Friday, October 21, 2011

Birthdays

Today my first-born twin daughters turn 19.  Where did the time go?  One day they were small enough to hold their little butts in one hand and now they are grown, young women.  And amazing ones at that.  How did  that happen?  Their dad had something to do with it as did I.  Other people helped too;  friends, teachers, their friends. 

 I  am often surprised at how mature they are, despite lacking experience in so many things.  I really like them as people and I am glad they are who they are.  Each is a unique person and different.  That is what makes them so fascinating to me. 

They are full of ideas and enthusiasm but they are also feeling really angry because of the future they see ahead.  They saw their father and I struggle our whole lives only to be pushed back to the ground.  They have seen the disparity between the 99% and the 1%, the systematic rape of the planet's resources, the marginalization of gays and minorities and women,  and they are pissed off.  They feel love for all people and animals and the planet.  They want to get on with their lives but the economy and  patriarchy feel like huge, insurmountable walls, blocking  their potential.  They worry about money and the family and their futures. 

 They don't care  if someone is gay, bi, transgender, lesbian, Black, Latino, Asian, Native, Semitic;  these things don't matter to them.  They want gay marriages to be legal.  They want poly marriages to be legal.  What matters is how we all treat one another.    They see other young adults their age and they shudder because of the seeming shallowness, the lack of thinking, the sheep-like attitudes so many exhibit.  Both of them feel powerless a lot. 

As Occupy Wall Street gains momentum, their sense of empowerment rises;  I see it in their eyes.

 As their mother, I hope for their future and I offer them my support wherever and however they go and whoever they be.  It is what I can do and I hope it is enough.


Friday, August 26, 2011

Letting go...again

Once upon a time, there was a little baby.  He was round and sweet with ten fingers and ten toes.  He had huge brown eyes and dark, long eyelashes.  His baby soft hair was curly with those springy open curls that wrap around your fingers when you touch them.  He was smart and so adorable.  His skin was a light brown and soft as only a baby's skin can be.  He had the most lilting laugh, bubbly and wonderful to hear.  I loved him, cared for him, fed him, changed his diapers, held him, kissed his toes and fell in love with him so deeply.  I was twelve years old.  


As he grew, I took his little hand and showed him the world.  I watched him, protected him, and defended him.  When the typhoon raged at night, I would steal into his room, which was the farthest from everyone's,  and carry him to mine and place him into my double bed so he could be with me; in case he awoke in fear.  I held him close and comforted him when he was afraid.  I played with him and his little friends and dressed him up and took him trick-or-treating on Halloweens.  I made tents for him and helped him play.  I washed his clothes and cleaned his  room.  I made his lunch and ate with him.  When he was six years old, I carried him on my back up and down the hills of Jerusalem because his little feet were too tired to go as far as he wanted to go.  When he was in school, I baked and decorated cookies and cupcakes for Halloween and Christmas and brought them to his class.  I drove him to concerts and made banners for us to hold so we could scream our lungs out;  I didn't know who the bands were but he did.  I drove him out in the forest to get him out of the house after his accident because he hated being cooped up.  I played "spoons" with him and his friends and made him designer look-alike shirts.
I drove him and his friends to midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show and did all the fun stuff with the squirt guns and rice.  Then I drove them to late-night fast food places so they could squirt the window cashiers.  We laughed and laughed and had so much fun.  When other grown sisters would have been off doing their own thing; I spent time with him and his friends so he could go places because he couldn't drive yet.  I treated him  to movies, lunch out, and concerts.  


I loved watching  him grow and change.  I remember him calling the storm "roughy funder" and seeing his eyes light up at Christmas time.  I remember him laughing and running outside and  his  amazing eloquence.  I remember his jokes and his freckles.  I remember his playfulness and caring.  I remember his intelligence; he was so smart and insightful.  I remember how sweet he was when  I tucked him in for nap time or bed time; he didn't want to go but he was so good he would do it anyway.  He was always so well behaved and a good friend to his buddies.  His loyalty and generosity were wonderful to see. 




I got married when he was six years old and went away but I came back a year later and stayed for several years.  I moved out again with a boyfriend but came back again when that didn't work out.  I took care of him when our mother went to Texas and took him camping with me because he liked camping.  The one day, I married again, he was 15 and gave me away.  After that, we rarely saw each other because I moved away and began raising my own family.  


Yet I never forgot that little boy, my baby brother, deep in my heart.  He has a place, a him-shaped place in my heart that no one else can ever fill.  



Now we are both grown and we cannot relate to one another.  Our mother has damaged us both and has tried ( and succeeded) to stir dissention between us.  He has a wife and children but he thinks I am the wrong one, the overreacting one.  We grew up in a dysfunctional home, our mother was a narcissist who wove her web of harm to me and favoritism to him.  Despite this, I always loved him, I never begrudged him his successes or felt jealous of his money or his life.  I just want him to be happy because he is the first child I ever loved and cared for and I cannot imagine wanting to be (or have)  better than him. He feels like my first child but not.



But now we are apart;  he is still in the dysfunction while I have been through therapy and can  no longer tolerate being hurt by him or our mother so I have had to walk away.  This year seems full of walking-aways.    I feel deep grief and sadness;  I have loved him as long as he has lived, almost 40 years,  and there is a hole in my heart still shaped like him that cannot be filled.  He brushes off  my deep feelings for him and only when we relate on a superficial level does he show a softness to me  when he looks at me and even more when he looks at my children.  Yet when I mention the dysfunction; he grows hard and condescending.  This reaction is not his fault (because of the dysfunction)  but it feels like a knife is turning in a fresh and unhealed wound.  


My baby brother.  I miss you, I love you, why do you have to suffer and why does that suffering mean I cannot relate to you?  Why can't I help you?  This hurts so badly; as though he has died.   Why can't we be close?  Why can't we be friends?  And will the pain  ever go away? 



Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The light goes on....

The other day I was reading about narcissism.  I began to read about it because I was curious as to how it operates in my life and others' lives.  I came upon a site that listed symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and I was horrified to realize that both my parents and my older brother fit most of the listed character traits.  I also found a website for daughters of NPD mothers and the long characteristic descriptions were hauntingly familiar;  my mother was exactly like so many of them.  

The list is here:

  • Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  • Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  • Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  • Requires excessive admiration or attention
  • Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
  • Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
  • Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
  • Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  • Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
  • Displays an inherent selfishness
  • Separates their children into scapegoats and golden child and triangulates their relationships to go only through the parent 
  •  
  • Most of these represent my mother and a lot of them my father and brother.  It is when the affects on the child are listed that things got very disturbing.  I was the scapegoat for my mother so she trained me to supply her with attention, parent her, be her emotional support, see myself as worthless compared to her, and doubt my own intuitions.  I had no privacy, no boundaries, my mother competed with me sexually when I was a young adult, still treats me like the less-than child in the family in so many little ways.  The disorder is so difficult for most outsiders to see that the child is not believed by most people when they try to explain it. It causes very low self esteem, self doubt, enmeshment with the parent, lack of boundaries, relationshop problems and physical problems.  
    As I saw my life finally in black and white on the screen and my intuitions  and feelings finally validated I began to cry deep wrenching sobs of relief.  I wasn't crazy or wrong after all.  I wasn't making things up, causing trouble, projecting, or being a bitch.  Instead,  because of the therapy I had been to, I had started to be independent and see her problem but had no name to call it.  And now that I am caring for my dad, I see it in him as well though he was less around to be as destructive as she was.  I also see it in my older brother who also shaped my view of myself. I also see it in my husband's mother and his younger sister who is his mother's golden child.  His dad seems to be an enabler.   
    No wonder I felt so safe with my husband;  he was the first person to believe me when I told him about my mother.  I also believed him when he described his mother.  Our mothers display the list differently but they both had enough of the symptoms and characteristics that he and I were damaged.  And our families continue the abuse; he and I have felt like the unloved ones in both families.  
    Now I have to work on achieving a sense of self.  I am stopping contact with my mother because the freedom that will allow me and my family sounds wonderful.  I cannot stop contact with my dad yet but I am working on doing that as well.  
    I also need to realize that the needy part of me is still there and in need of scrutiny and work.  How to balance this when I have a family and a soon-to-be very busy schedule is going to be difficult.  At least I know where to start and that my life will get better and better as the days and weeks roll on. 

    Tuesday, August 16, 2011

    The self-help distraction.

    You know, sometimes I hate being the happy, bandwagon bubble popper but I can't help it. It is that Virgo rising I tell you. Does it every time.
    I mean when I read some people extolling Byron Katie's "The Work," I looked it up to see. I read through it thoroughly and I liked it...to a point. Yet it smacks of the "end MY suffering," focus on self, me-me-me stuff the Boomers are so famous for. We have had decades of self-work and it has not served us as a society well because it is too self absorbed. All that self-work is a great way to keep us from looking outward and seeing what we can do to help others. As the Hopi note, life out of balance is not good and self-absorption that keeps us from helping others is a way of being out of balance.

    Another one is the Abraham-Hicks ideology that says the universe wants to give you anything you want but you have to be open to receiving it. That's a nice idea...except it is just another "blame the individual for their misfortune" disguised-as-a-self-help program. After all, it is too easy to blame you if you don't get what you desire because obviously the universe wants you to have it but you were not open enough to get it. That's bullshit. That completely misses the part where sometimes, the universe doesn't want you to get everything you want because you grow more when you do without.

    The idea that ending self suffering is a good thing sounds good, at first,  but suffering teaches us compassion, patience, tolerance, and empathy. To end self suffering means to end learning all that and I don't see that as a good thing. There will always be suffering and not just because each person who suffers has not done "The Work." By that ideology, the starving child in Somalia should just stop believing they are starving and they will be happier? What a convenient, upper class ideology to absolve us from having to help the starving kid! Let's get real shall we?  Time to stop distracting ourselves with our selves and get to work helping others.   That may not feel as easy or good but life worth living is not easy;  but it is  satisfying. 

     

    Sunday, August 14, 2011

    What is a friend?

    As an adult Army Brat who traveled a lot and moved every few years, I never  got to keep friends much.  This is something all Global Nomads have in common.  We also don't feel like we fit into any country because we have internalized several.

    So I was wondering what the idea of friendship means to me.  I have never really sat down and thought about it but I have a small idea what I think it means.  Problem is, I have no idea if my idea is what it really means to most people or if it is too needy or too detached or just wrong.  I figured I would start with what I am willing to give to a friend and work from there.


    I like giving friends my honesty, at least if it doesn't hurt them.  I would try to be as honest about how I feel about them as I can.  That way, they never have to wonder or guess what I feel about them.  If the friend is  a really close one, I want to give them my time, my assistance, my ear to listen, any useful information I may have that could help them (unless it sounds like advice; that may be unwanted) and my physical presence.  That means spending actual physically-there time with them because I know some people  like to actually BE with their friends instead of only relating via the phone  or internet.  I want to be accepting and compassionate, non judging, and easy to talk to.  I want to be sympathetic when they need it and be a supportive person when they are going through tough times. 



    What do I want in return? I guess the same as I am willing to give.  I want most of all honesty,  consistency,  and a willingness to make an effort to keep the friendship going.  I know people are busy and I don't get upset if they cannot spend all their time with me but if we live near each other, why shouldn't  we spend time together?  I also don't want the terms of the friendship to be always my way or always their way;  we have to compromise on things.  


    The biggest thing I want is integrity.  This means that if we are dealing with each other, we need to have integrity in how we interact.  Wikipedia defines integrity as:  
    "Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy, in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.
    The word "integrity" stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete). In this context, integrity is the inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others "have integrity" to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

    A value system's abstraction depth and range of applicable interaction may also function as significant factors in identifying integrity due to their congruence or lack of congruence with observation. A value system may evolve over time while retaining integrity if those who espouse the values account for and resolve inconsistencies.  In a formal study of the term "integrity" and its meaning in modern ethics, law professor Stephen L. Carter sees integrity not only as a refusal to engage in behavior that evades responsibility, but also as an understanding of different modes or styles in which discourse attempts to uncover a particular truth.
    Carter writes that integrity requires three steps: "discerning what is right and what is wrong; acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong." He regards integrity as being distinct from honesty."


     I include integrity because when relating to people, if you seem to act a certain way and someone asks you about that, you need to be honest with yourself and them and own up to your actions.  In friendships, this is as imperative as it is in any close relationship.  


    Are these things too much to ask from someone?  Are these not friendship things? 












    Friday, August 12, 2011

    Social values

    The riots in Great Britain speak to me on a visceral level.  They are the voiceless and unheard poor and disenfranchised finally rising up and fairly screaming to be heard.  They have had enough of a set of social values that basically say that if you are without money you are to blame and are somehow inferior to anyone who has been "blessed" with money.   If you re poor, you have no value as a human being;  this is the overriding message of capitalism and religion in the West.  Helping the poor is seen as a weakness; we applaud it with our mouths while we kick the homeless out of their homes for lack of a job or money.  We downgrade an individual's credit score for being unable to pay her bills on time even when that was caused by a greedy corporation laying her off.  Why doesn't the corporation, the shareholder,  have their credit score downgraded for causing the worker to lose their ability to pay?  We punish the innocent and glorify the villain.  We claim to follow a man we call The Christ while doing the opposite of his purported teachings.  


    No one is willing to really SEE that these things are the symptom of a disease called capitalism; which is an ideology of every-man-for-himself but white men get everything.  
    Let's blame the victim for his or her calamity.  The average human being has allowed those who own everything and who control everything to incite us into fighting amongst ourselves for the crumbs they leave us (begrudgingly as best) in order to divide and conquer and keep us so busy scrabbling about gay marriage or abortion so as to miss their thievery.  They have us brainwashed into believing that if we work hard enough, we can be like them, rich and powerful.  So people actually argue to preserve the rich and their way of life because secretly, they hope to be just as nasty, rich, and powerful as their masters are.  They in essence have allowed the wealthy controlling class to dictate their values and what values they are:  money over humanity, profits over people,  power over  compassion.  In essence, people want to BE the very thing they say despise:  rich, greedy, powerful, and ruthless.  What is it in humanity that makes us so?    


    Somewhere in our genetic code there are genes programmed for survival.  Yet on those genes I would guess there are markers which cause us to be greedy, grasping, and ruthless toward our fellow human beings.  We have learned to temper those urges because we found through the ages that we all survive better in a group than living solo but the urges are still there.  These urges rear their ugly heads  and we seem unable to stop them.  We are even our own undoing because so many of us never learn compassion when we experience harm;  instead we lash out first and never develop empathy.


    The very thing several historical avatars (Christ, and others) promoted; compassion and caring for one another, has been perverted in the name of feel-good, prosperity religions who enjoy excluding anyone they feel is unacceptable.  How is this Western concept of Christianity any different from the banned but still practiced caste system in India?  Generations of people are born into the belief system and propagate it with high birth rates and fervor.   Yet they scream that they are persecuted.  


    When will humanity figure out that we share the same DNA, have the same desires and needs, and need each other more than we need to be rich and powerful? 


    I have seen in my own family the results of someone placing money above all else.  My sibling makes about $20,000 a month.  He has made making money his prime goal in life and now he is realizing that his kids are not doing well.  His oldest was on drugs and got pregnant; her baby was born addicted to methadone.  His second child collects shoes and never thinks of the less fortunate.  His third child had OCD and bi-polar from the time he was a child; he is on medications and still has issues in school and at home.  His fourth child is ok for now but his foster child was running away and having oral sex at 15 years old.  He sent her back to her family where she is probably on the streets as an under age prostitute.  None of his kids value education, the environment, charity, or helping others.  He was raised to value education and charity but he placed money first and as such his kids think of nothing else because they have everything, every new gadget that comes on the market.  He suffers because the first born was in and out of jail and has psychiatric problems and behavior issues.  Now he is almost 40 and regretting things but he still doesn't see that his focus on money os not the best way to be.  


    My other sibling also focused on money and he had a terrible accident which left him with a lot of money but physically unable to enjoy it.  He died of an overdose of pain killers at age 50.  


    Money is ok but we as a society need to stop valuing it and start valuing each other.  We need to value caring, compassion, the environment and each other, no matter what color, religion, nationality, or class status. But we must not be fool enough to think we have to be all nice and sweet;  those who have power over us are like pigs wallowing in their own muddy values. Sometimes the only way to get a pig to understand you is to get down and dirty where he is at and speak in his language.  Doing so doesn't make you "as bad as he is" because you will not remain there; you only do it to get his attention.  That's what the rioters are doing; their ruthlessness is speaking the same language as the heartless wealthy puppeteers who wantonly destroy lives in pursuit of their own agenda.  We all must speak their language to get their attention and once we have it, we must send the message clear and home that we will no longer live by those misplaced values.  And we will no longer allow them to live that way either. 







    Tuesday, August 9, 2011

    Cassandra was never believed either

    I call myself "Cassandra"  because I feel like people don't really listen or believe what I have to say.  When I am speaking in person to people, they do listen and believe me but when I write the same words on a screen or in a post, I am immediately questioned;  people ask me to cite my sources.  I see other people writing on comments, posts, forums, blogs and such and they are believed when they assert something but I am not.  Part of it is because I haven't the all-important  college degree that seems to magically confer respectability and importance to what I write.  

    A huge part of what I write or assert is from things I have read over the years and remembered.  The problem is, I don't keep every source reference in my head or somewhere because I am not teaching a class or trying to be a journalist.  Instead, I impart what I have read or learned or experienced.  I am a knowledge-sharer who likes helping others by sharing what I have learned or picked up along the way.  I even use disclaimers but people still call me on it and demand references.  Hence my moniker:  Cassandra.  

    Cassandra of Troy was given the gift of prophecy but also the curse of never having anyone believe her prophetic musings.  Not that I am a prophet;  it is the "not being believed" part that applies to me.  So I am getting my college degree;  I will receive it this December.  I wonder if it will change how people react to what I write? 

    My real-life friends and acquaintances tell me all the time that I am a storehouse of knowledge;  they fondly  refer to me as "the one who knows a lot about everything."   They keep encouraging me to write all the stuff I know into a book but I think I will do better by speaking it  in small group settings.  That is a lot scarier to me but it might be the only way to get people to know what I know or to pass on what I know.  Writing it seems to mean I have to back it up but speaking it doesn't.  How odd that is;  there are so many self-help books written by people who don't cite their sources and the millions of people who buy and read them don't seem to question where the sources are.  I don't know why my writing seems to incite questioning of sources;  I cannot understand that and it seems unfair when others assert claims and are not called on them.  

    I just want to pass on information that may be helpful to people;  they can choose not to believe it.  If I know something that may be helpful to someone, I want to put it out there so that someone can be helped by it.  Is that  not a good thing?

    Saturday, May 14, 2011

    Inward journey

    I am listening to Eric Whitacre's Virtual Chior singing "Lux Aurumque:"  
    http://www.youtubeloop.com/v/D7o7BrlbaDs#s=23&e=274

    This music makes me go inward.  All day I have been contemplative as I carefully tend my injured daughter.  She accidently got hit in the head by the steel supporting bar of our free-standing hammock.  The concussion headaches have been debilitating but the CT scan and doctors (two doctors) have said she will be ok.  Yet her headaches and pain persist a week after.  She is used to being so active and now she is supposed to do nothing, even when she feels good.  My beautiful daughter....I would take the pain away if I could.  So I touch her gently with my hands, rub her neck, hold her, give her love.

    This choir brings back my childhood feelings of reverence for the earth, the trees, the sky, the candlelight.  Today, I rested and soaked up the peacefulness of the outside in my back yard. The trees are greening, the clouds were that perfect puffy whiteness and the sky that intense blue.  The aspen leaves fluttered in the breeze with their yellow-green leaves.  The pine trees  sighed and the earth slowly awakens to the coming summer.  I am tired today because I have too long been on a crazy treadmill that is school.  The days are getting longer now, the light stays later too.  This day was a day of mental and emotional rest for me.  The bell-toned chimes sang to me sweetly.  The wooden chimes transported me to a far away place.  I sat most of the day in the porch swing, gently swinging like a rocking chair.  Life is good...for the most part.  I remembered things past today too.

    Yet for some reason, I feel bereft and out of touch.  I feel alone, adrift on a sea of feelings too deep to explain.  Sometimes having so few friends with whom I can really be myself is lonely.  No one to share these feelings with or touch.  I suppose if my husband were here, I would feel better but he is not back yet from visiting his family.   My heart feels the darkness, the deep night sky, the stars and the stillness of the night. I remember looking up at those same stars in a black night many years ago as the taxi drove to Jerusalem. Life had barely begun for me then....what things were to come. I had a sense of mystery and quiet that night and I have it now.  I remember feeling a sense of something I could not explain then.  I was only 18 and at the threshold of my life.  Now I am 51 and at a different threshold.  All those intense feelings have not gone; they have just been hiding all these years only to come out sometimes and torment me for a time until I cannot bear it.  When I can no longer handle them, I pack them away in order to go on and do the daily work of living.  Yet they are always there, beneath that veneer of happy, busy, brightness that is my self.  Is there anyone who I can share them with? Anyone who will understand where I go?  Can no one follow me to the realm of unspeakable and intense, deep, passionate feeling laced with mystery? 

    All my life I have reached out to touch people with my words, my hands, my giving. It is what makes me feel alive. Only sometimes I need the same in return. Only sometimes.....







    Wednesday, April 20, 2011

    Spring....

    Spring is here.  The skies are blue, the gentle wind caresses my face and makes the trees whisper.  The sun is warm and the ground is moist.  The whole earth feels like it is coming alive after the long sleep of winter.  Water trickles about and nourishes the plants which slowly unfold and awaken.  My heart and soul fly with the wind and lie on the earth in joy of this time. 

    As I type, I hear the wonderfully melodic and peaceful music of Nicholas Gunn.  He weaves a spell on me and  sets my spirits soaring and gliding gently down to a wonderful feeling.  His is the music of the Southwest and mountains.  Flutes, drums, violins, orchestras; all surround me and lift me to wonderous places of joy.

    I love where I live.  I have been many places but few are in my heart so deep as this place of mountains, pine trees, wide blue skies, cool breezes, clean air and golden sunshine.  Close by are red rocks in majestic spires, reddish, creamy hues and green, prickly cacti, desert browns and desert nights.  Night skies with deep blackness set off with millions of brilliant stars older than imaginable.  The wonder of this place is huge and amazing.  Vast vistas and cool forests all in one state.  This is my home.

    Though I long to visit other places, I love this place and call it home.  Though I am a Global Nomad, I settled here.  There is something deeply magical here that calls to me.



    Sunday, January 2, 2011

    Life Info

    Starting today, I will be posting little things I have learned in life that MAY be useful to people.  I call these "Life Info."  Today's little tidbit is:

    At around age 38-41, people go through a time where they feel restless, frustrated with the path their lives are going, and they feel a huge urge to make sudden and drastic changes such as leaving their spouse, changing their careers, buying or selling a house or stocks, divorcing, having a baby, having an affair with a younger person, moving to a completely new place, etc. The problem is, when they DO make those sudden huge changes, in about three of four years that restless feeling will evaporate and they will be stuck with the mess they created. They will regret making those changes badly and the people they affected will still be hurt or damaged (especially their kids if they have any) by the rash choices the 38-41 year-old made. During the years between ages 38 and 41, it is better to make small changes to help alleviate that frustrated feeling and to ride out those strong urges because when the feelings pass, the foundations (your marriage, your career, your children, your portfolio) will be intact and you will be glad you didn't do the rash actions then.

    This doesn't mean you should not make changes, just make sure you can live with them if that restless feeling goes away and make sure your family won't be damaged by the choices you make. In short, THINK before making a huge life change and make sure you think of EVERYONE in your life who may be affected by that choice BEFORE you make it.  Also, can you reverse it?  Did you want to do it before the restless feeling came on you?  If not, then err on the side of caution; make small changes instead.

    Hope this helps someone.