discipline

in reference to the whole thing I discussed in the previous post about swinging from one extreme to another--from compulsively avoiding work to compulsively doing work--I've been thinking that this is because I lack some kind of solid interior compass or, what would you call it, lodestone, something that I can come back to.

One word that came to mind as I was thinking about this was "discipline"--I lack discipline--the discipline to work at appropriate times and the discipline to rest at appropriate times. I feel lost and unmoored all the time, trapped and confused.

And, a phrase came into my head from When Things Fall Apart: "What we discipline is not our 'badness'..." but I couldn't remember the rest. All I can think of is disciplining (punishing) my badness, my failures... So I looked up the full quote. Here it is, though I'd be lying if I said I had fully assimilated it...

To dissolve the causes of aggression takes discipline, gentle yet precise discipline. Without discipline, we simply don't have the support we need to evolve. What we discipline is not our "badness" or our "wrongness". What we discipline is any form of potential escape from reality. In other words, discipline allows us to be right here and connect with the richness of the moment.

...

Within this structure, we proceed with compassion...[T]he discipline is to return to gentleness, to honesty, to letting go. At the inner level, the discipline is to find the balance between not too tight and not too loose — between not too laid-back and not too rigid.

Discipline provides the support to slow down enough, and be present enough, so that we can live our lives without making a big mess. It provides the encouragement to step further into groundlessness.

--Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart (found here)

Hmmmmm....

our confused italian friend

today i gave OLIF a lecture on listening to me—specifically, that he shouldn't.

he is the only therapist i ever had who can listen past my merry babblings to hear what is really going on. he did this more when he didn't know me. now he has started to be distracted by what i say.

a year ago he could listen to me babble on for twenty minutes about "I'm doing so much better" and at the end of it say, "You sound really depressed." he needs to go back to that.

when i switched gears from compulsively loafing and shirking my responsibilities, to compulsively over-performing on my responsibilities, he missed how that was not actually any better (although it makes Loopy's life easier).

he was so glad that i was cleaning the house, that he didn't notice how crazy it was when i stayed up until 3 a.m.—after feeling sick all day and finally puking my guts out—compulsively cleaning up and washing christmas dinner dishes by hand. i only managed to stop myself when the drivingly compulsive part of my brain said i should mop the floor.

he didn't really get when i talked about the massive anxiety attack i had christmas eve because i had actually been responsible and finished all the preparations for christmas, and for the whole day of the 24th i really didn't have that much to do. i completely panicked because i felt that i had to have chores and responsibilities in order to feel okay. without them i was lost. this is crazy, boys and girls.

buddhism talks about ignoring the specific actions and looking at the process. the actions, for me, can be compulsive work or compulsive avoidance, but the process is one of aggression toward myself, and avoiding being settled with my true feelings, making decisions in response to circumstances, etc.

he knows i always think in images. he asked today what my image is for feeling grounded, connected to myself. i don't have one. my instinct was that i couldn't make such an image because it was such a dangerous, vulnerable place to be--in me--it's much safer to float away. that's the next place to start.

i don't know if any of htat made any sense. i'm just kind of writing it down. i bought a journal but have felt too disconnected from self to use it.

gotta go pack... finally going home.

our little italian stranger

OLIF was supposed to call me tonight and he seems to have forgotten. he forgot the last time he was supposed to call, too. annoying.

i am so sick of therapy and trying so hard all the time. maybe i could take some time off from therapy... some of the buddhist stuff i've read teaches that self-improvement is a form of aggression towards oneself, and that we can only become more gentle, loving, compassionate etc by relaxing the urge to "improve" and, just generally opening and relaxing.

but it takes a lot of effort, it seems, to pry my hands off the stick i beat myself with. it takes a lot of effort to choose to open and relax instead of clenching up.

so i've managed to put my back out (not severely, but enough to be quite painful) by not taking care of it. this gives me permission to take a break from being helpful and useful all the time.

of course, if i had given myself permission to take a break on purpose, if i had defended myself from myself, if i had stuck up for myself, i could have chosen when and how to take a break, instead of being forced into it. i could have been useless for 2 hours a day while i go to the gym, instead of being totally useless all day.

making yourself sick so you can take a break--that's such a classic tactic of my mother's that i'm thoroughly disgusted.

this is a fucked-up post, start to finish. i guess i am not ready to take time off from therapy. rather, i feel like i'm back at square one. argh.

update on Loopy's nephew

He was deeper asleep this morning, shallow-asleep this evening again. At one point he opened his eyes all the way and made a pretty normal facial expression...It was cool, just to see his regular face looking out from under all the tubes and tape. Not sure if it was a reflex or genuine response. But then he went to sleep again.

Everyone keeps telling us, he's "not out of the woods," "not over the hump," etc. And most directly, "It could still go either way." *sigh*

new template

whaddya think?

i know the horizontal photos at the top right go off the page (if you've got a vertical one, reload or just trust me on this); I tried to fix this, but the stupid $#$%@* Blogger templates all have page-defining graphics with set widths so it's hard to make the &#$%@ page wider. I could still fix it but it's annoying.

signs of spring

Today he's like, half-awake. He sometimes pats my hand or reaches to hold it. It's very endearing. "He always was very cuddly," muses Loopy, who no longer cries whenever I tell her about her nephew's status.

The nephew & I always got along fine, but we were never cuddly. This evidence suggests that we feel most affectionate when at least one of us is mostly asleep. But then, that's true of so many relationships, isn't it?

He also has been moving his leg around, and sometimes even answering yes/no questions by nodding or shaking his head ("Can you hear me?" (nods 'yes') "Are you awake?" (shakes head 'no').) It's really quite exciting. As are the moments when he sleepily tries to pull out the respirator or dialysis tubes.

So, another day past and he's still with us, and I'm almost giddy as I start to believe that he may really survive this. Knock wood, a lot.

We'll see.

rakin' in the big bucks now

Last year I made $436.93 in earned income. That's a $436.93 increase over the previous year. Pretty exciting.

'Course, it took me six weeks to make that, and I used to make that every 2.2 days. But a decimation of income (not to mention respect) are things you expect when you enter the teaching field.

So, here's to moving back into the ranks of breadwinners! Cheers!

---

Update on Loopy's nephew

Nothing much to say. Some things seem better, some things seem worse, some things seem the same. He's still asleep.

We hold his hand, we do jigsaw puzzles, we hold his hand, we read, we hold his hand, we go home to sleep and get up and do it again. And every morning when it's the alarm clock and not the phone that wakes us up, we are grateful.

I call Loopy with updates and she cries bitterly because she wants to be here with us. I wish she were.

If we haven't used up more than our share of your goodwill, prayers, support and encouragement, we could sure use some more...

At left, Ricky as a kid; apparently he was as sweet and sunny as he looks. His mom says, "he was my sunshine baby."

and may 2007 suck less than 2006

breaking news

on a random newswire that came up in a random search:

• 9:05 p.m.: Millions make New Year's resolutions
  
• 10:16 p.m.: Revelers ring in new year
  
• 10:29 p.m.: U.S. deaths in Iraq hit 3,000

and in other news...

here i am in hershey, pennsylvania (at least I am eating chocolate, my only nod to a new year's celebration), in a hotel across from the hospital, keeping daily vigil at the bedside of Loopy's nephew, who had a stroke just before Christmas and then, just as it seemed he was recovering from the stroke, came down with necrotizing fasciitis (also known as flesh-eating disease), a fast-spreading infection that can devour the whole body in a matter of hours.

fortunately they caught it quickly and he is young and mostly healthy, so the odds are somewhat in his favor, and, with the aid of massive antibiotics, he seems to be holding his own; yesterday we were feeling optimistic, but today there was a setback and a nurse explained to us that our optimism was premature; it could still go either way. this was all the more crushing because we were feeling hopeful yesterday. i don't know if it's better to know the truth or not.

i haven't blogged about it because i can't think of a way to talk about it that doesn't seem to sensationalize what has been happening, just because what's happening is so grotesque.

he used to read our blogs...he told Loopy how to reboot someone else's router when stealing wireless internet service.....o Ricky, I hope that sometime in 2007 you will be reading this and laughing at the scare you gave us.

gentle readers, i hope you have celebrated the new year in a happier way.