Exactly What I Asked For

I'm in a place I don't like to be.  My house is a disaster.  My studies are suffering.  I lack energy, motivation, happiness.  I'm starting to doubt myself.  I've lost faith.  We're having weird accidents around here.  Everything is so out of alignment.  So what the hell is going on??

I went looking for old emails from Kevin to find some inspiration, maybe some comfort.  Pre-Kevin, when bad things happened to me, I used to blame a lot of it on my parents, and what was left over I blamed on myself.  I remember those feelings of disappointment, hurt and self-loathing.  My then boyfriend was cheating on me and I was trying to 'work it out' because it was probably my fault he was cheating on me anyway (or so I thought at the time).  I was a miserable, unhappy bitch, not to put too fine a point on it.

Post-Kevin, I began to subscribe to the theory that you get what you focus on.  The universe is perfect, responding to the energy behind every request with perfect precision.  The problem is in getting the energy of your request just right.  Example:  "I don't want to fail my Anatomy midterm, please don't let me fail my midterm" vs. "I know this material.  I love this material.  I love learning this material.  Let me show you what I've learned".  Very different energy behind each.  Guess which one I've been feeling with great intensity?  Guess which one the universe is going to give me?

 So yesterday I went to see a therapist.  Therapists are my fallback position.  That's what you're supposed to do when you've had depression and PPD and were on hardcore drugs that you took yourself off of.  You get therapy.  You get to the bottom of it.  You dissect.  You examine the evidence.  You find out how you're broken, how your parents are broken, how they broke you.  I can see that there will be a discussion about SSRI's again.

"That's a trigger for you," she said excitedly after I'd described my sleep deprivation.  "You get these rage episodes when you haven't had any sleep.  You'll have to watch that.  It's a definite trigger."
Oh my god, she's right, I have a condition triggered by sleep deprivation.  I chanted this to myself all day.  I am broken.  Sleep deprivation.  Rage trigger.  And what did I get last night?  The Oxling's worst night in months.  He maybe slept four hours total.  And I punched a wall.  For the first time in months.

I'm such a powerful creator that I get exactly what I ask for.  Every.  Single.  Time.

Your PROBLEM is that you think you have a problem.

 My friend, you would rather trust my word over your own.  You would trust the words of a psychotherapist over your own.  You would rather trust anyone else's words over your own.  You are depressed because you don't trust YOU!  You don't believe in yourself....or put a better way, you've lost faith in you.  

 I know what you're capable of, I know what gifts you posess, and I know you can easily shift this around.  I can SEE it.  But until YOU trust yourself, have faith in yourself, believe in yourself, and FUCKIN' PUSH YOURSELF(!)  You will not be able to see in yourself what I clearly see in you.   

                           -- Kevin (2007) 

Motherhood

The Oxling is outgrowing his second car seat.  He turns eight months old this week.  This is going so quickly.  I just found out that my second term of nursing school is going to require full-time class attendance, Monday through Friday, which means full-time daycare.  The thought of sending him to daycare so young just feels... wrong.  Counter intuitive.  I'm asking myself, am I a nursing student first?  Because if I am then yes, he should go to daycare.  But I already know that I'm not a nursing student first.  So I have a decision to make.  What kind of mother will I be?

On the weekend my sister and I were talking about fights we had as kids.  She said, "one of the worst ones was on the bus ride from BC to Saskatchewan."
"What bus ride?" I asked.
She looked at me to see if I was joking.  I wasn't.  "Remember that one time when we decided we wanted to come home early and so she put us on the bus in Prince George?  We got into a huge fight and had to sit in different parts of the bus."
"We travelled alone from northern BC to Saskatchewan.  On a bus."
"Yes."
"How old were we?"
"You were about 13?  I was 12?"
"Huh.  I have absolutely no recollection of that."
"You probably blocked it."
She's right.  I think I did.

I remember the one year, possibly the same year, Mom picked us up in Saskatchewan (where Dad had custody) and drove us in her truck to her cabin in northern BC.  Five kids under the age of 13 stuffed into a small Toyota half-ton.  The only way it would work is if a couple of us at a time rode in the back under a fiberglass topper.  Through the mountains.  With no seat belts.

When we got to her cabin (no heat.  I associate my mom with very cold houses), she was exhausted and we were all tired and ornery and she started criticizing our dad for some reason and I freaked out in the irrational way that a teenager does, only unlike dad, mom reacted just as irrationally.  I remember as clear as anything her standing in the middle of the kitchen screaming at me, "you know nothing about feminism! Nothing!"  I believe she dropped a few f-bombs in there, too.

I think it broke something in my brain because I don't remember what happened after that.  But if my sister is right, it ended in a bus trip home.  I don't think I ever went back.

If only that whole scenario was the exception when it comes to my relationship with my mother.  Unfortunately, that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Soul Mates

I've been listening to an Esther Hicks CD when I drive.  Why do I feel so embarrassed to disclose that?  I want to add all sorts of disclaimers.  Like, I buy some of the law of attraction theories but not all of them.  I don't really believe she's channeling entities called Abraham.  I'm soooo over The Secret, I swear to God.

But in truth, I feel comforted listening to her.  And not necessarily just her (still getting to know the whole Hicks thing); I mean anyone talking about the law of attraction, particularly if it's in an honest, hopeful, down-to-earth, human way.  It feels a bit like prayer to me.  It reminds me of those many, many late evening discussions with Kevin at the school after class.  Always with me halfway dressed to leave, him leaning against the door jam.  Our conversations always had an air of spontaneity and yet were always hoped for, anticipated, depended upon.

He introduced me to the theories of manifestation years before The Secret came along.  He was reading everything he could get his hands on, which in those days were really sort of fringe.  He was devouring it.  He had a mentor, some millionaire with whom he'd have phone calls that lasted hours and after which Kevin would emerge buzzing with renewed energy. He credited the theories with propelling him into his future as a successful, emancipated, enthusiastic business owner.  Business would ebb and then suddenly it would flow and he would grin from ear to ear because he'd realigned, worked the energy.  I watched him do it; he'd fill classes with no more than thought.

I bought into it.  I started to live it.  My life started to get better and better; or, at the very least, my attitude towards my life got better, which is nothing to sniff at.  I finally had the courage to leave my stale, mutually destructive relationship.  Within a few weeks I met Clark and fell in love.  That is the single most precious gift that era bequeathed to me.  Soul-changing, you could say.

One notion that has been going through my head lately is the idea of soul mates.  Kevin told me once that he believed in soul mates, that there are people out there who will push your soul to grow, to expand.  It could be as simple as a momentary connection, a spark of recognition or inspiration.  Or it could be a lifelong relationship.  And they come in many forms.  Sometimes they even appear as your enemy.  Hey, how do you know your own weaknesses and strengths until you've been truly tested by someone you despise?  And for those people, you should be especially grateful.  Or so the theory goes, which I'm paraphrasing.  In my life, my mother is therefore probably one of my soul mates.  It feels so weird to say since I've been so angry at her for decades, now.  No one has tested me the way she has.  But more on that later.

I miss Kevin and writing these entries brings back some of that energy and enthusiasm.  Maybe it's why the Esther disk fell into my hands after so much time.  Maybe he's listening to it these days.

WWKD?

I haven't slept longer than three hours at a stretch in so long.  It happened once a few weeks ago - I slept four hours straight - and I woke up feeling positively giddy.  Otherwise, the days pass by in varying levels of fog.  Most of the time I put the blame squarely on the baby, but then this thought cycles through my brain:  What if I'm doing it to myself?  What would Kevin do?

"Kevin" isn't his real name, but that's what I'll call him here.  I first met Kevin thanks to my girlfriend LJBK (there's just no other name to call her).  "My friend so-and-so says this cardio kickboxing class is the best one in the city.  It's super intense."

She was right.  It kicked my ass.  I mean, I think I even threw up a little.  Kevin told me much later that he didn't think he'd ever see me again.  He said he was surprised when I showed up the next day and the next day....    I just remember how much I needed it at the time.  I was in a relationship that was starting to fizzle out, I was overweight, and I was seriously bored with my life.  The little school in the basement was just the kind of religion I needed.

Kevin taught the fitness class under the umbrella of a martial arts school, owned by his father who had some serious international titles to his name.  It  didn't take me long to get a little jealous of the athletic men and women I saw suiting up to take the floor as soon as we cleared out.  Enough of this bouncing around; I wanted to be one of them!  And do those fancy kicks!

I asked Kevin if I could join and to my astonishment, he said no.  He said I wasn't ready.  So I spent months training and training to get into fighting shape, trying so hard to impress him and he still said no!  The other students didn't seem to be that much more in shape.   And by this point I had a bit of a crush on him, too, and since he always retained his professionalism, it was a double rejection.  I was so frustrated.  Why didn't I just quit?  Because I seriously thought at the time that it was some sort of Master Myagi test.  It just fueled me more.

What I didn't know is that it wasn't about me (imagine that).  Kevin's father was not a kind man in that he did none of the work and took all of the profit.  While I was fighting to wear the uniform, Kevin, who'd grown up in that world of tournaments and belts since he could walk, was doing everything he could to get out of it.  The cardio kickboxing class was an experiment, the only thing that was 100% his.  If he could build up the membership, he could launch his own school using a new fighting system he was learning.

Since I didn't know any of this, I begged and pleaded and was, of course, eventually allowed to 'suit up'.  I had fun, even tested successfully for my first belt.  But within less than a year Kevin made the leap, and I went with him as part of a small group of dedicated students.

For some reason this change launched our friendship.  It started small but soon we'd spend time talking after almost every class.  It became clear that Kevin was going to be a teacher to me in the truest sense of the word.  There was no room for a crush in there and it fell away (thank god, because I couldn't imagine the mess that it would have created).

There's more to the Kevin story, other reasons I still think about him almost every day.  But for now I'm off to my new gym.  It's not the same - I don't think I'm capable of 'drinking the kool aid' anymore - but it's still pretty darn good.  It's what I need right now.

Wrist Wraps

I just discovered a new ailment somewhat unique to motherhood; "mother's wrist" or deQuervain's Tendonitis.  It's like carpal tunnel, but the part of the wrist that's affected is due to lifting an increasingly larger baby.  I got it bad.  I stopped by the surgical supply store today to get fitted up.

I just caught sight of my reflection in a window as I was passing.  Black wrist guard, black tank top.  It could be me circa 2003 (I should mention the window distorts, too, giving me a good 30 lbs less and thus adding to the illusion).  I was martial arts instructor back then.  I was training hard.  I was happy for the first time in my life.  I met Clark.  It was such a life-changing time for me and I still think about it.  To this day I still get the urge to beat the snot out of something until I taste blood (for sport of course).

But I can't go back to that school (literally can't go back.  Practically banned).  That's a big part of this story for me.  I hope to start talking about that wonderful, amazing, transforming time in my life, the one that lead to one of the most hurtful things that's ever happened to me.  I'm not sure where to start but I guess it will come to me later.  It probably starts with my mother, as all things seem to do.

Anyway, for now, back to the dishes.

Just Thought I Should Add...

...that this blog is not going to become explicit in nature.   Just some story telling.  True stories, but I'll keep it clean.

Free Pass

Summer 2006


Our favourite pub was Scottish in theme, in that they had a map of clan lands on the wall. Otherwise it was just a regular Toronto pub, small, long and narrow with thick, rough hardwood floors, high and low booths, and of course dim lighting.  They’d also hung branches strung with mini lights from the ceiling.  They served overpriced bangers and mash and fish ‘n chips and pulled a mean draft.  We loved it.


So one night a few months before our wedding...

ME:  So-and-so was talking about their ‘free pass’ list.
CLARK:  List?
ME:  You know, a list of people you both agree you have permission to sleep with if the occasion should arise.  A fantasy list.
CLARK:  Oh yeah?
ME:  I think Jon Stewart would be on my list.  Who would be on your list?
CLARK:  Sigorney Weaver circa Ghostbusters.  Or Galaxy Quest, even.
ME:  No one else?
CLARK:  Oh probably.  I just can’t think now.
ME:  Any non-celebrities?
CLARK:  What do you mean?
ME:  Anyone you’ve… you know….
CLARK:  Well, of course I look.  Don’t you?
ME:  I guess.  Maybe we should have lists, too.
CLARK:  Oh yeah?
ME:  Of course, it really is moot because there’s no way I’m ever going to get to sleep with Jon Stewart.  That's why free passes are so easy to agree to.  They're never going to happen.
CLARK:  You never know.
ME:  Uh, I’m pretty sure.  Doesn’t it bother you that I’m the last person you’ll ever sleep with?
CLARK:  Not really.
ME:  Doesn’t it bother you that you’ll never feel that thrill of a first kiss?
CLARK: <<shrug>> I guess I’ll miss it.  A little.
ME:  You know what we should do?
CLARK:  Here we go…
ME:  We should have a contract.  Every five years or something, we renew our vows. But for a week or two leading up to it, we get to be single again.
CLARK:  Are you serious?
ME:  Why not?  That way when we come back together, we choose each other all over again. And we get to have a little adventure in the meantime.  That way we won’t get sick of each other or take each other for granted.
CLARK:  Interesting….
ME:  I mean, it would have to be safe and all.
CLARK:  Of course.  Would you want to know who I chose to sleep with?
ME:  Ummm… maybe not.  We each just go off and do our own thing and then come back and get married again.  Or at least recommit.
CLARK:  Hm.  So every five years?
ME:  Every five years.  Wanna shake on it?
CLARK:  Sure.
ME:  Want another pint?
CLARK:  Definitely.