Baby Steps

Ugh.  I feel as though I have been stuck in a lot of life's drama lately and it is distracting me.

 

Big drama has been happening to me on all fronts of my life and I just thought I would let you wonderful readers know the reason why I haven't been able to post on my blog as much as I would like.  Not that you are hanging on to every word I ever post but I thought it would be nice of me to give an explanation for cutting back lately.

 

I can't and don't think it would be fair to talk about all the nuances of the Big D that is overtaking my life but I have faith that some parts of it will be short lived.  Sometimes I think that life's problems will resolve themselves if I give it enough time to unscramble but I am finding that a hard part of healing can be the times when you have to roll up your sleeves and confront the situation yourself.

Until then, I remind myself to take baby steps, for baby steps will get me where I need to go.

Peace.

Pushing Those Emotional Buttons

I have three sisters and two brothers who are younger than me.  Yes, I am the oldest of six children and we are very close in age.  Such a cast of loved ones has made, and continues to make for many great stories and many great memories.

 

I would say I talk to at least one of my sisters every day and sometimes I talk to all three of them during the coarse of one day.  That's a lot of yakking, right?  Not really because we also email and text each other.

 

In our own unique ways, each one of us has learned that life can be fabulous yet fragile.  Our conversations reflect those learning experiences and as such have become a lot more open and honest.  We have learned the hard way that even though you know what button you can push to get a reaction from a fellow sister, that it's not a good thing or even a kind thing to push it.  Pushing the button can sometimes instantly take away all the good feelings that we worked so hard to create and then you find yourself walking back a lot of what you said and doing that wastes a lot of time and a lot of energy.

 

 

Your emotional buttons will always be there but I have found that even if the button is pushed you have a responsibility to yourself and the other person not to react the way you did when you were younger.  In other words, just because something is said, it doesn't mean you have to take it personally or emotionally and go off the deep end.  Most of us find there is already enough drama in our daily contacts with strangers, we certainly don't need an extra dose in our personal lives.  I think you can acknowledge that you know the button's been pushed but then you can say something like, "Okay, I know that what you just said made you feel a hell of a lot better, but let's talk about what's really going on here."

 

Life is just too short to carry around a lot of emotional baggage every day.

 

You have to figure out when to let go of a behavior and change course.  Think of how much mental energy it takes for you to think about what happened to you, what was said to you, who said it, and then stir it all up until it becomes some kind of foaming emotional cocktail that you carry around with you every day with a big cherry on top.

 

I'm tired just thinking about it. 

 

Instead, I try to jump back from what happened, look at it, figure out what my foolish role was in it and learn something from it.  If an apology is needed, I apologize.  If the person is just venting, I ask if that is what is going on.  If I am annoyed, I go back to the person (not always right away) who got under my skin.  Like the other day, I caught myself.  I could feel that I just wanted to argue the old way of saying something sarcastic.  But I stopped myself, and put myself out there a bit and said, "I don't want to argue.  I just want to find a solution."

 

Take time to reflect on the negative things that happen to you because we can learn from them (ouch!) but don't make those things that annoy or hurt you the centerpieces of your life.  You are so much better than that.  At some point, you have to let go of it and toss it away.

 

Otherwise, the negativity will feed on itself, leaving little room for the great and good things that life will definitely bring your way.

 

What Day Is It?

Vacation.

Isn’t it a great word?

Although it’s a verb, the word vacation doesn’t evoke action to me.  When I hear the word vacation I think about the air being let out of a balloon.  Or exhaling slowly.

I am in vacation right now and I feel blessed to be having one.  I am off-schedule, under the radar and very much unplugged, living in an alternate universe of sleeping in, eating and reading books whenever I want and not knowing what time it is.

Or even what day it is.  I haven't turned on the television in days.  What a surprise it was to log on to the internet and discover today is the first day of August!  

I work hard and enjoy working hard but at a certain point everyone needs to take a break from their daily routine and enjoy themselves.

As one of my friends said as we set up everything on the beach, “I didn’t think I needed a vacation until I got here.  Now I realize how much I needed one!”

Even writing this post is a stretch for me because my brain is resisting complete thoughts.

I hope everyone has the opportunity this summer to rest, relax and refresh!!

You deserve it!

Tossing Emotional Baggage

A spilled box of cereal this weekend took me through an unexpected, yet healthy exercise.

 

While trying to do too many things at the same time in the kitchen, I spilled a box of cereal inside one of my kitchen cabinets.  Don't you hate it when that happens?

 

It was such a klutzy move and right away I was annoyed with myself.  I looked at the shelf with the cereal spilled everywhere inside the cabinet and knew I was going to have to take everything out and vacuum the shelf.  Damn! What a pain!

 

I knew the sooner I started the sooner it would be over.  While muttering to myself, one by one I pulled all the items from their shelves and put them on the counter and on the floor.  Of course, you know what happened next.  One cabinet led to another cabinet and before I knew it, I had a full fledged kitchen project going of vacuuming the shelves, throwing out expired stuff and relining the shelves.

 

But in the process of cleaning, I came upon an old yet distinctive jar of Ovaltine.

 

 

There's only one person in my family who used to drink Ovaltine and that person was my husband, who is no longer with us.  Sad to say and embarrassed to admit, but that jar of chocolatey malted powder has sat there in the back of the cabinet for almost nine years.  I know.  Nine. Years.

 

I would see the jar but not really see the jar if you know what I mean.  There were times when I would scold myself and say "This is ridiculous!  Why are you holding on to this Ovaltine?"  But there was something about it and I couldn't bring myself to toss it in the trash can.  It just reminded me of him so much.  It was his thing.  And no, I did not open the jar.  God knows what I would have seen!

 

You know how they say that deciding what to give away and what to keep is a hard process when going through a loved one's belongs after they have died?  Well, that is true but in this case I think I went too far.  It was only a jar of Ovaltine and yet it sat there for ages.  I guess it was a reminder to me of my husband and it didn't seem like a big deal to keep it in the cabinet.

 

But I did hold the jar in my hand for a long time before I threw it away.  I allowed myself to go backwards in time, to a time when we went grocery shopping together and he would always throw a jar of Ovaltine into the cart, a time when he would mix the Ovaltine into a tall glass of cold milk and talk about delicious it was, to a time when Ovaltine was supposed to make him feel better when he was sick.

 

Who knows why I was ready to throw the Ovaltine away on Saturday!  Maybe it was because I was throwing other stuff away and felt like I was on a roll to declutter or maybe I was just ready to see it for what it was: an old jar of Ovaltine.

 

I surprised myself by my inability to let go of such a simple item.  Some things that belonged to my husband I very easily discarded, donated or threw away.  Just because the jar is gone doesn't mean I threw away the memories too.