DUST

A dear friend told me that as we enter each new year, it is important to clean house. The process removes the old and creates fresh space for new blessings to enter. Her lineage is Japanese, and the idea resonated. It has become a tradition I have tried to honor each January.

This year as I drove the vacuum and dusted the horizontal surfaces, I became more and more angry. I actually hate cleaning! When offered a choice of mucking a horse stall or mopping a floor and I will hightail it to the barn every time.

Which brings me to the true point of this story. First, the pictures are winter shots that give me pleasure and are ones I have taken when I need a break from the onslaught of emotions that have been boiling up over the past six months. They will not provide context but will give you something to enjoy if this is just too much navel gazing and self-disclosure!

About three years ago, I decided to stop drinking wine. It was a difficult habit to break as I had used this method of self-medication for years in order to keep from expressing my ‘unpleasant’ emotions. For the first few months, it was just a matter of letting my body adjust, not talking with friends about what was going on and enjoying lots of really good sleep.

As I began to experience my energy returning, I felt as though I was sprouting wings and free from the tethers of addiction. I was able to effect life changes which included moving from Denver to Broomfield, a town fifteen minutes from the barn. Concurrently, I began to withdraw, very slowly, from the anti-depressant, I had been taking for over twenty years.

Then the Covid virus arrived with its subsequent lock-down followed by the variations. Consequently, I have stayed close to home for almost two years. In that time, I was able to observe some of the behaviors I had adopted, in my younger years, to get along in my world. My personal favorites were to become overly helpful while depleting my own reserves. Plus, using my chameleon ability to accommodate the needs of others along with their quirks and foibles and be nice about it.

Without awareness, I have practiced this strategy all my life.

Well, this past summer the lid blew off. Under the sadness due to the above behaviors, I had kept at bay a well of rage that boiled up and knocked the pins out from under me. Primarily it was anger at myself for all the years of subsuming my needs and honoring those of others, i.e., being overly helpful and accommodating, in order to be liked.

Negotiating through my relationships, built on these behaviors has been challenging. I have not been skillful or graceful in my communication and have lost a couple of friendships because of it. So now, as I poke my head back into the world of relatedness, I feel like a newborn. I am up against strategies I have used for seventy plus years that I can no longer abide.

It requires I keep in close touch with my heart and what is right and healthy for me.

So, from dust to rage – here I am.

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