Shibui Found Image Art by my dear friend, Gina Labrecque. Very beautiful!

Good morning! May love and laughter find you! Yup! Coffee at the ready! The sun with clouds is out there today!

I am finding myself thinking about people, why we do the things we do. That we do entangle ourselves with others, and not all of the ways we entangle ourselves with others is what we should be doing to live happy lives. Somehow, we forget to “not be overly involved.”

We spend more time evolved with others than we do the taking care of the self and meeting our own needs. I think we get so wrapped up in all we do, that we feel there is no time for self. Certainly, felt that way for me as a young mother and wife. I was a farmwife and farm life requires a lot of attention with little time left to think about the self, your called to duty at the whim of what needs to be done. Between, being the wife and mother, farm wife there was little time to be the artist or writer. We are affected by the choices we make. Instead of going to art school I married. I became entangled with the choices of my first husband. It was a partnership I told myself. One that set my interest on the back burner. He did not know how to help me with my dreams, nor did we have money to go there. When I went to art school, things had become so bad the relationship ended. It ended in part because I had learned I could “do it!” on my own. Art school required that I live in a dorm reality, do student work so I was earning money, doing my classes, making friends! I was independent in my early thirties in a way I had never bed. I was entangled in new things that made me feel alive! I had found others who were like me, they thought like I did and had the same interest.

This did not make my family less important, so I struggled to be the best with all that I did to be mom and student. Being the full-time farmwife was set aside. I arranged my schedule to have the most time with kids, and still do classes. I did homework after they went to bed; I caught up housework and took them to their friends. Busy life!

Life became less busy when the kids became adults. I was able to turn to me. Kids get to a point where they need you when they need you, and if you wait for time for yourself, you’re not doing things for the self. Giving yourself the go ahead to detangle from being the mother is not easy as that mother hat pops right back on when even your adult children feel they need you. The tendency can be to set your own plans aside and support your adult child. This is something we should give more thought to! Our children will simply have to find another way to solve what they need to do or want to do, if we say no to them. I did not say no, I helped many times stopping or slowing down my own dreams and using my time for something else other than me and my second husband doing things. We always helped financially and babysitting so that my daughter in this case could become more, do more and have a better life. I did not regret this until I was ghosted by her.

Being ghosted has made me think of my choices. How I have looked at life, what I have done, and the time I have spent on being impacted by the entanglements I have accepted as the adult. It’s like living life in a pinball machine.

I think of how we don’t take time to clarify what we want our lives to become. I get tired of what amounts to overthinking. This results in not doing.

It’s not a bad thing to create a good family life. But there is more to it, the foundation of family life is the starting point, and living life branches out from it. One of those branches is about meeting our own needs, the basic needs humans have. So much time and effort is given to this, according to who we are and what we do in life. We get together when we can and touch base. We get together with friends as friends are important.

To do things that make us feel happiness and have health we reach out into the world and do things. Yet, what quality of life have we obtained. How can we make life richer, better, more fulfilling and when do we do that in the mix of things? Where is the balance? We are back to making choices, and having an order of importance with the decisions we make.

Getting older, having adult children___ I find that this is the time to do more for me! At last! I can turn in that direction rather than waste my time being sad and depressed about being ghosted. That is indeed my daughter’s problem to solve. I am given no reasons. I get broadsided, and there are times of hurt and anger. I don’t want to go back to how things were. I have taken a look at that. It was me setting myself aside when I needed to focus on me more. Instead of parenting grandkids, I could have worked on art and have generated income from that. Hindsight again.

Those years after kids go out on their own. Adults have to continue to meet their own needs. Too many years picking up the slack for an adult child____ without tending to the self and your foundational family, you and your husband. Someone takes it on the chin. The husband and yourself if you do not keep supporting adult children in balance. It’s about time, what we do with that time. Time moves very quickly!

You can work a lot and not have time with family; you can be the built-in babysitter or weekend babysitter. And when you do these things for the reason of showing love. The choice made is family first. I am not saying that is wrong. It felt right at the time I made that choice. But when you do so much for someone, and no real appreciation is shown for your efforts, things are colored by doubt and regret. The argument is there is no one else! This seems so. But what if I had not? That outcome is unknown. If I had been underway and not always on the verge of starting my own artist life, things may have been different because like anyone else in the world I would be working and therefore not available. Other choices would likely have been made.

I did not know how to take control of my life. Part of the ghosting I think is because I was taking charge of me and would not be available as I had been. It becomes now or never at this point in my life. I was determined to be independent! It was impossible to be an artist or write in the middle of a family. It did not work when I was a mother with small kids. I may have had the in-law after Thomas died but I was to available.

I could not count on my time to do art, as it would change according to her needs, and out of habit I was back to putting her first.

I don’t have all the answers. But I do know what I need to do now rather than live a life of hurt and not doing the things important to me. It is normal to separate from our children so we can live life to and not for them totally or nearly totally. Our adult children need to learn their way forward too. If you do support you need to think of what works for you, how much time is given and if its appreciated, so you don’t feel used. So that it does not feel one sided.

Ghosting someone robs people of family, of memories, of feeling supported, of sharing life with people who you have made important to you. My daughter is a mother too, and so she should understand what it took to be the mother. She knows all I did for her! My life is forever changed, and I need to make sense of it. I need to meet my own needs and do the things I had put on hold. Whoever wants to be a part of my life will be. I simply need to become all I can be for myself now. If I do nothing it means a lonely, depressing life where I fail to see what’s good.

I hope this makes sense to others. It’s long I know, and for some the length will be ok because of the thoughts. I write about things so that others know they are not alone. Ghosting is a phenomenon at this time. So, I learned by researching it.

I have come to a point where I am beginning to look at my part in the why of this. Not overindulging in thinking it so my emotional self keeps hurt going. Instead, I am stepping outside of myself and looking at the patterns of my choices and not fall into self-blame. I want to break the cycle. I do not see myself as someone who can’t do. I can do; it may not be how I used to do things. But I can figure life out and not be afraid to try! The body is not the mind!

Best wishes! Pejj Nunes