Goddammit, People!
I’m still me.
I plow along through the terror of the times, politically and virally. I deal with the evolving state of my grief and find some room within it to be grounded. I am engaging in creating from all these places one way or the other and I think it is good for me. It is what I do.
The problem in the micro is, in the quiet moments I have, that are generally not on purpose, I see myself. As I am.
I’m fine. I’m dealing. I’d like to think that I have evolved or changed or have grown somehow--emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, psychologically. I don’t know. When I’m with someone, I live in relation to them. I guess it’s codependency or maybe it’s just the nature of love or what I understand love to be. Now I am dispatched and detached, dealing with my emotions and sense of self relatively solo and guarded. I can tap right into what I used to be, who I always was, an oversensitive, insecure, panicky, self-loathing person who is very hard on himself almost always.
I know where it comes from. If you’ve done any work on yourself, you know what’s up but that doesn’t really matter after a point. I found something Lynn wrote and it was devastating. It was early on, I think. ‘If I can get Marc to love himself, I believe he can love me.’ Heartbreaking. I was getting there. With her.
Now, I’m at a loss as to how to continue.
Meditation keeps coming up. Lynn meditated, twice a day.
My therapist says that through meditation self-acceptance and self-love is possible. Why do I fight it? I have TIME. Because I’m a compulsive ape. She hipped me to the idea that because we are animals we are negative. It is the human interpretation of constant fight or flight. It takes vigilance and silence to manage it and make it positive. Garry Shandling told me if you can’t sit with silence, you’re an addict. He meant anyone. That the need for distraction itself is addiction.
The reason I don’t meditate is I want relief NOW! Like a baby. I want caffeine, nicotine, sugar, attention, adulation, sex, etc. I want to feel the now-feels that make me stop feeling the always bad feels.
I am fortunate that my sobriety is strong and deep enough that I never think about drinking or using the bad drugs and I haven’t drifted back to nicotine. Though I am close. I want to feel like not me.
I need to get hip to sitting in silence and continuing what Lynn started in me because she believed. I have to believe.
I knew I would know myself deeper and all the way due to this lockdown and in the shadow of tragedy. I did not know that the struggle would be to find meaning in continuing to get better and still trying to experience happiness and self-love and acceptance in the face of fresh psychic and literal garbage being dumped daily on all of us.
Today I have a lovely, compelling talk with Glenn Close. On Thursday Michael J. Fox takes me through how he maintained positivity in the face of his struggle with Parkinson's. Great talks!
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron