Beyond my own self

 

If there is such a thing as fate, or predetermination, I wonder why?

And if there is not, I still wonder why things happen the way they do?

All my life I have been giving up the people in my life. In the beginning my mother, father and siblings were the one constant. That ended in 1986 with my mother's death, followed later on by my father and brother.

My three children were my reason for living. We talked, played, did so many things together. Our relationship seemed as solid as rock.

And yet I was not a part of any of their children's lives in any long term way. Each one separated from me by totally different circumstances. Each one heartbreaking at some point. It seems that as I am the one common denominator there must be something wrong with me. And yet two of my children deny that.

Now, after four years of a madman running our country I find myself separated from the rest of my siblings, so my life is one long story of separation and abandonment. 

I have family of the heart. I am certainly not alone and yet I feel like some kind of animal who is constantly walking out of her tracks onto new trails. I dream of going home, but home does not exist beyond my own self.

I don't think I live in denial, but I certainly do live in a self-imposed sphere of existence that precludes things too painful to deal with. Whether those things are by choice, or not, does not seem to matter.

The body Frankenstein

 

Life is a science experiment.

Everyday I struggle with allergies to my environment, my medicines, and the timing of of those medicines.

Just because something causes terrible side effects when taken at night does not mean I should never take it. It seems that taking the same allergy spray at ten in the morning is very beneficial.

Just like taking my blood pressure medicine at night is most effective, but I have a bad reaction to all statins.

No one seems to be able to just tell me these things. I have to figure them out, or stumble upon them.

I love my present apartment. I also loved all the plants I once had here, but evidently I am allergic to rabbit foot ferns and the dust. If I don't keep the air filters constantly brushed, the floor vacuumed and avoid all kinds of sprays, I am constantly sick.

I can take medicine for wheezing, but eventually it causes other difficulties, so I had to stop. Only to discover that if I kick the heat up two more degrees the wheezing stops. 

I can eat a certain brand of toasted, lightly salted almonds unless I am unlucky enough to get the occasional bag that must be cooked in something different. Then I am allergic to them and my throat itches, even swells up some and I have to toss a ten dollar bag of nuts. And now I suffer whenever I eat a blizzard or Dairy Queen milk product.

The slightest change in things can cause me all kinds of problems and I begin to feel like a hypochondriac, but if I am one, then I am very good at manifesting real physical symptoms.

Pain

  

Pain sounds like a physical thing. A stubbed toe, a diseased organ, any of a million different physical manifestations and yet pain is emotional too. 

Pain is regret. It is missing someone who is gone.  It is not understanding. It is in the head, but in the body too.

I feel pain when I recall certain memories, or thoughts and that pain inflates an invisible space from my head, behind my eyes and all around my heart in my chest cavity, making breathing painful, breath jerky, even eliciting tears in my eyes

Pain is a real phenomena and I believe it can manifest real dis ease.

Bodily pain can often be healed with medical procedures, but emotional pain is so much more difficult to deal with. 

I cannot take a pill and change a situation. There are no injections that really eliminate reality. I cannot force myself to be something my being does not really embrace, or believe. 

I can change words, actions, places, even people, but that does not guarantee a change in feelings. 

Experience tells me all pain is real, but emotional pain is bewildering, almost magical in as much as it has no shape, color, size, or measurable boundaries, but comes with extreme power.

As a human being I must develop my own method of dealing with such pain, one that works for me, one that convinces my mind it is valid and no matter how much help people try to give me, it will only succeed if I allow it to.

Learning to control my own beliefs is the hardest thing in the world.

Family of the heart

 

I was so sick this past month that my car had to be jumped. 

Again!

I just couldn't get out and drive it and then the weather turned bad.

Really bad!

This has been a year of extremes, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that yesterday and today I am feeling unusually peppy and happy. Compared to the rest of the year.

Nights are still bad. My sinuses worked overtime last night, but I slept okay upright in my recliner and that may be part of the answer.

I'm getting some real rest.

Without Trump in office and all the horror that accompanied him I feel like I am emerging from a nightmare, only exacerbated by the people in my family who seem intent on living their worst lives ever.

My children are doing fine. The rest?

Not so much.

It seems my health demands I rely on my family of the heart and quarantine myself from my siblings.

It is an adjustment.

Still, if I can feel like I did today, it is worth it!

Re-imagined

 

I suppose memories are very personal and should not be tampered with, but there is a certain type of memory that just grates on me.

It is the re-imagined, or reinvented memory that never existed in the first place.

Women who suddenly start referring to their mothers and fathers as mommy and daddy are in that category.

People who glorify relationships that were never that great, or make good ones sound fashionably hectic now when they tell stories irk me.

Just because some television show you watched made it look cool for you to act weird, or do strange things to your siblings, is not a good reason to re-imagine your history.

Life is what it is. 

It is not necessary to over emote, or create absurd scenarios to be cool.

Coolness comes from having the guts to be you.

Fame and fortune

I love a good movie, or play. I enjoy local athletes and music . These all seem like healthy ways to entertain people, keep in shape and fulfill the need of people to do what they are good at.

That being said, I do not find actors, athletes, or anyone else worthy of being treated like royalty - unless they are working towards the common good of humankind. Simply indulging themselves in excessive life styles does not make them special. It makes them self serving and greedy.

The idea that making a lot of money makes you a great person is founded on shaky ground. Making a lot of money can be the equivalent of storing all the neighborhood nuts in your yard while the neighbors go hungry.

Ideally everyone should do what they are good at, but if that is fleecing the flock, who needs it? There are other people who could  probably do similar things and still make the world a better place.

So I am not impressed with fancy cars and clothes, giant homes for one or two people, consumption for consumption's sake. I want to know what you give to the world, not what you give to yourself.

The neediest

Some people desperately need to be needed. 

Everyone thrives with attention, but there are people who believe that negative attention is more deserving than others.

They are the sickly ones, the ones who "work their fingers to the bone," the ones who always seem to be beleaguered by something or someone.

You and I may simply try to get through bad times like these, but there are people who thrive when they are miserable. They go out of their way to be put upon, to feel used, to look mistreated and abused. In fact, they egg it on.

Because they are never happier than when they are miserable.

Which makes them miserable people to be around.

That does not mean they don't have friends, or cheering squads. They do. These are the people they live for, the ones who fall into their "poor me" trap and egg them on.

Leaders

 

Leaders are imbued with voices that inspire listeners. They speak with authority, with boldness, with a surety that makes them good at what they do.

Leading.

The problem with leaders is that they do this very thing whether they are good leaders, mediocre leaders, or even bad ones.

They are used to receiving attention and commanding obedience.

Not quick to take the blame for anyone else's mistaken perceptions, or ideas, leaders are especially resistant to their own misperceptions.

Beware the leader who is absolutely sure of himself, because he is dangerous.

Better to have a leader who surrounds himself with good people and listens to them.

Me, me, me, meeeeeeeee

 

Know thyself.

I have heard that phrase since before I can remember, but it still confounds me.

There are absolutes about me that have never really changed. I am a very vivid dreamer and I remember a lot of my dreams. I am super sensitive to textures in both things I touch and taste. The idea of eating an unfrozen grape and feeling my teeth pop through the skin is nearly unimaginable for me, as is the texture of a lima bean, or meat like kidney or liver. I sleep best when covered in something not too heavy, but with enough weight to feel secure and my vellux throw is like a security blanket. I sort of swaddle myself in it in my recliner and it is very soothing. People who are unfair, unkind, or illogical upset me so much I will have nightmares after being around them.

I like the idea of people, but having to interact with more than one or two people for any length of time is so difficult I would rather be alone. I like sounds like whale songs, thunderstorms, and even some regular music for maybe half an hour, but I can drive for hours with no sound at all and be perfectly at ease. Anything that won't stop eventually drives me mad after half an hour or so. I am never going to be the person whose television runs in the background. I can't stand the noise. When there is sound I feel compelled to pay attention.

I have a soothing action I do by rubbing my thumbs or fingers together. There is a crisp feel and a squishy feel, but to me they speak of something past that is safe and secure, like an umbilical to the great mother. It is not something I choose, just something I find myself doing a lot of the time.

I know that I am intelligent. Some things are much easier for me than for many other people, but there are things I have problems with. Names and titles are difficult for me to remember, but I could tell you everything else about what I am reading, learning, or watching. Numbers are easy. I see numbers and patterns in everything. I even hear it in sounds.

I am very self conscious so my musical ability is really only for me.

I am loyal beyond loyal to those I love and respect, but have little tolerance for people who claim to be loving while really being self-serving and doing things that make them happy without really helping the one they love.

I consider myself a fair person, but I am also a judging person. I may not act on that judging part, but I feel it. And sometimes I do act on it.

At this stage of my life I think I am only fit to live with myself. I am often too tired to do more and too sensitive to be able to tolerate sharing a space too closely for too long and still be kind.

And I want to be kind.

Wonder and awe

I have to admit that when I die I expect to become part of the wind and water, sunshine and earth. Simply swept away into the great togetherness we are all a part of without realizing it now.

But what if a soul does continue on? What if there is some essence of me that has been before and will be again? What if those dreams I had as a very young child were flashes of memories?

Would there be any rhyme or reason for how I came back, or why? Is there actually unfinished soul business in the universe? Are any of the people in my life now also ones that I knew before?

Of course I'll never know for sure. I probably don't really want to remember. Waking up and seeing the flames covering my youth bed and wondering why they didn't burn this time, might be very traumatic to remember in any greater detail. Or the three white pigs with bloody mouths standing on top of me? Maybe not that beautiful round room with the big windows full of blue sky, but who knows what else came with that?

Chances are they were only dreams brought on by a very young impressionable child over hearing adults talking, but sometimes I wonder.

Did we find each other because we were looking? Will we find each other again when the life cycles are more in tune? Or are we simply trying to learn something that has not been learned?

I do not even begin to understand the universe, nor the laws that govern it. I know that matter is not created or destroyed, but I don't know if that includes the form that matter takes. There will always be wonder and awe and I think that is the beauty of creation.

Waiting

 

It seems my whole life has been one of waiting.

Waiting for my father to come home from work so we can have dinner.

Waiting for Grandma to finish washing the clothes so she can go to work and Aunt Lete and I can hang those heavy weight shirts and sheets on clotheslines sagging behind the house, then prop them up with long wooden poles.

Waiting for the butterfly to land so I can pinch his wings together and hold my prize for a few minutes that will intrigue my three year old eyes and end his short life even sooner.

Waiting for school to start and then to end, for summer to come followed by fall.

Waiting to be twelve then sixteen. Waiting for the boy I have a crush on to deliver the newspaper, or for the neighbors to invite us over to swim in their pool.

Waiting. Always waiting.

For the man I am engaged to, to come home from Vietnam. To find out if the house we put an offer on will be ours, or if I am finally pregnant at last -- and this time it will keep. Waiting to adopt the children who are to become our family.

Waiting for happy times, peaceful times, joyful times, sprinkled sparsely through what should be heavenly times.

And then the waiting ends. The children are grown. The marriage is over. The dreams are in the past. Hopes lay like wilted dandelions hung in dead daisy chains on limp stems from doorways that have long since closed.

All that waiting for things promised, things wanted, things hoped for . . .