Last night I finished cataloging the books, 3705. There are probably about 50 that are duplicates, but yes, he has a lot of books. Completing this task makes me sad. It is one more step to removing any trace of Mike from this house. Getting rid of the books is a whole other thing. I figure it will take two years, at least, but it will be a loss by a thousand cuts slowly administered. I don’t know if that is better or worse.
I am feeling the loss of Mike deeply. I have no one who looks at me with delight and thinks, “How did I get to be so lucky?” That’s what Mike used to say. I would look at him the same way, and think, “How did I get so lucky to have been found by him?” Yes, he initiated the relationship. He made up his mind that he wanted to marry me before our first date. I was like a skittish horse he had to tame.
Yesterday, I called Jean, Mike’s first wife, and my hanai sister, because I needed to speak to someone I love and someone who loves me. There may be other people who love me, but Jean can radiate love the way Mike could. When she answered the phone, I told her why I had called. She is one of the few people who wouldn’t have responded as if that was weird.
Heather, the Bikram instructor, suggested that we lift our collar bones. I tried it, and wow! First off, the movement from my collar bones has the effect of lowering my shoulders. As I lift them, the front of my chest rotates up without a backbend, and the shoulders rotate down. It’s a whole new world.
It also changes my breathing. J.J. had gotten me to change my breathing by extending my belly to exhale and sucking it in and up to take in a breath. I had trouble doing it. Now that Heather introduced the idea of lifting my collar bone, I am coordinating that with the inhale, and it is much easier.
There are theories that there is a relationship between breathing patterns and blood pressure. High blood pressure runs in my family. Everyone had it, except me- until my five-week stint in the hospital with Mike, I was on no blood pressure medication. Now, I finally had high numbers too. While I was in Oahu, my blood pressure was running 164/ 100. I called my primary doctor and got on blood pressure medication immediately. I was on four pills a day and still had trouble bringing it down.
Since I’ve been home, I’ve been on two pills a day. It’s not perfect, but certainly better. Today I had these numbers: 140/8, 128/78, 134/80, 114/74. It always starts higher, and I can always bring it down by modifying my breathing. The last time I took it, it was 120/76 the first time. I worked on my breathing while taking it. I’m going to continue working on my breathing so I can get off these pills permanently.
I wish I had known about this long ago. The doctor said Mike’s kidney disease was caused by high blood pressure. Maybe, just maybe, I could have gotten Mike to change his breathing.
His breathing always concerned me. He would do one and a half to two breaths to my one, even when he was asleep and I was awake. I believe that proper breathing is essential for good health. While I used my abdominal muscles incorrectly, I have always been a deep breather. Why? I have no idea. But Mike would never have changed. When I tried to recommend some physical change, he would say, “Wow, this is comfortable,” and go back to what seemed ‘natural’ to him. I know he never found dialysis comfortable. If a doctor had told him to change his breathing and sent him to a respiratory therapist, he would have listened. But I was not an ‘expert’ and so what I knew didn’t count. Oh, well.
Mike’s pancreatitis was a shocker too. The only cause the doctor could identify was the pills he took for depression and anxiety. He did try therapy, but the trauma behind his anxiety was too deep, and no one could help him. Before we left Ohio, he was working with someone who used EMDR. He said he thought that was helping. We thought Kaiser wouldn’t cover the therapists we knew did it. I tried to tell him we could afford the therapy, but he refused. I accidentally learned that if your primary doctor at Kaiser prescribed EMDR, they would cover it. He was seeing one but not often enough. I don’t know if my commitment to transformation will save me from anything. Still, I believe that Mike’s unwillingness to experience the discomfort that comes with change contributed to his illnesses and death.
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Musings: I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.
I listened to one of those new age (do they still call it that) radio programs. The guest had written a book called No Self: Forty Reasons to Get Over Yourself and Find Peace of Mind. That poor self; it gets such a bad rap. In the next sentence, the guest/author talked about who survives trauma without PTSD. Guess what? It’s the ones who pay attention to themselves instead of pushing down emotion. Anyone else see a contradiction here?
Yes, overemphasizing individualism at the price of connection leaves us in despair, but overemphasizing communalism at the cost of individualism also leaves us in despair. It isn’t an either-or choice. It’s a paradox.
If you look at any human hand, you know that it is human. We are all built the same, at least by design. The shape of our hands is universal among our species. However, turn that hand over, and the details of it are so specific we can identify someone by their fingerprints. The hand is both a symbol of the universal and the individual. It is a paradox. How can one thing be two things at the same time? It just is.
Within us, there are these two conflicting needs: to be one with others, be part of something greater than ourselves, lose ourselves in it, and stand alone as a pure individual. Eastern religions emphasize losing ourselves in the universal. Christianity talks about losing ourselves. However, the promise of heaven is that we maintain our individuality. Put those two together and see how they fit.
These contradictions are normal. Everything is pulled in two directions: in toward the center and out toward the fringe. Language works that way. It pulls toward regular and the irregular simultaneously. Sometimes one side wins too much, and we become lopsided. Balance, ah, how do we achieve that? Is it possible to be permanently in balance? I doubt it. We’re all on a carnival ride.
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