High points
Getting a new job after a long unemployment (nine months or so.) Things just seemed to fall into place around it. I felt welcomed by the staff. Drawn to the place and its beautiful neighborhood. Even the day I went for my interview, in front of me was a cement mixer with the word on it "advance." I took it as a sign. Many people helped and encouraged me throughout the job process, and I think of Carol. When I told her that I'd majored in religion in college she said it was because I liked to find connections between people and things and ideas, and that's as good an explanation as any I could give. Calling her on the day I went to the interview was a confidence builder as well. And when she said "I put things off for tomorrow because I didn't believe in today," I kept that with me.
And connection with so many wonderful people online, particularly through Twitter, more than I can count, has been especially gratifying. Especially Belle and her We Love Gratitude which encouraged my daily awareness and acknowledgement of what's good in my life. And also Christa and Amanda who both invited me to post short writings on their sites, Christa's question being how we might spend a day together and Amanda's a group of seven relating a favorite childhood memory. And Jessica asked me to review her book of poetry, and her work still delights me.
Low points
In February, the roof nearly fell in and we were evicted from our house. A lot of daily disruption and uncertainty, and accepting what I can't fix or control has, if not helped, certainly kept me from making things worse. And there is completion in sight.
And at times I've struggled with depression. Negative self talk. It's better today, because I'm refocused on what worked for me before. It's practice. Being grateful, staying present, paying attention, keeping active and focusing. And I have so many people to help me do that and I need to stay connected with each one.
The year as a whole
It would be great to say the path is linear. Maybe it's more like a sine curve. At times I've really felt held by something greater, and at other times this nagging anxiety like a boy who never has his homework finished. Maybe it's better when I don't take it so seriously. It's been a hard year and a great year.
Showing posts with label reflections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflections. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Ten years after
It was quite a time for me even before the planes hit. In the middle of June my then wife told me she was a lesbian. Even though I was able to get help from a minister and my therapist, I kept it entirely within myself to protect her privacy. As such I really didn't get the help or advice I needed. I was floundering, looking for answers that weren't there, instead of planning how to take care of myself and our children, who were then 7 and 4. Later, after the planes hit, my therapist remarked that my wife and I were like terrorists, carrying around this information that would have such an impact, like bombs we were going to detonate.
The news should not have come as a surprise to me. In our bedroom, a few days before, I noticed in the closet a book with the subtitle "coming out later in life." The following Friday night, after our friends departed and the kids had gone to bed, she said "I have to talk to you," and fear quickened me. She said something to the effect of I love you, you're a wonderful husband and father, and I gasped and I felt my heart racing and as if it was rising into my throat. "I think I'm a lesbian," she said. The upshot of it was while she and my daughter went away for several days it was up to me to think of what I wanted to do. I had been fearful that she was leaving right then or asking me to leave. Anything but immediate action, that's what disturbed me most. It didn't occur to me to ask, why is this my problem? The prospect of making any decision overwhelmed me, but wasn't it more fear that was driving me, dread at the prospect of insecurity, thinking I couldn't afford divorce or imaging how a breakup could be facilitated. We had just bought a house with another couple who lived upstairs. Not too many months before, with a job, housing payments, child care, I thought to myself, I'm so leveraged I couldn't even kill myself. Now it seemed even more complicated.
In the ensuing summer days I went to work, took my to son to daycare, picked him up, rode home with him on the bus, drove around, had incomplete conversations with acquaintances and strangers, wondered about my own sexuality ( the Ox-Cart Man or the man on the Goodwill box seemed to have benign smiles and I flirted with a guy in the supermarket,) but for the most part did nothing. "Is it weird having me around," I asked my wife. "It's weird having me around," she answered. Early in August she asked me to sleep on the couch and so every night I would and try to wake up before the kids so I could fold up the convertible, but my daughter caught me at it, and she was not fooled.
Gradually I told my immediate family, my brother when he came to visit from France. He questioned why my wife was adopting such a rigid definition of her sexuality. Telling my parents, however, is one of the most painful memories I have. Looking back, I made the mistake of trying to smooth things over rather than letting them, especially my father, feel their grief. Perhaps because I have so much trouble sitting with my own discomfort.
Later in the month, I learned that the research institution I worked for was going to be absorbed by a large university, with an uncertain future for all. No one would say anything. There was a vague notice from the president in each person's mailbox. A group of professors from the university would visit on September 11 to visit the labs and evaluate the scientists, and your librarian was the last on the docket.
We had an ice cream party with our neighbors at our house. They invited all their friends, I didn't invite anyone. There was pretense, but I had been keeping it up all summer, what was another afternoon as the sun shone and the peaches ripened. September came and school started, bright cool sunny days. On a certain Tuesday I dropped my son off at day care as usual, and headed in to work. Soon a woman who worked with me told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and I thought it was maybe pilot error. Not long after that she came back to tell me that another plane crashed and that these were acts of terrorism. I tried to find information from CNN or some other web site but nothing would load on my computer. I had a half-assed radio and turned to any station I could find and heard Peter Jennings talking to some official about what had happened and how it represented a failure of intelligence. Later a television was placed in the lunchroom as we ate our customary Tuesday lunch, with our guests from the university. Someone's flight had been cancelled. My colleague who brought me the news was concerned about her brother, a New York City policeman. An older scientist was desperately trying to reach his son who lived in New York, whereabouts unknown. Our guests from the university sat at different tables, I remember one nervously looking around at the television. The show went on, however, and it wasn't until around six that the trio came to the library and I talked to them but I imagine they had their fill by then. Eventually I made it home to see my father dropping off my daughter. He remarked on the similarities with Pearl Harbor, which he would remember, and his last words as he walked off were "sad day."
Ironically, the day before had been our thirteenth wedding anniversary. I bought my wife roses. I don't know why. Maybe I wasn't able to let go. Several weeks later I moved out, renting a couple of rooms from a taxi driver not too far from my house. The first night I slept there I felt a sense of peace and relief. Much of my subsequent activity was driven by fear and avoidance, nevertheless.
(And Sarah (who is also called Chris, not the result of a Road to Damascus experience to my knowledge,) was not finished. Another story for another day.)
So the marriage ending, the turmoil around work, and the trauma of the national situation I think of as a triple whammy. Personal trauma, institutional trauma, and then, above and beyond, national trauma.
Eerie days followed. Sadness. People more distant. Trash cans removed from the streets and subways. Flags flying, whipping from cars and trucks driving past. Groups of people, especially kids holding candles at night. The troubling sight of the photos of the suspected hijackers, one by one, in the newspaper. Events in subsequent years I do not remember so well, but those days I recall vividly.
And today, a clear blue sky like that Tuesday ten years ago, occasional hum of helicopters and sudden roar of fighter jets, I try to exercise a little imagination and think of what this day is for others in the world, particularly those who lost someone, a parent, a child, a friend, and waking up every subsequent day with loss and grief that doesn't go away.
I recommend Pema Teeter's moving ongoing story series reflecting on the month of days leading up to September 11, 2001.
The news should not have come as a surprise to me. In our bedroom, a few days before, I noticed in the closet a book with the subtitle "coming out later in life." The following Friday night, after our friends departed and the kids had gone to bed, she said "I have to talk to you," and fear quickened me. She said something to the effect of I love you, you're a wonderful husband and father, and I gasped and I felt my heart racing and as if it was rising into my throat. "I think I'm a lesbian," she said. The upshot of it was while she and my daughter went away for several days it was up to me to think of what I wanted to do. I had been fearful that she was leaving right then or asking me to leave. Anything but immediate action, that's what disturbed me most. It didn't occur to me to ask, why is this my problem? The prospect of making any decision overwhelmed me, but wasn't it more fear that was driving me, dread at the prospect of insecurity, thinking I couldn't afford divorce or imaging how a breakup could be facilitated. We had just bought a house with another couple who lived upstairs. Not too many months before, with a job, housing payments, child care, I thought to myself, I'm so leveraged I couldn't even kill myself. Now it seemed even more complicated.
In the ensuing summer days I went to work, took my to son to daycare, picked him up, rode home with him on the bus, drove around, had incomplete conversations with acquaintances and strangers, wondered about my own sexuality ( the Ox-Cart Man or the man on the Goodwill box seemed to have benign smiles and I flirted with a guy in the supermarket,) but for the most part did nothing. "Is it weird having me around," I asked my wife. "It's weird having me around," she answered. Early in August she asked me to sleep on the couch and so every night I would and try to wake up before the kids so I could fold up the convertible, but my daughter caught me at it, and she was not fooled.
Gradually I told my immediate family, my brother when he came to visit from France. He questioned why my wife was adopting such a rigid definition of her sexuality. Telling my parents, however, is one of the most painful memories I have. Looking back, I made the mistake of trying to smooth things over rather than letting them, especially my father, feel their grief. Perhaps because I have so much trouble sitting with my own discomfort.
Later in the month, I learned that the research institution I worked for was going to be absorbed by a large university, with an uncertain future for all. No one would say anything. There was a vague notice from the president in each person's mailbox. A group of professors from the university would visit on September 11 to visit the labs and evaluate the scientists, and your librarian was the last on the docket.
We had an ice cream party with our neighbors at our house. They invited all their friends, I didn't invite anyone. There was pretense, but I had been keeping it up all summer, what was another afternoon as the sun shone and the peaches ripened. September came and school started, bright cool sunny days. On a certain Tuesday I dropped my son off at day care as usual, and headed in to work. Soon a woman who worked with me told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and I thought it was maybe pilot error. Not long after that she came back to tell me that another plane crashed and that these were acts of terrorism. I tried to find information from CNN or some other web site but nothing would load on my computer. I had a half-assed radio and turned to any station I could find and heard Peter Jennings talking to some official about what had happened and how it represented a failure of intelligence. Later a television was placed in the lunchroom as we ate our customary Tuesday lunch, with our guests from the university. Someone's flight had been cancelled. My colleague who brought me the news was concerned about her brother, a New York City policeman. An older scientist was desperately trying to reach his son who lived in New York, whereabouts unknown. Our guests from the university sat at different tables, I remember one nervously looking around at the television. The show went on, however, and it wasn't until around six that the trio came to the library and I talked to them but I imagine they had their fill by then. Eventually I made it home to see my father dropping off my daughter. He remarked on the similarities with Pearl Harbor, which he would remember, and his last words as he walked off were "sad day."
Ironically, the day before had been our thirteenth wedding anniversary. I bought my wife roses. I don't know why. Maybe I wasn't able to let go. Several weeks later I moved out, renting a couple of rooms from a taxi driver not too far from my house. The first night I slept there I felt a sense of peace and relief. Much of my subsequent activity was driven by fear and avoidance, nevertheless.
(And Sarah (who is also called Chris, not the result of a Road to Damascus experience to my knowledge,) was not finished. Another story for another day.)
So the marriage ending, the turmoil around work, and the trauma of the national situation I think of as a triple whammy. Personal trauma, institutional trauma, and then, above and beyond, national trauma.
Eerie days followed. Sadness. People more distant. Trash cans removed from the streets and subways. Flags flying, whipping from cars and trucks driving past. Groups of people, especially kids holding candles at night. The troubling sight of the photos of the suspected hijackers, one by one, in the newspaper. Events in subsequent years I do not remember so well, but those days I recall vividly.
And today, a clear blue sky like that Tuesday ten years ago, occasional hum of helicopters and sudden roar of fighter jets, I try to exercise a little imagination and think of what this day is for others in the world, particularly those who lost someone, a parent, a child, a friend, and waking up every subsequent day with loss and grief that doesn't go away.
I recommend Pema Teeter's moving ongoing story series reflecting on the month of days leading up to September 11, 2001.
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