Grief and sadness

 Do you ever wonder how someone really feels about you? Do you ever find yourself thinking someone's behavior is a little strange, and put some judgment around that?

We can play ducks and drakes with someone for years, barely giving them a hint that we like them, or care about them or would miss them if they vanished.

I wonder why that is. We all have our reasons, but I am guessing it is often about not wanting to be embarrassed, or rejected, or scorned.

Maybe there's good evidence to the fact that they actually like you, but do they like you enough to do only something, but not enough to do something else. 

You are caught in the cross hairs. What does it all mean??

A dominant man, as in a really dominant man, dominant down to his bones, has, as far as I can tell, an agenda. It might be naughty, it might be nice; it might be to help, it might be to please themselves. 

The thing is they don't share their agendas really, so you don't really know what's behind the facade.

You know, you have all the terminology. 'Good girl' What does that even mean? That you pleased them? That you are going along with the unsaid plan? That you don't raise objections?

It can get even more obtuse. 'Be your best self'. 'Operate for your highest good'.

I looked that one up, the last one, and nobody can define that one, because it means something specific to each person, if they have thought about it at all.

I'm not criticizing exactly, but these unsaid plans seem to be based around change, maybe transformation. On one level, it's all good, but what if the limitations of the humble man are also those of the dominant? Just maybe he doesn't have the power to alter the Universe's plan. Maybe, there isn't a win: win in this scenario.

I like it right here in the present moment, one simple breath at a time: expecting nothing. There's nothing to hope for, to wish for, to adjust and adapt. It's just what is. It's me as the observer, simply noticing.

There's all this striving you can do in the hope of wonderful outcomes, or there's no striving in particular, apart from what one really must do. You decide.

As I wrote that last line I realized, 'ah yes, that's the submissive's sweet spot.' Just sit right here and let it all play out. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

David, my dear blog friend David, who passed on some years ago, once said to me about submission, 'you give everything up and you see what you get back'.

I'd be happy with that deal except that there are times as a submissive when it hurts too much. I mean it hurts too much when the connection is lost or supposedly requires severing for a time.

There's been a lot of severing over time. I never knew there could be quite so much of it.

I heard an explanation of grief recently. It never goes away they said but if your life is a big circle and the grief starts off as nearly as big a circle as your life, over time the circle will become smaller. It will find its place in your life and in that way, whilst you will always have the grief, it will be more comfortable, and you'll manage better.

I think I prefer this idea. You hear a knock at your door. You answer it. 

'Ah grief, you're back, old friend. Please do come in and sit with me for a while. Turns out it is one of those days for you to visit.'

In a while, you will walk grief to the door and thank her for coming, knowing that she will return another day.

'Thank you for coming, grief. I know you need to do this, and I won't shun you no matter how many times you need to visit. Take care. Goodbye for now.'

A sad day rolls over me. I accept it. This is the way it is for we humans. 

'

Sadness

 I listened this morning to a podcast about resentment. It was no surprise to me that I do some things right. When people hurt me, and you have to be pretty darn close to me to do that, there really is no sense of resentment. I tend to see the overarching big picture. I tend to think not only of all the elements that went into them becoming who they are, and the issues around that, but also several generations before them. Maybe it is all the reading I have done, but I feel previous generations surround me and am aware they influence us all. 

In any case, people make mistakes, missteps. We all do. We're just people, in some ways more stupid than the four legged creatures. Expecting perfection is just madness.

I, on the other hand, do get sad. I have been sad lately. I think when you come to really know just how difficult it is for people to let go of compulsions and addictions, it can make you sad. Shuggie Bain made me oh so sad. I don't think you can read that novel and not feel sad. I am so grateful for a book club that pushes me through novels that might otherwise not be finished. 

I have to admit that the sadness came too from a sense of understanding the pain of those characters. I have never experienced that sort of poverty described but I am betting my forebears have. I too have seen that sort of desperation up close. I grew up on the top of a working man's pub and I saw very sad and desperate people every day.

My parents bought an outdoor play set one day. I don't know if it was for my brother and I, or for the children of the patrons of the hotel who had access to it. Either way, one day a mother who was off to drink in the women's lounge (they weren't allowed by law to drink in the main bar) brought her children out to the playset. I must have been a little older than the children and she told me that if they misbehaved I should smack them.  WTF?! 

Shuggie Bain was set in Scotland in the 1980s mostly and my story is from the 1960s. Yet, it's the same sort of story; a family in distress; neglected children. Addiction. It was tough to watch it, to be around it.

I've never been sure if I was born an introvert (my eldest son says that I am only an introvert when I want to be, since I do fine in social situations) or if my circumstances made me an introvert. I just longed all my childhood for privacy and for a normal home life; a house, a shared meal.

In the podcast this morning, the question came up, 'What's your emotion of choice?' Sadness? Anger? For me, it would be sadness. Happily, whilst I can have a day where sadness can envelop me, I can't stay there too long. There's a sense of claustrophobia about sadness and one has to get up and leave it behind. Almost like, 'look, thanks for dropping by, again, but I have things to do and places to go...'

I think I can admit this here. I am really never bored. I have this incredibly rich inner life that keeps me quite entertained. Should that become too much, I retreat to that golden silence when I close my eyes and discover all over again, that stillness and silence is where the magic lives.

Going to quiet (or underground?)

There have been some decisions made in my family of origin that they didn't think twice about, in terms of the effect on me, or how I might feel about those matters. When I think about it sitting here at my lap top, why would they? It is completely normal for them, my mother and my brother, to go about making decisions without in any way consulting me, even when the actions they are taking might well have an impact on me.

It's so normal for them to do this, to treat me in a particular way, that even I was flummoxed when a panic attack, or some sort of extreme bodily reaction on the way home in the car occurred, returning home from visiting my mother. To put myself back there, it felt like every cell in my body was in overdrive. It was extreme agitation, brought on perhaps by the other fact about my relationship with my mother and my brother, that I have never spoken my mind. Whatever they do, whatever they say, I just agree. In fact, I think there has been a lifetime of even thinking I agreed.

It seems so late in the day for denial to lift, to be angry about the relationships, and yet the simple fact is that I am angry, and disappointed.  Sad. There's even a 'why me?' aspect to my feelings. Why couldn't I have a normal family?

I say this a bit tongue in cheek since there are so few of us in this category. But, there's also a serious component. It would be so lovely to arrive at my mother's house having not seen her for over a month, having been overseas, for her to smile and come towards me with open arms and ready to hug. 'Hello, darling, how lovely to see you.' It doesn't go this way. It never goes this way. Perhaps she will accept a peck on the cheek, but if you don't do that, and she doesn't really want it, there's nothing physical about the greeting, and I think that's odd.

Of course, this is the 'isness' of the situation. My complaining won't fix it. Nothing will fix it, but in the past few weeks this 'triggering', this reaction both physical and emotional, has me trying to understand my own reactions. Was I living in denial, or making the best of a bad lot, or have I been mothered by someone quite miserly in her affections and I just didn't want to face that fact?

It's a funny thing because my mother encouraged me to go to university after school, but she didn't come to my graduation, and a few years ago when she did come to the graduation of my Masters it was all about her; how long the ceremony went for and how tired she was. In fact, a photo my son took at the lunch right after the ceremony shows she looked very well that day, but there was no 'congratulations, darling' from her, and even though she is loaded I paid for the celebratory lunch with her and whatever children could make it.

I cannot ignore my filial responsibilities to my mother, and I do have to hold my brother to account for the financial situation that has accrued owing to his further demands on my mother, but my instincts are to honor myself at this time, and to go to quiet, in an effort to provide myself self care.

I want to believe that I can recapture some warm feelings towards my family of origin and yet I doubt that's actually going to happen. When the flood gates finally opened, they came off their hinges and may not be able to be repaired.

I was without boundaries. I was tossed and turned and I never insisted that they stop. Finally, I spoke up for myself with my brother but he's used to getting what he wants. I should fight for my rights but I so want to walk to away and be done with it. Honestly, I wish I could have stayed in denial.