Measuring my life 17 syllables at a time

Every day, as I go through the routines, feel the feelings, see the sights, walk the walk and talk the talk, I find myself creating sound bite descriptions of the experience.  A new friend asked me if all my Facebook posts are haiku, and I said, well, some are pictures.  But, yes.  I decided long ago that my life was not worth posting, but maybe I could turn the banality into an exercise in creativity.  And, I have such a need to let people know I'm alive and kicking. I get such validation from the little comments and "likes."  Ah yes, I think, even my boring life means something to someone.  They care enough to say, yeah, I read that.  I know you're alive, and that knowledge makes me happy.

And, when I gather together a few weeks' worth of pix and haiku, I realize, yes, I did do something besides eat, sleep, wash dishes, and schlep books.

Many of my posts talk about the beauties of New Mexico.  Before I moved here, I knew I loved the high desert, with the big skies, amazing clouds, and fascinating rock formations.  But I didn't realize that this dusty old city, full of strip malls and chain link fences, would also be beautiful.  It's true that some neighborhoods are depressing, with the garbage and cars and dogs lurking behind fences, scattered on yards of orange-brown dirt.  But most feature southwest architecture and xeriscaping, cats and dogs, and friendly people.

The Sandias daily draw my eyes to the east. I walk around the neighborhood and watch the sun rising behind them, etching them against the lightening sky and staining the clouds pink and yellow. Driving home from work, I watch them change colour from magenta to blue-green-grey-brown. In the winter, I look for snowfall.  In the summer monsoons, I look for grey clouds and rainbows. Recently, I have found a hiking buddy, so I am walking into them, getting up close and personal. But they are always part of my day, whether I'm exploring them with my feet or my eyes.

To the west, I see the varying colors of the Bosque.  Right now, it's becoming greener and greener.  Earlier in the year, it was a hazy greyish white:  the cottonwoods without clothes.  In the fall it was lacy and golden.  But it's always a strip of wildness in the middle of the city.  A brown house-covered grassland rises beyond it, with an abrupt line where the houses end and the mesa begins, the dark rocks of extinct volcanoes punctuating the horizon, the sky above filled with clouds, or empty blue, the sunsets glowing with the pinks and goldens of a desert sky.

So here are the haiku that chronicle my environment....

Driving in to work....
View to the west: stripes!
Blue on top, then brown, then green.
Spring in the Bosque.

Driving home from rehearsal.....

The moon casts its glow.

I share it virtually

And feel so alone.

Going for my bi-weekly walk with J and E.....

In the time it takes

To find my camera phone

The clouds change colour.

Taking a picture of a cat on a stoop......

Oblivious (or

Indifferent) to humans,

Watching the sunrise.

My now-weekly hike with G....

Today's hike: boulders!

And juniper and cactus.

And just enough wind.

Doing laundry at a friend's house, sunset time, I take a picture of a delicate lacy tree shadow:

Pic from a freezing
Cold evening. Even walls
Are beautiful here.

Then there are the mishaps, frustrations, and joys of the day....

On my way to a meeting, in front of an intersection full of people.....
Stepping back, I fall,
Winded and supine. What will
The third mishap be?

Driving in to work......
Misuse of car roof:
I pick up coffee mug shards.
Will they cause flat tires?

Listening to Allclassical.org in my office....
Dancing inside and
Smiling outside, regardless.
The Royal Fireworks.

Starting my day.....
No fresh coffee left,
So I used yesterday's dregs.
Shopping avoidance.

Adrenalin rush....
Black coffee bean in the sink,
Looks like a cockroach.


I got up early
For a doctor appointment.
Now he's running late. :(

I juggle morning
Ablutions, housework, email:
Burnt toast smells so good.

Waiting for the next bulletin from E (yes, all is well)....
Does it help at all
To worry about others?
Healing thoughts to Don.

The job is a continuing struggle.  My coworkers are passive aggressive when they are not downright hostile, and my manager wants me to assert myself.  Not an unreasonable expectation, and I'm actually bewildered as to why it's so difficult to just say:  sorry that's the way it is.  Do it and stop kvetching.  But there are good days, and I tend to chronicle those

I spent 2 hours learning about this year's summer reading program, culminating in a 15 minute session learning how to make duct tape sheets.  Our teacher is the duct tape queen.  She was wearing a pocketed apron with ties, multi-colored and multi-patterned, very flexible and sturdy.  But all I could think was, does it breathe?
What I learned this week:
Cardinal rule of duct tape...
Do not rescue it.

(I doubt I'll ever
Have the patience to create
Things out of duct tape.)

In lieu of reference work (there is very little of that), I have started doing the other fun part of the job:  outreach and story times.  My co-workers are unimpressed and make sure to let me know it, but the kids and the teachers give me full props.


Sharing pop up books
With attentive third graders:
Focusing on joy.

I love my job, but
I'd really like to trade in
My coworkers. Now.

En route to work but
Contemplating an escape.
Adventure beckons!


Then, there is orchestra and music in general:  I am beginning to take advantage of the myriad concerts and opportunities, and I'm loving it.  Sometimes I go along, and sometimes I bring a friend.  Always, it's a joy.

Our conductor is endlessly amusing:  he loves the music and tries to convey it, but he also gets that we're amateurs, and he does so with grace.  
Humane conducting:
"Strings, adapt....they need to breathe."
Sounds reasonable.

My stand partner wrote
"Terror!" at the beginning
Of the last movement.

I ushered at a fabulous concert by Vasen and met some of the local folkies, one of whom works at the co-op which I did not know was so near to my house:

Got the sheet music.
Now I just need to find me
Some Swedish fiddlers.

Three years ago I attended the VdGSA West Coast Conclave (and I hope to pull together time and money to do it again this year.)  One of the classes was about singing and playing at the same time.  Being a beginner, I needed a break from the intense concentration of learning where to put the bow, how to translate a new clef to a new string arrangement.  So, I just sang.  The instructor was a fun and talented man from NYC, a member of the group Parthenia.  I've been receiving their news-mails ever since, and was delighted to discover that they would be in ABQ, performing Renaissance songs and dances, along with the poetry of John Donne and W Shakespeare.  I could not find a companion to join me, but it was so not necessary.  The church was a beautiful echoing Episcopalian edifice, with a center patio space, stone walls, marble floors, glowing glass.  I felt at peace, and once the music started I was transported.


I arrive early,
And go into the cloister
To walk the labyrinth.

I listen to hushed
Conversations, swallowed by
The echoing hall.

Renaissance poems,
Songs, and dances make a most
Excellent mixture.

Driving home, I watch
The music made visible:
Clouds above mountains

Finally, there are the intangible moods.  I have become more serene lately.  I am depending more on myself for my happiness, and, while I miss my friends and grieve over loss, I am content to plot my own course without reference to other people.  Connections are still important to me:  I am human.  But the despair seems to be going away.  At any rate, I now seem able to save up the tears for my weekly therapy session.  Which is now imminent.

Visiting a new friend, sitting on his deck looking at the mountains....


To walk or to lounge?
Inertia is powerful.
I watch the hawk soar.

The occasional moodiness and insomnia:  I try mediation but it doesn't always work.......
Rhythmic ocean waves
Cannot drown insistent thoughts.
Cursed insomnia.

Weary, flat, and stale...
No! I am not Prince Hamlet!
But I am quite tired.

Chaos in the world (Boston Marathon)......
What are my fellow
Commuters thinking about?
A town in lockdown..

Psychic disconnect:
Appalling things happen, but
I wake up happy.

And so it goes.  One haiku at a time, I'm chronicling my life.



.

Medical reference

Last night I was at another UU SipNSup:  the monthly get-together of strangers, where each couple is assigned a dish, and one of the couples plays host.  This was my third.  The first is chronicled in an earlier blog (in which we try not to talk of pornography), the second was at T's apartment and I was co-host.

On this occasion, the host home was a lovely adobe with xeriscaping outside, waterfalls inside, tiles, fireplace, glass blown hanging lamps, open kitchen with a bar, and a view of the Sandias.  It was a stone's throw from the Embudo Canyon trailhead.  The host was of Norwegian descent, from International Falls (my mother's birthplace), so we talked about Minnesota and a Norse heritage for a bit.

One of the other guests sings soproano in the choir, so I knew her by sight.  Turns out she's a working musician, as are her four kids, and she is on the verge of her annual trip south, this time to Bogota, to teach violin for 2 weeks.  She's been doing this for 15 years, and has lived all around the world.

Two other guests were both doctors in private practise, and we had a rousing discussion of the potential effects of Obamacare.  The CPA husband of the gynecologist was fairly quiet for most of the everning, but, as I told T, there were 4 mouthy broads at table (that included me), and it was difficult for anyone to get a word in edgewise.

As per usual, I was impressed by the variety of life experience around the table, and fascinated by the paths people take.  And, also as per usual, I felt unaccomplished and unexperienced.  I want to tag along on their adventures.  I want to join Dr. T's daughter in Tanzania, working at an AIDs clinic for children.  It would be hard and depressing, but it would be worthwhile.  But I lack the practical skills that would make me an asset, and I lack the youth and strength for the grunt work.

So the wish is eager, rather than lasting.  And, I'm pretty sure that I need to avoid big change for the time being.  I really need to be satisfied with absorbing the body blows of the last few years, months, and days.  I need to enjoy quieter adventures.  As Mole discovered, I am a simple creature of the fields and hedgerows, which hold enough adventure, in their quiet way, for a lifetime.

Nothing makes that clearer than the way my body betrays me.  Last week it was the patella-bashing (still sore, especially on stairs, but doing nicely thank you.)  Last night it was a sudden onset of nausea, profuse sweating and dizziness.  I left the table and sat in the living room, but, threatened with increasing nausea, tottered into the bathroom where I lay on the cool tiles and felt simultaneously feeble and ridiculous.

T eventually came to the bathroom door:  "K-lou, are you okay?"  Umm, no.  He made my excuses and drove me home.  I crawled into bed and fell asleep, waking at 5:30 am.  I started googling my symptoms, even though I know I should use authoritative databases and, in my professional capacity, I speak sternly to peole who used DotCom medical sites.  But, it was early in the morning, I was groggy, and google was easy to use.

I found webMD and about.com and other reasonably authoritative sites, but I gravitated to the one wherein people detail their symptoms and other people share similar stories and they all say, "I've had this condition for YEARS and no one can find out what's wrong," and some people say it's gall bladder, and some diabetes, and some heart attack.  And you can still produce gallstones, even if you've had your gall bladder removed, and GO SEE A DOCTOR, and good luck.

hmmmm

Then I found Real Diagnosis, where you can list your symptoms and get matches with possible diagnoses.  So, I either have a heart condition, diabetes, meningitis, or syncope (which is a fancy word for fainting.)  I ruled out wine allergy.  The whole thing reminded me of Three Men in a Boat, where J reads a medical diagnostical  manual, discovers he is sickening for EVERYTHING (except Housemaid's Knee) and crawls over to his doctor friend who prescribes "beer, steak, and stop reading things you don't understand."

So, I posted the following to Facebook:
Researching symptoms
In the wee hours.  Tenebrous.
Not recommended.

And I went back to sleep.

Everything has a price

Yesterday I got back out into the Sandias, this time on the south side.  Lots of pine, lots of juniper, lots of rocks.  Some switchbacks, but not too bad.  I only had to stop to relieve cardio-pulmonary distress a few times!  It was nice to have some trees, but it's still New Mexico.  The dusty-spicy pine smell had no hint of moisture to it, and where in Oregon there would have been streams, here there were dry,  rocky creek beds.

Oh, I lie, there was also this Waterfall!

You don't see the water?  well, it's there.  sorta.

The pace my companions wanted was just about right for me, too.  And all in all, it was a good hike, until we started the downward slope.  I was doing fine with the scree and the occasional boulder, I thought, but then my foot slid and I landed, patella first, on a rock.  You know how sudden pain makes you queasy?  I sat there, holding my knee, breathing in, breathing out, while the others stood around.  I felt moisture on my hand and realized I was bleeding.  B pulled out a bandaid, and G offered water and ibuprofen.  I said thanks to the former, and no to the latter, and pulled up the pant leg to assess the damage:  a straight small, deep cut, starting to well up with dark red blood.  Fortunately, the pants were not ripped, and there was no obvious dirt.  I blotted the blood, applied the bandaid, and got to my feet. We had another 45 minutes to an hour to go.

The hike remained lovely.  We stopped at the cave for me to convert my hiking pants to shorts and apply a new bandaid that would not be rubbed off as I walked.  S took some pix of the "Travertine Waterfall," and as we walked on, we pondered:  just what IS travertine?  I dimly recalled seeing travertine tiles when I was doing my remodel, but couldn't remember much but that it's a stone.  Duh.   (I looked it up later in the car, but suffice it to say, we were all wrong in our guesses.)

We stopped again for a water break, and looked for fossils in the rocks.  Mainly they were unremarkable dots and specks, paleolithic bugs.  Neat though.  Then, towards the end of the hike, we re-passed the spiral and cairn that I had spotted on the way up.  The light was much better for photographs at this point;  late afternoon is always my favorite time for photographing rocks.

l have a new pedometer, from the StepItUp Albuquerque program at work.  So I can say, definitively, that we walked 12,861 steps, or 6.48 miles.

The cut started bleeding on the drive back to G's, and he was unhappy that his pack did not have the requisite first aid supplies.  Spring is the time to get the gear back in order, but you usually try to do that before the accidents.  He also said, "next time I'm making you take the hiking pole," and he's going to loan me a 3-liter water pack in addition to my little water bottle.  So, there will be a next time at least.  And even though I'm a liability as a friend and hiking partner, it seems that these three think I'm worth it.

When I got home, finally, I cleaned off the sweat/salt from the hike and put neosporin on the cut.  It was still oozing blood, and I freaked out and called L (my medical expert sister.)  She was mainly concerned with tetanus, ("You know you should have a current shot, don't you?"), but otherwise was a soothing presence in my ear.  I bandaged it up, cancelled on the potluck I had planned to attend, and got out a good book for the rest of the day.

Yes, it doesn't look like much

Today the cut has scabbed over, but the patellar area is very sore:  I may have bruised the bone.  The flesh doesn't seem to be the problem, and there isn't much flesh there anyway.  This is frustrating:  now that I have hiking partners, I want to HIKE!  And we have a nice one planned for next Sunday.  Grrrr.

I hate limping around.  I hate being pitiful.  I wish it were possible to just do things without fallout and pain.  Why can't I just enjoy what I have without paying some sort of price?  But, right now, that seems to be my life.  Losing balance, losing friends, once step forward, 2 steps back, and a big ass pain in the patella.

Harrumph.

Endings and Beginnings

A few weeks ago my landlady invited me to an "endings" ritual, to punctuate my divorce, to honor the feelings and the past, and to look to the future.

It was very kind of her to recognize the anti-climax and emptiness I was feeling, and to offer me a way to deal with it.  I accepted, not knowing what she had in mind, but trusting in the intent.  It was a night after work, so we planned for 7 pm.  I got home and decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies as thank you offering.  Or rather, a cooky:  the toaster oven doesn't really accommodate cookies, so I put the whole batch in a pie plate.  It doesn't cook evenly, so the bottom was burned.  But you can't really go wrong with butter, chocolate, pine nuts, and brown sugar, right?

M's house is a lovely adobe, with a fireplace and wood floors.  We sat in the living room, on a two-person couch, facing the western windows into the garden.  She had a tri-fold votive screen, which held 12 votive candles, and it was on a table about 5 feet away from us.  We each had a glass of water, and a box of kleenex nearby.

She started with a short meditation:  close your eyes, think of a joy, focus on that sensation.  I can't remember what joy I thought of:  friendship?  snorkeling?  waking by the ocean?  chocolate chip cooky?  but it was actually hard to choose and focus on it, which was a nice revelation.

Then we opened our eyes and thought of an ending or a loss that we wanted to honor.  We took turns, speaking of the event or the thought or the person, and then going to light a candle.  Speak, rise, strike the match, light the candle, sit back down.  In my case, grab a kleenex.  When the candles were all lit, we blew them out, and those endings were sent upward with the smoke.  We continued to speak more thoughts, light more candles.  We talked about joyful losses:  loss of weight, loss of anger, loss of unreasonable expectations.  We talked about grief:  loss of husband, loss of father, loss of self, loss of home.  We talked about endings:  end of a job, of a lifestyle, of youth, of middle age.  All of which leads to beginnings.

She usually does this ritual during the dark of the moon, to help honor the past time and look forward to the new beginnings.  I was reminded of the solstice celebration at T's, 2 years ago back in Portland.  There, we started in darkness and lit each others candles and spoke a word for winter.  The growing light and the sense of community were equally palpable.  This was a more intimate ritual, with just the two of us, and it went deeper in a way.  It began the process of letting go. I have been talking about losses in this blog, but I haven't been letting them go.  I've been stuck in the grieving process.

Today, I came right up against the perils of being stuck.  I have feared that I didn't have the wherewithal to find myself again, and I have feared losing my friends in the process.  I have feared that I am not worth the time or the stress, that the more I reached out, the more I would drive away the help. And that is coming to pass.

It's probably a good thing to realize, viscerally, that the healing has to come from myself, and that others can do little to help.  You can't replace 30 years of connection in a few months, and while those distant connections are real and deep and strong, they can't be there for you every day, or even every week.  And neither can the new connections.  Their support is of a different nature, and the trust and depth are embryonic, maybe stillborn.  For the daily bread, I have to grow my own yeast, bake my own loaves.  I have to do it alone.

And crying is bad for my sinuses.  

Yesterday I walked in the hills with a new friend.  We talked, we were silent.  I touched the amazing rocks, I sniffed the piny juniper and the spicy woody willows, I watched the white fluffy clouds in the brilliant blue sky, I listened to the wind in the junipers, with the deep silence behind the sound.  As ee cummings said, "how could tasting, touching, seeing, hearing, breathing, any -lifted from the no of all nothing- human merely being, doubt unimaginable You."  I spread my arms to the soft cool breeze, I was full of joy, full of the moment.  And that is as real as my grief and my tears.

I just wish I experienced it more often.

To honor Easter
I resurrected two joys:
Hiking and Thai food.

The 53-year-old adolescent

Last night I dreamed I was at a class reunion.  But I didn't realize it was a class reunion until C came up to me and said, pointedly, "Hello."   I didn't recognize her at first.  We walked and talked awkwardly.  I know from Facebook that she is married with a beautiful daughter and  a happy life, but in the dream she was single and unhappy, and not admitting it.  She was aloof, which was odd, since she approached me to begin with and I had always had a cordial, if not close, relationship with her.  The scene shifted, as dream scenes do. She had moved to a reference desk:  we were in a library and she was volunteering.  I tried to assist and got a patron from hell who yelled at me and asked for someone else to help her.  (She had lost a bet on a horse race and was looking for information on the horse.)

The dream was an odd amalgam of high school and work.  Now that I've written it down, it seems obvious that it's about the toxic environment at work.   It doesn't take much insight to realize that one of the reasons I'm sensitive to criticism and back-biting is my experience with the public school system and the mean-spirited nature of adolescence.  After high school, I learned that I was worthwhile and talented and accomplished, but that self-knowledge remains a facade, easily breached with the right (or wrong) concatenation of events.  All the subsequent learning and self-confidence can crumble, and my high school default mechanisms return.  I don't confront, I try to hide my hurt, I absorb and accept and amplify the negative assessment, and I move on, curled tightly around the fragile cracked core of my being.

My current task is to repair that core.  I get tired of the job, though.  I want to plaster it over and forget about it.  I want that hurt teenager to stop whining and influencing me.  I'm 53 years old fergawdsake, I have a responsible job, I have grown up things to do.  Enough with the adolescent angst.

Work has actually reached a detente.  I start my day with a 2-minute Power Stance, which actually seems to have an effect on my day.  My bete noir has eased off the backbiting and snippy repartee, and my bosses are backing me on next steps.  But personally?  That's another matter.  I find myself addicted to the internet, obsessively checking my accounts, living from text to text and post to post, sharing the minutia of my life, trying to connect with someone, anyone, distracting myself from doing what I need to do.  I reach out for contact and feel rejected and hurt when people have other commitments.  I doubt the friendships, and I don't want to be alone.

Yesterday I colored Easter eggs by myself.  I've happily done that in the past, but usually I connect with a friend or three and make a party of it.  I remember coloring eggs with my cousin:  he is so creative. His eggs were rich with color and design.  I remember discovering, via my aunt, how amazingly deep the colors are when you use brown eggs.  I remember borrowing friends' kids, and the joy of helping them discover their own styles.  The great thing about crafting with another person is the variety that results.  Everyone has a different mode of expression, it's very personal.  You can tell without being told who did what work.  (Once, when I was living with my cousin and T and S, I had my first pumpkin carving party.  R joined T and S and me. We lighted the jack-o-lanterns and lined them up on the living room floor, and when my cousin came home we made him guess who had carved which pumpkin.  He got them all right.)

But the real reason to craft with another person is to feel that connection.  Some people need solitude to produce anything.  I used to be that way, and in many of my previous posts you'll find me complaining that D is distracting me from doing meaningful, creative, or joyful work.  Now it appears that I was blaming him unfairly.  I have lost my ability to be alone, to find joy in the creative process.  I need someone to be with me, to praise the end result, to share in the process and product.

Without that connection, all I can seem to do is post pictures to the internet, and whine in this blog.  I am so looking forward to getting past this stage.  But, how do I do that?  I can't build a framework when the core is weak.  Do I really have to tear down the facade and fix the foundation?

I think I need a new metaphor.  Meanwhile....here are pictures of my Easter eggs.    The proper response is "ooh!"  And to post your own pix back.

Organic eggs will
Produce richer colors, and
Tastier omelettes.

Moving on

About a year ago, I wrote a blog about downsizing and loss.  In August, I wrote about loss in general.  In fact, much of the past year I have been contemplating the gradual erosion of my life.  And here I sit, at 4 am, unable to sleep, treading that familiar ground yet again.  A bronchial cough woke me up, and, in between bouts, I am thinking about finances, health, next steps.

Most of what I presaged last March has come to pass.  I've lost most of my possessions and savings, my marriage, and my sweet dog.  I am in the process of figuring out how best to jettison my house.   And yet, the grief of the past year is missing.  Yes, I sobbed throughout the divorce mediation.  And I sobbed when I learned  about D's collapse.  And I cry in my weekly therapy sessions.  But behind all of that emotion is...emptiness.  And maybe relief.  And maybe, just maybe, the stirrings of hope.

I'm not sure.

I do know that loss of stuff is no longer part of the grief.  As part of the mediation, I took the inventory of possessions and labelled them:  D, K, and M.  (M stands for marital possessions.)  D initialed the stuff he plans to retrieve, now that he's back in Portland, and I faxed the result to my property managers.  In looking over the inventory, I realized that, for the most part, I haven't missed any of it.  There is some Grandma furniture that I'd like to cherish, there are boxes of pictures and letters and  financial doings that I should go through.  But otherwise....?

Last week my managers sent me 2 boxes of clothes, which are a welcome addition, and another small box of craft stuff.  Much more remains, along with books, dishes, CDs, and Christmas decorations.  All are nice to have, all give me joy, but if I never saw them again, I'd be okay.  In fact, that would be a painless way to deal with it:  just walk away.

Really?  Have I reached that point?

Last year I was wandering around the house, agonizing over what was going in the downsizing estate sale.  A few months later, I flung things in boxes, preparatory to moving here.  At the time, I was thinking in terms of "what do we need for the next 6 months."  So, the tough decisions were set aside.  It was very Scarlett O'Hara:  I'll think about that tomorrow (or in this case, 6 months of tomorrows.)

Now I find that, for the most part, my hasty decisions were as valid as the decisions I agonized over.  In both cases, precious things were lost, precious things were kept, precious things were stored.  And the same goes for unimportant things:  while I tossed and sold a lot, I also boxed up paperclips for god's sake, scraps of wrapping paper for origami, jewelry bits to be reused.... and now that I've left D, I still have too much stuff:  my 350 sq ft are crammed with linens, clothes, dishes, papers, books, furniture.  I am not yet traveling light.  And I want to.

But the real issue, of course, is how to lighten the emotional load.  All this preoccupation with stuff is a distraction from the job at hand.  It's easy to talk about moving on, traveling light, but what does that really mean?

After the divorce was final, I wrote a haiku:

Loss is emptiness.

It should be weightless.  But no:

Tears have gravity.

So, how do I pay homage to the past 10 years and look towards the next 30 years?  How do I jettison my tears, guilt, sadness?  How do I store memories?  and how do I take joy and hope and regain my bright, serene, creative self?  How do I move on?

My friends and family and therapist are all advising me.  It's contradictory.  Most people see the last 10 years as a waste:  I lost the self that they loved, while trying to maintain a partnership that drained me financially and emotionally, alienated my friends and family, and eroded my self-confidence and self-esteem.  I get that point of view.  But it's not the whole story.  Clearly, I would not have spent 10 years on something that gave me nothing.  There were joys experienced, lessons learned, friends made.  I did not stop creating, making music, or feeding my soul.  Those 10 years are part of me, and I need to acknowledge them, grieve over what I lost, and take what I gained.

D is not the demon of the piece.  He is the man I fell in love with after my father died.  He got me through that tough time, and he loves me and thinks me beautiful and talented.  He is proud of my accomplishments.   He is a good man.  But, as E once said, he was a lousy husband.  The power imbalance led to escalating emotional abuse, and I had given all I had to give.  No one, not even D,  blames me for leaving, for giving up.  In the final analysis, I don't blame myself.

But the process?  the process is driving everyone crazy.  I wallow in grief, in guilt:  What could I have done differently, why wasn't I strong enough, what is D going to do, why couldn't I be there for him and his sister?  I whine:  I've lost everything.  I curl up in a fetal position.  I cry.  I can't make decisions, I don't follow through.  I express my loneliness.  I express my neediness.  I cry some more.  I don't know what I want to do with my life, and I cry about that.  I don't have the confidence to start something new.  I worry about debts, about stuff.  I worry about self-care and self-talk.  I worry about alienating my friends and family even more. I worry about being a burden.

One friend thinks the guilt is useless and self-destructive and I need to Just Stop.  Another says, "pffft, feelings don't work that way.  And you've raised whining to an art form.  Your friends need to deal with it."  Some friends think I'm an idiot for dreaming of eventually being friends with D again.  The current estrangement should be permanent.  Wish him well and move on. Others think that I will, in time, need to renew contact, for closure if nothing else.  My therapist tells me to acknowledge the feelings, accept where I am:  it's okay that I don't know what I want.  But....do something about that negative self-talk.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this blog.  What is really behind all this emotional flailing?  That's what I need to find, in order to move on.  Am I truly empty?  Have I lost the ability to really feel, am I just going through the motions, running on my default whiny behaviors?  What do I really want, where is my joy, where is the me that people want me to retrieve?  I truly don't know, I don't recognize that woman they are describing. I don't believe the future is limitless.

But I want to believe it.  I know that I have all the tools to do amazing things with the next 30 years, and the freedom to pursue those adventures.  If I want to.

It's never too late, right?

Tonight I went to the Hiland Theatre to watch the NDI Winter Escape performance.  It was a mix of modern/athletic dance, tap, ballet, and Broadway, so it had something for everyone.  My favorite was the Alley Kats tap/funk troupe, especially when paired up with non-tap dancers.  There was no music to that number, so the tap provided the beat, and it was amazing how much variety they had at their disposal.

I had complimentary tickets, but, sadly, no one was able to join me.  Part of the reason was that my friends were busy with their lives, and I had a last-minute cancellation that couldn't get filled;  but I think a lot of it was that I wasn't able to really sell the program.  I had no idea what to expect, I just knew it was kids dancing, and my tickets were free.

Next time I'll pay for my tickets:  they deserve it.  And I'll put more enthusiasm into my offer.  I'm sorry that my friends missed out on this.  The dancing and music were both well worth it.   A lot of the music was canned, but there was some excellent jazz and piano accompaniment, some written specifically for the group.  It was incredibly moving to see these kids put on a professional-level show with joy and showmanship.  They had the skill, but more importantly, they had the heart.

I remembered my high school days:  it was such a small school, we all did a little of everything. Because of that, we never achieved the level of excellent that kids in big cities do.  But we did get a lot of exposure to the various options, if we chose it.   There were some road blocks, of course.  For example,  I never learned to dance, and I always felt like my size prohibited me from it.  Clearly, that was self-talk at its most destructive, and I was pleased to see that this group did not discriminate on the basis of size.

I'm glad I got myself out to see them.  I have a feeling that I need to become more comfortable with the concept of solo adventuring.  I can't wait for my friends to have the time or inclination to join me, and I can't depend on them to galvanize me.

It wasn't a slam dunk. I almost talked myself into staying home:  I don't feel well, I'm still sad,  I have things I need to take care of, I don't want to go out by myself and sit in an auditorium filled with kids and parents. Above all,  I don't want to emphasize to the world that I'm one of those pathetic lonely old ladies with no one to play with.

But then I looked at the map and saw that the venue was a 5 minute drive from my house.  I have done nothing productive all day, and I realized that I'd beat myself up for being a lump if I didn't put on a coat and Just Go.  So, I put on my coat and went.

Now I am beating myself up for not joining a dance class.  Yes, I know I can do it any time.  Yes, I know I'd like it.  Yes, I know I have both time and money enough to do this, and I'll feel better if I do. So, what is keeping me from it?   Aren't I past the point of expecting more of myself than I have to give?  Can't I allow myself to be mediocre?

Apparently not.  Instead, I get sad as I listen to well-loved music from my past and watch those girls who have focused their young minds and bodies into the pursuit of excellence.

Strong lovely girls dance

To the Bulgarian choir.

My throat closes up.