Thursday, June 27, 2013

Big Life Changes

I had an Al-anon slip right before went left for Colorado & wrote an angry letter to our daughter. I usually just sit with my feelings, feel them & move on, but I felt like I needed to say the things I did. Either way, it's in the past, I can't change it & she responded in a positive way, so I guess we'll work from there.

Our trip to Colorado was amazing. I got along with all of my in-laws, they were so happy to see us & we were thrilled to just be there & participating in family-type stuff. Our granddaughter is beautiful, flirty & already such a character. We did a lot of thinking on our drive out there, during the trip & on our way back. We decided that we have never liked living where we are, that we came here to help my mother deal with my grandmother (who passed away in 2008) and since my husband will have 20 years at his current employer in 2015 (after which he has maxed out his rate of pay for retirement, meaning he will earn whatever he is making in 2015 on his retirement), we will be leaving & moving back home. We have started to save all of our non-essential income (everything that doesn't get used for bills, gas & groceries), agreed we won't be buying anything non-essential & have cut way back on food costs in the hope that we can buy a home when we get there. We plan to make at least one trip out there before the move to house-hunt & job search (more like do interviews & so on, hopefully), so that we have a place to actually move into and income being generated after we get there. Our son will be going with us, as well.

We haven't told anyone here about our decision. We aren't sure how they'll take it & we don't want to deal with all of the anger & guilt trips that we're sure people will try to lay on us, so we'll just wait.

Other stuff.. religiously, I recently read an article that describes my beliefs perfectly:

“Secular Paganism is not a religion; it is an ethical view of the world, based on the belief that Nature is sacred and must be respected and treasured. Secular Pagans hold many of the same views about Nature that religious Pagans and many people of other religions do. Secular Pagans believe that we are a part of Nature, not her master. There are no particular religious views connected with Secular Paganism.” ~ Abby Willowroot

And for me, also explains the conflict I've been having within myself when I lead or participate in ritual. I'm just not feeling it, and I don't think I ever really did. I think I've been trying awfully hard to make myself feel it, but I'm just not succeeding & I feel like I've been living a lie.

I don't believe in "magick" or deities, I don't feel the energy in circles everyone else claims to feel or what they say they feel in stones & what have you. I know if a house is haunted or if something bad has happened somewhere, or if someone is a sketchy individual, but it doesn't take a religion to tell me that.

I'm tired of ritual and all of the going through the motions. I think I'm more a person who would prefer to mark the changing seasons in my own way, with a meal or changing the decor in my home or whatever. It's more personal & meaningful to me that way. So, I stepped down as High Priestess today, and I feel free finally.

Foodwise? I made it to about 40 days abstinent & then started gradually slipping away. I didn't have a solid food plan & wasn't paying attention to my old habits. I'm signed up with SparkPeople again, counting my calories and taking care of myself. Progress not perfection.

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