I'll Have Some Cheese With my Whine!

I'm almost too embarrassed to tell you this! I had met somebody on-line and we were talking--well  texting and e-mailing and even talking on the phone pretty often. Now, you need to know this, if you somehow thought otherwise: being a psychotherapist in no way makes me immune from the same sorts of problems my clients deal with. As we therapists say: "A fish doesn't know that it's wet."

I have told other people (and need other people to tell me, at times) that, often our best quality is also our worst quality, as well. My imagination is essential to me in so many ways. It helps me to find out how to help people, which is my profession. It gives me things to write about for this blog and for the essays of mine that occasionally get aired on the radio. And, it's so much a part of my very personality....And, yet, it gets me in trouble, as it did with this total stranger who might very well be a unibomber or a sexual predator. Let me explain.

Sight unseen, this rather attractive (I had only seen the photo he posted on his profile--and his profile made him sound so adorable) man, told me that he would be in Milwaukee in a few weeks for a family wedding and would I like to be his date. I answered back that this was an interesting proposition, but hadn't we best meet one another first. He agreed, but since he was in another state; he probably would not be here for the wedding for several weeks.

We exchanged e-mail addresses and telephone numbers and started to have a virtual relationship, that is, talk to one another by one or another of these methods of comnunication quite often. It almost seemed as if we had a running conversation going throughout the day. He'd text, then call. I'd e-mail him back, then we'd text one another photos of what we were doing that day. It almost felt as if I had a h**band! I mean, I would tell him what I was doing throughout the day & he would tell me. It reminded me of what I really liked about having a h**band.

Then, it got a tad flirty, almost intimate. At times, he felt to me like he "went over the top." I pulled back, but then he'd write or call and say something sweet and charming. And there I was again, making up the "us" story....We can live here part of the year and there part of the year...and He's a writer, I'm a writer: We'll write together...and we both liked to travel: He has relatives in Paris, I have relatives in Normandy...We can spend time in both places visiting our families and traveling in Europe.


So, there I was, concocting a story about a person I didn't even know I liked. A person who I might meet and have no chemistry with in any way! But, on-line, on-the-phone, by text it was fun to dream. And so I did. For a week---maybe it was two, this went on. At one point, he invited me to fly out to meet him halfway. And, though I knew how crazy this would be, I was actually tempted to do it.

And then, just as he had appeared on the don'tbedesperate.com dating site, the one where a lot of really nice guys appear; he totally disappeared. He didn't write; he didn't call. I texted him and got the he's- really-not-that-into-you response: "I've just been busy."

Now, I have a friend who has lost the love of her life to cancer; a friend whose husband is so depressed he's been living in their bedroom. I have another friend who's fiance has been on a fishing trip and has "gone missing"! So, I really have got some nerve whining about this guy who is not even a real person. He could be married. He could be afflicted with a terrible drug problem. He could be a group of precocious teen boys who made up an identity. Yet, as if he were real; as if he were a h**band, my husband.....it feels as if a real person came into my life and he's left me. I know, I have nothing to feel whiny about....but, I feel whiny. So, hey, please pass the cheese. I do so like cheese with my whine.

Attention Deficit, Could it be The Out-of-the-Box-Creative-Thinker's Gift?

I have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. What this means is that I have difficulty in concentrating on things I am not interested in. Sometimes this makes me wonder---Do I really have a deficit because I'm not good at organizing paperwork or returning to tasks that are intellectually unstimulating for me? Or is it just that I am somehow in a space where the organizer has more value than the creative-person, unless that creative person is a Spielberg or an Einstein or a J.K. Rowlings.

I go back and forth on this. I have a feeling that none of these original thinkers do or did their own taxes, organized their filing cabinets or kept up with their bills all-by-themselves. I think they hired people who were good at those tasks to do them. Even people who are good with math or law or science can be creative-thinkers (possibly diagnosed with A.D.D.). But, they are good in a way that interests them. Not necessarily the research--but more the original concepts.

Dr Iain McGilchrist has a little animated feature on u-tube called "The Divided Brain." In it he looks at how the different parts of the brain communicate--and how rational thinking (which is basically being good at whatever already exists) gets more appreciation than the creative thinking (which is inventing new and better things that the creative brain brings into existence).

Well, of course we have to pay our taxes and our bills and put our clothes away and locate our phone numbers. But, instead of understanding that different people have a different skill-set, generally, in the world I inhabit, anyway; we believe that rational-thinkers have cornered the market on what-is-needed--and creative-thinkers are dreamers-who-don't-really-accomplish much.

I think of a story I heard about an alien that came to a planet where all its inhabitants had four-fingers.
The alien had five fingers and, so, was a freak of nature---well, on this planet. So the planets' inhabitants thought about how to remedy the problem. And what they came up with was to remove one of his fingers---so he could be just like them! Instead of looking at the possible advantages of having a hand that could pick up more, these rational thinkers found a way to have their hands be the only kind of hands there were.

I wonder about the value of creative-thinkers in a rational-thinkers world. Perhaps we should all be
considering the value of individual differences; understanding that creative-thinkers are necessary to invent and inspire and make new things happen. Rational-thinkers are important too; to see that the inventions and inspirations and new things that creative-thinkers create, continue to function efficiently and to keep replicating the inventions and teaching the concepts to others, so that the rest of us can pay our taxes and our bills, keep our filing cabinets organized and get the services that would not be there in the first place without the creative-thinkers.

I know my Attention Deficit seems like a deficit when I am trying to do a task like deal with insurance companies to see that they do what I am paying for them to do--or straighten out a banking or a billing error. But this kind of thinking sure comes in handy when I am feeling inspired in a therapy session to see what is blocking my client from achieving his goals or when I am writing to you in this blog or when I am combining a lot of what I know from all the places my mind is attracted to to come up with an-alternative-to-what-is.

Surviving the If-Onlys

I sometimes have a story I tell myself that goes like this: "I would be happy, if only..." This is an old story for me. You may have, at times, told yourself this story too. It deals with seeing one aspect of somebody else's life---and then thinking that if I had that aspect of their life, myself, I would be happy.

What I forget, when I am telling myself this story and believing it, is that along with that aspect of somebody else's life, come all the other aspects of their life. Their challenges. Their relationships. The whole shebang!

When I was an adolescent, I thought to myself: "If only I had her figure and her great smile and her cheekbones, I'd be perfect!" What I did not look at when I was if-only-ing, is that along with her figure, her smile, and her cheekbones, come all the other aspects of her life: her family (I like my own family); her talents (I'll keep my own, thank you); and her troubles (and who wants anybody else's troubles?)

In Buddhism, I believe they call this human quality, grasping; where we long for what we do not have. The corollary to it is that we have aversion, or we reject, anything we do have--but don't want-- in our own lives. Like, "If only I had more money" or "If only my mate was more loving" or "If only my kids would be different." The thing is, if we had so-and-so's money or mate or kids, we'd have to have the other aspects of her life that we might not want; maybe her dependency issues, her health, or her kids.

In life, it generally follows that the good comes with the bad. If you marry the football hero or the movie star that you so longed for as a young person, you will also get all the other aspects of his character: his ability to be a good father, a good husband, a co-provider. (To de-feminize this example, use the hotgirl-on-campus, instead of the football hero...See what I mean?)

Here is the circular nature of the if only's. A common if-only is: "If only I had a relationship, I would be happy." Then, you find a relationship; and it's: "If only I could change this relationship, I would be happy";  or, "If only I had a different relationship, I would be happy." Then, it's "If only I were out of this relationship or on-my-own, I would be happy." And when we are on-our-own, it's often, again, "If only I were in a relationship."

It seems that happiness never happens where we live in this paradigm; it alway lies out there somewhere. But, once we get to that somewhere, we find that this isn't the answer either. Or, not for long. Or, it comes with a whole slew of other if onlys. Thus, happiness always eludes us. It's never, "in the now, " as Ekhardt Tolle has written in his wonderful book, A New Earth: Finding Your Life's Purpose.

Is happiness a thing we can win? A thing that is out-there? Or is it a quality of mystery and wonder that lies in our own Inner Knowing? I've noticed that when I am in "A Blue Period," sometimes I find I can  shift what seems to be a dark cloud over my psyche, if I simply think a different thought or take a break from the negative voices in my head, by talking to a positive friend or by reading a book about "The Law of Attraction" or by just watching a DVD I like.

I have a friend who has contracted a painful disorder that may even shorten her life. But, she says that, unexpectedly, she finds herself happier than she has ever been in her life. The radio show host and columnist, quadriplegic psychologist Dr. Dan Gottlieb says that after his accident, he found more purpose in his life than ever before. He reports that he became happier than he had ever been in his life, despite--and, possibly because of--his disability.

It's like that quote by Canadian Buddhist songwriter/poet, Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." I like that. If I can remember it when I am in my if-onlys, I
would be very pleased...But, I suppose that is an if only, too? Drat! Maybe, then,  you will remind me that I actually wrote this blog.