Happy Birthday

To my darling boy. You really are the wind beneath my wings, but I will spare you the virtual rendition of said song, as I know you hate the song. I will sing something for you tonight at the restaurant, and it will be funny, and it will embarrass you.

The Good, The Bad, and let's all come clean

So as you may have noticed, I've been a bit blog shy lately. I thought long and hard as to whether I was going to get back on here and tell everyone why, as some people may be "offended". By some people, I mean one family member in particular. But as I have learned, this family member is going to be "offended", "put off", and "made uncomfortable" by many aspects of my life, no matter what I do.

That said, fuck it, after 37 long damn years, I'm tired of apologizing, making excuses, or generally hiding any aspect of myself from my family. I love my family very much, they have taught me so much - including the above mentioned "offended" family member. But all of my family must note, if you don't want to know about me, including ALL aspects of me, please don't read further. And also, to any family member who may be reading this, if you are really curious as to me, my life, or how I REALLY feel about things, please do something novel and pick up a phone and call me.

So what happened is this: I sent out an email to a few friends and family members with the link to my Creating Wellness post. Many family members had not seen my blog yet. One family member, I'll call them "D" for short, sent me back an email talking first about the Wellness post, and making some really good and interesting comments about health, nutrition, and general wellness. D then proceeded to tell me he was disappointed with some of the things that were on my blog profile page. The things on my profile page that were of concern were under my interests, namely: exmormons, bisexuality, and medical marijuana. I proceeded to read the long paragraph about how D still loved me, but did not understand how these things related to massage, or why I felt the need to display them to the world, etc. etc. etc. There was more to the email, but that was the general tone of things.

So I wait a few days to respond, because there were things I wanted to say that were best left in my head. I finally email D back and basically state that first, this is not a massage blog, this is a blog about ME, MY life, and all things ME. Secondly, I see no logic, peace, or integrity in hiding any aspect of myself. I invited D to consider that those "things" that presented problems, were things that D would have to reconcile within D. I told D that the me that exists currently is most likely a very different person than the one created in D's mind. I ended by saying that I longed for the day that these issues wouldn't even be something that needed to be discussed.

So since this all took place about a month and a half ago, I have received email forwards from D about right-wing politics, God in schools, how the Ford company is evil because they support a homosexual agenda in their advertising on TV. I have NOT received any emails that contain any personal communication of any kind. I am left to wonder what goes on in D's mind. I long to be able to sit with D and discuss our viewpoints of life, religion, culture, and the things that are important in my life like: health, bodywork, what I am learning studying Buddhism, craniosacral therapy, acting, and singing. I don't know when or if that will ever happen, but I have been chanting about it, putting that energy out there, and trying, within myself, to create a space in which D can feel comfortable with my life and my presence. However, there is only so much I can do, there comes a time when one has to surrender to what is. I just hope that what "is", is enough with which to have a relationship.

So that's the scoop on all that. In other news, my craniosacral certification is kicking my ass. It's WONDERFUL! And it's much harder to receive than I had anticipated. After my last weekend module, it took me and my body 4 days to recover, and I still haven't quite recovered. Even though it is a very gentle paradigm, it has the ability to access deep, old, and very locked somatic patterns in the body. These patterns can be more manifest in anyone who has experienced any type of trauma. So after this last module, I felt as though I were swimming in a vat of 20 years of car-wrecks, surgeries, injuries, and emotional turmoil. I have had insomnia since this last module, and my anxiety levels have increased a bit. Much of that is being worked out with my chanting, and receiving some acupuncture during this process, but it's still something I struggle with currently. I knew what I was signing on for, and I knew that craniosacral would be the avenue in which to explore these things in my body, but damn it's intense as shit. The more I learn about it, the more powerful I'm finding it is. One should go into craniosacral therapy with the full understanding of what it has the potential to access. But just as these things are being stirred up in my body, I'm also finding many of these things being able to be released and transformed, so that makes me very happy.

Now that the intense stuff is out of the way, I have to say that I'm excited about this weekend, we're going to see Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum tonight. I'm a little apprehensive, as their music is SO much more Ly than me, but despite what my hubby may think, I'm very interested to see the theatrical aspects of this group. We then are having people over tomorrow during the day for a early brunch birthday celebration for Ly. He will be turning 35 on Wednesday (sorry dude, totally outed you). I'm cooking my biscuits and gravy, Ly's making breakfast pizza, we're hooking up the bloody mary's and the mimosas, and we're gonna have a good time.

Ok damn, that all just made me feel like I've been through a big therapy session. Now it's time for me to go do some therapy on my client. Thanks for listening.


Note to my family: I love you all very much. Thank you for being in my life and teaching me about love, relationships, and how to be in the world.