Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

I'm still sick. It feels like years, LOL. I did some painting today and that was good. Trying to keep eating, can't really work out. Getting a bit discouraged.

I continue to learn about Coco Chanel. She has a lot of quotes that are interesting. "Elegance is refusal."  Refusal? I have an entire part for that, Refuser. Refuses to eat, usually, or to get out of bed. Elegance is refusal. Elegance is the opposite of saying yes to anything and everything. It's the ability to say no, to decide, to choose, to filter trends through yourself, to wear what you like, to be who you are, not what others expect. Refusal to conform, refusal to hide, refusal to appease. Refusal to wear something that doesn't fit, that's not me, that isn't the right code-switch. I want to think more about this, but it's hard to think, so I will try to sleep.

[NarcKiddo]

I'm sorry you are still sick. Sleep is good - I hope you manage to get some quality sleep. And some quality food. 

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, sorry you're still sick.  hope you get better soon. 

refusal can be useful or it can be harmful.  i think we need to find our own balance there.  maybe refuse to do what's harmful for me just popped into my head. 

sleep is good when you're sick.  hope you get what you need.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Hi NarcKiddo and SanMagic7, nice to see you here. Thank you for reading and commenting. You're right, SM, refusal is a double edged sword. I am so interested in the idea that I can refuse with my clothes and that's a much healthier way to refuse than with food or life overall. I had to channel my refusal in the ways my environment would allow as a kid, I couldn't say no to anything so I said no to myself. Not so now! I have always been enthralled by the fact that my therapist buttoned her button up shirts all the way to the top of the collar! No one wears them that way unless they're a man wearing a tie with it. Her buttoned up collar was a "no"! Haha! I love it. It's hard for me to button it all the way, I get triggered by things tight around my neck but I recently took my husband's button up which is way too big for me, and the neck is loose enough I can do it. I wrapped it in the tuck to tighten it up in the body. Rolled the sleeves. Fun times in Hannah1-land. I also think loafers can be a bit of a "no." They're nerdy, awkward. So if I'm wearing sassy pants or a lacy see through shirt, I can put on menswear looking loafers and when the eye travels over the lace shirt and thinks "mm" or "yes!" then the eye gets to the bottom of the outfit to ugly nerdy menswear loafers they get smacked with a  "no!"  Haha! I find this interplay very interesting and there's a lot of energy in it, give and take, yes and no.

My past must be taken as a given. Until I can take it, it will keep popping up and smacking ME in the face. But some things aren't mine, and I have to give them back. Not keep carrying and enacting them. Other things are given, my circumstances to some extent, my character to some extent, my genetics, my height, my eye color, my potential. I have to accept all of that in order to work with it. And take it, and do something with it.

What do I say yes to, what do I say no to. what am I saying no to when I say no to an unbuttoned collar? What am I saying no to when I say no to meeting a certain person, or to going out today. What am I saying yes to when I pick up a paint brush? Does it matter if I don't?

Different parts of me jump in and say yes or no and sometimes that ends me in a pickle. I need to go pick up groceries today. If Refuser takes over I'll spend the day in bed and have no food in the house. Frank is out of lettuce and he's sitting by his door, he stands up on his hind legs every time I walk by to let me know, Ahem, lettuce is missing. I really want to paint. But part of me might stop me. I have to stop, pause, try to listen to the concerns or competing values. It might be the part of me that just wants me to stay in bed. Or it might be the part of me that thinks painting is a dangerous waste of time and I need to be studying or making money or counting cans of beans and packages of rice to be sure there's enough food. Sometimes the part of me that wants to paint takes over and I paint well past meal time and bed time. That's not healthy either.

I'm learning to live as All of Me. And that requires a lot of give and take. A lot of yes and no, and knowing the difference. Balancing, as SM7 said. Finding the middle way. Some painting, some work. Some time out of bed, some time resting. A buttoned up collar with sassy pants.

[HannahOne]

I'm struggling with being sick. I'm starting to get disoriented and feel spacey. I feel like I'm the only person on the planet. As a kid I often had that feeling. I was very isolated and sometimes I was the only person around for a good bit of time. Understatement. It's still hot I guess, can't touch that one. At any rate, I am getting triggered I guess. Being sick already my defenses are lowered so material floods in and I get washed in and out with the tide. But there I am, I know my way around a metaphor. That's part of me I really identify with, that's solid. I can build a sturdy beam of words with both hands tied behind my back, I can walk across the beam and get out of whatever I'm in. This is easy for me. I feel powerful here. I'll go with that....

I started writing very young. I taught myself to read when I was 3 using books on record, following along and then turning the page when the chimes ring, like this! "dootle-oo!" I wrote on tiny scraps of paper and then ate the scrap to hide the evidence. And hey I was hungry.

As I got older I composed solely in my head. This led to becoming a poet because the only way to hold all those words in your head is to give them rhythm and rhyme.

Writing is the oar I used to row the leaky boat of me into the outside world, into the world of work and money. "The president is meeting with this donor in an hour, write him a script." Got it! "This communications disaster just happened and we're meeting with the media in half an hour, write the spokesperson a likely question and answer session!" Got it! "We need an ad campaign, give me five concepts by five o'clock." No problem-o, Daddy-o!"

I was always good in a crisis, under pressure. It was like a sail would be raised and the leaky little boat of Me would just fly over the surface easily.

Without pressure, I'm not so good. I creak, I spin in the waves with zero direction, I start t bog down and fill with water, I list from one side to the other. I might stay in bed. Or refuse to eat. I might be baffled as to why I ever wanted loafers. Or to take this class. Or to take this job. It becomes difficult to show up and be present to anything. I fade out. Who, me?

Writing helps. It activates a very old part of me that knows how to put one word, one foot after the other to make something solid to cross the chasm on. The chasm of stuff I don't want to look at, the chasm inside me, the chasm of me. How to connect all the parts of me? I am still working on that.

Learning to live without pressure is a different skill. Not what do I have to do in the next thirty seconds to survive, but ... what comes up? What parts of me are present? Can I get All of Me to be present right now? And how do I create consensus or at least harmony when every part wants something different? Some are dismayed I am not in a suit at a desk and want to berate me, some want to stay in bed where nothing will happen, some want to make something happen, put brush to canvas, put on pink pants and go outside. Some are crying in hunger and some must refuse to eat in order to survive. Under pressure, one part will come forward and take over, silencing all the others. No give and take there.

Without pressure, it's all about the give and take. I'll eat first, then step outside to walk the dogs, in pink pants. Then I'll paint for just an hour. Then I'll look at the contract I got offered and decide if I want to take it. I'm sure I won't, I'll write back "no." No to pressure but also no to money? Yeah, no to money. I ate, ok? That's it for today, everything else is a "no." Then I'll lie in bed and stare.

I know I won't be sick forever. Time gets distorted. And I don't feel like myself. I'm slowed down and foggy and that is scary. In the past it was scary to be so alone. To be foggy trying to figure out what just happened. Time slowed down under intense adrenaline, I was like a kung fu master in the Matrix and could see the code falling, I had plenty of time to maneuver left, right, time to see the next blow coming... And this is the present. Time is moving appropriately, I can see the seconds ticking by on my timer. Tick tick tick. It's all the right speed. I'm not really alone, not like I was. Mr. Frank is down the hall perseverating about the terrible service in this accommodation and how his lettuce is late AGAIN. Don't I realize he is a crepuscular creature? He's been awake for hours and it's almost bedtime again and yet no lettuce has arrived! Who is running this establishment? He forlornly sniffs around his rug for stray dried rose petal bits. Nothing. Who ate all the rose petal bits?! He never remembers that he himself has eaten them, no one else around hear eats dried rose petals. He thumps to sound the alarm. NO LETTUCE! NOOOOO LETTUCE!!!!!! Death to the world, NOOOO LETTUCE!!!! And the dog is here, curled in a circle on my bed, one ear back, waiting. At the first rustle she'll jump up, hoping I'm getting up. If I put pants on she'll leap around ecstatically because she knows that only happens when we're going out, LOL. And, I'm on a forum full of other people who lived different parts of what I lived. Not alone. And I also have people I could call. Maybe I'll call one of my peeps today. Hello, person! Not sure what I would say next. It's always so awkward to admit, "I'm really far away!" "I'm lost!" "Feeling very dispersed today and thinking of you!" LOL. But my peeps understand, they've known me since way back when, some since I was eighteen and belonged in a basket, such a case was I. So if I call they'll likely start with, "And how dispersed are we today?" And I can say "Rather dispersed, due to illness and too much time alone." And sympathy will begin, which rhymes with empathy, which is close to attunement, and then the right parts of me will vibrate to that and I'll feel more put together. That's how that goes. Got it? Got it.

I will arise and put on pants. Maybe pinstriped navy pants like an old fashioned newspaper editor would wear. And a ruffled blouse. With my husband's blazer. And loafers that say "nope." I will walk the beasts. I will go pick up the groceries and mail my packages. I found a sneaky way to say yes to money that All of Me seems to agree with, reselling some of my clothes that I no longer say yes to. Most of me is so averse to making money. I don't know how to do it without feeling like I'm doing violence to All of Me, without feeling like I'm betraying myself or dirty somehow. But that's a post for another day. 

After those tasks I think I WILL lie in bed because I'm sick. An hour out to pick up the necessities is plenty. Also I am liking the silence. It now feels rich and not scary. I filled it up with words.

[Blueberry]

You're a good writer Hannah1
I resonate with parts of today's posts. Especially the refusal these days and the refusal from my childhood, which in my case too could only be a refusal of myself. I like the way you're trying out quite other ways of refusal now, like what you're doing with clothing. It sounds almost playful the way you write about it. Though I do know how difficult such steps can be, so I'm not downplaying or underestimating either.

I don't have any kind of Frank anymore to compel me to get out of bed or go grocery shopping. But I did for years and can relate.

[HannahOne]

Aw, thank you. I'm glad something resonated for you. You're right, I do feel playful about it! And you're also right, it's difficult too. Thank you for reflecting.

I see that you once had something like a Frank.     if it's ok.