Wednesday, January 5, 2011

One Hundred Things ..... Anonymous

A collection of lists. Take the challenge. 100 things about yourself. Streaming flow of consciousness, as personal or as general as you care to make it...but make it count. You might learn something about yourself and I promise it's better than 20 questions!





1. I have been living below the poverty line for several years.
2. I have been looking for cashmere sweaters on mark down for several years.
3. Today I bought three lovely cashmere sweaters, cheap! I am wearing one now, and it feels lovely.
4. I tend to be unsympathetic when people tell me they suffer from depression. I do not tell them I am unsympathetic. I do not see depression the way it is currently viewed. I do try to cheer them up, but I refuse to “feel their pain” when they say there is nothing wrong but depression. Own up to it, or walk away from it. Don’t just dawdle there full of self pity.
5. I love to smile, and to be smiled at.
6. I am totally in love with my daughter. I have been ever since the day I was giving her a bath and she didn’t want me to wash her hair. She wasn’t talking yet, but she tried anyway. She stood up in the tub, put her hands on my cheeks, and holding my face in her tiny hands and looking me straight in the eye, she babbled at me in a stern voice. I knew she was telling me that the way I was washing her hair was unacceptable. To this day she still hates for water to get on hair face while she is washing her hair. BTW, to wash a child’s hair w/o getting water on their face, use a wet washcloth.
7. People tend to think I eat weird food. I think they do.
8. I do not want another pet because I am longing for freedom, for travel, for not taking care of another anything or anybody.
9. I was fearless when I was young.
10. I am very honest, and was fearless with my honesty when I was young.
11. I have learned to be afraid of telling the truth.
12. I miss it.
13. I jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. The freefall was amazing. I didn’t care for it when the chute opened and stopped the fall. Floating down was fine, but jumping out and falling was the best part.
14. I have known people to do horrible things, yet I still believe that each of us contains the very best of all things. I do not believe in evil, as in I do not believe that there is something in one that is not in another. And I do not say this lightly. Tell me of the most horrible act by the most horrible person, and I will say that we are all equal.
15. I do believe it is of immense value to do our best to be kind, and help others, and avoid harming others.
16. I love people. It seems ever so much easier to do well from a distance.
17. The thing that I resent about being a mother is that I feel like I am no fun now, not in the way that I was before I became a mother.
18. I never wanted to be a single mom. I resent that too.
19. I never thought my husband would cheat on me. It was one thing that I knew for sure.
20. I am an adoptive mother, yet I did not seek my daughter, she came to me.
21. I think I express myself best in writing.
22. I cry easily.
23. I yell, even though I think it is the wrong way.
24. I used to hit when I was mad.
25. Before I started hitting when I was angry, I was hit by others when they were angry.
26. It felt powerful good when I hit instead of being hit.
27. This is starting to read like therapy. Fair warning, it might get worse.
28. I love dry, dark humor.
29. I also love dark chocolate.
30. Men? I dunno. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t heterosexual.
31. I love women, but I am not quite bi. I do think women are generally better looking than men. I would like to live in a society where women hold hands and snuggle. And there are societies like that. If it was acceptable, I would love up lots of people in that way. Not sex, just physical expressions of love.
32. I do miss sex. I have only had sex a couple times in the last five years, and none at all in a very long time.
33. I am starting menopause.
34. I am GLBT friendly, but will not date men who cross dress.
35. I like ritual.
36. I have studied many, many subjects, formally and informally.
37. I am a clutter bug, but I love clean.
38. I love good sheets, feather pillows, and high end mattresses.
39. I love to travel.
40. I can enjoy dives just as much as posh places.
41. I was arrested on a felony charge. Aggravated assault/assault with a deadly weapon. It was self defense. It was in a bar. The guy was making me leave with him, and no one would stop him, even though I was asking for help. He was someone I knew, but not someone I wanted to leave with. He was big time bad news. I busted his head open with a glass, left handed even, cause that was my only opportunity. The bartender called the police; I waited for them, figured it was the lesser of two evils. The guy dropped the charges on Monday, after I sat in jail all weekend.
42. When I was a child, I loved to run. I was sure I could fly if I just ran fast enough.
43. I had terrible nightmares as a child.
44. I sucked my thumb until about 2nd grade.
45. I want to see Thailand, Greece, Italy, Africa, and jungles, rainforests, and India, and Guatemala, and...
46. I only look like a white girl. I do not feel like a white person. I am not exactly prejudiced against white people, but they kinda scare me in general. And I often feel like I am an imposter around them. And I feel like a wanna-be around ethnic people. I am a woman without a tribe.
47. I dream of winning the lottery. Really. I would not be surprised if it happened. I am often slightly surprised when it doesn’t.
48. I think I could love again, and believe I would love well given another chance. But I don’t fall in love easily these days.
49. I never thought I would get this old.
50. Things are good. Life is peaceful, and I am safe. The only things that threaten me are the demons of my past.
51. I have agreed to start seeing a psychotherapist. This is hard for me, because as you might remember, I don’t much believe in whining.
52. The main reason I decided to is because I realized I do not have all the tools I need to raise my daughter at this stage of her life.
53. I cried all day yesterday. I cried because I realized that both of my parents had failed to protect me when they should have. I always blamed my mother, and idolized my father. Yesterday I realized that he should have not gotten me a fake id when I was underage, and that when I told him I was working at a peepshow, he should have told me to stop.
54. I am afraid that if I think about it too long, remember too much, talk about the facts of the matter, that I will have to conclude that I was never loved the way I love my daughter.
55. I am crying now.
56. I am a spiritual person. God has spoken to me throughout my life. His advice is always sound. I do not believe in a traditional God, but I know the Divine. And I still call it God. I am confounded that others do not hear God.
57. I would like to help other people find the peace I have at times.
58. There are so many things I want to do in this world it is hard to know where to start, what to give my attention to. I tend to do what is in front of me.
59. My daughter is beginning puberty. I hope I am past the worst of my mood swings before she begins the worst of hers.
60. I love to feed others good food.
61. I think soup can be beautiful. Or a simple salad, or bread.
62. I like it when others feed me. My neighbors sent over casserole yesterday, and somebody shoveled my front walk today. Those things make me feel loved.
63. Awhile ago I realized it was no longer appropriate to donate money to charities when I needed charity. So I made a decision that I would not put money in the church plate, and I would cancel my “sister” that I supported monthly, and ignore all formal charity requests. But I also decided that I would refuse no personal requests for help. Interesting the people who have showed up in my life, asking for anything from three dollars to two eggs, or to use the phone. It has felt good to always say yes. It has also been a practice in non judgment to always say yes.
64. I love deviled eggs.
65. I love to play.
66. I like to drink tequila straight, if I am drinking seriously, which I don’t do often.
67. I love the water.
68. I love flying.
69. I have flown an ultra light, cut the engine, and glided into a desert sunset with only the sound of air moving past me.
70. My favorite memory of Jamaica is the snorkel guide who dived to the bottom and then popped up next to me to surprise me with a sea urchin on top of his dreadlocks.
71. I learned to scuba dive in Mexico.
72. My family is hard to trust.
73. I love them, even when I avoid them.
74. My mother is exceptionally smart, as are many of my siblings.
75. My mother was raped as a child. She was younger than my daughter is now.
76. I was turned out by a trick when I was a child. Maybe you don’t know what this means. “Turned out” refers to how one was convinced to begin in prostitution. It often is a reference to what a pimp does to a girl to start her in the life. “Trick” refers to a man who supports and promotes the sex trade because he seeks girls to pay for sex. And “child” means it was illegal. I spent the money on food and stuff for Mom. She did ask where I got it. I did tell her some guy paid me 50 dollars for a massage.(And that was what he called it, and what he told me to do at first, and then told me/taught me/coaxed me to finish with a hand job). She did not give any further feedback, just a grocery list.
77. I first tried cocaine when I was about 14. I became addicted by 18, and did not quit until I was 25.
78. I did not run away from home. My mother dropped me off at a school friend’s house and then was unable to be reached for a very long time.
79. I was a good kid, eager to please. Unfortunately, the things that pleased others were not good for me.
80. The first street drugs I tried were from my mother’s top dresser drawer.
81. I want to be a good mother.
82. I feel like this is getting whiny, and want to rewrite. I will just change subjects.
83. I love people. I think they are beautiful. I think I can often see their Divine Essence shining thru.
84. I have had dreams of people close to me as they were passing over. It’s nothing to be afraid of.
85. I am sure that death will be a cakewalk. Maybe that’s not the word I want. Piece of cake? Well, sweet and easy is what I am getting at.
86. I overeat, and am holding the line between overweight and obese. I don’t like being fat.
87. If I had a lover, I would slim down without even trying.
88. I like to garden, to plant seeds, to tend and nurture, to harvest, and to put up the bounty that is reaped. I like to open those jars full of summer on a cold winter day. I like to share the deliciousness with my friends and neighbors.
89. Life is a miracle, yet still I am prochoice.
90. When I win the lottery, I will have a personal masseuse.
91. When I was seven, I was reading the Chronicles of Narnia, at nine, Piers Anthony. By eleven, Kahlil Gibran.
92. I love to read.
93. I read more nonfiction then fiction these days.
94. I love music, especially live.
95. I love marching bands. When I win the lottery, I will hire a marching band for my birthday every year.
96. In seventh grade, in gymnastics, my teacher scored my floor routine a 10. It felt so good.
97. I was a tomboy, always outside, climbing, running, jumping.
98. I hated becoming a girl as a young teen.
99. I am always growing, learning, and changing.
100. I believe that we all emerged from one divine essence, that we all remain a part of one divine essence, and we will all return to one divine essence.

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