Gratitude

Things I'm thankful for today.

Summer at last.
All the rain we've had this year.
An end to the drought.
Green everywhere and every shade of green.
Patients who share their stories with me.
Lovely new co-workers.
Muscle relaxants and eleven hours sleep last night.
I feel human again today and I can move my neck.
Friends.
The changes made in Katie's medications have reduced her anxiety and helped her sleep better. She's not so tired and not so anxious. Less hair pulling, pinching and scratching.
People who care for my daughter, not just take care of her but actually care about her.
I asked for help last night from my not soon enough ex and he agreed to fill out the forms for Katie diapers.
I'm starting to ask for what I need.

What are you thankful for today?

A Middle Path

How do you beg forgiveness when you have hurt someone? Do you get down on your knees and bow your head before them? Do you soak their skin with your tears? Do you look into their eyes and promise that you will not intentionally hurt them again?

Because I will hurt people again. I am human. How do I reconcile this desire to be kind with my own reckless mind that hurts others as it swings back and forth like a pendulum?

The answer lies somewhere in the middle, a place I seldom visit, preferring of course the wild swings of up and down, good and bad, kind and cruel. It's time I stopped, time to seek the middle path. A place of balance and equanimity. I can only promise to try. I will fail of course and then I will try again.

I am beyond sorry for the pain I have caused others.

Gratitude

Things I'm grateful for tonight.

A new job that I like and that I'm good at.
Bad jokes.
Joking with my patients, even the heckler.
Homemade pumpkin loaf.
Sunshine.
Standing firm for myself, even though it hurts.
Knowing I'll survive.
Believing I'll survive.
An excellent book which reminds to keep trying to be my best, "The Five Things You Cannot Change..." by David Richo.

"The challenge is to meet our losses with loving-kindness, the commitment to act and think lovingly toward others, especially when they test our patience or act hurtfully toward us. Cultivating loving-kindness when people treat us unfairly or hurtfully helps us by keeping our hearts open in and through the moment of being hurt. Openness does not mean we let ourselves be victims of abuse. We simply allow ourselves to be what we are at our most loving, that is, vulnerable. Any human interaction or relationship can have painful moments in it. A mature adult notices that closing off is dangerous to her sensitivity and that remaining too open is dangerous to her boundaries. The middle path means a willingness to be open while also maintaining healthy boundaries. We can commit ourselves to that form of yes by a practice: We seek amends when others treat us unfairly, ask for redress, and if this doesn't work, we let go, and our hearts do not close. Letting go has the effect of opening the heart." (pg. 34-35)

Being okay with being a work in progress.
That I'm starting to understand that feelings pass. Sadness, happiness, joy, fear, anger, all feelings pass. That even the feeling of having a hole in my chest will pass.
The idea that I can be both vulnerable and have boundaries, that there is a middle ground for me.

What are you thankful for today?

Sigh

I started my new job today and at the end of the day I started crying, at my new job. With co-workers that don't know me. Nice. I did manage to pull myself together and saved the rest of my crying for the drive home.

When I got home I lost it completely and couldn't stop crying. My lovely depression started up, talking to me, urging me to fucking kill myself already. The horrible part about depression is that impairs you're thinking. It takes a terrible idea and makes it seem like a good, rational idea.

So I phoned a friend, the same friend whose cousin killed herself last winter. The same friend who struggles with her own depression. She was kind and tough, she's like that. She told me I couldn't kill myself and then I yelled at her that she needs to quit smoking because I wasn't about to drive her to her chemo appointments. I started to feel a little better.

We talked for a long time, I even laughed, so did she. She's been through it all this past year as well. She reminded me that I'm not crazy, it's just that my depression is.

And all of this drama, all of this heartache over a man who lied to me the first time I met him. Who continued to lie to me until recently. Who lies to himself and his family.

I sent him away even though I didn't want to. His life is truly a mess. His life makes my life, with my ex-con son and the runaway daughter and the handicapped kid and the not soon enough ex, look pretty sane. He needs to stop trying to be what his mother wants him to be, what his wife and church want him to be, what white people want him to be, what the world wants him to be and just be himself. The self that he was born to be. The self hidden under all the shit that life has piled on top of him, that he continues to pile on top of himself.

I thought I knew him but maybe it was just my own self that I saw. His fears are my fears, that he's not good enough, that he is unlovable, that he is broken and unworthy, that he is a fraud. I saw his darkness and he saw mine, neither of us looked away.

I miss him and it will get better.

Black Dog

Talked to a friend last night about depression. I said, "It feels like you're dead, except you're not." She agreed.

Not doing well. It will pass.

*I truly hate depression. It kicks me when I'm down, whispers horrible things in my ear while I cry, wants me dead. It's been this way since I was eight years old. I'm wiser now, I know that it will pass, that I just have to hang on but the hardest part for me is to reach out to someone as I fall.

Prayer Time

I'm rereading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert right now. I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed the book the first time. She wrote

"My prayers are becoming more deliberate and specific. It has occurred to me that it's not much use to send prayers out to the universe that are lazy...I remember kneeling down one morning, touching my forehead to the floor and muttering to my creator, "Oh, I dunno what I need...but you must have some ideas...so just do something about it, would you?"

Similar to the way I have oftentimes spoken to my hairdresser.

And I'm sorry, but that's a little lame. You can imagine God regarding that prayer with an arched eyebrow, and sending back this message: "Call me again when you decide to get serious about this."

Of course God already knows what I need. The question is-do I know?"

I have been trying to get a job at the cancer hospital for awhile. In January I started taking the oncology course and I have been plugging away it, through Le divorce, through painting, through selling and buying, through life I guess. I apply and apply for jobs and hear nothing, not even a thank you for applying. Nothing!

So I decided to pray and be very specific about what I wanted. I wanted a job offer from the Cross by the end of summer. A day later at work, my boss tells me, "I've been wanting to talk to you. The DI manager from the Cross is looking for a casual nurse and asked me if I knew of anybody. I gave her your name." So the manager emailed me and I emailed her back and I had an interview over the phone that lasted a good five minutes. I start work at the Cross next Wednesday, working in DI, doing the same job I'm doing now, which I'm good at and happen to love.

Seriously.

Which makes me both giddy and nervous. The power of prayer, wow.

I wonder if I dare pray for a partner. A man who will love me just as I am, who will share his life with me, someone smart and funny and sexy, a kind, compassionate man who is also searching for his soul. Perhaps it's time.

I Feel Like A Woman

So it turns out I was seeing a still very much married man. When I met him he told me he was separated and his wife lived nearby. By nearby he meant in the same house but I didn't know that at first. When I found out that he was still living with his wife and not separated as he had told me I already cared about him very much. I still care about him actually. If he showed up at my doorstep with a suitcase I would take him in, even knowing that he lied to me.

But that's not going to happen. I've been depressed and crying off and on for almost a week, dragging my ass around, feeling dead and empty inside. Fuck I hate depression.

Today when I was going to get the mail I started thinking about how I felt when I was around this man. I felt attractive, sexy and calm but most importantly, I felt like a woman. Which probably sounds weird but in Jungian terms I have a soul which doesn't want to commit to being a woman. My words, not my analyst's. I've never really felt like a woman, even though I look one.

So I was thinking about how I felt around him and then I remembered that how I feel comes from within me. Although I only expressed these feelings around him, they came from me, not him. I allowed myself to feel attractive and sexy and womanly. I even felt calm. He didn't give those to me. I gave them to me but I forgot.

This man did give me something after all, he allowed me to feel like a woman and I thank him for that.