Clearing out the Blackberry Brambles

Our backyard and the chicken coop 

The ease of enjoying life is returning.  I am most surprised at how much the last month's stressors had worn on my body and my mind.  It is refreshing to laugh easily and to enjoy a casual meal with friends and not feel paranoid.  We are working on our backyard and garden building right now.  Playing in the dirt, and creating an even more comfortable home have been wonderful tonics to all the anxiety.  Plus a healthy dose of relaxation, including easing off of work for a bit, getting a massage, and many naps, has snapped my psyche back into place.  Thank you to my patient and sweet husband, for loving me through the good times and the bad.  You are my rock, my true love, and the best gift I have ever received from the Universe.  Gabby, having you as our roommate is a blessing.  I am so grateful for you!!!

The theme of the last year for this blog has definitely been relationships.  Parental, friendship, my desire to have a baby.  My blogging has been a sort of public journal, and allowed me a space to feel heard, without saying too much to any one person.  I am grateful to have such a space.  I am an avid fan of psychological therapy.  Exploring my own mind has been a great joy to me.  It is only in the last year that I have realized that not many friendships are set up for this type of truth sharing or truth seeking.  I once thought that all friendships were the same.  I once fancied myself a good friend to many.  I now realize that there are friends I share and we come together, well, just for the party (as my friend Silver likes to say).   Then there are friendships I have based on truth sharing, but with a healthy set of boundaries.  Depending on the person, depending on the relationship, our boundaries may change with time and situation.

Today is my dad's birthday.  He is very angry at me right now, for reasons unknown to me.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he has an untreated bipolar disorder.   I wish things were different.  I wish I could give him his gift in person.  I wish we could be friends with healthy boundaries.  Another thing Silver often says is, "Never put anything in writing."  I wish I did not have to write this down, but I must, for it is my truth.

Happy Birthday Dad.  I love you.  Since you will not see me today, I am going to a NAMI meeting tonight.  National Association of Mental Illness.  It is time to explore this condition you have, so maybe I can be a better friend to you.

Grown Folks Social Club

The timeout that comes with a vacation, even a short one, has been very needed.  It is Saturday afternoon, and I am watching my husband nap, after eating a decent meal, with some interesting people I am lucky to know.  It seems in the course of 24 hours, I have transcended feeling sorry for myself and leapt back into a state of gratitude.  I am blessed to have some smart, savvy, and sensitive people to call my friends.  They are quite possibly the best part of my life.

The last week was fraught with hospital visits for Dad, an altercation at work caused by my taking things too personally, and many emotional upheavals as I watch my dad descend further into depression and anger around his illness.  It is not an easy time.  It is, surprisingly, the best time to reconnect with those that inspire me most.  I am very blessed to know some witty, outrageously kind people and I have much to learn from them.  My friends remind me it is fun to be sassy, but it is as important to be kind.  For that, I thank them.  

I am an emotional person.  Folks at work say I take things too personally, and my loved ones at home are used to my tears (of both happiness and sadness).  This is a blessing during the good times, and a curse during the difficult ones.  I spent most of my 20's in survival mode after a chaotic childhood.  My survival mode followed the ethos of when the going gets tuff, the tuff go clubbing.  My 30's have been about hard work - getting myself through nursing school, starting a career, and being a partner in my marriage.  As I succeed in these endeavors, the survivor's guilt that sticks around because of my chaotic childhood and present elder care situation creeps back in.  I feel bad celebrating the loveliness of my life, when someone I love still suffers.  Guilt reminds me of blackberry bushes.  Prickly, overbearing, and hard to ignore when you step into the middle of it.  You need leather gloves and a lot of time to pull that weed out of your garden.  Plus, in order to rid it totally, you have to pull it out by the root.  That is where the lesson of the Grown Folks comes into play.  

The Grown Folk is an individual who celebrates all the good in her, and keeps pulling at the roots of the bad stuff.  She is a woman who celebrates her friends successes, and does not envy.  She is a friend who protects those she loves when they are raw.  She is a daughter who extends her helping hand, as long as it is not bitten.  She is a sister who offers love in the form of guidance, not in the form of enabling.  Being a Grown Folk is not an easy task, made even harder when the roots of guilt still exist, and the temptation to fall into sullenness or depression lingers loudly in the corner.  The perks of being a Grown Folk are noteworthy however.  Music sounds sweeter because of the memories associated with it.  Love tastes stronger, because of the bonds that are formed with it and the good times are so much better, because of the friends you share them with.