every day is Sunday

I've been hiding myself, avoiding putting onto this screen some of the deeper parts of myself that are at my surface -- perhaps I don't want to make them more real by sharing them with the people who care about me. Perhaps I don't want to make them more solid by owning these parts more openly. Part of me is reticent to be misunderstood and judged and part of me doesn't want to have you worry about me. Ultimately, I know I'm well -- I'm struggling with some profound dragons but I'm safe.

There has been depression circling my system. I've wondered whether to attribute it to the relative lack of sunlight in New England compared to Colorado in the winter months. I've wondered if it's simply a consequence of having made poor choices and created a life for myself which is not fulfilling nor enjoyable. I've wondered whether I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. Essentially, I've been moving through despondency and greyness. Even as I've avoided bringing my words to this medium, I have been burning through the pages of my journals attempting to discern what is happening in my life. Every now and again I take a walk through the woods and fields as a reprieve from my work and my wrestling and I find a bigger perspective...

It used to be that Sunday mornings were a time when I felt acute pain rise up and confront me; Sunday was the day when the normal schedule of "doing" collapsed and the spaciousness threatened to unhinge me -- where would I focus my attention so that I need not look at my disquiet? During the week I could tackle issues, strive towards goals, distract myself with a social life; essentially I could feel like a 'normal person'. However, when I awoke on Sunday morning the veil would be pulled back on my grief, my pain, the fears and doubts I have about myself and life in general. On Sunday mornings I would get the sense that I was hiding from a core threat to my sanity and it was waiting for me in the dark corners of my psyche.

Since I left "life" as I constructed it in Colorado, I have disavailed myself of many of my usual hiding places. My relationship with my partner provided a great deal of distraction because there were so many issues we were always trying to fix. My work with Monarch was busy and chaotic and provided me with a platform on which I could develop not only my skills but my ego. I earned a higher income which afforded me 'pretty things' and could soothe my inner ache for beauty and filler, at least temporarily.

Conversely, here in northern New Hampshire I spend my time between work at the shelter, walking in the woods, or alone in my home. My work is absurd -- any wish to be good at my job is thwarted by circumstances beyond my control. My salary only covers my basic needs for food, shelter, healthcare, and transportation. I spend 80% of my time completing documentation that no one will ever read and the kids with whom I work don't give a shit about my therapeutic prowess. While I look to my nearby friends Becky and Sue (in Boston area) as social lifelines, I am very lonely for my family in Ontario and for my support system in Colorado.

In fact, I don't even know anymore if I enjoy work as a therapist. I wonder if I didn't simply migrate to the field as a way to avoid my existential and psychological demons; a way to keep myself occupied while hoping to simultaneously construct a sense of self that makes up for my core feeling of being a mess.

So, I fear that I am succombing to self-pity. That was not my wish. While every part of me is screaming to get out of my present circumstances, to somehow intervene in my own life, I know I need to stay and see what is 'here'. When I say 'here', I don't mean New Hampshire, I mean 'Martha'. I have studied addiction and compulsion enough in my life to recognize my own compulsion to move and keep moving -- change something, do something. At least transitioning is a good distraction. As long as I keep altering something on the surface of my life, I'll never have time to attend to the depths and what lurks below. My other compulsion is to be a 'fixer' and this desire to repair something that I perceive is broken connects too fluidly with being a chronic mover and changer. I suppose that as I was striving to amend a faulty family system or offer relief to a suffering client, I was rubbing a salve on my own personal sense of being defective.

The other reason I am resisting the desire to leapfrog on out of these uncomfortable circumstances is that it seems to me that there is integrity in leaning into my own experiences of insanity and depression. In my field of work as well as in my practice of being human I want to foster a practice that there is not sane and insane and that the goal is not the uncompromising pursuit of happiness. I don't want to take a pill for this as our pharmaceutical industry would coach. The least I can do is 'walk my own talk' and be willing to hold my seat through the greeting of my demons. Maybe integrity is only part of it, maybe the other aspect is a belief that true healing requires moving through something rather than moving away from it.

Anyway, I have gotten tired of the sound of falseness in my voice through emails and phonecalls to you. I am tired of pretending because it's creating another layer of suffering in my own experience. How am I? I'm hurting. Many days I am depressed but I know how to put on my clothes and walk into the world, feed myself, clean my home, pay bills. Many moments I am moved to tears by the beauty of this world in its myriad forms. I know how to call a friend and arrange a visit. I am grateful to the intelligence of life that caused a stray cat to wander into my home so that there is someone to look after other than myself. I feel both crazy and courageous.

the waxing and waning affection of the moon for the earth

Ah, Valentine's Day. It's a challenge to hover precariously between cynicism and sappyness for this loaded holiday. On the one hand, how lovely to dedicate a day to celebrating love and the intimacy of connection. On the other, how ridiculous to reinforce the illusion that love is something that can be boxed, bundled, enveloped, or otherwise reserved for couples.

I feel both slopes of slipperyness and myself don't wish to slide down either side without critical thinking. In giving this more thought this morning I began parsing out 'romance' from 'love' in hopes of finding a resolution, at least for another year. 'Romance' feels as though it has been lost to the world of commodities; traded like any other mineral or agricultural product. My sense is that romance becomes focused on form as opposed to space, or in Gestalt terminology a figural manifestation from ground. 'Love' on the other hand resists being captured or contained; it seems as though love finds its essence through movement rather than product -- much like the distinction between 'religion' and 'God.'

When loving (switching the stagnant noun to its active verb) gets lost to romance, I wonder if the illusory sense of security, as reinforced by romance, isn't groped after so as to quell the ultimately disquieting vulnerability and moment-to-moment presence that loving demands. Perhaps there is nothing innately faulty about romance until it is offered as a substitute or salve.

My caveat -- I type this entry alone in my home, except for my cat (now I'm truly freaked out), who offered me no expressions of his undying love on this St. Valentine's Day, unless you count the usual deposit in the litterbox. Maybe this is love in action, cleaning up after someone simply because he's here and I can. And there's something about watching him sleep that reminds me to breathe, slow down, and open up.

My loving to you. May whatever you long for be yours, if only to pass over and puncture your heart momentarily -- not to be restrained, only to be cherished.