Release Me from Codependence

Author's Note: I wrote the first draft of this essay in April. Then my codependence took over.  I was paralyzed by what I saw in the news and my voice fell silent. I wrote next to nothing until I began reading Ruth Ginsburg's memoir "In My Own Words". Her words inspire mine. 

 There are two books that I regularly turn to in times of trouble. One is "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and the other, especially relevant during these trying times: "Codependent No More" by Melodie Beattie. 

Originally written as a self-help for people and families recovering from addiction  Beattie's chapters on  defining codependence and outlining the symptoms is especially useful in identifying  dysfunctional relationships.  For instance among other things codependents are obsessed. They tend to feel anxious about problems and people, lose sleep over problems or other people's behavior, check on people, feel unable to quit talking, thinking, and worrying about other people or problems, abandon their routine because they are so upset about somebody or something. 

Constantly checking social media and news outlets feeds the obsession. Feeling helpless, hopeless and afraid all feed into the codependent obsession.

  And guess what? Based on the symptoms I am in a dysfunctional relationship with the current government of my country.  How did I get here and what can I do to break the cycle? 

The speed with which our government has  alienated the world, acted like we are the only ones who matter on the planet, that there's no room for anyone else is breath taking.  We've broken treaties, agreements, whipsawed our allies and our people.

I lie awake at night pleading that the light bulb will go on and somehow all will be well in the morning. We will once again be the envy of the world instead of the distrusted entity we are now.  Such magical thinking serves no one. 

How do I break the cycle of exhausting codependence?  I need to detach. But how can I detach from my relationship with the government? I'm an American. It's our duty to participate in the running of our country by voting, electing representatives who will do our will. I acknowledge that I made my voice heard and I accept the results of the last election. I disagree with the results but I accept them. 

First, I must face two facts.  The first fact is that our national leaders are betraying us. Every action against my country is being done by people who have sworn to uphold our Constitution but who treat it as if it is optional that the Constitution is followed as it has been followed for over 250 years.

Second, the fact is that I'm not in control.  I cannot effect change on the national level.

Finally, I must decide what I am in control of and act accordingly. 

I am in control of how I live my life. I believe this planet is the only one we've got so take care of it. I believe in not wasting my resources be it money, time or things. I believe in helping other people who come my way. 

 I am in control of my voice. How can you know someone if you don't talk to them? Find out what they think? I am blessed with the ability to write. I can write what I think and what I see. I need to stop wailing, whining and hand wringing and, in the words of Jean Luc Picard, engage. 

So I begin with this essay. More will follow.  

 

An Apology to My Founding Fathers

 Dear Fathers,

Where do I begin? My country is in dire straits because we elected a man who is hellbent on making our country over in his image.  He is being aided and abetted by an assortment of lackies, loonies and just plain unqualified people who seem to love money more than they love my country.  

I'm not sure why this happened although I know how it happened. We voted, one person, one vote for a man who promised to make it easier, better for us.  Being an American is hard.  According to the Constitution we are a nation of laws that all of us make through the people we elect to represent us, to do what we tell them we want. It used to be that nobody ever got everything they wanted, that's why it's called politics. But somewhere along the way it changed. Now we just want what we want, and we won't stop until we get what we want and we won't give in until we get it. We won't compromise.

Compromise has become a dirty word. Our leaders don't compromise because we don't want them to.  We told them we wanted this man who would be king. We are lazy. Our representatives reflect that. Our representatives are lazy. Congress ceded power to make decisions to this man because we told them by our votes that more of us wanted this.  

And now we have it.   Even though he told us what he was through his past actions and words, we elected him anyway.  Now that he is doing what he said he would we are shocked.  Why? We got the leader we deserve.

We became lazy about government. We ceded power to people who love money and who think the rest of us Americans are less than.  They think they are smarter than the rest of us because they have so much money. According to them, we didn't work hard enough or we are stupid enough to believe the lies we are told so we deserve to be governed by them. 

We've made a mess and have to clean it up. 

 We have broken the pact you made, the government you worked so hard to make, that is emulated by so much of the rest of the world.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, "A republic, if you can keep it," in response to a question about the type of government established by the Constitutional Convention. It is our responsibility to maintain our republic and we failed miserably. 

It appears we won't be keeping it. I am sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I Delete My Twitter Account Do I Exist Anymore?

 I was finishing my latest blog post, getting ready to send it forth into the world when I was seized by momentary panic. Checking the little icons at the bottom of the page I suddenly remembered I had deleted my Twitter account after Elon Musk acquired Twitter and tweeted about getting rid of employees who weren't hard core enough to work 24/7 to make him wealthy by sleeping in their offices and working until they dropped.  

How would my 10 followers know about my latest post? 

My brain seized until I got a grip on my synapses.  It's not like I ever figured out what the purpose of Twitter is or how to make it work for me.   I'm not an "Influencer" or a celebrity willing to post all the inanities of my life or pictures of myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror in my underwear.  I'm not a politician putting out policy statements or, on the other had,  calling rivals names.

As you might guess, I'm not a heavy user of social media. Yes, I still have a Facebook account, even though I know it tracks how I use it, to see pictures of my friend's salads and their grandchildren. I am vaguely aware of TikTok but I've never used it.  I know what Instagram is (but I am careful of it. See comment above re: FB.) I sort of understand Reddit (maybe).

  LinkedIn is my go-to because I understand business networking and it seems like it's for grown ups. And yet  I still had the urge to reinstate my Twitter account even though I don't use it for anything other than announcing my blog posts. What's up with that?

My almost visceral reaction to not having a Twitter account says I am as much a victim of  the insidious, addictive nature of the social media platforms as any young teenager.  If I want to put off practicing guitar or writing all I have to do is log in to Facebook and bam! 20 minutes lost.

I know it's possible to resist the lure of being drawn in. I've watched how my Millennials treat these programs as just one more set of business tools to promote their work. They log in, say what they have to say, log out, and go back out to the real world. My son can go months without posting anything so I have to text him to tell him I've posted something. My husband is my son's father. He doesn't post so much as lurk. In fact, when his high school reunion was being planned all the postings came to me. 

And here's my suspicion: the female brain is more susceptible to becoming addicted to social media because of the way we've been socialized.  Most women and girls are socialized to want to be liked. The algorithims are deliberately designed to  feed on that desire. Getting a reaction, seeing a comment or an icon is a form of being liked and having a connection.  We get a little hit of a chemical that makes us happy. 

None of what I'm saying is new and earthshaking.  Frances Haugen blew the lid off long ago. Studies abound about how damaging to the physical brain social media is and how it is rewiring young brains. 

But it's one thing to read about it, to know it on the intellectual level, and another to personally experience it.  Think I'm making too big a deal about this? Then I challenge you to do what I did. Delete your Twitter, your Instagram, your TikTok or whatever else you use and see what happens to you. 

Let me know.

 

How to handle defeat: Lesson from a Gen Z

 

 His expression is stoic. He's ignoring the shouts and the screams of fans and the clicking of shutters and the intrusion of a boom mic over his head as he waits in the tunnel. 

He's just endured a frustrating day at the office on national TV and no one could blame him if he just walked up the ramp and threw his helmet at the wall. After all, we've all watched baseball players, football players behave like toddlers in the dugout and on the sidelines when they're frustrated.  Tennis players throw their racquets and shout at referees. Soccer players call the officials names when calls don't go their way. We sort of expect it. It makes for good television, after all.

  Instead Trevor Lawrence stands in the tunnel; tired, disappointed, dirty and cold and greets his teammates and support staff as they trudge into the tunnel after losing their divisional championship game to the Kansas City Chiefs.  He reaches out to shake hands, to hug those that need it, to say a few whispered private words in a very public place. He acknowledges the disappointment and the feelings that their best effort wasn't good enough. Only after the last one straggles past does he turn to go. 

What is so remarkable about this scene? Trevor Lawrence is only 24 years old.  

Would you have done as well? Follow the link below.

 https://twitter.com/espn/status/1616964915960373248

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1616964915960373248?s=20&t=VeK3AnnXE3URCdYz_-d70w

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1616964915960373248?s=20&t=VeK3AnnXE3URCdYz_-d70w

 

 

 

 

Deja vu all over again

 

 

 

 

 

Does anybody else think we just experienced a 24 month year? It seems to me 2021 and 2022 got smooshed all together. Are we in some kind of jokey feedback loop?

 

My journal has the same entries over and over. It’s Ground Hog Day all over again where Bill Murray experiences the same day over and over until he gets it right.

 

In 2021 one of us was sick at New Years. In 2022 it was Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

In 2021-22 the mainstream news was awful, the fringe news services worse. The weather was awful and was the year of too much. It was either too much fire, too much snow or too much rain. The government wasn’t governing. There was war, there were refugees, people were sick and tired of being sick and tired. Guns seemed to be the method of choice to settle arguments.

 

2021-22 was the year of complaining and dissatisfaction, too. Everything was expensive.  Gas was expensive, food was expensive, all the stuff we want to buy (but don’t need) was expensive. Who can we blame?

 

My writing stalled, my desk is still a mess. I didn’t clean my closet, even my weight hit a plateau and stayed there week after week.

 

I swore off social media and then went back to it. I spent too much time escaping into streaming pointless television shows (where no one watches television, by the way). At the same time I read articles about how detrimental too much screen time can be to my brain. Can you say cognitive dissonance?

 

All this push-me pull-you has made me tired as 2023 starts. What do we need to learn so we can move forward? I don’t want to have a 2021-22-23. How do we make it to the other side?

 

Short of an asteroid hitting us a la Don’t Look Up (currently running on Netflix) that is.

A Fall Road Trip

 As I start making my lists organizing for Thanksgiving and Christmas I find my thoughts turning back to the memories of the road trip we took in September to see friends in Knoxville and my husband's 50th high school reunion in October. 

I had never been to the southern states and so we decided to drive to Knoxville, taking I40 almost as far as it could go to the east. I passed through Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas.

Granted my impressions are limited by I40 but it seems to me that things are slowly getting better; they're not 100% perfect, but they seem to be getting better in the small towns we passed through. There is lots of road work, there are fewer empty shops along the main streets. It was festival season and almost every town was celebrating something, whether it was beer, moonshine or bluegrass. 

 COVID-19 vaccine messaging was everywhere.  The rest stops were well stocked with soap, paper towels, hand dryers and reminders to wash your hands for 20 seconds.

It is very clear that rural small towns still need lots of help. They need infrastructure like internet and more "Made in the USA". Yes, there is crime but despite the almost Armageddon portrayed in political ads people are more concerned about being able to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and figuring out how pay for retirement. 

 I saw that Americans share more common ground than the political parties would have us believe. Different cultures, different generations share the same concerns and dreams for themselves and for the country. Politicians want to win elections and they do that by sowing discord, dividing us and blaming the outsider. 

At my husband's high school reunion I met people still trying to improve the world 50 years after they graduated. They weren't thinking of putting themselves out to pasture.  They are thinking of what might be possible to solve the world's problems. Some are pastors, some are lawyers, some are scientists. One of my husband's greatest friends is working on technology that predicts earthquakes. After a wild fire destroyed his suburban San Diego neighborhood he's also working on improving fire movement predictions & notifications. 

As discouraged as I sometimes feel I remember the people I met this past fall. There is much to be thankful for and much to hope for.

Wait...I thought it was my life, not yours.

 

 

 

Note: I wrote this the week after the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade. I postponed publishing it because I wasn't sure it said what I wanted to say. It does. 

 

“You can buy a gun but you can’t get an abortion.” – Murphy Jones

 

“I don’t want to do either.” – Emma Moriarity

 

That exchange from 1985’s Murphy’s Romance came to me when the news broke last week.  Murphy’s response came in answer to Emma’s question about what sort of town she had just moved to. His reply perfectly sums up what kind of town we all suddenly have moved to; for most of us, unwillingly.

 

How are we to understand this town in which we now live? Do we even want to understand it? What are we to do? How do we cope with the anxiety? We don’t know what lies ahead and we control very little of the outside world. But I’ve always believed that I can control my actions. At least, I thought I could. But now I don’t know if I do.

 

It seems others want to control what I do; others who think they know what is best for me. They are attempting to force me to obey them. But I did not willingly give them the power to decide for me.  Therein lies my dilemma. I didn’t give them the power. They are not elected by me.  They lied to get into power and now they are imposing their world view and values on to me.

 

It is not for them to decide how I live my life. I have the freedom to worship how I see fit and to believe what I want to believe. Whatever I believe, whatever my code of conduct and value system, I decide not someone else. 

 

Media has made us more aware of the injustices of the world and I think that is a good thing. It also makes people uncomfortable and makes them think. And a lot of people don’t want to think. They are comfortable when others tell them what to do or what to think. But I’m not.

 

 

I don’t want to live in a town where most people are packing.

 

And I don’t want to live in a town that intrudes into my private life.