What do I want?
Mar. 3rd, 2005 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralen.
Part of this Lenten thing has included my buying quite a few little things. Inexpensive things that I'd always kind of doubted that I'd really need, or felt, implied (Unfair to John actually), that John thought they were frivolous and, therefore, with the implied disapproval, I shouldn't buy them. I made John my scapegoat for not pleasing myself and it was really unfair to both of us. By deciding to not doubt myself, I bought some things simply because I wanted them.
So I have small ball weights, now. A squeeze bottle for my Costco sized hair conditioner that was hurting my hands to pick up. The Incredibles on order and Porco Rosso on DVD coming to me. I have my own copy of The Paladin of Souls. I have a few, new sample size teas (oooo... fresh tea!), a gaiwan with lid and spout as the other had a broken lid, and I finally tossed the three individual-sized teapots that had missing or broken parts. I bought rolls of cornstarch laden bags for my kitchen compost bucket to make taking the compost out a snap. I finally have a soft-bristled brush for my coffee grinder cleaning, the toothbrush was always banging things it shouldn't, things that cost a lot more than the brush. I bought a "back warmer" from a co-worker for ten dollars, and it was just a cloth tube of rice with a nice fleece cover that I could have made, but didn't have to, now. I finally dumped the old buckwheat hulls I'd emptied from my pillow a year ago.
Very little of that was expensive, most of it is making some parts of my everyday life easier or more comfortable. The weights I've been using just about every day with the walk DVD ("MOM! Do your exercise video!!"). Jet gets the thrill of ordering me around, and I get a good, twenty minute mild workout. All for the good.
Another part of it has had me tackling things I don't think I otherwise would have. I knitted a sweater for Mikayla's birthday in just a week. I've done hat, booties, and am following my real strength and designing a blanket (diagonals and miters center, feather and fan in old shawl configuration, and a dead simple border for little fingers to not get stuck in and SQUARE, because as new parents, we would have killed for a true square of a blanket to really get the swaddling good and tight and EVERYONE made rectangular ones) and not doubting my ability to do so.
This for a woman who had decided, a few years ago, that she'd never knit again. Not bad.
I also swallowed my fear and made an appointment for an annual checkup. We'll see how that goes.
I've bit the bullet and am packing up my very first spinning wheel and giving it away to someone that has a herd of llamas and a bale of fur they want to learn how to spin. I have my production wheel in the livingroom and I'm using it enough that Jet now knows how to use the ballwinder with gusto.
At work I'm doing a few things I don't think I would have without the boost, too. Getting some things written that really needed to be captured, proposing structures for things I'm not 100% sure about, just 60% but if I don't get them out there, people can't help me make it correct. Now they can.
Believing enough in myself to work with John to get is to a financial adviser to see where we are and where we want to be. The Wright Exit Strategy book Carl gave us so long ago stuck in my head, and I finally believed in myself enough to make it urgent for us to figure out where we are and where we want to be.
It's weird, as I'm now living life, I find myself just taking the bit and going with something I would normally have hung back on and it's astonishing what giving up that comforting crutch of "Oh... I couldn't do *that*" does to living.
Jet now, occasionally gives the excuse, "But I don't do that very well." and I'm now automatically answering, "Sure. But you only get better at it by doing it." And I'm finding that I'm answering that way in my head for myself, now, too. Yeesh.
Maybe I shouldn't just stop when Easter comes.
Part of this Lenten thing has included my buying quite a few little things. Inexpensive things that I'd always kind of doubted that I'd really need, or felt, implied (Unfair to John actually), that John thought they were frivolous and, therefore, with the implied disapproval, I shouldn't buy them. I made John my scapegoat for not pleasing myself and it was really unfair to both of us. By deciding to not doubt myself, I bought some things simply because I wanted them.
So I have small ball weights, now. A squeeze bottle for my Costco sized hair conditioner that was hurting my hands to pick up. The Incredibles on order and Porco Rosso on DVD coming to me. I have my own copy of The Paladin of Souls. I have a few, new sample size teas (oooo... fresh tea!), a gaiwan with lid and spout as the other had a broken lid, and I finally tossed the three individual-sized teapots that had missing or broken parts. I bought rolls of cornstarch laden bags for my kitchen compost bucket to make taking the compost out a snap. I finally have a soft-bristled brush for my coffee grinder cleaning, the toothbrush was always banging things it shouldn't, things that cost a lot more than the brush. I bought a "back warmer" from a co-worker for ten dollars, and it was just a cloth tube of rice with a nice fleece cover that I could have made, but didn't have to, now. I finally dumped the old buckwheat hulls I'd emptied from my pillow a year ago.
Very little of that was expensive, most of it is making some parts of my everyday life easier or more comfortable. The weights I've been using just about every day with the walk DVD ("MOM! Do your exercise video!!"). Jet gets the thrill of ordering me around, and I get a good, twenty minute mild workout. All for the good.
Another part of it has had me tackling things I don't think I otherwise would have. I knitted a sweater for Mikayla's birthday in just a week. I've done hat, booties, and am following my real strength and designing a blanket (diagonals and miters center, feather and fan in old shawl configuration, and a dead simple border for little fingers to not get stuck in and SQUARE, because as new parents, we would have killed for a true square of a blanket to really get the swaddling good and tight and EVERYONE made rectangular ones) and not doubting my ability to do so.
This for a woman who had decided, a few years ago, that she'd never knit again. Not bad.
I also swallowed my fear and made an appointment for an annual checkup. We'll see how that goes.
I've bit the bullet and am packing up my very first spinning wheel and giving it away to someone that has a herd of llamas and a bale of fur they want to learn how to spin. I have my production wheel in the livingroom and I'm using it enough that Jet now knows how to use the ballwinder with gusto.
At work I'm doing a few things I don't think I would have without the boost, too. Getting some things written that really needed to be captured, proposing structures for things I'm not 100% sure about, just 60% but if I don't get them out there, people can't help me make it correct. Now they can.
Believing enough in myself to work with John to get is to a financial adviser to see where we are and where we want to be. The Wright Exit Strategy book Carl gave us so long ago stuck in my head, and I finally believed in myself enough to make it urgent for us to figure out where we are and where we want to be.
It's weird, as I'm now living life, I find myself just taking the bit and going with something I would normally have hung back on and it's astonishing what giving up that comforting crutch of "Oh... I couldn't do *that*" does to living.
Jet now, occasionally gives the excuse, "But I don't do that very well." and I'm now automatically answering, "Sure. But you only get better at it by doing it." And I'm finding that I'm answering that way in my head for myself, now, too. Yeesh.
Maybe I shouldn't just stop when Easter comes.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 08:53 pm (UTC)You know what? It's been AMAZING. I feel free and whimsical and loving and joyous, and other people keep commenting on what a great mood i'm in. People who don't know me, I mean, like retail cashiers. And then I blush and say "I gave up cynicism for Lent."
This has really been transformative, and H A R D, but transformative. I think maybe I should do this sort of thing more often.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 09:32 pm (UTC)Can you give up something for Lent partway through?
And Liralen, I love what you're doing for yourself, and what Jet's doing for you.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 09:40 pm (UTC)And yay for Liralen!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:22 pm (UTC)Thanks for the cheer! It's very nice.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:21 pm (UTC)And, yes, you can give up something for Lent partway through... I think it's more the whole "walk into the desert/wastelands on faith" And that can happen whenever you find the wasteland.
I just use the signpost of Lent as it's an easy marker for me, with my involvement in my church.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 06:47 pm (UTC)Maybe!
On the other hand: Moderation in all things... even moderation. :-)
And it sounded like you got a good laugh from it all along with some big exercise.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:19 pm (UTC)Hoorah! That is *so* wonderful to hear about! I'm so glad it worked so well for you and you're finding it so rewarding.
*grin* You've definitely made my month. :-)
Thank you!!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:27 pm (UTC)YAY for trusting your sense of what's good and right.
That is amazing.
Just... wow. :-)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:36 pm (UTC)That was one thing that was very hard about this Lent was realizing how often I berate myself into inactivity. How many ideas, jokes, songs, laughter, spontaneous actions of joy, love, or art, I automatically nix and stop and slice from myself from sheer doubt. How much I believe that what I do won't make a difference...
So, yes, I think I could see how your sacrifice could be very hard, indeed, in its way.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-03 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 06:39 pm (UTC)*beams at the lizards*
no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-04 06:40 pm (UTC)