I had my surgery, and it was a big one.  Am now recuperating. And so I am spending extra time here on SSN too!  Thanks again to all of you who posted here in this thread  Everyone's insights and kindness and advice mean so much. 

Random but connected: When my husband and I first had children, I picked up a book called Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting,” by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn.  It appealed to my sense of peace and finding peace in chaos.  The Zinns emphasized how when our children masterfully push our buttons, because they figure out our buttons very astutely, we can think of them as little zen masters, and work to maintain our inner peace no matter what the zen master might throw at us.  Then this inner peace guides us to be better parents, etc, and helps our children be more centered themselves, etc etc.

Sitting here on my bed, or on my chair, elevating my legs you know, I look around at my bookshelves and they are full of titles like this: Peaceful Parents, Peaceful Kids, and Developing Emotional Intelligence, and Patterns of Nature, and Treating People Well, and all kinds of poetry and essays by authors from different faith traditions. I even have “The hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate.”  Hahaha!  It’s actually a great book!  Then the titles obviously reflecting  “something is going on in my marriage but I do not understand”:  The How of Happiness, and Unattended Sorrow, and Ambiguous Loss  Even some Eeyore and Pooh philosophies.

I fancied myself to be A Seeker, I guess. 

So the anger I have felt, and my difficulty managing it, is just so upsetting to me.  And also the sense of my inner life having been sucked dry.  Sucked dry by my husband taking it and turning it against me.  Sucked dry by now only reading about gender fluidity, character disorders, marriage problems, abuse, etc.  and that is when I even have the presence of mind to read anything.

So now, am thinking, “Well! What an EGO I’ve had! Here I imagined I was all gonna be who? Tilda Swinton, the Ancient One, in Dr Strange and the Avengers?  But really, I am Jack Black, Po, in Kung Fu Panda.” 

Returning to the Kabat-Zinns: thinking of my husband as the ultimate zen master, me as Jack Black, Kung Fu Panda. Just bumbling through. Longing for a big old rice bowl. Hero’s journey? Who to channel?

Too! much! Hydrocodone! this afternoon....

BTW, Ambiguous Loss by Pauline Boss—truly one of the best books for grief with no resolution.  Maybe it’s time to re read it!

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 11, 2021 7:08 pm)