A Statistic

So today I became one of the millions of "laid-off" people you read about.

I can add this statistical fact to: Divorced, Bankrupt, Foreclosed. And now Unemployed.

This is all in the course of 2 years. Quite an accomplishment, really.

But here's the upside: I'm only 37 years old, I am smart and motivated. I have saved a small nest egg during the past year. I am no longer married to an alcoholic. I received a 4 week severance package plus my vacation time - all in all I have about 6 weeks before my cash flow becomes zero.

This is my opportunity to do what I want and am good at and I have 6 weeks to get this in order.

This is not to say I'm not shocked, depressed, angry, and numb.

Mainly I am numb right now. And it is time to go to bed.

A Letter

January 1, 2009

Dear Daddy,

You’ve been gone for…25 years.

After you died I wasn’t sad. I was relieved. And angry with you because I felt like, one last time, you had to mess up a chance for me to have a friend. To not be alone.

I was supposed to spend the night with Lisa the night you died. When Mommy picked me up at school and told me you had died my first thought was, “I’m not going to get to send the night with Lisa. I shouldn’t even bother asking because the answer will be no and I will look like I don’t care that you died.” Even though I didn’t care.

I spent so much time alone the first 12 years of my life.

You liked people.

Do you know what it is like to be isolated?

How empty it feels?

How lonely?

How unloved you feel?

I just wanted to be with you. To be part of something. To feel loved.

I can still feel the hollow, lonely, empty place in my soul.

What you did feels like it took part of my soul.

Before you died you asked for me to come to your hospital room – you wanted to give me your parting words. The wisdom of your life. Your hopes and dreams for me.

It meant nothing.

And I feel guilty for that.

I wanted to care. I didn’t want to be angry at you. I wanted you to be the Dad that I could trust.

And I didn’t trust you. I believed through your whole illness. Through all your apologies as you grew weaker and weaker and closer to “God”.

That if the doctors found a way to make you better that things would be the same.
This is the only thing I believed.

I didn’t understand how you could be such a hypocrite and “repent”. Did you really believe that all you have to do is say you’re sorry and then it goes away?

It doesn’t work that way.

And anyway, you never apologized to me.

You only apologized to Mommy after we had been summoned to the side of your bed to read the scriptures to you.

And only once as I recall.

And, from my perspective, you were sorry because you knew what you had done was wrong and now you were dying.

Convenient.

I have never felt your presence since you died. I know it is because I have shut you out. I’ve felt Joel and Lauren’s presence – anytime you’ve been on the periphery I’ve closed myself. It probably hurts you. I’m sorry that I haven’t forgiven you.

It’s still the same. I want to care about you but, really, I have to protect myself first.

If I allow myself to care about you then I will get hurt.

Not by your fists – that was never what really hurt.

But by the loneliness.

By the withdrawal of attention and love.

So here I am now. I’m 37. I just got a divorce last year and not a week – sometimes not even a day - goes by where I don’t think, “Thank God I’m not married to that man anymore”.

I want to be happy.

Mommy lives close by.

You really did a number on her.

Did you love her?

Why did you hurt her?
She is kind.

She used to plead with you not to hurt her.

How do you think it feels to hear your mother beg like an animal? Beg not to be beaten?

I can still hear her voice pleading with you.

I wanted to kill you.

Do you remember when you made her take off her clothes so she couldn’t run away from you while you beat her? And she was so afraid that she ran out of the house naked?

Why did you do that to her?

I hate you.

I don’t want to hate you.

I hate you!

And here I am again with that hollowness in my soul.

Is it the spot in your soul where you are supposed to feel love for your father?

On the day of your funeral I remember riding in the hearse. As we drove through downtown Des Moines I saw one of your students, a young man who you had mentored. He had been late for the funeral and as the hearse drove by he realized he had missed your service (very touching – the dutiful daughter had to read a poem – everyone was so touched because I read it without even crying). The instant of this realization, this young man crumpled to the sidewalk in anguish.

You see, you had made a difference in his life. And he was sad that you were dead.

And I wanted to feel that…

Self-Pity

Time to examine another emotion after several days respite. I persevere with this because it seems to be helping. This one I am writing about while the emotion is happening.

Self-Pity:
Physical Sensation - tears right on the verge of falling, eyes welling up - I blink them back because I know if I let them start I will be on a full-blown crying jag, distinct, somewhat sharp pain in my chest, and the feeling like I am a balloon who has been popped.

Mental - Well, the "poor me" inner-voice is a given which is also accompanied by the old familiar, "No one knows what it's like to be me. No one understands me" voice/feeling (If I could eliminate that feeling entirely I think I would be a much happier person - really how would anyone truly understand another? We all see things through our own experiences and filters so why can't we let go of the expectation/desire for others to understand us).

There is a little bit of defensiveness, too. As in, "I am entitled to this feeling. Look at all I have gone through. Look at all I've given up."

Waah, Waah. A little bit of self-scorn, too. A voice saying, "Come on you big-baby. Why are you going to cry about something so little and stupid."

Defensive voice, "Because! Because all the little things add up and I'm tired. I'm tired of it."

Back to "Oh, poor me. Poor me. Why does it (life?) have to be like this?

Amazing how the same pattern just circles around and around the brain:
Poor Me.
I am entitled to feel this way.
Big Baby!
Repeat!

This exercise just helped immensely. I recommend examing emotions as if they are a rock and you are a curious scientist. It really diffuses the emotion's ability to affect your overall thinking.

Examining Emotions

I have been working on a technique where I allow myself to fully experience all the emotions that flow through me without judging them but without allowing them to affect my overall experience. It has been suggested to me, that a person can examine their emotions as if they were a rock - turning them over and over and observing them in a detached manner.

It has been interesting to me how many different emotions a person may experience in a given day (or at least I do). Some of them are very similar - to the point that they could easily be confused for another if one were not examining them like a rock. Also, some of them are so subtle that a person might not realize they are happening until things start to get filtered through that lens. A few I have examined this week...

Anger (over a letter from an attorney) - Physical Experience: Feeling of vision disturbance, Tight in chest/shoulders, increased heart rate; Mental Experience: Very judgmental and tendency to be argumentative about topics that I actually know I am wrong about.

Jealousy (over custom kitchen cabinets of all things!! I was working on a document for a company I am doing some marketing for and a builder had written about the custom cabinets in their homes and I had a, "When will I ever get to have something nice like this?" thought). This was one of those FLASH emotions that I might have either classified as "sad" or not even known went through my mind but could have led to filtering things negatively - Physical Experience: Felt it in the chest/heart area; Mental Experience - Whiny voice in head and then, interestingly, a judgmental voice telling myself, "These things don't matter. Why do you buy into the American materialism? Are you like all those people?"


Grief (I think this was brought on by a dream that I don't remember - I was in the shower and I had this flash of grief for my kids having to be the "kids whose parents got a divorce". The kids who have to shuffle back and forth between their parents house. Grief for the loss of the life I had envisioned in my head) - Physical Experience: An instant urge to drop to my knees and sob; Mental Experience: Mind wildly running a reel with all my perceived failures and questioning whether I did everything I could (intellectually, of course, I know that I did everything I could and more) and then moving directly into...

Fear - (this is where the mind went from Grief which I'll bet happens to people ALL the time because they can't deal with the emotion of grief. This is when I started worrying about my son taking his first ride on a school bus that day on freshly icy roads) Physical Experience: Eyebrows raised, but other than that little facial expression. Sinking feeling in stomach; Mental Experience: Like a snowball rolling. Thinking about all the other things that could happen and mentally searching for a way to stop these "bad" things from happening.

Indignation: (Over a summons to talk to my Supervisor about some of my "extended appointments") This was actually one of the hardest ones for me to examine objectively. Physical Experience: Similar to anger - tightness high in chest, tension in shoulders/neck; Mental Experience: I guess indignant sums it up best. Again, very similar to anger but the mind is racing thinking of justifications and evidence that the other person is "out of line" in their belief. Very, very defensive mentally. Also a very strong element of flight/wanting to flee with a sense of urgency. Inner dialogue of, "Well, the person does have a point. But they should consider this and this and this and what about this and this and this??"

Living

Six months.

Rediscovering (discovering?) self.

Moments of extreme happiness.

And despair.

And then the happiness returns. And it is so alive.

It's what matters.

Living.

Just a Ring

Someone I trusted stood in this room and looked me blankly in the eyes.

I told him how crushed I was when he asked me to put my ring back on when nothing had changed.

And there was no connection. Just blankness.

I trusted him.

I thought he loved me.

And he loved me as much as an alcoholic can when they are approaching the end stage of their disease.

I can feel him here right now. Looking at me. The way he did that day.

And the way he looks at me now.

I do get scared.

I was very scared with him.

How did I let myself get in that spot?

How did I not see it coming?

He told me he loved me.

He told me he hated me.

He told me we had nothing in common.

And that we should have realized it years ago.

And that he regrets having children with me.

That is hate.

Despising.

How do you live with someone who despises you?

Who can find nothing redeeming in you?

Release the grief.

The pain and sadness of being hated.

And now what?

Alive

I was alive for a short while today.

I'm going to try to do it again tomorrow.

It felt good.

It was like a tornado. A colliding of emotions. Wind on my face as I confidently rode a bike down a mountain road in Colorado - a transcendent place.

I was feeling angry. Then I was feeling reckless. Next came anger again. Then release.
Sweet release.

Followed by the kisses of a lover. Forbidden kisses. Hurried, longing kisses. Questioning Kisses.

I'm going to try to be alive again tomorrow.

I want to be alive again tomorrow.