I love You Tube

I love the internet and technology.  It is so amazingly cool that people can put stuff out there, get feedback, connect, have thier minds opened.  Someone commented on a couple of my posts the other day and sent me to a NY Times link about free will and whether we humans have it.  They also directed me to their yahoo group and I didn’t quite get what they were saying because it seemed too simple.  It was all about how to engage with your mind and change it.

First, I will say that I don’t really care whether humans have free will.  I know it’s a big philosophical question and many people throughout history have thought about it a lot but I don’t really get it.  I mean, who cares?  If we have it, great.  If we don’t, great.  I guess I don’t understand how it changes things one way or the other.  Either way, you are going to do what you are going to do and you will either think it’s free will or not.  Regardless, you will still be doing and saying the same things and ultimately we are all going to die so…free will is not the question I am interested in.

I am more interested in knowing the purpose of life, the point of everything.  Sometimes I feel like everything is random and we are just monkey minds trying to make sense of things any way we can and there is no real point other than the organic growth of life in whatever direction it can grow.  And other times I think maybe there is a point to all of this – maybe we as humans are learning for some undetermined reason that we find out when we die.  And then, I guess maybe free will comes into play because it deals with the existence of some higher power controlling everything.  If there is a higher power, it shouldn’t absolve people of responsibility for their thoughts and actions.

After being with my dad when he died and spending time with my mom before she died, I think that when you are dead, you are gone.  Done.  But then, some strange things happened with the electronics in my dad’s house after he died, too synchronistic to be completely random.  It’s all interesting to participate in.

I think that we as humans bring meaning to our own lives – that is the challenge we are faced with on a daily basis.  Lots of people just go along and do what is expected of them, they do the easy thing, they do what everyone else is doing.  Obviously, there are good things about the “norm” or else people wouldn’t do it.  But, sometimes it feels like people aren’t dreaming enough or listening enough to themselves.  I am guilty of escapism but now I am starting to realize that I don’t have to be scared of whatever is inside of me.  It’s fine to take vacations and escape sometimes but it’s not okay to be checked out more than you are checked in.

Maybe I’m just projecting my shit on everyone else – that probably is the case, but I think there is some objective truth to it.  We are a culture of escapists.  We need to be a culture of leaders and innovaters – a culture that can envision a new future.  A culture that can be present for the now and the future.  How can we create a promising future if so many of us are afraid to be present now?  Drugs, TV, food, internet, entertainment, consumerism…so many ways to escape.  I am working on being here now.

birthdays

a friend called me yesterday and asked if she can plan something for my 40th birthday.  I was hesitant, because I’ve already started making plans with different people to do different things and didn’t really want a party.  I was flattered because she told me that she wanted to do something for me that would help me to feel taken care of and although I am good at taking care of myself, I rarely have others who take care of me.  so, I consented and we talked about things that I might want to do, one thing she mentioned was a craft party where we could all make something and have a memento to remember the time.

today another friend started fishing and I asked if she had received an email.  she did and she proceeded to tell me what it said.  I told her I didn’t expect her to put out more money as we already have plans to get mud baths and go to dinner – that’s part of what I have planned for myself.  i began to think that I have plans with a few other people and those plans are important to me.  I don’t really want a big party and I don’t want people to feel pressured to spend money on me.  I want to celebrate with my friends, but I don’t need to do it with everyone at once.

I wish the second friend hadn’t told me any details because the email didn’t mention anything about crafts – it asked people for their budget and for suggestions.  No biggie, but now I am wishing I had just said no.

Is it control issues on my part?  Me trying to protect my friends so they don’t feel like they are being put out?  I’m going to drop it for now and try not to think about it and let it all happen.  I’m annoyed with myself and annoyed with my second friend for telling me and creating drama.  I don’t even know – I’m just letting it go.

Protecting my parents

It’s interesting that even though my parents are dead, it is still taboo to admit that they weren’t perfect.  Or worse, for a big part of my life, I wished I had a different mother because the one I had sucked.  I experienced my mother as angry and depressed for much fo the time we spent together, when we were alone.  Yes, she did fun motherly stuff, enrolled me in classes, took me to girl scouts, the whole she-bang.  But she was always angry and she always took it out on me.

And there is no one around to corroborate my story because everyone who knew her experienced her as pleasant, hard-working, creative and high energy.  Happy.  She was ALL of those things, including depressed and angry and I was the only one who saw that part of her.

I imagine I found this confusing as a child, to see my mom one way when she was with me and another when she was with everyone else, including my dad.  I still find it confusing even though I am older and understand the complexity of emotions.  I don’t think anyone else saw her sitting on her bed, door ajar, thinking I was napping, crying quietly, trying to contain her emotion so I wouldn’t hear her.  But I did.  And then she raged at me over and over for being a kid – over stupid things like not tying my shoe fast enough or being too sick for school or being scared of the dark and not wanting to be alone.

But I understand why, since my dad dealt with emotions by getting angry.  He couldn’t control them so he shut them down.  And if my mom was feeling depressed and couldn’t express that to her husband, well, it flowed downstream to me.  Who knows what was going on between them.  I know they loved each other.  I know they loved me.  I know they did the best they could.

So why do I still feel the need to protect them?  Why do I feel a need to protect her?  She is finally free.  

I don’t know the answer to that question.

Listening & Responsibility

I think I finally got it.  I don’t have to make people’s problems go away.  In fact, I don’t even have to listen to them if it’s making me sick to do so.  I mean, of course, I listen because that’s what I’m good at, but I don’t need to get involved in the drama.  I don’t have to get hooked in by thinking that maybe I can share something that will change the situation and make the person happier.  I have realized that I do not have a magic wand that I can wave to make people happy.  I can just let them be however they are and not be invested in changing that.

I had an experience yesterday that was so acute and powerful that I finally had the body realization of what I had only known intellectually before.  And now I’ve got it and I am free.  It’s an amazing feeling.

I spent part of the day with a friend who has had chronic problems over many years.  She’s the type of person that even when everything is peachy keen and sunny days, she finds a problem.  In movie theaters or at concerts, she inevitably gets pissed off and pisses someone off by telling them, repeatedly, how they are encroaching in her space.

You know, I started to write the whole story, but it’s boring.  I don’t want to go there.  Suffice it to say that the day began to deteriorate after she was rejected for a job that she wanted.  Everything was wrong: she’s a loser, couldn’t find street parking for the movie, pouting because we had to park in a garage, no parking spaces after driving crazily through the garage for 2 minutes, more I’m a loser talking, the talking kids behind us…the list went on.

We saw what has to be one of the most inspiring movies out, Freedom Writers.  And when it was over, right back into the woe is me.  The topper was when she said that she thought they should have cops patrolling the theater in gang-related movies to control the crowd.  I was like, “Did you feel unsafe?” and apparently she felt like she couldn’t shssh the kids behind us more than once for fear of getting shot.  That, to me was completely ridiculous.  I thought it was great that they had chosen to see this movie!  And they only talked during the previews and during the scenes when the uptight white principal was being a bitch – I thought it was fun to hear them.  

I guess I have to thank my friend for her acting out because I understood something about myself and I feel it in my cells.  I am done with the drama.  I acted differently, gave her a hug and let her have her tantrum by herself.  I will not reward that behavior anymore.

Life unfolds in such amazing and mysterious ways.  I’ve recently been taking stock of my self and taking responsibility for my thoughts and actions.  I thought I had been taking responsibility, but I wasn’t.  Now it is becoming difficult to deal with people who aren’t doing the same.  Everything is changing.  I am working on not resisting.  I am working on listening to myself and acting on that voice.  There is more power in that than I ever imagined.

Why?

Why do people think I am depressed just because I am spending time alone?  It’s not like I’m not going out and doing things I enjoy.  I am.  But I’m also taking time to be with myself and to listen to and connect to myself on a deeper level.  I am finally taking space to feel my emotions and let them go where ever they need to go.  Yes, it’s hard and sometimes I feel horribly crappy and spend a few minutes sobbing in the corner of the kitchen floor, but then there are other times where I feel completely alive and excited to be connected and ready to take on the complicated task of figuring out how to make my life the way I want it to be.

Last night was New Year’s Eve.  I had a few options of things to do and I chose to stay home and finish watching season 4 of The Wire ON Demand before it went off air.  I spent hours cooking ratatouille and herbed chicken breasts, made my own ice cream with berries, maple syrup and coconut milk and settled in to watch The Wire.  Why did I do this?  Because I decided to finally take a stand for my self and not spend time with people who were going to annoy me just so I wouldn’t be alone.  I decided I’d rather just be with my self.

I don’t want to use people as a way to keep me from myself, as another diversion.  This is my year for spending time with people who I love to be around and not settling for less. 

Last night, even though there was a lapse of about 20 minutes when I felt ultra-lonely, I felt better being alone.  I can always find people to do things with, but the question is, are they the people I want to be with and if not, what are they doing in my life?

It’s scary to say that out loud.  I feel like I have to apologize for something, like I have to back peddle so that if any of those people ever read this they won’t freak out and dump me.  How fucking ironic and screwed up is that?  It’s not even that I want to dump anyone, it’s just that I am growing in a different way than some people and if the time we spend together is no longer enjoyable, then why do it?  At least, why do it as often? 

Things can change, they always do.  See, now I scared myself. 

I’m envisioning a circle of smart, creative, open, loving, funny, sly, witty, self-reflective, interesting friends of all shapes and sizes surrounding me.  They are the perfect circle for me at this time.  I can see it.  Long live the queen!  or something like that.

Negative Realism

One of my good friends is driving me crazy.  She is a cynical New York Jew pushing 50 and contemplating procedures that may prolong her youth for as long as possible.  She had the East Coast edge when I met her and it wasn’t a problem as I grew up right around the corner from Westchester County.  My problem is with her philosophy of life which I kindly refer to as negative realism.  This is where she drills her version of reality into her victim so deeply that the poor soul has to either walk away or gulp down as much alcohol as possible in order to remain in the same room.  Unfortunately, she is drinking away and popping pills to change her reality while she’s informing you of your reality and as time goes on her voice becomes shriller and the words come more quickly and soon there is no quiet space to insert a word in edgewise.

Her viewpoint is decidedly negative, because the world after all is just here to screw people over and we are all here to suffer and die so we should take as many drugs as possible in order to escape from the truth and bring that death on a little more quickly.  After talking with her I find myself wondering why I am bothering to live.  I’ve started feeling this way more often because I have cut down on my drinking although to be around her, I may have to reconsider taking the express train to oblivion.

I don’t tell her about anyone I’m dating anymore because there is not a man on earth who could possibly have one iota of normalcy (decency, interest, cuteness, smartness, insert adjective here…) that would make it worth my while to date them.  I’ll never find a good one.  Of course, her boyfriend is the exception to the rule.  Listening to her go on about the dregs that are left to choose from is downright depressing.

Another example:  I’ve spent the last few years taking care of my aging, ailing parents and now they have both died.  They were in their 80’s, had me when they were older and I’m an only child so it was just me and it sucked.  But, there were things that came out of it that were good and I wouldn’t give up any of the experiences I had as a result.  My mom died about 6 weeks ago and whenever I talk to this friend,  she repeatedly tells me how depressed I am and how a little Prozac would improve things immensely.  She’s been telling me this for years – since my dad died.  She doesn’t get out of bed without her prozac.  In fact, she takes a cocktail of drugs to make her feel better every day. 

She’s been taking pharmaceutical drugs recreationally for years.  She also takes a to-go cup full of white wine or vodka mixed with crystal lite every where she goes in order to make it all kick in to the right degree of buzzed. 

Two years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy and all the drug use kicked up a couple of notches.  That’s when she became a fan of prozac, and neurontin and wellbutrin and valium and oxy’s…the list goes on.

So, yes, my life has been hard for a while and I feel sad about my mom and still have periods of grieving but I don’t feel depressed.  If I had a double mastectomy, I would be depressed.  Maybe I would take prozac, but I’d also deal with the grief of loosing my breasts!  I would not put myself into a stupor so far that I couldn’t remember conversations I have with my friends.  After brushing so close to death, I would think she’d want to be alive and aware for all of it!  But we are different and our ways of coping are different too.

Her latest advice was for me to get a mindless project coordinator job (currently funemployed) which will give me a place to go every day where I won’t think about my problems.  She doesn’t understand that I quit my project manager job a year ago to stop dealing with other people’s mindless problems and start dealing with my own, sans prozac or booze.  I couldn’t fathom going to work and dealing with a bunch of assholes who were re-organzing IT, treating people like shit and making bad decisions that I had to be the mouthpiece for.  I couldn’t deal with the corporate bullshit anymore when people were dying and life was right there to be lived!  I couldn’t deal with feeling stressed from my personal life and even more stressed from my work life, and was drinking a bottle of wine every night to deal with it. 

And I still don’t understand why it is more valuable to sit in an office 40+ hours a week at a job you don’t love than it is to spend that time doing whatever the fuck you want.  Yes, my parents died and that gave me the opportunity to take time off and think about my life.  I don’t have to work for a little while and I am grateful for that every day.

I get so fucking angry listening to her, trying to get a word in edgewise over the constant babble of booze and drug induced advice.  Is she right?  Will prozac, a bottle of booze and a mindless job take me away from feeling sad that my mom died?  Will this change the fact that I don’t have parents to talk with?  Why isn’t it okay to feel sad for a while and deal with it?  Isn’t that what people do?  Or have we become a nation of escapists without the capacity for real emotion when it hits us smack in the face?  Now that is depressing.

The land of cults

So much has happened over the past few weeks, it’s difficult to keep track of it.  Time is passing slowly, it seems like my mother’s death occurred a lifetime ago, but it’s been just 5 weeks.  I thought I was okay after it happened.  It’s been coming for a long time and I’ve been waiting to be free.  She had Alzheimer’s for 15 years – so much to say about that, and I’ve said it other places.  The story I really want to tell is what’s happened since she passed away.

 I felt sad at first and also relieved.  I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom with the thought that I could now travel anywhere in the world without being called by the nursing home to be told that she had pneumonia or a red puffy eye or a bruised hand.  The calls over the past year became more frequent and more serious and I always flew back to see her.  Finally at the beginning of November the last call came.

In September I had been introduced to something called Deeksha by a new friend.  It’s an energy work, similar to Reiki, but it’s channeled by two Avatars in India.  I should have known it was freaky just from that sentence alone, but it felt good when I received it and the people who gave it seemed nice and accepting.  At this point I feel I need to make a disclaimer stating that I am normally very rational and mentally focused, a skeptic at heart, so what ensued is even scarier to me.

 At Deeksha we would sit in a circle and if there was someone who had not experienced it before, an explanation would be given by the deeksha givers (dg’s) and then everyone would talk about their experiences with receiving the energy.  This all seemed harmless enough at first.  I could feel the energy as the dg placed their hands on my head.  Something was definitely moving around in there, it was strange that some ephemeral energy could actually be reconstituting the cells in my brain to bring me closer to enlightenment.  To be honest, I’ve never thought about enlightenment.  It’s not something I strive for in any conscious way and I can confidently say that I have not spent one iota of mind-time thinking about it as a concept.

After a few weeks I started to feel more joyful and had several experiences where I felt the energy while walking down the street or sitting at my computer screen.  I started to experience less mental chatter and became a lot more positive.  Even when my mom died, I felt sad, but was surprised at how little I actually felt.  I felt like I was riding the rollercoaster waves of grief, but it really wasn’t that bad.  All of these things seemed positive and like I was making progress.

Shortly after she died, after the feeling of freedom took over, one of the dg’s told me about the 21-day process being offered in India at the beginning of January.  During the 21-day process people go through a complete transformation and all of their old karma is burned off, they deal with their issues and learn how to give deeksha.

I had always wanted to go to India and thought, maybe this was my opportunity to do it in a structured way.  I thought I could go do the process first, get my bearings and then travel for a few weeks afterwards.

The training was expensive, more so than what was being offered at all of the other ashrams in India.  They wanted me to complete a lengthy application that gave lots of personal information about my life and how I had come to where I am now.  They wanted me to sign a legal release stating that I would not suffer any ill physical effects from sleep deprivation, food deprivation or lots of activity.  These were all red flags, but I convinced myself it would be okay and signed up.  I didn’t think about it at all.  I reacted.  That is so atypical for me, looking back on it makes me scared.

I don’t know what happened but one night I started doing research and dug down into the googled pages for something negative about deeksha.  I began to think it was a cult.  I found others who felt the same way.  I asked the Oneness Movement people (the official name for the deeksha givers organization) why they needed so much money and was told the money would go towards building a temple that would be big enough for 8000 meditators.  These people would meditate in the temple 24 hours a day until the year 2012 in order to enlighten the world.  The money would also go to pay for indiginous poor people to learn how to give deeksha and help spread the enlightenment.

What the fuck was I thinking?!  I had started drinking the kool-aid.  I don’t know what snapped me out of it but as soon as I started my investigations, I came back to myself.  Now I am left feeling stupid and vulnerable.  I have a ticket to India I don’t want to use.  All I want to do is stay close to home and take care of myself.  I don’t want to be far away from my friends and my warm comfy bed.  I don’t want to think about where I’m going to stay or how I’m going to get to the next place.  I don’t want to be around a bunch of people who look and speak differently from me.  I don’t want to deal with any of the stresses of backpacking and traveling.  I don’t want to be in another culture.

And that feels strange because normally this is what charges me up.  I love becoming immersed in cultures that are different from mine, but now I want to be alone.  I want to stay home.  But there is a part that feels like I must have wanted to travel somewhere or else I wouldn’t have made all of these plans.

 I’m confused.  I want to be surrounded by deep green forests that flow down to the ocean.  This is what will bring me home to myself.  Uck – this time feels so crappy.  Is it all because my mom died?

Death

My mother died on Monday and I feel like I’m going crazy.  Monday sucked, I cried, then went into shock for a few hours and then cried the rest of the day and night.  Tuesday was okay, oh, and today is Wednesday, seemed to go well  until I went to a drinks gathering at a crowded bar down the street from my house to visit an out of town friend.  I felt good at first but as the place got more crowded, I started getting exhausted and had to leave.  No one there knew that my mom has just died.  I didn’t want to tell them and bring it down, I didn’t want to feel not normal again after telling someone.  But I ended up feeling like crap anyway.

 I came home, ordered a pizza which I didn’t want but I need to eat and don’t feel like cooking, and started to get depressed about the awesome date I had last Wednesday with a man that I liked a lot but he hasn’t called me.  I feel like shit.  I am writing like shit.  I am sick of my inner critic running the show and I’m lonely.

 One of my best friends said she wanted to spend time with me and was acting all hurt that I wasn’t using her support the way she wanted.  But she had a massage tonight and is going to Mexico on Friday.  I don’t even know why I’m writing now except that I’m sick of being alone and this somehow makes me feel like I’m not.

 Why am I focusing so much on this guy who didn’t call?  He seemed like he liked me but now I wonder if he was interested because I said I hadn’t had sex in a long time.  I feel like I shouldn’t have fooled around with him, but it felt good, but now I’m vulnerable and want to be held and want to be close to someone and he is not appropriate and even if he were I guess he’s not interested.

 This is crap.  yes, my mom just died and I am on a rollercoaster.  All I want to do is curl up in bed and sleep for a long time.

trusting spirit

I had a date with someone two weeks ago and I liked him.  I liked him more than I’ve liked anyone in a very long time.  We kissed, made out, probably more than I should have, according to those bullshit ”rules”, but I had fun and was glad I did it.  He called the next day and we emailed two days later.  Then he went out of town for the weekend.  And I never heard from him again.  It’s been exactly two weeks.

 I became too attached to the idea of him.  Started floating up out of my body into the future and lost myself and him.  I hate it when I get all carried away before anything even happens.  It scares me how sad I have been, because he said things to me that made me believe in him, and than he disappeared.  I wonder what happened?  Did he mean any of the things he said?  Was he married?  Or otherwise involved?  Did he meet someone else?  Did I say something wrong or do something wrong?  Did he die in L.A.?  Did he sense my longing?

I am fine without him.  I have been feeling very myself lately, better than I’ve ever felt about myself.  I don’t feel like I need a man to complete me.  And I am ready to be with someone some of the time.  I long for human contact.  Not necessarily a long term romance.  More than anything, I want to have sex with someone I really like.  That’s it.  I don’t want to do the promiscuous 20’s thing.  I want to choose the person I like and create some intimate moments with them and just let things unfold.

 I don’t know if that will happen with this man who I liked so much.  He captivated me even though he bragged.  Maybe it wouldn’t have been so good with him.  Maybe I will see him again.  I still feel sad.  I still want to see him and touch him and be naked with him.

Now it’s all up to spirit.  I am at your mercy.

welcome to my world

I am in the In-between girl and I live in between the worlds.  I am no longer young and not yet old.  I am out of work, searching for my next big thing and creating a new world for myself, day by day.  I have ideas that are beginning to take root and none of them include anything Corporate.  They are leading me to live more of my life in-between and less of it in black and white.  I am interested in all the shades of in-between.  Maybe I will create some new ones of my own.

 I am single, in-between relationships.  And I think too much because I have yet to find that elusive big, important, interesting and complicated thing that will put my mind to good use.  So, I am blogging.  Hoping that this will help me to find a better way.  Always looking for a better way.  A different way.  Because the old one no longer works.  The status quo has never worked for me, but I’ve only recently taken the reins and decided to try something new.

For now, I like my in-between world.  Come with me on this journey to define the new world.  I’m not sure what that will be.