Taking Off the Mask

I wrote a really long blog post this morning instead of going back to sleep like I really should have done.  It was a great post, filled with sarcasm and wit.  It gave me great satisfaction to write it.  Then when I read over it again I noticed it was really very passive/aggressive and decided not to post it. It's kind of funny (not haha funny either) that I often don't perceive my own anger until I start writing about something that has lingered on my mind. Sometimes we ignore that connection our brains are designed to make between thoughts and emotions, especially when the emotions are uncomfortable.

 I relive interactions and evaluate the commentary that I've heard from others.  I turn experiences and discussions over in my mind sometimes for weeks or months, just trying to create any logical reason for them so I can evade the reverberation of negative emotions.  However, when I am finally ready to sort it all out in black and white, I find myself acknowledging the truth that no matter how hard I strive to  intellectualize, I inevitably end up with some kind emotional debris left over from every conversation, every situation from which I walk away without resolution.

Too often, those emotional fragments I carry around are filled with anger that I am afraid to express.  If I allow it to escape my head and find its way out of my lips, I may forever regret stating what I feel. The problem is it escapes me anyway at the least expected moments when I make some off-handed comment or joke that jabs at a tender spot in the person I'm annoyed with. Or when I post something on my blog that to me seems perfectly witty and entertaining, but ends up being a diatribe against the person who I believe has mistreated me in some way.  Intellectually, I know blog posts and conversations filled with sharp verbal gouges are the wrong way to handle my dismay, but I am often too cowardly to come right out and say what I mean without masking my feelings behind witticisms and boorish comments that are designed to get a rise out of the other person.  My logic is often, "you hurt me with your words, so I'll hurt you with mine."  The problem with my reasoning is that it solves absolutely nothing.  It only serves to create more tension, more confusion and more conflict.

This passive aggressive way of relating is so much harder to overcome when you are struggling to communicate with another person who is also passive aggressive.  You recognize their behavior because you share it.  You know that the "joke" he just made at your expense wasn't just a harmless wisecrack.  It was meant to sting.  But you don't always know why.  You don't always know what you've done to make the other person angry with you, and you aren't likely to find out because he or she is too afraid to come right out and tell you. You end up going in circles, insulting one another, doling out "payback" in the form of rude comments and making sure you never (or rarely) give the other person what you know they want from you.  It becomes an ugly nightmare that usually ends as an ugly nightmare only to repeat itself in the next friendship, relationship or family dynamic.  I'm not saying passive aggressive people are bad people.  We are just insecure, often damaged, fearful people who have never had the advantage of observing how an emotionally empowered, healthy person deals with conflict.  We are feeling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to get what we want from life without unsettling anyone or feeling rejected by them.

What is it about anger that is so darned scary anyway?  Everyone gets angry.  We all have the right, the need to get angry sometimes.  It motivates us to find solutions. It gets us out of some dangerous and unhealthy situations.  Anger opens our eyes, it makes us see things that we often try very hard not to see.  Anger can transform us if we learn to use it in constructive ways, but most of us never learn how to use our anger for our own good because it frightens us.

Anger feels bad.  We react to anger physiologically, whether we mentally acknowledge our ire or not.  Blood pressure rises ("My blood was boiling!") Heart rates increase, sometimes our stomachs get tied in knots and we can't eat.  We get physically anxious, can't sit still, can't sleep.  We sweat, our muscles tense up, our faces contort.  Anger feels bad all over, from the depths of our souls to the soles of our feet.  It is unpleasant and we never want to feel it, but it often cannot be avoided.

Anger comes from that place inside of us where we want things to be fair and just.  It comes from the innate need that all healthy human beings possess to achieve balance and harmony in life.  When we see someone we love being mistreated, our sense of justice becomes knocked off-kilter.  When someone we care about makes a hurtful comment to us that we feel we didn't deserve, we feel our integrity is being stripped away.  When someone challenges our intelligence, our competence, even our appearance, we get addled. When someone dismisses our feelings or beliefs, we feel our very essence has been quashed. It is the sense of "right" within us that turns our feelings of resentment, hurt, invalidation, and injustice into indignation.  Something, we know, is "off" and we need to take action to set the record straight.

But our thoughts get the better of us, when we start to allow ourselves to indulge in the  "what ifs". What if we confront the person who said or did this horrible thing to us or someone we love, and they end up making US look foolish?  What if we tell them how we felt when they disregarded our thoughts or feelings, and they again, invalidate us?  What if they get more angry at us for confronting them than our anger at them is for treating us unfairly?  What if we ruin our friendship, family or relationship by rocking the boat instead of just going with the flow and letting them get away with their hurtful, unfair behaviors?  Is it really worth it to take the chance?

Passive aggressive people are often sabotaged by their own thoughts.  Those thoughts, in turn, end up causing them to undermine their relationships with others.  We get locked into a battle of wills with one another, no one ever finding enough fortitude to calmly and lovingly talk about our anger or the pain behind it, for fear of rejection.  But a snide comment here and an unkind jab there;  a little joke once in a while about the things that annoy you about one another, a blog post or a text, or even a note left on the office refrigerator often do more damage to a friendship than one honest, emotional, tough conversation could ever do.

So, I'm glad I wasted some time this morning writing a blog post that I will never publish.  It gave me a chance to really examine myself and my motives.  It gave me some perspective that I know I've been missing for pretty much all my life.  I'm not saying I've found the courage to face my fears and just go ahead and blurt everything out to the people in my life who piss me off, but I at least acknowledge that some of those same people are important to me, and that they are important enough that I need to try harder to be more honest and open in my communications with them.   I can't keep letting myself hang on to anger and hurt until it destroys me and ruins my relationships.  I have to somehow face this fear I have of expressing myself honestly and lovingly so I can know the peace of living an unrestrained life.

10 Things I Wish I Knew BEFORE I Broke a Leg...

So, I busted up my leg.  Okay, the dogs helped.  But my leg is so busted up...I'm a few days away from my 40something birthday, and I have the first broken bone of my life.  Call me crazy, but I'm kind of proud to have finally joined ranks with my fellow human beings who, at some point in life, have suffered the insane amount of pain that comes with a fractured bone.  Additionally, I'd like to ask them why they never warned me concerning how much of a challenge even the simplest of things can be when you can't use one of your legs.  In the last few days, I believe I have grown to respect people who adapt to life without the use of one of their limbs more than I ever could have before.  This crap isn't easy.  I know I have a long way to go with this broken episode of mine, but here is what I have learned so far, that I wish someone else had prepared me for like, I dunno, maybe the day BEFORE my leg got broken???

1.  Being dependent on other people for even the smallest of things, really humbles you.  I was with a friend, thank goodness, when I had my fateful run in with two excited dogs who, not really minding that I was standing in their way, plowed right through me as if I weren't there at all.  Then, thinking I was playing with them, the dogs started to paw at my head and lick me furiously until they were chased away.  My first inkling of how bad this whole thing was going to suck was the moment my friend told me to "just lie there" while he took one of the dogs back to her kennel.  And there I was.  Lying on the grass in the hot sun, all alone, listening for the sound of footsteps, wondering if maybe there was a chance I wasn't really that hurt.  Then came the moment that I had to be literally picked up off the ground, unable to bear any weight on my left leg. And then having to be carried to the car, wheeled into the ER, carried up my front steps, helped into and out of the shower, helped to and from the bathroom...you get the picture.  I'm super thankful for the loyalty of such a good friend, who went out of his way to help me a much as he could.  But I really, really hate being "weak".  I don't like asking for help with anything, but when your leg is aching and useless and you've held your bladder way longer than you should have already, you find a way to swallow your pride and ask someone to help you up.  In my opinion, having to depend on someone else on such a level is one of the most deeply humbling experiences ever.

2.  Walking with crutches is NOT as easy as other people make it look.  I might as well be a clown on stilts for the first time.  Seriously, I've already fallen once since breaking my leg, and almost fallen a number of other times, all while trying to walk with crutches.  Needless to say, I'm getting a little paranoid about trying to get around with these instruments of torture.  Yes, I said torture.  My neck is sore, my shoulders are sore, my armpits are sore, my hands are sore from putting my weight on them.  My biceps are in knots.  Maybe an up-side to this whole thing will be my gaining some definition in my upper arms, but I'm not sure that's going to be worth all the stumbling around I am doing in the meantime.  I'm sure if there were video of me hopping around on crutches, it would become a YouTube sensation in minutes, just because of how insanely comical I must look using them.  I am not a pro.  It's obvious to anyone looking that I have never used crutches a day in my life.

3. It literally never stops hurting.  Granted, I am only on day 3 and they've not been able to do anything to fix the break yet, but no one ever told me how bad broken bones hurt, or that the pain is relentless.  The ER sent me home with a prescription for pain meds, which I promptly filled and began to take as directed, but they did little to nothing to alleviate the pain.  So I called them back yesterday and they called me in a prescription for the SAME medication, only a 1.5 mg higher dose.  It still basically does nothing, other than knock me out.  I suppose it could be worse.  I could be awake for all this...

4.  And all that leads me to my next lesson:  The fact that so many people abuse prescription pain medication is making it nearly impossible for people with REAL pain to get pain medication that actually works.  I learned that Lortab is a thing of the past, and has been replaced with something called Norco.  Norco is what I was prescribed.  Twice.  And it makes me sleep, but that's it.  I could call back again and ask for something different, but now I'm worried that if I keep hollering about more pain meds, they're going to flag me for being a drug seeker and then I'll have to just suffer for the rest of my life because no doctor anywhere will ever prescribe pain meds for someone who has been labeled a drug-seeker.  So, I'm dealing with it the best I can--sleep and distraction.

5.  Boredom from not having the motivation to get off your ass is not nearly as bad as boredom from not being allowed or able to do what you want.  I admit, there have been plenty of days when I was just unmotivated to do much and I usually end up boring the hell out of myself on such days.  But when you actually WANT to get up and do stuff but can't, it is mind numbingly frustrating and insanely boring.  There's only so much Facebook, Google and Netflix a person can take over a few days' time.  I need fresh air.  I need sunshine.  I need to see strangers in their cars at stoplights, I need to talk to people I don't know.  I need human contact.  Which leads me to my next point:

6. Nobody likes hanging out with a gimp.  When I say gimp, I refer only to myself and my current predicament.  My kid stays in the other room--afraid he will accidentally bump into my leg and hurt me. One of my daughters has figured out I can't go up the stairs and get her when she hides out in her room and refuses to answer her phone.  My son also has figured out that I can't chase him down when he storms out of a room and slams the door behind him.  Everyone seems to understand my recent limitations, and everyone seems to have already figured out how they're going to exploit my limitations to their benefit...well, at least these two kids have.  So here I am, hanging out in my boring room all alone with a computer and Netflix and a bottle of Norco.  Party time.  Yay.

7.  The dog still doesn't get it.  She loves me.  I know that if she were to understand how her reckless behavior has injured me, she would surely be repentant.  Right?  She would, wouldn't she?  Well, either way, neither she nor her accomplice have a clue as to how their rambunctiousness has led to my crooked broken leg.  She still expects to be fed and walked at the same time every day.  She still wants ME to be the one to feed her and walk her.  If she's in her crate when I go gimping by, she whines for me to come get her.  Only I can't hang onto her leash and stay on my crutches at the same time and I'm not brave enough to dare it yet. I have already envisioned myself with some more broken limbs as a result of trying to make it down the back steps with her on a leash an me on crutches.  It's a bad scene.  I want to avoid it if at all possible.

8.  There's no rest for the accident prone.  And I am the accident prone.  I fall. I get bruises.  I cut myself with kitchen knives and just a few days ago, I dropped a 2 liter Coke on my foot.  There's a bruise to prove it.  I'm thinking I should just start having someone follow me around with a camera in anticipation of my next mishap.  Who knows, I might become the next viral sensation on YouTube.  I might land some advertising gigs to post along with my slips, trips and falls.  I might get rich off this!  Nah, probably not and even if I could, would it be worth the embarrassment??

9.  The impact of two muscular dogs running into a human at full speed, and the resulting fall from said run-in, will leave your body feeling like you were in a car accident.  Seriously, if you've ever been in a car wreck that was even slightly more than a fender-bender, you know what I'm talking about.  Your whole body tenses upon impact, then the sheer force of the impact itself rattles your insides.  You might feel fine the day it happens, but after you sleep for a night and get up the next day, you're so sore you can barely move.  I feel like every muscle in my body has been worked out overtime this week.  It's starting to get a little better now though, and I'm hoping that the walking on crutches things improves as the rest of my body recovers from the soreness.

10.  I hope no one asks me for a match.  Seeing as I haven't yet figured out how to carry a glass of water from the kitchen to my room while hanging onto crutches, I figure I'm probably much safer not reaching into my pocket to hand anything to anyone for a while at least. Maybe that's the worst part of all this...Instead of being able to help other people out, I'm having to let them help me.  It's not my nature to ask for help and I still am not all that comfortable receiving it.  I know that probably makes me seem like an arrogant asshole. It's not that I think I'm above needing help...It's just that I think I'm above needing help...Ugh, Okay, so there's the one thing I need to learn from all this...I got it, I got it.  Now, will someone please bring me a roll of toilet paper?  I've been stuck in this bathroom waiting for someone to come along for at least 30 minutes now...

Life's Transactions

I used to be horrible at keeping a checkbook balanced.  Every month, without fail, I would check my transactions against my bank statement and find some ATM withdrawal or check-card purchase I had overlooked.  It was discouraging.  It was disappointing.  I got so tired of thinking I had more money in the bank than I actually had, and so frustrated with myself for not being able to keep up with my purchases or withdrawals.

I eventually started keeping every receipt, tucking them into my purse for safe-keeping until balancing time.  I wrote down every withdrawal and every purchase in my little bank book.  I was determined that I would get control over this.  I would win. But then when I got my statement there would be unexpected bank fees or an automatic bill debit that I forgot about. It seemed like an un-winnable game.

A few years ago I switched banks.  The bank I use now sends me a daily email of all the activity on my account from the day before.  I can actually keep up with my deposits, withdrawals, purchases and automatic billing debits by just checking my email every day. I even had my debit card programmed so that it doesn't work at all if there isn't enough money in the bank to cover a purchase. Now I always know my balance.  I haven't had an overdraft in 4 years or more.

If only there were a tool that made the rest of life so easy, huh?  The struggle with banking behind me, I now find myself facing a different kind of balancing act that seems impossible to ever get right.  It's about my relationships with others and the overwhelming sense of guilt I have when I feel I have overdrawn on my emotional accounts with them. I just feel like some people give me too much and I don't deposit enough.

On the other hand, there are some relationships where I feel as if I'm making all the deposits.  It seems I am draining my own reserves to give to others while getting nothing back on my investments.  Those are the times when I'm putting nothing into my own account, nothing, that is, besides self-loathing.  I start to feel like I'm working too hard at a job that is never going to pay me what I'm worth.  I start to get frustrated with myself and with the people who seem to take and take without ever putting anything back into our relationship "account."  I get resentful and demanding.

The guilt of not giving enough coupled with the resentfulness of feeling taken advantage of lands me in a state of profound imbalance.  I have struggled so much in an effort to moderate my behavior to fit the transactional value of the relationships in my life.  I start to believe that everything must be tit-for-tat.  Everything has to balance out.  Everything has to be fair.  I have to give more than I take or I will feel inadequate. Then again, if I give more than I feel is fair, I feel put upon.

It all boils down to my need for personal empowerment.   I need to feel in control of my life.  I need to decide for myself what and whom to invest in.  I need to have control over how much I give.  Sometimes, I start to feel as if I need to control what other people contribute in order for me to feel empowered or fulfilled.

But the truth is, life isn't always balanced.  There are times when we all need to give more than we get. There are times when we need to receive more than we think we deserve.  I have always been amazed by the concept of grace, but I've never before realized that it was something I could give and receive in my human relationships.  God's grace is unmatched, I realize that.  But in the little everyday bits of life, we are able to demonstrate his love when we accept from others what we feel we haven't earned.  We are privileged with the joy of offering more than we feel we owe.   I can't control anyone else's decisions.  I can't force them to give me what I think I've earned, whether its love, respect or affection.  What I can do is change my own attitude, from one of guilt and anger at myself to one of gratefulness and kindness towards the people who matter the most to me.

I can't adequately keep a record of all the deposits and withdrawals in my life.  It would be impossible, and in the end, wouldn't really matter anyway.  It's okay, in this instance, to be overdrawn once in a while.  It's a matter of privilege when I am able to give to someone else whose account may be more depleted than my own.   The mistake we all make is trying to keep score.  Keeping score makes us feel powerless.  It depletes us of the positive regard for ourselves that we need to maintain in order to keep our emotional balance in check.

So I want to take a second to thank the people in my life who give and give to me without ever asking for or expecting to get anything back.  You are truly amazing and I am so grateful for the grace you extend to me.

I also want to thank the people who take from me.  You give me a sense of purpose and make me feel like I have worth.  Just knowing that you want and need what I have to offer makes my life fuller and richer.  You give me a reason to get out of bed every day.  You give me a reason to care. You make my life worth living.

Maybe someday a life hacker will come along and figure out how to make all the give and take of interpersonal relationships balance out so we all feel better about ourselves and the people we love, but I doubt it.  Some things in life are never meant to balance out perfectly.  The imbalance keeps us on our toes.  It makes us never give up.  Maybe it is the very reason we are here.

Assumptions

"It's really too bad about your disease." She said sadly.  "You're just too young to have to even think about spending the rest of your life alone."

"Yeah, it does suck." I agreed, wondering what made her even say such a thing.

"Well, like, maybe you could find an older man who didn't care about sex anymore." She offered.

"Why would I want to do that?" I asked, puzzled by the line of conversation.

"I don't want to discourage you," She said, "but isn't it going to be hard to find a guy your age who would be okay with not being able to have sex?"

"Probably." I answered. "But I wouldn't be interested in someone who wasn't interested in sex."

"But...you can't, can you?" She asked, genuinely baffled.

"Uh, yeah, I can." I said.

"But...how?" She wanted to know as if it were any of her business.

"The same way everyone else does."  I was getting annoyed.  The truth was, it wasn't the first time someone had assumed that since I was on dialysis, I could no longer function like a regular human being.

I took the time to explain to her that I have a tiny tube in my abdomen that in no way affects my female parts or my ability to engage in sex.  She seemed relieved.

"Oh, that's so good to hear!" She exclaimed.  "Well, you can have any man you want, then!"

"Right." I said.  "Any man I want."

People can make some pretty bold assumptions with just a tiny bit of information sometimes.  It happens to me a whole lot these days.  Since I had this tube placed in my abdomen almost a year ago, I have lost count of the number of people who have either assumed my sexuality was a thing of the past, or who have just come right out and asked me if I could still have sex.  It seems to be the first thing anyone thinks about.

No one considers that the most difficult thing for me in establishing any kind of relationship, is the very fact that I have this disease to begin with.  No one wants to be saddled with a sick person.  Very few men are brave enough to risk loving a woman who is depending on a machine beside her bed to keep her alive.  Plenty of them will step forward and offer to give away their kidneys, but practically none are bold enough to offer their hearts.

I don't blame them.  If I were them, I would be hesitant too.  I realize how much I would be asking of someone to commit to a life with me.  I'm a lot of trouble.  I'm stubborn.  I instigate arguments, I hog the covers, I get defensive and unreasonably angry over little things sometimes.  I make bad decisions, I let people take advantage of me and my car is usually far too messy.  Nobody's perfect, right?  But on top of the usual human flaws, I have this huge physical hurdle to overcome.  Who wants to put up with that?  Hell, I don't even want to deal with it.  How can I reasonably expect anyone else to take me on?

I'm not saying it doesn't get lonely.  It does.  I sometimes feel like I am in a desolate place and that I'm stuck there without hope of ever escaping it.  It seems unfair.  It makes me angry and even depressed at times.  "You have your children!" people say.  And I do love them dearly.  I'd take nothing for them. But children are not partners.  They aren't meant to share our cares or stay up laughing with us into the wee hours of the morning.  My son, especially, depends on me.  He isn't responsible for being my companion and he shouldn't be.  Being a parent is just not the same as being a companion.

Sex.  That's the easy part.  If love were as easy to obtain as sex, life would be a breeze.  But love takes courage.  It means committing in some way or another, to the acceptance of another person, faults and all.  Love isn't something you can give and then walk away from so easily.  It is an investment in another human being, not just their physical form, but every part of them.  Some of us are just too hard to love.  Some of us are just not strong enough to take the risk.

After all, what if I up and die?  I am well aware that my faults assure that kind of trouble far outweighs any benefit anyone could get from loving me.  It is only by the grace of God that any of us are loved. We can't really do anything to earn it.  I understand that human beings are just not capable of giving one another the kind of grace God shows towards us.  It isn't easy for us to love in spite of the obstacles.  It feels far safer to shield ourselves from pain; even to consciously work at not loving someone in order to protect ourselves.

I know I will probably never get a return on the investment, but love is important to me.  Even if I can't get it, I feel more whole when I can give it.  Maybe that makes me weak.  Maybe it makes me pathetic.  I really don't know how it makes other people perceive me, and it really doesn't matter.  At the end of my life, all that will matter is how I invested the good God gave me.  I'm grateful for the ability to love. I am learning to love without expectation.  I'm learning to give without hoping to receive.  I'm learning to be my own companion.

I have a long way to go.  Disappointment creeps up on me still. I still want too much from people at times.  This is just a journey without a destination--it isn't a race.  I know I'll never arrive, but for once, the most important part is not where I will end up.  It's the trip.

I'm bracing myself for one wild ride.