Long, hot zazen

Long, hard, hot day. Went into the office from CK's and had a busy day right up until I left at 1PM to ride home in the 90 degree weather. I went slow, took drinks of water and just kept going. My face was bright red by the time I made it home. Took a call for planning activities and then went to my appointment with my therapist.

She worked on trying to help me see that I have been making progress. That I was able to talk about the shame that comes up around intimacy. She noted that a year ago I wouldn't have been able to talk at all, my body physically was shutting me down with stuttering and terrible muscle spasms on top of nausea. The shame just feels so sticky and hard to move away from.

We also started into more stuff about my Mom, the tremendously inappropriate things she would do sometimes. While going through things this week I found the card from an anonymous bouquet she had sent to school. From her perspective she was providing me a wonderful, mysterious, romantic surprise but I recall at the time being very embarrassed and uncomfortable about it. More so when I finally figured out that my Mom had done it. She never did get why I would feel anything other than delight.

It has really been starting to hit me how not only did she try to live out the things she wanted to do as a kid through me, regardless of my desire to do the same things or not, but she tried to live out what she wanted from a romantic life using me. Pushing me towards relationships, wanting to talk about boys and that I should wear things to show off my body. All very uncomfortable for me. She played along with the "family joke" that I never seemed to develop a bust line and when I complained she was the first one to note that I was being uptight and should just learn to take some teasing.

It made for a very painful zazen. I was also acutely aware of CK sitting next to me, knowing she could tell I was hurting. And we sat. Somehow, despite a desire to run away into the night. Then I chanted and did bells, somehow.

Am going to work from home tomorrow despite the weather forecast of 100+ temperature tomorrow. Just feel a bit too exposed, worn from today to go in. Besides, if I stay home I can bake in the morning and make green tea cupcakes to take out to the Jizo-bon on Saturday.