Act With Precision: When the Old Ways Won't Work
Quitting a crappy job and EMDR
I quit my job this morning. It was a personal assistant position found on Craigslist, and I’d only worked it for two days. You could barely call that employment. I searched her car of coins and crumbs for lost keys. I learned how to clean her water bottles. I followed her around a grocery store for an hour to see how she shopped, then cooked her family a minestrone soup. I left her house exhausted, and wanting to sleep for several days.
When I thought about going back, my body said No, very clearly and firmly. I tried to negotiate with it. I have done my share of odd jobs and fitting myself into uncomfortable shapes for money, so why not now? She was giving me cash after all. No, my body replied.
For months, I’ve been writing that the old shapes will not work anymore. They don’t fit. This recognition flits around my inner monologues, like a bird flying in a fretful loop.
But I don’t want the old ways back. I’m glad they don’t fit. I used to be good at ignoring my body. I pushed my spirit down in order to get through a day, a relationship, a job. I stayed with someone it wasn’t working with for over a year. Then I did it again, with someone else. I didn’t leave until they said goodbye. I went to work for over two years and looked out the window, dreaming of walking out while customers ushered me over to fill their mugs.
I don’t want to be good at that anymore. I’m glad I’m not good at that anymore.
For the past six months, I’ve been in EMDR therapy. Yesterday was my last session with my therapist. I can feel that I have been changed by our sessions. She said: “Your being changed and all the work you’ve put in is not about me, it’s about you.” And I–with acknowledgement of her expertise and very deep appreciation for her character–said, “I know.”
I know I’ve changed. I know because I’ve closed my eyes, heard the bilateral stimulation, and been brought to a dark hallway. There, behind every door was a different trauma scene, playing on an infinite loop. Is this what it means to be haunted? In our first session, I flung the doors closed as soon as I peeked behind them. I couldn’t stand to be in a room with them. But in one of our last sessions, I realized that the hallway was in my house. It was in my body. I could turn the lights on if I wanted. I could open the blinds.
These therapy sessions have made it very clear: I have contorted myself into smaller shapes because I want to be treated better. I have done this for a long time. And it has not worked. It didn’t make people that I wanted to love me, do so in the ways I needed them to. It didn’t make the screaming stop. It didn’t make me like myself more.
The old ways won’t work anymore? Thank god.
Still, I get caught in well-known loops of worrying about money and what ifs. I wonder if I’m a fool for putting my energy towards art and writing. But I want to keep prodding at the little boxes of Success or Failure. Black and white thinking insists that it is now or never. You’re either succeeding right now, or you’re failing. But life never looks one way. There is always the possibility of change. There is always the possibility of life.
The voice in my head before I fall asleep at night, is clear: “If you want to write a book, then write. There is no way around it.”
I asked this voice to get louder. I started saying no, went to therapy, I very clearly told myself I was done with dating people who did not commit to me, and I stuck to it. I told the voice I would listen to it now. Fine then. It says: “No. You can’t do that anymore.”
And: “Mulling things over is not the same as knowing you want something and being afraid to commit to it. Commit.”
I’m not good at my old ways anymore because I have chosen, over and over again, to move differently. Every day I choose to act differently. Moving in new ways taking precision, clarity, and intention. It also takes persistence. I forget this when the fear seeps in. It comes slowly at first, but then it’s staining every decision. I keep thinking I can shrink myself, just a little. But old ways of being won’t work anymore. They never really did.
Today is mother’s day in Palestine. My heart aches considering how this must be celebrated. Every day I wish for bombs to stop, and for people to be granted the space to grieve. Every day I say these words in order to keep a candle lit in my own heart.
E-sims for Gaza allow people there to have phone service and to stay connected, communicate with loved ones, and record videos of what they are going through.
The movie Perfect Days directed by Wim Wenders is a beautiful and poetic slow burn. The main character has been living on with me for days. Thank god to see reminders of people who appreciate the small beauties in life, and look for it everywhere. I want to watch this many more times.
I have a duo art show with Cecilia Mignon (my first in a fine art gallery) up right now. It’s showing through March at MRKT Gallery in San Francisco. All work is on Artsy.
We’re having a poetry reading tomorrow night in SF! Hope to see you there
yes lora. you are so precious & powerful and deserve to be honored.
Again and Again, LM delivers.