Restless

I am restless. I'm daydreaming about taking a drive this weekend to a nearby town for a little bit of ME TIME. It may sound crazy, but the idea of being in a hotel room for an evening all by myself sounds heavenly to me.

Me time.

It's All About Her

Every morning at about 6:30, my daughter scoots into bed with me for that last hour of sleep.

This morning, I could see the very top of her head sticking out of the blanket and I could hear her breathing.

I could feel my heart swell. It doesn't get any better than that.

Robin and I

This afternoon, I'm hitting the road for a desperate housewives' road trip. I'm off to Orillia for a couple of days, and the main purpose of the trip is to see Robin Williams!!

How freakin' cool is that?

I'll let you know when I get back!

The Tits

Some of my favourite bloggers have been writing about things in their life that they think are THE TITS.

And no, sorry, I am not discussing my tits (although they are The Tits if I do say so myself!!). I am speaking of things that are The Tits for me. So, without further ado, here is my The Tits List:

1. First on the list has got to be the smell of my daughter.
Every morning, she hops into bed with me for our morning
cuddle and I stick my face in her hair and .... oh, pure bliss.
2. The rhythmic sound of my cat purring.
3. Those days when my hair goes just right.
4. Reading a book in a day because it was just too good to put down.
5. Butterflies
6. Going for a walk in the bush in Autumn
7. Having someone who doesn't really know me write to me and tell me that my blog has helped them and/or that they love my blog
8. A margarita (or four) made just right!
9. Unlimited lobster with garlic butter for everyone!! (oh ya baby!)
10. Talking for hours on the phone about absolutely nothing with a good friend.

Watch Me Soar

Firstly, I want to share with you a story that I recently read in a book called Awareness by Tony De Mello:

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth we're chickens."

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."

Ok, the book was all right. I took some ideas from it and left some ideas from it. But this story and what Tony De Mello talks about is so true.

We grow up being taught beliefs and being told who and what we are by our parents, teachers and others around us. Your beliefs are those thoughts caught up in that ceaseless chatter inside your head. But, some of the beliefs we've been told are simply not true. The challenge is changing these beliefs and/or letting go of them.

And the people that have put these beliefs upon you, they are not at fault. They are simply passing on what has been instilled in them as well. It is a cycle of passing on false beliefs.

People that are close to me know that my dad did not always treat me very well. He was verbally and emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive as well. When my mother passed away, I lost the person who protected me from him.

This is not to say that my father is a horrible man or a bad person. He did the best he could at the time and I know he loves us.

Around the age of 11, I began to be accused constantly of being on drugs. At that age, I didn't even know what "drugs" were and was more into riding my bike with my friends. At that point, I hadn't even been introduced to drugs. (but that was soon to follow!) It was frustrating as a child to try and tell him otherwise. I didn't understand where his paranoia was coming from.

My father also told me about birth control and his desire to put me on it when I was 11 years old--far too young to need to know about such things. What about respect for yourself, dignity and integrity?

During the rest of my teen years and into my early 20s, I was constantly told that I was a "slut", a "looser" and that I would be on "welfare" for the rest of my life. When you tell a child such things over and over, they believe it. Afterall, we grow up thinking that our parents are perfect and that they know best, right? I was the eagle thinking I was a chicken.

I remember in grade school, the boys thought I was a slut as well. There was no reason behind their beliefs. I hadn't even kissed a boy then and was, in fact, quite terrified at the thought of kissing any boy.

I will always remember a male friend of mine telling me about the time he asked a guy what I was like in grade school and the boy responded that I was a slut or some other derogatory name. I will always remember that because it hurt my feelings. (I will talk about my need to let things go and not take things personally in my next post.) Not one of those grade school boys calling me a slut had ever laid a hand on me or vice versa.

In my 20s, I did come to the realization that my father was wrong in his treatment of me. It was so wrong. But again, he did the best he could at the time. The love of his life had died and he was scared shitless to be stuck trying to raise two children. He fucked up just like we've all done a few times at the very least. Things are much better between us now.

The point of my telling you this is not to make my father look bad. It's simply my way of proclaiming to myself that what he said was not true. I don't need to spend the rest of my life trying to prove that he was wrong. His beliefs don't have to be mine. I should not be concerned about appearing as a "failure" in his eyes or anyone else's. I am the only person to whom I need to be accountable.

I am not a bad person or a "loser". This is a false belief that was instilled in me, and I need to let go of it, but re-training your brain and letting go of things is quite the task.

I am still a work in progress, and I do hope to be a work in progress for the rest of my life.

My Guidance Reading

Hi Crystal,

I think it's been almost a week since you sent me my reading. Every day, I read it to remind myself.

I loved it. A lot of the things you mentioned are things my head already knows....it's just a matter of getting the heart to follow along. Or is it the other way around? I don't know...

I like your beliefs and your views about God. For me, there is always this nasty little voice in the back of my head that tells me that God is not real and that he/she is a comfort that we've made up to make ourselves feel better about life and death. I want to believe, but there are doubts since I started telling myself there was no God after my mother died when I was eleven. I am a work in progress.

Anyways, I just wanted to send a quick note to say thank you, I'm impressed and that I've been recommending you to some of my friends.

Peace,
Marney

Check out Crystal at Innerstep.

Smiling on the Inside

So what makes you smile on the inside? This is something I'm going to be attempting to figure out in the next little bit....just what makes me happy inside. This brings me to my story.

I have a confession of sorts:

I am a Northern Ontario resident and have been for my entire 36 years. I have never seen a moose on the side of the highway. For those of you not very familiar with Ontario, this is a very rare thing.

I've seen dead moose from my father's hunting days and I've seen moose in the zoo. I've seen horses, raccoons, deer, turtles, rabbits, you name it but I had never seen a moose standing there on the road UNTIL THIS WEEK!!

I was driving through some backroads of a little town called Astorville at around 11 pm. I wasn't going very fast since there are tons of deer on this road. Looking ahead, I saw what I first thought were two deer until I got closer.

I was in the truck driving slowly behind them and they just kept walking in front of me at this leisurely pace. My moose friends and I carried on for about two minutes before they decided to head back into the bush.

I waited 36 years for this. It made me smile.