Let us pray

Here is comes people!
Religion is not my favorite topic of discussion to bring up. I have always kept it behind closed doors, because in actuality my religious beliefs are none of your business and honestly, you don’t even HAVE to read this. I was raised in a Catholic household all my life. We went to church EVERY Sunday and my sisters and I did CCD twice a week (for those of you who do not know what CCD is: The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine was an association established in 1562 in Rome for the purpose of providing religious education. In its more modern usage, CCD is the religious teaching program of the Catholic Church. These classes are taught to school age children to learn the basic doctrines of their faith). I never considered myself “Religious”, but I knew that I loved God and I wanted to do right by him. I made my Holy Communion and followed up with my Confirmation at age 15. For some reason at that point life became busy and I never could find the time for church except for holidays.

I finally decided, once I was old enough to make my own decisions, that I did not want to be that person who JUST went to church on major holidays (Ash Wednesday, Easter Sunday, Christmas etc), if I wasn’t going to be devoted weekly then I should just not go and there you have it I made my decision and I began going instead, to light a candle once a week before school once I began college and if I could not do that I would pray at night before I went to sleep because I did not think that I had to go to a building to pray. I felt that I could have a more personal relationship with God if I prayed to him at home, and well, that is what I did.

Then my relationship with “the big man upstairs” went sour, so to speak. Both my parents got sick with Cancer. My dad died and at that time, I didn’t think my mom was that far behind him. I was angry and I could not understand how this Supreme Being that everyone prays to could allow things like this to happen. Why not give molesters and murderers cancer and let them die? Why not hurt bad people? Why my family? So from then on out I attempted to go to church, but found myself in tears every time I went. I felt like an idiot so, I decided I would only go light a candle for my dad on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death. Are you seeing a pattern here? I have always easily given up. I thought I was trying so hard to get the relationship back, but I have not been trying hard enough. I think a lot of my problem was I never could understand it and since I couldn’t understand it, I didn’t want to try anymore.

You know in movies, where there is an old decrepit woman who can hardly walk that give the young child this big speech that makes him/her have a huge revelation? Well, I don’t have an old decrepit woman, I have my grandma Mimi. Mimi has a prayer for everything and she is the best Catholic I know! We have had many religious talks on the phone and she has listened to me cry like a child about how I am angry with God and I don’t understand. She never got mad at me for saying such things, she just explained things to me and I would then feel better about it. Then she got Cancer and my whole perspective got blown out of the water. Mimi? The most holy woman I know? Ok, so maybe this is not a God thing? Maybe God didn’t give it to her. I am having new thoughts on my life long perspective of anger with God. Maybe the phrase “What does not kill us, only makes us stronger” is true. I firmly believe that Mimi’s love for God helped her through this trying time in her life and is what has kept her so calm through all of this. I admire her for that. I want to be that way.

My husband is not Catholic so it is hard for us to go to church and feel right about it because it is hard for a newcomer to deal with Catholic Mass with all the memorizing (because let’s face it, its repetitive) I would feel out of place too. But I AM Catholic and I am proud of that. So, from here on out I am going to try my best to be better at it. I will find the time to get to church. I need something in my life to make me feel whole. Maybe it’s the religion and prayer that is missing in it.

I am now 30 years old and I have no idea what I want to do with myself. I do know that yesterday was Ash Wednesday and for once in my life I am going to follow Lent the way I learned it. For Lent I am giving up my evening TV time for my Rosaries. I think it is high time, that my son had some religion in his life that is part of his routine, instead of just when he goes to visit his grandparents. Going to church doesn’t change you on the outside. It heals you spiritually and that is all I can hope for.
I am sticking with this! For once in my life I am going to be devoted to something more than just my boys. I can do it!

Peace love and well sprituality!

Let Go

I guess we all learn lessons, no matter how old or experienced you are or think you are. I feel like I am always learning the lessons that just hurt me both mentally, emotionally and on the rare occasion physically (i.e. dog bite). I am not sure if recent events are that of a lesson or just that of experience. As usual, I am confused.

I put my every emotion and feeling into things that I know I am good at. When I write, I sometimes catch myself crying or even laughing depending on the topic. The same goes for my family and friends. I want to fix everything for everyone but then I am left with a mess at my feet. I can’t help it, I just do. I have always been that way. I am a compassionate person for the most part and when I feel it in my heart that is all I need to move forward. At first I feel I am doing the right thing, until it blows up in my face and then BAM, I am the one in pieces. I put my heart out there for people to step on it and at this point I am beginning to think it is best left under lock and key.

When I worked as a counselor, I used to teach my clients about boundaries and walls that they had put up and needed to work on breaking down. Is it possible that I need to work on building my walls and boundaries? I am not sure I have ever had either at this point. If you are a regular reader, you know that I have been struggling with reading the book “Co-Dependant No more”. Don’t get me wrong, it is not taking me a long time because it is a hard book to read, I just can’t seem to sit down and finish it. Recently I made it through Chapter 7 which is; Set yourself Free; Let go and Let god. That chapter was the first chapter I actually did the activities for. I will not put you to sleep with the answers to the questions, but I came to a realization that I am 100% Co-Dependant. I always knew I was, but that chapter described every bit of me. Co-dependants aren’t the people who make things happen, we are the people who try to FORCE things to happen. Those words, describe me! Sadly, I do that.

If you read my previous post, you may understand what I am getting at. I put a lot of stock in that. I think I may have put too much stock in it. It makes me sad that I know now, and I have spoken now and discussed things and then SILENCE. That is it, nothing else. My husband (who normally just lets me realize things on my own) made me feel better last night when I said “Well, honey once again I put my heart into something and it got smashed. What a waste of energy and emotion”. He said “No, it was not a waste. You know now, and you had no contact for 30 years so what is waiting a little longer?” While I agree with him, it still hurts my heart that there is so much I want to know and learn, but this is something I cannot control and that sucks! I will work on letting go, and being patient. I will try and breathe a bit more and be patient. I will….

The next chapter is “Remove the Victim”; needless to say I have not even begun reading that one. Thanks for reading…

Peace Love and patience

Not A Sitcom Family

I used to think that my family was like the Brady Bunch, oh so perfect nothing ever went wrong. I remember the exact day my "Marsha Brady fantasy" had come crashing down. My parents first real big fight. Then from there on out, things just got more and more like Roseanne. There was no slow after school special background music when mom and dad made up or when one of us got into trouble. There were days that were perfect and there were days that were far from it. Don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful life and am in no way complaining, but recent events have changed my whole outlook on things. This week, I have realized that we were NEVER like the Brady Bunch..

There is a lot going on in my head right now. It has (for once) become very hard to find the words to describe what I am feeling, because there is just so much to feel. My whole life has been a puzzle with a million pieces. Each time I pass a milestone I place a piece and there before me becomes my story. Then something or someone shakes the table and all the pieces come crashing down. I have always been able to pick them up and place them back where they belong, but every time I have noticed a missing piece. There has always been a missing piece, a very important piece that could have played a big role in my story.

I feel betrayed and angry. I feel like I was never given a choice to make any kinds of decisions. I am questioning a lot of my memories and trying to dig deep inside them to see if there may have been clues back then. My head hurts so badly because I just can’t stop looking back. I thought I knew everything about my family. I thought I had everything under control. I feel like I was kept in the dark, perhaps for protection at the time, from what? From possible happiness or love?

Young people do dumb things, I know this! MOST of these dumb things are selfish acts that others pay for in the long run. I have learned, as a parent, that selfish is not a word anymore. There is no selfish in being a parent. You can’t be about yourself anymore, it is about your children. There are no excuses or good reasons why!

I have always been very strong and I feel like for the first time, I have no answers for anything. Honestly, I don’t even know what questions to ask. It is hard when the person who has the answers is gone. I am trying to live in the moment, and not play the “what if” game, but that is easier said than done.

I have a big brother! I have known for years, but was never told the truth. I always just assumed he didn’t want anything to do with us (for good reason). I have searched obsessively! But this final search, I was not giving up and I found him. I feel as if I am a child now and need my big brother to beat up the boys that picked on me in school or the guys that hurt me. There are so many memories that he should have been a part of in my life. I blame myself for not looking harder; I blame myself for not asking more questions and making my parents tell me about him.

Just like a sister, I can feel his pain just in his words. I want to reach out and hug him and tell him everything will be ok, just like I have done with my two sisters, but he is a grown man, I think those times are lost. It makes my heart ache, knowing that the man that raised me and taught me the ways of the world, could cause such pain to someone else and for that I am lost and angry.

I may not know everything about him, but I will learn. It is never too late! Slowly I think the pain that we all have will dissipate and we will all rebuild. That does not change the fact, that he is my brother regardless of what I know or don’t know. I love him just the same like he has always been there...

Peace love & tears….

Time for a Session

I have issues.
I worry about everything and everyone under the sun.
I make your problems my problems.
I cry your tears and laugh your laughs.
I want to save the world.
I want to adopt every child and every animal that has been abused and take out the abusers.
I want to fix EVERYTHING.
It makes me sad to watch someone suffer.
I want to scream when I can’t do it all.
It makes me angry when people don’t do what they should.
Sometimes I feel like I could drop everything and disappear.
Sometimes I feel like I have failed, as a student, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter and especially as a sister.
I’m pretty sure at times, that I have totally lost it.

I have issues.
I Psychologize everyone including myself, which I think I’m good at, but probably shouldn’t do it.
I really need to find time to cry (is that bad?)
I want my ovaries back, I changed my mind!
Knowing I can’t, makes me want another baby.
I don’t want to socialize.
I just want to be left alone sometimes (most of the time!)
I can’t control it.
I don’t want to eat healthy or exercise, what’s the point?
I am sure I will get cancer at some point in time.
Very few people know the REAL ME.
I am not trying to hide anything, just don’t want to share.
I love my husband but don’t show it.
I’m scared to death that I will fail my son.
IM LAZY AS HELL!
I miss my baby sister.
I’m worried about my grandma.
I MISS MY DADDY!!

I REALLY need to finish reading that book...
I’m not Bipolar or Schizophrenic!

This session has ended!

Hope is all I have

I have been attempting to start writing since Christmas, with no luck. I have so many things going on inside my head; I don't even know where to start. I guess since, it is a new year; I can begin with HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Since I gave up resolutions years ago, I really don’t have any to speak of. In my mind it is just a means for me to fail. (yea that’s my positive attitude)

I cry a little bit every New Year’s Eve because I know that this is another chance to start over. Even though I have 365 days to start over, it is very overwhelming for me. Every time a new year begins, I realize how I am not doing the things I always thought I would be doing by the time I hit 30. There are so many things I want to do and every year, I say this year will be my year and BAM 365 days later, i'm saying it again with nothing to show for it. It gets very frustrating. So instead of making a resolution, I will make a few HOPES for 2011.

For starters all I can hope for in 2011 is that perhaps it is better than 2010. Maybe some of my hopes will come true. Even if it’s just one that would be good enough for me. I hope Mason gets to start Kindergarten at a good school and he does well with the transition. I hope I do well with the transition. I hope my husband has a less stressful year and is able to enjoy things a little more and relax. I hope that I can get my health issues in check.

I hope that my Mimi gets a clean bill of health and her BIG C goes away quickly and she recovers well from it, because as selfish as this sounds, I don't know what I would do without her. I hope my mom's BIG C stays on the plateau it is on and she stays healthy, because again as selfish as this one sounds I do need my mommy. I hope my father in laws BIG C gets better and he has a great year and my mother in law stays healthy to take care of him.

I hope my newly married big sister has a wonderful first year of marriage with her new complete family. I hope my baby sister makes the right decision for her future and starts her life over the right way for the better and keeps herself on that road to her children. I hope she enters the real world again with lessons learned as a new woman with new priorities.

Most of all, I really hope that this year I can finally practice what I preach and realize that I am not responsible for anyone else but myself and my family. I am nobody else’s keeper. I need to finish my “Co-Dependent No More” book and accept the fact that I CANNOT fix everyone and it is not my fault if someone goes down the wrong road. I can’t control anyone. I will be a new Heather, that takes care of her boys and doesn’t feel the need to pick up the pieces of those who become broken by their own faults. I have my own pieces to tend to, thank you very much and I am wore out from that. I have been tending to other’s “pieces” for over 15 years and I just can’t do it anymore.

The love I have is all I can give, and to me, that is the most important.

Finally, I really hope that I can find something new in my life to enjoy in 2011, whether it is something for my whole family or just for me. I need NEWNESS!!

Lots of Peace & Love in 2011!

"To the Faithful Departed"

When the mood strikes, I feel the need to write. This is the only outlet I have, where I know I can say what is on my mind and SOMEONE out there is listening. I may not know their name or where they live, but they are out there and they are reading this with an open mind. I don’t like to burden anyone with my feelings or depressed states. I am the one who everyone wants to talk to and I intend to keep it that way. With that, this session has begun:

Death is inevitable and I know that now. I remember the very first time I realized that. I think I was around 16 or 17 and my great grandma (Granny) had died. It was my very first trip to a cemetery and a funeral. I remember the small plot in the ground for her urn to be buried. I had never seen an urn before. I couldn't believe that was all that was left of her. I saw my grandpa cry at the end and knew that death was real. I remember that is when I wrote my very first real poem. And so it began…

I remember every funeral I have been to since then. I remember every person that was buried. I remember how I felt and every time I remember that each funeral made me think of all the funerals I had been to in the past. Death makes me think of nothing but good about the person that passed and that even though it is a sad moment, there are more happy moments to make their passing less painful. Then death hit even closer to home, it actually hit my home.

I remember I had found out that my father had cancer the day that I was going to a funeral for a dear friend’s father. I felt like such an ass, because all I could think of when I got there was that my dad could be in that casket… Sadly, less than a year later my father was in that same room, at the same funeral parlor, in a similar casket. Talk about irony. I began losing my faith in whatever it was I believed in. I believed that bad people should be stricken with bad diseases and I though that for a long time.

My grandmother passed away yesterday. Sadly, we were not as close as we all should have been, but that does not mean I have ever loved her any less. I have many fond memories of her. The way she taught me how to knit and wouldn’t give up until I did it right (I know where daddy got it from). Her “tough love” attitude that sometimes scared me but made us kids mind her. The way she took care of me when I was sick when my parents were out of town. She would always comment on my hair and how she loved it long. I guess the point I am making is miles in between family shouldn’t mean anything. Love and happy memories can go on for a lifetime, and that will keep her in my heart forever.

With my grandmother’s passing, it has brought something to my mind however, that makes me so sad. I feel that now everything that was my father has now gone away. The people that brought him into this world are now gone and all that is left of him, well, is my sisters and I. I am hoping that since they are all up their together, they can all be forced to get along and be happy together. It’s like it is official, as childish as this sounds. All of him is gone and that just hurts.

I am sad, but I am also, so very thankful that I have my mother. My aunts and uncles are grown adults but they are still grandma’s babies. It pains me just to know that anyone has lost their mother. Words could not describe what it would do to me if I lost mine. Cancer has taken enough of her, but to lose her entirely would be something I don’t know that I could handle. I don’t know what it feels like, and I don’t ever want to feel it. Losing a mother would be losing a part of you. She carried you around and kept you healthy and alive inside herself for 9 months. Then she brings you out into the world and protects you as long as she can. I am so grateful that I have my mother still.

Watching people die makes you sad, but you should still be grateful for what you have in your life…I am grateful for: James, Mason, Mom, Mimi, Jon, Tara, Kerri,Steven, all Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nieces, nephews, best friends and to be alive..

Peace, Love and FAMILY

Jagged Little Pills

Headache.. pop a pill, back hurts.. pop a pill, can't sleep.. pop a pill, blood pressure too low.. pop a pill, blood pressure not low enough.. pop a pill, side effects from one pill.. pop a pill, side effects from that pill.. pop a pill.
See where i'm going with this? My world has been run by pills, and not the fun make you feel all warm and free inside pills. PILLS! Over the counter pills, prescription pills, a vitamin for this a vitamin for that.

I have come to a conclusion: I DON'T NEED IT ANYMORE! Now don't get me wrong, there are some that I nor my family can live with out such as my anxiety medicine. That does help and I just can't relax my mind long enough to convince myself I don't need them. For those of you that know me, you probably know what's coming next.

I recently entered the world of acupuncture. Yea little tiny needles placed in areas that are called accupoints to help with certain health problems such as sinus headaches, migraines, aches and pains etc. I was always worried about the price, and the feeling of little needles being put into my skin, but honestly if you find the right place it is easier on the wallet than you think and you hardly feel the needles. I have only been twice so far, but I have not had a migraine or needed to take a migraine pill in two weeks. Which is a big deal for me. I think that this will be my new addiction. If I have to have one, I would prefer it to be something that is not a chemical dependency and that actually HELPS! So for right now acupuncture it is. If you are having problems with anything and you have an open mind, consult your local acupuncturist.


That is all for this one.

Peace & love