Do You Hide in a Corner When Things Get Rough?

I admit it.  I am not the first to vocalize that I’ve been hurt.   It takes me a while to process things, and sometimes those who love me are left waiting for me to speak up.  Sometimes, I process my feelings, and there’s nothing more for me to say. Sometimes I am just plain WRONG, and a bit of processing time reveals this to me.

Sometimes, I need to follow up with the offender about my feelings.  Sometimes I realize that the problem is my own, I process my emotions, realize that I have been irrational, and I apologize.  Sometimes I hide away in denial until I can speak my mind.

Just a note, folks, that this is not a responsible way to solve your issues.

This is a form of denial, and it won’t get you far if you want to address issues like a grown up.

A better option:

It’s not a bad thing to want to think about what you want to say before you say it.  It worked for Mister Rogers, and it can work for you. If you have an issue with your significant other, a friend or a family member, and words have been exchanged, then it’s OK for you to tell the other party that you need some time to process what has gone on.

Rather than hiding in a corner and withholding your love, just TELL them that you need some time.  Here are some options:

“I know we have just had a conversation that included a lot of heated emotions.  I need to process this information, so please give me some time alone to do so.  My distancing myself from you is just me thinking about things, so please allow me some time alone to do that.”

“We talked about a lot tonight.  It might take me some time to process this information, so if I’m distant for a day or two, understand that I still love you and that I just need some time.”

This way, you have indicated to your loved ones that you love them, that you need some time to process your feelings, and that it’s important to you to process the information rather than just react.

Remember:  Once Said, Never Unsaid.

 

 

The Desire to Speed Things Up

As most of you may know, I lost a child recently.  We were a few months before her birth, and the whole experience was the most horrific, physically- and emotionally-painful experience of my life.  I have experienced the loss of stuff (virtually everything I owned was lost in Hurricane Katrina), and and aged mother, and even endured divorce several years ago–all in the same year.  But nothing could prepare me for the devastation of losing a child.

Although I am still not speaking to God, I as a guilt-free person seek to find the lesson in every situation that involves me in some way.  This situation, although highly emotionally-charged, is no different.  Generally it doesn’t take me long to figure it out, and I generally get my lessons on the first try, thus avoiding repeat lessons and additional pain.  This time, however, it’s not coming quite so quickly.

I took two weeks off of work to sort things out;  there were lots of medical appointments, and tons of crying and a lot of screaming at the Universe.  There were angry scowls at young mothers bouncing babies on their knees.  There was envy in many of my thoughts. There was love thrown at me from the most unlikely sources, and I am thankful for that.  And after a while, there was some hope.

The hope was in the form of other options, for being 46, it’s assumed that my eggs are just too darn old to make a viable embryo.  My husband isn’t a spring chicken either, at 38, so the odds aren’t great that we will conceive again on our own.  That’s when TWO different doctors recommended the same fertility specialist, who didn’t seem fazed in the least by our age, or by our history.  He in fact warned that we are perfect candidates for twins, and were we ready for that?

YES!  I’m ready!

But, alas, my body is not.  After basically giving birth to a stillborn child, my body is in repair phase.  It will take up to two months for the next step to take place, as multiple tests can’t be done after my body returns to its normal, non-pregnant state.   This is a lesson in patience;  there is absolutely no way around it…all my wit, charm and planning will do no good in this case.  I am forced to wait, despite my inner desire and history of getting things done.

So I will take this time to reflect, and to make art and write about the lesson that the Universe has created for me, that so far eludes me.    And I will practice patience, and self-kindness, and strengthening my bond with my inner self.

I hope the time goes by quickly, all the same.

Don’t Doubt Your Plan

Yesterday, I had a second level ultrasound done to detect possible chromosomal abnormalities in my unborn child.  There were some indications of such in an earlier ultrasound, and any parent, hearing this would be at wit’s end on how to wrap their head around such information.  As for me, I was told 13 years earlier by a psychic that I would have a little girl.  I scoffed at her, as my first husband had already had a vasectomy, but life does it’s thing and throws you a fastball once in a while.  Thankfully so, because my new husband appears to be quite fertile; which leads us to fulfilling the crazy psychic’s prediction from a decade earlier.

Not that I have placed all of my faith in what one woman said over a deck of cards long ago, but my faith also includes the belief that we have already planned the major details of our lives, long before we entered a human body.  This includes pacts and agreements with others, who also take human form, to help us learn the lessons that we’ve chosen to learn in this particular life.  It’s kind of like picking out your courses for the next semester of college;  you know the general subject that you’re taking, but you’re not given the exact lessons until you are enrolled in the class.

Well apparently, one of my lessons is to learn to live in the later years of my life.  This is one of my most pertinent ones, for most people are able to look back at their twenties, smile, and remember the freedom they had when they thought that they would never die.  Yet learning to live at an older age is quite the different type of lesson, for mortality is lurking in the shadows, and every day our bodies age and challenge us to be our best in the present moment.

My plan to truly live my life at an older age includes the birth of a child; and with it the responsibility of caring for an innocent being that can benefit from my extra years on this earth.  I understand now that this is part of my life plan, so whatever the Universe throws at me at the Doctor’s office, I know deep down inside that I was the one who created it exactly as it is, in order to get yet another course under my belt.  I am not doubting my plan in the least.

Learning the Language of Animals

I believe in reincarnation.  I believe that we choose whom or what we would like to emerge into the world as, whether it be a Tibetan monk or a hairstylist in Brooklyn.  Each life will have its challenges, its lessons, and very different interactions with very different beings, depending on the circumstances and environment in which we grow.

To me, an animal lover, I had some idea that animals were a very important part of human growth.  After all, how a human treats an animal shows us much about his character.  But I didn’t think of them as having equal intelligence as humans, simply because I thought that they lacked self awareness.  I believed that they thought, and felt, and had good days and bad days, but I didn’t believe that they reflected on these occurrences.  I didn’t think that past experiences could determine future behavior in an animal. But now I know otherwise.

I am reading a fascinating book called “Learning Their Language: Intuitive Communication with Animals and Nature,” by Marta Williams.  In the book, the author gives examples of her one on one communications with animals, which includes locating lost animals, assisting veterinarians in finding out what’s wrong, and solving past problems with previous human relationships gone bad.  The book showed me that anyone can talk to animals, and animals can talk back through mental images, in conversations much like humans can.

It does take some practice, and the author wants us to practice with animals we don’t own, since we are not so familiar with them.  I started with my horse, however, who I don’t see nearly enough, and I can say that we’re coming along just fine.  I can sense some reservation in his willingness to share with me, as perhaps he thinks that nothing will change anyway if he “speaks” his mind.  On my part, I am taking it slowly, not asking much, but merely sending love to him and the reminder that he will be with me for life.  He seems to be accepting of that, and I can notice a visible calming of his nerves and a general sense of well being after we “talk.”

As for the dogs, well anyone that knows my unruly dogs will know that there is a lot more work to be done with those to open the channel of communications…

All in all, I have learned a great lesson here in that both animals and humans, although in different external form, feel the same emotions, fear the same fears, and experience highs and lows inside.  The bonds that humans and animals share, and the respect humankind could show animals, would be so much stronger if we considered us all equal.




Surprise at 45 – Middle Aged Motherhood

It’s really strange how some people can live their lives according to the book, and others just wing it.  I have never been one to consistently write down my goals in some journal that I carry around.  Rather, they’re scratched out on the backs of already used index cards, or the back of this year’s address book, which I’m likely to lose before the year’s end.  But my goals, they get accomplished, somehow.  My goals don’t seem to be like those of others’, though.  They are more esoteric, more abstract, than saving for a BMW or paying off my house.

My goals are to live my life outside of the standard order of things.  As I said in my post, Guilt Free Non-Conformity, I really haven’t followed society’s timeline of events for a normal life.  My life really started later than most, at the birth of my first son when I was 32.  That’s when my beauty started to bloom, and I realized that I was a unique human being that didn’t think like others did.  That’s when I started recognizing the people that chose to be sheep rather than leaders, and that’s when I chose to be a leader by example.

So now, at 46, I find myself living totally outside of the box yet again.  My second child is due, completely unexpected and most certainly welcome nonetheless, in May 2012.  My plans for retirement are coming along fine, but it’s not the type of retirement that most people are planning, when they are too old to enjoy themselves.  Of course, on a humorous note, much of my retirement will be spent at Little League games, cheering on my son/daughter as he or she runs the bases.  Graduation for this little angel will be in 2030 (OMG!!!) and hopefully there will be great strides in the field of plastic surgery by that time so that I don’t look so much like Grandma while I sit in the audience of proud parents.  And of course, with a younger husband, I will still be called a cougar until the day I die, even when he’s 80 and I’m 89.  (If you would like to read about my pregnancy, you can visit my sister blog at Surprise at 45)

There are days that I feel the guilt of being non-conformist–mixed in with morning sickness it’s not an easy cocktail.  I know that there are friends who judge me for it, and have backed off because they just can’t relate.  To them, I say that I can think of no other way for me to live.  As I believe in multiple lives, I can say that this one, because of my choices to take the path less taken in many instances, is the best life yet.

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