I have so many things to write about these past few days. I think I shall need to take things one bit at a time, break things up into several posts.
One thing…value village had another of its half off everything sales last week. I bought three, yes, three formal dresses. Three formal dresses and I paid under $10 for all three…not $10 each, but for all of them, collectively. Two of them still had the tags on them…two of them were made of silk…and still had the tags on them. The other was a hand-made maybe prom dress? And it fits me quite well, nearly as if made for me. It could be a couple inches longer, but I’m 5’11”; I am happy it is as long as it is. The dresses alone were far worth my effort, but we also stocked up on a great many other things as well. All of which means, afterwards I went through my wardrobe yet again. Something, again, I would have claimed impossible. I did indeed throw out more than I bought, again. Luckily, the women’s shelter charity had called and they are coming to pick up the cast offs. Last night, when I went through the last of the closets (winter closet, daily closet, formal closet, wheee!), I could not believe what I was willing to let go of…and yet, I did. I am quite proud of myself.
Value village and this sale—they have a half off sale the last Wednesday of every month (now I find this out)—is a great way to reinvent yourself, or to reclaim yourself. I think the idea started to occur to me the last time we caught a sale there, but it only fermented. I wasn’t able to grasp it fully until last night. I am not reinventing myself. I am reclaiming myself.
I was a certain person when R met me…a screwed-up hurt little person, but still…after the divorce and the second pregnancy…I lost so much more of myself. In the hopes of reclaiming or reinventing or even just of saving myself…I lost myself so much more. But, apparently, I had to lose that much more, as bizarre as it sounds, in order to come through on the other side a healed and whole person…not that I am entirely healed nor entirely whole. As I stand right this minute, I am a vastly different person than I was one year ago, much less five or six, or more.
I miss pieces of the person that I was when R and I first met, the flirty teasing person that T mutilated and destroyed while the kids and I lived w him. (He didn’t really do it on purpose; it really is just the way he is, poor guy.)
That is the person I am slowly reclaiming. I am not resurrecting that person entirely. Just plucking out the bits I like and pulling them back to the forefront here, a little bit.
Most of that involves shirts and blouses that do not cover me from wrist to ear lobe, from chin to hip. R can remember the shirt I was wearing when we met—I actually think I might still have that one too. No, I take that back. I think it was a short sleeve or mid-length sleeve top—those are gone now. In fact, most of my coveted white shirts are gone now. Strangely enough.
When I bought the first round of more revealing tops (it is not as if I am going for the slit open from neck to belly button look here—I am not going for complete slut-wear; just something as revealing than say a scoop neck t-shirt, for the most part), I was teased for buying things for R’s sake. It is a well-known fact I will go out of my way to buy things for the guy I am w (like the school girl white cotton panties thing for T, even though it made me feel a bit creepy—the whole Catholic school girl thing to me is creepy, in a way, after your mid-20s, but I won’t go there right now). I am not against role-playing (oh, god, no), nor am I against dressing up for the one I love…but R and I really like the same things, a great deal of the time—there is a darker streak in me than there is in him, but he plays my games …and I won’t let him near the really dark side, because I really am not that person anymore, even though she crops up now and then. So, me buying racier tops, something more than my normal business casual stuff, is not a huge leap, whether R were involved or not.
This time, I said straight forward and flat out, I am doing this for me, because I forgot how much I liked these things. I forgot how much I like being me, and not hiding, and being out there and being me. And not being Carol Brady all the time because of some outdated old-fashioned Italian Catholic orthodoxy mind-control b/s that runs deeply and is fully integrated into the genetics of some people…(at least, this is my experience of certain people)…
That strange and happy person, the one who encourages everyone around her to be a bit more happy, a bit more outgoing, that’s me. I’m back. And I couldn’t be happier about it.
Which is funny, since another friend has been picking on me a great deal lately. What exactly have I been doing with my newest blog? And why have I not done anything more w it? Where am I going w it? What is its purpose? (more on purpose later on…) Why do I not talk about it? Why am I not working on it, even mentally?
Hmm. The Universe knows me. This is not my excuse. This is me, talking out loud, about how the Great Cosmic Being, the Great Cosmic Everything knows me and helps me and guides me. The Universe knows I am more than a procrastinator. I need proof that I can do something before I do it. I need proof that I am making the right choice before I do it. I need a hundred billion different little pieces to coalesce and come together before I do it. I need the Universe to be patient, to throw things at me, continually and constantly, before giving up and kicking me in the butt or throwing me a boot or two to the head to make me do something…
So, here I am, again on a precipice…waiting. If you’ve read this blog, and the one I worked on before this, you know for the past two, maybe three years, I have planned to go back into my healing work, which I have done, but I have been wanting to open that arena up into all sorts of other realms. I need to be able to get into a car and vanish for a week or two, without having to worry about, am I missing any clients today? Will the money for the bills be there when I need it? Actually, I never worry about that last one…the Universe is always there, always helping me. I am blessed and I am lucky. I am very grateful.
It almost always takes a massive jolt from the Universe for me to really move on things. The big things anyway.
I am thinking we are about to receive one of those huge jolts any day now. I won’t go into it now, because I hate jinxing things, and I hate to want or expect or anticipate something and then it fizzle out and not be real or true or whatever.
So, despite my friend’s teasing, despite what may or may not be happening, despite any number of things, I am still slowly moving forward on things, all together.
The original idea was, in some vague way, to combine my old counseling blog with the new blog, thereby not having a need for the old blog. But, I don’t want people reading about what I used to do and thinking I still do it. I am not a psychic. I gave that up in, what, June? July? Of last year, when I no longer worked for ‘the network’. It is the best thing that ever happened to me in a long time.
I took my ‘old job’ back, which I had expected to do when we moved back to this area anyway. The loss of the car was a bit of a setback to that, among other things, but I always knew I could return ‘to the fold’, as they say. I am a Counselor. (not a certified, legal shrink or anything—before people get all excited) I hate the term ‘minister’, as it tends to evoke some really nasty garbage for too many people. But I am back in my robes as the Ministering Counsel w the Foundation, which I have missed.
Which brings us to the other thing I often get teased about…where are my sermons? Lol…We are an officially unofficial non-denominational ‘Group’…I don’t do sermons. I do not preside over religious ceremonies, unless asked…but I have young children and everyone knows, my kids come first, period. I do the mentoring; I do the hand-holding (and the hand-fasting); I do the counseling. I am, hehehe, the Elder. One of them, anyway.
But, I need to be able to do what I do from my home, without having to leave, unless I want to do so…I need to be able to create the items that I create (lately it has not been my spirit dolls so much as memorial talismans…but I don’t sell these ones…yet…since they are made for a specific person for a specific reason…)…but I need to be able to sell them at some point…I am trying to pull back up the Veil between the, uhm, churchly bonds and the mentoring bonds, maybe is the best way to put it.
I know—I am circling around the whole—little old wise woman who lives at the edge of the village at the edge of the wood who helps those in need when they come to her—scenario all over again.
It’s a good one. I like it. I am, of course, all for it as well. I can remain within the safety and the skirts of the Foundation, while still raising my family and living my life, without …all the other things that go along w what I am currently doing…
Confused yet? I know. Most of this today is for me, to help me get things straight. Many things cannot be spoken out loud. Many things are still up in the air. Not much has been set in stone yet.
Basically, the last time I was teased about things, it dealt more w the fact that I, who is known to be loud, obnoxious, grating, bitter, mouthy and overly opinionated, have been very quiet of late. I have been hiding, in a strange unwarranted way. My friend actually started out by teasing me, but it turned into a serious discussion. Thankfully.
So, maybe the time to stop hiding has come. Although, to warn you and to be frank, most people are not going to like the things I have to say. I don’t like to cause controversy. I don’t like to enter into battles or arguments. But, some things do chafe my hide…and ‘t is far better to get it out than to let things fester…not that I have been letting anything fester…just that sometimes email is too quiet and too much of a stealth mode for me…
There’s your warning.
It really is just all me.
Enjoy!
