Closed doors, open windows, dog pens and crates, firm and porous boundaries - all worth discussing and thinking about. I'm crate training Joey - it's as hard for me as it is for him - so much has gotten stirred up. It's necessary to give him firm boundaries, secure boundaries. And if I do this right, he will come to love his crate as a place of refuge. But now, he weeps when I leave the room, even for a moment. His weeping breaks my heart - it's heart wrenching sobbing coupled with pitiful little barks and scrabbling at the cage to get out. When he does this, I want to run to him and let him out and hold him in my arms and tell him I'll always be there for him - I'll never leave him. But I can't do that. If I go to him when he is in distress, it will teach him that crying and barking are an effective way to get comfort. So, I sit in the other room and wait it out. As soon as he settles down (and he does) I reenter the room and tell him what a good, brave boy he is and how proud I am of him.
When I was a child there were either no boundaries or very sad and scary ones. When I was two and my brother was born, I was put in the care of my older siblings, age 6 and 9. My sister tells me they resented having to watch me and mostly they didn't. So I wandered the large property, with no clothes on and was found by motorists on several occasions crossing the street in front of the house. My mother, in exasperation, had a friend build a pen for me outside, attached to the house. It is my earliest memory, being confined in the equivalent of a dog pen, crying for my brother, sister and their friends to let me out as they taunted and laughed at me. It was a horrible thing to do to a baby. Finally my mother realized her mistake and abandoned the idea of keeping me in an outdoor pen, but the damage was done.
So I hate closed doors and confined spaces. Much of my therapy has been about me pounding on doors that were or are closed to me, or standing wistfully in doorways, looking in, wishing to be invited. Doors are boundaries. Children pound on the marital door wanting to know what is happening on the other side, furious to be excluded. Kids that breach that boundary, literally or figuratively, get screwed up. Some closed doors are critical to growth. Having said that, I've never met a closed door I didn't try to kick in.
Patrick closed a door. He said, "no". I am weeping on the other side, pounding and pounding. He is mostly silent which is as it should be. I have created this blog to keep a peephole open, an small open window in the door. I am very clever when I'm told no. I've spent my lifetime getting around "no's".
Boundaries - some are hard and firm and obvious, others are flimsy and fragile and not always easy to see the edges of. There is the boundary between love and obsession, the boundary between creativity and insanity, the boundary between wellness and decay, the boundaries between lovers whose bodies have been fused but who must still maintain their autonomy. As I follow the bubbles to the surface of the water, I will encounter the boundary between the depths and the light of the open air. That's a fragile boundary of wellness because there is life on either side of the surface. Dip below the water, you can hold your breath, you can still see light, but you can't survive there for long. Fight your way to the top, breathe the fresh air, but know how easy it is to slip back.
It's the little things we do every day to take care of ourselves that keep us above the surface, that keep us on the right side of the sanity/cuckoo boundary. Sleeping enough, feeding ourselves properly, tending our environment, taking care of our bodies, reaching out to friends, doing honest work - all of these things must be done. Every day, one foot in front of the other. Dieting, taking calcium, flossing, exercising, doing laundry, tidying the house, reading, talking to loved ones, opening bills, making long term plans, looking pretty, singing, laughing even when your heart is broken, writing in a blog. And then the next day, doing it all over again.
Yesterday I screwed up. I texted him. It was selfish and cruel. He is struggling too and it has to hurt and worry him to see me pounding at the closed door. He must have had to walk into the next room and close his ears to the sobbing, knowing he was doing the right thing to ignore me, even though his heart was breaking for me. And unlike me with Joey, he won't be reentering the room anytime soon to tell me that I am a good and brave girl once I settle down. I will have to comfort myself.
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