Emo

I've been looking at emo me. Closely, and often. Just over a couple of days I've learned A Lot.

Sometimes she looks like mum. Mum in the middle of a massive surge of anger and frustration, face crumpled, jaw jutting out, red wet eyes, hands clenched, shoulders hunched over, cowering. After all the effort, the trying, the making things right. All the bargains, and sewing and repairing, the brass polishing and weeding and fixing and wallpapering... after all this exhausting effort, nothing is right. Still not perfect. She can't make it perfect. It's destroying her.

Sometimes she looks like a little sister, desperate for a pee, made to wait because someone's taking a photo. Face crumpled into tears, trying not to wet her pants.

Sometimes she's another sister, curled up in a ball with the cat, just humming to it, not making eye contact with anyone. Just curled up.

Sometimes it's dad carrying a white baby coffin, the day my cousin Andrew was buried.

Sometimes it's Nana Ward saying she wishes God would just take her now.

Sometimes it's me wailing through the trauma of break up. Or watching my father die. Watching my mother die. Feeling, watching, the life force leave us behind. Leaving the cat behind in Canada. Coming home and being a misterable stranger in my own country. Lost at home with nowhere else to go.

Sometimes it's just nobody in particular, miserable, snivelling, snotty blurry salty hot tears for no particular reason.

But the point is emo me isn't actually me. This thing I feel like I've been dragging around is emotion. Sad emotion. It's just frustration and anger, indignity, feeling lost, failing, flailing. It's emotion. It's everyone's emotion. It's not mine. And that's not me.

Which is actually rather a relief. It's not mine or me.

It's life. It's everyone's. We all get our turn at the trough of misery. We all have to suck it some time or other. But we don't own it and it doesn't own us.

That's what I saw when I looked long enough.

NEXT: how not to find out who you really are

That Only Happens When I Write

Me: I only have those melt-downs when I write. The rest of the time I'm perfectly fine and normal. It's like writing picks the scab and makes things hurt. After writing yesterday I flaked out on the couch and fell into a deep sleep. That only happens when I write too. I'm definitely stirring and moving stuff here. Something's happening.

I was going through the same process this time last year. Keep coming back. Keep creeping closer to healing.
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Overnight I knew some things. Some important things that have faded into rubbish all of a sudden. But perhaps, by writing them down, they can become not rubbish. Gems maybe.

I read a few sober blogs last night. There are always themes going around. Last night is was the hole inside. The hole that happened at age 4, the God-shaped hole, the black pit, the self abuse, the meaningless, lost, dark struggle that life seems to be. Everyone's got it. Well not everyone, but many many people. Many suffer.
That's what I'm feeling. That hole. That empty place that I tried to fill with booze, business, work, longing, dreaming. As a teenager it could be made happy with the right pair of jeans. Now it's not that easy to appease! (Write about this more.)

So then I read an old post on the 6 Year Hangover blog, about what he was doing last time he got sober. How he just stopped drinking and tried super super harder to be an artist instead of a drunk. He didn't do any recovering. He just switched his passion for drinking to his job making art. He tried to fill that hole up with something else. Not booze, but work. And for him, work success was all about recognition. Acceptance of his work by peers, professionals, reviewers -- all outside. I feel like that all the time. Like I don't exists unless someone else is responding to me. Constantly checking to see if I'm OK, if I'm valid, real. And trying harder and harder and harder till exhausted and feeling like 110% disappointed and ripped off. So.

That's me, I said. Looking out there for meaning, where it isn't.
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Downstairs, thinking it might be healthy to go to bed without a book and have a nice long read inside my own head instead. But I scanned the bookshelf, as I do every night, and this time picked out Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. I bought that book 20+ years ago and have read it several times. Like many books I own, it feels like a completely new read every time I pick it up.

Last night i started at the beginning and read slowly. And I understood--knew for sure--something I have missed in previous readings. The hole we feel -- the empty dark scary uncomfortable thing we're all so desperately trying to soothe and fill isn't a hole. It's our soul. Our soul is suffering. From childhood when it's slammed and bashed by insensitive people. From rejection, from hunger, from just being a human being, with all the complexity and intensity. From birth, or before. It's not a hole to be filled. It's a part of us that is vital to happiness, and grossly neglected.

We feel this pain because our souls are neglected. Hungry, exhausted, abused, ignored, rejected. We don't need to fix it. We need to accept it and listen to it, and start to honour it like we honour the rest of our needs -- our hunger, tiredness, sociability, health. We need to pay it attention.

I am not talking about religion here. I'm talking about spirit. About the imagination, the hope, the wonder, emotion, creativity, sparks of joy, moments of utter peace.
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So if we become additcts, depressed, mad, lost, despairing when our soul is neglected, we can see those things not as afflictions to be fixed, but as messages, gifts.

Perhaps an urge to write, to pick scabs and stir up grief, is my way of reaching my soul. Perhaps this suffering is actually healing.

NEXT: Emo

The Screaming Baby

Emo me is like a screaming baby. And wise me is her mother.

I never had kids. I can see now, I've actually always had a kid -- deep inside myself. I'm my own kid. And I've been screaming for years. Exhausing myself. What to I really need here?

I don't need numbing out. That's for sure.
I don't need entertaining.
I don't need food. I'm not hungry.
I'm not sick either. I don't need medicine or a doctor.

What do I really, really need?

I need someone to look at me and see me. That's all. I just need to be looked at, and seen.

Can wise me do that? Look at emo me, like a parent could look at a child, and see her... give her a sense of existing, mattering, being alright, being safe?

There's been a line of the Desiderata going through my head: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here.

I always loved those words -- I think they might have even been up on our kitchen wall, at Princes St, on a poster. I wanted to be like that. No less than the trees and the stars. But I wasn't. I felt like a nuisance, in the way, expensive, invalid. And underneath all the wonderful things that life has given me, there's still that little cesspool, poisoning things. Not good enough. Not trying hard enough. Who wants to know what you've got to say?

In short, the baby's still screaming.

So. I'm going to look at her, and see her for who she is. I can do that. It's not that hard.

I did the same thing for my secret little addict when I gave up drinking. I gave her attention. I really listened to her demands and needs and fears and concerns. I heard her screaming and whining and bargaining and manipulating. I saw her hurting herself, getting in trouble. Wise me decided to take over that situation and get the booze problem sorted. Not by bashing and blaming and slamming. But by being there, all the time, taking notice and staying calm. It worked.

So wise me can now do a little basic parenting. I have a feeling it's not going to take much. A bit of time and attention. Some kindness, a soft quiet approach to start. I remember babysitting the kids next door. They were both screaming and I started doing ujyyia breath -- ocean sounding breathing -- that I learned in yoga. It only took minutes for the kids to be quiet and calm down -- the breath was infectious. Maybe it's as simple as breathing consciously. No more running away, wishing it would just stop. Wise me just needs to look emo me in the eye and hold her gaze for a while. Look at her with love.

NEXT: That only happens when I write

Keep telling your story

She: Keep telling your story.

Me: I'm so tired. But I'm full of stories, ideas. Every day they're bubbling up from somewhere/nowhere deep inside. Every night as I'm falling asleep, every morning when I wake up, sometimes in my sleep, have ideas that seem brilliant, and then I lose them. They're gone, or seem lame, and I get defeated. Worst, I second-guess myself, and start drowning in that horrible overwhelming sneering "Who cares what you've got to say?"

It really is like a dark blanket that drops over my head, blotting me out, shutting me up, forcing me to be nobody. It comes and goes. I know it's not the truth. I know it's just doubt or fear or a primal survival tactic. I'm a chameleon, or a moth or insect, disappearing into nothing, making myself invisible.

She: And yet you've got a drive to write.

Me: I know. It's ironic. It's cruel. It's funny. It's kind of embarrassing. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a child. I have been a writer since I was a child. But it feels like I've never really let myself believe that.

It's a theme -- not owning my own life, feeling like I'm not actually here, in this life. Like I'm someone else, living in a costume or something. I'm not connected to my own reality.

She: That's one of the purposes for writing. To connect yourself to your own reality.

Me: Really?

She: Yes. Definitely.

Me: Wow. When you put it like that, it gets a whole different look.

She: Yes. So keep telling your story.

Me: OK, I'm going to write how it feels to be disconnected from my own reality.

She: OK, go.

So sometimes I'm living my life, which is pretty peaceful and calm, and pretty awesome in so many ways, and I feel worried and concerned, anxious about who knows what, but that's the default feeling. Something's wrong. But then I think that if I were a journalist, writing a story about me, I would write something totally different to how I really feel. All the surface stuff is great. I am almost too embarrassed to write about how perfect this life is. I am healthy, I am fit, I do and teach yoga, I have a great working situation, I live in a lovely house with a lovely man and a lovely dog, in a beautiful city. We eat well, have the cutest garden. We travel regularly. I have lots of time to do creative things, to cook, and garden. I have lovely friends, family, neighbours. I even quit drinking two years ago --which was the one thing I thought would make my life finally perfect and happy.

(If that's not laying it on thick enough, we are building a lovely new house in Nova Scotia and we're going to move there in six months, and semi-retire, and have a whole acre of amazing fertile soil to grow food on. How fucking perfect can my life be?)

And frankly, I haven't exactly struggled or strived, or made huge sacrifices to get this life. It's kind of just worked out this way.

I feel like I'm writing about someone else. Because that person, in those paragraphs up there, should be so happy and amazed and thrilled and content. That person has absolutely no reason whatsover to be anxious, or blocked, or worried or afraid of anything.

I have time to write. I have material to write about. And yet I kick and scream and get mired down about writing. Over and over again. What is that about?

These are the things I've struggled with all my life. My emotions and feeling and reactions seem to have absolutely no connection at all to my reality.

She: Those feelings and suffering are your reality too.

Me: They just seem so invalid.

She: What do you mean?

I mean that I feel like my emotional self is so disconnected, so far behind the game, so completely not in sync with the rest of me. Part of me is growing up and thriving. The other part of me is cowering in a corner with my head covered, freaking out.

I had this idea the other day to write a story or blog post called "Wise Me". I feel like wise me is the one who's quit drinking and teaches yoga and goes to work and keeps the household humming along, and has relationships with people. Wise me does all the normal stuff and the hard stuff. Then there's emo me who's dragging along in the dust, whimpering and cry-babying, and feeling all freaked and terrified. About nothing really. About nothing. I used to do all sorts of things to pacify her. Drink to numb out the pain, get lost in endless mindless TV, socialise aimlessly, nap obsessively. But mostly drink. And recently I've stopped doing all those things. So the struggle is just more obvious, more constant. But I still just want it to stop. It's so exhausting.

She: Who wants it to stop? Wise you?

Me: No. I think she's cool with it. She gets it. She knows it's just how humans are. This is how we suffer.

You know, the times I most wanted to drink alcohol -- drink with some urgency -- was after doing long yoga sessions. I remember walking up the hill after the weekend workshops or training sessions, desperate for a cold white wine. Pouring myself one as soon as I got in the door, and pretty much sculling it. I could feel it tingle through my blood stream and start to dull me down, numb me out. I'd drink more till I couldn't feel so much. Yoga got me in touch with myself, my feelings, and it was very very weird and odd and frightening. Uncomfortable. Drinking took care of that.

Now I have nothing to take care of that. But it's still happening. I don't know what to do instead. Crochet? Drink tea? Do I just need to experience whatever this anxiety is, and let it work itself out? Is that the answer? Is there an answer? Are these even questions?

NEXT: The screaming baby

Filing the Underwear

Having five girls was a challenge when it came to clothes, and in particular doing laundry and keeping track of the underwear and socks. Don't forget we all had identical clothing, including our school uniforms, and we were all much the same size. I'm sure it was dad who invented the underwear filing system. Mum made it, but it had dad's practicality and rationale written all over it. It was a sheet of fabric with 9 pouches sewn onto it, hung on the inside of the hot-water cupboard door. The idea was that there was a row of pouches for each of us who were at school -- me, Julie and Polly. It was an underwear filing system. I had the top row, with one pouch for undies, one for socks, and one for singlets (today they'd be camisoles). Julie had the middle row. Polly, the smallest, had the bottom row. It was one of those moments: "From now on, all the underwear will be folded and put in the right place. Every Day!"

But it didn't work. Because it required things to be sorted according to child, and who knew, with all the matching gear, whose was whose stuff? If that had been easy or obvious, we wouldn't have needed an underwear filing system. 

So things went from good to bad fairly quickly "From now on, all the underwear and socks will be folded up properly in these pouches!!" Soon all the undies were stuffed into the middle row pouches. All the socks were in the bottom, and all the singlets in the top. We had no idea whose was whose. The system became first up best dressed. You got up, came downstairs in pjs, raided the pouches for the best stuff you could find, then went back upstairs to get dressed for school. 

Mum did have one very clever solution to this though. When I turned 11, I was "allowed" to do my own laundry. This meant I could control my own underwear. I was rapt. Seems like a very small victory in the telling, but it was huge at the time. Huge. 

I was also "allowed" to learn how to iron dad's shirts. Which I did for years. And all the school uniform shirts in the house too. It was a good job. I love the smell of ironed cotton.

NEXT: Keep telling your story