Tag Archives: change

WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT IT

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What’s So Hard About It

I wish that I could come to my keyboard at an earlier time in the day. But then I haven’t lived my day yet, so how can I write about it? So I continue to struggle on. It will make a better woman out of me. I get thrown off by the least little thing. I was going to do dim sim takeout and have it with my parents for lunch today. I even had phoned them last night about it. This morning I remembered that the restaurant is closed on Tuesdays. It was such a good plan. The guy was out of town. It was a good reason to have lunch with my parents. My mother does not give me many opportunities to do something for them. I will try again on Thursday when I will be out and about. I have their grocery list. She will let me do that.

I’m a little miffed to be thrown off by such a little thing. But it does throw a monkey wrench in my brain chemistry. Obviously I am not handling change in plans well. I dither here and there through the morning, not getting much done. I wonder if I’ve been like this all my life or has my brain been changed by technology. I decided not to fight against my nature too much and to proceed as best as I can. I drank more tea and watched a bunch of videos on gardening. They were quite useful. I am learning more about extending the growing season, succession planting, crops to sow in August, etc. Do you know that you can make tea from the avocado pit? The pit is supposed to be full of goodness.

It’s after 6 pm, waiting for supper. The day is gone – just like that! But I did get out and did a 4 block walk. The day has been cloudy and fogging, not adding to my serotonin uptake. It’s been a very slow uphill climb. But I still did all those difficult hard jobs – taking out the garbage, sorted out my box of seeds, matched my receipts to my latest credit card bill. The dishes were very hard today. I closed my eyes but they didn’t go away. I do wonder why things are hard to do. I haven’t discovered the reasons yet. Some days I just have to grin and do them because it’s hard to bear them, too.

I try to be satisfied with being in the moment. I try not to think about accomplishing things. I do try to follow through once I start something. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end to everything. I’m good at beginning but not so at finishing. I’m working at it though. I’m one row of stitches closer to finishing my cross stitch of Jesus. I started it over 10 years ago. It has no expiratory date on it. One row a day will get me there soon, I hope.

DAY 30 UBC – THE SINGLE STEP

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The Single Step

I’m having a second cup of tea on this grey misty morning. Trying to get my creative juices and blood flowing. I’m not a very exciting person, not the kind of woman who dances on table tops or jumps out of cakes. Are you? I’m having one of those mornings. My batteries are down to their last dregs. I feel like I’m grinding to a halt. BUT, I’ll just poke along, one step at a time. A journey of a thousand miles starts with the single step. That’s what my ancestors, Confucius and Lao Tzu taught among many other things. This is not a bad time to study their lives. Having lived in times before Christ, their teachings still stand the test of time today.

I made some progress during the morning. I did not just sit and stare. I dared to open up some kitchen drawers. What chaos! I almost closed them up again. It wouldn’t have helped because I knew what a mess they were. I can see them in my mind’s eye. I dug in and pulled everything out. Got out the hand vacuum and sucked up all those the loose tea leaves, sugar and what have yous. Then I sorted as best as I could, putting into appropriate baskets/containers, etc. And voilà! The drawers after the cleanup.

Now I’m waiting for supper. We’re late as usual. We’re busy retired people but I got my walk in. Late afternoon, early evening makes for a nice stroll around the neighbourhood. It is quiet, the world slowing down and the sky closing up for the day. It is a beautiful time of day.

I am not a fan of Halloween and trick and treatings but I do enjoy the effort people put into decorating their yards. We don’t have to do Halloween or any other occasion the same all the time when it’s not appropriate. Change is good. It exercises our brain and soul. Experiment and see what happens. Take the step.

DAY 21 UBC – THE EVOLUTION OF THINGS

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The Evolution of Things

Here I am again, at the end of the day, trying to find a few words, thoughts worthy of a post for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. There’s a few things I could talk about that could raise some controversy. They could generate interest, heat and possibly more traffic to this site. But that has never been my goal for writing. I don’t have a business, product or service to sell. I write for the beauty of the word. I write as a form of therapy. I write in the hope I can help another having similar experiences, interests and problems. So I won’t talk about the elections, Canadian or American. And I won’t talk about whether we should or shouldn’t celebrate Halloween.

I had a good start to the day, sleeping in to almost 8:45 am. My first reaction was, Oh God! I have to cancel my exercise class. Then I thought, How stupid. I don’t have to be there till 9:30. I even have time for breakfast. I was really glad that I showed up because exercise is the best medicine. It cleared my brain fog after retirement. A couple of weeks after I started the AM Energizer class at the YWCA, I felt so much better. I was so excited, I talked about it alot. I talked about it so much, the guy decided he wanted to go, too. I am sure it’s the reason why we are as healthy and active as we are.

It certainly helped resetting my mood and circadian rhythm. I am sure they are interrelated. I know I have my days, but overall I have a pretty grip on life. I am optimissic and happy even in this Covid time. That is not saying I haven’t had my difficult days – seeing my mother through her shingles and losing Sheba. They occurred during the pandemic but not because of it. I cannot really say I suffered. I was still able to move about freely. I was still able to take my mother to her medical appointments. I was still taking Sheba to the dog park and let her run. The pandemic made it a little harder going to the medical appointments. It made it not possible to be with her at the moment of Sheba’s passing. But the vetinary people were kind. They brought her out so that we could say goodbye.

Those two experiences were life changing and helpful for me. I would say that this pandemic is life changing and could be helpful for all of us. We have to be open to change. And when it is forced upon us, we should be grateful that there is in time for us to make the changes. We don’t have to cry and lament about what we have lost. We could look at what we could gain. I’m speaking from a very safe space. I am retired. I haven’t lost employment or income. I don’t have children or other dependents. I do feel very grateful and privileged. I am in this very moment very happy. It’s a light bulb moment for me.

DAY 8 UBC – I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN

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I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Not every morning, day and anything are equal. I wouldn’t want it to be, would you? Where would the challenge be then? It would be like Bill Murray waking up to the same day, every day in Groundhog Day. A person could go bonkers! Change is good for us. Having said that, it doesn’t stop me wishing for the comfort of the endless sun shiny days. It’s our human default mode. We hate change. We hate discomfort and inconvenience. We hate interruption of a good thing.

You might have guessed it. Today is a cloudy and windy morning. We’ve had a light shower. It’s not conducive for productivity or joy. I should amend that. It can and does lead to creativity. Clouds sometimes give us pause make us reach deeper into ourselves. They can be an impetus for writing poetry, making music and other pursuits. I think we call them silver linings. Without clouds where would we get the rain for our rose gardens?

It’s getting towards the end of the day. I’m feeling a bit challenged on finishing this post. The day did not stay cloudy. The afternoon was lovely, warm and filled with sunshine. My persons came for afternoon tea and snacks. I was excused from my duty of ladder holding and fetching bandaids. It was a lovely visit. I am not high maintenance. I need only a person or two, good conversation and caring. I don’t need travel or shopping. I am a happy homebody.

GERBIL ON A WHEEL

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Some days I feel like a gerbil on a wheel, going around and around, not getting anywhere. The more I try to change, the more I stay the same. Or so it seems. Now, I’m looking at the drama that my neighbour creates as opportunity to change. Sure, it brings distress,  but the disruption gives me a pause to examine myself and my life. I ask myself:

  1. What is it that is here before me?
  2. How and what led up to it?
  3. What can I do about it? What has helped? What hasn’t?
  4. Who owns this property?
  5. Who owns me?
  6. What is important to me? What isn’t? What are my core values?
  7. What are my goals for this month of writing for the Ultimate Blog Challenge?

I find it necessary to revisit and review my goals and purposes, if not daily then weekly. My biggy is to fall madly in love with life again. To do that I have to work out and disengage my feelings from my narcissistic/psychopathic neighbour. She has wormed under my skin and seeped into my soul. I have become as obsessive of her as she is with me. I’m a bit of a drama queen, but only with words. They are a fair discription. I am more articulate with the written word. Verbally, I sound defensive and blaming. That’s not who I am. But I am guilty of being a self blamer.

Assessing how I’ve done this past week, I think I am doing ok. My storm within has chilled. I can look at my video of our drama together without the cloud of emotion. I can see that she had set me up again. I’m still that gerbil on a wheel. She was prepared for the camera, set for the game -apologizing, apologizing. What she didn’t say on camera was that she had been chucking my landscaping rocks at me the previous time. And she never apologized.

Some of people not knowing our history would see that I was the provoker. She was, after all, apologizing over and over and in her yard. What the video doesn’t show was she was ‘weeding’ around stuff I had just planted a few days ago. When I came out (I think she baited me), she high tailed into her flowerbed. She started calling me names and such. That’s when I turned the camera on. What matters though is I have captured her trespassing. The police does know the history.

She is right that the fence line is 6 inches from her driveway. My surveyor’s certificate has my fence sitting 2 inches inside my property. She already has the extra 2 inches in the back where the fence stopped at the front of my house. So why would she not give permission for me to access her property so the fence guys can extend the fence to the street? Then there would be no dispute and she can have her 6 inches. And she is the one who tells me she has the right to have a 2 foot access into my yard.  Of course she doesn’t talk this way with the police liason officer last fall. She also didn’t tell him that she knows alot of people at city hall and the police department. That’s what she tells me.

I am getting a little disturbed and distress recounting this. I will stop now but it was necessary for me to see with more clarity. She is very clever and good at this. I am not and I don’t want to be. I continue to find little gems of wisdom from this man. Hopefully I can get off the wheel at the end of this Ultimate Blog Challenge. Wish me luck.

MY WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

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Day 2 of this writing challenge. It is a challenge, too. Maybe I should have started in the morning when I was fresh and had no time to be depressed yet. Now in mid afternoon, I am tired and stuck on my treadmill of thinking and thinking. I’m reminded of Portia Nelson’s poem, There’s a Hole in the Street. There’s a hole in the street and I’m in it.

It’s not that I’m just sitting and thinking. I’m tapping on my keyboard and sipping peppermint and ginger tea. I think I will take a tylenol to rid this overthinking headache. I’m not crying, Oh poor me! Really I’m not but poor me anyways. This is not where I want to be in life right now. But it is where I am. I better just suck it up.

I love Pema Chodron. I love her book When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times. I love her quotes.

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not squeamish about taking a good look.”

“Our whole world falls apart, and we’ve been give this great opportunity.  However, we don’t trust our basic wisdom mind enough to let it stay like that.  Our habitual reaction is to want to get ourselves back—even our anger, resentment, fear, or bewilderment.  So we re-create our solid, immovable personality as if we were Michelangelo chiseling ourselves out of marble.”

“We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts.”

I do feel as if I’ve fallen in that hole. I’ve been going down that same damn street forever. Now I don’t even have Sheba to keep me company. Yes, I do feel that my world has fallen apart. Nothing stays the same forever. I shall use this window of opportunity to find a new street to walk.

 

 

 

HERE’S TALKING AT MYSELF

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Morning has broken again, just like the first morning. The least I can do is get up, dress up and show up. And I have. To do anything, to get anywhere, to change anything, one has to move. That is the law. I have limbered and warmed up to the day by pushing my damp mop over the floors. There is no good reason for me to be despondent and be like a wet noodle. Regardless of what is happening in the world, I am alive and breathing. I still have to get up, brush my teeth and eat. Sheba greets me each and every morning. She still sheds her hair everywhere.

I haven’t gotten the world by the tail but I have made a stab at the day. I’m having a little celebration with a second cuppa. I haven’t cleaned my winter footwear nor filed my income tax yesterday. I did get the humidifier cleaned and put away. Some things are easier to do than others. I try to work with that. No use in fighting against myself. I have a ‘bad’ neighbour for fighting, though I’m brainstorming on how not to let her ‘undo’ me. It is hard. When I see how she is still ‘interfering’ into our yard, I feel anger starting up inside. I know it’s not proper to hate, but I truly hate her and her ‘boyfriend’ from across the street. I take a deep breath in and let it out. I will discard and disregard those few inches of my yard. She can scrape and scratch around our trees if it makes her happy. I will call the police liason again if she goes any further.

I do not want to dwell in the valley of negativity. I am just preparing myself for the coming summer, to foresee possible problems and solutions. I have not always been wise in my actions, words and judgement. I put too much trust in reason and doing the ‘right thing’. I forget not everyone thinks like me and see through my eyes. What I need to remember is boundaries and to respond instead of reacting.

Now it is afternoon. I HAVE cleaned my winter and summer footwear. They’re drying on the deck. I’m thinking how nice it would be to slip my feet into clean shoes. A pat on the back for me! I have to own the day by grabbing it in the morning. It means a little work and will power. What’s life without some work and effort. Nirvana is overrated. It leaves me without a compass. A little stress of the right kind makes for a happier, fulfilled life.

 

INVITATION TO CHANGE

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I’m suffering somewhat with this locked/shut down. Sometimes I feel as if I’m suffocating and can’t catch my breath. These times come with some tiny memories that drift in uninvited and unannouced of times before, of people lost and forever gone. They’re like mini panic attacks. I know now what it is meant by grasping at straws. Those times and people are gone and irretrievable. I feel such a loss, a hollow which cannot be filled. How callous I have been!

So here I have sat for the last while. I don’t know how many days. Immobilized, devoid of ambition, desires. I have not hula hooped, done my qigong, sew or painted. I cannot use being busy and no time for an excuse.  If not for Sheba, I would not have gone for any walks. My shame and guilt have been overpowered by lethargy. I’ve been caught up reading murder mysteries to quell my anxieties of uncertainty. After a long while, I’m nauseated and disappointed in myself enough to make a change.

What if I could just do one hard thing a day? It would be a start to rise up and out of this self-induced coma. There’s a whole slew of things that I need/could do.

  • Filing my income tax. It’s due June 1 this year because of the Covid-19.
  • Cleaning and putting away winter boots and clothes.
  • Cleaning and putting away the humidifier.
  • Showing up here again as a daily practice. It was keeping me sane and functional. I must keep what works for me.

This is enough to wake me up a bit and get me on my feet. I must not let this opportunity go for naught. I came across Mary Oliver’s Invitation yesterday. Her simple words have stirred me to thought and hopefully action.

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

 

WHAT AND WHERE TO NEXT?

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Easter Sunday. Sunny. Still cool, – 8 Celsius. I am at least calm if not altogether collected. The world has stopped, so they say. There was plenty of traffic on Preston Avenue yesterday afternoon. I wonder where everyone is going when everything is closed. We are a restless tribe. Of course, Sheba and I were out, too, on our walk. We were getting some physical exercise.

Now that we are forever changed, I wonder how those changes will affect how we will live our lives from now on. The one thing I will not do is to take another cruise after reading how irresponsible the cruise industry is. Imagine 6,000 passengers are remain at sea amid despite the Coronavirus pandemic. I shall not miss it if the industry goes under. The pandemic gives me more pauses to think of how our actions impact on the planet. Cruises  are very bad all around. I’ve been on 4 and have enjoyed them, not knowing better.

I’m floundering and stumbling a bit today, not making good use of my time and energy. I have fallen into my old habit of more self-help. I signed up for a free online course on well-being. It’s probably trying for more accumulation of knowledge I already have. Doing the same old, same old. Time to change habits, pick myself up, dust myself off and use the knowledge I have. No use sitting on them. It’s like money not used but just sitting in the sock draw or the bank.

Listless is what I feel. It’s like being all dressed up with nowhere to go. I’m feeling lucky I’m not one of the passengers on those cruise ships. I know how small those lower class cabins can be. Here, I have a whole house to wander around in. I am counting my blessings. Sheba and I have just came back from our walk. It’s a cold breezy April afternoon. Not too many people out afoot.

So much for my listless mumblings. Not too much of anything at all. At least I’m not full of gloom, doom and the boogy man. I’m staying afloat. Keeping life simple.

 

 

CHANGE MY THOUGHTS, CHANGE MY LIFE

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I’m late coming to the keyboard. It’s an exercise day. Sometimes it feels like going to work because it is a must commitment. Today we had Fred instead of our regular instructor. He is always a welcomed and good change, introducing us to a different workout. His warmup focuses on the four joints at the shoulders and hips. It is surprising and amazing how good it feels after. They didn’t seem like such deal deal exercises.

It reminds me to change my train of thoughts. No big deals can bring big results. Change your thoughts, change your life. I think I have that book by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I haven’t read it but I will now. I will get it up from the basement so I won’t forget. I can read a few pages a day. I’m the train that can, remember?

I know I’ve got quite a few things on my plate now. I’m not sweating it. I’m mindfully trying not to rush or multi task. I’m trying not to have catastrophic thoughts of can’t do, no time, etc. I’m doing one thing at a time, putting one foot in front of the other. I think, there is time. I can do it.

I’m moving through my day. Sat with Mark Williams on YouTube for 20 minutes of sitting meditation in the morning. Then I spent 10 minutes free writing for Write Your Journey before heading off to my exercise class. Sheba and I made 2 rounds at the dog park this afternoon. In between things I managed to make 3 jars of kimchi. And now I’m rounding up this post for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It’s not Pulitzer writing but it’s a serious effort to stay on track.