tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78621825150975946272024-02-20T09:04:43.651-08:00Owning VoiceMusings, Revelations, and Art by Molly D.Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.comBlogger584125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-50523904053798702132016-10-02T10:04:00.001-07:002016-10-02T11:00:08.646-07:00The Book of Life: Written Daily4 years ago today, I stayed home from my job at the synagogue. Despite it being the day before Rosh Hashanah and my duty to orchestrate a holiday service for nearly 1,000, I instead worked in my pajamas horribly sick with strep throat that was defying antibiotics.<br />
<br />
By the day of Yom Kippur I was dizzy and sweating, and croaked to my friend to drive me to the ER -- her vats of chicken soup weren't cutting it.<br />
<br />
As the sun went down on the Day of Atonement, the day we Jews are to be sealed -- or not -- into the Book of Life, I lay on a stiff, white cot waiting for the cute doctor to come tell me, "Take 2 and call me in the morning."<br />
<br />
Instead, close on midnight, he entered the room, rolled a stool over, sat and declared: "You do have strep throat. You also have Leukemia."<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
4 years have risen and set since that Day of Atonement. Defying statistics, I remain alive, healthy, fertile, and in remission. As my hair grew back, my weight rejoined, my stamina strengthened, they have renewed upon a woman who has emerged changed. <br />
<br />
"You're a lot bolder than you used to be." "You're more confident than before you were sick." I have heard variations on this theme from friends, and as I prepare today to perform in community theater, reply to emails from my gradeschool teaching job, and confirm a practice session with my bandmate in our fledgling duo, it sure looks like they are right.<br />
<br />
These steps in becoming whole in the world sometimes feel like an "Of course."<br />
<br />
Of course I sing in public.<br />
Of course I'll model for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1639311363045662/" target="_blank">BodyPaint Day</a>.<br />
Of course I have an art studio, found a fulfilling career, became a <a href="http://firstdescents.org/" target="_blank">cancer-survivor-adventure</a> addict.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, though, these changes cause me to widen my eyes in disbelief. Whose life *is* this? Who is this woman who consistently pursues new avenues of self-expression? Surely, not the same wallflower, frizzy-haired, bespectacled teen who still knocks around inside me. <br />
<br />
Am I someone new, or simply unearthing the core of my self?<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
My relationship with Yom Kippur has shifted seismically since my cancer diagnosis in September 2012. <br />
<br />
At the start, I eschewed its entire meaning and the observance of this day. I, instead, chose to engage on that day in activities that were emblazoned with who I am (becoming). I flew a plane one year, visited my favorite museum the next, hiked along the Pacific Coast another.<br />
<br />
To be sealed in The Book of Life, I don't need to stand in a crowded room, expounding and pounding my chest with all the "sins" we Jews have committed this past year.<br />
<br />
The very idea of some divine Book of Life that we have to be holy enough to be sealed in seems anathema to me, my relationship with "G-d" having undergone a seismic restructuring these years as well. <br />
<br />
And yet, there's this creeping idea, this pulse of confirmation of the way I, Molly, Survivor, mark Yom Kippur. As the sun rises and sets on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, I now participate in what brings me joy, fulfillment, unfurling? ...<br />
<br />
Of course I do.Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-48491379819069023952015-08-12T07:41:00.002-07:002015-08-12T07:44:41.117-07:00"Darkest Before the Dawn" ain't just a cliche. Neither is "Dreams Come True."<div class="MsoNormal">
Last Friday morning, I received a phone call from the temp
agency I’d been working with, telling me, in excited “what a great gig is this”
tones, about a possible receptionist job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Saturday morning, as is not unusual for Bay Area Rapid
Transit, I got onto a train car with a homeless man sprawled out in a blanket
by the doorway, and turned right to walk through to the next car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There, I was pleasantly surprised to see a
co-worker (the only one I really befriended) from my retail job this past
winter and I sat down next to her. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I got to tell the temp agency and my former coworker the
same thing: “I just accepted a teaching job for the upcoming school
year.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It felt as though The Ghost of Jobs Past had come to call on
me, showing me how my life could have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get
a call for a crummy temp job--that only days before I would have actually had to consider--just 24 hours after accepting a position teaching 3rd grade at a local Jewish private school. And only a day
after that, I run into someone who holds up a vision into what my winter
was and what my present still could be: long, hard, meaningless, monetarily
and spiritually rewardless hours.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This morning I pulled out my “morning pages” notebook
thinking to write about what’s happening now, and I flipped it open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It fell open to a page from February, when I
was still at that retail job, and I had just decided I was going to be a school
teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have all these “law of
attraction”-style invocations written down over that month:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I’ve made a decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am going to teach physics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And math.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In high schools. & later college(?)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I’ve decided: I’ll get a private school job
& they’ll sponsor my credential program.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My legacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Middle schoolers, I
love them! Real holidays. Real breaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stable. Stability First. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I want a job like Jess’s or Chris’s – a cush
public or a great private.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I need a regular job. I need a regular,
benefitted, well-paying job.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I wanna fly a plane for tourists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were all the questions, too:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->This will take a lot of work & more
schooling. <span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">How is this gonna work?</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Will I be able to do a normal job AND the acting
thing? Dreams change, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->How the heck to I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">teach</i> this stuff?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->How is this gonna work at all??<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Where do you (inner core) need me? What needs to
happen to get there?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also wrote about the other things that I was struggling
with:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I broke down yesterday – I shared & cried
& said how it really is for me right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I feel ancient, I feel tired, and – not lost actually – just temporarily
very, very stuck. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I am a mess, and I need help to clean and slow
things down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t do it all at once
and I’m trying to. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And finally:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->2015, the year I taught at a private school, was
in a musical & play, learned calculus and physics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oh, and got counseling for cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oh right, that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need help on
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanna hear from cancer <u>survivors.</u><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was the entry after the day I “broke down” to my friends and let them know how much that winter was weighing on me...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How broken and tired and hopeless and
directionless I felt...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day after I
admitted that what it looks like on the outside can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kill</i> you if you don’t admit what it feels like on the inside...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was after that entry, the very next one, that I received
the call that I’d gotten the temp job as an executive assistant and would be
leaving my retail floor behind me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was at that temp job that I made a friend who ended up
gifting me funds so that I could afford to accept the part-time summer school job at the cushy
private school (and take a physics class at night).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was the experience and resume-fodder of that private
school job that enabled me to speak with recent enthusiasm to the
cushy private school interviewers where I got hired last week. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, true to the last bullet point above, I have, in 2015, taught
at a private school, been in a musical, learned physics, and gotten counseling
for cancer & discovered a community of young adult cancer survivors whom I
cherish. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh, and I flew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i>
a plane with a friend and was able to take the wheel for a while. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is the
take-away from all of this "what it was like & what's it's like now" reflection?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Firstly, and I believe most importantly, I admitted the
truth to my friends about how broken I was feeling – and I will not be
exaggerating here when I say things were as black as they can get for a person
like me, a person who will actively hide behind her shiny exterior while gently
suggesting suicide to myself like a lover whispering nothings in my ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was not okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And I didn’t know how to change or fix it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I put on the armor of the Look-Good every
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until finally, one very lucky day
for me indeed, I told the truth to people who could hear it, and, importantly,
help me change it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was because of this admission of my truth that I got
help: I began to work in earnest on my recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I “happened to” read the back panel of the
Cancer Support Community newsletter, where they offered free one-on-one
counseling for cancer patients and survivors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was accepted into a climbing trip with survivors
like me where I was able to tell <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">them</i>
the truth about how much I missed them in my life without knowing what it was
that I’d been missing -- like breathing
fresh oxygen when you’ve lived in LA your whole life with a 100lb pack on your
back. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I suppose the take away is mainly for me to say
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To say that this was a hard
fucking year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a hard fucking
winter and it nearly killed me “for realz.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And so, all these cash and prizes now, all the fulfillment of these “manifestations,”
all the rewards that seem to be piling in on me now and making me spin with
their accuracy of help… they have not been granted by a fairy godmother,
magically and suddenly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have been
fought for with the truth, with action, and yes, with the childish hope that
what dreams I put out into the world might actually come true. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My former retail coworker asked me on the train car last
Saturday, “When did you quit?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“February.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She thought for a moment, and replied, “So
six months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve done what you said
you were going to do in six months.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And wow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And thanks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-34830881291503135012015-08-07T07:47:00.002-07:002015-08-07T08:14:17.510-07:00Whaddya mean I’m not fixed?<div class="MsoNormal">
Those of you who read my previous blog will remember my
howling about under the Blue Moon last Friday night and expelling from myself “embarrassing”
truths, all my truths, in an effort to own them, to be bigger, and to “let go of
being small.” You will remember my
feeling of exhilaration and self-ownership and silliness. You will remember my expression of
accomplishment, a mature releasing of old patterns, a sense that from here on
out, I will not shrink in the ownership and embodiment of my truths. **insert Xena Warrior Cry**</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Therefore, it would come to you, as it did to me, as a
complete disillusion as I drove home from an audition two days later in
near-tears in reaction to the obviousness of my total and utter diminishment of
self. **insert the raspberry sound of a balloon deflating**<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I thought we’d fixed this, Moon/Universe/Life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WTF. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When one enters an audition room, one must go in with a confident
demeanor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One must own the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pull focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Be big.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, as soon as I opened
the door on Sunday and walked down the aisle into the theater before the auditors, I
could feel the shrinking coming over me like a storm-threatened cloud,
obscuring myself, my truth, and therefore my voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t bomb the audition – I know what that feels and
looks like! – but I didn’t do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">well</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt insecure about whether I could move
out of the light that was on the stage in order to do my monologue and song (Do
I have to stand in this one spot??).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
felt insecure about the movements I had recently added to my song (Is this
totally cheesey, maybe I shouldn’t do them?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt insecure about the delivery of my
monologue, having rehearsed it one way but a recent audition asked me to
deliver it smaller to match <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
character (But, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shit</i>, Hair isn’t a
small show – this isn’t the right delivery!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I barely said hello to the auditors when I walked in, I was
so overcome with nerves and fright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
I barely said goodbye as I left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What an
impression for an actor to make, eh?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I knew immediately, no matter the outcome of the audition, that this was unacceptable to me – this was SO OLD, this habit of shrinking and
being small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, why do you think I
banged a damn tambourine at midnight to get rid of it!!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I drove home, went straight to a room of like-minded women and cried really hard about how powerless I felt over this knee-jerk
reaction to being seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About how awful
it felt to become such a shadow of who I truly am – and of who I am onstage when I’m not
in auditions, when I’m actually acting and cast. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next morning, in a funk and emotional hangover, feeling
numb and reeling from my abandonment of self, I took some pointed action. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I called one of my good friends who's an actress of many
years, and said, “I think I need an audition coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who can you recommend?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because although the habit of shrinking is based on
internal beliefs of self and need to be worked out on an emotional and
spiritual plane, that doesn’t mean that I just sit in meditation and hope it
fixes itself!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That doesn’t mean that I
shake a tambourine at it and believe it will just be relieved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i>
means that I must take action in the practical reality realm to help alleviate
myself of these habits that are causing me pain and sincere distress. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Therefore, the highest recommendation for an audition coach
in hand (and now with a salary that can support these efforts), I have an
audition coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I said to her on the
phone for our consultation, I need to stop feeling embarrassed to say, "I want to
be an actress."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because that shame is part of
what keeps me from really committing to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Part of what makes me only cram for auditions the week before they
happen, scrambling to find a “good” monologue, emailing people two days before
my audition saying, "I don’t think this song is right, what should I do?," calling up my vocal coach
in need of an emergency lesson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you (ahem, I) really want to be an actress, I have to
admit that to myself most of all, and to the world/others by taking the actions
someone who wants to be an actress would take.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As with the other truths I shouted under the moonlight last Friday, I need
to begin to own them aloud if I am to achieve them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I further said to my new audition coach:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look, I don’t even know what kind of actress
I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m a mediocre actress, then I
want to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> that, and I want to be
the best goddamn mediocre actress I can be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I’m meant for ensemble roles, then I want to kick the hell out of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if I’m meant for other roles,
then I am ready to accept the help and do the work that it takes to get those.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea where I am on the scale,
because I’ve never fully given myself over to embracing my passion
and truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because my mirror (like
many other people’s) is clouded with self-doubt and self-judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, come, professional helpers, and help me see what I can’t
see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Help me admit what I cringe to admit, “embarrassing” (silly, inconsequential, flighty and ridiculous)
as my fear tells me it is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want to be an actress.
And I want to be the best goddamn actress I can be. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-76788079867468520972015-08-02T10:43:00.000-07:002015-08-02T11:39:54.069-07:00Getting the F*ck off my Knees.<div class="MsoNormal">
On Friday night at 10 minutes to midnight sitting in my parked
car outside my apartment building, I was scrolling through Facebook on my
phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I usually do this as a 'before
getting out of my car at the end of the night' ritual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I’m getting a few minutes' alone time before I
go into the house… but I live alone... with a cat. … so… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, I came across a post about that evening's blue moon, looked quickly at the clock and exclaimed, “Shit!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I shut off my phone, dashed out of the car up to my
apartment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took off my heels, slipped
on flats, grabbed my loaner tambourine and climbed excitedly and nervously
up the stairs to the rooftop of my building. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pushing open the door, I saw before me a whitewashed roof with long pipes and what look like abandoned solar panels. Dropping my keys by the door, I carried my
tambourine to the center of the rooftop, shielding myself slightly from the view of neighboring buildings, and turned around to see the full, audacious moon before
me. Then, I began to jangle the
tambourine, and finally I began to sing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
...uh, what?<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I’ve come to the part of my recovery/internal work where
we are instructed to “Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings,” my mentor
asked me how I’d done this step in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I told her I usually get on my knees and say some kind of prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Get the fuck off your knees!” she replied emphatically.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You see, I have a habit of being small. Of minimizing myself,
diminishing myself, down-playing and ignoring my own needs out of fear and, mostly now, out of long-grooved
practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This habit of deprivation and
hiding causes many problems in my life, mostly because I am surely aware that I
am not “meant” to be a mouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Being a mouse, though, often looks like me withholding my truths, not
admitting what I really want from others and from myself and from life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things like. … I want to get married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> *gasp!* </span>It was near torture to say this aloud to her
when we were discussing truths I never tell anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">embarrassing</i>
to say it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To feel it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To want it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“I'm a modern woman, proud brave able!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What a simpering, waif-like desire to have!,” goes my internal
monologue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And I wither to admit it to anyone else.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My mentor and I spoke at length that day, and she finally
suggest-/insist-ed that I get a tambourine, dress up in something exciting and
shout this truth, and all my others, to the heavens.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*Gulp*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So on Friday morning, two weeks after this suggestion, I
finally obtained a borrowed tambourine (you’d be surprised how few there are around!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I texted my mentor that tonight was the
night! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then I read online that it was also
going to be a full moon, a blue moon in fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This seemed most auspicious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(For
a woo-woo hippie shit chick like myself!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The evening found me on the roof of my apartment building, fresh from a salsa lesson/live
music dance in the city, in a hot dress and pulsing with feminine wiles, furtively tapping this
noisemaker in my hand, trying not to feel embarrassed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then I began to sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I started softly and whirled myself into a
crescendo, abandoning decorum, delighting in the jangle and thrill of the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gyrating, gesticulating, twirling around the rooftop,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sang loudly all
the secret desires of my soul and my heart, echoing a refrain of, “I let go of
being small!” and hammering wildly on the tambourine, an elegant, alight grin
streaked across my face as I hopped lightly over the pipes, spinning around the
roof until all my heart’s desires, all my tiny wishes I’m too ashamed to speak, had poured out of my throat and into the moonlit darkness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Laughing, giddy, adrenalized, I headed back to the entrance door, calling brazenly to the bulbous moon: “Peace out, Blue Moon.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-74094613982034847962015-07-31T07:35:00.000-07:002015-07-31T08:41:50.131-07:00Float like a Waterbug, Sting like a Bee<div class="MsoNormal">
It isn’t so much that I’m afraid of heights as it is I’m afraid
of <i>falling</i> from heights. Therefore, when, 2 months ago, I found myself
in Moab, Colorado dangling on the side of sheer rock face
struggling to find a toe-hold in the millimeter-wide crannies, I began to
panic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, to pull back the scene a little bit, I was about 15 feet off the ground, strapped into a harness, and attached to a grounding line held by my belay partner only a few feet below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it didn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i> safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It felt like I
was stabbing the rock cliff with my feet, trying desperately to find purchase in thin air,
my adrenaline kicking up so high I could taste it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Muscle-fatigued and terrified, I called to my partner below that
I wanted to come down – I was done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he rock climbing guide on our trip overheard my plea and walked over from the lines
and climbers parallel to me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
suggested that I sit back in the harness, take a break, feel my weight being
held, and catch my breath. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he called
up, “You can come down, but if you want to keep going, I’ll help you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later that evening, back on flat earth in front of a
crackling fire, he chuckled he could see my shoulders slump at that moment, a
moment of resignation, a knowing that, indeed, because of his help, I was going to and was able to keep going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sanguine moment of, “Shit,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> a</span>lright, fine. Let’s do this.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, together, we did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He called out places where I could find my
footing, and shortly thereafter I was at the top, my heart a fluttering canary,
stress-tears straining back in my eyes, weak from fear and exertion – and once
safely back the 60ft to the ground again, proud. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He told me of a concept called a “retro-climb.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i>
you have accomplished this ridiculous feat of effort that you feel pride,
accomplished, and glad you did it at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the moment, you only feel fear, anxiety, terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honestly, I’ve not felt so frightened in
recent memory, despite the intellectual knowledge that I was completely safe,
held, and cared for. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(My naturopath had
a field day turning down my maxed-out adrenaline once I’d returned to SF!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my own personal work lately, my mentor suggested I seek
an internal guide to show me my blind spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As some of you know, I sometimes use a Shamanic Journey meditation
practice that introduces you to internal guides of both human and animal form. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so, the other morning in meditation, I “went in” to find
a guide to show me what I’m missing, since there are whole areas of my life
that still feel unresolved and cause me distress (see: "romance and finance"; aka
serially single and perpetually under/un-employed).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this meditation, as the title of this blog
may suggest, I came across a waterbug. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
… Now, the waterbug does <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
seem like the fancy-dancy spirit animal one would hope for!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a lion or eagle or even
antelope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, here it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t “bore” you with the details of the
meditation, but the lesson was clear:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The waterbug floats on the top of the water, not because it
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">defying</i> the law of physics, but
precisely because it knows, believes, and trusts in them so completely that it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knows</i> it will be held on the
surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not defying gravity, it
is embracing the truest knowledge that because of the laws of nature, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must </i>and will <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> be held. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The rock climbing guide and I had a long conversation one
evening about spirituality, and he revealed that his largest question for “God”
or the Universe as he continued to expand his life and open his vulnerable self
and admit all parts of him was, “Can you really love me that much?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I replied to him that my question is, “Can you really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hold</i> me that much?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you really let me know, help me feel, to
my core, that I am held?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That I am
safe?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The waterbug teaches me that it floats because it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doesn’t</i> tense and struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It floats because it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">relaxes</i> and trusts, and simply embodies a knowing that if it steps onto
the clear surface of a pond, it will be held.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And furthermore, having seen that it has been held and carried before,
it doesn’t continue to question whether it will be held again in the
future!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So this is my lesson for the moment: to embody the true
knowing that, like sitting back into a climbing harness, I am expertly and even
lovingly held.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, should I ever choose
to question (as it can become a choice rather than a habit), there will always
be help offered me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And p.s., if I mess up and tense up and fall through the
surface of the water… I can swim.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-69958424735557635912015-07-30T07:23:00.001-07:002015-07-30T07:34:37.047-07:00Hands in the air -- Reach for the sky<div class="MsoNormal">
When I first moved into my Oakland apartment 5 years
ago, I pasted up onto my refrigerator a piece of black-board contact
paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On it, I’ve written a chalk list of tasks with check boxes that I mark with a colorful chalk X when they’re
complete, and eventually erase with an old cloth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this moment, included on my multicolored check list
are:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you cards, Laugh, CSET #3,
audition pieces, Fall teaching, and Own my Power. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Own my power” has been on there for some time and this
morning, I was thinking about what that might actually look like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because perhaps it’s not something you can
check off on a box. Perhaps it's not something that you actually <i>complete</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been thinking about the difference between struggling
and striving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have tended to be
someone who struggles, mostly against myself, mostly in some twisted effort to
move forward that I thwart with habitual fears and paralyzation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think these two ways of being may be one and the same, simply subject to a shift in perspective or focus. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are so many check-list items that I’ve put on my
chalkboard, thinking them hard, impossible, and out of reach, but the fact for me has been
that each time I have reached for something I didn’t think possible, I had to
stretch beyond my normal scope, try a little harder, work a little deeper – and
in the end I have “miraculously” accomplished these goals. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I had written “audition pieces,” my task was “next
audition.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ages before that, it was “real
headshots.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each of these seemed like Herculean effort, stretching my
own belief in what was possible and in what I could attain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So what is the difference between striving
and struggling, if both are reaching in an uncomfortable way toward something
new?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A truckload of serenity, I imagine!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Striving seems to me to be born of a positive self-image,
whereas struggling does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may disagree,
but for the purposes of this blog, let’s consider it so. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And in all of my strivings, as I’ve reached just that little
bit taller, higher, almost tipping over with the effort, not quite in view
of my goal, I’ve had to stretch, work, believe, try -- and grow. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here’s where the whole “Own my power”
thing comes in:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I have gotten “bigger,” taller, stronger,
more breadth and depth with each of my strivings, then there is never going to
be a complete “owning” of my power (whatever I consider that to be: my truth, my voice, my wholeness).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time I grow a bit in my self-esteem, in
my confidence and competence, I outgrow a shell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the power that I am hoping to own grows with it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is
no end to it – you simply need to become bigger to fill the new proportions you’re
now striving to embody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of lamenting that this striving is some endless Sisyphean
task of perpetually pushing a builder up a hill, this newer understanding feels
emboldening. Widening. It feels instead like a
miraculous series of open doors, from one room to the next to the next, each
holding that new space for the new bits of Molly that I acquire, uncover, and come to believe in along the way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So maybe I need to modify my chalkboard task from “own”
to “embody” my power, and allow that body to grow with each ticked off challenge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-30641214568227214312015-07-25T10:19:00.000-07:002015-07-25T10:59:38.126-07:00The Facts of Life<div class="MsoNormal">
Not like “the birds and the bees”; like the theme song: “You
take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this great rumpus race for which we have signed up by the
very nature of being born, we are subject to a variety of experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of these we deem good, some bad, and
being pleasure-seeking beings, we are partial to those we deem good. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my own personal relationship to the universe, life, fate
and its many faces/facets, I have oriented my understanding to be one
that says, Everything happens for our own good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even the bad things. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For my alcoholism, I have found recovery, a community, and
way of life that brings me fellowship, understanding, pleasure, laughter, and a
sense of being deeply understood. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For my childhood, I have come to tell myself that because of
my experiences, I've become sensitive, compassionate, empathetic, resourceful,
strong, and creative. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For my cancer, I have taken my struggle and survival as
impetus to engage in my life more fully, playing in a band, flying a plane,
acting and singing in theater. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For all these horrors and more, I can look back and deem them “good,”
because they have led me to becoming more useful and engaged as a human. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fuck. All. That. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That we are thrown against the shores of life brutally onto
the rocks of experience, shaping us, reshaping us, and winnowing us down to the
raw beauty of ourselves—<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey Universe, would
you lay off a minute, huh?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because perhaps, Shit. Just. Happens. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is the worst understanding of all for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the least controlled, the least
controllable, the most chaotic, disordered, entropy-laden reasoning for it all.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What it means is that we are not “safe.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if there is anything I have struggled for
in my lifetime, it is to feel safe. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in this quest, this blazing, self-propelled quest for
safety, I have built up around myself an armor, a buffer, a multi-layered
sequence of dance steps that I believe if I dodge left, you, it, experience,
failure, hurt, calamity will needly dodge right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet, the Universe has its own dancesteps, and sometimes they
are to bowl you over like a rhino in a football helmet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, by dodging experience as a whole --monstrous as
I believe or fear it to be-- I also dodge whatever good that rhinoceros might be trying to hand me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And therein lies the rub, eh? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I mentioned a few days ago about the dam, restricting my
own self, need, and experience out of fear of what might happen if I let things
flow, I am scrubbing up against my own realization that I
am restricting myself for fear that bad shit might happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am hoping to control the all of my
experience so I am not harmed anymore. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because forget all the above bullshit (which I also happen
to believe) about all those bad things becoming or being seen as good things –
don’t fucking think that I want or wanted them too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were all still egregiously painful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, as I mentioned, human as I
am, I don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want</i> pain. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my attempt to restrict my experience of pain, however, I
believe I restrict my experience of benevolence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fulfillment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so, I am stymied, victim of my own prison, of my own
design to be safe, I am restricted from the greater joys and rewards of life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You take the good, you take the bad… “</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I willing to expose myself, to be vulnerable and open to
the whole of life’s experience, knowing that in my disarmoring, I am (also)
opening myself to unforeseen goodness?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-31415084664422339502015-07-23T08:27:00.000-07:002015-07-23T08:49:27.933-07:00"Admitted we were powerless over Netflix, and our lives had become unmanageable"... <div class="MsoNormal">
There is a great proportional equation in my life: The more
fearful I am, the more Netflix I watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps you have a similar equation?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Summer School draws to a close -- both my morning job
teaching it and my evenings learning from it -- I begin to feel more anxious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I begin to poke around job sites, as half-heartedly as I have been for weeks since this summer school job began,
but more fretfully as the job nears completion… tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I look at teacher jobs, I am reminded that, honestly, I
feel out of my depth to put together full-time lesson plans, learning arcs, and
curricula. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence my desire to earn a
teaching credential, aka more schooling, aka not til next Fall if that
happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s plenty of “go get ‘em”
attitude in me that says, “Meh, who needs it, you’ve taught, you’ll be fiiine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there’s a great dose of reality that
reminds me that as someone who's never taught full-time it’s not fair to me or my students to simply “wing it,” to
throw something together -- and to throw myself into the deep end. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it’s unclear to me which of these voices is more
valid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I poke half-heartedly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, as I have come home these 6 weeks from my morning gig
teaching a creative writing elective to middle schoolers (which, yes, I love more
than any job I’ve had), I have a few hours before my evening physics class at a
nearby city college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In those hours, I
could: study for the physics final, which is this evening; I could look for
work; I could reach out for help; I could learn my monologue for Sunday’s
audition; or… I could watch Netflix. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh!, you great and terrible time-suck! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And cowing under the realization that I am unable to
moderate my time spent … wasted … whiled … and lost in front of the pixelated
numbness, last week I began to try to find ways to moderate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh, it’s not like I haven’t tried to reign
myself in before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s my “Anything
more than two hours is avoidance and isolation” awareness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s the “Never after 10pm” rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s the “Just one more episode” mantra
that somehow repeats unto the depths of my pockets of time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so, I decided, Enough!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I looked into suspending my account (at least until I’ve found a job),
but you can’t do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even enacted
parental controls to restrict my access to the website, even by a few
steps, but instead I managed to prevent myself from even accessing my
email.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found a way around
those restrictions (since I still can’t figure out how to undo them), and Lo! found
myself right back in front of the “Continue Watching” button. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, with a deep mood of disgust, regret, and
resignation, last week I cancelled my Netflix account.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And began rereading all the Harry Potter books.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-48125968888448708322015-07-22T07:38:00.000-07:002015-07-22T07:42:41.019-07:00Buying Desire a Hat. <div class="MsoNormal">
I was at my therapist’s once several years ago now and we
were talking about my closest friendships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was telling her how I was scared to admit my full self to someone
because I feared that my full self, my full array of needs and personality,
would be too much for them to handle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
explained to her that I felt like my needs were like a tidal wave, that letting
them out would be releasing one, and I couldn’t do that to any one person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or to any several people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Better to keep it all locked up tight. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what if I begin to think of my needs and desires not
as a tidal wave, but as held by a man-made dam?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A dam has immense strength and power; the pressure behind it is exponential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
power there, the pressure, comes from the restriction of motion, from the
forcible and intentional holding back of something that had previously flown
free. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can see where I’m going with this, no?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m no expert in engineering, so I don’t know
how one goes about dismantling a dam—and maybe for the purposes of my own
internal metaphoric dismantling, that might be interesting to learn—but
I do know that once the dam has been removed and the water again flows free,
it’s not a potential tidal wave of need anymore. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it’s just the normal, everyday flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The normal, everyday rise and fall of desire.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without the restriction and denial of qualities such as
desire and need, they are free to be absorbed into the landscape, a part of the
whole, neither something to be feared or ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Desire in our culture has a pretty bad rap of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Desire, the seat of sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, what is it but simply an expression
of self, like humor or wit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mentor
and I have been discussing and prodding at my relationship to my own need and
desire, to try to bring them out of the haunting shadows, to not treat them like
the disturbed family members you try to forget you have, til they show up on
your doorstep at Christmas with soggy string bean casserole. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What if, instead, they were invited guests?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I even know anything about what and who
they are, after being so keen to shut them out for so long?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Or d</span>o I only now know the legend of them,
instead of the qualities themselves? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a bit of terror and a bit of awe as I begin to
reintroduce myself to these qualities of self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As a person who is so adept at self-denial and deprivation, to allow
that there might be a proper place for need in my life is... incomprehensible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like someone who’s
been on a Paleo diet for years, touting the benefits, trying to recruit
converts, suddenly being told that in order to live they must eat cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because not only will it change their entire
metabolism for the better, but, hey, it’s fucking delicious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you’re <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allowed</i> to enjoy it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Permission to be allowed to enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Permission to be allowed to want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Permission to be allowed to need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And actually, screw the whole permission
thing – it’s not that at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not a
choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or an earned prize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a basic human right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To deny yourself a basic human right, like having chosen to
drink fetid water your whole life because you’ve somehow made yourself believe pure spring
water wasn’t for you or that your imbibing it was a danger to the balance of existence… well,
self-denial like that causes a whole host of problems, not least of which is
unfulfillment.<br />
<br />
So, the dismantling, the right-sizing of desire and need,
the introduction to them as they are, not as I’ve feared them to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because I have a suspicion that fulfillment, purpose, and wholeness are
on the other side of that shift.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-22220690987079979912015-07-21T08:05:00.000-07:002015-07-22T08:14:47.987-07:00Snookered. <div class="MsoNormal">
See, the thing about being saved is that it’s not an
absolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You aren’t swept back from
the cliff’s edge and wrapped in a cosmic swaddling, rocked into unseeing bliss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What you are is placed back firmly onto a
path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A long one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back from the edge, back from the place of
giving up on the work of this lifetime, you are nudged—not so gently, but not
without compassion—onto a path that will require of you work for the rest of
your lifetime. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cliff’s edge, the leap from it, the ultimate sacrifice
as it might be called is the choice to give up all the work that will ever be
asked of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is to say, Forget it,
too hard, too much, there’s no help, no hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To be placed back onto the path you had made some kind of decision—by
omission or commission—to leave means that you are now responsible to take up
the work you’d abandoned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is to look
up from your crumpled knees and see winding before you the path of your
lifetime, the work that will surely be needed to accomplish it, and the
knowledge that to be alive is to do that work. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be alive is to agree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To be alive is to sign an agreement daily that you will, however
falteringly, place one foot before the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To be alive is to agree that you yourself and your life are more
worthwhile than eliminating all the possibilities it holds, all the better and
all the worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
And so, pulled back from the edge, “saved” as it were, you
walk with a grim humor, knowing that somewhere you have chosen this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-85649695713871611192015-03-25T07:08:00.000-07:002015-03-25T08:41:01.041-07:00Tuning by Ear.<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because I’ve begun a round of work with a new mentor recently, we’re talking a lot about “god.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Specifically, this past Saturday, I read to her my current conception of this ineffable “power”:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1">“My Higher Power is in all things. It lives & comes from a place inside me where I’ve never been scared & where there is always calm wisdom. This place doesn’t give me instructions or guidance, it simply can reinforce or reassure my own decisions. (Though I wish it did give guidance & instructions!)</span></div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1">This force is impersonal in some ways, because it belongs to everybody, and because it also doesn’t act out of reward or punishment because it is not human or personified. But the force works toward health & wholeness. It is the source of wholeness & would be satisfied for all to connect to it & recognize it. This power is one of divine flow and order; it is unrushed. It is often seen in nature, because it is in the natural cycle of life & death, but it is bigger than that. </span></div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1">When I feel in touch with this power, I feel calm, energized/alive, unrushed, wise & accepting — accepting of myself & of the outside world & circumstances. When I feel in touch with this power, I feel a stable ground to stand on, and I don’t have racing questions about my life. I feel at peace. </span></div>
<div class="p2" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1">I sometimes get impatient with this power because it is so slow/calm & not clear w/instructions or answers to my questions.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My friend/mentor listened to this. I anticipated we’ve move on but she said gently that it sounded like there was a bit of conflict there. Did I agree? Hell yes! It makes me mad that I can’t get answers, but I don’t believe that I’m <i>supposed</i> to. That’s not what this power is about. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then she sagely suggested something: “You have a belief that makes you unhappy.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, what can I do about that, I asked? Am I supposed to reconceive my higher power, or just come to accept that I don’t get answers? I <i>like</i> this conception of a higher power. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She agreed it’s a good one, but … she has an alternate belief, which I don’t have to subscribe to, but she wanted to propose her own experience: She <i>does</i> get answers. She believes she does get information and guidance and instructions. (Not like, crazy woo-woo hearing voices.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As we spoke, I posed my own question: Is it possible that I am receiving answers, but I’m simply not hearing them? My ear isn’t attuned to them? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She said she doesn’t believe in a working toward whatever is “God’s will” kind of spiritual world, but rather toward whatever is for the “Highest Good.” Which makes a lot more sense to me. Because this whole “God’s will” vs. my will thing is a real bitch to suss out. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And then she said something radical for folks among my kind: The Highest Good often <i>is</i> what I want. Where I get f’ed up is where I believe that “G-d” doesn’t want me to have what I want. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She said that our desires and impulses and intuitions are often calls and pulls from that deepest place within us. (Surely, that doesn’t mean Ice Cream for Dinner, but you get the point, I hope!)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, I gave myself the assignment this week of trying to attune my ear to hear the guidance that I feel I’ve been deprived of. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And this morning, I had an odd experience of noticing. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve been doing the Deepak/Oprah 21-day meditation challenge, as I tend to do when they come around. 20 minutes, free, a good start to the day (no matter what may be happening in the news about them personally, thank you).</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This morning, the “centering thought” was: “I receive the wisdom of life.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So I tried out my friend's theory. A bit frustrated and tangled up in my own thoughts: “Alright, “God,” Should I try to go to school this Fall or not?”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve been waffling on whether to go to grad school for my teaching certificate without having the proper knowledge foundation at the moment. There are 3 more exams to be certified, 2 to get entry into the grad program. One of these tests, I believe I can pass; one will need a LOT of studying; and the third, I’ve signed up for a summer Physics course at the local city college, because I need all the help I can get. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Do I float another year? Do I try to push myself to do it this year? There’s still room in the program, and my acceptance is contingent on passing the 1st two tests before school begins. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What do I do? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What happened this morning (in aggro-meditation!) was this: I had a simple thought that sounded exactly like all my other thoughts do: “You can try for anything you want, Molly.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There was no magic bell or deep baritone indicating whether this was the “Voice Of The Universe;” it sounded like most of my other swirling thoughts. But it held my attention differently, because this is not a thought that I usually have. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I do not usually believe that I can have or try for anything I want. I am usually talking myself out of things. Flaking on social engagements. Procrastinating with Netflix. I am used to believing that the road to abundance is a scrappy struggle against myself, where I wind up exhausted and often, not having even left my apartment!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><i>You can try for anything you want, Molly</i>.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But it sounds so <i>impulsive</i> to just “try”! It sounds to ungrounded, and I don’t want to take developmentally unrealistic steps and then simply get disheartened. I don’t want to charge into something half-cocked and half-prepared because I want to stop waiting on my life!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But I believe the point of what that thought was saying was that I can try, and I can fail. I can try, and not fail. I can wait for next year. Or not. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Seems like it’s back to my original idea of not getting clear instructions, doesn’t it???</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yes. And. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I think what I heard was that the road of life is less narrow and forsaking than I imagine it to be. That the road is wide, and forgiving, and will get me where I want to go. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The point is to make a decision. To try, however falteringly, to believe that I can have what I want. That the road will be there to support me. That abundance is for me, too. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I don’t know what I will do yet. This is all very new, as of about 30 minutes ago. But, I’d kinda like to try — and see what happens. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-37135037457978973142015-03-15T11:14:00.003-07:002015-03-15T12:49:03.197-07:00Maybe Baby 2<div class="p1">
I have been looking at porn.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This porn comes in the form of a Facebook page for local moms who are selling or giving away baby stuff. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’m on this page because one of my best friends is pregnant, and I have hopped so far aboard her baby-train, I’m surprised I’m not morning-sick myself!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In the past few weeks, I’ve begun reading a book on pregnancy that she read and loved (<i>The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy</i>), crocheting baby bibs, buying scrap fabric for burp clothes, and practically stalking her to ask if she wants a breast pump I found online. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As I spoke of in my 2014 blog post “<a href="http://katieandmolly.blogspot.com/2014/02/maybe-baby.html" target="_blank">Maybe Baby</a>,” I am not sure whether I want children. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As then, I am not in a serious relationship, and I still am not willing to go the motherhood route alone, so there’s no real reason to question if I do or do not. But, reasonable or not, that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">With every article on our drought, the cost of living, the planet’s imminent demise, the expansion of the stupid class — I am convinced for a few moments never to bring children into this hateful world. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And with every true breath of fresh air, every warm hug, every belly laugh </span>— I am convinced for a few moments that I want another human to bear witness to this world’s incandescent beauty. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am the age my mom was when she carried me (33), and then my brother at 36. I have been emailing and asking her <i>all</i> kinds of questions about her pregnancies since I began reading the pregnancy book — what was your morning sickness like? what does pregnancy feel like? did you have food aversions? stretch marks? hemorrhoids? (god help us, she did not!)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have had the liberty and the luxury of asking my mom these questions, and too, my friend who is pregnant, does not. And I am very aware of this fact, and I think it has spurred my devoted interest in her pregnancy — I want to be there as much as I can, because I want to make up for any absence she might be feeling (real or imagined, to me, since I haven’t spoken to her about it yet). </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I was on the phone with my mom this morning, telling her that I feel my heightened interest in my friend’s impending mommy-hood is also that she’s my first local BFF to be pregnant. One of my other best friends in Long Island had a baby last year, and I was able to be there for a few days when the baby was a month old, but that’s all. There wasn’t the same imminent babyhood. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I told my mom that I’d been thinking about my very best friend from childhood, a woman I’ve known since we were 3 years old, and how I can’t imagine what it will be like if and when she gets pregnant across the country from me. And I began to cry. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Of course, it’s about her, my New Jersey friend, and it’s also about me. About how I’ll feel, if and when I also choose to have a family — assuming I’m able </span>— so far from her and my own family. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is big business. This mommy stuff. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And I am wanting to prepare to make that decision in a realistic way — so I have doubled-down on my work around intimacy and relationships (or in my case, habitual lack thereof). This morning, I told the woman I’d been working on these issues with by phone for about 6 weeks (a stranger whose name was passed along to me from a woman I admire) that I have reached out to someone local to work the rest of this stuff with. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And I have. I will continue this relationship work with this local woman who has known me for nearly 8 years, who has seen me at my best and worst, who can call me out, see patterns, and provide so much space for my feelings and vulnerability that I can practically swim in them and still feel safe. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday morning, this same woman (as we were talking about what my issues were and what I wanted to work out) said that she'd always felt for me that my issue was around deprivation. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">… </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She’s very astute. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And it’s also funny to me because it’s one of those things that doesn’t come into focus about yourself until someone else (who knows you well) reflects it back. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am very aware of this time in the generation of women around me. My friends who are certain they don’t want kids, ones who know they do, the ones who can't, and ones who, like me, are unsure.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s a particular, cordoned off time in our lives. And I’m holding the space for that, leaning into the grief of potentially not seeing friends change their whole lives, them not seeing me do the same. I’m aware this is “future-tripping,” but it’s fair to acknowledge my feelings around it, anyway. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’m allowed to not know what will happen (</span>for me or for my friends), and I’m allowed to have feelings either way. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Today, what that looks like is picking up a bitchin' breast pump for my best friend. Continuing to do the work toward an intimate relationship with a man. And letting myself be both sad and happy for and with my peers. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-71506227419789372152015-03-13T06:55:00.000-07:002015-03-13T07:20:00.456-07:00So, I guess it’s update time?<div class="p1">
I have barely written since my retail job, since it sucked the life out through my hobbled feet and beat me with its fluorescent lighting. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
But, for the last 3 weeks, I have been working in a fluorescently-lit office environment. In my own office with a door. And a window that looks over the East Bay with a view of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges (on a clear day). </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s office work. It’s not Nobel Prize work. I’m not saving rainforests or unicorns. But my feet do not hurt. I know what a bypass tray is. And I can futz with the margins of a document until it’s pretty. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><i>This</i> I know how to do. I’ve been doing it since I was 16. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s simple enough. It’s a maternity leave temp assignment through mid-June. And most importantly to me, it's a stable pay check. I’m concurrently looking at summer work I can take on after that, perhaps leaving something available to teach in the Fall, but unlikely. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve taken the CBEST test (oh, and passed!), which means I can register to be a substitute teacher, and I am working through my “Painless Algebra” book — which, though it began with the simplicity of negative numbers, works its way up to quadratic equations… so I’m not getting cocky yet. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday, I finally looked into a community college class in Physics, so that I can bone up to be prepared for the more specialized teacher training tests (the CSETs), which, upon passing, will make me eligible to apply for a teacher credentialing program. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s been strange to follow this avenue (teaching middle- /high-school math and science) and watch as I get a little low about not being able to follow other avenues. About a month ago, I was offered a role in the chorus of a very well-esteemed community theater company, and I turned it down because the time commitment was more than I have to offer with trying to study and look for more work. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But I’m auditioning on Sunday for a short-rehearsal, short-run production that I would gladly take a chorus role in just to be a part of it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’d also, in these last few weeks as I opened up from the shell of retail, reached out to friends by air and by sea. Namely, my friend who flies planes and my friend who sails boats. I’ll be going up and out within the near future. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have also been reconnecting with my friends and community. Seeing my preggers friend. Going to those fellowship places. I feel like I’m unconstricting. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And. I’m still of course nervous and uncertain about the future — my employment, namely. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That said, I guess I’m doing what I can. I’m going to the Farmer’s markets I missed so much when I was working weekends, and going to the gym a teeny bit more occasionally than I had been. I am cooking again. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, things are uncertain. But I feel better. And that’s a win for today. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-72946476755920795812015-03-12T07:06:00.001-07:002015-03-12T10:36:55.702-07:00Everybody. <div class="p1">
The flowers from my landlord. </div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The offer </span>from an old coworker of a place to live if I needed a bone marrow transplant. </div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The flight miles for my mom from the synagogue family. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The money from my brother’s high school friends so he could afford to visit. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Socks from a dearest friend. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Soap from another, because hospital soap smells like sick people. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A fuzzy blanket from an acquaintance to hide the threadbare ones. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A bejeweled travel cup with home-made green smoothies. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The pumpkin bread almost daily from a hospital worker who met my mom in the elevator and let her cry. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The stuffed duck from one of the rabbis. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The prayer my two friends read over my bed. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The lovingly worn book by my favorite poet, read by the Australian nurse to me and my friend who gifted it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The laundry. Oh the laundry. From a friend who was more like a mom, and helped me with my self-injections when I was too chicken. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Pumpkin muffins from the friend going through a divorce, and I was happy to hear about someone else’s drama for a while. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The woman who read a guided meditation to me, and held my hand while I got blood. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The one who gave me Reiki and slipped me one of his favorite crystals when his guy friends weren't watching. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The games of Words with Friends that kept me connected when I wasn’t — and the trash talk because 'xoj' really shouldn’t be a word. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There was the un-signed gift of chemo caps from an Etsy vendor with a card that simply read, “Someone wants you to keep warm.”</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The strand of dried flowers I could hang in my room, since I wasn’t allowed to keep real ones, from a friend I’d only just met. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The box of skin care from an old coworker, since she’d heard your skin dries out. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The nearly-free trip to Hawaii with a dear friend’s flight pass. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The home to stay there with strangers — complete strangers who welcomed me in the dark of winter when I needed a vacation from cancer. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The nurse I met who took my cat in for a week while I was inpatient. And sent me funny videos of her.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The old friend who brought me a lucky bamboo, that’s still alive today. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The donation from my fellowship they’d collected anonymously. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Trader Joes gift cards. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The DVDs.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Home-cooked chicken with two old friends we all ate together like an almost-normal meal. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
The website set up by a friend, as I listed in my daze all the people I wanted included on my updates. </div>
<div class="p1">
The friend who sat with my mom while I slept, and the other one who walked with her to the paperwork office so she didn't have to navigate alone. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My brother, who sat at my bedside with a guitar and a camp songbook and we sang. And sang. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My mom, who brought me coffee every morning she was there because I wanted it nearby even if I couldn’t drink it. My mom, who answered a long-beleaguered, 4-months-of-this-shit tired phone call by showing up in near-minutes. With an old coworker’s flight miles. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My dad, who tried. Not well. But tried. And loves me, no matter the look or feel of it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Everybody. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Everybody showed up for me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There were cards posted all over my room, it looked like a Hallmark store. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There was art made because one of the nurse’s daughters bought me stickers and a stamp kit I still use. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There was the mini-USB keyboard from my ex so I could get some of that emotion out differently. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Everything. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Brownies, and soups, and protein drinks, and sparking water (since regular water tasted like ash). Chocolates. And puzzle books. And texts and calls. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The friend who sat on the phone with each of my bill companies and explained my situation. The same one who reminded me monthly to pay those bills. The same one who lay with me in my hospital bed and napped with me. And helped me pack up on the joy of release day every single time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Everybody. Showed. Up. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I had everything I needed. The rest was up to Fate, Science, and a grand thing called Luck. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, with only Fate Science and Luck, it’s a bleak proposition. I didn’t do this alone. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s two years since I sat in a hospital bed with a tube in my chest and a cap on my bald head. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Without all of them. ... And those I can’t even name, I … </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I don't think they've made words for this yet. </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Actually, no. They have: It's Love. </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">The hidden ingredient of life and survival and health is Love. </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Thank. You. For. It. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-58687688327607725752015-02-20T07:10:00.000-08:002015-02-20T07:14:59.238-08:00The Day of Magical Thinking<div class="p1">
When bad things happen, some people of faith tend to say, “Well, that wasn’t God; that was just a bad thing happening.”</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Holocaust, dead babies, friends overdosing: Not God. Just happenstance. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To try to integrate trauma into a worldview that includes a benevolent power underlying all, one must, according to some, reject the trauma as a part of the benevolent power’s purview. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now, granted, one might imagine that an all-powerful being would probably have the authority to have a hand in such things. But for the case of some arguments, we’re told, Shit happens. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Awakened in me, or at least uncovered in me, recently is a boatload of anger. A feeling of betrayal by some power in the Universe that just as I was beginning to come out of the trauma of a history dotted with: abuse, neglect, rape, alcoholism, pauperism and solitude: that it would be then that my blood would suddenly turn to cancer inside me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">However, in order to feel a betrayal, I must believe that it was personal. Or, if not personal, that there was somehow a fairness or order in the Universe that was reversing on me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And, I can’t. I can’t anymore believe that I’ve been betrayed because it is upsetting the fabric of my nature. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To think, Okay, <i>now</i> I have to go through trauma recovery around cancer on top of all the rest I was dealing with, makes me feel hideously resentful and angry and frustrated, and in the end, hopeless. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because if things are going to abruptly turn to a pit of fire at any given moment, what’s the point? What’s the point in healing, helping, creating, being?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And I can’t have that. I can’t be someone who carries around the question, What’s the point?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s very bad for me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, what if I try something different, for even a day? Car won’t start? Shit happens. Find a penny on the sidewalk: Good shit happens. Cancer recurs and I have to transplant my bone marrow by shearing away the essence of my body? Well, <i>Shit Happens</i>. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I dunno. Doesn’t sound realistic to me. But, then again, what does?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Do I just assume good things will happen to and for me, and wash aside the traumas? I am someone who believes that repression and white-washing doesn’t actually work, so what if you just reject it, instead of repress it?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">If I begin to believe that I’m someone who can have stability, joy, purpose, fulfillment, connection and ease… well, anything that doesn’t fit with that worldview just file under “Not God”?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And here’s the rub with the whole “God,” Higher Power, Benevolent Force, Life Itself, Universe shit:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I happen to belong to -- and had my life saved by -- a group of people who say that in order to not drink yourself into oblivion and become a tornado in the lives of others … you need a “<i>spiritual</i> <i>solution</i>.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Uh. Hmmm….</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, what if. What if just for a day (because hey, it’s a day I fought the fuck hard for anyway), I just assume and walk about and <i>believe</i> that good shit happens? That I have good luck. That I am destined to fulfillment in my work and romantic life. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What if I let my anger and betrayal and hurt and aghastness rest… not shoved away or down, but just set into an open box called, “Shit Happens”? </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Meh. It's worth a shot. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-5271423200428445832015-02-16T07:42:00.000-08:002015-02-16T08:16:33.196-08:00“Then that happened…”<div class="p1">
This is what I said to my friend after I broke down on Friday night with the truth of how lost I’d been feeling. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She said to me, You can’t do that. You can’t say something like what you shared, and then cover it up with a joke like it wasn’t important or true. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And that’s what I want to do with today’s blog. I want to try to stem some of whatever reactions I believe you might have had to yesterday’s blog of anger and fear and isolation. Because no matter how I feel in a moment, I do need you greatly, and I want you to still like me and not to think that I’m a whiny, privileged person who’s lost perspective on the world. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, I’m going to try not to do that, to reverse any effects of what I said yesterday. And simply let it lie. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I <i>do</i> know that my job is not scooping animal carcasses off the highway, or cleaning toilets, or any other job that many people have. </span>I have friends who've lost children, husbands, gone bankrupt. I mean, I work at a high-end retailer in Union Square, not on a chain gang. And I'm going through cancer survivorship stuff, like I imagine and hope those of us who have to, do. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I know, too, that in times like these, we all seem to lose some perspective, and I allow myself to have that for now, because I do know it will change. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, I guess I did need (or want) to put how I've been feeling out there, even in this impersonal forum, because it <i>is</i> the truth, and that’s what I tell here — with or without back-peddling. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, whatever reactions you might have had (because I can see from the stats page that many people did read that blog), I hope … well, I hope it’s okay I put the truth there. And </span>I'm trying to let myself be okay with it, too.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
"You can't save your face and your ass at the same time."</div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-2650314531926541932015-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:002015-02-15T10:20:04.658-08:00The Look-Good.<div class="p1">
I was with a group of close friends on Friday night, celebrating one of their “not getting drunk and sleeping with strangers” anniversaries. These are women I’ve known for nearly my whole 8 years of not doing the same, and who know me and have seen me through my best and worst. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And I couldn’t tell them the truth. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It wasn’t until the assembled group was about to close that I got up, walked to the podium at the front of the room and said, “This is the place you’re supposed to tell the hard things. And, things are really bad.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I began to sob. I eeked out that 5 months ago, I burned my life down, and I’m exhausted and isolated. I told the group that I realized I had to say something when, tonight, I couldn’t hold eye contact with my friends over our dinner. That the closest women I have in my life, I couldn’t look at for too long, because if I did… they would see… and I would break down crying. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And I didn’t want to do that. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because it doesn’t feel like there’s anything <i>to</i> do. So, why talk about it?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I told them about being an expert at looking good on the outside, and feeling like dog shit on the inside. Now, the thing about the “look good” is that, sure, who doesn’t want to look good? Especially when you are feeling crappy, sometimes it’s nice to say, Well, at least I can still pull myself together. At least I can assemble an outfit, put on a little makeup, and … look good. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">However, the other thing about the “look good” is that generally, if you look good, people assume you feel good. And that’s part of the guise of it, of course; that’s part of its purpose… is to fool people. Because if no one asks, you don’t have to tell. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s a pretty little prison we wrap ourselves up in, in an effort to try to do it alone. Because, again, what else is there to do?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In my case, I’m going on interviews, auditions, tours of school, taking tests, ordering physics books. I’m going about the wildest flurry of activity, the other day, I called it a blizzard. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">All this manic pushing to get out of my current situation that I feel ashamed I got into <i>again</i>. Molly, quitting another job without a plan. Molly, struggling to find work, again. Molly looking into a hundred different career paths, and feeling like a strung-out shell of a person through it all. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because, as I said earlier: Things are really bad. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There’s a lot of crying, a lot of hopelessness, a lot of just trying to make it through these extended, exhausting retail days. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A co-worker I’ve been sharing some of my, “Someone get me out of here” activities with said yesterday that shouldn’t this (the retail job) feel laughable in comparison to what I’ve been through? (She knows about the cancer.) And I said, No. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Instead, it feels like, “Haven’t I been through enough that I shouldn’t have to deal with this fucking bullshit?” That’s how it feels. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It feels like I push and try and explore and push and try and explore, and nothing moves. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I feel like the hamster on the wheel, working so fucking hard, and getting no where. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I will say that this new idea to pursue teaching feels like the first thing that makes real and doable sense in all my career lily-pad hopping. So, that feels like a win, and progress, and hope. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And in the center of that remains the fact that my feet and legs ache, right now, I’m earning half what I did when I was at my office job, I have a dwindling savings account that was really fucking hard-earned, and I have no back-up.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So. What? Why do you talk to anyone about that anyway? No one really has anything to tell you of use, except, “We love you and you’ll get through this.” … And take <i>that</i> to the bank. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, no. It’s fabulous that I have people around me, and I know there’s something to telling the truth, and so I did. When I realized I couldn’t look my best friends in the eye for fear they might see the truth of what’s happening beyond the “look good,” it was time to say something. (Though, perhaps earlier could have been better, too.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Did they particularly have anything that shorn through the bleakness in which I find myself, again? Not really. No magic bullets. No words of enlightenment. Just simple suggestions like, Go to a meeting everyday with people who actually know you, and share about this. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And so, I am. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I hate it. I feel vulnerable, and I want everybody to <i>not</i> talk to me about it afterward — but there’s no controlling people. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because here’s the undercurrent of all this surface nonsense, all this struggle to stay and get afloat and to try to believe that things will change and get better if I keep doing "the next right thing," that life will even out, that I'll be okay...: </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">The undercurrent is: I. Don't. Know. That. (None of us do, surely.)</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">But, specifically, I'm talking cancer. I have a lot of cancer grief to go through, and I don’t know how. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Partly I don't talk about it because I feel it's so <i>dramatic</i> to talk about, because I'm scared people will roll their eyes, and think, "Sheesh, enough with the cancer already; you lived, didn't you? Move on!" </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I don’t know how to share with people about how angry, betrayed, and every day still terrified -- with every cough, or sleepless night, or strange headache -- about a recurrence I feel. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I don’t know how to begin to put faith back into a universe and a universal law that arbitrarily may decide to kill you "just cuz." </span>How to “come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to wholeness” when everything solid was ripped from under me in an instant. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And that’s what I’m being asked to do. I’m at the point, again, where I’m supposed to contemplate my idea of a “higher power,” and I want everybody to take their, “It’s the cycle of life and death,” it’s love, it’s community, and shove it with red hot poker down their own throats. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because: Fuck. You. (<i>non-cancer having people</i>, she mumbles mentally.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am going at all this activity pretty much on my own, without the guidance and space of meditation, without a wisp of a belief in the goodness of the world, or in the belief that efforts bring results. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And it’s really hurting me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There’s a lot of work I’m going to have to do on this, and <i>I feel SO TIRED</i>. I’m so tired. Have you fought cancer and then had to go about the daily business of living, getting parking tickets and paying bills you can’t afford? And are you now being asked to reconcile that traumatizing experience with a belief in goodness or constancy in the universe in order to stay sober and not kill yourself?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Few of us have. And I don’t know how to do it, because I don’t know who to turn to. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And so, I’m doing this -- or have been trying to do this -- all alone, in many ways. Sure, I’m reaching out, and the shell of isolation is cracking, and I imagine “good” things will come of it. But for now, I’m just so tired. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So that’s what’s beyond the “Look-Good,” friends. It’s not pretty, or happy, or palatable for many, including myself. It’s sad and raw and real and <i>really fucking painful</i> to be where I am right now. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And… if one of you tells me “this too shall pass” or "everybody dies sometime," i’ll shove an iron through your cranium.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">(Because it is small comfort, even though it’s true.)</span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-39133328090660545272015-02-02T08:45:00.000-08:002015-02-02T08:48:24.225-08:00In the meantime, the in-between time…<div class="p1">
I have an interview with a temp agency tomorrow. A resume out to a job working with Jewish kids I’d really love. I had a call with a mediator to ask his experience and will be following up some leads before I follow down that path. A call on Thursday with a grad school back east that I probably won’t take up, but, again, good for me to find out more. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">An appointment with a talent agent next week. A “we’re still making decisions” email from the musical I auditioned for last week. And plans to start rehearsing for another musical audition. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have an email from my landlord saying the work on the laundry room-cum-art studio should be done by March 1. A weekend wedding retreat for a dear friend coming up. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Oh, and did I mention I’m ushering at the Billy Idol show later this month?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">For someone who spends so much time languishing on her couch and in her head, I sure do a lot! (except, of course, for my dishes.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Divine restlessness. Creative unrest. Cosmic dissatisfaction. !</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But really, I just wanted to touch base to say, Yes, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but I have to remember that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing anything in the present. I tend to flagellate myself for my lack of action — then I actually write down what I’m doing!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s hard to acknowledge these points of progress or action in the midst of existential questioning, but I really must if I want to keep any perspective. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So that’s what I’m giving myself today. I got up at 5am to do a work-trade shift at my gym to keep those free classes that I’m only using once a week at the moment. But, today, I worked out. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I paid my COBRA bill, so I can go to Kaiser tomorrow on my day off and check out how my blood is doing and get that vague gnawing off my mind. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Today, I’m taking public transit into work instead of driving, because I have the luxury of time when I wake up at 5am. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Sometimes I really gotta step back from my navel-gazing and notice that I still am engaging in the life I fought so hard to keep. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-72263637907528437382015-02-01T11:00:00.001-08:002015-02-01T11:07:46.490-08:00oh, that again. <div class="p1">
So, I’ve restarted my work on relationships with a new mentor, someone who shares the lineage of the woman I’d been working with, which means that this morning, I got to read aloud my entire sad history of relationships and sex. Again.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Good. Times. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Interestingly enough, though, I was struck this morning about how my avoidance of or aversion to commitment in relationships parallels my aversion to commitment in my career and work-life. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve said and heard it a thousand times: Romance and Finance are two sides of the same coin. And I knew that working on one would bring about change or awareness in the other. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, somehow rereading my pattern — of splitting when things get weird, or choosing partners I don’t want, or not being open to those men who are into me — highlighted what is happening for me in career-land. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A friend said to me last week that it sounds like it’s time for me to choose a career path. Not a job. But something I can follow through on. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Eek. I hate that. I’ve always hated the idea of having to choose one thing. But I recounted this all to my mom and told her that it’s similar to how I had to choose theater over music. I <i>miss</i> music. And it’s not like I’ll never play again, but I had to choose to put my creative efforts into theater if I wanted to get anywhere with it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I hated that. I hate that I can do and be so many things, and I have “so much potential,” and so many varied interests, that choosing one is incredibly frightening for me. Like I’ll choose poorly, to quote <i>Indiana Jones</i>. What if by choosing theater, I’m turning my back on a fate in music or painting? What about all the other roads my life could take?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And yet. By not choosing one, I take no roads, or follow a little of each, and I feel stymied and frozen. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Commitment leads to freedom in that way. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And when it’s going to come to career, I’m going to have to choose. Sure, I could easily and very successfully be: A teacher, a writer, a psychologist, a mediator, a community engagement executive. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I could be any of these things. Hell, I could even be a doctor or a lawyer or a spaceman if I wanted. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Well, maybe not a space<i>man</i>. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But I haven’t wanted to choose. Because <i>what.if.I’m.wrong</i>. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What if I choose something and it doesn’t turn out well? What if I fail at finding "my calling" this lifetime? What if NONE of those things listed above actually make me want to get up and go to work?</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">What if I put my trust and faith in the wrong career, or -- to parallel -- in the wrong man?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Well, sorry, lady, you gotta eat. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And you gotta choose. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Sure, people change careers throughout their lives, but I’ve changed mine so many times before age 30 that I think I’ve played that card out. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Therefore. One of these things is going to have to be it. Whether it makes my heart sing or not. No, I didn’t want to “give up” music. But I did, and the theater thing I love, even if it’s slowed down for now. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">None of the above professions makes my heart sing, per se. There’s no glow surrounding any of them saying, Pick me Pick me. But each inspires me to help bring others together, to inspire others to heal, to bring unity into the world. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, no. I don’t know, still, what I want to be when I grow up. But I am warming up to the idea of choosing one path. And actually moving forward on it. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-56054747708352474002015-01-30T07:48:00.001-08:002015-01-30T07:53:33.859-08:00Rock Saves.<div class="p1">
As you may have noticed by now, I’ve been in a bit of a maudlin mood since attaining a job in retail. Since that time, in the last week alone, my sponsor had to let me go in order to focus on her own healing work, I got a traffic ticket while on my way to visit a pregnant friend, and my four stalwart neighboring trees were torn down. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Plus, I slammed my pinkie in a drawer. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s been a No good very bad day, and you can call me Alexander. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s been pretty bad, and even before the tree massacre, I was on the phone with a friend saying that it felt like a series of trap doors: just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. I wouldn't be surprised for “The Big One” to hit, or my car to break down. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That said, yesterday, in a funk over the trees (read: hysterically crying over the loss of everything solid in my life — yes, perspective is a lost art), I drove my car in to work instead of taking public transportation. On came the NPR, because it’s what I usually listen to in the car. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But it wasn’t right. Sure, it’s informative and I enjoy it in a way, but it’s not fun. It’s not uplifting. Unless it’s A Prarie Home Companion. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And so I put on a CD of one of my favorite bands, playing one of their most famous live sets. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I immediately pressed through to one of my favorite songs, one I can count on as an uplifter, and as the song progressed, I turned the volume louder. And louder. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As I sat in that toll bridge traffic, I began to sing along. I began to smile. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I played a series of 4 songs, the last one on repeat as I climbed the circular parking garage. And I felt better. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have this kind of amnesia when it comes to music: I forget that Rock Saves. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I can go for weeks without music, maybe a few songs on the radio here and there, but not volume up to 40, ear-ringing, loud singing, smile-inducing music. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I felt transformed by the end of my trip from Oakland to San Francisco. If there were another trap door opening beneath me, I felt as though the music was giving me upper body strength to cling to the sides of the trap, and hoist myself out. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The trap may be open beneath me, and it is always an option to fall in, but somehow I felt like I was climbing out of that one. That, for that morning, that previously sob-fest morning, I was not going to continue on like that. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I parked my car and walked toward my job with an actual jaunt in my step, and a bit of that subversive, “I’ve been listening to music really loud,” half-grin on my face. A cute 20-something said hi to me as I jaunted down the sidewalk. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve been walking to work looking solely down at the sidewalk, internally commenting the awful smell of human waste. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday was a different morning. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Sometimes I feel like I could be diagnosed with manic-depression, the way I can swing from despair to hope! But, perhaps it’s normal. And I’ll never really know, honestly. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">When things are going well enough, I never feel the need for anti-depressants, and even when they’re not going well, it’s always temporary, and not debilitating. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, maybe, simply, Rock Saves. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Maybe, simply, I have a fount of resiliency that I only seem to find in desolate moments. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday, as I drove to work, I drove through a portal of grace. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Things are not different. All the externals remain the same. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But I have that grin on my face. And I’ve been singing in my car. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-33832233437169151012015-01-29T08:02:00.000-08:002015-01-30T07:23:22.255-08:00Tree. <div class="p1">
<span class="s1">(and i don’t care how sappy this is. f.it.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I picked up my coffee mug to refill and looked out my kitchen window. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I looked where I have for 4 winters, across the roof of the apartment building next to mine, toward the 4 trees that grow 50 feet over the roof of the building. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’ve looked to these trees in each of the seasons, the only trees in my landscape to actually shed and rebuild their leaves each year, marking time, creating messages, like the green buds peeping, Spring is coming, or the yellow ones waving, I’ll see you after Winter. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In the Winter of 2012, I asked the trees if I would see them bloom again, uncertain about my mortality and health. In the Spring of 2011, after a horrible season of wintery break-up, I eeped, “Oh,” at the surprise green buds, their note of hope and the healing power of time. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I look at these trees as confirmation of something greater. I watch for their sway to remind me there’s something more than the drama in my life. I wait to see which patch of leaves will begin to flutter first, knowing, eventually, a bundle of them will shimmer, waving happily, omnipresent, and perhaps spread like the wave at a football game, across the face of first one and then all of them. Bundles of green rippling, undulating. Alive.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This morning, I looked out my kitchen window over the roof of the apartment building next to mine to mark the time according to their barren branches. And the trees were gone. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There is one, right now, sliced roughly from most of its solid arms. It has the few speckles of small branches left at the top of what must be a hundred foot tree. Right now, the sun is peeking over the hill to the North, and just the top of the tree is colored with a rust. The small spreckled branches at the top, lit like a burning bush, a shock of ginger hair. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And by this afternoon, I imagine, the last tree will be gone. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In California, time is marked differently. My childhood memories all are time-stamped by the landscape, busty with Spring blossoms, chattery with the sound of fallen leaves. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A friend native to San Francisco told me once when I asked, that yes, indeed, her memories aren’t marked that way. The years and seasons sort of blend. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I love my markers. I love the cycle of it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I love that I am reminded that there must be a fallow season for there to be a lush one. That retreating and retracting for winter is a normal part of life; that the desolation of a leaf-less tree is only temporary. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">These trees marked my time, and offered solace and an anchor to the turning of the earth. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">When I looked out this morning, and saw a different desolation, I whispered, “Tree.” Tree, my apology. Tree, my gratitude. Tree, my anger. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Tree. One last standing tree. One last marker of where I am on this earth and lifetime. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Tree. Your upper half lit so brightly now, your bark shimmers like white birch. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Tree. I’m so sorry they did this to you. Tree, I will miss you terribly. Tree, Thank you for being my anchor and my hope for so long. </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7PeZQZz43uwkS4IR_orVKam-IGZ-NB6GPQNhHum5m_SK6Yutg5quLpI-STF_EnktANBzbZM9KOBPHJEbRRU2RXZqfzaySBwSnZIekb0GOxrUlTAf5QARirYR_61dvtteSMD7N-VejXzmx/s1600/IMG_0181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7PeZQZz43uwkS4IR_orVKam-IGZ-NB6GPQNhHum5m_SK6Yutg5quLpI-STF_EnktANBzbZM9KOBPHJEbRRU2RXZqfzaySBwSnZIekb0GOxrUlTAf5QARirYR_61dvtteSMD7N-VejXzmx/s1600/IMG_0181.JPG" height="400" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1"><i>view from my kitchen table</i></span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-5536204434156193872015-01-22T07:47:00.002-08:002015-01-22T07:54:19.755-08:00Without Defense<div class="p1">
In the summer, I’d texted friends nearly daily, asking them to help me not quit my desk job. I wrote to them that quitting my job without a plan would be just like an alcoholic taking a drink: Disastrous. Painful. An uncharted trip through hell. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But. I wasn’t connected to the things I knew to do. Few meetings, no sponsor, stuck in the middle of step work I’d started <i>months</i> before. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And so, I drank. Metaphorically. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In the fall, I quit my job, without a plan. I felt elated, relieved, free. Exactly like taking a drink. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And now, I am living the consequences of that decision. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday, as I walked back to my apartment after more than 8 hours on my feet and little to show for it, I catalogued all the things I missed about my old job. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The short commute, with no bridges or tunnels involved. The normal hours. The <i>flexible</i> hours, when I could take off to go to Trader Joes at lunch, or walk around the gorgeous suburban landscape, or nap at a nearby friend's before rehearsal. The co-workers I could have conversations with about things that were intelligent or fun or informative.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The kids. The chickens. </span>The pianos.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The sitting. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">For all I wailed about wanting a job that didn’t require me to sit in front of a computer for 40 hours a week (and granted I still don’t) the ability to actually sit at all during the day sounds vastly luxurious. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And as I walked home, the catalogue ever increasing, I said aloud, “I made a mistake.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It was a mistake to quit my job the way I had, without a plan. I <i>knew</i> and had catalogued all the ephemeral perks of that job countless times, knowing what a cush place it was. But I was antsy, restless, hopeless and defiant. And I made a decision to leave. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now, in the school of life that I’ve come through, I hear much about “not regretting the past,” and true, through the interim period without work, I befriended another unemployed bright person who suggested a crowd funding campaign to pay off my back-rent cancer debt. The campaign was wildly successful, and a check is in the mail this week. In addition, because the goal was quickly reached, a very generous family gave me a donation insisting I spend it on “something fun,” which is how and why I have this fancy new laptop to replace the dinosaur I’d had. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But… other than that? I mean, couldn’t those goals have been accomplished anyway? A campaign have been suggested another time? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Look, I know this retail job I’m in now is temporary. I am trying my best to stave off the Stockholm Syndrome that seems to have engulfed everyone who works there, or anywhere in retail, into thinking that the paltry, hiccuping pay-scale, weak health insurance, and unpredictable schedule is acceptable. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Today, I am trying to forgive the faulty thinking of mine that sent me on this fool’s errand in the first place, comparing it to how I did behave when I was drinking: It’s not cuz I was an awful person that I did what I did, it was because I didn’t know any better, and I didn’t have any tools to combat my insane thinking. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have to offer myself compassion for the misguided, instant-gratification seeking decision I made. I was not using the tools I knew to use. I was disconnected from the community that helps me not make insane decisions, financial and otherwise. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I do feel, however, that admitting that I made a mistake in quitting that job without a plan is a good first step for me. I am not immune to my own thoughts. I am not solved from throwing myself into the abyss because I think my house is on fire. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have decades'-driven ruts and habits that I fell over into. And I did not have the diligence or connection to haul me out before I burned my life down instead. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That’s okay. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I mean, it has to be. Right? </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-79415217304683030392015-01-09T08:40:00.002-08:002015-01-09T08:45:54.496-08:00Numbers, Indignation, Holding Patterns: i.e. the Usual. <div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have the delightful learned ability to read a health insurance coverage summary with a hawk’s eye. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Post-cancer, I have become acutely aware of watch-words like “after deductible,” “co-insurance,” and particularly, “lab fees.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Last week, I met with two of the 3 HR ladies I have worked with at the retail company I now work for. The first, Heidi, I met on the day I waltzed into the HR department with no plan and asked if they were hiring. I then had a wonderful impromptu interview and was subsequently hired. She’s great, personable, real. And someone with whom I can be honest. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To finish up the health insurance thought, I met with another of the HR ladies last week to sign the “permanent hire” paperwork, and to get the particular HR documents I’ll need, and information on eventual benefits. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’d assumed, working for a large conglomerate corporation, that my health benefit coverage would be fantastic. More people = less $ from me, right? Wrong. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This morning, I logged in to see what my options are, as I have to stay with the Kaiser health insurance, since that’s where all my cancer records and doctors are, plus it’s in walking distance of my house. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I looked at the plan they offered. I saw <i>many</i> watch-words, including all those above. And then I brought out the plan that I’m currently under via COBRA through my old synagogue employer. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">My lord. What a better plan. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">As someone who needs to get lab tests done fairly regularly, I know that I now pay $10 for them to look and see if my blood is still blood, or if some of it has reverted to cancer. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">With the new plan I saw this morning, I’d have to meet a $4,000 deductible… and <i>then</i> I’ll still pay a 20% copay. Besides the hundred or so they’ll take out of my paycheck each month, just to have the plan. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now, this may all be boring to you. But, number-cruncher that I now am, COBRA costs me $400 a month = $4800 a year. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So they’re kinda similar, now, ain’t they? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">How much is a lab test before deductible? I don’t know. A hundred, maybe? How ‘bout the other things I get checked through-out the year that the new plan says, “After deductible” next to. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Knowing that the plan I currently have is a phenomenal one (having done the health exchange comparison, too), I asked the HR woman last week if they could do something about my pay if I keep my own health insurance. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She’d never heard of such a thing. ??! </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It is common that if someone is covered by outside insurance, if the company is not paying for it, the employee can get a boost in salary, since the company would be paying insurance, but now can pay the employee instead. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Again, she’d never heard of such a thing. And said, no, that would not be the case here. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Enter the second HR conversation I had last week. It was post-holidays, post-working on New Year’s Day, and I was exhausted, upset, not happy. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This retail, commission, fighting for customers with the other girls on the sales floor thing is <i>not</i> for me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I walked upstairs to see Heidi. I told her as much, in quite cushioned, complimentary, grateful words. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And she said: I figured that wouldn’t be for you. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, we love you, you’re one of 2 of 70 employees kept on past the seasonal period. “Give me a week,” she said. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Give me a week to think of another role for you here. We want to keep you, and let me think about where we can utilize you. I have some ideas already, but I have to check them out.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She knows me, sort of. She got one of those hand-made collage holiday cards. I’d gone in to talk to her previously about expectations for the sales positions, and how much hustle one has to do in that role in order to make a living. A living which would equal the paycheck I left at my non-profit desk job. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She said last week that she could see I was someone who thought about the good of the whole, that one’s success is all’s success, and that cut-throat retail floors don’t allow for that. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I later said to a friend, it’s like she called me a communist! But, funnily and astute observed, she’s right. For the good of all! And other Marxist ideologies!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s coming to the end of the week she’d asked me for. She was nearly plaintive in her asking me to give <i>her</i> the time to think of something. — They really like me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In addition, I wrote her an email early this week saying that she needed to have all the information: I do theater. And that means nights and weekends. And if we can keep that in mind as we seek out a new role for me there, that’d be <i>great</i>. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We’ll see what she comes up with. If anything. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">If I land back in front of a desk so I can get to theater rehearsals, so be it. As long as I’m earning more than I was at the non-profit. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I mean, <i>come on</i> people. You’re an international corporation. I’m not 23 anymore. I have skills. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Again, we’ll see. Before I go charging off to look for alternative companies, I’ve invested a lot in them already, as they’ve invested in me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, should it look like I’ll be a salaried lady again — I’m asking for the health insurance off-set increase. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Because screw that noise. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-11540575841361681502015-01-08T08:40:00.000-08:002015-01-08T08:47:16.161-08:00"I want to go to there." Good thing I am.<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Where there is smoke, there is fire. And where there is fire, we take off our knitted gloves and hold our hands to it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s not that bad. This work. It’s tragic and awful, and would certainly raise eyebrows in most circles. I just got through chronicling the years from high school through, “Then I got sober.” </span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">The phrase “shit show” comes to mind. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And yet, I remind myself, in small, calm handwriting at the end of each of these morning writing sessions that I am not that person anymore. That I have been shaped by her experiences, surely, but that the shape and essence of who I am can’t and couldn’t be eroded. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Someone commented yesterday that I am courageous. And as I go through and into this work on healing my relationship to relationships and love, I know that I am. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Not (only) because I’ve chosen (or been “forced” by fate) to do this work at all, but because of all that has come before that hasn’t broken me. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Injured, scarred, frightened me. Sure. But I sit here today, in my sweats, a space heater licking my calves, half-philz half-trader joes coffee in my mug, and I’m not broken. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have been through things and experienced them in a way that makes me cautious to the point of isolation against romantic relationships, but that doesn’t make me broken. That makes me habituated to a way of being. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It all comes, for me, down to safety. With others, in my body, in relationship, in intimacy and authenticity. To slowly peel back the traumas and defenses and reveal that there’s nothing to be scared of anymore. Nothing that can harm me the way my high school/college/post-college years did. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I won’t say that my love life in sobriety has been a cake walk or the pinnacle of wise. It used to have a lot of the same patterns as my drinking days. But it doesn’t anymore. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">However, there’s a middle ground, I know, between wanton and nunnery. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I want to go to there. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I want to go to the place where I am safe, even in exposing myself. Not because other people are so trustworthy, but because <i>I</i> am. Because my spidey-sense is coming back, and I want to get to a place where I trust it. I don’t have to tap out of the dating game entirely. I just have to listen when the alarms go off, and <i>act</i> accordingly. Take action accordingly. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In previous iterations of my love-life, I have pressed the override button so forcibly, for moments, I did break. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, I’m not that girl-woman anymore. As I said, I’ve been shaped and molded by her experiences. But I also have my own inherent grace, fortitude, and hope. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br />
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And so, where there has been smoke (read: my love life), I have sought the fire (read: my fearful heart). And it will be there that I remove my (boxing) gloves. And learn to love and trust my own self. </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862182515097594627.post-7337298333249574012015-01-07T08:07:00.001-08:002015-01-07T08:47:45.541-08:00"There's gotta be something better than this..." ~ Sweet Charity<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Why, didn’t every 7th grader want to become a botanist and live in a tree to be away from people? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am at the radically awful and hopeful place of beginning to work on relationships, and my relationship to relationships. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Coincidentally or not, the last time I started this kind of work, I was into the deep and dredging and combing-over-my-sad-history-of-self-abandonment-and-isolation part when I was struck with a bout of Leukemia, and had to stop.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now that I’m through a round of work on my relationship to money, scarcity, “under-being,” under-earning, me and my mentor agreed that we could work on the other side of the “romance and finance” coin.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Color me thrilled. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In fact, I am looking forward to it, … sort of. Not the work itself, but the results of it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I am not meant to continue my early patterns of self-insulation through isolation or self-abandonment/-destruction. Or, rather, I’m not <i>content</i> to. What I’m <i>meant</i> to do is really only up to me, isn’t it? And a few strokes of fate, I imagine. (hello, cancer.)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But, whatever role I can have in loosening the noose of “Trust No One,” I am signing up for it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I do feel that I am in a better place to begin this time than I was about 2 years ago. I’m working with someone who knows me well, who’s walked this path with and before me, and whom I trust and love.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Even though our particular histories are dissimilar, their endings and the feelings they’ve evoked in us became the same. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">She’s told me that my feeling of imminence, urgency & impatience with myself and "the world" will fade: I am a 33 year old healthy smart beautiful woman. Why the fuck have I never been in a relationship that’s lasted over 6 months, and only two of them at that? Why have I been unintentionally celibate for years on end or find myself particularly attracted to taken men? My “hot” years are fading; I want to take ad<i>van</i>tage of them!</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">And yet. I seem to land in the same place each time I try to throw myself into the ring, or try to avoid it. And so, it’s time to try something else. Something I know will work, because it works for thousands of other people who walk a path of recovery. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I’m not stoked. But I am. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It’s sad stuff to riffle through. There is a Trail of Tears that’s led me here. But I feel ready for this. No, not eager to riffle; yes, eager to heal, move on, move forward. Let whoever I’m supposed to be, or whoever I’m hiding, to integrate. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Does this look like a bright shiny pot of gold(en haired children) at the other end? Likely not. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I finished the work on money, and I’m still in the thick of the results of patterns that brought me here. But I imagine they’ll shift over time. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, too, I imagine with the love and relationship stuff. I won’t buy a wedding dress at the end of it. But perhaps I’ll buy date one. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">(p.s. this missive is in no way a passive request for dating invitations. but thanks.) ;) </span></div>
Molly Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09261769832454742330noreply@blogger.com0