Transmution of Air to Fire

I feel like, somehow, fire came into my life. 

This post was brought on by Sadhguru's message about the element of Air in Vayu – The Element of Air:

"The idea of taking charge of the element of air is to bring about health and an instant sense of wellbeing. If you activate vayu and it reaches a certain peak, naturally agni or the fire element will follow to some extent – maybe to twenty-five to thirty percent. If you have mastery over the element of air, the element of fire will partially come along with it. A lot of people lack fire, which is a big problem in life. They may do things, but nothing will come out of it. Once the fire is on, you are much better than the way you were. Though fire only makes up a small percentage of the human system, in many ways, it is everything. It also gets you closer to the subtle element of ether."

There was a stripping down of how I experience myself over the past 6 years or so... I cannot believe it has been 6 years since I was laid off!  Certainly there was a deeply rough patch in there, and somehow it stripped me through dealing with so much SHIT that wore me down ("if it's not one thing it's another") and caused serious depression and anger for a long period of time.  I'm through all that now.  But because of it, and without my personally intending for it to do so, this period in my life shed parts of my persona that I wasn't looking to release.  And in the empty space bubbled up a drastically more authentic expression of my core being.  The effects started showing before I realized what was going on.  It was only through hind-sight that the new pattern became apparent.  I am more firey, and frankly, I love it.

The crazy part is, looking back over the entirety of my life, I see that "fire" somehow has been expressed in one form or another throughout.  When I was a child it made me stubborn to my preferences.  As a young adult, it made me argumentative to the n-th degree.  That, I own as part of my first marriage's demise.  In time, I whittled away at not only biting my tongue but, in time, simply not feeling my buttons pushed so easily by others - because I "chose" to react more wisely.  But even this "intended" self improvement was not enough to bring about the effects that the crumbling of my life invoked.  That was something much bigger than I could or would have chosen for myself.

But it happened anyway, and ironically (or not so ironically if you, like me, do not believe in coincidences), who I experience myself to be CHANGED.  

I laugh more readily.  I see the irony in things, even inappropriately so at times.  I am far less likely to participate in "shoulds" and I enjoy my life far more.  I seem to be instantaneously more "myself" than ever before.  It even surprises me when stuff comes flying out of my mouth before I "think before I speak".  But fortunately, I can usually trust what comes out, which is definitely far different from the me I used to be.  I was so unintentionally saddled by my inhibitions.  Inhibitions be damned now!  And I love it. :)

^from a Google search

Most people say this is just part and parcel to growing older and, hopefully, wiser.  I know this to be be something far deeper than just that, though it's that, too.  Although I am 90% air (astrologically speaking), there is more fire these days, and it's expressing spontaneously... burning with much less smoke, much less destruction.  I am thankful for this. And I cannot be merely thankful for the result without also being thankful for the causes.  Although, I really don't want to rehash all the pain and misery that rippled changes throughout my and my kids' lives for the period of time.  Please just know that it was INTENSE and unrelenting for a period of time.  I'm so glad it's over, and yet I'm so glad it happened. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy but then again I might consider wishing it on the world if the world could come out as shiny as I feel.  Sometimes I feel like the world needs such a cleansing.  BUT, I don't assume others actually need such drastic measures to come to similar or better results.  What worked for me, does not necessarily need happen for others.  I do wish the world, everyone in it, could find themselves a little more at ease within themselves.  (Actually, I'm sure there are a great deal of us who ARE experiencing this.)

Purging

I'm bummed.  

It's been so long since I've written in a particular Word document file, which I was using as a journal for several years, that I forgot the password I had changed it to use a couple months back.  I can't get into my own file. :(

Mondays.  They're all the same.  I'll try again on any other day of the week, preferably NOT in the AM... and maybe... just maybe the password will come back to me.  *crosses fingers*

~~~~~

I'm not really sure what's primarly on my mind this morning.  Mostly that because it's more a jumbled set of feelings, none of which are establishing as dominant.  For this too, I blame Monday mornings.  What I do know, is, I miss writing.  I've been way too busy with work lately to pause and purge.  And when I do get some free time, I've been doing more mind-numbing activities like sleeping or gaming.  Sleeping is better than gaming, no doubt.  But Skyrim is kind of fun.  My 19 year old and I are playing, not together, but alternating turns.  He of course, is way ahead of me.  And honestly, I have no real desire to catch up.  Mostly, I look forward to spending my time in other ways... like more time with spaceman.  

We have about two months left before we are what I term as "together-together" (you know, rather than "together-apart").  I am slowly purging my house, getting rid of 17 years of accummulated stuff.  "Stuff" was cluttering things.  I want spaceman to show up here with his U-Haul of his own things and walk around and find plenty of clear spaces to ingetrate his own things... things like paintings, books, crystals, closet space, anything... everything that needs a new space to be.  

The garage was in the WORST shape, so in order to bite off more than I could chew in any one day, I started there.  A glutton for punishment, I am.  It took me about 3 full days of work, over a month or so, to get the job "done".  Done is relative, because there is still a tall stack of empty boxes my mom wants and can't take just yet, along with another huge area full of stuff she insists on selling in a garage sale.  I told her if she does the garage sale, she can have the money from it.  I don't do garage sales.  I think spaceman does... which I now know, but I had already told her that before I knew.  So... anyway... those two piles will sit there, probably until sometime this winter or next spring (bleh).  My parents currently have not only my displaced brother (he moved out a month or so ago) and my older sister, her hubby and their two cats all living with them.  My sister is having a house built (near me) and it probably won't be ready for another three months.  So, the garage over there is stacked full to the ceiling, quite literally.  Hence, the back up in my own garage.  But, at least it's sorted.  The only other "area" of stuff that's not in a permanent place on a shelf yet is my 19 year old's stuff he is accummulating to move out one day.  I can't get to the space where it will go until the stack of boxes and garage sale stuff is gone.  *sigh*  So, I call the garage "done"... for now.  It looks amazing otherwise, relatively speaking.  And as overwhelming as it felt to commence that project, it feels soooooo much better in there now, and I kinda miss hanging out in the garage, "working" there.  Spaceman and I may turn it into a a creative space where we can paint and he can work on furniture projects or whatever else.

There was a lot of boxes of books, CDs, DVDs, knicknacks, etc in the garage that belong in the house.  So those got carried in and plopped down in the room they belong, where some still sit - awaiting my attention.

Yesterday I tackled the living room... the books, CDs, & DVDs.  We no longer have a TV in the wall unit of shelves and glass showcases.  I put a huge aloe plant in a ceramic pot in the open space where a TV goes.  I went through movies and music, tossing some into the garage sale boxes.  But mostly I purged my book collection.  I just kept the books that had the most impact on me through the years.  The rest will be A) picked over by my older sister, B) sold in the garage sale, or C) donated.  I had several boxes of books; now I can fit what I kept into one box.  But, they'll go on a shelf somewhere.  Spaceman has a bunch of books, too.  I wanted room for his.

I didn't get to the point of putting the books I kept ON the shelves. Mostly they are sitting on the coffee table. I ran out of time.  I had a dinner invite over at a friend's house, so the boy child and I ran off before I finished.  There is another healthy stack of books on a dresser in my room that I also want to purge and relocate to the living room.  That will be next.  Oh yeah, I also purged the hall closet and moved boxes and other memborabillia out of my bedroom closet and into the hall closet.  Eventually I will make another pass at purging my clothes so that I can turn over half my closet to him.  That's going to be tough lol.  I've been single and spread out in my dressers and closets for 17 years.  It feels good to purge, even if it's a lot of work.  I think my bedroom is going to be the last area I purge.  

After finishing the books, I'll do the family room. That should be easy.  All that's in there is a TV on a small TV stand, a shelf that needs to just go bye-bye altogether, and some boxes full of decorating knick-nacks.  Some of those items are cool things I forgot I had.  I will encorporated some of my favorites, but the others will land in the garage sale pile, I'm sure.  Spaceman has some furniture I'm kind of hoping he will bring, eventually.  We don't have furniture for that room.  It echos with my brother moved out.  Or, we can paint in there.  I'm open to whatever other ideas he has.

The kitchen, actually, that was the first place I started purging.  I had forgotten that my older sister came over and helped me do that so many months ago.  So that's checked off the list.  That leaves the bedrooms and bathrooms.  I need to start applying more pressure to the kids to purge their dressers and closets.  The hallway hamper constantly overflows and no one can EVER find any socks.  grrr  Both the bathrooms need some handyman work.  One project, replacing the bathroom surround (and repairing any plumbing issues), is beyond my skillset.  The other bathroom needs a hole in the wall from an outside faucet repair job.  I repaired such a hole once from the front yard faucet repair years ago.  But I have yet to tackle this one... it's not a priority at the moment.

We also already switched over to using non-chemical, organic wool dryer balls.  Spaceman is allergic to the chemicals in fabric softener.  So I ordered and tried out dryer balls and O.M.G. they WORK, and well!  The clothes are soft when they come out.  The only drawback is you might need to not dry things as long, since they dry stuff faster, and when overdried, can produce static.  Not really a drawback at all really.  It was like hitting the Staples "easy button".  Simple. Effective. Cheaper.  I highly recommend dryer balls.  They just stay in there with every load, no need to replace them, like ever, they say.  

It's pretty exciting to be receiving spaceman into our home, at least for me anyway. :)  The kids know it's coming, and I should probably sit down with each of them and get a better feel for their feelings on things.  But, I don't sense there are any major issues.  They have dealt with their dad having new women in his life a couple of times, so I think they have some idea of what that process is like - getting used to another person.  It's a huge plus that they seem genuinely accepting of spaceman in my life, and soon, in our lives.  I'm not saying I expect it will be a smooth ride, but... we will take it one day at a time.

So it's been really good to have 7 months of time between decision to live together and actual carrying out of that decision.  Yeah, it's been frustrating to continue in the long-distance relationship even longer.  But, I like the pace.  I have never been very successful at relationships before, so for the mere sake of "being sure" that's also a benefit of being patient.  I'm so sure about spaceman and I.  It's incredibly different this time, in really amazing ways.  He jokes around with me in a half-serious way about how it will be like after the U-Haul is unloaded, returned and we are left to face one another in a way that we've never done before... the inital awkwardness, the joy too, the not knowing where to put stuff lol.  But... at least with my efforts to clear out the place, prepare it for our life together, he will find enough "options" to not just stick things here and there because it's the "only" place it will fit, but because it feels good and right to place it there.  I will rearrange to make any of it happen.  I'll do round 15 of purging, if necessary.  It's incredibly important to me that the house feels like his home, too.  

We are already discussing plans for expanding and improving gardening on the property.  He has ideas formulating and said he will sketch up a rough draft of plans to discuss.  I'm stoked!  I cannot wait to be doing projects with him like that.  That's "play" to me.  It's work, no doubt, but it's something we both want to make CENTRAL in our lives, this gardening, canning, food-self sufficiency stuff - as much as we can integrate, bit by bit, anyway.  While we plan to make our gardens here as great as we can, we are also further defining, imagining, and dreaming up what we want with our next residence.  Pretty cool stuff, to dream and create, together-together.

work and kids

Oh thank god I am free

Free of all those windows I had open for work

Shut those things down, yes

Dinner is also done, served, and everyone doing their own relaxing

So nice


I left work today, early, just to set back up at home and be on call.  So I had some extra time to cook dinner for my kids. Nothing too special... crappy hamburger helper lasagna with organic green beans seasoned with beef bullion, mixed variety small potatoes in organic butter, garlic and onion powder, and fresh parsley from the garden out back.  My 19 yo young man said, "Mom?"  ...*makes the italian kisses-hand face*... "your potatoes" *makes kissy face again*

    The dish I enjoyed making the most, was the one he and I both liked best.  The girl child and her boyfriend did not say crap (other than load up with hungry eyes), they are in their own little world.  I don't need them to say anything.  It was crap for main dish, bleh.  The rest of the ingredients were more natural. ...but still basic.  I'm not a sensation in the kitchen haha.  Being an Aquarius-galore, cooking was, um, an interruption.  But as a single parent, a necessity, a routine. 

Me and routines... 
                   *shakes head*


Routines sometimes grate me crazy after some time, even the most well-intention-ed ones.  Maybe not that bad......

Anyway, free time this evening!

I decided not to go to the Up to Us caravan stop in Columbus tonight.  I had felt it fair I take an on-call night when the two top off-hours support folks both were unable, plus... it was kinda my job, as backup. You know, there's that.  So.... I left work a little early so I could "babysit support" from the comfort of my own home.  Working from home is a HUGE perk of being in the software developer world.  I worked from home for 5 years when the kids were little.  It afforded me more time to keep up on things around the house.  Ready for a walk? (We walk for 15 minutes afternoons at work even now) When I was working from home, instead of taking that walk, I got up and folded laundry or started dinner or ran out to pick my kids up from school because there are no buses.  Working from home was just what I needed during an important time while my kids were younger.  I don't prefer it these days.  At home I want to play, and at work I am better at not instead playing.  Simple.  Home just feels like relaxation to me and that's how I like it to be.  

When I get home I cannot wait to change my clothes!  I want my comfy clothes!  I want to throw off all those too detailed clothes and put on something made of old cotton.  
    THEN I can go about whatever it is needs doing when the kids-filled evening is calling my attention.  That's usually NOT been dinner lately, since it is MY belief that the 16 and 19 year olds are QUITE capable of making a dinner for the two of them.  I cannot eat most everything they can and am tired of cooking meals others like that I cannot eat.  Plus, I'm busy, or tired.  That must sound like a mean mom, but sheesh.  I taught the oldest to make his own bowl of cereal and to go watch tv until mom woke up... as soon as I could.  This is just me, thinking kids can do for themselves.  My niece made pancakes the other day by herself.  She asked a few questions but generally made all her own decisions and did it herself.  Later on, she and her brother asked me to supervise them using a wood-burning writing utensil on some scrap wood out front (this was at the farm).  They each made an attempt to make a sign for their new business "chicken run".  Kids are smart cookies.  I believe in treating them as if they are and developing their noodles.  Some parents parent by dictatorship.  That's not me.  I always try to explain my reasons to them when I tell them why I decide what I decide.  I will explain the dynamics of situations, for as long as they are willing to oblige me (they don't always), and we will discuss it when one of them feels differently.  Sometimes this has been quite heated!  But as I have grown while growing them, I hope that they internalize growth-seeking foundations as well.

     ....and the boy child has come into my room to bother me (his words not mine), time for laughs

That's not a ad in my blog post.  It's my googling what the 19 year old is telling me about, having sworn there was cosmic beer in that nebula.  hahaha  He says he would LOVE to drink some 10 thousand year old cosmic beer!  What a dork. lol

...and he's still imagining what it would be like, probably a little dirty (LMAO). 

I'm outta here, kids galore...

The mania in my head

It's raining, and that means I'm indoors tonight.  I've broken down and watched Cosmic Disclosure without spaceman, and he's not online yet.  And so I realized that for the first time in seriously too long, I have alone time.

*warning, a kid hovers close to my bedroom door.  beware of teenagers who, for some reason, really like annoying their mom.*

Disclaimers aside, it's nice to have the culmination of all things needed to write.  I REALLY miss it.  Work has been KILLER lately, and work is sometimes when I sneak 20 minutes of splurge writing, even if it never lands here.  There's been none of that lately.  I've also found myself in this mode... this mode where if I miss even an hour of sleep at night, I don't have the reserves to absorb it.  That is ENTIRELY my own doing.  I cannot pull myself away from spaceman hahaha.  We talk on the phone until 12:30-1 am every night, EVERY night.  It's NEVER boring, by FAR.

Okay, enough with the caps... (but seriously, mmhmm <3)

I'm in full prep mode, can't you tell?  I'm relaxing and writing. haha  But seriously, I should be doing some laundry so I can pack tomorrow night after work, because Friday after work, I'm hitting the road to Virginia again, to see him, again.  :)

*kid alert!!!*

19-yo kid alert: "Mom, I put your laundry in the drier.  I might be going to bed soon."

me: "Okay, thanks.  You go sooner, I'll go later. Gnight!"

and he's gone! (whew)

Have to try to avoid the conversations that usually follow!  Why you ask? BECAUSE THEY NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE lol  I laugh, and I joke, but it's kinda true.  If you're a parent, you probably get it, intimately.

Why?  Because it's writing time!!

Friday, yes... Friday I'm hitting the road and driving 6 hours to Virginia to spend his birthday weekend with him.  Psst, don't tell him... I don't have a gift.  I've been too back-to-back busy to contemplate this all important gift thing.  Maybe the trip will count, I thought???  And then he told me he's paying for my trip, for me not to worry.  mmm hmm, now what?

I'll think of something (or not :( )

aaaaaannnnnd my time has come to a close.  spaceman is online. :D

The Red-Blinking "Plane"

Most evenings after sunset you can find me out back on the deck in a chaise lounge chair sitting facing the back of my one story house.  From here I can see the southern sky.  

At one point I thought I could tell when it was midnight by the position of Mars over my house.  Mars glows slightly reddish and it easily the brightest star I can see.  But I soon found out,  Mars progresses clockwise across the southern sky.  By last night midnight was far closer to where 2pm is on a clock, maybe later, I'm not sure.  I just know it had surprised me when I got back from 4 nights away from my deck perspective.  I wish I would have paid more attention.  Either way, I couldn't even tell you how many hours passed 1, 2 or 3 after I had notice Mars in the sky.  

What I can tell you is this... like every night for months, I'm hanging out with spaceman, last night it was, like usual, a little messaging through FB and soon a phone call that always lasts until an early hour.

I could tell you other things we talked about last night, but I won't.  The point is, we were talking about some subject at length, I had finished saying my thoughts on the matter and spaceman was responding and elaborating.  I was listening and at the same time my eyes were perusing the sky, aimlessly.  

There's always more than one, usually multiples of planes at various distances in my sky, all around.  I live between the Dayton International Airport and Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  There are always planes from one or both airports in my view.

Along with the starry sky, I'm also noticing flight patterns.  As I'm writing this, a big gray military plane, just flew nearby.  They circle and land, do touch downs, to build up flight hours.  Flight hours are important.  The more you fly the better you are.  By the time I finished composing and editing that sentence, a commercial flight just flew a now familiar path south to north, east of my house.  I bet there's more there than I can see, since it's not dark yet.  

Well, last night I was listening intently to spaceman and noticing a plane flying in the far distance, blinking across the sky west to east.  I also happened to notice another red/white blinking plane moving from generally the bottom center of my sky over my house, up slightly back-slash-ish, but more straight up and down than that.  I'm sorry, I don't do angles very well.  Less than 45°, bottom center up to the left, the east.  Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure it was coming from south so much as coming from down to up or some slant of that.  At the time I was glancing from one plane flashing to the other, imaging their intersection.  At that point, my thoughts turned to imagining them intersecting.  Dismissing them actually being in any intersection path, I giggled at my worry.  But at that point I was less listening to spaceman and more drawn in to paying attention to these two seemingly about to intersect planes.  They seemed to be travelling toward intersecting, but air traffic controllers would NEVER let that happen.  I know, planes must be one mile vertically from one another when crossing nearby.  At least, that's what I think I recall from a Sinclair Community College "field trip" to tour the air traffic control towers.  So, my logical mind was dismissing any danger and my imagination was fascinated and just HAD to stare intently until they passed one another.  

And then it happened.  When the lower red blinking plane got close to intersecting with the horizontal travelling plane, the red blinking plane zipped off at a greater than 90 degree angle to the east (to be level horizontally), then once out beyond where the plane would soon be, it zipped up at 90 degrees to fly past out front of the horizontally travelling plane and and then once out front and above that plane, it turned yet again and headed off in seemingly the same trajectory as it was using on their approach, up to the left some.

Now tell me, what "plane" makes those maneuvers?  None that I've ever seen in my life having grown up near an air force base.  It's not just any air force base, it's home of project blue book, the "cover-up investigation" into the UFO phenomenon.  There are legends of under ground tunnel systems, and one of the dead aliens from the famous Rosewell crash was supposedly autopsied there.  There is video leaked, thought it is crappy video, as usual.  So frustrating, but it was in the 1940s, I believe.

Anyway, that was my first "ufo" encounter.  I've been waiting MY WHOLE LIFE to finally see a ufo.  It was shocking and I exclaimed it to spaceman immediately as it happened.  Wow!  So ordinary sounding and yet, real!  Tell me, how does the starry night sky compare to mind-numbing TV?  The sky is amazing!

Soon

These are the last days while he's not here yet.  Today I'm working on round 2 of cleaning out the garage.  17 years of crap reside in here.  Yes, I'm sitting in the garage with my laptop, typing away.  When the urge hits, it hits, and I don't want to be in the air conditioned, incubator of a house.  I like the outdoors.  There's a big fan blowing, and that's enough.

Big piles in categories of tools, paint, car stuff, donations, trash, camping gear, my 19 year old's stuff (he will get a whole shelf for himself - his room is really small).  The garage has old kitchen cabinets as a work bench and storage.  I've emptied the shelves of old cans of paint and dated electronics.  There are still so many shelves along the walls yet to go through.  It won't all be finished again today.  I hate doing chores like this by myself.  I know if he were here, he would not let me struggle with it alone.  I miss him incredibly.  

And yet I find some comfort knowing this is the last summer I'll be alone, that is, until the inevitable takes one of us.  We are committed, marriage or not (and that remains to be seen someday), we are each done looking elsewhere.  He's amazing.  Every day he tells me what I mean to him... and it melts me.  I seriously crave his touch, and I'll have it soon.  

In a week and a half I'm headed back to Virginia to see him again.  I've seen him all of a measly four times over 11+ years.  April 2005, May 2005, February 2016, May 2016 and soon July 2016.  Every single visit has been electric... every conversation engaging and new in-between those visits.  I can close my eyes and describe what I see, get lost in an inner world, together with him.  Soon our worlds will integrate physically on a daily basis.  He's coming to live with us in September.  Hence, I'm decluttering the house, starting with the garage... because it needed it the most.  We'll make better use of it, however we decide to do so, once it's purged and organized.  

He paints, draws, plays the keyboard, guitar, and me.... in the most delightful, distracting ways.  We are magic together.  We're magic apart, too, but together... omg. divine bliss.  Sitting and longing for him, such sweet agony not having him.  Soon...

Back to work for me...

The Lake

Ah-mazing, I have at least a few minutes of “alone time” to record some thoughts during my lunch hour.  Everyone left me alone here. :)

Today I’m vacation planning… the family vacation kind.  This involves coordinating schedules, boat towing vehicles, and beds in campers with extended family who is also going to the same vacation spot during overlapping times.   The overlap is good.  You need two knowledgeable adults in each boat, and…. There’s only one of me.   Unfortunately spaceman cannot attend.  And my daughter… she’s expressing concern as the last time we were down there, we barely escaped a sinking boat.  Yeah, joy.  Wish us luck that we have no repeats of that fiasco, EVER. lol  (But, Oh the memories! lol)

In all probable reality, this could be our very last trip vacation at Lake Cumberland, boating, swimming, skiing, etc.  My father, who is 77 and has Parkinson’s Disease, is just not able to maintain the equipment and no one is stepping up to take it on for the longer haul.  It looks like my oldest sister’s grandchildren will be the last generation (of 5) in our family to experience the fun and craziness of “family vacations at the lake”.  It’s okay.  Other sides of the extended family (my aunt, cousins) pulled out long ago.  I do wish spaceman could experience this with us, at least once, though.  So, if we can, we will try to do an extended weekend trip later this summer… just not looking good, schedule-wise. :(  It’s kind of like me going down to Virginia to experience his home and filling in all those imagined stories with the REAL place, with REAL memories.  Lake Cumberland is a place I grew up.  Every summer (except one!), we were there having fun boating with extended family.

When I was an infant, all the way through early teenage years, we stayed at my Nana’s trailer.  She had a lot along the river with direct access, down a super steep hill that we had to hold on to a dry-rotted, splintering ski rope to descend/climb.  Back then there was no such thing as tubes.  We had an old semi-truck inner tube we tied a ski rope through the center for “tubing”.  There was no tube “bra”, and careful of that valve stem!  I learned to ski on two skis at 6 years old.  Papaw used to let my younger sister and I sit on the bow of the boat, feet dangling overboard, holding fast to the railing while we bounced over waves at full speed.  That’s completely illegal these days.  There simply wasn’t enough room in the boat except to send a couple people up front like that.  In fact, half the family was invariably left to play off the dock until we’d swing back by and swap out people.  Baths were always taken in the lake at the end of the boating day with floating Ivory brand soap and some shampoo, before ascending the hillside for supper.  I can only recall using the actual bathtub ONCE, and that was after one of our famous 2-mile walks (AKA: “get rid of the kids for a while”) when we brought back freshly picked road-side wild flowers and were eaten up by chiggers by the time we got back.  Such was life!

Back up at the trailer, we played a LOT of card games.  The adults played penny poker or Rook.  The kids played Rook or Uno… or WAR with a deck or two of cards.  There was a mini-pool table in the patio-like add-on section of the trailer, but we rarely played it.  Instead, we chased lizards around the propane tank out back or set off growing “snake fireworks” that left a permanent black mark on the concrete surrounding Pawpaw’s underground cistern.  I can remember one year we went home to Ohio and stopped by the emergency room because ALL four of us kids had inhaled poison ivy smoke from the fire where we burned all our trash. 

Nana always had friends and relatives that would visit while we were on vacation.  They would sit and play poker or team up and string ungodly amounts of green beans and can them.  I can still remember the old fridge that sat out front on the patio, curved corners and a lever that needed pulled upwards to unlatch and open for a cold can of Coke.

Nana sold her trailer, lots, and gave my parents the boat when Pawpaw got too bad with his Alzheimer’s disease.  Funny we are in the same sort of situation now with my dad and his Parkinson’s.  I miss that place.  Once a year, we usually boat up the Cumberland River just to drive by the old dock, point to it and tell our kids a few stories from days long ago.  I can remember one day I decided I could swim across the river to the other bank all by myself.  It’s a long swim for a child, and boats speed through that river not expecting to find a lone swimmer suddenly in their path.  I got a good yelling at for that one after having to turn back half-way there.  But, I’ve always been the one who is “most likely to get lost” in any crowd. lol  I get ideas that pop in my head and BAM! I’m gone.  It happened at King’s Island once, a popular amusement park in Cincinnati. *sigh*  As an adult, my “wandering” requires more planning. ;)

After Nana sold the property at the lake, we took to camping in our travel trailer at a nearby state park for a few years.  We even tent camped one trip (never to be repeated lol).  In time, we found a “new home” at a private camp ground where my parents have 2 trailers (one travel trailer, one fifth-wheel camper), both with a permanent deck or patio and facing one another.  That’s the only spot my kids have ever known at the lake… and that’s what we are considering giving up after this season.  It’s a big deal.  Part of me knows it’s time to move on, that change can never be stopped, and all life occurs in cycles.  But part of me hates the idea of not having that place anymore.  I’m 42. I’ve been vacationing at the lake for 42 years.  It’s safe to say  I’m going to miss it and that I would really like spaceman to know it, experience it, at least once.  It’s just not necessarily in the cards. :(

Transparency

There's a distinct difference between this relationship and all that have come before it.  It's transparency.

Everything I express is welcome food for his ears.  All matter of whimsical, mundane, and concern is fuel for his understanding of how to love me more fully.  The amount of care and tenderness, all the ways he goes out of his way to tell me whatever has been running through his heart and mind... it all comes out with an intuitively considered timing and approach.  

He asks me probing questions about our future.  The questions leave little to the imagination at his intentions, but seeks for me to describe our possible futures.  We are creating our future, we are co-creating our lives together.  

And when he isn't asking, he's full of wisdom and insight, or he's listening to my constant inner chatter, spewing aloud nonsensical play-by-play thoughts.  He listens to me parent. He listens to me read what I write about him.  He listens to anything and everything... 

This man responds to my every move and admission.  

I decided long, LONG ago two things:

1) I won't settle for being loved despite who I am, but instead because of who I am, and 

2) I aim to be as authentically myself in order to attract the right person into my life.  

Both of those things have been in effect since after my divorce in 2000.  It's been a loooong time coming.  And both of these are in play with us.  The one (1) is not possible without the other (2).

Transparency is key.  When I am myself with people, anyone in my life, then that relationship has the right building blocks to form authentic bonds.  Through the authenticity of one or both persons, the relationship builds authentic roots as well. That's how spaceman and I are.  We also happen to be romantically connected as well, and let me tell you this is divine, complete with ravishings.  But it's not his touch that I love most about him (although omg I am stunned lucky with this guy!)...  No. That's greater than great, but what I am humbled by most from him is this WIDE OPEN SPACE he provides for me to be 100% myself.  This is a sincere space... not space as in "I'll leave you be tonight so you can [whatever]" (though that sometimes happens as well)... this is a deliberately loose space where I can exist just how I am and just however I might become.  It's a space where WE can be ourselves, discover our inside jokes, contemplate the universe, discuss anything under the sun and within our consciousnesses.  As individuals and as a couple we are each free to be ourselves.  I don't want someone who is compromising on what shouldn't be compromised.  And if he changes his mind, it's because he's revisited the subject and thoughtfully come to another perspective.  Each pass through stance-making can come after loads of new insights.  

It's truly wonderful to bond ever stronger with this man.  He wants to know every faucet and curve of my mind, body and heart.  He's become everything to me.  The sun, the moon, the stars, planets and empty space between.  He's with me in the energy that mingles between us.  I can trust him to be there when I need him most, and I have to tell you that's one hell of an incredible feeling.  There's nothing I wouldn't trust this man with, except coding hahaha.  But I'm sure he would't trust me to do the plumbing either. ;)  Joking aside, it's our transparency with one another that breeds fertile ground, grows bonds, increases trust, encourages intimacy on an ongoing basis.  

I seriously could not be happier... except... if he were here right now.   

The trip to Virginia

Quite a trip indeed!  It seems odd to be attempting to write about it nearly a full week later.  In all actuality, I wrote about it before I even left. 

It turned out a bit too sultry for a public audience. 

Think Love in Eat, Pray, Love.  Think a little Pray and Eat as well.  But first, let’s talk about the area…

I knew he lived in the Appalachians, but somehow I had it in my brain that he lived on the edge of the mountains.  What I discovered was that I drove right smack into the middle of them, then turned south for a long while, driving over elevated highways that wove through valleys.  There were sky-scrapers poking up from the valleys below!  But, those weren’t near where he lives.  He lives further south, where not a single big town was nearby.  The smaller divided-highway routes around my area were his area’s largest type highways.  And then, there were miles and miles of curvy, hilly no-line roads to traverse… some snaking back and forth along the side of mountains, only to scale them and snake back down the other side.  These are treacherous in snow and ice.  He says traveling them in the winter is akin to a constant “controlled wreck”.  I could only imagine.  The only consolation is that the trees are so thick that if you veered over a guardrail (assuming there was one), you could get lucky and quite literally hung up in a tree.  But who knows…

The house where he grew up and currently lives is literally on the side of a mountain.  I forgot to ask him the name of that particular mountain.  Do they all have names?  There’s so many.  But imagine this… it’s a two story home with a walkout basement, in the front.  Yet a full wide set of steps ascend up to the center of the “first floor” covered porch with two wooden rocking chairs on each side.  I can’t believe I did not take a picture of this, so you’ll have to bear with me as I attempt to describe it.  To the left of the stairs is a shed-like door to enter the basement.  There are more steps that lead down from the front steps towards where the cars are parked in a 3 car-wide gravel driveway.  Standing down there with the cars and looking up at the towering house, the basement begins well above my own height. 

Inside the front door the house is open with a family room to the right, dining room straight back, bedrooms and staircase to the left.  The kitchen is off the dining room and leads out back to another covered porch with more rocking chairs.  Just outside that back door there is a flat-ish area with a patio table… but this seems terraced off because immediately behind that the yard is a steep climb.  Two sheds/storage buildings are built into the hill, one higher up than the other.  This about where you’ll find two large gardens, dwarfing my own.  He has 3 rows of peas (beans?) already growing, each row progressively bigger than the next with empty rows ready to sow all in due time.  The larger plants were already hanging from strings draped parallel with the rows.  The mountain itself climbed further than I could see from standing there, completely wild.  A few weeks back their security cam caught a black bear peering into a rear house window near the dog’s bowl of food.  Along one side of the property, running straight down the mountain was a fresh gurgling stream.  That stream was so relaxing, a constant reminder of the beauty of the place. 

My favorite “room” of the house was, oddly, the upstairs bathroom.  It was on the side of the house with the stream and the window was propped open with a fan that I never used.  Instead, it let the gurgling stream water sounds waft in like sweet-feeling white noise.  Unless it was nighttime, a light wasn’t needed.  The window provided more than enough light.  It had white paneling half way up the walls and a big bathtub with no shower walls or curtains.  What a delightful place to take a hot steamy bath on a cool night.  As enticing as that was, I wasn’t about to spend any amount of my precious short stay getting “me time” in a bath.  I was there to be with spaceman.

And that’s what we did.  We were side-by-side practically the whole time, except when he slept longer than I did, and I spent that time downstairs talking with his parents.

This may sound cliché, but his parents were two of the nicest people I have ever met.  Every time we left to go exploring the area, they both got up from their recliners to give us each a hug good-bye.  Every evening before we headed upstairs for the evening, there were more hugs!  Seriously, these people are sincerely awesome.  They truly did make me feel at home there.  I really miss that place, already.

The things we did…. OH the things we did!  We spent less than $10 (other than my gas to travel back and forth), but we were all over that place, exploring the landscape by car.  He also took me the sportsman’s club – a lake with a small campground, gun and archery ranges, stream and woods.  It was there that we sat suspended on a two-foot wide bridge above the stream and meditated together.  The next morning we went back and tried our lot at fishing, a fail despite umpteen jumping fish!  It just means we will go again someday.  I truly love fishing and never got enough of it when I was little.

How’s that for a rated G story?  Our time together… only our 4th time visiting one another in 11 years (can you believe that!?!)… was anything but rated G.

Do you know how they portray romantic movie love scenes… the sultry steamy lovemaking, the intensity, the hours of ecstacy… a lights on kind of erotic bath… yeah, it was like that.  And I miss him incredibly. 

I don’t know how we can have so many connections with one another like we do.  I’m not quite sure how it’s possible that we relate so well together, on so many fronts, with so much depth.  I’m so in love with this man, and he recounts his love for me, to me personally, every single day. 

I can’t concentrate.  I feel like I’m going to get in trouble for this, eventually.  lol  I feel like I’m often quite useless at work, you know?  I’m off in la la land, reminiscing or dreaming.  I want him here and now.  Communication through messaging is killer now.  It just isn’t enough.  It feels constraining.  Hearing his voice is soothing.  Spending hours on the phone laughing and joking and being serious, planning our future, pondering our present, re-viewing the past… subjects can be anything, anything at all.  I’m not beyond certain temptations to reel him in closer.  He’s dreamier than life, and I laugh so much with him.

We talk about how we are both “done”.  We know we have found the one person we each were born to be with.  The mundane comfort level is growing, and the intimacy is off the charts, delicious!  I’m not sure how it could get any better than this, but not yet cohabitating… I know there’s so much more to come.

You should hear the sweet, sweet sentiments he tells me each day.  No one has ever been as devoted as he is to me.  There’s a certain kind of satiation that has occurred within me.  He meets all my needs AND desires.  Who has been this lucky before???  I haven’t met them anyway, not that I know of.  I’m cherished, and loved in every conceivable way by him.  It’s not a completion so much as an exaltation.  Our relationship embodies an elevated state that tows the line, however curvy.  I’m in.  I’m totally in for the long haul.  I love this man with all my heart and soul and I can only pray he feels it as omni-presently as I feel it from him.

Wishes Can Come True

There's a song that came on in my music shuffle that I remember both my daughter and I loved singing together and listened repeatedly for a while.  This would have been sometime last year, before spaceman was ready to "leap".  It's a song that's fast-beat, catchy, full of emotion to the end, and a whole lotta fun singing in the car.  But it had another meaning for me.  It was a bit of a wake up call I was putting out to the universe, energetically, more specifically to spaceman.




It was kind of a dare sentiment.  I was feeling every bit of this song and wishing him to know this, consider this, understand this... and come to me.  I have lots of stories.  ...so so many stories.  Think of all the stories we could have experienced and can look back and tell when we're old. But this was the period before the decision to get back together... and I was wanting him to see how good we are and choose us.  I loved him no matter what.  I would only seek that which he was also seeking.  If he couldn't believe in us again, I was entirely all in for the friendship-only version of relating with him.  But first, he needed to see the whole me, the me as I experience me... to be utterly myself... and how myself had changed since 10 years ago.  But ultimately I would meet him at whatever level was enough for him.  I don't understand this, because I've never felt so well of a guy before.  The purity of my alignment with the joy of our friendship... it matches no other.  I think that when you find your soulmate, he will enchant in so many ways, normal ways, but so many of them.  And then, a few yowzers of delight.  I also think you can meet them and you can be horrible towards one another in previous lifetimes.  You could have simply missed the boat in so many others.  You may have still others with dharmic purposes ascending alternate paths than romantic love.  But this time..... when it's finally the glory day... when you are one anothers' rewards ceremony... it just feels inexplicably undoubtedly right.  

We are so lucky, and we remind ourselves of this every day.  I started a journal the other day... you know, just ran out of space in the last one and it was time to start a new one.  I told spaceman I like to give a little intention and write it there in the first pages.  I know this next journal will be FILLED with all things spaceman, lol.  So naturally, I wrote a little something about that.  And I shared it with him.

It says:  

"I should be journaling all this some more than I do.  Someday in the future, I'll come back to this journal to reread it with [spaceman]... parts anyway or all of it, depending on his level of interest.  I like what we have going.  In fact, I'm floored, the more I discover the stronger I'm drawn toward him."

There's more, but... after I read this to spaceman, he went on a rampage about how wonderful our love is and told me he feels purpose in our love, that we could do any number of wonderful things together, or maybe... 

"Our purpose could be so simple as loving the CRAP outta each other!!!"

So of course, I had to quote him. haha

And so... 

I'm reminded by the song from my playlist of a time when I was wishing, wanting and hoping, yet getting a little testy lol.  I pushed hard with that energetic wave and hoped he'd see us again how I saw us.

<3 He did, he lept towards us. <3

Sweet Elation!

Oh lord, how am I going to get anything done for work?  I am so lit from within.  I love the courage I feel to express the whole of my feelings for him in such great detail, to him directly.  I love this intimacy we have, and I love that he sincerely craves it as much as I do.  Finally a match in intensity.  No more scaring guys off.  No more other guys for placeholders.  This man is the real deal.  He’s everything to me.  How will I ever go on without him once death inevitable takes him???  I will.  I just know that I will.  It will suck tremendously, but every second we can squeeze in from now until then is a moment I will treasure for the rest of my life, thankful for it all, every minute bit of it. 

It feels like standing on a windy cliff, sure if I jump my chute will deploy and the ride will be incredible.  No fear, all confidence.  I’ve made lessor jumps a million times.  But this one, it’s the big one, the one I’ve been dreaming and planning all my life.  There’s an intense energy roaring through that I can’t quite put my finger on.  It’s energized.  It’s lovely and powerful.  Oh my gawd, I cannot wait for this to be invoked when he’s standing right before me, with all the time in the world to just be. 

Yeah, I’m stoked.  Yes, I know this high will come down to earth, probably in short order.  Who can predict these things?  Isn’t the greatest part about them, that when they come, they come by surprise, either by timing or intensity or both?  But the thing is, with this man, my man, he brings it back to me time and time again.  When that honeymoon feeling fades to the background, so far it’s always returned.  And the best part about this iteration is that it comes on the heels of an energetic spike from him towards me. 

What a ride!   

10 days… in a mere ten days we will be together again.  I cannot wait to feel my hand held in his… to be walking amid his gardens, drizzling rain or not, tucked up sweetly under his arms snuggling in bed.  And I love that he relishes every ounce of intense enthusiasm that runs through me.  I crave it and it’s sweet, sweet divinity, branded for the two of us. 

And I have to tell you, it’s such a rush dreaming and defining the life we will have together.  In a few short months, these trips will be us travelling to visit family rather than one another.  We will take them together.  We will be together-together.  <3  I feel like such a freaking little kid! Wheeee! :D

Delicious Distraction

Let me assure you, my absence here is all good.  My time is consumed with spaceman.  The more I seek him, the more he offers.  This is a bottomless pit of exploration... a bit of inner earth of our own.  

How can I possibly catch you up now?  Yes, still coming to live with us.  Yes, still showering me with love and sweet vigilant attention.  I'm blessed as I see no other.  I'm enthralled as I cannot begin to convey properly.  How can one simply slap some words together and recreate the magic, second-hand?  Maybe a movie can do that, maybe a book can come close, but really... the reality is that most people don't want to hear the gooshy entrails of love.  At least not in a public setting, online, it's too deep.  People don't have the tolerance for deep, because their attention has been trained to the surface.  At least on my blog, I can gush if I wanna. :]

It's sweet sticky hot cinnamon roll yummy, when I can't really eat such things (grain intolerance).  Many subjects have been touched upon, some deeper than others yet, but the big ones are broaching.  How can they not?  Soon, he will show up on my doorstep as a guest for the very last time.  The next time will be as family.  We, he and I, will be together-together.  That's what I call it.  No longer together-apart, but together-together.  There is much excitement in the air.  And, I love that everyone is taking this seriously.  They know.

In a week and a half, I will be arriving at his childhood home, meeting his parents, exploring his world, his roots.  I cannot wait.  We are building a future together and it's sweet.  We connect on so, so many fronts.  I feel incredibly blessed by something somewhere, as if the universe conspired for us to connect like this.  And, I believe that it somehow did.  How lucky can a girl be?  I can't seem to find the end of that.  Such delights in his words, such utter love purposefully and spontaneously directed at me.  He describes these things in great detail, until he's sure that I am sure of his love.  It leaves me a puddle on the ground and I rise again, reformed.  Gentle hammers like mallets banging out my imperfections, my setbacks, my ill-conceived notions.  Who could be luckier? <3

Dream Interpretation & a Neptune Transit

This morning I dreamt I was walking through a city of sorts.  My older sister and I were going to take our familiar short cut, under the heavy metal gate blocking and underground tunnel.  This scene was actually only one of a longer dream involving going to an amphitheater for some performance and someone else claiming they also had a ticket to my same seat.  Turns out they had it the night before and had just hoped to use it again tonight, trying to coerce me out of it.  My sister and I moved seats, because it wasn't full and it was no big deal.  Had it been sold out, that would have had a different outcome. 

But back at the gate, walking home through the city from the performance, we lifted up the gate to slip through and instead paused.  Something was down there. I crouched down so that I could see below the ceiling where the tunnel descended under the city and what I saw disturbed me.  There was a large square-ish machine that was patrolling the walkway, a robot device.  My instincts told me the tunnel wasn't safe anymore. We let the gate down and after a quick exchange with my sister, we left on foot the long way through the city streets.

~~~~~

Recording my dreams is something I learned most acutely from books written about Edgar Cayce readings.  I've heard it suggested by many a source, but this one hit home the hardest.  Cayce, while sleeping and foretelling at least, was a huge proponent for recording and analyzing dreams.  He wanted everyone to take it up, because it was a way to get in tune with one's higher self and develop spiritually.  

For a long while I was really good at recording my dreams. It took me an entire year to search book stores for the perfect dream symbol interpretation book.  I was looking for a particular symbol, the snake, with a particular meaning.  I figured if I found the book included that alternate symbolism, then it was potentially the right book for me.  All the while, I was recording every dream I could.  

When I found the book, it taught me how to assign meanings to the people who appeared in my dreams.  That was a huge "key" to unlocking the meanings of my dreams.  The people you know elicit a general "feeling" and their appearance in your dreams indicates the energy-feeling is at play and not so much the person him/herself.  The people are also symbols.  

My sister represents making order out of chaos to me.  She was with me at the amphitheater, which I'm sure has a possible meaning I can look up in my dream book for deeper insight.  The stranger who said my seat was really hers was stretching the truth.  She wasn't annoyingly confrontational, but doesn't it take some gull to approach someone to move when you know you're fibbing?  Or did she really believe she had some claim to it like it was a two-day ticket and the seat oversold?  Who knows what some people believe or tell themselves to justify things.  It was an inconvenience to have to deal with the situation, but I solved it by moving to empty seats - because it was a win-win.

With the tunnel, it was a more sinister kind of reason why I had to make an adjustment.  It was the tunnel situation that left the strongest impression on me upon waking.  It was a reminder that things have changed and I will be making different decisions than I once was able to make.  Even the whole idea of the tunnel, a shortcut passage underground, suggests something I haven't quite put my finger on yet.  I'll look that up in my book as well.

Cayce reminded us that the more we give attention to our dreams, the more our dreams will reveal to us as that bond is made ever stronger by our attention to our higher selves.  I've gotten away from recording my dreams through the years.  But there is still a strong dreamset each night.  Like Tarot, it is a natural tool for receiving the messages of the higher self.  Tarot I still practice; dream interpretation, I have gotten away from and yet still see so much value there.  

Especially now, when my world has been turned upside down and shaken out.  Dreams may help me find a new way through the rubble.  (To be clear, my world being turned upside down has nothing to do with spaceman, we are quite good.)

A friend turned me on to a specific transit that is happening in the sky right now.  Knowing a little about astrology myself, I put two and two together and realized it's kind of a major long-term-ish thing for me right now.  I mentioned it to her and she sent some links with some pretty cool interpretations, so specific!

Transiting Neptune is traversing Pisces right now and is conjunct my Mercury in Pisces in the 10th house.  Transiting Neptune is also square my natal Neptune.

http://www.thefutureminders.com/Neptune-transits/neptune-conjunct-mercury.cfm

http://www.thefutureminders.com/Neptune-transits/neptune-square-neptune.cfm  

One thing I want to share here (from the square):

"You may feel confused or disoriented and not know which elements of your spiritual views are valid and which are not. You should allow yourself plenty of time to go through this process of re-evaluation and know that a certain amount of confusion is perfectly normal now. You’re building an entirely new life structure that will allow you more freedom of expression in your activities in the world, and these new insights will work their way into your consciousness and become a part of your new reality."

I feel that, acutely. It's a dip into the suppressed realities of earth and the universe. It dishevels one's perceptions, rendering new analysis in light of the new information.  Everything must be reconsidered and that's daunting, tiring, and unavoidable.

Everywhere I look, new challenges to old assumptions arise, like in the dream... the dream conveys that same sense of having to adjust to circumstances.  It's not prophetic, the dream, in any way.  But if I pay more attention to my dreams... the information coming through will improve in quality.  That's what Cayce taught.

How to Spend a Saturday

Everyone's sleeping, except for the dogs.  Saturday mornings are cherished here.  After the busy, busy week before, it's like a fresh clean slate, with a reprieve given the next day... just in case.  At least for me, that's how it feels.

There are a million things I could use the day for... taxes, budgeting, household chores, gardening, yoga, working out, working on volunteer efforts.  What I would really like to do, if I weren't still so sleepy feeling, is take a long, hot bath.  It's chilly in here!

But instead, I find myself tapping out these characters on my keyboard, downloading the thoughts that flitter through my head.  

It's one of those times when I feel like not only is my calendar filling up and the busy season approaching, but my current task list has deadlines and I just don't feel like doing them.  

Maybe it's too early in the day.  Maybe my brain isn't in a high enough gear just yet.  A hot shower sounds nice, and a clean room, fresh sheets, getting the day started on the right foot... but I'm too tired just yet. ;)

I like to wake up slow.  None of that "the alarm went off, time to jump out of bed and get moving" crap.  I can't do that, never have.  Well, I take that back.  There was a time when I was in the U.S. Army... yeah, 'nough said.  I was miserable then.  Spaceman says he likes to wake up slowly, too.  Merridian suspects my kind of slow might dwarf his. lol  We will know soon enough! :)

It's kind of exciting to begin planning a life with someone.  I think a great deal about how I can welcome him and make him feel at home.  He's picking up and walking out of a daily life he loves, one that has sustained him for years now.  From the country to to the city... well suburbs, but you get my point.  It's temporary, but not.  It's long enough to settle in and find comfort.  At least, I hope he finds comfort here, probably with a similar spirit in which he hopes I will find comfort in a more rural setting one day.  The spirit of these hopes and dreams is genuine.  We know we want to live somewhere more simply, with a big garden, canning food for the winter, working with nature and sustainability practices to provide the whole year through... as best we can, as we learn, anyway.  That's not exactly the kind of life that suburbia brings about naturally.  Things like keeping chickens aren't legal in my neighborhood.  BUT... we can do what we can do, and we can prepare for that lifestyle where we are, as we are.  We can plan to enter it with our best feet forward, on solid ground.  We can do all that while doing many other things... things that are important to all of us, especially, right now, my kids and I... for that's what life currently calls for.  After all, just because one area of life takes off like wild-fire doesn't mean that what's been in existence for so long fades away.  I wouldn't want it to, anyway.  

I am in a stage of my life that is necessarily focused on my kids.  An empty nest may be around the next few bends, but it's not quite here yet.  There are at least a couple of years left in that, probably more.  My plan is always to make the best of whatever stage of life I am at.  Right now, that's graduating my teens and getting them into adulthood.  

Currently my oldest is 19 and learning how to adult in the workplace.  He's also not quite ready to dive right into life on his own.  He's working, paying off some car repairs, keeping up on car insurance, enjoying having a steady girlfriend, and using his free time to play airsoft games (think paintball but with tiny plastic pellets instead).  He spends his money on airsoft gear.  So, you see, he's playing.  He works to play.  While I see nothing inherently wrong with ensuring your free time is enjoyable, he's living on borrowed time.  Soon enough, a new phase of life will kick in and his priorities will necessarily change.  I don't feel I need to hound him too much, so much as just continue with my own plans and let him come to his own conclusions all in due time.  There is far too much time spent in each of our lives living to work rather than working to really live.  He's close to that razor's edge and just as I know he will step up when the time comes, I also know that I want him to enjoy the enjoyable times while they last.  My lackadaisical attitude about parenting is quite on purpose and simply a part of who and how I am.  I trust inherently in the fact that nothing ever stays the same and therefore there is no need for me to rush people or try to force them into changing before the desire is felt first from within.

My 16 year old is currently a junior in high school.  She's been dating her boyfriend for over a year.  They spend a great deal of time together and seem very well suited for one another.  You know... I am half expecting they will stay together for years and years to come.  One never truly knows about these things.  He's a great kid, gets good grades, is never in trouble, and helps his mom out a great deal.  His mother is currently going through a very serious health condition, one that could be fatal.  I inquire with my daughter how things are going with all that, but the general response is one of optimism and status quo.  I don't know how they maintain such things, other than... the need to deal with life never stops, even when sick, especially for a single mother like she is.  But enough of her story; it isn't mine to tell, nor am I privy to the details.  

My daughter is, let's just say, Type A.  She's driven to do things immediately and be done with it.  Soooo not me lol.  We don't see eye to eye in this way.  She's constantly frustrated with me and my lackadaisical attitude.  lol  But it's not too stressful.  She's a really great kid.  She means well and is capable of so much!  She challenges me to up my game as a parent.  She's also very full of attitude like any teenage girl!  The default reaction is typically frustration-inducing on me... and I wish she would take a page from my book and relax more.  She asks more of me than I am used to giving, and let's not forget... now, now, now! lol  I am so NOT type A.  But she is doing well in school, studies often with her boyfriend, and is planning on going to college the last two periods of her senior year next year.  In order to do this, she has to take both her Phys. Ed. semesters in summer school this summer.  So, I forked over the $300 earlier this week.  As for paying for college a year sooner than planned... she and her boyfriend both swear to me that there is some kind of program that pays for high schoolers to attend college during their senior year for free.  I'm all for that. :)  Of course, there is one thing she's asking for, that well, I did promise... just did not see it playing out in this way.  I promised both the kids I would buy them a laptop when they started college.  The boy child went one semester and I had bought him his as his high school graduation gift.  (He's talking about going back and/or getting on at Fed Ex.)  So now that the girl child is suddenly poised to begin college as a senior in high school, that gift is being demanded (yes, demanded, she's a Leo after all) as fulfillment of that promise.  Parenting = making magical financial shit happen. 

So as I sit here this morning... still in the quietness of the morning... I have the items of my ToDo List flitting through my mind, shuffling the tasks according to deadlines and pioritites.  Taxes.  Taxes keep floating to the top.  I must get an idea of how much I am going to need to pay by April 15th.  That's my #1.  Then I need a list of things that I can tackle financially to set the finances on even keel again.  Boy do I have a very different attitude about money than I used to have, pre-bankruptcy.  There are other roads to pursuing goals in life, than to be slave to the 1% and their financial pyramid schemes.  Balancing my goals with the needs and wants of those I love and the current structures of society... it's not easy as you all well know.  

At least on Saturday mornings I have the chance to reconsider it all in new light... or, just sleep through the opportunity if sleep is what is most needed.  And oftentimes, that's exactly what's needed!

Today I would like to be out in the backyard preparing my garden.  I feel like our weather is a full month ahead of schedule and I'm therefore behind schedule.  It may say March on the calendar, but it's definitely April rains here.  Thus my yard is too soggy to trudge through.  There are inches of water in some places.  So, I just look out the window wistfully, waiting...  And thus today is "inside" work.  Taxes.  Yep, it's decided.  Let's take in the spirit of the 16 year old and get it done, now, now, now!  She will be happier when I have more answers to her questions anyway. <3

The Plan Moving Forward

When writing (typing it anyway), I just let the words come through... the sentences form from thoughts that mix with feelings.  There's a certain "floatiness" of state that, when it happens, I want to run to the keyboard and type.  It's not something I practice to improve so much as just endeavor to honor, recording to keepsake my thoughts and to share and have as further material for future writing.  Sometimes I like to talk about things from the past, and having written so much down, I have the ability to search through my computer for when I first wrote about it.  I must be weird, I know.  But this is the person spaceman is getting to know.  And honestly, I'm getting to know me even better because I seem to be going through some kind of flowering.  

This flowering feels like just the beginning... so early on that too many variables are yet to happen and so the future is not settled in any one direction just yet.  That future feels ever-increasingly intertwined with spaceman's.  The possibilities that are in our escrows (Abraham-Hicks reference)... well, I'm not just wowed by the future, but enthralled with the present.  Every time spaceman and I peel off a layer of ourselves and expose more to one another, he throws me for a loop with his perspectives on how best to nurture relationships... and... how much he cares to honor ours.  Sometimes that is taking leaps at just the right moment, sometimes it's enduring a freak out, sometimes it's adjusting a schedule to help another's day go more smoothly, sometimes...  sometimes it's being willing to postpone your own dreams to join up with someone you would like to have along for it all...

This is what spaceman is doing for me, for the third time in his life, he is doing something he did not see himself ever doing again, picking up his life and moving to live with a girlfriend in a state other than home.  I'm very keenly aware of the dream he had, instead of that.  He told it to me 6 months to a year ago.  That was before he and I became a we.  At the time, we both imagined that playing out as he described.  I hold that dream for him, as long as he does and beyond if need be.  Right now though, I can't be anywhere but here... for 2 or more years probably.  And that is the rub.  The rub that when I want to say goodnight, I want to close my eyes and be held by him.  When I want to watch cosmic disclosure, I want to watch it with him, pausing to discuss as we devour it.  There are other things I would like to explore with him, soooo much more than we have been able.  

This week I have been really feeling the frustration.  I've felt it all along, mind you, but it's been especially hard to keep my frustrations tempered.  So when spaceman told me, yet again, the same things we have been saying to ourselves and one another for so long now... "we will work it out.  when the time is right, we'll know."  ~that kind of thing.  Well, that just wasn't cutting it for me in that instant.  So I bounced back that don't want us to fall in the trap of always assuming it will work out but then nothing changes.  To that he responded saying he knows things don't just happen without a little planning and he would like to talk about it some more, soon, and over the phone (we were chatting).  When a cancer is ready, they will move mountains for you.

I'm blown away with having someone who senses my frustrations, recognizes them for what they are, takes them seriously, and responds compassionately and timely.  Having two very similarly-matched individuals opens up a vast array of possibilities... possibilities not even imagined yet.  

I believe we have a choice.  We can choose to go all in and see where this magical intimacy takes us.  And I believe spaceman and I have both decided, we are each all in with one another.  What remains is making it happen, for real, by living together and starting our life together-together... no more of this long-distance stuff.  And now, that plan is filling out.  And it's scary and exciting all at once.  

Yesterday, the morning after we made these big plans, I was relieved to wake up with such a joy in my heart.  No matter the possible worries, my heart just could not be bothered by it. That's a really good sign.  And... it happened again this morning!  How many days of joy will I wake up to, feeling like this???  

You know that state when your dreams for something come true and then you have to think up more new dreams???   Yeah, that's me.  Pretty amazing, isn't it? <3  But I'm not just talking about "moving in plans" now.  I'm talking about being loved and cared for so attentively.  I'm talking about the things I LOVE to talk about are the SAME things he loves to talk about.  I'm talking about sublime, soul-melding sexual connections.  I'm talking about the similar ways in which we each study the world and people around us, draw & employ life lessons to grow as spiritual beings.  I'm talking about a reverence for the Earth, an insatiable curiosity about the real nature of things and events, and a level of understanding of others' motivations and emotional needs that transcends the ordinary.  

But most of all, and it's the biggest, because I didn't even know I needed it... a meeting up of who I am and who he is that ebs and flows and still somehow magnetizes and dances through our boundaries.  Opposites that compliment... all that, too.  

Let me just say this!  He knows astrology and I don't have to explain it... I can just rattle on and he gets it and comes back at me with his own interpretations!  And because we have been cherishing one another for 11+ years, through emails and chats, we really do know one another on a level that has probably been the REAL reason why we "didn't work out" the first time... a serendipitous supposed ending that was really just part of our beginning.  How else does one develop so much intimacy of this kind?  It's a beautiful love story, this story that is ours, one we both agree, could make a great book.  If only I knew how to craft the telling of it into that form!  I would love to tell the world, I would.  But... that story is still unfolding.  I'm sure there are junctions in our futures, for no matter how close you feel with another, you are still yourself and you still have choice.  I am committed to spaceman.  When I think about him moving in with us (timeline is approx. 6 mos, but flexible), I see him joining my family of three, not just co-habitating. Our life together will become the new normal.  And then when the nest is empty and our finances sorted, we will fly the coup! :D

And that's where I stand... knowing clearly that a conversation needs to happen with my kids, and soon.  This post will be out there in cyberspace, free and open to be stumbled upon, and that's not how I want that to go down.  Most likely I will approach them separately, because in practical terms, it's hard to get us all together at once these days.  It will work out better that way, anyway.  My kids seem to love coming into my room to chat, frequently.  

And then there is my brother... I will be handing down his marching orders, asap.  It won't be a surprise, because I have already started that conversation topic - whether he responds or not, I know he is listening, because I know him. 

And since it's still a warm day, I'm going to get off this computer and go take a walk around my gardens.  There is much to plan.