{"id":4597,"date":"2015-01-30T10:32:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T15:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4597"},"modified":"2015-01-30T10:32:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T15:32:09","slug":"the-day-the-christmas-tree-fell-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4597","title":{"rendered":"The Day the Christmas Tree Fell Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the week since that painful therapy session<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve been through a lot of ups and downs.\u00a0 But one thing made me hopeful.\u00a0 I talked to a friend about activities I needed to do with someone, and it\u2019s like she didn\u2019t hear me.\u00a0 She said she preferred to do those things alone.\u00a0 I could have asked directly, but I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Instead I felt amused, and a little surprised at her self-centeredness.\u00a0 Two weeks ago, and for most of my life, that would have triggered me into a serious down.\u00a0 Instead I\u2019m amused.\u00a0 Today a friend, who is very disruptive, has been staying with me.\u00a0 I told her my needs and she honored them, and I was able to stand up for myself in a way I couldn\u2019t do last time she came.\u00a0 Her disruption even took the form of getting stuck in my driveway, so I\u2019ve been dealing with all the AAA stuff, and again, instead of being upset I was amused.<\/p>\n

I remember, years ago, sometime between 1999 and 2003, I was sitting at Neskaya, writing in my journal in the morning.\u00a0 There was a Christmas Tree (AKA Solstice Bush) set up and decorated.\u00a0 Suddenly, without any warning, the tree leaned over and fell on the floor with a thump.\u00a0 Instead of getting upset I laughed.\u00a0 Instead of frantically trying to set it back up, I called the people across the street and asked if someone could help me.\u00a0 Their teenage daughter came, but even with two of us we couldn\u2019t move it.\u00a0 At least we were able to drain the water out of the stand.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t til afternoon, when Gene showed up, that there was someone strong enough to get the tree back up.\u00a0 He connected it with a wire to the balcony so it wouldn\u2019t happen again, and we replaced\u00a0the decorations that needed it.\u00a0 I remembered that day for years, even recently thought to myself, I wish I could be like I was the day the tree fell down.\u00a0 I just got my wish, and it\u2019s lasted for almost a week.\u00a0 If I lose this wonderful capacity to accept things that used to upset me with amusement, I at least know it\u2019s more likely than before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the week since that painful therapy session\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve been through a lot of ups and downs.\u00a0 But one thing made me hopeful.\u00a0 I talked to a friend about activities I needed to do with someone, and it\u2019s like she didn\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}