”The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.”~~ Roald Dahl ‘The BFG’
My life experience in the last 5 years has been one of ‘dropping out of the matrix’ of Modern Western Life~~
work
to make money
to buy things
to make me happy with a life focused
on work
to make money
to buy things to make me happy…
spinning into infinity.
It broke me.
But that’s not completely true.
The cycle didn’t break me.
Workplace Bullying broke me.
Pressure to achieve, rush hour traffic, social obligations, multitasking…
System Overload.
The Gears were Stripped.
Looking for work became painful.
I developed insomnia, accompanied by nightmares about traps and conspiracies and humiliation…
so I withdrew.
Stop the world, I’m out of here.
The signal I was getting from my dreams, from my body, from my moods, was that I was in crisis.
I developed a need to be rescued.
I had not experienced these thoughts since adolescence.
It became a psychological death-spiral.
Fear. Despair. Escape. Futility. Depression.
My Dark Side.
When it comes out in dreams, we call it Nightmare.
We feel the fear & let it go. It was only a dream…
When it comes out in the arts, we call it Catharsis.
We laugh,
we cry,
we see the zipper up the monster’s back or the cartoony cgi-effects.
We feel better.
When it comes out in the culture, the neighborhood, the nation, we call it Injustice.
Evil.
We blame it on Others.
They. Them. Those Monsters.
In the Wee Hours…
The Witching Hours…
The time when the whole world is asleep…
It is our own Dark Side who comes out to play.
It is the Stranger we fear in others.
We cannot see It in ourselves.
What’s more, we edit it out of our lives.
We carefully rearrange our reality to exclude any reminders…
We compartmentalize, sanitize, rationalize
We look at the world through filters of expectations and assumptions
It’s not always about trying to fix something that’s broken. Maybe it’s about starting over and creating something better. ~Author Unknown
Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Each was happy in his own little house until that wind-bag wolf came bopping along. (It’s always the BigBad who cause all the problems, isn’t it?) Just when our porcine protagonists are settling in with a bowl of popcorn and the remote control… BADA-BOOM! Kindling.
When we’re children, we’re told that we haven’t yet begun to live. When we reach adulthood, we’re told we have our entire lives ahead of us. There’s no thought of starting over… we’re just starting.
Soon we’re filling our lives with people, places, and things that matter to us. Education, career, home, family, friends, pastimes, vacations, money, …we’re building Life.
If you build it… along comes the BigBad-Bada-Boom. Life is no longer a building. It’s a roller-coaster.
I hate starting over. There’s something doomy-gloomy about sweeping up the shattered pieces of your efforts… your pride… your hopes & dreams… and discarding them like last night’s pizza boxes. Admitting that “it ain’t happenin’”… wishing it wasn’t happening. The world seems upside-down.
And everyone you know has “wisdom” for you…
cheer up! it could be worse…
you must not have worked hard enough…
what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…
these things happen…
They mean well. Well-meaning folks know what it feels like. Well-meaning folks think they’re giving you roses in these sentiments, but forget how thorny they are to receive. Until they get a well-meant bunch from you.
I love starting over. Clean slate. Fresh perspective. New life. It clears away the cobwebs of habit and routine and …normality (ewww!). Boredom. Endless sameness. There’s something gloomy-doomy about doing things the same way day after day after day…
Sometimes, a little death is just what the doctor ordered…so to speak.
Starting over is like life after death. Not the big “D” death that signals the end of this stage of your journey…but perhaps the death of a dream. The end of a road you’re traveling. The resounding voice telling you “None Shall Pass.”
Starting over means opportunity. It means beginning a new cycle, a new stage, a new way of being in the world. Starting over is facing the inevitable changes that come to you and affecting that change with your own intentions. That’s a mighty powerful place to be. You’re leading the parade.
Every living thing starts over. Birth-Life-Death, Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter, Sunrise-Noontide-Sunset-Midnight… each day, each moment, is a segment of the cycles of the universe, spinning out the web of Reality. In the words of Semisonic:
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
Grieve the loss of ‘What Was’…for a little while.
Starting over is a chance to celebrate What May Be… What Will Be…
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons that I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I’m going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don’t want to do so…I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.The Alchemist (Paolo Coelho)
Journal Entry dated 01132013:
After reading Alexandra Franzen‘s Two magic words for easy + painless truth-extraction, I tried the magic for myself:
I’m irritated with myself for not doing anything meaningful since my sabbatical in the desert. Things at work kinda had hiccups when I got home. And we got to have the baby here on New Year’s Eve–she’s going to be a Big Sister next Summer! But Really? I still feel fragile & tired– I’m still recovering from surgery & my prior emotional/mental breakdown. I gained ground last year, then lost it again. But Really? What I do seems “never good enough.” Acknowledging lessons of the past feels too much like self-indulgence. I swim in those tidepools so often. I don’t cut myself any slack for it, either. But Really? I rebel against my own self-loathing by doing things that end up making me loathe myself: online social networks (friends?), games (patterns. always patterns), research (geo, para, eco, gyn, latin roots make me feel fine), sleeping (perchance to dream), movies/TV (to find out what “I” is supposed to look & feel like)… sleeping (food of the gods), eating (red velvet brings a little-girl smile)… I promised myself I’d eat healthier & get more exercise. But Really? I’m tired of fighting those battles against myself.
I give up. I’m thinking it’s time to Be Me. Accept & Love who I am, flaws and all. Stop fighting with myself over all the things that never seem to change, and use the time & energy I save for things that make me Happy. Peaceful. Joyful. But Really. I’m grateful for the folks who read this blog. Faithfully. (That part kinda blows my mind. Faith is something I struggle with.) One Fellow Blogger, Steve Tanner at Meanderings, (many thanks to you, Steve. Your blog keeps me centered.) honored me with the Liebster Award:
The Rules
1) Thank the one who nominated you.
2) Answer 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you.
3) Post 11 random facts about yourself.
4) Pass the award on to 11 other blogs, excluding the one that nominated you.
5) Pass 11 questions on to be answered by your nominees.
6) Paste the award picture in your blog.
The Answers
1) Do you have a hobby? Yes. Several, in fact. Needlework (crochet, cross stitch, tatting, etc) has been an obsession since I was a girl. Drawing & Painting, of course, and Photography. Movies. I love Bollywood!
2) What is your favorite animal? Men (ha ha). But Really? People…followed closely by my dog, Sadie. She’s got dreams of becoming a Therapy Dog & Canine Good Citizen Ambassador. She makes me crazy & sane all at the same time. She’s an American Pit Bull Terrier & my best friend.
3) What is your favorite book? Wow. All of them. Even the bad ones. Books smell like memories…
4) What is your favorite movie?At the moment, Aladin (2009 Eros Entertainment) (Bollywood Brilliance!)
5) What is your favorite television program?Warehouse 13. Sci-Fi Channel. I watch it streaming on Netflix.
6) What is your favorite music?Currently: Funk. and Wagner. (ha ha)
7) What is your favorite season? Autumn. Must be the Season of the Witch. (ha ha)
8) Do you have a favorite charity?Girls, Inc.This organization provides after-school programs for at-risk girls–science, nutrition, fitness, math, tutoring, self-reliance… everything a girl needs to know about being a Strong Woman. I volunteer in literacy through their Pen Pals program.
9) Do you have a personal crusade?Lots of them: Girls, Inc., Pitbull Awareness (Sadie’s my best friend, not a Vicious Breed), Mental Health Awareness, Art… Art is a Sacred Crusade.
10) What makes you laugh? People. My Granddaughter, especially.
11) Who is your favorite comedian?Bill Cosby. He’s the greatest. I was born on his birthday so that I could grow up watching Fat Albert. Hey-Hey-Hey…!
The Random Facts
1. My current fashion essential is a pair of vintage button earrings I picked up at Redux in Alameda…right next door to my favorite fashion outlet, Goodwill.
2. I’m a hidden-object game junkie. Seriously.
3. We have over 200 duckies around our place. (and not just for the baby.)
4. Honey is glorious food magic.
5. I believe I saw a UFO when I was about 11 or 12. I never told anyone.
6. I haven’t driven a car in almost 2 years. I walk, ride public transportation (bus, BART, etc.), or ride with someone else.
7. Deserts are beautiful in a secret way. You have to be there to recognize it.
8. Every spiritual program can lead to enlightenment, wisdom, transcendence.
9. Every spiritual program can lead to ignorance, hatred, destruction.
10. Go for what makes your heart leap. Nothing else matters.
11. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
The Notifications:
You. If you’ve read this far & not browsed on to the next item in your inbox, I hereby award you the Liebster Award. You’re my Hero! The rules are the same for you as for me:
1) Thank the one who nominated you.
2) Answer 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you.
3) Post 11 random facts about yourself.
4) Pass the award on to 11 other blogs, or invite your readers to step up to this challenge!
5) Pass 11 questions on to be answered by your nominees. (I’m asking the same as I answered.)
6) Paste the award picture in your blog.
7) Come back & share a link to your blog in the Comments below.
Happy New Year, Friend. Thanks for hanging around. I look forward to catching up with you.
