Now that the festivities are over, life can feel a bit flat as we endeavour to dredge up some enthusiasm for normality. I created a lens on how to bring a feeling of excitement to daily routine:
Every morning can herald the beginning of a beautiful day.
Photo courtesy of Andreia under the Creative Commons License.
Merry Christmas everyone! I am writing this at half past midnight at the beginning of Christmas Day. Just about to do the Santa thing and smuggle the presents downstairs to put under the tree.
We have a new unplanned addition to our family. Lily is a Bengal cat desperately in need of a new home. She arrived just a few hours ago. Not the best time of year to rehome a new pet but we hope it will work out.
Merry Christmas!
Love Stephen Glover’s comment in the Mail today….
“Should we be surprised that the British public, confronted by this ugly combination of myopic hypocrisy and doommongering, is becoming increasingly sceptical?
As I say, we may not understand climate change, but we do know when we are victims of a fraud.”
I’ve said before… we need to clean up after us. There’s no question that humans are a disgusting bunch; we take so much for granted. However, forcing additional stealth taxes upon working families, dictating our lives right down to the very lightbulbs we use, while those who espouse these endless restrictions to our freedom continue to live the life of Riley… well, it’s just wrong.
For example: Our last not-so-great Prime Minister, Tony Blair has been speaking at Copenhagen. He is a keen supporter of green taxes, carbon emission restrictions, etcetera, etcetera. His company, Windrush Ventures has just registered the domain name ‘Low Carbon Capital Fund’, obviously with an eye to making a bit of dosh trading in the old Carbon Credits. However, let it also be known that Mr Blair recently gave an endorsement on behalf of an Azerbaijan fossil-fuel power plant for which he was paid very handsomely. Now… s’cuse me, I may not be firing on all carbon-emitting cylinders here but surely this must be an error of reporting?
Is Blair Trying to Cash in on Climate Change?
No?
Oh.
David Rose writes in the Mail on Sunday
“The claim was both simple and terrifying: that temperatures on planet Earth are now ‘likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years’.
As its authors from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) must have expected, it made headlines around the world.
Yet some of the scientists who helped to draft it, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, harboured uncomfortable doubts. ”
and
“It is only now that their concerns have started to emerge from the thousands of pages of ‘Warmergate’ emails leaked last month from the CRU’s computers, along with references to performing a ‘trick’ to ‘hide’ temperature decline and instructions to resist all efforts by the CRU’s critics to use the Freedom of Information Act to check the unit’s data and conclusions.”
Ha!
Here is a Zentangle that my brilliantly creative sister-in-law sent me today.
However, this is just a tiny wee portion of it. If you want to see the rest (and it is worth seeing) then you will have to visit my Zentangle page on Squidoo!
If you want to know more about this talented woman, then find lots of her writing and cartoons here: Platform 12
Photo courtesy of antkriz.
There has been so much written lately about the power of gratitude. We are encouraged to keep gratitude journals as if our very lives depend upon it, as if the only way we can attract goodness is by continually saying ‘thank you’. This is in no way a bad thing but I personally think that gratitude is over-rated. What I prefer is ‘appreciation’.
Appreciation encompasses gratitude and magnifies it. Appreciation does not confer a ‘debt of gratitude’. Appreciation does not infer that the receiver has just managed to scrape through a bad situation with the help of someone else. Appreciation comes from within and gives the appreciator control and power. Telling someone they are appreciated gives both people a sense of well-being. Whereas, expressing gratitude can sometimes make others uncomfortable.
So appreciate your way to well-being…. Appreciation Makes You Happy
Quiet your mind then encourage your thoughts to roam freely….
More additions to my How to Zentangle page. Another Milliande video demonstration and some more of my own Zentangles.
How to Zentangle has been featured today on Marelisa’s Abundance Blog.
“For all those who feel stuck in the left-side of their brain, and who desperately want to create something and begin to awaken their right-brain hemisphere, below you’ll find 17 resources–some free, some not–that will help get you started.”
Thanks Marelisa!
I’ve noticed a number of articles and postings lately by people who state they have ‘removed’ themselves from their family, or from parents who say that their child no longer wishes to be associated with them. I couldn’t ever imagine that I would ever have to say the same thing. How sad, I would think, that people couldn’t resolve their differences or communicate to each other their respective unhappiness then work together to renew their relationship.
It is understandable, in many cases, that a child would have to put space, both in time and distance between themselves and a toxic relationship with their parent/s. Ditto for the parent when you realise that you just have to throw in the towel, for both your sakes. However, when the problems are more subtle and less easy to put into words; when it is a gradual erosion of the parent-child bond then it is harder to know what to do. It has taken me months to come to an understanding and acceptance that my 27 year old son no longer considers me part of his life. I’m afraid realisation was extremely slow to dawn, which now, of course, makes me feel quite stupid.
I have always made sure that I practice a policy of non-interference where my son is concerned. I always trusted his judgement regarding any decisions he made. We made it through teenage-hood without major angst or rebellion. We were pretty much good friends. He knows I am always there if he is in need of support but I have never smothered him; it’s not my style.
My son is married and lives in Victoria, Australia. After graduating from university with a Masters in Chemistry, he left the UK in 2006 to work in Japan. It was wonderful that he had the confidence and skills to be able to live completely independently. I was so proud of him. He was, like most lads, pretty hopeless at keeping in touch but now and then we would receive a chatty email, a few photos, and a phone call. Everything normal. He met a lovely Australian girl in Japan and, after the year was up they both moved to Melbourne and set up home.
A while later he told us they were getting married – within the month. So there was no way to scrape enough money together to get me, let alone my partner and our other two children, over there. So he married without any of his family present. Never mind, we thought, it’s all lovely. And it was.
The following winter they came over to the UK for six weeks and it was wonderful to see them and to meet our new daughter-in-law. They stayed with his dad, just a few miles away, so we had lots of time to catch up and visit the rellies. They stayed with us over Christmas and we all had a good time. Very sad when they left in the new year. Things continued as before. Chatty emails, photos, phone calls. It seemed that his wife was making sure he stayed in touch and we appreciated it. Plans were being made for their ‘world tour’ during which we could expect them to come ‘home’ again.
So now we were at Christmas 2008, barely 11 months ago. I’d decided to make a keepsake for them, an ‘altered box’. It took weeks. I loved doing it… I imagined it would delight them and that they would keep small treasures in it. I filled it with a few nonsense items, including as a joke, a pair of socks that daughter-in-law had left behind during their visit. I sent it off, packing it carefully, terrified that it might fall apart during transit. There was a short “Thanks for the Christmas present. A. was glad to get her socks back” but nothing else was said. No mention of the box itself at all. I thought maybe it had fallen apart after all. Over Christmas, my 50th birthday came and went, unremarked.
Abruptly, at the start of the New Year, the emails from my son stopped. Not altogether exactly, but instead of the usual chatty paragraph or so, they were reduced to terse one-liners, signed off with an ‘x’. There was no ‘Love to everyone’ as he usually finished with. Okay, I think, I haven’t been so good at emailing either. We continued to chat via Skype and I started to become aware that these calls were almost one-sided. It seemed that I was doing all the talking; all the news-giving. If I wanted him to engage then I had to ask the questions. There was a lack of spontaneity that had always been there previously. I began to wonder if I’d upset him in some way.
Mother’s Day came and went, both the UK one in March and the Australian one in June (?). No actual card, no e-card, no email. Ho hum.
I began to make more use of my Facebook account and very occasionally would post silly little remarks, as you do. No response from my boy. Not a one, ever. Fair enough, I thinks, he’s not wanting to acknowledge me on Facebook for some reason… probably doesn’t want to look uncool in front of his friends. I sent him, by email, a photo of myself… ha ha.. not something I am happy to do at the best of times – the one that adorns this blog, in fact. No response. There was a note on Facebook from his wife, though, on another, silly photo of me, “What’s with the 80s hairstyle?” No indication that it was meant to be funny and I felt quite hurt, though I wouldn’t have said so because I was sure it wasn’t meant that way.
My son stayed in touch regarding some money that was owed to him. The emails were short one-liners. I sent more photos of us on a day out to our local country park. No response.
The phone calls continued but less frequently and I found myself actually avoiding answering once because I simply couldn’t face making the effort. I could hardly believe that I felt like that and was really angry with myself. It was easier to blame myself for not being ‘in the mood’ rather than acknowledge that I really didn’t want to speak to my own son because I knew the call would leave me feeling depressed.
During this time, we were having a new kitchen fitted, something I was proud of because of wanting one for so long. When it was finished I emailed a few photos. What was I expecting? I don’t know, maybe a “Nice kitchen, Mum”. Nothing. Nada. No response. A few weeks later, in one of our lop-sided phone calls I asked him if he’d seen them,
“Yes.” he says.
“Well, do you like it?”
“It’s just a kitchen.”
Right-o. Now I am beginning to receive the message loud and clear. I’d forwarded a blog posting about the inadvisability of the swine flu vaccine, which Australia seems to be really keen on. Well that one actually provoked a response – a cold disagreement, dismissing of my concerns and a correction of my spelling. At that point, I cracked slightly and he got ‘the sharp edge of my tongue’ in email form, of course. In a further phone call I was told, “Don’t send us any more of your conspiracy theories, mother, we’re not interested.” Er… what ‘conspiracy theories’ exactly had I been sending? One link to a film about the US presidency and the one blog post about the Swine flue vaccine containing squalene, which is fact, not theory.
My partner and I went on holiday for a week. We posted some great photos of the kids on the beach and having fun onto Facebook. No response. I wasn’t expecting anything anyway. I sent links (only twice) to my Squidoo pages. No response.
So we’re almost up-do-date. He managed a phone call on his brother’s birthday, telling us they were going to move back to the UK in March 2010. Initially I felt excited and couldn’t wait to tell people… but then I started feeling a slight dread. How would I deal with these two people who had become total strangers? I dismissed my nasty, sneakng thoughts and told myself off for not being pleased at the prospect of my first-born returning to the UK. What kind of mother was I to even feel like that, for heaven’s sake?
Now, I have to say at this point, that my son responds to anything his little brother sends him – even if they were merely links to little online games. He is ‘normal’ in his communications with him – still chatty and friendly. Presents were sent to the kids for their birthdays in September and a present was sent from us to daughter-in-law (and I did receive a nice thank you email from her). Son also managed a reasonable email to his Dad advising him of the dates they were due to return. I got nothing. Bear in mind that, at this point, I haven’t said a word regarding my hurt feelings or the lack of responses to my mails and photos. I
The third of November was my son’s birthday. I’d got the kids to make cards, I’d written a friendly chatty message giving little bits of family news in another card and enclosed yet another card from my own father and posted it off in plenty of time. I sent an e-card, an email and a note on Facebook. Overkill? Maybe. What d’you think he said? Yay! Right on. No response.
After almost a week, and discovering that he had been saying thank you to a couple of friends on Facebook for their greetings, arranging a call with an old university friend… and that his wife had suddenly removed herself from our Facebook ‘friends’ without any explanation. At that point I was unable to remain calm. I was unable to communicate my feelings in a restrained, adult way. I blew.
And it felt good.
The hurt feelings, the subtle put-downs, the dismissive attitude, the non-responses all finally gelled in my brain. I suddenly felt better. It wasn’t me and my dozy imagination. I wasn’t a victim of my hormones. I hadn’t done anything wrong at all. My son was a grown-up and the simple truth was that, as an adult, he no longer has to like me. There’s no Universal Law of ‘Child Shalt Love Mother Forever’. What a revelation!
There will always be a bond; how could there not be? This is the baby I carried, protected, took care of and loved more than life. This is the boy who grew up with an extraordinary sense of humour and fun. This is the young man who was enthusiastic and interested about so many things. He is living a spectacular life and I am so proud of him.
Circumstances change and people change with them. There doesn’t need to be blame or an admission of failure. It doesn’t even have to be a breakdown or a traumatic falling out. There just needs to be understanding and acceptance that a division has taken place and that it’s all okay. Everything works out for the best.
Update: My partner contacted my son and received a friendly reply. He asked if I was okay. He said he and his wife were going to ‘compose an email’ to me. They did. It was as though they were writing to a stranger he’d met on a train. It was factual and cold. They were ’surprised at my recent perspective of our relationship’. They do not think that any of this stuff happened, or if it did, that it even matters. There was no regret or anything approaching understanding. He could not even write to me himself.
I am the Wicked Witch of the West and I must have made it all up.
This post is intended as a big hint, so if you don’t live with me then, please, skip off to what you should be doing. Feeding the kids maybe or checking the lottery numbers? If you DO live with me, then you know how messy all my stuff is. How I leave paper and books and pens and paints and calculators and magazines and works-in-progress all round the place. You know I have only good intentions and I don’t mean to do it… but there’s no point in putting it all away if I’m going to need it later in the day, is there?
Anyway, you-who-puts-up-with-me-and-my-stuff, I saw this and thought of you. Well, actually, I thought of me but you were next. Promise!
You might not quite know what this is but go here for more:
Mmm… oh I could put a lot of stuff in there!
Sometimes I am fed up of reading all this political crap, sick of the continuing battle with Badman, Balls, et al, over our wish to have them leave home education alone. Read this.
Sometimes I simply want to remind myself of all the good things in my life; all the magical, wondrous and funny things that having a family (and the occasional urge to get away from them) causes me to realise that my cups, do indeed, runneth over.
Here are a few of those favourite things.
The Ragged Edge on Squidoo
