Randomness of Adversity…of Life

 

 

 

It appears, to me, that we divert a great deal of energy into false sense of security, into waste of energy and time, to create the illusion of control.  We obsess about our diets, we follow leaders whose eye are green with greed and whose ideologies are full of control, or we create superstitious rituals and ceremonies that reflect other traditions in order to appear to have control.  Billions are spent on ‘quick fix’ solutions.  We want to hand over outcomes to someone we have decided might have the control or might appear to have the control.   No matter what we do, we do not.  The only control we have is over ourselves. When life is good, peaceful, and we are mostly happy, we praise a Higher Power.  We feel deservedness when we feel like we have done good and that peace and happiness are a gift for being ‘sinless’.  We are devastated when things do not go well because we equate that with us being, somehow, ‘undeserving’, having done something ‘bad’, and this higher power is grabbing back his gift for being ‘good’.  Some people revel in being tried, being tested, being punished.  We believe that we ‘deserve’ what we get.  We believe we cause unjust things to happen to us because we lack ________ (insert whatever Patriarchal term we have been conditioned to use.  Some say we needed to learn lessons of ____ (insert virtue) and we slog through as if it were a lesson.   Many of us simply find ourselves disillusioned, wounded, in pain, and we feel rejection by that Higher Power as we wonder at the randomness of justice and being unfairly put upon. 

I could be an ancient Monk that uses flagellation to keep me humble. I could take all the blame for my oldest daughter’s behavior, for the mess she found herself in, for her early demise due to a heart attack.  I could blame her father.  I could blame any number of people around her through her teen years and on up.  Oh, what stress she had to be under for her to die of a heart attack at 52.  I am pretty sure she had no where else to turn and her life had totally unraveled.  She chose to create a false narrative about her whole life…. Her choices, led her to be found on the floor. No one was left to rescue her, to excuse her, to comfort her.  We cannot impose our ideologies on to her, though.  She, like we all do, chose to do what we do when we do them, for Ego reasons that are as individual as our souls.  I cannot believe, though, her suffering that led her there…that place of the dark night of her soul.

We have been conditioned to not ask the “why” of things and simply accept them as a given for whatever reason the Universe (if even the Universe has a purpose) might have. It is impossible for any of us to now her why, any more than we now any why that some unjust things can happen in life, and impossible for us to relate to her predicament if we have not walked the many miles she walked in her life. 

We all live in a state of not knowing what the future might bring and whether we can bear it or not.   We can apply our different faiths, beliefs, understandings, but the reality is, we can not know the WHY of most anything.  Life is a trial.  Life is a series of what brings us happiness, choices that lead us there, and things that will bend us like willows at a river’s edge. 

I guess that is why it is important to enjoy every moment of tranquility and justice that we experience.  I guess we have to not live in fear and make fear-based decisions because we are waiting for the next ‘horrible’ event to happen to us. I guess we have to not question because there are no answers.  Life simply is what it I because of our choices.  No matter the choices, there is an outcome that is random and is simply what we chose/choose.   No thing on earth or haven can change outcomes.  The outcomes will also be what they will be without intercedence of something we have decided to put above ourselves. 

We are made up of a need for purpose and cause and effect.  We need each other.  Thee is even a fear in the idea that life is random.  We crave a leader (someone in charge), or we become one to fulfil that craving.  Again, we NEED each other for the comfort and care that comes from being untied.  Today our world is seriously divided over every arena of we have thought up.  Families are disintegrating, people are suffering.  We have stepped relating to each other as if they were, we all are, spiritual beings.  There are some things we can prove.  There are patterns we an follow back to find causes and ideas about how not to experience such and such again.  But that is no guarantee, even so.  It is all about choices.  It is all about making choices without consideration of consequences and alternatives.  We may choose one thing, thinking that would give us relief or happiness, and then find out that it has not.  We cannot even save ourselves.  That is why it is so important to stay Present.  This moment is all we have.

Forgive the musings of a wounded mother in the middle of this night.  I am trying to keep it real for myself.  This is when I do my best thinking.

 

I Can't Cry If I Want To

 

 

 

“…I'll cry if I want to

 Cry if I want to

 You would cry too if it happened to you…”

• -Lesley Gore, It’s My Party

Releasing tears is releasing endorphins and oxytocin that helps us relapse emotions, emotional pain, and is a self-soothing maneuver.  It tells others that we are in emotional pain.  It expresses our vulnerability.  And, did you know, there are three kinds of tears made up of three different kinds of composition?  And, what if one cannot cry, no matte the emotions?  It is something many of us experience.

The three kinds of tears are basal tears that are made up of three layers of fluids that are the kind of tears that wash out the eyes, rids eyes of dust, protect the eye from drying out, and are constantly being shed and taken in through the tear ducts.

Emotional tears are produced when emotion are high.  These tears are triggered by intense feelings.  These tears contain proteins, hormones such as prolactin, potassium, magnesium, and stress hormones.  They are emotional release.

Reflex tears are produced in the lachrymal gland and are primarily water.  They are like basal tears, and are for the same reason but are more prolific and contain more ability to fight bacteria.

For those of us who cannot seem to cry emotional tears, it means that we most likely are those who avoid feelings.  We tend to suppress released of stress hormones, and tend to be isolationists about our emotions.  When we are people like this, we need to develop coping skills around emotional tensions.  We need a better support system so that we have supportive people who we can go to to express our emotions.  We are those who have been conditioned to think that crying is a weakness.  In some cultures, and ages, crying was seen as a feminine weakness.  Boys were conditioned not to cry. Thus, emotional patterns such as numbness and suppression happened.  As well, and this is me, we are afraid to cry because we feel like, if we start, we will never quit.  I grew up with a father who told u to “dry up” and, yet, a mother who wept often.

It is why I do so much art journaling and portraits, I believe.  I am allowing emotion to be released symbolically.  I can cry for other people, but cannot seem to draw up tears for myself, and believe me, I have had reason to weep.  I distract myself, often, from authentic feelings.  I keep busy, too busy, betimes.  I can clean a house from top to bottom when I have reasons to weep.  I cannot, in 76 years, figure out HOW to weep and cannot weep at m own command.  The moment someone says, “...and don’t you dare cry…” that ends any chance I am able to.  I will hear voices from the past say “dry up” and “don’t” and am sensitive to the hugging and back rubbing that stalls tears.  We need to allow emotions to flow free, to be acknowledged and to be named. 

Our automatic reaction to others tears is to, unconsciously, do anything o stop them, a if in fear that something dire might happen.  We might cry too, as if that is one of the worst things ever.

I keep telling myself to cry... just cry... but I cannot dredge up the will.  And so, I turn to this:  I objective weeping through art and strength-speak, when I should be begging others for help to cry. 

 

The Honor of One is the Honor of All

 

 

I have put the best photo, I have of her, on my screen saver.  I see it when I get up during the night.  I see her when I first it down to the computer.   I see her face before I go to bed.  I have a sense of needing to have a dream of her…a good dream…where she comes to me and says she is sorry for all the thigs she did that added drama and chaos to our lives.  Not actually saying the words, just through actions.  I always said to all the kids, “Show me you are sorry, don’t tell me you are sorry!”  Yes, I am in the stage of waiting for some kind of affirmation. 

 As a mother, I ha all the power over my kids…well, “power” is not a good word…authority?...  “Responsibility!”  There, that word.  I had a responsibility to my seven children.  My “Things to Do” as mother were to teach and model love, forgiveness, and peace, first of all. Check!   Then there was to take care of shelter and basic needs.  Check!  I modeled emotions and helped them express theirs.  Most of the time…check!  I taught them that negative emotions were gifts as well, and typically modelled the expression of such.  Check!  I needed to help them be independent.  Check!  I nurtured them and their interests as best I could as a University student and as a working single parent mom.  Check! 5/7 got it  and live successful service-oriented lives.  The kids managed to survive in spite of me.  Check!

I fins I have gone through a transition this last two weeks.   I have stayed totally in touch with my feelings.  They have a name.  I have comforted myself in positive ways.  My way of comfort is to grab an art journal and art my heart out.  I have learned abut new kinds of forgiveness.  I have been mothering myself.  I admit my wrongs and focus on how I have learned and changed and I pity my girl.  She has missed decades of my new ways of mothering.  I a setting boundaries and refuse any more secret keeping, justifying, pardoning to keep peace, etc.  W all have choices.  Our family needs to reunite.  I will conduct myself in such a way that I might orchestrate this.  No mor tippy toing around for fear of starting chaos.  No one knows the whole stories.  It takes courage and tenacity.  I have that.  I am going to continue to embody the othering gifts I have developed without fear.  Our family can come together knowing there is unity and support, caring and love…and support without the fear of being left to be fringe people.  The honor of one is the honor of all.