I know it has been awhile since I have written on this platform. I felt as if my desire for growth was being pushed down. I was just hanging on for long while. 

I have started reading Gabby Berstein's new book, Happy Days. My first thought when I read about the book was, "Oh, I don't need that book. That's for people with real trauma." Reading it, though, I am aware that trauma isn't always a big one time event. It can be a series of things that make us feel unsafe or not in control of our bodies. And when put that way, there has been a lot of trauma. 

So I am reading through that and doing the writings. I am not expecting a huge light bulb moment, Like, "Aha! This event is why I am the way I am." But I have been thinking a lot of and a lot of "I wonder why" moments are coming up.

Now Gabby herself discusses a lot of therapy that sounds a bit woowoo to me. If she has the money and inclination for it, good for her, but I want something a little earthier and preferably one I can do myself. However, I was thinking maybe there is healing in saying things out loud, so next time I have some time alone at home, I will do that.

 I stand on the edge of a cliff-the Cliffs of Moher lie before me-but this time, swirling gray fogs clogs the  foreground. It's just grayness and cliffs beyond unseen.

Truthfully, I am a bit apprehensive about next year. I am leaving my current workplace for another. I feel as if I have been an utter failure at my own job. While students tell me they will miss me, students are fickle, and next year will warm up to their new teacher by telling them how much better they are than me. And that is right. They need to move forward.

All I know is that every adult I know that I am not related to will soon be absent from my life. And that is a scary feeling. It is one thing to change jobs when you have a partner, it is quite another to change when your evenings are already spent alone. Now I will lose the only people I ever talk to. Of course, there will be other people, and hopefully among them a warm spirit or two. 

My coffee turned out exceptionally weak today, and that is after I pushed the "strong brew" button. I wonder if this has a deeper meaning. Perhaps it is a sign of my weak, faltering spirit. I kid. Sort of. The truth is, I feel very fragile right now, and I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, and there is nothing to do but move forward.

BUT! In the face of change there is the one realization that is always helpful. WE get to choose what we dwell on. We get to choose what we think about. And I simply have to choose not to dwell on my feelings. There is a certain comfort in picking apart my feelings and understanding them, but there is also a destructive element of painful despair when helplessness against fears overwhelm. I can choose to keep pushing forward and turn my back to the clouds. I can choose to search for the sun.

And so I will.

Being without a partner makes me long for a partner. I don't understand it. For the most part I love having my own bed and my own room. I love making my own plans and having no adult to question me if we have a cake for dinner. And yet, this yearning to connect, to feel loved, to make someone smile is always present. Is it just social conditioning? Or is there more to it? It is just a hard world and having someone to share the burden, to tell me the sweet things one needs to hear at the end of a long day, to cook with me, and strive towards healthier living together, to make plans with... those are good things. But then...they are there. They notice when you skip doing dishes, when ice cream give you clear-the-room gas, when you just want to sit down and enjoy a bowl of brownie batter. With people comes judgement and having to be a little bit better than you are. 

The future is uncertain, and I don't know if I will ever be loved, but there is not shame in the hope, right? So why does it feel shameful to admit? Curious. 

I had intended this blog, A Mighty Queen, to be about striving to become better and achieve more, and I feel as if I am letting my readers down. I ordered a book on life planning and life goals and it is SO hard for me to fill out. Because what I want is a good life, with lots of travel, a beautiful romance, and a lot of quiet time to relax at home on rainy days. How do you break that down into serious goals?

I guess step-by-step. I can plan a trip. Maybe not this year, but in two years, (if I don't do anything dumb) my credit cards will be paid off and I will have more money to play with. 

I could make myself more attractive, which in our society means thinner,  which sadly means less brownie batter. In truth, I always wanted a physically active life. I just don't know how to do it with kids. Even hiking about kills Gabriel who is afraid of heights and thus has built hiking into this huge fear of standing on a mountaintop (he literally is afraid of Colorado). But the kids are getting older, and soon, I will be able to leave them for longer and longer and do my own thing. 

So, maybe the answer is to accept the fog. To let it swirl around me, mysterious and opaque, because in truth, the unexpected was exactly what I wanted. I didn't want my future to be one place with the same title and same building and same people. I wanted something different. I neeed to remain cognizant of that and step-by-step, I need to light my own candle. I need to make a short-term plan and a long-term plan to focus my attention on. I need to let go of the sadness of my failures (noone is really going to miss me) and examine what I can do differently (focus less on my feelings and more on theirs, maybe? I don't know, you tell me, what am I doing wrong?), and take that forward with me. I need to accept the disappointments (and there have been many) and use them as the driving force for change. 

Foggy mornings have always been my favorite. I will remember that, as I step forward. And if I fall, the crashing sea of life is an amazing place to land. 

Becoming a Person of Goals

For the past several years, I have been pushing myself towards becoming a person of goals. A person with a to-do list done, checked boxes and self-horn tooting included. I have been reading books on being more successful and more corporate (as a woman somehow you have to magically balance warmth with seriousness-good luck), how to check progress and get ever closer to being a successful person. However, I always find myself slipping up, falling back, gaining and losing the same 15 pounds. I get bored behaving at work, and just want to let my silly side show. I have personal issues which continue to interfere with my relationships with others (Queen of throwing people off track by not letting them know what I really think? Check!). And I just find myself wondering-am I trying to fit myself into the Western mode of being a workaholic drone without really considering what it is I want out of life?

Long ago--perhaps in my late teens or early 20s, I decided it was just enough to BE. I just wanted to exist, enjoy my kids, revel in the early dawn hours, and live the simple life. Circumstances however, later dictated that I must GO OUT AND EARN A LIVING, and that has really thrown off all that I ever tried to be. Somehow I had to balance being a mature grown up with my desire to go lie on my bed and fantasize about a favorite fictional character. I had to try and convince people I was worthy and intelligent, when my way of relating to people outside the home is through silliness and trying to make them laugh. Perhaps we all want that. I have no desire to tell others what do or control them. However, I sure as heck don't want them telling me what to do. Isn't shared space enough? Anyway, I have come to the realization that maybe I am dumb. Not school dumb. I am an underachiever in school, but I have taken enough college courses to at least know how  stack up with other people at the distinguished "elite" Missouri State University.;oP. I have learned to accept that my ideas are as good as others, it just takes a whole long time for me to dig through the muck of feelings and impressions and half-formed thoughts, and by then, everyone has moved on. Whatever. I am slow. There is a surety in slow-thinking (not to be confused with decision-making-which requires a certain unwillingness to reconsider discarded options-something I am still working on). Actually I think the healthier I become, the less I think overall, and the more I just exist. And the truth is, it doesn't really matter. 

Ticket to nowhere?

My career is going nowhere. In fact, it can't really be called a career. It is a job. There is nowhere to move up and on. I have no desire to make decisions for other able-bodied adults, nor do I wish to labor intensely enough to perfect my paperwork to the point of moving "up." Is sitting at a desk correcting IEP paperwork really moving "up?" Nope. And that's fine. I enjoy connecting with kids most days. I want to help them do better and try harder. But let's not call it a career. 

In an ideal world, my words would be amazing enough that people would desire to read them-would wade through ads to read them and I could make a living that way. Or if I must, I would have braved the counseling degree so I could become a career counselor. I used to memorize the college course books and all the paths and the classwork and internships which would take people "somewhere." That would have been a good path. But it required a 2 year degree in counseling, I just felt the counseling admissions would look in my eyes, see my brokenness, and stamp a big red NOPE with a red box (for emphasis, of course) around it on top. 

Of course, there is always becoming an astronaut. Why do we allow kids to think they actually have such options. Why aren't we honest and say, "Hey, that's for the 140+ IQ elites, who probably have connections, and can handle military training (I just can't do push ups)." Why do we pretend kids can have amazing lives, when most of us are just going to have jobs. No, I said that wrong. We can have amazing LIVES. We just can't all have amazing careers. And the truth is, I don't have a burning desire for answers. I just want to experience space. I am much less deep than I like to pretend.

Let's Focus, Please

So I am getting off track. Goals. I have been thinking about how setting goals doesn't work for me. I mean, I used to set goals with the praxis tests. I will get X teaching certification. I'd pay the fee, take the test, add on the certification until one day I realized--I was just reliving the test prep anxiety the years and years of schooling had engrained into my skin. I had just become accustomed to that anxious feeling of proving myself, proving myself, feeling good, and then ... nothing. Nothing comes of it. I was just stuck in the pattern of schoolthink. I guess I am doing the same things with those Wordle games. Just proving to myself I have a brain cell or two banging around in there. What do you get when two brain cells bang? A synapse. Ahahahaha.

And now I am thinking, what if I just want to come home wrap in a blanket, sip a cup of hot tea (LOLOL, y'all know it's coffee), and stare at the everchanging cloud formations in the western sky. Does that make me less than? 

What's Happening Now? Why?

Am I finally getting over the middle-aged hump and returning to my Zen roots? Is this just some excerpt from a near-death-experience book rearing its head inside my head (I love that stuff). I read an interesting article on the Forbes website, by Jennifer Cohen, The Most Successful People Don't Set Goals. In this article, it was suggested that rather than setting goals, it might be more prudent and effective to set intentions. And I love that thought. I can't lose a pound today, but I can set the intention of eating healthily. I can't change the world or turn a student's life around, or suddenly start liking someone I am secretly hoping will be swallowed by a hole in the ground (sorry, it's the devil inside that makes me think such things), but I can set the intention of being more present, or making someone feel valued, or looking for the good in the person who really needs to be swallowed (come on, Mother Earth, do your thing!).

And the amazing thing about intentions is they can easily change. Today I intend to eat healthy, tomorrow I intend to live life fully. They can be short-term or long term. They are easy ways to become your better self without a checklist and time limit. And I love that. 

So Anyway

I had much more to say, but I feel a cold trying to get under my skin and my body at the breaking point. I am tired. The kids are staying with their big sister in an hour and as much as I desire to get out (Barnes and Noble and Renaissance books), I also strongly desire to take my two little single serving Cabernets and curl up with a comfort movie ( I have been craving rewatching Sherlock-I JohnLock SO HARD, but I would have to pay now that it is off Netflix-gross), and just going to sleep early.

We shall see. My intention was to say something with depth and clarity-well, there is always tomorrow.

This is all I have time for!

Whatever area of my life I try to apply it to, I find myself trapped in a little box. I try to imagine my career: box. I try to imagine my home: box. Romance: box.

I think there are several factors at play here. First, a lifetime of criticism both from the outside and mostly from the inside come into play. I don't want to dream bigger than I can deliver. My inner critic comes bursting out like Neil Kellerman in this frustrating scene from Dirty Dancing:

 (pretend there is a block indent here, I can't figure it out on here)

"The scene I'm talking about comes where Johnny is 'tutoring' his blossoming love interest, 'Baby', in the dance studio, when up rocks slimeball grandson-of-the-boss, Neil Kellerman:

As a child, conquering my temper was my main area of focus. Oh, I could get mad. It still flares from time to time, particularly when one of the kids are making gigantic messes on a day when my body is already just done. Or when the person I am trying to have a discussion/argument with is refusing to be logical-or bringing up past arguments. Then I will find myself on the edge (you know, the place where the F word abounds). 

One thing that amuses me is how in my 20s and 30s and early 40s I always saw myself as the good guy. Yes, I was too prideful and could get bitchy when my pride was attacked, but my expectations for others were rather high, perhaps impossible. My fear of rejection was so great, I couldn't just relax. I was ever vigilant, ever worried.  And there is some reason behind that-people do exclude and people do talk about other people-even friends, and that sucks. But somehow, you just have to suck it up, and keep moving on. The problem is I don't know how to be open and vulnerable to people and still be detached and self-protective. And I guess you can't. If you want to be open to people, you have to just accept you are going to be disappointed and hurt. You are going to have to pick yourself up, talk about it, and forgive. I can understand that intellectually. But emotionally, there is always this wall that barricades me from the pain faster than I can see it happening. I don't want to detach so easily, but I do understand and accept that this wall once served an important purpose in my life. 

We won't drag all that out here. Let's just say, I don't feel I have reached the previous year's goal word of "connection." 

To me, connection would be having someone to call when I needed to talk (besides my poor daughter), someone to walk with, someone to see movies with. Or several someones. And I am not there. Of course, I have real, pressing daily responsibilities which preclude just being able to go do things, and I am weirdly perfectionistic about my home (which means, I won't let people in, unless it is just so), so...it just may not be my season for that, but it doesn't stop the yearning. 

Anyway, improvement. I feel I have shown growth over the past few years. I feel angry that lessons which should have been learned early were not-but what can you do with that? I mean, it is what it is, right? I need to talk and identify feelings more with my kids, so they don't have to figure so much out on their own-not to make my life easier-but to make theirs easier.

But you want to know a secret? Nature is there. She is coiled up in the pit of your stomach, and no matter how much you learn to tame your pride, and how much you struggle to keep your eyes open and be honest with yourself, she is always ready to strike. Maybe the real truth isn't that I don't trust others. Maybe it is that I don't trust myself. 

There is an argument that people don't change-not really. And whenever I feel the flare begin to flame in my belly, I understand this. Our nature is always with us, always awaiting its chance to strike, tear apart, and build itself up. Our higher self must remain ever-vigilant, ever aware of this impending destruction. Our higher self must calmly hold the reins, guiding us ever-onward and upward. It isn't an easy fight, and it is one I have poured my soul into through my prayer journals (but wait, there's more!)

And so, we keep moving forward. I have my journals begging for growth, peace, clarity, wisdom. God DOES answer prayers-but the path he leads you on is not the path of least resistance. To the external eye, it may seem as nothing is happening. To the seeker however, the path is present and difficult and real. 

Let's finish up with up with a little Oceans, shall we?

I long to be in the mountains.

 Off Topic

However, getting started has been a challenge for me. First of all, I threw most of my scrapbooking papers away last year. Over the years, I get less and less sentimental. In fact, a lot of the stuff I have, I now have because it was a gift and I am waiting for people to die so I can toss it out. So I want to get started, but I don't want to spend a ton of money on supplies. 

That is why I started thinking about smash books rather than junk journaling. Junk journaling suggests pulling out pages and sewing and covering bindings and oh, I could do it...but it isn't a start quick and get it done thing. And I am impatient.

What's the difference? This lovely article sums it up:

Junk Journal Vs Art Journal Vs Smash Book

So I think I am going to start with what I have. I have various journals and old books. In Ireland, my almost-ex-husband (just one more week or two), bought me an old religious text at a used book store. I used it to journal and sketch with oil pastels. It wasn't a work of art-je ne suis pas une artiste-but it was fun.

These are oil pastels:

And so I ordered some paper ephemera which finally came in after about 3 weeks, and am ready to get started. Here are my goodies!

Now of course, part of me can't help but decry the lack of authenticity in my goods. These are made in China to look old. They will not have the charm of a truly repurposed postcard, for instance. However, they are within budget and get me off and running AND I can slowly start adding more "real" items to my collection of supplies. 

Whilst looking for my Ireland junk journal, I found this day calendar from 2017. It must have been a Christmas gift which was tucked away and forgotten. Oh well.

I'll post pictures on new blogs as I create. The goal is one post per area I wish to work on, per month.

 I am looking at the first branch of my plans for the year, and that is the ever-popular one: Fitness.

Just saying that makes me want to jump under the quilt, cover my head, turn on my side, and dive into the quiet world of fantastical imagination (usually centered around romance, because that's how I roll). 

I haven't dove in as enthusiastically as I wanted. There are a myriad of things that are stopping me. First of all, inertia. It is easier to stay still when you are still. Procrastination is rearing its ugly head. I plan to exercise in the morning, and then morning comes, and it seems like cruel and unusual punishment to do more than sit quietly and sip my French roast and maybe do a few simple stretches and squats. I am only sleeping about 5-6 hours, which overall feels okay, but since I usually fall asleep within about two minutes of turning out my light, I think I might be sleep-deprived.

 I also have a fitness blog and matching Instagram (which I am not ready to share-I don't need my coworkers seeing me in a sports bra at this point in my life), but people are ALWAYS trying to sell something.  This is a problem for me because I get pride doing things for myself. If I figure out how to lose weight and tone up, it means something. If I go the gym and get a personal trainer (which is the ONLY way I see myself going to a gym), good for me. If someone else makes a suggestion-it doesn't mean as much. It robs me of my ability to feel pride in my accomplishments. Plus, saying no is hard for me. Now, a walking/jogging partner (a newbie like me) would be helpful. I think that would get me out the door-but since I have taken on a couple online courses to teach in the afternoon, I don't know when I would get the childfree time for that.

So there are all my excuses. 

On a side note, I was listening to an Oprah podcast on Spotify this morning (while slowly sipping my French roast), and one of the main points being made was how important it was to be true to your word. And Oprah cut in (she cuts in too much-I mean I like the topic, but shush and let the speaker unfold), and talked about how hard it is to be true to our word to OURSELVES. She talked about how easily she could talk herself out of not finishing a workout she had promised herself. And that is so true. When we aren't true to our word to ourselves, we just call it, "Changing my mind." Something to think about.

Knowing all these excuses, doesn't get my ass smaller, though. Actually, I don't "see" my butt, except in pictures, therefore I really worry about my stomach and my double chin. Every pound, I swear jumps to my waist and face.

I have to find ways to build this into my day without a lot of stress. 

I know the easiest thing to do is to put on my sneakers, dress Alec (because he walks in the door and strips his clothes off everyday), and just go out for a walk. There isn't anything hard about that. Except that-people will see me. That stresses me out a little. When I am home, I want to be home. Alone. Quiet. In pajamas and unseen. 

I have my 15-pound dumbbell. The exercise video I do with the weight, literally takes less than 5 minutes, and I feel pretty worked out the next day. There is NO excuse not to do 5 minutes of this a day.

The weighted hula hoop is easy, though it feels too easy and gimmicky to work. Tierney said it was working for her, though. The yoga mat isn't getting a lot of use because, it seems like too much in the morning. 

How can I build this into my day?

I need to have it all set up in the morning. I need the yoga mat spread out on the floor, the weight and hula hoop nearby, and the roku remote ready to go find a Youtube video for Yoga or others (I always used to love Cynthia Kerulik videos-apparently she was a thing for men to gawk at, but I always enjoyed listening to her quiet chatter while working out). It is just a matter of getting the ball rolling. The easier I make it on myself, the easier it will be to do it the first time, the second time, the third...until I feel like a habit has been formed. 

I think a HUGE part of the problem is the idea of fitness is linked with attractiveness in my head. And I will NEVER be young again. I need to retrain my mind to focus on how it FEELS to move lightly and with ease. How good it would feel not to huff and puff. How nice it feels NOT to have heartburn and to have your pants a little to0 loose rather than too tight. 

Now...I have written a whole lot of words here. Until I put them into action that is all they are. Words. I could do a check-in or a fill-in-the-bubble when you do it planner activity, but those don't work for me. My rebellious nature will kick that plan to the door. FREEEEEEDOM!

But now I have a plan. Set everything up the night before. Grab the dumbbell before I turn on the TV. Do the hula hoop the first 10 minutes of salivating over Damon. Just do the danged floor exercises WHILE I listen to my soul-growing podcasts. When I set it in motion, 3, 4, 5 days in a row, I should theoretically start feeling good about the new habit I am developing. Then I will let you know how it goes!

I didn't want to say New Year's Resolutions, but let's call a spade a spade. After a delicious 11 days off, tomorrow it is back to school for the second term. I have thoroughly enjoyed binge-watching The Vampire Diaries (rumor is it is going off Netflix in March), which I just found in November. I have enjoyed doing a whole big fat lot of nothing. It was wonderful. But now, I feel the need to stir things up, plan for the new year, and start making progress towards greater meaning in this crazy little thing called Life.

Do you make resolutions? How do you decide what to focus on?

My Resolutions

Fitness

Creation

Focus on Vision

Less Screen Time

Less Perfectionism