a poem, off the cuff...
kicked off the sloop
for another who came before me
it wasn't that I wasn't good enough
2016 came with a damaged soul
unexpected calls from an unknown past
lifting me up,
giving a new goal
kicked to the curb
they're a loner (a player?)
or something like that
and now what, for the future?
expectations of more strikes
with the expectation to find gratefulness in all that was gained
no mention of the soul drained, eyes dimmed, heart dismantled
So, it's been three years since I posted on Xanga... Hard to believe how time flies and all that has changed since then. My spirituality, my location, things with my son, etc...
Next Monday I start my BA Degree. Hoping that I will have everything lined up right to start off well. if I play my cards right, maybe I can do some of my classwork while I'm working... we'll see. I keep second guessing my major. Wondering if I will come out with lot of debt still, but a low paying job at the end that keeps me from ever getting ahead or preparing for an easier retirement.
So, Xanga - should I make a blogging comeback? With more positive contributions?
Paint scraped the canvas, slow at first. Almost unintentional, almost innocent, attempts to cover the bland, white square before the artist.
Scenes painted from memories wished, a world brushed on to please the viewer.
The artist crashed through the looking glass with no desire to return. Landing in a world unknown, bright and colorful.
The thicker the paint, the light became dark and the dark became light. Contrast extinguished, and shadows tricked the eyes.
The canvas became splattered with imagination, while a mix of reality and words filled the gaps. Hours drifted, days disappeared - stolen from the artist and the onlooker.
"What harm could a painted picture do?", wondered the artist, as paint began to flood the room, swallowing everything within its reach.
The painting grew. It swelled, contorted, became a monstrosity.
Grabbing the artists heart, the white became a mucky blur. Paint covered the portal through the looking glass, almost preventing escape.
Wisps of color distracted from the shattered glass that fell at the artist's feet. She picked up the pieces she chose to.
The white continually beckoned behind the scene.
Shards began to shred the painted canvas, as she grasped to hold onto both worlds. Reluctant to return to the land of white and grey.
She took to the street, cold and barren
A wretched odor from a hidden abyss, that none could see
Filled with unseen offerings,
rotted and never accepted
Stagnant pools of tears, left alone
A wall of refuse surrounded her abyss,
Keeping all good, all bad, at bay
All who approached, dare not look her way
But one, offering an inch of solace
Stood still, extending nothing more
She grasped and clawed for what she saw as a mile of tattered hope and love
She offered up her finest jewels in plight
Words in and out, without meaning, without truth, without sound
The abyss grew, grinding the jewels into meaningless dust
He withdrew his solace as the abyss clawed at stealing his heart
Wilting, withering, the abyss claimed her final thread of hope
Attached to her soul,
It unraveled and drew her in
For none to find
I went to church today - the pastor briefly discussed tumbleweeds. How they have no roots, no connection... and then he discussed the red oak... how their roots don't go down deep - but that their roots spread out and connected with other red oaks (giving support to each other).
I'm so tired of being a tumbleweed. I want to have roots and support from those around me. It's truly unbearable trying to do it all on my own some days.
I want to be a part of helping to create those roots for my son too.
I have a lot more words in my heart, but they are all jumbled up and don't want to come out right now. :-/
TO LET GO
~author unknown
To let go is not to stop caring
It is to recognize I cannot do it for someone else
To let go is not to cut myself off,
It is realizing I can't control another.
To let go is not to enable,
But to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is not to fight powerlessness,
But to accept that the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or
Blame others,
It is to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for, it is to care about.
To let go is not to fix, it is to be
Supportive.
To let go is not to judge.
It is to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to try to arrange outcomes,
But to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
It is to permit another to face their own reality.
To let go is not to regulate anyone,
but to strive to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to fear less, it is to love more.
Ok, the following is not my writing - but I thought it was worth sharing (and something I can look back on to reflect on again at some point in the future too.) I will admit that I can be found guilty of all of the following...
(From "The Feeling Good Handbook" by David D. Burns, M.D. © 1989)
1. All-or-nothing thinking - You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, "I've blown my diet completely." This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream.
2. Overgeneralization - You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as "always" or "never" when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the window of his car. He told himself, "Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!"
3. Mental Filter - You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.
4. Discounting the positive - You reject positive experiences by insisting that they "don't count." If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn't good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions - You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusion.
Mind Reading : Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you.
Fortune-telling : You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a test you may tell yourself, "I'm really going to blow it. What if I flunk?" If you're depressed you may tell yourself, "I'll never get better."
6. Magnification - You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called the "binocular trick."
7. Emotional Reasoning - You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly." Or, "I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person." Or, "I feel angry. This proves that I'm being treated unfairly." Or, "I feel so inferior. This means I'm a second rate person." Or, "I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless."
8. "Should" statements - You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be. After playing a difficult piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told herself, "I shouldn't have made so many mistakes." This made her feel so disgusted that she quit practicing for several days. "Musts," "oughts" and "have tos" are similar offenders.
"Should statements" that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or the world in general, lead to anger and frustration: "He shouldn't be so stubborn and argumentative!"
Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished before they could be expected to do anything. "I shouldn't eat that doughnut." This usually doesn't work because all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert Ellis has called this " must-erbation." I call it the "shouldy" approach to life.
9. Labeling - Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying "I made a mistake," you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." You might also label yourself "a fool" or "a failure" or "a jerk." Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but "fools," "losers" and "jerks" do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration and low self-esteem.
You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the wrong way, you may tell yourself: "He's an S.O.B." Then you feel that the problem is with that person's "character" or "essence" instead of with their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves very little room for constructive communication.
10. Personalization and Blame - Personalization comes when you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn't entirely under your control. When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty in school, she told herself, "This shows what a bad mother I am," instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman's husband beat her, she told herself, "If only I was better in bed, he wouldn't beat me." Personalization leads to guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy.
Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances for their problems, and they overlook ways they might be contributing to the problem: "The reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is totally unreasonable." Blame usually doesn't work very well because other people will resent being scapegoated and they will just toss the blame right back in your lap. It's like the game of hot potato--no one wants to get stuck with it.
I love learning about international culture... and love shows that allow an independent insight into other cultures too. If you're interested too, I would like to recommend a few shows:
"This Illegal American Life".
If you have the Current TV channel (I know Current is on DirectTV, I don't know if anyone else carries them or not).
Upcoming showings on DirectTV, on the Current TV channel:
Sorry, I don't think it's anywhere online right now and am not sure who else carries Current TV.
Another show I came across tonight: Tribal Wives (on the Link TV channel). Um... just as a warning: it IS somewhat NatGeo'ish in nature, with regards to nudity... I didn't feel it was sexualized, and seemed fairly tastefully done.
Another cultural show that I used to watch - that I wish they would bring back is "Cooking in the Danger Zone".
At my current position, I help people obtain their GED certificate. People from all walks of life. I enjoy being able to be a part of helping them take steps in meeting their goals & bettering their life too.
The classes are frequented also by Spanish-speaking people who want to earn their GED, but unfortunately know little English. (People CAN take their GED exam in Spanish, however we don't really have any Spanish-speaking tutors to assist them at this time.)
The German Scenario:
In this scenario, imagine if you will - America has become a desolate wasteland. There are no jobs, no money. Your family decides to pack up and move to Germany - not because you want to, but for the simple fact that you will live a life that is destitute if you don't. You don't know a lick of German. You are not more advanced in language-learning than others, so you know you have a challenge ahead of you in that regard.
You've found that everything is more expensive in Germany - and you must work of course. The country provides the opportunity for each person to take an exam that would give them an educational certificate. Those who do not have the certificate - IF they can get hired - work at minimum wage (and often below). Those who get their certificate are able to get higher paying jobs and can move up (educationally and/or financially).
Because you're not German -- there are some who see you as a threat. You're taking the jobs that their friends, family or they might be able to get. People in your community aren't prone to making friends with you, nor are they willing to use their precious time to help you learn their language (not just because of the threats to their jobs, but also because of your economic status and the stories they've heard about Americans.)
You are simply trying to survive & earn your keep. You try to make it day by day from sun-up to sun-down, staying out of trouble and even are sending some help to family who remain back in the US when you can. While you want to learn the language, you feel learning German is not your biggest priority while you're still in survival mode. It's easier talking to family in English, you get by at the grocery store with the little you know - and besides that, the local German people don't really want to talk to you anyhow.
You go to take the exam, and 3 choices are given to you:
Given the previous scenario:
I would like to recommend a good video to watch in follow-up to this blog entry, but sadly I can't find a full-length clip of it online - it's called "This Illegal American Life" by Vanguard, of Current (tv channel).
Sorry if this blog entry ends up being a random collection of hodge podgeness...
Yesterday, my mom watched My Girl. I think she's seen it before, but she indulged in it last night - and at the end she started crying, of course (I didn't watch it thankfully, or I would have been boo hoo'ing right alongside her). What was my response to hearing her crying in the other room though?? (Please don't think of me as a cold, heartless wench after reading my reaction...) I wanted to videotape it. I know, I know -- that sounds entirely cruel perhaps, but I'm telling you, if you heard her cry you would think that it was a fake, playful cry. I hate that I can't feel empathy when she cries because each & every time it makes me laugh (which actually gets her to stop crying eventually).
The 1st time I remember hearing my mom cry like she does now, I was 24 or 25 years old. I don't know if she has always cried like that (she & I didn't have contact from the time I was age 8-18). I think she had started crying over a sentimental issue, way back then. I remember looking at her, thinking automatically that she was imitating Jim Carey. I thought, surely, that she couldn't be crying for real. But, she was - her cry is like a literal "boo hoo".
Anyhow... I couldn't get a video clip of it, so that others could see that I truly am not a evil, cold person for thinking her cry is somewhat humorous. I kind of hope her crying style will change one day somehow, because I really don't like that it makes me chuckle.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I've been over-thinking a lot of stuff lately. A sign of too much time on my hands...
I tried to contact a lady to see if she would meet one-to-one with me to work on some stuff in my life, but she hasn't responded to my email or text. I'm kind of taking that as a sign that she doesn't want to, or that she's already meeting with someone else. I know I shouldn't "assume" anything... but that's what I seem to do best. I sit and think that it means that they know that I won't succeed, or that if I had wanted it bad enough that I would have contacted her a long time ago. I know it's not right that I think that God and most others think I'm a hopeless, washed up piece of nothing. But I don't know how to change my thinking on that either.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sorry if you feel your time has been wasted. Speaking of wasting time... Don't bother watching Contagion. I rate that movie as Simply Pointless.
Recent Comments