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.
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.
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.
Hit Pause, This Feels Wrong
I talked to my therapist today about the struggle around intimacy I've felt in my relationship. I told her how I'm really not angry I just feel a bit lost and miss the feeling of connection on that level. I immediately burst into the tears that were just barely contained this morning.
She summed it up perfectly by noting that she imagined, given all the things she knows about from the the years we've been working together, that I must be feeling abandoned. Part of it is the newness of the relationship, we're still fitting together so withdrawal feels very big and scary. Once it was stated that way I could see how it certainly triggers old programming -- the numerous times in childhood and into adulthood I'd become attached to someone they would either change & hurt me or we'd move away & I would lose that connection. It feels so big that it is very hard not to feel like it is my fault regardless of being assured it isn't.
What I'm also finding really difficult is that being reassured, reminding myself of my accomplishments, sometimes doesn't make me feel better. In the rush of relief there is also a flood of absolute grief and the shaky realization of just how much shame, guilt is in there. CK made a point this morning to remind me that the distance we feel right now isn't anything I've done and I felt tears heat up my eyes. Same as when AM makes sure I know he is OK, that he isn't angry with me. I'm just shaking inside with relief and the realization that I'd fallen back into preparing to be punished. Yes, it is so good and helpful to hear these assurances from my loved ones, but it also seems to expose a raw hurt that I'm not entirely sure what to do with.
My therapist gave additional suggestions to my idea that I should distrust my first emotional response. She said I should just hit pause in those moments so I can really check in. She also thinks that in that pause I need to remind myself of my accomplishments, how those things are true and whatever rush of anxiety or fear I'm experiencing is based in the bad information I was given as an impressionable child. AM commented that I can also remind myself how I'd felt afraid in the past and needn't have been.
I finally voiced the anger I was feeling. I resent that the rest of my life will be filled with moments where I have to question myself, rein in the emotional response, and correct it. Like having to do some chore, vacuuming, at unexpected moments, for the rest of my life. Yes, with practice it will become easier, but it will always be there and it is so damn unfair. In these feelings I hear my 11 year-old voice, sobbing out the words, "This is so unfair!" to an angry mother who refused to hear any other viewpoint, would not hear any words I spoke.
Don’t Listen to Instinct
In the early morning hours I had dreams of being lost in some airport in the desert. Separated from both AM and CK, phone not working correctly, not fluent in the language spoken around me, and entirely disoriented, lost. "Crisis dreams" are what AM calls them. I have all kinds of variations on them, often related to travel.
It had been such a rush of a day yesterday, my anxious feelings still present making it hard to communicate with either AM or CK well. Going hiking in the Gorge, having lunch out, going to a movie (found it pretty lame... glad I saw it at a second run brew pub), dropping off the visiting friend, getting CK's bike, going back to my house just to grab stuff and bicycle to CK's flat. I was missing being at home, missing my cats, and still utterly thrown off by trying to work with the anxiety CK was experiencing.
We'd hit one of those bumps last night; where we freeze up and fear rushes into the place where our connection resides. It becomes excruciatingly difficult for me, own fears that I've hurt her, that I've screwed up fundamentally, from rushing to the forefront. Certainly one of those areas where I have to fight the instincts that clamor. Easy to link that directly to dreams of being lost and disconnected from the people I love. And so I woke up with tears already welling up in my eyes.
Just barely time enough to get the tears calmed down, hiding just below the surface again. Time to reconnect then rush off to teach class. So grateful for 3 students only, one of them CK. Having to rush off to teach was frustrating because CK had just told me that she loved me and we were able to be close with less fear. Once I got into the rhythm of class I found it welcome in that it connected me back to the calming of my mind that comes from teaching.
I rode over to New Seasons from the community center to pick up some DLPA, the Arbor Lodge store specially stocks what seems to be the only vegan variety available in the U.S. Once I got home AM and I decided to run over to India-4-U to see how Kumar and Alka were doing as well as pick up a few things we've run out of. We had some very tasty lunch at Red & Black and picked up a "Bake in Black" t-shirt from Sweet Pea Baking Company.
The rest of the day AM and I have just hung out, talking, reading, and watching things on the Science channel. I feel just worn down, absolutely exhausted on so many levels. I'm so incredibly grateful I have a massage scheduled with Beth tomorrow, I really feel the need to have her help with the muscle spasms in my back and the energy of emotion that is so hot right now.
Just sitting with it I'm starting to get a feel for the subtle, nearly voiceless ways in which my PTSD manifests. Sometimes it is so obvious, so silly that it is easy to laugh at it and know it is wrong (like this morning having the thought that it is so hard for CK to have space to cry because I'm so busying crying all the time).
Children who are abused cannot comprehend that something is wrong about the adults around them and therefore assume they are at fault, to blame for the situation and/or deserving of the punishment. No matter how many times my rational mind may understand that something is in no way caused by me, a part of me reacts in shame for having done wrong. It becomes another practice to resist the initial instinct that signals I've done wrong and/or am in danger. I know that these past couple of weeks I've been trying to practice this but it doesn't come easily yet and I feel as though I tire easily.
Thrashed on by the Inner Critic
Well, this has been a long day. CK and I even slept in some so we'd have more rest and more quiet time together before heading off to OSCON for the day. We felt we were doing a bit better, reconnecting together again. It had been tough yesterday as the sheer pressure of being at the conference together had taken a toll on the somewhat emotional place we'd been in on Sunday. There is just so much mental input, constant noise of people talking, and countless screens to watch.
After having trying to be present through days of feeling a real disconnect from CK, trying to connect, then dumping ourselves into the mass of people that is OSCON, we were really feeling the intensity of the lack connection was producing irritation, anxiety, and just draining us both utterly. I took a bath, we ate a little, and felt somewhat better.
Laying down to cuddle and rest I felt a rush of anxiety come back. The unreasonable flash of panic earlier that the stress of a conference full of geeks would be the end of us was echoed back to me. I finally thought that the anxiety that I'd been experiencing when we'd been together earlier was being recalled too. All of it just flashing through me again. We ended up drifting into sleep.
Sleeping in, waking up without rushing out the door helped as well. And then we were off to the conference. At some point during a series of talks about Perl I just felt the anxiety hit me. I felt so inadequate. I felt utterly outclassed and a poser of a programmer. It felt like I shouldn't be there at all. I didn't like diving back into the boys' club that is technology.
AM and I had dinner together and talked about the just drained, anxious way I was feeling. He was able to note how he just feels lonely without me around. Our friendship is so close that he really feels my absence. In talking to him, in being reassured again that he wasn't angry, wasn't going to treat me to snide comments and coldness like my ex-husband had done so often, I was able to see my fears are too big. He is OK even if his loneliness brings up irritation. He isn't angry at me. He truly wants to help foster the happiness that CK & I have in our relationship. When I'm feeling so anxious it is hard to relax into trusting this, hard practice.
Talking to AM this evening I had a realization about some of the anxiety about feeling inadequate professionally, intellectually at OSCON. The last time I did a conference like this I still weighed at least 80 pounds more than I do now. I still had the body armor of my weight, my long hair, anger, and a carefully constructed persona that included an intense bravado, a "fuck you" attitude.
Because of my practice I don't have any of that anymore. I'm present with all of the feelings of inadequacy that I was distracting myself from. I wasn't expecting to have a run in with my inner critic this week and it hurts. I practically begged to get to come to OSCON, I've been so excited about it.
I ended up not going to the Dharma center tonight. Showing up, leaving the merit list for the week, and pleading illness. Hogen asked if I could sit with all of this and I told him I couldn't there, not in zazen. I was too nauseated and my hips and back hurt so much. Once I'd had some tea and some real food that nausea passed, suggesting blood sugar contributing to some of the feelings of illness.
I'm trying to refocus on the encouraging people I've met. Suggestions of else I could be doing besides programming have occurred to me. There has been things that felt like what I wanted, more community to learn from. Trying to work on that inner critic.
CK had it pegged perfectly, how the inner critic was speaking through me today. In talking about what I want to do, I focused on everything I think I don't do well. I had noted that I'm having a difficult time articulating what I think I'm really good at.
My not being able to articulate my true ability, that is the inner critic with hands over my eyes and blinding me. The ability to clearly detail everything that is not a strength, that's very obviously that critic.
Slipping Back Into Routine
I woke up this morning at CK's when Atari jumped on the bed around 6:30, meowing and wanting attention. He ended up jumping over me and settled in the space between my knees & chest. I noted the golden light coming in under the blinds, pet Atari briefly and listened to CK breath.
It felt so nice, so lovely that I hated having to disturb the quiet, upset the cat. My alarm was going off and I had work to get to. CK sleepily mumbled at me, pulled the duvet up over us. I snuggled up to her a little, giving her little kisses. I wished I could just lay there with the two of them in the cool of the morning instead I reluctantly pulled away from her and took a shower.
When I came out, dressed but for my shoes, CK looked up at me and muttered, "You're already dressed." I sat back down on the bed with her and listened as she tried to wake up, insisting she was going to at least get up and walk with me. I insisted back that she just sleep some more. She drifted back off, her hand slipping off my knee.
My heart had a moment of feeling so full at seeing her there sleeping with Atari curled up by her legs, at home in Portland. She looked like she was really resting. I could appreciate just how sexy she is, how completely appealing to me on that level, but I was also just struck at how sweet and beautiful the morning was. I forced myself up and out the door, putting my headphones on.. The moment on the bed kept my step light all the walking to the MAX stop, riding into downtown, and onto my work day.
Mostly good day at the office. Usual mix of talking with people, even after these several years it feels strange that chatting is encouraged because it encourages strong teams. I did some training, wrapped up some things, finished some script stuff I was working on. Got some really frustrating news from our IT department. About that time, when I was feeling particularly uncharitable, I left to take my bicycle back to the shop.
After teaching asana practice this evening I popped over to CK's for a little visit. Before I left she hugged me close asking if I'd really worried her family would talk her out of our relationship. I told her that mostly I was feeling anxious for her stress down there in Sacramento and my being up in Portland unable to take care of her. From all of that anxiety bubbled up silly stuff that I knew wasn't real at all. It isn't that I don't know she's fully capable of caring for herself. I just like to do things that leave her feeling cared for -- making dinner, helping shop for groceries, just being there to listen to her.
When I got to the house all hot and flushed from the ride AM helped me with my stuff and told me he was proud of me. It feels strange that someone should be proud of me for doing this. I'm trying to keep it in perspective and try to see the accomplishment. I feel that when I reflect on some of the anxiety I've felt at riding a bicycle again, but I fall into the usual habit of not taking pride in what I'm doing.
Finally Home
CK got home this evening and I am so relieved, happy and just settled feeling now that she's back. We got over to my house, grabbed up my things, she got to see the new bicycle and we came over to her flat for the evening. Dropped stuff off, went to the market, came back and made up some quick tempeh tacos. Sat on the bed, ate dinner with a beer then played Magic (I won after not having played for years & years with an "elven" deck of hers).
Just a slide back into "routine". I realized, as she was hugging me at the car in the airport garage, that some undercurrent of fear had really crept in. Some nagging sensation that she'd gone down to see her family and they'd have "talked sense" into her about this whole relationship thing. She set her things in the back and hugged me close; just huge relief whooshed through me.
A trickle of it has started inside, I went ahead and paid to park for the 10 minutes (tops) I was in the lot so I could meet her as she came through security. Her flight had been a little early, luckily I checked at the house AND my house is very close to the airport, so I just made it. Walking across the open area just as I saw her come out of the gates. She smiled when she saw me and gave me a quick hug & kiss.
It is the ease with which she displays affection for me that just leaves me silent and smiling sometimes. The first long-term girlfriend I had wouldn't show me affection in public to the extent of pulling away from me when I went to take her hand while walking together in downtown Portland. I set that aside, never being able to adequately explain to her why that hurt me so much and she never really allowed the space to put it to words.
There is just such intimate beauty in being able to lovingly touch someone in public. Not even to the extent of passionately kissing or touching. Holding hands, the way I put my head on CK's shoulder when I'm tired of standing, or the way she puts her hand on the back of my head and neck. They are not passionate, excessive displays in public but they are very intimate. They are precisely why I have started telling my Zen sangha about my relationship. Those intimate touches give it away and it is unfair of me to try and hide them, suppress them because they might be seen by someone who will judge.
What I find so interesting is how powerful they are when I'm made aware of how people can react. The rude Texan woman giving us a glare in line at the aquarium in Vancouver B.C. All that had happened was one of those sweet, simple intimacies of comfort and affection. Had we been a heterosexual couple of any age at all she would likely have not even noticed or maybe even smiled. Because we are two women sharing that level of intimacy, clearly "more than just friends" we got a glare.
I don't think about making those kinds of gestures. There's no time to get wrapped up in worrying that someone will condemn me for kissing CK lightly, or holding her hand when we walk together. We share that deep, intimate connection and love so why wouldn't I want to just have the simple pleasure of having that level of public touch. I don't even think twice about it. I suppose that's why it hurt so much years ago when MM pulled away from me -- although she loved me and would say so, she was always thinking about who might be watching, who might tell her parents (at the time they lived in Hawaii still), a client might see and not call back. She was never just caught up in loving me and wanting to hold my hand for the sheer pleasure of that connection.
That so much of American society thinks that way and worse is pretty infuriating. Why should it matter in any way at all when people want to express love and joy in the world. There is such a stinginess about Love. When Jessa was dying I really had a perspective shift on Love and gained this sense of the vastness of it just out there -- rather along the lines of how the late Douglas Adams described how immense the universe is* in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I am perplexed at people wanting to hold Love in, codify it, contain it despite it being so utterly beyond our full knowing.
* "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-boggling big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
If you replace "space" above with "love" up there and it pretty much sums it up.
Bicycle Anxiety
So I'm still reeling in shock from having purchased a bicycle today. AM has suggested I stop thinking about the numbers, noting that this is an investment. He and CK both really wanted me to get something that I'd enjoy, be comfortable riding, and be safe on. I will just have to be really good about finances through November so I pay for my teacher training program. It really isn't like I can't do it, but I've never felt like I'm very good with financial stuff. It is something that has felt difficult and painful to learn. I was utter amazed when my numbers were ran and I was told about the mortgage I qualified for.
Come January the car will be paid off as well as my old tuition account at Beliot. This weekend, aside from spending a pile of money on a bicycle and gear AM and I just hung out around the house. We ate meals at home except for Friday night when we went to Dalo's. AM worked on a podcast mix set. I wrote, read every review on a Townie I could find, and we watched Batman Begins last night. Really what we know makes it hard on us financially and physically, since we've all put on weight (almost 15 pounds for me) during the spring & early summer, is eating out!
I find it hard to spend this kind of money on myself like this. No question, all of this money is being spent on solely me. AM won't be riding this bike. CK might try it out, but she loves her bike. I think something runs into feeling unworthy of spending this money. Having spent early childhood in poverty then growing up with a mixed message -- so many things were cheap, "make do" but a lot might be spent on a shopping trip for back-to-school clothes (that Mom mostly picked out). Just feels like a lot of the "make do" stuff needed to be where the money was spent. Many monetary decisions were made because of what Mom wanted and most of the family didn't get the things I thought were worth the expense.
Which is to say I feel guilty having spent this money. I feel guilty having made the decision to pay my yoga training in 3 installments rather than all at once so I would be able to buy a bike now. But when I follow those down I just find that sense of being unworthy since I also feel like I've made a good decision even if it is more than I thought it would be. That contradiction points further back to the past affecting the present moment.
I just feel uneasy. As much as I've enjoyed a quiet weekend hanging out with AM, I miss CK. I miss the little routine we all are learning how to have. I wanted to share getting a bicycle with CK; the other feelings of guilt and unworthiness really get in on this route and I find myself feeling guilty for not waiting for her.
When I write that down and look at it I feel silly. It is so damn hard to break out of all of this crap programming I got as a kid. Makes me wonder just how much of my fear something will go horribly wrong is somehow rooted in all of this unworthiness. Clearly one of those moments when some variety of magic wand would really be useful... instead, I think I'll go to bed and hope my legs and hips don't hate me in the morning.