Writing to right myself

Today, I have so much to do and I am not doing it. Being out of work means having some kind of self-imposed routine. Something I do not seem to have today. I have taken one job-search-related action today. Supposedly that is all I have to do every day - one action. Doesn't feel like enough. So writing is one way to get myself motivated.

The idea of writing about things I really know is not a new one. From time immemorial, writers have memorialized their most compelling and most trivial moments in novels, poems and memoirs. Yet writing down memories, using writing to reflect and remember - just has not occurred to me as a legitimate endeavor - for me.

I've spent so much time comparing myself to other writers (wow! I actually include myself in that category...), that my life isn't interesting enough or I haven't done the kind of things that other people write about. It's definitely blocked my ability to use writing as a tool for expressing myself. Interesting that I have not been able to use writing for myself because I compare myself to others. So I myself am not enough, is the ipso facto of that equation.

While I'm not sure how or why it happened, it is now clear to me that I am enough. That what I do or think or say or want is just fine for me. It's not about fitting myself into the round hole by shaving off inconvenient or unpleasant or unwelcome or even hidden parts of me. I have striven to fit in, rather than to have the right fit. So now under Project Right Fit, I am committed to the idea that there IS a right fit for me, perhaps several of them, and it's a matter of me choosing the right one for now.

Working for the diva certainly propelled me along this trajectory. I have spent many years wishing to get close to celebrity - either become one myself or be friends with one or two or more. The daydreams about marrying Prince Albert of Monaco or George Clooney. The fantasies about Julia Roberts wanting to be my friend because we have the same first name. The thinking that celebrities have something I also have and they will recognize it once they see me, meet me, talk to me. They, too, will want what I have. Just as I have charmed masses of mere mortals and become a power of example for many ordinary folks, I can charm the stars themselves into accepting and loving me.

It's as if I never grew up in some very fundamental way. I've held on to my childhood fantasies of marrying a millionaire, of becoming a movie star, of being President of the United States, of writing the best-selling novel of the century - of having my own fame and fortune, or at least sharing in someone else's fame and fortune. Of course, I haven't taken the steps toward fulfilling these fantasies. I've pursued other paths, other fantasies from childhood such as making the world a happier place, a more just place, a socially civilized place. And the job at NYRP was like my step into a childhood fantasy - reflected glory from working for the diva. Oh how naive I was! Maybe naive isn't the right word. It was simply shocking to realize that she was not going to give me a chance to charm her. I was ostracized from the word go. I was not "her staff." Why did I think I ever could be? I believed so much in my own personal power, in my own magnetism, that I felt I would register more quickly as a "good guy" in her camp. But no. I wonder what could have made a difference. Not hiring Naomi? Maybe, but the diva wasn't talking to me from the very beginning. You know, this is where I get into trouble, trying to figure out how I could have behaved differently. The point for me is that it wasn't a fit, I knew it wasn't a fit, I wanted to find out how much not a fit it was, and I went ahead and made a hiring decision with the awareness that I was finding out where my authority began and ended. And I did find out. That was an awful day, having to ask her for a second chance. What a b****, "I don't know, Julia. What have you learned?" I still think my response was right on target:"to be a steward of your vision." And I am not satisfied with being a steward of anyone else's sole vision. A group vision, great. I can help a group find their vision - if everyone is willing to play. If the most important person is unwilling to play, it can't happen. And so it went. Now I have this little fantasy that she'll remember me, she'll realize how good I was, blah blah blah. If she remembers me at all, she'll do so with contempt and dismissal. I do know I did my best for NYRP, and I believe they are in better shape now than they were before I arrived.

So the lesson for me includes "right fit" and earn my own fame and fortune, if that is really what I want. I do want to influence people on a wide scale. I do want to practice the principles of courtesy, open-mindedness, positive thinking, honesty, integrity, self-examination, personal accountability, kindness, respect for self and others, hard work, life-long learning, generosity, support, service, charity, fairness and love. I want to value myself, my life and my learning. I want to help give voice to the silent - including myself. I want to be someplace where I get to shine on my own merits and achievements, where my personality is valued and welcomed, and where I make a difference for the good of others. Don't know where, don't know when...but do know that it will happen.

With this acceptance that I am just exactly right, and that I can/will find the right fit of work for me, I'm finding that I understand the work needed to fulfill my dreams and fantasies. It is hard work to stay positive, to keep on the road and not rest overlong, to take action day after day, to believe in myself and my abilities and talents, to allow my passions to take me along, to have faith and allow God to exist and guide me, to forgive others for being human and hurting me.

Hard work that I can do, because all I have to do is from inside. Instead of referring to the outside world to see how I'm doing, I go inside to see if I feel aligned with my values, my skills, my passions. If I am, then I'm doing great. If I feel out of integrity with myself, that's what I need to address. This is a giant revelation to me, this self-acceptance and self-referencing.

The old way of being was in some ways grounded in my belief that I was all-powerful, that I could somehow mold others to my reality, that I could mold reality to my wishes. I've been supported in that egotistical belief by therapists and friends and employees who have told me that I'm so amazing, so special, so gifted, so inspirational, so much a power of example, so visionary, so really different and almost saintlike. And I've drunk it all in.

A heady mixture of praise, with a little bit of criticism from Linda. How I let her stay in my life is almost beyond me. Maybe there always was hope for me, as I kept the value of self-examination and listening to others. Because I still don't know exactly how or if I'll be able to mitigate my shortcomings regarding colleagues and bosses and other ego-maniacs. But perhaps I'll have a fresh appreciation of what I do well, what I don't do well, and what I can value in other people. The arrogance and contempt for those who don't think as I do - very unpleasant traits that I'd be very well rid of! Perhaps by valuing myself by my own standards, I can allow others to be valuable according to their own standards.

Now - let's be honest here - I still am striving for sainthood, but perhaps with a bit more humility. Humility born of the humiliation of having absolutely no impact on someone's opinion of me - or rather, having only the impact of worsening someone's opinion of me - completely against my will and intent.

Not everyone will like me. Sob! Why is that so hard to accept? I just think I'm so fantastic. Is this what it means to be a "person among people," "one among the many?" I can be fantastic and still not be everyone's cup of tea. Just as they are not mine. If I never see the diva again, it will be too soon. She is just not a very pleasant human being. And I don't think she'll mind my absence from her life either.

resentment, the silent killer

My resentments are holding me back, killing my dreams.
Moving ahead is impossible.
Cries of pain, tears of humiliation tug at my shoulders and waist
craving attention and resolution.
I hate those people, I hate those things.
And I feel it over and over and over again.
Refeeling, re-sentiment, resentment.
Over and over I hate.
I resent Judas and Weasel and Lower-Than-Dirt.
Hard to even think of Miss C.
The look of hatred in her eyes mirrored mine.
And I see it again and again, as charged today as it was so many months ago.
Painful to feel again. Heart-stabbing pain, in fact.
The remedy is to fully feel, fully express, fully accept, fully forgive.
Forget? Doubtful. But you never know.
After all the work is done to erase resentment, memory fades.
Without the sharpness of the pain, memory loses its currency.
So resentment keeps the past current.
A logjam of feelings dams me. It blocks the present flow.
Hardly optimal experience or even Good Orderly Direction.
How can I be in "the flow" with such obstructions?
Of my own making is this dam, with its carefully stacked and sorted hurts and hates and angers.
And yet it has an aura of neglect. Little visited, barely smoothed.
Sharp edges jut out harshly, nicking and cutting my heart at every infrequent pass.
So shall I dismantle this home-made wall, take down the fortress, risk the wounds already endured?
That is the point, isn't it? The worst has already happened.
Refeeling can never be as bad as the catastrophic and unanticipated original feeling.
My mind tells me differently. "It will kill you!"
My heart tells the truth. "These resentments are killing you - and your future."

A Fundamental Connection

Last night I was talking about how my sister is fundamental in my life. She is bedrock. As long as I don't go away, she'll always be there. And I have no intention of ever going away. Because I need her, I need that bedrock.

Singletons may wonder what this is like. Some singletons claim that their feelings for a sibling or parent are the same. I have two other siblings and parents, and while I do feel they are critical parts of my life, they are not essential in the same way. Well, they're not essential. I will miss them terribly, I will cry and be sad. But if my sister were to die...I don't know what will happen. I've talked to identical twins who've lost their twin, and they say it's like a part of them is gone. It's pointless in some ways to compare twin and singleton experience, it just irritates me when singletons want to claim that they know how twins feel. How on earth can they? They don't have the same experience as we do. Similarly, I don't have the same experience as a singleton. Our experiences are just different.

That said, I am amazed at the power of my connection with my sister. How much I need her. It makes some kind of sense. After all, we have been together from time zero. The only time we were separate pre-birth was when she popped out and 27 minutes later I emerged. The family joke is that I needed some space. Which I probably did, still do. Since then, we've been apart a lot, but always in contact. Probably college was the time we were most separate - the summer between sophomore and junior year was particularly distant. I spent the summer in Los Angeles with my girlfriend's family and Alana was in Brussels, Belgium and the south of France (Grasse, I believe). Our contact was quite minimal - a few letters and postcards. These were the pre-e-mail days of 1978.

That reminds me of one of the most common questions asked by singletons about twins - sometimes the very first one: "do you have telepathic communication?" We do have some psychic connection, not predictable or continuous. When one is in trouble, though, we know it. And our lives have been somewhat synchronous. Despite our best efforts to differentiate.

During our junior year, she was at Northwestern University for a semester. I was at Smith but living in a different house than in my first two years. One night I dreamed that she was in a Dali-esque set, like the dream sequence in 'North by Northwest.' She was skiing down a house roof and coming too close to the edge and falling to her death. When I woke up, I called her only to find out that the previous night, she'd been feeling quite suicidal. A friend knocked on her door and they talked, and she didn't do anything stupid. We hadn't been in much contact before that, but I knew something was wrong. For me, that is the most powerful example of the psychic connection.

Other examples are more mundane - like when we show up wearing the exact same thing, or the same color scheme. It makes some sense in that we have the same coloring and body type, so we should buy the same kinds and colors of clothes. But we have a wide variety of clothes, many colors, many styles. So how come we end up dressed virtually the same about half the time? Just one of those doo-doo-doo-doo Twilight Zone things.

Synchronicity is another story for another time.

twin power

I wrote a whole section about twin power and the usual questions people ask about twins - and didn't save it. Damn. Now I'll have to rewrite everything. Some twin power.

This morning, I realized that my life is a function of my twin sister's - and that's just fine with me. 47 1/2 years into this twinship, I'm at peace with it.

People want me to have my own life, to pursue a path separate from that of my sister. They are singletons and just don't get it - there is no life separate from my twin. How could they get it? They view us (twins) as freaks, in the nicest possible way. I mean, we don't belong in a freak show (or do we?). But we are oddities among the normal.

I always thought it would be useful for psychologists to study how twins separate and individuate, rather than keep that stupid focus on how alike we are. You know, "separated at birth but both are cowboys!" "They buy the same clothes! Named their cats the same thing!" So what? As my sister says, duh, we have the same body type and coloring, why wouldn't we dress alike?

I actually think human beings trend toward looking alike. In my office one day, every other person came in wearing the exact same color combination - dark red and black. There were 15 of us in the exact same colors - even though some were blond and some brunette, some black and some white, some male and some female. What are the odds of that? I think that over time we all picked up subtle clues about what colors occurred most often and thus would contribute to creating the most harmonious workplace. Of course, that was our goal - to have harmony.

I suppose you could see people wearing radically different clothes at work as indicative of a conflict-ridden culture. Like my last job - major differences in what people wore. I could tell that I was making headway in creating a team when a few of us showed up in the same color combinations a few times. Alas, I am gone from that job.

Lest one thinks that it is my "twin power" creating all this synchronicity, I'll remind you that women living together for some length of time end up having their monthly cycles coincide. And people look like their dogs. And married people end up looking alike. We like "likeness." Many of us certainly like looking at ourselves in the mirror. We actually think that people who can't look at themselves in the mirror have some kind of mental infirmity - self-hatred or no-self-esteem.