As a huge fan of the book I looked forward to the movie release like no other. I read the reviews that said it was a typical chick flick and those that said it was a romantic comedy. Julia Roberts does play the lead and is the queen of romantic comedies so I was disappointed before I even got to the theater, on opening night of course.

My disappointment turned out to be a good thing. I had high expectations before reading all the reviews. Going into it believing that it had been butchered and churned out into yet another Julia Roberts romantic comedy lowered my ridiculously high expectations. I liked the movie more than I probably would have without having read the reviews.

I still like the book MUCH better than the movie. But it was no romantic comedy and was actually pretty good. In fact, if you never read the book, you’ll probably love the movie even more than I did. It’s a drama with some funny parts. Exactly as it should be. Exactly like life.

I loved the book primarily because I identified so strongly with the author and her problems. I read it at a time when I was half out of my mind, hated my life, hated myself and was struggling to figure out why. I had recently discovered, much to my chagrin, that I had actively participated in the creation of the life I had come to loathe. I had just come out of a long and ugly separation from my husband and was about to embark on a reconciliation. I was also alone on a beach in another state, my first solo trip ever, when I read it. The parallels were undeniable. Reading about her brutally honest account of the mess she had made of her life, her realization of the role she played in that mess, the guilt, shame, anxiety and depression she felt and her efforts to find peace made me feel positively euphoric. I was not alone or (entirely) insane!  There was at least one other person out there feeling exactly as I did AND she wasn’t afraid to go public. The book served as an affirmation and gave me hope.

With that explanation out of the way….the movie:

First and foremost the best line of the book was altered for the movie. When Richard from Texas said, “The mosquitoes here are big enough to rape a chicken!”, in the book, I laughed out loud. Alone. On a beach. In another state. That line was altered in the movie. It wasn’t nearly as funny. Apparently you can’t say the word, “rape”, in a PG-13 movie? That one line alone would be worth the R rating. How many teenagers are really seeing this movie anyway?

Secondly, the movie, by necessity, is considerably condensed compared to the book. There was simply too much to cram into 2 hours on screen. Much of what made the book so great was skimmed over or eliminated altogether. The biggest example is that in the book it was extremely clear that her ex-husband hated her with a passion and that bothered her more than anything. This knowledge was integral to understanding her problems.  This was not so clear in the movie. Another example is how incredibly dysfunctional her relationship with David was or how attached she was to him despite him being all wrong for her.

The soundtrack was amazing, including two great songs by Eddie Vedder. I may buy it on iTunes but my relationship with iTunes is currently up in the air so I may have to purchase this soundtrack old school style…on CD.

It was a good movie. It would have been better as a trilogy…Italy, India and then Indonesia. Or maybe even four movies, the first one being pre-Italy, leading up to her trip.  That would have given the film makers enough time to explore, in as much depth as in the book, all of her problems and how each leg of her journey helped her. It would also have given rabid fans of the book (like myself) a chance to anticipate and pay for three or four different movies.

In the end, it is what it is. It’s great if you never read the book and good if you did. What did you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve read quite a bit in various books and articles about psychology and about Buddhism that talk about ”being in the moment” or “being present in the moment”. I’ve never fully understood what this means. It sounded, frankly, like a bunch of self-help psycho-babble and/or vague guru-speak. I was 90% certain that this idea was absolute nonsense because nothing I read adequately explained it’s precise meaning with any clarity.

I was wrong.

I caught a glimpse of the meaning of being present in the moment during my recent trip to the ocean. On that beach with the sun shining, the waves gently rolling in and out, the breeze blowing my hair and the incredible view of the vast expanse of the ocean before me, I was present in the moment. I was not thinking about work or bills or my past or my future. I was enjoying the moment. And that is all it means. It is no more complicated than that. I was making it more complicated than it is in trying to wrap my brain around a concept that seemed too deep or too vague for my neurotic little brain to grasp.

Being present in the moment is extremely difficult for me in my real life. Everything is easier at the beach. Once home I realized that I am rarely just enjoying the moment, or even just experiencing and observing the moment. Not all moments are enjoyable of course. Some moments are painful. Some are just boring. Or are they? It seems that in addition to having monkey mind, which is the primary reason I find it difficult to be present in the moment, I have fixed views on certain moments as they occur and if already dismissed as boring, for example, I don’t even attempt to look at it any other way. And then my mind wanders and I’m not in the moment.

The truth is that in mentally checking out during moments I have judged to be unworthy of my full attention I am likely missing a lot of moments that are absolutely worthy of my attention. In fact they are all more worthy of my attention than the thoughts that run through my head when I do let it wander. Worry over work and bills, past events and possible future events….none of this is more worthy of my attention than whatever is currently going on. I can’t change the past and can’t control the future. That is not to say that we should never look back or forward. We have to. But I think my time would be better spent in looking back or forward during brief and specific times of my choosing, not just to escape the current moment.

Because this is so difficult for me I turned to research, as I always do, through reading. After reading What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America by Tony Schwartz as suggested to me by my friend Dawn (excellent book, I highly recommend it), I realized why I never found meditation to be particularly helpful in my life. It was relaxing while I was doing it and I was (when I wasn’t doing it wrong) in the moment, but it never translated into any lasting changes in my life. It was the type of meditation I was doing. I was practicing samatha meditation, in which the goal is to completely quiet the mind and focus solely on something other than your own thoughts (breaths, a candle, etc.). While this is a good way to relax and probably even a good way to start, I think vipassana meditation is more beneficial for me. This is an introspective type of meditation in which the focus is on your own thoughts. The idea being to allow whatever thoughts pop into your head to be observed without judgement, as if you are a neutral third party.

From the same book I learned a bit more about gestalt therapy so now I’m reading Gestalt Therapy by Frederick S. Perls. It is a highly technical book,not exactly light reading, but so far I’m learning techniques for staying in the moment. The first and most simple is during every day normal activities to constantly practice thinking, “right now, I am….”. This has proven to be beneficial already after only a few days. I was alone for much of this weekend so I tried it out and it’s sort of like tricking my brain into not worrying or ruminating. It sounds ridiculous at first but it truly does allow me to notice things I never noticed before and to remain in the moment.

For example, during my shower this morning I practiced. As in, “right now I’m washing my hair.”, “right now I’m washing my face”. I told you it sounds ridiculous at first!  In reality what this does is force you to stay in the moment. Literally. And I noticed things I have never noticed before, because I decided long ago that taking a shower is a boring necessity not worthy of my attention so my mind normally wanders all over the place. Today I noticed the sun streaming in through the window, how the shower spray feels like rain, how silky my hair feels with conditioner in it, etc…you get the idea. It was an eye opening experience during a “task” that I normally am somewhat annoyed that I have to even waste time doing and one that has become completely automatic.

None of the things I noticed in the shower may sound important but the idea is that we live most of our lives in this auto-pilot, checked-out state. Imagine the possibilities, especially in our relationships with others, if we were truly focusing our full attention in the moment. I’m guessing that I will notice things about people I’ve known forever that I never noticed before. Voice inflections, facial expressions, the possibilities seem endless. I’m interested in hearing from you about this if it is of interest to you. How do you stay in the moment and what have you noticed?

Thanks for stopping by!

When I went to the bookstore last weekend to pick up The Shack, because it has been so highly recommended by two people, I couldn’t not go into the psychology section. It’s how I roll.

I haven’t started reading the book I went there for yet because while in the psychology section, I picked up another book. Also how I roll. This book looks and sounds like your typical psych-lite, self-help book. It’s short, only 122 pages. It has a purple paperback cover and was quite possibly self-published, based on the graphics and design of the cover and book. There are even cutesy little cartoon drawings every few pages used to demonstrate specific points. Strangely, I picked it up and flipped through it for a few minutes anyway. It’s called Learning to Love Yourself: Finding Your Self-Worth. Ugh. By all accounts this book should not be of any interest to me at all. But it is. As I was leafing through it, I read a few key points that I liked.

Some of the points I read reminded me of when I first started on this whole journey to self-awareness thing. Back then the idea that I had the power to change my life simply by changing the way I think about things was a brand new concept. It was life changing. It reached me for the first time in the form of another book I would probably find objectionable (or at least way too simplistic for me) today. I’m even embarrassed to admit it now but that book was Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out by none other than the infamous Dr. Phil. You heard that right. A book written by the quackiest of all tv quacks changed my life. No, I’m not kidding and I’m not drunk (yet).

I read it in January of 2008. Only a few weeks after hubby and I separated. I know this because there was an exercise (come on, you know all self-help books have exercises) that I actually did and I have saved the e-mails. The exercise required me to ask a series of 10 questions of 5 people who I trust. The questions were all about their perceptions of me. One of them was, “Tell me what you think my strongest traits are.” I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was to send these 5 e-mails. I even put this in the subject line: “This may seem weird…”. The premise behind this exercise is a concept that is now hard-wired into my brain and that I understand completely but at the time it was completely foreign to me. It’s the concept of reframing your negative self-talk. We all talk to ourselves constantly (hopefully just in our heads) and we don’t even realize it. The tapes are recorded early on and become background noise. We don’t notice them at all. Anyway, the idea was to find out what 5 people who I care about and trust think about me in order to disprove my own negative perceptions about myself. I had to answer the questions first. Luckily none of the 5 chosen ones called the men in white coats to come take me away and were all extremely open, honest and more than willing to participate.

Their answers blew me away. I know these people well. None of them are the type to sugar coat things and they all gave me concrete examples and reasons explaining why they answered the questions the way they did. What was most striking was how similar all their answers were, when they are each from a different circle. None of them are close friends themselves. Some of them have known me since I was a kid, others I met after I’d already become a mom. They answered the questions so similarly that I couldn’t help but buy into their answers, and they were drastically different from my own answers to the same questions. I carried those e-mails around in my car for months. I still have them saved on my computer. I will never get rid of them.

Reading what they said made me start to realize just how negatively I viewed myself and also how completely off the mark I was. While that did lead to confusion, (what the hell else was I completely wrong about?!) it also lead to serious work on my part, questioning everything I thought about everything. It lead to massive personal changes, many of which I am still struggling with.

So that is why I picked up this silly little book about self-worth. Self-worth can’t be bad. The book isn’t too bad either. It’s a good idea to remind myself of some of the basics I learned from good old Dr. Phil. There are even some concepts that I hadn’t considered in the same way that they are presented in this book. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten them in my quest for enlightenment. Particularly…how we deal with anger.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pinch me. I know I’m a nerd but I got two surprises today in my Google Reader, neither of which actually directly affects me in any way. Still, they both feel like gifts. Luckily, one of them was this new personality test. I love personality tests! I told you I was a nerd. Here are my results:

Scrupulous

You are an honest, fair person. You don’t lie or cheat to get ahead. You treat others with respect and hope for the same in return.

You do not feel that you are above the rules that everyone else follows; you are definitely not willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Passionate

You are in touch with your emotions, and sometimes you react before you think. The good news: you don’t tamp down your feelings. The bad news: you sometimes say or do things that you later wish you could take back.

You do not live your life on an even keel; you do not go for long periods without experiencing some mood swings.

Introspective

You like your own company; you’re a very interesting person. Tracking your own mental processes, knowing what you’re thinking and why you do what you do, is important to you. Often, what’s going on in your mind is more compelling than what’s going on outside. For the most part, those with a high score on the “introspective” trait enjoy reading, taking long walks, learning new things, and other solitary activities.

You are not someone who is constantly looking to be among a group of friends; you never feel bored when you are by yourself.

Aesthetic

You appreciate art, beauty, and design; you know that they are not superficial but absolutely crucial to living the good life. You have good taste, and you’re proud of it. Those with a high score on the “aesthetic” trait are often employed in literary or artistic professions, enjoy domestic activities — doing things around the house — and are enthusiastic about the arts, reading, and travel.

You don’t think it’s pretentious to be moved by art and beauty. You’re not one of those who believe it doesn’t matter what something looks like as long as it does its job.

Intellectual

You are thoughtful, rational, and comfortable in the world of ideas. People find you interesting to talk to. You’re the living embodiment of the saying “You learn something new every day.” In general, those with a high score on the “intellectual” trait are employed in such fields as teaching and research, and are enthusiastic about reading, foreign films, and classical music.

You do not avoid abstract conversation, experimenting with new ideas, or studying new things. It bores you to stick to the straight and narrow of what you already know.

Original

You are constantly coming up with new ideas. For you, the world as it exists is just a jumping-off place; what’s going on inside your mind is often more interesting than what’s going on outside.

You don’t feel that the road to success is to be a realist and stick to the program; you never stop yourself from coming up with new ideas or telling the world what you’re thinking about.

Curious

You like to get to the bottom of things. You’re not content knowing what someone did; you want to know why they did it.

You don’t simply take things as they are and move on; you’re not content skimming along on the surface; you don’t feel you’re wasting time by digging for the meaning of things.

Understanding

You are willing to take the time to find out what’s going on with other people, especially if they’re in distress. You’re a good listener, you don’t criticize, and you offer unbiased, respectful, honest advice when it’s requested. With a high score on the “understanding” trait, it is likely that you are enthusiastic about charitable work, helping others, and making the world a better place.

You don’t feel the need to impose your standards on others or say things that, even though true, cause pain.

Creative

You are good at solving problems, coming up with original ideas, and seeing connections between things, connections that most other people miss. People with a high score on the “creative” trait often are employed in such fields as finance and scientific research, and enjoy avant garde and classical music as well as literary fiction and scholarly non-fiction.

You do not shun abstractions and concepts in favor of the concrete and tangible.

Competent

You strive to master everything you undertake. You tend to learn quickly and do not shy away from challenges.

You are not a “que sera sera” type of person, nor do you go easy on yourself when attempting to master a new skill or get a job done.

This made me laugh…”You don’t feel that the road to success is to be a realist and stick to the program; you never stop yourself from coming up with new ideas or telling the world what you’re thinking about.” 

The second gift may have to wait a bit. Carl Jung’s The Red Book is finally going to be published! As in….I get to read the book in which Carl Jung recorded all of his psychotic hallucinations when he went a little bit (ok, a lot) whacko for about six years. It’s been a big locked up scary sounding secret forever and it’s finally being published. The ultimate mid-life crisis story. It will make me feel so much better about mine. Unless I actually go insane just from reading it. Either way, I wouldn’t pass this book up if you told me I would burst into flames immediately upon reading it. Now, I just have to wait. Notice my personality test results didn’t mention anything about patience.

Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve talked about writing a book for as long as I can remember.  I’ve mentioned it here several times.  As a teenager I wanted to write a novel.  That never worked out.  I don’t know if it’s because I lack the technical skills or just the imagination, but fiction is not for me. 

Inspired by two friends, whom I didn’t even know were thinking about writing books, I finally started writing mine.  They both told me they had already started theirs.  One is pretty close to being finished if I’m not mistaken.  Upon hearing about their works already in progress, I was happy for them, but also felt as if I were sitting here procrastinating (again) and letting time pass me by while I’m not doing something I want to do.

I’ve only been working on it for two weeks.  I’m on page nine.  So far it’s sort of an auto-biography from a psychological point of view, if that makes any sense.  It’s basically an elaboration on several of my most personal blog posts, and more….so much more. 

While the content is similar to many of my blog posts, writing a book allows for much greater detail than a blog post here and there.  I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, except taking a look at my life and analyzing how and why I ended up here.  It’s even more cathartic than writing blog posts and allows me to clearly see things I have not even considered before.  I don’t know if anyone else will ever even read it, let alone buy it, but the process itself is well worth the effort.  At worst, my kids will have an amateurish account of my life to read someday if they like. 

I find myself self-editing as I go along.  I have deleted entire pages, moved paragraphs around and even saved some passages to be used in future chapters.  This leads me to believe that in the end, it will be a much different book than I initially envisioned.  That’s ok.  I’m going to let it take me in whatever direction feels right. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Some tips on breaking free from a narcissist:

1.  Get Help:  Depending on how deeply entrenched you are, how abusive he is, and how much you have isolated yourself from your support system, you most likely need all the help you can get.  I am talking about professional help.  Get yourself into therapy.  If he’s dangerous, contact law enforcement and find a safe place to go.

2.  Get Your Support System In Place:   You have most likely cut off all or most contact from friends and family.  You have either done this because he insisted on it or because he created all sorts of drama based on lies about them or because they got tired of seeing you allow him to treat you badly or you withdrew from them because they were critical of him or you have spent so much time keeping the secrets of what really goes on in your relationship that you have withdrawn voluntarily.  He wants you to be isolated.  He can’t stand you paying attention to anyone but him, doesn’t want you talking to anyone else about him and certainly doesn’t want them telling you to get away from the jerk.  You need family and friends.  If any of the relationships are repairable, repair them.  If not, develop new friends.

3.  Get Some Money Together:  If he handles all of the finances, get your own account.  If you don’t work, get a job and put the money you earn in your own account.

4.  Take Care Of Yourself:  Do things, constructive and healthy things, that make you feel good.  All those things you used to like to do but gave up to devote more time to his interests, get back into them.  Join a gym, read, get a massage, focus on you for once.   Stop trying to figure him out.  Ignore his nonsense and focus on you.

5.  Remember That You Have Power:  He seems like an all-powerful entity.  He is not.  He is a pathetic brat who has played games with you for long enough.  You are not the scared little girl you once were.  You are an adult with adult power and responsibilities.  Take your power back.  Do what you need to do for you.  Let him deal with the consequences of his own bad behavior.  Take control of your life.

Some online resources:

All About Him

Sanctuary for the Abused

Wikipedia

Mayo Clinic

Psychology Today

Healthy Place

Mental Help

Recovery Man

Help Guide

Women’s Divorce

Recommended Reading (yes, I’ve read them all):

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Playing It by Heart: Taking Care of Yourself No Matter What

Choices : Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter

Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis.

Healing the Shame that Binds You

Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem

Self-Assertion for Women

Codependence and the Power of Detachment

Smart Women/Foolish Choices: Finding the Right Men Avoiding the Wrong Ones

The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused and Start Standing Up for Yourself

Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

I’m OK–You’re OK

Boundaries – Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries

Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control

Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out

Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Women Who Love Too Much

The Road Less Traveled

Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem

Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love

Breaking Free of Addictive Family Relationships (Healing Your Own Inner Child)

Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve read about meditation.  I’ve read several different books on the subject and even a few magazines.  I’ve been given many different ideas and techniques.  I have still failed miserably.  I always feel as if I’m doing it wrong.

Like Elizabeth Gilbert, I am burdened with the ‘monkey mind’.  I sit still and my mind races.  I end up thinking about the usual….I don’t have a job, I need to organize my office, I need to get a job, I need to go grocery shopping, I have to get a job, etc.  My mind is a dark and anxious place.  I don’t feel productive unless I’m doing something, anything.  Usually that something is just beating myself up, but nonetheless, that’s what happens every time I try to meditate.

My much more zen-like sister has found a local Buddhist meet-up group that hosts a bi-weekly guided meditation.  As I am also intrigued by Buddhism, I’m going to go with her tonight.  Clearly I need guidance in this area.

I hope it works for me and that, at the very least, I can stay focused on the meditation and keep those damn annoying monkeys out of my head.

Thanks for stopping by!

As defined by M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled, genuine love is:

The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently reading this amazing book.  I was shocked to find this brief definition.  I fully expected at least an entire paragraph when the author promised to provide his definition of Love.

He goes on to break down the differences between “falling in love” and “genuine love”. 

He describes falling in love as the sexually charged honeymoon period of a romantic relationship.  I completely agree with his assertion that this period always ends.  He indicates that the moment this period ends is the exact moment where genuine love can begin.  We have this mythological misconception about that “one true love”, that there is just one person on this earth with whom we will forever fit perfectly and live happily ever after. 

This seems possible in the beginning stage of a romantic relationship.  It feels as if we have found our soul-mate and together all things are possible and no problems can exist.  Once reality starts to set in and we realize that this person is actually just as human as we are and has their own wants, needs, opinions, etc. that do not always match our own, we are disappointed and many relationships end there.  Some people never find genuine love because they spend their whole lives chasing this fairy tale and are repeatedly disappointed.

The other option at the end of the honeymoon period, according to the author, is the beginning of genuine love.  He indicates that this requires the will to be loving, even when not feeling particularly loving.  He describes commitment to the relationship and your own and your partner’s spiritual growth even when you are tired, bored, irritated, attracted to someone else, etc.  This is a very brief summary of his lengthy explanation which includes perfect analogies and examples from his practice. 

He does not suggest that all couples should stay together at the end of the honeymoon phase.  He acknowledges that without any judicious discipline we can, and do, fall in love with people that are not good for us or with whom genuine love would not be possible.  He does, however, suggest that if the person we have fallen in love with is a good match, the only way to genuine love is to be truly committed to the relationship and give up the myth of the fairy tale. 

Maybe this all sounds extremely obvious.  For me, it does reinforce beliefs I already have about the fairy tale nonsense.  It also brings up many new ideas (to me) about exactly how to cultivate a liberating, committed, loving relationship with yourself, your partner and all other human beings in general. 

Most interesting (and encouraging) to me is the fact that his definition of love does not include taking care of the other person, spending every waking moment together, or being passively dependent on one another.  His definition does not include anything about meeting every need your partner has or losing your own identity.  In fact, he says that in order to truly give yourself up to a healthy, genuine loving relationship, you must first establish your own identity.  He doesn’t use the term co-dependency but he does describe dependency in significant detail, and that being the main crux of my previous marital problems, I will write another post about that part of this book soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

I have already confessed to being a hopeless book-nerd and also to being completely fascinated by human psychology.  I’ve also discussed a few of the many psychology related books that I have read.

I’m currently reading The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.  I wouldn’t normally feel compelled to start blogging about a book that I have just started to read.  This one is different.  I received this book as a birthday present because it was on my wish-list.  I have so many books on my wish-list that I can’t even remember what prompted me to add it.  Because I couldn’t remember why I wanted to read it, when I first saw the cover and the title, I was afraid it was some sort of daily affirmation, positive-attitude-type self-help book.  I sometimes get in the mood for one of those and then promptly regret it.

I have had this misconception about other books before so I figured I’d start reading it anyway.  He had me at hello.  Well, actually I was intrigued immediately and he had me at page 17….

Some of us will go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid our problems and the suffering they cause, proceeding far afield from all that is clearly good and sensible in order to try to find an easy way out, building the most elaborate fantasies in which to live, sometimes to the total exclusion of reality.  In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”  But the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid.  The neurosis itself becomes the biggest problem.

How true is that?  He goes on to talk about how dealing with problems head-on is, of course, healthy, and the first of  four basic tools necessary to deal with problems head-on that many of us do not possess is the ability to delay gratification.  I am the queen of procrastination and instant gratification.  This guy is in my head and he wrote the book when I was only eight years old!  This indicates to me that these are universal problems, not just mine.  He acknowledges this as well and even explains why perfectly normal, intelligent, successful people cannot deal with problems or pain.

It’s not a self-help book, it’s a psychology book.  There are no daily affirmations.  While it is somewhat technical, it is written in such a way that anyone can understand it.  A background in psychology is not necessary.

I felt compelled to start writing about this book now because I have a feeling that I will be writing much more about it as I read and didn’t want to forget the main concepts that strike a chord with me as I progress.  If you’ve read it, please comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for stopping by!

I got a full night’s sleep last night so I’m feeling much better today (yay!).  Yesterday morning was….well, ugly.  I was lost in a fog of self-pity for a few hours after the kids left for school.  It was fueled by getting only two and a half hours of sleep the night before, a book I read while not sleeping, and my overall general anxious and neurotic nature.  About as good a combination as cocaine, crystal meth and ether.

Ok, so it really wasn’t as bad as all that, but I do love Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and did feel pretty….dark. 

I read The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.  This memoir of the year following the death of her husband of 40 years was amazing. It’s basically written as a diary but also manages to describe the more general ways in which humans deal with grief and mourning, without turning into a self-help book.

During this year, in fact beginning 5 days before her husband died, her adult daughter was also seriously ill. She recovered before the end of the year covered in the book, much to my relief. I don’t know how the author made it through that year, although she does explain it in great personal detail.  I won’t say anymore about the book in case you haven’t read it yet.

In any case, she talks a lot about self-pity and how we hate feeling self-pity which just causes guilt that results in more self-pity.  It’s a vicious circle of fear and loathing.  No, no one died in my life, so I’m not comparing my little bout with self-pity to hers.  It’s just that reading her tragic account led me to feel guilty about the things I worry about and that led to my sleep-deprived-pity-party.

I’m glad I didn’t post about it at the time.  I snapped out of it pretty quickly after talking to a few friends, reading and setting up a job interview.  It actually turned out to be a good day with unseasonably nice weather too.  Today is another beautiful day here and I got sleep so I’m back to normal (as normal as I get anyway).  I always love a happy ending.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!