There's a hole in my bucket

The more I fill it the more it leaks. So much so it is hard to know whether the bucket is ever half full or half empty and to that end I decided to do myself a Tarot spread with the question "What do I need to do in order to feel more confident about myself and happier with life?".

It has been nearly a year since I posted here and life hasn't stood still. In fact there has been some really big stuff and big head clearing going on, but how much head clearing and sorting does one person need? And with that criticism I have another thing to scold myself with, more self-chastising because if it has gone wrong it is my fault and if it has gone well then that is just good luck or good fortune but not due to my own hand. And that contradiction is not lost on me.  So I can self-examine and still more stuff keeps coming up. I just want to be. To be me and for that to be good enough. But somewhere deep inside there is a monstrous me I work hard to suppress, so that no-one can discover her. So that she doesn't leak out. Probably that ugly, mean, sneaky and selfish child I was told I was in childhood. Yet here I am all these decades later and surely those ghosts don't still have a grip but more than ever seem to have an impact on me.

These are wobbly times just now, and according to my cards quite a big time. Perhaps this is the final clear out or at least a major fundamental one. I am trying to move forward a big project and although I am tinkering away and making progress I feel it is so slow (but it really is) a big hand has me gripped round the throat throwing diversions my way. The latest being discontent with my youngest who is now 15 years old. What I need to remember is that I am not a failure and to not let myself be diverted down the self-pitying route. That remembering that as a teenager he really is not so bad and that actually I have had it really good with him for much longer than I ever did with my daughter. So, this seems like a good point to take stock and put it out there publicly as a means to get it through to my core just how full my cup is.

Reasons to be cheerful:

1. Darling Mr Doris and I have been happily married for over ten years. He is my stalwart partner and rock. He puts up with my emotions and he still chooses to hold my hand, and makes me frothy coffee and puddings and much more.
2. Daughter is now 20 years old and previously I have talked about the pain and anguish I felt in my non-existent relationship with her as a teen, but now she and I are very close and she is a darling to me. She has acknowledged who we are as parents and how we are and talks to me as if I might have something useful to say!
3. Son is actually a good kid on the whole. He does not do drugs (except the alcoholic fuelled mishap a few months ago), has some nice friends and is mostly polite. He has ideas about his future and occasionally sounds intelligent.
4. We live in a lovely home. It is very compact but it does. It is energy efficient, warm and cosy and a very good rent in a lovely little English town with essential shops just a minute away.
   
5. We have tenants living in our old house which we were not able to sell but having tenants is a viable alternative. Magically, within three weeks of us taking the risk to leap from our old house leaving it empty to be where we are now our tenants materialised and signed the contract. There have been issues with unpaid rent which have been a tad challenging but these are resolved and the prospects are good. One day, when the markets have recovered, we'll be able to sell it and end up with something in hand but if we had managed to sell it in the past year or so it would have been for very little and swallowed up by debts. So this appears to be a good investment after all.
6. Financially we have taken a huge dive but thank you to a very generous gift we have gotten by, and with me finally getting a grip on our finances, we will one day be in a very strong position. It is very tight just now and has been for a while but we'll be okay.
   
7. I have great siblings, especially the one we now live near who is wonderful along with her family.
   
8. And then I have some amazing friends and for that I am very honoured. I love them and they love me and this is a state of affairs for which I am very grateful. In the last year there has been some ups and downs due to my own actions concerning a couple of friends that has been very painful but these are thankfully resolved.

There are many more things for me to give thanks but this is a start in thanking for all the treasures that are part of my life.

As one of the curiosities of life, I have found myself in a most extraordinary position this year with my mother being potentially seriously ill. This woman who cut through my young life like a mad woman and whose love I once wanted but was cured of at the age of 30, and with whom I have had a tolerating relationship in recent years. But this year I have held her hand through some scary stuff and been her advocate with the health people being an intermediary to help them cope with her and to help her to cope with this foreign world of hospitals. She is not in any immediate danger but who knows what the months ahead may show. I have sat with her as she has told consultants about her terrible childhood with not a single blink of acknowledgement as to what happened to me and what she did. She has said that I have been like a mother to her during these months. And so I have. It has been all so bloody odd. It is like watching a movie of someone else's life which is perhaps no bad thing as a means of coping as one's once all powerful mother shows signs of fragility and a possible end.

Tarot
That picture above is my Celtic Cross spread using the Gilded Tarot. One possible reading says that the Page of Cups is me holding the mirror up to my life considering the question was "What do I need to do in order to feel more confident about myself and happier with life?". The Queen of Swords probably represents my mother and the effect of her cutting words on my life. The Lovers above represents the positive impression I give out to the world whilst the 10 of swords below reveals my depression hidden underneath, but that I can choose to get up and not be depressed. And so it goes on ultimately to say I will get out of it but I need to let go and to stop trying quite so hard. Living for the present and enjoying what I have is not a bad strategy and obvious really. Putting it into practise is easy to say and rationalise but I have concerns for the doing.

Blogging
It has been beneficial in the past so I may be back. Who knows. Each day is as it comes.

Love and hugs to the world.