Tag reflection

Why is the water going haywire?

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Last night, I started the dishwasher as I always start the dishwasher. It’s not a built-in dishwasher, but the freestanding full-sized dishwasher that sits in the middle of my kitchen like an island. I wheel it to the sink, pulled out the house and attach the female end of the hose to a special male adapter that resides at the end of my faucet.

I went out to my desk and left the dishwasher to do its business. Our dishwasher will be 20 years old in early May, it’s a Maytag as most of my appliances are. It joined us in our home somewhere around May 10, 2004. I know the exact-ish date because I was eight months pregnant with The Teenager and I said there was no way I was doing dishes by hand once the baby came.

I rose from my desk to meander through the kitchen on my way upstairs to my bedroom. I planned to make tea and of course unfasten the dishwasher from its bondage to the sink if it was done. It was not. As I wandered into the kitchen, my socks slopped through deep water and I immediately thought one of the animals did something undesirable. I looked down to see only water. Everywhere. Around the bottom of the dishwasher.

I opened the door and closed it again wondering if my haphazard dish loading of the poor machine had caused a leak. And then I saw water pouring down the hose from the sink to the dishwasher, creating a stream down the front of my cabinet. I finagled the hose so the water couldn’t possibly follow that angle… and then I saw that the counter was flooded.

We had bathed my cat, the dog and swapped out our own towels the day before so I had a pile of clean towels a few feet away. I began mopping up the mess, still uncertain where it had stemmed from.

I told The Teenager I was done and she said she would investigate. She told me she never did determine where the failure had been.

In the morning, I washed more towels. One of The Teenager’s friends came over for a Tarot card reading and The Teenager asked me to stay nearby in case she got stuck. I glanced over her shoulder at the reading– both she and I are often choppy in our skills– and the whole reading just made sense.

Odd, I thought to myself.

I went about my work, researching and drafting some profile information on local political candidates for a freelance assignment I have. I was very cold and decided to take a shower to warm myself.

When I got out of the shower, puddles pooled across the entire length of the bathtub atop my beloved ceramic floor.

Why is the water going haywire? I asked myself.

Of course, I opted not to research it. Instead, I asked a friend who has some knowledge of these elemental natural matters. Turns out it was her birthday, so I took a moment to celebrate her and asked her what she thought.

I also turned on some yacht rock for quiet background noise. Spotify thinks I’m in a yacht rock phase.

“Ahh….new moon in Pisces,” she replied. “LOTS of water energy all over right now, my dear! Not all of it comfortable!”

So I googled it.

Difficult news and disappointments may leave Taurus (that’s me) disconnected or unsure. You might even feel a mix of anger and sadness. Whatever emotions come up, it’s important to acknowledge them and know that they are valid. Journal how you can use your intuition and wisdom to determine next steps and find solutions. Trust yourself. You have the strength to overcome.

Another site said that this is the time to wish upon a star, make a dream come true and manifest. This article also pointed out that it’s a Pisces super new moon. We have reached a portal for manifestation and spiritual awakening– in Pisces, the sign at the end of the zodiac, where dreams and reality merge.

That feels like my whole “theme” for 2024.

Merging reality and dreams.

And it looks like Venus will be in transit through Pisces until April 5 encouraging empathy, kindness and artistic expression.

And for Taurus specifically– it will be a time of renewal of friendships and future endeavors.

“Envision your dream life and believe in the path it takes to get there.”

Meanwhile, the Teenager says she will run the dishwasher tonight.

Invisible: At the intersection of disability and childhood trauma

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Author’s Note: This is the next in a series I tend to run indefinitely on my quest to understand my mind, body and disability and how they interact as I age.

Also: This post is merely me pondering “out loud” and based on my experience. I might be completely wrong with some of my ideas. That is why I consider this a quest and not something I can answer with a quick internet search or “Hey, Siri” request.

Finally, please understand that I am hesitate to discuss this topic as I don’t want my family members to be hurt or feel responsible. Especially my parents. My parents have some wonderful qualities and their flaws because they are, after all, human beings. My parents experienced their own hardships and traumas and they have both dealt with issues with their own parents, alcoholism, etc. Plus, my childhood encompassed much of the 1980s and they were young adults in the seventies. The world, as they say, was different.

As I have mentioned in early posts, disabled children of my generation and the one prior were the first to escape institutionalization or being kept hidden away at home.

Many parents of disabled children (like Marie Killilea of the Karen books) focused on raising their children to master independence and to “pass” as normal when possible. This can lead to a desire to not call attention to oneself and in many cases avoiding (instead of attempting) activities where our difficulties become obvious.

Instead of talking about our ailment(s), we try to fit in and not be a burden. We want to seem worthy of our place in a society where if the conversation turns to eugenics, we’ll, we’d be the first people edited out of existence.

But add childhood trauma to this mix and I wonder, do disabled people with this type of trauma exponentially feel more of a need to be invisible?

Mommy and Daddy have trouble getting along and sometimes hit each other when Daddy gets home from the bar— I don’t want to be another problem for them.

Am I a victim of sexual misconduct because I was a good kid who would listen to her elders or because I was already broken?

No one wants to see me cry. They get upset when I fall down and cry. Mommy teaches me to laugh when I fall. Does this cheapen the legitimacy of the pain, the bumps and bruises.

None of my childhood trauma happened because I have a disability, but it’s another truth no one wants to talk about.

All good thoughts to ponder.

Failure

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I want to talk for a minute about failure.

Sometimes I think we, as Americans in the 21st Century, stress too much and obsess too much about failure.

In the last six months, perhaps even the last year, I’ve hedged a lot of bets on new things. Some are simple things, like buying a car. Others are more complex, like accepting a new job and later a promotion into a position where I have no experience, only passion and my wits.

I enjoy new experiences, not everyone does. I love learning. I love challenges. I love some competition.

But with that comes failure. And sometimes we spend so much time on the failure that we don’t see how much progress we made before we failed.

It’s not even 9 a.m. on the last day of a long weekend. Probably my first relaxing long weekend since I started my new job in April. My time off prior to this was filled with parental duties or medical appointments.

Of course, I’ve slept in until 7 a.m. every day so the alarm tomorrow is going to be brutal. I have some very important projects on my desk and some meetings this week that also give me some concern.

The living room is completely dismantled, unpainted, and the furniture will arrive by the end of the week.

The teenager has a holiday concert on the same night I agreed to attend a party with my CEO. (In my defense, I thought she had her interior design class, which she does so she’s double-booked, too.)

Etc.

But this post is about failure.

If you look a few posts back, you’ll see that a good friend inspired me to buy The Whole 30. I read most of it, even did some grocery shopping, but never implemented it. It did force me to think more about what I was eating. I started tracking my macronutrients again and reducing my carbohydrates. Not in a low carb way. In a balanced way.

I am debating canceling my Planet Fitness membership. It’s been seven months and since school started, my teen and I have only gone 2-4 times a month. We both need it, but we’re not going. And I have free weights and the tools I need to get started again here at home. I joined the gym to motivate her and have more options since I’d maxed out at home.

So right now the gym is a failure, but at the same time fitness is very much on my mind and I wish I had it in me to resume my disciplined body building. (I did two or three home workouts this week. My goal is to break my bad habits before considering “New Year’s resolutions.”)

And finally, for the first time since I started making homemade bone broth a decade or so ago, I failed at that. For two days, I’ve had chicken bones from my freezer and the Thanksgiving turkey carcass in my crock pot. Somehow, overnight, ALL the liquid boiled off. ALL of it.

My “waste not, want not” attitude kicked in and mourned this tragedy. Then I remembered: I don’t like poultry broth. My daughter used to love chicken soup. But she doesn’t so much anymore. And I don’t really have room in the freezer. So maybe we didn’t need homemade soup right now.

Failure isn’t always bad. Sometimes it keeps you from expending energy in the wrong direction.