adult/responsibility/trap/clarity/3

So, back to post about my rabbit brain, which I didn't get to finish. I was talking about how my "rabbit brain" just freezes and waits for the threat (in this case, finishing my teaching certificate and getting a job) to go away, and how I didn't want to do that, but I felt like my brain was saying, "see, it's too late, you screwed up again, now you can't be a teacher, you have to start all over and do something else," and how I was somehow relieved at this, and yet, I didn't think it was too late and I didn't want to quit, and it was very weird to feel like I didn't have any control over my own brain.

Loopy said at that time that I lacked an "adult executive" voice in my head (this is also what my therapist said) because my Mom didn't have one & couldn't be one for anyone else. Loopy recommended inventing one--she suggested a real or fictional (preferably fictional) character that I thought was a good parent or "adult executive," and trying to install that voice in my head (how does Loopy know all this anyway?). I came up with one--I'm not telling who, it's way too silly, but we'll just say, she's fictional. So Loopy said, "what would she say?"

I imagined this fictional character wrapping me in a nice plaid blanket and giving me some hot chocolate. Then I said, "She would say, 'Now young lady, you are not going to give up this time. I won't let you. Pull yourself together, have some hot chocolate, and in a minute, get up and go back & do what you have to do.'" Then I started crying because I never had that Mom, and I wish I did, and it was nice even to have someone imaginary care that much about me that she wouldn't let me hurt myself any more. I also felt re-energized because I realized that if I screwed up, I wouldn't be able to quit, but I'd have to sub for a year instead of getting a job for the fall.

So that was good, and I added it to the little thingys posted up around my computer to keep me focused. Before I left for AZ I felt like I really was making some progress there, between my newly installed "adult executive" and the mantra I got out of my book about anxiety (first posted about this book in February, and one of the major sources of the "rabbit brain" idea):

Fear gets stronger when I believe in it and give in to it. Fear gets weaker when I don't believe what it tells me I "have to do right now or else!" I don't "have to do" any of those things. In each moment, I can choose to act in harmony with my desire to be free from fear.

So I was really focused on that, and it was cool because it tied right in to the Buddhist stuff I've also been studying--it's cool that two totally different cultures on opposite sides of the world came up with the same idea of how to get past these little habits of fearfulness and stuckness...

But I seem to be stuck again, since coming back from AZ. It's so clear to me that subbing for a year would really, really suck and that I could really have a fantastic time if I had my own class. It really could be great, and I would love every day, even if it was hard and stressful. But somehow, the lack of responsibility inherent in being a perennial sub, seems oddly appealing, even though it would just be horrendously painful. What is wrong with me?

In answer to this question, Loopy said that I'm just being three, that three-year-olds rebel against everything, even things they like and things that are good for them, just to rebel. And that that is an age where you have no responsibility for anything, you just do whatever you want, because you can, because you're three. "Everyone wants to be three sometimes," she said. Unspoken conclusion: but you gotta learn how to be a grownup.

Today I wrote to a friend:

I still feel stuck but I'm working on it. I have no advice about how to juggle things because (today at least) I feel terminally unable to do even a tiny fraction, even a bare minimum, of things I want to do with my time. I seem to be addicted to passivity, stuckness, inability... to choosing victimhood over responsibility, panic over decisions, lostness over direction (even when I know my direction so clearly, couldn't be clearer)... It's like, there's this big giant universe of infinite possibilities, but I've locked myself into a small box and won't let myself out, no matter how miserable I get.

Ah, well, you caught me in a low moment, don't let me bring you down (or more down). I do really love what I'm doing, I love my life, I just need to let myself live it, instead of agonizing over it.

And I was pondering how, looking at everything in my life, which has few outside restrictions, I can only conclude that "I'm here because I want to be here." But why on earth do I want to be here? It occurred to me that when you're trapped things are very clear--you just have to get out of the trap, at all costs--but when you're standing out in a wide field, and you could go in any direction you might decide, then that's a lot less clear. "Trap = clarity," I wrote in a margin. I guess that's the same thing as not having responsibility. Like being late, controls everyone's schedule. Being late = being in charge. Ugh. Sometimes I hate myself. The Buddhist stuff I've been reading would say that deciding to hate myself and make a drama out of that, would be just another way to do the same thing (besides, I already did that; it was called being depressed and that was ten years ago). The Buddhist stuff also says that when we start to see ourselves so clearly and honestly that we start to hate ourselves, that instead, we can deflect that into a powerful longing to be free from all that, a longing to stop hurting ourselves and others with our thoughtless habits. A longing for new habits. And that that longing, is the beginning of change. Let's hope so.

I just thought of something funny (sort of funny). When I asked Loopy "well, what three-year-olds do we know?" she pointed out that P (coincidentally the friend to whom I wrote the quote above, has a three-year-old). Heh. P had just written to me that the three-year-old is having tantrums and disrupting the whole family with his little dramas. I commented to her that it's a good idea to avoid training him to think that his emotions can control the family, because then, as he gets older, his response to frustration will just be to have bigger and more dramatic emotions until he does succeed in controlling everything around him, for better or for worse.

Huh. Sounds like me, doesn't it.

i can't decide if that's me, my dad, my mom, or all of us

"Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon the earth — a fluffy feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self."

- from The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

(April, in the Half-Price Books calendar)

"home again, home again, jiggedy-jig"

that's what my Dad always used to say (in a sort of sing-song voice) when we pulled into the garage of our house, when I was a kid. and when we left home, he often would sing the first few words of that air force song, "off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high, into the sun..." He was in the army air corps (there was no air force yet) during WWII, although he spent the whole time in Ohio, as I was quick to add when discussing the subject with my Japanese friends over the weekend.

anyway, I'm home--back to the land of the lovely lovey Loopy, and also of tornado warnings and muddy dogs.

*sigh* I barely remember the old Dad of the "home again home again" days. He's been foggy and getting foggier ever since sometime when I was in college, when he forgot his wallet at the post office, which totally rocked my world because (I can't remember him this way at all anymore, but) he was always extremely organized and never, ever, forgot anything, made a mistake, etc.--he was sharp, super-sharp, always won at scrabble, kept a diary in the car of the gas input & odometer reading.... so when he forgot his wallet, I knew that was the beginning of the end, because he had never, ever, ever done something like that before.... EVER. I can't imagine being a person who had never lost her wallet.

I don't remember that Dad very well. I do remember a lot of silly little sing-song phrases he used to say, little habits... like when I told him dinner was ready (messenger sent from Mom) he would get up from his desk and walk toward the dining room, clapping his hands and rubbing them together as if very excited, and say, "Oh boy.... oh boy!" to show how much he looked forward to Mom's cooking. God, he was a goof... sometimes he would say "Oh girl!" just for variety's sake. If he was the one calling me to dinner, he would always say, (again in the sing-song voice), "Come to dinna, sister Ginna!" It's funny (but I guess not surprising) that this silly stuff is all I can remember, because it's like that's all that's left. well... actually... he doesn't say any of those things anymore. But they are consistent with who he seems to be now. It's almost like the other Dad was a veneer that came off over time...

I remember a few little things that show the "sharp" Dad, but I don't have a sense of him; for example I remember a game where I would look at the old globe we had, and read off the names of cities; he always could tell me what country they were in. I was always amazed that he knew every city in the whole world... (although that's funny in retrospect, because of course, to actually be shown on the globe, the cities would have to be especially large & important, so probably I know them now too...) I also remember hanging out with him in the pool... I would rest my arms on his arms, and he would stand up and I would float, and I would ask him questions... I remember asking him, "Daddy, what's paint?" and he explained that it was little particles of color suspended in a medium, which could be oil- or water-based.... and I remember him reading to me, book after book after book. It's coming back to me a little bit now, when I think about the reading. When I was really little I would hold his hands and "walk" up him to sit on his shoulders. I can't really connect that vital, strong, powerful person with this Dad that I see now. I don't really remember him. Anyway I guess he's gone.

I'm distracted now by "Dawson's Creek," where Pacey is trying to get Joey into bed. Must go watch that.

hey, it's 3 am again

I found another way to zone out and go numb... jigsaw puzzles.

The "retirement community" where my parents now live (such a bizarre concept in the grand scheme of human history, but so perfect for them at this time) has, among its many cheerful amenities, many jigsaw puzzles in various stages of completion, on tables hither and thither throughout the building. tonight is the third time I've come home late and worked on this one puzzle. this time, for three hours.

at 1:15 (2.25 hours and counting) the night security guy came and talked to me. i guess he watched me on the camera long enough, he started to wonder if I wasn't some crazy off the street. but after I introduced myself, he was really sweet--he knows my Dad--apparently Dad comes and talks to him on the way to breakfast eveyr morning (or he used to, until he started sleeping through breakfast). I can see why Dad would seek him out. he seems so gentle, kind, friendly, solid--and he must know Dad well, he talked about him with great affection and perception, and did a perfect imitation of the way Dad (at his most relaxed and confidential) expresses utter dismissal of some irritating person or idea. he seems to really enjoy just being a friend to the "residents," especially the ones who are lonely. he gives out hugs and people come to talk to him.

i meant to blog about something else but as it is now 3 am I will go to sleep. I was on the right track when I came home.... I talked myself out of the idea of packing or trying to cram in some last-minute homework.... I reminded myself that I want to spend some "quality time" with the folks in the a.m. so I should just go to sleep.

but somehow I'm not sorry about the puzzle. I got to meet Luis, and it was a nice way to calm down.

tomorrow I go home. I miss Loopy so much. she has been so supportive while i've been here, always available, solicitous, always knowing just the right thing to say to help me get through. (no, Autumn, she wasn't "yelling at me.") I am the luckiest personage in the world.

the best mistake I've made in a long time

I was talking about my career change with my Japanese friends today, and I was trying to say that a teacher's salary is too small to live in New York.

But what I actually said was that a teacher's cucumber is too small to live in New York.

(salary = "kyuryo," cucumber = "kyuri").



Incidentally, this photo, which I found via Google images of course, is titled "Timmy_Boros_with_his_great_cucumber_prize.jpg."

I love it. Who, do you suppose, is Timmy Boros? and, is he holding a prize cucumber (seems a bit small for that)? or did he win a cucumber as a prize (of sorts), and if so, what kind of achievement merited this glorious award?

if you google "love"...

...in google images, this is what you find, among many other very, very strange things...

this is dedicated to Loopy, of course!

perhaps a better title...

...for this post would have been, "I'm giving up on [you-know-who]."

[this is a response to a post on "Getyourselfsomeboring"]

I see no reason for you to give up on love. In fact (although I haven't known you long enough nor do I have enough information about your past to make this statement) I would say that you haven't ever given love a chance.

I mean, how could love get into your life (that kind of love anyway) when the available space was occupied? ("occupy" being about the most active verb that could be used here, n'est-ce pas?)

I'm glad you're tired of always being the bigger person. "The bigger person" here means, "the person who puts up with a lot of shit she is WAY too wonderful to have to deal with." The other day I was contemplating a crazy scheme to get you a guy by placing a personal ad on your behalf. (Loopy's sobering commentary: "Statistically speaking, most people meet their partners through mutual friends or activities, not personal ads." Yeah yeah, you sociologists, such romantics). It would read something like this:

Our friend [that's you] is smart, beautiful, and sexy, and a talented cook. She'll cheer you up when you're down, listen to your troubles, and make you laugh--a lot, all the time. She is also one of the most loving, considerate, and thoughtful people you'll ever meet. So help us out here--we keep telling her that not all guys are like the self-absorbed shmuck who's been making her miserable. Help us prove it. Call her up, take her out, treat her right. You'll love every minute of it--guaranteed.

Now c'mon, read your own ad right there, and tell me that that girl doesn't deserve better. I'd say she is going to find someone to treat her right--maybe not now, but soon, and for the rest of her life. So please, give up on [you know who], the sooner the better--but don't give up altogether.

Oh, and let me know if you want me to run that ad...