Happy New Year! My Life's a MESS.

Jack Frost is looking toward the future, as always.

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, so I don't feel bad about that.  I feel bad because everything's so messy!  I have been diligently building social presence online.  It is amazing how quickly an internet connection can eat up your day!  I looked around after the holidays and asked myself how I got so far behind whilst struggling so hard to get ahead.  Like I tell my workaholic man-friend:

"YOU ARE ONLY ONE PERSON.  YOU CANNOT DO MORE.  YOU MUST DO BETTER."

I can't do any more than I'm already doing!  I've gotta find a way to do better.  A New Year is always a good time to evaluate relationships.  None of my relationships are helping me keep my house in order.

Folk will be very shocked or hurt when the means to walk away finally fall into place.  I won't be able to hear them say "ungrateful."  I'll be too far away.  If your situation is not all it should be, it's daunting how people expect you to accept whatever they toss your way, whether it's their closet castoffs or the overflow from their flea market addiction.  "I thought you might need this," means one thing when that thing is a $100 bill.  It's something else entirely when it turns out to be one more thing I've got no real use for.  If I so much as hesitate, trouble ensues.  I'm supposed to be a willing repository for whatever people don't want to think about or deal with, in exchange for whatever assistance they ever gave me.  I don't have any right to say, "I don't need it.  I don't want it.  I can't use it.  Please don't bring me anything else without checking first."  Oh, really?  I'll just hang on to this $100 I was planning to give you.  Might add to your clutter.  That is being held hostage to your conditional love, and I'm saturated.

I need some clarity.  I need some reframing.  I need to clean my emotional filter.

I had the pleasure of attending +Les Dossey 's inaugural "Getting Unstuck" HOA, and I am now one of his biggest fans. He discusses some of the darkest places people can inhabit, and still walk and talk.  Many of us come online and act like there are no problems in the background, and many more doan wanna HEAR about any problem you have, so this offering and his earlier one with +Christine DeGraff were like a lifeline to me.  I didn't know how to name what was bothering me before now.  No one wants to be perceived as ungrateful.  Most of us don't want to actually BE ungrateful, either.  I get that epithet thrown at me a lot, mostly by people who have a vested interest in me never getting unstuck.  Who might that be?  Any person in my life for whom my predictable actions and reactions have created convenience they'd rather not relinquish.  This includes my kids, who will be amid the first to suffer flashburns of Shock and Awe when their maid gets a JOB.  I asked the Good Lord to send me back to the drawing board years ago, after I'd made the biggest mess of my life, and he did. I wanted to give my children a childhood; if I couldn't give them a dad, I wasn't gonna be checked out working all the time, either.  I decided that I would retire in reverse.  How would I know when my retirement was concluded?  I prayed to know.  "When it's clear they're taking you for granted," was the response that was laid down in my meditative state. THAT DAY IS HERE.
When my professional goals take precedence in my priority stream, maybe they'll get a clue, and stop making me point to each bit of trash I would like them to pick up. Stop filling an empty sink with dishes one plate, glass and cup at a time. Stop messing around online instead of trying to figure out how to get to Europe this summer.  Stop taking mom's sacrifices as their due.

Maybe they'll finally deliver that Message to Garcia!  He's been waiting a long time.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.