Goodbye 2017

Aleathia says:

I sit down to write this in the new year and know that I should make promises to blog more and keep up with this darn things, but I don't want to make promises I can't keep.  I am going to put an effort in to sharing more.

2017 as a year in review is a painful one. Grief and sadness and death kept me from doing many of the things I hold dear to my heart, but instead of looking at it negatively, I am looking at the year as a transition period. The end of this year had me dispelling the last of my connections with my ex in the form of deleting all pictures of him and making a stand not to care no matter what the reason. It was killing me slowly and quietly because I am not good at letting things go if they are unanswered to a degree of great understanding. This in itself is a lesson to carry forward.

2017 was an interesting year for my creative side. After a very long dormant period, I rose from the ashes with a new found fury. I have taken on harder cross stitch projects (and even landed a commission), taught myself how to sew yoga bags and play mats, crocheted blankets and scarves and hats, rediscovered my love of collage, participated in photography projects, got asked to be in a fiction collection, wrote 3 poetry collections, designed some fine fabric art projects looking at mental illness, started a bullet journal, and rediscovered a love of drawing. When given the space and the time to focus on it my creativity soars.

I learned to be alone this year and discover the beautiful freedom of personality and individuality that comes with it. I do still have my daughter living at home, but I am alone in the intimate sense that one half of my bed is covered with art projects, books, and remotes rather than a man. This was challenging at first and so full of fear and loneliness, but now I can't ever see myself sharing this space again. Don't get me wrong, I love a good spooning session and affection, but at what cost does this come? I have spent a lifetime being someone that people wanted in just the way they wanted me. Now I get to be who I want to be for myself. This is by far the biggest lesson I have learned.

There has been a lot of yoga this year, though I have slacked a bit at the end, and it has done wonders for my sense of being centered. It has helped physically with my arthritis and has made me not feel so damned old all the time. It is often my mediation. My time alone. My one with the universe sessions. I hope to do more of it this year on a consistent basis and let it open my heart to being less closed off to opportunity and friendships.

Above all, this year has given me deep friendships. I have never been one to have a lot of girlfriends because most of the women I meet are a bit fake and backstabbing. It gets hard to trust them, so I have let only a few magnificent women in my life in the last 40 years. Usually if I make a female friend, I do so until they step away from me for good. I discovered what it means to be supported by another woman, to share of myself and be accepted, to find connection where I believed their would not be any. The circle of women in my life, including my daughter, is a treasure I never thought I would get to experience in my lifetime. I hope the coming year makes those bonds stronger and I can be a worthy friend.

In getting back to the roots of my personality, I bought myself a Tarot deck. I had one years ago when I had the most contact with my authentic identity...when I lived for me. Because I am older and a bit more tongue in cheek these days, I bought a Zombie deck. The art is quite fun and that is what I want my life to be about. I did a year spread to see how the months would unfold and there is much work ahead of me actually. 2017 may have been only the pre-transition year and 2018 will find me working through this transition with challenges and frustrations and things not moving along as fast as I would like, but with determination and good decision making, I will come out on top.

I know this post is long and attention spans are short. If you have made it this far, thank ye kindly. I hope to be bringing back posts of art and discovery. Music. Movies. Books! I am going for it this year. As always, thanks for sticking around these last few years while I fumble through life. It means a lot. Happy New Year. Let's make it our bitch.

Aleathia

The Reset Button

Aleathia says:

I had the pleasure of camping with my friend Annette this week. She is a wonderful woman who brings out some great qualities in me and helps me to stay true to the important things in my life like yoga, meditation, a good diet, tea, and being aware of the world around me. Earlier in the summer we took a road trip together...13 hours on the road each way and not once did we want to kill each other. That is a good traveling partner.

Life has been stressful in the last few months and the both of us are settling into defining how we want to live life right now and learning what our dreams hold for the future. On a whim I had asked her if she wanted to go camping for a few days and she was excited to. Neither of us had camped in a long time and a nature reset was just what we needed.

Annette is a raw vegan. I am a swarthy meat eater. We get along because we don't make it political. It is just life choices. I decided that this trip I would eat her diet for several reasons. I was having stomach trouble and eating raw meant that I didn't have to bring the usual 10 tubs of cooking gear to manage outdoor meal time. I was leery about whether or not I would feel like I was starving, but even with over 25 miles of walking and hiking, I wasn't weak or dizzy once. This really showed me what my body is made of and what it can do with different kinds of fuel.

Now this wasn't a teetotaler sort of trip. We drank rum like it was going out of style and indulged in some fancy s'mores. We had deep conversations as we walked and drank. We laughed by the fire and even had some tears. We looked at stars and waterfalls and everything green. What we did was get to know each other outside of work just a little better.

In the mornings, we did yoga by the waterfall. This was an other worldly experience to have such a connection with nature and do our individual practices. The sound of rushing water like a mantra that spoke to us in different ways.

We made a dedication to hike the entire gorge loop starting with the Gorge Trail  up to Lucifer Falls and back down on the Rim Trail which overlooks the lower falls. This hike was full of steep elevations and crazy sets of stairs. One false move and over the cliff you could go to a most certain sort of death. We met so many people along the way each of them in different stages of physical health and hiking ability. The great thing was that both Annette and I have the same hiking pace. What a rare happening to find a hiking partner on the first try!

When we reached the bridge to the Rim Trail I had doubts as to whether or not I wanted to climb more stairs to Lucifer Falls. I was getting tired, my hips were hurting, and I was feeling a little defeated. I said fuck it and up we went. If I didn't get to the top I would have regretted it greatly. Once up there we looked at the falls and had a snack. We rested for about 20 minutes and then I felt great again. We made our way down the other side of the gorge and what a glorious feeling to breech that last gate and know that you've accomplished something you had tried to do several times before but could not.

This camping trip was good for the soul. It truly was a reset button for me. It has given me new direction in my life and a more positive perspective about my future and all the dreams it holds. Always reach for the distance. It's so beautiful when you get there.

Yoga Camp Day 2 and Day 3

Aleathia says:

I'm pretty excited that I have made it three consecutive days to the mat. I am usually pretty gung ho about starting things and not so great about finishing. I have a bit the complacent/lazy gene if things don't seem to be moving along as I would like. I have enlisted the help of my friend Annette who is going on this journey with me. Sometimes things are better with buddies.

Yoga Day 2 had the affirmation of "I Create" and in good fashion the instructor left it up to each student to decide what exactly they wanted to create for themselves at that moment, in that practice. I decided that I needed to create space. All of my muscles are bunched together and I have felt really buried and closed in lately. Thinking about wide open space was the right choice. 

This practice was a longer one lasting about an hour. It was full of forward bends and side twists and activating abdominal muscles. When a person is grossly overweight in the abdominal area and has had rheumatoid arthritis since 16, doing forward bends is akin to having your spin ripped out and putting your abdominal rolls in a vice. It made me very sweaty and I felt emotionally challenged that I had let myself go this long. I discovered muscles I forgot I had and ones that I wished had remained anonymous. But when I was done I was warm and felt taller and accomplished.

Yoga Camp Day 3 put forth the affirmation of "I Embrace". Thinking about all the unrest that is happening at work and how painful it is to go there most nights because of clashing personalities, I decided to embrace loving-kindness.  The idea of loving-kindness is very prevalent in Buddhism and it is something I try to work on all the time. I don't always succeed, but I do try to bring it to each day. I don't believe I have ever thought about embracing loving-kindness while doing a yoga practice and being present with that idea that I will not only embrace it for other people but embrace it for myself. I am often my own worst enemy in this life.

After three days of yoga and affirmations, I have found that I feel lighter in spirit. My muscles feel longer and the subtle soreness in the core and shoulders linger to give a gentle reminder of what I am out to achieve. I know I haven't lost any weight, but I feel skinnier. Sometimes lifting that barrier in the mind is more powerful that we can understand while it is happening. I am not sure what I will feel like at the end of this journey, but for now, I feel great.

Thanks Annette for going on this journey with me even though we are practicing in different places at different times. I keep your friendship with me as I'm moving through poses I think I can't do.

Aleathia

Today I Start the Journey of Me

Aleathia says:

It sounds cliche, right? The Journey of Me. I'm so important. Pffft. This has been the problem my whole life is that I have never felt important at all. I have felt as if my contribution to the world was invisible to everyone but me. And then, if I felt I had done something important noticing it and giving myself credit brought on a cycle of guilt.

How does one get to this place in life? I surely didn't ask to be here and most of the people I surround myself with in present time do not perpetuate this behavior. The line "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" comes to mind. That is my first thought of myself. Old dog. I know my early environment was rocky living all over the country, never setting roots, having parents who drank too much or partied too much. It makes a kid grow up early and forget how beautiful the freedom of loving yourself can feel.

It was a long work night last night and I have not physically felt well. Drained, tired, apathetic, bloated, overweight, and unsure of the future. It is the recipe of stress. I woke this afternoon feeling like I wanted to cry. Do I really have to get up? I got up to an empty house and felt more alone than ever. February is the longest month when you feel like this. I went to the sewing room with plans of getting a few hours of sewing in before work. I fixed a few items that were already purchased, but then the sewing machine stopped talking to me. I just sat there staring at it.

On my phone was playing a strange video string that I picked up on Reddit of some Australian guy with dating tips. I thought about what a racket it was because this dude was hot and what chick wouldn't want to go to a several hour seminar and stare at a hot guy telling them how to pick up hot guys? Come on ladies. But I am a sucker for an accent and watched a few minutes. The baseline of some of the things he said was true, but it still felt like a ruse. This strangely lead into looking up yoga videos. This is how my mind works folks. Hang on.

I love yoga. I don't do it enough and it is as if I am denying myself the physical pleasure of truly relaxing and letting go. It is as if I just can't stand the thought of feeling good in my own body. The more fat you have the more insulated you are to take insults or pain or stress or tragedy. The thicker you are the least amount of people can get to you; they build an aversion to you. I sit here writing this and think that is the saddest thing I have ever said about myself. So, I looked for a yoga video...something short and not too shaming.

Day One of Yoga Camp with Adriene. Such a cute, tiny little lady and I was prepared to feel a bit too fat and a bit to ugly, but this lady was lovely. She asked me to trust her. What? I don't know you, I thought. She said today you are going to accept where your body is right now, at this moment. Yeah, fat and stiff and old. Trust me she said. Close your eyes. But, I'm watching your video. Close your eyes and breathe. Remember to let go of all the things holding your body in places it doesn't want to be. Breathe. Trust me. Accept where you are right now and know that you deserve to be there.

30 minutes later I am lying on the floor in savasana smiling....feeling beautiful, feeling happy I trusted this skinny girl with the big heart and the creaky wooden floor beneath her. I realized in that moment that I am so full of judgement not just about other people but about myself. It is so easy to do and so hard to take back. Today, I start the journey of me. Who is Aleathia? What does she stand for? Will she love herself more at the end of each day? I sure hope so.

Aleathia