Journaling to Get Answers When You Wake

I am transitioning from a 32 year career as a therapist to retirement. A lot of factors have caused me to decide to retire now. Some are tediously financial. I just can't review them one more time except to say that it works. More pertinent factors, though, are emotional and psychological and social and collegial or not. Interestingly, my clients do not much figure into the equation, nor does my love for my work.

I find that my decision to retire now has a lot to do with the larger themes of work I have done in my life--the core issues of one's growth and development. In particular, today, my retirement has to do with resolving the issue of others' choosing to do me harm.

I have, from time to time, been the object of obsession for a few people in my life. As a pre-school child, I was incorporated into a vengeance obsession by a man who hated my father. This man intended to kill me, but obviously did not.

Later, I was the object of my teenage cousin's masturbation obsession. I was just an  available entity.  I believe my mom took care of that with the help of an older cousin. I don't think any of this abuse was discussed with my dad and I knew somehow not to do that when he returned later that fall from work. 

Then, in high school, there were 2 guys that would now would be called stalkers. Both were age mates. I beat one of them up, swinging him around by his polo shirt until it was stretched to double its size. When he fell down I kicked him until he crumpled up crying. I remember my words from all these years ago, "Now leave me alone".

The second was easier to scare off. Once I was over the flattery of him appearing here, there and everywhere in the neighborhood, he appeared at my school. even transferring he said from his private school to be near me. I'm not sure the was really the reason for the ransfer. Looking back NIW I tink it was probably a forced transfer because he was so uncontrollable. o my school and saying he'd done so to be near me, I began to be afraid of him. One day he followed me home from school, from a distance, taking the unusual turns I took to see if he were really following me. I asked him what he was doing at one point. I was suddenly afraid of him. He said he wanted to know if my mother would let him live with us because his father threw him out... When I got home, with him along side and circling me, I told mom. She said "stay here" and went out to where he sat on his bike, having sent me in to ask if he could live with us. That was that.

In college, an older and married Iranian man who was also a student, would cruise the parking lot after our German class saying "get in, get in". I had quite a trek across the parking lot to my next class and he would drive around the lot slowly to come back to me as I walked. When I wouldn't get in, he'd open the passenger door, lean over and say crazy things like "I just want to teach you the things a woman should know..." This had happened maybe 3 or 4 times, each time with something similiar being said. He said once, "you know what I like about my wife? She gets up early to make herself beautiful for me". I would say no, thanks and keep walking, but on the day he said he wanted to teach me things, something very righteously vicious boiled up in me. I stopped and went to his car. The passenger door was open as usual. I closed it and leaned into the window. He said "I knew you liked me". I said, "the next time you do this, I will shoot you". He said something to the effect that I wouldn't kill him. I said "you're right, but I will shoot you". He laughed and pulled away fast enough to squeal his tires. That was the end of that. In class after this, he wouldn't look at me, but would busy himself reading.

I told my roommate about this and she said she couldn't be my friend anymore because she was a pacifist. I asked her if he tried to rape me and I defended myself, you would think I'd done something wrong? She said she would--that violence is never ok. I posed some hypothetical situations to her, trying to regain her support and approval in general. I loved her a great deal and was terribly hurt that she thought I should allow someone to hurt me. I felt devalued, less important than an abstract. I remember one hypothetical that I posed to her was what would she do if she had the power to keep someone she loved from being killed in the moment of danger. She said she would let it happen because she could never commit an act of violence. I tried to persuade her that letting another person be killed would be violence itself, but she said no, it wouldn't be. Her conscience would be clean. I understood this all to mean that my life was less valuable to her than her ideals. It hurt me deeply.

I got very depressed after this and had insomnia for months. I went to a priest on campus to discuss it. He was a sort of non-violence expert, a student of Merton and an ethicist/conscientious objection advocate/advisor (this was during the Vietnam draft). He said that he believed that in my hypothetical she would have consented to violence by her lack of intervention--violence by assent. He also said that rejecting me in the first place was an act of violence. I never discussed it with her after that and took some solace in having discussed it with the priest. I began reading Merton and fell in love with his writings. When the semester ended,we changed roommates. She told some other girls that I was crazy and dangerous and that's why she had to change to another room. I went back to discuss this with the priest and he said, "she is continuing her violence" and something else to the effect that I could choose to be a true pacifist and walk away from it because no one would be harmed by me doing so. I do remember him laughing and saying "It was all about being a pacifist, wasn't it?"

There are more examples of being at odds with someone because I thought I was going about my business and doing the right thing. I imagined these people intruding upon my free passage and my feelings of safety and peace of mind. You never know, though, how you are pulling these kinds of experiences to you. Therapists and mentors have suggested that my personal attributes and behaviors have to be examined. What I have looked at mostly--the recurring themes--have been my confrontive nature and saying what I think, along with refusing others' attempts to control me. Those aren't always the same thing. Voicing my opinion is not always confrontive, for example, but some, more men than women, have not liked these things about me. It has off and on been painful to me. I have been told that I expect others to like me and told in a way that makes it seem pathological. I've argued that expecting others not to like me seemed more like pathology to me.

So, back to the decision to retire. I still have the firm belief that others shouldn't bother me and that they shouldn't bother me directly or passively. Also, I still believe that everyone should deal with emotional issues quickly and get them behind us so we can carry on. This last belief is what my husband has said is very endearing to him and one of the things he has liked about me since we were "kids" (20 something, really). He's a fan of not letting emotions make decisions, clearing the air, shaking on it and getting back to square one. This was the explanation he gave me to clear up the cognitive dissonance I felt one day when he proclaimed, "I love you, Marie. You think like a man".

I don't think he meant a battering, narcissistic man. I think he meant the kind of man he is and his brothers are and his uncles, his grandfathers, nephews and friends are. That's a man horse of a different color than I've encountered elsewhere.

So, a strangely colored man horse found me particularly distasteful in my workplace. Finally, he was revealed as who and what he is and that healed emotional issues for others in my office. What I had to do to heal myself was journal--extensively. I also spoke with a psychiatrist or 2. One is my doctor and the other is my friend. The best help I got from both of them was to revisit my tendency to draw out the craziness of others. My doctor said that's why you are so good at your work. You squeeze out the pathology and get down to fixing it. My friend said, "oh, Marie, you know exactly how to deal with guys like this". He wouldn't elaborate. He laughed at me as he is wont to do.

So, I set about journaling. I journaled and I journaled like a non-literary man. I said the facts as I saw them and stripped all emotion from them as best I could. When I woke up the next morning, I heard the words, "You have an opportunity to be merciful". I applied that principle to the most recent troublesome man in my life. When I look at him now he seems broken and fearful. That has relieved my burden to see him more clearly. I don't understand why he hates women, but I have come to see that he does hate them if they are strong and give him no favors. On the other hand, if they are strong and give him favors, he follows them around closely and gets them lunch and other small favors of ingratiation.

I asked my 12 Step sponsor about the concept of mercy and we had a good conversation about it. We decided that many people have the ability to ruin the lives of others and that by choice they can or they cannot. In this situation, I can continue his torment or not. I have a great deal of information that could be very upsetting if I shared it. I choose not to.

I have never chosen to hurt him. I have fantasized about it, but I only acted to stop him from hurting me by confronting and speaking my mind factually. In the end, he hurt himself far worse than he hurt me. Now he flees from his office and has panic attacks in the hallway.

He has figured into my decision to retire, but it is not to get away from him. I'll be happy not to see him anymore, but really, I will be happy to be away from his unhappiness. There is nothing left in him but unhappiness and he drives it around all day and sits in it and talks in it. The joy of being there has been overtaken by the unhappiness that encapsulates my joy. My joy is in session with my clients. We laugh a lot. We dig through pain and then we take our "commercial breaks" and laugh before we dig through more. It is amazing work. I have been so lucky all my career.

I think this man has come to symbolize toxicity, unhappiness, cruelty and all the decisions one has to make to have those and have them every day, all day. This is a step out of my family of origin's dysfunction. I tell people I don't have a family, my parents are dead. They were my only family really. The rest made too many decisions to be toxic, unhappy, and cruel to each other every day. We left them. My parents knew there were choices to make about things like that. I am so glad they did.

So, after all this work of trying to find out what I have symbolized to my tormentors, I journaled myself into finding out what my tormentors symbolize to me: the opportunity to be merciful and to walk away.

photo: Magic Highway, Marie Monroe

A Tangle of Blue Cheese, Peanuts, Sunglasses, Books, Bright Light and Men

Diarists are a strange breed. I've encouraged everyone I've ever met in my therapy practice to become one--those whose stories feel too big for them particularly. For the rare folks whose lives have absolutely shattered them, I've recommended books--at least the title of their books. After that, I'd say to them in deep disclosure and revelation and countless times, "that is perfect for the book".

Some people's titles were so unmarketable that I woouldn't let them stick after they came falling out all pitifully--a limp baby in our laps. I don't expect that they will try to publish and true marketability doesn't matter in the scheme of their lives, but moxy and the courage to make an impact in the world does. Most of these people are women. I thought the least they could do is create one string of words that knocked you over.

I'd say, "I don't know. I don't think I'd reach for that one in the bookstore." On the other hand, for the really moxyfied, I'd clap about their titles and say, "that one will fly off the shelves. there's your retirement fund."

I can't print the absolutely gorgeous ones that finalized themselves into at least a metaphoric reality for dumping stories. I can say that the best working titles I ever proposed have been "Confessions of a Crack Baby" and "A Whore Comes Out of the Closet Naked". As offensive as they seem, they were well-received--in fact, received with joy--and built upon. You have to have just the right relationship, of course, but having this imaginary depository of the absolute truth freed them somehow.

But aren't those titles exquisite? And wouldn't you skim them as you stood in Barnes and Noble looking for diversion or perhaps an adventure of the mind? I would.

There was the best bookstore on earth in Houston in the 80's. It was open 24 hours and had stacks like a library of the rich and famous. I'd go there during a weekend bender at my typewriter, in the middle of the night or later. It was fantastic. I'd drive through the near empty streets toward the neon glow of that well-peopled oasis. The other customers were kind and like-spirited. We smiled and yielded, but really never spoke. Business was on. It was not a place to find a date. The less interesting store, with chairs and couches, was for that. I thought then that any guy who preferred books to booze on a Saturday night might be for me.

I dragged pounds and pounds of books out of the library for the rich and famous and lined them like little soldiers around the baseboards of my nearly empty apartment. I've never much cared that I own books I haven't read. I might read them is always the answer when people have asked me if I have already read them. In fact, reactions to these hoarded items have told me a great deal about people I don't know very well. I liked you more if you smiled and rummaged around. I liked you much less if you were indifferent or critical.

It was a simple screening process.

I was lonely in those days and nights in Houston, sometimes painfully so. I developed a habit of regular massage and hair salon visits to remedy my body's need for touch. I only dated non-physically as I called in in my head. I didn't want to hold hands, kiss or anything else. I would let you hug me when you first saw me and then to say goodbye, but that was that. It worked with a few men who were tired of romantic relationships, too. Some of them are still my friends. One says from time to time when we were dating. That doesn't seem accurate somehow although I know it is. I let it be.

Writing diaries is more of a fictional pursuit than non-diarists think. The guy who says we dated illustrates that for me. Me wondering if that is accurate also does. What is happening now in my diarying is that I am combing for important things that have never been thoroughly discussed. Hence, the title of this post. First: blue cheese and peanuts...

As a child I had some 'electrical involvement' that was notable first to my dad and then, after he pointed it out, to my entire family. When we traveled in his car alone, with me in the front seat, the alternator light came on. If I sat in the backseat, it did not and if I were not in the car at all when he drove, I was told it also did not. This fact alone meant somehow that I was very special. I liked it. I think I was 10 and could not own a working wristwatch either because they all stopped shortly after I put them on. We attributed it to the same odd relationship I seemed to have with electricity. No wristwatch broke my heart, however, it interfered with me playing nurse and taking your pulse. I was chided for that anyway. Why a nurse? Why not a doctor?

What does this all have to do with bleu cheese and peanuts? Plenty. Bear with me as I segue.

The leap we take now is to migraines.

When I had my first migraine it definitely felt electrical. As I tried to explain what was happening to me, I likened it to being "glued" to something that was electrocuting me. I'd felt this a couple of times in my life at very low levels when I touched an old fan and another time, a hair dryer. Migraines felt like this to me. Bleu cheese and peanuts? the doctors told me to stop eating them and my "headaches" would get better. Those were not headaches. Those were torture.

I amended my diet, got some relief and began reading metaphysical books. I also did meditation and deep breathing, got massages and changed my self-talk. Who knows what the essential ingredient was?

However, I know that migraines are electrical.

Sunglasses and bright light? They are part of the cause and effect, too. Bright light debilitates me. Sunglasses help. They haven't revealed themselves to be migraine-related but they are respectively the cause of an overall bodily experience of increased electricity and the solution for it.

Diaries? They alter the electrical experience. The current becomes more tolerable. Nuff said.

Photo: Gold River, Marie Monroe

Moderate

I tend to have big dreams when I make big changes. Preparing to retire, I've begun again to have them.

Last night, or rather this morning very early, I dreamed about preparing to marry John Whitman. In this dream his family home was large and we were in a part of it that was only frequented by the children of the family. all of them in were young adults and some more friendly and favorable toward our elopement than others. John was packing, going through his possessions and loading things into his duffle bag. i was panicked because his mother wanted to kill me and had been stalking around the house with a raised fireplace poker.

I didn't understand why she wanted to kill me, but i certainly understood that she did.

We were expected in the dining room for dinner and i had difficulty getting there. By this time, I felt safer and she probably was less intent on killing me. There was a large crowd of people and some safety in that, i suppose.

I finally made my entrance and was greeted by people from my past who were not associated wtih John

How Do You Write a Love Letter to Your Town?

This one should be relatively easy. It seems like Paris in the rain in early evening with wet brick and thin cross streets. The cobbled alleys are still there with a gutter of bricks in the center in which you can ride your bike and vocalize like sounding into a window fan on a lazy school vacation day.

Around the edges of the iron fences and shrubs are faces so startled by being seen that they peek out and don't dare say anything except we are here and alarmed. My mother would leave them food or water or blankets along the same time of her life when she collected money for her friend with AIDS when AIDS was just named.

A misplanted Paris was perfect for her because she was a pirate and intuitively, i'm sure, could speak French if she needed to. she taught me cursive one Saturday, for example.

I am left as an orphan in this Paris in the rain. I have not forgotten that fact on any day of humid suffering, nor when spirits blow across chimney pots still standing tall as I watch from under the eaves for what comes next to this little girl who has not grown much, despite roaming the world on the inside and out.

People think it strange that i cannot remember the date of my mother's death. I don't because she did not leave on the day they pronounced her gone nor for a great many days and months after. I call her mama when i speak to her now, but she has since left her close orbit, pulled to another responsibility far from here.   i wonder how well she likes it. the last time i saw her in spirit, she was happy. It was during a long afternoon nap when time had doubled in on itself, and i was living in the thin air of suspended routine where real life actually is.

she was swinging keys and smiling to herself about her fine and finished job. that was the end of her playing with the lamps in my room to amuse me and to keep her promise of communicating from the spirit world if it were possible. you will have to not be afraid, she said, or it won't work. I wasn't.

She also came in to rest beside me, commanding my eyes remain closed as i grieved her passing in those early months. one time she was the great mother jaguar in my dream and i learned to gather the council of elders in my mind because they did not live there, but the tunnel to their underworld did.

her soul was the companion of mine for some lifetimes, and lately the most significant soul. we both knew that this life was the crossing over between who cared for the child and who was the child. we blended the roles in our last life together and i remember telling her the stories of my other home and other family and the last time we were born...did she remember then, too? no, she said, i don't remember, i see what happens next.

her mysticism was deep and wide, incensed and fused into gregorian chants. my father suggested novels and she thought poetry--Whitman or Dickinson or yes, cummings if you insist

I married John Whitman once. we read the poetry of billions of stars and became teary once thinking only one volume existed, but then time and space was borrowed and stretched into the meadow of suspended summer, and his one volume now contains all the stars that ever were or ever will be, amen.

I jumped rope to Dickinson. I have never shared that, be gracious. It is tender self-disclosure.

I liked her life and thought it would be fine to live in our house and never come out. She laughed a lot and wrote for no one but her trunk.

I am not quite Emilyan although she preferred upstairs as I do and it is with a great deal of such buffering from the world that I have always lived thanks to my father for that. in other respects, he threw me in before i knew about anything like water.

i have, however, in my play with emily's spirit, concocted parties in which i was present on the stairs. sometimes you cannot go down for danger of ruining the moment.

I feel him closer than she will ever be again now. He lives many orbits in to earth, still grinding away his obligation to the prisoners of this planet like me. We were so very similar, burdened by the need of others. i am letting it go, having finished my work at this level and the next shall be from a similar bungalow of cool shade and archives like his now. He has earned some weatlh and peacefulness though remains encumbered by the spirits of multitudes in his world where wealth is rarification and nothing any less.

He lives in me far more than he ever intended--a detached man of great gregariousness and a tendency to let you make your own way in the world. He'd give a sentence here and there, mostly from behind as I was seated at the ever present desk. why i needed my desk i have never been sure, but it was there where i would, as i do now, sit down upon first awakening to any day. i expect i will die not too very far away, or no discernable distance  at all from an instrument of its and my mind.

i forgive him for who and what he was and wasn't although i maybe would have liked to not bear his mind or the brain which bore it along through this world as I have. there have been a great many things of my time that have been far larger than me and perched so tentatively on the edge of the sea, at night in a blustering wind that I knew nothing about, having never had to manage it. I attribute them to him.

I watched him drive those wild horses as was said over the wild hills I say, so as to steal and twist a most glorious string of words.

I rock myself at the keyboard as if i were creating music and the words pour so effortlessly you only have to speak them though fingers that tap dance during the moon, when all the world is mine, and i am the happiest of all my life, living this one moment that has never broken since i became.

I walked one brisk morning to the trash and deposited there, in the bluster by the sea, whatever had held me close in a strange recklessness and miles into my body's disease...just inches from the dumping ground of a man like the men my father hunted and shot like game.

he called me in the night time and wanted to speak intimately, sexually and called himself my future lover. he knew me and my name. i began to load my weapon and fall asleep watching it in the clock's glow as i would inevitably fall asleep without wanting to. my father was dead but i asked him for guidance and he told me to always carry my weapon, that a killer was inches away and several women were calling out for their names to be known in the sweet seaside town where the Gulf was really my knowing and my emotion. it was, he said from the clock's light, to difficult to handle a shotgun when first awakening.

Photo: My Town, Marie Monroe

Open

Open yourself a geode and munch on that divinity.

Your Fire Needs Me

I ask you politely to drop all this pretense. Your fire needs me.

Create fire or burn in shame.

I ask you politely to drop all tis pretense.

It is Best

It is better to be reserved.

It is best to not speak the words.

It is best to live in fear.

It is best to say what's on your mind.

It is best to think of others.

It is best to be very selfish.

It is best to belabor every point you make.

It is best to say it and move on.

If you paint the living room the wrong color, you can change it.

If you make a mistake, you can say I did.

drawing: marie monroe