I Wept

I wept when I read to you about your mom

I wept because I want to believe things aren’t so

But I know all too well

I want to curl up and feel the slumber of unconsciousness

Except that it’s killing me, just like working was killing me

Perhaps goals are important, I don’t know

They keep a person focused, distracted from their pain

I cry for you when I think of the things that still mean something to you

In this world, all you have, all you can barely do

And your salty eyes betray that you cry, too

God spare me any more sadness, please

This life I have only just come to love, is slipping away

Like summer’s end

It’s inevitable, and I know I’m not prepared for another winter

Perhaps the longest one ever

As I watch the slowly fading flowers

The slowly dimming light in your eyes still wants to sparkle another day

Though your voice can barely convey to me your thoughts

I know them better than most, because I have known you

And I want you to be ok

Really ok, not that crap we tell ourselves that is just denial

I want you to shine and sparkle like brand new

And I weep because I know that can never happen

At least not in this world and who knows about any other

I will keep on going, I guess

But I feel my own life leaving me as my body seeks revenge

For all the thoughtless years of indifference

Please, I’ve just now come to love this life

Why does it have to crumble?

Who made us this way, not built to last, disposable?

My Argument with Byron Katie (also on Facebook)

Me: Your philosophy of “loving what is” promotes apathy
and acquiescence to evil.

Byron Katie: YOUR philosophy of NOT “loving what is” DOESN’T promote NON-apathy and NON-acquiescence to evil. See what I did there?

Me: You just basically said “I know you are but what am I” in fancy negatives.

Byron Katie: I’m Byron Katie, sweetie. I win.

I'm Not Angry Anymore

I wanted to tell you

That I’m not angry anymore

I wanted it to be true and to let you know

That I won’t be getting angry anymore

But I was too late

I was busy doing other things

Little, unimportant things like washing clothes

Rearranging the cupboard

When I went to check on you

You were gone

Now I’ll never get to tell you

All the things that hurt inside

Or about my day’s accomplishments

Little, unimportant as they are

Or of the funny thing the cats did

Or anything at all

I may as well go, too

I have no one anymore

No one who is even close to knowing me like you

Better than I know myself

**this was written on the date in the title and wasn't the real accounting of how Sharon passed. I actually held her hand and watched her take her last breath. Not that it makes things any easier, harder if anything.

The Little Things (Phantom dog leap explained)

Sometimes it is the little things that sustain us. Keeping up with our chores, watering a plant, feeding the dogs. Caring about something--anything at all, can be the difference between spiraling downward or keeping your head above water for one more day. 

 

One more day could be all it takes to wake up and discover that everything has been re-arranged in the night. Or to find yourself in a dream you thought you were having, that turned out to be your life, with somebody else’s game show prizes. Just keep playing along; it will work out.

Other times, it is a phantom dog leap that is required. This is what occurs when you are at the point of desperation and make a grand, foolish gesture or perform a ridiculous ritual of questionable significance. Except that it isn’t foolish or questionable to you. It is essential. 

 

A phantom dog leap is leaping beyond your expected limitations and predefined roles. It is you, being your most free and most vulnerable self. It is quite possibly dangerous, illegal, immoral or fattening. Don’t do it without consideration. But don’t hesitate when the moment arrives. Timing is everything.

That being said, relax. Either way, just…

Who Cares?

People always say, “I had no idea.”  “He seemed OK yesterday.” “We were talking, he seemed like he was happy, you know, joking around.”

A lot goes unnoticed. The little clues. The cries for help. It’s hard to see when someone is actually putting on their best face but they are hanging by a thread. We want to believe that they will be just fine. Then we can be OK with going about our own day, doing whatever it is that gives us our pleasures.

No one else hears the voices that taunt and torment a soul. The insidious commentary that goes on in someone’s head is only theirs. “It’s pointless.” “Who cares, really?” “You’re worthless.” “Everything is futile.” 

I find I have nothing to say anymore. I’ve raged. I’ve complained. I’ve cried. I’ve affirmed. I’ve deflected and dismissed, distracted and pretended. Acted up and acted out. Behaved like I was told I should and rebelled with all my heart. I’ve gone blind with emotion, and I’ve gone numb past all feeling.

If there was joy or love, I can’t find it now. It is in the past. In pictures. In stories I tell myself. Those stories all have sad, unfulfilling endings. They have dragging, tedious storylines of watching something slowly decay from the inside. Still smiling and fooling the public. Still making chit-chat.

Find little things to stick around for. Little, short-term goals with higher reward to work ratios. I don’t know. Nothing seems to pay off, really. Half-ass this, half-ass that. Projects too daunting or to draining to start. Little chores pile up into mountains. The everyday necessities that one begins to question, “Why bother?” Why bother putting together complete sentences and such? Who will really care?

Who Would I Be? already posted on Facebook

Who would I be without my incessant need for external validation?

Who would I be without my duplicity?

Without my evil temper?

My need to be right?

Who would I be?

If I was just me?

If I cared about something, what would that be?

What would the world around me look like, if I didn’t carry around that inner critic?

How would each little thing appear, if I didn’t judge it, reject it, despise it?

What if I just waited for a moment,

Paused,

Before reacting?

How would the song of my life sound then?

What would it look like if I laid all my feelings out on the table,

Picked them up one by one, polished them like silverware,

And then put them all back,

In their proper places?

What would be left?

Would I?

Still?

Be?

Me

Waiting

Tedium sets in, then frustration leads to anger. Anger gives way to sadness, then a hopeless drudgery of enduring the moment. Thoughts arise but fall away uselessly. The ones that grip are the ones that reinforce the sadness. Sadness empties out into, well, emptiness. There is nothing left. Out of nothing a spark. Maybe, something? Too soon to tell..

Inside my head on this date

2-21-17

I want so much to be able to say to you before you or I go on, finally, to wherever it is that we go that I am not angry anymore. I wanted to say it today, when I was in the kitchen putting dishes away and thinking again how useless it all is. Useless to do the same things, the chores, the routines. I do them thinking, “If I just keep doing the same things, then things will at least stay the same. They won’t get any worse, right?”

No. Not right. I have to lower my expectations.

If I buy everything on the list, or if I get it all done by five, if I manage to get all the cleanup done and pillows arranged and meals cooked and fed and keep on top of all upcoming events…well, then I can rest and feel good about myself at the end of a day. That on just one day, finally, I got everything right. That I have made something better and not worse.

No, it will still get worse.

And worse is that you will hate me. You do hate me. Have hated me for some time. My tea, my talking, my listening to that stupid audio player, my going for bike rides, my always looking at old pictures, the dumb things I think, the salads I eat, the supplements I uselessly take, the garlic I put on everything, the stupid dogs that barked at you and made you cry. My complaining, my anger, my stubbornly not leaving the room or leaving you forever. My inability to change. And everything about me, ever. All of it.

I wanted to say that I’m not mad anymore, that I just feel sad now. But when I walked in the room, you told me that I had forgotten something and how it was so typical of me. Or something to that effect. And I stopped feeling sad and was mad again. But then sad, because I couldn’t even keep from getting mad after a whole afternoon of wearing out my emotions down to the empty after-feeling that sadness leaves. There was still anger waiting under it all. And I failed again.

I'm an Asshole

Light and love whatever