Boat's Cargo

[Meh]

Guess I will have to save after every freakin line because there is a problem with my connection or my computer. SAVE

Attended the second Grief group therapy session. In both sessions I didn't utter a single word. During the first session I was feeling out the group, it was very small and I had decided the group was decent enough. When I walked into the room during the second session the group had expanded to be quite large about four times larger then the first session so I decided to feel it out again, I'm not loving the second group. There are two therapists a female student intern and a male who has a master's level. I may try to get an individual with the guy in addition with or instead of the group setting. Probably I will continue to go to the group because there are tiny tidbits that the guy occasionally interjects into the conversations that are worth hearing.

There are doodles on my forms that they give. My doodles of some kind of flora-fauna stuff that I make during the time that other people are talking about their care-taking experiences and their grief where mainly it appears that they are sad a deceased person is gone. There hasn't been a lot of discussion about grief outside the loss of a loved one. The forms are columns of basically depression and anxiety measurements so the group facilitators can justify what they are doing, we are in the end suppose to say me have less depression or anxiety. I wrote on my form "I have an insane roommate that does weird things with knifes"... because I want to express the some of the general anxiety that I have is not just emanating from the core of my being because I am JUST AN ANXIOUS PERSON just because that is my temperament. Or that all anxiety can be traced back to the impending death of one whom I am emotional ly attached to but do not love.


Getting that stupid jumping screen thing.  uh SAVE

[Meh]

For me greater then a sense of loss of a loved one, which still hasn't occurred yet, is loss my SELF. And I suppose that loss of myself was perpetuated in my FOO and therefore the unspoken message that my SELF was significant.

Not knowing what to call it if it is not a loved-one then it is one whom I have an emotional imprinted attachement to dispite the idea that I want to believe these relatives are insignificant. Clearly they are not. Those whom I am attached to but do not dare use the word love to describe the attachment. Of course that in and of itself is not something I wish to try to explain in a group therapy setting.

Lately I haven't been looking at myself in depth, I think that because I have dove in there before I think I know what is there. I'm finding that even if I believe I already know what is in the depth of self-looking that I still need to do it again because looking once isn't enough I guess. Probably there is a need to be reminded of the self because it is sometimes a quieted aspect that easily becomes overlooked. In current time, for this day, being reminded again of the self because somehow it is always in a struggle to become and at risk of disappearing.


SAVE
Something missing here
SAVE

[Meh]

Reminding of the self maybe can help to ensure that the self has a least one hand on the helm otherwise the whole crew could be sleeping with their eyes closed to changing tides and completely losing site of any shore.

I think of the self as being fish tanks inside of a seafaring ship. The ship being a metaphor for what I don't know the greater physical body and the fish tanks inside the ship as concealed within but not static. So yes maybe looking at or cleaning out the fish tanks is not the same as rehearing a song...but even then a song is always played a little bit different each time or even a lot different.

In here is the sense and realization of the burden of emotions. If they are a burden. They may be something else but within the context of the group therapy I went to mainly there is the idea of carrying around internally these emotional states.

[Meh]

Peering over a dirt embankment, viewing down to gray water and a gray beach was a little sailboat up against the beach and tipped at a steep angle. It was truly stormy last night the winds were very strong so I guessed that this person's real boat, not metaphorical somehow became unanchored and blew into the beach. Something that pretty much can happen to people I guess for many reasons maybe a person no longer has the anchor whatever that is (money, marrage, family, job, health, sanity) and then any form of storm can carry the vessel to a place where it doesn't belong or should not be or will sustain damage.

I go on these walks for exercise or to burn time avoiding a person or some such thing. This morning I was avoiding the schizoid roommate in the kitchen. I usually make coffee in the morning but didn't want to occupy any sort of communal space with this person and being pissed off that I should have to do so...... so alternatively just went for a walk and noticed the little sail boat.

[Meh]

A few paragraphs have been lost somewhere in here because of my bad connection or whatever...and my purpose for writing here seems that it has been lost also..Oh well. Part of this is coming back to not having the other to share minutia with. I would at least tell the other that I am attempting another group therapy experience, that I don't like hearing other people's stories because they don't include details of any sort of Narcissism only death related grief. I would tell the other that and then maybe I would know that I existed a little bit more compared to when I don't share minutia....only maybe there is a shared gripe.

I was laughing just a few days ago and then I went to house-sit at my mother's place..and I'm no longer feeling like laughing with people I am just darker and withdrawn and that is pretty much how I feel after spending time with her. I learned that she is planning on helping my alcoholic brother purchase a house. Yes I guess it hurts to know that she would do this for him but she would not do anything remotely helpful for me. Even if there is not a lot of logic in it my internal worth maybe feels diminished.

This evening before getting into a communal shower I grabbed some hair out of the shower drain so it wouldn't clog and overflow. When I pulled the hair out I realized it had blood all over it, what looks like some person's menstrual blood. At that point I really wished that I had at least had a plastic glove with me and had it on but I did not. So I put the wad of bloody hair in a garbage can and took it down to the staff for them to see with their own eyes and explained that it was in the shower but I'm not really sure that they get...

[Meh]

...get that this is pretty much a blood-spill. I told them that if this is technically a business that they are running (they insist that it is a business) well then they should have a set protocol for cleaning up a blood spill just like a school has a clear process for how to handle it. But here that is not the case, there is no standard and there is no staff person that comes along to disinfect the blood. So eventually I know I should go get an AIDS test because of reasons like this I am more exposed to diseases then I have ever been before.

~~~~~~~~~

Since I did the stupid house sitting for my mother - I did however get out of Thanksgiving....(cooking for her husband's family like a maid). This year she may end up doing that all by herself which is a self imposed decision on her part she doesn't have to do it but she would like to pass on the dutiful female servitude to her husband's family onto me. For some reason her husband's daughter's who all live in homes can't be imposed upon to make the dinner but my mother's mind shoots to ME. ME of all people to do it because she thinks I have nothing better to do...that I am lazy and should be made to do this sort of thing...that it is a natural conclusion that I am the best candidate.

[Meh]

(ME) would like a very CLEAN home. Where no adult person dumps pots of food out onto the carpet because they are pissed off.
Where there is no body else's body fluids mysteriously hanging out in dark corners where I might put my hands.
Where I can take the time to make a beautiful meal and sit down and really enjoy something that simple and if there was someone else to share that meal with (a welcome someone) that would be EXTRAORDINARY...would be very out of the ordinary for me.

Going to go satisfy a late night kimchee craving. BYE.

[Hopalong]

I would gladly share that meal with you, Boat.

Hops

[Meh]

I would gladly share that meal with you, Boat.

Hops

You are so sweet HOPS!!!

[Meh]

Certainly one can not afford the time usually to look deeper into everything or write about everything and possibly there is not a need to do that but I start to feel congested and out of sorts if for too long I have not been reflecting upon events.

One event that I wish to reflect upon a little bit is that I have been meeting with a housing director. Basically it is her responsibility to monitor more or less the residents in this transitional housing shelter. Since for many years I have been and felt like a relatively independent adult where I simply do a job, make a pay check and then make rental payments well I haven't required some sort of monitoring. But now I'm in the presense of this person and as nice as she likes to think she is, I do believe she has a bit of a prejudice or belief system about the people that she is (over)...rules over...monitors...whatever.

At first I thought: Okay, so what, it's a place to live so I put up with it and just try to get along.

Overall though I do think that the experience of having a person speak with me about my life is somewhat intrusive and it even feels diminishing to me because she does reflect that I and probably WE collectively that dwell here SHOULD not expect very much out of life.  SAVE

[Meh]

....There is something about this that feels like I am having her values put on me. At least that is my take on it.
Her values towards MY LIFE.

Since I am in the struggle with embracing and maintaining my SELFness and having my own voice this does prickle me a bit. I let it go but I do notice it.

I feel like I am be talked to sort of as a permanent low-grade member of society and that she is most comfortable thinking of us as fullfilling the societal spots that unfortunate people SHOULD inhabit. Basically that (I) or we should stay in our place as lowly.

Maybe if I had her position I would feel the same way I don't know. Ironically she is able to pay her mortgage because there are low-income people that do pay to be in this place...it is not free for us lowly people to be here... they do seem that they would like us to be forever groveling and grateful. That is not true gratefulness nor is it true charity.

I'm sorry but I am not grateful in all ways. Even in charity there are those who are well aware of and will use other's desperation.

[Meh]

Some part of me still wants to believe that there is some kind of deep innocent goodness in people or maybe this is some childhood need to be able to trust someone or something. I'm not explaining what I want to say very well with that will try again later.

When I think about the things that I am grateful for, I think about mainly natures beauty maybe because it is beyond human stuff.
The combination of having my sense organs functioning, I can see, hear, smell, taste and feel the cold air and some times seeing snow on the mountains or flocks of birds migrating is the only thing that makes be feel like I am part of a divine spiritual world.

There is some farm land not too far away from where I am, this affords an unforested long sighted view of miles worth of earth that meets mountains, mountains that become dusted with snow this time of year and occasionally I will be at the right place at the right time in the afternoon and the winter sunset will make the mountain snow reflect pink light. It's just absolutely awesome. Pink snow on blue-purple mountains. I guess I could say it literally lifts my heart a little. Maybe that is the feeling of anxiety lifting. Maybe when we see something beautiful somehow spiritually we recognize some kind of basic (HOME) in that. I'm not sure but seeing things like that makes me feel like I have some kind of freedom in my heart.

[Meh]

I'm grateful for a break from the human condition whatever that is...but I have my human senses and human body to experience these things. I'm grateful for artists. There is a new sculpture that appeared one day in a very unusual place and I can't help but to love that creativity and willfulness of some guys who hauled the metal sculpture way out and up onto a hard to reach rocky point so passers by could enjoy it. Grateful for music.

But I'm tired of being grateful for basic things. (Grateful for being in a warm place). I am grateful for it. But I would rather move on and be grateful for something better. Like grateful to have the stability to devote my energy and attention on learning something new.

I could be in a coma and I would have my same basic needs met that I have now. (fed and warm). That is not saying much at all really to be warm and fed really isn't enough. Life requres a lot out of people life requires more out of me and more out of every person then to just say yes I am warm today and yes I ate food today...end of story.

[Meh]

Bouncing around. Back to the housing director well I wasn't happy about getting a handful of blood that I wrote about before and I did mention to the housing director that schools have a standard response to cleaning up a blood spill. Of course she didn't like that I said this because I am out of my place for saying so and apparently she doesn't care if people are spreading around disease here because she was very dismissive of me telling her about it but at least I did the responsible thing but mostly I was venting because I know she doesn't go back to a home where her kids are exposed to the kind of stuff we have to live with here and I think it is basic negligence not to respond at all. I knew that she prefers that people don't say very much about anything but sometimes I'm compelled and there is anger behind it that compels me and I often feel absolutely justified in certain things.
I would say that after I heard her response I felt rather alienated but it's also related to the fact that there is this sense of lack of leverage/powerlessness. I am not here because I want to be here, it is just what it is right now. I'm required to behave a certain way (keep mouth shut) and live a certain way (live in sometimes dirty surroundings). Most people don't seem to have a problem going along with the program. Maybe I have a little chip on my shoulder left over from childhood towards authority figures that are not living up to a standard of respectability. I had previously cleaned up someones douche bag off the shower floor and so now each similar type thing pisses me off I guess. I'm sure she wouldn't let her children shower in our facilities because they are sometimes gross. I guess there is some sort of arrogance or something that I think I see. It's not important I just want to get out of here.
I responsibly alerted her to a blood spill and what she does with the information or doesn't do is her business I suppose. I did work in health care previously so I guess the impulse is strong. SAVE

  

[Meh]

There is some anxiety I have to stay on her good side like pleasing a boss, I am an adult though and there is something about what I am doing and how I am living that doesnt feel adult like. Now it seems that I am not on her good side. I have monthly appointments with her that involves going to her office and sitting down and she talks for about an hours worth sometimes about things that are really not very important but I'm realizing that maybe she has to have these hour long appointments to justify how she spends her days at work. Beyond the (warmth, shower) there is not much that I can really credit her with. The jobs that I have worked recently were not gained through her. I feel managed/monitored like by a parent but not a loving parent just an authority figure that has gained a lot of information into my personal life but hasnt helped much.

Maybe in the future I will just tell her that I am seeing a therapist and most of what I need to speak with somebody about I would prefer to speak with the therapist about it.

There was another resident here who mentioned that the housing director sometimes oversteps boundaries and I didn't quite understand what she was talking about at the time but I would say it makes more sense to me. If feels creepy to have someone collecting a lot of personal information about me and acting like she has a right to know everything etc. and not caring if I get AIDS!