LIVING MY LIFE

When you have lived you have experiences that you treasure.

Maui, Hawaii

I am so happy because I have lived my own life and not some one else’s idea of what I should have lived. I look back now and just glow. It’s been a fantastic life. So far. And I expect it to even be better, now. Because I really know myself like I have never before. And I have accepted all of me. It’s been so much fun. And well, pain has been a major part of it too, but it’s the fun that I now remember. How cool is that!

Murano, Italia

I tried to be perfect my whole life. I finally am at a place in my life that I am so excited everyday. My mother doesn’t approve of me. She never has. But here’s the relatively new thing: I don’t care any more. She doesn’t hold control over me and my happiness anymore.

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God Bless the Child

Sung by Blood, Sweat & Tears

There’s a play called “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” And that is a valid question for all adult children who grow up with a manipulative, over-reaching and controlling mother.

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Kaui, Hawaii

Friend, don’t be a perfectionist.

Perfectionism is a curse and a strain.

For you tremble lest you miss the bull’s-eye.

You are perfect if you let be.

Friend, don’t be afraid of mistakes.

Mistakes are not sins.

Mistakes are ways of doing something different,

Perhaps creatively new.

Friend, don’t be sorry for your mistakes.

Be proud of them.

Newport, Rhode Island

You had the courage to give something of yourself.

It takes years to be centered; it takes more years

to understand and to be now.

Newport, Rhode Island

Until then, beware of both extremes,

perfectionism as well as instant cure, instant joy, instant sensory awareness.

Until then, beware of any helpers.

Helpers are con-men who promise something for nothing.

They spoil you and keep you dependent and immature.

Frederick S. Perls

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Portsmouth, Rhode Island

For me being a female, my mother made it clear that I was to be subordinate to a man in my life.

Boston, Massachusetts below

In the course of my life, I didn’t follow my mother’s map for my life. I not only have no regrets that I followed my own unique path through life, I am thrilled that I didn’t follow my mother’s imposing life agenda. I have so much to say, I plan to tackle my introspection and perspective with a long-range writing project, so this is just a blog entry in the nature of my plans to come.

My mother has turned into some unrecognizable ugly person. She repeatedly broadcasts to her children as well as others that she wishes that she never had her children (3 of us) or got married. She behaves with lots of bitterness, lack of integrity, truth and hatred. It got worse over the last few years, but it was there

twenty years ago, which I didn’t see then. I believe women who don’t live their lives, but live someone else’s idea of how they should live out their lives can’t be any other way than what my mother has personified. I am sorry for her. I am sad for her. But I receive her behavior that is the manifestation of her self-hatred that she has fostered over the years. And that is no fun. It is in truth thoroughly confusing and feels bad. I don’t know why exactly I have been the one of her three children to dump most of her hatred on. But it is now undeniable that the fact is I am the recipient. She of course denies that she treats me differently. But it is so blatant that it is unavoidable for me to keep her up on some level where a mother would naturally belong. I accept her for who she is. Because she chooses to live in denial doesn’t mean I have to. And I don’t. Now.

I always wanted to be close to … well, people in my life. My mother, my dad, my sister, my brother. The man in my life. I tried. And I tried. It just never came to pass. In any way. And when my mother denied my access to my dad over the last few years, I was able to see her for who she really is. A very controlling and ugly human being. This was my mother. But I had to accept the truth even though it meant I had to see my mother in this way. If I denied the truth about my mother then my life could not be lived in truth. And I had decided that I would live my life fully in truth. So the choice was clear, truth or my mother. I had to choose truth. I let go of my hope to have my mother be my mom. She is of course the woman who is my mother. She gave me birth. She imposed a belief system on me to the point of emotional and spiritual suffocation. However, somehow I found my life anyway. She is 82 this September. Most of my life I thought my mother was the mom that she presented to me. Then the cracks in her armor began to become visible. The pretending started to break down in her behavior and ugly words to me. How could a mother who loved me be so hateful in her words to me, I wondered. She says she loves me. She acts like she hates me. I know in the end that she never loved herself. But that is not my fault. And there is only so much understanding that you can give to someone for their bad behavior before it demeans your soul and steals life from your spirit. I had to stop trying to make her be what she wanted me to believe she is. I had to see her for who she showed me she is.

This is a painful thing. But it is more painful to live out my life by virtually giving my life up for her narcissism. That is not love either way.

I can’t be her happiness no matter what she says. It took me so long to get this. It took my dad’s health problems for her to break her pretentious behaviors and in the end free me to own my life wholly. Unapologetically. I’m not the “black sheep” of the family that has been my designated role my whole adult life.

Firenze, Italia

I love who I am. I love who I have become more fully. I love my life. I love the life that I lived. I look back on my life and I am so happy that I did what I did. Loved who I loved. Worked so hard at understanding me. I love my own company. The loneliest I ever was – was in a relationship that wasn’t working. Although I am living without a man in my life, I have no lonely moments. None. I have lived my life. I never waited for someone else to be my happiness or waited to do something until I had a man in my life. I am fully alive and I am grateful for that to the brim of life.

When I was in my twenties, somehow the unconscious belief was that I needed a man to make me whole. That simply is not true. Subtle, but real messages are given to women that a man is a must. Even, now. Even, in the USA. It simply is not true. I have known many men in my life, many chances at relationships. And not one man that I have known, had his life together spiritually or emotionally or philosophically or … on and on. If I have to pretend to be less than I am to have a man in my life, then it simply isn’t worth the trade-off.

I adopted a son when he was eleven years old. I was old enough to be his grand mother. I have never raised a girl, but being a teacher I have had opportunities to make an impact on girls over time. And if there was one thing that I would want girls to know that are growing up and into womanhood, it would be, to trust your own sense of yourself and life. Don’t lean on others advice too much. Sure listen to others’ sides, but in the end develop trust in yourself.

At the house I was born in - Huntington, Indiana

When I was going through a huge, monumental break-up in my early twenties, a dear friend gave me a blank book. That saved me. I wrote my truth. It helped me clarify my feelings. It gave me a way to express myself even when no one could be there all the time that I needed them. I have written over twenty journals. They are precious to me. In 1973, I wrote the following in a journal, Partially Me, IV:

TRUST.

It all comes down to trust.

You got to trust what you’ve got inside –

That it will set you free.

That it will make you !live! and nothing less.

It’s scary

and many times, it’s lonely……

but if you allow yourself to get so far in becoming –

you have no choice,

but to go all the way with it.

Run with it…

And you find moments of unthought-of peace with yourself,

with all time.

You become part of infinity, of all time.

You become part of the true essence of love, giving and receiving.

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Newport, Rhode Island

ee cummings:

to be nobody-but-yourself

in a world

which is doing its best,

night

and

day,

to make you everybody else –

means to fight the hardest battle which

any human being

can fight,

and never stop fighting.

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STOP GENOCIDE

IT'S THE HUMANE THING TO DO

DARFUR FAMILIES DESERVE OUR ATTENTION AND ACTION, NOW

www.genocideintervention.net

www.ajws.org

www.aiusa.org

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I

PLAN TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA