Feeling Human

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

My spirit feels small today.

I'm blessed abundantly so I don't feel I have the right to grumble and/or complain, especially in the face of what's happening right now in Texas and many, many other places that don't get attention, but I am having a human experience.

I am allowed, right? I'm gonna set the timer & give myself not more than 5 mins. to mope, then time's up because I truly don't like feeling like this.

Some days I have a hard time balancing the good/evil in today's world. There's so MUCH ugliness out there, but then there is also MUCH beauty. When I'm having my H.E. (human experience), it's hard to see the beauty.

Photo by me, aka cuppa"T" Photography

To not sound like a whiney 5 year old, I going to attribute this feeling to the need to get away. I haven't been away from home in nearly 9 years. No vacation, no one-tank-trip around my state, nothing. I'm bored with my surroundings; as a photographer, I need my eyes to see new things.

Freeway anxiety completely sucks and sometimes I feel like it's trapped me in my small corner of the planet. I wish I had a partner, the kind that says 'get dressed, we're going somewhere.' I'm stuck in a routine of what feels like Ground Hog Day.

I'm usually upbeat and positive, even when I'm hiding feelings deep down, but I needed to get this post, these thoughts outta my head. If you're reading this & thinking 'get over yourself already', I'm with ya.

The timer has 'dinged.' Inhale/exhale. Bad stuff out, good stuff in.

Let's focus on the beauty and brief lives of the butterfly. They don't live long, but they make the most of each of their days. I found these lovelies on 2 different occasions in & near my car. I had to handle them with the lightest of touch.

Because they represent the beauty in death.

Striving to return to my spiritual being status. 😑

Namaste

Plant Sanity

Hey folks,

If you know me at all, you know I have a heavy flower love.

I often wish I lived in a warmer client so my flower season would last year round (I see  you, Cali)

But I adore the season change of the Midwest.

By: Me 📷

In the meanwhile, these "Zone 5" babies have been giving me life. 

The 1st 3 were grown from seed packs, The others, saved from the dead clearance rack. Much needed water and a new pot and they came alive. So many are wasted! Boooooo......😠

Dapper & Happy

Hey folks,

"Today was a good day!" ~ Ice Cube

Nothing big happened.

I just chose to find the happy in every single possible moment.

Even when I went down to social services to ask why they threatened to cut my Medicare.
It turned out to be in error so... that was a happy thing. 👏👏

Then I went to my job to get my schedule.
I love my job, so.... that was a happy thing. 👍

I sat in meditation.  I sat in God's silent presence and read his Words & felt gratitude & love.
So.... that is ALWAYS a happy thing.💗

Then, a good, sweet friend treated me to lunch. She's a former boss; we love each other like sisters.  New resty; lots of laughs & good food.
So... that's always a good, happy thing.🍲

Then I stopped @ the art supply store & picked up more canvas boards; pack of 5 for $3.00
So... that was a REALLY happy thing! 😉

Then between a few friends, I received a lot of bountiful harvest. And A LOT of Morton's Sea Salt Rubs.
So.... that made me VERY thankful, grateful and loved.

Then I came home and re-potted my gorgeous Gerbera Daisy and my Flowering Kale plants.
Plants ARE my happy, so...... you know 🌺🌻🌼

Then I cut all of my grass. I say ALL because I not only have my yard/garden, I also acquired an empty lot from the City. I like the feeling of having everything look so nice and being outside in the fresh air, sweating like a slave and being productive.
So.... that made me feel happy and accomplished. 😁

And FINALLY, a saw a gentlemen today, dressed very 'dapper', i.e., suit, hat, cane. And I told him I thought he looked so.
He replied: "AND YOU LOOK HAPPY!!! IT'S THE FIRST THING I THOUGHT WHEN I LOOKED AT YOU." 👸👸

So ................... this was the theme song of my day.

It was a good day.

Find your happy in every little thing. It's truly there if you have eyes that see & ears that hear.

She's Come Undone....

No.... I'm not talking about Wally Lamb's book.

I'm talking about my mother.

For the past two years, I've tried to put down on "paper" what has been going on in me & the sibs lives since my mother has increasingly approached the stages of Alzheimers/Dementia, but nothing would come. Just a swirl of words that all wanted to be spoken at once. And drove me away from writing anything.

My mother started showing signs of 'strangeness' two years ago. It started with simple forgetting little things and escalated to full blown what the hell, if you will. Little things like she couldn't remember her way around town, even though she grew up here. At first, she would play things off as a joke, but as time went on, I knew something was up.

I've read that if one is already a 'candidate' for this disease, any type of trauma can bring it on ten fold.

I think this happened when my sister (who owns my mother's home) told her that due to my mother not living up to her end of the responsibilities they agreed upon, she wanted mom out of her home to put it up for sale. I TRULY believe that kicked mom in the sensitive part of the brain & the decline began.

And with reason: mom at that time was 82 years old, she just lost her cat and now her own daughter was asking her to vacate the home she's lived in for over 20 years with no replacement options in sight. It was quite a blow as it would be for anyone. I remember driving around town with mom looking for potential places she might want to live, not knowing any facts about her income or anything about her personal finances. It was a heartbreaking fiasco to say the least.

Mom was an extremely independent woman - ALWAYS!!! So I believe that she, too, realized something was different in herself, but she would never admit it. Even after the 'house situation' was 'straightened out' as much as it could be, she was never the same.

Her beloved driving became erratic to the point of us having to take her truck. She drove down the railroad tracks - with a train coming head on - and denied it (she thought it was a street); she began leaving in the night, swearing it broad daylight and ending up MILES away from her home with no answer to why or where she was trying to go. After the 3rd incident involving the County Sheriff, we couldn't let her continue to be behind the wheel. For her safety and for the safety of others.

To keep this post semi-brief, I'll bring you to present day. Me & the sibs feel like we're at a hand-tied stale mate. Mom won't let us do ANYTHING around her home other than my brother keeping the lawn cut, but everything else has gone straight to hell. Her home is dirty, her hygiene is deplorable (I've NEVER seen her anything other than pristine), her clothes are dirty (she can't remember how to do laundry, yet will fight my sisters and I to the death if we try to do it), she barely eats because she can't remember how to cook (and be DAMNED if we can cook for her), and everything is just a mess.

I can't put my finger on how I feel exactly besides extreme sadness at the 'loss' of my best friend, and also anger at her extreme stubbornness. Yet she's child like, yet not a child. With no filter to 'tame' her brain and thoughts, she's exposed secrets to us that we never dreamed of about our lives. This has put us all in such an awkward place of hurt and disbelief. We still take her to the grocery, for rides, doctor appts., but we don't hang around like we used to. No one wants to sit in her dirty, cat-hair covered home, she has no conversation to remember to speak of, so........

And this has affected the way we are individually. Since her place was always the gathering place, where do we gather now? And all of our conversations when we do get together are dominated about 'mom'.

Every day is new .... something. She alerted us all and told us her purse was stolen when it was actually right there in her house. When she discovered where she put it, she told us the police returned it to her.

It's the beginning of a very long, painful good bye. And it pierces my heart. To death.

I love you, mom, forever. Picture by me :-(