Ghosts

I saw my brother today for the first time in a year. There’s been a lot of pain and strain in the family. There are things that I’ve struggled to understand in the family, a lot of it pertains to him. Whilst we didn’t do anything to damage the relationship beyond repair (and a big part of me knows that we will get through it one day), both of us need to do some work on rebuilding too.

I don’t actually know what he thinks…..I know what my mother thinks that he thinks.

Anyway, I happened to arrive at my sister in laws while he was still with the kids, so I saw him when he dropped them home. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I’d said to my mother only hours before that I wanted him to say sorry before I could move on – to acknowledge he played a role in the situation, that he’s not a victim (and I would do the same from my end).

But he walked over and gave me a kiss on the cheek and a very big hug. And I was surprised at the warmth in his greeting, the affection. So much of what he does is sly – he says what he thinks he’s meant to instead of being honest (part of his mental illness, I don’t hold it against him, but I don’t always know when to trust him). And in the chaos and confusion of his kids circling around, and my sister in law planning his next visit, and the potential cat fight….amongst all the noise and craziness….I’m now reflecting on it and thinking I might have forgiven him without realising it.

And….Exhale…….

It’s been a while. I created this blog as a place to dump my toxic thoughts, my pain, my fears – all the negative things I wanted to get rid of. And as a place to think aloud without annoying other people with my self indulgence.

And, although life still has awkward moments and frustrations I could live without, I’m in a better place. I’m at peace with the place my life is at.

Here’s where I sound like a pesimist….I need to add “for now” onto the end of that paragraph. Life isn’t constant. Life isn’t stagnant. Life is evolving and changing and temporary phase after phase. That’s why it’s important to recognise when you’re happy – or at least not unhappy – and enjoy it. Exhale, but not let my guard down entirely.

One of my favourite scenes from a movie raises the thought that happiness is always retrospective – we don’t recognise we’re happy in the moment we’re in it. Certainly time bluntens the sharper points – the ones that give us papercuts rather than deep wounds. Maybe heightens the emotions. But it would be sad to not recognise when we are happy. The only thing that we need to acknowledge at the same time is that we need to accept that it will change.

The universe doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle. But it does stop throwing bad things at you every now and then too.  Most important thing is to pay attention.

Pick Me Ups

So, feeling blue (as per the last post), I’ve racked my brains for some options to pick myself up a bit. They need to be low cost….to the point of being no cost…no calories and minimal time required to have an effect. In two hours of thinking, I came up with nothing that matched the criteria.

I’ve found some blogs that helped stop the slide, but that’s not the same as pulling myself up. I found some joke sites, but really couldn’t face them. I tried cuddling the cat, but she really didn’t want a bar of it tonight. Then I ran out of ideas beyond chocolate (hardly calorie free, is it?).

Exercise is out due to injuries, it’s mid winter (which is probably part of my mood too – shortest day of the year next week), my bath floods the floor when it drains and a shower isn’t the same. Hibernation is hardly a feel good activity but I’m running out of other options.

I have feelings – does that make me a bad person?

Things in my workplace are quite unstable at the moment, and although my job is safe, the jobs of several of my friends are going and they’re scrambling to apply for new positions or facing redundancy.

This is hard to watch, and hard not to feel guilty about. But, unlike many areas of the company, my work does go on and I do have to act as though it’s business as usual. There are some minor problems that have come to a head lately, and although the timing is less than perfect to try to resolve them now, so be it. They are also problems that could have been dealt with before the current issues arose, but my boss procrastinates.

One such issue was pushed to a head by me today, and didn’t get resolved in the way I was wanting, so I’ve ended up feeling cranky and out of sorts. Which then leads to feeling guilty, because I’m upset about something when there are bigger problems around. So I start beating myself up, which leads to more crankiness and emotions and so it goes.

I don’t understand why it’s not ok to feel emotional about something – why it comes served up with a big pile of guilt on the side. I don’t get emotional about everything, I’ve dealt with bigger issues (with worse outcomes) with less emotions, but something about this has pushed my buttons and I’m not just upset with today, I’m now upset that I’m upset too.

I think we all have buttons, that some people find how to push and others don’t. I’m not sure whether my boss knows he pushed my buttons, but I dare say he doesn’t care. So why do I? And, more importantly, how do I stop??

Pain is not the same as suffering

I can’t remember if I’ve blogged on this before or not, but one of the key points made in a book on buddhism that really struck a chord with me is that pain is not the same as suffering. We all feel pain, but we can choose whether or not we suffer with it. Or at least, we can learn how to make this choice.

I had an offer on my flat today, which I’ve accepted. I can only hope that everything goes to plan from here – that they don’t change their mind during the cooling off period, or fail to get finance, or have the deal fall through for whatever reason.

So I rang and spoke to my mother (my father, as usual, being at the bowls club). I told her of the situation, and how I couldn’t get my hopes up yet, and had even been told not to celebrate until it’s cooled off, as they fall through all too often.

Then….as it always seems to do so, the conversation turned to my brother. My brother, who the family spins around, walks on eggshells around, works hard not to upset despite the pain he causes for fear he won’t cope. Diagnosed with bipolar at the age of 18, his current belief seems to be that the world owes him compensation for it.

He and I haven’t spoken since October. Since the day I returned from holidays in Vietnam to my house, which he’d house sat, and realised I had to clean it from top to bottom. The day I realised he’d drunk all the alcohol in the fridge (and half the vodka from the freezer), dyed my sheets blue by accident, left scrape marks along the wall, and sausage meat on the floor. That day, when he said how much he appreciated the use of my place and would replace what was used or damaged, and he’d be in touch.

I sent 2 emails to him about things he’d left behind at my place without any reply. He moved house and didn’t pass on his new address or phone number. I learnt second hand that he had a new girlfriend he was bringing out from the US to join him for christmas, but just assumed she’d be welcomed (despite the fact he’s decided that we’re not to be nice to his ex-wife, and seems to think that it’s his call who we speak to or spend time with).

Anyway, my mother said she’d put to him that since it was my birthday, he might like to use this as a chance to get in touch. He’s pretty much told her that he has no intentions of breaking the ice, and won’t bother getting in touch.

Obviously it hurts, and it’s hard not to get angry with him twisting the facts so that he becomes a victim. And there’s a part of me that wants to tell him how angry I am with him – how much he hurts my parents with his actions, how he hurts his kids, how I’m so upset that he decided it was ok to destroy *my* family, and tell me who I can and cannot have relationships with. That he doesn’t see how much everyone does for him, so doesn’t have the decency to even say ‘thank you’ and mean it.

But it hurts that the relationship I have with my only brother is so fragile that it can break just like that. Especially when I’ve been there supporting him through some horrible times (calling out the psych crisis team to my house when he’s in a severe depression was about as low as it got). My mother points out that he has a habit of punishing the people who have helped him during those low times – that he forms scars in strange spots where there really wasn’t a wound to begin with. She tells me that she understands what I’ve done, and that his reaction may not have been to any of my actions.

But it hurts. And it’s hard not to spend time stewing on it – to not waste time running through the conversation that I want to have with him, telling him how angry I am. My father is right, he won’t cope – it’s not like he will run and hide, he will become volatile and angry in response and do even more damage. Like a rabid dog, no matter how kind you are, in the end the paranoia will get the better of them and they will bite the hand that feeds them.

Knowing and understanding this doesn’t make it any easier to let go of. I don’t know if there is any chance of reconciliation in future. I do know that, sad but true, my life is simpler without him around (however, don’t think that I wish him ill as part of this revelation). I said it aloud to my mother tonight, who showed some understanding of what I meant. I’m not walking on eggshells, just trying to make sure that my parents do know that the time it hurts most is when I see them putting him first – not just ahead of me, but ahead of each other. And so sometimes, I have to remind them that I don’t want to spend time talking about him or analysing his actions, sometimes I’d like to talk about me, or them instead.

And maybe then, in my own mind, as he plays a less and less prominent role in my life….maybe then, I can let go entirely and stop being hurt by it all.

How to Walk in High Heels

It’s something I’ve never learnt how to do – walk in high heels. And since I had knee surgery (bilateral), I’m even more terrified of falling than I ever was. I walk like I’m drunk when I’m wearing heels – I totter, I grab hold of things, I can’t walk in a straight line. I’ve played cinderella (losing my shoe mid street).

It’s one of the many things that I figured I’d learn how to do when I grew up. And here I am, less than two weeks til I turn 40, and I’m still telling myself that I’ll figure it out when I grow up.

I never thought I’d be who I am today – I thought I’d be married with a tribe of kids, and a wonderful husband, big house, white picket fence, part time job rather than a career.

Instead, who am I….a frumpy spinster (still contemplating the cat that goes with it), who lives in a tiny flat, never married, never even managed a serious relationship, no idea how to ‘send out the signals’ or read body language. Still not organised, or super tidy. No real idea on how to cook, although I get by.

Childless.

I still grieve for that. I wanted children, and here I am, middle aged and the chance has pretty much passed me by. I don’t want to do it on my own, so I won’t do it at all, it seems. I’ve cried a lot of tears over this. Still can cry more if I dwell on it too much.

Most frustrating is that it doesn’t seem like it was a choice – is an absence of opportunity the same as a choice not to do something? I kept waiting for the chance, and it never really presented itself.

I knew I could live without the white wedding, or gold band, or big day. But to not have children…..it really does mean that there won’t be anyone to visit me in the nursing home when I’m really old.

I wonder if these meditation classes are a sign of my acknowledging my mortality too. I’m suddenly seeking spirituality – wanting to know why, wanting to understand what comes next. Trying to figure out why I still try to be a good person.

I’m allowing my birthday as a day to sit and mellow – I don’t know if I’ll grieve, or if I’ll want to celebrate, or just reflect. It gives me a day just for me. Maybe I’ll just pull the doona over my head and pretend it’s not happening. Just for a day I’ll be allowed, I’m sure.

Clear Space, Clear Mind

I decided to address the issue of my last post – the insane amount of clothes crammed into my wardrobe. I’m only half way through – I’ve sorted the keepers from the ‘must try this on and if not ok, will sell or donate’. There must be 50 pairs of pants – work pants, cargos, jeans, trackie dacks. Totally crazy.

I have some things already listed on ebay. Not even the tip of the iceberg. I’d like to have time to put together all the info for the hundreds of things I have and then upload them bit by bit, but time (and ongoing interest) will probably get in the way. Still, will keep working on it, chipping away at the piles of crap I seem to have accumulated.

Next project will be my crazy shoe collection.

The sad thing is that I can still look at my cupboard and think that I have nothing to wear. I have to learn that the issue is in my head, not my wardrobe.

I had an offer on my house on Monday, it was nearly $20k less than I was asking for it. I turned it down. It sent me into a tailspin on the day though – firstly the notion that I’m being greedy by looking for more (all my life, it’s been deemed a bad thing to want more….but is it greedy to want someone else to see value?). And then the ‘what if there isn’t any other offer?’ doubts that crept in. Captain Paranoia really got going on me. I don’t know that I’ve done the right thing by saying no, but I don’t think I’ve done the wrong thing.

The strangest part came when telling my father – who thought the offer good and that I should have said yes. For the first time, I’m not sure that he really has that much more life experience than me (in these things, anyway!). That came as a bit of a shock.

I look at it this way – yes, I will start to struggle financially, and sooner than I want. BUT, while I’m losing money on it at the moment, I do get a tax break (and should expect a nice tax return), whereas if I settle and sell for less than I want, I’ll never regain that money.

And the third whammy I got was the guilt – I ran figures, and realised there wasn’t a lot of difference to the agent commission between what I want (an extra $8000) and what the offer was. I need to stop feeling guilty that I’m taking their time, or that they were disappointed in my response. They are MY agent, and my support. But I would have liked to have heard from them after the open inspection yesterday, and now don’t know if I should call for an update or just leave it be. It’s all so far out of my known world and comfort zone, that I just end up going around and around in circles.

So, best option is to try not to think about it, right? To distract myself. Maybe by cleaning out my cupboards???