"Admitted we were powerless over Netflix, and our lives had become unmanageable"...

There is a great proportional equation in my life: The more fearful I am, the more Netflix I watch.  Perhaps you have a similar equation?

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.  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.

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.  Hence my desire to earn a teaching credential, aka more schooling, aka not til next Fall if that happens.  There’s plenty of “go get ‘em” attitude in me that says, “Meh, who needs it, you’ve taught, you’ll be fiiine.”  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.

And it’s unclear to me which of these voices is more valid.  So, I poke half-heartedly.

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.  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.

Oh!, you great and terrible time-suck!

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.

Oh, it’s not like I haven’t tried to reign myself in before.  There’s my “Anything more than two hours is avoidance and isolation” awareness.  There’s the “Never after 10pm” rule.  There’s the “Just one more episode” mantra that somehow repeats unto the depths of my pockets of time.

And so, I decided, Enough!  I looked into suspending my account (at least until I’ve found a job), but you can’t do that.  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.  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.

Finally, with a deep mood of disgust, regret, and resignation, last week I cancelled my Netflix account.

And began rereading all the Harry Potter books.

Buying Desire a Hat.

I was at my therapist’s once several years ago now and we were talking about my closest friendships.  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.  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.  Or to any several people.  Better to keep it all locked up tight.

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?  A dam has immense strength and power; the pressure behind it is exponential.  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.

You can see where I’m going with this, no?  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.  Now it’s just the normal, everyday flow.  The normal, everyday rise and fall of desire.

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. 

Desire in our culture has a pretty bad rap of it.  Desire, the seat of sin.  And yet, what is it but simply an expression of self, like humor or wit?  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.

What if, instead, they were invited guests?  Do I even know anything about what and who they are, after being so keen to shut them out for so long?  Or do I only now know the legend of them, instead of the qualities themselves?

There is a bit of terror and a bit of awe as I begin to reintroduce myself to these qualities of self.  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.  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.  Because not only will it change their entire metabolism for the better, but, hey, it’s fucking delicious.  And you’re allowed to enjoy it.

Permission to be allowed to enjoy.  Permission to be allowed to want.  Permission to be allowed to need.  And actually, screw the whole permission thing – it’s not that at all.  It’s not a choice.  Or an earned prize.  It’s a basic human right. 

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.

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.  And why?  Because I have a suspicion that fulfillment, purpose, and wholeness are on the other side of that shift.

Snookered.

See, the thing about being saved is that it’s not an absolution.  You aren’t swept back from the cliff’s edge and wrapped in a cosmic swaddling, rocked into unseeing bliss.  What you are is placed back firmly onto a path.  A long one.  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.

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.  It is to say, Forget it, too hard, too much, there’s no help, no hope.  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.  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.

To be alive is to agree.  To be alive is to sign an agreement daily that you will, however falteringly, place one foot before the other.  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. 

And so, pulled back from the edge, “saved” as it were, you walk with a grim humor, knowing that somewhere you have chosen this.

Tuning by Ear.

Because I’ve begun a round of work with a new mentor recently, we’re talking a lot about “god.”

Specifically, this past Saturday, I read to her my current conception of this ineffable “power”:

“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!)

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. 

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. 

I sometimes get impatient with this power because it is so slow/calm & not clear w/instructions or answers to my questions.”

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 supposed to. That’s not what this power is about. 

Then she sagely suggested something: “You have a belief that makes you unhappy.”

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 like this conception of a higher power. 

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 does get answers. She believes she does get information and guidance and instructions. (Not like, crazy woo-woo hearing voices.)

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? 

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. 

And then she said something radical for folks among my kind: The Highest Good often is 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. 

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!)

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. 

And this morning, I had an odd experience of noticing. 

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).

This morning, the “centering thought” was: “I receive the wisdom of life.”

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?”

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. 

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. 

What do I do? 

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.”

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. 

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!

You can try for anything you want, Molly.

But it sounds so impulsive 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!

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. 

Seems like it’s back to my original idea of not getting clear instructions, doesn’t it???

Yes. And. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Maybe Baby 2

I have been looking at porn.

This porn comes in the form of a Facebook page for local moms who are selling or giving away baby stuff. 

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!

In the past few weeks, I’ve begun reading a book on pregnancy that she read and loved (The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy), crocheting baby bibs, buying scrap fabric for burp clothes, and practically stalking her to ask if she wants a breast pump I found online. 

As I spoke of in my 2014 blog post “Maybe Baby,” I am not sure whether I want children. 

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. 

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. 

And with every true breath of fresh air, every warm hug, every belly laugh — I am convinced for a few moments that I want another human to bear witness to this world’s incandescent beauty. 

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 all 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!)

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). 

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. 

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. 

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 — so far from her and my own family. 

This is big business. This mommy stuff. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

… 

She’s very astute. 

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. 

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.

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. 

I’m allowed to not know what will happen (for me or for my friends), and I’m allowed to have feelings either way. 

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. 

So, I guess it’s update time?

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. 

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). 

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. 

This I know how to do. I’ve been doing it since I was 16. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

And. I’m still of course nervous and uncertain about the future — my employment, namely. 

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. 

So, things are uncertain. But I feel better. And that’s a win for today. 

Everybody.

The flowers from my landlord. 

The offer from an old coworker of a place to live if I needed a bone marrow transplant. 

The flight miles for my mom from the synagogue family. 

The money from my brother’s high school friends so he could afford to visit. 

Socks from a dearest friend. 

Soap from another, because hospital soap smells like sick people. 

A fuzzy blanket from an acquaintance to hide the threadbare ones. 

A bejeweled travel cup with home-made green smoothies. 

The pumpkin bread almost daily from a hospital worker who met my mom in the elevator and let her cry. 

The stuffed duck from one of the rabbis. 

The prayer my two friends read over my bed. 

The lovingly worn book by my favorite poet, read by the Australian nurse to me and my friend who gifted it. 

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. 

Pumpkin muffins from the friend going through a divorce, and I was happy to hear about someone else’s drama for a while. 

The woman who read a guided meditation to me, and held my hand while I got blood. 

The one who gave me Reiki and slipped me one of his favorite crystals when his guy friends weren't watching. 

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. 

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.”

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. 

The box of skin care from an old coworker, since she’d heard your skin dries out. 

The nearly-free trip to Hawaii with a dear friend’s flight pass. 

The home to stay there with strangers — complete strangers who welcomed me in the dark of winter when I needed a vacation from cancer. 

The nurse I met who took my cat in for a week while I was inpatient. And sent me funny videos of her.

The old friend who brought me a lucky bamboo, that’s still alive today. 

The donation from my fellowship they’d collected anonymously. 

The Trader Joes gift cards. 

The DVDs.

Home-cooked chicken with two old friends we all ate together like an almost-normal meal. 

The website set up by a friend, as I listed in my daze all the people I wanted included on my updates. 

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. 

My brother, who sat at my bedside with a guitar and a camp songbook and we sang. And sang. 

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. 

My dad, who tried. Not well. But tried. And loves me, no matter the look or feel of it. 

Everybody. 

Everybody showed up for me. 

There were cards posted all over my room, it looked like a Hallmark store. 

There was art made because one of the nurse’s daughters bought me stickers and a stamp kit I still use. 

There was the mini-USB keyboard from my ex so I could get some of that emotion out differently. 

Everything. 

Brownies, and soups, and protein drinks, and sparking water (since regular water tasted like ash). Chocolates. And puzzle books. And texts and calls. 

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.

Everybody. Showed. Up. 

I had everything I needed. The rest was up to Fate, Science, and a grand thing called Luck. 

But, with only Fate Science and Luck, it’s a bleak proposition. I didn’t do this alone. 

It’s two years since I sat in a hospital bed with a tube in my chest and a cap on my bald head. 

Without all of them. ... And those I can’t even name, I … 

I don't think they've made words for this yet. 

Actually, no. They have: It's Love. 

The hidden ingredient of life and survival and health is Love. 

Thank. You. For. It.