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Family of Origin
Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 658364" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>I love this story.</p><p></p><p>We all will die. Because it happens to every one of us, to every thing around us, it loses the special horror of endings while retaining the special horror of endings and we don't know what to do with it. So, to me, it isn't the death, it's the dying. Once the death is done, there is nothing from the body. Truly, clay.</p><p></p><p>But oh, Copa, the dying. What it can mean that someone is willing to stay present, to be right there, to see with you as you meet that unavoidable thing that is, after all and impossibly, happening to you.</p><p></p><p>I love the eye to eye between mother and daughter as the mother enters the mystery first. I love the idea of your having been there to shepherd the mother through the portals, loving her so strong and giving her courage and <em>seeing</em> her; and making her present and seeing her through.</p><p></p><p>You did so well, Copa!</p><p></p><p>And so did your mother.</p><p></p><p>I read somewhere that at the touch of Eternity, we will know; that the patterns make the tapestry.</p><p></p><p>And that the tapestry is a beautiful thing, rich with color.</p><p></p><p>I hang onto that, when nothing makes sense.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There was nothing to forgive.</p><p></p><p>There were choices to make, and you made them. And so did your mother; and so did your sister. Life is very hard.</p><p></p><p>But rich with meaning.</p><p></p><p>So they say.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have the strong sense that my sister does not want me sealed in a time warp. She seems to need to dominate or superceed me. And she seems to want me to know that.</p><p></p><p>Here is a story.</p><p></p><p>My mother was here for the summer. Not at my house, at her house some twenty minutes away. I was attending doctor or dentist appointments with her, spending the night or the evening with her once a week, and calling her around the same time each night to talk for as long as she wanted to talk ~ about her day or her concerns or maybe just to laugh, or whatever.</p><p></p><p>Just giving her that time, every day at the end of the day, so she would not be alone with her thoughts, so she would not feel lonely.</p><p></p><p>I actually do like my mom. She is bright, well informed, and can be a joy to talk to. But she loves to play games, and she can be very cruel and it is difficult to know what to do with that. </p><p></p><p>And D H was hating that because it cut into the time I am supposed to be enjoying the evening with him, but I did it anyway.</p><p></p><p>So it was like a balancing act.</p><p></p><p>And one day my sister called, and her entire attitude was so snotty you would not believe it. That my brother was worthless as far as caring for our mother went, that I should be checking up on him more, and that I should be doing more myself. And I didn't really have anything to say to that because in a way, I thought I should have been, too. It seemed to me that my mom should have been able to stay here overnight, to have dinner here with us every day ~ essentially, that she should have been able to live with us when she was here for the summer, or to access us and our home, free and easy, and that we should all have been welcoming her and helping her adjust to the loss of my father.</p><p></p><p>But D H did not see our situation in any of the same rosy lights that seemed to shine through it for me. And my mom would so often use that time that we gave her, would use those efforts we made to create family, to biatch about my grandmother or to run my father down or to run us down. And I have that hyper-awareness thing going on where my mother is concerned.</p><p></p><p>And she did draw back her arm, pretending she was going to hit me, that time when my granddaughters and I were at her house, so that is the flavor of things with my mother.</p><p></p><p>So it's all ~ none of the freaking pieces fit.</p><p></p><p>D H has been detesting my mother for such a long time.</p><p></p><p>She does do the strangest things.</p><p></p><p>And it is so hard for me to know that, because I have that thing going on about "That is my mother."</p><p></p><p>So, I think my sister wants to be above the other sibs in that way ~ in that caring for mom way; maybe, in that loving mom better way? I don't know. But I have the feeling she enjoys topping everyone instead of just being together. I have the feeling she would enjoy it less if she were an only child, or that she would play some very nasty games indeed with her parents, if she were the only child.</p><p></p><p>I think she is playing a nasty game regarding the man who wanted to marry my mother and take her away.</p><p></p><p>So I don't think my sister necessarily wants me stopped, the way you would stop a butterfly in a bottle. </p><p></p><p>She wants me ground into nothing, and dancing attendance around her. I always feel that I've ignored her, or that I've forgotten to help her feel special. That I've...that she feels that any attention to me has been taken from her. Or any attention anyone gets has been taken from her. Or any good thing in any of our lives. </p><p></p><p>And we're all just supposed to accept that, except that I won't. I don't like that exclusion thing.</p><p></p><p>There is no conversation with my sister. I mean, I can anticipate a visit, or I can go to her house, and there never is a conversation.</p><p></p><p>Somehow, there never is.</p><p></p><p>It's like she would devour and destroy and leave behind frightened slaves, or frightened and shamed slaves ~ people who would only see themselves as she would like to see them.</p><p></p><p>Or something.</p><p></p><p>That seems to be the name of the game, in our family. If I were going to name an essential conflict, that would be it. That feeling. That is what happens, and that is why nothing ever makes sense. This sister will break up the family into factions (how could she have that kind of power?), allying herself with the more powerful faction; hiding in shadows and pulling strings with something like Machievellian precision.</p><p></p><p>Here is another story. </p><p></p><p>So, my father was in the hospital for whatever it was. He'd had surgery. And my sister had come home, too. <em>And it was the strangest thing, to see the way she treated me.</em> I am a freaking baccalaureate-prepared registered nurse and blah, blah, blah. You all know the story of how I chose that school, of the prestige of that school, and of why I went back to school, and to that particular school, in the first place. And always for me, where my sister is concerned, is the question of whether I hurt her and that is why she feels she has to do these things. My sister...has what she has, now. One time, D H and I visited my sister and her husband. It was the first visit after their marriage. And after breakfast, the husband pulled out the cutest little pocket notebook that was full of ideas for things we might like to do. Among them was seeing the ballet in the large city near where they live. And you guys know how I feel about ballet. <em>But my sister put a kibosh on it. So we stayed on their property and worked in the yard.</em></p><p></p><p><em>And there was nothing in the fridge. And we went out for dinner and of course, D H and I paid because we were, after all, staying at their house. And the next day there was a family dinner for the D H family, and suddenly there was food.</em></p><p></p><p>And D H saw it and was extremely offended about it. But D H has always said he sees my sister. Now, he says his muzzle is off.</p><p></p><p>He hopes my sister does come to our house. He can't wait. Which is al little scary because, always and forever, I don't want her to be hurt.</p><p></p><p>And D H has a mouth on him you would not believe. But he has curbed himself for my sake again and again and he lights up when he thinks she may try to force herself, now.</p><p></p><p>And I just say, "You are right. Your muzzle is off."</p><p></p><p>And that makes D H very, very righteously happy.</p><p></p><p>Back to the first story.</p><p></p><p>And my sister seemed determined to know more than me, to move faster than me, to be more stridently vocal than me, when we were all there in the hospital for my father. And she had been present when someone in her D H family was in a nursing home. And she was very sure that, just as suckers were the thing that man had found comforting, so suckers were the thing my father needed.</p><p><em></em></p><p><em>It sounds so silly now, trying to describe it. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. At one point, when we'd gone to buy the suckers she insisted he needed? (Not that the suckers were a bad idea? Except that they were because this was a person recently out of surgery and still prone to nausea. There are special mouth moistening sponges made with glycerin for exactly the purpose for which my sister wanted the suckers for our father. But she wanted him to have suckers because she had learned suckers were good for people who are dying and have dry mouths and cannot drink.</em></p><p></p><p><em>And she would not hear me.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Listen to this part, guys:</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So I went with her, to get them. She did not want me to go get them, because then the credit for the suckers would be mine. I think this is actually true. And she did not want to go get them herself, because that would have left me alone with my father and my mother.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>And we practically ran all the way to that place in the hospital where suckers were sold, going faster and faster.</em></p><p></p><p>?</p><p></p><p>Of course the suckers made him nauseous and of course, we used the glycerin swabs instead.</p><p></p><p>So that is enough about my sister this morning. I am fortunate to have this site. I am forever forgetting what I know about my situation where this sister is concerned.</p><p></p><p>It has to be that mothering her thing? Does it?</p><p></p><p>Well, what it is is that I never do like to see the ugliness in it. I can't believe it could be what it looks like.</p><p></p><p>But if I were going to predict what will happen next, it is that my sister will dump my mother because she thinks my mom has no one now but my brother. My sister is very upset that the man continues to want to marry my mother. This is the sister who told my mother that, now that my mom was staying with my sister in the Winter, my sister finally had a mother and my mother finally had the chance to be her mother. And pretty much, that my sister deserved this. And that we all did, because we are trying to make a family.</p><p></p><p>What a crock.</p><p></p><p>What a family.</p><p></p><p>Nonetheless, my mother continues to go back there, every winter.</p><p></p><p>So, I can safely turn away from all of it.</p><p></p><p>But I loved your story, Copa.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh. You are right, Copa. Dead in some transparent thing so she can see me, trapped and dead.</p><p></p><p>Huh.</p><p></p><p>You are exactly correct.</p><p></p><p>Ew.</p><p></p><p>But surely this cannot be true and blah, blah, blah. What in the world is the matter with me?!?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>She was in a different holding cell then, Copa. No bars. Like house arrest for members of the Royal family. Somewhere lovely, in that English country house where we all were while we figured this out.</p><p></p><p>Having tea.</p><p></p><p>Earl Grey.</p><p></p><p>Fine china; white dinner napkins.</p><p></p><p>She is wearing a scarlet scarf of some sort around her neck, Copa. Very expensive; beautifully scarlet. She chose that.</p><p></p><p>Vibrantly powerful, still.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Isn't that something, how it always works out that way. That must be why I told my sister that I did love her; that I loved her too much to do this the way she insists it will be.</p><p></p><p>I have a little FOG going on where my sister is concerned. Denial, then. That is the feel of denial.</p><p></p><p>At the touch of Eternity, right?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, those would be the shamings, the toxic shamings, we still carry. That is why we are doing this. To undo that; to see through our own eyes forever, and never through the eyes of the abuser, any more.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ha! D H would agree with you. He said that woman was exactly correct. But then, D H has never been a mother. It's like we are supposed to somehow balance both things. I think that would be so remarkably fulfilling a thing, to take joy together in the family both the man and the woman have created. It is an impossible thing, when the child is endangered.</p><p></p><p>Do you know the story of Isis, Copa?</p><p></p><p>Her child, a son, had been dismembered. With single minded purpose, she continues to search for that last piece of her son to this very day.</p><p></p><p>It is the organs of regeneration that are missing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That is how she sees herself too, Copa.</p><p></p><p>It is a very hard thing to be mother to children determined to continue that quest, whatever it costs their poor mothers. </p><p></p><p>Oy vey.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That is what they do say, those stinkers. I will say this: it certainly has been a riveting journey.</p><p></p><p>Oy, as we certainly do say at my house, vey.</p><p></p><p>Like they couldn't have just been a doctor or something.</p><p></p><p>So I could, for once in my freaking life, show off.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ha! Copa? <em>No one else will listen to me.</em></p><p></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Yes. The only time I did not feel that was when my daughter endangered her own children. That was when I entertained believing those stupid psychiatric diagnoses. Now that she is better?</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I only believe them a little bit. Like a nightmare where someone you love is in trouble and you know screaming is not going to wake them up.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So...so, Copa? You take to your bed.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>And you dream furiously, fervently, hoping to get to the end of the story so you will at least know what it was before it happens, and becomes irrevocable.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>With our son...I was shaken loose when his face changed. There was hatred and disrespect and certainty in his eyes that he would have what he wanted. D H came back, and that was the end of that story.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>And when I realized our son was interacting with me, with his own darn mother, in a typically abusive pattern. I was like, WTF.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So then I stood up.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So, that was good, then.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Sorry for the italics, Copa. I am stuck in them.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So can my D H. He is strong, way strong. A very well-mothered man can be a pain in the arse.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>:O)</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Cedar</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I like knowing there will be a continuing conversation too, Copa.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I am reading Ruby, by Cynthia Bond.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>In karate yesterday? The instructor said, casual as anything: "Give me 15 sit ups, 15 push ups, and 15 jumping jacks." So, by the time I managed to get my mouth closed, I did all that.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Not only did I live through the class and also, make it through the night? But I am not even sore, this morning.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>But I am definitely going to practice exercising. He had those who had been in the class longer?</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Do twenty of each thing.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Cheesh.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I mean "HAI!"</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Cheesh, Copa.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>My gi is black, with a dragon on the back.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Very classy.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>:O)</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>He is a totally fierce instructor, very into killing points on the human body and winning our black belts and trustworthiness and not fighting, but winning. Like, when you need to fight?</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Decimate your opponent and walk away.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>So that's something new, for me. My other classes have been about excellent technique, and about underlying philosophy. We read ancient Chinese philosophers as part of ever Tai Chi class. I have been taking those classes for six years, every Winter.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I like it, though. This new instructor's attitude, I mean.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Copa and everyone reading along?</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>There are children in this class I am in now. Little kids, and they are so amazing. I am going to bring my grands and my daughter too, if she thinks she can do it, when they come to visit this summer.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Isn't that an extraordinary thing. I will be very different I think, with this instructor as my teacher.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Here is an interesting thing. This instructor says the real Okinawan masters laugh at the way Americans are so impressed with Bruce Lee. They say, "Overcome your opponent in thirty seconds? It should only take two seconds."</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>My sister had best watch her p's and q's.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 658364, member: 17461"] I love this story. We all will die. Because it happens to every one of us, to every thing around us, it loses the special horror of endings while retaining the special horror of endings and we don't know what to do with it. So, to me, it isn't the death, it's the dying. Once the death is done, there is nothing from the body. Truly, clay. But oh, Copa, the dying. What it can mean that someone is willing to stay present, to be right there, to see with you as you meet that unavoidable thing that is, after all and impossibly, happening to you. I love the eye to eye between mother and daughter as the mother enters the mystery first. I love the idea of your having been there to shepherd the mother through the portals, loving her so strong and giving her courage and [I]seeing[/I] her; and making her present and seeing her through. You did so well, Copa! And so did your mother. I read somewhere that at the touch of Eternity, we will know; that the patterns make the tapestry. And that the tapestry is a beautiful thing, rich with color. I hang onto that, when nothing makes sense. There was nothing to forgive. There were choices to make, and you made them. And so did your mother; and so did your sister. Life is very hard. But rich with meaning. So they say. I have the strong sense that my sister does not want me sealed in a time warp. She seems to need to dominate or superceed me. And she seems to want me to know that. Here is a story. My mother was here for the summer. Not at my house, at her house some twenty minutes away. I was attending doctor or dentist appointments with her, spending the night or the evening with her once a week, and calling her around the same time each night to talk for as long as she wanted to talk ~ about her day or her concerns or maybe just to laugh, or whatever. Just giving her that time, every day at the end of the day, so she would not be alone with her thoughts, so she would not feel lonely. I actually do like my mom. She is bright, well informed, and can be a joy to talk to. But she loves to play games, and she can be very cruel and it is difficult to know what to do with that. And D H was hating that because it cut into the time I am supposed to be enjoying the evening with him, but I did it anyway. So it was like a balancing act. And one day my sister called, and her entire attitude was so snotty you would not believe it. That my brother was worthless as far as caring for our mother went, that I should be checking up on him more, and that I should be doing more myself. And I didn't really have anything to say to that because in a way, I thought I should have been, too. It seemed to me that my mom should have been able to stay here overnight, to have dinner here with us every day ~ essentially, that she should have been able to live with us when she was here for the summer, or to access us and our home, free and easy, and that we should all have been welcoming her and helping her adjust to the loss of my father. But D H did not see our situation in any of the same rosy lights that seemed to shine through it for me. And my mom would so often use that time that we gave her, would use those efforts we made to create family, to biatch about my grandmother or to run my father down or to run us down. And I have that hyper-awareness thing going on where my mother is concerned. And she did draw back her arm, pretending she was going to hit me, that time when my granddaughters and I were at her house, so that is the flavor of things with my mother. So it's all ~ none of the freaking pieces fit. D H has been detesting my mother for such a long time. She does do the strangest things. And it is so hard for me to know that, because I have that thing going on about "That is my mother." So, I think my sister wants to be above the other sibs in that way ~ in that caring for mom way; maybe, in that loving mom better way? I don't know. But I have the feeling she enjoys topping everyone instead of just being together. I have the feeling she would enjoy it less if she were an only child, or that she would play some very nasty games indeed with her parents, if she were the only child. I think she is playing a nasty game regarding the man who wanted to marry my mother and take her away. So I don't think my sister necessarily wants me stopped, the way you would stop a butterfly in a bottle. She wants me ground into nothing, and dancing attendance around her. I always feel that I've ignored her, or that I've forgotten to help her feel special. That I've...that she feels that any attention to me has been taken from her. Or any attention anyone gets has been taken from her. Or any good thing in any of our lives. And we're all just supposed to accept that, except that I won't. I don't like that exclusion thing. There is no conversation with my sister. I mean, I can anticipate a visit, or I can go to her house, and there never is a conversation. Somehow, there never is. It's like she would devour and destroy and leave behind frightened slaves, or frightened and shamed slaves ~ people who would only see themselves as she would like to see them. Or something. That seems to be the name of the game, in our family. If I were going to name an essential conflict, that would be it. That feeling. That is what happens, and that is why nothing ever makes sense. This sister will break up the family into factions (how could she have that kind of power?), allying herself with the more powerful faction; hiding in shadows and pulling strings with something like Machievellian precision. Here is another story. So, my father was in the hospital for whatever it was. He'd had surgery. And my sister had come home, too. [I]And it was the strangest thing, to see the way she treated me.[/I] I am a freaking baccalaureate-prepared registered nurse and blah, blah, blah. You all know the story of how I chose that school, of the prestige of that school, and of why I went back to school, and to that particular school, in the first place. And always for me, where my sister is concerned, is the question of whether I hurt her and that is why she feels she has to do these things. My sister...has what she has, now. One time, D H and I visited my sister and her husband. It was the first visit after their marriage. And after breakfast, the husband pulled out the cutest little pocket notebook that was full of ideas for things we might like to do. Among them was seeing the ballet in the large city near where they live. And you guys know how I feel about ballet. [I]But my sister put a kibosh on it. So we stayed on their property and worked in the yard.[/I] [I]And there was nothing in the fridge. And we went out for dinner and of course, D H and I paid because we were, after all, staying at their house. And the next day there was a family dinner for the D H family, and suddenly there was food.[/I] And D H saw it and was extremely offended about it. But D H has always said he sees my sister. Now, he says his muzzle is off. He hopes my sister does come to our house. He can't wait. Which is al little scary because, always and forever, I don't want her to be hurt. And D H has a mouth on him you would not believe. But he has curbed himself for my sake again and again and he lights up when he thinks she may try to force herself, now. And I just say, "You are right. Your muzzle is off." And that makes D H very, very righteously happy. Back to the first story. And my sister seemed determined to know more than me, to move faster than me, to be more stridently vocal than me, when we were all there in the hospital for my father. And she had been present when someone in her D H family was in a nursing home. And she was very sure that, just as suckers were the thing that man had found comforting, so suckers were the thing my father needed. [I] It sounds so silly now, trying to describe it. It was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. At one point, when we'd gone to buy the suckers she insisted he needed? (Not that the suckers were a bad idea? Except that they were because this was a person recently out of surgery and still prone to nausea. There are special mouth moistening sponges made with glycerin for exactly the purpose for which my sister wanted the suckers for our father. But she wanted him to have suckers because she had learned suckers were good for people who are dying and have dry mouths and cannot drink.[/I] [I]And she would not hear me. Listen to this part, guys: So I went with her, to get them. She did not want me to go get them, because then the credit for the suckers would be mine. I think this is actually true. And she did not want to go get them herself, because that would have left me alone with my father and my mother. And we practically ran all the way to that place in the hospital where suckers were sold, going faster and faster.[/I] ? Of course the suckers made him nauseous and of course, we used the glycerin swabs instead. So that is enough about my sister this morning. I am fortunate to have this site. I am forever forgetting what I know about my situation where this sister is concerned. It has to be that mothering her thing? Does it? Well, what it is is that I never do like to see the ugliness in it. I can't believe it could be what it looks like. But if I were going to predict what will happen next, it is that my sister will dump my mother because she thinks my mom has no one now but my brother. My sister is very upset that the man continues to want to marry my mother. This is the sister who told my mother that, now that my mom was staying with my sister in the Winter, my sister finally had a mother and my mother finally had the chance to be her mother. And pretty much, that my sister deserved this. And that we all did, because we are trying to make a family. What a crock. What a family. Nonetheless, my mother continues to go back there, every winter. So, I can safely turn away from all of it. But I loved your story, Copa. Oh. You are right, Copa. Dead in some transparent thing so she can see me, trapped and dead. Huh. You are exactly correct. Ew. But surely this cannot be true and blah, blah, blah. What in the world is the matter with me?!? She was in a different holding cell then, Copa. No bars. Like house arrest for members of the Royal family. Somewhere lovely, in that English country house where we all were while we figured this out. Having tea. Earl Grey. Fine china; white dinner napkins. She is wearing a scarlet scarf of some sort around her neck, Copa. Very expensive; beautifully scarlet. She chose that. Vibrantly powerful, still. Isn't that something, how it always works out that way. That must be why I told my sister that I did love her; that I loved her too much to do this the way she insists it will be. I have a little FOG going on where my sister is concerned. Denial, then. That is the feel of denial. At the touch of Eternity, right? Well, those would be the shamings, the toxic shamings, we still carry. That is why we are doing this. To undo that; to see through our own eyes forever, and never through the eyes of the abuser, any more. Ha! D H would agree with you. He said that woman was exactly correct. But then, D H has never been a mother. It's like we are supposed to somehow balance both things. I think that would be so remarkably fulfilling a thing, to take joy together in the family both the man and the woman have created. It is an impossible thing, when the child is endangered. Do you know the story of Isis, Copa? Her child, a son, had been dismembered. With single minded purpose, she continues to search for that last piece of her son to this very day. It is the organs of regeneration that are missing. That is how she sees herself too, Copa. It is a very hard thing to be mother to children determined to continue that quest, whatever it costs their poor mothers. Oy vey. That is what they do say, those stinkers. I will say this: it certainly has been a riveting journey. Oy, as we certainly do say at my house, vey. Like they couldn't have just been a doctor or something. So I could, for once in my freaking life, show off. Ha! Copa? [I]No one else will listen to me.[/I] [I] Yes. The only time I did not feel that was when my daughter endangered her own children. That was when I entertained believing those stupid psychiatric diagnoses. Now that she is better? I only believe them a little bit. Like a nightmare where someone you love is in trouble and you know screaming is not going to wake them up. So...so, Copa? You take to your bed. And you dream furiously, fervently, hoping to get to the end of the story so you will at least know what it was before it happens, and becomes irrevocable. With our son...I was shaken loose when his face changed. There was hatred and disrespect and certainty in his eyes that he would have what he wanted. D H came back, and that was the end of that story. And when I realized our son was interacting with me, with his own darn mother, in a typically abusive pattern. I was like, WTF. So then I stood up. So, that was good, then. Sorry for the italics, Copa. I am stuck in them. So can my D H. He is strong, way strong. A very well-mothered man can be a pain in the arse. :O) Cedar I like knowing there will be a continuing conversation too, Copa. I am reading Ruby, by Cynthia Bond. In karate yesterday? The instructor said, casual as anything: "Give me 15 sit ups, 15 push ups, and 15 jumping jacks." So, by the time I managed to get my mouth closed, I did all that. Not only did I live through the class and also, make it through the night? But I am not even sore, this morning. But I am definitely going to practice exercising. He had those who had been in the class longer? Do twenty of each thing. Cheesh. I mean "HAI!" Cheesh, Copa. My gi is black, with a dragon on the back. Very classy. :O) He is a totally fierce instructor, very into killing points on the human body and winning our black belts and trustworthiness and not fighting, but winning. Like, when you need to fight? Decimate your opponent and walk away. So that's something new, for me. My other classes have been about excellent technique, and about underlying philosophy. We read ancient Chinese philosophers as part of ever Tai Chi class. I have been taking those classes for six years, every Winter. I like it, though. This new instructor's attitude, I mean. Copa and everyone reading along? There are children in this class I am in now. Little kids, and they are so amazing. I am going to bring my grands and my daughter too, if she thinks she can do it, when they come to visit this summer. Isn't that an extraordinary thing. I will be very different I think, with this instructor as my teacher. Here is an interesting thing. This instructor says the real Okinawan masters laugh at the way Americans are so impressed with Bruce Lee. They say, "Overcome your opponent in thirty seconds? It should only take two seconds." My sister had best watch her p's and q's. [/I] [/QUOTE]
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Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???
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