Not rising to the occasion .....Help

[lighter]

"I hope everyone has time to rest and reflect and be alive in their senses. "

Sea

Me too, Sea.

Me too.

Lighter

[sea storm]

hi Lighter...

Its a nice thought to be alive in your senses.

Smellings lilacs that are fresh with glittering rain
touching soft warm purring kitty
Walking on warm earth in bare feet until you can feel the soft grass
Hearing the who cooks for you hoooo of the dove on the telephone wire.
Hearing the chimes in the shuddering maple tree blowing in the wind.

Mmmmmm that't be

 better.

Good night. I love my bed. I love my cool sheets and wait for my cat to jump up and cuddle down purring me to sleep. i can sleep now after years of being too freaked out to sleep. I can do it again. i don't wake up in the middle of the night feeling panic anymore.

I still think little animals are my ancestors though. Like the little raccoon that stood at the window and kept tapping frantically. I have NOOOOO idea why. It was a teenage vintage of raccoon.  I looked at him or her and he kept it up. Like " where are my cookies? but he had the wrong house.  Now wise ones. What is this a metaphor for. Say it really was an ancestor.
Personally, I thought it was my mother who has passed on. She telegraphs messages that are brief.
today I hired a guy who told me he has aspergers to help me pack. I have quite a history of hiring very eccentric people. They are the ones who usually have these kind of jobs. I end up listening to them for much too long. I would say he had acquired a brain injury as well as he couldn't process language hardly at all. Or he was deaf. Good to polish up my old skills. He was a hard worker and I let him think he was the boss. Had to or he would have left I think.

This is boring I am sure. It is even boring to me. Working is very overated. The upside is that I don't have a major case of the Protestant Ethic however, I don't like slogging like this.  It helps me to write about it though. It really does.

maybe there is someone else out there who is slogging along in life. Slogging is when what you are doing does not suit you and it not appropriate to who you are. This really can't go on too long. I have a floating rib or something and my body says it hurts. I don['t feel like dressing nicely or even combing my hair. I look like everyone's version of a crazy woman I think.

For anyone who is moving.  My condolences. It is a difficult thing to do. Keep your chin up, you are not going insane, this will end. You will be making room for a better life. And lots more stuff if you want it.  You are probably cured of that by now though.  Be happy to have discovered that you don['t even care about the stuff anyway. Too much like towing a large building to South America.

Good night again.

Sea

[Hopalong]

There are those rare people
who can write something so evocative
and present about a struggle that
the reader is there with the writer,
and not only is the writer no longer
alone, but the reader isn't either.

Thank you, Sea.

love
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Thinking of you Sea Storm.  I wish I were near enough to help.  I am great with packing, cleaning, organizing with others though not so capable with my own.

Your thread is very connected to me.  This past year I lived in 2 cities.  In the small condo I was able to keep it clean and organized but at home I sit like a bump on a log - frozen.  I thought because I kept the other place well for an entire year I would be able to tackle home.  I got home Wednesday and I am still "resting."

It sounds like you have done a yeoman's job reaching out and getting help.  My hat is off to you. 

[sea storm]

What a relief to hear your voices. Hops and Gaining Strength so kind and present. This means so much to me.

I was reading about surviving last night. Parry at the North Pole holed up on a ship frozen in the ice for 11 months with temperatures often 24 degrees below zero. They put on plays every two weeks to entertain themselves and ran out of plays and had to make them up. Usually about 10 minutes or so. Big dress up with officers playing the parts of the females. This was hilarious to the crew who never, never got to see the officers putting on a ridiculous face. They were silly farce pieces   This really helped the men get through it while they were losing fingers and toes to frostbite. Then scurvy. I wonder they made it through.

This is the sort of thing I always do when Under the gun too long. Soon I will be howling at the moon. Not really. I just feel that way.

My daughter was targeted by a narcissist at work. A nice girl whom one would never suspect..... She accused my daughter of unethical behaviour and went to her supervisor who went to my daughter and together the supervisor and the slanderer nailed beloved daughter.
This really hit my daughter, Blind-sided her, especially because she is devoted to being ethical. She works as a psychologist at a university hospital. The righteousness of the accusers would peel paint off the wall. Very aritculate and razor sharp.
This just makes me gasp.

So my daughter goes to her supervisor who is very eccentric and like the guy who talks about genitals sort off. Like he doesn't ahve the appropriate off switch.  However, he is brilliant during a crisis and he saw the narcissistic attack for what it was.  The two nastie women were supposedly championing their clients rights. My daughter was so blown away. Helpless, unable to defend herself against false monstrosities. Her supoervisor deconstructed it piece by piece and raised CAIN. One so rarely is defended in these situations.
Anyway her supervisor went afte it like a pit bull. It was WONDERFUL.
I supported my daughter who understands the slandering bit and people who don't mind stepping on your corpse after they destroy your credibility, reputation, job etc. She understands it but can't quite grasp it because that is what happens  when one is hit by this psychopathic onslaught.She is seven months pregnant......I am glad I lived to see this kind of justice. I am sure it isn't over and so is my daughter.She used to actually like her job.

My sister just had a psychotic breakdown but it is calming down. Wow. That was a tornado. I wish I could detach better. With love and good sense. I am someone she gets angry with and I take the bait and get hurt. Must not do that. She shrieks like a wounded bear if I detach but I did this time. I couldn't take it. And this time I wouldn't take it.

Living in two cities is really being split. One persona tidy and the other more chaotic. I think if I visited you I would hope to go to the messy place and we could put grilled  cheese sandwiches on top of a great pile of dusty books and use paper towels for napkins. We could have great talk and laugh and cry and it would be great. Drinking tea out of canning jars because all the teacups are  either in the sink or buried somewhere. conversation is what counts. Next day were could go out and pick oregon grapes from the forest and make pancakes and not care about calories.  Throw in an old cat that insists on sleeping on your foot to keep warm.

If you are there Hops can you tell me about ADD and procrastination?

I am glad you like my writing Hops. It seems so socially unacceptable to think this way. Thank god someone does though. It is the opposite of texting.  It will be a dark day when I get a cell phone.

Good morning,
Sea

[Gaining Strength]

I celebrate that you were able to detach with love from your sister.  It is as if she is drowning in her pain but if you go to save her she will drown you both.  It is such a struggle to detach and watch.  Our very being is primordially sacrificial but no good would come of it and in fact no lessening of pain.  It took great courage to detach.  I celebrate with you with those pancakes covered in fresh syrup gifted from the tree and berries gifted from the vine.  I toast you with teas from the garden sweetened with the life giving bees viscous honey.  Let's dance with clover chain crowns in the meadow and know that we must go down to the depths again before we make new strides.

I cannot imagine how difficult it is to observe the struggle your pregnant daughter is in but I love to focus on her strength in going to one who could name the truth of it.  That is precisely the empowerment I was writing about.  Empowerment comes from naming the truth and it is strengthened when others name it too.  She is strong.

[Hopalong]

Dear Sea of many extraordinary colors,

Well, this is one example. I finally sweated my way into my home office to face the grizzly bear who lives under my desk and shoves piles of scary mail and papers at me with one set of horrifying claws every time I open the door...and though she is currently napping under my new desk (big symbol, got rid of Nmother's desk and got my own that I love)...I smell her and hear her grumble in her sleep and if I type this too long she will take me out in ONE SWIPE...

Meaning: I'm supposed to be filing but got online again to email a list of electrical work I need a quote for to the electrician, but while I'm here, might as well see if anybody's emailed me (nope) and sure, there's VESMB, one of my favorite links, and I'll just check in, and there's your lovely invite to tell you about ADD and procrastination but if I stop and tell you I'll NEVER finish this filing, so I'm going to do it later.

Sigh.

Hypnosis did help. But I developed a crush on my hypno-T so need to find another (I'll only do it with a certified clinical hypnotherapist but I'm sure there are one or two others here).

ADD is like...people take those Myers-Briggs thingies, right? I am an ENohlookaBIRD!FP. It's hard to get through a damn thought, or more cripplingly, damn ACTION, before I'm down another Rabbithole of Delight.

Especially on the Internet.

So I've got to:
1) take my meds
2) just be as in-the-moment as I can possibly get myself to be, so I (almost beside myself) actually make headway.

I've realized my goal, honestly, has to be HEADWAY. Not completion.

Today, holding that thought...I'm feeling able to get back at it.

More next time....

love,
Hops

[lighter]

Sea:

I used to sit out on the back porch, in the treetops, and really enjoy being there.  Taking breaks, working on legal stuff, just scads of it, and somehow things were better on that swing.

Now, having lost a dear friend recently, I see those leaves, and I feel terrible loss and sadness.  I hope it doesn't last.  I just couldn't know that I'd be talking to her the last time on that porch swing, looking at the leaves, now I'm reminded sharply of her when I'm there.

I leave for the beach tomorrow, and hope the back porch means serenity and safety when I return. 


Also, about moving, I wish I'd just sold all my furniture when I moved last.  I think I would be lighter, and happier, and less burdened with things, and memories (that haunt just a little.)

If you can, consider paring down to a minimum, and as you say, making room for new things, if you care to have them.  Nothing like clean, uncluttered sunny spaces to bring energy, and creativity, IME.

Lighter
ps  Must remember to count my blessings.... my children did very well on State mandated test scores.  I didn't realize I had anxiety until I read those scores, and a little sob welled up, and surprised me.  It's been a bumpy year with an ill parent,  much travel out of State,  homeschooling for the first time, and all the legal turmoil to boot......
but we're surf'en real good. ::nodding::

[sea storm]

It must seem odd. How can anyone take so long to downsize? Here's how.  By having a history of manias. I went through the sari period where i dreamed of making lovely hats and lampshades out of saris. I thought it would be a much better way to live.  Surrounded by gorgeous colours and brilliant textile art. I had about eight large bins of them. I had wonderful lamps, many of which needed work and lampshades to be recovered.  ( GOOD GRIEF!).  I had the period of living with the fisherman and all his stuff, enough for a tripple garage. Tons of jars some full and some not full of fish. Nets, rigging, gear, rainclothes, his clothes, boots. and paraphernalia.

I had the turn the house into a vacation rental phase where I bought the stuff for that. towels everythings and lots of it. That did not work out due to having a full time job too. so rented out the suite and had to store all that stuff.  The working as a counsellor in the school system traveling all over the place. So all that research, papers, workshops. So its all these phases. And being creative and having art stuff and seeing the POTENTIAL in all of it and seeing it as archives of the past. Maybe this helps to make sense of it.

TODAY a 22 foot dumpster is coming.  AMAzing.  I have thrown most of it away. A lot of who I was is going too and good thing too.

I am very tired.  I reached the end of my rope several days ago but kept on going.  Now I can see the end. The guy with aspergers was really quiet yesterday and worked like a Trojan carrying boxes upstairs and into the yard.  He has been such a blessing. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like the wheels had come off.  I prayed for help, Just prayed and prayed and finally went back to sleep. it is going to be ok.  For the first time I feel that. 

thank you for helping me. It was a huge support to me.

Lots of love,
Sea storm

[sea storm]

Hops and all,

I went to the church people and asked for help. Today they came. A family of mom, dad and four kids. They filled up a twenty two foot dumpster with stuff to throw away. The dad cleaned the garage and through out the insulation that was the home of racoons etc.

It is going to be ok I think. The worst has been done with.  I have to deal with paperwork tomorrow.  Since acquiring PTSD I have a serious aversion to this.Praying helps. I just give it over. OVer and Over.  Whatever that is it helps. This is too big for me. That is for sure. Just like soldiers almost always get god in the trenches. If they don't they need heroin. It is just the feeling of being humble against insurmountable odds. Saying it is too much and I let go of it. Into the great blue yonder. That is grace.
No amount of screaming and crying helps like that. admitting that I can't do it alone seems to make a huge difference and puts me in a place where I can accept help from others who miraculously show me what it is to be kind.

That is what happens here at voicelessness too. Admitting it is way too much and opening the door to kind strangers who can accept and understand.

I must admit that I am getting churchy. I find some things very comforting. I have found some very kind and brave people there too. Not ready to go the whole mile but it helps me a lot.

Sea

[Gaining Strength]

Sea - paperwork is what I cannot do.  There is so much attached to it - yet to be unveiled.

But I celebrate you many accomplishments and victories these past few days.  Look how much you have accomplished.  You have gotten so much done and you went beyond your comfort zone and asked people at church and even more exciting - they showed up.  There are no small accomplishments.  Take it in, soak it up.  Celebrate and rejoice.

Sending courage and comfort through the internet.