I think this is what they call a blog...

I wrote this last year, almost exactly a year ago...and I can't believe how much my hubs have changed since this. I almost deleted it. But then I thought, no, I'll just leave it in...it shows some growth, some progression. I think this is an actual blog! I was writing a lot last year but most of it wasn't making it into hub pages as I wasn't as active here as I am now. I did learn one thing after reading this... I have grown so much in the past year and learned how to handle my pain a lot better. I've also had that major operation that I so desperately needed with some really difficult results that brought on some new issues but my outlook on life - especially day to day life - is wonderful. Somehow my days seem so much easier. I think I just realized that. So this hub is testimony that things can and do get better with hope and faith. Even if the only thing you change is your attitude and energy. Namaste'

If you notice, I start each hub entry by talking about my pain. I really don’t want to talk about it at all. But it’s always there. I feel like it’s a parasite feeding on my life energy. It snuck in somewhere through an unguarded back door and worked its way into my life until I had to take notice. I hid it for as long as I could. Now, I can’t hide it anymore. It shows in my eyes, my body, my movements, even my voice. It is demanding to be acknowledged. And it wants to be called out by name and given its proper place. I feel like it’s taken so much from me, taking so much of me – I acknowledge it in the beginning and then move on to get to what’s important. The essence is after this. If I could, I would go back and delete every reference to it in my life, it makes me so angry.  I’m frustrated, embarrassed, and crazy that it takes over so much of my life. But I know its part of my life’s journey and I’m learning through it. My perspective and essence will undoubtedly change through this experience as we change if we work hard through all of our life experiences. I know, very Buddhist. But I do study spiritual thoughts and love to compare and contrast cultural and religious teachings vs. non-secular beliefs. I am comforted by the Buddhist teachings. I’m still looking into all of it though. I don’t believe you can know all about a religion until you devote your whole life to one belief and I am in no position to judge any man’s soul. So I just listen with an open heart and mind and make my own decisions for myself and let people live. I believe in love and tolerance.  That said…

I had such a long day today. I don’t go shopping, as a rule. I can’t anymore.  

Okay. Usually, I don’t go shopping. I shouldn’t. But, again, I am a hard-headed Taurus who doesn’t accept the fact that my body feels pain – when my legs go numb and I can still stand. If I can walk on my numb stumps and hobble around the store, it’s more important that I have all the things I need to make my Christmas presents this year. I am only going shopping once, so this is it. What I don’t get today, I don’t get.

I talked to my sister this morning and found out what the kids need. We are just buying for the kids this year. I’m making presents for other people. No one has money this year. Only some of the families are lucky to still have jobs. I’m not going to get into the whole jobs, economy, money, real estate issue…everyone is tired of hearing about that. And my hub is never about spouting off about anything like that. Its more about inward reflection…so that’s where I’m taking you again.

I came home after shopping for seven hours with my Mom and my Godmother. Don’t ask me how we made it.

My best friend, (I have best friends for many occasions, I love them dearly) who I’ve known since we were three, rescued me in the craft store today. The cool part is that she flew to my rescue. I haven’t seen her in over a year. She did know I would be in town for five days, but I called her at noon today - out of the blue - and started asking questions in the middle of the store. I was completely at a loss on what to do on this project.  She was in the middle of something else with other people but dropped everything and said “you know, it’s just easier if I come to you – I’ll be there in fifteen minutes”.  And she was. We spent the next hour together, had a great time, then she was off again – after my other shopping partners had returned from their trek through post-Black Friday Hell. They thought I had just run into her, I said “No, I had a meltdown and had to call my Posse”.

It’s funny; people come and go throughout our lives. I’m the low maintenance kind of friend – or at least I think I’m that kind of friend. (I’m sure I’ll get emails after this if that statement isn’t true) You don’t have to do anything to maintain a friendship with me except call sometimes and I’ll call you back – and we might even take a few weeks to return phone calls. We may take a couple of weeks to return emails. But we’ll send pictures, and e-cards, remember each other’s birthdays. I’ll remember your kids names (or at least two of them) and you’ll remember where I live now and that I’ve been here for two years and haven’t talked about moving so maybe you should call and find out what’s going on with me. (I can hear the laughing…) But the friendship doesn’t take effort to maintain. You know the next time we see each other; it will be like we pick up right where we left off – except for all the catching up. We’re still the same people. I always thought that’s the way friendships were. A forever kind of thing. Most of my friends had husbands and kids and did the family thing, and I didn’t. I wanted to – it just didn’t turn out to be the path that my life took, so I found my own way through those years when most people were making families and homes and settling in.  I’m not saying that my way was organized, or successful, or exciting, or glamorous. It was just my own journey. And it’s all documented of course just waiting in journals and pages of manuscript waiting to be published after a great deal of editing. Once I find the time…so stay tuned. I’d like to read that story myself…

So how did this story digress…I was talking about shopping…it digressed because I didn’t want to talk about how I came home with Mom and neither one of us could move. When I finally got situated on the couch with my computer – and it took me an hour to get there because of dehydration and a migraine that would not let me rest. Before I could function, I felt stuck in a half comatose state watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Tim Burton version) on television while playing Vampire Wars. My mind just wasn’t going to function – input only, no output.

Before my mind could process any of my day, it had to go very far away before it would come back to me. For two hours I could not think. The migraine prevented me from doing anything. Then once I had my medicine – all of it, for everything – my head cleared, but I still couldn’t move. The Oompah Loompahs were starting to entertain me. I was considering buying the movie. I stopped thinking that.

I had another call today from a dear friend. Another wonderful person I chanced upon on my road of jigsaw adventures that don’t seem to flow together at all. But were it not for a hard lesson, I never would have met one of my best friends – she heals my heart and soul every time I talk to her  - she has a such a gentle nature and strong spiritual presence. Sweet Magnolia Blossom my twin sister from the South. We look as different as night and day – both goddesses in our own right though of course! We talk to each other in a really good fake southern accent though (hey, if no one else is listening, I can say that it is a “really good fake”, you don’t know).

That was my glorious day. Oompah Loompahs, Shopping, and some really great spiritual insights which I didn’t even get to yet. But it’s pushing 0230, and I’m waning like a bad moon rising. No, I don’t know what that means, but I’m really tired and it just sounded like something that we Border States and the Northerners, or Left Coasters could never come up with on the fly and I’ve always loved about Southerners. The ability to just flop out those flowery comparisons.  Being so in love with words…I can’t begin to describe my affair with them - but a Southern person could just roll them off their tongue like warm butter at a Church picnic in July. One of my other best friends, from Alabama, once described us as “two squirrels in a bucket “when we were the only two left at work on a Friday afternoon… I need to call her.

Goodnight my friends,                                                                                                                                                           ELF