Thursday, January 1, 2015

New Year, Old Me

January 1, 2015. I had a plan last night. I would listen to books on tape, do some cleaning, ring in a new year with absolutely no fanfare and NO resolutions.  No resolutions = No disappointment when I reach January 15, 2015, and I've already stopped.  This New Year's Eve I decided to just let the new year be like any other day and let it slip away like every day slips away.

But, around 11:15, I suddenly couldn't tolerate my audible book anymore.  The Ex had taken my daughter to a New Year's event with his friend's family.  The dogs were sleeping (I'd sedated them a little to help them deal with fireworks that were starting up here and there through the neighborhood).  I turned off the book and started to cry.  I can't pinpoint a specific reason.  I just cried.

Then I dug around in a drawer and found a Thank You card and inside it I wrote down the names of everyone I've ever dated or loved (or slept with... ummm.. yeah).  I had to look a couple of people up online because I actually couldn't remember some last names.  I didn't include anyone I "loved" before I was 16 years old, but from 16 on, fair game.  I then found a little card with a saying on it about remembering the happy times.  

It was too freakin' cold outside to go out and light a fire, so I got out a metal pan and some matches and literally hung it out the bathroom window (I should really get a screen for that window!).  For some reason, the Thank You note wouldn't burn well, but I finally added a piece of cardboard which lit up like a little bonfire and kept the card burning until it was gone.  Ash.   

And oddly...

I felt better.  

There is something so powerful in the act of ritual.  I've spent several months feeling weighed down by my sadness and disappointments.  I've felt so heavy with what I've labeled "vow."  The-I-can't-ever-do-that-again type vow that keeps one from opening to possibility.  What I fear, more than failure, and more than rejection... is disappointment.  I fear the experience of letting myself hope and having those hopes dashed.  But, without some kind of hope (or motivation), I've been living in a very grey place.  At work, if one of my employees were in this kind of place, I'd say that they weren't engaged.  I'd work to help them find and build their engagement.  So, I guess what I'm finding is that I'm not very engaged with life right now.  I've been doing things that are new this year, and have been living each day, working slowly, slowly, slowly to build some discipline in new arenas, and to create something new.  But, even with a nice new living room, and a cleaner home, and deeper connection to the world through my spiritual practice, there is still this cool, grey barrier between myself and what I hold sacred, and I sit along the outside edge of it, or inside it, without crossing over.

Part of what I'm finding is that I no longer believe in the things that I used to believe in.  I no longer fantasize that magic is going to happen (well... except I'm still planning to win the lottery!  ;))  I don't really "believe" in love.  Certainly, it's not like the movies, and certainly, it's never, ever something that I can count on to be real, or to last.  I don't mean the kind of love I have for my kids.  That never goes away.  I am talking about partnership.  

Last week, waking up to my alarm, I pulled the CPAP mask off my face, then took out the mouth guard, then stumbled into the bathroom in my old flannel pajamas, and stood there for minute in front of the mirror, struck by how many physical barriers I've got in place to keep me from having any kind of a physical relationship with another person.  I couldn't (and wouldn't) even sleep next to someone. In addition to the CPAP and mouth guard, it's possible I still snore through all of that!  (The last person I tried to date had to wear ear plugs).  

I've stopped taking daily showers or shaving my legs. 

I don't eat meat or gluten, which makes even going out to a nice dinner with friends nearly impossible.

And I hate parties and crowds, despise trying to meet new people (at such events), and have sworn off online dating sites in a very BIG way.  Add to all of it, the extra 80 lbs I carry around on my body, and the message to the world is crystal clear. Stay the FUCK away from me.  

And then... I'm lonely.  I don't know how to find my way through this strange time of my life.  I don't know what this will look like on the other side, and I can't really think about the other side right now, because I'm not on the other side.  I'm right here.  In the thick of it.  I don't want to bypass what is real.  And then, I also want to find what it is (besides years of little and big disappointments) that keeps me in a grey place, behind so many physical (safe?) barriers.  For the first time in my life, I feel very... ordinary.  I have no delusions about my life.  I would think that might be freeing, but I find it disorienting.  Aside from getting up in the morning and going to work, I don't really have a plan, and I don't really want to make one.  

So, tomorrow I'll head in to work.  I'll try to remember to write "2015" in my file reviews, and I'll deal with all the little things that come up throughout the day.  Put out the fires, then come home and sit in front of a computer screen.

Happy New Year, I should say.  I wonder what's going to happen next.