Tuning the piano - this really has nothing to do with pianos or music - just so you don’t think I misled you :)

One of the many Tony Robbins CDs I have mentions something that has been coming to mind a lot lately. He mentions that he has a piano that needs tuning so he calls a piano tuner. The guy comes out and tunes it and then says he’ll be back in a short time. Tony Robbins asks why he’ll be back, didn’t he just tune the piano? The guy says, “Yes, but it’s been out of tune so long that it will slip back to where it was and I’ll need to keep putting it where we want it to stay until it stays on it’s own” (not exact quote but same basic idea).

People who are trying to change ideas, habits, attitudes, thoughts…whatever it is…are like a piano that has been out of tune for a long time.  You get focussed, you push on towards your goal, you start to slip, you make a complete nosedive and then you are back where you started saying, “See? That didn’t work! I can’t do it!”  BUT if you were to pick yourself up, brush yourself off and get back in the saddle with determination and faith that this time you would be able to reach your goal…You would make it farther than last time before you slipped (IF you slip at all).  And each time this happens, you might make it twice as long as the last.  And the possibilities in between “down time” are endless.  So, this is completely hypothetical but…let’s say you spend 2 days being gung-ho about a new project and 30 days in a depressed funk, and then you pull yourself up and you spend 4 days working toward the goal and then slip off for about 15 days….then it’s 8 working days and 7 days of being sort of depressed over the state of things…then it’s 16 days of productive positive steps and 3 days of sitting on the couch watching soap operas…then 32 days of up time, 1 day of down time…  See where this is going?  Each time you picked yourself up and started back towards the goal, you were “tuning the piano”.  And the need for it slowly became less and less and less until it looked more like a half day of sitting in your jammies, eating chocolate ice cream from the carton and reading “Psycho-Cybernetics”  instead of a full blown bout of depression.

I used to make a plan and chart it out and have diagrams and affirmations on post-its all over the house…and then get used to seeing them and not really “see” them and just slide back into my old slump…NOW, I notice I’m going into a slump and think, “Time to tune the piano!” and I am able to get focussed again and keep going on my way towards my goal.

It’s not easy to spot when you begin to slide back into a slump, but I think when you get tired of hearing yourself complain about it and make the decision to put your foot down and make it work for you, then you start to notice. I think it’s really a matter of how bad you want it. Do you want to be successful and happy ENOUGH to pull yourself out of your comfort zone AND AND AND are you willing to do what it takes to STAY OUT of that comfort zone? Are you ready to make a new comfort zone?

I firmly believe that we are all capable of doing whatever it is we want to do. I also believe that we deprive ourselves of what we say we want because it’s a scary thing to leave that area you know so well…even if it is an area of stress, pain, misery, depression…whatever…it’s yours, you know it, it doesn’t change, it’s comfortable!

I’ve put my foot down. I just have to keep putting it back down. And while I seem to be catching myself slipping back into the old habits, at least I’m catching it! I never noticed before. That is progress, I think. Now that I’ve hit that stage, I hope the process of reprogramming myself with good habits will speed up and things will really start to get increasingly better here.

I’m sure they will get better. And I’m afraid it’s going to be me to make the first significant step here cause hubby has way too far to go to be the one to grab hold of the reins and do what needs to be done. He’s trying. He really is. But he’s got a ways to go before he can make it more than a day or two without being ready to give up on himself. And while that sucks, it’s better than having him at the stage where he’s already given up and is inebriated and a liability to our entire future.

I see progress here. I’m very optimistic about it all. We are going to accomplish our dreams…it WILL happen.

Ice skating in Florida

We went ice skating today.  Well, the girls went.  I wanted to but I was afraid I’d fall on my butt in front of 200 homeschoolers.  Yes, I caved into the pressure and didn’t skate with my girls.  I’m an ass.  We are going back and I swear I’m going to do it.  The look of disappointment was too much.  Last week we went to the town pool with friends.  They’ve built this great pool complex complete with a giant water-park sized water slide.  My friend was having a bad day and since we were due to meet at the pool for a homeshool meeting, I called to check on her status.  She informed me at that point that I’d BETTER be bringing my bathing suit.  If she had to get in with her 3 year old, I had just BETTER be going with her.  Tears were on the way, and it seemed like going along with it seemed like a good plan.

Well..let me tell you…I don’t wear a bathing suit in public.  I hate wearing one in my own pool.  I despise what my body has gone and done to itself while I was trying to hide under a rock these last 10 years…BUT I HAD FUN!!  She and I went down the water slide.  The look on my kids faces was worth a million dollars!  MOM WENT DOWN THE SLIDE!!! BAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Good thing they didn’t think of getting the camera out until we’d already done it.  :

Ok, that is better….

I spent over an hour tonight, possibly 2…fixing this blog. The css for the site was borked and making me nuts. It’s been that way for months but tonight it just irked me over the edge.

There were no line breaks!

It was all smooshed up together!

There was no white space!!

It was horrid.

The proper tags were in the source code but not working in the visible page. So, I tore it apart and here were are. My sidebar is a bit “off” but…it’s almost 4am. It can wait til tomorrow.

I was thinking of Solaris being a Night-Owl and how we’ve all corrupted her on so many levels (insert lollies here) , and I was working on CSS and well….my brain started wandering off into where ever it goes when I’m not holding the reins.  I have music playing during this time as well…this is a big part of where this is going, mind you.

So I’m floating in my own virtual petri dish composed of my past memories and the music suddenly snaps me back.  But not back to the present…I am suddenly 16 years old, crawling in the house at 9am, too much makeup, too much hairspray, not enough clothes…and my father is in the kitchen, sees me and says, “Well, look what the cat dragged in”…and being that was one of my favorite songs at the time, I thought it was a compliment.  So I grabbed some toast and took my exhausted, leather and lace clad skinny self up to bed to sleep til it was time to go out later.  Oh, yes, the song that came on was “Look What The Cat Dragged In” by Poison.

This happens all the time (not coming in at 9am after an evening or two of total decadence and debauchery, but the music inspired trips down memory lane).  I’m not sure if it’s normal for anyone else, but it’s very normal for me.  I grew up in music world though, it could just be me.

I have been playing music, singing, and working/married to the music industry…or rather…WAS until I met current hubby.

OO OO OO …    (hang on, shifting gears…)

I’m one of those people who stops what they are doing to announce the current song that just came on.  At least when I like it.  OR it’s really funny.

So Queensryche just came on.  OMG!!  Queensryche and Mindcrime have Wikipedia pages!!!!!  And they recorded Mindcrime in PA??  A couple of hours from where I lived???  (I honestly went to see if I could find the lyrics to what was on so I could copy and paste something but…I got totally sidetracked by that, sorry)

Everybody shift gears again!!

There are two voices that will absolutely meld with my soul while I’m listening to them.  One is my first lust object ever…and it was all because of his voice.  He was nice to look at but, I was 9 when I ‘fell in love with’ Steve Perry.  Both of my daughters are ‘in love with’ Steve Perry.  I swear I had nothing to do with it.  I was totally numb at the point they found my Journey CDs.  I’d quit living, quit listening to music.  So the Steve Perry thing must be genetic.

Anyway, Steve Perry’s voice…I can’t describe what happens.  I feel his voice.  Ok, I’m not even gonna keep trying to explain…I’m sitting here for 5 minutes at time trying to figure out how to describe and indescribable feeling.

The second is Geoff Tate of Queensryche, and it’s the same thing.  That voice just flows through me, it’s like a river of energy…ebbing and flowing in my core.

Now I like Journey, they are talented and they held my hand through tons of breakups, they were the only people in the world who really understood what I was feeling in those moments.  At least that is what I felt at the time.  But Steve Perry is really what made me listen to Journey.  Queensryche?  I could listen to each individual member do their own thing and be thrilled.  The talent in that group is just amazing.  I remember the first time I heard them, their EP had just been released and a friend had it.  I think that might have been the biggest connection between my ex and I.  We can still discuss Queensryche when we do talk.  When he was on the road right after Mindcrime had come out, we’d discuss who did it…it was the most exciting thing to discuss (can you say Red Flag?).  Of course he figured out that Mary had killed herself about the 4th time he listened to the whole thing.  But what really attracted him is where our interests split.  He was hell bent on figuring out how to do the drums for the songs.  We had our little 12 piece Tama set in the guest room and when he was home, he’d head down and just play and play…I can remember him watching a video of one of the songs…and then he started cursing (excitedly), ran downstairs and started banging away.  He had figured out how Scott Rockenfield was doing something he was totally lost on.  (I’m clueless on drums…so I have no idea).  Btw, the ex was not his bands drummer, he was the lead singer…The Flashy, Makeup Wearing, Long Hair, Good Looking Ringleader of his little band of talented misfits.

Wait, how did I get here?  Ah yes, it all started with me having a memory blast due to music.
I have some of the most profound thoughts, revelations, realizations, ideas and discoveries when listening to music.  It doesn’t even have to be good music…just music that moves me.  I like music for the emotion it gives off.  I love Mozart, Journey, Queensryche…all very good musicians.  And while I’m not saying these are bad, they aren’t quite the musical genius level of someone like Rush or Queensryche.  I like listening to fun bands…Poison, Cinderella, LA Guns, Motley Crue, Kix, Tora Tora (I like them, but I REALLY liked Anthony Corder, he was such a sweetie, that might have made their music just a bit more awesome to me)…and there are tons more I’m not even gonna list.
I think I’m way off course now.  It’s 5am.  We’ll have to pick this up tomorrow when I can stay focused.  (I’m sure you’ll all be holding your breath! LOL)

ACK! Motorhead is on…definitely my cue to skidoo…

See you all later!!

:)

Accountability

Ok, so I briefly touched on the fact that my brother has moved down here.  I also displayed my feelings about the fact that he’s 6 hours from his children.  He was “technically” closer when he lived 1800 miles away, it only took 2 hours to fly there.  He also does not pay child support, which is just about the lowest thing you can do.  He can, however, put money into a giant piece of junk car (hubby calls it the Pet Detective car) and buy paintball supplies, and beer (LOTS O FREAKING BEER) and music and and and you get the picture.  He’s a selfish bastard just like my father.  And while he learned it from him, he’s worse than my father for continuing the cycle of greed and abuse.  He’s all about “dominating the smaller species”, “controlling the situation” and other big red flag type phrases…so while I think he’s a loser for not being closer to his kids, they are most likely better off without him.
BUT…in the meantime, MY kids are being subjected to him!  My kids love him.  He’s like a big kid to them.  He’s all about playing and having fun…unless you get out of line, then he’s gotta put you in your place (which he wouldn’t dare to touch one of my kids but he’s always reprimanding them which gets me telling him to shut the hell up and mind his own business).  I don’t want him near my kids.  My husband agrees.  But, he’s freaking impossible to keep out of our house.  He just shows up.  He’s just there.  Like the guy in Mr. Deeds.  It’s scary.  And he doesn’t get it.  I think there might actually be something wrong with his ability to comprehend.  Perhaps it has something to do with drinking a case of beer a day?

So.  He’s here and I’ve gone totally nuts.  I was bitching and complaining…and then…I wondered.  I wondered WHY he bothered me so much.  Like abnormally much.

Was it that he was also going to be a burden on my mom.  She was obviously effected by his presence.  Or was his lack of responsibility what bothered me.  I keep telling my mom he needs to grow up.  He needs to be an adult.  He needs to…blah, blah, blah.

Well.  I got what I deserved I guess.  This week we really hit rock bottom.  We totally ran out of money.  So my mom went and bought us groceries and I’m like…oh my God!  I’m bitching about my brother not being responsible and my mother is buying me groceries so I can feed my kids!  That is like the pot calling the kettle black!  I’m just as bloody irresponsible as he is!

Now, when I got past my whole week of major hormone blasts and the shock of him showing up…I also got over feeling like I am anything like my brother.  While it is true that my mom bought us groceries (and then put gas in my van so I could get home from gymnastics), I did support her for a good many years after she left my dad.  I also work my ass off and spend my money on things like food for my kids, electricity, gas to get them to gymnastics (and I barter that, so no money needed there).  I don’t go buy saddles and horses and other such equine based items.  And when my ex and I got divorced, I sent money before we finalized it since my son stayed at the house and I moved out to an apartment near work - it’s just the right thing to do.

So I depressed myself by thinking I was like him, and then realized I might have been a bit harsh about the whole thing.  And this goes with my “get it out so I can’t bully myself with this crap anymore” philosophy.  When something starts to eat at me, you all are gonna get a front row seat for the outing…I have too much to do in this world to be bothered by such trivial garbage.
So what if I am a tad broke this week.  I’ll fix it.  I have been busy spending time getting our school schedule set up, and getting adapted to our new gymnastics schedule…I haven’t been actively annoying my regular clients so they give me jobs to make me go away for a week. 


Ok, I’m so tired I have the shakes.  I think that is the official stopping point.

See you happy campers tomorrow.

nite. 

Reevaluation

Every once in a while I need to stop and reevaluate what is going on and how I’m handling it. I’m afraid I’m not handling it too well this week. I have a million excuses but I’m tired of hearing excuses come out of me so I’m just going to skip that part.

Hubby has had a crappy week of work, and is frustrated by the limitations he’s creating. He says he knows that he’s the reason he has problems with some aspects of his job, and they are very unreasonable excuses. For his job he has to call “warm” leads (they sent in a request for information, had to fill out a handful of questions, etc.) and make an appointment to go discuss their options further. It should be fairly simple. But he freezes up on the phone. He can talk to anyone in the world face to face, but the phone makes him nervous. He’s got to work through it, not me, but that is what he’s battling this week. He also wants to move his desk and things to the girls playroom…which is going to get ugly when the girls figure out he’s stealing their space. And he’s going to be a nitpicky pain in the ass about what is in there so he can avoid making calls…I’m gonna have to nip that in the bud right away or it will be one shitty day tomorrow.

I’m not going to say that I won’t be happy to have my office back again. Sharing it with someone who can’t make necessary calls when you are in there so you have to leave, listens to music so loud that you can’t hear your own music (and he’s wearing your headset so you have to listen to yours out loud), taps on the desk constantly, makes noises, talks to himself and then falls asleep and snores, just is not a very good setting when you are trying like hell to finish jobs that require your brain to be able to focus.
I might be able to focus a little better once I have peace and quiet again (as I say this the dog started snoring so loud she woke herself up LOL ).

Of course, I could just be using that as an excuse. But I am accomplishing a lot the last week so I don’t really need an excuse.

I’m going to go finish my latest site so I can go to bed. See you all later!

:)

I’ve worn myself out today

I had a meeting that lasted way longer than expected.  It was good and it was needed after a good chunk of day being wasted to hormone induced insanity.

I can’t think of anything else to write now and it’s all Solaris’ fault! LOL

I need sleep.  Now.

See you all tomorrow.

:)

Today we are back on schedule!! Woohoo!

We started school up again.  Officially, that is.  We do school every day of the year since we sort of un-school.  Life is a learning experience so it’s all school, really.  But today we started back up with workbooks for our basic skills.  I think some of this stuff will be getting skipped but only after I’ve had time to review what progress has been made over the last few workbook free months.  Actually, they’ve not been workbook free.  I went to set up my little 3-ring binder this morning…and while listing books we use and what the basic schedule will be…I noticed that my little munchkins have completed large chunks of workbook on their own.  I’m not sure when they did it…but they did it.  And it’s all correct.
Oh, I’m very proud of the 8 year old and have to put it on record, she completed Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingells Wilder (247 pages) last night.  It took her about 2 weeks.  I’m so proud…she’s a bookworm like her mom!  :-)


Ok, I have a wicked headache.  We had a fairly large argument last night which might be the reason why I’m hurting more than normal.  I wish I had a valve in my head to let some of the pressure out sometimes.  I’m taking Claritan but it can only do so much.  It might be time to move up to prescription strength meds. 


I’m going to go get some house stuff done and then come back in and work.

:)

Aren’t dreams supposed to be obscure and confusing?

I woke up this morning (reluctantly) after hanging out all night in what I would call a Gulf-Area bar…not sure of the location but if you’ve been to a small town on the Gulf of Mexico…almost like New Orleans with shops and people but not nearly as busy…with water, homemade boats next to shrimp boats next to a few newer decent sized boats…where walking up the street is to be flowing in the drama of the city, not merely passing shops and empty lots.  These towns have character.  They have history.  Anyway, I was in a town like this.  It started with some bizarre need to pull a broken down boat using a really big chain pulled by someone walking down the waterfront street, and me explaining the laws of physics to the clueless dolt requesting the pulling be done.  I think that bit of dream moved on to me walking off and in to what seemed to be a bar I’d never been in, but was totally comfortable all the  same.   And while there was a mysterious stranger who was beyond (way beyond) normal, who remained concealed but kept running off when they saw me and the bar keep as well as patrons all knew they were out there, as they alerted me to them when they peeked in the window.  And the alerting was more of a nudge or a nod, nothing intended to scare said person away.  Actually, this person was in the bar when i came in and sat down next to them, and was someone I didn’t recognize so it really made no impact on the dream, aside from the constant popping up.  What was really the most interesting was…the bar was filled with bands I’d met, been around, never met but would have been quite comfortable hanging out with, etc.  As they were mostly rock and roll and southern rock type bands, the bar suited them all just fine and they seemed to be regulars.  Anyway, as I’m there, just hanging out…chatting with various people I can’t quite remember, I do remember big plans being made.  Big.  The primary organizer appeared to have been an extremely famous singer (not who’d I’d think of to dream about, but appropriate anyway) and he kept referring to me to make sure I could make it to this big event because I was a very important part of it. The rest of the patrons would echo this sentiment as I saw them, which made the dream so incredibly pleasant.  I really did not want to wake up this morning.  I’m guessing this complete and absolute warm fuzzy content and pleased with myself feeling is what it might have felt like if my father had ever actually approved of something I had done…and I’m guessing the dream was triggered by my ranting about it here.  So, I’m just adding on to the rant but to let you know that perhaps my clearing the air here has allowed me to actually allow myself to feel something I have never really felt before.  Acceptance.

Now, I have friends who are above and beyond the typical description of friends.  I have people who I’ve not even met, who I care about and am very interested in their well being.  I have friends I’ve met once or twice and who I look forward to reading about their lives, as well as their comments on my own.  And while I have these friends…I never felt worthy of them.  I can’t explain the feeling exactly and don’t care to try.  I think now though, I might have really knocked down a huge wall that didn’t allow feelings to go back and forth for fear that the disapproval was on it’s way.

So, I’m half awake and just came in here to write this down before I forgot.  It could be incoherent babble…but who cares?  It’s my blog, I can babble if I want to!  LOL

I’m going to go eat a bagel and have some coffee now.  See you all later today!

:)

I love my Claritan and more babbling…

But it’s not loving me lately…or it’s not making me feel very loved. I take the 24 hr Claritan D…and that has been perfectly fine up until I started forgetting to take it in the mornings and only remembered in the evenings. Once I started taking it in the evening, it was causing all sorts of strange and unusual side effects…mostly that my heart felt like it was racing a Triple Crown race on it’s own and that I wasn’t falling asleep until 6am or later. Now I can handle staying up til 6 and getting up at 9…no biggie when you have little kids. BUT my heart was actually hurting…so I stopped that shit right away. I took a few days off and then called my doc. We think it might have had something to do with my somewhat, possibly out of control, coffee habit that I didn’t really even notice I had. Doesn’t EVERYONE drink two pots of coffee a day? HMMMMM????? Well, apparently that isn’t normal, despite what my fellow webmasters tell me. Sooooooooo…..I’ve resumed taking Claritan BEFORE I start drinking my now reduced (bleh!) intake of coffee. Oh, and did I mention that I toss a few Red Bulls in there for good measure? You know…this is why three hours of sleep doesn’t bother me. Who can stay asleep with 2 pots of coffee, 2 Red Bulls and a 24 hour Claritan D in their system? Now…on top of all this really bad crap I dump in me, you have to understand that I also drink a drink that I make three times a day, it consists of whatever fruits i have around, some form of fruit juice and a spoon full of green powder. Yup, green powder. And honestly, this stuff rocks. It’s great. I also eat abnormal amounts of carrots, celery, sprouts, peppers…pick a veggie and if it’s in my house, I’m snacking on it. I’m just about to quit the coffee. It’s actually not even tasting all that good lately so I really should take advantage of that and just drop it. The Red Bull…I’m keeping it thanks. And my green stuff is staying. I also go buy drinks from the store like Green Goodness and Odwalla Farms Superfood. My kids even love them. Hubby won’t touch them cause he says they are too sweet (but I’m sure the fact that they are green has something to do with it).

Ok, Solaris mentioned that she was interested in hearing what brought on last post. I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer really. I think that in the course of treating this blog as my therapist…I’ve resorted to doing some things on here out of sheer desperation.

I don’t blame anyone for how I turned out. But I don’t have a lot of respect for my father, his parenting skills were non-existent and he is now getting from us what he gave us as children. Nothing. I’ve had my say with him, I’ve actually had my say with his voice mail a few years ago - because, in his true nature, he wouldn’t allow me to speak to him about things that matter. So I told off his voice mail. Hey, it worked. I got it out. I’m sure in the 2.4 seconds it took for him to either hang up or hit “delete” he got the point that I was very very very pissed at him. He might have sired me, but I don’t have to like him or respect him. He’s a sperm donor, plain and simple. I’m able to be cordial when he calls me now, which only started happening after his mother died. I am polite, I nod, smile, relay small tidbits of news he’s not really hearing because he just doesn’t care and then it’s ‘goodbye’. We speak every 3 or 4 months because I don’t see any benefit from fighting with him or hanging up on him.

Ok, so my dad emotionally scarred us for life…or at least for a good chunk of time. Well, me anyway, my brother is going to be paying the price for life. He’ll be selfish, lonely, and a bad father until he either gets therapy or has a revelation. I hope he gets one or the other soon. I’m not counting on it though. As long as he thinks like my father and grandfather (who taught my dad his incredibly parenting skills and who my brother idolizes) then there is little chance of breaking that cycle.

Enough of that though…

On to me and my own personal demons. When things start going really good, I tend to dig up everything that I’ve ever done in my life that could have been (or definitely was) wrong and go over it again and again. It was really starting to wear on me. So, I announced to the world, via the blog (my therapist), that Yes! I have done some messed up and wrong things! And it was like the relief that a person who is being blackmailed must feel when they finally tell the world whatever thing that is being held over their head and there is nothing left for a blackmailer to threaten them with. I don’t care who knows that I’ve been an asshole, I’ve hurt people’s feelings. I did things wrong and I know it. I also know that I’m not the same person I was when I did them. I mean, I was probably between 16 and 21 years of age when all the offenses occurred. If I were to see a 21 year old do some of the things I did, they’d never be as monumental as they seemed to be when I was holding them all in and torturing myself with them. So I let that out.

Really, the more I learn and the more confident I get, the more I try to knock myself down emotionally. How sick is that? I mean WHY would I do that? But I know why I do it. I was taught to do it. I didn’t do it to myself to begin with, my dad did it for me. Every single accomplishment, no matter how small or large, was met with contempt or indifference. No matter what happened, he would always knock you off your feet with something that just hurt so bad, that eventually I’d just do the damage for him without even bothering to get his attention. So what if I could sing on stage for hundreds of people, play the double bass (even if the thing was feet taller than me in the 6th grade! And OH, How I adored that double bass…) and the viola, I was an incredible artist (even in grade school) and would finish all my text books within the first two weeks of school (I would go through them all and answer all the questions in them on separate pages to be handed in as they were assigned, leaving me time to do extra credit)? To him I was a non-person. Not worthy enough to make noise, disturb him, or bore him with trivial things such as my accomplishments. They were a waste of time anyway, being as I was a worthless non-person. Of course I was just LOVED at school. Not! I was a geek, which was NOT cool back then…but not geeky enough to get to hang out with geeks, I had 1 friend from 5th grade to 9th when I moved from where I grew up, I had to wear clothes bought at consignment shops because my dad was too busy spending his money on things like $1000 putters and drivers. I was a favorite for other kids to make fun of, going to school was torture every day.

So, like I said, I know where it all came from. I’m very aware of it.

Now, if I’m sitting here going over my faults and everything I’ve ever done wrong in my life…well, then I’m just doing the emotional abuse for him. He doesn’t even have to put any energy into it. It really is sick. This is why I wrote that I had done things I thought were wrong. Once they are out in the open…I can’t torture myself anymore…because everyone knows! LOL (enter maniacal laugh here) And I’m good with people knowing that I’ve not been perfect at very nearly any point in my life. Who has? What counts is who I turned into. The person that all these events in my past created is who matters…and I think that person is pissed off at not being able to be free and do what they are meant to do. I mean, while I’ve done some not so great things, I’ve also survived things that most people would run away from in a heartbeat. And now that I think of it…in the world I lived in…where I was surrounded by the most undesirable of folks at times…I never once compromised my dignity when it really counted. I have to admit that in the case of love, I did some shit that emotions got in the way of dignity…but nothing that wouldn’t be considered just bad judgement brought on by panic (in my opinion).

I have experienced life in a way that many people wouldn’t even consider. I’ve just about seen it all. I managed to see it all from a spectator’s point of view though. I observed, I learned, I moved on. I spent many years in the music industry. My ex was a rock and roll singer, my world revolved around bands, I’ve met hundreds of bands…been on their tour buses, been to breakfast after parties, been to the parties…and yet I never slept with any of them, except the one I married of course. I liked being the safe girl in the group…guys could talk to you because you were on a different level. All my experiences have been like that.

Or they were until I got married to my current husband…everything changed suddenly. We went from being in charge of our destinies to being married. Like it was a disease.

It’s too bad that you don’t realize that you’ve switched on to autopilot until you’ve wasted a lot of time. I think I’ve beat that subject to death in previous posts though.

So, since I’m fixing things and cleaning out the old useless crap from my system, the personal torture was a an all time high. Now, it’s just not there.

I am thankful that I’ve been able to see my faults even if I don’t appreciate the replaying of the old ones. We don’t learn if we don’t see what we’ve done wrong. Learning to balance between extremes is the roughest part of life though. Do we not trust people because we’ve been hurt, or do we trust and open ourselves up for more pain? Do we hurt before we get hurt ourselves? Can we change how we see what is done to us when we are on the receiving end of a painful situation?

It’s easy to learn new ways and to say, “Yes, I’ll make sure I do that from now on”. But it takes many many tries to make that new way a habit. You might fail 20, 40, 100 times before it becomes a natural habit. By making balance a habit, we make our lives more peaceful. That doesn’t mean boring and quiet. LOL We just make our souls feel content with the decisions we make.

I’m sure I didn’t really give a reason for why I brought this up last post, but I have provided for quite a bit of reading. LOL

Today’s Claritan has officially hit a low point so I’m going to have to run to bed before I fall asleep in my chair. Goodnight to everyone…see you later.

:)