Just Journaling ~ One day at a time

My youngest sister and I with some of our Greek Easter treats
 
29th April 2019
I had the most wonderful time with my youngest sister and family on Saturday 27th, on the Greek Easter weekend.  We spent the day as we have traditionally done for some years now, baking the most delicious Easter treats for family and friends. We made flaounes (triangles of a thin dough crust with the main ingredients of cheese, eggs, raisins and mint inside) and we made koulourakia (biscuits), as well as olives wrapped in dough and baked... I can't remember what those were called, but my dad seemed to love them.  I think he approved of how our Easter baking turned out this year... he's a good judge of how it should all look and taste, because he was married to our Greek mother for many years until she passed away in 2004.  She was always, ALWAYS busy in the kitchen "cooking perfection"... oh my goodness me, her house used to smell wonderful... a lot like Saturday did.
 
Baking with my sister always brings back the most wonderful memories for me. My nephews insisted that this year’s flaounes were the best we've ever made... YUM!
 
Because of my restricted diet needs, my sweet little sister made sure once again, that I had a special batch of cheese mix, without the raisins, egg yellow and flour.  I made those into muffins for the freezer... sooooo delicious!  My brother in law, took the beautiful photo (above) of my sister (n blue) and I on the day.

I LOVED Saturdays baking day which was so fun 😊 and I will cherish those memories forever 💖
 
I am grateful for all that my Greek (step)mom taught me and gave to my life, but most especially grateful that my little sister who grew up full time with her, remembers so much and is able to remind me every year and help me to continue to be nurtured by the memories of gifts still given by our Greek mom's love, which I have cherished in my heart of hearts since I was just a little girl, visiting my beloved Greek family on school holidays.  Without such beautiful reminders and memories being kept alive in me, I would never be where I am today 💖
 
After my lovely day with my sister and family, I finished the day off marking a Logotherapy student’s portfolio.
 
2nd May ~ I wrote…
“My beloved little brother Peter (Petros)... He would have been 60 yesterday, 1 May, on his birthday and today, 2nd May 2005, he died due to having an epileptic seizure in his sleep.  He developed epilepsy during his adolescence.
 
“My heart still aches every year on the 1st and 2nd of May.  I love you my brother... Happy Birthday for yesterday, and thinking of you with love today on your Love Day... 💖 … We will meet again 💖”
 
I am so grateful to believe and know without doubt that Peter is still with me in spirit 💖
 
We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it | Nora McInerny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khkJkR-ipfw
 
4th May…
Today I was invited to my daughter’s house for lunch, because my very caring son in law had offered to do some work on my car.  He likes to do a mini service on it every so often which I appreciate very much!  I am truly blessed to have them both in my life.
 
Before I went to them, I decided to quickly go to our local hypermarket, to exchange some sugar free chewing gums that my youngest son had brought for me a few days earlier.  The gums he had brought were the ones I am allergic to.  At the time of the day that I drove to the mall, the streets were very busy and when I arrived, there were so many people walking all over the streets, that they even slowed me down at the entrance to the shopping mall.  Between the people and cars moving in every direction, I started to feel a little suffocated, but I persevered to the underground parking, but even in there, it was so packed with parked and moving cars and people, that I was thrown right out of my comfort zone and started to panic.  I finally found a parking but found myself glued to my seat once my car stopped moving.  I wanted to go into the shops, but it honestly felt as though I was tied to my chair and couldn’t move (paralysed with fear)... something that has not happened in a long time.  So, almost in tears, I realised that the shopping trip was out of the question and waited until I felt brave enough to leave… from there, I went to my daughter’s house… still too many cars on the streets on the way there.  It was lovely to be distracted and able to relax and enjoy being at my daughter's house, with her and my son in law and their two dogs which I adore and they seem to absolutely love me also.
 
After my visit there, I went home for a short time, but soon had to go pick up my youngest son from work around 8pm… so, I left early enough to visit my second son on the way, to wish him Happy 38th Birthday… My goodness, how time flies… one day, not so long ago it seems, I was holding him as a baby in my arms… thank goodness for still being able to enjoy HUGS!
 
Straight from visiting him, I went to pick up my youngest son from work on that horrible, scary, dark road that I really don’t enjoy traveling on at night…
 
The day was all too much… by Sunday, I knew that I was not going to be able to leave my home for church… there was too little left, so I just chilled for the rest of the day. 
 
Fitted in also on the 4th May, I continued the Messenger conversation with my Friend who I had chatted with on the 1st May… (Blog post: Conversation with a friend ~ Loving unconditionally.)  My friend shared with me, more about her lonely struggles and I once again deeply empathised with her, understanding that she had real reason to be so unhappy under such hurtful and lonely circumstances.  I tried to help her to see that sometimes, we make things worse for ourselves as a result of our reactions to our pain and sufferings… (even by our own thoughts and words)… that we worsen the very problem we are fighting to “right”…  I wanted to get across to this dear friend, the message of “thinking before we speak”… taming our thoughts and our words... allowing our words to be based on higher, more spiritual thought processes…
 
“How could I handle this situation more spiritually?  What would be the right thing to say and do in this moment?  How could my words or actions affect this situation?  What kind of impact is my behaviour having on myself or others?” etc.
 
I somehow wanted her to visualize for herself, how what she says… the way she says it… tone of voice… attitude… body language… etc. could ultimately improve or negatively affect the perspective of not only the person she talks to, but her own life and degree of peace and happiness too… that what she says and does, could also be directly affecting the way others are choosing to relate to her.  I shared with her, that by handling difficult and painful situations in an unequally spiritual and more gentle and loving way, could make miracles happen and that I’d proved it in my own life, over and over 💖🙏

My intent was to get across a message about the uniquely spiritual nature and spiritual dimension of the human being... some people would interpret this through religion, and others, by the mere fact that we are human beings.  

“…being human means being confronted continually with situations, each of which is at once a chance and a challenge, giving us a “chance” to fulfill ourselves by meeting the “challenge” to fulfill its meaning.  Each situation is a call, first to listen, and then to respond.” (Frankl, 2000, p.126) ~ Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning

“A characteristic of human existence, for example, is its transcendence.   Man transcends his environment toward the world; but more than this, he also transcends his being toward an ought, when he rises above the level of the somatic and the psychic and enters the realm of the genuinely human, the spirit, the Noös.” (Havenga Coetzer, 2003, p35) ~ Viktor Frankl’s Avenues to Meaning
 
I worried about my friend’s response and felt I might have failed her in what I had tried to share.
 
FRIEND
I know, and I live by my belief in the Lord.  Now, I need to focus on how to make sure that my son knows that he is mocking God by telling us he is gay because God won’t find him a wife.
 
Panayiota (My response was pretty much very straight to the point, because I just didn’t know what else to say)
“No... all you need to do is let him know you love him. The more you push your religious values the more you will push him away from his own. Please believe me. The only way you can convince him that there is a God looking over his life is in LOVE and through LOVE. I would not even mention religion to him... I'd just love him... He needs to make his own choices and will have more chance of making the right choices to his own Life question if he is feeling loved and accepted. (not necessarily your right choices according to your religious values... It seems they are no longer his religious values... He needs to establish his own values, and those might be better than the apparently nothing he is living now) If he is not feeling totally loved and accepted soon, he will have nowhere else to turn, but to where love and acceptance will find him... No matter how much you protest then, You WILL lose any chance of saving him.  Worry about your own salvation and pray only for his...”
 
My friend did not respond, but gratefully, she is still with me as I still see her participating on my Facebook posts, and I feel confident that she knows and trusts that I am still around should she ever need to message me again.   
 
I see a woman who seems to have lost a sense of control over the love and attention that she is so desperately crying out for (see comments section on a previous blog post, posted 1st May)… I have a feeling that she feels desperate about not being able to draw love and attention back to herself from those who should love her.  I imagine that in her frustration, the way she has been going about obtaining what she needs, is proving to not be working… and when we find that something is not working for us anymore, perhaps then it’s time to try something new…
 
I ask: “If her son did take on his mother’s values because that’s what she demands of him, would that prove to her that his love for her is real, or would there possibly then be other unanswered questions surfacing… ?”
 
I leave it there and that will be the end of this discussion.  If anyone wants to add, please e-mail me at pattyskeys@gmail.com and if I feel anything can genuinely help my friend from what you share, and will not hurt her more than she is already hurting, then I will share it with her and if she would allow, I’d share it as a blog post.
 
I pray with all my heart, that in some way, I have been able to help my friend, even if only a little 💖🙏✨
 
Another friend ~ another conversation: 
Chatting with another friend just yesterday, she asked a question, reminding me about what I was taught by my mentor once, that has helped me so much.  That sometimes the pain and the damage is so deep that it cannot be forgotten or just done away with or easily understood, and it’s not something that can just be “fixed” by others.  The pain and damage exist, and we have to somehow learn to live with it and deal with it in such a way, so as not to hurt others or ourselves.
 
I wrote from my memory, what our mentor had shared with me:
Tucking away the fear, pain and anger… That’s how the Holocaust survivors managed to go on.  They couldn’t continue living in the world as victims carrying all the horror with them in an open way, and there could be no way to just let it all go (and they should never be expected to)… nobody could take their lived experience away from them… it could NOT just be forgotten as if it had never happened… So, they learned to tuck it away for the sake of a greater good, because few others could ever understand it in the way that they had experienced their sufferings anyway…
 
So, it’s almost like, even the horrors that we’ve born, are meant to be sacred to us, because they belong to our unique personal experience.  They were not meant for others to bear with us in the same way we bore/bear them.  We did not bear our sufferings so that we could use our experience to hurt others, instead we bore them, so that we could grow in wisdom, love, humility and grace.  Only we are ever able to travel our own unique path… So, we alone, often have to go on with our burdens (tucked away)… we have to rise up, to be victorious over our sufferings regardless of any desperate needs we might have for loving support and understanding to come and lift our burdens for us.
 
I wrote:
TUCKING AWAY THE FEAR, THE PAIN AND THE ANGER!
© All rights reserved ~ www.pattyskeys.co.za
 
Do not express it… go on… go on
Hold it all in… quieten that sad song
Do not express it… do not cry out
Do not argue… do not shout
 
Tuck it away… go on… go on
Who can hear your mournful song
Alone you must find a way out of ‘that place’
To discover your true self… to see your own face
 
Who can help you, or dry those tears
Alone you must conquer your own bitter fears
Find your own strength!  YOU MUST!  YOU MUST
Search your own light, for it’s YOU, you must trust
 
Move forward… climb high… never give in
Hold tightly God’s hand… life’s between you and Him
Grasp your life’s meaning… life’s purpose for you
It’s all that is left!  It’s what you must do
 
Try to believe it and never let go
If it’s meant to be, then it WILL be so
When you defiantly stand for your good and your true
Then nothing can stop the course meant for you
 
You are unique and so is your work
So do not abandon it and do not shirk
The world is waiting for what you can give
Sharing your purpose is the true way to live
 
Keep moving forward
Life’s blessings will come
Emerge from the darkness
Enter the sun
 
~ Panayiota
(26 October 2010 – Thank you dear mentor)

​5th – 7th May – It’s a quieter time at work, so I’ve started working on my book again, and once again, I am being affected by the work on a psychological level.  I have to get this book done asap, so that I can somehow put my past behind me for once and for all by not having to regurgitate it over and over as has happened in the process of writing the book… Enough already!
 
8th May – Voting day in SA.
I nearly didn't get to vote today, because I didn't get to register and thought I had to.  My youngest son was working on the registration day and I wasn't going to go there on my own then, or to vote today... he's working today also!  And on top of that, I've developed a genuine fear based, no-trust image of this country, because they won't give me the ID card, because I was born in Rhodesia... now Zimbabwe... Yet I've been a naturalised citizen of this country for well over 30 years now!  So I am really unhappy about the fact that I'm still not good enough or accepted enough in this country to receive the ID card and must stick with the green book instead… This country, I have for so long called my home!  That HURTS BIG TIME!!!  Another painful source of rejection and not belonging for me...
 
(I don’t listen to, read or discuss the news… my two younger sons were discussing politics yesterday and within a few minutes, I developed a yawning attack and started to dissociate… they both noticed and realised that it was too much for me and stopped.  So I just can’t go there anymore… I wish that the leaders of this country would prove to me that “I” am an important part of this nation also… that I belong… I wish I could feel their love and acceptance… I’m so hurt, because I don’t!)
 
So, there was the voting day fears today, because I honestly don’t feel safe in this country anymore because of the card thing... Anyway, my youngest sister called earlier to say she will take me to vote, so I went and apparently my name was still on the list (I would only need to register again if I moved home).  Thankfully, it was all quick and easy and I've done it! I'm so grateful that my sister thought to take me… I love her so much!
 
Not feeling 100% today... weak, shaky and anxious... struggling with dissociation... I think it's due to working on my book yesterday and going through a chapter on Mother's Day 2013, when I sent my mom a genuinely loving Mother’s Day message and she responded by basically telling me to *#%@ $ff! So, that has stirred some uncomfortable, mixed emotions in me as it's so close to our Mother’s Day right now...
 
The child in me still so longs for her mother's love and for an opportunity to be able to love my mother now, but she won't let my sister and I love her... she doesn't want us in her life and never did... right as far back as her trying to abort me before I was even born... HUMPH!
 
I think I need to adopt a mother… like my dear old friend who I used to visit regularly… dear Norma… I miss her so much.  I moved away from the area where she lived, and she has since passed away.  I loved my visits to Norma so much, because they did me good.
 
Seems, I have become too busy and too housebound to visit old folk now.  Just yesterday, one of the neighbours visited me with some old clothes to try on that another old lady had disposed of.  A few of the items fitted, thankfully.  I’m still struggling with the weight I gained over the last few months, so not everything fitted (I feel like I’m permanently hungry again… just like I always did before I gained control over my eating in my 50’s.  When I really think about the hungry feelings, I realise that they feel the same as anxiety… the doom and gloom anxiety… or Chicken Licken anxiety… “The sky is falling down”… I have to find a way back to controlling this problem that I struggled with most of my life… I don’t want it to come back full-time again!)
 
While my neighbour friend was visiting, she told me that the old man in the house behind ours had passed away in the morning.  I felt so sad that I’d not yet visited him.  I was waiting for a gate to be built in my back wall… (when I could afford it) … that would allow me to visit people inside the complex without having to leave my yard on the “scary” street side where I’d have to go around to the main gate.  As easy as that sounds, I just could not find the courage inside of me to do it… leaving my house is hard enough at the best of times.  But I feel a gate in my back wall, leading directly into the interior of the complex would be safer and I am sure that I’d have a better chance of visiting old folk in the complex from time to time then… it would be so good for this heart of mine.  Hearing about the old man passing away before I’d ever had a chance to visit him, reminded me of this very sad poem:
 
Around the Corner
               
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end;
Yet days go by, and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone,
And I never see my old friend's face,
For Life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow," I say, "I will call on Jim,
Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes--and tomorrow goes,
And the distances between us grows and grows.
Around the corner!—yet miles away . . .
"Here's a telegram, sir . . ."
                                                      "Jim died today."
And that's what we get, and deserve in the end:
Around the corner, a vanished friend.
 
~ Charles Hanson Towne
 
I am truly sorry and sad that I let the old man behind me down, as a result of my fears!  I must be braver… I must do better! 
 
Yesterday… yesterday I lost a dear friend, who I had not even met yet and I am so sad about that.
 
A Golden opportunity and a Gift of LOVE from life… LOST FOREVER!
 
And talking about neighbours, I was happy to receive a very beautiful and loving letter from one of my friends, in response to my last blog post about my direct next door neighbours whose car was stolen the other day.  I printed the beautiful letter out and made a stack of scones and put both the scones and the letter on the bonnet of their car early this morning.  I’m sure that must have been a lovely surprise for them when they found it.  I hope it warmed their hearts and took away some of the pain of their recent car theft.  Thank you to the wonderful friend who responded to my blog post… thank you for sharing your love with my neighbours 💖
 
Wool allergy (I’m also very allergic to feathers, dust, etc.)
Colder mornings… I’ve developed almost complete deafness in my left ear for well over a week now and a rushing sound and some ringing, some dizzy days and it’s even causing me to feel very tired… I just want to sit when it’s bad.  There’s even a mild sting inside my ear.  This happens every year when it gets cold… I can’t type with cold fingers, so I put on my wooly gloves… the result… an allergic reaction.  For Mother’s Day this year, I’ve asked my children to all chip in to buy me some leather gloves… or something like that which doesn’t have any wool or fluff on the outside.
 
And on the subject of ears…
 
Grandchild’s song… sets off an ear-worm!
So, one last story to share with you all…  On the 12th April, I attended an evening at church, where Easter was celebrated in music and song, and my granddaughter sang the closing song.  Well, for me it was an emotional evening, because the singing was so beautiful and I was feeling the love of and for all who attended, but, when it was my granddaughters time to sing, my heart was touched so deeply beyond words by her beautiful voice and the lovely words of her song.  How I wish I could share her singing with you all here. 
 
Well, I think that due to the high emotions I experienced, that song got stuck in my head DAY AND NIGHT for 8 days!  I thought I was going to go right off my rocker!  And now that I’ve brought this subject up, I sincerely hope it doesn’t start all over again!
 
I’ve tried to fathom why that happened… but I think it’s because… on my inner-child, Patty level… my granddaughter is living Patty’s dream.  Patty never had the opportunities that my grandchildren are having… Patty never had a parent who encouraged her to become her best.  I honestly believe that when I watch my grandchildren achieving “their greatness”, Patty is sharing it with them in a vicarious way… a delightful way… a happy way.  I cannot tell you how much I love my sons and daughter in laws for being the great parents that they are to my grandchildren.  I value this so much, that it is beyond my ability to express just how much it means to me… I feel overwhelmed with gratitude whenever I try to think about all that my grandchildren are achieving, because of the extra WORK, TIME and LOVE that their parents are putting in for their sake.
 
I think Patty has a dream… she wants me to sing that song with my granddaughter… she wants to live her dream… she wants to feel like she is an amazing somebody also.  Who knows… someday it might actually happen.  (keeping in mind, that if I try to sing in public, my throat goes into a knot and I just can't!)
 
Below I’ve posted a link concerning the ear-worms… I’ve tried the chewing gum… it didn’t work for me… I just ended up chewing in time to the beat of the song going round and round in my head.  I tried concentrating on my work and playing other music… but still the ear-worm stayed… 8 days of the same tune being stuck in my head is a long-long time!  I’ve had ear-worms in the past, but this one was ridiculous!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/21/heres-how-get-song-out-your-head/99264896/
 
Thank you for sharing with me today
 
~ Panayiota