The Wind Is Out Of My Sails

A couple of my creatively influential facebook friends have been doing poems, so I got in the mood...

The Wind Is Out Of My Sails
I am not nothing
After I write
Or take a hot bath
Or walk the woody paths.

But right now in my life
I am nothing.
My days pass, blend together

I am bored
My mind is listless at times
Facebook, yahoo, tv, movies
Ah, but not a real life

Every so often
I take care of my soul ~
I journal my three pages
I uncover more unhappy crap
I dive within
I take the time
I have good realizations

And yet, I am not moving on
I am still here
Still wishing to begin
The next part of my life
I have sad moments
Sad I am not whole, not healed
I hope I am
Someday

In these moments of this life
I am bored
I know myself.
Slowly, slowly
I dig myself out
I see the unhappy, the unrest within

I am strong
I have vision
I need to remember these good things
Then the good will come,
Will keep coming

My life is not so bad,
Not so sad and listless
The wind is out of the sails ~~
Not for long!

A.Santana/M. Reede

A What-If Exercise

How many people know who the author SARK is? I adore her!! (yes, truth be told, I’m a little sarkette!) Lately, I’ve been napping a lot and reading a bit too…I still owe money to the library so I haven’t gone in about two months… I’ve been good about journaling at least two times a week, and sometimes more. In the spirit of SARK’s braveness and always encouraging us to be ever more creative, I did a couple What-Ifs. Here’s part of that recent journal entry:

I keep thinking what ifs. What if I give up sugar, dairy, flour? How can I even do this? Why do I think these things are who I am? Why is it so hard for me to separate the crap from me – to peel the crap away? Ugh. Makes me sad for myself! If I did peel the crap away, I’d like myself, I’d be able to move back to the ocean. I’d be able to be a published author.

What if I went walking for one hour every day for a week? For a month? What the hell am I so afraid of? I don’t even like all this fat, this “wait” that keeps an extra guest room in the house of my body. It runs the castle. Now ruins. It keeps me from so much more! If I did walk for one hour every day for even a week I would like myself so much more. I would even be proud of myself. And if I did it for a whole month I’d be super happy to get rid of the excess that is just begging to come off!

(I did walk for one hour last night, the day after I wrote that…and it helped me feel so much better about more than just my body!)

How Do I Ride The YES Wave?

My question – how long do we take to heal? How long does it actually take besides forever?

I have so much to do. It’s a lot. Easy to avoid the creative stuff – that’s another way of staying stuck in the victim/abused mentality or energy. I totally could do this creative stuff. I could totally make things work, make my life great again by getting myself creatively out into the world! I could send in my first chapter of Losing Little Guy to The Sun. Or somewhere else. I totally could take great pictures and submit them. That would be fun for me. I would love to learn how to ride the YES wave!

How do I ride the YES wave?

How do I stay in that energy? By living simply and taking care of myself daily. By sleeping enough. When I hear a no or struggle with having energy to do something, I can work through it. To crawl towards yes. It’s so sad when we get like this. Yet every good thing is one great thing for creative us.

There are so many things I would absolutely love to do again. Like paint poems of all these sucky men I’ve met. Then maybe someday I’ll be writing real love poems again (like I used when I was infatuated with college boys). Ha – life is so funny! (Written May 18, 2010)

This Place I Am In

(Part of my journal entry from last night…) I’m inbetwixt being afraid and totally trusting. Trusting things will work out great this time and I’ll actually move toward the good life I desire. I’m generally doubtful whenever I lose a job or when things change like I have to move from Florida to Minnesota (never the other way around, ha!).

Sad things are happening on all my television shows. Sad that I’m so close to them, to these characters. They are like my friends. Okay. I need to get out more, and with my daughter.

I can’t even say or feel it’s sad I never do anything here (in Minnesota). I never expect anything else up here. I tell myself it’s going to be better this time, this time is going to be the trick, the different time. It never is. I get so easily bored. I’m sad for myself yet I have little expectations up here. I am just bland of feelings, of expecting good things up here. Is it better to have no expectations, to simply accept how lifeless things are? I used to say in Miami, “I have no life” yet I had more of one there than here. I had no life because I’m a single mom only taking care of my daughter and doing the simple things in life like working and caring for my daughter and whatever home I live in. I started saying “I have no life” after I got divorced, after forcing myself to move up here rather than try harder to make it on our own because that was too damn hard.

And it isn’t even that I’m tired. I feel lifeless. Void of feeling excitement. I feel life when I create something. Like over two months ago when I got a new writing client from Miami.

I felt so vibrant in Miami. Sort of in the Florida Keys, too, but not as much. For whatever reason, I need to live on my own. My life force gets sucked out of me when I live with others. My friend I lived with for two months last fall in the Keys did this. I have so few friends, yet I know this friend isn’t good for my spirit, and neither is my ex. Why I am so on the fence? Why am I so bored that I can’t simply close these two doors and walk away for good? I have no idea, except that I do things which do not serve me. All of my, and mostly my creative self.

Why do I not do what I desire? Like I’ve waited for so long to be a famous author (like SARK or anyone!) but I must be so internally afraid I just run the other way. I need to get back on the Marcia Wieder wagon! To say yes to life again. To map out all the steps to make every dream come true!

So what if my life is a little quieter than I’m used to or I like. So I take this time to truly focus on me, fix my body, lock in on these oh-so-precious years with my daughter! There are so many things I want to do with her.

Time to get back to me. These days I’m clearing out and organizing my space. Welcome back to me! It’s okay to stay a while in this quieter me. (Written May 21, 2010)

When Did I Stay Stuck?

Are only bad things happening in my week? Has this been a bad week, bad month, bad year? Relentlessly, why do I find this a bad place to live? Interesting. Monday morning I lost my job. I hadn’t had it for all that long. When I started it on the solstice at the end of last year, I felt blessed. Truly, it was the only solid thing anchoring me to stay here in Minnesota. So now that anchor was hurled out into the vast ocean, which is ironically where I want to return to.

I love love love the ocean. It’s been so healing for me. Life has proven to be a challenge for me for quite some time, even before my daughter was born, October 29, 2003. I’m such an odd duck in my family. I’m a free spirit. I’ve worked hard to moor myself loose from all the crap I was splattered with growing up. I’ve learned countless lessons by diving in and afterwards realizing it would have been better to run like hell (my ex-husband). I’ve also led more than a delightful life.

It’s such a mix at times like this. Inwardly, I’m churning and have anger at my present situations. Losing this job, and even though I chose it because asked, having to live here in Minnesota dims my wattage. At times like this, I also allow myself to realize I could walk a different way. I could be positive and this could be the time I walk into my perfect life. I have to chuckle at myself. I’ve been in a funk of ugh and unhappiness for a while, even before moving back here. Yet I have sooooooo many beautiful tools to rebuild myself again. I’d been seriously working on rebuilding myself for some time now, really, since I left my ex. It was devastating with him. I’ve learned tremendous amounts about myself since then.

And yet right now in my life I can see I’ve been choosing to stay stuck. Stuck and unhappy – in my fat body, in my not knowing what to do next with my life, in trying to figure out what I can do to “get it together” or motivate myself to do the same. You name it, I’m stuck. I do feel I had more before we moved back here…but then there are solid reasons I’m back here. I had the ocean, so I’ve brought it back with me, go visit it, have pictures reminding me of it. I’ve had spirit and a fun, spontaneous life.

I am realizing it’s up to me. If I shift my negative thoughts into what the next small step is to get into living the life I want, then I know I’m going to make it. Of course life can be beautiful again. It has been for many of my pasts moments. Thank you to all who care about me. A special thank you to those who encourage and inspire me to take the time to do my creative stuff. It’s been so much easier for me to give up, to say no and just not even start. These days, I must just take that next small step. And BELIEVE! I know I’ll love life again soon!

Missing My Old Life

I used to be so sad, so depressed. In those times, my moments were filled with thoughts of what I had lived that I still held dear to my heart. Grand people and grand experiences make a lasting impression on my heart. This could be because I grew up not very confident in myself around the opposite sex. Yes, I believed in myself in many other areas and I grew up to be smart. It’s not the same to have inside you being comfortable with others in romantic relationships. I simply didn’t have many. And then I began picking the wrong men. Ah, for all the tender hearts out there…

In sad moments, why I think about things I already lived that I loved for so long? I love Pablo Neruda’s line loving is so short, forgetting is so long. This follows me after these wrong men already climbed into my heart and I had to eventually untangle myself from them. I never saw myself as someone who had only bad things happen, or more bad things happen in her life than good things. Still, as I’ve grown older I’ve opened up more and chosen beautiful, spontaneous adventures. They’ve made me feel truly alive. In these sad times, I’m grateful I have a few grand memories. Yet at the end of the day, the sadness still sometimes pours over.

I allow myself to reflect on the beautiful things I’ve lived which have already vanished. Life is okay. It’s not great, and it’s certainly no longer horrible. It is only my life right now. I have to keep telling myself to no longer wish for the things I miss. Right now I won’t be able to make some of the choices I might like to. I have my daughter. I also have my parents who are coming to rely on my daughter and I in small yet profound ways. It saddens me to be akin to many who settle for an unfulfilling life, where perhaps choices aren’t ours to make. There must be waves in our lives where we do things for others, not entirely living our own lives. Not that I’m losing myself in my life right now. I am starting to make the choices I can to continue the good work I’ve started, living a good life. A more authentic life. To walk more lightly on my path.

For years, I’ve been mindful it’s a good practice to be in the now, to be grateful for my right now. I practiced this in small ways. The ocean helped me heal and appreciate life more, even the things that were not so good. In my transition now, I put one foot in front of the next. I can’t make grand plans for myself, my life, my heart. I can hold my heart’s desires inside my heart and walk toward them. I hold my tender feelings gently and lovingly, breathing life into them again. Breathing life into my journey of right now.

Worn Out Friday Night

Wow, it’s Friday night. I’ve had an incredibly long week at work. I’m watching this week’s episode of Private Practice. It’s tearing me up. I think for such a long time I have been sort of in limbo. Working (sometimes not very greatly) at being able to live – to work, to all alone take care of my now six year old daughter, to keep up the place we’re able to live in at the time. And then there’s my spirit. Perhaps that’s what the tears are about. I sooooo feel I haven’t had a life, haven’t been allowed to have a life. Yes, I’ve had a life. But the expected things I do haven’t nourished my soul, my spirit. Listening to others has added to the emptiness inside me.

At this time, I’m not able to live anywhere on my own. So many parts about being a single mom are hard and a challenge every day. One positive thing that has kept me moving forward to live a better life again is that I’ve lived such a rich life. I guess at times such as these, when I watch a show about characters on tv I love, it bring out the tenderest parts of me. I am sad for all my life is not. No romance (no more cabana boy – he was just an occasional sex call now and then anyways), no thin, healthy body with a zest for life, no money to travel adventurously in unknown territories. It’s as though there is no steadiness in my life. The big emptiness inside me (sadly, I am realizing it’s perhaps been there quite a long time) has leaked out in other ways, such as mindless hours on the computer chattering with other empty souls or watching lots of shows.

I’m ready to move on. I am allowed to embrace tenderly the sad parts of me. And yet, I embrace how good life could be again. In any case, I can keep remembering if I keep doing as much as I can for myself, I will be back into loving all parts of my life soon!