Talking Out Loud: Feeling Sorry For Myself

My throat is scratchy, every time I swallow it’s like a science experiment. I feel cold even though I am under three blankets. Oh wait, I shouldn’t be surprised, we’re back from our short vacation in the sun.

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We are anticipating a snowstorm with wind and ice and I’m sure the clouds can just feel me smoldering with anger and resentment, like a fire just beginning to spread quickly.

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The Universe can feel that I don’t want to live here anymore, the Winters are too tough for my aches and pain, Fibromyalgia has never been my friend but it is becoming my worst enemy.

I hate having to confirm a lunch date with my best friend in the morning although she totally understands.  Will I be okay for getting up and out of bed? Can I dress myself and drive my car and meet her over salads sipping strong, strong coffee? I have NO energy and NO short-term memory. That is excruciatingly embarrassing to me, that is the worst part.

I will know that only tomorrow morning and even that is iffy. I can deal with this chronic pain disease much more easily in the Spring, Summer, even Fall but Winter? Oh, Winter is the devil of all evil, to me. He’s that bratty, bad boy, the one every grade school had who tried to make other kids’ lives unbearable, the bad boy brat that succeeded in torturing a grade.

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Way back, when I was a child, we never had a “No Bullying Allowed” rule. We just had the town bully and everyone knew who he was. I can picture his face so easily in my mind as he grabbed my winter hat and threw it around the bus to taunt me.

Now, we are all grown-up, the bullies, the kids, those of us who care for our grown-up children and parents and dogs. We face problems every single day. The stress and tension are finally catching up with me.

I don’t smile much anymore. It’s tough enough to get out of my warm, comfortable bed with my dog lying beside me. Sometimes, I choose not to get out of bed. I’m okay with that.

Please, I don’t need platitudes or well wishes, I just need circumstances to change. I need a sign, I’ve been patient. Until now.

Yes, I will ask the Angels for help.

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I will ask anyone for help. But, so far, nothing has worked. I’m so very tired. I want to curl up in my bed until I see that it is Spring. Things will change in the Spring, for the better. We will make it change, not now, not during the bleak, gray darkness of Winter.

The new us, starts in the Spring, 2015.

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Free Write Friday: Kellie Elmore

Tell me about a beautiful person you know…

She is  a wisp of a woman, small, slender, I would like to be able to cover her with layers of warm blankets, one at a time, like a really special birthday cake. In her case, the rich, cocoa brown chocolate frosting, the color of very fertile soil, that will grow anything with abandon… especially ash trees… that sink their roots deep into Mother Earth to pull up strength and nourishment from below, and raise their branches high to the sky to soak in Light of the sun, moon, and stars… the sweet frosting would gently hug her and rock her to sleep. In my dream, she would be able to eat everything she wants to eat and she would be able to gain some much-needed weight. Right now she needs to gain a lot of weight, weight falls off her tiny bird bones and she is weak. She would sleep soundly all curled up in a sugar rose, like one of those wonderful Anne Gedddes photographs that I used to have hanging on my wall on a calendar. Newborn babies in sculptures. Asleep. Blissfully asleep. My friend has been physically sick for a long time, just like many of us with chronic pain disorders and the like.

I’m talking to you about my friend, Ash, a woman who to me is the essence of angels.  She is warm and open and shy all at the same time. She tries to be strong for other people but once in a great while she will show me her vulnerability. I can read her because, though not biologically, she is my sister. She is a spiritual sister to a few people and none of us are jealous of each other because in this spiritual plain, jealously doesn’t exist. Our other sister is Michelle, at one point we became a family of our own and I have yet to meet either one but that doesn’t seem urgent or even necessary. Ash seems to be the oldest of the sisters, though chronologically, I am. Her wisdom flows, teaches, keeps us grounded.

My friend has been through difficult times, I worry about her health, her adrenal glands, very weak body, the way her energy sounds over the phone she sounds wound-up and anxious and yes, scared. To me she is usually Mother Earth, Goddess of All Things Natural, all things Golden, an Angel on Earth but tonight I was strong for her; she needed ME tonight. No one is safe from a disturbing past, although I used to think that everyone had a clear, easy, simple path to adulthood. I was wrong. If you look behind the curtains you find out that every person has their own story. Sometimes they want their story to be a secret, sometimes they pretend not to understand the question. Every child has a story as do their parents.

Ash, had a rough childhood, she has Aspbergers which I never would have known had she not told me and a hard time growing up. Ash is a mountain girl, one with animals, I expect she relates more with animals than with people and the animals know that. They love her as their own. She has two daughters with two very different personalities, I know one better than the other, but the one I do know is loving, caring and has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders, I have been there too.

I had too much responsibility on my shoulders too when I was young so I can relate to “the little one” with ease and admiration. And with a word of caution, “you have your own life too, sweet one, please make sure to remember that” I am only a phone call away from both of you.

My friend is now bugging me to take dairy and wheat out of my diet, I try not to laugh out loud but she knows me too well. She wears me down, the most I will give her is “I promise to try” but it is a weak promise though I won’t let her down.

I will not let her down, my sister, my friend. I hope she knows that applies to my “niece” too.

My friend is going through another difficult time now, health-wise, I will always support her, I do what I can, living far away, but this gentle soul could use a break, please join me in putting a peaceful, spirit prayer to help her through the tough days ahead.

* PHOTO CREDIT SONGEDELUXE Spiritual (Photo credit: songedeluxe)

photo credit: songdeluxe

The Many Ways of Making Amends

SIN EDITAR (Photo credit: angel almanzo grupo 52)

People should think about how they behave, in general, especially if there are disagreements and disharmony. To some people saying “I’m sorry” comes naturally, to others it’s a huge, stubborn struggle. Around the world there are different techniques, prayers, rituals to atone for your sins.  In the Jewish tradition, the day of Atonement falls on Yom Kippur where practicing Jews fast all day to atone for their sins. They fast from sundown, the night before until after sundown of Yom Kippur. Catholics have confession when they go to church and can confess their sins where they are given a penance, some real duty to do and their sins will be forgiven.

I am more a spiritual person than a religious one. I don’t need a special day to atone for my sins, I try to do that every day I can, I often fail. I am a faulty individual who has to think back and concentrate on what I have done wrong and how I can make it better. It’s really as simple as that. Acknowledging that you are not perfect is the first step.Acknowledging other people are not perfect is the step after that.

I have never minded apologizing to my kids when I was wrong. I find it easier to apologize to my children than to my husband, I’m working on that…I have family members both in my family and in my extended family who would rather eat dirt than apologize. They will dance around an apology by changing the subject a hundred time and still will never say “I’m sorry.” It’s really not so difficult if you can swallow your foolish pride and admit that you are wrong. By not doing so you are only making things more difficult and complicated, creating more of a drama for everyone. It may infuriate me but there is nothing I can do to change it. Here, I need to start breathing slowly and accept them for who they are. I never said it was easy.

In my opinion only, I don’t think you need to be in a Temple or Church or Mosque or any other organized religion to believe in a spiritual and greater power. That’s my message, you don’t NEEED to do anything special if you want to atone for your sins, you can sit on a park bench and watch the stream go by, adopt a dog, do a good deed, help an elderly person weed her garden. Anyone or thing that you love and cherish as a holy being is wonderful if YOU believe in it. You can think about things you want to improve upon in the future. We all should do the best we know how to do and then try just a little harder.

Dedicated: to The Three Sisters

Photographs copyright of photographers.

Written copyright of author.

Apologize (Photo credit: WolfS♡ul)

The Fox And The Wolf

Rainy Golestan National Park (Photo credit: brum d)

I have a friend, a dear friend, a soul sister that I have forged a deep connection with and recently learned she is sick. I fear she is very sick and while I may write and sob, wearing my heart always, on my sleeve, she is calm and accepting and talks about life after death calmly. I am here, a long way from her, this friend I have never even met, and I am crying, my tears flowing down my red cheeks without stopping. I don’t even attempt to dab at the waterfall cascading from my green eyes, I could not keep up. In some way I don’t want to mop up my tears and have a clean face; it just doesn’t feel right.

I try to put on a brave front but she knows me and can see through my pretenses. “You have lost many people and you just don’t want to lose your new friend, your soul sister” she writes to me as if to explain. I put my head in my hands and rock myself while she is trying to comfort me from afar. She is a brave warrior and I feel like a fearful, young, gray mouse yet we coexist in nature. I have learned more from this friend about life and yes, death, than from many people I have known a long time. People can call themselves “best friends” but it’s only a label, an artificial one.

She and I connect, spiritually. She sent me a poem that used in one of her pieces of writing and it turns out to be the same poem (* see below ) I had read at my father’s funeral. It did not surprise me but as wonderful as the poem is, it does not quiet my heart when I miss my dad the most and that, she acknowledges,  is true. I wish I could wrap her up in a cocoon of the softest, silky threads and take care of her, feed her so she will stop losing weight rapidly, sing folk songs deep into the night, looking at the stars and making her tea with tupelo honey.

We have never met, she and I, but we know each other well, like wildlife in nature, harmoniously living together, understanding intuitively what is good, what is bad, a friend, a foe.  I hope to meet her someday soon but even if I don’t and even if she does die, as we all will, I know now, that feeling connected to another person, is worth the sadness that might occur later. For everyone, for everything, give people your heart and appreciate whatever time you have with them. Because, without them you would have been a lesser person, a smaller animal in the beautiful green forest.

Thinking of an anticipated good-bye is downright torture for me, it’s like squeezing blood from my brittle bones, without anesthesia.

*Do not stand at my grave and weep is a poem written in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Although the origin of the poem was disputed until later in her life, Mary Frye’s authorship was confirmed in 1998 after research by Abigail Van Buren, a newspaper columnist.^[1]

Full text

The “definitive version,” as published by The Times and The Sunday Times in Frye’s obituary, 5 November 2004:^[2]

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

dedicated to my friend, with love. she knows who she is.

Plinky Prompt: Do You Consider Yourself Religious?

• On Religion
• I Believe
  Sunset over the Pacific Ocean. Laguna Beach, Calif I consider myself very spiritual and culturally religious. I like to be with our whole family on religious occasions. I like to do the right things and try to treat others as I want to be treated. Granted, it’s hard to do sometimes but it is something everyone should work on. I work on patience (especially when I am driving.) I do believe in a higher being and that things happen for a reason. I may not be religious in a standard, conventional way, but in my heart and soul, I definitely am.
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Saying Good-Bye To Oprah

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I loved the peachy-pink dress you wore on the last show, Oprah. I didn’t think this last show would be your own last lecture, a love letter, a synopsis from you to your adoring fans but in retrospect, it was what you were all about. Teaching. I admit I wanted to be able to cry, with you, for you and for me and the rest of the world but you saved that, and rightly so, for the last ten minutes.  Your walk from the stage out was like watching a play, with emotion, but not with regret. How wonderful to be you.

I imagined I would get to see an emotional Oprah, one that showed your vulnerability, any slight doubt you had, any separation anxiety. But, I, was the one with the separation anxiety and loss, not you. I was the one who needed an emotional good-bye, you didn’t. Truly amazing. For the last twenty-five years I have grown up with The Oprah Winfrey Show. Today, even though I tape the shows I had to see it live.  “I have to watch Oprah from 4-5pm today” I told my children. They understood and at 16 and 18, they have their own favorite shows, their loyal friends, their own lessons to learn, their own truth to find. We will have to teach them what we learned from you.

Oprah, you have been a friend to me and to people all around the world. “Your life is speaking to you, what is it saying…?” For me, it is saying that I will miss you, that I have learned so much from you, that 4-5pm will feel empty without you. You told us that “when it was the right time to leave, there was no regret, not bittersweet, just sweet.”  I know I couldn’t be like that. Sometimes, I second guess myself but I know how to listen to my gut, to my feelings, to search inside my soul. I always knew that but you validated my feelings; you cheered me on as a woman and especially as a parent, as a stay at home mother.

Oprah is a teacher, an educator, a spiritual and religious woman, that was very clear today.  You were on our own, to thank us, the audience, for making you feel special and loved and validated.  “We too can find our own passion, in whatever way we choose. We can help people, be kind to one another and stave off bad karma by putting forward only good karma.” Yes, we have heard it before but it was good to hear it one last time. To remind us all of what is important, to be kind and give to others.

We will spread the love, we will spread the joy and the passion. You were the love of our lives too, Oprah, as we were yours. After 25 years, I have to say good-bye to a friend who has been on television all of my adult life. I grew up with you and I have learned a lot of lessons from you. I feel sorry for this new generation because they will not have you in their lives to teach them. We will just have to pass down what we have learned from you; as you see, you will be in our hearts forever.

I will say good-bye, because I have to. Thank you for all that you have done for this world. I will truly miss you.