KIMBERLYS INSANITY

I think most people would look upon the quote, “Into each life, a little rain must fall,” with negative connotation.  I, however, have grown to love this quote and view it in the most positive of lights because I realize that rain is a good thing.  It waters natures plants and nurtures the earth, as well as all living things upon the earth.  Therefore I must assume that the creator of this quote was either a negative thinker or that his or her intention was misconstrued from the beginning. 

I sincerely hope that for anyone who reads this post, rain will fall into your life and nurture your world.

If I didn’t believe in divine intervention in the past, I certainly do now.  Why, you ask?  As those of you who know me or read my blog whenever I have time to publish will know, this has been an incredibly tough financial time for Brice and I.  This however, is no different from those of us in the rest of the country, and like so many in this country, am losing my home and not able to obtain much else in the way of employment other than my part time job of 2-1/2 years (which I love).

Here is where the divine intervention comes into play.  I have some neighbors next door, a couple, who have lived there for almost a year, and who have been great neighbors to have in the sense that they are quiet and fun to chat with when we have time to chat.  I have always felt that would have my back.  In fact, Barbara did have my back one day when the building inspector came around, but that’s another story.  I mentioned to Barbara one day in passing that they would be seeing a for sale sign going up in my yard soon because I opted for short sale as opposed to foreclosure.  I also told a few other neighbors that we are friendly with so that everyone would know what was going on.  They are all so kind and caring on this street.  The other day I received a voice message on my Lingo phone, so it was on the computer, from a person whose name I was unsure of.  She said in the message that she was the daughter of Barbara who lived next door to me, that she heard of my situation and wondered if I would call her back as she maybe had some options for us.  My first reaction was, “What?  Does this kind of thing still happen in this day and age?  In America?  Really?”  So I called her and not only found out who she was, but that we have a lot in common in so many areas of life that it was astounding, in sort of a Patty Duke Show kind of way (those of you under the age of 30 should Google this reference).  She said that she was going to take a six month business trip and needed someone to live in her home so she didn’t have to turn off utilities and could have someone looking after the place while she was gone, and was I interested.  OMG really?  This just came out of left field for us.  I was like, “Yes and thank you, whoever you are.”

The interesting part here is that merely hours before I received her message I was praying and talking to my mother (who passed away December of ‘09") and asking for someone to steer me in the direction I needed to be heading in to get where I’m supposed to be.  I have been out putting in applications at low income apartments (low income – yeah right), and checking ads on Craigslist and looking into bankruptcy and anything else I could think of.  I was running out of options but was not going to quit until I found a solution.  I was even thinking of having Brice live in the dorms in Douglas at his school while I lived in the truck for awhile.  I didn’t know that in this day and age (in a world where “trust” is a scary concept) that people like this still existed.  I can never thank these people enough, nor the divine intervention that put me on the right path, but I sure do believe and have learned a lot from this experience.

While sitting at my computer today doing mundane chores like paying bills, I received a phone call from a long time friend.  She is someone I have known for over forty years and through thick and thin we have always been able to talk about each others’ lives and share memories.  Lately, however, it would seem that between us, too many feelings are being hurt over small things.  Most would say that one or both of us are being “too sensitive,” a term I don’t quite understand.  I can say that personally, my friends, my boss, my family and anyone else I’ve encountered in my life has at one time referred to me as being “too” sensitive.

The good news is that today it finally dawned on me.  I have always been a victim of my past, and therefore very defensive and guarded around people.  In other words, I didn’t have much self-esteem.  To that end, the same can be said for my long time friend.  Thanks to an incredible medical intuitive, Caroline Myss, whose DVD’s I was fortunate to have listened to recently because of my friend Maria, we need to just get over it.  The past helps you figure out things as you grow, but it doesn’t have to live with you in the present.  She made a statement that really hit home with me.  She said, “Embrace loneliness.  Become good friends with it.  Take it out to lunch.”  This made a huge impact on me because I didn’t realize just how much I was fighting loneliness recently.  I could say it was because of my mom passing, my son graduating, menopause or that I don’t have a love interest in my life or many friends, but why?  Why make excuses for living in a place that brings constant sorrow and doubt?  No reason I can think of other than the fact that I’ve spent the better part of 40 something years conditioning myself to do so.  It was comfortable there.   It was what I knew.  The trick is to force yourself to live outside of your comfort zone.  Embrace the loneliness and fill it with healthy things in the here and now.  Peoples’ opinions of you should never matter more than your own opinion of you.

I can now laugh at my boss/friend, who always says to me, when I let myself get down in the muck, “Stop apologizing for breathing.”  This was exactly what I wanted to say to my friend on the phone tonight because the most frustrating part of our conversation was that no matter what I said, she was defensive and apologizing assuming that everything was her fault.  She said that I deserved a better friend and that she was sorry for not being that to me.  It was like someone held a mirror to my face during this conversation.  Sadly, I may never be able to relay this message to her while she is in this frame of mind because I’m sure it would be taken as her having done something else wrong. 

If you are reading this post and if anything here sounds all too familiar to you or hits home in any way, I highly recommend getting ahold of either some literature, video or audio cd’s by Caroline Myss.  She has changed my life in a way that I haven’t been able to do up to now, despite my efforts.  Below are some great quotes by Caroline Myss:

"If anyone tries to complicate your life,
turn and walk away from them."

"We grow primarily through our challenges,
especially those life-changing moments when we begin to recognize
aspects of our nature that make us different from the family
and culture in which we have been raised."

"When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves,
or when we intentionally create pain for others,
we poison our own physical and spiritual systems.
By far the strongest poison to the human spirit
is the inability to forgive oneself or another person.
It disables a person's emotional resources.
The challenge is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves
and to develop the power of forgiveness. "

"The soul always knows what to do to heal itself.
The challenge is to silence the mind."

"Do you really want to look back on your life
and see how wonderful it could have been
had you not been afraid to live it."

"The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time.
And that's why when one has become a forgiving person,
and has managed to let go of the past,
what they've really done is they've shifted their relationship with time.

  Do you now, or have you ever known, people who take the attitude that if they can’t or don’t understand certain aspects of your personality or your overall make-up, they tend to treat you as though you were less or even damaged because of it?  This has been happening to me quite frequently recently and at first I was dumbfounded by being treated so badly (which is what it felt like at the time) by someone I so desperately wanted to be friends with and in fact, considered to be a friend. 

I tried to justify it at first and rationalize that maybe I did something to piss this person off.  Sometimes people don’t understand the sensitive side of me, the artist and lover, the side that deals with tough situations through humor and sarcasm.  But then I thought, wait, why am I only looking at myself here?  There is no “blame” per se, more a lack of understanding, nay, empathy on both of our parts.  I finally realized that this was a person who was basically afraid of her sensitive side and saw it as a weakness, something she couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate in her own life as well as in others, mostly because she doesn’t understand the concept.  Much like I don’t understand the concept of relaxation.  When someone tells me to relax I look at them like they are speaking in Tongues. 

I think we would all do well, if we are going to judge, to do so through empathy first, rather than rationality, which is usually or own version of sanity.  We so easily tend to write off those people and ideals which we do not understand and keep them at arm’s length because, as I’ve said in so many of my posts, we don’t feel that we have the time for such things. 

There are so many things to understand about people, especially if you want to form any kind of relationship with them.  Once I understood that this person views sensitivity in others as a weakness, I have a better relationship with her and can find subtle ways to explain my sensitivities in situations before she has a chance to judge and sentence.  Opening this line of communication has made our friendship stronger and has helped me grow as a person.  I now see how many people and ideals in the past that I shoved at arm’s length or just refused to associate with anymore because I didn’t take the time to understand the parts of them that confused me, the parts that add together with other parts that make them who they are.

What’s to understand?  A lot!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a biography buff when it comes to reading.  I just finished reading a biography by Melissa Gilbert entitled, “Prairie Tale…A Memoir,” and I have to say, quite an awesome read.  It turns out she is in the same answer-seeking time of life that I am in and it was refreshing to find that I am not alone when it comes to soul-searching and deep thinking.  In fact, it almost seems, from people I have talked with and other bios I’ve read, that this “mid-life” era in one’s life, is the time we tend to become soul-searchers.  Almost as if it’s programmed into us and if we don’t find the answers we seek to the most sought-after question, i.e. who the hell am I, then we go into an almost panic mode, which I believe is where the term midlife “crisis” comes into play.

Although I’m not sure I would categorize myself as being in full “crisis” mode just yet, I am seeking earnestly for answers. Anyway, I digress.  In Melissa’s book there is a section toward the end where she mentions a theory her therapist shared with her about believing that before we move on into each life, if we believe we have many, we sit at a huge, round conference table and choose the souls who will be involved with us in the next life, usually because we have unfinished business with them.  The thinking here for Melissa was what lesson each and every person in her life has brought to her, parents, friends, children, enemies, etc.  Absolutely anyone and everyone ever to have spoken with you or bumped into you on the sidewalk and didn’t care to say excuse me.

From this I decided on my next round of therapy (self-inflicted as usual).  I have started a journal in which each story dons a picture of the person I am writing about and each story is that of lessons learned by this person having touched my life in some way. 

I chose this picture of my friend Dawn and I because until I met Dawn, way back in 1997 when my son was 4 (he’s graduating high school this year), I had no one in my life who shared my interest in art and creation.  Not only shared it, but had an enormous passion for it as did I.  This was huge to me.  Not only that, but she has taught me over the years that the quality things in life, writing letters to one another (not on the computer but actual mail), swapping art projects to stay close, sending birthday presents, and just working at staying close (even though she has lived in Ohio forever now), these are things that make the difference.  She taught me that perseverance and the “slow and steady wins the race” attitude, will carry you through to your goals.

Now I have an entire journal to get started, but I wanted to share this revelation because maybe other answer-seekers who read this post could really benefit by tackling such a project.  I can tell you first hand, even the small amount of work I have put into it thus far has brought me so much perspective.

Not only is it important to organize your surroundings at home and at work, but it’s equally important to organize your thoughts and thinking process.

As the holiday season has suddenly dropped into our proverbial laps, there is much to do and much to think about.  Although the holidays are a time for joy and happiness, let’s face it, most of us find it very stressful and often times full of raging depression.  I know this has been true for me in the past (everything tragic in our family has always happened right at Christmas), and of course this year has been especially difficult with the one year anniversary of my mother’s death fast approaching, but I recently learned, from a very wise person, how to keep a daily journal of accomplishments.  I can’t believe how diligent I have been in doing this and how excited I find myself to write them down as they happen.  It’s as though I’m addressing just the good and positive moments of the day and neglecting to acknowledge the negative.  In doing so I find I am conditioning my mind to pay close attention to all things positive, thereby creating a pattern, or rather a new subconscious habit. Talk about therapeutic!  If you or someone you know suffers from depression of any kind, you have to try this.

The organizational part of this therapy comes in the writing.  As I take stock of my accomplishments I am also checking things off of my “to do” list.  So now I am checking my list twice (bad pun intended), once for the self-esteem I am building and once for the things I needed to get done…and did.

Any way you look at it, this is a great organizing skill to hone and I hope it can help you.

A trip that began with such ambivalence turned out to be  filled with wonderful memories and a reconnection with close friends.

My son and I, along with my brother Scott and his family and my brother Bob and his wife, traveled back to our family home last month to spread our mother’s ashes.  Although there was much sadness in the reason we were there, there was also such joy and empowerment in being able to finally give my mother her wish of getting to be back at her home again.  I know in my heart it made her ecstatically happy and fulfilled.  Thanks to the wonderful heart of the homeowner, we were able to spend the night in the home we grew up in and spread our mother in the back yard next to the beautiful flowers overlooking the ocean. 

This was the first time my son got to see the ocean and it was so awesome to watch him gaze in amazement at its vastness and beauty.  He kept saying, “I can’t get over how there is all this water and then absolutely nothing beyond it, not any kind of land or anything.  In the desert there is nothing but land.” 

It was a time of sadness, a time of joy, a time of family and closeness and a time of excitement and nostalgia.  God how I missed that clean sea air.

As the world “evolves” and as we evolve with our societal upbringing, how is it that discrimination has not yet been wiped clean from the planet? 

The greatest achievement in my life is that of my son.  Not the fact that I raised him alone, but more the fact that he turned our to be such an awesome person (not that I’m partial or anything).  He is caring, sharing, loving and intelligent (not to mention handsome). 

To all of you mother’s (or single dads) out there, take pride in the fruits of your labor and HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!!

I never would have guessed that I would ever find myself facing such a thing as A.D.D. in my adult life, never having had it as a child, however it seems that is the case as I have recently discovered. 

I wonder what it is about labels and our need to apply them to everything these days?  Most likely A.D.D. has been around for years and years but someone decided it needed a label and thought one up.  This disorder is mostly associated with children, however there are those few adults who acquire the disorder during the latter part of their life.  I was just diagnosed as being “borderline” A.D.D., which by my standards, has always has always presented itself as a nervous contiion.

Of course when “diagnosed” or “labeled” with anything new, I immediately get online and research all there is to know about the recent affliction.  A.D.D., or Attention Deficit Disorder as I understand its definition, means that I am not able to pay attention to one task at a time and see it through to its completion; that I am easily sidetracked and that my thoughts are all over the place.  I have to admit, this is true, moreso now, than ever in the past, and while it can be hard to deal with at times, most of the time it just feels normal to me.  I do manage to get things done, maybe not all at once, but I do come back to them and get them finished.

If you ever feel like your life is spinning out of control in some direction and your thoughts are all jumbled and disorganized, research the possibility of A.D.D.  Even though it is just a label, I find I feel better knowing that there are exercises I can do to improve my brain function and ways to keep myself calm without the use of western medicine.

The sad truth, which I had to face as it came crashing through my lens today, is that we live in a disposable world.  Litter is abundant.  It’s wreaked havoc on every town and every city in every state and every country.  There are many laws about littering, but they don’t seem to be enforced, at least not strongly.  This is such a pet peeve for me, the worst being the person who flicks their lit cigarette out of the car window, especially here in this dry, fire-hazardous desert. 

When did we get so lazy?  I can remember as a child having to get up off of the couch to turn the television channel.  We ate from glass plates and used cloth napkins.  Most things were packaged either in cardboard, paper or glass.  Soda was sold in glass bottles which were redeemable for cash and 100% recyclable. 

Although it seems that the invent of plastic is a wonderful thing, for it brings us such ease, it is the single most littered item.  Wrappers from cheese slices, water bottles, soda bottles, Styrofoam plates and plastic diapers flood the landfills as well as thousands of other non-biodegradable plastic products.  

Sure it’s great to toss that little plastic tray into the microwave and eat the ready-made, frozen three-course meal with the ease of tossing it in the waste bin afterward, and it’s so quick to change the baby and throw away the diaper without having the bother of the cloth diapers, you know, rinsing them out in the toilet and washing loads of diapers, but with all this ease comes a price.  A high price.  Disease, especially cancer, I suspect is a direct result of the chemicals we put into the plastics we eat and drink from and the fumes they emit from the waste stations.  It pollutes the air we breathe and the water we drink.  There is now no easy solution as we have been overrun by our own creation.

So, not only are we poisoning ourselves, we are enabling obesity, heart disease, stroke and other health problems linked to “not enough exercise.”   I now make a conscious effort to be as physical as possible in my everyday life.  I found a job that requires physical labor, I make 7 or 8 trips to and from the truck to bring my groceries into the house, I pull weeds when I see them, I wash the truck at home, I keep the phone at a distance so when it rings I have to physically get up to answer it; whatever it takes.  I even gave away all of my plastic food storage containers and purchased only glass bowls and casserole dishes to keep in the house.  We are almost plastic free, in our kitchen especially.  From this and this alone, I have lost almost 10 pounds and counting.  I didn’t give up any foods, but made a conscious choice to cook healthier meals and to read the ingredients listed in the products I buy.  My new rule is if I can’t pronounce it, I have no business eating it.  Period.  

I find it sad that we live in such a disposable world, but I have decided that I will do whatever it takes to exert myself whenever possible and just say no to plastic as often as I can.

Have you ever dared to venture down the path of uncertainty, only to be met with the wrath of insanity?

This is what I think it is like to be stuck in a relationship with an abusive person and not know how to get out of it. 

I recently read an article on why women stay, although it works both ways and there are women who abuse men who don’t know how to abandon their situation either.  About 20 years ago, I found myself in the same situation, although the abuse was mostly mental, emotional and verbal, and for about 8 years I went through this horrible pattern of wanting to fix him and believing him when he said, over and over again, how he would change and how things would be different.  I wanted to believe this, very much, because I loved him, at least I thought I did.  Eventually he sank deeper and deeper into his abyss, the cheating, the drinking and the methamphetamines, dragging my son and I in after him, and he finally presented me with a reason to leave:  waking me up at three a.m. with a rifle in his hand, telling me to get out and that I couldn’t take my son with me when I left.  That was it.  That was when I finally snapped.  I got up, got dressed, picked up my three-year-old son, bundled him up, and, as I made my way to the door with my back to the man with the rifle in his hand, said, “Shoot me.”  I drove down the street to where my friend lived and stayed there until my son and I moved to Arizona.

I made it out alive and somewhat sane, but so many people aren’t as lucky.  I realized that what made me stay for so long and take so much abuse (which technically I was allowing to happen) was the fact that I had no confidence, no self-esteem at all, that I didn’t like myself and didn’t feel that I was worth any better.   How did this happen to me?  How did I get so down on myself?  I am a good person with talent and the ability to accomplish whatever I set my mind to, so when did I lose my self-worth?  The answer?  I never had it.  My father drank a lot during my childhood and adulthood and every other time, okay he was an alcoholic, and every time he was in one of his drunken stupors I would be pulled out of bed at 1:00 in the morning on a school night and made to listen to speeches on how the world was going to “kick me in the ass,” and other such wisdom.  Even though my relationship with my father wasn’t so great, my mother maintained a slightly unnoticed (mostly unspoken) jealously of my relationship with my dad.  I don’t know why she thought it was anything more than what it appeared to be on the surface, but that jealously prevented us from being close until my father passed away and, with that obstacle removed, we became extremely close.

If anyone reading this finds themselves a victim of an abusive relationship and doesn’t know how to get out of it, know this one thing:  No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission.  You are unique, a one-of-a-kind creation filled with beauty and wonder.  Like yourself, no, love yourself for who you are and develop the confidence to step out of the abuse and move on.  Tell yourself that you ARE worthy of all things good and wonderful and if you are with a person who needs to be “fixed,” then examine all of the reasons you are with this person.  There are hotlines and programs available for you to reach out to and if you have children, they are being shaped by what they see at home, which is another reason to set a good and positive example.

Today was a day filled with discovery.  As I browsed through my Happy Book in search of more fun pages to create and reflect upon, I came upon a page that read, “Fill this page with all the smiles you can find.  Take pictures of people’s smiles (just the smiles!), collect smiles from magazines, draw your own...whatever you need to do to make this wall-to-wall happy.”  The thing I found most intriguing about this concept is that it reminded me of a day a few years ago, when I just could not get out of the really bad mood and depression I was feeling.  I told myself to just smile, all day, no matter what, and see what happens.  Throughout the day my mood grew lighter and by smiling I actually brought on a really good mood from something that seemed to have began so horribly.

As I leafed further through the book, I happened upon a page with a quote on top that read, “Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”  That just speaks volumes to me.  I see more of the negative aspects of my life than I do the positive ones and it keeps me from growing in a healthy direction. 

This book has been a Godsend, I mean a Dawnsend, as she is the one who sent it  to me.  The title is so apropos!
Try this one day when you feel like things aren’t going your way and see if it works for you.  Dwell on the good and the joy and leave the not-so-good and other negative things for the day to swallow up and move on.  Just smile.  It really works.

If you’ve read my blog in the last couple of months, then you know that I recently lost my mother and my best friend, and while I know that every day I am healing just a bit more than the day before, something really eerie and wonderful happened to me yesterday.  In my hallway hangs a picture of my mother and father that was taken in 1982 (I believe).

Now, usually when someone close to me passes, they visit me in some way or another and I can either feel their presence and/or things happen around the house to let me know they are there.  Imagine my confusion when the one person I thought would surely visit me before she passed on, my mother, didn’t.  At least I didn’t think so.  When my mother was alive you only had to glance at her eyes to see her soul and her beauty, and when she passed away I looked at her face and realized as I looked into her eyes, that she wasn’t there anymore.

Yesterday I was walking down the hall, past this picture, and in my peripheral vision I caught a glimpse of something that made me double back.  It was this picture,  or rather something new in this picture.  The eyes, my mother’s eyes, the one’s she had when she was alive, were in this picture.  They didn’t move or anything, but when you looked into them it wasn’t like looking into the eyes of a flat photograph.  She was IN there.  While I am sure to many of you this may sound just plain crazy and impossible, I can tell you from my past experiences, this was as real as my sitting here typing this out.

I stood there for a moment, mesmerized, just staring at her eyes as she stared back, smiling at me, and then I could feel her, almost as though she wrapped her arms around me from behind.  I broke into tears, but not tears of sadness, rather tears of joy that she DID come back to let me know she was all right and that everything was going to be fine.

So far she remains in the picture and I can’t help but pause and feel her when I walk by, but I think she will move on as soon as she is sure that we are healing and helping each other move on.

I just finished a new piece for my store.  It is basically a portable filing cabinet.  I find that using a large briefcase and trying to carry my purse is a bit much so I came up with this:

Front View:  It’s about 12" wide and 10” tall.

Back View:  pretty much the same but contains my label.

The closure features double-ended Velcro for easy opening on either side.  The bamboo handles and gold hinges add to the theme of the paper used for the outside of the purse.

It opens to reveal a pendaflex file with 12 separate, plastic openings for regular sized files (which I have included).

Another view of the pendaflex opening with my files inside.

This was great fun (and a lot of work) to make, but I am so pleased with the results.  I will be making many more of these to come.

While in the middle of a conversation this morning, it dawned on me just how many times a day I use the word “I” or “me.”  Then I wondered if this was due to narcissistic tendencies or something even further out of the realm of my conscious life. 

Upon deeper thought, I came to the conclusion that most of it is because of narcissism, but then again, what’s wrong with a certain level of narcissism anyway?  We are born to this world alone and  we leave it alone.  In between we are very lucky if we get to share our lives with loved ones and acquaintances.  Personally I have found that my greatest pleasure thus far has been the fact that I got to be a mother and share my life and my love with a totally terrific individual, to have the opportunity to help mold and shape him into the person he is today and the fact that the person he is today, isn’t totally tweaked in the head. 

We are all we have in the most technical sense of the word.   When you spend time alone, you have you.  It isn’t as though there is no one there because you are someone and I have grown to accept and also love who I am, so when I am alone, I’m still with someone I love, even like to spend time with.  So what’s wrong with using the word “I” and “me” to a certain degree?  Nothing at all in my opinion, unless the degree of narcissism is so severe that a person loses sight of the fact that there are other people in the world and other people in their lives and that they are just as important as those people and not more important.  I mean, it could get out of hand if you let it, but a certain degree of narcissism is extremely normal.

So, anyway, I decided that since it bothered me so, I was going to make a conscious effort to do more in the way of giving or sharing.  The difficult part of this venture will be that I have very little or no money so the only thing I am able to give is my time and attention.

If anyone out there knows of some really great ways to give to others in need without having to donate money, please let me know.  I would very much appreciate learning who and what is out there that I can help in either a small or large capacity.  It’s time I did more for others and I want to start now.

 
As I browsed through my ever-growing photo library, I noticed a particular theme throughout.
Everything old and everything that has been or could be fixed up or represented some other era, was something I was interested in taking pictures of and/or taking home.
What is it about broken down items and things of the past that makes someone like me draw to them, inexplicably?   I think it’s either the fact that I like to fix things, always have, or the fact that it makes me wonder where the piece has been and if it could tell its story, what fascinating tells would it tell? 
This is especially true for old barns and dilapidated buildings.  It must be annoying for anyone traveling anywhere with me in the car because whether I’m driving or riding I’m either pulling over for every old barn and home or yelling, “Pull over, I need to take a picture of that old …,” and we undoubtedly arrive at our destination at a snail’s pace.
My home is full of antique furniture and antique ephemera, so much so that I think it is actually running my son and I out of the house, literally.  We are going to have to move somewhere else and pay mortgage on this house just to store all of the antiques I have.
I am always looking for new antique items and websites so if anyone out there knows of any good websites, I would appreciate your letting me know.