, back to me.  He had no place to go, he would be homeless, or so he led me to believe.  No way he could live with my husband and me after the horrible experience we had with him living next door.  So, I bought him a piece of land and a mobile home a mile away.  Even that was too close.  He started out nice and cooperative and seemingly appreciative of all I was doing for him.  That lasted just long enough for the closing on the property to take place.  Then, his ugly side came out again.  Constant complaints and demands.  Nothing I did was good enough. Soon he was telling lies about me to my sisters and his neighbors.  But, I put up with it for eight long years.

Why?  Why would I allow myself to be treated like that?  I kept hoping that if I did enough for him, he would become the dad I always wanted and needed.  Time was running out.  He was aging.  I only had so much time left to finally get the dad I had always hoped for.  I did more and more for him, especially as his health declined and he no longer drove.  And, still he disrespected and criticized me.  Nothing was enough, I was not enough.  The more I did, the more he berated me, the more he complained, the more he demanded.  As he aged, I felt trapped.  How could I break off my relationship with him if his health was declining?  He needed me.  I could not abandon him.  I resigned to a life of his verbal and emotional abuse.  Until. . .

Who knows what causes that moment - that moment in time when you say, "Enough! No more!"  I stopped to check on him one morning on my way to work.  He began berating me for not buying him a car.  His truck had broken down a couple of years before, but he was already rarely driving due to his health.  I took him grocery shopping, to doctor appointments and anywhere else he needed to go.  Then, he got this idea that he could start driving again and that I should buy him a car.  When I refused, he became angry and for weeks he had argued with me about it.  That morning he started the argument anew, but that time he accused me of abusing him.  He said I was a horrible daughter and that he had called a state agency to report me for elder abuse.  I knew he was lying, as he often did, but, for some unknown reason, at that moment something snapped inside me.  No, that is not the correct description - some slammed shut - like a door closing on our relationship.  Without a word, I walked away.  I never saw him again.  I wrote a letter to him, to the VA Hospital that provided his health care and to my sisters stating that I was no longer responsible for him in any way.  He could continue to live on my property, but I had ceased providing him with transportation or any other aid or services.  I detailed some of the psychological and emotional abuse I had experienced from him and declared myself free from any his manipulation and cruelty.  Three years later I received a call from a deputy sheriff informing me that my father had been found dead in his mobile home and had been deceased for several days.  He died alone.  His life did not have to end that way, but his own actions brought about his lonely demise.

The day I walked away from him was a day of rebirth for me.  It was the beginning of my new life - a life that would take a few years to develop, but a life that was in the birthing process. Taking action to leave that abusive situation opened my mind to clearly seeing and evaluating other relationships and situations in my life.   It would lead to the end of my marriage, the terminations of some "friendships" that were unhealthy, the creation of new relationships and a new life.

I am a person who often suffers from guilt.  But, surprisingly, when I walked away from my father that day, I never suffered any guilt or shame about my decision.  Some people were shocked and judgmental about my decision.  My father was usually funny and charming around people he first met or saw infrequently.  Friends and acquaintances of mine could not understand why I had such problems with him or why I cut him from my life.  They saw a man who was putting on a show - a witty man with great magnetism; I lived with a man who was rarely nice to me unless he needed something from me.  Even the disdain and criticism of these people did not affect me.  I was strong and confident in my decision.  My only regret was that I had not walked away long, long before.

Here is what I learned from my decision to walk away:

• You can never mold someone into the person you want them to be. 
• Abuse does not have to be physical.  Emotional and psychological abuse are just as damaging and may even have effects that last longer.
• Leave an abusive relationship as soon as you can.  
• Anyone can be an abuser - your spouse, your partner, a parent, a sibling, a friend - ANYONE.
• No one deserves abuse.  
• Manipulation is abuse. 
• You can change your life, one step at a time. 
• Don't pay attention to those who criticize or ostracize you for removing an abuser from your life. 
• If your friends do not support your decision to remove an abuser from your life, they are not your friends. 
• If other family members do not support your decision to remove an abuser from your life, feel free to remove them, too.
• NEVER feel guilty for doing what is right and healthy for you.  
• There are supportive, loving people in the world and if you are wasting all your time trying to please an abuser, you are missing the opportunity to have wonderful relationships with those people.  

In a way, my decision to walk away that day led to Manifesting Mount Dora.  Back then, I would never have dreamed I could even think about manifesting something wonderful in my life.  In fact, I could not even imagine having a wonderful life.  Now I do.  All because I walked away.  

Mount Dora Renewal

Three days in Mount Dora have helped to ease the fatigue of three months of long work hours, several illnesses and some painful back issues and many days and evenings of being the caregiver for my two grandchildren.  On Thursday, my man and I and our two dogs headed south on a rainy afternoon.  We were greeted by 20 mph winds and intermittent showers in our favorite town, but nothing drastic enough to keep us inside.  Soon we were visiting Grantham Park on Lake Dora, walking the streets of the “old city” and dining on delicious Cuban food at Copacabana.  Friday and Saturday were filled with many long walks with our dogs, wonderful food and conversations at Copacabana, One Flight Up and Cody’s on 4th.  We shopped - particularly at my favorite boutique, Em’z on Fifth.  We rested and read.  On Sunday, for the first time, we visited the weekly Open Air Market and purchased some fabulous French bread, pastries and biscotti from the booth of A Wish or Two Ago, a French bakery located in Grand Island, some fresh arugula, tomatoes and blueberries, and a hair care product by Wildflower Beauty by Jessica, and I longed to buy some pottery from the Perry Stoneware booth, but decided that needed to wait until another trip.

One of the interesting aspects of our trip was the first time inclusion of our dog Pooh.  I rescued Pooh and her mom Winnie in 2002.  Winnie was about 3 years old and Pooh was around 4 months old.  They were living on the streets near my mom’s home in Tennessee.  Winnie was socialized having obviously been someone’s pet at some time, but Pooh was completely feral.  In spite of her better people skills, Winnie was not a dog to live in a house.  Being within four walls made her anxious and stressful, resulting in excessive panting and pacing, so she and her wild-one daughter spent the next 10 years living in my backyard and sleeping on my back porch.  Winnie became ill in January and left us.  Pooh is still trying to adjust to life without her ever-present mother.  Although Pooh is certainly tame now, she is still easily frightened and becomes nervous in new situations and around unfamiliar people.  Since living alone was not a good idea for the grieving Pooh, we started allowing her in the house with our Pekingese dog and she has slowly adjusted to life with our family and without her mother.  Worried that leaving her alone, without her most trusted people (my man and me) and without her canine companion Chanelito, we risked taking her along on her first ever vacation.  Pooh was nervous and leery of Mount Dora where everything was new and different.  She was overwhelmed and confused by her first sight of a large body of water, Mount Dora.  Walking along the downtown streets, busy with tourists and shoppers, triggered all her fear phobias.  But, slowly she adjusted - a little - with the one exception of her bathroom habits.  At our home, she uses our backyard for her bowel movements and in Mount Dora she was always on a leash or in our cottage, all places that did not seem “right” to her for that bodily function.  For three days we fretted about her lack of a bowel movement, always afraid the call of nature would become too strong when she was in the cottage.  Fortunately, that did not happen and on our last morning there, during my man’s early morning walk with the dogs, she successfully released what had been held inside of too long.  We were all relieved!!

Since mid-December my life has been out-of-synch, out-of-balance, as evident in my consecutive illnesses, back problems and a general feeling of dismay and discord.
Our trip allowed me some downtime to think, to read and to try and figure out what is wrong and why it became so wrong.  I read the book “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown who I recently saw on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday.  Her book is fantastic and I highly recommend it.  I really identified with her studies on the problems of perfectionism and I learned much from her about embracing our imperfections.

I came home from my long weekend feeling a little more rested, with slightly less back pain and with a renewed commitment to getting my life back on track.  First, I spoke to my daughter about her work schedule, insisting that I have Monday through Wednesday evenings free of childcare so I can attend my yoga class, work for some of my evening clients, volunteer at Wild Iris Bookstore and attend the monthly Feminist Open Mic Poetry Readings that I enjoy so much.  I promised myself to better organize my home work space and bedroom, so those areas feel less cluttered, confused and confining.  I recommitted myself to writing more often and I began researching some sort of creative class or activity that I can enjoy with my grandchildren.  And, hardest of all, I made an agreement with The Universe to be more positive and more patient about my Manifesting Mount Dora project.

Tomorrow begins my return to the routine of work, household duties and helping to care for my grandchildren.  Tomorrow begins the juggle of hours and the scheduling of all the things that I need to do while trying to make time for the things I want to do.  Tomorrow and the next day and the next are the test to see if my Mount Dora Renewal will take hold and grow sturdy roots.

Waiting with Gratitude

My current location is the surgical waiting room of a local hospital where I wait while my man has a day-stay surgery that started four hours late.  We waited together for several hours in a prep room, he more impatient than I because the last food intake he had was nearly 15 hours ago.  I have done this surgical waiting routine more times than I want to admit.  We thought his surgery days were past after an unbelievably busy medical year in 2011, but here I sit again due to the unexpected and unwelcome health issue that popped up last week.  But, it is at times like this that I realize how fortunate we are - he has medical insurance unlike many others, this surgery is relatively minor compared to those I've seen today who are facing more worrisome procedures and I have family and friends who are praying and sending positive energy to us.  As with others, our relationship has its challenges and moments of glory and I sit here grateful for all we have experienced together.  Even in the dark times, when we held on by a thread, I knew we had a strong bond that kept us dreaming the same dreams.

Our relationship has been a series of challenges - some are common, some are unique.  Being from different cultures, we had to be open about sharing and experiencing one another's customs and habits.  Our cultural give-and-take has left us both better people.  I learned to love mate, an Argentine tea, and dulce de leche, a Latin American caramel-type spread and he learned to cook for a vegetarian, something he never dreamed he would do.

I was used to life in the country and he was accustomed to life in the fast-paced, crowded northeast, but we both adjusted to life in the small city where we reside.  We have many of the same cultural interests - plays, concerts, museums, bookstores, lectures - and here we found many events to keep us entertained and informed.  He has introduced me to foreign films from South and Central America, as well as tango and other Latin music, and he enjoys the bluegrass music of the south and has learned much about the history of Florida and developed a love of the artists who capture the lakes, springs, hammocks, beaches and wildlife of our state.

Our first year together included one of his daughters, my adopted daughter and, later, her brother.  Our blended family often had a rough time and by the end of the year, he and I were alone - good in some ways and sad in others.  Now my daughter and her two children are back with us - an adjustment that thrilled me, but was hard on him.  Coming from a large family and having several children of his own, he was relishing our life as a couple living without other family members and obligations, but he has made the changes necessary to allow me the joy of having my daughter and grandchildren with us. 

I am a person with few limits and he is one with many.  I tend to accept everyone and everything at face value and he has taught me to proceed with more caution, to be a bit more discerning.  He tends to hold back and observe, sometimes being more judgmental than I like.  I have taught him to be a little more open and accepting.  

We have cried together over deaths in our families and struggled through a variety of family, financial, legal and medical problems. We have shared old friends and made new ones.  We have watched neighbors move in and move out and houses be bought and sold.  After eight years, we have a history where we live.  

He took me to Manhattan and I took him to Mount Dora.  We both love the intensity and variety of the city, but the cold and the high living expenses limit us to yearly visits to our favorite metropolis.  Mount Dora, on the other had, is easily accessible and affordable and the weather, though very hot in the summer but no hotter than where we live now, is very agreeable the rest of the year.  The coffee shops, restaurants, museums, shops, theater, and parks of Mount Dora make it a culturally diverse town where we can find plenty to entertain, inspire and educate us.
    

There are days we don't like each other very much and days when we cannot imagine ever being apart.  Sometimes we talk a lot, sometimes not so much.  We get annoyed and irritated with one another and we laugh together and share the secrets that only the two of us know.  We read the newspaper together every morning, often read in bed at night and watch our favorite shows, Touch and Super Soul Sunday, together, sharing comments and observations.  On occasion, we don't want to be in the same room at the same time, but we never want to sleep without one another.  I know I am a better person because of him and I hope he feels the same. 

But most of all, I am grateful for the fun he brings into my life.  In the muddy darkness of a sad marriage, I had lost my sense of fun.  Really, I had even lost my memory of fun.  He gave that back to me.  The laughter, the jokes, the playful teasing.  And that is what I remember during these times of waiting.  The fun.  Life is supposed to have some light-hearted moments. In spite of the hard times, the disagreeable times, the head-banging, incomprehensible times, I relish those moments of fun that have filtered through our days together.  Perhaps those moments add up to less time than the difficult hours, but they are the moments that make this life worth living.

Footnote:  It is nearly 11 pm and I am bone tired after a long and very frustrating day.  After delayed surgery, hospital staff confusion, changed hospital rules about visitors, hospital construction that made getting from one place to another difficult, and some issues with residual effects of anesthesia, I am relieved that I was able to bring him home today.  His surgery went well, just everything else surrounding it that was a confused mess. Today was not fun, but having him snoring beside me is.   

Change in the Air

I have wanted to write for weeks now - longed to write - but there was no time.  I am still busy at work, more so than I usually am this time of year and I took on an extra one-time job that I thought would be quick and easy, but has evolved into something more complicated and time-consuming than I ever imagined.  I am watching my grandchildren even more than usual while my daughter is working some untypical hours for training at her job.  And, I have been sick, again, or still.  Bronchitis cleared up, allergies started, while allergies were still in full force, a cold commenced.  My energy and my time have been challenged on many levels.  I have longed for Mount Dora to the point that I dreamed about it one entire night this week.  Plans have been made to be there, but not soon enough for this weary woman.

I am feeling more optimistic - a little.  I need more hope and more time that is not filled with obligations.  I need to write more.  I need change.  I need to change.

It all starts with “me” needing to change.  I can hope for those around me to transform.  But, those are truly just wishes and I, or you, really have no power over others.   I can hope for life to take a turn for the better, but that will only happen if I make some effort or institute some changes to help that happen.

I have been thinking a great deal about changes I can make - maybe not big ones, but, at least, little ones.  Sometimes that is all it takes.  Not even changes that seem to relate to desired results, but just changes - small ones that change the energy in my environment.  It is amazing what a change in energy can do for your life.

I have neglected my gratitude journal - something I promised to do daily when I started this project.  My journal fell by the wayside when I was going through so much in December and January.  Overwhelment destroys gratitude.  One change I am making is to be more diligent about my gratitude journal - maybe not every day, but at least several times a week.

I was doing some guided meditations to help me sleep last year, but they became unnecessary when medications knocked me out every night during my various illnesses or when I was so exhausted that I nearly passed out as soon as I laid down.  To add meditation to my “change list”, I have signed up for Oprah’s & Deepak Choprah’s 21-Day Meditation Challenge.  Wish me luck!

The last few weekends I have set aside a few hours to work on my house (again) - straightening, cleaning, organizing, clearing.  My grandchildren are growing and need more room for themselves.  I have concentrated on creating that space for them, which means getting rid of unnecessary stuff that was filling our house.  The work is hard, especially when I am working a lot and still ill, but the results are satisfying.  The house and the energy within it are changing and change is what we need.

Change has to do with starting anew and although all of these activities are good,  they are not really changes - more like reinstatements.  All things I once did, then neglected to do and have now restarted.  What can I do that is truly new, truly different?  I am stumped, but still thinking about it.  It has to be something that does not require a regular schedule or too much time.

For some reason I get stuck - don’t we all?  Stagnant.  Dormant.  Sometimes those states of inertia are necessary.  Rather like a bear in hibernation.  Time out - down time.  A period of rest and healing.  My current stuck-ness does not feel much like rest or healing.   It is more of a busy stuck-ness - a moving-all-around-and-going-nowhere stuck-ness.  A time of too much, rather than too little.  But, it all boils down to the same thing:  either you are inert and going nowhere or you are running in circles and going nowhere.

I need changes that take me off the path of nowhere and on the road to somewhere.  

Just after writing the last sentence, I saw that an email had arrived that I was waiting for.  I put aside my blog writing and read the email.  Then, I saw my Daily Om message - www.dailyom.com - which I had net yet read.  I read the message called Defense Mechanisms and have set it aside as a topic I may want to cover in a future blog post.  Then, my eye caught the list of online classes offered my Daily Om - a list that is always at the end of each daily message, but which I had not noticed or read in a very long time.  One of the classes listed was “The Best Year of Your Life” presented by Debbie Ford.  I was intrigued and clicked on the link.  The class is one lesson for 52 weeks and I signed up for it.  Now that is a truly new change.

Here I Go Again

When I started the Manifesting Mount Dora project, I called it an experiment with the Law of Attraction.  As the months passed, I forgot about the "experiment" part.  My focus slipped from the process to the hoped-for result, a sure path to disappointment, sadness and regret.  Why did this happen?  Control.  I wanted to be in control, I felt I was in control and when that proved to be not true, I lost control.  

The Law of Attraction is not a way to control your future, but a method to attract the future you want - a method that some swear by and that some think is hocus-pocus.  I wanted, and still want to, believe in the Law of Attraction, but I must approach it with a control-free attitude and that is difficult for me to do.  More than once, by multiple people, I have been labeled a control freak.  Although I think my control issues are definitely less than is years past, I obviously have not eliminated them entirely.  

I receive a daily email call the Daily Om by Madisyn Taylor and on February 8th, the theme of the email was control - how apropos.  Here is the first paragraph of that email essay:

The answer to control is practicing surrender.

Trying to maintain control in this life is a bit like trying to maintain control on a roller coaster. The ride has its own logic and is going to go its own way, regardless of how tightly you grip the bar. There is a thrill and a power in simply surrendering to the ride and fully feeling the ups and downs of it, letting the curves take you rather than fighting them. When you fight the ride, resisting what’s happening at every turn, your whole being becomes tense and anxiety is your close companion. When you go with the ride, accepting what you cannot control, freedom and joy will inevitably arise. 

I hate roller coasters!  Why? The lack of control, of course. I am the one gripping the bar so hard my knuckles turn white.  I barely breathe.  I am so anxious, I cannot even scream.  At this moment, I feel like I may hyperventilate just thinking about being on a speeding ride where I have not control over the velocity or the destination and no way to make the darn thing stop.  No wonder I was not able to "enjoy the ride" during the last ten months of my Law of Attraction experiment. I fooled myself into thinking my actions were controlling, and thereby creating, my future. 

It is hard to wrap my mind around the idea that you can work toward attracting something without actually being in control of the end result.  Can't say that I completely understand the concept either. That is why my Manifesting Mount Dora project was an experiment.  

As I grade the experience of the last ten months, I surprise myself by giving it an 8.  Overall, the experience was enjoyable.  The challenges were difficult, but I learned and grew from them.  I believe I developed spiritually.  And all of that in spite of not achieving my goal. 

My most recent lesson is just this - Manifesting Mount Dora is an experiment, as is life.  You try something, it works or doesn't work.  More often, it doesn't.  So, you adjust your approach and try again.  There is no failure, just lessons. You don't give up, you just regroup and readjust. So, here I go again.  

Chaos and Dancing Stars

Fact about me: in the gray cold of winter, I cannot recall the golden warmth of summer.  I am one of those people who is mired in my current condition, feeling as though it were always so.

Well, at least that is true when it comes to negative conditions.  I was always cold, always sad, always sick, always broke, always lonely, always tired.  If I am thirsty, the glass is always half empty.  No doubt, this is caused by a depressive-type personality.  I believe I was born with some kind of gene that makes me lean to the dark side.  My natural mom, who died when I was two months old, experienced, or so I gleaned from the stories I was told, anxiety and depression to the point of seeking professional treatment.  Since she died when I was so young, my own experiences with depression were not learned from her and I never knew others in my childhood world who were plagued with similar emotional disorders, so I am left to assume there is a genetic reason for my easy fall into hopelessness.  With the exception of the last few years of my marriage, these downward spirals rarely last long, and have never hampered my ability to work and deal with everyday life.  I just get blue.  And that is where I have been since mid-November.  After several sad and worrisome occurrences, I became stuck in a deep, dark funk.

In my last few posts I documented some of the happenings in my life that swept me from the hopeful world I was inhabiting.  I limped through the holidays feeling sad, tired and overwhelmed.  I greeted January, my busiest work time of the year, with no energy and worked long hours with no enthusiasm.  By mid-month, I succumbed to a bad cold.  Severe congestion and uncontrollable coughing zapped what was left of my strength and interrupted my sleep.  Not being able to take time off to rest and get well, I kept moving forward through days that seemed to last weeks.

While I was struggling with my declining health, my 14 year-old dog Winnie came down with upper respiratory and sinus infections, resulting in a constant bloody nasal discharge.  My big, affectionate protector was unbearably weak, looking at me with sad eyes that begged for relief.  A massive antibiotic treatment failed to help her and she steadily worsened during one very long night, leaving my vet to believe her infections were caused by cancerous conditions.  With no hope for my gentle giant to get better especially considering her age, my man and I made the sad, but compassionate, decision to end her suffering.  Unable to stop my flow of tears, I took the day off work and buried my dear old friend.  Hours spent crying just worsened my condition and my cold degraded to the bronchitis from which I am still trying to recover.

January was a bad month.  And, yet, in spite of the work, the illness, the loss of my dog, I ended the month feeling a little more hopeful than how I started the new year.  I cannot explain why.  Perhaps, it is the ever returning encouragement of spring.  An unusually warm January brought about an explosion of flowers, leaves and green grass fooling us into believing that winter had passed.  But even now, when the unseasonable heat has given way to more typical winter temperatures, when I am back to covering my more delicate plants and wrapping the outside faucets to protect them from freezing, I still feel like the world and I have recovered from the dark sadness of winter.

It is now as I lift my head above the clouds of despair that I can honestly see my tendency to give up when I am feeling tired and overwhelmed.  I went through some rough, sad times last year and, overall, I believe I did well.  But, when I become physically tired to the point that I can no longer find a way to rest, I lose my resolve to stay positive and upbeat.  The answer is, obviously, to not get so rundown that I cannot get up again.  Easier written than done.

Life can be so demanding.  Work needs to be done, people need to be cared for, problems need to solved, accidents happen, people and pets die, things stop working, illness attacks.  All this stuff happens on no one’s schedule.  We try and try, but we cannot schedule life.  There are days without enough hours.  There are nights without sleep.  And, those are the times that sink me.  I know this, but can I prevent being capsized by the unexpected?  I think all the junk of life has a cumulative effect, like a boat with a small leak.  Just a little water onboard, then a little more, after awhile the water is ankle deep, then knee deep and then, too late, the ship is going down.

I thought age would make me stronger, but it hasn’t.  Perhaps a little wiser, but definitely not stronger.  I may be better at distinguishing the little annoyances from the bigger problems, but I don’t know that I am any better at solving the dilemmas that sucker punch me in the gut.

I’ve noticed that when life gets difficult and I get tired, confusion sets in.  My house gets out of order, nothing can be found on my desk, my purse is a black hole, my car looks like a homeless camp.  Everything gets out-of-hand.  There is not enough time or energy to do anything about the chaos, so the confusion worsens.  Places that should be my refuge fill me with guilt.  I am there now.  I have been working a great deal, much has been happening, I have been physically ill and weary, and my life feels like a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing.  What time I have is spent keeping my clients organized while my own life feels misplaced, disorganized and bewildering.  And it is in the state of confusion that I came upon this quote which gave me hope:

One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star:   Friedrich Nietzsche

Should that be true, there is great hope for me and on that I am relying until something better comes along.