Category — Key Memories

So I am feeling so much better.  Things look differently to me as I go about my everyday life.  I’m still suspicious of myself sometimes.

I have been working on this home inventory project for insurance purposes that I have wanted to complete for two and a half years.  A while back I’d had some false starts using different software than I am now, but recently I got all the kinks worked out, found the software I wanted to use, even recovered from losing some data I entered, and now I am really on the path to finishing this huge, massive project.

I’ve become driven to complete it.  Each night I have my lists of what to do the next day so I can easily find my place and keep working.  It’s Saturday today and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed to get up and keep working.  I probably have another 3 or 4 days of work.

Along the way I’ve asked myself – why oh why do you care so much about this when there is so much work involved.  Why am I so driven?  The best conclusion I’ve come to is that I just like having stuff like a home inventory done.  I like finishing things that take massive effort like the patio set, like the 14 or so scrapbooks I’ve finished.

I have learned to be suspicious of manic-ness.  So of course I’ve wondered if this is manic-ness or just that I am driven.

I am excited.  I can see the end in sight.  When I was manic and felt excited, the excitement felt like a nervous excitement, jangley.  I am not nervous excited.  I do feel good deep down inside.  I feel that when I breathe.  I kind of wonder if I am excited because I have the chance to apply myself to doing something tangibly productive.  I haven’t had much of that this year.  As I sit here and think about this, I have a kind of relaxed, resigned feeling about my self-examination.  I’m not itching to get myself to stop or get on with it so I can work on my project.

Last night I wanted to keep working, too, but I also held off because I was tired.  I figured I would get more done if I stopped and began again in the morning.  I was kind of reminded of my other detailed, organizational projects I’ve done over the years like tagging my photos with keywords.  There’s this funny appeal for me to projects that are boring, massive and detail oriented like this.

What was nice about last night was that my husband had come home from work and we were sitting together in the living room watching TV and working on our respective laptops.  I had been in my own world.  He was in his.  Eventually, we really came together.  As the evening wore on, I was chatting up a storm.  In the old days when I was manic, I wouldn’t have been available for casual chatting.  I would have been super focused on what I was doing, even when I had down time.

Last night I was aware that I felt like I was on the fringe of that possibility of having an open heart and be able to relax away from my project.  By on the fringe I mean that I had stopped my intense work on the project because I knew that was good for me but I still didn’t know how to exactly let my drive go.  It was like I was shy with myself and with my life.  It’s an odd question but it was like I was wondering – did my life want me in my non-driven state, was I welcome after having been so driven?  Could I switch from being really on to not wanting to be on and find a new groove?

Yeah, that’s it.

I’ve been thinking about the source of my drive which I imagine to be working in my parents’ printing business where there would be large, massive projects that would have to be finished by a deadline.  Often boring the only way to complete them was to work steadily, measure your progress, and take advantage of the good feelings of momentum toward completion.  I would have been lauded for being a good worker but I wouldn’t have been lauded for being me in all of my other ways of being.  In our daily life you relaxed when you finished your work.  The worked loomed in your head until it could be completed.  My family couldn’t relax in between.

So it makes so much sense to me that I would have metaphorically been standing on the edge of relaxation, hoping to be invited to join the party and not being completely sure what parties like this were like.  But I did stand there.  Hoping.  And I did find an immense amount of delight chit chatting with my husband.  We both felt so open hearted and close to one another.

I’m not so sure about this drive thing and it’s future place in my life.  I’m still a little suspicious of it.  That served me well yesterday because it had me consciously stop.  I certainly don’t feel the old nervous excitement of my manic days, but I also don’t completely trust myself either.

The antidote to lack of trust always has its source in my attachment to Andrea.  I guess what that means right now is remembering and feeling how she wants to be with me, discovering who I am, and just being.  I am safe with her even when I am angry with her.

I hope for today that I can be flexible with my drive.  Looser.  Not so rigid.  Yet still disciplined enough that I can finish this project and move on to some of the more fun things I want to accomplish.  It’s odd but what makes the difference is if I approach this project with a “hard heart” or a softer heart.

Today I am sick with a head cold, sore throat and mild cough.  It’s reminding me of days past when being sick was even more miserable than it had to be because I was terrified of the impact that my illness would have on my performance in the world.

In those days the only barometer I had of my sense of self-worth was based on how well I succeeded out in the world.  So when I got sick it was terrifying.  Everything about who I was felt like it was on the line. I had no enduring sense of myself that could transcend being sick.  

It was four years into therapy before I recognized this feeling. I was in my car talking with my therapist on my cell phone.  I was parked in a corner lot across from a gas station just blocks from my twenty story office building.  It was after 9 am.  I had gotten myself to work despite having a cold, but I’d headed home because my brain was not functioning.

I’d called my therapist in a panic.  I was so scared because I wouldn’t be there to do my job and I thought everything would crash down on me.  I was also feeling edgy and uncomfortable just at the thought of being sick.  It was untenable.  I had no place to go inside of me to feel comfort, and of course my failure to perform was also adding to the weight of the situation.

Andrea calmed me down and this was the first time that we started to talk about this feeling. The first three years of our relationship were filled with conversations about my failing marriage.  Most of the fourth year we were talking about the fall out from my divorce.  This was a rare moment when we had the luxury to focus exclusively on me without distraction.

After I spoke to her, I still felt miserable.  However, as I am writing this post, I can see that it was a key moment when I let Andrea really help me and reassure me.    I did feel better because she was there, because she still had respect for me even though I felt so useless, so unable to get any sense of esteem because I felt so broken.

This experience happened about six years ago.  It would be many more years before I could understand and access Andrea’s respect, love and guidance for me on a regular basis.   I’d like to think of myself as being a smart cookie, but when it came to this kind of stuff it took me a very long time to grasp that I did not have to live alone. I am still learning this.

So it’s remarkable to me that today I can be sick, allow myself to relax, and feel what I am feeling.  I used to be consumed with the fear that I’d never feel better. I couldn’t soothe myself through the healing process and remember that I could be well again. Now I can be with myself in the discomfort and know that one day I will be well.  This sickness does not define who I am entirely as a person.  And I can even enjoy the luxury of being angry that I can’t do what I would like to do because there’s no anxiety attached to the frustration.