My Spirit Guides have set me up.
Where to begin? Let’s start with my writing. This year is my year to really reach out and take back my writing in a way I haven’t done since I was a teen-ager. Since I depended upon my writing to get me away from all the boredom and tedium that was public school. And even then, it wasn’t like this. This is a planned action. A sincere and fervent effort.
It started with what I thought was a Muse story, as I have been having dreams about Muses and different things coming in to help me with my writing. But, does it really start there? When was it exactly I decided that this is the year I am going to enter and win the NaNoWriMo challenge? When I was going to take all my notes and various bits of outlines and short pieces and finally combine them into that novel that has been flowing through my brain, I swear to you, since I was roughly twelve, thirteen years old? When I decided to enter the Poetic Asides poem a day challenge for the month of April—which I did complete, so I am very proud of myself? When I decided that yes, I will sit and write no less than 1000 words of something every single day, even if it means I get up earlier to do so—even though there has been no getting up early for anything this past week-but for good reason-and it has not affected the writing at all? Other things have affected my writing-but never how late I sleep in.
I am sitting here now, looking at all the things I have done in the past few months, and I wonder. How long ago did all of this really start? It was 2007 when I signed up along with SoulFoodCafe to take a journey I did not complete. I didn’t have the stamina. My brain was in a thousand other places. However, I never let go of that group, regardless, biding my time until the Muse struck me again. And with my Muses, strike is a very apt term. Walloped up side the head with a mackerel is a fitting description too. Now, I am in a better space, and although I fear I never really ‘get it’ or participate to the level I want to participate or think I should be participating—I am participating, in my own little way. I find a great deal of peace in doing that too.
I am finding myself involved with several other writing groups, but none to the level of SFC. Most of the other groups are used mainly for prompts and for information about the ‘now my book is done what do I do with it’ angle. I am also finding myself in a position to interact with people I went to high school with, people I have missed and wished to find and to hear from and all sorts of things. There are two questions everyone invariably asks of me: am I still giving readings (yes) and did I get that book published/what have I had published (working on it). Here I am—back in the writer mode after twenty plus years.
My Guides are sitting around me, laughing at how slow I am to catch on to some things, to catch up to some things. That’s me: always the last to know, everything.
I have been writing for weeks now, many beginnings to stories I have had no intention of ever finishing beyond what I have already done. Most of them are the start of a woman standing up to face some trauma, even if facing it means running away. It never dawned on me there was a pattern here. Although I guess I must have known on some level. I am surely seeing the pattern and the pathways now.
Just as when I sat down and began writing the introductory piece to the Muse Journey, I had no clue there would be more than one piece, til I was finishing the first one with bits of the second part already flashing through my head. By the middle of the second, I knew there was a third. But then again, I had assumed there would only be five parts. I have notes scrawled on my little yellow tablet sitting right here beside me that include story ideas for at least four more, and I know that there should be a tenth and final culmination to the whole thing, based merely on the whole numerological idea that ten is the number of completion. Which will be done when I get there. And I know I will, at some point, get there and finish the whole thing. There is no rush though. That is the one thing I am finely, finally, getting to see.
But then again, I drew the picture of the donkey. Mister Uncetrys Tratec Outshi the Third. According to my Guides, I am supposed to be working on my drawing and my sketching, which will probably lead me into painting, and hopefully into encaustics and other things, which will then make me comfortable enough to grab that blow torch and melt things into other things the way I have dreamed about for years….but then here I digress, don’t I? The donkey. A nice sweet picture. I think I did a decent job on it.
Even as I drew it, I knew it would need a little story of its own, something to identify it. Then Heather asked that I post it on the Inner Donkey blog, which is one reason I had pulled the original donkey picture out of that magazine and held on to it for so long anyway. Then, of course, posting only a picture of the donkey I drew is not good enough-I, of course, have to write something. And I did, this morning. When I was half-way through it, I realized. The dawn of comprehension struck me full in the brain and in the solar plexus. My freaking Guides had set me up. I knew it. I saw it. I saw the way things were backlit. I saw where things were heading. I was already wandering, in my mind’s eye, through Lemuria, gazing with wide-eyed wonder at the prompts about to smack me full on in the face. And I knew. I knew! This is not the story about the donkey. Darn these Guides. This is the story I am about to write. This is a voyage I am about to undertake. This is me, seeking and finding and releasing and embracing. They never even told me. They let me trip and fall into it blindly. A pie in the face would be easier-but not funny enough for them, apparently. No, I have to stumble and fall into things all by myself, all on my own, like a baby learning how to walk, in the dark, wearing a blindfold.
Plus, they are forcing me to learn wordpress, which is by all accounts a much more professional and apt system than blogger. I prefer wordpress for a great many things, but blogger is just so much easier to use. I don’t have to think about it. Which translates into the whole I am too lazy at this point to make myself sit down and play and learn. Which is exactly what my Guides are going to be making me do.
I love them. I am grateful. They know this. I know they have my best interests at heart. But, still, the question niggles….
How far back does the conspiracy go?
It’s not all about my writing. It is, however, all about Me. Me, finding out who I am and who I was and who I am willing to be and who I want to be.
I never knew who I was. I was too busy running. Until the ex husband caught me. And even then I had to run, because he had ‘issues’ he had to deal with—as in he had to get divorced in order for us to proceed. At least, that was the first ‘issue’ that crept up. He never took me at face value. I knew he’d cheat. Let’s see. Married in August to one woman and sleeping with me come September, even though I didn’t know that til much later. Yeah, I didn’t need to have a lot of faith there, no matter what he told me about this or that. All I asked for was honesty. Period. In his words, he lied so he wouldn’t hurt me. And because he’s afraid of confrontation. So, I died. For a number of reason I won’t go into here. On top of this about him.
I did. I died. I wasn’t me. I wasn’t anybody. I was a husk of a shell and nothing real for ten years. I was running, but in a whole new way, because I wasn’t going anywhere. I was the treadmill of my mind. Nothing else really went on.
Then, in what he told me was the last-ditch effort attempt to save our marriage-while he was telling everyone else I wasn’t even coming along with him-we moved, to a whole new state. There he introduced me to a lot of people. One in particular. One guy who would save my life over and over. Someone I had to put into a place where I could deal with him. Since I do not trust anyone at all, and I needed to trust this guy. I made him family. We definitely have the Past Life Ties to carry that. It made everything acceptable in my mind.
I had to go through the messes with the ex-husband. It brought me through the valley of Death and into the Land of the Living. Nevertheless, I was still a little broken thing. It also ensured I cut all the cords, broke all the treaties done in my name without my consent, destroyed all the seeds, ended any form of any further contact in this lifetime and every other, no matter what world or form, period. That had to be done.
I had to go through all the almost training with the ‘Batwing Special’. If I hadn’t gone through that, I would never have realized my own innate power. Not to mention, I wouldn’t have my daughter. My children I may regret how I came to have them, but I never ever regret them at all.
Of course, I had to go through the other ex too, or I wouldn’t have been so verbal as I am now. I wouldn’t have been so determined. He and I were so very much alike when we got together. And then, it dawned on me, the difference. I am what I am and I am changing things to be the person I think I am and the person I say I am. He is what he is—and he is not changing that for anyone, even though he thinks he is the person he says he is. If he were the person he thinks he is, then in the past what, ten years now, none of those women would have walked away from him, if he was half the man he thought he was, if he would be half the man he says he is. But he isn’t. Yet, he sure did teach me a great deal about the way I did not want to be. I learn best through visual means. The example of his words and his actions being so very far apart was exactly what I needed to change me. Doesn’t mean the lesson was easy. But I did get it.
Now, we come to that one guy. The one guy I have known in the back of my head is my ideal of the perfect guy. Fine. He has two, no, three flaws. And, yes, I am being so persnickety with this. I don’t mean a word of it. Won’t stop me from playing it to the hilt though. My ‘perfect guy’ would be at least 6 feet tall, although my cut-off is actually 5’10”. He is 5’10”. Plus, he doesn’t mind that I have a thing for high heels. Think more 6 inch spikes rather than 2 inch pumps. He’s younger than me-and I’ve never had luck there. But this is different-and he is older than his years let on. Then there’s the blue eyes. I don’t trust anyone with blue eyes. Ever. Not since I was seven, eight years old. The so-called step-father issue there that I won’t go into. But, again, here this too is different. His eyes are like storms and I love watching the way the colours shift. Plus, there’s the gold rings that really make things interesting when I watch his eyes. I love him. And he truly is perfect just the way he is.
He’s my best friend. He has always been there for me. Bailed my backside out more times than I can count. I gave birth to my son in his house. He saved me when we flipped the moving truck. He saves me every week since I have no real desire to get a car of my own, except that now I want to find something for him and I can’t have him with me when I do it and there’s no way to get around that fact.
But, if I hadn’t been with the ex-husband I would have never met him. If I hadn’t gone through everything I’d gone through with the batty people and with the other ex, I wouldn’t be able to do anything but break this man. I have acknowledged this man as pack leader (yes, think like a wolf) for years. I have forcibly some days kept those walls of brother and sister up just because that was the safe thing to do. Then my glamours dropped and he dropped whatever it was that he held up too. It is a match made in heaven, if you believe in such things. Because of him, now I do.
I may have spouted words about “soul mates” before, but I have actually lost at least two clients because I said that I don’t believe in soul mates. Then again, it was a good thing to say in their cases, because everyone they meet is their ‘soul mate’, so I wasn’t really hurting anything. Now I believe. I truly honestly completely believe. He actually is my other half. And the same is true of me for him. We really are perfect for one another. But I had a long hard row to hoe before I could be anything like what we need to make this relationship work.
Let us step back, for just one second, one more time.
So. I move away what three years ago now almost. Where talking to him becomes one of the real high points of my day. I depend on him to keep me sane while I live so far away. It was his encouragement that gave me the confidence to come back here, even though my main impetus was to be closer to my son. I had to wreck a moving truck, total my car, and drag the man back and forth across the country twice before I stopped long enough to say, yeah, this is the guy. Before I stopped fighting and started listening.
The Universe keeps giving me what I keep asking for. I just don’t know what to do when that happens. I am not used to getting the things I want and being able to keep them. I am not used to things coming easily to me. I am not used to being happy or satisfied or content. It takes times to adjust to things like that, apparently. I’ve never really had them before. Now I have them in abundance. I am so glad for the opportunity though.
I kept asking for a guy like this in my life, of course, only a little taller. Smirk. What I got was the real thing. And it may not be ‘perfect’, but it is perfect for me. Although I do hate to hear how it should have happened long ago and yada yada yada. It happened at the right time for both of us. Timing is irrelevant. We both had to be in a certain space. We were. We clicked. End of that statement.
I keep wanting to have clients come to my home. Boom. I had my first in-house client last week.
I keep wanting to write more, to receive more acknowledgement for and encouragement of my writing. Boom. I have it. Not just my writing, but also all of my art work and the insane things I do to keep myself busy and occupied.
I have actually been afraid, since I have never really done more than short stories, maybe even a short novella or two, that I do not have what it takes to write a complete and cohesive novel. Now I know that simply is not true. I know I can do it. I know in dribs and drabs I have been doing it all along. I have just never taken the time to sit down and to connect things.
Today seems to be my day to do that. To sit down, curse my Guides, who continue to dress me funny, and to make the connections and to see the patterns. And to express my utter most sincere gratitude, even if I do it in a derisive manner, because, darn it, I was set up and I don’t like being the last one to know everything, even though invariably I am.
I am grateful. I keep wearing orange and green together, when my Guides so request it. Although today, it is orange and brown. I have to love them. Orange is one of my least favorite colours. And yet, I own a great deal of it because it makes them happy.
I am truly grateful. I am so glad they find me worthy enough to bother with me so much.
