Mother of Five: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday was a hard day for me. I hoped to talk with a person that I love with all my heart. But conversations must always be made very cautiously.    A year or so ago I tried to write a supportive email. I wrote about the beauty and wonder in nature, how the world, and seeing things in a new and different way can be so enlightening
Instead of being understood, the reply was something on the order of what the fuck- why do you always have to criticize me.

It is very difficult to communicate and share when the recipient gets angry that I say things about what I know and have experienced.   But, hang on a minute. I am myself. I can only speak truth from my own self, brain, experience.    If I do not focus every word and thought to the other person it somehow means I do not care.

I reflect and try to digest what it is I am doing "wrong".    I am sure I do a lot of things "wrong", but all in all I am a good, caring and loving person. I am honest and generous with my time and my heart.     I am feeling a lot like the demands and threats are a couple of things. They are the anger and insecurity being expressed as a lashing out. But they are also a form of abuse. Telling me that I (and others) do not make you happy. Do not say or do what you think they need to say is just not true and not fair.

If you need help, you need to work on how to best articulate it.   Having a screaming tantrum does not solve whatever problem's being experienced. Before you know it any friends that were there will run away because of this abuse. No healthy person like being abused.

And now I will talk about MYSELF. I was abused in my life. As a child and as an adult. It took a lot of therapy and a lot of mindfulness to learn why I was a victim. What did I do and how did I behave that made me into a victim. Or, was I really a victim or was I telling myself that I was. Did I have any control over the things that I felt victimized by?

Friends:   most people want and need friends.   I get the line "well, you have a lot of friends, I don't have any, they either die or move away"       I recognize that I am an extrovert. That makes it easier for me to talk to people and strike up relationships, for sure.    But it is a give and take thing. And sometimes it's more give and sometimes it's more take.   Introvert or extrovert, if people feel that you don't want to know them they will not go after you. None of my friends just sprouted up in a garden. They are all people I have sought to have a relationship with. Even my sister. Just because she is my sister doesn't mean we are automatically friends. We care about each other. We fill up each other's soul (?is that a dumb word to use?). We make an effort. She calls me. I call her. We do things for each other, often without being asked. We know that we can ask each other for help but don't get mad if the other doesn't have the exact script of words we want to hear. And neither of us have threatened to hurt our self in order to get the other to comply to our wishes.

Tomorrow is behind me. I am letting go of the stinging words from yesterday.

There seems to be a lot of baking going on in the time of corona-virus. Lots of folks are sharing pictures of the wonderful breads they are making. Now I have celiac, so I am sure that most of the beautiful bread is poison to me. But I am not mad about it. I don't yell at anyone. I might have a nanosecond of bread envy!

Today I decided to get back in our kitchen. Not bread though. Oatmeal cookies. With gluten free flour.

When we had kids in the house, before I was diagnosed with celiac, we used to bake a lot. Chocolate chip cookies. Oatmeal cookies. Coffee cake with a brown sugar crumble topping. Bread and bread sticks. Pizza from scratch.

I miss those days. But today I did it. Yummy, home made oatmeal cookies.

Oh, and tomorrow. Tomorrow is my birthday!