cat face meows in my human face this morning 7 am i let ruby outside and look up breathtaking blue streaks across the sky as the dark breaks open into soft yellows and wisps of blue and the pony trots closer to us, curious as i cross the land with camera in hand.

a new friend shared with me what Winnie the Pooh characters correlate with the enneagram. she, a delightful curious energetic adventuring 7 is Tigger. me, a 4? Eeyore. i have so been Eeyore. it is here now. that mournful of the past and not just so...also replaying things said, what i could have said, what i can say now even though it's over. this has been the brain loop playing since my conversation with my dad. a miraculous interaction in that he didn't hang up on me. he stayed on the phone and we spoke for the first time ever about our relationship. and then there's this: the same words from him, from ex R and ex A: "you require too much" and that is, indeed, a characteristic of the Love Addict, to have unrealistic expectations triggered by a fear of abandonment and needing constant reassurance, more acutely felt by those avoidant addicts who tend to feel uncomfortable expressing emotions or aren't even in touch with them and for some--it just doesn't matter. my dad kept saying "most people do not talk about their feelings." or "most people do not engage with each other" this view of the world was his reason to make something wrong with me for having feelings and wanting those feelings seen heard acknowledged. as a kid it is painful to have feelings and needs and to be told you are wrong not only for the content of the feeling and need but that you have them at all. it was confusing because he said his love was not conditional but then told me these things that were wrong with me that justified him not speaking to me...so aren't those conditions? me being too "needy" i guess is one. the other was in college, something like "you had come to the conclusion that you were the most enlightened person on earth." well, i was expressing views different from his and was passionate about it. of course, i was young arrogant and naive, too but i am HUMAN. i bet if i had expressed with as much vehemence ideas that conformed to his world view he would not have had a problem. it was that i was sticking up for gay people and saying my hair was my own to decide what length it would be. and if not being able to tolerate hearing a view different from your own justifies not speaking to your own daughter, who is the one who is self-righteous? i don't know...

what can i do? here's what benjamin smythe says this a.m.

Anything you think someone else is thinking about you is testable. Ask them. If they are, welcome to a free world. If you have a problem with it, stop believing it. If you can’t stop believing it, welcome to your problem.


this is true. and there is also a need for some tenderness, gentleness. because it's my fucking father, ya know, and there IS, understandably, a lot of hurt there. and yes, i am learning, as my friend Shawn Luby beautifully sang last night in a song about his inspiring grandmother, that "she always warned me that her love couldn't hold me...i'd need to find strength on my own."

would have been nice to have gotten that Love from my parents, but this reminds me even if i'd had the deepest Love comes from within...of course would have been more easy to touch and tap into if i had gotten that as a kid. and what can i do about the past...nada. it's my responsibility now.

actually...my responsibility but not mine. i can stop trying so hard and let it flow through me. God. Mother. Love. a power greater than me.