Tag Archives: duty

LET IT BE PRO RE NATA

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I was so delighted by all that sunshine this morning. All the heaviness fell off my body. It helped too that I had a healthy dose of sleep last night – almost nine hours. AND the fact that I’m not that mouse on the tread wheel screaming: I have to fix it! I have to fix it! Yesterday, I gave myself permission to languish prn. Prn comes from the Latin ‘pro re nata’ meaning when necessary.

It’s the nurse in me coming out, though I am no longer a nurse. I’ve hung up my cap and taken off my duty shoes. Old memories are still alive and kicking around somewhere in my body and soul. The memories are ok. Some are good. Some are not but they all can stay. They all contributed to the sum total of who I am today. It is time to let go of the duty part though. It is always the right thing to help one another if I can. It is not my duty to fix anything, anyone or even myself. Just listen and let be. I have to knock the duty part off and have a happy retirement like my cake says.

It’s taken me a frigging long time to arrive here – 6 years post retirement. I’m not complaining. I’m marvelling. It’s been such an interesting journey. I’m feeling the lightness and weightlessness after dropping some self-taken burdens. What a dork! I could kick myself around the block but I won’t. I know we all have moments like these. We don’t know what we don’t know. We will when we’re ready.

Happy Thursday. Now I have to take Sheba around a few blocks, a happy self-imposed duty.

SUFFERING THE GUILT

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It’s snowing again, big fluffy flakes floating down. Looks like winter is here to stay. I don’t mind. I’m not going anywhere. I’m warm and well fed. I have all the comforts right here at home. I can just hunker down and wait for spring. In the meantime, I can enjoy my cup of tea, a somewhat dried though good cinnamon bun and a bit of cheese. I’ll see if I can tap out 500 words again. Was yesterday just a fluke?

Ah, Sheba is starting again – barking. She’s like an alarm clock. I’ve made her do a ‘down’ but it lasted only a minute. At least she’s quiet. Now if she would stop nuzzling me for her food. We still have half an hour to go. I will see how strong my will is versus hers. Will – that has been a problem for me. I give in too easily. I give in to the guilt of being responsible for everyone’s happiness. I’ve been told that I am not that powerful, that I can’t make everyone happy. Nevertheless, it is difficult to shrug off. I’ve worn that duty call for a long time.

It has been too long wearing that cloak. It’s heavy and weighing me down. I am starting to ask, Hey what about me? It helps. It reminds me that I have been standing and living alone for many years. I have been my own keeper and comforter. Not that I am complaining. It has made me strong and resourceful, seeking my own solutions, finding my own way. I’ve listened to others while seldom heeding my own cries. I feel that I am that one hand that is clapping. And not a sound can be heard.

That is why I love the tap, tap of my keyboard. I can hear myself talking as I watch the letters and words march across the screen. My sorrows and joys are heard. They resound in that heartspace, as Mattie Stepanek would call it. I am listening to me. I am heard. I do matter. I am that stone sending ripples through oceans and the universe – as you are, too.

It is 3:00 pm, that bewitching supper hour for Sheba. I do have the will. Sheba does, too. I have overcome the guilt that I’m making her suffer by waiting. She is not suffering. She can wait. She is a Lab. She always want to eat if I let her. Now that she’s fed, she’s noisily squeaking her rubber chicken and fussing for her walk.

We’ve been for our walk and back. It’s good to move, change my posture, change my space and be in nature. Much easier to go earlier than later. Do the hard stuff first. Then there is no guilt in putting my feet up. The day is done. We’ve trudged through heavy wet snow and shovelled the same. My must-dos along with a few may-dos are crossed out on the to do list.

  • Get up, dress up and show up
  • Post for Navigating Through November on Instagram
  • Draw
  • Write
  • Make yogurt

The rest of the evening is gravy as they say. Wine, anyone?

 

 

ON A WHIM AND A DARE

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I dare you to.  How often have you been dared?

I came upon  a website called 30days30dares.com the other day.  I thought I would like to do a dare a day, but maybe not for 30 days.  The dare issued out by Fakeku Fatumise appealed to me.  He dared me to breathe into my bigness and bring it out into the world.

Well, I am Chinese, the first born and a born again Catholic.  That should say something to you.  I am forever immersed in guilt and duty, and of course, perfection.  Even though I try my best not to fall into their clutches, down I would fall again and again.  I have  no bigness and my heart feels small and tight.  And my mind chatters ceaselessly into my ear – about how lacking I am, how small I am.

And so I sit and close my eyes.  I relax my shoulders. I take a deep breath in and breathe slowly out through this small opening in my chest.  I feel the opening widening, my chest expanding.  I’m rising out and above myself.  I see myself as this small human being who never thought of herself as being an individual with her own breath.  How could that be, a person with no breath of her own?

Well, she never lived for herself.  She was unconscious.  She was bound by duty and guilt.  Long ago in one conscious moment, she was aware that she would rather be unhappy herself than make another so.  But somehow we have this innate sense of survival and she could not quite forfeit that right.  It was a good thing, she was told by an expert.  Since then, she’s daring to breathe, but sometimes she forgets and falls down, down, down the winding staircase of life.

But I can pick myself up, dust myself off.  I try not to beat myself up too much.  I try not to obsess too much.  I breathe.  My heart is getting bigger and I see it is towards myself that I am being small.  I am unkind and ungenerous towards the one that really matters to me.  Without a me, I cannot do for others.

I DARE me to breathe into my bigness and treat myself with loving kindness.  The rest will follow.