Tag: #sundaysareforblogging

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Caribbean Vans and Liars

The most egregious of lies are the ones we tell ourselves. Nothing prevents self growth like those.

Sunday. Bloody beautiful Sunday. I love em.

Chip came over for his weekly visit. He was wearing a teal blue shirt, the color of the Caribbean Vans, one of my favorite colors. They had a sale at journeys yesterday and those shoes were only in size 5 and 5.5, so that won’t work. Didn’t stop me from getting them in Thyme and a few others. All my vices cannot be allayed at once. And you can’t even really call my shopping a vice, it just seems extravagant because it’s yet again another thing I’m all or nothing with.

I’ll drop $1,000 a couple times a year, and some years next to none and that’s it. I don’t shop as a habit, but when I do it’s balls to the wall. It’s nice to be able to do that without stress. My mind wants to go to a stress place with it, because it seems surreal, however now that I’ve had my software update to actual reality, all is good.

“I use to think that smoking was my only vice… but now…..” we are watching Mamma Mia this morning. Twin A has been nostalgic lately, and wanting to and I am thankfully able to enjoy the presence of that. We want to Devine’s bagels this am and dropped some off also for her bf family who is caring for a dying loved one. 🙁

I am reading Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club” and it’s so so good. It gets good when you do Christina. I am realizing I can be close to my fellow sufferers of the dysfunctional family variety by reading their memoirs as I work towards writing my own. There’s room to do this now as I’m learning to value my most valuable resource, my time. I’m learning I can choose as carefully as which shoes to buy, more carefully hopefully, what I spend it on. My standards used to be much different.

The problem was never me, but I was always going to have a problem until I got help. Co-dependence as a result of survival necessity as a result from trauma was ruling my entire functionality. As I change that, life is so much different, but oh my god has the passage been brutal.

I’ve never been more lonely than I am now, but loneliness born of raising your standards is much different than loneliness from not having options. I’ve had those wires crossed my whole life. Now we are leveling up folks.

Who knew that love could be something that shows up for you consistently without you having to run round to both sides of the court to hit your own ball. In essence I’ve been playing with myself my whole life 🤣 it’s not as bad as it sounds, turns out I’m pretty good company.

I have no idea how good it can get yet, because I never waited long enough. I just kept working with what I had (which was all manufactured by me, my imagination and my efforts) thinking that was my only option. You mean it’s not? No, it’s not. It never was. That will need to be grieved, but that’s ok because that will pass naturally in the midst of living. I’m not worried about that. It’s natural and will ebb and flow.

I have been having vivid dreams that I recall which is rare for me, both the recall and the vivid. I’m beginning to think it’s rare because I was always laser focused on another to the point of exclusion. So when I return my own subconscious rises.

Last night in my dream I birthed a baby and it looked exactly like a little girl who is about to have a birthday. I wanted to tell her mother. I felt what I felt in both those cases intensely. I don’t really wonder what dreams mean, in this case I don’t have to wonder, reality is the same either way. Those are my feelings and they are as real as anything, and what they mean is my heart is alive and I’m able to love with all of me. Thank God. I’m always grateful for that.

What I do wonder is how things would have been if I were a part of that now. At the party. Was it rained out? Was she happy? I’m sure she was. I send my love along that spiritual cord that always exists between us. Who knows why certain people are brought into our lives. I choose gratitude around this, even when the pain is excruciating. The memories and the thoughts are as close as my own heart, all days. I just hold space for them and allow myself to move forward in my life with the full acceptance of reality. It’s a beautiful painful thing,

I’ve been processing so much lately. So many things I blamed myself for. One of the lessons is all things comes full circle to exactly what they are, whether or not we have the courage to deal with that, and how we do is everything.

Ultimately what I’ve settled into changing is my abusive relationship to myself. The authoritarian parent who became the only way I felt I could keep myself from becoming my mother. I never was her, and I never was going to be her. I wish someone would have told me that. Christina people have told you that your whole life, you couldn’t believe them. You weren’t able to yet.

I don’t doubt myself any longer, and the less I do, the more secure of a relationship I have with me, the less reactivity, and the more healthy decisions. I never thought this was possible. This is what peace feels like.

I’m still lonely. It burns every single day. But I trust now that when love shows up on its own and with authenticity that I’ll know myself to be more than up to the task. And to be able to see this, I had to stop over-functioning.

People lacking capacity is no longer internalized. I am truly free. And I won’t tell a story of fear around scarcity just because there’s so much unclear right now. What is clear is brilliant and beautiful and I have so much room for connection when it presents itself in its own, wholly ready.

I’ll be able to meet it there. Because I went back into the burning building and rescued myself. I’ve spent my whole life doing that, a more than worthy pursuit.

Now I want to live… gently…. Generously and with gigantic enthusiasm for every single moment.

I sound passionate in my writing. I am passionate, and in the day I’m hopeful and strong and when the day has worn me down, my heart and body are begging for connection. I’ll keep connecting with myself and engaging in experiences until I find someone who can show up for themselves and who strives to live in integrity and authenticity and never stop striving. Never stop getting back up after falls, and never giving up.

One step at a time….. we do recover….

Don’t give up on me, because I never gave up on you

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Running on Empty

Some dreams you take down, and some dreams come together unexpectedly. I’m hopeful for the latter.

In this period of utter groundlessness I’m sifting through mine.

I had a dream a little over a year ago to become a foster parent. If you have ever seen me pursue a dream you might chuckle, but for those who haven’t I’ll describe it. It’s a sprint. My mind is quite effective when focused so within a few months of the idea we had a crib set up in our room, bunk beds in another one of the rooms, and the mounds of paperwork were being cruised through.

I set the scene swiftly and effectively. There’s a gift and a curse in this way of doing things.

For me it takes much longer to dismantle a dream (particularly if I’m not ready to let go of it) than it does to try and create the conditions for it to exist. Perhaps I heard the Wendy’s commercial of Dave whispering “if you build it they will come” one too many times in childhood. Once again my entire life shaped by the television.

Anyway my family and I took cpr classes and we attended the foster classes and that’s when I realized so much of me was still the child rather than someone capable of steadfast patience in the face of a child that can’t regulate. I saw myself in the videos and vignettes of children experiencing abuse, and I wanted to look away, but I didn’t.

I remember avoiding the call and exit interview of the class teachers who thought we were the perfect candidates. I could not face that down at the time. I couldn’t face a lot of things.

Being honest with myself about that was one of the hardest moments of my life and everything that came after… the stuff of nightmares.

Lost identity, lost security, lost dreams, lost self, illness, terror…. I cannot even go in further into that.

My 100 yard dash came to a screeching halt and I set out to see myself and the relationships with my own children more clearly. This very difficult task continues. I am humbled daily. I am ill equipped to parent teenagers and the struggle for self love during this time is immense.

Anyone who heard me say ill equipped would laugh I suspect, anyone but my ex husband and a few scorned critics out there. In the traditional sense I’m not, but most often weathering the. “You’re ruining my life phase” and the bite back from rules is extra difficult for me because of my ten thousand triggers. Some newly acquired unfortunately, and many old.

I’m a piss poor punching bag who is simultaneously acutely aware of the need of teens to practice their independence with their parent and the parent still loving them. My off switch is immense. The love is never off but the response is and that breaks my heart. I’m working on it 🙁

Boundaries are hard. I’ve had to create the whole system from scratch. I’m getting emotional as I write this. I wonder if anyone in their whole life has ever tried so hard to become a mother while underneath the weight of their burgeoning painful mind filled with trapped and inaccessible memories that would run their life subconsciously. Now that I wrote that I’m sure many. That makes me sad.

I’m sad most days, which is better than irritable, scattered, panicky etc. Sad is ok apparently, according to my therapist. I don’t want to waste a second of life, but I’d imagine acknowledging and connecting to my own emotions is anything but a waste.

I woke up sad today. There’s many things behind that, many reasons. So I’ll just hang out in the bath where my tears can trickle freely and it’s warm and quiet and safe.

I can barely figure out what I feel like eating lately, and whatever the mood is for does not go well with my stomach. This loss of love in enjoying the art of it all is disappointing, nay, soul crushing. My soul feels crushed by an emotion like sadness and I want for that to have some balance.

On the flip side when I am able to come up for air, everything is new and beautiful. The pink blossoms are blooming on the trees in the backyard, and that alone is a comfort beyond all comforts. It helps me ignore the rotting wood of the deck that needs replacing, and the current state of the pool. And all the other things in my life that are falling apart that are teaching me it’s ok for one thing to come together at a time.

Deciding which thing to focus on always felt like the problem. Little did I know the extent of that. I will abide in a state of surrender and let the problems wear themselves out rather than me wearing myself out.

Surrender. Boundaries. Time.