learning in the face of adversity

I am grateful that in the midst of the stress I am still able to learn through this situation.  Yesterday after we went to therapy I started thinking about my tendency to bottle things up and not express them until I hit a breaking point.  I realized that a beautiful way to love and honor myself is to let my feelings out – to acknowledge them and share them.  To give them light and attention rather than keeping them hidden in a closet. 

I’ve spent the past couple of years in isolation for fear of being labeled a fool for the decisions I have made and being embarassed by some of the things that have happened.  I don’t want to be isolated anymore – why not just say what is happening?  And instead of feeling like I no longer have time to honor myself in the ways I used to – ways that are not necessarily conducive to taking care of a one year old and still getting sleep – I can honor myself every day just by doing some check-ins and expressing whatever I need to in the moment.  Seems so simple and like something I’ve come to before but today it feels like a powerful realization and like something I can start doing for myself now.  Acknowledgement is so powerful – we all want to be seen and loved, faults and all.  It is such a challenge for me to reveal myself in that way yet it is my highest ideal – to be transparent.  Why is that so scary?

I am grateful for my wonderful neighbor who has opened her heart to us and who takes care of us in ways that make a difference.

I am grateful for my friends.  I would miss them so much if I didn’t have them.

I am grateful for my boy’s shining spirit and curiosity!

I am grateful that my partner is doing his work – even if it feels slow to me, he is showing up in a way many can’t. 

I am grateful to be alive and to have a warm home and enough food and some time alone to spend writing this post.

Today is a good day.

gratitude

Things have been tough lately.  I feel like I can’t see my future at all.  My partner asks me to visualize our life but I don’t even have a sense of seeing my son grow older – I can just see today.  I used to be more self reflective but now I feel I am dodging bullets and reacting more than I used to.  This is partly because I have less time to reflect now that I’m a mother and partly because of the family drama.

We got through Thanksgiving and there was so much drama with his family.  The pay off was that his sister-in-law stopped her daily calls to talk trash about the parents.  But now she is calling to come and bring Christmas presents for the baby.  And my partner is starting to reel again.  His uncle is calling too, and his father’s friend and he suspects that none of them have good intentions and is needing to talk about it all the time.  Watching him swirl is reason enough to do my best not to screw up my baby.  He is still that hurt little boy and his parents won’t acknowledge his pain – they keep coming back to it being about him not having a job and lending too much money to the wrong person.  They don’t understand that all they have to do is listen to his pain – but maybe theirs is too great and they can’t see past it to help their son. 

He has acted out twice in ways that have been hurtful to me and our relationship.  After the first time we started therapy and I thought things were getting better.  He started seeing his own therapist to deal with the childhood trauma and we started working on our communication and things started getting better.  And then all the shit happened at Thanksgiving with his family and he acted out again – the same way.  Answering casual sex ads on Craig’s List.  The first time he did it, he happened to answer my friend’s ad.  Neither of them told me about it until I confronted her about something else and then she finally spilled the beans.  Now we are no longer friends – for many other reasons but the catalyst was this situation. 

Last week I caught him answering ads again on the same day that we have therapy.  We talked about it.  His therapist says it’s part of his process of healing and that she wasn’t surprised he did it again.  But what does it mean for me?  I love him, thought I had found the one.  Now I see the real person.  Is it about me learning to hang in there with his faults?  To be understanding of his process?  I certainly have been no peach throughout the pregnancy and the past year – he’s seen me at my worst too.  But I haven’t stepped out on the relationship.  He hasn’t “done” anything – no sexual act was committed but he repeatedly answered the ads.  And he did it again even after knowing how hard it was the first time.  What do I do with this?

I originally set out to post things I am grateful for because I need some way of escaping from the negative onslaught that seems to happen every day now.  So here goes:

I’m grateful for that I have a warm and cozy home to live in.

I’m grateful for my son’s laughter and the way he scoots all over the house.

I’m grateful that I’ve forced myself to run on a daily basis.

I’m grateful that I am starting to have more time to take care of myself.

I’m grateful that we are talking about our feelings and trying to deal with all of this rather than walking away – even though that may be the best thing.  Time will tell.

it’s been a long time

So much in my life has changed since I last wrote and now I am coming to worship at the altar of my blog because I feel at a loss.  I now have a 10 month old son who I love dearly – he is a bright shining life in my life.  At this moment everything else feels difficult.  I don’t know what I was thinking having a child with someone I had not known for very long.  We were floating along on the frothing pink river of new love when I unexpectedly got pregnant.  It all seemed like such a good idea then and, I have to say I don’t regret that decision.  I love spending time with my little one – he’s not the problem.  I guess if they wrote about all of the stressful things in the baby books no one would have kids!

I guess now there are two main problems: his family and money stresses with both of us unemployed.  This coupled with the amazing transformations that occur when a baby is thrown into the mix has caused other problems.  On the one hand, I feel so proud of my partner for dealing with his feelings around the abuse he suffered as a child and all of the ingrained family patterns in a direct way.  I’ve been on this journey myself to a much smaller degree.  I understand the pain but he believes he has lost his family now and it is a direct result of him confronting the abuse.  I lost my parents to illness and death – this kind of orphaning is more organic than the kind he is having to deal with.

I have never been able to understand how a parent can say cruel things to their child and now that I have my own it is even more unfathomable to me.  P’s parents say awful things to him – what parent would tell their child that they are bad luck according to the Indian astrologer they seek out on their yearly visits to the homeland? What parent would repeatedly scream that their child is a loser, telling them that they are dead to them merely because the child needs to talk about the beatings he received at a relatives hand?  Talk about drama.  I’m not sure why these things have come into my life and I’m not sure how to deal with all of it anymore.  I keep listening and keep loving him but the problems are getting more complex and now there is acting out that is negatively impacting the trust between us.

I don’t know who to talk to – the only person who knows the whole story is our couples therapist.  My partner is embarassed by some of the things that have happened over the past year and for me I see recurring patterns repeating and it scares me.  I ask myself what part I am playing and I am not sure of the answer to this.  I do not like the person I have become in the face of this stress.  I just know that both of us are working hard to not repeat the patterns of our parents – it seems like these are things most couples face but after having had a lot more history together than we do.

I love my partner so much but I feel like we are sinking.  I have had my own difficult journey with my parents illnesses and deaths, with alcohol abuse, with making wrong choices, not following my intuition and learning through the mistakes but I had the luxury of doing it alone.  I didn’t have a partner witnesses my lows.  Well, I guess now I do have a partner who is witnessing my lows and that is difficult for me but it is even harder to witness and support his journey of what - healing?  I guess that is the correct word for it.  I had time and money to support me while I meandered around taking care of myself and trying to figure it out.  That money is supporting us now and has allowed him time to do the same but now with the economy tanking the money is much less and it’s time to focus and get jobs.  I hope and pray that with a lot of effort we can do this.  I hope that he is able to rise above all of the horrible things his family tell and have told him about himself like the phoenix and not become the self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is so much I haven’t said.  I can’t say it all right now.  The baby is awake and I need to focus on him.

I hope we can work through this.  How do you know when – I can’t even fathom it – leaving him.  I don’t know if it will all be better when we get jobs.  One stress will be gone.  That’s all I can say for now.

I think I’m in love

And it makes me kinda nervous to say so.

Yup – I finally met someone I want to hang out with and I’m flabbergasted.  It feels sort of miraculous and right.  Things like this don’t happen often, at least not to me, and certainly not from posting a lack luster ad on Craig’s List.  What are the chances?  But it happened, I met him, I feel like I love him, I want to spend time with him and I guess that should be all that matters.  But it’s not.

Another lesson in learning to surrender!  I like this one better than the deeksha.

Resurrection

Here I come rising from the dead after a long hiatus doing nothing.  Yup, I’ve been doing nothing.  My therapist would beg to differ as she does every time I say this and I have to admit everything I am doing.  But these are normal everyday things that everyone does – okay, maybe not everyone, but overhauling your diet and exercising to be healthier are not rocket science they just take a long time and granted maybe I can devote more time than I could if I were working but…these things have lost their lustre. 

I guess I’m in what is known as the long haul.  I got a good start and it’s been taking a long time to accomplish my goals but this doesn’t mean I should quit.  It means I need to get stronger.

And what else have I been doing?  Volunteering, investigating, exploring and thinking about how I want to spend my time and how I might be paid for it.

This time of year has been difficult since my dad died in 2004.  Usually, I don’t miss him on all those anniversaries that they write about in grieving books.  But this year is different, maybe because I have more time and notice my emotions more rather than masking them.  Maybe because my mom is dead too and the umbilical chord has been finally cut.  I started noticing my grief coming up a couple of weeks ago when I found myself catapulted back to the weeks leading up to his death, wishing I had done things differently, spent more time with him rather than flying back to CA for a week.

This is strange to me though because I feel like I did things well and like I helped him a lot during that time.  But it was so stressful flying back and forth across the country every other week, staying with him and trying to find trustworthy care takers to be with him when I couldn’t.  I had to have those moments of tapping into my daily reality to break up his dying and I had to work to support myself. 

I don’t know how long it takes to get over the death of one’s parents.  I miss my parents so much.  All I can do is acknowledge that and move on.  I keep thinking I’m over it and then grief comes back to greet me at strange times.  My dad died on Easter, 2004 so I guess this is “normal”.  I don’t really care what’s normal though because my feelings are happening regardless of what everyone else does. 

Yesterday wasn’t the hard day though.  It was the days leading up to it and maybe today.  I always miss my dad but lately I feel it more strongly, like a pain that can’t be ignored.  I want him back – all thosemeaningless afternoons of watching the Masters or the Yankees and the Red Sox duking it out in the playoffs mean something to me now.  At the time I just felt like I was spending time with him because sometimes all he could do was watch TV. 

Today I feel aimless, like I should go out to the beach and take a long walk by the sea.  I am at a critical point where I need to stay the course and navigate the stormy sea in order to get to calmer waters.  It’s all happening.  It’s all changing.  It’s all about remembering.  Letting myself go where I need to.

“a project manager is all you’ll ever be…”

Tonight, after seeing Neko Case & Merle Haggard, I went back to my friend’s house and got a lecture about me and how she views my life right now.  She started out by saying that she thinks I’m depressed and I’m not willing to admit it.  She cited not leaving my house as proof.  She also took a statement I made about drinking and how I don’t like it anymore because the hangover makes me depressed as another proof.  And then she started railing off every bad thing that’s happened to me in the past ten years as her third and final proof that I am depressed.

After telling me how depressed I am she went on to say that I need to accept the fact that I had a good life before as a Project Manager and that I don’t need to keep searching around for meaning because that is all I’m ever going to be and there is nothing wrong with that.  She said I am lost and I need structure in my life and that she’s not the only one who thinks this and then said she’s discussed it with her boyfriend and another friend of ours (who I see about twice a year) and they all agree that I am depressed and lost and just need to buck up and go back to Project Management before it’s too late.

I responded the way I always do with her by saying I am not depressed.  She thinks that because I did the deeksha and because I am meditating and because I haven’t worked for a year that I am lost, searching for meaning and DEPRESSED.  She thinks I need prozac because it is completely improbable that I could actually take time away from the corporate world, which was stressing me out, to grieve and take care of myself and come out okay, with no anti-depressants.

Why am I even responding?  She asked, “Don’t you think it would be a waste if you just end up being a Project Manager again after all this searching?”  Yes, I do and that is not what I want to do.  “What’s your plan?  You must have a dream of doing something, what is it?”  Hmm.  Do you really think I’m going to share my dreams with you after you just told me that I’ve come as far as I can go and shouldn’t strive for something different?  Honey, you can’t even remember a conversation we had 20 minutes ago!  I’m not telling you a fucking thing.

I needed to vent and this is where it’s happening.  I defended myself to her, but now that I’m home and thinking about it, I’m pissed that I even gave her the time of day.  I’m pissed that she calls herself a friend yet has this idea of me as a lost soul whose had a horrible life and am in denial about being depressed.

I have two things to say about this.  One, she is projecting.  I told her to her face – YOU ARE PROJECTING. 

Two – Fuck you.  I could go on about all of your problems and make you out to be the demon here but I won’t.  If I thought what you were saying was true, I’d check it out.  In fact, I have checked it out and it does not resonate with me.  The only thing it does is make me not want to spend time with you.  Yes, there is a part of my life I hide from you because I don’t want it to be pissed on every time I see you.  I thought you cared about me, but now I see that you care about keeping me the way I was, not about me growing into something new.  If I stay the same, you can stay the same, and keep drinking and drugging yourself into oblivion.  That is not going to happen.  You can get on the train or you can sit at the station.  If you want to get on, stop telling me I’m depressed and look at yourself. 

Deeksha update

I’ve noticed that my most popular posts are the ones where I talk about my experiences with Deeksha, now known as Oneness Deeksha.  First I want to say that everyone I met through Deeksha are lovely people.  And second, I do think it’s a cult for many reasons that have already been discussed on this site. 

Here are some links I’ve found that present some different ideas about Deeksha and about gurus/cults in general:

Interesting discussion on gurus: http://heartofnow.com/files/other.writings.html

Website debunking gurus: http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/

There is also a guruphiliac yahoo group with lots of interesting discussions.

Cult Awareness Information: http://www.culthelp.info/index.php

Nothingness/Everythingness: http://sunyata.blogsome.com/

There are lots of websites on cult awareness and mind control.  If you are really interested, check them out and decide for yourself whether Deeksha is a cult.  I have a friend who continues to go every week and she feels it is a good way for her to relax each week.  She also has been involved with a cult in the past.  Right now, she seems fine.  I’ve discussed my feelings with her and she doesn’t have a problem talking about it so…maybe it’s not a cult, or maybe she has her eyes open.

Try to get a balanced picture and decide for yourself.

The party is over…

Or has it just begun?

Yup – all my buttons got pressed in the weeks before my 40th birthday party.  I worried whether people would come, whether I invited the right people, whether I would have to take care of people too much, whether they would get along, whether I have control issues, if it was too much money…I think that’s about it.  But, it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Some people opted out of the crafting part of the party and that turned out to fine.  I was glad that people took care of their financial issues and since I had already decided to stop worrying, I was able to enjoy everything and let it all happen.  Yes, one friend was manic the entire time, and another didn’t get to talk to everyone else at dinner because she was entertaining the manic friend, but all in all, it was more fun than I ever imagined it would be!

I think it proved that I don’t have to worry about my friends and that they all can get along together.  I think I’d like to try it more often!

And now, I am happy the birthday celebrations are over.  I am excited to keep my internal fires burning and plan to approach every day as a birth day.

No more tears…

Do you know that Donna Summer song?  I feel love…no more tears is the name of it.  I’ve stopped ruminating the party and have been enjoying my birthday festivities instead.  It’s (mildly) interesting (to me) how every single one of my “issues” came up around the whole thing.  I’m so bored with my “issues” – is that a California thing or do people have “issues” everywhere?  I won’t bore you with them today.  On the whole, my “issues” are very tame and benign, although I did eat about six chocolate turtles while surfing idiotic videos on You Tube last night.  What a waste of time.

But, I found an Australian guy who made me yearn even more for the land down under.  I can’t wait to go there again.  I have a new idea on how to travel there and I want to find someone to go with me – that’s the hard part, finding a good travel companion.  My idea – buy (or rent) a VW camper and take a big long road trip through Australia, and New Zealand.  I want to go to both places and I want to be outside experiencing nature.  There are so few people there that when you do come to a city, it is more fabulous than when you encounter one here in the states.

Yesterday I went hiking in a beautiful redwood forest that I had never been to before.  We saw two mountain bikers the entire day!  The place was called El Corte Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, although it is probably quite crowded on the weekend, yesterday it was peaceful and serene.  Even though there are no densely populated areas nearby, it still felt civilized because of the plane/highway noise that filtered through the trees every now and then.  This does not happen in Australia.  When you are in the middle of nowhere there, you are really in no man’s land.  People wave to every car that passes them on the highways because there are so few people around!  That is where I want to be!

I’m sure most Aussies just want to get the hell off that island and experience the world.  I wonder if they know how good they’ve got it over there?  I can’t wait to go back, issues and all.

it’s my party & I’ll cry if I want to…

Who knew that someone throwing me a small party for my birthday would bring up so much shit!  I’m turning 40 on Monday and a friend asked if she could throw me a party and we talked about what I wanted.  I told her I didn’t want to focus on drinking or eating so that pretty much rules out what most people do on occasions like this.  My ultimate dream would be to have a party in New Zealand, but that will be my own private party later in the year.  We agreed on going to a place called the Craft Gym to do a memorable, but relatively inexpensive craft project and then to dinner for cheap but yummy Indian.

That conversation happened three weeks ago.   The craft thing was going to cost $15 and dinner maybe another $15 per person. 

Cut to last night: the craft gym has to open especially for us so it’s going to cost $50 per person and they will be walking out with two pieces of etched bar ware.  I told her it seemed pretty steep and essentially it’s paying $25 a piece for two glasses.  Then she said, well, it’s the instruction and the materials and the comraderie…so I acquiesced and am now feeling scared that no one will want to come because of the money. 

In reality, there are two people who might have problems with the price.  One of them said something to me three weeks ago when she got the first email and I felt like she was creating drama.  And now, maybe I am creating drama.  I wish I didn’t know anything about it.  I feel like it’s overkill.  I am already celebrating my birthday in other ways with some of the people, so if they don’t want to come, they don’t have to.

There are other people I want to come but they all live too far away.  And tonight I am having the part of my celebration that means the most to me, a ritual that I am creating that focuses on shedding the old and being reborn into the next phase of my life.  This is what I am excited about.  Truth be told, the crafting thing will be fun (I hope) but I don’t really care if it happens.  It feels like I’m doing it because my friend made such a case for wanting to do something for me so that I will feel taken care of. 

When I originally wrote about this my approach was to let go and let it happen.  Now, I don’t feel good about it again and I’ve expressed that to her.  I guess my next course of action is to figure out why I am having these feelings.

Is it because I am uncomfortable having the attention and asking people to do something special for me, to value me?  Is it because I feel uncomfortable with some of my friends and the way the relationships are going right now?  Is it because I’ve spent many birthday dinners where people had issues with the bill at the end of the night and I’m trying to protect them?  Control issues?  Issues with doing something different from what others do?  Issues with it being too much?

Jesus.  I feel so uncomfortable today.  I have my period, woke up, read the birthday email, cried and now am writing this as I wait for my chicken soup to cool.  My head hurts – a new menstrual symptom I’ve not had before – so the cramps are a thing of the past but headaches are the thing for today.  I didn’t meditate and don’t feel I have the energy to be turning my negative thoughts into positive ones.  So, I will just observe.  Ride the waves and let it all happen.

And once again, I will let my issues with the birthday party go and see what happens.  There is a big part of me that feels like it all has to do with me feeling like I matter and asking people to do something that reflects that I matter to them feels really scary.  I am so used to doing everything by myself because many of the people who’ve mattered to me haven’t been able to help me when I needed them during times when things were more serious. 

Okay – this is starting to sound like a pity party.  I’m just trying to figure out why I am responding the way I am.  yeah.  And my question is, if my intuition keeps needling me about this party, what am I supposed to do?  I appreciate my friend’s intentions…but honestly, I don’t want to think about it anymore.  I think maybe a surprise would have been better for someone like me who overthinks everything to death….