Voicefullness Employed - Cents of Self

[Acappella]

I am struggling to find employment and find my self in it.  

My husband, with major N traits, and I just moved to a new city.  

I just discovered this forum and the N/Echo terminology (been living it for ever, just discovered it is not only my ancient history – those Greeks, and I suspect other cultures and earlier centuries, knew all about it.)  I gravitate now to this forum and all the full voices living out loud here.

AND, like we all do, I want to move forward too.  Right now for me moving forward is important in the area of finding work.  My motivation to connect, through work, to the world outside my home is ironically negatively effected by my isolation. I am isolated so i loose steam to become less isolated so i am still isolated and loosing steam.  Circling the drain!      On the other hand, each time I come to the forum and don’t feel so isolated I also loose sight of my job hunt!  

I can relate to what CC said in the “discovering self” post:

“My therapist has mentioned several times that if I if I begin involving myself again more socially that the answers will begin to come to me. But isn't that just a temporary distraction? I am lacking focus?”  

I feel socializing can go many ways (escape, growth, both) depending on how I/we do it.  This topic post is my attempt at merging socializing with mindfulness of issues and a forward focus – focus on finding meaningful authentic work.

I have considered joining a career support group.  I’ve read about ones in which the members meet once or twice a week and stay focused on their job/career search issues.  That sounds great AND some of my job/career search issues are a bit complex, deep for the café venue or for folks who feel less cluttered and not in need of similar support.  Like NPenny says,

"How do you explain to others?".

Arrrg!  As Rob’s “It is always there” post articulates.  I want the “issues”, the pain to end AND I realize where ever I go there I am.  No place is far away enough.  So perhaps getting closer is the only way to get away?  I saw my mom again after 20+ years and saw how STILL I am sharing a map with her although I swore I was on an entirely different path!   When does it end?!  I imagine (on a good day) it is all about feeling it out, feeling out the beginning, the middle, the end and feeling when it all begins again a little bit improved, a bit less intense or consuming next time.  This post topic is my attempt at creating a future that integrates those topics, those pieces of my past that I wish would evaporate  – integrate the past issues with future goals, integrate the voicelessness with a voice, a chorus, integrate survival with thriving. THRIVAL?     Transition. BALANCE!  I want to bring up issues and not be consumed by them.  I don’t want sympathy (well sometimes i  do   ).  Yet, I don't want to be defined or identified by my issues or be the broken "friend" of someone vested in my not mending or the lost soul of a group dependent on my being lost.  As Toni Morrison puts it so brilliantly:  

"Your charity depends on my poverty."

 I want teamwork, exchange, empathy, insight, constructive criticism and very occasionally a bit o babying.  Know what I mean?

As Neko noted:

“So I pushed myself to do what I enjoy”

– it isn’t automatic.  Isn't that a TRUTH!  Ironic.  Isn't being, having fun, having a passion, interests instinctual?  Natural?  Underneath "it" all yes I still believe.  Like restoring the garden in the house we rent...there is some nature under the concrete.  Takes some digging.  

And yet the push can't be an insensitive bully shove.  This post is my attempt to find and give sensitive support, momentum, to notice out loud how is that work quest, plan etc. going?    

I have considered therapy, again.  And, I am feeling like I simply cannot squeeze my emotive moments into a scheduled hour once a week with a stranger.  I feel when I feel and I like that participation is more spontaneously in this forum than in an hour of therapy.  Also, on this forum I hear/read voices filled with emotion instead an impassive other across the room in a chair.  Synchronistic voices....

I have considered joining an emotional support group – co dependents, woman’s group, anger group, adult child of alcoholics etc.  I have gone to groups before and found the experience very healing.  AND I like that this “group” is defined by a goal, emotional survival and a universally human quality, voice (or lack thereof) and not by a diagnosis.  I like that this forum focuses on a quality (or lack thereof), voice, that is itself a manifestation of an integrated self instead of the dissection I feel with the diagnosis defined groups – I am a woman in this group a codependent in another, an adult child of an alcoholic in another – ok for focus and now I am interested in integrating my functions and dysfunctions.  

Furthermore, I do want to focus on my job/career quest. I don’t always want to focus on the deeper issues.  I also need an environment where deeper stuff isn’t taboo either.  Is such balance the stuff of a more real, normal life?  I hope so, am aiming for that anyway.

Anyone out there relating?  

I am thinking that posting the same topic again later (October?) and adding a date such as a month like I did for this one would give the topic a forward direction not just a longer and longer, deeper thread.  Not having posted to on line stuff before though i dont know if that is allowed or would work.  Any thoughts, feelings, insights about this anyone?

Some structured stuff I may post and hope to see from others here in the future: a job history (I was paid to be quite when i was five - known that for a long time and just realized THAT was my first job!   ), a plan/s for the future, situations at work resolved win-win, tooting my horn (let the silenced trumpets blare! ), the shame resume (what I say to myself when I list accomplishements and in so doing diminish them/me) the answer to the shame resume - the horn tooting resume I'll never send (boastful with humble humor), mentors - people who seem to have accomplished the integration of giving and getting at work - avoided burn out etc, the resume of what i imagine i could of been had my childhood been different - put it to rest, mourn and move on.  Books that have helped:  Here is one - What should I do with the rest of my life by Po Broson.

Does this make sense to anyone, sound like something of interest?  

Less structured stuff I struggle with regarding work and may post about here and I’ve heard/read in other’s post in this forum:

Self (at work) Interrupted:
                 …by chaos, now what?
                  Not fighting chaos anymore, now what?
                  Where to start the search?  Taking Breaks? Breaking down.  
                  End, does it ever?
Balance:     Lacking focus. Motivation stalled.  How to keep an eye on the  
                  prize.  What is the prize?  Easily distracted.  
                  Socializing is it avoidance or support?  
                  People pleasing at and thru work.  Win - win instead of win -  
                  lose: how to recognize and create and maintain that?  
                  Pride, tooting my horn?  Does that mean I am acting  
                  Narcissistic?  Am I being humble or a hiding ECHO?

[Alan]

I can relate to the isolation.  Due to my mistakes, I find myself with no friends at this time.  I just haven't reached out to get them back.  But, during this type of crisis (I'm unemployed also) I feel better to isolate so I don't keep dumping on friends and I know how to take care of myself.  

If you will, join the groups, message boards, therapy, or whatever works.  I am a fan of mood altering, anything just short of any kind of substance abuse.  Find a way to love yourself, physically or mentally, anyway that is non-destructive.  This board does that for me, surrounded by like minded people that I can related too. It is working for me now, as it has in the past.  But, I have been down the isolation road before.  And it too shall b

I have my ups and downs, got closer to my family, all non Ns.  That was one of the problems I had in my marriage.  She broke my boundries, I just didn't realize it and became emeshed.  I will get out of it.  And so will you.

[Guest]

Hi.  I'm new to the board, and haven't posted my "introduction" yet, but I saw this thread, and had to respond....I completely relate to many of the concepts addressed in both of your posts - wanting the "issues" to end, wanting the pain to end, intentional and unintentional isolation, socializing for escape and socializing for growth, sometimes wanting pity, losing friends because of my own inner intensity....etc.

I've spent so much of the last fifteen years "dumping" my issues on my friends, that I currently find myself with mostly superficial (albeit helpfully distracting) friendships. For years, I struggled to restrain my intensity, knowing that it was driving people away, yet i was unable to temper myself.  I think this was because I knew in my soul that there was something inherently "wrong" with my life, and I was searching for validation in the outside world - especially from my friends - that there *was* in fact something wrong, and it wasn't the result of a flaw in me....even though deep down I already knew that. The problem with this is that there is little-to-no validation for our problem outside of this board....(Ns and the havoc they wreck on their "vicitims" are not exactly a popular storyline on television or in the movies; no one is ever publically applauded for overcoming the clutches of an N; and quite franly, few people, even those going through the tortures of a relationship with an N, can identify what exactly it is an N does to cause such trauma in those around them...it's not physical absue, often it is not outward verbal abuse, and Ns are very good at creating apprearances that things are just swell.)

I say this, not to be discouraging, but rather to tell you that I was only able to start "letting go" of my own intensity (and this has been a recent development for me) when I realized it wasn't the issues themselves burdening me, but my insatiable need for validation for my "problems." Accepting that I wasn't going to find validation in the places I was searching for it was the only way I was able to *begin* to let go (for I still have not fully let go)

So i will say this to you...I know how how painful a current or past relationship with an N is, and I am so sorry you have to go through that. Your life *has* been altered because of an N, and that really sucks.  It isn't fair that you have been victimized by an N, and it isn't fair that the burden for cleaning up the mess is on you.  But also know that you have not been unalterably changed...you can reclaim your life for yourself, and that's exactly what it is...relaiming your life as your own.

I still have very far to go...I really only recently cut the N mother out of my life, and I'm not sure how strong I will be as the first holiday season since then approaches.....But know that I know how you feel, and it really stinks.  I'm sorry that any one of us has to endure this, but I know that each and every one of us started out with our own lives, and that the N in our life took that away, but we can reclaim it for ourselves!

I know I have a long way to go, and I realize there will be bad days and there will be better days...and someday there will be good days....and whether or not we ever communicate with each other again, I know you will have good days again too!

[Neko]

Accepting that I wasn't going to find validation in the places I was searching for it was the only way I was able to *begin* to let go (for I still have not fully let go)

Very well put I've noticed this too lately. I've been lucky, having a brother who recognizes that we have an N mother and a husband who wouldn't touch my parents with a ten-foot pole, but part of me still needs validation. Finding it on this board has changed things more than I imagined. Just reading everyone else's experiences and sharing my own has been incredibly helpful and calming. I'm finally starting to accept that others most often won't understand at all. I've always known it, and intellectually I knew why they couldn't understand, but have only recently accepted it.

Guest, I too am going through the process of cutting off contact with my N mother, and father as well. It's going to be rough... my brother's still in contact with them, and no matter how strong I try to be, there's still a part of me that yearns for a normal family life and is weak to "it's the holidays, your parents at least deserve to hear from you". My parents-in-law are the sticking point there - both wonderful people, but they just don't understand how a daughter could want to cut off all contact with her parents. It frightens them, as parents themselves - my mother-in-law is always putting herself in my own mother's shoes, and I always have to tell her "see, just by doing that, you show that you're totally unlike my mother: empathizing with her." She just doesn't understand though... which I suppose goes even further to show how different she is from my mother, she simply can't fathom someone treating her daughter like I was treated!

Anyway, the stress at holidays isn't much fun. My mother will phone my parents-in-law, knowing they're too nice to refuse to talk to her... *sigh* So, I can definitely relate! But,

I know you will have good days again too!

[Guest Again]

I'm finally starting to accept that others most often won't understand at all. I've always known it, and intellectually I knew why they couldn't understand, but have only recently accepted it.  

That's EXACTLY it! I always knew rationally that people didn't and wouldn't  understand, but it was so hard to let go of the hope that someday they would just "get it."  I don't really blame them for not understanding, I mean they really have no frame of reference for this, and N's make it so that everything looks fine from the outside....the more I talked about it to my friends to be understood, the crazier *I* looked! Such irony! So, slowly I began to accept that it wasn't going to happen, and in some ways it was a relief....I could finally just stop trying....I still yearn for it, but I know better...

parents-in-law don't understand how a daughter could want to cut off all contact with her parents. It frightens them... she simply can't fathom someone treating her daughter like I was treated!

The last time I confided in a good friend (also the last time I spoke with this friend), she said to me "Oh! Don't get too upset about it...your parents love you unconditionally, and everything will eventually just blow over!" That's when i realized she would never get it! The experiences we've had are just something non N families can not comprehend.   Sometimes I can barely understand how I could cut off my family....a year ago, this idea would have been unfathomable to me....but as I said to my father the last time I spoke to him..."If someone hits their head against the wall and it hurts, the 'normal' reaction is to stop hitting your head agianst the wall."  I know he understood, but he is too deep in my mother's N that he will continue to hit his head against the wall for the rest of his life....I just hope he understand in his heart why I cannot do the same.

I worry how I will explain my relationship with my family to any future partner... Hopefully you mother-in-law can also put herself in your shoes for a moment...I hope she can!

there's still a part of me that yearns for a normal family life and is weak to "it's the holidays, your parents at least deserve to hear from you".

I absolutely yearn for a "normal" family life.  For years I thought I had the perfect family, and that my borther was just a troublemaker, but now i see he had broken free of the N grip, and I was still part of it.

I am worried about the upcoming holidays...but the reality is that I have relatives now that say "You should call your parents." And I know for my own sanity that I cannot.

[cindy]

Friends - I found part of my recovery was to "clean house", i.e., distance from unhealthy friendships and also distance from friendships I wanted, but on different terms.  So I feel lonely, and for a while asked myself what I was doing as I needed friends now more than ever.  Only in hindsight did I realize I was cleaning house.

I also had a frined I was always there for dump me in my time of need.  Wow.  I appologized to her before I got some perspective.  That sucked.  But in the long run, it's good, as I don't need the needy or lopsided relationships.

That said, I have a couple out of town friends who chat on fridays and saturdays as we have no social lives.  Rebuilding takes time, I guess.

It's about setting healthy limits, for me.

[Alan]

That's the ticket, Cindy.  Clear out the baggage and surround yourself with health.  

Right now, I am virtually friendless, lost them by not staying in touch with them over the past 3.5 years. bec my N wanted all my time and I accommodated.  My fault.

Now, I deal with family members more often, have apologized for my lack of contact and to some degree most understand.  I will start to work at some point soon and will develop new friends.  This is the way of recovery.  Aloneness can be very healthy, learn about yourself and grow.

[nihil]

Hello Echo,

You ask yourself if having interests, passion, having fun in life shouldn't be something spontaneous? From what I think I understand, you have lost momentum and find yourself struggling just to focus on what you need to do to have control over your life and to become fully who you are. If I am wrong, please correct me.

I can relate with your questions and your feelings. I think that right now I am going through some very painful introspection. I am finding out that I was "voiceless" and that I have always exposed myself to narcissists because they always graft on to you with apparent praise and recognition for your thoughts, talents and abilities. You then find out it's a lie, then you hate yourself even more (path to self-destruction...). Downward spiral...

I was always told that children must be seen and not heard. Not once do I remember my parents responding to any of my ideas or projects. I remember only criticism, put-downs, belittling or indifference. I know that my parents did their best to get me and my brothers a good education, they took care of our basic needs, but I feel that they just didn't care who we were. Their respective childhoods were filled with violence, poverty, emotional blackmail and such, and now I can understand more why they are who they are. I can't help them, so now I avoid them. Reciprocal communication is just not possible with them. And as it has been mentioned in other threads, coming in contact with them (or with fiercer variations of NPD) always has me feeling queezy, almost sick. I have physical symptoms which manifest themselves at these times (asthma attacks, anxiety, complete mental discomfort).

I am now seeing deeper into my own patterns, and the patterns of those too close to me. It's unbearable. I cry every day. I find that if I want to heal, I have to move these people out of my life, give myself some mental time and space and look deep inside. Just reading the posts in this forum has helped me understand, not only intellectually, but in my flesh and bones, just what I have been going through all my life.

Going down this road is going to help me (forums, reading, introspection, isolation), this is a quiet certainty that inhabits me. I will know myself, then love myself, then will that long-sought momentum return to me and I will thrive. I am getting there. Some days I have really good energy (I see now that those days are always preceded by encounters with authentic and creative people, or by moments of artistic creativity, or just getting things done with love and patience). The rewards are forthcoming, I just have to travel through the pain and realization.

Looking forward to more of your posts. You've triggered lots in my head, thanks. Take care.

nihil

[CC]

Hi Echo,

Glad to see you got around to this post topic   .  I am intrigued with your idea of the structured "stuff" such as resumes, etc.  I wonder if we could take one of your ideas even further - the resume you mentioned about the self horn-tooting..   wouldn't that be a healthy excercise for all of us who have experienced voicelessness??  What if each of us contributed a fantasy resume - one that identified our REAL selves, as true as we could be - how we really should perceive ourselves - and not as the narcissists in our lives made us feel?  Am I understanding you correctly - is this perhaps where you are going with this?  If nothing else, it would help us each identify more with who we are - and may even spark ideas of what our real resumes should reflect.  I may just do this on this thread and submit it. Anyone else?

[cindy]

I've always found my ticket out of self-absorbtion to be involvement in others' lives.  I volunteer, in fact it's been my social life since I threw N out.  I'm not sure I believe in altruism, and I volunteer for a sense of community, and, "From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

I wrote a paper once about "Find some nosepickers..." that was well recieved.  The premise being do, don't think, yourself out of isolation.  Anyway, there are many different avenues, but this one works for me.

[Acappella]

Hi CC!
YES! That is the sort of thing I meant.  I vented for so much of my post and said much more about what I didn't want than what I am wanting.  I believe the latter is more frightening for me.  Anyway, glad you stuck with reading my long post...

The mere thought of a self horn-tooting resume sends me into a shame frenzy.   That must mean it is a great idea.    

I haven't the mind set/or heart for it right now however I will be on the look out for content for that resume.  In the meantime I'd love to read one from you and anyone who dares. (I mean dare in the fun, courageous and voicefullness way!)

I notice many posts, including my own, on this forum that include retractions of confidence...such as "little" self deprecations (most significantly in the face of a complitment or potential compliment) and clauses like "I am not bragging/being grandiose" etc.  It is as if i/we am/are scared of appearing too confident.  That reminds me of Richard Grossman's post in Rosencrantz's thread about shame as a means of "protecting" "scarce" resources ...as if my fear of appearing and feeling confident is connected to my shame and to a sense that if I am good at something then i will make someone else look bad.   YEEEESH!  

Hi Alan, thank you for your response.  I was feeling like a weirdo for rambling on in such a long post, especially when i didn't get any responses. I may still be weird but at least I have company?  

I lost a friend too due to my absorption with my then husband to be.  I thought I was being loyal to my primary relationship and paying the price of building a family.  Instead, I was like a sort of life support whose life depended on being life support.  Giving life-support is one thing, being it is quite another.  Short-term focus and support is one thing but when life support becomes a way of life it is just time to pull the plug, no matter the pain or hope for change.

I also lost time I could have invested in a career and had started to but gave up on shortly after moving in with my husband.  Not because he demanded it directly but because his behavior kept disrupting my life...I just got tired out trying to survive.   And, I thought it would end. Endlessly I thought that.  Now, I am not cooking dinners much anymore and refuse to partake in time draining arguments. And, if we go bankrupt I refuse to panic, as my fear is what feeds my paralysis and his effort to deny the relevancy of my concerns.  He already messed up my excellent credit.  I let it happen though.  Things are better if I just don't let it get to me and do my best to do damage control. If a discussion gets heated I insist we converse through writing on the computer so that we can track what the heck is going on. It is sooo much better and I am less distracted and still I have a hard time keeping my energy up and focusing......bla bla enough of that other topic - how to manage living with someone with N traits....

And Alan, what you said about going back to work soon as a place to develop new friendships...so true!

I believe one sign that in the past I wasn't working where I fit was that I either didn't make friends or when I did they were all in a totally different department and different profession.  I worked in database, management/administration mostly though some development and yet the people I really enjoyed spending time with were all the editors down the hall and the artist types working on the web site.  

Guest,
I didn’t suspect for a moment your intent was to be discouraging and even if that were the outcome of what you said, discouragement is not always a bad thing anyway….i appreciate honest feedback even and sometimes especially when it isn’t what I want to hear.  And, thank you for the encouragement…..."you can reclaim your life for yourself, and that's exactly what it is...reclaiming your life as your own."

Regarding the "baggage", "cleaning house", "cutting" of relationships....I agree there is a sort of stepping back from relationships that is a good type, a cocoon type, of isolation vs. the shame pit, jail cell sort of isolation.  
I did that with my family and twenty years later I am soo glad I did.  Just saw my mom again and am more sure than ever I did the best thing I could have and would do it all again.  I am considering leaving my husband...we have been in the same house but not a team for years.  Even the marriage was without a proposal or romance – really just a logistical and civic thing for health insurance.  Got not what I asked for but what I settled for.  And, I have severed ties with my marketing and computer careers.  Now, I often feel a drift...not who I was and not yet who i am becoming.  I feel like an ameba!

And Cindy…”lopsided relationships” I know what you mean! And they can happen at work too.  

And the holidays…as Guest mentioned and Neko…Arrg.  Wish we could all have a safe place to go to meet one another even just for the holidays or especially then.  Someone mentioned a reunion.  Anyway in the meantime I may get to a Home for the Holidays post as I too am very nervous about how to spend it.  

Hey, maybe I’ll be working…strange but it sounds good right about now.  

I have volunteered (on holidays) and other times.  And also I need a paycheck.  For now, I realize action is important AND so is the quality of the action I take.  I am striking a balance between paralysis of analysis and hyperactive just-do-itness.  

I bought some books and began reading them and had some reactions immediately…..the first of which was that I was reading a book written by a professional in the form of letters to a graduate student she was mentoring.  MENTORING!?  Being cared about, assisted, taken under a wing (for even a moment)?  What the heck does that feel like. I so want a mentor in either of the fields I am considering and also the concept is sooooo foreign!  Has anyone reading this had a mentor?  Or known someone who did?  How does one go about getting a mentor?  I am about to put an ad in the paper…only kidding…don’t think it works that way or perhaps that is thinking outside the box?  Time to go back to the box?     Seriously, any experiences/ideas?  I am so used to going it alone and am trying to break that stoic on my own paradigm, as I believe it is one thing that keeps me voiceless and that my voicelessness perpetuates.

[Anonymous]

I have and use mentor relationships, and try to pay back.  I brought a student breakfast this morning, and later a proffessor offered to see about transcription for some interviews for my thesis.  But usually the mentorships are less concrete, more in the form of emotional support and advice.  

I try this way.  I write a really honest, short, and straightforward letter to someone I admire, or whose work I admire.  I just tell them what I want to do, and ask for advice.  Then I keep up the conversation.  Nothing gets you farther than a sincere handwritten thank you.  And I always reciprocate.

Over 10 years ago, unsuccessfully trying to get back to school, I wrote the deans of most major law schools.  Almost every one wrote back.  Some were flattered,  Most offered advice and said I could write again, and to drop by their office.  Last year I wrote a researcher in the area of my thesis, and he sent me many of his papers, including some unpublished research.  He also said to look him up if I want to go to the grad school where he teaches.  I've written to him several times, and will send him my thesis parts, asking for input.

Just write an honset, short letter, after you've found someone you would like to know, and I bet you'll be amazed at the responsse.  These people aren't in it for the money, after all.  Good luck, and tell us how it goes!

[cindy]

Sorry, cindy above, I seem to forget.  Can't spell, either.

[Acappella]

Thank you Cindy,

The whole possibility of mentoring feels more real and potentially friendly to me after reading about your experience and having your input.

You are really out there in the world...writing letters, exchanging with people.  I am aspiring to that.  I'll let you know how it goes...for now, goin slowly.  

Anyway, I like your suggestion about a letter.  That approach allows for facing my fear in steps and it affords the other person the latitude of reading when they get to it, sort of like a voice mail message but without my having to try and call them when no one is answering their phone.  Oh, and a letter means I won’t be sweating profusely in fear while trying to communicate.  Actually, I don’t sweat in fear anymore, most of the time.

Looking back, I had opportunities for having a mentor but didn't know what it was, couldn't believe someone was taking an interest in my future.  I look back now and realize, "Oh, that's what that was.  They were taking an interest."  Moreover, I have a difficult time allowing anyone to focus on my interests or me so I sculked away instinctively in response to attention before I even realized what was going on.  For decades I didn't even know what my interests were. I have done a bit of mentoring myself and felt soooooo inadequate but also enjoyed it.  Still, I imagined that successful people (note I don't put myself in that category) wouldn't be bothered.  Really, I see what a biased, narrowly defined and impersonal worldview I have when thinking and feeling that way.  I am working on it.  

Thank you again.

[Anonymous]

Hi Nilhil,
 

you have lost momentum and find yourself struggling just to focus on what you need to do to have control over your life and to become fully who you are. If I am wrong, please correct me.

No corrections, that was it.  You are quite right.

I liked your description

quiet certainty that inhabits me

. It is as if you just described the essence of peacefulness.

Patience, as you mentioned is key. This process at its best feels like a dance between stillness and movement, stop and start.

CREATING INNER SPACE
Usually, I am frantically living life as if crisis was just around the corner.  In some ways the crisis my husband has created (and I co-authored by association) has been good for me.  I finally am not going to run but instead walk right through the fire.  Like with any seemingly magic act, I like a good magician, am going to make it happen with consciousness rather than busy reactivity.  

Now, today, I am finally sitting at MY desk.  Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat I made space for my interests and myself.  Like what you said about giving to yourself

give myself some mental time and space and look deep inside

.

I moved 6 times in the last 5 years and overcame melanoma and other stresses. I am exhausted.  I have been dragging my books and garden around behind me like a dead appendage.  (That is an improvement, as a child I didn’t get to own anything, or have hobbies.  Just discovered that limb).  Then, the last few years I have been so focused on the crisis de jour with J. that I felt I couldn't focus on the luxury of finding work I liked.  Finally, instead of my desk and books sitting like props on a stage waiting for a plot and a character, I am sitting here with them and without a script or story to go by I am leaving an openness for discovering what improvisational "me" is laying here dormant.  Instead of slapping a role to play on myself like I was auditioning for a life I am looking for what is already here somewhere.  If I end up homeless I’ll continue this process in a park or shelter somehow.  

I am glad you find solace here.  Here we are, helping one another bare the unbearable.