Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Uncategorized

Lost

I am lost.  I wasn’t before.  Before I knew exactly where I was.  I wasn’t happy, haven’t been happy for a couple of years.  I was consoling myself with dreams and it just isn’t working for me anymore.

Let me explain.  I hate my job.  It was fun for awhile but it has been 16 years…it’s not fun anymore.  I have time in that earns me 6 weeks of vacation a year but I can’t use it.  When you run in a department that is one person deep, there is no one who can take your place if you take time off.  People used to help me, but now everyone knows that I do a lot, much more than they believed, so now no one really wants to cover my caseload.  I will finish this year like so many others…with time I cannot use and don’t get paid for.

I wrote a resume.  I haven’t had to do that for a long, long time.  Thank God for my daughters, who sent me copies of theirs.  I had good examples to follow. The resume has changed a good bit since the last time I used one.  Now I get to decided how to “get myself out there”.  Lost.

I have been dealing with depression, anger, loneliness.  I try to keep my head up.  I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice when I speak to people in the company, but it’s hard.  I don’t mean to sound hateful.  I just don’t think this is the job I want to do anymore.

In a month, will I change my mind?  I don’t know.  I really don’t know.  My formal education is not so impressive, to people who just read resumes.  I am old now.  I worry about changing but not improving.  I don’t like this feeling.

I am working now, on me…again.  I will sit back and look in the mirror.  I will see if I like what I  see or not.  I will change what I need to change so that I like what I see when the mirror looks back at me.  It’s all I know to do.  No one can fix this but me.  No one can decide if I am lost or not but me.

 

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getting in shape, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Jump rope

It’s been quite awhile since I sat down to write anything.  I have been missing the easy thought flow of just getting things off my chest.  I have missed many opportunities in the past few months because I was just so often, too tired.

I am tired still, but have determined to start writing again, even just a few words to let out some of the angst built up inside….out.

I have been reading…that’s a good thing.  Even if I haven’t written things down, I am still filling my head with all sorts of stuff, sci-fi fantasy, murder mystery, psychology…you know, just the basics.

Then I picked up a “program”.  I still struggle with getting older, fatter, slower.  I still dread going to see my doctor since after the age of 50 it seems that every time I go, there is something else wrong with me.  I cannot tell you how much that pisses me off….just when you really start to figure things out, your whole body starts falling apart.

What to do, what to do?  I started using essential oils.  My house now officially smells of way too much hippy, but I feel better.  I take some great supplements and my mind is sharper, my heart stronger, my immune system stronger.  These are good things.  Not a bad start.  I have been using the oils for a year now, the supplements for about six months.

Today I added more supplemental stuff.  I have to say “stuff” because I cannot find the proper place to put a really thick, very dark green chocolaty coconut flavored…drink?  It’s very weird.  Almost yucky but kind of yummy kind of drink.  I have been sipping on it for any hour now.  I just need to bite the bullet and get it all down so I can get to bed.  New things tend to take me a minute to process.

My biggest procrastination for the past two months has been exercise.  I have such good intentions….

I have even gone to far as to use some bullet journaling techniques to put a little calendar in my “my physical me” journal to track my chosen exercise program.  It’s been in there for two months and so far, I haven’t started filling it out.  April and May…blank.

Honestly, I was scared.  Sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach and my minds’ eye holds a picture of a thing that is no longer possible.  I was scared of what would really happen if I went ahead and started my program.  Being 55 is hard work.

Picture this: a 20 year old active duty Airman, holding on to 125lbs for over 5 years, feeling really good about everything, heading out to the gym and working out for an hour or so with no breaks and actually walking out like “this is how the world is supposed to work”.  Yes, that was me, 35 years ago.  My heroes were people like Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray.  Boxing was as much an art to me as a sport.  I loved watching those guys’ workouts as much as I loved watching them in the ring.

I did not use the heavy bag or the speed bag…I wasn’t looking for muscle mass.  But I could jump some rope.  I used to jump for 20 minutes during each workout, Ali style, fast, fast, fast.  I would jump in front of the mirrors to make sure my style was perfect.  Did I mention that I weighed 125lbs?  I also hated looking like a rookie.

I have always said that the outcome was nothing to dwell on….but you gotta look good while your doing it…whatever “it” is.  So I jumped rope and I looked good doing it.

This is what my calendar is for…my goal, to jump 1000 times a day.  But, there is that “minds eye” thing….holy cow……

The book I am reading suggests jumping 7 minutes, twice a day.  This seems perfectly reasonable to me.  Still, it took another 3 days for me to put my shoes on and pull my rope off the peg it had been hanging on for a long, long time.

I am thinking that in reality, I might be able to jump a couple of hundred times without passing out.  I HOPE I can jump at least a couple of hundred times without passing out.  I asked my husband to come outside with me and to bring a watch.  He looks at me all funny and says “why?”.  I explain that I am going to start jumping again and I need him out there for support and to pick me up when I pass out.  I am being real with myself by now.

Seven minutes…I start thinking about all of those parables about time.  Is 5 minutes long?  no..hold this 50 pound weight straight out with one arm for 5 minutes.  Is 2 minutes long?  no….hold your breathe for 2 minutes…you know, those parables about time.  I am not stupid.  I know that I will not make it to 7 minutes on day one but I had to start.

OMG….I could not jump for 30 seconds in a row…by one minute, we were both laughing at my efforts, two minutes and I struggled to breath while trying to turn a rope that just would not work correctly.  Finally at 3 and a half minutes, my husband asked if I was done for the day.  YES!  I had to put on the sports rub after I finally caught my breath again.

I knew that I was out of shape but what never entered my mind was my body’s complete lack of cooperation.  How can a person forget how to jump with both feet at the same time?  My legs felt like lead.   I could not have alternated my feet if I wanted too, I tried, my legs just laughed at me too.

I jumped again this morning.  I still only jumped 3.5 minutes…..but I jumped.  I was counting, and several times jumped 25 times or more before messing up.  I jumped again this evening.  I jumped most of 4 minutes.  This time I really did almost pass out and only my Huskie was watching, she doesn’t even care and would have just let me lay on the patio until I regained consciousness.

Tomorrow morning will be my test.  I have to get up and leave for work earlier, my knees are feeling the stress.  Yes, I used more sport rub tonight.  I am supposed to drink the green sludge before I jump….wow.

First, I master the seven minute workout, then I get this drink down in less than and hour, and finally, I add just enough jumps to meet my goal of 1000 per day…like I said, 55 is hard work.

 

 

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, lifecoaching, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Uncategorized, Writing

Thursday Thoughts

I keep thinking that I have something to say.  Then I sit down and my mind is blank.  I drive around the state all day long with so much going through my head.  I get all excited about sitting down and getting all those thoughts out….but I find now that I am too brain-dead to put too much together.

I find it frustating, to say the least.

So I guess tonight I will just ramble.  Maybe some of those wonderful things I was thinking about earlier will come back.  If not, then at least I have had some typing practice, and I get to spell things.  I am one of those people who, when you can’t figure out how to correctly spell the word you want to use, will just pick a different word.  Hopefully it will convey exactly what I want to say even if it isn’t the first word I wanted to use.

I was on a kick, once upon a time, to use different dictionaries and pick different words every day…that got old and I could never remember any of those really cool words I looked up.  I learned a few new words but overall, not worth my time.

Honestly, there is so much insanity going on in the world that I don’t even try to make sense of any of it.  All these years I thought people were changing, not just some but many people.  Turns out, I was wrong.  We are in such a sad state.

Protesting, fear, anger, I’m right there with everyone.

As a Native American woman I think I can say, for real, I’m scared.  I feel more endangered than ever before.  It’s an ancient feeling.  I am sure that my ancestors knew this feeling well.  Yet I go to work everyday.  Talking with and helping people with disabilities.  I write my reports, supervise the staff assigned to me, and collect my paycheck.

I read a meme on Facebook today referring to all of this insanity.  It was a Buddist monk sitting in a meditation pose and the meme said something like all the chaos being OK since it means that it is clearing out the bad and good is coming after it all.  It was supposed to make the reader feel better.  But all I could think was, how long?

I still wonder…how long?  Will I survive it?  Will any Native person survive a level of hate so high it hasn’t been seen since “manifest destination” ran rampant over us all?

We stay in faith.  We stay in prayer.  It will do.

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Contemplation, Life, Native American Women

Now that history is to repeat itself….

It’s been a very upsetting month.  I have been paying attention to Facebook closely for news happening in North Dakota and what is happening with the Standing Rock Nation of Souix people and their supporters.  I find it sad that I have to look to Facebook for the news that is not being reported on any of the national stations.  

I remember, as a teenager, being told that I would never see any news of what happens to the Native Peoples of this country because the government had decided that they would control what was reported and what wasn’t when it comes to Native Americans.  Back then it was Wounded Knee.  Do you remember where you were when that event started?

Now an oil company is  working very hard to plow through  Native burial lands and sacred sights (again) so that they can put in another  pipe line.  I saw a 30 second blip on the news once.  I read yesterday that the government is now air dropping mustard gas on the Native (and many non-native) people who are there to protest this action.  No media coverage by the news stations around here.  How about where you are?  Seems to me that the US government dropping chemical weapons on it’s own citizens would be news worthy.

I’ve read several posts from a few friends who actually made the trek out to North Dakota to see for themselves and to support the protest.  What I read is all about unity and non-violence.  I see now that several young friends have made that same journey.  I pray that they get to be part of the biggest peaceful protest of their lives and that someday they can tell their own grandchildren what peaceful people can accomplish.

I pray that the land wll stay intact and the water the Standing Rock people are trying to protect stays clean.  You and I need to pray this happens since we are going to be the people who benefit from the warriors who stand in peaceful protest to keep the water clean.  I pray that all of the people who stand with Standing Rock get to return home unharmed.  I pray for the men and women who have been ordered to this place and ordered to cause harm to peaceful protestors.   I suspect this is not what they signed up for.  If there is a bad side, a domestic terrorist side, it would be the oil company who thinks that poisoning the water that we are drink is acceptable to any of us just for more money in their pockets.

History repeating itself for Native American peoples has not been historically favorable.  I stay positive, reminding myself that a victory for Standing Rock is a victory for all of us, no matter where we live.

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Old lady musings

I love new adventures.  I have been having them all my life.  I learn about something new, I like it, I study it.  So far, I have not mastered too many things but that is ok with me.  I enjoy the learning process. I  cannot tell you what will catch my eye tomorrow but today, I am happily learning about essential oils.  

I have known that they existed and I knew that some people used them but that was about it.  I knew massage therapist used them to a small degree.  Then, I got old.

I see my doctor every year for that dreaded annual physical.  I think I am doing pretty good for a maturing woman but my doctor tells me otherwise.  Each year there is something new that is wrong with me. I find this to be depressing.  I think, “what the hell…why even try?”.  I know that is not a good attitude to have but I  have never been this old before.  I didn’t think it was going to be so stressful.

Then one day my girlfriend invites me to her essential oil class.  I accept, she is my girlfriend and I want to help her have a successful class.  I smell all the oils as the bottles are handed around the room.  I listen to the instructor as she tells us all about what some of these oils are good for and how we can feel better and be better by just using them ourselves.  Then I remember the annual physical.  I start wondering if there is really hope for me.

I bought the book.  It really is a great book.  It is simple to understand and the layout is superb. The photos are really good.  I start to study a little bit and talk to my girlfriend about what oils I think will help me be a healthier person.  Now what?

So I signed up with that company.  I understand that there are several essential oil companies out there to choose from but none of my girlfriends invited me to go and learn about those companies’oils.  So, here I am.  I now own about forty different oils.  I use ten of them everyday, just on me.  I use another five or six for my husband.  I will learn which ones are best for my dogs soon.

I joke that I smell like a hippy.  My house smells like hippies live here.  That means that you can smell the oils everywhere. But we do bathe everyday, unlike some of the hippies I actually know.  I carry small bottles of oils in my purse, he carries small bottles in his vehicle.  He is learning, probably not by choice, about which oils he uses, as well.

I even got my herb lady to sign up with this same company.  She is also a massage therapist so she uses many essential oils but she is always looking for the best effective naturals she can find and it turns out, she really likes the purity of these oils.  So now we have more to sit and talk about.

I have been using these oils for about six months.  Now I start to get serious.  Here is my reasoning: I am old.  Therefore, my body does not regenerate nearly as fast or as completely as I did twenty years ago.  It doesn’t matter which oils I use, my body will use them but not as effectively as it could have when I was younger.  Consequently, I start using one of the proprietary blends to actually help my bodys’ cells regenerate faster and more completely.

My true purpose is, of course, to live forever but why live forever in a broken body?  Let me continue to learn my craft, let me continue to have new adventures, and let me do it all on my terms.

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I am not my story…but, dang!

Do you know that I keep four journals?  I read two or three books at once.  I can’t clean one room completely without starting in another room as I go.  Having written just those three facts about me lets me see that there might be a problem here.

I read my horoscope daily, I check to see if anyone has anything to say to me via email and Facebook.  I write some reports for work but not all that I am behind on.  I think I would not have enough waking hours to get caught up and stay caught up with those work reports.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

Yesterday I went out onto the patio and laid down on the picnic table bench and just looked up into the sky and watched the clouds.  There was a very young black bear crossing the sky at that time and he morphed into a stallion then faded away.  I went back into the house to work on some more reports and declared out loud that there was not enough laying about and looking at the sky in my life!

I spend the last hour and a half of my day doing some study on my essential oils.  There are several people who have asked for specific help and there is so much I don’t yet know about with these oils. (By the way, this is one of my four journals.)  Yes, I smell like a hippy these days as I try different oils for different balances.

I remember the days when my job did not consume my entire life.  I am not an executive.  Why does my job consume my entire life?  I was sitting at a memorial for a friend one Saturday afternoon and realized that I have been on-call, 24/7, 365 for 15 years.  Crap that’s a lot of time!

I have started at least three decent stories that might some day be decent books.  They sit somewhere in my office buried underneath reams of reports that I still need to file.  I think it is time for me to think about this.  I realized today that it has been two months or more since I even took the time to write a little blog.  Just to blow off a little steam and clear my head-if only for a minute.

For today, I am done.  My heart feels a bit lighter as I leave all my frustrations here on the digital page and sip on my coffee and smell the chocolate glaze on those pesky Krispy Kremes.

 

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Contemplation, Family, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Uncategorized

Pressing Tears

My days had been busy with work projects which for me, generally means writing lots and lots of reports.  I can easily spend six hours a day trying to keep up with all the reports that I am behind in.  This is a heavy weight on my shoulders, being behind.  When I am not working to catch up with those reports, I am making and keeping a hectic driving schedule, meeting after meeting after meeting..

My husband has been off work for about six weeks now.  He was injured while on the job and workman’s comp pay has been trickling in.  He feels guilty.  Because my main concern was that he follow his therapist instructions and get better I had not been asking him to help more around the house during this time and so many of my home chores were also getting behind.  I did not feel guilty.  I rarely do.  There is only so much a human can do in a day and if work is taking up most of my time I can forgive me for not being the perfect housewife.

But this day he had been trying to do more around the house.  He had done the dishes and was busy working on the laundry.  He then passed through the kitchen and asked if we had a spray bottle.  I was just finishing up a batch of reports and asked him why?  He said he had some shirts to iron and needed to spray them down with water.  I reminded him that our iron had spray capability, all he had to do was fill the water reservoir.  He thanked me and wandered on his way to set up the ironing board.

For the first time in weeks I felt a little guilty about not getting to all my chores and I remembered how well he did not iron shirts.  Oh he was able to get the big wrinkles out but his attention to  detail around the collar and sleeves was a bit lacking.  I smiled and announced that I had finished report writing for the day and told him that I would get his shirts done.

There were three shirts laying across the back of a chair and three hangers thrown on the bed.  I laid the first shirt out across the board and started.  The first shirt was tedious.  I was thinking “why did I say I would iron?  I hate to iron”, and I do.  It is my least favorite chore.  Those permanent press inventors are real hero’s of mine.  The second shirt began and my shoulders and stance next to the board relaxed and I started to smile.  I was remembering that this was one of the chores I learned at my mother’s side.

There are so many things that our mother’s work hard to teach us when we are young.  Sometimes those mother’s get to know if they were able to pass on all the knowledge and wisdom they accumulate to their children and sometimes they don’t get to know if they were successful.  I am not sure if my mother knew that I had mastered the collared-shirt.  It was not one of those things where she said “here, do it like this”.  No, this was one of those “osmosis” teachings.  She would iron shirts and pants for my step-dad and I would sit or stand next to her and talk.  She would talk too but she never stopped ironing.  I learned by watching.

The longer I stood there that day and the more shirts he “found” in the closet that needed to be pressed (there were five by the time I actually got done), the more I enjoyed my task.  I took the time to remember her standing there with her ironing and I learned to enjoy my ironing.  I know that my step-dad appreciated looking nice when he got dressed for work and I know that my husband really appreciates putting on a crisp looking shirt.  I smiled more and more as I turned the shirt to the angles on the board.  I took a certain amount of pride as I hung each shirt when I finished it, making sure that each collar was in proper position and that the sleeves were aligned on the hanger.

I wasn’t so much proud of me.  I was proud of what my mother accomplished as she ironed and talked and of what I learned as I talked and watched.  I was happy that she had been able to pass on so much to me, things she did everyday as mother and wife that she passed to me to use as I became mother and wife.  By the time I had finished ironing my eyes were glassy with early tears that I didn’t let fall.  He would not have understood at that moment how very close I was to my mother.  I could feel her smile as she finally knew that she did, indeed, succeed.

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, Me, meditaton, Native American Women, Writing

A Little Wine, A Little Sadness

I have to admit to being a little sad these days.  You might think that sometimes winter does that to some people  but winter does not make me sad.  As a matter of fact, the first day of winter is often the happiest day of the year for me.  It means that the days will no longer be getting shorter.  The days do, in fact, start getting longer and this is quite awesome.  Conversely, as you might imagine, the first day of summer is one of the sadest days of the year for me.

You might think that the end of greatly anticipated holiday cheer would make me sad.  It does not.  I am relieved,  as most mothers are, once the crazy season is over.

No, not any of the things that you might think….my computer died and now I am sad.  Sad enough it seems to drink wine and attempt to blog from my tablet.  Oh, some folks might just laugh but I am a very tactile person.  This flat screen is not my thing.  I bought a blue tooth keyboard for my tablet way back when.  I used it so much that I had to use white fingernail polish to repaint the keys, twice.  Then it died…I was sad that day also.

I think I have things to say.  I feel words making my figertips itch for keyboard action.  This is difficult.  Failed hard drive, devastating news.  No tax return…yet, no new computer. 

That’s it.  That’s all I wanted to say.  To let cyberspace know why I am absent.  Thinking about another glass of wine…cause you know, what else can I do if I can’t write?  Ahh well, breaking into my stash of cool pens, running two journals at once, I will get through this, I hope. 

Maybe this is the universe telling me to read more. 

And now that I have said all of this, I am not so sad…either that or I have definitely had enough wine for the night!

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Contemplation, Family, Life, lifecoaching, Native American Women, Sundance

To Whom Much is Given…

I tend to measure my relationship with my Creator against my relationship with my children.  We say in our prayers “Heavenly Father” or “Grandfather” and that is how I look at my personal relationship.  When I come to a bump or have a query I think about how I respond to my children as a mother and I imagine that this is the way my Father responds to me.

I have a really hard time not yelling at people who mean well but who give others who are standing in pain what sounds like sage advice when they say to them “God is just testing you”.  Folks, I have never once tested my children.  I do not recall ever being tested by my own mother.  I did not have to prove that I loved my mom or dad.  I do not test my own children to see if they really love me.  I think…why would anyone say something so cruel to a child (of God) who is in pain or confused about a situation?

I have said many times “to whom much is given, much is expected”.  I said it again last night.  I stand watching a loved one bear what looks to others like a huge burden and this is the reminder that was whispered into my ear.  As I wrote those words out I knew that if he was not “given much” he would not have any real understanding of what I was saying to him.  But I also knew in my heart that these were the words he needed to hear.

All is not lost.  He is not being tested to see how strong he is.  If he were not given much to begin with, none of this would be happening near him.  He would not be expected to know what to do, he would not be able to continue to praise God for all of his blessings.  He would not already have the answer to his prayers.  The Tree would not be calling him into the circle.  The heartbeat of the people would not be calling him to sing again.

I started thinking, even last night before I went to bed, about the number of people I know who have been “given much”.  I was really amazed.  There are a bunch.  It turns out, at least in my life, that it is not rare for me to see amongst my family and friends many who have been “given much”.  There are some who have much love, much intelligence, much wisdom, much beauty, much charisma, much of so many abilities.  I smiled because I realized that it was no wonder that my own life ran so smoothly and evenly keeled, I mean, look at all these wonderful people I know who have been given so much and whether they know it or not; giving back what they have freely, as was given to them.

I was still thinking about this morning.  This past 30 days has been rough on my family.  But this is a family that was given much and we know that much is expected from us in return.  We get tired, we get weepy, we get sad but we are never without hope, truth or love.

No, my beautiful family, we are not being tested.  We are being given the opportunity to show the world where our strength comes from and Whose children we really are!

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Contemplation, journaling, Life, Me, Native American Women, Writing

Piano Fingers

I was perusing Facebook the other day and watched a video of four people playing the same piano.  They all took turns turning the pages and smiling, eight hands roaming up and down the keys as they pounded out the piece they were playing.  I liked the music and pictured the same piece being played on four different pianos by the same four people.  It would have sounded the same but would not have been as fun to watch.

What I noticed more than everything else I was watching was that they all did that thing piano players do, you know…rocking back and forth to the music as they changed tempo and raised and lowered sound of the keys from soft to loud and back to soft.  All piano players do it…as I have observed.  I am not a player so I can’t say that I do it but I notice things like that.

It started me thinking.  I could start imagining myself sitting at the keyboard of my laptop rocking back and forth as I pounded out my blog or a story or a chapter in a book.  I could imagine writing faster and slower, changing tempo as the thoughts rolled out of my head and to my hands; pounding now and lightly tapping then.  I wondered how that would look to the casual observer.  I wondered if getting so into my writing would cause me to do the same so I sat down and started writing.  My first words were tentative and as the thoughts began to flow my typing got faster and faster and mistakes were backspaced and corrected quickly then the thought would end and everything would slow until the next thought was born.  Two hundred words, three hundred words…five hundred words and so on until the piece was completed.

Funny thing is, I never once swayed forward or backward.  I didn’t lower my head and listen the tapping as I created each sentence.  The speed varied on the thought but that was about it.  My typing as always been a bit like listening to a DI walk across the room…rather loud as each heel strikes the ground as the DI pounds each step into the floor.  Yes, I walk the same way as I type…just a bit intense.  I have had to paint the letters back on the keyboard I use for my tablet twice now.  Still, no swaying to the words the same way that a pianist sways to the music that is being played.

I would stop every now and again to look back over my work. Piano players, I noticed, don’t do that.  When I didn’t like the way a sentence ended or didn’t like the way one thought flowed into the next I took the time to fix it.  Again, piano players don’t get that luxury.  Once the music is sounded it is out there and once a mistake is made the best you can do is try to cover it up with the next note or change the piece altogether and then let everyone think that you meant for it to sound that way.

These are just the things I was thinking today.  All I can say about that is piano players are not typist when they are playing and typist are not piano players when they are typing.  I think that even if I did play the piano I would not sway to they typing like I would sway to the music….

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