Mountain Top Screaming

          I’m having trouble writing this morning. The problem is not a lack of ideas or words to capture those ideas. I have ideas and words hurling themselves at the interior walls of my skull desperate to get the hell out. If I could stand on a mountain peak right now, certain only the gods would hear me, know the Sherpa who led me there wouldn’t understand a syllable, I would scream until I release every stinging thought in my brain. The words would be an assault on the wind, whipping back the air as it blew in my face.

See? Words, just falling onto the page, freely. The ease with which these words escape frustrates the words that remain locked in my head. They are angry words, and their anger is intensifying because they want out. I’ve tried placating them with a promise that their time will come and they will be set free like the others, but it’s just not the right time.

Time is a taunt. At least, for me it is. I never seem to be at the right place, at the right time, with the right circumstance. What I conclude about this confluence of nevers is that I abdicated control of my life. To what I abdicated that control, I’m not quite certain, but I have this feeling that I handed over the reins in exchange for an idea of what life should be. Or multiple ideas.

I have a sense that I’m not alone. Nor would I be alone on that mountain top, shouting, and yelling, calling out my frustrations to the four winds. I see you out there, looking around, wondering how you got to this point.

   

Now however, a second problem occurs to me when I think of mountain shouting therapy as a cure, as a way to release all those chained words from my head. The shouting doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t address the cause of the frustration, and it doesn’t fix any of the brokenness. The shouting is just the cathartic release that fools me into thinking I’ve done something productive with those words. It’s a pressure valve fix. I’ve released the steam, but the furnace is still boiling water. More steam is being generated, and over time, the pressure will rise and the valve will have to release again.

Reflective pause – I’ve never addressed the root cause, only released the pressure. Once or twice, I’ve turned down the gas so the boiler didn’t work quite so effectively. At some point, I should address the root cause; I would like to fix the brokenness. I have subscribed to the theory that sublimating the brokenness to action and moving beyond it to productivity is the wiser course of action, because, we are all broken, and if we all went around probing our brokenness, we’d just be self-indulgent losers with dirty houses and unpaid bills. We don’t live that way in Tidy Town, because, what would the neighbors think?

What would the neighbors think? Do the neighbors think on me at all? Isn't it more self-indulgent to think that the neighbors are thinking of me and aren’t busy dealing with their own brokenness? Honestly, when I think about how rarely I think about the neighbors, and right now, the neighbors live less than twenty feet from my kitchen, I question why I would matter to them. Moreover, if they are spending their time judging me instead of dealing with their own brokenness, why is that my problem? It’s not, or at least, it should not be.

My problem, if it’s not the neighbors, is fear. Fear that I don’t know who I will be when I fix the brokenness. What will I lose in exchange for being “fixed”? There’s always the possibility, that I am fine just as I am. That I’m not, in actuality, broken. That the real problem is a simple one: I’ve judged myself by others – be it their expectations, their lives, their achievements, or their words. Instead of being accepting of myself I’ve interpreted who I am as broken.

There is every possibility that I am not broken, just trying to bend too much. There is every possibility that the frustration I feel is a result of twisting right into wrong. There is every possibility that the words banging around in my head just want to be free because they are the right words in which I haven’t had enough faith. There is every possibility that if I just let go of the idea that I am broken I will be fixed. All I have to do is let go; let go of the ideas, let go of the self-judgment, let go of the words. Maybe the solution is not to fix me because I’m just fine. Maybe instead of screaming the words, I just need to listen to them.

Somebody wake the Sherpa, because we are getting the hell off this mountain.

Cheese sandwich survival

 Cheese sandwich survival.

Excuse for a moment while I give myself a round of applause, because you see, I’m a survivor.

Moment over. 

            That I am a survivor is a given at this point – I wake up daily without considering that this day could be my last because I have lived beyond so much. I am in a marriage with my own life: for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness, and in health, I been through it and come out the other side. For that, I applaud myself. For the sheer tenacity with which I have gone from up to down in my life, I say well done me.

              Recently however, I had a moment during which I wanted to smack myself upside my own head. I realized that the purpose of my life is not about my survival. My life, the one I am choosing as I go forward, is about my living with a purpose. The option to continue waking up and moving through each day in survival mode still yawns before me with all the attractiveness of a cheese sandwich. Can I eat the cheese sandwich and continue living? Yes. Is it fulfilling? Does it teach me anything? No and no, a cheese sandwich is a cheese sandwich. I want my life to be more than cheese sandwich survival.

             I cannot say that if I’d only made this realization years ago, my life would have been very different than it is today…because the person I was years ago, could not have made that realization. The person I was years ago was invested in making others happy and proud of me. As a youngest child, there was always someone before me in line who was stronger, taller, smarter, cleverer, or more accomplished. I was forever playing catch-up to a bar that was always rising. When all else failed, my goal became just to make people happy. Y’all know where this is going, so we’ll fast forward to what is important now.

             At this point, I’m starting to figure out a few things. First, I’m figuring out what my purpose is. Oddly, my purpose is still what I thought my purpose was years ago – writing and creating. I’m finding my strengths and trusting those strengths more. I’m developing a courageous voice – fooled you, didn’t I? Some of you, you know who you are, thought I had that in spades, I know. Truth was I didn’t. The person you think I am does not speak those words, or in that tone.

                Developing a courageous voice for me is more than just the words I say or write. It’s about speaking the truth, my truth, and trusting that what I feel to be right just might be so. I have a catalog of decisions, events, and moments, for which I wish that I had had a courageous voice. I wish that I had had enough of a courageous voice to say, “That’s not going to work for me, no thanks.” The courageous part is not just saying the words, but being able to back up the words with the corresponding courageous actions, even if those actions are simply living with the consequences of your words. I’m not sure I’ve lived that level of authenticity yet; but I want to live it because this catalog grows every year and it’s getting heavy.

              In a conversation last week, someone said to me, “I’m tired of making one way compromises.” No, a one-way compromise is not a compromise, but that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? It’s not a compromise if it’s just one way. It’s capitulation. It’s surrender. Without a courageous voice, without courageous determination to back up the words, capitulation becomes survival. Eventually, survival because routine. Routine becomes meaningless, purposeless. A life without a purpose that I choose is not a life I want. If I’m going to invest my life in these days, I want to invest my days with authentic purpose.

              The danger for me now is to confuse impulse with purpose. As I design the life I want, the impulse to run amok and throw caution to the wind is attractive. There’s every possibility that I could make decisions from a contradictory position – change for change’s sake. Maybe just realizing that the possibility exists will prevent me from making a serious lapse in judgment. Or, maybe I will make a lapse in judgment and have to live through it. I’m a survivor, after all.

               On my way to becoming a survivor, I’ve picked up a few skills, one of which is beating back anxiety by catastrophizing. When I start worrying about a “what if,” I ask myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” For this technique to work, the question is not rhetorical. I have to answer the question realistically. Including the positive outcomes isn’t necessary to beat anxiety into submission; and, at the end of the chain of catastrophes I envision, is always the chance that I could die, much like WebMD and an inevitable cancer diagnosis.

              Lately, I’ve been playing with idea that I need to get away from my life. There’s a timeframe coming up when a window is going to open, and if I wanted to, I could take off. I’ve been tossing around the idea of renting a cottage in Ireland or Scotland for a month or so, and going on my own. Admittedly, I have issues with being alone. I’m not proficient at isolating myself, and already tossed the idea of going on vacation to three other people. Because the idea of going on my own raises anxiety for me, I’ve been catastrophizing it out. What’s the worst that could happen?

•  I could get lost.
•  I might get lonely.
•  I could run out of money.
•  I could be attacked – by anything – person, dog, squirrel.
•  I could miss something important in my kid’s life.
•   My kid could get sick.
•   Someone I love might need me.
•   My plane could crash and…I would die.

           There’s one, potentially two, of those events that I wouldn’t survive. Still, I find it difficult to break away from the idea that there’s safety in numbers and that I could not go to Ireland or Scotland alone, even while writing about purpose and courage. I could go alone, I remind myself, because I am a survivor. Moreover, if I am going to choose a life with more than a cheese sandwich worth of purpose, I am going to have to do more than survive. I’m going to have to find some courage.

               

                

You don’t need another Indian blanket.

In December 1991, I left California. After twenty-three months of trying out first marriage, and then living alone, I decided, having not done well at either, to head back to the Midwest.  I sold everything I couldn’t fit in my 1988 Honda Civic, picked up a friend at the airport in San Jose, and headed first south, then east, then back north. We sang “Streets of Bakersfield,” as if we were Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens in drag, drank Mexican hot chocolate and bought blanket vests in Santa Fe, and spit into the Grand Canyon. We marveled at the beauty of Oklahoma’s skyline at three in the morning. Because we’d spent all our money by the time we hit Saint Louis, there was no stopping at the Arch. We did a drive-by and kept going.

What brings this trip to mind is a conversation I had with a different friend almost a month ago. She’s been a friend since those days in California. She was the best thing to come out of that time there, and I love her dearly. When she called me just after Christmas, she was upset. While it was not the first time I’d ever heard her cry, it was the first time she’d ever called me crying.

My friend is having a difficult time extracting herself from a marriage that is not working. She’s been ready to leave for years; she and her legal spouse live in separate houses. Nevertheless, there are lingering issues that they cannot seem to get past. The frustration over one particular lingering issue wore her down that night, and she called.

In the course of our conversation, we tried to figure out why it was so difficult to work out the issues. We talked about how whenever they try to settle an issue, they get sidetracked, and she finds herself defending her position to someone who just doesn’t want to give her a break.

“So, why bother defending yourself?” I asked.

“Because he participated in the marriage too, it’s not all my fault,” she replied. That’s when I saw this sign:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/575686764838806446

In my head, I remembered this big yellow sign, one of many I’d seen on the interstate on my trip through the desert Southwest. Along the highway, near the Native American reservations, there are, or least there used to be, these signs designed to entice you to pull off the interstate and buy blankets, or eat fry bread. The signs are relentless encouragement to leave the road and take a detour for a while. I like to call them “come touch the Indians signs.”

Disclaimer: This post is not about Native Americans, or the shitty things white settlers and the US government did throughout history. I acknowledge all of that. But for the purposes of this post, the Indian blanket metaphor is not only accurate – it’s exactly what I saw in my head.

I knew my friend had seen these signs, too, so I reminded her of them. Then I said:

“You don’t need another Indian blanket; you don’t need him to acknowledge that it’s not your fault. Stay on the highway, keep driving forward.”

She got it. We had a moment of understanding. Then I realized that I have my own excess of Indian blankets – too many side issues and sub-agendas that distract me from my goals and detour my success.

Blanket issues are the ones that don’t really come out say, “Hey! This side thingy here, this emotional need, this undealt with issue from my past…this is going to govern my behavior even though it’s not really going to help me reach any of my goals.” For my friend, her blanket issue with her husband is her need for him to acknowledge that she is right or that a particular problem between them is not her fault. He’s not going to give her that, and, in the meantime, they are not any closer to living happy, separate lives than they were five years ago. She’s smothered herself with a blanket issue.

My writing career is probably my prime blanket issue-smothered goal.

Writing is the only talent that I believe is natural for me. Writing is the only thing I do well and easily, and at which, I do not feel awkward, incompetent, or fake. I have other skills, but writing is the only talent I have. Yet…I have only recently pursued writing as a career. The shame and disappointment I feel in myself for not having pursued this earlier and with greater effort is my worst punishment. Rationally, I acknowledge my weakness over the blanket issues that kept me from writing, however, that doesn’t mean I can or should give myself a pass.

Lack of encouragement and support has been the heaviest blanket over my writing. I’ve had to learn to encourage myself, and seek out the encouragement of those who can be supportive. Distancing myself from those who are not willing to respect my choice, some passively unsupportive, some aggressively so, is a relentless and heartbreaking task (I’ll be writing more on this throughout 2016). Thanks to my pleaser aspect, I have participated in the suppression of my own goals to gain the approval of others. No surprise here, I never got that.

For years, I circled around writing as a profession, working at jobs that used my talent for some other end, and feeling like a fraud. Well, no more. No more dabbling in my free time that is not free; no more stored drafts waiting for revision; no more smothering my talent with a blanket. It’s time for me to come out from under the covers and just write. There will be a price for this, because there is always is a price for being unreservedly for yourself. I’m sure the words selfish, self-centered, foolish, and mistake will be tossed my way. Nevertheless, I’m folding the blankets up and storing them in a closet. I can’t give them away because my needs and issues will always be mine. However, now that I acknowledge their existence, I can take the goals out of the closet and store the blankets there instead. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/210121138834363299/