Look at that date! Someone out there turned twenty today. I remember when Yvette's birthday fell on 10/10/10. She was not ten at the time, more like forty-one.
I had a terrible night's sleep. Well, not compared to people who suffer from chronic insomnia. I had a terrible night's sleep for me, which means after going to bed around 11 pm, I woke up at four and only dozed after that. I was feeling rattled and couldn't calm myself down.
I am more aware of grief now than I have been since he died. They say the pattern of grief is different for each person. Some experience their worst grief immediately after the death of a loved one, and for some, the worst year is the third. And then there are those poor souls who go into morbid grief and bide their time until their own death. Mike's mother was like that. She said she felt that she was no longer a person after her husband died.
I feel a lot the way I did after my dad died. I don't remember feeling sad as much as body racking fear. With his death, I was alone with my mom. She wasn't the kindest person to me. She was hypercritical with both Dorothy and me. Dorothy told a story of seeing a therapist and describing our mom's behavior. He asked her if she and I were bad kids. Absolutely not. Our mom was just nuts.
Besides her constant barrage of criticism, she and I had a particular problem. I was trained by my dad to think for myself and speak up. As far as she was concerned, for me to have any perceptions, opinions, or insights different from hers was an act of disrespect. I didn't get what her problem was until shortly before her death. I couldn't conceive of anyone thinking such a thing. Oh, well. Maybe in my next lifetime. In the meantime, she tried to convince me that no one liked me. I was a jangled bundle of nerves. I had insomnia from the day my dad died until the first night I slept in my dorm room my freshman year of college.
On a positive note: what made the lady crazy was a well-earned case of PTSD. That she had any sanity after what she experienced during her first six months of life is a fantastic testimony to the strength of her spirit. (She was subjected to a medical procedure to save her life that could be described as primitive at best.) But that same PTSD, which made her less than the best mother, made her a fantastic person when our lives were at stake. She was there for us, kept us going, and saw to it that Dorothy and I went to college, something my father wanted for us. She would never have thought of that on her own; her background was more limited.
My mom managed to go to a high school that taught clerical skills only because her father was in Russia, fighting WWI on the Germans' side. When he got back, she was 15. He was not pleased with the path she had taken. As far as he was concerned, she should have been trained as an upstairs maid.
My grandfather had been a rich man's chauffeur before the war, driving him around in a horse-drawn carriage and taking care of the stable. When he got back from the war, his boss told him he had bought a car and drove himself. He offered my grandfather one of two jobs: he could become a taxi-driver (His boss would have bought him a car for that purpose.) or the janitor in the bank the man owned. My grandfather took the janitor's job. Had he become a taxi-driver, I doubt he would have been very successful. He would verbally attack people on the street if he disapproved of their behavior. It would not have been a pretty picture.
When I got to Bikram this morning, I saw Yvette in the lobby and told her I wasn't doing well and needed a hug. She gave me one, and then Maite stepped up to give me one too. When I went into the room, Bill, who was on the mat next to me, saw I was in distress. I explained to him that the first anniversary of the onset of Mike's illness, which killed him, was coming up, and I was feeling alone and scared. Scott called out from across the room, "You're loved, Betty."
While I was lying on my mat before class started, Maite came up and knelt by my side. She advised me to breathe deeply. I had been doing that with no success, even after many years of sitting Vipassana meditation retreats. I knew all that, but it wasn't helping me calm down. However, something about Maite's presence did. After she went back to her mat, I could feel the ghost of her presence at my side, and my anxiety slid away. I was calmer than I had been in two weeks.
This was an enormous relief. I was afraid that I would be feeling this way until I died. That the only thing that had protected me from this feeling was Mike's presence in my life. I'm strong, but he was my protector – or comforter.
The first time we visited my mom as a couple, I needed to take a nap. (I have told this story before for those of you who think you're experiencing Deja vu all over again; you are. ) I went to my bedroom to lie down. Mike came up and turned my desk chair, facing the head of the bed, sat there, and read. My mom didn't come near me. My mother didn't resent his statement; she admired him.
It wasn't that Mike could always protect me from my mom or others with who I experienced conflict, but he could always remind me that I was loved, valued, appreciated, and enjoyed. That took the sting from the slings and arrows of others. No, no one is actually verbally assaulting me these days, but I am experiencing differences in communication styles and values. I don't have Mike to come home to, to be assured that I'm okay.
For me, when I hear what I call tribalism, I get scared. My father had raised me to know how dangerous tribalism can be. Tribalism doesn't always look like outright prejudice against a whole group of people; sometimes, it shows up in small ways. There are two friends I have told of ways my sister hurt me. Their reaction is to never want to speak to her. I was appalled and frightened by their response. No, no. It's your job as my friend to create a bridge between my sister and me.
Jean, Mike's first wife, is friendly with both Dorothy and me. She has kind of apologized for continuing to be her friend. I love that they are, as long as she doesn't cut me out of her life in favor of Dorothy, I am not just good with it; I'm delighted with it. I like and love Dorothy. I believe Dorothy loves me; she just doesn't really like me or enjoy me and has said some incredibly critical things. No, she didn't scream you bitch at me. That would have been just fine. She calmly told me what she thought of my character. Let's say she sees me as a bad person who is not concerned with others' needs. It was devastating to hear this. Jean's friendship with Dorothy creates a flow between Dorothy and me. While Dorothy may have hurt me, she has a sibling's license, similar to a poetic license. Dorothy has been wonderful since Mike has died. We speak regularly, and I love talking to her.
When we were all in Oahu shortly before Mike died, Damon took a picture of the three of us, Jean, Dorothy, and me. He had it printed on Plexiglass by Shutterfly. I have it sitting by my bedside. I love it. These two women are my sisters. Given how bad it can be between sisters, we're all doing reasonably well. I value these two women in my life, even with the hurt.
I reached out tonight to several family members and asked them to schedule me for weekly phone calls because I anticipated a tough time coming up. People were very good right after Mike died. Jean called daily; Shivani, Damon, and Dorothy each had a day they stuck to. But life goes on, mine as well as theirs. Unfortunately, I seem to be more in need now than I was then.
After the yoga class was over, several people came up to me to give me hugs. I waited for Maite to come out and thank her for what she did for me. I told her what a difference she made. I was calmer than I had been in two weeks. I told her it was something about her energy that deeply affected me. I asked her if I could reach out for her energy when I needed it. For those of you who don't know, I'm a healer who works with energy healing. I believe in our energy touching each other, even at a great distance. Maite told me that she would be honored for me to use her that way and thanked me. I told her I understood. I frequently thank the kids I work with for trusting me as they do with their vulnerability. I work with them on things they are not good at and are often ashamed of. If I'm lucky, that child will say, "You're welcome." In all the years I have taught, I think I can count the number of children who have thanked me for helping them on the one hand.
I remember one incident when I was teaching in a Catholic school in Trenton when Mike and I still lived in Princeton, NJ. I worked with an eighth-grade boy to help him improve his reading and spelling. His teacher told me that not only was he doing better with his reading and spelling, but he was improving in all his subjects. When his mother came to school, she was introduced to me. She said, "Oh, my God. My son loves you. He said you explained how words work." Really. All I saw was a sullen face.
After dinner, I went to the library to watch some TV. I finished Season 6 of 'Grace and Frankie." I switched back to season 3 of "The Good Place." It's okay; I'm not as taken with it as I was with Seasons one and two.
Yvette came in bearing a pizza box. When she gets pizza, she usually drops off one or two slices for me. Yeah, another dinner is taken care of. She asked if she could drop off more than the usual two slices. She had ordered half pepperoni and half cheese, and they had messed up the order. They gave her a free all cheese pizza. Okay, so I have two dinners taken care of now.
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Musings:
I am uncomfortable with those who believe if someone hurts a friend, you should cut out that person from your life very distressing. I think the idea behind this behavior is loyalty. I know that loyalty is an important concept, but somehow it's not part of my thinking. Consideration yes, loyalty no. I'm going to have to think about it more. Maybe I've just never been in a position when loyalty was an issue.
I find the idea of cutting a person out of your life just because they have hurt a friend – well, horrible. I can see cutting that person out of my life when their act represents a fundamental character flaw. I can see doing it easily if that person set out to hurt my friend. Wow, who wants someone in their life who is capable of malice.
When Mike and I were first together, someone reported me as a VD contact. I hadn't slept with anyone other than Mike for over a year. Where did this come from? My first thought was it was his ex-wife. Mike said definitively, "She would never do something like that." That's the truth. There is no way Jean would ever do something so sneaky and malicious, no way.
It took me quite a while to figure out who had done it. There were three people involved. I figured this out from their behavior during the incident. It took me several years because I couldn't imagine someone I knew could do something like that. They tried to ruin my life by ruining my relationship with Mike.
FYI: One of my commune mates asked me if I had slept with anyone else. I said I didn't think so. I told this story to Mike. He laughed. He said I would never have been able to keep that information to myself if I had. I was the most open and honest person he knew. I would never have been able to keep that information from him. So much for their efforts to get him to leave me.
I don't know if these people regret their behavior and have changed. I can tell you that none of them has apologized to me for putting me through that ordeal. That behavior represents a character flaw. I want nothing to do with them.
On the other hand, I was seeing a healer in Princeton. I recommended her to Mike. He was pleased with her work. It was while he worked with her that he realized his affinity for Catholicism. She ended her relationship with me in a most unprofessional way. I never told Mike what she said because she helped him, and I was afraid he would stop seeing her when I told him.
Many, many years after he stopped working with her, I told him exactly what she said. He said he would have stopped seeing her, not because of what she did to me per se, but because her behavior was blatantly unprofessional. Again, I react to what I see as a person's character, not the amount of pain that someone caused me. (Ah, I was confident that she wouldn't do anything like that to him.)
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