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4月30日 Close byI go to bars sometimes. Meeting people is refreshing but so often I am lost by the stories. The cute guy with the loose tongue from captain and coke says that he pimped a girl out at a truck stop for extra cash. He smiles with a toothless grin. I shower as I get home hoping to wash the sadness straight out of my heart.
We look at other places and thinking of how they might be more like America but sometimes you listen to the stories and the people and realize that we are so devoid of morals. Making a quick buck. I know that things happen everywhere, but I am amazed with our resources and freedoms and the choices we make.
People ask me why I don't photograph the injustices of the world and travel to other countries. Sometimes it only takes a quick five minutes to a local bar, a look down an alley, or a conversation to make me realize that I don't need to travel anywhere. As pretty as Summer is becoming, a whole lot of ugliness is close by as well. 4月26日 Your friend, yourselfRecently I have noticed that my life is akin to throwing a dinner party where I forgot to set a place for myself. No plate and I am starving!
I talk too much, I have lots of opinions, I can talk about myself too much, be self-centered, get caught up, take on the too many things, say yes to too many people. But honestly, I completely stink at taking care of myself. Always learning throughout life that I wanted to put others first seems noble, kind, and the type of person I want to be - but I run out of steam because basically, back to the analogy, I'm starved. There is a huge resevoir to help others and it is endless, but I am learning that I need to be my own friend too. It seems selfish. Recently when I got into a big fight with someone, I found the actions so hard to forgive - I beat myself up - I read the Bible - I read everything inspiring and it taught me to forgive - but I felt guilty about the boundaries I needed to make to prevent a repeat. I learned abstractly why maybe it is hard for people in abusive relationships to get out. It is so easy to forgive and want to forget. But there is a healthy - there must be a healthy and honest way to create boundaries. To say no to something because it is not okay.
I let go with love and I do forgive. But I am not willing to be in the same position. I think I am okay with this - though it is hard and it bothers me.
I am trying to think about what I would tell a dear friend and I realize often that thsoe things of love that I tell them are not the same things that I tell myself. I am currently not a good friend to myself and I hope to change that. It feels ackward. It feels bizarre. But as I set a place for myself at the table with friends, I might just find that I can listen better, laugh more and actually find a friend in myself. 4月11日 Fault LinesThings in my life seem to be shifting. I have lost my best friend not through death but through an action that I can't seem to turn back and make right. A hurt so strong and deep that there seems nothing left in that relationship. A movement in the core of my being that has spread by degrees into a crevice that makes everything seem more real. The sun drips through my window like honeydew and is soothing this morning, but all the elements seem crisper and more poignant. I feel as if I have woken from a dream into the elements with vulnerability.
I dreamt of an old horse last night. It seemed as if my white pony's strong spirit wanted to remind me of feeling out of control too. There was a harsh toughness to my youth that I could never quite close distance upon.
So often I have allowed my life to be ruled by fear. I thought that if I could just keep with it that I could make it understandable. I gave people excuses when they behaved strangely, as if because it was incomprehensible to me that I must be somehow at fault or lacking. - and they let me believe this. They let me believe that somehow the world had been unfair to them and that they were "owed something." They let me believe that an infraction on my part made me "unworthy" of them. That they could walk away from me without batting an eye, that I was dispensible, like trash. Trash that I should be grateful that they kept around. And all the time as I felt bad, I also felt sorry for them, believing that something within them was hurting and that they needed my love.
I felt like I could see their "broken spots." Little and big aching spots within them. I felt their loneliness more than I think they did. I felt everything. I felt illusions AND reality. I filled in the blanks of a million silent places and it made the people who would not let anyone close seem close to me.
But I knew them no more than anyone else. If anything, my vain attempt at putting words to their feelings made me know them even less. It made them almost fictional characters who dwelt in my mind speaking a fictional foreign language straight into my heart until I believed them.
4月9日 Farm LifeA bit ago I got to spend some time staying in complete farm country. I grew up in the suburbs of the city so my background is mainly urban with the exception of skiing in my youth, where time was mostly spent either on the slopes or in the taverns apres ski. I was young and remember it well with fond memories. Nothing compares though to this country life that I got to glimpse. The only place really to get dinner is a bar/restaurant and the locals were wonderful to meet. I love meeting people and finding out about all the different ways there are to live.
These folks pretty much worked on farms, and the descriptions of their days continue to fill my mind with awe. Pretty much they wake up at 5 am and work on the farm until 7 pm. They have off every other Sunday but that is about it as far as rest. Many work on their own family farms and this I find amazing as well. So much time is spent with their family. Honestly I thought my family was close because we kept in touch via phone and visits! Working side by side all their lives, these guys and their lifestyles are as foreign to me as another country. Their jokes and even dialect and usage of the language are refreshing and fabulous to be around. I have never laughed so loudly and carefreely. Is carefreely a word? I feel in love with the country and its unfamiliar ways. There was something so American- feeling about it. Rockwellian or something.
Surprisingly, there is also something that binds them to the lifestyle, land and animals that seems almost claustrophobic as well though. In such a wide open space, this seems a strange paradox. I did not come up with this on my own, rather, I gathered it from the days when the people I talked to seemed tired to the bone, and spoke of the life that they were committed to that had been chosen for them by generations of family ties to the places that they lived. I realized that I take for granted many freedoms. For many of the people I have known, pretty much life was open to possiblity of chosen professions, lifestyles and choices of where they might like to live and how they wanted to live it. I didn't really think about the people of my generation whose lives have been scripted so tightly by the generations before them and that dictated their futures so acutely.
My respect grew and grew. Surprisingly I was not outcasted as a stranger, instead I loved and appreciated the way they loved to describe their lives to me and share funny stories as well of growing up in the country. It was hard for me to fathom their lives and hard for them to fathom mine. We laughed at the differences and the term, "No WAY!" was common. While many seemed to love the times they have gotten to travel, they admitted to not liking the cities at all. Watching the news at dinner one night, it isn't hard to see why. These kind people, who all know eachother for years, rarely lock their doors and nearly every vechicle still had keys dangling in the ignitions. There is an honesty not only in their conversations but in the way they do everything. I loved eavesdropping into the conversations of "shop talk" that was entirely its own language. There was a banter to it that was interestingly calm but intent on understanding. A comraderie that is endearing and as natural as I have ever seen. Reminding me a bit of the talk on the docks of the fishermen in Maine.
I don't think I will ever eat my food, drink milk, or take for granted again anything that is the product of the hard work of the people I got to know. Beautiful individuals. I wish I wasn't so tired and could describe them better. Maybe one day I will write about my favorite ones so that I can share more. For now, I continue to admire and know that I am so unfamiliar with that kind of life but would love to understand more. It would be interesting to work on a farm for some time, but after hearing the descriptions, I know I wouldn't make it through the first two hours!! 4月2日 The learning process - letting goI saw "The Peaceful Warrior" last night. For those unfamiliar it is a story filled with metaphor and reality that shares ultimately great life lessons, particuliarily for those suffering from loss from a physical injury but also for anyone searching for happiness - and aren't we all searching for happiness? The great thing about it for me was when I got home. I went to bed and as I thought my thoughts before drfiting to sleep I questioned my fears and searched to identify the root. I found it.
I fear being unloved. I fear being alone. I fear what I went through already when I was injured in trying to gather the old me and incofrporate it with the me I am now. I fear that time that I was ill and suffering alone with myself - the isolation, the despair, the severe loneliness. And loneliness is the root of it all. Ironically this fear has made me half-awake in life and not engaged in the moment but living in fear of something happening in the future. I realized that this is not worth my "missing" more of life and it has.
Finding the root of my fear, I realized that my fear was something that I already lived through. To rehash it in my mind in future "what-if's" is isolating in and of itself and furthers my fears. To experience the past in my mind so much makes me frozen in a time of hardship and unhappiness that is unnessesary.
It is hard to let go of fear - it becomes a "friend" but not a good one, it instills a false sense of control. Fear can be a good friend at times - say a "red flag" that makes you stop and rethink a choice that may not be the right one at the time. However I have been plagued with an anxiety that is so sharp that it cuts like a knife daily and has no place in reality. It is in the confines of my mind and it has no origin and is only some reaction to an invisible root, that is, until I really thought about it.
The root: I fear being unloveable and no one is unlovable. Even when I was at my worst as a brain injury patient and yelling at everyone, I realize that I myself forgive me and would have loved me anyway despite my actions which were a symptom of my brain being damaged. While I take responsibility for my actions, I think I would have had compassion from the outside - many didn't and this frightened me. But I made it anyway. God, Allah, whatever we name that incredible force that I believe resides within us and above us was with me and helped me to be relisiant and will always be there. My faith helps me realize that it is okay.
I think I held the notion that I was and am unforgivable and that everything I did or said or whatever was monumentally important and unchangable. That I was stuck. The truth is is that I made myself stuck by being unable to forgive myself for anything past or future. I am human. Given hindsight and knowledge there are a million things that I would do differently in my life. Small things, big things. I truly regret any mistakes that I have made and am willing to learn from them and make different decisions in the future, but I am sure that I will accidently and unintentionally make mistakes in the future. I guess learning to forgive myself this is something that I need to do. The thing is is that even when I made the mistakes, at the time I did the best I could with the knowledge that I had at the time.
"I remember when I lost my mind- I remember I loved that day" - Gnarles Barkley - Ha! It is true. Being drunk for my carefree "nights out" month made me realize a few things - while I don't recommend it to anyone else - (that would be irresponsible) - it made me realize that I don't need to be so extreme in my control over EVERYthing. For me it taught me that I needed to relax and let things happen sometimes. I also need to let go of who I think I should have been - not that I give on up dreams...(see movie, The Peaceful Warrior) but that I needed to let go of this imaginary person that I thought I might have become had I not had my injury.
Have you ever played solitaire and you get dealt a somewhat crappy looking line-up of cards to start with - but if you play out the game - you realize that you are actually doing okay! |
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