Feeling Sad---Son is Homeless

[Feeling Sad]

I have been waking up screaming a bit less and I am less jumpy. I feel a bit better, sad, but less afraid of being hurt. I am more afraid of my son's current and future state, though.

I saw my therapist today. She wanted me to talk about my childhood...fun! It was beneficial, though. We discussed what she had said last week about my son never getting better. She wanted me to stop feeling guilty. She meant that no matter what I did or did not do, schizophrenia is a very difficult and serious disease. That it is not my fault if he is worse or gets worse in the future. He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe.

My mind has always continually evaluated things. That is the way that I am 'wired'. Actually, it goes back to my childhood being hypervigilant.

I do not really have hobbies. I recharge by being on the shore on the coast and looking out across the expanse. My problems seem so small by comparison. I love the salt air against my face and the sheer beauty of the ocean... it's ebb and flow.

Hey, Copa, is that like your 'movement of the streets'?

I also lift my spirits by shopping for antuques. I used to sell antiques AND teach. I found it difficult to let go of my treasures. I love history, architecture, and antiques of all kinds.

I will not let myself bring home a decor item unless it is at least 100 years old. It has not slowed me down in the least.

I might want to learn how to paint landscapes one day. I have started numerous crocheted projects, but never seem to finish. I always received "A"s in Art and I enjoy it. I just enjoy old things with history so much more. I like to create a new tableau with a grouping of antiques.

Last weekend at a coastal town I bought a very large oval pastel portrait of a woman from the 1890's. She is in an ornate frame wearing a blue gown for $60. I love it. I enjoy history immensely.

How are you doing Leafy...and fellow warrior...Cedar. I think of you and I think of warm pies...my favorite. I don't bake anymore because I would eat it all.

How are you? I hope that you are doing well.

I am proud of all of us. Facing life head on...on life's terms.

Roar!!!

 

[Feeling Sad]

Leafy, I am sorry that I rambled on so about the name Attilla fitting your sister. I do not like the way that she treats my sister. I wish that I could tell her off, which is something that a woman from Sherman Oaks and cortiilons and etiquette schools rarely does... But, she makes me mad.

Sorry. We protect each other.

Pleasant dreams to all. Cedar...you ARE probably dreaming!

 

[Copabanana]

I love the salt air against my face and the sheer beauty of the ocean... it's ebb and flow.

Hey, Copa, is that like your 'movement of the streets'?

No, I do not think so.

When I am in the street with lots of people I lose track of everything internal. I absorb the energy of the people all around me. It is the absence of stillness.

I can sit alone in a restaurant, like a cafeteria, with lots of people and movement, and feel completely at peace eating and drinking a little wine, just listening and studying them.

But it seems to work best if I am in a foreign country. Where I am different.

But I used to study at loud cafes in Berkeley. The louder the better.

I love history, architecture, and antiques of all kinds.

Have you read the book, A Pattern Language by the architect Christopher, I forget his last name all of a sudden, I think it is Allen, but I am not sure. I think you would love it, because it fuses your love of architecture and design and history. He was a professor at Berkeley. Look on Amazon when you have a chance. It is difficult to explain but I will try in the next day or two.

I love history, too. Not the dates and names, but history that is driven by theory. Some of my favorite books are historical: Ancient Greece, Feudalism. The Vendee, about the counter-revolution in France. I just love it, too.

I might want to learn how to paint landscapes one day.

Gee, I would love that for you. Landscapes rather than seascapes?

I enjoy history immensely.

Me too. Is there a region or time period that you prefer? I got a doctorate. And I almost tried to change my department to History, except that I could never have found work.

I loved something called comparative historical analysis, that was a type of research where you either compared cross-culturally, or historically to see what you learned. That is when I read the book The Vendee. The professor was an expert in French History around the revolution. He used to go to Paris all of the time to do research closeted away in old archives by looking at old documents. Doesn't that sound fun?

 

[Copabanana]

The threads are blending together now. I am too tired to check whose thread this is. I think it is yours, Feeling.

I do not think I have ever felt a trade wind but it sure sounds neat.

But I have been in a hurricane. Hurricane Mitch. We were in San Salvador right after the war ended. It would have been really exciting except that my son was deathly ill with a fever of over 108 and there were no doctors. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

There are so many idiotic things I have done, where I have gotten us into messes. He caught a horrible disease because I let him swim in a bay off the gulf of mexico in an old colonial port in Guatemala, near Belize. He so wanted to swim with the other kids.

Sometimes I fear he got his Hepatitis then, through polluted water. But I do not think you can contract it this way.

He got very ill 6 years later in Guatemala, again.

I know many people would feel I was a negligent Mother. But he looks back to our time traveling as the best of his life and has built his identity upon it. So who is to know. He survived it. Maybe it has given him unseen strength. What can I do now? It is too late to change anything.

And I got parasites in Guatemala. I got so thin. It was wonderful. I highly recommend them. It was the easiest weight I ever lost.

When I say things like this is when people think I am a bimbo. I refuse to stop.

Goodnight you two. Sleep tight. Good Morning, Cedar. I hope you had a great day yesterday. I missed you. It is always so kind when you tell me you will be gone. I feel so cherished when you do that.

M is like that too. When he goes outside at night to call Mx he sits in a chair outside in front of the house so he can smoke. Every night he tells me: I'm going outside to call my daughter. And each night I am grateful.

COPA

 

[Feeling Sad]

Yes, seascapes, as well. I collect inexpensive seascapes.. $1 to $20. After the 1994 earthquake, I switched from collecting antique medicine bottles to paintings. I got my feet cut up badly...

Yes, I like to sit and study people. On the boardwalk...I am able to study the ocean AND the people.

No, I cannot study in noisy places..

Yes, I love all history. I collect antique books. I love how the writing of a certain period or culture can instantly immerse you into the social mores and gender roles of that time in history.

I have researched my family tree. I have many important and historically important relatives.

I feel a connection to my pieces of furniture and wonder about their history.

 

[Feeling Sad]

Hmmm...The Parasite Diet? No, thank you. I am on the Depression Diet. Weight just falls off and no parasites needed.

It sounds like you gave your son a wonderful, interesting, exciting, and well-loved childhood.

You are a fantastic mother!

Your hurricane experience sounds horrible.

We have all lead very challenging lives. But, it made us who we are...strong warrior women.

 

[Copabanana]

I was going to say you are an intellectual but that is not exactly it. You are cerebral, Feeling. Thoughtful. A thinker. Analytic.

I wonder if that makes it harder for you to be so overcome by feeling now.

I am wondering if you ever took the Myers Briggs, the personality profile test that is based on Jungian theory. It is the one where you are extrovert or introvert, intuitive or sensing, thinking or feeling and perceiving or judging. I think I have the pairs mixed up. I am an ENFP. But on the borderline of being an introvert. In fact, I think I am an introvert.

Yes, I love all history.

Is it not wonderful to deeply love and be interested in something like that? It is so hopeful

I love how the writing of a certain period or culture can instantly immerse you into the social mores and gender roles of that time in history.

How interesting this is. You must feel the same way with your collecting--that these things are artifacts sent to you from a far off time and place. What about clothing and textiles, such as lace or crewelwork, etc., smocking or jewelry?

I have researched my family tree. I have many important and historically important relatives.

And I have nobody important in mine.

I feel a connection to my pieces of furniture and wonder about their history.

Well, there you answered my question.

I am wondering how you got interested in your particular favorite style/era of furniture?

I think it was Victorian and that massive stuff...what is about this era?

Does the historical period interest you greatly as well?

I will go to bed now. Have a very quiet sleep and a good day.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

When I watched my mother die, I think it changed who I was in so many ways. The strongest part was the loss of her, and a "mother" who I had had, but wanted so much more of and from.

Loss is so difficult . The pain of it is intense. I think the loss must have been particularly intensified for you Copa, because of your experience with your mom, a loss for what could have been, as well?
Our parents passing is inevitable, I do not know if one can completely prepare oneself for the occurrence of it.

But I also lost my innocence about what my life is as an aging person would be. I became somebody on the way to illness and dying...instead of on to new goals and adventures as I had been before.

Cedar talks about us seeking out what we need and want from a mate based upon our childhoods and their deficits. It is what we are comfortable with and we seek to work it out, to master those hurts of the past and surmount them. And then when we get this, we want more. And then we change? And it gets even harder.

I asked the question once-do we marry our fathers? I remember reading something of the sort, that daughters marry versions of their fathers to "fix" what was broken. I suppose we are drawn to what is familiar, the pattern continues until we recognize it.

At the end of the day it is our conversations with ourselves about ourselves that are the important ones. And with each other.

It is complicated, and yet, simple at the same time. We need to develop a kindness towards ourselves. How often do we do something clumsy, or silly and revert to demeaning self-talk. "How clumsy of me", or "What a stupid thing I have done."

Maya Angelou wrote
“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

And you choose to see the way your husband is able to show his love for you and accept it as half full. Nobody can do what they cannot do. We can only speak the language that we know. To have the devotion of somebody in the way that they can express it is so much more, I think, than empty chatter.

So funny, my hubs favorite saying is "Talk is cheap." There is a logic to that. "Let your actions speak louder than your words."

After all, there are people that go seeking one mate after the next. And all they find is themselves, if they pay attention. If they do not, they seek yet one more. Until no more can be found.

Yes,so true.

I think one can have a personal, emotional relationship with someone who is stoic, self-contained, even withholding in the way you are doing. By paying attention and interpreting what he is able to express. They say that the important thing is loving, not the receipt of it.

Thank you, Copa, for reminding me of this. Sometimes I forget, and long for more. I tire of "filling in the blanks" if you will.

The loving is in us. Look how I was able to find my great love for my mother in the days before her death when she was almost a vegetable and after.

Yes, the loving is in us. There is much to be said in the smallest of acts, and the largest.

New Leaf, you tell us you are profoundly lonely. Is this so? Is the loneliness for another person or in yourself? Is there a way that you can find the company you seek by your creativity? In faith? In friendship? Why have women always sought out each other? I think for similar reasons, in part.

My profound loneliness is not ever-present. It strikes me at times when the hubs has been moody for days at a time, sullen, angry. He can be very critical, of all I do. I try to keep my chin up, but the energy to deflect is at times, exhausting. So, is this loneliness, or despair?
I have those whom I can speak with. Faith. Hobbies. Sports. Community service, work.
The paradox is, I am surrounded by people every day, and have meaningful rapport. With the hubs, this is lacking. Yet there he is, a working man. Solid in his commitments. So yes, in between my absorbing the love from this, I do long for the ability to have a feeling of..... friendship? There is a sense of loneliness with his need for a physical relationship, but his not seeing the need to have an emotional one?
Ok, that is really personal. But there it is.

We can tell ourselves not "this is my lot," (something we are stuck with and foisted upon us) but this is my choice" and thereby own the strength of our commitments.

It is my lot, not necessarily my choice. Through the years, the hubs has become more and more removed, much like my father. And there that is.

Your father was taciturn was he not? Keeping inside his strong emotions. Withdrawing after losses, and more losses, as if to protect himself.

Yes Copa, he was. I think this is true for the hubs, because of his background.

Is it an accident that Hubs should be so similar? The working out of this, New Leaf, is in us. The opportunity to come to grips what is in us, a legacy of our childhoods.

I have often thought of this. It is a working out of things, especially being with this man for so long.
I do not think it is an accident. I believe there is a purpose to everything.

Hubs is able to show a friendly, soft voiced side of himself to others. For instance, when he calls at work, my office mates tease me and say "He sounds so nice on the phone." I see this "niceness" in how he addresses strangers. So, he is able to behave in such a way to others, yet is the extreme Chinese Waitress with his family. Being spoken to, in such a way constantly, is wearing. I ask him, "Why are you so angry?" "I --am -not angry,-- this is how I talk."
Huh.
Then-
"If --you don't--like--it, I --just --wont--- talk.

ACCCK big old
.......... yup, now thats a mature answer.

If I answer him the same way,and tone, he gives me a shocked look, and asks what is wrong with me. I wonder sometimes if he realizes the way he comes off in his delivery. Maybe I should secretly film him? Would he be shocked at the way he sounds? Is this gaslighting? I am not sure Copa.

When he has to do something, it is a frenzy. If my son is helping, he literally has to jump to commands. The hubs becomes a short tempered, snap the fingers, do it fast, do it right, if not the temper comes to a boil. One can feel the angst coming through his pores. Sergeant mode.

I am thinking now about your looking at your husband and deciding to try to understand his language. His particular language of love. As if you were an anthropologist entering a new tribe and trying to decipher their customs and language.

I have started to do the same with M. Instead of thinking so much of what I want and need, thinking about and studying him, like he is a fascinating and marvelous being from some other world (which both of our mates are, actually).

For sure my hubs is an anthropological study, from another world. I think he is trying to study my needs, sometimes I walk in the room and he is watching the strangest tv shows, even "chick flicks". I wonder if he is trying to figure out what it is I want. He didn't learn tenderness through his parents crazy marriage. Yet, he has moments of sweetness, cuddling with our dogs, petting the cats.

I will practice believing that M is an esoteric and remote tribal constellation. One that possesses all of the magic that I have been seeking. But I must first understand his language and his customs, to unlock the treasure chest.

"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" I shall keep doing the same with hubs. This studying.

Thank you Copa.

Leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Leafy, I am sorry that I rambled on so about the name Attilla fitting your sister. I do not like the way that she treats my sister. I wish that I could tell her off, which is something that a woman from Sherman Oaks and cortiilons and etiquette schools rarely does... But, she makes me mad.

Sorry. We protect each other.

Pleasant dreams to all. Cedar...you ARE probably dreaming!

No worries little bird, I actually read up on Attila, it might be fitting after all. So for now, it shall stay, until I find a replacement.

I'm thankful for your protection.

Pleasant dreams.

 

[New Leaf]

Feeling, I am glad you are sleeping a little better. So good for you.

I saw my therapist today. She wanted me to talk about my childhood...fun! It was beneficial, though. We discussed what she had said last week about my son never getting better. She wanted me to stop feeling guilty. She meant that no matter what I did or did not do, schizophrenia is a very difficult and serious disease. That it is not my fault if he is worse or gets worse in the future. He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe.

I am glad you clarified your therapists meaning of her statements on schizophrenia. You were very hurt by that. She has given you back your hope stone in this "He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe."

My mind has always continually evaluated things. That is the way that I am 'wired'. Actually, it goes back to my childhood being hypervigilant.

I am an evaluator as well. In my morning post, "I Won't Give Up"
I listened to that song over and over again. It has a sense of 'I must keep helping my children" at first, but then I realized it really meant for me, I must give them their wings, therefore I won't give up on them, or myself.
Perhaps, little bird, when you find yourself going down the path of awfulizing about the reality of your sons illness, and being out there, all that could happen to him, you can neutralize those intense feelings with the therapists reassurances and hope-
"He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe."
And keep repeating this, to help you cope. To lessen your fears for him and bolster yourself, calm yourself.
He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe.

I do not really have hobbies. I recharge by being on the shore on the coast and looking out across the expanse. My problems seem so small by comparison. I love the salt air against my face and the sheer beauty of the ocean... it's ebb and flow.

Yes the ocean is healing...

I also lift my spirits by shopping for antiques. I used to sell antiques AND teach. I found it difficult to let go of my treasures. I love history, architecture, and antiques of all kinds.

Love, love, love antiques. Antiques are anything over fifty years old right?
I am an antique!

I might want to learn how to paint landscapes one day. I have started numerous crocheted projects, but never seem to finish. I always received "A"s in Art and I enjoy it. I just enjoy old things with history so much more. I like to create a new tableau with a grouping of antiques.

This sounds so interesting, your tableau. I have a friend who's parents were antique collectors. Her house is chock a block full of them. She said her parents left her treasures that help her get by, when she is in need. She is able to sell some, to help her when funds are low.

Last weekend at a coastal town I bought a very large oval pastel portrait of a woman from the 1890's. She is in an ornate frame wearing a blue gown for $60. I love it. I enjoy history immensely.

Very nice Feeling, I am glad you found something for you that you love.

How are you doing Leafy...and fellow warrior...Cedar. I think of you and I think of warm pies...my favorite. I don't bake anymore because I would eat it all.

I am good as can be Feeling. One day at a time. Yes, I would eat everything up, too. No willpower. Yummy goodies beckon me like "Alice in Wonderlands" cakes "EAT ME!"

I am proud of all of us. Facing life head on...on life's terms.

Roar!!!

Yes Feeling, we are ALL doing this together!

ROAR!!!



Leafy

 

[InsaneCdn]

And I have nobody important in mine.

And in mine... years ago, one old relative said there was no point in doing research into the family tree... nothing but rogues and horse thieves back there.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

She is in an ornate frame wearing a blue gown for $60.

Can you post about what it was about her that drew you, Feeling?

I have been waking up screaming a bit less and I am less jumpy. I feel a bit better, sad, but less afraid of being hurt. I am more afraid of my son's current and future state, though.

I saw my therapist today. She wanted me to talk about my childhood...fun! It was beneficial, though. We discussed what she had said last week about my son never getting better. She wanted me to stop feeling guilty. She meant that no matter what I did or did not do, schizophrenia is a very difficult and serious disease. That it is not my fault if he is worse or gets worse in the future. He now has a chance to receive help, when he couldn't at home being cloistered in his room. Also, my youngest son is safe.

My mind has always continually evaluated things. That is the way that I am 'wired'. Actually, it goes back to my childhood being hypervigilant.

I am so pleased for you.

To be afraid in the night is so awful. We can't seem to get our bearings in the same way we can, in the sunlight. I like what the therapist said about Son now having a chance he had not been able to take advantage of while he was living cloistered in his room. I think she is very correct in her thinking.

I am so sorry for the hurt of it, Feeling.

I too think it is best for the kids if they come to terms with their situations as the adults they are. It is so awful for us. We want to protect. Letting them go is the hardest thing.

I do think it will help your son.

I believe it is helping my daughter...but the horror of it is, there is no way to know whether we are doing this right. You and I both do know though, that the kids will be alone in the world one day. Let them learn they can do this, however the deck is stacked.

I think I am following a right path with my thinking. Our daughter has been able to bring her family together; all four kids, and over time. She is their mother again to the point that nothing is perfect and the kids are doing typical adolescent attitude. That is an amazing accomplishment. No one who has been where our child has been has been able to do that ~ to focus intent on getting the family together and to actually do what she needed to do to make that happen.

But our daughter did it.

I told her how amazing a thing that was, last night.

They forget how amazing they are. They only remember they are not normal.
They never see the courage or strength or integrity in themselves because they feel so badly about the rest of it.

I suppose this is where faith comes in, for us.

I am glad it is better for you just lately, Feeling.

It must be so hard for you not to be able to even send a card. You are doing what you can do for him though, in paying insurance and things like that. There are times when even the smallest of comforts can save us.

You are very brave, Feeling.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

And I got parasites in Guatemala. I got so thin. It was wonderful. I highly recommend them. It was the easiest weight I ever lost.

When I say things like this is when people think I am a bimbo. I refuse to stop.

Daughter was all about getting a tapeworm for a time.

Copa, you are so funny.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Goodnight you two. Sleep tight. Good Morning, Cedar. I hope you had a great day yesterday. I missed you. It is always so kind when you tell me you will be gone. I feel so cherished when you do that.

Thank you, Copa.

You are cherished.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Maya Angelou wrote
“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

Very nice.

Thank you, Leafy.

There is a sense of loneliness with his need for a physical relationship, but his not seeing the need to have an emotional one?
Ok, that is really personal. But there it is.

Is it a question of vulnerability on his part do you think, Feeling? I have seen similar things in my D H over the years. Not now, so much. But times when he would imply.... Okay, so say I had decided I was done and was leaving. And he would say something about coming around to where I was to have sex after I left him. Like that was all that mattered. And in saying that, he was somehow pulling himself together as a man who was not vulnerable. Into someone who had done nothing wrong because the primary value was as he defined it to be, and if the woman left, she would, of course, still want him as a man. Because he was a man; a real man. All man. Protecting himself from hurt that way, in that way of thinking. I think it has to do with having an Italian mother. I swear, in his heart, D H is certain, absolutely certain, he is enough.

I think I see that in your D H.

Some shadow of that.

It is my lot, not necessarily my choice. Through the years, the hubs has become more and more removed, much like my father. And there that is.

There was a period of years when the kids were so troubled and blah, blah, blah, that D H and I were so separate from one another other than in our roles as parent or whatever role it was. At some point during all of that, I told my
D H what I needed to hear. Told him the very words I needed to hear. Things like, "I'm sorry this happened to you." Or, "I am so sorry you are hurt by what is happening to your children." I told those same kinds of things to my D H. There was no way to breach the divide but to breach it.

So I did.

My D H got tears in his eyes.

He was so lonely, but was unable to name it or come out of it or do anything but be a man in regards to it.

That was actually the beginning of the intimacy, and of the trust, that would see us through the next twenty years.

I think what I am saying is that our men are men, but...I'm not sure what I mean, here. It has to do with compassion, and with trusting the decency in them, and with understanding their dreams were broken, too.

Once, in family therapy for daughter, D H told the therapist the worst thing about what was happening to all of us is that he could not protect.

Our men think differently than we do, but they are the men we chose. Believe you chose well. Expect the living, vulnerable being beneath the role of "Man" to be a warm and ethical and compassionate being and there, just like magic, that is what will appear.

You chose your man well, or I would not hear the affection for him that I do hear, in your posts.

We are good women, good men, making good choices, in horrifically challenging circumstances.

That is how I feel today, anyway.

D H hasn't done anything to bug me lately.

My profound loneliness is not ever-present. It strikes me at times when the hubs has been moody for days at a time, sullen, angry. He can be very critical, of all I do. I try to keep my chin up, but the energy to deflect is at times, exhausting. So, is this loneliness, or despair?

Oh, I am so sorry this happens. My D H has done that to me, too. I could feel so terrible and energy-less and incapable. Have you read Patricia Evans?

Huh.

Well of course I could not find the quote I was looking for. But I did find this, written inside the cover of Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out , instead:

Heartsick and mad, Pitt shouted at the open sky. Cold, self possessed inner resolve took hold as it had so many times in the past. The old, diehard Pitt came back on balance. His mind felt clear and sharp as a needle.

Clive Cussler

***

With a commitment bred of desperation, he reached up and pulled himself out of the water.

Clive Cussler

***

...insight is not necessary for me to modify my behavior if I decide truly that my attitude toward authority is unworthy, self limiting, and productive of guilt feelings. I can decide not to act on emotions which are a variance with how I feel I should behave and which tend to reduce self respect.

Why I had those emotions in the first place is both specualtive and irrelevant.

Smedes
Shame and Grace

***

Cherish, honor, protect, and promote.

The Benedictines

Those were much better quotes than that one I was looking for. These are the quotes written onto the flyleaf of my copy.

:O)

***

I am now caught up with this thread.

Copa, your use of words and concepts in the quotes Leafy included in her response were powerful, and beautifully expressed.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

My profound loneliness is not ever-present. It strikes me at times when the hubs has been moody for days at a time, sullen, angry. He can be very critical, of all I do. I try to keep my chin up, but the energy to deflect is at times, exhausting. So, is this loneliness, or despair?

I want to tell you a dream I had early this morning as much of it as I can remember.

First, I think I have been buying stuff. Actually it has been going on since my mother died, but I stop for long spurts. It has felt a way to make a life even though I was in bed. To want to do things and to be things and to as if do it by buying the material props that go with them. I bought scuba stuff and surfing stuff and camping stuff and fishing stuff. I bought easels and mountains of yarn and knitting needles and crochet hooks and paints and brushes. I bought canning jars and a pressure canner. I bought stuff for snow. Dog raincoats. Everybody including my son has snow boots. 100 pairs of wool socks. Parkas. Those wool hats. Like 50. And all of it crammed into my garage and house. And I am in bed.

And M watching this.

Amazon will not let me shop. Because of how much I returned. And still there is a mountain of stuff.

The last few months I have focused on clothing for me. For the winter. Still in bed. And when I would go out, these past two years, I wore just one set of clothes, washed each night. Cotton yoga pants and a cotton long sleeve shirt.

So I ordered online a mountain of clothes to make outfits with the column of color concept. And shoes. And sweaters.

And then I realized, I needed jewelry. My mother had jewelry. I had one pair of lovely 18k big gold hoops. When I was traveling I bought them. I love them but when I went back to work they got packed away. One cannot wear earrings in a prison.

Perhaps 50 pair of earrings have shown up in the mail. M watches.
So I need brooches. Actually the brooches started it: I saw Madeline Albright on the TV and remembered she used brooches as a signature piece.

And on and on. And M watches.

So to the dream. I was in a home that I had bought. And I was alone. There was no M. There was nobody there. Nobody to reach out to. Nothing happening in the town. Nothing to do. And I was frantic with loneliness. Trapped.

And there was so much money lost because I had invested badly and to fill the emptiness inside of me I was buying junk. The kind of junk that predators sell to dupe people. And I had been one of those dupes. And nothing would fill the emptiness. I wanted to move back to an urban area so that I would have near me the movement of people and the street that fills the emptiness in me. And there was obstacle after obstacle. My mother was still alive. I would talk to her on the phone. Which was largely my relationship with my mother. But this did nothing to assuage the painful desperation and the longing.

I had the sense that my lifetime has been defined by this yawning pit of solitary desperation.

And still, when I got up this morning I bought more. And there is the growing sense that I am putting at stake my security, M's security and the security of my son, by this trying to fill something that can only be filled in relationship with myself and with others.

Last night I had trouble falling asleep. So I got up and ate a few dates and went to the bathroom. And I began to hear moaning from down the passageway where the dogs have their room and farther down the hall, where we sleep. The moaning was kind of like the sound Dolly the boxer makes when she wants to go outside.

She starts with a single squeak and escalates to moans and if nobody listens...a single yelp.

But the sound was off, the moaning.

I began walking towards their room, and heard that the sound was coming from our room. It was M moaning over and over again, quietly.

Terrified I tried to wake him and saw that he was already awake. I thought he was having a heart attack. (In a way, he was.) Shall I call an ambulance? What is it? What is wrong?

No. If you want to use the computer, I will go in the other room. That is the pattern I have typically followed. Not the last few days, but last week, and before.

No. I was hungry.

M said: You do not know how I feel. What I feel.

And that moment I realized he was in agony. And he did not know how to tell me, to reach me. So I climbed in bed and held him and we went to sleep, each sheltered like spoons.

And then I had that dream.

I do long for the ability to have a feeling of..... friendship? There is a sense of loneliness with his need for a physical relationship, but his not seeing the need to have an emotional one?

Men express their intimacy sexually. That is a fact. Even when it does not feel like loving to us.

I am going to get raunchy here. I have withdrawn physically. When you get old, the saying use it or lose it, has a special meaning. Everything hurts and desire is not so ever ready as it once was. It is all just too much trouble.

We have abandoned each other. It is like we are willfully pretending we do not know the language of the other. Not listening. And alone.

"Why are you so angry?" "I --am -not angry,-- this is how I talk."
Huh.
Then-
"If --you don't--like--it, I --just --wont--- talk.

This is exactly what happens with M and I.

If my son is helping, he literally has to jump to commands. The hubs becomes a short tempered, snap the fingers, do it fast, do it right

This is M.

I walk in the room and he is watching the strangest tv shows, even "chick flicks". I wonder if he is trying to figure out what it is I want.

I think this is the way he is tapping his own emotions. He wants to feel. By doing it this way, he feels safer.

Cedar, I think, told us that her D H cries at movies. But no other place and time. No matter how sad and desperate the situation with those he loves...he dos not cry.

Or, "I am so sorry you are hurt by what is happening to your children." I told those same kinds of things to my D H. There was no way to breach the divide but to breach it.

So I did.

My D H got tears in his eyes.

He was so lonely, but was unable to name it or come out of it or do anything but be a man in regards to it.

Yes.

That was actually the beginning of the intimacy, and of the trust, that would see us through the next twenty years.

Yes.

I think my M is in agony. I believe he cannot bear his pain. I believe I have isolated myself from him.

I almost cannot stand thinking of the agony he must have felt for this 60 year old man to begin moaning with a sound so primitive that I thought it was my dog. He has never ever expressed pain such as this. He is stoic, too, mostly. Although he has cried.

I think what I am saying is that our men are men, but...I'm not sure what I mean, here. It has to do with compassion, and with trusting the decency in them, and with understanding their dreams were broken, too.

Yes. And there is no language to tell us the agony of it. Like my keening when my mother was almost dead and died.

D H told the therapist the worst thing about what was happening to all of us is that he could not protect.

That is the situation in which M finds himself with his Mother. He cannot go to her, without leaving me.

And what I am realizing is that to some large extent I have left him. I have isolated from him and he has had no language to tell me.

I want to insert here one more thing: Yesterday M and I went to visit his sister to ask her to help me organize the house and get to the next level.

She said this: You cannot be alone anymore, like you have. Whatever it is you have been alone too much and too long.

When I woke up I had an idea. There is a quilting guild in my town. I have never had much interesting in quilting...all the other needle arts, yes. So, I had no justification for seeking out the group. Then the idea of crazy quilting came to me a few days ago and the infinite chaos of it appealed to me.

I thought. OK. There is an entre into the quilting guild, and friendships, here in my town. And then I thought: What about starting a Spanish Speaking Needlework Guild with M's sister and M, if he wants? Our town has become almost fifty percent Latin American, mostly Mexican.

M's sister is very social and because of her thrift stores knows many people. She is also very adamant she does not want to stay at home since she closed her last store.

In closing, I cannot remember all of the pieces, particular the dream, but I think it relates to the matter at hand: Isolation, desperation, yearning, and not knowing where to go, how to meet the need, and the language to reach others. To fill the void.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Hawaiians are very metaphorical. It was considered rude to be outspoken, once upon a time within the culture of old. Some of those old ways are of course passed down through the generations.
(Hawaiian husband anthropological study 101)

Pa'a ka moku i ka helemua

"The ship is held fast by the anchor"

Said of one who is married.




........to be continued

 

[Copabanana]

Pa'a ka moku i ka helemua

"The ship is held fast by the anchor"

Said of one who is married.

The image I have is you dancing all around the anchor (*Kind of like Esther Williams, if you remember her. That was my mother's name, Esther. I love it, and her very much.)

I think your husband knows you and what you want and need. I think he is trying to find a way to get you back to him. To reel you in. To tell you. To see, to recognize how much he needs you.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

I am on break and cannot go into detail. Thank you so much Copa and Cedar. I was pondering moving our studies out of this thread? We have segwayed so far, round and round in Feelings thread....sorry little bird. However, it does give the study a little more privacy....who am I kidding, we are on the worldwide web.....what do you sisters think? Stay here or create another thread? What to call it if so?
Back to work......

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

M said: You do not know how I feel. What I feel.

And that moment I realized he was in agony. And he did not know how to tell me, to reach me. So I climbed in bed and held him and we went to sleep, each sheltered like spoons.

Oh, Copa.

We have abandoned each other. It is like we are willfully pretending we do not know the language of the other. Not listening. And alone.

What an incredible thing that you are able to see it, Copa. That M was able to express it, and that you are able to see the complexity of relationship, and find compassion and honor.

And honor, because that is what I see, in sleeping sheltered like spoons.

Honor, for you, and for M.

I thought. OK. There is an entre into the quilting guild, and friendships, here in my town. And then I thought: What about starting a Spanish Speaking Needlework Guild with M's sister and M, if he wants? Our town has become almost fifty percent Latin American, mostly Mexican.

I read today these three things:

Write your ideas down. Every idea that comes, write it down.
Publicize and begin within 30 days whether you feel ready or not.

Where would you do it, Copa? You could sell the items on Etsy, or Yahoo Store or Amazon. You could learn how to do it, Copa. You take pictures of the item and put the picture online along with contact information.

Maybe, someone will know how to bake in delicious Spanish ways, and that too could be sold online.

Just a place to meet and flyers posted in grocery stores to publicize the meetings. That is all you need, Copa.

What a beautiful idea.

Happy Hour here everyone.

Have a good night.

Cedar