I never intended for my blog hiatus to be over two years long. After the gross trolling/stalking experience. I was just going to let things cool down and then resume my writing in this space. It is mine, after all.
Then things got busy. I went back to school. I moved a few times. Trauma. Violence. Eventually some tepid validation and weak sauce justice.
Then Trump got elected. I hid from that version of reality for about one day. Then I knew I needed to use my voice for good, or my version of it anyway. That makes me back in the game of being a general purpose agitator.
So many changes.
Truth is, I can't be me without writing, and the academic papers I have been doing for the last year and a half are not going to satisfy what my muse wants. Let's get real, who knows what kind of bait a muse needs? They are fickle little fuckers. Mine needs me to misbehave, to flood the hotel bathroom with bubble bath, to drink champagne and raise my Kundalini. I need to go Gonzo around at a time in my life that revolves being a single parent with a lot of responsibility.
So, welcome to what is not a rebirth per se, but perhaps a reanimation. I like Zombie imagery. They are a juggernaut. Mere death doesn't stop them.
If my muse shows up, then super yay! But I'm showing up. I intend to have shit to say. Jump in with me. Throw tomatoes if you wanna. All comments will be moderated, and abuse will, as always, be deleted. How about just being respectful of the space?
Subscribe if you wanna. Look back over the archives if you like. Suggest topics if you want to watch me rant.
At this point, I must accept the idea that I may in fact be totally insane. At least in isolated parts of my life. You can't have tons of energy and a very vivid imagination for long before someone else thinks you are crazy. I will admit I have a very warped perspective on a lot of things, but my mind is the only place I have to live, so I deal with it.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it is all relative, and just because something is perceived by my mind or experienced by my senses, sixth or otherwise, doesn't meant it isn't real or true.
And my mind works overtime. I have compared it to the restlessness of a shark, continually moving just to stay alive. When your brain is going all the time like that, it takes you to some strange places. Sometimes my flights of fancy allow me to come up with creative solutions for problems. Sometimes I cook up unusual stories or characters that I write down and make my feeble attempts at art with. Other times, I devolve into anxiety, depression, and worry.
I may not actually be insane. That oversimplifies. Insane people can't function at all. They have no connection to the common reality. I manage to have a demanding job and maintain relationships with people. I just have all this extra stuff. So, if anything, I am super-sane. Better yet, I could define sanity (functional life) along the spectrum of experiences as being in the middle, like the spectrum of visible light. Then religious ecstasy and intuition would be ultrasanity, whereas depression and melancholy would be infrasanity. I just came up with those words, and therefore hold the rights to them.
If you follow that logic, and I will contend that there is a peculiar logic to it, most people have a mix of all three. Some folks vibrate right in the middle, and live quite ordered and sensible lives. Others, and most of the artists I know, exist in the liminal spaces where the common shared reality blurs into imagination. I have patients in the hospital that suffer in the outer areas almost exclusively, or may pass through lucid moments only briefly on their excursions from one extreme to the other.
Go too far to either extreme of course, and you get the life threatening outcomes of mania and suicidal ideation. Biological life thrives in a narrow range of pH, and so our minds thrive in areas where we, as social animals, get the most positive feedback. There is social acceptance in being sane. Falling even a little outside that make you a delightful eccentric, and a lot outside it makes you homeless. So unless you have others around you to endorse your version of reality, you are gonna be pretty lonely.
I don't know about you, but that concept make me feel a whole lot better about my situation.
So, today is John Taylor's 51st birthday. I'll hasten to point out here that I did not have this penciled in red on my calendar, but got a reminder on Facebook from the Duran Duran fan page. But it did give me a moment's pause to remember him fondly, and I realized that I have similar feelings for some of my old lovers. That warm-if-distant affection that never quite goes away.
I was obsessed with John Taylor from at least 1983 to 1988. I was an epic Duranie of the highest order. I LOVED them. I had John Taylor's haircut, even. Yes, I had a spectacular, aquanet-crunchy mullet, but that is a subject for another time. It made me happy. I loved the music, the style, the guyliner, all of it. And in my secret heart, I still do love it, although perhaps not with the capital "L" of my teen years.
I know I am capable of my obsessions from time to time. They called me OCD girl in Anatomy class for the way I studied. Obsession can be useful when applied to academic pursuits, but love probably isn't in the same class of things that can benefit from that much attention.
I'm wondering to myself if I applied that same sort of devotion to my boyfriends in the past? I wonder what it is like to have a relationship with me. I'm all intensity and ferocity and passion. I want to break open my lovers and get to the gooey middle and taste the true depth of them. That might be scary, I guess, but I don't judge their flaws like they worry I would. I want them to give me a reason to be their biggest fan. I ask a lot of people. I want to know people on the deepest level possible. I want to try their favorite breakfast cereal and see if I like it too. I want to listen to their favorite records and see what effect the people who influenced them will have on me. If there were a Tiger Beat magazine that had my real friends on the cover I would totally buy it. I go deep or go home, because surface associations are next to useless to me.
I love John Taylor. I don't really know him at all, but whatever feelings I nursed for him as a young woman full of hormones burn in me still. He's getting older and so am I, but I still would probably pee my pants with excitement if I met him in person. But as we age together, I know that he has shaped me as much as anyone else I have loved. I gave oatmeal another chance because he loves it. So I guess obsession sometimes is good for me.
It is a slippery moral world. When I was a kid, right and wrong was pretty simple. My mom was pretty good at letting me know when I wasn't doing the right thing, like when we went to the clothing store and I hid in those display roundabouts from her. I got swift and decisive correction. There was no cake before dinner. We went to church on Sundays, whether I wanted to or not. Oh, and about that, Jesus went with me everywhere, like a mini-tenant in my heart. So even the stuff my mom didn't know about, there was always God to keep an eye on me.
I was a bit of an odd kid. Part tomboy, part nature sprite, I communed with the many trees in my grandparents' yard. I sang to the ocean during those summers at Cape Cod. I tracked the wildlife all over the Grand Tetons and the Black Hills. I studied the field guides and could name them all. I didn't have anyone to teach me how to make a daisy chain, but I always wanted to wear one in my hair.
I grew up, like I suppose we all must but only some of us do. I still love nature and never see enough of it. I work really hard. In my job as a registered nurse I deal with the ethics of life and death and the medicine in between on a daily basis. Right and wrong isn't all that clear cut anymore. Even my mom will sometimes eat cake before dinner, and Jesus and I are on cordial speaking terms, but some of his followers as well as some unjust circumstances have created real distance in that relationship. I don't really feel like God notices or cares about me on a daily basis that much.
I try my best to live my life with integrity. Here's the lowdown in the form of a wiki quote:
"Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,[1]
in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that
parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the
discrepancy or alter their beliefs."
At any rate, I am a passionate person and really appreciate honesty. I at least am honest with myself. Even if I am doing something in my personal life that isn't necessarily falling neatly into the "right" or "wrong" column, I know my motivations for what I do, and I make my choices for the most part with my eyes open.
Not all of my choices make me happy, but usually I learn from them either way, and see the wisdom of the outcome for the long game. Sometimes doing the right thing means making choices that make me completely miserable. Other times doing something sorta wrong ends up being the choice that leads to something really good. What is good for society at large isn't always what is going to be good for me. That different drummer is working a fast masmoudi in me when the rest of the world is doing Sousa marches. I'm a little warped. I have said before that trying to conform and always be "good" really takes me out of my integrity with myself.
I'm trying to remember these things as I strive for wholeness after a long stressful period, and during the recent stresses too. I need to focus on the things I know give me a feeling of peace: watching a chipmunk groom its fur, listening to the sound of the turbulent spring-swollen river, finding the mots juste to comfort a wounded friend, using my brain to figure out how to alleviate the symptoms of my patients when the drugs just aren't cutting it.
I may eat my dessert first, but it is an uncertain world. It isn't all about me, but if I can't be true to myself, I sure as hell can't please anybody else. I need to slow down and focus. I need to lace up my hiking boots. I need to drink more water and less coffee. I need to be in the present moment and attend to the work that is in front to of me. I need to take my son to Cape Cod and teach him how to sing to the ocean waves. He needs to feel the tickle of a hermit crab walking over his hand. There's lots of happiness to be had in the world, and lots of right and wrong ways to the top of the mountain (and guess what? they all get there!). What matters most is truth and love and facing my fears. I know I'll riddle it out my way, and that way is just fine even if others do it different.
Image: Little J finding the light at the end of the tunnel. It isn't even a train this time.
Okay, so I had to create a new tag for my blog today. I can't believe I had never used it before: Happy.
That just shows how much I have been holding my breath the last few years. It occurred to me earlier today that Little J will be with us at Christmas for sure. I have been so wrapped up in his legal concerns lately that I have not been able to think, with emotional safety, about the future. Just thinking about preparing a nice Christmas for him made me super happy.
Usually I am not super into that holiday. When we were going through infertility treatments there were too many Christmases that came and went without a child to share them with. The holidays became this loaded issue for me. Last year I didn't even decorate or put up a tree. I just couldn't do it. Now I have a new house and a new kid. I think I am going to dream of sugarplums tonight.
So I have passed the NCLEX exam and can check the whole "get a career" thing off my to-do list (again-I did this when I became a chef, too). It is a huge relief to have Nursing School behind me and a freshly minted RN license in my pocket. I'm in my new job and loving it even though I am "the new guy" and still grinding gears and finding my way around. My patients like me and the doctors are receptive to my input. I even heard an attending physician tell a resident that I know my stuff. (Oh my gosh that felt good!)
I'm also on the precipice of building my family in a more permanent way. Still holding my breath for the legal hurdles we face over Little J next month. We have reasons to be optimistic about that, although until he is finally adopted I will not be able to exhale. Too many weird things happen in the courts for me to be able to predict the outcome with anything like confidence.
After years of excruciating work and no small measure of heartbreak, all of the above came to fruition at the same time. We moved into our wonderful new house, I graduated, we got a kid the next day, and I passed the boards last week. Life has been pretty lively. I'm just now starting to enjoy the rewards of all this rapid-fire change.
As any good Warrior Goddess would, I thrive when I am conquering. Resting on my laurels has never been my thing. I like to look ahead and dream big and overcome the trials to get the prize. I'm trying to open my mind to what comes next. I am taking a year off of school so I can explore my new job and decide what path to take to advance in my career. At some point I will have to decide if Little J will remain an only child or if I dare tempt fate to ask for a daughter again. Big stuff.
Here's some possible school options:
Bridge to my BSN degree: This will most certainly happen, I just need to work out how soon to tackle that odious set of prerequisites. I need to take Statistics and some Chemistry. Ugh.
Become a Nurse Practitioner? Maybe. If I really like clinical practice and find floor nursing limiting, this would be a good option.
Masters/PhD in Medical Anthropology: I LOVE this idea, but sadly UNR's Anthropology program is one I have ruled out as an option for a number of reasons. If I go with this option, we would have to move out of state. Not that I can't handle an adventure, it is just a really big move/investment. Tony would need to agree, and I just don't think he is ready for me to be heavy into school again like that. Nursing School was tough enough on our relationship.
Here's some possible family options:
Adopt privately: Avoid the rigors of Washoe County altogether and find an agency I can stand to work with. Adopt a domestic infant or go abroad. Costly, but less uncertainty (only a little less) once a match is made.
Continue to foster: Could we get lucky again or will we get our hearts broken? Big, huge gamble. Very low legal costs once an adoption can happen. Big time commitment.
Keep J as an only child: I dunno. I don't feel like the family is quite "done". Most parents can relate to that. You know when you are done adding members to the family, and I'm not there yet.
Get another dog: We got Ember at a time when I was dying for a baby and it just wasn't happening. It helped me by giving me something small and helpless to nurture. Still, having only one dog now is less chaotic.
Misc. Goals:
I need to do things to enhance my health and physical energy. In other words, get a grip on my stress-eating and get my butt off the sofa. Lots of options and classes, but have been waiting for my schedule to shake out.
I need to get back in the groove of making art. That is: writing and also trying out other forms I have always wanted to improve in. I can't decide if blogging counts.
Getting my spiritual house in order so that I can do ANY of the above with a little more hope and faith, rather than stressing out all the time.
During the winter break from school I am obliged to work back at my old desk job. It is a small price to pay for my generous scholarship, but going back to the cube farm after four and a half months of semi-autonomy was pretty jarring.
The truth is that when I am in school, there is a sort of built in feedback system. I mean sure, there are tests and homework, but there are GRADES. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much, but at least someone is paying attention to how I am doing and giving me feedback to improve.
Going back to work, where I am reminded by my boss what a cog in the great machine I am was a real letdown yesterday. She didn't ask me how my semester was or even really welcome me back, but immediately went into the old song and dance about how our department was shortstaffed and outgunned. Nothing has changed here. I am doing a bit better today because I am back in the groove more, but yesterday dragged on and on.
I sound like a big baby here, but after getting such nice compliments from my professors and academic advisors, I felt like a snowflake: a unique and beautiful thing that is learning new things with grace. Yesterday I melted into a little puddle with the rest of the drips. It was a yucky feeling.
All this coming on the heels of my spectacular birthday cocktail party and dinner is a bit hard to swallow. I know it is just my bruised ego. But I am reinventing myself, or at least doing some major career refurbishing, so this feels like a step back, although admittedly a temporary one.
Yeah, at least I have a job to complain about. I need to be more grateful, and I really am. I will be even more grateful when school starts again. For about a minute. Then the stress of that will be a culture shock to me again.
I like school, though. I miss it already. And I will be glad to see my new friends there again.
I have been having some very close encounters with wild animals lately. I still am in awe of the owl sighting I had some weeks back. The other day I had a hawk swoop out of a tree I was passing under, trailing fluffy clouds of quail feathers in its wake. (I interrupted his breakfast, I guess.) But he went by SO CLOSE to me. It really caught my attention. It isn't that unusual to have a hawk sighting here, but not usually so close.
Since I put up the owl medicine link last time...
Here's some Native American lore about the hawk: (from: http://media.www.thecampanil.com/media/storage/paper936/news/2007/04/30/Opinions/Joanna.Iwata.Speaks.On.Hawk.Medicine-2888738.shtml )
"Hawk medicine. The power of perspective. The messengers of spirit. It has been said within most native cultures that "hawks have the power to soar high above the earth, giving them a perspective previously only available to the inhabitants of the heavens above." As they bring wisdom from the heavens and the value of their higher vision down to earth, they remind us that there is a bigger picture to be seen. Hawks are most often viewed as visionaries, as they use their keen insights to focus on what needs our attention in order to accomplish our goals. They see clearly what is not visible unless sought. Hawks also teach us how to interpret and then follow our personal vision. Hawks also remind us to consider a larger perspective, one that inspires us to move through the world we inhabit with "strength, certainty, and grace." In Avalon's interpretation of hawk medicine, she also speaks to the hawk's ability to look directly into the sun and see what is not visible to the rest of us. She goes on to speak to the spirit of the hawk that resides within each of us in our capacity to operate from a more expanded frame of mind, wherein we can access and follow our own personal truth and vision."
I am turning 40 in a few weeks. New decade deserves new manifesto, I figure.
So here it is:
1. I am not interested in doing things in a conventional way. 2. I intend to live my life as a tableau for making art. Even if it is a little abstract. 3. What is important to me is making art and helping motivate others to make art. Especially if making that art will heal them in some way. 4. I don't expect the choices I make to be popular with everyone. I don't want to hurt people, but I am finished with making myself smaller for other people's comfort. 5. As always, my friends and family matter to me, and finding deeper and more fulfilling ways to spend time with each of them will be a priority. 6. Finding new ways to combine left/right brain activities for myself and others will be my hallmark. 7. Expect to hear me roar and howl. I'll still be the nice girl you know, but I have no time for allowing my fears to drive. I intend to be behind the wheel. 8. I am not interested in being told what is impossible. I am manifesting, and am prepared to be amazed at how things come to me. 9. That cosmic egg thing is working out for me. I am becoming. 10. I am emerging. So be it. Amen, hallelujah.
Just an excerpt from a manuscript that will never see the light of day in its current form.
He gives me an exasperated look. “You act as if I never had any piece of your heart. Like I wasn’t there first. You never change in one respect. You try so hard to control things that are not in your sphere of influence. You would unmake God if he let you.”
“Humph.” I scoff.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love you for it. You don’t think anything is outside your grasp.”
“Are you kidding? Everything is outside my grasp. I don’t understand anything. I’m afraid of my own shadow.”
“Ah, that is where you are one hundred percent correct.” He smiles. “Your shadow is the problem. Just not like you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your shadow is a part of you. You can’t get away from it, even if you run for the rest of your life. And the bigger you are, the longer your shadow becomes.”
“I don’t want it. I hate that part of myself. I wish I could kill it or make it go away.”
“We are beings of light and shadow. We tend to repress that which we find unacceptable, even repulsive and weak about ourselves. Make no mistake; you cannot kill a part of yourself. You cannot hate your faults and still be well. I struggle with this myself, so please believe I know what I am talking about. Your shadow is as much a part of your soul as the light being is. Forget what the new-agers say about dark being negative or “bad”. I have come to believe that is crap. Those aspects of self are only in the dark because you put them there so you wouldn’t have to look at them.”
“I can’t look at the past. It is so screwed up.” I start to tremble.
“You have your work cut out for you. I’m going through the same thing, so you have my empathy. It is hard to love those aspects of ourselves.”
“I have never thought about you having to work on yourself. I always thought you were perfect.”
He shakes his head. “For me, trying to embrace and give love to my inner cynic is very hard. I don’t have very much faith in mankind.”
I agree. “I have had to learn to give love to my inner ugliness, my wrath, my pain, my fear of going crazy if I were to even dip a toe in those brackish waters.”
“Yes, now you see it!” he enthuses. “The deformed creatures swimming in that volcanic crater are what you have done to your innocence, some of your hope, the parts of you that came back burned from reaching out to the wrong people. You could go on being ashamed of them and let them drown, or you could try to wade into the surf and bring them to shore. For me, I’m finding if I clear them of debris and give them the kiss of life, I discover strength there. Your shadow has been there/done that in ways you have been ignoring. “
“I never thought of it in that way before.”
He clasps me to him, his lips the barest whisper from mine. “Your soul keeps growing regardless if you are paying attention or not. You get to choose whether that is a process you will elevate into your conscious awareness.”
“A little like you.”
“Yes, a little like me. You choose when you want to see me. You were always in control of that.”
“Were you mad when I chose not to?”
“I was upset, but I understood why you had to do that. I missed you, though.”
“I’m glad I am seeing you now.” I take up the slack in the space and kiss his luscious mouth, my heart exploding as he opens up to me all the way to the core. It makes my hair stand on end how he is still completely fluent in the language of my mouth. The feel of his hand stroking my face, the way he steadily breathes, brings every neuron in my brain to rapt attention.
When the lip lock reaches its denouement, he pulls away and lays his cheek against mine. When he speaks again, his voice is thick with emotion. “Now what do we do?”
I laugh softly realizing I am now the one who is older and wiser. “Do you hear that drumming in the distance? Let’s just dance.”
Oh, sorry. I got looking at this picture and was lost in thought.
I had an interesting weekend. Not so much in outer events, but in inner ones. I was very in my head, since I was writing a research paper among other things.
I should have tried to write this yesterday, but my hands hurt from all the typing I was already doing. I'll try to do my epiphany some justice here anyway.
I was a little put out to hear that the people who tried unsuccessfully to sue me for libel actually took their appeals to the Supreme Court. Then I found out that after the high court refused to hear their case, they elected to write a "memoir" about their experience. They used everyone's real name and had some not so great things to say about me and my editor and friend, Ted. We come off as a regular Hitler and Mussolini vaudeville act, twisting mustaches and all. Feh. That made me a little dyspeptic.
I decided that on Saturday I would allow myself to have whatever feelings I wanted about it, and then I would get over it. Since giving it any more attention than that would just give these people the attention they so desperately crave, I elected to make a phone call to the legal department of the newspaper on Monday and then take no other action unless...unless I don't know what.
Then I went to the gym and had an epiphany on the elliptical trainer thingie. I really, REALLY don't want to end up like that, obsessed over and continuing to be hurt by the past and allowing things to "ruin my life".
Then I thought about the various things and people in my past I am obsessed about and continue to be hurt by. How am I different from them, after all, if I still feel bad about those things?
And then I head the thought. And it was a good one: "Those people can't hurt me, because I have all the power. I can decide whether to absolve them. That is way more potent than what they do to try to hurt me."
Something like that. It came to me in a rush of feeling, and I felt the truth in it. What if I just had compassion for the people who have tried to "ruin my life" and saw that for what it is: more about them than about me. That is just sort of sad. I can be the bigger person in that scenario without feeling like a chump.
What would happen if I could apply that feeling not only to the people who wrote the book, but to heavier hitters in my life? How about all of them? What if I just refuse to give people permission to injure me, and just felt sorry for those that try? Like, real pity?
The people that hurt me when I was just a kid are still jerks. I was not the adult, and as the child in those situations I deserved love and protection. I didn't get it. But I can absolve them and refuse to be diminished by holding on to those judgments as though they are relevant to who I am now.
Already things are happening as a result of this shift in perspective. I have been validated in my truth. This idea will work. It doesn't mean I don't learn from those experiences or remember the events. But as the one doing the absolution, the power is all in my hands. I finally get it.
So, David and Beverly (King) Pegasus, I absolve you. In trying to hurt me, you have given me a gift. In hating me, you have taught me how to love myself so I never end up like you. It is a powerful lesson, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
In my next life, I think I am going to be a chambered nautilus. It seems so orderly to start small and make perfectly proportionate and beautiful steps as I grow. It also seems like it would be relaxing to be an invertebrate and live in the ocean, just floating along with my other squishy friends and eating sushi and building a beautiful house that I take with me wherever I go.
Yes, school has finally turned my brain to mush, for me to basically want to be a squid with a shell who swims backwards in my next life.
After that I will be some kind of exotic bird. Then a monkey with a prehensile tail. Who's with me?
I had a dream about six years ago (more or less) about a modern architect making a tall and breathtakingly elegant building that was red ochre in color, inside and out. The dream had a scent of the supernatural about it, and I have remembered its details very vividly. More vividly, even, than the details of real events in my life. I wish I had a talent for drawing, because the architecture of that building and the design of the lush grounds around it was heartrendingly moving. It was spiritual. It was as iconic in my mind's eye as the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids at Giza.
The building was used for some important diplomatic purpose. The people that gathered inside it had a primal understanding that to be within meant to strive always to be honorable and to move in all ways from the heart. The view from the 3-story windows on the upper floors was panoramic and in harmony with nature's divine proportions. It was stunning.
In my dream I knew the architect. I was immensely proud of him. He was a young man, with dark hair that brushed his forehead and penetrating but kind dark eyes. The kind of eyes that saw you, flaws and all, and accepted you utterly. The kind of eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled or laughed. He wore dark, dramatic, but comfortable clothes. He had gentle and articulate hands.
I have never seen a building like it, but the color was familiar.
The clay used to produce red ochre is thought to be the "red earth" from which the Hebrew's God created Adam in the Book of Genesis.
It has been used as body paint, in creating some of the earliest cave paintings, and in sprinkling over the corpses of the dead. It is one of the pigments (along with vermillion) found on the Shroud of Turin. Australian Aboriginal artists use the pigment in their work. Multiple cultures have used it throughout the history of mankind. Its resemblance to the color of oxidized blood made it a part of religious rites going back to prehistory. It is the color of life, death, and rebirth.
From the womb of the Goddess we have come, and to it we will return. If we can leave behind one red handprint on a sheer rock wall while we are here, then we have done something.
I have a fair bit of psychic ability, even for the people in my family, where such abilities are more the norm than the exception. My grandfather and his mother were both known for having startling premonitions that came to pass. My mother can see auras. As for me, I got the mixed bag of things that I see and hear that sometimes give me the Heebie-Jeebies. I get the dreams, the visions, the auditory input, you name it. And as the veil gets so thin in late October, everybody without a body wants to chitchat. I feel drained. The world is so full of fear right now that I would very much like to stay in the house and burn sage and not enounter any of it. Honestly, sometimes I am on more of a psychic level than a literal level with people, and I'm talking about something deep inside them when they didn't ask me to dig in there and they only want to discuss the weather.
"Ohhh! How INTERESTING!" You say.
or
"What a flippin' bullshit artist." You say.
or
"What a sissy-girl, scaredy-cat, panic-ridden FREAK." You say.
or
"Are you just trying to get attention?" You ask.
or
"How the hell do you know that about me?" You ask
or
"Who the hell do you think you are?" You demand to know.
The answer to all of that, or none of it:
I'm just me. Maybe sometimes socially out of sync. Maybe loving and maybe dismissive, depending on who I am dealing with. Maybe worth your time as a loved one if you can put up with my serious side long enough to make me laugh. Maybe your soul sees something in mine, and we could be kindred spirits and boon companions.
But don't call me to ask for my take on which pony is gonna place in the 5th. It doesn't work like that, and even if it did, it would just offend me to be used like a human Magic 8 Ball.
I'm just the girl in the third tent down in the sideshow of life. For a dime you can take a peek at me, but to see my underpants will cost you ten grand.
The stories I could tell, just about today, if only I were permitted to.
I'm having an interesting life lately. It is just that most of the stuff that is happening to me is going on behind the scenes and I am either prohibited from sharing it due to privacy laws or out of a sense of my own shame.
This week the big life lesson is about controlling my temper in moments where it would be totally understandable to melt down.
I knew in advance that this was going to be a stressful week. My school calendar tells me that this week and next are going to be challenging. What I didn't count on was the personal life stuff that apparently just can't wait.
This is my adding insult to injury week.
Insult because communication breakdowns are causing MAJOR misunderstandings. Mercury goes direct on the 15th after a period of retrograde. Mercury in retrograde is a good time to lay low and connect in non confrontational ways with people from the past. It is not the time to try and settle any new business. Usually I like to keep track of things like Mercury retrogrades, but this one snuck up on me and I think it is fair to say that it has been an unmitigated disaster. I have had some very difficult conversations this week, and today is only Tuesday.
I have gotten a new and not so flattering nickname from a fellow student at school. Apparently, I am "Band Camp Girl", because I talk too much about my employment experiences about the VA. Crap. My experience is that once a person has decided I talk "too much", there is no fixing that, even I were silent the rest of the year. It bothered me enough that I went to my professor and asked her directly if I participate too much in her lectures. She looked at me like I was a crazy person and said that if that ever happened, she would let me know. I think my query amused her, actually. That might have been a first for her.
Really, when people tell me that I talk too much, that just makes me feel like what I have to say is of no value to them. That hurts, but what are you gonna do?
Luckily for me, I am making some decent and lovely new friends out of the people who listen long enough to hear that there is a cogent point in there somewhere. I even meditated before the test with Christy. We were so happy to have been assigned to work together on the midterm that we fell into each other's arms with relief. She's a peach, and seems to get where I am coming from on a holistic level.
Injury because I had to hold it together after Little A pitched a major tantrum and ended up slapping me really hard in the face today.
Um, yeah. And this is directly after I had finished my skills lab midterm (dunno how I did yet). I was still reeling from a long and stressful day at school, and my kid had to sock me right in the gob. Nice. I had to give myself a time out to deal with that one. I didn't lose my temper with her, although I am not sure how. My mother has new found respect for me as a parent, because I told her what happened and she figures that if I had done something like that when I was a kid, she woulda just killed me.
Yes, Little A got discipline for that. She was in trouble for sure. But there is no spanking at our house. I don't think I could spank this child even if I were not prohibited by law. She's too sensitive. Today is just one of those days when I have to breathe a sigh of relief that my daughter is now sleeping. She always looks so angelic when she is sleeping.
I'm going to go curl up in a ball on the couch now. If you love me, please say so.
I have had the most amazing day today. I feel so fantastic right now.
First, I got up really early-the stars were still out-and took a 4-mile walk. It was cold outside, but beautiful clear skies and stars and lightening pre-dawn skies. Usually I don't go that early, but I woke up with a fire in my belly today. I just felt good and wanted to get a workout in before going to class at 9 am.
It must be because I rested yesterday and connected with some friends and family on the phone, because I felt strengthened as I headed off to school after a good breakfast. I felt fortified and relaxed but alert.
School was great and totally stimulating today. I ate a salad for lunch and got philosophical with a classmate who was feeling down. I felt so good it was cool to be able to encourage her. I didn't have to worry about my own stuff and could really listen to her.
I just feel totally spiritual and energized. I'm loving life. Sure, a few people gave me funny looks because I was so cheerful, but how can they really argue with it?
*smile*
Then when I got home, I got a care package from my buddy Ted. It was this Japanese mayonnaise that he is totally obsessed with. He always sends me cool culinary things I can't get in Reno. I'll have to try it and see if I am a convert. It made me smile, though. It is so nice to have such stalwart companions. Just that little gesture made me feel cared for. I still need to drink that goat beer he sent me. That shit is strong, though. He knows I need a stiff belt from time to time. So thoughtful.
Oh! And every song on the radio on my drive home was on my list of favorites! Yay!
