Dreamworld

I stumbled upon a channel that features jazz music. Normally I do not like jazz at all but I am beginning to learn that I just do not understand the wide range of this type of music. Robin Thicke was singing his "Dreamworld" song and I was hypnotized by not only the video but the lyrics. The haunting words "the real world just don't seem right" describe how I feel exactly. I sometimes live in my own personal dreamworld, I think most of us do.

Normally I associate jazz with annoying clarinet riffs or skit skat dootle doots from some singer. This music I found, however, this jazz - is totally different. It's sexy. Soulful. I like to sing and the sign of a good song for me is one that I try to sing myself. But more than that, this music inspires me to get to the place in my own head where I can think unencumbered. I feel lighter. Watching this singer is a pure example, a tangible example of someone using their gifts. Precious few of us feel free enough to do that. Imagine what the world would be like if we could all do that, provided of course we understood what are gifts were?

When I was little, my mother always told me that I could be "whatever I wanted". Which at that age struck me as odd because wasn't I already something? I understood then that I had to learn to BE ... something other than what I already inherently knew I was. I was very imaginative and my best friend and I would spend hours in the tiny, perfectly landscaped neighborhood behind my house. This neighborhood stood in contrast to our own, somewhat rundown neighborhood we lived in. This other neighborhood had rows of tulips that stood at attention in several front yards. It was a wonderland we created for ourselves. A place where anything magical could happen. It was hard to stay in this state of mind for long, especially when an annoying boy would approach us in an effort to engage us into playing with him.

"Let's pretend we're deaf" my friend whispered.

Sure enough, this boy tried to talk to us and we immediately began fake-signing to each other. This display did not fool him.

Sullenly he said, "I know you guys can talk" and he slinked away leaving us to get back to our wonderworld.

We would then pick out which house was "our" house, always competing for the best looking one, usually a white cape cod with black shutters and a picket fence with beautiful beds of colorful flowers surrounding the house. The people all looked happy and shiny, washing their cars or walking their dogs. My neighborhood seemed like WWII London in comparison. Gray and bleak with run down houses, especially my own. The house I grew up in was a rancid, pink bungalow with peeling paint and a shitty, overgrown and pitted backyard littered with downed tree branches and a saggy clothing line. (The clothing line can serve as it's own post one day.)

Our main activity involved seeing whose yard we could sneak into without getting kicked out. It was thrilling to slide between rows of bushes and move from yard to yard, holding our breathes if we spotted a grown up.

"Do you know you are trespassing??" was an admonishment we heard more than once but more often than not we travelled very well between yards or "shortcuts" without incident.

So thank you Mr. Robin Thicke, soulful jazz singer for helping me to remember all of that.

Labor Day

Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend. It was so nice to have that extra day. I woke up on Sunday grateful and happy to have just one more day off.

Sunday we took the boat out on a lake. My husband wanted to test out the engine since it spent a good portion of this rainy summer under water. Boat ran fine and we all ended up tubing. Even me. The water of this lake is brakish- dark but warm. I was afraid to get on the tube because of the manatees and gators that tend to live in these waters. My husband said I HAD to do it so I got on and not only held on for dear life but also pointed my toes towards my head so that my whole body could rest on the tube and I would not have to put my legs/feet in the water. It was hard for me not to imagine bumping over a big sea cow and having it rip my leg off as I passed over. Or a boa constrictor (which are also abundant here), water moccasin or even a fish with teeth somehow taking a piece of me with it down into the depths of the dark water. I lasted maybe, maybe 8 minutes total and then was pulled back in. I honestly did not think of the alligators until I got to work when my friends all reminded me of this fact. Yuck.

I did not do too much in the way of cooking like I usually do. Labor Day was actually low key and at the end of the day I readied our wine glasses, had them lined up and ready to pour red wine when I heard a blood curldling scream from the back patio. My six year old son accidentally fell in the pool in such a way that he banged his head on the step, instantly splitting his eye on the side. Time stands still in these moments. I pushed aside my shock and found a towel and put it on his eye. I took him inside and somehow calmly stripped him out of his wet bathing suit and put a clean pair of pajama pants on him, found his flip flops, grabbed a clean shirt and my husband and I loaded him into the car. Of course, every walk-in clinic was closed but luckily we found a Pediatric emergency care open and they took very good care of him. Luckily he did not need stitches and the doctor just applied dermabond to keep the skin together. I felt so bad for him- he was so worried about the prospects of stitches. So, he has a black eye but is in good spirits. Back to his normal self and misbehaving in school. Sigh.

Hope you all were able to enjoy the time off.

C

Feeling Better

I already mentioned that I have been feeling better since I have starting eating healthier. But it's also because I have started to let go of a lot of the negative stuff I have been holding onto about work.


http://widelawns.blogspot.com/ has mentioned the negative chatter that she has dealt with and learned to silence and this describes my problem as well. I sometimes allow myself to slide down a self-pitying path and mentally leap frog from issue to issue until I become so depressed that I physically shake my head in an effort to snap out of it. I have been getting better. Lately, I will tell myself "really? Are you really going to allow 2 bad pictures of you taken on vacation to rule your thoughts for the entire DAY? Honestly"? And this seems to help me snap out of it.


So the work stuff. I received a review that I was not pleased with. I was described as "basic". I cried for 2 days about this because the feedback I had been receiving all year long from the groups I support was very positive. The issue is with the leadership team that reviewed me. They did not place as much emphasis on this feedback as I hoped and in comparison to my peers, despite my - yes I will say it- glowing reviews from my groups, I was ultimately summarized as "providing the basics". This seems to happen to me every few years. As soon as leadership changes, suddenly I am considered a top performer again. I struggle with this and perhaps this is just the nature of large corporations. Each time this happens I am unable to reconcile the notion that one year I am great and the next just mediocre. My work ethic has always remained the same and the years I am top rated, I have put in the exact same amount of effort.

I allowed myself to go through all of the emotions, shock, anger, sadness and finally questioning my abilities. After a few weeks, the depression breaks without warning and I am suddenly optimistic again. This optimistic feeling comes from the real me, the one that gets tired of feeling down or allowing others to make me feel less than. It's the authentic me that rises up and feels blessed and happy to be in my own skin. I feel beautiful again and strong and most importantly whole.

The bad work stuff is a blessing for me. It forces me to realize that I deserve more than what I have allowed myself. I am a creative person, an intelligent person that cannot be contained by an arbitrary performance review. It's unnatural for me, like wearing shoes that are too small. I walk around jammed in a space that does not fit and chafe and blister until I burst into tears and realize that the only way for relief is to release myself. This is where I am right now- needing to release myself. To be free.

I was watching a show about a relatively new country music band called Lady Antelbellum. Hearing the story of how they formed their group was fascinating. One of the young men quit his 9 to 5 job and then convinced his friend to do the same and move to Nashville. Once there they literally bumped into a young woman who was a singer/songwriter. From that seemingly random event their band was formed.

So I need to be paying attention to more random events.

C.

Checking In

Ok. So much for holding myself accountable.

I apologize for not checking in last Friday. It's just highlights my lack of committment to losing weight... I am ashamed to admit that I was tempted to delete my last post but I decided to be a big girl (ha ha) and leave it.

So I did not meet my goal of losing 10 lbs in 1 week which I knew was agressive. I have lost 2 -3 pounds instead. The positive is that I have been eating really healthy so I am glad about that. The biggest thing for me is just being aware of my weight, recognizing that I need to be healthier and most importantly feeling better (I will talk about this in a separate post).

That's all for now.

C.