Well, dollins, allow me to jump back into the blog waters with the latest stupid thing Dubya said. And, this time, it's personal:
From the HuffPo, a excerpt from a White House meeting transcript with President of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal Arroyo:
***************************************
PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back
to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue.
First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a
nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They
love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President
that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our
Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.
PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.
PRESIDENT ARROYO: Thank you.
***************************************
All righty, then! We at the White House know Filipinos as SERVANTS. But, rest assured, the President says we're great folks and love America! However, more than anything, we can cook like a mofo!
No doubt that White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford can rock it in the kitchen. This is not unusual - I come from a legacy of excellent Filipino cooks including my grandpa, who was the personal chef of a US Navy Admiral. I have a lineup of bossy aunts who insist their adobo rules above all others and you'd best agree with them. Perhaps Chef Comerford operates the same way - love my food Mr. President or you're dead meat, preferably the favored protein of Filipinos everywhere, dead pork.
But, try to see beyond your insular world, George W. Watch who you're talking to - President Arroyo has a Ph.D. in economics. Prior to being elected President, Arroyo held multiple federal government appointments. Even her DNA is a big deal - her father was President of the Philippines.
In other words, this lady is not going to relate to your clumsy associations between her people and their fine culinary abilities. In the transcript, President Arroyo was polite, but I sure hope her "thank you" was a frosty one.
For the record, I'm a lousy Filipino cook. I guess there's no job at the White House or in Kennebunkport for me or for my cousin Kevin, a professor in the poli-sci department at the University of Southern California and former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles. Yeah, Cousin Kev, tough luck because you're a lousy cook, too.
Gaaaah, dollins. Just gaaaaaaaah.
I want to talk a little bit more about forgiveness and what I believe it means in the context of child abuse survivors.
In my previous post, Fatherless Child, I stood up with a megaphone and made what is a startling announcement for many abuse survivors - you do not need to forgive your perpetrator; it is not necessary for healing; if there is forgiveness to be offered, extend it to yourself.
BlogHer founder Elisa Camahort mentioned my take on forgiveness at the estimable BlogHer site. She commented in response to Contributing Editor Mata H.'s post, What Does it Mean to Forgive Your Father. Mata, a graceful and thoughtful writer, described her father "wound" that was inflicted upon her by a raging man who terrorized his family as a place she does not want to dwell. Forgiving her violent father was the way out of that wound:
Forgiveness (at least in part, the part I understand) is the putting down of a burden of bad feeling. It is a Great and Holy Unraveling. It is saying "I will no longer see the world through this piece of pain." It is, for me, a way to freedom.
Though I appreciate this theme, it does come down to this - forgiving the perpetrator is a necessary step to liberation. As implicit in my Fatherless Child post, I disagree as does Elisa:
From my perspective, this requirement of forgiveness is just another burden we ask the survivor to carry, a responsibility I don't think is necessary or fair.
Further to forgiving the perpetrator, commenter Emma presented another angle to forgiveness in my Fatherless Child post. Excerpted from her commentary:
"I dunno, I don't quite agree with this...once you fully heal (i.e. feel everything and integrate everything that happened), forgiveness is all that's left.
And I think it does matter to fully heal. Reaching that place of full healing is a place of true liberation. It's not defensive. It's not "I can go live a fulfilling life in spite of you, ha ha". Whenever freedom is accompanied with defensiveness, the work isn't finished.
Which doesn't mean you should beat up on yourself or hold yourself to a standard of perfection. But I do think it means you shouldn't stop there, if what you want is really to heal. Of course living your life, forgiving yourself, is a huge part of healing. But there is more, there is integrating all of the pain and resentment and anger and fear and helplessness and despair until you really see that the pain that you are in is the same pain that your perpetrator is in. And that doesn't come easy, and it doesn't come quickly, but it is worth going for, and it is different than stopping short of that.
To me the goal of healing is not just to "live a life", but to be fully free, to return to Source, to live from a grounded sense of OKness that is so spacious that it can encompass true compassion and forgiveness.
I appreciated Emma's thought that one may come to that place of loving kindness and compassion and that in such a place one can forgive. And, that one could strive to achieve love, compassion and kindness for all including one's abuser and that this is "worth going for."
But, for the child abuse survivor, this is not the goal for healing, even for complete healing. The healing that's worth going for is another story altogether.
To continue, it's useful to define forgiveness. Clearly, there are differing interpretations of the concept. For survivors of abuse, I defer to two authors, Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, who gave me and thousands of survivors the will to live when their book, The Courage to Heal, was published in 1988. They provide a definition of what forgiveness means and how a survivor can integrate this perspective:
To find out exactly what forgiveness is, we looked in the dictionary and found these definitions: (1) to cease to feel resentment against an offender; (b) to give up claim of requital from an offender; to grant relief from payment.
There are, then, two elements in what we call forgiveness. One is that you give up your anger and no longer hold the abuser to blame; you excuse them for what they did to you. The other element is that you no longer try to get some kind of compensation from the abuser. You give up trying to get financial compensation, a statement of guilt, an apology, respect, love, understanding – anything. Separating these two aspects of forgiveness makes it possible to clarify what is and what is not necessary in order to heal from child sexual abuse.
It is true that eventually you must give up trying to get something back from the abuser. This process need not be hurried. It is appropriate and courageous to fight back any way you choose. However, at some point, trying to get from abusers what they aren’t going to give keeps you trapped. There comes a time when what you feel about the abuser is less important than what you feel about yourself, your current life, and your future. The abuser is not your primary concern. You say, 'I am my primary concern. Whether the abuser rots or not, I’m going on with my own life.'
When a friend inadvertently hurts our feelings and apologizes, we forgive her. We no longer blame her. The relationship is mended. We are reconciled and we continue with trust and respect, without residual anger between us. This kind of forgiveness – giving up anger and pardoning the abuser, restoring a relationship of trust – is not necessary in order to heal from the trauma of being sexually abused as a child.”
If at some point in your healing, you come to feel compassion or understanding for your abuser, that's fine. It's a personal decision, not the goal of healing. It is not essential to your own recovery.
This is what I mean by forgiveness, this is the concept of forgiveness that must be presented to survivors, if it's to be presented at all. I question that the subject can even be brought up, as any talk and effort in forgiving the abuser distracts from what we must do to honor ourselves, to honor life itself - and that is to work towards getting our life, our selfhood back.
I refer to the Buddhist teachings of losing self and made an amendment:
One must lose self, let go of self, in order to move beyond human pain and suffering.
But, one cannot lose the self unless one has a self.
Those who were abused had been robbed of self.
Thus, attaining self is the ultimate goal.
You can stop there. Everything else is optional.
In discussing forgiveness, this all important element of coming to selfhood is often missing. It's a glaring omission and implies to the survivor that once again, you have to put yourself aside and think of others.
If there is forgiveness, it might, as Mata and Emma suggested, show up as a result of recovery. I contend that it should not show up at all as part of the curriculum. Think of it this way - would you ask a survivor of the Holocaust to work towards forgiving Nazis? Never, it's just not done. Surviving child abuse is the same, though charged on another level as the abusers are, in most cases, a member of the family. That's what makes it devastating, the betrayal of family and the reduction of home not as refuge but as dungeon and torture chamber.
Did I forgive my father? Yes and no. If one believes that forgiving means comprehending the roots of his perversions and violence, then I forgave him. But, this understanding came from the perspective of my adult self, the one who has the tools and resources to arrive at this understanding, the one whose family and home life is finally safe and nurturing. It took me three decades to be able to do this. I don't think that I'm special because of it. I do not tell survivors that this is where they need to go.
As my adult self, I forgave him, the sinner, but not his sins. I am not in the business of forgiving sins, I leave that to God.
However, I do not forgive him for what he did to my child self, the one who is still alive and hurting within. I have done years of therapy to alleviate some of her pain and suffering. But, she still screams in the middle of the night. She has been crippled and isolated, battered, used as the family scapegoat neglected, shamed and humiliated. In my EMDR therapy, I''m rewriting the script so I can rescue her, take her away to a place where she is safe, unconditionally loved and not diminished as a mere sexual receptacle and the object for rage and violence. This is an incredible journey which leaves me no time or energy to spend on forgiving my abuser. In fact, forgiveness is not even on the radar and, quite frankly, I am indifferent to the notion.
My girl self within, like the Holocaust survivor, does not have to work on forgiving those who did this to her. We do not ask that of children, that's just not done.
I realize there may be some who want to present another way to look at forgiveness or challenge my beliefs, but I decided to close the comments because I want to have the last word on my blog about forgiveness. It is a subject that will not be approached here unless I need to attend to my brother and sister child abuse survivors and then I'd probably end up re-publishing the Fatherless Child post.
Anyway, I have more vital, self-affirming things to do like yoga, going shopping with Molly, hanging out with our kids and their kids, laughing with my husband and getting my life back.
The pain I refer to was not the labor and delivery I endured for 7 hours (don't hate me) . Molly and I had an astonishingly easy birth, so easy and nearly pain free that after getting cleaned up and having something to eat (an entire roast chicken from a local fancy grocery store), I strapped my newborn daughter on my back and returned to work in the rice fields.
I'm kidding. There was no rice field. But the birth? Easy-peasy (don't hate me).
The pain and suffering and heartache I speak of is described in the last post. Molly gave me back my heart, soul and body. For this, for so much, I live each day in gratitude.
Happy birthday, my wonderful child. You are the changer and I am the changed. I am a better woman because of you.
Today is one of the worst days of the year for me - Father's Day. I had a father who sexually abused me from my infancy to adolescence. The damage these assaults incurred is deep and lifelong. I am emerging from the carnage a stronger person, but what I survived resulted in a life impaired. I may run, but there's a limp in my gait. I may present myself to the world, but I do so with a disfigured and scarred face. However, I'm speaking in metaphors thus nobody can see how badly I've been hurt. And, I find this to be an odd injustice.
Some of you may know that my father died last year and I've been struggling with demons - some of them familiar, some of them I've just met - ever since. I've yet to write about the insanity around his funeral and as much as I want to get those demons out of my system, I'm not ready, I don't have the words. All I know is that he died, others were sad, but I was mourning the loss of something I never had - a decent and loving father. It didn't matter that he was hard working and sometimes nice - that he sexually, psychologically and physically abused me cancels out any and all of his good qualities. Thus, I am a fatherless child.
I am not the only one who is fatherless because of abuse and has managed to get out of that savagery alive. I know many child abuse survivors both in my life away from the computer and those who frequent this blog. I want to say to you, fellow survivor - this post is for you, my dearest of all my dear readers. In fact, this whole blog is for you - all this crazy-quilt-writing about the good, the bad, the parenting, being a wife and a citizen, trying my best, trying as hard as I can to live a whole and productive life against all the odds. Dear brothers and sisters - anyone who tells me that they're a child abuse survivor is, automatically, my brother and sister - the odds are against us having a full and happy life, yet here we are, alive and trying hard, oh so very hard, to thrive. We are awesome that way, though we often don't think we are. But, believe me when I tell you - we are awesome.
Last year I wrote an entry on Mother's Day that was directed to us, the survivors. It was not a Hallmark card for Mom, by any means. Rather, it was a reminder that we owe ourselves forgiveness on these triggering "holidays". I am re-publishing an excerpt of that post here, as we can never be reminded enough of what we so richly deserve and what we so easily forget to offer to ourselves:
*********************************
"...today I want to be a warrior in the service of my sisters and brothers, - adult child abuse survivors.
I have a message for you, dear ones. It's radical and some people who have not been through what we suffered as children may not appreciate it. Indeed, they may be angry at me in sharing this truth with you, something that I believe with all of my heart, mind and soul:
My message: You don't have to forgive your perpetrator.
And: Forgiving your abuser is not necessary to achieve healing.
Forgiving those who criminally damaged and ravaged us is optional in moving on and living a fulfilling life.
If there is forgiveness to be offered, extend it to yourself.
Forgive yourself for being young, vulnerable, frightened, unable to take action, unable to move from where you were standing, sitting or lying down as you were being molested, beaten and berated.
Forgive yourself for doing drugs, drinking too much, being promiscuous, giving yourself away.
Forgive yourself for flunking classes, not finishing college, not pushing yourself at work, not wanting to be ambitious, giving up.
Forgive yourself for having to be perfect in school, overworking and overachieving at the expense of your health and well being.
Forgive yourself for alienating your body, starving it, overfeeding it, not honoring it by exercising, being careless with your body for exercising it excessively.
Forgive yourself for the bad choices in partners, the fights, the break-ups, the divorces, the difficulty in maintaining relationships.
Forgive yourself for your fears as a parent, or your fear in becoming a parent.
Forgive yourself for yelling at your crying kids so much you want to smack their faces and shake them. Then, forgive yourself for leaving them in the other room, crying and hollering, while you call the parent stress hotline .
Forgive yourself for having depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, dissociative disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder. Forgive yourself for seeking help, taking medication, going to therapy, admitting yourself to the hospital.
Forgive yourself for feeling shame.
Forgive yourself for hating yourself.
Forgive yourself. You're the one who deserves it.
In solidarity with my fellow survivors,
And love to all,
GraceD"
Well, dollins, today is my birthday and look what I got - a baby! Ain't she grand? Alas, the joy was short lived as I had to give her back to her mama Jennifer, one of the many Jennifers I know and love. We must love the Jennifers because their numbers are great thus we mustn't piss them off. This is, after all, Planet Jennifer and we're lucky they allow us to breathe their oxygen, much less hang out with their kids.
We hosted this charming girly girl known as Avery GRACE (her very fine middle name in all caps when referenced in correspondence between mama Jennifer and me) last Saturday. Avery GRACE's parents needed a date night and I offered my services which included a seminar on current concepts in opthalmology from the Hubs, the usual feminist rhetoric from me and co-dependent, groveling behavior from Malcolm the Jack Russell Terrier. Indeed, Malcolm appears to love the babies, though I believe his real agenda is to lick any leftover organic squash baby food from their cheeks as well as stealing their toys.
The best part of Avery GRACE's stay? I got to exercise my maternal instincts, long resisted by my girl Molly ("Mom, I can clean my own ears!") but still intact and functioning, as demonstrated in this action packed pic.
Further to my own baby, Molly-Who-Will-Not-Let-Me-Clean-Her-Ears, some of you kindly inquired about her post-SAT status. I called her immediately after the test, like right when she was walking out the door. She was on her way to the nearest dive bar to drown her sorrows in an afternoon of underaged drinking. Oh, I kid you, she wouldn't go to a bar, she'd just raid the booze at her Dad's. Oh, I kid you again, she really went to Jamba Juice. In either case, Molly needed to knock back something as she claims to have known "nothing...I KNEW NOTHING on the test...nothing". So much for the pricey SAT prep course.
However, just as sure as I know her ears need a thorough cleaning, I also know that Moll had an excellent grasp on the material and did better, way better than "nothing". She will do the SAT again in September, repeating it until she's satisfied with her score, just like you Dollin Wonky Readers did as per your commentary on the last post. My thoughts turn to my heavily pierced and tattooed pal Stan, who said he "...took the SAT three times. Once for practice, once for real, and once more just for fun to see if I could squeeze out a few more points." Stan, you are the awesome man, but dude, I can't imagine doing a test "just for fun."
Hey, I'm selling myself short here. I actually have started doing something maybe even more punishing than the SAT. Last night I began my first session of circuit training, a birthday gift from Hubs. I left the hour and fifteen minute workout mortified that I let myself become pathetically out of shape. Sure, I run and have a yoga practice, but I've been needing resistance training something fierce. I not only met that need in the circuit training (damn you big rubber band thingy with handles! I wanted to shoot mine into Monterey Bay, so desperate was my workout), but got in agility training, too. I don't know about you, but I associate agility training with dogs. I will continue to make that connection, because I worked like a dog to complete the agility course of jumping over little hurdles, stepping through that rope ladder on the ground, and slide gliding from one diagonally placed marker to the next. It's all to develop those fast twitch muscle fibers, though, after last night, the only fast twitch I felt was the involuntary tic on my face that showed up when I drove back home, exhausted and muttering incoherently to the unforgiving universe.
Good. Times.
Tonight the Hubs and I will celebrate my 53rd year on Planet Jennifer by going to an Oakland A's game. It's East versus West, as my beloved A's will be going up against the team of my NYC born and bred Hubs, the Yankees. We have fabulous seats, on the field, between home and first. Just in case, Hubs will be taking his glove in pursuit of a pop-up fly ball.
Dollin Readers, let us take a moment to revel in the fact that my 59 year old Hubs, founder of a successful Silicon Valley medical device company, a Ph.D. (that's Doctor Hubs to you and me), father of six and an all around dignified and serious guy is taking his baseball glove to the game, just in case. That's HOT!
And, now to book a massage before the game. It's my birthday, mofos! That calls for a massage! In truth, a massage is necessary for my wretched post-circuit training body which needs some deep kneading and pummeling to free it from an inconvenient case of exercise induced rigor mortis.
I extend my love and gratitude along with deep lunges to you, Dear Dollin Readers. I appreciate your audience and fellowship more than you will ever know.
See this person here? This 3 year old girl-child smiling sweetly, shiny eyed, beguiling in a Little Dutch boy haircut? This charming tot will be 17 in 10 days and tomorrow she's taking the SAT.
The SAT.
Seventeen.
(shakes head) (shakes head again)
Good luck, tomorrow, former tot. I am so proud of you. So proud.
Incredibly, you will read nothing about therapy, dysfunctional families and bad childhoods in this post. Imagine that! You click over to my url and, surprise! Not only have I published a blog entry for the second time this week, said entry will be free of existential dread and struggle. We'll save the usual sturm und drang for another time because today is a special day, a red letter day, a happy day.
You wonder, what's going on? Why is GraceD so uncharacteristically upbeat and who put on that damn Kool and the Gang song that's always played at weddings and professional sports playoff victories?
Well, I just want to 'Celebrate' because this hot-flashing baby boomer, this Grandma Moses-like late bloomer, this writer/blogger/mother can officially announce that her ultimate fantasy has been realized: I am included in an anthology that will be on sale at a bookstore near you!
Behold, our book - celebrate good times, come on!
I have a story in this anthology that Roxanne Cooper told me a long time ago would be suitable for publishing. To Rox, I thank you for saying such a nice thing. I'm proud to tell you that I met your challenge and with this accomplishment, custom dictates that you owe me a round, if not two or three, of salty rimmed, over ice (not blended) Austin Texas style Margaritas the next time we meet.
I am also indebted-for-life to "my Jenny" (drawled worshipfully in a kinda lame but nonetheless heartfelt imitation of Forest Gump). Jenny Lauck, she of Three Kid Circus blogging fame and renown, suggested to editor, writer, agent and all around wonder woman Rita Arens that I may have some material for this project. Ever the professional, Rita gave my submission a thorough shakedown, editing out pictures of my dog and the obscure references that are usual fare on my blog posts. She was able to format my little tale of yelling at Molly then desperately wanting to escape to a Menopausal Hut into a short story. For this, not only am I indebted-for-life to Rita as well, but I will handing over my only born, the aforementioned Molly, to the Arens household. Rita, you're getting a deal - Molly is just a year and half away before she's 18 and kicked out of the nest to the cold, cruel world. Thus, you have escaped Molly's middle school years and toddlerhood. A bargain, I'm telling you.
There are parent blogging superstars in this anthology, and the Table of Contents is not unlike the roster for an amazing music festival where I am an opening band (like, dare I say it, Feist?) to Radiohead-quality rock star writers of these beloved blogs:
Amalah
Binkytown
Birdie's New Mexico Time Machine
CityMama
Finslippy
Friday Playdate
Fussy
IzzyMom
Laid-Off Dad
Mom-101
Mommy Needs Coffee
Mommytrack'd
Motherhood Uncensored
Not Calm (dot com)
Paper Napkin
Rancid Raves
Surfette
Sweetney
The Modernity Ward
The Naked Ovary
Three Kid Circus
Woulda Coulda Shoulda
Adding to the glam and bling of being published, we will be doing book signings. Be warned, someone responsible better monitor my activities at these book signings, lest I get all full of myself and sign off in the smart-ass way that David Sedaris autographs his books. Our lovely Rita Arens, who is far more couth than David Sedaris or I could ever be, will kick off the "Sleep is for the Weak" book tour on May 17 at the Kansas City Literary Festival. Book signings are confirmed for July 18 at BlogHer, August 29-30 at the Decatur Book Festival, September 4 at the Kansas City Barnes and Noble, and September 13 at The Full Circle in Oklahoma City.
More "Sleep is for the Weak" events to be announced, including book signings in California where I will be on hand to conduct a bonus tequila shot drinking contest for parents of teens and/or toddlers. Think I'm kidding? You'll have to show up to find out.
Those who need to get a jump on things can pre-order our book from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and indie book sellers, Booksense. Official release will be September, 2008.
I can barely stand it, dollins.
Love and blessings to all,
GraceD
I'm back home in Santa Cruz. In truth, I've been back for a week. Once again, I did not fall into the abyss. But you, my Dollin Readers whose generous attention you shower upon this humble bit of bandwidth, knew that I'd be back. Thus, here I am. And, so, hello. Again. Good to see you. I missed you.
I've been thinking about the recent natural disasters a seemingly angry earth has released upon its inhabitants. I've been thinking that my problems are nothing next to those of the disaster's victims. That may be true, but that should not distract me from my ongoing work in therapy. I need to reinforce that truth to myself, hence this blog post.
I also want to reinforce that truth with my Dearest of All My Dear Readers, any of you who are survivors of child abuse, or depressed, or undergoing a crisis of heart and/or soul - anyone who is working on their stuff like I am and who feel like their problems in the face of all this chaos are nothing. These issues, our issues, are important and you must continue your work of seeking enlightenment and freedom from your pain.
But, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the suffering of others. I certainly am. What happens is that I identify with the victims and see the parallels of their life with mine. Then I slap myself silly for thinking that my lot may be half as bad, even one/millionth as bad. Then, I'm back to square one, where I'm feeling like a shit and loathing myself for breathing.
What it's like for me:
This morning I woke up to the clock radio tuned to NPR news. The reports from correspondents in China described the earthquake's devastation as so utter and complete, I couldn't move. I went perfectly still. I listened to the stories of mothers wailing at the site of a school collapse, their children under the crush, broken, suffering or dead. Residents refusing to sleep in their homes, fearful of the aftershocks, and setting up camp in parks and the center of traffic roundabouts. Chaos and destruction many times worse than what I experienced in the Loma Prieta quake of 1989 which killed 67 people. The 7.8 quake in the Sichuan province has claimed 12,000 by official count, but doubtless will rise to at least 20,000 deaths.
Then, the NPR story segues to Myanmar and the chaos and destruction there, made worse exponentially by a totalitarian government's refusal for international aid. Most survivors have no food, clean drinking water and shelter. Bodies bloat and rot in the rivers. The estimated death toll will likely climb to a million people.
By this time, I had to get up and out of my stillness, start my day and remember to maintain a balanced perspective. I know I can become completely obsessed with a disaster half a world away. Glued to CNN with the laptop teetering on my thighs, clicking to the BBC, New York Times and the rest of my news bookmarks, I plug myself into the news feed of storm/quake/terrorist bombings. It's my subconscious in overtime, in trying to get any and all information so I can gain mastery of the trauma. If I have that knowledge, then there's control. If I have control, then I won't be fearful.
And this is an analogy to the biggest task I've undertaken - examining my life thoroughly, getting information so I can gain mastery of my own background of trauma. But, rather than simply gathering the facts as I do during a disaster, the job in uncovering the truth about myself involves compassion that I would rather extend to grief stricken mothers in China and Burma. I have to work very, very hard to tap that place of mercy and sympathy and give it to myself. Why should I be focused on abuse that happened years ago to me as a teen/girl/baby, while these Chinese and Burmese mothers - and fathers, siblings, cousins, friends - are sorting through the rubble, desperately looking for signs of life?
The answer to that is many fold, but I can sum it up with a twist on a Buddhist precept:
Save all sentient beings. And, start with yourself.
That's hard to get, especially for women. We women put off our happiness. We risk our health. We place ourselves last. For those of us who are survivors of child abuse, we're downright professional at self-neglect. Why should we care about ourselves when those who should have cared for us fucked up the job? If you're like me, that's an old imprint, one that's currently taking time, energy, money and patience from my family to erase in therapy.
But, reclaiming my self worth at this point in my life is necessary on a critical, if not emergency level. I've wasted a lot of time feeling stuck and defeated. This doesn't work anymore (and, really, it never did). I want to be fully functioning, I need and deserve to be whole.
This seems easy for a comfortable American middle class woman to say on her blog. At least I have food, at least I have clean water. Not only do I have electricity, but I have a phone connection and this laptop, so at least I'm in communication with the world. I'm not waiting for the high energy biscuits and water to be air dropped from a UN plane and I'm not looking at a heap of concrete blocks where my apartment used to be. But, because I'm in this position of relative luxury, I owe it to myself to take advantage of the resources at my reach to help heal my own PTSD. I owe it to the world to heal myself as the planet can use more healthy, whole and loving folks.
So, shout out to all of you in the struggle to attain self. Don't stop, you're important. The world needs a healthy, whole and loving you.
O, Florida! Sandbar state of gators and grannies, you are a source of endless fascination! Your wonders are many. Here are a few:
This business about unruly curly hair in this climate is true! I happen to like having the humidity pump up the volume of my hair so much that I look like Barry Gibb. When I connected my puffy hair with the Bee Gees last night, "How Deep is Your Love?" began to spin in my head. I sang just a little to my hubs ("...cause we're living in a world of fools/bringing us down/when they all should let us be/we belong to you and me") and he fell into the brothers Gibb song warp. Now you're caught in the dreaded spiral. Feel free to hate me, my hubs sure did. But the hubs, as a man of science, should have known better to aim his wrath at his very own auditory cortex which, according to other men and women of science, continues to spin the unwanted tune without your permission.
MRIs on every block! Why is that? Hubs, that man of science, informed me it's for the elderly population, but I think the MRIs are for the folks who have McCain signs in the front yards (the first I've seen, being from Northern California and all). McCain is for another 100 years in Iraq which is nuts, thus McCain backers need to have their heads examined. A neuro MRI does the deed in color and cross sections. Of course, the MRIs would have done a fine job in locating my overactive auditory cortex, which is now stuck, without rhyme or reason, on "My Sharonna".
The Venice of North America, Fort Lauderdale, with its waterways in and around both swank and modest neighborhoods. On a walk with Malcolm, I located our local canal:
I think these are lovely. I scanned the water for manatees and gators, but none were available for viewing. Unfortunately, a song of my youth, "Poke Salad Annie (the gator's got your granny)" got revved up on my mental turntable. Truth be told, Tony Joe White, the father of 'Swamp Rock', is preferable to the aforementioned Bee Gees any time.
Family! Behold my hale and hardy 90 year old mom-in-law and my not-a-mean-bone-in-her-body sister-in-law Barbara, hangin at their crib. They're just up I-95 from our sweet little vacation house. We're going over there now and, as I told my Twitter friends, I better put on a proper bra. Heck, I should put on clothes. I can't think of a song suggestive of poolside nudity. Visuals, yes, but in my case your image would involve a 52 year old mother with mild but persistent cellulite issues.
Come on, put on your clothes and let's see our peeps.
* Earworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm, is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that becomes "stuck" in a person's "head" or repeats against one's will within one's mind.
Yesterday I took two naps, one at noon for an hour and half and the second snooze in the late afternoon. I must have been exhausted because I fell asleep with Chris Matthews hollering at America on Hardball, sniping away at something to do with the Obama/Wright debacle. The day before I dozed off reading and went down for a two hour napper. The day before that I didn't nap, but I did have a sip of Manischewitz concord grape wine that was so outrageously sweet, I fell into a sugar induced coma. I believe that counts as rest.
Napping and Kosher wine isn't my usual thing, but I'm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where the hubs is attending an eye doc meeting and I've been hanging out at the sweetest little vacation rental house and visiting my dear mother and sister-in-law. We're a long way from LA, scene of my last post published 20 light years ago, and the LA hipsters in black and leather have been replaced with Florida's fine seniors in shorts and visors. Then again, conceptually I'm not too far from LA as this cute house has a pool and a hot tub and I've been using both with hedonistic dedication.
Malcolm is with us, having been drugged into a stupor by the vet prescribed sedative and crammed into an airline approved carry on bag. We flew non-stop from SFO to Miami and he was conked out through the entire trip. Malcolm has his wings! With the good drugs, we can take him places! I'm thinking he'd like France, where dogs can dine in bistros with impunity and wear little dog berets.
About the napping - I feel a little guilty about napping as I'm unemployed and living off the land with no real reason to be crapped out, but still, I'm bone tired. My psyche has been working overtime since my last post and that's been taking a big toll. Certainly, the EMDR therapy has helped me more than I can articulate and I'm at ease with myself more than I have ever been. But, not all of the demons have dissipated. They've gone underground and I can tell they're lurking when I consider my moods and behavior as of late. I've been overly vigilant, excessively worried about little and large life issues. I get easily pissed off, as demonstrated by my comments on other blogs, and have administered swift smackdowns to an infamous female troll and some bloggers who should know better. And, most telling, I want to eat fatty, salty carbs. (But don't we all?)
My fretting and quick temper aside, all I really want to do is rest. Do nothing. Go nowhere. Just lie out by the pool of this lovely little house on a palm lined street in the warmth of Southern Florida and catnap. Dreaming of nothing, maybe except for the Wise potato chips waiting for me in the kitchen. Wise potato chips cannot be found on the West Coast. Ask my hubs how I squealed when I encountered the rows of Wise chip bags, resplendent in its varied flavors and salt content. The profusion of fresh, not frozen, Lender's bagels inspired another squeal and a leap. Be sure to ask my hubs how he backed away from me in embarrassment, hoping no one saw me jumping in the Publix aisles and ready to say to any one who saw the spectacle, "I don't know this weirdo woman screaming at the carb products! No, not me!"
Want to see some pics? Sure you do:
The house. Prettier in real life and it sure looks great here. Owner is a super guy. $238/nightly. Slightly cheaper than the Marriott but way bigger, like two bedroom, two bathroom, living room, fully equipped kitchen, pool and hot tub bigger. Did I mention reliable and zippy wifi that doesn't cost an extra $12 bucks a day? Marriott, you and your Book of Mormon in every room does not cut it for us.
Power napping here and maybe the occasional set of laps. But nothing too rigorous as I have pronounced that this area is dedicated to high-quality, professional lounging.
Further to laps - I learned that Malcolm is not a swimming dog. He is a terrier. That means land based. If this terrier smothers me with a pillow tonight because I didn't consider his land based orientation and, instead, violated his delicate sensibilities by taking him for a swim, I want you to know that it's been fun and I love you all.
Living room opens to pool. Cool, loft-like space. Martinis should be enjoyed here, with Wise potato chips, of course.
Hip dining area. Lenders bagels have been enjoyed here. Muted gold wall color contrasts nicely with the fern green of the living room.
The only thing objectionable to our otherwise perfect lodgings. We call this objet d'art, "What the Fuck?"
I'm sorry to end with that thing, but it's time to sleep. I need to rest up for tomorrow's naps.
You sleep well, too, Dollin Readers.
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