In the eye of the storm

I stand on the horizon of my life -- my arms wide open -- I am ready for the change because I know that I will be stronger when the storm settles.

fast - day two

I'm sitting on the couch, surrounded by cats, tears flowing down my face. I just finished Mitch Albom's "for one more day." He's books seem to come when I need them most. I read "Tuesdays with Morrie" after my university mentor, Hank Trewhitt, had died. I read his "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" when I flew to Oregon for my grandfather's funeral. And now more than a year after my mother's death, I find "one more day" sitting on the table Sunday at my favorite bookstore in Holland.

I picked it up this afternoon and read straight through until just now 11 p.m. It's a story of a man who needed "one more day" with his mother to tell her how much he loved her, how sorry he was and to forgive himself.

Feeling rather "low" currently. Actually, down right depressed - so much that I didn't even notice being hungry today and consumed less liquads than the day before and my neck hurts so badly I can barely breathe from the tension and stress I'm hording in it. All of that combined -
the line that resonated most with me was on page 73 when his mother says "So," she said, moving away, "now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted."

I don't know when I'm supposed to get over my mother. I've tried reading self-help books, I've tried writing essays, I've tried therapy but nothing seems to fill that emptiness left by her absence in the world.

We didn't have a good relationship. And although I know she loved me, I also know that I suffered for that love. My childhood was a monument to that suffering - her's and mine. The abuse was bloody, leaving marks both physical and emotional, many which I still bear.

But I have to say some of that emptiness is my own unwillingness to forgive myself like "Chick" in the book for what I did to my mother - for all the years I refused to talk to her, for all the times I wished her dead.

I know there is nothing I can do or say to change that but if I had one more day - one day with her being sober and coherant I'd like to have a conversation with her.

The fast - day one

The fast started easy - a little hunger but not too bad.
The hunger helped me focus, an important aspect of the seven days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on how I don't want to be reactive; I don't want to judge in the next year.
And more personally: I don't want to be a slave to what people think of me.
Changing your life and how you view it is hard. Deciding who you want to be, how you want to see yourself is even harder.
But it can be done.
Part of that on Monday was returning to Curves. I've been exercising regularly for about six months partly for my own sanity and partly to prepare me for possible deployment to Iraq or elsewhere. But in the last couple weeks with the stress of work mounting I've been slacking off finding it difficult to fit it in between interviews and council/committee meetings. I know that to be truly committed I have to make it a permanent part of my schedule - not just fit it in. So, I will start getting up early and going before work at 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. So, I don't have to stress during the day when my schedule doesn't allow time for the miracle 30 minute workout.
The hunger has also highlighted how hungry I've been for intellectual simulation. It's so easy when you come home exhausted - your brain a scramble - to sit in front of the television and be a vegetable.
I finished China Mieville's Iron Council last night and it felt good. (I prefered his earlier books - Perdido Street Station and Scar to this his latest effort - just incase you care)
I promised myself to tackle the ever growing tower of books on my nightstand. Some are fiction; some are books for work like Mathematics for Journalists or Statistics for Dummies. But all are necessary if I want to continue to grow, learn and understand the world around me.
For now the fast seems to be doing what it was intended to do - helping me clarify who I want to be in the next year and remember that not all people work from a place of light and peace.
Most important I'm not responsible for their actions. I'm only responsible for my own.
Peace.