Trajectory__________Jan 21, 2012
There is a promise I made to you that I would hang out in that honest place. This is for me as much as it is for you. If I am honest, then possibly something will set you in motion to do the same.
Today, not such a good day. I was hoping the mental health day would give me the much-needed break from challenge. Sadly, it did not.
I’ll tell you a story of hope, then maybe then my trajectory will alter.
After my father died, I went back to London and to school. Since we lived in Seven Oaks, Kent about 28 miles outside of London, I took the train into the city, then a Tube to school. The same route everyday, the same bankers rode my train and we saw the same people five days a week. London is an incredible city, vibrant and so dignified. I loved my time-45 minutes each way with 10-15 minutes on the tube to my stop near school. A lovely hour and a half to read. Mind you my book bill was extraordinary and at some point added the Sunday New York Times and Mondays Wall Street Journal to that pile. Seriously I think it was the most I read (the polar opposite after I had kids-2 pages in the loo is all I get now). Snaking my way through the Tube to get to the various lines, I would see the same musicians-buskers they called them, everyday. We would nod and I would listen in all the long hallways. Many were Irish and that was the music that all music came from. The day I returned back to school I was doing my thing and I saw a new busker. He was a gypsy-crazy curly hair, olive skin and he was sitting on this beautiful little fold up stool instead of the usual standing. He was playing a Concertina (the kind of accordion you think of in Pinocchio) and not playing anything until I got about 25 yards from him and then I heard what he was playing. Tennessee Waltz. Now I grew up hearing Appalachia music, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Tennessee Waltz was played a lot. My parents are from Tennessee and there is not a county we don’t have kin in. I stopped about five feet from the gypsy and listened….and cried. He must have played it four times in a row. That was my Dad, telling me he is okay and that I should be okay too.
I never saw that busker again.
One of the things I believe with everything I have, is that we will make the same bad choices until we ‘get’ the lesson. The lesson could be to stop wearing your snowy boots inside the house for when you are in sock feet, you will step in the cold, salty and dirty water left from your boots. Or the lesson could be stop going to the store that is closed. A dear therapist used that analogy on me and that I understood. Why do we keep going back to that store/same toxic people/stay in harmful relationships-even if they are your parents, when all we do is stand outside and get mad, sad and frustrated. IT’S CLOSED.
(Later that evening) Had to come back in and add a little something. We all have pretty incredible beliefs. These shape how we think, act and make choices. These beliefs are old, some have been born out of that old brain. They are part of your cellular structure. I bumped up against a very defined one again tonight. One that brings on a sadness only reserved for parents. My parents became human very early on in my life. There was no pedestal. It had gotten hacked down to size at about age 5. There is no judgement for them, though they can still manage to find that soft spot that aches…wishing it could be different. Why can’t you be like them? How do you not know it matters? Why are you so selfish? These are those achy questions that come to the surface when the car door of parents gets opened and you were riding your bike-slamming into their crazy-town ways. Having that tool box brimming with goodies you can use at your whim is important-like the cut-men. They go hand in hand. The whisper in your ear (the one that is hard to hear when the crap is yelling so loud-you must really really listen) reminds you that you DO NOT have to be, act and are not them. This ache has created a boulder the size of Grand Central (large, though not totally immovable) of you will have a different outcome-your experience with me will be different….and I am so sorry for their behavior. (thanks for revisiting)
Today is one of those days that the grade on the hill is steep. There are a lot of false summits.
So when do I start making wise/good/fortunate choices? Some get made everyday. The amount of momentum needed is higher and requires more energy. This is a catch 22. When you are spinning at a higher and tougher RPM, the output of energy is higher so there is less to spread around. The pressure to make all the right choices goes up exponentially.
So today, I tell the truth every chance I get. Whether I like it or not. It’s not a choice anymore. It’s survival. (Sounds so Destiny’s Child)
I am going to do one thing this evening that will start a snowball (be it a small one) rolling down-hill. Tell the truth and do it with a smile. My hope is that smile will transfer to my heart.
A little something for you:
Love you.
sparkignitefire 