Change

Change is not easy.  In fact, it is downright difficult!  For habits they say it takes 28 days to change.  But what if you have to change yourself?  Your attitudes, the way you relate to specific people, maybe even the way you think?

And what happens when these changes mean you have to disavow most of your adult life?  In my case, it feels like a gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach when I wake up.  It feels like the adreneline flood of a panic attack.  None of this is very pleasant. 

As I wrote yesterday, I do know what I need to do.  I keep waiting for some sign that what I need to do won't wreck me completely.  My kids are visiting this week, which compounds what I am going through.  It's not as easy to be contemplative when they are here.  They have their own agenda and things they want me to do.  And I know I am being stubborn.  The choice is clear.  Can I make it?  Yes.  But can I let go of  the entire way I have lived my adult life?  Will there be anything left of the me I have been all this time?  Do I want to hold on to her?  And what happens if. . . ?  Would I survive?

Dang.  I wish this was easier.

What I Need to Do

I had thought to write every day this month.  It was a quest to find my artistic voice and see how I could express more creativity.  It is a wonderful thing to go on a quest.  It can be deeply spiritual.  Like a retreat. Or wanting to find meaning in the universe.  It can also be ridiculously absurd.  Like Monty Python's pursuit of the Holy Grail.  But you never know what your quest will reveal.

This one has shown me the fear that is stopping me in almost every aspect of my life.  And it has also shown me what I need to do.  But in order to move forward, I really am going to have to take a huge leap of faith and make a choice.  And that choice is the most terrifying thing I can imagine right now.

As debilitating as my current circumstances are, it seems so much easier to do nothing different.  To live with all the stuff.  To escape in my usual ways.  To give lip service to being an artist, but never make any effort to create daily.  To go through the motions in my relationships with friends & family.  Honestly, I would rather not change.   It means I would have to let go of some old hurts and forgive both myself and others.  And I am very scared.  To do what I need to do opens me up to the possibility of great pain and sorrow.  It could also open me up to a wonderful creative and fulfilling life. 

I know what I need to do.  I still don't know if I can do it.

Run Away, Run Away

I am spitting mad!

A whole bunch of things have happened this week that have really pissed me off:  this stupid man I met at the flea market.  (Why I engage in conversations with stupid men I don't know.  I should just ignore them!)  the UPS driver who cut me off today.  tourist drivers where I live.  my best friend constantly trying to fix me.  I told her something that was bothering me and now she keeps harping on it and wanting to know why and make suggestions.  I don't want help, I just wanted a friend to vent to, just someone I can bitch and bellyache with and not all the time, just once in a while.  I am mad she wants to fix me.  I am mad she sees me as a person who needs to be fixed.  And I probably am a little mad at myself that I can't just tell her to stop doing that.  I spend two full days with her every week in a business venture and it makes me feel stuck.   (and I thought this post would have nothing at all to do with stuck-ness.  urghhh)

I hate being mad.  It triggers a rush of adreneline to my system, which turns on the fight or flight response and my response is always to flee!  And then mad turns to scared  or sad and depressed and staying under the covers for days at a time seems the only solution.

There is a wonderful bit  -- "run away, run away," from Monty Python & The Holy Grail., and that is what I am going to do.  Oh and to all those people who have irritated me this week, again I quote Monty Python in a ridiculous French accent:   "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. I blow my nose at you!"

Sometimes it is difficult to let go

My kids are coming to visit this week and they clearly disapprove of all the crap I have collected and strewn about the house and barn.  Sometimes I just think they are upset with me about it.  But they are such incredible, amazing people, that when I can think clearly, I know they are upset because they see how debilitating it is for me.  And while I don't seem able to deal with the stuff on a daily basis, when they are here or a visit is planned, I do make an effort to do something with it all.

Moving stuff from place to place might make it look like there is less.  But honestly if my kids just moved the peas around their plates, I would know they hadn't eaten them.  So who am I fooling by throwing it into boxes and putting it in unused spaces in the house.  Ultimately I need to get rid of the stuff. 

I have gotten sentimental about the things I have collected.  The piles and piles and piles of beautiful white linens.  The vintage clothing I used to wear in high school and college.  The books.  Oh, the books.  It's not that the items themselves are important to me.  It is the memories they represent.  The way some of these things defined me at one point in my life.  When I see them, specially unexpectedly, I get these great nostalgic rushes!

And sometimes things are a barrier to hold back sadness or tough times or anxiety.  Sometimes it is difficult to let go.

Stuff

I think about "stuff" a lot.  I have too much.  I know it would be so good to get rid of most of it.  To that end, I sell at flea markets twice a week.  And I give stuff away to the Salvation Army & the local swap shop.  But the pile of stuff never seems to get any smaller. And I often have this idea that if I were to pack it all up, call Goodwill or Salvation Army to come haul it away, I would be so much better off.   My kids are coming to visit at the end of the week and it brings it all to the fore.  They can see clearly how much this impacts me.  It may not be the thing that is making me stuck, but it doesn't help.

So I share with you this bit from Firesign Theatre, the last line pretty much sums up my conflicting views.

Announcer: "So here's your last deal Ms. Presky -- now, which would would you rather do? Hit this dude over the head with a bag of sugar ...or beat out that rhythm on the drums..."

Mrs. Presky: "Er....ahhhhh....I'll take the bag."

Announcer: "You mean you're gonna trade this four foot cube of 18 carat Swiss Bouillon and the steak knives, Mrs. Presky, all for that little bag ???"

Mrs. Presky: "Yes!"

Announcer: "Well alllllright!! Open it up!!"

Mrs. Presky: "Why. . why . . this is a bag of shit!"

Announcer: "But it's really GREAT shit, Mrs Presky."

-- Firesign Theatre, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.

Keeping Journals

I'm no stranger to journals.  I have kept them since I was 14.  They are the way I make sense of whatever is going on with me.  I've written about family, about love, about loss.  I've written when I was angry or hurt or depressed or just plain confused.  I have written when sentimental and even happy, but mostly it's the tough times that inspire me to write.  I've written down my dreams and later found they were telling me things I wasn't consciously aware of.  But all those journals were written just for me.  They were never public so I could be messy or ungrammatical or mean or thoroughly pissed off. 

For me, this blog is a different kind of journal.  I am still writing about very personal issues.  And I am still being honest.  But it's not the unvarnished truth.  I edit.  I consider the words I will use.  I consider that someone else might read this.  Now currently there is no indication that anyone but me is reading this.  But this is a public sphere and ya never know.  Someone I know just might read what I have written.  It makes me think really hard about what I will write.  I don't want to tell all the gory details.  They are not important.  What is important is the emotional truth.

Retuning to this blog started because I was tired of being stuck.  Writing in my private journal was not moving me forward.  It didn't get me moving.  And it didn't tell me what is going on with me.  Somehow editing out the details, the despair (which I just didn't want to put out for anyone else to see) is allowing me to see what is true for me.  It's a slow go, so I don't know if it will unstuck me.  But it sure is nice to notice that each day I have a further insight and I take one more step toward wholeness.

My Heart is A Fixed Point

I keep thinking that all this angst is about making art.  But it's not.  It's about opening my heart again.  The art stuff is just there in the background because it's something I want to do.  But I can't.  I can barely get out of bed each day.  But that's just a symptom.  Trust is the real issue.  Because it seems to me if you can't trust, you can't love.  And if you can't love it's impossible to do anything else.

Is trust something one can learn to do?  I used to be the most trusting person.  And then. . .
Did I lose the ability to trust?  Is it a permanent loss?  I don't know.  I'm not sure I even know how to find the answer.

This is such a tough thing to deal with for me.  For no matter how much I have been hurt, how much I mourn the loss of trust, my heart is still a fixed point.  It has been since that summer at camp so many years ago.  Hearts are amazing things.  And it's really, really scary to open them up when there is no guarantee that they won't be broken again.