"you can't handle the truth!"

I am imperfect.  It's the most awesome, burden unloading truth I hold dear to my heart.  Not that it let's me off the hook, but acceptance is a powerful thing.


In my last post, I talked about wanting to write out my truths.  Then I started to realize, there's no way I'm  ever going to get to the heart of who I am.  Well, maybe I can uncover WHAT makes me tick, but I don't ever think I'm going to uncover WHY I tick that particular way.  


You know that question, "If there is one thing you could change about yourself...?"  We've all had our typical replies to the age old question.  Most replies involve wanting to get rid of bad habits and take on new, and hopefully better habits.  You may want to change jobs, locale, relationships, looks.  Sometimes people want to change their circumstances: richer, live off the land, greener - what have you.   And then there are those who just want to change their clothes.  "All's fine here! I wouldn't change a thing!"  I like to judge these people and call them "in denial".  


I've spent my entire life trying to change who I am.  My therapist, whom I've been fortunate enough to have for the past twenty years once said to me that she has watched as I have leveled and then rebuilt myself brick by brick.  It's taking me a very long time to understand what change I was actually going for.  I think I was afraid I would just be another copy of my mother, father, sister, and I was going to do whatever it took to make sure I wasn't one of them.  I was afraid as heck about who I was.  I was afraid that Jack Nicholson was right.  My truth was something that I would never discuss at a cocktail party, or even admit to myself in the dark.  I was afraid of the answer to "Who am I?"


Looking back, I don't thing I changed much.  Sure I've matured in ways that have made me very happy. And adding a mood altering drug has made life way better. But my "self" is no different than it has been since the beginning of my time.  However, up until now, wanting to know the "why" of my "self" has never ceased from my thoughts.  


I think I now know the answer to the question: "Why am I this way.  Why am I not a drug addict, shoplifter, murderer?  I think the movie "Capote" touches on the topic with great skill.   When Capote is sitting with the murder in his cell as he's dying, Capote realizes that they both came up in identical households.  However, Capote is struck to his core with the question "What made you go out the back door, and me go out the front door?  Why am I not a murderer like you?"  Great movie. Rent it.


Someone once said to me that we all contain Gd.  When you meet another person, you are essentially meeting GD.  Hmmm.  Well that doesn't help me much.  I mean, it sounds nice and all, but I know and understand less about the "why" of Gd then I do about my own "why".  So, maybe I wasn't really trying to change myself, but trying to do the impossible; trying to discover my true "self".  "Why do I tick that way?"  But maybe, like trying to understand Gd, it's impossible.  


So the answer to "why?" I'm starting to believe is this.  My subconscious (well, really everyones subconscious) has decided that it is best if I (we) didn't know the "why".  I sometimes think it says to me (you), "here is your (your plural) truth - spirituality, imperfection, a survivor, (add in your own truth) and you really don't need to know why. Just accept it for what it is."  In other words -you are who you are, now go and do something.  Besides, if we dwell on it too much, then maybe we too will end up drinking untold amounts of Old Grand Dad and baby food from jars.  Watch it. It really is a great movie.


Okay, sure - change your habits, jobs, relationships, MOVE, whatever, but remember that you are taking you with you.  There is a you that has set you on a path to where you are going.  It's like being equipped with an internal cruise control.  Don't fight it. Don't worry that you don't have what others have wrongly promised you.  You don't need whatever IT is.  Like Gd said to Avram, "Lech. Lecha"  Go. Go to you - loosely translated.  And like Gd replied to Avram when he asked, "well, where is it that I'm actually going, and how will I know when I get there"? (I'm paraphrasing).  Gd replies, (more paraphrasing) "Don't worry. I'll let you know when you're there."  BTW - This is also a good reply when someone asks you what the hell you are doing with your life.  If you are following your internal cruise control, then you can reply "Don't worry.  I'm on my way, and I'll let you know when I've arrived."  Piss them off even more.  Ha!  


Okay, there's more; it concerns Gd.  There is a truth about Gd and I want you all to know it, but it will have to wait.  Why? Because this truth is something you need to be prepared for.  You just can't hear it outright.  It would be irresponsible of me to just blurt it out.  I'll type it up tonight and stick it...I mean give it to you all tomorrow.  


I'm going to go now and play a game on facebook. Then I'm going to learn a little hebrew.  You all go and enjoy some reruns.


Goodnight. 

 

this is my heart

sometimes i just want to write it all out. all the truth that sits in my heart.  not the emotional stuff of the wrong doing or hurt from a careless comment or behavior. that's all fleeting. i want to get out the truth about me. the truth about my life as i understand it.  all of the good and unformed parts.  


what is my truth.  can i get anymore existential?  does this sound too much like "who am I?" of course it does.  it's the ongoing, never ending question that is answered then changed? really? does it change so much, or do i think the answer changes because i never fully understand it. 


My life did not turn out like I was told it would.  I am not married and I have no children.  I do not own my own house.  Instead, I am single with never having had a significant relationship in my life.  At one point I thought my life would be nothing without a significant other and a child or children, but lately, while I am still open (i think) to finding a significant other, I'm pretty much past the having children part.  In fact, I've recently discovered that I really don't care for them. you have no freedom, and all your money and time is spent on them, and still they can turn out to take drugs and steal from you, or die or something, and ick.  that's more than i can handle.  


So, apparently, i like being able to go with the flow.  Financially, I've been all over the place. I've been up and down. I've hit skids and prayers answered.  The one truth I've learned about myself...I'm a survivor.  Life can be pretty shitty, but it's best to turn your nose up to bad times and keep moving towards bluer skies...yuck there i go falling into metaphors.  my first truth.  i survive because i don't see much point in being sad.  i've tried deliberately and i've had it foisted upon me thanks to a chemical imbalance.  it's scary, it sucks and it leads nowhere.  you only get sadder until you feel there is no hope.  turn your nose up to the blues, and keep moving on.


my second truth. i'm spiritual, but more than that, i whole heartedly believe in a gd.  the existence of a gd i feel to be a undeniable truth. although, i don't know why and i have no way of proving it, but i know it to be a truth.   i believe that all we do as human beings is some kind of step towards gd.  obviously there are steps that are taken that lead you away from gd, but all of our steps are definitely in relation to or away from gd.  


another truth. i am imperfect.  


oh. i hear that chinese food has arrived.  i'll be prophetic later.  first some fried rice.  

Really morning? Really?

okay. so what the cat woke me up at 530 to eat. after i walked up stairs i start to see the trash from the steps into the kitchen. SOMEBODY left the trash compactor door open and the dogs took out what they could and covered a quarter of the kitchen floor with it. okay, fine. i cleaned it up. EVEN THOUGH i let the dogs out last night, one of them (Macy) pooped on the floor - TWICE. when you're a small dog, your small poops give you away every time bitch. fine. i picked it up. took the trash out to the curb...in my underwear, because i didn't feel like putting pants on thank you very much...helloooo neighbor! whatever, he drinks. i doubt he'll remember. fine. put trash compactor bag into compactor and OUCH! sliced my thumb on a lid to a can of cat food. of course it's on the tip, and i'm wearing six bandaids just to keep the blood spill to a minimum. 

really morning? really?

good thing i'm laughing as i type this.  good thing i have a sense of humor.

forecast today - hot and humid

So my plan to take the teenager somewhere today didn't pan out. I wasn't going to take her anywhere, but realized, "Hey? Why not have her sit somewhere else to watch MTV and mope?"  Oh well. 

Instead, the teenager and pre-teen convinced me to take them to the supermarket because they wanted to get stuff to make their own pizza - dough, sauce, cheese, what have you. Their mother nixed the idea, and instead we ended up buying frozen pizza.  

Now, we are in the supermarket, two sisters: one who is seventeen and the other who is twelve and an Aunt who is quickly realizing that she has made a big mistake.  One of the perks of not having children, you never have to take them into a store of any kind unless you foolishly decide to do so.  I'm feeling a case of regret about to settle into my bones.  What kind of pizza are we going to get?

Now, 12 is very accommodating and will compromise at the drop of a hat, and  was offering a sorts of suggestions that would make both she and 17 happy.  When it comes to accommodating and compromise, 17 has to dig deep for it.  Really, really deep.  I verbalized to 17 that she needed to compromise with what type of pizza they were going to get.  She said she knew that! Gawd! I thought to myself, "Then what the hell is the problem when the answer is staring you right in the face?"  Well, I realized that the answer was that she needed to talk herself into the compromise.  17 usually makes decisions based on what 17 wants.  I begrudgingly accept that, and I actually admire her for it. She doesn't need to worry about taking care of anyone else but herself.  For those of us that did not have that luxury at her age will understand that I'm also a little jealous.  I applaud my brother and sister n law for raising a beautiful, self-absorbed child.  Still, most of the time i just want to clock her.  My brother actually called her a fucking bitch the other day.  He didn't mean it...well, I mean, he didn't mean to say it out loud, but I knew exactly how he felt.  She does this amazing thing.  She asks (demands) to be taken somewhere. You say, "yes" followed by a heavy sigh and an eye roll.  The time comes to leave, and you wait for her to finish getting ready.  When she's ready, she comes to you and starts yelling how they have to get out the door right now because she is going to be late.  You're like, "Bitch I'm waitin' on you."  If you don't move fast enough, she comes at you again.  This is what she did they other day.  "Come on! Let's go! You're going to make me late!"  I can hear her spazzing out on him.  I'm thinking to myself, "What an ungrateful, fucking bitch."  So when I heard my brother yell back - "okay you fucking bitch!"  I knew he immediately regretted saying it out loud.  But hey, what are you going to do?  It happens.  I would have done something far worse. 

So, standing there in front of the frozen pizza,  i took a step back and let her do what she knew she needed to do.  talk herself into making room for someone else.  she did it. she's a rock star and everyone was happy.

Meanwhile, back on my nonexistent farm, I am applying for jobs in healthcare and hoping my unemployment will be reinstated until I can find a job.  I'm going back into my old field because I realize/accepted that I'm gonna need money to be a farmer, and it's gonna have to come in the form of a government funded position.  In the meantime, I volunteer at a food bank one or two days a week, help out with the family's ponies, and I'm growing a garden right next to the stables.  I just need to get myself in bed sooner so when 4:30 rolls around, I've had more than 4.5 hours of sleep.  Now that I'm sleeping on a mattress, This shouldn't be much of a problem.  

Sometimes it's just the simplest things that make the impact.  For me, a comfy mattress.  For 17, the success of a compromise. 

:P

I spent most of the day sleeping today. My plan to change careers and become more spiritually centered is hitting very rough seas.  I thought I would stay wrapped up in blankets to bide my time until the waves passed. 


I've decided to go back into health care. I need to make money. Maybe I was just flirting with the whole blue collar thing. Anyway, real blue collar jobs make a shit load of money, and I wasn't even clearing a turd.  


It'll be good to make some money again, and doing what I know very well.  Although, right now I'm not doing anything, and it is making me incredibly sad.  

how f'd up is that!?

It really is amazing how some of us survived our childhoods.  And it's abso - fucking- lutely true that what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger...which really means what didn't destroy our souls only strengthened our spirits.  death is being alive and walking around in darkness, bringing nothing but darkness to others. 


My own darkness:  horrible lights and music.  Off the shoulder halter tops worn by mothers who sit and smoke pot with their sixteen year old daughters.  Daughters who end up having sex with their mother's boyfriends.  It's cool to sit and smoke with them when you're thirteen. You can swear and talk about sex and drugs and not follow any moral code.  No rules. One cool mom. One sleazy boyfriend and one very, very frightened sixteen year old. Thirteen year olds who get to leave and go back to their single parent households where their mothers are not home.  You sit and smoke and blast Rick Springfield out the window and hang out with Dave down the street because all of you have a crush on him, despite the fact that he's an alcoholic.


You move away and become good again, but your sister is smoking and drinking and doing drugs.  She's always bringing her friends around with cases of beer. You don't want to be ridiculed, so you grab a beer...you hate it, but force yourself to drink anyway.  Your choice of drink had always been liquor, but you were away from those you drank.  Here you are again.  Mother even less. Alcoholic neighbor who is twenty- eight is making the moves on you in your room.  You remind him that you are fourteen and a friend.  


maybe fifteen will be better...ha!


Whatever.  There are stories out there way worse.  It doesn't mean anything.  If you are here, not on drugs, drunk or married to any of the above, that's a strengthened spirit.  If you have a strengthened spirit, then the only thing that you can do is laugh and say "I can't believe I survived that!" and move on.  Move on.

You Are Now Leaving Paradise

I can’t say it was time wasted. I learned a lot during my short time at Paradise Gardens and Farm.  I still wonder if I were a different person, if I could of stayed and put up with the extreme personality of the Farmer’s wife.  Again I was faced with a difficult person, and I wondered what I was supposed to learn from this experience.  Silence?  Humility?  Was I supposed to be the stronger person? Was I supposed to become aware of my weakness in the face of such difficulty?  Am I to expect that I will bail when faced with what seems to be the impossible.  Steven, the other ex-intern, would give a definitive “NO!  She was an impossible woman.”


Like I said, it wasn’t time wasted.  I walked onto my future internship and everything was familiar.  Differences: bovine are humongous - I mean their heads are the size of baby goats…baby goats with very pointy horns that have 800 pounds behind them to give you a good spearing.  “Don’t let them get you up against the fence” was the advice of the lead farmer, when trying to turn one of the cows around to go into the milking pallor.  I play this image out in my head.  “The fence is potentially the way out. Okay, well if it weren’t for the fact that the gate is locked.  So,  I should fight the urge, when the animal’s head is down, horns charging towards me, and you not to run towards the fence.  Okay. Got it.  Yeah, right.”


Currently I’m staying at my brother’s and sharing a finished den with my seventeen year old niece.  This has given me a clear reminder why I don’t have children…and possibly insight into why my mother beat the shit out of my sister when we were younger.  Okay, maybe not.  It’s not good to beat your children,  no matter how much you want to, or how much they may deserve it!  I’ve wanted to clock her on several occasions and sometimes when I think of her shitty attitude, I want to clock her when I see her, which would probably cause her confusion, but elicit complete understanding from her mother.  “No matter how much you want to or how much they deserve it. Restrain, restrain, restrain.”  This is my mantra.  


I’m nervous about my future.  “What do you hope to do after you finish the internship?”  A constant question I get when people ask, “So, what are you doing now?”  My reply.  “I have no idea.”  That sounds rational.  I hope it takes the edge of the absurd reply when I say it with complete confidence.  


I stopped by my Uncle’s family farm.  It full of reminders of days long past.  His cousin is now running the farm, and it looks like he’s in need of help.  Maybe that could be something I do part time.  He said he was, but people always say that until you start giving them what they asked for.  No one, including myself, likes to be told what to do.  Ego. 


I left paradise.  It wasn’t mine.  I know that uncertainty and unlimited potential is my path to my own paradise.  Without a doubt.  No need for fingers crossed.