Category Archives: working throug it

Self-Absorbed Updates

Posted on by learning to live like water

self-absorbed

Ok, I need 10 minutes. Maybe only 5, I don’t think it will take that long to read this, lol. Just feeling totally self absorbed this morning. I don’t really like it, but hey, I guess I need my moments. Anyway….it’s how I woke up, and the only way to get through it for me, is to write about it, publish it, and then look at it and go, “YUCK. Get back to yourself, and stop all this whining!” So I apologize, but I’m doing it anyway. Therapy.

I need to go through my mail, and unsubscribe to a whole bunch of it. Notices and coupons from stores back in CT. Ace Rewards, from the local hardware store. Who’s playing at Angelico’s Lake House, the local watering hole beside the lake. I need to update my Groupon and Living Social offers, so they are for offers down here, not for massages and car detailing up in CT.

Seems a small thing, but it makes me a little homesick. Not that I’m not happy here, because still, I have to characterize my life as happy. It’s just they remind me when everything was on an even keel. When I went home to a house where everything was in it’s place. Where I didn’t have to use GPS to get anywhere. Where I had lots of people around.

Sleep evaded me for a long while last night, even though I was so tired when I went to bed. And even though I took an Ambien. I need to get back to myself, and my normal positive outlook on stuff. I need to finish moving into this house. I am sick of being unsettled.

I didn’t go to sunrise this morning, because it’s cloudy, solid clouds. So I am holed up in the house. It is much cooler out these days. It was 70 this morning, instead of close to 80. But my windows need replacing, the screens do not all fit tightly, so I leave the AC on and don’t open the windows. I would be inundated with bugs if I opened a window. As it is, they get in the house, I suppose just by opening the door. I am missing the fresh air.

But ok, I can’t stand feeling sorry for myself for too long. Yesterday afternoon, my friend Pat called and asked if I would come to her house for awhile, because her daughter and grandkids were there and she’d like me to meet them. I’ve been wanting to, so I went. Her grandson is 8, and an amazing smart, well mannered, articulate young man. Her granddaughter is almost 3, and the cutest thing ever, and reminds me so much of my son because she talks incessantly, and can carry on a real conversation with people. Mostly with Pat, I can see she just adores her grandmother. Her daughter is like Pat, so similar. She is beautiful, and real, and has the same sense of humor. Plus like Pat, her life is full of amazing stories, and she tells them so well. I got there and she was painting a picture frame. I asked her if her mom taught her to paint, she said, no she never had time. LOL. Pat had to take care of her two kids basically on her own. Her life was hard. But her daughter is married to a wonderful man, she has a beautiful home, and a condo on the beach, and the two amazing kids, so I think Pat can say, she did right by her kids.

It seems odd, that I have known Pat 52 years, and I’m just now meeting her daughter. But that was the gap caused by an abusive marriage for me, a marriage to a man who wanted to isolate me from everyone else who loved me. He couldn’t do it with my family, but he did for many years from my friends. Well, I let him, right? Yes, there were some battles with him I just couldn’t fight. I got them all back, that’s all that matters.

And now, to get myself back. I will take a kind of a breather today, except for the appointment for my windows, and with the dr. My handyman is coming over to fix my fence this morning too. Then tomorrow I’ll go pick up my new car, and get back in the groove of finding a washer dryer, a shed, getting my stuff up on the walls, calling the town to get a special pick up of some of the rest of the boxes that I can’t take to the recycling center myself, or fit in my recycling bins. Just some of what I need to do.

Onward. Love and light, all.

Renewing a Meditation Practice

Posted on by learning to live like water

I didn’t sleep well last night, and so didn’t wake up in time to see sunrise this morning. It was one of those mind chatter nights. I fell asleep fine, despite having listened to an hour or so of that ridiculous debate. But I woke up, a couple hours later and just had such a hard time shutting it down again.

Thoughts… of what I had to do today. Go to the dr. Meet the guy from the insurance company to get the payment for my car. Go look at another car. Tonight go to the open mic and hear my poems read, which makes me really nervous and self-conscious. Then, I thought about my friends back home, the ones who have been part of my life, and I missed them. I was so glad to hear from the friend yesterday, and another that I messaged with later.

I finally fell back to sleep with my meditation music, and a conscious effort at remembering all the things I have to be grateful for.

This morning I realized that my meditation practice has really slid since I’ve been here. New routines, new surroundings. I did a good 20 minutes this morning, trying to focus on Sat, Chit, Ananda. Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. It took about half the time to shut down the chatter again. When I finally did, a lump rose in my throat. I don’t know why, except, I was just grateful for the people who are in my life, and for the universe bringing to me, or maybe actually bringing me to, the kind of life I have dreamed of.

So, I need to get this car thing finished. A car needs to be something I take for granted that I have, not something I have to spend a great deal of time thinking about. Then I can get back to the business of continuing to make this house the way I need it to be.

I want to make jewelry again. Really have a hankering to do that. The other night I was wearing a rose quartz wire wrapped pendant which I wear often, and people have asked me if I have a studio when they find out I made it. I always want to laugh, and think….Geez, I just do this as a hobby. But maybe I could get my stuff displayed at some of the stores around here. I asked my friends if they think my work is good enough to show in places like that and they were like, “OMG, Deb it is totally good enough!” Well, I need the money. I guess I’ll try and see what happens.

Anyway, I can’t make jewelry until I have a place in my house to do it, and so, I have to get back to the business at hand of getting the house set up as I need it to be. And first, I need to have a car.

Sometimes this is harder than I thought it would be. And then I have to say, but aren’t you lucky you can do it at all?

Yes, I’m blessed. Totally. I can do this. One thing at a time. Even though I haven’t really got a time table, I need to press on, I need it done, so I can live the way that works for me. So, onward, as Liz Gilbert says. Onward.

Love and light, all

Wanting, or Needing? I Know My Answer

Posted on by learning to live like water

It was late. The pain was still raw, as if I’d had surgery done on my heart. The anger visceral, because it covered the pain. Demons gnawed at my very sinew, baring their bloody teeth. Some of them churned my stomach, like a hurricane in the middle of my body. My breath, my very breath, was being stolen from me. I could feel the fury coursing through my veins, my eyes and head and heart pounding in an evil dance.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t want to get in.” I said, to nobody. “Maybe I’ll go sleep on the couch. Then I won’t think of him. Sleeping with her, never with me again.” Although loathe to sleep in my bed, I knew I had to do put one leg in, then the other. Lay on the pillows that we used to share. I had to be comfortable in my own bed.

But first, I put on a nightgown. So I wouldn’t have visions of him, not next to me naked. Next to her naked. So I wouldn’t feel the luxury of the sheets on my skin. So I could avoid the worst pain.

I sat on the edge of the bed again. I had to know. “Is she sleeping in your bed?” I asked. “No.” I drew out some more anger, to mask the pain.

Sleeping pills and wine… I got a little sleep somehow.

I woke 2 hours later, it was 3 AM. I called him, but he wouldn’t answer. I wanted to know. I needed to know. How long had I been the fool?

I’m still the fool. Because I still let it hurt me. Because I still allow the anger to consume me. Because he’s not worth it, he’s never given me back anything. Yet, I sat there, sit here, empty. Wanting him to fill the void.

I guess I always did, and because he was here with me, I thought some day he would.

There’s always a lesson. Some people can’t. Just can’t, fill an emotional void. Some people run from the emotions. They don’t want to feel. So they numb. Numb with drugs, numb with alcohol, numb with cigarettes, numb with food. Some people numb the present by living in the past, because, you can rewrite your past. You can make a nightmare into a dream. Or a dream into a nightmare. And believe it.

I’m kind of getting it. Having someone who needs you to take care of them, keeps you from having to invest in them emotionally. “See, see what I did for you. How can you question my love for you?” “I gave you a kitchen, I bought you a car. Of course I love you.”

But something made her run, into the arms of another man. Who, of course, she didn’t even know, let alone love. A grown woman? No, an emotional teenager. And now she wants out, and of course, he will take care of it for her. Of course. It will prove that he loves her. Of course, it doesn’t prove that she loves him. It only proves that she needs  him.  Then when she runs again, after she is free….he can wear his pain like a badge, “All women hurt me. I don’t ever want to love again.”

All women, except me. I didn’t hurt him. But I didn’t want anything either. Except his love. That was it, that was all.  The one thing that he gives no one.  Not even himself.

But I’ll be gone. I’ll be in the arms and bed of someone who wants me, and doesn’t need to take care of me.

I don’t want to need anyone, nor do I want to be needed. But want, oh what a glorious thing that is, to want someone, and have them want you back. I’ll find him.

Disclaimer:  I don’t know for a fact that any of that about her is true.  It is my intuitions best guess.  Only time will tell.