Clearing Out

[DrewNows]

your journaling is inspiring, the connection is beyond words  

i've never gotten into or followed any type of "blog" but this is how i'd picture it 

 

[mandyjw]

@DrewNows Thank you! It just happens, my job is to get out of the way and focus. This time and the last time this happened it started with pain and a feeling of disconnection coming up and lingering despite my attempts to "mindful" my way through it.

There's such a strange balance of digging up things to identify with them, and digging them up to see through them. For me the key is to go by how I feel, and to be sensitive to the "signs". 

 

This is my favorite song as I wrote in my high school yearbook and an adored movie from my childhood. I always loved the imagery of the golden yellow water. I just noticed the synchronicity with the color yellow, the "Happily Ever After" that's revealed, and the CATS, the threatening evil CAT is what makes her dream come true. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

A few weeks ago I found an old Dr.Pepper bottle cap at Dr.P's (Goddamn it, there's another). It was strange because when I went to the talk on Dr. P the landowner gave us permission to check out the foundations but warned that there was someone metal detecting who was digging holes and not filling them in. There wasn't. But shortly after that, there WERE metal detecting holes that started to show up. Whoever metal detected there dug up this old bottle cap and left it there. 

It's bright yellow and in red letters says "Twist a Pepper". It's from the 60's. I had seen it there but kept noticing it and eventually picked it up and took it home and left it on my desk. I looked it up and found that it was a collectible and worth $60 or so, except this one is bent and folded in half. 

In a thread I was following yesterday someone used a Dr. Pepper as an example in an analogy. 

This morning during meditation I started acknowledging my desire to free up some of my beliefs about money and I thought back to my relationship with my in laws. They took me on my first trip to Florida when I was 17 and wasn't supposed to be "dating" their son to Disneyworld. It was my first time ever on a plane. I recently found a short journal from the trip in my sister's bedroom. I threw out all my very significant journals that were in my bedroom and now wish I hadn't. But this one, that I had completely forgotten about was still here.

I was slightly embarrassed about the journal so I took it home, not knowing what to do with it. I remembered my describing my Dr. Pepper I drank on the plane. During meditation I thought of the Dr.Pepper and the journal and when i was done I immediately went to get it off the book shelf. It's the same book shelf that I just replaced on it's spot back on my newly painted bright yellow wall. I describe how beautiful my doctor pepper is in detail and how I wanted to paint it. I describe the rainbow reflection on the ice, and the bubbles, and the golden light that it cast. I also describe seeing a 360 degree rainbow in the sky from the plane.

I always wanted to go to Disney as a kid and my parents didn't have the money or ambition to take us. I've done a lot of "Disney" shadow work recently. Until recently I demonized the entire company and their message in my head. 

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams
Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before
Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar!
And you'll live as you've never lived before

Softly, deftly, music shall surround you
Feel it, hear it closing in around you
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night

Let your mind start a journey to a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before
Let your soul take you where you long to be
Only then can you belong to me

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write
The power of the music of the night

You alone can make my song take flight
Help me make the music of the night

[mandyjw]

Our plow guy, my husband's relative and the husband of a friend, died in a car accident last spring. They were always struggling to make money. He would go into any and all ventures to make some cash. The previous year his wife, my friend babysat my little girl. She had some severe anxiety and depression problems and I was worried about it a bit. There was a car accident in which a mother driving with her child was killed and the boy was found hours later, or left overnight I can't remember. I was discussing snowsuits and car seats with her and matter of factly mentioned the accident. She sort of shut down and couldn't deal with it. It was one of the rare occasions that her husband was there during the conversation.

I felt horrible after it. I should have known better to talk about dark things in front of her. I made a conscious effort to be positive in my interactions with her. Not long after I noticed a rainbow in the sky near her house. I mentioned it to her and asked if she had seen it. She said no.

About a week before the accident I was driving and he nearly pulled out in front of me, but saw me in time. He followed me and the whole time I thought about him and how I owed him money for plowing. 

After he died in the accident, she said that a rainbow just showed up on their wedding day and that they played the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" during the wedding. 

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

When I got groceries last, I was on a high from the release of the start of this "work", and when I checked out there was this incredibly sweet and nervous cashier, he must have been a teenager. My son accused him of having an open bag of mixed veggies in the freezer and I explained that he wasn't responsible for that and he laughed. His name tag said "Heath". I thought it was interesting. When I left my son wouldn't follow so he said, "Here, Keith sweetie." And the cashier looked at me and I realized he thought I said his name. It stuck with me. 

There's one other interesting thing in my journal.

"On our flight I asked if there was still gravity up here and dropped my Macbeth play in my lap and said, "I guess so."

I just googled Heath and the play Macbeth came up. 

 

[mandyjw]

Apparently me and Zigzag Idiot have a strange synchronicity/coincidence, which further serves to take me back to the end of high school. 

This morning I had to meet with my son's teacher and I sat on the very same bench I sat for so long everyday waiting for my mom to get out of work and pick me up after high school. In English class senior year, we had to journal for our teacher and I would often sit on that bench and use the time to journal. As I sat there this morning waiting for my meeting the sun flooded in and warmed me. I used to sit there and wait for my son a couple years before and talk with the bus driver who just passed away, the one with the name meaning, "strong story".

That's how I learned to love someone who has been my bus driver that year in high school. I sat behind her on the bus up front, because I was afraid of the other kids. She spoke to me the entire ride with commentary and looked back at me in her mirror to see my response. I said little and was kind to her but in my heart I looked down on her, because I thought she was ignorant and too reactive. The kids made fun of her. From this remote town, all the kids dressed up in goth. It was a very strange thing to look back on. I always hated the town I live in now, and looked down on it. But when I saw the house we bought here, I forgot all of that. The place transformed before my eyes. 

I really wish I hadn't thrown that high school journal away. I remember being very open-hearted with my teacher through writing, even though I didn't connect with him much in person. The writing brought out a part of me that wouldn't be contained or hidden. My best friend was in that class and she was shy and hated journaling knowing someone would read it. He would reply back to us.  I specifically remember writing that I believed everyone was truly beautiful. His reply stuck with me and annoyed me. "And everyone is ugly too." 

Dating my boyfriend (husband) distracted me and put a lot of stress on me. I'll explain why later. I remember that I used to go on yahoo pool and play pool with strangers. You could just play or you could chat too. Usually the conversations were terrible. There was one strange day though, that I never forgot. I was playing with an older man, and he was extraordinarily loving and wise, but very respectful of boundaries too. I needed someone to talk to. I forget the advice he gave me, but there was something strange and transcendent about the conversation, about feeling love like that from a stranger you'd never meet or speak to again. 

I wrote about it to my English teacher in that journal. I forget what he said. 

I believe that something about the game of pool came up recently, but I can't remember what it was.

Dr. P was a billiards champion, I later learned. He has his own pool house built as part of his summer home. It was the only thing that was saved from the fire. It's painted yellow. 

Edited January 14, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
 

 

 

[mandyjw]

 

[allislove]

Really cool video, happy to have you on the forum. That's the amazing part of this work of self-actualization. You basically listen more and more to your heart, what you really want, rather than to be a people pleaser.

Edited January 14, 2020 by dimitri

[mandyjw]

@dimitri Thanks! 

From Macbeth, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair

Hover through the fog and filthy air." Funny because I was fascinated by an article about the history of smog and air pollution in LA. 

So foul and fair a day I have not seen. -Macbeth

"Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favors nor your hate." -Banquo

Tigers keep coming up, there is a ship named "Tiger" mentioned my a witch seemingly randomly. When I was making my video yesterday my tiger paint by numbers I did when I was a kid and put up in my son's room after I cleaned up my old bedroom was in the frame of the video. In the "Born to Die" Lana Del Rey video which was strangely prophetic and fascinating to me last winter, she has a tiger on either side of her in a church. 

I wrote a story about a mother tiger freshman year in highschool. It was really about running, endurance and suffering pain. Her motivation comes from protecting her child. I wonder if my mom still has the story. I used to love Abba, my Dad was a fan of the band and I listened to them a lot. Ok, it's a bit embarrassing, but... care killed the cat. In high school I was really embarrassed of my music tastes and hid them from my peers. I liked this song, which is obscure. 

Lyrics

The city is a jungle, you'd better take care
Never walk alone after midnight
If you don't believe me, you'd better beware
Of me

I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger
People who fear me never go near me
I am the tiger

The city is a nightmare, a horrible dream
Some of us will dream it forever
Look around the corner and try not to scream
It's me

I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger
People who fear me never go near me
I am the tiger

Yellow eyes are glowing like the neon lights
Yellow eyes, the spotlights of the city lights

I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger
People who fear me never go near me
I am the tiger

The city is a prison, you'll never escape
You're forever trapped in the alleys
Look into the shadows, and you'll see the shape
Of me

I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger
People who fear me never go near me
I am the tiger

Yellow eyes were glowing like the neon lights
Yellow eyes, the spotlights of the city lights

I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger
People who fear me never go near me
I am the tiger

And if I meet you, what if I eat you?
I am the tiger
I am behind you, I'll always find you
I am the tiger, tiger, tiger

Edited January 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

I found reading through Macbeth pretty depressing last night, it took me quite a while of studying to sort of digest it. Still am. I have found that after 5PM or so I have to slow thinking down and rest my mind or it's really easy to go off in the wrong direction. 

This morning I seemed to get some insights from it, (thanks Wikipedia!), reread the start and saw when the nondual enters the story a bit more clearly instead of just slogging through lost in a violent as fuck story. That's how 17 year old me processed it, and I'm still very capable of that when I'm not focused. 

In a nutshell, when I awoke it seems as if my mind literally and sensationally feels open and experientially this is so. What's the relationship between the words literal and literary? 

This morning during meditation I had an insight that felt amazing. So amazing I clapped my hands together loudly even though everyone else was asleep. I think it's something I already knew, but I'd never quite thought of it like that. A profound thing Abraham Hicks said that I heard lately was that an insight is a thought you've never thought before. It doesn't matter if you hear someone say it or think it on your own it's how you hear it. We keep thinking the same thoughts over and over again, so meditation gives space for new thoughts to arise. Wisdom or insight is downloaded and flows together as you flow together with your world and understanding. "Lean not on your own understanding."

The good and bad theme of Macbeth may have prompted this insight. I'm frustrated that I can't explain how it felt when I thought that thought. Basically I understood on a deeper level how good and bad is not good and bad at all. When we say "there's no good or bad but thinking makes it so", we're STILL on some level giving thought representation to what good and bad is AND what thinking is. In fact the entire spiritual journey is going in the direction of feeling. You THINK you know what feeling good feels like. You have no idea. 

[mandyjw]

Last night I read The Gift of the Magi.  I can't tell if I want to rewrite my stories about love or money, so I think they'll have to be intertwined for now. I saw the play of The Gift of the Magi when I was a kid and it impressed itself on my memory. In freshman English, I was in the same class period as my future husband. I remember the teacher asking us if we'd rather have beauty and love, or wealth. I forget how the question was phrased but that was the gist of it. I chose beauty and love and I remember that my husband chose wealth. 

I went to a highschool where I knew of three people, and three people knew of me. None of my other classmates chose to go to this highschool. I sat next to the one girl I sort of knew but her schedule was changed and I decided it would be most safe to sit with the rest of the freshman. I was painfully shy. I ended up next to a girl who I thought less of because she was the girlfriend of a boy who acted crude and awful. We started talking and found out that we had a bunch of shared interests, namely a love of animals. She was also Christian and had been to a Christian elementary  school. Her boyfriend had become out of control in our new highschool environment and she broke up with him and we moved to the end of a table no one sat at. 

Jon joined us because he had gone to school with her and hadn't found a group he fit in at lunch yet either. Then another classmate of theirs, who would become one of my best friends. Within three weeks, the friends that would be permanent in my life were at that lunch table. Jon was a total pain in the ass. He was smart and he had no shame about hiding it, his parents were rich, he was very opinionated and he was the most conservative Christian I had ever met. Pretty much everyone hated him because when you live in an area where most people live in poverty or without much and you're the slightest bit arrogant you become the target of many frustrations. This did not completely exclude me. He was passionate about Christianity, which was rare. I could tell one part of him believed and there was an openness there but there was a compliance and strongly ingrained fear of his parents. We debated and fought with each other with a passion. As the friendship grew the lunch period was too short to say what I needed and I started writing notes to him. As time went on the notes because more personal and charged. He also inspired creativity, and symbolic analogies which I now recognize as my unconscious attempt to use stories or the fantastic realm to point to something. By the end of the year I realized he was more than a friend. 

The start of the next year my childhood friend Sophie transferred to my highschool and the lunch table had some new additions and became the "smart kids" section. I had in the last years of elementary school had an identity crisis because I knew I was smart but did not want to work for it or identify with it. It felt wrong to do this. It felt like checking myself into a prison. Jon fell into love with Sophie, and I was absolutely pissed. I had to forge my way in this new school to make friends and now she just landed there and became the favorite of the group.

At this time I fell in love with the last person I should have. This ended in the most hurtful traumatic, mind fucking of my life, and the shadow work for this has been done. By the end of the year, Sophie was dating Jon's best friend and I returned to my old lunch table. 

Sophomore year was so traumatic to me that I decided to deal with it the best way I knew how. Once I was delivered from the overwhelm of socialization in high school to pure beautiful blissful and completely isolated and lonely as fuck summertime. There's one way to deal with your feelings, and make something good out of your obsessive overly passionate nature.  Passionate work. I spent that summer getting up really early and working to teach myself glass art. It was too far to travel to take a class. I found a forum online to get advice and ask questions. It was full of liberal, intelligent, well educated artsy middle-aged ladies. They were so free with advice. I told them I wanted to make a living at it. They discouraged me and told me to go to college. I didn't listen. This was what I was going to do. I didn't care about school anymore. I ran my heart out that summer. The next year I returned to the cross country team in the number one spot and I won the first few races. I did field work, the kind that migrant workers do and bought myself the supplies I needed. 

Junior year the "smart kid" click got even meaner and worse. There was a lot of competition for placement at graduation. I distanced myself from this. Jon and I ended up being lab partners in Chemistry class. I told them I was skipping college to learn my trade. Jon especially told me this was a bad idea, which strengthened my resolve even more. At this time I loved Fords, loved to look at vehicles, and really wanted to save for a truck. For Christmas Jon's parents surprised him with an almost new Ford Mustang in cobalt blue. It also looked a bit purple. We liked to make fun of him for that. 

My sister at the time was dating a cop. He was older, like many of her boyfriends. He talked about his job a lot, and had supper with my parents often, he was one of the few bold enough to not be afraid of her parents. One time he said that these stupid parents bought their teenage kid a Mustang and said it was going to be a complete DISASTER and all the cops knew about it and were waiting and watching. I told him that I knew that kid and that he would be fine. 

I have no idea why my inlaws did that to him though. He was the perfect obedient kid. He was too oblivious to the "things of the world" to even be tempted by them. To them he deserved it. But what happens then when you buy your kid something of the world? What happens when he becomes the object of jealousy? We had another classmate named Jon. He worked his ass off digging clams to pay for a dumpy sports car. The lived near each other. One day driving to school he tricked Jon into passing him. Jon ended up racing him, too scared to think to back off, and the continued racing side by side around a blind corner on a windy road. The other Jon got married, had a baby, converted to Christianity and a few years ago was working really hard to make money for his family when the rope wrapped around his leg and he went down with the line of lobster traps and drowned.

My father in law mentioned a story this Christmas from his childhood. His father had a bad tempter and his brother was always getting in trouble. They were poor, they were always poor. He worked hard digging clams to pay for his car, a blue Mustang. His brother and father got into a fight and his father jumped into his car and rammed it into his brother's. To him money was the fix for everything.

I always shamefully wonder how much of my desire to date Jon was because of his car or rather what it meant. I questioned myself about this quite a bit. 

We started a romantic relationship through online chat that summer. When we returned to school for senior year I balked and tried to end it. I can still see the catalyst for these feelings in my memory. There was a boy who was younger than me on my cross country team and we were friends. He was a farm boy, hardworking, open-hearted rather than intellectual and although I never wanted a relationship with him in particular he symbolized every possibility I was giving up, he was part of what made me stop and feel I was going in the wrong direction. We were both outcasts in our own way and had become friends. I remember him sitting in the corner waiting for practice and talking to him. He was a Satanist. I borrowed his CD and I'm pretty sure the "House of Pain" song was from that CD. He was the most "immoral" person I ever was friends with. 

A part of me wanted a romance like in the Gift of the Magi. Passionate, without thought, calculation, common sense, or that lower kind of "wisdom". Reckless. This was missing that... at first. 

There's one problem with heart and passion. It can move mountains but it's always arranging and rearranging them. Moving around mountains too often is just not good for anyone. Jon's strength of personality came out and I hurt him when I said I changed my mind but he held strong and I followed his lead. 

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Every now and then, like now, this starts to feel like slogging through the mud. The story is old and dry and boring. Bleh.

Not the direction I want to go in. 

I want to know what a story is.

I will tell another story. 

My relationship with my father has been amazing since the awakening. Until a week or two ago, when my husband's car broke down. I asked him to come help and he criticized and took personally every decision my husband made about dealing with the problem, which was confusing. Since then my Dad has fallen into an old pattern of hating my husband and being incredibly negative about him whenever I'm around. My Dad is a lot like the type of the farm boy satanist friend, and he may have reflected my Dad and my embarrassing desire of always wanting a husband like my father from the time I was a little girl. In the end that's not what I chose. 

I am smart, wise and calculating. I have tried to deny this a lot in life. I have played dumb. 

What do I gain by playing dumb? What am I trying to illustrate? Am I trying to show that intelligence is not what we think it is? Who am I trying to prove this to? Myself?

Yesterday I saw Dad and he was in a shakey mood. I took my puppy to the vet this week. When I was waiting to check out the receptionist was very busy and took a long time. I had to keep my puppy away from a Corgi who was growling at him and then a delivery driver came in and also had to wait for the busy receptionists. My puppy was really excited so I let him towards the man slowly. He was older, sort of short and a bit creepy, gave off a bad "vibe." (Old thought pattern judgement I want to move beyond.)

"Can you reel him in, I don't like dogs." 

I was taken aback and immediately felt offense and pain. I tried to be present and tried to deal with it instead of reacting. Muninn calmed right down and sat on my feet.

"Look he's calmed right down now, I think I have that affect on dogs." he said. 

I'm currently reading writings by a creepy mesmerist from the 1800's who probably first inspired Dr.P. What a strange thing to say, what a strange situation to attract. 

I couldn't help myself. "But you don't LIKE DOGS?"

He said he just didn't like getting bit. I explained that Muninn was a young puppy and didn't even have real teeth yet. I felt better after this, but still. I wanted to love this man. I wanted to be at peace with this situation. I want to be able to love someone who hates my puppy. 

I want to love unconditionally, in practice. 

I told this story to my mother, and then I decided even though it was strange and bothered me, I wouldn't journal about it or talk about it more.  She thought it was strange and told my dad. 

Dad told me last night that he was telling that story everywhere. There is no one who loves stories more than my father. He never gets them right. I was leaving and their neighbors showed up. I had the puppy and took him out to see them, but they seemed very reserved. Dad came out to tell me how to hang my whiteboard on the wall, not knowing they were there.

"Tell them what happened at the vet!" he said. He loves stories so much. I always feel awkward when we are around other people and he asks me to tell a story. I ended up telling the story AGAIN. Their responses were held back and seemed like they were just saying what they thought they should say. 

After they left, Dad commented that they acted weird around him. "They're always weird around me." I said.

"Don't give it a thought, it's all not real anyway." He replied. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. — Matthew 13:45-46

On the day I took my puppy to the vet I was going to wear some beetle wing earrings. Then I realized I needed to wear stud earrings because of my rambunctious puppy and my pearl earrings were right there in the box with the others. They are the earrings I wore to my Grammie's funeral to honor her, shortly before my life stopped being my life anymore. When I took them off that night, one fell off from the post in my hand. Earlier that day a conversation with Zigzag brought something important to my attention and he mentioned the pearl beyond price. 

"The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men— who brought gifts to the newborn Christ-child. They were the first to give Christmas gifts. Being wise, their gifts were doubtless wise ones. And here I have told you the story of two children who were not wise. Each sold the most valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other. But let me speak a last word to the wise of these days: Of all who give gifts, these two were the most wise. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are the most wise. Everywhere they are the wise ones. They are the magi." -Oh Henry the Gift of the Magi

[mandyjw]

This video that Zigzag sent me explains the duality I feel between "masculine" and "feminine", heart and intellect, that needs to be integrated. This video explains partly my inner war with intellect and that kind of wisdom.

 "The pearl held auction, saying, 'Who will buy this?' None had the price, so the pearl bought itself from itself." -Rumi

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Why do these things just randomly SHOW UP in my youtube suggestions?

 

[mandyjw]

"Everywhere I go my shadow goes too." "Everything I do, my shadow does too." The song my daughter is listening to right now. 

There are feelings that come up wondering what someone reading this would think. And I realize I'm tricking myself into judging myself. 

Jon wasn't allowed to date in highschool. There was lots of drama and getting into trouble. Then later on his parents accepted me. My parents were working all the time. My parents worked hard and they worked stupid. This was their religion, their interpretation of Christianity. My in laws had a very different interpretation. A prosperity gospel interpretation. I suppose that now, I've aligned with their interpretation, or rather realizing that both the differing points of views by our parents were flawed interpretations and opposite sides of the same coin.

I remember seeing their house for the first time. It's a huge house on the ocean. They have an enormous great room with a stone fireplace that reaches all the way to the top. They said that the man who built it was very odd (a pot smoker) who talked to the rocks while he was building it. Overlooking the ocean is a glass sunroom and above it are two stained glass windows with lighthouses on it. 

They were really kind to me even though I was dating Jon. Somehow they forgot or forgave that the rule was broken. We were supposed to be "friends". They invited me for Christmas and gave me gifts. I got more gifts from them, just as a "friend" of the family than I got at home. They took me to Disney that spring. 

I didn't know how to accept these gifts. I felt unworthy of them but didn't know how to explain or define this feeling. I felt like I was caught between two worlds and my ego didn't want to abandon the teachings of my upbringing. I thought that one must be good and one must be bad. 

I felt like I was being "bought" just like Jon. I was with these people who showed love with money, and the threat of survival and need for love became very confused in this environment. 

Their house always seemed cold and lacked a warmth and communication that I had at home. Strangely enough, the land had been bought, I assume by my husband's Grandmother after a murder occurred near there. It is one of the strangest stories, of a man going crazy killing a couple while videotaping it and saying that he did it in self defense. 

I loved my husband's Grandmother, but she comes in later to the story. She was frugal and a hoarder. She was very "wise" in one sense of the word. She was where the real money came from. 

This past New Years Day we had Christmas with my inlaws. In the past I've always thought that it was a horrible display of hedonism, but this past time I just enjoyed it and appreciated it. Having discovered the law of attraction and knowing what materialism really is has diffused my active judgement. It's funny that the conversation of the crashed Mustang and the death of the other Jon in the lobster boat accident both came up. 

Jon was expected to go to an extraordinarily strict Christian college in South Carolina. It was always assumed that he would go here. Another thing that was discussed on New Years was how ridiculous it was. 

When we graduated, I knew that Jon was making a terrible decision to go there out of fear of his parents. He would have to go to college extra years in order to get the degree he actually wanted. Eventually because of my encouragement he refused. His parents were so afraid we would run off together and I'd drag him down to poverty so they paid for him to go into engineering. For two years things went well. I always felt guilty around his parents, I'd destroyed their dreams for their son to be respected in the Christian community. They built their own church. Appearances were very important to them. 

We were going to get married when Jon finished school. At some point I wanted to move out because my Dad started drinking and often harassing me daily, mostly over my relationship with Jon. It brought up all the crap he went through in his Christian upbringing and brought out deep insecurities. Because I was the favorite he harassed my sister until she moved out, then I was the target. 

Right before he was going to start his last year of school, his parents found a Pastor for his church. This Pastor turned it from an extremely fundamental church to a cult. There were lots of problems going on with Jon's sister at the time and she was completely dependent upon his parents. He forced her to apologize in front of the church and Jon was supposed to too. He was supposed to apologize for dating me and for insisting on going to a state university. He refused to. Partly for me and partly because he was that honest.

His parents were forbidden to contact him, his entire family was. I remember instigating the falling out. They wouldn't TELL him what his failure to apologize meant for his college expenses. I said he had to find out and now. It was already the end of summer. We sat in the great room with the rock fireplace and waited for them to get home. They told him they wouldn't support him.

We had ALL attracted the situation we had most feared. 

I remember leaving their driveway that night, driving past the ditch where the couple had been murdered years ago when his Grandmother bought the land. I remember listening to this song.  I remember feeling free. 

His parents lost their control, he had lost his financial support. 

We went to his Grandmother and I was bawling when we told her what happened. I remember that she just hugged me. I'd never had someone hug me like that since I was a child. She was upset and couldn't blame this on her daughter. It must be her son in law's fault. She told us that his college education was funded by them. Jon's mother had been the poor family who took his father under their wing, and he had made good use of it and started a successful business. Ironically they attended the same state university Jon was attending together. 

She gave Jon the loan to finish his last year of college.

We had ripped through his room and taken everything he needed. There was a bookshelf I always felt guilty about taking. I thought it was bad judgement on our part, and should have been considered part of their house since everything was done in oak. Jon thought it was his. It's the very same bookshelf that's in my yellow hall right now, that I had put the notebook from out trip on. I've always felt guilty about having it. 

Jon went back to talk to his father at some point, disbelieving the situation and wanting to resolve it and blow off steam. It went bad, really bad. The last thing he had that they had paid for was his Mustang. His dad would not take the car, because it was a gift. He did think that the license plates on it were his though and it was the last thing he could grasp to get Jon in trouble. The were vanity plates. He went out and tried to rip them off the car. Jon drove off after he had gotten one off and immediately had to go to town office and get new ones. 

We were ordered to return them by the police. This task was given to me. I had to talk to the police on the phone and an officer came to my parent's house to get them from me. 

Who came to pick them up? My sister's ex boyfriend who predicted that Jon would get in trouble for having that car so many years before. 

Over the year, the pastor ripped and tore through the church. By spring the pastor was asked to leave. His name was Pastor Swansong minus the last letter.

Again instigated by me, we went back to his parents to resolve things. I knew they'd be sorry and want to. Jon wasn't sure. I couldn't STAND the tension and hurts from it and I convinced him to go. 

Over that year, the economy had crashed. On Jon's graduation which his parents didn't attend, all the speakers were shaken up by the economy. They were letting a class go with student debt who had little to no job prospects. I remember that that day was a beautiful spring day and it seemed like spring came all of a sudden. I wore an emerald green t-shirt and I felt beautiful. Later when we were driving home in his car it poured and it was one of those rains that was invigorating and life giving instead of depressing. 

Jon's Dad's business was dead in the water for the first time ever. It hardly effected anyone in the community. If you don't have money, a financial crash isn't a problem.

My business that I had stayed with my parents to start, and skipped out on college, to my disgrace and beyond everyone's doubt was booming. Who was the financially independent one now?

Me. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

We were never supposed to end up here. We were never supposed to stay right here. There were no jobs to move away to like we planned on. I ended up supporting us with our business, and since there wasn't a place to rent, we ended up buying a house that we were supposed to fix up quickly and sell. Jon got a job working in partial volunteer/paid work for the community. 

That house turned into the worst decision of my life, so I thought. I thought I was dependent on my dad for his help with it. The war between my husband and my dad's disrespect for him continued. I had emotionally and optimistically chosen this house. It took 10 years to find out why. The house could not be what I envisioned unless I evolved too. I moved away from my parents but still depended on them. 

There were lots of walls to tear down. 

[mandyjw]

I have believed that everything I want must be by default be to exclusion of something else I want. 

This has made me like the donkey who dies because he can't chose between his food and his water when he needs them both. 

This is the cause of all of my suffering from regretting a big decision, questioning my decisions, to managing my time day to day. 

I have created and attracted all the situations in my life, big or small, including the pearl falling off in my hand. 

I have always been on my spiritual path, never young and foolish and never off of it. I have never made a bad decision, I have wanted the things that caused me pain because I have struggled to align with the desire and joy in them.