no more

absence
I’ve been absent recently. Haven’t we all? Absence is requisite these days. It’s essential to life.
But, absence of self is not the intention. The purposeful and social absence we are experiencing has shown us the importance of distancing from the pressures we have created for ourselves. For the first time since my mother inhabited this neighborhood where I now live, have I known that my neighbors have children, cars, animals…it’s eerily reminiscent of decades prior. Times when we played outside until the sun went down, and hung out in the driveway with family.
This is clearly a self intentioned moment in time. A time to reflect and be peaceful and to relinquish the “must dos” and the “I really shoulds”, and instead to allow oneself permission to simply be.
Absence. Yes, I am absent today. I am not ill. I am not skipping out. I am just absent.
And, it is really, really, really, ok…

love you long time…
Do you have a situation that requires great decisions and reflections? A situation that feels like it will never be resolved and, more importantly, a situation that feels like it is uniquely yours that no one else could possibly relate to….???
Of course, you do. You are human. And it sucks a whole f’ing lot of the time. And you wonder…”Am I the only one who…(fill in the blank)?” No, you definitely are not.
But, that doesn’t make your situation unimportant. In fact, it makes it perfectly relevant.
Why? because, believe it or not, we all relate. Someway, somehow. We are all dealing with S#$t, and we all have to go to work, take care of children, take care of our parents, do a job we hate, do chores we dislike and work with people we might not necessarily choose to work with….Damn it, just take care of f’ing everything!
IT. IS. HARD. PERIOD.
And, you know what? we have to keep doing it. Just like our great-grandparents did. Like our grandparents did. And, maybe our parents. Keeping a stiff upper lip isn’t necessarily bad. Wearing our crap on our sleeves all the damn time, is heavy. It is counterproductive. It is useless. How does it aid in solving our personal crimes, our maladies, our misgivings? It doesn’t. Because, as my daughter might say, most people only care about themselves.
Does that hurt? Too bad. Because it’s true. Most people only think about how almost everything relates to them. Their pain, their joy, their heartaches, their victories. YUP. True. All of it true. We like to think that others are concerned with our well being. Some are, but most are not. We are all self-consumed. The truth is difficult.
Take some time to love YOU, and you will be amazed at your ability to reach beyond yourself to love others and genuinely care about them. And, maybe, just maybe, all of that S#$T might be bearable…My experience is that, yes, being selfless yields positive results…Just saying…

Perserverance

In a fishbowl, we are
glug, glug
drowning in our own dirty water. unchanged. in need of clarity.
there seems to be “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide”. anymore.
we are at the mercy of intrusive onlookers, videobloggers, critics, judgers…no one is given a pass. anymore.
we are subject to abject criticism. we are exposed. and not necessarily truthfully. we are not allowed privacy. anymore.
well, I say NO mOrE. anymore.