to-do (first things first)

I am still cogitating about my to-do list. I am unsatisfied with it
and with how I view it.

Priorities. What ARE they, really? Is making a piece of art a
legitimate use of time or an escape from what I should be doing? Who
defines art? I spent several days workingon this--was it worth the
time? What makes something worthwhile. I keep wondering.

A personal story (steps 4-10)

I received my book, The Sunflower, On the Possibilities and Limits of

Forgiveness. I have begun to read it, but life has been busy and I
haven't gotten very far yet.

I wanted to share a personal story.

I don't have time to write it all right now. But since I don't know
when I will, I will write some of it.

My first husband, let us call him PIUS, used to to beat me. He was
physically abusive and hurt me frequently. He was also emotionally
and spiritually abusive, controlling and sometimes mean. I used to
run away and he would find me and hit me over and over. These words
do not begin to tell what terror I lived in. He told me if I left
him, he would come and find me and kill me, and I believed him and was
afraid to go.

A few years ago, he wrote and asked if I would forgive him.

My first impulse was to say no. How could I forgive what he had done?
He not only physically, emotionally and spiritually hurt me, but he
affected how I view men, and the relationships I am able to have with
them. I am still "damaged" by our marriage and the way he treated me.

I told him I would think about it.

Late I told him I would try to forgive him.

But while I was reading the book, I felt driven to truly forgive him.
I wrote and asked him to forgive me for my part in our troubles,
wondered if I had already asked, and told him I forgave him.

This is what he said:

"You never asked, No.
We were young and foolish. I never didn't forgive you and
never held it against you.

I always felt bad about the things I did. Like stopping you from chanting
NamYoHoRengekyo which I have been doing since
1981. And many other things which were almost unforgivable and took
many years to grow out of.
Thank you and please accept my most sincere apologies for the
hurt, disregard, disrespect and anguish."

I feel a great sadness, I feel tears, and I feel lighter. But this has been many years in coming. I was 19 then. I am 62 now.

Forgiving and asking forgiveness is part of the work of the twelve steps. It is hard hard work, but the results are worthwhile! If you are interested in joining a group on forgiveness, please let me know!

Writing My Way Out of Depression

I've been in a bit of a funk lately, so I'm going to take the advice left here on this blog for me, and try writing my way out of it. This was my day yesterday:

There is no peace in my mind. Nothing eases the heavy brown smog that clogs every crevice of my life. When I wake, I'm overwhelmed with the sense that my heart just stopped, because there is no reason for it to continue beating. I gasp for air as consciousness stabs my brain, sucking in the musty gloom that I long to escape when I sleep. I lay in bed exhausted, tired of searching for a reason to get up every morning and finding none. Finally, getting up, because I have to, I pray for something to spark the tiniest shred of motivation within me, so that the day will be bearable.

I try to eat breakfast. Nothing tastes good. I force it down anyway, knowing my depression will get worse if I don't. I turn on the computer to post a poem I wrote the other day, but I'm tired, and don't feel like typing it. I decide to work on a picture to go with it, instead. I spend hours on it, but it doesn't excite me, and neither does the poem, anymore. I'm suddenly struck with the realization that my entire life has been a waste of time. "That's not true!" I argue with myself, but all my accomplishments seem pitiful at the moment, so I lay down to take a nap.

Again, I wake gasping for air, sucking in the "hopeless tape" that automatically starts playing before reality can slap me to my senses. "Stop!" Ok, focus on the feeling and where I feel it physically. The feeling dissipates, but not the thick brown gloom that accompanies it, or the exhaustion. There's only a vague memory of that sinking feeling you get when your heart skips a beat. Affirmations. I need to think of my affirmations quickly. Courage, insight, strength, determination... I go through my list, but they sound ludicrous. For some reason that I can't fathom, tying a plastic bag over my head seems more plausible than any of these affirmations, so I decide to escape into a daydream, where I make it past this phase of my life and go on to accomplish all the things I would like to do with my life. When all else fails, daydreaming keeps me from doing something stupid.

The hours pass like minutes. It's late night, and I've accomplished nothing today. The daydream makes the real world appear dreary, and the real world makes the daydream appear impossible. My vision is severely distorted by brown smog, and I'm too tired to fight it. But, I've survived the day, and tomorrow's another day.

The last line was my positive thing for the day, and my gratitude list. I did better today. Work helped get me through. My gratitude list for today:

I survived another day.
My work is not overwhelming.
I wrote this.
I found this picture that I did a while ago and forgot about, but seems to fit.

The Girl with the Curl

There Was a Little Girl

    There was a little girl,

    Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

    When she was good,

    She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I used to hear this a lot as a child, and also this one:

Mary Mary, quite contrary

how does your garden grow?

It was the quite contrary part my mother or father was referring to, of course.

Someone called me a drama queen.  I was always accused of exaggerating, and I probably did.  And do.  But I also think I feel and experience things more deeply than other people do.  I wear my heart on my sleeve, but also my laughter, my pain, my tears, my anger, and everything else.

I am "oversensitive."  But you can't just tell someone who is oversensitive to "get over it," and expect them to suddenly be normal.  I can't switch it on and off.  It seems to be hardwired into who I am.

The reason I am writing this is because I read somewhere that bright lights help you reset your biological clock  AND my doctor Muna Beeai suggested that I get a "blue light" for depression and insomnia.  I haven't done so yet.  But what I've been doing is going outside and sitting in the sun for 20 minutes when I first get up--I do my exercises, meditate, draw, paint, read, whatever.  But this morning, my quiet neighborhood is suddenly transformed into Busytown!!!  I sat in the backyard which is usually really quiet and peaceful--and cherish, truly cherish, peace and quiet--and there was ll this banging, crashing, sawing, hammering, loud radios, cell phones, yelling vices.  A team of carpenters is putting a new roof on the neighbor's house.  So I went out front.  There was a crew of people working on the road and another wheeling wheelbarrows full of dirt to another neighbor's yard.  Construction come home!

I am very sensitive to load noises; they really disturb me.  The vacuum cleaner sends me into paroxysms of panic, and has since I was very young.  It's worse if soemone else is doing it--I can deal with it better if I am doing it.

BUT. not much better, which is an issue for me.  I tried to sit it out and ignore it, but I was getting tenser and tenser.  Soon my shoulders were up around my ears and starting to HURT.  I had to give it up and go inside.  I can still hear the pounding and sawing in here, but not so intensely.

So, I am contrary, oversensitive, easily disturbed.  Sometimes horrid.  And loving, cheery, intelligent and creative.  AK!

Leaping from the Mire

"One cannot leap from the mire. We shall take time to lay firm ground
to the whole meaning of health again. G.T. Wrench, The Wheel of
Health, p 44

I always wish I could pull myself up by the bootstraps. I want to have
my cake and eat it, too, and still be thin.

I want to be radiantly healthy and live a long happy life but not have
to change anything I am doing because that's too hard.

I want to be lifted from this veil of tears straight up to heaven by
the angels. Of course I mean bypass death and dying and just be
completely happy. And not lave to leave behind the people I love.

This world is hard. I have it easy, I know I do, and it is still hard.

ONE DAY AT A TIME, one step toward the thousand mile journey.
Right now, I feel depressed and want to eat something "bad." I know it
will give me a temporary lift, but then I will feel worse than ever.

I'm gritting my teeth. One minute at a time. I want to not eat anything bad.

Food. To be healthy, you have to eat all the right good things in
right good quantities and avoid the bad things. At least if yr me,
you do.

Making THIS DAY a 10 (First things First)

Nebulous longings for far away things don't help me this day to be
happy and feel a sense of abundance.

SO to make this day a TEN, here's what would help:

1)Work
*revise my two new Geraldine poems and file them (or at least one
of them) (P1)
*scales: Backyard Journal: Peonies (opt)
*examine Frog Haven for a peephole sized project and do it. Save
to thumb drive.
If I only get the first done,it will still be a ten for work.
2)& Fun Recreation:
*I hope that will be a 10 be the festival we hope to attend later.
3)Health, safety
*eat three healthy meals (avoid junk food at festival)
*get enough exercise
*bed by 11:30 PM
*drive safely to festival
4)Personal growth
*time allowing, write more about my goals etc and plan a diet and schedule
*if no time is available for writing (above) do only next
item--that is enough
*stay in the moment and savor at the festival
*see spiritual
5)Physical environment
*pick up, put away, file
*Back burner item: insurance on new house (ask K for info)
6)money
7)Love
*hold hands with HC, sit close to HC at Festival
*hug him
*tell him I love him :-)
8)Friends and family
*time allowing, cards for T & RM
*time allowing, read blogs, BB, N, etc leave comments, return comments
*enjoy festival with K
9)Spiritual
*TC (T'ai Chi), med (meditate), BDG (Ba Duan Jin)
*prayers
*gratefulness

These are all things I can do to help make this day a ten, time allowing.

Other things that would help is good weather (at least not a lot of
rain) for the festival) and no unexpected bad things.

Getting distracted and procrastinating will not add to my well-being
and happiness. THESE are my priorities, starting with eating
healthily and doing my work and loving HC! FIRST THINGS FIRST!

My real to-do list today

Here's my real to-do list, not very neat, I'm afraid. And a bit overwhelming.

To simplify it, I put a yellow post-it with the three items I need to
do next, and when I have completed those, I move it to the back.

I have to write down ordinary daily things like eat and shower because
if I don't, at 5 PM I wills till be in my PJs. I am very distractable!
(ADHD!) It was different when I had a job outside the home, because
I HAD to stick to a routine.