Social networking is nirvana to relationship hoarders.  I know – I’m one of them.  I’ve come to this realization by observing just how excited I get whenever someone from my past reaches out to me.  I believe the proper term would be “giddy”.

Many years ago I heard the story of The Prodigal Son and just did not understand why this bad boy got all this attention.  Now I totally get that killing the fatted calf and throwing the party thing.  Obviously this guy was also a relationship hoarder.  It’s like a part of yourself come back home.  It makes you feel complete.  And it also is a great excuse for a party

I recognize that there are two types of individuals:  those who love to keep ties to the past and those who believe the past is the past and let’s just keep it at that, thank you very much.  Even in my own family we vary wildly.  My mother stated to me “Why in the world would you want to get back in touch with those people?”  This is also coming from a woman who still has lunch with elementary school friends, mind you, so I don’t necessarily think she’d balk if someone got back in touch with her either.  I think it just doesn’t feel like finding a missing jigsaw puzzle piece to her.  My ex on the other hand had a hard time coming up with people to invite to our wedding outside of our current circle of friends.  Getting back in touch with even close friends from the past was as foreign and disdainful a concept for him as NOT getting in touch with them would be for me.

I’ve always been like this.  Way before there were computers and we actually wrote letters, I was notorious for sending birthday cards to everyone – even people I barely knew.  I wrote lengthy letters to friends I’d met the week before – and continued to do so for extended periods of time.  I distinctly remember getting back in touch with a good friend after not communicating for 20 years and the feeling similar to that of finding a lost part of me was overwhelming.  If there were fatted calves in the area, they would have been in serious danger of losing their life!

I love the concept that I am tied to people I’ve known and that have known me by this invisible virtual cord.  Perhaps it’s a security blanket of sorts so that I know that I did actually have a past, even if my less than stellar memory can’t always put all the pieces together.  Maybe it’s the old “Sally Field syndrome”:  “You like me! You really, really like me!”  More so I just love seeing pieces of this quilt of life being woven together in front of me.  How else would I have known that one of my 3^rd grade students from Michigan knew one of my corporate bosses from Vermont?  I can’t help but think there are more connections out there that are as yet undetected and waiting to be uncovered.

On those days when life becomes overwhelming and I feel like such an insignificant cog in a massive wheel, I only have to look at these amazing connections and see the warm and wonderful creation they have woven that makes the world a smaller and cozy place to be.  I can’t wait to greet the next “old” friend virtually or uncover another amazing mutual connection.  Bring on them calves!

The guys in my graduating class were nerds.  Well, that’s what I thought, probably because they never paid me any attention.  I much preferred the more mature older “men” in a class two years before mine.  And probably because that is where I put my focus, that is where I got my attention.  It totally floored me 20 years later to hear the drunken confessions at a class reunion of more than one guy who said they had wanted to ask me out but were too afraid to.  Seems I was a bit intimidating without even knowing it.

At the beginning of high school I was a very confident, self-possessed young woman who was not afraid to take chances and put herself out on the line.  I’m afraid that the ravages of peer acceptance and approval played havoc with those concepts.   My high school experience taught me, among other things, that if your essence is too big, you run the risk of scaring people away.  I became very adept at turning down the flame according to the company I was keeping or intended to keep.  I remember my mother telling me before my first date where we were going bowling that I should let my date win.  I looked at her dumbfounded that she could even suggest such a thing and set out to prove that she was wrong.  Somehow I think her words sunk in despite my initial best efforts to throw them off and subsequent years found me doing just that.  It was just easier to “go with the flow” than to risk the rejection.  It was a lesson I learned well and took many years to set aside.

What a joy it is now to realize that I no longer have to dim my light in order to feel loved and accepted.  I am most content when I feel I am shining brightly and have discovered that people are more drawn to me when I am not hiding out.  I recently reconnected with a guy from my high school class who told me I looked fantastic.  While I am flattered (and now recognize that he is not a nerd), I know that the sparkle in my eyes was probably there all along – its just that now I’m not afraid to let it out.

In the three years of the Spanish Inquisition, nine million women were killed for being witches.  Nine million!  These were women who were generally sought out for their healing, counseling and midwifery skills.  Women who were using their gifts and helping others.  Can you imagine the lessons that women for generations taught their daughters about NOT showing their skills?  It makes perfect sense to me that somehow this real fear has been translated into so many unconscious fears that exist today and prevent women from taking risks and following their path.

I’ve been working lately with entrepreneurs who come from life conditions so much more difficult than mine and yet they are willing to take the risks to move their life forward.  They are a reminder to me that my biggest obstacle is between my ears.  Perhaps I have latent fears passed down from generations rolling around in there.  Perhaps I have merely morphed situations into something much bigger and scarier than they really are or need to be.  But looking at what can be accomplished in spite of fears, real or imagined, with an attitude of trust and conviction and a focused grasp on your purpose is truly an inspiration to me.  What a blessing to be able to witness the strength of the internal spirit!

I think there must be a mistake on my birth certificate.  No, not my parents…way too many personality traits the same to deny that one!  Not the location – definitely mid-Western at heart.  Possibly the year – most days I feel WAY younger than what it says I’m supposed to be.  No, it’s the month.  With the distinctive two personalities I’ve been experiencing of late, I swear I must be a Gemini!

There is a side of me that is very much a go-getter.  I get energized by doing more and more and love that adrenaline rush.  There is nothing more satisfying than crossing off that to do list and moving on to the next one.  I have taken great pride in juggling many balls at the same time and love the start of something new.  And then there’s the other me…

This other side is the polar opposite.  I am very content to putter around the house, doing little things here and there – or nothing at all.  I could spend hours in bed and be content to never leave my house for days on end.  A vacation at a beach with nothing to do but to read a good book is pretty close to heaven for me.

Having these two sides is fine as long as I can balance them and not let one or the other get too much control.  If the energized side takes over I end up getting burnt out and usually sick.  If the sloth side wins, then pretty much nothing gets done and I start resenting my surroundings and the increasing pent-up demands on my time.  I’ve learned over the years how to recognize when one is getting a little too big for its britches and take the steps to get it in check.  Then there are those times when their battle for control causes a complete impasse and I have a minor meltdown.  Yesterday was one of those days.

Its quite disturbing when I experience any type of conflict and especially so when it is internally focused.  The part of me that wants to do, go, be organized and accomplished was in high gear and the laid back side just wanted to play and be loved.  An image that came to me was of a person standing helplessly by the side of a highway, with life zooming past and around,  helplessly wanting someone to slow down and notice them.  The result was a feeling of complete frustration.  The fix?  Time to get back to meditation.  Seems I”ve kind of “forgotten” to take the time to quiet my mind and allow myself time to decompress and ready myself for the day ahead.

Today’s a new day and a new re-commitment to myself to get back on the beam with some necessary self-care. Maybe I’ll find after a time that I’m really not a Gemini after all.  Maybe I’m just a Ram who’d lost her focus.  I’m looking forward to seeing straight again!

I have found the trick to getting a teen that is seemingly permanently tethered to his video games out of his room:  Take him to Costco. 

I have tried all sorts of enticements in the past:  shopping for new clothes, dinner at a favorite restaurant, or a walk in the park with the dog.  Nothing seemed to work and I was pretty much at the point of accepting the fact that the days of his being my little buddy were nothing but a sweet memory.  So yesterday when I stuck my head in his room to tell that we were going to Costco – and then casually added “Would you like to go?”  I had absolutely NO expectation that there would be any interest, let alone any response!  I had to ask twice if he had really heard me correctly, and vice versa. 

Back in the day when my kids were little, they certainly had their fair share of toys and games that they loved.  But their favorite thing to play with was a big cardboard box from some kind of appliance.  We had a great fort/playhouse on our porch for a while that they had fashioned and spent hours of imaginative play in it.  The trip to Costco was nearly the same.  When my son walked in, awed by the vastness and variety, he said “if I ever had to be stuck in a store overnight, this would be the one I’d like to be stuck in”.  You could see the wheels turning on what an adventure that would be! 

We wandered around with the kids (my son, my daughter, and my fiancé) acting as if we had gone back in time about 10 years and they were in Toys R Us.  I had to shepherd them away from the things we weren’t there to buy and try to herd them towards the things we were.  Every corner held a new excitement:  food samples!  I swear you’d think I never fed them.  At one point I was patiently waiting for my two biological children while they stood in line to get pizza samples (the third adult-child was off exploring something and I gave up trying to corral him).  My kids both looked over at me and smiled with this excited little smile and I swore if I didn’t know where we were, I would have thought we were waiting for them to see Santa!  Priceless!

I get so caught up in trying to figure out how to give my kids what they need sometimes that I forget that it really is very simple.  A warm home, a warm meal and a warm heart will probably give them most of what they need.  My son’s 17^th birthday is coming up soon and I’ll going to make sure I give him all those things…and maybe a trip to Costco and a cardboard box just to spice it up!

I’ve discovered a new reason for me to exercise:  I get cosmic messages when I do.

A few years ago I was uncharacteristically into running.   I would get up early and run a few miles before the family awoke.  Interesting how that seems like such a foreign concept to me now.  One day as I was nearing my home I noticed a large black bird circling overhead.  We have a lot of crows or ravens in the area, so at first I didn’t think anything of it.  Then I noticed it seemed unusually large.  Just then it swooped lower and landed on my neighbor’s chimney.  It was indeed NOT a crow!  I ran into my house and up to my 3rd floor office and there, perching on their chimney and staring directly into my window – was a large black VULTURE!  Let me tell you, it is a bit unnerving to see a vulture starting at you!  Once I got over my initial freaking out, I decided to try a different perspective on the situation and looked up what vultures symbolize.  It seems that vultures symbolize patience, are a reminder to think things through and to utilize your resources at hand.  They also represent renewal.  So, although admittedly a non-traditional messenger, it was a great message for me to receive.

Today I think I got another one, from another of the bird family.  I have for a few years now come to revere hawks as a power symbol and harbinger of good luck.  This morning as I was pulling into the parking garage in downtown Montclair to go work out at the YMCA, there in my path was a hawk!  My immediate reaction was one of surprised excitement.  And then I noticed it was eating a pigeon.  I couldn’t wait to get home to look up what pigeons represented.  It made my workout fly by as my mind ran the gamut of possibilities.

When I finally rushed home to my computer, here’s what it said:

Hawks:  “The hawk comes to you indicating that you are now awakening to your soul purpose, your reason for being here. It can teach you how to fly high while keeping yourself connected to the ground.”

Pigeons: “Pigeons are symbols of love and marital bliss as well as happiness in the home”

So does this mean that I’m finally discovering my purpose in life:  to destroy love and marital bliss?  **sigh** Maybe I’ll have to rethink this exercise thing again.

There’s the story about the man of great faith who was waiting on his roof for God to come and rescue him from the floods.  He sent away the rescuers in the rowboat saying “God will save me”.  He sent away the helicopter saying “God will save me”.  Finally the flood waters overpowered him and he awoke in Heaven, sitting in front of God.  “I don’t get it, God,” the man said.  “I had great faith that you would save me and look where I ended up!”  God answered “I don’t get it either.  I sent you a rowboat and a helicopter…”  Somehow I feel I’m relating to that man a little too much.

I don’t know why I feel like I’m merely treading water these days, just biding my time until I can start to do what I’m REALLY supposed to be doing in this life.  All this reconnection with my past of late has left me with the attitude of “well, sure I made a difference back then, but what am I doing now?”  I can picture the conversation right now with God:  I’ve arrived at the Pearly Gates and am feeling so sad that I didn’t accomplish my mission.  “What about your children?”  he’ll ask.

“Oh, yes, well, I did the best I could.  Look what they’ve been able to do for themselves!”

“Well, what about your work?  The people you helped launch and grow their businesses?  The ones who re-examined their lives because of your workshops and writings?”

“I’m truly grateful for that.  But I never got to really be of service!”

“And what was the Sunday School teaching, the tutoring, the PTAs, the committee work, the boards, the car-pooling?  What about the times you were there for a friend?  What was all that?”

“Yes, yes, yes.  But it wasn’t ENOUGH!”

At that I picture God throwing up his hands, shaking his head and walking away muttering under his breath.

OK, maybe I’m just where I’m supposed to be.  At least for today.

The other day I was putting something down on my dresser and my eye caught the picture of my dad cradling a rather pudgy baby sound asleep in him arms.  The very proud grandpa was beaming, holding his first grandchild.  Then my eye traveled to the school pictures of my other two children – and I was stopped dead in my tracks.  The tilt of their heads, the gentle smiles, the twinkle in their eyes….they are the spitting image of my father!  I had never seen this before but the resemblance is uncanny.  My middle son looks exactly like him, but with hair.  I know in his youth my dad sported an Elvis-like head of hair so it is even easier to see the connection.

I was so excited by this revelation that I pulled the pictures off the dresser and went in search of my kids to show them this incredible sight.  The first I found was my daughter, who said, “Really?  You think I look like him?”  She agreed that her brother did bear a close resemblance.  I shook off her nonplussed attitude, figuring its just not cool for a 14 year old girl to be told she looks like her 84 year old grandfather.  I marched into her brother’s room in gleeful anticipation.  Once I succeeded in pulling him away from the video wargame he was commanding, he glanced over at the pictures and said, “Really?  You think I look like him?”  Oh come on now – they are practically twins!

Discouraged, I went back to my room to return the pictures and then tried putting a picture of myself next to my dad.  Hmmm…just not seeing it.  I am sure there are those out there who know me and my dad and would be shocked that I couldn’t see the resemblance.

So what is it in us that does not see ourselves as others do?  Like the anorexic who sees themselves as fat even though they are a walking skeleton, we have implanted in our brains some sort of image that may not actually jive with reality.  Our vision of ourselves is influenced by the opinions of others as well as our own self-talk.  We can literally convince ourselves that we are not what appears before us in a mirror.

I know that I have gone through so many physical changes in my life that it is difficult for me to have a clear picture of what I look like.  Even more telling are the internal changes and how that affects my vision of myself from moment to moment.  I have trouble at times believing that anyone thinks I am attractive and at others I am feeling downright sassy.  Add in teenage hormones and it is no wonder my kids can’t recognize themselves.  The person they were in that school picture a few months ago is practically a stranger by now.

Maybe in a few years my kids will be able to look back and see their resemblance to their grandfather.  Who knows how long it will take before I do.

On church on Sunday I was asked to do several parts of the service, including writing and reading my own prayers.  Just call me “Pastorette Neal”.  I had successfully managed to avoid being called on to do this duty for the past 12 years, the equivalent of avoiding eye contact and staying under the radar the entire time your kids are in school.  This is not an easy task for someone who loves the spotlight, mind you.  It illustrates the skill I have learned very effectively: how to make myself invisible in close quarters.  It must have been that Facebook birthday greeting I sent to the organizer that brought me back into their consciousness.  That’ll teach me!

This was not a difficult task for me, or so it looked on paper.  I actually had done it once before and didn’t remember any lasting trauma from it.  Besides, if I could sing Latin with the choir in front of the congregation, reading words I had written myself was going to be a walk in the park.

Writing the prayers were more difficult than I thought.  For one, I was trying to think of how they usually sound and realized I either have a very limited memory, or I am totally not paying attention during the service.  I believe that although those are both true, the latter is really the issue.  The only thing that comforted me was that if I wasn’t really paying attention, probably others weren’t as well, and they probably wouldn’t start listening with me.

The second issue is that my views have, shall we say, strayed from the traditional Presbyterianism.  Over the years I have spent time in California (enough said) and obtained a Masters in Spiritual Psychology.  My beliefs are founded on my traditional church upbringing, liberally sprinkled with beliefs pulled from a variety of global spiritual sources.  I didn’t think that my staid Presbyterian cohorts would react quite so positively to my message if I kept saying I was “sending them Light and Love”.  So the challenge became how to express myself within the comfortable confines of the institution who asked me to do this service.

Lastly was that issue of logistics.  I couldn’t even remember when we stood or sat, which chair I was supposed to use (there were 2 chairs up front – did it matter which one I sat in?), and what if I forgot my reading glasses?!  Fortunately I typed it in large enough font to avoid that issue and the minister graciously let me know when do the rest.  The only thing I forgot was to ask the congregation to stand before I launched into my 1st responsive reading, leaving many looking bewildered and very few actually chiming in with the group response.  One or two words that were stumbled over and then I got my sea legs and it was smooth sailing from there on out.

At the end, when I was in the “receiving line” greeting the congregation on their exit from the sanctuary, people said “Nice job”, and I responded with “Well, except for that beginning…”  I finally realized how I was discounting myself after hearing myself say it for the 5th time.  A simple smile and “Thank You!”  would have been the appropriate response. Why is that I feel the need to put myself down instead of stepping into my greatness?  Why am I so uncomfortable with being acknowledged for doing a good job – is it feeling that I am making someone else feel bad in the process or do I feel I am undeserving of the praise?  I know I still harbor some very old belief that it is wrong to think highly of yourself – a belief that just may have its origins in the very institution I was now representing.  Perhaps this exercise was a way for me to learn to let that mislearned lesson go.

I don’t think I’ll be running out and signing up for seminary anytime soon, but I am sure I’ll be doing a presentation of some kind in the near future.  I’m going to make sure that I acknowledge the good work I have done, letting go of anything that doesn’t meet an unrealistic view of perfection.  And if anyone happens to give me a compliment, I’ll remember to answer with a simple “Thanks!”  And maybe I’ll throw in a little “light and love to you”,  just for good measure!

Yesterday I was in a silly mood and was doing a very goofy dance, a la Elaine from Seinfeld, in the kitchen.  My daughter, by now resigned to the fact that she has a slightly bizarre mother, said “Mom, look at the dogs!”  I turned around to see my pups looking at me with heads tipped to the side.  And the look on their faces was a mix between sheer horror and disbelief.  I was half expecting them to say “What in the WORLD are you doing?!”  Rather humbling to be dissed by a dog.

I decided to observe my pets to see what I could learn from them on the secrets of life.  Lily, the year old pup, lives for walks and attention and Trixie, the 9 year old lump, lives for food and naps.  I am in agreement with both lifestyles.  But here are the other things I have learned:

• There is no love except unconditional love
• A little nuzzle when someone is looking down helps brighten their spirits
• Run hard/rest hard
• Look at your surroundings each day as if it was the first time you’ve been there.  It makes each day an adventure.
• Protect your loved ones from the “bad guys” and enjoy their friends
• The simplest things bring the greatest pleasure
• Be consistent, hold your boundaries and make sure you praise the good stuff

Lily just came up to check on me as I was writing this.  Much can be said without ever uttering a word.