Love Song for my Former Self

An old Shakira song came up on my ipod today, and it made me think not of the men I usually think of when I hear love songs, but of my old self. The one I've been grieving. You know, the one with energy to spare, chasing the wind.

El cielo esta cansado ya de ver la lluvia caer

Y cada dia que pasa es uno mas parecido ayer

No encuentro forma alguna de olvidarte porque

Seguir amandote es inevitable.

The sky is tired of watching the rain fall

And every day goes by much the same as yesterday

I can't find any way of forgetting you because

To keep on loving you is inevitable. 
(The translations in this post are literal translations, not her English version, which is linked below, because the words are different enough that I don't know that I would've felt the same way)

Acceptance

Acceptance is not lying down.
Acceptance is not giving up.
Acceptance is not about trying
To do this thing, that thing
Or no thing; nothing at all.
No, it's a rising up
To meet reality.
As it is.
No cushions no bubbles
No blankies no cuddles
No crap... Just Real.
This is it. That is all.
Nothing less nothing more
Than this time this place
This feeling this space
The air that I breathe
That came 'round the world
And into my lungs to fill...
To fill and then dissipate
Ebbs and flows
Never still
Never the same
Just constant.
Ebbing and flowing Air
Sand, Fire, Water
Through the space the place
Where it hits hard
The big emotions
Love Anger Hate
Face it, see it, hail it.
Acceptance follows
With peace and consent
A big yes, calm and content
Yes.
Welcome. Be here. Be now.
Accept.

Pearl Jam's Just Breathe

Again, with the songs. This time, the one that won't go away is Just Breathe, from Pearl Jam's Backspacer - one of the best albums I've ever heard. This is the song Vedder said is the closest he's come to writing a love song. And yet, it's more about the quality a of life than it is about romantic love itself.

Although the song is overtly about dying and romantic love, there are lines that resonate really really strongly, even though my illness is thankfully not life-threatening and I have no significant other.  The song has been twirling more in head recently, as I've been reflecting about how lucky I am to have people to lean on and how much we all share the basic stories, pain and joy that is living (related posts: On the Village, Here's to Good Friends, Everybody's Got a Story, Gracias a la Vida, Celebrating the Bestest of my Best Friends).

I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love

I'm even luckier than the man in the song, because it would take both my hands and feet, and those of a few other people as well. I've got an amazing network of fantastic people with whom I share unconditional love. It wasn't always so, and it took me a long time to realize that my own actions and attitudes played a big part in my isolation, and are what now draw good people to me. When I started to really examine how I related to other people, patterns emerged, that I worked hard to change on my end. The people I related to had no choice but to allow the relationship to evolve or to dissipate. I am grateful that so many grew with me and allowed me to grow closer to them. And this is a great segue to the next verse:

Clebrating the Bestest of my Best Friends

Last night, I had the gift of celebrating two birthdays (among many actually - there are a lot of March babies in the group of friends that gathered - but it's the two closest to me I specifically I want to write about). I was serenaded by one of the birthday girls during the karaoke part of the evening. She sang me "Cool Rider" from Grease 2, the ultimate in cheesy badness. The other is even more adamant than I about not singing in public.

Today I am happy, filled with memories from a night I wasn't sure I'd be able to have. I did as close to nothing as I possibly could yesterday, planning and preparing for the evening. I was sure I would only last two hours at the most, and that I'd be fully crashed out today. Once again, I am happy to be proven wrong.

Thanks to the thoughtfulness and presence of the two birthday girls, I was able to  handle more than I thought. Gentle hugs, excellent conversation and copious amounts of laughter made it easy for me to stay out past my bedtime. And although it took a very very long time for my sympathetic system to process every experience and disengage so I could actually get some sleep, I feel way less bad than I though I would today.

The Downside of Reconnecting

My mom is away at a conference (I'm so jealous), so the duty of driving the boys back and forth to school was reassigned for the last couple of days. Between the rest of the adults in the family, we've been taking care of it. Yesterday I took the boys to school. I bought coffee from my former students (they run a coffee business as part of the program) and sat with them for a good long chat. I saw many parents and children, and was on the receiving end of a great many hugs. It all made me very very happy. Until I got home.

I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I was in such a crap mood yesterday. I'd had a lovely morning. I wasn't exhausted. I'd seen some of my very favourite people. But even in the sunshine, or playing games... I just couldn't shake it. When I told my therapist yesterday afternoon, she connected the dots for me. I had gotten a taste of my old life, and it revived the feelings of grief and loss.

Today I went to pick up my nephew, and it was a similar experience. I'm sad right now. I'm sad because I laughed with a parent in the parking lot, and because my students were thrilled to see me and were crawling over themselves to show me things and because I love them so much and I miss them terribly all over again.

Priorities

I realized as I walked in the door this morning after taking the boys to school, that there is a silver lining in all this. Well, I'm sure there's more than one, but today I was thinking about priorities, and how our actions reflect what our real priorities are, as opposed to those we think we hold.

Having to make a decision on a daily basis between actions I can and cannot take, really has brought my priorities into very strong focus. When you can only actively tackle two or three things a day, these decisions become simpler. I realize that by tracking my choices, I can see them super clearly. And thus, my priorities are easier to adjust (plus, I have a really really good excuse not to do things that I'm not so keen on). Here is what I've noticed.

The Brain Fog Has Invaded My Dreams

Seriously. Even in my dreams, I am now unable to perform basic cognitive tasks.

I dreamt last night that Eduardo and I needed to go to a plaza, and we decided to go into Starbucks. I got out of the car, but left it running. Got back in, turned it off. Left the keys inside.... Fast forward... we're walking a loooong way home with our drinks, when I realize I don't remember having walked there. I ask him: "Did we walk to Starbucks?"

This has become a recurring theme in my dreams. I keep leaving my car in random places, only to remember when I start to get tired from the walk (because it's usually more than a 10 minute walk if I drove in the first place) or when I realize how far I am from home. Gotta love the strange logic of dreams. The funny thing is that it's never the car I have now, it's always my previous one - the red Saturn. I hope that is a good omen. Maybe all it means is that on a subconscious level I feel like I've left my old car behind? I like that idea better than it being a prescient dream, for sure!

I'm pretty sure the brain fog in my waking life won't get bad enough that I'll try to walk home from anywhere, but I wake up feeling strange after those dreams - like my reality has somehow invaded my dream.