Land of the free the war is at home

America is on fire and having WWIII with itself! This has been a very long time in coming. The 25 million unemployed American's and the killing of George Floyd boiled over to create this shit show that continues as I speak. I am waiting to hear that America understands that sweeping reforms must begin from the top down in their country, and that right away, an Act must be made in Congress to change whatever law literally shields Police. But also, whatever moneys were being given to Americans for covid-19 relief, that has to be increased, and people given something to tide them over the millions of lost jobs. But right now, all that I am hearing, even with what I just heard from the possibly soon to be elected Democratic choice for President, Joseph Biden, nothing will really change. They are so close to being able to make major change, and I really hope that they grasp the opportunity, and I am looking on with hope and my fingers crossed.

down

I am feeling a bit down tonight. I miss my dad. Then, my ex-husband is at his usual crap again. As I write, I know that I shall be better. But just for now I feel as though the tide is way out, or as though all of the threads that keep me together have come apart.That is not the case, but it is just what I feel in this moment. I have to climb out of it one thought at a time. After all, it was a lovely day. Despite the one thing that has the world, or at least America up in arms and thus, all black people..the killing of George Floyd. As much as that pains, as much as the rage regarding that keeps one vigilant and resigned, the day was good. It was just coming down to tonight, my eyes hurt, the things that I struggle with just felt closer, and from that, it was so easy to slip into the skin of sadness. I get this foolish way where I want to believe that everything has gone pear shaped and somehow I am so helpless.But if I turn the idea around and look at it from another angle, then I could equally ask, what is it that I think I need, and the answer is always the same...a win of some sort. Something to make me feel better. It is a feeling that I have more loss than gain. That is all that it is, and usually, I would say to myself that a good night sleep is what I need, and I am right. But for now, this sinking , inky feeling is what I have and I shall live with it for now,as I know that it shall not last.

what about what you don't want

Everything was more or less good until something resonated the wrong way and then was left to fester. Who survives such foolishness unless someone else chooses to look past it? That was the case yesterday in London with Boris Johnson's Senior Advisor Dominic Cummings., whose coming and going was brought up for scrutiny in light of quarantine laws. Thus, the observation of before and after. What was the catalyst that sent a perfectly lovely experience into one of enmity? It suggests that no matter how high minded I want to appear to be, I too have my limits and standards regarding friendship, and that tells me that I reacted to something that I have a strong feeling about within myself. I like you as long as you like me? When you suddenly start finding fault, I become thin skinned. Why are you suddenly being so contrary? Why are you making demands on me? How can relationships just flow? They do? But then, we are always shifting and adjusting ourselves to slight and severe views that we aspire to. Thus all of this becomes amusing. What is the fight about? You didn't behave as I expected, so now I draw a big black marker over your head and shun you. Or you shun me and a thousand little cuts. What are we really protecting? Let me hurt you before you hurt me? Nobody wins this insane pretzel test!

attraction

So after my friend revealed her ass to me, A behavior I always heard her talk about, but never associated it with our friendship, I now wonder what else I need to learn from it? I just wrote about the pervasive disease of negative self beliefs. You do not need anyone else to help you feel badly, in fact, as hard as it is to acknowledge, you probably pull the people toward you who can help you agree with all of the crap you tell yourself. You choose relationships and then you get down to making it comfortable. If it is friendship, then it is based on similarities and structures that engage and entertain you. If it is love, then there is a sexual component along with compatibility. You have to accept some responsibility for the pleasures gained from the association.You say to yourself, my friend understands me, supports me...gets my moods and my quirks and likes me. I like them back. When you disagree, the relationship usually should be able to withstand the differences. What has happened to me, is that the echoes of things she has told me about the way she views and has treated her own family now resonates loudly in my ears as I am on the receiving end of her behavior. She represents herself as a victim. But not only is she not a victim, she is a very cunning predator. She contacted me yesterday and she asked me how I was doing and then got right into what she wanted from me. Yet again, I marveled at that. She had no qualms at all. She does this with her children to. They go out of their way to do whatever they can for her, but she nitpicks about what she feels was not done to her exacting requirements. How can someone ever be happy when all that they see is what they believe, they don't want or isn't exactly as they wan it? It is like, she wants $100. You give her $100 in $50,20,20,$10. She complains that you gave her two $20 and a $10. My God! What are you doing to yourself? What are you doing to your life? What sort of mental illness is this? OCD much!?! To me, that kind of behavior smacks of entitlement. That can get out of hand. It makes relationships become strained. What is all of that criticism about? The similarities between my ex-husband and her is so acute right now? Being so, I question why am I attracted to such people? You are supposed to attract what you are or what you need to work on...I read that somewhere once. I have definately been critical in my past. No doubt about it. I am now very self critical, and working on it all of the time, and seeing improvements and I am very excited and pleased about that. It is all about expectations and feeling that you do not control your life. (Which you really don't) But you also do control your world. You control the way you want to express yourself within it. Also, there is so much democracy in a situation. We reached an impasse because we both believe that our 'feelings' were not being acknowledged. The whole thing is mental! Really, really stupid! But it is real to both of us. This is getting rather long and I am not sure that my point is getting across...I shall make this two entries instead of one long one.

old constructs and new ways forward

The many issues I have faced since my Fathers' passing has kept me even more contemplative than ever. What is the point of it all crops up, and I do my best to stave off depression over his loss. There is a topic that I have been taking into account because of all of my feelings being so raw, and that is the way I have made some things in my life a great challenge over time by my own expectations. I look back now and see that I had opportunities to change where I am now into something so much easier to have been handled. But at that time, the thing itself seemed so insurmountable. What I must do for myself now is to be conscious that whatever I am facing now, I must do everything in my ability to not think that way again. Even when things seem impossible, and absolutely hopeless, the best thing to do is to at least put it down. Adding to the issue with negative views of yourself only creates more of it. You have to be there to see the thing through. Adding doom and gloom to the problem as I know now, is a sure fire way to stay in the muck. Observing what my friend did to me has been an excellent guide to seeing how a belief structure works. And, as I stated before, why would anyone in their right mind want to sabotage themselves? The bad feelings come up and they appear completely real. Before you know it, your walking around with it as though it was always part of your physical make-up. It gets into your pours. You see it in the mirror behind your smile. The very death it creates to all of your hopes, plans and dreams is astounding!I am guarding against that foe now, as it creeps up as such a supportive friend.

LOVE is real in friendship

A few days ago my mother and I were talking and something occured to me. it is obvious, but somehow, that moment made the thought quite poignant. We were looking at our family dynamic. Our family are seen as the most successful. Other members of my family are doing very well in my estimation. However, my parents have always been envied, and they ave been discussed behind their backs by other family members in my presence and the presence of my sister. Many times, together when we were children. No one dared say anything to my parents, but they took great pleasure in gossiping behind their backs. The gossip would be about who do we think we are? We have so and so, and our house is a castle and we feel we are so special. Naturally this colored our childhood and when we got older, my sister and I swore, along with one of our cousins, that we would NEVER do that to each other. My cousin was the first and only one to fold after making that promise. My sister and I have lived our lives by communicating with each other all the time. I can tell her anything and I do and she does that with me. If the topic is really sensitive, I tell her or she tells me that it is hard to talk about and we make the time and space to work on whatever is the challenge. So, we were talking about that, and suddenly I saw how much the belief that other people are having 'great' lives while you are not, is a fallacy. How do you even know this? Every person has challenges. I love that statement made by a dear family friend who said this about the Queen more than a decade ago. So, now, I am thinking about that, and taking it further when thinking about people who appear to have it all. They may have what may appear to be everything....house or houses, car or cars, access to all types of wealth...but they also can have mental illness, or loss of love or lack of. They may be lonely? Of course their are people very satisfied with their lives of all financial stripe as well, and that is successful. I had a student who showed me that at a time in his life where to me he had his plate filled with stresses. he got married during completing his degree. He and his wife lived with his parents and then when she got pregnant, they had to move to her family as his family started acting odd. One day I had taken the class out to one of our gorgeous hotels for a musical and artistic showing. At one point there was an intermission and the students were allowed to wonder around for half an hour. I found him looking at one of the really stunning views, just quiet and engaged. He turned to me and told me that he used to come to this very spot and look out at the world, so appreciative of the fact that he is alive within it. When he said that to me, my view of him increased to deep regard. I now know this Father of three soon to be adults and his wife, and I have seen him embrace life. i have seen him travel, and explore new things. I have seen his good attitude to life and to work. He makes me see in his small and not so small gestures, that it is always up to us to make it the best it can be and then some. It doesn't take money, it doesn't take luck, it doesn't take friends. It takes your attitude every single time. Of course he has had stumbles, he's had debt. he's had illness. But he has also had his faith and his joy in being alive and I appreciate him tremendously. PS: I tried to tell him how much he means to me a few years ago, and what I mean to him floored me. I was so moved by his regard for me that I nearly cried. It is important for me to write this now, particularly in regard to the challenges I look at as such.

Corona Virus relationships

Trying to get my friend to communicate what her views were against what mine were has proven to be a disaster. What I have come to notice is that I am now in the que of people she used to talk to me about. Where did I ever consider that I was somehow not perceived as she does everyone else? In the past I would literally tell her that I am not one of her old friends. I would not tell her things that I didn't mean, lie to her or pretend with her. I have worked very hard to make her see that I am willing to give her hard truths when she asks, but more so, I go the distance by helping her through the difficulty to the other side. However, I have now come to the place where that is the past. In fact, I am a bit relieved. It has been at a cost for me as her friend. It has been exhausting to re-assure her, and to support her, only to occassionally see her go down her path of self-destruction. All of this feels like the Covid-19 virus as friendship. I am stressed, dismayed, because I am in mourning for my dad, and her attitude is selfish and callous as far as I can see. As long as I am helping her with her projects (that fortunately we worked a cost out for) her sensitivity to me is zero. But I have been there before with her on these pages. She told me that that was who she was when she talked about other people and her issues with them. What made me think that I was special? I thought that we met on a mental level of mutual respect and consideration. I thought that we looked out for each other and had great communication and would be able to be real and true. But that was the relationship I shared with my darling friend who died and saw her as his replacement. Well I can wail to the Heavens now to say to him, you were absolutely wrong, she is nothing like you!!!! They shared the same birth date, but she is nothing like him at all, and I never compared them. So what now? I tried to get to a place in the conversation that I had to bring up, that we are at an impass with the discussion, and we need to work it out if we are to go forward in our friendship. I felt as though I was speaking Swahili. She is hell bent on holding her ground. So, for me, I have no intention of trying to make her see my point of view. It is a waste of time. She argued this way weeks ago regarding her rent and her children, so I can now see that happening with me as the same result. At the time she said that she would not apologize, she's a grown woman and she isn't going to back down no matter who is right. That I did react too by telling her how could things improve with her family relationships if that was her way of thinking! Now I see that that is part of her character. What all of this has also done for me is to make me look at what is said and how one behaves against that complaint. Her actions rally are cautionary, everything she has argued about others with me, she reflects. That is a known quote. But now, seeing it in action leaves me amazed! I have to check the things I also say. Am I going to start listening more closely at people I want to have longer relationships with to see whether they may turn out to be more harmful than helpful? I believe as always that any issue is about communications. I thought my friend would at least be able to come to the realsation that we did not have to agree, but we do have to respect the others opinion enough to say, you know what, I may not agree, or understand what you feel, but I am willing to say that I don't and I am willing to do better, or I am sorry that we disagree. She did none of these things and her profession is all about analyzing people and giving her advice. So for me, Physician, heal thyself.