Monday Static
Toward the end of the day today I felt some of the anger-buzz of apathy and irritation. It feels close to when I'm feeling how unfair much of what has happened is. It isn't as though working out the dynamic of a new relationship isn't already difficult. So things are hard already, but we also have the potential for past acts by selfish people to trigger intense responses.
It has felt a little hard for me today in some respects. On one hand, I have enjoyed the relative quiet of the day. AM and I went over to Seven Virtues, a coffee shop he's went to with a friend a couple of times, this morning since I had no meetings. We sat with our laptops, AM reading while I answered emails, set up some meetings, and got my week started. I got into my meetings a little later in the day and worked on some unexpected problems that didn't make a lot of sense -- ended up rebuilding somethings over again.
What has been difficult, besides the anger-static, has been feeling separated from CK. It was such a challenging weekend and I was feeling so vulnerable, exposed emotionally that to switch gears has felt a little rough. I was aware of the sensitive way my emotions felt when she left for her flat last night -- that switch having that feel of skin pulling away from a hot car seat.
A part of it didn't feel like it fit right. It seemed like we should be going back to bed, resting together in some of the space created by all our hard work. Instead she went to her flat and I went upstairs, took a melatonin, got my iBook and wrote for a while as I sat next to AM downstairs. It was one of those times when I resent the transition back to the work week, sometimes it just feels so rough.
High Centered
My two day hiatus from blog writing hasn't been to being away from the computer all weekend. It has been a long, hard weekend in relationship building and I was trying to not interrupt time with CK with writing. The time we were apart I was too agitated to write, didn't even think about trying, and worked on sorting out things in the house.
I have experienced distance physically and emotionally in my relationship since returning from Vancouver. I have been able to observe on an intellectual level that my withdrawal is triggered by old trauma, not the relationship, same as the terrible shame I have felt come up. Regardless of the mind understanding I have felt stuck with the way my body holds onto painful events from the past.
And stuck I have been. We had one morning during OSCON where there was a momentary break in tension and there was space to explore intimacy. We never really got it worked out as to what was causing the problem so it has continued to grow, pushing us further apart and into our own pain. It felt like the relationship is a vehicle high centered on something. Maybe only one wheel able to touch ground at a time while the rest just spin futilely in the air. Stuck.
I've felt the wind knocked out of me over it all. Unable to breath and overwhelmed by how deep the shame is buried in my whole self. I've not really worked with it at all, just trying to focus on processing the tremendous amount of grief and anger at how unfair it all was. But now seems to be the time for it to be acknowledged.
I thought I had touched upon it. This relationship has helped me feel the complete falseness of some of the terrible messages I got as a young child. I'm able to really explore my sexuality with another person and it is safe, nurturing. Then it was gone, only I was sleeping next to her several times a week but no connection was there. We had reached a point we were barely touching once we got to bed, I'd curl into a ball and stay awake while she went to sleep.
At first I was just feeling abandonment, feeling like things were ending. Which wouldn't match up with lunchtime conversations about having a baby, building a home together. Then the shame started to seep in with the fear of being left. I felt wrong for wanting her to touch me, ashamed of the want and like I should be able to control it, make it go away. I felt wrong from wanting to touch her, ashamed of myself for that want and feeling that if something went wrong I'd be punished somehow. I was locked in fear and shame around asking for touch, to touch. I began to settle into my own silence. The "safety" of saying nothing at all.
Today, after a very tough night -- she had unsettled dreams and I kept waking hearing people outside (turned out we'd forgotten to turn off the radio and NPR had come on) -- I had to leave for my class. She told me she wasn't going to the class and I felt hurt, rejected. She said she also wouldn't go to a class today at the dharma center, which I understood but was not happy with. I felt like she snapped at me and my irritation flared to life. It was so hard leaving to teach and I left angry. By the time I got to Dishman I sent a note apologizing for getting angry.
I know that all of the Buddhist precepts are practice, things I have to keep doing over and over again. I've been working really hard at the idea of anger. Not that I can get rid of anger, but to control it, to not give rise to my anger when I feel it. Whenever I fail at anything I feel it so sharply. To fail to control my anger, to snap at CK, leaves me feeling so graceless and inconsiderate. I also know it is unreasonable to expect that I'll always do things the best way possible, I'm trying to let go of that, but to fall down on something and see shock & hurt on her face just feels so much more a failure.
I went back over to her flat after teaching so we could continue to talk. I had spoken with AM to let him know what was up and gave up on the class at the dharma center even though it is on NVC, something I think will help us talk. I said I thought that if we tried to just lay down together and talk about what came up when we did it was just as valid lesson in communicating as going to the class. We had looked at some books on how to heal intimacy -- books that were Jessa's that GK thought I should end up with since I'd finally shared with her that I'd been sexually abused -- and thought about trying some of the sharing activities.
It was so hard. I told her what scared me, what was coming up for me. We talked about how a fear not being in control comes up for her. We talked about how to work on it, offered just compassion to some things, understanding the pain we each feel. We worked on trying to touch each other with lots of communication. I find it so hard to talk aloud and directly, feeling the pull of the shame, but she stuck with me. She would bend close when I felt like I couldn't talk so I could whisper to her instead.
In the past I'd just have not pursued this. I'd have consoled myself with food or distractions and not addressed any of the pain I kept buried. It was considerably easier than this hard, painful work. Only I was miserable, 150 pounds heaver and never distracted enough by that fact.
Thursday is for Bells
It was warm nearly all last night in CK's flat. I fidgeted being on top of the bed, finally getting under at least the sheet. Somehow that bit of "normal" behavior around trying to sleep helped me settle and rest even if fitfully. CK got up in the early hours, it had finally cooled considerably, and covered us up, dropping a kiss onto the back of my neck. She said I made a happy noise when she did so.
It would have been nice to slide from that sub-aware moment of feeling a kiss, responding to it on some level, into happy dreams. Instead I slid into taking a chemistry exam. Knowing I was truly in the wrong room, the wrong exam, "I don't study chemistry!" Yet there I was, trying to make heads or tails of questions, calculations, and knowing with certainty I was failing utterly.
Then it was time to get up and get ready. I rode into the office of the Broadway Bridge. The bridges get marginally less terrifying each time, just practice. Work was starts and fits of progress here and delays there (yet more again, same project).
Although I slept poorly, insufficiently, I don't feel quite the same volume of anger-static around me today. The grief feels less enormous again, just there with me. IW's work yesterday seems to have cleared a little of that energy up.
The ride home was difficult but possible. I was congested, the August air is rather stale from all the heat, so the uphills were even more difficult to breathe through steadily. My legs were pretty done by the time I got to the house, but no cramps or spasms. At times I'm not sure I'm actually enjoying the activity of bicycling but I enjoy being done with a ride and having traveled under my own energy.
AM had a rough day with his depression and I walked into the hosue into a storm of it for a moment. He settled after a bit. I tried to point out to him in a more compassionate way that I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the, to me, sudden and unexpected intensity. We just sat cool basement together for a little bit and let the whole day settle.
AM made us Vietnamese inspired rice noodle bowls, bun, for dinner. We discovered that the marinated tofu, nearly charcolized on the grill by accident, tasted quite good. A maple and tamari marinade would make for a crispy, "bacon-eque" type snack. We included cucumbers from the garden, which is really wonderful to be enjoying.
AM didn't feel up to, or had the time to shower for, before zazen at the Dharma Center. I quickly changed and brushed my teeth. Still having printer problems so I swung by CK's to print the merit list and drop off some things she needed. I had wanted to check in on her anyway because Atari had another UTI and I knew being at the vet with him, transporting him, and worrying about him all had been stressful. I felt bad at having to rush away from her, she looked so tired.
More compliments and suggestions of improving confidence at hitting the bells during service. I'm still so caught up in all the things to keep track of that it is hard to also have confidence. Besides, having confidence is truly difficult practice, same as pride. I am trying to remind myself it is only the second time I've done the chanting and bells together, something that is traditionally done by two people. There is a lot to learn and it is OK to learn it at my pace. I did think I felt a little more confident in my chanting at least; the stress of the bells distracting me!
Recognizing Anger
I woke up around 6:20AM and felt an immediate desire to curl up and stay in bed all day. Not tired so much as a deep apathy for the day ahead. I just wanted to lie in bed and do nothing except maybe read something I wanted to read.
Can’t see the Way for the mileposts
I woke up just past 6AM with no alarm, just awake to the brightness of what promised to be a hot August day by Portland standards. I didn't feel too exhausted. I was alert but something about it let me know that I was still anxious just below the surface. I'd taken some melatonin the night before and felt like I had rested, but the grief and anxiety from yesterday still persisted.
I came into the office to find that important reports still had not been run as expected. I sat down to my day and let my mind settle into the tasks at hand. I worked on projects steadily until CK came to meet me for lunch. We walked over to Blossoming Lotus for another tasty lunch. I was able to have the big salad I was craving and CK enjoyed her usual, yummy barbecue tempeh sandwich.
Sometime during lunch, with a toddler making hot, impatient sounds, she said my email about having a baby together was sweet. I felt some of the grip of the anxiety let up. We talked briefly on all the things we have to figure out in the next few years and that could settle. This possibility, these feelings are ones wholly new and while not entirely terrifying, I feel keenly vulnerable in exploring them.
Sitting in the park after lunch for a few minutes I told her that I was trying to make space to allow myself to feel grief about my past. During the first 30 years of my life (I had started to say childhood and she pointed out that my first marriage wasn't supportive either) I wasn't able to really experience the sadness, anger, and fear. Not only did I not know any other way, but the times when I did experience those emotions I wasn't supported and at times I was punished for it.
Underneath my impatience is fear. Fear that my loved ones are eventually going to get tired of me going in and out of waves of sorrow all the time. That the burden of my need for support will grow to be too much. That I'll no longer fulfill them and they'll withdraw at best, leave at worst. So I want to "get over it", want to stop being reminded of my past, my pain.
I wish there was some kind of time line for this. A project plan with due dates, task lists, even meetings and go/no-go decisions. I want this process to be something I can organize, categorize, and understand the process of. I don't feel like I see that I'm reaching milestones. My therapist points them out to me, but since I am not actually feeling better I don't feel like I've accomplished anything.
Old Papers
I have been feeling low all day today. I woke up tired and with a sore throat, more evidence of having missed my allergy pills yesterday. I had gained more weight over the weekend. I felt irritated with myself, with what I have to work with in my life, with my career, and just cranky feeling. I got my work day going, calling into the daily status meeting. The rest of the day was filled with random problems and meetings. I called an end to it after trying to make progress with an installation and running into missing libraries.
In the mid-afternoon I had a surprise call. My friend, SS phoned to say she was going to be in my neighborhood and could she pop by so we could meet her new baby, Ezra. I got to spend 20 minutes holding her very active, 3 month-old boy while we caught up a little. It was just nice to sit with the baby, occasionally holding his feet and appreciating how small he is. I felt my mind considering what it might be like if this were CK's baby.
I had planned to go to the pool and try and get a good work out. I just felt apathetic and tired. I finally decided to stay home and deal with some boxes AM had brought in over the weekend. We're down to the last of them from the garage and I thought that maybe dealing with them would improve my mood. I quickly got sorted out making piles for recycling, donating, and trash.
It was in the second box I found the first letter from MM. Handwritten, loving, sexy and acknowledging the importance of our relationship. I sat there with it, uncertain what to do for a moment. Some instinct to continue to save this scrap of paper despite the fact it made my heart ache a little. I tossed it into the recycling bin.
The third box contained journal entries written onto pagers of a paper planner. A copy of the certificate from my first marriage. Page after page listing CDs purchased from OM, impersonating me, by the now defunct CD Warehouse. Strange to look at the marks I put next to CDs I knew were mine. Stranger still looking at my name on the signature line in OM's handwriting. Additional pages of bank statements showing unauthorized withdrawals and forged checks. I sat with them a little before feeding them into the recycling bin feeling the old memories churning. The echoes of emotions, betrayal and violation, rising up to the top.
Then came another letter from MM. This one done on a computer and printed out. More words of love. Promises that we would work on things, try to find a way through and words expressing how much I meant to her. Reading them I was also able to see some of the warnings that I would get over the time we were together. Her noting that no one could ever expect to really satisfy her now reads with an understanding of how I played an assigned part in her life.
It isn't as if I miss our relationship at all. It isn't fair to compare them truly, they are so different, but the depth of connection between CK and I is so much more than what MM and I shared. I feel so much a part of CK's life, that I am a wanted and included part. Her family knows about me whereas MM made effort to make sure her far distant parents couldn't possibly find out about her relationship with me. Just felt the hurt of the way she ended, or rather, let me figure out the relationship had ended. Rereading what she told me made me be able to clearly see and feel the sense of having been abandoned by her.
By the time I'd gotten through all the boxes I was feeling depressed, fat and my back hurt me. I had been feeling anxious after writing CK and telling her about the baby, thinking of a day when it would be our family. I felt such a rush of vulnerability in telling her, in revealing the way I think of a future together. In putting words to it, sharing it, I have a fear that I've said too much.
I'm trying to be compassionate with the depression I feel tonight. I know there is part of it that is rooted in irritation at feeling the sadness and unfairness of my childhood. I want to get past all of that and not keep having things bring it up. Yet it just keeps coming up, all the emotions I was told were inappropriate or I hid for fear of being yelled at, shamed. Some days it just feels like it is too much effort to do anything but try and be present for it.
Building Bonds
Today started with a little jolt. CK could sense something wasn't alright with me and we talked up about it until we had to get up to get ready to go to yoga class. I was feeling better by that time, although it was still a little frustrating to have to go back to the schedule of the day.
I find myself struck at how quickly she reads me, although she has often told me that it is the same feeling for her. To me the changes in her energy are so readily apparent, so immediately that it is difficult to imagine people not noticing when it happens. It really does support my Practice considerably to have loved ones who keep me present, who don't let me close up around my pain and fear into silence.
After yoga she and I went to the Coder's Summer Social at Laurelhust Park. When we went into yoga it was chilly and cloudy, by the time we changed at her flat the sun had come out and it was warming up. We had fun hanging out with local members of the Open Source community, ate yummy food and played an 8-hand game of Fluxx (pretty silly with that many people).
We headed back to her flat and ended up working on putting together some of the furniture we'd picked out at IKEA yesterday. Got the bed made, moved stuff and set to putting together the dresser. After putting nearly all of the drawers together we were looking forward to how to put on the rails. I realized, with my stomach dropping away, that we'd done them nearly ALL wrong.
I felt terrible. I'd been the one looking at the directions and missed that the sides were supposed to be turned the other way. Because of the plastic screws, which are a hammered in, we couldn't just take them all apart. I could feeling myself cringing, waiting to be yelled out or frozen out.
Instead we just swore over it. Put the last one together correctly. Drilled holes in another and put the rails on; it worked perfectly. I sat an on the floor drawing circles for the drilling to be done on the rest of the drawers. I was screwing in the rails when AM showed up to help haul away the old desk, shelves and giant cardboard.
It has struck me how we hit this bump tonight -- making a big mistake putting something together. Despite my reaction, my waiting for punishment of some sort, everything was just fine. We just got on with what needed to be done to fix it and it was no one's fault, or at the very least it was shared fault that didn't really matter. We both want to and are committed to getting past bumps in our road together. She talks to me, openly, even when it is hard and helps me to do the same when I get stuck on communicating and slide into silence.
The body’s fears
When I lay down last night the wave of emotion that had rushed through me showed up in my body. I could feel how tight I was in my chest, how I was pulling in towards that tightness around my heart. The sensation of being ill as a young child, vulnerability combined with helplessness, really shook through me.
I hadn't noticed while I sat there writing how it was affecting me. It had it me in a big wave that felt settled once I had some tea and a banana. I felt a bit more of the anxiety at going to bed; feeling stuck in the intimacy road block/bump I have felt. Mostly I felt tired, but the shift in position really revealed how that wave of childhood emotion didn't pass on, it just settled into my chest and back.
I scooted myself up to CK, my back along her front -- little spoon. The sensation of warmth, the length of her behind me, combined with trying to mindfully breathe into the pockets of helpless fear and vulnerability helped me settle down somewhat. I felt her drift off to sleep while my mind still was wide awake. I did manage to get to sleep within the hour, but it was fitful. I awoke stiff and achy.
Friday on the Bridge
I'm not in the mood to write tonight. Just trying to go through the practice of it again. The routine of writing each night. It is easy for me to type quickly so I cannot even use the excuse of feeling to tired to sit and write by hand. I just don't feel like it. I feel the resistance of it, not wanting to stick with practice, just wanting to sit around with CK watching a show and being close.
She met me at the office today after work and we bicycled around downtown having dinner, picking up rain gear. On the way back we stopped and stood on the bridge, letting me work with some of my anxiety of being up on it, feeling exposed. Like writing when I don't want to, the practice of riding over the bridge will lead to good things in my life.
We got back on our bikes and road across the bridge and on to CK's flat. I started to change into my nightshirt and felt really ill, nauseated and shaky. When I realized I was cold we figured it was blood sugar and I had a banana and some tea.
I feel better now but when it first really hit, I plopped down on the sofa and felt a big wave of grief, misery, and helplessness. Something about nausea that makes me feel like a small child in a bad way. Just a feeling of being ill, helpless, vulnerable that somehow very young.
Friday on the Bridge
CK met me at the office today after work and we bicycled over to the Bridgeport Brewery in time to take advantage of happy hour pints. Vegan tofu "fries" with cashew sauce and hummus. Nice to see a few items listed as vegan on the menus there, this is a change from the last time I was there a couple of years ago. Made sure to mention on the way out how nice it was to see more vegan items, I figure feedback will only encourage more things!
I've always liked the beer at Bridgeport and it was nice to enjoy it on tap there. They redid the entire upstairs, where AM and I had our wedding in 2001, into a dining area. The whole downstairs is opened up as well, lots of seating. We sat upstairs and looked at the window and the parking lot construction happening across the street.
The tofu fries were very tasty. Thin strips of firm tofu deep fried in very hot oil -- tofu made into tasty junk food. It was crispy, light, and not very oily at all. The cashew sauce was a thin, creamy sauce with a big drop of Siracha style hot sauce in the center. Nicely flavored, it went well with the tofu fries.
Yet another hummus plate. The paprika olive oil was subtle and nice. The hummus was pretty standard. I really liked the herb and brine cured olives were very tasty. The brine level of them was a bit much for CK so I got to enjoy the whole lot of them.
Then on to REI to find rain gear for bicycling. Found a good jacket and pants, so I'm better prepared for rainy days. CK got a jacket too, the same one I did. We may look a little cute with matching jackets, but they fit well and are bright colored with reflective bits.
Rode back across the Broadway Bridge. Still a little unnerving to be on the bridge. After about a third of it we got off and walked our bikes for a little while. CK kept talking to me, pointing out all the beautiful things you can appreciate because you're up on the bridge. We stopped partway across and watched the MAX and cargo trains go by. The wind was gusty and when a very large truck or bus would go by on the bridge would shake and rock a little, shuddering under our feet.
It was beautiful and intimidating. The movement of the bridge feels very unstable. I feel a sense of dread too. If something catastrophic was to happen being up on the bridge is very vulnerable and I wouldn't survive it. I don't want to leave now, I don't want to leave the people I love. However, living in Portland it is the way I will get into work regardless of car, bicycle, MAX train or bus. I love the beauty of the bridges and that they're part of my life. Like writing when I don't want to, the practice of riding over the bridge will lead to good things in my life.