Life is Difficult

Posted on August 8, 2024 by hafong

M. Scott Peck wasn’t kidding with his first line in The Road Less Travelled. Life is difficult. I have found that it’s never perfect and seldom smooth. Some days I’m falling asleep in early evening watching my favourite crime show. Other nights, like last night, I could not sleep past 2 am. Not too many days ago, we were sweltering in +30℃, sleeping with all the windows wide opened. Now all the windows are closed and I’m snuggling in my old pink fuzzy housecoat.

Talking about M. Scott Peck, he wasn’t so perfect either. Checking him out, I found that his first wife was Lily Ho Chinese. From an article in the Guardian “He spent much of his life immersed in cheap gin, chain-smoking cigarettes and inhaling cannabis, and being persistently unfaithful to his wife, who eventually divorced him. He also went through estrangement with two of his three children.” He sounds like a scoundrel. I wonder why he and his book were so successful. I have to read it again. It’s on my bookshelf.

I do wonder if I have been reading the wrong books, worshipping the wrong heroes and tripping down the wrong paths. How is one to know though? Having arrived here at this point in my life, I think it wiser to choose the easier and well trodden path first. It would be easier going and retreating. It would save time and energy to begin anew. It is hind sight and too late for me. It’s what I would advise if I was asked but who listens to advice. Not me.

So here I am, not exactly stuck and not doing terribly. I am just tapping and bitching. It helps me in the process of letting go. It’s never easy for me. I hang on and hang on. Thoughts and feelings swirling around like a snow globe. It is how I am. I can learn to a little better but it is my nature. It does me less harm if I tap it out rather than forcing myself into being perfect and never stray off the path.

ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS

Posted on November 22, 2023 by hafong

I’m having one of those nights when my restless spirit won’t let me sleep. I hate it for stirring me up with useless circular thoughts going round and round and I can’t stop this train. What happened to the brakes? Aren’t I in control?

I wrestled quietly in bed. Can’t decide whether I should stay or get up. Which is better. My indeciveness is making me more agitated. I get mad. I get up. I cannot contain myself. So now I am tapping to calm myself. Maybe I can tap myself to sleep. I would like to have a cup of tea but that would keep me up going to the bathroom all night. I miss my youth when that thought would not even enter my head. And I would drink tea all night long.

Do you have such nights? And what would you do? I don’t mean to complain. I don’t have these nights very often. I get irritated when I do. I like to get up early in the morning. That’s the best part of my day. And when I can’t sleep, I won’t be bright eyed and bushy tail. I have an exercise class at 7 am. Surely my tail will sag. Maybe I should hit the sack again and will myself to sleep.

HICCOUGHS

Posted on April 13, 2019 by hafong

I have to tell you, I’m having more than a few hiccoughs in 2019 and it’s only April. There’s 8 more months to go but who is counting? I’ve been here many times before. I’ve learned it’s best to accept the hiccoughs instead of fighting them. It takes some effort each time. I’m accepting that, too, because that’s how I am. It’s like doing the backstroke in a rocky swimming pool. There’s no smooth gliding. I’m tossed about. I’m not a good swimmer and I start panicking when water floods my face and up my nose. I have to rein myself in from thrashing wildly about, gain control and float through the waves.

I’m doing just that through this recent hiccough. Who knows what poked the tip of the iceberg. Do I still have hormones? Then there’s the weather, the clouds, winds, dip or rise of temperature along with the atmospheric pressure. Whatever. It does not matter. I’m out of balance, my mood can change on a dime, I can’t sleep, things don’t get done. It feels like weeks long but it is only a couple of days. Life feels like a wreck. I feel like a wreck.

I sound like a wreck, too, but I’ve changed a thing or two. I can almost stop my thoughts and feelings on a dime. I said almost. Now whenever those bad thoughts and feelings come up, I see a stop sign coming at me. I feel that hand pushing me back. STOP! And I do for a minute or two. Huh! I have to roll that around my mind and decide what is best to think, feel and speak. Sometimes the best course of action is no action and no words.

Well, I do hope I can sleep a little better tonight. Maybe I can practice doing the backstroke in my mind to send me off into dreamland. But what will be, will be. The future is not ours to see. Que sera, sera.

LET THE CLOCK TICK

Posted on January 3, 2019 by hafong

January 3, 2019 1:04 pm

Rats! I’m losing this beautiful warm sunny day to a sleepless night. I have a few of them a year when I cannot catch even 30 minutes of sleep. I always struggle through half the night, trekking back and forth between bed, bathroom and couch. I gave up after 2 am and stayed on the couch, put on my earbuds and listened to Marci Shimoff’s Happy For No Reason. I was able to relax anyways, drifting in and out. I should have done it sooner. It’s always the hindsight of the should have.

By 6 am, the furry alarm clock was fussing, nudging me with her cold nose. I could ignore her for only a little while. It’s up and feeding her. Then she wants out to do her business and her impatient bark to come in when she was good and ready. It is one of those sleepless days when I’m too tired to stay awake but too wired to fall asleep. Talk about wasted days and wasted nights. I know exactly what that means.

I’m a little wiser, from experience, on what to and what not to do. Though I have a difficult time say no, I turned down my mother’s invitation to dim sum with the family. I couldn’t do it right away. I had to phone back. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be driving in my condition, especially with her and dad riding with me. Could my brother pick them up? I shouldn’t be surprised that he delivered some take out for me later. My mum cannot leave anybody out. She knows I love egg tarts and chicken feet.

I do feel most wretched but not enough to sleep. I’m feeling a bit sweaty and distraught. There’s no use in crying over spilt sleep. I will just have to sit/lay it out and not do anything stupid like driving or operating my Bernina. I will only create more trouble and havoc. I will be sorry like the time I tried to interview roofers for my parents’ damaged roof. I thought it would be harmless but I didn’t count on being so vulnerable. I could not be pressured to sign on the dotted line. I was wrong. I was lucky. I got out of it that time.

When I got a call from a funeral home this morning, I said no, there’s no chance even tomorrow that we could get together to talk about wills and estate planning. It’s tacky soliciting so soon in the new year. I already know I’m a procrastinator but I do have a will. I said I will call you if the need comes up.

I am tapping and sipping away here. I hope I still have a bit of judgement left. I hope I won’t saying anything inappropriate. My problem is I hate to waste time. My clock is ticking. I think I will let it tick. This is my wake up call. I have a headache and pain behind my left eye. I received this subscribed email from Jennifer Louden in my mailbox this morning. It’s a bit eery. The woman sounds just like me. I think I will take the fur baby for a short walk and fresh air.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who stood on the cusp of the new year and grinned.

She grinned at all her past selves stretching behind her. Where once she would have judged those selves for their choices, now she bowed to them. They had brought her to this moment. Who would she be without them?

She grinned too at all the Januarys of years past when she had started a diet or a written a long list of Big Hairy Goals or felt her heart contract with a hectic fantasy of needed achievement.

She grinned at all the years she believed she had to do something, become something, fix something or someone.

She grinned too at the ways she had once compared herself to others, forgetting the wholeness at the root of life and instead believing it mattered who made what and who got credit.

She makes herself a cup of tea and curls up on the couch.

Ah, how adorable she was.

What is different now?

She still desires to create, to write books, to make art, to earn money, to visit far-flung places, to work for social justice, to soften the parts of herself that clench and hide. Of course, she does.

The difference, she realizes, is now she trusts herself to relax into the ever-present flow of life.

She trusts herself to remember, again and again and then again, to open to love, to let life live her.

She trusts life to carry her on a river of desire to ever greater intimacy with itself.

She giggles. It all sounds rather silly and over-blown.

But she feels the truth in her cells, this hard to put into words truth that life is something far bigger and richer and infinite than her plans and her thoughts and her funny story she has to do anything to be worthy.

And with another grin, she lets life carry her out for a walk.

Here’s to letting life animate, inspire, and carry you this year and every year.

Love,
Jen

PS. My FREE Get Back to Creating Challenge: 5 Days to Find your Confident Flow is happening later this month! Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss out!

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SLEEPLESS IN THE DESERT

Posted on March 7, 2013 by hafong

We are 23 days into Lent.

I spent the night sleepless wandering in the desert. Needless to say, I had no dreams nor visions. Moses did not speak to me from the mountain. No one came to lead me out, not even God. The desert was very dry, no oasis in sight.

I did not panic. I journeyed from where I was, the best that I could. I remembered long time ago a classmate, new to the city, was crossing the street. Half way across, the DON’T WALK sign came on. She turned back, waited for the WALK sign and started again. Guess what? The same thing happened! We laughed about it but it was a huge lesson for me, though it took some time for me to realize it.

We cannot always start afresh. It is not always a good thing. We have to start from where we are now, scarred, with heavy baggage and all. And so, I did not fight my sleeplessness. I try to use the time to put a few things in order, to look at things differently. Then I just lay down, close my eyes. I let everything be.

I did the best I could. I put my hand over my heart and felt comforted.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

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