What IS "Normal"? Accepting the Sit & Spin

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"Normal", oftentimes the term/concept, w/ applicable adjustments based on the mandates/edicts of our culture/society; is thrown around w/ such flippant disregard. Whatever happens to be normalcy for you may not be normal to myself or anyone else for that matter (and of course vise versa applies).

It's been suggested "Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine"; if that be the case I can tell you, w/ some conviction, I hit rinse/spin a loooong time ago. 

The challenge I've found in this spin is to remember to sit still w/in it. 

All too often I forget to just simply BE in the moment. For many of us one of our favorite toys as children was the Sit n' Spin; hours of mindless enjoyment simply sitting and spinning in meditative space. Childhood really is one of our best teachers if we're able to remember to embrace (and validate) our own inner child. 

The lesson I've been reevaluating over the last few years is once again learning to hug myself; to validate myself through loving myself.

Even w/ all this stated, 3+ years ago my normal routine was overwhelmingly scattered to the winds of change and I was left frantically attempting to ride out the hurricane force turbulence.  

As often as I speak it, and as well attempt to live it, rather than remembering/acknowledging the impermanace of everything (and living in the moment), I elected to stand in the gale force of it all. I neglected myself w/in my grieving over a 3rd failed marriage and, sincerely, only w/in the last year and a 1/2 have I honestly been getting a better understanding of this mourning period I've been in.

As people close to me will tell you (if you care to ask them) I am very much a creature of habitual nature, I thrive best w/in my own variation of "normal"; while not exactly OCD I function best w/ my premeditated expectations and 90° angles. When my angles become skewed or my "normal" routine gets off balance I get off balance.

Suffice to say, I DON'T accept change very well at all and I rail against it w/ a level of attachment tending to definitively increase my suffering. 

This suffering I refer to is directly related to our longing to be validated by another; a cultural myth many of us suffer due to an unfortunate inability to validate ourselves. 

My marriage validated my existence; or so I thought, and gave me a (misunderstood) raison d'etre (a reason for being). This was an incorrect, unhealthy, invalid way to live my life and inadvertently caused me to become an emotional invalid; almost to the point of agoraphobia at times and definitely w/ a (un)healthy dose of social anxiety to add to everything else.

So I've been attempting to regroup, and frankly up until recently doing fairly well.

Then a new twist comes into play to throw my particular normalcy once again into the spin I'd forgotten I was already in; I now have full custody of my son again (see the tale of this here).

As w/ anything else I neglected self maintenance w/in this transition and so it has tilted my 90° angles a bit. I'm coping but needless to say this IS an emotionally stressful change I did not realize would well up to the surface as it has. 

Trying to remember to pull out the old sit n' spin in my heart and just BE in the moment rather than getting caught up in the chaos of the winds of change. 

The winds are always swirling around us; it's up to us to decide if we'll be blown away by them or embrace them and go fly a kite.

https://youtu.be/oBkSy3dnIY8