"Painting Pictures of Egypt" by Sara Groves

I was wondering, today, why I'm working so hard ... will I ever get to where I'm going ...either in recovering from the eating disorder (ok, so that was what triggered the thoughts) or even with school ... been a bit discouraged of late ... got in the car and went to the grocery store ...punched in my new CD that Don gave me for Christmas and this song played ... I was painting pictures of Egypt ... I don't want to leave here, I don't want to stay ..it feels like pinching either way .. and the places that I long for the most are the places where I've been, they are calling out to me like a long lost friend.

It's not about losing faith,
It's not about trust
It's all about comfortable
When you move so much
And the place I was wasn't perfect
But I'd found a way to live
And it wasn't milk or honey
But then neither is this.

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy
To discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
And I'm caught between the PROMISE
and the things I know.

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
I've been leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard,
And I wanna go back!
But the places that used to fit me,
Cannot Hold the things I've learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned!

If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind it all
this time and sand?
And if it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
is that the reason behind it all
this time and sand?

Everything Matters ... Nothing Matters

I heard a song today by Sara Groves that I'd not heard before. It's called "Rewrite this tragedy" and I realized .. it all matters ..and yet none of it matters.

Everything that has happened has made me who I am today ...good and bad.
I have made bad decisions, I have made good decisions.
People have hurt me, I have hurt people. I've been betrayed, I've betrayed. I've been abandoned and I've abandoned .. it all plays into how i make today's choices.

Yet in the grand scheme of things ...nothing NOTHING is so bad that it can't be undone.
Nothing is so good, so right so perfect that it can't be unstrung.

My heart can be broken today, and leaping tomorrow and visa versa.

Today, I can have a roof with a hole the size of a bucket ..and tomorrow I can be walking through the door of a house that love built.

Today, I can have the perfect job and tomorrow I can be laid off.
Today I can be in pain, unable to walk and tomorrow i can be running a marathon and tomorrow not walking again.

Everything changes ... every choice we make, every decision ... every move changes the next move and yet, in the end, it all seems to work out.
There is nothing that I can do, short of taking my own life, that is permanent.
The most consistant thing in life is change.

I can make choices that make life harder ... I could rob a bank and make life really hard.
There are choices I can make that make life harder in the short term but improve life ..like working to get a habitat house .. or a degree.

I can refuse to take algebra at 14 and struggle through it at 46 ..
I can refuse to take a supervisory job because I don't know that at 24 I'm going to be wiped out by my own immune system and have my disability payment significantly lower than it would have been had I taken the management payment.

I can quit ... or I can finish .. and in the long run it all seems to work out ...struggles come, struggles go .. but the consistancy of life is that it changes ...

Lyrics to Rewrite This Tragedy :
Tonight I forgot a
line in the play that you and I Have been rehearsing since the day we met

It made
me put down my script, made me look around a bit

And wonder how we came to play
these roles
I'm here to re-write this tragedy

One line at a time

Hold on,

I'm
changing all the scenery

It's okay we'll be fine

Cause we know how this
ends
Sometimes it's hard to tell what to keep and what to kill

What of this
makes us who we are

All that we love the most, all that we cannot let go

How much
of change can we survive?
I'm here to re-write this tragedy

One line at a
time

Hold on,

I'm changing all the scenery

It's okay we'll be fine

Cause we know
how this ends

We know there's a better story
There's a better story

Of true
love of true grace

There's the hope of glory

And our first chance to be truly
brave

It's the place we're goingWhen we can't stay where we are
I'm here to
re-write this tragedy

One line at a time

Hold on, I'm changing all the scenery

It's okay we'll be fine

Cause we know how this ends

We know there's a better
story

Tonight I forgot a line in the play that you and I Have been rehearsing
since the day we met

It made me put down my script, made me look around a bit

And
wonder how we came to play these roles
I'm here to re-write this tragedy

One
line at a time

Hold on,

I'm changing all the scenery

It's okay we'll be fine

Cause
we know how this ends
Sometimes it's hard to tell what to keep and what to
kill

What of this makes us who we are

All that we love the most, all that we
cannot let go

How much of change can we survive?
I'm here to re-write this
tragedy

One line at a time

Hold on, I'm changing all the scenery

It's okay we'll be
fine

Cause we know how this endsWe know there's a better story
There's a
better story

Of true love of true grace

There's the hope of glory

And our first
chance to be truly brave

It's the place we're going

When we can't stay where we
are
I'm here to re-write this tragedy

One line at a timeHold on,

I'm changing
all the scenery

It's okay we'll be fine

Cause we know how this ends

We know there's
a better story

This and That

You can't ground children who have moved out of the house ... this is not a good thing.

My schedule for this spring is as follows:
Tuesday Morning 9-11:40 .. Physiological Psychology (or Psychophysiology same thing)
Tuesday Afternoon 4:30 - 7:10 Personality Theories (if this course looks familiar it's because I complained relentlessly about it spring of 2009 ..which apparently was an introduction level class ... and I could have gotten away with just this one. So sad)
Wednesday Afternoon 4:30 -7:10 Human Adjustment (follow up class to Intro to Counseling)
Thursday Afternoon 1:00-3:40 Infant/Child Psychology (what? what's that you say ... you remember me complaining last spring about child psych [in all fairness, I complained about instructor, not so much the class] ahhh good memory ... apparently a lot of what I took at TCC was considered 'introductory' and I get to retake ... sigh)

I think it will be nice just having class 3 days a week. Tuesdays have the promise of being tiring ...

Doogie Howser, M.D. - "A Mother-Son Relationship"

It occurred to me that Doogie Howswer MD was on 20 years ago and maybe not everyone knew what I meant.
so in the spirit of trying to blog, even if it's short and sweet, I thought I'd post this ... ironic that I was thinking about a mother's love just this morning.

January 1, 2011

1-1-11

I can remember watching science fiction TV show as a young teenager Space 1999 ... what worlds we'd thought we'd conquer before the end of the century.

As fast as technology was exploding, we, in our human imaginations, thought it would expand much faster ... and we, of coarse, having the power to creat such technology would also be able to control such technology.

I sit here, amazed at how life has changed in my 46 years on this earth.

I remember black and white TV ... I remember getting a color TV set and having the neighbors come to see it.
I remember the first tape recorder we had ... and what a treat it was ... we taped all our records onto tape so that we could listen to them and not worry about scratching them. (Ironic that CD's have brought us back to the days of scratching ... my very favorite song on my very favorite CD from my very favorite singer ... is scratched and unplayable :( .. a tad ironic)

I remember telling my sister, after she'd thrown a pillow at me and I missed something 'important' on Gilligan's Island (the nerve huh?) that we should have a TV that rewinds, fast forwards, allows us to see what we missed and not have to watch commercials. She told me I was crazy. I was 10. In less than 10 years my father had a VCR ...

I remember calling home one day after school to see if I could go to Jennifer's house ..and no one was home, yet the phone was answered! My step mother's voice said "You have reached the Mills Residence, please leave your name and number and we will get back to you as soon as we possibly can"
I freaked
I handed the phone to Jennifer
Jennifer said "this is Peggi. I'm going to Jennifer's. I'll be home before 5"
I got home and promptly grounded for 'lying' because I was too scared to talk to this machine. As most will tell you, I still hate to leave messages.

Not too long after that, I came home to my dad and step mother playing with this funny box on the counter. It took about a min to bring water to a fast/hard boil.

For the next 3 weeks, every meal we ate was microwaved. I still will not cook meat (rarely even defrost it) in the microwave.

My mom didn't get one until after my step father died in 1979. She used his life insurance to buy it and I always related the 2 in my mind. I refused to get a microwave ... till I had a baby and realized that life just could be easier without it having any weird meaning attached to it. Now, my microwaves are a daily part of my life ..but they have a bad habit of crashing on either christmas or Thanksgiving.
we call it the Eagler Curse ... either someone gets sick on a holiday or the microwave goes out. The microwave spent the week before Christmas acting funny, so we thought it was going to be the microwave ... I got the flu instead. I hate the flu, but honestly, it's cheaper.

I was a telephone teen. My step dad used to tell me that a potato was growing in there and we'd never know it because the phone was attached. (don't ask, I never did figure the logic out in that one). Shortly after he died a sales man showed up on our doorstep and changed my teenage years.
No more getting grounded for being on the phone longer than I was allowed. We had 30 min on, 30 min off rule (plus had to share with sister) so that parents could get through at some point. They didn't care if we stayed on all the evening if we left 30 min segments so they could get through. I had a bad habit of 2 hours on, 10 min off ... got me grounded frequently!
The salesman offered something called "call waiting" .. no more not getting through and I was able to keep the phone on my ear from the time I got home from school till I went to bed ....except for the times my sister punched me to force me off so she could make a call.

My sophomore year in high school a new elective was offered. There were those in the community that thought the school was nuts for providing it. Computer programming. TI 994A's were the computers ... and it seems that no one was really interested out side of the school. Computers ... in the house? Sure, why would anyone even NEED it?

10 years later we were discussing the oncoming world changing World Wide Web ... the internet highway that would change the world ...and how it has!

Computer speed, wifi, lap tops, phone computers ... streaming movies to our TV sets ... Wii ... video games ... and most importantly (said tongue in cheek , I assure you)
Blogging and Twitter!

through blogging I've poured out my heart
shared my poetry
told funny stories
told heartbreaking stories
Ranted
Raved
Relented
Wrote a novel w/NaNoWriMo
Shared my struggles with bad habits
shared my conquests
Shared my journey
Shared my progress
Shared my failures
Shared my HEART

It's a new year ..what technology will we see that we only saw in Sci Fi movies? what technology will be abused (texting was great till people started dying in car crashes and teens being victimized by sexting ..and not even knowing their being vicitmized ..what will psychologists be saying in 30 years over that current trend and it's fall out?)

I keep trying to decide if I'm going to blog more consistently or just stop. Stopping, is'nt likely, it's too handy of an outlet for the writer in me. I do think that I figured out that I think every post Must be profound ... and I'm not sure that is is a must. Maybe I just should work on writing a bit each day ... Doogie Howser style if necessary

January 1, 2011 ... I thought about what all I have to say today. I learned that sometimes saying a little is better than saying a lot or nothing at all.

(after thought here ...Was Doogie Howswer the world first blogger?).