Grief is contagious. I eat it up, actually, the aroma entices me. Feeling bad is feeling, and sometimes it's delicious to feel. My friend is grieving now, and she's not talking about it. I sought some evidence of her thoughts by reading her blog. And now I'm guilty by association, for knowing what's going on in her mind. I asked her if she wanted to have coffee, as in quiet time, as in let's just sit on your deck and listen to the wind and feel the warm mug in our hands together. I don't blame her if she ignores that message and chooses to have coffee solo. We have an understanding. We fly under the radar in times like this, and the other understands. I guess I felt compelled to ask. I already had coffee. To be honest.
Feeling good seems to give some people the wrong idea, that I want them along for the ride. Someone I knew 25 years ago randomly contacted me because she's wandering around my town. My reaction? Anger. "What makes her think I'm just sitting around waiting for a last minute invitation to socialize?!" Ok, but I'll try to take it down a notch. Feel less. Less. Even less. Ok, better.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Friday, September 23, 2016
Rehashing the past
I sent a message to M this week. I wanted to give him the news that I had been offered the job I told him about. After being told that saying "I miss you" was too painful for him, I pulled way back. Stopped making the first move in conversations. I only asked about weather, kids, work.
His answer was arrogant. He's really good, actually. He's "seeing someone, which is strange to say" to me and "kinda sad, but time." His life is so full at the moment, yadda yadda. It went through me like a bullet, tears started streaming out of my eyes before I could even process the words. I can't feel jealousy, we've been apart for 9 months, a few quick and dirty meetups in that time. It was just the way he said it, so much like when I would hear him telling Buddy to shut up or quit sniffing trees. For someone who is such a do gooder, that was a hurtful way of saying something that didn't even need to be said. If he thinks it's strange and sad to tell me about it, then it's even stranger and sadder for me to be sitting here hurting over it. He treated me badly. He guilted me into everything. Made sure I knew every time I overstepped or understepped. He tried to instruct me about being Jewish, how to eat and socialize, who to be friends with, who to work for and why.
I often wonder why I was attracted to a man like him. Or if I truly was attracted, or just infatuated with the notion that an older, smarter man wanted to sleep with a divorced mom in her 40's. I let him treat me like garbage. He left me alone to pay the bill at breakfast more than once. He hated my driving and even took the wheel of my car because he didn't want to be a passenger. He constantly worried about his bowels. He had narcissistic bowels. His bowels were the third wheel in our relationship. Our "relationship" was nothing but a band-aid. I'm plagiarizing Orange is the New Black here. He was nothing but a band-aid, during a time when I was hurt, bleeding to death from my shame and misery. And now that I'm getting better, I've ripped off the band-aid, and all I see is a scar. I'm ready to heal, and looking at the scar is a painful reminder of how hurt I was in the first place.
I don't need him, he gives me nothing but superficial reassurances, followed by shallow-grave references to how I took something away from him. I'm doing us both a huge favor by never speaking to him again. New season, new home, new job, new friends, new authentic self.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
What's not to love
This anxious feeling is nothing new. I used to dread Saturdays because this awful terror would arise like clockwork by noon. When I was married I would have spent the early hours of the day drinking coffee and doing projects quietly so my husband could sleep till 10 or 11. I'd get so impatient to be out in the world that I'd scribble a note and go, often returning moments later because I forgot my wallet or phone, only to find him awake on the couch enjoying my absence, usually watching the dvr'ed game or race from the day before. What a shitty realization that my partner was scheduling his waking hours around when I'd be least available. Now I live with his daughter. Our daughter. She is even more agoraphobic than her dad. It makes her happy to sit indoors with windows sealed and blinds shut. All of her favorite activities take place indoors. She shuts down on the weekends when nothing is required of her. I'm the exact opposite. I bought her a phone plan so I'd have more freedom to come and go, leaving her safe at home with neighbors nearby in case of emergencies. It hasn't planned out that way. Today I spent a 77 degree day--with 99% sunshine--indoors, waiting on her. Just now she changed her mind and decided in fact she does want dinner. Ten minutes ago the answer was "no, leave me alone!"
Fuck. My. Life.
Lost: confidence
http://glynissherwood.com/how-to-survive-sudden-loss-of-confidence-syndrome/
http://glynissherwood.com/self-acceptance-the-key-to-self-worth/
Some days I take the intellectual approach to analyzing my state. On those days I feel present, accepting of all that got me here, aware that none of these emotions I'm feeling are permanent. I'm able to complete tasks, even take on new creative projects. I've done some writing, painting, photography, spontaneous cooking. All these things are therapeutic and pass the time effortlessly.
But the majority of days are like this. I wake with teeth clenched and head fogged. I wander over to the kitchen and start pushing dishes and trash out of the way to make coffee, one of my only reliable comforts, like a daily prayer. The passing of time feels agonizing, as if each moment takes another piece of my youth with it, never to be recovered.
The trauma of selling a home, quitting a job, saying goodbye to friends, moving across country, and breaking my leg have taken a toll. My hair is thinning, and my skin is ashy and riddled with new bumps and wrinkles. I don't recognize the person I see in the mirror. I can't remember who I was when I boldly left everything behind and took my little family on this journey. It's confusing. I feel cheated.
These articles tell me that I need to be an agent of change, rather than a reactor to what is happening in my life. Could be small changes. A therapist I used to know, the sister of a boyfriend, once wrote an article suggesting that self care could come in the form of rubbing lotion on your tired feet. I could start using a loofah in the shower. Get that haircut I've been waiting for. Switch from torturous uphill hiking to gentle yoga stretches. Eating more nourishing foods and drink.
I imagined a different scenario for my 40's. Honestly, this isn't a decade I ever clearly envisioned for myself. I remember when my grandmother was in her 40's, working full time to save for retirement. My mom was an aide at a preschool in her 40's, returning home every afternoon to fix dinner and offer an ear or a shoulder to cry on during my teenage years. My aunt had her second child in her 40's, relocated, and changed careers, with the help of a dedicated partner.
Me...I'm a divorced mother of a precocious and independent 10 year old. I left a 14 year career as an art restorer due to the psychological pressures of working for a family whose priorities I couldn't understand, under conditions that threatened my personal growth. I regret that I learned too late in life about boundaries. I let too many people tell me who and what to be for too long, for fear of forging my own path all alone. I started my 43rd year with the intention of figuring out how to be my best self, a slave to no one. I tossed away a lifetime of rules and expectations. I stopped apologizing.
I am flawed: overweight, lazy, lacking impulse control, afraid to express myself. I daydream instead of doing.
I am also: sensitive to others' emotions, intuitive, insightful, able to remember odd details about nature and music.
I can be: an agent of change.
http://glynissherwood.com/self-acceptance-the-key-to-self-worth/
Some days I take the intellectual approach to analyzing my state. On those days I feel present, accepting of all that got me here, aware that none of these emotions I'm feeling are permanent. I'm able to complete tasks, even take on new creative projects. I've done some writing, painting, photography, spontaneous cooking. All these things are therapeutic and pass the time effortlessly.
But the majority of days are like this. I wake with teeth clenched and head fogged. I wander over to the kitchen and start pushing dishes and trash out of the way to make coffee, one of my only reliable comforts, like a daily prayer. The passing of time feels agonizing, as if each moment takes another piece of my youth with it, never to be recovered.
The trauma of selling a home, quitting a job, saying goodbye to friends, moving across country, and breaking my leg have taken a toll. My hair is thinning, and my skin is ashy and riddled with new bumps and wrinkles. I don't recognize the person I see in the mirror. I can't remember who I was when I boldly left everything behind and took my little family on this journey. It's confusing. I feel cheated.
These articles tell me that I need to be an agent of change, rather than a reactor to what is happening in my life. Could be small changes. A therapist I used to know, the sister of a boyfriend, once wrote an article suggesting that self care could come in the form of rubbing lotion on your tired feet. I could start using a loofah in the shower. Get that haircut I've been waiting for. Switch from torturous uphill hiking to gentle yoga stretches. Eating more nourishing foods and drink.
I imagined a different scenario for my 40's. Honestly, this isn't a decade I ever clearly envisioned for myself. I remember when my grandmother was in her 40's, working full time to save for retirement. My mom was an aide at a preschool in her 40's, returning home every afternoon to fix dinner and offer an ear or a shoulder to cry on during my teenage years. My aunt had her second child in her 40's, relocated, and changed careers, with the help of a dedicated partner.
Me...I'm a divorced mother of a precocious and independent 10 year old. I left a 14 year career as an art restorer due to the psychological pressures of working for a family whose priorities I couldn't understand, under conditions that threatened my personal growth. I regret that I learned too late in life about boundaries. I let too many people tell me who and what to be for too long, for fear of forging my own path all alone. I started my 43rd year with the intention of figuring out how to be my best self, a slave to no one. I tossed away a lifetime of rules and expectations. I stopped apologizing.
I am flawed: overweight, lazy, lacking impulse control, afraid to express myself. I daydream instead of doing.
I am also: sensitive to others' emotions, intuitive, insightful, able to remember odd details about nature and music.
I can be: an agent of change.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Agree to disagree
Hi Dad,
I've read a lot of interesting arguments about the tilma. The church has never authorized a scientific study to be released, but there are plenty of well-researched arguments that this is a copy of a traditional painting made by a converted Aztec who would have been educated by the Spaniards who conquered Mexico in the 1500's. Certainly it is one of the most important images ever made, just like the Sistine ceiling or Guernica, and it helped the church thrive because its beauty equated with a miracle in the eyes of peasants who had never seen European artistry. I don't think the paranormal explanations are believable or necessary, but at that time they would have easily convinced the uneducated Indians to convert to Christianity (just like the Pagans in Rome and the Celtic people in Ireland etc). In fact, I read that there was already a shrine dedicated to a pagan goddess on that spot, so it would be likely that the story of the cloak was used to unite the old beliefs and the new. Even her features are said to reflect those of indigenous Mexican people, rather than a Jewish woman which Mary was. Most people today don't realize that humans were very sophisticated by this time, and with God's intervention, they were finally able to share knowledge far and wide, there were enormous triumphs in music and art and science...just look at any art or engineering that came out of Italy during this time. Italians painted on wood panels and linen, but the tilma is said to be blended with hemp which is one of the most durable fibers, and possibly preserved by the minerals on the surface (calcium and magnesium resist oxidizing of natural fibers). The colors are indeed earth pigments that are probably unique to that region, so couldn't be explained by European scientists. One of my co-workers from Oppenheimer uses an ancient technique of mixing egg yolk with found mineral deposits...red and yellow pigments from South Dakota and lapis lazuli from Turkey--to create some of the most exquisite, colorful paintings of molecular structures, and no brush strokes are visible-plus the minerals all have different opacity and reflectivity properties that can be layered for different subtle effects...if that's a miracle then I know plenty of miracle workers. It's a skill some artists have, an ability to manipulate materials in ways most of us wouldn't imagine. The fun in looking at art is not only seeing and interpreting the end product, but imagining the layers and reading into the construction. I'd hate to crush anyone's belief in miracles (I still haven't told Zoe that the tooth fairy is made up, just that she is unreliable lately?!) but I like what one person wrote, which was "the miracle of the tilma exists in the hearts of those who believe." Thankfully there is no harm in it, no one is starting a jihad because of this. My landlord and her family just drove across the border to the Baja region where they'll be living for the next few months. I'll be interested in hearing about her travels there, maybe it will convince me to visit someday.
Love
Sus
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
It's bad, that's all.
Disconnected. I'm looking at the most stunning sunrise I've ever seen and wishing I could sublime into the clouds. It was dark before the dawn. It remains dark even as I shield my eyes from the burning rays. I'm trying to focus on the rock that soars from the mountain's edge, saluting and absorbing the sun's warmth on its blade. Casting a lavender shadow on the mountain's bushy green brow. Too much beauty and I'm on the verge of succumbing.
These dips make everything that is good-fade into a haze. My heart, my spirit, my whole being is shattered, pieces floating in a soup of garbage. Lacking even the courage to cry. Dreaming of hell. Bloated purple bodies and brown, oil-stained memories of meaningless rituals and empty praises. Confounded at how an infusion of undivided free time in an unspoiled land can feel so confining. Stomach in knots. Fearful that I won't ever touch the earth again, or the sea, or even the air. I'm nowhere, dissipating/disappearing into the space between everything.
I'm lost in a maze of chemicals. Slashing at everything and not even sure why. I'm slashing at the pills that are supposed to free me from this, to which I owed my life at one point. A regimen that once pulled me out of despair is now trapping me inside its walls. I want less. And I want more. I feel nothing but it hurts so much. Even crying hurts. Loneliness hurts, and companionship hurts. Hairs dropping from my scalp. I'm traumatized down to my pores, and completely numb.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Started writing this on my personal web site, then cut and pasted
It's been an unbelievable 2 months since I turned the page on the longest chapter of my life.
I spent 42 years in Illinois. Half of those years I lived in Mount Prospect, in the "Triangle" to be specific, a one square-ish mile of land that was the birthplace of the town. The land was settled by hard-working Germans along a direct train route between downtown Chicago and the Wisconsin border. I never questioned my purpose growing up in a town like that; I had the same goals as most other kids. Do well in school, attain a respectable job, marry a responsible person, and have a family of my own. Gender roles were changing in the 1970's, so one of the harder things to imagine was how I was supposed to be equal to my brothers, yet still be as dedicated to parenting as my own mother was. Throughout my teenage years I fought with the notion that I had an impossible task ahead of me.
I pushed through my adolescent years, mostly copying the friends I liked most. I blended in well enough in my 20's, making friends and trying new adventures like living on my own in the city, traveling to deserts and small towns to see what else the world had to offer. In my 30's I started "checking off" the same grown-up to-do list items that my older brother and friends had already accomplished. Marriage. Child birth. Day care. Schools. Doctor visits. Work anniversaries.
I was the first in my circle of friends to get divorced. For the first time, there was no one I could copy. This was a foreign land where I had no answers. I coped by seeking out others in my position, but no one had the same history or struggle that I had. My one comfort was living in a large city where I could sink into anonymity each day on the train. I could pretend to be just like everyone around me for a while, and let my guard down.
I gave up my anonymity when I moved back to my home town. I needed help with after school care for my daughter, and the only people I trusted were my parents. It was the path of least resistance, and I relished it. Asking for help has always been challenging for me. They didn't require me to ask for anything. In the course of those three years, I became so comfortable allowing others to choose for me, that I lost my ability to express what I wanted. During the short time I lived in parents' home, my mother and I got into a discussion about the course my life was taking. Frustrated at my inability to make a decision, she asked me "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" and I tearfully responded that I didn't know! I thought I knew but it all turned out to be wrong. I was paralyzed by fear and lack of confidence.
After a couple of years, I got back on my feet, bought a home nearby, and got the hang of being a working single mom again. I was dating again, but only on the weekends when Z was with her dad. It was the fall, and my boyfriend asked me if I could get away to attend a conference with him in Vienna. My parents had agreed to care for Z when I went away with him a couple of years earlier. But this time, when I asked for their help, my mother gave no explanation except that no, they could not do that. It broke my heart. It was obvious that they felt it was a frivolous trip, that the relationship itself was frivolous. So I turned him down.
It wasn't a complete disappointment. Deep down I knew I didn't want to leave Z a second time to go to Europe without her. But saying no was very hard for me. It carried the shame of giving in to my parents' wishes. But saying yes meant I would be succumbing to my boyfriend's wishes. Ultimately I began to realize that all of my choices culminated from my being controlled by others.
I did eventually get away on a trip. Not the Vienna trip, another one. To Italy. A real vacation, not a conference where I'd be a tag-along. That was exactly a year ago. Same week that my best friends in Mount Prospect packed up their car and moved to Colorado.
It came as a shock. They had talked and talked about moving there, for the wilderness and liberal way of life. But they just did it, got the kids in school, rented a house, boom. When I got back from Italy, my best friends were gone. I could barely get my head around it. How do you just decide one day that the comfort of family and friends and a nice home you've worked so hard for isn't good enough? I chewed on that question for months. But I got to see how happy this new life made them. New challenges, new rewards, new horizons, new everything. That's when I started to understand. That's when I replayed my mother asking me that question in my brain, years later, and this time, I knew the answer.
I spent 42 years in Illinois. Half of those years I lived in Mount Prospect, in the "Triangle" to be specific, a one square-ish mile of land that was the birthplace of the town. The land was settled by hard-working Germans along a direct train route between downtown Chicago and the Wisconsin border. I never questioned my purpose growing up in a town like that; I had the same goals as most other kids. Do well in school, attain a respectable job, marry a responsible person, and have a family of my own. Gender roles were changing in the 1970's, so one of the harder things to imagine was how I was supposed to be equal to my brothers, yet still be as dedicated to parenting as my own mother was. Throughout my teenage years I fought with the notion that I had an impossible task ahead of me.
I pushed through my adolescent years, mostly copying the friends I liked most. I blended in well enough in my 20's, making friends and trying new adventures like living on my own in the city, traveling to deserts and small towns to see what else the world had to offer. In my 30's I started "checking off" the same grown-up to-do list items that my older brother and friends had already accomplished. Marriage. Child birth. Day care. Schools. Doctor visits. Work anniversaries.
I was the first in my circle of friends to get divorced. For the first time, there was no one I could copy. This was a foreign land where I had no answers. I coped by seeking out others in my position, but no one had the same history or struggle that I had. My one comfort was living in a large city where I could sink into anonymity each day on the train. I could pretend to be just like everyone around me for a while, and let my guard down.
I gave up my anonymity when I moved back to my home town. I needed help with after school care for my daughter, and the only people I trusted were my parents. It was the path of least resistance, and I relished it. Asking for help has always been challenging for me. They didn't require me to ask for anything. In the course of those three years, I became so comfortable allowing others to choose for me, that I lost my ability to express what I wanted. During the short time I lived in parents' home, my mother and I got into a discussion about the course my life was taking. Frustrated at my inability to make a decision, she asked me "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" and I tearfully responded that I didn't know! I thought I knew but it all turned out to be wrong. I was paralyzed by fear and lack of confidence.
After a couple of years, I got back on my feet, bought a home nearby, and got the hang of being a working single mom again. I was dating again, but only on the weekends when Z was with her dad. It was the fall, and my boyfriend asked me if I could get away to attend a conference with him in Vienna. My parents had agreed to care for Z when I went away with him a couple of years earlier. But this time, when I asked for their help, my mother gave no explanation except that no, they could not do that. It broke my heart. It was obvious that they felt it was a frivolous trip, that the relationship itself was frivolous. So I turned him down.
It wasn't a complete disappointment. Deep down I knew I didn't want to leave Z a second time to go to Europe without her. But saying no was very hard for me. It carried the shame of giving in to my parents' wishes. But saying yes meant I would be succumbing to my boyfriend's wishes. Ultimately I began to realize that all of my choices culminated from my being controlled by others.
I did eventually get away on a trip. Not the Vienna trip, another one. To Italy. A real vacation, not a conference where I'd be a tag-along. That was exactly a year ago. Same week that my best friends in Mount Prospect packed up their car and moved to Colorado.
It came as a shock. They had talked and talked about moving there, for the wilderness and liberal way of life. But they just did it, got the kids in school, rented a house, boom. When I got back from Italy, my best friends were gone. I could barely get my head around it. How do you just decide one day that the comfort of family and friends and a nice home you've worked so hard for isn't good enough? I chewed on that question for months. But I got to see how happy this new life made them. New challenges, new rewards, new horizons, new everything. That's when I started to understand. That's when I replayed my mother asking me that question in my brain, years later, and this time, I knew the answer.
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