Just Do The Next Thing

In front of you.

I was talking to a friend of mine in the cohort at school about a particularly challenging classroom situation today.

It was the first class of the day, the first day of class, third weekend, last semester.

Many of the folks in my class described having a feeling of “senioritis” and not wanting to do the work.

I was like.

Shut the fuck up bitches.

I did the fucking work.

You can do the god damn work too.

Alas.

I did not share that.

I took my judgmental ass and sat on the floor for a student led guided meditation for the class.

Guided meditation my ass.

I laughed inside, someone, me, has some contempt about this.

I sat quietly while the person leading the meditation walked around the classroom and beat on a drum.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I could not follow.

I instead choose to ignore the spiritual bypassing schlock and said the serenity prayer in my head on a loop and slowly relaxed.

Until the drumming got intense and insistent and intruded into my nice quite brain.

And that was sort of how class was.

Insistent, annoying, intrusive.

My issued with my cohort or certain members of the cohort is that when they haven’t done the work, many of us who have, bear the brunt of them having to be informed again and again about the nature of the work and their responsibilities thereof.

It’s a waste of fucking time.

My time is precious.

I’m paying a fuck load of money to be in school, I have made constant self-sacrifice to be there, I have taken on tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, I have had little social life over the last two and three-quarters years, and less sleep, I have missed fellowshipping opportunities to do school, have worked and worked and worked and read and studied and, and, and.

SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH YOUR WHINY ASS BITCHING.

Ugh.

There.

Sorry.

I don’t mean to yell.

I just got overwhelmed with it today.

There is a kind of refusal to take accountability for ones actions that rubs my fur the wrong way.

I was rubbed the wrong way a bit.

I felt like a frazzled cat that had fallen in the bathtub.

I did manage to self-soothe and breathe and pay attention to the information the professor was giving us.

And man.

There is a lot of information.

There was a two page  hand out with fine print and websites and dates and timelines and schedules and paper work in triplicate and my God, I don’t know, the encryption codes to the lottery is what it felt like.

There are a lot of hoops to get licensed and today I sat through a three-hour long class on what hoops I have to jump.

There were some folks who had no idea the number of hoops and were bogged down in the why didn’t anyone tell me all this information before and why am I now learning it and fuck, I didn’t do that thing that you’re telling me I need to do, what am I going to do?

Well.

I don’t know.

But you can get your whiny ass self to shut up and listen and perhaps instead of interrupting and wanting to change things to fit your agenda better you could just go with what’s happening, read the material, write the papers, and pay attention.

Works for me.

Anyway.

I am obviously taking someone’s inventory here.

And you know what?

I don’t want to make that persons amends.

That person has their own path and if truth were to be told, which is what this blog is about, trying to get as close to the truth as my skewed vision can get, I don’t want to be on that persons path.

I like mine just fine.

I have my challenges, obviously, low tolerance for bullshit being one of them, who doesn’t, but I don’t have to allow myself to be affected by another’s.

So I just sat and let the drama unfold and when I needed to take a break I texted with my best friend and connected to the outside world for brief moments.

I am so grateful I did.

Good juicy little reminders of my life outside of the classroom.

Which is sort of the whole point of being in the classroom, to learn the things that I need to know so that I may carry them out into the world and be a better person and for damn sure, a better therapist.

My own personal issues lead me down great paths of discovery and learning and I am not blind to this knowledge.

My biggest challenges over the past year have shown me the depth of love I have, great huge reservoirs of it, and where I really need to grow and allow more in.

There’s always the growth.

And today I got to grow by acknowledging that I’m not doing it perfect either.

I got anxious in class.

I got nervous about all the requirements and the “t’s”to cross, the “i’s” to dot.

But I also gotten to deepen my faith a little more and just focus on the next thing in front of me, having faith that the things that need to get done, will, in fact, get done.

I do have to do some more paperwork for graduation and I do need to get some signatures from my supervisors, my therapist (my Master’s program requires that I am in therapy with a licensed MFT while I am in practicum, therefore I have to get a piece of paper signed by my therapist that says I have done 50 sessions with her–I will actually hit session 50 four days before I graduate) and there are a few other odds and ends I want to make sure that I do.

But overall.

I got this.

Oh.

I know there will be moments of panic, or anxiety or fear that I am doing it wrong but I think of the people who I know who have graduated the program and I know more than a handful, and I relax.

They did it.

So too can I.

I know I can.

I know it.

So all I have to do tonight is pack my bag for classes in the morning and have a nice hot cup of tea.

I have done all that I possibly could have.

And then some.

Contempt

Prior to investigation.

Sometimes I don’t even know I have contempt for a situation until it happens.

Then, when it does, I’m incredulous, like, wait, what, oh no, this is completely different from I thought and I am an asshole.

Yoga for example.

A lot of contempt.

But fuck.

It’s a good work out, my body feels better when I do it, and my mind clears out.

But for a very long time I looked at it as privileged white women spiritually bypassing to look hot in skimpy clothes and post pretty pictures of themselves on Instagram.

I sweat a lot when I do yoga, I also swear, and there is nothing pretty about it.

And.

Oh yes.

Sometimes I even cry.

Heart openers will get me, I don’t even know some of the poses are heart openers until after I’ve been doing them and then the instructor says something and I’m like, oh, that was it, that was a heart opener.

Sometimes I think my heart can’t get much more open, but God seems to have other plans and my heart gets stretched out some more and I’m left wallowing around in pain again.

Which it was pointed out to me this evening, is the touchstone of spiritual growth.

I actually told the person to fuck off.

I was super defensive and super tender and super vulnerable all at the same time and then I disclosed what has been happening, in general terms, and started crying.

Ugh.

I just didn’t want to be that person crying over something like this and the truth is.

I am that person crying over a heartbreak and a loss and I’m grieving and I’m so super fucking sad it breaks me sometimes and I just lose it.

And then.

I pull it back together, pony up, wipe my face, slap some lotion on myself, tears are drying out my skin like nobody’s business, and I get back on with the daily deal of living and doing the deal.

It’s not easy.

Sometimes I just want to crawl under the covers and weep until I pass out.

I haven’t really stopped crying for the last two and a half weeks.

Two weeks ago I had the conversation that would change it all.

Two.

I was thinking about that as I walked home alone and got cat called by some guy at the 7-ll on the corner who told me I was beautiful and had great hair.

Thanks.

I am having a good hair day, but I’m not really interested in telling you my name.

In fact, when he asked, I replied, “going home alone,” and kept walking.

I’m not into dudes that hang outside 7-11’s with open containers of booze.

I wasn’t when I was drinking, I’m certainly not the fuck now.

But yeah, my mind, preoccupied when I realized it was two weeks ago today that I had the beginnings of the conversation that would lead me to where I am now.

I hadn’t seen it coming, and it seems I should have.

Should, would, could, all the ways I can shit on myself.

I should have done this, I could have done, that, I would have, but.

Excuses and ways to blame myself and hurt myself and wallow in victimization.

I take responsibility for my actions and I feel their effects.

It has not been easy to do what I did and I feel like I’m dying half the time.

I am also doing something I have never done before so I have absolutely no idea how to do it.

I rely on the council of others, and pray a lot, and cry, and try to be nice to myself and try to not just smash my head on my table.

Like if I could have figured it out, made things work, I would have.

But.

I don’t know how to do that, I didn’t then, I don’t now.

I have a sense that I have to be honest, in a deeper way then I have ever been with myself.

I have an idea that the pain has not stopped, that it will in fact, continue for a little while yet.

It’s like settling in for a long winter, this season of grief.

When you let go of the thing you love most, the person you love most to choose to do something different, it’s going to hurt.

At least.

That’s been my experience.

It’s hurting.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad I can barely write this.

And yet.

I do.

I keep showing up to this damn stupid page as if it will make it better.

Kiss it and make it better.

Please.

I suspect that there is something here, though, a process, that helps mitigate the pain of the situation, a way through.

Just like she told me, “there is no way through but through.”

I just have to feel everything.

It’s a gift.

These feelings.

I may not always believe that when I am doubled over crying into my hands, but when the tears slow a little and I have a modicum of space, I know that I can appreciate the pain, that I can see the richness there, the beauty of it, the deep knowledge of how hard I love and was loved.

Am loved.

Do still love.

Still love.

I am still in love.

God.

That hurts.

That just screams at me.

I had to stop there for a moment, fresh tears to wipe from my face, a tightening in my chest, the feeling of not being able to breathe, the fear of losing the best thing that I have ever experienced and knowing that I made the decision to do so.

I did it.

I am responsible.

I needed something different than what was being offered.

And though I couldn’t come to it fast enough or in a tidy way, in a linear, logical, marked out intellectual way, I got there, I got to a place where it stopped working for me.

And when I did I saw what was not working I couldn’t deny it any longer.

Although, fuck I tried.

I had to change.

And.

I did.

I made the decision.

I will live with the repercussions for the rest of my life.

Good and bad.

They are mine.

I have no regrets.

I loved fucking hard and passionately and deeply.

I have nary a regret and I don’t think that I ever will.

I just have a lot of sorrow to keep working through.

And more tears to cry.

Always those.

Always those.

So.

Many

Tears.

Nice Guy

Not for me.

Dirty fingernails.

I noted as he sat down from me at Samovar.

That’s a bit off-putting, then I recalled, well, he is a mechanic and I do like guys that work with their hands, there’s something sexy about that.

Then he smiled.

Dude.

None of the photos on your profile had you with missing teeth.

I tried to recall if he was smiling in any of the photos that he had put up.

I could not remember.

“One of the guys at the garage left the wrench on top of the engine,” he gestured, “and, well, uh, yeah, I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist.”

I just about felt like I had been gut punched.

I cannot imagine what losing your front row of teeth must feel like, but it could not have been pleasant.

So, that explains the bottom teeth, but the snaggley teeth up top, not so much.

British.

Ok, that explains the crooked, yellow, and gaped upper teeth, but still.

Then I though, well,  there can be a sexy kind of allure to an English accent.

But there was so little chemistry for me (I was trying to not practice contempt prior to investigation) that it was rather like sitting there and having a spot of tea with an English mum who wanted to show me photos of her grandkids over a nice steaming mug.

Except that the photos I was shown were of the kids, the house, the cars he’s been working on.

I could actually tell you an awful lot about this man, Mister Nice-Guy-But-Not-For-Me, I sat and listened to him talk for nearly two hours about himself.

I mean there’s the getting to know a person, then there’s the being told about your wife’s naked naughty pictures with her spiritual guru/guide, that led to your divorce, losing the house, getting shared custody of the kids, two, what happened when the dog died (I was suddenly no longer on a blind date, but in a country western song), how expensive rents are (mental note to self, might be paying for my share of the tea-pot) and the number of restored cars that you have worked on, a lot.

I also have a new understanding of all things restored, classic, metal molds, welding, paint, primer, 2500 Horsepower engines, chrome, dents, wide rims, the trouble of parking a large 1965 Chevy pick up in the Castro, and pinstriping.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think he asked me one thing about myself.

I asked him a few things then just sat back nodding and putting in the appropriate mmhhhmmm and unhuh, and sipping my tea, then my water, then signalling for more water, and serepitiously checking my watch.

Mister Nice-Guy-But-Not-For-Me was really on a roll about quitting caffeine, when I made the first interjection about my time line.

I moved it up an hour to cut short the date.

I mean I had put in two hours, I had done well and practised not having contempt prior to investigation, I showed up, and I was nice, and there were some flickers, I did find him interesting in a sweet way, just, well, not for me, and there was no chemistry.

I mean none.

I did not find him attractive at all.

Despite the allure of the 1965 Chevy pick up truck, I had no desire to kiss him, or spend more time finding out about him.

Shit.

I know lots.

All the tea, water, and refills led to me making a break to the bathroom, getting centered and asking to be shown how to nicely end the date and be on my way.

I had grocery shopping to do.

Yes, that’s right, I wanted to spend my Saturday night going to Whole Foods rather than spend any more time on the date.

I also was hungry and wanted salad bar and I did have a commitment to get to and some tea to drink with a ladybug, so, it wasn’t like I was really being dishonest, it was more like, I need to not spend any more time with this, I would really, rather go grocery shopping.

Now, if there had been chemistry, and I have had that with men before, so I know what it looks like, I would have pushed my time out as far as possible and taken a cab up to my commitment in Noe Valley.

But I found it far easier to leave, give him a hug, thank him for taking the time to come into the city and buying me the cup of tea.

“It was really nice to spend time with you,” he said, then, “I would like to get together again real soon.”

I may be busy that weekend.

Trying to put myself out there and date another guy.

Whomever he is.

I don’t know.

I do know that I  am just taking suggestions and trying to turn willingly toward the man I am supposed to be with.

Like I don’t know exactly what keeps me sober, but I have some ideas, however, I don’t know the exact mix of what needs to happen.

Like could I do less here, more there?

I don’t know, I just take all the suggestions given and go from there.

“Have you tried online dating,” she asked me at Tart to Tart.

I have, a little tiny bit, but mostly the men who have responded to my profile I have not wanted to go out with.

I wasn’t sure about this guy, he looked ok, and he sounded nice, and he asked me out in a way I found sweet, so I thought, hey, just do it.

Because you never know when you are going to meet that person or who may pop up on the way to or from a bad date.

And this was not a bad date.

It was a nice date, just a not for me kind of person.

I am sure some lady is going to be really happy with him.

It’s just not me.

One more down.

Who’s next?

I mean Valentine’s Day is in just six days!

 

Just kidding.

A Little Scared

A little wired.

A little relieved.

I ran into an old friend of mine whom I had not seen in years and I knew the minute his face lit up and we hugged that the gig was up.

The gig has been up and I have been nervously looking around saying, that’s not what I want to do, nope, not looking at that, you people freak me out.

Then there’s the other part of me, the rational, I could use some help with this, here’s the solution, feel free to pick it up or go back to crazy town.

I chose to call him back, minutes after riding my bike down 24th from Noe Valley to the 24th Street BART.

Which was surrounded by cops, van loads of cops, cops in riot gear.

If I thought yesterday’s lock down in the Nordie’s Off the Rack was disconcerting, rolling through the intersection at Valencia and 24th through flanks of cops in riot gear and vans blocking the street was even more so.

What the fuck is going on out there?

Zimmerman decision.

Oh.

Yikes.

Man, the last few days I have just rode my bicycle through some odd places.

I slowly pedaled toward the station which was surrounded by motorcycle cops and quietly asked one of them if BART was still running.

“Yes.”

Excellent.

I scooted myself down the stairs, doing my best to ignore the mob of people across the street at 24th and Mission making some getting angry noises and the bellow of one skinny white boy with a megaphone extorting folks to get really pissed now.

I just want to get on BART and get home.

I clambered down the stairs with my messenger bag full of groceries and saw I had just missed the train back, it was going to be another 18 minutes.

You could call him you know, I thought, my friend had given me his number and then said, “call me now so I have it in my phone,” I believe if he had not have said that I would not have called.

Not when I did.

Not tomorrow.

Not ever.

I would just keep trying to do it my way and then at some point I would pop from the pressure of keeping my food shit together.

You could call him now, you know, you could just ask.

GRR.

The window was open and though afraid, how come I have got to walk through this fear shit all the time?  I decided I better slip on through before that window closed again.

“Hi, it’s Carmen,” I said, after the fifth ring I figured there was going to be no pick up, but damn it, he did.

I could almost here the glee in his voice when he said hello back.

Gotcha.

Yup.

So, I asked for help and took out a piece of paper and wrote down exactly what was said and now I have, sigh, a wake up call to make in the morning and a place to go at 8:30 a.m. and some explicit instructions on how to start my day.

The road narrows.

Indeed it does.

But I am tired of trying to figure it out on my own and though my alarm clock is now set for 6 a.m.

On a Sunday?!

On a Sunday.

I am alright with it.

First of all, I can take a nap tomorrow if I need to.

Second of all, I will continue to get the same results unless I take some different actions, I want to take some different actions.

I also saw John Ater tonight who just said, “tell them your rates are going up and don’t underbid yourself.”

I did not even get to say well, I um, shouldn’t I, uh, shit.

Nope.

All the thunder stolen right out from underneath me.

Just tell them your rates are going up.

I will craft an e-mail tomorrow.

Most likely after I get back from my 8:30 a.m. all the way the fuck across town bicycle ride.  After I make a 7:15 a.m. check in phone call and sit quietly for a half hour.

I am so dreading this I was already trying to figure out how I was going to get to sleep to even get six hours of sleep.

I keep telling myself that all along this has been waiting and I can let go of the misery if I just follow some simple rules and I won’t be obsessive about the thoughts and I can try something different.

It’s just something different, which always induces fear, even when it is something good different.

There’s nothing wrong with getting up early, it’s not like I had some big plans tonight.

Watch a show, troll the interwebs, drink some tea, read a book.

I say this as I watch the clock tick forward toward midnight.

I dont’ want to do this thing.

I never have.

I have shied away before.

But in the shying away I believe I have been practicing contempt prior to investigation.

I have to go investigate.

I am not going to say it won’t work until I give it the old college try.

So, here’s to me getting up early, following someone else’s instructions and saying, my way sucks, I give up, how about I try something different.

Can’t hurt to try.