First Week of Lent
Mar. 5th, 2006 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameThere is this song, it's by this Jewish reggae rapper Grant is listening to (seriously, the guy is in full beard and yamaca breaking it down). It says;
Stripping away the layers that reveal your soul,
You've got to give yourself up
And then you become whole
Anyway, yeah, my coping mechanisms - food, sex, the internet - are all flying out the window one by one and it's left me accutely aware of all the different things that make me need a coping mechanism to begin with. It's really introspective and deep and long winded but basically boils down to me working through a lot of crap I probably should have a long time ago. I cry a few times a day and go off on these rambling diatribes to Grant about how I'm a mess, I can't do this, I am my childhood, I can't believe how controlled by my childhood I am, etc etc. Some of the things that have come clear to me are;
-I say self-deprecating things to people and then if they don't argue with me I assume they agree and get very hurt. Like I will walk into the office and say, "Grant I know I'm just being really stupid and I shouldn't even ask but do you think you could ____?" And if he just says "Of course I will", or "I don't think I can right now", I think "He DOES think I'm stupid and shouldn't even ask!!" Seriously, I get hurt and freaked out. Really though I use those disclaimers CONSTANTLY so Grant basically doesn't even hear them anymore.
-I've realized that a lot of my neurosis - like not being able to sleep because I think someone is going to sneak in and kill the children, or being certain Grant will cheat on me when he's nothing but trustworthy - are about not being able to trust anything to last. I spent the first 16 years of my life moving every 5 months and starting at 13 different schools, and with adults coming and going like musical chairs. I don't know how to honestly believe Grant and I could grow old together, or let myself hope my kids will grow up without getting cancer, and so instead I cling and freak out over hypothetical situations to such an extent that it would almost be a relief if my fears came to pass because then I'd have nothing to lose and could stop feeling so vulnerable. One positive offshoot of this is that I think I manage to do so many things each day with each kid and nto go to bed and cherish each evening with Grant and so on, consistently, because it always feels urgent to me to do those things. I don't feel like "Tomorrow is another day"...ever. I get horribly sad and achy imagining not having afternoon tea one day or not reading to the kids one night, I don't think you need an occassion to bake from scratch or make a big breakfast, and nothing needs to be pressing for me to stay up until 4 am to do it. Basically I just don't know how to get comfortable and "Settle in" to this life. Any life. Everything is vital and life and death or something.
-And I have to affirm my existence at every turn. I have (literally) over a dozen FILLED spiral notebooks of journaling, and going on 4 years of LJ, and I also am right now keeping a journal for Jake and a bible study journal...because somehow it all validates me. And I'm finding that not journaling makes me feel panicky and insubstantial. I've realized that all day, moment to moment, I'm mentally archiving and things feel almost intangible if I can't immortalize them with words.
My little sister, who somewhere along the line surpassed me as her psychology teacher and became wise, thinks this is all about self worth. She thinks I don't have any self esteem and that's what all of this boils down to - me not feeling I deserve a life that will still be there tomorrow, or even that I deserve to be able to make an unqualified statement. And that perhaps what I'm really afraid of isn't that I would lose anyone or anything, but that I could go on if I did and eventually be ok again. She may or may not be right. Meanwhile it is all getting easier, gradually. There is a part of me that didn't even want to use the computer today. It feels like some sort of drug almost to me right now, taking the edge off of real life and allowing me to float along without riding out the rough spots. It's easier to look at all the pretty things people are making in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
food_porn and read all the latest news headlines on yahoo and browse around ebay for teapots and wonder who's had their baby yet on my friends' page, then it is to find a way to be in the moment.
I get all manic and nutso with the computer off, there's no default place in the house for me to sit without it, nothing to distract me while I nurse or walk back and forth and glance at as I pace with a fussy Jake. I catch myself doing laps around the house while everyone else is busy with some idle persuit or other.
I ponder the meaning of Lent from many different angles.
Lent is about walking through a 40 day fast with Christ.
Lent is about suffering, and each time you suffer, offering it up to God as a remembrance of how Jesus' suffered for us.
Lent is about dying to the world to be reborn in the spirit come Easter.
Apparently Lent is about stripping away the layers that reveal your soul, giving yourself up so that you become whole.
Stripping away the layers that reveal your soul,
You've got to give yourself up
And then you become whole
Anyway, yeah, my coping mechanisms - food, sex, the internet - are all flying out the window one by one and it's left me accutely aware of all the different things that make me need a coping mechanism to begin with. It's really introspective and deep and long winded but basically boils down to me working through a lot of crap I probably should have a long time ago. I cry a few times a day and go off on these rambling diatribes to Grant about how I'm a mess, I can't do this, I am my childhood, I can't believe how controlled by my childhood I am, etc etc. Some of the things that have come clear to me are;
-I say self-deprecating things to people and then if they don't argue with me I assume they agree and get very hurt. Like I will walk into the office and say, "Grant I know I'm just being really stupid and I shouldn't even ask but do you think you could ____?" And if he just says "Of course I will", or "I don't think I can right now", I think "He DOES think I'm stupid and shouldn't even ask!!" Seriously, I get hurt and freaked out. Really though I use those disclaimers CONSTANTLY so Grant basically doesn't even hear them anymore.
-I've realized that a lot of my neurosis - like not being able to sleep because I think someone is going to sneak in and kill the children, or being certain Grant will cheat on me when he's nothing but trustworthy - are about not being able to trust anything to last. I spent the first 16 years of my life moving every 5 months and starting at 13 different schools, and with adults coming and going like musical chairs. I don't know how to honestly believe Grant and I could grow old together, or let myself hope my kids will grow up without getting cancer, and so instead I cling and freak out over hypothetical situations to such an extent that it would almost be a relief if my fears came to pass because then I'd have nothing to lose and could stop feeling so vulnerable. One positive offshoot of this is that I think I manage to do so many things each day with each kid and nto go to bed and cherish each evening with Grant and so on, consistently, because it always feels urgent to me to do those things. I don't feel like "Tomorrow is another day"...ever. I get horribly sad and achy imagining not having afternoon tea one day or not reading to the kids one night, I don't think you need an occassion to bake from scratch or make a big breakfast, and nothing needs to be pressing for me to stay up until 4 am to do it. Basically I just don't know how to get comfortable and "Settle in" to this life. Any life. Everything is vital and life and death or something.
-And I have to affirm my existence at every turn. I have (literally) over a dozen FILLED spiral notebooks of journaling, and going on 4 years of LJ, and I also am right now keeping a journal for Jake and a bible study journal...because somehow it all validates me. And I'm finding that not journaling makes me feel panicky and insubstantial. I've realized that all day, moment to moment, I'm mentally archiving and things feel almost intangible if I can't immortalize them with words.
My little sister, who somewhere along the line surpassed me as her psychology teacher and became wise, thinks this is all about self worth. She thinks I don't have any self esteem and that's what all of this boils down to - me not feeling I deserve a life that will still be there tomorrow, or even that I deserve to be able to make an unqualified statement. And that perhaps what I'm really afraid of isn't that I would lose anyone or anything, but that I could go on if I did and eventually be ok again. She may or may not be right. Meanwhile it is all getting easier, gradually. There is a part of me that didn't even want to use the computer today. It feels like some sort of drug almost to me right now, taking the edge off of real life and allowing me to float along without riding out the rough spots. It's easier to look at all the pretty things people are making in
food_porn and read all the latest news headlines on yahoo and browse around ebay for teapots and wonder who's had their baby yet on my friends' page, then it is to find a way to be in the moment. I get all manic and nutso with the computer off, there's no default place in the house for me to sit without it, nothing to distract me while I nurse or walk back and forth and glance at as I pace with a fussy Jake. I catch myself doing laps around the house while everyone else is busy with some idle persuit or other.
I ponder the meaning of Lent from many different angles.
Lent is about walking through a 40 day fast with Christ.
Lent is about suffering, and each time you suffer, offering it up to God as a remembrance of how Jesus' suffered for us.
Lent is about dying to the world to be reborn in the spirit come Easter.
Apparently Lent is about stripping away the layers that reveal your soul, giving yourself up so that you become whole.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 04:24 am (UTC)Grant knew I had just updated and when he heard me cackling he yelled from the living room, "What did she say?" knowing who it was.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 04:21 am (UTC)I'm there, I'm working through a lot of the same things. I recommend reading Maya Angelou. I saw her in person at my University last night and it broke some wall inside me. Seeing and hearing that I wasn't the first to be lonley, the first to be young and pregnant, the first to be abused, the first to be raped made me feel far less alone. Other women have walked that path and come out on the other side victorious and strong. I can do this life. I can relax. I think relaxing is vital to my mental health and I try to do it everyday.
I'm thinking of you often.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 04:27 am (UTC)I would love to see her in person. She's spotted up in Miami on a fairly regular basis, but I don't know if she has a home there or just visits. Maybe she'll come to one of the big book fairs sometime soon. That's how I met Stephen King.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 04:31 am (UTC)I got into my "Harlem Rennaissance Phase" with "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. Powerful book and still one of my favorites. I also just read "The bluest eye" by toni morrison.
Amazing. So much beautiful humanness.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 03:55 pm (UTC)We never watch tv while the kids are up, so that helps me keep it off. It's just kind of never been an option during the day. Plus our couches are horribly uncomfortable. And I think you might know about that, as you said in one entry that you have the same couch.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 08:47 pm (UTC)we've just moved into this amazing house...and all i keep thinking is:
i wonder when the ghosts will start shreiking in the attic
i wonder when we'll find out there is radioactive waste in the yard
i have always expected horrors or disappointment coming from a place that seems quite similar to your upbringing...
time heals, i spoze. trusting God.
i thank the Lord that i can read your writing considering i have so little time to express myself these days...its good to know that we're all a little broken in the same places and that there is a light.
peace,
becky*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-07 01:38 am (UTC)May this Lenten season bring you a deeper understanding and experience of wholeness in Christ.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 03:58 pm (UTC)I like your icon.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)