I' hosting a guest from Texas today and taking her around a bit, she wants to go to the World Trade Center site, it's a pretty emotional spot for many people, I wonder how she will react. I'll probably take her over to Century 21(a fabulous discount department store in NYC) for a little retail therapy afterwards.
Yesterday, I learned that it was hard for me to sit with sad feelings I'd rather do anything than that. Shopping, sex, sleep, food, drinking, work or cleaning a closet have always helped me run away from those feelings. Someone asked me why was I afraid to sit with them, what did I think would happen. Not sure, but I was always brought up to seek the sunshine and not dwell on unhappiness. No one ever said it was ok to feel that stuff and that it wouldn't kill me. I have to admit a certain bit of sadness with retirement and just growing older, when that dreaded sadness hits me again, I'm going to try to ride through it, hopefully without judgement. I don't want to spend the next part of my life walking around with sadness. I'm not even sure sadness is the right word.
I hope to spend a few weeks in Amsterdam in the Fall(more on this later), but I have to admit being "alone" in another culture for an extended period of time will probably afford me a great deal of alone time. I hope that I'll be able to handle this. I do have friends there, but this may be a really challenging experience for me. Perhaps it will be easier in another culture to drop that script I always carry around from childhood. This is a script that I am trying to lose, and create a new one. I continually marvel at my friend in Amsterdam, that he was able to change cultures and thrive. I often wonder how he handles the alone time, how he deals with feeling sadness in a foreign place. How does anyone deal with sadness?
1 comment:
How funny. That was totally along the lines of my post that day. We're totally connected. Looks good. Keep writing!!!
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