The Fixings

Property of Stormberry

The leaks in my roof have been fixed, and I hope they stay so for a while. What a relief! The people making the fixing had to come out three times to finally get all the leaks dealt with. Now only the windows need sealing. I actually messaged them today and got a swift reply after they have been silent for almost twenty days, while the rains poured and the water filtered and ruined the paint on my walls. Oh, on that note, it's worth noting that my chocolate brown walls get very marked with water, which I don't really get. The outside dark grey walls hold well their color, and so the medium grey ones. If it were because "the rain washes them equally" it wouldn't be so as the rain doesn't always falls the same way, and some parts are not touched while others are. So why are the brown walls getting so damaged with the rain water?

But anyway, we are moving ahead and my house is standing strong and lovely, and we are both growing more and more into who we are. I'm so happy with my house!

I'm not out of the woods yet, as I had a lot of expenses, and I had to make decisions about how to finance them. Nothing I can't manage, rest assured, but I decided to use my credit card again while I get over the current bump. Some things, after all, have to be dealt with switfly, and some instruments can be used to such matters, as long as we keep them well watched. Yes, it makes me uneasy, mostly because it was not part of my plans to use my card again, but one needs to deal with the cards one is dealt.

On that same line, as I was going through dealing with uncomfortable situations and things that prick at my sense of order and comfort, this friend was brought back into my memory. I have written or alluded to him here several times, and has been quite a fixture. Though I want to think of him as a good person, truth to be told, if I want to be impartial, I believe I don't have enough elements to call him so. Maybe it is the way he is around me - because, honestly, I am a menacing person for him -, but be it as it is, I'm more inclined to say that he is a toxic sort of person.

Now, as you know, I believe in magick, signs, cosmic connections, spiritual phenomenons and the such, so for a while now I have tried to understand why had this person been so mingled with my life, and have always stirred such strong emotions. Emotions that I shall clarify, are not always positive. I mean, I like him - I do like him - but I also can't stand him. So why the push-&-pull? Did I want him in my life? Did I not? Did I want him as friend, as partner, as occasional fuck or as a distant memory of the past? Why did I find it so hard to let him go? Why did I go to such extents as I did for him? What has happening there?

I'm a Cancer Sun, Gemini rising and Leo Moon. Yes, it may not make sense to many, but I'll say this: for years he has been playing my Cancer (as in playing my emotions), and my Gemini (my communicative and knowledge thirsty part), by a very bizarre game of choosing words to keep me hooked like a writer of a cliffhangery pulp fiction, but also by not telling me ever much of the information. Then again, though it has been hard to come to terms with my Gemini (a lot of people I don't like are Gemini), my twins are quite a resourceful and twisted pair, and so... we did LOTS of research. Yes, that also kept me hooked, but also started opening my eyes to the fact that there were things there that were not kosher. I paid attention, I started to see the cracks, and I believe that's what kept me (in part) from falling into his game.

But I still was hooked for quite a while. It was one of those messy tangles where you know that it's not what you want, there's nothing really there that you could want in your life, but "something" keeps you there and you can't quite figure out why.

He was here at my home visiting in the begining of June and brought me an early birthday present (even though I am positive I had told him that I am picky about my birthday and I celebrate it only the day it is). The present was a book and a bottle of wine. Thoughtful, yes, and exactly what I have gifted him the last two birthdays of him. And then he was nice and all, but also made sure to include just a hint of insulting or - at least, derogatory. I know well that he takes to heart each time I have pointed out to the flaws on his thinking, work or skills, and I also know this is his pety way to try and get back to me, even though at times he has to invent an alternative reality just to point out a flaw in me. (Like the time he told me that one doesn't "eat different kinds of meat for one meal", just because I offered him chicken stock before a main course consisting of beef. Yeah... I believe he hasn't heard of paella, or burgers with bacon... or just about any meal with more than one course.)

So far, though his petiness annoys me, I just booked it as "him being stupid because he doesn't know better and has lived so far trying to be someone he's not, that he can't turn back and try to be himself". However, this month something happened, a shifting.

As I was working and dealing with the last of the second quarter of the Master's program, and dealing with the leaks on the roof, and the leaking windows, solving the financial situation and so on, he came to my mind, and just as I was solving all my issues and finding out that I can solve these things without having to run to my dad or my brother, it kind of landed on me: this friend has the bad habits of my father and my brother. The lying, the gaslighting, forcing his ideas on others like they are truth, unwilling to learn from others, or accept that others might be right, unwilling to accept that they are wrong, and when proven wrong going pety, bringing up over and over uncomfortable events of the past which they twist to fit their narrative, going as far as turning a happy memory or even a moment of confusion into something to be mocked of.

Through the days I have found that this person had all these qualities, and I understood: he was put in my life so that I can see that and work on my shadow. And let all that go. That was why I couldn't let him go, because I wanted to fix or defeat in him what I find so disturbing in my own family. And the lesson, I'm finding is, that their qualities are not my problem, and I can walk away or call them out if I like.

I had read the book he gave me, and found it awful. Then I also saw the book in the big scheme of things: he had been for a while trying to copy the main character of that book, which was particularly sad.

As I think about him, I feel no tendrils of attachment anymore, but rather a neutral void, like standing on an edge where a bridge used to stand, where there is no longer a bridge, but which lack you can't see because it's all drowned in a fog. I don't eeven miss it.

I think I am finally over.

About Love and Self Love

A friend of mine has a horrible family, with a particularly horrible mother. Well, maybe there are mothers who are worse than this, but this one has my and Carrie's blood boiling.

 

My friend - whom we will call Ellie - is the sweetest person you would ever meet. I met her through Carrie, basically (or maybe I met Carrie through Ellie, I don't remember), and ever since then she has been in this terrible situation. She was working (and still is) at this company where she was being exploited like, really, out of the pages of Das Kapital or something. They had he training people who then they promoted over her, ignored her for promotion, but always moved her from one problem area to another, basically because she's good at solving problems. She hates doing so, specially after she had finally managed to get in good terms with her team, and yet, she still keeps with the company, submitting to their moving her from one area to the other and never recognizing her efforts, and even standing in the path of her studies. From what she has told her, the company makes her cover for her coworkers who attend to college, but refuse her the time to do so. Also make her cover for others' vacations but pull her out of her own whenever needed.

 

She complains to us, her friends, but doesn't actually does anything to improve her situation. She remains in a situation of evident abuse, taking it and never speaking up. It can be nerve wracking, so we have tried to understand why is this happening to her. Is it that she needs the money? Well, we all need the money, but being that this job hasn't really let her finish her college degree - she has been struggling through a 4 year block for over fourtheen years now - so it's not really taking her anywhere. One could also say that she already got used to it, but if it were som why is she still complaining for the treatment she gets?

 

Then we've got it: it's her family. Ellie lives with her two older brothers and their mom. Both her brothers are professionals and have college degrees, and yet she's the one stuck with paying the bills at home. Her mother demands it so. Her mother has a pension, which is enough for her to travel to places like Peru, Dubai, Chile and whatever strikes her fancy. Clearly, money isn't an issue at home. The mother don't defend her against he brothers, but she actually makes her feel bad if Ellie as much as dares to complain. The abuse have been taking quite a few interesting shapes. For instance, Ellie's mother raids her daughter's closet and simply appropiates for herself whatever she finds pleasing. As result, Ellie has no formal clothing, only her work clothes and whatever geeky clothes she can find. At one point, Ellie's mother took all of Ellie's sweaters and hats, leaving her with nothing, and not bothering with giving them back to her.

 

As part of this behavior, her mother also has no qualms when it comes to giving away Ellie's things without asking her, and again, when she has complained about it, her mother has replied that she shouldn't be so selfish, and besides, Ellie has money, so she can buy the stuff again. On top of all of that, Ellie tells us as a funny thing how her mother puts down her skills constantly. She can's cook, she can't clean, she's useless, she can't do any sort of art or craft, and so on.

 

For a while now, her mother has been particularly demanding when it comes to gifts. Ellie keeps spending quite large sums on gifts for her birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas on her, taking her out for dinner wherever she wants to go and whenever she wants to go, but in return she has been getting pretty much nothing for her birthday and Christmas. Among her siblings, it seems they don't give each other anything, but the mother demands gifts and treats, and then - at least in the case of Ellie - she can't care enough to reciprocate. For her last birthday, the only thing Ellie got was a cake. Ellie doesn't eat anything sweet.

 

In the light of this, suddenly I understood what was going on with Ellie: she's already accostumed to abuse. For her, taking abuse at her workplace is natural - inspite of the fact that it hurts her - because that's what she's used to at home. She doubts her own feeling because they have been systematically invalidated by her mother, thus, when something hurts her, Ellie tends to believe that she's the problem, that if others do things to her it's because that's alright, and her feeling bad about it, instead of grateful, is wrong. Ellie, even though she's such a sweet girl, can't really appreciate love because she has been denied of it so much, she doesn't love herself either. She knows Carrie and I love her, but I wonder how she matches that knowledge with what surrounds her everyday.

 

After Ellie's last birthday - the first time ever Carrie and I spied the begining of tears in Ellie's eyes as she told us about how off handedly, carelessly, her family dealt about her birthday - Carrie and I were furious. Long after the birthday, the knowledge that her only semblance of a celebration came from our silly gifts and us taking her out for dinner wherever she wanted to go, the knowledge of how her family abuse her burned us. It is hurting her, maybe it's finally getting to the surface. Carrie wishes we could do something, and I wish too, but after much thinking, I realized that this is now our battle. Trying to distract her, take her out as often as we could isn't a solution because her mother could (rightfully) think we are trying to take her away from her family, and forbid Ellie to ever talk to us (inspite the fact that Ellie is already well in ther 30's), with which we would accomplish nothing. This is Ellie's fight and Ellie must fight it in her own terms, at her own time. Even if we could "solve" this for her, Carrie and I would only perpetuate a vicious cycle, making her feel useless and in need to be saved by others.

 

No matter how much we wish to help others, there are battles people have to fight themselves, with their own weapons, their own skills. The conquering of self love is one of them. You can't love someone into loving themselves, and it's dangerous to let them take your love in replacement of their own self-esteem. Dependance of other's love to feel worthy is nothing but masking the problem of low self esteem. So as a friend, what can you do? Support. Be there, listen, hold hands, reassure the person and remind them that they can count on you, but don't fight their battles, those must be wielded by themselves.

About Cars: Issues

It all kind of started last week. And it wasn't funny back then either. Well, as you all know - or should know (I did post about this, haven't I? *checks her filofax because she's actually too lazy to check the blog-log*) - I moved to another department within the company. Oh, I see, I did made a mention but haven't told you what my life has been in the new place. Oh, it's wonderful! But back to the car, thing is that two weeks ago on Monday I went to fill the tank of Sookie because she was running low on gas. At my new place I start my day at 7 a.m., like all regular human beings, not at 6 a.m. as in my other office, like all human beings who live in another province and rather get to the office before the traffic jams. Well, since at my new office the parking space is scare and precious, when I take the car to the office I normally get there around 6 a.m. That was my luck.

On that faithful Monday morning, after filling Sookie's tank, her battery died on us. Just plop! died. I was stressed out, scared (Freaking Hell! Now what? How do I revive my car!?) and called my dad to help me. In the mean time, because God is Big and He always has an eye on me, an old man in a rusty car came by and helped me restart my car. First time I've got to use those electric cords with dented clamps in the ends. That day, also I learned that you must check your battery's water level, and if it isn't full - and I mean to the brim - the you must add to it. The water you shall use is distilled water or Club Soda (the thing you use to mix with whisky), but never regular water.

I still had my Dad take Sookie to the mechanic to see her over. The mechanic said she's fine and her motor was perfect. This was Monday of last week.

When I got her back I did notice her a bit different, more potent, the way she used to be before she got all anemic on me. Well, I was happy like a clam.

On Saturday (not this past Saturday, but the one before it) I decided to go to the movies. Everything was nice and dandy until Sookie started to heat up, and heat up bad. I was in a traffic jam, in the middle of the city where streets are very narrow and deep, open sewers separate the road from the sidewalk, so I couldn't pull over. I turned off the car on every red light, but didn't made it to the Movies. At one point she refused to ignite. Well, there I could pull her over, called my brother and asked for assistance. He told me to let her cool down and then fill the radiator and the water tank with water. Sookie was dry as a stone. It did surprise me that she would be out of water and the mechanic didn't notice on Tuesday, when Dad took her to him, not five days before. Anyway, I cooled her, filled her and then drove home. On Sunday I went to the movies - also to test her - and everything was ok.

Then came Monday. I drove to the office, and when getting to the office she heated up. Not as much as on Saturday, but she hit the red. Called my dad and told him. During the day I checked the water and filled it. Before leaving I checked again and filled her again, and this time I notices water leaking from the side of the motor. This couldn't be good. I drove carefully and when she started heating up - not in read yet, but half way there - I stopped and waited for her to cool down. So far so good. Except that then she wouldn't start.

Oh shit.

Called Dad, hoping he could help me push her to get her started. Except he called me back and told me to get a tow car with the insurance. That's how I pulled my car on a two truck for the first time in my life, and got my baby home like that.

Yesterday we took her to the mechanic, again with a tow truck, and now she's there. I don't expect her for at least a month, and I can only hope the fixing won't be too expensive, though I'm already expecting a rather large bill. Now that I've been battling with my projects and my card (they all pull me in different directions and I'm trying to balance them all), and right now, on top of everything comes this surprise. Yeah, this sort of things come always in packs, I guess. However, heads up, we can manage and we will!

Talking with my Dad, I managed to get him to lend me one of his cars so I can drive to the office. Dad has two for reasons only he can understand (it's the kind of things people do at first when they get retired, don't have kids to worry about, still aren't taking that much medication and need to fill a void). He has a little one and a big one. I was rooting for the little one, though I don't like that very much (no car is like my Sookie), but I've got the big one, one I've never driven in my life. Since I'll have to use it tomorrow, I worked up some nerve and took it out today for a drive. Well, the clutch isn't in very good condition, and the shitf stick is rather problematic. I took it for a short ride and my arm already hurts! Dad said he will take it to the mechanic for fixing one of these days. Yeah, we all know when one of these days is. It's sometime around never-day.

What's most amazing is that my Dad really dislikes my car and has been using the happenings of these last days to start pushing his "lets buy a new car" agenda. Currently he's on the party of "I'll buy you a new car", so if you think that I should say "sure! if you buy it!" that won't help my cause. Dad buying me a new car means that he expects to pick it, but the main issue for me is that I actually love and I'm very satisfied with my car. She's 19 years old and has been holding up really well, the taxes I pay for her are rather low due to her age and market value, and even if this fixing goes up through the roof I would have spent less on her in total that I would have spent on a newer "better" car in the same period of time. Yes, Sookie's wheeldrive is a but harder than any of my Dad's cars', but it's still smooth, and her shift stick and clutch are fenomenal. Plus she sounds like a real car... and I love her.

Making Gingerbread Cookies

Saturday at last and rest is coming many, many times a day. ^_^ The program of the day was simple: paying the tax we have to pay when we leave the country, then did some groceries and bought a fabulous book for children titled "Quién es Tomás?" (Who is Tomás?), which I bought from the author. The money made from the sale of the books is being used to help a foundation which helps children. It was really nice to meet the author, who was kind enough to to dedicate the book to my nephews.

From there we went home, where my boyfriend and my oldest nephew got on playing with the computer and I napped a little. Gash, I was needing that! ^_^ After that we got on the Christmas things with my boyfriend, Mom and my oldest nephew setting the Christmas tree and I preparing gingerbread cookies. :-) I can only hope that this recipe works, as I have misplaced my usual recipe and so had to fish another one from the Internet.

The Holidays are slowly coming, and we might be the last house of the block to catch on the Christmas feeling, but slowly here we are. :-) Now, I gara go and check on those cookies. See ya!

Today's Mom's and My Aunt's Birthday!

Today's Mom's and Auntie's birthday! Yes, because they are twins. This in the picture is my Mom. Isn't she beautiful? ^_^ I'm terribly proud of her. My Auntie is just as beautiful with with a slight difference: Mom's more like the damsels from the epic poems with knights in shiny armors, while my Auntie looks more like the pricesses from the fairy tales. They are both very kind and ladylike, and you will never, ever hear them say a bad word. Really. They just don't say bad words. Funny right?

They are both very smart, strong in a quiet way and accomplished women. They both excelled in their careers and are recognized by their peers. Mom is a language teacher at one of the most important univesities of Costa Rica and Auntie works as a librarian at one of the most important libraries of Hungary.

Separated by the Atlantic Ocean, they have both lead quite lives and became loved by everyone who knows them. Really, they are like my boyfriend: it's humanly impossible not to love them!

With age they grow wiser, and stronger, but somehow time doesn't seem to touch their pretty little complexions. They are both so youthful! I guess they have both aged well and gracefully. They are simply young with added experience. ^_^

For what we have planned for them I can tell you, that I've asked my boyfriend to pick up a present for my Auntie at L'Occitane, while in here Mom will get a Lunch with her family, a book from her favorite author - Noam Chomsky - and a facial treatment at L'Occitane. It's early yet and I haven't even showered, so I can't tell you how it went, but I bet you that it will be a great day!

Weekend of Art

It's a really sunny weekend, with a gentle breeze and nice Decemberish kind of feel to it. I mean "tropical December", which is what would be something like March-April in Europe, in those cases when the weather behaves properly and you get that nice little sunny day that feels good on the skin, but you still put on a light sweater and pack an umbrella. Actually on Friday someone commented somewhere - could be on Twitter for all I remember - that the day was very Christmas-like. This is our winter season, the deepest of our winter and it should be pouring like hell, and though we have had some of that too, it does actually look like we are getting ready to transition from rainy season to dry season.

Though I love rain, this weather is fantastic right now for doing laudry - which I am doing now! - but also for goint out to the backyard and do some art with my oldest nephew. We carved a pumpkin yesterday - okay, I carved it, and gutted it because he declared that he wouldn't go anywhere near that "yucky thing" we pulled out of the pumpkin - which ended up real nice - if I may say so. For today morning, however, we had to take it out to the backyard and hose it down because it was covered in ants. That didn't happen last Halloween. The pumpkin will now stay outside where any ant attack won't bother us inside the house, and where any pumpkin catching on fire wouldn't bother us either. At least not me. Yes, this pumpkin looks great, nice and plum, but it's a bit too low, so the candle in it soon starts burning the top of it. I still have one other pumpkin for carving, and since that one doesn't have a nice sticking out chunk, I might leave it with an open top (top-less? ^_^) so that it can be lighted up without risking catching on fire.

So, as the freshly hosed pumpkin was out in the nice Decemberish sun drying up, my nephew and I decided to go outside and do some art. So we opened the Box of Art and fished out water colors, trays for mixing colors, brushes and started doing some magic. He was really having fun with the mixing, enjoying how putting together two colors did yield a third one as if by magic. Making orange, purple, brown, pink...it was chromatic alchemy for him. We ripped out two pages from a new sketching pad - my bigger than the one we had been using so far, and after having fun discovering colors, we sat down creating something fun.

I was planning on making a small bag for myself, to replace the small purple Hello Kitty bag I left in Hungary - it's a small, simple tote bag I used for carrying things around like lunch and such - but haven't got to it yet. It's not supposed to be a difficult project - and come on, I've already made once a yoga mat bag! - but haven't started my little tote just yet. I haven't gotten any further with my letters, though I have already balled up several pages as none of my startings really please me. Ah mind! Maybe I should just take a moment in the moonlight to meditate, clear my head out, art up a little, maybe go back to my knitting, and then I'll be ready to pick up on things and roll with them.

Weekends, they can be wonderful!

Arts, Crafts and Wonderful Nephews

Weekend at last! I already missed one of the programs I had planned - a yoga class held outdoors - and the second program of the day also seems to be falling through the cracks. I won't be taking my nephews to my favorite library for some children activities they had prepared. But no biggie as I've been relaxing, and getting the supplies I need for a little project of mine. Shhh! Those are still top secret. You will know when the time is right, and it they come through well.

It things come out right, I'm planning a crafty weekend for myself, with a good dose of fun. I've added a few crafty things to my list of 13 - things I've done in the past and weren't half bad at it - so I want to see how they go now. Maybe I've got bold and confident about my dormant skills after my "smashing success" with crocheting my cloche hat. (Yeah, I haven't added a picture of it finished, right?) As result, I've felt emboldened to try out my hand at some of my old hobbies. One of them is drawing. Yeah, I'm a complete disaster now, but I intend to keep giving it a try, see if I can get at least to the level I used to have, and then maybe try my hand at painting. You worry not. If my paintings are not good, then I won't make our apartment in Budapest ugly with hanging them on the wall. I'm consistent in that: the amateurish crap of others won't disgrace my walls, but neither will my own attempts unless they get to be good.

My inspiration for this renewal of the crafty hobbies comes basically from my eldest nephew. Sharing time with him playing with my scrapbooking supplies, trying to find new artistic uses for different things (he has a thing for corks, so he has been collecting them from the discarded wine bottles we keep in the shed), and then playing with things he normally don't have access to, such as stamps. My rubber stamps are all in Hungary, but there are some foam stamps I kept here, which he has discovered and he loves. I showed him once how to put different color inks on a stamp to get a colorful picture, and since then he has been enjoying trying out new ways to color his stamps.

Since my supplies are running low (and I still have much scrapbooking to do), I've decided to make him an arts&crafts box. There isn't much in it yet, just some plastic, gluey tubes of paint (the squeezing type), some inkpads and foam stamps on blocks, and then added also some painting brushes, water colors and a couple of supplies for water coloring. I want to see if I could take him a bit from the craft-side and towards the art-side. Perhaps I can interest him more in painting and drawing, and if so, I'll ask dad to make him an easel, so we can set him out in the backyard to paint to his heart content, and slowly get him more serious supplies, depending on what interests him more. If he rather leans towards the craft-side, then instead of an easel, we could fill the box with other materials, and maybe even try out other crafts.

The arts&crafts box is currently an old shoebox, but hopefully with time it will evolve to become a chest of wonders. I don't have my own box of wonders yet, but have a new drawing pad, pulled out my jewelry making supplies and readied my sewing box (don't have a basket for my knitting and crochetting supplies). I guess I am getting there too, and all thanks to one fabulous young guy in my life. Aren't nephews just a blessing?

Long Weekend with Kids

Taking advantage of the long weekend thanks to the moved Discovery of America (it's actually on October 12th), my eldest nephew asked his parents to let him stay with us from yesterday to today. He loves staying with his grandparents, and has been staying with us from time to time since he was little. His behavior has improved greatly since he was a child. He has become a very nice, very gentle little guy.

When my brother and his family came over for lunch yesterday, I used the chance to talk with my sister-in-law about our Halloween plans for the children. It's going to happen on the Sunday before Halloween actually, so we have enough time to enjoy the carving of the pumpkin, and the decorating of chocolate cupcakes with all sorts of Halloween motives. We talked in lenght about the matter, and my eldest nephew overheard us, which got his attention. Since he loves to do art - and has been asking me for several weekends now to do art with him - he was now interested in making Halloween arts, painting haunted houses and ghosts. ^_^ Indeed Halloween is more of a children's holiday than that of adults, but that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy it just as much.

Spending a weekend with children is quite demanding. My nephew is a real angel now, a joy to be with, and the older he gets the more and more I enjoy his company. I can honestly say that he is a fabulous person, smart, interesting and with cultural inclinations, which is lovely in a world as cybernetic, instant and shallow as the one we live in now. Still, though he's perfectly capable of looking after himself, he's not here to be alone, he's here to spend time with us, and that means that we are supposed to spend it with him. And so we do, and no matter how much we enjoy his staying here, spending time with him means that we take time from our other plans. It means also that we should try and match his energy, and people our age are definitivelly not up to match the energy of a healthy, happy, active 7-year old boy. ^_^ Good thing he can be patient with us.

We shall see next time.

(Sorry, I was supposed to write about the Discovery of America holiday, but not right now.)

Last Month Begins

Mom and Dad went back home today. Dad, still giddy like a kid about roaming, didn't waste the chance to call my aunt from Amsterdam with my brother's Hungarian SMS. The simple modern comodities and pleasures. For most Costa Ricans, the idea of using the roaming service is a bit hard to imagine, as so far the service has been quite out of reach, with high prices hard to calculate and a steep deposit that could go up in smoke in a five minute call. For an European, roaming is a pricy but affordable thing you use more often than you'd think about. Then again, moving across borders for Europeans is far easier, not to mention that the Regulation on that matter constantly demands operators to lower more and more the roaming fees, and with local fees quite high already, the difference between roaming and local calls isn't all that big.

Our life gets slowly back on the old track, and probably I'd be able to get back on track with the second List of 13. There are other things to get in motion, planning what I'm taking back, and reading as many books as I can so less books must be moved this time on other time.

I finished reading "Holy Fools" by Joanne Harris - the writer was recommended to me by my friend Trish - and I must admit, I liked it. Now, shall I risk and read another book? I'm wondering about it, so I'll probably get a sample of another of the books for my Kindle. Why am I so adamant? Because Ms Harris' style is so transparent, so light, so breezy I don't know if what I love is the topic or the style. I'm not very prone to like stories about circuses or gypsies, actors or clowns, butI like stories that involve magic, witches and monastries. Was it the magic of the writer or the spell of the type of plot? I'm still wondering. But be it as it may, I think I'll go with Lollipop Shoes to make up my mind. :-)

What's next? I'm thinking about a book that tries to reconstruct the journals of Empress Sissi, but then I recently bought a book about the Dunkan Diet (got curious), and a book of spells. It's the same book I have seen in Costa Rica, at the Librería Internacional. This time around - it seems - the book got a better hold on me, and since I had a bonus for a bookstore purchase (one that I can't use online), I thought "why not?". The book of the Dunkan Diet couldn't be ordered online (by some mysterious reason), and since the price on it wasn't enought to use the bonus, I grabbed the spell book and bought it. It made me feel giddy. It was like indulging in a guilty pleasure not everybody understands. Have you ever got, lent or read a book you don't have any particular reason to read, a book that might seem weird, unreasonable, or "WTF" in any sense, and you still get it just because you want to know about it? Well, this book is that for me. :-)

There's a huge pile of books I've here and which I'd like to read before I go back, so I don't have to carry them over. This means that I'll have to go over my plans for teh next List of 13 and make sure I don't include any "every week" activity, so I get more time to read. Remember that post about making time to your hobbies? Well, I'm taking that bull by the horns! Wish me luck!

Little Lessons under the Sky

Not ten minutes ago I realized that I'm far closer o the end of "Holy Fools" by Joanne Harris, than I thought. I'm reading Harris after a good friend of mine wrote to me about her. I epxected to have the book finished in a week or less, but it seems that this one took me longer. The book isn't hard to read, but in the first part and half of the second part I found it hard to relate to the characters. Now I'm getting more into the favor of the story, and the pages fly before my eyes.

Today I went with my folks to visit an old college friend of my dad. He's a very sweet, lovely man, who loves me to bits and pieces, as well as his wife. Their tenderness is truly breathtaking. I spent most of my time reading, though, as my folks, his wife and he spent time catching up and remembering the old days. Not like I was bored, but in a way the garden, the Danube flowing gently next to the end of the yard, the clear sky got me wanting to doze and read and meditate... and do absolutely nothing but rest and be happy. They are still very, very good hosts - better than what I am as a guest - so they entertained be nonetheless with long and delicious chats. Many of their words still resonate inside me and have me thinking. There have been many lessons to be learn, lessons that still roll around my mind, perhaps waiting for maturing maybe for a future post.

Sometimes you feel it, right? When there's a jewel shared with you, a lesson that your spirit wants to encapsule and study. This darling man and his wife have offered me a lapful of valuable lessons, eye opening stories about facts of life I may not have been so aware in my life.

It is late for me, I'm tired and wish to sleep now, roll up in our bed with my book and read a little, with my head deliciously rubbing against the soft, luxuriant green pillows. Some lessons can't be shared just like that, but the most important thing I learned, can: "it doesn't matter how well you live your life, how careful you are and thoughtful about others, you can't count on others to return the favor, or continue your example. Not your peers, not your friends, not even your family. Sometimes you wish the best and do your best and do the extra mile for others, and they repay you with undeserved expectations, with demands for more, or belittling the fruit of your life work. Be prepared, be careful, and as you try to make the best for others, because that's your nature, make sure to also knit your own safety net."

Sometimes the sweetest people in the world get the hardest lessons, and it is up to us to learn from the example they set. I'm publishing this because sadly I know many people, and some readers of this blog whom I know, fall into this very case: they do so much for others, and help so much, they end up bruised, worn, and even though they gave all they have, they are treated badly. Chin up, it's time to knit your safety net!

Your True Strenght, from the Second Highest Mountain Top

Today I went to Galyatető with my boyfriend and my parents, to a lovely little hut my father in law has there. Galyatető is a 964 meters high mountain in Hungary, close to to the highest one, which I believe is Kékestető with 1050 meters or so. Hungary is a flat country, so yes, 1050 meters over the level of the sea is considered high.

My father in law bought himself this cozy summer house around two or three years ago, and had invited my parents to go and visit there, since he's spending most of his summer there. The air is clearer and the weather is much milder, thanks mostly to the woods that suround the place.

We talked some there, looked around the house, enjoyed the deck, and then decided to take a walk over to the top of the mountain, roughly one kilometer away, where a stone tower pushes up against the sky to offer a fabulous view above the tops of the trees. To get there, we evidently had to walk some, uphill, and that was a quite steep road. The sun was still hard upon the world, but as we walked I - who normally am not in favor of sports - noted that I'm enjoying the walk quite a lot, and that I have the resistance and the actual desire, to walk faster and take on steeper roads. I haven't done any jogging for a while due to the high temperatures (and because I know myself and I don't want to faint in the middle of the street), but as I walked I thought that I may not know myself so much, that I may not be as weak as I imagine myself to be.

We often tend to distort our capabilities. Sometimes we over estimate our strength, and we think we can take more and more and more, and suddenly we snap under the pressure of a sitaution we have taken on thinking we had the strenght to shoulder. Other times we think we are too weak to do this, or too unprepared to tackle that. And yet still, if we dare, if we are open to ourselves, we can surprise ourselves. Perhaps you have been exercising in order to get slimmer, and you don't realize that maybe you have trained your body, made your muscles stronger and thus now you can do things you couldn't do before. Run faster, run for longer periods of time or longer distances, you can hold up a hard position easier or carry more weight.

Maybe you have been working over and over with numbers, and suddenly you are better at calculating things without whipping out your calculator. There are many things we practice frequently at home, at class, at work, with our friends or in our spare time, and maybe we do it with a given goal in mind, and we feel like we are not getting anywhere because we are comparing ourselves to a given goal or to the rest of the group, but we are not actually checking ourselves in other matters, we don't check our actual advance. Take a language class, for instance: you compare yourself with the best of the class, or you measure yourself with the grades you get, but that doesn't really say much about your actual advance. Say you've been learning Spanish. Maybe you feel that you are the worse student of all, that you know nothing, and that there are students who are far better than you are, get better grades, know all the answers and so, but it isn't until you get to, say, Spain, and you are confronted with the living language, where grammar and knowing the difference between one type of past tense and the other means nothing, that you get to realize actually how much and how well have you learned the language.

Take a moment to think about the ideas you have about yourself, the "trainings" and efforts you do to get this or that, and in that moment, go to the mountain, consider checking yourself to measure exactly how much and how far have you advanced under your own nose, but also to realize your actual limitations. Knowing your capabilities gives you that push you need to keep yourself motivated, after all results are the reason why we commit to a project. But also, knowing your real limits helps you know where you stand, to know where you could work more, or where you want to stop and go on developing another area of your life.

Today, for me, life is like a path in the woods: there is a path, but all over it and around it there are fabulous things and beings you can learn from.

A Moment to Look Inside

10 pm. It's finally dark outside, but that doesn't make the temperature drop. It's freaking hot. It's White Day, but that seems to mean nothing. Is it me, or white clothes for the heat and the summer are the biggest lie ever? If the black is supposed to suck in the heat (with it doesn't), the white certainly reflects it and makes it ten time worse. It's like wearing a nuclear reactor! It generates more light and more heat! Muted colors! Cotton clothes! Long, flowy dresses!

My folks came to visit, and I was pleased to note how much they liked our place. Our white, crisp, well illuminated place. This is my home - even though I'm flying back to Costa Rica - and they took it as such with natural fluency. The cat, the plants and the soft scent of oil remains in the burner, from last night's yoga time.

And now, at night, with the scent of the oil, the soft music of the bugs outside the window, I'm thinking again about yoga. Like my teacher in Costa Rica says, "once the body gets used to yoga, it starts demanding it". I might have fallen back, the chaturanga is again imperfect - more than before - and other difficulties seem to come up, I feel it in my bones, as the night walks in, that I want my Full Lotus Kirtan yoga music, that I want to turn the lights off, light some candles, burn some oil and fuse into the beauty of yoga, meditate, find the peace inside me and do those asanas, try to rebuild from memory a sequence, the moves, and flow.

These moments, following the ritual stated by my teacher, start with meditation, a little introspection of what I want to achieve, and feeling the energy in me. Unlike in dry videos or books, through this moment of meditation you can find that thing you wish to work with, you wish to learn, you wish to improve, and as you flow through the asanas, the directions, the answers and the realization come to you, so as you wake from the shavasana, and sit, the final Namaste comes in gratitude for the lesson learned from the patient teaching of your Inner Teacher.

Maybe it's precisely that what makes your body, soul and mind reach out for yoga, when you have sharted with it.

Namaste.

The Accomplishments of the Day

It's past 22:30 h and I'm sitting at our desk (not my desk, though I would have loved to have a desk of my own by now), sipping delicious Yoga Tea by Demmers Teehaus. This is a kind of beautiful herbal tea that helps you relax, calm down, just like a good session of yoga, and which I'd love to call Shavasana Tea. This particular tea is also beautiful because it changes color as you pour the hot water onto it. First goes blue, then gray, then green to brown and finally a golden, bronzed red. The taste is amazing and it does prepare you gently for sleep. I love this tea. ^_^

Tomorrow we'll go to Mezőkövesd (again) with my Mom and Dad to visit Mama and Papa and stay for a day. Due to this, it seems that we'll also be carrying Cinder around, since we can't ask her to feed herself while we are not here. Then Kari is right too, this is a great chance to see how she behaves around Mázli and Picur (the other two cats), as well as around Gina and Bence (the dogs), since probably he'll have to ask Mama and Papa to catsit Cinder when he comes to Costa Rica.

The plan to go to Helsinki is not going as smoothly as planned. The airplane ticket is what's giving us a headache, as there's a really good price at one airline we can't get hold of (no phone to call, no designated contact to help us in case something doesn't go as planned), and the others are a bit more expensive than we would have liked it to be. Oh well, oh well... something will come out of it... eventually, I hope. However I did manage to finish Trish's letter and mail it, as well as sending a short misive for a friend in Costa Rica, plus a couple of postcards. I had also lunch at Nordsee - first time in Hungary, as I usually have my Nordsee fix in Vienna - and then had a coffee at Starbucks, while getting acquinted with the fab mugs and thumblers you can get, and one if which (at least) I would certainly own and take with me back to Costa Rica! Yes, I know, I'm going all crazy for tea and all, but coffee... coffee is my soul!

Today I feel quite accomplished, even if for many it doesn't seem like a day where I've done much. Yes, I didn't save the world from inminent death, nor I completed my whole new List of 13, and add to that, the movie Headhunters - based on the book of the same title by Jo Nesbo - is premiering THIS Thursday, and I've only read chapter one of the book, so I have about two days to finish the book, so I can run into the movies as fast as I can to watch it as fresh as I can knowing well the difference between the book and the movie... from the perspective of the book. Yeah, better spoil a movie than a book don't you agree?

And yet, today is a great day.

Model Family?

I've decided to read one of the worse books in town. I decided so knowing that the book would be bad, it's just like I didn't expect it to be so bad. No, it's not as horrendously bad as "Chasing Harry Winston", which still holds the undeliable title of "worse book ever written in the History of the Universe", but 43 pages into it (from 252), this book "The Shack" is coming dangerously close to a very disputed second place in the dubious ranking, defeating by far many other terrible books I've ever read.

If you recall, this is the book my shepherd recommended, and the one that was discussed last Thursday at the Bible Group or whatever they call the gathering. (I'm still not clear about the actual name of it.) Let's start with the fact that a lot of people mentioned (okay, all of them), that the book had been poorly written, and that half way through it, it can't be called a novel at all. Honestly, I didn't expect the book to be so severely challenged in the writing department, as it not only leans heavily on bad clichés, to the point of making the whole thing feel too fake to be real, but it also misuses clichés. Let's not enter into the land of the mistakes that happen all over, like the guy grabbing a blanket and a pillow to go to the livingroom to watch TV, and as he's watching the TV, he curles on the bed. Livingroom-bed, you see it? And this is OREGON, US, with a huge house, where the mailbox is over 600 feet away from the house entrance. Two paragraphs appart on the same page! Or saying that out of the two girls one is in college and the other is around six, but as Daddy bids them goodnight, he bids "his little girls goodnight".

43 pages into the book, and that's roughly the 20% of the book, a fifth of the book, and the characters are loose, there's no definition to them, but a lot of contradictions regarding the main character, very utilitary depictions of two other characters and the rest can't be described in any other way but as "filling". Actually, there are two sons, the older ones, that are conveniently sent away, discarded from the begining. Then why create them in the first place? It's not that's an inefficient use of characters, but it's simply noise in the story.

I was already upset that after an introduction where the main character, Mack, is described as a smart guy who grew up in a farm, with rough hands from working the land, who ran away and became a globetrotter, wants to curl up with a book and a cup of hot wine. Kinda so-so relationship with God, but he prays constantly every step of the way. So... straight, farm educated, Generic Christians living in Oregon relax like New York women and gay men, and pray more than devoted Catholics. Interesting.

Sure, it could be that he really enjoy books and wine, and walk around in pyjama bottoms (instead of track pants or boxers), but the book doesn't give you the frame to click this into the picture. The most upsetting character of all is, however, Nan, the wife. Nan is the perfect wife: deeply devoted to God, with a firm, deep connection to Him, personal and strong, but she's also "the mortar that holds the family together". She's the one who gave up a promising career as doctor to have five children (two of which are entirely disposable, other two that are filling and excuse, one who's the saint, the favorite and the excuse to make the main character a martyr), and became a nurse who takes care of terminal patients of cancer and has written and held conferences about helping the dying get in touch with God again. Because there's no other job a nurse can do, but to talk about God to the patients, and because there's no other groundbreaking field about which a nurse could talk about.

From the first moment on it raised my attention how Nan's character was left empty of personality. Her sole job and calling was to be a Mother. She sacrifices herself, her life, her dreams, her expectations, her personality and individuality on the altar of family and society, to serve and run like an invisible maid making sure everybody has a happy and uneventful life. Her hole existence is about servitude. She takes care of teh dying, she takes care of the children and she takes care of her husband, who also acts as a child. She makes decisions and severely decides one way or the other, while Mack is more like a buddy for his children. Then, as the younger child disappears, Mack's wish is to have Nan close so she can make things better. This is down right outrageous. The main character is so absorbed in his selfish pain, that he doesn't stop to think fir a moment how will his wife take the news, but he wants her close so she can confort him.

43 pages into the book and the model Christian family was laid out before my eyes in the full glory of it's grotesque shape. The family should be big, but the kids themselves didn't matter much, just the favorite one. Kids should act unnaturally mature, devoted and bordering saint, expressing a desperate desire to sacrifice themselves for their parents and all sorts of small matters. This family, however, is entirely the responsability of the Mother, which is such a demanding, absorbing role, that sucks out all traces of individuality and humanity from the woman. The mother becomes "family" and as such, it is her personal responsability to make sure the whole cluster holds together and are well served. Sure, she can be bossy, but under no circumstance she can stop serving them. She takes the kids a state away, husband stays home unable to go out due to the weather, and when she comes home with the kids after a long trip, she must put the food on the table. She makes sure things are packed for the vacations she won't participate in, and she puts away her pain to help others deal with theirs.

Not one person rebuked this image. Yes, this is an ideal family and that's the role a woman should take, and must do so with a wide smile plastered on her face, yearning fervently to do so, thinking of her sacrifice as an act of love she can't wait to perform. Why the mother? Why only her? She's a depersonalized center, a servant for a group of individuals that connect to it and serve themselves from it, but give nothing in return. Is this supposed to be desirable? Is this supposed to be healthy?

Reading such an atrocity shines the light of sense and realization about why the childfree and the woman who don't want to marry are so despised. Yes, the childfree and the singles prove that women are not only entitled to have an individual personality and an individual life, but that they can be fucking happy with it. Any asshole with a working womb and healthy eggs can have babies. Drug addicts and young teen girls have them by the dozen, but not everybody can push up in life by themselves and stand on their own feet, head held high and show that they are good at what they do. Not everybody gets to be a successful lawyer, not everybody can be elboy deep into a fascinating research, and not everybody can pursue their deepest dreams.

Childfree and singles show that women and men are equal, that a vagina doesn't make you automatically to want a husband and a family, but that you can also dream to become the champion of the Forma-1, or the winner of a Nobel prize. A vagina doesn't mean that your deepest desires are about helping others, nurturing others and sacrificing yourself for others.

Would have the story suffered so much if the mother had a personality of herself, or if the father would be a bit more active in the family chores? If the number of children would have been less? The story is terribly crappy as it is, a blatant advertisement for a way of life that's anything but natural, mingled to a devotion to God that speaks about someone who doesn't really know God at all, but rather has a close relationship with the church, and firmly believe that God and the church are one and the same thing.

43 pages into it and the book is a disappointment. But that's okay, for the writer made sure to state at the begining that if you didn't like the book "Sorry, this book wasn't primordially intended for you" (quoted, and poorly translated from Hungarian, from The Shack, by William P. Young). Yeah, a cheap trick, I know. This should warn you, in case you intend to read his crap.

So far, if you intend to read this book, I recommend you to keep a bag or a bucket close, in case you need to puke. It's excellent, however, if you want to try bulimia.

Time Goes By...

My brother will return to Costa Rica tomorrow. It's kinda sad because I like having him around, but that's the way it is. He spent two weeks in there and yet it feels it has been only a few days, and we still feel like there was so much more we would have loved to share with him, and more places to take him. At the same time, during these days our lives stopped - at least mine did - and now that he's going back, my days flow back rushing into their old tempo. I hope to start jogging again, keeping the home budget in close count and going on with the program. I've a test on Monday and need to prepare with some material. Then there's a cat to take care of, who currently likes to do the most strangest things in the world.

There are books to read, both in the Kindle and in paper, many stories that I'm interested in, and then books to write as well. There are plans to be designed and things to be put in motion. There's time, and it's time to fall in step with it.

Of Eggplants and Similars

Eggplants are the kind of veggie that are hard on me. I'd love to like it, but so far all attempts at making something good out of them have miserably failed. Recipe after recipe, the freaking vegetable -  though spreading a heavenly aroma - tastes really foul. I've tried all sorts of recipes I could find, and I was really tempted by the scent, but finally ended up booking the veggie as the sort of thing I would never be able to work with.

Recently, after spending some time with Mommy, I learned a few things about eggplants that changed my mind. She got recently hooked on eggplants, and at my concern about the bitter taste, she told me that the trick to make it taste better is to cut the eggplant in slices and sprinkle them generously with salt. You let the salted slices sit for a little while and then wash the salt away. (A similar method can be found here.) The salt basically sucks the bitter out of the eggplant, so when you cook the eggplant after the procedure, you get a taste much more similar to the wonderful scent it produces.

One of the things she got to love about eggplants is the eggplant cream. With much gusto she told me about how she loved to eat eggplant cream with bread. While I'm sure it must be really healthy, I couldn't picture the eggplant cream as anything I would really like to taste. That until today.

It happens that I had to make some errands and these errands took me close to a commercial center where there's a Leroy restaurant. My boyfriend and I are planning on getting a printer, and after I've seen one that fit our requirements, I called him for us to meet at the commercial center, if possible (we were also fixing a few things around the house and the carpenter was up the flat with my boyfriend getting some of those things done). Well, it was possible, but he would take some time to get there, so I decided to wait for him at Leroy. I'm trying to control my expenses, but I'm also watching what I eat - particularly after picking up some weight with Mommy's cooking - so I was carefull about what I ordered. In the menu I saw eggplant cream with toasted pita chips. "Well, know or never", I thought, and though I have had tasted horrible things at the same place (like a foul poppyseed custard), I ordered the eggplant cream.

It was delicious. Just like with before with the chickpeas - which I never managed to like until I tasted hummus - the eggplant world opened before my eyes with a delighful, amazing universe of smooth taste and texture, and also quite similar to hummus. ^_^

With this experience I've got the chance to learn again, that things aren't always what they seem the first time, first impressions can be deceiving, and if we give things a second chance and have patience, we might be very gladly surprised. Sometimes that dress you thought looks so bad on you, turns out to be the one that flatters you the most, or maybe the old stool you couldn't wait to get rid of, with a bit of painting and a good scrubbing becomes an wonderful piece of your livingroom. And so is with people. The annoying kid might turn out to be a very bright, interesting person, if you give it the chance, the ugly girl can turn out to be far better than a runaway full of models, and the awkward guy with weird hair and scary laugher could end up being your best friend. 

Though there are a lot of eggplants and chickpeas among us - people you need to give a second chance, allow yourself to know them better - sadly there are also a few rotten, poisonous mushrooms that no tenderness, no patience, to chance can call forward the brighter side. Thus yes, when you don't like someone, treat them first like the eggplant, but if it doesn't work, cast them out as a poisonous mushroom before they end up messing up your life.

St. Patrick's Day

Today many people celebrate St. Patrick's Day. People dress in green, decorate with clover or shamrock motives, and play celtic music, maybe even think about Ireland. For many, it might be out of place for people who are not Irish -  particularly Irish and Christian - to celebrate this day, but I still believe that there's a lot to be learned from it, or at least from the stories that get to us from this day. Acording to what I've read on the net, St. Patrick was who brought Christianism to Ireland, and did it not by force, but after living in the island and getting to know the people of the island. (Some sources, such as History Channel, claim that St. Patrick got to the island first at the age of 16, sold as slave.)

The thing that impresses me the most, is how Christianity was brought to Ireland taking in consideration the Pagan traditions of the islanders, which is why the traditional St. Patrick's cross bears a circle, which was the sign of the Sun god. Though in other places Christianity was imposed with blood and cruelty, with the oppression of the weaker, in Ireland there was commitment, there was taking in consideration the traditions and what was sacred for them. I doubt much of the traditional religion was kept, but the merging of the two gods in one symbol (though for me there are one and the same, as God is God, and you can call Him and see Him anyway it spokes best for you), I see something we seldom see: the willingness to find a third way.

Mommy talked to me about this today. Though I nag my boyfriend constantly about order, and lot leaving newspapers and flyers on the dining table, and stuff like that, she told me that a relationship works when both parts commit, and one should know how and when to pick battles, and also to be the bigger person, and be willing to see the other side's point of view. One bears the cross, and the other holds the circle. The one doesn't exclude the other, but we can all get to an understanding and make a brand new path, a new way to do things and make them so much better.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to All!! ^_^

Love and Tradition

I'm spending three days in Mezőkövesd, a village (or town) in Hungary quite to the North-East, famous for the beautiful embroidery proper of the area. My substitute parents live here (they are my "substitute parents" because they are the folks of a dear friend of mine, and since we are like siblings, his folks decided to make me their substitute child ^_^), and so we decided to pay them a visit, and in this visit, I decided to stay. In this three days - now that I can do it, for once I've get a job I probably won't be able to come here and stay long enough - I've been indulging in good homemade cooking and sipping in tips for quick and easy recipes to do at home. After all, I've a home now to housekeep and someone has to be on top of things, and that someone is me. ^_^ 

As expected, there has been plenty of talking as well, where Mommy and I fixed the world and chatted out all the important matters. From recipes and wonderful cabbage soups to loseweight (Daddy has to lose weight, so he's on a cabbage soup diet), to what's going on in the family and in the country, politics and all. From these conversations several things stay with me once I go to bed. Mommy's and Daddy's frankness, their familiarity and how they make you feel part of the family and arriving home the moment you walk past the front gate. Also, their love and care.

It strikes me how they care so much for my boyfriend and I, how they insist to send us back to Budapest with so much food "for the road" that could feed an army for a week. They make sure we feel well, feel welcomed, feel cared for. Mommy and Daddy aren't our biological folks, and yet they care is if were were their children. So, how can it be that there are so many parents out there who can't give a dime for their own children? And in the face of this, how can it be people out there who nag the childless and call them abnormal and immature?

Sadly, I know many parents, and I know all of us do, who think their children are their personal servants, that their children owe them their lives and for that reason shall pay everyday for it. Parents that don't pay attention to them, who can't wait to get rid of them, hide them, assign them to the grandparents or anyone in order to keep living as if they were single and free of care. Parents who act like their kids are a badge they've earned, or see them as a source of income, either by making the other parent of the kid pay child support, or by either sending the children to work or selling them.

With Mommy and Daddy I've the chance to experience a kind of love that knows no limits and it's not tied by blood. Just as with the parents of Dragonfly, or Alix' parents, there's a limitless love that stretches even to those who have not been born from them. Like with my Mom and Dad, who love me and show it inconditionally, they also show inconditional love.

Love isn't something that comes with the blood shared, or because "you are meant to be together" and slip gold rings on each other's fingers. Love starts in you, grows in you and it grows harder, stronger, bigger if the one you love - or the one's you love -love you back and nurture the feeling. But love doesn't die if it's not corresponded. Love can live in if it's nurtured at least for one person. Yes, love can die, if you find out that a love has grown so that hurts you more than it makes you feel good. Then you yourself stop feeding it, and it slowly dies out. But love starts with you.

There's a tradition in this land, about beautiful embroidery, but there's also a tradition of warm hearts and sweet, endless love that's extended inconditionally to anyone willing to be part of the family.

When It's Time to Back Off

Sometimes there's someone in your life you care deeply about, love them to bits and pieces and you carry their destiny in your heart. When they suffer you suffer too, and if you see then happy and hopeful, you are happy and hopeful too. Then sometimes this people are deep in a very bad or very thight situation, and it pains you endlessly to see them like that, and each step they take brings them deeper and deeper into this black hole of hopelessness and chaos. You'd like to help them, and often you reach out and try as hard as you can to help them, but each time around your hand gets slapped back. It only serves to give you more pain, and nothing changes.

When it happens with friends, it's hard, but it's often harder when it happens with family, or someone (friends or family) that's very, very close to you. We have such a situation currently going on with my Godmother. We are handtied here, unable to help her because she doesn't let anyone help her, while constantly complaining about family abandoning her. With friends, you can prepare and bring yourself to the point where you decide to let go of your friend, when the relationship becomes toxic, but what do you do with the relationship with a family member starts running in circles and starts leaking toxicity? You can't let go of family, because, well, it's family. Blood stays, so what should you do?

You don't need to deny your family, but you can certainly - like with any other person - draw a line. You can tell your relative that you can see that your attempts at helping are not bringing any positive results, so while you love them a lot and will always be there for what you can do for them, you'll pull out of the current situation. You won't be giving any more many to the relative who constantly nag family for money and never takes responsability for it's finances, because there are other pockets to take the heat of their stupidity. You won't be dedicating any more of your time to the marital or relationship problems of your relative because no matter what you say things never get better, and it's taking a toll on you. You won't be spending any more on medication for a family member who everyday wakes up with a new sickness that turns out to be a figment of their imagination.

It's family, but you can let go. It's family but you can break the cycle. It is family but you can stop being their crutch, and ask them to stop being a burden on your shoulder, because that's only causing you pain and it's giving them no relief an no help. It takes more time to prepare, more strenght and determination, but sometimes, it comes the situation when you have to stand up, not only for yourself but also for your family, so take a moment, consider things well and remember, support isn't about always being on the same side, support is about helping, and when you can't do any more to help someone, then help yourself.