Buddha came for coffee

Look at me, three post's in a row! Wow. But this one is even more important, for me at least, than the other two this last week.

When you least expect it, Buddha shows up with wisdom that knocks you on your butt **.  Thank God.

"The root of suffering is attachment", so says my companion, that only my heart can see, across the table by the window. I find coffee shops to often be temples of wisdom.  I'm not one to believe in God in an absolute sense, but Buddha is different. Like the I Ching, I listen, their words reveal and resonate in a way that my simple mind can absorb. I didn't ask for this knowledge, it just sits there, and I just sit there empty, open.  What I had been asking for was someone else to fill a need, I craved it.  The attachment to the outcome is suffering.

I have deleted the blog so I can not read or comment, but that is only for awhile. It is my job to take care of myself, to fill the space, no one else is responsible for that task.  I will go back, soon I hope, because I love this blogger and I have no desire to end that loving.  I'm a fool to walk away permanently and I need to let that lesson really sink in because I can not carry on with the things I need to accomplish in this life pulling a weight behind me. If I can keep my hands open to the grace, when I return, I'll return clean, with no needs.  Practice, practice, practice.

A dear girlfriend of mine says that love is complicated and it is. I'm not going to be able to uncomplicate it. I want it in my life no matter where it lands up, no matter if returned or even accepted. Buddha is so right, attachment causes the pain.  And probably, most likely, this love is actually returned, it just comes in a different door.

                                                             Keep it open.                                 
                                                                        

**I do have a tendency to forget everything within about 48 hrs.  practice, practice.
                                                                       

Seat in upright position -- (seat belt un - locked)

Well, I'm glad that little storm is over, thanks for ridin' it out with me.  Your comments and concern have helped immeasurably. What an amazing bunch of people you are! I couldn't reply that day because, well, you know what it's like.
                                                                    

The days are settled down a bit. And I am grateful that we are still all in it together. I've used this picture before in my India posts and it is just so adorable and appropriate for what happens on blogger - support and joy. 

                                                               we are in this together

I'm glad those storms only come once in a while. And that days of silly happiness are possible even if circumstances are not perfect, as they never are.   Thank you all!

I think, for me, a lot of this anxiety (intensified by a shitty hard time in life) becomes more intensified because I don't eat much. Isn't that silly? I've gotten so used to eating small meals, due to that anxiety, that it never dawns on me that I am still hungry.   My daughter, helped me realize that the other night when she made me list all the things I had eaten that day.  All were healthy, but there just wasn't enough of them.  And I cook, not all that often, but by the time I finish it, I'm not hungry. So today I went to the Deli and got .....  mashed potatoes and gravy, yes I did! It was soooo good, I ate the whole thing, and I bought ice cream.  Neither one so healthy, but easy to eat lots of and I have to get my stomach used to that again. (well ice creams not a bulker, but damn it's good)  Salad is just not going to do it.

I'm going back to see the surgeon tomorrow. This should be interesting, as I think this stupid expensive operation on my sinuses didn't really work. It's been a little over a month and I have done the yuk salt sprays every day, but I still sound like I have a stuffy nose from a cold.  I also have a pretty raspy voice from an enlarged thyroid pushing against my voice box. It's due to radiation from breast cancer, so people are always wondering if I used to be a smoker......I think it's kind of sexy, raspy haha, so I really don't mind if it stays this way, makes me a bit interesting...like a scare on your face. I always wanted one of those too when I was young, just a little tiny one because lots of stars in the old movies had one and I thought, again....sexy/interesting. I wanted to be to be Piper Laurie - but I don't think she has a scar, come to think of it, she doesn't really have a raspy voice either, just deep. Mine is deep too, so, well, there ya go - the teenage mind.

I got the traditional red geranium plants at the nursery yesterday (an homage to my grandmother who had glorious ones planted all along the front of her house). A deep, true red not the orangey one.  They just make me feel happy and connected to a good memory. That's nice.

I've been doing some meditating ---
                                                                                    

That picture incorporates your good advice for getting a dog, Ellen, way up on the list, but a bit down the road.  And I've been doing a bit of yoga...lie, dancing...lie, thinking of moving my body --- well, I am seriously thinking of taking a walk. I actually have found a great place to walk here, it only took 2 years! It's mostly downhill (excellent for that nuisance osteoporosis) and not too much uphill to get back to the beginning.  I'd have to draw you a map to explain it.  I really get bad vides on most of the walks around here, it's weird. I've only seen a live person 2 or 3 times and that is just creepy -- too stepford.

So, onward and upward, Livy girl!!
And, an aside, as I almost always have one.  I read this rant on Facebook the other day about how we are not supposed to call women "girl" anymore. It demeans us especially when used condescendingly by men, I get it, but the article went on to say we put ourselves down a bit when we use it with each other. I don't agree. Sometimes PC goes too far.  I love to say girl - to girl friends and when joking - I just think it's sweet and conveys affection. So, girl, I'm gonna keep on. Boy...not so good, guy, good.

And I'm adding this one now, too, because if I don't I will forget it by the next post.  I had a coke the other day, I wanted to have a little treat. Swear to God, I have not had one in at least 20 years. I just don't care for sodas. It was great, ice to the top, so refreshing.  Thennnn, I had another one the other day, because the first was so good.  Yesterday and today I am totally jonesin' for one.  They are addictive!!!! I will not have another one for a long time, but I sure do understand the soda epidemic in this country.  It took effort for me to say no - after 2! What it must be like for people who can't stop. I feel very sorry for them.

Thanks again -- and take good care.
Liv

It's my turn

Today was an extremely hard day.
It's been that way for awhile...the panic attacks.

Sunday is the day I always give my daughter alone time, but I've been feeling bad in a lot of ways, physically, psychologically, heart and soul.
I didn't want to go today, but she said she needed it, and I know she does. She really does. She blossoms on these days and it's lovely to see, I feel lucky to see it.
So I sucked it up and gathered my things - I have a little list now of things to take and things to do, they're always the same.  But I forgot it was Easter.  The stores I usually go to,  just to walk around and browse, ( I can not spend money right now) were all closed...the holiday.  The movie theater was jam packed and I don't do well with crowds like that.  Why the fuck does everyone go to the movies on Easter? Don't they have to stay home and eat ham and deviled eggs, and watch their ridiculously huge tv's?!  Starbucks was the same, so there was no sitting to read my book.  Powell's, the book store, is next door and unexpectedly it was open so I figured I could go and watch a movie on the laptop.  The earphones were not in the bag, nobodies fault ... so again, no movie.  And yes --------- I forgot my fucking, fucking book. So I sat there and looked at picture books, for 2 1/2 hours, because by then I couldn't read, and tried not to lay my head down on the table and cry because  I was so without tether that it was killing me.

I hate, hate, hate holidays
They are days of heavy loneliness, sorrow.
My daughter doesn't believe in any holidays, probably because they carry the same weight for her.  I don't blame her - our lives have been crazy hard.
But I just want something, anything to recognize - to get through the day with some semblance of normal. Of being like people who celebrate, even if it's crap celebrating.  

I have only one friend here, but life is challenging for her too. I've been asked to join her and her family before, but I don't really know her kids or her relatives, so it's uncomfortable and depressing and stressful. The last two years have been so full of pain and illness and stress, that it's just not the time to reach out to find new friends - I cry if they're nice and I cry if they don't reciprocate. So I've just given up until things get better and I'm so fucked up and lonely right now that - until - makes me cry too.

I've read a few blogs today, of women that I read and care about and participate with in my sincere and, yeah, kind comments. (and I'm not talking about any of you who have shared yourselves with me, welcomed me into your space - you already know how grateful I am, you know who you are and I know I've said that before and it's getting fucking boring, for both of us)  I have begged more than I should have, asking them to read me, take me in and they don't, I don't fucking know why and it eats at me, little bites out of my heart time and time again, because I can't seem to stop reading them, they're good and I care about them but the silence, oh my god, what the silence does. It is humiliating and I've had a shitload of that in my life. Have I done something wrong? Something bad? It triggers decades and decades of this kind of shit. And I know I've talked about all this shit before and that's getting boring too. I've gotten over so mannny things - I've got to get over this, flush the sorrow, it's shitty and it's in the way. Sorry is nowhere in this today.  It's a bad day and everything is dumping on top of everything else.

I don't have to make sense here today. I don't have to be good. I don't have to forgive today.

I'm spitting all of this out because I was crushed by loneliness already today and they, and perhaps lots of you, are happy with family and food and laughter, and I know it's not that way for everyone.   Some others are hurting, but this is my moment, I get to talk about my fucking sorrow, my pain. I just can't take it today, I can't comment, I can't read Facebook - I feel unworthy and ashamed already because there is no comfort in my day, only silence. So many people know my situation and it's another little bite when people don't think of me - after all this time of writing and talking, whether face to face or type or pen, not friend or family or acquaintance would think - Liv is alone, I'll just tell her I am thinking of her.  My email is there, I'm on Facebook, there is a mailbox at the end of the driveway - oh yeah, I forgot, there's the damn phone.  I'm not trying to hurt or call out anyone and I don't need to be taken care of, do not feel sorry for me. I'm not asking for anything, I'm telling you, I'm telling you how it is,  because you are my friends and I need to scream.  I need.

I don't exist.
I feel like my head is going to burst.
I don't want to be me.
I don't want to be here.
I want to exist.

I want a husband, a partner, I want all my children,  I want a family, I want a home. The chaos and the joy and the bother and the frustration and the safety of all of that. The holy imperfection of all that.
Where is any goddam thing that  t e t h e r s me?

Like my beautiful and dear friend Elizabeth speaks so eloquently about falling,     I get to fall down today, it's my turn.

Sublime encounters

Yes, I've been out of sight for a while.  Am now post op and feeling a bit better, fingers crossed that this does the trick.  Since the ambulance ride to the hospital last month and the ensuing afternoon catnap in a no less "private" emergency room (fancy that!) has cost in the region of $5,700, (you can get up off the floor now) of which my portion is a pittance thanks to extreme poverty under the Medicare program, I am nowhere near as jubilantly positive about the outcome of a three hour long operation - for which my surgeon was an hour late with no intention of explanation.  There is a limit to the benevolence of Medicare but I am on my knees grateful for my policy.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you've been reading for awhile, you might remember that I've had an unidentified sinus infection for the better part of the last year and after three doctors and a remodel of the bathroom (by the fearful landlord praying for the absence of black mold), two cat scans and an obscene amount of antibiotics - you died-in-the wool organics would be horrified -  a bucket of green snot that was vacuumed from my sinus cavity (which I have been spewing out daily for the last 9 months!) has finally been identified as an allergic reaction to a rare feline bacteria....       I'm very sad that this came from Marley and sadder still at the prospect of never being able to enjoy the comfort of such beautiful and loving animals. So sorry about the graphics, if you have a weak stomach, but hey, I had to endure it, you can at least hang in there with me..........I'm smiling.

They also repaired a deviated septum. I'm not sure that was an absolute necessity but they're in there so what the heck.  Pain has not been too much of an issue, but fear of success of this whole thing does occupy my tired brain. I am vigilant about such things as salt sprays and neti-pot cleanses - really, they're a good idea for this age of pollution we live in and the threat of any allergy you may or may not know you have.  The buckets of green snot are gone and now replaced with never ending slimy blood clots, OK, I'll stop!!

There were some complications with the surgery, not least of them being the inability to wake for a full 8 hours from the anesthesia....scary....  Did you know that the effects of anesthesia can last as long as 2 weeks, and even more?  It was done on the 21st and inanimate objects are just now beginning to stop inexplicably grow and shrinking as if I am on a sporadic LSD trip.

I was going to give you a cut-away of the sinuses and deviated things but you are probably happy to put a close to this topic, as am I......please, please heal correctly!

My recovery has been exactly like this, I plan on getting sick much more often!


In other news: my daughter and I have determined it is probably best that the next move in my life should be a final trip to Europe.  I know, I have no real money and the confusion of trying to find a place to live in, that I can afford, will still be there when I get home. The saving grace is that my SS check will be coming in with no expenses going out, so it won't be all that frightening.  But my life has been so without joy and relief from the lingering pains of a lifetime, that if I don't tuck in some happiness and good memories before the end, then I deserve whatever I get. So sucking up bravery from the bottoms of my feet, I will be alone!, is my daily task now.  Besides, contemplating such a trip is the only thing that is staving off panic attacks the likes of which I have never experienced in my whole panicked life.  I had a bring-you-to-your-knees one the other night and scared the shit out of both of us. You know, the kind of hide in the back of the closet and wish you were dead ones, I'm sure you're familiar with them. I pray to God you are not.

I'll leave you with some good news: I've lost five pounds, pale yellow tulips and pick hyacinths are blooming in the front yard. My car is being nice to me and I had the most sublime experience yesterday of standing in a field of vibrant green grass with three small dear deer nibbling their dinner.  We, each of us, locked eyes for about 15 seconds, which are a lot longer than you think, playing who will blink first. It's like talking and I was so happy that they let me stay and watch, as close as 10' away. That's what being born again really feels like. Wherever I wind up when I get home, I hope there is enough quiet and green and space for meeting deer eyes.