I wouldn't be here but for the life I lead, but what if it didn't lead me where I wanted to be now? I wouldn't be here but for the choices I made, but what if I made different ones? Or ones I have lived to regret for the life I made? The life I made and have now. The life I lead from the choices I made.
It's obvious now it's, as they say, all said and done, and like everyone else looking back, all I have are the memories of the life and choices. And the question we all ask now and then, "What if...?", about the choices we made or didn't make. Right or wrong doesn't matter anymore, only the reality of what happened afterward, to here and now.
And it's the obvious there are no do overs or wishes to be something or someone else. We face who we are where we are here and now, from all those choices which lead to this moment of the life we lead. That's all there is. Everything else is irrelevant and nothing else matters.
It's the life we lead and sometime in the future it will be the life people remember about us. And all the choices which didn't happen, only those that did. And left the life we lead.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Sorrow
"Sorrow found me when I was young. Sorrow waited and sorrow won."
- Bran Stark
It found me when I was five to be my companion in life, never leaving my mind, my heart, my soul and mostly my spirit. I never thought if it was there, I only knew it was there and was what it was, sorrow. And it's still, as it always has been, there, invisibly in my subconscious and sometimes in my conscious thoughts and feelings.
It has been my guide wherever I was and went, however I thought or felt. There, invisible to all but me. Felt by no one but me. Occasionally letting me be happy for a moment, but only just a moment. And it will be the last feeling I know, about my life and the world and life I leave.
- Bran Stark
It found me when I was five to be my companion in life, never leaving my mind, my heart, my soul and mostly my spirit. I never thought if it was there, I only knew it was there and was what it was, sorrow. And it's still, as it always has been, there, invisibly in my subconscious and sometimes in my conscious thoughts and feelings.
It has been my guide wherever I was and went, however I thought or felt. There, invisible to all but me. Felt by no one but me. Occasionally letting me be happy for a moment, but only just a moment. And it will be the last feeling I know, about my life and the world and life I leave.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Simple joy
I didn't know where to put this post, in Taoism, Life, My Life Stories or what. I was just wondering about life while watching a football game when a commercial came on about a child's joy of small things. I love watching children for the easy way they simply enjoy being and seeing what's around them.
To me, it's often sad parents don't see that or see the opportunity they have to share and teach their children. To let them wander and wonder and be there to share their joy of the world. We know it's all about learning about the world. We know it's how they see themselves later, to see the greater world, the whole of their world, and who they are as a person. They become, and in becoming it is joy that teaches.
We lose that simply joy during our teen years as the issues and pressures of adulthood arise and everything suddenly become serious. Then we're adults, badly as we are at it in the world we know and face. And the feeling of simple joy has faded with the situations and circumstances of our life. Our reality of being has displaced joy and pushed it into just a memory.
Where did it go? Where is it still? Where is that child in us and the simple joy of being a child? Why do we keep it there and not in the present, in the moments of our life? What are we afraid of? Joy? Or what others may think or say about our simple joy of being and the world?
To me, it's often sad parents don't see that or see the opportunity they have to share and teach their children. To let them wander and wonder and be there to share their joy of the world. We know it's all about learning about the world. We know it's how they see themselves later, to see the greater world, the whole of their world, and who they are as a person. They become, and in becoming it is joy that teaches.
We lose that simply joy during our teen years as the issues and pressures of adulthood arise and everything suddenly become serious. Then we're adults, badly as we are at it in the world we know and face. And the feeling of simple joy has faded with the situations and circumstances of our life. Our reality of being has displaced joy and pushed it into just a memory.
Where did it go? Where is it still? Where is that child in us and the simple joy of being a child? Why do we keep it there and not in the present, in the moments of our life? What are we afraid of? Joy? Or what others may think or say about our simple joy of being and the world?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Problem & the Answer
"Be in love with your life.
Every detail of it."
- Jack Kerouac
If only I could which is hard when I haven't and don't. I was never taught to love my life to know what it is to be in love with my life, only to hate it.
Every detail of it."
- Jack Kerouac
If only I could which is hard when I haven't and don't. I was never taught to love my life to know what it is to be in love with my life, only to hate it.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Found in Passing
I saw this in passing and thought it was worthwhile to remember, "Life may be sad, but it's always beautiful."
Living in the Pacific Northwest with it's many consecutive winter days of overcast and rain, I've always tell folks on those days, especially after several days, sometimes a week or more, in a row, "It's always sunny, the clouds only hide that fact."
It's all relative to where you are in time and place and your view of life and the world.
The above photo is a super moon LED lamp.
"This captivating lamp designed by Nosigner (Eisuke Tachikawa) represents the Super Moon, the biggest full moon in a cycle of 18 years. After the tragic earthquake in Japan, many of the Japanese prayed to the Super Moon for hope. According to Nosigner, this lamp is a symbol of the moon's "light of hope". This lunar lamp is composed of LED lights and is an accurate presentation of the moon. In fact, the lamp is based off of the lunar orbiter, Kaguya's 3D topographic data of the moon."
Citation from My Modern Met.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Feeling Good
I know when I'm feeling good, meaning the body is between episodes of digestive problems. I know because I listen to a lot of music, nearly constantly during the day. And I dance, badly, but still the body feels good. I don't watch TV, sit on the couch and wonder and ponder why life is shit, I don't take naps or want to take naps, and I don't eat much if at all.
I get up and out the door, even in the cold and rain to do anything but sit, except here in front of the computer being productive, again. Life has its good days. Just too few and too far between. But I don't hate myself so much and the thoughts and feelings to quit fade behind the sound of music, the world outside and life.
My life. Not bad some days, better than the rest.
I get up and out the door, even in the cold and rain to do anything but sit, except here in front of the computer being productive, again. Life has its good days. Just too few and too far between. But I don't hate myself so much and the thoughts and feelings to quit fade behind the sound of music, the world outside and life.
My life. Not bad some days, better than the rest.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Falling Behind
When I retired in December 2005, a year or two ahead of my original planned retirement date, I pushed it forward when I realized I could afford to live, as I thought then, comfortably on my annuity with the small annual increases as has always happened and after is was made clear to me my boss had targeted me for retirement soon to fulfill his mandate from his boss to reduce staff.
Faced with being a victim of office politics and circumstances which would have eliminated my job and face a demotion with the same salary for two years before it was also reduced, I decided to say, "Fuck 'em" and walk out to do what I wanted than get up every day to the pressure from an asshole boss. I had already been passed over for promotion a few years earlier, one wanted by the staff, for political reasons, because I don't do well being a "yes" person.
As it turned out I thought I was ok financially. Not great as one of the three plans had to be slowed to a crawl while I worked on the other two, my photography and my photography guide. The third is still progressing albeit slower as recent health issues have cost me a fair amount and still not have a diagnosis let alone a treatment plan and as the drugs for the goal has caused its own health issues and problems.
But then the recession and more so the politics in Washington DC over how to get out of it, between the indignant Tea Party, the acquiescence of the Republicans to them, and the compitulation of the Senate majority leader and the President to both of them at the expense of the American people, namely the middle class and especially the poor, elderly and others, happened. The 99%'ers got screwed.
The failures of the President and the Democrats has, with my own decisons to continue to push forward with my plans, has overwhelmed me finanically. I didn't expect my annuity to be frozen by this President for two years and likely will be for another two to three more years. I didn't expect my health insurance premiums to nearly double in that same period - no thanks to the above mentioned groups and individual. I didn't expect the cost of living to push me into this situation.
And so the combination of my finances, income and health has excerbated my feelings about getting old with my third goal to leave me immensely overwhelmed by everything around me and everything else. All the good things I planned and was working on were larger than my ability to keep pace let alone advance beyond a few things. And it's really not the money but the work and life.
For every one thing I work on there are several more major projects waiting for me around my home. The photo guide ground to a halt over the summer for the other projects and now I'm 3 months behind just keeping current with little interest to work on it let alone catch up and then focus on the other undone pieces of the guide and then work on the book.
My photography stopped due to health issues and chasing an diagnosis and hopefully a treatment plan to get my body back and then my life. Neither has happened as the medical professional either don't know, can't determine, don't seem to care, or dismiss the symptoms as age and other "normal" factors and as those issues has left me less healthy and fit and excerbated my Dysthymia into a depression.
The dominoes fell over and pushed me over a mental cliff with little energy and interest to stand up and walk out of the canyon I'm currently in with no obvious trail to get out and then on with life and all those projects sitting around my mind and in my home. I'm feeling so far behind I'm not sure where to start anymore.
And yet I know the answer, if only my body didn't hurt, would work, and not feel tired almost all the time. And time doesn't appear to be on my side right now, or so it feels as the days go slowly by and then appear to disappear behind me in the mirror of time. I have grown to like my life but hate my body. Not the aging so much, although being slower and less agile hasn't felt good, but the look I've always disliked about me is worse in my eyes, getting old(er).
And I'm falling behind in life and my life every day, spiraling away from where I planned, wanted to be and expected to be. And how to change my course in life and myself is the task at hand as that too is falling behind. It's like standing somewhere in the Sahari without a map or compass, and all I see is sand and desert and all I feel is the heat and the wind. And all I want to do is sit down and let the desert absorb into time, its time.
At least I won't fall behind anymore.
Faced with being a victim of office politics and circumstances which would have eliminated my job and face a demotion with the same salary for two years before it was also reduced, I decided to say, "Fuck 'em" and walk out to do what I wanted than get up every day to the pressure from an asshole boss. I had already been passed over for promotion a few years earlier, one wanted by the staff, for political reasons, because I don't do well being a "yes" person.
As it turned out I thought I was ok financially. Not great as one of the three plans had to be slowed to a crawl while I worked on the other two, my photography and my photography guide. The third is still progressing albeit slower as recent health issues have cost me a fair amount and still not have a diagnosis let alone a treatment plan and as the drugs for the goal has caused its own health issues and problems.
But then the recession and more so the politics in Washington DC over how to get out of it, between the indignant Tea Party, the acquiescence of the Republicans to them, and the compitulation of the Senate majority leader and the President to both of them at the expense of the American people, namely the middle class and especially the poor, elderly and others, happened. The 99%'ers got screwed.
The failures of the President and the Democrats has, with my own decisons to continue to push forward with my plans, has overwhelmed me finanically. I didn't expect my annuity to be frozen by this President for two years and likely will be for another two to three more years. I didn't expect my health insurance premiums to nearly double in that same period - no thanks to the above mentioned groups and individual. I didn't expect the cost of living to push me into this situation.
And so the combination of my finances, income and health has excerbated my feelings about getting old with my third goal to leave me immensely overwhelmed by everything around me and everything else. All the good things I planned and was working on were larger than my ability to keep pace let alone advance beyond a few things. And it's really not the money but the work and life.
For every one thing I work on there are several more major projects waiting for me around my home. The photo guide ground to a halt over the summer for the other projects and now I'm 3 months behind just keeping current with little interest to work on it let alone catch up and then focus on the other undone pieces of the guide and then work on the book.
My photography stopped due to health issues and chasing an diagnosis and hopefully a treatment plan to get my body back and then my life. Neither has happened as the medical professional either don't know, can't determine, don't seem to care, or dismiss the symptoms as age and other "normal" factors and as those issues has left me less healthy and fit and excerbated my Dysthymia into a depression.
The dominoes fell over and pushed me over a mental cliff with little energy and interest to stand up and walk out of the canyon I'm currently in with no obvious trail to get out and then on with life and all those projects sitting around my mind and in my home. I'm feeling so far behind I'm not sure where to start anymore.
And yet I know the answer, if only my body didn't hurt, would work, and not feel tired almost all the time. And time doesn't appear to be on my side right now, or so it feels as the days go slowly by and then appear to disappear behind me in the mirror of time. I have grown to like my life but hate my body. Not the aging so much, although being slower and less agile hasn't felt good, but the look I've always disliked about me is worse in my eyes, getting old(er).
And I'm falling behind in life and my life every day, spiraling away from where I planned, wanted to be and expected to be. And how to change my course in life and myself is the task at hand as that too is falling behind. It's like standing somewhere in the Sahari without a map or compass, and all I see is sand and desert and all I feel is the heat and the wind. And all I want to do is sit down and let the desert absorb into time, its time.
At least I won't fall behind anymore.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Found in Passing
"I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just the person I was, but any person at all." - Susan Sontag
Saturday, November 12, 2011
But I'm not
I'm not someone else, and I can't be someone else. I'm still me. No matter how much I want to wish and hope. Change is possible but only within what I've been given, who I am, and only within what's possible, who I can be. Anything else or beyond is just hope and wishful thinking, unattainable except in my mind, and often my dreams.
Better or happier
I was thinking out loud again, the advantages of living alone. Like someone is going to hear me let alone answer. And the old saying, if either happens, you're in trouble. Anyway, I was wonder if it's better to be or feel better or happier. Feeling better is relative to where we are mentally and how we think. Feeling happier is the state of the feeling, relative to where we are emotionally and how we feel.
Feeling Better or Good
Feeling better or feeling good. Big difference. Feeling better and feeling good. Not so much but can be very much so. It's all, as they say, relative to where you were, where you are and where you want to be, or at least should be relative to be being "normal" again. Or at least that's the way I feel, or wish I feel.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Things
Sometimes I have things to do and sometimes I am doing things. That's normal, we all have both things, to do and doing, but it's when the doing slows and then stops and the to do becomes the only things that I know I'm in trouble, mentally. This is due to two reasons.
First, I like to focus on a few things at a time and really only one for short periods of days to a few weeks, like the photo guide updates and additions. I do the same for my photography projects where I can set the studio up and shoot for days or take several photo trips and then spend days processing images, or set up the photo card print and production work and produce hundreds of photo cards.
Second, I feel overwhelmed when there are too many things, more than a few, to do, like working on the photo of the Minolta equipment to sell, putting the (700) records into iTunes, the photo guides, cleaning out my storage area, and so on. It's what's happening now, all those and more.
And when that happens I don't do much if anything. So I often park those undone things out of sight, like boxes of records, shelves of photo equipment, etc., but it doesn't remove them from my mind. And there they sit piled around places at home and in my mind, where the weight just overwhelms me and I quit.
On top of that I have the upcoming holiday season, like Christmas cards, something I didn't do much last year and have a lot of photo cards to make for myself and gift boxes. I have a number of print to produce and get framed. I have stacks of slides on the light table to scan into the computer with the other scanned and unprocessed images already there.
I have dozens of photo galleries to develop for the Website and some to convert to the newer style viewer. In short, just too much photography work let alone the rest of everything else looking at me every day. It's where everywhere and everytime I turn around there is a thing waiting for my attention and work.
And the guilt only accumulates where all my doing things become things to do.
First, I like to focus on a few things at a time and really only one for short periods of days to a few weeks, like the photo guide updates and additions. I do the same for my photography projects where I can set the studio up and shoot for days or take several photo trips and then spend days processing images, or set up the photo card print and production work and produce hundreds of photo cards.
Second, I feel overwhelmed when there are too many things, more than a few, to do, like working on the photo of the Minolta equipment to sell, putting the (700) records into iTunes, the photo guides, cleaning out my storage area, and so on. It's what's happening now, all those and more.
And when that happens I don't do much if anything. So I often park those undone things out of sight, like boxes of records, shelves of photo equipment, etc., but it doesn't remove them from my mind. And there they sit piled around places at home and in my mind, where the weight just overwhelms me and I quit.
On top of that I have the upcoming holiday season, like Christmas cards, something I didn't do much last year and have a lot of photo cards to make for myself and gift boxes. I have a number of print to produce and get framed. I have stacks of slides on the light table to scan into the computer with the other scanned and unprocessed images already there.
I have dozens of photo galleries to develop for the Website and some to convert to the newer style viewer. In short, just too much photography work let alone the rest of everything else looking at me every day. It's where everywhere and everytime I turn around there is a thing waiting for my attention and work.
And the guilt only accumulates where all my doing things become things to do.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Why is it
Why do I always feel everyone is better than me? Anyone. And anyone's life is better than mine. It's not true, except it's how I feel. That is true. Always true. And never lets me forget. Never.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
I Don't Know
My brother was a one to two pack a day smoker from when he was 17. He drank a pint or more of hard liquor a day, more on weekends and holidays. He was what you call a funcitoning alcoholic. He could drink and still maintain a senior level job. He drank and smoked because of his addiction for them and to get away from the pressue.
It was how he handled the family pressure, mostly Dad. I didn't become addicted to either, smoked once at 12 and quit. I never become addicted to alcohol or drugs, even though I like marijuana and a few other casual drugs. I never got hooked, even when I fell into deeper depression periods.
I don't know why. Even now I still don't drink. I can't really because of hemochromotosis my Dad had and doctors said I probably have it too. But I still like a drink of good sippin' whiskey or a Guiness now and then, but I hate the hangover and headaches for two-plus days.
My addiction is simply to do nothing. Is that an addiction? Being so mentally and physically tired I don't do anything and hate even trying? I don't know, but it's what I do, my addiction. Why will always be the unanswered question. Why I haven't sunk into alcohol, drugs or anything destructive. Or even food.
It's a GOK, God only knows. Maybe one day I'll know too.
It was how he handled the family pressure, mostly Dad. I didn't become addicted to either, smoked once at 12 and quit. I never become addicted to alcohol or drugs, even though I like marijuana and a few other casual drugs. I never got hooked, even when I fell into deeper depression periods.
I don't know why. Even now I still don't drink. I can't really because of hemochromotosis my Dad had and doctors said I probably have it too. But I still like a drink of good sippin' whiskey or a Guiness now and then, but I hate the hangover and headaches for two-plus days.
My addiction is simply to do nothing. Is that an addiction? Being so mentally and physically tired I don't do anything and hate even trying? I don't know, but it's what I do, my addiction. Why will always be the unanswered question. Why I haven't sunk into alcohol, drugs or anything destructive. Or even food.
It's a GOK, God only knows. Maybe one day I'll know too.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Some Days
Some days the best I can do is exist. Doing anything is optional. And going anywhere is only a thought. Soon forgotten. The only thing I look forward to is the end of the day, to sleep and lose the memory of nothing done. And hope tomorrow will be different.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Can I?
Some days I'm so physically and mentally tired I ask myself, "Can I die now?" I have no intention to die by my own hand, been there, almost done that twice, something I'm not interested in a third time charm. But there are moments in some days I wouldn't fight it if death was standing before telling me it's my time.
The drugs I take for a condition are crashing my mind and body. Food is my enemy so much I fear eating anything but know I have to eat. My hands and feet are forever problems with the cold. The TMJ is slowly taking a toll on the left side of my face. I can't tolerate statin drugs for my cholesterol and the blockage in my pulmonary artery.
The Dysthymia is taken all my motivation for life and I fear the drugs and their side effects more than the condition. Some days I take 2 or 3 naps because I can't stay awake from all the problems. Some days I take naps because it's better than anything else to do. Most nights I don't sleep through the night and always hate waking up, knowing it's the same life.
I know there are people with far worse conditions and problems who fight to live and enjoy what life they have. But all said, some days I'm still tired and wouldn't fight death if it came. I would ask it, "Can I die now?"
The drugs I take for a condition are crashing my mind and body. Food is my enemy so much I fear eating anything but know I have to eat. My hands and feet are forever problems with the cold. The TMJ is slowly taking a toll on the left side of my face. I can't tolerate statin drugs for my cholesterol and the blockage in my pulmonary artery.
The Dysthymia is taken all my motivation for life and I fear the drugs and their side effects more than the condition. Some days I take 2 or 3 naps because I can't stay awake from all the problems. Some days I take naps because it's better than anything else to do. Most nights I don't sleep through the night and always hate waking up, knowing it's the same life.
I know there are people with far worse conditions and problems who fight to live and enjoy what life they have. But all said, some days I'm still tired and wouldn't fight death if it came. I would ask it, "Can I die now?"
Monday, October 17, 2011
Naps
Naps are almost a daily occurrence with me know, much due to the medication I'm taking. And everytime I wake up there's always a moment I look around the apartment and realize that if I die nothing would change, only all my stuff would belong to someone else. Life, as with everyone who dies, goes on. There are no exceptions. And what changes fades into history, to be forgotten. So sometimes I wonder why I still keep waking up from my nap.
Life
I was enjoying life. As late as a few years ago.
Then I was living life. Enjoyment was infrequent and fleeting.
Then I was surviving. Living was an occasional momentary thought.
Then I was existing. Just being and nothing more.
Then I asked myself what's next? What's lower?
I'm waiting for the answer.
Then I was living life. Enjoyment was infrequent and fleeting.
Then I was surviving. Living was an occasional momentary thought.
Then I was existing. Just being and nothing more.
Then I asked myself what's next? What's lower?
I'm waiting for the answer.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Conversations with the night
I've often said some of my best personal and private conversations are with my head in the pillow, the back of it when I lying there in the darkness wondering about life and things and my face when I'm sleeping and don't want to wake up to see the light let alone meet the day.
To that end one of my favorite songs is Youngblood's "Darkness Darkness" with the following lyrics.
Darkness, Darkness
Be my pillow
Take my head
And let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
Darkness, Darkness
Hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see
Darkness, darkness,
Long and lonesome,
Ease the day that brings me pain.
I have felt the edge of sadness,
I have known the depth of fear.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing,
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now, now, now
Emptiness of ri-ight now.
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow,
Take my hand, and let me sleep.
In the coolness of your shadow,
In the silence, the silence of your deep.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now now now
Emptiness of right....
Oh yeah Oh yeah
Emptiness, emptiness
Oh yeah
That pretty much sums it up at times. And the best version of it is sung by Richie Havens.
To that end one of my favorite songs is Youngblood's "Darkness Darkness" with the following lyrics.
Darkness, Darkness
Be my pillow
Take my head
And let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
Darkness, Darkness
Hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see
Darkness, darkness,
Long and lonesome,
Ease the day that brings me pain.
I have felt the edge of sadness,
I have known the depth of fear.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing,
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now, now, now
Emptiness of ri-ight now.
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow,
Take my hand, and let me sleep.
In the coolness of your shadow,
In the silence, the silence of your deep.
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket,
Cover me with the endless night,
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now,
Emptiness of right now now now
Emptiness of right....
Oh yeah Oh yeah
Emptiness, emptiness
Oh yeah
That pretty much sums it up at times. And the best version of it is sung by Richie Havens.
Monday, October 10, 2011
A Different Well
I've often spoken or written about my episodes of depression, actually double depression with Dysthymia, of first falling and then being in a deep well surrounded by total darkness where the light at the top of the well has long disappeared into infinite distance, and about the time and method it takes to climb out where I can get out of the well in the world again.
This time, however, it's a different well. This time the fall has been slow and long, probaby over the last year, and maybe longer, and the onset and fall has been incremental, falling ever so slowly I haven't noticed beyond a slow change of being less excited about what I'm doing and how well I'm feeling. Until I arrived near the bottom to discover I've fallen.
And this time it's not a deep, dark well but a glass one. One I watched myself fall in the world. Normally falling is done in isolation, a mental darkness where you lose sight of the world around you. This one I life and work in the world. I existed and exist in it, seeing it as I fall.
And then sitting on the bottom watching the world around me I can live and work it, but not much is getting done beyond existing. Beside me sits the tools to free myself, to break the glass and be free, but I don't have the motitvation to pick them up let alone use them. I sit just looking out and then looking at the tools.
The only words that seem to make sense are, "I am tired." I know part of this is physical, and I'm angry specialists seem to be indifferent to what seems to me are obvious signs something is wrong. I can read about the symptoms on legitimate Websites. I can show the evidence to them. And they say, "Everything is normal. It's just your imagination."
It's worn me down and some days out living with it and hating not finding a professonal to listen and help. It's treatable and probably curable to have a normal life again, one I had 2-3 years ago. As I've written food is my enemy and eating something feared. Every meal, every day.
I also know two drugs I'm taking for a condition (nearly 5 years now) have devasted part of me. They're essential for what I want to do and be, but it's come at a price my body has paid and is paying. The old damned if you do and damned if you don't, something which will be lifelong.
Add to that with the economy and trying to get my small, personal business off the ground I've almost exhausted the funds I had saved for the business and for some future surgeries. No thanks to President Obama, but much of it by myself. I knew better and thought I could manage the money better, but I didn't.
So now I sit on the bottom of the well seeing and knowing the world I have and live in is, for the most part, of my own making. One I don't like anymore and myself I don't like and some days hate. But in truth not all of it but much of it. And while the future looks reasonably good, it's not what I had planned or expected.
It is what it is as I know it now. And all the answer I have don't work. And now I need to find new answers. The tools will wait until I'm ready to leave the glass well. I can hope, and most days that's all I have left within myself.
This time, however, it's a different well. This time the fall has been slow and long, probaby over the last year, and maybe longer, and the onset and fall has been incremental, falling ever so slowly I haven't noticed beyond a slow change of being less excited about what I'm doing and how well I'm feeling. Until I arrived near the bottom to discover I've fallen.
And this time it's not a deep, dark well but a glass one. One I watched myself fall in the world. Normally falling is done in isolation, a mental darkness where you lose sight of the world around you. This one I life and work in the world. I existed and exist in it, seeing it as I fall.
And then sitting on the bottom watching the world around me I can live and work it, but not much is getting done beyond existing. Beside me sits the tools to free myself, to break the glass and be free, but I don't have the motitvation to pick them up let alone use them. I sit just looking out and then looking at the tools.
The only words that seem to make sense are, "I am tired." I know part of this is physical, and I'm angry specialists seem to be indifferent to what seems to me are obvious signs something is wrong. I can read about the symptoms on legitimate Websites. I can show the evidence to them. And they say, "Everything is normal. It's just your imagination."
It's worn me down and some days out living with it and hating not finding a professonal to listen and help. It's treatable and probably curable to have a normal life again, one I had 2-3 years ago. As I've written food is my enemy and eating something feared. Every meal, every day.
I also know two drugs I'm taking for a condition (nearly 5 years now) have devasted part of me. They're essential for what I want to do and be, but it's come at a price my body has paid and is paying. The old damned if you do and damned if you don't, something which will be lifelong.
Add to that with the economy and trying to get my small, personal business off the ground I've almost exhausted the funds I had saved for the business and for some future surgeries. No thanks to President Obama, but much of it by myself. I knew better and thought I could manage the money better, but I didn't.
So now I sit on the bottom of the well seeing and knowing the world I have and live in is, for the most part, of my own making. One I don't like anymore and myself I don't like and some days hate. But in truth not all of it but much of it. And while the future looks reasonably good, it's not what I had planned or expected.
It is what it is as I know it now. And all the answer I have don't work. And now I need to find new answers. The tools will wait until I'm ready to leave the glass well. I can hope, and most days that's all I have left within myself.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Some days
Some days when I wake up and sit on the edge of my bed in the predawn darkness looking out at the day I don't want to do anything except exist, and like the darkness outside fighting against the oncoming light of day, even existing is a struggle.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Some Days
All things considered, some days, I feel I could die and not really care. Not going out of my way, but simply not trying to stop it if it should happen. Some days, life isn't greater than death, not that I know what death is or is like but it's different than life and would feel better to be free of life as it is for me now. That's all and that's it.
But for now, there's always tomorrow.
But for now, there's always tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Something Changed
Something changed and I haven't sorted out what, let alone why, and more so, what's next. It's a big I don't know what happened and what will happen. Lots of questions and wonder and a big empty for clues, let alone answers or even hopeful ideas to guide me forward. I know I don't like what I was and I'm not sure I like what I am and especially what may be if I don't change, but then something changed differently than I expected, wanted or planned.
So now I'm facing something new. Well, not really new, something old anew. Kinda' deja vu all over again. It's one of the slow changes when you realize it's been happening for months. I noticed bits and pieces and noticed what isn't getting done. I just assumed it was something I would figure out, except I haven't and now face the reality of it.
Part of it is physical, and not just the normal stuff of getting older (now 62) but recent conditions, one which specialist don't want to spend the time to help diagnose (bleeding small intestine), one of late the dentist said there is no real cure and surgery rarely works (TMJ), and one which drugs are worse than the condition (high cholesterol with a small blockage in the pulmonary artery).
All of this on top of Raynaud's Syndrome in both my hands and feet. Ok, normal stuff of age to some degree, but three of them happened in the last year (the blockage is a 20 year issue where my cholesterol has never been normal). Add them up and life with this body sucks, and when piled on Dysthymia, it just sucks worse.
And with everything, part of me still feels good about it some days, but not many. Parts hopeful and part far less hopeful. Parts positive and many more parts negative. And a lot of parts unknown, let alone unknown either way or just something.
So now I'm facing something new. Well, not really new, something old anew. Kinda' deja vu all over again. It's one of the slow changes when you realize it's been happening for months. I noticed bits and pieces and noticed what isn't getting done. I just assumed it was something I would figure out, except I haven't and now face the reality of it.
Part of it is physical, and not just the normal stuff of getting older (now 62) but recent conditions, one which specialist don't want to spend the time to help diagnose (bleeding small intestine), one of late the dentist said there is no real cure and surgery rarely works (TMJ), and one which drugs are worse than the condition (high cholesterol with a small blockage in the pulmonary artery).
All of this on top of Raynaud's Syndrome in both my hands and feet. Ok, normal stuff of age to some degree, but three of them happened in the last year (the blockage is a 20 year issue where my cholesterol has never been normal). Add them up and life with this body sucks, and when piled on Dysthymia, it just sucks worse.
And with everything, part of me still feels good about it some days, but not many. Parts hopeful and part far less hopeful. Parts positive and many more parts negative. And a lot of parts unknown, let alone unknown either way or just something.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Way Cool Video
I saw a really good video recently by a young woman in Texas. It's more than worth your time to watch and care.
Also available here if it has a message it won't play in this entry.
Thank you Kenna, and I wish you well.
Also available here if it has a message it won't play in this entry.
Thank you Kenna, and I wish you well.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
When not is easier
There are moments, times and days when it's just not worth the mental and physical energy to do something, and even anything. When everything feels bad and doing nothing is feels only slightly better than even trying. When doing nothing is easier and doing anything. Anything else, no matter how simple or easy. Nothing is still better. And not invades you and then overwhelms you. And not is all you know and feel. And nothing is all you think to do.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Finding Bottom
The hardest thing in the middle of a depressive episode is finding and knowing where the bottom of your depression is. You keep spiraling down, falling into the darkness of the well, maybe hoping to hit water where you can tread while you sort out the issues to see what, where and maybe why you feel so bad, but often knowing you will fall until you hit bottom, a dry well where you can sit surrounded by darkness not knowing anything beyond what you see and feel in the darkness, the light above long distant and out of sight.
So you fall, mentally in free fall, usually doing little if anything and mostly doing nothing you can remember later in the day and more so the next morning lying in bed asking yourself what you did the day before. In the darkness of the early morning you lie there wondering why you don't want to get up, let alone engage the day to be someone you know you are and want to be, and even the simpliest work is too much.
So you lie there where everything doesn't feel good but just feels enough where everything else doesn't matter. At least you can feel safe in the darkness and silence, the only sound you hear is your own mind thinking out loud and your heart pounding against the feelings of one simple fact. You don't like yourself anymore.
At least not for the moment and the moments surrounding it. But that only happens when you hit bottom. And you're not there yet. You're still falling in the darkness, not knowing anything else but falling, and hoping bottom will come soon. And as the morning light peeks over the eastern horizon and the darkness fades, you're still there, in bed, wondering and falling.
So you fall, mentally in free fall, usually doing little if anything and mostly doing nothing you can remember later in the day and more so the next morning lying in bed asking yourself what you did the day before. In the darkness of the early morning you lie there wondering why you don't want to get up, let alone engage the day to be someone you know you are and want to be, and even the simpliest work is too much.
So you lie there where everything doesn't feel good but just feels enough where everything else doesn't matter. At least you can feel safe in the darkness and silence, the only sound you hear is your own mind thinking out loud and your heart pounding against the feelings of one simple fact. You don't like yourself anymore.
At least not for the moment and the moments surrounding it. But that only happens when you hit bottom. And you're not there yet. You're still falling in the darkness, not knowing anything else but falling, and hoping bottom will come soon. And as the morning light peeks over the eastern horizon and the darkness fades, you're still there, in bed, wondering and falling.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Something changes
When we go through some physical problems we also go through mental challenges too. It's the nature of being human, our mind and body work together and only rarely is pure harmony occurs where nothing bad happens. But as noted, that's rare and almost always we think too much and often condemn ourself in the process when it doesn't happen and worse when things go wrong, even medically.
And that causes changes to us, our character, temperament and personality. Everything changes. The old becomes forgotten. The habits become stuff collecting mental dust in corners and things to do piled loosely around our mind. And the new becomes overwhelming. We find ourself asking not just the what if questions, but why does it matter questions. And we find the answers don't fit who we were let alone who we are.
We change, sometimes tremendously where we're not the same person in any way or manner. And when we see this, often we don't as only others see it, we are taken back by who we have become, and often ashamed, but almost always lost. Lost that we didn't realize it during the change and didn't realize afterward until we ran into ourself.
It's like we kept looking in the mirror seeing our ourself as we were and then one morning as someone else, almost unrecognizable. We know it is ourself, but we know now it's not ourself, the one we thought and thought we knew. We don't know ourself anymore and we have to find our way to who we want to be from a strange place.
I woke up this week to find myself there. Standing in my home wondering what happened. All the problems of late, especially since last October and the recent discovery of a blocked pulmonary artery changed me where I'm not me as I thought of me. Some of this change relates to the medication and the physical side effects which changed my life since then.
I've stopped the medication, far short of the time prescribed by my physician and cardiologist and am getting through the body's recovery to some new sense of normal, whatever that is. The medication drained me physically and then mentally, and now I find myself changed beyond where I even thought or even know.
I am not me while I am me. And I don't where the old me went and where the new me came from, except I know it's been me all along. I just don't know what me is me. This isn't new. I've been here before, just not so obvious a change. It reminds of the Peanuts cartoon I keep on my desk.
It shows Charlie Brown in bed with the blanket up to his chin and his eyes wide open. He's facing outward saying, "It's not wise to lie in bed at night and ask yourself questions you can't answer." It's what I've thought every morning this week waking up in the darkness of the early morning hours and lying there for some time before getting up.
And then nothing changed from my thoughts when I didn't get up. And I have no answers, just the questions I asked myself in the dark. The questions are old, as old the time of man, but it's new in that this is a new me I don't know. So I have to wander, searching for a me I recognize and know, enough to become me again.
And that causes changes to us, our character, temperament and personality. Everything changes. The old becomes forgotten. The habits become stuff collecting mental dust in corners and things to do piled loosely around our mind. And the new becomes overwhelming. We find ourself asking not just the what if questions, but why does it matter questions. And we find the answers don't fit who we were let alone who we are.
We change, sometimes tremendously where we're not the same person in any way or manner. And when we see this, often we don't as only others see it, we are taken back by who we have become, and often ashamed, but almost always lost. Lost that we didn't realize it during the change and didn't realize afterward until we ran into ourself.
It's like we kept looking in the mirror seeing our ourself as we were and then one morning as someone else, almost unrecognizable. We know it is ourself, but we know now it's not ourself, the one we thought and thought we knew. We don't know ourself anymore and we have to find our way to who we want to be from a strange place.
I woke up this week to find myself there. Standing in my home wondering what happened. All the problems of late, especially since last October and the recent discovery of a blocked pulmonary artery changed me where I'm not me as I thought of me. Some of this change relates to the medication and the physical side effects which changed my life since then.
I've stopped the medication, far short of the time prescribed by my physician and cardiologist and am getting through the body's recovery to some new sense of normal, whatever that is. The medication drained me physically and then mentally, and now I find myself changed beyond where I even thought or even know.
I am not me while I am me. And I don't where the old me went and where the new me came from, except I know it's been me all along. I just don't know what me is me. This isn't new. I've been here before, just not so obvious a change. It reminds of the Peanuts cartoon I keep on my desk.
It shows Charlie Brown in bed with the blanket up to his chin and his eyes wide open. He's facing outward saying, "It's not wise to lie in bed at night and ask yourself questions you can't answer." It's what I've thought every morning this week waking up in the darkness of the early morning hours and lying there for some time before getting up.
And then nothing changed from my thoughts when I didn't get up. And I have no answers, just the questions I asked myself in the dark. The questions are old, as old the time of man, but it's new in that this is a new me I don't know. So I have to wander, searching for a me I recognize and know, enough to become me again.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Uncertainty Concept
Werner Heisenberg published the Uncertainty Principle in 1927 about quatum phyisics. And while that's what it applies to and has been updated over the years, the idea at the core of the principle has application in other areas. I'm not sure why they haven't been except in similarity or thought, but it does to me.
And that's because the underlying idea is that the observer of some phenomena can't know the speed and direction of something with absolute certainty. Note, the word "and" which means both. The principle means you can know one absolutely but only the other with some measure of uncertainty. That's because it has to do with the fact that in observing something your measurement tools influence that something, changing the other things.
That means you can know how fast something is going or which direction it's going with certainty but not both with certainty. So, how does that apply here? For one as the observer we can't observe ourselves without influencing ourselves in our observation. So ourself is biased by our observation of ourself.
Meaning we can know what we want to know with some measure of certainty and we can measure how we plan to decide or act with some certainty, but we can't know both. Really? It seems we could know what we know and know what we plan to decide or act. True, but then we're not observing ourselves doing this. It's when we observe ourself that things change.
In our observations of ourself we ask ourself questions about the quality of our thinking, our thoughts and our information. That means we're evaluating where we're failing or succeeding, or where we're simply missing information or lacking experience. We're adjusting our thinking by our own observations of ourself.
And the same applies to our decisions and actions. We're constantly evaluating those too and in that evaluation we're adjusting our decisions and actions by our observation. Many call these feedback loops within ourself to ourself and normal thinking. It's when we insert questions about the quality of our thoughts, decisions and actions that effects those very thoughts, decisions and actions.
Normal? Yeah, but when you're depressed, it's a self-fullfilling spiral where we ask ourself negative questions, make negatives comments and feed ourself negatives feelings. How can we measure how well we're doing and planning to decide or act if we keep interfering with ourself and keep feeding ourself negatives.
We become our own uncertainty. We keep trying to see how well or badly we're doing while we're thinking, deciding or acting, and then we try to evaluate how well we're succeeding or failing. We create the uncertainty and then try to keep it from our thoughts, decisions and actions forgetting we've lost the certainty of those thoughts, decisions and actions from our observations of ourself.
We forget that feelings are and should be felt in hindsight. We infuse feelings in the course of our thinking undermining ourself in the process. We are our own uncertainty keeping us from ourself, to find the thoughts, make the decisions, and take the actions we should for ourself than against ourself.
And the answer? Trust yourself. Forget observing yourself and just life and let the rest happen. Uncertainty only exists in our heart and mind, and all it does is hamper ourself with our own thoughts about ourself. You can always do it later, in hindsight when the uncertainty won't matter beyond what we could of, should of or would have done, but we didn't, so any uncertainty is long lost, swept away in time.
Uncertainty is good to a point. It's a matter of when it's not, someting we're often the least certain about it.
And that's because the underlying idea is that the observer of some phenomena can't know the speed and direction of something with absolute certainty. Note, the word "and" which means both. The principle means you can know one absolutely but only the other with some measure of uncertainty. That's because it has to do with the fact that in observing something your measurement tools influence that something, changing the other things.
That means you can know how fast something is going or which direction it's going with certainty but not both with certainty. So, how does that apply here? For one as the observer we can't observe ourselves without influencing ourselves in our observation. So ourself is biased by our observation of ourself.
Meaning we can know what we want to know with some measure of certainty and we can measure how we plan to decide or act with some certainty, but we can't know both. Really? It seems we could know what we know and know what we plan to decide or act. True, but then we're not observing ourselves doing this. It's when we observe ourself that things change.
In our observations of ourself we ask ourself questions about the quality of our thinking, our thoughts and our information. That means we're evaluating where we're failing or succeeding, or where we're simply missing information or lacking experience. We're adjusting our thinking by our own observations of ourself.
And the same applies to our decisions and actions. We're constantly evaluating those too and in that evaluation we're adjusting our decisions and actions by our observation. Many call these feedback loops within ourself to ourself and normal thinking. It's when we insert questions about the quality of our thoughts, decisions and actions that effects those very thoughts, decisions and actions.
Normal? Yeah, but when you're depressed, it's a self-fullfilling spiral where we ask ourself negative questions, make negatives comments and feed ourself negatives feelings. How can we measure how well we're doing and planning to decide or act if we keep interfering with ourself and keep feeding ourself negatives.
We become our own uncertainty. We keep trying to see how well or badly we're doing while we're thinking, deciding or acting, and then we try to evaluate how well we're succeeding or failing. We create the uncertainty and then try to keep it from our thoughts, decisions and actions forgetting we've lost the certainty of those thoughts, decisions and actions from our observations of ourself.
We forget that feelings are and should be felt in hindsight. We infuse feelings in the course of our thinking undermining ourself in the process. We are our own uncertainty keeping us from ourself, to find the thoughts, make the decisions, and take the actions we should for ourself than against ourself.
And the answer? Trust yourself. Forget observing yourself and just life and let the rest happen. Uncertainty only exists in our heart and mind, and all it does is hamper ourself with our own thoughts about ourself. You can always do it later, in hindsight when the uncertainty won't matter beyond what we could of, should of or would have done, but we didn't, so any uncertainty is long lost, swept away in time.
Uncertainty is good to a point. It's a matter of when it's not, someting we're often the least certain about it.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Running redux
I wrote a post about running about year and a half ago. That what when my running came to a near complete halt during health problems, which we (physicians, specialists and me) are still sorting out. The "near" is simply that I resorted to walking instead of running and longer distances.
When I discovered the situation with my pulmonary artery in December, running is now something I may hope to return to doing sometime in the future but not the immediate future. For now it's still walking, which is 2.5-3 miles one way to town and back. I need rewards for my walking, so the commercial center has cafes to rest, get a coffee and a snack, buy supplies I can carry home, and walk back.
All of this has had its effect on my perspectives on life, where I can now understand the frustrations of people who have medical conditions which have changed their life and who have medical conditions which defy understanding let alone a diagnosis and a treatment if not a cure. It changes everything, and there are days it's overwhelming, and I've learning to adjust to that too.
So that's the update. For now it's once a week walking, and should be twice a week, and I'm working up to that. The health issues has had their effects on my body which is older now too, so I have to work up to more trips or longer distances which I want to look at resuming hiking in Mt. Rainier NP later this spring. That's all I can do now, keep working, walking and hoping.
In a span of two years I've learned to be amazed what can happen and what one has to do to overcome what can be overcome, to change what can be changed, and to hope for what can be realistically hoped for. And maybe some day to run again.
When I discovered the situation with my pulmonary artery in December, running is now something I may hope to return to doing sometime in the future but not the immediate future. For now it's still walking, which is 2.5-3 miles one way to town and back. I need rewards for my walking, so the commercial center has cafes to rest, get a coffee and a snack, buy supplies I can carry home, and walk back.
All of this has had its effect on my perspectives on life, where I can now understand the frustrations of people who have medical conditions which have changed their life and who have medical conditions which defy understanding let alone a diagnosis and a treatment if not a cure. It changes everything, and there are days it's overwhelming, and I've learning to adjust to that too.
So that's the update. For now it's once a week walking, and should be twice a week, and I'm working up to that. The health issues has had their effects on my body which is older now too, so I have to work up to more trips or longer distances which I want to look at resuming hiking in Mt. Rainier NP later this spring. That's all I can do now, keep working, walking and hoping.
In a span of two years I've learned to be amazed what can happen and what one has to do to overcome what can be overcome, to change what can be changed, and to hope for what can be realistically hoped for. And maybe some day to run again.
Selfness
Self-esteem. Self-confidence. Self-empowerment. Everything selfness, but not self-centeredness or selfishness. Just self. It's also a matter of degrees. I strongly believe we're born with some measure of it, both positive and negative, and we learn from our experiences to affirm both sides. So it's a accumulation of the experiences with the innate sense of self that defines us.
It's the innate that's what we're given, and while we can change that through our experiences, we always seem to come back to it when we don't push ourselves. It's why and what's innate, where our mind likes to see and be. We can mentally and emotionally wander all around our selfness, but in the end, we'll always find our way home to what's innate and given, our sellfnes, our "unique individuality" (OED).
Which is what this essay is about. I wasn't handed a lot of self-esteem or self-confidence. And my experiences along with my genetic Dysthymia only reenforced the negative side of my innate view of myself. And during my childhood except for the few periods playing with my siblings, a year older sister who didn't want to play with me and a brother was six years old and long on gone in his own direction, I mostly played by myself.
I found I liked just being alone. I'm very comfortable there and more uncomfortable playing with others except in some circumstances, like baseball (Little League). Otherwise, I had my toys, or I created them from whatever I could find. I had a good imagination, something overlooked by parents who assume social play is the only positive learning, and I often made up long stories about people, places and events from what I had.
But when I got into junior and later my senior high school, it all became evident to me just how introspective and an alone type I was. It was who I was. I had long become someone who stuttered (started at age 5) and extremely shy, but really it was just that I liked being alone and was uncomfortable in social situations, which isn't good for high school as I was teased, for that and being short (like 5') and got into a few fights.
It was only after graduating and the failed year-plus time in college when I was in the Air Force that I slowly became comfortable with friends. It was the late 60's and we all had something in common about the times and being there to avoid the draft, the Army and Vietnam. And the drugs didn't hurt too.
Through all those years to where I am now, I'm still pretty much the same, just older and a lot more physically and mentally worn out or down. But the selfness is still there as much and as little as it was. I have more self-esteem and confidence, but only from experience which I gained over the years, but mostly though, it's hidden within myself and my aloneness.
While I don't stutter anymore (can control any moments) and I'm not shy, I still don't like social places or being in crowds except when I can focus on a small group of friends or what I'm doing, such as in cafes working on Web pages and other material. I like the atmosphere of the crowd, just not the initmacy of being with someone.
In the end I always go back to what's innate and given for me, my own selfness.
It's the innate that's what we're given, and while we can change that through our experiences, we always seem to come back to it when we don't push ourselves. It's why and what's innate, where our mind likes to see and be. We can mentally and emotionally wander all around our selfness, but in the end, we'll always find our way home to what's innate and given, our sellfnes, our "unique individuality" (OED).
Which is what this essay is about. I wasn't handed a lot of self-esteem or self-confidence. And my experiences along with my genetic Dysthymia only reenforced the negative side of my innate view of myself. And during my childhood except for the few periods playing with my siblings, a year older sister who didn't want to play with me and a brother was six years old and long on gone in his own direction, I mostly played by myself.
I found I liked just being alone. I'm very comfortable there and more uncomfortable playing with others except in some circumstances, like baseball (Little League). Otherwise, I had my toys, or I created them from whatever I could find. I had a good imagination, something overlooked by parents who assume social play is the only positive learning, and I often made up long stories about people, places and events from what I had.
But when I got into junior and later my senior high school, it all became evident to me just how introspective and an alone type I was. It was who I was. I had long become someone who stuttered (started at age 5) and extremely shy, but really it was just that I liked being alone and was uncomfortable in social situations, which isn't good for high school as I was teased, for that and being short (like 5') and got into a few fights.
It was only after graduating and the failed year-plus time in college when I was in the Air Force that I slowly became comfortable with friends. It was the late 60's and we all had something in common about the times and being there to avoid the draft, the Army and Vietnam. And the drugs didn't hurt too.
Through all those years to where I am now, I'm still pretty much the same, just older and a lot more physically and mentally worn out or down. But the selfness is still there as much and as little as it was. I have more self-esteem and confidence, but only from experience which I gained over the years, but mostly though, it's hidden within myself and my aloneness.
While I don't stutter anymore (can control any moments) and I'm not shy, I still don't like social places or being in crowds except when I can focus on a small group of friends or what I'm doing, such as in cafes working on Web pages and other material. I like the atmosphere of the crowd, just not the initmacy of being with someone.
In the end I always go back to what's innate and given for me, my own selfness.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Taking Issue
My sister, who is a year-plus older than me, finally found my blog and after reading some of the entries about my family took issue with my words. In some ways she is right, but mostly because of her perspective on the family and the events surrouinding each of our lives with our parents. We have both different experiences with them and now different views of that experience.
Hindsight is great for somethings, but mostly it's really unimportant to the world as it is right now. We are the results of our history, the experiences compounded on our character, personality and temperament. So while understanding those experience is a good thing and often quite useful and helpful, it's the act of hindisight that blurs the facts and reality.
That's because we don't remember anything completely and accurately. We remember snippets and snapshots of the experiences, people, places, events, etc. and we recreate them when we want to remember then or they want to find our consciousness. That's why they change with time. Only those from our youth are the most certain to be honest from what we knew and did then.
And that's what my sister pointed out, the facts I wrote weren't complete or accurate. In part she is right, I assumed from conversation with my parents of what they did, and from what I heard or saw around them. In that respect I'm wrong and apologize for my misunderstanding and memory.
That said, however, my words as written don't change the ideas and thoughts in them. My Dad had a failing health soon after he retired and was on numerous medications for conditions and medications to counter the side-effects or interactions of the medications. At one time he took 11 medicines daily, about half of them for the side-effects or interactions. They got them down to just over half.
But it didn't change the slow progressive decline I saw in him the few times we met or spoke over those years. By age 74 he was just tired, a shell of his former self. While he was mentally alert, I could sense he was aware of the end on the horizon, and why he just wanted to get to his 75th birthday. And then he succumbed to the accumulation of physicial problems.
And as much as my sister wants to exonerate him for being alive and fighting, to me and what I saw, he simply quit once he made his goals. He had no other reason to get up in the morning with all the pain and life as he was. I can't argue with that, some days I get glimpses into this place and will face my own decline and realization of the end.
As for my brother, I won't change anything I said. I loved him and miss him. We had some good conversations about life and living with our parents and their expectations. He drank from high school to his last days, he was a functional alcoholic. He also smoked 1-2 packs a day from high school to his last breath. He was looking at a heart-double lung transplant or death, and he choose the latter.
His reality and problem, as they say, was Dad. As the oldest son he was what our parents wanted, to succeed. He did, even being the CEO of AMC Theater Corporation for a short time after he negotiated the buyout by a California firm. And then he wasn't and life wasn't the same for him and to Dad. But by then the pressure had reached the point of no return, and all that was left in his mind was playing the hand he had.
He didn't have to do that, something we discussed many times over the years. But I also knew while arguing for him to change careers, I also knew he couldn't. Dad wouldn't let him or face what I did when I was 19, being effectively forgotten by Dad. But even then he already was. He was executer of the estate and knew the details in the will, and knew all he got from Dad was a thank you.
I didn't fair much better as he told me once. Our sister was the apple of his eye, not unusual for Dads and only one daughter. While my brother got a lot from our parents over the years (college, help moving, big wedding and honeymoon, help with the home and stuff for it), he knew it came with a price in return. Our sister got just over about half that from the folks. Dad told me he wanted to giver her and son-in-law more but didn't have the money, which my Mom partly discovered why in his desk after he died.
And I got shown the front door after a year of college partly paid by him, my brother and me (1/3 each), which was why I worked fulltime during college and they didn't have to. And over the years I got two loans, one of which I paid back to her for her medical expenses. That's it, except, the deal, more financial help if I moved back home and did what he wanted and expected of me.
I didn't and he made his view clear, and never let me forget he saw me as a failure despite some good accomplishments for the family. I served my country. I didn't ask for money for college once I back after the service. I got the first masters degree in the family. I even was promoted to one grade higher than him in the federal government.
But I also got the first real divorce in the family - the first one was the result of domestic abuse and obviously, to them, excuseable. I married a woman they didn't initially like, only barely warmed up to during our 13 year marriage (last 2 separated), and then blamed for the divorce. And I never moved home or went home unless my brother was there for reunions. Even after rejecting me, he still expected me to do what he wanted.
In the end all of it didn't matter to him, and I never really heard an explanation. He took that and something he never said to me, "I love you.", to his grave. I will never know why and will take that to my grave.
Hindsight is great for somethings, but mostly it's really unimportant to the world as it is right now. We are the results of our history, the experiences compounded on our character, personality and temperament. So while understanding those experience is a good thing and often quite useful and helpful, it's the act of hindisight that blurs the facts and reality.
That's because we don't remember anything completely and accurately. We remember snippets and snapshots of the experiences, people, places, events, etc. and we recreate them when we want to remember then or they want to find our consciousness. That's why they change with time. Only those from our youth are the most certain to be honest from what we knew and did then.
And that's what my sister pointed out, the facts I wrote weren't complete or accurate. In part she is right, I assumed from conversation with my parents of what they did, and from what I heard or saw around them. In that respect I'm wrong and apologize for my misunderstanding and memory.
That said, however, my words as written don't change the ideas and thoughts in them. My Dad had a failing health soon after he retired and was on numerous medications for conditions and medications to counter the side-effects or interactions of the medications. At one time he took 11 medicines daily, about half of them for the side-effects or interactions. They got them down to just over half.
But it didn't change the slow progressive decline I saw in him the few times we met or spoke over those years. By age 74 he was just tired, a shell of his former self. While he was mentally alert, I could sense he was aware of the end on the horizon, and why he just wanted to get to his 75th birthday. And then he succumbed to the accumulation of physicial problems.
And as much as my sister wants to exonerate him for being alive and fighting, to me and what I saw, he simply quit once he made his goals. He had no other reason to get up in the morning with all the pain and life as he was. I can't argue with that, some days I get glimpses into this place and will face my own decline and realization of the end.
As for my brother, I won't change anything I said. I loved him and miss him. We had some good conversations about life and living with our parents and their expectations. He drank from high school to his last days, he was a functional alcoholic. He also smoked 1-2 packs a day from high school to his last breath. He was looking at a heart-double lung transplant or death, and he choose the latter.
His reality and problem, as they say, was Dad. As the oldest son he was what our parents wanted, to succeed. He did, even being the CEO of AMC Theater Corporation for a short time after he negotiated the buyout by a California firm. And then he wasn't and life wasn't the same for him and to Dad. But by then the pressure had reached the point of no return, and all that was left in his mind was playing the hand he had.
He didn't have to do that, something we discussed many times over the years. But I also knew while arguing for him to change careers, I also knew he couldn't. Dad wouldn't let him or face what I did when I was 19, being effectively forgotten by Dad. But even then he already was. He was executer of the estate and knew the details in the will, and knew all he got from Dad was a thank you.
I didn't fair much better as he told me once. Our sister was the apple of his eye, not unusual for Dads and only one daughter. While my brother got a lot from our parents over the years (college, help moving, big wedding and honeymoon, help with the home and stuff for it), he knew it came with a price in return. Our sister got just over about half that from the folks. Dad told me he wanted to giver her and son-in-law more but didn't have the money, which my Mom partly discovered why in his desk after he died.
And I got shown the front door after a year of college partly paid by him, my brother and me (1/3 each), which was why I worked fulltime during college and they didn't have to. And over the years I got two loans, one of which I paid back to her for her medical expenses. That's it, except, the deal, more financial help if I moved back home and did what he wanted and expected of me.
I didn't and he made his view clear, and never let me forget he saw me as a failure despite some good accomplishments for the family. I served my country. I didn't ask for money for college once I back after the service. I got the first masters degree in the family. I even was promoted to one grade higher than him in the federal government.
But I also got the first real divorce in the family - the first one was the result of domestic abuse and obviously, to them, excuseable. I married a woman they didn't initially like, only barely warmed up to during our 13 year marriage (last 2 separated), and then blamed for the divorce. And I never moved home or went home unless my brother was there for reunions. Even after rejecting me, he still expected me to do what he wanted.
In the end all of it didn't matter to him, and I never really heard an explanation. He took that and something he never said to me, "I love you.", to his grave. I will never know why and will take that to my grave.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
If only for a moment
I have moments. Some days, but mostly very few and not often these days, especially the last two years. Sometimes all I want is to feel physically good and mentally ok, a few moments when the body and mind seem fine with the world. Funny almost all of these have occurred in spring or fall rain storms when I can stand on the deck and feel, hear and smell the constant rain against the earth and against my body and mind.
I like to put on my North Face expediton rainsuit (pants and coat) and stand outside in the hard, intense rain, surrounded by nothing but the sound, smell and sight of it. Lost in it. Lost within it. It doesn't care about me, only I'm the object it hits before shedding onto the ground around me. It doesn't feel me, but I feel it.
And there in those moments I feel ok. For a few moments all physical and mental problems are washed away with the rain. Shed like the raindrops off the raincoat onto the ground, into the ground and away back to the earth where it started.
I like to put on my North Face expediton rainsuit (pants and coat) and stand outside in the hard, intense rain, surrounded by nothing but the sound, smell and sight of it. Lost in it. Lost within it. It doesn't care about me, only I'm the object it hits before shedding onto the ground around me. It doesn't feel me, but I feel it.
And there in those moments I feel ok. For a few moments all physical and mental problems are washed away with the rain. Shed like the raindrops off the raincoat onto the ground, into the ground and away back to the earth where it started.
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