No more running on broken legs...

On Wednesday my divorce was finalized. After nine months of separation and fighting as hard as I could for reconciliation it came down to divorce. I’m heart broken. Feeling these feelings bring back so many past hurts that I’m tempted to revert to old ways of dealing with the loss and pain. For a few days I started down a familiar path of coping… I’ve traveled many times before…a path that always leads to greater pain and deeper injury. But this time…right at the brink of jumping off into another season of self medicating while running on broken emotional and spiritual legs, God comforted me and this time I listened to Him and changed my mind about the direction I was going. I turned around and after another few days of God ministering to my pain and loss I’ve come to understand what He wants me to do with this pain and loss. He wants me to glorify Him with it.

It is hard to take time to heal for real. But not as hard as trying to ignore pain and sorrow. I need time to feel the loss and know it’s depth…time to get back to the level path of God’s will for life, time to find my center and work through the processes needed to truly work through these hurts and changes. I’ve been plowed-under hundreds of times by ignoring pain, sorrow, and loss. Ignoring my needs led to depression, panic, anxiety, insomnia, fat and disease. Not this time. This time I will heal for real.

My body will deal with this pain and injury. That’s certain. And now I know that it will deal with it in a healthy way or a very unhealthy way. I’ve suffered ignored emotions and I’ve run on broken emotional and spiritual legs. On the outside I look resilient, strong, and filled with faith. But in the secret…sometimes even hidden from myself I’ve suffered. I’ve suffered and suffered and suffered and people I love have suffered and suffered and suffered because I did not understand the nature of my injuries. Because there were times when I could not feel them because I either kept busy or I used medications or other things to self medicate the pain I brought more suffering upon myself and others I love.

I’m not going to do it again. It will seem hard hearted to some…that I say no and won’t go into emotional situations, situations that I’m not ready for or I don’t have the strength to resist outside a very firm maybe overly stated “No.” My “No” will anger some and they will strike back at me for saying “No.” but I am going to say “No” anyway.

I’ve given into to other’s demands of me in the past and it has harmed me terribly and done them no good either. And so if others do become angry at me because of my “no” I’ll understand it and say “no” anyway.

I’m not slamming my head in the door again. I’m going to give myself time and rest to really processes through all the loss and change. I refuse to mask my pain and sorrow. I refuse to excuse away my loss and the difficulty of all this change. I refuse to make it easier for others who refuse to respect my boundaries because they think my doing what they want will make them happy or make things easier for them. It does not make them happy because they are not happy within themselves and my medicating their ignoring their needs for healing and time to process through grief does not help them.

There’s a good book helps me through the process. It’s a good book for everybody to read because knowing when to say yes, when to say no, and how to take control of the lives we are given is not easy. Henry Cloud and John Townsend wrote a marvelous book called Boundaries. I highly recommend it. I’ll certainly be going back to it and working on my own healthy boundary-setting and skills toward holding my healthy boundaries.

In my relationships I will let others know when they are loosing sight of my boundaries and trying to push past what is healthy for me for their own demands. That’s not good for them and it’s not good for me. And it is my job to make sure my boundaries are respected and obeyed. I take care of me. Others take care of them. If they don’t know what boundaries are, what boundaries are necessary and important then they are far more danger of being hurt than I am because they don’t know how to protect themselves either. That is some good that can come from my learning this lesson. I can help them understand my boundaries and teach them what their boundaries are how to make sure they are holding the line in their own lives. So we all have our own work to do.

I Am Who I Am

Today I'm going around to family members and getting vital information on Mother and Daddy because I need an affidavit of heir ship th prove that I am their daughter and the only heir to their properties. It's been a difficult process. I've always taken for granted that I am who I am...Shirley's daughter...taken from her by Bell County and placed in a separate adoptive home from my brothers. Then I was adopted by mother and daddy and I've been their only child ever since. Today I have to prove who I am.

Then something else came to me...I have to be prepared to prove whose I am all the time! Nobody is going to take my word for it...nor should they. God's word says to test everything...even things that seem obvious...always test them. God commands it so we will not be easily drawn astray. Does Bell County know that I am the only heir to my parents. They do, but by law (also ordained by God) I am called to give evidence to support my claim to being their heir.

The world commands the same thing. I am who I am and am given ample opportunities to give evidence in that stead day and night.

Praise God!

I can't believe it!

I'm IN! I can't believe it. Somehow I lost my access code and could not for the life of me get back in. Friday finally just sent it to me and here I am!

Goodness a lot has happened since Friday's birthday!!! And here it is in the middle of the night and I don't have the energy to catch up. Tomorrow...I promise. I've saved my access information in a better place....I'll catch it up tomorrow....tomorrow....tomorrow.....(nite).
Seriously

Friday's Birthday

Oh my! I had so much I wanted to say about Friday's birthday but now all I can do is sit here and smile. How dear it is to have her here nearby where I can enjoy her and share these special days.

Free Form Role Play

I know it's been ages since my last post but I somehow managed to lock how to log onto the site out of my mind and then pride

It started on a fall evening. "Friday" was home from school for the weekend and typing feverishly on her computer. I remember my first reaction was how much her typing speed had improved! As I peered over her shoulder I noticed she was in a chat room. Dialogue from other members of the room scrolled gently up the screen.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's role play," she answered, her voice somewhat distant as if she simply glimpsed back to answer a mundane question out of the cloud of dramatic fantasy unfolding on the screen.

I looked closer. Her "character" was "Rylana" and this was the "Red Dragon Inn" on American Online. She gave stage directions in between double sets of colons (::Rylana crosses the room, her cloak billowing along the oaken floors as she walks::)

What fun! I sat and watched for hours as she attracted one character after another and they carried on short conversations. Turned out this role playing could be as complicated or as detailed as the writer wished. In time I began exploring the world of role play myself and created a character I called "Pomona of Elm Glen." That was simply ages ago but from time to time I get in a creative itch and wander through the role play world looking for a good story line. This last Saturday I sent out a missive to a character with whom I lost contact over five years ago. To my surprise, yesterday I received this response:

"A white pigeon with oddly viridian (a durable bluish green) eyes falls, more than wings, exhausted into the limbs of a stately elm. In extremity, its feet fail to grasp first one, then another branch. The ungraceful flailing of wings and scrabbling against bark attract the attention of a predator as the bird at last manages to cling to the next to lowest bough. Beak open, feathers tattered, her glazing eyes slowly blink, unaware of the housecat that even now stalks toward the tree and easy prey."
This morning I responded:
"She carries the last of the daily watch fire ash to the bin. Agatha, the portly yellow tabby and self-appointed mistress of the walled dwelling escorts her human across the cobbled way. Pomona talks as they walk, then realizes she no longer has audience. A poor tattered pigeon, yonder in one of the father elms has called upon the marauder instinct in Agatha who now crouches and inches her chubby self along. As long as the bird stays on its limb it is in no mortal danger. But then it looses its grip and topples to the ground, lying silently as its fate arrives in one pounce. Something strikes Pomona like the peeling of the bell that once stood above the dwelling. A sudden terror strikes her. She leaps after Agatha, gathers the nape of the animal’s fur and pulls it off her prey. Thankfully Agatha has only begun to toy with her prize. As Pomona lifts the limp little body a current travels up her arms. The bird opens its eyes and Pomona sees the odd bluish green color. Immediately she begins to pray. It must be a missive…but from whom?"

Now we wait to see if the character will play or not. It's a very interesting process. Once I played alongside a player for three years until he tired of it and allowed his character to be killed during the border wars outside Rhydin.

After so many years of play I decided to put together a story about Pomona, her family, and the world from which she comes. I called it “The Sisters of Eselgroth.” I suppose if I had a very good editor and one with a great deal of passion for my plight I might one day put the story into print. That’s for providences’ hand for the moment.

And thus ends another day,
Seriously

Simplicity

“Friday” tells me that to be a truly successful blogger I must blog! I’ve got to keep it fresh. I have to keep it moving. Imagine that. All this fuss, all this activity; so busy; so useful; so industrious! It strikes me as funny that the term “blog” is not in my word-processor dictionary. Interestingly still is that words “word-processor” are not in my word-processor dictionary either. As I type I must constantly update the dictionary to accept these new fangled words or be plagued with colorful squiggly lines that communicate that I’ve mistyped … or possibly mistyped (you know our politically correct society would never actually come out and confront another on their errors!) AND these visual cues present me with an unfinished, uncertainty to my document, plaguing me until I find some way to correct it. Problem is, sometimes I change the document to appease the squiggly line gremlins only to find that the grammatical structure of my sentences have gone south. Ah! Progress! When you are as visually stimulated as I am, colored squiggly lines under your text will never do.

So here we are in our “convenience” dominated culture which demands we come up with more and more complexity in order to live “easier” lives. Or should I say, culture with demands up with which we come?” Grammar is such a confusing animal! Anyway! How is a thing easier when to engage it you must make your life more complicated?

It is the young who come up with all these new fangled ideas about what is and what is not convenient, what is and what is not “easy,” what is and what is not complicated, what is and what is not … boring. And THERE is the rub! Youths today (and yes, I do mean you “Friday”) can not stand to be bored. Sitting still with nothing to do … simply contemplating the universe and all its wonders is not on the contemporary list.

This week “Friday” commented that I truly have lost my faith in change. I suppose she’s right. When you get nearly fifty, change is that which creates an imbalance which can take up a month to correct. I suppose in earlier years change brought on a fresh newness to a dull and boring existence. Particularly if you lived in a third-world-country in the heart of agriculturally dominated central Texas!

But that is my lot, to live a dull boring life, one day at a time, in the monotonous drone of sun-rise-sun-set. But then again, it’s not so terribly intolerable to live this day-in-day-out existence. In the midst of this cycle God has blessed me with variegated threads of experience. My life has been anything but dull. Perhaps it is that fact that brings me to the place where I thirst after quiet and cling to simplicity. Not an easy feat in the face of such an upwardly mobile society as this. So I’ll comply with updating my word-processor dictionary every few sentences, put an alarm on my outlook to alert me to “blog for goodness sakes!” since to fail to do so is a poor … something, and then secretly cling to simpler quieter easier ways of days gone by.

And thus is another day in the life of Seriously.

testing

this is a test of the emergency blogging network. (actually, Seriously's daughter, fridaynightgirl, has hijacked the blog for the moment during some testing. Please be patient as we take a leave from sanity and enter Crazyville.)