after you've counted to 10

it's hard to be articulate when you're angry. at least it's hard for me. rather than speaking clearly and directly, i sputter and i stammer, and i'm prone to dashing things to the ground. i can't think straight. and i can't reason well.

they say that anger is destructive. it is. that's true. but it's also a normal human reaction, right? to being hurt, to being dismissed, to being lied to, to being misunderstood, to being cheated, to being ridiculed, to being ignored, etc.

you can't stop yourself from feeling it. you can try to contain yourself, i guess. but holding it in is not good either. what do they say? that depression is anger turned inwards?

could be.

so what do you do with it? when exercise, meditation, screaming, yelling or crying don't work.

well, the only thing i can seem to do is write. write. write. write. write. write. and sometimes it helps to write to the person you're mad at. and sometimes it helps to write about the person you're mad at. and sometimes, it helps to just write about the emotion and avoid the specifics completely.

and it's not completely effective. but since i can't seem to be vindictive or violent, it's the only thing that semi-works. so i guess i'll stick with it.

creepy me

hmmm. have you ever creeped yourself out?

so every once in awhile i have thoughts about stuff that come true. and most of the time i can explain that by the fact that when i pay attention to stuff, i can make reasonably good guesses of what will happen next.

or sometimes, i'm sure it's just a coincidence. coincidences do happen. i get that.

but ok, two weekends ago i somehow thought something out of the blue that turned out to be true. i don't want to say what it was, but it was too specific to be just a random guess. and it was nothing i could have known about.

ok. so i can't explain it, but i rather shrugged it off. because it creeped me out too much to think about it. so i shrugged it away.

until today, i stopped at a starbucks because i had a gift card and i sat down by the fireplace to enjoy my latte and there was this guy sitting there a few feet away from me. and i looked at him and thought to myself "prostate cancer."

and i think, "why the hell did that pop into my head?"

so then this other guy came in and he and the guy i'd looked at greeted each other. apparently they were old friends who had not seen each other in awhile. and they moved to the seats behind me and proceeded to ask each other about each other's lives. and i eavesdrop. and well, you guessed it- the first guy told the guy he'd had prostrate cancer.

he quickly asserted that he'd been treated and was alright. which is nice and i'm glad. but i felt the need to leave then. it just sort of creeped me out that i took one look at some stranger who looked just like any other "trying to be hip" middle ager- you know- the requisite half beard thing, the trendy clothes, scarf on the collar of his coat etc. and diagnosed him with a disease.

and i think what creeps me out most is that there are things that pop into my head just as clearly about other people from time to time that i don't want to know and/or don't want to be true and now i wonder if they are true. and i'll never know. creepy.

Incomplete Regeneration

yEah. i've not written for awhile. partially, because i wore through another keyboard and i was waiting for the new one to come. but also partially, because i just didn't feel like writing.

i recently read an article about how writing is healing according to some study. literally and for all kinds of wounds. mental as well as physical.

i can't attest to the physical, i've never tried to heal a bruise or a bump or cut through writing. but i can attest to the emotional wound repair.

the nice thing about writing is that it doesn't require company. in fact, i find it rather hard to write when there is company around. i can't be alone with my thoughts.

so i avoided going to a funeral the other day. one of my former students succombed to muscular dystrophy. at least he made it to 21 years of age. i guess there's that. but i still have a terrible time with the early deaths. it just seems so wrong.

then in my back-home community there was a horrible event. a druggie couple gave drugs to the woman's 3 year old. "we put drugs in their bottles to watch them have fun." the 3 year old was put to bed where he died. then they hid the body for a day in a drawer. then on sunday the boyfriend and some kid hitched a ride with some woman to a nearby city asking her to stop part way there on a country road. there they walked into a woods and lit the saran wrapped little body in a box on fire.

the community is outraged and horrified. as they should be. vigilante hillbillies are calling for the woman and her boyfriend to be burnt alive at the stake. stuff like that. there's been a candle light vigil. there's been lots of discussion about the charges- what they are, what they should have been. there's been lots of blame. on drugs. on a lack of christian values, on a lack of community, on this, that, and the other.

me? i blame the christian right. for making it so socially unacceptable to abort a fetus that people completely unqualified to be parents feel they must carry through on a conception.

as for punishment, i'm not in charge of that. i believe that if i were, i would only put them in jail for life. i'm not much for vigilantism. i only want such people to live locked up away from me. and mine. and the only other thing i want to see is their six year place with some human people. away from druggies. and hillbillies. and the christian right.

but i'm sure that's not a popular opinion. likely people would be horrified to hear my thoughts. i don't care. it's what i think.

i should be at a birthday party tonight. partly my own. a group of us that i used to work with all having january birthdays. but i didn't want to go. almost as much as i didn't want to go to the funeral that i didn't go to. i just don't feel like being out too much this week. and i've already celebrated my birthday.

plus i've got my keyboard now, and i feel the need for some writing. there's a lot of digest in this month of january and wounds still to repair.

"The damage done in one year can sometimes take 10 or 20 years to repair." Chinua Achebe
"Repair means incomplete regeneration." Some Wikipedia article I read once

this year's look - a whiter shade of pale

i went shopping yesterday. yeah, i know. i hate shopping, but you see, i needed something. and since i really don't like to go shopping, i sort of made it a point to really look around and to get things that i will need in upcoming weeks, so that i wouldn't have to go back anytime soon. but..

i overstayed my limit. i have this limit on shopping. when i am done, i MEAN i am done. not ONE MORE STEP towards any merchandise. it is time for me to go. or i feel like i will topple over.

so, being past my limit, i hurriedly walked back to the anchor store that i parked by and then stopped and was standing at an intersection inside the store, trying to determine exactly which way were the men's coats. because i had the mental breadcrumb that i had entered the store right where they had men's coats. and i was hestitating, because it's a big store and i couldn't see men's coats nor could i find a sign that pointed to men's coats.

and i must have hestitated too long and/or too hestitantly and suddenly these two sales ladies (older women, mind you) are saying, "MAM! Are you ok?" not, "mam, can we slosh this perfume all over you?" not, "mam, can we help you find a nice sweater." but, "MAM! Are you ok?"

the alarm in their voices even made me wonder if they weren't talking to someone else? i turned toward them and it was clear that they were talking to me. so i say, "are you talking to me?"

and the one says, "yes, are you ok? you looked so pale, like you were going to pass out."

i replied, "ha, no, i'm fine. i'm just trying to figure out where men's coats are because i came in by men's coats."

with much relief registering on their faces, "she's alive!"- the other one says, "oh, go that way" pointing towards the north. i scurried off with as much vigor and vim as i could muster, lest they think their original assessment of my frail condition was correct, after all. i dashed out of the store and to my car.

now i realize that i'm a pale creature. of scandanavian descent. i realize that in the winter, i'm even paler because i can't get enough time with my friend, the sun. and i realize that being temporarily confused about where the men's coats could possibly be probably registered as a blank stoney look on my face. and i realize that i had gone past my tolerance for the cacophony that is the mall, but... BUT, did i really look that bad?

i checked in the mirror when i got home. i looked like me to me. just an average regular person. but i guess i'm going to have to try for a more john boehner look before i go out again. so that people won't think i'm collapsing or overdosing on drugs or something.

not an impossible day

well now. today is my birthday. how is it possible that i've made it another year? i don't know.

i've got the day off. yippee. i had the day off anyway because our program doesn't resume until next week, but as if that weren't enough, the school system where our program is located was called off for frigid temps on top of that. so i double have the day off.

so it's a nice thing to have your birthday free to sleep in, read, munch on junk, start a fire in the fireplace, watch old episodes of bonanza, and more or less anything you want. and friends are taking me out to dinner to boot. plus i can sleep in tomorrow also. it's all pretty good, i'd say. i feel fairly blessed.

plus all the nice facebook wishes, texts and emails and cards from friends and family, and a call from my daughter first thing in the morning. it all makes for a really pleasant birthday for an old woman, i'd say.

so what do i think about being this old? well, you know- i don't really feel this old. and i learned yesterday that i'm still capable of doing a cartwheel- although i didn't attempt a flip or a back bend. that seemed like a bit too much like impossible for me at my advanced age. i can still also stand on my head though. and that's good to know. because you just never know when you are going to be called upon to stand on your head, you know.

but the point is- i guess being this old is ok. as corny people, such as my dad, used to say, "it beats the alternative." and truly it does. i didn't always think or know that. but i do now.

and if i'm presented with a birthday candle tonight, i'll blow it out and i'll possibly even wish for something. even if i don't believe in wishing anymore. i'll wish for something small and nice, i guess, and not waste it on the impossible.

ex-paths

it's hard to know what to say when someone you know is hurting. and it's hard to imagine anything harder for a person to go through than the loss of a child. i can't fathom it really, anyway.

so this friend of mine told me recently that someone described him as an empath. i have to say that i didn't really know what exactly that was. i had to look it up. apparently it's when you can literally feel what another person is feeling. and you know what? i think i was one. once.

i think i learned not to be one too late. i could have saved myself a lot of grief if i'd learned earlier to not allow anyone else's pain in to such a degree. if i hadn't been empath-like, i could have carried myself better and a whole series of terrible events might never have happened and i'd quite possibly have lived in one of those happily ever after dream kind of lives.

but that didn't happen. what did happen is that i'm now permanently encased in iron or something. i'm steely, really.

and that's not to say i can't be empathetic anymore. and that i can't be sad for others, but i seriously am so encapsulated these days that nothing really ever gets past a certain layer. i can say and do all the right things, and i can feel for people, but i won't let myself actually feel what they are feeling. or rather, this hardened layer of scar tissue or whatever, doesn't allow me too.

it's really better this way. really better.

my hurting friend told me today, "i'm not bitter." meaning that she's bitter as hell and in pain with it. another person i know who went through something similar, completely lost her life-long certainty that there was a god. and yet another person i know when this same situation happened to her- turned to god. so one's bitter. one's angry. and the last one still has tears in the corners of her eyes. just ready to spill at all times.

personally, i just think it's better when you get to the point where you don't feel too much at all. you can be calmer and stronger. and more there for other people. you can tend to them because you're not having to deal with yourself.

maybe it's just growing up finally. and realizing that you have to learn that you can't carry the weight of the world all the time and still be of help to others. maybe it's that you learn you can't be a baby and be consumed and encompassed by your own feelings so you have to learn to shut them the hell off or shut them away from you.

i'm pretty darn too old to have finally figured that out. but how it was- was how it was, i guess. nothing i can do to change it now. i feel like i live in another country now sort of. not my own. an expat of sorts. i'm an expat empath. i think it's a better life.