On reinventing yourself...and a hard decision..

I have been thinking a lot about the reinvention of self.

I have certainly done it, and most people probably have. Changing the style of clothes you wear. Changing hair style and color. For those of us who blog, changing blog names, making new ones. As I said, I am reasonably sure that most of us have gone through this process at least once.

I have noticed something though. Some people seem to do this constantly. Every week, or month, or every few months, they totally overhaul their lives, or something about their lives, only to end up the same exact way they were before. Then they announce some big new change, a total revamp...and they end up right back where they were before, facing the same problems, having the same attitude, going through the same issues over and over again.

I have learned that you can not run from your problems. You can not run from yourself. You can make all the outward changes in the world, but if you do not change who you are at your core, then you are always going to end up right back where you started. If you have a bad attitude, or if you blame everyone else for your problems, you can change anything you want, but if you do not change your attitude, or take some personal responsibility for your life, you are just wasting your time and effort. Six week, or six months from now, you will be right back at square one, with a new name, a new face, or a new wardrobe, but until you change your outlook on life, none of it will matter.

Instead of trying to change the outside, try changing the inside. Consider that if you keep having the same issues over and over again with other people, maybe it is not the other people's fault. Maybe it is YOU that needs to change, not them.

Keeping things fresh, and having a little shake up every now and then are very good things in my opinion. Repeating the same mistakes over and over again while wearing a different (metaphorical) outfit changes nothing. It took me a long time to realize this. I spent so much time blaming my parents for my mistakes, or saying that I was a victim of circumstance, so since it was not my fault, then it was also not my fault that nothing ever changed inside of me. I stopped growing and learning. I spent all my time being bitter and angry, feeling betrayed and victimized when people supposedly did me wrong. What really happened was people got tired of my bullshit, and decided they were better off without me. I realized I was that person that everyone walked on eggshells around, because they never knew when I was going to blow up, or flip out on them, or get up on my high horse and be totally bullheaded and unreasonable about something. I was a walking time bomb.

It took most of the people I care about basically walking out on me and my bullshit to realize that until I took a long hard look inside myself, and realized that the only person who was making me a victim was me, I was destined to be alone and miserable. My marriage suffered, my relationship with my family suffered, my friendships suffered. Granted, not ALL of the fault was mine, there were some cases where whomever I was dealing with was just a jerk or something, but most of the time, I could place a good portion of the blame squarely on my shoulders, even if it was a situation like I am in now. Someone is in my life who is not good for me, I do not like this person's attitude, or their outlook on life. However, because I care for this person, I allow the relationship to continue, even though I am unhappy, and need to get out of it. I am not being what this person needs in their life, and they sure as hell are no where near what I need in mine. So even though it is the person's fault that they are the way they are, the blame is just as much mine because I let it continue.

The funny part in all this is that I hate to be the bad guy. I hate to be the one who walks away. I hate to be considered a quitter, or a bad friend, or whatever the case may be. So I have let it continue, knowing that the relationship is not what I need, and since I am not getting what I need, I am not giving what they need either. I just can't stomach it anymore. To much has been lost, I have had to fight to hard to get back what was taken from me, and I just do not want to do it anymore. The person has not changed in years, and from what I see, they never will. The backlash is inevitable.I will be talked about, probably slandered, and told to anyone who will listen that I am a bad person, because that is how this person works. Know what? I honestly do not care any more. That no longer scares me, because the people in my life who care about me know me, and know who I am at heart. I do not hate this person, in fact I have cared for a long time, but I just can not stomach the relationship any longer. No amount of external reinventing will change who they are inside, and after years of witnessing this, I fear they will always be this way, and that makes me sad, because if all that icky energy were channeled the right way, this person would be the best friend one could ever have.

I have been agonizing over this decision for weeks, and it was a simple thought and resulting picture that brought it all to a head, and I realized that I will be okay, and just as importantly, the other person will be okay as well. We both deserve better in life, and this stagnant friendship is only dragging us both down. So I am freeing us both tonight. My decision is made. It will hurt, and it will probably hurt us both, but I have to do it. I have worked to hard on myself to be drug backwards, and it is like looking at myself in the past. I am moving forward, and the person I see ahead of me will never be obtained until I get away from those who keep me rooted to who I was in the past.

I have learned these lessons the hard way, which is how it usually works for me. Nothing worth having in my life has ever come easy, which is why I know this has to be done. I speak from a place of understanding and experience, not a place of " I do not like you anymore, kick rocks." I hope this person finds happiness within THEMSELVES, not from external trappings and through other people. Because unless you can look hard at yourself and realize your own faults, you have no room to be pointing out any one else's in my opinion.

So that is where I am tonight. Making hard, but much needed choices. So we can both move forward in our lives, what ever direction that may be. I know the other party will not believe it, but I end this relationship with no ill thoughts or wishes, I truly hope that this person is happy and will continue to be so, and will experience great love and friendship. I really do. I still care about them, but I just can not do this anymore. What was had is now lost, and I do not see a way to get it back. So I am walking away, even though it is hard and pains me to do so.

So folks, I guess the moral of the story is this:

Have a great week everyone, and take some time to do some inner reflecting, what you find just might surprise you...

Heeding The Call.....

The past few months have been a strange time for me.

I have been feeling the "call" to do some things that I would not normally do. Years ago I felt the "call" from the Goddess, and followed her willingly. Over the many years since then, I know I have been guided by her wisdom in a lot of life situations.

However, over the last few months these "callings" are becoming more and more frequent, louder, and more odd, from my point of view.

One of the setbacks for my entire life is I am (was, as I am getting out of it finally through some fierce determination ) a horrible procrastinator. If it could be done later, you can bet I would not do it until I HAD to. It is not until the past couple of years that I have really started to address this issue, and make steps to better that part of my life. I always did what needed to be done, but the lesser things I would put off until I had no choice but to do it.

Now, while I am not always bursting with energy to do it, I am much more diligent about getting things done and out of the way so I can do more enjoyable things. I also find that if I DON'T do these things in a timely manner, it starts to really bother me, and I find I can not think about anything else or relax until I get it done.

I have wanted to be a writer from a very young age. Because of the choices I made as a teen, which shaped my life forever, I felt like I missed the chance for that dream to ever come true. It was hard to pull out of the whirlpool...the downward spiral...that my life choices had sucked me in to. I have Jack and Alex to thank for that, because without them, I probably would have let the spiral take me. I was tired of fighting, tired of swimming against the current. Lucky for me, Jack got one of HIS callings at that time in his life, and that calling led him to me. For better or for worse, and believe you me, we have been through both....

But I digress...

I thought my chance to be a writer were over. Then I was fortunate enough to receive the physical embodiment of my muse in the form of my now best friend, Maia. She is the one who rekindled my love of writing. She is the one who encouraged me to start a Live Journal, which was the doorway to here, and then she was the one who kept kicking me in the ass to start my blog, because she knew I would keep agonizing over it, and fiddle fart around and keep putting it off. I could very easily turn this into a post about how wonderful she has been in my life, but that is another entry worthy of its own focus lol.

 Last year about this time I had written some poems and the start of my Memoirs of a Crazy Witch series, which I amazingly had published by Authspot.com. I posted there for a few months but it was not exactly what I was looking for. I went back to my LiveJournal for a while but it is private, and only a couple people could see it, and I talked to those people all the time so it seemed rather pointless. So I stopped writing at all for a while. Maia then started kicking me in the ass again, and in addition to her, I was talking about it with another friend, who was just as encouraging as she was, and finally I bit the bullet, swallowed my fear and here I am today, with a slew of posts and 51 followers I never thought I would have. Pretty awesome stuff.

That was Calling Number One.

I have been a smoker for the better part of 16 years. With the exception of when I was pregnant and then breastfeeding, I smoked. My parents smoked ( back then anyway, my mom quit about 6 years ago and dad quit a few months ago ) all my parents friends smoked, most of my friends were older than me, and several of them smoked. ( I know I am just adding fuel to the "Children are more prone to smoke when then have parents who smoke" campaign but for what it is worth, they had nothing to do with why I started smoking, and I think it is a personal choice. My parents did not shove a cig in my mouth, and most other parents do not either. In fact I was still hiding the fact I smoked from my dad when I was 19 years old!! )

Anyway, smoking was just part of my life. I did not want to quit. I enjoyed it. But starting around my birthday this year, which was in May, I started enjoying it less and less. I saw that I was starting to smoke because I was bored, and it was something to do with my hands. I did not feel the need to smoke anymore, but did out of habit. Then I saw the only time I smoked was when I was sitting here at the computer, and waiting for my archaic dial up to load pages, which at times takes forever. I never smoked anywhere else in the house, and would flip out of a cig was taken into either of  the bedrooms. We have 4 big time air purifiers, but she smell was still bothering me. So I started smoking less and less. Other people smoking ( Mainly Jack ) started to really irritate me, and I hauled a fan out to sit here and blow smoke right back at him, away from me. (Which I still do lol ) Finally, July 1st, 2009 I smoked my last cig. I then came down with the friggen swine flu for the next almost 3 weeks, so smoking was not much of an option anyway since I was doing my best not to cough my lungs out of my body. That was brutal. I have never been so sick in my life. ( For those interested, I did NOT take conventional Big Pharm Meds, I did NOT get vaccinated or get a flu shot, and I never will...*kicks soap box back under the table*)

I have been tempted a couple of times, usually when I was extremely agitated, but I have not caved. I am fast approaching my 4 month mark and I can tell you I don't miss it anymore. Jack still smokes, and it irritates the hell out of me, but he is an adult and it is his choice, not mine. But he has smoked less around me which is nice. It was a hell of a lot easier than I expected, and I have tried to quit before...unsuccessfully...

That was Calling Number Two...

Next in line is Yoga. I am still working on this one. I am a fluffy chick, with body pain issues, so I am still in the research phase of this one, other than doing a few stretching poses. I do not have the money for a dvd or anything, much less a class, so I am using the internet to learn. But it is a calling because all of the sudden it was in my face every where I turned. The blogs I follow, the stuff I saw on TV, and things that would catch my attention on the Net..all yoga yoga yoga....so I am working on that one..

That was Calling Number Three....

The most recent one came in the form of another passion of mine, Herbalism.  Always drawn to it, it is a self study thing. No formal training, just a passion for the knowledge and putting it all into practice when I could to see the results for myself. I had let is slide a bit ( okay a lot ) in the past year, because I went through one of those " Dark Nights of the Soul", only mine lasted for most of a year. I turned away from most aspects of the Craft, ( not in favor of any other path, I was just at a standstill, and refused to walk down ANY path ) and my herbalism studies were caught in the crossfire. The last couple of months have really started me back down my path in general, and my herbs have jumped back out into the front over the last couple of weeks. I did not get to grow any this year, my seedlings drown twice in the freak monsoons we had this summer, and I don't have a good place to start them indoors, so after I lost the second batch I was so discouraged I did not try again. I think it is to late in the season to start anything, but I am gearing up for next year which is a good thing.

I guess I could lump all these into one "calling", which is to make myself healthier and to rekindle my passions in life, but I am a very analytical person, and I have looked at these things above from many different angles. I have never felt more open and receptive than I have as of late, and it seems that the Universe is seriously downloading some major info into my brain, and I love it.

It gets a little dark from here...and some will not like it, but you should all know by now I am a blunt person...

On the downside of things..although not for me, for them...it has also made me look at the people in my life, and I have gone through a weeding process. I had a talk with a friend a while back about Psychic Vampires, and how I felt surrounded by them at times. Not the evil ones who do it on purpose. I am talking about the needy, whiny, clingy and perpetually dramafied people that like to attach to me. Other people I have talked to about it, who know more on it than I do, say it is because I am a strong person, and it is a known fact that weaker people are drawn to stronger ones..( their words, not mine ) I agree with that to a degree. Not that I am saying I am better than anyone, quite the opposite, since I have a lot of demons of my own, but as cold and logical as I am, I still try to be nice to everyone, and be helpful when I can, but there comes a point when you just can't handle these Psi Vamps anymore. I was exhausted, no energy, all I seemed to see or read about from these people is how horrible it is and how their life has no meaning, no one understands them, woe is me crap. However, these people have several people trying to reach out to them, but they can't stop moaning about how horrible things are to see it, so those people eventually stop trying. I am a dark person, and these emotions do not usually bother me a bit, so when I talk to you and you depress ME, something is wrong, and I can't deal with that all the time, especially when I am being hit with SEVERAL of these someones at the same time. It was just to damn stressful. Helping a friend through a hard time, or being an ear to just listen is one thing. When this goes on for over an ENTIRE YEAR, I just have to say sorry and distance myself. In those cases, these people need more help than I can give, and it was dragging me down mentally, physically and spiritually to continue to try. In some of the cases, I stopped speaking to them entirely, and removed them from my life, got rid of them on the social networks if they were on there, and basically fell off the face of the earth to them. Some of the reasons for this was they started creating drama in MY life, and I am in a really good place right now, and refuse to let anyone fuck it up like I have done in the past. Others, whom I still care about, but need to have barriers of sorts right now while I work on myself, I have just distanced myself, talk less, things like that.  Still others I have reached out to, only to have it ignored or flung back in my face, and I said to hell with it, you can sit there and be miserable and lash out but I don't have to put myself out there to get stepped on anymore. There is no reason for ME to suffer just because your bf/gf/hubby/wife/ex/best friend/boss/mom/dad/etc is a total and complete jerk. I am sympathetic until you start treating me like crap because of it. So for any of you who still read my blog, yet I have unfriended or drawn away from...sorry, I really am, but your just to much of a drain on me, and my family and myself come first now, instead of everyone else's problems first, and ours last.

Well now that everyone thinks I am a bitch...( oh I know there were one or two of you who still thought I was sweet an innocent, admit it! LOL...) I am going to close. I prolly should have put that last part into a separate post, but it was because of my callings that I did what I did, so I felt I should put it here instead.

Thanks for reading!

*Music of the Moment: Hair of the Dog by Guns N Rosesr*

Sparks, either you have them or you don’t

 

 

I was having a conversation with a friend last night, about friendship, and the dynamics of different kinds of relationships, and we touched on a subject I wanted to go into more detail about.

I am not a shy person, but I am a somewhat reserved person. I tend to scope people out for a while before I try to get close to certain ones. My friend said last night that he was glad I stuck by him as he goes through a personal growth period, and has made some mistakes. I told him I did not abandon my friends, and that he stood out to me, which is very rare. He asked me what I meant, and I explained that I have a different way of looking at people than most others do.

He asked me again what I meant, and this is the explanation I gave him, and I am going to add on to that as I have been thinking about it since last night.

Black and White VS Color:

I told him that I “see” people when I meet them or look at them. I do not mean what they are wearing, or how their hair looks today. I “see” part of their inner essence. I do not intrude on them, or anything, it is just how I see them..I tend to look with my mind, and not my eyes. As I told him, 90% of the population I see in black and white. It is a bunch of different people doing the same thing day in and day out. They have no spark, no anima, they are ( forgive me ) cattle. Just a mass of people that slide through grid every day.

But every now and then, someone stands out from the herd…in a sea of grey there comes a spark, a burst of color, and I see something unique and special in this person..and usually they are a kindred spirit. I compared it to thermal imaging…you know where a dead body appears dark blue and green, lifeless, and cold; whereas a live person appears in vibrant hues of red and yellow and orange and lighter shades of blue and green?

That is how my minds eye looks at people. It is not seeing their aura, everyone has an aura, but I have only seen one three times in my life, and only from one person.

Sparks..

I do not have a ton of friends, but the ones I do have are very special to me. I believe in quality, not quantity. They are all people I have seen these colors in, and when I met them, sparks were exchanged, for lack of a better phrase. Our souls sized each other up, found out there was a special link between us, and created sparks when the souls embraced. Crazy sounding I know, but again, that is how my mind perceives it *winks*

It does not always have to be in person however. I have met people online who look like they are surrounded by sparklers, and my best friend Maia is one of them. It is like when you throw a log onto a fire, sparks fly up right? Well she is a bonfire, with dozens of people throwing logs on the fire continuously, lighting the night sky with a million tiny sparks.

I have even met a couple of people here in the world of blogging that sent sparks up to me, and I am looking forward to hopefully building relationships with these people, and finding more as I discover new sites and people!

In the end…

Some will probably thing I am strange now, but that is ok. As one of the Aunts in Practical Magic states: “ My Darling girl, when are you going to realize that being ‘normal’ is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!”

That is probably the best quote I have ever heard that applies to my life lol.

So that concludes my musings on that subject. Do any of you ever feel that certain people stand out from the crowds in your life? Do you have a story about when you met someone, and you knew right away they were unique and special?

I would love to hear about them!

TTFN!

*Music of the Moment: Mea Culpa by Enigma*