Thursday, August 12, 2021

 Thursday, August 12, 2021

 

           I woke up at 4 am and felt that drop in my stomach foreshadowed sadness. Yes, it's grief over Mike because I had someone who liked me and with whom I could resolve conflicts without feeling I had to lose connection either to myself or him. Were we perfect? Absolutely not! Just good enough. I felt safe.  

        I doubt Mike felt as safe as I did. He suffered from unresolved anxiety. He thought it was due to his upbringing. There were ways I triggered it. When I got excited about something good or raised my voice when I got angry, that triggered him. He would ask me to tone it down. It was tough. His anxiety wasn't my fault, and I wasn't doing anything wrong when I got excited. Ah, let me reconsider that. There's pure excitement and a wound-driven excitement. His mother screamed about everything. It was her absolute right to dominate. She was a perpetual victim. Now, she had been a victim in her family of origin. Her mother reinforced her role as a woman while telling her what a hateful thing it was. Her mother was furious about the role imposed upon her and fought for herself. The only problem for her, and for me, is that we forget, can't remember that when we are freed from our victimhood, we shouldn't still cling to it. I work hard not to see myself this way in the here and now. I have options. If I refuse/can't take advantage of those options is not the fault of others.

       Mike and I got along well because I recognized that males were also victims of our system. There can never be only one victim; there can only be the illusion of one victim. That doesn't mean that some don't have more actual power than others; it just means that those in power suffer from taking advantage of their position when demeaning others. I didn't see Mike as my enemy or as my savior. I saw him as a fellow human struggling to do the best he could. I wasn't dependent on him to free me to make me feel safe. I had a role in creating that world for both of us, as did he. We both recognized we came from homes with serious boundary issues and set up systems for dealing with that in our relationship. Boundary violations are inevitable; how you deal with them is not. People cannot help bumping into each other. What you do when that happens is the difference between a good relationship and a poor one.  

          I don't know if Mike and I shared interests to the same extent as others. He loved watching football. I have zero interest in football. But I loved sitting with him and Damon as they watched. They had so much fun. I didn't share Mike's interest in knowledge for its own sake or for the sake of the church, but I fully support his pursuit of those interests because they made him happy. God, he loved being a student at Catholic University. He became the person he always wanted to be. What a scream! He would tell me he was two hours behind schedule in his reading. Who plots out their lives that way? He had a military order plan. It made me smile. I'm smiling, thinking about how much he loved that challenge. Those were probably some of the best years in his life, except for the last five years here in Hawaii. God, I loved making that man happy. He was so generous with his joy when he had satisfaction. What a gift! God, I miss him. And he loved me. How lucky was I!

       The radio announced 7 am, and there was no activity in the driveway. Huh? I checked my messages. Sure enough, Yvette had canceled. Her ear was bothering her, and she wanted to make it to Urgent Care first thing in the day. 

       I finally got around to cleaning up Elsa's poop on the lanai. Waiting for it to dry thoroughly is step one. It's easier to scrape up without smearing it all over the area. Step two, getting on my hands and knees again to treat the area with Nature's Miracle. While I was at it, I dusted the furniture on the lanai. Good move! I'll have to remember to do that before guests arrive. Of course, that furniture is sitting on a screened-in lanai. I live in an area zoned for farming,  one-acre plots. Lots of dust gets stirred up. However bad it gets here, it is never as bad as an NYC apartment in the sixties. The grime on the windowsills was impressive. I don't know what it's like now. Step three on the poop clean-up project: pour water on the spots and suck it up with my Rainbow vacuum cleaner. What a fantastic tool!

     I'm up to date on my updates. I have completed my video of Phase I. I need Tommy to do a nip and tuck, and I'm done. I feel like I don't have enough to do today. I washed my kitchen floor again. It got dirty. I did my steps. I'm up to 8,000 before 1 pm. I only have 2,000 more to go. I called Judy to see if I could include information on her in the post for the other day.

    I had a session with A. In our last session, I was shocked to realize how weak his phonemic awareness was. When I started working with him, the emphasis was on phonemic awareness. Then his mom asked me to focus on the sight words. We made significant progress, but  . . . . 

      Today, I asked A. if he thought he would learn to read by memorizing every word. He said yes. I told him that a few people had a memory good enough to do that. I was not one of them, and those with that perfect memory were not normal since he was so concerned with being normal.

    I used the sight word lists we already worked on to work on phonemic awareness. I asked A to read the word; he could read all the words on this list. He was slow to respond when I asked him to do it. He didn't respond. I asked him if he heard me ask him to read the word. Yes. But still did not do it. I find this behavior confusing and distressing. I needed to call mom and ask her. I asked him again to read the word. He did it. Then I said. "Listen for the sounds and feel the shape my mouth makes as I say the sounds." I just modeled for the entire half-hour. He said he thought it was fun.

    Elsa and I did our before-dinner walk today along the shore. I lived within 5 miles of the beach. I coud see it from my lanai. I hadn't been visited one for about a year. I felt a need. I packed Elsa into the car and headed for the nearest beach, down the hill from where I live. Elsa was happy to get in the car and go for a drive. The moment we arrived, she had to poop. Good thing I brought a poop bag. I thought of walking along the beach where I parked the car. Elsa had other ideas. She led me down the unpaved road along the shore to the Pine Trees beach. 

     I thought of Mike. The lava pool we loved is at this beach. The swimming area is formed by a narrow passage between two walls of lava rock perpendicular to the shore. The waves come crashing in, sweeping into the pool area and rushing out again. You don't want to go out too far. They can be rough. The waves could wash you away.    Mike and I always thought the water there had the quality of a mountain stream. At some point, I learned an underground freshwater stream did empty into the pool. 

       When planes take off, they fly over this beach. It's half a mile from the airport. They pass right overhead. Mike would get so excited and wave to the plane. The passengers couldn't see us. We were right underneath them. It's impressive to be that close to a plane taking off into the sky. It was so good to walk in different scenery. I had read how important it is to vary where you walk. Elsa seemed to enjoy the walk, but then she was glued against my body and shaking slightly on the way home. Maybe she didn't enjoy it as much as I thought.

      Earlier in the day, I found posts about Barbara Streisand on YouTube. One was of her singing  The Way We Were. Mike and I saw that movie on our second date. That became our song. As I walked along the beach thinking of Mike, I sang what I could remember of the words. I knew he was someone special that day because I was completely comfortable just standing online with him. It was an eventful night. He wanted to have sex. I was not having sex until I was damn good and ready. We 'discussed' it in a Baskin Robbins around the corner from the movie. Then he told me he was $2,000 in debt as we crossed Park Ave on our walk back to the Westside. Well, that ended any prospect of a long-term attachment. He might as well have told me he was an alcoholic. As I am sure you have figured out, I forgave him this excess. His positive attributes so far outweighed his negative ones. The issue of being in debt or not lasted till the end. Fortunately, we had enough money, so it never became an issue. We walked to his apartment to get his car so he could drive me home.    

    Ah, I remember. Mike's car had a flat. He got out his jack, preparing to change the tire. He could do that, but there was something mechanical he couldn't figure out. I said, let me try. He handed me jack without batting an eye. He scored points on that move, let me tell you.