Friday, July 29, 2002

 Friday, July 29, 2002

      I had a PT appointment at 7:30. Katie worked on my body after watching me walk around the facility and up the incline in the parking lot. I did just fine. She noticed that my gait was still not even. My left leg stride was shorter than my right. I adjusted. She saw I torqued my hips to get that effect. She told me not to do that. I would throw my back out. The difference between my two legs wasn't that great, anyway. She reminded me of several exercises I was supposed to do. One I hadn't understood correctly. I was supposed to pump my ankles while straightening my knees to release a pull on the sciatic nerve. She had told me about the ankle pump, but I thought that had to do with avoiding blood clots after the surgery, not sciatica. I had already used ankle pumps to release a certain tension in my leg. I would hear a pop in my ankle. I thought this meant the problem was there and radiated up. Katie said that it was the far point of the sciatic nerve that popped. I still don't quite understand how it works.

   I had my appointment with my therapist/life coach today. I was wallowing in self-pity, focusing on negative relationships. I understand it is the natural tendency for all of us to focus on the negative. We are not designed to live in our 'civilized world.' We are designed to live in the wild. We are designed to look out for threats to our life. Any situation free of threat requires no consideration. Our lives were not in danger. Any encounter that doesn't go well threatens our well-being. When we lived on the savanna, social conflicts were as much a threat to our well-being as an encounter with a lion. We focus on it because we must figure out how to survive the situation. No situations in my current circumstance threaten my life, no matter how much conflict or contempt between me and someone else. But none of our psyches are designed to ignore these circumstances. I always wanted to work things out. I have learned this is sometimes not possible. The other person isn't open to what I have to offer. I find cutting them off the easiest on my nerves. But then, bad feelings resurface like acid reflux occasionally, and I feel sad. I'm more preoccupied with negative relations because my mom constantly told me that no one liked me. 

      She was concerned about my outgoing personality and eagerness to tell people what I was thinking. Another aspect was her concern for my well-being showed up if anyone said anything positive about me. Yeah, she genuinely believed that positive feedback was bad for her children. She made a point to be a 'good' parent and deluge us with negative feedback. She argued that she was the only one who loved us enough to tell us the truth. That has a twist to it that doesn't sound so loving.   Whatever the cause, I have to figure out how to deal with these feelings. When Mike was alive, he would hug me. That cured a world of woe.

  Jean, my Hanai sister, called. Besides other things, she talked about bad dreams. I don't remember many of my dreams, good or bad, except the occasional one where I dream that Mike left me for someone else. I knew that Mike would never leave me for another person. It had nothing to do with how wonderful I was. He would just never have done something like that. He couldn't. If tempted, he would have rejected the other person. That's just who he was.              

  Jean remembers behavior she regrets in her bad dreams. I have those thoughts when wide awake. I described them as searing. She recognized the sensation and thought that was the perfect word to describe it.

   I am reading Stephen Batchelor's Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. My friend John Zim turned me on to this author year ago. The first book I read of his was Buddhism Without Belief, where he describes the positive benefits of Buddhist practices and understanding of the human psyche. In the book I am currently reading, he details his journey through Buddhism- absolutely fascinating. Besides being informative, Batchelor is a wonderfully lucid writer, a joy to read.

  He clarified my understanding of the Buddhist concept of emptiness or egoless. I believe they are the same thing. His definition makes sense. It's really ego flexibility. I was Mike's wife; I am now Mike's widow. His death radically changed my life. Mike's mother felt she was no longer a person after her husband died. That was a radical loss of identity. I didn't feel that way. But I was born into a different era. In my mother-in-law's time, a woman would lose all her social connections with the loss of her husband. Having a loose woman floating through the social world of couples was out. I was blessed with a world with greater flexibility. I am not shunned by the friends Mike and I made together. But I am experiencing something comparable. My life is relatively empty. Who am I now? Being able to sit with that uncomfortable question is emptiness. It all relates to the underlying concepts of Buddhism- everything is subject to change. Are you prepared to follow the bouncing ball?

   I watched the end of This Little Love of Mine on Netflix. It was as meaningless as anything could be. The main characters had zero chemistry and couldn't even fake their mutual distaste. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 38%. But it wasn't violent or downright nasty.