I learned in therapy today that the oldest client my therapist ever treated was 83 years old.
I'm fifty.
I turned fifty on the 8th of last month, but the fact didn't really sink in until a few days ago. By "sink in" I mean, I didn't actually stop to consider how much time has passed since I was born versus the amount of time I might have left to live.
Actuarial tables, considering my family history, medical history, lifestyle choices, etc., suggest I will live 82 years. At moments I find the very idea horrifying. It seems too long, too painful, too pointless, to be here, doing what I do, for 32 more years. Sometimes I fantasize, very briefly, as many people do, that the bus will come and I won't see it; that my tires won't recover their purchase after losing it on black ice ... some moments I think it would just be easier not to have to wake up and do another day.
I could never devise and implement a plan for suicide. A failure at such an attempt would be intolerable. Additionally, I've seen what suicide does to those left behind and I just don't have the stomach for it -- I don't have it in me to issue such a violent, irrevocable "fuck you."
This woman, years and years ago, at age 83, already having out-lived my probable lifespan, chose to engage in psychotherapy because she had never been truly happy. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that, like me, she had had many, many moments of gladness or joy: children born, grandchildren born, and all of those milestones that come with raising a family, while working at a career or not; weddings, birthdays, anniversaries; and a variety of larks, too, like concerts & trips to the beach and bridge club or mah-jjong and girls' nights out, or whatever it was that her generation of women did for fun. Those are all glad little distractions. But gladness is very different from happiness -- from true contentment, from deep inner peace.
Eighty-three years, it took her, to schedule an appointment for therapy. 83 years, to say out loud, "What I've been experiencing has not been good enough. I want more. I want to know happiness before I die."
I wish I could meet this woman, this woman who, if she were still alive, would be older than my dead grandmothers, my grandmothers who believed psychotherapy was for weak people -- people who couldn't find their bootstraps -- and worse: psychotherapy was a waste of money, a waste of time.
It's only too late for the dead, it's true; but, there's dead, as in no longer breathing, and there's dead, as in living unconsciously.
I ain't dead.
1.3.12
21.2.12
The Gateway Building
I wonder if my therapist realizes how dark his office is, especially compared to the small ante-room where I wait for him to greet me.
The ante-room is bright. It would be easy to read magazines in there. The magazines don't interest me, so I read, over and over and over, a scroll on the wall, displaying words from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, concerning compassion and "wise selfishness."
The interior of the Gateway Building, where my therapist's office is located, is generally dark, except for this small ante-room with two chairs, a lamp, two windows, two coasters, and a couple of month's worth of Time magazines.
The interior of the building is dark. The therapist's office is dark.
I wonder if this is intentional, or if the therapist even realizes it. He has read the Tao, so I can envision either case.
The ante-room is bright. It would be easy to read magazines in there. The magazines don't interest me, so I read, over and over and over, a scroll on the wall, displaying words from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, concerning compassion and "wise selfishness."
The interior of the Gateway Building, where my therapist's office is located, is generally dark, except for this small ante-room with two chairs, a lamp, two windows, two coasters, and a couple of month's worth of Time magazines.
The interior of the building is dark. The therapist's office is dark.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
I wonder if this is intentional, or if the therapist even realizes it. He has read the Tao, so I can envision either case.
13.2.12
KER-CHUNK
My mother forgot my 16th birthday.
I was never a very demanding child.
Still, 16 ... isn't that kind of a big deal?
I acted out.
I pouted.
I may have stomped a foot, but not as vehemently as my little sister stomped hers when she wanted any-damned-thing, for no occasion at all.
My older brother did not have to foot-stomp. His needs for material things were anticipated and worried over and met before he even knew he had them.
No idea what She was going through, specifically -- didn't have an idea then, don't have an idea now. I just know she was broken long before she had kids.
Finally she said something along the lines of, "Well, what do you want?"
I said, "If you'll give me ten bucks I can add it to the money from my birthday cards and go to Walgreens and buy an 8-track player."
She rolled her eyes, but it was a smart purchase.
I'd listen to Boz Scaggs, Chicago, or Linda Ronstadt in my room at night, just loud enough to buffer my parents' yelling. And Stevie Wonder!
It's okay, I think, if your children occasionally hear you argue in a civil manner -- in a way that is mutually respectful and productive.
It's not okay for your children to hear you call each other names, or tell each other to go fuck yourselves. It's not okay for your children to witness blows.
A lot can be learned from healthy discussion.
When parents abuse one another though, a child infers that she does not matter, that she is nothing, that she is less than nothing.
For my 18th birthday I wanted a backgammon set.
Seriously, after all the eye-rolling I caused my mother, it's a wonder she still has eyes in her head.
I was never a very demanding child.
Still, 16 ... isn't that kind of a big deal?
I acted out.
I pouted.
I may have stomped a foot, but not as vehemently as my little sister stomped hers when she wanted any-damned-thing, for no occasion at all.
My older brother did not have to foot-stomp. His needs for material things were anticipated and worried over and met before he even knew he had them.
No idea what She was going through, specifically -- didn't have an idea then, don't have an idea now. I just know she was broken long before she had kids.
Finally she said something along the lines of, "Well, what do you want?"
I said, "If you'll give me ten bucks I can add it to the money from my birthday cards and go to Walgreens and buy an 8-track player."
She rolled her eyes, but it was a smart purchase.
I'd listen to Boz Scaggs, Chicago, or Linda Ronstadt in my room at night, just loud enough to buffer my parents' yelling. And Stevie Wonder!
It's okay, I think, if your children occasionally hear you argue in a civil manner -- in a way that is mutually respectful and productive.
It's not okay for your children to hear you call each other names, or tell each other to go fuck yourselves. It's not okay for your children to witness blows.
A lot can be learned from healthy discussion.
When parents abuse one another though, a child infers that she does not matter, that she is nothing, that she is less than nothing.
For my 18th birthday I wanted a backgammon set.
Seriously, after all the eye-rolling I caused my mother, it's a wonder she still has eyes in her head.
3.2.12
I'm a liar
I feel guilty.
Years ago, I felt compelled to drive to my brother's home. I felt the need to clear the air, to clean things up a bit.
I was going to have minor surgery. I'd talked the surgeon out of general anesthesia, but one never knows how surgeries will go. I'd thought, well, if they have to put me under for some reason, and I react to the anesthesia and die, I don't want this unfinished business between my brother and me because it might be bad for him.
So, I made the drive. Under two hours, that's how close we live and I rarely see him.
I felt anxious as I neared his house. He was standing there in the middle of the road. It was as if he knew I was coming. There was no way he could have known. My husband didn't even know.
He's always been more sensitive than me, or so it's seemed. We shared a strange sort of ESP as kids. Nothing alarming or very profound. Occasionally we would say the same random thing simultaneously, or maybe burst into the same song. Later, in our twenties, the night our father died, we shared an almost identical dream. So, I wasn't surprised to find him pacing in the middle of the road as I pulled up. He'd made things easier for me, knowing I would have chickened out if I'd had to go to the door.
I left the car running when I got out.
I told him something like, "I just wanted you to know that I'm okay with everything, I'm okay with us."
He said, "I think you may have found out something about me that you probably didn't want to know."
I said, "I don't have a problem with it. I don't think it's wrong, or weird, or anything anyone should worry about. I'm fine with it. I hope you're fine with it. I hope you're happy."
He didn't seem to feel any better, but maybe in time he would.
I pretty much leave him alone these days. I've stopped inviting him because he does not come. I do my best to allow him his space. I tell myself this is best for him. When I tell myself this, I don't know if I'm lying or not.
I feel guilty because I knew how to escape in more or less socially acceptable ways and he didn't. I retreated into books and drawing and writing and fantasy -- solitude. He coped by controlling the situation with asthma attacks. Asthma was the ticket; all I could ever muster was an ear infection, and an ear infection doesn't stop anyone in their tracks.
So, I have been lying.
I leave him alone and he leaves me alone because we are too close -- so close it's painful.
Years ago, I felt compelled to drive to my brother's home. I felt the need to clear the air, to clean things up a bit.
I was going to have minor surgery. I'd talked the surgeon out of general anesthesia, but one never knows how surgeries will go. I'd thought, well, if they have to put me under for some reason, and I react to the anesthesia and die, I don't want this unfinished business between my brother and me because it might be bad for him.
So, I made the drive. Under two hours, that's how close we live and I rarely see him.
I felt anxious as I neared his house. He was standing there in the middle of the road. It was as if he knew I was coming. There was no way he could have known. My husband didn't even know.
He's always been more sensitive than me, or so it's seemed. We shared a strange sort of ESP as kids. Nothing alarming or very profound. Occasionally we would say the same random thing simultaneously, or maybe burst into the same song. Later, in our twenties, the night our father died, we shared an almost identical dream. So, I wasn't surprised to find him pacing in the middle of the road as I pulled up. He'd made things easier for me, knowing I would have chickened out if I'd had to go to the door.
I left the car running when I got out.
I told him something like, "I just wanted you to know that I'm okay with everything, I'm okay with us."
He said, "I think you may have found out something about me that you probably didn't want to know."
I said, "I don't have a problem with it. I don't think it's wrong, or weird, or anything anyone should worry about. I'm fine with it. I hope you're fine with it. I hope you're happy."
He didn't seem to feel any better, but maybe in time he would.
I pretty much leave him alone these days. I've stopped inviting him because he does not come. I do my best to allow him his space. I tell myself this is best for him. When I tell myself this, I don't know if I'm lying or not.
I feel guilty because I knew how to escape in more or less socially acceptable ways and he didn't. I retreated into books and drawing and writing and fantasy -- solitude. He coped by controlling the situation with asthma attacks. Asthma was the ticket; all I could ever muster was an ear infection, and an ear infection doesn't stop anyone in their tracks.
So, I have been lying.
I leave him alone and he leaves me alone because we are too close -- so close it's painful.
29.1.12
I know who you are
I feel sad.
An hour or so ago, I told you that you have better things to do with your life than comfort drunks.
You smiled. You laughed it off as if it were nothing.
When you are a child and your mother's a drunk, I suppose the only thing you know how to do is hold her hair back from the vomit, undress her, put her to bed. To you, doing the same thing for a near stranger your own age is really no big deal.
Except it is a very big deal. It's a big deal because you've already been doing it for far too long. You've lost your entire childhood, or most of it, to mothering your mother. You've never had the benefit of naïveté children born to healthier families enjoy. You know things -- you know too much. You've experienced too much too soon. Your experiences limit you rather than set you free to become who you were meant to become.
You have been robbed.
This is why your smile and laughter are not appropriate.
This is why I repeated myself, "You have better things to do with your life than comfort drunks."
This is why, when you pushed me away, I hugged you anyway, until you hugged back.
I listened to you cry.
There is hope because you can still cry.
An hour or so ago, I told you that you have better things to do with your life than comfort drunks.
You smiled. You laughed it off as if it were nothing.
When you are a child and your mother's a drunk, I suppose the only thing you know how to do is hold her hair back from the vomit, undress her, put her to bed. To you, doing the same thing for a near stranger your own age is really no big deal.
Except it is a very big deal. It's a big deal because you've already been doing it for far too long. You've lost your entire childhood, or most of it, to mothering your mother. You've never had the benefit of naïveté children born to healthier families enjoy. You know things -- you know too much. You've experienced too much too soon. Your experiences limit you rather than set you free to become who you were meant to become.
You have been robbed.
This is why your smile and laughter are not appropriate.
This is why I repeated myself, "You have better things to do with your life than comfort drunks."
This is why, when you pushed me away, I hugged you anyway, until you hugged back.
I listened to you cry.
There is hope because you can still cry.
12.10.11
Lamburgers
[I'm still around. Sometimes I write some words. Sometimes people like them. This email, for example, I'm told, got stuffed into a "folder" called "best emails ever." Better'n being published, if you ask me.]
***
Hi ian-Bray,
Not to brag, but I own a 1996 Dodge Intrepid. If its body style doesn't date it, its color does: it is the most grating shade of ... teal. Condition-wise, though, the locals might call my old car "cherry," and Detroit would surely call it "mint." If I were stoned I might be able to figure out why fruits or herbs convey "newness" but I'm not stoned so I can't. Figure. Anything out. Much.
I bought this old car because I was pissed off (long story) at one of my kids. Also, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity: 34,000 miles for $2,300.00. Holy shit! Who could pass it up?
It has a cassette deck, which was useless to me, until Elder Eena, one day, found a Simon & Garfunkel "best of" at Goodwill for $0.79, plus tax. (Elder Eena gives the best gifts except on holidays when she stiffs us all -- she is so much like her mother in that regard). Elder Eena followed up the S&G with a boxed set of Bruce Springsteen, which, as much as I love Bruce, I find him more useful in the house -- "spring cleaning to Springsteen" is one of my favorite activities. No cassette deck in the house, though, so I haven't cleaned since last January.
Then, recently, my mother moved.
After she sold her spread in Vxrmxnt she was living with my brother, on Xxxxxxx Lake, in Xxxxxxxx, Michigan, for what seemed like forever. I wanted her to be closer to Trxvxrsx Cxty (she's 71) so she finally moved to a condominium on Crxxkxd Lxke, just south of Xdxn, Michigan. Perhaps sensing that this wasn't exactly the convenience I'll be looking for when she, you know, needs "help" or whatever, she offered me an old 3-CD changer she hadn't meant to bring with her from Vxrmxnt. It had belonged to her late husband (Rolling Stones fan, plus some Beatles and one really fun stxxl band). This efficient little machine has a cassette deck, so I might be cleaning house before the holidays. There's a recorded cassette tape in the cassette deck but I'm afraid to play it because w h a t i f h i s v o i c e i s o n t h e r e o h my g o d t h a t c o u l d b e c r e e p y ...
Instead of playing the potentially scary cassette, MrZ & I have been listening, with much pleasure and with many laughs, to your mix CD from Christmas of 2005.
It's the only CD we own.
In music-years, this CD is older than my car.
!!!
(Kidding: I actually listened to some Van Morrison earlier, then a whole boat-load of Jackson Browne, a bit of Cowboy Junkies, Sir Elton ... whatever I could find that wasn't, after all these stereo-less years, too coated with dog/cat hair to be operable.)
So I just got to thinking, you know, we're such assholes that we probably never properly thanked you for this beautiful gift of music.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for the gift of music, which we love.
Every happiness,
Z
[I'd made lamb burgers for dinner earlier, so the whole house was pretty lambentably funky-smelling. This email was written to not even a friend -- ian-Bray is one of MrZ's employees, and I truly like him, and I like his wife and kids, but he's not a person I would call at 3am screaming that my soul's against the ropes and I need to count on him.
It's not that I no longer write.
It's that I've had trouble for multiple multiple multiple months finding the words for general missives, and I've only been able to do the personal stuff when the spirit has been excruciatingly centered and absolutely clear.
I've been depressed since April, and depression is one of those things I don't share so well broadly -- spreading shit seems selfish to me.
I've had trouble climbing out this time, but I've got a toe-hold and a hand-grab now, most probably because my intimates (thank you so much) have worked just the right balance of prodding and letting it be.]
Deepest love to you all.
Lighter fare soon?
We can hope.
Hope, we will.
***
Hi ian-Bray,
Not to brag, but I own a 1996 Dodge Intrepid. If its body style doesn't date it, its color does: it is the most grating shade of ... teal. Condition-wise, though, the locals might call my old car "cherry," and Detroit would surely call it "mint." If I were stoned I might be able to figure out why fruits or herbs convey "newness" but I'm not stoned so I can't. Figure. Anything out. Much.
I bought this old car because I was pissed off (long story) at one of my kids. Also, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity: 34,000 miles for $2,300.00. Holy shit! Who could pass it up?
It has a cassette deck, which was useless to me, until Elder Eena, one day, found a Simon & Garfunkel "best of" at Goodwill for $0.79, plus tax. (Elder Eena gives the best gifts except on holidays when she stiffs us all -- she is so much like her mother in that regard). Elder Eena followed up the S&G with a boxed set of Bruce Springsteen, which, as much as I love Bruce, I find him more useful in the house -- "spring cleaning to Springsteen" is one of my favorite activities. No cassette deck in the house, though, so I haven't cleaned since last January.
Then, recently, my mother moved.
After she sold her spread in Vxrmxnt she was living with my brother, on Xxxxxxx Lake, in Xxxxxxxx, Michigan, for what seemed like forever. I wanted her to be closer to Trxvxrsx Cxty (she's 71) so she finally moved to a condominium on Crxxkxd Lxke, just south of Xdxn, Michigan. Perhaps sensing that this wasn't exactly the convenience I'll be looking for when she, you know, needs "help" or whatever, she offered me an old 3-CD changer she hadn't meant to bring with her from Vxrmxnt. It had belonged to her late husband (Rolling Stones fan, plus some Beatles and one really fun stxxl band). This efficient little machine has a cassette deck, so I might be cleaning house before the holidays. There's a recorded cassette tape in the cassette deck but I'm afraid to play it because w h a t i f h i s v o i c e i s o n t h e r e o h my g o d t h a t c o u l d b e c r e e p y ...
Instead of playing the potentially scary cassette, MrZ & I have been listening, with much pleasure and with many laughs, to your mix CD from Christmas of 2005.
It's the only CD we own.
In music-years, this CD is older than my car.
!!!
(Kidding: I actually listened to some Van Morrison earlier, then a whole boat-load of Jackson Browne, a bit of Cowboy Junkies, Sir Elton ... whatever I could find that wasn't, after all these stereo-less years, too coated with dog/cat hair to be operable.)
So I just got to thinking, you know, we're such assholes that we probably never properly thanked you for this beautiful gift of music.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for the gift of music, which we love.
Every happiness,
Z
[I'd made lamb burgers for dinner earlier, so the whole house was pretty lambentably funky-smelling. This email was written to not even a friend -- ian-Bray is one of MrZ's employees, and I truly like him, and I like his wife and kids, but he's not a person I would call at 3am screaming that my soul's against the ropes and I need to count on him.
It's not that I no longer write.
It's that I've had trouble for multiple multiple multiple months finding the words for general missives, and I've only been able to do the personal stuff when the spirit has been excruciatingly centered and absolutely clear.
I've been depressed since April, and depression is one of those things I don't share so well broadly -- spreading shit seems selfish to me.
I've had trouble climbing out this time, but I've got a toe-hold and a hand-grab now, most probably because my intimates (thank you so much) have worked just the right balance of prodding and letting it be.]
Deepest love to you all.
Lighter fare soon?
We can hope.
Hope, we will.
30.9.11
Answer me this
I've got a kid in the eleventh grade who doesn't know what the fuck she wants to do with her life beyond, you know, the whole eyeliner and boys thing.
I've got another who is a freshman at a very good state university, studying environmental sciences, thinking perhaps the world can still be saved; but, she's had a bad week, overslept the alarm a couple of times, got rear-ended to the tune of $6300 (no injuries, and thanks baby jesus for insurance & affordable deductibles) on her way to buy Pop-Tarts.
I've got a kid who at the ripe old age of twenty-four has decided that the end is near. The end of the world as we know it is just around the corner. He's coming off of a six-months job working outdoors, grunt labor for peanuts, in 100 degrees with humidity so high his cell phone has bit the dust twice. He now wants to "work out, play video games, and eat well." Part of me wishes he would renew his interest in marksmanship; I can see how marksmanship might be handy.
I've got a kid who has three kids of her own plus a husband in dental school. I tell her younger brother, the kid who wants to work out and eat well and play video games, "Your sister is a rebel and she goes her own way. Why do you think she delivers her babies at home and refuses to vaccinate them according to the prescribed schedule or put them into public schools?" and he says, "That's sweet." He means it. He respects her. She meets convention with ... the bird.
Bravo.
So, I just had this thought: if the kingdom is smoke and mirrors (which it clearly is), isn't its downfall smoke and mirrors, too?
What are we supposed to tell young people these days? How are we supposed to guide them?
Or are they supposed to guide us?
I've got another who is a freshman at a very good state university, studying environmental sciences, thinking perhaps the world can still be saved; but, she's had a bad week, overslept the alarm a couple of times, got rear-ended to the tune of $6300 (no injuries, and thanks baby jesus for insurance & affordable deductibles) on her way to buy Pop-Tarts.
I've got a kid who at the ripe old age of twenty-four has decided that the end is near. The end of the world as we know it is just around the corner. He's coming off of a six-months job working outdoors, grunt labor for peanuts, in 100 degrees with humidity so high his cell phone has bit the dust twice. He now wants to "work out, play video games, and eat well." Part of me wishes he would renew his interest in marksmanship; I can see how marksmanship might be handy.
I've got a kid who has three kids of her own plus a husband in dental school. I tell her younger brother, the kid who wants to work out and eat well and play video games, "Your sister is a rebel and she goes her own way. Why do you think she delivers her babies at home and refuses to vaccinate them according to the prescribed schedule or put them into public schools?" and he says, "That's sweet." He means it. He respects her. She meets convention with ... the bird.
Bravo.
So, I just had this thought: if the kingdom is smoke and mirrors (which it clearly is), isn't its downfall smoke and mirrors, too?
What are we supposed to tell young people these days? How are we supposed to guide them?
Or are they supposed to guide us?
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