The way we respond

 

The way I responded to the news, beyond being worried about E and worried that she would feel abandoned, but also that she needed space from me... was apparently to buy a bunch of fucking Japanese food and candy (hedonism). Her sisters recommended we go to Taylors falls and we spent a sunny afternoon sweating and not quite prepared for a hike. We watched comedies that weren't as funny as we'd hoped, and Brene Brown's third episode. We talked about work a lot. We talked about politics. We talked about the future and the plans I couldn't help but make (quit jobs, travel more!) because I felt so powerless. 

I was struck by how everything seemed so much more in perspective. Life is not long and meaningless, it is a gift, short and should be cherished. Even the small moments. Even the painful ones have their place. Part of the reason I am so drawn to E, is that I haven't met anyone who could teach me that in the way I needed. I recognize now that many people have tried, have tried to teach me, have tried to love me, but I wasn't ready to drop my armor. Now I get it, I try to hold on to it. It's not an easy path for either of us, but it does feel more real to be true to yourself. 

Life changes part 2

On Friday E and I spent our evening in the emergency department in the city of Wyoming, MN. The place doesn't have a great reputation with her family, but nonetheless we were there and hopeful, and scared, and excited, and afraid. 

Her sister texted me "hurry! ultrasound in here now." around 5:30.  We switched out, and I ran down the hall with excitement and a little bit of worry.  I got to watch the doctor place goo on the little ultrasound paddle and press into her lower abdomen. And he showed us where the baby was developing and said that everything looked right except it might be too early, because he didn't see an embryo. 

So we waited another hour, and she was rolled into another room and a lady took a thousand pictures, and wouldn't tell us what she was doing. And then we waited another half an hour or more. E had a headache, she was getting impatient and crabby. The staff were very nice, but no one was coming to visit. 

Around 8 or 8:30 the doctor came back in. He said they couldn't detect a heart beat and so, either the pregnancy is earlier in development than it should be, or she will miscarry. Come back in 3-5 days. He was actually very reassuring, validating of a number of worries, no judgments, but realistic... it reminded me of the conversation E and I had with a client and her mother earlier in the day, though with a different outcome. 

One of our favorite clients was told she would be discharged from the program for safety and staffing reasons. She walked across the hall and harmed herself. We attended to her. My alarm was already on high, and my chest ached. In the midst of this, E fainted, and a terror I haven't experienced in a long time set in. I literally and figuratively felt pulled in two directions. E reassured me she was ok. We got our student the help she needed, and I raced through the halls looking for E. She was sitting, growing less pale, and more herself, but I couldn't let go of the panic. I just stared, waiting for some sign of reassurance, that came in waves... but ultimately didn't stop until sometime around midnight or 1 am, when I sat in bed next to her crying. When I walked into her living area crying, when I surrendered to my helplessness. And the ache in my chest let up, though I have continued to experience these waves of sadness. 

We don't know the outcome of this particular pregnancy. Plans and plans and plans, juggling... There are things that are still in motion regardless: I have to write an email to the parents of my students and let them know I am leaving. I have my normal work stuff to do, plus some. I have other students I need to see to graduation or discharge. I have an apartment to find and rent. I have stuff to pack. I have a trip to plan. I have insurance to find. A new job to apply and get. All these things regardless, and now there is a new grief to sit with. 

E needs support right now. I have friends who need support right now. I have laundry and dishes to do. I have people to text back because I haven't responded...

I have an amazing girlfriend who reminds me to sit with my feelings and not apologize for them, reminds me I am human and I don't have to live up to some ridiculous expectation, or hold everything for everyone else. I feel very loved and grateful. I worry she is holding too much for me. 

I am also worried I am not enough. 

But even though the odds aren't in our favor, I spent some time this morning envisioning this baby, this child growing up, thinking it will be a wild and dramatic kid who plays with everyone's hearts. Allows them to feel the highs and lows, the hopes and excitement, the terror and heartache. And I'd be so happy to be their father. 

Written at work the last few weeks

probably the week of 4/17/22

In the midst of such gigantic things, the day-to-day drama seems trivial. They hurt my feelings by being insensitive! Yes, yes, they did. What would you like to do about it?

I am afraid of my world being turned upside down! Yes, yes you are, and yet the world turns. So what would you like to do about it?

Some are better at asking for help, some ask for things they don’t need. Some refuse the help that is offered. And none of that is within my control.

I need to let go. I am not sure how. It pains me to see how things dissolve. On the podcast they talked about how the evidence supports the belief, I must take responsibility, or it will fall apart. Maybe its supposed to. Maybe it can be rebuilt better?  I have to trust that, believe it into existence, I can’t take responsibility only for the fall.

How do a bunch of untrained people train each other up?

Blind leading blind in circles of despair. Outside our purview.

4/27/22

Dear Michael,

It is a Wednesday and you are trying hard not to jump and save or control. Allowing the new therapist to play her role, hoping for the best. There are a number of kids that you are worried about, and disappointing their families is an awful feeling. And a number of staff. And the whole damn program on some level. And all of this is outside of your ability to control. And it sucks. Today, you are taking the time to connect where you can, reassure where you can, but also put it back in their hands. How would you like to address that?  What could you go about that? Brainstorm some ideas of how things could go differently…

But are these tools and the compassion in which they are offered enough?  No. No they never will be. 

Alan Watts video from yesterday, he says the more you slice a thing and analyze the more complex it will become, infinitely, deeper and deeper, until you lose sense of the wholeness and perfection of the simplicity. A trick of the mind… if I could just understand more! But no.  Enjoy the thinking and analyzing -but know that it will not make the work easier, nor the process smoother, nor the thing less what it is. It is what it is.  Its perfect that way.  These kids are just kids growing up. Their “mental health disorders” are a more a function of their circumstances than of their person, but even if they weren’t, who is to say they should be “cured?”  I asked one this morning, why shouldn’t you be sad?  Because its uncomfortable, yup. Healing and growing is uncomfortable. The heaviness is because it matters. Acknowledge it, hug it, wrap a blanket around it, give it praise. Its all beautiful. Your sorrow is a gift to unwrap deeper joy. Congratulations, you are growing beyond the scope of what you once knew. 

And yet I am scared. I am scared people will come to me and I will not have pleasing answers. I will not have the capacity to placate or sooth or reassure that they have the answers they need. I will not have the time or energy or position to challenge, to hold, to reinforce. I will not get to create with, or laugh with, or celebrate, or mourn with these beautiful humans soon. And I am sad. And I am scared that it won’t matter, or worse, that I will be the undoing. And I can challenge that notion, and I can reframe it, and I can critique the thinker who thinks it… but the worry is present. Do I have faith in them?   Do I have faith in the G-d or universe that makes things perfect in their imperfection/vulnerability/ sorrow? Do I have faith in the efforts and of my good character, and of the staff who will carry on the legacy if there is one at all?  Sometimes… but I am grieving, and it is a process of acknowledging what will be different.

I am reminded of how desperately I wanted to cling and was also distant/repulsed from LNAS after leaving. How I would have given my curriculum away to the next, but also wanted to withhold so as to ensure the next would put in the effort. I want to make it easy to be passionate. But passion, fire breath, comes from a yearning deeper than I can support with my attempts to shallowly carve an easy path.

“Theres nothing I can do, not much I can change, so I give it up to you, I surrender.” As Mitski puts it. I have to stop believing that only the outcomes I prefer are good. Each and every infinite avenue as the dream says, is a reflection of the perfection of G-d. Let them carve their paths, let their hearts be heavy, swell and burst, let them acknowledge their own route forward so that it isn’t truly a “Michael told me to….” But a “Michael supported me in …” But ultimately, the most important thing for my heart, is that I be true to it. I am ready to move on.  Moving on allows a thing to breathe, to change, to grow beyond what I had imagined. And if that is “bad,” then my efforts to hold back the waterfall probably weren’t worth it, and better that I leave. And if that change is “good,” then I contributed what I could, while I could and left doing my best. Letting go is the ultimate act of faith and love sometimes. And despite my worries, I am that.

4/29/22

I am feeling an urgency, a desire to save, rescue, fix. To reassure and validate when more than that is needed… when processing and problem solving, reconciling, and accepting is what is needed. There are forces of creation and destruction in play, that cosmic swirling dance that sets us a drift. I thought there was a floor there, but there is none, and so I am falling again, again, again. How do I enjoy the freefall rather than fear its ultimate and inevitable end? All things fall apart, creation and destruction, confusion and learning, splitting and healing, dividing and multiplying in growth. All things fall apart to reveal their simplicity, and also all things build into complexity. Goodbye my friend. Hello my love. Goodbye my dearest, hello my adversary. Change, loss and renewal. 

And if I save them from the depths of their despair, console, meet them where they are, and say goodbye tomorrow, will it have mattered? Yes. Yes I tell myself. But I do not control their story. What will they do with their wild soul contract of a life? I sit in awe and wonder (and suffering and grief) as it is revealed, for my attachments and expectations are sky high. I presume to know what G-d knows, as he has offered me a portion of his heart, and with it I see you. And in seeing you, I am made more aware of the beauty and the tragedy of it all. 

SO what should I do with this life, this soul contract of mine. Grow close and pull away? Risk and run?

I step closer and perchance mar the heart which I care so much about, and then in trepidation retreat at the power of my own displacement. I withhold my judgment, fail to act and by doing so, allow a greater tragedy to unfold.

5/6/22

It is 10:30 on a Friday. The week before all hell breaks loose? The week before I loosen the weight on my shoulders. A video on Instagram told me that when things make you anxious, you should visualize a good outcome, so that you can be excited instead of anxious/dreading. I woke up dreading. Dreading all the little conversations I needed to have, that would disappoint or hurt, or frustrate. 
I feel like I am letting folks down but it is beyond my control to work through. I have to release the burden, put it back on them, and it makes me realize that I have been holding too much of their stuff. Not pushing it back as much as I should have. I am human, the heart is pulled, and at times I respond to emotional reasoning, and hurt, by holding and validating, rather than reminding them there is a boundary. I can’t do for the whole staff. I see E trying to do it as well. It won’t be effective.

There are some students we can’t support, because they aren’t ready, aren’t willing, aren’t able to handle the things and we cannot do it for them -though many of us may want to.

I am cognizant of the areas I have made mistakes/failed, tried a new approach, tried again, OR avoided out of my anxiety. I am aware especially of the difficult conversations that I postponed hoping that there would be a better moment, keeping the peace because I didn’t want to lay the bricks upon someone who was already expressing their feelings of hopelessness or defeat.

I am also cognizant of the twisting, the way things are being relayed, and how when feelings are involved it is so easy to lose track of reality. We all have some emotional reasoning, and when our feelings are big, it is easy to say “This thing I feel must be true, you must make it true, regardless of the reality.” But emotions are temporary things. My constant worrying, ruminating, prognosticating won’t change anything. Goodbyes are hard. I need some space to sort out my feelings and thoughts, but also have a billion things to do. I need more help than is offered, or rather, I am unwilling to let go and accept the help sometimes.

The people I want to honor, the intentions, the relationships, the attachment...