blaugra

Friend Break-ups are the Worst

Some friendships just drift away, there's no real ending, and there's no feeling of animosity between the two. It just happens. But others, oy. There's a turning point. Is there a turning-back point? That's what I've been thinking about lately.

My old friend Pam and I broke up a few years ago, but she's been weighing heavily on my mind recently.

Our break-up came at a time when we were both mentally deficient. I was struggling with my bipolar disorder and a deep depression, and she was struggling as an unemployed single mother, who couldn't work, who was forced to move in with her cruel mother and she was likely depressed too. She and I had drifted since her daughter was born, but rekindled our friendship probably because of connecting on Facebook.

She sold all of her belongings on eBay and then her PayPal account got hacked. She tried to work but then had painful bouts of rheumatoid arthritis. Her baby daddy was incomunicado, she received no child support. And her daughter had a chronic illness that kept her going to the children's hospital where she lived, about 90 minutes away.

So we started talking on the phone, emailing again, laughing.  We laughed about the weekends down the shore and the fondue party and the partying in Philadelphia and my wedding. She appeared desperate though. Her living situation was getting worse and worse. Her self-esteem was in the toilet. Actually, at that time, mine was too. I was emotional and weepy. But I was excited about being friends again.

Then she said, "I would love to come and visit you." But her car was not running. BUT she could borrow her brother-in-law's van, which wasn't reliable either but she thought she could scrape together some gas money and bring Chloe and visit me. "It'll be so good to get away from here!" she enthusiastically said. I told Salty D. and my parents, who knew her too. They were not enthusiastic. They said I wasn't seeing the situation well. I talked to Therapist Jan about it. She agreed with my supporters.

What would Pam do in my town without money? Would I be spending my non-profit salary to feed and entertain her and her daughter? How long would she stay? What if the van broke down? What if her daughter needed immediate medical attention? What if she tried to sell my stuff on eBay?

So I went from being stoked about seeing her to realizing that it wasn't going to be a good time. And I sent her an email message, saying that I didn't think it was such a good idea after all, that I was concerned about her daughter's well-being and needing to be near her doctor. I didn't say to her that I wasn't well enough myself to host her, or that my support team thought it was a bad idea, and what if the stupid van broke down.

She responded to my email with one word.  "Wow." 

I felt so bad. But I didn't respond. I blocked her on Facebook. I didn't want her shaming me or anything like that. But she had nothing more to say.

After a while, I let it go. I let her go. But lately I've been thinking about her again. Her daughter must be in high school now, and hopefully isn't sick. Were they still living with her cruel mother?  Did Pam get a job? Is she homeless? Does she hate me?  Did she ever get any money from the scuzzball baby daddy? So, I don't know if I want to re-open this or not. I'm in a healthier position now but I'm still anxious thinking about her predicament and getting sucked in.

Deep breath. I think I'll let it go. The end.

So, the friendship ended with a "Wow."

Does this unemployment make my butt look bigger?

I've been unemployed for 7 months. 

I knew way beforehand that I was going to be unemployed, so there's no bitterness or resentment to deal with. My factory closed. So I had built up my LinkedIn contacts (and I hate LinkedIn) and left the job with piles of business cards of everyone I had met over 14 years. I started looking for a job a few months before we closed down. But still, no dice. 

I'm not even sure I'm doing unemployment right. I don't get out of bed early and go work out at a gym the way the experts advise you to do. I haven't taken any classes in data analytics or taken up crafting mosaics. I'm depressed. I've been drinking more than normal. I started working on my skin cancer tan.

But what I have done:

• Traveled through the southwest USA!
• Took my dad to have heart surgery out of town
• Seen movies at 1:00 on a weekday afternoon and marveled at how theatres can stay in business with just 3 people in the audience
• Talked to a shaman
• Gone to Portugal!
• Joined a surprisingly worthwhile Unemployed Professionals Group

This stuff, most of it life changing, has broken up the day-in day-out Indeed checking (the first thing I look at when I wake up,) job applications, hopes for interviews, hopes for second interviews, and that's as far as I've gotten. Still haven't achieved the second interview. I think interviews are strange and I think it shows. And don't get me started on job fairs. 

Some days I feel like that's OK. It's OK that I haven't found the job yet. The right one is still out there. The cosmos will make it happen.

Other days, there's a big fat unemployed loser stamp on my butt. I still don't know what I really want to do. How am I ever going to get a job? I should just get a cashier gig at Wegmans. OMG, what if I can't get a grocery store gig? I'm sick of people asking me "Do you have a job YET?" I mean JFC, I'd been working since I was 22, almost 30 years straight -- can a girl take a break?  

At least I stopped taking afternoon naps in front of Ellen. I still go to the grocery store a lot but it's less than during the first couple of months. I still haven't finished my home organization projects that I first tackled in November. I still have tearful meltdowns in front of Salty D. who tells me to get it together, that it'll happen soon, that I'm worthwhile and not a jobless feckless idiot. 

STILL... I'm not an entrepreneur, or consultant-material, or even an enthusiastic volunteer. The volunteer work I've been doing has been very short term, because, you know, that big job could come along at any moment, like a big fat gift falling from the sky. Gotta be ready for it (the director of the local volunteer center disagreed with me.)

I've learned how to just sit still and process my thoughts. At the same time, I'm wary of being too introverted. As that Yes song goes "Don't surround yourself with your self" (I've been listening to the classic rock station a lot lately.)

Today is one of those days where I can't discern if I'm just running in place or if I've actually progressed. Maybe I'm just hangin in there, baby. 

Better than Blaugra

At a holiday party, a friend said he was going to start a new blog that would be called Better than Blaugra. Because I haven't posted in a while. Understatement. I'm not sure, I think there was wine involved in this conversation, at least for me.  Better? I'd like to see that. Ha.

Now, what could be better than planning a trip to Madrid? I ask you.

That's right. For the year of my 50th birthday (WHAT) and my 20th anniversary (again what) I am going to Madrid. I lived there for 10 months back in the 1980s. I often say it was the best year of my life. To go back, after so many years, will be a dream come true. I have now hazy memories of the places and the city layout and where I lived and the language, but I hope most comes back to me. All the good stuff, of course.

Now I can afford to eat the expensive ham and drink the cocktails, not just the jugs of sangria. The hotel won't be the kind with the bathroom with just cold running water, down the hall. And I probably won't be at the dance clubs at 7:00 am. But I am ready to be jolted again by the capital city where I have mused that I want to retire to. We'll see about that. I'll have to save up some Euros and practice staying awake past 8:30pm.

 

On Giving Up

I was in my kitchen last night, trying to come up with dinner because the leftover Mardi Gras gumbo with all its seafood was not appealing. And I just thought, I want to give up. Not just in the kitchen, which I'd so loved over the past few years, cooking new recipes all the time. I want to give up everything.

How freeing it would be to just stop trying and throw my goals away. I wouldn't feel guilty or ashamed about not doing things. I already partly do this. I'm often in bed by 8:00, happily snoozing a dreamless sleep for as long as I can.

I was in a very popular grocery store on Superbowl Sunday - my mistake, it was so crowded - and while entering an anxiety attack, I thought, I don't need this shit. This isn't the way to live. But this week I really don't know the way to live.

Knowing that my depression, through my bipolar disorder, is lying to me is only partly soothing. I'm listening to the lies.

And frankly, I'm tired of trying to understand everything that happens in my brain. And tired of trying new meds. If I gave up I wouldn't have to keep trying.

This story has no ending.

"You don't have to be a veteran for it to work"

That's what my therapist said to me last night. She got started conducting EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy - with veterans, and absolutely loves doing it because it gets results. I still have no idea how it really works. But it's working like crazy whoa to bring down my anxiety so I can conquer my phobia.

My results, after just two sessions --> I drove on two highways for a round trip of 90 minutes, no tears, no shaking, no freaking out. I have a way to go but this was huge. It really feels like I'm in Driver's Ed again. I also went into a few normally nerve-wracking social situations with no problem, no Xanax, no anxiety - and one was my 30th high school reunion! I'm old.

Prior to starting the eye movement therapy, I took inventory of my body, noting where the tension was. Then I was asked to imagine a safe place to go to if it got too stressful. I then visualized an image of the problem I wanted to solve, and I rated how anxious it made me feel on a scale of 1 - 7, with 7 being most terrified. When I started, I was at a full tilt 7. When the eye movement stuff is done, you revisit all of this.

Then, the movement started. My eyes followed the therapist's moving hand and I let my mind go, first focused on my main problem. When she stopped moving her hand she would ask me, "What do you have?" what was I thinking of, what images came up? My brain unearthed all kinds of stuff, and a lot of it wasn't bad. Some was. It was very quick. There were tears. And laughter. And food. Lots of food experiences! Grandma's blueberry muffins came up more than once.

The therapist explained it to me in simple terms (because that's what I need): "sleep can process your anxieties but sometimes things are too big for sleep to process." and that EMDR gets these "things" unstuck, gets them processed and flowing.

It's surprisingly tiring. Most talk therapy is, but doing the eye movement sequences for just half an hour is almost exhausting.

I guess what I don't understand is how memories of Grandma's blueberry muffins with cold butter on them, made with blueberries that Grandpa had just picked down by the creek in upstate New York, how getting that through my brain helped me with my driving phobia. But I'll take it.

What does EMDR stand for?

I have a new therapist. Not because my former therapist didn't do it for me, but because that therapist discontinued her practice. Gee, was it something I said?

This new therapist, I like her too. A few weeks ago she introduced the idea of doing EMDR with me. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy.

She explained it as mimicking REM sleep, when your mind wanders more freely - but you're awake. She'll wave her hand in front of my eyes for me to follow, but, it's not hypnosis at all. Some therapists may use tapping or some hand-held buzzing devices. A former therapist from a few years back had me hold buzzers in my hands that buzzed alternately and got me talking more. But it wasn't formal EMDR.

EMDR is used successfully by the Department of Defense for veterans dealing with PTSD. While my anxiety and driving phobia aren't anywhere near the trauma of being at war, they can be "cured" using EMDR.

I'm hopeful, but a little scared of what might come out of the therapy. There are things I want to stop talking about, I feel like I've beaten those things to death. And there are other things that I'm sure have been hidden that will bubble to the surface.

New therapist told me that she worked with a guy who was deathly afraid of flying, much the way I am afraid of driving on a highway. And the therapy "fixed" the phobia. This possibility gives me goosebumps.

I'll do it, for the promise of regaining my freedom and getting over my intense driving fear. The anxiety has had to go somewhere, and this is where it went. Now, another attempt to get at the root of the anxiety.

I start tonight, and I'll report back.

Happylicious

I haven't written in a while, huh? I even forgot my Typepad password. Oy vey! But my friend Katey told me she just went to a blogging conference in North Dakota and I thought, heeeeeey I haven't blogged in a good long time.

"Today, think about what makes you happy. Don't leave this conference without having that one happy thing in your mind, and focus on it." that's what the speaker said to do at an event I just attended. 

I went through a time where little made me happy. Those of us with depression know that well. I won't dwell.

At this event, I thought, hey wait a minute, there is something that has made me consistently happy over the past couple of years:

Cooking dinner.

Some days, cooking dinner is the best part of the day. I love planning meals for the week, looking for new recipes that will make both me and Salty D. happy, and trying new flavors. I like figuring out what to make with leftover ingredients so I don't waste cauliflower or parsley.  I'm not a culinary genius or even a foodie, but there's something so satisfying about tackling a new recipe.

Many days, all afternoon on the job, I look forward to getting home and cooking. If I have something going on after work, I'm slightly bummed about missing my time with dinner.  Occasionally, I have turned down weeknight events so I don't miss preparing a freshly-cooked supper.

I credit some of this to Weight Watchers, and I still use their recipe database to plan meals and try new things. Weight Watchers pretty much requires that you plan ahead for healthy eating. I'm no longer satisfied with pantry pasta, a jar of sauce and frozen meatballs. Wait-  I admit, once in a while that's pretty darn good comfort food.

One of my favorite things to do with dinner is to time the plating of the meal so it's done at exactly the time Jeopardy! starts. Salty D. and I love to watch Jeopardy! Like an old married couple. We yell at the contestants and shout out the answers. While we're eating.

On nights like tonight, I'm bummed because I have a Zumba class. Zumba doesn't finish until 7:00, then I have to go home and make dinner. It's ready to be heated up, but, still, I have grown to love my routine.

It simply makes me happy.

Summer Vegetable Farro Salad by Weight Watchers features fresh dill and is so scrumptious! 

Salty D. doesn't like it but whatever.

Playing it forward or bagging it? My adventure with the viola

It's been 8 months since I first picked up the viola. 

I had long wanted to play the violin, and when I talked about it with Salty D., he said, "Why not the viola? It won't be as squeaky as the violin." What I didn't know is that the viola is a little harder to learn than the violin, in addition to being slightly larger. 

I rented a viola that was pretty banged up from kids playing it in their school orchestra. I brought it home and Salty D. said. "Oh...I meant cello, not viola." Too late. I had found a violin teacher who also taught viola. I jumped in, stoked to make music again.

We found out that a few Velvet Underground songs featured the viola, as well as The Who's Baba O'Riley. I could play anything on the viola. This was very exciting.

I found myself telling my teacher Viola Gail each week that my brain was working really hard to understand the notes, to find them on the strings, to hold the bow the right way. Still, I was having fun. Throughout the summer, I'd sweat so much practicing (a mixture of heat and anxiety) I'd take off my pants to be more comfortable, and hope that nobody came to my door to tell me to knock off the squeaky folk music (because, yes, violas squeak just as much as violins.)

Then the music school closed. So I found a new teacher, Viola Ro.  She recommended a different size viola, so I went to a new place that built a beautiful new correctly-sized instrument for me to rent. I felt better already.  And then... Viola Ro pointed out everything I had done wrong over the summer. Everything was wrong in the way I held the viola and tried to play it. Everything. 

Why did I decide, at age 47, to pick up the viola? I wanted to work my brain, yes. I wanted to play music again. But more than that, I wanted to build up my confidence, and music is an excellent way to do that. Self-esteem soars when you nail a piece of beautiful music. Or even a piece of folk music you don't really care for, that has the word "cabbage" in its title.

But this has been having the opposite effect. I've actually gotten worse. I've tried several tools and techniques - a new shoulder rest, a bow-right to keep my bow from skating down the strings, leaning up against the wall to keep my arm straight, practicing my Suzuki book until my arms ache. And it doesn't sound any better.

Tears roll down my face at lessons, making my teacher uncomfortable and causing me to apologize for my frustration, discouragement, and poor playing. She struggles to compliment me. "That was a GREAT tone on that one." She takes hold of my bowing arm to try to make me feel the way it should be played. It doesn't work. In fact, I hate that. 

47-year-old hands aren't as flexible as a child's. Our brains don't remember all of the memorized pieces as well.

I've told the teacher that I'm at a crossroads, do I want to continue? She says nothing about that, and just gets me to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star again and tells me which notes are flat. 

I haven't decided whether or not to stick with it. It doesn't make me feel good. But I don't want to quit when I've given it less than a year.  And maybe someday it will click. I won't need to use the little foot corn pad on the bow to help my pinky stay arched. I'll feel like I'm good at learning something new.  But until that magic moment of transformation, I just continue to feel depressed and discouraged and frustrated.  

Tai Chi. Flamenco. MBA. Oil painting. Tap dancing. Leading a board. The ongoing list of things I've tried and quit. I don't really want to add another thing to the "I quit!" list. But maybe it's better to keep trying different things until something really pleasurable sticks.  Or, maybe the pleasure is in the initial approach. 

Taking opinions in the comments section.

 P.S. June 10: Thank you to everyone who offered me opinions on and off-line. I quit my viola lessons, I worked at it for eleven months. I thought I'd feel sadder to leave it behind but a huge weight lifted off my shoulders -- literally! -- instead.  I'm glad I tried.

Things are looking up.

Over the past couple of years, when I've walked down the street or through the park, I've looked down at my feet navigating the pavement, at the sidewalk going by.  I guess it's because of my low self-confidence, of feeling like I was going to fall, of wanting to be invisible.

I still have those self-confidence issues, and fear and anxiety, but have decided that I need to look up. The sun is warm and the air not at all stifling. It hasn't rained enough here so almost every day is beautiful. I need to walk to clear my head and work out the kinks from sitting in an office chair for hours.

So, today, I made that deliberate decision to raise my eyes from the painted lines on the blacktop, put my face to the sun, shoulders back, and walk. It was a real effort, actually. I had really fallen into a bad habit.

On my city's rails-to-trails-to-greenway park, I've loved seeing what some of the property owners have done to brighten up the area. I really noticed this one today while looking up:

I love hostas. I don't think they're boring at all. And how inviting is this urban home? So fun.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Dear God

I was raised not on religion but on Judy Blume books. "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" had a huge impact on the way I spoke to a singular deity.

And then I went to church. I became a testifying, devout born-again Christian. For about two years. Go ahead and laugh, that's what people normally do with born-again Christians, who are seen as having their head in the sands of conservatism, believing that ancient fictional stories are true history and law. I've been there.

The truth is, being a little Christian gave me a framework to survive the harrowing high school years. Without that framework, I would've been gobbled up. I was mentally very vulnerable. I have no regrets because it was my decision.

Now I am surrounded by fallen Catholics, cultural Jews and unimpressed Protestants, and committed atheists.

I myself am no longer impressed with the church or with the stories of Jesus. When I was an ardent Christ follower, I was told (and it was a bible verse apparently) that once you have committed to Jesus, you are saved and you are forever saved. No matter what. I find that hard to believe now. With everything I've done and thought, that the son of God will still take me to heaven? I find everything hard to believe now, including the reason that I'd even want to be saved.

What I've liked about acting Jewish is that there's a direct line to God. You don't have to go through any saints or holy mothers or the trinity. It's just, "Dear God..."

And so I've had a relationship with God on my own terms.

It's highly recommended by counselors everywhere (do you like how I'm lazily not attributing that to any source?) that a belief in a higher power, that prayer and/or meditation, has the power to help you heal and have a positive outlook. I believe that. So I've chosen to believe and pray.

Prayer used to come easily to me. Usually in short bursts, or maybe a longer meditation of everything I am grateful for.  I always felt peaceful afterwards, so that's reason enough to do it.

Now, I'm bored with prayer. It doesn't come easily. I fall asleep after five words in. Does that incomplete prayer even count?

My parents have been going through a church resurgence in their senior years. They attend each Sunday and they like to call me to tell me what the sermon was about, how it was delivered, and how impressed they were with the minister. It takes every ounce of patience not to say "I DON'T CARE!"

And I try to just express gratitude to God, but increasingly I just want to tell God what to do.  It's like God needs direction these days because our world is so fucked. Actually that may be what uber-conservative Christians think too, that they can just control it all.  Dear God, don't  let me be that kind of thinker.

I don't know how to end this. Amen? Lame.