Jesus Christ

You might think I'm using his name in vain in this post, but I am not - I am writing a blog post about Jesus Christ, the man that Christianity formed upon to diverge from Judaism. It's not a scholarly, academic post about him, though - it is a personal post about my experience with the persona called Jesus Christ and how I have come to some peace, recently, about it.

I will make clear that I do not identify as Christian, even though I grew up going to Catholic church on Sundays with my family and I did make my First Communion. I stopped making any efforts to be part of the church after that - my parents gave me the option of going through Confirmation or not. I chose not. I'm positive that if I had been given the choice about my First Communion, I would have also chose not to go through with it. I knew that I did not believe in what the clergy was preaching since I could hear and understand what they were saying. It did not help that I found church to be utterly boring and that it disturbed my otherwise joyous weekend. I have always wondered why the church would not make any effort to make it a fun activity if they so wanted us to continue attending and buy what they were saying to us.

The other half of the story as to why I never bought into Catholicism, or any religion for that matter, was because of my parents - they are both very intelligent people who highly value education. They always taught me to think for myself and to be logical - scientific, even (my father is a physicist and my mother is a psychologist.) So most of the time, the information I received made some sort of logical sense and would be easily verified by my own experience, but then on Sundays we'd go to church and listen to the most outrageous stories that defied all logic and verifiable reality. To be honest, it made less sense to me than Santa Claus, although my belief in him soon fell apart when I realized there was no time for Santa to get to everyone's home in one night, and it was especially difficult for me to see how he could fit down our tiny chimney. However, the fruits of his labor were verified by finding gifts under my tree from him every Christmas, so at least he had that going for him!

Obviously, there's a lot one can say and people have said about Jesus Christ - so much, in fact, that he's hardly a human being. But, that's the thing - the claim is that he was a human being, put on this Earth for a reason - to "save" all humankind. Whether or not that latter part was true, no one argues that he wasn't a human being, although there is absolutely no physical evidence of his existence. There are only effects, which really do not even necessitate real evidence - its these effects that have become the evidence, in and of themselves, because they are so profound. Think about it - whether or no Jesus Christ was a real human being or if he was actually just a pretend puppet that someone made up, does not matter because the effects that are what is real - people believed he was real and told stories about him from generation to generation for what is considered about a thousand years until it was finally written down in the first version of the New Testament of The Bible. In any case, whether or not you or I or anyone believes any of it - Jesus Christ is the most influential person or idea of a person to ever exist - at least thus far. We even measure time by him - we say the year is 2012, but that's only in reference to Jesus Christ's estimated year of birth. To talk about the actual year in time that we exist, well, first we'd need to have that kind of resolution to our understanding of the beginning of time (when the Big Bang occurred), then we'd at least be saying 6 additional digits ahead of it since we know the universe is at least 15,000,000,000 years old. Maybe we'd only be talking since the beginning of Earth, then we'd only have 5 additional digits, since that's about 5,000,000,000 years old. So, as it turns out, Jesus Christ is a time-saver in that he's a great reference for us to use for telling what year it is. Otherwise....well...let's discuss (and by discuss, I mean, I'll just go on monologuing..)

I know there are people like me who wonder who this Jesus Christ really was (obviously, Christ wasn't his last name, so let's just say, Jesus, son of Mary - "Maryson"? haha, I won't do that.) I mean, if he was human, then, by definition, he was just as imperfect as all human being are. Thus, did Jesus get angry at people? Did Jesus cry? Did Jesus do some shitty things when he was younger? Did he hurt others, occasionally on purpose because he was hurt? Did Jesus wonder who his real father was if Joseph wasn't his real father? Did Jesus get angry at Joseph when Joseph tried to parent him? Did Jesus have a co-dependent relationship with his mother, Mary, because she was effectively a single parent? Or was that all bullshit and his father was actually Joseph so none of these 'who-is-my-real-father' questions mattered? So many questions, right? He must have been imperfect, otherwise how could we identify with him? Again, of course no one can ever answer these questions since there's no absolute record of him, of his life. Even the bible jumps from him in the manger to him preaching on the hill in Jerusalem in his early 30s, if not just his last year of life at 33.

Despite the fact that I, personally, have not had a spiritual relationship with Jesus, I have been close to others that have, such as my best friend when I was a teenager (13-15). She was a Lutheran Christian and very much believed in Jesus as her savior. She said that she felt his presence in her life or felt him somehow. She said she hoped that someday I might know him, feel him, too. Because I wanted to please her so badly, I tried to "find" him - I tried to "let him in" or whatever. I had no idea what I was trying to do, but I was hoping I'd know when it happened. Well, nothing happened. But I tried to convince myself it did - that somehow I was "touched" or that I had "found" him. I even told her so. But soon, my conscience gave me away and I couldn't hold onto that lie any longer. I had not "found" Jesus, I had not been "touched" by him. I was sad that I could not join my friend in her world of faith. At the same time, I was also indifferent because I didn't really think it was a real world - I thought it was make believe.

And so I moved on. That friendship faded for many reasons, partly because I was going through an unbelievably difficult time trying to deal with the grief of my sister's and nephew's deaths and partly because I was discovering that I was a lesbian, which really didn't fit with my friend's belief system at all. Too bad she was the first girl I ever fell for. Too bad she was the first girl I ever told that I wanted to kiss. Too bad for me. But, luckily, I moved on. Luckily, I met another girl that did want to kiss me back. And luckily, that allowed me to feel ok with the fact that I am a lesbian. Luckily, by now, I don't need anyone else to help me feel ok with that or any other fact about my identity. But, at age 16 and 17, apparently for me, I did.

The other connection I've had to Jesus has been through the music of my classically favorite band, U2. (I say, "classically favorite" because I have a new favorite band, The Naked and Famous, and I don't really care for the current music being made by U2. It's their classic albums, most notably, The Joshua Tree, that really is my soul. Otherwise, they've become just another pop band that could fade into the noise for all I care. They've lost their edge. Of course, not The Edge, their lead guitarist. He's still around! ha!) In any case, Bono, the lead singer and lyricist of U2, is a fairly devout Christian, as I can tell by his lyrics. I think he's probably one of the best kinds of Christians in that he really practices what he preaches and, next to his role as a rock star, is known world wide as a humanitarian activist. His lyrics, matched with The Edge's guitar riffs and melodies, are why I feel that their music is my soul.

Here's a snipit from one of my favorite songs by U2:

I believe in Kingdom Come

Then all the colors will bleed into one

Bleed into one

But yes, I'm still running

You broke the bones

And then loosed the chains

Carried the cross, all my shame

All my shame

You know I believe it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

This is a powerful song. Actually, it's clearly written in a gospel style, and was recorded live in such manner on their Rattle and Hum album. In any case, this song has always touched me deeply, and I've always known it was, at least partly, written about Jesus. Clearly, in the above lyrics, that fact is obvious. It's like I'm on the verge of believing something when I listen to this song, but then, if I think about it, I still have never had a strong connection with an actual being named Jesus.

But something happened recently while I was listening to this song - to these specific lyrics. I really, really, felt that relief that it conveys with, "Carried the cross, all my shame/ ALL MY SHAME". That's when I realized what this is about: Jesus, let's just keep him as an idea, let's us STOP feeling ashamed of all the shit that we are and do as human beings. In these lines, it is sung that he is taking away our shame when he carries that cross. It's like he is saying, "If I do this for you, you must give up the shame. When you give up the shame, you can continue to grow. And grow up." It's such a relief. It's such a loving gesture. It brings tears to my eyes. Does this mean I've finally been "touched" by Jesus? Or "found" him? I don't know. I don't think so - I still don't know him. I know my sister, though. She died and I feel her in my heart. So, I can understand how someone might feel him. But I don't feel him. I feel these lyrics. And I think I understand what they mean, finally.

There's one last bit I want to write about Jesus here. This bit will come across strangely at first, so bear with me. Recently, one of my spiritual mentors told me something, via "transmission meditation", that was a bit of a shock, to say the least. I'm not sure if it was meant literally, or specifically to me, but she told me, via this transmission, that I am "the second coming". She said that she hadn't really believed in Jesus Christ before, that she had thought he was just a fairy tale, similar to my own feelings about him. In any case, the transmission was so fast that I hardly could ask what was meant by that - if it was meant for me, specifically, or for everyone, that each of us is "the second coming". Also, I assume this refers to "the second coming of Christ". Obviously, it could all be bullshit. But let's put that aside. Suspend judgment, if you will. What happened to me next was what I really want to talk about: I wondered, what if I really am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ?

Well, first of all, that thought fits perfectly into my own megalomania. Sure, I'm Jesus f-ing Christ. That's great, that means I'm the most influential human being in the history of the world (Earth). Let's not talk about the unlikelihood of this fact. But then, of course, the next thing I thought was, 'no way! I can't be Jesus, I'm not that great. I'm not all-loving - I mean, I wish I were, I'm trying to be - but I have all sorts of mean thoughts and difficulties with all sorts of human emotions, some which are dark, for sure. Not only have I had these dark thoughts, but on occasion, I have even said them and on even rarer occasions, I've even done some hurtful things. I am sorry for it, but clearly that means I'm not the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. I am not the second coming.' But then I came back to those thoughts I had previously about Jesus - that if he were human, he would therefore be imperfect by definition (humans are imperfect - life is imperfect). Thus, Jesus would have had difficulties, too, and maybe he had dark thoughts, too. So then I bounced the idea back, well...maybe I could be "the second coming of Christ". I mean, if I believed in that stuff.

So then I think to myself, damn, if I'm the second coming, that means I need to work harder to be all-loving. (And this is what I'm trying to convey - this responsibility I suddenly felt.) Suddenly, I felt a weight of responsibility, and yet also a new purpose, a deep purpose to not only be all-loving, myself, but help everyone I could possibly help to also be all-loving. To do that, we must all surrender our shame. So I sat with these thoughts and feelings for a bit, bouncing back and forth with the idea of what if I am the second coming, or what if we each are? Then I realized it doesn't matter. What matters is that second part, when we take on that responsibility - when each and every one of us takes on the individual responsibility, as if each and every one of us truly feels like we may be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. (Minus the ego-feeding and megalomania that it supports...after you get past that part, but that part is the attraction, of course.)

This is what I leave you with, then. What if I told you that you are the second coming of Christ? Think about what ways in which you could be - not the ways in which you couldn't, go ahead and forgive yourself those ways - and then hold onto that thought. Now consider what your next moves would be.

Discomfort

I know, it's boring when someone who's sober talks about being sober all the time. But you know what? It's fucking hard. I think we talk about it because it's a drag being the sober one. We have to figure out other things to do with our lives than what we were accustomed to doing - something that most people in our society are still accustomed to doing.

"Let's grab a drink." Well...ok, but I'm having soda or a 'Shirley Temple'. Why can't we say, "Let's meet up to chat"? I mean, I know it's basically the same thing, but I also understand the underlying connotation by it; if we get a drink, we can relax and really feel comfortable with each other. Otherwise, well...it's uncomfortable.

Sober people are trying to deal with that discomfort, too, but in a different way. And it's hard, to be honest. It's fucking hard.

I'm not talking about one day. Or even a week. I'm talking about days on end, each time you're faced with an activity, whether it be social or even by yourself, which used to entail the consumption of alcohol and/or smoking/vaping weed/ganja, you now have to think of something else to do with that activity or time or social encounter. It's like brainstorming all the time and trying to think of something that will be at least somewhat appealing to you to replace it. For instance, at a party, do you drink non-alcoholic beer instead? I did that. It's kinda gross. Ok, well, maybe soda? Well, I did that when we went rafting on the river for a few hours - had a whole 6 pack of diet Dr.Pepper...then felt bloated and gaseous for days afterwards. So scratch those ideas...

I don't really want to be sober from substances, but I feel like I have no choice because I do want to be sober from my love addiction - the crazy behaviors I can have when I feel like I'm losing love (after feeling a 'high' from getting it). Substances lower my judgments and I need them to stay clear so I can learn how to love in a healthy way. So sobriety seems to need to be all-encompassing for it to really stick - at least for me and almost everyone else I've ever met who was serious about staying sober.

Discomfort is a mild form of pain. What I'm learning in my 12-step meetings is that people with addictions learned that pain was not ok, that it is unbearable and must be stopped or at least reduced - no matter what one must do to achieve that goal. We find something that feels so good that it does take away that pain...but then we cannot always have it and soon it gives us less and less of that relief, but we still crave it, we feel like we might die without it (in some cases, this may be true) and thus, for our own survival, we'll do nearly anything for it - the definition of addiction. But when did we learn that pain was so unbearable?

I found out a couple of weekends ago when I visited my family, in a conversation with my mother, that she would do anything to reduce or eradicate our (my siblings and my) pain. She said this in a very self-assured manner (my therapist said it is 'egosyntonic') - like she was proud of this fact. I think I used to be proud of it, as well, and saw it as a self-less act of love. It is derived from love, but it's an enmeshment type of love - it's derived from her feeling my pain and her not being able to handle it. I'm not trying to put my mother down - I have been like this all of my life, as well. I can sympathize with my mother - she either learned it from her parents or came to it from other ways her upbringing taught her. I've always seen this characteristic as a result of being extremely sensitive and sympathetic to others. But now I see it for what it truly is - enmeshment and the inability to sit with pain, to just let it happen and let it pass.

Sitting with our pain is what we're learning to do in sobriety, in our 12-step programs, in our recoveries from our addictions and codependency. Yeah, it sure is uncomfortable. But we learn that it passes, just like everything in this life, in this universe - it's all waves. Up, down, up down...nothing sits still. But if we try to control it...we tend to prolong it or even make it worse. Just let it happen.

That is where finding peace and a 'higher power' comes in - we find peace even in the discomfort because we trust that the universe will normalize our lives again - the crest of the wave will fall, the tide will rise again...everything equalizes if we let it. That's either a belief in a higher power, or in the power of the universe or the wisdom of experience...but it's just trusting that it will come back and the pain that was here today will be gone tomorrow. Soon the discomfort becomes bearable - there's no need to do anything to diminish it, because it diminishes on its own.

The Reasons

I want to drink or smoke weed right now. Why?

Because I'm bored.

Because I don't feel like I have anything to look forward to.

Because I feel on the brink of sadness, depression.

Because I don't know what to do with myself except chores or work - stuff that doesn't feel good.

Because I can't run due to a foot injury. And even if I could, I'd probably not be as good at it as I'd think I should be and feel badly about myself.

Because I'm not in a band and cannot seem to write a complete song anymore. And my playing isn't as good as I think it should be, anyway.

Because I have nothing I feel like talking about with anyone.

Because I'm alone.

Because I'll be alone tomorrow still.

Because I don't know if I'll ever not be alone.

Because I'm bored.

So far away

Twenty years have gone by and I don't feel much different.

I can't fight it, it seems. As far as I get, like the recoil on a stretched rubber band, I fly that much faster right back from whence I came.

I cannot take part in the purposeful destruction of myself. I promised myself and others, but I don't feel any different - I still want to crawl into the nothingness in which I feel I am already. Instead, like a sore that just won't go away, I am still here, growing uglier and more painful each day.

No one's going to rescue me. That is pure fantasy.

I'm just looking for one or two real people who know the truth, or at least don't deny it when they see it.

I'm tired of regurgitated slogans.

After all the love I've given and continue to give, trying my hardest but right now I'm feeling its loss...why am I still so alone?

I thought I'd come so far. But now I've found myself lost again.

So far away from love.

Today, I'm Sober

I've been sober for one entire week now. Sober from marijuana, alcohol, and love addiction. It's easy to measure sobriety from smoking/vaping/eating pot and drinking alcohol. It's not as easy to measure sobriety from love addiction. But, I'm pretty sure I have been sober from love addiction this entire week. It's hard to really know, except that it hasn't caused me any additional pain.

I was on vacation for the entire week that I have been sober. I visited some friends in Pittsburgh, where I lived and attended graduate school for six years. My best friend who I stayed with is also sober, so it was relatively easy to stay sober with her. However, the whole reason I planned my trip there for this particular week was because another one of my best friends was throwing his big, yearly independence day party - which we attended. There was plenty of alcohol and, at some point, pot brownies were distributed. I am proud to say that I was still able to abstain. Again, my best friend (I'm calling her my best friend although I know I'm not technically her best friend), who is also sober, was with me, so it was still relatively easy. Or, rather, easier than if I were all by myself, trying to remain sober. I was able to have fun without drinking or getting stoned. It's a victory for me, even if rather small. The true test will be when I feel my love addiction rising again - if I can remain sober then. The whole reason for me getting sober from alcohol and marijuana is so that I can, hopefully, remain sober in my love addiction.

In my previous post, I wrote about the last incident that led to my last love addictive behavior. I didn't really write about what I did, though. Essentially, what happened was that I had been drinking and smoking weed all day, both days of that Pride weekend. After discovering that my latest OOMA (object of my affection) has been doing the same sort of "catch and release" behavior with other women in her life - not just me - I became quite angry at her for making me feel like the reason she ended our friendship was all because of me - my mistakes - and not taking any responsibility for her own. I suppose I reasoned that if she could see that she also equally made mistakes in the interaction, then she would be understanding and forgiving of mine and we could, hopefully, be friends again. [Clearly, I have still held on to the fantasy of a great friendship that she promised me from the very beginning, despite the evidence that it no longer exists, and may never really have truly existed before.] In any case, the problem was that I was drunk and stoned, obviously causing me to lose my better judgment, and thus, on Sunday, I ended up texting her in a drunk/high stupor to essentially tell her how angry I was at her. I had even deleted her contact info from my phone prior to doing that, but still had older texts saved in my phone, which I knew were from her so I could easily retrieve the phone number. I mean, I didn't even have a momentary hesitation - which is scary, seeing as I've been in recovery for almost an entire year and specifically in SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) for the past three months!

Then the nasty texts went on for a day and a half. We were both compulsively responding to each other, despite the clear fact that it was only deteriorating. It only stopped after she said something about getting a restraining order and then I wrote that if she stops texting, I stop. So she stopped. And I stopped.

But that was my wake-up call. It was gross - the fact that I had no breaks! There was no reason for me to text her and tell her how angry I was at her. Obviously, I wanted to hurt her because she hurt me. But that only made her feel more justified in hurting me, and, of course, gave her more opportunity to do just that. As if I was saying, 'hey, don't you want to take a few more stabs at me?' I'm not even sure I can hurt her. That's not what I really want, anyway.

What I really wanted was for my fantasy to be true - the one she promised me of having this great, close, even best friendship. It hurt so badly to be offered that, then to have it ripped away from me as soon as the going got rough. Best friends are there through the hard times. But...their relationship develops into a "best friendship" over time, not simply offered/proposed at the beginning. (She told me that I was her "best friend" after only really hanging out together for about two weeks! Yes, that has now become a red flag for me.)

So I decided that I needed to stop all activities that jeopardize my sobriety in love addiction. Thus, I realized that I needed to stop drinking and smoking weed. And...I'm proud to say, I've been sober for the past week. But...I'm not extremely confident about the forever future... But, as they say, just take it "one day at a time". So that's what I'm doing. Today, I'm sober.

Subtle Explosion

It's called an oxymoron.

What I mean by it is clear as day to me: it took only the most subtle, slightest movement in the corner of my peripheral vision to quietly ignite or, rather, diffuse the bomb standing next to me this past Saturday. Basically, another girl who is not the girlfriend of my most recent OOMA (object of my affection) came so close to my OOMA's face, almost to a kiss, and suddenly I knew. She's a cheater. I knew she was a liar, but only knew that she had lied to me and who am I, anyway, right? If I'm a worthless nothing, then lying to me means nothing. But a cheater - now that is proof of her despicable character! Because it's not me she's cheating on or cheated on - it's someone else, someone I don't care for, either, but at least I can appreciate the pain that this information may have or might still cause her.

She led me to believe that the reason she ended our friendship - a friendship she claimed was so special to her that she called me her "best friend" - was because I crossed a boundary by developing feelings for her. I didn't do anything about the feelings, except that when I was away in Cambridge for a month I had a bit of a mental breakdown and wanted her friendship - leaned on her friendship - more than usual, and I got upset that she wasn't returning my texts and phone calls. We argued about it on two different occasions. Again, the whole time, I thought it was all me, all my fault. And she encouraged that belief that it was all my fault.

Whereas I am in a constant state of re-evaluation and personal assessment (more so than usual  over this past year), she is without integrity, without true self-reflection, thus, without the ability to truly grow from her mistakes because, of course, she does not recognize them or claim them. Ok, then, I have figured her out - finally. I have gotten the resolution that I needed.

Since I started this post, I have found out more information. Since it's from the source (her), which is unreliable, I take it with a grain of salt - I have no idea how true or false it is, but must consider it as part of the pool of limited information that I have received. So she may not have actually cheated on her girlfriend - or, rather, ex-girlfriend - because they broke up at some point since I last knew her as a friend. When I found out this new tidbit of information, I immediately went back into a state of confusion - trying to reconcile it with other information I have that I know to be solid and true. Then I realized something. It's not the particular pieces of information that are the revelation here - it's the fact that she controls what information I am able to have (my therapist suggested that she probably does this with everyone, not just me - that, really, this is not a personal affront to me because this is her M.O.), she withholds information or blatantly lies to me, and then when I try to confront her about anything that may or may not have happened in the past, she claims something different from what I have known and understood to be true. This, I have come to see, is her trying to warp my reality - similar to the way a heavy object warps spacetime, creating the force of gravity. My sickness in it is that I haven't been able to see that she warps my reality (she and other girls like her - other "love avoidants"), and I fight to keep my sanity within this warped perception. It's this warping of my reality that angers me the most. How dare she try to control what reality I experience!

So it doesn't matter if she cheated or didn't cheat on her ex-girlfriend. What I felt above was a validation that our falling out wasn't all my fault - that this is a pattern of hers. She had to have at least been "intriguing" (a term used in SLAA to describe the flirtation stage of a relationship, before sexual consummation) with this other girl (who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of hers prior to her most recent ex and is also on my rugby team) while she was still in a relationship with her ex. The other part is that I saw her about three weeks ago at that music festival (by shear "coincidence") and she was with her ex, holding hands, in fact, so it would appear that they were still together then. But, even if she never technically cheated - as defined by having a sexual interaction with someone other than their partner to whom they have made a monogamous commitment - it is that same type of "catch and release" thing that she's doing with all of us. So I do not feel anger towards the other girls involved,  except that her recent ex treated me poorly, as well, so I don't feel anything positive towards her, either. But I sympathize with my rugby teammate. I was present in March when my teammate was talking about wanting to prove to her ex that she was "independent" enough now (I hadn't known for sure that the ex that she was referring to was my most recent OOMA, although I knew they had dated and thus was one of her exes) which made me feel sad for her. That's the sort of thing I used to do for girls - try to change in whatever way they wanted me to in order to be with them - but now I understand that was part of my illness, my love addiction. I feel sorry that my teammate felt like there was something wrong with her just as she is, the way I used to feel and sometimes still do when I'm rejected.

You see, love addiction is much more prevalent in the general population than most people know. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most people don't even know what it is or that they think it's a joke.  Obviously, to me, it's no fucking joke. It's hurt me badly and has caused me to experience deep loneliness throughout most of my adult life so far. It's why I have not been able to maintain a stable, healthy romantic relationship in my adulthood. It's also what led to my arrest in 2002. Love addicts are typically attracted to "love avoidants", a term coined by Pia Mellody. Love avoidants are just as sick with codependency issues as love addicts, but they deal with them in complementary ways, so the two tend to get together in a co-addicted relationship.

I'm tired of being attracted to love avoidants - as tired as I am of being a love addict! So I've been looking back and trying to see where the first clues were that I overlooked. I'm pretty sure I spotted it early on, but, again, due to my fantasies being triggered and not recognizing them as fantasy, I fell for it again. This is what I believe happened:

1. About a year ago I started facing my codependency and love addiction issues head-on.
2. Towards the end of July last year, I started going to CoDA meetings (Codependents' Anonymous).
3. I started working "the steps" of codependency recovery through Pia Mellody's very detailed and difficult workbook based on her book, Facing Codependence. [I got to step 3 when my therapist at the time basically told me I couldn't move on until I completely gave my desire to be in a relationship up to my 'higher power', something I said I really didn't know if I could ever do completely. Seriously, can you? Maybe you can if/because you're already in a relationship. I don't believe anyone that says otherwise. Everyone I know wants to find that "one true", loving,  partner to build their life with - whether or not they want a family, they definitely want a partner with whom to share the joys and sadnesses of their life. I think it's only natural. In any case, so I got stuck on Step 3. And haven't continued because I don't want to be false. But I'm feeling like it's time to resume...]
4. Then a friend of mine suggested I return to playing rugby with our old team, so I said ok. I re-joined the team at the end of August. She got pregnant and didn't rejoin the team, afterall. It was fine, though, because I'm a big girl and can make friends on my own. I thought and still think it was a good idea of me to do that - rejoin rugby - because it gives me both a new social outlet (like an instantaneous family, actually, which I already kinda had but hadn't been hanging out with), and another outlet for pent-up energy (a seriously effective outlet).
5. At rugby, I was very open and vocal about how I just started recovery on my codependency and love addiction issues, making it clear that I'm not dating (I was in a 6 month, actively no-dating period at that time). It was, in part, for the benefit of letting people know not to pursue me in that way, but also, in part, for the benefit of letting people know about codependency and love addiction - and give anyone who may be having similar issues the opportunity to see someone else dealing with them head-on, and maybe, if they wanted/needed, they could talk to me about it.
6. Two different women on the team showed a slightly personalized interest in getting to know me - in being my "friend". They both kept saying "we should hang out". Both innocuous, in and of themselves, but the timing of it and the level of personal interest seemed a little out-of-place for me, despite the fact that I absolutely loved the feeling of attention and that they were into me before even getting to know me that well. [Right here, this is the feeling I need to remember - the feeling I had when they each kept offering to hang out and be my "friend" - both the feeling of unease as well as the slight 'high' I felt from feeling wanted, desired, as if they could see how great I am just from the small snipits of information they had.] The thing is - it triggered fantasy for me, as you may recognize in what I just wrote - that last clause: "as if they could see how great I am just from the small snipits of information they had."

   Reality check: it had nothing to do with how great I am - they couldn't see that. And...ironically, they never will in this type of co-addicted interaction.

   Truth: my understanding of the dynamic is that they saw my vulnerability in my announcement that I'm not dating - and didn't think further about why I'm not dating. They saw a fish that was saying, 'you can't catch me'. Of course, I was also saying 'not right now while I'm just beginning to deal with issues that make this part of my life unhealthy and painful'. But..those things didn't register to them because all they saw was a challenge that, for their sense of self-worth, they felt they needed to conquer. [I know, this seems harsh, but I'm just applying Pia Mellody's theory, which seems to fit to an astonishing degree!]

7. I was turned off almost immediately by one of the two girls because I heard she was in an open-relationship, something I have had experience with and it rarely works out well. I didn't want to get involved in that sort of thing again. Plus, to be honest, she wasn't really my "type"; she has dark hair and also has a doctorate. Turns out, I like blondes who have had "a lot of life" (read: trauma) to go through (and I almost always assume that it's allowed them to grow immensely and build character) and who are not as highly, traditionally educated like me but are clearly very intelligent, nonetheless. The reasons why I'm attracted to that is also very likely mired in sickness - my mom's blonde (and society claims blondes as objectively more beautiful than darker-haired women), I have a lot of guilt about my privileged placement in this life, and I like to think I find the "diamond in the rough" or that I'm some sort of "rescuer" or "savior". [I know this is really unhealthy! Now the harshness is directed back at me.]
8. Obviously, I fell for the other girl, the one that fit my “type” quite a bit better – she has naturally blonde hair, she had a rough childhood, which basically caused her to raise herself and her baby brother, and she is very intelligent despite not having a formal higher education like I did. As I got to know her, I discovered that she fit even better into what I have always admired in others: she’s passionate about making the world a better place, she’s at least superficially compassionate about others (she gets people to “sponsor” starving children in third world countries as her job - [she got me to!]), she’s strong-willed, opinionated, appears to be very emotionally stable, and seems to have a very high sense of self-worth. Then, even later, I discovered that she is a burlesque dancer and former erotic/exotic dancer/stripper – as in, she’s very sexually seductive, which is something I have often needed to spark my own sexual interest. All of these things built upon each other like a gathering ocean wave, which eventually grew into a tidal wave and then... tsunami. But…it just began as a wave of intrigue from her. That was the beginning. The rest is history (and pretty well documented in posts on my blog as well as summated in this one).

According to Pia Mellody and the literature on Love Addiction, these OOMAs or ‘love avoidants” were attracted to me because I presented myself in a very vulnerable position. They saw an opportunity to control me by getting me to fall for them, which they knew would be easy. They used their power of seduction, which has always worked for them, something they learned early on in their lives as a method to get their needs met (it was a survival mechanism as a child, now it is a maladaptive/unhealthy behavior as an adult), which appears to me, the love addict, as them being attracted to me – showing me some form of love, which I so desire/crave, and of course get hooked on. Love avoidants have a conscious fear of intimacy, the kind that is enmeshing, due to being enmeshed as a child by their adult caregiver – maybe because they were basically made to be the caregiver of their adult caregiver, as a type of abusive role-reversal. This is all in the literature – I am merely paraphrasing. I suppose I could just reference people to it. The uncanny thing is how well it fits for my situation. I mean, yes, there are some differences in the details and probably no one has all of the characteristics or backgrounds described for either love addict or love avoidant, and many people have characteristics of both which can come out in different situations or interactions. [I think I was a love avoidant in many aspects with my most recent ex, which was an interesting flip of an experience for me. The thing that got me about it was how much I knew I didn’t want to be with her, but how hard it was for me to sever the relationship (love avoidants tend to stay in these unhealthy, co-addicted relationships out of guilt or a sense of duty). That relationship for me was most definitely a mixture of love addiction and love avoidance.]

In the end, as I have written, I am truly grateful for this experience as a necessary learning experience in my recovery from love addiction. I have come a long way in that I can see what is happening, almost in real time, while it’s happening. I haven’t quite made it to the point where I can always stop myself from participating, though. I realized over this past weekend that one major obstacle that keeps getting in the way for me being able to stop my maladaptive behaviors is drinking and smoking marijuana. Therefore, I have made the decision and begun my journey to get sober from alcohol and marijuana in order to help me maintain sobriety in love addiction. I do not take any of this lightly and will surely be writing more about that later. However, I felt a need to get this story out now. I am thankful that this explosion did not consume me this time. I'd like to think that sharing my experience may help others to come to terms and understanding with their own, similar experiences. I now know that this kind of sharing is critical to our recoveries.

I look forward to the new life that I am at the beginning of creating for myself! 

Science Has Been My Religion

I've been trained as a scientist. I grew up with a father who is a physicist and a mother who is a psychologist - both earned their Ph.D.s in the subjects. My mother is a clinical psychologist, so she does not really think of herself as a scientist, per se, but clearly has the capacity to perform science and interpret it. They were my foundation in this early life and from that, I believe, came my insatiable curiosity. Yes, insatiable. All the science in the world cannot satiate it, but religions made a mockery of it, too.

I realized the other day that I'm angry at my decisions in life that have led me to this place that I am in - a career that consistently feels alien and alienated from the parts of me that have brought me so much joy in my former existence (as a child). I've been holding onto this anger as part of the necessary process - aren't all scientists angry that they have to do this shit day in and day out? That most of the time their experiments don't pan out the way they thought they would? That technical difficulties hamper most of what they do and once they get over that, they run out of time/money to really do anything fun and interesting with it? Then they have to write it up even though the story is so small, with so many holes that they have to pretend the holes are fewer and further between than they really are so they can hopefully publish it, so they can hopefully show that they've been productive and hopefully be able to get a grant so that they can live another year doing this same shit over and over again?

I'm depressed about it, too. I decided to stay home from work, using the excuse that I wasn't feeling well yesterday but still dragged myself in to work so I could take some pictures of slides I made so I can write up a report. I have another report to write, so I figure I can do that at home where I don't feel like stabbing my eyes out every other minute. I feel like I cannot breathe when I'm there. I'm living a lie there.

Then I feel badly because I know I'm privileged to be able to do science, to be able to have had the education to get me where I am - and I'm not enjoying it. I feel badly because I don't deserve to be here if I don't want to be here and someone else who may want to be here may not be able to for reasons having nothing to do with whether or not they have the qualifications. I feel guilty.

Maybe, also, I'm scared to change. I know there is a part of me that has wanted this, at least to enough extent that I made it this far - I've been pursuing a scientific career for over 12 years now, not including college. Everyone (other scientists) says that if you step out, you essentially cannot step back in. The competition is too fierce - it is even if you never step out. But slowly, over the years, I think that part of me that thinks I might change my mind again and want back in is coming to the conclusion that it's not likely to happen - only that I might be scared to have to worry more about money again. But I worry about money now, anyway. I've always been bad with money - I also learned that from my parents.

We believe science will save us from everything - just as we used to believe religion could. We've just changed belief systems, but still don't recognize the problem: no one/thing can save any other one/thing from anything. We either save ourselves or we don't get saved. That's the bottom line. I mean, I'd even say that sometimes a blieve in something greater than ourselves helps save ourselves (like science, the universe, God, etc.), but I think that's just us allowing ourselves to save ourselves. What do we need to save ourselves from? Ourselves. We put rules down to follow, we set up obstacles in front of ourselves that divert our paths - but we never believe it is ourselves that are doing it - we think it's someone else. But then one day we wake up and find ourselves in a place we never thought we'd ever find ourselves and we wonder - how did I get here? What happened?

Then we have to backtrack - what were the steps that we took that led us here? And we find...that each and every step was our own decision, usually between a known and unknown and we usually took the known out of fear of the unknown. I'm afraid of the unknown. It's true. I think we all are and some of us admit it while others do not. It's scarier to not even know what you feel. In any case, that's not a huge problem of mine, although it is something that I recognize is not a given, either (to know how I feel) - it's something one must often work to figure out. There are layers of truth under the surface of truth. That doesn't make them untrue - it just gives those truths more depth. In any case, I've followed the known path out of fear of the unknown and now I've come to that place where I wonder how, why, where, what am I doing here? I'm miserable here. And finally I've decided that the unknown cannot be nearly as frightful as the misery of remaining in the known just because it's known.

In making a change - a huge change - I am facing the fear of the unknown. Breaking it down into its component parts and addressing them - let's go from unknown to known. Or at least address each part that is unknown and demystifying it so that I can see myself knowing it.

I'm not a scientist at heart - I've always said that I'm an artist/musician at heart. I want out of science. It doesn't mean I'm not curious or intelligent or that I'm wasting my intellect. It doesn't mean I hate science or that I am throwing it all away. It only means that my true self wants to come out and live a little more than it has been able to in the past 15-20 years. It doesn't mean I made a mistake - I think there were good reasons for why I did what I did, possibly very profound reasons, in fact. So it's ok. It's ok to walk away and never come back. It's ok to walk away and look back or even wander back ever now and then, too. I cannot let other people's fears become my own. They do not know what it's like to be me. And I do not know what it's like to be them. It's all good in the end because we are of the same essence and we will know all of it in the end (my belief).

Music is my hot, hot sex

I want to talk about music. First, let me explain why I think music is maybe the most special of all forms of communication or expression. The evidence is in how we process music in our brains. Since there are many overlapping regions of the brain where we process music and where we process language - specifically, spoken language - I've decided to start with language.

We process language in several different regions of the brain - the first part usually being of the auditory regions or temporal lobes on either side of the brain, but it could also be the visual cortex if it's from written language being read - then they route through language comprehension regions like the Broca's  and Wernicke's areas. Well, the speech producing (or expressive) region is the Broca's area whereas the comprehension is more the Wernicke's area, but  I guess both regions are important for both functions. In any case, these are both towards the temporal regions of the brain, one side is the more "dominant" side while the other is sub-dominant. It's mostly in the cerebral cortex - the speech producing region being located in the frontal lobe, therefore being a newer outgrowth in evolution - while the comprehension of language is a little older - this makes sense in a way, the way I remember learning languages (I could always comprehend more than I could express!)

Of course, we process music first through the auditory regions of our brain (obviously - we hear it!), and of course we process the lyrics of music in the same regions that we process language, but the myriad of other elements in music require a myriad of other regions of the brain for processing. For example, check out this map of the brain (horizontal cross-section) below of the different regions used to process different elements of music:

Most importantly, one region of the brain that is important for processing rhythm is the cerebellum, which is located at the base of the brain, at the brainstem. It's the oldest (evolutionarily-speaking) region of the brain, often called the "reptilian" brain. Check out a review of Daniel Levitin's book, This Is Your Brain on Music. I haven't read the book, but I've read several reviews and really, I only cared about the fact that processing music is such an ancient, basically fundamental process to life.

What I'm trying to get at is that music is special - it's ancient to life. Music is more instinctual than language - take the example that children can learn a tune before they learn to speak their first sentence. I've met a few dogs that could whine/sing with someone who was singing (my own dog, included)! Sadly, my dog doesn't talk to me using verbal language (well, other than the usual barking, which tends to be non-descript). Even birds sing!

I feel like each of us has had a spiritual experience through music at some point in our lives (with, maybe, the exception of deaf people - although, I knew a deaf girl once who loved heavy metal because she could feel the vibrations of the music, which she enjoyed.) Of course, I might be wrong in this assumption. I might just be biased because music has had such a profound effect on me, since I can remember. In any case, it clearly has had a profound effect on a multitude of people across space and time, cultures and civilizations.

But what I'm really getting at is that music is my soul. When it's a piece of music that reaches me, it touches me deeply, to the core. I feel like it gets inside me and my soul rides it like a wave. It makes me move - maybe dance, maybe just sway, maybe just a chemical (emotional) reaction leading to a tear welling up in my eye or the feeling right before a tear wells up. Good music like this gets inside me and changes my essence, through resonance? Probably. It resonates with me and I expand, like the amplification of a wave when combined with another, similar waveform in phase with the other... Sometimes that expansion feels like a hug from an invisible teddy bear or a blanket that some kind, anonymous being drapes over my shivering body.

I had a most remarkable experience this past weekend - a musical experience. Well, it was more than that... I got to experience the music of my new, favorite band, (The Naked and Famous) performed live! I actually saw them play a little over a month ago in a much smaller venue (The Warfield) where they were the headlining band - the show was crafted for them, so they sounded and looked amazing! This past weekend, they were the first headlining band of the festival (Live 105.3's "BFD"), not the last (the headlining-headlining act), and thus were not set up ideally. The sound wasn't mixed well and they weren't lit well (it was still daylight and it was at an amphitheater - Shoreline Amphitheater, to be precise). Specifically, at some point early in their performance, the sound was amplified more and it just felt like it was out-of-balance as far as the levels were concerned for different parts (for instance, the lead male singer - Tom's - voice was a little louder than normal) and had more feedback and distortion. I think it gradually got fixed throughout the performance, but I found that kind of odd. I kind of felt bad that there weren't more people in the seats watching them - although it filled out more throughout the performance. This is all besides the point - despite the fact that it wasn't as good as their performance at The Warfield in April (which was set up for them, so of course it was fantastic!), I still had an extraordinary time! It kind of felt like a sort of spiritual experience!

Well, I guess I neglected to mention the best part - I got to meet them!!! I didn't know I would have the chance to meet them until my friend who came with me to the concert told me the night before that they would be giving autographs at some point. I couldn't believe it - how exciting! So I was suddenly ten times more excited about the concert and had trouble sleeping the night before. I woke up early and in a state of euphoria already - thinking to myself, "today I get to meet my favorite band!" It felt like Christmas morning when I was a child...the anticipation was palpable. So when we got to the festival, after watching one of the other new bands that we wanted to see ("Of Monsters and Men"), I wanted to get in line for the autograph signing, but it was still two hours away! After doing some other activities (like eating, walking around, chatting with friends), I finally got in line at about an hour before the autographing. During that hour, I just chatted with my friend and neighboring fans about how great The Naked and Famous are and how I'd love to live in New Zealand (where they're from) because not only are they from there, but New Zealand has the best rugby team in the world (the All Blacks) - actually they have the best record of any sports team in the world! - and they also have another really great act -  the extremely funny "folk rock comedy" duo called "The Flight of the Conchords" - plus, the country is just absolutely gorgeous (as I can tell from pictures and movies that were filmed there such as the whole "Lord of the Rings" trilogy!) In fact, the guy in the couple standing behind us in line was from New Zealand, which I didn't find out until after I already gave my whole schpeel for why I want to go/live there, so I'm sure he was tickled by my comments!

Anyway, by the time the autograph signing started, my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my body. I didn't know what I wanted them to sign at first, but eventually came to the conclusion that I wanted them to sign my t-shirt (a tour t-shirt I got the month before when I saw them at The Warfield). The problem was that I was wearing the t-shirt, and it occured to me just as they walked in (and I almost passed out from excitement) that they probably wouldn't sign it while I was wearing it. Luckily, I had brought another shirt to wear ontop (a striped, button-down, long-sleeved shirt), so I took my t-shirt off while I had my friend hold up my other shirt to shield me from the band (rather than the hundred or so people waiting in line behind us)...it was amusing, I gather - I was amusing, I mean! Anyway, I really wanted my picture taken with them, but apparently pictures were not allowed (although, my friend was able to sneak a few with her iPhone as I approached the long signing table.) In any case, I was walking on clouds as I met Alisa first, then Tom, and then the rest of the band (at some point, one of the helpers had to tell us to move along 'cause I was talking to Tom - I told him that he's the "prettiest boy" I've ever seen and that I'd date him even though I'm a "big ol' lesbo"!! He liked that - he said it might be the best compliment he's ever had and asked if he could quote me on it, which of course I said YES! Then I said, "tell 'em drjams said so!" - clearly, he didn't get what I meant by that and I realized I probably said too much...but it didn't get me down!) I was so extremely high after that interaction! Oh, and of course I told them that they're my favorite band and that I listen to their music every day and often on repeat! I didn't give a shit if I came across as gushing and all in love with them - who cares! I didn't hurt them and I'm one of the reasons why they're successful! So...I know it's all good.

But yeah, music....it makes me feel alive when it touches me so deeply - like I'm in love, but not with a person. With...a feeling? a sound? just the commonality of human experience? of conscious experience? I don't know. Luckily, I don't need to know! It's one of the only things in my life that I accept just as is, without question. Without needing to know in any other form. It's the purest of all feelings to me.

So yeah, I'll just leave it like that. And here, I'll share another song that I'm really into right now (maybe that'll be enough to speak to you):

We're Never Gonna Talk About It

I wrote a letter.
Then I revised it.

And revised it again.

But...I'm not going to send it.

For once. For a change. This time I'm not sending it. This time I'm going to see what that feels like to just let her hate me. Or love me. Or whatever she feels. Or doesn't.

All I know is I was as close to who my authentic and true self is that I could be at the time. That I made some mistakes and I took responsibility for them - that I apologized and am making efforts to change for the better.

I cannot control what she does, what she thinks, what she feels.

I am worthy of love. I am worthy of being treated well, with respect and as a worthwhile human being.

But, I'm pretty sure we're never gonna talk about it, and we may never speak again. It's not my fault. It's not my choice. But I'll give her that.

Forever 15

It's not hard to figure out why I sometimes feel like I'm still 15 on the inside - that was how old I was when my sister died. That is the hardest thing that I have ever experienced - it caused a chasm in my life: my life while my sister was alive and my life after she died (the rest of my life). I feel like the mes that lived those two different lives are different, themselves. Well, obviously they are. But my old me is still inside me, it's just cut-off - separate, like it's own identity/consciousness. [To be clear - I'm not suggesting that I have multiple personalities. I'm merely saying that there is another part of me that feels cut-off or just very separate from the rest of me because of that traumatic event. But I'm all one personality/consciousness.] I think it's imperative to my recovery to try to resolve these two mes - to bring them back together, completely as one. The reason is primarily because I think the 15 year old me comes out and dominates my consciousness sometimes - precisely when I'm hurting again the way I hurt when I was 15 or younger. It's time for me to grow that 15-and-younger-year-old up - to fuse her with the me that I am today. I don't want to be 15 forever.

I guess it wasn't just that my sister died. Her death really was just the culmination of years of out-of-control, dysfunctional family interactions, primarily centered around my sister and her activities (as far as I could tell). I was going to write, 'behaviors', but it was more than just what she did, it was also my parents as well as my brother and me. We all contributed. She was the odd one out - she had learning disabilities; social issues; was 3 & 4 years older than my brother and I, respectively; had darker hair than either my brother or I did, etc. She was the 'black sheep', essentially. So of course she felt that way. She ran away from home for the first time when she was 16. I was 12 - I don't remember it very well, but I think it must've been in April or May - she wasn't gone long before my parents (with the aid of a local cop) retrieved her and sent her to 'Pathfinders', an Outward Bound program for teenagers to help build self-esteem/self-worth. I remember it being summer when she returned, then they sent her almost immediately to summer school - boarding school - in Maine! For troubled kids...

The thing is - throughout growing up, I had this very strong feeling like I was going to have a tragic life - like maybe I'd die. I always dreamed of being "rescued" by someone or maybe not even that - mostly the only "rescuing" was that they [actually, I've decided to name that role in my life: the Object Of My Affection or OOMA] would know I was going to die soon so that the OOMA would finally reveal their love for me. That was my dream for so long - I even thought of a movie about it - obviously very dramatic! - called 'Born to Die'. [It's so dramatic and tragic that it's kinda funny... so please feel free to eye-roll, laugh, whatever - without guilt!] I thought I had to be dying for someone to love me. I guess I felt like I was dying because I didn't feel loved.

And neither did my sister (feel loved). She made at least a couple of suicidal gestures or "calls for help". It was no secret that she was unhappy. She would get really into boys and her relationships with them. [This goes way back, huh? We're all love addicts and codependents. My whole family. Is it just the cycling and recycling of maladaptive behaviors (a.k.a. 'abuse')? Or is there something specific about me and my history?]

The boarding school (Hyde) that my parents sent my sister to was not like any other school that I'd ever been to or experienced. I will only write about my experience, which was 20 years ago, so I cannot say whether or not it is still like this, but it made me extremely uncomfortable. I hated going there for any reason, but mostly I hated 'family weekend'. It was a school for difficult, troubled teens. Some kids had issues with truancy, others were into drugs, others had run away from home (like my sister), etc. Cher's son (Elijah, his father is one of the Allman brothers) was a student there when my sister was there. Even Cher was there on family weekend.

Family weekend at Hyde consisted of all sorts of events that were more like a therapy retreat than a leisurely visitation. I remember that we were grouped with other families according to the regions of the country where we lived (so since my family was from Rochester, NY, we didn't get grouped with Cher who was from California.) By the way, Cher isn't as tall in person as she appears on TV - I remember noticing that it was mostly her hair that gave her a sense of height. Anyway, that's an aside. We were grouped in this regional way and had group family sessions. To me, this was hell because these sessions were basically amateur group therapy. We'd sit in a circle in a large room, grouped with our families. Then the facilitator (one of the teachers) would have us go around the room one by one and have us talk about how things were going in the family - including our feelings about it. Remember, I was 12-13 when my sister was at Hyde. I wasn't seeing a therapist for my own personal issues, and I certainly was not going to tell a roomful of strangers how I was feeling about my sister and my family! When it would be my turn (or my brother's or anyone else who really didn't want to be there), everyone would be listening and waiting - for what? something juicy, I guess - and we'd just be sitting there for a long time in silence. I finally figured out what they wanted - they wanted me to cry! That was the only way they'd move on! It was humiliating. I can still feel the anger inside me - how in hell is that helpful?!?!

Well, it turns out that Hyde was not as helpful as my parents had hoped. It didn't keep my sister from running away again the next chance that she had - which was when she came home for spring break in March of 1991. She came home to Rochester, NY, to find that we were in the midst of the worst ice storm in over a century. Of course, it was horrible - we didn't have electricity or heat for 10 days! I believe my sister came home around day 5 or so, I'm not sure. In any case, she stayed for maybe a day or two then left. She just drove off and never returned. (She had a car which my parents helped her to purchase the previous summer.) She was 18 at that time so I must've been 14 - well, actually, I turned 14 at the end of that month. In any case, being 18 meant that she had every right to run away from home (actually, she had that right at 16, but according to some strange loophole my parents were still financially obligated to her even if she ran off? Strange).

So yeah, that was a hard time when my sister ran away for the second time. I'm pretty sure I was sick with at least a cold, there was no heat or electricity at my house, my brother had escaped to a friend's house downtown where their power lines are underground so not only did he have electricity and heat, but he also had cable television! Then my sister comes home for her spring break and immediately leaves. Maybe this is another example of where my abandonment issues come from (being left there by my siblings who escaped).

We didn't know where my sister went. I cannot remember what it was like in those months except that my parents - especially my mom - were pretty upset and distraught. Oh, I do remember now that they had been called by the police in Syracuse, NY, telling them that their car had been impounded (my sister's car, actually, which was registered in my father's name). So we knew she had gone to Syracuse at some point, at least. It wasn't until Mother's Day that we heard from my sister - her new boyfriend had convinced her to call my mom for Mother's Day. That was the catalyst for my parents to move them back up to Rochester. They made an agreement with my sister - that my parents would move them and pay for her to live in an apartment with her boyfriend in Rochester as long as 1) she took classes to get her GED at the local community college (and take other college-level classes - she was gonna go into nursing, possibly) and 2) she didn't get pregnant. She agreed and that's what happened - they moved them both up to Rochester, got them an apartment, she enrolled in school, voila!

It was ok. I don't think we were getting along spectacularly, but I think we were getting along better than before she ran away. Honestly, I really do not remember - I was going through my own shit at school. Mostly, I hated my classmates and I'm pretty sure they hated me. I didn't like how everyone (my classmates) were acting all alike - conforming - and I didn't understand why they were drinking and smoking - basically doing everything we were warned not to do! I certainly wasn't doing those things! But...I also wasn't having any fun. I was depressed. I missed my best friend who had moved to the Midwest after 7th grade and I'd become obsessed with her, not understanding that I was developing romantic feelings for her or that my obsession with her was unhealthy (of course I didn't see it as obsession). I did well in school, though, because I knew how to do that.

Anyway, what I do remember is that while I was visiting my best friend in South Dakota over that February break, my parents told me that my sister was pregnant. They waited to tell me for when I was in South Dakota with my best friend because they knew I would need support, and that she was my most beloved supporter. I remember crying after I found out that my sister was pregnant. We were all upset - we thought it was the thing that would ruin her life. We were wrong.

The following months during her pregnancy and the two months she lived post-giving birth were the best months of our family's life with my sister. As soon as we got over the initial shock of her pregnancy, we just started planning our lives around a baby coming. It's an exciting thing - expecting a new being to love to enter your life. I remember a couple of very meaningful experiences with my sister at that time, one of which was when we took the bus downtown together - she showed me how to ride  the bus - to pick out some clothes from a church basement where they had a consignment shop, specifically for pregnant women. The clothes were either really cheap or they may have even been free to those who needed them. My sister was living frugally, despite the fact that my parents were helping her. They weren't lavishly helping her, that's for sure. She didn't have a car and her boyfriend had a job painting houses, I think. In any case, she was always broke and my parents weren't bailing her out, even though they'd never let her starve, go unsheltered, etc. I think they were trying to teach her to take care of herself while also making sure she didn't completely fall by the wayside - they were her safety net.

I remember being in downtown Rochester, walking on the sidewalk across the street from the old Woolworth's on Main street (I think..). My sister told me to wait at that bus stop for some particular bus, but that she had to go across the street to a different bus for her to go home. I remember hugging her and saying bye, but wanting her to stay with me. I remember feeling kinda sad as I watched her cross the street and climb up into her bus. I remember missing her at that moment. Genuinely loving her and wishing she would stay with me. Twenty years later and I'm holding on to that memory because it was one of the few times I remember feeling in awe of her - genuinely loving her - instead of all of the slew of negative emotions I used to have associated with her and the events around her. I wish I had more time with her so I could have more good memories like that. But that's what I have.

That summer, I traveled to Spain - the second time I traveled to Europe (the first time was to Greece the summer of 1990 when I was 13). It was supposed to be an immersion type of foreign exchange program where I was supposed to speak the language. The issue was that I only knew two tenses for the conjugation of verbs - the present and past tense. As it turns out, there are many more tenses than that! Ha! Just trying speaking that way in English. You never will do anything, but you're always going to do it...also, you were never doing anything - you just did it. (Can't say, "I was doing that!" or "I would do that..." etc.) Yeah, it's hard. In any case, the language barrier wasn't even the major problem - the major problem was my homesickness which developed into the most intense major depressive episode I've ever had in my life (separate from the sadness that overcame me when my sister died.) It was also the very first major depressive episode of my life. I spent three weeks in Spain. The majority of that time was spent in a non-air conditioned room alone, playing cards by myself in over 100 degree weather. I didn't even know how to play solitaire so I made up games by myself. I wrote in my journal and wrote these amazingly sappy letters professing my love and homesickness to each of my family members, my best friend and even myself. One of our best dog's ever, Champ, a border collie, died while I was in Spain. I wanted to go home so badly that when I started bleeding two weeks early for my period I thought - hoped - I might be dying and so I thought they'd have to send me home! They didn't. I stuck it out in Spain for the whole three weeks.

Soon after I returned from Spain, I had the opportunity to see my favorite band in concert - U2 in Toronto, Ontario, during their Zoo TV tour (or was it Zoostation?). It was an amazing experience - my first big rock concert which we arrived several hours early for and upon finding our seats wayyy back in the rafters, where one would need binoculars to see the stage, a guy came up to us and pointed to the floor seats by the stage, saying "do you want to sit over there?" I was like "YES!! OF COURSE!!" but didn't quite trust him. In any case, being my foolishly trusting self, I traded tickets with him. Then, to my own disbelief, we were able to actually sit in the second row, center (just to the right of center) - a few feet from the stage! I could see Bono's sweat flick off of him as he pranced around! My only slight disappointment was that since we were so close and a little to the right of center stage, I couldn't see my favorite member - their lead guitarist, The Edge - very well because he was on the left. But that's ok! It was still one of the most magical nights of my life.

A month later, my sister gave birth by appointed C-section to my nephew. We didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl - I had put $10 or $5 on a girl so...I wrote in my journal that when my nephew got older, he would have to give me $5! It was supposed to be a joke. Of course, I didn't even consider inflation at the time! Those two months between his birth and their death were the best two months of my family's life with my sister. It brought us together - I have vivid memories of telling my sister that she was a good mother and that I loved her.

Then they were gone.

I went to bed on Wednesday, November 25th, 1992, probably relatively early in the night with nausea and maybe even a fever - I certainly did not feel well at all. I vaguely remember some noise in the middle of the night and maybe my Grandma yelling for someone (my brother) to get the front door. I don't know if that is a real memory or not. For some reason, though, I think it is real.

The next morning, Thursday, November 26th, 1992, was Thanksgiving. Since it was a holiday, I intended to sleep in as late as I felt like. However, although I'm pretty sure I still managed to sleep in a little, my Grandma woke me up at some point, as if she'd been wanting to wake me up for some time. She yelled something like, "Ok, it's time to get up, J." So I slowly started to get up. The first thing I noticed was that I was actually feeling a lot better than I had felt the night before - I didn't feel sick at all. After a few minutes, my Gram shouted, "Just put something on quickly and come out here. I need to talk to you." I asked if I could take a shower first and she said no. This response was unusual so I started to feel like something was wrong. I wondered what it might be - my other Grandmother had been sick with cancer for several years already, so I thought maybe something had happened to her. Or...maybe my parents - they were on vacation by themselves (the first in many years) in the Caribbean. My heart was starting to beat faster, so I put on whatever I could find nearby (probably the previous day's clothes on the floor) and walked out into the hallway. My Gram stopped me at the top of the stairs and said, "There's been an accident." My heart sank - I don't remember if thoughts even came through my head.

My Gram held my shoulder and said, "Jodi, Vinnie and Nick were all hit by a train last night." In a panic, I said, "are they ok?"

"No, they're dead."

In retrospect, I realize that asking if they were ok was kind of a stupid question - who gets hit by a train and lives? I mean, I had seen Stand By Me as a child and loved it! The story was built around a boy who had been walking in the woods by the train tracks and had been hit and killed by a passing train. It was his dead body that the four young boys (main characters) set out to find after hearing about it on the radio and knowing there would be a reward. Yet, I didn't register these facts when my Gram said they were hit by the train. In those split seconds, I still held on to the hope that they were still alive. It's strange how time slows down in those moments - I really remember it like that, slowly coming to the realization that there's no hope, that they're gone. It's as if I did CPR, gave her my internal organs, held him tight - everything to attempt to keep them alive - all within those fractions of a second until those wretched words came out of my Grandmother's mouth, "they're dead." Then WHAM! he fell out of my arms, the organs vanished from her frame and they all evaporated into thin air. Everything changed.

Forever.

I guess I split apart that day, too. The everything I'd been up until that moment versus everything I'd ever become after that moment. The chasm formed.

The chasm stretched from the moment I found out that they had died, spanning until my parents arrived back in Rochester, having to cut their vacation short to come home to bury their dead daughter and grandson. It took almost 24 hours just to get a hold of them to tell them that they had died. Then it took almost another 24 hours before they arrived home in Rochester. I think those hours comprised the most profound and intense feelings of abandonment that I have ever endured. Until that time, I had always had my mother to depend on and be there for me when I was sad or hurt or let down, etc. For the first time in my life, I was completely alone in my time of need. Sure, my uncle and some cousins, etc., immediately drove or flew to our house in Rochester to be with us, but that wasn't the same as my mother. Looking back now, I know it was an unhealthy dependency that I had on her - and continued to have on her for another couple of decades (yes, if you do the math you'll realize that I'm saying I have only very recently stopped depending on her for my personal emotional welfare). It doesn't actually matter that it was unhealthy at the time because it fell through when I needed it the most, leaving me feeling the most severely abandoned that I had or have ever felt in my life until then or since.

[But whose fault is it? Is there someone I can blame? Not really, I'd say. My mother was at fault only a little in the sense that I should never have been that dependent on her and she clearly co-created my codependency. But it wasn't her fault for going on vacation! And it wasn't her fault that my sister died! And even though she co-created my codependency issues, she is also a victim of her own upbringing that created her codependency issues and thus, I do not feel that it's completely justified to fault her for that, either. Or maybe it is. I guess I don't see the point. I've always gotten so much love from my mother. I cannot imagine that she would ever have wanted me to hurt because of her - it was never her intention! Of course, "even the best intentions are sometimes in need of redemption", as so beautifully sung by Death Cab for Cutie.]

It felt like I was in a freefall into nothingness...I was just falling and falling and crying and crying. Two of my best friends (who had read about my sister's death in the newspaper even before I had been awoken by my Gram) took me to see the new Disney movie, Aladdin, that was opening that day. It was hard for me to pay attention - any break in the dialogue or song, I found my thoughts moving back to my reality and I would start to cry. I certainly couldn't seem to find joy in the 'happy ending'. That first night was pure hell. I didn't sleep (at least, I don't remember if I eventually fell asleep or not). Every time I closed my eyes, I thought about them getting hit by the train or any number of nightmarish visions. And so much guilt. Even the last journal entry I wrote had been mean about them - how badly they smelled in the car (well, with the exception of my nephew - I wondered how such a perfect baby could come out of my sister's body - I may have even said 'gross body'. I was sooo mean, even in my journall!!) I was so scared. So very scared...

In a way, when some of my sister's ex-friends came by our house while we were out one day and stole most of my sister's and her boyfriend's things (including their Nintendo system, TV, VCR, etc. as well as my family's canoe (weird, right?)), it helped to close the chapter on that part of my life. Not only were they gone, but their possessions were now gone, too. As if they never existed - there remained no trace of their lives.

Actually, that's not true at all. We still had boxes of photos and other miscellaneous items that they hadn't had at their apartment. And of course, it's not these things or even those photos that substitute for their presence. They're gone. It's the ultimate abandonment.

I wonder if writing this down like this will help me to fuse again with that 15 year old still hanging out - lost - inside me. I guess I won't know for some time. I guess I just need to keep trying to piece these fragments of a soul back together any way I can imagine. And maybe...someday...I will find that I am whole again.

[Me at my sister's grave in Rochester, NY - the last time I was there. 2009. My nephew's buried with her and his father/her boyfriend, Nick's ashes are also in the casket with them. So all three lay there - 6 feet under the ground. It took ten years to complete her custom-sculpted tombstone. It sure is beautiful.]

Teachers In Disguise

I found a 12-step workbook that I think I can use to help me "work the steps" for my SLAA (Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous) program. The first step is to "admit to ourselves that we are powerless over [alcohol, drugs, others, ourselves, etc.] and that our lives had become unmanageable."

When I first started going to CoDA (Codependents Anonymous), I started a different 12-step workbook and worked the first step in there (Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody). There were maybe 20 pages of activities and journaling to do for Step 1, primarily to identify the maladaptive behaviors and to try to identify their roots in childhood - basically to flush out the "childhood abuse" that caused the behaviors to develop as a survival mechanism. It was not a pity-party. It made me look at my shameful behaviors and own them in all their horror. It was hard. So when my sponsor for SLAA told me that I needed to do Step 1 again, but specifically for SLAA this time, I really thought it might just be easier for me to buy a gun. (and, well, you know where that's going...)

But I found this workbook by Melody Beattie called Codependent No More Workbook (well, she wrote the best seller, Codependent No More, which the workbook is designed to complement.) The layout is unique - it goes through 10 "lessons" which include the 12 steps (so right there it's different because it combines some steps together since she clearly sees their redundancy that I've always complained about!) And it seems a bit more gentle, which might be what I need right now. I'm pretty annoyed with the feeling like I'm the only one I know who has these issues that's doing anything about them. But...well, that's just another issue I need to deal with/get over - whether or not other people deal with their issues is not my business/not of my concern. All I can be concerned with is whether or not I can be close to them while they are wherever they're at. Right now, I've come to realize that my most recent OOMA (the new term I'm giving for anyone that becomes the "object of my affection"), most definitely has some of these same issues as I do, albeit manifesting in a different, complementary way (she is the "love avoidant" to my "love addict"), and she is not at the point of recognizing, accepting, facing and dealing with the issues as I am. It is perfectly ok because that's where she's at. But for me, I am trying to accept the fact that it's not healthy for me to try to continue to have a relationship of any sort with her while she is unable to do those things. This is not something I am good at - I am heart broken about it. She is not a bad person (and neither am I) but right now she is hurting me pretty badly and I need to get out of her way so she can figure it out on her own.

Anyway, back to the workbook: I like the way that Melody Beattie is setting up the Step 1. It's all about identifying or "recognizing" our "teachers" and the lessons that they taught us, whether or not we expected to learn anything from them, whether or not we learned the lesson "the hard way" (in a painful way). I like that because it's less about flogging oneself and those that supposedly "abused" us, and more about seeing that there were lessons there, that these people gave us something in the end, even if that came with much pain. The other half is about how we reacted, yes, but it's also in a gentle light - that we reacted that way because of the pain, because we were trying too hard to control (and alleviate) that pain. But of course, those reactions were not in our best interest in that they hurt us again.

In any case, I feel a little better, like I can handle it again. I will work these steps. I will work my programs. And I will be grateful for the lessons that I get to learn in this lifetime.

Seemingly Never-Ending Soliloquy

It feels like it will never end

It's not that I can't do it
Alone
It's not that I haven't been
Alone
I'm here now, aren't I?
All
Alone

But I don't know
Who You are
Or might be
You who would join me
I don't know what to expect
What to think
Did I scare You away
Already?

Or were You
The one that died
When I was just
Eighteen?

It feels like it will never end

This
Seemingly
Never-ending
Solitude

Soliloquy

It's always been
Just
Me

It's not that I don't like
Me
It's not that I don't know
Me
Or wish that somehow I wouldn't be
Me

I make myself laugh
All the time
But I've heard all my jokes
A million times over
And over again

It feels like it will never end

Just another
Seemingly
Never-ending

Soliloquy

Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

I've been in some inner turmoil for the past little while. I keep writing posts, publishing them then taking them down and even deleting some of them. It's a sign of my struggle - I cannot seem to come to an agreement with myself on how to feel, what to think.

I'd like to think that I'm letting the universe take over trying to figure everything out for me, but that's not entirely true. I've just been bouncing back and forth with my interpretations of it all. I'd like to hand it over to the universe, though. I suppose I am trying to do that now.

Step 3 of the 12-steps is all about surrendering to our 'higher power' (or the universe, as I like to say) all that we cannot possibly know, control, and that which we have found to be unmanageable over which we find ourselves powerless. The idea is that God or our Higher Power or the Universe will take care of it and we, individually, do not have to worry about it, whatever 'it' may be. Not only that, but one of the 'promises' is that, if we "work the program", we will find joy and happiness "beyond our wildest dreams". This 'promise' can manifest itself in many different ways - in all ways - including, but not limited to, personal relationships, career and other life dreams.

So I'm beginning to feel it. I'm beginning to feel the changing tide - that it may be true for me, too! It's strange and I think it reinforces my newfound belief system that the universe is conscious and desires us conscious beings to be joyful, happy and at peace. Of course, all of this is achieved through expanding our ability to love. I truly believe that.

The strangeness is in how this phenomenon - surrendering and "letting go and letting God" - results in the fulfillment of that promise of being provided for by the universe. It's counter-intuitive because I've always learned that if I want something, I need to make it happen for myself/I need to do it so that I can get it. I've always learned that I was the one who manifests my own destiny - that I need to work for it, figure out how to do it and do it. It's not that I'm suggesting that we will get all that we want if we stop working towards it. It's more that it is becoming apparent to me that the universe has a plan for us - according to my newfound spirituality, we were part of making this plan in our "inbetween lives" time - and it's something we not only want but need and that if we let it happen by not trying to steer our futures too much in any one particular way, then the universe will lead us through our plan and, at the same time, provide us with love, peace and joy "beyond our wildest dreams". But we need to stop trying so hard to be in control of our destinies, to stop trying so hard to build our lives all by ourselves. It's weird - it's not at all within the realm of what I came up to believe - that I could be, do and get whatever I wanted if I worked hard at it. But that is based on a flawed spirituality, one without a Higher Power (therefore, I must become my own Higher Power) - it's based on not trusting that the universe will take care of me if I accept it into my being and let it guide me.

In order to let the universe (or God or your Higher Power) guide you, our personal consciousnesses need to mellow out so as to tap into the universal knowledge (the 'brane' in which we are all encoded and of which we are all part). This can only happen when we let our minds quiet down - by whatever means that takes, such as meditating. I also find that my mind quiets when I play an instrument or sports or when I'm creating something - essentially when I'm focused on one task at hand that is less about trying to figure out the solution to some problem or analysis or interpretation, but more about letting the spirit flow loosely through me while I feel something and concomittantly do something with that feeling.

It became most apparent to me the other day when I was playing the piano. I've been playing the piano since I was 3 years old. If I had more formal training, I'd probably be able to play in professional settings by now, but I didn't have extensive formal training. I had a teacher that was excited when I started to write my own compositions, so she encouraged me to go in that direction rather than practicing scales and whatever else formal training has you do. So music was never tainted with too many rules for me, thankfully. Anyway, so I was playing and just feeling so connected - like the piano keys were merely just extensions of my fingers and through them my soul gently sailed back and forth with each note. I felt beautiful for those few minutes while I played. I felt like I was truly at home. At peace.

Letting go, letting the universe take over - these are not direct actions. But playing the piano is. And so is taking a run or drawing a picture. Yet, I think one could say that those actions are my way of letting go, letting the universe take over. From there, I know things will fall into place because they have already begun.