Where I Am

Well, it's a new year. People are making new resolutions or goals or intentions. We have to remember to write a new year on our checks and letters. And my mind is still back six or seven months and I'm wondering how it got to be 2013 so fast.

Last year was a better year than the year before, even though I had less employment. I made a huge amount of progress mentally and emotionally and I began exercising regularly. This bodes well for 2013. 

I'm becoming better at making new habits and sticking with them, except when holidays get in the way. And I doubt I'm going anywhere for a long trip this year until Christmas (unless I'm in Seattle, then I'll take a trip elsewhere). It's being out of my own environment that makes it harder to keep up with the exercising. I don't have the same space set up and I want to spend lots of time with my hosts, so I don't generally do exercise while away. But with even more time before the next major trip, maybe I'll have the exercise thing so efficient that I can do it anywhere!

I am more content with myself and where I am. Even though there are still some areas of clutter and I'm not terribly fond of my apartment, I am grounded, centered, and at home. I am becoming more myself and am very much less self-conscious. Even though I am anxious about finding work and making money, I'm still aware that I've come very far and that where I am now internally is fabulous. Where I am externally is acceptable; I'm not sure if I will find a fabulous external, but acceptable is fine. I believe that when I am doing work I enjoy with people I enjoy working with, my external will ramp up to much better than acceptable.

I have terrific tools now to help me deal with life and my issues and I'm getting quite good at using them. I have a terrific therapist (who I would be sorry to leave). I am learning important life skills (finally) and it's all paying off. Hell, I have a whole pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream in the freezer that I bought on the way home from lunch and haven't dug into yet. I'm not hungry, and in the past, that wouldn't have stopped me. I've made progress on all fronts (except my fear of driving in ice and snow).

As my t-shirt says, "Life is Good." In 2013, it's just going to get better.

Where are you now?

Holiday Quiet

I'm in the living room at my friend's house and it's almost entirely silent. Girl child went to a friend's house. Boy child and dad went to boy child's bagpipe lesson. Mom is taking a nap. And the animals appear to be napping as well. I feel entirely alone and at peace with the lit Christmas tree and the mantel lights and the Santas and nutcrackers and snowmen.

It's been a wonderful holiday so far. Knowing that I am wanted makes me light up inside, even though I am tired (my hips hit right at the middle bar on the cot and I am unused to being around people 24/7). It's gray outside and quite cold and has rained off and on, but I'm handling it. (The silk long underwear helps a lot!)

It is nice being in places that are familiar and knowing that I could get around on my own fairly easily (in spite of all the changes here and there over the past 12 1/2 years). 

The fact that it's in the 70s in Houston is a nice thought, but the extreme heat started there so early this year and has continued so late. I stayed indoors much of this past year because of stress and because I was afraid the weather would hurt me. 

I have been afraid that the local cold weather would hurt me, too, but today, with my silks on underneath my jeans and my thin fleece pullover, with wool-blend socks on my feet and my wool winter coat covering me from shoulder to mid-thigh, with my gloves on my hands, I managed a family walk down the hill to Starbucks and the walk back up the hill and was actually feeling warm before we got to the house. So the cold weather has made me feel cold when I was slightly underdressed, but it has not hurt me. (But I might feel differently if it were snowy or icy.)

I'm feeling peaceful right now. I don't feel the need to make any decisions or to rationalize any potential decisions to myself or others. I am simply relaxing on the couch, drinking hot tea with milk, and typing on my laptop.

I have been having so much fun, have been talking and laughing a great deal, and have listened and observed, all with great joy and contentment. Now I feel the contentment of the peace and quiet of this lull in the holiday and my visit.

Regarding thoughts of moving to Seattle, my friends have assured me they would have or make time for me in their lives. They miss me and would love to have me move back here, as long as I was happy. This is very comforting. I still have a lot of thinking to do, and a lot of research into jobs and rents etc., and a lot of talking with my therapist. But I feel better able to be able to judge the Seattle side of the equation.

Now I think I'm going to watch the lights of the tree and feel the warmth of the encompassing happiness my hosts have shown over having me share this holiday with them.

I hope your holidays were joyous and warm as well.

The Hard Ones

Nope, this post is not by Tawna Fenske and I haven't taken to writing innuendo on my blog (although if I had her mind and her talent I totally would).

This post is about the hard decisions and how to make them. It's specifically about one decision that has come to completely occupy my mind.

I've become more and more compelled lately to consider whether to stay in Houston or move back to Seattle. There are so many things to consider and the two places are so different that trying to decide how to decide has been making me crazy. So I brought it up in therapy today.

I've been considering this decision casually for much of the year, but wasn't serious because my therapy and my therapist have been too important to me to let go. But as I have begun meeting goals and getting increasingly more healthy, the decision has begun to take on weight.

One of what I consider the downsides to being single is when I have to or choose to make big decisions. I like being able to choose a paint color for a room on my own, but it would be nice to have someone to share in the big decisions, someone who had a stake in the decision, someone to bounce ideas back and forth with, and someone for backup. A decision like where to live is huge and hard to make on my own. So I think it will be a topic of conversation in therapy, as well as how to make big decisions in general, for the next several sessions (which won't start again until January).

Just to start with, my therapist proposed I start thinking about what nourishes me most. Is it sunlight and warmth, or is it relationships? Can I adapt to the cold and dark again to be close to good friends, or can I live with the possibility of not having such close friends where I live yet can grow citrus trees in my backyard, when I get a backyard? Either place I live, I will need more friends and will have to approach finding them intentionally. I do have some good friends up north, but they cannot do it all for me; I'll need a few more to meet my socialization needs, but the ones I find in the north can be more casual types of friends while down here in Houston I'd still be looking for close friends with whom I can spend significant time together.

I think I've had a bit more focused anxiety worrying over wanting to make this decision. I have a stomach ache and have had one since we started talking about it in therapy. But I need to remind myself of what my therapist said at the end of the session. Whichever place I choose, I'll be able to adapt and be happy. I have developed my center within myself, and contentment with myself outside of what my environment is like. So this decision isn't a matter of which place is the "right" place for me; neither is a right decision or a wrong decision. 

Whichever place I choose to live in, I will be fine and content. I will be at home.

On Making Friends

Today in therapy, we were congratulating me on the strides I've made in my cognitive therapy: developing my center and a sense of home in myself; becoming comfortable and content with the way my life is, even though I would rather it be less solitary; basically developing more of an internal locus of control rather than external.

Then I asked my therapist, "What next? Go back and do some trauma work?" She was curious why I felt I need trauma work rather than to continue with cognitive work. 

"Where in your life do you feel that past traumas are holding you back?"

That was a good question. We talked about that for a bit, then I came up with my problems with making connections: both friendship and romantic. Since I've lived in Houston, I've had two friendships go ballistic on me (and had to go to other friends to get reality checks to make sure I wasn't the crazy one in each situation), one dropped off the radar, and one has had very good reasons to be scarce. But in my past, I've watched as other people made workplace friendships that developed past the workplace and I saw people make love matches that eluded me. I've developed the expectation, I told my therapist, that either I won't make any connections or the ones I do make will end very badly. (I have one good friend I made via work and who has remained a good friend for over 25 years.) I feel I'm so poor at making friends I might as well start making them out of Sculpy.

There is good reason for me to think that traumas have affected my ability to make intimate and lasting connections. But it's also possible that my expectations, based as they are upon experience, have twisted my beliefs and self-talk about friendships and romantic relationships. So far, we are doing quite well with the cognitive stuff, so why not keep going on that, my therapist suggested. 

Garden of Solitude

I am alone a lot, and by "a lot" I mean virtually all the time. I have Monday therapy, followed by a walk in the park and grocery shopping. About twice a month I have lunch with one friend and now perhaps once a month I'll be having lunch with another friend. And once a month an in-person meeting with the members of my volunteer group. That's about eight hours a month that I spend in-person with other people. 

I also have a weekly Castle-TV-watching-and-chat session with two girlfriends. I text with two friends quite frequently, it sometimes turning into long conversations, and I IM with three friends, at least with one once a day. That and a once a month teleconference meeting with my volunteer group adds up to about the same amount of time, although sometimes it's more, depending on whether my friends feel like talking more often or for longer. Plus, I get comments on my blog, which although not interactive still feels comforting and like I have people nearby to turn to.

I used to feel very lonely because of all this solitude; and I have had varying amounts of it, too. But lately it doesn't bother me except once in a while. Perhaps it means I'm more accustomed to being alone now. Perhaps it means that this amount of interaction is enough to get my needs met. Certainly once I've had a lot more interaction, such as when I go visit friends and am surrounded by people for long amounts of time, I have to rest when I come home. Unfortunately, I think that this reaction is a result of my being so much alone. I have become less tolerant of social interaction as an introvert with little to keep my social muscles strong. It's not a good thing for an introvert to spend too little time with people anymore than it's a good thing for her to spend too much time. If I went to a job even a couple of times a week it would help build up my people-tolerance. Going to the mall a couple of times a week might help, too, but that would be just a little too much, given that it is now December and the Christmas shopping frenzy has begun.

Trapeze

Therapy was good today. Why was it so good? We went surprising places. And going to surprising places is what brings me further along on my journey.

At first we talked about my last blog post, about feeling that I'm home now. She said she thought it sounded like someone who was content with herself and where she was. Content. That is a place where a person could experience the highs and lows of life, all the happys and the sads, and still know that she is fine. Content is where a person could know she will get through the bad times and appreciate the good times for as long as they last.

Then I told her what I was thinking of writing about today: how I feel weird feeling so good, how I don't trust it, how I'm more than a little bit afraid of it. That's what connected content with surprising places. Because how and why would any person be afraid of feeling good, of feeling happy?

Well, it comes from learning experiences. Several times in my life, just when things were getting better after having been difficult, or when things were going very, very well, I have been hit by a major trauma: my father died, my brother died, my mother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer. There have been others, but these were, of course, the worst. My therapist said that post-trauma personalities are always prepared for the worst to happen because they know not only that it could happen but that it will happen. So how can I trust the good feelings won't just blow up into something horrible again?

In addition, there's the fact that I have struggled with anxiety and/or depression for most of my life. As I discussed in an earlier post, I have been having to work on not identifying myself with the depression or with the anxiety. But for a long time, they did become part of my identity, so this feeling good, this happiness, is something new and different (especially from the past couple of years) and it is unfamiliar.

Misplaced Heart

I lost my heart years ago and have been trying to get it back again. My heart is never entirely with me, never completely where I am; it's usually looking out the window or over the wall or across the sea. For awhile, my heart may sit beside me, whether it's in a cottage outside of Seattle, a rehabilitated ranch house along the Pacific Ocean, or an apartment next to a lake northeast of Houston, loving the place where I am. But after a year or two or four, my heart sprouts wings once again and flies off, telling me I don't love where I am, I never loved where I am, and urging me to leave. My heart is always making me chase after it.

I loved where I grew up. I loved my small town as it grew to the size of a small city. I loved my family's house. Okay, I didn't love the pink all over my bedroom, but the rest of the room was fine. I even, when I was much younger, loved myself and was my own friend. My heart was inside of me and in my family and my home. I was content.

But we moved. Daddy died. We fell apart, my family and I. And I didn't love where I lived.

Life changed so much then. I graduated from high school. I went to college. I moved between college and my family's home — which I had come to dislike a great deal — for school year and summer until I graduated yet again and remained in Seattle. There was never time to love a place or to find my heart or my center. And then, for a few years, I moved every time my lease was up until I moved in with two friends. We shared a house, these two young men and I, for a year and a half. One of them moved across the country for a job and my best friend and I found a great apartment to share for the next two and a half years, until we were heartily sick of one another.

I enjoyed the apartment a great deal. I enjoyed my next, with another friend, also a great deal. A year after that move came more changes in where I lived and who I lived with and how happy — or rather, unhappy — I was.