There’s a lot here so it’s long.
I took a vacation day today to extend the weekend. Best decision, I’m going to keep doing that on three-day weekends.
I went to therapy today. Lately I’ve been worried about/wondering about this good spell I’m in, how I wake up happy and not afraid. It feels almost too easy and I know in part, that’s due to the superficiality of my life right now. Surface social connections, work is just about ideas now. Home is filled with noise and distraction. I know there’s not a lot of stuff happening deeply with intention, this all feels like one huge vacation from pain to be honest. And that’s never good, at least that’s what I believe, there’s a Marie “let them eat cake” Antoinette dimension to that that I get concerned about.
Analysis is interesting in that it feels really random but a skilled analyst can track and then tie it all up at the end. There is something our subconscious is wanting to unearth but for me, it comes out in spurts. I should trust the process more, I guess.
I started with talking about how easy things seem and how much I want to keep them that way but that I was worried about it. I don’t know how to be in a life that isn’t centered around making things less painful, less frightening. That’s where all of my energy has been my entire life, keeping people permanent/not getting dropped, getting enough money where I’m not scared and feel safe. Avoiding contempt and disrespect from my parents, from my brother. I’ve not really gotten too far off the bottom rung of Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs.
BND sent an email in the beginning of the weekend that I talked about a bit; when I told him a few weeks ago that I’d gone to U2, he bristled at Bono and the suggestion that he’s a good guy, reminding me he’s deeply anti-choice and essentially furthers the evil of religion. He thinks he’s a fraud. When I challenged that and asked him, “What about everything he’s done for AIDS”? He bristled again and then sent me something Saturday morning that showed Bono arm and arm with GWB Jr on the ranch, saying “Here’s your buddy.” BND believes that the bad eradicates the good and his views are SO extreme - he’s so angry - that to challenge him almost means the friendship is at risk which he’s alluded to in the past. I used to but then I stopped because I was scared of being dropped (my BFF Kimo is like that too, actually most of the people I’m drawn to are polarizing like that for some reason).
What was different though was my reaction to the email. After a few attempts at answering, I told myself that I didn’t need to. I didn’t need to engage. That perhaps, not doing so revealed the frailty of the relationship itself (at least in my mind) but the lack of worry and stress about the conflict was worth more to me in that moment. So I didn’t, I responded to something else he sent instead and it was fine. I wasn’t sure if that was a loss or a victory in terms of strength of spirit, of character but I do know that not feeling the fear of being dropped - obsessing over it - stressed over the discomfort - was not a part of my weekend and that was a choice I made.
The article about peaks and valleys and the richness in the valley really got to me - life doesn’t feel real unless it’s really painful and what I wonder is if that’s just the nature of life when you’ve living it in a way that is connected. The problem with money is that it is designed to separate us from the masses - that’s what too much wealth does, it makes things so easy that we’re not connected to one another in our most basic and essential need. I’m not comfortable with being so comfortable, not as connected to the rest of the world. There’s also a spiritual component that may or may not be true -- that if things are too easy, it means evil is leaving me alone because I’m not doing anything to prevent it from advancing. I’m honestly not sure if that’s true or not but it is what I believe, though I didn’t share that with Elaine because she doesn’t have any belief. The word I often use as I note this season is “surreal” - like I’m not actually here and I’m not really connected to my life when I’m not dealing with some kind of drama or pain, either myself or someone else’s.
After I talked about that, I went on and on about how surprising it is to come across things in my mom that are so ignorant, how it’s confusing and I keep trying to know her but perhaps I do and I just don’t want to accept it but not engaging - not following up to see if she actually did send the kids money for tuition, etc. was another demonstration of the commitment to that interior stillness that feels something like - happiness, I guess.
Elaine was was just silent. I started to get really uncomfortable, like I was talking into the ether, and it felt like I was falling down a hole. Earlier in the conversation, there had been a tense few minutes where I was trying to explain what one of my nephews needed financially and she kept stressing that I wasn’t obligated to pay for him which made me wonder about her character - aren’t we obligated to take care of the people in our lives financially? I guess I wonder if she’s enabling what could possibly be really shitty character. So that was brewing in the background.
I finally just broke eye contact and stopped talking saying “I’m just rambling, going on and on.” I felt a little sick and when she said “I’m listening” I started to cry despite myself. I told her how uncomfortable the silence is for me, that there’s still a core belief that she’s not taking any of this in and the silence becomes a reminder of that.
She talked about BND and Kimo - how they have polarizing thoughts. Black and white, good and bad and I often find myself on the hard side of that equation and that it feels like they are going to drop me if I don’t align with the right side, She then asked me “do you think your mom is polarizing too?”
I said of course, I watched my sister on the receiving end of that polarization - which is contempt - and I did whatever I could to avoid it. But when I quit tennis and started making decisions that did not reflect what she believed was good? Bam - that contempt was in full force. It’s a hatred, really, she despises certain ways of life, certain ways of thinking. She’s full of hate and ignorance on a number of levels and would often drop us, saying she never wanted to see us again if we triggered it. And I’ve spent much of my later adult life either avoiding her doing so or earning my way out of her contempt though part of me knows I’ll never be able to entirely. I think what’s bothering me is that it’s a lifestyle that I apply across the board.
In the end, she was able to show me how it all fits together. My “rambling” is me testing the space between myself and someone else, wanting to make a connection where I’m held and received but because that’s never really happened, it gets surreal when it IS happening. Having a boss who really trusts my mind, having a few friends really taking me in emotionally like Siobhan is so bizarre - the joy and comfort that comes from that is something I’ve never experienced - it starts feeling like it’s not quite real, I’m suspect of it. People like BND are a much more familiar experience, when I start talking too much and there’s too much silence or contempt on the other side, I’m “too much”, that the hope/expectation of being listened to was too much so I shut myself down and start acting in a way that feels like groveling interiorly but is much more familiar. That there’s no room for me and I should have known better is what I tell myself.
I guess that’s why I’ve invested in online friendship so much, there’s not really any way of getting “dropped”, there’s always an acknowledgement of being read - of being heard - and I can tell myself that it’s happening when I really don’t know if it is or not.
