Thaw

My dad called me yesterday.

It felt as though the ground had opened up before my feet, and there I was, frozen at the edge. The overwhelming relief in having escaped a monumental disaster was intertwined with the intense fear that I might still fall in the crevasse. As we talked, it was like I could see every word as soon as it was uttered, as if the conversation was being recorded on paper in real time, a transcript for later review.

Dad hasn't called in over a year. Our last real conversation was on Christmas Day 2005, when I listened once again to his disapproval of how I was handling my life, his anger at not being heeded in what to him was family business. It was clear to me at the time that I was not at a place to handle on-going conversations like that and still feel freedom to make my own choices. It also seemed clear that he wasn't going to change his opinions any time soon, and that his grief and disappointment was going to stand in the way of our being able to enjoy what at many times has been a close relationship.

I made a few overtures, sending cards, emails, and birthday presents, and being friendly for those brief hellos before the phone was passed to Mom. But I also held back, knowing that I needed the space as much as he did in order for me to walk on the path I've chosen. I recognize the ambivalence in that, how painful it's been, and how it has served me at the same time.

What's different now? Is my resolve making room for me to tolerate his feelings and opinions? Is there softening that comes with the passing of time? My parents are in the process of moving to DC after two years of interim work in Florida, and my brother and sister-in-law just had a baby; maybe there's an openness to change in the midst of change. I don't know. Whatever the reasons, I left a message for him while Mom was helping out with my new nephew, and he called me back.

We had a pleasant conversation, staying on the surface as we exchanged stories from the week. It was as if we'd been talking regularly all this time, as if we had both been ready to be in relationship but needed a little push to get started. At one point, he was lamenting about how they were going to lose a great sum of money from the sale of their house in Florida. They'd bought in order to accommodate my father's extreme dislike of apartment living; after only a year in the house, they were set to lose tens of thousands of dollars.

"It's a big loss, but it was for our peace of mind," he put forth, matter-of-factly.

"I think I know what you mean," I stammered. "Actually, I feel exactly the same way."

And then we moved on to other topics -- the kids, catching colds, Chinese New Year -- all the while the words in that exchange searing my consciousness like a branding iron. Who would've known that it would be my father, who, after an Ice Age of silence, would speak the truth of my life, and my impending divorce, with such eloquence and simplicity.

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Possibility

I've gone from having zero job leads to having three. Was it only last week when I thought I'd be joining the guys selling the Spirit down the block from my house? It's very exciting, and also nerve-wracking; somehow, coming so close to a job without actually closing a deal puts me on the edge even more than having no possibilities at all.

What do I want to be when I grow up? The age-old question continues to puzzle me. Until now, I haven't been in a situation where my income was the main source of my support, so I've been free to explore possibilities at my own pace. Now, however, I don't have that luxury; I need to bring in at least $2500 next month to pay all the bills. ParentsConnect was good and all, but I'm realizing that unless something like that drops in my lap in the next two weeks, I'm going to have to clock in at work like millions of other Americans do each day.

Part of me wants to just take the first job that will pay well (I say this as if they were a dime a dozen); drug dealing aside, I do see the need for a reliable income stream right now. With three kids needing new shoes, I'm not so sure I can stomach a return to the life of a freelance musician. "But what about me?" cries my new self, the one who is listening to itself and loving it and making courageous choices and living with them. "You thrive on being creative and passionate and detail-oriented and visionary," it repeats, as I comb mercilessly through the want ads.

I can hardly speak of my job leads, for fear of jinxing them. None of them is to the point of an offer, yet the conversations (and the job descriptions) all sound promising, should the contingencies resolve themselves. That's a big 'should' - one of them depends on the current person taking a proposed leave of absence; another depends on a non-profit board coming up with suitable funding in the middle of the fiscal year. Maybe all will come through, maybe none. Come March 1, I just need one.

The book I'm reading right now is helping me cope with the anxiety of it all. Written by a husband-wife team that includes the director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, The Art of Possibility is reinventing the way that I look at my life as a job seeker, musician, parent, and individual. It's feel-good and self-help for sure, but within its pages I am finding the encouragement to tolerate the uncertainty I'm in. I love the fact that it's written by a musician who understands the neurotic and perfectionistic tendencies I have. I love the fact that it speaks of changing what is in my power to change - the way I look at things - as a means of changing everything else. I love the fact that it puts forth a good case for even difficult circumstances being a springboard for infinite possibilities.

Give it a once-over, and tell me what you think.

photo credit: Penguin Group

Notes from the search

I've been looking for a job. Anyone else doing the same?

What an interesting, challenging process, full of self-doubt and reassessment and high hopes and anxiety about the bottom line. I've never lost a job before, but I am not surprised to find that the feeling of vulnerability is similar to the one that accompanies other kinds of losses with which I am better acquainted.

At least I know what I want: I've decided that I need a job in which I can work a minimum number of hours for a maximum amount of pay, have a flexible schedule, and work from home at least part of the time.

Jan remarked drily, "don't we all?"

"I think drug dealing would be perfect," deadpans Sarah, "except for the occasional jail time. Might be inconvenient."

How is it going for you?

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Fear, I know your name

I figured something out last week. Not the answer to a nagging question nor a chunk of memory recovered; no, it was much more subtle than that. I figured out the answer to a question that I wasn't asking yet, that I didn't even know to ask.

This having-my-own-voice thing is great on paper, but in reality I have struggled with it all my life. Even in the last two+ years, when I have grasped with my own two hands the birthright of being myself, uniquely beautiful and distinct from the rest of the world, I have been mortified to find myself silencing my own voice for whoknowswhatreason. Well, now I know.

I am afraid.

I am afraid of being rejected.

I am afraid that, in having my own voice and seeing things differently, I will be loved less.


I have often felt like disagreements in my family have come hand in hand with disapproval. When I decided to go into music instead medicine, when I dated a rakish Jewish boy instead of the respectable engineer from Taiwan, when I asked my husband of ten years to move out: each and every time I had to count the cost, and the cost has been high. As I write this, I grieve my current estrangement from my parents, the awkwardness eased only by the tumult that three beloved grandchildren can bring. I can say that it's their problem, that this is their Old World way of showing that they love me, that of course I need to do what I think is best and that they'll come around, but the truth is that I have cowered and am in danger of cowering in the shadow of a palpable if not obvious fear of rejection.

I don't think I would have realized this had it not been for the profound, unbridgeable gap that lies between their point of view and mine on the issue of my marriage. Had it been just a little thing I might have easily swayed myself to their way of thinking as I have many times before, unaware of the internal compromise of choosing acceptance over independence. But this is no little thing.

So I'm choosing to face this fear, now, for the sake of myself.

Somehow I was able to uncover this in therapy last week, to hear it and not be overwhelmed by it, to sit with it and marvel at how it fits like a kidskin glove. It feels so vulnerable to be laid open, my deepest fears exposed and known. But if knowing is half the battle, then I'm going to win this one.

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Letting go

I lost my job on Thursday, January 18, 2007. I've experienced quite a bit of loss in my recent past, and this was both a doozy and, just another thing. I've been working hard to feel the pain of it in the moment, not to bury it or try to tell myself it isn't as bad as it is; God knows I don't need anything coming back up to bite me in the future. I see it as doing business with myself and my stuff, a new awareness and discipline that I've discovered and tried to practice since the breakup of my marriage. This, however, takes copious amounts of Kleenex, comfort food, and well-timed phone calls from your friends to talk you off the ledge.

There aren't many jobs in which I have a tombstone up, an epitaph that I get to write (and rewrite, when it inadvertently steps on Corporate's toes). When I wrote it, I really thought I could say goodbye, take my severance, and walk away. After all, what choice do I really have? First off, I'd need to replace the income and then some, as my husband has had the idea to play a little financial hardball this month with my support amount. Second, with a d!^o?(@ in the works, I knew my emotional energy needed to go toward preparing to tell the kids (so that I feel like I can actually use the word; that's got to be an important step toward settling in the reality of it, don't you think).

But the past few weeks have been much different from what I imagined. After writing that post, it occurred to me that it was just the first step out of many of saying goodbye. How do you walk away from a blog, an online journal of often private, intimate thoughts, shared in unmistakable community? It's been heartwrenching to go back to read comments, and say goodbye to people with whom I'd made connections. As the IT guys work to erase every trace of my former self from the site (a pseudonym comes in handy at a time like this - HA, you're not really doing this to ME, but to someone else!), it feels like I'm the one struggling to let go.

Starting this blog, I think, is a big part of completing the process. What I have to say does not end with what I've written on ParentsConnect. If I stop writing, I'll do it on my own impetus, not because I've somehow been ousted from the position of representing myself. Something inside reminds me that I have just recently come into my own voice, into feeling the right and rightness of having and speaking that voice, and that I would not give that up for the world.

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I've surfaced...

...to catch my breath. I'm going down again, and I know it.

The waves are high, the water's rough and bone-chilling cold. I hate the feeling of water in my nose, the salt stinging my eyes. It's almost easier to stay down under the surface, where it's eerily quiet and everything, including my anxious heart, moves in slow motion. When I look up, I see light, shimmering luminous through the blues and greens. A surprising stillness, an outside-looking-in, as if I'd died a minute ago and I can see that no one thought to tell my body. Maybe someone who's been there and back can tell me about it.

The food, family, fortitude and faith part is going to have to wait; today all I can think about is air.

chicka chicka boom boom...will there be enough room? Just to put one finger in front of the other to set up this blog took two weeks and felt like an agonizing stretch toward an obscured target. I told Kim today that I realized it would help me to have someplace to go, someone to write for (if only for myself), to put down in words the things and feelings left unspoken in the casual encounters of the day. I think I'll be healthier for it. So here I am. Is there room in the chaos that is my life right now for a blog? I honestly don't know, but I'm going to find out.

I hope you'll come with me.

photo credit: emanouel V. via stock.xchng