focus, focus, focus

Here's a pic of my first attempt at making a mandala.  Buddhist monks make these elaborate designs out of colored sand, taking weeks to complete one.  Once finished, they sweep the sand away to represent the impermanence of all things in life.  Since I used markers instead of sand, I don't guess my design is impermanent but it does seem to help my focus and allows me to quiet my mind and stay in the moment.  My coworkers and bosses used to laugh at me when I told them that my doodling in meetings helped me focus, but it really does work for me.  I'm going to try to make these for awhile and if I get into it, I'll possibly move up to colored sand eventually.

What is the right age to die?

I wrote the following commentary a few months ago but I feel it's still relevant to my journey for inner peace today....


It's January.  I'm halfway between my sister and brother's birthdays.  My sister's 54th birthday was in December and February will bring my brother's 57th.  54 and 57.  When I was a kid, you might as well have said they'll turn a hundred and fifty-four or a thousand and fifty-seven.  Anyone in their 50s had one foot in the grave in my young opinion but now that I've entered my forties, fifty suddenly sounds like the new 30.  In fact, as I barrel toward middle-age at break-neck speed, I can't imagine feeling old in my 50s and I certainly believe it's too young to die.  Unfortunately my sister and brother didn't see the same value in dying of old-age-- unfortunately they didn't have the desire to see the world change around them or to sit on the front porch with their grandkids imparting age-old pearls of wisdom like "back in my day" or "in the good ol' days" or even spinning a tale about walking three miles in the snow to school each day, uphill both ways.

No, my brother and sister made the selfish decision to die early....very early.  My brother died years ago when he was only 27.  It was the worst day of my life that year and maintained that title for many years.  He overdosed on several drugs but was in the middle of a party when he took them, playing pool and gambling with his friends.  I have no doubt it was an accidental overdose, but lethal never the less.

My sister on the other hand chose to die over a much longer period of time.  She started experimenting with drugs in high school but waited almost forty years to succumb to the addiction and her death was not nearly so accidental.  It technically occurred over a period of a few days but in actuality her death spiral began at least a dozen years ago.  A dozen years of mentally and emotionally burying a loved one takes a toll on a person.  A dozen or so years of preparing for someone's ultimate demise still doesn't prepare a person.  On July 9, 2010, after so many years of waiting for the phone call I knew was coming, the phone finally rang.  A dozen or so years of holding my breath and I still can't take a deep breath.

It probably seems odd that I'm blogging about this now but I guess their birthdays placed my memories back on the front burner of my mind.  Even though my sister's death is less than six months old, I truly believe I've been prepping for it for most of my life.  There's no logic, no words to explain why I'm struggling to get past these life defining events since I've had so much time to prepare but should logic be applied in this situation?  I don't think so.  I understand completely how losing a family member can take months or even years to recover from.  What I don't understand is why it's taking ME so long.

Is it better to learn from the past or invent the future?

So after reading this blog, my mom called me.  Her voice couldn't hide her concern that I am depressed.  Hopefully I was successful at convincing her I am not.  I know what depressed feels like and this ain't it.  Honestly I'm not depressed, sad or even unhappy.  I'm just missing a childhood and I'd like to have it back. It's not life altering to live without childhood memories...or maybe it is but I'm pretty sure I turned out okay.


So when I was trying to explain myself to my mom today, I told her I don't know why I don't have positive memories from my childhood or even ordinary day-to-day ones, but that I'd like to have them back.  I'd like to be able to say "I remember once when I was a kid....."  But as I think about it, I wonder if it's really worth the effort.  What I'm craving is a balanced life, but should I commit my time and effort to finding my past or would it be more beneficial to build my future?  Even if I sudden remember each and every day of my life, I can't get those years back to relive.  I can't ask for a do-over.  The most I could do with the new knowledge is to live today and move forward into my future, which I'm going to do anyway with or without a balanced past so is it wise to invest so much energy into this project?


My mom informed me that she has always been a person who focuses on the future more than the present, just like me.  And she's always said my dad's family filled with a just a bunch of loners.  Lena says she doesn't  think she "feels" as much as other people do either.  So with that information, it seems my gene pool is filled with the very aspects of myself that I feel are missing.  It seems my DNA is a major hurdle in my pursuit of balance.  So armed with this new information, suddenly looking to the past to find myself seems less fulfilling.  Even an amnesiac eventually has to begin his life anew, with or without the missing years of his life so isn't that true for me also?


I think my goal for tomorrow will be to begin developing a plan for my future while still learning to live in the moment...even if I have to schedule time for it each day!  As Shifu from Kung Fu Panda 2 says, "your life becomes balanced when you find inner peace."  So I guess I'll be scheduling time for inner peace too!!

Maybe I can control this?

So maybe I don't feel, at least not enough.  Maybe I don't, won't or can't wrap my head around how to feel happy emotions.  So what does that mean?  How does that affect me?  For one thing, I'm trying to live in the moment, in the "now", and its hard to do when this very moment right now should have substance, should have depth, but it feels sort of robotic, sort of like I'm watching a movie instead of living it.  This morning I was lying in bed, petting my cat Lola and trying to "notice" the texture of her fur and how it felt to just be lying there with her.  I've always noticed how luxurious her fur feels, like an expensive mink coat, but today I was trying to really feel it.  Notice how she pushes her head against my hand, almost demanding I stroke her face.  I felt her movements, talked to her, noticed the softness of her fur, the sight, the sounds, but there wasn't an emotional response inside me.  I spoke to her as if I felt a flood of emotions but in reality, there was no flood, not even a trickle.  What does it say when you can't enjoy a quiet moment with a pet?


So I've been thinking....I believe some of the cause of my lack of emotional expression lies with my need to control myself.  I've watched movies, or even friggin commercials for that matter, that unexpectedly cause my eyes to well up with tears and it takes a lot of willpower and strength to avoid bursting into a sobbing mess of watery eyes and heaving shoulders.  Maybe I've chosen to avoid these emotional situations because they feel like out-of-control dramas and I've experienced too many dramas in my life already.  If that's the case, then is it possible to change my thinking, decide I want to experience these feelings and decide to control myself back into feeling them?  Is it possible to make demands of my body, my heart and my psyche by insisting I "feel" the moment?  Sort of like a boot camp drill instructor, can I bully myself into feeling until it simply becomes second nature?

So am I broken?

After much thought, I've come to the conclusion that I lack emotional depth. Of course I can feel my emotions, some much more than others, but I don't believe I really feeeeelll like most people do. I seem to have a pretty good handle on the negative emotions like anger, hurt or sadness. It's the positive ones that seem to elude me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed or unhappy....I'm just not happy either. My four year old son often asks me if I'm happy. Of course I tell him yes. No point in letting my discontent negatively effect his childhood memories. But when he asks, internally I'm shrugging my shoulders and answering, "I guess so." It's hard to answer that question when I don't know how happy feels....sort of asking a blind person if they like the color blue.

So I think this is why I avoid relationships and even friendships to a degree. I'm tired of pretending to feel things that I'm expected to feel but don't. I know in any good relationship, you're expected to express your joy, gratefulness, love, etc. I can express them all but only because I know it's expected and I don't want to hurt the other person's feelings so I fake it. It's so much easier to be alone.

But now I have these two sons and I want so much more for them. I want them to remember their childhoods filled with fun activities and positive role models, which require me to step out of my comfort zone of "alone". So do I continue to pretend for their sakes? Or is it possible to fix this character flaw and actually begin to feel my emotions? How do you even begin a journey like that? I'm always up for a good challenge, but I don't have a clue how to climb this mountain. I even tried googling it, but couldn't find an answer there either. What does that mean? Maybe it's not fixable. Maybe I'm not even broken. Maybe it is what it is and that's all it'll ever be. Maybe I should just plant a fake smile on my face and hope that someday it turns into the real thing. Maybe. 

How do you feel?

So what does it mean to feel? We all say it, mostly unconscously, but what does it really mean? I feel happy--I feel sad--I feel like a jerk--I'm not feeling it. There are a thousand different ways to use the word, but what does it represent?

I've been thinking back over my life, my memories-the few I have at least, and trying to compare how I felt then to how I feel now. It's dawned on me that I may not really know what it means to actually feel my emotions, at least not at the deepest levels. I know how I'm suppose to feel and I think I'm a pretty good actor, good enough to even convince myself. And in all honesty, my emotional depth seems only to be lacking in the positive emotions. I believe I've fully embraced the full range of scale when it comes to darker, more brutal emotions such as anger, pain and regret. I've got a good grip on those feelings but joy, contentment and love seem to be eluding me. Even as I write this, I stop for a moment to relive my happiest moments and I can't bring back those feelings of excitement. I can see them in my mind but the actual feelings seems to hover just out of reach. Why?

A friend of mine who happens to be a therapist says we are simply a bundle of neuro-pathways and it's difficult to duplicate what we don't remember. If I say the word "bicycle", your neuro-pathways begin to fire in your brain because you know what a bike is and how to use it. But if you don't know what a bike is or how to ride one, your brain will remain silent. Is that why I have trouble feeling the positive emotions? Because I don't have positive memories from my childhood? And if that's the case, is it possible to learn them now? Can you teach an old dog new tricks?