Category: love

growth · healing · love · trust

Step on a crack…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
260
1484
12
2
1822
11.1287

0

0
0

In meditation this morning, I went to address the fault line
located yesterday. The one within me, upon which my foundational ideas of love
and trust were precariously built.
There, I witnessed this deep crevice in the earth, not Grand
Canyon-esque, but not fillable with some caulk either. So, per my shamanic
practice, I asked my guides how I could fill in this fissure to be able to build love and trust on a firm foundation? No reply. Okay,
how can you, guides, fill or heal this fissure? No answer.
I look back at the crevice, and notice that it’s like one of
those holographic game cards, where if you turn the card one way, you get one
image, and turn it the other, you see something different. As I looked, I saw
that the fault line was both there, and not there. If I chose to see the crack,
it was there; if I looked a little longer, it disappeared into the plain of the
ground.
It doesn’t have to be there. This mistrust, this broken
place, this doubt and fear.
I also heard that this doesn’t erase the events, it doesn’t
invalidate or refute what my experience was growing up, but it doesn’t have to
exist like this fault line any more.
What if I want to visit it? What if I want to pay homage to
my pain, maybe dally in it a little? What if I want to soak in the sorrow of
what happened? ~ Sure, that’s an option.
But, I got to see that, over time, even though I may now know
precisely where the fault line had been–mapped its edges, named its outcroppings–since it is now just a part
of the whole of the landscape, over time, I will forget exactly where it was. It was
somewhere right around here, I know it was. And soon, I’ll walk right over the
land where the pain had been and not even realize I’m stepping easily over
once-hallowed and -harrowed ground.
I don’t have to heal
the place where love was built. I just have to notice that it’s already healed. 

adulthood · family · forgiveness · grief · love · softness

major malfunction

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Normal
0
0
1
717
4087
34
8
5019
11.1287

0

0
0

The quote from Full Metal Jacket came to me this morning as I was putting away my
(clean) dishes (thank you, Homejoy, for your Facebook coupon!): What is my major
malfunction? Why have I gone so far off the reservation with this dating situation?
What is my primary malfunction? Primary…
That’s when the trap door opened, I fell through my crazy, into the heart of truth. And I began to cry. From realization and long
delayed-grief.
Some of you may know by now that my mother suffered from
manic depression as I was growing up—still does, but went on medication about 8
years ago, around the time I got sober, in fact. She told me a few years back
that she was terrified of loving me fully because she was scared of the depths of her feelings, that they would overwhelm her. She told me that when I was growing up, she would spend
30 minutes locked in her bathroom crying every morning before emerging into the
day. This, I remember. Staring at the closed bathroom door every morning, listening to her
cry, and having no idea why, if she would stop, if she would come out, what I
could do. She said that she just thought this was normal—this was her normal at least, and it was the only way of being
she knew.
The way this manifested in our relationship was that I never
knew when she would turn. When she would be the mom who was there for me, and
when she would click into mania and be unreachable in her heights, or click
into depression and be unreachable in her depths.
This, was not a recipe for trust.
My father, as we all know, was a volatile man, doing nothing
to help the bonds of trust and love cement into something benevolent,
supportive, and foundational.
What I saw this morning is that the ambiguity of
dating targets right into that major malfunction with laser precision.
I don’t blame her, and have long since forgiven her. But
apparently, I still haven’t really healed what it meant to attempt to establish
bonds of love on a fault line. Not knowing what your feelings are about me… I
get as crazy as you’ve seen me this week. Perspective, reality, confidence,
hobbies, work, all get ousted as I try to figure out what it means, because if I can figure out if the
fault line is about to crack, then I can get out of dodge. I can shut down, run
away, shove you away.
That was my previous M.O. for sure. I will shove you away
before you get close, before I have to “figure out” if you’re trustworthy. It
was not worth the pain of waiting to see if I could. Better to bomb the whole
base, just in case there was a sniper in there aimed at me.
So, shove you away. That meant any number of things,
including not dating, only have casual relationships, going after taken men.
My other way of being was to fall quickly into a
relationship, which is how my two long-term (read: 6 months) relationships
began. Express interest, have sex nearly immediately, you’re now in a
relationship.
There wasn’t ambiguity in that.
I didn’t have to figure out (then) if you liked me, if you
were gonna hurt me—we were “boyfriend/girlfriend,” and had
great sex. It only came later (read: by month 4, and certainly by 6) that I had
to question something different: if I
liked you.
So, it is believable, understandable, and more than a little
compassionable that an ambiguous dating situation would set off an atom bomb in
my head. Though, ultimately, it’s stemming from my heart, but more ultimately,
it’s stemming from my head, and the recreation of an old story and an old way
of coping with the uncertainty of human relationships.
I have very little dating experience past the first date. It
has always either gone: “Ciao, buddy, thanks for the latte,” or “Which side of
the bed is yours?”
People I know talk ALL THE TIME about “living the in the grey,” “not figuring things
out,” “relaxing into the experience,” and I want to spit a poisoned dart into
their over-eager eye. Fuck you people. The grey was a place, growing up, that
was riddled with landmines and Blitzkreigs. The grey place was one where you
never knew if you would be okay, ever.
And now, of course, how fitting, I’m being asked to once
again live in the grey—or at least get a rental application—but to live there differently. To live there, visit there, try it out there in the
grey, because that’s where most of life is lived, and I want to live in life.
To be in the grey differently, means to call upon my own foundations of trust
that I have established with myself and with the people I have chosen to love
as friends in my life—Not all of these friendships went the distance, but they
were worth pursuing. And didn’t cause any agida. So, it’s a deeper love and a deeper trust we’re working on.
And it’s probably not even with a person, unless that person
is me. It’s probably about developing, deepening, cementing trust with a
benevolence. And from the foundation of that relationship, will I be able to withstand whatever the Richter scale
throws at me. Especially if it’s reading 0, and telling me it’s safe to stay put.

dating · fear · fortitude · integrity · love · uncertainty

Drowning in a sea of pearls

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It is unclear if things have devolved in 25 y.o. land, but I
get the sense from his flirtatious texts that perhaps our intentions are not
aligned. It is unclear yet if I will bring up what mine are, ask him his, and
accept what comes of that. Sitting in the ambiguity is uncomfortable. It is
unclear whether sitting in the ambiguity is supposed to be my lesson, or a
lesson here. It is unclear if saying: 
“I don’t know yet if I like you but I
would be interested to find out. If that’s something you want to explore, then
it would be nice to go out again. If not, that’s okay too.” 
is too forward or
just right. Is it pushy, clear, honest, forthright, demanding, off-putting, or
too soon?
I get Goldilocks’ dilemma.
And I have a hard time letting go of the questions. Even
with my full life.
One of the things the male co-author writes in It’s Just a F***king Date is that not every date works out, and then
asks, did I get my heart broken? Sure, but not as much as I would have [if I
didn’t remember it’s just a date].
So, am I heartbroken? No. I don’t even know whether I should
be – what this is. Which, perhaps, is an answer. But I don’t like that
“perhaps” hanging out there like a scab of uncertainty. Am I sad? A little.
But, like above, not nearly as much as I could be. I mean, it was two dates. I
went a little bananas, as we all read, and then I came back to center,
remembered I’m awesome, and went about my awesome life. If this is someone who
wants to join me on my path of awesome, great; if not, as above, “That’s okay
too.” Cuz it really is.
I JUST WANNA KNOW.
Should I erase that name from my date book, or not?
I mean, I have read He’s Just Not That Into You. I do know that if someone isn’t asking you out,
that has a meaning. I do know that sexy texts (which I’m replying neutrally to) are not a pathway to romance. But
I want him to fucking say it. If that’s the truth, if you’re not into me, if
you just want to fuck me, then say that. It saves me a lot of headache. If,
because we had a very intense make-out session, I’m now relegated to the
“hook-up” file in your own date-book, that’s fine too. Just let’s me know, once
again, that the heavy necking should be better left to a time when its earned
itself.
There’s nothing wrong with heavy necking, making out, or
having sex. Don’t get me wrong. But, having recently been very clear with
someone what my casual intentions were, getting those casual needs met, and
closing the casual door behind him as he left, I got to see that although
I acted with integrity, asked for my needs to be met, felt proud of my behavior and was very happy with
the result, I also got to see that what I really want is someone who spends the
night. I want to be that person for you too.
So, hooking up is all well and good, and it is also not yet
decided that if the 25 y.o. says ‘I don’t want to date’ if I will go forward with
something casual, since the previews indicated a blockbuster movie. But, I want
to find out first if there’s an art film playing here, before I buy a ticket
for Bourne 17. 

change · fortitude · growth · love · self-love

Strike That; Reverse It

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(*Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka [Sorry, Johnny, you ruined a classic])
In order to get ready to enter words that create and convey
feelings onto a screen that I upload to you, I have to do a little centering
first. Otherwise, you’d get — well, I don’t know – it just never felt right
to dive out of bed and onto the screen. Instead, I dive out of bed toward the
coffee pot, and then to the journal, the Morning Pages routine picked up many
years ago by working The Artist’s Way
with a group of varied and wonderful folks in Muddy Waters at 24th
street (you can have 16th street).
In fact, in order to prepare for you, for this, for reclaiming my daily blog, I began
writing them again because I knew I needed to skim the top layer off
my thoughts and onto a written page before addressing you. I haven’t been
consistent with the Morning Pages, but, pretty much so. I probably have a dozen notebooks since we began in, what, 2008? 2009?
After those (and I don’t always get 3 full long-hand pages,
especially when my Thursday night acting class keeps me in Berkeley til 10pm), I try to
meditate for even a few seconds, if I’m honest. I have varied the time of these
“sits,” even up to 20 minutes, but for now, it’s about 5 minutes, if I get that. If not that,
I do one fully present breath. Like really present, not what I’m going to
do after this breath present. Because it’s
usually somewhere between and in concert of these two practices that I get the
kernel of what I want to say to you here.
I’ve written from monkey mind, I’ve quieted it (hopefully),
and from there, I can address you.
What I’ve found in a few of my most recent journalings is
that when I write the words, “I should…,” I’m stopping myself, crossing out
“should” and instead writing something like, “I encourage and support myself in
doing…”
I need to send those photos to that agency. STRIKE
I support and encourage myself in sending those photos.
I should go back to the gym today. STRIKE
I support and encourage myself in going to the gym.
What a difference of manner and direction that provides.
I’ve heard people use the phrase “Shoulding all over your
self;” and it’s true, you, we, I can shame and should myself all I want – but
remember the “more flies with honey than vinegar” thing? I think it works with ourselves, too. 
And while we’re on phrases; Shame, I’ve heard
it said, can be an acronym for Should Have Already Mastered Everything. ~ Back
to shoulding.
I’m liking that I’m catching myself and changing the
language to something more positive, even though I’m the only one who sees it,
and because I’m the only one who sees
it. I’m only retraining myself. Does it help? Did it make me—strike that—encourage me to send the photos? Not yet. But I did go to the
gym. 

affirmations · change · healing · health · love · self-love · spirituality

Synchronici-wha?

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

When I got sick, my friend Aimee brought a photocopy from a
book she owned to me in the hospital. I told her recently how much this piece
of paper changed my whole experience, and she said she simply didn’t know what
else to do. How else to show up or help, or what to say; she didn’t know if I’d
snarl at the message it had to offer or get mad with her.
It was a page from Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life, though I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t
know who Louise Hay was, and certainly didn’t know about that sickeningly sweet
title.
The page had on it a list of ailments and diseases and
physical symptoms. Next to them was a column of negative beliefs that the
author had associated with these symptoms. In the final column were a list of correlated positive
affirmations.
She’d circled, “Blood Problems” and “Leukemia.” Blood meant
joy; a problem with the blood meant, in this cosm of beliefs, “Actively killing
joy,” a “What’s the use?” mentality.
During the time I was sick, another friend brought me an
audio CD of Dr. Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine, and Miracles, which, in part, tracked the general life pattern those who develop cancer have had. As I listened, I tracked with it–to a T. The
final period before cancer, he’d discovered, usually consisted of a period of success, a major
disappointment, followed by hopelessness.
I had just graduated with a Master’s in Creative Writing.
The photo on my graduation day shows me nothing short of radiant, beaming,
joy-fueled. I spent the summer hustling from a temp job to job interviews,
trying, demanding, aching, to get a job in a creative field. Grateful as I am
for the job that I received and am currently in, I felt broken in the weeks
following my full-time employment. I cried as I waited for the always-late bus
to take me home to a dreggy existence.
Three weeks after I was hired, I got strep throat; four
weeks after I was hired, I was told I also had Leukemia.
Call that whatever you want, but when Aimee handed me that
photocopy, and I saw that my life and symptoms were spelled out by someone who
saw this as a commonplace pattern, I also saw that there was a third column
that could help me to reverse it, or to heal it.
I showed that paper to everyone who came in (well, those who
were of the more witchy variety). Some people squawked that it sounded like I
was blaming myself for cancer. But,
that’s not what my understand was, or is. Simply, we are sending ourselves
messages all the time. We can choose to listen and alter our behavior, our
patterns, as best we can; or, we can, like me, continue to shove aspirations,
dreams, life, underneath a
mountain of I can’t, it’s not working, it’s not for me. Who cares.
At any point along this path, we can choose to listen to
what our heart is saying. And listen though I sometimes did, I didn’t heed. I
was too scared. Too scared to fail, to trust, to try thoroughly, to invest, to
change. This isn’t to self-flagellate, I don’t feel it that way; it’s simply to
objectively look at how I was treating myself.
If we don’t listen, these folks’ theory is that our body
will respond with physical messages. And sometimes, those messages will become
billboards, and sometimes those billboards will become atomic bombs.
Thinking about my cancer this way while I was in treatment
gave me hope. It gave me a foundation, a cosmology, a system of belief that I
was already attuned to anyway. (I’d personally always thought that cancer was
calcified resentment, and you can hate me for saying that and disagree if it
doesn’t jive with your own cosmology.)
But this thinking gave me a life-line, literally. If these
were just thoughts, beliefs that I’d harbored, a pattern of self-abandonment
that I’d worn so deeply into myself that my self revolted, then … they could be
changed. I could change. And, the theory
could follow, I could get well.
I needed that so badly. I still do.
There wasn’t anything more scary that I’d ever faced,
because there was no face on it. These theories gave me a name, a focus, a
target. And the target was Love.
“New and joyous ideas flow freely within me.” “I move beyond
past limitations into the freedom of the now. It is safe to be me.”
When I was home sick with a cold in October, one year past
diagnosis, I needed something to do. During treatment, someone had given me a DVD version of
the Louise Hay book, You Can Heal Your Life. I’d shoved it away, thinking it sounded like utter twaddle and too
saccharine, and much too California woo-woo for my taste. But, I was sick
again, and I was scared, and despite all the work I’d done in the past year, I
needed to re-up, reinvigorate my life-line. So I watched the film. Which was a
lot of twaddle-speak, and also a lot of what I believe. It was positivity on
steroids, but, I watched, and I wished that I had the actual book they were
talking about, since it had the full list of ailments in it, and I wanted to
diagnose everything else, and counter it with love.
I walked outside my apartment building that day to go buy
eggs. Outside the building next to mine was one of those moving-out boxes of
free stuff people leave, boxes I love to
sift through.
In it… was a copy of You Can Heal Your Life. Pristine, with the Amazon receipt still in it,
ordered in 2011, likely, by some girl just like me who in a fit of, Yes, I can heal my life, bought it, received it, and shoved it
away, thinking it twaddle.
I picked it up, bought my eggs, went home, and devoured the
rest of it.
Again, you can call it whatever you like. You can agree,
disagree, roll eyes, think I’m anything you might want to call me. But, I used
those affirmations, and I survived a cancer that kills most people. It may not
be causation, but as I continue to use the type of thinking prescribed, I am
happier. 
Period. 

compassion · dating · fear · isolation · love · self-love

Cookie Monster

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Otherwise, who would eat the blackened one?
This single line is the first poem of my first chapbook, back in 2010.
The essence of its meaning is the idea that I must eat the blackened cookie in
order to save others from having to eat it. In fact, it meant that I would choose that cookie above others on the savory plate just so
no one else would have to touch it. I would throw myself on that sword before
you even had to see it was there. I would do this for you.
That was 2010. I revisited this question a little while ago,
and asked myself, if not me, then who would? No one, came the answer. No one had to eat the rotten,
blackened thing. No one had to throw themselves on a sword. There is
enough that we can all have a chewy,
chocolate chipity experience. There is enough that none of us have to be
a martyr and I can let others choose around the thing (or choose the thing) if they want.
Today, in my new dating world, I find myself, per metaphor,
rushing to knock others over on my way to the hearty cookies. I am not patient
to wait for the tray to be passed around the table—if there’s a way to get the
good cookie, I will elbow your ribs to find one. In the process, I will annoy
or anger you, or I will eventually upset the whole tray, and no one, including
myself will get a cookie.
Because this way, too, the belief is there is not enough.
Call it cancer, age, healing, I am
not willing to eat the blackened one anymore. I am not willing to drink the
dregs, settle for less, diminish my worth, stand silently… or, apparently, be
patient. In an effort to reverse years of sour cookies, I am finding myself
clawing my way to the better ones. But only here, in this dating world. Only
here, am I getting to see where I have long-harbored ideas of lack, and so
perhaps one could call me “grateful” (gag,
sputter, gasp) to have the experience now
and the perspective on myself to see what is happening.
I WANT CONTROL. I am so attached to an outcome (the good cookie), I think
that I can poke or wink or smile or demure or hearty laugh or intellectual
conversation or sex or heavy or shared interest my way toward that outcome. Yet, see above: upset
tray.
In many ways, it’s the same as
diving for the blackened one. It’s a manipulation of the results. The belief
follows that if I eat the blackened one, you are saved, and you are able to
love me. The belief was that if I ate the sour cookie, I am the silent, steady
rube whom you will reward for my sacrifice with accolades.
Both manners of being are born out
of the fear of lack of love. Fear that I will not be taken care of.
It does not surprise me that a
monolith of emotions and emotional backlash and predatory fear have arisen as I
step into the dating world. It simply confirms why I’ve stayed away as long as
I have. I know there is work to be done here, and avoidance is a great way to
not have to feel those feelings. To not have to look at the monster and,
perhaps, Hulk-like, calm it down until it reverts back to a normal, California
girl.
If you stay out of the dining
room, you neither have to eat the blackened one nor cut a path through to
the full ones.
But, eventually you get hungry. 
My object now is to whisper in
that girl’s terrified ear, There is enough (love).
If you wait and allow the tray to be brought to you, you can have one. If you allow yourself to focus on the rest of the meal, the chicken and potatoes and brussel
sprouts (cuz you know you love em), the tray will come to you. If, instead you focus jealously on
GETTING A FUCKING COOKIE you will miss the bounty that’s in front of you.
Which is another way to say that
my being so singularly focused on the outcome I want around this (or any) situation, I’m actually making myself miserable. I notice that calculating all the angles to
my end-goal (through poking and winking and sexing and making you see
me) is taking me out of the joy of the
experience. It’s removing me from my center, my self, and from the fucking
thing I wanted in the first place: to date.
I certainly am learning things!
And I am going to try to eat my potatoes, and TRUST that I can be present in the
moment, and let all the other moments follow in their own order and time. I
will try to trust that I can relax into the moment, into the joy, into the newness and the awkwardness and the hilarity and the growth, because there is enough. 
And, who knows, if
the cookies do run out, maybe there’s a Junior’s Cheesecake in the kitchen. 

adventure · dating · internet dating · love

Love in an Elevator – of Zeros and Ones

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Long have I harbored, and still do, the idea that I will
“meet the person on the way to meeting myself.” Meaning, that if I am engaged
in doing things that ignite and enliven me, and I happen to meet a dude on the way,
great – if I don’t meet a dude there, well, I went for me anyway. The other
thing about that method is that you already know that you have something in
common, wherever it is you are or what you’re doing – more than what you’ll know
by internet dating, which the only thing you know for sure you have in common
is that you both internet date. Or seek to.
So, that’s all well and good to “meet the person…yadda yadda
yadda,” but, well, what if you haven’t, and it’s time to grease the wheels a
little? Enter the internet. And, for me, most recently (as in Sunday) Tinder.
Ah yes, the new fangled, smart-phone app, where you swipe a
photo left to reject and swipe right to approve. If you both “swipe right” on
one another, you get the chance to chat. I like the idea of this better than my
previous forees into internet dating, because there’s none of
this “so and so winked at you” or
“looked at your profile,” or even so-and-so messaged you and his photos are of
him in a sports bar with five of his best bros swilling pints. In those situations,
the most fun part is the polite decline. How to answer, if to answer the, “Hey hows it goin”?
Once, I politely declined a guy’s “advances,” and got a
lovely diatribe on how all women were superficial bitches. That was fun. So,
Tinder – you can only communicate if you’ve both agreed you pass the first gate.
Last night, I was supposed to have a coffee date with
someone who passed the gate, but he got sick and texted to cancel and
reschedule. About an hour later, I just took down my profile.
I’ve done it before. My second stint on OkCupid lasted 12
hours—from when I put the profile up at night, to when I woke up horrified in
the morning, and took it down!
I was talking to a friend last night before my date was
cancelled about my amalgam of feelings around the whole “internet dating thing”: That I felt glad to get out there; that I felt loser-ish to “have to”
date that way; that I was excited for the date, but also trepidatious about
meeting a stranger who all I know is from two photos and a witty sentence.
And then the date was cancelled, and I was relieved.
It’s not to say that I won’t restart again, but I usually do internet dating only so long as I can stomach the concept. And
it’s hard (for me) to quiet the nausea long enough to “get out there.” That’s
okay. As Alanis Morissette says in her song “21 Things I Want In A Lover”
(which may as well be my WSM Craigslist ad), I’m in no rush, ‘cause I like
being solo…In the meantime I’ll live like there’s no tomorrow.
And though I agree with the second part, and will continue
to go out to meet myself and potentially meet you too, my desire for dinner for
two may bring me back to 140-character witticisms and culling my most
swipe-rightable photos.

love · relationships · self-love · vulnerability

The Corollary

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The thing about yesterday’s blog is there is a corollary
between how I have felt about money and debt and how I feel about love and
relationships.
I’ve surely written about “Romance and Finance” before, but
it’s worth repeating, for my own sake.
If, as I stated yesterday, the belief has been, If I have
debt, I can’t enjoy nice things, the (my) logic continues, If I have “work” to
do on myself, I can’t enjoy relationships. The belief in both cases is that if
I am not “fixed,” then I am not allowed to engage in the world. Or, another
way, if I am not perfect, or my vision of what that ever-moving target of
perfection is, then I am not allowed to receive or have good things.
Because, to the logic brain, it makes sense, doesn’t it? You
have debt, you can’t buy the nicer shampoo that doesn’t fry your curly hair. If
you have … let’s call it “intimacy issues,” you can’t be in relationship. BUT,
as we saw yesterday, and I’ve seen in these last months, I’ve been eroding that
belief around money, and allowing myself to enjoy things, even though I have debt. So… shouldn’t the corollary continue,
that even though I have work to
do on letting myself trust others, I can still allow myself to exist with them?
Eek. As a serially single person, I can’t tell you how hard that is to even hold on my
tongue for a minute. Because it brings a challenge, a “put your money where
your mouth is.” It means, that if I really am trying to believe that I can be
imperfect and still enjoy life… it means I have to start … trying. Trying to be
in relationship, not dating, not sex, not flirting, relationship. The kind where you say, You know what, I’ll commit
to you for an undetermined period of time. I’ll commit that I will attempt to
be as transparent as necessary, and as soft toward you as I can be. To me, to
be in relationship means that I will not duck out at 2 in the morning, I’ll be present during sex, I won’t
throw barbs or use sarcasm to keep you away. To be in relationship means
sitting through the discomfort of softening into another person — and HELL if
that’s not the scariest thing!!
I have and continue to do work that is helping me to soften into
myself, and surprisingly, I’m actually
having a good time of it – this “loving myself” thing. I’m actually getting the
hang of it, and becoming habitualized to it. So, it follows, that I am situated
to extend that love, that softness, that vulnerability outward. To someone else. Who I don’t know.
And trust that they won’t use this access they’ve been
granted to my heart as a pass to do damage, to infiltrate me and plant a bomb,
to establish trust and then usurp it, tragically.
Because it’s always been tragically. That’s the story,
that’s the history, but it doesn’t have to be.
That’s the same with the money. I’ve always earned less than I’m probably worth. I’ve always worked in jobs that don’t fire my faculties. But,
it’s meaning less and less to me; it’s goading less and less of me into
self-flagellation.
So, just because my love story has always been one where I am
left kicking myself for trusting someone… well, it doesn’t have to be. It
doesn’t have to mean as much.
Letting go of the story doesn’t invalidate my past experience; but it
doesn’t have to determine my future
anymore either.
I am sure I’ve said it here – that with the pattern of
awaiting perfection, which perhaps here may have meant perfect immunity to
hurt, to betrayed trust, to love– Ha! I’ve been waiting for immunity to love in
order to actually let someone love me and vice versa. Nooot sure how that logic
works!
But, if I have been waiting for some illusive “fixed,” and
an ever-changing target of it, then I will never be “ready” for a relationship. (Strangely, most people [I hear] look for a relationship to fix them, whereas I look to be fixed before I get into a relationship.)
So, the idea, then, is to change the goal. The goal, now, is
to not be fixed, but to be human. To allow myself to try to trust someone else
with the soft content of my heart, and believe one millisecond at a time that
they’re not a suicide bomber. 

community · faith · friends · generosity · gratitude · help · Jewish · love · service

That 20/20 Thing.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I guess I should tell you about the miracle-y things that have been happening during this time. There are two major
ones, and here they are:
One: My Job
(It’s funny, when I was home sick with strep prior to going
to the hospital, I emailed my boss about my home-sick-from-work status with the
title of the email “I thought Job was a later chapter” – little did I know!) ;P
So, as some of you have been reading, I’d been unemployed
since graduating with my Master’s in May. I’d been actively looking, thinking
about moving back home, applying to anything and everything, with no luck for months. Then, I got the job I now have at the synagogue in
Berkeley.
When I got this job, I was resentful. I was thrilled to
increase my bank balance from $3.98, but I felt ashamed that I had worked so
hard and arrived at what I considered to be an entry level position in the
front office – somewhere I’d been many times before. You heard me gripe about
it, be the opposite of humble about it, and generally kinda be a dick about
having finally gotten a job when I so desperately needed one.
So, here’s the “oo ee oo” part. I got sick. I got really
sick. I will be in and out of the hospital for the next 5 months or so, mostly
in. So, I can’t work, obviously.
My boss’s son had cancer when he was a child, and his son is
alive well, and just had a kid of his own. My boss has had empathy for my
situation from the beginning, and as this started to go down, he said to me
that they would have a temp in until I came back – that they would hold my job
for me. …
At the time this was said, I still didn’t really know what
all this cancer treatment would look like – how long it would be. So a few
weeks later, when I now knew it was going to be 5 months, not one, and my boss
came to visit me in the hospital, I hemmed and hawed – would they still keep my
job for me, knowing how long it would be ‘til I came back? Should I tell him?
Should I not and just hope for the best?
Well, I ended up telling him. And you know what he said? “I
know how important job security is at a time like this, and your job will be
here for you when you’re ready.” WHAT THE HELL? How are people so nice?
And here’s the miracle part – IF I had gotten a job with any
other company, I can’t imagine that they would be a tenth the amount of
understanding. I mean, a bottom line, deadlines, emails, someone needs to be ON
IT. If I had gotten any other job, I
can’t imagine that they’d hold my job for me ‘til I was healthy, let alone come
visit me in the hospital as several of my BRAND NEW coworkers have, and the
others who are planning to.
I couldn’t have planned this at all – and I was so pissed! So, hindsight is 20/20 and all that, right?
Although, there’s the part of me that’s like, um, hey G-d,
you OBVIOUSLY saw this cancer thing coming, having set me up like a champ here,
couldn’t we have gone a different route … but, it is what it is.
Two: My Apartment
I used to work for the property management company that
manages my apartment building here in Oakland. When I worked for them in SF,
they helped me get my apartment in SF, and when I moved to Oakland, they were
equally as generous in helping me with my apartment here (which, by the way, is
a 5 minute walk from the hospital at which I’m being treated…).
I left that job under not the most admirable circumstances,
and earlier this year, I emailed my former boss to say as much and to apologize
for not having been the worker I could have been. He emailed me back to say, yes actually, I could have handled that better, but that
he “had my back” if I needed a reference or anything.
Later this summer, however, I emailed him when I was in my mania of “do
i move back to New Jersey right now??” and I asked if I could give two-weeks’ notice on the
apartment if needed, instead of a month. He emailed one word. “No.” And his
assistant emailed me a form for the 30-day notice format 😉
So, I had no idea where I stood in his shit books or not
when my mom called him early in October and said, basically, my daughter has
leukemia and isn’t working, what can we do here?
Cue the “oo ee oo” once more. My former boss said … he
himself had leukemia two years before. He asked if I’d applied for disability
(if I’d have any income at all), my mom said yes. And he said, Don’t worry
about it. Just keep me informed, and we’ll work it out.
…
What? In SF Bay Area? Rent is a “we’ll work it out”??
Miracle. He told my mom that I’d helped him out when he’d needed it, and true,
I drove his dad to dialysis three days a week for a period while I worked there
(although, I think I got more out of that one – I learned a lot in those
conversations with that man).
My friend said recently to me that we get what we put into
the world, and all the goodness that’s coming back to me is simply that. I’m
just getting back what I’ve put into it.
It’s a little weird to think like that though, because my
immediate thoughts are, it’s not like I am nice on purpose, it’s not like I’m keeping score of how great a
person I am as I go out into the world. I just am how I am. So it feels weird
to feel like, in a way, I’m being rewarded for that “just the way I am”ness.
However, I was contemplating that ridiculousness the other day, and I
thought to myself, Molly, I don’t think cancer is a reward. 😛
The bottom line of the above two amazing stories is the
generosity of the human soul. It doesn’t really have anything to do with me.
I was talking with my current boss the other day about how
many people are wanting to help and do things for me, but there’s often not
much to do. I mean, I don’t really need much, except for some cards, and
visits, and on occasion a ride to the doctor or a grocery run. But only one
person at a time needs to do that. So there’s not a lot for people to do, and I
feel that desire they have – to want to do something. To want to take some aspect of my own burdens away
from me, because there are going to be many things that only I can and will go
through by myself in this process.
So, I’m going to try to think on what people can do that’s
concrete, that gives an opportunity to help and feel useful. Because this is what I
said to my boss – these days, we rarely get the chance to help each other
anymore. We’re all so independent, and I can do it on my own, that as a society and a people, that no one seems
to need help anymore.
In a way, my being sick gives others the opportunity to help
– to allow them to feel that good nachas
(Yiddish) from doing something for someone else, just out of the
kindness of their heart. Not for gain, or
to check that score card I talked about. But just to help, because you can, and
because you want to.
The capacity for human kindness shines very much in this
portion of my story. Which, really, isn’t Job, because I’ve got a lot more
support than he ever did. And I never owned any goats. 

anger · change · childhood · discovery · freedom · love · maturity · progress · recovery · sex · sexuality

Rage Against the Whatever’s Handy.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Last summer, before I started getting help around money, I
was in a bad way. I answered an ad for a company/house looking for dominatrixes
(dominatri?). I was desperate for money, and was almost willing to do anything
to make it.
So, I answered the ad, spoke with a woman on the phone,
looked at their website, and scheduled an interview.
Then, I emailed a friend of mine who’d been a dominatrix
once upon a time, and I asked her what her thoughts were around it. She replied
with an interesting thought. She said that it was a very low and base level
of energetic exchange.
Even though it sounds “woo-woo,” I knew what she meant. She
didn’t tell me yes or no, she just said, basically, that it felt icky. And that
she was heavily using drugs at the time.
A few days later, and before my interview, I called to let
them know I wouldn’t be coming in for my interview, that I’d like to cancel.
And that was the end of that.
However. I’m reminded of this now, about a “low” source of
energy, or power, because I’ve been experiencing the most wonderful (<–
sarcasm) feeling of free floating anger lately.
For those of you who know me, “angry” is likely the last
thing you’d associate with me – quirky, awkward, loving are most likely the top
layers, and indeed, the most core layers. But, in the middle of those is
everything that I’ve tried to put in between me and you. That includes sex, and
that includes anger.
Now that I’m in the process of extricating myself from any
sexual entanglements, grey areas, … dating sites…, I’m noticing that anger has
arisen where “sex” used to be.
When I was in junior high, and I came into school that one
Monday with contact lenses and makeup and suddenly I was visible, I rode that
high, and my anger that “you” only now noticed me, I rode that well into my
twenties.
I fed off of that energetic exchange. The power that a woman
(or man) holds via sexuality is more than palpable, it’s addictive. It’s
enlivening. It becomes what I’d come to believe was my only source of strength.
This was a “low” form of strength, and a false form. But oh
the many heads of it. I feel powerful (or visible, or valid) when you pay
attention to me. When you’re giving me what I think I need, when you’re eying
me, or flirting with me, or seeing what I know (or think I know) you’re seeing
when you see me.
So, now, I’m removing this source – I’m calling this well
toxic, and trying to walk away from it. Sex isn’t bad – but it can be a natural outcropping of feelings rather than
hormones.
I said yesterday to a friend that I feel like someone has pulled my
covers. That my defense mechanisms are being shorn away one by one, and so,
now, here I am with anger.
I am very aware that anger is just the other side of
vulnerability. I don’t want you to see how vulnerable I am, so I will put on my
angry armor and tell you to fuck off.
But, being aware of it doesn’t cancel it out.
I was reflecting this morning about the power of anger. I
realized that before there was the Power of Sex, there was the Power of Anger
in my life. It was modeled to me that if you were angry, you were powerful. If
you were angry, you were paid attention to (and left alone). I learned that
anger was an appropriate way to feel visible.
This, is a poor lesson. As frightened as I was when I was
younger, I began to learn to fight fire with fire. I learned this young too. I
was not really a pleasant kid, behind my shy exterior. The shy came after.
After I learned how to be angry, to yell back, to provoke, to antagonize, and
to defy. I learned that not everyone, especially in school, was going to put up
with that, and it sank inward, enclosed by the layer of “demure” and “shy.”
I’ll just disappear then. If I can’t have power via anger, then I apparently
don’t have any at all.
When I found sexuality, I found a “more acceptable” pathway
to visibility. And now, again, as that one’s being taken away from me – the
abuse of that power, rather – now, I’m falling backwards through my timeline
into anger.
Rage, really. I learned a lot about rage growing up – surely,
not as much as some, but more than Mr. Rogers would have wanted in his
neighborhood.
So, here I am at rage. One of my last defenses. I am sorry
to be here at it. And I also know that freedom from it will bring untold gifts.
But… I like it. And that’s the problem. The problem is that these sources of
power are still salivating. I still feed off them. I still feel powerful from
them, even “knowing” that they’re false.
I made someone angry yesterday, and I liked it. I felt
validated. If I’m able to make you mad, then that means that I’m alive, around,
meaningful. If I’m able to cause a reaction in you (previously, a sexual one;
now an angry one), then I have a purpose.
Yes, I “get” that these are totally fucked up thoughts. I
get that this has to be “gotten through” or it will continue to cause me pain.
And isolation.
But I felt that “low source of energy” when I was the
recipient of that anger yesterday. It’s like a “HA! See, you do care.”
It’s so Psych 101, it’s stupid – better negative attention
than no attention. But, it’s recorded in textbooks for a reason. It must be
prevalent enough and common enough to fall asleep to at your freshman college
desk.
So, that’s my thoughts for the day. Thoughts on feeling
vulnerable, and what I do to hide that. Thoughts on my reluctance to let go of
sex and rage as sources of “power” and validation. My thoughts on compassion
for myself, as I know this is hard. And a modicum of hope and self-validation
for choosing to move through this anyway.