Putting it out there

My will goes out like a pulse into the universe. It doesn’t matter if anyone ever reads this. It’s my will emanating out, influencing others, manifesting my own reality and affecting that of others.

I am adjusting my peptides. My cells are adjusting their receptors. I am slowly moving away from re-creating my miserable anxiety-ridden marriage. I am moving away from trying to predict the future, to game the reactions of others, to control response and emotion.

More hours than not I am feeling that hugeness and it is indescribably beautiful in ways that seem corny to me, the unsentimental, the stripped down, the writer to whom everything is “material.”

That positivity, that connection.  When anxiety about the future happens, I search for that connection and it’s so much easier to find now that I know my body is adjusting to the new pattern.

a thousand beautiful things

Being alone provides interesting challenges.

When I was married I never felt more alone. More lost. More at sea. More curled up on my side of the bed. More disregarded. More frozen from the inside out. There aren’t good words for that feeling yet. I remember it. But I can’t go there, not yet. Can’t write it. It’s enough to be done with it, and to know I never have to be there again, never accept it for years on end just to prove I could stay married.

I come home to an empty house one evening every week and every time I think about what it means to come home alone. To walk into a home where no demands are made on me. No one is hungry. No one needs help with long division or an art project. No one needs me to read to them. Oh, evidence of need is all around me. The morning mess of breakfast dishes. Rice Krispies slow dance in a bowl of water. The box of Ziploc bags on the counter. But no one is here, right now, asking for anything. How many times did I covet this as a young mother? Countless.

While I was going through the divorce, sitting in this apartment I had carefully composed from thin air, this place I was supposed to feel an escape from the pressure in, all I felt was panic. I can now identify it as such. A thick black hole of not knowing. I felt: who will love me now? Who will care for me? Who will fill this hole?

It wasn’t until after the divorce was final that I knew who needed to do those things: me. This is something we always know but some of us find a way to avoid accomplishing. I found so many ways. I never lived alone. I took care of my mother. I took care of my father.

I failed to protect and care for my brother. Failed to stop my mother from crying herself to sleep for years. Failed to fix my father, no matter how much compassion I had.

Maybe along the way I lost faith in my ability to do those things for me. I did those things for others to prove I could, to fix the past,  and denied that I needed anything.

Such a lot of effort to deny fear of failure and the work I needed to do.

The other day, after experiencing ridiculous success at something I didn’t know I could do, I laid down on my favorite rug. My son, who had been sick for two days, came in and laid down with me. He rested his head on my chest and I held him, like I always do. I said you know what? He said, what? I said, my life is really full and really amazing. He probably rolled his eyes.

Full of a thousand beautiful things I can give to myself every single minute of every single day.

watch the dip

I wake at 3 am. I think about not drinking wine any more. I think about not drinking anything any more. I wonder if it’s making my face bloat or break out. I wonder if it’s making me lazy.

I don’t drink the way I did when I was married. When I was married, mid-week hangovers were routine. Wobbling home was routine. Getting in the car when I shouldn’t have was routine. With my kids.

There. I said it. Seems unconscionable now. Back then it was simply the way I was even though I knew full well it was an unbelievably stupid thing to do. Alcohol was quickly becoming my coping mechanism. My mother says all the time – she didn’t recognize me. Didn’t know who I was. I didn’t either. It was all caving in, crashing down. All of my plans for a perfect little life. I couldn’t force it to happen anymore.

My commitment problem. Committing to things that don’t work just to prove I can.

As I woke up tonight, I watched my mind dip into that place that will take my gut to the place of panic. I feel the back of my brain buzz. I don’t know what that buzzing is. I just know I need to pay attention when it happens.

It’s really a mild panic now, more of an anxiety. Who will love me? I am alone in the middle of a Saturday night. Who will care for me?

The answer is clear, the universe fairly rings with it, it vibrates all around me.

I have to give that to myself. How, I ask?

No answer. On that one, universe is silent. Not a good partner. Or maybe the best.

Recently I have been waking with that feeling already in my gut, as though I were dreaming of the anxiety already, as though I were the only human left on earth already and had to deal with myself and couldn’t. This time was really different. I woke and then watched my mind begin in that place of fear, and felt the fear move down to my gut. But it wasn’t a cold stone, more of a tide this time.

And in the awareness, the feeling dissipated. I smiled. Flopped over in my bed. Taking up the whole thing.

When I was married sleeping in my bed brought home the gulf between my husband and myself. There were so many nights I was so much more alone than I am now. Even on the few nights we would have sex. Those were actually worse. It brought home what I didn’t feel, and I would pretend. Always pretend. Feeling as though that was part of the deal. Part of what marriage is.

It makes me sad. I really loved him. So much. For a long time. And I fight with the idea that it was a mistake. I have two beautiful children, sure. I walked away with more than most people get to leave with. But I fight with the notion that my love itself was a mistake. I fight with the feeling that I don’t know how to love. I do battle with the sadness of having love just slip away like that, and whether or not that will always happen. Whether or not, in the end, it’s me who can’t really love.

But why fight? What’s the point of fighting? It’s over. You have learned. Maybe not everything you need to. But a lot. And you are recognizable again. You are you. In all of your imperfect beauty.

And that may be the purpose of the universe’s non-answer. It may not be that you are afraid of being alone. You are afraid you don’t know how to love.

same lesson

It all goes back – for me – to learning how to both be alone and that I’m not alone – separate and together, gain nourishment, feed myself with the love of being part of everything even at 3:45 am when I can’t sleep and it would appear I have no one, nothing but my music and laptop and the internet to keep me company.

This must be the lesson I need to learn. At least, what i need to learn right now. But it could very well be the central lesson of my life.

Time alone on the weekends I have to myself is not the problem, though they are disorienting in a structural way (a way I need to take more advantage of spiritually). I am learning to love them. I need to make plans with friends more often so that I’m not alone. I need to make friends here. I am going to do what I need to do to make that happen.

I remember being a teenager and this period of time where I was in a musical, running track and had an after school job and I had to keep my grades up or lose my activities. I did it all, and maybe I was even more productive in all of them because I had things that had to be done. I had to learn in that trial by fire way to organize my time. Focus my efforts. But I didn’t want to be home. I couldn’t stand being at home. I remember a semester in college – 6 classes and 3 jobs. I was busy literally all the time.

But I have never, not once in my whole life, been alone. By alone I mean having no one but me to take care of, no one else in my personal space that I had to share it with. And that aloneness isn’t going to happen. I have children. So in the most important way I’ll never be alone. But in other just-as-important ways I need to be.

Patterns.

Same lesson. Haven’t learned it. Haven’t given myself a chance to. It’s kind of like having this long hair. Can’t get used to it. Haven’t had hair this long since I was 9. But I like it. Most of the time.

Anonymity

Dear Reader,

You might think I keep this blog anonymous because I gossip or get nasty or talk about my ex.

Here is why this blog is anonymous: I don’t have to wear another face or another mask or anything here.

I’m not malicious or gossipy or weird or some kind of fucked up person divulging their worst shit online.

But I am crazy private.

I just discovered this about myself a few months ago. I used to not be. I used to be more… out there. But I was married to someone with no boundaries and for some reason I adopted much of that bullshit. Now I know – I get it. I’m all about live and let live. But with myself – I am conservative. I love without reserve when I love but I have become very careful with whom I give that level of care to.

I don’t know if this means I will spend my life alone or not. I hope not.

Back again

I haven’t posted here in a while.

I was thinking about all the things I do differently. I wrote about the concrete stuff on Facebook but here, I can, I don’t know, be more open about what’s happening to me.

To me. With me. For me. By me.

It’s such a wild place to be. This place where my mind is so clear and crystal that I don’t know what to do with all the space. Is this what it means to walk the world with awareness? I feel like I hear every bird chirp, see every flower bloom, notice every fluctuation in a stranger’s face.

In a way it interrupts the writing of stories. To feel like you can see through everything to what it really is.

Someone I loathe wrote to me that things aren’t ever what they seem. Resisting my temptation to get the last word, I wanted to tell him, oh, but sometimes things are what they are, sometimes an asshole is really just an asshole.

When I met that person I was in a place where nothing was what it seemed. My whole life was smoke and mirrors.

Another friend I met around the same time called me complex.

Oh, I was complex. My house of cards was a mansion.

loop

Two friends of mine have challenged me, in different ways, to start looking at what I give to others, and to start giving it to myself.

In therapy, we talked a lot about taking care of others, of feeling compelled to do so. I wonder how many others have this experience. Are taught this skill. Pass it along.

This… looping of that care back onto myself… such an easy habit that I want to engage it again and again. It feels good to feel good.

Negative habits are so hard to break. So hard to notice until you’re 2 minutes in. So hard to put the brakes on, at first.

This habit — I want to keep it going. I want to soak myself in what I’ve given to other people.

If I make other people feel half as good about themselves as I am making myself feel right now, well, now I know why people want to be around me.

This is powerful, heady stuff.

where’d i go?

I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression. ~Dylan Thomas

This morning I woke up feeling nothing less than … spectacularly incompetent. I did a grounding exercise to try to find a solid place to start. Doing that exercise made me feel better, but also made me recognize: For the second time in two days, I feel as though I have no idea who I am.

I was about to say, maybe it’s because I spent most of my weekend alone, but I didn’t. I spent it with friends, I spent it talking to people who love me and doing things I enjoy doing. I held a baby and listened to him coo in his sleep, watched his mother look at him. Hugged her when she cried about her body. Pondered having more children. I talked to my friend Sarah about taking the love we feel we have to give and giving it to ourselves first. (We get so excited when we hit upon these things.) But as in everything else — it’s the follow-through.

It hit me hardest on Sunday morning, when I was running errands. I was in full-on Mom purchasing mode: evaluate product, compare price, read nutrition label, figure out what side dishes must be bought, if any. Ensure healthy snacks have been purchased. Buy grill and accessories, because my son calls my hamburgers “one mean burger” and can’t wait to grill with me. All very  good, concrete, affirming mom stuff.

As I looked at the bread I had this realization: I can do these practical things, I can manage a life, but I cannot articulate what I want or need from almost anyone in my life, except maybe my mom, because I know I can ask anything and everything of my mother and she will answer honestly, try to help, really listen – and in my family, she was the only one who ever did. Her emotions and actions line up. I try to be that kind of mother to my children.

I also realized that in having children I gave myself the perfect vessels in which to pour my undemanding, martyr-like love. How perfect, and how selfish.

So these days I work really hard on emotions and actions lining up, but this doesn’t mean I say what I’m feeling — it just means that I try to incorporate my gut, my emotions, into everything I do and approach all situations with compassion. When I’m around people who are the same way — people who say what they feel, people who don’t try to cover up their true emotions — I’m fine. Having breakfast with my friend Alan, I was perfectly clear. I can be honest. There’s no judgment. He knows that he can be the same way with me. It is a conversation blessedly free of negotiation.

It’s the wire-crossing people I don’t know what to do with, which appears to be most of the human population, and it came up, of all the places, during my massage that followed breakfast with Alan.

I told the massage therapist that I didn’t know why, no matter how many massages I get, I have the tightness that starts around my chest and heart and goes up into my neck and ends just under my skull. I told her about how I used to grind my teeth, how I get hives along my jawline when it’s really bad. She said, “Well, that’s your fifth. And the tightness between your fourth and fifth, well, if I had to guess, I’d say that you rarely, if ever, speak what’s on your heart.” She didn’t even have to say chakra. I knew what she meant.

All that after 60 minutes of deep tissue massage? But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve definitely learned how to do lately – when a critique is leveled at me, I can now recognize when someone is right. And she is right. And it hurt to hear, that after all of this work on myself, how far I have to go.

We went on to discuss why this might be the case, and it came back to simply this: noticing and absorbing other people’s energies and emotions, and not being able to differentiate them from my own. In psychiatry, maybe this is something called internalization… but to me, it’s about energy exchange. When there is contradiction between how a person feels and what they are saying I get confused. I try to work out why someone who is so afraid is acting like they are so unafraid, or why someone who is clearly angry is telling me “everything’s fine.”

I’ve learned that I’m not incorrectly interpreting emotions either, because if in talking to someone with crossed wires you point out the real emotion behind what they’re saying, they do one of two things: admit to it and open up or get really, really defensive. Usually the latter. And people are easy to read: check their body language. Tune into their frequency.

In the process, if we get to the end of the conversation and someone asks me how I feel, I have no idea. This is not because I want to blame other people for my own inability to figure myself out. I’m literally confused about how I feel. The massage therapist said something like, “So, you can’t discern what’s theirs and what’s yours. That’s a problem for people who are really empathic.”

I might have taken that as a compliment, but I’m trying to figure out how to manage these things effectively so that I can function. Interact.

All of that made me feel like in the simplest human interaction, I have no discernible goal if elements outside of practical life are involved. Hence – not knowing the first thing about who I am.

connected

I think about the many ways I am connected with others.

Sometimes through my blood. But even those who are connected to me this way, I feel distinctly unconnected to.

Sometimes through my face, hands, voice. But these people are busy. Hard to connect with, hard to find time to just sit around talking any more.

Sometimes online. I find myself, on the weekends I have with my kids, staring at this monitor after they go to bed, thinking about reaching out to others, waiting for a signal from someone else. A signal saying, “I’m here! I care! Wanna talk?”

On the weekends I have to myself, I may spend mornings staring at the screen but it’s for a completely different reason. I’m not reaching out. I’m reaching in. I’m not seeking contact from others, I seek contact with myself.

I still can’t figure out what this dichotomy is about.

It seems to have something to do with getting used to having the kids around all the time, and the downhill slide into loneliness a Saturday night with no options can take you on, versus the uphill slide of possibilities of a weekend alone: I could get in a cab and go to the Funky Buddha to go dancing (but going to a club alone is never a good idea, I am too old not to know that) — I could write until 2 in the morning, and not wake up until 10. I could do anything. I usually choose to spend time alone, because I cherish my time alone, but I recognize that it’s critical for me to actually make plans, spend time with friends, do things.

All about that balance between immersion and isolation. The immersion, I need, being one of those people who gets a lot out of being with others. The isolation, I need, to digest that experience, to sit with the quiet, to work on myself, to write, to dance around my living room in my pyjamas at 2 pm on a Sunday to Wyclef Jean.

in it

I wrote this in an email to a friend who has trouble maintaining openness with others (edited to take out personal details):

As I got to the end of this dialogue, I thought, well, maybe here’s where we differ: one of the only things I know is that there are few things in life worth making time for more than relationships with other people and I’m truly open to them.

As messy as we can be, we can all be wonderful, amazing, beautiful, and those are the people I want to surround myself with – that’s the family I want to build, to surround myself with laughter and love, and yes, sometimes, drama, because goddamn, life throws curve balls and my friends need my voice in that wilderness. Intimacy is easy to avoid when you don’t want to deal with other people’s messiness. Not mess. Not drama for the sake of making a scene. Just messiness. When you close that door, when you simply can’t tolerate any mess at all, I don’t know how any kind of intimacy can grow — although we all have to be really careful about what kind of messiness we can tolerate, when we choose to be truly intimate with someone.

Perhaps I have more tolerance for other people’s stormy emotions than you, or maybe I see myself as a calming force in that kind of situation. And maybe that’s the wrong approach because it lets people in before I figure out that they should not be “in” my life and then I have to extricate. Sometimes I have problems with that process. It’s led to some pretty disastrous choices. I hope I’ve learned a little bit at this point.

And I also thought… one of the things I’ve learned that is equally as important is: choosing the right people who want to be with me, and want to give and receive not just love but companionship and friendship and a laugh and long discussions deep into the night about books and wine and the fucking meaning of life, and art, and I want to talk about how apartheid stories used to make me bawl during the evening news, how Camus can be happy and even funny if you read him a certain way, I want to talk about whether love is really the meaning of life or not, I want someone to explain Reaganomics to me, I want to talk about God and religion and the loss of the mystical in life, I want to be in it with other people. I want them to be in it with me. I want to share, and be shared with, love and be loved, and just… live it all to the hilt, as much as my tiny, constrained life will allow.

Like I said, from my perspective, it’s one of the few things really worth consistently making the time for in life. But I’m not here to convince you of anything and I don’t know anything more than you do about life. That’s just what I thought as I read over the thread and your last message.