NEVER GIVE UP PAYS OFF, YET AGAIN!

Rather than

Asking you to

Scroll in reverse

You shall see

The photo (promised

Several posts back)

Published below today’s

Insight-driven intuitive

Train of thought

This photo was taken

At my nephew Matt’s wedding

 9 years ago

And as Mom had

Danced the light fantastic

During her

100th birthday party

And as she’s been

On high with

My dad for these

Past 8 years

Mom was 99 in

This photo

And I, being

30 years younger

Was 69

Though this snapshot of

A moment in time when

Mom’s mind and mine felt

Utterly bewildered

Concerning

Painful changes in

Our (enmeshed)

Relationship

You and I can

Clearly see

A mother and daughter

Whose love for each other

Ran every bit

As deep as

The chasm that

Had opened

Between us based in

The classic nature of

This sad fact:

Two years after

My beloved dad had passed

Mom’s basic needs

And mine

Had polarized

Causing

Both spirits to cry

Mom’s spirit cried

Because of loneliness

Mine because I could not

Continue to keep

My kind-hearted mother

Company—every day

“Mom, I have

A husband at home

And I need to

Reconnect with

The land of

The living.”

“Well—I can’t!”

Eventually

Over the next five years

Both of our minds

Continued to whorl

Round and round within

A mutually tension-filled

Palpable sense of

Disbelieving discontent until

My spirit (and Mom’s) had

Exhausted—completely

Based in three reasons

Each to be

Detailed in

A heart-wrenching story that

Will unfold

Down the road

In which

We’ll witness

Mom, at 95

(Seven years

After Dad’s death)

Moving into

A one bedroom

Apartment (her

Living room’s

Picture window

Overlooking

A lovely park with

Weeping willow trees

Encircling

The calm waters of

A peaceful lake)

Mom’s new abode was in

A senior residence

Near my sister

In the Midwest, and  

Once I could travel

I’d flown 

(Every six weeks) from

My home (nestled within

The foothills of

The southwestern desert) to

Mom’s side until

With the passage of

5 additional years

The day dawned when

I’d held my mother’s

Frail body as

Tenderly in

My arms, her head

Resting on my shoulder

As had become

 Customary for us

In the aftermath of

Dad’s death

And when I asked

My precious

100 year old mother—

“Mom, can you feel my love?”

Thank goodness, Mom—lifting

Her head so that

Her eyes connected ever so

Lovingly with mine—replied

(For the first time in years)

“Yes, Annie, I feel your love.” 

And as our spirits smiled

At each other with contentment

At long last

My Dad’s spirit, always

Hovering close by

Gathered his sweetheart’s

Spirit within

His loving embrace, and as

My beloved parents

Melted into each other

Years of tension

Humming ever so

Sadly between

Mom’s needs and mine

Evaporated

Freeing all of

The air in the room to

Fill with

Fluffy white clouds of

Love, easily inhaled and

Peacefully exhaled

As though a miracle had

Spontaneously

Broken an evil spell

And magically—

(I believe in

The mysticism of intuition)

Here was Mom’s just reward and

Mine for having

Maintained our faith in

The power of

Our love for each other

Winning against all odds:

All was well that had ended well

At the end of Mom’s earthly life

Though, personally

I’d still had

Quite a bit of

Detective work

Ahead of me

Concerning

Haunting sensations of

Undeserved guilt

In need of being

Relieved before

My connection to

Peace of mind

Had felt

Securely

Recovered from

Unresolved

Childhood trauma, which—

Viva L’ EMDR therapy

Had en-couraged

My intelligence to

Piece together

A detailed picture of

Why I’d been astutely

Diagnosed with

PTSD

After which

The course of

My therapy took

A turn for the better as

Insight-laden trains of

Intuitive thought, filtering from

Within subconscious storage into

The readied receptacle of

The conscious portion of

My thought processor

Continued to embrace

Aha! Moments that

Changed my self image for the better

Little by little

Over time

And that is good because

Change is the only

Constant in life

Which is why

Our relationships with

All others and

Our relationship with

Oneself

Will always be in

Some state of flux

(And thus do

Our wedding vows

Declare

“For better or worse”)

So—if, over

Your lifetime

You’ve been

So fortunate as to have

Experienced moments of

Pure bliss then you, like

Mom, Dad and me

Have been blessed with

The best that

Life has to offer

and what, I ask

Could feel better than embracing

An outlook as positively focused

As that!  L’Chaim! To life!

Hmmm—Where did that fiddler get off to?

He just missed his cue!

Oh wait!  I get it!

His were the footsteps I’d  heard on the roof

Sunrise!  Sunset!

Here one minute

Gone the next

Like it or not

That’s the circle of life

Hakuna Matata, Mama

MY PROCESSOR IS ON HIATUS

 My apologies as

The end of my last post

Is seriously

In need of editing

And once

My wearied mind

Feels rested

That’s exactly what

I’ll do

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

PS

Done

PSS

I’ll not forget

To post

The photo

Promised

Yesterday—

Tried again

Unsuccessfully 

Today

Hmmm

Two processors

Seem to be

On hiatus

One inside my head

The other

Held in my hand

LOL!

SUMMATION OF WHY PEACE OF MIND IS CURRENTLY MINE

 A bit of review followed by a string of inter-related insights (none of which are new) strung together in such a logical detailed manner that I’ll bet today’s intuitive train of thought will unearth deeper truth so as to rescue my peace of mind by resolving a long standing sense of inner conflict (though over most of my life, I’d no conscious clue that this particular inner conflict, based in undeserved guilt carried forward from childhood in its unidentified and thus unresolved state, had caused my anxiety to arise on too many occasions to enumerate).  So okay, here we go—

After my beloved grandpa and baby sister’s sudden (mysterious) ‘disappearances’, no one in my extended family smiled, leaving me, just shy of three, feeling terrified, utterly bereft, deeply confounded, all alone and as depressed as everyone else—for many months.

As children blame themselves, undeservedly and as these terrifying ‘disappearances’ terrified my three year old undeveloped thought processor, I’d held myself personally accountable, subconsciously, to ‘fix’ everyone’s miseries—and thus was The Fixer born—

With  Lauren’s birth, just weeks after my fourth birthday, my extended family’s smiles re-ignited my own, and unconsciously, I’d vowed to keep everyone safe from harm by being the best problem solver in the entire world, thus turning my mind into a world class observer of both sides of human nature.

Over time, my adult thought processor resolved issues (belonging to others) with such insightful success that everyone in my immediate family discussed their problems openly with me (except for my father, who, like me, had ‘solved’ his problems on his own).  And each time a loved one’s problem resolved, their smiles were my ‘just’ reward.

So when at the age of sixty, I’d had to bend my brain over backward in hopes of turning my widowed mother’s frown upside down whenever she and I were alone—with the passage of seven years, my strength of spirit, having worn itself out, saw my heart feeling every bit as sadly broken as had felt true following Janet’s sudden death at which time my mommy was inconsolable for many months.  And when Dad died suddenly at 87, I’d not yet understood the confounding magnitude of the human brain’s many-layered emotional complexity, which has no concept of time … 

Once I’d felt compelling need to gently say: No, Mom, I can’t come over, today, my beloved mother (who’d rarely heard me say ‘no’, beginning at the age of three) let me know, over the next several years (details to follow in the story concerning the sudden death of my father) that she’d felt unloved by me (you see, immediately following my parents’ wedding day, my mom’s mother had moved in with the bride and groom. And as Grandma Ella had lived with our family, I’d watched my mom fulfill her mother’s every need until my grandma’s death when I was 26). And reflection suggests that no one expected me to break that traditional pattern.

Two years after my dad’s death, when I could no longer fulfill my widowed mother’s every need, Mom, feeling lonelier than her persona revealed to anyone but me, told me, outright, that she felt unloved by me.

As for me, our loving friendship of sixty years began to feel like a vice, squeezing the life of my long buried need for existential independence between a rock and a hard place.  And no amount of loving patience on both of our parts could bridge that huge divide—until Mom said:  Annie, I can feel your love.  Thank God.  On the day that she died.

So how did my personal perspective concerning our family’s enmeshed dynamics change for the better, last week?

Well, though I’d known myself not responsible for resuscitating Mom’s smile, two years after Dad’s death, that’s not how I’d felt. And so, at my end of this canyon that had opened its jaws,  it has been my emotional reaction to frowning faces (most especially my mom’s) that has been in need of change, ever since I was three.

Currently, with the astute guidance of my therapist (who had known my mother), the intuitive portion of my brain began to envision a step by step change in my original perspective as I’d processed this next insight-laden train of thought aloud, knowing that one insight often leads to more:

My mother smiled at me before Janet’s birth.

My mother smiled at me after Janet’s birth.

My mother’s smile disappeared after Janet died.

My mother smiled after Lauren was born.

My mother smiled at me while my dad was alive.

My mother’s smile disappeared after Dad died.

My mother smiled at others but her spirit sagged as soon as she and I were alone.

“Mom, I need your smile, too,”

“Then who will I tell the truth of how I really feel?”

“A grief group or a therapist,”

“I don’t need a therapist or a grief group.”

So I went to both.

I have been a good person (and a loving daughter) throughout my life.

Currently, instead of imagining my mother’s heartbroken frown …

Now, I imagine my mother’s spirit with Janet’s

Now, I imagine my mother’s spirit with my father’s

Now, I imagine my mother’s spirit feeling reason to smile as she is no longer living alone at her advanced age for the first time in her life.

Each time I imagine my father’s arm around my mother  who is cuddling Janet safely in her arms—I see all three smiling down at me from on high—igniting my spirit—feeling free of undeserved guilt—to smile up at my loved ones, whose palpable happiness at being reunited, warms my heart as thoroughly as if a ray of sunshine streaming across an azure blue sky has aimed the best mind cleansing attitude straight into my heart, which—having felt as sadly broken as had been true, twice, of my Mom’s—currently feels mindful of the roles played by unrealistic expectations, defensive reactions and undiagnosed PTSD, my sense of self awareness, which has continued to heighten via therapy, felt compelled to understand the nature of the canyon-sized gap that had so sadly widened between my beloved Mother and me until earlier in the week when I’d felt the last vestiges of undeserved guilt (the source of my inner conflict) evaporate, thus lifting the heavy sense of wrongdoing that I’d shouldered, freeing my spirit to float ever so lightly above the chasm, which clarity sees closing every bit as seamlessly as I can feel my brokenness of heart healing wholesomely from the inside out, at last..

And now that I imagine my mother, no longer widowed and mourning her husband, all alone, in her home, I feel myself wrapped within her loving embrace as she smiles down at me as tenderly as had been true before Janet’s sudden death and then again, after Lauren’s birth inclusive of the next sixty years of my life (at which time I’d so rarely said no to whatever had been asked of me that any time I’d felt compelled to meet one of my basic needs rather than fulfilling my widowed mother’s spoken need of my daily presence,  I’d feel a sense of guilt emerge from deep within as though my precious mother had been wronged beyond repair).  However, once I’d imagined my mother, father and baby sister reunited, my spirit, feeling freed of undeserved guilt, began to feel that, over my lifetime, my mother’s smile and my own had been on the same wave length, much more often than not, and thus did I recreate a realistic revision within my mind’s eye of that which had been my mom’s unrealistic expectation of perfection between mother and daughter 

And now, whenever I imagine being alone with my widowed mother, who—having unmasked her persona, freed her saddened spirit to show itself thoroughly soaked, through and through, with sorrow—I, who had consciously continued to be a loving, though emotionally spent daughter, do not fault myself for having ‘failed’ to turn her lonely frown back around.

With this string of detailed insights shining a spirit brightening spotlight upon the heartfelt nature of our love for each other, the natural emergence of deeper truth serves to reignite my spirit’s guilt-free smile as readily as does this reality:  Mom and I had enjoyed our close friendship, over most of my life—and hopefully, you, like me, can now, clearly see how today’s objective revision of my original undeserved guilt-ridden personal misperception (which had unconsciously deemed me unworthy of unconditional love ever since the age of three) continues to enhance my peace of mind, each time my intuitive train of thought concerning the heartfelt friendship shared with my beloved mother cleanses my processor of inner conflict by way of purging undeserved guilt wholly and thus thoroughly from my mind.

As David Schnarch, PhD psychologist, author of Passionate Marriage, had once said to my husband and me: You both hold all of the puzzling pieces of your relationship in your hands, but neither of you has yet learned how those pieces (of detailed insight) have need to fit together to clarify the true story of your many layered married life. 

And now, whenever my mindful sense of wholeness conjures my mother’s spirit, filling the azure blue sky, the seamless connection between my guilt-free spirit and non-conflicted mindset—sensing my dad’s loving spirit and Janet’s hovering close by—feels the natural warmth of Mom’s heartfelt smile igniting my own.

                            November 23, 1941

                                       May 31, 1970

The photo directly above was taken at my cousin, Phil’s wedding.  As Phil is married 30 years, Mom was 79 and I, 49.  (My current age is 78, and I plan regain my health so as to dance the light fantastic at the celebration of my 100th birthday.)

There’s one more photo of Mom dancing with me at another cousin’s wedding (Lara); however for unknown reason that photo refuses to be published in this post—no worries.  You see, as soon as I figure out this puzzlement, that photo will appear, clearly, right here.  And with that thought in mind, please scroll back, from time to time, as the missing snapshot shows Mom (who had lived to be 100) in her late 90’s which means I was in my late 60’s, suggesting that unexpected changes in our deeply loving, life long relationship had begun to puzzle both of our minds as deeply as our spirits had felt as sad as sad can be … no bad guys to be seen …just a confounded pair of fast friends—mother and daughter—feeling as bewildered as bewildered can be, suggesting that ignorance is not bliss if, upon choosing the road most taken, anguish awaits to break two hearts for this reason:   On the highway of life, both had missed the turn-off toward the sunlit neighborhood where the power of knowledge—unearthing insight-laden deeper truths—offers two people, who choose to muster the courage to stay the course—the blessed second chance to better understand oneself and each other while both are alive  …

🙋🏻‍♀️❤️Annie

HERE IS WHY PEACE OF MIND IS, ONCE AGAIN, MINE

 So why is peace of mind, currently, mine, yet again?

Well—my perspective concerning my mother’s frown, directing itself at me from the great beyond, has changed for the better in this way:

Preceding my dad’s sudden death, Mom and I had been fast friends, and during those 60 years of my life, she and I had had no conscious clue of this fact:  The smooth sailing nature of our close friendship had been largely based in my not saying no to anything she’d asked of me ever since I (nearing my third birthday) had witnessed my parents suddenly finding my baby sister dead.  And as Janet’s death was utterly unexpected, my mommy’s deeply depressed frowning visage, over the next several months, had terrified my personal sense of safety into believing myself a very bad little girl while simultaneously, our extended family had been cast into a deeply shocked, heart wrenching aura of despair, being that six weeks before Janet’s sudden death, my paternal grandfather had died, suddenly, of a massive heart attack at the age of 52.  So, let’s picture the back-to-back deaths of loved ones leaving three year old me scared half to death as to who might disappear, next, unless I was such a good little girl that nothing bad would devastate anyone I’d loved, ever again.

With the passage of weeks dragging into month after month of deeply bereft mourning, my undeveloped processor labored painfully through my extended family’s relentless darkly clouded storm, which my three year old self found much too confoundedly terrifying to even begin to fathom until my daddy followed the doctor’s advice, and soon after my fourth birthday, another baby sister, who’d looked exactly like Janet, appeared, and as everyone, most especially, my mommy, regained their smiles, so deeply relieved was I about the sun shining, again, that my persona’s perpetual care-giving smile was born, suggesting that these polarizing experiences had taken control over our lives during such an early stage of my personality development that I’d rarely felt resentful when my needs seemed to be less important to me than satisfying the needs expressed by my loved ones, my coveted reward being the relieved recipient of smile after smile.

As to the presence of this new baby, named Lauren—you can bet your life that I did everything in my power to assure myself that nothing bad would ever happen to her as had happened to Janet.  And upon reflection, I believe that my need to take good care of everyone’s needs before my own had seemed so readily forthcoming from within the depths of my being that no one was aware of when too much was asked of a good little girl for this reason:

Each time I’d unconsciously felt a sense of latent guilt erupt from deep within (based in my unidentified three year old misconception of having been so bad as to not deserve to express any emotional reactions other than those that would produce smiles, all around), that every heart-stopping pang of guilt caused me to swallow my reply of ‘No, I don’t want to do that’ so quickly that all that could be seen was my smile suggesting ‘Sure, leave it to me’.  (Today’s string of insights makes me wonder if Hercules  had begun to shoulder the woes of the world—beginning at the age of three as did I, which explains why that care-giving trait became hardwired into the very depths of my nature way before a sunshiny (deeply guilt ridden) little girl grew up to become a tireless, care-giving woman, extraordinaire.

Following my beloved father’s sudden death of a brain aneurysm when he and Mom were both 87, I’d freely spent the greater portion of every day, over the next two years, with my deeply grieving mother, whose widowhood had broken her heart.  It was not until I’d felt personal need to untangle my grieving heart from our emotional enmeshment for two days at a time that my mother’s sad-eyed frown had begun to settle itself on me—the same frown that had swallowed my mommy’s smile when I, at the age of three, had guilted myself into feeling so bad as to not have felt good enough to receive unconditional love—and thus did Mom’s sad eyed, frowning disappointment in me appear every time I’d conjured up my mother’s spirit gazing down at me from on high following her death at 100 years of age..

So how, you might ask, has my perception of my mom, frowning down at me from the great beyond changed for the better, over these past several days?

Well, the answer to that question came to me as if I’d had personal need to resolve a detailed story problem, so with thinking caps straightened on our heads, let’s begin to assemble pertinent details, one after another:

Before Janet’s sudden death, Mom had smiled ever so lovingly at me.

After Janet’s sudden death, Mom stopped smiling.

Before my grandpa’s sudden death (he’d adored me), my extended family had smiled at me

After Grandpa and Janet’s mysterious sudden disappearances, no one smiled, leaving me, just shy of three, feeling utterly bereft, deeply baffled, all alone and as depressed as everyone else—for many months.

As children blame themselves, undeservedly, I’d held myself personally accountable, subconsciously, to ‘fix’ everyone’s miseries—and thus was The Fixer born—who, having begun to develop at the age of three, has had such a stronghold on my self image that my think tank has to consciously rein her in, to this very day, because everyone’s dilemmas continue to feel so thoroughly woven throughout every fiber of my being that differentiating between my problems and the problems of others continues to be difficult for my sense of clarity to identify, which is why I so often ceel need to call upon the serenity prayer to remind me to determine whether a problem in need of resolution is beyond my control. (Like holding myself accountable for resuscitating my mother’s smile each time her persona had sagged  as soon as she and I had been alone, once widowhood (and her own lingering sense of guilt) had broken her heart.

Thank goodness—via astute sessions of therapy—both sides of my nature (the fear based, guilt-ridden  side and the courageous, self confident side) have grown well-practiced at working intuitively through inner conflict so as to offer my processor’s new sense of wholeness sound reason to place my trust in my intelligent self-confident self-image so as to feel peaceful while choosing one side over the other.  And currently, courage has become my go to side much more often than ever before.  Not because wisdom comes with age, but because it has become my conscious choice to quietly seek within until an insight-laden train of thought pops out of my mouth, thus minimizing those times when a pang of anxiety loosens the reins on an emotional reaction that may prove to be defensively rash rather than responding with a calm and patient, mutually respectful sense of having considered an issue from both sides.

And now, as my mind has tired—though we’ve not yet resolved today’s story problem—I’ll respectfully offer my think tank a rest so as to continue to add rational details, one by one (which will brighten the fresh perspective of my mind’s eye concerning the change for the better that currently envisions my beloved mother smiling down at me from on high) when next we meet.

🙋🏻‍♀️🥰Annie

5 1958 HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN Part 5

 As a way to throw the throttle of our time machine into reverse, can you guess which one within this bevy of teen-aged girlfriends (all of whom made up my ready-made social circle throughout four years of high school) is me 😊 

I have no clue as to why the rest of my club sisters were cut off on both sides of this photo.  That was not the case in the original photograph.

Debbie, before her contact lenses, is three rows up on the end, next to the twins, Judy and Jill.

I believe Debbie had nominated me for inclusion in this circle of friends, none of whom had so much as a clue that they’d saved my social life from hanging cliff side following two separate harrowing junior high experiences that made my self respect shrink with fear of early extinction.  And at fourteen—having learned nothing, as of yet, about the subconscious portion of our brains functioning as a mental powerhouse that accumulates memories, many of which were too horrible to consciously remember in detail—I had no clue how often that pair of junior high experiences had been empowered to make mincemeat of my self image—for more than 50 years of my life.

As you shall see in stories yet come come, I’ll have much to learn about love and life—which is why personal crises will have slugged me senseless, twice, a decade apart, during my middle years, at which time I’ll have engaged so seriously in therapy as to begin to learn to muster the patience and courage to regain detailed memories that my subconscious powerhouse had secreted away (within tightly locked mental blocks) from the conscious portion of my brain concerning the lasting effects of  childhood’s deeply wounded, unhealed, raw insecurities, all of which had played havoc with my adult sense of self-respect until I was diagnosed with PTSD at which time EMDR therapy—encouraging me to engage directly with my intuitive powers—offered my subconscious sound reason to believe that my conscious state of being had begun to experience so many insight-driven growth spurts (each one jump-starting my stalled emotional development) as to release smidgens of horrific memories so as not to unbalance my current sense of personal growth with the emergence of so many latent bouts of spiking anxiety that I’d feel too fearful to continue with my therapy sessions, and with patience, over time, ghost-like skeletons, inhabiting my tightly locked mental closet were intuitively unearthed and consciously purged.

And thus, while working to reassemble the broken shards of my shattered self esteem, did I learn to differentiate between a re-stabilized sense of inner peace regarding my self image and the sliding state of my peace of mind, which tends to feeling aggrieved whenever something that’s currently amiss has need to be resolved.

Good to know that though our brains are complicated thinking, feeling and decision-making devices, we all harbor the capacity to experience flashes of super sensitive insights, leading toward eye opening moments of existential enlightenment, no matter our age, as long as your mind and mine remain open to mustering humility enough to heighten levels of self awareness, which may sting before each next insight-laden growth spurt eases our way toward climbing life’s never-ending, invisible ladder of self improvement, one rung at a time.  Hence—doth growing pains precede each next leap of faith that proves necessary as you and I work toward reassembling detailed memories of heart crushing experiences so confounding, during childhood, as to have shattered portions of our budding self esteem.

 Life is not a game of Candyland—no matter what kind (or unkind) hand we’ve been dealt, no card takes us straight to the top.  Life is more like chess in that there’s always more to learn … 

And now tis time to relax my whole mind, feeling self-assured that my intuition will readily release another string of insights highlighting pertinent details about high school—some of which may actually feel brand new to the conscious portion of my brain’s thought processor for this reason—though the conscious portion of our minds can’t remember every detail, our subconscious does.😊

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

HEALTH UPDATE

 Will and I were boostered up, again, a week ago. Tuesday.

Though my arm hurt enough to take extra strength Tylenol—thankfully, no other side effects from this COVID booster were experienced by either of us.

Our first booster, having been more than six months ago (received a few weeks after my most recent lung surgery in July) saw Will pushing my wheel chair, whisking me into and out of the pharmacy (both of us safely masked) as quickly as possible.  Afterward, we’d waited the required 15 minutes within the safety of our car.

This time (seven months beyond my last lung surgery, still masked but with no need of wheelchair or walker), I realized that my fear of surviving a bout of omicron has relaxed from that which had been my experience, several months ago, at which time I could barely walk to the bathroom with walker in hand compared with being able to walk, outside, holding hands with Will as is true, today.😊

The day after our second booster, we picked up Ravi after school.

Several weeks ago, I’d not yet recouped the energy necessary to interact happily (though quietly) with my beloved seven year old grand daughter’s lively spirit for two hours on my own.  This week, what a mutually loving time had been enjoyed by Gramma and grand daughter!

With Will by my side, our walks (though veeery slow paced) had lasted, only five minutes before increasing, little by little, to ten at which time I ‘d felt too short of breath to continue without sitting down on the seat of my walker, and week by week, we’ve been able to extend our daily walk for three minutes more until the day came to pass when a total of twenty minutes has passed before my remaining lung’s current capacity to oxygenate both sides of my body felt too overtaxed to take even one more step—no walker in sight.

Positively focused moments of reflection, concerning the healing nature of emotional and physical growth spurts, provide my spirit, yet again, with a healthy way to promote each on-going change for the better as seen through my mind’s eye’s rear view mirror, and more importantly, today’s insight driven, intuitive train of thought shines a spotlight upon the attitude with which I choose to view the landscape of my life in hopes of continually accruing self-motivated, personal improvements by focusing ever more clearly upon whatever pleasures my eye, directly ahead of me, while taking a determined hold of the steering wheel of my life so as to determine the frequency with which I’ll enjoy contributing to heartfelt laughter with loved ones while growth in self awareness becomes ever more attentive toward ever so tenderly embracing the vulnerabilities of our youngsters and our oldsters inclusive of whatever age I cannot believe is true of—myself!  I mean—how can it be remotely possible that Will is soon to celebrate his 80th year—when the mere thought of that undeniable truth continues to feel utterly impossible to absorb!

Yesterday, Will and I met with the director of physical therapy at Mayo.  Though I had been scheduled to attend sessions of PT held in Mayo’s hospital gym, back in November, spiking numbers of Covid saw us quarantining seriously, at home, again, until we began to venture out on restaurant patios, as of last week.  And so, with N95 mask in place, I plan to begin PT in hopes of improving my lung’s capacity to oxygenate both sides of my body—asap. 

🙋🏻‍♀️😊Annie

PS   May I most respectfully remind you that:

I define inner peace as suggesting my being at peace with myself as a person, who strives for self improvement without putting myself down for being an imperfect human being.

I define peace of mind as suggesting a sliding state of being that depends upon something of an irritating nature within my personal life that has been resolved.

Though my personal sense of peace of mind must be aware of situations that exist, which are beyond my control to resolve, that does not mean I feel peaceful while considering human savagery, such as is currently being perpetrated upon The Ukrainian people …

Bottom line—If I did not clarify these distinctions concerning peacefulness, my mind would always feel inflamed, which is a most unhealthy way to live.

AND YET AGAIN, PEACE OF MIND IS MINE FOR A SPELL

At the age of 46, I’d had no conscious clue that by my next birthday, while enjoying a film class, my good girl persona (which I’d believed was true of me, through and through) would step aside, challenging me to think for myself about the lifelong repression of my unmet needs, which, suddenly, felt so ripe for personal fulfillment that I had need to develop a courageous (yet respectful) voice in order to verbalize emotional reactions, which, during this late blooming growth spurt, had seen me rebelling against my persona’s complicit attitude of congenial complacency concerning the classic belief that a man’s home is his castle—suggesting not that his wife is Queen but rather chattel—suggesting that discussions concerning her unmet needs had been received as little more than chatter meant to go into one ear and out the other as soon as the air was, once again, quiet—except for the voices of sports announcers on cable TV.

I had no clue that, as one change leads to more, all of my relationships were about to shift into gear (inclusive of my relationship with me), because in addition to cheerfully (unconsciously) ‘serving’ my husband’s every need for 25 years, I’d agreeably placed my needs aside, respecting those of my loved ones more than my own.  And though, over time, our family experienced countless changes for the better, we’d remained unaware of the fact that growing pains accompany growth spurts, all around.

Human nature’s struggle with dominance, subservience and equality demands that each of us must consciously come to know when it feels necessary (if not yet natural) to liberate oneself from being dominated by social convention at each next stage of life, and having, once again, liberated my mind’s comfort zone from remaining stuck in yesteryear’s rut, my mind feels peaceful, because I’ve concluded that—.

Whoops!  I’m getting way ahead of the story that had, until recently, remained firmly stuck inside my mind, so after offering you my most recent health update, back to high school, we’ll go …

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

STILL ON MY CURRENT INTUITIVE QUEST TOWARD REGAINING PEACE OF MIND

What do we unconsciously learn to emulate at our mother’s knee?

And what else is learned if ‘taken to the woodshed’ by an angered authoritative father who, all too often, metes out corporal punishment as did his all-powerful father?

What needs be widely learned (and ever more deeply absorbed) throughout the prejudiced, yet well-educated faction of our many layered society, today, concerning liberating youngsters from emulating yesteryear’s narrow mindsets that continue to defiantly denigrate every plea to unite humanity as a harmonic whole. as never before?

 “It is somewhat remarkable, that, at a time when knowledge is so generally diffused, when the geography of the world is so well understood—when time and space, in the intercourse of nations, are almost annihilated—when oceans have become bridges—the earth a magnificent hall—the hollow sky a dome—under which a common humanity can meet in friendly conclave—when nationalities are being swallowed up—and the ends of the earth brought together—I say it is remarkable—nay, it is strange that there should arise a phalanx of learned men—speaking in the name of science—to forbid the magnificent reunion of mankind in one brotherhood. A mortifying proof is here given, that the moral growth of a nation, or an age, does not always keep pace with the increase of knowledge, and suggests the necessity of means to increase human love with human learning.”  —Frederick Douglass  1845

Excerpt From The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published in 1845—so long ago as to anger my mind and fill my heart with sorrow over prejudicial attitudes passed down from one generation to the next, twisting the vulnerable perceptions of millions of children to grow up to emulate men and women who’d been ‘educated’ (at their parents’ dinner tables) to believe in harboring cold blooded hatreds within hard-hearted mindsets as though the Civil War continues to be fought within not-so-secret societies to this very day, suggesting that attitudes we learn to emulate, during childhood, will likely determine whether we grow up to be open-minded, mutually respectful, free thinkers or thoughtless brutes who (have likely been bullied at home) hide from their personal issues (with subconscious bouts of low self esteem) by wearing the mask of their defense system’s kind-hearted persona until the glaring truth of racism slips out of the racist’s two-faced mouth.

And thus does ‘learning’ (like human nature) have two sides.

I believe that, in 1845, Fredrick Douglass’s reference to learning translates into each person’s mindful capacity to work toward interconnecting with our sense of community ever more deeply and expansively by way of mustering the patience necessary while society learns to embrace universal need of personal growth.

On the other hand, had Douglass swooped down to Earth from on high, today, I believe we’d hear this remarkable orator roar—Enough with patience!   THIS is the year 2022!  Enough with 60 years of MLK’s passive marches!  Enough with lasting change is slow to grow widespread’!  Black Lives have ALWAYS mattered just as they Matter, right now!  And what the bloody hell is being done to right Putin’s old blooded criminal wrongs, which are killing The Ukrainians, who are literally fighting for personal freedom, day after day?  Will you well-educated people of the world never—learn?  A brute like Putin will not stop his killing machine until world powers step up and join forces, forcing him to stop in his tracks and retreat into palaces ostentatious enough to dazzle Queen Elizabeth’s royal eye—Must you wait until this lying predator attacks your freedoms, too?  Think Pearl Harbor but in terms of today’s threat of nuclear warfare!

Though the train of thought concerning Douglass’s fury is my own conjecture, I’ve read The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which breathed life into this self-taught, learned orator and renown author, raised within the heartless, shackled confines of utterly deprived, poorly nourished, impoverished slavery with lash marks aplenty scarring his back, as he’d experienced, first hand, the sad fact that lasting change doth not take place in the absence of growing pains, and as one change for the better leads to another, growing pains must be expected to invade peace of mind  during each next stage of your life and mine.

In addition to the three ‘R’s’, everyone who’s ever walked on planet Earth, has had gargantuan portions of knowledge to learn and absorb concerning attitudes in need of change for the betterment of humankind as a whole as each of us experiences sound reason to seek out, expand and deepen our conscious comprehension of love, truth, peace, war, liberty, community, brotherhood, friendship, self respect, mutual respect, roots and wings, personal boundaries, instinctive reactions, self disciplined attitudes, actions and beliefs concerning mental and emotional intelligence, compassion, empathy, enmeshment, existential growth spurts and death—WHEW!  When the subject is learning about humanity I could go on and on.  And on … and having read Douglass’s memoirs, I dived straight into The Dread Scott decision.  No wonder why Harriet Beecher Stowe felt driven to write and publish Uncle Tom’s Cabin in hopes of brightening the minds of the populous by turning the spotlight upon the savagery of slavery, making abolitionists of those of us whose attitudes of complacency had languished for far too long in self-absorbed ignorance—

“The Lives Grown Out of His Life”

this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro

beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world

where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,

this man, superb in love and logic, this man

shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,

not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,

but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives

fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

—Robert Hayden”

Excerpt From

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass & Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

HAMANTASCHEN

 A dear friend surprised us with the delicious gift of Hamantaschen, today.

Today is Purim, a day to commemorate (and contemplate) the biblical merriment of the Jewish people, who had won their freedom from the death threat of an authoritarian ruler—yet again.

Maureen Mackay writes—

“Purim is important in 2022 as the Russia-Ukraine war rages”

“The Book of Esther, shares messages of deep faith on Purim: 'We pray that the hardships for all people end swiftly and peacefully'”

Putin will not end his army’s bloody march against the determination of the Ukrainian people to govern themselves and raise their families, peacefully, unless this billionaire dictator’s ferocious attack on humanity is stopped in its tracks—not by public opinion but by the resolute actions taken by world leadership asap as proved necessary during Hitler’s terrorizing reign of heartless  enslavement and murder of millions of men, women and children while ordering the bombardments of city after city in nation after nation until the safekeeping of planet earth was embroiled within the flames of World War II.  Begging the question—has World War III begun?

I fear the answer to that question is yes, because, historically, this world of ours is never not at war … spotlighting this reality:  As long as human nature has two sides, freedom from terrorist tyranny must be won anew, repeatedly.

👩🏻Annie

THE REMARKABLE BRILLIANCE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

While contemplating the complex self image that each of us develops during childhood, I find it remarkable to note that during his enslaved boyhood, Frederick Douglass (who had been separated from his mother at birth, could not understand why white men could own black men, women and children) devised a creative way to teach himself to read and write in direct defiance of his master.  And following his courageous escape to the North at the age of twenty, Douglass became revered within the abolitionist movement as an eloquent orator and writer extraordinaire.  Between 1845 and 1892 Douglass, knowing himself a hunted fugitive, penned and published three autobiographies, all of which received such widespread acclaim that many printings of each had to be ordered to accommodate supply with demand—

This fact also proves highly remarkable:  The number of biographies published about the life of Frederick Douglass, suggests that my being awestruck sees me in the company of countless literary figures who have been so deeply impressed with Douglass’s brilliance as to have chosen to make a study of his remarkable life.  And now, let’s invite Frederick Douglass—fathered by his master, torn from his mother’s arms after birth, and raised within the horrendous reality of slavery—to speak for himself:

“It is somewhat remarkable, that, at a time when knowledge is so generally diffused, when the geography of the world is so well understood—when time and space, in the intercourse of nations, are almost annihilated—when oceans have become bridges—the earth a magnificent hall—the hollow sky a dome—under which a common humanity can meet in friendly conclave—when nationalities are being swallowed up—and the ends of the earth brought together—I say it is remarkable—nay, it is strange that there should arise a phalanx of learned men—speaking in the name of science—to forbid the magnificent reunion of mankind in one brotherhood. A mortifying proof is here given, that the moral growth of a nation, or an age, does not always keep pace with the increase of knowledge, and suggests the necessity of means to increase human love with human learning.”

Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“The temptation therefore to read the Negro out of the human family is exceedingly strong, and may account somewhat for the repeated attempts on the part of Southern pretenders to science, to cast a doubt over the Scriptural account of the origin of mankind. If the origin and motives of most works, opposing the doctrine of the unity of the human race, could be ascertained, it may be doubted whether one such work could boast an honest parentage. Pride and selfishness, combined with mental power, never want for a theory to justify them—and when men oppress their fellow-men, the oppressor ever finds, in the character of the oppressed, a full justification for his oppression. Ignorance and depravity, and the inability to rise from degradation to civilization and respectability, are the most usual allegations against the oppressed. The evils most fostered by slavery and oppression are precisely those which slaveholders and oppressors would transfer from their system to the inherent character of their victims. Thus the very crimes of slavery become slavery’s best defence. By making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, they excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.”

Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Wikipedia:

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or 1818^[a] – February 20, 1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory^[4] and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.^[5] Likewise, Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.^[6]

“Frederick Douglass sits in the pantheon of Black history figures: Born into slavery, he made a daring escape north, wrote best-selling autobiographies and went on to become one of the nation’s most powerful voices against human bondage. He stands as the most influential civil and human rights advocate of the 19th century.

Perhaps his greatest legacy? He never shied away from hard truths.

Because even as he wowed 19th-century audiences in the U.S. and England with his soaring eloquence and patrician demeanor, even as he riveted readers with his published autobiographies, Douglass kept them focused on the horrors he and millions of others endured as enslaved American: the relentless indignities, the physical violence, the families ripped apart. And he blasted the hypocrisy of a slave-holding nation touting liberty and justice for all.”  —Yohuru Williams

In order for white slaveholders to deny being cold- hearted predators, they ‘believed’ slave families were little more than brutish beasts.  In fact, horses and cows (that could not speak much less read and write) were tended to much more kindly than were brutally  enslaved men, women and children, forced to survive whippings so criminally severe as to draw rivers of blood if the master discovered covert attempts to read and write.

While contemplating the complex self image that each person develops during childhood, I wonder if you’ve ever asked yourself:  Though raised by loving parents, how much liberty did I have at home to grow to become my best independent self (free of undeserved parental guilt) during my youth?  And how often does undeserved guilt continue to haunt my sense of inner peace to this very day?

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

ON THIRD THOUGHT—😊

 With appreciation for

Your patience—

I believe you’ll agree that

Having made

Changes for

Clarity’s sake

My post, published on

 Thursday, March 10, 2022 is

Ready for final review

Please and thank you

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

ON SECOND THOUGHT—

Plain and simple—

I believe you’ll agree that

Having made insight-driven

Changes for the better

My last post begs review

Please and thank you

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

PS

Whoops, upon review, yet again

My editing of the last post

Published before this one has

Serious need of

Re-editing

Suggesting why

I hope

You’ll hold off on

Reassessing 

That train of thought

Until tomorrow

Please and thank you

Again

PEACE AND QUIET WILL BE MINE

 Ever since my dad’s death

I imagine his face

Filling the expanse of

The clear blue sky above

My mountain (both of which

My Dad’s spirit had loved)

And with my face upturned

Gazing across the azure sky

I see my dad’s heartfelt smile

Beaming straight down at me

Stimulating my spirit to smile

Bright as a sunbeam, right back at his

If only I could delete memories

Of my mom’s sad eyed facial expression

Focusing upon me while asking

Where’s my little Annie?

As had happened after

My dad’s death then

Peace of mind

Would be mine each time

My imagination draws

My mother’s face

Smiling instead of

Frowning wistfully or

Angrily at me throughout

More than the last decade of

Her life at which time

Her persona denied

The painful depths of sadness

She’d carried forward

Within her heart whenever

She and the warmth of her smile

Made a public appearance of

Emotional strength while

Privately, she’d reveal

The lasting reality of

Her grief and guilt

Repeatedly

To me so that

My over-active

Personal trait of empathy

Could not

Differentiate between

Her pain and mine

And like most of us

(Inclusive of me)

Who have no clue when

When our personas emerge

My beloved mother believed that

Her social persona had been

True straight into her core until

Eternal peace was

Her final reward once

She was laid to rest

Next to her adoring husband—

A well matched pair of

Lives well lived

And today

Eight years later

Here we be, you and I

Watching the intuitive portion of

My think tank working to

Conjure up a creative way to

Revitalize the loving smile

On my mother’s face that had

So naturally drawn forth

My own until an invisible shift

In our tender relationship

Saw each of us

Drift blindly toward

The painfully instinctive rift, which

Had stymied both of our minds

During the aftermath of

My dad’s death, twenty years ago—

And so, today—

Knowing full well

How peaceful

My heart, mind and spirit

Long to feel when

Conjuring up

The precious smile of

My beloved mother

Within the conscious

Portion of my mind

My innate power of

Intuitive thought has

Laid out

These puzzle pieces

So that we can see

How the imaginative

Portion of my brain

May partner up with

My intelligence until

Each of these

Puzzle pieces

Slides so naturally

Together that

The conscious portion of 

My memory feels enticed to

Create a bridge over

The cavern of

Enmeshed sadness

Within which

 my mother and I had

Remained stuck until

Today’s healthy shift

Concerning

An attitudinal change for

The better stirred

My conscious awareness

To bridge

The gap between

The years following

Dad’s death

And all of those that

Had come before, thus

Reconnecting

My processor’s

Heartfelt

Creative capacity to

Revitalize

The loving friendship

Enjoyed so naturally for

Sixty years by

Both Mom and me—

Because, time and again

You and I

Have learned that

Attitude is everything

(And since the same is

True of readiness and

Timing when

Change is the name of the game

We’ll also consider

The most puzzling aspects of

Love and life by adding

The subconscious nature of

Unrealistic expectations into the mix

Aha!  With all of this subterfuge 

Swirling around within

The submarine of

My subconscious

Is it any wonder why

Peace and quiet

Have not been mine since

The uprising of

My intuitive periscope spied

Unresolved angst churning

(Behind my persona)

Turning my brain into

A mixmaster, switched on to high

On the eighth anniversary of

My mother’s death, suggests that

The intuitive emergence of

Underlying emotional turmoil

Secreted within the depths of

My brain has made

Mincemeat of

My original perception of

Having harbored a sense of

Tepid introspection on

The eighth anniversary of

My precious mother’s death, and

Now—Having shared

These moments of

Insight-driven

Depth perception with you

My intuitive intelligence asks

You to contemplate

The existence of

Mind blowing secrets that

Your defense system

Will continue to hide within

Mental blocks from

The conscious portion of

Your mind until—

One day—

A courageous sense of

Readiness to openly confront

Deeper truth (concerning

Your childhood) emerges

At which time

The truth will set you free of

Undeserved guilt

Carried forth from your

Earliest years of life as

Had been true of me

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie 

IN THE ABSENCE OF PEACE AND QUIET

 “No creative work, it seems to me, can be accomplished unless people sometimes have quiet and peace around them … ”—Eleanor Roosevelt

Peace and quiet

Have not been mine

Inside my head

For the past several days

As yesterday was

The (eighth) anniversary of

My beloved mother’s death

(At the age of 100)

And as you shall see in

A story down the road

My heartfelt friendship

With my mother

Began to Unravel

Bewildering

Both of us

Ever so sadly in

Ways that had devastated

Mother and daughter after

The sudden death of

My beloved father saw

 His adored wife

Understandably

Too grief struck to

Fend for herself

For the first time

In her entire life

At the vulnerable age of 87

And so, over

The first two years of

My precious mother’s

Widowhood

I was with her—

Every day

Calling her

Our family treasure—

Suggesting that

In real time

Mom and I

Had had no clue

As to how or when

Spontaneous eruptions of

Subconscious insecurities

Which can injure

Loving relationships beyond

Repair, arose, separating us

Unconsciously into

Opposing camps, which

Pained both her heart and

Mine ever so deeply as

The personal perceptions of

Both individuals remained

In the dark, ignorant of

Identifying with

The hungry mind’s

Existential need to

Experience

Emotional growth spurts

At every stage of life

And only if 

The difference between

A close friendship

And emotional enmeshment

Is understood

And mutually recognized

As being excessively unhealthy

While both individuals are

Still alive, that’s when

A heartfelt relationship

Can begin to heal for real

👩🏻Annie

1958 HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN Part 4

To this day, I’ve no actual memory as to how my name had been brought to the attention of the social club, whose membership had voted to include me within the inner sanctum of their teenaged lives.  As Debbie was in the club, I surmise that my sweet new friend had introduced my name to the charter members.

All I know for certain is that my utterly unexpected inclusion within this select group of girls whisked me off of the deserted island (upon which I’d been cast and abandoned at the vulnerable age of twelve following the disastrous experience of my first kiss in 6th grade), and thus, having been spun from social isolation into the midst of a bevy of girlfriends, did I land—feeling flummoxed beyond belief—on my feet with my monthly calendar filled with social activities that would stimulate the spirit of any fourteen year old former wall flower to sport a perpetually surprised smile based upon wondering how I’d been so fortunate as to have been amongst those chosen, considering that my freshman class had been composed of more than 900 kids, many of whom had likely been as socially clueless, during our first year of high school, as had been true of me  ... and yet, having been amongst those selected while my home life continued to be lovingly stable offered me reason to accept this literally overnight change for the better, so that anyone looking at the surface of both sides of my life would have thought that social security must have been mine since emotional mine fields, laced with traumatized insecurities, could not be seen awaiting a hair trigger eruption, deep within my psyche ...

👩🏻Annie

1958 HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN Part 3 A NEW BEGINNING

Thank goodness, we carry all of our prior experiences forward, filed deep within our minds, because the composite collage made up of your memories or mine, both good and bad, positive and negative, offer each of us an experiential sense of balance in all things.

On second thought, the statement above does not take into account the unpredictability of memory or the lasting effect of PTSD on the damaged psyches of children who’d been forced to weather traumatic downpours of verbal or physical or sexual abuse, examples of which had appeared in earlier posts and will re-emerge in later posts, whereas today, my intuitive voice is determined to focus on the influencing factor of friendships made, during high school, since routinely, one friendship leads to more just as my newfound friendship with Debbie will have opened a door to a ready-made social life (as mentioned in a previous post).

I have no conscious memory of having been invited to meet with the charter members of this social club composed entirely of freshmen girls.  Having been designated an outlier throughout my lonely preteen years, reflection suggests that during that crucial stage of social development, mine would have been delayed to the point that my unexpected inclusion within this popular group had thoroughly dizzied my mind.  You see, our freshman class had been made up of hundreds of kids; yet only two girls’ social clubs had come to be, and the fact that I’d been amongst the twenty or so ‘chosen’ to be included within one of two highly select social circles made NO sense, at all, to me …

(Note of caution from writer to reader—upon review, the complexity of thought within these next two paragraphs may be in need of editing for the sake of clarity once my wearied mind has rested.)

Since I’d had no conscious clue of the underlying reason why my cheerful, out-going presence had been purposely ignored whenever party invitations had been mailed to a select group of my classmates (whom I’d longed to befriend me, throughout junior high), my natural bent toward leadership withdrew in favor of having unconsciously embraced the role (foreign to my nature) of follower in hopes of doing whatever it took to ensure that this brand new fragile bubble in which ‘I’d found myself’ surrounded by a set of popular freshman girlfriends, would not pop.

You see, insight—spotlighting the fact that (rather than ‘finding myself’) I’d ‘lost my true sense of self’ in order to ‘fit in’—had escaped my awareness until I’d turned fifty at which time while writing the string of posts, entitled First Kiss, a heart-stopping Aha! moment dawned on me, expanding my subjective (narrow minded) perception of what had actually caused a personable child, like me, to have been cast to the wayside—and that insight proved so utterly flabbergasting as to have left my mind reeling as happens whenever a sudden flash of objectivity illuminates a burst of mental clarity that feels so enlightening as to have reversed everything I had believed to be on target concerning the mind boggling social rejection that had offered my budding self esteem sound reason to shrink up at the tender age of eleven.  And as soon as that spotlight of insight had brightened my sense of self awareness, I came to understand the deeply painful misunderstanding that had wounded a popular sixth grade boy, who’d retaliated by furiously wielding his social power amongst our peers to exile me …

👩🏻Annie   

1958 HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN Part 2

The beauty of intuitive thought is the fact that while penning a post, my conscious mind feels completely at ease knowing full well that as soon as my power of intuition claims control over my processor, strings of inter-related insights concerning love and life will line up on my screen as naturally as ducklings, following the instinctive guidance of their mother, line up all in a row.  And since my intuitive voice has already brought up the subject of ‘love’, let’s be clear that I’m not talking love of baseball.  Or ice cream.  I’m talking two hearts harmonizing so as to make a beautiful symphony  of life—together …

When considering a love connection between two people, it’s been my good fortune, over my lifetime, to have offered and received a variety of heartfelt experiences.

An impassioned, lustful heartfelt love connecting two people, both emotionally, physically, spiritually and soulfully is commonly known as ‘in love’.(not to be confused with ‘in lust’).

An impassioned sense of tender love commonly connects the hearts of parent and child.

A mutual awareness of heartfelt simpatico connects two people as loving friends

As a loving friend is what my heart had longed for throughout all four lonely years preceding my first day in high school, my smile responded ever so naturally and thus openly to the shy yet sweet smile that Debbie had freely offered to me as if ‘friendship at first sight’ had welcomed both of our hearts to connect with the reality that it’s possible to feel emotionally safe with a person we’ve just met.

Though I can’t recall who spoke first, I remember feeling happy that such a friendly person, whose brown eyes had shone with kindness, had chosen the first seat in her row as had been true of my choice in the first seat of the row next to Debbie’s.  The row had chosen was right next to the window, because that was the only row which had offered an empty desk at the head of our first period classroom.

Upon reflection concerning my bewildered sense of loneliness throughout junior high, I can see why choosing a place of emotional comfort for myself as close to the teacher as possible had become a habit as the nearness of an adult in charge of a classroom filled with children, several of whom could become unruly within an instance, had offered my beleaguered state of mind a sense of emotional distance from fear of being bullied or, even worse, ‘left out’ in a school where I’d not connected with a child whose offer of friendship could be called heartfelt.

And so friendships based in trust, which I’d craved more than anything, had been missing from my life ever since my family had made our epic move from urban apartment living to ownership of our newly built suburban home, though the change from city to suburb would have been seamless for me had my social standing (and self esteem) not experienced two sound reasons (both beyond my youthful comprehension) to have plummeted from class leader at my old school to social outcast at the highly vulnerable age of eleven when working one’s way into preordained preteen ‘clicks’ demands a self confident mindset to this very day.

If you’re amongst those who’ve read the series of posts entitled First Kiss, published in my blog, several years back, then you may remember that upon transferring to my new school, I’d not felt at all challenged while walking into my new classroom, mid year.  In fact, so high had my social self-confidence been that I remember smiling as my new fifth grade teacher pointed to an empty desk after having introduced me to my classmates.  And having quickly settled myself in place, I remember glancing round the classroom as though to choose which girl would have eagerly become my new best friend and which boy would have caught my eye …

The fact that within a few months time fate will have dealt me two personally threatening, deeply alarming experiences (neither of which could have been foreseen by this preteen) will have offered sound reason for my self confident self image to have shattered, as though fate had flung a mirror at my face, leaving me covered with sharply poignant shards that had stabbed both my brain and my heart—and that brief (undetailed) synopsis of unexpected trauma experienced in junior high makes it plain to see why, having been banished by ‘the popular kids’ and tormented by bullies, Debbie’s gift of friendship during my very first hour of high school, offered my lonely heart a loving place to feel as safe and sound as had been true on my very first self confident day in kindergarten and beyond until my family’s dream of suburban living had proved to be a series of nightmares for utterly unprepared me, suggestive of the fact that insight continues to guide me to live as mindful of the role self awareness plays if personal growth is a high priority in hopes of gaining a knowledgable perspective  of inner strengths, since we cannot know for certain what each next moment will bring … 

And as you are about to see why my memory of meeting Debbie, my very first new friend in high school, remains as vividly heartfelt, today, as was true more than sixty years ago when this brand new friendship served as a warm spiritual connection to a social life filled with bewildering changes, yet again …

🙋🏻‍♀️😊Annie