The Ego's Attachment

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                                                                       Yes, this is my picture. (c) 2010 All rights reserved.

          It started…well…a long time ago.  When we were in the process of moving from WV to IL.  Was it then?  Or was it even farther back?  Before we left MO for MD?  Somewhere in all of that…Yes, considering the move to MD and the ensuing yard sales…I would say it started in 2006 then…if not farther back…the process of letting go of things.  The yard sales were when I let go of the baby clothes…everything that was not irreparably stained or torn I had saved, from both children, except where I donated things to people who were really in need.

          Despite all the things I have given away, sold, donated and just plain throw away in the ensuing years, there is still so much sitting in my house that I simply do not need and do not use.  Why do I have these things?

          The panic of OHMYGOD, we are moving into R’s house…like, every single bit of us and our stuff, not to use his basement for storage until we find another house, but as in this is now our one and only home…has been hitting me deep and strong since Sunday afternoon…Monday night was the worst of it for me…we were all tired.  I was hot and irritable (PMS is always so much fun anyway).  We were all coming down w sinus issues.  Blah. Blah.  Blah.  Thank goodness R loves me as much as he does and that he knows me as well as he does.  He took me home and we went to sleep.  He would not let me stay up and fuss.  I needed the sleep, badly. 

          But my brain, my brain, who knows so much more than I do, my brain who holds on to details the likes of which I find incomprehensible, rolled on and on.  My brain was making choices, planning, separating, mentally packing, making lists.

          Yesterday, when I was able to pry my loving offspring off the couch and away from the tv, we went to our house.  My first duty was something I had started the week before because the Veteran’s had called asking for donations.  I fear these charities will be sadly disappointed next year when they come calling, as there will be nothing left for us to give.  But this year?  They shall continue to receive an amazing bounty from us as we go through…everything.

          It’s my closets.  It’s always my closets w me.  When I first entered my junior/senior year of high school (remember I took both together), I had barely anything.  I had more notebooks of my writing than I had clothing or anything else put together.  My grandmother sent me some bras and I can still remember looking at them and thinking…it looks like a harness…and not in a good or sexually intersting way…it looked like something you would put on a plough horse or a mule…ah, the memories…snicker…

          Yesterday, standing in first one closet and then the other, I had some very major break-throughs, emotionally, spiritually, mentally.  Oh, the things I had been holding on to for no reason.

          I had clothing for jobs I am never going to take again.  I had khakis for one set of jobs.  I had black slacks for another set of jobs.  I had dressy outfits hung up together for another set of jobs.  I had blouses for office casual.  I had business professional outfits, which I haven’t worked since I was an intern as a teen-ager.  I still have clothing from my wedding and my honeymoon w T.  Ok, so I kept the dresses.  Just a couple.  I like them.  I wear them.  Even though I have yet to wear the dress I was actually married in again since 1990 whatever—it’s still beautiful and still me … I will wear it this summer, because I like the dress. The past year or two, I have looked at it and thought, I could wear it, but today is not the day.  Yesterday I looked at it and thought, why haven’t I worn this dress recently?  It took me a second to recall it was ‘that dress’. 

          I decided I would go through my closets ruthlessly.  I kept only the things that are essentially me.  Ok, so I tried to narrow down my jeans to twenty pairs, but that is simply not going to happen for me.  It’s under thirty and that will have to do.  I did get rid of every blouse that was not me, or that made me think of AR or anywhere else.  I got rid of every top that I had a twinge of this doesn’t look right.  I stripped away detritus where I had not really been cognizant there was detritus.  I went through every single hanger, every piece of folded clothing.  I went through jeans, slacks, skirts, sweaters, sweat pants, stretch pants, shorts, lingerie, socks, pajamas…every single drawer, every shelf, every closet.

          I can honestly say that I think every item of clothing I have on a hanger can fit into one single small closet now…w the stuff that is not hung up needing only a few shelves.  This is my entire wardrobe…all four seasons, plus maternity clothes.  I even went through my shoes.  No less than six pairs of shoes are being donated this round…anything that makes me the slightest bit uncomfortable is gone.  I touched my sweaters and thought every single turtle neck must go…except for one, but that is made out of a silk-cotton blend and if every I devolve a sweater, this will be the one.  I believe I now own more cardigans than I do pullovers.  Scary, isn’t it?  When I moved from MO to MD, I had two, maybe three HUGE plastic containers full of nothing but sweaters, plus the odd box of sweaters here and there as well.  With cardigans, I probably have twenty sweaters, maybe.  Twenty…out of originally…hundreds?  Who knows…

          It was so interesting to go through everything without the emotional attachments with which I have been approaching this process.  This time I went in specifically…this shirt is me…these pants are not me…this sweater is me…this skirt is not me.  No stone was left unturned. 

          One particular piece really brought it all home to me.  This very beautiful lacey patchwork skirt, with little bells on the ties.  The elastic has long been overstretched on it, but it also has a tie at the waist.  I wore this skirt when we boarded the cruise ship on our honeymoon.  I loved that skirt.  I still love that skirt.  I took it off the hanger, tested the waistband.  Looked it over.  This skirt really is me.  But…it isn’t serving me right now.  I haven’t touched it since the cruise, except to move it.  I know I won’t wear it.  I put it back on the hanger and started through the rest of the skirts.  Then I stopped.  I came back to that skirt.  I looked at it.  I really looked at it.  I was keeping it only because it reminded me of a time when I thought I was happy.  Before the ex opened his mouth and ruined that whole cruise for me…I don’t even remember now what it was…but somehow it was my fault that things weren’t perfect…that was the whole relationship.  Everything was my fault, even though all he spoke were lies.  That is what that skirt represented to me.  In truth, that lovely skirt, with its wasted waist band summed up that person I once might have been but would never have a chance to be.  The person he did not ruin.  The person I allowed to turn and walk away.  I made the choices…I chose to believe…not believe in him, just to believe him.  I chose yesterday to lay that whole episode to rest and let it know some peace.  That chapter of this life is over.  The mistakes I made there and the lessons I learned there still reverberate through my life now, but I am not the same person and I do not react the same way.  I am a different person now, someone who can take that step back and know it is me reacting and if given a second or two, logic and reason can reign, or at least be introduced.

          I am grateful…although I am sometimes upset by admitting it…for all the pain and the misery and the agony and the fear I went through w the ex-husband.  It is over now.  It is done and gone.  Now it is finally laid to rest, never again to be mourned.

          Funny how things works out.  The little things, like a skirt, that can characterize an era of a life.  Now it, like so many other things, is gone from my life.  I am not making room for new things to come in to fill up the space that these things have left.  I have made room for a new life, a new energy, a new wondrous fulfillment—which does not require that every little space be filled or that every item lost be replaced. 

          As I let that one simple skirt slip into the bag along w the other donations, I felt the scar tissue in my heart shift and drop away.  I felt the first cool breath of fresh air on the newly healed spot there, the bright pink flesh.  It is a good feeling, that strange wistful pain that comes when the old and not so wonderful slips away to be replaced w the new and unmarred wonderful. 

          Despite everything that went away yesterday…and I am telling you, between clothes, throw pillows in my bedroom (the pillows are from a couch that I haven’t had in four years) and just a touch of the linen closet, I do not feel hollow, or empty, or in need of a shopping trip to refill the shelves or anything like that.  I feel so full…so perfect…and completely satiated and satisfied.  It is truly incredible.  I have more than I could have ever asked for these days.  The holes in my soul that I have used material items to fill and to fulfill no longer require such drastic measures.  All of that need is gone now.  I am happy.  In ways I honestly never dreamed possible.

I have thirteen 30 gallon trash bags ready to be donated to the Vietnam Veteran’s Association this week.  That was all gathered in one day…and that is not even everything.  I have already started the plans for the next charity that calls to request donations, simply because I don’t think I’ll be able to get rid of as much as I want to get rid of before the VVA comes to collect what we have ready this week.

Gratitude

     I meant to write this yesterday, what with it being wishcasting Wednesday and all.  Too many things kept cropping up and I let it go until today instead.  So here we are.

     Jamie Ridler is the most amazing WishMaster I have ever ‘met’.  Every week she brings us a single question with which to challenge ourselves.  Questions like:

     What do you wish to dare?

     What do you wish to be gentle with?

     How do you wish to bloom?

These questions, and the so many other questions she has asked since I have ‘known’ her, are all so deceptively simple.  Until you sit down, until you sit with the question, until that question begins to nibble at your heart and at your brain.  Every week, for two years, perhaps more, I would sit down and I would chisel away at my Self, someone with whom I am not always that familiar, not after having been on the run emotionally for so long, after one divorce, two children, a break-up of the magnitude of a divorce, moving across country, and back again…

     Every week, Jamie drew things out of me.  Some I knew were there, buried and hidden.  Some were complete surprises to me.

     In the past few months, I have found a new footing.  I have found a new grace, a new surety in and with myself.  I have Jamie to thank for this.

     And it is not just Jamie.  It is the incredible and wonderful crew of wishcasters who every week would wish along with me, as I wished along with them.  I have ‘met’ some very beautiful people.  I have made some incredible friends.  This I also thank Jamie for having brought into my life.

     If it weren’t for Jamie, I would have never found the TextyLadies, even though they are currently on hiatus.

     If it weren’t for Jamie, I would never have found the encouragement and muse superb of Sarah.

     If it weren’t for Jamie, I would never have found out about Eric Maisel via Hybrid J, or zentangle, or a myriad of other things…thanks to Hybrid J.

     I could go on and on about the beautiful people, the inspiring experiences, you name it…these above are barely a drop in the bucket.

    

     Lately, I have not been participating as much online, with the group.  Please do not get me wrong.  Even if I do not post, I still light a candle and say a prayer for every wishcaster who makes a wish, whether online or not.  I have always done this, simply because at times there is no way to get to everyone’s blog and read and post and still manage to get my own things done.  And many, like me, do not always post on Wednesday, and I frequently do not remember to go back on Thursday or Friday to see who posted after I did.

     For the past few weeks, every time I have sat down with the intention of answering this week’s questions…I have been stymied in a way…but in a beautiful and brilliant way…I’ve not been able to say I wish to do this…every time of late I’ve been able to say I am doing this…

     If it weren’t for Jamie and for all the other wishcasters, I would never have stopped long enough to examine how I feel, what I want, where I want to go.

     I would never have gotten into collage quite so deeply.  I would not have allowed myself to start drawing…or painting…or open an etsy store…or set up my own anything…

     If it weren’t for wishcasting, I don’t think I would have dared to stop working for some other company and strike out on my own.  I wouldn’t be living my life on my own terms, to the extent that I am doing now.  I wouldn’t be so convinced that I am doing the right thing, or heading the right direction.

     I wouldn’t have allowed myself to look deep enough inside, to bring these things up and to the surface.  I wouldn’t have had the strength to bring them into this world and bring them to fruition.

     I am truly humbled and eternally grateful.  Not just to Jamie.  But to each and every single wishcaster out there.

     Know that every week, I light a candle and say my prayer, for each and every one of you, each and every one of us, whether I am visible online or not.

     Thank you.  All of you.

Shout Out To JoyRebel

Joyrebel


Do you like the new banner for my blog?

Joyrebel made it for me. With very little input from me—other than the name KnittingJourneyman, the fact I like octopus and here’s a link to my blog to check it out. She created these two banners for me because she needed some samples for her portfolio. She was a bit surprised when I asked her how to credit her and where to send people who like her work. How could I not? Really?

I found her on facebook—I am not even sure how. I am not often allowed on my own facebook. My daughter has her Farmville quotes, her fish to feed in I don’t know how many different fish places and who knows what all else she does…much to many of my friends’ chagrin when they think they are IMing me and they get ignored…I saw Brandi’s little blurb about an offer to create banners and something made me jump on it—and I am ever so glad that I did.

Now. I told you what I told her. I gave her zilch. Really. You see which banner I have chosen to use. I have to give Brandi a big round of applause and a huge amount of gratitude. Not only is a beautiful banner…and the yarn is just to die for…yarn whore that I am…but she picked my two most favorite pictures on my blog to put in that banner…without prompting…without direction….she picked the two pictures that always speak absolute volumes to me.

It’s absolutely perfect. So, go check out her blog. See what she can do for you!

Been Meaning To Do This

I've been meaning to reach out and extend kudos to the ex--for weeks now.

This sounds mean, I know, but my intention is for the highest good I can manage, beyond him: he has been acting almost like a real human being for ...weeks?  Maybe even months... No.  Maybe months is pushing it somewhat.  I'll have to stick w weeks, but at least he has been making some clear and obvious efforts, for which I am grateful.  Better, the effort seem to be sticking.  Not his usual change for a week or two and then go back to his business as usual thing...

Maybe he will become that person he swears he already is one of these days.
He seems to be trying to learn how to communicate...that is amazing.
He's actually been talking to me as if I am a real human being and not some garbage he has to scrape off his shoe (which, in his defense, sadly enough, is how he treated me from the get go)--and not just about comic books or movies or websites, but like, about our kid and everything.  It's actually terrific--and I so so appreciate it!  On so many levels...

Two? Three weeks before halloween, he agreed that E could spend the night (N was begging to 'keep her' so hard--it's so pitifully adorable when he does the 'please..can we keep her...please routine....) .  My head spun over that for days afterwards.  The man actually made plans--weeks in advance.  This man who has so consistently been unable to commit to simple things (like can we go to the grocery store when you get back to the house this afternoon or how about lunch tomorrow), since we were dating, much less living together....agreed, weeks early, in advance.  It still takes my breath away.

He's done something like that a couple times recently.  The thing w Halloween, I wanted to kiss him (no, not like that)--it meant so much to E that he said yes...without his normal stalling or excuses or put offs.  He definitely deserves a cookie -- or  a chocolate ('big bang theory'--we love that show)--whatever.  He deserves kudos.  I am so proud of him and the progress he's making.

Another really big thing is he declined to allow N to receive the H1N1 vaccine.  I was so very relieved over that.  I had spent days working up email pleas in my head, knowing if I sent them he would be likely to march N out and get the shot that minute...in the end, I held my breath, prayed and let it go.  In the end, he didn't do it--and I am so so happy he didn't.
Go ahead.  Yell at me all you want about that.
Then go read the info on autism and how 1 out of 91 persons in the US is autistic these days. 1 out of every 91 persons.
Then read how China's autism rates sky-rocketed when they used the US vaccines for things like oh MMR--and how once they stopped using those vaccines autism rates plummeted--and then ask me, she who has stood there on foreign soil and watched how the US government told the US citizens back home one thing while doing another, if I believe the US reports about how nothing in the vaccines, mercury or otherwise, had anything to do w China's autism rates.  My big purple baboon butt it didn't.

I was already anti-vaccine before the reports of China and autism came out.
I was already anti-US government as a source of honesty and truth way way way before that--you don't come from military backgrounds and buy everything the government says wholesale...
A hundred years from now, people will be better able to strain the truth from the lies, but none of that will help us now...
Oh, did you forget I am that hippy dippy off the grid love peace and pass the ammo type of gal?
Sorry to disarm you so.
I'm still here.  My SO may be curbing my desires to do certain things, but he is not taking away the passions beneath.  Trust me.

I have always had bad reactions to the flu vaccines.  Always.  Dead vaccine.  Live vaccine.  Partially killed vaccine.  I won't let my kids have them.  I get so much sicker from the vaccines than from the actual flu I am supposed to be protected against--and then on top of that, after recovering from the vaccine, I always got the flu, and reacted worse to it than to the flus I got when I didn't get the vaccine. I don't do vaccines unless I have to anymore--and I never ever do flu vaccines.
I have learned, the hard way, the damage I may have caused by allowing the ear infection vaccine stuff for both kids when they were little.  My brother had such problems w his hearing due to infant ear infections.  I have significant scarring in one ear from childhood ear infections.  I thought a vaccine to prevent ear infections would be a good thing.  Nope.  Both kids have hearing problems...
And even as I did it, on the ex's prodding--since 'everyone' does it--that's his philosophy--I know the chicken pox vaccine for both kids is really going to haunt us at some point...

Enough of that tangent.
I am actually trying to be genuinely nice to the ex and tell him he's been an incredible and decent person lately.
Wish he had been this person all along.  Ye gods, would things have been so much easier on everyone then...

He can be a good guy.  Especially if he can open his mouth and talk.

What brought all this on today?

That 70s house.  :-)  

When we moved into this house (the Western Woods house, as we call her--yes, I name darn near everything) , our original intent had been to unpack, clean the place up, and then throw a house warming party.  Except, well, there was the accident...and by the time I recovered enough from that (accident was Nov--semi-recovery was not til March, if not later, if you can even claim I am recovered at this point now) the house was showing its other colors and I had no desire to have anyone enter the house, much less a desire to entertain...

With that 70s house, I have ROOM...at first, I was thinking--I can buy furniture...I can do this....I can do that....
No.  I don't want to.
Look.  It's November.  I try to do as little shopping as is humanly possible after the first week or two of November.  Even when it comes to grocery shopping.   I hate to add to any positive statistics about sales increasing during the 'holiday' season.

Number one: I don't want a lot of stuff to clutter up the new place.  I may bow down and buy another couch, since our current one is going in the basement for the kids--because the basement is the play area and there will be a minimum of toys allowed in the bedrooms (only stuff to sleep w)--which is why I wanted a basement in the first place! (Not to mention, yarn stash, fabric stash.....)
Number two: I hate making anyone's numbers 'look good', as if me going shopping in Nov/Dec can save the world by increasing someone's sales or something.

I have certain things I have committed myself to buying...a set of bunk-beds...an electric fireplace (or stove)...and a decent dining room set (which is going to be interesting to find considering what I am looking for w that....)...and a queen sized mattress set since E is getting the canopy bed and I am going to use the bed my dad gave us...and that will mean queen sized sheets as well...
I will also need to buy some shelving units, good ones....and at least three more bookcases--but these last two things are things I was planning to buy anyway regardless if we moved or not....

That's it.  Oh, no, it isn't.  I want new glasses, drinking glasses.  But that's not a big deal.  It's not as if we can't manage w what we have.

With this house, I can throw all our stuff in it, arrange said stuff, have room and more room, which I have missed (funny, how now we are leaving, issues w this house that have bothered me all along that I have ignored are now really bothering and rankling me), yada yada yada, I will be able to throw that house warming party.

Here's where I've been trying to head with this, really.

I can invite the ex, his sister and her family, R and anyone else I can pry loose from their houses (I have hermit friends--we hermits have to stick together :-) ) --the thing is--R and T can be in the same house, in the same room even.  They don't like each other.  T and R have never gotten along.  R and I have always been attached in one way or another, friends for 9 years now.  T didn't like R long before I got pregnant w N.  BUT, both men can be decent enough human beings to be in the same room together without making a scene.  It's very important to E that her cousins come to the new house.  And w this house, I won't feel like I'm crushing the girls into a small space w nothing for them to do.  There will be room for A to stay over now.  I still won't have cable or satellite tv.  I still won't own a game system--although R and I have been discussing the educational games for E on the Wii....

I know I can invite both men over at the same time.  It won't be a happy happy joy joy scene.  They are never going to be hugging good friends or anything.  But, it's not going to be horrid either.  They won't speak to one another if they don't have to, but they will both be decent for the sake of the others, for the sake of the kids.  I like that.

Not everyone can say similar things about their exs.  I don't think the other ex would tolerate R's presence for a second if he were involved in any capacity.  They worked together, when R and I weren't anything more than friends, and unless he had to or wanted something the ex never even spoke to R.  And I know he was spoken to several times about his unprofessional behavior towards R over the years.

It's kinda sucky to say that of the ex's between R and me, T is the most mature and grown-up.  He may not like R, but he won't cause a scene about things.  It's a good thing to know.  It's a good thing to have between all of us.

We are still taking bets about the conniption fit R's ex will have the first time she sees us together.  I like my odds on that bet.  The one that says she storms off and rants and raves at everyone else without a word to us.  She thinks I am the one who ruined their relationship.  Funny.  By her own admission, the relationship was over well before I even considered moving back to this area.  She just didn't break it off because nothing better had come along for her.  I fail to see how her inability to communicate and her fear of commitment has anything to do with me.  He was planning to buy her a ring--before I even thought of moving back--and she killed that idea real quick w her insane behavior--the whole ring idea, it was gone--before I ever considered moving back.

Let's not go off on a tangent there.  She is just so fun to watch.  She was always so uber concerned w what complete strangers thought about her.  Now, she is showing her true colors, and showing her a** to the entire world, becoming the butt of so many jokes from her own 'friends' it is almost shameful to watch.  So far, my odds on her are winning.  If she weren't so bloody insipid, I might feel bad for her.  That woman has some serious issues to deal with--that have nothing to do w me, or R, or anyone else but herself.  Actions prove it all out, baby.  This chick is proving out some very interesting things.

But--I do for her what I do for all my exs and for all the stupid people in my world--and it is an HONEST wish too, for my intentions are actually pure, as evil as that is, because I understand the breadth and width and depth of it:
I wish she gets everything she wants and thinks she deserves, for the rest of her life.

And with that. I will pat my own decent respectable trying to evolve and showing improvement ex on the back--because he is doing such a good job there, trying anyway....

Here's to a better future.

So, I'm Late

I do not always read every blog I want to read every time I want to read it--otherwise, I would be reading all day long and doing very little else.  Some days, that is a good way to spend the day.  But not every day.

I frequently go to a favorite blog and scan posts to see if something hits me, if something resonates with me.  When I find something that does, I read the entire post.  If it really resonates, I work with what I find in the post. one way or another.

There is always something to be found at Jamie's blog.

Tonight as I went looking for things, since I decided to opt out of Wishcasting Wednesday this week, I found something else.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Here are some questions that Jamie posed on this day...and though I am late, I wish to post my answers as well.  Perhaps in lieu of my wishcasting this past Wednesday.

• What is something you’re grateful for?
• I am grateful for R, for putting up with me, for loving me, for being there, for supporting me, in all so many ways.
• I am grateful for E and for N, for all they bring into my life.
• Today, I am grateful to my Dad, for giving us three little black mollies, along with two small fish-tanks--which caused us to set up said tanks--and buy more fish--as three male mollies alone in a tank will soon give you one lonely sickly molly all by himself after he kills off the other two.  I hadn't realized how much I had missed having fish, until today.  
• What is something you’d like to acknowledge yourself for?
• I am better, stronger, more talented, than I give myself credit for--than most people give me credit for...and I am slowly accepting that power...
• What abundance would you like to celebrate?
• My family, small, battered and slowly becoming integrated and whole again.  With the love of my life here, and my children, way too many dogs, and now plenty of fish too...our homes, our hearts, our connection.  The love we share and the love we bear together--it is the one thing I have searched for for so long--and now I finally have it at hand...I am blessed--and I know it...

Many thanks to Jamie for posing these questions.  I am very grateful for her continued presence in my life as well.

A word about this past week's Wishcasting Wednesday.  

I chose to opt out of the wishcasting this week for a number of reasons.  

First of all, it was a really busy day for me.  I was still trying to get a handle on everything that I had let slide from the week-end while we were gone.  I am just now starting to find my footing again this evening.

I didn't think I would have enough time to visit anyone else's blog to make sure they knew i was adding my wishing power with theirs...and that made me sad.

Plus, on top of everything, I have been doing so much letting go of things of late, it seemed a shame to sit and catalog anything more.  

I don't want to focus on the things i am letting go of--I just want to let go of them and be done w them.  I have too many things these days that I want to focus on, focus on incorporating into my life, focus on re-aligning within my life, focus on connecting in my life...that the thought of having to focus again on what I need or want to let go of...it just didn't sit well...so I let go of wishcasting Wednesday this week.  I still added my unheard and unseen wishing power to all the others; I simply didn't go blog by blog to let anyone know.