Honey

Today feels profound, most likely because I’ve had a lot of coffee and I’m listening to a Pandora station that leans toward my ’90’s favorites, like Erasure and Phil Collins. That’s the kind of profound day I’m having so far, and it’s barely 11:00 in the morning!

The most profound part of my morning is that an old friend accepted my friend request on Facebook. I haven’t seen or heard from him in a really, really long time, since I was a little baby dyke attending Bellevue Community College and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life. My favorite part about finding old friends on Facebook is seeing their pictures and finding out how they turned out. My old friend looks great and I’m really excited to be back in touch again.

Unfortunately, reconnecting with him reminds me of a mistake I made when I was younger that bothers me to this day. It’s been 20 years since I betrayed a friend, and betraying friends tend to be my deepest regrets. You see, this old friend I found on Facebook today has a younger sister, and that younger sister was my classmate. I loved her very much, and I lost her trust when, during a sleepover at her house, I snuck into her brother’s room on a dare. I tried to hide when she walked in, but it was no use. I was caught, and guilty, and immediately thrown out of that friendship. Oh, my heart hurts when I think of it still!

I have a few regrets like this that follow me around. I don’t think they’ll ever go away, either. I may have been a foolish little kid, but even foolish little kids make profound mistakes.

I’m back in therapy after many years away. I’ve found a wonderful therapist who feels safe and present and wise. She’s also adopted, just like me, which makes me feel even better.

When I decided to start therapy again, I thought I just needed someone to talk to. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster for the past few months. I have a lot of thoughts in my head that are begging to be spilled. These thoughts are repetitive, achy thoughts, just perfect to tell a therapist all about.

I’ve found that 50 minutes a week is not nearly long enough to share background information and go into great detail about my current state of discontent. I have to pick and choose carefully what paths to explore and sometimes my therapist asks me to follow paths that I am afraid are a waste of time. I settle this concern by wondering why they would come up in the first place, if they weren’t important.

Yesterday, my therapist introduced me to Hakomi, a therapeutic approach centered in the use of mindfulness. I closed my eyes and attempted to discover the feelings in my body and to lean into those feelings. What memories and thoughts were triggered as I focused on a particular sensation in my body? I was very nervous about the whole thing, mostly worried because I am so guarded and closed. Closing my eyes with someone I barely knew and talking about the roots of my sadness was mind-blowing on many levels. I wonder if it will get easier and if I will stick it out.

I wish the rain would stop. I wish I could hang out with all the people in my life that I miss so much and love with all my heart.

I wasn’t expecting to go to Disneyland, but there I was, in the happiest place on earth. I jumped up and down with excitement, just like a little kid. Ryan admired my enthusiasm and patiently led us through the crowds.

Disneyland was a reprieve from the emotional intensity of the weekend, although it was quite emotional too. I have memories and history, all wrapped up in that place that spans over the years of my childhood. Disneyland always meets my expectations. I had a wonderful time.

Being with my brothers was at once exhilerating and heart breaking. I love them deeply. Even though we haven’t talked much over the years, our connections are clear and strong. It’s easy to talk, it’s as though we’ve known eachother forever. I am heart broken because I have missed so much and I have to go home and continue to miss so much. I want so badly to hang out with them and find out who they really are and offer advice and be a sister. How wild it is to be an only child with six brothers. How blessed I feel to have such wonderful people in my life.

I’m heading home now, the edges of California and Oregon meeting down beneath me. I’ll spend the rest of today and tomorrow recovering and thinking about this monumental weekend and everything it meant to me.

I was introduced to Morning Pages when I first picked up The Artist’s Way, about three years ago. Morning Pages is an exercise that is completed everyday for the length of time you are following the Artist’s Way, ‘A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self’. According to the website, writing Morning Pages is one of two pivotal tools in creative recovery. From the website:

Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages– they are not high art. They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only.

It was hard at first to write three pages. If you’ve ever seen my handwriting, you know that I enjoy a fierce amount of control over my penmanship. Even though I wasn’t writing for anyone’s eyes but my own, I still couldn’t help but press hard and maintain an elegant flow across the page. At first, my hands ached and burned with tension, especially around starting the third page. It was a profound lesson for me to let go and scribble my thoughts in ragged letters and be satisfied with the results.

Morning Pages changed my life almost immediately. I found myself writing the same thing over and over again, every morning. I was writing about feeling hung over and tired and miserable, and describing my daily activity made me realize that I wasn’t happy with myself or my choices. Writing Morning Pages was my first exercise in will power (unless I count going to a job everyday), and it taught me that I was capable of doing something consistently that made me feel good about myself and my life.

Most of you already know the story. Shortly after beginning Morning Pages, I became vegetarian, and then it wasn’t long before I quit drinking. Once I was able to accomplish these seemingly enormous tasks, I finally eradicated cigarettes from my life. I changed everything about my relationship with the world, because I could no longer deny that relationship, nor could I deny what I was doing to my body.

There are not too many things that I have done that are more grounding than Morning Pages. When I am feeling particularly distraught or confused, Morning Pages will either answer my questions or give me the breath I need to sustain myself through my suffering. Morning Pages show me what is really going on inside of me and allow me to know myself better than I’ve ever known myself before.

I don’t know how I would get through this challenging time without writing Morning Pages. I write the same things again and again, wondering if I will ever find satisfactory answers. I face myself every morning with the thoughts and feelings that normally lie beneath the surface, unacknowledged and unchallenged. I conjure them forth into the realm of self expression and knowing, and as a result, I become whole.