unburied kvetching

I just couldn't see myself going to yoga class today. This is sad and disappointing in and of itself, because I love it and need it and get so much out of it, but also because of this blog.

Because I have replaced psychotherapy with yoga, coffee dates, meditation, blogging, and the practice of gratitude, I was counting on this, my favorite Friday morning anusara class, to lead me to a place from which I could produce a positive blog post. It so often does.

I felt a pang of guilt today when, glancing at my most recent posts, I realized that I have essentially been blog-kvetching in a space called Unburied Treasure, where I have promised to share what is good. I am examining that emotion here today, since blogging requires less physical exertion than a yoga mat. Feel free to follow along.

This morning, I remembered my wise and loving friend, the late Todd Mucaro, who observed of a much younger me that I was a faux-extrovert, chatty, friendly, and entertaining, helping and sharing so much that you don't notice that I am keeping my true self completely private, hidden. Like many of Todd's insights, this comment startled and astonished me with its accuracy. I have done a lot of work since then, or rather, since dating my husband, Paul, to share more of what is genuinely going on within me.

It was Paul's turn to share a startling observation about me back in 1998, when he felt it was incumbent on him to admit that he had not yet fallen in love with me, and to ruminate aloud about why that was. I first considered whether or not it was masochistic for me to indulge him, but eventually agreed to listen.

Paul said he hadn't been able to fall in love with me because I wasn't vulnerable. I gave and gave, and yet I could not ask for help or admit that I needed any. He could not believe that a single mother and business owner, with no local family, could be as independent as I seemed, and he deduced that I was holding part of myself back. He also didn't feel needed, and in that sense, not all of his needs were being met.

This comment combined with the year old track still looping in my head - of my therapist telling me that I would be more likeable after my divorce because other people would no longer think my life was perfect. But whereas before I was able to blame other people for their failure to see me for who I truly was, here was someone with whom I considered myself intimately acquainted who still didn't know me. I had to struggle towards the realization that I must be putting on a facade for which I had failed to take responsibility.

I noticed that I was able to be quite vulnerable with those friends I didn't feel a need to impress, with whom I felt safe. That meant those people with whom there was no potential for a romantic liaison or commercial contract. When a person entered my life through the doors marked potential boyfriend, business associate and client, I thought I need to impress them, to BE more impressive than I really felt. Which is, at the end of the day, dishonest. And the person you want to be with at the end of the day is not one with whom you want to be dishonest. Which is why, even though I was and still am very good at impressing people when I choose to, a lot of my days were ending with me on the phone dishing to a good friend and a dish, or rather, container of ice cream in my lap.

So, by this reflection, I seem to have worked through the guilt about my kvetch-blogging. This is where I am today. I've got a case of New Years' blues. Lots to be happy about, but somehow I'm preocuupied with what can and "should" be better or different, and focused on what might go wrong. It's understandable, with both my sister and dear friend embroiled in the ugliness of divorce, involving real estate, children, unbelievable stress and heartache. It's understandable, with so many of us still unemployed, unable to purchase goods or services from one another, with dead trees all around us and news of dead birds faling mysteriously from the sky.

Even though I may want to practice gratitude and preach positivity, even though I momentarily delight in the good news that brims from my husband and children, and even though Isaac's joy while practicing Suzuki cello with me is indeed infectious, at least while they are at school, I am going to allow myself one more day of the blues. With no apologies.