"It was a seven page fax, the first letter was F"

I once postulated that the whole reason we are born into these bodies, into this world, is to figure out how to deal with change. It is, is it not, everything? It's all around us in every facet of our lives, yet we seem to fight it tooth and nail by instinct, from out deepest gut; at least I do, and I see those about me in the same turmoil. Even when change will most likely be for the better, for everyone concerned,  we fight.  I heard once that we cling to what we know, that misery with what we know is easier than the fright of the unknown. Heaven knows what little beasties are out there to torment us.  So I decided that if change is such an intrinsic part of life for us here on this world we find ourselves in, and we are so bad at it, then we must be here to learn about it. Which begged the next question; what comes next that we have to be prepared to embrace change? Today, who cares. It's too bad there is no one in my life I can talk about it with, I would love to have some drinks and talk and ponder and ... but no one. A story for another day about yet something else that is my fault. Egads.

Back on topic. Here I am faced with a big upheaval in my life, a drastic change that I am not ready for, nor that I wish, well, maybe. Anyway, I've said the words and I feel .... awful. And the house is quiet. And the memory of a favourite book comes to me; something along the lines of...if you don't let someone know they have a choice, how can they make an informed decision? Why is it so hard to tell someone what you want, how you feel. Why is the very thought of hearing a no, or an argument, such a strong deterrent to sharing your thoughts? At this point there is nothing left to lose I guess, so maybe I will think about it. The problem is I don't really know what I want. Aren't I a little old to be so uncertain? Never the charging horse me, always the quiet one..."that's me in the corner." Right.  Damn.  And for two weeks I have been stuffing my face to make this icky feeling subside. Rats again.

Calm Morning

Another cloudy California morning, but today there is a swathe of light streaming in from the East, and the lawn across the street is a gleaming emerald beacon of the day to come. How it beckons me, tempting me out of my little room where I sit typing; tippity tap tap goes the keyboard as my feet stay firmly planted under my chair. Today is a walking day, I took yesterday off, and I know I should do it now to get the day off to a good start; planning to do it after work is...insanity. I am fairly certain it won't happen. But the sleep help I took last night is not conducive to a bright and cheery and movement oriented morning.  Time to switch back to herbal teas and see if I can sleep without the pm crap. But I am scared of what I may lay awaking thinking...we'll see.

History and and the Horrors of Repetition

I haven't been writing for a long time; sucked into the insanity of online gaming I have been struggling to keep my head above water there - thoughts of 'what the fuck am I doing wasting this day here' and 'I need to get up, I need to move, I need....something!' coursing through my brain as I sit immobile except for the flurry of my mouse finger and the occasional pattering across the keyboard. Ugh.  But I love to play and I don't see that going away.  

After my pathetic (but needed) dip into the pity pool last night I am rather calm this morning. I gamed a little, walked the dog & washed my wine glass, and spent some time reading back some of the posts I have written here.  I should rename this post something like, "The intimate ramblings of a bi-polar idiot."  My god, I have been in the same place emotionally so many times, will I never learn? Lets see, there is a good day filled with 'INSIGHTS' followed by the determination to 'FIGHT', and the 'LISTS' of all the wonderful plans on how to succeed. Ugh. then I disappear for a while, and all is dark and pitiful. And then...well just more of the same over and over.  So I guess here I am again back at the beginning YET AGAIN.  A good morning after a bad night and ready to slay dragons. How Dreadfully Boring.

Yes, yes, but lets move on to the lists :)

Goals:
Eat for nutrition - Log at PeerTrainer
Stay Accountable - Blog here
Exercise - Walk the Dog, Shoot my Bow, Start the 100 push ups program,  Ride my Bike

How Grateful I am to be able to do those things. And it might all change, so I will try to feel blessed by what I can do instead of being grumpy about how things didn't turn out.

Sigh.

Endings

Why are endings and beginnings so different? They are after all just part of the same thing. But I do think that how you begin something has a definite bearing on how you end it. Whether it's Love, or a Habit; a Job or a Hobby. When you rely on someone or something else to provide the impetus for action, when that person or thing shuts down, well, so do you. I guess. I have no clue how or why anything works or doesn't, and really, I guess my faith is pretty much in the toilet tonight. Faith in myself, in the universe at large, in Love.

I never imagined I would be who I am today.  I may have written about the day I was driving to school and listening to the radio. I heard someone say how they had wasted their life trying to figure out who they were and remember thinking, "that will be me."  How on earth could I have known - or at that moment did I decide my future. Do I wish I could go back and punch in another station before hearing those words? No. I haven't the energy to even think of starting over.

I loved reading that for a human life there is no control group. It's the one thing I can hang on to, that how I feel and grieve is just perfectly normal for me. But if that is true, how can I hate so much what I have become? I can feel barely a glimmer of light in my center screaming out, "I'm here, don't give up!"  Such a small and far away voice; a thought really, not even a sound. And so tiny.  But there it is, and I can't ignore it. I wish I could. I wish I could throw in the towel and just be who and what someone else needs me to be instead of being tortured daily by what I think I should have been. Lord knows I think I have fairly well slaughtered the hope of who I once thought I was.

I know I am loved, and valued, by at least a couple of people. I know deep down inside there is that girl who remembers how to love and smile. I just can't find her right now, and it's a very sad day.

A positive step

Back to logging my food at PeerTrainer for a bit to get back in the habit of being accountable to myself. I will keep that link updated for at least a month while I detox from fast food and sugar and get back to eating mostly plants.  Two days of eating well and I already feel better. Plants rock!

Wasted thoughts

As February approaches my thoughts are much of Joey, and this morning as I began to go down my list of what ifs and could haves I stopped and asked myself the hard question. Would I really wish him back? What exactly am I grieving? The sound of his voice and his rare laughter, his crew cut soft against my hand and the smoke pouring out of the kitchen as he bangs around in there cooking like he does everything else - too fast and impatient to be done once he finally starts. Can it be that the part of me that is relieved that he is not here struggling with the horrendously hard life of an addict has somehow crept across the dividing line and is now bigger than the part of me that wishes he were here making me crazy. The part of me that tries to believe that were he here he would succeed in his struggle to find a niche in his life where he could be himself, that he would find a place where the demons could no longer torment him.

And I realize that I don't want either of those scenarios; I don't want him somewhere else finally free of the burden's and lessons and strings of this life, nor do I want him being here back in the turmoil of his old life.  What I want is to have  him back, with both of us realizing the journey we have each been on for the last five years. I want him back with some magical new-found knowledge that would enable him to say, "Wow, that was hard, but worth it because now I really know how to live. I love you Mom, thanks for waiting for me, it's going to be great now".  And I would have all the patience he required to find this new better life he would create, and then finally this small chapter of insanity I've been living through would gradually fade, leaving only the lessons and none of the pain.

Big Sigh. A few tears. A much needed reality check.

I've been stuffing my face since September, since Joey wasn't here to turn 27, and while I sometimes knew I was saying what the fuck as I gobbled down yet another piece of Halloween candy, another piece of Thanksgiving pie, another box of Christmas chocolates, mostly I was just whisking all thoughts of anything into a big metaphysical duffel bag and stuffing them down deep.  I have found it just way too easy to set the auto pilot to run while I check out. And with the first sunny morning in a long time, I finally have the thought that I need to start fighting back again.  Some of you know all too intimately how the stages of grief are measured in many different ways. It's not as though you feel things in an orderly and timely fashion and then your'e done. I think of my grief as being translated into words. For those who don't know, imagine those words becoming sentences, sentences stretching into paragraphs, and then collecting into chapters and books. The next thing you know the book is one in a set of volumes on the subject, and that your little collection is just a small section of shelving in your library of references on grief . Sure there are other books in the library, and in them reflections of joy and glimpses of possibilities for life beyond the passing of a child.  But I don't really want to live in this library. I want to burn it down and start fresh. I have worked so hard on and off to find a way to forgive myself for the part I played in his short life, but at best the forgiveness I do find is mostly pretence. Because to survive I do need to at least pretend that I am ok.

So back to fighting. That is what this post is about. It's about confessing how badly I have been doing and affirming my decision to put back on the boxing gloves yet one more time. I am not out for the count yet. Visions of fighting my way out of a wet paper bag suddenly appear before me, but oh well. A fight is a fight and I am up for it. I will go back to the basics that have helped before. Take care of the body and the mind will follow.

The temptation to make a list of how I will do that is very tempting, but in the shower this morning I had a thought about lists. For some it is a Honey Do exercise and they find it very satisfying to check off each item as it is done. For others of us, it is a way to cement in the real world the wishes and hopes and dreams we formulate in our own little fantasy worlds.  I have become very wary of my lists as they seem mostly to be accountings of good intentions that I will only come across later and say, "Oh yes, another failure that one!"  So no list today - although I can't promise there won't be one tomorrow - just a small determined 'hope' that today at least I will take care of myself just enough that I will feel like doing it again tomorrow.

And in doing this I am admitting that I cannot change anything that has gone before, and that trying to figure out what I should be wishing for is not just pointless but harmful. For the moment I have purged the strong feelings that make me crazy, I have accepted the reality that beating myself up accomplishes nothing, and I really really really want my 'muchness' back. Enough said.

Really, another list?

Two months have flown by, and again no writing to speak of...and a sentence almost ended in a preposition! My Bad.

I was having a conversation with my Mother recently, and this notion formed - why, if life is just one change after another, is it so hard for most of us to deal with things not staying the same? And I felt a truth emerge from that - perhaps that is the meaning behind our physical (human) experience; to learn to handle change so we can continue evolving.

And this morning in the shower a whole idea for a book formed from that insight; an enclave of spiritual beings selecting their 'human experience' from a menu of emotions that are based on a physical experience. Beings that are so far removed from what we experience on a daily basis that to them famine & gluttony along with pain & ecstasy are just a means to an end; to feel something. They are just a menu choice for their birth into the physical world where 'feeling' is possible.  Evolution having taken them to a place that was small instead of infinite, they use travelling to a physical world through 'birth' to learn about change before becoming extinct through ... apathy. Of course there will need to be some sense of looming disaster to lend expediency into the mix and form a story line.  Maybe someday the book will be written. In the meantime I can just keep living the experience and taking notes.

I also noticed this morning that taking a shower should not be so exhausting for the average healthy bear! So, as with many in the world this January I have what I hope are some resolutions to act upon as opposed to good intentions that tend to lie stagnant.

     1. Quit lying to myself; I've been eating horribly for months, not days.
     2. Live what I preach; eat mostly plants for energy and health.
     3. Do more of what makes me feel good (cook & write) and throw fewer pity parties with evil Mr. Sugar.
     4. Move! Stretch, Ride, Shoot, Smile.

And so the year begins.