Just Jazzy 238

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 25

Happiness is speaking your mind when you know biting your tongue is gonna hurt.

Broken

Broken chair (Photo credit: Martin Bartosch)

See these beat-up pieces, this broken-down chair?

Bedraggled, battered, neglected, bare.

Like me it is wasted,  the worse for wear,

Hurt and defeated,  filled with despair.

We are worn out, broken, beyond repair.

 

 

 

 

The Trifecta Challenge this week is 33 words about anything you want.  Your piece must include at least one
hyphenated compound modifier.

Now see freaked-out me completing a first draft which ended up being exactly 33 words.  So it’s as is, with very little editing.  Why mess with a happy accident?  Next time I will try to be more cheery.

The Healing Gift

English: Spiritual Healing Church – Princes Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My sister has been told by more than one psychic that she has the gift of healing, and it’s true.  She does.

The people closest to her don’t need a clairvoyant to point this out to them.  Her specialty is not in the realm of physical health – as far as I know she can’t cure disease or mend a broken bone.  Her gift is her ability to listen to problems and sum up situations, to empathize and sympathize and soothe the hurt.

Something in her nature makes it easy for her to do this.  She thinks of the most considerate, kind and thoughtful things to do and then she does them, without a lot of contemplation and without the expectation of getting anything in return.  She heals moods, and spirits, and souls.  And she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

Sorry, you can’t have her, she belongs to our family. We’d be a sorry lot without her.

So imagine my consternation on reading my horoscope for today:

You may be asked to take on a teaching role in your spiritual circle today. People will be seeking out your wisdom, knowledge, and experience. You could discover that you have a healing gift, or benefit from the healing talents of another.

The confusion comes from a number of things.  Spiritual circle is one of them, since I didn’t know I had one.  People coming to me for wisdom?  Good luck with that.  I already benefit from the healing talents of another, just by talking to her.  But they’ve got the wrong sister for discovering another healing gift because I think I’m better at making things worse.

Our mom was the kind of person who did wonderful and selfless things for others, but she was also a worrier.  Her mind was always going a mile a minute and often her mouth couldn’t keep up.  She would start to say something and jumble it all up with three or four more seemingly unrelated ideas and before you could sort any of it out, go off on another tangent altogether.  The run-on sentences were a challenge, but the unfinished ones were even more puzzling.  I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse to think so much.  She took everything to heart and analyzed it to death and as a result said a lot of truly amazing things, and maybe my brain just couldn’t keep up.  But I was always able to see how badly she wanted to save the world, and I knew at a very young age that I just didn’t want to be bothered with any of it.

So I became not just selfish, but oblivious.  The world revolved around me, and everyone else could solve their own stupid problems.  This worked out really well for me until I had a husband and children.  “Me” got lost in the pandemonium for a lot of years.

Now that they’re grown up and on their own and coping as well as can be expected after having a mother like me, I’m back to my introspective ways.  I’m done with trying to be the glue that holds the rest of my family together.  Even if they don’t know it,  they really don’t need me, and it’s wonderful to be free.  Of course I’ll help in any way I can if they ask me to, but it’s nice to know they’re smart enough to ignore my advice when it’s completely out to lunch.

Other people aren’t that smart.  They’ll tell me about something that happened or try to explain some situation that’s giving them grief, and I’ll egg them on. Even if I don’t deep down care AT ALL, I’ll add fuel to the fire.  I have a knack for encouraging resentment and making angry people even more irate.  I get people fired up and then I back away to let them deal with it.  This talent for motivation in the wrong direction could never be misconstrued as a gift.  It’s a malediction that I should be fighting.  Not only am I still not saving the world – what’s even worse is that I am making it a more miserable place to be.

Well, recognizing there’s a problem is a huge part of the cure, right?  I would like to be that person who listens and absorbs and calms and helps, and not the one off whom you bounce your concerns, only to get them back looking ten times worse than they were before.  You do not want to talk to the riot inciting sister, you need the healing one.  I’m not there yet.

Will I ever be?  Who knows?  Maybe the stars know something I don’t.  Maybe I need to heal myself first.

Mea Culpa

Do I think I deserve an apology that I haven’t yet received?

Oh, probably. I often feel hurt or wronged or on the receiving end of rudeness. When I get all pouty about something I try to consider the source, and then come up with one of two conclusions.

Either I am being overly sensitive and touchy and need to suck it up and get on with my day, or….

…..the other guy is a totally insensitive heartless stupid jerk, and whatever he said or did wasn’t necessarily personal. In which case I still need to suck it up and get on with my day.

There are people out there who, if you tried to explain to them exactly what was offensive and why, wouldn’t get it anyway.

And insincere apologies are worse than no apology at all. When you demand an apology from someone who then obediently says “I’m sorry” what he really means is “I don’t think I did anything wrong and I don’t get why you’re so bent about this, but what the hell, if an apology makes you feel better, here ya go. Suck it up and get on with your day.”

Then there are the people who say they’re sorry CONSTANTLY. For EVERYTHING. Knowing they can say or do whatever they want as long as they apologize for it later. Insensitive jerks.

Do I owe any apologies that I haven’t yet given? Well, if I do, please clue me in because I have that insensitive jerk side of me going on sometimes too. I have been known to screw up on occasion. And even if I don’t think I’m wrong, it has never killed me to at least say “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry this happened.” I would mean that sincerely. And then I would sincerely hope that you are able to suck it up and get on with your day.

Was it a Dream?

My dreams are often so ridiculous that if they ‘came true’ I’d think I was still dreaming. Like the one where I see a child climb up on a railing and start to fall and I race down several flights of stairs to catch him before he hits the ground.

I have had some prophetic moments, though.

Our family was eating dinner once when the phone rang, and out of the blue I dropped my fork and exclaimed “O my God. Somebody died.” Mom came back from taking the call and delivered the news looking sad and confused and directly at me. “Uncle Colin had a massive heart attack and passed away in the hospital this afternoon.” He hadn’t been sick, he wasn’t old, it was completely unexpected. After that I tried to keep my sudden premonitions inside my head, so as to appear slightly less weird at the end of the day. Although it was always a toss-up – do I blurt this out before the fact, or wait until afterwards and say I knew that was going to happen? Either way, the sceptical expressions are about the same.

When my grandma died (she was 99) I didn’t go to her funeral for a number of selfish reasons. We were a thousand miles away, my kids were small, I didn’t want to take time off work, and I really hate funerals. The guilt after the fact about that, and remembering how many times grandma had wanted to sit and talk with me and I just hadn’t made the effort or taken the time, made me heartsick, remorseful, and unbearably sad.

One night, about a month after she died, I dreamed that she was standing at the foot of my bed, patting my feet, the way a mom pats a baby’s back, and softly murmuring. Grandma always said ‘there there” when we were little and upset about something and her gentle soft pats always made the hurt go away. “There, there. There, there. Don’t you worry. I know that you loved me.”

In the morning I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the gloom and regrets were gone. And every time I thought about her doing that for me a beautiful sensation of ease and calm and love for her would flow through me.

Was it just a dream invented by my subconscious mind to help me leave the depression behind? Or can the spirits of the departed really come back to comfort the living? I shared my “dream” experience with my sister and she had that same expression on her face that I remember from the dinner table scene so many years ago.

That’s okay though. I know she loves me anyway.