Huh, What an Epiphany

When I was about ten years old I would often sleep in my Mom's room.  I liked being close to her and feeling the safety of her presence.

She had a poster tacked to the wall, (this was long before she became a photographer and then owned an art gallery.)  The poster read "IF you love something set it free, if it comes back to you, it is yours, if it doesn't it never was."

Even at ten, I thought, "Well that's a bunch of crap."

But this was the 1970's with free love, no boundaries, and the beginning of the self help movement.

I too have been guilty of being a self help junkie.  I have read books, shook hands with Tony Robbins,  learned to dance with my anger, love my body thru meditation, masturbation, and mastication (slowly of course).

My chakras have been put back in balance, my room has been feng shui-ed, I have breathed the breath of fire, walked barefoot to gain energy from the ground, and made an image board.

I am still just as screwed up as I have always been.  In my own adorable laughable way I accept myself and my flaws.

Why is it I wonder do I get so irritated when someone else feels the need to point out my flaws and offer to "help"?  If I ask, that is one thing, but usually I do not go seeking negative feedback.

Every generation is supposed to improve upon itself, while making the former generation obsolete.  They take what we have created, and add to, destroy, or fix it.

I realize that I am aging when I have little tolerance for the younger generations proclamations of their version of the truth.

The only truth I can clearly see is that life is in a constant state of Koyaanisqatsi.

I have tried to raise my children to seek out their own truths, and yes to experiment.  Try on personalities while you are young.  Do new things, but do it with the knowledge that it may end up being full of shit.  There are gurus on every street corner.  Teachers are among us always.  Every person we let into our lives should teach us something.

All lessons are not monumental, all things we take away from our actions may not have lasting effects.  We may walk away from something, or someone and say ,"Huh, well that happened."

A friend of mine since high school once told me that she always thinks of me when she hears the word "epiphany".  This surprised me to some degree, and I admit it was an epiphany in and of itself that I tend to have many epiphanies.

Recently stranger reached out to me on a photography site and said that I am brave, and compared herself to me by saying she is afraid. The epiphany I gained from this was that I was afraid to respond to her and offer words of encouragement.  I wanted to tell her, I am afraid too, all the time.  I am even afraid of fear.  Yet I like to snuggle up and make myself afraid by watching scary movies.

I am not qualified to advise people on their fears, or the choices they need to make in life.  I can only say that I do understand, and that I know it can be scary.  I can also be blunt and say it may really suck, or it may not.  Either way you wont know until you have done the thing that fears you.

In my house I have created an atmosphere of protection, my nest.  It is a safe zone, where my children are free to tell me the things they wish to share.  I have been told of the drugs they have taken, the times when they got drunk, lost their virginity, questioned God, questioned their own body images, and questioned their friendships.  I listen, and usually I will ask what they have learned from it all.  Sometimes I say nothing at all and just listen.

I may throw a note of caution in, I am their mother, and that is part of the job.  Protect the nest and all who reside in it.

On the poster that hung in my mothers room along side the words of letting something free, was a picture of a bird.  A Jonathan Livingston Seagull kind of bird.  I also pondered this as a child, "Well who would expect a bird to come back to you, that's just stupid."

Eventually I stopped sleeping my mother's room and I hung up my own inspirational posters.  I do believe they consisted of John Travolta, Scott Baio, and Carol King.

One of my children has written quotes all over her walls in her bedroom.

Eventually posters come down, and rooms get painted as we let go of the things that once served a purpose.  We let go of the ideas we loved, but they still belong to us, even of they never return.

If I never in my life have another poster of John Travolta it does not mean he was not mine.  If my children find fault in me and feel the need to point it out, I will call upon my plethora of resources to calmly listen to their concerns, their truths, and listen.

Or with all the knowledge and self help I have stuffed into my brain over the years I may forget it all and tell them to shut up.

Look how far I've flown.