New to Austin: Reflection 1988

I moved to Austin the summer after my 8th grade year.  My eldest sister, the first to attend college was accepted into St. Edward's University and that became where we'd all now go as a family.  We were halfway here anyway back in the 1980's, when the distribution of music in cassette form was what my father saw as what kept his fellow construction and labor workers connected to their families and culture back home.  My father spent his weekends driving into Austin from Houston to set-up shop at the local 'pulga' to cater to these working class folks where they'd spend their hard earned money on the few joys they had--music from their home country was one.

The timing worked out and my mother's stable income cleaning houses with the flea market weekend money and odd jobs during the week, saved enough to have a storefront in Austin, while my sister started college.  But for me, being a teen in full 'teen-dom' leaving my friends was a hard sell.  My father drove around and learned about a new school being built 20 minutes west across town.  That would be my new start in Austin.

I don't even know what the school was that I would've gone to in the apartment complex where we lived, but it wasn't even in the discussion or even questioned at home.  Our apartment complex was full of college students and young people, not families, so I guess I didn't even question or understand it at the time,

Loss of Self

Sometimes I wonder if those moments that I've been having a lot of lately are sometimes 'good' rather than 'bad'. Why should I label them? Perhaps because in this life right now I need to be able to judge things and go with the feeling based on the judgment. Wouldn't life be interesting if I didn't have to judge and could just go with whatever without judgment?

What I'm cryptically writing about is just losing my sense of self.  Defined as the way a person thinks about and views his/her traits, beliefs, and purpose within the world, mine has been down to a foundational to serve two little baby boys.  :)  Now with beautiful boy #2, Mr. Luca, I've realized that my time outside of holding, feeding, and schlepping him around to get #1, Mr. Noah, I only have time for the essentials (if that). Bathroom, showering (if I'm lucky) eating, preparing what tastes like food, some sleep, and maybe washing my face and brushing my teeth if I'm not passed out before making it to the bathroom. All of these things are sometimes squeezed between feeding and holding #2 or picking up or tending to #1. So, I admit, I wear the same jeans probably 2-3 days in a row and then squeeze in a load of laundry where they get thrown on again. I have 2 pairs that fit currently, but hopefully once the baby weight goes away I can fit into what was once my wardrobe which is very much out of date, so by the time I can squeeze into that clothes again, I'll have to look into purging and starting over (we're talking 90's).

SO, back to loss of self. So, through all this ruckus I realize that I've had little time to really tend to my SELF. I look in the mirror occasionally (when I brush my teeth) and think, "WOW." Not in the most enthusiastic way either. I'm starting to look more like that picture of my father with the monobrow that my friends used to laugh at that was up on my family wall in our old house. Is this good or bad? Is it sometimes nice to not be so self-centered all the time? I wonder about all my 'friends' who spend hours fixing their hair or 'self'.

So, although this is not based on Buddha or deep sense of Carl Rogers psychology, but honestly, just this letting go of what was once my whole sense and now to serve others in a way that loses my sense of self...at least at times.  I will get back to these 5 things listed in this article below, but for now #4, having self-compassion is what I need to listen to the most.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosa-medinafassett/stepping-into-true-happiness-sense-of-self_b_5602928.html