Relationships

I’m waiting at Manila airport for an overnight to go home. It’s been a whirlwind 3 weeks in Indonesia, Malaysia and The Philippines. I have lost count of the number of intense conversations, helping people sort out their lives and finances.

Now as we board the final flight I am so excited to be going to familiar faces and places. Growing up “home” was a place we avoided at all costs. It was violent and unpredictable. Home today is so different.

I have discovered over the years that “home” can also be a relationship with a friend, a happy place, a favourite coffee shop.

Who or where do you feel most at home?

Trying to convince myself that I will be okay thru this breakup is becoming a challenge for me. Loving someone with a mental illness and having one of your own is a journey that has my heart torn and my mind exhausted. I have faith at times that I will be okay but then fear sets in for the times when I will be alone without that person beside me regardless of their behavior. My mental health is top priority to me because of my experiences I have had. Emotional abuse has been part of the journey in this relationship, but I have pushed forward accepting it for the simple fact that they have an illness like me and are human as well. I do not know what emotions I have caused for them but know having bipolar is an emotional rollercoaster. Manic episodes and depression are no cake walk. The belief I will find love again is there as well but maintaining self-love and care is something I must focus on. Praying for hope and faith to stay by my side and light and love to lead the way.

Those of you Mightys who are seniors like me (I'm 70), may remember back in 1966 when Simon and Garfunkel recorded 'I Am a Rock' on their Sounds of Silence LP.
Recently, I heard it and it made me wonder about my fellow Mightys. How many of us live as a rock, in solitude.

Here are some of the lyrics.

🎶A winter's day in deep and dark December. I am alone. Gazing from my window to the streets below, on a freshly fallen shroud of snow. I am a rock. I am an island.
I've built walls, a fortress deep & mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship. Friendship causes pain. It's laughter and loving I distain.
Don't talk of love. I've heard the word before. It's sleeping in my memories. I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved, I never would have cried.
I have my books and poetry to protect me. I am shielded by my armour. Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock. I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.🎶

Solitude will never mean living a life without pain. Paul Simon's effective use of an extended metaphor compared a human to a rock. And that life with the characteristics of a rock could prevent the pain caused by the human aspect of living. He's lonely and alone, yet still avoids friendships and other types of relationships.
Being an island means "I'm strong. I don't need anyone. I can get thru things by myself."
(Isolation and emotional detachment)
However, in 1664, John Dunne penned that "no man is an island. He explores the idea of the connectiveness of people. That people are not isolated islands. That we are all part of a larger thing, and if one person dies, everyone is affected. It's actually been psychologically proven that people do depend on each other.
Rocks don't have feelings.
We're not rocks.
We do have emotions.

Maybe it's something to ponder. What do you think?

See the mud sticking to his kingly clothes but He doesn't care. His focus is on the person.

As a kid my mom would Always quote "people are more important than things".

I would roll my eyes like any proud trouble-maker but at a young age I stuck to that phrase. Every person mattered to me and that is why I had everyone in my grade as a friend. It was more when it came to my siblings that I struggled lol

My mom is a Speech-Language Pathologist. She helps new parents learn to properly feed their newborns and toddlers, helps kids learn to speak the correct way, helps with all behavior problems, teaches families to communicate with their learning disabled kids and gives a voice to anyone and everyone.

We always butted heads when I was younger. Her and are are much more alike that we sometimes want. Since having my body going way down hill and worse in confusing ways with constant severe pain, she has stepped up and I have worked HARD to bridge our divides. Our relationship is better than ever though we once in a while have disagreements still.

I know our relationship is complicated but I can't help seeing Christ in how she lives her life.

Grudges are her biggest struggle though forgiveness comes incredibly easy to me as understanding everyone has always been something I have wanted most of all. It is why I am pretty good at writing because I want everyone to understand everything I do and the life I live.

Christ knows each of our struggles and strengths. He went through everything we have and will go through as He suffered in Gethsemane and bled from every pore from the pain of it all.

He is our elder brother and our best friend who just Gets it.

In a world when no one else has exactly our struggles, I can see how vital it was that Christ bridge that divide so that each problem we have had, He has all the answers.

We are all the single most important thing to Him and to God. Each of us!
What a gift!

His love is unconditional and perfect. Who better to be our Savior than Christ?
What a priceless gift just for us.

He doesn't care if we are dirty, dressed in the least fancy clothes. He doesn't care if our hair is not clean or wild. He doesn't even care if our house is not perfectly clean or organized.

He loves us for who we Are and who we can become. Riches are not important to Him.

The lowliest soul in the room is the one he would check on first.

And even one who is a God among men.

Nothing makes me find calm, peace, and feeling loved more than when I ponder on Jesus Christ 👑

#CheckInWithMe #MightyTogether

Happy Earth Day everyone. I have been here just a few weeks now. My name is Dany (she/her/they), 58, married lesbian. I have insulin dependent type 2 diabetes (although in todays new understanding, I should have been type 1.5). Diabetes affects everything and is affected by everything, hmm sounds familiar since Fibromyalgia is the same. So I have lots of fun with that. So, I was 24-26 when I got the diagnosis for Diabetes. I only got the fibromyalgia diagnosis in January 2020, after having knee replacement surgery in January 2018. I had no idea that I had Fibromyalgia until the surgery turned it up full blast! Both my full blood sisters have it. But it wasn’t something we spoke about. I’m the oldest and went to live with dad, they stayed with mom. It was only in adulthood that I got to know them. And we lost one in 2009.

I would like to talk about Fibromyalgia and grief. 2020 was a bad yr for most of us, but I lost my dad, my best friend, the son I helped raise (previous relationship), then my mom in 2022. Plus I move 500 miles last June. I’m from Central Virginia and now I live 11 miles from Lake Ontario. Grief itself is a flair trigger and grief comes in waves, unexpected. Tracking my flairs becomes hard because it’s not always a traditional trigger. My blood sugar affects and it is affected by my pain. I have now tinnitus, which I have been able to correlate with my pain levels, the higher and intensity of my ear ringing, the higher my pain levels are.

So that’s a lot to unpack 😁
the photo was three days ago