Promises for April

 

1.  I promise to start reaching OUT to people when they are reaching out to me.  John and I tended to be selfish with our time together.  There's no one there for me now.  I'm not slighting my children.  They are being so supportive and would happily fit me into their lives even more than they did in the past.  But they have their lives.   I owe it to John, I owe it to them, and most of all I owe it to me, to not give in to the easy thing.  I need a new support system; one I'll build for myself.  I need to be open to people and stop thinking everyone is highly suspect and likely to hurt me.

2.   I promise to choose carefully who I allow to enter into my life.  That may sound contrary to the first promise but it's really an extension to it.  I attract needy people.  People are attracted to my co-dependent nature.  I want HEALTHY personal relationships in my life, not someone who will reduce me, use me, trap me in their dependency.  

To be honest, I've done that already once here.  I contacted an old friend, a friend whom I'd walked away from years ago. And very quickly, I realized that she expected me to be who I was, to be what I was back then.  I can't be that person.  I changed.  She...didn't.  Yes, her life has changed but she didn't change.  It was lovely to talk to someone who knew John and I at the beginning of our lives together.  But she'd been out of my life for 29 years for very good reason.  And she needs to stay there.  Love her as I do, she's unhealthy to me. 

3.  I promise I will not make any major decisions or life changes for the next six months.  Or maybe even a year.  I don't know yet how things will work out.  I don't know what day it is at the moment I'm writing this (It's Wednesday.  Remind myself to check the calendar every day).  I am still forgetting to have a meal.  I forgot to drink coffee the other morning.  If I'm a bit shaky on life basics then I am in no fit state to make big choices that don't have to made right away.  

I don't have time to waste on stupid impulsive life decisions that lead to heartache, financial ruin or loss.  You can afford to make those sorts of decisions at 20 or 30.  At 67...Not so much.

4.   I promise I will carefully exam just where I stand.   Are there things that need to be changed?  Am I where I need to be with the processes of getting paperwork done?  Do I know where I am financially, big picture?  (It just so happens I DO but I had to remind myself that was my department to keep up with now and I needed to KNOW).  Am I isolating myself?  Am I taking care of my health?  Am I being careful to only have emotionally healthy relationships?  

5.  I promise NOT to let people deplete me.  Not my own thought exactly but something profound my son said to me when I was telling him about feeling a little overwhelmed with not one but two separate family groups coming in at the same time.  He said, "Walk away for a bit if you need to.  Tell them you need time alone.  You have the right to reserve your strength.  This is about YOU.  It's not about them."

I did that twice this week.  I told visitors who have a tendency to linger and linger, "Go home.  Be careful, but go home."   I told an old friend, "I'm tired.  I'm going to get off the phone.  We'll talk.  Not every day.  But now and then."  

6.  I promise I will enforce and reinforce my boundaries.  So many people have wanted to share sympathy.  People who were out of our lives for good reason.  And some absolutely positively do NOT need to be allowed back in... It's not a matter of 'not being nice', it's a matter of learning to be protective of myself in GOOD ways.  John was always reminding me to guard my boundaries.  Now I need to remember that I'm the one who needs to do the reminding of self.

7. I promise myself that I do not have to 'fix' anything.  In the midst of all I was going through two incidents occurred that upset me.  I'll tell you about one of those.  Someone got their feelings hurt about a reply I made just as the doctor came in to announce John's death.  I was so sorry they were hurt.   I understood why they thought my message sounded a bit brusque.  It was. For good reason.  

But naturally I felt I needed to apologize and coax and get the rest of the family to do the same to smooth things over. I had a timely call from a Pastor who knows my nature.  He reminded me firmly, sternly, that the family member is a big boy and needed to 'fix' his own feelings.  Pastor reminded me that John would have said the same.  He reminded me I am in the midst of something hard. I lost someone I loved, too.  All I have to do is focus on taking care of me and getting those things done that I must attend to.  And that doesn't include an adult who can't handle an abrupt text when my husband has just died.

8.  I promise to pace myself.  I heard John in my head the other day when I was thinking I need to sort out this and I need to go on and do that and my goodness I will have to do x, y, z.  They will all need to be done.  They are not the important things.  They are not doing any harm undone.  They are not going to affect my livelihood, nor my home in anyway.  

So I put away the laundry stacked on his dresser and called that good for now.  Eventually the dresser will be cleared out.  The clothes in the closet will be donated.  The stacks of things that John kept near his work area will be dealt with.  But I don't have to rush to get it all done.  Nor do I have to do it all at once.  

9.  I promise to read John's rules to live by every day and make sure I'm following them.  My husband was very wise in many things, and I trust his care of me.  Those rules are his continued protection as I navigate this new season of life.

10:  I promise to make these 10 promises for April rules to live by as well.  

Big Emotions, Pt. 3: Sorrow

Sorrow sits at the bottom of the deep river of all unplumbed emotions.  Grief, despair, hopelessness, anger, shame, hurt...They are all mixed up in sorrow and get dredged up to cloud the water and alter the current's flow.  This river has a power of its own, moving at will along the path it carves.

Many times, when I lie down to sleep, when I just start to drift, I see a very real flood behind my eyelids, sweeping me along with it, sometimes confined within riverbanks, sometimes spreading rapidly across the landscape of life. I have no control whatsoever over my vessel, swept along without any way to stop it or slow it, completely vulnerable to the whims of the water beneath me. 

Sorrow, I know.  

Big Emotions Pt. 2: Shame

 

When I first began this journey, it began with a dream in which I appeared unclothed before a crowd.  I walked without any embarrassment or sense of shame, quite at home in my own skin.

But the most often experienced emotion I've felt over the past few years has been shame.  I've written about it both in my journal and here.  I've examined it until I have felt I was going to go mad.  I've ignored it only to have it rear up and strike at me hard.   

In Week Three of The Artist's Way, two of the emotions we examine more closely are anger and shame.  Today I want to delve into the emotion of shame as I have experienced it.

The Unexpected New Season: Joy

 

This weekend, the unexpected happened.  My husband, who has never been seriously ill in all of our thirty-four years together, who never needed to see a doctor for anything but routine labs, died.  

In the midst of the month when I've had big emotions, when I've written and have upcoming posts already written about big emotions, this comes into my life.  Nothing you've read prior to this and nothing you read after this for the month of March is about the most mysterious thing of all, and that is Joy.

Yesterday I was a married woman.  Today I am a widow.

Big Emotions Pt. 1: Anger

As a child growing up in what at best could be described as an angry household, anger was the most punishable offense we children could commit. Looking back now, I find that ironic to say the least.  Why should it be so?

It was how anger was handled in our home that seemed rather messed up.  No slamming of a bedroom door, no raging at the adult who was calling us out on our actions.  That part was reasonable.  What was less reasonable was the expectation that we'd show no emotion at all, never admit or own to any anger at any time.  Injustices were to be suffered in silence, without speaking up.  If we did, then we were punished physically as well as with verbal and emotional abuse.  We were meant to simply accept the situation and immediately correct our actions to suit the controlling adult.  All anger you see, was seen as disrespect.  And disrespect was always followed by punishment.

Going In Circles

 

The other day I was listening to a sermon, a very good sermon I might add, but also a difficult one.  It was difficult because it opened up within me a world of painful memories.  The pastor spoke about his childhood, a disappointing childhood, a hard childhood and how even at school he found himself compared too often to another boy, one whose family life was stable, who hadn't the things against him that the pastor was experiencing in his childhood life.  The pastor spoke of his hurt, his loss of hope, the sense of never being enough.  Indeed, not just feeling he would never be enough but being told by grown-ups in his life that he wasn't enough.  Not smart enough.  Not responsible enough. Not good enough.  Not stable enough.  

Promises to Myself, Part 2

As I write, it is the first week of March.  I restarted The Artist's Way about two weeks ago.  It is my second time through the book.   To date, I have yet to go on a single artist date. I'll wager by the time this post is published I'll still not have gone on one. The dates are meant to be a mere two or three hours carved out of a week, and it's supposed to benefit the Inner Child, the one who is the true Artist Within.  What's more, I made a promise to myself for March that I'd go on one Artist Date each week, as the author requested.  I don't want to break a promise to myself but by the same token, I don't want to go on an Artist Date either.

What is the issue?

Spring Fever

 

The birds started it.  I went outdoors yesterday morning, and they were fairly screeching in their excitement to start their housekeeping.  

I have been a dynamo this morning and though I've only been up about 3 hours at this point in the day, I have accomplished a great deal.  I've only just sat down to have a late breakfast and to sit here and brainstorm my way into this new season ahead...I am ready for a fresh wind to fill my sails for Spring.

We are on the cusp of a new season.  I am ready for the changes ahead.

Unreasonable, Impractical Me

 

As a daydreamy sort of child, I often made the mistake of sharing the fantasies in my head.  "Oh, Terri," someone would say, "be reasonable!"   I didn't stop daydreaming.  I did stop sharing my dreams.

As a young adult, living an all too ordinary life and still daydreaming of many things, I once voiced my thoughts out loud to a friend.  "Oh, Terri," she said, "You're always such a romantic.  You're not at all practical."

The Value of Mistakes

 

I've been working with my grandson Isaac over the last few weeks.  He's just turned nine.  He has a computer-based series of lessons he must do each day after school.  Each week is geared towards something they are currently learning at school in both Math and English language arts.

This week, we both got stumped by a lesson on prepositional objects.  The computer program he uses is designed to tell you when you get an incorrect answer and explain in detail why your reasoning was at fault as well as showing the correct answer and the reason why its correct.

Promises Made for March

 

Promises...Oh, how I struggle to keep those I make to myself!  So instead of making goals or focusing on only how I might work hard this month I am going to focus on keeping the promises I'll make for myself in March.  I am not going to lock myself into keeping every single one, but I'm going to focus on keeping as many as I can or at least making an attempt to start these things. That's my one goal for the month: make good on my own promises!