I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

How can I ignore the cajoling of a happy heretic! At dinner a couple weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that my blog "sucks" now. I can't say that I disagree. However, I'm not sure it has been alive enough to suck. It's not that I haven't had my moments of wonder and dismay...worthy enough for a full on blog bitch....but my spontaneous expression has been a bit more internal lately. I'm not exactly sure why, I've come to believe that perhaps it isn't something that I fully or at least consciously control. But I do miss engaging with my blogger friends. I was thinking about this in the shower this morning. (the fact that I was in the shower is a purely incidental detail) ...it's just where I happen to have some of my deepest thoughts. Deep thoughts like... "I wonder if the new brand of dog food is what is giving my dog such terrible nose-hair curling gas" or.... "exactly how many days do I have until my kids are all pleasantly back in school?" ...or..."no I think it was the asparagus he stole from the garbage can yesterday"...or..."oih! (looking down)..I really need to do more situps". My thoughts ping and pong through my head most of the day. Sometimes, when I'm lucky...every now and then, I get them rolling on a nice cohesive logic train...but it doesn't take much to derail them. Maybe this is why I've avoided the blog...because it will force me to sit down and lay something out there in black and white and that takes a certain amount of committment, which, as with all commitment, also has it's fair share of fear. In this case, I am committing to ideas. I am incontrollablly open most of the time, a shameless external processor... and the part of me that is usually bound and gagged, the part who actually fears this openness took over for a while. Leaving me subject to "the protector"..."the sentinal"...."the censorer"..."the social filter". So ...now that I believe I have come to the end of my excuses ......I will now say...

"screw you sentinal....I want out."

(although the fact that I said "screw you" instead of "fuck you" makes me wonder how untethered I really am, despite my brave acclaimations)


So I'm out now. Reinvented I suppose, with my new name and my new blog. But not really. I'm just strongly attracted to clean slates. That's all this is. But it's still me writing on this slate, so I don't suppose that anything will be different other than the name.

However,...I do feel this odd sensation lately. Like I've turned some kind of corner and yet I don't really understand this very much yet. I feel.... sort of.... well.... I guess I feel "grown up." I think that might describe it. I also feel happy. Not a constant giddy, just got off the rollar coaster kind of feeling...but more of a settled kind of peace inside. A peace that is there despite what hell might be exploding around me, when it is...and its even there when nothing is happening around me (which might be a context worse than the exploding hell). I'm not sure what I can attribute this to... and I'm not sure it is something that I can fully trust yet. I've been meditating a lot lately. I've also (mostly) cut out sugar, enriched white flour and high fructose corn syrup from my diet....which gives me more energy, but can it also make me happier? Was the emptiness I have felt for long really so easily filled by a bowl of oatmeal and a handful of blueberries?

A good friend recommended a counselor that I've seen a few times and I'm now involving my husband in this activity (which is another way of saying "marriage counseling")... I really like this counselor. I've seen a few and I think she is probably the best match for my personality so far. She is firm, but kind and very smart. To me, she seems like the wise old sage on the hill and maybe I feel happier and more adult lately by what I've come to learn about myself through the discussions I've had with her, and the subsequent reflections on these conversations. It makes me think of this idea of "the other" which I think I've explored before on my former blog...about how important the role of "the other" is in coming to understand oneself. Often I think we use what we are not in order to define what we are. Maybe that is what I was gettin' at with this new blog. I believe I've done a lot of exploring what I'm not. But I'd like to talk more about who and what I am. It all begs the question of how it is that we form our identities. What do we use to define it? (religion..sports...career) and how we can use these same identity markers as something we can also hide behind. Thus protecting ourselves from others, and maybe even from ourselves and when we do, I think we get lost. More than lost...when we disconnect like this, we become vacant.

No man is an island right? We all need "the other", even (or maybe especially) when we don't want to admit this. I realize the tone of this post is becoming a bit "saccharine" (I've got to get my sugar fix somehow eh?) and perhaps bordering on the cliche. But as I've turned my corner, I have to look at what is now in front of me. What I think I see around this corner is a longing for connection. I want connection with the Nature that sustains me, with the Community that surrounds me (yes even with those crazy Mormons!), and with "Beauty" ...a concept that others with a more traditional mindset might call "God".

I have some plans for how to satisfy that longing for "connection". But alas...I am going to save that for another post as it is getting late and what I am currently longing for is to connect with my pillow.