Post-Traumatic Stress by Lucky

I’m tired. The drums of the election go on and on. I voted, and where last time I voted was the first time I felt I could vote for someone I wanted and could believe in, I’m back to voting for the lesser of two evils. I wish Obama could be the President I voted for. I’m not sure that fully explains why I am tired though. I think I just may be tired because I’m not the man I could be. I’m tired because I’m still carrying around a weight that grieves me.

I am dwelling with the possibility, I would say probability, that I know something, that I’ve been exposed to something so difficult to metabolize, that I live with the consequences everyday. What am I talking about? I’ll tell you how it came to me this time. Then maybe you will understand.

I was with a group of elders. We were having coffee and talking, like we do every Friday.

We started with a question about being happy while knowing the world was in the condition it was in. As sometimes happens in groups the conversation seemed to wander. Soon it came around to examining if I was traumatized by what happened to me? The stroke had changed my life in some very abrupt and difficult ways. I feel ‘Lucky,” the stroke has given me a special kind of awareness in place of what it had taken away. I am traumatized in a complex way.

This set me to thinking. The original question had been about the possibility of being happy despite the traumatizing awareness of the condition of our blue home. Together we more or less concluded that despite the trauma of knowing how much we have participated in screwing things up, the weight of Life circumstance dictated that we enjoy the moments that the Universe, or God, provides. Trauma was part of the equation but not ultimately defining.

It is the same for me. The suddenness and finality of the stroke changed my life completely. I now live with that awareness. Life can change radically any moment. Is that a traumatic awareness? Some would say “yes.” I, instead, feel lucky. The world is awash with transient, ever-changing phenomenon. I accept and appreciate them like never before. My life has been enriched by the trauma that altered my awareness. An abrupt, painful change, which I cannot forget, traumatized me and enhanced the quality of my life.

After this conversation I continued to think about this. I remembered when I had taught graduate school, I had once been given a student’s paper where she made the claim that because we have been exposed to this toxic culture we all were stunted by post-traumatic stress. This memory made me think that there was great trauma associated with waking up in this world at this time. While I think this is truly a painful realization, I can’t decide if this is classic trauma. Is wakefulness worth the pain? Am I a distorted being because I have weathered the pain and notice? I don’t think so, but I know I have been radically and painfully altered.

I carry around a kind of stress now, One could call it a kind of post-traumatic stress. If it is, then I am thankful for it. I wasn’t always. When I first came to realize the scale and complexity of what we have done to ourselves,  each other, and this beautiful green planet, I was chagrined, dismayed, embarrassed, and shameful. Despair followed me everywhere. Then slowly I have come back to life. I still feel the pain, mostly as grief now, and as I have learned, grieving is another form of praise.

Knowing what I know, being traumatized as I have been, I see the world differently. I’m not likely to ever forget what I’ve beheld, but I am much more likely to love the fragile and persistent beauty that I now see more clearly. The world is a traumatized reality. Existence is an overwhelming thing. I used to feel like it was too much, now I exult in having the opportunity to know this mysterious complexity.

So why am I so tired? I’m praised out. I think I’m suffering from caring fatigue. I know the Universe is going to keep going, expanding way beyond my comprehension. Thankfully! Me, I’m tired, and all I can do is rest in that assurance. Tomorrow brings new surprises. Undoubtedly, some of them will renew my rested energy.

Shyness by Lucky

You probably wouldn’t know it from interacting with me, or reading the Slow Lane pieces, but I am shy. I was thinking about this last week-end, and asked my sweety about it. I asked her if she ever felt shy around me, because, as I admitted, I sometimes felt shy around her. This precipitated a broader discussion of shyness, which I want to share, because it seems so relevant to the opportunity each of us has, to be ourselves and change the world.

We acknowledged our private shyness with each other, but we went on, to look at what leads to shyness and how it often gets played out.  For us, it seemed to revolve around the others seeing parts of us that we ourselves see barely and are unsure about. Suddenly these aspects of our selves are in the relationship spotlight.

We have a relationship where strangeness is somewhat welcome. Thank God! But this openness invites out of us all kinds of marginal characteristics. I like the welcoming attitude of my partner, but I’m not so sure about it when something shows up.

Anyway, looking at ourselves in relationship soon led to looking at ourselves in the world, in our community. I will confess a kind of shyness that regularly afflicts me, which I hide, in a moment, but I want to address the phenomenon of shyness first. I’m not talking here about introspection, I hid there for a while, I had Myers-Briggs to sanction my hiding then, instead I’m referring to the tendency I, and other people, share. That is, to keep our tenderest parts away from others. I’m discovering some of my tenderest parts, represent some of the aspects of my self that I am most unsure about,  they are also some the most important to share, because they contain my deepest and most vulnerable hopes and fears, worldly concerns, connections, and wisdom.

Shyness has been the way I have justified my reticence to be seen. It is so easy to say I was born shy. That’s just the way things are. I am shy, but that isn’t just the way things are. I am learning to overcome my shyness, to become visible, to even let myself as a disabled person be seen. I don’t feel comfortable doing it. I don’t like bearing any real scrutiny, especially my own, but I am learning that if I want to be free, I’ve got to free myself. It is a wonderful surprise finding out that freeing myself enhances the chances for a more wide spread outbreak of freedom. My shyness seems to be connected to the shyness in the world.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish anyone knowing about, much less seeing, my secret relationship with myself. I’m learning that the world of others (that includes my sweetie, you, the rest of my community, and the other-than-human world I belong to) suffers from a lack of freedom, choice, connection, and real vitality, when I let my doubt run me. Shyness is just one more way I let Mystery down.

After writing those words, I have to face the way I hide — my shyness. I am finding, thanks to our mutual inquiry, that I am shy about many things. But the one that is operating here, is the way I don’t really let you know about my writing. I know that sounds funny, especially coming as it does, inside one of my Slow Lane pieces. But, the truth is, that I have written three books (I don’t really know if they are any good) in the last several years, and I have not talked with anyone (except Xan) about them or their contents.

I have kept quiet about this. Why? I’ve told myself I’m shy, but a more informative truth would be that I have a hard-time letting anyone know I care that much and that I feel really vulnerable. I am proud of the work of writing, in terms of time, energy, and commitment, but I am anxious and fearful about letting anyone in on the ideas I express. They reveal too much about me. It seems like I am open and transparent, that’s what the Slow Lane would suggest, but the truth is, I am still hiding. I want you to know about my work and I don’t. I am proud of it, and I’m not. I can barely bring myself to acknowledge what I have spent the last part of my life on, and I feel like a fool, but I keep quiet anyway.

The books, the first one written when I was alone in 2007 & 8, the next (in 2009), compiled of early Slow Lane pieces and addressing transformation, and my recently completed True Things, have kept me awake, engaged, and alive. And, they reveal so much about me, and the world I live in, that I am hesitant to even let on they exist. Extrapolating from my reticence I wonder how many people are still sitting on themselves?

I don’t condone selficide, I tend to think of it like I do ecocide, but I have to admit, I contain and practice this contradiction. I swim in deep waters from time to time. I try to bring back what I see, what I hope will make a difference, but I am not really an unbiased reporter, because I keep secrets. I know I’m holding back. I suspect I’m not alone. Life is asking me to fess up. I guess that is because Life invented me. To the extent that is true, I can forgive myself. But I believe the truth is Life’s creation too. I am only a human being, being very human, I bear a foolish broken heart, because I can’t live up to what I’m aware of. They say the truth shall set you free, and maybe that is true, but to be free I have to get around me. And, pretending to be shy when I’m not doesn’t free anyone.