Mindspace

Halloween

We had a great Halloween despite a slew of activities and it culminating at the end of midterm week. This year we were the Incredibles Family and looking at the pictures, i can't help but think the fact that i was able to envision us as a family again -- a good thing. Something has shifted, maybe during the trip to Singapore, or in the eyes of our peers that think the world of us -- they see something i was too bitter to see before.

So here we are -- the Incredibles. The times i had wonder why God had allowed two such different people to be married to each other, two such similar yet gratingly different wounds, two DSM disorders that are so sorrowfully coupled -- i look at the kids and i think they couldn't have it better. They get both of us -- literally INTJ and ENFP, science and art, introvert and extrovert -- they get it all.

          

A New Car--A new Era

So the car is a declared a total loss. An outcome i am both so grateful and so terrified at the same time. The police and the car mechanic had both declared it safe to drive when i took it to the shop, and so i had driven it on the day where it poured like crazy here in CA. The car hydroplaned all over the place. i figured it was ok. Since i didn't have the kids with me, i could survive.
Now State Farm is saying there is so much internal damage they don't want to fix it. They would rather give us money.
On one hand, we are so grateful because we were just thinking of buying a new car. The Sienna is 8 years old now, the age when Nally was born. Yet a part of me is sentimental because it was bought at the time where we knew we would be carrying around our babies. We still have an old picture of us with the new car with Nally in arms and although i've hated every minute of driving around this boat, we've taken many road trips and made many memories while driving around in that car.
So we're marking a new era, where we probably will be getting a smaller car. No more automatic doors, or me scratching the sides of the van on the sides of the garage door over and over because i cannot estimate the width.
No more wincing hard when i slam down the trunk.
Aidan cried all the way to the destination in this car when he was an infant. i am rarely sentimental these days, i hate new things and it's funny to imagine it all come up with the entree of a new car.
Perhaps it marks a new era for me as a mother. I never imagined myself driving a mini-van. We still have my 1995 Toyota Camry from college. It's always pristine, private, orderly.
The Sienna can house, clothe and feed us for a week with everything we carry in it.
A new era as a mother as i transition into working and my children transition into getting in and out of cars by themselves.
Time is passing too fast.  

Pictures from my walk

i haven't walked in a week, and i could totally feel the difference. This is why i cannot move to Singapore. Because i need to see the open expanse of the sky. Something about it being so big makes me feel so small and puts me right back in my place.

More pics on the walk

Much needed after weeks.

Morningwalk/run at San Antonio baylands

Pictures of the accident

Breakthrough on SMS

We've been having a couple of breakthrough conversations. Ones that we've never had in 14 years of marriage, where we are honest and raw, vulnerable and truthful.
Ironically, they are text messages.
I've found they work really well for us because:

• My husband responds more in a dialogue than he ever does in person. He doesn't close his eyes or keep quiet which is the greatest trigger for me to feel abandoned.

• The to-fro nature of SMS ensures that it's a dialogue and not a monologue.

• i say less, am more succinct and can't ramble -- ie. he has less opportunity to flood.

• There is no tone of voice that he can read "snideness" or "sarcasm".

• i am trying to own my own feelings more, and have to peck at every letter makes me rethink what i am trying to say.

We've had some really good conversations where he was able to affirm that he appreciated the work i did with the kids. Part SMS makes it easier for me to send encouraging thanks "dutifully".

It's been a comfortable, less triggering way of communication this last business trip. So much so that we were able to get on the phone again without being triggered.

So thank you for your prayers. We are in a much better place.

Thanks for bearing witness to the process.

Gratitude

So much has happened these last days and i wanted to remember to be grateful.
On Friday i was in a car accident. A car side swiped me while i was at a stop, giving ironically a lecture on car-seats to my children. The car hit me, drove off and turned right, stopped and hit another car.
When the lady stepped out, i was so grateful to be alive. She was younger, in her pajamas, barely cognizant and totally disoriented. She sobbed the whole time and turns out was driving without a license, registration or insurance.
The police came and Nally cried the whole time. i was just so struck by a feeling of gratitude.
• i was the only car that was drivable. The other two needed to be towed.
• The kids were with me but i was the only one who struck my head on the window. i am a little sore and stiff but unhurt.
• i was able to take the kids to school on time and make it in time for the paper airplane competition.
• i was able to go to work and pick up the kids and take them to their activities after school and during the weekend.
• The visit at the body shop was 15 minutes as opposed to the 1 hour that we had to stay there the last time.
• Our medical insurance covers all our doctor's visits and my chiropractor adjustments which i have been needing but could not justify.
• We had the rain storm of the century this past Tuesday and i hydroplaned a couple of times but the kids were with Enoch and i was safe.
• i was miraculously protected because when we dropped the car off yesterday they said it was a lot more damaged than they thought initially and that it was dangerous to have driven.
The amazing thing was the night before the accident, my father had a bad dream about me, and he and my mother prayed for my safety. The next day, the accident happened.
Today as i watch my daughter get a prize for the farthest flying airplane -- i can't believe God's gratuitous, meticulous goodness.
We didn't have to win, we didn't have to make it on time, we didn't have to survive, we didn't have to live.
But we did.

Gone

When you're gone
really gone,

not out there prowling the night
singing
drinking
not suppose to be here gone
but
gone like out of town gone

and your absence
actually sinks in
i breathe in the tranquil hush
of a sleeping house,
peaceful children,
a serene cessation.....
i drink in the night
like a glass of wine
sink into the cool sheets of a California King bed
and rest.

Fighting for Pittance

Jealous II

i've had so many comments on my entry named the above.
Of all the emotions of my youth, "jealousy" was one that got tossed around a lot. It was one that my mother and i came up with to explain flaky girlfriends who said hurtful things, friendships that disappeared off the horizon with no explanations etc.
As i grow older, i am less prone to using it as a be-all, end-all "cop-out" for things i don't understand.
So as i accuse my husband for being unable to be happy for me, i'll own that part of the magnitude of my reaction lies in MY own struggle with being jealous of his life through the years.
Things i am jealous about E's life
• He gets to go to medschool at 18 without having to take the MCATS.
• That he always gets things handed to him without having to work for it ie. medschool, computers, cars, downpayments.
• He has the gall and the courage to find a nuance of medicine that fits his personality ( the non-routine and adrenaline ) instead of being a family doctor like all his peers.
•He gets a family that follows his career goals and decisions.
• He gets a doting and supportive wife. ( i want one )
• He gets to have a career that everyone understands, appreciates ,dotes and fawn over.
• He gets to have a meaningful, life-changing transactions with his patients everyday.
• His career is handsomely compensated.
• His genuine passion for the field of medical informatics, how naturally he networks and how comfortable he is in professional social settings.
• He is genuinely liked and respected.
• He doesn't have to do chores around the house, finances, household duties etc.
• He has no guilt planning his trips away or nights out partying or playing.
• How fathering -- the play, the field trips, the care taking comes so easily for his extroverted self ( where it grates on my introverted need for privacy and quiet )
• He is a guy.

Call it admiration, or jealousy.
It's probably a mixture of both. But ironically, i know that mixed in with it is the resentment.
i remember one point in my life when God confronted me with wanting my husband's life. And i sat down and really thought about his whole life, not just what i could see from the outside and then said "No God, i choose to be me. i choose to stop measuring my life against my husband's. Like Nally and Aidan i am going to stop whining about not getting what my husband has ( just because he has it ) and trust God to give me what i uniquely want and need. "
It was then i started living. And believing that " He had given me the path of life and in His presence are pleasures forever more".

My Sons

Heard the most amazing sermon this morning.
It was on my favorite story Joseph. Pastor Paul has been on Joseph for 2 months now.
I've had a crush on Joseph my whole life. As a teenager because i thought he was cute, melancholic and a dreamer. In my early twenties, he was my quintessential model for climbing the corporate ladder and surviving office politics.
But these days, in the hard years of my marriage, he has been my model for dealing with betrayal. God has me meditating on the point in his life when they open the prison doors and said " You are free" and given where i am right now, i would still be fuming, still be bitter after years of consecutive betrayal, still be hurting and wounding and being wounded. Years ago, God said " One day i will open the prison doors, will you be able to step out ? Or will be choose to stay in your own prison cell of unforgiveness and debt?"
Today Pastor Paul talked about the 2 sons that Joseph bore and what he named them and in the light of my recent entry on forgetting i thought i was practically prophetic.
Manesseh " He had made me forget"    
Pastor talked about in order to forget, we have to remember. This is such a core part of the work i do as a psychotherapist -- going back and remembering what we try to forget. Then he talked about why we need to remember, because we remember enough to testify that God is bigger than our wounds, our betrayal, our past. We can't give a testimony if we don't remember. We can't testify of how these things don't have the power to hold us anymore.
i thought about my wish that night to erase our past and i clung onto this promise. i think a part of me fights the thought that all my life was wasted for nothing. God has to make it meaningful -- even if my husband never sees, never appreciates.
One day i am going to remember even if it's not in an exchanged glance of intimacy the way i fantasize it would be with my husband -- i am going to remember it with joy and gratitude.
Eprahim "God has blessed me to be fruitful in the land of my suffering"
Pastor talked about how we fantasize that if we simply changed our job, our zipcode, our spouse and our surroundings -- our sufferings will end. He said we don't need a new job, we need God's blessing in the job that we have, we don't need a new spouse, we need God's blessings with the same spouse we have.
And i clasp that one close to my heart as well.
"Fruitful in the land of my suffering" right here, right now. It's resonates with a familiarity of God's direction through the years " "Stay put, stay here, stay until the cloud moves and i tell you to move" "The most dangerous place IN the will of God is safer than the safest place OUTSIDE the will of God".
"Fruitful" hit a chord. i like fruitful. i don't care for happiness. But i want to know that it was purposeful, my life, my tears, my suffering, my sacrifice. Even if it means nothing to the one i love -- at least God you will make it fruitful for the next generation.
Thank you Jesus

Jealous

Slept outside my home again last night. E said something that made me so reeling mad i couldn't put my finger on it till this morning.
He said " i don't think it's fair that you get Mondays off since other people ( ie him ) have to work ".
And i just lost it.
One moment, we were sitting there talking about the car accident i was in and our day and the next moment i am raging. i am bringing up every grudge i have for the last 14 years, around the word " fairness" and "work" and the man in the same modus operandi sat there, with his eyes closed and said nothing.
Finally he said " If you're done i have a lot of charts to do and a full day's work tomorrow".
And this strange calm came over me and i told him at 11pm at night i had to find someplace else to sleep.
This morning like clockwork i am up at 6.30am and i am trying to figure out what set me off yesterday.
i swear i could be hit by a ton of cars all day and it wouldn't be as traumatic as my husband's comment.
Reasons why E's comment was so hurtful:
• i have sacrificed my career for his, staying home with the kids while he got to train, explore a career change midway, do everything outside of medicine he does -- and have tried to been supportive and he begrudges me of my Mondays off.
• He does not see that for everything he does be on boards, save people in Katrina, go out at 2am parties -- i had supported/enabled him by watching the kids.
• He thinks he is working all the time and i am not. ( when i am with the kids ). He doesn't think watching the kids is work.
• When he finally acknowledges that taking care of the kids is work ( because in 14 years he is finally responsible for them 2 nights a week ), he does not acknowledge all the years i did it without help.
• He begrudges me of the my help with the nanny and the hours the kids are in school.
• He thinks that my MFT is play, academic travel and completely fluff. He discounts it as work and a career because i love it.
• He begrudges me of my life, my new season, the new space parenting affords me now after not appreciating how hard it was for me to stay home during the years they were home.

i think at the end of the day, i am so incredulous that he cannot be happy for me. i cannot believe he would even bring up the "fair" word. Life hasn't been fair for 14 years.
i realize "work" and "fair" are trigger words for me.
It's not fair. It hasn't been fair that i've had to stay home with the kids while you are out accumulating some star-studded resume and being featured in the newspaper every time you push your child on a swing.
It is not fair that you get special treatment when you come home and i've had just as hellish of a day with an accident a full day's work and had to care for the kids till 10pm at night. i just worked a 16 hour day too. How come you get the special treatment?
i realized again i am so blown away -- just like the revelation that propelled me into recovery that he has no clue of everything i had given and sacrificed for him.
And he is incapable, even how as the opportunity presents it in front of him -- to do the same. Of sucking it up, of being happy for me, of supporting my career, of cheering me on on good days and being happy for me finding work that i love.
i think of the day that he said he wanted to work for a startup, after we had signed to work for Kaiser. After 6 years of hard work, of "delayed gratification", we were going to finally have 'normal hours" a "regular life".
i remember the rage when he said i wasn't going to be a doctor, and that he wanted to work at this medical internet startup.
i remember the rage, the grief, -- wordless inexplicable sorrow.
But i remember swallowing it in and saying -- i will support my husband because i don't want him one day to say i didn't give him a chance.
i never dreamt that he would one day begrudge me of doing the same.
Part of my recovery has been to realize that i had accumulated a huge debt of sacrifice for him to repay. And he never once had any intention of doing so or even showing appreciation.
Part of the grief this year has been to realize that even if he could he wouldn't. It's not in his personality to do so.
And now another revelation is that he will begrudge me for my dreams, my fulfillment, my happiness.
All these years he said he wanted me to be happy, now that i am -- he is jealous.

Our sacrifices

T's
• A career in design in SF because of my values to spend the first years of our marriage together
• Crucial years after graduation for my career that never got recovered ( despite my summer internships every year since i was 15 )
• 2 years of our life supporting him explore a career change at Medicalogic
• 3 months of severance while he figured out what to do.
• Childcare support on every consulting job, non-medical business trip out of town, camp doctor stints, volunteer job out of state, work that took him away from nights with the family.
• His choice to do urgent care making it so that i can never work regular hours as a designer without having someone else care for the kids.
• His choice to do Urgent care, so that our family sacrifices every public holiday, every Saturday, consistency in the evenings, and chances to plan vacations and time with other families.
• His values of not non-coparenting ( till now ) for the kids, help around the house and household maintenance.
• A design career after the kids were born because of the nature of his practice and his values of non-coparenting/outsourcing.
• Emotional and childcare support for his extracurricular activities: partying, working, his volunteerism.

E's sacrifices
• Working a job he feels like he doesn't like now
• Feeling like he can't change careers
• The burden and the responsibility of supporting a family
•A wife that won't recreate with him.

i realized at the end of the day, i would do it over. I could imagine our history today being a point of appreciation and bonding. i imagine my husband taking my hand across the table and laughing about how hard it was in residency and how i would come home to 4 days of not seeing him to him asleep or driving for 2 hours home from Oracle to watch a husband sleep.
i could imagine saying how much he appreciated me being there for his crazy stint in Medicalogic. We would laugh about how crazy it was, how fun those days was in the city.
i would do it. i would do it again. i would do the kids again because i see the fruits, i feel the relationship. The bond is worth it.
But with him, it's like caring for an autistic child. He has no awareness. No sense of relationship.It's like we've had no history together. No gratefulness, no gratitude, no appreciation.
It's like giving to a black hole.
i can't do that anymore.

So ironic it's funny God.
How did we end up here ?
He feels like i don't appreciate him for providing for us financially. i feel like he doesn't see how every thing he does/is today i have paid for with my career and my time home with the kids.
It's especially painful because it's so hard for us.
Him working and me staying home.
He hates working. And staying home with the kids was excruciating.
And his emotional absence those years still grate on me. It makes me set up this even bigger standard and grudge -- you weren't there for me when it was hard. You told me to suck it up. Why in the hell would i support you now.
i supported you and you have no intention of caring for me.
You left.
Why should i stay now?
You left when i had my existential mid-life crisis -- why should i stay for yours ?
i've supported you before -- and now you're shaming me for my happiness.
i need to spend my life protecting myself from you.
You confine me daily with your urgent care hours, my career and our family life and you talk to me about fairness?
About not getting what you want?
You are some piece of work.

Hard, wonderful evening

Husband is home and it's been a hard week of re-adjusting.
Granted he has been very sweet, skipping his usual night rendezvous and coming home right after work.
i circle him suspiciously like a cat.
Last night we went to Wicked and i felt so grievous having let the smell of alcohol the minute i stepped into the car cloud the entire evening. It took all of me to relax each time he opened his mouth. It reminded me of our 10 anniversary when he took me to the city and wine and dined me and i was too livid from years of unresolved conflict to even speak.
It still amazes me that he thinks a night at Wicked is going to solve all our problems.
But still......having perfected the art of compartmentalization since then, i was able to relax and watch the show.
Wicked was wonderful. Just amazing.
The protagonist reminded me so much of myself. Being "green" and different my whole life, out of place, ostracized ( during the Nanyang days ). But more than that, i resonated with the strength of her voice, the intensity of her gaze, the firmness of her handshake, the hardness of her passion, the guardness in her voice and the inconsolable losses in her life. The unrelenting tenor in her voice that contrasts from the fluffy vibrato of Glinda her foil.
Even her love affair with the male lead -- was fleeting, primed for his leaving and disengaging.
i love the song lyrics

Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart

It was a hard evening again -- perfect venue, "perfect date", but still excruciatingly hard.
i am wondering if i can ever be in a space when i can be present and breathe without being disengaged and disassociated so i "don't feel anything".
As the smell of alcohol wore off in the evening -- i wished we could start over, put all of our history behind us, it would be worth erasing all the good times, if the bad went with it too.
Maybe it would be a different story this time...

Separation Anxiety

My husband is out of town. i take his trips away very personally. Always have. Especially since most of them, have nothing to do with work. They have to do with his interests. Like right now he is at a middle school reunion, then we have his annual health technology conferences which i consider a hobby since it has nothing to do with his practice, ( kind of like my writing retreats ) and then there are these trips to DC to review grants ( for free ) of which he spends most of his calls back complaining but he goes because it makes him feel more important than simply caring for his patients.
i'll admit the one trip that trumps is all was one of his annual stints out in the Russian River where he played "camp doctor" for the rich and famous. He stressed the "working bit". But honestly he went for the food and the parties. That one rubbed me raw because one year he let me 36 weeks pregnant with Aidan, and in the few raw instances in our marriage ( probably high on pregnancy hormones and fear because Nally came at 36 weeks ) -- i begged him to stay. He left anyway.
God was good. That stint never came back. They said he was "playing" too much. I felt vindicated.
Granted i am very aware that i am that insecure-avoidant infant in the Mary Ainsworth attachment experiment. The one that never "internalized" mommy and spends a good amount of time when she comes back -- rejecting her.
Granted my husband has so little foresight, foreknowledge, so little sensitivity on holding he doesn't realize between his red-eye flight, his monday night after work drinks, Tuesday flight out again, and Wednesday karaoke nights, 2, 2-day trips becomes 2 weeks.
i told him i'll see him when he finally arrives and is present for more than 2 hours. That way, i can spend the next 4 being mad before re-attaching.
i should have known this a long time ago because when we were dating as students, and i would get all sad about our summers apart, he would spend the day before doing errands or running around inane tasks all day and then send me off on a plane breathless with a quick hug.z
It was like if you were still, you would actually miss the person.
But this trip, i don't know if it's because i am practicing actually showing up in my body and being emotionally present: i am feeling his absence. i am feeling the sadness and the rage that comes with it.
i am both loving the absence of tension in the alone time, but every time when i am with the kids -- hating that he is choosing his elementary friends instead of us. A part of our family is missing. The last time he did this he missed 2 graduations and i never forgave him for that.
Part of me wonders why i can't simply pretend i am a single mother and do what i've set up our lives to do : function without him. And treat him like a grandparent: nice to have but not to depend on.
But the kids miss him. And i miss him when i am with other families. But it's such an age old feeling that it's like a dull ache.
The thing that kills me is that everyone thinks that he is with us a lot. Because the time he has off, he spends it at the school. Doing ridiculous things like checking 160 kids for lice TWICE!.
i tell the teachers, do you notice where the kids are when he is at school? They are at school. He is with you and when the kids come home, he is gone. He is gone every Saturday.
So the whole world gets him. Except us.

Psychotherapist

Twice this week, someone has asked me what i do and i told them " i am a psychotherapist". The first time i said " i was a counselor" then i found out from my ethics class, that i could use the term "psychotherapist" interchangeably.
It was amazing to say it and own it. To have what i have loved for a lifetime be in the same space as profession. To finally be true to who i am really am. Who i am is what i am doing.
i think about E who never thinks twice about scheduling a work conference in health technology, even though it is simply a passion and not his true bread and butter.
i feel so guilty just running away to San Damiano. Today i realized that i could now " legally" run away to Psychotherapy conferences. i sense in myself an excitement i never felt when i got invited to Human Computer Interaction conferences.
Today i watched in amusement as i told a woman i was a psychotherapist suddenly embark on a self-barrage about her own parenting. We had had a funny exchange before she knew what i did. i had tried to explain to Nally why we didn't drink sodas with diet because of Aspartame and Sucroluse. She had offered, tongue-in-cheek the answer " Because i said so". We had laughed about it together.
Then when she found out what i did, she was so embarrassed, gave herself such a brutal critique that i wanted to stop and ask her where this voice was coming from.
It is still fascinating watching how people respond to my new profession.

Happy Alone

i had the most beautiful day on Friday. i usually work at the school, and because they had a teacher-inservice day, i had an unexpected day off. To celebrate i ran away to my favorite place: Santa Cruz.
It was just a glorious day, and the sun was just perfect and i sat on a beach in Capitola sipping Chai and journaling in my Iphone Gratitude journal. It couldn't have been more perfect, watching people stroll on the beach -- my favorite demographic: the elderly, the fit and conscientious, children.
i then done some reading over a lovely calamari lunch,drove back in time to pick up the kids, watch them play at the park, make them a sushi rice dinner, take them to growth group grateful to feel rested, rejuvenated, to see them.
i felt whole, fulfilled, centered, focussed, self-reliant, grounded, ready to care for the kids for the weekend.

i felt beautiful, watched, seen, admired, complete in myself as a woman, mother, wife.
i wake up the next day, to cosy kisses and wrestles in bed, self initiated math homework ( my favorite kind ) cuddles, glorious special with the kids on a Saturday morning.
Then my husband calls as i am pulling out of the garage. And i am suddenly flooded with self-pity and anger. i swear, i don't know where it comes from. One moment, i am centered, self-reliant, tender mother -- the next moment i am a resentful, angry, wife livid that her husband is not home with the family and rather out traipsing with a bunch of strangers he hadn't seen since elementary school.
Suddenly i am dependent, weak, helpless, self-piteous. i am irritated he calls telling me all about the fun things he's done. i am annoyed he suggests that i stop at the Fire Station for the Fireman's Pancake Breakfast knowing that i had 30 minutes to get breakfast, take the kids to a school event and to cut out for a birthday party.
For the rest of the time, i am nervous, anxious, filled with despair at how i was suppose to juggle such a tight schedule. Torn between having Nally stay at the school event and Aidan see his friend at the party. i am livid at Laser Tag when both kids wouldn't go in, and finally when Nally decided to go in, she wouldn't without me, and Aidan wouldn't stay out without me. i left an angry message on my husband's phone reporting how ridiculously hard it was for one parent to take 2 kids to laser tag.
And then i marveled. At how quickly my husband can drain all semblance, all traces, all hard-earned, 1 hour to drive to serenity i manage to nurse in my morning away at Santa Cruz.
It is almost as if he is toxic.
i told my girlfriend who called me depressed at a Singles Party: what is it about men. One moment i am a happy beautiful woman with all the resources i need to be a single mom, the next moment i am a whiny, angry, resentful wife livid at the thought that my husband is out with a bunch of strangers while i am working overtime with the kids.
See you on Thursday i wrote. And please for my sanity, don't call. Just SMS.
Somehow i can protect my sanity if i don't hear his voice.
i remember the anxiety i felt with the male therapist in the room at PTI and enormous relief i felt when he finally stepped out.
i am so aware of how right now, with the kids asleep in their beds and the night stretching out into darkness, after a long day of fellowship -- sipping a cup of hot water -- i am finally centered. Finally happy. Finally fulfilled.
God -- i am the most happy alone.

Insights from my PTI session

• i decided i would not connect with my therapist before i entered the room.
- my default and comfort zone is disconnection.
• i could not meet his eyes. His smiling eyes were more threatening to me than angry eyes. Angry eyes/neutral eyes were less threatening to me than smiling understanding eyes.
• i could not stay safe with his eyes open.
• i had to close my eyes.
• i felt safest when i was alone and he left the room.
• My safe place is a small, scrunched up closet that is dark and impinging.
• i did not like him touching me.
• When he held my hands, i felt threatened but kept myself safe by disassociating.
• When he kept coming closer, i could not tell him to stop. Instead i figured out how i could get myself out of the way. i ended up scrunched up in a chair.
• i did not know my throat hurt until i made contact with it and pressed on it.
• Inter-relational work raises my level of anxiety while intra-personal work calms me down.