Sail away, sail away, sail away...

Today is Columbus Day here in the good ole' US of A. The day is celebrated in both North and South America because Christopher Columbus (the "American" version of Cristoforo Colombo, his name in Italian) is usually given credit for having discovered the New World in 1492. However, the Vikings were really the first to do so. Norsemen from Scandinavia arrived here in the 10th century and began settlements in the northern part of the continent in what is now Canada. Less well known is the American holiday Leif Erikson Day, celebrated (such as it is) on October 9th and commemorating the day his ship arrived in New York Harbor bringing immigrants from Norway.

The USA is primarily a country of immigrants. Except for the descendants of the indigenous people who are now referred to as American Indians (Columbus thought he had landed in the East Indies), our ancestors either came here looking for a better way of life or were brought here. Sadly, for a country founded on freedom, we didn't offer that right to everyone in the earlier years.

Again, sadly, the freedoms we cherish as individuals often conflict with the freedom of the whole. We guarantee the freedom to worship but protest when we don't like the religious practices of another. We have the right to free speech but think we can force our words or beliefs on others. Freedom of the press often means not always hearing the whole story or maybe not even the truth. We vote on our leaders as a democracy, but then don't have, as individuals, a say in the actions of those leaders. The very makeup of our country--immigrants--guarantees that our country will always be diverse and often divided. The melting pot can be a hot pot of controversy.

Sometimes I wish I could be like Columbus and Erikson and discover a New World where everyone would live in freedom, peace and harmony.

(Image used is entitled "Santa Maria." The photograph is of the bow of the ship of the statue in Columbus Circle outside Union Station in Washington, DC. Visit the Etsy shop at Raceytay or the artist's blog ibrakeforbokeh.com for more beautiful pictures and information.)


When Columbus started out he didn't know where he was going, when he got there he didn't know where he was, and when he got back he didn't know where he had been.
--Anonymous

Know a good locksmith?

I've been out of work for almost 10 months, and although some might not think it's true, I have had somewhat of a schedule. Well, not for the first three months, that is. That was when I was simply numb. No thinking, no feeling, no responding. There were a handful of significantly stressful and humiliating events during the last decade of my life for which I had not grieved. Add to that the fact that I found myself in the final stage of my feminine life without much warning. Finally, the numbness wore off, and I became a thinking, feeling, responding maniac. Too much grief and hurt needed to be released. Too much time that had been, perhaps, wasted. This journal was my recording of what I needed to work through, get through one way or another. It took the last five or so months to do just that. One day I should probably record some of the events. I'm sure my doctor would recommend it. To anyone who took the time to read, encourage or offer up a prayer for me, I can't express enough just how thankful I am. Big, big hugs all around. I am eternally grateful.

Now, I am at a point in this journey that I can look back and see how I've progressed, and I am so encouraged by where I find myself. I am actually answering the telephone and talking to people. Amazing! I don't think I've ever said, but long ago during my first bad incident, I developed a phobia about the phone, and I've never gotten over it. Now, not only have I talked to people, I've gone back to work with my former employer. Technically, I guess I'm no longer employed, but then again, I'm not very technical. I think this is more of a part-part-time job. A good start, no? The retail position offered earlier in the year is still available, and I have been in touch with the owner recently. Again, good.

I know myself well enough to know that there will be more ups and downs. However, I believe that I've learned enough now to keep those ups and downs to a very low frequency. Hopefully, no more serious roller coaster emotional upheavals and certainly not with any regularity. I know when I need to back off, I think. Now that we've refinanced and made it possible for me to stay at home if I need to (which was a miracle to accomplish), I feel much less pressured and stressed. I have options. Again, amazing. I put myself at the mercy of others for so long, I forgot how that felt.

Well, all of this said because I believe that I had a bit of a schedule to my days. I am someone who needs a schedule. Plus, it was quiet, and I needed that as much as anything. My other half is now in the last of his four-week vacation, and having him constantly around has played havoc with my pseudo-schedule and my peace of mind! I can't wait for next week to arrive! He's not a horrible person, but it took this long and difficult 10-month journey to make him realize where I was headed. Downhill, very fast. He has begun to realize that he has never given me any support during the decade of difficulties and that he was, in fact, actually one of my difficulties. Sadly, over time, the result was the loss of our closeness. We will never have a true marriage again. He has also finally acknowledged that truth and is, like me, trying to live as friends. It is one of the situations that gives me the most grief. I am a person who needs to give and receive love. Not having that kind of relationship may be my biggest loss of all.

But enough of that. I am tremendously encouraged and almost feel giddy with the progress! I have a peace now that I have not had for a very long time. I think I've managed to put some of the pieces back together. My heart feels lighter, my emotions are positive, I have options, and I am able to not only unlock the door to The Place in which I had taken refuge but to step out into the world.

The Place will probably always be there. I can visit, but maybe I should throw away the key...

(Image is an assemblage from AnAlteredAffair at Etsy and is entitled "A Lock on My Heart."

A good time was had by most...

I'm heading off to the beach tomorrow for our annual family vacation. Everyone else made it there on Monday. I tried to go earlier this week as well but couldn't do it. I had a difficult time with my family ten or eleven years ago. The result was that I was unable to see them or talk to them for over two years. I still have a lot of trouble with extended time together. I don't remember if I've ever given any of the details in this journal, but I won't go into them now.

If I do, I might change my mind and not go at all.

(Image used is entitled "Vacation" and is a photograph taken at the beach where I am going. It's by PaulettePhotography and is just one of the many pictures she's taken where she lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She has a lot of amazing animal photos, too.)

Inside what's left of my skin...

I have always had vivid dreams, and I usually can remember most of them. I usually spend some time trying to figure out what the heck my dream means or what it's telling me or saying about me. I think that dreams are probably made up of both memory and the things that have been relegated to the subconscious maybe because we can't focus on them consciously for whatever reason. It's interesting that originally the word dream meant joy or gladness. Interesting because most of my dreams are anything but joyful. They usually revolve around something that plays a part in my life but it gets turned upside down and inside out. Freakin' weird is what they are. Like my grandmother turned axe murderer. Actually, now that I think on that one, it's probably not so weird. I saw her chop off a chicken's head (yes, with an axe) and everything else she did to get it to the cooking pot. In my dreams, however, she was after my brothers and me. This was one of my regular childhood nightmares.

Last night, I dreamed about a place where everyone was covered in some kind of strange...rubber cement like stuff. It wasn't sticky, but it was pliable. The people in this place were not very friendly, and in fact, constantly looked for anyone who was different in any way. Of course, that would be me. The punishment for being different was that the "skin" was removed and the person vaporized. Now I have no idea why the skin had to be removed if the person was just going to be vaporized anyway (maybe the skin was really a protective cover?), but who can explain dreams? I'm fairly certain that Freud could find something in my dream that would represent sex in some way, shape or form. I'm not big on believing it all winds down to that. So if anything of a sexual nature can be found in my dream, just keep it to yourself. All I know is that I really got into the artist's work from an earlier post--Elizabeth Ingraham's fascinating and strangely disturbing "skins," which were meant to represent the mental or emotional things women take in or take on. Society has placed these labels on women for so long, and only since my generation have women tried to buck the system. Her site describes most of the "interactive" skins and how she portrayed the various labels. Some were beautiful, like the one named Regret, made with lace and covered with beads and shells. Ms. Ingraham says that Regret "...rattles at the slightest touch, producing faint echos of love and loss." I'd say that's about right except my echos would not be faint. Accommodation was constructed so that she would open up and become larger by pulling on a row of snaps. "After becoming large enough to accommodate virtually anything, she then obligingly snaps back up into her normal size and shape." Interesting that it's someone else that has to pull the snaps to open and then shut them back up. Accommodation doesn't seem to be in control of what she's accommodating. Guilt was pictured in my earlier post, but there were no words that described her on Ms. Ingraham's site. Guilt appears to have seams or zippers over most of her "body." Perhaps as she tries to atone for each of her offenses (inadequacies) each unzipped area pours out red fabric. Self-flagellation, drawing blood whether by scourging the outside or ripping ourselves apart from the inside.

As I said, I've always carried a boat-load of guilt. For anything and everything. Things I did and things I didn't do. Until recently, that is. Now I'm not so much feeling all that guilt. I guess by not being bombarded with stress and requests and feelings of having to make everyone happy, along with doing whatever I can to make myself feel better, there really isn't anything to feel guilty about right now. Although I did feel guilty about selfishly taking so much time for myself at first. Now I feel okay about saying no when it is what I really want to say. I don't say it to everything now, but I didn't used to say it to anything. Making some progress in the last seven or eight months, no? Today I realize that not feeling guilty is not the same as not caring. Big load off my mind, because I was really feeling guilty about not caring. Never ever want to not care. Thinking about my dream made me realize that no one else can make us feel guilty--we do it all to ourselves and usually over our own ridiculously high expectations. Thanks, Ms. Ingraham.

Too bad I had to get vaporized to figure it out.

(Image from this post is entitled "Ray Bradbury 2010" and is found at workingearth at Etsy.)

(Along with Ms. Ingraham's "Skin" exhibition, an experimental dance performance was given at La MaMa Theater in New York in 2005 based on the "Skin" concept. The performers eventually "...become so wrapped up in societal expectations and others' opinions that they become mummies. After being fully bound in tape and adorned in plaster, they are left alone for us to consider: real, struggling people trapped inside someone else's dressing. Their emergence from the oppressive tape that binds them is a turning point in the story." Read more at offoffonline.com.)

And in this corner...

I had a rather impressive emotional meltdown last night. We needed to get the garage cleaned up for an inspection, and it turned into one of our oldest arguments. In the past few years, my arguments have gotten less emotional and more to the point as I have gradually felt less and less emotion for my husband. As a result, his arguments have escalated into yelling and throwing objects out of frustration that I'm not responding to his tactics. Our age-old discussion relates to my purchasing, finding or collecting what he calls trash. He also seems to believe that I am hoarding stuff. I believe I talked about my house decorating in a previous post, mentioning that I use antique things as I find them and often in ways that they weren't intended to be used. I also use these same things in creating art. For example, I have a wall assemblage that includes a window frame, tin roofing, and a shredded curtain still on the rod, all of which came out of my abandoned grandparents' home. Much of what is in the garage is from their home, and needless to say, I will never get rid of it regardless of whether I ever use it or not. What isn't from my grandparents' home is still interesting, and I may want to use it in a project. He thinks if I haven't done anything with it in a year that it should be tossed. He doesn't get that inspiration doesn't have a deadline.

I calmly left the garage to go get ready for bed but decided I would apologize for something I said that was rather nasty. However, as I tried to lead up to my apology, he went off on several tangents and avoided answering questions as usual. Or his answers actually proved what I had said. I finally reached my last straw in trying to make him at least see my point of view. He didn't have to like it, just see it. Well, my emotional dam burst, and I kind of went hysterical. I actually scared him. Somehow, amidst the heavy sobbing, I told him that I had been rejected, pushed away and gotten rid of so many times that I was simply afraid for it to happen again. I said that my heart had been wounded so many times that it wasn't mending and that one more heartbreaking incident might just do me in. I said that I wanted to go somewhere that no one, not even him, could hurt me. He said that I wasn't being realistic, that there was no place I could go that there wouldn't be any people. Is it me or is he not listening? I told him about the things he had said and done to push me away, which he remembered but didn't seem to think were hurtful. I have never told anyone everything that has happened over the last 20 years with my family, my husband or jobs and even a bible study. He thought I was upset because I was holding in too much anger and should demand apologies. I am not holding in any anger, and I tried to make him see that apologies wouldn't change how I feel about what happened. I tried to make him understand that hurtful words can't be taken back or attitudes changed. What was said was said and my heart broke. Period. My hurt is not the same thing as anger. He argued that I seemed fine most of the time and that even when I was with my family I seemed okay. Although I've tried to tell him many times that I am putting on a "smiling face" and really am not doing well, he obviously doesn't listen or believe me. In the end, I'm not really sure he understood what I was saying. That he hadn't understood had been one of my earlier points of discussion. For all that we have been married for almost 25 years, he doesn't really know me.

And that, for me, is the saddest thing of all. There isn't anyone close to me who knows the real me, and there aren't many people close to me. The thing that scares me is that if they do know me and pushed me away, there must be something really bad or wrong with me. If that's the case, I don't want anyone else to know me.

(Image used in this post is found at digitaljunkies.net, a company providing freelance digital art and design, and is entitled "Hysteria.")

Fighting struggle...

Thankfully, things have been a little less rambunctious around here. Once I finally got the ladies settled down from their little blogger war, they have been on their best behavior! I really do not like conflict, especially when it's between people who hold a special place in my heart. I guess that has also been a big part of my past struggles. When emotions run so high during conflict, I am completely distraught and consumed by it. I'm even affected by conflicts between people I don't know! Don't ask me how or why that happens, but if it can, just imagine how much worse it is when I do know the people. Keeping everyone happy seems to be both my goal and my struggle.

The artist of today's image quotes the following about struggle: " 'there will always be a pull, tugging at you from every angle. fight it, and you will lose. give into it, and you will be home.' "

Easier said than done, I think.

(Image used in this post is from TinaCrespo at Etsy and is entitled "The Struggle."