Stepping into the Stream of Time/ Thank-You Project

bink and I met to talk about our next Resist-story zine, now the unthinkable has happened. I'm still a bit in shock after the Election one week ago.
"We have to do this again?! Nooooooooo...."

But, yes.
Time to pull up our big girl panties...

NOT a phrase I've ever used before, but I thought of it literally when I got actual new undies at work last week. Size XL. Two new 3-packs of Jockey hipsters, my size, had been donated. Their price sticker still on: $24 per pack.
That's $8 per panty! But Jockeys are nice, all cotton, attractive patterns and colors, and I covet them. (I usually buy whatever brand at Target.)
Linens Lady priced them at $1.99/pack for me––one of the unwritten benefits of the job.

Anyway, bink and I couldn't come up with an idea to get started on.
I think it is too soon, not even a week after the Election.
Nothing has settled down enough, within us. (We didn't make our first Baby's ResiStory until after the inauguration in 2017.)

I. Thank-You Project

But I did start my Thank-You Project, which I'd wanted to do no matter who won the election. It's a much easier thing to do, in theory, but there was the usual membrane between the idea and the action---took me a bit to DO IT.

I'd thought I should design a thank-you card, but decided the cards I've already made are good--especially, for writers, this typewriter card. Here, going to Barbara Scully, c/o her publisher.

Scully is an Irish (Dublin) woman about my age who wrote her first book during Covid, after a type 2 diabetes diagnosis made her sit up and take notice of the health of her body:
Wise Up, Power, Wisdom and the Older Woman.


But it wasn't her book (though I read it later),
it was simply her face, which appeared on my Instagram feed a coupla months ago when I was in Duluth. [Her IG.]
I just loved her gray hair and her lack of pretense and her open smile.
My people have showed up!

Seeing her inspired me to start making my own videos, for a short time, which led me to the important realization that I need to and want to consciously shine light on my own aging--because my mother's light does not serve. To put it mildly.

I haven't written about this--but making the video about that led me to feeling angry at my mother for killing herself--feeling angry for the FIRST time in 22 years!
How's that for a lag time? Talk about a membrane between action and reaction!

I did not say all this to Barbara Scully, I just said thank you for showing up; I share her experience that life gets BETTER after menopause.

Scully is a big ol' extrovert---she's now started doing live storytelling in Dublin. So while I wanted to say thanks, I didn't feel it was important--it was just fun.

II. The Stream of Time

Barbara's was my second; I'd written my first thank-you to someone much more vulnerable--almost an opposite of Barbara––who has sometimes asked for feed-back---a youTuber, Call Me Sam.
Sam is a middle-aged man in Scotland who detransitioned after 20-plus years of living as a trans-woman.

He barely, rarely touches on current gender politics at all (which is not really my interest)---his is a a personal, psychological reclamation project--a journey of personal transformation to find his authentic self after a life of abuse.

He has said that making videos are part of his exploration and transformation, but also he shares them hoping they help other people--and I wanted to let him know that yes, they do, and thank him for them.

I wrote (emailed) that the biggest help I get is the reminder to GIVE IT TIME. He didn't get clear until he had a breakdown in his mid-40s.
And this isn't a reminder to me about my life alone--it's a reminder to give OTHER people time.

An example of how wonderful that can be:
When I told bink that I was angry at my mother (after making that video), she told me she'd wondered if I ever would be. But for twenty-two years, she never said anything---and while it wouldn've been okay if she'd said something gently (NOT "you should"), I huge, huge, hugely appreciate that she never once did.
In fact, bink's ability to stand-by is why we've remained such tight friends all our adult lives.

My reaction was locked rigidly in place, and any suggestion I do it otherwise would have been received as . . . threatening.
I was holding it together to hold my self together.
And that was fine.
If it had never shifted, so what?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about reincarnation.
I just love it! I doubt it's a fact, but it's an extremely helpful story to me--because it's about Giving It Time, big time.

Haven't figured it out in this lifetime?
Eh, that's okay---there'll be endless other lifetimes.

I feel I've figured out... ummmm, I don't know... two? three? things in this life so far.
Maybe it'll snowball here in older age and I'll figure out another couple-few things. Who knows?
It doesn't matter.

Oh--anyway, I want to send paper mail if that's possible, but in this case I wrote to Sam's email (he put it on his youTube channel) saying some of that. 
He wrote back, "How strange the workings of this miraculous Universe where we find ourselves living for a time..."
He had lain awake the night before, doubting himself and his videos... and, "Then this morning, your glorious, heartfelt email telling me they do matter and I should not hide away...".

That was unexpected, and wonderful––to step into the stream of time and arrive at your desired destination right away.
But I don't expect or need that. My thank-you is a response to the people putting their work/selves out there, and I trust it is received even if not replied to.

Both of those people are strangers, and I probably? will keep writing thank-yous mostly to strangers or people who are not in my everyday life.
Sending it out into the world.
I feel, I certainly hope that I have expressed ample thanks and appreciation to people I know in person.

I hope I have said often enough to register, but I'll say it here (and later) again:
THANK YOU to you fellow/sister bloggers and commenters!

I wouldn't have written --almost every day for most of 20 years! (17 in this current blog--with a few years off)--without readers and, most importantly, other bloggers writing alongside, making themselves vulnerable in public.

We're used to it now, but when I first blogged in 2003, it was very scary to be public. (I later deleted that first blog, feeling too exposed.)
And it is a balance--how public to be, about what--and about whom?

At any rate, as Sam says, putting myself out in public has been and remains part of my Discover & Reclaim Project.
I never got obliterated by abuse, but I've certainly been knocked off my pins---or, as Reincarnation suggests, I've certainly met with--and retreated from!-- some difficult karma.
So--shining light on it by writing has been invaluable to me--and hearing other people's stories and thoughts has been huge.

Thank you for listening and sharing.
Love ya! Shine on!
XO Fresca