Adventure

Imagine spending 49 years of your life in one town. Born there. Raising children there. Having most of your family there. Then moving over 1600 miles away to start a new life!

That is what my daughter did yesterday.

She and her boy friend of the past few years moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he will work for airport security and she will find a job similar to what she had here.

They are starting out in an apartment and intend to buy a house in six months.

It is a huge step for both of them, one they have planned for two years.

Here's to the adventurers in life!

Eating

 

Some people smoke and some people drink, but I eat!

Eating is an insidious form of coping, an odious addiction for dealing with stress in a socially acceptable way.

It is not safe. 

It isn't even always pleasant.

It leaves an after taste of guilt and sometimes even pain.

The older I get, the fewer options I have. My feet, my back muscles, my general feeling of ennui, get in the way of other ways of coping.

When I feel good, I feel very very good, but when I feel bad?

I feel tired and heavy, empty and wanting and I have yet to learn how to properly deal with these manifestations of the spirit.

I rearrange my furniture, shop, walk, or used to, and I eat.

The easiest of these is to eat. The chewing, the tasting, the feeling of fullness until it supersedes the size of my stomach, all fill the holes inside of me for a few moments and then they turn on me and increase my woes.

But I keep trying, hoping to redirect, or conquer this addiction that cannot be totally avoided.

Forgiveness

 

I know there are always two ways to go, two ways to do something, two choices, or maybe more of all of these.

I also know that you will make the wrong choice most of the time. Maybe you don't do it consciously, but you still pick the way that lets you down, makes you look pathetic, makes you poorer, make you unhappier, makes you sick.

There is some part of you that is convinced that is who you really are: poor, pathetic, sad, sick, needy. 

It makes me angry to see this and that hurts me even more than it hurts you, because the anger I feel is inside of me! Inside of me where it eats me up without helping you at all! I need to stop this insanity.

I need to find a way to let you do your thing without me judging you, or feeling involved. I need to find a way to forgive you for being so bad to yourself.

If I can't help you (and it appears after all these years that I cannot) then I have to help me. 

I want to forgive you and move on.

The same old dance

 

You don't have to convince me that you are doing all the right things. 

Telling me what you are going to do is nothing new. You have been telling me the same things since I can remember.

You seem to think that you need to give me excuses for why you keep doing things that eat up your time, your health, your money and your life.

You do not.

It makes me sad to hear you are doing the same old things over and over again, so if you want to keep doing them, please, just stop telling me.

It won't help you, but it might help me. My knowing what you do does not help you unless you do something about it besides talk.

This weird dance we have been doing for years on end is depressing.

Conditioned

 

I have been seriously considering going to counseling and I still may, but I had an "Aha!" moment tonight that came because of a dream I had the night before last.

In the dream my ex and I were still together and we were doing something I found very meaningful and sweet. As usual, I felt something was not quite right, but was not sure what it was. Then I realized that everything we were doing was a sham!

He was just saying and doing the things he needed to in order to keep me pacified. I felt so betrayed.

Tonight I had flashbacks from this dream and I realized that, at least, the last twenty years of our relationship was like that. Nearly everything we did was backed up by a secret relationship, or something he was doing that I didn't know about until later.

That means the paranoia he accused me of was based on real things!  I was not paranoid. I was simply aware on one level or another and unable to believe he would do that.

I am not paranoid. I am conditioned. 

And I can work with that. 

Lost

I love sitting down, one on one, to share time with people I enjoy.

There is something about a one on one talk that is like a fine old wine. It is richer, headier, a little more of everything than getting together with a larger group of people.

People say, the more the merrier, but I am not looking for merry. I am looking for meaningful.

I have planned on an intimate lunch with my daughter for over a year. She is leaving the state to live far away with her fiance and it is a huge step for her. I had a little bracelet inscribed with some meaningful words and I saw myself giving it to her, just the two of us, in an elegant little tea house we both love.

Of course I planned to take both of them out to dinner on a different date, but she managed to invite him to the tea house and there was no way I could politely un-invite him. I like him. I enjoy his company, but I just didn't want anyone else there for that moment.

I am so disappointed. 

I feel like I have lost something very important to me.

I know I need to just let it go, but it has truly affected me. I even dreamed about it last night and woke in a funk today. I don't like this part of me any more than I like the manipulative part of her that brought this particular part of me into being.

It is part and parcel for our relationship though and one of the reasons I am also relieved that she is moving.  Perhaps we will be better for each other at a distance.

Signs

 

Signs are the keys that spark something inside of us. It doesn't matter if we think they are a sign from god, or nature, or lady luck. It only matters that we wanted a sign and one appeared. It is the wanting that is the magic. The wanting to believe, to think, to know deep down inside that things can change.

Whenever I see a blue heron flying over I take that as a good omen. Other good signs for me, are deer by the side of the road, or deep inside the woods. Eagles remind me of my brother. Owls of my parents long ago when I thought they knew everything.

This past week I saw an eagle flying along side a bridge I was driving over. Later I saw a doe staring at me from only feet away. Today a heron flew over as I ate breakfast beside the lake.

All of these things make me feel good, but this afternoon, at home, I experienced something for the briefest part of a second that warmed me through and through. 

It was a dash of hope, a flash of possibilities, a microsecond of that old belief that anything is possible if I only want it badly enough to try hard enough.

I haven't felt possibilities for a future in a very long time. It seemed I might have grown past the age of them until today.

And that is a very good sign.

I love you

 

I was thinking about you just now.

I love you!

I love you so much. 

The first moment I held you in my arms I looked into your eyes and fell totally in love.

Every sound you made warmed my heart. Every move you made thrilled me beyond belief.

When you slept, I often just watched in awe. The rest of the time I spent making your baby clothes, designing places for you to play, thinking about what we would do when you woke up.

Every experience you have ever had was something I wanted to know more about. I treasured your voice, your thoughts, your abilities, even your failures. The worst note you ever played brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Because it came from you.

The hardest things I have ever had to do were to give you the space and the freedom to be you. And yet, I have treasured those too, because they let you be you.

I love you.

I always will. No matter what.

Just a little bit

How can selling one large, but tabletop, dollhouse make my entire apartment feel larger?

I suspect the girth of many things, both concrete and ethereal has less to do with actual dimensions and more to do with how heavy it lies on my mind.

Right now I am feeling the need to downsize. I have been like this, to some extent, all my life, but it grows more pressing as I grow older. I just renewed the lease on my little apartment for two years. My choice. I like this location, the structure of my apartment, my neighbors, and even the plumbing. I can't imagine finding another one in this price range that fits my desires and needs as well as this one.

I love my recliner chair and my two chests of drawers, although I love one more than the other. I even love my desk and the second hand Haviland china that I use everyday. 

Loving what I have is important to me. The weight of my silverware makes me happy when I use it. The way my glasses feel in my hand when I drink, the heft of my coffee mug everyday, these things are so satisfying.

If I don't love something it will eventually go. I kept the dollhouse furniture, much of it is museum quality. Just looking at its miniature perfection makes me happy.

For me, having a little bit of perfect is better than a house filled with stuff.