Tag: #believeinyourself

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These Dreams Go on When I Close my Eyes….

So this morning I am scheming and dreaming. I’m at the vision board and I’m designing.

The goal: my wife and I want as much time together as humanly possible. We found each other late in life. I understand with extreme clarity the fragility of our time together, and I don’t want to spend it in an ordinary way. What I mean by this is toiling and only having a free few moments together. I don’t want to be rich in money, I want to be rich in time. And it would seem though that money can buy time, and as long as you don’t spend ahead of the making, and get above your means, I think this can be achieved.

This is what I’m thinking about most of the time lately. Originally I had hoped to do this by writing a book. However as I learn myself more and more, I realize that to sit quietly I need time, and to get quiet time I need money. And with twins on the way I’ll never have that hehe šŸ˜‰ but I still think I can do it. I always think I can do it. It is this naĆÆve enthusiasm that has powered me this far.

Couldn’t we all have more naĆÆve enthusiasm?

The problem: My wife is a 911 dispatcher and 7 years invested in a pension. And she holds our amazing health benefits that keep my Crohn’s securely cared for and has funded our IVF. Her schedule is terrible. She works 7-3 one week then 2 days off and then 3-11 the next week and 3 off after. We can never get into a schedule and I cannot imagine how she will do this with twin babies. Her commute is an hour plus filled with traffic. And her job is a lot of sitting to which her body feels as if it’s falling apart. It has gotten us this far, but we have added so many other elements to the story we are going to need a change.

Needs: good benefits for us 4, the big kids have Tricare insurance through their father. A flexible schedule to be able to take care of the kids. Less commute, more time together. Yes these are needs, not wants. So this is a tall order right ?! But how can you say it doesn’t exist if we don’t look? At this point we could have a reality tv show šŸ˜‰

So we need to find her ideally a part time job with good benefits that she can enjoy, but have most of her time at home crafting and being a mom like she wants and loves. Something she can be active and engaged doing what brings joy to her.

So if you want something different you have to lay blueprints to those dreams. Then you have to ask, look, research, and not stop until you’ve found a solution. There are always many solutions it just never feels like it because our minds are wired to see potential danger. We don’t see possibility nearly as often as we see the potential for a harmful outcome. Fear rules the roost.

Our dreams: time together raising our family, having the means for a vacation together and to see Hamilton as a family, having a family cottage we can create memories in and mom can write a book, our little identical twins make it safely into the world, Tyler gets into the college he wants and transitions as smoothly as possible, our family will love and accept us and want to be engaged in our lives, writing and sharing our story, and there are many more! Oh and paying off student loans and financial freedom to buy time together.

To enjoy life. To really taste food. To get goosebumps more often. To art. To cry regularly. To love gently. To encourage and nurture humanity in humans. To be kind. To learn new things.

In other news I have been enjoying talking to people, walking in neighborhoods, fresh air and perspectives. I am enjoying the newness of it all. I’ve also begun to feel the heat a beat of less relaxation and more my mind spinning towards one task or another. And scheduling has been hell! Trying to fit dr appointments, knocking time, trainings, meetings, baby appointments, kid appointments, client appointments, and the list goes on.

I have long known that this level of chaos feels at home for me, but also parts of me have changed in that regard without really knowing. When I am busy and engaged I am happy. It’s no longer trying to outrun something, but more an energy fueled be enthusiasm. Yes that’s it! I’m not running away, I am running toward. And I feel good about myself in the world.

If you would have seen me 5 years ago, my struggles, my behaviors, my outlook…. you wouldn’t even recognize me. Life is all a matter of perspective, self-acceptance versus critical abuse, and finding connections that energize your soul.

I had to pick this post up later, and I’ve been very scattered. I would guess it reads that way. Life is a jumble when you’re in the midst of change, and it’s difficult for most to tolerate that feeling. I’ve lived on a healthy dose of it my whole life, and have found the payoff to be quite grand.

Write a new blueprint anytime you want to make a chance, you are after all the lead architect of your life, and you don’t want fear getting a heavy hand in your project.

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Itā€™s the day before another beginning… IVF moments

Some of the beginning of us…..

Anytime my thoughts are all tangled up in my brain, like many a brightly rainbow ball of yarn, my blog is the place I come for comfort.

Time has been standing still again.

We are in another freeze. We are 10 days post fresh embryo transfer. We have done everything right. We are quite literally on the edge of our seats. Tomorrow morning we go at 7 am to get the blood test that will show if her progesterone has spiked tremendously (mustn’t it considering the three times daily suppository), that basically says we are pregnant ish, or a stranger will tell us your result is negative, please stop taking all meds, and you will get your period in one to two days.

My emotions have always been intense and of the roller coaster variety. This however is like a ride you can’t even fathom in your imagination. It’s like being on the worlds scariest, tallest, most dangerous one with a faulty seat locking mechanism. If you can picture this whole thing it might look something like me upside down dangling out into the air with only my strength to hold me in the seat until it returns to a right side up position. Each time my palms more sweaty than the first and feeling like for sure I’ll just slip out and be on a free fall that ends with a plummet into the cement. The end.

Is it the end or another new beginning? And either way it will be the beginning. We will either begin to grieve and make decisions about taking a break, a vacation, though those funds become used in IVF, or whether we can dare to get excited. Even more nerve wracking is that we are hosting thanksgiving. So we are either going to be happily chirping about dreaming of our little speck happily bouncy in it’s turkey and cranberry sauce induced euphoria, or have to find a way to manage cooking through heart ache. And to smile back the tears.

If this is the case I feel like a dark cloud will always threaten our Thanksgivings. They don’t have a great track record so far, and already this year there are some disappointments before we ever don an apron.

The truth is I’m scared, and I’m also not scared. Because the world won’t come crashing down this time. I have finally gotten out of that purgatory, and it’s taken me almost a lifetime to do so.

This love strengthens me, and the love I am talking about is for myself. I often praise my wife (and she does the same for me), but the most profound thing here is that I am not nearly as unkind, if at all, to myself anymore. I will allow my feelings and honor them, and create room for my loved one’s as well. I’m not worried about falling into a destructive tailspin or checking out, or behaving impulsively to cope, thereby sucking out all the energy in a space.

I have learned that I can love myself more when I am stable and able to weather emotional ups and downs in such a way that I don’t do “must be nice”, to all the happy new parents right now. It’s still a bitter sting, but has nothing to do with something they have I don’t. Because I am learning to trust my journey and have faith.

After faith betrayed me so hard in the beginning (never faith itself, more the institutions that professed to sell it), I never would have imagined I would find my way back.

The truth is though to have faith in a higher power, but none in yourself would be a grave situation indeed. I am learning not to be bathed in such self-doubt, and so many painful pages replaying of my story. Each day is a new adventure and even the hard ones, especially the hard ones are more opportunity for growth.

Now if you ask me to sound this calm and grounded if we hear that negative result for the 4th time, I won’t be able to find it for a bit. But I will be able to rest in the arms of my loved one, and hold my children in mine (ours), and we will learn to be more loving and grateful for every small thing through this process.

This process makes me take my children for granted less. This baby is not the only thing that matters while they dust in a corner. This whole process has brought me to my knees in some kind of sacred prayer that I have these three. And I would say if you can find that during the teenage years, even for a moment you’re doing something right.

This whole thing is just another piece of my thawing. And if for some crazy reason we are not meant to have a baby together I have to try and believe that was so we could love each other, and the kids we have now even more. I have to choose to have this be my process before I encounter the actual emotion, or I run the risk of being sucked under.

Finally making this blog post feels like I’ve just been administered CPR and taken my first gasp of air. I have so many loves in my life. So much love inside and outside of me.

I almost can’t even paint anymore that something won’t be ok. Of course my brain already is harping away that that is when life gets you, and it will. To be human is to suffer. It will reach you. If you were lucky enough to avoid too much in the beginning as you age and watch people lose loved ones, and have profound disappointments, and watch the news and see the violence and shambles our nation is in right now.

I’m always my most afraid because with a very difficult beginning your only hope becomes some relief. So then when you go into the years that naturally hold more disappointments, when you are no longer naive to the pain of the world, you feel like none of your layers of skin are there to protect you.

I thought I was fragile by now. Since my long ago forged armor has fallen away. And I’ve transformed my disconnect from me emotions into my own connection system. And I’ve fashioned the self I want to be from scratch. I’ve put in all that effort, so if the story turned to tragedy after all that, it used to feel like the world would end.

But now I am much wiser than I once was and much kinder, and since I can trust and love that self I know that I can be graceful in my disappointments and teach my family from that composure. Most days anyway šŸ˜‰ I’m still as human as ever. Actually much more human than I was ever allowed to be.

I cry when I need to cry, I rest when I need to rest (or I try anyway ha), I ask to be touched when I need to reconnect to a safe space versus fear, I give myself what I need when I need it. It feels calm.

So right now I feel calm and scared. Before I would have felt panicked and scared. My wife is the one who has undergone all the procedures, her poor body, all the hormones, and who has bravely jumped right into the middle of a harrowing adventure book. She jumped with her whole heart. She knew I never needed someone to only stick a toe in the water again. And that has given me all the strength and courage I ever needed to become who I always was.

Here we are….thank you for loving us and being on our journey.

Trying to bring a new member to share all our love with….

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Ivf Retrieval Day

Itā€™s retrieval day!!!!

It has been feeling like the (an) end to this journey, but itā€™s actually just the beginning.

Itā€™s the end of hormone injections and the related symptoms, and the end of a great many questions and nervousness. The end of three failed iui treatments and all the associated emotions. And yet itā€™s the beginning of an even more intense period of waiting for phone calls from the lab on the development of our little one (ones).

Itā€™s beginning again down a road into a dark forest and not knowing whatā€™s on the other side.

Will we get lost in there? Another gigantic disappointment, another cycle to wait and more hormones before a frozen transfer if this one doesnā€™t stay? How much of this roller coaster can we take? Itā€™s been such a wild ride. But for the first time in my life even amidst sometimes crushing disappointment nothing feels like life or death.

I never even pictured having another baby, ever.

I spent most of my life worrying I didnā€™t deserve, nor was I up to the task of the first three. So to find myself standing here, calmly walking toward my next dream with confidence and joy. It is a dream like no other. Iā€™ve already won the lottery, and written the best seller, and recognized my singing voice on stage in a moment of sheer shock and gratitude. Finding my love already feels like all those things mixed.

It has changed me so profoundly I am becoming rewired.

So many of my anxieties are calmed. And this isnā€™t a momentary high from idealizing something that turns out much differently. This is the real deal. Steady on my feet and walking headfirst toward another amazing dream, one I never saw.

Itā€™s not very often life surprises me.

This is because whenever it did when I was young, and that was often, those were not good surprises. I became hyper vigilant and carefully in control of each happening to avoid further pain. But that has its side effects. And finding this love has surrendered me back into a childlike dreamer I was always meant to be.

Iā€™ve turned my Stephen King movie into a John Hughes one. Sorry Stephen I love your work, I just wouldnā€™t want to be in one…. again.

And I used to be too fragile to be in the creation of a dream. Any setback would crumble and tumble me, and lead me down a path of dark thinking and misery.

Now I am finding faith and a well balanced way to view reality.

So itā€™s neither fantastic or terrible, but a mixture of both of those moments on a steadfast bridge of love.

I have a family of best friends on there with me, and Iā€™m finally adjusting to life in partnership and belonging that I couldnā€™t feel I deserved before. Now I am accepting this as my life, and everything that comes with it.

So here we are…. Iā€™m about to be a “nearing 40” new mother. Here I am, the happiest Iā€™ve ever been.

At another new beginning….with knowing there will still be so many more.

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Letter to a friend, profound gratitude at 4 am

My dearest Katelyn,

Itā€™sĀ 4 am. The bulldog had an itchy fit. That creature is an abomination sometimes, often, lol. Anyway I got so cranky he wouldnā€™t let up Iā€™m now wide awake. Iā€™m struggling to breathe, damnit Iā€™m so allergic to cats. We will have to take my car on our next adventure, and before you feel bad donā€™t, I had the best day.

So here I am in the bath contemplating my existence and what came is how grateful I am for you. Both you and Courtney seem to see me through a lens of generosity I can hardly even comprehend.

In some ways youā€™re like Teflon it seems, like nothing can touch you and so brave and outgoing, and yet inside youā€™re so incredibly sensitive and care so much for others, itā€™s actually humbling. In both these ways youā€™re almost like a mirror for me. A twin flame of sorts. And I canā€™t imagine what Iā€™ve done for you, other than make your best friend happy.Ā 

Kate I am becoming emotional now because you cannot imagine the world I crawled out of. Most of the people I grew up with are either recovering or not recovering in NA and AA. My grandparents who sort of raised me are dead and gone, nothing left, and my only memories are of me torturing them as a teen, I never got to see the other side of adult relationship where I cherished them. My father will be dead two years this December and his parting words to me were concern about my emotional stability, cold steel blade to my throat.Ā 

After one last time of thinking I could weather a relationship with my mother for her benefit I cut the cord and let myself loose again, floating out into the unknown that had to be better.Ā 

As far as biological family I am alone in the world, and not only alone, but ever aware of the wreckage I arose from.

I know a flare for the dramatic in writing. But how can you know what even a single kindness means if you do not know these things.

And Iā€™ve grown wise enough to know that people can still have their family close and be just as hurt by their intended care. I am not as naive anymore, I do not assume I have it worse. I used to feel sorry for myself in this way. Not productive.

Your line about the difference between people who donā€™t make it at Vivint resonates strongly with me. ā€œThey are the weakā€. And we are most certainly not.

I love what working for Vivint represents to you and how much you have grown as a result of rising to that challenge. If I understood it correctly you were coming off a partnership that challenged your worth as an earner and as having passion. And it appears there were so many other benefits as well. The people youā€™re connecting with, your self-concept, and financial security and confidence to name a few.

Itā€™s actually your strength and energy that makes me think I can do this at all. The fact you believe in me, and even said I could be ā€œbetter than youā€, not that this is relevant, but I canā€™t tell you how much your investment and faith means in me.

You, Courtney, and every person who so easily sees me potential, worth, inner nature, you are the parents I never had. And it heals me constantly.

This is what I feel energized by. Youā€™re like a lighthouse. And Iā€™m so hopeful that I can turn this opportunity into something that can help me enjoy the confidence of freeing myself from feeling a financial burden. Iā€™ve been behind since before I began.

Making continuous poor decisions financially with no parachute, because I never had one. Iā€™ve been free falling, grabbing onto a cliff here and there, bloody knuckles and hands and clinging for brief rest, and letting go again.

And now I have gear, goggles, helmet, glider, chute, all the protection of friendship and a found family, and from all that security I am able to have fought hard enough to be able to enjoy bringing a life into the world with a true love, one that is the kind I am wired for. To feel I deserve that second chance and this much love and support, is a daily task. My beginning experiences tell me otherwise all the time. This is a battle I have made companions with, its familiar, but it may never fully be over.Ā 

And here you are another beautiful gift from the Universe helping me with an opportunity that can alleviate the stress of my student loans and not being able to provide enough for the children I in many ways grew up with. I want to give them the world for having faith in me, when itā€™s been so hard to find it in myself.

Even buying those Hamilton tickets would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. And it would be hard to do much of my dreams or fun things, if I canā€™t make sure the responsibilities I already created are not set up. My life force begs me to do both/ all. But my thawed out heart forces me to have enough empathy to consider the feelings of those that my choices impact.

So if I can make my days feel a little less life or death all the time by being able to pay off my student loans and help the kids more and support Courtney and our baby… then sign me up. I am so hopeful I am up to the task and that I can weather fears of making others uncomfortable and rejection that has been the hallmark of my life, that Iā€™m so nervous about that trigger. Except I think that this task is before me, to realize the enemy isnā€™t that big anymore.

This is yet another opportunity to learn how to love myself better by rising to a task and learning from the whole process.

So all of these words, these intense, dark, deep, grateful words are to say thank you for believing and investing in me.

Thank you…

Christina

Sent from my iPhone

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Time. A most valuable asset.

Time in reflection is so necessary for gratitude.

There was a time that I ordered one meal at a restaurant and split it three ways for my kids. A time we all rented a small room upstairs in the home of a generous woman as I labored through school. A time when we finally got our first real home approx 7 years ago. Nicer and larger than any space we had occupied as a family. There was a time when in this home a relationship didnā€™t work out, and I didnā€™t know how I would pay the mortgage. This is when friends who became family moved in and we made it work.

There was a year I was so lost and lonely. Alone on Christmas Eve, I watched The Holiday and cried, and cried the whole day because I wanted that forever family with a person who saw me, didnā€™t resent me, and is a woman šŸ˜‰ I never thought I would find that with how full our lives already are. I had been told and shown that a lot of people prefer to create their own from scratch, not learn how to mesh in an already made world. Itā€™s not shame or in need of pity itā€™s just true.

Iā€™m a lot. I think a lot. Strive a lot. Dream a lot. And before I was loved as I am now I panicked a lot! I wasnā€™t always kind when I was scared. I own those truths, and I need to live with them, and continue to try and be a better version of myself…

And now this a time where I get a constant infusion of unwavering enthusiastic love streaming through my veins. A partnership where we truly are best friends and want the same things. My wife teaches us the art of small ego each day. She doesnā€™t take things overly literally or get bent out of shape easily. She is genuine and loving. And we can be lighter, and more genuine and loving as we learn from her.

This is a time where being kind is more important than being right. A time when itā€™s ok to slow down and feel feelings and moments without rushing. Without rushing. Unimaginable for me. If you only knew.

This is a time where I have money in my bank account and have paid down debts, and can love myself more for those efforts. A time I am learning to put off instant gratification just a little bit more to create a safety net for my family.

This is a time I can play and enjoy life a little bit, there was a time that I thought I would never have time like this.

All the time I have left in this world is yours….

šŸ’œšŸ’œšŸ’œ

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Money, Divorce, Stress, and Highly Sensitive People

There has been some improvement on the battlefront, but the war has taken a toll.

It’s a humbling experience to realize how many things there are always still to learn, no matter how far you have come. I’m in one of those growth phases right now. My iron will keeps me fighting until I have to surrender and it’s when I do that the real change and healing can happen. The exact thing we avoid, the breakdown. Due to all the what if’s and self criticism and fears, we stay trying to bear down and white knuckle it, until our bodies fail.

For me my body giving out under stress has been a big part of my recovery. I’m experiencing tremendous amounts of stress right now and I want to describe from the point of view of the mental health counselor that is supposed to have all these answers, what this feels like.

This feels like shortness of breath, heart palpitations, painful flushing, feeling like I might be getting early onset Alzheimer’s (lately I’ve been using the wrong words for things), stomach problems, self-esteem problems, extreme fatigue, frequently tearful, overwhelmed even more easily than usual, heartburn lots of heartburn, feeling out of it, trembling, and the list goes on…

When you begin to fantasize about jail as a simpler alternative to everyday life, you know some back to the drawing board brainstorming is necessary.

It’s only now that I can look back on situations I have experienced with kindness, or what I might have tried. I wouldn’t have known then what I needed, and now that I can see with new perspective, I see what an impossible order. And how being hard on oneself is such a dangerous thing.

Once again being divorced is a hard thing for everyone, and to not be hard on oneself because of it.

The stars aligned and schedules cleared (after some controversial tactics that once again open me to criticism), and this morning we did what is always needed and we talked. We somehow avoided the many land mines that can end any attempt at conversation with another blowout. Tread carefully, but still be able to talk about difficult things, but don’t be unkind.

How does anyone ever get through this intact?

Money is the root of all evil and in divorce it’s particularly complicated. As life changes demands change, and children do what children do, they ask for what they want and what they need. And the parents have to figure out what to say yes to, what to say no to, and everything in between. There are so many complicating factors. People who get along and love one another often have hard times agreeing about finances in the best of circumstances.

Now take people who have opinions more than understanding and don’t have a good level of communication. The result I’m sorry to say was, “ask your mom, and mom says “ask your dad”, and the kids hear the stress and want to shrink into a corner and avoid that at all costs.

So in my Highly Sensitive teen son’s case, since like me, he can barely tolerate the discomfort of someone he loves, he decided to try and solve this by taking on the world himself. Suddenly he became like a 40 year old man trying to raise a family and pay bills in his stress level, and all this was happening inside of him.

Folks I cannot stress enough to you that what you see on the outside, especially with adolescents and young adults is often falling short of what is really going on. I’m a therapist and I missed it. I let the face value behaviors make me react and tell a story. I’m not a therapist at home. I’m a human with blind spots, and short comings, and everything I came with from my beginning.

Highly sensitive people are highly conscientious, and they often know ahead of someone else what the need is. When they attempt to accommodate this without the right tools and understanding things can get difficult.

The thing I have found most important in life is to be able to talk to each other. So we can find out what’s really going on. So we don’t say harmful things, so we don’t make decisions we will regret later. So we don’t hold onto pain, and a limited story, and then suffer unnecessarily.

So this morning that’s what we did, and we are now that much closer to understanding and hopefully to a more peaceful home environment. To be able to be our loving sensitive selves more of the time.

šŸ¤—šŸ’œšŸ˜

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Untangled thoughts are a bridge in my world…

This is my life in the raw. I’ve done my best to be the judge and jury and find myself guilty in any way possible of incorrect parenting/living. I’ve spent most of my life fearing this, and the journey I undertook only gave more evidence. It is now that I am finding my way out of that. Because now everything makes a lot more sense.

A letter to my son: bless anyone with the courage to brave my handwriting. This is how I spend my mornings. Deep in thought and reflection, and I’ve learned to stop finding that to be wrong as well. “Too much introspection, you’re too serious, too too too.”

Perhaps I should type the transcript for ease? I can’t right now because now I need to scramble like eggs to at least put clothes on for work.

I am here feeling radically grateful for the love I’ve had the courage to spend a lifetime weaving. I love myself enough to be brave enough to put pen to paper and to show my heart to the world.

You should know I criticize myself. Or I try, but it just isn’t as loud anymore. I am corny, inappropriate, shouldn’t this be private between him and I? Aren’t these emotions too intense for a child to hear from their parent. I’m not sure on this one: but I know it’s almost impossible to explain my story, and they are the ones who really need it. So they will never have to doubt my love for them.

I’ve created many critics along the way, but do you know what was harder to find? Someone who was willing to look further into me and to invest. That is what we all want. To be loved like that. And I hope and pray I get enough time on this earth to teach my children this self-acceptance and love I’m only finding now.

Is that even possible ? Or don’t they probably have to have their own journey with its trials? Isn’t that the beautiful part even, would we want to skip it in the name of less suffering. I finally know I wouldn’t. I used to think if only I had suffered less I wouldn’t be so crippled in so many areas. Now I not only know logically, but have lives, that the “wound is where the light enters.” -rumi

Love should never be private. Perhaps if we showed more of our scars and trials to the world, more people could love themselves better as well. And then their gentle hearts could also be accessible to their children, and not just their drive and protective instincts. Not just their advice and guiding.

The kids are all right. They will find their way. It’s the adults who are fragile and scared. Scared of not enough, scared of too much, scared of the unlived portion of their lives.

Kids still believe in magic and hope and play. I want to more like kids in the second half of my life.

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On becoming real…

I have a relationship with my writing that has developed silently by; that I am only realizing now. If I just trust myself a little (ha) and trust life a little bit, my needs are met much more easily than I ever imagined possible. Writing shows up, and I’m learning to show up for it as well. We have had a tentative courtship for years, but I always RE-coiled as less than worthy, and so writing couldn’t be close either.

Recently I saw the movie a Star is Born. It awakened the young songwriter and poet that I dismissed when I was young. I forgot all the dramatic song singing, all the pretend play, all the notepads filled with writing. I’m slowly remembering them now, going back for my child, reuniting us.

It’s raw and difficult work. It seems so secondary to the pressures of adult life, but something is slowly showing me that it’s actually necessary. The catch to all this new enlightenment ?! I feel everything. I am raw all the time. Vulnerable as a newborn baby. Living new lives within a single life. Defying gravity.

I continue to progress and grow as a Clinician, my sessions deepen and my clients return. I am learning new ways to love and be loved. I can cry when I feel like crying. As a mother I struggle to keep the same rigid beliefs and templates. But I just can’t. I empathize now. I am closer now.

I always thought I was keeping them at a safe distance from me. But really I think I was keeping a self that is so much more fragile than she ever knew safe.

Life is going to touch me now. “I’m a real boy”, the wooden parts abandoned for soft and breakable skin. And this means I am scared to death lately of my own emotions sucking me under. They are giant, terrible and beautiful things. They are mine and I can’t reject them anymore, or hold myself compartmentalized. But I am so very raw.

I’m safe and strong now, and I’m also the small child I was never allowed to be. And that’s confusing and scary. It’s not supposed to be, my backwards life. It’s intense and too much to bear or understand for most people. It’s weird and unknown.

“Tell me something girl, are you happy in this modern world. Or do you need more, is there something else you’re searching for.

“I’m falling’

In all the good times

I find myself longin’ for change.

And in the bad times I fear myself

Tell me something boy, aren’t you tired of trying to fill that void. Or do you need more, ain’t it hard keepin’ it so hard core…

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in. I’ll never meet the ground. Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us. We’re far from the shallow now.”

The movie was a spiritual experience for me.

My work deepens. No shallow living here.

Part of me still tries to panic as we ready ourselves to create a life and bring them into the world. But that part has grown quieter, it doesn’t run the show anymore. In its absence peace and joy are filling in.

And as an existentially minded person I know beyond a shadow of a doubt the cost of loving with the much of an open heart will be excruciating pain at some point. I can’t use a superstition or an illusion to numb me from that truth.

I always know. I am acutely aware. And the acutely attuned suffer more. I’d take a guess that’s why so many artists numb in ways that destruct themselves, and obliterate their loved ones with them.

And I’m so aware I can’t even do that. The tendencies are all there, Born or learned they are there. They try and seduce me; but there’s just too much life to experience that I must feel. And I could never live with myself if I let those I love suffer with my self destruction. So I recognize I can’t destroy my soul either, by not allowing my emotions, because they overwhelm me.

Everything overwhelms me….

If I don’t feel I can’t art, and if I can’t art what’s the point of it all anyway.

And if I can’t love two feet in…. my kids, my wife and myself….

then I can’t rest.

And if I can’t rest, I can’t write

And if I can’t write I can’t breathe.

I’m two feet in now….

Maybe I should write a song about that,

About what that feels like.

Maybe I will….

Once you realize all your dreams really have come true…. once you’re not running anymore….. you have nothing left to do but surrender into whatever moments life has in store for you. And that’s such a foreign feeling.

I’ve been creating my life for so long, so intensely. I don’t know how to sit back and enjoy everything I’ve worked so hard for. And if I don’t find out how, I’ll drive through the rest of all of our lives frantic and seeking, when everything I wanted is right here.

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Bathroom accidents or profound life lessons?

To the tune of I saw the sign by Ace of Base….

Today’s lesson brought to by my second “near death” experience in the shower/tub.

You may recall a few weeks back that a cabinet fell of my bathroom wall and showered me with breaking glass and debris and turned my writing sanctuary into a post accident trauma scene.

Well I had a similar experience this morning. My wife had installed a shower caddy to hold our ever growing family’s bath time needs. She had also installed the cabinet so she’s beginning to doubt her installation abilities, we don’t want that. Plus this makes for great life lessons.

Any tiny thing can be a profound life lesson if you choose to see it that way.

So this morning as I was filling the bath, not even in it yet, the whole damn supply tree flew at me, two deep bruises and a tiny cut, not to mention a big mess to clean up.

But not nearly as big as helping my kids not worry about me or my giant emotions. That one will take some work.

My first thought “my bathroom is trying to kill me”, or my wife šŸ˜‰ second thought “what did I do to deserve this, as if today isn’t tough enough already.” I’m preparing for my 4th colonoscopy tomorrow morning. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it isn’t much fun.

As I traveled through those emotionally driven negative thoughts I began to think, if this has happened twice in a short amount and of time what exactly IS the message here.

And a wiser and calmer conclusion appeared:

“When things get too heavy and full they come crashing down.”

We can’t blame the installer here, because in both cases with a large family and a minimal understanding of physics (though our son is working on it), the clear culprit here is over-loading.

The universe always seems to have my back.

Any and all of the problems in my home currently between family members is a crashing down from being over-loaded with something, and then our less than best selves emerge.

We can become heavy with our own thoughts, too many bad ones about our selves and the shelf comes crashing down.

We can become over-whelmed when we don’t make enough time for play along with our responsibilities.

We can become pressurized to the point of bursting when we don’t feel close with others and like we are seen and understood.

The good news ? Wait there is good news?

Yes. It wakes us up to reconfiguring the whole set up. It helps us to examine and reassess the situation. So when we set it back up, we can make adjustments.

Now we will only use the necessary bathroom items on the caddy. Now we can clean up everything and put it back neater than we found out. Figure out what is necessary and what is just junk on there.

Now we can notice when the thing begins to get over-crowded and looks like it’s going to snap. And we can do that for and with each other as well.

As someone who lived much of her life just piling things on herself and believing she could carry it no matter what. This lesson teaches me to pause and be deliberate about my decisions, check in with myself and my family. This heals the impulsivity that was naturally gifted to me by my experiences in childhood.

I learned to run fast, and as I am learning from Madeline L’Engle in her book Walking on Water: reflections on faith and art, and from Pete Walker: Surviving to Thriving, and my vicious bathroom:

I must slow down, stay open, and RE-assess the situation. Simplify rather than complicate my life.

Now after a lifetime of the opposite just how am I supposed to do that? šŸ˜‰

“Generally what is more important than watertight answers, is learning to ask the right questions.” Madeline L’Engle

ā¤ļø

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I have a new ā€œbarā€ for self-love.

*my bar is that I may see myself as magical as my wife does, the great salve that continues to heal the many hurts*

In my office I am always talking to my Clients about my “bar”, their bar, our bar for ourselves. A simple expression meaning “what are my hopes and expectations for my one go round in this life.” Am I allowed them? Or does my functional dreaming stop at whatever happens to cross my path.

Passive living. Aggressive living. Is there something in between? If there was an in between perhaps it would be the belief that magic exists.

These thoughts of magic brought to you from having watched the new movie A Wrinkle In Time last night. when the stars and my hormones aligned to bring me one of these clear states of consciousness where everything just feels magical, and I somehow manage to not discount that or minimize its worth.

To be clear and fair about this process today I am bloated and bleeding so don’t forget in the beginning and perhaps always we are afforded glimpses, and clues, not handed our dreams on a platter. Today it’s back to the business of just making it through to the next magic moment.

Whether it was the fact that a pair of very adored clients have a new baby and I was blessed with the opportunity to hold him a couple of times now, and it broke my heart wide open. It broke open the pain of the negative pregnancy tests, and the joy of our new possibilities with IVF beginning this month.

Or whether there really is such a thing as destiny and if I squint just right I can actually see the threads of the tapestry being woven before my very eyes..

Regardless lately I feel magic in everything.

So I was thinking about this and realizing/ wondering if my will has led me to somehow be allowed to RE-experience the childhood I should have had, now. My willingNESS to still remain open to people and experiences despite the many anxieties and hurts that clawed inside of me for so long.

And could this realization further solidly my belief that I will create beautiful things in some way that will touch the lives of others?

People are just too beautiful to pass up.

People are “the bread and butter” of my life. They are my patchwork quilt that keeps me warm when I am cold and scared, they always have been. And I’ve always been able to find what I wasn’t given naturally in the way we all imagine it’s supposed to work.

Maybe imagining things as supposed to work a certain way is very limiting after all, and sometimes we just need to buckle up and take the ride.

This suddenly made me think of Space Mountain at Disneyland. I rode it with my Aunt Linda as a young girl, one of the few typical childhood experiences I was blessed to be able to have. You are riding a roller coaster in the dark, there are a few laser lights and things, but ultimately you are surrendered to your fate once strapped in and set loose on the rails.

I screamed with delight. I felt the lightness of being in childhood for those moments. I don’t know if she and my Uncle will ever know what it meant that they took me there at that time. Looking back now it honestly could have been a game changer. I wonder without that experience if I might have gotten lost to a world of rebellion of a variety I couldn’t come back from. A kind that would swallow me whole. I certainly had all the vulnerability for it.

But there was always people. I always turned to people. And when that need felt a bit more desperate and anxiety driven as life got more turbulent I ended up again shamed for this behavior by some of the people that mattered most to me.

Replacement family after replacement family. A foster care system of my own creation.

The thing is that now I got it so damn right, that I can’t even become tempted anymore to discount the path of getting here.

My wife came home last night, just after I had fallen asleep. She came in and she just curled up with me and told me how in love with me she is. She did it in such a way that clearly she had experienced the same magic that I had over the evening, even though we were towns apart. We tend to be connected like that, in some cosmic manner.

She just said it over and over throughout the night as she read to get sleepy while I slept. I felt a rush of pure adoration and love. She remarks to me when she sees me playing and light that she notices a childlike me. This noticing has opened me up to accepting that could be ok now. It doesn’t have to take the linear traditional route.

It’s ok to find someone who loves you this much, and to find out how to receive that love when it wasn’t a part of your model. I’ve journeyed through hell and back. Out of the dark wood, up the mountain, down into hell, and back out the other side.

So when I see a scene in someone’s creation from their imagination I know exactly that the magic is real and I can connect to it. I don’t need to be skeptical or critical or pick the movie apart for design flaws. I can just experience pure and utter love.

Movies and music give our truest selves permission to come out and play, and to wonder, and to dream….

I don’t know if there’s anything better than that.

My bar for myself and my life have become pretty high. There have been lots of critics, but my love story speaks the truth about holding out for what you are really looking for, and what you want and deserve, whether you are able to believe in it fully yet or not.

That part can always unfold….