Sunday, October 29, 2023

 Sunday, October 29, 2023  

 

    I had an episode of profound loneliness. The grief was getting worse instead of better. I try to stick to people and situations where I feel warmly welcomed instead of tolerated or downright avoided. Of course, this is how I feel toward a couple of people, like my new walking buddy, Mark, and one woman at church.

  The woman at church seems affected. I never feel she's genuine. I don't know if it's just with me or who she is with everyone. Either way, I don't like it. I have nothing to say to her.

   The other person is my recently acquired walking buddy, Mark. He starts talking when he's still at a distance from me. He always says exactly the same thing. He tells me his wife has M.S. and how it limits his life. He tells me kidney disease runs in his family. He donated a kidney to his younger sister, and now his numbers are looking bad. He tells me he would love to travel, but his wife can't. She tells him to go on his own, but he feels he can't do that; he can't go without her. He's trapped in the weeds. It's not just that he says the same thing, but it's how he says it. He's not talking to me. He needs to say the words. My feedback is irrelevant. I've been where he is, so overcome by sadness and fear that I told my story to virtually everyone I met. I don't know if I'm less tolerant of him because it reminds me of myself or because I know his self-comforting strategy is counterproductive. I don't want to be part of his acting out. 

  I was bad after my dad died when I was fifteen. I continued the pattern for years. I still can lapse into hysterical complaining when overcome with grief. This doesn't mean crying and taking action; it means complaining about someone's behavior. I do it when I feel trapped and cannot solve a difficult situation. I've learned giving up and getting out of relationships works for me. It's not the solution I want. I want to work things out with people. They either don't want to or aren't up to what 'working things out. Thank God I met Mike, who saw me as someone as interested in the other person's needs as my own. He liked that I had both, not just one or the other. While Mike was more controlling than me, he valued that I could hold my own if needed. He said he loved that he didn't have to figure out what I thought. If I was uncomfortable, I had limited tolerance before I spoke up. Again, thank God for my wonderful Mike. 

   I don't know if I obsess more about difficult situations than others, but I'm pretty sure I complain more. It's unpleasant both for me and the listener. I tell people to tell me to shut up for my sake as well as theirs. I have other resources and other ways to deal with the sorrow.

   Buddhism teaches the value of surrender, as does Christianity. It's so peaceful- and it is. But surrender means laying down and dying. I prefer the A.A. prayer to change what we can change, accept what we can't, and have the wisdom to know the difference. S.N. Goenka, who brought one branch of Vipassana Buddhism to America, said, "You're not just a vegetable there to be sliced." But how do you tell when to zig and when to zag? There are two important variables: the circumstances and the asker. Circumstances can be immutable. Some people and circumstances are not open to change under any conditions, no matter how adept the asker/seeker is.

The second variable is the seeker. It's impossible to impact a blocked circumstance unless you come from a clear place. You can't be conflicted, or scared, or angry. It has to come from a place of serenity and surrender to the possibility of a negative outcome. But how do you arrive at that elusive place of inner serenity to take on a difficult challenge? My problem is that I know what it means to be in that place; I have experienced success when I did it right; change came despite all indications to the contrary. I have also been in situations where the other person is unmoveable. I've learned to walk away from them. Walking away is painful, but so is pursuing an inaccessible outcome. I have to choose between two sources of pain.

    This morning, Elsa threw up on my Persian rug before breakfast. Huh? It was white. While on our morning walk, she threw up again- more of the white stuff and something brown about the size of my right, unswollen, pinky finger. It looked a little like poop. I got a stone and poked it. It was solid, more so than poop. I wanted to check out what it was. Could it be the saran wrap I thought she ate a week ago? I picked it up with the doggie bag, planning to examine it when I got home.

   A week ago, I made an ahi steak a friend gave me when she emptied out her freezer before a trip. I was patting it dry after removing the freezer wrap when I realized it also had saran wrap. I put that on the floor for Elsa to enjoy the flavored water. When I went to pick it up, it looked like there wasn't a lot left; had she eaten the wrap? I went to bed anticipating an emergency trip to the vet in the middle of the night. The following day, I pulled what I found on the floor from the garbage. I comforted myself by assuming it was all of the saran wrap scrunched up into a tiny ball. Now, I thought the mass she had thrown up was what was left of the wrap.

    When I got home from the walk, I dumped the mystery thing on the rocks and hosed it down. It was more solid than poop. I didn't wash it well enough to make absolutely sure it was the wrap, but I felt confident it was. That was in her stomach for a week. Did the plastic leech into her system? What will the effect be? I doubt the vet had much information. How many people are stupid enough to lay down saran wrap for their dog to lick? There was nothing I could do about it now.