anger

 I am angry.  I am very angry. I am extremely angry. I don't think I have ever really said this out loud in 30 years. The last time I told someone I was angry was to my mom seconds before she died. I was so angry she was dying on me.  I was 21 and still really needed her and she left. I know why she died, and accept there was nothing the doctors could do for her anymore, but she left me just like Kathryn left me, and just like my birth father left me.  They left before knowing me. 

Now I am angry because no one stays.  Once I allow them in and let them get to know me they leave.  Most of the time, when they leave, they create damage in their wake.  It is not pleasant or friendly.  Most recent one that I experienced was in 2019 and the experience was so harmful that I have not let anyone in.  It was horrible and she was extremely brutal to me at the ending of that friendship.  It left me questioning and very angry. 

The biggest thing for me was it left me with so much anger and so little trust.  It left me isolated because she used our mutual friendships against me.  So I did what I normally do, take that anger out on myself.  I ate and did not care. 

This last 6 months have been amazing.  I bought a condo, an actual home for me that is all mine.  It is breaking things open in a way that I have not experienced in 30 years. As I write this, I am realizing that this year is the 30th year of my mom's passing.  And the anger of her leaving is still here.  The world has become the focus of my anger.  The walls of the world are breaking down.  So much hate is out there, how does one navigate it?  How does one not absorb it? I want to eat. I want to numb the feelings that I have.  

Today I recognize the anger.  I feel it. I feel the stress of it in my shoulders and the ache it is causing my body.  I feel it hurting me. Affecting my sleep and my waking hours.  I feel it shutting me down cause I don't want to feel it.  I don't want to scream in my pillows and beat my fists on the bed.  I feel the heaviness of it on my body and soul.  

Now comes the work.  

Meraki, the moon and Self

Meraki:  to do something with soul, creativity or love.  to put something of your self into your work.  

Moon: natural satellite to the earth, that affects the oceans and tides.

the Self:  the internal psyche that defines who we are

Meraki is becoming more and more important to me as I break apart who I am and heal my past.  All my energy is being focused on this right now.  I realized recently that over my life figuring out who I am has been my meraki. All the therapy, spiritual work, writing, school work, work work, friendships, relationships, art, everything has been my meraki. Whatever I do, create, or how I act, there is a part of me in it.  I don't do anything lightly.  I love and create deeply and from my soul. I understand this might not be the right use of the word, but it explains me and how I feel. 

The Moon has always fascinated me, even when I was a kid.  I loved to stare at it, fascinated by how it changed over the month.  I remember when I was first taught how connected women cycles and the moon were, especially back before the invention of electricity.  I was in my teens and it really made an impression on me and my body.  Learning how much the monthly lunar cycle affected a women's reproductive cycle, helped me understand the monthly changes my body went through.  I feel a lot of things pretty intensely during this time.  Allowing myself to honor these feelings became important to me.  Our current society does not put enough merit into emotions; for both women and men.  We have ignored them, hiding them to protect ourselves from conflict. I do admit though I have allowed myself to hide this part of me when I am around others, especially when I am around men. I seem to give up what gives me strength when I get involved with someone on an intimate level. 

These are things that define me and mean a lot to my soul and who I am. 

Movie Star or Diva?

I sit here digesting the sermon I heard this morning at the Seattle Betsuin. It was about consideration and human nature.  I can't help but wonder if and when we became a society that moved from understanding how our actions affect others, to always trying to be "real" with each other.  It seems that at some point we learned or forgot that there are others in our world, in our life, in our reach. 

So when did this happen?  Was it our parents who were rebelling from how they were raised by their parents?  Was it the second wave of the feminist movement, who fought to cut off their bras? or was it a combination of both?  I don't know if these are questions I can fully answer.  I think everyone will have a different opinion on this, yet I ponder these questions. 

I don't remember fully learning this lesson in my life.  I am sure my parents tried to teach it to me, but due to outside circumstances, the lesson never fully sunk in to my brain.  It seems this is the next step in my "growing up" life lesson.  it is hard to acknowledge this, that I have spent most of my life so selfishly blind to how my actions affect the others in world around me.  I have willing hurt others, in the past, because I did not understand that I had a choice not too. I felt justified and self righteous in my choice, because I was told I am the movie star of my life.  Yet I can't be a movie star without a supporting cast, that would just define me as a Diva instead.   While I understand that being too much of a people pleaser can be detrimental to one's health, I think going the other direction is just as bad.  I am seeing this as being the case now.  We have become a society of Diva's only out for ourselves. 

What do you mean we are all Diva's you might ask?  Isn't talking care of our self the most important thing?  Isn't putting our self first important?  I am sure you are asking yourself these questions as you read what I have written.  Yes, taking care of yourself and putting yourself is important.  But also recognizing you don't live in a vacuum is just as important.  I see a movie star as one who recognizes their supporting cast to be as just as important.  A movie star knows that without their supporting cast there is no movie.  Where the Diva only sees what everyone can do for her and how she can use that to her advantage to move up in the world.  

I think Don Miguel Ruiz says it perfectly in his book The Fifth Agreement.  He says 

     The fifth agreement is the most advanced teaching of the Toltec, because it prepares us to return to what we really are: messengers of truth.  We deliver a message every time we speak, and if we don't deliver the truth, it's because we aren't aware of what we really are.  Well, the Four Agreements help us recover awareness of what we are.  They help us become aware of the power of our word.  But the real goal is the fifth agreement, because it takes us beyond symbology and makes us responsible for the creation of every word. The fifth agreement helps us recover the power of belief that we invested in symbols.  And when we go beyond symbols, the power that we find is incredible because it's the power of the artistic creator, the power of life, the real us. 

I agree with him in that being the movie star of my life helps me come into awareness of my personal power.  I also have to understand that my words have power as well, and so does my tone and my emotions at the time I speak.  This is what separates the Movie Stars from the Diva's.  Today I move from being a Diva into being a Movie Star.  

Memories and the Present

Found out today that my bio-mom is back in the hospital.  The rational/logical part of me says what she is experiencing is from the morphine, but the emotional side is saying I will not get to see her before she passes on.

I have many conflicting feelings about this: guilt, relief, fear, worry, love.  My heart hurts right now. The area where I feel my primal wound the most - about two inches to the right from my heart - feels like a knife is sticking in it. I worry the family will judge me if I can't get down there soon enough.  These feelings are similar to what I felt as a teenager every time my mother was admitted into the hospital.

I am grateful for the phone calls I have shared with her.  It reminded me of the last time I hear my mothers voice - she called me to tell me what a wonderful, amazing beautiful woman I was.  This was right before she died.  My calls with my bio-mom remind me of that call.  Every time she talked to me (except for last night) she mentioned how beautiful and wonderful I am.  I don't feel so beautiful or wonderful right now. I feel selfish for putting my needs to finish the school quarter before showing up for her.

Please god, please goddess don't take her yet. allow me to show up for her and be the daughter she deserves.  Allow me to be the daughter both my mothers deserved. I don't want to repeat the past, yet it seems I might be destined to.

Accepting and the process

I know it has been a few months.  Life has a strange way of distracting one from dealing with things at times.  A lot has happened during this time. too much to go into detail with, except for one very big thing.  One of the reasons I began writing this blog was to help work through some issues around being adopted and separation trauma. Well on the adoption issue, my maternal biological family contacted me about a month ago. It turns out my bio-mom is very sick.

While I know I have the tools to cope with this, the little girl in me (the one who went into survival mode when I was told my Mother could die from an operation she was having) just wants to sit in the corner with her arms around her knees crying, repeating over and over again "I don't want my mommy to die."  These feelings are surfacing again which is allowing me to process these feelings and actually feel them.   It is hard. It is scary. I am scared for her right now.  I know I am being given a gift by being here for her right now and reconnecting with her. But I am also just wanting to cry, because I don't want my mommy to leave me again.

A big part of this is that in my life I have lost my mother twice. That is already once more than most people go through.  I lost one mother at birth, and another when I was 21. I really don't want to lose my mother again at 42.  Damn, I see a pattern there, and I don't really want to see this pattern.  Please goddess please let this not be a true pattern and if there is a pattern please goddess let this pattern break.  I would like to not have to walk through this again.  My heart hurts. The difference this time is I can feel and acknowledge these feelings I am having while I am having them. Now I get to learn to be honest about these feelings with her, feel them and allow her to see me feel them.

My name right now is "she who stands with fists"

Things are hard today. or I should say harder. It seems that my writing yesterday opened the can of insecurity worms which have been slipping their way into my mind today.  This sucks, cause all I want to do is lay in bed reading with some wine, when I have responsibilities and things that I need to get done.  I have spent the majority of my life allowing myself to run from all these feelings of insecurity and not being worthy of love. Well I am stopping it now.  I will not run, I will face it, I will be "she who stands with fists".  Insecurity I will battle you. I will knock you down and not let you rule me anymore.

Yes I am afraid I am losing my boyfriend AND YES THIS IS MY INSECURITY TALKING. Do I really believe in the truth behind it, NO!!!  He has not left yet, and has had many chances to, and too be honest, I don't think he will leave, ever. So where does this leave me?  It leaves me with having a weekend to spend some time relaxing and working on things at home. It leaves me learning how to trust that I am his family and the woman he wants to share his life with.  It leaves me with learning how to live in an open relationship without being competitive. It leaves me growing, changing, and becoming authentic, and real.  It leaves me being open to being hurt, but also open to being loved.  It leaves me open and secure in (at least for right now) that giving my insecurity and my fears voices, and understanding, I will learn that I don't need to have them rule over me anymore.

And all of this leads me to loving fully and loving completely who I am as a woman, and allowing others to love me.

Fear and power

I don't know what to say today.  Except have been thinking a lot about power and fear. I realized that by not owning my fears, I am turning my back on power. That recognizing my fears, not giving them rule over me, and still moving forward is part of power.  My fears have no basis in what is a real situation, they are the negative fantasy of my thoughts, and while there might be truth in fear, it is not always so.

I am having to face and own some of my fears today. I am choosing to write them here so that I am reminded of them and others can see that they are not the only one who might share these fears.

So what are my fears:
I am afraid my boyfriend is in love with another woman.
I am afraid of being alone.
I am afraid I will never change.
I am afraid that who I really am is not enough.
I am afraid of letting go control over everything.
I fear faith is not enough.
I fear I will never fully open to others love.
I fear love.
I fear living fully.
I fear failing at life.
I fear it is too little too late for my relationship.
I fear asking for the truth.

Maybe by seeing my fears I can be like Buffy and realize how little they are, and just step on them.  I can already see that with some of my fears. Others though I don't want to face, but will have to and will have to do it sooner rather than later.  Especially those around my relationship.  I know my stuff around being adoptive have held me back from facing/owning those fears. I know if I do ask the questions I want to ask, will bring some of that stuff up, but it is how I deal with my response/reactions that will be the the true test of everything. It will show my growth, and it will help me make some hard decisions. If I can ask the questions, and deal with every thing honestly and rationally, well then maybe living will be easier. I also hope that it will allow me to fully connect with others and explore relationships with others.