You Don't Love Me and You Never Did

This is about getting to be enough - so I'll do this one more and then quit for now and come back to it later. You Don't Love Me and You Never Did is enough for an entire blog for several years!



Now this is so lofty that I hate to even write it down, but it's what has been taught to me in 12 step programs for the past 24 years: The only solution to this dilemma is unconditional love. And, of course, unconditional love would mean perfection which none of us is capable of. But, with the help of God it's possible to move in that direction at least. What I know for sure from my experience is that when I'm focused on loving unconditionally, I forget about the "you don't love me and you never did" dilemma. For some mysterious, incredibly lofty reason, trying to love takes care of my need for love. My best guess is that my effort opens the channel between me and God and God's love fills my need.

You Don't Love Me and You Never Did

On the other hand.... if they really are doing something that proves they couldn't possibly love you - what then? How do you know for sure? You could ask somebody but they will just be guessing. Aren't there some universal rules?


Everybody has rules about love. And everybody thinks his/her rules are the same as everybody else's and are absolutely right. So, if you break their rules or they break yours, then it means you don't love them or they don't love you, right? But what if their rules are totally different from yours? Well, then I guess we must straighten them out about what the right rules are! And the best way to do that is to yell and have a fit. Wait. Maybe that's not right.

You Don't Love Me and You Never Did

Maybe instead of jumping to the conclusion that they don't love us and they never did, we could just ask for what we want and mention that if they would do it (or not do it), it would make us feel loved. Who knows - they might just do it. The trouble is - at least for me - that I react so emotionally (to an extreme), that simply asking would require a whole lot of self restraint. When suddenly completely sure that the person I love and who I thought loved me, does something that I think proves he doesn't love me, it's pretty hard to be calm and make a request. It feels like I'm dying and must defend myself from death!

Reasoning with me doesn't usually help much although Ron used to sidle up to me and say, "Hey, remember me? I'm Ron. And I'm on your side." Sometimes that helped. But my insane mind sometimes told me he was just trying to pull the wool over my eyes because he didn't want me to know he didn't love me anymore.

You Don't Love Me and You Never Did

A long time ago when my dear friend, Brad, was still alive, I called him and he answered the phone in a terribly grumpy voice. I said that I didn't do anything so why was he mad at me? He said he was sorry - that he had been arguing with his mother. I asked what they were arguing about. "It started with the temperature to set the air conditioner on and ended with you don't love me and you never did," he explained. I've never forgotten that because it summed up every argument I ever had with someone I loved. It might sum up every argument anyone ever has with someone they love.

If you really loved me, you would set the air conditioner on the temperature I want.
If you really loved me, you would be on time.
If you really loved me, you would understand when I'm late.
If you really loved me, you would hug me when I want you to.
If you really loved me, you would not bug me to hug you.
If you really loved me, you would wear what I want you to.
If you really loved me, you would lose weight.
If you really loved me, you would pick up your socks.
If you really loved me, YOU would pick up MY socks.
If you really loved me, you would spend less money.
If you really loved me, you would spend more money (on me).
If you really loved me, you would have sex when I want to.
If you really loved me, you wouldn't talk to people of the opposite sex like that.
If you really loved me, you would understand when I don't want to have sex.
If you really loved me, you would put me before the kids.
If you really loved me, you would understand when I have to put the kids first.
If you really loved me, you would stop drinking, gambling, whatever.
If you really loved me, you would understand why I don't stop whatever and you would get off my back.

Flowers

When I was a kid one of the things I loved was my mother's habit of growing old-fashioned flowers in the summer. We had whole gardens of zinnias, marigolds (large and dwarf), salvia, petunias, snap dragons and others that I can't remember names for. Every few days she picked a huge bunch and arranged them in a turquoise glass bowl which sat on the dining room table. I thought we were very sophisticated for having those flowers on the table at dinner. I sometimes grew my own garden of flowers and picked some of them for the table.

When I stopped smoking more than 20 years ago, I was smoking about 5 packs a day, which cost around $150 a month. It would be a whole lot more now. I promised myself that I would never lack for expensive perfume or fresh flowers as long as I lived. If I could somehow find the money for cigarettes as broke as I was at the time, I could surely always find the money for things that smelled a whole lot better. I've kept the promise to have perfume I wanted, but only partially kept the fresh flowers promise. Sometimes I had them; sometimes I didn't. Usually I just bought something at the grocery store.

However, recently it occured to me that I could take a vase to my favorite florist (a little vase) and ask them to do an arrangement and pick it up later. Somehow having flowers all the time nourishes my soul. So I tried it and I love it as much as I thought I would. They always ask me what kind of flowers I want and how I want them arranged. I always tell them they're the ones with the talent, so they should use their best judgment. I get the most amazing bouquets for not very much money - around $25 a week which is a while lot less than I was spending on cigarettes 20 plus years ago!

Right now I have two amazing bouquets - one I got for $5.00 at the farmer's market. It's a huge bunch of zinnias (red ones mostly) and marigolds. The other one came from the florist. It's sunflowers, poppies (orange and purple), and various other ones that I'm unacquainted with - mostly maroon, plus of course, various other things that look like wild flowers. My soul is definitely nourished this week.

Outlook

My outlook seems to be sliding right smack into the negative. Most of what I've written lately seems to either be rants about stuff I see on CNN or complaints about grief and/or pain. The inside of my head seems to be deteriorating into sludge. Time for a change.

In actual fact (what a weird phrase), my life is good. I eat well, I sleep sort of well - at least better than I did when I was sleeping in the hospital bed. I have loads of fabulous friends. I have fun on a regular basis. I do miss my two guy friends that have moved away. But I still hear from them (thank you email) and get to see them from time to time. I have a great job even though I've had to go to part time due to my slowness to recover from the last surgery. I have enough money to get my hair done, my toes done and a massage every month. Two small closets are full of clothes that I think are fabulous (thank you Chico's for solving my dressing disorder). I have conscious contact with a higher power that comforts and directs me - the directions are always pretty much the same - take good care of yourself and work on loving the people in my life unconditionally. I have four great kids, four great grandkids. It's really hard to describe how great they are. I enjoy my relationship with each of them and they are so different. And, of course, there's Cisco the cat. He's a lover cat - talks to me, kisses me, cuddles me and teases me.

I love gratitude lists. This one isn't finished but it's enough for now.

Being a Woman

Guess what! I read an article in Psychology Today that cites recent research regarding why men judge women on the basis of their looks (plus what we need to look like to attract them). It was oddly comforting to know I'm not crazy when I've observed this stuff time and time again.

So, the article said that -in general - meaning not all men all the time but on the average - men are attracted to women with small waists, big boobs, long blonde hair and blue eyes. Now this obviously does not apply to gay people or people of color. Some of it could be extrapolated I guess but.... Anyway, according to the article, men are programmed by their biology to look for women who are healthy/fertile - which would also mean young. Women around menopause start collecting fat around their waists so a small waist means young/fertile. Big boobs sag more with age than little ones so it's easier to spot youth in women with big ones. Sick people's hair doesn't grow long - I can testify to this - my hair and nails didn't grow for months after the wreck. So, long hair - and the longer it is the better - means the healthier (thus more fertile) the woman is. Blonde hair usually darkens with age; therefore, the more blonde the hair, the younger (thus more fertile) the woman is. When a woman is attracted to someone, her pupils dilate and it's easier to see this in blue eyed women. Personality, brains - none of that counts at all with fertility.

According to the article, men are completely unconscious of their programming but the statistics bear out the over all pattern. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it), women who have boob jobs, liposuction, dye their hair blond and get hair extensions and wear blue contacts will attract more men even though it's all artificial. The guys aren't programmed to tell the difference between the real and artificial. I still think it's sad. The poor babies are chasing women who may or may not be suitable for long term companions/partners and those of us who don't fit the template get the leftovers.

The article also extrapolated the data to a whole lot of other things - like good looking people tend to have more girls, religions that tolerate polygamy tend to have more violent men, etc. But I was just interested in knowing why men seemed to be so ignorant when they chased women. Now I know. They can't help it, the poor babies. But being old, with a large waist, little boobs and dark hair - I am now officially out of luck!

Supreme Court Ruling

Okay, now I'm REALLY upset. Am I the only old person that remembers Brown vs. the Board of Education? I was a kid when the Supreme Court ordered schools integrated and it was NOT to "create diversity!" I don't think that was even discussed at the time. The truth was that the segregated schools were terrible. African American kids got horribly crappy education. In my town, the black kids went to a one room school and the teacher didn't even have an 8th grade education. When those kids came to our school due to the Supreme Court decision, they were so far behind it was totally pitiful.

Even as recently as when my kids were in school, the schools where the black kids went were falling down around their ears, they had fewer school books, etc. Of course, the kids weren't segregated by law then, they were segregated by residential patterns. But the schools were still lousy for the black kids. So, now the Supreme Court says race can't be the major factor in assigning kids to schools so the magnet schools are ended and the other desegregation efforts are ended. Well, we'll see how long it takes for the schools that are predominantly black to descend into crappy. I'm going to guess not very long based on how my city spends money to repair streets. The more black people there are in a neighborhood, the crappier the streets. Check it out.

zoo

Rebecca and I went to the zoo when it was raining off and on. A lot of the animals were asleep. A couple of male chimps were standing in the rain with their lower jaws jutting out, letting it rain in their mouths. I've done that myself when I was a kid.

The rhinos were awake too. They were cuddling. We'd never seen cuddling rhinos before. They lay side by side and rubbed their chins on each other. Then one got up, turned around, lay down again, pushed his butt firmly against the other one and heaved a big sigh of contentment.

The meerkats were up and looking curiously at us. They seem to have actual facial expression. All the birds were awake too.

I think other than the ones I've described that were awake, all the rest were asleep. A rainy afternoon looking at snoozing animals made me want to take a nap too so I had to do it as soon as I got home.

Losses

Some things I really miss:

Having somebody I love incredibly much around every day to hug and kiss. I kissed Ron on the top of his head every time I passed by him when he was sitting down. Now I just have to kiss the cat twice as much and he really likes it. Wherever Ron is, I think he knows half the cat's kisses are his.

Having somebody around every day that I know thinks I'm just about perfect. Not totally but almost. That feels really, really good - especially if it's somebody you love and whose opinion you respect! And especially if it's someone who knows you snore and cuss and are lazy and sometimes even mean and still thinks you're almost perfect.

Being a Woman

The best thing about being a woman is the built-in desire to love and nurture. I love that in myself and other women. Even though I'm basically kind of self-centered, I still have the instinct to nurture. I see that in some men, and it's lovable in them too. Most women seem to have it unless they are severely damaged psychologically.

The worst thing about being a woman is always being judged by my looks. I really don't have the words to describe how I hate it. I've noticed that when describing a woman, men always mention how she looks first. It's undoubtedly biological, and they can't help it, but it's sad anyway. I can't make up my mind whether - if I had known this was how it worked when I was 20 - I would have tried to really work on how I looked. For most of my life I assumed I was only decent looking and that nothing could be done about that, so I made no effort to improve how I looked. Now that I know, I wonder what would have happened if.....

Losses

Losing a loving partner is a bunch of losses - not just one. My dear friend Joanie told me after her husband died that when she was missing him terribly, she would just mentally list the things she hated about him and was glad to be rid of and was cured instantly of missing him. So some of the losses are of things I didn't like - hate is too strong a word - and remembering them does help a little, but I'm not instantly cured.

One of the losses that makes me feel better -

Worry - I don't worry about what the crisis is going to be next. Ron was a crisis junkie and had one every one or two weeks. Being severely co-dependent, I thought I should solve every one of them and just drove myself completely crazy. He lost things all the time - keys to things - I got a lot of calls from him when I was out of town asking me to come and give him the key to his office or his car or the house. He also lost expensive watches, fishing equipment and worst of all, his false teeth. There are still many, many sunglasses and reading glasses in the house and the garage because he lost them so many times he finally just bought 20 at a time.

The other kind of crises were the medical crises which were fairly constant the last 10 years of our marriage. He never wanted to go to the doctor, let alone the hospital or the emergency room. So, I spend a lot of co-dependent hours thinking up ways to get him to the doctor, the hospital or the emergency room. Once I called an ambulance and they made him go. Those were the worst because there was always a really good chance he was going to die.

Now that the worst has happened I don't have to be braced all the time. Of course, when I finally went to Alanon and got a sponsor and actually tried to free myself (and him) from my obsessive rescuing, things got a lot better. He never met my Alanon sponsor but he referred people to her. He said she was responsible for greatly improving his quality of life.

Rain

I guess it must just be terribly impractical or someone would have done it by now. But I would like to see someone try. Or at least talk about it.

We're getting too much rain in the middle part of the country and there are wild fires on both coasts from drought. If we can move oil by pipeline.... I guess there must not be any money in it - gathering excess rain and moving it to where it's needed. But if I knew how to build a pipeline and could get some other crazy people to go in with me...

Immigration

I am so confused. It's one of those times when the true motives of the decision-makers in government are out of my realm of thinking. Here's the way I'm thinking about illegal immigration from Mexico and it doesn't fit with what I hear on CNN:

Lots of people are coming to this country from Mexico. Some of them are drug runners, but that's another story. Most of them, though, are just poor people trying to get away from a hopeless situation. Here they get lousy pay, backbreaking work and live in substandard housing. But it's so much better than Mexico that they're willing to risk their lives and even their children's lives to come here.

For a long time now, businesses - large and small - have hired them because they work so cheap which increases the businesses' profits. It seems to me that's why people say they need these workers to take jobs Americans won't take. Well, of course we won't. None of us would want to live the way these folks have to live because we have other choices. We might very well do the jobs if they paid a living wage.

Now there's this big outcry about illegal immigration, and I can't really follow what the complaint is. Yes, it's illegal, but so are a lot of other things that no one cares about because they benefit people with power. Ostensibly it's because we might be letting terrorists in over the border but really.... I haven't heard one thing about Mexicans being terrorists. No one believes that.

Or it's because they aren't paying income taxes and their children are coming to school and using other services, etc. etc. Oh come on, there are thousands of wealthy people who aren't paying taxes, but if they were, our government could probably get out of debt. If all the illegals from Mexico paid taxes it would be a drop in the bucket against the national debt.

So, I don't get it. If we don't want these folks why don't we just help Mexico develop an economy that would employ them and give them the same substandard (by our standards) lives they could build here? Then they wouldn't come, right? It worries me that maybe all this hoo hah about illegal immigration is just so that we'll think something is being done and businesses can continue to hire them and maximize their profits.

Pain

I used to be equally afraid of physical pain and emotional pain. Both scared me to an extreme. I learned - I think from reading about natural childbirth - that a lot of the pain is caused by resisting it. Over time I learned to lean into physical pain; to focus on it; to really notice what kind of pain it was; whether it was hot or cold, sharp or dull, etc. And it seemed to diminish as I focused on it, or at least it became bearable. That skill has really come in handy in recovering from the injuries I got in the wreck. Now, there's a level of pain where I just scream and cry. Focusing on it is way, way beyond me. But below that level, I can accept it and just go on. I haven't had to take a lot of pain medication as a result, which I think has helped my healing.

But I'm still scared of emotional pain. That's one of the reasons I love the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Working them has relieved me of a tremendous amount of emotional pain. Some emotional pain is just inevitable though. Loss - especially of people we love - no way to escape hurting about that. But for some reason I continue to try to escape it all I can. Leaning into it, focusing on it - no way. I experience it when I just have to but otherwise... So, I think the escaping and resisting is partly what is making me so tired these days. Maybe I'll think about using the solution for physical pain on emotional pain. But... probably not right now. Later would be good....

Democracy

I had a really tough civics teacher. Her name was Mrs. Hisaw and she was incredibly mean. Every kid in her classes was terrorized including me. I heard somewhere that fear causes your memory to really go to work so that you can avoid the same situation in the future. So, of course, I vividly remember most of what I learned in 7th and 8th grade civics, thanks to terror and Mrs. Hisaw. Which in turn means that I have a deep understanding of the three branches of government, the difference between federal government and state government and how they work together, etc. etc.

Then a lot of years later when I became a foster parent of two babies with extremely severe disabilities, I got a nasty surprise. I decided to try to help them because I had the naive belief that there would be help - that there would be someone to tell me how to help them. It turns out there wasn't. In the end I got most of my help from other parents of kids with disabilities, and together we tried to create what our kids needed. We soon found out that our own resources were not enough, and we couldn't even raise enough money to create, for example, a school program for them. So, we turned to government because that's where other kids' schooling comes from. We had quite a fight over a number of years because no one thought our kids could benefit from school, but eventually we won. In that process, I learned a lot about democracy. It's supposed to respond to the needs of its citizens, and we eventually made enough of a ruckus that it did.

So, I'm really quite passionate about our system of government. It's slow; it's subject to corruption; it has many other flaws too. But because I've seen it work and really make a difference in people's lives, I'm deeply disturbed by what I see happening. I'm old enough to have watched a long process take place which began with the Vietnam war. Well, maybe it began farther back than that, but that's when I started paying attention. A large number of people thought our government had made a terrible mistake and fought to stop the war. Our government came after them. The FBI watched them, arrested them and harrassed them in many ways and what they were doing wasn't illegal. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Then we had Nixon and Watergate, and it turns out he actually was a crook.

I think somewhere along the way the majority of people just decided our government was such a mess it wasn't worth bothering with. In later efforts to help parents of adults with disabilities find ways to meet their sons and daughters needs, I found that most of them did not want to bother talking to their government representatives. They had absolutely no faith that they would be heard. In recent years I've had similar experiences with trying to persuade people to communicate with government officials. I tell them - that's how democracy works. You elect people to represent you but they can't represent you if you don't tell them what you want. Falls on deaf ears.

This year I wrote my Congressman. I asked for something very straightforward. I asked him to tell me what his position was. He could have said he didn't agree with my request and explained why if that were the case. But he just didn't answer. I only received a reply after months of calls and faxes. He is an acquaintance of mine, and I think he's a good person. But he didn't respond until he was harrassed!

I'm beginning to think our government isn't a democracy any more - that it just runs to serve itself and the interests of campaign contributors. If that's true, it makes it even more important for me to stay on my soapbox and keep trying to persuade people to get involved in their democracy. I refuse to give up!

Happiness

I just finished reading "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert, which is a serious study of what makes people happy. It seems there has been a lot of research into this topic. Unfortunately, none of us seem to be paying attention. What was delightful about this book was how funny it was - it was the first time I've read psychological research and laughed all through it. Here's a little excerpt from the part where he is explaining how our brains work and how poorly they help us predict how we will feel in the future:

" In the late 1960s, a Harvard psychology professor took LSD, resigned his appointment (with some encouragement from the administration), went to India, met a guru, and returned to write a popular book called BE HERE NOW, whose central message was succinctly captured by the injuction of its title. Now, why would anyone go all the way to India and spend his time, money, and brain cells just to learn how not to think about the future? Because, as anyone who has ever tried to learn meditation knows, not thinking about the future is much more challenging than being a psychology professor. Not to think about the future requires that we convince our frontal lobe not to do what it was designed to do... and it naturally resists this suggestion."

Gilbert says that we treat ourselves like our future children - guessing what will make us happy in the future and then trying to create that for ourselves. But we're doing a terrible job of guessing judging by the number of divorces, moves and job changes. It seems that in spite of our heroic efforts, we have no idea what will make us happy and our future selves suffer as a result.

As examples are the fairly well-known studies that show that more money only makes us happy up to about $50,000 a year. When people make less than that, extra money really improves their quality of life. But over $50,000 it doesn't really make any difference. In fact, in some cases people are more unhappy. But have you noticed that this fact doesn't keep people from striving and making enormous sacrifices to make more and more money and buy more and more stuff? His explanation is that we are programmed by society to do this because people who are focused on money and stuff don't run around making trouble - the lifestyle contributes to a stable society and good reproduction rates. He doesn't think there's any kind of a conspiracy - it just happens because it works.

Hmmm. I guess that means if we decide to opt out of the rat race and run around making trouble instead, we should keep it quiet. Oh wait, I've already been doing that for years.

So, Gilbert says the solution is to ask somebody who is currently experiencing what you're thinking about doing in the future what the experience is like. He points out that no one does this much. If you ask people whether they would rather use their imagination to decide what to do in the future or ask some one, they almost 100% say they would use their imaginations - because everyone thinks he/she is unique. But we aren't. But it's an ego thing. Now he strongly emphasizes that you shouldn't ask somebody who HAS experienced something in the past. He goes into great detail explaining that peoples' memories are very unreliable and they may tell you that law school was wonderful when they actually thought they were in hell at the time. So you should ask a current student.

A thought - there would be a lot of things you just couldn't find out about that way. I'm not sure whether someone would tell you whether a face lift was worth it right after they had the surgery. Also, I guess you wouldn't be able to find out whether someone was good in bed unless you asked right afterward and if he/she was already involved...well that just wouldn't work although I'm sure it's something most people would really want to know ahead of time.

Anyway, I loved this book. It's another "if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we...." thing. Looks like solid information about how to be happy would be a priority. But it doesn't appear to be and even the information we have is pretty much ignored.

Loneliness

I finally have to admit that I'm experiencing loneliness. For the first year and a half after Ron's death, I didn't really have that feeling. I missed him. There was a huge hole in my life and my heart. But I wasn't lonely. At first I thought it was because there were so many people around after the accident that I didn't have a chance to be lonely. But that wasn't it. After I began to spend a lot of time alone, I still wasn't lonely. I was surprised. But then at about a year and a half I began to feel really lonely. I poked around inside myself to see if I could discover why. What had shifted was the feeling that Ron was going to show up just any time. I knew from previous losses that that feeling was the usual way my psyche reacts. There's just part of me that's not ready to give up on some sort of miracle. As time passes, so does that feeling. Once my whole being accepted that Ron was gone, I finally felt truly alone and without a loving partner: lonely. Well, that's probably how I'm supposed to feel for now.

Faces and Beauty

I'm not sure why I've developed an interest in this. It seems frivolous on the one hand and important on the other. Why are some people considered beautiful and some aren't? Frivolous, of course, since there are a lot of other much more important things to be interested in. Important since scientific studies show that good looking people - especially REALLY good looking people are treated far better by others that even nice looking people. But what is good looking or beauty anyway. What makes Brad Pitt a heart stopper as well as Russell Crowe. Weird. Julia Roberts is beautiful but her nose is all wrong. Just about the time I started staring at faces trying to figure it out, I saw a program on tv that said a plastic surgeon had figured it out. The eyebrows have to be a certain distance from the eyes, the eyes have to be a certain distance apart, etc. etc. etc. But the thing is all three of the Playboy girls have identical bodies and features but one of them seems to me to be more beautiful than the others. What's that about?

The Weekend

Springtime in the Ozarks weekend. We were married there and went back every year to celebrate. Last year the weekend was very hard.

We looked forward to going for weeks ahead of time and never had an unhappy moment in Eureka Springs. Every year was different but every year was wonderful. To think that Ron and I would never do that again was heartbreaking.

This year a friend suggested that she spend the weekend with me and another friend joined her. It was one of the loveliest weekends I've ever had. Amazing blessings.