Home From Vacation: Part I

I haven't written in awhile. I just got home yesterday from my annual trip to visit my parents. Gone for 2 weeks, but it might as well have been a month. I'm feeling super foggy and disorientated. It's crazy how far from your routine you can get in 2 weeks. It's going to take some time to feel back to normal, to get my body off vacation time. During vacation, everything feels like excess. Too much food, too much drink, too much smoking, too much socializing, too much shopping... It's a time of the year I enjoy the American lifestyle, just as everyone else in this country does. My problem with this is there's not a lot of time for self-reflection. How can you when you are running around all day, constantly sending your brain little jolts of pleasure from alcohol, from food, from shopping all day long... Constantly talking. And talking. And talking. All those words mean very little when you haven't found peace with yourself.

So today, I start trudging back to a clearer mind. Working hard outside, yoga and meditation, regular exercise, and regular fasting. Eating lots of vegetables, not so much meat (we must have ate 3 truckloads of red meat on our vacation), and water more than anything. I think I gained 5-8 lbs on the trip, which is probably also fogging up my brain.

Ugh. I'll feel better in a week or so.

In the meantime, I'd thought I'd talk about my trip. To start with, I have never not wanted to go on a trip as much as this one. I dreaded it for days. I got anxious about it at least a week beforehand. I was nervous about leaving the puppy, and it was such a bad time of year to leave the garden. I knew my husband's aunt and uncle wouldn't feed my birds or change my hummingbird feeder. But the tickets were bought in January, circumstances be damned.

What did I find when I got home yesterday?

The puppy seems to have forgotten all of his potty training. He's going everywhere in the house. He peed in the bed last night, and he's never done that. I spent an hour last night with a roll of paper towels and the carpet cleaner, just roving from room to room cleaning up urine stains. The cilantro bolted in the garden. Something is seriously eating the potato plants. My cucumber plants turned yellow. My bird bath hasn't been scrubbed in two weeks. Something dug up and ate my lavender starts. The bird feeders were all empty, and even though I've filled them, no one has returned. The house is filthy. Laundry is flowing out of the hamper onto the floor.

I. am. frustrated.

Almost everything I thought would happen during vacation, did. Minus one of the dogs getting lost, and I might have actually killed my husband's family if that had happened.

So, I was dreading the trip. But I went. The anxiety seemed to lessen as soon as the hubby and I left for the airport. It's almost like my body knew that there was nothing I could do now. Travel went smoothly and we arrived in Oregon at 10 in the morning. The initial meeting with my brother and dad was a blur, as was lunch soon after. In fact the rest of the day is kind of blurry from jet lag, my husband and I ended up in bed very early.

The trip had begun.

I didn't notice right away, but I did notice soon after arriving how different my brother was acting. He'd last come out to visit us in the South last August, and that trip was pretty jovial and relaxing. Now, my brother seemed angry. And bitter. And lashed out at everyone. He said some hurtful things to me, and about issues that are extremely important to me. One of his comments has been burned in my head, probably forever. My brother is a high school teacher, and basketball coach, and near the end of the school year, one of his players committed suicide. My brother was telling my husband that because he is a teacher, he had to be sympathetic and compassionate to the students and parents. He said he had to "say the right thing". But deep down, he didn't feel sympathy. He said he thought that student was selfish and was trying to become a martyr. He said the kid was trying to make sure that everyone focused on him and talked about him at graduation. He then said he thought that kid was a "piece of shit".

I was floored. Shocked. Rocked.

How could anyone say that? I walked away at this time, but I thought a lot about what he said. Such a lack of empathy, especially for someone I thought was exactly like me. I thought my brother put on a big show of being an asshole and pretending not to have feelings, but maybe it's not a show. Maybe he really doesn't care. Maybe he really doesn't have compassion, and empathy for others. His student drove his car off a cliff. When that didn't kill him, he kicked the windshield out of the car, climbed the cliff, and proceeded to find a tree and hang himself. That is pure desperation there. Pure and simple. Human brains have evolved over millions of years to have systems that protect us from suicide. One of the brain's main functions is to keep us alive. People have to be sick, very sick, in order to override those systems. I know what it's like to look out at the world from eyes that see nothing but pain, destruction, unhappiness, inequality, and despair. I know what it's like to feel like you can't stand a single second more. It's terrifying to have those thoughts. These thoughts almost feel physical at times, like an anchor tied to your ankle in the ocean. When you are at the bottom, it literally feels like you're drowning. How can my brother not see how desperate that poor kid was? That he was sick, and he saw no other alternative than to do what he did?

I feel like I don't know who my brother is anymore. It almost felt like I was punched in the stomach when I realized that my brother is fake.

He says the right things. He pretends to care. He smiles and pats the kids on the back, but who knows what he's thinking inside. He says the right things to me. Is this for real? I found myself, for most of the trip, second-guessing everything he said. Did he mean what he just said, or was that sarcasm? This, of course, let to lots of retrospection on my brother's failed marriage, which ended 1 year ago. My brother got engaged after dating this girl for about 9 months. They were married within 6 months of that. She left about 16 months into the marriage, and they are now divorced. My mom and my brother talk mad shit about this girl. They say horrible, awful things like she was manipulative, a liar, and a bitch. They appall me.

I don't agree with the way my former sister-in-law went about things, but I'll just say this, she is in no way the things that my family says about her. She was a good person, with a good heart. They just did not make a good match. For one, she was very religious and my whole family is squarely in the Agnostic/Athiest camp. This, for me, was the biggest red flag. The second biggest problem was that she doesn't smoke or approve of smoking, and my brother is a stoner. A huge stoner. I think these 2 factors alone are enough for anyone to say that this might not be a forever-match here.

My former sister-in-law said it was ok that my brother was Agnostic. I think that was a lie.

My former sister-in-law said it was ok that my brother smoked weed. Occasionally. I think that was a lie.

But let's be honest, this girl was 22 when they got married. At 22, I still told guys what they wanted to hear in order to have a relationship. You always think you can change someone if they love you enough. I thought this way. I think most young girls do. Does this make them a bad person? Fuck no. It makes them youthful, optimistic, and immature, but that's what the majority of people are at 22. It's a sign of youth, not of being manipulative. And in defense of my former sister-in-law, I'm pretty sure my brother put on his good-guy act until they got married. I guarantee that this girl started to see the real person behind my brother's persona, and she probably realized she didn't even know this person. Put that together with their major lifestyle differences and of course someone is going to pull the plug on this marriage.

I forgive my former sister-in-law. I understand that these 2 people were fundamentally different. Our time on Earth is so incredibly short, we can't waste a second being unhappy. In the long run, I think my brother will be better off. He'll find someone (hopefully) that's also agnostic, and perhaps a little bit of a liberal, pot-smoking hippy. And it will work so much better. So why harbor so much animosity?

If you want to get down to brass-tax, I think my brother is in the "Anger" phase of his grieving. It must have been that he was so busy during the school year that he didn't process any of his emotions, and he's just now having time to think about it. All I can say is, I hope this phase passes. I also hope comments he made were made out of anger, and not out of him revealing his true self.

I've got lots more talking about the trip to do, but unfortunately, I also have quite a long to-do list. Till next time!

Mourning All That Will Never Be

I go back and forth with my mourning. Just when I think I've processed everything there is to process, more shit comes gurgling up. Thrown in my face. Tearing my heart into tiny little jagged pieces.

I mourn for that baby girl that I suspect was abused as an infant. About 2 years ago, I recovered a hazy memory of a baby in a baby bath, one toy navy boat, and my uncle. Due to the fact I was in a baby bath (you know, one of those little baths you place inside the actual bathtub),  I've estimated my age at 6 months, maybe a year. Because I'm so young in this memory, I consistently and constantly question this memory.  But when I'm feeling healthy, I try to tell myself to just accept it, not to question it to death. My point in all that is that I feel I never stood a chance. Corrupted from the beginning. What could I have been if this any of this had never happened?

I mourn for the girl who might have been happy.

I mourn for the girl that might never have suffered depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia, chronic headaches, and IBS.

I mourn for the girl who didn't respect her body, or even herself.

I mourn for the girl who may have been outgoing. I mourn for the girl who may have been popular, who may have made the cheerleading squad. I mourn for the girl who may have become homecoming queen.

I mourn for the girl that got bullied for being different. I mourn for the little girl who looked in the mirror, and only saw glasses, braces, chubby cheeks, and a mushroom haircut.

I mourn for the girl that may have been a doctor. That may have gone to law school.

I mourn for the girl that may have had children of her own.

I mourn for the unborn babies she will never have, and the experiences that won't darken her doorstep. She decided when she was 12 that she would never have children, and now she is 32. Childless. Stuck with a biological clock that never started ticking. Only the memory of the day the decision was made.

I can vividly recall that day when I was 12. I was terribly sad that day. This wasn't unusual. It was summer, and I was laying on my back in the grass in the backyard of my parents' house. The clouds weren't flying by especially fast that day, they were just big fluffy air masses lazily making their way across my field of vision. Like large, white cotton balls among the brilliant cerulean sky. I heard shrieks and happy screams of the neighbor kids riding their bikes up and down the street, throwing rocks at each other, playing games. Those happy shrieks felt like a knife to my heart, and in the moment I told myself I would never have kids. I would never subject another human being to the awfulness that was life. How could I willingly bring someone into the world when everything hurt so bad? I could not, I would not. And my mind has never changed.

I mourn that I will never have the experiences that all my former friends are having right now. Some of them have 3 to 4 kids! Pregnancy announcements and baby pictures fill my Facebook feed. Sometimes I smile, with tears in my eyes. Sometimes I just have to close the laptop, the pain is too great. I mourn that I will never experience "the greatest of all loves". I mourn that I will never see my husband's happy face when I tell him I'm pregnant. I mourn that I will never see that grin when his children take their first steps. Say their first word. I mourn that I am selfish and I worry about who will take care of me when I'm old.

I mourn for the girl who only felt hate and anger. I mourn for the people she hurt when she was younger, and didn't know any better.

I mourn for the girl who saw forgiveness as weak.

I mourn for the teenager who could never let go.

I mourn for the girl who spent half her teen years and all of her 20's numbing herself with alcohol, painkillers, and benzo's, with absolutely no inkling of "why?".

I mourn all of this. And then I try to let it go.

This is life, take it or leave it. I could sit here all day with the "what if's?" and the "who knows?". Everything that has come to pass, I cannot change. I can only try to accept it.

After all, it's made me who I am today.

Dear Diary

Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a while.

I went down into our basement, and into the boxes of my childhood stuff I've kept over the years.  I went down there looking for a journal. It was a specific purple spiral notebook, one I'd filled with quotes from poems and songs, and a few fiction stories I wrote in high school. I was looking for some inspiration for writing. As soon as I opened the first box, I felt a slight twinge that said this might be a mistake. There were so many pictures from high school in that box. Pictures of a young, smiling, goofy teenager. One who was so good at hiding the pain. Too good. There were stuffed animals, candles, dance awards, and trophies. I lovingly, delicately ran my fingers over the spine of a white teddy bear. I picked up the bear, and there it was. My childhood diary. Thoughts and events from my life from the time I was in 6th grade till I was a sophomore in high school.  Maybe I thought the purple journal would be in that big, black binder that was my diary, but nevertheless, I grabbed it and brought it upstairs.

I set the somewhat-crumbling binder down on the kitchen counter, and opened it. There was a clump of small pieces of paper tucked in the front cover. I smiled when I found $5 in McDonald's gift certificates, circa 1997, and a $10 Applebees gift certificate from my high school best friend. 'No expiration date' it claimed on the front. I imagined taking that certificate to the Applebees in my hometown during my next visit, just to see if they would take it. Nestled behind those certificates was a letter with my name on it. My dad's handwriting. It was an apology he had wrote me after "The Toilet Paper Incident". I was crying by the time I got to the end of letter and the words that moved me the most. At the end he had wrote,

"I'm going through a confusing time right now; something I don't understand, but am determined to resolve no matter what. I know it's tearing our family apart right now, but my hope is that it's temporary, and will lead to me becoming a better, more centered person. I have to do this because I don't see any other way right now. If I discover what's going on with me, I'll be home that day, that hour, that minute, but until then I have to keep searching."

That paragraph hit me hard. I didn't understand the letter when I received it, how could I? After all, I was only 17. It sure means a lot now, though. I completely understand what he went through, because that's what I'm going through. Complete and total personal upheaval.  The only difference is I don't have a family that I'm responsible for. I honestly believe that that makes my journey 100% easier than whatever my dad went through. Another thing was made clear by this letter- "the toilet paper incident" occurred when my parents were separated, not when I was in middle school being chased home from the bus. Memory is a tricky thing, isn't it? I'm trying not to beat myself up over not remembering something perfectly, I spend way too much time doing that as it it. And that in itself can cause more pain. More on that another time, though.

I wiped away tears with the back of my hand, and settled in to read the actual diary. The first thing that struck me, that always strikes me on reading that diary, is how much pain is inferred through the passages. The main reoccurring theme throughout the first handful of pages is how unhappy I am. I hate school, my friends don't like me and talk about me behind my back, and I am angry. Lots of scrawling, hateful epithets written in all capital letters. Lots of anger with my mom, and with my brother. The second thing that knocked the wind out of me was a passage written on 12-16-95. It was regarding an incident that was one of the first traumatic memories to boil over in EMDR. My mom was taking me to my first concert that day, a Reba McEntire concert in Portland, OR. On our way, my mom and I saw a German Shepherd get hit by a car. In the entry, I described the scene exactly how it's been burned into my brain since that day. That memory used to cause so much distress, pain, and depression, and it struck me how much that has changed since EMDR. Recalling that memory yesterday was a good way to evaluate that that memory still feels less disturbing since the onset of EMDR. Even though it's been almost a year since we reprocessed that memory. Which is the purpose of EMDR, so that's very positive. Another important issue regarding this memory was that I never remembered the date. I never remembered it was around the holidays. December is, by far, my worst month. I spend the entire month in a funk, every year. I always thought it was just because of the holidays, the pressure, my birthday... Now I'm wondering if this traumatic memory is also involved a bit in my holiday madness?

Another thing became transparent to me upon reading the diary. I've quite clearly had dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex since the beginning. It was interesting to read about the onset of my first relationship and all the flawed thinking I've always displayed. I saw how elated I was when the relationship became physical, when I was 13. I saw how unstable in the relationship I was- always complaining about how he was obsessed with me and way too nice, so I ended the relationship. At which time, I became panicked and all I could write about was getting him back. And I did get him back. And the relationship became more physical. I noted that I didn't include in my diary that I lost my viriginity to him. I remember my mindset at that age. It was always in the back of my mind that my mom could find my diary, so I never included that. Reading through the entries though, I knew where it had happened.

The on-again/off-again relationship came to its inevitable end. And I wrote about the loss for no less than 1 year, truly fixated and unable to move on. I was in eighth grade. What 13-year old mourns the loss of a boyfriend for a year? I wrote that I felt like I'd lost a best friend, that I missed the closeness, that I felt lost. Empty. Alone.

And then, one year later, I met someone else. And the exact same process started over. Except this time, there were a few more detailed entries to go off of. This time, the boy I was dating went to a different school so I only saw him on the weekends. It was obvious, from reading the entires, that I was ok with the relationship when we were together (fooling around, being touched, etc.) but during our time apart, I got squirrely. I would start to doubt the relationship and how much he cared for me. I would think about breaking up with him, but then if we did break up, he would be all I would think about. And yes, this relationship became on-again/off-again too.

It was obvious. Written in front of me, in black and white. Only, I'd never seen it before. In my young brain, things were only balanced in these "relationships" when they were physical. Sex= Love. That's where I felt right. That's where I felt safe. And let's face it- when you are 13, you don't get a whole lot of time to do these things. So, I spent most of my relationships feeling depressed. Like things were wrong. Like I wasn't good enough.

And how does a young girl come right out of the gate, and behave this way?

The answer is plain and straight-forward- programming. I was taught to think this way, yet I had no inkling of what had happened to me as a child. Not one thought, not one time. Ever. I never thought, "Maybe I'm this way because something happened to me?". I remember how I felt at the time-

Born broken. I would be forever broken. Possibly just bad genetics. Possibly I was just a terrible person.

These revelations have put a lot into perspective. I realize now why my college relationship was so difficult, and why so many other relationships were. I (subconsciously) became paranoid over my relationships if they weren't physical. And during college, I was on Depo-Provera and had zero sex-drive. With the lack of physical closeness, I became even nuttier. More paranoid. Needy. And no successful relationship exists in harmony with that much negative emotion. I was more unlike myself than I've ever been during that relationship.

It's clear to me now why I feel my marriage is in trouble if we haven't had sex in a couple of days.

And while these things are evident to me, now I'm left wondering,

"How do I change this?" How do I break the association of love and sex? As A has mentioned many times, we are only getting older. Both of our sex drives will naturally decrease, and am I going to be thinking he doesn't love me for larger and larger amount of times?

I don't want this to be the case.