want Vs need

We are so inundated by all the materialistic things out there luring us to cave in , sometimes we miss the big picture. I happen live in a country where materialistic market place is so deluged more so than any other country, and we get judged constantly by the stuff we own, as a result.

I think young kids in general take a harder hit & the most vulnerable. Mine are no different. I'm sure having a mom who doesn't go by the cool formula where stuff = love = happiness, makes it even harder for them! Sure, I'd buy them stuff as they need, not necessarily want. You give in to their temporary rush of happiness only to witness the novelty wears off pretty quickly and to do it all over again? Isn't that how we ended up with a generation that is spoiled, bored & materialistic in the first place ???

owning up...

i have never been good at opening up. still not either. one of the very reasons i started to blog was to unleash & may be let go a little. its a work in progress & still struggling to gather everything to share it out here. if you're someone like me who blogs about personal drama , you'd probably can relate to me on some level about how hard it is allow other people see you in distress. and make them see how vulnerable you are.

maybe this is going to be a difficult post than i thought it would. its always hard to accept failure.especially when you know there's some innocent kids depending on you to pull through. while i'll always be there for them, i dont think i can pretend anymore. despite my best efforts, its over & its just not going to work. funnily enough, i think i may have keyed in those words for the first time that i have been so scared to own up & say out loud.

life spells

i learnt pretty early on things aren't always what they really seem. yet every time something doesn’t turn out the way it should, it hurts. i should be immune to this stuff by now, instead of setting myself up for disappointment over & over. why does it always begin to feel familiar like the back of my hand before it blows up in my face ? man i tell you.. that invisible glimmer of hope can be so convincing at first & damningly misleading at the end. may be some things are just meant to be the way they are. laws of cause & effect are teasing me? it just sucks i might not find out until some time later...

going on retreat

..there’s a quaint little place out in Olaboduwa village, just off Gonapola (close to Horana, if i remember right) in Sri Lanka, where you can go on a spiritual retreat. Ayya Khema International Mediation center lies in the midst of rice fields & rubber plantations & holds retreats every first Sunday of the month for anyone who wants to initiate a personal exploration of Buddhism.

this place is run by Aramaya Bikkhuni Kusuma, a fully ordained buddhist nun who was among the few educated women influenced to re-established the therevada bikkuni order in sl. when her mentor, Ayya Khema passed away in ’97, a chunk of the responsibilities was piled up on her & the meditation center was built with the help of donors all over the world. google her or look her up on fb and she even has some pics out of this amazing place. Or check out the link;
http://www.congress-on-buddhist-women.org/index.php?id=71

ok..

i woke up restless. i just knew something wasnt right. called home at the crack of dawn, it turns out he needs a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation done asap. he needs to be watched up close. dr's fear he could unconsciously harm someone around him. "they think its me" , my mother explains quietly, the pain & confusion is so intense i could almost feel it through the line. she's helpless at this point, she just wants to hear me say ok, almost like an alibi, i think. i've heard people say that when you run out of options, you get backed into a wall. i think we may just have stepped into one.. as much as i dread, saving him (mentally) is out of my hands..but i can still save her. and i say ok. so the waiting begins, all over again..

grown up baby steps..

things have improved dramatically. we have been looking past the big elephant looming in front of our eyes for way too long. neither of us wanted to go there. but now i think we both have realized just like any other relationship, ours needs investing. be it time or just little random things, but a genuine effort at that.
we are working things out, just one step at a time. grown up baby steps as my bff jokes :) some days we can see things clearly forever and then some days i just want to kick him you know where. all in all, it boils down to .. i can just sit around all day moping and pitying me or i can get right back up and move on and do the best i can. well i don’t know how things will play out in future but all i can do now is to be absorbed in the present. not to dwell in the past. the willingness to try is, love itself, right? well i think so.

Layers..

a friend sent me this short poem on fb, and now i cant get it off my mind. (its my day off!) what other possible way could i find some tranquility in life especially at a time when my head knows not to go back, but my heart is being tugged & twisted.


"The Layers" ~ Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being abides
from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road is precious to me.

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I'm too not done with my changes,something tells me more awaits...

full circle

All relationships in general, are difficult at times. Over time, the dynamics of any relationship can evolve or change and you've got to work at it. I have seen it first hand growing up and even now just looking around,I see it everywhere. While I'm aware of the non-existence of "perfect relationship" out there, it's tough when it hits home. It feels awful, to say the least. I can rack my brains all day & night for an answer,but it always does a full circle & stops at the same damn place where I first started.

In or Out? I want to choose in because the rational part of me screams that's what a good mother should do and more essentially, my mom never left and she stuck out for me. After all, what kind of a mom would I be, if I take the easy way out?
I want to choose out because I know things would never be the same again. I'd be willing to give yet another go it,because at the end of the day I'd always blame myself for everything. I have a ready made list of excuses..maybe I didn't try harder,may be I should've done that or maybe things will change...maybe someone else has it much harder than I am..and a bunch of "what if's"..

It seems "in" is ganging up on my "out" and I'm back again to where I first started..

floodgates

..flashbacks of random memories just keep flooding back, constantly beckoning with glimpses of the past. it keeps me up all night. for the longest time, i kept shoving them somewhere in my soul not wanting to succumb to any. why would i ? many of them don’t invoke much happiness. somehow they hv now made their way back into my head like an unwanted guest. i carry a lot of guilt around for not being there to help them out now more than ever , physically & emotionally. it’s a feeling i cant describe..just dark & hollow. yet the same time im kind of relieved that im not there to see whats unfolding. seems very selfish. i think in a subtle way or another we (i) interpret what has been endured, through the kind of people we become. well..atleast i know i have.

top of the list..

..only a handful of things have shown the potential to bring happiness in my life. my kids would definitely steal the top spot on that brief list. well..they are great kids. may be thats such a cliche every parent throws in, but seriously i marvel at how well they have turn out in spite of my emotional downpour along the way. knock on wood. you know every time i look at them, they give me this incredible feeling, i have at least got a few things right in my life. no doubt other parents out there can relate to me. i try to raise them smart & well rounded/grounded.
i may not possess the typical mom cutout personality. i try to be brutally honest with my kids as much as i can push it, even if it diminishes their hopes of getting a gift from tooth fairy or running into santa claus some day. or even depriving them from getting something (these days its hsm & webkinz stuff) just because all cool kids in school have it. no nonsense, no fairy fibbing. they dont fly with me. but they get more than their fair share of toys & whatnot's just like every other kid here in the neighborhood just minus the fibbing & nonsense. so far they have responded reasonably well in my favor ..who knows maybe i just got lucky.

ramblings

..start of another week's here. i don't know what it is, but i have been feeling kind of... weird. you know ..sad/not so sad/bizarre/complexed.. may be even incongruous. ha! funny, i didn't even know the existence of such word until a prof. in uni brought it up a few years ago! and now it just slipped out as if i had known it all my life. but it pretty much sums it up.

anyways..i realize i feel kind of abandoned by my husband (i'll call him G from now on) at the same time too, house work is mounting up and i am left alone to tackle everything from kids,school,work & other errands.clearly he can see i could use some help around but he acts oblivious to the whole thing! i have been on his case (ok i nag..who doesn't? ) to give up smoking for a while now and i think i lost it last night when i heard his cigarette cough. maybe i shouldnt have brought it up the first thing on a monday morning, but i did! a brief unpleasant moment later, he left for work banging the door behind him, leaving me even more frustrated. i feel that my life is being directed by my family obligations,work & endless errands, while he gets to go out after work to enjoy a drink with his buddies. totally not fair!! i could just go on and on about this, but the way i see it, the light at the end of the tunnel is too damn far away! maybe this post is really just an excuse to vent out..

also my dad's b'day is coming up soon,im sure he's not aware of it, but im going to call & wish him a happy birthday anyway.

ironic

..its been 3 or 4 days since i last called home. as much as i'd want to check in on my parents, i dread what im going to be filled in on. its always something. maybe im just being selfish & trying to run away. well..who wouldnt? its a lot to wrap my head around in...every time i drop the phone down,i slip into my crappy-depressed mood. not pretty. it takes a lot of work to fight off the uneasy feelings, but i think i have a better grasp of things than i had in the past. i digress.

today's call to sri lanka was no different. the situation has not changed. in fact its gotten much worse since i last heard. my mother cant get out of the house even for an errand without his "permission". she's now trapped in the house,captivated by my father,who's now partly blind and ironically, depends on her to get on with just about anything in his daily life. how twisted is that? i was quick to blame his recent erratic behavior on the medication,since his doctor switched some meds around on the last visit. but i can hear the pain in my mother's voice and it kills me to no end that she cant ever get a break. my father sounds lucid for the most part when i talk to him. he's consciously aware of his surroundings, although he still rambles some stuff here & there. if you talk to him for a while, you'd think he's just another normal person,just eager to recover. but in reality, he just despises my mother! he flares up at the slightest thing & calls her names & accuses her of unthinkable. it gets so loud at times, she tells me, that you could just hear his rantings all the way down the street.

..just when i was sighing things seem a less chaotic, out comes another blow shredding my hopes into tiny little pieces. ...maybe i already knew it in my heart that things wouldnt stay calmer for long as it had been and it would be only a matter of time before it all falls apart again. i dont know when & how things will end, nor do i have all the answers figured out, but for the first time in a long time, i feel its going to be ok. we have got it down to a pattern, may be not your usual one, but we just need to hang in there...just hang in there..

2009

..as the numbers on the clock slowly pushed their way towards the midnight on the new years eve, a dazzling display of fireworks filled up the night sky, piercing the coldness in the air. the dawn of the new year was quietly welcomed in our house by lighting a lamp for buddha. i try to keep up with the sri lankan traditions here & there but mostly at my convenience. barely five minutes into lighting up the lamp, i caught my youngest playing with the dancing flame and decided to blow it out. so much for keeping up with traditions. woke up late and decided to skip on making kiribath - a traditional sri lankan breakfast made with rice & milk. oh well.. i'd be lucky to sneak in some kiribath to my kids with their fascination with hakuru anyway. (jaggary - chunks made out of sap of a palm tree or treacle)

i have never been the one to buy into the new year hype, much less to honor new year resolutions,. so to save myself the invaine trouble, no vows were made this year. its just as easy to break resolutions as making them, so i really dont see the point. i'd rather revolutionize the bad energy & melancholy that seem to have engulf my life lately, into something positive. so here i am gearing up for all the life's surprises waiting to thrust upon me in the new year....i'd say, bring it on..!!