The Drawing Board of Mary Ann Farley

My Occupy Photos Set to a Groovy Tune!

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:09:00 +0000

I took these pictures at the Oct. 5 OWS march to Zuccotti Park in New York. Then my dear friend Dean set them to my song, My Life of Crime, which I wrote about ten years ago when I was so ill but had no health insurance.

I would get tests, knowing full well I couldn't pay for them, then would throw the bills in the trash, which of course made me feel like a criminal. I truly felt guilty, to the extent that a song came through (my songs always come from my subconscious--I never summon my creativity).

What the song ended up teaching me is that the true criminals were the ones charging such exorbitant fees, for both insurance and the tests themselves, not me, who was just trying to get what I needed in order to actually live. After I wrote it, I realized I'd written a song about revolution. Here's the video and pix (I'm the one holding the sign). Footnote: The pix at the end aren't mine; they're the Wall St. bankers mocking the protesters with their champagne toasts:

How I Quit Smoking (6 months and counting...)

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:51:00 +0000

OK, I've been waiting to write about this because I didn't know if it was gonna stick. But it has, and so here is the announcement: I quit smoking. As of March 22, 2011, I have been a non-smoker, although I do confess, I have been seen occasionally slipping behind a dumpster for a drag with some shady characters, but these...er...slips...have been very few and far between. Essentially, I am smoke-free, but what has shocked me even more is how free I've become in general--a development I DID NOT anticipate.

First, I'll explain how I did it. After years of trying every quitting technique out there--Chantix (psychosis-inducing drug), Smokenders (very expensive), hyponosis (multiple sessions), homeopathy, plus some other methods I can no longer recall--I'd become completely despondent that anything would work for me, despite a very real desire to quit. With the exception of the morning and evening cigarette, I didn't even like smoking anymore. (I had just passed the half-a-pack-a-day mark when I quit.)

But then an intervention of sorts happened. I awoke in the middle of the night one evening to see a commercial on TV about yet another magic homeopathic elixir that would supposedly make me stop instantaneously. Thinking this was God speaking to me, I scribbled the web site down on a napkin, only to find out the next day via reviews on the web that the potion was a total scam.

Just as I was imagining the Great Spirit enjoying a knee-slapping "Gotcha!", I then discovered the real reason I'd been directed to the internet. Via some other reviews, all positive, I landed on Amazon, where I discovered over 800 four- and five-star reviews for a book titled "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking," written by a man named Allen Carr, who at his height was smoking five packs a day. As the book was just $8.99 (brand new!), I ordered it overnight and I kid you not...I received it at 5 p.m. on a Monday evening, read it twice, and by 6 p.m. Tuesday I'd smoked my last cigarette.

What was it about this book that was so different from everything else? How I wish I could answer that in some simple way. I was so astounded that his techniques were working every time I wanted to light up that I actually began obsessing over this strange mind control, which I guess was better than obsessing over cigarettes.

Of course, it did take some mental stamina those first three or four weeks to rid myself of the habit, but Carr anticipates every single thought, feeling and situation that will come up during this period and gives you the tools to, well...just say no. And he somehow makes it all a joyous experience!

I was going to write an essay here about the surprising emotional liberation that occurred after I quit, but I'll save that for my next post.

The truth is that, before this book, quitting smoking was extremely difficult for me, as it is for any nicotine addict, so I'm ecstatic to report that I found a way to be liberated from the evil cigarette.

But before sharing this wonderful news with my fellow bloggers, I obviously wanted to be sure the quit had stuck. I can tell you that it has (despite the occasional sneak...and I know! I'm playing with fire! I'll stop!), and I can't begin to tell you how much my life has changed.

If you're a smoker yourself and you truly want to stop, for the price of a pack you can buy this book and give yourself a true fighting chance against the odds that have been stacked against you for years by the tobacco companies, and by your own human vulnerability. It worked for me. I hope it works for you.

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I Seem to Have Misplaced My Life

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:44:00 +0000

Lady Gaga is everywhere. When I scan the channels there she is--in yet another interview, another video, another performance, another commercial. And I admit, I can't get enough of it.

But while I'm enjoying the ride, there's a lingering malaise that's sitting in the pit of my stomach like an undigested dessert, and I'm getting a tummyache.

It's strange listening to Gaga, because her music has reignited a love of pop that I haven't felt in a long time, and I feel something like a teenager again, when music was the sustenance of my existence. But here's the rub: I'm not a teenager anymore--far from it, in fact--and all that went with my love of music in those days is long gone.

For example, when I listened to pop music as a young person, it stoked the dreams of me doing that myself one day, and so much of what I chose to do was put towards making those dreams a reality. As a kid, I dutifully took my music lessons, and as I got older, I joined bands, developed my songwriting and performing abilities, put my own band together, and hit the road. I recorded and released two CDs, was a critics' darling, and came close to publishing and record label deals, which always ended up falling through.

Undeterred, I kept at it, but as the years began to pass, an eerie feeling soon emerged, which was this: If my dreams don't come true, if I don't end up a truly professional singer/songwriter (who no longer needs the day job), then what will happen to me? Who will I be without my dreams, or worse, without those dreams fulfilled?

For years, even decades, I didn't allow those worries in, because like any good young person, I thought I would live forever. And I believed, perhaps naively, that provided my heart was in my work, as long as I didn’t sell out, then everything would turn out fine. There was nothing to be concerned about. I worked hard, my music was good, and I was committed. What could go wrong?

Well, what went wrong far exceeded anything that I could have imagined in my wildest dreams, as my health, which was never very good in the first place, took a dive in 2004 that brought me to a full stop. And just like that, it was all over.

While I’ve pursued other creative interests during this time, like writing and painting, and even dance for awhile, music will always be my first love as songwriting is what I do best. But when I became so ill and was racked with such unrelenting pain, there just wasn’t anything to write about anymore, and I knew I was done for a very very long time, maybe for good.

Whether it was creative exhaustion or the inability to put physical suffering into a song lyric (or a combination of both), I knew that my music days, for the most part, were behind me, but I was just too sick at the time to grieve over it, as most of the time, I was just trying to stay alive.

But in the last few months, I’ve noticed that my spirits have picked up, which has led me to picking up my guitar again, right around the same time Lady Gaga began promoting the release of her new disc. While her songs inspire me so, I painfully realize that I’m no longer the teenager who can fantasize that I’ll be like her one day. And frankly, I don’t know what to do with these feelings.

In short, I feel like crying all the time it seems, despite my rebounding spirits, because the days of dreaming about a music career are over. Let’s face it: No record company is looking to hire a 52-year-old pop star.

Some have suggested that I get back into the game as simply a songwriter, but even that takes money (to record demos), hence the realization of another grim reality: I’m flat broke. This illness has wiped me out so completely that I live in a Section 8 HUD apartment, am on Social Security disability, and am in chronic pain most of the time. This is NOT how I expected my life to turn out.

So when I see Lady Gaga in all her glory, talking about how she “stuck to it” to achieve her dreams, I think of the millions and millions of other aspiring performers who also gave it their all, sometimes for their entire lives, and have ended up with absolutely nothing, other than some wonderful songs that no one knows or cares about.

On a positive note, I’m so skilled as a songwriter that I no longer have to hone my craft for a lifetime in order to pen a tune. Instead of dreaming about it, I can pick up the guitar or sit at the piano and just do it, provided the inspiration is there, which is a BIG proviso, by the way. Without inspiration, I’m no better than a no-talent hack with nothing to say.

But the negative note seems to be ruling the day, it seems, for at least this day. I just heard a passing car blasting Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory,” which is an edge I sat on for a very long time. The scales just never tipped my way, and there’s a giant ache now where my dreams used to be.

Maybe it’s time to grieve for them, as I gave up everything to have them…marriage, children, and careers in other fields. I went for it 100 percent without a net, and now I’m splat on the ground after having fallen off the wire.

I don’t regret it—not a bit. But I feel just so so sad.

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The Weight of Encroaching Ice

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:42:00 +0000

I had a strange dream last night in which glaciers were beginning to form all around New York and I could see the ice getting higher and higher, climbing ever closer to my apartment window, which meant that I'd soon be encased in ice. I knew that my car was parked on higher ground, but I couldn't find it anywhere, which meant that I couldn't flee the city and that I'd soon lose everything.

I suppose that's what my life feels like, that my world is getting smaller and smaller, and ever the more dangerous, as this pain drags on, offering little hope that I can ever flee to a better place. That's the thing with pain. You can't decide to just take a break from it. In fact, you basically lose all control over your own circumstances, and your decisions are no longer yours, just like any catastrophe, like a new ice age, where everything you've ever done will be devoured and destroyed, and all you're left with is yourself in your own skin, wondering how you'll ever navigate is this unsettling new world, where all rules of society and civility will have to be rewritten.

In the dream, I remember looking at my paintings on my walls, wondering if I could take them with me, as I knew if I'd left them, they'd be destroyed by the water and ice. I realized that there were just too many and so they'd have to be left behind, and it made me sad to think that so little would be left of me, so few remnants to remind anyone that I was ever here.

That's what my life feels like right now, as I find that I'm just sleeping the days away. My mom suggested that I maybe go back on antidepressants, but they never really lifted the sadness over the shrinking contours of my life. After awhile, they were just another drug in my system, and the point lately is to get the chemicals out, to get back to something I've been reaching for ever since this all began--back to a lightness of being, back to a happier state, back to hope.

As I sit here writing, my body feels like a ten-ton weight, and I'm not even sure what I want to say, other than these periods of extreme heaviness seem to crush all motivation to do anything useful or fun. At times, they can lift somewhat, and I can make my way to the gym, or spend time with family and friends, but today, everything is just getting smaller and smaller, as the ice and water get ever closer to encasing me for good. It's days like this that the will to go on wavers, as when I look ahead, I just don't see any solutions.

I am going to a new doctor, who has me on a nutrition regimen that is supposed to reduce acidity in the body (as acidity is supposedly a huge coponent of chronic pain), and I've spoken with my previous oral surgeon about possibly trying surgery again. But I'm so at the end of my rope. I'm not sure I could withstand any more disappointments. But I'm not sure how much longer of this I can stand either.

My friend Lynda theorized yesterday during her visit that these new supplements are perhaps detoxing my body, which may account for the sluggishness, and surely there's a lot to detox. These daily doses of morphine can't be good for my health, and I sometimes think of just going to a drug detox center to see what will happen, to see if I can stand the pain without all the drugs. But that requires making a plan, something I can't stand to think about at the moment.

I suppose what makes me the most sad is that my life has come to feel like such a waste. It's a waste in terms of any good that I could be contributing to the world, and a waste for me personally, as it's become nothing more, it seems, than a study in endurance.

Sometimes I've thought of turning these writings into a book of essays about a life in chronic pain, but along the way, I've always hoped that I'd have something inspirational to offer--that I'd land on some softer sand, which could maybe be a map for others as to how they could better cope with the unthinkable.

But here I am, over two years later, with little more to offer than when I started. It seems that for some, cruel twists of fate stay cruel, and I've no explanation for it, no words of wisdom, no path leading the way out. It's a mean existence for sure, and the day may come when I just won't want to do it anymore. I hope those who love me will be able to forgive me.

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Who is God?

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:35:00 +0000

When I first started this blog over two years ago, the biggest issue I grappled with, other than the chronic pain, was whether or not God existed. My suffering was so great that my vision of the world became incredibly narrow, and it seemed that all I saw was suffering all around me. I couldn’t understand how God, if he existed, could let it happen.

I’ve been revisiting this question again in recent weeks as I find myself praying more, something I never thought I’d ever do again, and I’m wondering what has changed. Have I forgiven God for my state, or has my understanding of a greater power changed?

Yesterday I was doing some research, and I revisited the Amazon listing of When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner, a rabbi who lost his son to the premature aging disease, and was intrigued by the reader reviews. Many people gave the book five stars, thanking the good rabbi for restoring their faith in God again, but many also gave the book just one star, as they found themselves depressed by his belief in an impotent god—a god who suffers with us when we suffer, but who is powerless to intervene on our behalf.

Many readers had obviously suffered terrible tragedies in their lives, like losing a child, and they just couldn’t accept the notion of a supreme being not being able to step in with a miracle. One bereaved mother sadly said of her life, “I will never believe in God again.”

I remember having these exact feelings about my own life and about the book as well, as an impotent god seems about as good as having no god at all. While Kushner’s writing is beautiful, and his story is heartbreaking, I remember feeling sad when I first read his book, as perhaps back then I just didn’t want to believe that we live in such a random world.

Yet when I stop and think about it, I think the rabbi and I have come to similar conclusions about life and suffering—first, that random things do happen in this world, and second, that what we can count in terms of the divine is compassion, for ourselves and others.

Yet where we differ is perhaps the notion of God himself. The rabbi believes that he does indeed exist, and in his book I got the feeling that he just didn’t want to let go of the god of the Old Testament—the father figure sitting majestically in Heaven, overseeing us all in our daily lives. But what I’ve come to believe, I think, is that God is more of a force—something that moves within each of us, and manifests in the form of all good things, like truth, compassion, art and love.

While it’s true I suffer day in and day out (today was a very bad day, in fact), I have to remind myself that there are countless researchers and scientists out there who are uncovering the mysteries of pain every day, many of whom no doubt witnessed a loved one in their own lives who suffered with relentless pain.

They are motivated by compassion and love, as are all those who start research foundations to find cures for diseases. So many of these organizations are named for those who lost the fight, and it’s the loved ones left behind who become determined to right the wrong, so to speak, by not letting their loved ones die in vain. They are moved by compassion not to see other families similarly destroyed, and so they take up arms to raise money, to organize walkathons, to stimulate research.

When I pray these days, I find myself talking to the “Great Spirit,” and I’ve no idea why that particular name has surfaced. For one thing, it’s genderless in my mind, and I feel it almost like the wind—something I can’t see but that I know is there. It’s the source of all goodness, and when I speak to it, I can sometimes feel its love for me, as strange as that may sound. It’s more of a sense that it’s a force that is on my side, that is there to guide me through this treacherous minefield of life, and when I take the time to surrender my questions, I do indeed get answers, and this often startles me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve by no means figured anything out, and I doubt anyone ever will. There’s simply no way any of us will ever figure out the mysteries of the universe, no matter how deep science may delve into the matter. All we have to go on is the proof as it arises, and the proof for me are these answers I seem to get when I take the time to look deeply into my heart and humbly ask for guidance.

Do I think this is God? Whatever it is, I’m grateful for its appearance, but I’m not suffering any the less because of it. In fact, most days still blur in this lingering malaise, and I do ask frequently why I, or anyone, have had to suffer at all.

Yet in the grand scheme of things, if there is indeed an afterlife, my life on this planet will truly seem like a fraction of a second when one thinks about how long our universe has been around. And maybe then I’ll understand why I had to suffer so during this particular tenure of my life on Earth.

Does that understanding of things help me right now? A little—for the moment, anyway.

Today I watched a History Channel show about the blood diamonds in Sierra Leone, and saw suffering on such a grand scale. It was an interesting juxtaposition to watch the horrors depicted in the show interspersed with commercials that reflect the beautiful lives we enjoy in our own culture. It made me want to do something, other than just sit and watch in horror, as I know just how frightening and harrowing life can be. I thought that perhaps I should look for a job with one of these organizations and put my writing skills to better use than just as a means to pay my bills.

Perhaps that’s the god force working within me—the tangible manifestation of compassion born out of the terrible suffering of my own. Maybe that’s who and what God really is, and maybe that’s enough—for now, anyway. It’s all rather new.

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But for the grace of God go I

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:47:00 +0000

For my birthday last week, my dear friend Janet gave me the book The Power, which is the much-anticipated follow-up to the bestseller The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Even though I never read The Secret, a number of years ago, Janet and I were big fans of the Law of Attraction (LOA) after our discovery of the writings of Florence Scovel Shinn, who wrote about the phenomenon during the 1920s.

As anyone who is a fan of these books can attest, when you first learn about the Law of Attraction, you can feel quite excited, as suddenly you’re given this road map to life that actually has hard and fast rules to live by—rules that if supposedly followed will bring limitless joy and prosperity into your life.

What I always loved about Shinn’s work was that she didn’t just write about the LOA; she actually gave you exercises to do to activate it in your life. And what was so exciting was that when I began to employ her ideas, I did indeed see my life begin to change. I began to practice gratitude, I did my daily affirmations, I envisioned a better life for myself and I have to say, it began to be something of a heady experience—to live by these guidelines and have them produce an actual result in my life, for never had I felt so joyous and free, so in tune with a power that was greater than myself.

So why then when I read The Power this week did I feel like punching Rhonda Byrne?

The book is filled will relentless optimism, basically saying that when we activate love (which is “the power” of which she speaks), everything will change, and if we can activate it enough, we’re guaranteed a blissful existence beyond our wildest dreams. She peppers the book with extraordinary tales about ordinary men and women who made simple attitude adjustments and then found themselves in the midst of a miracle, be it a reinvigoration of a marriage, restored health or gargantuan amounts of money.

While few could argue that a positive attitude in life generally produces more positivity, what has come to frustrate me about the Law of Attraction is that it can create a false sense of security, so that when life throws in a random catastrophe, the believer is then left wondering what he or she did wrong to attract this horrific event, and frankly, I find this cruel.

This was certainly true of me in 2004, when a series of unbelievable health traumas left me in this state of chronic pain. When I look back on that year, I was probably living one of the happiest periods of my life, and I see now that I was living with a type of hubris that set me up for the fall. I was a full believer that my whirlwind of positive energy had me encased inside a type of protective shield, and I wonder now if I thought I was just a little bit better than the next guy as my belief system seemed to be working so well. Like the evangelical Christian who believes God is on his side, I was so in touch with “the universe” that I wonder now if I was holding my head just a little too high.

In that sense, I suppose I’m grateful for the fall, which are words I never thought I’d hear myself say. I’ve since let go of my absolute beliefs in the Law of Attraction, realizing now that anything good happening in my life back then was the result of positive thinking, for sure, but also just a streak of good luck. I was feeling healthy and robust after a few years of stressful health issues, and frankly, I was probably a bit manic as well, which is when mental pathology feels good for once. I seemed to have limitless energy, endless creative ideas, and bottomless motivation to make those ideas come to fruition.

While I’ll continue to employ the helpful aspects of the LOA, never again will I believe that there are no accidents in life, as I know now just how dangerous that thinking can be.

We all want to feel safe in our worlds, and the Law of Attraction can lead us astray in thinking that we’re safer than we really are. If we can blame ourselves for every bad thing that happens to us (that gossip session yesterday brought on today’s headache, that fear of not having enough money brought on today’s arrival of a huge bill—these examples are detailed in The Power), then life doesn’t seem so random, so strange, so frightening.

But the truth is that sometimes, life IS random, strange and frightening, and instead of causing a panic attack, a full-on acceptance of this uncomfortable truth ignites something far deeper and more beautiful, and that’s compassion.

The affirmation that comes to mind right now is “But for the grace of God go I,” which means that as we look around us, we bear witness to the awful suffering human beings can go through day in and day out, and we recognize that any one of us is just inches away from befalling a similar fate.

Instead of looking at our brothers and sisters with judgment, that they somehow attracted these horrendous events into their lives with their erroneous and negative thinking and is thus their own fault, we see them instead as children of the universe who truly are sometimes just the hapless victim who deserve our love and deepest sympathy.

I missed all that when I believed too deeply in the Law of Attraction.

The bottom line is that sometimes, bad things do indeed happen to good people, and there’s no sense to it at all. What a relief.

While we’re certainly responsible for our own happiness, finding that happiness is harder for some than for others, and it’s not their fault at all. There are all kinds of horrors in this life—third-world poverty, abusive homes, dying children, murderous rampages, falling skyscrapers, to name but a few, and most victims are just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's about as deep as it goes.

But for the grace of God go I.

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You're going to do WHAT to my butt?

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:32:00 +0000

When the bad days erupt, they can feel like a slow controlled explosion, with each passing hour feeling worse than the one that just came before.

This past week, I’ve been trying to reduce my morphine dose, as I’m seeing a new holistic doctor in New York City, who has put me on a nutritional regimen that is suppose to reduce my pain. But I’m still on a hefty dose of the stuff, which combined with all these new vitamins he has me on, landed me in the hospital the other night with a case of constipation that was literally off the charts.

As embarrassing as telling this tale might be, it’s a grim and somewhat common reality that anyone who takes opiates, whether by choice or not, must deal with the sometimes extreme irregularity it causes, and Saturday night at 3 a.m. will go down in the annals of my life as yet another indignity my poor body has suffered as a result of this unrelenting pain.

It’s happened before—this extreme constipation, indelicately called fecal impaction—but somehow I was always able to, er…well, push through. You would think that one would be able to tackle the problem with some basic laxatives long before it would get to these end stages, but for some reason, it often can happen hard and fast (oh, these puns), with little warning that a huge amount of cement is building up where it ain’t supposed to be.

Each time it’s happened, I’ve sworn that it would be the last time, that I would do whatever it took to prevent these occurrences, but the new supplements must have been my undoing this week, for when the clock struck around 3 a.m. Saturday morning, and all measures I’d been employing for the previous eight hours or so had failed, I intuitively knew I’d been beaten and that this time, I’d have to go to the emergency room, as even waiting until morning could make this dangerous case even more perilous to my health. Plus, having a brick sitting in your bowel feels like, well…a brick sitting in your bowel, and you want it out as quickly as humanly possible.

I did get myself to the emergency room, and luckily I didn’t have to wait too long for a young male doctor to come in and remedy the situation, which was basically sticking his finger up my ass in order to break up and pull out the offending material a little at a time. But oh, the indignity…and the discomfort! I can’t believe that we can put a man on the moon, but the best we can come up with when it comes to a clogged pipe is manual dexterity.

Before he took the plunge, I asked in astonishment if there was any other way, if there was any magic potion they could shoot up there to break things up, but he said somewhat curtly, “Nope. I just have to get in there, and it’s nasty.”

He then told me to take down my pants and roll over, as a nurse stood by, pan in hand, ready for the rocks. Before I knew it, he’d put on two pairs of rubber gloves, greased up, then plunged in with such ferocity that I grabbed onto the side of the bed for dear life, fearing that my poor anus was being ripped from its moorings.

He wasn’t in there for even a minute when the intercom clicked in, saying he had a phone call. “Excuse me,“ he said, removing the gloves, “but I have to get this.” “What?” I whimpered, shocked that any phone call could be more important than stopping in the middle of a procedure such as this. As one might imagine, a patient in this position wants the entire matter over as quickly as possible, and it felt like an hour for him to return as my poor butt was throbbing, even though it was probably just a few minutes.

It gave me just enough time to ponder how awful it was going to feel all over again when he returned, and my imagination didn’t disappoint. He was just as vigorous the second time around, to which I grunted, “How long is this going to take?” “Oh, a few more minutes,” he said, which inspired such fear in me that I gave a mighty push, and well, the matter resolved itself from then on in just a few seconds to the surprise of both him and the nurse. They both acted like a baby was coming as they rushed to get the pan underneath me, realizing that nature was taking its course in a way I just couldn’t control.

And just like that it was all over, and before I knew it, I was back in my apartment, back in bed tending to my severe case of bronchitis and fever, which felt like kids’ play compared to what I’d just been through.

Since then, I’ve been trying to reduce my morphine even more, and I’ve been staying away from the supplements for now, but frankly, I’m miserable. The pain in my face is too fierce right now to reduce the morphine any more, and I was in tears most of the afternoon, wondering how in god’s name my life has come to this—that I’m on so much pain medication that I actually needed an emergency room doctor this week to pull a brick out of my butt with his bare, if gloved, hands.

The poor guy didn’t even stick around for me to thank him. I did thank the nurse though, who was left with the grunt work, ‘natch, of throwing out my poop. I told her I was sorry that I’d come in with such an unpleasant task, but she couldn’t have been nicer, shrugging off the whole ordeal with, “Honey, this is what we’re here for. We’re here to help, and it’s not just you…this happens to people all the time.”

And with that I walked out a little easier than I walked in, if a little bowlegged.

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The Bust-Out Power of Journalling

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:31:00 +0000

I'd forgotten how dazzling, exciting and soothing daily journal writing can be.

After the holidays had ended, I was feeling such a terrible void, which isn't that unusual, I suppose, at this time of year, but the whole season seemed to have a void to it, despite how busy I was. On the surface, I probably looked happy. My online Etsy shop--filled with all kinds of my art-related goodies--was doing well, and I was commissioned by six clients to do a pet portrait. And my pain level was holding steady, kept in check by a moderate daily morphine dose.

There really didn't seem to be any overt reason for me to feeling such a deep malaise, during the holidays or after, but there it was, grinding away at me day in and day out, and yet I couldn't even cry about it, which was really strange for me, as weeks earlier, it seemed I couldn't turn off the daily waterworks.

Very early in the season, I was so tearful that when an old friend, who I hadn't seen in about 15 years, came over to pick up her pet portrait, the tears came out in an embarrassing flood when she asked me the simple question as to how I was doing. I knew the dreaded words were coming while she was catching me up on her own life (with me laughing and smiling the whole time), and I kept saying to myself, "Please don't ask me how I'm doing. Please don't ask me how I'm doing." She did, of course, and the more I tried to regain my composure as I spoke, the more the explosion built up steam.

It all turned out fine, as she's as much a dear now as she was then, but I was indeed perplexed by my post-holiday numbness, and decided it must be the morphine, which only added to my malaise, as right now, it's just something I can't live without.

I don't know what made me do it, but I decided on New Year's Eve to seek out my journal and just start writing automatically, not to make any discoveries necessarily, but just to break the logjam of my feelings, which had come to a full halt. And what a break I made.

It's amazing what feelings lurk inside us when we just stop for 20 minutes or so, and really let them surface. At first, I wrote that I should go off the morphine at all costs, as I just couldn't stand the blankness of my life anymore, but suddenly, little glimmers of other matters began to appear. The first entry gently percolated with what family gatherings do to my feelings of self-worth, especially when I'm sick and in pain, and I found myself praying on paper for guidance, as I was so at a loss as to what to do next.

I ended with, "I need a miracle," and sure enough, the next day while talking to Glori, my therapist, while telling her that I just can't cry anymore, that the morphine has put me out of touch with any and all feeling, a few sniffles suddenly turned into a flood of tears about how yet another year has passed with me being in pain, and the sorrow I felt about it was overwhelming.

"My dear," she said. "I believe you are in touch with your feelings just fine."

Since then, I've made the effort to write every day, and the results have been unusually soothing, as any good purge of emotion usually is. Unlike my blogging, which is more controlled and meant for others to read, my journal writing is often splashes of sentences that only I can understand, filled with run-on phrases, misspellings, and deeply private feelings meant for my eyes alone.

While I'm as honest as possible in my blog, my journal writing is really honest, where I can vent and reach into the darkest corners of my soul, often with some trepidation, but always rewarded, as even if I don't discover an answer, I do always end with a prayer to the Great Spirit, asking for guidance, courage or whatever else I might feel I'm lacking at the moment, and the hope those words bring is always reassuring.

Perhaps the greatest discovery, which came from my session with Glori that day, was something I've let lapse, and that's been writing here.

At one point, Glori and I were doing an updated treatment plan (I see her at a clinic), and she asked me what I hoped to achieve with our sessions in the coming months. At first, my answers were very self-centered, as I seemed to answer by rote, with the old chestnuts like, "I'd like to be happier," "I'd like to become more social," "I'd like to feel less anxious," etc.

And then she asked me about my writing, which I've always felt has helped not just me, but others as well. When I started this blog well over two years ago, it was at first a way to give meaning to a harrowing experience simply by expressing it. But in time, as certain comments were made, I saw that the sharing of the experience had a reverberating effect that went far deeper than I'd ever anticipated when I started.

I haven't had to offer any answers here, or any deep insights, or even clever writing. I've just had to be honest, even when that honesty reveals that I just spent three days in my pajamas and I feel like crap. It's those entries that sometimes resonate most of all for others suffering similarly, and this has caught me completely by surprise.

When Glori reminded me that thinking of others will come back to me a thousandfold, I knew what I had to do, which is coming back to my blog and continuing the chronicling of this bizarre journey.

And that's what some simple journal writing has led to. In the search to find answers, the answer is simply to be honest and continue the search, and perhaps most important, to share the experience with others, for it's in the sharing of the journey that the healing truly begins.

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The Curious Effect of Vincent D'Onofrio

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:18:00 +0000

Fellow OSer Beth Mann made an interesting comment in my last post about my marathon viewing of Law & Order: Criminal Intent during a stretch of bad pain. She said, “If you're going to go for a Law and Order marathon, try not to make it Criminal Intent. Vincent D'Onofrio has a strange effect on me over time.”

Even though she didn’t get into specifics, I knew exactly what she meant. There is indeed something odd about Vincent D’Onofrio, and I understood her warnings about him on a visceral level.

No one would argue that he’s a talented actor, and I can remember feeling excited when it was first announced that he was joining the Criminal Intent cast, as I’d always been a fan, as far back as his first Hollywood role as the overweight, unbalanced recruit in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, for which he’d gained 70 pounds.

Yet what makes a constant diet of him so troubling, as Beth so keenly observed?

When he first made his appearance as Det. Robert Goren on Law & Order: CI, he was all ticks and twitches, bending this way and that as he interrogated suspects, clearly attempting to carve out a memorable character who was the quirky genius with odd habits and a knack for solving the case.

The ticks bothered me, but as with all new and promising shows, I try to give them a little time to find their stride, and in time, D’Onofrio did seem to tone down the affectations and get more to the heart of the character, especially when the writers began to explore his history with his schizophrenic mother and drug-addled brother.

It wasn’t until close to the end of his tenure with the series, however, that these more human elements entered the show, so for years, we watched him play Goren as the quirky detective guru—attractive and brilliant, but somehow inhuman, and therein lies the rub.

Whenever I’ve seen Vincent D’Onofrio in any television show or film, there is a strange lack of heart, and thus a peculiar hollowness seems to permeate every character. He’s there but he’s not there, and he’s certainly not interacting with his cohorts, who I imagine must find him a challenge to work with. I once heard Antonio Banderas comment that Angelina Jolie was one of the most generous actresses he’d ever worked with, yet I can’t imagine anyone saying this about D’Onofrio.

While he says his lines to perfection, and his characters are keenly observed (he’s been called “an actor’s actor"), it’s as though he’s playing to himself in each and every role; it doesn’t seem to matter whether anyone else is in the room or not. Even when he played the romantic lead with Renee Zellweger in The Whole Wide World, the chemistry just wasn’t there, and this was with a woman he supposedly had a real-life affair with.

Perhaps not coincidentally, his characters are nearly all attractive loners, and Beth is right. A steady diet of these people, be them on TV or in real life, are a danger to those psyches that seek out connection, for while the loner can seem the strong, silent type, very often he’s just too afraid to speak the truth about himself, and cowardice is frustrating indeed. He wants to draw you in for company and amusement, perhaps even adoration, but he doesn’t really want to give anything in return, and he certainly doesn’t want you to get to know him.

When D’Onofrio began to withdraw from Criminal Intent, sharing the lead duties with actor Chris Noth, it was obvious that his stifled soul was beginning to devour him, exemplified by all he began to devour. As the years passed, the sleek movie star slowly turned into a pasty, overweight, tortured version of his former self, which the writers cleverly worked into the script, a development I’d like to think helped him work through some of these demons.

As for myself, I have to question what draws me to these characters, and to people like this in real life, as I’ve become involved with them at my own peril. Early on, I suppose there was the part of me that thought I could save them, until I began to realize that many of them don’t want to be saved. They prefer to remain distant, resting on the laurels of their talent, there for you to admire but never really know, comfortable on their pedestals that are always just a little bit above you.

But if these loners have any soul at all, the artifice just can’t last, and they do end up paying a high price for the costly walls they build around themselves. In D’Onofrio’s case, aside from the loss of his Hollywood luster, he succumbed to what the press said was “exhaustion,” and he slowly had to retreat from the show. I suppose we’ll never know whose idea that was, his or the show’s producers.

I’ve seen it happen to other creative types, too. John McCrea, the lead singer-songwriter of the rock band Cake—who could write killer melodies and clever lyrics galore in the late ‘90s—got so deeply mired in irony that by the time he wanted to be taken seriously as a songwriter, it was too late. Old fans like myself had become weary of the hipper-than-thou stance, to the extent that by the time he’d realized his mistake, we were long gone.

Years ago, a friend handed me a magazine article about D’Onofrio, and I’ll never forget the strange reaction I had to it. There it was…a full feature on him, along with a one-page photograph, and for some reason, it actually felt awkward to hold the piece, as if it was the strangest thing in the world that there would be an article about Vincent D’Onofrio. I just couldn’t imagine him wanting to ever do something like that, and it was as though I could feel the hostility in just holding the paper in my hands.

My drummer friend, Jagoda, was there to witness the moment, and mentioned how he couldn’t stand the guy. Apparently, he had been in a theater house band for an off-Broadway show that D’Onofrio was starring in, and he said it was a completely forgettable endeavor until the last night of the show’s run, when the understudy took over the lead role. Jagoda said that the understudy completely transformed not just the role, but the whole show, bringing a humanity to the character that D’Onofrio had completely missed.

I didn’t bother to read the article, but for some reason, I’m still hooked on the Criminal Intent reruns. The show may be committed to film, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping that maybe something will change, that maybe Det. Goren, and by extension Vincent D’Onofrio, will expose his soul after all.

So close do guys like him keep their cards to the vest that even saying something like that sounds like heresy. Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that one.

Another Day in My Pajamas

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:03:00 +0000

Make no mistake—no matter how much one thinks he or she has accepted being in a state of chronic pain, the bad days cause reflection on those that were better, before the unacceptable occurred and we were unalterably changed forever.

And it’s on those days that I realize that at my core, I’m still just so profoundly sad about it all. While being in pain has unquestionably deepened my compassion for all living things and has perhaps made me more human in many ways, I’m still just so fucking angry that this is how my life has turned out, and it doesn’t look like anything is going to change—certainly not in the short run.

Maybe I’m blue because I’ve undergone yet another change in my pain medication regimen, and I sometimes feel like I’m sleeping around the clock. Even though I’ve attempted in the last month or so to take steps back out into the world—like joining a gym, joining an internet dating site, painting up a storm in preparation for an exhibit and going back into therapy—the bulk of recent weeks has been spent in front of the TV set, where I get to watch other people have lives, which in turns reminds me of who I used to be before this trial set in.

I suppose my gentle forays out into the world haven’t been going so well, which is just adding to my frustration. At the gym, it can feel like a herculean effort to do just 30 minutes walking on the treadmill, I rarely check the dating site as I just can’t imagine myself being the flirty girl anymore, and my painting has hit a creative wall. And as for therapy, I’m experiencing something I've never experienced before with previous professionals, as this new therapist has an extremely spiritual bent.

On the one hand, I could say that she’s a perfect pairing for me, as the reason for my crippling depression when the pain struck in ’04 was complete spiritual devastation and the total unraveling of my faith. But such a statement would imply that somewhere deep within I believe some type of magic is at work—that this person has come into my life for a reason and that there are no accidents.

That’s certainly what Glori (my therapist) believes, and at times I find myself getting angry at her for such crazy statements. The old arguments erupt—like why would any loving creator allow such suffering in the world, not just mine, but anyone's?—but I suppose I’m tired of hearing those tapes run in my head, which is a lucky break for Glori, as I’m more open now to hearing what she has to say than I would have been, say, three years ago.

Oddly enough, my reasons for entering therapy again have had nothing to do with spirituality, but rather have been an attempt to get to the core of my intimacy issues with men. It’s a complete coincidence that Glori has this spiritual slant to her work, which seems to have superseded my original intentions, at least for the time being.

She’s an extraordinary woman who speaks five languages fluently, has studied the kabala for over 30 years, and is well read on nearly every religion that exists, so when she speaks, her words carry a certain love and authority that can be soothing, even if I don’t necessarily believe them.

Glori believes that in order to deepen our humanity, we must go through these trials, and the further down they go, the further we will ultimately rise. This is life’s cycle, she says, and if it didn’t happen, we would become stagnant. In a sense, I can tell she believes that my pain is a type of gift, in that I now can connect with all suffering in the world and thus be a force for good, should I accept the assignment.

It’s certainly a nice thought, but hard to comprehend during the days I feel so utterly useless. Today, for example, is yet another day I’ve yet to get out of my pajamas. This new medication is so strong that I woke up with a borderline migraine headache and nausea. I’ve been taking considerably less today, which means the pain is greater, all while I watch a Law & Order: Criminal Intent marathon.

The only way I can think of to make use of today’s particular trial is to write about it here, in the hopes that someone else who is suffering will read it and not feel so terribly alone.

I see Glori again on Tuesday. As I write about her, I’m reminded of the positive affirmations she gives me to say, none of which I’ve done.

I do have a favorite though, which comes from the Hawaiian HoOponopono religion, and it’s one we’re supposed to say to our creator as a way to take responsibility for our lives. It goes like this:

“I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”

When I feel lazy, useless, jealous, or whatever, it does have a certain power to it that soothes me. Maybe I’ll pull out her affirmations tonight and give them a spin, although my exhaustion level makes even the utterance of words feel like lifting weights.

I’ve got to try, even though I’m so fucking sick of trying. Maybe what I need is just a good cry.

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Smashing the Bell Jar, Once and for All

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:50:00 +0000

I recently saw a 2009 interview with the stunningly talented pop sensation Lady Gaga and was aghast, not only because of her genius and creativity, but because this poised, wise, already-an-icon diva is just 23 years old—basically at the beginning stages of her career, with something like 15 million album sales already to her credit.

As Gaga would be the first to probably tell you, the number means nothing, as music is her religion--something she would create regardless of whether or not she succeeded. Instead, she says, it’s the spirituality of her pursuits, and the creative and joyous outlets that go with it that provide her with the necessary inspiration for continuing—the writing, the recording, the videos, the live shows, and most important, the fans.

Years ago, I might have felt envious of this startling young woman, as I, too, was a performing songwriter in the mid-90s and early 2000s, right up until the time I became too ill to continue, and thus had little to say in the form of a pop song anymore.

With the tens of thousands of talented musicians out there hoping to make it in the music business, I suppose I didn’t fare too badly during my heyday, although my career didn’t begin to scratch the surface of the commercial success of Lady Gaga. I've talked about my former career in other posts and so won't repeat myself here, but the upshot is that while I carry no sadness or disappointment about my songs not finding a home in the earthly catalog (and thus on people’s MP3 players), I do feel a type of ache when I witness the vitality of artists who come from a happy home. If I envy anything, it’s the abundance of unencumbered fun they have in bravely expressing their true essence in all they do, having a type of faith that their creativity and love from others will provide a bedrock of strength and a cushion of comfort when life's challenges erupt.

When I think back on when I was 23 years old (I’m now 51), I remember that as the year that I first went into therapy. It happened out of absolute necessity, as the band-aids that had been holding my psyche together since college completely collapsed after my reading of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, which believe it or not, sent me into a freefall of anxiety and depression so bad that I remember telling my mother one night while sitting on the edge of my bed that I literally could no longer move.

I was frozen solid in position, so paralyzed by the constant criticisms of my father over the course of my entire life that the moment had finally arrived that I just no longer knew which way to turn. I didn’t understand it at the time, of course, but now I see it. And so did my therapist that very first day I sat in her office, who told me at the end of the session that my issues were with my dad, an opinion I completely disagreed with at the time, as everyone knew he was a great guy, and the problem was my insane brain, not him.

I’m not sure what drove Sylvia Plath, but we both obviously ended up in the same place, and the image of being stuck in the bell jar terrified me. I saw myself as a carnival sideshow--a creepy deformed contortion of a human being, as if someone had placed me in the jar as a baby and left me there to grow within in it, ultimately becoming too large to ever get out of the jar's small opening on my own. Even though the image was just a metaphor, it felt strikingly real, and a seething claustrophobia set in, gripping me with such terror that I ultimately became paralyzed on that bed, drained of all energy by absolute, suffocating fear.

What also terrified me was that Plath's book was no ordinary book--it was the beginning of the end, in a sense, in that the issues she so beautifully dealt with in her novel, the issues I so readily identified with, were the exact issues that were to kill her off years later when she took her own life. Talk about being freaked out.

To compare that 23-year-old person with today’s 23-year-old Lady Gaga is a study indeed on the influence of our parents, which was made all the more clear by Gaga’s endearing comments on the wonderful relationship she has with her own father, who supports literally everything she does, as does her mother. “He gets me,” she says, and if there was ever a thing about her that I would envy, that would be it right there.

It took me a full two years to admit to my therapist that what I wanted to be in life was a musician, and took another ten pick up a guitar and begin writing music in earnest. When it came, it poured out of me with a creative zeal and necessity that Gaga has most likely been feeling nearly all of her young life. It took me 12 years to pick up that guitar, and took many more to feel worthy of just being alive.

I realize that the job of any artist is to document his or her journey, no matter what it may be, and I’ve done that to the best of my ability. What a waste, though, to have had to do so much work just to get to Level Zero, to get to the blank canvas on which to begin creating.

But is “waste” the right word? Nothing is wasted if you can use it somehow to help others. I used to feel a certain bitterness about the added weight I knew I was carrying around that others weren’t, but to indulge in that feeling would be the real waste. Years ago, my depression wouldn’t have allowed me the choice to give up a negative feeling. But I have that choice now, and I’m grateful.

Even as this chronic pain continues as I write (no doubt the lingering scar from my stressful past), I feel happy for and inspired by Lady Gaga, thrilled that I’m so completely out of the bell jar that I’m even able to be inspired. I still can’t muster up a new song, but I am painting and writing, and excited to start flamenco classes again in September (if I can afford it).

When I first entered therapy with those terrifying visions of being so trapped in the jar, I wondered how in the world I’d ever get out of it. It never once occurred to me back then that there were those out there who would have compassion for me, who would help me get out of it, who would do whatever it took to break the glass to set me free.

How wonderful for the Lady Gagas of the world who know that compassion from Day One. They know they can count on it as they embark on their life’s journey.

I’m still a bit suspect, but enough already. This lack of faith is starting to get old, frankly. Evidence is presenting itself everywhere these days that it's time to begin trusting again. While the bell jar glass has been shattered, it's up to ME to step out of its remains and begin walking the earth.

For years, I was so afraid to move. Thanks Gaga, for inspiring me to dance.

Faith, Art and Power Ball

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:29:00 +0000

It’s been so long since I’ve made an entry. In re-reading my last post, it’s inspiring to report that my apparent acceptance of this chronic pain has had a lasting effect, one that has produced a stretch of creativity I haven’t had in years.

My new apartment is exploding in colors, with the walls recently painted purple and light moss green, and new paintings hanging everywhere. I’ve also been experimenting with a new painting technique, whereby I stencil antique lace patterns on a canvas, then embellish them with images and pastels that work within the shapes. And I’ve been creating dozens of my baseball card-sized paintings that feature my little glamour girlies as exercises in color and composition.

I’m even getting up at the crack of dawn, excited about the day, and about the morning in particular, when all is quiet, except for my cat, who is beyond excited herself at the prospect of her favorite wet food so early in the day.

Yet the pain persists, and during the past few days has been worse than it’s been all spring and summer. The other day I was helping my friends move and I forgot to take my second dose of daily pain medication, which perhaps was the mistake that set off this new round of trouble. When one suffers with pain, it’s important to stay ahead of it by taking the meds before the pain seriously sets in, as once it starts, it’s much harder to bring down.

Yet something has decidedly changed in my response to chronic pain, and I’m a little baffled by it. During the past few years, a new round of screeching pain would have sent me reeling in sadness and a sense of defeat, but something in me has indeed changed as I find myself annoyed by it, of course, but somehow unperturbed by its relentless pursuit of my soul, which is what it felt like for so long.

I’d like to say I’m not letting it in anymore, but that would be lying a bit, as the fear pain brings on is very real—the fear of what’s really happening in my face and jaw (is the bottom-line condition getting worse?), the fear of what all these medications are doing to my body (can my compromised liver handle them?), and the fear that, well, I somehow may die of all this, and I’ve no idea why I fear that, frankly. If there’s an afterlife, great, and if not, well then I won’t know about it, will I?

There are still moments in the day, too, where exhaustion overcomes me, probably due to the meds, and my life can continue to feel like an endurance test. I also wonder if this creativity burst is a true personal achievement, or the result of me recently cutting my Zoloft in half, in which case I could be experiencing a touch of hypomania (which has occurred in the past) instead of a divine insight that has produced a creativity spurt.

While antidepressants can be lifesavers when our brain chemistry results in profound depression, they can also tend to trim off ALL extremes—not just the lows but the highs as well. And they can affect our mojo, which is why I can’t remember the last time I had a sexual thought. I must confess that’s been the real reason I’ve decided to go off Zoloft, as how in the world will I find romance in my life if a bowl of ice cream seems more exciting than a passionate kiss?

Yet the decrease in Zoloft can’t account for the slow return of my faith, which has perhaps surprised me most of all in recent months, particularly since the whole notion of God as I understood him for so many years has had nothing to do with it.

When my life fell apart in 2004, I now wonder if my sense of shattered faith was really just the beginnings of a long grieving process for a loss I just couldn’t accept—the loss of a pain-free, healthy body. As I was raised to be so damn perfect, even an imperfect body was so unacceptable to me, as I could no longer be the achievement-oriented Mary Ann, who defined herself so completely by her accomplishments.

Pain has been a cruel teacher, but the lesson has nevertheless been learned that accomplishment should be the by-product of a life well-lived, not the goal. There’s certainly nothing new about that insight, but it’s new to me, and also liberating, as finally it’s just okay to enjoy the day for no damn purpose at all.

One of my biggest pleasures in life now is going to the dollar store with my mom and loading up on gifts for my 3- and 5-year-old nieces, who think us the greatest nana and aunt of all time, due to our apparent bottomless treasure chest of water pistols, angel wings, and beautiful jewelry sets, all compliments of Dollar Daze house of goodies.

What I love, too, during these outings with my mom is our hilarious bickering, which is much like that of comedienne Kathy Griffin and her mom Maggie on My Life on the D List. My nutty mother simply can’t resist telling me that a stop sign is coming up, to which I’ll reply, “You mean that red octagon shape with the letters S-T-O-P on it?” It goes on like this during our travels to the food store, post office, and of course, the liquor store, where much like Maggie, my mom buys the cheapest white wine on the shelf, not because it’s a bargain, but because that’s the one she likes.

If anyone had told me 15 years ago that these are the things that would bring me the most happiness in my life, I might have looked at them with a befuddled stare, as the ambitious Mary Ann back then was the destined-for-greatness singer/songwriter, which I now know had about as much chance of success as me winning the multi-state Power Ball.

Tens of thousands are called in the entertainment field, but few are anointed for that kind of accomplishment. In no other field is sheer damn luck such a component of whether or not one succeeds. If you’re an attorney and you work hard, you’ll do well. But even if you write the greatest songs of all time, whether or not anyone hears them on a large scale is largely out of your hands, no matter how hard you work at it.

Am I proud of my songs? You bet. But do I care that they didn’t land on the top of the charts? I care only in the sense that I believe my songs would have been a good and true addition to the pop canon--something that would have made people happy. But like all things, to dust, too, they will return, just like all the hit singles and albums that did make the charts, and I’m fine with that.

I’m fine with a lot these days, it seems, no doubt fueled by this wonderful creative phase. Nothing makes me happier than to feel like painting is a way to goof off--a naughty thing I’m doing when I should be doing something more serious, like earning money, of which I have none, by the way. Never in my life have I been this broke, but never in my life have I felt this curiously content, pain and all.

Geez, I hope this isn’t hypomania. Every morning I say a prayer I learned from the teachings of Florence Scovel Shinn, a woman who wrote in the 1920s with such incredible wisdom. I pray, “I give thanks for my perfect health, my perfect wealth, my perfect love and my perfect self-expression, under grace, in divine ways.”

The first part is said in the present tense as a way to feel gratitude, even if those things haven’t manifested in my life yet, and the last part is said in a way that reminds me that I want those things only as the universe intends me to have them.

Either my prayers are finally working, or I’ve simply stumbled into a better time in my life, which is okay, too, as I’ve no problem with the notion of a little bit of luck. Maybe it’s time to play Power Ball.

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Artworks here are posted in my Etsy Shop for just $9.99 each.
Apologies if this isn't OS protocol, but as winning the lottery is highly unlikely, I can't resist plugging these little beauties. Remember, they're originals! :)

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Bitch-Slapping My Guilt, With Good Results

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:16:00 +0000

I had a big insight.

There I was on Thursday, experiencing one of the worst pain days I’ve had since this whole ordeal began six years ago. Absolutely nothing I did worked to ease the burning and aching in my face, so I did the only thing that I knew for sure would bring me any relief, however slight it would be, and that was to take more pain medication. But with that decision came the usual overwhelming sense of guilt--that somehow I was being weak, was copping out and dropping out of life, disgusted at my fate.

The tears came easily that day, initially having been set off by a newsletter I regularly receive from author Annette Colby, a doctor who specializes in matters of the heart and soul, and who I’ve spoken to once on the phone and have had multiple email conversations with in the last two years or so. Her topic that day was a ten-step plan on how to bring more love and joy into your life, and it brought back such poignant memories of the happiness I was feeling before all this began.

I wrote to Annette to thank her for her words, as they’d set off the tears, for which I was grateful. I needed something to crack through the tension I’d been carrying that day, and was so thankful for the release. Annette responded with her usual compassion and wisdom, and then said something I didn’t expect. She said that if I needed to take the pain medication, it was a complete waste of energy to feel guilty about it, and that if and when the day came that I decided to stop it, I would, but until then, I should simply enjoy the relief it brought.

While this might sound obvious to some, her words truly altered my state. For the first time I can remember during the past six years, I decided that just for that day, I wasn’t going to feel guilty about any decision I made in order to cope with my pain, whether it be painkillers, cigarettes or wine. I saw very clearly that what I deal with on a daily basis is beyond what most people can even imagine, so why should I be judging my behavior in order to cope with circumstances so completely beyond my control?

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Day in and day out, I live in such unchartered territory, which is why I’ve found so little solace in therapy or in programs like AA or rehab, where two years ago I did a two-week stint to get off the pills, only to find myself in agony again once I got home. The rehab experience was awful--not anything like one sees in shows like Intervention, as I was treated in the same punitive way that so many of these more ordinary places treat addicts--that we’re diseased degenerates who can’t be trusted and thus must turn over our lives to a supposedly loving god who will set us free if we just surrender our will.

While this approach may work for some, and I do respect it (despite my cynicism about that treatment center), for the addicted pain patient, this program just doesn’t work. No amount of steps or surrender did a single thing to alter the awful conditions of my life, nor did this loving god, who from what I can see, has dispensed far too much suffering upon this world to be taken seriously.

I suppose this is why I found Annette’s words so comforting, as she was putting her trust in ME--that I was the only one who truly knows what’s best for my pain, and therefore shouldn’t feel guilty about the decisions I make.

And so, for the rest of the day, I did whatever it took to bring me comfort, and a surprising thing happened. Without all of my energy being eaten up by pain and, more important, guilt, I felt a certain joyousness about life return, and I was shocked.

Suddenly, my thoughts turned to my art studio, which I’ve been attempting to organize ever since I moved into my new apartment here on Feb. 3. I couldn’t believe how effortless it felt to just go in there and start moving things around, as I was now eager to get started on a new painting. And every time I felt guilt begin to creep into my consciousness, I would say out loud, “Stop it!” and indeed it would just go away.

*****************

Curiously, two other things happened in previous days that perhaps laid the groundwork for Annette’s words. The first was a book I found literally in someone’s trash, titled simply enough, Meditation, which recounted meditation techniques by a famous instructor named Osho. There are descriptions of about 100 different meditations, one of which is for smoking, in which Osho describes the plight of a troubled man who had chain-smoked for 30 years, and had come to him looking for guidance on how to stop.

Surprisingly, Osho told the man that he should NOT stop, but instead smoke every cigarette with complete attention and consciousness, as it was the thoughtless, automatic behavior that was the problem, not the cigarettes. If the man continued to smoke, Osho told him to just enjoy it, as what did it matter if he lived a shorter life as a result, but if he stopped, Osho said it would happen effortlessly, and of course, it did. In short order, through conscious meditation on his smoking, the man soon saw the insanity of his behavior, and he was able to quit.

The second occurrence that alerted me to the destructive power of guilt was a few web sites I stumbled upon completely by accident that challenged whether or not Jesus Christ ever actually lived, as apparently, there’s absolutely nothing in the historical record about his existence. Yes, there are the gospels, but supposedly there’s nothing else--no stories written by the historians and writers of the time about this man of miracles, no record of his execution by Pontius Pilot--stuff like that.

I know so little about this subject that I bring it up not to invite debate, but to recount the curious effect it had on me. What if Jesus Christ never did exist? What if he was nothing more than an archetype created by the collective unconscious in the same way other deities have been created over the course of history, like Zeus? It’s indeed a fact that Christianity isn’t the first religion to speak of virgin births and resurrections, so what if the indoctrination I received as a child (which sometimes fills me with superstition to this day) was all a fabrication?

Over the course of the next few days, I could see that my guilt was also born of fear of sinning against this god of my childhood--that I was living an evil existence, even though the circumstances of my life were not of my own making.

********************

So what’s the upshot of all this? Well, yesterday was probably one of the happiest days of my life in the past six years. I treated my pain as I saw fit, fully willing to accept any consequences of my decisions, and I did not allow myself to feel any guilt whatsoever about my actions.

And with that came joy. When I went to bed last night, I was so eager to wake up this morning that I actually couldn’t fall asleep, as if I were a child tossing and turning on Christmas Eve.

While having my morning coffee today (coffee being yet another thing I’ve been berating myself for), I eagerly jotted down a list of things I want and need to do today, and instead of it feeling like a weight, the list feels like, well, a life.

There’s nothing extraordinary on it--just ordinary tasks to do on an ordinary Saturday--and for once, I’m actually looking forward to starting my day.

I can’t remember the last time I said that.

***********************

Quitting Smoking: An Existential Review

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:24:00 +0000

HELP!!! I’M DYING FOR A CIGARETTE!!! I’m having an operation next week, and in order to not develop complications, I must stop smoking and drinking TODAY. ACK! This is worse than when I got my nose pierced last week! This is worse than that time I screwed up my haircut and ended up shaving my head. This is worse than the night someone stole an entire wheel off my ’79 Chevette and left the back axel sitting on a cinderblock.

At first, I thought I could stop this coming Monday (I'm writing this on Saturday), but then the doctor upped the procedure date late yesterday afternoon, which means I have to stop TODAY. So last night, after having my final smoke and sip of wine, the cigs went down the toilet and the wine went down the drain, and now I feel like a crazy person who’s ready to run out onto the main drag here in my pajamas and see if I can grub a smoke from some passer-by.

Why didn’t I save just one cigarette??? At first, I put the pack under the faucet, then threw them in the garbage, but I knew it would drive me insane this morning to see beautiful, wet cigarettes in my trash...so close but so far...so I pulled them out and flushed them down the toilet.
Out of sight, out of mind, right? NOT!

Oh, what I’d give for one right now. I’m tempted to go buy a whole pack just so I could have one more, and then I’d throw the rest away, but luckily I’m too cheap (and too poor) to do that. Let’s see...did I leave a stray cigarette around somewhere? Is there some gross butt sitting in a random ashtray that has one last drag in it?

Of course, I’m drinking my morning coffee here, which is making the torture worse. Caffeine and nicotine go together like...well, caffeine and nicotine. They provide that one-two morning punch that’s like no other...that blast of energy and goodwill that puts a rosy glow on the whole world, before reality comes crashing back that I’ve got bills to pay, work to do, and an aching jaw that’s still aching.

What also aches is the existential question as to what do I DO with myself when I’m not smoking? Right around now, I’d be lighting up, legs crossed, sipping coffee and finding some mundane TV show far more interesting than it would be ordinarily without the caffeine/nicotine enhancement.

Oddly enough, I’m not a heavy smoker by most heavy-smoker standards. I like one, or two, occasionally three in the morning, then that same amount again in the afternoon when I pour my 4 p.m. glass of wine, which must also become history if I care anything about the outcome of this operation next week.

It seems that engorged veins have been forming in my stomach again, which means I could pop a whirly at any moment, and as I learned six years ago, this is NOT something I ever want to happen again. I lost seven pints of blood from my 10-pint system, so if quitting smoking and drinking is what I have to do to ensure a positive outcome, I’ll do it. Believe me, there are things far worse than death in this life, and I’ve just about had it with life-threatening complications.

I suppose that’s the good thing about quitting today...not just the obvious stuff, like it’s the healthy thing to do, but also the relief I feel in not playing another round of Russian Roulette with my health, which is what smoking feels like. When you’ve got a chronic blood clotting disorder and you light up a cigarette, that single little tobacco stick could easily be the last one of your life, instantly, if another deep vein thrombosis were to occur.

I’ve been aware that, even though I’m on Coumadin, every cigarette I smoke is a flirtation with death, or worse, a stroke. Or even worse than that, another clot that would cause even more pain than I’m already in. I’ve been in that vicious circle of feeling intense stress from chronic pain, then relieving that stress with painkiller abuse, smoking and now wine, which, in turn, only makes the pain worse, I suspect. Ah yes, I live the very definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I’ve known for awhile that these habits have had to stop, particularly the last two (at least in the immediate sense), but just couldn’t find the motivation, which I’ve been praying for. Are these newly engorged veins God’s answer? The fact that I could seriously clot or bleed out during next week’s operation if I don’t stop has indeed provided me with motivation, along with a sense of relief that I don’t have to worry that today is the day that the bullet is in the chamber. I suppose there’s a certain satisfaction that this feeling of relief will become more prominent once the nicotine cravings pass.

Of course, I suspect I’ll be hit with another craving whammy around 4 p.m., which is when I usually pour my glass of cheap Carlo Rossi chablis, over ice, a tradition I picked up from my mom during my visits to her at the Jersey shore. Oprah comes on at 4, and that's when we kick back to sip on the cheapest wine on the market.

Carlo Rossi’s wine is great, because it’s only 9 percent alcohol, and you can buy an entire jug (gallon?) for about $12 dollars.

Even though I’ve just moved into an affordable housing apartment building, I’m actually in a swankier part of town now, and when I’ve gone into local liquor stores to inquire about my “jug” of Carlo Rossi, I’ve been met with horrified stares, to which I reply, “It’s for my mother. She also likes wine in a box. Hee hee.” Kathy Griffin and I have a lot in common.

Oh brother. Today’s just gonna be a tough day, no two ways about it. Or rather, EXACTLY two ways about it...no nicotine, no alcohol. If someone told me, “You could die from doing this,” I might actually go ahead and continue. But it’s the stroke/clot/hemorrhage possibility during the operation that seriously has me spooked this time.

As anyone in chronic pain will tell you, the thought of dropping dead isn’t nearly as scary as some of life’s other little dramas. There are far, far crueler fates, and as I’ve had my share, I’ll do everything I can to prevent any more catastrophes.

Hopefully, it’s thoughts like these that will get me over the hurdles in the coming days and weeks. I will continue to keep a log of the ups and downs of my journey to quit tobacco and say goodbye to Carlo once and for all.

******************************

X Marks the Spot

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:09:00 +0000

I haven’t written since mid-December, which means a whole winter has passed yet again. I haven’t been lazy, though, even though I can so often define myself that way.

My cat became deathly ill in late December to the tune of $3,000, and then a sudden twist of fate (the good kind) came my way when I got an affordable housing unit here in Hoboken on January 1st, which I found out about four days before I was to move in. (I was lucky enough to get a place right in the same city.) That meant I had to carry two rents for January, plus pack up 18 years of my life in four weeks to be ready to move by Jan. 27th.

But alas, at 2 a.m. on that date, I found myself in the emergency room with food poisoning, just five hours before the movers were to show up. Between the puking and the pooping and the moaning, I had to make emergency phone calls to cancel the move, and attempt to cancel the heat/electricity cancellation for that date. After three days in the hospital, I rescheduled the move for Feb. 2nd, which meant I had to sleep on a leaky air mattress in a freezing cold apartment for an additional five days.

Even though my cat and I pulled through our respective health catastrophes, by the time I found myself here in my new place, I was in complete meltdown mode, crying hysterically at the most gentle of prodding.

Moving in and of itself is an emotionally wrenching experience, even without additional drama. After the movers dropped me off here, I went back to my old place to tidy up loose ends (i.e., pick up scattered garbage), and in looking around remembered the exact day the realtor had showed me the apartment 18 years earlier. It looked precisely as it did then, and I literally began sobbing, remembering who I was as an early 30-something, and all that had transpired in that time.

It was all so poignant as I recalled the ambitious musician I was, out to make her mark in the world, moving to this quaint bustling city just across the river from Gotham, yet who carried such buried and awful sorrow. I could kid myself that I was happy and carefree then, but I was anything but, and given the choice, I certainly prefer being who I am now, even with the chronic pain (...I think).

But what I had then—that I don’t have now—was a sense of purpose...a propelling ambition to move forward at all costs, blindly, ably, with a fierce stick-to-it-tiveness that I marvel at in hindsight. I was aware at the time that my ambition was a crazed one...something that drove me and defined me in ways that weren’t particularly healthy, but I pushed ever forward.

I knew then that I so completely defined myself as a musician that if I never made it in the biz, I wondered what I would do with myself in my, say, 50s, which is where I am now.

With all the illness I encountered in my 30s and 40s, I suppose it’s somewhat odd to say that I’m grateful that my troubles completely redefined my values as the years passed, but as I sit here now at age 51, in chronic pain and dealing with continuing health problems (my endoscopy results today were not good, as trouble is brewing for another hemorrhage), I’m somewhat baffled as to who I am or what I should do...issues that I most certainly did NOT deal with when I moved to Hoboken 18 years ago.

To some degree, I’m aware that I still haven’t dealt emotionally with the devastation that occurred in 2004, when catastrophic complications of my blood clotting disorder left me in chronic pain, probably because I’ve been on painkillers for most of that time, abusing them frequently in order to deal not just with the pain, but with my ample confusion about life in general.

One can’t really be on painkillers AND deal with emotions in a psychotherapeutic way. But it’s all been a double-edged sword, of course...trying to keep the pain at bay with painkillers in order to have a life, yet not having a life because I’m on painkillers. Talk about a conundrum.

So after this long, hard winter, filled with trials, tribulations and triumphs of all kinds, my cat and I often lie on my bed amidst the boxes and move-in clutter and wonder what’s next for us.

Of course, I should just speak for myself. She’s perfectly happy just being herself, and is obviously thrilled to have had so many benign tumors removed, as despite being seven years old, she’s acting like a kitten again (which has its good and bad points). I even had to go out this week and buy her some new toys so that she can occupy herself instead of mauling my hand, still her favorite toy, unfortunately.

But we humans don’t have it so easy. How I wish I could just chase a treat, lie in the sun, eat, and look at the birds in order to be happy. Instead, I ponder my existence, yet at the same time am thrilled that I now have so much more storage space. The practical joys of life can indeed have a way of easing existential quandaries.

On Monday, I went to a preliminary session in New York for biofeedback training in order to help me deal with my pain. My brain was hooked up to electrodes for a stress test, and naturally, I failed. Or rather, my nervous system did. Apparently, chronic pain has tapped me out completely, to the extent that I have no reaction to stimulus that would make a healthy person freak. I would think that a good thing, except the doctor told me that there are certain things a healthy nervous system SHOULD respond to, like danger.

Perhaps I should have been hooked up when I got my nose pierced yesterday. It was so freakin’ painful that I’m sure my stress level would have gone through the roof and exploded the computer. But that’s what it takes to get me to focus these days...a big, painful needle through the nose.

I may not have any goals or ambition at the moment, but I do have this shiny little piece of jewelry on my face now, right next to where the worst pain of my life is. I just realized that in this moment. A pretty, little decoration is almost an “x” marking the spot of the bane of my existence.

*************

This Is It

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:16:00 +0000

I’ve always been the fix-it gal. Since an early age, I thought that if I just said the right thing, did the right thing, talked and walked the right way, then I could control the people around me. Growing up, obviously the first two people I tried to fix were my parents.

If I could tread just lightly enough, maybe my father wouldn’t be so mad, and if I said the right soothing words, maybe my mom wouldn’t be so sad. If I could just fix their rage and depression, respectively, by somehow fixing me, then everything would be fine.

I also tried to make everything right for my sister, my only sibling, who was born when I was 16. As I had such a voiceless childhood, I made sure she could express her voice to me so that she didn’t feel as alone as I did growing up.

So this was how I identified my value--the service I could be to others, so at various times throughout my life, I played out these dramas over and over, with friends or with men who were either way too angry or way too needy.

Of course, I harbored those very emotions in myself, which I didn’t see, naturally. It would take me years to understand why I’d picked the men I had, realizing that my criticisms of them “loving” me out of need, not true emotion, were really my own faults being reflected back at me.

I certainly did my time on the therapeutic couch to sort out my complexities, and I must say, the friends I have in my life today are gifts from heaven. (Unfortunately, I've yet to find the right man.) I realize that none of has to fix each other; we just have to bear witness to one another’s lives, be the moments good ones or bad, as the joy is found in the shared journey.

Yet somewhere deep inside, I can’t help but feel the fix-it gal still rearing her shaved head every now and then, still trying to fix the world around her, and I think I even do it to some extent with this blog, where I write not just to express myself, but in the hopes that I can somehow “fix” others in pain as well, so that we all can go on to live a happy existence. Surely that would make some sense out of all this agony, and by extension, make the world a much safer and more meaningful place for us all, particularly me.

Yet in my efforts to make my world safe and calm, I’ve somehow ended up in a life that is anything but. And in my last blog post, when I felt that I’d reached the end, that finally the pain had defeated me, it was proof once and for all that the world is filled with dark voids and treacherous turns that can never be predicted, never made safer by any amount of prayer, faith or fixing.

Perhaps the scariest realization I’ve come to is that for some, the old cliché of “this, too, shall pass” just isn’t true, nor are any of those other endearing chestnuts, like, “God doesn’t give you anything more than you can’t handle.” Wanna bet?

So it was such a disappointment for me to write that post, as I felt I’d failed not just me, but also everyone else.

But curiously, my words were not read that way at all, and some even found me brave, which took me by surprise. Out of the void of the unthinkable came voices from all over…from Open Salon, from Blogger, from strangers stumbling upon my site, from subscribers to my blog who I didn’t know existed.

Two people wrote of their own excruciating pain journeys. Another wrote about losing her 17-year-old daughter last year to brain cancer. Another, a friend, came over to say a prayer service with me, doing a unique Christian ritual practiced in Central America. And another pal called from Santa Barbara after, which ended up in two-hour joyful conversation that “closed the place down,” as she said, as our marathon phone chat had completely depleted my battery.

And then there was the friend, another blog follower I didn’t know about, who worked with me about 25 years ago during our days as young newspaper reporters, saying sweet things about me that I had no idea were a part of my character back then. His words were kind, loving and open, and I was so moved by his attempt to make me feel just a little bit better (which he did).

I went back to re-read my post at one point, thinking that maybe it was more inspirational than I'd thought, but no--it was pretty damn bleak no matter how you read it, so I was more than startled that anyone found that post of any value whatsoever.

And then it occurred to me. To a woman who’s been fixing things all her life in order to feel worthy and safe, here was a situation where not only was I not fixing anything, I was actually dropping the ball, perhaps even permanently, yet somehow this seemed to help others, to my complete consternation.

I am SO programmed on some deep dark level to anticipate criticism, that when I hit the send button on that last post, I almost braced myself for the harsh words I was anticipating in return.

To have gotten responses so completely different on the one hand seems obvious (why would anyone be cruel to someone who was in so much pain that she was thinking of ending her life?), yet it shook my foundation, sandy one that it is. Clearly, after all that therapy, my dad’s voice in my head can still shout loud and clear in my most vulnerable moments.

And so I furrow my brow now in complete befuddlement, realizing that what humans really want from each other isn’t perfection, isn’t an answer, but an honest connection, so in that sense, my last post must have been far more sponge-worthy than I realized, ‘cause it surely doesn’t get much deeper or honest than that.

Our world is so polarized into extreme segments these days…politically, technologically and spiritually, that I suppose personal honesty is the one realm where we all can find common ground, no matter how muddy or dark that ground may be at the time.

Honesty. That’s all we ever really want or need. Of course, I want and need a pain-free face, too, but I may have to keep up my attempts at acceptance, realizing that maybe this is it and it’s the best it will ever be.

Hmmm--this is it. God, I hope not, but I vow to at least continue to be honest about what this ordeal is doing to me, be it good or bad, for the connections I’ve made as a result of it are a blessing indeed, as are the lessons about love that are changing me at my core.

***************************

Untitled

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Today the pain is relentless and over the top. I just got off the phone with my friend Anne and I was sobbing. I said the truth that I've been thinking of for awhile now, which is that I don't want to live this way anymore. It's not that I don't want to live; I don't want to live like this.

Too many days are spent lying on the couch, never even getting out of my pajamas.

The last few mornings, I've been overcome with sleepiness, despite this new diet, which I'd been hoping would help, but it obviously isn't doing much. I felt an initial burst of energy, but my state has dissolved into a type of strange slumber. I've been buying healthy foods, cooking good meals, getting enough sleep, going to the gym a few times a week, but what's it all for when I only end up back at square one? Why bother when life is merely surviving and not living?

This afternoon I spent a few hours on the web, looking for other surgeons in the country who've perhaps had more success in treating this condition than the ones I've been to, but I don't see how they're any different.

I also found my way back to an old support group list, which I'd forgotten about. Apparently, I was there eight months ago, hoping to find help, just like hundreds of others from around the world who feel somewhat better after surgery, only to decline back into a diseased state. It was strange to see my name and read my words, realizing that nothing has really changed since then. I did have another surgery during this time, but the pain left me for just a few days before it came throbbing back.

It's an unbearable existence.

I saw Richard Branson on TV today and was reminded that just before all this started, I was planning to take flying lessons, not so much to learn how to fly, but to do a funny photo essay of the experience. I'd even bought an aviator cap and goggles, and had storyboarded the goofy adventure, hoping I'd have funny teachers who'd be willing to join in on the fun. I even had the airport and flight school picked out.

But that's all behind me now. And the cruel truth is that, despite all of my explorations into the meaning of suffering, chronic pain is meaningless. I simply drew a bad card in life, and it's not much more complicated than that.

I began writing this blog to give meaning to this experience, but I'm finding that, despite my best hopes and efforts, I'm not going to write my way out of this. My hope was that through my writing, I could help others, and of course, myself. I was praying that if I could find a path out of this mess, I could maybe provide hope for those laboring through their own unthinkable existence. But I see now that there is no way out. This is what it is, and judging from my research and my experience, it's not going to change.

And so I have to decide...do I want to live this way for the remaining 25 or 30 years of my life? What's the point? Five years ago, my depression over this landed me in a psychiatric hospital as I was suicidal. But the feelings I have now aren't so much based upon depression but rather on a logical conclusion that this is just no way to live.

When I've had thoughts like this before, my nieces would immediately come into my mind, and what I would be taking from them if I were no longer here. I'm the only aunt they have, and as my own aunts were so important to me growing up, I know that if they didn't have me in their lives, they would be the less for it.

But my thinking has shifted tonight. They're young; Sarah has just turned three, and Catherine will be five in January. Their parents are wonderful, and with or without me, I know they'll be okay. It would be a shock for everyone if I were to end my suffering, but my family and friends all know what I've been through. I'm sure they would forgive me. Yes, there would be anger, but not at me, I don't think. They would simply feel sad that such suffering could take out such a vibrant person...a person they loved.

That's all I have tonight. I don't know that there will be any more posts to write, no matter what decision I make. This blog has been an 18-month experiment, to see if it could somehow help, but I think I've reached the end.

I'm tired and in agony. And I can't stop crying.

This is no way to live.

******************

Results of My Relativity Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:52:00 +0000

In my last post, I said that if all things really are relative, then the truths I learned about emotional health during my years in therapy should at least have some application to healing my physical state, which is one of chronic pain.

So I decided to do a five-day diet of all healthy stuff, along with removing caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and sugar (which I've learned is actually the hypoglycemic diet; weird that I discovered that on my own).

Here are the results:

DAY ONE
Came home from my early-morning colonoscopy and had yogurt and granola. Later made a shake of yogurt, soy milk, bananas, raw almonds, protein powder and a touch of real maple syrup. For dinner had edamame and hummus with that Indian pan bread (I forget the name). For dessert had the rest of the shake I'd made earlier.

Cheats: Had a little wine (less than half a glass) before dinner with about three drags of a cigarette.

Observations: None, other than I think I picked up a cold at the hospital. I feel one coming on.

DAY TWO
Made the same protein shake as above for breakfast. For lunch had apple slices smeared with peanut butter. For dinner, had a Sunshine Burger (made primarily from sunflower seeds) on a whole wheat roll and red leaf lettuce (dipped in Paul Newman's Low Fat Sesame Ginger salad dressing--that stuff is SO DELICIOUS. What's the catch?). On the side had a soup of chicken broth with freshly-shopped celery and onions.

Cheats: At 2 p.m. made myself some coffee to remove the meat cleaver wedged into my skull. Just a few sips got rid of the headache. After dinner had a few sips of wine (then dumped the glass) and had a cigarette. That was dumb. It made me feel sick after that great dinner, and actually piqued my pain a bit.

Observations: Without the "schedule" of my usual vices, I felt a bit lost this morning, especially since I had a lot more energy than usual, only didn't know what to do with it. So I did laundry, vacuumed the apartment, and started a painting. Ordinarily, these things would take a lot of effort to set into motion, but they felt relatively easy to do. This surprised me.

This cold is getting worse.

DAY THREE
Had the same protein shake for breakfast, and the same lunch of half an apple and peanut butter for lunch. For dinner had a salad, sunshine burger (sans roll) and an ear of sweet corn. For dessert, had decaf tea and small cup of chocolate chip ice cream. Snacks during day included sunflower seeds, granola and dried banana chips.

Cheats: Had a few sips of coffee in late morning with a cigarette; had an aperitif glass of wine and cig before dinner. The less these things are in my diet, the more poisonous they feel when I take them into my body, especially the coffee. Interesting.

Observations: Hard to tell what's happening as this cold is pretty bad. Just my luck to get sick when I'm' doing a health diet. Interesting visit to hematologist this morning, though. My platelets, which had been way over a million last week came down by half. WTF? My platelet counts can be wacky, though, so I'll consider this a coincidence for now.

DAY FOUR
Smoothie for breakfast; yogurt with granola, along with egg salad on Triscuits for lunch; soup, salad and ear of corn for dinner; decaf tea and cup of ice cream for dessert. Same snacks as yesterday.

Cheats: Same as yesterday.

Observations: Even with the cold, had considerably more energy today. Went to the gym, then to the avenue with the granny shopping cart to buy box of clementines and bag of apples, along with some other sundries. Stopped at copy shop to make fliers for a volunteer group I work for. Then came home and began sorting out all of the art stuff I've brought home from my studio, finding room for everything. Was nice to talk to so many people today. I'm in a great mood!

DAY FIVE
That's today. It's 11:30 a.m., and I'm completely exhausted. Had a smoothie for breakfast, but I feel like someone's pulled the plug on my life force. Had a few sips of coffee and half a cigarette to wake me up, but I'm still tired. Just made a cup of tea. I'll be heading out this afternoon to do an overnight babysit of my nieces, ages two and four, so I better find some energy from somewhere! They always expect a good show. Diet will go out the window once I get there, as we're ordering pizza for dinner.

OVERALL RESULTS
Pain has been fairly steady, and I'm still on pain medication, but there were moments these past few days where the boost of energy made the pain more bearable. I may have overdid the activities yesterday, though, as this morning I'm completely slammed.

I'm going to continue with the diet, as it really hasn't been that hard. What's been the most difficult is what to do with the time and emotions I have when I'm not drinking coffee all morning and smoking.

It's clear that my vices are my escapes not just from the pain, but from the fear and loneliness this condition has brought on. It's hard to face just how let down I feel, still, by the pain, after having devoted my entire adult life to healing my emotional state. There's a cruel irony to it, but I suspect that if I can feel a streak of sustained energy, I'll start to have some confidence in getting my life back.

This energy crash today is a bit of a blow, but I'm not done with the experiment yet. I'll do another five days and report back.

******************************

That Lovely Ring of Truth

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:34:00 +0000

While shaving my head a few minutes ago (when's the last time you heard a woman say that?), I thought about my old therapist, for some reason. A couple of months ago, her daughter had called to tell me that she'd finally passed away of Alzheimer's.

I was a patient of this woman for about 18 years, right up until I could see that something was terribly amiss in her behavior about 10 years ago. I believe I've told my story about her here (I can't even remember my own posts anymore), but it isn't important in terms of my thoughts about her this morning.

It was her courage and fearlessness that popped into my mind, and how she taught me over the years to never really fear what was in my heart, no matter how dark it felt at any given moment.

No matter how distraught I could get over things in my life--past, present or future--MH always helped me face my fears head-on, particularly the ones I could have about my own sanity.

She seemed to embody a fundamental truth about life, which is that in the realm of emotions, there is nothing so dark that can't be faced, as when a truth is spoken, you truly are set free.

In that moment, one realizes that the agonizing torment of a particular situation doesn't really need a resolution at all, as when that spark of enlightenment, of insight, occurs, all things really do feel right again. For me, faith wasn't just restored; it was perhaps born for the first time--faith in the therapeutic process, faith in a power greater than myself, and faith--true faith--in another human being.

This was the wondrous feeling I'd so often get while driving home after a session. Never would I feel so relaxed, so at home in the world, as when I'd leave her office after an incredibly intense and satisfying therapeutic exchange. It was such a comfort, and so empowering, to feel that I no longer needed to cower, to appease, to ruminate, or to obsess in order to feel safe in a dangerous world. As time went by and my true self began to emerge (I actually began playing guitar and writing songs at age 35), it was as though an inner garden had sprung to life, and I was embarking at last on the journey of my becoming.

But then I was stricken with such pain and illness in '99 (at age 40). Everything I thought I knew shattered into a million pieces, and shattered even more in '05, when the pain took up round-the-clock surveillance of my soul, seeing just how much pressure it could exert before I cracked. It didn't take long.

So now I'm left wondering: All those strides I'd made with MH, all the new beliefs I'd developed, all the faith that lit my spirit, all the magic I'd feel from those mysterious "helping hands" that seemed to bring me exactly what I needed when I needed it...where did it all go?

Did these things just happen in my imagination? Did I really learn any fundamental truths at all? Yes, dark demons did get chased away by my courage and by my newfound faith in MH's therapeutic process and in a larger force at work in my life. But as I looked in the mirror at my new closely clipped head this morning, I wondered: Why can't I get rid of the demons now?

I suppose the world feels far more random to me these days, and far more unfair than I ever could have imagined. Still, if all things really are relative (another leap of faith), then surely there must be something I could apply to my physical state right now from the lessons I learned so many years ago about what restores health in the emotional realm.

OK, so when I stared down a fear, when I spoke the truth--no matter how painful that uttering might have been--something would give way, and a little bit of health would return effortlessly. Restoring my sanity didn't happen overnight, of course, but each step was built on a solid foundation, which provided sturdy and steady ground for what was to come next.

If indeed I'm on the right track with this line of thinking, what "physical" truth am I not facing right now? Well, for one thing, I suppose I've given up on taking care of myself. As the constant pain has worn my sense of hope down to a tiny nub, lighting that next cigarette, drinking that next cup of coffee (loaded with sugar, 'natch), or sipping that little bit of wine (not to mention popping the painkillers) has begun to feel like the only way I can feel just a tiny bit good again, if only for a minute.

But these things are bad for me (no matter how "moderate" I may or may not be), just like the lies I believed about myself so long ago. I can see now how much foul food was fed to my soul, so to speak, during my childhood, and when I purged it, my mental health seemed to take care of itself.

So I'm going to do an experiment. Tomorrow I'll be having a colonoscopy, which requires a liquid diet of me today. I have to go to the store to stock up anyway on juice and broth, so while I'm there, I'm going to pick up tons of fresh fruits and veggies...as many as I can carry...and practice a modified vegetarian/vegan diet for the next five days.

Not only will I remove caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and processed sugars from my plate, but I will add in things I don't usually eat, like fruit smoothies in the morning (with a scoop of whey protein).

If I say I'll do it for a week, I'll freak out, so let's keep it to five days.

I read an old acronym recently, using the word CARE, meaning circulation, assimilation, recreation and elimination...the four things we need to pay attention to in order to be healthy.

If I'm not giving my body the fundamental "truths" it needs to heal itself in these four areas, then how can I expect to ever get out of pain?

Of course, no amount of nutrition is going to cure my bone marrow disease or bring down my high platelet count (I don't think so, but who knows?), but I have to believe that I can at least purge a resistant infection, or cool down the wiring of wayward nerves with proper nutritional attention.

As my pal Tom mentioned this morning, "Action is always the answer," which had that lovely ring of truth. I could ruminate to death on the "meaning" of all this crap, inherent or otherwise, but at the end of the day, if it's to happen at all, it's action that will get me out of pain...something that will happen as a result of something I DO.

I will start this new eating plan tomorrow. I'll post results as they develop.

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Note: Pictures are random selections from my illustrated journal. They have nothing whatsoever to do with this essay. :)

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Musings from the Brooding Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Ever since I can remember, I've always questioned the meaning of life, even as a teenager, which back then made me think that I was insane...seriously. While all of my friends seemed to go about the daily business of boys, school, skin issues and just general life, I always had a type of tape loop going in the back of my brain, wondering why any of us were here, and wondering why everyone else wasn't wondering the same.

Of course, I was also hiding my depression and OCD behavior back then, as well as the dark goings-on at home, so I'm sure that added to my questions about the meaning of it all.

But I was never able to just enjoy life with ease, as the plaguing questions about it seemed to thwart its pleasures. Don't get me wrong: I liked having fun, and had the detention notes to prove it. But there was this inner brooding during my teen years that could only be pierced by art, in any of its forms, and so my life-long love affair with music, painting, books and film began, as the artists in these fields were at least asking the same questions as I was, and in their work I could find a camaraderie of sorts.

My first true encounter with art as enlightenment came as a double-whammy in nearly identical experiences. In each case, I was sitting in my living room, my face just a few feet from the TV screen, during two different family affairs where noise and conversation made me sit close to the set.

The first film was Midnight Cowboy, and the second, The Graduate, the former being the more intense experience, as I recall.

During those difficult days, there was little in my world that I could connect to, as I knew I didn't want the life my parents and relatives had chosen, as no one in my world seemed very happy. I thought something was just fundamentally wrong with marriage as an institution, as opposed to what was the real culprit: everyone's inability to say what they were really thinking and feeling. In hindsight, a life mate and kids might have been wonderful experiences for me, but in the kids department, I think it's fair to say that ship has sailed. I do hope some wonderful romance is in my future.

That aside, I remember that by the end of Midnight Cowboy, I felt so moved, and perhaps for the first time, so connected to this strange earthly plane that beforehand had felt so meaningless. Here was a story about two people who felt so forsaken themselves, who had been cast off by society, living in their perspective dreamworlds that held little hope for anything more than what they could eek out on that particular day. They were outcasts, oddballs, losers and lost, just like me, no matter what my good grades, quick smile and bevy of friends might have suggested otherwise.

Suddenly I realized that a whole other world existed out there than the one I lived in...a world where people not only thought about the greater questions of life, but actually created something from them that made us all feel just a little closer, if only through our compassion for these characters and their plight.

Of course, The Graduate spoke loud and clear to me, as well, as what young person couldn't identify with Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock, who was also seeking something more meaningful than what the culture around him could offer. Even though his world was of the white collar variety (and mine, blue), the issues were universal, and I will be forever grateful to these filmmakers and screenwriters for doing whatever it took to get these stories to the screen.

I suppose it's not surprising that as I was to go on to become a singer/songwriter, my songs would be so story-based. As some reviewers would observe, the songs wouldn't so much tell the story as to suggest it; the lyrics were the words going through the characters' heads in "the brooding aftermath" of what had just occurred, according to one (thank you, Linus Gelber).

Of course, my music is behind me now, even though I still pick up the guitar now and then. Yet there seems to be some kind of curious irony happening that the questions I asked about life's meaning as a teenager are as profound as they ever were, only now the result of an untreatable pain condition. At its very core, the unfathomableness of this experience (and those like it) flies in the face of any argument that declares the human experience as one of destiny and inherent meaning.

The one thing I can truly believe, though, the one thing that has been so sustaining this past year, is that while the experience of pain may indeed be meaningless, I can choose to give it meaning, when I'm able, by writing this blog.

I've been gifted with the ability to write, to communicate, and while I haven't been able to muster up a single tune about this awful experience, I have been able to get it down here, to at least attempt an explanation of what it's like, if for no other reason than to give voice to an ordeal that has rendered too many mute, some permanently.

This condition carries the awful nickname of "the suicide disease," as so many patients simply give up when they exhaust all avenues for relief; that's how bad it is.

But there is something in me that feels compelled not to give in, to continue to be the private eye who will solve the case, if not to get out of pain, then to discover a means to gracefully weave it into my life, if that's even possible. (I'm investigating all of the many ideas so many of you sent in your comments...thank you!)

It's as though I can't let my pain-mates down, which in many ways has been the thrust of so many of my creative pursuits over the years, even before I found myself in these particular dire straits. I must at least try to speak for us, and try even harder to solve the riddle of how to live when the unthinkable happens. I'm not sure if that earns me a gold star, or just an inflated ego for a short while as yet another coping mechanism that, like so many others, will ultimately give way under the weight and wear of all things relentless.

I hurt so bad today, and I've got just one Vicodin left until tomorrow. And it's only 12:39 p.m. as I write this.

Maddone.

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Some kind readers have asked about my music. Full streaming songs can be heard for free here:
http://maryannfarley.com/index_files/buy.htm

Paintings are watercolors from my illustrated journal.

And Linus Gelber's full review is here: http://www.musicdish.com/mag/index.php3?id=2427
A sampling: "There are stories in her music, but they are private ones; her characters show but don't tell. We meet them instead in their pondering aftermaths, musing brokenly about what has gone before and how it got them here."

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Pills For Enlightenment

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

It would seem impossible that I could live a life without painkillers at this moment. This morning was a bad one that required one morphine pill, a Xanax and three Vicodins to get the pain to a somewhat bearable level, but I can no longer stand what these medications are doing to my spirit.

As I felt the pain battle for supremacy in my face and jaw (despite the meds), I decided to just lay on the couch at one point and give in, to not fight, to boldly tell it to get as bad as it wants to get--that I can take it.

It's always remarkably relaxing when I do this, as I suppose in these moments I can compartmentalize the pain, set it aside, and live with it instead of fighting it. But for some reason, I seem to do this only when I arrive at the point where I'm realizing it's winning handsomely, and the only way to win the war, so to speak, is to surrender the battle.

When I do this, the pain does ease up somewhat, and I wondered this morning if this tactic would be successful if I went off pain medication altogether. It seemed like such a shockingly bold move, even stupid, but the idea intrigued me.

Yet when I significantly decreased my pain meds in an experiment last week, the pain skyrocketed, and it took two days to get it down again. It's actually been pretty bad ever since.

But I literally can't stand this medication fog anymore. As I've been so isolated and sedentary for most of the past year, I joined a gym this week, and man, what an effort not only to exercise, but just to walk over there! My malaise fought me every inch of the way, and the depressing thought kept creeping in, "Why am I bothering?"

What's keeping my hope afloat, though, are the memories of more joyous times, when, despite my problems and issues, life could also feel electric and exciting, and I would be wildly filled with creative ideas that gave me more than enough fuel to execute them.

But my days are so very different now. And I have to wonder how they fit into the overall pattern of success/defeat defeat that has defined so much of my life. If everything around us is truly connected by some kind of universal web, where past, present and future are illusions of our three-dimensional world, and if I go on the assumption that I'm here on this earthly plane to learn deep truths via the gift of free choice, then what is the lesson?

Of course, my malady may be nothing more than a freak occurrence of bad luck, but for the sake of argument, if this ordeal does somehow reflect a bigger picture, what in that picture am I missing?

When I think along these lines (which always seem to effortlessly surface during these moments of surrender), it all feels so profoundly obvious to me--that of course this is all connected, you numnut, but you just don't want to go there. You don't want to face the sheer terror of the wild blue yonder before you, and instead would prefer to stay in your hovel of pain and medication, where the space is oh so small, but oh so familiar.

As I've written about before, most of my adult life was devoted to music, to being the best singer/songwriter I could be. Those were heady times indeed, but when one is so singularly focused on JUST ONE THING in life and that thing no longer exists, it's hard to feel anchored to the earth anymore, despite my other artistic endeavors.

And why was my life devoted to JUST ONE THING? Because I felt so incapable of succeeding in love relationships. Time after time, I made such poor choices in men, which had less to do with them and more to do with my low self-esteem. And let's face it...a life without love, or even the potential for love, is hardly a life at all. I dare say my fear of intimacy borders on something pathological, and I am the less for it.

Of course, now that I'm so ill, in such pain and on so many medications, I continue to feel myself unworthy of a love relationship, but of course this is just more of my bullshit. I'm aware that I'm actually quite good (for the most part) at handling extremely difficult physical conditions, and I'm also aware that no one is perfect; that we all have our proverbial crosses to bear and baggage to unload. Pain and illness does not deem me unlovable, but in my own mind, it gives me an excuse to melodramatically retreat, which is made all the easier by the fatigue created by the meds.

It's a vicious cycle indeed. Pain and fatigue keep me isolated, yet isolation keeps me away from any possibility of love, which would restore much-needed balance in my life, whether the pain was there or not.

It's certainly no easy thing to wake up with severe pain in the morning, and would be harder still to take a stab at not medicating it, but something has got to give. I've become frozen in time, remembering the person I used to be, yet only vaguely seeing the person I could become. And therein, perhaps, lies the rub.

With all previous definitions of myself shattered, who am I now, and who do I want to be? Where do I go from here? I can't see it, and this terrifies me, frankly. And with pain taking up so much real estate in my brain, it's difficult to formulate a new vision for myself or for anything...even some nutty creative endeavor.

Before all this happened, I was actually feeling okay about setting the music aside for awhile, by exploring new paths, by venturing forward full speed ahead in faith and love.

But of course, my faith was shattered, too, when pain exploded onto the scene. God not only vacated his co-pilot seat in my life; he actually hit the ejector button, leaving me to crash land in some foreign sea all on my own. I've been trying hard ever since not to drown.

And so my present is now largely defined by reruns of Criminal Minds. Nothing soothes the tortured soul, it seems, like stories of sociopathic serial killers.

I watched a preacher today during a Sunday morning TV program, and he talked about faith, about putting our troubles in God's hands. He focused mainly on the recession and the joblessness that many of his followers were no doubt experiencing, noting Bible passages that basically said to quit worrying, have faith that God will provide, and just enjoy your life.

When it comes to money and my freelance work, I can get with that. But how those parables apply to someone in chronic pain still has me stumped. Maybe they don't apply, or can't. Once again, I'm reminded of Buddhist teachings that say there will always be suffering in life; the trick is to rise above it (no matter how harsh the circumstances), relinquish your attachments, and enjoy the bliss that ensues.

But I'm told by this one Buddhist sect that I'll have to chant two to three hours a day to attain this enlightenment. Huh? What? Is this a joke? I get impatient with how long it takes to walk to my kitchen. Can't they just make a pill for it?

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Note: Watercolors are some new entries in my illustrated journal. I'm using them as inspiration to get back to my flamenco classes!

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"Gurney" (new song lyrics)

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:52:00 +0000

I'm a loser
The Lotto ticket says
I'm a bruiser
Veins are running red
Like a river
Flowing to the sea of redemption
Flowing back to me

I'm a bleeder
The gurney and the lights
I'm a cheater
Saved again in spite
Of the sorrow
Tears are running red
Like a river
Flowing from my head

And I say...
Strike up another number
Pick Six and let it fly
Strike up a new tomorrow
A new chance to get it right
Strike back and up the ante
Bet on infinity
Slap me down and strap me on
My gurney to the sea

I'm a seeker
The Lotto ticket says
A believer
Veins are running red
Like a river
Feeding all the trees
I'm a bleeder
Me and all the leaves

And I say...
Strike up another number
Straight/box and let it fly
Strike up a new tomorrow
A new chance to get it right
Strike back and up and ante
Bet on eternity
Slap me down and strap me on
My gurney to the sea

c2009 Mary Ann Farley

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The Healing Power of Honesty

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:29:00 +0000

Well, Open Salon has done it again. In my darkest hour, I poured my heart out in a post, feeling somewhat guilty for expressing such a bleak mood concerning the bleak circumstances of my life, yet instead of chastisement (which at this stage of my life I still fear), OSers opened their hearts in ways that completely caught me off guard.

And quite simply, things changed.

I suppose the change was set in motion a few days earlier when I was drawing and writing in my illustrated journal (as opposed to my reflective journal, where I write multiple pages at a time). In an effort to break the logjam of isolation, I began doing some illustrations accompanied by scribbled thoughts inspired by the image, yet instead of it being a satisfying exercise as it had always been, it felt empty and boring.

It wasn't until the sixth entry of this new Moleskine journal that I realized what the problem was: I hadn't been honest in the previous five, and when I began to write from my center, when I acknowledged that things had taken a bad turn pain-wise, the satisfaction returned, and momentum began anew with hardly any effort at all.

Of course, there was a certain amount of effort in taking up the pen and paint, but it was a small one, and one I enjoy, regardless of the satisfaction level. What I love about these little sketches is that I always learn something, even if the drawing is a monumental failure, so the effort is never wasted.

These drawings and written thoughts led me directly to an enlightenment of sorts, and that, in turn, led me to a new blog post, where I simply poured my heart out, setting aside what others might think. It all flowed out of me in a single sitting, and when I clicked "publish," I just sent it out to the universe, response be damned, and once again, I wasn't disappointed.

The comments I received helped in so many ways. Some people simply posted their compassion, while others offered more hard-core suggestions, all of which were concrete things I could try. No matter how short or long the response, I suddenly didn't feel so alone, and I connected with others on a level I don't come across in my day to day life.

This boost from so many open hearts filled me with a much-needed and newfound energy that I hadn't felt since the new round of pain started over a month ago, and little breakthroughs began happening all over the place. One thing I realized is that I need to give up my art studio and bring everything home. For a few years, I've been struggling with the realization that I no longer have the energy to get there, nor can I afford it, yet giving it up felt like a failure to me. It would have been the period at the end of the sentence that my life has drastically changed these past five years, that I no longer can physically do the things I've always done.

Yet in accepting this fact, I can see all the good that will come of it. In having all of my art materials here at home, I will most likely paint more, not less (which has been my fear), and I'll have some extra cash in my bank account to boot, which I so desperately need. I've been spending a few thousand dollars a year to keep my studio, but it's become more of a storage place than a place of creativity, as when I go there, my isolation seems to feel more intense. Some studio mates have moved out due to their own financial issues, and it's just not the same place it used to be. And so it is time that I make my own changes.

Another astounding, even life-changing, insight was that this strange malaise actually began when I went on the Percocet in early September. While I definitely needed something to curtail the breakthrough pain, I suddenly realized that perhaps Percocet wasn't the answer, as for some, it does indeed cause depression. And in my case, when depression increases, so does the pain, so I found myself in a loop of pain, depression and pills.

To have this light bulb go off above my head was akin to an angel whispering in my ear, so my doctor changed my breakthrough pain medication back to Vicodin, and indeed the weight caused by the Percocet lifted. I will definitely note this little incident in the "not all meds work the same for all people" file for future reference.

While these insights might not seem like a big deal to others, I truly don't think I would have had them had I not been honest with myself and others, and I actually feel inspired to give up the studio, to bring all my cherished paints and paintings home here with me. In the last two days or so, I've been actively thinking of how I'll rearrange things in this small one-bedroom railroad, and I think it'll work.

It seems that momentum has been once again set in motion, and I am thrilled. But it wouldn't have happened without my taking the risk of being honest with others, and without their compassion in turn.

So thank you, Open Salon. While it was important for me to be honest, it was equally important that you offered such comfort and support. I would not have found this new place without it.

Note to those reading this on Blogger: This blog is cross-posted on Open Salon, a social networking site in the form of a blog.

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Trying to Stay Positive, and All That Bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:58:00 +0000

I've so had it. I try to stay positive, try to be hopeful, try to think of the bigger picture, but in all honesty, today I'm fed up.

I haven't written here in awhile simply because of the malaise of chronic pain. I actually had a decent summer pain-wise, and after my last blog post, I began feeling so hopeful and creative again. The boredom I wrote about in the last post lifted, to the extent that I was even back in my art studio.

But then the pain once again reared is cruel and hateful head, and while I've tried to come to terms with it through acceptance, through prayer, through whatever, it ends up having a crushing effect on me, and all momentum is lost in accomplishing anything, even paying the bills.

Frankly, I'm exhausted. I'm sick to death of this pattern repeating over and over--these emotional ups and downs that have begun to feel like some kind of sadistic torture.

What's saddest is that I feel like life is somehow passing me by. With all I have to offer, with all the things I love to do, the best I can manage most days is to write in my journal--looking for clues as to what will set me free--and watch television.

Entry after entry, I scold myself for not being more proactive, for not changing my habits, pain or no pain, as I can't stand the malaise felt at the end yet another day that has once again raced by with nothing to show for it. I've become the passive observer instead of the active participant in life, and that's a hard thing to accept indeed.

When I actually DO get myself moving, I'm certainly the better for it, as the feeling of creation is like no other. I love the process of a painting--watching it come to life before my very eyes, and I even signed up for the Oct. 18th Hoboken Artists Studio Tour, feeling certain that I'd have a lot of new and exciting work to show.

I also wrote a new song in August, which thrilled me to no end, as it was the second song I'd written in about five years. It seemed to herald in a new creative period, and I was thrilled at the thought.

I'd also been journalling about some sexuality issues, which had been put on the back burner during this awful 5-year pain period, and just so happy to be making new insights and overcoming old fears. I even envisioned myself dating again.

But at some point in early September, it all came to a crashing stop, as the MS Contin was no longer controlling the pain, and I was prescribed low-dose Percocet as a supplement. As usual, this was the introduction of a double-edged sword, as I needed the med to curb the pain breakthroughs, but it only added to my tiredness. To motivate myself while having both pain and fatigue (along with frustration and disappointment) is an enormous task, I can assure you.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out what had changed--what made the pain come back with such sustained intensity, but I could make no sense of it, just like all of the previous episodes.

A part of me likes to think that there are bigger lessons to be learned here, that this is all part of my "spiritual journey" and all that shit, but I'm sick to death of being so fucking positive and hopeful and helpful. I'm sick to death of pain and the addiction it ignites. I'm sick to death of trying to live with it and be a better person. I'm sick to death of being sick to death.

I'm so numb to the ordeal that I can't seem to even cry anymore, which at least used to provide a catharsis--a soothing of the soul that could purge the bad feelings, if only for a little while.

I'm off to the Jersey City Studio Tour now, where my friend Lynda is showing her work. I don't want to go, but I don't want to disappoint her either. What I want to do is medicate myself into oblivion to get some relief, but that will only make me sleep, and then I'll awake after the sun has gone down, realizing that yet another day has been lost. No matter what move I make, there seems to be no good option. Even if I could summon every ounce of courage I had in order to forge ahead, what decision would I make that I'm not making now?

I'm in total darkness right now, and can't see a speck of light anywhere. I keep spinning and looking, but there's nothing. And so I just sit, wrap my arms around my knees and wait. I don't know what else to do.

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Looking for bodies...and Vicodin

noreply@blogger.com (maffy) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:22:00 +0000

Make no mistake, I'm experiencing the mother of all boredom attacks.

I can't remember when my life has felt this dull. With all the things I love to do--write, paint, make music, dance, bike--you'd think something would catch my interest. But nope. I got nuthin'. I don't even feel like watching TV shows about serial killers. Can you imagine?

I fully suspect that my problem is that I miss the Vicodin. I switched to MSContin as a pain reliever a week or two ago, and while it's an opiate, it's a boring opiate in that it doesn't make you even a little high. It helps the pain somewhat, but who cares? So did the Vicodin. What I need here is to medicate MY REALITY, not just the chronic pain in my jaw. I need TO ALTER MY WORLD WITH DRUGS, PERIOD.

One interesting thing that did happen today was that I got a pain attack, but in not having any Vicodin, I couldn't escape the emotional panic that always ensues, and I got really really pissed off. I mean, what am I supposed to to with that? Just sit around and be miserable?

I gave in to drinking a glass of wine, thinking that would help me escape, but you know what? Drinking bores me. I was so worried the other day that in replacing pills with alcohol that I'd become an alcoholic, but I've no fear of that anymore. Alcohol only increases my boredom and gives me an acid stomach, the latter of which is not interesting at all.

Sometimes Vicodin would make me vomit, and that was mildly interesting, but indigestion registers high on the boredom scale. Plus, alcohol does nothing for the pain. It does make me want to smoke, and that's a little entertaining, but only for 90 seconds or so. About halfway through the cig, I get bored and put it out, which considering the cost of these things is just crazy. Then again, they're SO expensive that there might actually be a market for half-smoked cigarettes, but I'm too bored to consider new business propositions.

I want my Vicodin...it's that simple. Like a baby who gets her bottle taken away, I'm throwing a temper tantrum, but not in a way that's melodramatic or even amusing. I'm not breaking things or yelling at anyone. I'm not running into bad neighborhoods looking "to score" nor am I prostituting myself for drugs, which would be an unwise business move anyway considering how flat-chested I am. I'm just pining away for that pillow-soft world that Vicodin brings.

What's not boring but instead irritating right now are these constant helicopters making a racket above my apartment house. I live on the banks of the Hudson River, across from NYC, where there was that plane/helicopter collision two days ago. They're still looking for bodies. My "in the know" pal in Hoboken here says they just found two bodies in the river that had nothing to do with the crash. Such typical Jersey stuff. He's a shady character. Maybe he has some Vicodin.

I don't need to do that, though. If I want Vicodin, I know my doctor would give it to me if I asked, as he has compassion for this pain mess I'm in. But I also know that would be a step backwards. Right now, I just have to put one boring foot in front of another boring foot, and walk this boring path into a new world that from here looks totally boring.

Lemme see if any serial killers are on TV.

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