a soulful destruction

I've been remembering my dreams this week. I used to remember my dreams almost always, but over the last few years it has come to seem rare to recall what I dreampt, or if I even dreamed at all. I love dreaming and have felt a hole in my life where this rich dream-life used to be.

A couple days ago I dreampt of a home, my home, but no home I know in waking life. The home was single story, built of wood, and surrounded by grasses, bushes, trees, and other homes in a community. Not particularly suburban, unless it was perhaps some 50 years ago or more. There were no fences that I can remember between any homes.

There was a little girl outside and I was with her, perhaps talking, or playing along with a game, or she asking me questions. I felt a kindness toward her, a gentle love and compassion.

My wooden home was a bit dark inside, although the slats of wood had gaps between them and holes where soft bright sunlight shown through. The inner walls were also of these wooden boards - no insulation, no sheet-rock or plaster. Just old wooden boards, green with mold or moss or paint - like a fence. In that way it was very earthy and matched the nature surrounding it.

I recall feelings of deep sadness, beauty, quiet, emptiness, and maybe shame or guilt. I know there were other people and homes, but not who or what anything else looked like, just this snapshot.

The fence-gap wooden home makes me think of skeletal ribs. And I wonder if the home represents my physical self or my mental self or my emotional self. All would prove interesting in analogy. My physical self pocked with symptoms of autoimmune disease - tired weary body, lungs closed and dark, joints creaky, crackly, swollen and sore. My mental self - my brain feeling foggy, sometimes gaping holes that you could shine a flashlight through. My emotional self confused, jumbled and tangled like a mess of yarn.

Or perhaps it represents the overwhelm I feel about my life, my home, my current situation. I'm so far from comfort in all aspects of my life. There is far too much work to be done to get things to a state of decency - one can see the gaping holes. How can this be repaired? One can't abandon their life, they can only alter it from within. Yet there is sunlight streaming through, and that makes it sweet and beautiful. A soulfulness in the destruction.

food for thought

With the heat wave I spent yesterday morning at an official city cooling center, the Brooklyn Public Library. One of the books I came home with is Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living. Although every page has an abundance of food for thought, this morning a couple of questions really stood out for me...

*Are my choices supporting what is deeply satisfying in my life?
*Are my choices leading to long-term freedom or short-lived pleasure?

... We make thousands of choices every day... How might our days look different if we asked ourselves these questions throughout?

If we ask ourselves these questions in reference to what we do for work, where we want to live or be, what we want to do for play and pleasure, how would our lives change?

How might my life be different tomorrow if I ponder these questions today?

Even just considering these questions in brevity I find myself seeing where I am holding myself back from deep satisfaction - by choosing to keep living somewhere I do not want to live because I'm afraid that moving will just be a short-lived pleasure. Certainly my choice to be in the city is not creating short-lived pleasure. And I do not yet know if staying here will result in long-term freedom. If I move to the country will it lead to long-term freedom? How am I to know the answers to these questions? There is so much doubt and inner conflict that I find it difficult to find the answer within.

No place like home

What the hell happened in that 24 hours that flipped the "i heart new york city" switch to "off"?

For two autumns, winters, and springs I have been wooed by the magic, and filled with blissful fondness toward this city... then, seemingly overnight, I had been consumed with a deep unwaverable desire to get the hell out of here and into the country.

The noise, the heat, the R line... I shake my fist at you!

Not even a trip into Manhattan, which usually snaps me right into "magical dream world" mode, could change my heart.

I know what happened, actually, I just don't understand why it had an impact opposite of what I had expected.

We moved. We moved less than a mile from our crappy, dark, stinky, rent stabilized apartment in that wealthy, cut-off from the rest of the borough neighborhood... we moved just in between it and another wealthy neighborhood that we actually like better... except for that pesky R line.

Even this new apartment is better. It's brighter, newer, cleaner, less smelly, closer to everything I like to walk to (except my yoga studio and the F line), it's technically quieter, too... except weekend nights. It's better in every way, except the rent is more. But that shouldn't be enough to tip the scales into loathing.

So, what the heck is my problem?

Mr. B and I have been discussing where it all went wrong. We had this plan to be here for 2 years - for his masters degree. Then the 2 years ended and we each thought the other really wanted to stay. I had been worried about loosing medical care, so was reluctant to willy nilly run off to another city or state. To him, it sounded like I was unmovable (perhaps I was at that moment). He was certain he could get a great job here and would be in demand, so was pulled slightly to stick around. To me, it sounded like he saw great career opportunities here, how could I deny him this? Naturally, we each convinced ourselves we wanted to stay, believing it would make the other happy. The truth is, and has been for years, both of us want to be in Vermont.

I want to go home. And I don't know exactly where that is yet, but I know it's not here. Here is a constant unsettledness of having to move every 6-12 months. Here is a constant knowledge that I will never have the space for real furniture or a garden. Here is endless waiting.

I want a house I can make home, full with cozy furniture and beautiful art. I want some land so I can plant a large garden and dot with chickens and sheep and bee hives. Someday I might want a little swing set and a wee faerie child to swing on it (but not just yet). And I want to open my window or walk out my door and smell grass, trees, flowers, rain, and see mountains and valleys and deer.

With this in mind, I click my heals three times...

anxiety award

So, I read something today that said immune system functions are inhibited by anxiety... and that made me wonder if somehow, my body is naturally fighting this autoimmune disease (a disease characterized by the over-activity of the immune system) with a constant state of anxiety. Perhaps my anxiety is what has kept the disease so minuscule for so long. I'm certain I've had symptoms of autoimmune disease at least since I was a teenager, and I actually believe I started having symptoms when I was eight, which is the same time I remember beginning to experience anxiety and depression.

I suppose it is possible the disease biologically causes the anxiety, and the anxiety was just another symptom. But I kinda like the idea that the anxiety is a response from my body to suppress the immune system... it's a bit comforting - like something is being done. Like someone is paying attention in there and doing something.

Arg. But this just plays into me finding ways that my biology is responsible for my emotions, rather than my life experiences being responsible for my emotions, which means I just get to feel better (emotionally) because "it's not my parents fault"... huh. It's a damn chicken and egg. If my childhood had been "perfect" would I still have an autoimmune disease? Perhaps if we had heat and I didn't get pneumonia when I was two years old. Perhaps if I wasn't constantly breathing second hand smoke. Perhaps if there weren't drunk and high strangers in my face making me uncomfortable. Yet, if I didn't have an autoimmune disease that wouldn't change my childhood experience.

Okay okay... this doesn't mean my initial idea is false... I just may not win a science award ;)

My Mom The Genius

When I was about 4 or 5 years old and Christmas was peeking around the corner, my mom and I were making rice crispy treats... quite possibly my all time favorite yummy snack back in the day.

I remember her asking me "Should we make them green and red for Christmas?" My eyes lit up. I couldn't fathom how it would be possible to change the color of rice crispy treats! They were always yellowy-white. Of course, I was giddy at the possibility, and agreed readily.

Her next question nearly caused my heart to stop beating. "Should we cut them into triangles?" What? How? Rice crispy treats were thick yummy squares of goodness! How would you make them into triangles? Again, as I wracked my brain while we melted and poured and mixed I just couldn't figure out how it could come to be.

Then my mom did the amazing - she simply added food coloring - something I had no concept of as a wee person. After the treats had settled and were ready for cutting, she again blew my mind by cutting across the pan diagonally, and then kept cutting diagonally until we had a couple dozen triangles.

And just like that, she transformed regular old rice crispy treats into magical triangular Christmas-colored goodies.

My mom held me in complete awe with her magical powers - her depth of knowledge, her radical "out of the box" thinking. My mom's Christmas miracle elevated her to genius status in my mind.

Although there may have been moments while growing up (generally my teen years) when I was certain my mom was a few cards short of a deck, she has always hovered somewhere between magical and genius. I cherish her exceptional thoughtfulness, knowledge about things that matter to me (like food, and gardening, and power tools), wild creativity, and unbelievable resourcefulness. She has never ceased to amaze me with her wealth of natural skills and abilities.

Controlina and Chaoster

so, in therapy we discussed the irrational fear of being attacked in my home, which was the topic of the previous entry. i didn't disclose everything to my therapist - about the fear while showering, or the fear of sexual assault. it was only our fourth session, so i'm still not in 100 percent trust, even though i want to be. i still hold back. anyway, we discussed the fear a bit.

my therapist linked my fear of an intruder in my home to my control/chaos stuff. let me explain.

i keep a tight ship. i am the queen of control. i have been for almost as long as i can remember. mostly this manifests as me working to control my emotions and my environment. i need quiet, structure, stability. if i were a superhero i would be Controlina and my arch nemesis would be Chaoster. my superpower? Cold hard rational - i make sense of things and they go away, dissolve, feel better. my weakness - my kryptonite? irrationality - i am powerless against irrationality. i can deal with paradox, but not irrationality. i just can't wrap my head around it because it doesn't make sense.

here's where it gets interesting...
my fears are irrational. and what would someone breaking in need to be (what kind of person?) in order to break into my home and do harm to me? they would need to be "crazy"... completely irrational and out of control. right? no sane, logical, rational person would break into someone's home to harm them.

i am afraid of chaos, of the unknown, of what i can't control.

this may not seem very profound. now that i've written it down it's all very obvious. and certainly my irrational fears haven't gone away just because i figured out one aspect of what they represent. but that, my therapist said, is what we'll uncover in our work together.

i find that terrifying.

afraid of the unseen

About a week or two ago an old fear came back...

As a child I had an intense irrational fear of snakes coming out of the toilet and shower drain. I wasn't afraid of snakes - I've always liked them. But I was afraid that while sitting on the toilet snakes would emerge to attack me. Or while I washing my hair and had my eyes closed, snakes would come up from the drain to attack me - sometimes I was afraid spiders or snakes would come out of the showerhead, too.

I was unable to alleviate these fears for many many years, no matter how rational I was able to be about it. I knew I was safe. I knew no snakes or spiders could fit through those tiny holes. I knew that it was highly unlikely snakes could make it all the way through the plumbing and up the drains into my toilet or shower. But I was still terrified.

What made matters worse was my long hair... which if seen by me while in a showering situation, sent me into a panic that spiders and snakes were upon me.

I had another shower-related fear, too. But this one developed when I was a little older (maybe late teens, but definitely by college). The terror that someone would break into my home and attack me while I was in the shower - unable to see or hear them. Now, you're thinking "oh, she watched Psycho"... yes, I had seen that film. But it didn't really frighten me. And I wasn't afraid of Norman or his crazy dead mom, or being knifed. Mostly I was afraid of sexual assault.

I dealt with all of these fears by washing my hair very quickly, with my eyes wide open. It was okay to close my eyes for a snap second, but only just. Because even one second was enough to send my fear spiraling out of control - my heart palpitating, my mind racing.

I never could really do much about the snake/spider fear. I just had to keep telling myself not to worry, it's nearly impossible. But when I was old enough to have my own apartment, I dealt with my "stranger breaking in and attacking me while I showered" fear by buying a clear shower curtain.

A clear shower curtain allowed me to always see what was happening in the bathroom, and somehow it eased my fears tremendously. In fact, I don't remember when that fear finally went away, but certainly it's been gone for a decade or so... until last week.

Last week, without any warning, I found myself in the shower... gripped by fear that someone was in the apartment and on their way to the bathroom to harm me.

Where on earth had this come from? Why was this fear back? It has continued daily since it's reappearance, and once last week I was startled when a piece of my long hair brushed against my bare shoulder and I saw the thick darkness of it against my pale skin.

We've gone a few years without having a clear shower curtain mostly because we've had transparent shower doors or roommates who bought the shower curtains before we arrived. And we've had opaque shower curtains for several months without me experiencing this kind of reaction. So, why now? What changed?

When I think about what is happening in my life at this very moment, what comes up for is that I feel so incredibly vulnerable. There are a lot of unknowns right now and I do not feel safe.

The biggest thing that I can grab hold of to make sense of this fear is that my health is wacky - I don't know which way is up when it comes to my body anymore, it's a different ballgame and no one gave me a rule book. I'm increasingly afraid of dying young. I have no issues dying when I'm 75, but when I think of being very ill and dying in a couple years it really scares me - I cry every time I let the thought cross my mind. And even though I've never felt ready to have kids, I'm deeply saddened that I don't have children and probably never will. And I am afraid of my Medicaid not being renewed - that would mean no medical care, which I need because who knows when this disease is going to crank up the volume.

I never expected my 30s to be a terrifying time in my life. I thought I was done with all the fear.

For the moment, I pull the opaque outter shower curtain back so that I can see through the transparent liner... it helps a little, but it doesn't fully soothe my fears. I am meeting with a therapist tomorrow, so now I suppose we'll have something to discuss, haha. I hope we can pull back the opaque layer of my mind and investigate what is on the other side.