Connected

There are so many ways to feel like you are a part of something. In much of what humans do is all in the quest to be and feel like you aren't the island you thought you were. You can be tapped into a various amount of things that have a spread spectrum networking to each aspect of life and still quest for the pieces that are just beyond your reach. There are the majors like sex in the way that passion elevates it to more than that or love, family, friends and for those that are spiritual (religious) a church. The search for the missing pieces is intense, unyielding and for some with less paths than others its a life quest of self.

The human psyche is seen to encompass three main parts; the soul, self and the mind. To me this means that the quest for networking and searching and finding these pieces is so that we can find ourselves. Being human we complete the blanks through comparison. We cannot help ourselves but to compare against others to measure ourselves so that we know where we stand. Its like lining up by height and figuring out who to stand next to in grade school. The only way to know where you stand is to watch as the line forms. Finding that place is satisfying because now you know where to stand and why and therefore gives you some insight into who you are and that meant one less piece to find.

We don't admit it but so much of who we are is given to us by each other. I don't mean it in a way that we are being cloned more like we are being formed by them like clay on its way to being a bowl. Our experiences and contrasting them with what we see in others helps to explain our inner selves. We are still individuals with separate senses of self and mind. What if our souls are part of a collective energy? It would stand to reason that physical separation would only leave longing. We do the silly, the amazing, the challenging and the defying to complete the triskill that is the human psyche. If our original state was a collective wouldn't it make sense to reconnect? These connections become the quest. The quest to marry, to have kids, to form/reconciliate a family, to find a church, belong to a group, a philosophy, or some other collective to feel and know that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and complete 3 part psyche.

I have done more than a poor job of this...one could say I have not only given up but have failed my quest. The downside of the quest to connect is the failure to find like minded individuals. In connecting with others you are ultimately looking for acceptance. Those groups of people that make you feel like you are 'normal.' The world is more vivid in color when viewing it with those who see it they way you do. If you are always questioned and ridiculed for your view then you are less likely to share. Not sharing can keep others as well as yourself from full self-actualization. Loss of self-actualization is death to one's soul. Its a death that while silent is still impactful to the collective from which it came.

The value of variety is measured everywhere and in everything we do. We understand most acutely is that if were all the same that groupthink would keep us from moving forward lacking the benefit of invention or ingenuity. While necessity would keep us on the slow ride forward variety is still the ingredient that keeps us at the top of the food chain. What isn't measured as often nor valued as much is the ability to connect. The connections we make maintains our humanity, feeds our sense of self, quiets the mind, and nourishes the soul to completeness. In the end all we really want to be is connected.

With the passing of yet another birthday, I am reminded that I have given up this quest and what that might mean to my development and sense of inner peace. I am faced with deciding to either change or risk atrophy.

Going Grey

A good portion of my friends are already going grey or have gone grey. I am just now getting a few strands that folks can see on my head. I already had some strands below that folks couldn't see for quite some time now. Thinking about grey hairs only makes a person think about their life before the grey and what they want their life to be like now that the grey hair has come. There are several areas that are of a concern for me.

Cydni - remains at the top of my concern list not because she is in danger no, more because she's my child and I worry about how I am raising her. I get truly concerned about different aspects of her personality and sense of well being. I watch her behavior and find that I am thinking more about what her habits mean with regards to her ability to care for herself in my absence. This year she will be twelve and we have six years left before she goes off to college. Her father and I both intend to leave North Carolina when that happens. I wonder what affect that will have her sense of stability. Not enough stay here, I have made my sacrifice when it comes to residency and that will end soon. Scary to think of Cydni in New York going to culinary school but its almost breath taking to think of her not pursuing her dreams. I am hoping the next six years reveal something good about my parenting and unsheathe a Cydni that looks able to conquer the world without her mother because her mother will need to be able to seek the creation of a world she has longed for.

Me - So many things to think about at this stage of my life. Through many self sabotaging acts I have kept myself quite single and no closer to becoming a wife again for the better part of Cydni's life. I am fat, tired, ambition-less and now going grey. Not exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to pickings. On my weekends off (Mommy free weekends) I sit at home and read or watch TV. This is the year I become 35 and already I am behaving as if I am 70. The worst of it is this...I don't mind. Most people crack under the realization that they are alone and that status doesn't seem to be changing. I am perfectly well with being alone but I find that odd and concerning that I am well with this status. I am not worried or bored. I am not wanting or looking. I spend the time in my head, in thought. I realized the part of me that wants to share my life is 10% and when I have been in a relationship in the past the problems outside of just not being evenly compatible was that smothered feeling I would get because of the 90% of me that likes living in my head. Relationships don't work well if you spend that much time on the inside. Men say they would like a women that doesn't talk a lot until they date me. I use to think it was the depression but it isn't. I am more internal when I am at home and outside of any professional realm. If it wasn't for Cydni I probably wouldn't speak outside of work.

Profession - This job I have now isn't the most fulfilling but the pay allows for some really necessary things to happen in order for me work toward a career that I am better suited. Since taking this job in July 08, I have been able to begin mending my financial standing. This process has meant a huge burden is lifted so that I can enjoy more of Cydni and our life. The worrying that I did about making ends meet was so great it changed me and strained my relationship with Cydni because I was always stressed out about it. I am grateful that I have a job now that allows me to live and provide like I want. I find the unfulfilled state in my profession is less bothersome than the strain of making ends meet. It helps that I am attending school to give me the sense of working toward a career goal that that will change all that and give me a sense of purpose in my work.

School - It isn't hard, I just don't want to go. Several years ago when I went back to college I was so excited and so committed to going that I was the pain in the ass know it all in class that everyone hates. Now that I am back at it again its all I can do to turn in assignments on time. The topics are interesting and coursework is relatively easy but I can't seem to muster the ambition to do what is necessary in a timely manner. I don't know how to get and stay motivated about school. I know that I have to finish this time if I am ever going to get into the career I want. I can't work in this profession without a degree. Its nothing like working in the IT department where I can just work my way up. To even get my foot in the door I have to have a masters degree. I am 2 years away from my bachelors. The goal is to get through a masters program before Cydni graduates high school. I better get some ambition soon huh?

What does all this have to do with going grey? Well its the look at your life that makes you consider that you may not be where you are suppose to be and the grey in you hair that tells you that the time you have left is getting smaller. I have to decide how much of what I want it feasible and how much is just wishful thinking. Getting Cydni ready to be in the world without me is quite feasible. It is the most sure of all the things that I will achieve. The rest are things that I will need to really work on and maybe they stay background things until Cydni does go to school and maybe they are never going to happen things. I am curious to see what is what in the end but I also wonder how much of what I feel and think is all because of the physical manifestation that time to achieve is dwindling.

With all that is going on in the world at large as well as with my more immediate realm its silly to wonder or consider such intangible and trivial of issues. Life will unfold as it should with or without my consideration, it just goes more enjoyably with my participation or so I hope. Which makes me think about my sense of enjoyment when considering my life but that is a topic for another blog.

Years End Reflection

I am not alone at this time of year to engage in the act of reflection of a year that has gone by so fast that you like everyone else wonder where the time went. Its funny knowing that the time goes fast never seems to invoke the kind of haste and stewardship over our time in the coming years as one would expect. Most of us tend to procrastinate more. In others still we tend to try to cram more into an already busy and blurrlike existence never really getting the full measure of our experiences. I think that I have been a victim of experiencing both. It is almost like I have been leading several lives all at once with differing perspective and approach allowing for different experiences and affects on my life.

As mother the year has gone by exceptionally fast and with much joy and growth. I have watched my precious one go from being a 5th grader to be becoming a 6th grader. The implications of that transition is monumental and only the beginning to other earth shattering transition for her and I. My love for her grows and my sense of liking her as a person ebbs and flows. Most people don't really acknowledge the distinct issue we have in viewing our children but I do. I can't stop loving my angel but I have found that there are times when I don't like her very much. I use to feel guilty about the duplicitous state until I began to try to understand it more. Most of us instinctively love our children because they are part of us but what we don't do is accept and acknowledge that they are individuals in every way so its just as natural not to like them based on their idiosyncrasies just any other individual. We think we are exempt from the luxury because they are our children but we aren't. I think that if we acknowledge it more we can get to a place where we can accept our children better and more completely as they grow into to the person they will be. I cannot and don't love anyone like I love my child and as she realizes herself as a human being and a part of society I have to accept that she may hold some traits and behaviors that I will not ever like. The difference is the love I have for her will mean she will continued to be loved despite them and I will build a tolerance and acceptance for her regardless of those traits and behaviors which is something we never do for strangers. Accepting our children goes beyond just loving them for who they are, it much means loving them despite of who they aren't and the individual they become that's separate from us. I very much want that for Cydni and to pass it along so that she will do it for her children as well.

As a professional I single handily destroyed my necessary behavioral comforts and needs to satisfy my financial and egotistical ones. I left a job of five years where I knew many and many knew me for a job where I know no one and no one knows me. These decisions are never easy in that we have to met the needs that are nagging the most at us and that is why we make the decisions we make in these times but I think this recent decision has helped me learn a bit more about myself than I would have liked to know. Actually it really uncovered something I find quite ridiculous about myself. I like being the go to person even if I am stressed and tired. I like being the one that people rely on and go to for solutions and advice on fixing issues. I was very much in that position in my last company. I think that the element that led me to look elsewhere is the lack of that being the admitted case. I wasn't getting credit for the work I had been doing but I was getting the work non-stop and at an ever growing pace. There has to be a balance even in madness. Wanting that kind of position in a professional setting is madness because it means you can never vacate. It was very true for me too, I didn't take a real vacation the whole time I worked there. I did however enjoy the status of being me there. The new job doesn't present me with the same kind of clout. Now some would say that in a matter of time I would regain my status but its just not true. Every organization has its culture and what is inherent to one isn't always present in another. The last six months have been an exercise is becoming part of body of people that has no hierarchy. We shine together or not at all. I miss being a big fish in a little pond but I am beginning to find my niche in being just apart of the school in a big a ocean. It has meant the creation of time to work toward getting into to the career that will better serve me and society in a more productive manner.

To finish off this trinity of self there is me the individual. This year like other years has been a trial of ethics, friendship and self acceptance. I cannot say that I have reached self actualization per se but I can say that I get closer all the time. My bad choices provide an immense amount of turmoil and cause major setbacks but as the wounds heal I find a bit more of the pieces of myself that I thought was lost forever. I know what is good and needs to be done but the old fears of my soul keep me from those decisions at times and I find that even doing nothing is harmful to me. I have also experienced this year that in doing the right thing I can be hurt most deeply. I have often wondered why the wrong things feel so right and how it could be that you feel like a piece of yourself is ripped away once you have set those wrongs right. As a believer I am often riddled with questions of how it could be that I am missing the things that are promised no matter how faithful I am and how I long for them more when I try to create those things by my own hand. The everyday discovery that I am my own worst enemy presents a problem of how to change the core of you to become this better person so that you may have the better life. I know that the look of a person's happiness isn't the full picture of their life but I think that looking at that part of their picture only makes the pain of your missing picture part all the worse. So in my most selfish human impression I will say, All is want is what I want when I want it and only for as long as I want it.

I can't imagine what next year holds and that seems to be the trend as I get older. Funny, I find that I long for the years when that wasn't the case; there is something in knowing that next year holds x, y and z. At 34 and climbing knowing what the next year is going to be like isn't a luxury that I possess but not knowing is definitely a fear that I carry. I know that I want Cydni to be happy and to grow with as little ill affect of my haphazard parenting as possible, for my new job to remain so in order for me to finish school and move on to my chosen career and for me to close the gap in self actualization as fast and as painlessly as possible. And my underlining request for my life to mean something to as many as possible remains the constant of my existence.

Here's to looking forwarding instead of back and always being thankful for what I have instead of criticizing what I lack.

Have a Happy New Year!!