<<<<< Volume 1. Vol. 2.>>>>> 1. The Weirdness Within, 2. The Uncomfortable Consumer,
3. Technology, Me and Programs, 4. When will we ever learn?, 5. Sex, drugs and smoking,
6. Suppression Equals Depression, 7. Practicing Awareness, 8. Long Distance Friendships During War, 9. Away we go, 10. Children and Pit Bulls at Christmas, 11. The other side of the story...I & II, 12. The things that divide us, 13. Getting a plan together and a Garden, Click the links within the post to see the relevant stories, pictures or videos and thanks for stopping by!
Knowing oneself is much harder than it seems at times but I have figured out a few things about myself. Even when I decided to be open and honest with people for some reason I still felt like a fraud and I have yet to find a good answer to that. Growing up I had a bundle of insecurities like many kids do and couldn't wait until I got older because older folks can say just about anything they want to and get away with it. Guess what? I am old now :) While some of you desire to go back to the simpler time of childhood, I can't say I am with you on that. I didn't enjoy childhood for many reasons and have zero desire to repeat it or any other mistakes. But even as I got older and was trying to find a place in the world that would accept the real me. I found that there is a time and a place for everything but the world still has demands that must be met and without the proper knowledge I have pretty much been stumbling around in the dark trying to find a clue. The one thing I haven't done a lot of was worrying about my weight... if you hadn't noticed it has gone up and down over the years and not because of diets. In fact I haven't owned a scale in years. When my pants get tight is how I tell if I gain or loose when I lose weight. When I am miserable I lose weight because I quit eating and when things are going pretty good I usually gain it back rapidly like most. After I got older there were so many others issues to deal with that weight was not a big priority but it was nice to be able look good in clothes for a minute. Now I'd rather feel good rather than look good so hopefully I can find a happy medium soon.
I also know I am full of contradictions but try to keep the double standards in check. I am serious, stubborn, sometimes intense and other times careless or silly. I can laugh at myself and do quite often. I am selfish too usually about things like time, energy and just plain self preservation. I am usually a quiet person (in tone maybe not in content :) but have limits just like everyone else and when pushed too far I will push back... LOUDLY! I can be mean as hell too, just ask any one of my exes on that. But I don't like that part of me very much. Meanness is really of waste of energy and time. Dealing with the anger I had over the years was something like just sitting in the car and screaming to myself just to let it out. Good angry music where you can belt out the tunes also helps with the release of the energy too. The weird part is it takes a lot for others to make me mad but I still get mad at myself for even some of the smallest things. I also find it harder to forgive myself than others because I am supposed to have control over myself. Some days are better than others and I would rather cry in private but sometimes that is not an option either. And for the most part some of the most beautiful acts of kindness make me cry quicker than most horrors in the world. It's not like I don't feel them, it's more like I've been desensitized to the sheer quantity of those acts over my life time. But I do think about them and most importantly remember that in this world of darkness there are flashes of light and purity to be found, cherished and guarded as if our life depended on it... because it usually does.
For a lot of reasons I have a hard time staying close to people and I can't say it's all about abandonment issues because I have accepted people come and go, mostly because some change and others don't. I walked away from as many as had walked away from me over the years. I had been waiting to find the person that didn't need to be changed but was all grown up and ready to go but they must be busy because I sure haven't met them. While loss had gotten somewhat easier, again losing Trey has been an experience in loss that was so over my head that I have yet to wrap my brain around it all. I haven't minded talking about some of the things I have done in the past but that's only a certain level of intimacy. As for really opening my heart up, only Trey was able to do that like no other because it was a completely different dynamic. I also know it was more than being worried about getting hurt because I understand risk verses reward, which led me to take calculated risks. I have leaned toward the practical more often than not and sometimes people may think I am a stick in the mud. At least until they were drowning in quicksand like one of my exes and then all of a sudden I am standing on solid ground so now they are looking for me to save them... from themselves. I often felt like I was his security blanket in the world but maybe he was really mine all along. Maybe that's why I stayed with him so long, and there was no danger of me really having an opportunity to reveal the contents of my heart to him because I knew he wouldn't have a clue what to do with it if I did. The world has made me harder and not so much smarter.
I feel as I must qualify my thoughts on violence since it has reared it's ugly head from time to time in my life. Despite all the confrontation with various people I've had through out my life, I do not like violence. I don't subscribe to pain just for the sake of pain nor do I wish to ever deal it out. Pain teaches us what not to do and if we are not smart enough to learn by any other means then pain is usually the last option. All to often in my life I experienced a lot of physical pain or threat of it and after a while I learned what to do to make it stop. It is very unfortunate in our world that some people will never hear you when you need them to the most. For those who pushed roughly for too long are pushed back with all the force I have inside simply because it was all they understood. When I wrote One Split Second, I experienced two such confrontations which allowed this force to work through me to save my life. I can't explain most of it or even why, I just know that this force worked using methods I had only heard about and walked me out of danger too many times to count.
I didn't even know I liked learning until I got out of the classroom because they still make me go to sleep. But I do eventually get the point even if I can be slow as molasses sometimes. I believe everything in moderation but truly understand how hard that is sometimes. We are all pretty much addicted to something like food, caffeine, nicotine, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, tv, phones, other people, work, money, power or even God. When my old neighbor told me she believed the reason we all had a tendency toward addiction was so we would be addicted to God, I thought about it and then in my head said, "Well how's that working out for them?" But I wouldn't say that to her because I didn't want her to think I was making fun of her beliefs. Being quiet is hard when I have a natural tendency to talk about what ever pops in my mind but I have learned over time that not everyone shared my views or my sense of humor. I remember Larry Millers doing his routine in Just Words where he talked about just pretending to have a clue when he looked into the mirror in the morning before going off into the day. I could seriously relate! This adult business is hard, so do any of us really have a clue about the meaning of it or life itself? To me it is an oxymoron to have an adult who isn't grown up but there are so many of those. I really feel more grown up but not so much an adult and yes there is a distinction if only minutely.
Even being a PI I felt like a fraud because I didn't investigate much. It was really baby sitting mostly and that does not take a lot of brain power. Just patience and that comes and goes with me at any given time. I can't even help people find others they are looking for because I don't have access to the resources or databases any longer and no licenses that are required to back it up in court. But I did get out of the business for many reasons so that's not what I do any more. It's an old life that holds no lure for me any more. Most importantly though with Trey and the situation we were in, also made me feel like a fraud because even though I was his mom I didn't get to be that in every sense of the word. This was and is the hardest struggle I deal with on a regular basis. I wasn't there when I should have been and simply waited too long to do something about it. I can say that although I did go on auto pilot some, for the most part being his mom was more than going through the motions. I did foster that connection we had but I can't ever say it was enough. I was too busy trying to get a handle on this adult stuff because I thought that's what you were supposed to do. Again, what do I know? There have been times in this world where I have been scared right down to my bones but I made my way through it and now that my worst fear had been realized... it is very tough to scare me now. Tough, not impossible though.
Being an adult in today's world means something different than it did even as little as 20 years ago. I have read where a lot of kids don't trust adults and I can certainly see why. We over complicate or over simplify things (usually the wrong things at the wrong times) and I have wrote before that kids pick up on stuff, even the stuff you don't want them to. Just maybe when kids think of adults as being wrong... they are on to something. How many of us thought when we grew up and had kids that we were not going to do some of the same things our parents do, only to either repeat the pattern or only a few go in the opposite extreme? It seems like the definition of being an adult in today's world is to be able to buy lots of stuff for lots of people and I was wondering how we became cash cows. More importantly why are we continuing to devalue human life over any and everything? How can we as a human race be so conceited in our absolute knowledge when life has so few absolutes? For me it's been hard to even have a conversation about life's matters let alone network to find a solution because so few have one.
Maybe because I was an only child but I really like being with older people because they seem to know things that I didn't. Some times they gave me way more credit than I deserved because I didn't always understand what they were trying to say. They can be a bit cryptic at times but now I understand that when speaking in generalities they were trying to preserve some idea, not so much just information for a specific situation. I think the goal was to make me think about it myself using analogies much like I've done through out this blog. But not every older person is going to be wise and just like with people your own age, you have to be careful who you listen too. Some people are just plain crazy without a clue about anything and those are the ones to watch out for. My problem is I've always thought those folks were the most fun to watch as they take on the world... which is probably how I ended up as a PI too. But that left little time to converse with real, smart, emotionally mature people who are often driven themselves and therefor busy as bees.
I never really understood the folks that went out to look for themselves because with me wherever I go, there I am. The good, the bad and the ugly but still me. Also too many people seem to define themselves as the job or career they do and for me it took a really long time to find out what I was good at. By then it was a little late to be starting from scratch so I decided to do it just for myself and by watching the old design shows or HGTV is where I learned what I love to do. If I was better at math I might have gone into architecture or just designing homes. You may not think that is weird but being such a tomboy and growing up in a trailer or the hood, I thought that interior decorating was a girly job and I would have rather been doing something like the demolition derby or join a circus... just kidding. In career day all those years ago the few selections they had did not appeal to me whatsoever. But how do you know if you are good at something if you don't at least try and go into it knowing you must learn the steps before you can dance? I have found that most of us CAN do just about anything we set our mind to but it comes down to whether we WILL or not. That's perfectly okay as long as you are honest about what that is and I may not know what I want... but I am sure I know about what I don't want. On the flip side to this just because you CAN do something doesn't always mean you SHOULD and I have really worked on that part.
I keep hearing people say, well fake it until you make it but how long do you carry on before you realize that it's just not going to work? We are already forced to be a representation of ourselves out in the business world but must we adopt that attitude in our private life too? In my personal observations when going that route you usually just make a mess. I know some of the people in my life just wanted me to be okay after Trey died and it was almost like they expected me to just get on with the same old life that simply didn't fit anymore. Hmmph! Easier said than done but while talking about it with our group of moms, I heard a very good analogy of wearing the mask of being alright when everything is anything but. So again here I was left with the same feelings of having to live up to others standards of what is alright in today's world. SSDD and it still doesn't fit any better than it did before. You have to let go before you can start over and again it is a process not something you can just say and poof... it's done. When I started my life over for the upteempth time some were looking at me as if I had lost my mind and in reality, I just lost the last bit of tolerance I had for being stuck behind this facade. When I start over I clear everything out before I decide what is next and some folks are just not ready for that. I think I understand a little better now why I felt like a fraud so much. I never agreed to the terms and conditions of adulthood so that is part of it but it's understanding how little I know that makes it so frustrating at times. But we are all living in a counterfeit culture where most everything is fake and when you are trying to be real in this world... all too often others mistake you for the fake. Too many adults are unaware of themselves and some are even cruel just for the sake of it... just turn on your TV and you can see what I mean. I am a lot of things but cruel is not one of them and if that is the price to pay for being a adult in this seriously twisted world we live in... then you can just keep that ticket. I will find my own way thank you very much.
Know Thyself
2. The Uncomfortable Consumer >>>>
3. Technology, Me and Programs, 4. When will we ever learn?, 5. Sex, drugs and smoking,
6. Suppression Equals Depression, 7. Practicing Awareness, 8. Long Distance Friendships During War, 9. Away we go, 10. Children and Pit Bulls at Christmas, 11. The other side of the story...I & II, 12. The things that divide us, 13. Getting a plan together and a Garden, Click the links within the post to see the relevant stories, pictures or videos and thanks for stopping by!
Knowing oneself is much harder than it seems at times but I have figured out a few things about myself. Even when I decided to be open and honest with people for some reason I still felt like a fraud and I have yet to find a good answer to that. Growing up I had a bundle of insecurities like many kids do and couldn't wait until I got older because older folks can say just about anything they want to and get away with it. Guess what? I am old now :) While some of you desire to go back to the simpler time of childhood, I can't say I am with you on that. I didn't enjoy childhood for many reasons and have zero desire to repeat it or any other mistakes. But even as I got older and was trying to find a place in the world that would accept the real me. I found that there is a time and a place for everything but the world still has demands that must be met and without the proper knowledge I have pretty much been stumbling around in the dark trying to find a clue. The one thing I haven't done a lot of was worrying about my weight... if you hadn't noticed it has gone up and down over the years and not because of diets. In fact I haven't owned a scale in years. When my pants get tight is how I tell if I gain or loose when I lose weight. When I am miserable I lose weight because I quit eating and when things are going pretty good I usually gain it back rapidly like most. After I got older there were so many others issues to deal with that weight was not a big priority but it was nice to be able look good in clothes for a minute. Now I'd rather feel good rather than look good so hopefully I can find a happy medium soon.
I also know I am full of contradictions but try to keep the double standards in check. I am serious, stubborn, sometimes intense and other times careless or silly. I can laugh at myself and do quite often. I am selfish too usually about things like time, energy and just plain self preservation. I am usually a quiet person (in tone maybe not in content :) but have limits just like everyone else and when pushed too far I will push back... LOUDLY! I can be mean as hell too, just ask any one of my exes on that. But I don't like that part of me very much. Meanness is really of waste of energy and time. Dealing with the anger I had over the years was something like just sitting in the car and screaming to myself just to let it out. Good angry music where you can belt out the tunes also helps with the release of the energy too. The weird part is it takes a lot for others to make me mad but I still get mad at myself for even some of the smallest things. I also find it harder to forgive myself than others because I am supposed to have control over myself. Some days are better than others and I would rather cry in private but sometimes that is not an option either. And for the most part some of the most beautiful acts of kindness make me cry quicker than most horrors in the world. It's not like I don't feel them, it's more like I've been desensitized to the sheer quantity of those acts over my life time. But I do think about them and most importantly remember that in this world of darkness there are flashes of light and purity to be found, cherished and guarded as if our life depended on it... because it usually does.
For a lot of reasons I have a hard time staying close to people and I can't say it's all about abandonment issues because I have accepted people come and go, mostly because some change and others don't. I walked away from as many as had walked away from me over the years. I had been waiting to find the person that didn't need to be changed but was all grown up and ready to go but they must be busy because I sure haven't met them. While loss had gotten somewhat easier, again losing Trey has been an experience in loss that was so over my head that I have yet to wrap my brain around it all. I haven't minded talking about some of the things I have done in the past but that's only a certain level of intimacy. As for really opening my heart up, only Trey was able to do that like no other because it was a completely different dynamic. I also know it was more than being worried about getting hurt because I understand risk verses reward, which led me to take calculated risks. I have leaned toward the practical more often than not and sometimes people may think I am a stick in the mud. At least until they were drowning in quicksand like one of my exes and then all of a sudden I am standing on solid ground so now they are looking for me to save them... from themselves. I often felt like I was his security blanket in the world but maybe he was really mine all along. Maybe that's why I stayed with him so long, and there was no danger of me really having an opportunity to reveal the contents of my heart to him because I knew he wouldn't have a clue what to do with it if I did. The world has made me harder and not so much smarter.
I feel as I must qualify my thoughts on violence since it has reared it's ugly head from time to time in my life. Despite all the confrontation with various people I've had through out my life, I do not like violence. I don't subscribe to pain just for the sake of pain nor do I wish to ever deal it out. Pain teaches us what not to do and if we are not smart enough to learn by any other means then pain is usually the last option. All to often in my life I experienced a lot of physical pain or threat of it and after a while I learned what to do to make it stop. It is very unfortunate in our world that some people will never hear you when you need them to the most. For those who pushed roughly for too long are pushed back with all the force I have inside simply because it was all they understood. When I wrote One Split Second, I experienced two such confrontations which allowed this force to work through me to save my life. I can't explain most of it or even why, I just know that this force worked using methods I had only heard about and walked me out of danger too many times to count.
I didn't even know I liked learning until I got out of the classroom because they still make me go to sleep. But I do eventually get the point even if I can be slow as molasses sometimes. I believe everything in moderation but truly understand how hard that is sometimes. We are all pretty much addicted to something like food, caffeine, nicotine, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, tv, phones, other people, work, money, power or even God. When my old neighbor told me she believed the reason we all had a tendency toward addiction was so we would be addicted to God, I thought about it and then in my head said, "Well how's that working out for them?" But I wouldn't say that to her because I didn't want her to think I was making fun of her beliefs. Being quiet is hard when I have a natural tendency to talk about what ever pops in my mind but I have learned over time that not everyone shared my views or my sense of humor. I remember Larry Millers doing his routine in Just Words where he talked about just pretending to have a clue when he looked into the mirror in the morning before going off into the day. I could seriously relate! This adult business is hard, so do any of us really have a clue about the meaning of it or life itself? To me it is an oxymoron to have an adult who isn't grown up but there are so many of those. I really feel more grown up but not so much an adult and yes there is a distinction if only minutely.
Even being a PI I felt like a fraud because I didn't investigate much. It was really baby sitting mostly and that does not take a lot of brain power. Just patience and that comes and goes with me at any given time. I can't even help people find others they are looking for because I don't have access to the resources or databases any longer and no licenses that are required to back it up in court. But I did get out of the business for many reasons so that's not what I do any more. It's an old life that holds no lure for me any more. Most importantly though with Trey and the situation we were in, also made me feel like a fraud because even though I was his mom I didn't get to be that in every sense of the word. This was and is the hardest struggle I deal with on a regular basis. I wasn't there when I should have been and simply waited too long to do something about it. I can say that although I did go on auto pilot some, for the most part being his mom was more than going through the motions. I did foster that connection we had but I can't ever say it was enough. I was too busy trying to get a handle on this adult stuff because I thought that's what you were supposed to do. Again, what do I know? There have been times in this world where I have been scared right down to my bones but I made my way through it and now that my worst fear had been realized... it is very tough to scare me now. Tough, not impossible though.
Being an adult in today's world means something different than it did even as little as 20 years ago. I have read where a lot of kids don't trust adults and I can certainly see why. We over complicate or over simplify things (usually the wrong things at the wrong times) and I have wrote before that kids pick up on stuff, even the stuff you don't want them to. Just maybe when kids think of adults as being wrong... they are on to something. How many of us thought when we grew up and had kids that we were not going to do some of the same things our parents do, only to either repeat the pattern or only a few go in the opposite extreme? It seems like the definition of being an adult in today's world is to be able to buy lots of stuff for lots of people and I was wondering how we became cash cows. More importantly why are we continuing to devalue human life over any and everything? How can we as a human race be so conceited in our absolute knowledge when life has so few absolutes? For me it's been hard to even have a conversation about life's matters let alone network to find a solution because so few have one.
Maybe because I was an only child but I really like being with older people because they seem to know things that I didn't. Some times they gave me way more credit than I deserved because I didn't always understand what they were trying to say. They can be a bit cryptic at times but now I understand that when speaking in generalities they were trying to preserve some idea, not so much just information for a specific situation. I think the goal was to make me think about it myself using analogies much like I've done through out this blog. But not every older person is going to be wise and just like with people your own age, you have to be careful who you listen too. Some people are just plain crazy without a clue about anything and those are the ones to watch out for. My problem is I've always thought those folks were the most fun to watch as they take on the world... which is probably how I ended up as a PI too. But that left little time to converse with real, smart, emotionally mature people who are often driven themselves and therefor busy as bees.
I never really understood the folks that went out to look for themselves because with me wherever I go, there I am. The good, the bad and the ugly but still me. Also too many people seem to define themselves as the job or career they do and for me it took a really long time to find out what I was good at. By then it was a little late to be starting from scratch so I decided to do it just for myself and by watching the old design shows or HGTV is where I learned what I love to do. If I was better at math I might have gone into architecture or just designing homes. You may not think that is weird but being such a tomboy and growing up in a trailer or the hood, I thought that interior decorating was a girly job and I would have rather been doing something like the demolition derby or join a circus... just kidding. In career day all those years ago the few selections they had did not appeal to me whatsoever. But how do you know if you are good at something if you don't at least try and go into it knowing you must learn the steps before you can dance? I have found that most of us CAN do just about anything we set our mind to but it comes down to whether we WILL or not. That's perfectly okay as long as you are honest about what that is and I may not know what I want... but I am sure I know about what I don't want. On the flip side to this just because you CAN do something doesn't always mean you SHOULD and I have really worked on that part.
I keep hearing people say, well fake it until you make it but how long do you carry on before you realize that it's just not going to work? We are already forced to be a representation of ourselves out in the business world but must we adopt that attitude in our private life too? In my personal observations when going that route you usually just make a mess. I know some of the people in my life just wanted me to be okay after Trey died and it was almost like they expected me to just get on with the same old life that simply didn't fit anymore. Hmmph! Easier said than done but while talking about it with our group of moms, I heard a very good analogy of wearing the mask of being alright when everything is anything but. So again here I was left with the same feelings of having to live up to others standards of what is alright in today's world. SSDD and it still doesn't fit any better than it did before. You have to let go before you can start over and again it is a process not something you can just say and poof... it's done. When I started my life over for the upteempth time some were looking at me as if I had lost my mind and in reality, I just lost the last bit of tolerance I had for being stuck behind this facade. When I start over I clear everything out before I decide what is next and some folks are just not ready for that. I think I understand a little better now why I felt like a fraud so much. I never agreed to the terms and conditions of adulthood so that is part of it but it's understanding how little I know that makes it so frustrating at times. But we are all living in a counterfeit culture where most everything is fake and when you are trying to be real in this world... all too often others mistake you for the fake. Too many adults are unaware of themselves and some are even cruel just for the sake of it... just turn on your TV and you can see what I mean. I am a lot of things but cruel is not one of them and if that is the price to pay for being a adult in this seriously twisted world we live in... then you can just keep that ticket. I will find my own way thank you very much.
Know Thyself
2. The Uncomfortable Consumer >>>>
No comments:
Post a Comment