The hard stuff

I’m not sure this is even a post.  It may be notes to myself.  I’m feeling incredibly averse to doing this — sitting here and typing and confronting the thing I can’t describe or don’t want to.  Which as always is a sign to keep going.

Friday night and most of yesterday, I was in a terrible mood.  I was feeling emotionally malnourished — that’s the gist of it.  I was physically tired and mentally tired as well, but mostly I was feeling emotionally malnourished.  Some of that is attributable to physical exhaustion and the mental weariness that comes from having worked really hard at writing at work over the past week.  But because of the meditation workshop last week, I am trying not to let that be the full explanation.  (It’s also not a practical explanation, even if it is correct, because I’m always going to be tired.)

I started thinking about how I was feeling and what was happening, and here is what I realized:

I think you have to earn happiness.  I realized this when I was feeling anxious and rushed while walking to synagogue with Milo.  I looked at a flower and recognized its loveliness, and thought (correctly): “This is being happy.  Seeing the beauty in this flower is what happiness comes down to, because everything else changes or fades or leaves.  Being happy about the flowers is something I can always have.”  Then I thought, “Wait, but that means ANYONE can have it — it’s not about how hard you work or how special you are.”

That, I am very sorry to say, was a revelation to me.  I have been two different religions, and I’ve got a tiny baby toe in the shallow end of the Buddhist pool with this meditation business, but at my very core, I am as Calvinist as they come.  My mind says that it — wealth, acclaim, health, happiness, peace, love, and understanding (what’s so funny?) –all must be earned, by dint of hard work and sacrifice and rectitude and right living.

Surprise!  The flowers don’t care what my LSAT score was, or what’s in my bank account, or how very damn hard I work to keep my house clean when no one but me seems to care but everyone benefits (or do they?).  Flowers are here for me, or not here for me.  Same with sky, breeze, tree, and strangers’ smiles.  Nothing at all earned.

I think I had a little breakdown at that realization.  If this can’t be earned, what I am working so very damn hard for?  What is my permanent state of monitoring and militarization getting me?  How am I special if I’m not working every minute at my specialness?  That’s a very destabilizing realization.  Eventually it will be freeing, and I will realize — really deeply inhabit — the fact that hard work is a good thing but whether I do or don’t, I am still special and precious and lovable.  There is an intrinsic me that is those things even if she is lazy, loses her job, eats Cheetos, and doesn’t leave the house for days on end.  I don’t believe that’s true, but I think that’s the truth I’m working towards.  I am not my hard-working-ness.  Again, I don’t believe it now, but it’s out there for me to believe.

And they kept coming, these destabilizing realizations!  When I got home from synagogue I went upstairs and sat down and just cried.  I was screaming inside my head for more love, more attention, more for ME ME ME ME ME ME, and it wasn’t coming.

I think that I have this emotional rain barrel that is nailed shut.  So no matter how much love rains down on me from Milo, Daniel, my parents, my extraordinary and exquisite friends, my colleagues, even God, that rain barrel isn’t getting filled.  Other barrels are getting filled, they are even overflowing, but this particular one isn’t getting filled, and sometimes I need exactly that one — none other will do.  (Another metaphor: this lacking thing is like a particular vitamin, like B12.  If you’re lacking in B12, getting more D, C, A, or calcium or iron won’t help.)

So my job is to pry off that lid and find a hose and fill up that well-self-beloved-ness barrel.  And oh my goodness I do not want to do that.  I want everyone else to fill it up for me.  I want Daniel to change so he fills it for me.  I want that not-baby to be real so she does.  I want my work or my tidy closet or my killer shoes or ANYTHING BUT ME to fill that up.  Because I don’t think I can fill it up.  Because I’m afraid that I might fill it up and still feel sad, lonely, vulnerable, and disappointed (that is assuredly true).  Because I’m tired and anxious and don’t want to have more work to do.

But this is one of those realizations that didn’t really leave me with much choice.  What happens next may be terrifying and destabilizing and disappointing, but the status quo isn’t tolerable, either.  I have to get into this anxiety and see if I can defuse it, like a bomb.  It might blow up.  But I think the fear of what might happen is worse that whatever will happen.  And I am betting that once I get a bit of this well-self-beloved-ness, I will be much less caught up in my own head, and less prone to screaming inside ME ME ME ME ME so much of the time, and better able to get out to others.

So I did another maitri meditation yesterday to get started.  My ailing father was the person I loved, and that was nice.  When I got to myself, being safe and being happy manifested themselves as forgiveness — forgiving myself for not getting pregnant, forgiving myself for being in a high-degree-of-difficulty marriage.  Writing this now, I realize that I’ve been mistaking self-congratulation for my accomplishments, and even appropriate appreciation of my accomplishments as well-self-belovedness.  Well-self-beloved happens when the laundry is not done, if the book isn’t written, if things are in chaos and it’s all my fault.  Again, not possible now, but it’s been named.

When I got to the difficult/challenge/enemy person, I chose Daniel because why not, and I forgave myself again for not loving him better.  And I realized that Daniel craves abundance and feels like everything is always scarce. And I do exactly the same thing, and we are really freaking each other out this way — we are anxiety amplifiers for each other.   (For me, a second child meant abundance but for him it meant scarcity, and thus I was driving towards satisfying this deep screaming need of mine, and he was feeling pushed and pushed and pushed right into the heart of one of his greatest anxieties.  Given that, we must really really love each other and be blessed because we made it through that time when our shared craving/anxiety was both amplified and irreconcilable.  I do love him.)

So the way I can better love Daniel is by manifesting abundance: there is enough money, there is enough time, there is enough sleep, and again there is enough time.  Super-duper completely not possible to do this now.  (Damn — I have a hell of a “to do later” list).  But maybe there is a moment of it that I can attain.

So for now, I’m thinking of finding abundance when I don’t think it exists.  I’m not “trying” to do this.  I like that I used the word “thinking” instead.  “Trying” gets me all wound up.  Weekends can be very anxious for me, because there is so much to be done (including relaxing and doing nothing) and the minutes fall through my fingers like balls of mercury.  Daniel and I were wound up like mad today at Target — Target is just a giant anxiety factory for me for some reason.  And the dog is having digestive trouble, and finding the zen in cleaning up after him (5 profuse accidents in 24 hours) is pretty hard.

But I did a really good thing — not of course that my value rests in doing good things.  I didn’t blame Daniel or Milo.  I realized I wanted an abundance of time, and that the only way that can happen is by an adjustment in my head, and I kind of made a partial adjustment and for a few seconds I felt better. And I can think of that again.