cheesey phrases i quietly used

1. Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail (takes you down….), you’ll end up in the stars (builds you up!)

2. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. (shifts focus to present)

3. Take responsibility for your actions. (duh)

4. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength. (repeat)

5. Words like water are easily poured but impossible to recover. (Mr. Patience Of A Flood!)

6. The true journey of life consists not of seeking new landscapes but of having new eyes. (appreciate)

 

I had a dream about my mom earlier in this semester where I said, “You’re an atheist! Admit it!” Accompanying that shout was a small feeling of being unhooked. I talked to Mom spa-side tonight, me in the spa and her in a deck chair, and I ended up saying the basic mottos I got from our family over the lakehouse Spring Break stay.

-Don’t do weird things.

-Don’t do things that stand out.

-Make sense.

She nodded with a sort of deliberating/burn-the-witch expression on her face. Then her gaze moved around like lots of inner tumble motivated it.

“Whatcha thinking?” I asked and pined to know.

Her face suddenly clouded, she frowned, and glared at me.

“I think about lots of things.”

Shortly thereafter she goodnighted her presence from me.

This is something that has happened before, because I recall the feeling memory of open approach and this… hateful… slashing… of my outreach. I mean, there was nothing behind my question, no manipulative or malicious motives, but the way she suddenly recoiled. I had no idea what I’d done. What came to mind as I floated around afterwards was that maybe the last person she trusted was my dad, and that didn’t turn out so well. Then I remembered watching home videos of them together, and she had still been pretty surly, guarded, and sharp in those. Then I thought it might have started with the parents, Grammy and Grampy, good citizens enough but not stellar examples of communicating inner state. And from whom had they learned their habits? Their own family, somewhere in the Depression. Then, as I bobbed in the water, I actually said out loud, “People lived in the Depression and didn’t turn out like that. Some of them know how to talk about things.” They weren’t even very deprived or poor, from what I know. I thought, it’s possible for your heart to survive time.

So I still don’t necessarily have an answer of where it began, and that’s not entirely pertinent to the present (although I am curious)… but golly gee damn, does anyone have any perspective on this? I’m trying not to let this damage me, i.e. carrying on bad comm. habs. Saying “comm. habs.” is more fun.