Nothing is Ever Settled

Wow. When I use to dream about being in my mid fifties, I somehow had this unspoken image in my mind that life would be easier, that I would know more than I did then,whenever then was - that my heart would be settled, and that I would not only know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but that I would have done it already and be living off my substantial income, family investments and money wise opportunities which had come along at just the perfect time in my lovely life and right now benefiting me in such a way that the word retirement did not seem like an enemy. Of course, my life is NOTHING like that or I would have nothing to write about this early AM.

Somewhere along the psychological growth experience, my sub conscious had this imbedded dream that there was a cozy life wrapped up in beautiful cloud awaiting me. Did I come in with this misconception and/or did my family foundation enable this or perhaps both? A beautiful cloud. Really, I thought that any day now it would all shift to look like the cover of a Martha Stewart Magazine. NAUGHT!!!

Life is tough. There is simply nothing more about it to say. Anything else right now feels like a lie. Talanted friends are struggling, there is not enough work, money, opportunities, or the other to suffice. Every single day people struggle emotionally. We try. We try and every day we keep trying. We smile. We walk the line of what is 'good' and faithfilled and still.......there is unhappiness, struggle, awkwardness, pain, sorrow, sadness, anger, lying, lack of integrity, snippiness, snideness, indifference, and people who lie, manipulate and take advantage. There are misunderstandings, intolerance, unkindness, selfishness and down right meanness. There is thoughtlessness, insensitivity and scary things. Lots of scary things.

In my twenties I was married and a young mother. By the time thirty came along I was divorced. It was hard. It was hard for a plethora of reasons. Weather I was paying my karmic debts, or being just plain stupid, ignorant and naive - who knows? But it was really, really hard. It was hard emotionally with struggling in a loveless and dysfunctional marriage with an emotionally handicapped man who we now know was/is a psychopath. It was awful having to defend my choices when it was all too clear that it was all wrong. It was disgusting that my own family liked him better than me and tried to have me hospitalized. Evidently, I was an embarrassment for not going along with the stringent, upperclsss, New England guidelines of our family do's and don'ts.

In my early thirties my childhood was relived. My mid thirties, I met my second husband, endured a cancer diagnosis to health, opened an art gallery and my son went to college. My ex wandered in and out. Emotions still rocked. My heart brought me into myself and I took a stand in aligning myself with Love, Peace and what passed as righteousness. I entered the ministry, had my own televsion show, studied Buddhism, metaphysics, meditation, healing and all the items which fell under healthy, balance, alternative and harmonious.

My forties took me into marriage separation and back again. Caring for parents, illnesses and death of parents, pets and many - oh so many, parts of myself.

My fifties bring me to a perception of life which is incredibly big. Professionally, I started and closed a church, worked at several others, pioneered a www.globalministry, sat on numerous boards, volunteered at food pantries and had to swallow a few dreams along with a good percentage of my ego.

I look back at it all - I have been in and out of therapy, colored my hair at least 100 times,(last week red) been slim and heavy, brutally honest (which does not work well for me yet) and fearful to say anything (which is worse) and have yet to find a perfect way to be here, in this person I am. I have said yes, been obliging - said no, taken a stand. I have broken up with others in order to find myself, left jobs, been fired, painted, acted, published my own book and truly disliked peoples actions and even some people and continually judged myself for not being a good person because of my honest feelings......so then one tries to change their honest feelings so they can think of themselves as a good person. Exhausting. STOP the madness.

Every day is a journey into myself. I am self employed, have worked from bartending to my present life as a minister, counselor, healer. Actually, I am more of a teacher at the moment. I have never understood, nor had the grace of being labeled one thing. (As much as my parents would have liked.) You know, like my stepbrother; he is a stock broker. Nice. He has always been and when he dies he will be known as a stock broker. There was never any grey area as to how he made his living or what his business card said. I must have had at least 50 business cards.

There are moments in my self indulgentness whan I contemplate if I took the wrong road. You know, those moments of being at a V on our path and we go left instead of right? My mother always said, marry well(money) and raise a family. I laugh as I write this bacause I can hear her say; go to Texas to college, they have lots of rich, tall men. That was her advice to me. I did not listen. I never listened well to my parents - or perhaps I listened very well and did just the opposite.

Not once growing up was I asked what I wanted to do, or be, or accomplish. Not once was I offered the opportunity to dream of becoming. Once I allowed my inner dream to come out into conversation. I still can go there - to that moment in my childhood in my parents bedroom, they were getting dressed and I announced, with my heart wide open, in all my nine year old vulnerablity that I wanted to become an actress. Their response was it was hard and too many do not make it and ........go to Texas and find a tall wealthy husband.

The brutal truth is I do not know if any of us are ever settled. I yearn for settled. Part of my delusion. I was brought up to believe in settled. Settled feels like such a make believe agenda. But wouldn't settled be nice? Settled. All nestled in - nestled in a cozy, warm, abundant life with a circle of perfect friends and weekly gatherings. Nestled into a life with an overlfowing checkbook, flowing investments with 500 % returns on a quarterly basis and childern who are happy and grateful. Nestled. Summer houses and regular vacations.

Because I was brought up to believe in the illusion of settled, which now I intelligently know my parents life was not, but they lied well; I feel I am never going to attain the golden ring. I want to attain settled. And my path, my education, my knowledge, my innate awareness and the depth from which I veiw this existence lets me know in a not so gentle way that settled is most definitly an illusion. Nothing is ever settled. There is always going to be an opinion we don't like, something we want to say and feel uncomfortable even thinking about it, people we do not like, people who do not like us, people who dissapoint us and people who we dissapoint. All that is tres unsettling.

But, what we can attain is to be okay with being unsettled. To be okay with the truth that life is challenging, can be tremendously funny, joy is fleeting, humor helps, we are H-U-M-A-N. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. Perfection is the greatest illness of all. It will prevent us from discovering our selves and muddles our perceptions with a cloud of grey. Grey is boring.

Last night before going to bed I started a new Flower Essence. It reads that it will give me a 'crystalline clearness, greater independance and a confidence in my ability to skillfully handle whatever life may bring with strength and integrity of Spirit and rebalances co-dependant behavior patterns".

All this after only one dose. Wonder what I'll write tomorrow at 4:00 am?