Figuring It Out. ALONE.

Dark Moon Tree on Night Sky / Magic Fantasy Space (Photo credit: epSos.de)

Part 2: Figuring it Out: By Myself

Why didn’t I just sit down and listen to myself? Really listen and take my advice and go away for a few days to have some alone time? I didn’t have a second this summer when there wasn’t someone around me. Without a doubt, the high point of my summer was spending time with my daughter in Fort Lauderdale,  Florida for five nights, just the two of us. That was amazing and I would do it again, in a hot second, because not only did I want to go but my 18-year-old daughter wanted to come with me. For the first time.

I need my space, have always needed my space so I can breathe. Like a fish needs water, that is how essential my alone time is to me. That’s why I’ve been depressed, I knew it was something simple, something tangible but it was far beyond my reach at the time to understand. Yet, it was right in front of my face. It was just so black, I couldn’t see it.

During this summer, hostile weather and all, I was housebound with Fibromyalgia and Depression, not a win-win combination. For the first time in six weeks I feel so much better, I’m smiling at the computer and a smile feels better than a sack full of jewels. I’ve always needed my alone time and I had none. Not one minute. There was no balance in my Libra life, no balance at all.

I drove myself crazy with questions and speculation deepening my depression because I couldn’t figure out why the cause of my depression. I have never been a depressed person. Anxious yes, depressed, no. I had researched meditation, chakra, astrological practices etc. and what I really needed to do was sit still and listen to myself like I did tonight. Finally. I can breathe again, slowly.  I am yawning with relief and self-satisfaction. Next time, before I run myself around in circles I should just listen to my gut feelings and act on it and not back away because it feels too hard to do or too expensive. It’s worth every single penny and then some. I feel clean and light.

I couldn’t sleep when I wanted to sleep the most. I couldn’t concentrate because I forgot everything the very same second : the cause: Fibro fog (Fibromyalgia Fog: short-term memory loss. I had no appetite and could only eat the smallest of portions. My mind felt cluttered but if you asked me with what I couldn’t tell you one single thing. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Nothing felt right, nothing was right, I simply was not myself and I was out of balance. I tried to find my center but tried to find it on the outside and not on the inside where it belonged.

It took some time but when I finally figured out WHAT was making me depressed and the feelings beyond that, it was a gift I welcomed. I felt so disheartened not being able to figure it out by myself because that is one of my strengths and yet it was right in front of me. I just couldn’t see it in the dark.

Plinky Prompt: Escape!

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  English: Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. closeup view of vocalists Joan Baez and Bob Dylan., 08/28/1963 Español: Bob Dylan con Joan Baez en la Marcha por los Derechos Civiles en Washington, D.C. (1963) Italiano: Joan Baez e Bob Dylan durante la marcia per i diritti civili a Washington, 28 agosto 1963 Polski: Bob Dylan i Joan Baez w 1963 Deutsch: Joan Baez und Bob Dylan beim Marsch auf Washington am 28. August 1963 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  

  Live at the Troubadour (Carole King and James Taylor) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  Describe your ultimate escape plan (and tell us what you’re escaping from). See all answers

• Edit answer |
• April 12, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Escape!

• I’m escaping from STRESS and I’m taking my husband with me. I can’t possibly hang on much longer with my twisted, achy stomach which might very well be an ulcer or worse, losing weight, and being tired and upset. I’m watching my husband feeling down and defeated and unhappy too. I’m taking my husband, my best friend, whose stress level I share and intensify, out of here.He needs a new, good job PRONTO, in the computer field (something about Software and Engineers and Project Management) where people are not mean but decent and NICE. It’s been too hard, waiting for the pink slip which is coming except they don’t even GIVE you a pink slip anymore. Now, they just take you into a room, avoid your eyes and mutter about lay-offs. The unemployment drill.
  Let’s sell the house, then tell our kids in college, take the nutty dog with us (she’s always up for an adventure) and rent a van, or small mobile home. We can become the baby boomer hippies we never were. Let’s go down to the basics, we don’t need all this “stuff” that you, okay WE cling to. Imagine, having no agenda, no plans, no watches. We’d be living on money from the things we sold. Our college kids might even have to work (Gasp, what’s that??) Let’s go cross-country (you never believed me but I meant it.) Maybe somewhere we can settle down and open a breakfast place or lunch, maybe ice cream?
  Let’s go now, before we change our minds. We won’t sell the CD’s, because the one thing we need, wherever we are, is music. Music makes us happy and we need to sing loudly out the windows with joy. Our dog, Lexi, hanging out the window having a blast. We will sing all the oldies, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Carole King, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez….just to name a few. No stress? Sounds like heaven to me.

The Apple Tree – (It’s Really Not About The Turkey- Part 2)

English: An apple tree loaded with apples in its upper crown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Children leave you, like everyone leaves you; you know it is true. Ultimately that’s our biggest fear and the only one that we can’t deny because we know it’s true. We are born alone and we die alone. Children have been leaving us as soon as they take their first step.  Dying is just the last step, in this world at least, but people and pets have gone ahead of us all our lives. It’s the one thing we cannot control, the one thing that causes us the most pain and grief yet we can’t prevent it nor can we heal it. We can’t make it better for others nor can we help ourselves. For me, the only solution I have found is time and letting my pain out like a bursting dam, writing about it helps but it takes a great amount of time to wrap my head around the fact that I will never see that person again. We all grieve differently. Don’t let anyone tell you how to grieve or that you are not grieving the “right ” way. Time does heal, but you can’t expect to forget. Eventually, the memories become sweet reminders of the past.

My children, who have been home for Thanksgiving, for four days, are excited to leave for their other “home” tomorrow morning at ll:00 a.m. They are going back to their respective colleges.  I was surprised to hear how early they were leaving; I know they have a very long drive but deep down I knew that wasn’t the reason. They were ready to go home to their friends, their college family, their parties. I was not surprised at how much they wanted to go back but I was a little disappointed.  I am glad they are their own people now but deep inside my empty womb I felt a pinch of disappointment, of grief. They have left us for good.

Like a sturdy tree, we have stood as a family for twenty years. Now, the tree that once stood so solidly is dropping its apples and the apples are good, they are tasty, juicy and we as parents are proud.  We have made them but they are not our apples anymore, they do not belong to us. They belong to the world, to the men and women who take them home, who love them. Surely, they will remember us, but we will never be their first priority again. It’s a true fact, one you can’t deny and one parents everywhere have to accept. It’s not easy, I know.

So, yes, it was wonderful to watch them grow and to keep watching them, every step of the way. Deep in our hearts, we know, that it will never be the same as it once was. Never. Sure, they will love us in they hearts but they will no longer need us the same way; our goal was to make them independent, remember? I forget too sometimes. They go out into the world to find their own place, to meet their own loves, to start their own families.

We are alone, like when we were born. We will probably die alone, which I know, is a scary thought. Maybe we will be lucky and someone will be there to hold our hand or to whisper “I love you” in our little, paper-thin, shell-like ear, but no one can promise that. We die as we are born. All the steps along the way are lessons to be learned on separation. Be your own person, as much as you can. Love yourself first before you love others.