Smelling Change

It’s not here yet and I don’t know when it will be here but I sense that something good is on its way. I’m not sure what it is but I do have an idea and believe me, I am running on instinct only. Call it intuition but I’m smiling for the first time in a very long time.

Pretty flowers. Pungent smell (Photo credit: Zaqqy J.)

There’s a very good possibility that I could be wrong. Is there a chance I might be disappointed? Absolutely. Am I still going to publish this? In the past no, but now, definitely.

I take chances now.

I’ll start over and again if it doesn’t happen, I’ll just learn from the experience. Something good will happen sometime. If it isn’t this month or next it will be next year. Something is changing or about to change and I feel the it; I have the oddest feeling inside of me.

Remember the image of Mary Poppins putting her finger up to the sky feeling changes? That’s how I feel. My nose seemed to feel a scent that was different today, true, the weather was hot and sticky yesterday and today we are all shivering from the cold but I don’t think that’s it. I picked up on something, If it wasn’t hope, it was something else, something that is new or that I don’t know about, yet.

I’m patient.

English: Screenshot of Julie Andrews from the trailer for the film Mary Poppins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I feel okay about this, I don’t feel terrified that I am going to jinx it, like I would have in the past nor do I feel stupid expressing my feelings even if they are just daydreams.

I feel proud for expressing my feelings for something so dubious.

Maybe I will feel disappointed if things change and I go deep into another sorrowful place. Then, I should remember that it took courage for me to even write something that was so personal and out of my comfort zone, that I put the words on this paper, hit “publish” and went ahead. No big deal.

I have lived in fear for too much of my life; it feels good to let go of every piece that I can.

I am buoyant, I can fly, sometimes it’s murky and cloudy, sometimes it’s brilliant and clear.

Whatever the weather, I’m still going to try.

‘Clear Blue Skies’ – Trwyn Du, Anglesey (Photo credit: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes)

 

Plinky: What’s Your Biggest Regret?

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  Bungee jumping podczas Juwenaliów Śląskich 17.05.2008r Lotnisko Muchowiec w Katowicach. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  What’s your biggest regret? How would your life have been different if you’d made another decision? See all answers

• Edit answer |
• September 21, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Regrets, I’ve had a few….

• Looking back is easy, isn’t it? But, I wasn’t the same person 30 years ago as I am now, hadn’t learned enough about myself or the world, didn’t have the confidence or the drive (or the psychotherapy!) My biggest regret is not having the ability to take CHANCES in life. I say ability because I really was not able to take a chance, I was crippled with self-doubt, and fear and I could not get out of my very limited social comfort zone. I had been that way since I was a child. Back then, there were no child therapists because if there were, I would have not lost so many years of my life to being scared and always anxious and afraid.
  It carried over into my adult life too. I lied to people saying “I couldn’t go places” when it was pure, stifling anxiety. It took many years to relearn but even at my old decrepit age, it’s never too late to learn something new.
  And, as Oprah has said all along “when I knew better, I did better.” And, so I did. I’m grateful for the years that I have had the courage and not upset that I didn’t have them longer.

*Bungee jumping: JUST KIDDING

Free Write Friday, Kellie Elmore (Winter to Summer)

Get a Life. (Photo credit: the.barb)

Nurturing A Dying Plant

Nick and Kailey, 23,  live together in a dark basement apartment, in Cambridge, MA.  They met in graduate school and dated for several years. Now, they both worked from home, in technology. Kailey’s parents refers to them as “moles.” “They act as if they were in hiding, as if they were in the witness protection program,” she complains to her husband.Nick was absolutely happy living this way however, Kailey has her doubts, she missed seeing other people and having parties but she loved Nick and knew this was important to him.

The long, tough winter in Cambridge had made Kailey so weary, so depressed because even though their apartment was in the basement she missed the light that came in through their one window. She missed seeing other people, her old friends but Nick wanted her to himself and she knew that proved how much he loved her. She felt safe and happy and deeply loved.

One day in June when she heard birds chirping outside their window, and sniffed the changing air Kailey started to feel happier. She was excited and couldn’t wait to go outside yet Nick had no interest. Finally after much begging and pleading he did go with her but he didn’t seem pleased. They walked up the four steps to the outside where their eyes blinked and they used their hands to shade them from the brightness. Kailey squealed with delight and Nick just wanted to go back inside where he felt most comfortable among his computers.

Once outside, tree buds pink with anticipation were blooming, grass was sturdy and deep green, standing upright saluting the sun, people were no longer wearing their puffy down jackets. Instead they were wearing their Harvard sweatshirts, rowing on the Charles River in perfect synchronicity. Kailey looked around at the life around her, people smiling, holding cups of iced coffee in their hands, throwing frisbees across the greens and laughing with pleasure. Kailey smiled openlyas soon as she was outside, her cheeks getting pink, exposed to fresh air and the sun. She was laughing out loud at all the activity and after a while a group of kids playing frisbee asked Kailey and Nick if they wanted to join  their game. Kailey joined their game begging Nick to join but, as usual, he refused adamantly.

“Kailey, he shouted a short time later, it’s time to go home” and for the first time, in a long time, she didn’t follow him immediately. Her new friends begged her to stay awhile longer and she did. “I’ll be back later” she told Nick and turned back to her new friends, laughing, breathless and happy. She had been with Nick for a very long time. She didn’t see them getting married soon, there was something missing and she had always known that. Nick loved living in the dark world, it was there he felt most comfortable but Kailey didn’t. Once she saw the sunshine, her senses became alive, she couldn’t imagine going back to the place she had lived with Nick.  She sat herself down on the grass and started thinking about her life. Did she really still love Nick or was Nick her safety net? Was she happy living the same life that Nick lived? No, she knew that.  She felt like an old, thirsty plant that was dying, needing water and sunlight, nurturing.

It was time, she thought, time to tell Nick something she had known for a long time but had been too scared to think about much less mention it. Their relationship was more of convenience than anything else. Nick was comfortable in his own world of technology, alone with his computers, not needing people or nature around him. Kailey was different, playing frisbee wtih new friends in the sunlight, laughing and having fun had exposed her to a world that she used to live in, a world where things were light, sunny, happier and free. She sat alone for quite some time, thinking, reluctant to get up. Finally, she headed back to the house, up the hill, her head down. Her world had changed, now she needed to tell Nick that she was not complete just living in the dark. She wanted more, more for herself, more fun in her life, more brightness. She was going to try to say goodbye to darkness, and head slowly to the light.

Carry on Tuesday: The long and winding road…..

English: Opuntia macrocentra, Jardín de Cactus, Guatiza, Lanzarote, Spain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can’t be perfect all the time. I thought I had to try to be in the past as a child. Now I don’t. No one is perfect. Like recently pressing the Publish key first instead of the Save key. It’s okay. Really, nobody cares and if I care (that first audible intake of breath) it’s a waste of my time. My life. I’m not going there. Not ever again. It won’t come automatically, that’s okay.

I will be nicer to myself and easier on myself and everyone else too. Hey,  I don’t know how much longer I have on this earth or how much longer anyone else has. I just won’t care as much, not as intensely, maybe you learn that with age or being hurt or just choosing not to care anymore. I wish I had known that thirty years ago but you learn when you truly need to learn, when it is crucial.  I want to surround myself with those that love me and simplify my life, positive people. I want to subtract, without drama, the negative people.  It’s initially hard to accept when you’re in the middle of some dreaded tsunami and you are swept up but when things finally settle down, you learn. I’ve learned to inhale on one, hold, exhale on two. Repeat as needed. There’s always a way to work things out, always. I’ve found that out with family, it’s not what it used to be but it works. Will everybody be 100 percent happy? Probably not but if we are all 75 percent happy it’s a good deal.

While traveling I’ve always taken the direct route to get from here to there.  The direct route is simple and less risky. But, I am learning to take some risks even if it feels uncomfortable at first. It should feel uncomfortable, you should wriggle around with a few pangs of anxiety and then….then you grow and learn. I have decided that from now on I am taking the long and winding road, to make detours, to appreciate beauty in its simplicity. That’s what adventure and growing are all about. Taking a chance and growing up. Taking the direct route, as I have done, is the easy way but it feeds on your insides and makes you feel used and destroyed, and hurt. All I needed to do was say “no” and step back. Firmly. It’s been a long journey and it isn’t over yet, I’m sure.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, we keep learning. Sometimes it’s painful, most times it’s uncomfortable to do something completely different from what you have done for your whole life. I tried it on for size, I moved my body around, adjusting my skin as if it was attached directly with a sharp, silver needle to every cell, like the pricks of a cactus. It poked, it prodded and I learned to work with it, not against it. In the end, not only was it comfortable but it made me shine, from the inside out.

Scared To Be Happy

I am lying in my bed, covers nearly over my head. My stomach clenches, my head hurts, I sigh loudly. No, I am not getting sick ( I hope ) but I know what the feeling is from. It’s anticipation in a highly negatively charged way. I don’t want to look forward to anything because (from experience’s sake) it’s a jinx.  Yes, that’s what I said. More importantly, as much as I try to psycho-analyze myself and redirect it’s what I know to do.  It is what I have been taught and what I have taken on for myself. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t healthy. It isn’t good for one itsy-bitsy tiny thing.

My family and I are “supposed” to go away for a few days to someplace “warm” over the break. I can’t say where or when or how or why. Why? Because of  the aforementioned jinx.   As a family we do not have good karma for going on vacations so I am being ultra conservative this time to the point of nueroticism, not to mention hysteria, mood swings, feeling stagnant and immobilized.

I try, really I do, to be in “neutral” as my dad used to say. No need to be optimistic or pessimistic, just be in neutral. In control, neither this way or that, or in airline terms, stand-by.

I can’t fill my head with visions of blue-aqua swimming pools or bright orange tropical drinks with slices of pineapple on the glass rim. No. No sandy white  beaches, no trying to feel the sun flood my natural Vitamin D starved body. No.  At least, not yet.

This is no way to bring up children, I know that and I try to keep it to myself but who is kidding who or is it whom?  I feel insecure and tentative, and responsible and uneasy. Not much of a trailblazer am I!  I am comfortable with routine and as much as I love to go away (if we should be so blessed) I am just as happy  to come home. To fit in the little niche I have carved out for myself in my little world. My shrink is going to have a field day but it’s not anything I don’t know.

I don’t want the kids to be disappointed, I don’t want to look forward to something and have it not come through, there are too many negatives in our travel history for that. Tonight, I will try to stay calm and think of many different things. I will not hyperventilate, I will not be anxious, I  will not be negative……I’ll try.

Of course I am trying to protect myself and my family. Does it work? Never. Do I believe in karma and that things work out the way they are supposed to? A definite Yes! Does that not ease my precipatory anxiety? A resounding NO!

Not good at taking chances, not a risk taker, I have bludgeoned myself for being so self-protective. Apparently, I can’t win. I want to be positive but  I am scared to, I don’t want to be negative but it’s self-protection. I want to stay in neutral and feel free from pressure but I find that very hard to do. For now, I will try to take things minute by minute, try to declutter my mind and take long, deep, big breaths, inhaling, holding, exhaling.   Finding neutral is not as easy as it sounds; but I’m still looking.

If I could change my past…….I would:

*   have pushed through the fear and not let it stop me

*   have  FOUGHT for more attention

*   have  learned how to say “YES/”NO” earlier in life

*   not have been such a goody-goody

*   not worried about what everyone thought

*   made decisions quickly instead of a Libra’s wishy-washy ways

*   tried many new things, just because…..

*   not done what I knew I was “good at” or what was ” familiar”

*   not been so very afraid and worried all the time

*   not blame people for what they could not help

*   forgiven people faster and better

*   expressed my feelings instead of holding them in

*   taken many, many more chances