Stuck in Traffic

If you can imagine life as a journey, it seems to me that challenges can be dealt with, and disappear, or they can be ignored, and pushed down, and after a while they become so repetitive that they are like a traffic jam, forcing you to turn and take a new route, or put it in reverse to get to a place where going forward is possible, or just sit there, stuck.

Sweetie and I have a good relationship for the most part, but let us face it, life with me has not been a trip down a superhighway; nice and smooth with lots of opportunity to see where she is going. More like a narrow country road with hedges up both sides (I am thinking of a B road near Bath in England right now).
She has had to be prepared to stop suddenly to avoid oncoming traffic (me) going in the opposite direction from her intended. Such is the examined life, that it has been important to be able to stop and back up and change course to avoid traffic jams, or routes that go too near to drop-offs.

I do not like doing this to her; making her unsure of us when what she wants most is certainty, like that superhighway. Given a choice of course I would live in the open, and would drive straight ahead, sure of myself and happy being who I am. It would be a road less traveled, that is for sure, but it would be mine, not one for someone who I have been forced to invent. Oh how I hope, when I find and take that road, that she wants to drive a road that takes us to the same place.

In her post  "I panicked…" this past week, Rhiannon asks the question that is like a ghost haunting me too:
"Why has my life, yet again, become one of sneaking around, hiding, lying to the people I love to protect something I'm proud of and that is not wrong or shameful, but instead is a big part of who I am. Why, in the place of greatest intimacy and supposed trust am I forced to be the pretend me?"

To end the analogy with driving, life right now is a lot like being in a big round-about. I feel as though I am stuck, but I know there are lots of different routes available. I am taking my time, and trying to be sure I do not have to come back here yet again in the future.

This old wreck hasn't many miles left on it for that sort of nonsense.

The Path to Success

Sweetie and I have been traveling together for the past week, out of touch with the wonderful land of blogs. Returning, I find that some things have changed, but in a sense, nothing has changed. Dwelling on the changes will bring me down, so I needed to find some levity.

It came my way in an email from a good friend.
These things often do, just when they are needed. Funny thing about that, eh.

We in Canada take bears seriously. In eastern Canada, we have the black bear, no grizzlies here, thank goodness.

As I look down at the table beside me, a coaster sits.

Success 

is to have lived well 

laughed often 

& loved much

Now, on with the living and loving part.

Hugs,
Halle

When through the window...

This morning, a post that is pretty impulsive. I am not generally impulsive, but then, I have lived a very controlled existence for most of my life. While things in this regard are improving, sometimes it is good to be given a reminder. Worrying about image is such a burden, and who suffers most from the choice of an inappropriate public image more than the perpetrator, me in this case?

This morning on the radio, they were talking about Winnie the Pooh. It reminded me of the cute little honey lover's creator, A.A. Milne, and that reminded me of my childhood, and from there, a cautionary poem by the same author. Perhaps I should have been wiser, and taken its message to heart, but after all, I was only seven when I read this for the first time:

King John was not a good man — 
He had his little ways. 
And sometimes no one spoke to him 
For days and days and days.



I still have the book, sitting on my lap right now, "Now We Are Six", by A.A. Milne, with 'decorations' by Earnest H. Shepard. Oh how I loved those illustrations; still do. :)

Read the whole poem King John's Christmas here. I would hold the book up and read to you if you were sitting round the rocking chair with me, but this will have to do kids.

Hugs to all,
Halle

My Freak Flag is Getting Itchy

Some might have noticed a badge down the right side of this blog.

I choose AUTHENTICITY

It is not so much a statement as it is a goal and a reminder. What it means to me right now is that I accept that when making a choice, it is better to boldly accept my flaws rather than try to mask them.

In so many ways being who the world tries to make you be is wrong, yet too often because I am still avoiding shame or some other pain, I hide that real person for just one more day.

Brené Brown calls it your Freak Flag.

We all need to accept it; nobody is perfect. None of those people I am hiding my shame big bright flag from think I am perfect now. Heck, they have their own flags. Oh yes, so do you. Admit it. Maybe my world is just waiting for me to raise mine high. Maybe some will run away from this freak at first, but I am becoming more convinced that it might encourage them to show the world their own.

After all, some really nice people seem to think Halle is ok around here. It has to mean something, doesn't it?