How do you know?

How do you know the difference between confidence and ego?

How do you know the difference between ego and your inner voice?

How do you know the difference between your inner voice and God/higher power?

How do you know the difference between God and the Universe?

How do you know the difference between the Universe and fate?

How do you know the difference between fate and coincidence?

How do you know the difference between coincidence and destiny?

How do you know the difference between destiny and consequence?

How do you know the difference between consequence and karma?

How do you know the difference between karma and punishment?

How do you know the difference between punishment and lessons?

How do you know the difference between lessons and learning?

How do you know the difference between learning and knowing?

How do you know the difference between knowing and seeing?

How do you know the difference between seeing and premonition?

How do you know the difference between premonition and the self's desire?

How do you know the difference between the self's desire and God's desire?

How do you know the difference between God's desire and the flesh's desire?

How do you know the difference between the flesh's desire and lust?

How do you know the difference between lust and love?

When it comes to love.........how do you know?


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Location:Hong Kong

Home - a follow up



My Mom and I at Christmas in the Keys - Swordfishing



My visit to see my family was rough and fantastic all at the same time. I know they love me - but I so crave their approval and affirmation - which is something that is hard to come by in my family. It is especially rough with my Mom. But I feel like we turned a little bit of a corner. On Sunday, while I was visiting with my Partner's family, my Mom went to the hospital with chest pains. She was fine but had to go for stress tests and one of those indicated the need for a heart cath. That has all turned out fine as well but I think it served as a reminder for both of us that our time together isn't guaranteed so we need to make the most of it. I went back over Sunday night and stayed with them. It was a totally different feeling - less tense and more open and real. It was a very pleasant evening and a better end to the visit. I'm glad I went back or I would have left Texas feeling discouraged, unhappy and dissatisfied with our visit.

I'm never going to have the relationship I want with them but I can have a different one. I can call more and be around more and show them that I love them - even if I'm not exactly who they want me to be. I haven't shown that enough. So, things ended on a better note than where we started, for which I'm grateful...but I still need therapy! :)

Home?

I am in my parent's home. It is not where I grew up. I have never lived in this house so I don't know if I can call it home. I love them and I am so happy to be with them but I hate that we are so distant. Not just in distance but in emotion. I have always sought their approval and acceptance and right or wrong I always feel like I fail. Today was certainly no exception. I wish I knew how to not need or want this. I wish I knew how to be enough for myself by myself. I sadly do not. It shreds my heart when my mother does not care that I am moving closer. It hurts to feel her silent disapproval when I speak of my partner. I want her to see all the other things about me that she can be proud of but sadly I don't think she sees anything but what she perceives as my lost potential.

On the up side I guess I know what I will be discussing in therapy next week.

I love you Mom. I hope we learn to relate to each other better before our chance is gone.


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Creative space

Today I made something and it felt good to be a little artistic and learn something new. Well be retaught something old. I took a seeing class and made this pillow. It's just a pillow but it signified a new chapter for me where I have the time to learn new things and create. Taking more classes coming up in two weeks and start my photo classes soon. Wow. I might actually achieve balance in my life after all.



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You are Enough

You are enough.

Right now.

The way you are. In this very moment. Is enough.

You do not have to do anything. Say anything. Think anything.

Change Anything.

You do not have to fulfill anything. Be anything. Become anything.

You are enough the way you are.

Let go of the standards and expectations others place on you.

Let go of the standards and expectations you place on yourself.

Put it down like the baggage that it is...

like the garbage it has become...

like something you've held in your hand for so long and suddenly realized has rotted...

...put it down.

Quiet the voice inside your head that says you are not enough.

You are not pretty enough...

you are not smart enough...

you are not kind enough...

you are not doing enough…

Silence your inner mother. Silence your inner father. Silence your inner family, friends, husband, wife, and teachers.

Silence all that made you believe that you are not enough.

Silence the voice inside that tells you “who I am” are the choices you've made.

Silence the voice inside that tells you “who I am” are the choices unmade.

Listen no longer to your mind. Confused. Conflicted. Critical. Filled with ego.

Look no longer with your eyes. Filtered. Unseeing. Biased.Blind to truth.

Instead...close your eyes.

Listen to your heart. Beating. Strong. Rhythmic. Consistent. Constant. Heart.

Listen to your breath. In. Out. Cleansing. Nourishing. Life-giving. Breath.

Listen to your soul. Divine. Holy. Pure. Connected. Sacred. Soul.

Listen to your angel. Guiding. Leading. Encouraging. Loving. Angel.

Now...open your eyes.

See yourself with new eyes. Forgiving eyes. Compassionate eyes. Fair eyes.

Hear your thoughts with new ears. Listening ears. Insightful ears. Ears that hear truth.

Think with a new mind. Thinking encouraging thoughts. Thinking with self-love. Thinking with new acceptance and understanding of who you are. Who you REALLY are.

You are enough. Today. Right now. As you are.



Getting Well

So I start therapy tomorrow. Mixed bag of feelings about that but overall very happy and ready to start that journey. I have a little breathing room from work lately and I really miss being creative and pursuing learning about the places where I am artistically inclined. I should probably be taking writing classes but I'm not ready to go there quite yet so I'm starting with photography (start a 10 week course on April 10th) and sewing (next Sunday). I'm oddly excited about the sewing. I used to love it when my Mom taught me. If I can learn pattern making AND lose weight then I have so many ideas!!!!! I'll see how far I want to go with the sewing stuff - there are a lot of fun looking classes) and then I'll look at a writing/blogging course and metal working/jewelry. I really want to learn how to do the metals of jewelry and make my own...possibly sell it but we'll see.

So there is my mini update. TTFN

Blogging Subject....maybe

I think I'm coming closer to feeling inspired to write. Really write. I'm not sure if I'm going to blog it, manuscript it or just start and see where it takes me. I finally have a few things to say and I think I'll talk to those involved and see if I can say them. I linked to a friend's page on her adoption story and that linked me to another and another and another and as wonderful as those adoptive Mom stories are there was very little representation that I could find about the other side...so I think maybe I'll represent. Word.

No but really...then I looked online searching for birthmother blogs. There are some out there but few that are as many years in to this as I am and even fewer with open adoptions as old as mine is...so I am going to talk to them and the birthfather and see if they mind. To be honest I'd rather them never read it but I can't really control that. Some of the things I'd like to share aren't things that you want people that you care about to read but they are important for other people to know they aren't the only ones that feel this way.

Hmmm. It's either that or I'm writing about the insane chronicles of my daily mind flopping on marriage and kids :)

Unravelling Me

I wrote this blog a couple of weeks ago...decided it was too personal and deleted it. I am trying to determine what my word/phrase for this year will be and I keep coming back to a theme of living out loud. I mean that in so many ways - I'm out as a lesbian in my personal life but I make my family members too comfortable with it - so I still hide. I am a people pleaser so I worry that I lose myself in my desire to please others...so if I am really going to be unapologetically me then I need to put this post back up even though it is hard for me to put this subject matter out there.

Here it goes...here I am showing my vulnerable little underbelly...

I'm wondering how to unravel negative messages that are so knit in to the fabric of my being that it feels as if unwinding them may unwind me.

I am in a loving relationship with a wonderful person who loves and accepts me for me and yet I still struggle with these messages about sex and sexuality from my formative years; I don't know how to fix them. There is an inner vixen in there...someone who likes and enjoys sex but she is completely imprisoned by a woman who feels guilt and shame about her past and who carries and wears the disappointment of her family. I carry it to bed every night...wearing it like an old, ugly robe. That robe needs to be burned. I want it to be burned. I need it to be burned.

It's not even about the fact that I'm in a same-sex relationship...I had this same issue when I dated men. My first memory of a sexual experience was being 4 or 5 and my Mom found me with a stuffed animal between my legs and I got a spanking for it. I was told that it was a sin to do touch yourself in any way. My parents had sex but it was very secretive. Not that you want it in front of your children but they acted like it was dirty and something to be hidden from me. I don't think they felt that way about it - but that was the message.

Then there are the things I've done along the way that go against what I want to believe about myself. I want to believe that I'm a good girl. That I'm a good Christian/Spirit. That I'm a good person...but how do you believe that with a past like mine? I would never let anyone talk about my worst enemy the way I talk to myself - that has to stop. I've forgiven myself for some things but others I don't know how to let go of such a far departure from my own morals and beliefs. I carry such pain and shame around with me every day and I don't want that any more. I want to lay it down and be free.

So, I need to forgive me for having sex for the first time with the wrong motives...I did it because I was going through a very tough time with the church I grew up in and I was rebelling against God.

I need to forgive myself for having sex for the wrong reasons in most subsequent relationships - I did it to get the guy or get the girl or get the approval and the love I so wanted.

I need to forgive myself for a relationship with a married man. Wow. That one is hard to write down. That one is the one I can't bring myself to forgive. That one scars my soul.

I have forgiven myself for getting pregnant and placing that child for adoption...it is a continual source of joy and pain and when I struggle with issues around adoption I struggle with sex.

Funny enough the thing I feel least guilty about is the thing you'd think I'd feel most guilty about: being in a same-sex relationship. It goes against everything I was raised to believe...but I've done so much reading and praying and soul-searching about it that this is the one thing I don't feel guilty about. I hate that I've disappointed my family and I do wear that shame but I've also really turned a corner on that in the last couple of years and am becoming more willing to let them wear their own shame and not take it on as my own. Now I need to not let their secrecy become my secrecy - I'm not sure how to do that while still honoring their wishes - but I'm learning.

Wow. I'm not sure I can post this. I'm not sure this is what I want out there for public consumption no matter how little my little blog is read...but then again that is what I'm fighting against...letting my shame and guilt force me back in the dark and only portray to others that which I want to accept as part of myself. I think I'm really struggling with this as I'm on this diet and losing weight - losing my safety blanket of self comfort and my way of keeping myself unattractive - as I go through this process I have to stand up and face my demons. I'm ready. I have to be. I only have half my life left to live and I want to live it with joy and laughter and peace and happiness and intimacy and freedom and lots of love in all of my relationships.

OK, I'm going to hit Post and put it out there because funny enough I have no problems telling people about my sexual orientation but there are a few things that to me are so unforgiveable that I can hardly speak them out loud. So that is what I need to speak. That is what I need to put a voice to...my shame needs a voice so that it can be silenced inside this prison of a mind.

To quote one of my favorite lines in one of my favorite movies (So I Married an Axe Murderer), "I have two words for you my friend, 'therapy'."

Morning ritual

My partner has been home the last few days completely throwing off my morning ritual. One thing I still maintain is my love affair with Giuseppe (the espresso machine). We have these lovely moments together in the morning that I like. To meditating. Everything g else goes away and it is just me, him, the new Starbucks bean (one of the few I like from Starbucks), my vanilla stevia and hard to see hut very important is my tiny spoon I took as a souvenir from our UK office (in fairness the waiter there gave it to me because I loved that spoon so much). These are some oft favorite moments in the day. The smell if the coffee and the anticipation of what the day might bring.


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Need a theme

I read something today that I really liked and am going to mimic. I read a blog from a jewelry designer that talked about choosing a word or phrase every year instead of a resolution. You put that word/phrase where you see it every day and in the morning you look at it and remind yourself to make decisions that support it. I love this...except now I needy word/phrase. I know what I want to get out if this year but I have no idea how to sum it up simply, small enough to fit on a pendant or even a sticky note. My thoughts so far are:

live out loud

love thyself as you love thy neighbor

Yes that may be a tad sacrilegious but if you know me you know I extend much more kindness to others than I do to myself.

I am enough

Ok. I had a few more but I left my sticky downstairs and my girlfriend is insisting I cuddle because she is an iceberg.


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Coming back to life

Pictured...Baha'i temple in Evanston, IL

I'm slowly starting to recover from last year's madness. The theme of last year was:
1 - I hated my job
2 - I worked too much
3 - There was too much drama at work
4 - I had no personal time and was burning out
5 - I travelled too much
6 - I hated my job (I may have mentioned that

I've stopped and started writing, bloggin and taking pictures off and on for...well forever. So now I feel like I'm coming out of last year and getting back in touch with myself. I'm reading more, I'm listening to jazz, I'm enjoying this diet I'm on (see my other blog), I've taken a few pictures and am enrolled for a class...all the things that mean I'm coming back from the year I had and returning to life. I had no life last year and I felt it aging me...sucking the joy out of me...eating at my soul and my happy inner self.

So now I've started missing what my friends and I call the "woo-woo." It's the things that are a little weird to those who don't share the "goddess in me goddess in the tree" spirit...I have to admit I'm somewhere in both categories...I live in between the woo woo and the analytic...but that's another blog.

So...now I'm contemplating taking my tingy, barely read blog and seeing if I finally have something to say that is perhaps for more mass consumption. But honestly I don't know where to start. How do you make your blog known? How do you get followers outside of your direct circle of friends? I am sure I could google it, Bing it, Facebook it...do all those non-verb-verby things that everyone does but I'd really just like to come up with it organically.

I was on the plane on the way home from my work trip to CA and had a little conversation with God about writing...and I felt like He told me that I have something to say and I should just start writing. But what? A book? A blog? A letter? What do I write? I swear I heard God snicker a little knowing I'd have to figure that one out on my own. I love Him but sometimes he is a shifty little bugger.

So what do I need? A website? Knowledge of how to make a website? A muse? A subject? A clue? Man, I am wearing out the poor question mark key right now!!!

More to come, I'm sure.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Trying to save money for our upcoming move to Colorado (Octoberish) so not buying myself the normal ridiculous birthday gift I usually indulge in. But my lovely, wonderful, thoughtful partner gave me what I wanted most (besides unconditional love and acceptance...yeah yeah besides that)...my photography class! Seven weeks to start. I'm so excited. I'm pinging off the walls! ping! ping! pingpingpingpingping!!!!

Tick Tock Tick Tock

I'm afraid that very soon the subtle, quiet, easily ignored ticking of my biological clock will start sounding less like a small bedside clock to a tower clock and bell worthy of any good Catholic church! I am scared and excited about the day that the alarm bells sound and I have an answer to this question: Do I want Child/ren?

So many questions:

1. Do I want Child/ren?


2. If yes, do I want to be pregnant (at almost 38 years old) or do I want to adopt?


3. If pregnant do I want to have a known or anonymous donor?


4. If adopt do I want to adopt a baby or an older child?


5. Foreign or domestic?


6. Agency or lawyer

OK, i can't keep typing all the questions...let's just stop at 6. My partner isn't insistent on having children but if I say "yes" she would go for this in a heartbeat. I have two things that confuse me about the issue of children:

First, from a very early age I was told I could not have children and if I did ever get pregnant I wouldn't carry to term. Turns out my damaged ovaries and uterus healed themselves...so I'm not sure if I think I don't want kids because I trained myself to think that knowing I couldn't or if I genuinely don't want to raise children.

That leads second: when I was 22 I got pregnant. I was engaged at the time and realized I couldn't marry him, couldn't live in that town, wasn't at all prepared to raise a child the way they deserved to be raised...so I had the baby, got to choose the adoptive parents and we now have an open adoption. He is a great young man and I don't know what me having more children...with a "partner" no less...would do to him. I spent a long time keeping myself a mess so that he never had to wonder why I placed him for adoption but by now I am ready to shed the mess and have a full, rich, well-deserved life.

It's hard to picture my life either way. It is hard to picture my life as I'm older with no grandchildren to spoil and no one to treasure the things inherited from my mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. It is hard to picture my life now with children with less flexibility, less sleep, less money, less freedom, more noise...

Shouldn't a person know for certain? Is the fact that I'm not sure a bad sign or is it just that this is how I am - never sure of what I want to be when I grow up and so I float along until I bump in to something and say, "well look at this - I think I'll do this for a while." But I'm probably not going to bump in to a baby...so I should make a decision.

I also need to go and visit the fruit of my womb soon. I do miss him and want to have a closer relationship with him. I was talking about some of this with his Mom and told them my mother's concern about what happens to our treasures after I did since I don't have children to which he replies, "you have me." How that touched my heart to know that he thinks of himself as mine. It's true though; I'm not his Mom, I won't ever try to take her wonderful place but he is still a part of me...really he is "ours." How lucky is he to have two loving parents and two others, involved in his life, that he knows he "belongs" to us all. That's amazingly special. Below is a picture of my now 15 year old birthson. :)

Betty Kay

My friend's Mom passed away on New Year's Eve. Her mass is tomorrow and I'm having trouble sleeping. My partner lost her mother two years ago and it has been such a hard road to the little bits of healing she's experienced. It will be hard for my friend as well and my heart breaks thinking how much her heart hurts right now...how close she and her Mom were and how my friend's life is forever changed. She's one of the kindest people I know - she has such a good and pure heart and I can't imagine how it is breaking now. I'm sure there is a part that is glad her Mom isn't suffering and in pain but just a few short months ago she was fine and now she is gone and it is just so sad to think of this world without her. She was a force of life and the only good thing that can come out of this is that heaven has one heck of a party planning, firey red-headed, loving, laughing, open-hearted lady up there making everyone as happy up there as she did down here. Pray for my friend if you pray...or send good thoughts...or whatever it is that you do with good intentions...OH!...and if you haven't lately - call your Mother and tell her how very much you love her...even if she drives you insane...do it...while you can.