Time to Reboot

Well, two years later, it may be time to start writing again. We are safely back home in Florida, trying to piece things back together from the insanity of the last three years.

Let's see where we go.

homesick

How could a well-intentioned story have gone so wrong?

Now we are back in junior-high days, nyeh nyeh nyeh, I don't like you so I won't invite you to my party. Nyeh nyeh. Until your eagle-eyed co-worker says, where were you guys Saturday night?

THIS is what we totally uprooted our lives for? THIS is what we went broke for? THIS is what you are really all about?

Now I want to go home. Except there is no home to go to.

Where it all went wrong

Finally, the Big Talk.

About the huge mistakes. About where we could have turned it around. About the truth of our intentions in deciding to come West.

About the Mess we are in right now.

Big talk, big emotions, big fears and regrets. Big big pain.

And somehow, a big clearing from risking to go there. And a kind of reordering. MH, mortified with shame at being broke and unable to provide for his wife. And at the same time, stating, I would rather be sitting here, broke, with you than be anywhere else.

So now, to focus and find my strength to ride beyond the myopic expectations here.

I'm here, but not here. My future, my family's security, is whirling around out there, somewhere. I told my husband, used to be I was caught in the middle between you and my daughter, holding some kind of balance, but we were all under one roof. Now I am caught in the middle, from one end of the country to the other. So guess what, I am going to lead the way to find a more sane balancing point. Since I'm the one in the middle, let's find a better middle spot.

And so I will explore a new process - applying for faculty positions - anywhere east of here.

And get back to engaging life, powerful waves of life.. and my true resonant frequencies.

I've worked through so many IMpossibilities, with so few resources, certainly I can find my way to that big wave and ride it again.

For me and my family.

Hold Space, Not Stories

For some folks, life becomes a spectator event. Grueling dramas grip them and they spend their energy creating and projecting stories about these events. They don't even have to play a role in their stories, though the favored default role is that of victim, however that connects them to the story in front of them.

Their energy is all out there. They are nowhere to be found in themselves.

It's easier that way.

What is it like to be on the other side of that dynamic? To be under the spotlight of their relentless examination - and amplification? To be held accountable for living into their expectations of some undefined plot line? To be stripped of personal identity and scolded for what they have defined you to be?

It's awful.

Stories can help us integrate different information into familiar patterns. As we learn and grow, our stories are meant to mature and expand, as we come to understand that the world is a very diverse place.

Stories are not meant to be rigid containers that every unknown must be stuffed into. Restrain the unknown! Shove it into a small, safe box and then make judgments about it when the contents don't fit!! Chop off bits until it's all crammed in there - then you don't have to think about it, just label it.

We're not obliged to integrate every unknown thing in front of us. That's what our higher order processing centers decide on, based on memory and value systems. Sometimes we gaze at the unknown and let it go. But when we have to interact with a strange beast, say, at work, then we must come to some field of neutral agreement and find the interactive path that works. Without demanding that the unknown change to fit our myopia.

To do so, the storyteller must be present in themselves, know their own stories and how they engage the world from that core. Then a space is created for something new to evolve, for learning and growth to occur.

It's scary when you don't know your own self. Or inhabit your own stories.

And from the other side, encountering this thrashing tantrum of projection, the task is how to hold your own space, hold that projection at bay, and not engage the fabrication.

Which usually provokes a greater tantrum and outlandish accusations.

Can you see how this takes everyone away from the task at hand and into counterproductive drama?

It is a heavy weight to bear, that of projected stories. How much healthier it would be to hold space: space for individuals to land in themselves, space for projected nonsense to just spin its wheels in its own vortex of confusion, space for the authentic individual trying to dodge the nonsense.

Space for authentic interaction.

Which heals the world.

Next time, whether you are the storyteller or the storycatcher, step aside for a moment to imagine holding space, and let the stories go.

tsunami of changes

In three weeks, we will close on the Florida house.

This happened about 10 minutes after I signed the lease on an apt for my daughter and started moving her in.

Soon, soon it will be done.

Meantime, I am back in school for the grand finale. Case Management finishes April 24. Thesis project finishes April 15. Final weekend June 6-8. School is brutal. No time to work with this going on.

Work is... ? Busy at one clinic, busy on the road...

Life is... difficult out here. MH in too much confusion with jobs. He needs a bright star to resonate to, something that honors his skills and commitment. He needs an anchor. He needs the right job. This is causing much distress, internally for him and externally for us.

Life is.. also good out here. I can feel the glimmers of a real home out there somewhere. There is a gentle dissolving from FL and a soft "pat pat" come sit here emerging in MT.

Transitions are.... very active. My mother fell, accompanied by the nursing aide, and broke her neck. Just enough to create more obstacles for herself. Will one of them be the hair-trigger that liberates her?

So we sit, not quite daring to look at the closing straight on, but feeling the edges of these changes. Feeling our situation here begin to change. Feeling like we might be landing after all.

Resurrection

I think it's beginning. After two months here (or mostly here), I think it's starting to happen. Yesterday I left Wisconsin with a sense of the old life, form and rhythm in shambles around me, but also the very first glimmers, deep underground, of what might be waiting to emerge.

The one consistent grief is missing my daughter. I would rather be right there, part of her life, even though it's so volatile at times.

That grief has to let go of the house, so it can move on to its next family. I need to start feeling that process, cleaning out for good, handing over keys, saying goodbye. Not feeling the weight of responsibility there anymore.

Somewhere it is perfect that I landed here at the cusp of winter; early darkness the invitation to snuggle in. Snuggle in me but move with it, too. Sort through the debris, pick out the glimmers. Huge work to be done while the mountains stand guard.

Is this what happened in the cave, with the boulder rolled in front of it, for those 3 profound days?

Just Stop

So yesterday was the tipping point. Had a bodywork session at L's insistence, and wow, the last thing she got to was my beleagured, nerve-damanged right hand... and there was the "STOP" energy I've never been allowed to claim my entire life. Stop! Enough already! Palm up and force out. That's it, we're done with this.

And I beamed it at: My Husband, for this ridiculous behavior; My Daughter, for whining and moping around and blaming me; My Self, for same behavior; My FL House: for gods sake already, quit moping and get your new owners in. And wherever else I could point that palm.

And I went home and lo and behold there was mh and it was time to get things back on track. Which might take a while, but at least we started. And what a difference talking to my daughter this morning, all energetic and focused, happy I'll be there next weekend.

The energy in our tiny apt feels adjusted, spinning, more familiar. I feel more familiar. Now we can get going.