Shades of Gray

The music is so loud that it's filling my ears, filling me. Just the way I like it. My poor kids! I apologize to them regularly for being their mother. My daughter has my terrible tendency toward PMS other physical problems, & they had to grow up with my music. They can tell you about listening to the same song played over & over, & loud. And me singing or dancing or crying or all 3. I don't listen to metaphysical music this loud ever. I like that to be soft & gentle. But I have to have my mood music loud enough to fill my heart. Sometimes it's jazz, or easy listening, or classical, or classic rock (read "oldies"). When did it get to be "oldies"? Feels like yesterday to me.

This time I'm listening to The Monkees, listening for Davy Jones as always. I can pick his voice out even when blending with the other 3. My mourning was cut short by the long distance romance started about a month ago, & now it seems to be over before it fully got started. It lasted long enough to do me a world of good, but now I'm left wanting & I've worked so hard not to want, need, not to be human like everyone else.

I'm so good at giving advice. I'm known for cutting through the nonsense & being very practical, emotionless, cut & dried about things. Now all my defenses are gone & my feelings are wide open. And like a child picking at a scab, I'm actually wallowing! But there's actually a good reason for it. It's a temporary opposite to repression. For once, I'm actually totally feeling my feelings, totally in touch with them. I'm allowing myself to feel them, acknowledge them & work them through.

I was journaling to get in touch with the feelings I was suppressing & get them out, handle them. It barely works sometimes, because I'm so darned good - an expert at suppression. But I realized that I was doing a lot of black & white thinking, & I'll swear I'm a "shades of gray" girl. In fact, I use that as a huge contrast between my first ex & I. And here I've caught myself in a whole lot of black & whiteness. So I pulled out the Monkees CDs & listened to the words, & started crying so hard I had to take my glasses off. The first thing I saw was one of my favorite photos of Davy at 20 or 21, then heard him singing. I'd forgotten he starts the song. I had trouble concentrating on the words instead of the voices & music, so I looked up the words, then went to YouTube & found 2 great videos. One shows Davy on the beach, some of my favorite footage from the TV series. Of course I cried through that, but I sobbed when I found the one below. It will give you a chance to hear the song, too.

As I listened to the words & read them, I realized I've never had a time when things were easy, safe, black & white. No wonder I learned to mostly see shades of gray so young! I see both sides to arguments, situations, people, events. But once something goes sour, I see it all as black. I see I've been doing that with the 2nd ex, & now I see I truly am finally healing, thanks to that psychic surgery. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" came on & I remembered commenting so often on it while living on the farm in Pleasant Valley before moving to PA. And I remembered how good my life was in so many ways back then, especially whenever we were away from the house & I was safe from his sexual exploitation. He was the ultimate black & white, Dr. Jeckle & Mr. Hyde. Mostly he was Dr. Jeckle (the good one), & I was very happy. In all the pain I'd truly forgotten all that within my heart. Ultimate release & healing is remembering, & mourning the loss. I haven't fully done that. Now it's time - to mourn the loss of an old, old love (more than 30 years), of a life together & what was & what could have been; to mourn the loss of a much newer love & all the potential; to mourn the loss of my only truly enduring preteen crush. I'm left finally having to admit that I do want romance, that special someone, all of it. Simply serving God, animals, & people, the love that brings, the love of family & friends, is not enough for me. So to every friend I've told I can't see myself ever getting married or having a relationship again, I take it back, eat my words. Turns out I'm human & have feelings & needs still.

Oh, now I remember what started the "Shades of Gray" thing. I seem to try to make my life black & white. The latest is that I've gone from being in a very dependent relationship to trying to be totally independent. I've put myself under so much pressure to do it all & be it all & solve it all, all the mess left for me, without having the resources left along with the mess. I've struggled so long & so hard to take care of my first abuser, clean up the mess left by my second one, when I should have been more concerned with saving myself. I took responsibility for them instead of taking care of me & now I'm beginning to run out of time. And all I want is for someone to step in. My heart is breaking & I just want to be loved by "him whoever he is" & held. I want someone to share the burden for once in 18 very long, lonely months. As a dear friend of mine I haven't been able to help says, "Something's got to give." That's what I say now. And it simply can't continue to be only me!!!!!!!!! That said, I do honestly know God is with me & that my life as changed so much. I'll tell you a secret. I'm a bit superstitious. I just ended a journal, & I'm hoping there will be a magical change tomorrow as I start a new one. This one started on July 19, 2011 & I realized how many wonderful things have happened since then. I moved 10 minutes away from where my mentor moved the month before I did! I got rid of the last of the stuff hoarded by my abusers, got out of the house we shared & into the city. I directly manifested the exact house I wanted & needed. I've gained a bunch of wonderful friends, developed so many metaphysical gifts & talents, learned so much. I've done so much healing (physical & emotional), & my heart is finally opened to romantic love & in touch with what I need & want. I've finally gotten to see my Oregon BFF in person & spend a week with her! I've lost a lot of weight & gone off both types of insulin. So much good has happened. And I truly am grateful.

I'm not sure what you'll gain from this post. I only know I had to write it. As you know, I'm always as honest & open with you as I am with myself. Do you remember when I challenged each of you in December to change your lives this year, one habit or step at a time? I challenged you to tackle something new each month, rather than to try to change everything at once. Well, the seemingly downward spiral my life has been in appears to be spiraling out of control. The result is that it's revealing things to me very quickly. I feel like layers are being forcefully stripped from me daily. It's forcing me into rapidly facing truths, feelings, myself. It's got to be a good thing, despite how uncomfortable it is. Lightworkers have been told that 2012 is a year of swiftly accelerating energies & changes. If that's what's happening here, then I'm not on the collision course I appear to be. Perhaps others of you are experiencing similar things & that's why I was supposed to write this.