Giving
I talked in my last post about learning to let go. I don’t say “letting go” as a euphemism for forgive and forget. Often, I envision “letting go” as something more akin to dropping a security blanket because I am old enough to walk around without it now. It’s not a perfect metaphor, because often my security blankets are covered in prickles and tentacles and all manner of nasty things, but there have been times in my life when it made more sense to hold onto that nastiness white-knuckled than it did to let go and leave myself uncovered. Part of the concept of this blog — being a runaway slave — translates to me as being able to let go, to drop what I’m carrying and run, to ungrasp anything that might weigh me down, no matter how important I once perceived that thing to be.
Now that my life is more on track, I’m finding myself able to let go of my money, time, and resources. For the last three or four years, I’ve been doing exceptionally well, relative to a recession. The only bill I was unable to pay was my divorce fees, and my Bear’s mother — who hadn’t even met me yet, and without a request from my Bear — lent me the money for that. Otherwise, I’ve been able to pay every bill with little to no trouble. When Bear was unemployed, I was able to support him as well. I haven’t missed a meal. I’ve almost always had the money for luxuries, for a bagel and coffee with the Bear on Saturday mornings, for spaghetti at the pizza place with Bear on Sunday night. I get a massage monthly. I pay for a gym membership. I buy music online. I attend a dance class. I do all this and pay rent, pay my student loans, buy groceries, pay for electricity and heat. I even have some savings. I’m doing very well.
When I don’t feel well, though, I don’t see that I’m doing well. The 1st comes around, and I become terrified that I will be evicted for failure to pay rent, though I have absolutely no reason to think this will happen. I check out at the grocery store, and go into cold sweats thinking my card will be declined, though I just balanced my checkbook the night before. I see calls for volunteers, and I think, my god, I will never have the time for that. I am so busy, so stressed, I cannot give anymore of myself, I will break apart, I have NO TIME, and then I go home and watch TV for a few hours. I know the reality doesn’t match up with what’s in my mind, but what’s in my mind has to be dealt with before I can view reality.
I’ve been having a bit of a meltdown lately, but the thaw is revealing and freeing shit in my head that’s been stuck and frozen for years. I am now able to see how much I have, how well I’m doing. I’m able to feel safe and secure in my relatively huge wealth (as compared to others). I feel now like I might have the time to volunteer. I feel now like donating. I now make a monthly donation to my local abortion fund, to help poor women secure the reproductive health care they need, because I can now recognize that were I to need an abortion, I could afford one without trouble, without a safety net, without much of a fuss at all. I make donations to Tiger Beatdown when Sady needs the cashlove, because I value her work and am able to recognize that I am in a golden place as a blogger, with a daytime job that I love and the free time to occasionally dash off a post without having anything approximating my survival ride on it.
I’m telling you all this because I am about to ask you to do the same. nieceytee has a post up on her livejournal about a friend of hers. She is about to be evicted. If she is evicted, her child will be placed with her ex-husband. If her ex-husband acquires custody of their child, she is dangerously close to losing him forever. This is the line that struck me:
This woman is a honest, trustworthy and decent person who by virtue of marrying the wrong person is dealing with never ending consequences.
I’m sure there’s more than one of you who can connect with that. I know I can. I know that if Bear’s mother hadn’t lent me the money for my divorce, I would have had Flint in my life far longer, and I shudder to think what he might have tried in that time. I’ve always been grateful we never had a child together; he tried to forcibly impregnate me once I told him I wanted a divorce, because he knew that I could shed him legally much easier than I could shed a potential child, or erase a father from a living child’s life. He wanted to become a consequence that lasted forever, rather than a consequence that lasted until a judge granted me freedom. I am incredibly lucky to have dodged that bullet while sprinting away.
I recognize that not everybody has a buck or two to spare. I don’t have much to spare, but I am able to let go of more right now without incurring hardship than other people are able to let go of in a lifetime. It feels good — it feels safe — to know that I am happy and healthy enough to no longer need to grasp my money to my chest. It takes some very lucky, wonderful circumstances to be able to give, and I feel blessed that I can. For those of you that cannot, I don’t mean to make you feel as if there’s something wrong or unhealthy about you. Nobody chooses to be poor. But if one finds themselves rich, that’s a cause for joy, a cause for celebration. For me, giving is a tangible way to celebrate.
I donated today because I feel rich, because I feel safe, because I live well. For those of you who can say the same about yourself, congratulations on your luck and happiness. I hope you will donate as well.
You can find nieceytee’s paypal account under her email address, .
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In happy news, nieceytee just updated her livejournal to say that she’s now gotten over $2000 (she needed $1200 to keep her friend from being evicted). Hooray!
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BlueRidge, I just saw that.
I’m so glad to hear that she’s going to be ok! I bet that she needs a lot more help in general if she was that close to being evicted. I know, I’ve been there. Hopefully the extra donations will help lend her a bit more security.
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This post made me happy.
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About letting go: over the centuries I’ve found that I carry with me every single piece of emotional garbage I’ve ever picked up.
I’m like an emotional hoarder, living in a flyblown corner of an apartment filled entirely with trash. Repeated efforts to clear it all out end in failure, one way or another: either the stuff finds its way back in, or I replace it with more of the same. This analogy, while convincing, can go too far. After all, my emotional baggage doesn’t exist in reality, unlike actual trash. When I die, it will all vanish. In theory, I should be able to acknowledge this and release it all and have it disappear forever. But it doesn’t work that way. I call it garbage, but I’m also made of the stuff. I’m the ghost in my own machine.
The strategy I have found for dealing with this is to put things down when I find I’ve picked them up. Humiliation is a big one for me. I can experience shame about something that happened when I was six years old, and the shame will be as vivid today, thirty-seven years later, as it was at the time. I don’t even necessarily remember what happened with accuracy — just that it was another self-administered kick in the psychic balls. My face turns red, my ears will burn, the whole bit.
So what I do is get all embarrassed and ashamed for myself, because, you know, at the age of six I was such a douchebag, didn’t have my shit together, what a fool. And then I observe I’m doing this, and I mentally say to myself what I would like for someone to have said then: “okay, things didn’t go well that time. Luckily you lived through it and nobody else remembers or cares, and if they do, fuck ‘em for being judgmental, so don’t worry about it.”
It works. I still have all the crap with me, but I give myself permission to put it down. My tendencies are forensic: if I can dissect the thing down to its component molecules, if I can find out how this happened, who is really responsible, what the consequences are, I can let it go. Not true. I can’t “let go.” I have to consciously put the thing down.
Golly, you set me a-thinkin’.
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Tripp wrote: “I can experience shame about something that happened when I was six years old, and the shame will be as vivid today, thirty-seven years later, as it was at the time. I don’t even necessarily remember what happened with accuracy — just that it was another self-administered kick in the psychic balls. My face turns red, my ears will burn, the whole bit.”
Yeah, that’s the same for me. It’s crazy and ridiculous, and it has a huge effect on my life. Wish I had something more intelligent or analytical to say about it, but so far I haven’t been able to get that kind of perspective on it.
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$4600. YEAH!
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Wow. As usual, I read and I well up with emotion and I have to go away and think about what all this brings up for me, and now I’m finally getting around to commenting (after reading, rereading, and forwarding links to others from this amazing blog…thanks Harriet). I can relate to so much of what is discussed and described so eloquently in the posts and the comments. Tripp, I am learning to “put down” what I keep picking up the same way you do with the realization that I can’t deal with new shame/learn other ways of problem-solving and processing that do NOT involve self-shame and blame if my arms and shoulders are loaded down with the old stuff. But overall, things are getting better and I’m making progress. Like Harriet’s post says, the good days are more visible but the bad days still pop up from time to time and old panics and fears take over, mostly when I’m tired and disarmed from other things. Doing something to lend a hand to someone else DOES help…and I am donating my little bit here and there to worthy causes. Thanks for the post, the link, and the community
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Tripp wrote: “I can experience shame about something that happened when I was six years old, and the shame will be as vivid today, thirty-seven years later, as it was at the time. I don’t even necessarily remember what happened with accuracy — just that it was another self-administered kick in the psychic balls. My face turns red, my ears will burn, the whole bit.”
Yeah, that’s the same for me. It’s crazy and ridiculous, and it has a huge effect on my life. Wish I had something more intelligent or analytical to say about it, but so far I haven’t been able to get that kind of perspective on it.
Me three. For no reason at all, I will think back to stupid shit that happened when I was a kid, like accidentally walking in on my dad in the bathroom, or spilling an entire tray of cupcakes to the ground, or breaking a piece from my parents’ friends’ antique chess set. Stupid shit. Shit that does not matter anymore. It’s really bothersome, but so embarrassing.
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yeah, fuck google! just read the gizmodo thing. rock on.
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