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Thoughts to “make you” think.
Ideas to change your life.

I’ve been BIG about studying my life for some years now and part of that Work has been sharing it.
I think and feel then share those thoughts and ideas for the possibility that they can be used, like you seeing something here and it moving you to do something in your own life.

I think everything is about potential. Your potential, my potential. Potential. Potential. Potential.

Everything I do is for potential and I do that through attempts at authenticity!
Practicng mine, encouraging yours.

I share potentially life changing things. The work is here; the choice is yours.

To use and be used. Perhaps a greatest compliment and true love.

KG

What is Kymology?

Send an Elephant!

What could an elephant in a room do for you?

Have you heard the saying “elephant in the room”?

What if nothing is obvious and you could send an elephant to change your relationship with someone right now?

Love snail mail?! Be the one to start it!

Postcards for Instigation
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kymology54

Life-ing.
Makes you Think. May I muse you?
I help people know their truth and do it.
“I think she was a different person to everybody.”
🔺

Grandmother’s Pictures. I’ve been going t

Grandmother’s Pictures.

I’ve been going to see my grandmother, my Dad’s mom and my uncle. My grandmother has liked talking about the past. Each time, she doesn’t hesitate to whip out this ziploc by her chair that keeps what seems to be some of her most important artifacts. Blood type tests when they were $10 and do I know my RH factor, she asks. The look she gives me when I say I don’t even know my blood type. A couple birth certificates in there of 6 kids.

Beyond this little ziploc she has yet to not bring out some old picture every time I go and I “LOVE” that in such a sore way.

Pictures has been one of the sorest parts of all this Dad Stuff. I have few and gaps in times of my life. When my memory feels unreliable, I like to rely on firmer things and when the firmer things are missing, a special kind of hurt comes in.

This past time she pulled out a whole basket of pictures, unasked and she went through them m, all with me sitting by ready to see and listen. Naming off each person, dozens of strangers to me. I ask some questions but I’ve taken to just following along and listening. It’s a certain kind of conversation each time. She’ll pull out pictures and tell me who’s who. It’s been in these processes I've seen some pictures I've never seen. Of course the most interesting are the ones of my Dad. I’ve come to think he was such a HANDSOME man.

This picture I saw and I said: who’s the ripped guy on the right. I said it before I looked more closely where I probably would have figured it myself. That’s Robert, she said.

People often asks me what my ethnicity is. I used to say I was half black because I wanted to not be white. As an adult who is now ascetic about the truth, I’ve dropped that lie and just say honestly: I don’t really know. I don’t know much about my family history and I’m heartily not into sending my blood into for a report on it. I have come to know more and better through this Dad Stuff via my asking questions and I don’t think my answer is “I don’t know” anymore.

*share continues in comment

Memories as abundant and fatal and life giving as

Memories as abundant and fatal and life giving as pond life.

That time he let me come when I wanted to be brave and witness him putting an animal down before I know what that really meant.

I remember fishing times at the pond when we lived in Allensville. He taught me how to put a worm on a hook after he put the bobber and little weights on. And he would replace them anytime I lost them on the barb wire fence that crossed the pond when I was trying to be like him and land my cast in this specific little deep spot a little past the cattails and right in front of the wire. It was a tricky maneuver you risked your line every time.

I remember this one time I was fishing by myself, my Dad and Uncle Steve were a ways off up in the garden. My bobber clean disappeared and I was all hoot and excited! Thought I had finally caught a big one! Pulling and reeling, I’m dragging this whopper in, when I finally see it surface some and it’s a funny looking fish. Thought maybe I was dragging some very old or new species up from the depths of mud in that little pond that seemed so big to me at the time, covered in murk. As I drug it in closer, turns out it was no fish at all and I had snagged myself a HUGE snapping turtle. I start hollerin like some kind of amazing and terrible thing has happened because it had. I was raised that those things took your fingers off and I had never been connected to one! You’d think my Dad and uncle would have come RUNNING with that kind of hollerin, but that’s not the way I remember it. They did come but not in any way that felt quick to me. Not fast enough when you’re scared and alone at the edge of the pond with a snappy turtle on your line. Once they arrived they took over, and the memory gets muddy. I suppose they caught it, put it in the truck bed, and rehomed it down at the creek away from the house. That’s what we did.

We took them away because they took little girl’s fingers off and because they took the baby ducks down. You’d see one of our families of ducks swimming across the pond and suddenly one duckling would be gone. This had to be explained to me.
*share finishes in comment

There’s this song I’ve been playing. It first

There’s this song I’ve been playing. It first came on that night I went on a long pouring write. Crying hard and typing it out.

I played this song on repeat that night.

Sometimes I have this experience with songs. Lyrics stand out, lines resonate.
It’s what good songs do to us, for us.

When this happens in the biggest ways, I’m well aware that I’m often taking some lines in ways they weren’t meant and sometimes some lines are all wrong but the rest still feels all right.

This is the way this song has been for me.

The first time I heard it, it was just there in the background and I slowly started to notice it, until I was playing it louder and only listening to it, and finally googling lyrics to be exactly sure of all the words.

Here are some of the standouts.
Play the song if you feel moved to.
Enclosed By You, Josh White and Josh Garrels.

“Will you stay with me” reminds me of when I came home from seeing him for the first time in the hospital. I had thoughts like, maybe it’s not too late. Maybe he can stay and I can help save him. Will you stay.

“Will you stay with me when I forget you’re there” “made me” feel about how I left him, how it could be seen as I left him. Aspects of estrangement can go many ways… left and forgot, among them.

“Will you still love me..” whew.

“And I will never leave you” I never really did. Not calling isn’t leaving. Not seeing doesn’t always mean leaving.
Who did the leaving? Was it me? Was it you? Was it us?
I never really did.

“Cause I’m the one who’s been waiting for you to turn around..” I never closed a door to him, and this line makes me think I was always secretly waiting, hoping he’d reach out to me. If he had called (turned around), maybe I was the one waiting… maybe he was too. Would he say “I’m the one who’s been waiting for you to turn around”?

This song got me crying again.

Writing this and listening to it closely to write it, going deeper into what you feel. Feeling something is one thing, a feeling can be loose, casual, barely aware. It can also be something you go deep into or get very present with.

* share finishes in comment

Wedding things. The man I may marry, will never

Wedding things.

The man I may marry, will never get to meet my Dad.
My Dad won’t be asked for his blessing or permission.
He won’t walk me down the aisle.
Dad Things of Wedding Things.

The first guy didn’t ask my Dad either. I prided myself on unconventional and it made sense then. But I did wonder if my Dad felt that. Did he mind? Did it hurt a little or a lot or did it not matter to him? It’s not something I remember asking him outright. I did recently ask my Mom and she doesn’t recall him feeling sad about it. But that only accounts for so much.

I was engaged and never made any plans to actually get married so I never got to any plans like walking down an aisle. Never got to who would walk me down that aisle.

In anytime I ever did entertain thoughts about white dresses and fences, I would always be rebelish about it. No one gives me away! I’m not owned to be given, or some such. I always wanted to be so different. But I also wanted the option to be “normal”. Not much in rejecting normal if you feel it’s not within your reach to reject.

Dad can’t walk me down the aisle anymore if I wanted him to.
Dad can’t be asked.
And the guy can’t meet him.

I’ll never get to know if my Dad would approve. What would he say if asked? I’d want to know word for word. I’d want to see if he smiled although traditionally I wouldn’t be there to see that. I won’t get to see the look on his face if he did walk me down. I won’t get to know if he’d like who I picked.

If HE ever wanted any of those things, I would have wanted him to have them.
More things I don’t know.

Marriage and a wedding aren’t some dream not come true in my world, but if I do it, this will come up. I know it will.

It might have been this picture of my Dad on HIS wedding day that gave me wedding thoughts. Wasn’t he handsome?!

30 Days of Dad Day 23.

Some days I come here and I know exactly what I wa

Some days I come here and I know exactly what I want to write about, what thought or feeling I want to work on, develop and distill.

Some days I have no thought in ready mind and I sit to cull. Look at notes, look at the too few pictures I do have, look for what stands out, something to work on, think and feel about.

Last night when I sat to write, it was a time I didn’t have something wanting of mind. So I started culling places and free writing. I ended up writing and crying for a couple hours. It was a pouring time.
How this goes sometimes.

It ended up being a long messy write, and at the end I wrote: maybe the darkest, ugliest thoughts I’ve dared to write down so far.

One of the beautiful and great things about a writing practice: you find parts of self you wouldn't otherwise.

I feel to share all manner of things, it’s my MO. And it’s rare to get to the end of a write and not progress to something to share.

I know when I say this, some people will start with the: some things can be private, you shouldn’t share everything, when you feel to be private about something, that’s okay, and the like.
Being frank, these kinds of comments always irritate me and I wonder where they really come from. Are they well thought.. I don’t think I’ve ever said that so plainly in all my anticipatory defenses. “Those kinds of thoughts irritate me.”

I don’t need soothed, I don’t want your permission to not do what I want to do. If that’s what you’re saying, I think you’re not listening.

As for the writing and sharing and a write I did that I’m not sharing yet, I perceive it to be normal for me to share things many people would not.
And I’m sharing that I rarely feel to be private about something, I don’t feel what a lot of people seem to feel when it comes to “that’s personal”, “that’s none of your business”, “I want that to be private”. It’s “just” how I am, how I have become to be at this point. That considered , I don’t think my hesitancy to share last night’s write is about wanting something to be private. Maybe it’s about not having it figured out, even though I share that stuff too. Seems it’s not about that either then.

*share finishes in comment

What was his favorite color? I’d guess blue but

What was his favorite color?
I’d guess blue but that might be coming from a ‘blue for male’ place.

Favorite breakfast?
Don’t know… things we made and ate that I remember from when I was a child:
Chip beef gravy, sausage gravy, bacon and scrambled eggs.

Scrapple. SCRAPPLE! I remember scrapple. Dad liked scrapple. Dad introduced me to scrapple. Mom thought scrapple was GROSS. I can hear her voice in my head about it. GROSS. Dad showed me scrapple.

Favorite food, non breakfast?
I feel: don’t know.
Things I think he liked: Mom’s hot wings and pasta salad, when Mom made MEAT. Somewhere around 11 I stopped eating meat. Declared myself a vegetarian. To a pain in my Mom’s ass, she retort declared: you have to have protein, you have to pick one meat you’ll eat. I picked chicken, bird and later included some fish and would even later refer to myself as a cheating vegetarian. I had once encountered a mean chicken. My logic for the time. After this, I think I remember my Dad “just” appreciating when my Mom cooked anything but chicken. Our house had turned into turkey burger and chicken everything. Spaghetti used to be meatballs, what’s this alternative meat stuff. No more steak and potatoes dinners, or rarely because she wanted to accommodate my ass. I imagine it was a tough balancing act for my Mom and I think I remember my Dad appreciated when “real” meat still happened.

Cereal, although I don’t remember what kind, I do remember him setting up shop in his recliner with a mixing bowl size of cereal. I think my Mom “hated” that, that he would eat cereal from a ridiculous size bowl. What I remember. I wonder what kind of cereal he liked… things I remember having growing up, all the cereal I now call sugar cereal. Grew up on that stuff!

McDonald’s. I think I know he liked McDonald’s. One of his stocking stuffers would often be gift cards to McDonald’s, … am I remembering that correctly? What I don’t have doubt about is his wanting to stop at McDonald’s whenever we went on a road trip together. Mom would want something else, me too, and Dad would want McDonald’s maybe so he could get meat!

*share continues in comment

Yes I’ll have the stale Sour Patch Kids to feel

Yes I’ll have the stale Sour Patch Kids to feel close to you.

Things to keep track of:
6 months about Dad.
Dood exceeding expirations.
Me eating expired candy.

Some of the 6 month stuff is about the stuff stuff.
Things I thought I “had to” do, would do, and within 6 months. I used that figure to give myself some space. An amount of time I felt was likely to be plenty before any doors closed, but an amount that was technically, entirely pulled out of thin air around me.

Now that amount of time has come and is going, and I’m aware of the things I have done as well as the things I still haven’t done.

Are doors closing now?
Counting timelines about doors.

When my Dad first died, things came up.
Whose going to take care of this, whose going to take care of that, who decides this, handles this, cares about this, whose decisions.

Divorced and no will.
What are the laws around here?
Things I got to figure out.

When you died, in addition to the “GRIEF”, I was presented with all this stuff to do and people worried over me to do it.

Have you done this.
You have to do that.
Have you considered this.
I don’t know if you want to be responsible for that.

One person tells you one thing is needed, the next person tells you another.
Before I know it, I’m in the county office signing myself up to be an executor of an estate. And my Mom is worrying I’m going to become responsible for something that will be hard or hurt me. Valid concerns I never felt to consider.
It always felt: it is me who does this, whatever the this-es become.
He was my Dad, I do the things, was the only thing I ever felt about it and it wasn’t something that came from deep deliberation or pro con- ing. It just was.

I will over time continue to enumerate and tell stories of all that I have documented and experienced, thought and felt.
And for now, this.

No one tells you how to deal with a thing like this.
There is no list and whatever information does exist, is difficult to decipher and sometimes mixed and contradictory. The people on the other side handling things are often not well trained, knowledgeable, or even present to the situation.
A story:
*write continues in comment

It’s time for a Dooder update. Sorry it’s be

It’s time for a Dooder update.
Sorry it’s been awhile.

Dooder.
Dooder is Doodin, doin fine.

He’s nothing like we were told he would be. “He’ll start showing signs and declining anytime now.”
He has exceeded the expiration date we were given. 4-6 weeks, 1-2 months.
Expirations exceeded and day to day symptoms mostly non-existent, definitely not severe, all things I’m damn happy about and not without a side of worry and dread: but when will that turn.

We didn’t go the ‘$3,000+ for maybe a year’, route (chemo).

We did go the $$$ per month route of supplements and homemade dog food and he’s really been fancying that, along with his kid brother, Duck. Meal time has actually gotten down right demanding and was bordering on annoying for awhile.

Dood is good and I’m focusing on appreciation and presence and trying not to think about what’s inevitable and coming.

I’ve written more about Dooder’s state and what it’s been like, everything from purposefully forgetting timelines, losing hundreds of dollars in turkey tail clouds, to how I feel about being told to put him down fast.

You can read that longer write on my blog. Link in bio.

Today makes 6 months. Now that “I’m back”

Today makes 6 months.

Now that “I’m back”, it’s time to finish my 30 Days of Dad Challenge.

Perhaps it’s a line up of signs that today is 6 months since my Dad died and I’m in this space of getting “back to” an aspect of myself that I have “missed”.

Missed.
Are there lineups of missing?
Something I missed about myself. Something others missed about me.
Do I miss my Dad?

Unrelated but about missing.
What does it mean to miss?

How do you miss something you didn’t feel close to, something that felt far away and unfamiliar? Seems easy enough to miss something like that. Old times and childhood memories or friends, quickly come to mind.

Miss. If I don’t talk to my Mom for 2 days, she’ll say she misses me. Sometimes this is overwhelming or feels bad, like I shouldn’t have let so much time pass.

Miss. If I go more than a few days without hiking my mountain, something like miss, might be what I feel, but not always and I’m now not sure that feeling is accurate…

What does it mean to miss?
Does miss inherently include you (still) want?
Like an exboyfriend. You can appreciate what it was and have no ill feeling for them, but do you miss them? Some of those break ups are not miss break ups.

Writing this out, thinking into this; it started as a stream of consciousness.
What does it mean to miss and do I miss my Dad?

I suppose I’m supposed to miss him.
Perhaps I should. Perhaps I do. Perhaps it will seem ugly if I reveal I don’t or I’m not sure.
I’m not sure I don’t but I’m not sure I do either…
Not missing him doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
If I don’t “MISS” him, it doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of thoughts and feelings.
And something about miss just doesn’t seem the right sentiment…

Miss. What does it mean to miss?
“I don’t think I miss you.” Doesn’t sound very nice…, right, normal. Things that don’t necessarily matter, but do come to mind.

To miss, seems like I should want to do something contemporarily, that I want something I used to have, now.

What DO I miss? Trying things on.

*Share continues in comment.

I haven’t been as above average as I thought I w

I haven’t been as above average as I thought I was.

One thing I’m coming to get about myself is that I’m not as consistent and doing “more”, as I thought I was.

Kymology.

I listened to a video of myself from the beginning of last year where I was explaining The Audience I started. I had finally mustered “the balls” to put myself out there and ask you to move to a space with me and to pay to be there. This whole figuring out how to make money doing My Thing, thing.

I used the history of my social media presence, my sharing for many years, writing and showing the less common stuff of a life, saying the unsaid things, not blocking people, not deleting comments, exhibiting the inside stuff, all these, me -things, I do.
I used these things that I thought were unique, as my “platform” for why folks would want to support me.

When that endeavor didn’t go as well as I wanted, I backed off.
When only a few people signed up, I deflated.
When I noticed my follows and views decline, I thought I just have done something wrong. Promoting My Thing, must be a turn off. I stopped putting it out there.
When I stopped putting my thing out there, I stopped sharing as much overall.

I tried other things and still did Challenges, but in looking over it all, what stands out the most is: INCONSISTENT! And that hurts.

I don’t like inconsistent. I pride myself on consistent. And when I saw myself as a thing I BIGly dislike, I felt it BIG.

I think the “truth” was slowly revealing itself, that I was growing resentment about a perceived unwillingness for others to appreciate my work the way I wanted it to be appreciated.

One more free thing expected, was liable to put me over some intangible edge.
One more stranger feeling I’m a “friend” and clueless as to why they’d pay me, was possible to be too much to stand.

I went unpurposefully into a state of limbo and consistent inactivity.
My sharing was sporadic at best. I still wrote and did the things and I wanted to share but something also often felt: don’t want to, and I didn’t. I felt parts of this every day. And I’ve been struggling with it. Working on it.

*Write finishes in comment⬇️

New Moon Energy 🌑 Tomorrow is a New Moon. Th

New Moon Energy 🌑

Tomorrow is a New Moon.

They say New Moons are times for new things, beginnings.

I see it in the symbolism.
In the darkness, all is blank, dark, open. Space to create, build, grow something from “nothing”.
Something from emptiness, blankness.

I like symbolism.
I can find meaning in anything. I believe everything means something.
When people say, it was just a joke, or it didn’t mean anything, I always disagree.

When everything is perspective, you get to choose and I choose meanings that have the kind of energy I want in my life.
And with my meaning choosing, I use moons, New Moons for new things.

I take the time to slow down and think about it.
What do I want to create?

How do I want to use this symbolic or “real” energy?
I consider it.
I make some choices.
I begin.

Inviting you to consider using a line up with the New Moon.
If the slate was totally clear, the canvas blank, what would you want to start?
What could you start, that you would consider, that might make everything else a little better, a little “more” beautiful, a little whatever you want in your life?

New Moon could mean new beginning. And over the course of days and nights until the Full Moon, you add to your thing, like the moon gets added to in light, in brightness, waxing until it’s full again. 🌕

If you want to know more about New Moons and Full Moons, what they mean and how you can use them, this is one of many topics curated on my website, a house of resources for all things self study, authenticity building, and life figuring.

Considering what to start next. 🤔🔺
#newmoon #newmoonritual

2 months to live or $3,000+ for maybe a year. Ho

2 months to live or $3,000+ for maybe a year.
How does anyone make a decision like that.

How much for life?
As if you’re haggling with a guy at the market, not excluding the language barrier and misunderstandings, or the sales tax and extra fees you weren’t expecting.

How much is a life worth?
How much is more life worth?

And how much is it not about the amount of life.
The parts that aren’t about the cost.

Quality of life.
What’s chemo like for a dog?
Sure we might get a year, but what’s that year gonna be like?

Today we got news from that reason I was ISO for vets 2 days ago.
Dooder has tested positive for lymphoma. Cancer that has life expectancy averages that take your legs out, apparently.
Lymphoma.

Something I had no idea what was, until 2 days ago and still don’t really. But I now know I’ll be getting to know much about it.

As for the dying, I’ve been thinking Dooder is dying for years now. He’s going to be 13 this summer.
Maybe I should stop saying it like that. Maybe he won’t make it to 13 and I should start saying he’s 12.
Or maybe I should keep saying he’s going to be 13 this summer and “manifest” that into our lives.

I’ve been thinking he’s gonna die, for so long now, maybe it stopped being a thing. Maybe I started thinking he might really live forever.
Like the Tank we call him.

Thinking he was dying soon.
More than a few times, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, afraid he’d stopped breathing.
I’d wake him from a peaceful slumber, just to make sure he was still there.
Asleep in the middle of the day on his bed, I’d look over and zero in on his chest. Is it still going up and down?

And I’m trying not to awfulize it.
“First my Dad, now this.” A lot of death in a short period of time seems to be what my plate is about to look like.
Then, looking for the upside. “Well you know while I’m in it, let’s go ahead and get the death that needs to happen, done. While I’m in the grief part, let’s just go even bigger.”
Thoughts that cross a mind when you’re working on news you don’t like.

In part, sharing with you now, because I know many of you care about Dood too.

*Write finishes in comment ⬇️

I’ve had this idea about Dad’s stuff. One of

I’ve had this idea about Dad’s stuff.

One of several and perhaps it is the most consuming of back burner type thoughts in my atmosphere.

I’ve also had this 30 Days of Ideas Challenge that is unfinished and the set up was to FINISH it BEFORE the end of the year….I keep thinking I’ll do THIS idea for that!

There’s much about “the Dad Stuff” that I haven’t yet done and I feel about it daily. Thinking but not doing, yet.

Stuff to go through, things to look at, what needs to be handled. Stuff.

In all that, is this idea where I call the storage unit company where he last had stuff. In my ideal, I win them over, convincing them to send a note on my behalf, to whoever bought his foreclosed storage unit.

The idea that my Dad’s stuff was auctioned off… hurts.
I want that stuff. I want to be able to go through that stuff.

And I have played out the whole thing.
I know a storage unit company does this. Sells unpaid units.
I know they must have policy in place: we don’t give out buyer info. Sure yeah I get that. I wouldn’t either.
The small print they surely have about this, I know it’s there.

But what if I could appeal to someone about it. I’d have to hit their heart side not their risk side. I know those sides, I have those sides. I have built those sides in many companies.

Dear Who I Hope It Can Concern,
I know you have a rule about this and I am not asking for an exception.
You see my Dad died 3 months ago and some time before that, he lost his storage unit that was with you. I am not asking you to give me the name and number of who bought it. I know it is gone and it’s theirs now.
I am asking if you will consider sending this letter on my behalf.

Something like that and the letter would be an appeal to, if they had anything left from it, that they would let me see it, let me have anything that wasn’t of value to them that they just haven’t thrown out yet, a box of cards, pictures, or buy back anything they do have, if I wanted it.

And if they had NOTHING, will you just tell me some about what you found??

This is the idea, the appeal I would make, the letter I would write.

If I have all this idea-ed out, why haven’t I done it?
30 Days of Dad, Day 18.

What’s the difference between a ritual and a tra

What’s the difference between a ritual and a tradition?

A question that came to mind after the write for 30 days of Apprecation Day 15 and a BIG write for Kya’s Day yesterday.)

What’s a ritual? What’s a tradition?
Do I know the difference?
Do I distinguish between them?

Perhaps a tradition is something you do less frequently but regularly.
Annual comes to mind but it could be more frequent than yearly but not as frequent as daily?
Annual ish is tradition, daily is ritual?

Perhaps a ritual could be a tradition.
But can a tradition be a ritual?

Some things I consider rituals:
Wake up in Love, Move and Mind, Morning Drink, Morning Pages.
Lots about the morning.

Which makes sense, a lot about The Reckoning started with little things done consistently in my mornings.

My Morning Rituals began as a way to “get a hold of my mind”, which was running my life.

I was waking up stressed, anxious, nauseous from being anxious, feeling terrible, immediately dreading the day.
Not a great way to wake up.
Not a good way to start a day.
Especially not if days make life!

I called it the dread roll.
The time from when you wake up, to when you get up, DREAD ROLL.

When you’re awake but not wanting to start your day.
When the alarm goes off but you hit snooze, one or MANY times.
When the first thing you think of is something you don’t want to do.  The thoughts start, but you don’t get out of bed.
Dread Roll.

What kind of life is that?
Something isn’t right.

So I started chipping away at it and one way I did that is what I now call “Wake up in Love”.
As soon as I woke up, I Woke Up in Love. I directed my thoughts.
Whatever it took to do that.
Then I built on that.

It went from Wake Up in Love, to Get Up When You Wake Up. Then it was MOVE once out of bed and direct your thoughts, Move and Mind. From there, my Morning Ritual “went wild”. It grew and expanded. I added things and took things out, tried things, kept things, tried more things. And it became this ever-using, ever-evolving process. Varying from hours to minutes long.

*IG thinks my writes are too long 🙄post finishes in comment ⤵️

Today is Kya’s Day.  Who’s Kya? Kya was my f

30 Days of Appreciation Day 15. Today I appreciate

30 Days of Appreciation Day 15.
Today I appreciate TRADITION.

The ones I have, the ones I know about, the ones I don’t (yet) know about or haven’t yet created.  
I notice, “realize”, understand, I think, most of my traditions came from my Mama.  
As I look back at previous Apprecation writes, I glean this: I attributed much about tradition, to my Mama.
And right now, for the first time, differently, I see something else.
And before that, I’ll build the story.

Many of my traditions come from my Mom.

The significance I perceive about traditions, started with her. 
Many traditions I have are from my Mom and many of those are Holiday related.

She was the kind of mom who made a big deal about the holidays.
Birthdays are a big deal.
Thanksgiving is a big deal.
Christmas… my god!

And for years and years and even still, I get a card and a basket or minimally candy on Easter, a card and candy on Valentines.Holidays matter and birthdays are holidays.
I got all that from my Mom.

Years and years of this and I have one best friend who seems like me, about it.
Cake and candles and cards and a wrapped present, MATTERS.
And it’s not because we’re shallow and need material things and we do “need” some things. Pay attention!
 I remember the first time I learned another, like this.
That my Mom wasn’t the only Mom that bequeathed this tradition of holiday. Tradition not unlike expectation and laced with a beautiful and meaningful curse perhaps.

Whether it’s cards, prezzies, fireworks, real trees, confetti cakes, candles, singing, the way you make the stuffing, who cuts the cookies or the bird, who can roll the dough, whatever the hell or fuck it is, it matters!

Let your loved ones bring their isms with them.

Their WHAT matters and what they got from their very holiday oriented mamas or others matters because this is the shit that builds family, connection.
The WHAT that keeps any WHOS together.

While you may think it’s just a card, it’s not. This is what builds the families we build everything else on.  
What I didn’t know and think this time. Traditions.

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30 Days of Dad, Day 17. Another example of how i

30 Days of Dad, Day 17.
Another example of how it was different this Christmas.

A story about scratch offs.

All my life, I have gotten scratch-offs in my stocking. Early enough that I felt a little rouge and special doing them. You can’t gamble til your 18 so scratch-offs were illegal for a 7 year old.
All my life, I got scratch-offs in my stoking. As much as my Dad liked them I might have bene getting them at 2 and he was just doing them for me, ya know.
I didn’t always know that scratch-offs were my my Dad’s thing ALL the way around.
For years, I thought it was my parents thing, or a their thing, for all I knew all kids got scratch-offs in their stockings just like the fireworks were for my birthday and my sister was not different, yours was!
Later I grew to suspect it might be my Dad’s thing more than a “their thing” from how much he seemed to like it! It wasn’t just the kids who got scratch-offs in our stockings, we all did and we’d all be cruising through our stockings, because that’s what you do: open stockings first and those prezzies aren’t one person at a time prezzies. So we’d be tearing through and then done with our stockings, Mom, Alecia, and I, ready to move on to the real prezzies only to look over to find Dad in his chair cruising with the scratch-offs. Coin scraping scratch-off grip one steady scratch at a time.
The rest of us had put ours aside for later and were ready to continue the real excitement of the gifts under the tree. Not Dad though, he was particularly happy and zoned in on those scratch offs. Coin in finger going to down, a little brush here, little exclamation there. With a small exclamation about it being prezzy time, he would put down the scratch-offs and join in on the one at a time present doing. But any lag in time, he would be back to the scratchoffs and would have to be called back to the presents when it was back to unwrapping time.
This was a way about him, a way about our Christmases. Dad in the chair by the fire place doing his scratchoffs being called back to the present magic from time to time until they were all scratched.

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Could have been there and not, is different then,

Could have been there and not, is different then, dead and really can’t make it.
30 Days of Dad, Day 16.

An example of how it was different this Christmas.

I noticed myself wanting to bring Dad into Christmas this year, in ways that we had not previously, in the years we were not together for it.

This year I sought to remember what things he loved and liked about Christmas, memories I had with or about Dad and Christmas.

Most of this, I wanted to know but I didn’t want to DO anything with.

Examples.
A KNOW: I wanted to know what Dad liked, what were some of his favorite things, things I didn’t know or notice. These things I got from my Mom so far. Her memories. I asked, she shared, we talked, I remembered or assimilated new information.

A DO: I gave 2 gifts FROM my Dad.
“To: Alecia. Love your Dad” and “To: Joey, From Kym’s Dad”. Shrugging because maybe I do weird things.

There were times it seemed like we might be going in a direction of doing things to include or be for Dad and something about that didn’t feel quite right. If we weren’t including him in the last 3 years, why were we including him now, something that came to mind. And we didn’t do any things like that.

I think this part comes from all that work I did. The work in the estrangement, making sure I would be good if he died. By the time he did die, I had considered so MUCH and had been striving so hard to be so clear and well oriented, I think it made my response to his death, less normal (whatever “normal” really is anyway) and not in a bad way.

Making a dish that was one he especially liked, didn’t seem right.
Giving a gift from him, did.
Does that make?

While I don’t have that organized and explainable in any real coherent way, it’s even contradictory, I can be with it and continue to do that work, so I can do what I do, from those orientations.

This year that looked like some Dad in Christmas in ways he was not “included” or thought of in the last 3 when he was differently not here, and (still) not including him in other ways this year.

I might not have included him more but I looked for him and maybe even noticed him, more than ever.

Christmas has now come and gone and this is the in

Christmas has now come and gone and this is the in between of ‘til the new year.

The amount of time and energy spent leading up to Christmas…and it all culminates in this one day. For as long as I can remember, there has always been a sense of loss or disappointment after. Something that makes sense for what something so anticipated and worked for, to be over so quickly.

Perhaps the fact that my Christmases expand to 2 days, helps that feeling.

When you’re a couple, you gotta figure out the family split it seems and the way I have done that over the years is, one day with one group, another with my family.

This is the way I handle none of it feeling rushed. I felt dislike for that at a very young age, which I think contributed to our change as a family: we stopped going to extended family gatherings on holidays and stayed home with each other.

So here, 2 days after Christmas.
This was the first Christmas without my Dad.

I thought that, in the way I track and anniversary things, but it wasn’t really.

This was the 4th Christmas without my Dad, the 1st with him dead.

Each year I track things.
3rd Christmas with Joey, 2nd Christmas at Mom’s new house, and such.

It used to include things like 1st Christmas with Joey, Duck’s 1st Christmas, 1st year not waking up at my parents house on Christmas day, 2nd year not with B. Whatever year it was for whatever significant thing of the time.

The firsts become 2nds, the 2nds become 3rds, 3rds to 4ths to 5ths, … until at what count do you stop counting, what things?

I find they fall off “naturally” but then you notice them later, a few years of not counting, they come back up. Time may present itself for your realization of how much has passed and how far out of your life some event or person is.  
When I was doing this, this year, the “first without Dad” thought, in some ways it’s accurate and in other ways it’s inaccurate and it made for noticings.

I noticed myself noticing what things were different.

Him not being there uninvited, not wanting to come, some misunderstanding or a combination of all that, is different than dead and not there.
I noticed.
30 Days of Dad 15.

When I woke up this morning, the tip of my nose wa

When I woke up this morning, the tip of my nose was cold like I was camping in not the Summer.

30 Days of Appreciation Day 14.
I appreciate electricity and that ours hasn’t gone out!

Electricity is one of those things to be I found myself resisting when I was going through thoughts and feelings to do this annual Challenge.
Something about some of those “typical” things you “should” appreciate, didn’t sit right and I therefore pretty much don’t do appreciations about those kinds of things.

And today, after 2 degree temps with, feels like: -16, I am genuinely, significantly thankful for the electric around here!

With more than 13 years of experience at this quirky trouse, I HAVE experienced what it’s like to have the power go out.

That looks like a kerosene heater in the house and melting snow in a pot on top for water.

That experience was on the early side of those 13 and I found myself last night, shivering under 3 blankets, 2 dogs, and a human, thinking that I have gotten out of shape about the likes of living here. Taking for granted that something like the power going out at a really bad time, hasn’t happened in so many years that I no longer think ahead to make sure I have kerosene and the heater isn’t BURIED in the shed!

The fact that the pipes didn’t freeze when I forgot to keep a drip going, is wonderful!!

If the power had gone out, we would have had a time, going to get the heater and finding years old kerosene, hoping it was still good.

The power has nothing to do with the pipes, that’s an added appreciation. I’m shocked no pipes are frozen and I’m not displaying my - no water tricks, like how to flush a toilet when the water’s out.

Well at least none of the incoming pipes are. One of the outgoing ones, I suspect is. I think that’s called an S something..

I don’t remember it ever being this cold. So cold there was ice on the INSIDE of the windows, my toes were going numb from standing on the floor, with double socks and slippers on. I could see my breath in the back room. 😮‍💨

I appreciate the power around here and that it didn't go out at a very cold time.

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