Memories

 I got an email this morning from my old friend Rosemary.  We were really good friends in the late 70s, early 80s.  She sent me a pdf of this old picture of her and Will in our backyard in Pocatello.

NSFW - Sexy Will

 My sweet Will was a highly physical person.  He lived in the material world in a way that I didn't and don't.  He was very much aware of his body -- all its sensations, positive and negative.  Personality test-wise (for those who "believe" in Myers/Brigs) he was an ISTP -- focused on the material world. 

Thus, it's not surprising that he enjoyed sex up until almost the end.  Not that we were enjoying it together.  During the years of his dementia, we stopped having sex together but he didn't stop enjoying himself.

It was sex that brought us together.  In a later post I'll finally get the story of our "coming together" in print.  But here I'll note that Will and I had a lot of sex over the years in a lot of different places, including the car and in a bedroom at a friend's apartment during a New Year's Eve party.

But today I want to post two pictures of him that I've packed away.  I forget when I made these -- probably in the early Aughts. I decided to present the images here in the state they were in when I took them off the walls to take pictures.  Both works will now go back into my "Will" chest.

 The tall picture with the six Polaroids was framed by Sandy and Steve Miller at Sunbird.  It was actually in a "human figure" art show. 

This collage, with it's pearls and marbles, was supposed to be a solar system image with Will's cock at the center.  Unfortunately, the wire that I bought got very bendy and crinkly so it didn't turn out the way I envisioned it.  But I didn't want to try again so here it is.  (With art as with writing, I don't like "do overs.")

 

 

Getting Better and Hope

Well, it seems that just the thought of healing my depression is having a positive effect.

Healing?  Is it possible to heal a lifelong experience of spins into despair, spins that started in sixth grade or before?  Is it possible that I could cease being quite so fucking neurotic?  Well, maybe that won't happen.  But it looks like I could get rid of the deeply rooted mix of rage, fear, and self-hatred that have tangled my brain since childhood. 

I will be entering into ketamine infusion based therapy in October. It has a high rate of success in "curing" depression and PTSD.  I will be going off anti-depressants!  Yay!  But what do I mean by the thought itself having a positive effect?

Over the weekend I made a relational fox pass (faux pas) of the sort which would have pushed me into self-hatred in the past and possibly resulted in a self-harming incident.  Instead, I just said, "Oh, well" and took care of the problem I'd made for myself, managing the embarrassment as "this is the kind of thing an enthusiastic person like me will do on occasion" rather than saying, "Kake, you're a fucking idiot.  Stop sticking your neck out.  You deserve punishment."

 

 

 

Teachers and Love (memoir)

Will was not the first or the last teacher with whom I "fell in love."

My first crush was Mrs. W., my fourth grade teacher.  I stayed after class talking and cleaning erasers.  After I went on to fifth and sixth grade, I kept hanging out with her after school. When we moved to Massol Ave. I found out she lived close about a half mile away and I started riding my bike to her house and hanging out.  I have no idea what we talked about.  The relationship ended after she invited me to go with her and her husband on a trip to Hawaii the summer after sixth grade and it didn't turn out the way anyone expected.

Why did she invite me?  I have no idea.  Were they trying to figure out if they wanted kids?  Did she think I was way more competent at life than I seemed to be?  Anyway, it turned out badly.  I wound up breaking a glass bowl by putting it on the stove and flattening a water toy by taking it into a rocky ocean.  I did not know how to care for myself, foodwise or friendwise.  I guess they thought I'd meet kids in the neighborhood and play, but when she and her husband were out of the house, I just watched television.  

And why did my parents let me go?  I have no idea about this, either.  For most of my youth (and well into middle age) I didn't think much about what other people were thinking.

That first big crush and its resulting sad fallout was moderately predictive of some of my future teacher-crushes.

I fell in love again in 6th grade, this time with my first male teacher, Bob Tetzlaff.  Once again, I would often stay after school to talk and help clean up.  I got so bonded to him that up through 8th grade, I would return to Daves Avenue on occasion to see him after school.  He was handsome, passionate, and funny.  Mr. T taught us about American problems in South America, sharing with us his experiences as a bicycle racer when he went to the PanAmerican games.  He also read to us selections from The Ugly American because he didn't want any of us to become one.  I continued to admire him until his death in 2012.

In high school, I experienced myself "falling in love" with at least three more teachers.  In college, I fell in love with Will but also with a few others.

So let's look at this phenomenon.  Why did I fall for teachers over and over again?  And what exactly do I mean by "falling in love?"

Let's take the second question first.

What I experienced in youth as "falling in love" meant:

1. a rise in pleasure when around the other person
2. the sense that the other person understood me
3. a warmth in my chest
4. a feeling that I understood the other person better than anyone else in the room
5. a feeling that I, myself had value because the other liked me
6. a desire to do things for the other person
7. a physical need for the other person (desire to touch and be touched, not necessarily sexual)

It's quite possible that all these infatuations were my brain's way of managing depression.  Being "in love" was a high that released dopamine into my system, a system which by 10th grade was considering suicide. Infatuation was a defense against self-hatred.

Letters and Discipline

 I probably still have 80 to 90% of my letters to Will and Will's letters to me.  Most of them are safely stored for the time being.  But sometimes one will turn up -- fall out of a book or fall out of a recently opened box.  

Here's a postcard that fell out of a book I was loading up to take to Goodwill.  It's one of the one-a-day haiku cards I sent to Will while I was at Norcroft.

Half moon between trees
wishes the sun, "Good morning,"
still in her nightgown.

Norcroft was a women writers' mostly silent retreat way up north in Minnesota near Lutsen on the banks of Mother Superior.  I would re-punctuate this haiku.

As you can see, I'm not much of a haiku scribbler, unlike my friend Lorna Cahall.  I wrote one a day and sent them to my sweetie.  It was a good practice.  That discipline is part of what I'm seeking now -- the energy and self love to "make" myself be creative rather than just consuming other people's creativity.

It'll happen. It's already beginning to happen.  I come to my office here every morning.  I write SOMEthing every day.  And, mirabile dictu, for the first time in over a month I woke up this morning ready to face the day.   I'm actually happy right now.  Is it because I saw four close friends last week (two live)?  Is it because I watched Damn Yankees with my church cine group last night?  Is it because I bought myself a surprise birthday trip?  Or is it something more mundane like I ate enough protein yesterday?  Who knows. 
 

This morning

Breadcrumbing (memoir)

 Well, I've signed up for three writing classes from the Sarah Lawrence writing lab.  Two start in September.  Maybe I'll become a writer again.  Maybe I care about that.  I'm trying to climb out of this slough of despond.

My browser takes me to "Pocket" and its articles and this morning I stumbled across an article about "breadcrumbing" in relationships.  While making sure one's web pages have breadcrumbs is vital, it's not so healthy between humans seeking connection. 

The article by Amy Beacham lead me to an article in Psychology Today by communication prof Preston Ni, in which he defines breadcrumhing

"Breadcrumbing can be defined as the act of “leading someone on” and “keeping someone’s hopes up” through small and superficial acts of interest, enticement, and flirtation, but ultimately disappointing the individual with false expectations, empty promises, and abandonment (emotional if not physical."  

He draws the definition from "Psychological Correlates of Ghosting and Breadcrumbing Experiences: A Preliminary Study among Adults" by Raúl Navarro,^* Elisa Larrañaga, Santiago Yubero, and Beatriz Víllora.  While these scholars focused on our contemporary world of texting and social media, breadcrumbing is as old as relationships.

I thought about my 25 year relationship with a man I loved and admired and who I realized/didn't realize was keeping me focused with breadcrumbs, dribs and drabs of his attention that cost him nothing.  I saw it, didn't see it.

And even today, I miss him, though I haven't seen him or talked with him for over a decade.  I miss him even though in our relationship I experienced the five signs of breadcrumbing that Ni warns about:  

1. Emotional Roller Coaster and Uncertainty
2. Relationship Dependence.  
3. Waiting and Surrendering Power
4. Feel Used and Manipulated/Denial 
5. Loneliness and Emptiness   

 Right now I am remembering standing in front of the mirror in the butler's pantry in my rental apartment in Salt Lake City, crying, looking at myself in the mirror, and drawing a knife across the skin over my heart because he had promised to go to dinner with me and then backed out of it by telling me it was ridiculous to expect a married man to go to dinner with a woman.

My therapist in 2012, after I'd ended the relationship, told me that this man had "targeted me" as a desperate, frightened student who could be easily seduced into his game of being desired.

Whiny Self Absorption

Here's how I'm feeling this morning:  crappy.

 I want to "let it go" -- my long life with Will -- but it's a challenge.  Yesterday I did almost nothing but watch TV.  I've been sitting and rotting.  I tell myself to get up, call someone, do something, but it all feels so pointless right now.  I have a big list of things to do but I just sit and try not to feel the weight on my heart.  I am trying to love my house or God or my friends as much as I loved "Will+". 

I am no longer necessary to anyone.  If I died tomorrow, people would be sad for a couple of days and then go on with their lives.  I recognize this feeling from childhood - the belief that I have no importance or worse, that my friends don't like me.

I guess that's how it is for many people.  

And I recognize how blessed or lucky I've been.  I was lucky to have Will in my life. I'm grateful to have money and shelter and food.  I feel guilty for feeling so sad, for not being able to pick myself up by my bootstraps.  I am grateful I have not had joint surgery.  I'm grateful not to be in a wheelchair.  I'm grateful I have everything in the world I could possibly need except someone to love. Yet I know that there are people who care about me and who I care about. 

"Don't you want somebody to love.  Don't you need somebody to love."

I want to be rescued but I know that I'm the only one who can rescue myself.  

I've given up being on the list at Touchmark.  Maybe with luck I'll die before I get dementia.  So I have a $2000 check to cash today.  Money should make me happy, shouldn't it?

I trust that eventually God will give me a reason for being alive.  I'm not suicidal.  I'm not self-harming.  I'm just sad and see no reason to be alive other than that I'm alive.  

I'm alive because I'm alive.  Maybe what I need is more of the late Olivia Neutron Bomb.

How do I make myself the "One that I want"?

 

 

Realization

 While I was at the beach I thought about Sarah's comment that "Your relationship with Will is now grief.  Grief is your relationship."

I wonder if I am still grieving simply in order to keep him near.

The great thing about him dying at the end of the year is that I can say "it's been 8 months" without having to count on my fingers.

So I say, "It's been 8 months -- why am I still hurting.  Why can't I see ahead of me?"

Courting Vacation

I came over to Eugene for Federal Jury duty but wasn't selected.  It was an interesting and annoying experience.  

I got to the Wayne Morris Federal Courthouse just before 8:00 am to join the folks waiting to enter.  The door opened just after 8 and we first went through security.  After that, we checked in with the clerk. She handed me paperwork for travel reimbursement, and I joined the others in the large jury gathering room. Chairs in the room were spaced 6 feet apart and we were all wearing masks.

Once everyone was gathered, we filled out forms as directions appeared on the screen at the front of the room.  After awhile, the clerk invited us to watch an informative and patriotic video about jury duty, how American it is, and what we could expect when we served.  Then the clerk gave us all numbers.  I was #3.  After more waiting, a black-robed judge appeared and told us that at this point, numbers 1-8 were going to serve if the lawyers didn't decide otherwise.

Then the plaintiff, defendants, and their lawyers entered.  First thing we all 18 of us had to do was answer 9 questions that included our names, who we lived with, what we did for a living, if we'd ever been involved in a civil suit, where we were from, and a few other things.  I found out that there were two lesbians who lived with their wives, one other person from Bend, a person from Coos Bay, a truck driver, a nut farm owner, and no one else with a PhD.  I said that I lived with my dog and the ghost of my dead husband.  That answer may have gotten me off the jury.  Or it may have been when I admitted my biases.

 As soon as I understood what the trial was going to be about (it's a work-related issue) I knew I was biased toward the plaintiff.  I wound up sharing that information during the large group questioning that occurred after we'd all gone through our individual responses.

 I thought the general questioning was very stupidly done.  A lead lawyer of the three who were gathered for each side asked questions of the entire group in a way that showed little understanding of human group behavior.  Like, "Does anyone here have opinions about other people's thoughts about other people?"  Really.  What does that even mean?  Of course, the three or four extroverts among us took turns answering these questions and the introverts stayed quiet.  Each side asked about biases.  

When the employer's lawyer asked about biases I finally raised my hand and said, "My dad was a communist and I was brought up to support workers and never cross a picket line."  When the lawyer then asked me, "Would it be possible for you to put aside your bias?"  I said, "I don't know, to be honest.  I can try, but I don't know."

So, I wasn't selected!

Instead of going back home, I decided to go ahead and take the week off, largely because I'd already paid for Winston care for the week.  Betsy and I went to the symphony in Cottage Grove on Monday night and went for a lovely walk around Alton Baker park yesterday.  So it's been fun to hang out with her.

Today I'm finally going to the beach after wanting to get there since December. I'll stay a couple of nights at the Sylvia Beach Hotel.