Kids Don't Come With Instructions  Ó 2012 Currie Silver

The Way I’m DOing My Life Now…

Julie Daley’s prompt in Module 21: Self-Awareness, speaks to a deep part of Who I Am Discovering lives inside my body, breathes my every breath, and thinksandfeels my every thoughtandfeeling. Once again I noticed the part of ME who steps away, off to the side, thinking she does NOT BElong here, is simply TOO Different, Strange, and Extremely NOT Enough. She can BE a handful, that ME.

My timeline, which until recently NEVER really occurred to me to investigate, is remarkably cyclical and consistent. And yet it follows no pattern, there is no discernible, at least discernible to ME way of circling the cycles. I CAN see patterns which have repeated similarly, but mostly I am only seeing those from Here, Now, in this place where I am engaging and exploring via A Year With Myself.

Little bits of ME over the past 59 years all seem to join together. Inside I am ME, Now, or whenever the “Now” was when I was “in that part” of my Life. When I moved back to the East in 2009, I had a chance to go through a large bin of photographs from my Life. Well, at least from 1953 until 1994. The ones from 1994 forward weren’t really “mine” to access, and BEsides, I wasn’t aware THEN that I’d NOT go back and collect the “stuff of a Life” I’d packed and organised so carefully in storage.

And yet…

Here is the thing about that: so much of what I packed and organised was WHAT WAS LEFT. Left after a HUGE Letting Go. And still, the more recent and Present Letting Go are on BEyond HUGE.

I have been a mover throughout my Life. Starting at age 6, when my family moved from Rochester, NY, to Winnetka, IL. Then at age 9, in April of 4th Grade for me, we moved BACK to Rochester. At 10 my parents divorced and in Very Short Order my father remarried and via the divorce agreement had shackled my mum to within 25 miles of Rochester OR she would lose custody of my brother and me.

There was another move, within that 25-mile radius, yet a few years later my mum had to get out and away. At that time I was only able to see through the eyes of a 13-year old, very unhappy, very angry, and even very neglected girl. It is, in fact, a part of my story that I am choosing Here & Now to Let Go. I was a child. What I did and HOW I did it was from the perspective of a child. It has taken all of these 46 years to REALLY grasp that fact.

There were a couple of years in there where my brother and I lived with our dad and stepmother, stepbrother, and stepsister. It could have looked “sweet” on the outside, but I assure you inside was anything BUT evenly loosely tied to “sweet.” Just yesterday my mum and I were talking on the phone [the vast majority of my Life and my relationship with my mum has BEEN by phone and in short spurts] and reflecting, each from our own vantage point, on How Things Have Tended To BE in our lives as well in my brother and father’s lives. It was interesting, BEcause for the most part I refuse to participate in these discussions with my mum. With anyone, really.

My next move was away to boarding school. Then college. Then Cape Cod for a year during which I discovered whatever I might WANT to DO in my Life, I wasn’t going to DO it without finishing college. Of course, with all the moves and changes of schools through my Life, it never really struck me as odd that I was all the time changing where I was living, learning, and making an effort to create a Life of My Own.

Anyhow, the timeline is less substantive once I reached, perhaps only by virtue of my age, “adulthood.” There were still many moves. Changes of work. Long chunks of Life living apart from my son. The thing is, somehow I never STOPPED dealing with My Life and its curious momentum from the age of 9. In many ways I am STILL that girl; it’s just that 50 years have gone by with me riding shotgun…

Recently I have been reflecting on this Life of mine for more than just AYWM. I’ve been on disability since 2002 and am at present looking to add a bit of work to supplement my disability income. It took me a long while to “get it” that I didn’t need to rely upon a resume in the way I did up until 2000, the last time I had to use one for working. Instead, BEcause Vocational Rehabilitation sent me for a psychological evaluation [read: testing testing 1 2 3] and then last week for a work evaluation [read: testing testing again and I still find fractions troublesome!!!] I’ve needed to make up a resume of my work history and my education. That document alone sums up something like Julie’s timeline. Very telling. Very intriguing to see myself and my Life summed up on one page.

While I was still receiving support from my former partner, I was terrified that I’d lose it [and, ultimately, I DID] and THEN WHAT WOULD I DO?! However, while the loss was sudden and done in a way that still stings me, it was by far and away the Very Best Thing Ever To “Happen To Me” In My Entire Life.

WHY?!

BEcause NOW I get to rely on ME, and on my idea of God, the Universe, and Life Itself…

The past 3 years I have let go of one thing and then another I was certain I could NOT live without. And yet here I am. Stronger. Happier. More ALIVE than I can remember, at least since I was 9, back in Winnetka.

It is sort of like carrying that Little Red Wagon of my stories and relationships. I thought I MUST hang onto it, or I should say “them” forevermore. But Now I know it is NOT about the stuff or the people or even the learning or work or places. It is only and ever it has only BEEN about Right Now, this moment, this day, this experience, time, companionship, or solitude.

I’ve had different stories for How I Live My Life and they’ve all been momentary. Blinks and times that came to pass. This story will change and pass, too. It’s just The Way I Am DOing My Life Now…