Peyton Manning

if you've got 20 minutes you might want to listen to this

Re-traumatized. Healthcare Proxy. Go ahead, dare yourself to think about your future.

Today I know that I will ramble and honestly, I’m not really looking to self-edit.

I realize that last week I was going on about the effects an upcoming visit with my father was having on me. I had nightmares and panic attacks in the weeks leading up to the visit. One of the terms I was sort of groping for, something to sum up that experience was re-traumatization. But as I started to look for a nice easy digestible definition of that phrase, I find that one does not exist.

Now the question to be answered was: should I retraumatize myself by seeing my father? And my answer is, “Yes.” But I do so with a fair amount of self-awareness and a lot of self-discipline. In the days leading up to the visit I didn’t have even a sip of alcohol. I did a lot of breathing exercises. I was invariably lead to think of awful things said and done (spanning the years) but I also allowed myself to remember that I left home while I was a teenager and I haven’t looked back except in so far as to analyze. (I refuse to be bitter so I never look back and say, “If only….” There is nothing productive in that exercise.) “So how did the day go?” You ask. Technically it was okay. In all I spent 8 hours with these people and I have to say it left me feeling awful. But I knew it would leave me feeling gutted so as soon as I hit my saturation point I pulled the rip cord. I wobbled home, crawled into bed, and curled into a ball. The day was done.

If I were a former junkie my counselor would have advised me to avoid junk and the people and places where I could find junk. And that’s good advice.

But I have this need to overcome these people. I want to be near my abuser and be able to “take it.” This is not healthy but like I’ve said, I prepped for it and I spent a total of 8 hours with them and I could’ve left at any time but I thought, “Let’s see if I can handle it until dinner.” (I guess you could call this the macho side of trauma.)

The nice thing about working in New York City is that a lot of people are not in La-la land. Or at least some of the people I know are not in La-la land so it was cool to talk with other adults who aren’t sentimentalists who think that we have to be living these storybook lives or else there is something wrong. As far as I’m concerned there is no pathology. I see my father and I see someone who was abused, someone who is an alcoholic. I see someone who was a really bad parent. And his wife is no picnic either.

All-in-all I’m good. I knew that I’d have Sunday to recover and even though my Saturday night was filled with nightmares; Sunday night I slept like a baby, which was a blessed relief.

But enough about me. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of death and dying. Which is to say, let’s talk about right now. 

All of the following is true:

I have a 92 year old friend. She lives on her own and is completely mentally with it. I saw her for dinner on Tuesday. Saturday night she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. I know a 92 year old man. For the most part this guy is totally with it. He lost his balance on Wednesday, took a serious header -- got all banged up and bruised and was hospitalized for observation. Aside from the obvious bruises and a concussion he’s “okay.” I know of a 72 year old woman who has started to show signs of memory loss and has been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She lives alone and basically sits around all day watching TV.

Now the 92 years olds have money and healthcare proxies. The 72 year old has neither money nor a health care proxy. Her kids are about to have to figure that out.

Have you started you journal on aging? The aforementioned are my most recent entries. And for good measure let’s add one about my 94-year-old grandmother. She sits around/lies in bed all day, never leaves the house, and barely speaks to anyone. All of that goes into the column marked, things to avoid in my 90s.

Do you have a health care proxy? If not, you might want to get one. And don’t go for the obvious choice = your spouse. Go for someone who has the balls and heart to make the difficult choices in difficult times. Pick someone who will do exactly as you wish when you are no longer able to make decisions for yourself. proxy 

Have you started to look at who you want to be at 70 or 80 or 90? Will you live alone? Will you be home bound? Will you have enough money? Will you have enough to eat? Will you have a roof over your head?

I’ve mentioned that I want to die young, happy, healthy and wealthy. Yes, it’s a tall order but I’d rather put in the hours now and come as close to achieving that than find myself bed-ridden, poor, and miserable.

You’re going to have to take my word for this: the way you die speaks volumes about how you lived.

It shouldn't be this hard.

Today as I write this I'm emotionally exhuasted. For the past couple of months I've known that my father would be coming to town. I don't plan on spending more than a couple of hours with him and his wife but ... prepping for this visit is taking a lot out of me. About a week ago I experienced disrupted sleep and I couldn't figure out why. This past weekend as I walked around I started to get my first glimpse of where my anxiety was coming from. It was the impending visit.

They say that time heals all wounds, and whoever they are, are wrong.

I've been working for the better part of three decades to heal all the damage done to me by my mother and father. And here I am, getting to put in even more hours.

I was surprised to find that I'm facing suppressed rage.

A couple of years ago when my girlfriend cheated on us, I flipped out, went totally volcanic. In the days afterward I started to explore the roots of anger and rage. It turned out that my reaction to my girlfriend's actions was based on something that predated her arrival in my life by some 40+ years. This came as something of a shock. At the time I was certain that her actions had caused my rage. Wrong. I was pissed off at her, rightfully so, but the torrent of rage was disproportionate. As I trudged through that I started to notice all kinds of things.

In general I'm hotheaded and opinionated. And in some ways anger has served me well, or at the very least protected me. But as an adult I think there is room for a more sophisticated approach. In my efforts to turn back the aging clock so I can die young I've realized that holding onto old, ugly emotions is a sure-fire way to age prematurely.

With my father's visit a few days away and without medicating it, I don't find the present-tense unbearable but it feels pretty darn heavy. All the things I'd love to turn to: sugar, alcohol, sex. All of those substances have been taken off the table and I spend my morning and evening commute, riding the train, sitting with the rage.

I s'pose you're probably thinking, "Who is this privileged white person to hate her parents?" I'm not going to get into specifics because I'm just not going to but I will tell you this: when I hear of children who have been badly abused I have a lot of compassion for them. I know that if they turn to drugs or alcohol or end up in abusive relationships, they might never travel far in this lifetime. I'm referring to traveling emotional distances, not going to China on a steamer ship.

In general I don't hate my parents, mostly because it won't get me very far. Right now the rage is masking the hurt and I guess I'll just have to sit with the rage a little longer. My sleep has been a f*cking mess and I don't want to confront my father because even if he said, "I'm sorry," it wouldn't take away the pain, it wouldn't heal the wounds. In fact after being abused for 16 years (from 0 to 16 years old) by both my parents, there is no such thing as healing the damage. What I have found is that I have to be able to let it be part of me without letting it disrupt me. And yes I'm over-simplifying things here but I've also never actually written about it in this way. I will give it more thought and see if I can some up with something more coherent.

What I'm trying to say is that for the most-part I'm okay because I earned that experience (or have allowed myself to be okay). For many years I spoke with neither of my parents. And I'm hoping that in the coming years I can get better at letting "it" be a part of who I am. I'm perennially optimistic, by choice. I know that I will "survive" seeing my father. But I want to rise above that. I want to be 100% fine and I don't want all this f*cking anxiety. Until I'm anxiety-free in the face of him, I know that I still have work to do.

Elliot Smith and notes on Dating Myself.

I guess I'm dating myself and by that I don't mean that I'll be making references to the past, I mean that I've been taking myself on dates. This will have to do until someone shows up. & to make life interesting/possible I've got myself on a budget.

For those of you who've been following this blog you know that I like to put my money where my mouth is. The way I see it, to do otherwise obviates having both a mouth and money. Although I could end up rich and tongue-tied, right now it's all frugality and being opinionated.

The thing is going on dates with myself is fun. Really. I'm not making that up and you know I wouldn't lie to you. This past week was busy on the solo-social scene. I went to the International Auto Show at Javits Center. I stopped at Camp Jeep where they've got this course that might make for some seasickness unless you enjoying heading down hill at a grade of 31 degrees. Just f*cking intense. (Ticket for the Auto show $12.00.)

Did I mention that I'm on a budget? Yeah well if you recall I cashed out my IRA, took all my savings, and paid cash for some land at the end of last year. This means that I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck. If you've got nothing else to do, try it sometime. Nothing will put you in the present faster than having no money. (If you've got debt you can't play this game. This game is only for those who are debt-free and want to feel the squeeze of trying to make their money go somewhere, of trying to feel the value of a dollar. If you've got debt you're living in the past and you will have a much harder time of living in the present.) And yeah if this were a two-way conversation you could bust me int he sense that now I've got the sense of security of owning land. Because if worse comes to worse, I can always pitch a tent on my property. I guess that, a ten speed bike and a minimum wage job and I'd be back at a beginning of sorts.

On another self-date I went to see Kenneth Weiss rock the harpsichord and ottavino. This guy brought down the roof. When was the last time you heard someone perform a song that's 450 years old and you liked it? If it's been a while, check out the early music scene in New York City or Boston. (Ticket was $20.00 and included free wine before and after the performance.)

Today was a matinee of The Other Woman. I wish I could recommend it but... while there were some funny moments, on the whole it didn't work for me. Afterwards, it was a burrito at Chipotle and a stroll. (Movie $8.00, burrito $8.50.)

And in reading Torment Saint, a biography of the late musician Elliot Smith written by William Todd Schultz, I have met my polar opposite. Elliot possibly committed suicide age of 35 but he was neither young nor happy at the time of his death and from what I can gather he spent the better part of his life as a brilliant singer-songwriter who suffered depression and struggled with substance abuse. At first I thought I would be annoyed by the book but I'm keeping an open mind and coming to know a version of Elliot. In some ways Elliot Smith could end up grating on your nerves but if you move past your judgment you can see there was a lot of talent and beauty, but man there's is some real pain in there. Listen here.
Or here.

I'm sticking with dying young, happy, and rich.

My calculations were off. My legacy doesn't exist.

I'm going to talk about a couple of "ifs" from the weekend. Or perhaps I will talk about "hads." Had I been asleep in my bed when a large section of the ceiling (from a pre-war building) above my bed collapsed, I would not be here today. That might strike you as hyperbole but just a small chunk, say 12" x 12", weighs 8 pounds. A section, roughly 4' x 4' fell.

While that means that I would've died healthy and relatively young, my legacy would've been nothing worth noting.

The whole "I want to die young, happy, and healthy" is tied to my legacy. I want to die young, happy, and healthy having something to show for my time. This does NOT mean that I need to have amassed billions of dollars and have a wing of a hospital, or a library, named after me. But I don't see a reason to be here, if not to leave a permanent positive mark.

Had those chunks of pre-war plaster fallen on my head, GAME OVER and I would've failed myself. Big time.

This collapse came on the heels of a few other weird things. I'm going to bundle all of these up and name it, The Most Recent Wake-up Call.

What did I do in the midst of all this? For one thing, I continued to breathe. And I was up half the night cleaning up debris and dust and thinking how lucky I am. Next, I finally got up the guts to sort of ask out a woman I'm supposed to be with. And I'm taking a much more practical approach to things. Earlier in the day on Saturday, I'd had a long talk with my business partner to let her know where I stand on a few things, so at least I would've died knowing that she and I were square. And Spring, on the east coast, has finally sprung so there are months of opportunity ahead of me. And I don't plan on squandering them.

In terms of the material world, my heirs would've been a bit bummed out (I guess, "boo hoo, she's gone") but I'd hope they would rejoice in the money and land I've left to them. For those of us who are still here, we're meant to enjoy this life.

I'm a little dazed by the close-ish call. Just waaaay too close this time.

Joy Behar

I believe it was Joan Didion who said, "New York City is for the young and the rich."

And it could be argued that she's right. While I'm neither young nor rich, I've decided to make the most of my days in the Big Apple. I try to do one thing per week that can be done only in NYC. For the past 5 weeks: Nets versus Bobcats ($35 ticket, Nets won); Paul Taylor Dance Company ($10.00 ticket); Baroque Organ Concert ($10 ticket), worked a Brooklyn food market (free + ate a lot of free food from other vendors); Joy Behar "Me, My Mouth, and I" workshop (free).

I could review each of these events but really it's been so freakin busy I don't have the time to make the time, but I do have to talk about Joy Behar for a minute or two. Whether or not you've watched her on The View or if you consider yourself a fan, this woman is f*ckin funny. I wasn't a fan, and not sure I've become a fan, but I got a free ticket, in fact I was a "guest of Joy Behar," yesterday. The rehearsal was held from 2:00 -- 3:30 pm. I told my boss I had to run some errands and let's just say, my lunch hour ran a little long.

Joy is workshopping a new, one-woman show. Should she ever take this thing live, go and see it. She's really really funny. You'll be walked through her career -- from Long Island housewife, mother of one, and wife to a sociologist. Until she edits it down a bit you might feel things get a bit long in the tooth, but the laughs are large and frequent. I'm not a fan but I have a ton of newfound respect for that woman. She tells a ton of stories. My favorite moment comes toward the very end. She's been asked who was her favorite person to interview. "Catherine Denueve." When Joy was seated next to Catherine, she was overcome with admiration to the point where she couldn't even speak and just stared "At the face of France." Catherine asked one of her people, "Is she a lesbian?" "I am now," was Joy's reply.

If you get a chance to see, "Me, My Mouth, and I," do it, if only to spend an hour with an extremely intelligent, funny woman.

If Joy were to ask me my response, I'd say, Thank you. I realized that she had the guts to risk something of herself, and in doing that, ended up making a chunk of change. It was fascinating to sit in a room with this woman who built herself up from nothing.

I felt that she handed me the blueprint and for that I'm totally grateful. I have no more time to be chickenshit.

something to consider

What's Revenge?