Growth

A Year with Charlie (more than just a cat story)

/ still a dreamer / 5 Comments

Never underestimate the reason for an animal coming into your life.

I was hoping that the cat I would adopt in late October 2024 would be an “easy” cat. Every animal I’ve ever had was a rescue of some kind or another, often with unique needs. Charlie would finally be the easy cat.

Apparently, that wasn’t the plan.

I knew Charlie’s history, and of a traumatic event that happened while in his previous happy, adoptive home. Despite his people doing everything possible to help him get past it, it didn’t work out. Back in rescue, he was so gentle and easygoing in a roomful of other cats, it could not have been anticipated how that trauma would play out in a new home.

Let’s just say it’s been a long year with Charlie. And we have aways to go yet. That’s OK, we’ll get there, wherever “there” is. He may not be the easy cat I’d hoped for, but he’s the cat who’s meant to be with me … the one who needs me to help heal and teach him, and who I apparently need to help heal and teach me. And he’s also incredibly sweet and lovable.

Why you never underestimate the reason for an animal appearing in your life is that that animal, whatever it might be and however it shows up, is a gift to you.

Some people say, “Oh, it’s just a cat.” Or “it’s just a dog”, asking why I care so much.

No. He’s not “just a cat.” She’s not “just a dog.” They’re fellow beings on this often god-forsaken planet who have come into our lives to grow and love and help us do the same … if we let them.

Take a moment and a long look at your cat or dog (or whatever animal it is) and love them for who they are right now. Let go of who or what you want(ed) them to be, and just see them in their innocence, their willingness to be the best they are able to be. Love them for their scars and their beauty.

Because that’s how they love you.

Room for Growth

/ still a dreamer / 13 Comments

You mean personal growth? In a drawer? Yes. Here’s how.

In the far back of this drawer were several bundles of tableware that I had not so much as looked at in all the years I’ve lived here. Service for eight, plus an odd assortment of spoons and serving pieces. I decided to see if they were worth anything.

After appraisal, there was one lone spoon that was sterling silver, for which I got $33.00. That was nice. I let the rest go.

The next payoff came in my taking everything out of the drawer; thoroughly cleaning it all, plus the interior of the drawer itself. With the extra space, I did some happy re-arranging.

Now my life is not just cleaner, but lighter, and has more room. When we let go of what no longer serves us, even in small ways, we have more room, and that’s when we grow.

What have you been doing to allow more room for growth?

Looking to 2025

/ still a dreamer / 7 Comments

2024 has been a challenging year for many.
Be proud of all you’ve accomplished.
All your hard work will support your efforts in 2025.
Choose you;
choose the people who truly see you
and love you as you are.
Happy New Year.

How Much Time for Ourselves?

/ still a dreamer / 6 Comments

Technically speaking, all our time is for ourselves, but when we ask this question, what is implied is how much time for things we don’t have to or should do. How much time for things that make us happy or give us pleasure? And how do we even know where that line is?

The bottom line is (speaking for myself), I am not getting any younger and there are things that are important to do, even if reading a book is one of them, or sharing time with like-minded people. There is always the reality that an income needs to be made, a house kept up, animals cared for, but what about the rest?

Raised in a society that firmly believes in a strong work ethic (which is fine to a degree), we are also often raised to believe that we should always be busy, “doing something” (meaningful is the implication there), and enjoy our reward at the end of the day or perhaps on the weekend. But what about if we toss our schedule and sit and read a book for a few hours smack dab in the middle of the (work) day? Or write? Or draw? Is that tyranny? Punishable by guilt?

Personally, I’m very tired of the restraints that are so incorporated in our brains that they became our reality. But that’s just the old reality we were raised with. I want to create a new reality. I am ready for the book you see here – it’s about changing everything and the way we perceive it and how we live and how we can heal ourselves. It requires learning, understanding, and focusing in a way that we were never taught, or even knew existed in those formative years. Change.

How much time is really for me? For ourselves? Why not change the equation?

Finding A Unicorn

/ still a dreamer / 14 Comments

Maybe this should be titled Finding the Unicorn Within. I’m not sure. I do know we all have that uniqueness inside us, that thing that makes us special and rare. Even while we know that at our most essential level, we are all the same.

Adapting to leaving an organization to whom one has devoted so much of her time, life, and energy after 35 years has proven a very different change than I expected. From the still-getting-used-to my not needing to be at my desk at 9 a.m. to the fact that my day is completely mine to structure, to the alarmingly slow realization that my creativity is completely mine to unearth and explore … it’s been a sea change.

I began sorting through years of accumulated work samples, tossing most, saving some, all in the interest of making my work space reflect where I am now and where I am going now. I rediscovered an Inspiration folder that I’d created for ideas, and inside it was a quote that I have always loved. So, as I continue to evolve daily into a newer and brighter self, I share the quote with you, from The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

1495-1505 – “The Unicorn Is in Captivity”, one of the “Hunt for the Unicorn” tapestries, housed in The Cloisters, NYC

“It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is. There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I took you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you took me for a clown, a clod, or a betrayer, and so I must be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes.

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still, I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference `twixt the two – the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.”

~ Schmendrick the Magician
The Last Unicorn