Knocked For A Loop

So much sadness I can't sleep.  Yesterday it oppressed me like a heavy blanket.  I attempted to just be with it without attaching stories.  The tears kept running down my face as I moved throughout my day.  The reasons are obvious.  My son.  My mother.  My granddaughter.  K.  It's been over a year since K. told me he wasn't sexually attracted to me and didn't want to be my lover and I still haven't gotten over it.  And yet I'm not really depressed over that.  The disconnect I experience with him sometimes just knocks me for a loop.

Skinned Knees

I wore a dress to work today that shows my skinned knees.

I've made up a pausable lie just in case someone asks.

"I tripped jogging up those darn concrete stairs!"

Lover who is my lover felt bad

but I told him it's okay,

that all new sexual relationships

deserve the initiation of rug burn.

They really hurt too.

But the pain brings a sweet memory.

Love and Death Require it of Me

I woke this morning thinking that the reason I stay in difficult relationships is because it is the perfect practice for dying.  I'm clear that I also stay for the love.  I'm not talking about receiving love from another although that's a part of it.  I'm talking about staying in the flow of love, keeping myself in love--not "in love" with another, although that's part of it too.  But I'm intent on keeping myself in the truth of love, the reality that love is everywhere, permeates everything, whatever the circumstance and to know love in this way. But I second guess myself always.  I chastise myself over my inability to let go, to swim ashore and walk away.  But the truth is, I'm letting go constantly as I grapple with the influx of consistently mixed messages and the lack of being met, that keep me off balance.  I struggle to keep my head above water, to breath, and relax into what is.  And to realize that it's about meeting the other where they are also, and that is very tricky...meeting and being met when two people are in different places.

I see this vision of myself as being in a boat with LWINMLT, floating along on calm waters with my foot hanging over the side, dangling in the cool wetness.  I'm enjoying his company but also, I'm just enjoying life.  Enjoying his love, while being connected to the big love that permeates all of life.  The next thing I know, a storm has hit, the water is rough and I'm thrown from the boat.  I'm struggling to swim, to keep my head above the water and he doesn't even acknowledge my predicament.  He offers no hand to pull me back into the boat, he's preoccupied with something else and is looking the other way.  I'm on my own.  So I do whatever it takes to survive and get myself back into the boat.  I pull myself back in, I'm soaking wet and half drowned and then he turns toward me and offers me a towel, seemingly surprised that I was even overboard--as if I had jumped in the water of my own accord.   The next thing I know the storm has passed and the sun is shining again as we continue floating along on calm waters.

This same scenario plays out again and again in my relationship with him.  And every time I'm in the water, struggling to get back into the boat I look over at the shore and wonder if it's not more prudent to swim ashore and walk away.  Why don't I just abandon ship and let him float away...oblivious of me and my struggle?  Would he even notice, or care, that I was gone?  Why do I care for someone so much, that at times, seems to care so little about me?  But there are so many mixed messages.  There is no doubt that there is a lot of love available in that boat, when the water is calm and the sun is shining and it's so obvious that he cares. But the pain and struggle when I'm thrown overboard and his back is turned is excruciatingly painful.  I attempt, but it's so difficult, not to take these things personally.

This is my dilemma.  I know I have deep abandonment issues rooted in my father's choice to not be a part of my life.  He turned his back on me.  He ignored me.  He never offered me a helping hand.  He was unavailable.  I'm vulnerable to a man's attention in this regard.  I have a thing for unavailable men.  Men who open their hearts wide and invite me in and in the flick of a switch, become unavailable...and then available again.  The love is obviously there but something is missing.  The commitment I suppose.  I don't fall in love lightly, and when I do,  when I allow these men into my heart,  I get very attached.  At the same time, I'm a big girl and fairly emotionally mature.  I do my utmost to take responsibility for myself, feeling my emotions,  understanding the truth of my stories, and experiencing my pain.  I try my very best to not hold others responsible when I'm working through my stuff.  At the same time, human life is about connecting with others, we affect one another in big ways and love asks us, love requires us, to show up.  So to the very best of my ability, I keep showing up.  I don't swim to the shore and walk away.  Sometimes I think this is most foolish of me.  But that's my "father" in that boat.

Besides that,  my father is on the shore too.  It doesn't matter if I crawl back into the boat or swim to the shore.  My issues with abandonment will greet me wherever I go.  So I keep showing up for love.  It requires this of me.  And I know that this showing up for love, is preparing me to show up for death.

Over the Edge

The picture sent me over the edge.
What the fuck is it that I'm trying to hang on to?
The emotional investment is just not equitable.

A Helium Balloon

My tears are so close to the surface, waiting for any excuse to break through.  Today I went to work and did my job.  I helped my students while having no real connection to being there.  I have no grounding.  No connection.  I feel like a helium balloon, floating, tethered by a string.  I don't belong there.  I don't want to be there--and I can tell that people notice.  It's not a bad experience.  I'd just rather not.  After work today I got another massage.  The touch is a good excuse to for my tears to flow.

Lifting

If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.
--Lao Tzu


I notice the depression lifting
     as I release my grasp on the past
          and find my footing in the moment.


I relax into the peacefulness of what is
     remembering that my ego has the habit
          of thinking it knows what will make me happy.


That feisty, faulty, friend
     telling scary stories to my vulnerable heart
                 always striving to keep the pain alive.

Heavy Cloak of Bla

I'm not going to say I'm depressed because that would be identifying with it as who I am.  But it's official.  I am most definitely experiencing depression.  It's a lousy space to be in.  I'm still functioning.  Barely.  I'm not bedridden or stuck in couch potato mode...well kinda I am.  But I'm puttering around the house engaging in this and that but accomplishing very little.  I'm on the verge of crying but really don't want to go there so I'm ignoring the deepest feelings that reside underneath this heavy cloak bla.

Wanting What Isn't

It's been a hard week and it's only my second day back to work.  I took four weeks off after my mother died.  I wasn't ready to go back.  I felt vulnerable facing people.  Especially with the cards and flowers waiting for me.  It made me nervous.  But I bucked up and maneuvered my way through it.  Then, when I looked at my schedule yesterday I was pleased to see the lunchtime hour was scheduled with prep and on-line counseling.  That meant I had time to go visit my mama.  Oh yeah, except she's dead.

Today I worked on a different campus and it was the same thing, facing people and a card and a gift certificate to get a plant in honor of my mother.  I appreciate these kind gestures and yet it reminds me of how tender I still am. Losing my mama made me an orphan.  And her death has triggered this deep sadness in me and it's broke open wounds that were in the process forming new skin but hadn't completely healed.

I'm really pretty much overwhelmed with sadness, loss, and grief.  I regret not spending more time with my mother when she was younger and healthier, going for walks in the park and having her tell me, just one more time, a story from her life.  I've already forgotten so much and it's difficult to bear, this forgetting.  I feel like I didn't even know her.

One of her photo albums is missing.  I thought there were only four of them but so many pictures aren't to be accounted for.  I can't stand thinking about her pictures that I can't find.  The ones I remember, and the one's I know are gone that I can't recall.  Too much loss.  I'm just really overcome.

I got a massage today after work.  I started crying as soon as I laid down on her mat.  More tears came the moment she touched me.  It's so much to let go of.  I know that this holding on is what is making it hurt so much but I just can't seem to let go.  I don't know how to accept all this loss, to want what is.  I'm attempting to give all this sadness a sacred space without allowing it to devour me.  It feels so all encompassing.  Trying to keep it moving through me and not get stuck in my body and stagnate.  Trying not to be too angry and depressed for wanting what isn't there for me.

Fasting, Back Pain, and the Elusive Sleep

I had the bright idea to start a fast during Lent.  The idea had been mulling around in my head for awhile and I had pretty much picked the upcoming weekend as our starting point.  It was just going to be a one day fast on ginger and myers lemon tea.  This mixture is good inflammation and making one's blood more alkaline, plus I have a myers lemon tree in my yard.  After the initial first day, the plan was to move on to miso soup and then fruits and vegetables and green smoothies for a week and then add some gluten free grains back in after that.  H had agreed, not wholeheartedly, but never-the-less agreed, to do the fast and diet change along with me.  Besides the fast, this diet is more or less just a stricter version of how we already eat, minus the  treats, cream and sugar in our coffee and tea, alcohol, and various slips and slides.  We have been mostly vegetarian for years (eating a little fish and eggs here and there), mostly organic and GMO free.  Pretty health conscious without being fanatical.  We love good food.  We also like diary products but don't overdo on them too much.  I love raw, organic, cream, butter, and cheese.  We've been doing mostly gluten free for awhile  but we let that go while we were in Italy.  We also take like supplements like D3, ubiqiunol, zyflamed, probiotics,  and yada fucking yada.  But H has been dealing with some health issues and I thought we should really get serious and try to turn this around, and I wanted this for myself as well.  So a little fasting and diet switch-a-roo to get on track healthwise.  

Wednesday of last week, H came home from work not feeling well.  On Thursday he came home from work early, sick with a cold--congestion, sore throat and body aches.  On Friday he stayed home from work.  It was a slow morning on Friday and by the early afternoon neither one of us had eaten or drank anything but the ginger lemon tea I had just made up, in preparation for our fast day.  I thought, hey, H is sick, we might as well start our fast today.  H reluctantly agreed, he was too sick to argue.  By Friday night and many cups of ginger lemon tea later, we both felt like shit and went to bed.  It was at this time that I recalled the stupidity of fasting along with detoxing from coffee.  That it doesn't work well for me is an understatement.  I was able to sleep for awhile but soon I was up with a throbbing headache, intense backache and the dry heaves.  The dry heaves were gone by morning but the back ache and headache remained.  We continued drinking our tea...H was still really sick. My whole body ached and my back was killing me but I dragged myself outside and walked to the farmers market.  I actually felt much better outside.  It was a beautiful, warm, day with a slight breeze.  I stocked up on some fruits and vegetables and then went home and lazed around with a back ache for the rest of the day.  In the evening I made miso soup for dinner and took a short walk in the park with a friend.  By Saturday night I was crying in pain.  The back pain just wouldn't let up and I was hurting so bad I couldn't sit down--only pace around the house exhausted.  I didn't want to take the old Vicodin I had but by midnight I was so worn out  and frantic from the pain I took a pill and a hot bath and was able to sleep for 4 hours.  I woke up in excruciating pain and took another pill which allowed me to fall back asleep for another 2 hours.  After that,  I spend the day nauseous from the Vicodin along with the back pain.

I took another long hot bath late Sunday morning and got out feeling fairly decent.  A friend called me to walk and since my back felt best when walking, it sounded like a good idea but by the time I arrived at the park to meet him, my back was throbbing in pain and I was nauseous again.  The fresh air, walking and talking helped. I was pretty sick but glad to be distracted.  I was actually able to sit on the grass for awhile and visit.  I felt pretty okay for a little bit.

Home again, I spent the rest of the afternoon in and out the bath and then made soup for dinner.  Then in and out of the bath some more, alternating with walking around the house crying because I was so tired and miserable.  Then I had the thought that my colon wasn't dealing well with the toxic release from the fast and so maybe an enema would help.  It did!  I emerged pain free from the bathroom.  I was so relieved.  Within half an hour the back pain had returned with a vengeance.  I took an Alleve and  didn't sleep a wink, actually didn't go to bed all night but moved back and forth between the bathtub and couch alternating the heating pad with ice, and my yoga ball.

Monday morning H got up to go to work and I made us green smoothies.  I made myself a massage appointment and then spent the rest of my time in and out of the bathtub until it was time for my massage in the afternoon.  It helped a little.  Maybe a lot but I still hurt.  Bad.  H came home early, still not recovered from his cold.  I made us cauliflower, sauteed mustard greens with onions, and sauerkraut for dinner along with applesauce and soaked almonds for dessert.  I was hungry.  But my fucking back was still hurting.  I took another Alleve early in the evening and then an Advil before H went to bed.  I spend another night in and out of the bathtub, on the couch with the heating pad or ice and my yoga ball.  I was able to doze off a couple of times during the night and got about an hour of sleep.

Today my back is even better.  I tried another enema, I assume they help some.  Only one long hot soak in the bathtub this morning.  I stayed pretty busy all day, not over extending myself but I'm most comfortable (i.e. not hurting like hell) when I'm walking.  Right now I'm sitting on the couch with the heating pad and my back is screaming.  But I'm so tired.  I had quite a bit of energy today and I made us a nice dinner of butternut squash, grilled artichokes, sliced tomato and avocado.  But I'm done in.  It's back to the bath I guess.  I'm using Espsom salt to help pull toxins out of my body.  I get another massage tomorrow.  God I hope I can sleep tonight.

Whatever

I'm happy for you, you know?
Always want what is good for you.
Excited that you will be off on a new adventure,
Making change.  It's a big deal.  It's good.

This isn't about me. That it makes me feel more cut
out of your life and heart is superfluous.  This isn't
about me.

When I told him about your exciting news
he exclaimed, "Great!  Good for him!"
Then he said, "And how are you with that?"

I responded, "Whatever.  Fuck him."
Then I started crying.

Catch and Release

I picked up my mama's ashes from the funeral home today.  I have her ground up bones on my dining room table.  Weird.  My sweet and beautiful mama.

I am an orphan now.  My daddy is gone 34 yeas and my mama is gone 6 days.  I can hardly believe it's been 6 days.  Where did all those days go?  

I feel forsaken. My solar plexus hurts.  I'm sad.  

Looking at the tender underbelly of my feelings today I identify as one deserted, abandoned, left by the wayside.  But it's not all about my mama.  I'm thinking about the book,  Same Kind of Different As Me and the the part about how white people fish using the "catch-and-release" method. Denver can't believe that someone would actually catch a fish and then throw back perfectly good food.  He then uses this fishing metaphor to explain his fear of what Ron might do to him.  He's afraid that Ron will catch his friendship for the sport of it and then let him go.

I actually didn't care all that much for this book, but that part hit me straight in the gut.  It made me cry.  When I read it, part of me knew that LWINML was going to do that to me.  He did.   And it has knocked the air out of me (and he's the one that loaned me the book!)   It's true that we carry on a sweet friendship.  The love is still there.  But the bottom line is that I feel caught and released.

I have so much to be grateful for that I've been managing the loss of a lover fairly well.  I wasn't  truly devastated for long.  There has been this crack in my heart that I've been nurturing, anointing with the healing balm of so much other goodness and beauty in my life.  But now with my mama's death, that crack has broken open into a gapping wound and there is so much emptiness to bear.

No Safety in the Nest

It was Christmas Eve morning and I was in my craft room being a busy bee, buzzing around sewing and getting some presents together.  I finished up and was making my way to the parlor with an armload of wrapped gifts when it happened.

I fell into a five foot deep hole.  I can't begin to describe the terror I felt, having the floor disappear beneath my feet like that, in the safety of my own home.  It was so totally and utterly unexpected.  I let out a blood curling scream as the presents I was holding flew and smashed everywhere.  I kept screaming for awhile because I was so freaked out, in disbelief and shock.  Plus I was hurt.

I knew H was outside.  He was cleaning the fucking screen on the heater vent.  He had seen me puttering away in my room and remembered that I had asked him to please clean the vent before we left for Italy.  He thought to surprise me and was so proud of himself.  The hole I fell into usually has a heavy iron grate covering it and he had left the hole uncovered while in the midst of taking care of his chore.

He never came and rescued me either.  He actually heard my scream and ran to the street in front of our house, thinking someone had been hit by a car.  Finding no one bloody and dying in the street, he returned to his task at hand.  I just stood there in the hole hurting and sobbing.  I was so furious.  My injured feelings exceeded my injured body (and it was hurt).  "Who would do this?" I sobbed over and over.  I knew who did it, but I just couldn't comprend how anyone would do what H had done.  I could have killed myself falling into that hole.  I had crashed through the metal unit up to my knees with the floor now at about shoulder height.  When enough time has passed and H still hadn't returned to save me, I somehow managed to lift myself out and crawl into the bathroom.    There was some arnica cream close at hand and I was rubbing it into some of the obvious places where the lumps and bruises were starting to form, when H finally returned.

Besides "What kind of fucking idiot would do this?", I won't disclose all of the horrible things I had to say to H (I actually don't remember) but I rubbed furor into him while I rubbed the arnica into my wounds.  He deserved it, and he knew he deserved it.  I was pissed.  I mean, what kind of fu@#%*$...

I ended up with a cracked rib and a small but deep gash all the way to the bone in my leg. Those were the worst of the wounds but I was fairly bruised and banged up all over my body.

Fast forward to last night.  I was cooking dinner and looking for my spatula when I noticed a couple of things had fallen onto the floor under the shelve so I stuck my hand down there to retrieve them when it happened.  The rat trap snapped and smashed my finger.  Again I screamed, and H did come to my rescue this time.  I was literally out of my mind furious.  My body was shaking and I could barely contain my rage.  I was definitely experiencing PTS from the aforementioned  fall.  The emotional threat I felt in both of these incidences was immense.  I was yelling, "Who did this?  Who set a rat trap in my kitchen without telling me?  What kind of fucking idiot would do this?!"  I felt utterly sabotaged.

There were several people in and out of our house while H and I were in Italy.  There had been some scurrying rat sounds heard and so a trap was set....

Settling into 2012

As I was lying in bed this morning before getting up to make green smoothies and coffee for my husband and me to start our day, I was pondering all of the varied tasks I might tackle and blogging came to mind.  I see that I haven't visited here since August 17, 2011.  That's over 5 months.  Time sure does fly.

I've been to Burning Man and Italy since then.  H and I had our 15/18th anniversary (together and married).  My mama is still here (I was under the impression that she was going to leave her earthly form in 2011.  I'm happy I was mistaken).  It's been over seven months since my lover informed me that he didn't want to be my lover any longer.  I guess those are the main highlights to the end of one year and the beginning of another in the life of She.  I say, bring the year of the dragon on!  Dragons and horses (moi) are supposed to share a powerful sexual chemistry (obviously LWINMYT isn't a dragon).

I finally gave myself a "Burner Name" this year.  It took six years of over-anxious friends offering artificial names that never stuck.  My full and proper name is SheWhoWillNotBeNamed and it's really just an evolved moniker of the name Rob Brezsny christened me with back in (1999?)  SheWhoBeHot.  I wish LWINMLT thought that I was hot but obviously he doesn't (well, at least I don't get him hot).  Yes, I'm still fucking stuck on that.  Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get over it in another five to ten years.  I'm quick to let go of these things.  NOT.  Besides, he loves me and who needs sex when you have love?  I seem to be on a roll. I guess I'm in the mood to rub it in (my own face).  More on that later.  But anyway, you can just call me She.

H and I came home from twenty lovely days in Italy to a torn apart bathroom that was supposed to be completed before we returned.  I really wanted to soak in a hot bath.  Of course.  It's been a week, and at least now I have a toilet and a sink I can use in there.  I think I'm supposed to wait another month for the painting to happen...sure, I'll just leave the contends of my bathroom stacked in the parlor until the handyman returns from another job.

Italy.  What can I say about Italia?  It was just about the perfect trip.  I don't really like flying for long distances and I got sick on the flight home but besides that it was an incredible journey.  H and I travel well together.  We only had a few minor spats along the way.  He annoys me when he is trying to explain the route of our destination and keeps turning the map upside down.  I tell him that totally discombobulates my sense of direction but he does it anyway so I yell at him and he hates it when I yell at him.  Then we kiss and make up.  Those sort of moments.  We visited Roma, Firenze, and Venezia (as well as the islands of Murano and Burano).  We walked everywhere, with mostly churches, museums or ruins as our final destinations, with the intent of discovering whatever lay in our path between point A and point B.  Sometimes we just wandered and got lost.  We eat a lot and I drank a lot of wine.  H drank wine but not as much as I did and never at lunch.  I never drank wine for breakfast.  We drank cappuchini (don't know why you always see it spelled cappuccino) because they always said "chini") day and night and sometimes cafe lattes.  I learned to never shorten my order to a latte in Italy.  The baristas in the states may know you are ordering a cafe latte but in Italy they just look at you weird because you are ordering milk.  And the size of the coffee drinks in Italy make Americans look like gluttonous giants with our coffee drinking habits.  The trip was all I could have asked for and I want to go back.

A friend asked me if Italy was on my bucket list.  Travel has always been on my bucket list but it's interesting because there weren't many particular places I had in mind to travel to, I just wanted to travel.  H was set on Italy and that was fine with me.  And of course, once my sights were on Italy I was over the top excited and it turned out to be an awesome choice.  I have held the idea of wanting to experience Buddhist countries as well as always being enamored with and wanting to travel to Persia since I was a young child.  I always though of Turkey as being part of Persia (where not parts of Turkey part of the Persian Empire back in ancient times?).  I should study my history on this part of the world.  Anyway, I know that Persia was actually Iran, but just the same, Turkey is where my imaginings always went as a child, the markets, the architecture, the mosques, the heat, the smells, the magic carpets... The plan has been for me to travel to Turkey in June with K and his family but that may be off. I hope not, but there are likely changes up with his job and it may not be possible.  I will be sorely disappointed if that's the case but time will tell.

I'm happy my mama is still here.  I've been visiting her most days and reading Longfellow to her.  We've both been enjoying it a lot, even though I don't read it very well. I'm so grateful for every moment I have with her.  My heart will break when she is gone.

While H and I were in Italy, LWINMLT sent me a Rumi quote, "Lover's don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along."   It struck me how true this is for me.  Since LWINMLT told me that he is not sexually attracted to me and therefore doesn't want to be my lover, my ability to orgasm practically vanished.  Of course I understand this to be a part of my grieving process.  I've been in a lot of pain around it (mostly covert rather an overt) but the anger and hurt is immense.  Thank goodness that big love numbs the pain and the fact that I have a great life otherwise (mostly great).  My orgasms, as with many women, are pretty throughly connected to my emotions and my ability to trust my partner and open to a deep vulnerability.  The other thing that is related to the Rumi quote, is that whenever I orgasm, all of my lovers come rushing in.  My orgasms open the door to EVERYTHING.  While in Italy, I orgasmed in Roma.  I orgasmed in Firenze.  I orgasmed in Venezia.  That made me very happy and it was a powerful release.  It also made me sad because seeing that I carry my lovers around inside of me--whenever I orgasmed, all the grief I'm holding on to related to LWINMLT not being my lover would escape and wash over me.  It's been obvious to me that I've been protecting myself from deeply feeling this loss, and it's been a real drag to not experience the vulnerable opening that allows the full pleasure of sex that leads to orgasm for so long.  So, orgasming while having sex with H in Italy was nice because he is a generous, hot, and spicy lover and I prefer being open to receiving all he has to offer me.  So it was very nice.  And it was also like pouring salt on my wound.

But I'm happy.  That's important to acknowledge.  I have a good life.  A good husband.  Good friends.  LWINMLT is one of them. I am blessed with family and friends and opportunities to learn to be a better lover, to love in ways that gently caress the tender underbellies of us all.