Monday, June 22, 2009

MOODY ME

I appreciate solitude. In my time alone I am stuck with myself and everything I feel. I used to love analyzing others and taking things apart. I took apart my Cinderella watch once to see how it worked. Not being a genius, I had to lay it to rest afterward. Oops! Now I do that same type of thing with myself, only I don't remove any working parts. In the course of journal keeping and deep inventorying of myself I found a lot of things that motivate others. Well, I'll be! Yup. There were answers right there within for why some people around me acted the way they did. There was no secret formula to get them to change, but it was nice to realize they were simply flawed as I was and chose different responses to life than I did.

Self honesty is an incredible experience. If I were to be as honest with others as I am with myself I would reply to, "You are too hard on yourself" with, "What's the matter? Did I strike a chord in you that you want to deny?" I'm not too hard on myself at all, but there have been plenty of people who have been hard on me. They didn't want to look within, so they accused me of the traits they liked least in themselves.

I got fat. Then I got fatter. Now I am losing the excess weight. As I got fat there were people around me who laughed and said I wasn't all that fat. I knew I was. A person doesn't get to be 229 pounds (I'm only 5'3") without being fat.

I am still surprised each time I make a statement about myself that there are so many people willing to disagree with me. I am not open to debating my identity with anyone. I haven't placed anyone in authority over me. I make true statements about myself. I am still fat. I look pretty enough, and am thinner than I was, but I am fat nonetheless. When I am not fat any longer I will gladly say so! I laugh and look forward to that achievement.

Lately I have felt disappointed pretty often. There are people in my life who tell me to expect something and don't follow through. I feel sad for them. I don't like being set up to feel disappointed, so I know I will have to let go of them as friends if they don't correct themselves.

I have also noticed others are getting in touch with me more often and we have more in common as time passes. That causes me joy.

I keep changing where I go and what I do, since I believe in routine, but not ruts. As I do that I become more enthused about my everyday life. I am meeting more people. It's a human trait to be at your best when meeting someone new, so I get to see myself at my best and others at their best more often. My suggestion to anyone who begins losing enthusiasm is to stand at a bus stop and start a conversation with a stranger. When we meet we all tend to define ourselves to one another. It helps us to grow and see our lives through a renewed set of eyes. Meeting new people also gets us outside of ourselves and increases our areas of interest.

I don't try to hold one mood all day long. There will be stresses and pleasures in every day. Part of thriving is to experience all of what life offers, and select the best from those experiences.

Now how about that? I am becoming an expert on thriving. These are lessons I greatly enjoy!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

THE UNWANTED CHILD

I wasn't wanted as a child. I was raised much the way cattle are. I was fed and physical needs were met. I was a daughter, an investment for old age. I fulfilled that obligation and did nurse my parents before they died. In that time they made verbal amends to me, admitting I had not been treated rightly.

Verbal amends helped. They didn't take away all of the damage none, no more than my amends can take away all the damage done to another, but they paved the way for me to learn what it is to feel wanted and to love myself.

My father was a mad man, a lot like his father before him. He was highly respected in the community, and seen as a kind man. Behind closed doors he was a tyrant...a most moody individual whose moods ran the home. He had little but ridicule to offer my mother, brother and me. My mother adored and protected my brother as much as she could and seemed to blame me for being born, as if I had any say so in the matter. I was told not to outshine my brother. I was sent to my room so often, it became my home place. Today I live in one room with no problem at all.

I used to think I was less than those who had their parent's love, but have found that isn't the case at all. We all have the same value. Some are cherished. Some are not.
Learning to cherish myself has been a long, difficult to learn process, but I am doing well. I have a great deal of hope for myself and my life. My sense of humor runs deep. I am 62 with the ambitions of someone forty years younger. Some of us are late bloomers.

My parents are forgiven. I think of them with love. I don't try to change my memories or deny anything. I want to be loved as who I am, not as who someone pretends I am, so I love the memory of them as such. They both had many fine gifts which I can emulate and make my own. They were both intelligent people and both were very physically attractive. My father's word was gold. It was often wrong, yes, but he kept it. When he said he was going to do something, he was already on his way to do it.
My mother handled money better than a banker. Were she in charge of the country, there never would have been a deficit...and everything would be clean, too. I never saw anything dirty in the home, but neither did I ever see her sweat.

The best way I can figure to honor my parent's amends is to keep going...to continue to grow as I age...to live life to it's fullest and allow joy to replace sorrow. In the end they wanted to see me happy. It counts.

Monday, June 15, 2009

STALLING AS I SWITCH GEARS

I am not working on a new book. If I were working on a new book, I wouldn't be writing this blog post. The new book I am not working on has a working title: THE BOOK I NEVER WANTED TO WRITE. It's autobiographical, so I have all of the information I need on hand. I obviously have a computer and time to write.

This then, is a warm up exercise, leading to working on TBINWTW. I recognize the process.

Ah! A good thing! I paused to do some honest research online. Since much of what I will be writing about has to do with grieving out my own life, I now have a list of articles on grieving. I read the Kubler-Ross book in 1974. I have recognized the stages of grief in everyday happenings. In order to grow and change, we all need to grieve often. I may try out for the grief Olympics one day. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I can go through that in the course of a few minutes at times as I see things in myself which need to give up the ghost.

I love to write. I recognize I am now writing about my process of writing a book!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

THIS POST IS NOW HISTORY

It's Sunday again! I want to say "Where does the time go?" and "Time flies!" but surely there is a new or at least different way to express surprise at how quickly the present moment becomes a memory. I'll have to think about that today and get back to you when this post is in my past. It only takes a breath for that to happen.

Time. It's always been a strange concept to me. We all use the measure of it as if that meant something important. I am a certain age. I have been working at my job for a certain length of time. I've known you for moments, days or years.

I threw all of that stuff away. One day I considered that eternity is a right now experience. "Throughout eternity" simply means something isn't going to change. Eternity cannot be measured. It has no beginning or end...otherwise it isn't eternal. So, it's right now.

I live as a spirit having a physical experience of life. That works for me.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Who is I?

Hurray! I was able, at last, to figure out how to reclaim this blog! What's a few years among friends? At this point I have blogs all over the Internet, but there's no place like home, and this is where it all started. I have a blog for poetry, a blog for events in my area that have to do with the arts, a blog for odd ball stuff...you name it. I am the Bountiful Blogger. I promised myself to get them all together and begin adding to all of them regularly. Promising me anything is rare, so I need to keep my word.

Have you noticed that virtual reality feels like a place at times...as if we really do travel from place to place online and each place has a "feel" to it? I've decided there must be some truth in all of that. Spirit is stronger in my life than physical reality, so this entire Internet experience seems to be a good way to bring the two together. I have to sit at a physical computer and type the words to communicate, but other than that, it's an inside out experience, so my soul gets recognition. I'm all for that since I live as a spirit having a physical experience of life. I sometimes speak of my mind, body and emotions as three different elements...so the I that I am speaking from has to be Spirit. That's the eternal stuff. My body can get ill. My mind can be confused or clouded. My emotions can be in turmoil. I still exist waiting for the confusion to pass, the turmoil to end or the body to heal. Yup, I is a statement of Spirit, at least in my case.

(The child within loves finding a way to say "I is" and get away with it!)