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Well I can't say it has been a fun Christmas, but, on the bright side, it's almost over...lol. It is 7 minutes to midnight.
Housemate lady decided not to do Christmas with her family this year (similar issues) so she stayed here and was angry all day. That's nothing to do with me but, she had said she was going to stay home and we should sunbake, soak our feet and enjoy "looking after ourselves" which is a bit of a contrast to her super angry stomp around the house cleaning and banging things around and fixing everyone with her death-ray LOL. I just stayed in my room and researched soap-making and meditated, I wasn't about to buy into it and go spend the day cleaning or trying to placate her, not my circus, not my monkeys. I do lots around here, I'm not going to spend my first solo Christmas meekly cleaning the house just because someone is angry, I'm just not that codependent anymore.
Well, she started emailing poetry to me just before, she's a wonderful poet and that's enough to confirm for me that none of her angry mood was about me and I was right to just keep to myself and let her have her Christmas tantrum.
I managed to speak to daughter this afternoon, she was not very happy, I was surprised to learn that she recieved some sketching stuff from my grandmother and not an ipad. My mother told me several times she was getting an ipad from my grandmother so I guess it was just another one of her games, sigh. So she still needs one for school and I can add $800 back onto the list, gah. Not that I expected her to get an extravagent gift but mother kept saying it so I believed her, duh.
So I called my grandma to say Merry christmas and she started grilling me about daughter's school expenses and telling me 'it isnt fair that you are making her start school without all of the proper things, she has to have what all of the other kids have"...wtf? The she says 'you are very selfish to refuse your mother's help, your poor daughter" blah blah blah. I havent refused anything or even discussed any of this with mother, I told her if she pays for any of daughter's expenses i am sure daughter will be grateful but i wont be discussing my finances and left it at that. She didn't get her big drama so now she is lying and stirring up drama with my grandmother, which really hurts because she is pretty much the only person on earth that usually treats me with love and kindness and now she has fallen for my mothers BS and is speaking to me as if I am the most evil selfish mother on the planet. That hurt. She never said merry christmas or anything pleasant, she just launched into how selfish I am so guess that was the topic of conversation at christmas lunch and I'm glad I wasn't there for it. I did anticipate that the family was storing up a whole lot of nasty for me this year in response to my mother's latest versions of events and fabricated stories about me so i am just glad I was smart enough not to go and absorb it all face to face. You know for years my family told me to leave A and now I have not one of them has had a kind word or offered a single shred of practical support or even a freaking smile, just criticism and games and mean-spirited garbage.
Well they will not get to me, and I feel sad for them because the less I engage, the sadder the whole dynamic becomes to me. Can you imagine spending your whole life thinking up ways to make everyone else feel horrible and inferior and guilty? Well, I can because I was like that too, before al-anon. Its so awful for them, like they are creating their own prisons. I'm grateful to be free of it. Grateful to be at a place in my life where today was a bit boring and sad but who really cares, where is it written that if you don't have a jolly Christmas with your family your life is incomplete?
I guess i sound as though I think everyone is against me and poor me i'm such a victim or something and I don't, I really don't feel that way. I just know that the people i have grown up with have some very negative and hurtful ways of relating to each other and it has a very profound effect on me (maybe i am too sensitive as they have always said) but I chose to not be a part of it today and I feel better for it.
Also as I said, i spent the day researching soap making, and I have goats milk in the freezer, I know how to measure and catalyse my caustic soda properly, I have made my home-made soap moulds ready, tomorrow when I go to get my daughter I just have to find some plastic mixing bowls and spoons and a stick blender from an op-shop and after that, let the soap-making begin! It may turn out to be the most productive Christmas ever!
lol.
Love to all, and thanks for letting me vent and babble here on what has been a bit of a lonely holiday. I feel pretty good and talking here has reminded me to use my tools and be the best melly i can be, regardless of what comes out of the peanut gallery.
(((everyone)))
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
By now your Christmas will be over, taking with it the nonsense we have been sold about how it should be and taking with it other peoples craziness that seems to surface with a greater intensity. I see all of this in the holidays and I see the heart openings in some that I don't typically see and that is the beauty I will focus on today. I love that your housemate send you a poem and that you are engaging your creativity with the soap. A symbol of cleansing. It has been a cleansing year for you....
It has been cleansing, this afternoon it didn't just rain, it was like a biblical deluge. I went and stood outside in it (I love rain) and strangely, Michael Douglas came outside and stood in the rain with me, he's a weird little cat that one. He was absolutely soaked to the skin, I wonder what he was thinking standing in the rain with me?
I feel good about today. I feel brave, I feel like I let go of something that wasn't serving me at all. (the idea of deserving a "perfect" Christmas).
I spent some time watching reflexology videos and doing this tapping thing while I thought about my anger and frustration with my family, that will probably make sense to you Paula and I cracked up laughing while I was doing it because my family already think am a hippy weirdo, so while they were eating lunch I was sitting at my desk tapping my head and chanting, it's pretty funny really.
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
I tap and I am the odd one in my family. And it is tempting for many to want to scapegoat me. Now that I recognize this pattern, it is rarely done in my presence...who knows what is said when I am not there? I dont spend much time thinking about it. I can see you and MD standing together in the rain together.
I also, believe when we cleanse and transform us, we release the unhealed parts of the generations that preceded us and our children. The love we have and engage in for us; heals others simultaneously.
It's Christmas morning here and I will be starting the feast soon. You will be in my thoughts that your problems with family will go away and the New Year will bring you to a place of prosperity and happiness. Keep moving forward and never look back at the influences that hurt you.
Merry Christmas from America (((( hugs )))
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Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
Thank-you beautiful ladies.
Merry Christmas America!
I am so grateful to have had this place today, I was never alone.
Luv U all
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
"I also, believe when we cleanse and transform us, we release the unhealed parts of the generations that preceded us and our children. The love we have and engage in for us; heals others simultaneously".
That's a pretty amazing thought, Paula, I'm going to sit with that for a while.
__________________
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Its a great place this. Your breaking the cycle mel, for you and your daughter, good for you. I like the idea of soap making, sounds great. Take care.x
Oh Mel! That sounds like such progress to me: just being able to 'let go' of those expectations. I'm struggling right now but working with acceptance has definitely helped me progress in my recovery. Also, I love the idea of soap making and have thought about doing it myself. I make herbal tinctures for healing and have a TON of essential oils and make blends to give to friends, etc. Massage oils, scented sprays for freshening the rooms, etc. If you are interested in using some oils for your soaps like lavender, peppermint, sandalwood, etc. let me know and maybe I can send you some small sample bottles.
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
Yes, I agree that Paula's thought is amazing. The bible says "The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation". I have always thought that alcoholism and other family dysfunctions were examples of this. My interpretation has always been that if you don't get it together in your generation, then the next generation is doomed to repeat, and quite possibly the next, and so on.
So, yes, I believe that when we recover from alcoholism, codependency, narcotics addition, narcissism, whatever, we are literally saving our next generations. There is no guarantee it won't come back, but they won't have been raised with that expectation that there will always be an alcoholic or other dysfunctional around.
Andromeda, I won't say no to that, oils are super expensive so if you want to send me some, I will send you back some goats milk soap! I thought for my first batch I would grind up some cloves and use some orange peel, very Christmassy.
David, "Despite your being a sheila you remind me strongly of myself, half a lifetime ago" made me pee myself laughing.
I am glad you think I am OK for a sheila. You're OK too, as far as blokes go.
Luv you all, and I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas day on the other side of the world. Daughter called me just before...mum are you coming to get me soon, promise you didn't watch Doctor Who yet and can you hurry up please? I guess she's having great fun at her dads. It's hard to believe I used to be so scared he would convince her to live with him just because he has money and a nice house. Did I really think i was so worthless and replacable? I'm not glad my girl is unhappy but it is nice to know she wants to be home with me. Maybe she thinks I am OK for a sheila too.
Tonight we will watch the Doctor Who Christmas special (we have been waiting for MONTHS) and tomorrow we will see the Hobbit and these are the parts of Christmas I have been looking forward to. This is the good bit.
Happy boxing day everyone!!!!
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
