In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
I am baffled — baffled — about the Friday already being here. Who says it’s Friday? That’s crazy talk.
This week has been disorientingly busy and full. Let’s see…
The hard stuff
Sleep stuff.
Not having it, to be specific.
And waking up obscenely early, even for me.
And no nap time whatsoever.
Unpleasant hormonal side effects.
See above.
I was a sleepy, groggy, cranky, sluggish, self-disliking, unattractive-feeling, irritable lump for a few days, and oh, that’s always fun.
Didn’t I say that last year was the last time for ending the year in a state of burnout?
Ahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa.
I’ll look at that one when I’m not so tired.
Credit card number got stolen.
Fortunately the bank caught it right away and we canceled the card.
But it’s that uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling. Like with the hackers.
I had to process a lot of old grief related to money pain.
And also I’m fairly pissed off about a variety of administrative problems this has caused us.
Transitions.
All this in-between.
Ending things and starting others, and in the meantime so many details of each to sort out.
Overwhelmed.
I don’t feel like talking about this, so…. silent retreat on this one!
I way overscheduled this week and didn’t even realize it.
My capacity for going places and doing things is so much less than I imagine it to be.
And this seems to be getting even more extreme as time goes by.
So I get better at estimating, but then I still need so much more time for myself than I used to that it doesn’t matter.
Can’t you see my vision?!
This outrageously awesome thing is happening in my business, and my business partner cannot see how it is a good thing, when it is so clear that this new opportunity is overflowing with good.
I see it and trust it and know it and love it, and he can only see the darkness and fog of his imagination, and this is the MOST FRUSTRATING THING. Especially since you can’t make someone see something that you see. You can only meet them where they are.
To have this unbearably clear vision right in front of you and not be able to transmit or share its realness: I do not wish this on anyone.
Expansion is awesome but it also involves a lot of waiting.
Various balls in various courts, phone tag, reconvening, blah.
I just want my new teaching space!
Realizations of mistakes.
Even harder than a thing not working is THIS:
The realization that you were the one to set the unsovereign expectations that resulted in your own pain.
Yes.
All forms of media are unbearable right now.
It’s that time of year when everyone is either talking about making resolutions or talking about how they don’t do resolutions.
I keep forgetting that this is a time of year to turn inward, not outward. A note for the Almanac, I guess.
Hey, Havi! Don’t look at things you know you don’t want to see!
Other people’s stuff coming up.
And them trying to put it on me.
It’s also that time of year when relationships end horribly, apparently.
Even Snopes agrees that yes, this is a thing.
Anyway, it seems that nearly everyone I love is going through an awful painful break-up or relationship challenge right now.
So much hurting. So much uncomfortable transition.
I am lighting candles for so many people right now.
The good stuff
Trusting my instincts.
This felt good!
Also dancing and reflecting and making conscious choices about everything.
Lots of entry and exit.
My partner-in-crime and I did pretty much nothing but entry, a thousand times a day.
I filled an entire notebook with notes about entering, and this is the thing that kept me from falling apart this week.
And it was so much fun! Not only did we do entry for everything, we did everything together and that was fun too.
Entry rituals for dance class, entry for the monkey, entry for shavasana, entry for snacks, entry for all of it. And then exit, exit, exit and Revue!
Plus we threw the smallest dance party ever at the Playground. Fun!
Learning and releasing.
So I mentioned that the hard of this week involved having to process a lot of old grief related to money pain that was reminding me of not-good things from then.
But this was also the good, because I dissolved some giant walls, and learned some very useful things about my relationship with having.
Not taking shoes personally.
It was a week of people aiming shoes at me.
Four of them!
But none of the shoes actually landed in my space. I didn’t have to work through any hurt feelings. It was just people being in their pain and lashing out at me, but without being able to reach me.
Thank you, years of practice. Thank you, hard-earned compassionate communication skills. Thank you, everything I have learned at Rally! (Rally!)
Thank you, impossibly hard bootcamp-of-leadership that was running my Kitchen Table program for three years. I may have an alarming number of grey hairs and battle scars, but hey, at least I have a fabulous shoe-deflecting force field.
Taking things personally used to be my achilles heel (and for all I know it still is, in certain circumstances).
So I felt reassured to see this wasn’t coming up, and I can still set firm loving boundaries to protect the other people who might see the shoe and internalize it.
I am a stark raving supergenius!
That’s what the gentleman said. He said:
You are a stark raving supergenius!
And that was exactly what I needed to hear.
Laughter.
Sometimes everything is so completely funny.
Like, spiritually funny.
Like, how hilarious is it that I would ever think the thought “oh no, how do I access patience and radiance?!” when actually patience and radiance live inside of my cells and in the tiles in my shower and inside of light switches that I switch on and off every day.
All of that and much more was funny this week, and I spent a lot of time in blissed out hilarity.
Plus all that smiling is fun. And knowing that it comes from having processed the process and done all the work is even better.
Running a Shiva Nata workshop on coordination and spatial awareness.
For the roller derby team that I sponsor.
We were invincible, confident, smart and awesome (that’s the verticals), while being ready, fast, sly and trusting (the horizontals).
There was a lot of giggling, and also some quality stretching.
Hannukah is the best.
So pretty with all the candles.
And we ate levivot twice, and also there was a potato kugel one night. So I’m feeling pretty happy about that.
Bruce Wayne’s strengthening elixir.
Because I am all about Bruce Wayne right now.
This is what I’m calling my disgusting iron drink that I have to drink, and I hate it.
Changing the name doesn’t make it taste any less horrid, but it gets me through it faster.
The fun part of the Chickening happens here.
Tabstravaganza! Or: what’s Havi been up to with all those open Firefox tabs?
I have been assiduously trying to avoid Tabstravaganza this week. But go read this post about loss and presence from Darxy. It’s amazing. Leave her a tiny pebble — o — and sit with her if you like.
From the archives.
Some old, weirdly pertinent posts that I don’t remember having written, encountered while looking for something else:
- The origins of Rally!
- The difference between grinding wheels and not grinding wheels.
- I need this post to be printed out and posted in every room of my life, possibly also tattooed somewhere: Not everything requires a response.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band comes to us via @fergaloid.
Do Your Thang and the Light Unexpected
It’s my favorite band ever!
Though, astonishingly, it’s actually just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
- SUNDAY. This Sunday. That’s when prices go up (considerably) for Rally (Rally!). Two of the rallies are sold out, several more are close to full.
- You can also apply for a Stowawayship scholarship ship for Rally between now and Sunday.
- The Art of Embarking is the prerequisite for everything I’m teaching next year. Next year starts this weekend, you guys! It’s about entry and preparing for the voyage, and it’s important.
- The 2012 calendars are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I think that’s all. If not, I’ll add stuff to the Very Personal Ads over the weekend.
That’s it for me …
And of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments if you feel like it.
Yes? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom. OH AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, YOU GUYS!
p.s. It’s okay if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
CHICKEN!
Chicken is seriously my favorite thing of the week.
Hand-on-heart-sight for the hard, everyone’s hard, everywhere, actually. But especially people whose hard would appreciate a sigh. And also for the good. Sighs all around!
The Hard:
– My mom’s house is still not my apartment. Things would be better in my apartment.
– SO MUCH of my stuff is coming up. Not even being triggered, but just rising up in a “hey, deal with me please” kind of way. And I’m tired of dealing.
– Three people I know just announced that they’re going to Bolivia. And I want to support them in all their varied feelings and experiences about that, except I’m too much in my own stuff.
– Relationship challenges! Nothing too difficult or stressful, but still not fun.
– Family stuff. Just more of it to deal with. I’m still tired of dealing.
– Body pains. I need to do more yoga!
The Good:
– Beautiful perfect fabulous Shiva Nata class. THE FIRST ONE IN MONTANA! We all got exactly what we needed and the whole thing was filled with support, ease, joy, and sparkles. :DDD SO HAPPY! So glad I believed in this enough to make it happen.
– The gentleman’s grandmother’s condominium is selling, and we get 1/3 of what it goes for. Meaning we now have living expenses through August. YAY!
– The gentleman’s mother just mentioned that she wants to give us the down payment for a house whenever we’re ready to settle down. And we really really want to buy a house to fix it up and rent it out, so that dream just moved from distant future land to next couple of years land. :DD
– The gentleman just got a bunch of texts from people wanting massages. Seriously, I’m not sure what we’ve done for the money gods, but I’m liking this.
– We decided there was no point trying to masquerade as muggles, so our save the date cards are going out with the phrase “gypsy pirate dancing festival” written on them in two places! Also, we now have a website for said gypsy pirate dancing festival. SO much more fun to put on than a wedding.
– Tomorrow is the giant First Night celebration, which is pretty much the most fun ever.
Chicken!
This week’s hard:
– Still swimming around in some alternate what-day-is-it? reality. Hard to get a grip on stuff that needs to happen if I can’t even figure out what day it is.
– Pickle in the middle.
– Found out that my much-adored, absolute genius florist gave up her shop and is working for someone else now. I don’t know how to make sure she personally is the one who does my flowers when I need them.
– Something crazy started happening today with my email, and I have no idea what happened or how to fix it, nor do I have the kind of time or energy I really need to deal with it right now. Ugh.
This week’s good:
– Pretty new iPhone for birthmas that works lightning fast.
– Low-key holidays full of friends and family.
– Nice afternoon at the coffee place yesterday.
– Was able to spend some time puttering today, tying up a few loose ends and straightening up.
Happy Friday and Happy New Year, Chickeneers!
I just wanted to share a mini epiphany I had while reading the post on “rabbit holes”. (Hey, I guess Shiva Nata is finally working!)
“If you learn about the “stuck” around a project, you learn more about the project itself”.
Hope that makes sense to someone! And Happy New Year to everyone who celebrates the New Year!
Mmmm for the reminder about not everything needing a response. Yes. Thank you.
Hard in my week:
– Sleep. Me too. Not sleeping. Not sure why. Trying some things.
– Felt downright depressed today. First time in ages.
The good:
– Slower schedule, so lack of sleep hasn’t tripped me up
– Was depressed, but not upset about that, if you know what I mean. Big relief. And it’s kind of gone now, too.
– Beautiful handmade mushrooms on our Christmas tree
– Lemon tarts. Fantastic!
– Date fixed with new friends to cook a big feast out of my favorite cookbook. Very excited!
– Started packing for Rally. YAY!
It’s chicken, it’s chicken time! Drove back from/through the land of 1,000 fried chicken chains this week… you crazy, south…
What a weird, fractured week, firmly anchored by a recovering today doing things I love.
Good: Pampering! Amazing food prepared for everyone, conversation, laughing… being taken care of, ahhhh. Compliments and love on hand-made presents, balm.
–Not-my-family! They have their stuff o’course, but so easy to see it’s not MY stuff. Great way to spend the holidays.
–Pictures of the boyfriend as an adorable young thing! Squee!!! My favorite person ever has new dimensions as the cutest little kid ever.
–Crazy processing/dreams while driving/riding across the country. Huge well of dreams bubbling up constantly into mini-naps. Unremembered, but a presence in the week.
–Dark purple!
Harder: Drifting in a new place. Didn’t keep as connected to me as I would have liked.
–Driving across the country… fun and exhausting. Stayed present and recovered well.
Big sighs and love and exactly the sort of smile that would be helpful! Happy new year!
Another Chicken! [holiday edition]
The grinchy stuff
-dear kitties I know and love, dying. big sigh.
-my hard heart in relationship=aversion
-hormones are twisty things.
The sparkly stuff
-so many wonderful walks, full of winds and blackbirds.
-heart softening practice activated, relief follows.
-many laughs with best friend.
Hard:
–My computer monitor is dying. It’s flickering and going dark, and I have to keep turning it off and on again every few seconds.
—Still with the intestinal upset.
–Still with the money iguana. Oddly enough, this iguana has wheels. And they’re grinding.
–The downside of having houseguests: decreased privacy, decreased Introvert Recovery Time.
–Wait a minute, I haven’t taken my artist date yet this week, have I? Am I going to allow myself to take one tomorrow?
Good:
–The upside of houseguests: People I love staying with us! Coziness and time together!
–I received an email that warmed my heart.
–…
Why can’t I think of anything else? Maybe because my monitor keeps going dark, so everything seams darker and bleaker?
Happy New Year, everyone. I have hopes for a brighter 2012 — starting with a bright new monitor. Love to all!
BOK bok BOK bok BOK. CHIKKEN!
Again, thank you Havi for having this.
The Hard:
– My internal hard drive is skipping. Cannot brain!
– This made my job 1298% harder.
– Everyone catching holiday illnesses over the weekend I was visiting.
– Being sad and whiny over lack of lovelyman over the holiday.
– Discovering several close family members are *still* going through some major dreadfulness related to my uncle’s death.
– My dog catching a case of demon fleas – ghastly spawn of the norse helgods I say! The fleas she catches when gallivanting in the field across from my parents’ place are always crazy-vicious and tenacious beyond all reason, but now she is particularly miserable, poor roo.
– Shingles attacks.
– Apartment space yet more full of boxes, bags, and things that fall and go crash bang. Sadly, none of the crash bang has resulted in us being able to throw away anything.
– Grieving friend due to issues with Bolivia & trying to quash the advice-giving & the too-many-questions urges.
– Yet more plant killage. *sigh*
– The 2011 resolution blizzard.
– Having to unload the car alone & losing something I really wanted due to not having the strength to lift it myself. (I used to, which made it more poignant.)
The Good:
* The realization of the keys. (KEYS ARE THE THEME OF MY WHOLE LIFE.)
* Holiday illnesses meant that everyone was really, really chilled out and there was nearly zero drama.
* Seeing an old friend over the holiday and it being like the old happy times in a way it hadn’t been for years.
* 4 days without lovelyman ended with a really gorgeous reunion.
* HEALTH INSURANCE AS OF TODAY *gleeeee*
* Being able to joke with friends & lovelyman about the lack of brain-function.
* Grieving friend being understanding about my awkwardness around Bolivian issues, even though she didn’t have to be.
* Deciding my goodbye to December and to 2011 will be, literally, putting it/them to bed. Am trying to decide on a good bedtime story right now, and making up a wee “bed” for it/them.
* Pretty heart-shaped bruise from car unloading.
* Being able to let go, with a minimum of fuss, of the thing I could no longer carry. (Metaphor!)
* Cats being crazy-happy we were back home.
* Other old friends visiting & having a great time.
There is more of both good and bad but my brain is still not working properly, so I’m just going to let it all fall as seeds and hope all blooms as it should, for beauty everywhere.
Sending gentle *mrrrrs* to everyone, and a happy final Friday of this year!
Havi,
No chicken to contribute, just wanted to take the opportunity at a reflective time of year to say thank-you for you, and all that you share here. You have helped me greatly in my evolution of the past year with Shivanata (which definitely makes me smarter, and I’m willing to believe hotter), Rally – which I could not say in words what it did, but it definitely did something and sticks with me along with a huge fondness for Portland, and so many other things – lately I am loving Barrington and my own incarnations of her, helping me through various situations that ‘I’ don’t want to deal with. All the best in the new year; I will continue to lurk on your site and hope to be back in person someday.
Well, it happened again: the calendar page turned and it’s Friday! I love Fridays. I love the Chicken and the Chickeneers.
The Hard:
– Daughter-in-law had respiratory problems at Christmas; she was miserable. We were supposed to have dinner together after the get-together with the extended family but I decided to cancel it. We were worried that other, especially MrB and my mom would catch what she had, but they didn’t.
– Messy weather. But there was a guest post at Creative Every Day that put it in perspective. It said in part: “Winter offers many gifts for Creative Souls.
Remember some of them with me: Winter offers the privilege of cocooning. Winter invites snuggles, it requests us to look inward. Winter says, “Gloom and less light are not only permitted, they are an important part of our creative process.”
You can read it at http://creativeeveryday.com/creativeeveryday/2011/12/winter-guest-post-by-julie-jordan-scott.html
– I locked my keys in the car – dropped them in the back seat. MrB had to come to my rescue.
– There was an important thing that MrB and I wanted to do this year and the year is over and we still haven’t done it. I don’t know why we haven’t; it’s an aardvark but not an iguana.
The Good:
+ Using the Book of Me to do detective work: I want the theme of 2012 to be Ease. Taking notes, e.g. if I’d had another car key, the lockout would have been easy to deal with. If MrB hadn’t been available, this situation would have been a lot more difficult. So I have a note to put a spare key where I can get to it if I need it.
+ We had a lovely family gathering Christmas Day, without drama and discomfort.
+ The holiday season is ending! I can relax.
+ MrB had a sudden burst of strength and ingenuity and surprised us all with his intrepidness. Chins on floor.
+ Lots of flow in my activities.
+ Using what I know.
+ Sleeping well and waking up rested more often than not! I’m not sleeping at night – it’s two hours here and four hours there, fitted around other activities, but it’s good quality sleep, which is a rare thing for me.
+ Awesome stuff on the internet that supports what I’m trying to do right now.
+ Setting things up to Enter the New Year with Ease. That includes creating spaciousness – pauses and white space. Even in posting comments.
+ Setting things up in general; a new habit of awareness to make 2012 more filled with Ease.
Have a great weekend, everyone. Wishing you all an Ease-filled and Grace-full transition to 2012.
Goodness – I woke up at three am. I must have known it was time for Chicken!
The hard:
Thinking about some serious changes that need to happen this year.
Letting go of old things to make room for new.
The good:
Realizing that one thing I thought I had to let go could transition into a much gentler, more loving, solution.
Lots and lots of playtime.
Claiming a play space.
Super, crazy excited about the new year.
Hand on heart sighs (and excited jumping up and downs, if you’d like them!) for everyone.
This has only been one week? Feels more like a month.
The hard:
Ah, Christmas. Not so wonderful this year, for so many reasons.
Still recovering from the sick (still!), tiredness, low capacity.
Oh, and discovering that one lovely side-effect is that it feels like all my muscles and tendons and fascia have seized up. Actually, scrub the feels like. They have. I’m sore and stiff and realising how attached I am to being flexible.
Really wanting to get a massage and feeling that it’s utterly unacceptable on many levels.
The good:
I remembered that one of my superpowers is detangling.
And I decorated the Chrismtas tree! Yay!
Watched the Royal Ballet’s Alice in Wonderland – so amazing, so beautiful, so pleasurable and had about a million ephiphanies too.
I wrote blog posts! And detangled some stuck I’ve been experiencing with my writing.
Very gently looked at what might possibly be useful about the sick, and this has led to some slightly (very!) scary and ever so right-feeling decisions about capacity and rest for the new year.
Rest and sleep!
Worked from home 3 days this week – what a difference.
I started reading Being and Time.
I have a cup of my favouritest tea ready to brew and drink.
Wishing everyone a beautiful new year!
Hey cool, you’ve got comments! Didn’t you use to not have comments?
I don’t actually have anything intelligent to say today, but Hi from a longtime reader & lurker!
Cheers Chickeneers!
The Hard:
– 5 days of in-laws
– crazy high winds rattling the windows and preventing sleep
– a million boring little things all needing my attention
The Good:
– found a new place to live
– progress on projects
– feeling good about current transitions
Thanks Havi for the Chicken! And good luck with everything to everyone.
The hard:
– realizing that no matter how much I try, the 16 y/o bro in law will never figure out the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior or be respectful from my and my husband’s influence.
– realizing that I don’t want to be around someone like that (and he shows no inclination of changing).
– not enough restfulness for my sick-ness.
– i threw a couple shoes last week from being sick and cranky. I didn’t need to be throwing shoes.
– Eight people in one hotel room. None of the other six people in said hotel room said thank you to us for paying the hotel. Even after the amount of people who were supposed to stay in the hotel room expanded from four to 8. And one of them had the stink-butt.
– supposedly they mailed out “placement packages” from work. This is their code word for we might lay you off and we might move you around. Personally I’d take the layoff and have time for writing,painting, etc before I hopefully start school in the fall, but the not knowing is frustrating.
The Good:
– Disney-land and getting 20% off on the fingerless gloves… I’ve been wanting fingerless gloves to be able to use phone/kindle/etc at the bus stop in the cold.
– taking time for my sickness and even leaving the park to go nap. By myself. And actually getting 2 hours to nap while on a go-go-go type vacation.
– Christmas went well. There was no icky blah stuff
– husband got me a kindle and i have been reading like all that i can.
– College app process 100% over for better or worse.
Helloooooooooooo Chickeneers!
& hallo hallo to Do Yo Thank and the Light Unexpected & fans!
The Hard
– Zero work was done this week. It was great. And lovely. And necessary. But some monsters are very worried and I suppose I shall have to talk to them.
– A big freak-out. About seeing old friends who were also old love or connected to old love – people I care about a great deal. Also people who keep moving around the world and who chose work over friendship and in short there was old hurt. It turned out so well in the end but before that there was a very big day-long freak-out and talking and wanting to hide and run away and monsters shouting in all directions.
The Good
+ Seeing old friends after all (despite the freak-out). It was nice and warm and lovely and I felt I belonged despite the odds. I looked at my friend and I new all was well. And I feel it will help to be less doubtful. There is so much love.
+ I can write in bold !!! and in italics too !!! It is very significant somehow. Perhaps because I learnt it through comments here and yay! lovely people and yay! interactions :). And also – it is something ‘technical’ that I mastered and it is a proxy and a metaphor and symbolic – I want to be less afraid of technical things.
+ Fun fun fun happened. My brothers were here and brought games with them and I had forgotten that amount of fun exists.
+ The not-working was amazing. The relaxing and zero obligations, not even social ones. The permission and safety and security of it. The recharging of the batteries and taking a distance and feeling my shoulders drop and the stress slowly move into the ground beneath me. It’s all good now. Whatever happens, I just had this week and a sense that all will be well and I will return to that emotion.
+ Optimism. I was very very ready for this year to end, the door to close. I was ready for a blank page and the new year is doing that for me.
*** Love and very great wishes all around ***
** No really – love all around – so happy to be chickening away here ***
The Good:
Despite the puke bug that felled 11 of us for 2 days, and the broken heat on Christmas, this was still one of the best Christmases in some time. Plus all 4 small kids were here! And a plumber came to my house on Christmas to fix my heat. There are such good people in the world.
Finally recovered from puke bug.
House is clean, de-cluttered and peaceful to bring in the New Year.
Christmas tree is on a table top so it isn’t in my way and doesn’t need to come down yet. Yay!
New venture planning with friends. A tiny sweet little thing that we are bringing to life.
New art in the house thanks to an art rotation at Christmas.
Renewal of habits and knitting again.
Thinking about a cat! Cat! Cats with socks. Cats that lick. Cats with mustaches. Cat!
Setting boundaries and saying no to things that don’t serve me.
Growing hair. It’s finally turned from long short hair, into short long hair.
New friends.
The Hard:
nothing really.
Long time reader, first time chickener!
The Hard:
NYE is always a huge struggle for me. Part ties to past pain, part recognition of not being where I want to be yet.
Feeling left out.
A shoe thrown at me that landed squarely as a sucker punch that I haven’t been able to shake off.
The Good:
Understanding that “left out” sometimes leaves some much needed room for myself.
Knowing that the holidays are just about done. Have to hold on just … a … little… longer…
Sushi dinner with a good friend.
I just had to tell you this, Havi. I’m fairly new to reading Fluent Self, but I’ve read quite a bit since I found you.
Today I got an email from Quilting Daily that I totally thought was from you. The subject was:
“Iguana Embellishment, Potato Resists and More this Week”
So then of course I started thinking… Iguana Embellishment I can totally get, but I’m going to have to set Metaphor Mouse to work backwards and let me know what a Potato Resist might be.
Happy new year!
Hard:
* exhaustion and congestion
* waiting on feedback
* feeling daunted by mass of ongoing/upcoming commitments
* ambushed by both old and fresh stuck
* …which meant extended sessions of tugging at and detangling bits of the stuck so I could move on
* … which were necessary, but I hadn’t time-budgeted for them
* … which complicates the already-crowded week on deck
Good:
* completing and submitting big project B on Boxing Day
* very low-key holiday gatherings
* photo accepted for a magazine cover
* sunny weather
* cleared out/shifted some clutter and stuck
* feeling much more sovereign about engaging with 2012’s demands and opportunities. Sharing a mug of tea with me-from-December-2010 and appreciating the me-I’ve-become (in spite of how frustrated I get with her umpteen times a day).
* this community. The enthusiasm and wisdom shared here. It has helped me get through some very bad days, helped me refrain from escalating some unhappy situations into uglier heaps of unhappy, and added to the goodness of the good days.
So thank you, all y’all, and here’s to a 2012 that both brings the best to us and brings out the best in us.
Chicken Addendum…
The Hard:
Lonely
No friends to be with tonight on account of singleness.
Friend sent “:(” in response to text where I said I was hanging out at home tonight which made me feel like more of a loser.
Lonely
Sad
Lonely
The Good:
This too shall pass.
Updated Chicken: I did take an artist date today, and it was extra-pleasant and delicious. So, another good thing! Yay!
Checking in the chicken…
Hard stuff
– navigating through a swampy landscape made up of a general underlying, ?habitual? melancholy.
Slipping with reasonable frequency into potholes of sadness and gloom, pissed-offedness, and boredom/irritation with myself.
Accompanied by my old friends shame, failure, judgement, condemnation and shame.
Being frightened, pregnant (ie. anemic-ish), daunted, raw and a bit unravelled thanks to all the untangling and merry-go-roller-coaster learnings
probablymaking me much more vulnerable to the melancholy even though the untangling and learnings have been extremely valuable.– being loved in ways that feel suspiciously like “it’s all in your head, take charge and get over it”. Which doesn’t feel that loving. Especially when the words are “it’s all in your head, take charge and get over it”. Mmmmmm, thanks, I NEVER FUCKING REALISED THAT GOSH YOU’RE SO FREAKING HELPFUL.
The advice vs helper thing. Resenting people giving said advice because I tell myself they’re more motivated to get themselves out of THEIR pain rather than out of love for me. Which may or may not be true.
Wishing I could be clearer that what I need is COMFORT, company, companionship, compassion. With-ness. “Yeah, I know what you mean, I was there [yesterday] when [xxx happened]….”
– Christmas lots to do. I love all the Christmas To Dos, I really do, but it is hard work at the best of times let alone when tired, anemic and vulnerable.
Coped really quite well until the torrential mid-summer hailstorm blew my Christmas dinner outdoor table plans to smithereens and disappointment made me sad AND anxious.
Plus not being good at not permitting other people’s anxieties and pissed-offed-ness to invade me.
Also, I HATE having to have a force-field around my family, I RESENT that my marriage and my family are not sanctuaries. Urgh.
– Not being listened to. Having to go through the the KIND of tearful freak out that makes even the most blinded-by-their-pain person in my life realise that when I say “stop talking, I can’t hear this right now” I mean “stop talking, I can’t hear this right now”. Ow.
– Lack of structure. A breeding ground for my procrastination, do-nothing-until-it-all-gets-decided-for-you-by-someone-else-and/or-circumstances habits.
Smack, ow, that would be me running into the fact that I’ve depression/anxietied/slept/wept my way through the last three months because I’m waiting for someone else to take charge and decide my life for me*. What am I waiting for? Why am I waiting?
*not entirely true, other stuff has been happening too and for other reasons, probably perfectly valid.
And now KNOWING the answer – because it’s four year old me who is frightened of getting it wrong – AND knowing what she needs – love, safety, care – and not having structure/energy/motivation enough to step up and take care of her/me.
But knowing that I WILL, soon. This last couple of weeks – they are the weeks for doing nothing. It’s FINE. I don’t know. I think that everything is fine and I will start taking action when the time is right. Maybe I’m still just percolating. I mean, I guess I must be. So…. everything’s okay…. I think… I think….
*eye-rolling, indulgent head-patting smile sigh at my own silly self* & concurrent *tear stinging because I really DO know how to love, and am On My Way, and everything is going to be okay, and feeling ?grateful? or reassured AND frightened at the same time*
Good stuff.
+ my love
+ little lad
+ squirmy girl
+ extremely, extremely, extremely, ridiculously good looking stepson is now sixteen and I’ve known him since he was three and he’s extremely tall and good-looking and funny and charming and actually killed a tiger snake in his campground (induction into maaanhood) and he’s going to be okay and I’m proud of him and he has a lot to learn but he’s going to launch into the world okay, whatever happens over the next last few years he’s ‘ours’ in any real sense of the word.
+ the merry-go-roller-coasting being just inside me, not between my love and I. A hundred million times better and more reassuring and far far faaaaar less nauseating.
+ I have super-powers of letting the past be the past, I think.
+ practicing Satya around a couple of painful areas that traditionally I would fudge a little ‘for the greater good’ and actually bringing about a genuinely better greater good. Evidence.
+ food. Oh my gawd – feasting. I love food.
+ marthastewartdreaming Christmas table setting managed to transfer indoors out of the midsummer crazy hailstorm (“it’s SNOWING!!!” say the kids as they hide under the table) and it did look good even if I was all too anxietied and disappointed and FailFailFail fogged to enjoy it properly at the time. Plus I now have lots of new sparkly decorations for future years. I love decorations.
That’ll do.
xoxo
Hard stuff
+being lonely during the holidays
+uncomfortable dreams
+hair related challenges
+saying goodbye and making myself acknowledge what I’m goodbying
+confronting my own materialism
+worrying (probably irrationally) that [TuTu] is mad at me
+still haven’t finished The Boxing
Good stuff
+lots and lots of awesome crocheting!
+including GLOVES!! with fingers!
+Star Trek!
+scallion focaccia!
+radish hash browns!
+being The Wall for The Room
+practicing guitar every day. Every Day!!
+[Awooga] &company
+having fun working on The Boxing
+receiving my Box
+latke party at Evolution House
And my fake band of the week is: The Finger Puppets!
I just wanted to briefly drop in and thank you, Havi, for posting the link to the Wheel Grinding post. Funny that it’s from almost exactly a year ago. It was precisely what I’ve been needing for… oh, a long time now. But especially now.