Alyssa

With a little help from my friends

Its been a crazy week, but I am glad to be back here. I have been working on a very special project, my gift to myself in 2017. I am going to Paris in September (sounds amazing just writing it…makes it real, palpable). I just spent the last week or so arranging flights that were gifted to me. For that, I am beyond beholden to a few people; they know who they are. I have no words beyond that pure gratitude expressed to those people. I then arranged to lease an apartment through a personal Parisian connection. Things are coming together nicely and I couldn’t be happier. After a five-year bankruptcy due to a marriage that I’ve alluded to here and there, I realize I do have wings. I am going to fly.

The last five years have been rough. I am not going to lie. Its been hard. Yes, that hard and then a little more. I have worked meticulously to not live in misery and resentment. I vowed that I wouldn’t give my ex-husband that much power.I refuse to let him ruin my whole life. Financially, yes, I was screwed. I did not allow him to cloud my behavior, my judgment, my opportunities because he captured my pocketbook. I refused. I wasn’t going to stand for it. This five-year period ends March 31, 2017. Yes, I think I am going to celebrate it. I worked hard for the party, so why not!

So clearly, I didn’t do this on my own. There is no way I could have sustained a workable, breathable, and tolerable existence seeking simple vindication and complex and continuous court orders without the help of family and friends….and yes… a pretty decent therapist. I told you from this blog’s inception that I would be as honest I could be here. The provenance of its inspiration is my heart and sometimes my mind if my heart doesn’t see clearly. I don’t get to say I did this on my own. I did it. Yes, I did. But with a little , no, a lot of help from my friends.

My voyage to Paris is the culmination of my focus in this last year: travel dreams, new language acquisition, and new goals.

Thank you everyone for being here and reading and joining in my experience.

Please comment and let me and my readers know where you went on your most meaningful geographic journey. Tell me why it was so meaningful.

I am here and can’t wait to read!

Routine: a good or bad thing?

I hear the word routine. It means different things to me and I am curious what it means to you. I get that routine is critical for certain people. It used to be fairly critical to me as well. Now, not so much. So I thought of a few things where the idea of routine scares me or brings me comfort! Tell me your thoughts and leave me a comment if there’s anything you hate or love about what you call routine or what you would like to change.

So, when I think of the term “routine” with respect to these things I think “Ick” or ‘Yay”:

Exercise: yay

Sex:ick

Work: ick

Friends and close family:yay

I just started the list, so please add!

Have a great week!!

THINK: It’s the wave of the future (we can only hope)!

I have inherited this bit of wisdom from someone who shared this at an AA meeting. Yes, I thought at one time that I was an alcoholic; I was dreadfully wrong and that’s a completely different post and probably a book. Stay tuned on that!

When we think we are being honest, we can think of brutal honesty: “Your Christmas sweater is kinda hideous”. We think of rigorous honesty: “I think we should return this lost wallet to lost and found”. Then we have the honesty that comes with trust. All in all, these are more or less levels of trust that grow with time. However, the everyday honesty that flies out of our mouth in the name of integrity could use a little help. I know when I heard this acronym at the meeting, I would never forget it. I have been honest to a fault. And I don’t mean that false modesty honesty…”Oh, I just tell people all my personal thoughts” type of thing that comes with regret. I share with rigorous honesty here as I do try to keep things anonymous.
This is the deal; THINK before you talk. THINK before you post on Facebook or Tweet on Twitter. Nike says “Just do it” and I think they are on to something!

T: Is it Thoughtful? Have you formed an insightful idea on why this needs to be said?

H: Is it Honest (Is it really?) or something else with other motives?

I:Is it Important? Does it need to be said?

N: Is it Necessary? Will your statement help someone in a positive way?

K: Is it Kind? Do you really need to make someone feel less than with your intended statement?

This checklist was invaluable for a former “little miss can’t be wrong” like my self. It is humbling. It creates an idea of pure humility and intention. We think twice and say it once. We think carefully and it becomes second nature. This worked for me. I don’t take myself as seriously when I know I am not trying to teach people lessons with lectures that are neither Necessary or Kind. I don’t think that my clothes are better than someone else’s choices when I am being Thoughtful and Kind. It works if you work it: That’s just one more thing I learned in my time at AA.

The love pie….finite or infinite?

I have always wondered about this in a battle of philosophical ideas of love vs. the pragmatic expression of love. Are we able to love to our heart’s content and able to have boundless love for many of our close family and friends? Are we able to un-prioritize our love, allowing enough to go around, thereby expanding what I will call the love pie? Roll out more dough and make the crust just a bit bigger and add more filling to allow more into love our lives? We don’t have to limit this….it can go on forever and essentially feel exponentially amazing in the way we give and receive love? There are so many ways to express this love and so many people to express our feelings with on any given day.

There there is the pragmatic love pie: this pie has slices. This pie has a self-limiting size: the 24 hour day. This pie tells us we can only do so much for ourselves and loved ones in this given period of time. So depending on the obligations on any set day, there is only so much we can do to show this love. And when we start determining how we are going to share and demonstrate this love, it starts becoming hard to show love to everyone and respond to everyone trying to share theirs with you: it’s the school play, the family dinner, the friend time, the texts to “check in” with those we care about. It’s everything we do in a 24 hour day to reach those around us. We can certainly assert that those we love will definitely understand life gets a bit crazy. We know texts don’t get answered and lunches get cancelled and it doesn’t make us love any less. But we have to make sure when we get our daily pie, we don’t keep forgetting to give the same people a piece of it each day. This gets almost impossible pragmatically. So we prioritize. How do we prioritize love? How do we determine who gets pie slices today? Do we keep making the pie slices smaller and smaller till everyone gets a slice, understanding some people continue to feel not quite fed? I think this pragmatism of having enough of us/our pie is what causing so much conflict about “I have enough love to go around”….

Am I still being a hopeful cynic, or a constant contradiction? Is that really just the same thing?

Does a prolific writer make a prolific texter?

I tend to text a lot. You may even say I text too much and too often. I know I have gotten multiple comments about this from family and friends. Its valid. I am prolific. And according to one failed relationship: excessive and obnoxious. Thanks, sir. I will definitely work on that. I have realized that perhaps this is because I feel I have a lot to express, but also because I keep having new thoughts. They do NOT belong in excessive and frequent texts. They belong in one or two though out texts. Of course, I know this. Then I keep writing extensive in little text bubbles. They call them paragraphs and they don’t belong in text bubbles.

Is it the chicken before the egg or the other way around? Am I a writer who texts too much or a texter who decided she had a lot to say and started to become a writer?!

If you are a writer, do you tend to text extensively with prolific paragraphs of random thoughts? Or just the brief comments since you know your writing belongs elsewhere? What’s the pattern here?

Just another hopeful cynic?

What happens when you are an optimist who sees the worst and the best in people? Do you get jaded? Do you get frustrated and resentful? Do you just figure their bad day is not connected to you? They are having a bad day and that’s okay because things are generally all good? Are you past your nonjudgmental phase, resigned to the fact that everyone must have sufficient baggage to sink a battleship?

I think at one time or another I have felt all of these things more or less simultaneously. Is this a study in contradictions or just an understanding of simple human nature? Are we not some balance of both tendencies, depending the day, hour, or minute? Are we convinced the next great thing/relationship/job is out there for the taking? Or are resigned to the fact there is no great thing or it will turn to shit or sabotage anyway and why bother? I think this is where we make up our mind and when we flip the coin and predict, it determines our overall general inclination. And I think that is what makes me somewhat optimistic. I know when I see the next great thing, I go out and grab it. Because its amazing. Because it’s there. A Scot once said to me “what’s meant for you won’t go by you” (I am paraphrasing this sentiment, this Scottish saying). I believe it’s there because I have seen it and it has been tangible and the sensation of its possession is palpable; I am cynical with the whole carpe diem thing, however: I am pretty convinced I may not see anything like it again. Nothing this good happens twice.

Yep, I am just another hopeful cynic….

Back after extended holiday…

Did everyone have a good holiday? Or at least a decent one? Was it hard with family?

I know I have not blogged in a week. I was all ready to post a few updates and new topics last weekend and I had the worst headache. Ugh. After missing two days of work, I started to feel better and started to think about a few things I would like to address here.

Out of respect to my last relationship, I promised no more talk of that. I learned something about that and writing about a current relationship. I have so much to share, that I am not too worried if the significant other wants me to keep our relationship private and white anonymous, wants me to keep it all together off the internet. That was my last lesson learned. I will bring that with me going forward. I will still talk about the lessons learned, the heart ache of every good and bad relationship. It just may not be the one I happen to be in at the time. It will be up to that person and with utmost respect, I will follow his lead to determine where the content goes.

I want to hear from other bloggers who write non fiction narrative and memoir like posts. Is it hard to write that content and keep people out of the limelight? I thought I was writing anonymously, but it can be a bit peculiar when you see yourself online, I am sure, even when no one else knows it’s you, except perhaps close family and friends. Please comment and share with me your experiences regarding real life events and expressing them here for all to see.

I look forward to hearing your comments and could definitely use the feed back!

Thanksgiving

I want to tell you something really fantastic about Thanksgiving. Something that makes us all inspired. Something about our gratitude and good fortune when we eat our turkey and other food in excess. Some of us watch football all day. I don’t, but hey, there it is, a great day off to eat a ton and watch football in the middle of the week. I absolutely know, at the least, I have the privilege of good fortune and good food and a roof over my head during m post divorce Hell (five years to be exact, six if you count when I had to leave my home). I know friends and family have helped immensely. And that’s an incredible start to my Thanksgiving story.

It is in those simple times in my life that I asked for help and received it with unconditional love that i am most humble and grateful. It is during those 364 other days of the year that I have depended on loved ones to hold me up during hard times. It is those days that I felt the most thankful.

I have to remember when we string each of the days, some tougher than others, we get something pretty awesome called LIFE. It’s not always fair. Its not always right or just. We fall in love. Out of love. We feel wronged. We feel awesome and vindicated. But this is the deal:

We are feeling. Which means we are alive and get to start over the next day. And that’s pretty cool. We can be thankful for that, right? For me this is an affirmation. I am going to repeat this affirmation for the next 48 hours and every hour after that, because really, we can NOT take this amazing life for granted. This is NOT a Debbie downer post. Not at all. I just want to stay humble and grateful for this life we are given every day. Sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes I feel entitled to more than just the notion of being alive. Maybe sometimes I feel I deserve something really awesome, above and beyond what I have worked for. Then I get right-sized and my ego gets bruised. A little. And I begin again. Humble. It keeps going like that.

Please let me know how your Thanksgiving week is…the anticipation of it, family angst, relationship angst, whatever it brings: Bring it on!

And now time for a commercial break….Family time!

I just left for a short trip to see family. I am so excited and need a break! Phew..what a great time for a break to refocus and re-energize!

I am going to try to blog, but if I end up spending the valuable time I have with family making memories, I bet everyone will understand the blank wall this week!

Have a fantastic week and see you very very soon!

Humility comes free with every break-up

As I realize clearly that my last several weeks of posts about that most recent past relationship were written in an authentic anxious frenzy of nerves, fear, and insecurity, this should come as no shock.

I need to get back on track. I need to return to me. I must clearly identify the triggers that sent me into an indeterminate tail spin born from red flags BEFORE the tail does, in fact, go spinning. I realize my mounting intensity in the last year has sabotaged me from different opportunities, different paths. I would say that’s all fine and that’s just “who I am”. Except that it is NOT who I am. Not.At.All. At least it’s not the best version of myself. I’d like me back, thank you very much. I think we all deserve to become a better version of ourselves. Am I right?! It is truly the hardest battle. I think I survived the atrocities and Hell from 6 years ago on adrenaline and fumes. That was hard, but not impossible.

Now, I recovered from that Hell all proud and full of newly found and well counseled strength. I didn’t need to worry about my past anymore. I deserved to move on, right? Problem is, I left the future in the rear view mirror. I left it lying in the dust. I gave that horrid history a kick in the ass. I gave that road to Hell no respect. Then the Ego returned. Even after a plague fell on my heart and I thought I would remain humble for an eternity.

I realize I am a strong person, with some definite unplanned imperfections. I need to be far more honest (maybe even excruciatingly brutal) with myself to minimize the needless suffering I endured the last few weeks. When a friend used this term after she read a blog post of mine, I thought it was harsh. It wasn’t. It was actually said with love and within minutes I could see that. I need to take action. Now.

So have you experienced humility that was temporary, but you thought it would last you a life time? Years later, you forgot your struggle. You didn’t stay true to who you are?

When I first started my blog, I posted this pair of jeans; you all told me to keep them. I did. I should have looked at them more frequently. They are a reminder of that humility:Blue Jeans

Tell me about it. I want to know.

Thank you!