Boat's Cargo

[Meh]

Currently starting to read a book called Stumbling on/upon Happiness. It's not self-help it is more a book about how the human mind works and how much people fantasize about their future being pleasant.

Since we are always living in a current time-state even if we think about the past or the future...well what I'm trying to say is I think by connecting with past traumas or rehashing or analyzed that it is an attempt to reconnect in the present with the SELF. Maybe that sounds fractured, the self being a mixture of things like the inner child and the inner adult, the inner valuable spirit, the emotional landscape, the needs and desires.

Part of my outer shell is a person who is playing a part that is agreeing that I must not expect very much out of life. That is never quite compatible with the inner self in my opinion, I think the inner self is so creative and rich and dynamic in ways that we don't always know, a mystery. I like thinking that I have a great mystery in my soul that is more beautiful then what some people can envision. Silly as it sounds, as much as there is a micro-macrocosm where some of the badness of life is part of me and my life I also believe that some of the goodness of life must be part of me as well. I feel like I am part of the greater mystery of life when I look at the beautiful mountains and feel my heart loosen up a bit, somehow I have always felt that my soul is connected with that which is amazing in life...but sometimes I forget and need to remind my self at times. I have an attitude I have been told...maybe a chip on my shoulder or something but if I didn't I would probably just be gum on the bottom of someone's shoe.

[Meh]

Haven't had an intimate relationship with anyone for a long time. This is not something I think about very much, well, maybe I am lying. I guess I do think about it but what I mean is I have shut that down and I don't date, and I don't try, it is truely beyond me. It's the realm of the beyond beyond..only in the Twillight zone could romance of any sort be a possiblity for me.

So when I met someone a few nights ago and felt my heart flutter or some such thing I was surprised and I forgot that that sort of thing even exists in the world--heart flutters.. You know what I mean right? The way life makes one forget..and then it is shocking.
 
There was an email in my in-box sent by an organization that I had signed up to volunteer with so I'm on their mailing list, there was going to be a presentation and it was in a building that I had always wanted to see the interior of and it was only a few blocks away. Most importantly there was going to be some free wood-fired pizza...the pizza part I zeroed in on...I must have that pizza.

[Meh]

Down at the event, some people had pizza, where was it coming from, watching a slide show related to volunteer accomplishments and projects (cool stuff)....but where is the pizza..so I ended up slinking around the back of the building in the dark cold night and there is someone making the pizza so I stood in front of the fire and I talked with him out there just the two of us...and my heart did flutter.
~I don't know why I am writing this. I don't expect anything would come of it, I guess it's just that I do feel like I am missing out big time on all the good things in life that make life worth living like love and romance and being excited about life and looking forward.
~It's not so much that he was extremely attractive or any such thing. It was that for the first time in months I felt really understood by another human being. And then I just stood there are stared at him flattening out pizza dough with his hands because I pretty much have a food fetish.
~Few days after the event I was walking down the sidewalk and out of a blue sky flash rain started falling. I turned back around, retraced my steps towards where I began so I could pick up my umbrella and he came walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. He was going out to his car and as soon as he got to his car he turned right back around and walked back into the building where the event had been held. As quickly as the rain had started the rain went away and I decided to turn around again and continue my original path with out the umbrella.....my mind has a fantastical part that wants to believe...oh things happen for a reason, and there are no accidents, and my mind even wants to entertain.... "meant to be".... But I absolutely KNOW better. Even if I am part of the great mystery of life..nobody ever said that the great mystery is going to be GREAT for everybody.
It was about the third time that I crossed paths with him after the event and at one point a couple of times he was looking at me from across the street but I was in my freaked out zone of "my father is dying" so I broke eye contact quickly. Actually that is something I normally do with everybody I don't maintain a lot of eye contact unless it is a friend. I guess I was suppose to smile and wave or something but I was hauling ass down to a clinic to try to get some therapy.  

Probably that is about as close to romance as I get...looking at someone from across the other side of the street and being chased by some sort of anxiety or other.





SAVE

[Meh]

...When I came out of my "dad is dying" daze then I fantasized about this guy for a few days.

~~~~~~~~

I wonder how much of happiness is related to people's ability to maintain these beliefs...like (meant to be) beliefs and....goodness.

That brings me to a concept of Buddhism that I am working on.

BASIC GOODNESS So I guess I should work on the basic goodness of Thanksgiving and I should volunteer or something.

I'm just weary in my heart and that is part of the not wanting to socialize. It's been a long time since I have had the kind of friend that I can just be with, do nothing and be very happy just being...most socializing requires a bit of an ON switch. Breathe. Or I guess I don't feel totally accepted by people so there is always an element of anxiety. It's thanksgiving, I should be around people but being around people involves some anxiety.. Really just looking forward to a long walk.

Sort of wish I just had some stone carving tools and like a huge piece of some black boulder to carve into who knows what. A big black stone turkey. Maybe a big black stone turkey with some form of cactus quills embedded into the stone. I would have to drill holes into the stone andmaybe make porcelain needles--porcupine turkey.

[Meh]

My point of writing here was to pay attention to some aspect of my self that gets steam rolled over in the chaos of life. So scheduled quiet time. There is a room here where I can go and do yoga and it makes me like 20% nicer then if I don't do yoga. So I guess that points to anxiety = grumpy.

That the fish tanks inside the ship are some kind of internal living world that is somehow an aspect or reflection of the ocean which maybe symbolizes something more spiritual. Who knows. Being in touch with self is always a task for me it is a constant need and it is a continum it is not enough to be connected with it four months ago because that was in the past.

I'm not sure sometimes though. Maybe I just say to my self "sweetheart are you there".

[Meh]

Around 2002 or 2003 was a time in my life when I was having what seemed like a personally profound passion and experience of some sense of spirituality and it may be offensive to some because I can not say that it is specifically Christian or any specific spiritual philosophy. I simply had a greater sense of the world being divine and imbued with spirit of some sort. Also that my connection to my own personal spirit was more tangible feeling then previously experienced in my life except for maybe during early childhood. Maybe it was delusions of spiritual grandiosity or psychosomatic something or other.

Now in this time in my life I am someone trying to knock on that door a little bit. Not so much going to church because I feel filled up with noise after those types of events. More when I try to knock it is in the form of asking to be connected with spirit. Or to sit and be quiet and contemplate on some sort of receptivity to allow spirit to be in my life or trying to hear this "spirit" whatever that is.

I guess there are just times when most humans good or ill intentioned just become like more noise and clutter...and mostly I remember something gentle about the experience of being connected with spirit. I had a sense of wellbeing that was not dependent on my interactions with other humans.

[Meh]

It has been a long time since I have heard my spirit or whatever it is. I don't really remember it telling me what to do so much rather it was more like a gentle voice. I guess I wish I could go back to some previously very internal worlds that I had. Well I mean like for a period of years I was crazy passionate about art and it was a huge world that I inhabited that mostly was very private and maybe like an internal fantasy world. Then the period when I got more into spirituality maybe in the same way was some of that also. I'm reluctant to say it was nothing but a 100% fantasy world but there is an element of escape.

More recently cooking has been an escape for me and I was fattening up all of my "room-mates" until a new room mate came along and whack-a-doodled out too much so I now ended my little cooking episode so I could avoid the common area of the kitchen.

The cooking was an anxiety relief. Not liking the paranoid schizoid roomate because not only does she give me more anxiety but has closed the door to my cooking as an outlet. I simply don't want to be in a room with her for too long and whenever I am in the kitchen she comes in there and twittles around aimlessly.

Sometimes I read book after book every evening. Or sometimes I get a free one week pass to a gym and obsess with that. I need something.

[Meh]

So I am just quietly and softly asking spirit to reconnect a bit with me because it seems as good an outlet as any. It also makes me not feel as alone I suppose. And the truth is when I was into art big-time there were characters in my art that existed that probably served the purpose of bandaging my aloneness.

I miss the safety and refuge of that fantasy world but because I am older I don't think I will ever have that in the same way that I did when I was younger, it was almost an extended childhood imagination event.

Mostly I experienced art as a beautiful space and place I could inhabit although looking back what I painted was pretty revealing into subconscious stuff. And maybe being able to look back on my art was a gift that my younger self gave to the older self.

SAVE

[Meh]

The food fetish thing.

Well in life supposedly we are suppose to adapt and that is what it says on the handouts from my grief and loss support group.

I have had people point out to me that some start their own businesses and such stuff but honestly I just don't think I have it in me to do something like that, it's not that I am lazy it's just that usually people are not truly starting from zero when they start up a business. So I feel guilty or like I am less smart because I haven't come up with a really talented adaptation to my current state. I'm a little thankful for the grief group in that sense because I see other people that didn't come up with amazing award winning adaptation strategies. They are just in the process. So I hope that I can have faith that I am just in some sort of process that I will eventually make progress out of. I HOPE. That something will click at somepoint and tides will turn. Hope.

I mentioned humorously to some co-volunteers that pretty much all I look forward to in life is food. They didn't get the humour and decided that I was depressed because of that comment. Oh well.

I only weigh about 120lbs or something like that I don't have any sort of real eating disorder so I'm not worried. Some of my roommates I think have become suspicious of my eating capacity though.  It's just that I can honestly obsess about food.

I'm on my third carrot cake cupcake with creamcheese frosting no three and a half. I should have cooked dinner but am avoiding the kitchen big time.

So if it is not cooking or eating or reading recipes or reading books about food..or not reading or fantasizing about a person I only spoke with once or art or knitting or what. I've always got to have something. I guess at the moment it is writing this.
Gardening is another. When iI read the list of adapatation strategies from grief pretty much I have been attempting this during my whole life time I have always been one big living adaptation attempt.

[Meh]

I have a hard time with the schizo room-mate. The thing is I don't want to talk to her or really interact at all. Maybe it seems mean of me.

She will go into the kitchen area and boil water and then just dump it out into the sink so she is basically putzing around not really getting her business done and it gets on my nerves. Some how people are also not suppose to confront her because sometimes she flips out. It's rather unfair of the staff in this place to not really give the other residents good guidelines for how to deal with her..it's sort of just leave her alone but she puts people on edge and we all commiserate that we hope she goes to a place specifically for her problems. The other thing is somehow because of her mental illness she is getting away with not following the rules that the rest of us are suppose to abide by which further pisses off.

So this morning even though I prefer not to speak to her at all I basically nicely kicked her out of the kitchen so I could make some freaking Thanksgiving oatmeal for gods sake.... and she did vacate without a scene but it's always stressful not knowing if she is going to flip out or something. She was just in there boiling water....I feel like telling her to just put a freaking cup in the microwave for two minutes and get it over with. The boiling of the water goes on pretty much all day.

It's totally incompatible with my Martha Steward complex. Also since my mother has a personality disorder anybody with a serious personality disorder just bristles me. I intensely have this strong impulse for a very orderly, beautiful, clean, calm, relaxing HOME space. Sort of a control thing.

[Meh]

Probably because I complained about her and also the hand full of blood, I am now not on the good side of the housing director. Oh well, we got a along for a long time but I don't have to agree with the housing director.

The thing is the person who performs security duties here and typically deals with the weird events personally told me that yes the paranoid schizo did stick a knife into the top of a door jam so it could fall down on the next person that walked through the door. So it was already confirmed to me by the security person.
~~I brought this up with the housing director telling her that a lot of the people here are on edge because of her and that one of the people here told me that she started carrying around her own knife because of the schizo person.
~~Basically it adds a little extra acid in my stomach when I wake up first thing in the morning. Sometimes I just have to complain.
So the housing director responded to me dismissively saying that "If I don't know something for a fact it is only GOSSIP"...but the housing director doesn't know that I spoke directly with the security guard. The housing director told me to clean up the blood with a bottle of sanitizer spray. I've seen the PAID cleaning person refill the bottle up with tap water.... So I just told the housing director that it is not my responsibility to clean up other people's body fluids. I don't care how pathetic and lowly and desperate I am suppose to act and always defer. There is a part of me sometimes that can't help but to just freaking say what I think.

[Meh]

(this is all the minutia in my little world) I wish I could expand my world way beyond this. Sort of like a tree that is frantically throwing seeds to the breeze while it's trunk is burning.

So the housing director is basically being dishonest to me but doing it by suggesting that my perceptions are not correct....something that in the past has made me really upset. But I will try not to flip out..or I don't know I get a complete smart ass thing going on I guess.

It's not really a prejudice against people with mental health problems....it is a rational concern about someone who has been at times out of control and using a knife as a weapon against others. THAT IS REASONABLE IN MY WORLD.
But since she has a mental health problem she also gets a guaranteed amount of money from the state or whatever and that is why she is here...because that allows the housing director to pay of her mortgage. Happy Thanksgiving...

So it will be interesting for me to deal with the housing director from now on. I'm just trying to think of the most diplomatic way to elevate myself from the garbage. This is maybe where I have interpersonal issues with people. I am quite adamant in myself that I am RIGHT...and also have a RIGHT to think the way I think and it is sometimes incompatible with just going along with the flow.

I never really allow myself to fantasize about houses, like nice homes because it is sort of out my real right now but maybe I should allow myself that. Like in the book Stubling on Happiness people do envision a future even if it may not come true they still do it.

[Meh]

If I don't like being lyed to or being in the position where we are all seen as dumb sheep to be controlled or something...and if I get pissed off when I am put at risk...Well that doesnt really make me a smart ass or someone who has issues with Authority right?

And what is wrong with having issues with authority anyways...And why at my age am I even saying something like this. To me it seems like throughout life people are beaten into stupidity and submission...and that is the way to get along and be properly socialized. Yes go along with who ever has the power to screw up your life...

I feel that I have to defend my right to think what I think. I'm not violating any sort of rules. And I feel intensly that I should stand up for some sense of personal valuing of myself.

[Meh]

Few nights ago when dogsitting the Nar-Ma's cherished poodle, I watched Joy Luck Club. Think I may have written about it before. It's been a long time since I have seen the movie.

What I am struck by in the movie is the concept of the mother's spirit strength or weakness directly relating to the strength or weakness of the daughter's spirit. Maybe this is not a real concept in Chinese culture I don't know I'm not Chinese. Maybe the idea is made for the theatrical effect. Maybe there is something to it you know? It's not very scientific at all but the way it is presented in the movie it's somehow convincing on a metaphysical level. There is this concept that we are self-responsible and the creators of our own destiny and so forth an idea that is maybe opposite with that of the movie's theme where there is some sort of generational strength or weakness of the spirit that is passed down from mother to daughter.
Makes me wonder if anybody see's the Nar-people in their life as strong spirited. I don't see my Nar-Ma as strong spirited. Even if Nar people some times seem controlling or whatnot I wonder if they are ever seen as strong spirited people.
I guess I'm writing this because in someway I have probably always been trying to acheive strength of the spirit if that is possible probably because I never felt particularly strong in real life. The movie just sticks with me, accurate or not, unscientific and a little supernatural. It just hooks in my mind.

[Meh]

.....continued from other post on board....Actually I shouldn't say that Narcisists never show a desire for a higher quality relationship. My mother did go to a therapist who told her just to try "being nice" to me. And she was for about two weeks back in April/May of this year. I knew better then to get my hopes up though.

It only lasted for about two weeks and now I know what it would feel like IF my mother was nice to me, it's well really nice.

I don't know why a mother would deny that to her daughter you know....it just makes life feel more "right". Rather then everything feeling "all wrong". Not that everything hinges on the mother but it sure must feel good for those people who are lucky enough to have nice mothers.

That is the part where we feel BAD or whatever because of the withholding of love that we experience. I guess we all hold on to stuff. I should probably write about it because I supress it a lot so I don't have to feel it. I suppress my feelings of unworthyness so that they don't show up for me everyday but there is probably a LONG TERM TOLE for supressing them.

It only showed that she knew HOW to be nice....she just couldn't uphold the charade I guess. But it does make me ask if she CAN be nice, if it is possible then why isn't she. I mean I almost make the assumption that she DOESNT KNOW HOW TO be nice.
So 6 months no contact equals two weeks of nice. That is about 4 weeks a year.