Life is strange

I am learning lately that things are not always the way we think they are and what we think is good for us is not necessarily always that way.  For example I came to be a believer that following my feelings was really the best way to act in life but lately I am seeing more and more how my intense feelings can get in the way and yes it can be true… feelings are not necessarily facts.  The reality of others and how they feel and act is not always the way I project either. I just cannot truly know what is going on inside another person’s mind or heart.

I am feeling quite tired this week.  There is a very weary feeling to the life that I am living.  There is the feeling that I need to make a major change and I am just feeling like I want to shed a lot of my things from the past.  I live in a house I have been in for over 7 years now and I moved in here without very much stuff and now I am surrounded with things.   Books and trinkets and objects of art and beauty that I have collected like a bower bird over the past years here as this is the first real home I have had in a long, long time.  But I wake up often and see all of these things and part of me just wishes to shed them and make a change of some kind, I am feeling the desire to live somewhere new.

I had a long chat with my sister yesterday.   There were many long silences in our discussion and at times I just felt the pregnant silence vibrating between us.  I was reminded of similar conversations with my older sister who is now dead, we were both comfortable with these long silences and I often felt a lot more was heard and said in the silences than in the discussions…maybe we were both struggling to say what we were really feeling.

One thing that came up is my sister is not going to my nephew’s oldest daughter’s 21st in a few weeks time.  Even though we are not close to them I was actually thrilled to be invited to the event.  I know its going to be very formal and they are very into the trappings of success, living in a big house that is more like an art gallery than a house, but all of that just didn’t occur to me when I got the invitation.  All I felt was happiness at being invited.  But after talking to my sister now I am having doubts.  I told my sister I will just show up as myself and be myself.  I won’t have the expensive party dress to wear, but I know what ever I wear will be good enough.  I just told my sister yesterday I want to be connected to my family or at least try to have a connection with family and that its not conditional on them or me being any way.  I know they are a highly formal family but everyone has a heart down deep inside, how will it help me to be separate to my family just because they don’t live by the same values as I do?  I told my sis “I am just going to use it as a new opportunity to observe human nature!”… Also I would like a chance to get to know them more, rather than just judge them from behind the defences of pain or sorrow I feel that we have not been connected in the past.

I hate doubting my decisions though.  I know my sister’s decision not to go is equally valid.  She just doesn’t have the strength for superficial social events at present but I did tell her yesterday I feel really sad when weeks go by with no contact from her.  I accept it and so I call, otherwise I make the decision to just let the relationship with my sis go.   I asked her yesterday what she would like or needed and she thanked me for the call but I wasn’t feeling any deep desire from her part to be connected with me which is also fair enough and perfectly understandable.  I came off the call having a major energy spin out and it was late by the time I got to do the shopping for food and other things I needed.

Anyway our relationship has never been easy.  There is an 8 years age difference and siblings are not always close.   It makes me sad but its just the way it is and so I have to accept it.  I don’t have much more to say today.   I am feeling a little low on energy so I am going to have a quiet gentle day with Jasper, my dog.   I was excited to find the movie Rebel In the Rye yesterday at the video store.  Its based on the life of J D Salinger, writer of The Catcher in the Rye so I am looking forward to watching that later this afternoon.  My inner critic gives me a hammering over watching so many movies “you have so few real connections and live in a fantasy land of films and books” he tells me, casting a dismissive gaze toward me.  But the truth is I love stories that show the lives of others, what they endured and struggled with and overcame or were destroyed by.   And it’s also okay Mr Critic for me to like what I like.  I get a bit tired of the old critic though… sometimes I wish he would just take a hike.  But these days I am just watching these thoughts drift by like clouds without attaching to them in any way.  I will let Mr A yammer on with his opinions and watch my movie later anyway!