my mental health day

its been a long time, i don't know if that means that i am doing well or not. i am in the doll drums right now. but i guess that gave me the freedom to take a 'mental health day'. thanks to caroline for the idea for it. i actually told the nazi attendance professor that i was taking one and her response was positive. i was pretty surprised. but so here i am at home, playing hooky 4 minutes before fed courts is supposed to start. it should be a good feeling, right? i mean, the reason i took today was so i could be left alone and regroup before having to get things done. of course, there are things that i have to do today, the dumpster diving assignment and the clinic meeting. maybe by the time those things roll around i will have had enough of the being lazy and will want to go into supercharge mode. i am interested in this phenomenon. since brian died (and yes folks, the secret, if you ever had any doubt, is out of the bag. i was going to build up to it, make you understand who brian was so you would be properly tied up in the story, but in reality, i will probably never get the whole story up here and i don't think i will write often enough to allow this to be anything else but an occasional rant) i have had dual urges. the first is one that i have seen and heard documented before by people who lose loved ones - the desire to sit and do nothing for long periods of time. i heard of a mother her lost her son (i might be projecting about the son part, it was a mother for sure though) who stayed in the house for three years and did nothing. after the three years, she came out and began to retake her life. there was also a story that my mom heard on npr about a woman who lived in alaska. maybe i can find it and cut and paste, just a sec.

Okay, here is what they say about her: Mary Cook works on the ground crew for an air taxi company in Gustavus, Alaska, a community of 450 surrounded by Glacier Bay National Park. She also handles the mail, tends the town's only coffee house and serves as a hospice volunteer.

This is what she has to say:

Morning
Edition, January 30,
2006 · The day my fiancé fell to his death, it started
to snow, just like any November day, just like the bottom hadn't fallen out

(so that is what i get for trying to run the spell check -- the loss of probably 45 min of typing. oh well, too much to re-create, the world just might be able to continue functioning without my lost insights, but it will be close. i will re-add the npr piece and then maybe try to summarize the key points).

Morning Edition, January 30, 2006 · The day my fiancé fell to his death, it started to snow, just like any November day, just like the bottom hadn't fallen out of my world when he freefell off the roof. His body, when I found it, was lightly covered with snow. It snowed almost every day for the next four months, while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up.
One morning, I shuffled downstairs and was startled to see a snowplow clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling my walk. I dropped to my knees, crawled through the living room, and back upstairs so those good Samaritans would not see me. I was mortified. My first thought was, how would I ever repay them? I didn't have the strength to brush my hair let alone shovel someone's walk.
Before Jon's death, I took pride in the fact that I rarely asked for help or favors. I defined myself by my competence and independence. So who was I if I was no longer capable and busy? How could I respect myself if all I did was sit on the couch everyday and watch the snow fall?
Learning how to receive the love and support that came my way wasn't easy. Friends cooked for me and I cried because I couldn't even help them set the table. "I'm not usually this lazy," I wailed. Finally, my friend Kathy sat down with me and said, "Mary, cooking for you is not a chore. I love you and I want to do it. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for you."
Over and over, I heard similar sentiments from the people who supported me during those dark days. One very wise man told me, "You are not doing nothing. Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you will ever do."
I am not the person I once was, but in many ways I have changed for the better. The fabric of my life is now woven with gratitude and humility. I have been surprised to learn that there is incredible freedom that comes from facing one's worst fear and walking away whole. I believe there is strength in surrender.

Then i talked about how I hated programmingming because i might as well be dead when i watch it for all that it doesn't add to my life, but that i watch anyway and feel like i am wasting my life. so there was dichotomyomoy between wanting to do nothing and heal and hating myself when i am not taking advantage of being alive. then i talked about how i needed to feel like i was in control of my life and i needed to do that by actually making decisions and following through instead of allowing myself to fall into things. about how i didn't want to follow the path of least resistance and allow my life to be dictated by things that happened to me and what i was able to do with them (not like brian's death, because i know i can't control that, but my job, my activities, generally the way my life will unfold). will i spend my life dealing with the circumstances that are dealt to me (e.g. i was involved with ASUCSD because Jenn talked me into it, not necessarily because i had any interests in my college's student government -- not that i didn't enjoy that experience, the beinvolvedvled, having my finger on the pulse of the school, enjoying camaraderieerie of the people and knowing that i was learning valuable skills, but i didn't choose it, it chosenosen for me) or will i decide what it is that will make me happy and pursue it?

it was all very deep and philosophical -- what is it that we humans are supposed to do when we are on this earth? what are we supposed to have accomplished by the end of our lives? how are we supposed to life? when i get to the end of my life and look back am i going to be happy? am i going to worry that i spent too much time doing things that were not value adding (too much tv, too much shopping, too much time spent on my couch in gross clothes watching life pass me by?) okay. anyway. i think i am going to go now. maybe i will try to spell check this again, but making sure i save it first. i think i am also going to give you the lyrics of a dixie chicks song that kinda makes this point. although my interests are different, so i don't necessarily want to do the same things as the person in this song, but it is about a person who has died and is looking back on his life wishing he could make certain changes. i guess its what i really don't want to do.

eh, the lyrics don't really stand on their own without the music going with it. so NO LYRICS FOR YOU