~ Posted 5 November 2015 ~

Oh goodness me I do this all the time!  If someone gives me something really special as a gift, I often save it for months before I use it, just to keep the magic of it alive in me.  I love meaningful gifts and lovely smelling gifts, or pretty looking colourful, sparkling gifts... I guess that's "Patty"... she likes to hold onto such beautiful treasures for as long as possible. 
 
Nothing was really mine when I was a child.  Mother used to take everything I loved away.  We were never allowed to love anything or anyone more than her.  She made herself our god and we had to worship her above all else...
 
So many losses along the way... far too many... 
 
In a roundabout way I wonder, is she still taking away?  Taking away the carefree moments I should have to use and enjoy my treasures when I receive them instead of storing them for those elusive “better days”...
 
Maybe one day those “better days” don't come, and my children find my lovely unused treasures still hiding in my cupboard when they are cleaning up after I'm gone.
 
I think I need to use those treasures when I get them... enjoy them in the moment instead of storing them in a dark closet for fear of losing them or just not having them anymore.
 
And even worse still, is that very often when it comes around to someone else’s birthday or special occasion, I often can’t afford to buy them anything and so I find myself parting with one of my treasures as if that’s OK!  I even feel good about doing so!
 
Having a light bulb moment!
It has just occurred to me that when I do that, I am doing exactly what mother used to do to me.  Take my treasures and give them to someone else as if it was not mine in the first place.  With mother, nothing was sacred to me... I grew up believing that I didn’t deserve to have beautiful things as my own!
 
Well... I’ve decided that from now on, my new gift to myself is no more being denied the beautiful gifts of love that are given to me as if I do not deserve to enjoy them myself... as if I still fear they will be taken away from me to be given to someone else by mother if she sees them...
 
I may not be able to give others beautiful gifts on their special days, but I will always try to give them my genuine love and hope that it will be enough... I know it would be more than enough for me, because it’s what I long for most, above all other gifts that this world can give.
 
I remember this poem and all the years I had a tiny red dress made out of cardboard hanging on my wall in my room in an attempt to remind myself that I was “a somebody”.  I lost it when I moved homes... I think I should make myself another one.

Millie's Mother's Red Dress
 
It hung there in the closet
While she was dying, Mother's red dress,
Like a gash in the row
Of dark, old clothes
She had worn away her life in.
 
They had called me home
And I knew when I saw her
She wasn't going to last.
 
When I saw the dress, I said
"Why, Mother - how beautiful!
I've never seen it on you."
"I've never worn it," she slowly said.
"Sit down, Millie - I'd like to undo
A lesson or two before I go, if I can."
 
I sat by her bed
And she sighed a bigger breath
Then I thought she could hold.
"Now that I'll soon be gone,
I see some things.
 
Oh, I taught you good - but I taught you wrong."
"What do you mean Mother?"
"Well - I always thought
That a good woman never takes her turn,
That she's just for doing for somebody else.
Do here, do there, always keep
Everybody else's wants tended and make sure
Yours are at the bottom of the heap."
"Maybe someday you'll get to them.
But of course you never do.
My life was like that - doing for your dad,
Doing for the boys, for your sisters, for you."
"You did - everything a mother could."
"Oh, Millie, Millie, it was not good -
For you - for him. Don't you see?
I did you the worst of wrongs.
I asked for nothing - for me!"
 
"Your father in the other room,
All stirred up and staring at the walls -
When the doctor told him, he took
It bad - came to my bed and all but shook
The life right out of me. 'You can't die,
Do you hear? What'll become of me?'
' What'll become of me?'
It'll be hard, all right when I go.
He can't even find the frying pan, you know."
"And you children -
I was a free ride for everybody, everywhere.
I was the first one up and the last one down
Seven days out of the week.
I always took the toast that got burned,
And the very smallest piece of pie."
"I look at how some of your brothers
Treat their wives now
And it makes me sick, 'cause it was me
That taught it to them. And they learned,
They learned that a woman doesn't
Even exist except to give.
Why, every single penny that I could save
Went for your clothes, or your books,
Even when it wasn't necessary.
 
Can't even remember once when I took
Myself downtown to buy something beautiful -
For me."
"Except last year when I got that red dress.
I found I had twenty dollars
That wasn't especially spoke for.
I was on my way to pay extra on the washer.
But somehow - I came home with this big box.
Your father really gave it to me then.
'Where you going to wear a thing like that to -
Some opera or something?'
And he was right, I guess.
I've never, except in the store,
Put on that dress."
 
"Oh Millie - I always thought if you take
Nothing for yourself in this world
You'd have it all in the next - somehow
I don't believe that anymore.
I think the Lord wants us to have something -
Here - and now."
"And I'm telling you , Millie, if some miracle
Could get me off this bed, you could look
For a different mother, 'cause I would be one.
Oh, I passed up my turn so long
I would hardly know how to take it.
But I'd learn, Millie.
I would learn!"
 
It hung there in the closet
While she was dying, Mother's red dress,
Like a gash in the row
Of dark, old clothes
She had worn away her life in.
Her last words to me were these:
"Do me the honour, Millie,
Of not following in my footsteps.
Promise me that."
I promised.
 
She caught her breath
Then Mother took her turn
In death.
 
~Carol Lynn Pearson~
 
A few years ago, my lovely daughter in law, Stacey, gave me a red dress she had lovingly made especially for me, because she knew how much I cherished the story behind the little cardboard red dress on my wall... I will never forget how overwhelmed I felt with the depth of love that filled me and how much I cried as a result when I opened that precious gift from her that day.  One of those really beautiful moments in my life for which I will be forever grateful.
 
~ Pana

~ Posted 4 November 2015 ~
 
Ok... so that was really very weird... I survived the dentist visit somehow... so unusual that I’m still somewhat confused by the experience of NOT being so afraid as I am so used to being when visiting the dentist!  What on earth happened?  Has my healing come this far, or was it a fluke day?  Was Patty still asleep... haahaa! 
 
I should have visited the dentist ages ago after I wrote about needing to in a blog post a while back, but when my sister sent me the phone number so that I could make an appointment, I got into such a state just looking at the phone number on my cell phone, that my blood pressure instantly shot up leaving me with a migraine for two days and actually affected my body which swelled up like a balloon! 
 
After all of that I realised I could not do the whole dentist thing on my own and was too scared to think about it anymore so just left it!  But at a recent Logotherapy student workshop, my confidence felt so shattered when having to speak to people, that I just knew that I had no option but to get the tooth done before the upcoming exam workshops this month.
 
Yesterday I felt fine about going to the dentist this morning, but I think what happens is that I was in some kind of emotional denial... “Until it happens, it’s not going to happen”...
 
I woke this morning at around 03h30 after less than 6 hours sleep and came onto my Patty’s Key’s Facebook page to post a few quotes I identify with and hope my readers would also.  I felt in no real rush... as if there was no urgency whatsoever to get ready for the dentist... “Still in denial”...
 
But, around 05h15, it suddenly hit me... I have to be there at 06h30 and still need to bath, eat, get ready and get my son up so he can come with me... I could NEVER go alone to the “dreaded” dentist!
 
So the rush was suddenly on and we arrived at the dentist so early that the gates were still shut.  We listened to the radio in the car while we waited, and out of the blue I could suddenly (as expected) feel Patty rising to the surface and the tears stared, but I soon got them under control while the knot in my stomach remained, but I felt I was definitely now “on the edge”... On the edge of where I usually tip over into my “fearful self” and begin to feel panicked and wanting to run.
 
Finally the dentist opened the gate and we went in.  There was no waiting as I was his first patient.  I could not believe that this time, I actually was able to look at him and “see him” and greet him.  This is so unusual for me... usually by the time I have to go into a dentist’s room, I have already tipped over into a dissociative state and blanked out from reality... basically become like an empty machine that a mechanic works on to fix or replace something.  This is the way I had long ago learned to cope with the extreme fear that would overcome me when visiting dentists... But... it didn’t happen this time... so weird!
 
Once I was on his chair, I felt some generalised muscle-stiffening and some dissociation as always as Patty’s fears tried to surface, but it never worsened as the dentist progressed.  At one stage when he started to use his drill, “it nearly happened”, but he did something unusual... he said quite firmly, “No-no..................” I never heard the rest, but at the same time, he rubbed my tightly frowning forehead and I heard something like, “relax here”... and... I DID! 
 
Huh!  What happened there... ?  I still can’t fathom how he did it, or if it was just a fluke action on his behalf that worked for me.
 
As I relaxed my forehead, so I found myself relaxing all over, still with the help of some dissociation, I found myself feeling more and more calm... more and more relaxed and I got through the whole ordeal unusually well.
 
SURPRISE! 
 
Something new I didn’t know about me... that I could actually have a dental visit without going back into the “broken and frightened child self” of my past...
 
WHAT NOW?
 
So, now that I know this is possible, because, it happened:
 
What am I going to do with this amazing new information about my “self”? 
 
What new attitudinal belief system will I choose to adopt from this extraordinary experience, and...
 
What old fear-based belief systems adopted from my past will I be able to finally "let go of..."
 
The “GIFT” of healing courage and strength has been presented to me from “Life”...
 
Do I accept it and take it in as a “new truth” for my life, or...
 
Do I allow the “old” script messages (LIES) that I adopted from my far distant past to still have so much power over me, my freedom or my happiness.
 
A conscious choice for positive change is now available for me to make that could ultimately change the outcome of all my future visits to the dentist......
 
I was quite dizzy for a while once I got off of his chair... same as last time I went to visit the dentist, but sitting in the waiting room for a while after I got my tooth done helped me to recover.
 
On the way home my son and I listened to a funny programme on the car radio and had a good laugh... so for me, this has been a most amazing "dentist visit" experience and one that I am extremely grateful for... I am very grateful for this new day in my life!  My broken front tooth is now fixed and I can face the world with my most confident smile once again J
 
~ Pana