I make and sometimes break New Years resolutions...so

Okay, moving right along here. Went out and bought yet another bathing suit today. I have several in increasing sizes in a bottom drawer so this isn't a new idea. What is new I just put the suit, a towel, the never worn years old thongs, and soap into a duffle bag. That's never happened before. Chatting with the delightful clerk about my yearly bathing suit purchase and how I never actually get to the pool she said something about it being hard sometimes to make the effort in winter driving conditions. I could have kept my big mouth shut but no, I admitted I live 2 blocks from the pool. She has a wonderful laugh :)

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be...

I think we can have awesome, life changing days and with a little effort we can ignore their wonder and carry on as if nothing has changed and consequently, it doesn't.

Then there's that other hand. And on the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is one of those awesome, life changing days and it's, outwardly at least, nothing special. I'm not willing to ignore the wonder. Not willing to carry on as if nothing has changed. I've changed and I doubt that anyone but you and me will ever know a thing about it. 

That's the thing about life changing moments, eh. They happen whenever we decide, in this moment, to change our lives. It's not necessarily some external happening of momentous consequence, the lottery win or the big promotion, it can be a thought that pops into our minds when we're not doing much else with our minds at that moment. The frost on the pumpkin made glistening by the days first rays. The random drop of dew that picks up the colours of an early rising butterfly. It a 'just'. Just a thought. Just an earth shattering, mind blowing realization that the person you imagine you could be you can just let be.

Kick it up a notch

I've been using a brain training site ( www.lumosity.com ) for a couple of years. This morning I'd completed the days exercises and clicked on the link to see see what (how) I'd been doing at the beginning of this adventure. It's shown as a kinky line. It started out really low. No surprise there. But after a year, last summer about this time actually, it rose dramatically. Really dramatically. I mean suddenly it appears I was three times smarter than I had been a while before. So I was knocked back on my heels and sat in that akward position trying to remember what the hell happened last summer.

Okay, here's the thing. I did remember. I do remember. Remember, I've been doing exercises to aid in, among other things, memory, for a couple of years or more.

I remember doing the Penguin maze puzzle thing one day and thinking, 'wait a minute. I'm not doing the best I can do. I'm just trying to do better than I have previously.' I decided to really invest in this thing. To REALLY do my best. That's when the line took a leap skyward.

Now a year has passed and it's finally hit me. I do that thing--that simply trying to not do worse--in a lot of aspects, perhaps most aspects, of my life. I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to kick it up a notch.

My safe place, at last...

I just figured out why I find it so hard to leave home. I'll find any excuse not to actually head down the road. It's not that I don't want to travel around a bit more than I do. It's simply a matter of finally, finally, feeling fairly safe and unpressed right where I am.
     When I was a kid home was a scarey, unsafe place. I married people who were scarey, unsupportive and demanding as hell. (my choices, granted) and right now, aside from the fact that the area is rampant with thieves and vandals, I feel safer here in this little house than I ever have anywhere else.
     So, when a friend suggests a visit, as much as I'd love to go, I tend to find many things that suddenly need to be done around here. There's always many things to be done around here. Good grief. What's my problem.
     Maybe it won't be a problem now that I've figured out the big, fat why. I LOVE those big, fat whys.

A woman now, but not so long ago....

A friend came to visit yesterday. She was about 15 when I first met her. A cute and curious teen drawn into my shop to view the shiny things. She was, as my mother would have said, 'as bright as a button.' And yesterday she sat in my living room with her husband and their beautiful baby girl.

I'm more conscious now of the distinction between having and being a friend. I started this with the words, 'a friend came to visit'. I don't know if that is true. A young woman came to visit an old woman who is her friend. I suspect that I am, to her, more of a project. Someone you feel you must drop in on while you are home for a visit in summer.

As I made tea and chatted I made several statements that, while I can't recall what they were at present, were obviously unacceptable. The first two or three times I saw the look pass between this smart young couple and received a gentle nudge to a more modern way of thinking, to the right way of thinking, about matters quite inconsequential, I blundered on. That's what I do. Eventually, a wave of profound sadness mercifully shut me up.

The sadness I felt: it was the realization that I had been that young woman. Maybe not to that extent, I don't know. How would I know really. But the experience, I think, I hope, has softened me and ground down my opinionated edges. And while I'm grateful for the lessons, I'm resolved to be less accessible to some of my teachers.

She stopped by again today. She left a note. I wasn't home.

A new affirmation for you

Here's an affirmation for you. Bury your little bundle of index cards in the back yard and get out a blank card, put your favorite butterfly sticker on it, get out your strawberry scented, lavender coloured felt pen and write "DO LIFE" across that sucker in your best handwriting.
Now roll it up and stick it up....

Well, you get the idea.

I didn't know that about me

Sitting at my desk this morning and saw a post van pull up out front. The mailman (yeah, I know, postal worker) was heading up my walk with a parcel. I went to the door, got the parcel and exchanged comments on the weather. 

Now, here's the thing...

My thoughts from the moment he put his first step on my walk were:

What the hell is this.

I didn't order anything.

Oh, great, did I click some link I shouldn't have.

It's probably the cell phone I ordered online, gave up on after a week and got at the store instead.

Now I'll have the hassel of sending whatever this is back.

yaddah yaddah yaddah

Actually it looks like it's something, perfectly legit, connected to the new TV/internet provider I signed up with a couple of days ago.

So today I'm pondering the flood of negative shit that streamed through my pea brain. Why didn't I assume something like, 'oh, who is sending me chocolates,' or at least 'what a mystery. I can hardly wait to see what this is.'

Hmmm.....

Gambling had me by the … ovum?

Well, who would have ever thought it. I have a gambling problem. Me. It happened so fast and I can’t believe how insidious it is. I was listening to CBC radio one day and a broadcaster did a bit about a promotion that BC Lottery was doing on their on-line website. You deposit a hundred dollars, make a hundred dollar bet on a certain game, and you win a hundred dollars. Well, I did it and it worked. I was up a hundred dollars. But it worked for them, not for me. I don’t dare even think about how much I’ve pumped into that stupid thing since then. It isn’t desperate or ruinous or compared to a lot of folks, significant. Thing is, I don’t like it.

I started getting on there three times a day. I’d sign in and sit with my first coffee. And what I find really creepy is, it’s in the house. MY house. 24/7.

Today I was having lunch with a friend and she had just lost a whack of money and had decided she was going to go to the local casino and opt out. That’s where she has a problem. After lunch I went online and spent a mindless hour or so watching fruit flash by my bleary eyes. That’s where I have a problem. I realized this used to be fun, and now it isn’t. I ran it down to zero balance and opted out for six months. It feels good.

I'd highly recommend it. 

…or go to the gym. There’s no mystery here.

 The other day I was at a friend’s place. She was making lunch and asked if I’d get the knives and forks.  She nodded toward a drawer. I went to open it and damn near landed on my ass. I’d hauled on that sucker with the same force I’d use on my drawers at home. Whoa Nelly. You don’t have to be named Uri to open that drawer with your mind.

So many everyday things take so much less effort to ‘work’ than they once did. Mowers, drawers, dryers, dishwashers, and let’s not get started on cleaning floors. Even curtains. Heaven forbid you have to reach up and swing your arm across… well, it’s endless.

 I wonder if it’s really more life affirming to NOT have to put a whole lot of effort into opening a drawer or pushing a mower so we can get all neurotic about exercise. 

So many ways to communicate, so many gaps in communication.

Lord knows, we have more ways of communicating with one another now than ever before. But is person to person, human to human communication getting any easier. I think not. I know I'm a dinosaur, but I am getting really fed up with trying to keep up with what's currently acceptable. It's never been one of my strong points but this is getting ridiculous.

Email, apparently, isn't cool with the cool. And actually having a conversation via land line, well, my dear. I'm really fortunate in that I still have a few people in my life that I share great phone time with, but outside of a small circle, you just can't be sure. And just dropping by someone's house to say hello, well, forget that. Except when it comes to dropping by my house. You'll be welcomed. And phoning my land line. You'll be warmly greeted. Like I said, I'm a dinosaur.

Email is an interesting thing. It used to be a major part of my communication with friends. Still is with some, of course, but there's an interesting lapse when it comes to married friends. I'm floored by how many couples have one email address. Usually, it's the man who has an email address and the woman doesn't have one. Again, this is about Dino Val. Way back when it was unthinkable that someone would open someone else's mail. I'm talking a letter in an envelope with a stamp on it. Now there's no such social boundary apparently.

More and more means of communicating. Less and less actual communication. More and more I'm realizing I'd better hurry up and catch up. Aside from those few people who actually sound glad to hear my voice, I have to NOT phone people. The 'dead' response is just too chilling. And going to someone's house that you've known for years and having them stare blankly at you without a word. Yikes.

The good news is, it's not everyone. It's just a matter of getting it through my head that this is tricky territory these days. Wonder if there's a night school class on navigating the new day to day reality. I'd sign up in a second. Hmm...might be a good place to meet like boggled people.

So, how far does one go to test one’s personal development?

I’ve just been discussing with a friend, a same gender friend, the logic of us sharing a house. This house. This house that has at long last become what I think of as my first home. Not that it really is my first home, of course. But it is the first time I’ve felt this ‘at home’.

While we are talking about it, the idea makes so much sense. When we’re not sitting and yakking over a cup of coffee or three, I get quite freaked out. Then I realize, to my chagrin that I have not only let, but encouraged, several useless, lying, cheating, scheming, boyfriends move into my space, my home, without much, if any, thought of whether it was the best idea for me. Huh. . .

Personal development? Maturity? Sanity? I don’t have a clue. Or maybe I do have a clue but to admit this new approach, this weighing of pros and cons, IS a definite sign that, in those past mishaps I was in need of personality development, and, heaven help us, immature. Just can’t accept the implications of sanity issue. Excuse me while I go put my head back firmly in the sand.

An exercise in self-discipline. Give it up.

I’m ready for another round of one of my personal favorite exercises in self something-or-other. Self control, self discipline, self knowledge. Whatever. It’s all about me. And you?

Every once in a while I take a shot at giving up wanting. I desire a break from desiring anything. Yeah, I know, you get thirsty, you desire a drink of water. You get hungry, you desire something to eat. I mean the other stuff. ALL the other stuff. It seems to build up, doesn’t it? More socks, no big deal. A new shirt, no problem. But sometimes it’s just new for the sake of it. More for the sake of it. Then you feel like you aren’t really alive unless you’re wanting, and you’re really wanting to feel alive.

I enjoy these breaks. Always amazed, once I start conscientiously brushing aside the first hint of a want coming on, how many times in an average day a want thought starts to form in my mind. Also amazed, when I’ve promised myself not to act on these desires for a while, at how often I can’t even remember what the heck it was I thought I wanted an hour or a day ago. 

Amazing how we carry our ancestors crapola . . .

I don't know if this is so obvious as to be inane but anyone who follows this knows that's not going to stop me going on and on. Here's the thing. We are so, make that SOOO, influenced by the way our families of origin felt about all kinds of basic stuff.

 I have to tell you about a conversation my friend and I had yesterday. We're both old enough to have squealed over the Beatles. We each have made our own way in the world quite competently. Neither of us give ourselves much credit.

We started talking about the experiences we've had with past partners, well, husband and husbandishes. Both of us have either worked and contributed to the 'marriage', or been the sole breadwinner. And we have both found that even when we're the only contributor, money wise, there's been an underlying opinion that the money we make is somehow trivial. Inconsequential. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes not. So, what the heck, we're wondering now, was that all about. Neither of us, at this point in our lives, would put up with that shit for a minute.

So, why did we put up with it then. When we got further into that, it became obvious we'd carried the tendency to put up with that shit from our very beginnings. Not only put up with, but carry, or carried, the very attitudes that drove us up the wall. In my case, we lived on a farm. My father farmed. My mother farmed right along with him. She worked as hard and as long as he did, day in and day out. But, she didn't work. That was the myth. He worked, she didn't.

In my friends case, I can't remember what her father did but he 'worked hard' at whatever. My friend said her mother had 'done a bit of teaching.' Whoa. I could not let that pass. And, bless her, she heard me, when I pointed out what she'd said. There's a whole lot of difference between saying, 'Mom did a bit of teaching,' and saying 'Mom was a teacher.'  Or 'did a bit of teaching', and 'taught school'. Whatever, the attitude was picked up decades ago and brought forward by us, with us, and to our detriment. And we have to acknowledge, I feel, the root of this stuff before we can really change it. Oh, yeah, blame the parents. NO. That's not the point at all. If we carry that stuff it's our own stuff and we have to deal with it. But we have to recognize it, admit to it, and then change it.