Avett Brothers Dream
I sleep in blackness. Eyes close, world is black and quiet, eyes open in the morning. No dreams. No flying or swimming in chocolate or Patrick Dempsey with dripping candlewax. Empty silence – cold and predictable is my nightly fate. But every now and then, when Jupiter is aligned with the seventh moon of Pluto I wake up with a foggy quickly fading memory of a storyline from my sleeping subconcious. The occasion feels so unusual, waking up with photographic visual memories of the night before, that I’d like to share:
I was in a nice hotel or B&B with a lot of people who maybe felt like extended family but I didn’t know them. And the Avett Brothers (sans Bob – not intentional, I would’ve wanted Bob to be there!) had a room down the hall. At first I was too shy to approach or initiate any sappy “you guys are my favorite band” gush, but I decided the best approach was to act like they were just dudes and sort of omit the fact from my awarenss that they dominate my iPod. I wandered into their room post shower and asked to borrow a comb (interesting because I don’t use combs in my tangly mop) from Scott. Flash forward to the three of us sitting by the window and me combing Scotts long curls. Now I must clarify that this dream didn’t have any elements of wild passionate lust (although I would welcome such a dream in the future). It was more warmth, less fire, more talk, less touch, more hug, less hump. Perhaps my crush(es) on them were beneath the surface of our interactions but even my subconscious self seems to respect their marriages and hold in highest esteem the fact that they must be the best husbands in the world. Then Seth showed me the juicer they had in their room – squeezing an apple into oblivion and producing a delicious cup of fresh sweetness.
The brothers performed that night at what must have been the “main event” of the family gathering where I knew no one. And no one knew THEM. The dancefloor was totally empty. So I laced up my tall moccasin boots, cast my self-consciousness aside and danced my heart out.
Interpret if you will. I know that I felt connection in a dream where there otherwise wasn’t any. The Avett Brothers are welcome back in my dreams whenever they choose.
Check, please!
The universe was listening today and gave me a sign. Morning individual therapy was spent exploring my parts’ feelings about making decisions in my life. Central to the conversation were my upcoming plans to relocate. I just don’t feel ready to leave therapy or group – they’re working…something is finally WORKING! But a part of me wishes I didn’t feel so dependent on therapy, that I didn’t feel so scared that I’ll fall apart without it, that I could see myself as more resilient than that. The biggest motivation to stay is therapy. The biggest reason to leave is that I’m tired of my job and relocation feels like the only “valid” excuse to leave my current position. But I generated some ideas of other options – take a different local job short-term until I feel like I’m ready to leave therapy and then relocate. I left my session feeling like it’s at least an option but feeling really sensitive to how that would “look” to my employer, co-workers and the parents of my clients and extreme anticipatory guilt about what it would do to the business for the only full-time therapist to leave.
Another part we worked with today was the one that is terrified of making my own decisions because I’m scared of choosing “wrong” or making uncorrectable mistakes (i.e. choose the wrong job, the wrong place to live, etc.). A firefighter part wants to jump in and make me attached to someone else in a relationship – so that the other person factored into the decision – someone else for my blaming parts to scold if I don’t make the best choice. Something to explain away my bad choice. So when and how did this part form that thinks there’s always a right answer and a wrong one? That there is some predetermined path in my life that if I don’t make the right guesses, I’ll stray from and be doomed to be miserable and stupid forever. I’m working towards realizing what my brother always says – “there is nothing you can do that cannot be undone in 5 years”. You can go from broke to having money, you can go from wealthy to broke, single to married, married to divorced, you can move, change careers, sell a house, make new friends – I guess he may have a point. But this black/white thinking part that thinks that decisions are either right or wrong – it’s just trying to protect me and keep me feeling safe and insulated.
I get to work and the first conversation I have is one in which our director informs us that she will not be taking her salary for the forseeable future because we cannot afford payroll. CHECK, PLEASE!! There’s my valid reason. I’ve said for a long time that the writing was on the wall with the financial situation of our clinic – but not making payroll is the END in my book. Me leaving doesn’t put a nail in the coffin – the coffin is already nailed shut, but nobody seems to want to face that fact. So the universe has sent its sign and I listened – I’m going to get in touch with two local places that I know are hiring. It would be the same type of work and setting as what I’d be doing when I travel – so it’s a good training experience. Not sitting around waiting to be laid off seems like a good enough reason for a decision to be made!
Group therapy was amazing tonight although yoga was shitty. My wrists are sore again – my right in particular. I went through 6 months of really bad right wrist pain beginning this same time last year – was in a cast, a brace, a splint, had an MRI with injected dye into my wrist joint – NOTHING uncovered the source of my pain or made it better. So, needless to say, I’m pretty frustrated that it appears to have returned.
I’ll talk more about group at a later date – pretty exhausted and have to get some rest before my big trip tomorrow. Uncertain as to the availability of private internet time – I’ll try to post if I can but if not, I’ll be back Monday night.
PS – If another job doesn’t materialize, I’ll sell all my wordly possessions except my dog and my banjo and we’ll hitchike around following the Avett Brothers…..mmm.
life and other busy-ness
My work life has been absurdly busy the last 4 days I’ve been there. My office is merely a place to toss my coat and Sam’s leash in the morning and a depository for paperwork throughout the day. Paperwork I never get a chance to file, look at or even sit still in close proximity to. It’s good to be busy, though. Certainly makes my not-so-busy evenings feel welcoming and comforting rather than painfully empty. Although, recently even those evenings haven’t been free of the busy-ness. Between cleaning, cooking and eating dinner, walking the dog, getting lost in Barnes and Noble* on my commute home and group therapy 2x a week – bedtime keeps getting later and my evenings feel pretty full.
I ate more than would have wanted tonight but luckily had stocked my pantry with really only healthy things….so my post-dinner snacks were half an acorn squash, an orange, and a yogurt. Hardly can beat myself up about that, right?! Still want to work on the food zone out and downloaded Geneen Roth’s book “Food is Love” tonight to listen to while dog-walking. Mainly I bought it because it was mentioned in a podcast I was listening to tonight (coincidentally about food and nutrition and even more coincidentally heavily weighted toward a “mindful eating” approach rather than counting calories, food logs, etc.).
This Friday I fly back to my homestate to visit a dear friend in Charlotte. Technically speaking, he was my high school sweetheart but it has morphed into my second longest friendship and a really wonderful supportive relationship. So I’m leaving my pup at home with a professional dog-sitting service. I have a lot of leaving-Sam-anxiety and it’s ramping up as evidenced by 4 drafts of an information page of everythingyouneedtoknowaboutSamandthensome because it didn’t seem thorough enough on the first 3 attempts. Should be a really great weekend, though, with coffee dates on the horizon with several other friends who live there. And it’ll be nice to escape the busy-ness and have a long weekend**!
*My local Barnes and Noble officially blows goats. Of the 17 books I have gone there seeking lately, they have had 1 – ONE – in stock. I finally caved and ordered two today and cross my fingers they’ll arrive before my flight on Friday.
**I don’t really consider it a day off, however, when I reschedule all my Monday clients for the remaining 3.5 days of my workweek. I wish I was better at just saying – I’m on vacation and will not be rescheduling. Maybe next time? For now my quest to make everyone else happy all the time continues…
p.s. as I was tagging this post I had a moment of shock and horror when I realized that in my tag cloud suicidality is bigger than The Avett Brothers. Must insert more TAB into my blogging and rectify this situation!
little tiny drops of inspiration
Seth Avett spoke to me this morning as I was brushing my teeth. This is from the song “When I Drink”, which as I listened to it 8x in a row…and might as well be called, “When I restrict and purge and overexcercise and just generally engage in eating disordered behaviors” but apparently it doesn’t fit as nicely as DRINK and offers much more challenging rhymes…
“But if I think
I just might get something out of this
My parents taught me to learn when I miss
Just do your best
Just do your best
It’s the only way to keep that last bit of sanity
Maybe I don’t have to be good but I can try to be
At least a little better than I’ve been so far”
-The Avett Brothers, When I Drink, The Gleam album
Also, I just ate a bit of oatmeal – inspired by For the Love of Peanut Butter. I don’t feel like I have many “safe foods” right now and I just can’t face a salad for breakfast so I took a cue from her and dug out the old Gluten Free Oats (yeah, oats can have gluten, too). Since it’s not a distinctly “unsafe” food – I gave it a whirl. And now I’m off to distract…at *gasp* church!! I know, I know, it feels a bit odd to me too. But my mom and brother have been advocating for it for awhile now and I’m willing to try anything. Pass me the Kool-aid, Mr. Jones**.
**Oh my, not that I am in any way insinuating that revisiting my Episcopal roots on a Sunday morning is analagous to a cult.
“I’m killin’ myself thinking, I fallen like the leaves”
Today. today. Began with the incessant piercing yaps of the downstairs white trash neighbors’ Pug through my Benadryl fog at 10 am. Or did it begin with a rainy, non-linear stagger with my own whining pooch at 8 am, bottoms of my low slung pajama pants dragging in puddles and depositing a smudge of wet filth from the street directly back to the white sheets of our bed without a care. Or at 2:30 when I ingested said Benadryl and sat with J while he ate scarfed a bowl of cereal. “MMmmmm, this is good”, he relished as stewed in bitterness that I can’t have cereal (1) because I’m restricting right now and it would instantly undo all my hard work over the past week, and (2) because I have Celiac and a gargantuan bowl of shredded wheat would bring illness the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the flesh-eating virus. Or did today begin with the hours of restless flopping between the twisted sheets, feeling a general discomfort in my body. Chest tight, stomach knotted, brain flitting from thought to thought like a pollinating bee in April.
Today has much in store, some of which I viewed previously this week as actually motivating and exciting, but somehow the brown faux-suede of the couch has absorbed me and I’m feeling quite stuck. Inertia has enveloped me and coffee, my only friend, hasn’t taken effect yet. I have vowed to take a day off of recreational and pharmaceutical drugs. No wine, no pot, no Valium not even benadryl. My mood has been concerningly poor and J even pleaded with me last night to consider going back on meds. Hmmmmm….NO, thank you. But my reasoning felt stingingly hypocritical – “It blahs me out and I don’t feel anything.” Eyes dart to the parade of empty wine bottles in the recycling bin, the blister packs of over the counter drowsy-inducing medications of various names. The pipe. The iodine-brown color of the prescription pill containers, a color only found in prescription pill containers and unable to be captured in a name. Crayola ommitted this color from the box as no one would come up with a name. Yes, well, I see where my argument doesn’t hold up given the mounting evidence that all I’ve been trying to do lately is blah out and not feel anything.
Around lunchtime, J and I have an appointment to look at custom wedding bands. Seems like something a girl should be thrilled about, yeah? Shopping, jewelry and weddings – ooh la la. Or harumph, if you’re me. Don’t wanna go. Don’t wanna think about weddings. Would rather have a tantrum on the couch about how hard life is. Wahh wahh wahh – complete with fisted hands and sock-less frigid feet thumping on the couch cushions. But I can suck it up and pretend it’s thrilling.
After this magical event we’ll have a few hours of “downtime” which I have yet to decide if I will spend reading or listening to pod-casts (this is what my recovery brain is advocating for) or running at the gym (you can guess who’s lobbying for this option). Perhaps a long walk with Sam and my iPod would be a nice compromise (patting myself on the back for thinking in the grey, all the while knowing full well that this is not likely to happen and I’ll just beat myself up for not following through on it as my sneakers pound the treadmill).
Tonight we’ll venture to Randolph-middle-of-nowhere, Vermont to see the Avett Brothers perform. My all-time-favorite band. The loves of my life. This will be Avett show #8 for me and the previous 7 have each brought me two-and-a-half hours of pure dancing jubilance. Not a care in the world. Bliss. Oblivious that the world might be watching me jump and thrash seizure-like to bluegrass music. Might be thinking or judging. There is only me and the kickdrum and Seth and Scott harmonies. No attention to jiggling body parts as I move, no cares about what food may or may not be digesting in my stomach. Recovery just might be following them around on tour. When Bree asks me to take a moment to think about a time when I felt comfortable in my own skin and truly “me” – it’s always rockin’ with the Brothers. My blog title is a reference to the brothers, as is today’s post title. So tonight has some good potential for healing vibes.
Why, then, does this couch feel so appealing?
