The Number Seven

Want to know what I've figured out? It doesn't help to complain. This is actually the second time J has left me. The first time was fifteen years ago. He was gone for 6 months, and then he came home. That first time I was devastated, and the only way I could figure out how to get through the day was to talk about it to anyone and everyone who would listen. It was an addiction. I would spend hours on the phone or hold whispered and constantly interrupted conferences with my friend in the kitchen where we both waited tables. Between picking up orders I would dish out the latest outrage--and she would eat it up. If I was deprived of a confidant, I was merely treading water, waiting for the next time I could rehash the whole story. And it didn't help at all. Not one bit.


I think complaining can help if we don't realize what we're angry about. It can help us figure it out through vocalizing--but then shut up and move on--or do something about it. I think complaining might help if we complain respectfully to the person who can do something about it--and then ask for change--as long as we recognize that it's out of our hands now, and move on.

This time I'm much more careful about what I share and who I share it with. I'm much more protective of my time, my heart, the history of my marriage. Complaining helped me feel righteous, even when I wasn't right. Complaining stopped me from confronting my own problems.

Here is a blog post I stumbled upon: Count Backwards. This actually describes my method for fighting insomnia. I thought I invented it--sevens and all. I never thought of using sevens to fight my complaint addiction. What is it about the number seven?

Dancing with Anger

I'm reading a book my therapist recommended when I told her that one of the biggest disconnects in my marriage with J was our differing experiences of familial anger. I grew up in a chaotic household where anger seeped out of the holes punched in the cheap drywall and hung around our heads like the clouds of cigarette smoke we breathed in with it. Too dramatic? The writing, maybe, but trust me; it is a faithful rendering. In childhood, I never questioned the reasons for the anger, and I'm just now figuring them out. My father's anger was more apparent, because of the drama. The holes in the wall were mostly his. We had a constant parade of cheap coffee tables in the living room, not because of any kind of decorating disorder, but because the new one we just got would be new for a short time before my father put his fist through it. When we were small, we'd pick dandelions from the yard for my mother, and stuff them into these spherical candle holders made of glass. Glass candle holders? I know, but these were solid, like pool balls or giant marbles. You could throw them across the room, and they would never even chip. Anyway, I can see them, clear with aqua blue swirls inside the glass, our dandelions stuffed into the hole for the candle. The flowers would immediately begin to close and turn brownly limp, and we'd set these on the press-board coffee table next to the new fist-crater. I remember being annoyed that I couldn't put the flowers in the center anymore.

My mother's anger was less dramatic--just a silence colored with dissatisfaction at all the broken promises she thought someone had made to her about what her life would be like. She held anger in her teeth.

J, on the other hand, grew up in a house where anger was taboo. He told me once, he never saw his parents yell at each other--only kiss. Having come to know his family, I can believe it. They are nice people, and so are my people, but none of them has the first idea about anger.

But back to the book. It is The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Goldhor Lerner, PhD. I've just started it, but already gleaned some nuggets of wisdom to help focus my sifting through my childhood for guidance. J and I each thought the way we had learned to deal with anger was normal. I think I even remember summing up my philosophy in discussions with J: "It's better to let your anger out, or it will fester inside and cause problems." But good old Harriet calls me out on this count. On page 4 she says, "There is, however, another side of the coin: If feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, or even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our powers to clarify and change our own selves."

I grew up thinking that as long as I was right (and from my perspective, was I ever wrong?) my anger was righteous. I didn't get angry often, but when I did, it was explosive, even in public. This was, of course, terrifying for J. Just as his passive-aggressive silences were terrifying for me.

I'm grateful, I guess, to be figuring this all out now, but also so very sad that I didn't learn it in time to save my marriage. I just have to plow forward in faith that it will somehow help me or my family or somebody now.

Slip Sliding Away--Please Don't Feed the Mice

I thought I was doing well. Most of the time my life is very satisfying, and most of the time I'm aware of that and feeling lucky in that fact and that awareness. Then, yesterday my lawyer's assistant called. She had some questions about details, and said that my lawyer will send me an email soon about the next steps.

I know I have been pretending. Since our last meeting when I turned in my second round of paperwork, the divorce has been living in comfortable vagueness somewhere over my head. I sort of knew it was up there, hiding in a cloud that would someday explode in a torrential downpour, but whenever I checked, the sky was clear, or the clouds were only of the fluffy variety. "Not today," I could say, and go along with my business. After all, the ball was in her court. Even J urged me not to call her, when he was asking me for a progress report a few weeks ago. "She'll just charge you more if you call her," he said "Just wait until she calls you." So I was off the hook for a while longer. But she has lobbed the ball back to my court. It's a high, slow lob, and now we are playing doubles. I'm just not sure about the teams. Sometimes it seems like it's me and my lawyer against J and his. Sometimes it's seems like it's J and me against the lawyers.

Anyway, with that call I've regressed. Not just back to sadness and insomnia. Also my house has collapsed into disorganization, and I'm having trouble concentrating. I got dinner together by 8:30. I decided on the simplest thing--pouring canned tomato sauce over stuffed shells and stuffing them in the microwave--and it still took me an hour and a half to do it. I'm not even sure what I did with my time when I wasn't opening the jar, pouring, ripping open the plastic bag, putting it in the recycling, pulling the bag out again to check the cooking time, and pushing buttons. I didn't even make a vegetable. Not a salad. Not frozen peas.

My 14 year old, E, didn't mind eating late, or eating only one thing. He was just chatting with girls on facebook. Afterwards I didn't clean up. Barely put the food away. This is a bad idea. It's best not to feed the mice. They come in with cold weather, and the cat just caught one yesterday, so I know they're seeking warmth. I watched myself piling the dishes in the sink. Warned myself that I was feeding the mice. Scolded myself as I opened a can of cat food and sat on the floor so I could pet the cat while she ate. Then I just went looking for comfort: hot shower, trashy book, bed. It was only about 9:15.

This morning the kitchen is still a mess. I find that I left the cat food out on the counter. The mice have had a feast. I have work to do--including a meeting that is going to be so useless that it inspires hatred at the person who thinks it is nothing for me to drive to town for a fifteen minute useless meeting once a week--normally I work from home on Thursdays, saving a quarter tank of gas and an hour's drive. But back to the messy kitchen. E informed me this morning that the girl he was chatting with last night wants to come over today. I could tell him no, he can't have her come, but she is coming to take away his old Nintendo and possibly a kitten, so I want her to come. Plus I want to meet her. It almost kind of feels good to know I will blow off work and try to clean the kitchen before my stupid meeting.

I try to trace my way back out of this fog. It does feel like a fog. I can't find my focus or my direction. I once drove home in the thickest fog I've ever seen before or since. Most of the time I couldn't tell where I was. I was driving about 15 miles an hour through the country. It took me an hour to get from my friend's house. I was driving by feel, and keeping my eyes on the only thing I could see--the edge of the road. That afternoon on another road a woman was killed in that fog when a stupid truck driver tried to pass someone who was trying to make it home alive. His truck hit this woman's car head on. I was lucky to make it home that day. Now, I try to trace my way out of my emotional fog. My body is not obeying my mind. I spent 45 minutes this morning telling myself to get out of bed. The alarm went of every five minutes nine times before I obeyed myself. I can't even write a paragraph that isn't a mess. See? Focus! Anyway, the point is: I can trace that fog back past the phone call, but then I'd have to trace back to the problems in the marriage, and then to the problems from my childhood. It feels so overwhelming. At this point. Doing the dishes and creating order in the kitchen feels like a good plan, even if I have to work late into the night to make up for it. Maybe cleaning the dishes will help the fog lift.

Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold

A while ago I passed the stage of feeling steeped in sadness. Friends ask how I feel about this arrangement of J being more present in my home, but not being my husband. I hear myself telling them, "I feel like I'm made of wood. I don't really care. It's fine." And it really does feel "fine" for him to be here. He comes on the weekend for visitation and stays over in the spare bedroom. I'm enjoying his brief company much more than I did at the end of our marriage. He seems comfortable enough. We talk a little. The things he does around here are helpful. For now, he is not the source of my stress.

On the other hand I do feel stressed. I know I am juggling too much. Too much work, too many little part-time jobs, too many projects, too many things breaking down in my life. This morning I am opting out of a monthly commitment, because all last week, every time I thought about what I was supposed to do Saturday morning, I felt stressed. I have yet to tell the folks I made the commitment to, but I think they will understand. I hope I can make it next month. I decided to spend a little time this morning thinking about what I need to let go, or put on hold in order to get back to my center.

.....actually, this morning I can't think beyond the disorder of my house. It has dissolved into chaos--another issue from my childhood--dishes forgotten and strewn around, clothes on the floor in my bedroom, a tangle of yarn making a spiderweb between chairs in the living room where the kitten found my knitting several days ago. I think I need to spend the morning listening to the radio, doing dishes. Maybe by creating a clean, clear center in my home, I can create one in my mind.

• First, create a clear center.
• Then, think.

• Is disorder adding to your stress? Can you create a tiny center of order right now, that may expand like ripples on a clear pond? I'm going to go try it this morning.

Strange Peace

J has been gone for more than a year, and I still don't understand why. But I am beginning to feel at peace about it, and to realize just how much my parents' divorce damaged my spirit and of course that had to have something to do with his leaving. J and I have reached an easy tranquility with each other. It's a very strange relationship. He comes on weekends to visit with the kids and work on the house. It is part of his child support arrangement--my idea. He needed money; I needed repairs. Anyway, he visits and works on the house, then often cooks dinner for us. He began spending the night in the spare bedroom (after I finally learned to stop inviting him.) Yesterday we were alone in the kitchen and I found myself saying, in a breathless rush: "I'm beginning to realize how much my dad's philandering affected our marriage, and I'm sorry." He seemed slightly uncomfortable, and said, "Well, and my childhood affected me, too." And I said, "I guess we all have our stuff," and he agreed.

It seems important, somehow, to not only figure all this stuff out for myself, but air it out. I think that's why I want to detail it here, and maybe even share it with J. But I get so exhausted, so I dribble it out in bits. It's not yet 7:30, but I'm ready for bed. More soon, I hope.