The Immaterial Needs

I liked Debbie's explanation of wants and needs on my last post. Getting my hair done by a stylist did, in fact, meet an "extremely satisfying want!" Oh man guys, it was so much fun!!! I feel a million times better about my look and a little calmer about life in general. Also? It was super expensive.

Some material wants are tied into emotional needs. I spent about a decade concentrating on the very noble pursuit of empowerment. I cultivated my feelings of power by learning what I could do without, by developing self-supporting skills, and feeding a feeling of independence. That time was not at all wasted!

Unfortunately, independence could not cure the pain of my neglected emotional needs. I had one tool, and the hammer left everything that wasn't a nail battered and crumpled. Every unmet need fed a feeling of guilt and failure. If my feet were cold, but I didn't have time to knit socks, I apparently deserved cold feet. I was trying to fix a sense of deprivation with deprivation.

Finding my career was a major turning point because it felt totally and absolutely right. None of my own old mind games could convince me otherwise. Keeping my job required a dedication and devotion that expanded to self-care. I need this body in good working order! Anything that got in the way of that suddenly earned the intense and unforgiving scrutiny I'd only ever turned on myself.

Having always put absolutely everything before self-care, that's what earned my furious critique. Thus the end of my marriage, radically shifting roles and boundaries within my family, and terminated friendships. Thus the abandonment of my life-long coping mechanisms and the plunge into deadly depression and a year of total despair.

And, finally, a shift in attention. My feet, back, wrist, and teeth, and eyes had all been hurting for as long as I could remember. I felt silly going to doctors for these various ails and strains when my broken heart was the "real" problem. It took a lot of time and therapy to realize how backwards my thinking was. Yes, the cure for a broken heart might also be the cure for planters warts, a root canal, new contacts, and better-fitting shoes. The cure for a broken heart might be warm blankets on the bed and multi-vitamins and maybe even a really great hair stylist.

After the salon, I crawled into bed and watched the parade of emotional reactions. Meditation makes it easier, I think, to simply observe the wild shifts and storms of thought. I watched myself drift towards guilt and depression, and gently nudged myself to a safer thought process. "I have the day off and money," I whispered comfortingly, "there was more I wanted to do today than play with my hair, but it's still the weekend tomorrow. And then there is another day after that, and only five days before another weekend. If bed and a book are what I really want right now, that's okay. It's okay to ignore the knitting. It's okay to have a simple dinner."

In order to really meet the needs of ourselves and the world, we have to be able to acknowledge those needs. Dismissing any need that doesn't feel good or fixable is not the same thing as finding a solution. For many years I've felt like I've been slipping backwards: behaving less responsibly, less sustainable. Now I realize that I was digging down into myself, exploring my ideals and notions and pulling up those that didn't fit. Someday soon I will start moving forward again, building on myself. This time I will be better able to support the weight of my expectations and accomplishment. I will build a foundation worthy of my ideals.

Needing Needs Defined

I've spent more than my fair share of time perusing the fiscal self-help section of multiple libraries. I've focused on frugality, meditated on minimalism, and studied sustainability. What I managed to miss, somehow, was a clear explanation of need.

I preferred the chapters espousing the differences between "want" and "need." I preferred to believe that my needs were illusory and irrelevant. My deepest craving was to not need. To not feel neglected, or hungry, or bereft. To outgrow these petty states.

Fact is, I needed dental care. I needed shoes that fit and warm clothes. I needed fresh contacts and prescription glasses. I needed to be able to get to and from work, to sleep at night, and to pay rent. I needed all of these things all of the time, and more.

Last Saturday I spent nearly half of my paycheck on a pair of glasses. My prescription is expensive because I have to pay extra for the thinnest material. Even then these specs can't offer me perfect vision, so doctors prefer that I wear contact lenses. Ideally, I would own both so as to have perfect vision during the day and be able to rest my eyes at night. This ideal has never felt possible until now. It was such a revolutionary feeling to put in an order for both. 

I have almost always been perfectly capable of making these purchases. My priorities were out of whack. There are a lot of "whys," but the biggest one is a matter of pure ignorance. I honestly don't have a clear sense of which expenses are very reasonable and which are consumerist addictions.

Filling any prescription is a given. But what about matters of, say, hair? Obviously I'd feel better washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar (as I have happily done in the past), but I'm not going to refuse to wash with shampoo and conditioner if the mood strikes. When my hair grew past my shoulder blades, I bought a second-hand hair dryer and also a straightener. I wince to use the extra electricity, but it makes my tresses so much more manageable!

Noting my split ends and considering my twice-a-year trip to the barber, it occurred to me that many women go to stylists. Those women. Older women, richer women, cuter friends, prettier waitresses...Everything I do to beautify my head makes me feel happier and better about myself. Is a chunk of change paid to a professional who might be able to help me get exactly what I want a healthy choice?

I made an appointment for tomorrow morning. It's worth at least testing the water, right? In the meantime, I'm checking my other assumptions about right and wrong, worthwhile and authentic.

In The Morning...

Once upon a time, I woke up every morning feeling anxious. My eyes would open a few minutes before the alarm shrilly announced the arrival of another 5 a.m. I would stumble out of bed and towards the bathroom, unsure of what day it was (and do I even work today?) but certain, invariably, somehow, always, that I was late.

Late to catch the bus, late to make breakfast, late even for meditation and stretches! I made compromises and allowances - I'll pour myself coffee, but no time for breakfast! - as though I had a plane to catch. Every.Single.Morning.

I was driven by a relentless nervous energy that took the place of thoughtful and healthy decision-making. I was driven by guilt, obligation, fear, and just the smallest dose of hope: maybe it won't always be this way.

Depression replaced my anxiety with apathy and major fatigue. I stopped setting the alarm and started sleeping twelve hours a day. Despite being too sick to really appreciate it at the time, I couldn't ignore the fact that the sun made its way across the sky without my supervision. My bosses didn't seem to notice whether I was in an hour or two hours before they arrived at the office, or how late I stayed behind. They were happy with what I had to offer - however meager it felt to me. 

As the fatigue diminishes, I guard against the return of anxiety. I think carefully about how I want to spend the day and realistically asses my time tables. A very deliberate daily routine is slowly establishing itself: I'm still the first person in the shop every morning, but I'm also the first one to leave. I sleep in on the weekends and allow myself to lounge, putter, and relax more than ever before. 

What will drive me in the absence of panic? Hopefully the healing process will naturally lead to increased productivity and creativity. Maybe my expectations will settle into achievable goals. Maaaaybe my crazy energy will return, sans anxiety?

For now, I open my eyes in the morning and simply feel. Grateful for a long morning stretching ahead of me, or nervous for a big project due at work, or sad, or happy. For now, that's enough.

Meeting Self

This morning a housemate, C, gave me  a ride to work. He is one of the seven adults who have watched, somewhat intimately, my insane metamorphosis from happily-married-but-overwhelmed-night-shift-waitress to single-career-woman-recovering-from-depression. He is possibly one of the only people in the world who knows me well enough to wonder, "do you regret it?"

The job, he means, not the divorce. Do I regret working flexible 9-5 hours, earning decent money with plenty of room for and promise of growth, paid training, and good health insurance? Do I enjoy the constant challenge and the steady peace that comes from working with my hands, with wood, with tools?

C is one of the few people who would ask the question and understand the answer, "I did for a long time..."

For the longest, terrible time, I sat in traffic every morning and dreaded the dawning reality that this would be my commute every day forever. Never mind that it wasn't true, and I knew that it wasn't exactly true. It wasn't the commute that bothered me, but the forever. The same desk every day, the same boss and coworkers, the same environment...

The same me. That's the scary part. Until last year, I'd changed jobs every couple of years. Whenever things got to feeling cramped, I could up and go. Sometimes I would burn bridges, usually not. Every new job was a chance to reinvent myself, discover myself, and be told who I was. If I didn't like my place in the universe, I could change. I could change jobs, I mean.

Committing to my career and its few associated restraints meant committing, for the absolute first time in my life, to a version of My Self. At that point I came face-to-face with my warring duality, contradictions, and fears. Of course I wasn't actually changing with every job. I have only ever been a single individual, desperately changing her surroundings on a regular basis to maintain the comfortable familiarity of chaos.

My field of study does not abide chaos. Whereas waiting tables was a matter of deftly navigating the ebbs and flow of disorder with occasional tsunamis of panic, my new work requires focus, concentration, and mindfulness. Waiting tables was a matter of fake smiles and flirtation: with customers, coworkers,and employers. Working at my desk brought me in close daily contact with no one but myself. "No one laughs at my jokes," I realized aloud one day.

First I was struck by the bitterness of this statement, but another emotion followed in its wake. I felt a deep relief at having precisely defined my discontent. I wasn't just talking to myself, I had heard myself.

Until that day I only felt funny when someone was laughing at me. I felt pretty when someone was complimenting me, and accomplished when someone was praising me. I craved outside reinforcement that my job wasn't providing, and which I had never thought to cultivate outside of work.

Realizing this was my first self-affirmation. It was my first blind step towards self-actualization, towards being a person who can provide for her own sense of self.

That was roughly a year ago. There are still days that I crave the society and feedback of waiting tables. But I no longer regret the consistency of my days or fear the impending "forever." I sit down with myself for eight long hours a day and giggle at my own silly thoughts, wink at the distorted self reflected by my shiny tools, and take photographs of new accomplishments and tricky maneuvers. As I am able to feel more and more, and better and better, my contentment surfaces. I don't regret this.

Not ever.

2016. I'm ready.

My Caribbean vacation was wildly successful and gave me some serious food for thought. As well as possibly diabetes. The constant buffet was pretty intense!

I was gone from January 3rd to January 10th, and the return home concluded what was effectively close to five months of juggling a busy work schedule with holidays, weekend camping trips, and vacations. I also went on two road trips to New Mexico in 2015, in January and May, so really last year was thick with travel! It's so strange to look back on what was the hardest year of my life and think, "wow, that was...that was such a fortunate year." And it was. God help me, I died. I buried my father and ended my marriage and cried and cried and cried and ended some toxic friendships and spent the majority of mornings trying to figure out exactly how to make my way out of bed and back into the world...

Somehow I also saw the Marfa lights. Somehow I made it to work almost every single day and by some miracle did well. Somehow I saw amazing live music. Somehow I made the six-hour drive across the beautiful West Texas desert three times, in January, May, and October, to sleep under the stars. Somehow I went to parties, visited new babies in hospitals, attended weddings, and made my way to the Midwest to spend a fantastic week with my elder brother. Somehow I dealt with the little medical issues plaguing me, in some cases, my entire life. For the first time, my mouth is cavity-free. I have a doctor, prescriptions, I can afford contact lenses AND glasses. I...I also have a Prozac prescription. Because last year was HARD. But also amazing.

This year I'm not going to suffer so much. This year the pain won't blind me to the point that I squint at the beauty that surrounds me, knowing it's there, and furious at my inability to see it. Last year I went through the motions, and it took that entire time, and all of that beauty and adventure (and Prozac), to finally even begin to experience life again. And yeah, I'm still just at the beginning.

It's taken me thirty years just to get to the starting line.

But I'm about ready.