Don't judge me

 I'm sitting on my front porch swing and it is a truly beautiful day.  The breeze is amazing and the sun is shinning.  I have the beauty of trees all around me and birds are singing.  Then, on occasion, I can hear a rooster crow or an egg song being sung.  At times you can hear the entire flock of chickens going off for some reason or another.  They cry wolf so often, to their own detriment, and when you run out to see what is wrong it can sometimes be a butterfly in their area flittering about.  So, at times we just get tired of going out, stay inside, only to find there was something actually wrong.  

I am sometimes really hard on myself when it comes to the house and property.  I start to look at it with my mothers eyes and hear her telling me what a failure I am at keeping it nice.  I can hear my dad telling me to have Bruce fix this or that as if he is disgusted at us for letting it go.  Why do I do that to my self? Are my thoughts true or just my interpretation.

I love to work on my crafts/art.  The word crafts sounds like I'm making crocheted toilet paper covers. NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.  I'm not sure why we think that.  We all have something we love to do that is creative and it should always have a name to it that makes us feel good.  So lets call it my art.  I work on my art and I am at peace with the world, most days.  At times I let the voice in the back of my mind tell me that I should be doing chores.  And why do we use that word either?  It should be another fabulous word for blessing our home and family.  What is the requirement for the quality of our house cleaning?  My mother used to clean so much and then yell at us to keep it nice.  She was not able to enjoy us most days because the home had to be so perfect.  She was raised that way.  I, on the other hand, was a bit of a rebel when it came to keeping my room clean.  I was creative, so my room was plastered with what I loved all over my walls and actually looked really cool.  I don't spend a great amount of time stressing over perfection because I can't.  In these years of being a human, I've learned that too much stress makes my body sick.  I have learned to adjust my stress and have had fewer flairs and fewer days in bed.  That has been a huge blessing.  

Lately I have been letting the voice of the ego in my head get the better of me.  I have been running stories through my mind that make my heart hurt all over again.  Stories of feeling unloved by others.  I think there is nothing worse than feeling like someone doesn't love you, feeling unwanted, feeling like you are no longer a part of the family or no longer speaking to you because they have false information.  Most of my stories have that in common.  When someone doesn't know the entire story because you didn't want to hurt them and tell them the rest.  I finally just stopped trying to fix things with people I love that don't love me back or just don't like me or maybe just don't understand me.  I've stopped trying to explain the misinformation.  But it always seems to creep in and make me very sad here and there.  

Yesterday I was thinking about my dad.  He was a very complicated man.  I was his little girl so I got to see sides of him that no one else did.  I saw his sweetness and love and joy.  Many of us saw how he battled frustration and anxiety that triggered in a moment and was not usually within his control, but then saw the sadness that followed.  I am the communicator.  I would get him on the phone and be totally honest with him.  I'm not sure if anyone else did that.  I remember telling my mom to tell him how she felt and she would say she didn't want to.  I had a close relationship with my parents so I got to see it all and since both of them would talk to me about their issues, I got to hear it all.  The interesting thing about my dad is that he rarely ever bad mouthed anyone.  I was very very lucky to know him so well.  

We are all so complicated.  We all have the good and the bad.  We just don't understand each other, or the life that we have lived, to make an accurate assessment of the situations that we fall into.  For example... I once asked for a key chain.  The person I asked thought I was asking for the keys.  I kept trying to explain that I wanted the key chain not the keys.  But they didn't hear me.  They had set their mind on the fact that they thought I wanted something that they did not want to give me.  Finally I said, "please just give me the key chain".  They did, with a strange look.   The key chain was from my very first car.  I had unwrapped that key chain when I got my car ( a little $500 old Toyota corona) for a Christmas gift from my parents.  I had lost the chain and didn't know my parents still had it.  How cool that was to get such a cool part of my memory back.

Just a thought....     (And please read this with love) When we come into a difficult situation with our guard up, there is bound to be a lot of miscommunication.  If we come into a situation with love... there is not.  Love takes away all fear and judgement.  Love allows everyone to be who they are without someone making assumptions.  Love is the answer to every single problem there is in this world.  Now when I say that you will have all these people who think, "oh Shannon... be real.  Your delusional if you think the world will work if everyone loves each other... Please!"  And I would say this.  How do you know?  Have you tried it?  Are you quick to judge?  Are you someone who likes to ball up a type of people and put a label on them?  Do you say ugly things about this generation of people or that?  If you do not walk in another persons shoes.. how do you know you aren't wrong?  Do you, who have money, act like those who don't just manage it badly and that's why they struggle to pay their debt?  Do you, who don't struggle with depression or auto immune disorders, tell those who do to just "get a job"?  I always think we need to be careful how we treat others because it WILL come back to bite us in the butt.  

My greenhouse is broken and my washing machine went out and my house needs love. So... I'm going to go work on crafts. No....I'm going to spend some time blessing my home and do some crafts in between that so that I have a day that I love.  I refuse to spend every single day of my life cleaning the house just to do it again the next day and no have joy.  So if you come by to visit.  Don't judge me.  I want to be happy.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Loves

Shannon