Figure out what happens next.

a few days ago I realized that healing from almost anything people go through the same stages. I do NOT have to recreate my own progress through the stuff to write the book, I just have to figure out what the character would do at x or y or z stage that fits the plot.

Yes, I need to actually write the f’n thing and feel the stuff when I’m doing that, but it’s NOT me. I don’t have to relive all the crapola in order to write the book. I can do it like writing a posting here. Sometimes, they make me teary, but rarely do they make me cry anymore. I’m far enough down the road that although I can touch and feel the pain of the 4 or 10 or 26 or 49 year old, it’s NOT who I am now.

So I don’t have to recreate hell in order to write the book, I don’t think. And THAT will allow me to write it; I think?

God I sure hope so!

All this work, 4 years worth now, started with the premise I was going to hire our old couples counselor to do “life coaching” so I could write the book. She thought the reason I couldn’t write it was because I hadn’t done the trauma work. Now I have, mostly. And I’m bored to my gills with not DOING something. I want to have something accomplished, finished, done already!

jkd

with Sally Mann tonight. In part, they both agreed that what frequently gets things done is simply tenacity. I agree as I’ve spent 50 years trying to beat a lot of the stuff I’ve now largely beat.

But the idea of tackling anything that takes more than a few weeks to do simply makes me want to weep in exhaustion and depression. That’s where I got to at the end of the interview.

As I continued to think about this and let it trickle through, it occurred to me that what’s stopping me isn’t that at all; it’s me.

The most dangerous enemy I had was me. I would have ripped apart every defense I had just to be loved or valued (or told I was).

The lockup here isn’t that I held back to not threaten my siblings or to try and be invisible, although I did both, it was that I didn’t trust myself.

The soft squishy core of me, the part I built all those defenses to protect? It’s biggest enemy was me because I’d throw it out in a heartbeat just for “the right words” or other (probably false) drivel.

And again, here we are.
It’s not that I don’t believe in my artistic vision, I do.

It’s not that I don’t think I have something to say, I do.

It’s not that I think I have no talent either; I do.

It’s that 1) the idea of tackling anything that will take as much effort as writing (or anything else artistic) will take makes me weary and 2)my guardian self doesn’t know whether to let go enough that I can try and get it done.

That guardian not trusting me is also why I’ve always treated myself as if I was a “cheap” commodity, or not worth much. The protector guards the innocent child, but thinks the rest of the package is not trustworthy.

Oh hell! I’ve done this one before. So much for my great “epiphany.” Fuck.

Can I please oh please just get it DONE already? I want to move on, be someone scarred, but not bleeding, ok? I’ve bled enough; I’ve cried enough!

Shit. I’m so tired and frustrated and just BORED. Dammit, I want to move ON already!

jkd

and pulled another batch ‘o books out. I have been semi methodically sorting through the books and stuff here. I have a pile to put on Ebay, another 2 piles to check to see if they’re Ebay or yardsale fodder, etc.

I also need to start pulling books for the 8 boxes of books that I’m supposed to deliver at the convention in July, and I need to start pulling stock for the con as well.

More stuff to go away. YEAH!

jkd

I have always loved doing collage. I think I’ll do a “game board” for my current projects, so I can celebrate, savor, whatever, the milestones along the way. This would be a fun, light way, of getting myself to see accomplishments, and hopefully the fun and lightness will make it not scary to the part of me that’s terrified of movement. Sort of a personal equivalent of all the “tickers” available online.

Hey you: future behavioral scientists! If you find a way to pull someone’s psyche around and mold it the way they want it to be, can you use me as a guniea pig pleease? Please?

jkd

live.

At the show we went to Saturday there was a booth from the prison system. They do upholstery! I have a leather chair my mom bought my dad that I want to recover. The club chairs are naugahyde that looks like black leather. If I can find some more naugahyde (the others are black) that’s almost close, I can have a wing chair and two club chairs that almost go together! Then all I would need is an ottoman….

I also have a fancy couch that I’d like recovered; we paid $1,000 for it, on sale and it’s going to take another $1000 to recover it. It’s a very cool looking design, but it’s not traditional, or easy to cover. I would have made a slip cover for it by now, if I could figure out how! Oh, I could just throw something over it, but we both love it because of its lines, and that would ruin them…. Sigh.

jkd

we went to a NH taste and buy expo in Manchester.

What he’d like me to do next is to move a stack of boxes and magazines so we have a wider pathway into the house. That is going to be relatively easy to do with the new space we created this morning.

jkd

The TV stand, empty, sits in the living room like a small cave awaiting a very small bear. The cat isn’t fond of it.

We have no plans to keep it. It will just fit in the station wagon, just.

Bon Ton is having a “Goodwill” sale until 4/7. You bring a piece of furniture or something to donate to Goodwill (there are some restrictions) and get a discount coupon for the store.

There’s a Bon Ton in Concord, about 1 hour from here. I have no idea what I’d buy at the store, as I’ve never been in a Bon Ton. I’ll go look, why not?

Get rid of something, get a tax write off and maybe a discount all at once? Gee…ask me again?

If we can get past the ice in the driveway to get the TV stand into the car, we may do this…stay tuned!

jkd

Outstanding items are below. The “main” goals of the multi-step items are first, the steps needed to accomplish or finish it follow.

IN PROCESS (2 ITEMS)*
Mail the rest of the rolling file cabinet to PioneerSpirit:

the wheels went in a small box ‘o stuff last week. the way to ship the long pieces arrived today. The two other pieces will hopefully go out TOMORROW! 2/11/08

If I can find the address and get my act together tonight, they’ll go out tomorrow 2/14,we’ve had various issues here, but last night/today it was ice, freezing rain, snow all day. DH did NOT want me to go anywhere, so I haven’t!

Outstanding:
Get the other new bookcases out of the kithen and into my office:

Remove the white melamine bookcase that’s in DH’s office,
Remove the large tool chest from the kitchen,
Move the dresser from my office to the kitchen,
(or get rid of it) 1/14/08

Pack the stuff in the bookcase that’s in my office that’s going to DH’s.
Move the bookcase, and
Set up the new bookcases and unpack the stuff to got in them.

Get the permanent base for the light table and get it set up in my office.

Take the folding chairs and footstool to the antique or consignment shop for sale.

Put the small table (when you find it!) into the kitchen.

Put the big table into the living room or possibly sell it?

Put the benches back into the van.

Get rid of the van.

Get the pocket table (retail table) from the attic to the dump. [Almost emptied 10/23]

Get the two J hooks hung from the roof joists in the attic, so we can put a closet pole between them and hang (out of the way!) our out-of-season clothes and/or(?) bedding).

Organize the consolidated files so you can find something!

Get rid of the boxes of papers, FILE the stuff already!

Wrap presents. Send off presents, as needed.

Clean up the attic, this will make almost all the rest of this easier!

jkd

The grieving I needed to do still isn’t done, although I had reasons why not…

I made it to the beach with my friend John the day we met SallyKitt, but not to my old neighborhood at all. I suppose that I need to do this same process, again and again. I know grief is cyclic, it comes and goes in waves, but…

Well I chickened out. I didn’t read the letter, didn’t do a ritual, felt too exposed, too public, too naked to vent any of it. I don’t know if this is 1)avoidance (cowardice?) 2)real embarrassment or 3)I really wasn’t in the right place. As I said, it would be much easier to do this if I lived in or around L.A.

I suppose that I’m going to have to do it with more “paper catharsis” my usual these days, as I seem to have a really hard time letting myself really feel and/or show this stuff. Of course, I’ve always had a hard time with this, despite being hysteric for a time, I just had so much more on my plate that I couldn’t contain it all.

My “inner voice” is telling me that I’m being too hard on myself, again. That I’ve avoided this stuff for 40+ years for a reason and just because I gave myself the time/place to do it didn’t make what I was trying to do any easier, my psyche doesn’t care about the financial cost one whit. I wasn’t ready for a full blown purge,and that’s what it is, period. Also, I may not need to have a complete breakdown either.

Damn I’m like a swimmer who’s trained in pools forever for a long, ocean race and is afraid to actually swim in the ocean. So frustrating!

jkd

P.S. the simile is very appropriate. I’d swum in pools and at the shore my whole life. The first time I was in a lake in a life belt and I couldn’t touch or see the bottom, I had hysterics!

I think that the trip to L.A. proved a few things. The biggest one is that although my family is probably better than my memories of them were, which was no doubt colored by the fact that I was in pain and this didn’t seem to phaze them, I will never be close to my relatives in the way that some of my friends are.

I wouldn’t mind moving back to California, but I have no interest in living in L.A. Partly because of the people I was with, who accept me for who/what I am now, and partly because I just like the small town better, I really liked Ridgecrest more than anything I saw in Los Angeles. I have no interest in living in a moneyed enclave or someplace that’s so crowded. I want to be involved with my community; I need to be “seen” more than that, which I suppose is no surprise.

I went to go see my parents’ graves and see if my sister and I could be friends, and both are a guarded success. My parents’ graves were too public for me to feel comfortable emoting over, although I did take them flowers and get a bit choked up. The visit with my sister was interesting, but I just don’t see how we can get past the obcession she has with money, status, power, stuff.

I explained to her husband that I’d spent a lot of time trying not to become a “tragic character” even though I know intellectually that’s doomed to failure. He responded, “But then you become you become your life work.” and I said, “Exactly so.” And from his perspective I suppose that’s fairly stupid or futile. But from mine, especially when I was a young adult and had NO confidence that I had anything to offer that the world would value, it made a good deal more sense.

I’m beginning to think that the belief that was instilled in me… that I was this horrible, repulsive human being who anyone of value would find loathsome, was rather like being cursed!

jkd