Well, gentle souls, I am in a grateful but challenging moment. A blogger I follow asked me to guest blog several articles for her site on PsychCentral, which is a wonderful honor. I was so pleased she asked!

However, she kind of thought I already had my own blog — which I don’t. It’s hard to post a link to my blog when there isn’t one!

So now this has given me the push to proceed blogward, which has, naturally, brought up anxiety and a host of other less pleasant visitors. Anxiety brought squatters!

This is a blessing in some ways while a challenge in others. I am working through the emotional squatters, using it as an opportunity to make more forward motion, as opposed to reaching for a can of emotional bug spray and blasting them to oblivion. I am reminded of Diane and the poem she posted by Rumi about welcoming such visitors, difficult though they be.

So, it is scary and exciting and…it needs a name as the one I had my heart set on is unavailable in any useful permutation.

I see this as a threshold kind of moment, and I am grateful to be moving into this in the newness of the year.

Thank you, Diane, your words touch my heart. Yes, I would love to have you as a reader! If everyone who has said they will follow does, it will be like going to meet old friends!

The anxiety producing part is, strangely, not the writing and the going forward but rather has roots in the past. My life is largely centered around healing and growth, as will be the blog. As my story of my healing journey emerges through connecting to others, I will be breaking the injunctions to silence that were placed on me many years ago. Like I said, old roots. I suppose it does not help that the woman who asked me to guest blog actually DID have her parents go after her and attempt to force her to shut down her blog. Not that I think that likely, but it is a big step just to speak up, really. So yes, candles welcome! Light me a Menorah, if you feel like it! 😉

In the end, though, it is really just more opportunity to practice dealing with anxiety. The likelihood of drama over it is likely not as large as it seems in imagination. I shall just have to be grateful for the opportunity to practice!

Those of us who struggle with ongoing health “stuff” know how non-mundane that experience of your day really is! The things that people without those issues take for granted are indeed much larger when they surprise us with joy over what we could do.

This letting go of those we love to face whatever their day or life may bring…it is so not easy. Doesn’t the Universe know that I am supposed to control everything that happens to, in, or around my loved ones so that nothing bad may ever come near them? And also so I will not have to face what I fear I could make it through? Doesn’t it KNOW this?? Who set this lack of control arrangement up, anyway??

Sigh.

You are not alone. I am working on this issue and its attendant anxiety, too.

This morning, I had more practice. I got a call from my husband when he finally got to work telling me how the roads between there and here were covered in black ice, how he almost slid off the road just south of our house, how the parking lot was a sheet of ice…and so on. I was glad to hear he was safe, but sheesh!

It took me back to when we lived in the DC area, and his morning, “I’m here!” call as well as his first answers to “How was your day?” at end of day was invariably a recounting of how many near misses he’d had on his drive to and from in DC traffic. (Lemme tell ya, they are known as the rudest drivers in the country for a reason!!)

In addition to the slippery roads, another anxiety trigger arose last night. (I wrote about this one in my blog, though it is not published yet.) A woman at my husband’s work was let go. Most of the team does not know why, and it seemed sudden. This has nothing to do with my husband, of course, but it was a trigger for me anxiety-wise because of how sudden and unexpected his job loss nearly ten years ago was. The memories of the struggles that followed are not yet mist as we are still dealing with some of the effects.

Ah, well, as my pastoral counselor reminds me, this is all an an opportunity to practice the skills I have been learning. She says the same thing to herself, by the way. 😉

HUGS to you in your anxiety, dear Diane. HUGS.

So now it seems the Universe is giving me a reminder of old anxieties and asking what I shall do with them this time.

Oh, Ricardo, I am sorry for this news. It is always so hard to lose our beloved fur family members.

I believe that they never really leave us, it is just that their bodies wear out. Spirits, however, never do. I know with my animals, I still often feel them with me, or perhaps a reminder is sent to me that is unmistakable.

It is a hard and painful change when we cannot pat them any longer or scritch behind a so soft ear, but it is a change rather than an absolute loss. Bobo’s body will go, but her love will be with you always.

Hugs to you and your family. I know how hard this is.

Oh, I could bore you to statue with Tomato Talk! There are so many wonderful ones out there. Try Gold Medal next to Cherokee Purple on a platter. Wowzers!

I found one of our absolute favorites through love for a dear woman who was my spiritual grandmother growing up. Her name was Aunt Ginny, so when I saw Aunt Ginny’s Purple as a name, I had to have it. (Purple in tomatoes is a WIDE ranging term! This one is more a deep pink.)

Although I cannot recall her growing tomatoes, so I know it was not hers, the variety turned out to be much like her. It is sweet, solid, a super tough reliable performer, and an abundant blesser of fruit! It is a perfect all rounder, early for a beefsteak, produces all season, and works well for multiple uses — sandwiches, salads, canning, sauces, salsa…you name it!