I can’t believe how different I feel today.
I went to bed last night at 9pm. I only do that when I’m sick.
I hadn’t slept much the night before due to stress. My brain was completely offline yesterday. The ADHD stuff was in full play. Had a hard time focusing or concentrating on anything. Missed a doctor’s appointment which I used to do all the time.
I slept 11 hours and this morning, felt like a different person. It also affects my mood as I felt more hopeful and less down when waking up.
Developing some new strategies for daily living and more organization around how to best function throughout a day w/ the handicaps I have, mainly a highly-active mind and ego, depression and anxiety lurking, recovering from chronic pain and also slowly dissolving PTSD triggers, ADHD and general dissipation tendencies as the days go on.
I don’t see how I can function meaningfully without continuing to refine how I function each day w/ the issues I have onboard.
I also realize millions of people live like I do and it feels good to know that and connect to that. It’s makes me feel better and makes me more aware of other’s needs.
So it feels good to be organizing and coordinating both activities but also for the first time, feeling like I could set some goals and backmap from there into daily activities. I have been really afraid to set goals for myself in the past. I felt like I always got pulled away from what I wanted to do, so I just quit.
What was actually happening was I was allowing myself to get pulled into things and didn’t have the tools and courage to say no and disconnect or backout. So in reality, I could have done that more but didn’t.
I also spent alot of time raising kids and trying to create a family community situation w/ extended family. Those days are largely over and we’re transitioning what family is right now and how it works.
So in reality, I DO have more free time to pursue other things.
It’s going to take some courage as I have a lot of repression in those areas and areas of creativity, sexuality, expression, body awareness, etc.
As I hopefully am able to shift energy from chronic pain management, I hope I can add this into my life on a daily/regular basis.
I’m still involved now at work w/ more sales and training. It exhausted me this past week, and I definitely hit a wall. I feel I pushed a huge boulder up a mountain and spent about two months deeply engaged. It feels like I have to step back now a little bit and recover. It confirmed I’ve done an amazing job over the years but also need to move onto other things whatever those are.
I also think the healthier I become, the fewer issues I’ll have with friends who are go-getters and seem to effortlessly get things done in life and work full-time. I do fall into traps of comparing and try to not do that. However, bhte main thing is, I want to meet my own potential whatever that looks like with who I am, not just try and be like someone else.
I also am trying to find the right balance of how to help my mom and be there for her. She is doing only okay. She feels bad for where they live, like it’s her fault. I wish she didn’t, but that’s where she’s at. Her husband is sure thin and seems sick inside in a way that isn’t resolving. It’s a hard situation. I am doing what I can to make it comfortable and emotionally-supportive but I know it’s not enough for them to be truly happy. That doesn’t seem possible though so I can’t take that on.
*****
Something quietly was resolved in my soul this afternoon.
I went to Aunties and bought a book called Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn. It brought up all these tensions I feel about my culture, my identity and how I live now, how I raised our girls.
I was pondering the girls, wishing things could have been different in several ways, but that would like wishing I was basically a different person in a different culture. It’s like defying God and the divine to have granted me life in this body, in this time, in this country.
In my own way, I have listened to the spirit and tried to bring this body and life in line w/ eternal, transcendent values. That desire has led me to this place and to do the best I could. It also I believe pulled us toward the energies that were manifesting that. It pulled us to APPLE. It pulled us to our church for 20 years. It pulled people to us that have been life-giving and repelled those that weren’t.
I was pondering all this and then remembered the blessing I wrote for KT’s engagement.
When we were helping them clean and get ready for their big open house, I saw the blessing framed on and on a bookshelf in their dining room. It had a place of honor. It was something they want to remember.
Then it hit me. It doesn’t have to be a particular blessing or specific ceremony that is sacred; it’s the energy and intention behind it. It is the perennial wisdom displayed in all manner of traditions and customs and cultural and spiritual expressions.
In that moment, I felt something release in me that’s been haunting me for years: could we have done more? How will our life as a family together play out over the decades ahead? Again the phrase that has returned to me, It is enough.
The kids let me know when they were here last they are tired of my apologies, my constant questioning of what I did or didn’t do.
So in this new place of peace, I can move easier with relationship and let our adult children live their lives. I hope they continue to find time to honor their relatives that are older. We did our best to instill that in them but right now, it is very counterculture.
Peace.