Tag Archives: family

Smiling A Lot This Week

Posted on by learning to live like water

Happiness and gratitude are my partners this week. I guess one doesn’t come without the other, and I am surely both.  Just smiling a lot.

Having so much fun hanging out with my son. I love the adult he’s become. He’s still funny as hell. He has a kind heart. He is passionate about some things, like the EDM music he mixes. He has 1 for sure gig in two weeks at a Denver club, and maybe one at a 420 festival in Denver on Thursday 4/20. Someone is trying to get him into the line up. I guess Denver is a world hub for this kind of music. He’s just a good kid, a good sense of right and wrong. He has an incredible work ethic, too.

I am so grateful, so utterly grateful, that he’s such a good kid. 25 yr old good kid, lol. I’m grateful that he wants to hang with me, that he wanted me to stay up and watch a movie with him last night, that he can tell me anything, and does.

He says he wishes he had family close to him in Denver, and I so wish he did too. I had no family in CT when I moved there when I was 21 or 22, and I am sure that’s one reason I was so sucked into the relationship with my ex. Isolation is not good for you. We’re social animals, us humans.

We spent a couple days and one night at my sister and brother-in-law’s house. It was good to see them, they loved seeing my son. Everyone has drama in their lives, but really, he has none, and hates it. He doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment, and when he does have one, the minute they introduce drama into the relationship, he’s outta there. I guess he had enough drama growing up for 15 lifetimes.

The weather was really hot the first few days he was here. Now it’s cool, highs in the low 70s’s. 57 overnight! Tomorrow it’s back to the 80’s but not as humid as it was, so it’s all good. Been very windy though. The Gulf of Mexico looked a lot more like the Atlantic with crashing breakers. We went to the beach one afternoon, but only stayed an hour, because we were getting sand-blasted by the wind.

This morning I’m going to help him on his taxes. Tonight I’m going to take him out to the Italian restaurant in town. I’ve been dying to try it, it has a good reputation. He might meet a couple of my friends today. I told him I brag about him a lot, so they all want to meet him, lol.

I will be so sad to see him go tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll go out there this summer, just because he has used up his time off until September. If he can run a 3 or 4 day weekend, I would go, but we’ll just have to see.

It’s been awesome. Love and light to everyone.

All Good Things This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

Nothing like a good night’s sleep. I was asleep by 9:30, and slept straight through until 5:45 this morning. My cough is gone, I feel rested for the first time in 2 days. It’s awesome, really. I skipped my massage yesterday, and my Veterans Art Center meeting. You know I was tired if I didn’t get the massage, lol. I was afraid if I wasn’t coughing my brains out on her table, I’d fall asleep there, lol. Better not to go, than be the client from hell.

I am so excited to see my son. OMG, 9 months is too long not to see your child, even though we talk every day. Don’t want to go that long again! We will have such a good time! The baseball game, maybe go kayaking, go to my sisters house, the beach….so much to show him and do with him. Maybe I can take him to open mic night! I plan to go out there this summer, and we’ve talked about meeting in CT too at some point, because we both miss our friends there.

The weather here is going to be around 80° all week, I think that will be the norm from now on. 80° is my favorite temperature. Hot, but not too hot. The humidity is very low this time of year. A couple more months and it will be hot and sticky, but right now, it’s perfect. Hot and sticky is a trade off for not having to deal with 10° and piles of snow, and that’s a good trade in my book any day!

Tonight I’m going to make that dinner for L that I kept telling him I’d keep warm while he was gone. Looking very forward to that. I have a few things to go get this morning for it. We should have a good time, we laugh a lot together.

I am so grateful this morning, for the way my life has turned out, and for the people who are in it. Feeling very blessed, as always. Love and light to all.

On Not Having to Explain Myself

Posted on by learning to live like water

The other day, when I was at my sisters, she said, again, lol, how she didn’t realize how much it would mean to her to have me so close by. I think for me, it’s been different than for her. I KNEW how much it would mean to me, hell, I wouldn’t have moved here if she wasn’t here. I only knew her and my one friend from childhood. When you move a great distance, you think about those things.

My sis has lived here with her husband, in the winter for 8 years. She has a base here, close friendships. My appearance in her life was one more of them. But we both have realized how awesome it is to have each other. To have someone in your life on a regular basis who lived through your childhood together, who knew how you grew up, experienced all that you experienced. To have someone in your life regularly to whom you don’t have to explain who you are. It’s amazing really.

This morning, I was making my coffee, and thought about how all three of us, my older and younger sisters, and me, drink our coffee the same way. Cream only, and not too much of it. (Although my younger sister, now mostly vegan probably gave up the cream.) I thought about my little sister’s visit in about 10 days. Thought about how cool it will be to go out to lunch with both my sisters, just the 3 of us.

Of course, then I always think about how blessed we were to grow up in the Norman Rockwell life we did. Two parents who loved each other, in a small town in Iowa, in a 100 year old house 3 blocks from the Mississippi River. Days spent on that river together, where at least my older sis and I learned to water-ski, behind our 16′ boat. Minor league baseball games with my dad.

Mostly, and I’ve written about this many times, never ever going to bed wondering if our parents loved us. My God, what a gift that is to give your children. The people I know who did not have that foundation, that gift, of unconditional love have striven for it their whole lives, don’t believe it exists, and have built incredible walls and acted out in harmful ways to ease the pain of a child who doesn’t believe they are worthy of love.

I’m trying to finish up the stuff I need to get done with the house before my little sis comes here. I look at the diamond shaped window in my front door, and the round stained glass flower that this sister made for me which fits exactly in the center of it.

I feel so much peace lately. So much more than I’ve felt in years. My sisters and I hanging out together. The spark of a relationship that has the possibility of becoming something very special, without all the pain and drama and ugliness of my marriage and last relationship. A cute little house in a place where 60 is cold weather. And not having to go to work. Good, close friends. One of them who is almost like my sisters, who has known me forever, and to whom I never have to explain myself. It’s coincidental that the other day L was telling me a story from his youth, and said, oh yes, when I get together with my old friends, it’s still one of the stories we talk about.  Then he asked me, “do you have any friends that you’ve been friends with forever, like that?”  I told him “Oh yeah, in fact last weekend I had 3 girls staying with me and we’ve all been best friends since we were 13.”  He remarked how nice it is to have people in your life who knew you forever, that you never have to explain who you are to, who just know you.  It’s frigging amazing, really.

I have said so many times in the last couple of years, that I believe my purpose on this earth is to learn lessons and evolve my soul. I still believe that. The last couple of years though, I’ve added a caveat to that which is, that my lessons become easy lessons. I’ve had enough of the hard ones. I think I really have. Right now, it seems easy. I mean, the hardest thing that’s happened in a long time is having to set up a new cell phone, LOL. It feels like the Universe has listened, as if the intentions I set are manifesting.

Love and light to everyone.

Some Things Need to End, So Others Can Begin

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s been a quiet day for me on this blog. I had a bunch of stuff that was unresolved, didn’t want to really blog about it. Stuff that’s been rolling around for a few days, maybe even 2 weeks. Anyway, I’ve been bombarded by some energetic stuff lately, and it was making me a little crazy. So I talked to my good friend who is a medium, and a psychic, and Karuna II Reiki master, Tarot card reader. It’s how she makes a living. I have known her about 8 or 9 years, we are close. This morning, instead of writing, I asked her for a reading on some of the issues I was having. We talked for over an hour, and she refused to charge me.

The rest of the day, I spent sorting out the information I got. It’s very personal, I can’t go into it here, but I’ll just say that I felt relieved and melancholy when we were done. What she said made perfect sense to me. And the overall message was, stay the course. Stay it with my personal life, with my creativity, with the way I am creating my life down here. And also acceptance of what is, and nurturing myself.

She also talked about how it’s the new moon Thursday. I knew it was soon, had lost track of the fact that it is Thursday. Time to set new intentions. Especially this month. January is of course a 1, the first month. The year, 2017, also reduces to a 1. 1’s are new beginnings, time to start new projects, new relationships. So a good part of my day has been spend creating a list of intentions. I told her I was going to write them down.

Speaking of relationships, last night I sent a text to the man I had lunch with yesterday, thanking him for the lunch and the laughs, telling him I had a lot of fun and look forward to doing it again. This morning I got a text from him with his correct phone number. He’d told me he would do that, since the phone he’d been using was not his, his had been being repaired. Then when I got to my sisters, he called me, after asking in a text if he could. So sweet, well mannnered. But funny!!! OMG, we laughed the whole time. We seem to get each other’s sense of humor. Anyway, it was a nice surprise, to have him call.

I got to my sisters about 3:45. We went in the pool which was at 90. It was not real warm today, probably in the low 70’s. But the pool was nice. And we spent a long time in her hot tub with a glass of red wine! LOL. It’s a rough life, lol. I made a pot roast in the crock pot yesterday and brought it with me, so we didn’t have to cook dinner, we just heated it up. It was delicious!!!

So, life is still good. I’m enjoying my sister and brother-in-law, it’s been about 3 weeks maybe since I’ve seen them. Feeling my mother’s presence so much today. Interesting day, and a good one. Many things I need to put to rest, so I can move forward with the new moon. I think I can do it now.

Love and light, all.

And The New Year Rolls In

Posted on by learning to live like water

Happy New Year!

What a great New Year’s Eve. The friends across the street from my sis had this amazing party. I can’t tell you how awesome it is to spend New Year’s Eve outside. They had live music, there was lots of food (everyone brought something), lots of drink. Lots of dancing and talking and fun! And all we had to do was walk across the street, as did almost everyone else there. About 70 people all from the neighborhood. The music was somebody the hosts heard in Key West. They have a regular gig there, but the hosts paid them to come all the way up here, to play for us last night.

I have not spent New Year’s Eve with my sister, or anyone in my family for that matter, in about 50 years. It was so awesome!!!! It was about 65, cool enough for a sweater, warm enough that it was easy to stay outside all night. I met some more wonderful people, we laughed, they included me. I may have been the only single person there, but it didn’t matter, really. We all laughed, talked and danced til about 1 AM, and then came home and collapsed into bed. I only drank 3 small glasses of wine, really they probably amounted to 2 real glasses. Drank lots of water. At midnight the champagne came out.

I love that 2016 is over. It was such a hard year for me, so many big changes. I just tried, last night, to put it all in the past. The struggle to get the house sold, to move my son to Colorado, to retire, to move down here, to deal with the issues on the house down here, and to finish, once and for all, the relationship with S.

And since I have really and fully closed the door on that old, toxic and painful relationship, it seems maybe someone new is making their way in. I’m not sure yet, but the signs are good. I am WAY more cautious now, about believing what someone tells me. I’m not jumping into anything, but it seems there is something there, coming from both sides. Time will tell. I’m hopeful.

Trying to make New Year’s resolutions, well kind of. I am not a big resolution girl, but I think in light of all the changes in my life I should try to make some sort of plan on how I want to better live my life. Life is so good here, for me. With friends and family, and maybe a new man. But really, if I’m not going to work, I want to find things to get involved with, to give back, to make this little corner of the world a better place.

I’m going to finish the things around the house that need doing. I have to hang the curtains I bought in my bedroom. I need to put together my leave blower and clean up the leaves in the back yard. My handyman is coming in the next few days to do some tree-trimming. I need to scrub the deck down, it has some mildew on it, or else maybe it’s just dirty, but at any rate, it needs cleaning. Then I’ll get a shed ordered, my handyman will put it up, and I can start doing things like landscaping.

In my spare time, I want to get back to making jewelry. There are so many shops in town that will sell on consignment, and I am heartened by the fact that I sold two of the necklaces that were at the gallery in St. Pete. Apparently there is some market for the kind of jewelry I make. And so much more pleasant to make jewelry for extra money than to work. God, I so love not working.

I guess you can tell, I am excited for the future. No big changes ahead, just cruising easily through the things I love to do. In perfect weather most of the time. Last night was so perfect, really.

I fell asleep immediately, but only slept 3 or 4 hours last night. I see a nap in my future today, and it’s supposed to be warm again, warm enough to take a nap outside in the sun lounger. I don’t feel exhausted, I think that the inability to sleep longer is from just feeling so full of good energy from last night, and so much gratitude that my life has turned out this way. It’s crazy. If someone looked back at my blogs this time last year, I was such a mess. What a difference a year makes.

Enough gushing. It’s hard to stop. It’s just so awesome, so incredible, to be happy almost all the time. Not really to be ever stressed about anything. I think it’s one reason I have been able to let go so much more easily of things that no longer serve me since I’ve been here. There’s just no need to hang on to anything that doesn’t add happiness to my life.

Love and light, everyone. May we all have a blessed 2017.

Singing the Song for 2017

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s New Year’s Eve. Time to reflect, to look forward, to enjoy the moment.

Reflecting….. Last year was a year of huge change for me. Never before have I had so many big changes in my life. Losing my mother. Retiring from a lifetime of work. Moving to Florida, to a completely different way of life. Moving my son away from me to Colorado. Ending a love affair that stopped bringing me pleasure a long time ago, and only brought me pain. And even so, it was a struggle to let go. But let go I finally have, completely.

All these changes were good. Every one of them. Even though I miss my son so much. I know he’s doing well, and happy, and making his own way. Thank God for cell phones, we talk every day. There are new people in my life, new friends, the budding of new relationships that bring a smile to my face.

I don’t deal with winter any more. That is such a blessing to me. I so hated being cold from the middle of October until the middle of April. Dressing in 4 or 5 layers, and still being cold. I hated dealing with snow, and the last few years we had mega amounts of snow up there, with only a few exceptional years. I hated driving in it, keeping the driveway clear and the walk ways, and being housebound.

Now…..when it gets cold here, it’s in the 50’s. And so far, for not more than 2 days, til the temperature creeps back up to the 70’s or 80’s. I can walk every day along the beach. I can see the ocean every day. The water here on the Gulf coast is warm, and calm, and soothing. Usually I am dressed in one layer, and more often than not, it’s shorts, or skorts (the skirts with shorts under them).

To be able to spend time with my sister on a regular basis is such a blessing. We are becoming so close. It has eased the pain of losing our mother last year. We joke all the time about how we channel her for each other. She and I have not lived close to one another since we moved out of the house around age 20. I’m going back there today, invited to her neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party which promises to be a blast, and it’s right across the street!. No driving with the drunks….

The future is looking bright. There is a possibility of a budding relationship. It is moving slowly, at a speed which, while sometimes frustrating for me, is a good thing really. I’m sitting back and let the universe drive the train. It’s fun to feel that way again, and actually have it reciprocated.

Financially I feel secure. Avalon, my home, my place of new beginnings, is coming along. All the big work is now completed. There are some jobs like tree-trimming, putting up a shed, landscaping that need to be done, but they will be done over the next few months.

Mostly, I have given up worry over things I cannot control. I have come to believe that the Universe has a grand design, which we cannot possibly understand in human terms, and that all will work out for the highest good of all. It’s not so much Pollyanna, it’s just that I agree with Marianne Williamson that the universe is self-organizing and self-correcting. It has been the way it’s worked for me, over and over again. I know that many people won’t agree with me, in fact, maybe most. It’s just the way it is from the perspective of my life. Not asking anyone else to believe it.

This year, I think I will try to do more giving back. There are a few things I’ve discovered here which I can get involved with that might make a difference in someone else’s life. I mean, I have such a happy life here. So free of drama and pain, so full of joy. I want to spread that around as much as I can.

Life is for living, for singing a joyful song. I’ve always known that, even though I’ve had a hard time singing so often. Through an abusive marriage, a failed love affair, a long period of terrible financial insecurity, I still always believed I could one day sing the song again.

I’m singing it now. It’s in my head, lol, I still don’t sing in front of people. But those close to me can hear the song. I guess this is why I trust that the universe is on it, organizing and correcting for the higher benefit of all. Because it’s taken me from terrible darkness, to the sunlight of Florida.

Love and light, everyone. Have a Happy New Year!

A Little This ‘n’ That

Posted on by learning to live like water

This morning is foggy here. First time I have seen fog, though I know it has settled over the bay at times, once enough to close the huge Sunshine Skyway bridge that goes across Tampa Bay. It’s quite warm for early in the morning, about 65 or so. Feels a bit like New England though, with the fog.

I had this peculiar conversation with a friend last night. It started out fine, but ended up with some kind of game going on that I just wouldn’t play. God, I hate games, at least in person-to-person conversations. Whatever, it was weird. I thought I was just being a friend to someone who wanted to talk. I keep thinking the friend had been drinking or something. IDK, but I hope I don’t hear from them again. Too much trouble, chaos. I don’t hear from them much, but this is a repetitive cycle with them, that I’m a little sick of.

I have been messaging with a couple of nice, kind, smart men, both of whom seem to enjoy carrying on a give and take conversation, unlike the date from hell I had last week.. One lives 25 miles from me (my favorite so far) and one lives about 5 miles from me. The one that is my favorite is very laid back. I need laid back. Both tried to reach me yesterday, and couldn’t. I was just busy with the cookies and the boat parade thing. But I’m going to call them both back today. I explained that I’m normally not this busy, and I’d really like to talk to them. Well, one of them I have been talking with. The other has messaged me a lot, and was gong to the gallery in St. Pete to see my jewelry.

I’m feeling good this morning, even though that weird conversation last night spun my head for a little while. Well, I took measures to keep it from happening again. I have a wonderful life here. People that are hell-bent for terror and chaos are not welcome in it.

Today I go for my therapeutic back massage, and then off to my sisters on the island for a little R & R and sister time. Kind of ridiculous to call it R & R time, that’s really all I have, lol. But just the same, it will be really nice to get over there again.

Love and light, everyone.

Uncomplicated Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

“Think of someone you love who is uncomplicated to love,” the meditation guide instructed. I thought, of course, of my son. And as thoughts are liable to do, immediately after my son, I thought of my mother. And then of my father. And then of my two sisters.

All of them, uncomplicated to love, and to be loved by.

I have never known different with my family. Even when we had our disagreements, our rough patches, I never doubted that we loved each other, and that if pressed, we would be there for each other. Ever.

How friggin’ blessed I am, is something I’ve come to know as an adult. Really not until I was well past the half-way mark of my life did I realize the depth of that blessing.

I remember back when I just assumed all families were like mine. It seemed incongruous that my best friend’s father (at age 12) could put belt marks on her legs, but he did. She didn’t make a big deal of it, so no one else did. I can’t imagine what it was like, to be a 12 year old, going through puberty, and have your father take a belt to you. I remember my own father, at times in his frustration with my misbehavior as a child, raising his hand. That, the raised hand, was enough to make me know I better stop what I was doing, or saying. He never brought it down on me. I think it would have killed him to hit me.

I was SO naive.

I have known and loved men who were beaten by their fathers, whose mothers stood by and watched, thus enabling the brutality of a child. I think I made it my quest to prove to them that they were lovable, that they were in reality, as deserving of unconditional love as much as anyone. I wanted to convince them that it is possible for someone to love them purely, with no conditions. I cannot imagine a more painful thing to live with than the belief that you innately do not deserve love and belonging. Would it not instill false shame, to think you weren’t worthy of your parents love? And shame is such a destructive emotion.

I was unable to achieve this. It took me a long time to actively give up the quest. And that in itself, is not a good basis for a relationship anyway. There is no common ground. But, I love them, still. And wish they could see themselves the way I saw them. I wish they knew that all the love they think they missed is inside them now, given to them as a divine right. No one can take it from anyone else.

My childhood friend, has somehow managed to retrieve a relationship with her siblings now. They are very close. She has held onto the friendships of her youth. She’s coming to see me, and our other friend who lives in Daytona across the state, in January. This group of girls is like my family. They reconnected with me after about 40 years, and we picked up where we left off.

I think though, that it is part of my soul’s journey to love others the way that I’ve been loved. Am loved. It’s always the underlying emotion, the baseline. If I’ve loved you, I will always love you. If I never see you again, I will always love you, always wish the best for you, always feel the pain I know you feel and always send out whatever I can to assuage it. I may not like your behavior, I may choose to withdraw from it, but the love I felt, only came through me. I did not create it, I just channeled it. And will continue to do so, actively or passively.

So this was my post-meditation blog. Kind of a deep, heavy meditation, and it seems I’ve been doing a lot of reflection and introspection around this broader subject lately. I hope I’m not boring….not bringing the kiss of death on myself, lol.

Love and light, all.

A Day on the Island

Posted on by learning to live like water

I woke this morning feeling better. Not great, but better. I talked to my sister over on the island, and she suggested I come over, and maybe we could go to the beach for awhile, and just hang out. We haven’t spent any time together since she got here, so I happily went, laundry basket in hand.

It was just so nice to hang out. Not to be on vacation, but just to be living our lives and spend the day together. To get to my sisters, I have to drive by the assisted living facility my mother lived in on the Manatee River. Every time I go by there I think how happy she was there, how independent she still was. I smiled today and said, “I know you are happy that my sister and I are going to be together today.”

This is the first year that my sister hasn’t been taking care of my mom down here, and I think that while she’s enjoying the freedom, she also misses my mother so much. She even said if I wasn’t here she wasn’t sure she wanted to come. I am so happy to be here to help her find her way back to her own life. She’s painting again, and I’m so happy about that. She is very talented, but stopped completely for almost 2 years.

I felt better with her than I’ve felt all week.. We went up to the beach (2 blocks away) for a an hour or so. We swam in her pool. We talked and talked…..the way only family can. I stayed for dinner, and ate the first solid dinner I’ve had in days. I hope it settles, but it should. A piece of grilled salmon and some rice. I came home and had a small bowl of chicken broth, just to try to make sure the food settled in.

We made some tentative plans for the coming week. She also has plans of her own, and so do I. I told her about the place I go to for open mic, and group of people I’ve started hanging out with. She’s so funny, she told me I can’t have a boyfriend til she gives him approval, lol. Probably not a bad idea…..

Was just a perfect day. Exactly what I needed. Feeling gratitude to have the family I have.

Love and light