River Brown

Re-wired. My current life metaphor.

I recently completed a home renovation project, having the 100-year old knob and tube wiring replaced; new plugs, boxes, fixtures, up-to-code Romex installed and then had the attic insulated.

Condensed into a sentence, this two-year project sounds simple, but the process wasn’t. 

I relate to the re-wiring mainly in changing some of my routines and rewriting some brain maps.  In the past two years, as owner and sole proprietor of my life, I have dropped opinions, or unplugged from negative conclusions.  For example, the way I viewed my two marriages.

My first was 10 years and gave me two wonderful daughters.  How could I have continued to hold it as a failure? And the second marriage of 16 years was a loving relationship with a very gentle man.  Why should the buzzer in my brain continue to sound off — “wrong!”  Those were rich relationship experiences, a long time ago in which I loved, learned and contributed.  The old knob and tube dragged them into my middle age, shorting in my mind as failures.  Why?  Just because they ended?

The independent decision making I had to do to choose the design of the lighting, the fixtures, negotiate with contractors and direct the work was part of the accomplishment for me.  I got to be in charge, and I had to be.  The other part that was big was budgeting for paying contractors, while handling property taxes, etc.  Of course there were two visits from the plumber just to make it seem impossible.

The new wiring in me is a kind of calm, even when I have lots to do — especially when I have side jobs and extra assignments.  The house is so much more evenly heated with insulation and likewise my mood and mindset is so much more evenly distributed in a positive way.

Along with the ceiling fans and cool LED can lights, my swing arm wall reading lamp over my bed is my favorite.  All these little comforts and improvements shine light and make rooms more hospitable.  Likewise, all the rooms in my brain that have to do with happiness and satisfaction are better lit. I finally felt glad to live alone.  I began to enjoy my solitude…even crave it at times, rather than feel the constant resistance of ungrounded energy waste in my nerves and thoughts.  I hated being single for a long time.

Now, not only is my home more comfortable, but it is safer.  And I know a certain link to the word rewire is in being more conscious and rational about my self-care.  Looking out for my own best interests.

At work I am more confident at my tasks, and clearer.  I am more likely to stand up for a position if given negative feedback, and not so inclined to stress over thoughtless things said or done.  That grounding wire is a thick piece of copper that runs under my entire house and goes out at the front water pipe into the ground.  Other people’s stuff doesn’t have to be on my circuit board.

I really have more capacity to live in and enjoy the present, presently.  I don’t know exactly why the shift occurred in my attitude and emotions.  Maybe there just aren’t many big things I’m living in reaction to at this phase — It’s funny but I also just signed up for an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) course on Re-wiring your brain:  Tapping Deep Intimacy.  Of course there’s the opportunity over the next 12 weeks to re-wire my childhood memories that have a negative charge.

A friend of mine called this age range, “our generative years, m’dear.”  I think for me I’m at least entering conductive years, conducive to good work.

So the circuit box replaced the fuses; there’s a CO/smoke detector wired in the basement, and the attic has R-38 cellulose insulation blown in. And I was able to manage that happening.

Looking a a new friendship with that insulated calm.  Finding more time and ways to connect with my family.  Still getting catch up time with old friends.  And somehow, all the presentations, meetings, grants and extra work on top of being a reading specialist, an interventionist, flow into the days and get done.

Maybe some of the old wiring that was pulled had to do with simply underestimating myself?

Looking this week at my early “attachment style” and realizing I’m ambivalent about close bonds with people. Well, I’ll have to crawl into that space and see what’s there.  Like patching the holes in the kitchen left by the electricians pulling wire.

Maybe the re-wire of my history is going to be fun and give me more energy to be deeply personally available to people now.