Family Ties

I was just thinking about family bonds and family traditions. What my children have is completely different from what I had. I had uncles and aunts all year round. I had cousins from both sides of the family around all year round. My uncle Ron would take me out for ice cream and my aunt Sandy took me to the pool. I saw my grandparents constantly, sometimes daily.  We had family meals for every birthday and holiday. We went camping and they (not me) got drunk together.

There was always a time in a month I saw family, besides my own folks, more than 5 times. I would see an aunt, cousins, always the grandparents, etc... My kids don't have that with an aunt in Boston and one in Africa. My younger sons met their uncle on Skype a few months ago and they are 9 and 11. They see their Aunts and cousins once a year in the summer for a few weeks.  I am an only child and my mother has just passed away. When I was growing up I had lots of grandparents. My mom and dad's mothers and their mothers as well. I had the 2 grandfathers too. My kids have only their fathers side of the family and it is only his mothers side of the family with grandmother and great-grandmother left. My family is all dying off like flies.

My kids have a completely different up bringing with more friend time than family time. I always had more family than friend.  I am not saying this is bad. I am just observing how everything is much different from the way I was raised. I was surround by matriarchs and now I have none of my own. I guess I am the matriarch now.

Interesting! Several years ago I had an akashic record reading done and the message was I was going to be the Matriarch of the family.

Go with the flow

Go with the flow has taken on its own meaning lately. Right now it means CRY CRY CRY! I cried so much last night that my head has hurt all freaking day today! I woke up barely able to open my eyes they were so swollen. Most of the day I had puffy bags under my eyes and on top! I looked bad. Very bad!

I still find myself just sitting there numb. I have watched more TV over the past month than I have in 5 freaking years!

Not really sure what do to. Angry, then sad, then weepy, and totally lazy. UGH! This is so not me!

bah hum bug

Today I feel desperately depressed. An overwhelming lonliness has settled into the cracks of my broken self. My life has been molded into a dull routine of being someone elses slave, mistress, and/or maid. I feel saddened by the fact that much of my day is wasted with nothing to do because I don't have the money to get supplies and I don't have the skils to land a job. When I do bring up the fact I would like to earn money I am discouraged. I don't wish to bring you down with my murky melancholy I just wish to express the despair and lack I feel these days. I am coming to grips with my situation and it saddens me even more. I have no support on this land and I doubt if I will get any. I think it is time to pack up and move. Leave my 10 acre dream of having a farm and do something new that I can manage. It tears me up to even think of it but after this weekend I clearly see that no one shares my vision. I am stumped and lack the imagiation to be creative and optimistic.

Feeling pretty dull...

Been feeling pretty dull lately. Numb. Bummed. Lonely but strangely private. I really don't want to talk about my mom right now and don't want to talk to people about how it all went down. Today was her month anniversary of dying and still I am in the middle of getting my father settled. My routine is still screwy. My life still feels a little in shambles and all I really want right now is normalcy. I want my life to be back the way it was the best it can be. It will never be exact, I know that, because my mom was so much a part of it. I just want my home life and my own personal life feel settled and relaxed. I want calmness and joy and peace. I want stability. I want fun! I want laughter and lightness.

I think I deserve that, don't you?

Right now I feel like I am in a whirlpool and I am staying afloat with ease but still I go around and around. I wish someone could throw me a life preserver and pull me in!

need to do something

I feel a lack luster spark in my life right now. I really feel mediocre, a simpleton actually. I am really feeling it. It is a pulling and a despair. A weakness I do not want to admit.

I need to change that. I need to make some serious changes.

air bath

Many moons ago when I was a young thing reading tid bits here and there but never the whole story I stumbled upon something that changed me forever. I read that Ben Franklin liked to take Air Baths. Meaning he liked to lie in bed naked and open the windows and let the air hit his body. I ran and took a bath then I went to my room, opened my window, spread out my towel and laid there with the sun beating down and the breeze blowing across my skin. I was hooked! I don't always open my window to take my air bath but I like to lie down and enjoy my clean skin and take a moment for myself. Since I homeschool and don't have to rush out of here most days and my kids are old enough to care for themselves for a bit, I slip away far more than I use to.

It is really nice when it is fresh air but sometimes the weather makes it too hot or too cold. I have discovered I can handle 60 degrees on the cooler end. I could go warmer but hubby dislikes the windows open with the a/c on. My mother always thought it was weird but I never knew of her to try much out of the ordinary. I have always lived with at least one foot out of the box. Either privately or openly. I realized at a young age that life was short. Too short for living like a manufactured robot.

As I lie here in bed now after my hot shower there is nothing more soothing than a moment of silence and a cool fan blowing across my skin. I feel alive and relaxed and glad to have a moment to enjoy the simple pleasures.

Thanks, Ben! You are still an inspiration! Now, who wants a beer? ;)

Attachment

Attachment can be dangerous. You think I am kidding? Look around. The world is full of stressed out people moaning over the loss of something they had attachment too. People have attachments to cars, houses, land, shoes, hair, clothes, earrings, laptops, and anything else you can imagine. People cry over a cavity in a tooth, their hair thinning, bubble gum in the hair and it needs to be cute out, or worse they cry over a bad hair cut like it is the end of the world. You have the people that are so attached to their home they are willing to die in it when a hurricane is barreling down on them. People attached to their cars more than their kids. People wailing about a lost cell phone or a missing pair of boots. These are all attachments to material things and it only brings stress. Yes, your phone does bring happiness for a fleeting moment, so does your nice pearly whites, and your blue suede shoes but at some point the material will wear down or it will be lost and if you have attachment you will suffer greatly. 

We all have attachments. Baseball cards, our bodies, our children, our spouses, etc...

We all have something we will weep for and suffer over because we got attached. Some people go nuts with attachment and become hoarders. Can't let anything go and when something does go they are extremely distraught even if it was the toothpick that a dead celebrity picked his teeth with after a meal. 

Nothing is here forever. Everything changes, like it or not, everything will die, get lost, or wear down and fall apart. EVERYTHING! Ideas change, styles change, your skin changes, your hair changes, your body changes, your eyesight, your attitude, your friends, your underwear, your (fill in the blank) will change. Family will get hurt, die, have heartbreak, lose their jobs, have kids, move away, and feud. 

Your friends will do the same. You might have to move from your house, might lose your own job, someone close might tell you to take a flying leap, someone else might slip pop on your laptop. Your kids might move back home, your folks might move in with you, your hair might fall out and your teeth become crowded. 

The thing to remember, and this is very important so listen up, the thing to remember is this; KNOW LIFE WILL CHANGE. Just KNOWING is powerful medicine. If you do that you are already ahead of the game. Next you need to ACCEPT. This is key. If you KNOW and ACCEPT then you will ride out most storms when others will falter and drown. 

If you can keep your attachments to a minimum. Accept that this might not be your soul mate, accept that your friends might change, accept that you might move, accept that your belongings might break, get lost, and or fall out of fashion. If you accept this and know life will change then you will not suffer so greatly as those that whimper with every gray hair, every new line around the eyes, and despair over some thinning hair or bumpy toes. The more you suffer and lament what you cannot control the more stress you cause your body and cause more of those issues you dislike so much.

The most important piece is to LET GO! Seriously, LET GO! Go ahead cut your hair, don't hide your wrinkles makeup (it actually makes them look worse but everybody is too nice to tell you that), wear sandals with those bumpy toes, take off that hat and show your balding head, go ahead and wear your out of fashion clothes, laugh when the cell phone falls into the poopy toilet (you have a story now), talk about the one that got away and how life is better because they did. Just LET GO! 

Life is short and it changes fast. You either have to be up for the ride or not. I have decided I am up for the ride. I am willing to LET GO of my ATTACHMENTS and KNOW that life will change and I ACCEPT it. I may not like it but I accept and I am willing to go forth and enjoy life. 

Laugh, giggle, and be silly. Don't let bullshit that doesn't matter get to you. *wink! 

empty

Been feeling pretty bummed out. I am doing my best to keep from falling into a deep depression. I am also concerned for my father so I call him every day to check in on him. Sadly, I find myself sitting at the kitch table not doing a damn thing for hours. I just sit there and stare into nothingness and feel despair.

I have to make myself get up and workout, do laundry, go to the store, and wash dishes. I just want to sit and stare and do nothing. It is rather sad. I feel bad about it. When I realize what I am doing I break myself free only to go back to doing nothing some more. I have been giving myself permission to watch TV and use my exercise equipment while I stare at nothing important but I do not feel fulfilled just tired afterwards.

I keep telling myself that it has not been a month yet since my mother died and it takes time to process all of this. I just did not realize how sad I would feel.

Life goes on and time will heal but right now in my world time is standing still and I am frozen to my seat with a glazed fixed stare to nowhere.