Trying on Roles

 #1 - I've been single most of my life, so returning to that role is familiar, though living alone is a new aspect of it.

Other roles I've tried on - "Are those your kids?" (Question I was asked leaving the thrift store months back with Michael's daughters.)

"They are my partner's children." I replied, though the eldest later said when I asked that I could say, "Yes." 

At one point while living with them I had the thought, "I could become a grandparent."  If one of them had a kid I would be in their lives long enough at that point I would probably feel that way.  That was a possibility I had never before even considered and blew my mind a bit.

Those doors have closed, but then they open too.

Marriage - it is something I have mixed feelings about.  Obviously on one hand it's a dream. On the other hand I grew up seeing that dream as a nightmare.  And until same sex couples could marry I certainly had issues with my privilege with it.  Michael was clear he didn't want to marry again, so that was that.

But now who knows...

These things came to mind because I took Michael's youngest to horseback riding today.  He emailed to request if next month I'd switch the date I'm taking her.  And suddenly I was in the role of separated parents scheduling.  This is an extremely minor example, but I just had the taste of, "This is what that might feel like."

 #2 - And when I dropped her off, it was different.  I've taken her to horse back riding lessons dozens of time, and then we've driven home

together.

Today I dropped her off at her new home 

and then proceeded towards mine.

And I cried.

And I got groceries.

And I turned to the country radio station which I've found is the most likely one to have something to offer a heterosexual couple after a break-up. 

#3 - And as I pulled into my parking lot, it supplied a new artist and song to me that perfectly fit the bill.

 

 

#4 - Mike Posner's also got a new one -

"...This is a what a broken heart beats like

 It's tearing up my chest like a jackknife

But it gets me thru the good and bad times..."

#5 - I was just listening so I didn't see the reminder at the end until my 4th or so listen.

"Beginnings always hide themselves in ends.

KEEP GOING." 

Tomorrow is actually my blog post day, but I want to reflect a bit...

I still go to the dentist near my dad's house.  Until 2 years ago I'd just use it as an excuse to stop by and visit. He died the day before my dentist appointment in Feb of 2020.  I went to the dentist the next day as I didn't know what else to do. Then I went over to his house and cried.

Since then my dentist visits, especially the winter ones, are sad.

Today I was back for a cleaning.  This made my next appt not until April.  I got off the typical timing because when I was supposed to go this summer I had Co-Vid, and they didn't have another opening for a long ways out.  As I left today I thought about how not having a winter appointment anymore lessens the correlation with my dad's death.

Then I decided to stop by the nearby thrift store which was always my favorite as it has great finds.  Maybe there would be an end table I liked.  When I scanned the new store arrangement I saw, "Bath." Hmm, I'd never think to look there.  However, I just bought my fourth bath mat yesterday, and once again I am going to return it.  

My bath here was depressing at first because it feels like a motel.  However, the very happy shower curtain I found has helped.  The shower curtain is very colorful and none of the bathmats I try look right. 

I think the store had maybe 5 or so bath mats.  And this was what one of them said.

I actually started to cry seeing it, and am crying now looking at it. The color still might not be quite right, but it is better than the 4 I tried before, and at $4, cheaper than all of them as well.

 I don't know why exactly, but it feels like a reminder/gift from my father.  It doesn't have to make sense, but something in me understands.

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Also I finished listening to Part 2 today of Glennon Doyle's We Can do Hard Things podcast with Dr. Becky Kennedy.  And there were lots of quote worthy things.

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"I think kids end up listening to parents for two reasons, either they feel very connected to them and very kind of close to them, or they feel very fearful of them. And like you were saying, there are consequences to wiring fear next to love. Like there are, I could cry thinking about, there are a lot of consequences to that early on." Dr. Kennedy

"Like what?" Glennon

"Like the people we end up being attracted to later on, are the people who evoke that earliest attachment, so being fearful of someone, of someone having control over us, someone dictating who we are and what we want, our body's like, 'I know how to do this, this is what love is.'" Dr. Kennedy

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"Regulation preceeds empathy.  It's always a prerequisite. You have to regulate your distress before you have empathy for someone else.  We know this, whenever we are overwhelmed with feeling, none of us have any empathy for anyone in those moments, because we're disregulated." Dr. Kennedy

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"Having someone who is perfectly attuned to your needs sets you up to be looking for a partner who is always perfectly attuned to your needs, like that's not a good set up, right? Actually I think that speaks to what we are saying here, which is, the process of like misattunement and repair. Like, oh you got that wrong about me and that didn't feel good. Or you did this thing and I didn't like it. 

Repair I actually think is the single most important parenting strategy, like I always think it is the thing we should get really good at.  Which is both hearing from our kids about the things they are mad about and proactively saying some version of, 'I'm sorry and that was me not you," for the things we know, we find we were reactive around...Repair it always matters.  It's what starts that rewiring process." Dr. Becky Kennedy

"Yes because you say that going back to your kids and repairing and saying, 'What I did was not acceptable,' you are teaching them to expect that love looks like when they are treated poorly, love looks like circling back to repair that, that is an inherent, invaluable part of love." Amanda Doyle

"Yes, yes, right that love isn't perfect.  It's not the absence of misattunment. It's not the absence of conflict, but also when we don't repair with our kids. This is always what spurns me...if that experience registers in that kid's body, 'Oh well I got yelled at that was scary," whatever it was. If I don't repair, kids really only have two ways of explaining distress to themselves, when they don't have a narrative, a coherent narrative for a parent and it's self-doubt or self-blame, right? Self-doubt is, 'Maybe I overreacted to that. That wasn't a big deal. If that really happened someone would have talked to me.' And then that looks like an adult like, 'Am I overreacting, would someone else have reacted this way, would all my friends?" That's self doubt. 

Self-blame is, 'If I was only a better kid that would have never happened. It's my fault. Somethings wrong with me.  I'm too much. I'm not enough.' And if we wonder why adults are, such prevalence wiring for self-blame and self-doubt, it's cause in those moments it's what we were left with...

You know we can really help our kids, and we can help ourselves too. The first step to repair is repairing with yourself.  Before you go saying to your kid, 'I'm sorry for yelling,' you have to say to yourself, 'I'm a good parent who yelled.' There right?  'I'm a good parent who yelled,' that does not define me. In fact I have an opportunity, as soon as my body calms a little bit, and I feel a  little bit of a release, and I find that goodness inside me. I'm going to go to my kid and I'm going to do something."

Dr. Kennedy

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"That's why parents get so fragile.  That's why anyone gets fragile, because they think their goodness is under attack.  When our goodness is under attack our body shuts down from an evolutionary animal defense state."

Dr. Kennedy

 How to Raise Untamed Kids with Dr. Becky KennedyWe Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle

What Hurts the Most

#1 -  I had a few lines in my head this morning, 

"What hurts the most, 

was being so close 

and having so much to say, 

then watching you walk away..."

I typed those lines in and landed on the song -

 

#2 - Having a job where I can sit at my desk and cry.

#3 - Where did that come from?  That song is 12 years old and not one I ever paid attention to.  And yet, today, thru the ethers it traveled into my heart.

What would we do without artists?  Seriously if we (and that means me too) spent more money supporting the arts and less on weapons and things we throw away, it really doesn't seem like it would take that much to have a new world.

 

 

 

#4 - I love the first wall I painted in my place, it seemed the most risky, dark and dramatic.  I planned for it to be an accent wall.  But the other walls, they didn't really work before or after I started my second color.  I sent my friend a couple photos and she agreed it was abrupt and that is why she doesn't like accent walls.  

Some accent walls look great, this didn't.  So I'm about to go buy another can of paint and make the whole room the dark color.  I'm hesitant about this too. My cousins are coming to visit this weekend, and hopefully help with some painting.  But I wanted to make progress first on the room they are sleeping in so it could air out a bit.  I sent my cousins the picture of what I'm dealing with and one responded.

"I think a dark room is so relaxing, love it!"

Alright that is the encouragement I needed. 

 

 

 

#5 - Today's podcast listen - Breaking Cycles & Reparenting Yourself with Dr. Becky KennedyWe Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle

"I believe you.  These are the three most important words to say to a kid.  I believe you." Dr. Becky Kennedy.   

"Boundaries answer, "Am I safe?' Validation and empathy I could cry as I think about this, I think answer a kid's question, 'Am I real? Am I real? Do the things that I feel inside me that have no markers in the outside world, are they real?'" Dr. Becky Kennedy

"I really believe a kid's job in their earliest years is to feel and experience, their entire range of emotions, like that's actually their job." Dr. Becky Kennedy

"The more intense our attachment with someone, the more intensely they are going to trigger the same circuits from our earliest love/attachment relationship."  Dr. Becky Kennedy

"We look to shut down in others, what we had to shut down in ourselves, that's the trigger moment." Dr. Becky Kennedy

"Whenever you are triggered by somebody, don't try to shrink the thing in the other person, try to grow the thing in yourself."  Dr. Becky Kennedy

This is an obvious one to me.  I am triggered by other people's anger.  Bingo, I need to grow some anger in myself.  

The assignment at the end of the episode was to complete this sentence, "I'm a good person who____."

I'm a good person who shuts down and disconnects sometimes from people I love.

Layers

 #1 - I started out listening to Trevor Hall live at Red Rocks April 28.2022 (Night 1).  I felt enveloped by the whole thing, but especially the last three songs: Lime Tree, Khan and You Can't Rush Your Healing.

#2 - 

My heart here in my hands

My hands here at the table

The table sturdy, the table strong

Reaching, letting go, reaching, letting

Flow, time, rivers, tears,

Listening, listen, listen

I was hiding

I was hiding

I was hiding

From myself

Now I see her

In every room I enter

There is a mirror upon the wall

There is a mirror beside the door

Look at her dance

Look at her smile

Look at her ignore her image

For the most part

Look at her looking

In

Inside

Beside

Abiding space, abiding gifts, abiding being given

A groove to write to, a groove to flow on, to float, to rise, to fall

Down, down, down she goes

Draining

Drowning

Surfacing

Lifting

The lake, the sky, the clouds, the sun

The lake,

The sky,

The clouds

The sun

The quiet

Slowly, slowly, slowly entering

 

 

 

#3 - Last night my friend who I lived with this summer left me a hesitant voicemail, asking for a favor, but it was actually a gift.  Last week her eldest had mountain biking in the evening the same time as she was working, so she dropped him off after school, he did homework for an hour, had dinner with me and then I dropped him off at mountain biking.

This week she did it again.  She said the same thing would be helpful next week.  I look forward to it!

#4 -  As he and I walked into my building today I saw someone unfamiliar upstairs.  There are 4 units down stairs and 4 up.  A few people I run into often, but two of the units upstairs I have never met.  "Hello, do you live here? I just moved in," I called up the stairs.

"No I'm the landlord," he said.  Then I saw he's with a woman I've met upstairs but haven't been able to speak to, when I did, she and her 5 or so year old both gave me blank stares, then "no English."

"Why didn't you speak to them?" a friend asked.

"It wasn't Spanish.  I'd guess Eastern European."  I've wondered how to try and communicate with her.  It must be isolating at minimum.  Could she be from Ukraine?  Maybe she's from Russia?

It is Ukraine.  The landlord said her town was taken over and she still has loved ones there.  I tried to express my willingness to support.  I'm not sure how much he told her.  Then I called the Ukrainian American Community Center.  I tried typing something up using google translate

"Please let me know how I can support you.  Take you to the grocery store?  What would be helpful?"

I emailed the Ukrainian center my message so they could proofread it before I give it to her.  I hope to be sincere in my offerings, and ask life to show me how.

#5 - 

"Everything passing and changing
I can see memories fading
This I have been contemplating

All of these patterns of weather
Nothing is lasting forever
Walking the path of surrender

So I have been patiently seeking
The heart that is openly beating
Where all of those rivers are meeting

I have the faith that I'm guided
All of the omens aligning
Mother Divine in Her timing..."

Khan Lyrics, Trevor Hall

 

One, Two, Three

I had one, two, three people over here helping at my place today.  The first was a friend who is very handy and who I had a list for.  The majority of the list were simply things I wanted his opinion about, but a few of the things were things I was hoping he could fix.

Then yesterday I found out my dad's cousin was in town visiting my brother so they both came over this AM. The cousin said part of why it's hard to visit is he misses my dad.  This is understandable because he was, for me, my favorite person for my dad to be around.  My dad was an introvert and not social, but whenever he and Lloyd were together my dad had lots to talk about and my dad was always relaxed.

My brother starting worked on adding GFCI outlets per my inspector's recommendation while I was making lunch.  Lloyd kind of looked like he wanted something to work on.  "Do you want to look at something for me?" I asked.  He jumped right up.

Both things I led him to were my father's.

First I took him to the vacuum for which the attachment isn't working correctly.  He spent some time with it and determined he could fix the attachment if he took it home with him.  Great!

Then I sent him to the paper shredder.  That took him a while to take apart and then he found the gear was stripped and it was trash.  Ok, good to now.  

He then said he has a paper shredder he hasn't used for months since he has a wood stove he just uses the paper for kindling.  He lives 5 hours away, so it will be a while before I'd get it, but I have no immediate need so, great again.

Then the kitchen GFCI outlets didn't fit with the backsplash.  At that point my friend Peter had arrived and they needed a tool to cut the backsplash, and Peter had brought a bunch of tools so conveniently he had something that worked.

Then Peter started working on my first priority for him - the bedroom window frame.  It was loose which made it unable for me to fully close or lock my window.  I'm not sure if this is my responsibility or the associations, but anyway hopefully what he did will work until I find out.

So it was another day full of blessings, the only sadness being that whenever something beautiful (like the above) or hard happens, the first thing I want to do is call Michael and tell him about it.  That has been true for 7 years, so of course it will take a while to not feel that impulse.  I tell other people (or write here) and it helps

and 

it is not the same.