The Weight of Her Regret

It has really hit me the past couple of weeks just how ill my Mom is. It wasn't that I was truly in denial, but just a real depth of grief that I've been feeling. I think the bittersweet energy of getting ready for a trip to the Oregon coast this past weekend, the sense of urgency around taking trips with her while she can still enjoy them is part of it. Another was overhearing her say to someone at a gallery that she was dying.

What occurred to me is that I've never heard my Mom make that kind of admission. She's always met cancer, or her other ills, head on and ready for a fight. Her response has always been that she's going to beat this latest assault to her body. Now she doesn't say that, she says that she is dying. She's does offer that she believes in miracles, so who knows what could happen, but that is usually an aside to saying she's finally, right now, alright with dying.

The cancer, somewhat at the top of her stomach, is late into Stage 2. This usually means it has spread to multiple layers of the stomach and/or the lymph nodes. It is causing her discomfort, nausea, and vomiting, particularly if she eats things that are difficult for the stomach to process. Because of these problems she's fighting some malnourishment already.

Last week CK and I picked up Mom and took her to a small place south of Yachats. She had been a little worried at first about what she'd eat, but finally decided she was up for trying new things. I spent much of last week cooking several dishes that were vegan and all soy-free except for the chick pea salad, which had Vegenaise in it. Mom has at times been a little sensitive to soy, although it has been hard to pin down.

We noticed she did pretty well with small meals. I made her a fruit smoothie each morning and added some brown rice protein. She enjoyed our vegan, some raw, dishes very much and didn't seem to get sick from eating them. She did end up eating too much of the lentil/walnut loaf with mashed potatoes & gravy, this made her somewhat nauseated, but she was alright after laying down to rest for a while.

One afternoon we ate out and she ordered a hamburger with bacon and cheese. We didn't say anything, at this juncture it seems rather pointless to bug her. After, back at the inn, CK and I went out onto the rocky shore and Mom lay down. She told us later that this overly indulgent meal ended up making her really nauseated and she eventually vomited. I was relieved when later that day she was able to eat and enjoy a tostada with homemade, refried black beans on a baked corn tortilla.

There she was, very literally made ill by her bad choice and regretting it. I would later point out, after she was feeling better and able to hear it, that the animal proteins and fats are probably more difficult for her stomach to deal with, especially in such a large serving. I don't think a vegan diet will save my Mom's life at all, but I did see in the long weekend that the smaller, vegan meals we're easier on her body.

I later recalled listening to her order that hamburger, hearing the mix of defiance and guilt in her voice. She knew she was doing the wrong thing for her body, but she didn't want to feel like she was somehow denying herself. My Mom's choices so often seem like a child is making them, a child who wants to be indulged and doesn't give a damn about any potential consequences. I've watched this pattern with her again and again, in so many different variations.

Like so many things it seems pointless, cruel even, to shine a light too brightly on her continually making poor choices. Once or twice something she said triggered a painful memory and I felt angry at her for trying to rewrite events in my life, trying to cast herself in a more favorable light. It would strike me how childish the behavior was in many ways, like the bad choices about food, and how sad. The anger would die down pretty quickly I noticed, leaving behind layers and layers of sadness.

I'm sad my Mom is dying. I'll think about something, like what she's doing for Christmas, and it will occur to me that she could be gone before then. I'm sad for the anger I still feel over many of the selfish, mindless choices she's made, but it seems so trivial to bring them up when I watch her and see the layers of pain she's dealing with. I'm sad for all the poor choices she's made and the many ways those choices have left her regretful and unhappy; I can see the weight of the unhappiness and regret on her.

Clear and Present Anger

Had an interesting discussion with my therapist today about JS's comments about the energy of anger in Chinese medicine. She felt it made a lot of sense for this to be stuck for me. My entire life has been a long series of not having the space to set boundaries. As a child my ability to set them was either denied or taken from me if I tried. As an adult I've experienced having people, partners even, disrespect or undermine the boundaries I would try to set.

The result has always been to over compensate. Just function higher, do more, try harder and pick up the slack. Always.

Oh, and when I fail? Self-direct that anger for a perceived inability to always pick up the slack when other people break down those boundaries. Why, yes, that does mean that I beat myself up for failing to be perfect.

She felt that if I could learn to set those firm, clear boundaries around my needs that it would heal the body that responds in muscle spasms to the energy of the anger being stuck, denied. Even more importantly it would heal the awful shame that arises any time I engage my sense of vulnerability around expressing my needs. That I need to address this in the present to heal the old pain.

This seems more attainable. I've been spinning around this idea, fed in part by the writing about trauma recovery, that I've needed to get in touch with the anger I feel about the abuse. I know I do, it does make me angry and I'm really alright with it. I think this is one of those times it is OK to look at a situation and say the anger is reasonable. I've even met the rage of the child I was at 13 while in sesshin (it was deeply unsettling).

But do I feel some need to throw cups and break them? Maybe a little, only in my mind. The thought of standing out in my yard shattering pottery seems kind of silly and excessive. It is a good metaphor - break the dirty cups of my life I have such a hard time not minding. In practice though, I don't really connect to it. Perhaps because in practice I have this vow I made to not give rise to anger, but to seek the source.

When I do engage the feelings and thoughts around the anger at the abuse I feel grief. When I seek the headwaters of it, so to speak. I feel the intense hurt of an injured child and young woman. At times these things have themselves felt terrifying and overwhelming.

Even at those times when I am in direct painful contact with memories of trauma I don't feel the need to scream and throw things. These times are where I come into contact with grief again and I acknowledge that the anger is reasonable. The anger is just there, with the memory. There are memories that I know will always carry anger around them, but it is old and I don't honestly feel the need to let it come rushing back through me in the now. I just want to get it out of my left leg and hip.

GM said she's always felt that this is a more positive thing anyway, that I don't feel some intense need to express the anger beyond acknowledging that it is there. As painful and overwhelming as it gets sometimes it is expressing the emotions that fuel the anger anyway. If I was still stuck in a rage it would mean I wasn't accessing the grief causing it. She felt there isn't really any need to spend time on trying to express the past, other than to keep present to the hurt that arises and greet it compassionately.

This anger energy in the present, that is something to learn. How to use the energy of bamboo shooting up through cold, dark earth to burst forth into green life in the spring. That is the energy of boundary setting.

Resenting Resentment

I feel like I've been sensing those gray edges of depression for a few weeks now. No, I don't feel like I'm sliding deeply into that dark funk, just aware of how it shows up as the growing frustration that seems closer at hand lately. I am so spun up with self-doubt from my Inner Critic that it is causing me to have problems processing what people say to me. Everything I hear comes through the filter of self-doubt and only then seems to confirm the uncertainty I feel or as if I am truly being questioned about my ability.

It is getting tedious.

A suggestion was made to me today - Perhaps I need to actually allow myself to feel the anger I have. To resent the hell out of the things I resent until I'm done resenting them. Yes, I may have acknowledged that I feel it, but I view as if from afar.

Anger feels terrifying to me. This is something not uncommon in abuse survivors. Anger is a signal that things are about to go seriously wrong on some, if not many, levels. Quite often as children we are denied it, punished for it. It is pretty understandable that I really don't have any tools to express it now.

So there it sits. I look at it and go, "eeew, scary anger." Rather like viewing a scary predator at the zoo or aquarium*.

And there I am minding the dirty cup and ignoring the pure wine in it. Again.

Today I was also reminded that the sensation of being broken, that is just the element of suffering we all share. Bad, unfair things happen and each and every one of us is touched in some way by them. We all have some way in which we feel that sensation of brokenness. This is the First Noble Truth.

Leaning into the anger, going through it, is a very sharp point indeed. Practice has taught me that it is possible to relax into grief, to settle into it. I was able to navigate myself, teach myself even in the grip of terrible, ages old fear. But my mind really pulls away from experiencing the anger.

I hear my fearful-mind rationalizing, looking at the anger closely and reminding me of the Ninth Precept. "Oh no," she says, "we cannot give rise to anger."

Yet I know that's another way of keeping that scary predator safely in the tank, behind glass. Viewed, appreciated, acknowledged, but not touched. If anger turned outward is unhealthy for those around us, and anger turned inward is depression, then what is the middle was of experiencing anger in a way that is healthy?


*Just on a side note - I fortunate to see the Great White Shark that was at the Monterey Aquarium a while ago. She was, to borrow inspiration from Umberto Eco, beautiful and terrible, like an army arrayed with banners.

Aversion, Delusion, Attachment and Me

Maybe, just maybe the reason why it is easier to rest in the anxiety of blaming myself for some events in my life, "my failings", than it is to look truly deeply, openly at the real causes. The anxiety, the shame are the lesser pain and they are they pain I'm accustomed to. Comfortable suffering.

It is far easier to blame and castigate myself for "allowing" myself to gain over 150 pounds than it is to realize the truth of my family's deeply disordered behavior around food, body image and personal interaction. Less painful to say that my marriages "failed" or to just rest all the blame on being gay than to look at how the faith and energy I put into those relationships was not met with equal effort. The pain of saying I failed at college is far, far less significant than looking at how a combination of my family environment & childhood abuse and 2 sexual assaults in the 3 years I was at Beloit led to a breakdown.

Anger is merely intensified aversion and Buddhism teaches that aversion (anger) is one of three root causes of suffering (attachment/greed and delusion/ignorance being the other two).

On Wednesday my therapist was shaking her head and half laughing as she asked me if I really, truly was trying to blame myself for all these things. She asked me if I could really see how I was turning into failures things that everyone else in my life sees as amazing successes. She smiled and said that she really thought that only I would find some way to blame myself for behaving exactly the same way as everyone else.

Self-directed blame becomes just another way to avoid being present to the grief and pain. Generating anger at the self has a kind of delusional quality to it, distorting reality until I always come out the failure. Clinging to the idea that things really weren't that bad, attached to my comfortable, known suffering out of fear of sinking into the whole truth.

Distraction

I am feeling distracted today which is no help at all to writing test plans, project plans, or new code. I decided to write down some of what’s distracting me in hopes it will help clear things up for me. I’m also going to make myself go for a walk over to Powell’s to pick out a book to give to one of my SMART readers, who “graduated” from the program this year.

More bad news at work today. In addition to my director’s mother dying last week a co-worker’s brother, who has been battling brain cancer, is in the last stages of his life. He’d gone into remission for a while and things were looking incredibly positive for him. They found another cyst in his brain yesterday. Today he had a few lucid moments and in them asked to have his breathing tube removed, to not replace it should he stop breathing. After receiving this news I sat for a few minutes doing loving-kindness practice for my co-worker and her family.

I think the biggest part of the distracting disquiet is that I believe AM is angry at me and feeling like I’m ignoring him, “pushing” him out of my life. That I was sick for two weeks probably doesn’t measure in much to his feelings. Aside from being sick, I do admit that I have been keeping communication with him down a bit. I’ve been angry with him and rather than confront him about old decisions that cannot be fixed now, I’ve just been trying to work on being present to how things are now. Some distance has helped me from falling into venting that anger at him, merely complaining about the past.

I told Hogen that when I try and pull away the anger and the many times I felt deeply disappointed, I’m just sad. Putting in the garden was bittersweet in many ways, bringing up a lot of that sadness. Sweet because it felt really good to make some progress and the yard, having it look nicer. Bitter because I kept running into tangible evidence of projects, ideas, tools all just set aside to rust and decay. So many instances where an investment of time, if not money, was made only to be abandoned after the initial enthusiasm wore off.

It hurts to remember the many times I questioned this approach, said that I think things should be done in a different order, or at least continued. Most times I was given a list of reasons as to why it was OK that things weren’t progressing how I’d hoped they would or assurances that things would be different, but then weren’t. A lot of times it felt as though my priorities didn’t really matter in the overall scheme of things and that either his priorities were more important or that he had put the priorities of other people ahead of mine, of us.

For some reason it hurts more when I’m holding some rusted tool in my hands that had meant so much to have the year before that spending money on it couldn’t wait until there was actually money to be spent. However, it apparently didn’t mean enough to be put away for the winter so it would be in good shape this spring. I’m not sure why I feel the hurt and anger so keenly when there’s some material reminder around, but there it is.

Broken stuff, broken dreams, broken hopes, broken promises… And the overwhelming feeling that I should have done something differently earlier. At times it feels like every rusted and/or broken thing I find around the house and yard is just further evidence of my complicity, my fault. I feel tremendous shame around all of it.

It isn’t useful at all to dwell on decisions I made then and it is even less useful to direct anger at AM for the decisions he’s made over the years. It doesn’t actually fix anything at all in the present and in the long run only hurts our chances for maintaining some kind of friendship. Nor would any of it change that a fundamental instability in my relationship with AM was my trying to force my sexuality to go the direction I, we, wanted it to go.

Right now I’m finding it challenging to reach out and foster our friendship, although I am trying. It hurts really letting myself feel the deep sense of disappointment I tried hard to ignore, feeling that I didn’t matter enough & that other priorities were more important, and recognizing, mourning the loss. It has been incredibly painful deciding to direct the movement of my life towards my priorities without him, to agree with him that it was time for us to end our marriage.

During my sessions with GM she and I have talked about how we would have eventually hit this point, the need to end my marriage. Last autumn I was still trying to find a way to “figure it all out”, feeling that if I just worked harder at the problem I could fix it. When AM responded to my distress by saying he thought we should end things I was surprised, it was not the direction I was going. After talking with him about it I agreed he was right.

I’ve wondered a lot if he’d be less angry with me if CK wasn’t in my life right now. If he saw that I was without a relationship and struggling more would it be just as easy to be angry with me?

It isn't that I begrudge him his own hurt and anger. I can only assume that just as I am feeling the full impact of the loss and the pain around examining that loss, he is going through the same process in his own way. It would be entirely unreasonable for me to expect him not to feel hurt and angry as well. I guess it just hurts a lot that he’s angry at me.

Noise Irritation

Ugh. I am day two into a spring cold and am none to pleased about it. It makes everything feel like a bit too much to take on. In addition to the whole body "ick" sensation I am sneezy, headachy, itchy, cranky, and probably a few other of the Dwarves of Spring Colds.

Tonight the neighbor, who spends the majority of his time meticulously maintaining his yard, used a pressure washer to clean his drive way for nearly 3 hours. The same neighbor yelled at me Sunday for the state of my yard when I suggested we find a compromise on the tiny strip of earth between our properties that didn't involve him spraying toxic herbicides that then run down onto my property.

After the Loving-Kindness sesshin I can feel the way my heart hardens, closes against the neighbor. Generally I feel mostly some compassion for him, tinged with a sadness that I suppose is rooted in judging the circumstances of his life. Today it was challenging to offer him anything resembling a kind thought at all. He's a good candidate for when I choose to work on Loving-Kindness practice for someone who irritates me.

The noise of the pressure washer felt oppressive with the congestion-amplified pain in my head. On top of that our water bill had arrived today. There's the very realistic cost of that water, financially and environmentally. I feel aware of him literally spraying resources into the sewer system.

Dinner managed to get made and the noise was still this heavy weight as we recited our meal chant. We smiled, joked, rolled our eyes, and commented on the neighbor's behavior. Finally I burst out to CK, "That noise is what my chronic pain sounds like!"

Several years ago I started to use noise to help people understand what chronic pain is like. A constant noise, part of every moment of your life, and not even in sleep can it be fully escaped - that's what it is like to have chronic pain. Some days it might only be slightly irritating to have the constant noise vibration; those are the good days. Other days it feels like the noise vibrations are an oppressive and heavy weight that makes it hard, if not impossible, to wade through the day-to-day; those are the bad days.

He's stopped now. I am feeling a lot better since he has. I was thinking about how irritation & aversion are merely low-level anger. Anger all usually comes back to fear. What do I fear in the neighbor's noise?

Maybe I find the noise of his many power, yard tools to be so awful because I already have what feels like some level of constant noise chafing in my life from my pain. Do I fear the additional weight of the noise in my life?

There are small, puffy, rose-hued clouds hanging in the still-blue, twilight sky. The sunset is so lovely from the upstairs of the house. Now, now that there is some quiet I'll go sit zazen for a little and offer Loving-Kindness practice for myself and my neighbor.

Irritation

I'm not really hungry, I just am craving sweets. I don't feel hugely ill, in that I've certainly felt much worse than this at times in the past. I do feel unwell, fighting a head cold so my face & head aches, my nose hurts from sneezing, the swelling in my nasal passage & sinuses is causing an itchiness in my whole head, and I feel a general irritation at the whole situation.

Mostly I just want to settle back into routine. At the same time I'm resisting even the simple routine things of writing or sitting. I feel distracted by my head aching. I find it too easy to be checking websites and wishing CK was online to chat with than I do to just string any thoughts together to write.

I was also pretty busy mentally today for work. Spent much of the day detailing my accomplishments for 2008, finally tracking down how to rebuild the November report that got missed in Monday's server mess, and was on and off the phone coaching someone through finishing development on their first change request. My promotion is entirely entangled in bureaucracy.

I didn't go read for SMART today, not wanting to pass my cold along. This was actually helpful given everything I was working on. I also did not go to asana practice at Prananda tonight; JW has a strict, "Keep your germs at home!" policy. I think that's when I started to feel the irritation.

CK was heading out to asana practice and I was sitting at home. I've looked forward to practice tonight with her. It was the second night of practice I was missing with her after not going to the Dharma center last night. I've worn her hoodie all day, one we both forgot was at my house. It has been a sweet comfort in my litany of cranky feelings.

I don't want to go to class tomorrow -- a combination of not feeling well and enjoying last weekend with CK so much.

Just an escalation of feeling irritated and not fully well. When any additional ache in the body is added to the level that I live with from day to day it feels burdensome. Since I'm not hugely ill I have the energy to be irritated, chafed by it.

Hot

Portland rarely gets above 100, but today was one of those days. It would have been a good day to work in the office in the AC but after yesterday I felt so depleted I wanted to work from home. By noon I was down in the basement trying to keep cool.

I ended the afternoon feeling cranky and irritated. My headache from last night had moved along my right sinuses and now hurt into my teeth. I had cramps and just generally didn't feel very well at all. I was stuck on a problem at work and hadn't made nearly the progress I wanted to. In making what progress I had, in addition to being on the phone with my boss unexpectedly, I made myself late for an early movie plan with CK.

I met her at the house, AM driving me over since it was really too hot for me to be bicycling especially since I didn't feel very well already. When I got into the flat I pet Atari and then felt the need to lay down on the bed. I sprawled onto the bed, turning the sore side of my face into the darkness of a pillow. CK arrived soon afterward. We had a tense moment over my not recognizing, respecting the time and how that is very important to her.

I felt like I had tried as hard as I could and still wasn't good enough. Ultimately I just felt overwhelmed, emotionally chafed raw, and my head throbbed into my right molars & jaw. I finally said I was just going to lay down while she worked some more. At that point I took some ibuprofen to help with my headache and gave in to the desire to just lay down. I tried to explain it, that I just felt I needed to rest a little bit to do better, but I know it wasn't very skillful.

She came over to the bed and we arranged things to be able to see her computer. We watched several presentations at TED, all of them excellent. Then she motivated us to go over to Lloyd and we watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It was enjoyable to sit in the cool cinema with her, holding hands and eating far too much salty popcorn. I liked the music in the movie, the lush gardens and art & architecture that served as the backdrop. After the movie we picked up another fan and several bottles of wine; super-chilling a dry Riesling to have at home.

I need to learn how to ask her when time is important so I'm more mindful of moving things along. I just feel so depleted in so many ways that I'm operating at a much lower level of awareness that I usually do. I think this is why I ran into the car door last night while getting my phone and have managed to hit myself in the face a couple of times with things I'm carrying. The grief and anger create so much noise in the signal.

I felt angry today. The buzz of irritation. The heat seemed to intensify it too, creating additional static. It doesn't actually feel more energetic than the grief. In some ways it feels less so, the apathy the anger induces. To just throw up my hands in disgust with the world and just go read a silly novel, to sulk, to sleep. The grief feels more energetic, more dynamic perhaps because it touches into the fear and shame.

Somehow it feels easier to be angry than present with the sadness. Perhaps it is because the anger has elements of withdrawal. It is easy to move away from the enormity of the grief, even if it is to move into sleep. Anger pulls me towards the desire to distract myself.

Monday Static

Toward the end of the day today I felt some of the anger-buzz of apathy and irritation. It feels close to when I'm feeling how unfair much of what has happened is. It isn't as though working out the dynamic of a new relationship isn't already difficult. So things are hard already, but we also have the potential for past acts by selfish people to trigger intense responses.

It has felt a little hard for me today in some respects. On one hand, I have enjoyed the relative quiet of the day. AM and I went over to Seven Virtues, a coffee shop he's went to with a friend a couple of times, this morning since I had no meetings. We sat with our laptops, AM reading while I answered emails, set up some meetings, and got my week started. I got into my meetings a little later in the day and worked on some unexpected problems that didn't make a lot of sense -- ended up rebuilding somethings over again.

What has been difficult, besides the anger-static, has been feeling separated from CK. It was such a challenging weekend and I was feeling so vulnerable, exposed emotionally that to switch gears has felt a little rough. I was aware of the sensitive way my emotions felt when she left for her flat last night -- that switch having that feel of skin pulling away from a hot car seat.

A part of it didn't feel like it fit right. It seemed like we should be going back to bed, resting together in some of the space created by all our hard work. Instead she went to her flat and I went upstairs, took a melatonin, got my iBook and wrote for a while as I sat next to AM downstairs. It was one of those times when I resent the transition back to the work week, sometimes it just feels so rough.

High Centered

My two day hiatus from blog writing hasn't been to being away from the computer all weekend. It has been a long, hard weekend in relationship building and I was trying to not interrupt time with CK with writing. The time we were apart I was too agitated to write, didn't even think about trying, and worked on sorting out things in the house.

I have experienced distance physically and emotionally in my relationship since returning from Vancouver. I have been able to observe on an intellectual level that my withdrawal is triggered by old trauma, not the relationship, same as the terrible shame I have felt come up. Regardless of the mind understanding I have felt stuck with the way my body holds onto painful events from the past.

And stuck I have been. We had one morning during OSCON where there was a momentary break in tension and there was space to explore intimacy. We never really got it worked out as to what was causing the problem so it has continued to grow, pushing us further apart and into our own pain. It felt like the relationship is a vehicle high centered on something. Maybe only one wheel able to touch ground at a time while the rest just spin futilely in the air. Stuck.

I've felt the wind knocked out of me over it all. Unable to breath and overwhelmed by how deep the shame is buried in my whole self. I've not really worked with it at all, just trying to focus on processing the tremendous amount of grief and anger at how unfair it all was. But now seems to be the time for it to be acknowledged.

I thought I had touched upon it. This relationship has helped me feel the complete falseness of some of the terrible messages I got as a young child. I'm able to really explore my sexuality with another person and it is safe, nurturing. Then it was gone, only I was sleeping next to her several times a week but no connection was there. We had reached a point we were barely touching once we got to bed, I'd curl into a ball and stay awake while she went to sleep.

At first I was just feeling abandonment, feeling like things were ending. Which wouldn't match up with lunchtime conversations about having a baby, building a home together. Then the shame started to seep in with the fear of being left. I felt wrong for wanting her to touch me, ashamed of the want and like I should be able to control it, make it go away. I felt wrong from wanting to touch her, ashamed of myself for that want and feeling that if something went wrong I'd be punished somehow. I was locked in fear and shame around asking for touch, to touch. I began to settle into my own silence. The "safety" of saying nothing at all.

Today, after a very tough night -- she had unsettled dreams and I kept waking hearing people outside (turned out we'd forgotten to turn off the radio and NPR had come on) -- I had to leave for my class. She told me she wasn't going to the class and I felt hurt, rejected. She said she also wouldn't go to a class today at the dharma center, which I understood but was not happy with. I felt like she snapped at me and my irritation flared to life. It was so hard leaving to teach and I left angry. By the time I got to Dishman I sent a note apologizing for getting angry.

I know that all of the Buddhist precepts are practice, things I have to keep doing over and over again. I've been working really hard at the idea of anger. Not that I can get rid of anger, but to control it, to not give rise to my anger when I feel it. Whenever I fail at anything I feel it so sharply. To fail to control my anger, to snap at CK, leaves me feeling so graceless and inconsiderate. I also know it is unreasonable to expect that I'll always do things the best way possible, I'm trying to let go of that, but to fall down on something and see shock & hurt on her face just feels so much more a failure.

I went back over to her flat after teaching so we could continue to talk. I had spoken with AM to let him know what was up and gave up on the class at the dharma center even though it is on NVC, something I think will help us talk. I said I thought that if we tried to just lay down together and talk about what came up when we did it was just as valid lesson in communicating as going to the class. We had looked at some books on how to heal intimacy -- books that were Jessa's that GK thought I should end up with since I'd finally shared with her that I'd been sexually abused -- and thought about trying some of the sharing activities.

It was so hard. I told her what scared me, what was coming up for me. We talked about how a fear not being in control comes up for her. We talked about how to work on it, offered just compassion to some things, understanding the pain we each feel. We worked on trying to touch each other with lots of communication. I find it so hard to talk aloud and directly, feeling the pull of the shame, but she stuck with me. She would bend close when I felt like I couldn't talk so I could whisper to her instead.

In the past I'd just have not pursued this. I'd have consoled myself with food or distractions and not addressed any of the pain I kept buried. It was considerably easier than this hard, painful work. Only I was miserable, 150 pounds heaver and never distracted enough by that fact.

Recognizing Anger

I woke up around 6:20AM and felt an immediate desire to curl up and stay in bed all day.  Not tired so much as a deep apathy for the day ahead.  I just wanted to lie in bed and do nothing except maybe read something I wanted to read.

Instead I got up, got ready and headed into the office, apathy or no.  Apathy doesn't pay the mortgage after all.  Work greeted me with another new problem and another new ticket for the frustrating part of our IT organization (they appeared to have turned off FTP, allowing only sFTP to a server that must be contacted by an enterprise application on a Windows server capable of only FTP....  I realize that for many people what I just wrote is about as useful as "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah"!).  

My boss told me that a backup role I was actually interested in was going to another person who was also interested in it.  I admitted to being disappointed and I honesty feel that I have a better relationship with the person whose primary responsibility it is.  She, we are trying to find a way to get me more in a project management role, but this still felt frustrating.  What's really hard is letting someone do it as a real learning experience when she, the primary person and I all know I have the actual experience to do it.

By the time I was leaving at 4pm I was weary.  I got to my physical therapist's office and could feel the growing irritation, truly disgust I was feeling.  I knew I had some time to wait so I rolled myself up into shoulder stand, trying to settle myself into my body and away from the feelings of annoyance.  I came down and into some forward bends, just fully releasing into them.

My therapist, IW, was running even later on account of the client she had been seeing nearly fainting when she went to stand up.  I hadn't even noticed in my impromptu yoga practice (what better way to make use of waiting time).  What I had noticed, or thought I'd noticed as I tried to pull apart all the tangled emotions, was that I that maybe what I was feeling was anger.  

I think of anger as this white-hot rather terrifying thing.  I recall the inappropriate outbursts that happened in private.  There was also the icy burn of the anger suppressed in public, at family gatherings; snide comments veiled in polite words.  This heavy, enveloping apathy towards the entire world combined with an overall irritation, crossing into disgust is so different that my experience with anger that it has been difficult to recognize it as such.

When I think about how unfair it feels to cope with my physical pain and the load of trauma I feel a kind of apathy and or a wave of disgust that so many people in my life have behaved so selfishly.  Occasionally I can feel some of the hot anger, a red energy buzzing around my head, but mostly it sinks into an apathetic depression where I just want to hide in bed under the covers.  

When I press past that into the humming and drumming of daily life the irritation arises until I feel chafed by it all.  The anger becomes a buzzing static around my thoughts and I long to be able to scratch my head, rub my ears & eyes until it ceases.  I feel as though I'm encased in dense, dark stone that hums incessantly with irritation, subtle and unsettling noise.

I told IW when I saw her that my energy was all over the place.  That I thought I felt angry, only that it wasn't anger like I think of it.  I mentioned the apathy and the anxiousness I'd been feeling.  We talked about where my pain was located lately and at what level it had been at.  

Some of the trigger points, which lately have been back to being really bad and sometimes difficult to release, brought a sensation of panic rushing up.  After the years I've been seeing IW I am accustomed to the trigger points been extremely painful sometimes, but the accompanying panic doesn't usually happen.  One of the last ones she worked with on my left sit bone was so intense emotionally that I felt my head race. 

She switched to some cranial work to try and balance my energy.  I felt the buzzing in my head that sometimes shows up when I get massage therapy.  Afterwards I grew chilled in the air conditioning.  IW noted that I was calming too, so I didn't have the anger/anxiety heat warming me up.

Sitting next to CK on the sofa I feel better.  My neck and back have popped, released a few times.  I rode over here, hadn't planned to but it was the best idea and I felt better for the physical exertion as it helped burn off some of the energy as well.  

Like a truly vocal inner critic I've been seeking anger as I remember it exhibited by others.  My critic speaks in waves of raw, wordless emotion and my anger doesn't resemble my memories of others.  The anger is wordless too, there's some low muttering to it but that's just a litany of petty irritation that 's really just a pointer.

The grief is reasonable.  It was never safe for me to process how afraid I was and how hard I just kept trying in order to fit in, do what I was told (the threat of "or else" often hovering just behind the order and changing with me as I aged).  That I should feel surges of grief, and the vulnerability in my relationships waking it, isn't unreasonable.

Neither is the anger.  HB told me it isn't that Buddhists don't get angry, we do, we just do not give rise to the anger.  What I need to do is be mindful and even more self-compassionate of those days when I feel like facing the world is just too much effort.  I also need to learn how to share with CK and AM when I am feeling those angry, heavy days.  I don't want to have that anger affect them unduly.  It feels vulnerable in a somewhat scary way to try and share that with them, but it is more fair for them to know so they can gently remind me that I might be cranky or unfair in something I say or do because I'm processing through the anger as well as the grief.

Old Papers

I have been feeling low all day today. I woke up tired and with a sore throat, more evidence of having missed my allergy pills yesterday. I had gained more weight over the weekend. I felt irritated with myself, with what I have to work with in my life, with my career, and just cranky feeling. I got my work day going, calling into the daily status meeting. The rest of the day was filled with random problems and meetings. I called an end to it after trying to make progress with an installation and running into missing libraries.

In the mid-afternoon I had a surprise call. My friend, SS phoned to say she was going to be in my neighborhood and could she pop by so we could meet her new baby, Ezra. I got to spend 20 minutes holding her very active, 3 month-old boy while we caught up a little. It was just nice to sit with the baby, occasionally holding his feet and appreciating how small he is. I felt my mind considering what it might be like if this were CK's baby.

I had planned to go to the pool and try and get a good work out. I just felt apathetic and tired. I finally decided to stay home and deal with some boxes AM had brought in over the weekend. We're down to the last of them from the garage and I thought that maybe dealing with them would improve my mood. I quickly got sorted out making piles for recycling, donating, and trash.

It was in the second box I found the first letter from MM. Handwritten, loving, sexy and acknowledging the importance of our relationship. I sat there with it, uncertain what to do for a moment. Some instinct to continue to save this scrap of paper despite the fact it made my heart ache a little. I tossed it into the recycling bin.

The third box contained journal entries written onto pagers of a paper planner. A copy of the certificate from my first marriage. Page after page listing CDs purchased from OM, impersonating me, by the now defunct CD Warehouse. Strange to look at the marks I put next to CDs I knew were mine. Stranger still looking at my name on the signature line in OM's handwriting. Additional pages of bank statements showing unauthorized withdrawals and forged checks. I sat with them a little before feeding them into the recycling bin feeling the old memories churning. The echoes of emotions, betrayal and violation, rising up to the top.

Then came another letter from MM. This one done on a computer and printed out. More words of love. Promises that we would work on things, try to find a way through and words expressing how much I meant to her. Reading them I was also able to see some of the warnings that I would get over the time we were together. Her noting that no one could ever expect to really satisfy her now reads with an understanding of how I played an assigned part in her life.

It isn't as if I miss our relationship at all. It isn't fair to compare them truly, they are so different, but the depth of connection between CK and I is so much more than what MM and I shared. I feel so much a part of CK's life, that I am a wanted and included part. Her family knows about me whereas MM made effort to make sure her far distant parents couldn't possibly find out about her relationship with me. Just felt the hurt of the way she ended, or rather, let me figure out the relationship had ended. Rereading what she told me made me be able to clearly see and feel the sense of having been abandoned by her.

By the time I'd gotten through all the boxes I was feeling depressed, fat and my back hurt me. I had been feeling anxious after writing CK and telling her about the baby, thinking of a day when it would be our family. I felt such a rush of vulnerability in telling her, in revealing the way I think of a future together. In putting words to it, sharing it, I have a fear that I've said too much.

I'm trying to be compassionate with the depression I feel tonight. I know there is part of it that is rooted in irritation at feeling the sadness and unfairness of my childhood. I want to get past all of that and not keep having things bring it up. Yet it just keeps coming up, all the emotions I was told were inappropriate or I hid for fear of being yelled at, shamed. Some days it just feels like it is too much effort to do anything but try and be present for it.

Irritation

I am so tired, exhausted really. My head aches from the effort of attention, sinus pain, and just an ache from having a headache all day. My eyes are tired from processing data on screens large and small. Today I have awoken at 6:15, had a shower, got dressed, bicycled to CK's, discovered a sweaty back from bicycle & a cotton shirt don't mix, changed to a t-shirt of CK's, had toast, bicycled to OSCON, sat in on a very good workshop on PHP, had nearly the exact same lunch as yesterday (not worth elaborating upon... salads), went to what I feel was a terrible workshop on PHP, left early, got gvim working on my Mac, ate some soup, changed clothes, bicycled to Dishman, taught a yoga class, rode back to CK's flat, changed yet again, bicycled back to OSCON, and listened to various presentations & awards (geeky, inspiring, mind-boggling, funny...) until 10PM, and finally CK & I rode back to her flat! I promptly put on my pyjamas and sat down with a thump on the bed.

CK heated up more soup for us, which helps as has the water. Seeing the day up there in a list gives me perspective on why I'm so tired and hurt so much. It is a day that really presses on my resources rather hard. Although there are evening events at OSCON for two more nights, tomorrow won't be so long as CK & I already plan to leave a bit earlier, rest a little, then go to a yoga class. Thursday will be zazen and by then the sheer crush of so many people, so much talk, countless slides projected on screens will make settling into silence such a blessed gift.

The workshop we went to in the afternoon was very disappointing to me. Not only did I find it to not be very professional, even accounting for cultural differences (presenter is from France), but on a level where I felt that economically it wasn't worth the time spent, especially for someone like her who doesn't have a big company footing the bill to attend (which should be her choice to be irritated about, I didn't need to take it on to be annoyed on her behalf). CK finally propelled us towards going home early to rest a bit before I had to teach, plus I'd have time to eat a little. I hadn't wanted to go, wanting to stay and salvage the 90 minutes that weren't useful. She finally noted that I was having a hard time letting it go. And I was. The ride home helped burn off some of it as did fixing something on my Mac that was making it hard for me to work on code projects.

The irritation feels pretty far away now. I can look at the afternoon and spot it, but it lacks the immediacy that was making it hard to let go of. With that time shift I wonder how one irritation in the day might rile up other feelings of irritation that lurk below the surface. It is a slippery slope to follow irritation down into anger.

I used to have the mistaken impression that in Buddhism anger isn't allowed, better yet we somehow transcend it. I asked Hogen about it and he made sure to reinforce to me that it isn't that we never feel anger, that's unreasonable because we will feel anger. It is that we don't give rise to the anger. We don't let it manifest into unkind words spoken out of that heat that is just a few degrees hotter than irritation.

So CK became my important Sanga of one today. A fellow traveller upon the Way who merely noted that I wasn't letting go. Had she not brought me back, giving me perspective, I may have easily let the irritation rise into anger.