Reflection

I had a pretty powerful experience today while making my Hospice calls. It seems that every time I write about my Hospice calls I mention how amazed I am at the timing of things. Today was no exception.

While on my way to Hospice House, I gave my brother a call. It has been a couple of weeks since I've talked to him and I wanted to see how he was doing. After talking to him I turned on the CD player and the next song was one that always makes me think about my brother and sister. I'll post the lyrics at the bottom of this post.

I have a unique bond with my brother and sister. One that comes from shared circumstances beyond normal childhood experiences. The relationship with my sister is vastly different from the relationship I have with my brother, yet I love them both fiercely and I'd gladly lay down my life for each of them. I mean that with every fiber of my being.

My sister is nine years younger than me and we seem to have switched roles in our lifetime. I used to be her protector and now she is mine. She is the protector of my secrets and most sacred thoughts. She gives me a safe place to share my joy as well as my fear. There is no doubt in my mind that we were meant to be sisters even though we do not share a biological bond. The bond we share goes much deeper than biology.

As I listened to the song in my CD player, I thought about how blessed I am that we love each other the way we do. I've had friends who, even as adults, do not get along with their siblings. This always makes me sad for them because there is something special between siblings that is hard to explain. For me, it's solid and it's unconditional.

When I got to Hospice House and pulled my first file, I saw that it was that of a man who had died in his mid-fifties. I had five phone calls to make: one to his daughter, and calls to his siblings. As I read further, I saw that at the moment he died, two of his siblings were each holding his hand. I have in the past imagined myself in this exact scenario, leaving this world with my brother on one side of me and my sister on the other.

While reading through the file I imagined what it would be like if I had to watch my brother or sister die and it was too painful to think about. I was almost afraid to pick up the phone and start making the calls, but I'm so glad that I did. I spent almost two hours talking with this man's siblings and was so touched by their bond. They each took turns caring for him at the end of his life and they shared very different, yet equally loving experiences. Just like my bond with my sister and brother, they each had unique and very strong bonds with each other.

Two of them shared with me how they never got along when they were kids, but as they grew older they became closer and closer. Now their greatest joy is when they get to spend time together. I could hear the love they felt for each other as they shared stories with me. And even though the death of their brother was sad, they have wonderful memories of the time they spent with him.

One sister said, "Taking care of my brother never felt like a chore to me because I loved him".

Today was truly a beautiful experience for me. How could I not love what I do when I am provided experiences such as this?

When I got in the car, I played that song again and it had even more meaning than it ever. I'm not sure I'll ever hear it again and not think about this family and the service and love that they showed for their brother.

Lucky are we that have siblings.

Here are the lyrics.

Whenever You're In Trouble
Lyrics - Donny Osmond
Album - What I Meant To Say

Tell me from the heart
in your eyes I see the pain
It’s tearing you apart
let me take it all away
You know someone believes in you
when they love you no matter what you do
You know you are home
and you're not alone

Whenever you're in trouble,
whenever you may need me
I will fight for you,
I will help you through
Whenever life’s deceiving
I'll give you new meaning
No matter where you are,
you're always in my heart
Whenever you're in trouble I will be right here

Sometimes you're gonna find
nothing goes the way you planned
But whatever’s on your mind
I will try to understand
You know someone is by your side
when they help you through the darkest night
You know you are home
and you're not alone.

Now's the time
to share what you're feeling inside
No matter how long it takes
no matter how many mistakes
Oh, now’s the time
to reach and you will find
that whenever you need me to care
I'll always be there

Whenever you're in trouble,
whenever you may need me
I will fight for you,
I will help you through
Whenever life’s deceiving
I'll give you new meaning
No matter where you are,
you're always in my heart
Whenever you're in trouble I will be right here

I love you bro and sis....

BJ is out on a business dinner, so I decided that tonight I was due for another installment of Inner Outings. Tonight I pulled a card called, "A gift for me".

I've mentioned a time or two that I have an extraordinary capacity for guilt. Shoot, I even have a category dedicated to guilt (look to the right- you'll see it right between family and health.) Hmmmm.

The funny thing is that I feel guilty about things that are completely out of my control. Good fortune comes my way? I feel guilty because it didn't come the way of someone who needed it more than I did.

I once had a therapist congratulate me because I went 45 minutes into a session before the word "guilty" passed my lips.

Huh.

Probably the most absurd and long-standing guilt I've experienced has been regarding my job. More specifically, my income. For many years, I couldn't come to grips with the fact that I could make the money I make without back breaking work. I was constantly questioning why *I* was so lucky to have my job, and that there are people who have to work in sweatshops or stand on their feet all day just to make a percentage of what I earn. I just couldn't rationalize it in my head because it didn't seem fair. I've even gone so far as to tell an employer that the raise they offered me was too much.

Do I hear crickets chirping? Yeah, I've already admitted that this was an absurd one.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about purpose and intention, and the things I've studied are starting to really sink in. I'm starting to let go of that guilt because I realize that I was never handed anything. Nobody plucked me off the street and said, "Hey RisibleGirl, you seem like a nice person so we're going to give you this job". That never happened. What happened was I worked for it. I set goals and I achieved them.

If someone looked at my educational background and training and compared it to other people in my position, I'm sure they'd be surprised. I don't have a stitch of formal training to do what I'm currently doing. I've been a waitress and have worked in a sewing factory (that didn't go so well and required several trips to the ER for stitches, but that's another story for another day).

The path to my current position started as a Realtor. I'll bet my mom has no idea that she was the catalyst for my current career. She paid for me to get my real estate license and we worked as a team for a while. That is, until I set my sights on real estate lending. We had a lender that we worked with and I became fascinated by the inner workings of lending, so I decided that this was what I wanted to do.

I told him that when he had a receptionist position open up I'd like him to consider me and I was hired shortly after that. I then asked the processors if I could help them with their files because there wasn't enough for me to do. I learned their job and was promoted to processor within a month. I learned all I could and then talked to the underwriting manager about my desire to become an underwriter. Within six months of that, I was asked to move to another state to work in the underwriting department. Because I hadn't been in lending a year, I had to have another underwriter sign off on my files after I did the work. But I made sure that my work was perfect. There was never a question about any of my decisions. Beyond wanting a job and learning about it, I make sure I do the best job I possibly can once I have it. It's because I have a lot of gratitude for the opportunity I am given.

My current job has nothing to do with lending, but it is at the top of the layers of building blocks starting from that receptionist job. Each job went down a different path until I landed where I am today.

I won't bore you with my entire work history, but that's basically my M.O. I see something I want to do, I find opportunities to learn about it, then I apply for the job. I've never been turned down for any job in which I had an interview. Lucky? Maybe. I'm more apt to think that it's about intent. My intent shows in the passion I feel about the job when I talk about it to prospective employers.

I think that the wiring that most people have that tells them not to jump off a bridge is missing in my head. I've never been intimidated to go after what I want. It's never scared me even a little bit.

And that is what I thought of when I pulled the "A gift for me" card from my Inner Outings Diarist deck. This topic is something that's been renting a lot of real estate in my head for the past couple of weeks. I think I've always known deep down that none of this was about luck, but I had a hard time explaining the principle behind it. Because I couldn't really explain it, I couldn't justify it in my own mind.

But now I understand. This is truly a gift that I give myself. The gift in knowing what I want, then seizing the opportunity as it comes.

The gift of believing in myself.

It appears that it's my time to finally learn how to create healthy boundaries. This is something I haven't given a whole lot of effort in doing, because it was easier just to 'go with the flow'.

Although it seemed to be the easiest thing to do, generally it created more work for me in the long run. This applied in my work life as well as my personal life.

I've been working on many areas in my life over the past five years or so, and I'd have to say that creating healthy boundaries has been the one I've procrastinated. It just didn't seem that important to me.

I guess that the Universe or God or whatever your belief system is, has decided that I'm no longer allowed to procrastinate this lesson. It's quite possible that I've been given the lesson several times already, but have chosen to ignore it. This time I'm listening and I'm learning.

I finally figured out that the situation with the snake was a boundaries lesson. I think that once I acknowledged that, and acted on it appropriately, the whole thing settled right down. I haven't had an 'incident' in weeks. I am fully confident that should I have another incident that I'm now emotionally equipped to handle it.

I've learned to not put myself in situations where I'm tested. I'm no longer going to web sites and blogs that affect me negatively. I no longer associate with people in real life who create too much drama. I don't make a big noise when I do it. I just quietly slip away.

I've not yet mastered creating boundaries with family, just because of the way I was brought up. was brought up to believe that family comes first. I still believe that. So creating boundaries with family is and will probably continue to be a struggle for me. But I'm being tested in that area right now too.

I suspect that the mere fact that I'm writing this out here in my very public blog is an indication that I'm ready to tackle the final frontier.

Wish me luck.

An old Cherokee woman was teaching her granddaughter about life.

"A fight is going on inside me,” she said to the girl. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—she is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good—she is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too.”

The granddaughter thought about it for a while and then asked, “Which wolf will win?”

Said the grandmother, “The one you feed.”

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it. - Herodotus

My muse, Jennifer, recently wrote of a tool for journaling called "Inner Outings". It's a set of topics that you write about after using your intuition to select a face-down card. After selecting the card, you read the chapter about that card in the accompanying book to help you explore that topic.

Since BJ is out of town and I have the house to myself, I was hoping to spend some quality time and pull a really juicy topic. One that would really make me hunker down and get my thoughts flowing. The card I chose was, "Just For Fun". I was tempted to place the card back in the pile for something a little 'deeper', but the instructions in the book are that you stick with the card that you selected.

I opened the book to the chapter called, "Just for Fun". In summary, the chapter tells me that it's important to get in touch with my whimsical side, even get downright silly.

Hmmmmm.....

Well, truth be told, I've never had a problem with that. I am silly, and sometimes downright childish. I agree with Herodotus, the great Greek historian. Even in my darkest times, I've generally been able to find a way to laugh. Laughing and having fun is part of my core being. It always has been and I suspect I'll be laughing about something on my death bed.

The book asks me to think about something that would be fun and just do it. Be impulsive. The list of suggestions are things that I've already done, or do on a regular basis. I don't think I could possibly be more impulsive or have more fun than I already do. I'm sure my regular readers and real life friends would agree. I know my kids would. Really, sometimes THEY were the adult in the house.

As I read through this chapter, it got me thinking about BJ. I really ought not write about BJ without his permission, but he knows I'd never write or say anything that was not respectful of him so I think I'd have his permission to share my feelings here.

I believe that I've brought out the playful side of BJ. He's always been respectful and nice to me, but in the early days I didn't see a playful side to him. In fact, sometimes my impish nature would shock him, and maybe even embarrass him a little. Eventually he learned how to harness me a bit. For instance, if he sees an aisle at the store loaded with toys that make noise if you touch them, he steers me in a different direction. Too bad for him, I've caught on to that trick so he is now actually alerting me to the fact that I have noisemakers in close proximity.

I know he enjoys this side of me because he's always bringing up stories of how I've 'misbehaved' to his friends and family. He loves seeing everyone laugh about my latest adventures, and it's apparent that he likes being a part of it.

In the last few months, he's started playing along with me. Sometimes it's very subtle. He might casually mention something like, "I suppose you want to take a picture of me next to [whatever the funny thing is] since you have a camera on your phone." OK, maybe that's not so subtle. Perhaps I need to teach him the fine art of subliminal suggestion.

One day at a department store, he hopped on a kids bike and popped a wheelie.

Exhibit A:


This was not the man I dated three years ago- trust me. But I like it. I adore it.

I love it that I've brought this side out in him. I have no doubt that he likes it too. He likes being the stuff shirt manager during the day, and then a big kid at night with his kid-like wife.

Our life together is fun and we play all the time. I keep him on his toes and I think he likes the fact that he never knows what I'm going to do next. Now it's BJ that's keeping me on my toes wondering what he's going to do next. He knows just the right things to make me giggle and makes sure he has me laughing several times a day. Of course, I'm easy. He'll even admit to that. Make monkey noises? I'm on the floor. (note to friends and family, have him do a chimpanzee imitation for you sometime...)

I just love it that our home is filled with laughter. And fun.