Self Control? Self Censorship? Or Self-Improvement?

Why can't *other people* just control themselves...?

Or said another way, why can't people learn to self censure?

I have been struggling with this question for the last few days because I have been irritated at some of the people I live with for their inability to stop criticizing (me). You know the old adage: If you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all.

But, no matter how much I just want peace and quiet I have to ask myself, is self censorship desirable or even a good goal? 

If someone is constantly irritated and cranky, and they have the self control to hold it in, isn't it nearly as bad for you and for them as if they just spoke their (cranky) mind?  I tend to think that I can read people fairly well, and if I was with a person that was angry all the time, verbalized or not, I'd know. Living with that sort of anger sounds illness inducing. And probably has been.

However, I am reminded that I can't control someone else and what they do or don't do, or what they think or don't think, or feel or don't feel. Yes, those things are outside of my control.

That's too bad because I was going to recommend meditation to attain inner peace and harmony *for the other person.*  :-)

What I *can* do I guess, is to encourage communication and problem solving with my house-mates. And I know that I can work on not letting someone else's attitude or problem bother me so much, through meditation, prayer, and inner work.


So, I guess I've answered my own question, even if I don't like the answer so much, because it means work, and change, and self improvement for *me.*

Waiting: for who we will become

Today I was reminded by a friends' post, that in marriage or in any other partnership we seem to be waiting for the "other person" to blossom into who they have the potental to become. This fact is at the root of relationships, great or small, but especially at the root of marriages, I think. I also think it's at the root of divorces.

If only he would.... If only she could... Some day he will... At some point she'll learn...

My husband and I have 27 years of marriage behind us, and yet after reading my friend's post, I thought, "yes, I'm waiting for my husband to reach his full potential," because of ... because of... [insert issue here]. Does it matter?

Then immediately after this thought knew that surely he was waiting for me to improve in innumerable ways, also.

And then I realized:

What a waste of time. What a pity. What an example of "expectations" gone awry.

You would think that after nearly 30 years I would certainly know that who we are is what counts, and that the best of each of us should be celebrated each day.

The rest can be mourned once overcome.

So, here's a reminder to celebrate what we become daily.

Luck or planning?: Where do you fall in this philosophical debate?

Recently, I commented to an on-line friend that she was "lucky." I said it because of her ability to be grateful for all things in her life and her obviously caring, mutually supportive and sustainable long-term relationship. She is an example of how to integrate the spiritual with the material, and the mundane with the inspirational.
My friend replied that her beautiful life, which is full of challenges by the way, and how she has managed it, is a choice.

So, I come back to the fundamental question:

How much of our lives are planned?  How much of life is purely random or the result of luck?

To Plan or not to Plan, that is the Question

Image thanks to Christie Abshire Butcher's Students at the University of Texas, Austin

A friend, known as Artfish on Open Salon, posted the following on her facebook page:

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a  tree. Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

To which I shot back:

"That's where the cat and I differ-- I don't think it matters where you want to go, there is always a right road to take."

My response touched off a conversation about "mistakes" that led into a discussion about the role of "planning," which now that I think about it, was probably a conversation about the role of "self determination" in living a "successful life." 

Okay so I think too much, but that quote touched a nerve.

I think it struck me because for the first 40 years of my life I lived via the extreme planning method that was advocated to all of us (educated people) in fact, through the education process, whether in high school or college or graduate school, which, in short, was, "if you don't have a plan in life, you'll never get there." Never mind where "there" was. But, you'd never get "there." So, be afraid, be very afraid; and I was very afraid that I would never amount to anything.

Let me elaborate on what this method "meant:" You made a plan, generally in writing, for the next year (short-term), and the next five years and ten years (long-term) and then planned, generally in writing, how to set about trying to accomplish it. This process was reevaluated every year, preferably near the New Year, as far as I knew, though I'm not sure why, and life was assured to consist of some ordered (and successful) trajectory.

Living life by this method was a better guarantee of "success" than the "other method," which I assumed was "just drifting through life." I guessed that drifting through life meant that you didn't get an education, lived in a trailer park, had children by various fathers and never married.... or some kind of life as equally "unsuccessful sounding" as *that.*

Okay I had anxieties.

The first little crack in this philosophy appeared as I graduated from college in 1982 in one of the worst recessions in years and couldn't find but a secretarial job. This was not what I was led to believe should happen. I deserved some recognition of some sort. And I didn't get it. I was special, damn it. Plus, I planned.


To recover from this unpleasant and unplanned scenario, I just planned some more. I set my sights set on law school, which was supposed to solve all career snafus as I would be on a bona fide career track. Undergraduate degrees, obviously, no longer trained you for anything, so an advanced career track, like law school would fit the bill. Getting into law school was a chore and I don't want to belabor that time in my life. But, if you think that getting into law school was a chore, practicing it, with children, then with a possible move to Vancouver BC (which I bucked) then with a move to Louisiana (which I accepted, naively) was impossible. I struggled for years, mainly because I was so focused on my "law school" career, which I had written down, that I couldn't see beyond it or outside it, and I was miserable.

My husband can attest to years of misery.

At some point during these years of unmet goals, I had a breakdown and went to see a therapist, who fortunately was a spiritual person. Thank goodness for someone that believed in life, rather than the plans of small human beings.

I learned to plan but to be open to the possibilities that "life" (or God, if you are so inclined) throws at you. My first great opportunity was to take advantage of the time I had "off" to pursue involvement with a lifelong passion-- the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a development organization in Sri Lanka that I fell in love with when I was 19 years old. 

The second was to "study" gerontology, another passion. No goals. No nothing. These two passions intersected for me and I have years of volunteer and consultant, development and aging work to show for it, including another MS and a PhD. None of it planned. 

I also "happened upon" a Duke post-doc, not planned, and went for that. When I got back, I "happened upon" a position of directing numerous evaluations of state social programs. And after that, I "stumbled upon" a job with private industry as their director of chronic care research, a gerontologist position that has been more than I ever could have imagined.

So, after the last 12 years of a fabulous life, I have to say that I am an advocate for being open to the Big Picture. You can plan, but be guided by your passion and by opportunities that present themselves to you, whether in "your field" and "within your plans" or not. Trust your gut. If you can help it, don't make "lists" (which I also used to do -- you know, listing the "pros" and the "cons" of a scenario). 

Do what drives you. Be in love with your life. Follow the possibilities.

In that way, I truly believe, there will never be a "wrong road." All roads presented to you will be or will lead to the "right ones," divinely inspired, if you are so inclined.

A dream I lost today

I was really down today because the condo I had been planning to buy on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon was sold. Condos that were similar, though not as perfect, were still on the market but for a lot more money. I wanted my 180 degree view of the river and the marina below, near the biking and walking trails littered with wildflowers and tall grasses that led to Cottonwood Cove, a beach laden with water soaked logs for climbing and smooth stones for skipping.

I had pictured myself waking up in the morning and taking my bike from the closet to ride out my door and along the river path, where you can grab a handful of Brown eyed Susans or those wild faintly pink roses that grow with abandon in my hometown. I want to be able to roll out of bed in the morning and pull on some sweats and a t-shirt and slide the canoe from the top of the car into the water for a morning paddle. Maybe we'll even have a small skiff or sailboat moored in the marina below that I could take for a spin. I want to read the paper from the deck of my home and breath in the smell of river air and rain over the eggs my lover has made for me. I want to love my partner in that room with the 180 degree view of the water and the mountains, knowing we are finally in the place we are meant to be, living as we should.

I'm not interested in retiring, oh no. I will still engage in life. I picture myself taking the tram into town to work and back or to shop and back or to the doctor's office and back. I long to *not* drive my car for a year, and have it not be a burden, because I don't need to.

You must agree that the life I envision appears divine? So, you can see why I slumped around most of the rest of the day based on this feeling of loss for a place I had never lived in and a life I had never had. But, I'm a regrouper. My heart skipped a beat and a smile spread over my face when I started looking at other properties in Bellingham and Whidby Island, WA, and one in particular that I loved on the banks of a meandering creek in Salida, CO. I convinced myself that the specific locale wasn't what I needed, it was a home with a particular aesthetic, and that aesthetic had a lot to do with water, and living near an informed town center, and of course the west. Don't forget the west. Don't forget freedom. This has a lot to do with freedom.

I guess that all of this would make sense if the plans I made were based in any way in reality, but they aren't, and I know it. This is all a part of a game I play with myself lately called "transporting myself anywhere but here," or "living the life I am entitled to but can't," or "walking and swimming just outside your door in a temperate climate."

Or I would be happy, if only...children, my spouse, grandchildren, my mother and my job were transported somewhere else and some of them were something that they're not.

That day is just never going to come

I'd like to live at the beach

I went over to mom's house this morning to see how she was feeling. She lives in my backyard, so it's just a short walk.

She has had a bladder infection that just won't go away, despite being put on a low dose of antibiotics for months, and despite being prescribed another type of antibiotic in a stronger dose last week. She was allergic to the second antibiotic, which caused spasms in her bladder. The pain made her panic, which very nearly meant an ER visit, but we managed to get her into see her doctor on short notice. So, now she's on a third antibiotic that I hope is ridding her body of this latest nasty UTI, and some sort of pain medication that seems to be easing the symptoms a bit. Of all of the physical problems she has, these urinary tract infections are the worst.

yadayadayada. I know. Now you're bored. I'm bored in the telling.

So:

I arrived at her house when she was in mid-conversation with her caregiving company. I could tell that it was them because her conversation was peppered with "4 hours" and "she didn't tell me she couldn't come on Wednesdays" and "how much do you pay her?" When I arrive in the middle of these things I feel like I maybe shouldn't listen, even though I am the "responsible party" (how I'm hating that). They were trying to explain something to her, and she was trying to come to some decision, but she wound herself into such a whirl of frustration that she became visibly upset, and physically aphasic, and finally spit out, "never mind then!" and hung up the phone.

I think I physically cringed when she finally looked at me because I was scared and because I knew how the visit was going to go, which was not well. And it didn't. Go well. After an uncomfortable conversation, with me trying to brace myself against her anger, my visit with my mother ended with her parting shots: "You should have thought of that when you took my car away," and, "You are making my life miserable."

I turned around and walked home and called her caregiving company to complain about things that were making her upset, even though I know nothing is going to make her happy, at least not anything I've had a hand in creating. And boy was I was involved in getting her a caregiver-- pretty much to the exclusion of everyone else because I thought (and think) she needs it. I also thought she'd get used to it. Now, however, I don't think she will ever get used to it. It's been nearly 3 months and she seems just as mad as she was in the beginning, maybe madder.

After awhile, she called to apologize, sort of, and then launched into a begging chant, "Can't I just drive the car to the store, please, please?

I said something weak back to her, like, "you know I can't let you do that," or something equally lame.

After that, I simply placed the phone in the cradle.

Explaining or restating my explanations just makes her mad. I'm pretty sure that I should be mad back and that maybe we should have a good old fight like we used to have when I was a teenager (there is so much about *this* that feels like *that*). However, as far as my feelings go, I'm sad but not angry. She's a 89 year old woman with dementia, and the dementia is making her upset. A lot.

This maybe the more interesting part:

And all I can think of is-- When will the time come that my life is "my own?"

After mulling this over for the last five hours, I have come to the conclusion that that day will never come. I know this for sure for a bazillion reasons related to my sad overburdened with dependents life situation. Even so, I can't help but ponder "my other life," as in, "the life I'm supposed to be having but can't."

I'll let you in on a little secret: My main pathetic source of entertainment lately is planning the life I could have if I was only responsible for myself. I'm not only a daydreamer. Sometimes, I put these plans into action, like a month ago when I tried to have a contractor draw up plans for a spa-pool for our backyard. I could just envision myself lazing around in a Grecian shaped pool, with a fountain or two, while my family fixed me a mouthwatering dinner. Ah, denial. 

That didn't go over well, despite my big push to try to make it a reality. I thought that if I showed my family how much I really needed something fun in my life at home, that they would understand. They were unimpressed, and, well, it will never happen, as we recently put an offer on a house for our son.

I did buy myself a treadmill for our bedroom, against the advice of my cohabitants. *That* was liberating. And I gave away our huge Thomasville Entertainment Center (located in our bedroom at the site the treadmill now occupies) to one of the treadmill moving guys. (A treadmill is such a symbol of a 9-5, button-down, boring life. Don't you think?) Anyway, giving that thing away made me feel euphoric.

So, I guess I've had one little triumph. "Yay!" for creating my own space, and having fun, and bucking convention.

Now I think I'll go and pick up food to make dinner.

How Long Does it take to Mend a Broken Heart?

I thought that we were in the clear, in terms of my son's heart mending. However, it seems as though this will take longer than I thought to resolve itself. Is a year enough? How about two?

I have  been depressed before (some people haven't). Age has tempered my moods. These days I am content to be in whatever situation I am in, not questioning how I got there or whether it's fair that I got there or not.

But, being with a sad child is a terrible experience. You want to take on the hurt and make it okay. However, all of us old folks know that's not possible. Anyway, a child with pain is just heart rending, and there's nothing that I can do but listen.

Today, I told him to wait until January. It will be a year then. I hope things are better.