patterns . . .
by mulberryshoots
How do patterns change? Are we creatures of habit all our lives? I know people who have eaten the same breakfast for over fifty years. I’m not one of them. I like to change it up with freshly blended smoothies sometimes. Soft-boiled eggs from the farm with a little dab of oyster sauce like my Dad used to have. Sometimes, the fat side of those big sandwich size Thomas’s English muffins, toasted crisp with sweet butter and some Rose’s orange marmalade. You can see I’m picky about the brands that I use. Those are some of my patterns.
What about patterns that are petty, dumb and that are aggravating? Like noticing when someone takes the best slices of the tomato and leaves you the ends. Or, wanting time and attention when things are going crazy with other important stuff but you’re feeling miffed and neglected all the same? I know someone whose end of the day drink is always Campari and soda with ice clinking in the glass. I used to be a dry martini on the rocks drinker when I was working 90 hours a week but not anymore. All we can manage these days is to split a can of Miller Lite beer poured into frosty glasses from the freezer where the beer also chills until we’re ready to sit down for dinner.
I’ve been noticing that I don’t like some of my patterns that are throwbacks to when I was a kid and was either scared or unhappy. I’m neither scared nor unhappy now but it’s hard to let go of those patterns of feeling that way anyhow. What a dumb thing that is, isn’t it? That’s one pattern that needs to go, pronto.
mulberryshoots 
This is a difficult one. Sometimes I am not so sure we can change our feelings, although I believe we can change how we choose to respond to those feelings, which may or may not result in a change in how we feel at some point. One thing I know about my “pattern” is that your posts are going to provoke some thought in me, and cause me to reflect and examine, even if I don’t reply. I appreciate that quality in your writing.
And, I don’t think it is dumb at all–our childhood years make deep and lasting impressions on us. That does not mean we can not change, or are forever bound to those thoughts, feelings, and experiences, for we can create new ones. What is important, I think, is to acknowledge the presence of those experiences in our life without those experiences being who we are and how we define ourselves if that identity no longer serves a useful purpose for us. One of my favorite sayings: “Doors opening, doors closing. I am safe, it’s only change” (Louise Hay).
When I read your work, I feel connected to my higher self, and in that space is where I can be who I choose to be. Thank you.
Please accept my warm thanks for your comments. Recently, I have felt a little discouraged about the blog, thinking that I keep writing about the same things. Or that my petty concerns and frustrations with life are too self-centered to be written about, much less any help to anyone else. . . thus, the lapse since I wrote about “temple food.” I agree with your observations too: in that we can’t really stop our emotions from being what they are, but that we may decide to react differently from the way we are used to handling, or not handling things very well.
I wish we could be friends. As many respond to my intensity as having too much energy. It’s too late for me to be any other way. I appreciate your solace more than I can say.
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