So I thought I had escaped...

I have been avoiding church since two weeks before Thanksgiving. I have a major issue with family gathering holidays, so November and December are difficult. I became handicapped almost 4 years ago, and cannot put on any family dinners - heck, I can't even clean my own house. I didn't want to hear any Christmas carols or hear about the season. I don't have the money to help other people and I can't be up long enough to even visit others who don't have anyone. So I decided to treat the season as though they were just regular days, like August the tenth, etc. It worked pretty well when I wasn't crying over what I couldn't have. I got interested in website and blog design projects, which were fun, and some counted cross stitch planning, also fun.

On Christmas Eve a phrase came to me that I wish I had paid more attention to earlier. I had a mentor who counseled me one Christmas season to say to myself: "This is not the Christmas I wanted, but this is the Christmas I have." I remember I said it over and over, and over, and I was able to find some enjoyment in what was possible given the limitations I was experiencing. And that, of course, is the trick....getting into the moment and mining what is there for the positive experiences that are possible. I did finally manage to have some good times.

I had the opportunity to spend a few hours watching my 2 and a half year old grandson play, and got to hold my 3 day old granddaughter for ten minutes or so. Those were wonderful hours and minutes, and I can choose to focus on what I have or what I don't have - my choice -always my choice.

When I showed up at church on the second Sunday of the New Year I found out I had not escaped the New Years resolution operation at church...forms and pens were passed out. I took them but didn't even try to write anything. Resolutions were put into envelopes, so that after they were prayed over for the year, they could be mailed back to us in December so we could see what all had transpired over the year. It is a really nice project, byt sometimes I have a hardness in my heart and I don't want to be vulnerable. At those times I don't want anyone to know anything about me, and I don't want anyone to pray for me or look into my eyes and give me a hug. At those times I want to be alone...but there are other times when it doesn't hurt to be close to someone, times when I can imagine more good things in my life again. So I guess my New Year's resolution for 2010 needs to be to appreciate family holidays as they come, and let my expectations go....I still have the forms and the envelope...

A New Beginning

There is a book called Each Day a New Beginning. It is a book of daily readings that I haven't read in years - yet the title stays with me whenever I have a positive outlook. I get to experience each day, and I can sometimes choose how I experience it. I am told that I can do that every day, and every hour and minute of every day. I don't know if that is true or not. At the moment I am having a good day, but I recognize that it would probably be a lot different if I were to do certain activities. And I woke up feeling good, rather than feeling depressed. What I guess I am saying is that sometimes I am living in a different world. Sometimes I am living in the world of suffering, and while in that world I don't experience a positive outlook - in fact, a positive outlook sounds really stupid.

I need to come up with a way to clue myself into the knowledge that I am in the suffering world when I am in it, and that there is another world available to be that will give me a different experience of the same situation. When I'm not in it, I know the suffering world is not real, but when I am in it, I don't have that idea - when I am in it, it is the only real thing, and anything else is just nuts. There must be something I can do to create the idea that I can shift out of this mode, but I don't know what all that is.

I bought some press-on dots to leave around to remind me, but I haven't used them. When I am not suffering I don't need that dots and don't think of them. I guess I had better do that.

I found an exciting group that I am going to try to join...an online group who are cross stitching the Lavender and Lace Celtic Ladies. I started them a few years ago, and just got them back out a couple of weeks ago when my son was talking to me about doing a birth sampler for his soon to arrive daughter - well, she arrived on Christmas Eve evening, and I keep thinking and thinking about what to do. I can't find my cross stitch software - my son wants a fairy, but will settle for an angel if I insist. I have a Lavender and Lace fairy, but she is huge. I thought maybe I could scale her down to a do-able size if I had the software. I went on line to look and now don't know what to get - I don't know if I should get the pro or the regular and which of the two programs I see out them to try...and of course I am in the middle of learning two different kinds of website construction, which I also love. It is pouring opportunities right and left!