Navigating a New Year Plus One

It is Sunday morning and my house is full of boys. They are all sleeping. 46,19,15,10.....

Soon it will be a noisy kitchen when they all get up and the dozen eggs, package of sausage, a loaf of bread, waffles and all the bananas are one in one fell swoop. I will continue to be challenged with altering my shopping habits for when everyone is home!

Two of my three fur babies are curled up on the couch beside me...one in her bed nearby snuggled with a teddy. I am the only one awake and am enjoying the peace while it lasts,

The Middle One will be joining us in January. Five months shy of his 16th birthday, he has decided to move it with us. And things will change again, as they always do. More hands, more help, more food, more work for all of us as we define the boundaries of daily living that are not present on weekend visits or summer holidays.

A good thing? A bad thing? It just is, and how we navigate the newness will give us good days and bad---just like with everyone else in any family.

I have wonderful plans for 2015. And like last year, January will be my dreaming month.

Last year, January gave me: Feel, Brave, Trust, Flow, Receive. These were the themes that spoke to me ---some appearing during reading, meditation, watching TV, and they served me well.

Returning to work after my "collapse" in late 2012 brought them all together in one act, and my understanding that there is no "done"...no "fixed"....no "now I can go back to living blindly and on automatic pilot" is firmly in place. I no longer hear the tick-tock-hurry-up-and-fix-it clock.

I am, and always will be:

Comments

Emotional Echos - Moments in Time

here are moments in time that define you. They are etched in your memory in a way that if you close your eyes you can see them again; feel them again. They are an emotional echo ---so strong, they leave an imprint on your soul. When I was eleven, my favorite "uncle" died suddenly, in my house, while I was off at the grandparents. He and my "aunt" came to town for a week long visit after moving away one year earlier and my parents decided to throw a grand party and invite all their old friends. My sister and I were sent to the grandparents for the weekend, and I was promised the week after we could come home and I could have "Uncle Bill" all to myself! I learned much later that early Sunday morning, my "aunt" woke up when my uncle accused her of stealing the covers. They both rolled back over and went back to sleep. Between then and 10 AM when she work up again, he had experienced a cardiac event (not his first I am sad to say) i...

There is more good stuff--keep reading»

It's All About the Here and Now

Today is a good day. I have positioned my laptop on the dining room table in a way so that I can see the bird feeders. Even through the closed doors I can hear the unique warble of the yellow finches that have recently begun to frequent my yard. This morning, cardinals-- the male brilliant in his scarlet coat and black mask -- returned, and as I watched, the male flew back and forth from the sunflower seeds to feed his mate . Watching the birds gives me great joy and so I am trying to take the time to do this each day. Were it not for this blog and how it makes me sit down and think, I can't say I would sit still long enough to do this. Taking time for myself is still a foreign concept. It is ironic that I have tried to attract birds to our pet free, quiet yard for years and the first year we have two dogs (one a squirrel/bird chasing terrier who launches hers...

There is more good stuff--keep reading»

Keeping Afloat in Darkness - When Robin Williams is Gone

A few weeks ago Robin Williams was everywhere you looked. People were desperate for details; to find the one thing that assured them that his situation was so different from theirs that they are safe; that it could never be them. But if you suffer from depression, the suicide of such a brilliant, successful, individual; part of our lives for so many years and responsible for so many laughs; looks like a leak in your boat. A friend asked me, "Ok but no one knows what the future holds. Could he not see that?" For someone drowning in the dark spiral of depression, there is no future. There is only now. There is only nothing. The boat is gone. You are under. It is not about your spouse or your friends or your kids or career or fans or dogs or anything. When the darkness squeezes it is all about now. And now is nothing. It is bleak and empty and so dark, you cannot see a bottom, or edges or surface ---just darkness. "Some...

There is more good stuff--keep reading»

Work In Progress

Search This Blog