Today was a fine day.
The Sun was shinny, warming up the doldrums and clearing out the head.
My knee is feeling better.
I call it a grief fracture that rendered me immobile for a few
months. Since nothing substantial showed up on the x-ray.
Slowly letting go.
Stretching
Releasing more
How incredible it feels to run again, through the trees,
On winding snow trodden paths in the woods.
Feeling safe and protected in magic glittering.
There is freedom in grief. I don’t care about being alone.
Alone is my comfort zone.
I am enjoying the indifference
Warm conversations can bloom
Following whatever calls to me
I go.
lies
Lying to my parents went way over the norm. They were crazy and I was the cog in the wheel. I was the shit disturber in a very secretive way. I dated their nightmare. I can still picture the look in my dad’s face when I introduced Mike. His eyes rolled up in his head and he made some flitting movement with his hand. On my wedding day my mom asked me if I wanted to back out! That was decent.
Mike woke up a sense of freedom in me. It came in a badass package. I couldn’t walk away. It’s every good girls cross to bear.
I never had the guts to really freak on my parents. Not a good thing! It’s beneficial if a child can speak their mind. At least they know what they like or dislike. That was always a grey area for me. It left me anxious, confused and unconfident. I was always caught in being the good little catholic girl and whom I really wanted to be. My inner voice was very timid. It was hard to get my attention. I guess an anxiety disorder was in order. That’s when I did start to pay attention.
How stifling that was! It takes guts to be sneaky. I applaud my fortitude. I am a natural born schemer because of the box I was in. My kids always joked, how I’d make a good criminal. I am the first one to come up with a great “white lie”. It came from years of practice in planning elaborate schemes for freedom. I was very skilled at sneaky! Now I worry about karma and I counsel them to tell the truth instead.
Kids today are awesome. They are more open or aware of differences and possibly have more genuine relationships with their parents. Mine have had a very different relationship with me than what I had with my parents. I know my parents loved me and they didn’t abuse me. There was just a lot of focus and pressure put on to “looking the part” as opposed to being whomever you wanted to be.
When my son was very young, I remember being uncomfortable with the power imbalance being a parent. Basically you had all the power. They had none. It just felt skewed to me. And it made me uncomfortable. Probably from years of feeling controlled. I made a concentrated effort as a parent to judge a situation as needing me to be “the power” or not. I opted for as much flexibility and validation when dealing with my kids. And I believe that I cultivated easy children because of it. They knew that I would listen to them and they knew if life felt too hard they could always take a “mental health day” from school. It was always an option. They rarely ever used it. But Hell who could not use a day off here and there. I would never force then to eat eggs if they didn’t like them.
I truly loved spending time with them. Being their parent was fun! I got a second childhood because of them and they were my safety net for many social events. Kids love to create and so did I. So we did this together. We painted, sketched in cemeteries, made paper mache sculptures and replicated everything watched on Art Attack. Best show ever!
I learned from life that suffering comes from not being able to know/trust yourself and that security comes from being able to forge a life that interests you. I knew this well enough that by the time I was pregnant at 24 that I was not going to subvert that in my children. Whatever would interest them I would support them in exploring. They would not have to fight for their voice. It would guide them.
My kids are now 21, 23 and off in the world. I am very aware of their freedom they have at this juncture in their life. It is awakening in me the possibility of new adventures. That is very unlike my parents. Well at least I never heard them talk about how excited they were with all the possibilities. Maybe because I am single and they were not. They had three children later in life.
My life feels like it is just beginning after kids. I feel the same as I did when I was twenty, only better. The periods have stopped, early, and so the sacrificial energy has waned in me and now the phoenix is raised to claim itself. What can I do with this one precious life? What adventures await me?
When I was 18, my mom was 49. This is my age now! This floors me. I am on the ground. My parents always seemed so old. They did nothing cool and did the same thing every day: work, office, sleep. They didn’t have any hobbies. My mom did like to have large parties, get dressed up and drink scotch. Those were fun times! My dad did like to walk. We had good walks together. My mom was my age! My age!!! I absolutely had to lie to them about so much. So many things- All the time – big things.
This seems incredulous to me as a parent. Who would want their precious child to have to lie to them? Parents create the need to lie, children don’t. Even at 21, I was lying to them! They were so scary to me and I was afraid of getting into trouble. I was an adult!
They always seemed old but they weren’t?! Maybe being married ages you? I know that divorce allowed me to know myself. I like who I’ve become because of it. I am grateful that I was released!
Our children are more evolved. It’s inevitable. It is natural to expand. The problem lies when we try and keep our values/beliefs the same with each generation. It’s not Godlike to do that. We are natural born creators- God energy. Why we stifle our brilliance! Why do we hold on to so may rules when we are here for such a short time? Rules, rules and more rules. I always told my kids rules are meant to be broken if they don’t serve you. I gave them permission to be sneaky in school if needed.
One of my clients who had horrific cancer died. I decided to call his wife yesterday after a month had gone by. He was close to my age. He was so ill. He was walking and poof… he died. He thought that he had time to get through the spring and feel the warmth of the sun again. He really wanted to feel that sun and stand on his porch. I am glad he didn’t linger. I phoned his wife. It’s above my duties to follow up with the family after the memo “client expired”. It felt right to call.
Life is short, then we croak, as Abraham Hicks puts it. No reverence for death. I like what my daughter read to me this week, out of her hydrology course. “Water cannot be created or destroyed it just changes form”. Exactly. We never die. We just change form. Croak. We never end. We don’t need to be afraid. Ok then, so what’s next? 2015
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