uncertainty

there's a whole chapter in my book about uncertainty
i imagined i was ok at navigating it
i'd done ok through rough seas before
but this is too deep for me
the possibilities are all completely out of my control
and most are too painful to fully imagine

risk of suicide increases with social isolation
bad choices often fuel bad choices
lying about one thing likely means lying about others
beliefs that are untrue cause inordinate suffering
difficult circumstances are sometimes too much for people to take over and over and over as life seems to close in and cut off ideas about what it should look like if you were worthy or deserving or good

but you are good
your worth is not from a job or money or a functioning truck
it's not about whether you're depressed or need therapy to quit the guilt and shame addiction
it's not even about being a good dad to someone who lied to you (and presumably to her son)
you deserve time
to rest to heal to regroup
but you'd have to take that time
doing the daily flossing of rebuilding reserves and health

i wish you would let me be your safe little fort
i wish you could see the good things you have access to and the people that love you
i wish you could start practicing not abandoning by not abandoning me
if wishes were horses...
i'm not too proud to beg, but i don't know what to ask for because i don't know what's wrong
so instead i am learning, so very painfully, about uncertainty

green vision of home

There's this email thread to myself I kept for years, calling it my green vision of home. It was an edited, curated, carefully detailed summary of my desire for what a safe and loving home would look like. But in my mind and intention, it was home defined by another person, and how I would feel based on the relationship. Which, fine, I guess, to a point. But it's time to stop defining the idea of 'being safe at home' based on a fictional human. A dream of home, a once upon a time fantasy.
There are a couple other email threads to myself about myself, what I wanted to be, I am statements. Aspirations. And as my close friend reminded me last night, the only person I can do anything about is myself, and I need to focus on what kind of partner I want to be and work on that.
So my recent massive failure has been very constructive.
I love easily, and forgive easily, and too much at times, largely because of my desire for connection and family and acceptance can become desperate when I fear someone walking away. "I love you but I can't be with you" I have heard second-hand since I was 2 years old. This year felt like that, and I didn't see it at first, and when I did, and tried to call it out, my panic seems to have made it worse. Sigh.
When stressed (by physical pain or life circumstance), I back myself into a familiar place, and put up walls, become more unskilled at listening/seeing, and too often turn fear to anger and demands to try to control someone's behavior when I'm hurt or failing to receive support or not feeling cared for. That didn't work at all, as you'd imagine.
I have thought that 'helping solve' was needed, that my small compassion (a rudimentary version based on my experience, because I was assuming I understood more than I actually did, and too quickly closed off my curiosity to seeking more information thinking I had the answer already) -  when understanding (and clear failure to understand) should have led to more questions, more listening, more quiet, so the other person could feel safe to be honest.
I failed badly. Failed to help certainly. Failed to connect. Failed to listen.
There's a note to myself from 2011: "people DO change, but don't attach to that. be love. change yourself." I have been trying to do change myself, over the years... but this year was so hard, I didn't have enough energy to pause and look deeply at what was happening, nor to see enough to change myself during a time it seemed I had to use all my available energy to not fall apart (and pass my test, and be in physical pain, and not have a functioning partner but a mostly absent troubled roommate instead).
I have made progress though. I thought I was being listened to, which was new. I thought I was being told truth from a partner (maybe just not the important or whole truth). I was able to say what I seemed to need (even if I was unable to listen? still progress) and what I felt. I just should have sat with my thoughts and feelings first before sharing or reacting- I did at the beginning (I had more time, forced, which at this point was another flag I missed), and when I thought it was settled and safe, depending on circumstance, I got lazy, complacent, frustrated... disconnected. So that blame or anger or neediness was easier when I was exhausted by anxiety and pain.
So when I thought I'd run out of energy, when things came to a crisis, like they will do, I didn't fall apart this time. I saw my supports, I talked to them, I felt them, I listened, and they helped. I had not ever experienced inner strength clearly before. So that was a gift of this time, this crisis, this unhappiness, this suffering.
I am still scared, and hurt, and unsure what boundaries I need in my current state (because I am not a buddha yet, I would love to not need boundaries, but, alas, I am still human, and very unskilled), so I am frustrated and still have discomfort leading me to desire a less uncomfortable situation.
I guess that's what I sit with until I have more information, or more information arises in myself.
Life is good. I would like to share it more deeply. I will practice.

re-becoming a flower

thich nhat hanh has this lovely bit in one of his talks about when people are separated from ones they used to love, that one thing that can be done is to notice if the flower that was fresh and appealing that was offered at the beginning has been allowed to wilt, so the job of the person who has wilted is to refresh the flower.
(he implies that this applies both ways in his example, but one can only do something from one's own perspective) (and the job of the person angry at the wilted flower is to water and feed the flower, from what i remember, but that's not where i'm looking at the moment)
presenting a refreshed flower to the world does not ensure a bee will want to pollinate it, but even if not, it might be a good resting spot for a katydid, or might remind someone through its scent or dew or color or abundant soft petals that there is love in the world still.
and after trying to do better, i might only receive anger or disinterest or abandonment. a flower can't take a bee's decisions personally, so i will have to work to cultivate more compassion for myself and others so that i can see those reactions differently and not fall apart. if a bee stings, it loses its life, so all i can do i suppose is learn to be a less aggressive flower. (metaphor falling apart alert. ha.)
i didn't wilt intentionally or alone; the conditions around the wilting have been rough and dry and compressive this year, and i wasn't watered adequately for sure. but i can see, that to refresh myself, there are things i can do now that some of the pressure has lifted.
i can attend to my own suffering better, and not push it on or blame it on others. well, i can work to be more skillful at that, at seeing it, at curbing it, then stopping it; it's a good aspiration.
i can sit with my fear and inability to help, and understand that kind of suffering better in myself.
i can see how fear drives desire (for change, for anything different, for something to move), and i can be with that and learn to slow down my reactions and behave more skillfully.
i can enjoy and care for my physical body more positively. i can find a better balance between excess and control.
i can listen better. i know i can. i do it with patients. i failed hard at that in the past year.
there has been a lot of suffering in this house i didn't attend to. it's probably never too late to try, so i will. i can be a dragon (amber and ferocious and wise sometimes) or a hedgehog (reading and prickly and hiding) or a cat (naps and clean and demanding and pets) pretty well, now to focus on the kind of rose i am best at.
i also have to let go of needing my attempts to bear fruit from anyone but myself. i would like to grow a lovely rose hip at least, so that when finally i wilt forever, others can benefit from the buildup of vitamin C. and love.
(and the meantime, i might smell better. ha.)

music, time, warmth - today was a letter writing day

3 months ago, here, i wrote how things might fall apart, and they did, and while i'm not surprised, i feel such sadness. at the same time relief; not the way I was relieved when I found you and felt I had found what I had been looking for- but relief that I still have a house and a job despite fires and planes and fear. And that I have the ability to reach out for hands to hold when I am afraid and sad. And that hands reach back. It's just enough. I do want more.

Hafiz said a lot of things. Today I read 'you carry all the ingredients to turn your existence into joy, mix them, mix them!' I will keep mixing.
Also 'On my worst days, I think to myself, the man that survives this will someday thank me for not giving up.' (@rudyfrancisco) And I want you to feel this deep in your heart.

There is safety in depression. I am very comfortable, still, not afraid but drawn, still, when I see that cold damp darkness come into view. But I want to undo myself, to stop growing the unskillful pieces. The self-hatred and impossible desire my mom steeped me in, that I see is no longer mine. Last week I hovered for a good while directly over a pit of that darkness and chose instead to get on a plane, to listen to love, and to move forward. It is a good sign, I think. I am better at feeling unsafe. At pushing and growing when I am full of fear. What is mine to work on is different than my mom's, and also needs to be worked through, and I want to. I want to be more skillful at life. At love, specifically.

And I want you to hear me. To see yourself for who you are. Your worth, that is not related to depression or alcohol or perceived failure. Or your beliefs that are untrue that you cling to.
Shame and guilt and victimhood are easier to feel than fear and confusion and indecision.
If you can learn to be afraid you can ask for a hand. If you can learn to be confused you can become curious and learn yourself clear. If you can learn to feel indecisive you can ask for help deciding. But those are so uncomfortable.

I get it, as much as I can without you telling me specifics. I have been near where you find yourself now. I have wanted it to end. I have feared for it to end. I have wanted the connection you found in the desert. And I see you looking for it. That feeling of "not-alone." And when you don't find it, I see you trying to drown your sorrow and aloneness in further isolation and chemicals. Which doesn't work, unless it actually drowns you. What you keep doing isn't going to find you that connection. Neither is racing towards or forcing your own end. Although it would be quiet then. But I might not be able to find you again. I hope you stop moving in that direction. I want you to come back to me.

I wish you had been sure about me, but you can't be unless you are sure about yourself.
I was sure about you. It was a first. I'm still frustrated I didn't meet you earlier. I want more time with you. If I could ask you for anything.
But I can't allow myself to enable you, and I can't allow myself not to challenge you. That is hard for you and for me.
I believe in you, I want to help you through this, I wish I was the one you wanted with you. If you ask, I will come to you to hold your hand as long as you need it. (Even if you hint and can't ask.)

But I can only work on myself, even if I want to support you I can't do the work for you, only mine. So I realized through this awful time, that I do want a family. Not the 2.5kidsspousedog nonsense. No. I am (watering the idea of?)(asking for?) a partner who wants to do the project of life with me. With me. As a team. A team that extends to a family that is open to involving other beings, chosen and non chosen family, buildings and tents and work and music and flowers and travel and politics. A work of honesty and love and challenge and space, in progress.

These are from a talk by angel Kyodo williams, a Japanese Zen priest:
"Love is developing our own capacity for spaciousness within ourselves to allow others to be as they are.  It doesn't mean we don't have hopes or wishes that things are changed or shifted. But that to come from a place of love, is to be in acceptance of what is, even in the face of moving it towards something that is more whole, more just, more spacious, for all of us."
"Whatever kind of desire we have for our own development in life: to be willing to face discomfort and receive it as opportunity for growth and expansion and a commentary on what is now more available to us rather than what is limiting us and taking something away from us."
"I must face this because it is intolerable to live in any other way than a way that allows me to be in contact with my full loving human self."
"I know the road feels low and winding and we seem to need the pain to cut to the core to emerge from the sleepwalk of despair and feel through the numbness of disconnect and indifference. But if we let ourselves feel this we will be better for it."

I love you. I want to become more skillful at loving, and at loving you. I will keep working on it.