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Never Mind Your Age; What's Your Developmental Stage???

I'm An Adult, Now What?

That's a subhead on an article in the Washington Post that Catherine Thatch over at [The Seventh Notebook] sent me the link to today. I won't give you the title, because Catherine and I agreed it was rather on the lame side (I think it may have been written by a junior intern), but I will, of course, link to it. It was written by Douglas LaBier, who identifies himself, thusly: "As a psychotherapist and a member of the booming midlife generation, I've heard many expressions of midlife distress...." His thesis is that midlife is what happens when you finally grow up. It hits some people hard; others barely at all.

"Psychologically, midlife is the portal into full adulthood. Successfully crossing that portal involves addressing the question that lies at the source of most adult emotional conflicts: 'What's the purpose of my life?'"

But exacerbating that search for meaning is the fact, LaBier says, the our forties are when the emotional defenses that we successfully used in the past to shore us up are now, much like our bodies, starting to sag. It's this collision of the Search and the Sagging, as it were, that result in the midlife crisis. Some people start over and wrestle their way to new meaning in their lives. Others, says LaBier, more or less accept their situation and try, usually unsuccessfully, to define it as happiness.

Which are you doing? Me? I'm definitely one who starts over. I'm on my third or fourth career: journalist, English prof/grad student, therapist--and now I guess I'm back to journalism, of sorts. But what about you? Are you looking for a second or third act? And this time--whaddya want to be when you grow up?

So it's 11:11 and I can tell I'm giddier than a rattlesnake with a toothache.

I spent the working hours of tonight coaching a group of parents trying to find the magic button that will turn their teens into proper, respectful, God-fearing American citizens. It ain't happening, people, is what I want to tell them. I am probably older than every one of them so why am I having to say over and over again: don't you remember what it was like? don't you remember how you felt? Some of them do remember and they're the ones whose kids will probably end up okay--after some period of drugs, alcohol and illicit sex (don't you remember what it was like?). The kids I fear for are those whose parents refuse to remember, who have come to me to Fix The Kid--or else. I have little patience for these parents, which is not such a good thing affecting as it does my empathy, which is, as we all know, the bottom line of any good shrink. But then, I'm still just a shrink-intern, so maybe my patience will gather moss as I gather hours.

See, you can tell by the utter what-the-fuck-is-she-talking-about of that last sentence that I'm giddy.

Memory

I forget the things I know. Does that ever happen to you? The things I really need to keep in front of me, the realizations that are hard-won and long-coming, and I have them and know them and then--poof!--gone. Except that somewhere, hiding out under the back porch is the slightest sense that I'm missing something important, something that will make such a difference in how I see things and feel about things. Something that is crucial to my moving onward. But I don't know what it is. Or where to look to find it.

Like this: Everything Does Not Have To Become Something. Does that make any sense? Let me give you some background, then. I come from a family of strivers and doers and use-your-talents to-the-utmosters. In my family, if you could carry a tune, you took voice lessons and plotted your course as a singer. If you could draw, then obviously you'd become an artist. Have an idea? Get it patented; put it into action; create success around it; do; achieve. Even now, I can hear my mother and my aunts and my cousins scheming: Janie dear, you're so good at X, Y, and Z. You must become an Xer, a Yer, and a Zer. One couldn't simply have an idea that was "good"; it had to be actualized. One couldn't simply be; one had to become. I learned those lessons better than well, and it's now an automatic response for me to, as soon as I get a cool idea or an urge or a notion, figure out how to maximize it. Which is not only exhausting, but just plain wrong. It puts the emphasis on the product at the expense of the process even as it sets me up for failure.

I realized that a while ago, and immediately knew it was a crucial piece of information for me. And then I forgot it.

Did I forget it because it was so crucial? The urge to inadequacy is quite strong, and the mind has a way of getting its way.

Last night, I remembered it. And thought: I can't forget this again; it's too important. If only I did needlepoint, I could stitch it on a pillow. Instead, I'm writing it here.

Will I remember that I've done that?

Flotsam and Jetsam...post Christmas

I don't know if several days break is what I've been giving myself. I don't think it is the beginning of the end. More, I want to really get at why I'm doing ByJane, the "good" reasons and the "ill". I've erased that last phrase several times, because I don't like the opposition of good and ill. But it keeps coming back into my head, and I think it's because in some ways the "ill" reasons are those that I consider parts of my psyche that I would rather not exist. In other words, shit that I do.

One majorly (as they say) reason I've done (tense intentional) ByJane is because I want to play with the big guys, the A-listers. Not because I particularly like them (some I do; some--eh) or because I have anything really in common with them, thirty- and forty-something mommybloggers that they are. I want to play with the big guys because, pure and simple, that will signal to all and sundry, not the least of which is moi, that I have great worth. This is so obviously "ill" that I need say no more.

Another reason, which is nestled right in tight with the one above, is that I want to make money writing. Now I could, as I have done before, work to do it the traditional way: query, article, rewrite, revise rewrite, revise revised rewrite, wait for pay. Can you tell what fond memories I have of freelancing? So one would think I would do most anything to avoid it. Yes, one would. Unless one knew my uber-contrary ways.

Here are the things that I have been told/asked to do on my blog so as to make it PAY: (1) Focus on just one topic. I am constitutionally incapable of doing this. I have ADD for chrissake, people; my focus is in the best of times scattered. And besides, I don't wanna. And besides that, shouldn't the sharpness of my prose make up for the lack of focus? I mean, some days I reread what I've written and I think, hot damn, that's good. I wait for the world to beat a path to my door and...and...and...I'm still waiting. Then I think, hey , maybe it's not so good, maybe I'm fooling myself, maybe I've lost It. And then I'm all depressed and sad and who wants to write cheery things in that state of mind.

(2) Write about the breakup of my marriage. Do you have any idea how my stats went up when I first broke the news? Not to mention that I got a contract to write about divorce for a site that either never got going or is swinging without me. Because, frankly, I'm not so good at putting that ironic twist on someone else's, my soontobex's, psyche. I figure he's entitled to do his thing without my commenting on it and drawing the world's attention to it and creating subtle jokes and cynical snipes about it. And since all of that is one half of the story, I sorta can't write about the breakup of my marriage. Even if it would pay handsomely to do so. And maybe, even, make me an A-lister (because even I realize that Divorce is a focus, a single subject, that elusive grail). Not writing about it also means that some days what is on my mind is a great big ole elephant in the blog. A subtle beige one, with floppy ears. About which I will say no more because who wants to write cheery things in that state of mind.

Okay, the symmetry of these two final sentences is very nice and all, but really leads to the impression that I'm walking around wounded, dragging my limp and shattered ego/heart behind me. Well, t'ain't so, McGee. Generally speaking, I'm pretty up these days. I'm working on stuff and there's movement and life is good. Maybe because I'm working on Stuff. The advantage to having this shrink education (not to mention the wisdom of, ahem, the elders) is that I really can see my Stuff. I can lay it out and go, Ohho so that's what that's about...Hmmmm, very interesting. And then I think, oh, great for the blog. And then I think, why do I have to turn my every insight into a blog post? Am I living my life to live it--or to blog it?

And that brings me right back to the Original Ill--blogging as a manifestation of an untoward ego need.

Wooow! who said that?

E is for--hope I know by the time this post is finished

Every day when I face the letter of the day, I draw a blank. A--can't think of anything, and we know what a problem I had with B, and then C, what a lame post that was, and D, does anyone need to know the state and fate of my floors? And everyday when I face the letter of the day, all I can think of are wonderful topics for the day before. But then, of course, it's too late.

All I can think of today that begins with an E is--Ego. As in, mine is wanting lots of readers with lots of comments. But that means Effort. So E is for effort. I can toss these puppies off in a very short time (oh, you can tell?), but the really good posts, they take a while to write. At least for me. Of course I'm sure that everyone else whose writing I admire just tosses their puppies off, which is why I try to do it too, because--hey, hey, hey, we're back to E for Ego.

I just leaned over my desk and saw this written on a piece of paper: Eco Arts and Crafts. Oh, yeah, that. How did I not think of that as an E? This topic that has been of such great interest to me in the past month? I could answer that question, but E for Ego won't allow me to.

It's amazing what a stern fellow E for Ego is. He runs a tight ship, he does, allowing only certain minuscule pieces of himself to slip out and by and into the public domain. At least he thinks that only minuscule pieces slip out, but maybe whole chunks of him are obvious from even five miles away. You might wonder why, considering that I'm female, he's not. I dunno. Interesting, that. Is this a gender issue, I wonder? Was I too much my father's son, and not enough Daddy's little girl? Maybe.

It is true that I have what is considered a masculine approach to a lot of things in life. That is, I hone right in on the problem, analyze it, and come up with viable solutions. This is not exactly what you want in a touchyfeely therapist, is it? Here's your problem, here's how to solve it, go home and don't come back until you've done it.

So E is for Ego, and Effort, and Eco-Art. And for the last, look at this:




This is a real working radio. You can find it and buy it here. That's the site for African Wire Arts; check it out.

C is for Clients

...and yes, that's what we actually call them. Or you, as the case may be. Unless we have the magic Doctor in front of our name when we might also call them (or you) patients. Often we just refer to them by time, as in "My ten o'clock." But never by diagnosis, since that is verboten, not to mention forbidden, by the rules of the various boards that license us.

...and yes, I'm seeing them again.

...and yes, I'm questioning myself again.

The clients that I thought I wanted to treat when I was in school--the poor, the needy, the really fucked-up--well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe when I insisted that the one kind of client I never wanted was the Middle Class Woman Who Whined, maybe anyone with an ounce of understanding about things psychodynamic could see that this was a huge case of countertransference. Which none of my instructors thought to mention to me.

Basically what it means is that I didn't want to treat myself. Or people like me. Who I seem to think are weak, sniveling people with weak, sniveling issues to deal with. Like wobbly self-esteem and shitty mates and tedious workplace traumas. No, I wanted the real thing: Bring me your psychotic, your medicated, your traumatized, personality-disordered huddled masses--and I will wave my torch of empathy and grant them instant calm, if not bliss.

Well, ha! And ha! again. The huddled masses--they are so incredibly complicated, not to mention relatively hopeless, and sometimes scarey. They live in neighborhoods that are alien, in houses that are so tiny and ramshackle as to be barely there. If they live in houses at all, because remember, my very first client was a schizophrenic homeless woman.

I loved her. Not literally, but all the parts of her that were middle class, and dealing with a overbearing mother. But not so much when she started getting into the groups of martyred soldiers who were following her down the street, beckoning to her from doorways, trying to entice her into a life of sin. I knew delusions when I heard them. But from a middle class woman? Was it possible--? Nah, it was just me, middle class me, having a major countertransference issue.

Countertransference is a good thing and a bad thing. It's part of what enables psychotherapy at all, but damn, I'd rather not have my shit forced in my face where I can't ignore it. But my choices, it seems, are either to face it--or find an excellent excuse when I don't want to be a therapist after all.

A Girl and her Phone[s]: A Sad Story

This is a sad story about a girl and a telephone and how she misused and abused it and how it eventually did her in.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had several telephones, none of which she liked to use. She simply didn't like to talk on the phone. This was rather curious seeing as she was intimately related to someone who had a telephone permanently attached to her ear. But perhaps the particular gene pool from which these two arose only allowed for one telephone person. Perhaps that was why the girl didn't like to talk on the phone.

Or perhaps it was that when she was a teenager, and harnessed all her courage to call a boy and ask him to a party, when she said, "Shelly (yes, that was his name), this is XY" and paused waiting for him to respond, "Hi XY," instead he said "So what." Perhaps she always hears "so what" when she announces her name to the person she's calling.

Too, this girl is a master at reading faces so as to move in sync with the mood of whoever she's with. This is a tactic that enables her to maintain seemingly precarious relationships. But the telephone does not allow for this mastery, and thus, she is awash in a sea of insecurity when she is on the phone with someone. Do they want to get off? Are they bored? Am I bothering them? Or, at times, My God, what does this person want from me? Is it too soon to say goodbye? Have I missed much of that program? The girl has a horror of evoking such thoughts in a person she's called, and thus, she calls few people.

In fact, she has a syllogism of sorts that rules her calling people. It is this: If X wanted to talk to me, X would call me. Since X hasn't called me, X doesn't want to talk to me. Since I don't want to talk to anyone who doesn't want to talk to me, I won't call X either.

This syllogism, while definitely not valid (or even really a syllogism) from a logician's point of view, is, the girl realizes, SICK from a psychotherapeutic point of view. Especially since the girl is hyperaware of who is and is not calling her. And what they are or are not saying, when they do or do not call her.

The girl is sick of herself and her telephone-phobia and is appealing to all and sundry for HHEEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPPPPP!

A Cup Half Full? A Life Half Empty....

Let me introduce you to Love Monkey, or Sturdy Girl as she's now calling herself (for reasons best, I guess, kept to herself.) She is my new BBF, best blog friend. More than that, I want to be her when I grow up. Sturdy Girl is the reason the internet in general and blogging in particular are so fucking fantastic. How else would I know her, if not for our blogs? She knits, she bakes bread, she cans, she writes like a demon and, man, can she say exactly the right thing that I so needed to hear but didn't know it.

She also is one of several people this summer who made me see that, hey, I'm not such a happy-eyed child after all. I used to think, quite proudly I must confess, that I am the eternal optimist. I always think life is going to go my way. I never question whether I'll get the job, the promotion, the whatever. My mother brought me up with a mantra--if you want something, you'll work hard for it and you'll get it. I believed her. And for a long time it was true. Or so I thought. In fact, one of the major bones of contention between D and me is his predilection for seeing failure looming while I allow myself to envision nothing but utter success.

I'm now beginning to question myself, however. Am I really such a perky Pollyanna? Then why the following:

• Sturdy Girl wrote in yesterday's post that she is now

  "very productive in my knitting of late. I am making great strides in the toddler pullover (cardigan) and the socks and working on two scarfs, one classic and one lacy. I am starting to "get the hang of" the yarn shops and I have decided just to pick yarn I like (to make small things like scarves) and in this way learn the way different yarn knits up. I think this in itself is an education in knitting. Besides, I can now understand why knitters have a stash. We love the feeling of security it gives us - all these yarns we have to look forward to knitting."

Whereas I say: I cannot stick with one knitting project long enough to complete it. I bounce from scarf to sweater to purse to fill in the blank. I have Knitting ADD (along with the other kind) and I am riddled with guilt over the projects I have on needles from FUCKING YEARS AGO....THAT NO LONGER EVEN FIT ME!!! And my stash, my stash, my stash! like my bra cup, it overfloweth.

• Item #2: when reminiscing with my BFF1 a couple of weeks ago, I was struck that our memories of our early years in school were so different. She remembered the teacher she loved, the playground (okay, I'm making this up because I can't remember all the good stuff that she remembered), while I remembered every slight or failure or bad day I had in Elementary School. I remember that I used to come home from school crying every day over some tragedy or other. I remember my mother telling me that I had to get a "shell" and not let people hurt my feelings so much. I remember the teachers who didn't like me, the kids who made fun of me, and the signal traumas that are with me still today.
• Item #3: There is the stuff I know for sure, and the stories I tell myself about the stuff I know for sure. Those stories inevitably posit me as the victim. I became aware of this as I have worked at various times this summer to pull myself back from the brink of whatever. I will stop the story and pull out of it just the stuff I know for sure. When I do that, I see that inevitably I've chose the road not only less travelled, but the one that leads off the cliff.
  

What is this about? Is it a Jewish thing? Some say that part of our DNA is a perennial feeling of never fitting in, of seeing the world splintered in pieces, in need of healing. Or was I a depressed child, even back then in the first grade--and I've been more or less dysthymic all my life?

I don't know the answer, and I'm not sure it's really relevant. What does seem important to my present and future sense of well-being is that I CUT THIS SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW.

Oh, now that's a positive way to begin, Jane....

The Knitting Diaries: the scarfed tucked coat

This came in the mail yesterday. It's the yarn I ordered from Elann that I posted about the other day. With it came the instructions, as promised, for the coat, which was designed by Helen Hamman. They're calling it "scarfed tucked coat" --lower-case and since Helen Hamman's logo is also lower case, I'm presuming that this is a typographical choice and the name of the garment is actually, The Scarfed Tucked Coat. But it may be that that's just Hamman's or elann's way of differentiating this particular coat from the unscarfed tucked one. Or the scarfed straight-line coat. (Now the letters are starting to shimmer and blur in front of me, and I'm wondering if scarfed is actually a word. And what it would mean to be scar fed, as in eating a new brand of--blech! stop it!)

I was most eager to see the instructions for knitting the coat. I know it will be a challenge. Just to take on a project of this size--a coat, for chrissake!--is major. But it never occured to me that I might not be up to it. And then I looked at the pattern: two pages, 8 pt. type, a schematic that is clear, but that reveals the truth of what the explanatory blurb said: "This unique, asymmetrical coat features right front pleats and a long scarf, which drapes dramatically over the left shoulder. It is worked from side to side, with its body shaped by short rows."

Oy. In an instant I went from excitement to fear, from certainty of success to sure failure. In my mind's eye, I saw myself happily knitting the gauge swatch and then I saw myself shoving it and whatever else I'd completed on the coat into the back of my closet (with the other failed projects). That quick. Soup to Nuts--joy-excitement-interest-terror-failure-denial.

It seems to me that I may be on to some signal piece of self-knowledge here. If I can catch what I'm feeling and doing as I do it, it will be a way of isolating my process so that I can understand what happens when I get scared. And maybe alter the process mid-stream so that it doesn't end up in failure. So I'm going to do a diary of making this coat. Not posting about it every day, but when there is actually something to say. Maybe you all will help me figure myself out....

Did I Miss The Book of Rules?

I've been visiting various blogs, thanks to the NaBloPoMo Randomizer, as well as Commenters on blogs I normally go to, and it seems to me that I've missed some rules about what a blog post should be. A number of people have apologized for their less-than-legitimate posts. Is there a gold standard? Or a minimum lineage? Fussy got tons of comments today from people talking about how hard it is to do this post-a-day thing. It is? Am I not doing it correctly, then?

You can see how my insecurities rear their nasty little heads at every opportunity (if I get a whiff of bad car smell when I'm driving, I assume it's my vehicle--how sick is that). I would like to be the kind of person who has the confidence of the gods, who says what she thinks, does what she does and be-damned to those who object. I'd like to have Rosie O'Donnell's balls (although not her mentality). I wish I was fearless about putting myself forward.

The funny thing is, as I'm writing this, I'm aware of a lot of people who would read this and say, what the hell is she talking about. They see me as someone who doesn't know how or when to take a back seat and shut up. They object to my predilection for saying what's on my mind, even when it's not the popular, read polite, thing to do. They should only know how often I squeeze my throat closed, squelch the comment, bury the opinion, repress the anger/annoyance/whatever. I've learned over time to say to myself, "this person doesn't need to know that you're sure they would be better off doing it another way."

I think the difference is (for I can see I'm positing a kind of schizophrenia here) that I can put myself forward in small groups (which, funnily enough, can be large audiences), but I'm timid when it comes to really, really big crowds. Like the world. I'm aware of that in posting on By Jane. I hold back because I fear the wrath of the internet. My Sally Fields mentality definitely kicks in here.

Wysocki's Cats - or how I spent my Friday night

Wysocki's Cats
Originally uploaded by By Jane.

I bought a jigsaw puzzle as part of my tool kit for playing with kids. Actually, I bought a thousand piecer, but the one client who was interested in working on puzzles suggested I get the hundred piecer. She and I did that one, and I liked it so much, I made myself a promise to do another on my own. Not for any reason, just because I enjoyed putting the puzzle together.

It's actually quite therapeutic--if you have to spend time with a prepubescent girl who is angry and refuses to talk, jigsaws are the way to go. And it's also a diagnostic tool, at least as far as I myself am concerned. I like small projects that I can finish handily. I like the process of figuring the pieces out, as long as I'm feeling competent. Once I get frustrated, however, I want to pound that piece into place willynilly of whether it fits or not.

The only problem, as far as I can tell, is--what do you do with the thing after it's finished? I know there are people who pour some glue substance on the puzzle and then hang it as art. Ummmm, I don't think that's my style. I could throw the whole thing away, but that seems so wasteful, especially when I know there are legions out there dying to do Wysocki's Cats. I did what I always do in such cases: saved it. I broke it up, put it back in its box, and shoved it in the back of the closet. When I find one of those legions, I will gladly give it to them/him/her/it.