'How our words are understood doesn't depend just on how we express our ideas. It also depends on how someone receives what we're saying. I think the most important part about communicating is the listening 'we' do beforehand. When we can truly respect what someone brings to what we're offering, it makes the communication all the more meaningful.' (FR)
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Who am I?
What happens to innocence? After life experience robs us of it, are we the better for this? I think not. Suddenly everything is raw, ugly, frightening. You realize that no one else is looking out for you--you are alone. This would not be such a tragic event, except we are born into 'family' which provides a sense that we are not meant to be alone. We come to believe that those around us are there for our protection, for loving and nurturing us--it is our 'instinct' to believe this, even if they fail.
While still encapsulated in our own personal cocoon, we grow away from this dependence--or remain unnaturally attached to it because it seems demanded of us. We begin to see life as it truly is, not as we feel it should be.
If we are fortunate, maturity takes us by the hand and leads us safely into the world. Many times, though, we cling to our childhood--attemptng to write our future as we want it to be, rejecting the reality of the present. We are neither here nor there. We are neither adult nor child. We are nobody.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sometimes when I experience such a stream of consciousness, I begin to doubt the validity of my own thoughts, as is the case now. So I looked up the meaning of the word innocence in Encarta. One of the definitions supports my feelings, I suppose, so I will include it:
innocence
4. lack of worldly experience: a lack of experience of the world, especially when this results in a failure to recognize the harmful intentions of other people
Burning Bridges (I always thought you were not supposed to!!!! My bad!!!)
Today I'm burning bridges that need to be burned, and focusing my attention on the people who deserve it--those who have been helpful to me, supportive of me, and encouraging. They are abundant and willing to be there if I take the time to notice them. I've truly allowed those who do NOT deserve my attention, time, and energy to zap me, control me, and keep me frozen.
Today I say, 'Burn baby, burn!!! I don't have time for you!!'
....you want something so badly, and you KNOW you can never have it (the way you'd want it to be), and yet, you cannot let it go because you really want it THAT badly?! I'm having one of those days!!
This blog should include the subtitle: The Journey Inside Myself and Back (or Beyond). What I've learned about blogging since joining the millions who feel they 'must' write (as Rilke describes one who finds they 'must write') is that I am too self-conscious and sensitive to write for the 'public' or even for myself in a public forum. I am not beyond self-reflection/introspection. I still have so much doubt and fear that I've not properly confronted and overcome. I cannot seem to think past it. But then most of my handwritten journals were all about that--my journals are full of writings about my feelings on personal issues and life experiences that were too overwhelming for me to process without giving them a platform--a place to play them out for me to see. That IS very personal and perhaps such a 'journal' should remain so.
People in the blogging world/blogdom seem to have so many interesting and clever things to write about--common interest types of subjects. Most have a way of including their readers--bringing them into their world of thoughts and ponderings in a more universal way. Sure, my ramblings may attract an audience of people 'who relate'--but who wants to 'relate'? Typically, it's bad enough that one has life experiences that are so awful leaving us to feel the same. Must we read (or write, for that matter,) about it ad nauseam? I think not. So each time I try to write and all I hear in my head is angst and frustration with my life, I perpetuate the problem by beating myself up for not being past it all--for not dealing with my issues in a more mature way--for the inability to just get over it and move on in some meaningful/fulfilling way. For this very reason I feel I've nothing to say lately.
A friend recently said to me that if not for my 'bad luck', I'd have no luck at all. Sheesh, can this be true? You know, I don't see myself that way. As bad as things seem, I feel eternally optimisitc and really believe better times are just around the corner. But then, this has been a feeling that hasn't been satisfied in a meaningful way, or perhaps I should say in a life-changing way. That is what I desire the most--for my life to take that turn that places me in an ongoing positive and more permanent place. Is that possible? Does such a place exist?
I've been to therapists. I've read far too many self-help books. I know the various 'paths' available for 'finding myself'. I grew up in a very religious home. I've had good times and bad times--marriage, divorce, a near-death experience. I have good friends and bad--I've kept some, I've lost some. I am not unlike many people. Is it just that I feel that I am? I do feel like a bit of a freak! Perhaps I've come to believe all those voices in my head (not literal...ha...those of people in my past and still present, sometimes even my own) that influence me to feel inferior to everyone else. I would say I've experienced too many attitudes of doom and gloom. It feels like my best kept secret that deep down inside I don't feel that way, but to reveal this makes me feel arrogant--who am I to be happy and fulfilled? Who am I to 'get it right' and live well? That is truly how I feel most of the time--would that be someone who STILL feels undeserving?
I've only seen one real Broadway musical in NYC, and I'll date myself when I share the title, but it was 'Zorba the Greek' starring Anthony Quinn. I shared one of the lines from this performance with a friend not long ago as I was pondering yet another of those overwhelming times in life that I faced. The lyric was: 'Life is what you do, while you're waiting to die, This is how the time, goes by.' The person who heard this thought it represented a morbid outlook, but I happen to think of it as a challenge to realize that what we are 'doing', thinking , feeling, experiencing IS our life. It is how our time goes by and it's how our life takes shape and form. So much in life IS out of our control, but there is a vast amount of living that is very much ours to do with it as we choose. That is the message I receive when in my mind I hear the words to that song.
So, okay, I'm still reflecting, still writing about my ponderings about this life I'm living. I still ask questions, which at my age, feels embarrassing. Shouldn't I have more answers by now than this? I think what I need most of all is to give myself permission to stop belittling myself. I need to give that up and relax with it. Ha!! Easier said than done! But one can try?! OUCH!!!!! Those voices are telling me that trying is NOT doing (see how much psychology I've had?!). Ugh!!! A constant theme with me is 'let it go'...let it go...let it go!!!!!! Breathe....relax....regroup....refocus.....and let life happen without so much analysis. Live in the moment and enjoy that moment as much as I can.
A couple of times on TV now, I've seen interviews with a woman (Chris? perhaps) who has terminal cancer. The doctors tell her it's incurable. She's decided to see this experience as a challenge to live rather than a 'death sentence'. She's creating a 'reality film' about her ability to live with the cancer and to live in ways she'd not had the courage to before. She quit her job, moved, searched for doctors who are supportive of her efforts to live as long (and as well) as she can with the cancer in her liver and lungs. She's chosen to experience life in ways she had not before--bungie jumping, for example, and falling in love and marrying (the producer of her video fell for her, actually, and convinced her to marry him--how cool is that?). She is very inspiring, and I hope to follow her story as it unfolds. She seems very brave by exposing her life in this way and also by embracing it and living it even admitting that this may be what it took to make it happen. Can I be a Chris (*note to self: find out her 'real name' and find a link)?!?!
Anyway, I'll leave it at this--I've found my challenge for today--in fact, it's NOT a new one for me. In the past, I've sat with three different people who had cancer. One, in particular, did a lot of personal sharing with me of her experience. After her life ended, I found myself 'talking to her' and asking the question--'what was this experience (dying in this way) all about', and what I KNOW was her answer came to me clearly. It was NOT ALL about dying--it truly was about living. She lived much longer than anyone had anticipated. I happen to think that I befriended her at a time when others (and perhaps even she) had nearly given up on her existing much longer. She lived two years or more beyond the time I met her. She seemed to 'struggle' much of that time, but through it all, she lived and found some happiness and contentment in still being with us, especially with her family--her one daughter and two granddaughters and her sisters and other family members and friends. She showed love and compassion for those who would seem difficult to love under different circumstances. She had no time for hatred. She often spoke about her daughter's ex-husband, the father of her grandchildren. Though she had questionable feelings about him, she still held out hope that he would remain a fair and reasonable man. In other words, she embraced the importance of optimism. That is the legacy I must embrace and carry on.
Another experience I had was through one of my favorite books, also a journal, Song for Sarah, written by a young pregnant mother (Paula D'Arcy) who was in a car accident with her husband and toddler daughter, Sarah. A drunk driver hit them and both her daughter and husband were killed while she and her unborn child survived. She had journaled to Sarah while in the womb and afterwards ( I did the same with both my children which is why the book grabbed my attention). The book was a continuation of the journal she began to Sarah before birth, during her short lifetime, and after her death. Through her journal she searched for her own answers to why we must experience life in such difficult ways. I will paraphrase her conclusion which will remain with me the rest of my life. After much pondering she said that one day her memories hung like the empty clothes in the closet and she realized they only represented the person who wore them--the lives that existed before that fatal day when they were suddenly gone. Then it occurred to her that while memories have their meaning, she knew they did not properly represent the person. I think her line to describe this feeling went something like this....'all that remains of all that we were is the love'. Life is impermanent...only love remains. Memories sustain us, but love stays with us all of our days, and she made it her challenge to wake up everyday asking the question 'How can I love, whom can I love' each and every day for the rest of my life. She still had herself, she still had her unborn child, and she knew she could not drown in her sorrows. She could continue to love, even those who seemed lost to her, and she could share that love beyond the tragic experience of loss. Love is always there for the taking and for the sharing. Perhaps it should begin with loving ourselves?!
Have I come full circle? I don't know. I know it's painful to dwell on things that cannot be changed--to think about things over and over again with no resolution--it leaves me feeling tired, worn-out, defeated. I want to get out there and live. I don't want to wait for my 'life sentence'. I hear the messages--I 'get' them. It's time to show that I do!!!! Maybe someday soon, I'll have exciting adventures to share--or at least I will truly know how to laugh at the obstacles that sometimes overwhelm me. So many people here in 'blogdom' share such humorous stories of how they meet these challenges or how they perceive the experiences unfolding around us in the media and politics, etc. I can do it, too, if I get my head out of my own butt, huh?!?! Hahaha!! How pathetic....I DO need to come up for air!!!!!!!!!!
