Life has been tough, tough, tough, lately. I can�t quite put my finger on specifics. I feel like I have a lot of job stress.

Maybe the problem is that I�m suffering from too much stress to think about it. Why don�t I change my life? The answer seems so obvious.

Well, maybe because I don�t dislike my life. I have blessings coming out of my ears, and all I can do is complain. Since I don�t want to appear stupid and ungrateful, I try to stuff it down, and then what? I get more stressed out and less happy.

I do feel like I am making some progress. A week or so ago, I got a CD set of poets readings their work. Four disks. I found it exceptionally healing. I haven�t listened to it much this week, though, and I�m feeling anxious again.

Yeah, it�s true, I am unhappy, but I am making progress. I am getting better. I�m finally starting to feel comfortable with asking for something I need. By that, I mean, things beyond the standard needs.

It took me some time to get over the guilt of using up oxygen, food and water and I did get over it. I also have a lot of needs that are unique to me. I�ll let my wells run dry of things that I consider to be non-standard needs and I�ll sit around thinking about how my breathing can�t be interrupted because that�s all I�ve got.

For example, all of the really good climbers within our circle of friends want to go climbing this weekend. I�m a decent climber, but it�s not my favorite thing in the world. I�m certainly not on the same level as the others that will be there. I�ll climb if it�s comfortable and convenient, but I wouldn�t choose to put myself out just to hang from some rocks for awhile. Adam is undoubtedly a good climber. I guess that makes me skilled by association, and it is assumed that I will go. Why wouldn�t I want to go? I mean, it�s CLIMBING, right?

They spend two days a week in the rock gym, I spend two days a week in a karate studio. If we were travelling to invade an evil ninja camp, in the not-quite-as-freezing-as-winter-weather, so we could finally put our hard-earned karate skills to use, then sure, I�d be all for it. Rock climbing just isn�t the show that I�ve been rehearsing for.

I agonized over a simple, �I don�t want to go.� I would rather hike. I would rather ride the bike that I might buy on Saturday (more on that later). I would rather go to Sunday morning services at the temple OR I would rather SLEEP IN. If I don�t go, then Adam has to carpool with someone else. It�s no big deal, but yet, I still felt as though I should be denied my own day because it might ever-so-slightly inconvenience someone else.

It�s different now, though. I�ve declared myself in recovery mode. No more feeling guilty for needs. No more not even asking for what I want. I�ve had a rocky start, but I can sense progress.

I�m sure as the summer wears on, I will want to go, and then I will go, and then, it won�t be a big deal, either.

I think it was a couple of weeks ago that I realized that I can�t heal my hurts by trying to recreate the world I lived in before, when I felt good. I felt good when I lived alone, and I always had a place to escape. I always had a hole I can hide in. That isn�t the nature of living with someone else. If I�m going to crave that, then there is only one solution. If I don�t like that solution, then I have to crave something else.

So, that�s what I�m doing. You saw what happened to Gatsby when he tried to recapture the past. Well, I�m going to take the advice that I kept mumbling under my breath to that character. I don�t need to attach to what made me happy once because there�s nothing stopping me from being happy now.

The only thing that�s stopping me is my insistence that things don�t ever change, and change is the nature of the universe.

Oh, the bike. I borrowed one of Adam�s bikes on Sunday, when the weather was spectacular and I had a fantastic time riding in a park near my house. The bike that has a small enough frame that it can be adjusted to fit me is the folding bike. He uses that bike to commute daily (so he can take it on the train) and I don�t want to wear out the bike he uses to commute every day. Besides, it�ll be better to have something that suits me perfectly and is my very own.

I road my bike constantly as a kid (when I wasn�t skating), but I stopped in my early teen years, after moving to Wisconsin. I couldn�t ride all year round, so I fell out of it. Once I got on his bike, it was as if I�d never stopped riding.

It was glorious. I sped along the path (not too fast, I don�t want to kill anyone) with the patches of sunlight streaming through the trees flashing over me. I saw so much more of that park. It was definitely made for bikers and not hikers (I always felt dissatisfied hiking there).

As for purchasing a bike, I did some research online this week, but I have to test them out to know for sure what I�d like. I�m not overly picky, the kinds of bikes I road as a kid were the kind that were scavenged out of junk yards or bought for a few dollars at a yard sale. Half the kids I road with didn�t even have working breaks on their bikes.

Anyway, I had to type fast because I have to leave for karate soon, so if this doesn�t make sense, forgive me.

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Thursday, Apr. 09, 2009 at 11:10 PM