Caterwauling

Night view from indoor balcony, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Same view, different (part of the) day. Pretty. Now to remember not to dance around in mah gutchies ’cause people can like see in here and stuff. And since every Tuesday is a fat one (I prefer “pudgy”), I forgot to bring beads to commemorate this particular Mardi Gras.

OK actually there will be no dancing, as my ankle has now officially swelled to the size of my head and I’m thinking they’d rather have me bleeding than be in Crocs tomorrow. Le sigh. Le motherfuckin’ ouch.

Anywhoo, I decided to check into the spa. And I’ve officially become a spa snob. Yes, a spa snob. As in, I’ve been to the St. Regis spa in Aspen and Spa Mandalay in Vegas, so I Can Officially Judge You. And the spa at the hotel? Meh. The former has an oxygen lounge and the latter has hot whirlpools, so I was bored at this one.

Actually, I jest, although there is more truth to my unimpressed-ness than I care to possess. I spent a half-hour in the wet eucalyptus steam room and came out and put some cold cucumbers on my eyes.

I was well-aware that I was neither in a flattering pose nor in flattering attire (read: with mascara under my eyes and a towel around my person), but I was in la-la land for a good 15 minutes when the spa monkey brought two women with high-volume voices on a tour.

And one of them said, “WE KNOW HER!”

I un-cucumbered my eyes and I’m pretty sure an expletive slipped out. Colleagues! Aaaah!

Zen-like trance GONE. I said I wasn’t expecting to be seen in this state, and they said they’d pretend they never saw me. Spa Monkey led them to their lockers, and I ducked into the dry redwood sauna. Luckily, I could hear them talking from down the hall, and they chose the wet spa. *whew*

I hid in what’s called the “Tea Room” (i.e., where they serve tea — clever, that) but I could actually hear the women talking. About work. So I left.

Hobbled out, is more like it.

Oh God, they’re playing Jimmy Buffett at the bar on the boat below. (An acoustic version of “Margaritaville.” Wasn’t I just there last night? Feels inappropriate to be drinking a skinny vanilla latte whilst listening to that tune.

I got a bucket full of ice and I’m looking forward to putting it on my injured foot. Preferably while sitting on my balcony.

There ain’t an ACE bandage in sight in this hotel, so thanks to all this pain, no kicking anyone’s asses if they annoy me. Because just like when your parents told you it would hurt THEM more than it would hurt YOU, kicking those who might need it would DEFINITELY hurt me more!

View from a *real* hotel, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Mah balcony, let me show you it.

My recent crisis of faith is pretty much averted. I went to church and even enjoyed it. But I will admit to spending our prayer time giving copious amounts of praise that the pastors I don’t enjoy weren’t the ones delivering the message today. Hey, all they told me to do was talk to God — nobody defined what I should have said! 😉

I stayed after for this social thing for new members and folks who lead the various prayer groups. It was awful at first. I mean, everyone’s so nice, and that’s the bad part — I was claustrophobic in our tiny space and wanted to run screaming. But it was good — I’d say it was worth showing up for. The morning/early afternoon gave me some much-needed peace, and it only an hour and a half after leaving there to lose all my patience and then some — a record!

We had an exercise in church today, to turn to the person next to us and declare, “You need me.” And shortly thereafter, we were to turn to them and say, “I need you.”

It was meant to be a powerful moment, and for some it was. I guess I just wish it were one of those weeks where I was sitting with someone good, for it to really mean something. But the guy next to me was asleep for most of the sermon, so I wasn’t feeling his enthusiasm for me. 😉

I think I’m going to try to get into this small-group stuff that they keep beating me over the head with. The pastor’s wife said she was shocked to see me thinking about getting involved. (Heathen child holds her crown.)

I told her that I am overwrought and I’m in no condition to be in a prayer group/bible study/volunteer group when I am probably more in need of help than the people I’m supposed to be helping. I added that I am so accustomed to being a leader in every domain of my life, that I really don’t know how to be a follower in general but in association with a church in particular.

Faith is an area that I am shaky at best, and religion mystifies me to no end, and she suggested that maybe I supplement the group thing by finding a friend with faith and learning how to walk in faith alongside them.

We’ll see. I don’t have time to see my drinking buddies, so making time for friends of faith is going to be a challenge to prioritize. Hanging out with Christian friends who drink, however, would be like two birds with one stone, so let’s multi-task together!

Part of today’s lesson was to be able to accept help when it is offered. I don’t ask for help because it’ll never come, for one. And secondly, I have had too many instances of helping people and then never seeing them again, especially when it was my turn to be in need. So whether or not it’s a pride thing in not accepting help, I don’t know.

The pastor had said that we weren’t meant to walk alone, that we shouldn’t be sitting alone in a hospital waiting room, or reading a coroner’s report by ourselves, or spending the night after a death/divorce/breakup all alone. Ding ding ding — I’ve done all of the above, all by myself … because even though there may have been someone I *could* have called, there was no one I felt I *should* have bothered.

I’ve let my work take over my life. Or maybe it’s an excuse I’ve used to keep people as far away from me as I possibly could. I’ve always been “fine” — but it’s admittedly been precarious at best. I keep to myself because I’ve had too many people exploit my vulnerability to cause me even more pain. And even though I do know some very strong, trustworthy folk, they have their own problems/friends/priorities.

I figure that if I don’t have anything to add to the relationship bank account, I have no business trying to make a withdrawal. And that’s sad because I met someone awesome recently, who can turn out to be a really good friend if only I return a damn call/e-mail once in awhile.

But shit, like I keep trying to tell my mother, I have absolutely nothing left to give. I can’t say no to anyone anymore, even as much as I want to. So I say no to things and people that would make me happy because I cannot jam another thing into my life. And how said is it to take a pass on juggling in some joy but there’s still plenty of time for the things I wish I never had to deal with?

In any event, today’s church fiesta pulled me back an inch or two from the ledge I’ve been about to go over. I don’t know how to take a full step back, not until the pressure eases up at work and home. And that’s the killer — there are no signs of a reprieve anywhere. It’s not a case of “Keep up this pace for the next six weeks or six months and you’ll get a break.” Au contraire.

And that’s why I’m nuts. Give me a goal date that I can take a breath, one that doesn’t entail, “Great, now you get even more pressure!” I am starting to understand the people who have challenged me (and not in a good way) the most — they work in spurts for a reason. The more they achieve, the more is demanded of them. Similarly, the less they achieve, the less they get bothered.

It’s not in my nature to give up on anyone, but when they’ve given up on themselves, I don’t know that I have it in me to rescue them. Not anymore, anyway. And my patience is gone — you can’t expect me to continually regenerate a fresh supply when I’m the only one exerting any effort on the see-saw.

But this brings me back to today’s sermon, that your expectations of people are directly defined by the types you’ve allowed into your life. And some of my key players have been nothing but lead weights, soldered to our ankles with no other purpose than to hold us back and drag us down. Even if that wasn’t their intention, it’s what happened.

So anyway, I am grateful that, of the friends in my (woefully neglected) circle, each one is an upstanding citizen. I don’t define a person’s worth by their faith — I’ve met holy rollers who use Jesus to justify their uselessness, and I know pagans who are the poster children for what an amazing, loving and caring citizen we all should be — but I do seek out those who are people I want to be LIKE and be WITH.

The way I figure, back in the Bible days, everyone was hearing voices and being drawn to make miracles. These days, if you hear a voice and admit to it, you get institutionalized. But even if we don’t hear voices per se, we do have gut instincts. And they can be positive ones that lead to goodness or they can be demonic ones that lead to hellacious results.

I’m exhausted with the latter. I want my affiliates to be the type of person I’m trying to become, because they give me faith that this person can actually exist. But it’s hard right now — I’m not anywhere close to the person I want to be. I think I was getting there, but I’ve been pulled off-course.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been so ambivalent toward the church’s stance on community involvement and neglectful toward the real relationships I did manage to form on my own. How can I be a role model to anyone? How can I expose how screwed-up I’ve become? How can I give up yet another moment for someone else without getting some peace for ME in there somewhere?

But then again, maybe if I’d been involved when all was well (or well enough), then maybe these folks would be there for me now while I’d glady jump off a building if I could find one that was more than three stories tall. …

because I don’t live in a real state that does emissions at the time of inspection, my plate/tags got suspended. In 2006. So on top of my $140 ticket. I have to pay the state several hundred dollars in fees before they run the $100 test.

I handed them my AmEx to just get this shit overwith, only to be told that they only take visa. Hahaaa — I had $35 in my account. So I left and emptied my bank account — a fund I named “Paris” because that is where I dream of visiting.

Am back in line again and wondering WTF the universe is telling me. I know we all have our problems, but come on already. I an grateful to be able to cover this adventure, but my safety net is gone. Everyone in my life is looking toward me to supprt and save them and ain’t no one looking out for my peace of mind.

Not that I expect help from anyone. I just wish the universe would quit separating mr from my money because, even though it isn’t much, it is what buys the little distractions I have come to need so much.

I just hope I have enough money left over to go out tonight. I already had to cancel my lunch date. I also hope to afford the gym membership — at least it gets me out of work and keeps me away from home. And if that isn’t the most pathetic saving grace on earth, I don’t know what is.

Last night, I stopped by our church’s Christmas party (wow, I can say “Christmas” and “party” in the same sentence now. Weird) for a whopping 20 minutes. I went late, got lost and was downright bored. I talked to the pastor, who I am growing very fond of, and he introduced me to someone I would like to talk to more often and who gave me her contact info if I ever wanted to grab a cup of coffee.

After that I walked around and walked out. Nothing personal, just a little too kid-friendly for my tastes. But today, actual members of the church were asking what happened to me, as they were looking for me.

I’m like a kid in a classroom when it comes to Sunday services — I sit in the very back row. It’s a good group of people who hang out there, which is cool because when we are asked to greet our neighbors, we all know each other. (Oh, how awkward it was during my first few weeks when I didn’t know a soul there.)

Anyway, today I was looking at the guy who always sits in front of me, but oh my God — today I got a really good look at him and I realized why he looked vaguely familiar. From his profile, and maybe even somewhat from the front, he looks like a face I haven’t thought about in ages — but certainly haven’t forgotten about .

I admit that I found my mind wandering during services, back to a “long ago and far away” time. This is someone I miss greatly, when I do remember him. The love and the pain ran its course … for both of us … but he wasn’t easy to get over, especially not when we both knew there was a lot of emotion and certainly passion left that was going to remain unexplored.

I made my peace with my heart back then that if the universe really wanted this to work out, it would help us find a way. And if that way means in the next lifetime, then so be it … we’ll have that same instantaneous connection next time around that we found this time — which we’d both recognized as maybe having felt in a lifetime before this one.

I don’t tell this story to get hung up in the past, or to even pretend that it’s going to stay in my head after I hit the “publish” button on this blog entry. But to tie it into today’s message at church, the pastor said something interesting that I had to write down.

To paraphrase:

We’re all trying to get somewhere in life … to be somewhere or to be someone or to find someone or something. And no matter what the ladder we’re trying to climb — career, relationships, friendships or otherwise — sometimes we lean those ladders against the wrong walls.

That struck me for more than just a second. The context was that if you’re stressed out in certain areas, you may be hitting resistance for a reason — and that reason might be that you need to either stop fighting the battle alone or maybe it’s that you shouldn’t be fighting it at all because you’re in the wrong place and … yep … climbing the ladder but not to the right goals.

Inside my head, something clicked with that analogy. Leaning your ladder against friends who crumble at the first signs of having to make a positive deposit instead of a negative withdrawal from the friendship bank account. Killing yourself to do a great job in a vocation that really doesn’t feel right. Hoping and praying for a relationship to work out that just isn’t meant to be.

Taking it a few steps further, maybe there’s a reason that some doors close and that other, newer doors don’t open. And try as we might to rush at those doors with random, heavy blunt objects, they still won’t open. Why is that?

Everyone is trying to tell us to rely on patience and faith, but when you’ve been hoping and wishing for something, when do you write it off as “that’s clearly not God’s plan for me” and when do you dig in your heels and continue to say, “I believe in you, Great Pumpkin”?

I don’t want to be like Linus, stuck out in the pumpkin patch while waiting for some mythical occurrence that only flourishes inside my own head. But I don’t want to go about my business and not be there to get the gift(s) I’ve waited so long to receive, either.

I guess all you can do is hope for the wherewithal to know which course of action is right to take.

I don’t know if my ladder is leaned against the proper wall. I don’t even know that there is a “right” wall at this point. All I know is that I’m doing my climbing wherever I can find hope, and I don’t think it would be in my heart to want for things that just aren’t meant to be. Because my heart is the most-sincere patch I can name, one that’s certainly a good candidate for the Great Pumpkin if it happens to be thinking of coming around. …

I usually blog after church but, meh, I went shopping instead yesterday. Because, well, I took issue with some points, and one of those points was geared toward those of us who tend to take issue with some of God’s creatures. 🙂

I mean, one of the lessons was to realize that each person on this earth was created in God’s image, and that we all share the same father, so to speak. That is, we all have possess the same divine DNA and we should stop insulting/talking about/being sarcastic about/disrespecting each other because God doesn’t like it when his children are the butt of the joke.

So, I’m trying my hardest to not look at people who stand in our way, thwart our every effort or fail to pull their part of the load. But I still have a hard time believing they were cut from the same mold I was and that God can look at them with nothing but love. Don’t tell anyone, but I think a lot of these yahoos were either adopted or were the milkman’s kids, because they have GOT to be the exception from “don’t mess with the Lord’s anointed” because they sure as HELL don’t treat people the way they would want to be treated in return.

Anyway, today I’m sort of struggling with credit, or lack thereof. I pretty much have spent my career behind the scenes and I wonder whether it’s getting too late to make a real, bona fide name for myself in anything. I have the skills and talents and smarts to make it in one of the four fields I’ve pursued. But would anyone know me? Many of you might know my work. But my name is as far from it as Perez Hilton is from a ladies’ locker room.

Lately, I’m struggling with my motivation. Paychecks are a nice motivator, of course. 😉 I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d be famous by now. I also thought I’d be a size two, so I admittedly am a dreamer!

Speaking of places where everybody apparently DOES know your name, whether you want to be anonymous or not, I decided to become a “real” member of my church. I figure, I go all the time and make anonymous donations. I guess it’s about time I made this journey an official one. I have no idea what membership entails, but I asked for more info on it. Besides, I need all the help I can get on this plane of existence!

One other thing I took issue with was that they said that everything we have in our lives is on loan from God. I believe in it, don’t get me wrong. You can’t take it with you, and all that jazz. But I guess I wondered why some people have so much more than others. I’m not throwing a self-pity party here — I’m asking why families are living in/scavenging through garbage dumps for the source of their daily bread and yet other people release an obnoxious earworm or star in a movie that happens not to suck, and they take their rewards and snort ’em off a mirror.

I guess the lack of balance in this world has always irked me, and made me question whether there was a God or not. These days, I’m fairly certain there’s someone or something out there, because it would devastate me if there weren’t. But I just spend a lot more time wondering why when I should instead be helping to do something about it.

I remember when staying out all night on a Sunday meant finding a “buck a bottle” beer special and an accompanying “wing night” deal. Last night, I got home late because I went to a church meeting.

I finally decided to accept an invitation to talk with the church elders about my spiritual journey. There were other folks there, too, and let me tell you, I was praying for the strength to NOT go slam them over the head with a Bible because all they did was talk-talk-talk about everyone at the church they just left (in a nice way) and yap-yap-yap about everybody they knew in common with our lead pastor. I was silently moving my complaint bracelet from wrist to wrist, because the thoughts were very un-Christian-like. 🙂

It’s funny how the elders knew me but no one could put a name with the face. The pastor’s wife had seen me bring in the wrapped Christmas gift for the toy drive yesterday (she had complimented my mad wrapping skillz) and the pastor himself had actually tapped me on the shoulder after the service. I told him later, “When you did that, I knew that, damn, I had to come to tonight’s meeting!”

They were sort of fascinated by me, because everyone else in the room was all holy rollin’ all their lives and there I was, smiling and joking nodding along and yet still sort of distrustful of the whole deal. And I made a comment about my dear friend Tiff who encouraged me to get my “heathen ass to church” and they loved that. Of course, they asked how I heard about them and I mentioned the source of the referral, and that’s probably why they liked me — always helps to know someone they adore!

The pastor figured out that it’s not that I distrust religion, but church itself. Which is a thousand percent true, although I probably shouldn’t have admitted that I have my skeptical moments with some elements of the sermons, too. And I said I continually question my own motivation for seeking out a formal religious setting in the first place — I go there for peace of mind, for escape, for a chance to be around happy, faithful people whom I assume are wonderful, upstanding citizens. But whether or not those are the “right” reasons, I still keep showing up, figuring I’ll find whatever it is I’m supposed to be looking for eventually.

I basically go to get the hell away from myself and expectations I can never seem to meet — and I like the whole “none of us is perfect” approach that they take, that if we had achieved the final rung on our spiritual climb, then none of us would need church in our lives.

A lot of the attendees of our little group last night were sort of saying that they were looking for a church and they didn’t know whether this was the right one for them. It’s funny — of all the things I’m grappling with, this is the one thing I never doubted for a moment. That, if I’m going to do this, this is where I want to be doing it.

They say we all have “next steps” to take. For me, they handed me a book and said to just keep on coming till the spirit moves me to get more involved. Because you know, just coming to church is only part of how you should be serving the Lord. That is, you need to be making a difference in the community, whether your own or the greater global community. But we all agreed I have decades of damage (distrust, indifference, disbelief) to undo, so I get a pass till I come to some sort of internal peace that I’m ready to turn my life over to Christ.

And that’s a lot to ask. I think it’ll happen — I’m just sort of like, whoa, this is HUGE. Far bigger than anything I can wrap my little head around. But then again, as the pastor said, if something existential/spiritual can be solved by us mere mortals, then that would make it, well, NOT supernatural, yes? I guess I just don’t want to blindly walk into something I don’t understand, but on the other hand, isn’t that what “taking it on faith” is all about?

I wish sometimes to have a schedule of which pastor will be speaking at church, because I would probably opt to skip certain sermons. Today would have been one of them.

Don’t get me wrong — I dig the lessons. I like the atmosphere. I even think the guy’s a good speaker. But the only time we start hearing about hellfire and brimstone is when this one gets his hands on the microphone, and it always manages to turn me off more than it manages to scare me.

Today we talked about lying and all its various forms, such as breaking promises, insincere flattery, withholding the truth (or half-assing it) for whatever reason, exaggeration, etc. I’m certainly guilty of all of the above. I want to be authentic, but I’m also not going to make somebody cry when I can use the opportunity to make them, if not feel better, then at least not let them dwell on stuff.

Besides, doesn’t everyone in this world need a little more encouragement? Positive reinforcement works wonders. Believe me — I’ve been at the receiving end of enough “constructive criticism” and guilt trips to know.

Part of today’s lesson is that lying is not conducive to your spiritual journey. They used a Bible quote about taking off your old self (i.e., your heathen ass) and becoming someone God would approve of. The analogy was “like taking off your Wal-Mart clothes and going shopping at Hollister.” And that irritated me for some reason. I like the occasional item I pick up from Wal-Mart. Hollister isn’t my style or my budget.

It reminded me of an old job full of people to whom I would NEVER look for inspiration or advice, and yet they felt the need to convey to me that I needed some sort of makeover. Yeah, like any of them had room to talk. And hey, you want me to be different — feel FREE to pay for it. *kick*

Where was I? Grr. Anyway. Basically everyone who even tells so much as a white lie to spare someone’s feelings is destined to burn in hell, and yet, even if you don’t say a word when you supposedly should, you’ll be in the pit of burning sulfur with them. So, essentially, all of us in middle management know where WE’RE ending up!!!

You know, I tell the truth at home all the damn time. And all it gets me is aggravation. I’m well-aware of the repercussions of saying EXACTLY what runs through your mind not only the second it appears, but also how much FUN it is when you bottle it up and something else sets off a torrent of “oh and BY THE WAYs.”

One last thing that got stuck in my craw was the reading of one of the Proverbs, that “Give me neither poverty nor riches; but give me only my daily bread.” That conflicts mightily with the Law of Attraction. That’s why when you get on a suck streak, things continue sucking because you’re attracting the status quo because you can’t see far enough beyond it.

I think others’ little black clouds have impacted me too much over the years. I think I’m happy. I want to be happy. Fuck it, I want to be happier. I want to be so fucking happy that you can whack me with a pinata stick and a whole shitload of sunshine and rainbows comes out.

But therein lies the eternal challenge — keeping all eyes on the sunshine and being able to look beyond those little dark clouds. Not just peeking at the sun — fixating on it full-force and not even acknowledging what’s blocking your full-on view of it. Feeling the warmth even when you can’t see that giant yellow orb. Envisioning it shining on you even in the black of night.

I guess I’ve gotten into a suck streak for the past few weeks. Per the law of vibrational energy, I’ve attracted it and continue to attract it. At this point, all I want for Christmas is a strong hopeful vibe. Just one good — nay, fucking AMAZING — thing to happen so that it will generate more of the same.

In any case, one thing I TOTALLY agreed with in the service was that we need to get rid of the liars and the soul-suckers and the assholes in our lives — that we need to pursue relationships only with authentic people. And sweet Jesus and holy mother of God, I sing hallelujah to that one. Attracting great people usually attracts MORE great people who are leading good lives and that goodness can rub off. So, if anyone out there is having a success streak, would you let me rub you (heh — I really didn’t mean it THAT way) for good luck of my own?

Sleep hasn’t been coming so easily lately. Not certain why — lawd knows I’m friggin’ exhausted.

Yesterday was an emotionally draining day. I’ve never been able to attend an off-site work function, and damn it, I was going to change that yesterday. I am the first one to tell people that no one will value their time unless they do it first, but it’s been challenging to practice what I’ve preached because that means reversing the course of the floods, in some cases.

Me being able to make a 12:30 luncheon was contingent upon three people hitting deadline. Not being early, mind you. Being ON TIME.

One hit deadline. One phoned it in (read: half-assed it and I couldn’t use it anyway and had to do something dramatically different). One forgot about me till 1:30 when we made special arrangements that I’d do the work after I came back from the party. Remember, all I wanted for Christmas was a lunch hour. Nobody ever went ahead and asked that I would get to go home when everybody else did!

Anyway, what impressed me wasn’t the magnificence of Maggiano’s food or the fact that the world won’t end if I actually see daylight, but that several VIPs across the company actually CARED that I made it. That there is such a wonderful circle of people who are looking out for me and who were rooting for me to orchestrate an escape. That yeah, I was over an hour late, but that they were thrilled to see me anyway.

You guys have no idea how happy that makes me, and how guilty I feel after going all “Milton Waddams” all morning because my cheese keeps getting moved and I wasn’t going to get a piece of cake and why don’t they just move my desk into the middle of a river, blah blah blah. 🙂

But I see that maybe I don’t deserve to go to these events because I just start being a bitch in my head. We’re known for giving away lots of prizes. I’ve never won any. I probably never will. I always see the same people winning them and don’t really think much of it.

What gets me though is knowing how much my team busts its ass and how everyone’s logging 70-hour weeks and how none of us ever gets that little special recognition. Now, I don’t want to begrudge the winners, because I was genuinely happy and clapped heartily for some of them, but I will admit that I found my wine glass or coffee spoon utterly FASCINATING when I see people winning just by luck of the draw when the REAL luck is just getting to work with them. *barf*

Someone was very rude to me on the phone yesterday till I mentioned that I had a V.P. sitting in my office, awaiting their answer on speakerphone. I hope that it was noted how their tone changed into a fucking sing-song once I name-dropped. And to see that person getting a prize was challenging, to say the least.

Someone made an innocent comment that they didn’t think upper-echelon staff should be eligible for the prizes. You know what, one of my VPs got a prize and the senior VP in my department could take home all 30 of the prizes and I still would have clapped my little heart out. I’d rather use gifts as a REWARD as opposed to a PURE CHANCE thing.

What can I say? I’m a socialist. Gifts for everybody! 😉

I don’t know. I guess I just want my people to get more than extra projects thrown at them as a reward for their competence and congeniality … that I am rooting for them the way so many people are rooting for me.

But I don’t want to knock it — my great reward was time … MY TIME … and getting to use some of it the way I wanted to.

Don’t worry — I won’t get accustomed to the feeling because I have no idea when the next time will be that I get to do what I want, when I want. But for those of you who wonder why I have an absolute inability to make/stick to plans? It’s because if I see a window to not be committed to anybody/anything, I always try to take it … even if it’s just for a few moments.

I feel like I’m high right now, but it’s a good thing. I’m a wee bit delirious but that big hairball of stress in the middle of my gut and the knot between my shoulder blades are slowly starting to unravel. I have a long way to go, but today I actually feel better than I have in a long time.

Today is the year anniversary that we buried my grandfather. I went to a holiday grief workshop yesterday, sponsored by my church, and it was actually not too bad. I personally don’t care much for the so-called mental health arena, having worked in it, but this chick was all right. I got to cry and light a candle and listen to others who were hurting just as much as I am.

I haven’t cried in a year. Haven’t had much opportunity, or maybe it’s that I didn’t give myself one. And that’s where I kind of dug the counselor who ran it — we talked after the session, and while she’s a representative of the church as well as her profession, she had no problem calling bullshit on stuff we’re “supposed” to say and think.

And that’s why I like my new church — it’s non-denominational and they focus more on us fixing ourselves to lead better lives as opposed to really bopping us over the head with Bibles.

The thing I took out of the grief workshop was that grief is a new part of our lives, like it or not. It’s something we have to juggle in and deal with. And grief never really goes away — but our relationship with it changes.

I think the thing we all forget is that most of us just power through the tragedy because we have to. We get our bereavement days and then everyone wants us to be back to normal. But what happens when we’re ambling along just fine and — boom — the grief washes over us at some random moment? Do we get to take more bereavement leave? Hell no — everyone assumes we’re over it, and we have to hide it or try not to let it impact us too much.

Hence, we have to figure out how to accommodate it when we’re already overloaded. And if it means we have to scale back on deadlines/pressure ’cause we’re just not mentally all there anymore, so be it.

Particularly helpful was when the counselor said to me, “You’re stretched too much in your thoughts.” It’s simple but fitting — when you’ve got to take care of so much and all sorts of pressure is on you, of course you’re going to feel guilty for not being up to par in current activities or doing enough to revere the memory of the loved one you lost.

It’s funny — I saw a lot of the attendees at church today. I tried to say hi to them and asked how they were doing. And everyone acted like we’d never met, which I highly doubt it’s because I’m not memorable, so I’m not sure what that was about. I just know we all had a really hard afternoon together yesterday and I just wanted to say hello and, in doing so, let them know that I had them in my thoughts, too.

I’m sure I’ll have something to say about today’s session after I’ve had some time to process it, but in the meantime, I have to go shopping for a kid I picked off of a wish tree. I used to work in Human Services, and we really counted on people donating toys to the kids in foster care.

I’m trying very hard to not say, “And who gives a fuck that I’M not having Christmas?” and instead I’m figuring that if a small donation from me will give someone a special moment this holiday season like I myself am so desperately seeking, well, therein I will find my own joy.

The only thing I worry about is that, when we did toy drives, we saw the occasional birthparent selling the toys on the street for drugs. Here’s to hoping the little boy (who is the only person on my shopping list this year) I’m playing Santa for will get and love whatever it is I can do for him. Because nothing is worse than waking up on Christmas morning, even at this age, and not having a reason to believe in magic.

In any event, speaking of magical appearances, I ran into a friend today and I was musing that, wow, I was out till the wee hours last night, and I still made it to church on time. Damn, I guess that makes me devout! 😉