traveling along with them

Last night mom and I git the bright idea to follow my sister's itinerary via You-tube. My sister woke my mom up at three in the morning to bitch and complain about her travel companion's choices of the hotel. Mm of course bolted up and could not go back to sleep under the circumstances. I have told mom many times that I really hate that my sister does that to her. She calls in a frantic way and she doesn't ever ask whether it is a good time or what mom happens to be doing. I also got really pissed because the person she is travelling with has organized the entire trip and is paying for her, so she is a guest and the whole affair is a gift, so carrying on as she is smacks of lack of gratitude! So, we decided to check out what others have to say and recommend about the entire trip that she is taking and in a flash, the behavior changed considerably. We can see what other travellers have done, how they have recommended using means of transport...what they ate, what it cost. What the weather is like...it is an excellent way to see in real or recent time frames what to expect. Mom and I are absolutely enjoying being able to be on the vacation with her of sorts. We can see where she is going next, see whether the hotel is actually nice and what ot really offers. We know that it is a town with a large shopping mall and western eating places. My sister cannot seem to stomach the natural foods! Waw! Imagine always wanting to go to that part of the world and then not liking a big part of the experienceOur neighbor is also going to the same place. She is in Amsterdam right now with the intention of travelling there in a day or two. We suspect that like my sister's friend, she too did not get a visa for the place. So we shall see what is going on with that. Travelling has changed, and mom and I are saying that we love the change. We appreciate being able to see what a place is like so that we can actually know whether we want to visit a temple on a Tuesday, or take a taxi to a night market or an artisan village. What all of this has done is make us excited to plan something soon perhaps even a staycation sort of thing, as there are a few places we keep saying we want to go to and haven't.

lots of parallels

Yesterday my mom was equally as dispondent as I about her own projects. One of them was the fact that as Secretary in two of her NGO's, she is one of the hardest working people in the group. I have seen the President call her constantly for reference material and advise on several occassions!Mom was supposed to go to France this year with her group, but in typical fashion, a few of the members at the top decided to splinter off and go without really telling anyone how they could have also gone to Rome. They also went like tourists, where the findings that they should have come back with and reports they should have written where really quite half assed! All of this annoyed my mom of course. So yesterday mom is strongly consideing resigning from this group she has been in for a staggering 40 years! I had a serious talk with my mom about this labor of love group she has been in forever. We concluded that there are things that she clearly loves about the group. We looked at it hinestly and also at the things that drive her crazy and disappoint her. It took some doing, as the whole thing also has some nostalgia to it and there is also a bit of ego too. By helping my mom with her decision, I also heard what I too was learning with my own decisions on the ngo I am involved in and also my job. For both of us, we are people who commit to what we do. We stay the course sometimes at our peril. We enjoy what we do and we want to do more, but we also know only too well that we cannot do what we do for free. We have to make our contributions such that it is without question that the things we want to get out of doing the things we do, actually come to pass. We both want to be published. We do want other people to be more responsible and pro-active. So this is where we both are, and we now know how we shall go forward.

and then this happened

When the new term begins, us part time lecturers know that we shall most likely not see any salary for a month. It can be rough going, and none of us can manage on that salary alone. What is also expected is that the contracts are almost never, ever given out when the semester begins. Infact we have received contracts sometimes as late as November for a September to December semester. This term, the contract was prepared by the third week in Spetember and the Secretary also happened to send both the claim forms and the pay dates too. This is usually something that also never comes together. Last year I checked the pay date form and put my claims in on the deadline only to be told that mine happened to be the last one 'in' to the department. I was very confused about that because the payment slip states that the date is the time to put in the claim? Anyway, I remembered the experience, so I decided to prepare my form a whole week early. Well guess what? My salary did not come in on the expected pay date of the 24th! I contacted HR and Payroll and was told that no contract for the semester was received! What it means is that I will not be paid until the end of November! I would be working for three months without a salary! I cannot begin to state how I felt when I was told that! Particularly as I am going way above and beyond (as usual) in the department with the Installation project that I am delivering on the 28th which is Monday and then another big department presentation on the 7th of November! I felt so despondant and grieved about this happening to me yet again!

watcha doin' about it

I see what I am hearing as distracting.This reminds me of something that happened to me years ago where I felt ganged up on. I decided to stay as still as possible and sort of listen, focus I suppose on my breathing and I would say that it also an acknowledgement that I am not the moment...but bigger...not the body...but something bigger. That is the only way to describe it...in that moment, I saw as though in meditation, that these people had gathered together for my benefit. I remember seeing in my minds eye a chessboard and myself and them people on different sides. I am not seeing a chessboard here,but I do not need to in this case. I have decided that this experience is a teaching one for me. In fact I have found this year that that is my general attitude to everything I have been going through. I find it very helpful. Instead of focusing on personalities, I get quiet and listen and when I do that I don't feel that I take on to any great extent the bad energy that is being sent my way.

One of those things

Ever walked into a conversation had about you by family who tell you nothing but god stuff? But now they are saying things about you that they have never ever said to you to someone esle? Well, that was my experience these last two days. It happened twice with my sister and my mother. It is a hell of a thing, because in my sister's case,she keeps asking me how I am doing, asking about how my daughter is doing and I have been absolutely normal with her, listening to her advice, having what I thought was open discussion. My sister is also having the discussion in favor of my ex-husband. She is siding with him regarding what has most recently happened now that my daughter does not want to live with him anymore. There was a desire to listen to as much of her vitriol as possible. But a much deeper desire to let it go prevailed. Also,as I was hearing the conversation go in and out of earshot, I found the grace and instinct to know what her words are mostly about her own experience. In fact I will now write that who knows what is repeated that I have said to my mother that I assumed was between us, that my mother has repeated to her to make her feel the way that she does about me? From the way this entire situation played out, I have to acknowledge that indeed this must be the case. My sister smiles to my face and occassionally does confront me over a matter...as she did several months ago. As the saying gos, she came for me in a way I could not understand at all. She literally interrogated me about my ex-husband and I will admit that to end the barrage of criticism and shouting at me, I decided to give her what I felt she wanted. I apologized for not telling her how I was feeling in the moments she demanded answers to. I explained that I felt humiliated and embarressed to have met someone who would do some of the things that he did. I bowed, scraped and acted absolutely contrite to not have been more vulnerable, humble and appropriately weak in her presence of rightiousness. etc, etc. I went a little further and even asked her whether she was satisfied even a smidge by my explanations from that time? What more could I do to appease her beliefs of that time? It absolutely worked when I pushed back with my arsenal of treakle heavy platitudes where she could be the victor and me the vanquished. It takes nothing to make a bully satisfied. It costs nothing to step aside from what I know and what the bully is all about.

good exhaustion

I am seeing some tiny improvements in my way of doing some of the things that I have been wanting to change. The best part is that I am enjoying the process.The bigger concern is my daughter's comfort, and despite feeling stressed and anxious about her day to day travel,and I know that I shall continue to feel that way until she leaves school....and then I shall start all over again when she goes on to college and into the world of work and so on...she tells me that she is.We have much to do though, as I was in the process and continue to be moving things out of my room and changing things around. I have not been able to do much more in the last two to three weeks.But it has been started, so there is no going back where that is concerned. She and I were talking about what we plan to do next. Also my neighbor is travelling until the new year and I have decided to use her departure as a guide to all the things that I want to achieve in the next two months. Some of the things I want to do is to store my things in the garage, but to really do a thorough listing and photofile of what appears in each for easy access. I have to make some hard choices about some of the things I shall have to throw away. But then, more space shall be given to the space. I do not plan to work in the garage and/or make it into a studio space, for the simple reason that it is a relatively open room and I feel that I may be jumpy being in it because of all of the animals and insects that scurry and fly through the space all of the time.How I shall actually use the space apart from one for storage remains to be seen. But for now, that is my intention. There are things around the house needing to be done and I am excited to see at least one of the things done before the new year.

what are you telling me?

One of my favorite cousins was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago. He kept in touch with us through all that he was going through and then in the end, he succumbed to it a few weeks ago. Over the years he was such a loving, kind, smart, athletic and giving person. So it came as quite a shock when at his funeral which we were given a link to because it was held in London, we saw a number of things that just confused us in the extreme.It began with seeing his brother sitting with two people whom we considered his family, only to find out that my cousin,whom as far as I knew lived alone...was alledgedly involved with, lived with, had a stepchild and two children with...adopted? I don't know...this whole life just came out that we knew nothing about. What's weird about all of this is the length of time we spent with him where he could have revealed this to us. It was his life, so why would he never mention these people? I was so shocked by these developments that I took several hours going through every piece of correspondence I ever had with him. I remembered him telling me that he had been in a relationship and that it ended and he was depressed for awhile, like a year or two and then to my memory he sent me three pictures of himself and a new love in his life.I cannot find those pictures anywhere! But then, I have deleted emails in the past and that message may have been one of them. My reaction also comes because I don't understand it? I can't fathom the contrast between the person I knew and loved and the new information that I feel did not have to be hidden for any reason whatsoever. It was as though I was watching someone elses funeral and not my cousins.His passing was upsetting enough, and then that! I am still expecting some answers about this whole thing. On the one hand, I should care less whether my cousin had this life I knew nothing about. He could do whatever he wanted with his life. But it is just that it has come out of such left field that I am stunned!I am made to wonder about his life in a way that I never expected.

what's up doc!

What experiences I have been having. The first being talk even less and observe even more. The next, keep your assumptions your own observation. There may be no need to get a second or third opinion from others. You may be absolutely right, but that doesn't mean that you have to air the opinion. Talking about other people's lives is none of my business, and it may make me a bland person, but I can discuss ideas instead. I can discuss experiences. I don't have to bring up hunches about people. I state this because I recently found out that someoen I know who got a large financial windfall had to spend it on some serious health issues. I had some old views about the person and was assuming that he was just moving true to form, only to be told by a friend about his challenges. I felt like an asshole about it. Then there is the fact that I can be self rightious sometimes too. I assume that I am doing my best and being this good person, but sometimes I have no idea how I may actually be coming across to others. I need to sometimes just step back and not be so willing to give advice or to think that my opinion is helping.

when control is out of control

The behavior of my ex-husband has been so upsetting that I don't know where to begin. This has a very long history of gradualy becoming all that you despise. I remember the Howard Stern movie where that was exactly the case with the station manager that Howard worked for. The manager was so concerned with keeping him on the straight and narrow that he completely lost it.The need to have some sort of ultimate power over our daughter, seeing infractions in her every move! How could he begin to think that she would want to stay with him? He began this fruitless quest by making a list ofdemands that to many adults may seem almost reasonable. Exercise, study, he gave specific times to do them and then the caveate, you cnanot see your mother until the end of the semester and for only one week. He came to this conclusion when at the end of the 'summer' break she stayed one extra day with me and was then invited to a school party with a friend whose birthday was the last day of the holiday. Paranoid much! She felt put upon, but realised that he never really stays home to make sure that she do anything. He goes out alot and doesn't care to check in with her anyway. But then, he began to up the stakes. He didn't want her studying in her room. He began to say negative things to her when she seemed to not move to his rules quickly enough and SHE had enough! I am deeply proud of her for standing her ground and being adamant that she shall not allow him or anyone to ruin her schooling and control her life as he has tried to do! The first time, she sent his letter to her grnadmother , my sister and to his brother and neice. The second time she sent his scathing comments to her psychologist who agreed that she should leave, With the last and real nailed coffin, scorched earth going way too far! I even got involved and tried to write to him about his actions being way beyond reasonable. But he of course doubled down on his behavior instead. He fnally wrote a half hearted apology but continued to insult her prospects by saying that my family would drag her down to our level of miserable life. He is a piece of work isn't he? She has been through so much in such a short time! She is doing as well as can be expected. We are also making sure that she feels heard, safe and loved.

LEFT

My daughter and ex-husband went to a parent/student meeting on Friday. She was on her phone at one point and he kept trying to take it from her. She told him to stop and he then said that it seemed that she could be their without him then he got up and left. He just left her without her school bag or any money. She only had her phone on her and when she looked at the incoming message he wrote that she should pack her things and come to me, he was done with her. So now she is at my home. She wants nothing to do with him! The fact that he could pull this stunt of his, a stunt to get her to obey him, well he was severly wrong.She sees right through him. She has been wanting to leave for some time but he lives five minutes walking distance from her school, whereas I live an hour and fifteen minutes away. The whole thing is a travesty!But so it is.