Where is home? I can relate.

Great show I watched tonight that I could completely relate to.  Where is home?  And each character spoke to my conclusion.  It’s where your heart leads you, no matter where you are.

I have moved 23 times in my life.  Within the country, outside of the country, within a city, outside a city, within a town, outside a town, regardless, 23 times.  Like many of those characters, after 3 or 4 years I become wrestles and want to go again.

I’m 50 and at times still feel the same, even having lived in my latest place for one year.

For those who have had a place to live for a lifetime, or for even most of their childhood and teenage years, it’s hard to fathom the need to move.  I do.

I am a product of moves.

Now, having said that, I can’t say that all three of my sisters became who I became… the wanderer, or the bohemian as some would call me.  But it is in my character as it is in the show “Where is home”.  Brilliant.  I have never seen a documentary that has described who I am in such detail.  I felt a belonging for once in a long time.

The last three times I moved in the past three years have been due to different incidences, but I remained within a geographical location close to my children as they asked me to “come back”.  Ironically the one I worried about the most became my closest and chose to leave and get away.  Just as we became close again.  What she tells me I understand.  But I don’t know where she is is the right place for her to have gone to.  And now I feel too far away to help.

Maybe she felt the same about me when I left after the divorce and her leaving and moving with her father with her brothers and I just left.  I didn’t belong anymore, or so I felt.  Her and I are similar.  We don’t feel like we belong so we move on.

I still don’t feel like I belong.  I wish I could be closer by to her to help her when she feels that way.  But as I know I can’t.  I have to let her find herself like I did and be like my parents’ were to me.  Supportive and there when she needs me.

But I do worry.

Where is home?  Like they say on the documentary.  it’s where your heart takes you.  I believe I won’t be here for more than 3 years, maybe 6 if I can make it that long…  and the last place I end up will be where I will end up.  Back home.  I do believe I knew where that was from the start… I just never went back.  But now… I know where I will end up when it’s going to be the right time.  And there, I know, I belong.  It’s already been in my heart, and recently been very clear, it is.

Where Is Home

Pain Inside vs Bulimia – Are you numbing yourself to what is important to feel?

Tonight I had a bad experience, almost and I mean very almost wanting to eat my emotions because they were so strong but I didn’t know what they were.  Then I went and stood in front of my mirror, realized my body looked great, and went back to my bed and said NO and then cried like a baby, feeling an extreme choking feeling in my throat.  I knew something was wrong emotionally and I needed to figure it out.  I cried then thought of my daughter and was worried horribly about her.  I texted her.  She said she was fine and I said I didn’t think so at all because I felt too much pain.

I had a wonderful evening with my family last night at my father’s 80ths birthday, my son’s were there and my Aunt and Uncle and my two cousins I hadn’t seen in 9 years.  All was beautiful, mom was awesome, my sisters were amazing.

So this why I was wondering why I was feeling I wanted to eat away something?  Which when I realized it was emotional eating and wanting to go and throw it up (which I know is an indication of something much more now and able to stop it in its track) I knew it was something serious.

I texted her again.  She finally admitted she wasn’t fine.  And I knew I wasn’t either not being there with her.  Not being able to deal with what she has been struggling through, not being able to see her at that family reunion.  She was the piece of my puzzle missing and I guess that emptiness, fear, hurt, and worry took over me today.

I’m proud to say I knew something bigger than my wanting to eat was affecting my life.  And I pin pointed it.

Was there a resolution? No.  A solution? Yes.  Stay strong, stay focused, and follow up the next day to make sure she is okay.

My mother’s instinct kicked in and not eating it and throwing it up made for a much stronger person in me. 

I’m 50.  I feel like I was 18 again trying to numb something I was feeling in this moment tonight that lasted one hour.  It was an hour of hell.  I don’t want to go back.  But at least I know now enough that it is signalling something much more than the want of food.  This time it was about my daughter.  And I’m proud to say that being able to feel this and get passed it knowing it IS A SIGNAL OF SOMETHING MORE THAN FOOD has been great.

Stand in the mirror, look at your body and realize this is not what this is about!!  It’s something bigger than that.

I love you baby.  Wish I had been able to know the signals earlier.  But now it’s about knowing them and moving forward and making sure I listen to my emotions, my attachment to you, my instincts to my attachment to my children and knowing how to read that.

Please, call me tomorrow.  I need to hear your voice.  Mom

Why I’m Happy

Today is my nephew’s birthday.  He passed away five years ago of cancer at the age of 23.  So why would I be happy?  Because during his time on this earth he taught me what being happy was about.  It was about the people who surround you.  Not possessions, although some entertain you like technology, one thing we did have in common.  No we had a lot in common.  We cared.  We cared about others.  Maybe sometimes too much, but is there such a thing?  I don’t think so.  Some people tell me that is my downfall.  Caring, trusting, loving.  I doubt that.
During my bullimia I didn’t know how to love to the core of my heart, to know how to hurt by loving.  My divorce was painful and I relied on my daughter to keep me alive to know that I was waking up to someone there that I loved.  But my bullimia blurred me from the fact that although I was hurting I couldn’t feel it and didn’t want to.  I just ate up the hurt and threw it up.  I didn’t stand up to the pain I was feeling, I just ate it and threw it up, and when I wasn’t doing that I was relying on my poor daughter to lean on.

A very  bad combination.  One that 10 years later makes you cry.  But luckily, albeit my daughter disappeared from my life for a few years, has returned and we can talk about my misgivings.  I am lucky she forgave me, and so to my two boys.  I ended up at the end of the divorce running away and abandoning all three of them.  Afterall, I thought, they chose to live with dad.  I didn’t understand the dynamics.  I do now and I know, although I found myself through my journey in life, my journey affected them.

You can’t go back and make it better.  But you can go forward and make it better.
Through my struggles I found me and learned to love me which gave me the opportunity to understand.  It hurts to hurt, but it’s great to love more so and to engage again.  You can’t make up for your past mistakes, but you can, in what time you have left, make things better.

Finding self love was the best thing I could have found.  It made me realize I don’t “need” anyone and if someone comes along (not in any rush) it will be because I chose to have that someone there with me.  Not a want, not a need, a choice.

Final word – choices are those whom I know bless me in good ways.  Family, special friends and my animals.  Not materialistic stuff, except the odd technological ability to reach those I care for and pictures and memorabilia.  Otherwise simplicity is what makes me happy.  Oh and health and laughter.

Beautiful Life

I am writing this on my iPad and can’t seem to download pictures.  I will figure it out I am sure, but until then I want to say I have had a beautiful life thus far and in my next post from my computer I will explain why.

What is Love?

I always wondered how I would describe love if I had to.  Never really could until I saw this picture tonight…. all the while watching “Shall We Dance”.  Ironic the two came together.  Something I believed in for my whole life, but never was.  I’m 50 now.  Don’t know that it will.  But hope my children do find this kind of love.  The love between the two in Shall We Dance and this picture.  That, my friends, is what I pictured love.  Now, its me with my dogs.