June 26, 2006

• Uncompromising Honesty

  That’s a joke — heavy irony, black humor.  If I were to be
  uncompromisingly honest here, I would tell everything in minute detail
  and include both sides of the story.  Every story does have two
  sides, at least two.  For me, there are no unmixed blessings, no
  clouds without silver linings, no roses without thorns.  Even when
  I try very hard to be completely open and honest, I’m frustrated
  because I run out of time or energy before I get the whole story told,
  or I simply forget at some point where I was going with my story, and
  tell only part of it.

  I posted, several entries back, about noticing that I had been engaging
  in negative self-talk and turning it around to something that if not
  positive was at least honest and had a neutral emotional load. 
  There was so much more to that story that I didn’t tell, I was
  uncomfortable about posting it but couldn’t bear to sit here long
  enough to try and explain it fully.  When I wrote last time about
  Greyfox’s trip up the valley and the things he brought, I didn’t even
  get into any of the things that had impelled me to start that
  post.  I lost my train of thought while I was setting the
  scene. 

  Even now, I don’t recall everything I  had meant to say, but part
  of it was some of the downside of this relationship.  That post
  was all about the upside, except for the teensiest hint in the final
  paragraph.  Greyfox does
  have narcissistic personality disorder.  We have been working on
  it for three years and he has gotten better, but the conventional
  wisdom is that NPD never fully goes away.  Sometimes, he chooses
  not to even work on it, and other times it just asserts itself and he
  apparently doesn’t even realize how selfish and unfeeling he’s being.

  Among the things he brought us was a number of DVDs, large number,
  somewhere between ten and twenty, I guess.  They were scattered
  among several bags and boxes with other stuff:  dumpster score,
  his last season’s clothes for me to store away for him, etc.  I’m
  not sure I have found all of the DVDs yet, because I haven’t been able
  to get everything unpacked yet.

  Today, I decided that some diversion was in order.  I have mental
  and spiritual resources, psychological skills, spirit helpers, that I
  rely on to maintain a semblance of sanity and a will to live with my
  challenges and shortcomings, but sometimes I just want a little
  vacation from reality.  Video provides it — or maybe not. 
  We don’t have a DVD player.  We watch DVDs on the PS2.  Doug
  has five new games now and getting him away from the PS2 to do
  anything, even sleeping, can be a chore.

  Today, I asked and he agreed.  There were several titles among
  those Greyfox brought that we both wanted to see.  Trouble was,
  our PS2 wouldn’t read any of them.  That’s not a new
  situation.  The disks will work on Greyfox’s player, but not on
  ours.  He had offered to give us his old DVD player after he got a
  new one, but he didn’t bring it when he came up here last time. 
  He didn’t forget.  He said there were just so many things in the
  car already that he didn’t want to bother to rearrange stuff to get it
  in.

  It would have been better, from my perspective, if he’d kept the disks
  until he was ready to bring us the player.  Two of the disks we
  tried today worked just far enough to get us interested in the movies
  before they got into the areas that couldn’t be read.  There were
  half a dozen more that I tried that didn’t work at all on the
  PS2.  What I had thought of as some amusing diversion on a rough
  day, to get away from my difficulties for a while, turned out to be a
  frustrating experience and a tiring task, cleaning disks, changing
  them, upping and downing….  Eventually, I quit trying. 
  Doug went to bed. 

  When I’m done here, I’m going to try one more movie.  If that
  doesn’t work, I’ll put a game disk in and play for a while, then go
  read a book until I can sleep, unless my eyes and hands go too wonky on
  me.  If I can’t play or read, I’ll sit and think or meditate some
  more, zone out and hope for sleep.  Writing this is about as close
  as I can get to doing any real work today.

  I have never been able to understand high-maintenance women. 
  Except for my sex drive, I never required much from the men in my life,
  and very few of them ever complained about the frequent sex.  The
  best friend of one of my guys did complain that I was wearing him out,
  he’d lost weight and never had time for nights out with his friends,
  but the man himself wasn’t complaining. 

  I used to be highly independent and mostly self-sufficient.  In
  many ways, I still am.   Often, I prefer to do without things
  rather than to burden someone else with my wants and needs.  Even
  so, I have gotten to the point where I am no longer able to do all that
  needs to be done to maintain myself and this household.  I hope
  and pray for a remission.  I endeavor to keep a positive
  attitude.  Once in a while, I slip and start thinking it’s time to
  just die and get out of everyone’s way.

  I know that I could still make a contribution, could give — through my
  writing and my mental/psychic skills — something of value to
  others.  The trouble is that on the few occasions recently when I
  have had the energy for it, I have spent that energy on
  survival-related work.  Prioritizing becomes more difficult when
  there simply isn’t enough of me, in terms of time and energy, to get
  everything done that needs to be done.  The debris from the recent
  electrical fire in the bathroom remains as it was, even though I know
  it’s unhealthy not to get the sludge, soot, and fire extinguisher
  powder cleaned out of there. 

  First things first, but what comes first when there probably isn’t
  going to be anything coming second?  Should I just sweep aside the
  clutter from my work table and do a reading first thing in the morning
  and hope that Doug will pick up the mess off the floor before he sits
  down to play a game?  Or should I fix some food and eat first,
  even if that means I won’t get any other work done today?  That’s
  an honest picture of my daily dilemma, some days.  It’s not the
  whole story.  I don’t have the time or energy to tell the whole
  story.  I have to go find something to eat now, before my blood
  sugar dives any further.

  

  • 7:12 pm
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