Mental gymnastics

Rather than getting the restorative break that I needed up at the cabin, I returned home feeling exhausted and a wee bit ... broken.

Although I slept like the dead in that fresh air and the unusually comfortable bed, I stayed up too late each night. And during the days and evenings, I did not have the right environment to enter into the meditational space I normally access more easily when I'm up at the lake.

Some of this was related to my well-founded concerns about taking a child up there with me. As much as Rather Shy Classmate's young daughter may have taught me a thing or two, I prefer more solitude -- and considerably less effort at negotiation -- when it comes to my vacation time. So ... sorry, folks, no more kiddies at the cabin.

But the other problem is the mental gymnastics in which I seem to have become vigorously engaged in recent weeks. I've got intellectual pursuits in terms of the independent study about death and dying that I'm doing this coming fall. I've also been faced with questions of a spiritual nature in the past couple months. And it seems that some of the unresolved -- and, I think, perhaps unresolvable -- issues from my childhood and adolescence are making themselves felt lately.

The end result is that I am almost fully and completely EXHAUSTED. I feel like I need another week -- alone -- at the cabin. Or, at the very least, several serious spa treatments. A long, hot bath. Mud packed all over my body. Another long, hot bath. A two-hour massage, followed by being wrapped in hot towels. Then, a facial.

And then, sex. Yeah. Some goddamned physical intimacy! Someone to touch me lovingly and fearlessly, already full of the knowing of me. No explanations necessary.

Followed by ... food. Food that I have not cooked for myself. Food that has not come from the Thai place downstairs. Food about which I have made no decisions but with which I will have no qualms. Food that has been whipped up (or at least ordered for delivery) by someone else. Someone who knows my palate, my appetites, my delights.

In short, I just want to be taken care of for a little while instead of always taking care of myself (and sometimes others).

Is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

Because rather than getting any of that, I'm instead cleaning my home and preparing for a party. A party that someone else is technically hosting but is doing so in my home -- and for which I'll be cooking a couple things. This party is on Wednesday. It's a sad occasion, really. Marking two years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and displaced my friend King Rex. He is the one having the party here.

Let me get something straight: I support the party. In fact, it seems to have been my idea. (Kinda, sorta. I suggested he do "something" to mark that dramatic experience, which forced him to flee New Orleans and land here in Portland.) But I also did not expect to come back from the lake feeling so TIRED. So getting ready for this party is feeling a lot more difficult than I anticipated.

That happened with the last party I threw, too. I let myself get talked into having a Mardi Gras party just a few weeks after my aunt, a New Orleans native, died. And I felt outrageously sluggish while preparing for it. The closer and closer it got to Mardi Gras, the more leaden I felt.

Now that I think of it, I suspect some of the problem I'm having right about now is related to my aunt's death. A year ago this week, I was visiting her in Hawaii, and I filmed about five hours of interviews with her. I knew she was dying, so I conducted a life story interview with her. It was a rich thing to do.

The visit was also marked by several important conversations between the two of us. Boiled down to simplicity, it was the stuff of life and death, the work of finding love and connection and of not being dogged by one's parents.

At the same time, I was freaking out a little. I kept calling home -- meaning I kept calling S2 because there is no "home" for me to call when I'm out of town (me being the only resident) -- and fretting about things. I described it to her as home sickness, but the truth is that I needed some sense of an anchor elsewhere.

My aunt had always represented an anchor for me, the one person in the world I knew would love me no matter what. And seeing how frail she had become since my last visit -- 16 months prior, before she was diagnosed with lymphoma -- was too clear a message about her impending departure. So I kept reaching out to S2, just to persuade myself that I had a life somewhere else and that it was populated by at least one other person who cared about me, even though neither she nor anyone else will ever be a person who "loves me no matter what."

This observation isn't meant to dis S2 or anyone else who cares about me. It's more about losing the person in whom I actually had that kind of faith. We don't get many people like that in our lives, and I feel lucky for having had even just one.

But I've lost that person -- and I haven't even got someone who will pretend to fill that role, as a partner might -- and that is feeling like another gigantic hole in my life. Joining the holes of no longer having XGF in my life, not having a family of my own, not having financial security of any sort, not having any sense of security whatsoever. On top of the spiritual questions and the unresolved trauma and the insecurity I'm feeling about my career change, it's all feeling like a bit too much.

I spent a while talking to S2 tonight about what's bothering me. She said it sounded like I was looking for an answer to a question I don't even know how to ask. She also said that maybe my intellect is poorly matched with my motivation. (Too smart, not enough drive to do anything with it.)

Both of those comments have the resonance of truth to me. But I can't even begin to articulate why.

I'll have to think about it. One more routine to add to my mental gymnastics performance.

But first, sleep. And maybe, if I can find a good deal at a reputable place, a little spa action.