This blog title is from my heart & mind. It's something I have been contemplating for a while.
It started happening 2 years ago.
Granted, I have an excellent memory. Possibly a photographic memory. It's so strong that I have figured out how to erase those memories that I desire to erase for various reasons. The erased memories didn't begin to come back until recently.
So many memories throughout my life, which I had not thought about, are flooding my mind when I'm awake as well as when I'm asleep & dreaming.
Some of these memories are of events that I regret or people I thought I had voided from my mind. People that are far too painful to think about. A sort of life review, if you will.
This is why it feels like my time to pass on might be soon.
Life Reviewing.
Around the same time, I began having these life reviews, an urgency that started small, has grown stronger since then. The urgency is to get my life in order, to finish projects I had started, years ago. I'm in excellent health, I have more freedom, more money, more control over my own life than I have ever had before.
It was a series of hurdles, sacrifice, work, perseverance to get where I am, now.
Having overcome so many fears that I had for so long, life is better for me than it has ever been.
Learning to let people go, from my life, that have clearly shown me that they don't respect me or care about me very much, was an important lesson to learn. People may say, with words, that they care even while their actions say the opposite.
Just because someone is my mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin or any other relation that it would seem that they would care about me.
Sadly, it's often, in life, they don't care. Then, one day, when they hear of my death, then the regret may or may not surface.
In a divorce, after a marriage that had turned abusive & sour, I began re-inventing myself. Having lived to serve others for so long it was a foreign feeling to do things just for myself.
Except for needlework patterns, fabric, fibers & beads.
Even my needlework was most often for others. Pouring my love into each stitch, wishing to delight the person I planned to gift it to. Looking forward to the day when I finished the stitching, then, making it into a Christmas stocking or ornament. A wedding sampler or a birth sampler. A just because I love you, thingamabob.
It was rare when I stitched something for myself, just to delight my senses long after the stitching was done then finished into a "whatever I want it to be."
I began changing back into who I really was or some variation of who I wanted to be. I was no longer the wife who kept the bed hot, the children clean & happy. I was no longer the woman who loved creating a beautiful home for others, whether it was to my personal taste or not. I was no longer the wife who was constantly being manipulated, frozen out for days or weeks at a time. I was becoming my own person apart from the one that other people wanted me to be, for their comfort.
This scared & baffled people around me.
In a psychology journal, I read that when a woman makes a noticeable change to her coiffure, LOOK OUT!
She is planning other changes that might make some people feel threatened. She might be reaching down deep in her spirit to comfort herself in an attempt to fight back against that which is causing her to feel physical or emotional pain or both! She might be working through pain from the past, self-healing in order to foster her personal growth or in preparation to make changes in her life.
A possible stab at taking her personal power over herself back from people or events that made her feel stagnated, shackled, unwell.
This form of changing or refusing something that a person can, is seen most often in children in their single digits of age. They have little or no control over their lives. They will try to control what is well within their span of control. The child can poo or wet themselves, which causes the people around them to react. They can refuse to eat or sleep or refuse to pick up their toys, caring little about the consequences to be enforced upon them.
When a child feels that any of these things are ineffective or not within their control?
LOOK OUT!
The last resort is the oh so lovely tantrum.
I changed my hair constantly, when I was married, usually cutting it off. In hindsight, every time I cut my coiffure, it was a time when I was being emotionally tortured. Being given the freeze out for longer than was comfortable for anyone in the home except for the one who was ignoring everyone. It was so abusive, so, I cut my hair to feel like I had some modicum of control over my life in my own home.
I wear my hair longer than I ever have, now. So very telling.
In present day, I have nearly complete control over my life. Although the career I love, came to me later than I would have liked. Maybe it was predicated on just the right timing. I'm doing something I love that feels more like play than work. A bonus is that I have much more autonomy, am appreciated much more, can do this until the day I die!
I probably will. Whenever that is whether sooner or later.
This brings me to the queries of why I'm experiencing all of the recall of distant memories. The urges to finish projects that laid untouched for a decade or more. I'm working on the bigger ones, finishing the smaller ones. I have stopped buying needlework supplies unless they are needed to finish an existing project. Holding drawings, online, for patterns that I see, are fetching hundreds of dollars, to bring delight to the recipients.
Many stitchers who only discovered a certain designer, recently, or only began stitching within the last decade, find these beautiful patterns for sale at grossly inflated prices. When the patterns have gone out of print, the prices go up. My aim is to somewhat counter the price gouging while showing others that the patterns are within their reach. I do these prize drawings online, usually on holidays or in the month of my birthday.
My attitude, regarding my birthday, is to give to others. It makes me very happy to do this.
I'm that girl who LOVES ~ Valentines Day!
Every year, on Valentines Day, I pass out roses to people who seem to need a bit of love in their life or in their day. Usually I have a dozen red & a dozen pink, long stemmed roses. I tie a length of curling ribbon around each one. I put them in a large vase, securely anchored onto the front passenger side seat of my car. Passing the roses out throughout the day, makes me happy to give a bit of love to others.
Giving other stitchers these high dollar patterns, even paying the postage, creates happiness in the various stitchers. Yes, I'm aware of the dollar value of these patterns. I know I will not stitch them, ever. The joy of giving them away usurps having them. There is more in life that is more fulfilling than having monetary wealth or possessions that others deeply desire.
Giving them away is uncommon.
Effortless benevolent life practices which are uncommon is a thread that flows through my life.
It's how I roll!
Another aspect that may or may not be ominous is that a year ago, neighborhood cats have begun gathering on my front porch. On any given day when I haven't stepped outside due to a heavy workload, there are 4 cats hanging out on my front porch. Often there are as many as six! I don't feed them or have a water source for them. Nope, they are just laying all over the porch & the railing.
It's nice that they are so comfortable, it's also a bit eerie, as it only began happening a year ago, soon after the life reviews along with the feeling of urgency to finish projects.
Here, kitty, kitty! 😺
This feeling that my life may be ending soon, has a serenity to it. While I know fully that I have made mistakes, as everyone has, I am fine with dying today or tomorrow or a week or more from now. Knowing that my children are doing well, they will be just fine without me.
Learning from mistakes I have made I have worked to be a better person. Helping others, being a kinder, more compassionate being than I was yesterday.
Imperfect as I am, I'm unafraid of death.
