Help! again as i try to lay myself down in peace, i leave with a a request instead of a thank you... i wonder if its okay to cycle through so quickly... please loving God, please have enough energy to keep up with me...
i pray, please soften the hearts of those who may not even recognize that they are not putting their childrens needs first. please pass your hand over them and change their hearts...
amen
Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
The Bucket List meets "Before the Age of Majority" List
My girl continually hears of all of my would be adventures. She decided she was not to be left in the dust so she told me she was making her own bucket list... I told her she could absolutely not call it a bucket list because 1- it wouldn't be fair because she has longer to live than I do. 2- well anyone under 18 who is as healthy as my kid cannot use that saying. Its my house, my rules. God I love being the parent. So we renamed her list as the "Before/At the Age of Majority" list.
Hannah's Age of Majority List
1. Learn to speak Japanese (started)
2. Save enough money to go to Japan with her friend at graduation. (started)
3. Eat a hot dog from a street vendor in Boise on a kickin' Friday or Saturday night.
4. See Katy Perry in concert.
5. Start her own babysitting business.
(She has already become certified in CPR and the use of an AED)
6. Ride in a hot air balloon.
7. Sing as a part of a choir.
8. Learn to play the piano.
9. See the Solar Eclipse.
10. She wants to see the entire TV drama of ER. It was one of our video binges we indulged in, in the beginning of the year, when she needed distraction and wouldn't leave my bed for fear of the silence, the suspension of real life for her so she didn't actually have to sleep alone in her own room alone. Luckily, I was between temp jobs, by the grace of God, and we would wear her out with drama, Noah Wiley and I would sometimes talk about how this show used to be "date night" for my ex-husband (her father) and I. I would tell her little things about that time in our lives when she was a baby and we would settle her down before 9pm so we could spend just a little time alone together. It comforted her because she remembered what peace lived inside her blueberry home. She didn't know the future. Hell, none of us knew the future. So perhaps, besides Noah Wiley, there was an internal calmness that she had forgotten about growing up in a functional home. Growing up with a father that she didn't remember as loving and kind, like the father I would tell her about. We would watch 'till our eyes hurt and then we would turn off the tv and try to sleep. She crawled in close to me, we would whisper thoughts as they came to us. One night, she and I talked about the last night I tucked her into her blueberry bed. She knew I was leaving for a different house. I knew I was leaving to a different house. Neither of us wanted it to happen. Although, being the grown up, I knew why I had to. A heartbreak I thought only I would remember. I was wrong. I remember lying there in the dark with her and apologizing for having to leave. I told her that I had no choice but to leave because I would have been living a lie if I stayed. I was a lesbian and I had to leave. I told her about the horribleness of pretending to be someone I wasn't and that I just couldn't do it any more. We were both tearful, laying there whispering in the dark after our long evening of ER. I told her I was so sorry for having to leave her there, tucked tight in her blueberry bed. I thought she would say something like, "I forgive you" or "Its okay mom" but instead, she whispers, "I know exactly how you felt now mom, pretending, always pretending to be happy, and perfect and having no one know the truth." I remembering reaching out to stroke her cheek. I missed and poked her eye.... we giggled but I felt her tears. I wiped them away. She reached out and fumbled for my face as well. She found and wiped my tears away too. She and I watched every episode of ER we could find but they are scarce... we didn't make it to the 3rd season. I need to find the entire set of ER for her for Christmas. I have seen it on Ebay. I don't know where the money is going to come from but she and I need that. It was our safe place.
We will update this list as it grows. And it surely will. She has only had a few months in which the world of possibilities has been laid before her and I told her the secret... she can dream. She can make anything happen she wants to. She doesn't have to be perfect to be good. And its okay to fall flat on her face, or change her mind. It isn't something that she has been used to hearing in the silence of her room. In a quiet house. With no one to talk to.
How exciting it is to be learning from the things I teach her. How exciting to see her eyes light up when she finds there is no reason not to create her own experiences.
Wow! Thanks!
Hannah's Age of Majority List
1. Learn to speak Japanese (started)
2. Save enough money to go to Japan with her friend at graduation. (started)
3. Eat a hot dog from a street vendor in Boise on a kickin' Friday or Saturday night.
4. See Katy Perry in concert.
5. Start her own babysitting business.
(She has already become certified in CPR and the use of an AED)
6. Ride in a hot air balloon.
7. Sing as a part of a choir.
8. Learn to play the piano.
9. See the Solar Eclipse.
10. She wants to see the entire TV drama of ER. It was one of our video binges we indulged in, in the beginning of the year, when she needed distraction and wouldn't leave my bed for fear of the silence, the suspension of real life for her so she didn't actually have to sleep alone in her own room alone. Luckily, I was between temp jobs, by the grace of God, and we would wear her out with drama, Noah Wiley and I would sometimes talk about how this show used to be "date night" for my ex-husband (her father) and I. I would tell her little things about that time in our lives when she was a baby and we would settle her down before 9pm so we could spend just a little time alone together. It comforted her because she remembered what peace lived inside her blueberry home. She didn't know the future. Hell, none of us knew the future. So perhaps, besides Noah Wiley, there was an internal calmness that she had forgotten about growing up in a functional home. Growing up with a father that she didn't remember as loving and kind, like the father I would tell her about. We would watch 'till our eyes hurt and then we would turn off the tv and try to sleep. She crawled in close to me, we would whisper thoughts as they came to us. One night, she and I talked about the last night I tucked her into her blueberry bed. She knew I was leaving for a different house. I knew I was leaving to a different house. Neither of us wanted it to happen. Although, being the grown up, I knew why I had to. A heartbreak I thought only I would remember. I was wrong. I remember lying there in the dark with her and apologizing for having to leave. I told her that I had no choice but to leave because I would have been living a lie if I stayed. I was a lesbian and I had to leave. I told her about the horribleness of pretending to be someone I wasn't and that I just couldn't do it any more. We were both tearful, laying there whispering in the dark after our long evening of ER. I told her I was so sorry for having to leave her there, tucked tight in her blueberry bed. I thought she would say something like, "I forgive you" or "Its okay mom" but instead, she whispers, "I know exactly how you felt now mom, pretending, always pretending to be happy, and perfect and having no one know the truth." I remembering reaching out to stroke her cheek. I missed and poked her eye.... we giggled but I felt her tears. I wiped them away. She reached out and fumbled for my face as well. She found and wiped my tears away too. She and I watched every episode of ER we could find but they are scarce... we didn't make it to the 3rd season. I need to find the entire set of ER for her for Christmas. I have seen it on Ebay. I don't know where the money is going to come from but she and I need that. It was our safe place.
We will update this list as it grows. And it surely will. She has only had a few months in which the world of possibilities has been laid before her and I told her the secret... she can dream. She can make anything happen she wants to. She doesn't have to be perfect to be good. And its okay to fall flat on her face, or change her mind. It isn't something that she has been used to hearing in the silence of her room. In a quiet house. With no one to talk to.
How exciting it is to be learning from the things I teach her. How exciting to see her eyes light up when she finds there is no reason not to create her own experiences.
Wow! Thanks!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Dei ritiro bagagli italiano
The blue chair took that tone with me, as pointed out in group, "the one where she calls you on your shit?" yup. The blue chair has her limits, she told me to step aside and get out of my own way. I told her to shut up. In that loving way I sometimes do. Just so she knows I got it. Somehow saying, "point taken" just doesn't fit my style.
In group, a beautiful soul with a tray conveys how she is learning to keep balance in her life.
It was so perfect. Just like ABS, we all walk around with so much on our tray. We work hard at balancing the stuff until it is perfect. Until we got it. We go about our way. We always, daily, hourly sometimes, come across stuff. Other people's stuff. They want us to pick it up and carry it for them because, well it is easier... for them... anyway. But we have worked so hard to be balanced. If we are expected to carry more, especially if it is not authentically "ours" is going to throw off our balance and take time for us to rearrange the rest of the stuff so we can manage. And then we have to decide if carrying someone else's stuff is really worth our time and effort. Where the hell is their tray anyway? I will always remember that story because it came right when I needed it. Just like the blue chair and "the tone".
I fell asleep that night without any provocation from benedryl which doesn't happen. But I was suddenly so tired. Without regard to the high 100 degree weather lingering in my bedroom I laid down and closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew, there were footsteps in my house. But I looked around and it is not my real house. Not a house that I had ever even lived in. Nothing recognizable. But it was a comfortable place. Old, rickety but not in disrepair. All the nooks and crannies that old houses from that period had. I immediately loved that house. As I looked around, it was full of things. All of my things. But it wasn't as if I had arranged them for living. They were just around.
The footsteps were all around me and it was then I became cognizant that there were people taking things out of the house. My things. At first I panicked. Stop, no! I didn't ask you to do this! They smiled at me and I was instantly soothed. Like a child being softly smiled at by a loving mother who has stepped aside to let the nurses give the inoculations needed to protect and guarantee a healthy life for her child. It was still uncomfortable and confusing but mother was smiling, steady and confident and the child knows it will be okay.
They were all men. They were all dressed in white. They were all Italian. It was as if the entire male side of the family of Carlo's Bakery had come to move my stuff. They were so gentle with everything. Constantly making eye contact with me as I watched them go in and out of the house. They were everywhere. I went sneaking about the house trying to hide things.... weird things that I do not, nor have I ever owned. Sparkly things, bright polished things. Old things that had dust but still displayed or tucked away somewhere that even I didn't know they were there. They would always find the things I hid and I knew they would but I kept trying.
They cradled everything as if it were the lost treasures of antiquity. They would pass by something on their way to somewhere else in the house and they would stop dead in their tracks. They would gently touch whatever it was as if the item was as precious to them as it was me. I could hear them say, "Oh look! It's this blah blah blah..." And they would recount its specific memory and who it belonged to and why it was so important. They would both agree... and would linger... lovingly nodding their heads. Then as if they were already on a mission to retrieve something else, they would put it down and head off to somewhere else. I would breath a sigh of relief that the item was still there but I knew it was leaving, I just knew that there was something else that needed to go first.
I didn't continue inside the panic. I was surrounded by all these loving people who loved and appreciated the history and the meaning behind all my things. I knew they loved me. They moved slowly and precisely. They didn't bump or struggle with anything. Not once did anything bump into a wall marring either the wall or the item. When it left the house I could hear the screen door swing shut. Not annoyingly. Not like we did to our mothers as we ran out of our childhood home. Crank the handle, push hard and clear the steps before you would hear "DO NOT SLAM the d....." SLAM. It was as if the screen door was lifted slowly by a breeze that then invisibly closed it just enough so you could hear wood on wood as it closed.
I don't know where "out" was. I never saw where all these treasures went. I left before they did or perhaps we all left at the same time. It is possible I woke up in my bed before they were finished. Perhaps because of the immense empathy and respect I was surrounded by, I was sent home before it was completely done because they knew I wouldn't wake with desperation. If so, I know they stayed until it was finished. I know that they remained as respectful of what was left. But I woke up. With a headache that felt as if I had been busy all night instead of asleep. My body was being pulled by gravity more than usual as if I had been up all night walking around instead of laying peacefully in my bed. I was physically and emotionally spent and it was 6:00am. I laid there. I felt odd. I could recall all the empathy. I could recall all the things I saw and held and hid. I smiled as I saw huge Italian men cradling trinkets and memories as if they were newborn babies. But mostly I could feel the presence of those spirits just helping me get out of my own way.
In group, a beautiful soul with a tray conveys how she is learning to keep balance in her life.
It was so perfect. Just like ABS, we all walk around with so much on our tray. We work hard at balancing the stuff until it is perfect. Until we got it. We go about our way. We always, daily, hourly sometimes, come across stuff. Other people's stuff. They want us to pick it up and carry it for them because, well it is easier... for them... anyway. But we have worked so hard to be balanced. If we are expected to carry more, especially if it is not authentically "ours" is going to throw off our balance and take time for us to rearrange the rest of the stuff so we can manage. And then we have to decide if carrying someone else's stuff is really worth our time and effort. Where the hell is their tray anyway? I will always remember that story because it came right when I needed it. Just like the blue chair and "the tone".
I fell asleep that night without any provocation from benedryl which doesn't happen. But I was suddenly so tired. Without regard to the high 100 degree weather lingering in my bedroom I laid down and closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew, there were footsteps in my house. But I looked around and it is not my real house. Not a house that I had ever even lived in. Nothing recognizable. But it was a comfortable place. Old, rickety but not in disrepair. All the nooks and crannies that old houses from that period had. I immediately loved that house. As I looked around, it was full of things. All of my things. But it wasn't as if I had arranged them for living. They were just around.
The footsteps were all around me and it was then I became cognizant that there were people taking things out of the house. My things. At first I panicked. Stop, no! I didn't ask you to do this! They smiled at me and I was instantly soothed. Like a child being softly smiled at by a loving mother who has stepped aside to let the nurses give the inoculations needed to protect and guarantee a healthy life for her child. It was still uncomfortable and confusing but mother was smiling, steady and confident and the child knows it will be okay.
They were all men. They were all dressed in white. They were all Italian. It was as if the entire male side of the family of Carlo's Bakery had come to move my stuff. They were so gentle with everything. Constantly making eye contact with me as I watched them go in and out of the house. They were everywhere. I went sneaking about the house trying to hide things.... weird things that I do not, nor have I ever owned. Sparkly things, bright polished things. Old things that had dust but still displayed or tucked away somewhere that even I didn't know they were there. They would always find the things I hid and I knew they would but I kept trying.
They cradled everything as if it were the lost treasures of antiquity. They would pass by something on their way to somewhere else in the house and they would stop dead in their tracks. They would gently touch whatever it was as if the item was as precious to them as it was me. I could hear them say, "Oh look! It's this blah blah blah..." And they would recount its specific memory and who it belonged to and why it was so important. They would both agree... and would linger... lovingly nodding their heads. Then as if they were already on a mission to retrieve something else, they would put it down and head off to somewhere else. I would breath a sigh of relief that the item was still there but I knew it was leaving, I just knew that there was something else that needed to go first.
I didn't continue inside the panic. I was surrounded by all these loving people who loved and appreciated the history and the meaning behind all my things. I knew they loved me. They moved slowly and precisely. They didn't bump or struggle with anything. Not once did anything bump into a wall marring either the wall or the item. When it left the house I could hear the screen door swing shut. Not annoyingly. Not like we did to our mothers as we ran out of our childhood home. Crank the handle, push hard and clear the steps before you would hear "DO NOT SLAM the d....." SLAM. It was as if the screen door was lifted slowly by a breeze that then invisibly closed it just enough so you could hear wood on wood as it closed.
I don't know where "out" was. I never saw where all these treasures went. I left before they did or perhaps we all left at the same time. It is possible I woke up in my bed before they were finished. Perhaps because of the immense empathy and respect I was surrounded by, I was sent home before it was completely done because they knew I wouldn't wake with desperation. If so, I know they stayed until it was finished. I know that they remained as respectful of what was left. But I woke up. With a headache that felt as if I had been busy all night instead of asleep. My body was being pulled by gravity more than usual as if I had been up all night walking around instead of laying peacefully in my bed. I was physically and emotionally spent and it was 6:00am. I laid there. I felt odd. I could recall all the empathy. I could recall all the things I saw and held and hid. I smiled as I saw huge Italian men cradling trinkets and memories as if they were newborn babies. But mostly I could feel the presence of those spirits just helping me get out of my own way.
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