Resetting…yes, just before the holiday

Let’s do massive updates to a computer and while that is happening a South Korean washing machine will fail. Torrents of water will be cascading down the hill, a workbench piled with parts and circuit boards of once was my singing happy underpants cleaning buddy and there will be a call from my property manager informing me the renters have no heat.

Living in the now.

But good news! Not one but two of the relatives I never heard of have died while overseas and left me millions of dollars because I was their favorite. Isn’t that a comfort? (Email… email… email…this was important?)

Okay, 2020 was bad…we all know what the “Trump virus” is doing. Being empathetic to my FoxFriends has been quite a soul searching. Some of the nicest people I know have gone all moony at the idea that they are going to be Rid’in with Biden. I know they are smart people. I know they have hearts. Some of them even wear masks. One set, in particular, are so trustworthy we let them into our “Bubble” because we know they won’t put us in harm’s way. So when they report their dismay at the lack of available ammo or pass unresearched Qanon memes it’s time to go back to the time out chair and do a bit of tummy breathing.

Earlier this year I explained to another friend, who promotes herself as a prepper, that Covid 19 was not just the flu, and not 20 minutes later she assured me she wasn’t worried about this flu because she never gets that sick. Ok, we two had Norovirus a few years ago after an ill-fated weekend at a casino. I recall she declared she almost died from that. All summer she regularly asked to go for another weekend at the casino (not a fan of casinos in general) and I made excuses not to go anywhere, something along the lines of “Hey there’s a pandemic” to peanut butter filled ears. Four days ago she tells me her Husband just tested positive and is very sick. When is the best time to be right about a thing? I choose my words carefully after news like that.

I never thought I’d be trying to talk another friend out of selling their house to go live in a camp trailer because in a boom housing market they have decided the loss of their leader was going to begin the civil war. I did not stick to sharing my 2 cents worth on that for very long. Not my pig, not my farm. They have been hotwired to certain ideas about the influence of the government on their daily lives that nothing I say can revoke. Having lived in a camper for 6 months (for other reasons) I know the scenario won’t be a long-term solution to anything they are worried about. Having worked with the homeless and low-income housing I am flabbergasted that anyone would think giving up bricks and sticks would make anything better. But these are sweet humans. They mean well. They think they are being proactive about solving a problem. It is not real to me but their sources say otherwise.

The Trump virus has gotten more than 30 or of my former coworkers.

It was a pleasure to move to Housing when I quit serving the entitled traveling public. I liked that work though, getting people off the street was nice when the magic worked. It was good to give people something they actually needed instead of dealing with people who wielded their privileges to abuse folks who were trying to get them their wants in a safe manner.

I grew up with brothers in a predominantly Catholic and Latinx environment where other females my age were artfully hidden away from the wild child who was allowed to wander and do as she pleased(usually barefoot all summer) and did not really get a good dose of “the way women are” until I was sharing a dormitory with 80 of them from all around the country. My mother’s admonition that we could do whatever we wanted but “know you live with the consequences” kept me out of “trouble” and the last girl on the school bus when all the others had giggled their way through sex ed because they knew it all or had dropped out because they didn’t see much future in their education and wanted to get on with their lives before the “trouble” caught them. Rural communities in the ’80s were not good places to become “liberated” or independent.

Adulthood was a bit of a shock. I did not understand how many people (both male and female) are tied to the idea that they are incomplete if they aren’t joined at the hip (or yes, some other body part) to another person. Perhaps it seems a bit hypocritical to say this as I’ve been in a very traditional relationship for 33 years but the idea that you need another person to fix you, finance you, or correct your shortcomings seems like it has damaged more people than it has ever helped. A proper union can do all of those things but I have encountered many people who find themselves unhappy because the other person “won’t change” while they make no effort towards improvement on their own behalf.

I confess to living vicariously through others – learning from their mistakes- not that I haven’t made of few of my own but that idea that there is no free pass on one’s own behavior has kept me going forward avoiding drama as much as is ever possible if you don’t lock yourself in a bunker. I’m a people watcher and told I’m a good listener – oh boy! Lots of using a filter on what goes out while taking in a lot.

Happiness has been over-promoted. I don’t think most people really have a good grasp on what it is. At this point, I’m more focused on contentment. It’s different from Happiness and also from resignation. It’s not settling but awareness. Mindfulness is more important to me than passion but passion has been misdiagnosed too. The point is passion may not always be a fuzzy explosion of joy at all times. I took a couple of friends to the Ewam Garden of 1000 Buddhas one morning. I was having a “moment” toward the end of a really amazing road trip. Things had not gone perfectly the night before (another story) and I needed to “get my poop in a group” so this Buddhist garden appears in the most unexpected place and I had to get out of the car and stomp around for a while. Mindfulness walking is a big deal to me. One of the women happily climbed a hill and drank in the sunshine. The other saw those 1000 buddhas and stomped back to the car where she sulked for the rest of the day. Not her thing. (Also nothing to do with issues of the night before) Knowing when and where to do poop grouping is a skill that takes a lot of practice.

The concept of success is interesting to me. I live with people who get validation from external sources and I tend to be more internal on that subject.

I’ve been having an ongoing dialogue with someone I know professionally about whether humans have instincts. I function very well as a seat of the pants type. The excitement is not knowing the outcome but being adequately prepared to deal with whatever comes my way. “Intuition” seems to work best for me. It could be argued that this is nonsense when what I am actually doing is probably some form of a logic tree “If not this then that”-ing my way through the uncertainty of daily life and not trying to predict the unknowable. The logic tree would indicate some kind of set of behaviors have been learned to be tried and true responses at some point. That then would not be intuition nor instinct but at some point, a set of learned behaviors and reasoning which has been tested and proved generally reliable. When do we do all this mental r&d stuff? Certainly, the magic doesn’t always work but when it does, we think we have good intuition.

A person on the spectrum doesn’t enjoy that sort of thing one bit. Where are you going? How long do you think you will be gone? What are you going to do when you get there? Answers! Must have answers! The very thing that makes a venture interesting to me makes it horrifying for another. Here is where mindfulness saves your backside.

Oh gosh, I haven’t had coffee yet…

Jodie

I wonder what the survival rate for this holiday will be?

Jon

What a year it has been as you point out. I’m hoping we can all get vaccinated soon and that it will work.

darkmadonna

This time of year is perfect for introspection, but oftentimes we have little time for it due to the demands of the season. I’m trying to find more time for soul-searching, prayer, and solitude. Happy Christmas to you!

tracker2020

😎