I woke up thinking about a dream I had:
Matt Damon and I on a couch talking and sitting between us a blue colored boy about 9 years old.
I immediately thought of the blue boy in a Hindu myth I've heard a few times, he was Krishna.
About 10 seconds after that, the pressure in my chest started. It was hard to breath. Reality sinking in.
I live in a finished room over the 2-car garage of my own home. I look around wondering what the hell happened this month anyway.
My whole life has been turned upside down, topsy turvy. I have yet to settle.
I have my things about me, my cats are here too. Why the pounding away, still, after more than 2 weeks?
I got out of bed and ignored it. I had a weeding job lined up and I washed up and drove down to the village. I weeded for 2 hours.
The woman I am weeding for is my doctor (and friend). Her family was visiting from down south. As I was weeding a few feet from the front door, listening to them talk to each other, I thought, "I have a Master's degree and they probably think I am the gardener". It was another dose of surrealism. My life has turned into a Dali painting of sorts.
Before everything flipped inside out, I was visiting my mother on Long Island and we saw the new Woody Allen film, "Blue Jasmine". I liked it very much. It is a straight drama and not a usual plot for Allen.
Little did I know that 2 days later I would be facing a similar predicament as the Cate Blanchett character. Seriously, for the few days I felt exactly the way she did at the closing scene of the film: Beside myself.
After weeding today I drove over the lake. I went for a short swim and then sat down to read a bit. I felt like my old self again, reading in the sun. Here I am, I recognize myself in this situation, this is familiar.
By 3:30, the pounding panic returned. I didn't know why and then I realized it was because I would be heading home soon. Home? No, my home is gone. I was a stay-at-home mother and home schooled my children for 18 years. I don't have my bedroom anymore. I don't use the front door anymore.
I have my own entrance on the side of the house. It's a big room with 5 windows. I have my bed, my love seat, my father's table, my grandmother's table, a poster from Italy, my jade and geranium plants, my wooden snowy owl, and a bottle of water, among my things here.
I need to walk through my son's room to get to the bathroom or to get water or to do wash.
I was the pillar of the family. I am no longer holding anything up, except my chin.
The house is a shell. With my things taken out, it looks like a college dorm, all mishmashed stuff that doesn't go. There are empty shelves and not enough furniture in the living room.
When I go in there it's like visiting a cemetery, a ghost.
What happened?
He finally realized we are divorced. It took 2 years for him to wake up and tell himself "She divorced me". I know because that it what he keeps telling me. "You divorced me."
Yes, yes I did, two years ago after several years of trying and a 2 year separation.
Anyway, I am not fighting him. Why? For what?
I've been stripped of my identity. I am as vulnerable as I've ever been.
With my children being 16 and 18, it's not like I have children anymore.
.My first response was frozen terror and that ended a few days ago when I dragged myself to the dept of labor and offered up my resume.
I've been online reading ads and emailing my resume, like a robot. I need to move on, I tell myself.
But this panic, this heaviness in my chest, what is this all about? Open-heart surgery, that's what.
My body is in shock, still. I need to rest. I don't cry. I say very little actually.
I don't think it will take me 2 years to acknowledge what happened, but 2 weeks is too soon.
For today, I am okay. I have food. My car works. I'm not mumbling and drooling on a park bench.
Like that lovely old Muslim man told me in Italy a few months ago when I was overwhelmed, in the rain, in a train station that wouldn't take my credit card to buy my transfer ticket, "If you have what you need for today, you are like a king. What more do you need?"
My body doesn't know it yet but we didn't die. We've lost so much and yet our heart still beats.
Boom, boom.
Boom, boom.
Boom, boom.
Friday, 30 August 2013
Thursday, 29 August 2013
and so it begins...
Okie dokie, a new blog.
This comes at a good time since everything in my life has been tossed in the air. I am mid-trauma.
Who knows how this turns out.
In the move "Shakespeare in Love" the Geoffrey Rush character has a reoccurring line when everything is most in chaos and there seems to be no way out but he declares it will turn out well.
When people ask "How?" he replies:
"I don't know. It's a mystery"
I too don't know and indeed, it is a mystery.
In the past 3 weeks I have had the rug pulled out from under me and I have lived in panic. I've moved out of my home where I have lived for 11 years. (That is longest time I have ever lived anywhere!)
I have no access to money or credit. My 18 year old continues to be...well, 18!
The universe has pounded away at me for almost a month and still I breathe. Amazing!
So be careful what you ask for, you might get it.
I've been studying Tibetan Buddhism pretty intensely since my Italy trip in May. I've been wondering about owning less and dropping out of the rush,rush matrix of life.
Here is my opportunity to apply all I have studied. What is important in my life?
The curtains have been pulled back and I am seeing things that I didn't want to see: truths.
I've been humbled. I've been yanked out of my day-to-day existence. This will end up being a gift, I know, but for now I suffer the pangs of panic. My body reacts as though trauma has cut her wide open.
I have been cut open. I am post-surgery at this point. Yes, yes that explains the physical manifestations. I've been cut open to be set free?
It is a mystery.
I don't want to get into all the details but in one day, I lost everything. Everything that I thought was important was taken away. I thought I' die. I didn't.
I am still here.
There were days when I had to talk out loud to myself from drifting off into some other place...like a hospital so I could mumble and drool. I really felt that close to snapping, psychologically speaking.
It was too much, too quickly and I couldn't process it. I found myself saying "This can't be happening," and shaking my head from side to side. But it was happening, it was.
I have reached out for help. I have a enough money for food and gas for another month. My youngest son has been a big help too.
Their father (my ex) has done a complete 180 degree turnaround about agreements we made. It is what it is.
I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want a lawyer. I want peace.
I know that the money, the house, the things he wants, will not bring him happiness. I've been able to pray for him throughout this highly stressful time. That, is new for me. In the past I would have been furious and had hundreds of arguments in my head, wishing him wrong, wishing him suffering.
Even at the height of this stress, when I cried so hard my body ached, I prayed for him:
May he know peace, may he be free from suffering.
I am doing things differently, very!
I think (HOPE) I am just beginning to move outside the eye of this storm.
Today I realized that I have been given a great gift: relieved from paying bills, paying taxes, cleaning the house, be responsible for everything. I have been given a clean slate to begin again.
I had a momentary glance at the possibilities that have opened up for me. I also realize that I need to rest. I need to stay still. I need to heal from the 'surgery' rather than do what I always do: Run around being organized and rush, rush, rush to fix everything for everybody.
My lesson is this: Slow down, feel, see, listen, trust.
How does this all work out? It is a mystery. I don't know.
This comes at a good time since everything in my life has been tossed in the air. I am mid-trauma.
Who knows how this turns out.
In the move "Shakespeare in Love" the Geoffrey Rush character has a reoccurring line when everything is most in chaos and there seems to be no way out but he declares it will turn out well.
When people ask "How?" he replies:
"I don't know. It's a mystery"
I too don't know and indeed, it is a mystery.
In the past 3 weeks I have had the rug pulled out from under me and I have lived in panic. I've moved out of my home where I have lived for 11 years. (That is longest time I have ever lived anywhere!)
I have no access to money or credit. My 18 year old continues to be...well, 18!
The universe has pounded away at me for almost a month and still I breathe. Amazing!
So be careful what you ask for, you might get it.
I've been studying Tibetan Buddhism pretty intensely since my Italy trip in May. I've been wondering about owning less and dropping out of the rush,rush matrix of life.
Here is my opportunity to apply all I have studied. What is important in my life?
The curtains have been pulled back and I am seeing things that I didn't want to see: truths.
I've been humbled. I've been yanked out of my day-to-day existence. This will end up being a gift, I know, but for now I suffer the pangs of panic. My body reacts as though trauma has cut her wide open.
I have been cut open. I am post-surgery at this point. Yes, yes that explains the physical manifestations. I've been cut open to be set free?
It is a mystery.
I don't want to get into all the details but in one day, I lost everything. Everything that I thought was important was taken away. I thought I' die. I didn't.
I am still here.
There were days when I had to talk out loud to myself from drifting off into some other place...like a hospital so I could mumble and drool. I really felt that close to snapping, psychologically speaking.
It was too much, too quickly and I couldn't process it. I found myself saying "This can't be happening," and shaking my head from side to side. But it was happening, it was.
I have reached out for help. I have a enough money for food and gas for another month. My youngest son has been a big help too.
Their father (my ex) has done a complete 180 degree turnaround about agreements we made. It is what it is.
I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want a lawyer. I want peace.
I know that the money, the house, the things he wants, will not bring him happiness. I've been able to pray for him throughout this highly stressful time. That, is new for me. In the past I would have been furious and had hundreds of arguments in my head, wishing him wrong, wishing him suffering.
Even at the height of this stress, when I cried so hard my body ached, I prayed for him:
May he know peace, may he be free from suffering.
I am doing things differently, very!
I think (HOPE) I am just beginning to move outside the eye of this storm.
Today I realized that I have been given a great gift: relieved from paying bills, paying taxes, cleaning the house, be responsible for everything. I have been given a clean slate to begin again.
I had a momentary glance at the possibilities that have opened up for me. I also realize that I need to rest. I need to stay still. I need to heal from the 'surgery' rather than do what I always do: Run around being organized and rush, rush, rush to fix everything for everybody.
My lesson is this: Slow down, feel, see, listen, trust.
How does this all work out? It is a mystery. I don't know.
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