Nocturnal Chatterings #9

-It's 4am.

-My stomach aches.

-It's been a hard week. To have my self disregarded so often by certain others causes allot of pain.

-I had thought I would only have to live in this apartment for only a few months. Yes, I was aware of the statistics but still believed otherwise. After this week, I know it will be longer.

-He has repeatedly said, "I'll do anything to make this work." That has not turned out to be the case and it stings.

-My hurt and anger is too great to even be near him at this point. It is hard because I miss my babies. The cats are my babies and I've already lost too much in that area. ...I cannot speak of it.
-People with children tell me I am fortunate to not have kids. I don’t feel that way. I have a strong need to nurture and help a child grow into whatever he/she wants. They would not feel that they think me fortunate if they were to lose a child. I do not think there is another loss like losing a child.

-I drank too much last night. Not enough to make me ill or hung-over but too much for me. I wanted someone to hold me but there is no one so I drank.

-I do not know how to make it through the rest of the weekend. I most certainly do not want to.

When Good Intentions Go Bad

Good intentions are certainly better than bad intentions but sometimes I do not know the difference.

Let's say a mother takes a sunny day off from work and sips on martinis to spend time with her three-year-old playing in the yard. Buzzing along, a bee stings the allergic child and medication is immediately needed. In a panic, the mother races her SUV to the pharmacy to get the medicine to help her child all the time not realizing that the three-year-old had ran to the back of the SUV and eventually dies. The mother was loving and wanted only what was best for her child but all that really matters now is The Bottom Line -- the child is dead.

I learned long ago that a person's behaviors do not constitute who they are as people. A person can do a bad thing but still be a good person. However, for all behaviors -- no matter what the intention -- there are consequences... A Bottom Line.

How should any one person determine what is The Bottom Line?

...I guess when they are dying and can no longer continue as is. I do not have enough middle fingers for this one either.

What if it is not possible?

"How long before I get in? Before it starts, before I begin? How long before you decide?Before I know what it feels like?

Where To, where do I go? If you never try, then you'll never know.

How long do I have to climb,Up on the side of this mountain of mine?" *

Per Wikipedia, connection refers to the human desire to experience the integration of the self and the other. This is accomplished through communication and empathy.

Also per Wikipedia: "...Communication is a process by which information is exchanged between or among individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, and behavior. ...when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what kind of communication are we speaking about, mainly: what type of things are communicated, between what agents, and with what kind of results.

Again per the same source: Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to make suffer") is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another's modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.

* "Speed of Sound", Coldplay, X&Y, 2005

We Have To Make Changes And We Have To Make Them NOW

"We gotta make a change...It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes. Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live and let's change the way we treat each other.You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do what we gotta do -- to survive."*

The National Resources Defense Council has teamed up with Green Day in a campaign to save our precious natural resources. Though those of us who recycle have made a huge difference, the crisis of our environment has gone beyond recycling paper, plastic, and glass. If changes are not made soon then many of our icebergs will be melted, more wildlife will be destroyed, and so on. The only way to really turn the situation around is at the policy level. We -- society -- each other -- must come together and demand that our government enact policies to decrease oil usage and improve water conditions.

Go to http://www.greendaynrdc.com/ and start clicking on the "DO SOMETHING" link which will allow you to sign some of the most important petitions you will ever put your name to.

click here to see Moving America Beyond Oil video snippet

*"Changes", Tupac

Thich Nhat Hanh 1: Why I Now Eat Free-Range Chickens Only

trapped chickens

Nāmarūpa: Concept used in Buddhism to represent the psychosoma; the mind-body as one entity.

"Chickens are raised in large-scale modern farms where they cannot walk, run, or seek food in the soil. They are fed solely by humans. They are kept in small cages and cannot move at all. Day and night they have to stand. Imagine that you have no right to walk or to run. Imagine that you have to stay day and night in just one place. You would become mad. So the chickens become mad."*

"In order for the chickens to produce more eggs, the farmers create artificial days and nights. They use indoor lighting to create a shorter day and night so that the chickens believe that twenty-four hours have passed, and then they produce more eggs. There is allot of anger, allot of frustration, and suffering in the chickens. They express their anger and frustration by attacking he chickens next to them. They use their beaks to peck and wound each other. They cause each other to bleed, suffer, and die. That is why the farmers now cut the beaks off all the chickens, to prevent them from attacking each other out of frustration."*

"So when you eat the flesh or egg of such a chicken, you are eating (their) anger and frustration."*

*Thich Nhat Hanh (Thây). Anger. Riverhead Trade, September 2002. Reprint

The Hardest Thing & I Am a Dark Pawn II

I take it back. Leaving my mother was not the hardest thing I've had to endure. Being left was harder. She left me first...if she was ever there.

Nocturnal Chatterings #8: Broken Doors

BAM BAM BAM ... BAM BAM BAM ... "OPEN UP I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!!" ... "YOU'RE KILLIN' YOUR MOTHER!!!" ... BAM BAM BAM ... BAM BAM BAM ...

Years ago, those were the sounds that woke my husband and I one morning when we lived in our townhouse apartment. Sleepy and confused, it took me a few minutes to realize that my father was trying to get through the door. We decided to be quiet and hoped that he would go away. After all, what were we supposed to do -- phone the police? No, that would not work since he WAS the police.

Eventually, he went away but it took months before the frightening behaviors would stop: watching me from afar at school or work or at the apartment, threatening that mother was going to die.

When will I ever be able to go to sleep without feeling the lifetime of such behaviors? When will I be able to sleep for more than a few hours? I MuSt make this horror stop.

The Hardest Thing & I Am a Dark Pawn

Being away from my spouse and cats is beyond hard and may kill me but this is not the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It may look harder because of my physical health. My body cannot handle emotional stress like it used to and has broken down but, though second in line, I do not think it is most difficult experience I have had.

Like I have mentioned, my parents were two Michael Devlins. However, as crazy, horrible, and cruel as they were, leaving them was the worst situation ever. Though I'm told that the life I endured in their house must have been harder, I think it was the leaving that was worse. As is probably the case for everyone, I have loved my mother more than anyone else I have loved.

Though others think that in both situations I made a choice to make the change, I do not feel there was any choice on my part in either situation. Truly, I feel like a pawn being moved about and I do not know how or why.

Someone asked me today, "Aren't you estranged from your family?"

"Sure," I responded. Yet the implied term "leaving," in and of itself, implies a conscious decision and effort to take an action. I have made no such decisions. Not then and not now.

I would much rather be at my house right now and I would also like to be able to phone my mother about this weeks activities but it is just not happening and I have no answer as to why except that life is a crazy pile of crap and we somehow do what we have to do.

Nocturnal Chatterings #7

- i woke up @ 4:50 am. the alarm is not set to go off until 8 am. why must this happen?

+ well, between 3-4 am are the depression hours so...you know what that means. actually, given the time change you woke up @ 3:50 am.

- bastards.

- i keep hoping (spouse) will phone

+ @ 4am?

- maybe he'd like to hear me try to sleep. maybe he'd put the cat on the phone and i could listen to him snore.

+ the cat or (spouse)?

- the cat, definately. i hope i can make it through this week and feel ok. i'm surprised that i woke up at all yesterday after the previous night. i had thought i would die for sure. women are more likely to die from a broken heart.

+maybe you are taking the right steps to get physically healthier.

- it did feel ok to walk today in the sun but i don't know if i'll be able to do the AM Yoga before work and i'm not sure i'll ever have good posture AND i'm at the pc again. i'm only supposed to be here during business hours.

+ yeah, bastards

I Left My Black Soul Purring On the Sofa

"my black soul"

After such a emotionally and mentally horrendous past couple of days, I woke up STILL crying and knew I could bare it no more -- I had to go get the black furball. I had been vomiting and other yucky things, my face had raw spots from acid tears, and my body ached from the stress but once I decided to go get him some energy flowed back into my body and I was able get some much-needed errands done before I went over.

He was immediately glad to see me today and rolled around on the floor purring and grunting as he does so well. It was a good reunion, I had a nice meal with my spouse, and I also got more needed tasks completed.

...then it was time to go and I began to fall apart. He could sense my nervousness and my leaving and he tensed up. I did not have the heart to drag him out of that house with all his screaming back to this apartment.

I'm hoping that I can keep busy with work this week but do not know what I will do come next weekend when I am faced with time without him. It is obvious that missing him is too hard on my mental and physical health. I also know that I have other issues that I am supposed to be focusing on during this separation -- such as my marriage and trauma issues. .....

My Soul Is Black & Gone II

Still no "zzzzz"'s ... mind running rampant ... couple in the east part of the apartment building have been arguing fiercely -- she's very angry and how dare he "turn his back on her when she loves him so?" ...how universal ... I wish she would just go back to her own home so I wouldn't have to listen to her ... how ironic of me ...

So ... forty chapters later in a James Patterson novel, I wander aimlessly on the hardwood floors only to end up here again at the keyboard of my demise. I'm supposed to be staying away from all PCs when not working because they are bad for my health. So many creative things to be done if I am up in the black a.m. but I never feel like doing them during this time.

Times like this pop my plug and all the bitterness putridly oozes out. Everything that I've worked for is probably within my reach but I can't grasp it -- due to my own self I'm certain.

It's supposedly NOT a failed marriage yet -- just some time off. Me here, him there. Me in a chilly apartment with hardwood floors and him in a warm carpeted house with three cats curled up around him purring. It's not the man but the situation I hate. Bitter hate. Bitter hopelessness. Bitter failure. All self-perceived? Don't know, don't care. All I know is that I thought that if I followed Point A to Point B to Point C and so on, just as it should be done, then all would be good but I am still awake and there is no Point Zzzzzzzz!

Summer will be upon me soon, my favorite time of the year full of rich honey with me supposed to be planting and killing plants in my yard
, drinking a brew on the back porch under the evening stars, swimming until I am exhausted, raising fishies, reading books, having fun at work, chasing cats, and polishing my motorcycle. None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None.

Frightenly enough, to quote Marilyn Manson, "I just wasn't born with enough middle fingers..." at 2:54 in the a.m.

My Soul Is Black & Gone

"my black soul"

I tried to sleep without medication tonight and that doesn't seem to be working. Tonight is the first weekend night without my cat. Because he was feeling skittish I have let him stay back home. Even when I visit him, the smell of this empty apartment makes him nervous. Seems silly that my life should be so hollow without him but...as I've mentioned before ... he's more than just a cat. I sing inside when he's around ... sang ...

Vacations ... summertime ... movies ... hiking ... swimming ... I try to come up with things to look forward to...I try to come up with things to make the most of NOW... but ... nothing.

Head On Down To The Jesus Camp

Someone told me that they became angry after watching the documentary of religious extremists entitled "Jesus Camp." Hoping to find someone else's issue to ride (instead of my own) I finally was able to watch it. Unfortunately, I cannot say it distracted me much from my own brooding.

Having been raised in a community of Pentecosts and extreme Baptists, there was nothing new for me in this movie. I was not shocked and I was not appalled.

While not supportive of teaching such extremist views to children, I do believe that we have to teach our children something. Though I do not know exactly what that should be, I fear that the tactics used in Jesus Camp remind me of tactics used by Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Bhurma, Cambodia, Colombia, Congo-Brazzaville, Pakistan, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda, etc. At least there were no guns at the Jesus Camp.

Children need guidance and ideals to follow but in the end we all need to decide what we truly believe versus what we were taught to believe. After all, that is the essence of the Jesus story -- to let your old beliefs die to what you truly believe and are but... the path to such self-truth is indeed narrow while the path to craziness seems to widen...

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i wish you would hurry...

...i miss you so much...and i wish you would talk to me.