Journal Day: Room for improvement

Journal Prompt #11, from Danielle at Sometimes Sweet:

Sometimes it can be hard to hear criticism from others. I know for me it's something I may always struggle with- being a people pleaser, etc. At the same time though, constructive criticism can be very helpful, and allow us to look at ourselves in a new light and maybe even grow and change. Take a step out of yourself. If you were on the outside looking in, how would you critique yourself? What things do you see that could change or work on? This isn't about tearing ourselves down; it's about really looking at ourselves and seeing where there's room for growth.

I found this in my drafts from... last year? The year before? I used to do these journal prompts, but clearly I didn't do them all. Usually when I find drafts like this I smile with fondness, usually not remembering what I was going to say, and delete them. I don't even know if Danielle is still doing these prompts, but it seems worth writing about.

What could I observe about myself that I need to work on? It's the time of year when built-in reflection seems so appropriate; new year, new goals, new beginnings so I've been thinking quite a bit about what I need to work on. For several years now I have chosen a theme for my year rather than "making resolutions" and I'm finding myself in need of several such themes (for those of you who have followed me long enough, you'll notice that in itself is a theme of mine: make a plan, abandon it; make a new plan with more focus and bigger goals, also to be abandoned. Whatever.)

Fitness: You know the term "fat and happy"? Well, that's me. My life is full of love and friendship and all the things that fulfill my soul and for me that means that I don't exercise. No yoga, no running, no contemplative walks with my camera. These things also fill my soul, but I'm not doing them. Why? That's the mystery, but I can change it without understanding it, right?

Artistic ability: I have a piano, a guitar, and a camera. I am a novice (or whatever less-than-a-novice is) at all of them. I need more music in my life.

Spiritual development: I'm not really suffering in this area, but I'm not maximizing myself either. I spend time scrolling through my Facebook feed that goes far beyond "catching up" with my various interests/responsibilities there. It's impacting my ability to concentrate on the written word, and to really focus on other, more important tasks.

I had an employee once who hated me. She didn't care for my management style and did not have any regard for the concept that as her manager/a human being I deserved a bare minimum of respect. She often said things that were so disrespectful they almost seemed designed to elicit a response from me. Because I'm not the sort to be manipulated in that way, I refused to give her any response except to thank her for her feedback and promise her that I would consider her position in my decision-making. It took her a little while, but she started to be a little more constructive in her criticism of me and a little less disrespectful. While I didn't appreciate her attitude, I was able to really listen to her complaints and find some thread of something that I could use to be a better manager. I'm grateful for that exercise, and the ability to turn it into something positive.

Never give or take offense

I offended someone recently. If you've known me for a very long time, you'll know that I normally don't care too much about offending people. That I think people are too sensitive in general; that people misunderstand me and for the most part I feel like that's not really my problem.

And that's how I used to feel. Not to be confused with a desire to hurt people's feelings - I just don't have a lot of compassion for people who read more into a situation than is intended. I find it annoying and useless when people do that, and I often lose interest in interacting with people who choose to be upset over assumptions they make.

That said, I don't actually enjoy hurting others, despite the frequency with which is happens. Over the last few years I have been learning a lot about how to be more sensitive and loving; about how to be kind even when people are overly sensitive. About how to care about others and to be more open to them and their feelings. It's hard work, and being sensitive is confusing to me. Squishy feelings don't have a good place to settle in my psyche and I often find myself wanting to get rid of them.

In the course of my work, I offended one of my customers. She didn't do what she was supposed to, and when I gave her instructions on how to do it better next time, I offended her. I got a nasty email today about it and I could tell from the tone of the message that not only did I offend this person professionally, I had also hurt her feelings.

I feel crushed. I'm so frustrated with her and this whole situation. I am angry that she is bringing personal feelings into something that is not at all personal. I am offended that she is twisting my words into something I didn't say at all, and I am irritated that I have to spend on-the-clock time soothing someone's bruised emotions.

But I'm also crushed. I hurt someone's feelings, and I'm really new to caring about that. Someone is feeling disrespected, offended, and disregarded because of words I used. In further conversation, I learned that this woman is being mistreated by her colleagues and isn't receiving the professional support she needs to do her job correctly and she is getting blamed for things that are not her fault. And then I walk all over those feelings. Even though it wasn't intentional on my part, I added to a situation that feels impossible for her. I feel like I might cry.

There's a happy ending though. I apologised, used better words to explain myself, and could offer honest regret for my actions. Even better, I was able to offer a solution that resolved her problem.

I've grown and changed so much, but I still routinely fail at interacting nicely with other humans. I'll be thinking about this the next time I take the sacrament.

Are you happy?

I have recently blogged about my relationship with social media, and I'm happy to report that I have indeed cut back on the amount of time I spend on Facebook; more importantly, I feel like I have improved the quality of that time. I no longer read ridiculous articles because I haven't got anything better to do, which has made a big difference so far.

One article I read not long ago really does deserve to be explored though, so instead of just hitting the "share" button and moving on I thought I'd vomit some thoughts out here for you. You're welcome.

The original article is entitled 10 Things Happy People Don't Believe. As a pretty happy person, I can attest that happy people do not indeed believe the following:

1. Life is fair.

We have all been told from earliest childhood that life isn't fair. Right? Your sibling found the last Easter egg or your cousin got a bigger scoop of ice cream than you did, and you run to one parent or the other hollering and crying about how it's not fair, and what were you told? Life isn't fair. It's a lesson we've all learned, because it's true. We forget this, though, and act like we're entitled to something that we aren't.

For example, if we work hard and don't miss any days at work we expect to get promotions and wage increases; but sometimes that doesn't always happen, or it doesn't happen on our timeline, or it doesn't happen to our satisfaction. Why? Because life isn't fair. Embracing that and accepting it, where appropriate*, frees us up to let go and move on when life sucks.

*Equal Opportunity is a thing. Some fairness can be enforced by law, so don't be a total doormat.

2. Suffering is bad.

From the article:"Suffering is an inevitable condition of humanity. You cannot survive this world without at least a little suffering. Happy people know a deeper happiness comes through surviving a deep pain. We learn what we’re truly made of when faced with such hurt."

I have learned more from my suffering than I have from any other situation. I'm rather stubborn so I don't often learn from other people's mistakes, but I learn so much from my own. A general authority from my church recently said that we suffer sometimes from our own actions, sometimes from other people's actions, and sometimes because this is mortality. (That's not an exact quote, but the meaning is the same).

Sometimes we do suffer from our own actions - because we are imperfect; on occasion we suffer from other people's actions - because they are imperfect and because life isn't fair. And sometimes, being alive means that stuff hurts. Harshness, unkind words, having a loved one die on you, losing something important. These things which cause suffering can also be a catalyst for emotional development and growth; for spiritual exploration, and for deciding to remove negative influences from one's life. It still hurts, and it's okay to acknowledge that, but suffering by its very nature is not a bad thing.

3. I’m in control of things.

I think this one goes along with #1 above; we are not in control of things, because sometimes "things" can't be controlled - whether the things are other people making decisions that affect us or the things are those so-called random circumstances that occur in life.

I have learned that not every random circumstance that happens is truly random; I believe that we are here on this Earth for the purpose of developing and growing as beings. Some of the challenges we face might be random and unrelated to anything else in life. But some, I believe, are specific lessons placed in our lives because we have something important to learn. We're not in control of it, but if we can remember that life isn't fair and suffering isn't bad then we can embrace the lesson, learn what we can, then let it go and move on. Control the things we can, but know when to let that idea of control go.
4. People are obligated to love me a specific way.

Probably one of the single biggest things I have struggled with in my life. I have been disappointed repeatedly by the actions and behaviour of others and I have had such a hard time separating people's actions from their intent. We have a lot of cliches about this - "actions speak louder than words", and "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I do believe that actions speak louder than words in many cases, but I also think there needs to be room in our hearts for understanding that people won't be perfect.

So many times I have been unkind or impatient with the people that I love - not because I don't love them, but because of how I express myself. There's a learning-and-growth process by which I am figuring out how to treat the people in my life when they don't behave the way I want them to, and part of that is allowing them to be who they are, and just accepting that they do love me even if I don't always like it exactly the way they do it.

I'm not suggesting we (or our loved ones) should put up with mistreatment; learning how to set healthy boundaries is imperative. I am suggesting that we let go of the idea that if someone doesn't love us in the exact manner we desire that means they don't love us "right" or "enough".

5. Everyone hates me.

People will hate you. Others will adore everything about you. I was walking out of church yesterday and a friend called out to me that I just made her so happy; she loves everything about me and just seeing me made her happy. It made my day, the simple love and affection my friend showed me. Love is a powerful thing and unfortunately hate is as well.

It doesn't have to matter, because the people who hate you either don't understand you or are too filled with negativity to look past whatever might be wrong with you. The people who love you matter, even if they don't love you the way you want to be loved.

6. I can’t.

When I used to say this as a girl my mom would always correct me: "You can do anything you want." I heard it so much growing up that I ultimately started saying "I don't want to", which came with a completely different set of admonitions from my mom. I would always roll my eyes, because sometimes I just wanted to wallow in a little bit of self-pity. And I think when we say I can't, what we're really saying is "I don't want to make the effort".

It's a mind-set that is hard to break but it's worth examining. When you say it, are you really saying "I don't want to"? Every single time I say it, it's because the idea of whatever I'm facing is hard and scary. And every time I say "I can't", I do it anyway and I don't die, and I'm usually better off for it.

7. I have something to prove.

I have had to face this one recently as well; my situation was especially terrifying, because I was convinced that I didn't have anything to prove, and I was just awesome. So when my circumstances changed I was devastated - first I had to come to terms with the change, then I had to come to terms with what I thought I was worth after it was all over.

Now that I know better, I am so much happier and so much better equipped to focus on growth and progress rather than what I think I am proving, and to whom. Seeking acceptance from within and recongising the source of my own value was such a liberating lesson to learn, and freed me up to learn without self-imposed limitations.

8. It doesn’t matter.

Everything matters, or nothing matters. If it elicits an emotion, it matters. If it affects the way you think about yourself or someone else, it matters. If we tell ourselves that something doesn't matter, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to explore our own feelings, to gain perspective on an issue, or to communicate with others how we feel about something.

9. I’d be happier, if only I were [fill in the blank].

Focusing on what we don't have, or on what is going wrong, simply highlights those things and turns our energy toward the negative. Instead of wrapping up our happiness in what we don't have, we can focus on what is good in our lives and what brings us joy. Maybe that is to have a goal for something better, but if we can't learn to be happy in the present moment, we won't truly be happy once we achieve whatever greatness we think we're missing.

I used to have a very long commute for work; for many years I drove 60 miles round-trip and spent between 2-4 hours in traffic on average every day. I was dreadfully unhappy with that commute and I spent a lot of energy talking venting about that and thinking about what I could be accomplishing if only I didn't have that giant commute. Eventually I moved to within a mile of my office; no more commute and no more wasted hours of my life. I was happy for a little while, but not long after moving I found other things to be unhappy about (including the down-time my giant commute used to offer - ugh). Other things I didn't have, other "I can't"s that filled up my mind.

Unhappiness is sometimes fixed with real, valuable change; and sometimes it's fixed simply by focusing on the positive aspects that enrich our lives.

10. I’m too old.

I recently posted on Facebook about feeling old - it's hard not to feel that way when your knees hurt after sitting in one position for more than 20 minutes, or every bone in your foot cracks and pops when you walk. Some of us are old, but we're never too old - for school, for a change in career, for a new hobby, for braces on our teeth. We are going to age no matter what - we can do it with new and exciting things in our lives, or we can do it wearing double-knit polyester. Don't wear double-knit polyester.

What is the most important thing you have learned about being truly happy? Is there something else you think happy people don't believe that didn't make it to this list?

Glad for you

I was chatting with a friend the other day something big and scary in her life. It's wonderful too, for her. If it were my news, it would scare the pants off me; I'd be running into traffic praying for something large to hit me and kill me dead. Maybe one of those trucks that haul dirt, because I always wanted to be squished by a lot of dirt.

And I experienced a very interesting thing: I was so pleased for her. The very thing that would have me curled in a ball weeping was good for her. Maybe she'll need to curl in a ball and weep sometimes too, because hey - that helps. But she's happy, and I'm glad she's happy. That's a sort of new thing for me too - being glad when someone else is happy. I feel like I'm getting new emotions, for the very first time. They feel odd in my head, as though they don't quite belong to me yet. Like eating something brown and slimy and realising it tastes quite good.

I'm not sure what it's about, but there's room inside me again. It's small still, but I think it'll be good.

I don't know

Recently one of my employees made a mistake in her work. She should have known better, and I was upset by her lack of knowing or her lack of figuring out that she should have asked for help.

I spoke with her, in an attempt to understand why she did what she did; I asked her what she thought she should have done differently - to avoid the mistake, and avoid having to explain herself about it to me.

She looked at the floor, hanging her head and mumbled, "I dunno."

I dunno? I.Don't.Know. Really? I-Don't-Know.

I had to breathe real evenly and deeply for a few heartbeats. I tried to figure out what to say next. Because really, in a situation like that the next words out of my mouth are going to set the tone not only for this incident but for future interactions between me and her. If I'm not careful I will alienate her from seeking my help in the future and make her feel stupid.

She was ashamed, that much was clear. It wasn't my intention to shame her, so it was important not to reinforce that shame by being overly-harsh with her. I was reminded of my childhood, when my mom was constantly under stress to pay all the bills and raise me and deal with one obstacle after another, and she would ask me similar questions: "What were you thinking?" "What did you think was going to happen?".

And I remember hanging my head and whispering, "I dunno."

I realised in that moment that when I was a girl getting yelled at I wasn't answering the question that was asked. What I didn't know was what my mom wanted to hear. I knew there was a right answer, and I was backed into a corner: if I answered wrong, my mom would be mad at me. If I answered right, I would have to explain why I didn't do it the right way to begin with (which would lead to my mom being mad at me because I was a royal smart-ass).

I looked at my employee, watching me with a sort of wariness in her eye that I didn't feel I had put there, and I knew in that moment that she was trying to figure out what I wanted to hear. When she said she didn't know, what she was admitting was that she didn't know what answer to give that wouldn't make me mad.

So I took a deep breath and told her there wasn't a wrong answer; I just wanted to understand her thought process so I could help her do better next time.

That was really, really hard. But it worked.

Starting over

I started over meditating today. I peed, put on comfortable yoga pants, applied lip balm, and did 42 different things that would begin to bother me about ten seconds into the meditation if I didn't do them beforehand...

I set the timer for five minutes: I didn't think I could handle much more than that. I sat down, closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind.

Anyone who has been meditating for any amount of time knows just how.fucking.hard that is. My mind refused to be cleared, simply would not cooperate with all the whirly thoughts in my head.

I also started over with a new-old friend: I went to lunch with an old girlfriend today, and now I'm flooded with memories I haven't dragged out of the back of my mind in over a decade. We weren't together long, but she was an important element during a pivotal period of my life.

And now, I think she'll be a good friend. I feel like Harry, of When Harry Met Sally... "Hmmm. A woman friend."

And just as I started to get control of my racing thoughts and really focus on my breathing and do the whole present moment awareness thing, the bloody timer sounded. Go figure.

After the meditation I did some really great downward-facing dog to plank to cat/cow series that makes my body heat up from head to toe and my triceps ache in a delicious way.

Evaluating me

It's Winter, and for me that means preparing for the coming year at work. I have something of an organizational problem; in many areas I am highly organized and things run perfectly. In other areas, not so much.

I have figured out that I am organized in the areas where there is a clear set of rules to follow, and nicely defined right-and-wrong. For the invoices my group processes, for example, there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. I've defined the right way, written it down, make it available for everyone, and pay a person to answer questions: perfection.

An area I'm not very organized in is performance evaluations. I feel I am good at giving feedback to my groups on an on-going basis; I advise people when they're doing things contrary to the standard and give them an opportunity to fix it. But that end of year discussion where we sum up how effectively an employee has performed over the year, what the next year's expectations are ... that's sort of where I fail. It's there inside me, I'm just really struggling to get it out.

Part of the problem is that many of our goals are difficult to measure. Another part of the problem is that I don't have a lot of resources in place to measure other areas of performance. Every year I learn something new though, and this last year was no exception.

I bought a book, a managerial tool for writing effective performance evaluations, and it came with a disc (love books that come with discs). On the disc are documents that are designed to document various incidents through-out the year ... friendly reminders to correct behaviour called "ticklers", and commendations for a job well done called "kudos".

It's so simple. I should have thought of that. Sure, I write this stuff down. I have journal I keep for work, and I write my notes daily to track my own and others' progress. If the job was especially well done I send an email and put it in the employee's file. But the idea of a form for such things, which I can place in an employee's file to review for their evaluation ... this is genius to me. I wish I'd thought of it.

There are so many things that I just don't know. I happened into my position as manager. I got the job because I was the most practical choice in my office at that time; I am willing to do the work and to do it well. I have significant supervisory experience in my background, but no formal education in it and no real training. I'm bossy and capable, and that's pretty much the extent of my qualifications. Some things seem obvious, but there are a lot of things I don't think of.

Thank goodness for the library!

Fall happiness

I really like autumn. It wasn't always my favourite time of year; it was Colin's though, and we were usually at opposite ends of the depression spectrum during the fall. He was at his pinnacle of happiness, and I was at my lowest point emotionally.

A couple years after his death, a funny sort of thing happened inside me. I think it was my third year without him, which marked one year longer than I ever had him. I got some clarity after that anniversary and because of the timing of his death, it was just turning to fall when my emotions were clearing up. It's like waking up from a dream, that sort of emotional clarity; like coming out of a fog and stepping out into bright light that never used to exist. The pain is still there, still inside but it means something different. The clarity itself was small and I don't actually remember what brought it around. But I do distinctly remember going for a walk during a very misty autumn day and feeling as though his energy was everywhere. He loved that time of year, and I loved him. I didn't have him anymore, but I could love something that he had enjoyed. So I did. I went for a walk in the cold and loved every moment of it because I thought he would have done the same if he were alive.

He completely changed how I view life, and love, and relationships. From the moment I met him, he changed my wiring. He continued to change it, in good ways and in bad, even now so many years after leaving his life behind.

Today, the things that make me happy are:

• The coming of autumn
• hot baths with bubbly stuff
• Netflix

The day I shut off the power

When I moved recently, I found an old notebook. I have a lot of notebooks, have habitually collected them for years; diaries and journals, and plain spiral-bound notebooks. Notebooks that lay flat, and notebooks that open on the top, sexy journals with Buddha pictured on the cover ... it's sort of a problem.

After Colin died, I kept a notebook with me at all times. Sometimes the urge to throw up or scream or die would be so powerful I couldn't breathe. I'd go completely still, afraid that if I moved or breathed I'd go insane and maybe combust. I desperately needed an outlet, and I couldn't do the things I wanted to do so I wrote them down. I found pages and pages of journal entries that started with the sentence, "I thought I'd lose my mind a little bit today".

It helped, writing out my crazy. It stopped me from doing those things, stopped me from collapsing into a useless heap of a girl at the market when I saw couples holding hands or doing happy-couple things I couldn't do anymore; it stopped me from tearing my hair out and puking on myself. It stopped me from getting in other people's faces - sometimes I'd see couples fighting about something stupid (I saw you look at her butt!) and I wanted to scream at them that they should shut the fuck up and not fight. They should not bicker about silly, unimportant things because one of them, someday, would put a gun to his or her head just to make the other one shut up, and that would be the end of that. I wanted to warn them. I wanted to caution them against wasting their relationships, wanted them to realize how short their time together would be and before they knew it they wouldn't have anything left of their partner. They'd want to take back those spiteful words and rescind the pain they'd caused their loved one, and it would be too late if they didn't get started right away.

Nobody likes a know-it-all though, so I just wrote those things down.

The notebook I found recently was dated August 28th, 2000, ten days after Colin's suicide. I wrote, in letter-like fashion, as though I were speaking to him directly:

I called to have our power shut off today. It was in your name, and I never realized that. The woman at the electric company told me she had to speak with you, and when I told her you had passed away she gasped. Right in my ear, and then she asked me what happened. I told her you were dead, and she pressed me for details. She wasn't trying to be mean, but she wanted to know. She sounded like she thought she was being compassionate but I thought she was being daft; I was feeling mean so I told her you shot yourself through your head right in front of me (jerk) and it was a big, messy, awful thing. I think I made that lady sick how I talked about it, and I hope she gets nightmares.

I visited an electric company today in the course of my work, to discuss a project my company may take on to institute disaster recovery. One of the women in our meeting was a very sweet older lady, and she made me think of that woman so many years ago. I wondered if the sweet old lady of today would have asked me "what happened" like the other lady, and I imagined saying awful things to her. It made me feel bad, and I remembered how mean I felt that day. I can't imagine why I felt so hateful, except that I was in pain and I wanted someone else to hurt also.

And maybe that's understandable, but I've learned a lot since then. Colin continues to teach me things about life and about myself through his death, and that makes it a lot more valuable and a lot less painful.

Learning more every day ...

A change in scenery

I used to really hate the weather here. I was an un-fan of the rain and cold and gloom. I liked sunshine and bright, bright light; I liked the way the pavement gets really hot and sometimes melts if it's made out of old rubber. I liked the way one would bake sitting in traffic in the open sunlight. These things all reminded me of home.

I did some internal growth stuff last year, though, and worked really hard at not being so hateful about living in the Northwest. I'm here after all, and will likely be so for quite some time, so I decided to make a go of loving it. I have lived here for twenty years this September, and it just seemed like it was time to stop being so whiny about living in such a cold climate.

So I did some ritualistic business and really came to terms with living here. I embraced being a Portlander and, miracle of miracles, I no longer hate it here.

One thing I could never really appreciate before were all the so-green trees and wilderness areas here. Today I had a meeting for work in a wee town called Vernonia, which is about 45 miles from where I live. I really enjoyed watching the scenery as we drove along, something that never really appealed to me before. I typically prefer to read while on road trips, a fact that drives Mr. J crazy. For the first time since living here, I became excited about learning more about the area and exploring parks and trails. There are many trails in the area, places to camp and hike and fish.

Part of my former dislike of this area meant that I wasn't much interested in what the area held; whenever the opportunity to explore or investigate came up, I was always more interested in some other place. Now I'm really interested in my area, and I'm hoping to drag Mr. J out on a hike soon.

I hurt all over

It's impossible to be depressed while roller skating. It can't be done. One must concentrate on the feet, and mostly moving each one in the same direction as its mate. One must also concentrate on one's arms, and not flailing them about. Most importantly, one must concentrate fully on staying in an upright position.

I haven't really been on roller skates in twenty years, not counting a brief experiment in personal humiliation in my late teens when Colin and I decided to take up in-line skating. I'm not so good when the wheels are all lined up in a row, but give me two side-by-side, and I'm not bad.

It took me about an hour to re-learn how to roller skate. I could accelerate, and turn the corner, slow down, and even stop properly. Once I got my confidence back, I promptly fell down. Then I tried backwards skating, and fell down again. I have a large and painful bruise forming on my left hip and I managed to hurt my wrist catching myself, but I had a great time.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to skate. I was able to lose myself in the very act of roller skating in an almost meditative state where nothing else gets in. I wasn't scared about my future, stressed about work, frustrated with my life, or depressed about my past. I was roller skating, and my mind didn't have room for anything else.

Today I hurt right down to my toes, but I can't wait to go again. It is really good physical exercise, and there's nothing so humbling as taking skating instruction from a small child.

Purging Colin

Over the past two weeks I have been writing like crazy. I've been writing about Colin, wanting to commit our history here. I had it all planned out, plotted and narrated, with some hot dialogue and even some girl-on-girl action.

I was going to share all of it: the excitement of my first live-in relationship, my first poly-amourous relationship, my first opportunities to be loved and challenged and make grown-up decisions. My first marriage, and my first really big failures in life.

I have pages and pages of our history, and I just can't post it. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't represent what he meant to me, what life meant to me back then. I can't relate to the girl I'm writing about; when I re-read it after a couple of days of letting it sit, it felt like I was reading something someone else had written about someone else's life.

Maybe that has happened because of all the healing I've done. Maybe it has happened because I have more healing to do. I don't know, except that it doesn't feel creative and sexy and demonstrative. It feels like I sat down and forced myself to write and what came out was loose, runny shit. Like the kind you get when you have too much lactose.

Each year as I approach the anniversary of Colin's death, I get a little crazy. My sleeping patterns change; my body feels unhappy. My brain hurts and I get leaky in the eyes over everything. Sometimes I can be more philosophical about it than others. This year, I'm remembering how I felt in the few days before his death.

He'd been travelling for work, was in the Bay-area working on a PC/software upgrade for a bank chain. He was gone through the week, and home on weekends. I was doing more socializing than normal in the evenings, spending time with friends to fill up the quiet hours of the evening so I wouldn't feel so lonely.

Two days prior to his death was a Wednesday; I had met my closest girl friend at that time for drinks at a restaurant on the Columbia River, a favourite hangout called McMenamin's. We drank cosmopolitans and caught up with each other's lives. She asked me how things were going with buying a house -we'd been recently approved for a home loan- when my mood turned suddenly extremely dark. I remarked that we were probably never going to buy a house. Colin was too immature, too irresponsible with money to actually follow through with such grown-up plans as purchasing a whole house. I told her that things were never going to be the same again; that life had gotten as good as it was going to, and I didn't have much to look forward to. I told her that Colin and I hadn't been communicating well, that things had been tense between us since the abortion, and that things generally weren't working out.

It shocked me, what I was saying. Some of them were true -things had been tense between us and we did sometimes disagree about money and our future plans- but they weren't things I would have classified as "problems". We were dealing with them, regularly talking about the stress between us and in our lives in a way that seemed healthy. I remember us looking at each other then, both a little stunned at what I had said. We burst out laughing and moved on to other topics, drinking and chatting and enjoying each other's company; but I felt wrong. I had a black, oily feeling inside my heart and I didn't know why. I eventually shrugged it off as anxiety that my husband was out of town and I was lonely without him, but the feeling stuck with me over the following couple of days and I couldn't shake it no matter how hard I focused on other things.

My brain is filled with those feelings again, my body veritably vibrating with the need to shout that things are going to be bad soon. I'm bad-tempered and wrong-headed, just like I get every year.

This afternoon I'm going over to Bunny's house. She's going to cut my hair into something very sexy. She lost someone too, six days before I lost Colin. We're observing our respective deaths by doing something fun that we enjoyed doing with our dead people: roller skating.

I think I'll probably fall down a lot. I'm actually looking forward to some physical pain to remind me that I'm alive. I'm not dead, and just because someone that I loved once is, that's not a good enough reason for me to be brain-sick.

Blog birthday

Last year, on this day, I was on vacation. In fact, I think it was my first day of vacation. Mr. J and I didn't have the money to go anywhere; I had also just assumed management of my branch at work and couldn't be out of touch with my office, but we needed a break. So we took two weeks off with no plans beyond day trips.

The blog I had at the time had been broken, with no hope of repair, and I missed that outlet. So I made this blog. At the time I intended it to be mostly a place for me to talk about my religion; I called it "To Walk a Pagan Path" and I was going to explore my inner Wiccan and be super-duper spiritual girl. It has turned into much more, and admittedly much less, than that for me.

To take a page out of the lovely Aerolin's book, I thought I'd talk about what I've learned about me:

• I am not Wiccan
• I haven't done as much healing as I thought I had in some areas
• I have done a lot of healing in areas I thought were still raw for me
• I am learning to let go
• I lack compassion in a general sense
• I love people I have never met in person
• Personal stories of growth and courage can move me to tears
• I feel that experiencing my emotions to their fullest is intrinsic to my own sanity
• I love change
• I love challenge
• I enjoy poking at my own emotional bruises
• My writing sucks
• I still build emotional walls around myself, even after telling myself wouldn't
• I no longer believe in God nor Goddess as sentient beings, but as opposite forces of the same energy
• I do not believe in a creator
• I still struggle with balance
• I enjoy looking inward and of examining my Self
• I no longer miss Colin's presence in my life
• I am a solitary person, and in general do not enjoy spending time with other people

Yesterday marked the day when, twelve years ago, Colin and I started dating. Actually, I started dating Colin and his girlfriend, Robin, and he used to call us a "truple". That's "couple", but for three people instead of just two. I had a lot to say about that yesterday, a lot of memories about the early part of our relationship. I had a lot to say about our beginning, how we went from a poly-amorous relationship with Robin to just the two of us, how we clicked right away with one another and were inseparable, how we were truly like best friends. But I wrote it all out and it just made me tired. There was a lot of good back then, but a lot of bad too. When I wrote it all down I realized there is a lot of stuff I did not realize the significance of then, events that I have reconciled and don't really want to bring up here; there is also a lot of pain associated with that time for me, pain I don't necessarily want to go into here, right now.

I thought I had a lot so say about that time, about how different I was, and how happy he made me, but the truth is that I don't really relate to the girl I was when I started dating Colin. But joining my life with his started me down the path I am on today, and I'm glad of that, at least.

Letting go: Bulletin Board

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to try something different with my many, many keepsakes. One such item is a bulletin board my mother made me when I was a teenager. I forget exactly when, but one year she assembled various trinkets and bits that I had collected up to that point in my life and glued them onto a bulletin board; she gave it to me as a gift for a birthday, and it used to hang next to my computer at our old house.

I have always collected things, parts I find on the ground, toys from my childhood, random stuff that can be found anywhere. My mom's father, who I did not grow up knowing, used to reload his own shells; when he found out that I was interested in handguns and other weapons he started sending me things: pocket knives and other folding knives, bullets that he had reloaded, and so on. I collected patches, and buttons, and dice, and old film and camera parts. I liked old things, broken useless things that should have been rubbish but that I was too sad for. I couldn't bear for the broken things to become garbage, and thought that if I loved them they would have value. It seems silly now, but that is how I came to have so many trinkets.

Some of the things on the bulletin board have broken off, and the cork was starting to disintegrate. I had this for such a long time; I put favourite concert tickets on it, a picture of Colin and Waltzer drunk at my wedding, pictures of friends who have been out of my life for more years than I can count. When I moved, I decided it was time for this bulletin board to leave my life. It is special to me but I needed to let it go, needed to let a piece of that me go into the dustbin along with those broken bits of a life I don't really remember.

The daily grind

There is a coffee shoppe in SE Portland called The Daily Grind. I did not get that today, but the other daily grind. Today was my first full day back at work since the 14th. I got accustomed to doing non-work stuff over the past couple weeks and today was a bit of a shock to my system. This happens to me, to everyone, I'm sure, each time I take more than just a day or two off work; I know I should prepare for it and I never really do. I got to the office a little later than intended and had several complaints to deal with seemingly the moment I walked in the door. This also happens whenever I take significant time off work, and this I cannot do anything to prepare for short of hanging a sign around my neck that says "don't bother me with your bloody issues", but seeing as how I'm in charge of the issues I think the home office would not approve.

For the most part the complaints were just annoying things, small and silly things that people just need to vent about, but there was one very large issue that required me to deal with it promptly. I was venting to Tanya a little bit before addressing my issue, using her as a sounding board to get my thoughts out and maybe get some feedback before dealing with the problem. She gave me some advice, some really terrific advice, for getting myself in an open frame of mind for my confrontation. She told me to make eye contact with the person I was reprimanding and silently say "Namaste" before jumping into the problem. The point was to align myself spiritually to be receptive to discussion versus conflict, to soften my spirit a bit. It sounded very positive, and I tried it. I called the individual into my office and once she sat and looked at me, I met her eyes and silently said the word. I took just a second to try to convey with body language and my non-physical self that I am a person, and to try to recognize the other persons' person-hood; to try to open my mind and my thoughts and my chi to being a little bit softer, a little bit gentler when dealing with this issue.

I think I need a bit more practice at that. I don't gentle up so easily, apparently.

Unwritten Letters

I came across an old book today while unpacking my desk items. It's called Unwritten Letters, one of those finish-the-sentence types only it's an entire letter with just the first sentence started. You know, "Dear ex-boyfriend, I really hate the way you ran off with the captain of the football team". The idea is you write out the problems or regrets or frustrations in a letter format to whomever you feel did you wrong but since you're never giving it you can be completely honest. Perhaps that part doesn't need to be explained...

I have had it for years, purchased in my late teens when I first realized that my hatred and bitterness were making my life unhappy; I embarked on a mission to fix myself and purchased books to learn how to deal with some of the deeper anger that therapy didn't help me process. Unwritten Letters was one of those books and I filled up many of the "letters".

Every time in the past that I have opened the book to re-read those letters I get somewhat overwhelmed; reading what I wrote so many years ago -- and I haven't written in it in years -- takes me right back to those moments, feeling all that old pain, remembering the bitterness and even some of the rare happiness I wrote about back then. I usually enjoy re-reading my old letters, enjoy thinking about how differently I view things now, how I have grown and changed. Something that has never changed, though, is how fast I sink right back into the old emotions. All the old negativity usually pours over me, bringing me to tears more often than not.

Today, I opened the book and read some of those letters I wrote and I didn't feel anything about it. Not sadness, not anger at the person I was addressing, not joy or bitterness or rage. In some cases I didn't even recognize the words or emotions being described. I wanted to smash that book into the window, to throw it as hard as I could down to the ground to make it die on the sidewalk. I didn't know where that particular disgust came from, but I was so bloody sick of that book I threw it out (properly, in the dustbin, and not out the window).

I wonder if this is true growth; I don't need that book now, have grown beyond writing silly letters I will never give to silly people who don't remember me nor care that they broke my heart. It feels like growth, like progress, but in a red, angry way that is very much unlike the quiet, peaceful way my own growth feels like normally.

Books, books, and more books

I have more books than I really know what to do with. Ross and I spent most of Sunday going through our books and deciding, one by one, what we would keep and what we would trade-in or donate. We have a dozen boxes of books to get rid of. It was mind-boggling the amount of trashy books we both have. I have the added burden of having all the books Colin collected in his 32 years of life; not only did he also collect trashy books, he collected trashy books from the library that he never returned. So our local library got some books back they haven't seen since 1982. How embarrassing.

It felt really good to get rid of a lot of that stuff. I think I've talked about how I grow attached to objects and possessions; the same was true of Colin's books. I have kept them for years simply because I knew they were important to him, because I remember him telling me about how he felt when he read a particular book. We used to have silly conversations when we were first seeing each other, the sort of talk you have with the person you think you'll be with forever. He made me memorize his mother's maiden name, the place where he wanted his ashes spread; the names of his best friends, and where he went to school, and his worst experiences. We shared a love of books, of the written word; of the escape to be found in reading, especially fantasy novels. He turned me on to Heinlein and Philip K. Dick and George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut. He had a whole collection of books about conspiracy theories, and government's abuse of the little guy, and the art of speaking in public. He loved history, the history of society and government and people; he adored Howard Zinn. He had books on the occult, and books on the power of positive thinking, and books on how to make silencers. He downloaded text files from the web about homemade explosives and bound them all nice in report covers. I've been keeping all those books for far too long; they reminded me of a time before we partied too much, before we had enough money to pay all our bills, a time when Saturday night found us sitting cross legged on the living room floor with a pile of books and a pot of coffee between us, talking about the things we found really important, and the things that had helped us through our respective childhoods.

I have finally reached a point where it's okay for me to give his books away. I no longer feel like I'm giving away his best secret piece with them. My memories of him are not physically tied to his possessions; the memories don't bleed if I get rid of the objects. It's cleansing to do this; it feels like a tiny, sad piece of me is being healed, right this minute.

Circle of Stones

I've been reading Circle of Stones, suggested by Aerolin. She's been telling me about this book (and many others) for a long time now, and I always think I'm going to get round to reading them someday but I never really quite managed it. After our most recent conversation, wherein she inspired me to reconnect with the Feminine and work on that broken piece of me, this book showed up in my mail from the library. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. I am nearly finished with the book, and I keep having to struggle against my own desire not to give in to the feminine qualities that Judith Duerk describes as necessary pieces of being a woman.

The author recounts a dream she had in which she was expressing that woman should be allowed to cry; she says:

"Someday, when the first woman president of the United States holds the sides of the podium and says 'My fellow Americans ...' as she is inaugurated, it will be important that she can be there, weeping, as she speaks, and that her tears and the intensity with which she is in touch with her feeling values can flow out to and nourish the society and influence all women."

I am reminded of an interview I heard on NPR recently; a woman was telling the political correspondent about a question she had asked Hillary Clinton - I forget the question, and Hillary's response - and the response Hillary gave was delivered in a somewhat choked voice and she was showing visible signs of tearing up. The woman described how powerful it was to witness such strength of emotion from a presidential candidate and how much she was encouraged by this show of emotion.

I couldn't help but feel completely opposite feelings from the woman who was being interviewed. I don't wish to deny any woman her power, nor do I wish to have mine denied; but I don't see the act of showing emotionality in every circumstance as a benefit, as a strength. I don't see losing control of one's emotions as a source of power. I realize this is a manifestation of my own preconceived notions, but the truth is that I am not at all comforted by a woman who cannot speak without crying. I think part of my struggle with feminine qualities and aspects is that I don't think that it is always appropriate nor important to demonstrate those emotions, either for a man or a woman. I feel there is a time for reserve, for quiet dignity, and for distance from emotionality. I don't disagree with the author that expressing deep emotion is a powerful and good thing, but I am struggling with the idea that a woman's tears have value and importance in every situation. And I am really struggling with the concept of separating emotionality from weakness.

When I was growing up I saw examples of strength in femininity, but also the extreme weakness in feminine qualities. My mother is an exceptionally strong woman but she based so many of her important decisions on emotional responses without thinking her way through situations from an intellectual standpoint. She wasn't a stupid woman, nor did she necessarily make bad decisions; but often when pressed for her reasoning her responses were overly-emotional and defied rational logic. She has many preconceived notions about the behaviour of others and what she believes it means that is based on her emotional responses alone. As I grew up and watched this process in her, I found I developed extreme contempt for that method of decision-making. Not the actual decisions themselves necessarily, but the way she came to some of her conclusions seemed to me to be so illogical and irrational. As an adult I can recognize that she's just different from me but still valuable in her ways and methods; I put the contempt away and love her for her uniqueness, but I still tend to shudder away from her method of forming opinions based so strongly on emotions.

So today I'm working on stripping out my own preconceived notions about feminine emotions and leaving behind that which is not valuable or useful.

The joyous, lake; oppression

True joy is experienced by those who are strong within and gentle without.

Today's I Ching was Tui (the joyous, lake); reversed was oppression. This hexagram tells us that true happiness and success comes to those who practice innocence, acceptance, and detachment. What progress or success that is won by the desirous, ambitious, demanding manipulations of the ego will be easily lost. Joy and success are achieved by relating correctly to others and to Higher Power. Steadfastly practice innocence, modesty, acceptance, detachment, and gentleness. This hexagram is of two lakes joined together to keep from drying up. Now is the time to join with like minded friends in discussion and contemplation of higher things. In detachment there is freedom and contentment. Empty oneself of all desires and find true joy.

Of oppression, the book describes now as a time of unavoidable adversity, and instructs that quiet strength now will insure greater success later. Now is a time of exhaustion; meet oppression (lack of forward progress) with cheerful bending. This will allow one to meet with success later. Inferior elements restrain the superior person.

Root out and remove any idea or attitude which causes negative feelings. Open the mind, quiet the heart, calmly hold to proper principles, thereby making it possible for the Creative to eliminate the oppression that currently exists.

I'm reminded again that adopting softer, gentler, feminine qualities will be an avenue to finding balance and putting my trust in something higher, something outside myself. I'm not so good at putting my trust in anything outside of me. I have always been much more focused on affecting my own change, of being my own source of strength and power and affirmation. Perhaps that is why I feel so depleted.

I'm also extremely lacking in anything resembling modesty; putting my desires away is foreign to me, feels completely unknown to my personality. I'm a hedonist at heart; treating social and personal considerations with regard, my basic philosophy about comparative morality is: if it feels good, do it. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it. The idea of putting away immodest desires doesn't seem like my own path to finding joy. It's a lovely concept, but I don't think I can pull it off. I think I'll just focus on accepting the Feminine for now, because that seems like a big enough job without trying to turn off all my desires and not acting like a wanton, over-sexed girl.