Wendryn Doubt

Katja is almost over the last of her cold. I still have the cough, but I’m getting better. Xander is still working through it, but I’m trying to make it a bit easier on him. It isn’t a pleasant cold.

When Katja is half asleep, she sometimes pulls her pacifier out of her mouth. She tries to put it back in her mouth, but since she’s half asleep her motor skills aren’t quite up to snuff, so instead she waves her arm up and down quite energetically. It’s highly amusing.

I am happy. Not content, exactly; there is too much to do, too many possibilities. Happy, though, I seem to have managed. I look at Xander and I smile. I have a wonderful little person asleep on me. Cats and a dog are curled up nearby. I am learning to accept life a little better. I can’t plan much at the moment, but that’s all right, at least for now.

It’s a little corner of peace. We have built home here, together. It isn’t always easy, but it is good.

Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

Religion and politics are things I’m happy to discuss, calmly, in person. I’m an atheist and I deeply dislike having people shove their views down my throat. I don’t shove mine down anyone else’s. I’m socially liberal but somewhat fiscally conservative (by which I mean that I don’t think we should be massively in debt and I don’t think we should be adding to that debt outside of budgeted money).

That about sums it up. I’ll talk about religion (well, lack thereof) on this blog. I won’t necessarily talk much about politics other than to encourage people to vote, whatever stripe they may be, because citizen involvement is important.

Next: Day 20 → Your views on drugs and alcohol.

Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.

Gay marriage? What’s the problem with it? There isn’t one. A bunch of frightened people who don’t have the courage to try to understand differences, who react with fear instead of trying to overcome it, have made a huge deal out of this. It’s a stupid problem. For a long time, people who were different from each other couldn’t marry – people who were of different races, for instance. Now people are fussing because people who are the same want to marry.

People are people. People love people. There is no reason why people who love each other should not be able to promise to love each other for the rest of their lives. If it’s legally binding for me and my husband, it should be legally binding for friends of ours who happen to both be men. They love each other. They are in a stable relationship. They are in it for the long haul. Their relationship improves their world and the world of people around them. They are better people together than apart, as are Xander and I.

Oh, and if you want to make the argument that people who can’t have children together should not be married? Shove it. We can’t have kids and no one seems to have a problem with our marriage. A lot of married people don’t have kids. That doesn’t make the marriage any less valid.

Gay marriage should be normal. Marriage between two consenting adults should be normal and accepted and no big deal. Unless you have very compelling arguments I haven’t heard yet (“god said so” doesn’t count, and I’ve heard pretty much all of the arguments and none of them hold up to scrutiny) I’m going to have to say “You’re wrong. You’re afraid. Get over it. It isn’t hurting you.”

Come on, people. Everyone is not just like you. Stop being afraid, stop trying to limit other peoples’ lives and rights, and focus on living your life without hurting other people.

Next: Day 19 → What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

I’ve read a lot of books that have changed my views on things. I’ve read books that make me angry, books that I love, and books that make me roll my eyes. I think the most recent is The Drunkard’s Walk, which I wrote about a while ago. I am still trying to wrap my brain around some of the ideas in the book. They make sense, but they go completely against what I feel ought to be right, so they are somewhat hard to digest. Humans aren’t really good at dealing with logic or predictions. That’s one of the reasons why gambling is so lucrative – people think they’ll win, they feel lucky, they’re wearing their lucky shorts or earrings or whatever, and they end up giving casinos a whole lot of money.

I read Count Me In, which made me cry and laugh and understand my brother a little more.

The books which have made the most difference in my life are those who have stretched my understanding past my comfort level into places I didn’t expect to go. There are a lot of books like that in the world, but sometimes you have to read a lot of books that don’t challenge you or stretch your understanding before you find one that does.

Next: Day 18 → Your views on gay marriage.

Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.

I could live without a lot of things. I think a lot of them come down to one thing: mean people. Unfortunately, most people can’t imagine themselves as the bad guy, so they always have a reason why their behavior is perfectly valid. I would like to live in a world where people thought about the effect their actions were having on others. Of course, then we might have a world in which no one does anything because they were too afraid to move for fear of hurting someone inadvertently.

I don’t know. Try to be good to others today, okay?

Next: Day 17 → A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.

Day 15 → Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.

I don’t like this question, either. The only things I truly could not live without are air, food, water, and probably sleep (since a complete lack of sleep can drive people insane). I tried briefly living without air when I almost drowned while trying to boogie board when I was much younger. That didn’t work out so well. It was exciting to get saved by a lifeguard, I suppose, but the throwing up seawater aspect of it really wasn’t particularly pleasant.

There are a lot of things I don’t want to live without. Xander is the primary one. He makes my life better, and I am happier with him than I have ever been before. Family is, of course, important, as are friends. Nyx, Eris, Loki. Our house. I like having a job and I enjoy doing it. I like having the physical ability to swim, dance, and hike. I like being able to read, play computer games, write, watch movies, and a lot of other things.

When it comes down to it, though, there are very few things I truly can’t live without.

Next: Day 16 → Someone or something you definitely could live without.

Day 13 → A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough days.

I don’t have a specific band or artist that has gotten me through. When life gets too hard or weird or complicated, I listen to classical music. I can lose myself in the complexities of Swan Lake, sink into a waltz by Strauss, or drift along with Mozart. I really enjoy Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, the different instruments showing the animals and some of their traits. I have listened to Ravel’s Bolero for long stretches of time, sometimes just on repeat, and Purcell’s trumpet works have always made me happy.

When life gets too hard, I want music that expresses the emotions it is trying to convey without words. I want to close my eyes and let the power or sweetness or simplicity or complexity take me away from whatever is causing me grief. I don’t want a musician singing at me, telling me what I should be feeling in no uncertain terms. I want the music to flow over me. Sometimes I get wrapped up in listening to the different parts, where the viola swells out to strengthen a theme, the flutes dancing above, the drums holding steady underneath, and the violins feverishly flying through the melody.

There are pieces I love because I’ve heard them so many times that I know what is coming next, and there are pieces I discover and love because of the surprise, the unexpected chord, the moment of joyful silliness in the midst of a dirge.

I grew up listening to classical music, and it still helps ground me when the world is too strange.

Next: Day 14 → A hero that has let you down.

Last weekend I was wandering a local mall-like place with a six year old. As we walked, a song I recognized came on over the speakers mounted on the light poles. I’m not sure what the song is called – Jenny or 867-5309 – but I know it well enough to sing along, and I did. The six year old thought it was funny, so I kept singing. A man was walking in front of us. He heard me singing and turned around to grin at us, then kept walking. I saw his steps slow for a moment, then he seemed to come to a decision and turned so he was walking backwards.

“Want to hear a funny story?” he said, grinning.

“Sure!” I said, and smiled back.

“I used to work as tech support for a big hardware company. Whenever we hired anyone, the first ticket that came up was for them to call Jenny at 867-5309. We figured the people who didn’t get it by the time they finished dialing were not very smart.”

I laughed, and he turned and kept walking, humming along.

The six year old looked up at me. “Do people usually stop and talk to you?”

“Pretty often, if I look like I’m having a good day.”

It’s funny how many people will talk, really. I rather like it.

I’ve been unable to write for a while, stuck in emotions too big to think about or deal with lest I get overwhelmed. It isn’t better, not by a long shot, but I’m beginning to move back into familiar rhythms, and writing is one. I will try to write, even if it isn’t particularly long or interesting. I think I need that piece of the pattern back again.

I’ve been thinking about grief and joy and venting and how I approach the world. I heard about a study that shows that venting actually extends anger rather than helping it, and I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Hitting a punching bag makes you more angry, not less. I’ve been thinking about how I talk when I am angry and how I can get myself wound up on the same subject again, even several hours later. I think I need to play with the difference between working through issues so I can let them go and venting, which just prolongs the frustration, irritation, and anger.

I get angry more often than usual these days. It’s almost a knee jerk reaction. My temper is much shorter than I’m used to living with and I have to take deep breaths and think through things that I used to be able to brush off. I’m slower than I used to be, too. Someone described grief as being like shoveling frozen molasses, which rings very true to me. It feels like an impossible task.

I am trying hard to look for joy, even if it’s in odd places. I sat and watched rain fall. I watch silly TV and relax. I play with Nyx. I clean and organize, and that satisfies something in me that desperately wants some order and some control over my environment right now. The good side is that the house is getting clean, at least.

It’s hard writing with no plan. I’m trying stream of consciousness, since writing with a purpose leaves me stuck, mired in complications and feeling like I should write something important or useful. I’m not sure I have anything important or useful to say right now, but just writing is good practice.

There are days I just want to curl up in a hole and pull it in after me. I don’t want to have to do anything except let the world go by and nurse my hurt. This doesn’t seem to help, though, so I continue to move. Work. Swim. Walk. Breathe. Eat good food. Work on the house. Now, write. Soon I will be dancing again. It isn’t much. It isn’t living fully in many ways; all I do is continue to move, even if it doesn’t feel much like I’m moving forward or in any useful direction.

There are nights I wake up paralyzed by grief, tears leaking out of the sides of my eyes. I am learning to go back to sleep and to get up the next morning and move on.

In flying, the most important thing is the next thing. If you screw up enough of those, you crash.

One step. One more lap. One length of butterfly. One piece of work done. One cupboard organized. One piece at a time. Nothing important. I can’t handle important or amazing or wonderful or tragic. All I can handle is the next step.

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Some of it is fluff – silly sci-fi and fantasy, letting myself ignore the world for a while. Some of it is books about dealing with grief. Most of them are anecdotal, stories about people dealing with grief or, in some cases, really not dealing with it. One was a look at the physical side of grief, which was basically 100 ways to take care of yourself. That was rather nice, since the physical side of grief (not sleeping, random cramping, muscle and joint pain, headaches, loss of appetite, and that’s just a partial list) is not talked about much. It was basically a book about how to take care of yourself while you are grieving. I didn’t agree with all of it, but it helped a bit.

Another book I read was The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss. This helped me more than the anecdotal books did. The authors actually studied how people handle great losses and discovered that, for the most part, people are resilient. Until about six months after a loss, it’s hard to tell how someone will handle it long term, but humans get through things. A lot of what it said helped because I felt like what I am going through was strange, too much emotion, that it wouldn’t let up, but at the same time normal life is settling back in, and I feel almost like I’m betraying my brother’s memory by being able to move forward.

My friends have been helping me a lot, too. When I am overwhelmed by fury, they tell me they’ve been there. It’s a normal reaction. When I can’t do more than one thing at a time, when I feel like I can’t keep up with the world, they tell me it gets better, eventually. The pain of loss doesn’t go away, but it eases, though it will take time.

I saw one therapist and we did not fit at all. I have another appointment this week with someone else; hopefully she will be able to help more, give me tools to help get through this. I don’t have any issue with experiencing the pain and dealing with what I need to deal with, but I don’t know how to handle feeling like I’m in deep water, toes just touching the sand, and waves keep knocking me down.

I’ve also been trying to keep up with the people I usually follow, reading their blogs and laughing at silly Twitter posts. I read something on Stop Motion Verbosity recently which made me think about what I write and how I write. “When a lot of what you read, when many of your friends, put so much negativity out there it is easy to feel that the world is a much darker place than it is….There’s good things happening all the time, even through the really shitty times, and the best way to get through those shitty times is to recognize the good. And yes the good times are often smaller and far more fleeting, that’s the nature of the good bits, frankly. It’s a great sandwich, a smile on the street, a tiny memory when a song you love plays – those are all great moments of happiness that need to be cherished and recognized.”

I’m dealing with some hard things right now. I will not pretend otherwise, and I’ve never seen the world as all roses and sugarplums. There are good things, though. Last night Xander made BBQ sauce from scratch and grilled shrimp and pineapple on skewers for dinner. He cooked down some of the sauce and put it on rice. It was exceptionally good. The shrimp came out a little bit smoky tasting, the pineapple’s sweetness was emphasized more by cooking, and the BBQ sauce was very good. We sat, ate, and talked, relaxed despite the heat, and it was a good evening.

A few days ago, I was puttering around on the computer and Nyx was in the office with me. She stood at the door and opened it by pushing against it with her nose. Then she closed it partway. Then she opened it again. I sat and watched her do this for about ten minutes until she shut the door a little too hard and couldn’t open it again. I thought it was quite funny.

Yesterday morning I got up early and weeded the strawberry patch, weed whacked the front yard and the courtyard, took a shower, and we ran some errands and went to see a movie. When we got back, I cleaned house, and it felt good to be tired. I got rid of a chair that has been falling apart for months, and I enjoyed physically pulling it apart, breaking it into manageable pieces.

I am de-cluttering. I feel the need for more organization, more space, more clarity. I am donating books that I won’t read again, giving some of them away, letting go of things I don’t need. It isn’t a bad thing.

There is still grief. Sometimes it slams into me like a freight train and I have to find somewhere to sit and fall apart for a while. Sometimes a song will stick in my head and I will miss my little brother terribly, just wanting to be able to see him again, to give him a hug. Sometimes I think about my smart, witty, funny grandmother who adored teasing Xander and I find myself mourning the loss of that person. When we saw her, she seemed a little afraid of him, uncomfortable, not sure why he was there. I miss the person she used to be.

With all of this, though, as overwhelming as it can be, and as painful as it is, there is still reason for laughter. There are still good things. I’m sore today from pulling weeds and making the house a little nicer. It’s a good kind of sore.

Spider Robinson, one of my favorite authors (Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon is one of those books I have several copies of, one to re-read, one because I’ve had it for years and it’s falling apart, and one to loan out), said, and was quoted in the blog post I mentioned earlier, “Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased.”

Here’s joy in the midst of a hard time. I am trying to pay more attention to joy even while I’m dealing with the hard parts and working through them. I hope you find a little bit of joy today, too, no matter how hard the rest of life can be.