One Pale Fire

it'll be okay...

I talked to the friend who lost her dad a couple of weeks ago today and now I know why I wasn't looking forward to it and yet I'm also glad I talked to her. I'm such a pansy...

Sometimes empathy is extremely difficult for me - I mean it gets intense, overwhelming and then before you know it I find myself recoiling, gasping air in shock like it's a hot stove. I get that alarm, internalize and often in reacting I feel like I am leaving them high & dry - then I reflexively feel extremely guilty but that's the... kinda narcissistic end of the spectrum. Most of the time it's just extremely upsetting to really empathize with someone in a difficult situation.

I was talking to her and telling her I had been thinking of her and I just let her tell me the news. Then told her I was sorry for the loss.... then said "I know, I would have called sooner but L only told me yesterday - why didn't you call, pumpkin?". She sounded a little sad then, said she's been thinking & thinking of me and meaning to but then just hadn't done it for some reason and then she cracked a little and said sometimes she's sitting at her desk at work and she just starts crying for 'no reason' and that's when I felt it hard. I knew exactly how she felt and I could see her in the next cubical like when we used to work together and it hurt. "it comes in waves" I said, "yeah" she said. He'd been aging and had various problems over the last year but she hadn't expected him to slip away so suddenly when he took the last turn and that's the way it happens sometimes.

Suddenly it seemed to correlate with how blue I had been recently missing the type of friend my own father might have become this late in life. It was like a little light bulb went on in my head - like, "oh, that's why I was missing him that specific way" because that's the kind of father she is grieving now and I must have been feeling her thoughts toward me. Sometimes I feel things and I swear I don't always know where they come from and I sometimes get depressed when I don't know what to do with them, how to be of use so I feel useless. Sometimes it's what keeps me from reaching out more - maybe I just don't want to be sure before I am ready. I actually don't care for this yellow-livered part of myself, I hate the sometimes pathological narcissism resulting from it but being close to people I care for is the only safe place really - it's pain but it's the good worthy kind. So I began with the obligatory "if there's anything I can do" and then specified "no pressure to keep me busy - just - if you just need someone there with you while you tend the loose ends don't hesitate". She seemed to know what I meant and I could hear the crackle of gratitude in her voice and sighed a little relief myself "okay, right note, feels better" I thought. I hope she takes me up on it.

Her general spirits actually sound better then several months before she found out about his latest malady... I know that sounds incredibly strange, but she was all so incredible sad at the time. She kept pushing things down, keeping everything in check but not really loving herself, just muddling through and I wondered if she'd ever punch through the surface. I think she has found a little release in his release, he wasn't suffering a tremendously but the collective worry was wearing on her and now he's safe, he's in not in any discomfort and the love is flowing unfettered with worry.

Next I suppose I might hear from Crush... he might be a little harder because I can't always mirror appropriately or proactively - we're way too close in feeling/intuition. It's like two magicians trying to yank each other's rabbits out of their own hats. Sometimes we fall in sync and it's like words are counterproductive because the immediacy of feeling is so much faster but other times we fall out of sync and there's never enough time to affirm the stress we are exchanging - words fail us again and the missing volumes of things to say feels overbearing. I wish we had been able to spend more time building this aspect of our acquaintance, if I just trusted him more I wouldn't misunderstand his withdrawals as much. Maybe it's a damaged link of faith on my part and not his but I have been feeling a little sorry for myself because I felt like he didn't want to talk to me and I could make up enough viable reasons why so I get frustrated/hurt - narcissism again. He just doesn't want me to feel bad, doesn't want to see the sympathy for him because he's hard enough on himself... not sure how to short circuit that one and just be there and I'm still not sure he wants me to.

uncanny twinge

Aquarius Horoscope for week of May 29, 2008

Maybe you've conceived a child at some time in your life. Maybe you never have or never will. Whatever the case, even if you're a man, I invite you to visualize the experience. Imagine that a force of nature has germinated, and that you are carrying another life within you. Try to approximate the uncanny twinge that a pregnant woman senses when her fetus first moves. This exercise will be a simulation of and rehearsal for the psychic quickening you will soon enjoy. 

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I walked out alone into the wet parking lot last night after the movie... trying to shake it off, the past heart break, the fluffy irksome happy ending, being transported back in time, how Mr Big wasn't there one more time, how X wasn't there too - except he's frozen in a moment that never ends - and suddenly it's all breaking loose again... How could he?

I wish it was possible for him to give back what he took but what kills me is he never even tried. I wish could look back and have it not be all these many little worlds that ended like Christmas balls dropping off the tree one by one - smash, smash, chink smash - like they all just started letting go spontaneously. So I keep looking into the future trying to see myself with someone and I just can't see ever opening myself up like that again. I'm squinting hard like I'm gonna sneeze because I'm allergic to intensity. I dull duality takes over for a moment, my thinking is more like throbbing but there's nothing left TO open up, that place is just plain gone. Understand, I didn't close it off - it imploded. 

I was clucking away about wanting and what of with a friend who said I was still healing so I shouldn't blame myself if I can't see it right now but I didn't have words to tell her 1) the thought that I was "still healing" after all this time was enough to send my to the nearest bridge to jump off of 2) it wasn't about some whimpy fear of rejection or inability to put myself out there or something, it's just DONE. It's weird I really like this other person I've become I quite respect getting here but some moments I am so close to how not-the-same this place is too. All this makes it hard to place myself in context to any paramour let alone leading man. 

I meant what I said - I thank god for every little thing that has changed since knowing him ended - every new sex partner, every pound I lost, the new hair cut, the red highlights, the wedge heels, the ipod, the different apartment with the new key and the front door that sticks when it rains, the new car he'd never know to look for, the new kitten he never touched, the clothes, the bed I bought, the mind I changed over and over again til I didn't recognize it any more - even that lil fish who died yesterday and made me sad - every single little newness or different thing is a blessing and the reason I am alive but sometimes I remember me and it's all a little too much when it comes flooding back. I remember feeling so much younger inside bursting forth and so much vitality blooming. I remember everything I wanted and how close I was once, all the passion I poured into it and then suddenly it's like tearing flesh - the memory burns like tearing flesh - I can't hold out. I can't keep the lining of whatever orifice it is together to pool it, to want it, to bask in it, to HOLD it and before you know it all I feel is that trickle, that threatening torrent, the burning tearing, nothing-but-widening-holes giving way, the water breaking and suddenly I've lost it all again... again & again & again... 

I know what I want, I just can't hold it. I can't stand to even touch it anymore. One too many miscarriages.

made for

when I was 28 my measurements were 36-28-38... and my C cup runneth over...

Back then I didn't watched what I ate, I abused carbs readily but I could lose weight easily if I really wanted to - I could also tone up easily if I really wanted to but I never worked out really. I can remember when my then new boyfriend said I had a great body after our first night together and asked where I worked out - I laughed and laughed, oh my that was funny... I can also still remember on another occasion he said that I "had a body that was made for sex". Back then it was a bog feather in my... uhm, cap.

I'm 40 now and I still have an hourglass figure albeit decidedly larger in scale. I am about 175 lbs right now. I had gained weight during the onset of a thyroid problem several years ago and I wasn't comfortable with it at the time, in fact I felt invisible so I didn't even date for a while - but years go by, things change - I got treatment for the thyroid thing, made some life changes to deal with stress, I lost a few pounds during a heartbreak and I am happy with myself today. I have an attractive figure, although my breast are enormous which isn't always fun because at this age my back hurts and it's a boring ass thing to be reminded of instead of a feather in my cleavage. But ya know I do just fine in jeans and I'm happy enough without saving up for a reduction (maybe in another 5 years). I feel sexy and I know I am desired where it matters.

But, today, after a wild windy day and a complimentary remark from someone I'm seeing currently I thought to myself  "I don't wanna be a dreamgirl anymore". I mean... if I'm a wonderful lover, I'm desired/appreciated or I'm hot it's all nice to hear from the right person but I really wouldn't miss one whiff of the sex kitten, dreamgirl, fantasy lover comparisons anymore. I mean I don't want to be that for anyone anymore, I just sorta don't want it either through appearance or actions behind closed doors and it's not a diminishing sex drive - well, okay, not just a diminishing sex drive... it just doesn't mean anything to me anymore - done it, been there.

I just want to be a REAL LIVE person, not a fantasy pin-up. Do I have to get a bust reduction, wear glasses, gain 20 pounds back, go gray and wear baggy jeans just to get there? I mean I never believed I was trapped in my form before but today I really had to wonder what "a body made for sex" has made me? I'm sick of people being surprised that I'm "smart" just because I have big boobs or I look half decent but I think I'm even tired of being sex object when I'm having sex.

inoperable

I have a hard time with situations where someone is very very ill and the prognosis is fatal - there is nothing at all unusual in this except that seem to expect more of myself for some reason. I don't know why. Because my own dad was sick for so long and died? Uh, no I don't think so I mean... I knew how sick he was for a long time and that was hard, we had our own sort of goodbye and that was hard. I knew I'd never see him again and that was hard enough... but it's not like I was there at the very end. That might have been too much.

Of course it's not like I had a choice - no one told me to come home because he was considering being taken off life support and had signed the no heroic measures, no one expected him to go so quick. I actually wasn't upset or angry about that part because I understood we already had our goodbye and I understand him not wanting me there, and I utterly respected his wishes.... besides the explanation came plain enough when I saw him in a dream the night he died. He was just so heartbreakingly tired and yet still felt bad that he just couldn't keep it up because he wanted to be there for us so badly... it was impossible not to forgive him, if anything I had more anger about him being so miserable for so long because there was nothing to do to make him better.

It was a long time coming and it was hard on everyone and I think that's the part that was so hard reading about BSG the other day... brain cancer is so heartbreaking.... knowing how hard it is on everyone trying to face that goodbye, the uncertainty all the way up until the end and trying to find the best way to honor them and be strong for them because of how hard it is for them especially.... thinking about her kids is what overwhelmed me - being so new in life and having to face that with a parent.... I know it has absolutely nothing to do with me and I only barely even exchanged 2 emails with her... It's just the whole situation cuts me to the quick.

But I wonder if people ever get desensitized to having to deal with that - in the medical profession, in the mental health care profession, in hospice. I don't know how they do it and I wonder what kind of training goes into it. I mean it's such important work and I admire the services hospice provides in particular but I don't know if I'll ever get past it. Grief counseling is so incredibly important to me because of how it touched me and I suck at it so bad because if a cord just happens to get hit I am instantly teleported to that highly emotional state where I'm no good to anyone and I feel awful about how self-centered that is. I feel really disappointed in not being able to stay centered in what is important. I'm ashamed that I would even write about this because that's self-centered too... but I just wish I could be better at it because it's so important and because I wish I could help others with it. Help them to not feel so helpless and hopelessly separated from them.

I've seen a therapist, we explored the circumstances of my father's passing and I was able to handle it okay (with the help of counseling) when my grandma was ready to go and I think I was some comfort to her which was so incredible to me. Such a gift to be able to acknowledge her, tell her I loved her - not so much say goodbye as just bee there for her.... but then a really good friend had to face the death of her parents (years apart), when she had to be with them in the hospital (something I didn't even have to do) and it was like I could barely form words when I saw her. I was just so afraid of making it worse and saying the wrong thing and so addled by emotion. It's so self-centered in a way and I always felt bad that I didn't even see my best friend in the hospital when we were 15 because I just... had been in one too many waiting rooms, grow-up in them... just didn't want to see the dressing gowns or the metal rails on the beds or smell the smells or see the other sick people or... confront what condition she would be in after her car accident and it just really really really scared me to see and be with her discomfort and know I'd have absolutely no control. That was so selfish of me but I just couldn't make myself just sit there. I mean who wants me, ya know? what am I gonna do get coffee or eat her green Jello for her?

I just want to get better at it the so-called empathy button thing but I guess my heart must not be in the right place? I mean do I just want to be "better"?

Sometimes I just really want to feel like I am in service to my father through being service to people who are dealing with this because the only thing I got to do for him was grow up and leave so he knew we'd be okay, so he'd be free so I'd have some kind of life to live which is what he wanted.... except I don't feel I can do that for anyone else and it wouldn't make anything any easier. And I want to live the other life where I didn't do the "brave" right thing by observing his wishes, I want to live the life where i would/couldn't leave his bedside, where I didn't make it down the hall or to the bus station, where I cried inconsolably like a child pulling at his arm, at his bed side and begging him not to leave and just feel better. And that's selfish too I guess but sometimes I want others to have that - have the whole thing however it's gonna be - damn the grief counseling or the how to's.

I want to get better at guiding them to their love and feeling it how ever hard it is because that's the only way to get through it.

confronting empty

I have that same feeling welling up inside of me as I try to get over this hump... do I just not want to? I feel so unprepared.

I was thinking about that guy I met and it hardly seems like a meaningless coincidence. Not that there will be anything between us but it just seems like an opportunity to confront something. I keep thinking of that holding back feeling and that difficulty in being close to something I had wanted so much. It's so hard to admit that I had wanted it or that I still do because what does wanting it now mean? I didn't just feel like I failed before, I felt like my dream turned on me - leveled me, laughed at me for every wanting it. Being close to it now is painful not just scary.

I really wanted to have a life with someone, I thought I had found it and I was just a mid-life experiment to him, a convenient thing to get him through. I let go of that but it's not as if it is any easier to be alone. I keep trying to just stand alone with it - not think about Crush, not delude myself into thinking I want to be with this other guy, not blanket myself in bad self-talk on account of the Smotherer. So here I am... no chatter in my head, no putting myself down... I crave distraction, I crave filling up this space and not feeling empty, I don't want to be a vessel for anything I just want to feel full and heavy. I guess it's a substitute for being truly grounded.

bonfire of the vulnerabilities

I had some weird moments today... I woke up from a nap and was laying there when something in my thoughts lead me to that very wounded place. My own personal graveyard that always seems right next door to desolation itself where the smallest head stones against the back wall under the tree are the saddest. Despair and patined stone slabs with names and dates worn unreadable by the wind, rain, hail and age. It was uneasy like it always is, but also so familiar as to almost be a sort of home...

I hate that place with a special stillness of choked frustration, no matter how long I am embroiled in distractions acquiring distance, I could turn a corner and it will be there - that place where I can't stand the thought of anyone exploring; that place that I can't stand to have touched; that place forever sealed in a sort of angry shame or despair from everyone I know. Nope, not gonna go there especially for anyone, and I will stand guard against anyone who would want or insist upon going to that place inside me... but then I regained my ebb of impermanence and remember it is just a moving moment, and then it went.

My next thought was a random disgust with vulnerability - not exactly the truth, nature or sincerity of it because I do honor it's relationship with strength but there's a brand of distain for that kind that other people "love". "Ugh, don't love my for my vulnerabilities" I thought in a spit and an eyeroll of rejection. I was thinking of the Smotherer in particular just then. What I like most about not having him in my life is the distance of that disgusting feeling of his Victorian dreamlike idealization of some vulnerability he might have seen in me once - lay flowers at it's feet, forever lighting candles in it's honor, writing poems of it's beauty and worshiping it as if it were some feminine deity when it just feels like psychic molestation to me and a desire that I shall always forever & ever be a non-threatening 10 year old in his imagination so he can relate most intimately on even keel with his small small mind. I hate the pathetic co-dependent, damaged aroma of it and it just hangs heavy in the air around him for some reason. What a patronizing protector he always seemed like and I hated his compliments because I rarely felt like he even knew what he was talking about.

Don't ya see my utmost responsibility to outgrow that tripe? How do ya like me now bitch? Whatcha gonna do when I really grow up monsignor?

I mean just because I leave vulnerabilities laying out in the open doesn't mean you have been invited to lovingly stroke each one with your mind because they require that special affection and protection that only you can give them... and it doesn't mean we have some deeply intimate connection that will exist in an eternal state of endless love because I was after all just reporting existence nor conjuring spirits of all past selves. Maybe that is horribly unkind but it's true... vulnerability is not permanent, it's not the sweetest deepest guarantee someone has to offer up in order to be appreciated on some in-need of caretaking level... of course I do have to turn around on myself and swallow my own pill - empathy has been known to get the better of me from time to time - but still I think there is a certain reverence and respect due to vulnerabilities when you see them. They are not yours to touch and fondle or even to heal so don't worship or plunder, just nod and step aside.

odd evening

The Radish

Oh, I don't know that I agree but it is sorta nice to have a Valentine's for the rest of us, I mean I just hate the set-up of the whole made up holiday more then anything else in the year — even MORE then my 40th birthday this year. It's on principle, just romantic love deserves celebration — if you happen to be single that time of year, you're screwed — if you are with someone then you have you're work cut out for you. Spend spend spend!

Today was just such a weird day and I hadn't even considered it was Valentine's week. Gawd I feel like such a bachelor. The unsent card for the Crush the ride down to Miami to see a friend who's in town... I had to drive by Mr. Lt. Mid-life-Crisis's place on the way and I can't believe that after almost 3 years I still feel a little weird and sickly being reminded of him. I hadn't expected it or even thought of it outwardly as "his place" before I got there — I mean, gesh, I don't even know if he still lives there. But as soon as I rounded the bend at 395 to approach the Causeway it nudged at me. I was happy things looked different, they finally finished that former eye-sore of an incomplete and oddly shaped sculpture building — it looks really nice all painted and lit up! Later on though as I passed the marina and saw the sign for Alton Road is when I felt a little... I dunno, distantly nauseous. I was fine, I didn't "go there" in my heart, it was just weird to see the landmarks like little landminds threatening to go off if they are disturbed.

I brushed it off and found my place around the corner to meet my friend, and since I was early I wandered around outside the meeting place waiting for him to appear and I actually got hit on! Ha! Funny. I begged off with an appreciative smile — sorry charlie — and by the time I got back around to the corner to Nemo's Andy was there to receive me. We relaxed at the place two doors down over a glass of wine and it's good to see him, he was being funny and charming and attempting disarming but didn't quite get there. I dunno, he doesn't even live here and our chance passed a long time ago. I already know not to trust him but wow is he charming — charming men are such a curse and a blessing but I think I've been broken of the indulgence once & for all. It made me mildly sad that I had been though, he cooed so sweetly in my ear and I really wanted to visit the place he was singing alive for "us"... he was playing the subtle us-game of peppering conversation with observations and pronouns to bring "us" closer because "we" get each other etc etc. but when you know the tricks, you know the tricks.

Later as I dropped him off at the hotel which he was trying to get me into I confessed I just wasn't "feelin' it" with a sigh. He was very nice about it and hugged me real tight. It is nice to be friends with him now. Guarded but not without it's rewards.

On the way home Boston played on the radio just as I hit the highway, It seemed only right and I drifted into the thinking you can only do when you're driving for a good hour in fast moving traffic. I thought about the Crush for a moment, and about Lt Bastard for less then a moment and I concluded that I didn't feel that bad for not feeling anything for the out-of-towner, I reasoned that I'll know when it's right and it's not some sad loyalty to the Crush after all. It's not all over for me. Nothing to be sad about, just a little infertility and turning 40 mixed with being mildly bored that I still haven't met anyone who could stir my imagination more and usher up some real feeling. I mean I still can't decide if it's great to know better or if I'm just jaded as hell but I have some lovely chocolate souffle waiting for me at home so who cares?

unsaid/known

Don't protect me from you.

I think that that's what I would like to say to him although I get angry thinking it to myself and I'd want to add stuff like "it's a bunch of disrespectful bullshit".

He told me once that I was intelligent and highly sensitive and that must make things doubly hard for me and I was too shocked by the observation to say anything although it struck me later (as things often do) that if it's a handicap then it must also present some unique talents for compensating and overcoming things as well... "so stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Knowitall" I thought defiantly to myself.

That was probably 9 months ago, I never did get my just retort. About a month ago I was sitting here questioning myself about all other manner of things that don't get said and why. Then about a week ago I got another unexpected clue when my Mother called because it was just about my birthday. We were having one of those conversations about nothing details that just sorta turns into everything details. She was making a rare extroverted statement about how she was proud of me for what I had managed to do for myself and she was always so proud that I had visited my father in the hospital that last time I saw him. I was surprised, she had never told me any of this, because I suppose that night was my Dad's turn to say the things that rarely got said around my house – he was proud of me too. I saw the concern in his face for me, but was relieved when it softened and he just said he was proud and how much he loved me – did I know that? Yeah, I knew that but it was good for him to know I knew... and then I left for the bus station, my mother and I barely said a word the whole way there, just muttered about the weather and did I have my ticket. Ma, I'm not a rookie, I got the ticket right here.

What was really surprising though is last week when my Mom said that she was proud of me for that visit and how my brothers didn't go to see him (because they didn't know it was his last hospital stay and not just another hospital stay) was when I told her that I had known that was probably the last time I'd see him – she said she knew. She knew, I knew – I thought maybe he knew, maybe he even suspected I knew but I didn't know she did. It was hard enough to know the circumstances and to not be able to change anything or comfort him that I guess she figured I didn't need the interruption of another knowitall. I was 18, he died two weeks before I turned 19 and that was about 3 months after I saw him. He elected to be taken off life support and against heroic measures and he went.... 10 years of fighting, done.

I understood he was tired. Gawd, I literally cried myself to sleep every night before I decided and left for college. The hardest thing to do is to try to stop protecting someone from things... yourself, themselves, the truth, growing up, making mistakes, pain, dying, life – even when you're the child and not the parent. The only way to set him free was grow up, so I did. I started protecting and preparing myself full time.... I had a dream the night before he died - we were in a lounge near my grandmother's house, there was a weird solider on a crucifix in the corner that everybody pretended wasn't there and he lamented over his being called off to war. He couldn't go - too old, too sick - but he really wanted to go. Protect. Serve. He was just so tired. I understood but I still don't know who was preparing whom with that dream visit. I think it was just another one of those dozen of things we shared but never voiced. Never told anyone about the dream either.

Anyway my friend told me he had a lung infection the other day - same friend who said I was intelligent and sensitive. Naturally I was primed to get a little upset because he wouldn't let me do anything for him, didn't want to make a big deal and I could tell but I hope he didn't dread even telling me but the thing he doesn't know is how many times my Dad went into the hospital for pneumonia, he just thinks I'm being all hyper-empathetic or sensitive or mothering. I don't mean to be, but I was busying myself so I didn't get pissy with him for not taking better care of himself or letting anyone else! The bastard never lets anyone do anything for him and it's so damned frustrating - like I said, bunch of disrespectful bullshit & stop protecting me! I wonder if he knows who he's dealing with or if this is just another one of those things we share but never voice.

Can I be honest?

Can I be honest?

I wonder why people ask that? Especially myself. I mean I think I am pretty honest and straight forward although I can easily look back and see then I'm not exactly big on full disclosure either. I don't know how to drop the stoic non-sense but I also don't know how not to lie by omission. I don't mean to clearly, but it's just that the honest truth is complicated even at a glance for me, I'm too close, too in it and its really too big to fit into the overhead bin when you think about it because it's tied to so many other things and people. So how can I fill you in? Distilling it down to a few succinct words is not impossible but I relate it to more of a thin slicing brilliance or talent that I evidently lack.

I guess it's a polite way of informing someone that something which may be unpleasant is coming. But it also really is asking permission, isn't it? May I be myself here for a moment and we just deal with that from a place of agree-to-disagree kind of place? Sometimes I really do ask because I "honestly" don't know if I can and not be subject to all kinds of recriminations.

Today I had a meeting with my financial advisor and as I sit here now I can't even tell you why I have one I don't really have much money to speak of but I needed someone who knew more then me who could structure a plan for my future in case I did make a few dollars - well now, I am thinking about firing him. It's not fair really because it is based on a sort of hurty knee-jerk reaction, but on the other hand, I just think maybe I've outgrown his guidance or we don't mesh that great. He gave me this mini-lecture about working harder to pay off my taxes and getting a part-time pee-on job at a coffee shop or something worse to help out and ya know? 1) he's right and 2) I don't want to hear another stinking work out of his mouth for as long as I live. Now, in case you didn't know there's always two sides to the same coin and they both have value.

It wasn't that I didn't want to hear it - because after all I do pay him for his advice - its the friggin' way he said it that I think stinks. His little patronizing "incentives", half-hearted stabs at motivation that felt more like jeers and the repeating of the same point over & over & over again. I loath repetition - it's for table cloths - and I think it smacks of "you're too stupid to hear it the first 5 times" and I don't need someone talking to me about MY money that way! - & news flash: I am an adult, I will squander it or work as little or as hard as I want for it. So can I be honest? You suck, you're 27 you don't know what it's been like for me, you don't get to talk to me that way about my money because I might just decide to stop sharing it with you. Got it?

What cuts it is I went to see my therapist the day before and as I went to my meeting with my financial advisor I let the poem she gave me fly out of the window - out of spite - but also because I thought it might actually inspire someone else when they found it. She was trying to be artful nice and encouraging but can I be honest? I feel hurt at a misplaced guess that she voiced. Not because I count on her to hit the nail on the head every time or have all the answers or because she was entirely wrong, it just... just didn't seem like she was all there... or maybe I wasn't, or maybe I take too much time, I don't know. She tacked down one thing that was next to the thing that was really hurting and I left still having no f$#%@ing clue what to do with it. What I really don't need now is more uncertainly and a blase attitude about growing older just because someone else has been there and done that. I am so sick of everyone else's been-there positive transformations and ah-ha moments when I didn't ask for a short cut I asked for support and to be heard and a place just to be.

Now, maybe it really is that simple in hind sight but it's not behind ME right now. I feel like I am backed into a corner I am not ready for, doesn't feel right and all these people are sighing/shrugging and saying it's just a part of life and I'll somehow look back on these as some of the most liberating wonderful years of my life? Really? Can I stuff it back down YOUR throat and see how YOU feel about it - because I'm thinking at least then I won't have to hear another cheerful platitude about "grieving" something I never even lived out. Don't tell me to "do the work" and about grieving something that doesn't feel like it's SUPPOSED TO BE OVER! I haven't turned 40 YET! I still have have 6 days until the "wonderful" next stage of my life begins so I can be as bitter as I want - do the words it's my party and I'll cry if I want to mean nothing to you people? Do you seriously wonder why my idea of the perfect birthday is a couple hundred miles away from anyone I know right now? I just got a lecture about my spending habits like I am a teenager so it's not as if the grand trip to Venice to go out in style is really in the cards.

What's worse is all that came the day or so after I was standing around my friends office... more inquiries and judgments about what I do with my time. More "shouldas". More pictures of his cute 2 year old daughter and snap shots of his life, of HIS family and more feeling invisible even after apparently saying too much about what's going on in my life. Can I be honest? Maybe I'm not withholding, maybe you just weren't listening. But then what would you know about any of this? You're just a man who doesn't like to talk about this sort thing or most things that involve emotions and the kind of sensitivity I walk around nude in.

I would start a childless, unmarried perimenopausal women with tax debt from working for themselves support group but I just don't have the credentials, clinical training and the experience isn't exactly behind me yet. And besides I'm the one that needs help right now. You know, I think the greatest misvalue in self-help books is all that been-there-ism it feels diminishing when what you want is not to be "fixed" or any cliff notes "For Dummies" on how you "should" be looking at things. What you want is just to be honest.

So I ask you can I be honest?

affirmations

Okay so I am reading this book on thyroid health which along the way lead me to consider a co-existing adrenal problem and ya know you'd think I would feel encouraged to find the answer to problems that have continued long after the hormone therapy began but instead I was just sort of crushed with feelings of fear, anxiety and hopelessness at the prospects of attempting a conversation with a doctor about this. I mean I just totally felt like why bother they just make you sit in the little chair and feel like a pee-on, simpleton, mentally unstable hypocondriac for taking an interest and opinion about your own healthcare. I mean among the worst possible things to say to any doctor are "I've been reading this book and..." or "I was doing some internet research and..." But then let's say you even get past that and they don't just write you off as crazy... well gosh what am I saying that's a pretty big maybe in itself... anyway you then have to hope your doctor's ego is healthy enough to take a suggestion and partner with you in your care and let's face it years of medical school didn't exactly engender humility post graduating.

Okay I know, I know, I sound awful it's just that YEARS of seeking treatment for a "sub-clinical" thyroid condition has made me angry and jaded... gawd I suffered for years with my life slowing degrading under the weight of an impenetrable depression, which was under the further stigma of thinking I was fucking crazy and the only thing anyone wanted to do was 1) suggest it was all in my head 2) take another blood test and pat me on the head 3) put me on anti-depressants and push me out the door 4) tell me I was no spring chicken anymore (I was 30 btw and yes those exact words were used) 5) test me for Epstein Barr syndrome, then tell me that definitively I had no provable condition and my personal favorite 6) suggest it was my fault for eating bread, having a sedentary job and not exercising "enough".

This year my cousin died at 42 of McArdle's Disease and my Dad passed away at 52 of some mysterious autoimmune spleen problem that never had a name. At the age of 39 all of my grandparents have been gone for many years now... and as if I even had the time for these so called experts I went from one to the other for 5 years while that little voice inside that said to believe in myself and that I wasn't crazy and not to be crazy for anyone just continued to die a slow agonizingly hopeless death of despair. Now, I'm not saying this because I am still angry - okay you got me I am - but I am saying that what I now understand is how important even life saving it is to have a doctor you can talk to, and having the courage to speak-up for yourself. I mean settle for whatever romantic partner, ho-hum job or lack luster sex life you want but don't scrimp on finding the doctor that fits, that listens.

I found one in 2001 and he let me talk about what I had read that "spoke to me" and he agreed to at least test thyroid antibodies - the results of which were not "normal" as I had expected so he sent me to a specialist at Mount Zion UCSF who further tested me and eventually diagnosed me with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashimoto's_thyroiditis) and put me on medication. I now understand the dogma, the testing regime, how it slipped through the cracks and the general potential fallacy in testing itself.... well... adrenal problems today are sort of like the thyroid modalities were in 1996 as far as the accuracy of tests and the prescribed tests, and the likelihood of being taken seriously in wanting to treat what could be considered a "sub-clinical" condition that once again may be at the mercy of my underlying autoimmune condition which they flat out have no treatment, or even interest in discussing.

Okay after allllll that you may rightly be asking what the hell any of this has to do with affirmations... well, I will tell you... interestingly enough there has been a series of tiny serendipitous events in the last 4 days that has lead me the information that in the eyes of holistic medicine - just as thyroid problems are associated with "finding one's voice" and "speaking one's truth" adrenal problems are connected with defeatism and shedding self-defeatist beliefs. I fitting challenge for someone who'd had their little voice inside scathed within an inch of existence.

And especially sad to me after the crushing relationship that ended over two years ago - it's taken me that long just to get that all squared away and I still doubt myself and it's true that lately I have been feeling especially lacking in confidence in areas such as: finding more work I'd enjoy/profit from, a new fulfilling relationship, lively desirable friends, any kind of writing career and ugh, just a general lack of belief in my own effectualness. So now here I am being asked to believe that affirmations will help me heal this area and gosh do I get a minute just to remember to forget that I can't heal? LOL. I mean you go through some changes when you don't have that faith for YEARS. But I'm gonna do it, no matter how silly and kinda pathetic it feels I am gonna come here and write a new affirmation or just re-read them often when I think of it and so I wanted to be able to find them quickly... the first one is for the medical community

I am compassionate and forgiving.

I am melodious in voice and lovely in aspect both to the eye and mind.

I am courageous in speaking up for myself because I speak for others in doing so. I deserve to be heard because I have something to contribute.

I am powerful and dynamic.

I am both wise and kind.

I am passionate and devoted, not to mention absolute firecracker in bed... you know what they say about the artist types *winkwinknudgenudge*