Archive for January, 2007

the person I am

{ January 30, 2007 @ 2:08 am } · { melancholy }
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depression1.jpgThe question occurred to me, “Do you like who you have become?”

The honest answer is not the resounding and exuberant “YES!” that I wish it was. To say No, I had to look first at what I would be:

  • proactive about spreading love, joy, peace, encouragement, true friendship, and wisdom
  • hardworking
  • enthusiastic about life
  • brave
  • eagerly, hungrily pursuant of the Higher Life
  • patient
  • altruistic
  • others-centered
  • readily yielded

This the list off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more and maybe more accurate virtues. These are the descriptives of who I am now:

  • reactive
  • sedentary
  • sedate
  • fearful
  • complacent
  • hedonistic
  • semi-demi-patient
  • self-absorbed
  • introspective
  • guarded and self-protective

What will it take to motivate the pursuit of permanent change? That question inspires fear and trepidation (see?), but demands to be asked.
Will I always be like this?
Scarily, might I become worse…?!

This is the person I am right now. Yet there is my real, true self hidden with God in Christ. God’s reality is the one that counts. This sanctification program is some tough stuff, and I don’t have it bad at all.

I thought of writing down the desired virtues after the style of a life list. Write them down, look at them, see them, envision them, hopefully creating the desire to pursue and own them. I don’t want to be like this (or worse) for the rest of my life, and yet complacency is some sucking cement from where I sit. That’s why the question of motivation scares me. I like my comfortable life more than I want to change. I want that to change, but without pain. That’s what I want. And I don’t know if I can have that. There are things I don’t want to hear, things I don’t want to go through.

That’s the status at present. Film at eleven.

who’ll go first…

{ January 30, 2007 @ 1:19 am } · { death }
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headstone1.jpgI was watching the dogs play and enjoyed enjoying them. I thought of the dogs we’ve lost. I thought of Bear, our “firstborn” and then Parker, in that order. There’s no guilt in acknowledging that they meant the most to me. As much as I loved them though, there’s no abiding pain because of their absence. Thoughts of them pass through my mind with a present gentleness and aged joy that only comes with time. It was comforting to know that there is still joy after the sorrow.

Thought turned then to what it must be like to lose a human friend. Surely it must hurt much worse. Surely there’s a sense of permanence despite our hope of heaven. The loss of a kindred spirit, a creature like myself whose life touched mine, must dash somewhere so intimate that the crush of it would seem unsurvivable.

Faces of my Ya-Yas came to mind. We are within four years of one another in age. As the oldest ones face menopause and health issues, we others are close behind. One already has a thyroid condition. One’s had cancer, albeit years ago. One abuses alcohol. One’s suffered divorce, barrenness, rape, and is currently separated from her mean husband. I love these faces. They know me better than anyone else, except maybe my K, and they love me back.

I’ve never lost a friend to death. Neglect maybe… ill behavior… but not death. Which one of us will be the first to go…

phantom smells

{ January 26, 2007 @ 1:28 am } · { phantom, smells }
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cow-nose.jpgThis is weird. Yesterday and today I’ve noticed these phantom smells. It’s usually on the treadmill that I first notice them. Smells like something’s cooking, like maybe I left something on the stove or the oven’s on. It launches my mind every time into “What did I do? What was I cooking? Is there something burning?”

I’ve heard of ghost pains, but not phantom smells. This is weird. I don’t know if I’m coming down with a cold [mental note: take echinacea tonight] or if my nasal passages are doing a twilight zone thing. All I know is it’s weeeeird.

alpha

{ January 24, 2007 @ 9:16 pm } · { OCD, bipolar, evil cousin, intro, jillion, link }
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candlelight1.jpgThis blog will probably be a lot like a jillion tiny points of light, but darker. Not evil, but with the idea of an abiding troubling. The other one will be “me”, the one with all the voices, while this one will be my OCD/bipolar cousin who also happens to have voices . I’ll try to keep it to a minimum though since there’s darkness aplenty out there as it is. That’s the thing about writing for me–it lifts me up out of where the light is hidden. †

There we go–post numero alpha.