Baby Steps, 1

Per a suggestion by Susanne, a regular reader and commenter on my blog, I am posting what steps I made on a daily basis for a little bit, to be interspersed with blogs of a heftier sort if and when necessary.

As I am also trying to think less and do more, I am going to try to focus on the action and the functional rather than the what and why. Sometimes I feel like a self-centered brat, always moaning and going on about my problems. But when I presented this perspective a some friends last night, one of them has already responded with a totally different perspective of me as one who is brave and committed to healing and willing to face and talk about my crap and stuff. She doesn't see me the same why I've been seeing me, not even close. That actually makes me feel better.

So, without further ado, I present yesterday's baby steps.

1. Took a short walk with Sabine. It was around the center circle of the neighborhood, so it wasn't that long but the way back required climbing a pretty good hill for about half the walk. It took 10+ minutes and we were both out of breath (oh so horribly out of shape!).
2. Assembled steel-cut oats for slow-cooking to be eaten this morning. (Unfortunately, Griffin didn't turn it on last night and I'm not sure how quickly they will cook on high this morning.)
3. Turned off computer by 9. Didn't start surfing or Pinterest in iPad. Used it for music and found that my good earbuds fit, which made me ecstatic. My good earbuds are Ultimate Ears, which I got 6 years ago, when I bought my MacBook and my iRiver Clix2 mp3 player. Both player and earbuds were most highly rated for sound quality and usability and they rock. Plugging my earbuds into the iPad after having downloaded all my music to it, then listening to the music and hear the full range of sounds, from subtle based to solid midtones and crystal clear high notes just blissed me out as I listened to the end of a playlist before bed.
4. Took a melatonin supplement and got into bed by midnight. Might have made the sleep window but reflux/acidic stomach interfered and I eventually took the 2nd pill. I'm feeling groggy this morning (but then, sleep was still broken and I got 5 1/2 hours of sleep total, but the potential is there). So I tried and will continue trying on that front.

So that's the scoop for yesterday. Tonight I am scheduled to attend a professional meeting (networking, dinner, presentation, more networking). I will NOT allow myself to skip out on it just because I "don't feel like it." Not this time. I am sick of being unemployed (or underemployed) and living in my friends' house in a bedroom. I need my own place. Now. And I need to get out on my own more.

I'm glad I accomplished what I did. I'm disappointed in that it was little. I got very little sleep the night before and didn't get ready very early. More like in the afternoon. Then there was little time to do things. Today I was up a little earlier but as mentioned before am quite groggy (on melatonin but insufficient sleep perhaps?) and my breakfast isn't ready so I'm a bit cranky. While I'm trying to avoid naps in order to be more ready to sleep, today I may make an exception just so I'll be bright-eyed and bush-tailed for the meeting tonight.

That's the news so far today. Thanks, Susanne. This is a great way to keep track and take note.

That's it for

Turn Around and Walk Forward

Caution: A long post with complex sentence structure, complicated punctuation, and many, many different metaphors. Not for the faint-hearted.

The best path isn't always the straightest

That's my motto for the year. The last post was all about traumas of the past and how they have affected me and my life. Within the gentle and supportive comments ran a particular thread: perhaps I need to simply accept my past and look to the present and future.

This is not the first time this concept has been suggested to me. A previous therapist became quite frustrated with me for continuing to talk about the past. A couple of friends have suggested that I cling to the past — suggested with increasing frustration and decreasing gentleness. I appreciate the gentle directness of my commenters.

It's true: I do cling to and look to the past. When I was talking to my therapist on Tuesday of this week, I had this vivid flash of me walking backward, taking my cues on which way to turn from what I saw before my eyes. That way leads to missteps and even falling off cliffs. It was a powerful and stirring image. I resolved right then to turn around and use my present, and my visions and desires, to guide me into the future.

Of course, I asked Michele her opinion of, well, everything. What I said in the blog. The idea that I cling to and pay too much attention to the past. Some other stuff. It frustrated me that she didn't respond directly and completely refrained from answering my questions. I'm probably going to push her on that next week.

However, it is ultimately me who has the choice and power to turn around and move forward. I chose the term "walk forward" to indicate activity; I have been almost completely motionless since Mom died, and that was almost three and a half years ago; I wonder how many years that has taken off my life? So "walk forward" tells me to move my body and to participate in my life much more actively than I have been. "Look forward" would have been way too passive.

Solstice Epiphanies

Last night Griffin and I talked about the sleep problem I’ve had for some time. Basically, I average 4.5 to 5 hours of sleep a night. Not only is it bad for me in general, it’s particularly bad for the fibro. Unfortunately, this is a habit I settled into after Mom died, or maybe just after I returned to Houston. I had developed the habit previously off and on over a few years prior to that, but never quite as extreme as this and not for as long an ongoing period.

Griffin suggested I keep a diary. He suggested I note when I go to bed, what time I wake during the night, what time I return to trying to sleep, and my feelings at the time — I think he meant my feelings as I try to return to sleep, but I think I should do so when I first get ready to go to sleep, and maybe when I first wake, if appropriate. To this list I’m adding a) what plans I have for the next day and what time those plans are for, and b) any events of note that occurred during the day, especially the evening.

I went to bed at midnight. I woke at after 6 a.m. to go pee. Then I sat in bed and journaled, and the rest of this post came from that journal entry. I made some important realizations and am going to write up the appropriate ones into thank-you cards for Griffin and Sabine, each. The following is the majority of the entry, edited for clarity.

***

6:20 a.m.  12-21-13  YULE! SOLSTICE!

Realized earlier that I didn’t do much for a long time [after I moved to Seattle] because I was healing. I’d wanted to just be cared for during all those months and years after Mom’s death — was so tired and drained and hurting and scared for all that time. So I got here and [Griffin and Sabine] took care of me. I may have needed care for longer than we all expected, but I am finally coming out of this mental and emotional space and doing chores around the house. Griffin being temporarily less able spurred me.

I am feeling more healed, I realized. Something that was clenched inside of me has loosened. I still have a lot to work on, but maybe I am now better able to not only work more effectively but recognize my progress.

Anger and Compassion

Dangerous

My housemate Sabine is a very angry person. She is also kind and generous. But as someone living with her, I would not agree with "sweet" the way those who do not live with her (or are not married to her) think she is. Because when she gets angry, she uses her anger like a sledgehammer and woe to him, or her, who gets in her way.

Unfortunately for me, I have issues relating to anger, particularly to other people's anger, whether it's directed toward me or not. I want to cower, I want to hide, I want to run.

My friend Julie would say this is one of my Life Lessons. My therapists would all say I can use this as an opportunity to deal with my issues about anger. I'd like to tell them all to jump in the lake, but that would just be petty. Especially because they are right.

I wish I could help Sabine. I think she needs therapy, but she is not someone I can suggest that to. There is always a wall around her that I think no one can penetrate, except maybe her mom. Not even her husband, Griffin, gets that close.

And, basically, the only person we can fix is ourselves. That's another lesson I'm learning.

Feeling, Detaching, Continuing

I haven't written in wow — 10 days! I know I usually write about my therapy, but last week, I just couldn't.

Last week's therapy ended up being very emotional and very raw. We started talking about what I wrote about in my last post and pursued it far into my mind and my feelings to see what is behind this desire to reconnect with my past. At the very base of the vortex, we found abandonment and being completely alone. Intellectually, I know that my family did not abandon me and I am not completely alone (besides that fact that we are all basically one on one level). I have people who love me, both locally and scattered across the country. But, at the heart of the matter, those are what I feel.

I cried some. Not as bad as most of the times I cried in Karen's office, but the first time I've cried in Michele's, and the first time I've cried in a while. I really don't like to cry, for numerous reasons. Even more, I don't like to cry in front of someone else. It exhausts me. And when I experience a strong emotion, afterward I detach from emotion for some amount of time.

We ended the hour with a long imaging session. Imaging, visualization, creative imaging: whatever you want to call it. Michele led me and helped me find my way through it and discover things. I'm not going to describe it because it's intensely personal and there are very few people I would be comfortable sharing it with. Hell, I'm barely comfortable sharing it with myself!

Thus, whenever I thought about writing for the blog, I kept thinking about writing about the session, then about how I didn't want to write about the session. So I didn't write, and I didn't write.

I had therapy again today, and after I finished chattering, I told Michele about how I didn't write about last week's session and why. Which in turn led to my emotion/detachment pattern.

I don't want to have this pattern. Last week, on the way home, I left the radio off so I could stay with the feelings from the session and the imaging work. I wanted to ride that emotional wave to the end, the way Michele encouraged me to do. And I did ride it, all the way home. Then, exhausted, I took a long nap. Afterward, I didn't return to thinking about the therapy session or my feelings or the work we'd done and ended with. I didn't do so again until today's therapy.

Power, Protection, and Progress

So. Therapy today was powerful. We talked about a major theme in my life: power and powerlessness, authenticity and invisibility. I came away with my mind spinning, feeling full to the brim, and feeling good. I even turned off my radio so my mind could keep resonating with what we talked about and when I got home I wrote the important bits down so I'd remember them.

It started off with me talking about the TED Talk by Amy Cuddy about body language and using it to change your own perceptions and feelings and behaviors. About the "Wonder Woman pose" that the media has played up and how to use it. (And I have used it, and Amy's other suggestions, and they seem to actually work.)

From there we went into how I diminish my own strengths and talents and accomplishments, and why I do so. I tend to have "don't look at me, I'm no threat" submissive and powerless postures: head or eyes down, shoulders hunched, arms and legs drawn in. I have often thought that I don't deserve as much space as other people, as much air as other people.

Then we went to why. Mostly self-protection, plus a lot of being squashed so much I've just given in and stayed squashed most of the time. Because of being molested, and from such a young age. Because my parents were always telling me "don't show off" (my intelligence and vocabulary), "don't brag," even while encouraging my little brother to show what an exceptional athlete he was and revolving our lives (mine included) around his sports. Because at a job I stayed at for six years (four years longer than I should have), my boss and co-workers treated me worse and worse the more authentically I lived my life and the more I threatened their world view: I both worked AND wrote (and published a story); I took a month off and went to Britain; I took six weeks off and attended a full-time writers' workshop (that you have to apply and compete for). Some people can be downright hostile if you do what they have told themselves they cannot do because that is How Things Are.

I have often in my life felt that The Universe hates me. It has seemed as if, just when my life was going particularly well, the Universe has reached out and slammed me, with moving when I was 16, with the deaths of my father and my brother and my mother, and with other things. And that has happened a lot, but there are times when I've been slammed while things were going very badly, and I'm sure there have been times when things have been going well and I haven't been slammed (I just have to remember them!).

Stuck to Unstuck? My New Journey

Oh, how badly I've been stuck. I've been exhausted. My brain has felt clogged and slow. I've taken naps for hours almost every day. I have done virtually nothing to further my plans or contribute to the household. I have been a lump since arriving in Seattle.

Luckily for me, my hosts have been very understanding of my exhaustion and have asked little of me so far. Friends have supported my need for sleep and rest. It's just been me who has had higher expectations.

I have a comprehensive list of things I need to do: catch up with people online and over the phone; contact professional connections; get in touch with local contracting agencies; join professional organizations and meetups and attend meetings and events; unpack what I brought to the house; and begin revising my novel.

I don't expect myself to do everything every day or all at once. I have date ranges for everything in my list. Of course, I'm behind on probably half the list so far. But maybe that's due to my unreasonable expectations in the face of unexpected setbacks. Like needing to sleep all the time.

I have a long history of overindulging myself. In response to what seemed to me a lifetime of excessive and unreasonable expectations and a lack of understanding of my needs, I began to allow myself to slack off on things, which started small and gradually grew to encompass everything in my life.

Well, I've completely changed my life again and this, too, must change. There are things I want to do and things I need to do and blowing them off is not acceptable to me any longer. Blowing off these things does not lead to the life I want to live. And that's the important point: there is a life I want to live and I have to put in the time and effort to create it. Always before, I've waited for it to happen. No more.

When I was younger, I pursued my life more actively, so I know I can do it. There are many things I did and was when I was younger: I cleaned frequently and regularly; I wrote and drew and painted on virtually a daily basis; I did physical activities that I enjoyed; and I didn't dwell on my mostly solitary state. And I daydreamed. I played. I imagined. Those are important things in anybody's life, but particularly in the life of a creative person.

So I'm going to relearn old good habits and discard current bad ones. I'm going to be healthier in ways that I can enjoy. I'm going to rediscover my true self and let her out of the various boxes and closets where I've hidden her and all her wonderful, brilliant aspects. I'm going to love for love's sake, I'm going to love and value myself, and I'm going to live a full and rich life for as long as I possibly can.

Cognitive Slips, Mozambique Epiphanies, and My Nose

It's been a rather full week here in Skye World. I'm currently sitting on the couch with bandages on my nose and behind my ear and with thoughts buzzing and whirling around in my head like so many hummingbirds and butterflies.

On Monday, my therapist and I talked about my last post, about having the blues and just being down. She said my "cognitive slip" was showing. Basically, the tone of my post was one of powerlessness, as if I had no options but to feel depressed and oppressed and anxious. I wasn't using my cognitive skills to look at my situation differently or to see options. For example, instead of being depressed and staying depressed over the darkness of the weather and feeling like I was living in a cave, I could have acknowledged that I felt low but that I could then change it. I could have watched funny movies on Netflix. I could have taken on a project (and I have plenty of those) to turn my mind in a different direction. I could have blessed the rain for helping Houston against the drought. So I need to work more on my cognitive skills.

Then I was stressing about the decision whether to stay in Houston or move back to Seattle. There are pluses and minuses on both sides. I've gotten a lot of input from a variety of people about it. Then I was offered a full-time job by the people I did work for at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Right then I realized that I'd rather move to Seattle. Then I was offered a contract from that company to work on a job that would require me to work and live in Mozambique for 28 days, then leave and let another writer be there for 28 days, then I'd go back and so on for 6 months or more, and I could live in Seattle if I wanted. I even said yes because it seemed ideal.

Then the anxiety set in. And the stress. I was already still stressing from my cognitive slip and from my upcoming skin cancer surgery. Did I really want to travel to and from Africa and live there for a month at a time? Was it safe? Could I handle it? My cognitive slip got worse. But some of my friends talked to me and gave me their opinions and advice, which actually helped me focus on what was causing me so much anxiety. I realized that I'm not yet to a level where I could handle something like the Mozambique job, for a whole lot of reasons. But I can handle finding work in Seattle and moving there. Mozambique helped me see where I am with my mental health work and how much I still need to do. Luckily for me, the company was very understanding when I told them I didn't want that job, and they are even going to keep me in mind for projects I could do while I'm looking for work in Seattle.

Lingering Effects

People say you shouldn't live in the past, and I agree with that. What I don't agree with is when people say "you shouldn't let what happened in the past affect you now." 

It's not like it's a choice. Past traumas have to be dealt with and processed before you can move on. Some people are lucky enough to have done that processing back when the trauma happened. Others of us were a little overflowing in the trauma department and are still working on processing old traumas.

For example, my discussions of connections and friendship with my therapist. This week we were just chatting at first and we got on the topic of my rosacea, which is doing the best it's ever done. It's mostly pink with some light red areas. Before I had laser treatment on it in 2007 (thanks, Mom!), it was pretty much the color of a fire truck in bright sunlight, and was that way since I was 12 or 13. 

That took us into a discussion of the effects the rosacea had on me in junior high and much of the rest of my life, because people ALWAYS commented on it, asking if I'd been out in the sun and gotten a sunburn, offering home remedy suggestions, and, in junior high, being total asshats about it, pointing it out, calling me names, and in general picking on me to an extreme extent. Yes, I was that kid, the one who everyone picked on and put down so as to not be the lowest person on the totem pole. 

I also think my rosacea contributed in part to my lack of romantic success: it made me stand out in a non-attractive way and men are very visual creatures. As a couple of friends said when we talked about my face over the years, they noticed the red a lot until we became good friends. Then they never noticed it again. So a guy would have had to become friends with me to even get past the redness of my face, I imagine. But no, I'm not going to blame the rosacea entirely for my eternal singlehood: I just think it was a contributing factor both as being visually off-putting to others (people are still more attracted to attractive individuals) and developing in me a hesitancy and a defensive manner toward others.

The Center of All Things

Today's therapy became very philosophical. A post of mine appeared on the What EveryBetty Said blog today and it was about the concept of all things being transitory. This led to my thinking about how I lost my anchor and my center when my mom died because she was those things to me. Then I wondered if maybe I'm making my BFF into those things in her place, and if I should pull back a little bit.

My therapist saw things differently. She's listened to me talk about the Zen Buddhist and Stoic philosophies that I read on and her take was about risk and needing to risk pain and the negative emotions (think in terms of the negative space on a graph) in order to have the possibility of joy and love and the full range of positive emotions (the upper, positive part of a graph). That what I really need is to create my center, my anchor, within myself, not pull back from people so I don't risk pain.

There are a lot of reasons why my center is not within myself. My parents did not raise me to be self-sufficient. In fact, my father — a cop — taught my mother to handle a gun and my little brother to handle a gun, but did not teach me. I was warned away from tools and ladders and other "dangerous" things because I "might get hurt." I was sheltered and protected, at least as they saw it (they didn't protect me from being molested) and pretty much expected to marry someone who would continue to take care of me. Even though my mother worked outside of the home and she made equal decisions with my father and was in no way submissive or second to him. It was all very weird — I saw that even as a kid. So I didn't develop an interior locus of control or a sense of self-confidence in the face of difficulty.

Next, well, are the traumas in my life. Molestation. Bullying. Then losing my father, then my brother before I was 22. I held onto my mother with both metaphorical hands and all my might: she was the reason I chose not to take my own life after my brother took his and I could barely cope: I felt a responsibility to my mom to not put her through that again. So she was my reason for living for a very long time. She anchored me to this life.

One of the biggest problems I've had since Mom died was this lack of a center or an anchor, a lack of being grounded. My therapist proposed that this is what I work on. Be my own center so that I can embrace those I love without leaning on them so that if they go away I won't fall over. Be grounded on my own feet so that passing traumas cannot knock me over. Be able to still love and care with a whole heart, without crumbling should I lose who I love.

The concept is a simple one, sure, but not easy for me to achieve. It's spiritual: what in my non-deitific life gives me a spiritual center? It's cognitive: what have I accomplished that proves to me that I am self-reliant and independent? It even touches that part of me that is kinesthetic in nature: not leaning, standing on my own feet, etc., like a Weeble ("Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall DOWN!")

I'll address these aspects of centeredness and my life in later posts (or this one is going to be far too long; besides, then I'll have ready-made ideas for later posts). Right now, I'd like to know, do you feel centered and grounded within yourself? What does or does not give you that sense?

What's In My Toolkit?

A few days ago, my friend Mary wrote a post about the "toolkit" she uses for controlling her weight, now that she's had bariatric surgery. I commented on how the toolkit needed depends on the person and the issue and wondered what was in her toolkit. So she wrote a post answering that question and asked what is in other people's toolkits. I'm finally answering that question.

I have two basic issues I'm working on: my mental health and my physical health. The toolkits overlap, but the issues each have their own specific needs as well.

Something that is crucial to both my mental and physical health is self-awareness. Without it, I wouldn't be aware of what my triggers are (I am learning), when and how I need to apply the other tools, and how I am doing in general. Without self-awareness, I wouldn't be able to even successfully carry out my various exercises and changes.

I also need the strong desire to be healthy. Without it, I wouldn't have the will or the interest in doing the hard work needed to become healthy, mentally or physically.

My Mental Health Toolkit

• Medications: I need meds to be functional at all right now, and I'm on pretty high doses because of how non-functional I was without them. My goal is to end up taking the lowest therapeutic dosages for at least one and to drop the other two.
• Therapy: I see my therapist once a week and she's good. She works with cognitive-behavioral therapy, which I guess a lot of therapists don't do. This is the therapy I need most right now, although she has some other kinds in her bag of help as well that we may use later. But my thinking is so broken that cognitive therapy is what is called for.
• Some specific self-help books: I have books on cognitive-behavioral therapy, shame therapy, and self-compassion. All of them are basically cognitive — working on broken thinking — so they work together from different angles. I get very thrilled when I do something suggested in one of these books and it works.
• Exercises from these books: The exercises are terrific and they push me into exploring my issues more and putting into practice what I'm learning in the books. I share my exercises with my therapist and am always pleased when she says I got something just right, or how pleased she is with my work. I need exercises; I need the tangible work to pound that understanding and the practice into my head.
• Hope: I have to believe that "well" is possible and that I can get there. I have to have hope that what I'm doing will help me become well, or as close to it as I can possibly get.

My Toolkit for Physical Health

• Baby steps: Doing everything in small steps so I don't overdo and then fall on my face thereafter. If I overdo the exercise, it won't become a habit, it will become something I avoid and I won't get any pleasure out of it. If I don't allow myself to occasionally have a treat of some kind, I will feel deprived and I won't be able to stay on eating well.
• Ability to eat the same thing over and over again: What? you may be saying. What does this have to do with anything? Well, I don't cook. I know I need to learn. But as I'm taking my baby steps, I need to be able to eat healthy food that's easy to prepare. Thus, being able to eat the same thing for breakfast every day, the same thing for lunch every day, the same thing for dinner every day, is necessary. At least that way I can eat healthy.
• A love for fresh berries, granola, oatmeal, dried fruit, nuts: These are foods I can eat daily, even more than once a day if I want. They are healthy,  they make great breakfasts and snacks, and they don't require much preparation, a big plus for me. Of course, the best fresh berries are only in the summer, so I'm glad I like dried fruit, too.
• Knowing that I've done better before: I used to cook, quite easily. I used to make healthy foods and I didn't binge on sweets. I know that I can live that way again because I have in the past. It's the mental health that took away my healthy habits, so it's developing better mental health that will help me re-develop those habits again.
• Exercise: This is basic, but difficult for me. I used to walk a lot, but I haven't been doing any exercise for a couple of years. I finally started doing some basic exercises around the house on a schedule developed for me by a friend. I increase my exercises very slowly — baby steps! — and it doesn't feel onerous.

As you can see, there is definitely overlap between the two toolkits. I have to maintain self-awareness in several areas. Then, there are the less obvious overlaps: how I eat probably affects my mood and my meds probably affect my body. Exercise can affect my mood. A strong desire for a whole healthiness can keep me working on both sets of issues, even when it's difficult or uncomfortable.

I admit, I find it easier to do the mental health work than the physical health work. I've always been more intellectual than physical. So in addition to the tools I have, I need to acquire one more tool: a stronger will to do the work even when I don't feel like it, to leave the sugary treats alone, and to take the time to do the work, such as the therapy exercises or making something to eat rather than just nibbling on stuff. I've grown very self-indulgent and have to remind myself that if I indulged a child the way I indulge myself, I would consider it at the very least child neglect. I guess I need to be a good parent to myself and kick my butt when I'm not doing what I need to do.

So there you have my toolkits. Do you have any toolkits to help you as you go along in your life? What is in them? I'd love to know!

Has It Been Six Weeks Already?

My e-course on shame, love, and worthiness is almost over and I haven't reported in to to you folks at all! The time just flew by and I'm behind in my reading of the teacher's book, but I'm finally caught up with everything else.

There is a lot to learn about how to become shame resilient, and the most important lesson is the last, of course: your healing can depend on your telling someone what you feel and what you need, but not on whether or not they give it to you or what their response is. And that is so true!

My life has been full of shame from various sources and for various reasons, from the mild shame my mom used to try to get me to stop biting my nails ("boys won't want to hold hands with you") to the major shame of having been sexually molested for most of my early and young childhood. (Not by anyone in my nuclear family.) The baseball story I told several posts back is a story of my teammates shaming me and my coach and my parents allowing it. I have lots of such stories.

And now I have some tools for dealing with any shame in the present and future. I have tools for looking at past shames and letting them go (I think).

One of the big points for me was that shame is normal and it happens to everyone every day. There is always someone around who tries to control you using shame. While I have taken on the badge that being normal isn't attractive, that I liked being "different", "weird", "unique", etc., I think it has been shame that has left me feeling isolated and like I wasn't lovable or likable and that I didn't belong. It's one thing to belong to a group (nerds, geeks, jocks, etc.), but to feel that I don't belong to any group is too isolating. It's not healthy. 

Where Was I?

So much has happened since my last post, written that innocent day in mid-August when life seemed so much simpler. Full of work to do, yes, but not as complicated as it was to become. I'm very glad I didn't know the future!

Where do I start? I added a week to my two-week stay so I could finish all the tasks I needed to finish. Two days before I was due to fly back to Houston, I had an emergency appendectomy. Luckily for me, I finished all the main things I needed to finish and had sequestered my own things in one place. Sure, a few small things went missing after that, but I hadn't gotten around to sequestering them, and who needs more than one copy of the key to the lock on the storage unit? Only those of us with OCD issues about losing the remaining key.

So I had surgery. And no home to return to: it was being readied for the estate sale. But people offered to let me stay with them, and I was and remain grateful to them for this. My realtor/friend was more nurturing than my mom's friend, so it's good I stayed with my realtor first. Plus, she had no animals, which made my time there very peaceful. I entertained her and her husband, even when I wasn't looped out on Percocet; later on she told me that, during a rather uneventful visit by her nephew, she and her husband looked at each other and said, "I miss Skye!" Aww. They want me to stay with them the next time I visit.

But there went another week and a couple of days before my doctor said I could travel.

Then my friend Steve from Seattle drove down and took me back to Seattle for a much-needed visit. Not only was I not entirely recuperated enough to be sent home, I needed to be with my friends there to distract me from the anniversary of my mother's death. (Actually, I think I did my grieving as I lay in pre-op, realizing that my mom couldn't be there for me then and wouldn't be there for me afterward.)

Finally, five weeks and two days after I left Houston, I returned home. My car, parked under cover at the Park n Fly lot, started right off. For only the second time since surgery, I drove; I got home fine, but I was exhausted and my tummy was sore. And the apartment was just as messy as it was when I left it, unfortunately. Where are those house-elves when you need them?

I've rested a lot since I got home — I can only go so long before I simply fall over, and so long isn't that long. I gave myself the first three days to lie around in my pjs and do nothing. 

I've accomplished things, I've left the apartment, and yet the place is still virtually as messy as before. Tomorrow, my mom's — now my — RAV4 arrives in Houston, driven by a couple of very generous friends. Soon thereafter, they drive away in my Subaru, taking it to its new home. Change, change, change, change. Dammit.

I have projects promised, I have been offered an insane work proposition, and I have a lot of people to reconnect with. But I'm taking it slowly, because my tummy still hurts and my mind is still swirling from the point when everything flew apart and I just haven't landed yet.

I have some posts started when I was still in Oregon that I'll finish and post, later. But I wanted to catch up to the present, before reaching back into the past. I have so much to do, and so much I want to do, that I wanted to at least settle onto the hard-packed earth of right now. I lost my footing. I need to ground myself so I can go on.

So here I am: crazy and tired and swirly and wanting to work and so much less sure of things than I expected to be at this point. I keep reminding myself: this is not my true natural state; this is an artifact of the way my life has been for over a year. Slowly perhaps, I will make my way back to the focused, fun, highly capable, and cheerful person that is me. My current state is transitional and temporary and I'll sweep it out the door just as quickly as I can.

With that, I bid you good night.

Rejoicing in a Death

It makes sense, of course, to rejoice when a boogeyman has been destroyed, and Osama bin Laden has been the worst boogeyman in contemporary American memory. A feeling of relief and catharsis has brought a nation to its feet, cheering with joy. Perhaps tomorrow many will feel sorrow over being so pleased that someone, even someone so evil, has been murdered.

That his murder was necessary is not in question. Neither is the goodness of those who stalked and killed him: what they did was as necessary as building latrines for the health of those they serve with and building relationships with those they strive to serve.

And for many in our nation, this death may be the beginning of a healing. As the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001 and the word was passed through the airwaves that a terrorist cell was responsible, the worldview of many, many people bent and broke. Because Americans have long believed that we are "safe" and that no harm could come to us on our earth.

The events on 9/11 catapulted the U.S. into a state that most of the world's countries have existed in for decades — the sure knowledge that terror and violence can occur anywhere and anytime. That knowledge was a breaking point for belief systems that relied on safety as its anchor point. For many people, this knowledge created a free-floating anxiety that they didn't understand or even perceive except as a new distrust and a new uncertainty about everything.

I have a good friend who is an example of this. Not only did 9/11 overturn his feelings of sure safety, but it was sharply followed by a moderate collapse of our economy: a double dose of fear to digest.

While I feel sorrow that we rejoice in a death — and even I do to some extent — I hope it helps my friend heal. I hope it helps all of us heal.