Loving what drives me crazy

Hi my little growing one,

There are a few things on my mind these days. I wish sometimes I collected all the Ava-isms you expound on daily. Like tonight, when we were reading books before bedtime and you said "we don't eat books, only vegetables and fruit" or at other times when you throw your arms around me and say "I love you." Times like these I think for anything I've done not quite up to par as a parent, overall I'm doing well.

Funny thing about people I love, and possibly people you will love in your lifetime. The closer you are to someone, you can find 12 million reasons to love them, but five minutes later you can find 12 million reasons not to love them. Sometimes the reasons are the same, meaning you might love someone today for being social and independent, but tomorrow that might drive you crazy. That's the funny thing about love.

So in any day, the choice is yours. I remember many years ago when I was going through relationship trouble, my Grandma Susie told me that I had to think of the good things about that person. She was right. Finding the good in someone has magical, dynamic power and can move insurmountable mountains. The shift happens first in me, because thinking bad of someone brings me down, and then that gets thrown onto the other person or some bystander or bystanding cat and everything starts to catapult into enemy territory.

So my practice is to choose. It's like yoga for the brain - one of my favorite teacher these days says something along the lines that you can do a pose perfectly but if your brain is bouncing like the ball in Pong (a game I don't expect most to remember) then where is the yoga? But if you're struggling physically in a pose, it's not some kind of ideal, but your brain is calm, that is yoga. I try and often succeed in finding the yoga brain when my asana looks imperfect. Looks aren't everything, and I trust feelings more than looks.

Which brings me to feelings. When my brain is calm, and mostly quiet, that is a good time to trust feelings - good feelings, bad feelings, indifferent feelings. When my brain is crazy, there is no room to listen. I read recently that prayer can be considered my requests to God (or whomever is on duty in the great cumulus cloud in the sky) but meditation is listening to God. I've taken a break from teaching yoga because I want more yoga for me, and I want more meditation, more quiet brain. Quiet brain, I find, is a happy brain. But I was talking about feelings. If, and it's a quite likely if, you're like me, you can feel what others are feeling around you. So sometimes the challenge is in figuring out whether a feeling is mine or I picked it up from someone at work like a gallon of milk at the store on the way home.

Some people will like that you can see through the bullshit and choose to tell the truth even if it's not easy. Some people will be scared to early retirement by this. The latter group usually chooses to stay away from me, which is just fine. Some people like their illusions and delusions; others are ready to shed them like winter clothing. Please remember that just because someone doesn't want to be around you doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

Feelings, especially strong ones, are best sorted out, waited on, and waited out until they're not quite so urgent. The urgency of really strong emotions, like the ones that say RUN! Run NOW! well, question those and often do the opposite. I don't mean when you're in a dark garage and you get a funny tingle in the back of your neck or gut ... follow those feelings. I mean the unfounded ones when safety isn't an issue, when really the issue is that fear is trying to take over and when the hardest thing to do is dig in your heels and stay put.

I get that I'm talking rather philosophically and abstractly but hopefully one or two of the tangential messages ring through.

The short version, edited and summarized, is I love you. Sometimes what I love about you (like you want to do things 'all by myself') is exactly what drives me crazy. Sometimes what I love about Daddy is precisely what makes me want to run. When I want to run, I tell myself to stay. I breathe in, I breathe out, I calm down my chaotic brain. I stay put. Sometimes when one of my friends is all bent out of shape about work or relationship or something else, I feel like I'm upset right along with her. These times I ask "Is this (feeling) mine or is it not?" If it's not, I breathe in, breathe out, and find a dozen things I love about my life. Then I breathe love into my heart, warming that place in my chest, and think of someone I know to share that love with. I think of that person until the world shifts and I feel good again.

love,
always,
Mommy