Wednesday, March 8, 2006

About the Name

Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re in hell…keep going.”

This is where I write about my life; past, present and future. There’s a lot of good now, but there has been a lot of bad and ugly. Here’s a short list of some of the things that keep me inside my velvet cage (in alphabetical order):

  • Abortion
  • Adoption
  • Adultery
  • AIDS/HIV
  • Arthritis
  • Babies’ deaths (miscarriage, stillbirth & SIDS)
  • Depression
  • Divorce
  • Drug addiction
  • Endometriosis
  • Incest
  • Institutionalization
  • Infertility
  • Medical misdiagnosis
  • Manic depression
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  • Panic attacks
  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Vision problems

These writings are part of my ongoing struggle to let go of regret and sadness and honor the demands of a calling (to be determined) and the many joys of my life.The following is an excerpt from Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy: “…what we all risk when we honor the demands of a calling: that it will call us beyond the limits we’ve set for ourselves; toward the primitive fears of rejection and failure that are attached, like barnacles on a rock, to the idea of risk; toward the shadow sides of ourselves that we try to hide even from ourselves -- the timidity and indecisiveness, the fear of change, the fear of being a beginner. We love to quote Goethe who said that “whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” But we forget that he also said, “To put your ideas into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”But if we do not, we risk building for ourselves velvet cages: the money’s good, the security comforting, the surroundings familiar----but we become only recreational users of our passion and creativity.”

As an added interesting bonus for those of you who read my original infertility blog, “velvet cage” is also a euphemism for vagina.

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