Back There Again

Fell asleep too early due to skipping my afternoon coffee at Market, and now it's only 1 am but I am up and in that bad zone. Everything has been so overwhelming, and I am working so hard, that it has not been a good time to reflect on anything in the short intervals of deck time I get. Working alone gives me time to think but because the work is repetitious and does demand focus I tend to just get obsessive: I'll go over an incident or thought repeatedly until I get deep into whatever cognitive space it occupies, rational or otherwise.

So I've silenced myself in this refuge, mostly. People read it, and they know who I am, so it isn't so safe as it once was. There's so much I can't talk about, big stakes kinds of things. It's important to keep focused on the end goals and not mess things up with this kind of process where I just need to go through the emotions and put them in order and move into the better spaces where the work will really be done.

It had been going fairly well. I've been working these long days, being super productive, made some beautiful designs and have earned some serious money doing it, all good and satisfying work. This is the time when I make most of my yearly income. May and June and early July, as gorgeous and lush as they are, get little bits of my attention while I produce and serve my clients and do my best to solve problems and meet my other commitments, and I had been cruising along. I like to work hard.

Then Suzi's book came out, and I dragged myself over to the last few minutes of the Saturday event to see the Museum exhibit, and I felt myself in a blossoming period. My mastering phase...my art is not too amateur now to be proud of it, my wit is honed and appropriately used, my philanthropy level is high and my skills put to effective use. My body of work is impressive, and I have some admirable qualities developed the hard way. Reading her chapter about me put my life in such a nice perspective. While I'm still so very vital, so strong, meeting a higher level of challenge than I would have expected for myself, I'm also on the cusp of loss. Next year I'll be 70. It is so beautiful to be seen in flattering light, to be appreciated and recognized. I am proud of myself. But it's ephemeral.

Loss is there for all of us and we grow increasingly aware of it and hope to also better handle it. Most of my avoidance is about spinning it, using my empathy for helping others through it if I can, giving to keep from feeling empty, working hard to keep from sitting silently wrapped in it. I also have been extremely lucky in that I still have Mom for a bit longer, haven't lost any siblings or young ones, and I am healthy and independent. And I love work and have plenty of it. People need me. I get thanked a lot.

But trauma lurks, and even though in the good times I am sure I have healed and won't be triggered and can use my practices to diminish the effects, god damn it to hell I am still tiny 2-year old Dianie down in there. She's pretty kind to me but she comes out late at night like this. It's sad. It is pretty easy to push her over her edge.

I've written reams about it and yeah, this isn't really safe space and processing it isn't really healing. It's kind of attention-getting when I put it on FB. Truly I dislike drawing attention to it so I set myself up badly and am neither happy getting comforted or being ignored. It's best handled in the private office of someone. But incidents must be processed. I get triggered by a set of human behaviors or circumstances that takes me back to times when I was not powerful, when I was damaged. Most people have some degree of that. I've worked endlessly on it, and I know it well, but it always blindsides me at least for some period of time until I get it pinned back down. Like a little monster. Like a wound that rips open. It makes me human and it makes me deeply sad and once in awhile it makes me angry, just a little. I am not one who lets much anger happen, or probably I just mask it so even I don't recognize it.

Today I bought myself a bunch of gladiolas, lots of kimchee so I can make quick salads, many pints of cherries, as many meals as I wanted at Market, and even a pretty 50th season piece of memorabilia, a potholder by Dona Rennick. Bless her, she always thanks me for my volunteer work and gives back to me and is a wonderful woman. Her work is stunning, so joyful and full of color. She had a hanging of flowers in a vase that was the most gorgeous thing. I should have bought it for myself but I am also in kind of a frugal place where I need to prepare more for my old age and am trying not to buy things, and to save. But I do think my life would be better with that on my wall. I do have the gladiolas.

What we are doing, with the redesign of our home, is hard, maybe the hardest thing I have ever done. You all know I have really been diligent. I have put so much time into it, have sacrificed income many times for it, and will continue to do so until we get through it. I hope there will be an end, but realistically, we will be navigating this for the next two years at least. This week I was the lowest I get.

I can't talk about it as you know, but these were my (irrational, I know) feelings: I am invisible, I am not a person here, my work has not been seen or honored, I was just minimized by a comment about my appearance (however well-meant), I am being manipulated, I have been set up, I am powerless, I am doomed, I am derailed, I won't survive this, I can't continue, I am devastated, and I can't reveal any of it. These things were mostly not true, as you can see immediately...this is trauma talk.

I didn't ever even get to anger until I drank a beer, so all that says is alcohol is a destructive force to change depression to anger until it goes to shame. Alcohol can sometimes give me a tiny boost from the initial euphoria so sometimes I use it, mostly so I will either sit down and stop working or get up and finish something boring that I have to do to get to the next thing that I have to do. I don't have time right now to process any damn trauma. I have piles and piles of work to do. Cannabis helps a little too, for a little emotional distance when I have work I can do without thinking about it much. Like dishwashing or folding piles of shirts. But neither really helps. Reading can help, writing always helps. Comfort eating has to happen. I wish I were more of a hugger, but I'm not, so that rarely helps. Work is my best remedy, or gardening, if I only had time for that. I pick berries. I get back to work.

So after the stuff happened I did dive into work after I got fully compliant and decided I deserved to have all those feelings because everyone was either evil or stupid and it was definitely true they didn't care about me and wouldn't protect me. These are little kid thoughts, trauma thoughts. They can't be in play right now.

So thank goodness I am not in this alone. I got some healing today (missed the Empathy tent though) by being surrounded by the beauty of my community and the park we work in every week, by having Suzi come by with some books for me to give away, sharing her joy in her accomplishment and our shared legacy (Library of Congress!!!) and by spending my hard-earned money on myself and others. It was mostly a beautiful, kind day, though not all of it. I'm still fragile and certain people are still a danger to me when I'm in that state.

The things that triggered me are fixable. It was details, it was probably misunderstanding (let's say unfortunate rather than stupid, and instead of evil, let's just say our goals aren't quite aligned yet) and although I may not get to have the healing conversations with those who made the errors, I might. I talked them over with a couple of people, beacause I had to, and got some sympathy and understanding and support. We have a strong team and a strong position and our outcomes are defined and reasonable and we can continue to work well and effectively. But the timing still sucks. I lost a day and a half of work last week, and will lose at least a day this week and have to skip Tuesday Market. I don't have that kind of time to give away. I really hate it when I am working on 4th of July while everyone in the country is eating hot dogs. I really really hate it when I am moving out to OCF without having had the time to get properly organized. It's awful when I order too much or make too many of something that doesn't even sell or run out of something that does. I hate it when Monday of Fair arrives and I haven't had the fun, taken the night walks or bought the special things or hugged the precious people with the full attention they deserve (I do sometimes hug people.)

Sacrifice is noble but also self-sabotage on some level, but I will continue to serve and thus to pay. It will continue to be worth it, and I absolutely know how grateful and appreciative my community is. Almost all of my irrational feelings stated above have been put into perspective and aren't chewing me up inside. I've had dozens of imaginary conversations where I "straighten people out" and "let them have it" and "make sure they get it" and all the weird statements of revenge and punishment that come out of abusive treatment that carries along through the generations. I don't generally take those imaginary conversations to the level of sharing them. I put them in my journals maybe and I definitely obsessively repeat them when the sleeplessness comes around. But when I get with the people, I am polite and I give them the benefit of the doubt and it is usually a huge relief that all of my interpretations were not accurate. Everyone else is also trying to do a hard job, and none of them are perfect either. We can try some more.

I can hope for an apology, or I can ask for an apology, or find a framing that is neutral and will take my hurt to a helpful talking point that will work to change the underlying condition. All things are possible. I know not to let it fester. I can speak some of it and will have an opportunity. I have written it here even though it could be read by the wrong people. If they do read it, and get it, maybe then they are the right people. And the right people for me, my regular readers, they can have this little time with me again. I always feel bad when I am not writing. It's too bad those joyful posts I compose on the way home, slowly biking past the rose bushes and under our superbly benevolent street trees, don't often get written down. Pretend this is one of them. Remind yourself, as I am now, how short this night is, and how long and lingering the day will be tomorrow, warm and bright.