Letter to Virginia

My friend shared this on Facebook:

Letter to the Editor of The New York Sun, September 21, 1897.
Dear Editor—
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety Fifth Street
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

I believe in Angels

Sometimes they walk among us lighting gray days and picking up arms that hang down.  One such miracle is helping our family 6 days a week.  Just knowing she is there helping with my mother takes the internal pressure ingrained in me to take care of my mother.  With our angel there, my mother is taken care of in the kindest safest way possible.  Blessedly our angel doesn't put up with any nonsense.  She sets healthy boundaries and addresses tough subjects. She has experience managing difficult people. I am thankful for the angel in our families life. 

The song from ABBA came to mind when I was writing this blog. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_HupoJ2_oc

Avoiding Writing

Heavy sigh....I'm avoiding writing lately.  My mind is in a swirl with my own health issues, holidays and my mother coming home from 2 months in rehab care for a broken hip.  After all these years, the rest of the family finally sees what my sister and I lived with all of our lives.  They keep saying it is old age or dementia.  Not to me....this is the mother I have always known demanding, complaining, manipulative....yup a real piece of work.  Finally, they have stopped making excuses for her.  Mother accused my sister of plotting to prove she was incompetent.  I cheered when my sister said that she looked at mother and told her, "You did that yourself."  Nope don't need to do a thing for her to demonstrate how unstable she is.  I feel sad.

Stopping emotions

"You cannot selectively numb emotion. You cannot say, here’s the bad stuff. Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, here’s disappointment… I don’t want to feel these. You can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other emotions. When we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness and then we are miserable and we are looking for purpose and meaning...So then we feel vulnerable. So, let ourselves be seen—deeply seen.. Love with our whole hearts. Practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive. And most important…Believe that we’re enough because when we work from a place that says I’m enough.. We stop screaming and start listening. We’re kinder and gentler to those around us and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves."--Brene Brown.

"We're afraid of taking emotional risks for fear of being hurt, disappointed or even devastated, but the risk of getting hurt is a lot higher, in fact, if we take no emotional risks at all. When we avoid reaching out to other people because we're afraid of rejection; when we have our hearts closed because we don't want to be vulnerable; when we keep our relationships superficial b/c we're terrified of heartbreak, what we end up with instead is a terrible empty loneliness. As bad as it feels to be hurt in love or in friendship, it's infinitely worse to be isolated & alone." -Ruthless Compassion  

 I lived in an emotional wasteland.  I turned off my emotions to perform the tasks of living....unfortunately when I turned off my emotions I stopped existing as a human being and became an automated body moving through life....closest thing to being a zombie without dying.  My brother teased me "Lights are on but nobody is home."  That was the most accurate name I was called.  Many, many of my counseling sessions were teaching me to recognize and connect with my emotions. It was a long difficult task but so worth it.  

 Adding emotions is adding color to my world. 

Struggling with blessings

I landed in ER on Friday.  Stomach problems have plagued me for over 15 years.  I can't have soda.  I drink lots of water and I noticed over the last six months that swallowing was getting harder.  (I can choke on a banana.)  Last Wednesday I bit off more than I could swallow and it stuck.  On Friday, I finally called the doctor on my way back home from work and explained the situation.  He recommended a trip to the ER.  I beat his call so they treated me like an unreasonable child wasting their time.  Then the call came in and I was whisked away to emergency surgery to scope and pull out the hotdog plugging the top of my stomach.  Sure enough the problem was worse than expected.  I came home delighted to be able to eat.  I realized it was a blessing that the scope was done and hopefully caught the problems early enough to heal the problems without more surgery. Unfortunately,  a few people have an negative reaction to the drug used to relax my esophagus to allow the camera down my throat.  Every time I move, cough, or laugh my muscles cramp.  I did not realize until I tried walking up stairs that all my muscles can cramp and hurt at the same time.  Fuzzy brained and hurting I am struggling with recognizing what a blessing this is.  The medical care was amazing.  My body can really kick my butt, however, they were able to do a biopsy to help them know how big a mess I am in.  Fortunately, the internet provided me with the information as to what was happening with my body post surgery.  Tonight is the first time since Friday that I am starting to see the bright side of this cloud.  December is a rough month and I am struggling with adding this into the mix of all my other churning emotions.  I love the holidays and I hate the unreasonable expectations frenzy.  I'm trying to slow my thinking.  Remind myself that I am not required to do everything.  Now, I can't do anything.  If moving hurts, the likelihood of doing anything greatly reduces.  I hope each of you are finding ways to give yourself a break and let go of situations and events that hurt rather than help this holiday season. 

Shame and Vulnerability

I am studying these characteristics.  One because I want to feel less of it, the other because that is what thriving is made of. 


Shame https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread

Vulnerability  https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

These are some notes I took from watching the first video...

 Vulnerability is not a weakness, it is emotional risk the stuff courage is made of. 

Vulnerability is the birthplace for innovation, creativity, and change. 

Shame - don't build your home their but daring greatly explore what it is to you. 

Brene believes that Guilt is "I made a mistake."  Shame is "I am a mistake."

Shame needs secrecy, silence and judgement to grow.  

I am studying these because I know that for me to grow and thrive I need to release shame and embrace vulnerability.  Intellectually I get it, implementing it is another story.