Brave New World

It’s been a year since I put anything here.  A very eventful year.  I don’t know why I quit writing, but that maybe I was tired.  I’ve been tired a lot in the last few years.  Mostly tired, actually.  I’m tired now.  I just don’t know what all to do about it.

I’m not going to go into detail about what has happened over the last year but to say that I got promoted, started a relationship, lost the relationship, failed an interview for a new job, had some success with the work band, and got down to a reliable size 8.  Reliable.

The relationship was a huge learning experience.  I learned that if someone talks about the way they have treated other people in a way that makes you cringe, that is a warning – they are one bad experience away from talking to you the exact same way.  I learned that I do not have commitment issues – that when I am in, I am all in.  I learned that I can fall in love.  I learned that living in good faith means accepting responsibility for my actions – past and present – and all of the consequences even when it wasn’t my fault or choice or desire or intent.  I learned that being right does not exempt me from my oath to live in good faith.  Just because I didn’t ruin something doesn’t mean I get off scott free for being careless.

I was careless.  Or I think I was.  I’ve been trying to find out for sure, but I’ve had the hardest time of it.  I think the universe doesn’t want me to know.  But that is another story for another time.

I’ve forgiven myself for my role in the dissolution of this relationship.  I’ve forgiven him too – it wasn’t just one party’s fault.  I don’t know if I can be friends though.  I struggle with that part.  There are aspects to him that I would overlook as a lover but that I find difficult to tolerate as a friend.  Funny how that works.

I will be re-engaging with the rest of the world however.  I will not stay knocked down by this one.  I will get back on the metaphorical horse.  There is a little bit of work I need to do first though.

Last week I went to a week long continuing education session at a monastery in Santa Barbara.  It was intense.  Part of the curriculum involved regular journaling.  I haven’t journaled regularly in many years.  I’d forgotten how helpful it is in working through the nonsense stories I’ve created in my head.  Tonight I want to write a little about one of those stories.

One of the exercises in one of the sessions involved sitting across from another person – an acquaintance at best – and telling them what I deserve out of life.  To most people this would probably seem like an easy enough task.  They deserve to be loved and to have a happy life and to have a good job and a secure future and a family and a partner and all that jazz.  But for me this exercise was so difficult that I almost broke down.  I almost started crying in front of this veritable acquaintance – blubbering about how I don’t deserve anything.  Which is bullshit.  I know it is bullshit, but it doesn’t change the way I feel.

So I started trying to analyze why I feel this way about myself.  Why is it so difficult for me to believe that I deserve to have a good and happy life?  Why only me?  I easily accept and frequently remind my friends of all the good things they deserve, what makes me unique?  During the session we talked about the way we react to the “lessons” or “mores” passed on by family and friends, through music and TV and movies, in school, and through books.  I’m talking about the rules we create around our realities – where we decide, based on whatever feedback we’ve received, whether or not we are pretty or smart or clever or funny.  The rules that tell us what we can and can’t accomplish, what we are good at and what we fail at, and why we shouldn’t try.  These are internal rules that may or may not (usually not) have any basis in reality.  But we abide by them as though they are gospel.  So that when somebody says something that challenges those rules (“You’re really pretty!”) our response is to reject the challenging statement outright (“no I’m not”) and then deflect the speaker in order to avoid any other challenges to our reality.  I was thinking about my rules – the ones I’d inherited from the church and my family and my peer group.  I’ve already rejected all of the church oriented rules.  I’ve also written over most of my family inspired rules.  The one where my ideas never work?  Gone.  The one where I’m only pretty if I have long blonde hair that coil in neat ringlets?  Gone.  The one where I’m fat?  Gone.  The one where I’m lazy?  Eh, mostly gone.  Still working on that one.  As for my peer group, I don’t know that they ever had all that much influence over me.  I’ve spent most of my life abstaining from whatever celebration or social event or holiday that my peer group was focusing on for that week.  I’m used to being something of an outcast – which means that now, that I’m not really an outcast at all – it is easy for me to take the solo road.  Natural even.

This left me wondering where my rules come from.  What is it that has shaped my world so that I don’t feel like I deserve anything good in my life?  Then it occurred to me – the Shit.  All of the Shit that has happened to me – from my abusive marriage to my familial abandonment to my stalker to my car accidents to my rape to the death of my mentor – even the loss of my most recent relationship – all of that Shit that has happened to me with no real reason or direct cause.  I have had all of these fairly terrible things happen to me – many of them absolutely randomly, with no input or causation from me – that have had a very noticeable impact on my self image.  I joke all the time that with my mis-fortune I must have been Hitler’s Gardner in a previous life.  Even people who have a much more self-determined concept of life tend to agree.  It is almost comical the way that I attract bad mojo – even and especially when I am trying my hardest to be positive and strong.  So much of it rolls off my back (the mouse in the house, the furnace that caught on fire, the flooding in the garage – a small fraction of February’s adventures) that it isn’t until I start keeping track that the sheer weight of the Shit becomes apparent.

Generally speaking I don’t whine about the Shit.  I don’t call my friends and complain.  I don’t go asking for other people to handle my Shit for me.  I don’t blame anyone.  I just deal with it as best I can.  But I internalize it too.  I wonder what kind of person must I be to have so many bad things happen.  Just how terrible I am as a person to deserve all of this Shit.  Because I must deserve it, right?  That is what our parents and our religions and our schools and our friends teach us – that bad things happen to us as a result of us being bad – doing things wrong – treating others poorly – just not being a good person.  Therefore the mere existence of “the Shit” means that I must be a bad person.  And bad people don’t deserve to have good things in their lives.  Bad people don’t deserve anything but bad things.  This was my struggle.  I know I am not a bad person.  I work really hard to help people and do right by the environment and live my life in good faith.  I cannot both live in Good Faith and be a bad person.  But the Shit keeps happening.  So I reject the part where I know I am a good person and I accept the part where I deserve the Shit and round and round we go.

The thing is that I don’t deserve the Shit.  It just happens.  It will probably continue to happen.  And I still won’t deserve it.  The question is whether or not I can believe that I don’t deserve it.  If I can actually believe that I deserve good things.  Not know – knowing is easy.  Believe.  Believing is something far more difficult than knowing.

I think this warrants another trip to the therapist.  I’ve come so far in the last ten years – I like myself these days.  I feel like I have a lot of positive things happening for me, and I’m in a generally stable place emotionally.  Generally.  But I still don’t believe I deserve to be happy.  And that is a problem, because it isn’t going to happen until I believe it can.

I want to enter my next relationship with the belief that I deserve to be happy, that I deserve to not be lonely, that I deserve to be loved.  I think that was the piece that was missing for me this last time.  I hid it well, but that lack of faith in my own deserving-ness is what caused me to be careless – to (even if it was in my own mind) put another person at risk.

Another day I’ll write about the sameness of belief and reality – even if the belief is not reality.  Not tonight.  Tonight I want to think about finding a counselor.  And a dance class.  Time for this girl to find her groove.

Cross Purposes

Tonight I watched the film “Bridge on River Kwai”.  It’s considered a classic, for good reason.  The story is fictional, but with chunks of truth thrown in to keep you guessing.  It is a long movie, and I’d be lying if I claimed that my ADD didn’t kick in a few times and lead to random wandering around the house.  But it is also a very watchable movie – the storyline does not bog down, and the acting, while very theatrical (you can totally see Alec Guinness’s theatre roots) is still engaging.  You end up caring about the characters.  Even the unlikable ones.  But one of the most telling things about the film, and its cultural heritage is that even if you’ve never seen it, you know it.  Or at least you know this part of it.

But that isn’t what I wanted to write about here.  Iconic whistles aside, there is a much deeper and more meaningful lesson in this film.  In fact, I think it should be required viewing at the beginning of each congressional season, before anybody starts to think about a government budget, and at the initiation of any joint governmental effort.  The rest of this post is a spoiler, so, if you’re like me and 1957 was a bit before your time and you’ve yet to expose yourself to this film in a serious way, and if you have any intention of doing so and would like to not have the whole plot ripped open before you get that chance, then stop reading now.  In fact, go log in to your Netflix account, put it at the top of your que, and come back in a week.  It’s ok.  I’ll wait.

The film goes like this.  There are a group of captured British soldiers who are brought in to work on a Japanese railway bridge in Burma during WWII.  After some resistance and power plays, they manage to improve their lot and actually build a damn fine bridge.  But, at the same time over at the British Commando Headquarters in Ceylon, another group of British soldiers are planning on destroying that same bridge with explosives so that the Japanese cannot use it to further their war goals.  They also do a damn fine job.  Which goes to say that if you are going to do something, then you might as well do a damn fine job of it.

The problem, though, comes in the part where not only does the left hand have no idea what the right hand is doing, but neither hand has any sort of view of the big picture.  The British soldiers building the bridge have no clue that there are other British soldiers planning on blowing it up, and the British soldiers planning to blow it up have no idea that it was built by British soldiers in captivity.  More than that though, this is a bridge in Burma.  Nobody on the Asian continent at the time liked the Japanese.  They did not tread lightly as they moved through the mainland in their Asian domination plan.  There was a unified goal on the Asian continent to slow them down as much as possible.  Now I know this is a fictional film, but the setting is true, and that means something.  Particularly for what I’m going to infer next.

So we in America have this two-party government.  In theory they are us.  I mean we have different beliefs and different methods, but our ultimate goals – to live well and to create a future for our children (speaking in a purely survival of the species sense since I have no intention of having any children for which a future will be necessary) are universal.  Yet it so often seems like the two parties of our government are hell-bent on blowing up each-others bridges.  No sooner does one party manage to do something that they believe to be meaningful than the other party comes along and sabotages it.  And all too often there is that stunned silence among the actual constituency that comes when they realize that all of their hard work is being undone by their own people.  Our own people.

I’m not attaching party labels to this because both parties are guilty of this kind of behavior.  And like children on the playground who cannot tolerate even the slightest sense of inequity, these building and destroying cycles escalate.  Until someone, like Alec Guinness maybe, realizes the big picture and takes one for, well, not the team, but definitely the future.  And what is the big picture?  That a bridge may offer short-term advantages to a specific group (say the Japanese military) but will bring incredible long-term advantages to a much greater population (like the country of Burma)?  Or is the big picture that only by preventing any sort of advancement at all can the status quo be maintained – no bridge for anyone?

And do we want to maintain the status quo?  How can we be sure that the evil we know is not worse than the evil we don’t know?

This harkens to my current situation at my job.  There may be a future there – a chance to do something meaningful and worthwhile – if not in that city, than in another city with the experience gained in that city.  It’s a chance to build a bridge.  At the same time the State of California is rewiring its budget in a way that will sharply curtail any future development for any cities for a long time to come.  They want to keep the status quo – even if it means blowing up a bridge or two.

And I am back in limbo – or still in limbo since I never really left.

I have no tolerance for politics of this sort.  I do not expect everyone to agree all the time – it would be folly if they did.  But this build and destroy and build and destroy cycle is so wasteful – so inefficient.  Not just of resources and money and time, but of human lives and futures and effort.  The cost of anything is not simply monetary – money is nothing but a symbol of effort – much of it human.  The fact that that effort has become warped and twisted through the years as income inequality has increased does not mean that the vast majority of that effort does not still exist – that it does not still means something to someone.  Maybe you, maybe me.

When it is all said and done I find myself standing on the bridge next to Alec Guinness as he examines his life’s work, asking myself a very similar question.  Do I want to be a person who builds bridges – damn fine bridges at that, or do I want to be a person who is very skilled at blowing them up?  As glamorous as black grease paint and plastic explosives are, I think I’ll take up the hammer please.

Rules and Regulations: in which I ramble on about etc.

I have, as a rule, avoided writing about my workplace.  I have no problem with mentioning that I have a job, or the status of my job, or even venting about my frustrations, but details, specific activities, and other identifiers are off limits.  This is not a standard set according to my own personal code.  I don’t think that what a person says about their workplace online or anywhere else should even be an issue, unless they are divulging “trade secrets” or some such.  But if somebody wants to write about the inane office politics or the wacky co-worker behavior or the corporate soullessness that consumes such a huge proportion of our lives, then they should have the freedom to do so without worrying about what might happen should their employer or coworker or whatnot find their writings.  I’m not talking about libel or slander, but about freedom of expression – the right to record and share what happens to us, our personal experiences. 

I know better, of course.  I know of many people who have lost jobs and then found it very difficult to find new employment because of stuff that they have written, even semi-anonymously, in their blogs or public journals or whatnot.  I’m not looking to join their ranks.  At least, not until I am independently wealthy. 

Sometimes, though, it is so difficult to hold back, particularly when something happens that triggers one of my pet peeves.  I don’t really have very many – the advantage of being pretty much apathetic to the life choices and behaviors of others.  I only care if something directly impacts me, and then only if it is sufficiently negative that I either feel like I need to make a defense against radically unfair treatment or I feel like I’m in some sort of danger.  In fact, in recent years I’ve taken a few things off the pet peeve list.  I don’t mind repeating myself so much anymore.  I can go into broken record mode and disengage my mind and wait for whoever it is I’m supposed to be communicating with to catch up without getting my knickers twisted. 

And the whole entitlement thing only bugs me now when it is a direct inconvenience to me personally.  I used to get riled at the concept.  Now I don’t care until the pimped out Hummer runs over my foot.  I also used to get angry when I saw people breaking the law and getting away with it.  My long term experience with karma, however, has renewed my faith that what goes around comes around and that while I am not in a position to perceive the balance of the universe – my judgement of what is and is not “fair” is stilted by my own point of view. 

I don’t even mind so much anymore when people assume that I am ignorant and do not know what I am talking about.  If they want to take the time to contact my “superiors” to confirm what I’ve said, go for it.  And if I’m wrong, that is ok too, as long as somebody along the way lets me know why and how and what the correct info is.  But be honest about it.  Don’t fib to my boss about my information to save face.  Because that irritates me.  Pet Peeve.  It makes me uncooperative, and the one thing that every manager should know is that the last people you want to make uncooperative are the grunts – the ones who actually do all the work. 

Which brings me to Fight Club.  I have written about this book and movie and referenced it so many times that I know people get the glazed look in their eye when I mention it.  Either that, or they do the whole snap judgement thing about my choice in “entertainment”.  Yet there is so much to plumb from the depths of that particular piece of work that I find myself relating to it on a regular basis.  For instance, in this case I think of the scene in the men’s restroom with the police commissioner, when Tyler Durden makes a very convincing case for why it is a bad idea to forget just who it is that makes modern civilization possible – that it isn’t the politicians or the celebrities or the power brokers or any of the rest of the top tier of society.  It’s the proletariat, the working class, the everyman, the people who work jobs, not have careers, that keep things moving smoothly. 

It’s the office clerk.  (Note to self, pick up a used copy of “Office Space” for repeated future viewing.)

My relationship with Fight Club had a tumultuous start.  It was indirectly responsible for one of the biggest public fights I ever had with my ex husband.  He didn’t understand the film, and, after asking me to explain it, grew angry when I tried.  While we had many fights, this is one of the few that I can distinctly remember.  In retrospect, I really only caught the most obvious themes that first viewing, and my grasp was tenuous, so it is likely that my explanation was unclear, or, as happens when I am still processing information, was couched in metaphor and philosophic jargon, which was not something he had an appreciation for.  

Then, after we had divorced and I had become immersed in the martial arts, I found myself relating to the actual fighting in the film.  There is one section in particular that I came to realize was true.  Jack is talking about an interaction with his boss after a big fight the night before and he describes life outside the ring as having the volume turned down.  I remember after my first serious sparring sessions having that same experience – how those minutes inside the ring were so incredibly intense, so visceral, so immediate that everything else, the job, the classes, the day to day existence was muted and almost petty by comparison.  I felt that if I could hold my own in the ring – even when I lost – especially when I lost, then I could handle anything that the rest of my life could throw at me.  It was a very empowering experience, and it underscored the difference between the passive rote monotony of living and engaged presentness of mind involved in being alive.

While I’ve had many other intersections with the Fight Club storyline since I first viewed the film, recently I’ve found myself reminded of the start of the story, when Jack is dealing with his insomnia.  I always think that whatever bout of insomnia I’m currently suffering from is the worst bout ever.  But I don’t remember ever having sleep issues quite like I have these last few months.  Even on nights when I go to bed early, nights that come after long physically and mentally exhausting days, nights in which moments before I was drowsing in front of the computer, I lay awake.  For hours.  It is not uncommon for me to still be awake at 3 or even 4 in the morning, having, if I’m lucky, drowsed a bit here an there, but for the most part just laid there chasing my brain.   It is very slippery, my brain.  In the movie, Jack’s experience with insomnia adds a layer of static to everything.  The volume is blaring, with no variation, no dynamics – no way to identify the key priorities, the fundamental goals, the important things in life from the background noise.  That part of the film has frames of Tyler spliced in, so that he appears for just a split second, a blip in the static – foreshadowing for the film, but also a hint that blips in the static should not be ignored. 

I feel overwhelmed by the static, the noise of living right now.  It is so difficult to differentiate between the things that are loud because they mean something, and the things that are loud because they are in heavy rotation.  I keep trying to remind myself of the important things in life, of the necessity of being engaged and present, of the value of actually being alive.  But the din of the mundane, the temporary, the external is chaotic and fierce and I feel like I’m experiencing life though a shoddy hearing aid that blends all the sounds together, so not only do I not hear the daily specials, but I miss all the good jokes and heartwarming stories because all I can hear is the crying baby six booths over and the couple arguing across the room and the kitchen staff bashing pans around behind the flip doors. 

Somehow I need to turn the volume down.  And not to sound too picky or anything, but I’d like to do it without getting arrested.

I keep coming back to the martial arts.  There are other means of getting into the moment – a heart racing climb, a run that threatens to break my lungs – pretty much anything that taps into my lizard brain, be it through fear or survival or instinct acts like a mute on the static.  But nothing I’ve ever done was as consistent and reliably enlightening as facing off on an opponent and getting my clock cleaned.

I need a Fight Club.  Except maybe without the broken teeth and facial scars. 

In the mean time, I’ll chew some Valerian root and try to get more exercise.  And maybe stop by First Methodist on Tuesday nights for an education in pain.

Addicted

I am addicted to endorphins.  And adrenaline – to a lesser degree.  I rely on them to maintain my “balance”.  And like any other addiction, the more I do, the more I need to get my fix.  There are two ways to deal with this law of diminishing returns.  I can increase the length of time involved (and we are talking exercise now) or I can increase the intensity.

I’m already up to three and four-hour workouts – when my schedule permits.  The clock gives out before I do.  So it looks like intensity is the next step.

I have considered trying to find other means of emotional/mental regulation.  Meditation, for instance.  I can meditate – which is something.  For a long time I couldn’t.  But it does not have the same impact as an hour spent running intervals.  For most things I can delay my need for satisfaction.  But endorphins and sugar require the instant fix.  Instant.

I don’t have the energy to fight it.

I watched the “Hurt Locker” tonight.  As a rule I avoid films that require an emotional investment.  Just like I avoid chick flicks.  And horror.  And anything that totally butchers history.  Which leaves comedy, action, and the occasional indie film.  Under normal circumstances a war film – one made while the war is still so fresh – would not be my cup’a.  Yet I’d heard so many good things about this film, though they were all through official channels.

Maybe I was in the right mood.  Maybe it was the right time.  Maybe the stars are perfectly aligned.  But the film worked its magic.  And it did it in such a way that I don’t feel manipulated or cheated.  Instead, I feel a little bit more understood.  Which is strange.  I’ve never disarmed a bomb before – at least not a physical one.

Before I continue, I must say, see this film.  You will not be disappointed.  If it wins Oscars, it is because it deserves Oscars.  The performances are incredibly believable.  The setting is tangibly real.  The whole film is set up to make you feel like you are there, and you do.  Normally I have no problem pausing a movie while I get another shot of whiskey or find my knitting or wander around the kitchen – all part of my attention issues.  This movie, this movie I did not pause.  I thought about it, but I couldn’t make myself disengage from the story.

SPOILER (only in this paragraph though!) I was very gratified that none of the characters that I’d emotionally invested in bought it.  I was terrified that they wouldn’t live – and that is part of the success of the film – it creates characters you care about so deeply that you are afraid for them.  But to the credit of the writer and the director, they didn’t aim to break their audience’s heart – hence the lack of manipulation.  Which makes the film all the more intense, in my opinion. END SPOILER!

What surprised me most about this movie, though, is my ability to identify with the main character – again.  There is something about the emotionally detached lead character that is so familiar.  In this case, the character not only knew that he was emotionally dysfunctional, but he had given into the urge to just do things his way – regardless of what was going on around him – of who was demanding what.  Consequences be damned.  That is something I actually struggle with – not the doing things my way regardless of what happens, but controlling the urge to do things my way, regardless of consequences.

Don’t get me wrong, I can follow.  I spend a lot of time following.  It is necessary to get by in this life.  But I frequently find that left to my own devices, the first thing I do is go off the beaten path.  Or I reconfigure the path.  So much of the following that we do has no basis in logic.  Somebody did something once a long time ago and everyone else has done the same thing – regardless of changes in circumstances or situation – and nobody has stopped to ask why.

And what isn’t defined by precedent is defined by protocol.  One of the key frustrations in my job have been the “Sacred Cows” – tasks required because they are required.  They serve no purpose – go greater good or goal.  They are simply a factor of protocol.  We do it because we do it.  I have trimmed a great deal of that shit out of my personal life.  Yet it pervades my professional and academic life to the point that it is occasionally crippling.

Watching a character recognize that deviation from the beaten path is essentially an exercise in risk-taking was like having a personal mini-epiphany.  At the same time, recognizing that staying on the beaten path is not a sure mitigation for all risk was important.

On a long enough time line the survival rate of everything turns to zero.

There is a message here for me.  My nature is relatively risk-seeking.  Living a risk-avoiding lifestyle – particularly if it stifles my sense of self worth and my confidence in my ability to handle things – is living in bad faith.  I am selling myself short.

I know this.  Now the question is what I will do with it.  This epiphany and this mindset a decade ago would have put me in the army.  I would have done well in the military.  Now I am responsible for figuring out where best to put my efforts.

So many Dragons, so little of St. George to go around.

Segue

Urban Chicken (who has henceforth gained the name “Yard Chicken”) will be staying.  At least for a little while.  Apparently she has grown attached to me.  Today she approached me every time I went outside – getting close enough that I could have reached down and touched her if I wanted.  She has also developed this strange trait that is very much like the equivalent of an avian peeping Tom.  She will climb up on the patio furniture so she can see what I am doing inside the house.  She likes to look in the kitchen window and the sliding glass door in the dining room and watch me do stuff.  She’ll move from one vantage point to the other – whichever will give her the best view.  I find this behavior entertaining.

As long as she doesn’t get aggressive about it, we’re cool.  She pecks me though, and I’m calling KFC.

I bought her special chicken feed today.  Now I need to build a coop.  I did find out where she has been roosting at night – on top of my water heater enclosure.  It is pretty ingenious.  Most critters that would be a threat to her would have a very hard time getting up there.  At the same time, all she has to do is hop off and she’s able to move around.  She has not laid any eggs up there.  No nest.  A coop – particularly one that felt nice and safe – should encourage her to start laying.  That is my eventual goal.  Eventual being the key term.  I’m still getting used to the idea of having a chicken.

I don’t consider myself to be the most responsible of individuals.

I kill houseplants.  On a regular basis.  And only most times is it accidental.  Only most.

I wanted to write a memory log tonight.  And recap the weekend, but I am tired and it is late.  So I will end it with this.  I think I want my tombstone to read, somewhere on it, the word “Iconoclast”.  More than that, though, I want it to be true.

Wish List

Sometimes I wish I could be more stable, not so over-committed all the time.  I wish I could have a pet maybe.  A dog that would like to run with me and that didn’t bark at everything that moved.  Or maybe a cat – not one that threw down the claws whenever it got tired of attention, but that would simply walk away.

Or maybe I should get another fish.  And not kill it this time.

I had a conversation with a fellow at the gym today.  It is part of my new personality – the personality that is far more gregarious and friendly and talkative than I’ve ever been.  This personality isn’t that new, I guess.  Though I know about when it started to appear, and I know what created it.

Trauma can have many diverse consequences.  Not all of them are bad.

So we were talking about life while throwing down some treadmill miles (note to self, put suggestion in box at gym to get treadmills fixed) and the conversation turned somehow to lifestyles.  He has a dog and a girlfriend and wants to buy a house and settle down and I can respect that.  I have a job and school and a severe exercise addiction and more hobbies than are humanly possible to support.  We were comparing schedules and he said, somewhat out of the blue, “you’re single, aren’t you.”  And I responded in the affirmative.  “Yeah,” he responded, “that’s the only way you could do what you do.”  Which both confirmed and denied my general hypothesis – which is that Yes, being single makes it possible for me to throw myself into all these different ventures so completely, but that No, it would be easier if I had some sort of support structure, but that Yes, if I did, I would have to compromise on some of my extra curricular activities, but that No, if I had a partner I wouldn’t mind trading some of my abundance of alone time with some together time.

He was right, though.  I do what I do because I do not have children or pets or a lover demanding my time or my energy.  And by the time I have accomplished enough of my life goals to be able to think about releasing some of the chokehold I have on my time, I’ll be too old for the first, too urban for the second, and too jaded for the third.  That is not a complaint.  It is a life choice.  I’m at the point in my life where each choice is accompanied by the audible closing of doors as alternatives are permanently locked off.  I try to be careful about my choices, but my personality doesn’t exactly lend itself to a lot of careful consideration of all options and consequences.  I’m far too sink or swim for my own good.

So yesterday I had my first speech therapy session for the car accident I had four years ago.  Half way through the session I knew that it was something I should have done right after the accident.  It made me a little ill to consider the three years after the accident during which I completely dismantled my life, and to realize that more of that was probably due to the brain injury than I had ever considered.  It was enlightening, and is yet another testament to just how destructive our current health care situation in this nation really is.  If I’d been able to afford treatment back then, I know I would have taken it.  It would have helped.  If only it taught me that I can no longer rely on my memory, it would have helped.  Instead I had to learn the hard way – curse you the jury duty I’ve postponed four times because I keep forgetting to show up!

The session was revealing in several ways.  First, I realized that I did not fully appreciate the complete range of my intellect before the accident.  I was so plagued with self doubt and low self esteem that I did not know how to make best use of what I had.  Second I realized that I’ve developed several handy dandy compensation tricks to make up for some of the parts that no longer work right.  For instance, I use my natural tendency toward pattern recognition and rhythm and tone to recall specific information – so that it isn’t the item itself I’m recalling, but the sound of the word, the pace in which it was said, the pronunciation of the letters.  The meaning becomes secondary to the sound.  It is almost exactly the same as my approach to music.  The flaw is the same too – in that I can’t recall more than a few measures at a time.  So if the music continues, or the sentence or the story continues, I remember the end or the chorus, but I forget the first verses.  Sometimes I can remember the gist.  Often I can only remember details when specifically asked.

I did a test during the session that required me to provide opposites to the words that the therapist was saying – they were all basic words, common ideas that have obvious opposites.  And for the first part of the test I was quick and agile with my answers.  But as it wore on, I was increasingly unable to respond quickly.  I got slower and slower and found myself searching for words that I knew I know but that I simply couldn’t access.  It is the same thing that happens to me in my academic writing.  It is the same thing that a dose of adderall or ritalin cures – albeit temporarily.  That wall is everywhere.  It happens when I can’t remember the first part of a long sentence.  It happens when I can’t remember what it is I’m supposed to do.  It happens standing in the grocery aisle, the post office, the bank, at the stoplight and the crosswalk.  It happens standing in the hallway of my house, as I’m standing at the door before going to work, in the kitchen with the knife in my hand.  It happens everywhere, and anywhere.  It happens all the time.  And at that session, the therapist made it happen on purpose.  It was such a relief to know that it wasn’t just me being stupid – that it is the result of something specific.  Now I know.  Now I can work on improving it.

So many of the people who have met me only after the accident do not really understand my complaint.  Their perception of me is in the present and they cannot know how difficult it is – how frustrating to remember things being different, remembering a time that I could read with focus for hours, that I could write without fighting for words.  They see someone who does well enough.  I see someone who used to do much better with much less effort.   It is disconcerting – at the best of times.

I’ll probably get another two or three speech therapy sessions before my insurance is kaput.  My goal is to learn how to leap the wall – to break through the blank spots, to jump start my cognitive battery when it stalls in the middle of a sentence.  I’m working on accepting that I can no longer do things the way I used to – that my brain functions differently now.  For the last four years I’ve simply been reacting – trying to keep up, never in a place where I could take positive and initiative action for myself.  I need to learn new tricks.

Fortunately, this dog ain’t quite that old yet.

Dominos

If everything falls right, and it looks like it’s lined up to fall right, I’ll get surgery for my wrist on Wednesday.  The surgery will fix a problem that started about seven years ago.  I can still remember the day I first found the lump on my wrist.  It was bizarre, and I got scared thinking it was a tumor.  I didn’t have health insurance though, so I just did all the online research I could and hoped for the best.  Really, it wasn’t so bad.  It didn’t hurt for the longest time, and it was little.

It’s not little any more, and it hurts frequently.  I cannot wait to have it gone.  You know that feeling when you’re about to do something that you know will hurt and you’re wondering if the pain is going to be greater than the gains and you have all sorts of second thoughts and cold feet?  Yeah, I got none of that.  Let’s do this.  Slice and dice please!

I had my first shot of whiskey in months tonight.  I’ll make a confession.  It was wonderful.  I poured it, and it was lovely and golden.  Then I smelled it and I could smell the barrel and the smoke and the hint of peat.  Then I sipped it and it was like somebody had poured a little bit of liquid calm in my mouth.  I made the one shot last almost an hour.  I want another, but if I’m going to start drinking whiskey again, I need to use more control.  That means stopping at one.   Sometimes.  Tonight.  Maybe.

I bought another rope tonight.  It was more than half off.  A friend has offered to buy it off me when he has the money.  I honestly couldn’t rationally afford to buy another rope right now.  But, I’m operating on a new financial model.  Spend some money.  Save most money.  Stick to my budget, but don’t get too wound up about it.  I’m not going to let money control my sense of well-being this semester.  And if I’ve learned anything lately, the tighter I hold onto anything, the less I seem to have of it.  Let it go.  It’ll come back – eventually.

Tonight was the first night of class.  It’s a bit distressing.  Only last night did I finally feel recovered enough from last semester to start getting my life in order.  And as of today we’re back to the grindstone.  It’ll be May before I’m able to really focus on getting my house and my affairs in order again.  This semester will be lighter than last, but it will still be intense.  Someday there will be no job and school and life.  There will be job and there will be life, and if I make it work right, the boundaries will blur a bit and both will be satisfying but not overwhelming.  It may seem like a lot to ask, but if I don’t ask, there’s no way I’ll be doing any receiving.

I also bought new running shoes today.  Wow.  Today was a day of spending!  It was past time though.  My knees and ankles were crying after every run, and now that my short run is 6 miles and my medium run is 8, I need for my knees and ankles to be ok with the process.  There’ll be some breaking in – the 6 mile run today had a little pain involved, but the knee pain I’d been experiencing was much milder.  New shoes rock – now to get them dirty enough that they don’t distract me with their whiteness while I’m running.  I almost hit a stroller today.

And that is the short of it all.  Seems like all I need is a little nudge and my momentum will carry me through for a while.  And if my recent job situation is any evidence, I’m about to get a cosmic kick in the pants.  Not quite as gentle a nudge as I was hoping, but it’ll do!

Only on a Monday

There is something about a head cold that makes me hungry.  Well, not hungry exactly.  It isn’t like my stomach growls and the thought of food makes my mouth water.  It is more like an anxious hunger.  I have a rule (newly enstated) in which I take a full down day whenever I get sick – I try to make this day early in the process so as to improve my odds of beating whatever it is I have caught.  These days are very difficult for me.  Any day in which I do not work out is difficult.  I start counting the number of days I’ve worked out in the last week.  If it is less than 5, I get anxious.  I start to feel like I’m losing muscle mass and endurance if I take more than two down days in a row.  Light workouts don’t count either.  I have to burn a certain number of calories with my heart rate above a certain level for a certain amount of time.

It’s beyond addiction.  It’s a compulsion.

It has to be in order to fight my other compulsion – eating.  I binge eat.  I binge eat when my hormones are out of whack.  I binge eat when I am stressed.  I binge eat when I am tired.  And I binge eat when I am sick.  Down days make the binging even worse because I usually spend them at home – where the granola bars and the cottage cheese and the popcorn are.  And down days are so long.  I try to stick to my regular meal schedule.  But by 4 pm I’m digging in the freezer for anything microwaveable – a burrito or quiche or those little soy sausage patties.  And from then until bed it is snack 0’clock.  Fighting it makes me cranky.  Particularly since I lose.  Giving in and going with the binge makes me feel guilty.  Particularly if I know it will be another day or two before I should go to the gym.

I wonder if I could get the binge eating under control if maybe that would help with the exercise compulsion.  I am actually happiest when I have the binge eating under control.  I just don’t know how to keep it that way.

Break.  My house leaks when it rains.  At first there was a leak over the sofa.  I fixed that leak.  Now there is a leak over the fireplace.  The water was oozing from a crack in the ceiling and dripping down the wall from the electrical box over the mantel.  My anxiety level skyrockets when my house leaks.  There is nothing that can be done about it until the weather clears, so I place buckets and wipe up puddles and try to keep the water from doing any more damage than necessary.  It has rained with considerable sincerity most of the day today.  Between that and the headcold I’ve been stuffing my face with everything from stale corn chips to frozen blueberries all day.  It will take two weeks to balance out again.  Fortunately by then I should be able to fix the roof.

The icing on today’s cake was a vitriolic message from an ex.  I’m amazed at people who can maintain that level of malice for so long – who, years later, have the energy to drag it to the front and make the effort to contact another person.  I hardly have the energy to mind my own business, let alone anyone else.

I’m also almost out of granola bars.  I hope this cold doesn’t try to stick around much longer.

Tetris

For every cliché about time, for every corny lyric, and every lame movie plot, there is a kernel of truth (did anybody say “cliché”?).  (Also, punctuation is awesome!)  Time is unique in that it is both abstract and concrete – both a human construct and a natural phenomenon.  It is ephemeral, yet it can be felt.  It is steady yet seems to be in constant flux.  It can be added and subtracted and counted, yet it has no physical presence.  It flies, drags, stops, gets lost, heals, and can be killed.  And that is just the short list.

I view time much like a game of Tetris – at the level where mistakes are unavoidable, but, with a little luck and some quick thinking can often be corrected.  I stack my days full of events and obligations and opportunities with little or no buffer or cushion.  Every moment of every day is spoken for – squares and ‘L’s and zigzags and ‘T’s all neatly nestled together waiting for that perfect long rectangle to come along and make it all flow.  Except as often as not, the slot for the rectangle gets jammed with an errant zigzag or a ‘L’ that didn’t get flipped over fast enough, and then the whole mass of neatly packed shapes becomes inaccessible.  Thus goes my schedule.

It is an interesting way to live – this thing where there is no “free” time.  I’ve been at it for a while now – at varying levels of intensity – and I’ve become addicted.  Even when I have days that could be loose and open, I pack them to the gills.  I plan my errands for peak efficiency.  I think about going to the coffee shop and reading a magazine by the window and sipping tea from an oversized mug, and then I go grocery shopping and do my laundry and wash my car instead.  I see people who lounge, and I wonder how they hell they manage.  Who gets their food?  Who works their job?  Who cleans their house?  Who does their homework?  Who goes to their classes?  Or, do they just let some of those things go?

I spend a lot of time trying to catch up with myself.

All this technology we have, all these modern conveniences were supposed to make life easier.  They’ve done the opposite.  They’ve made it possible for us to do too much.  Gone is the default down time – the time cushions that used to accompany every day tasks.  Instead, every moment is go time.  Always on.  Pedal to the metal.

This is not to say that I am a Luddite or such.  I love technology.  Yet I miss mindfulness.  I miss the ability to spend an hour watching the ducks at the park without feeling guilty about all the “important” things I should be doing with that time.  I am disturbed by the fact that I cannot listen to music or watch a movie without doing somethings else at the same time – knitting or reading or eating or writing or working on homework – something.  Because there is only so much time, and if it isn’t stacked efficiently, it will… it will what?  Fill to the top and freeze?  Game over?  You lose?  Or will something simply get missed?  The car dirty, the refrigerator empty, the favorite jeans still with the soiled clothes.  A missed deadline.  A poor performance review.  A lost opportunity…  Because you never know when one of those narrow red rectangles is going to drop.

This is by choice.  Most things are – or at least we like to think they are.  Illusion of control and all that jazz.  In the mean time, I’m Tetris-ing in my relaxation time.  60 minutes of massage bookended by 15 minute commutes and prefaced with a 7 minute run to the bank after a 12 minute shower necessitated by a 90 minute run.  Stack away – there’s not a minute to lose.