Money Morning Musings

For the last few years I have been saying that I am really going to get a better understanding of money and how it all works-or doesn’t. I can say that I have figured out lots of ways that it doesn’t. Growing up as a child of the 70’s and 80’s, money was never spoken about in our blue collar home. It was presumed that you would have a pension and benefits when you worked or all you had to do was get a 4 year degree in just about anything and you would be guaranteed a decent job. Well ain’t that a kick in the pants.

My parents divorced, leaving my mom, a once SAHM, a single working mother living off survival wages and child support. What I gleaned about money from that experience is how to pay Peter by robbing Paul whilst Mary was coming around. Good survival tactics, but not so great for thriving. I can’t necessarily blame my parents, they can only teach what they knew, and my grandparents were all survivors of the depression and WWII, so anything post 1947 must have seemed like a free for all boom, economically speaking.

So every year I keep telling myself I will finally figure it out, yet I am never really the wiser. I’ve tried reading articles and books about it, but its in a language I still can’t comprehend. Teach me like I am 4. But good luck getting anyone to teach you anything. When I approach the subject with people I know that are successful with their money, they are either offended that I even asked, or they with hold. And throwing the questions out on social media platforms has only rendered responses from people who are in the same proverbial boat. Its like taking advice on how to properly bail water out of a sinking ship. And please, if anyone mentions Dave Ramsey I will immediately block your butt. This is not about how to budget my money, its how does money work?

Is the concept of money so abstract that I am rendered stupefied or is my mind too abstract that I am missing it all? I really just don’t get it. Am I the only one?

Saturday Morning Musings

You know when you have something that keeps nagging your insides or keeps popping in your brain and you keep putting it off or just ignore it because your idea of what it is, isn’t something you want to live up to? No? Well this is it for me. I am a terrible journaler. (Is that a word?) I start off with grand intentions and can make it about 3 days, but then I peter out and  pack up some self shame and lug it around in my proverbial baggage for some unknown reason. Well, here is the deal: I am going to get back to writing, but I am letting go of any ideas of what it should look like, letting go of any spoken or unspoken expectations of how often and what it should be about and just allowing it to be what it is. My only hope is that some of it resonates with someone -because connection is what we all want, am I right?

So first of all, this is not a “New Year’s Resolution”. Getting back to writing my blog has been tapping me on the shoulder since May 2022, if not longer, but even more intensely this fall. So I am doing it. It will certainly reflect somethings that are on my ‘I am tired of not doing it, so I am doing it” list, but it will be as random as me. (Sidebar: how do you know if you have ADD as an adult? Asking for a friend….)

Speaking of friends, I just heard this song “Old Friends” by Ben Rector today. It was put out in 2018 but I just heard it today. It really has me thinking about how often people float in and out of your life. It is just the natural process of people on their individual journeys through life that you cross paths and become part of each others story. Which in and of itself is really kind of poetic and sweet, I mean unless one of those people was just an arse and left you with bad vibes. But even then, every good story has its villains and plot twists, its sad moments and its redemptions.

Its the sad moments that had me thinking. Have you ever had one of those friends that you thought you would be friends forever, but they outgrew you, or just moved on? Like ghosted you and they think that you can pick up right where you once were, as if there wasn’t 2 or more years that have passed, and think nothing of it? I have that. I have a few people that are/were in my life like that. Some I get, but there is one that really left me broken hearted and its been almost 20 years and it still hurts. How do you grieve a lost friendship when you are ghosted? Or when they truly believe you could pick up right where you left off after 20 years? Anyone else experience this? Or am I the only one and I sound pathetic and desperate?

So this went a bit dark. I promise my musings are not often dark, but that song really made me go into my feelings. Thanks for reading.

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I inhale and exhale through the trees and branches.
My blood is the water of the brook, flowing into the rivers and into the depths of the oceans.
My hands are the softened earth that cradle each step you make.
My voice is the rustling leaves, the singing birds, the lapping waves kissing the shore.
My arms are the forest, enveloping, protecting, comforting, holding steady.
The mountains my shoulders.
My heart? My heart, you see is the air, the wind, the breath you breathe.
I am everything that surrounds you. I am everything that is in you, inhale my love.
Exhale your doubts, inhale my spirit, exhale your insecurities.
Inhale my faithfulness.  Exhale. Exhale. Exhale.
Inhale Me. Exhale you.
Inhale Me to make room.
Inhale me to live with you.

01.08.2020

#metoo(working title)

The first memory of body shame came at the ripe old age of 9 years old.  I remember standing in line on picture day, I wore a navy blue shirt with lace trim and lace sleeves.  I remember his name, Paul.  He told me the sleeves should be right over my “boobies”.  I was 9.  I wilted.

Not just 3 years later, taking a shortcut to a friends house on my bike I was stopped by 4 male classmates, cornered.  They were not going to let me pass until I pulled my shirt up and showed them my chest.  I was saved by a little old lady walking her dog.  I feared.

My first exposure to porn was at the age of 12.  I had no idea what I was witnessing but knew fully that it was not something I should be privy to.  That was the first time. The second and subsequent times came, and have they ever stopped coming? Shame.

I was a very slow developer, in fact the doctor was concerned about my late blooming abilities.  I would like to think that other adults besides my mother were just as concerned, but instead it was like permission to belittle.  One friends mom asked me if I was going to participate in the “Special Olympics” that year. Cracks forming.

But no worries, I developed, rapidly.  Leaving many in the dust like a lust for over achievement. I think “torpedo tits” were the words chosen by someone other than me. At the age of 15, a simple walk at a summer festival in a tank top, an adult male tripped and fell staring at my chest. Shrinking.

First boyfriend took to hitting me. Another never stopped calling me chubby and that I should lose weight. Rejected by another in favor of porn and alcohol.  Being told my greatest value was what my body could offer. Absent father.

Tell me again that my shirt is cut too low, skirt too short, pants too tight but do not avert your eyes.  Tell me again its just for men so they can talk like men, instead of being the men you claim God made you even behind closed doors. Please keep telling me that I am too emotional, too demanding, that I should smile more, Just please tell me what I should be, what I am not, what I am too much of and not enough of . For you. I am not here for you. Anger.

Wilting, cracks filled with shame and fear, shrinking to rubble the temple walls that are my body.  Rebuilding each piece with new materials. Cornerstones made of love, kindness, redemption, hope, worth, value, peace, dreams of a an all-present, constant Father. Where my sacred soul resides hearing the choirs of you are more than enough, always have been and always will be. Amen.

 

 

Parenting

Because you do your best to tell them and teach them right from wrong, hoping with all hope that you are modeling it, knowing that you are screwing up somewhere, but praying the ramifications are minimal and as they grow you loosen your grip despite what your heart says and suddenly it feels that they have slipped completely from your grasp and your heart is flailing and then there are two that need to be rescued.

India, day 3, again, again and again.

The amount of images I have from each day is overwhelming.  It would be too immense to just place in one post per day-that and the fact that I forgot to adjust my timestamp in my camera is proving to make it all the more difficult in determining what day I took each picture.  These following pictures are also from day 3.  Then we can get to day 4!

 

India, Day 3, again, again

After lunch we took a walk into the village.  We passed multiple temples.  There are over 330 million Gods.  This idea is so complex and foreign to me.   A religion seemingly based on superstition, perpetuated by more superstition and self fulfillment.  I am sure there is much more to it than that, but that is my first impression and somewhat uneducated observation.

We walked to the river’s edge where the villagers bathe and a temple stands guard, accepting sacrifices.  Glancing towards the river we were greeted with a most unexpected sight.  I small group of water buffalo proceeding to the steps, where they exited the river, walked through town and into someone’s house.

We headed back to CEM and along the way we purchased some fresh coconut water.  And then were promptly followed by some very curious kids!

India, Day 3, again.

We spent time in the morning with the residents of the Agape Old Age Home.  The residents are being added to the NoChild sponsorship lists.  We are all privy to the fact that children all over the world are being thrown out, neglected, abused and just let to end for themselves, but rarely do we hear about what happens to the elderly around the world.  For the same reasons that the kids are left or brought to CEM, so are the elderly.  I did not expect that it would be so hard for me to hear about their stories.  The worn and wrinkled faces depicted a much harsher reality than most people can empathize with.  One cannot even begin to guess their ages.  Most are far younger than you would think.  And just like the children, they long to be seen, heard and loved.

I am guessing its frowned upon to have favorites, but this one?  My favorite!!!!

 

India, Day 3

After culling through my photos I find that I will be hard pressed to put day 3 into one post.  I can begin with my morning rooftop views.

Children of CEM