It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way that you carry it.
What kind of load are you carrying around today?
I believe we each carry something, in one form or another.
Yet, even the heaviest loads are bearable – if we carry them correctly.
So don’t get carried away by the burdens of your life.
The Serenity Prayer is helpful, especially if we practice it and apply it.
(The refrain of “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen also comes to mind, but I’ll spare you!)
Join in the Fray: What burden do you need to let go?
The Swirl World Team is committed to sharing 365 days of inspiration in 2015. Our goal is to help you stay motivated and inspired by bringing you positive, uplifting images and corresponding thoughts.
We’d love to FEATURE YOU in one of our Inspiration Daily posts! If you’d like to be featured, please send a nice, clear photo to InspirationDaily@TheSwirlWorld.com.
Copyright ©2015 Michelle Matthews Calloway, ASwirlGirl™, The Swirl World™, The Swirl World Podcast™, The Swirl World Inspiration Daily™, Swirl Nation™, All rights reserved. Photo used with permission.
I concur with your mother 100%. Indeed, haven’t been the same.since.
I’m in awe, trying to imagine what it would be like to see the last breath of the person who birthed you. My Mother was with my Grandmother when she passed away. One thing she says is that it was so painful to experience, yet she felt so privileged. Needless to say, she’s never been the same and I’m sure the same is true for you. <3
I was there for my mother till literally the end. held her hand as she passed on, in her apartment, which became a home hospice after she left the hospital, they could no longer really do anything for her. That lasted but a week. One of my life’s most profound experiences.
The BW was an aspiring actress. So maybe she made up the whole story? I am pretty sure she was not keeping her jobs, she told me of a few restaurants she worked at as a maitre d, and i’d not see her there for long. I got the feeling she just couldn’t see why her bosses would not yield to her superior intelligence and do things the way she wanted them done. Flake is probably mrs like it, but good either way that i didn’t get involved, all the temptation aside. Thanks for the reference, i’ll try to make time to listen.
So sorry about your Mom and your brother. You’re not responsible for her physical issues or decline; I know you know that and I also totally get feeling responsible in some way. I believe that sense of feeling responsible stems from the helpless we feel in cases like that – surely we can do something, right? The truth is that we can’t; aside from making sure they receive medical care and being there with them as they go through it. I left Dallas and moved back to Louisiana because I wanted to be closer to my parents. I wanted to enjoy them while they are still in relative good health, and not have to be “forced” to come home. Prior to moving back I visited regularly, of course, and made sure to come home for holidays. Even so, I just felt it was time to come home and be more readily accessible. Would I like to live in a another state – another country? Sure, but right now this is where I need to be and I’m ok with that. Kudos to you for being there for your Mother – that means everything.
I have to say this BW sounds like a bit of a flake. It could also be she was simply scared! Not a cool way to handle it either way, but I think you kinda dodged a bullet. When a person decides to date/marry interracially, they have to take the plunge – and take a stand. You have to be willing to put yourself out there; make a decision and just go for it. It takes some people longer than others, yet either way a decision has to be made. Not taking action is also a decision! You know what – listen to the podcast we did with a guy named Rod, who’s from Birmingham, AL. He met a BW on his job and kept asking her out. She put him off, but eventually went out with him. To read the blog posts and listen on your podcast player of choice, click here. Listen to the podcast and let me know what you think.
Got you. Well, a bit hard for me to forgive myself for hanging on to that relationship/marriage even in the face of mounting physical abuse. I’ll have to try harder. I have forgiven myself for the breakup, initially i thought i just didn’t do enough to prevent it, i’ve since realized it would have been very foolish to prolong it. As far as being in the desert since then, i do get mad at myself some times for not doing the right things since then, but who’s to say what the right things were? And in any event, much of my emotional energy from April ’97 to June ’08 was directed towards helping my mom cope after my brother died (at only 54), leaving me as the only other member of our immediate family, as she went through breast cancer and then a worsening heart problem. She died at almost 98. She was already pretty out of it mentally when this period started, and it only worsened. Nothing i could have done about that. So i should try to forgive myself for the lack of progress during that period.
Regarding the BW. She was the one who suggested we exchange contact info and go out some time, to my utter astonishment, she was gorgeous and smart. We then started having those long phone conversations. When i’d bring up going out (like for coffee or tea), she kept saying she wanted to wait till things got more stable with her job. Well, turned out it wasn’t the same job. She couldn’t hold a job for over a month, went through a bunch of them. And that was the story before i met her. Like i said smart, a Cal graduate, an artist, was working jobs while awaiting a big breakthrough, and could never accept taking orders. I respect strong-willed people, but realistically you’re not gonna have a job in which you make all the decisions till you’ve done it a long time. She was used to calling all the shots, i think, her parents were academics. So after a year and a half of whatever we had, she told me she was filing for SSI, and then a few months later she moved to the East Coast to live with her mother, working as an academic in a new location. Eventually she moved out on her own, we maintained phone contact for several years. She told me that she considered coming over to my place with a bottle of wine right before she moved, but didn’t. Hmm. Probably a good thing we didn’t get involved. She would have more or less been the most attractive woman i ever went out with, aside from the first BW i dated (more or less about the same level of attractiveness for me), so it’s too bad, but oh well. Who knows? Maybe that entire story was made up by her.:-)
Jeff, no, not at all! I was saying that failure to forgive yourself can create/lead to more baggage. Not forgiving yourself hinders you from letting go of the mistakes and missteps of the past – which keeps the baggage packed, so to speak.
Your “relationship desert” comment gives me an idea for a future series of posts. And I can’t help but wonder why things didn’t materialize with the BW, especially after all those long conversations???
Michelle, i don’t quite understand, so i better ask first: are you saying that forgiving myself has created some more baggage? For one thing, i don’t think i’ve forgiven myself. Some of the baggage is from the breakup. Then there’s baggage from that relationship itself, i.e. before the breakup. And then there’s baggage from the aftermath, namely the complete lack of anything to replace the relationship aside from a handful of dreary dates and one near-relationship (with a BW) which involved several very long phone conversations and several run-intos in the street, usually right outside my place (she lived in the ”hood), with lots of talk about going out, which never happened, though it had nothing to do with me or another guy. In other words, an aftermath of wandering the relationship desert. Doesn’t seem to be a visible limit on that one.:-)
Jeff, what percentage of your baggage would you say stems from what happened in your relationship, versus forgiving yourself for the things the happened? (Maybe this can be one of your reflection questions).
Need to let go the huge emotional baggage i have from the long-elasped marriage and the 24 years of frustration accumulating since that breakup (whose anniversary is in fact coming up this week). Hopefully some of the physical therapy i’ve bee getting, especially acupuncture, will help, but also kneed to do a lot of introspection work.