Category: As The Cat Box Turns

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Catching up

Life is funny just as I sit down to write about how I feel like I am fading from public life a friend messages and tells me they are carrying the commercial they made for me on their channel. How sweet and thank you, Harold Sanford Carter III, I needed that.

So, what is on my mind today? I have come to realize I am a person who can only focus on one major thing at a time. A friend asked about it on FB the other day. For example, if I am writing a book, all else falls aside, housework, friends, everything and my book has my entire focus, like a method actor becoming the role. I get blinders on and do not see anyone else but what I am focused on and nothing else matters.

This is true of everything in my life. I recently had a loving friend I reached out to, kindly show me that when I have serious stuff to deal with I push friends away rather than include them in the process. Which, leaves them with feelings of their own about my actions. This shows that you are never done working on yourself, life always has more to show you.

Currently, I am not in the public spotlight and feel, I am better able to see and accept such things, it is one of the perks of not being in the spotlight. I have often said that the more involved you are with this man’s world, the farther from your spirituality you are. I guess this occurrence proves the point. And, as you can see like all things, this trait in me has a good side and a consequence.

For example, when it became clear to me my husband needed more of my support due to his illness, I threw myself into it quickly one hundred percent without looking back. No harm no foul right? Sure, except I left people out of the process who love us both.

So what has me in this frame of mind? I think it is a combination of things, self-discovery, medication, and the realization that I am moving into a different phase of life with my husband. It is the phase where our main focus is managing our health and how much we depend on each other for that.

I also know that balance has to be a part of the job. I have to keep the things that make me content and feel useful and not ignore them. I have to learn to balance that with the time it takes for me to care for my hubby, and I am adjusting. As I adjust I will be adding more of the things I enjoy like writing a blog and teaching.

I love what my friend Phaedra Bonewits says about balance, “Balance is like a pendulum, it moves all over and always comes back to center.” In other words, balance is not walking the straight and narrow it is more about going with the flow.

 

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How Cat became Cat!

So of late my name Cat Gina Cole has come up in conversation on social media, so I thought I would share with all of you the story of how that came to be.

When I was little my mom used to call me Kitten now and then, but only when we were alone or doing something special. the most memorable of the times she called me Kitten was on the days I said I wanted to run away. Usually, I was bored or having a bad day and I would kick up a fuss and say I was gonna run away. She would turn away from her sewing machine and say “Okay, I want to run away too can we go together?” I would agree and she would pack us a sack lunch and off we would go.

There was a small man-made lake behind our house and we would trek through the field to the lake, talking and playing along the way. On these days I was always Kitten to her. We would sit by the lake and have a grand time until I was once again bored and it was time to go home. These were the best of days.

Later when I was 21 or so, she agreed to go out to a bar with me, but she got to choose which one. On this occasion, we were at the Eagles club in Medford. She had friends there, and on this particular night, her friend and her son were sitting at a small round table with us having a good time.

Mom had agreed to dance with this rather large man who was there a couple of times. As she returned to the table after such a dance she commented on how rough and handsy he had been with her. As you might imagine this did not sit well with me and I told my mom I would take care of it.  She objected to no avail.

I invited the man to come to sit with us. Mom was uncomfortable, to say the least. He sat between mom and I, rocked back on two legs of his chair being all loud and bragging. I looked up at my miserable mom and smiled as I reached down, grabbed the leg of his chair flipping him to the floor. The table and drinks spilled everywhere as I stood and very loudly said, “Don’t you ever touch me like that again!” giving him a bit of a kick. Well, the bouncer had that guy out the door in nothing flat. Once our table and drinks were restored mom turned to me grinning ear to ear and said, “Kitten hell! You’re a full-blown Cat!

I was quite satisfied with myself feeling I had earned the name and it stuck, I have been Cat ever since. That is how my mom gave me the name of Cat.

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Kitty Litter

I find it interesting the perception many get from an individual’s public life versus their personal life. Years ago I became a fan of a female author on Facebook, later a friend of mine connected us as friends. As I viewed her posts I become even more of a fan and really looked up to her. Later on, we began to chat and got to know each other. I remember telling her in a text once that I would love to sit one evening and drink with her. She replied she was not that exciting, that is when I began to see and get to really know her instead of what I perceived through social media. Today I admire and value her even more.

If you follow me and have read my bio, or my blog introduction there is much you will know about me. However, life behind the scenes is both more difficult and simple for me than it seems to be online. A friend once told me things were not as easy for her as they are for me. I about choked. She had no idea how hard it is for me to do simple things on a regular basis. I have to work very hard to accomplish things sometimes. This is because I have ADHD, or as I have come to learn, I am Neuro-Diverse, and impulsive. Sometimes I struggle with obsessive thinking too. This means change can be difficult or even anger me when I can’t figure it out.

I equate my memory and thinking process to swiss cheese and you never know which hole it will flow through. It is also why I say I am the most difficult child I have ever raised! Much of my mental time is spent managing my impulsiveness with self-talk like, no, you are not going to do that, no you do not need to do that and so on. This all has to get wrangled and pushed aside for me to focus on a task or to make a plan of action.

My property is where I think this shows the most. There is so much I want to do yet it all seems so big and I battle with getting overwhelmed or giving up. I do my best to accept that it is okay for me to be scattered or not to get the huge to-do list I have done. It is okay to leave things partially done, even if it is difficult for others around me to deal with that, because that is who and what I am.

I get on my own case about it all the time, it is my inner discipline. This is why I tell folks I am well aware of the messes I leave behind. I get frustrated with my messes and incomplete tasks too.  I do not need criticism about it, because I already have enough of that in playing in my head  that I am trying to sort through.

Often this means when I am working on a task or project it will be at the exclusion of everything else, property, dishes, laundry, and so on.

My most recent project has been my resell business. I have recently inherited quite a bit of inventory of collectibles and more. It took me a while to wrap my head around what to do with it all. I love finding bargains and selling them. I think it is what I should have been doing all along, well that and writing. Yet as is common with an impulsive person like me, I jump into things not thinking of the details that come with it.

Because this inventory is rather high-end, there have been countless hours of research into the items to discover what they are called, and their value. Then there is finding the right platform to sell it on, not to mention the right place to look for it in the first place. I have found I love that part of it too! Who knew!

Yesterday I finally managed to get the many boxes of stuff inventoried and out of my dining room and office. You can see the floor! Oooh, the floor which I have not swept in a week or more.

Ah yes once I am done with a project awareness of everything else comes flooding in. Suddenly my head is full of, it is Friday and I have a blog article to write by Sunday, oh then there is my magazine article due next month, oh and I’m going out with friends Sunday, oh look at the weeds in that garden! and damn my foot and back are killing me!  And so my life goes and I love every bit of it. I have often said life is messy so enjoy it. Then once in a working with Odin he told me life is lived in the mists of chaos. It was very validating for someone like me. I am a type A and always on the go, so I guess it is a good thing I have that Neuro-Divergent hyper-activity to keep me going through the string of messes that compile my wonderful, unique, and spontaneous life that I love. Now I see my messes as creation in process, and dust in this Witches house as the leftovers of that creation and it is all magic.