About intuition, I have got to paint how this feels it looks like. What an absolute trip.
 
Not everyone feels fear the same way. Of course, it has to do with your upbringing. I tend to feel it like most men do, as anger. That will squelch intuition- just learned this. If someone hops out and scares me, I'm liable to punch or kick them. Fight or flight, well, I guess I know where I stand :)

Intuition is something that can be grown. Its good to have because its so much wiser than we are, but sometimes, we have to work on it and here's how that looked this evening: OK, so I'm ok with writing about my shortcomings, but not so much my hubby's. The jest of it: he was doing something that I strongly objected to, but didn't know why. I mean, I was really angry and it was a small thing. I had "some" logic behind it, but it still fell flat as to why I felt so strongly. We couldn't finish our conversation- its hard with a toddler. It didn't matter, I couldn't articulate what "it" was anyway.

So I was uncomfortable or mildly pissed off. Now, in the past, I'd beat myself up for being "controlling" or whatever negative connotation someone wanted to put on it- and all it did was weigh me down. Some of that could be true, but it wasn't the heart of the matter and certainly didn't help the situation or me. 

So tonight, I sat to write him an email about the conversation. For some odd reason, I realized (and how I got the breakthrough, I don't know yet) that what I didn't like was what I was sensing coming from him about himself. How he felt about himself made me afraid. It was an issue he was dealing with that scared me for him. Had not a damned thing to do with me. 

Now, there is no way I could know this thing. He hadn't told me, but I know it to be true. If its not, I'll come back and write about it. 

Now that I can articulate it, I guess instinctively, I knew if he didn't resolve this issue in a healthy way, it would bandaid something that would fester. The issue would never get resolved, he'd be perpetually unhappy and that would pollute Devyn and me, too. The thing I'm talking about would easily do that. 

Without him being his best (and I mean happiest, healthiest he can be), our family only has one leg to stand on. Its as if you can see the situation unfolding and know the progression before it happens. Some people call it "fortunetelling", "forecasting" and say its going off the deep end, but there is merit to it when its involved with intuition.  
So, off and on, I've realized that a strong reaction usually indicates intuition is saying something. Whether its to turn left or not, watch a thing, what is going on in a conversation, it doesn't matter. 

If you want to try, just feel within your gut next time you get a knot in your stomach. Close your eyes and "feel" the knot in your stomach, there might also be a sensation behind your shoulders or neck in a radius (it feels like you have eyes in the back of your head or something.) Especially if you've got a knot in your solar plexus, the area above your belly button, listen. Observe. Pay attention and then visualize what the situation would look like if you removed yourself entirely. What is it about this person that is doing this? What is it about themselves (not relating to you or the relationship) that you know without words? Can you just describe that person or their behavior as objectively as possible from the perspective of a friend? This is how we can see other people's situations so clearly. When you're really emotionally involved, fear creeps up pretty quickly, so does the anger.

You'll know you "got it" when you get an aha moment and that knot goes away. If its a little thing, it'll simply be a "hmmm."

What I'd done in the past was feel the (fear? sometimes?) that would turn directly to anger so quickly that I didn't even realize that fear existed, just anger. I had love, joy, boredom, anger-- everything but fear. Just a knot in my stomach and anger. I beat myself up for it... and try to squelch the fire within by saying that something was probably wrong with me and that I needed to quit being "judgmental", "oppressive" (list your descriptive terms here that culture, religion or parents impart, on purpose or not).
 
Well, what happens to a fire when it gets a crack in its smothering container? That little bit of oxygen causes backdraft, an explosive outburst that will literally obliterate a structure sooner than if you'd just let it burn. 

Either way, I'm thinking that fear may be the doorway to intuition. God speaks to us through our emotions, and fear is just as valuable as any other emotion.   

Grief is a complicated thing and people vascillate between deep despair, denial, anger, making "deals" <--I never did that one, back to one of the ones just mentioned and over and over. About anger... they never really tell you why you're angry or what its going to be directed at, do they? I guess it could be anything.  

Day before yesterday, I saw Oil of Olay bodywash Mom had gotten me for Christmas and I just bawled. For 2 hours. The thought that I didn't do enough for her, make her feel loved enough, just kills me. Since I had Devyn, I didn't have the patience I used to and the thought I'd hurt her feelings, kills me. Not being able to call her to tell her this weird mix of haircolor I concocted looks good, kills me. Not being able to hear her blather away about dumb things breaks my heart. 

Last night, we go there and she's not waking up at all. They'd done a CT scan and there is nothing wrong with her head that she can't wake up... she's just sick. Its not pain meds, its not a high fever, she's just checked out. Hell, I've been sick as a dog, had 105 fever and saw things, yet I could still say hi. WTF?

Then I got angry. I'm actually relieved, anger feels better than that despair. 

A long time ago, a couple built a house. They didn't have everything that they really needed to make it as sturdy as they should, but they wanted one anyway and they built it where they wanted to. It turned out to be a really good house. In the early years of its "life", a hurricane came along, Camille. The house still stood, most folks were surprised given that the hurricane had 200 mph winds. Sure, it lost its shingles, shutters and porch, but somehow the little house made it.  

Other things happened throughout time, additions had been built onto the house, new rooms, renovations, celebrations, births and birthdays. More hurricanes came and went and the house creaked and moaned and the superfluous parts blew off, but the main structure still stood. The couple was proud of themselves and their construction and maintained life as usual, thinking that all is fine. They tended to the outside, the gardens, the furniture, but never thought to check the bones of the house.

Later on, a small but compact storm, category 1, hit the house and this time, it started to shake more than usual, making crumbling sounds. No one understood: its withstood the biggest and strongest of winds, why would it now begin to crumble? The winds are coming from a different direction, its a small storm comparatively, so why is this happening? 

No one heard the support beams splinter in initial storm's torrential rains because they were so busy mopping up the superficial water on the floor. So now, people are shocked that this small category 1 is about to take out the small, seemingly sturdy house. 

The ones living there even get mad at the house: this is a completely different situation! Why are you crumbling??

How stupid is that?? Well for someone seeing the situation for what it is, there are a few choices... strengthen the support beams, move the house away from the hurricane-habitat or watch it blow over. 

Such is the life of someone who is an ACOA when they live long enough to revisit situations that remind them of initial childhood insults. Even long after sobriety and the choice to live a better life, the structural damage remains. In my situation, I've saved my Mom's life over and over and over-- whether it was through hiding her booze so she wouldn't drink into oblivion and drown in the bathtub, begging her to leave a man who would eventually kill her, all the warnings I gave her to behave differently when Dad (if he knew what she was doing) would beat her for what she was doing, hiding her in my closet when she came back after "running off", to actually sitting on her lap as a human shield when he was going to shoot her. 

Today, I am tired of having to make life and death choices for someone who isn't present. 

No matter how many times Stephen tells me that the situation is different, I can't help but feel tired and resentful. Yes its different, but the effect is still the same. I don't get a life, I get sadness and fear and loss. Whether its by choice (alcohol, a husband) or by nature (Nocardia), I am fucking tired of this and angry. I want her to suck it up, wake up and make a choice between life and death and not leave me to do it for her, like most of my life.     

But as unfair as it is, thats not going to happen. And I'm still left here to look at limbo with the thought that something else could be done to snap her out of this. My heart still breaks and yearns for the person she was before the illness. I still see some fucking olay bodywash somewhere, all day every day. God, I miss her and I'm mad and I don't want to make this decision. But here I am. 

My beams may be wobbly, but my foundation is strong. So fuck you, storm, bring it. Blow the house down. I'll rebuild.  

Don't read this if you don't want your mood to drop like one of those jets with bad batteries. Read on if you want someone to relate to or just out of curiousity.

I've got so much work to do, but I'm taking a mental health evening. I read Damn You AutoCorrect! and got a good laugh. I even had a nap. I needed a mental health evening instead of working at every available minute cuz Mom had to be taken to the hospital again at about 5 a.m. this morning via ambulance. She started vomiting and had other "issues", while her hands were tingling and burning like fire. Sounded like an allergic reaction to me. I didn't take her, but that didn't mean that I wasn't up bothered, tho. Yes, I prayed. 

Today was my day. Stephen and I started switching days (one day is his work day and the next is mine) and we get a bunch more done that way. I was glad today was mine; I got to paint. It didn't help with my attitude, tho, like it usually does.

I'm just tired. Bone tired. What triggers my depression is stressful events that just keep coming, like ocean swells knocking me down over and over, and I think thats whats going on.

Normally, I'm a conqueror- I don't worry, I deal with "it", attack whatever it is head on when "it" happens and I'm not afraid of much of anything. But this shit keeps coming. Just when I think I've got a little while to recuperate, I get hit again. And I'm starting to get pissed off about it. God, fate, bad luck, whatever it is, give me a freaking break for about two months. Just let me catch my breath and get a few steps forward, ok?

Not that I think life shouldn't be this way, that these experiences are unfair, it what it is and I could be anybody. I would feel better if I could get a leg up out of this pit that keeps getting deeper. Every time I get my stuff set up to go out and network with other art sellers/dealers/interior designers, something serious happens and all forward progress has to cease. I get a project going and momentum (you know, the "flow" where its coming together and you're in the zone) I have to stop to write some dry assed complaint form with the Mississippi Board of Realtors or Dispute of Settlements and Fees. Its both draining and distracting, then there's this recuperation time (that may or may not happen) and then shit hits the fan again:

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