Scorpiosity

I have been reading about my sun sign, Scorpio, recently and shaking my head (lovingly) at myself.  The days in which I feel like a total weirdo, it helps to think there are others who possess some of the very characteristics that make me feel like an alien on this planet.

A website I read earlier said something to the effect that Scorpios know things that cannot be expressed in human language.  That describes quite accurately the way I feel sometimes.  As far back as I can remember I have known things without being able to articulate how I know.  I understand people’s motives and I know exactly what’s going on around me all the time, down to the nuances of human intentions and motives.  I may not let on that I know, I often don’t, but I know precisely what drives people.  Individual people, not just in general.

That may also be why some of the most private people start telling me things that they don’t usually share with anyone.  They sense that I get it…because I do.

Being a Scorpio, I’m not one to shy away from the dark and ugly parts of the human psyche.  Sometimes I wonder if even other Scorpios are afraid of me or think I’m weird.

One of the most unusual and bothersome things I have figured out in the past few years by means of this ability to intuit motive is that I have had people in my life whom I have called friends who seem to like me best when I am having a hard time.  I’d like to say that this hasn’t affected my behavior, but I’m certain it has or did until I was aware enough to see the pattern emerge.

Some people like to think of me as helpless, but I’m not.  When I’m struggling, I’m pretty open about it, but I do not intend to struggle just so others can feel heroic or take on the role of adviser. There are many things I still want to accomplish in life.  I need all my energy and dealing with this dynamic saps it.

Most of the people I am referring to are no longer a part of my day-to-day life.  These are not people who have helped me out of kindness, they are people who cannot seem to tolerate me unless I am in a position that makes them feel superior in some way.  I appreciate kindness, co-dependence, not so much.

It is a rare person who can handle me at full strength for any length of time.  I get that.  This may be part of the problem.  I have a lot of energy.  A lot.  It intimidates people at times and ensures I do not go through life unnoticed.  That can be a definite plus, but it isn’t always.

This intuition (which can be a pain at times) seems to be common among Scorpios.  As weird as I sometimes feel, I wouldn’t want to be any other sign…which seems like a thing only a Scorpio would say.

My life might be an amusement park ride, but it’s definitely entertaining.

Humility

“Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.” ~Rumi

Why is the cure for a funky mood always a lesson in humility?

I was feeling pretty badly earlier. Things improved a little with a trip to the library and a nice dinner.

My son loaned me a dvd called Grave of the Fireflies, a Japanese film about two kids struggling to survive in WWII Japan.  Tonight seemed like a good night to watch it. It is beautifully made and absolutely heart wrenching. It was apparently based on a true story, though it would have been devastating even as a work of fiction.

Films like this one keep me humble. In addition to the deep compassion I felt for the characters in this story, it gave me such a feeling of gratitude for the blessings in my life. I could relate to the main character’s sense of responsibility and determination to do whatever was necessary for he and his little sister to survive. He had the weight of his sister’s entire existence on his shoulders, and he was just a boy.

For some reason this movie helped me understand my feeling of suffering earlier today. Humility is a quality I wish to cultivate in myself. But how does one learn humility? By being humbled. Much of the time when I’m sad or upset it is due to some humbling situation I find myself in. For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, I don’t usually connect the suffering with the qualities I am trying to cultivate in myself until something else provides a different context or perspective from which to look at things.

Nobody likes to suffer. I’m not unique that way. But I want to honor my suffering by transforming it into something good, like humility or compassion or gratitude. When I think of suffering as my path to these wonderful qualities, it makes it easier to endure.

That movie hit me right in the solar plexus. And in the heart. I don’t think I could cry if I wanted to right now, but it hurts. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get over it tonight.

There is such an odd beauty in tragedy. It really does make the world an amazing place.

Roger Ebert wrote a beautiful review of this film. It’s worth checking out if you would like several compelling reasons to see this movie. You can find his review here.

Black hole

One of those days.  I am having one.  I feel like a black hole today.  Does anyone else ever feel like a black hole?

This phenomenon manifests on different levels for me.  I’m generally restless, dissatisfied and in some kind of a funk…and I’m hungry!  The reason I call it a black hole feeling is nothing seems to fill me.  I’m not overeating because when I feel like this I know I’ll never feel full anyway, so overeating is futile.  I’m just eating normally and feeling all hungry and restless.

It doesn’t really help that it’s raining again.  It’s dark and the rain is coming down in sheets, just as it has for all but about 8 days of this year so far (I’m not exaggerating much).  Just as I typed that it started raining really hard.  I actually love the sound of rain, so I opened up the windows.  I’m listening to the rain fall along with George Winston playing his variations on Pachelbel’s Canon in D major.  Lovely.

Here’s the thing.  I feel better just acknowledging that I feel like a black hole today.  Up until I started writing I was struggling against it.  I was all angsty and doing the why oh why thing.  The struggling invariably causes more suffering than whatever I’m struggling against.  When I just allow it, things always get better.  So, I’m gonna make a list of what’s bugging me and then let it go.  And maybe take a nap on one of my last few days of being unemployed. Here goes:

• I’m sick of not having money
• I’m envious of people who have money
• I’m sick of being envious
• I’m tired of feeling like a whiner
• I’m tired of waiting…for the $$ thing to get better, for my soul mate to show up…
• I’m envious of people who have partners, husbands and boyfriends
• I’m tired of being envious
• I’m tired of my car breaking
• I’m bored of the rain
• I want to be happy NOW
• I’m hungry and nothing sounds good
• I’m tired of being alone
• I’m tired of me

I’m sure there is more if I wanted to keep going.  I’m just out of sorts.  I’m not sure why.  I wish I felt better.  I don’t even need things to actually be better right this second, I just want to feel better.

“I’m tired of screwin’ up, tired of goin’ down,  tired of myself, tired of this town.” ~Tom Petty (Mary Jane’s Last Dance)

“Help! I’m covered in bees!” ~Eddie Izzard

Endings

Yesterday was a day of endings for me.  Not in huge, life altering ways, just in the small ways that happen to most of us most of the time.  I finished dog/house sitting, watched the finale of the Oprah show, and watched the finale of American Idol.  The great thing is, I learned something from all of them.

The dog sitting showed me how wonderful it is to be home and how it’s not the amount of stuff that makes a home comfortable, it’s the energy that we bring to our homes that make them welcoming and inviting places to be.

The people I house sit for have a lot of stuff.  Their drive to accumulate stuff feels like fear to me.  Fear of not having enough things I guess.  And guess is all I can do.

This all came to the forefront when I arrived last week at their house to find a note, much like the notes they always leave with contact information and instructions.  This time however, the note contained an admonishment about using coasters, highlighted in yellow.  Further, there was a sticky note folded into a small tent shape on the actual table where the coaster incident had taken place that said COASTERS!, just like that, all caps with an exclamation point.

My mind went through a gamut of thoughts and feelings about this.  Including: incredulity, offense, defense, anger and judgment.  I suppose it could be argued that I am still judging by making note of these things.  However, I do have a point and plan to get to it any time now.  But this next bit is not it.

In the four years I have been taking care of their dog and house, I have never left a mess of any kind.  When they return from a trip their house is as clean or cleaner than when they left.  I’ve never broken anything and despite their invitation to help myself to anything in the fridge, I always replace anything I eat or drink.  I guess I’m saying that I am a pretty good house sitter.  I house sat for one of my law professors for a couple of years and also for the former career counselor from my law school.  These are all people who live in nice houses with nice things in them and I have always taken very good care of their stuff.

Okay, now on to my point.  Obviously I was bothered by the way the coaster incident was handled and how it felt like I was given no benefit of the doubt as to my apparent carelessness.  That’s okay.  I can be more careful in the future.  The point of this part of my post is that it is glorious to be home.  I live in a condo.  It’s old, it creaks, and I don’t have very much stuff.  And the stuff I have is not worth very much money.  But my home is every bit as comfortable, if not more so, than their house filled with things so important that they are worth getting angry at someone whose conscientious nature should be apparent after four years of not making mistakes.  My home is comfortable and welcoming, not because of the things in it, but because of the love that is in it and the people who inhabit it.

While I was house sitting, I couldn’t take a bath.  Their water heater is not capable of producing enough hot water to fill their relatively shallow tub.  This morning I soaked in a hot bubble bath in my lovely not-so-shallow tub with a seemingly endless supply of hot water.  It was glorious and I was so grateful for it.

I may not have very much in the way of material possessions, but I have everything I need and most importantly, I have enough.

“To know you have enough is to be rich.” ~Tao Te Ching

When I got home I decided to watch the final Oprah show because Oprah has been a light on my path for such a long time and I wanted to see that chapter of my life–the chapter that had the Oprah show for inspiration–close gently and with gratitude.

In her typical no-nonsense fashion, Oprah taught me a couple of things in her farewell.  One is actually something I am well aware of: All people, without exception, want to be validated.  They want to know that they are seen and heard and above all, that they matter.  I once heard a preacher say that we all have a desire to be known.  I think Oprah goes further and recognizes that we all want to be known and we all want to be loved, just as we are.  The world we live in is a harsh one at times, but every once in a while we meet someone who sees us truly and finds beautiful what they see.  This is the most healing thing on earth in my opinion.  It is wonderful to know that God loves us just as we are, but the truth in my opinion is that God is manifest in each and every one of us, so to know the unconditional love of God, we have to give it to each other…and ourselves.

This brings me to the final lesson I got from the Oprah show: There is a difference between believing that you deserve happiness and believing that you are worthy of it.  This one hit me like a ton of bricks.  I have been wondering, a lot recently, why I so often find myself almost successful.  I know I deserve success.  Heaven knows I have worked hard enough.  But somehow things that seem beyond my control keep popping up just in time to make most of my life struggle with very little reward. A good deal of my struggle is trying to convince myself that I am enough–good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, educated enough, kind enough, compassionate enough–in short, worthy.  And I never have truly gotten to that place where I have been able to ease up on myself and know that, as Oprah said yesterday, I am worthy because I was born.

All I can do with this revelation is be willing to accept myself and to know that I am enough, just as I am.  There is no magic formula that I can apply to work toward this knowledge, I just have to keep telling myself it is so and do it with a willing and open heart.

I am…and that is sufficient.

The final lesson I learned last night was from American Idol of all things.  This is the first season I have watched and last night the contestant that I did not want to win, won.  I checked Twitter at the end of the east coast broadcast and knew the winner before watching it here on the west coast.  All I could think was ugh, I don’t want him to win, I want Lauren to win.  American Idol did something really right last night in my opinion.  They made the entire finale a celebration of all the contestants, not just the winner.  The part that was about who won was a mere couple of minutes of the entire two-hour show.  The lesson was: They all won and they all deserved to win.  Anyone who is working toward their passion, following their bliss, is a winner.  The specific example I love most is James Durbin, the 22-year-old who a year ago was a struggling young dad who could barely afford diapers for his baby.  Last night he was on stage with Judas Priest.  It was a privilege to watch this kid’s dream come true.

Yesterday was the culmination of a rough week for me.  Expensive car repairs with more to come, wounded pride over a freaking coaster of all things, and the ever present question I carry in my heart: How can I, one person with so little, make a positive impact in this world?   The answer to that last one, I hope, is the words you are reading now.

I feel good; I am here, now; and I am willing.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

~St. Francis of Assisi

The love of truth

Speak the truth in love.  That is the main thing I took away from my 5 years as a member of a Lutheran church.  It’s very interesting that leaving that church, which for me was leaving the Church, did not cause me to have bad feelings toward the church, its members, or Christianity in general.  I was more involved in that congregation than the one I had belonged to for the 15 years prior to it and I still love the people I knew there.

I am a lover of the truth.  And I am a lover of kindness.  Which leads me to ask: Is it possible to consistently deliver the truth with kindness?  Is brutal honesty ever necessary?  I say no, it is never necessary.  I think if a person can’t find a kind way to express whatever it is they need to say, then the thing is not important enough to say in the first place.

“People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.”  ~Richard J. Needham

My ex-boyfriend believed brutal honesty was the only way to go.  Consequently, he proceeded to tell me some of the most miniscule faults he saw in me.  It was very hurtful at times.  He called me clumsy and weak and once asked me if I ever loaded a dishwasher before in my life because I put a wooden handled steak knife in the machine.  He also told me fairly early on in our relationship that he didn’t love me and when I was away on business once, he told me he didn’t miss me.  Why?  I don’t even understand the point of it really. 

He and I never agreed on this topic.

There is an old saying that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.  That’s a very good (and simple) rule of thumb regarding communicating with others. It reminds me of something I often say about my fellow humans and that is: I have never met a person who needed me to show them their faults, but I have met many who needed me to show them their beauty.

The other reason I disagreed with the ex-boyfriend about his need to deliver the blunt truth without consideration for feelings is the futility of dispatching a message that cannot be received because the recipient feels attacked.  Why bother telling someone something in such a way that they won’t be able to hear you?  Most people shut down on some level and do not process information from a rational perspective when they feel defensive

When I am telling someone something, I want them to be able to hear me, so I deliver the truth with kindness and compassion and I do not bother with information the sole purpose of which is to hurt.  If the only thing that can be accomplished by saying something is to hurt the person you’re saying it to, then that thing doesn’t need to be said.  Because those kinds of things are usually about something that isn’t going to change or the person has no control over and they often contain no truth at all.

When some of the ex-boyfriend’s friends said bad things about him to me after the breakup, this was information that served no purpose but to hurt.  To hurt him and to hurt me.  I was doing all I could to keep an open and forgiving heart and give him the benefit of the doubt knowing that he did the best he could.  Like the situation with my parents, it was a pretty poor best by most people’s standards, but he did his best with the knowledge and awareness he had at the time.  His friends’ attempts to console me by bashing him is understandable given the society we currently live in but nonetheless, not helpful.

Speak the truth in love.  Anything that does not come from love should not be spoken.

Seek His Face

It’s amazing the insights that come after a challenging day.  I’m exhausted.  I had to deal with some stuff today, but everything ended up fine and all is well.

In these last few quiet moments before I go to sleep, I am thinking about spiritual awakening and how it is a really interesting process in which a person sees what was right in front of them all along.  I think God really wants to be seen by us.  He/She/It leaves clues everywhere.  Every moment of every day.  It’s like when someone is trying to point something out to you and you just can’t see it and then when you do, you wonder how you missed it.  It’s like getting new glasses and realizing how poor your vision was.

I’m so grateful to get to start over new every day.  To know you’ve done your best at the end of the day is a gift.  To get a do over every morning is a blessing beyond words.

The world is a beautiful place.

Milestones

Today is the birthday of the ex-boyfriend.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, things are calm in my world, everything is falling back into place and there has been little drama.  I took my kids to get their hair cut and they both look really nice.  It was one of the best days of my recent life.

Two years ago on this date, he had been gone a week and in one of the most embarrassing moments of my professional career, I completely lost my composure in front of my new boss.  I had worked for him a couple of months when this happened and the breakup stress had taken such a toll that I just lost it right there in the office.  I was sobbing all over his crisp, white, lawyer shirt.  Thank goodness he didn’t have to be in court, I’m certain I got makeup on his shirt.

I hadn’t been talking to anyone about what was going on and yet it hurt so much that keeping it to myself was stressing me out really badly.  I was barely functioning there for a while.  Looking back, I see what a gift it was I was only working part-time and for someone I had known for several years.  These things do not happen for no reason.

Tonight I was looking at some photos of me on Facebook.  They were from that time and forward.  They tell a story.  There is the one on my birthday at my party, surrounded by friends, yet more miserable than I had been in a very long time.  It almost makes me cry to look at it.  My heart was broken and it showed all over my face.

There is one of me sitting on my friend’s deck at his beach house after birthday party night.  This is another one of those divine providence things.  Right about the time the boyfriend left, I reconnected with one of my close friends from high school.  You know, the kind of friend you are inseparable from and you spend all your time together laughing.  He just happened to be moving to the beach for the summer and had me over frequently for days at a time and we had a really nice time.  I had solitude and quiet and a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean to heal my soul.  I credit those days with giving me the strength to keep going.

Then there is one taken the day after the 6-month mark of him being gone.  I told myself that after 6 months I must do something to make a change for the positive.  So the day after the 6-month anniversary, I dyed my brunette hair bright red with blonde streaks in it.  It is the most drastic change in appearance I have ever made.  It was very good for me to look nothing like my former self because I felt like that person died that really dark night when I didn’t know if I could keep enduring the pain.   After a short rest, a very determined person emerged.

I’ve had difficult moments since then, but I have mostly stayed strong.  And I am making it.  My little family is happy and we’re working cooperatively to have a nice life together.  I have a job and one that is easy enough that it will leave me enough energy to write some things.  We are going the right direction.  I’m so grateful to be this far away from the pain.

Today was a pretty great day.  I was able to have a quiet moment of wishing in my heart that he has a really nice birthday.  And it didn’t hurt at all.

Thank you, God.

Paranoid

I’m laughing at myself right now because I posted a blog about equanimity earlier today and now I find my peace all disturbed over something pretty insignificant…in the big scheme of things anyway.

I am house/dog sitting again and the friends I do this for left me a note reminding me to use coasters because they found a water ring on one of their tables.  It’s not that it’s not possible I did it, but the likelihood of my having left a glass on a table with no coaster is so slim that this freaks me out a little bit.  Do they really think it was me?  I don’t even eat or drink outside of the kitchen normally and I am fanatical about coasters, even at my own house, where the tables aren’t even worth fussing over.

This has made me consider going home and just coming over every day staying the day, walking the dog and then going home each evening.  Fussy people aren’t usually a problem for me because I am more fussy and conscientious than just about anyone I know, especially when it comes to taking care of other people’s stuff.  I will be hard pressed to be more careful than I already am though. When I house sit, I spend the 24 hours prior to my departure cleaning and disinfecting as if I were going to perform surgery.

So now, even though I have been dog sitting for these people several times a year for the past 4 years, I’m all paranoid that I am going to leave something out of place and they are going to notice it and be upset.  These people are lawyers and I know how lawyers can be.  They notice everything.  But I’m cut from the same cloth, so I’m having a hard time thinking I would have done something so careless as to leave a drink on a table without a coaster.

I’m sure I’ll calm down after dinner and it will all be fine in time to watch American Idol.  I hope.

Never said I wasn’t neurotic.

Equanimity

I have learned some concepts that, when remembered, consistently bring comfort.  These things, though they come from different traditions, are some of the tools that are available to all of us to help put things in perspective quickly.  I use them to calm myself when I start to worry.  It is how I maintain a measure of balance and equanimity in my life.

Here are a few of the things I have learned.  I hope these basic descriptions will help people find resources to further study anything that resonates.  They are short and merely scratch the surface, but I am happy to expound if I receive questions.

Non-Attachment:  This Buddhist concept teaches us, through the Four Noble Truths, that attachment is the cause of suffering.  Because the objects of our desire are in a constant state of transition, that which we grasp at does not even truly exist.  Even as we try to possess a person or a thing, it is changing.

Letting things be as they are brings great peace and is part of the path to enlightenment.  Releasing the need to judge things, possess things, and keep people means saying yes to life and putting trust in the force that keeps the world turning.

Applying this to oneself and others, one is not precluded from having hope, but loses attachment to a particular outcome, trusting in the wisdom of the One Mind to guide.  Freedom and liberation is the result.

Impermanence:  The concept of impermanence urges us to have gratitude for this moment right now thereby inviting another perfect now moment.  It teaches us that suffering is not permanent.  The knowledge of impermanence can bring great comfort during times of suffering and can heighten gratitude for the beauty of life.  If we are in the present moment, all the beauty of the universe is given to us as a gift of love.  Learning to see and appreciate it with the knowledge that it is constantly changing brings a depth and sweetness to life that is so precious.  Everything is changing all the time, nothing lasts forever.  Suffering increases when we don’t recognize this.

Don’t Take Things Personally:  This teaching comes from The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.  It is the second of the Four Agreements that we can make with ourselves that have the power to free us from a life of suffering.  This agreement is a lot like non-attachment, but relates more to other people’s opinions of us.  When we take things personally we are agreeing with whatever is being said.  Otherwise it could not disturb our peace.  If someone tells you you’re fat, but you know you are not fat, the words don’t have any effect.  But if you agree with that assessment, even on an unconscious level, it can cause you to react negatively, resulting in suffering.  Why suffer over the thinking of someone else?

This agreement applies to praise as well as blame, insults and criticism.  If you take your sense of self-worth from the opinions of others, you will ride an emotional roller coaster until you learn to stop.  Because I’m human I tend to like praise better than blame, but, as most people have seen in their own lives, both praise and blame have little to do with who you are.  The same person will praise you one day and blame you the next depending on whether your actions please them.  By refusing to take things personally, it is possible to break an addiction to praise and be immune to blame, insults and criticism.  This immunity leads to authenticity and peace.

Wu Wei: This Taoist principle encourages non-action, which sounds like it is encouraging doing nothing, but that’s not quite it.  According to Stuart Wilde, Wu Wei is effortless flow and to better understand it, one can compare struggle with effort.  While it is not possible to walk to the store without effort, you can go there without struggle.  Struggle does not have to be a part of the way we live our lives.  Struggle is effort with a twist of negative emotion.

Practicing Wu Wei is a means of conserving and consolidating our personal power and one of its main characteristics is patience.  Stuart Wilde’s book Silent Power says this: “It is really about patience and flow–moving away from resistance and toward simplicity, relentlessly moving toward your goal with awareness, adjusting your actions as need be–moving without emotion and without exerting yourself too much.”  Wu Wei is about knowing when to take action, not taking it until you know, and knowing you can wait forever if necessary. 

There is a lot more to know about the practice of Wu Wei, but once understood, it truly is a simple concept.  I recommend Stuart Wilde’s book to anyone who wishes to understand this practice a little better. 

Unity: Sharing and creating love is why we are here.  The only reason.  Everything else is minutiae.  We are all connected.  Quantum physics is proving true on a scientific level what the mystics of the ages have always known.  Because we are all connected, what we do to others, we do to ourselves, quite literally.  This is why I say that our salvation lies in the Golden Rule.

The reason these concepts became so dear to me is because together they form the basis for my liberation.  I am free to love anyone I want because I do not ask anything from anyone.  If I love someone who doesn’t love me back, it’s not a big deal.  The fact that I get to love and I can love gives me all I need.  Needing nothing does not mean one can never accept things, it just means that people and things are free to come in and out of our lives without being tainted by grasping and ego based thinking.  It means simply being.

The more I learn the more liberated I feel.  It is so wonderful and amazing to think that a mere 6 years ago I knew only one religion, Christianity, was afraid to learn anything about any others because I didn’t want to go to hell–and now I am writing about Buddhism, Taoism, and Toltec philosophies with a measure of confidence in my understanding of them.  This makes me happy, especially because I am not even close to done yet.  I have a lot of years and a lot more religions left to study.  Right now it’s Jewish mysticism, next year, who knows.

All of the ideas and practices I have shared are profound, yet very simple.  Spiritual practices do not need to be mind-boggling or complicated.  Truth can come to anyone.  One does not have to be a scholar to know the truth.  Scholars know many things, but they do not corner the market on truth.  Fred Alan Wolf, one of the scientists from What the Bleep Do We Know says, better than being in the know is being in the mystery.  I agree.

I have read many books in the past few years, from A Course in Miracles to Doreen Virtue’s angel books.  I have learned things from most of them and I hope the use this blog as a means of sharing the things that have changed my life.  What I won’t do is pretend to have all the answers, because I don’t.  I have learned some things and done my best to practice the ones that make sense to me, but I am human and therefore not perfect.  I offer what I have, but I do not claim to be an expert on anything but my own experience.

The biggest argument in favor of the above practices I have written about is the level of peace they bring to one’s life.  Peace for oneself is a tremendous gift, but the gift of a peaceful person to the entire world is immeasurable.

Restless

I’m nearly convinced I’m not normal, that I never will be and that it means I might be pretty lonely the rest of my life.  It’s not that I’ve ever been normal, but up until recently I was more willing to pretend.

The thing is, I actually long to make connections, but there is a part of me that will not let feelings out.  I was just on Twitter and there is a group of (mostly) females who refer to each other as doll and say I love you publicly.  When I see that I cringe.  And it’s not because I think they shouldn’t do it.  I think they should do it, unless they don’t really mean it.

As one for whom the words I love you do not come easily, I wonder what people actually mean when they say it, especially in a most casual way, like on Twitter.  The specific tweet I am talking about sounded very sincere and sweet and I believe that the person meant it.  I know nothing of the friendship between the people involved, it just felt real and sincere when I read it.  It made me want to be that kind of person…a kind of person I’m not sure I am even capable of being.

The only reason this saddens me is it’s not that I lack the feelings and emotions, I only lack the words and the ability to express.  I have such genuine good feelings toward most people most of the time, but I am ill equipped to make them known.

I may have stirred up this dilemma for myself because I have been feeling uninspired.  It’s like now that some of the pressure is off and it looks like I have this financial crisis under control, I don’t know what to do with myself.  And yet, I don’t want to live from crisis to crisis, so I need to find something constructive to do with the energy that was taken up by worry and anxiety.

All I have wanted to do is sleep.  I’m getting up early, but I have been wanting to take naps almost every day.  I don’t always do it because napping makes me feel guilty, but I have wanted to.

Today I finally realized that I’m not focusing because I don’t have anything to worry about, so I made a commitment to work on positive forward momentum.

There are many things I can do that will bring good to my life and the lives of others.  And there are people who are not my children who might be interested in knowing that I love them.  So maybe I’ll work on that.