The Wrong Life

Sometimes in therapy I learn something about myself that seems so new, or I get a brilliant new perspective or I see something I hadn't seen clearly before. I guess that's why going to therapy remains worth it. (Besides that whole life ring while I'm drowning in depression thing, of course.) Moments like that bring into sharp focus how for quite a few years I learned nothing new in therapy.

In my mind, I sometimes try to "re-do" my past, think that I can somehow "fix" things. I know it isn't rational: I'm not going to be able to make my family be alive again or change any of a number of other past traumas. But emotionally I feel as if I can do so if only I do it right.

People define themselves differently. In many places in the world, people define themselves by their place within their community. The Navaho people define themselves by their family connections. LIke the Navaho, so did I. Without my family, I feel cut off, I feel like there are huge gaping holes inside me that nothing can fill.

This is not how my life should be. I wanted to marry and have children: I would have made a terrific wife and mother. I am nurturing and loving and giving. The fact that no one ever wanted to marry me has long made me feel there is something wrong with me. I see so many people who have lifelong relationships, people who don't seem to have the qualities I have, people who are takers or who are high-maintenance, and I have to wonder what is wrong with me that no one wanted what I have to give.

My brother was supposed to be my friend when we grew up. He was supposed to be here with me after our parents died. Our children would have been friends and we would have spent a lot of time together.

Pro and Con of Living Alone

Pro: In my house in Oregon, which required remodeling, I could choose all the surfaces, styles, paint colors, and bathroom fixtures myself, without having to compromise (not even in the face of my contractor's whining).

Con: Because there is no one here, I shall have to change the dressings on my back By My Self! 

I went to the dermatologist today and he took samples of something on my nose and something on my back and he took care of a cyst on my back, all of which required cutting and now require care for one to two weeks. The cyst was practically in the middle of my back and I couldn't even see it with a hand mirror. Now I have to place a piece of gauze with some stuff on it and a bandage on that place that I cannot see when I turn around. Twice a day. And make sure none of it develops a scab — yeah, I'll be able to tell if that's happening. And hell, the nose doesn't even have a bandage on it, so the easy one is a breeze to deal with.

Sigh. I don't think you can even hire someone to do this for you.

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.

The Story of My Life - Part 2

As I explained in Part 1, my therapist told me that there is another way to look at my life, rather than the powerless, victimized, trauma-ridden way. She talked about it as telling stories about our lives and how we can choose to emphasize different things. I've learned to emphasize the sad and fearful things, but my life has had so much more than that to it.

So here's another way to look at the story of my life. Beware: this is even longer than Part 1. If you want, you can scroll to the end and just read the conclusions.

It's true that I was molested, became afraid of the dark, and was bullied for many years. But I didn't live with my cousin (or my grandfather) and wasn't around either too often for the most part. And I didn't live near my school peers who bullied me. So I had the room to build a stronger self than it first seemed.

Although victimized early, and having parents who were kind of clueless about how to raise me and what was going on in my life, I did some powerful things. There was the time I taught myself to ride a two-wheel bicycle in a day so that my parents would buy me one. Because we didn't live near my school friends and there was seldom anyone for me to play with, I learned to keep myself entertained  --- I was bad at most sports so the boys in the neighborhood didn't usually want to play with me if they were playing football or baseball, and none of the girls were my age. I enjoyed skating around the cul de sac for long periods, I loved to read and write and draw, and I liked pretending to be a detective or something else that required me to sneak around the neighborhood. I didn't retaliate against my bullies, nor did I become cynical and bitter. When things got better for me in 10th grade, I simply enjoyed my good fortune and made more friends.

Then I survived a move away from everything and everyone I'd ever known. I survived the death of my father from a heart attack. And I survived going away to college and even thrived there. I was wary enough and strong enough to take myself out of an uncomfortable situation and move out of my aunt and uncle's house and into on-campus housing. And I did begin the steps toward adulthood, something I didn't realize until I casually brought up the following story to my therapist. 

When I Was Alone

I was the only girl my age in the cul de sac where I grew up, which meant that I only had people to play with when the boys needed an extra number or they were feeling generous (or when a girlfriend from school asked me to come over for the afternoon). After all, I couldn't catch or throw a baseball to save my life (although my football spiral was a thing of beauty) and my basketball skills were unreliable. I had reasonably thick glasses from the time I was nine, which probably had something to do with it.

But I was the only kid who wanted to play the part of Spock when we played Star Trek with someone's LEGOs and sometimes they needed an extra number for a sports game (my little brother was a thousand times better than I was by the time he was seven, so he took my place completely when I was 11, which was also when the boys determined I was truly a girl. After all, I was now wearing a training bra.

So I played alone a lot, even before I got a bra.

The thing was, I was only seldom sad about it. I'm alone most of the time now, too, but I'm sad about it most of the time. What was different and how do I get back to not minding being alone?

Speechless

I can't think of anything good or positive to say right now, so I'm probably not talking to you much. There is only so much self-pity someone else can stand.

Right now, I am miserable, my life is miserable and overly challenging and I'm making no progress. I have tried and I am trying as hard as I can. Will I keep trying? For now, that is unknown.

So if I'm not writing (and I gave up Nano ... again ... commitment issues?), it's because I have nothing to say that isn't about misery and grief and the Abyss. And there is really no point in writing about all of that.

I am positively speechless.

Oh, and yesterday was Mom's birthday.

Semi-Random

I'm finally coming out of the fog of that shock and initial grief. I don't remember much from the first few days after Mom died, and I've spent most of the past three weeks kind of floating, unable to accomplish anything.

But on Thursday, I feel like I woke from a sound sleep. The sun was shining. I accomplished tasks. I went outside. Since then I have felt aware.

I feel desperate for a recent picture of my mom, and for the sound of her voice. I've dialed her phone number just to hear her message. Kind of pathetic, but who cares. I want to find a way to record it so I can listen when I need to.

Is this truly my life?

Have you ever heard about Smith Magazine's "Six-Word Memoir" projects? You describe your life in six words. They have published several books from what their readers share.

Traditionally, when one loses one's parents, one is usually in one's fifties or sixties, or older if one is lucky, and the parent(s) in their seventies or eighties or more. It is hard to lose a parent, of course, but there usually exists a spouse and children, probably siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles, to comfort one.

To steal someone else's memoir, my life has been "Not quite what I had expected." Or, more accurately: "It's all gone so horribly wrong." 

Because I have none of those people to comfort me. I have this aunt, who has not been a part of my life for 90% of it, as well as her children who I had not seen since the younger ones (now in the thirties) were ten. I have a half-brother who has been even less than 5% of my life and who drops into it now and then when it suits him. He always says he will call in a couple of days, even when I told him about Mom's death. That was more than a week ago. It's okay — I expected that.

Other aunts and uncles let go of me — and I of them — a couple of decades or more ago.

And my younger brother, the treasure of my life, died very young.

This is not how my life should be. Nothing has gone the way it should. Even allowing for my father's dying of a heart attack when I was seventeen, I should have my younger brother as my sibling and friend. I should have married and had children — if anyone was "made" for such things, I was. Family has always meant so much to me, and has been so elusive.

Cancer-related

My mom has cancer. It came as such a surprise. I'm sure everyone who develops cancer or who is close to someone who does feels the same surprise, the same shock.

We had made the mistake of thinking life is fair --- we have lost so much. We had succumbed to the belief that all of life's hardships and good fortune balance out, but they don't. I knew that, but I had forgotten. Life is reminding me.

I've heard and read that hardship teaches you something you need to learn; I've heard the same about cancer.

People say that hardship teaches you to value each minute of the day. However, "teaching" implies directed volition and a teacher. I don't believe in such a teacher. In my belief system, life has a great deal of randomness and chance. Entropy, if you like. Serendipity, too. And what is cancer except entropy experienced in the most personal way?

Grief becomes easier to endure when you have practice at it. You no longer feel as if you will die from it. All of the losses I've experienced have been horribly painful and have left holes in my life and in me. But I've known Mom the longest, and we are not only mother and daughter but great friends. And when she dies, I lose the last of my family. Thinking of being so alone wrenches me --- I'm tearing up and hurting just writing this.

In the end, Mom and I will do what we always have done: we will get through it. Well, for Mom it will be over. For her, I guess, there is no "through" but simply an end. After the final moment of her life, I will get through it alone.

I just hadn't expected to do so this soon.

The Texas Skye in Summer

I'm living in the land of summer. The land of sunshine and heat. The land of warmth in temperature and warmth in people.

The land of tropical storms and hurricanes and killing levels of heat and humidity.

I worry about summer here. I worry about August and September, which are supposed to be the killer months, the months that could send me running for the PNW without so much as packing my bags.

I mean, it's not like the temps will faze me. I've been happily roasting (in limited amounts) in 97-degree weather (heat index 101-103). I walk outside from the extremely cold newspaper office, where I have to wear a sweater, and toast myself until I feel warm. Then I walk back into the ice cube of work. And about half the time, I don't turn on my AC in the car, preferring to warm myself as I drive (once the 140-degree heat leaks out thru the open windows, of course).

People are amazed by my tolerance and joy in the heat. They know where I've been. And I've dealt with 100+ degree weather in Eastern Washington (a LONG time ago) and occasionally in Seattle or in the Willamette Valley. Last year May, it hit 103 for a freak weather day in Lincoln City.

But the humidity: I worry about tolerating 110 degrees with 98% humidity for 2 months. I worry about the fact that I have things in my apartment that I want to keep. I worry about the fact that I bought a really nice couch last weekend (to be delivered next week) and would need to move that sucker if I fled.

Then there are the storms; it is now officially storm season.

I worry that maybe I can tolerate neither the NW nor the South, but I cannot afford the northern California coastal or near-coastal areas. (Because that would be the ideal climate for me.) I've made a couple of friends here. I might be on the way to making one or two more: this is so quick for me! :) What if I feel the need to leave?

I worry about money: unemployment ran out and I'm now living on my savings, which represents all the money I have in the world. Well, that and the bit of money I make at The Tribune, which pays for my health insurance, plus a little more. Maybe dinners out.

I don't mind being alone so much anymore. A friend from back "home" asked me how I was when I was a child, what did I do when I was alone. And I remembered that I was mostly solitary as a child, too.

So what did I do? Solitary things, things that occupied me; I rarely felt lonely. I read books. I wrote, I drew, I painted. I rode my bike around and around the cul de sac when my mom wouldn't let me ride out of it. I skated around and around, too. I played with my "dangerous" things: Fun Flowers when I was a child, a toy that could burn you pretty good and that I never had adult supervision when using, never hurt myself with; and my chemistry set when I was a little older, ditto for supervision and never hurting myself (even when I broke a test tube). I climbed a tree and I made my own detective kit to pretend with.

I guess it's time to let myself free of expectations. And just enjoy me, enjoy my life and the sunshine and the heat.

And to create: I've started a creative crochet project (picked up a couple of books); I have a painting sketched out and the supplies ready; I am working on not one, not two, but THREE novel ideas; I have a blog (obviously), and I have a website that desperately needs Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that potential clients can find me---my site doesn't come up in the first two or three DOZEN pages when you search on "Houston writer/editor" or "Houston freelance writer" or "Houston technical writer." That has to change. And I need to add some other things to my site.

All and all, there is no reason for my solitude to be difficult.

Only the summer heat, and the summer humidity.

Only the expectations and fears floating around in the Texas Skye.