Yard Work

Today was a good day. We got our new fence in the backyard. Though it would be nice to not have a privacy fence, these days it seems inevitable with our forever barking dogs who dislike the neighbor's drunk friends. We don't exactly care for the drinking or the noise produced by our neighbors either. Eventually one can only handle so much "community". When dogs and drunk people do not mix you know you need privacy otherwise an accident is waiting to happen.

A perk to having the privacy fence is the ability to make it look like our own little haven in the midst of chaos. I'm excited to think of planting a small tree, some flowers, grass (our backyard currently consists of lots of concrete), maybe one day a garden too.

We'll see how we progress.

Purging

This last week I finally had some motivation to set foot in the attic. My attic is like the black hole that swallows you alive if you enter it because of all the stuff everywhere (I'm being nice by calling it stuff). We've been needing to clear it out as much as possible in order to continue our renovation project on the house. So I pulled out boxes one by one and went through them to determine what of my stuff might still be of use or sentiment to me. It was nostalgic to look through things I had not seen in over a year since I moved. And it was freeing to toss out many other things that I really had no use for anymore. But that was only the beginning as I could only carry a few boxes because others were just too heavy to get down the stairs alone.

But thankfully my parents came into town this past weekend and my husband and I with their help went through everything! Unbelievably you can see the floor in more than 2/3rds of the attic. We had all the piles going: trash, recycle, sell/charity, keep. And without too much thought, because if you think too much you decide you still need everything you really don't, we purged quite a bit of material baggage.

I still have the keep piles and sell/charity piles in the house, but soon they will have a new place and I look forward to it.

But much to my surprise the attic wasn't the only place we cleared and cleaned. After my parents had already left for their journey home, the DH decided the garage needed to be cleaned out. One could not imagine my excitement at this decision. So I happily helped him clean what is primarily his space in the garage.

And all I do now is take a deep breath in relief. Renovation will continue AND surprise! my dad offered to come and do all the electricity in the living room, kitchen, dining room, etc..

And finally the cars fit nicely in the garage!

We're talking about the Narrative approach to family therapy. Basically it means listening to the person's story of how they made it to where they are and listening for the meaning they give to their story. I appreciate this model of therapy because everyone has a story and everyone finds different meaning in their story. The challenge is helping the person find meaning that is strengthening and self-supporting versus debilitating. How often do we put negative meaning on our experiences? How often do others put negative meaning on our experience for us? And how often do we see our story as strengthening and fueling us to move forward?

Lately I've been negatively framing my experience. I was visiting a friend in Memphis and listening to how passionate he was about what he was doing. It reminded me how I've not been passionate lately about anything. And I attribute it to the meaning I've placed on my experiences. My friend looked at the challenges he faced and built strengthening thoughts and ideas around them. I have built a path up to them and then allowed those challenges to stand before me like never-ending walls that could not be passed.

And it brings me to a quote I heard this past weekend when I was at the National Museum of Civil Rights. "Freedom is not a choice, it is an internal demand." Now it seems so simple a phrase. But when I heard it I felt empowered. It truly is an internal demand. Yet we are made to believe by others and ourselves that we cannot be free, that we must be bound by so many things. And this is where I think freedom can mean whatever one needs it to mean.

For me I'm not completely sure yet what I'm allowing to keep me bound up, but I hope in thinking about my story and praying about it too I can begin to see and hear the meaning I have given it and create new meaning that leads me forward and strengthens me.

dichotomies

How does one avoid dichotomous organization of experience and thought?

Is this the beginning?

I hear more and more about blogging everyday. In fact I used to do a lot of journaling long ago but those days disappeared when I hardly had time to think about myself or my life. But now that I've been away from work more than 6 months and though life is still chaotic, I'm doing everything I can to dig in me and discover parts of me that have been buried.

I keep thinking that if I start doing more reflecting I might find a bit more calm in my life. I make it sound like my life is out of control. I wouldn't exactly say its out of control. In fact I think I manage and juggle all my responsibilites fairly well, its just that there could surely be more organization to my chaos.

In fact S and I talked about that today. Our society is so caught up in the mad rush of everyday living that we often struggle to keep up. I'll admit I myself have frequent battles with this. I've never been one to enjoy the million and one tasks that must be accomplished to get by or in many cases, the million and one norms that we must adhere to if we are to "be successful". There is this constant battle within me between what I have to do to be successful by our culture's standards and wanting to say "Who cares! This isn't what happiness is really about." I am reminded of my interview for an internship position just yesterday. I sat in front of these people trying to decide do I answer how I really feel or do I feed them lines and hope those lines meet their standards...and when I say "their standards," I mean the person, the organization, the society, etc. Often what you're up against is the person's standards and their understanding of the organization's philosophy, not necessarily the actual philosophy of the organization. And then it reminds me of another place I've worked where I never understood the administrations understanding of the organization's philosophy. Ultimately I left the job because I couldn't agree with this interpretation of the philosophy.

But I think the broader issue is that its only these certain voices of power that are heard that determine what is good and successful and the rest of us are left to decide whether to buy into it or garner our own power and advocate for something different. Clearly there is much to consider in whatever decision we make and at certain points in our lives. Some days I want to use my power and other days I barely have enough energy and it leaves me giving the system exactly what it wants. And I am left feeling empty.