Thursday, April 23, 2009

Ch...ch...ch...changes.........

The last blog entry for me was waaaaaayyyy back in September of '08, guess there has been quite a bit going on over those 7 months. I will try to get you up to speed without too much details, but enough so that you get the idea of the evolution.

So, I start working with Dr. Guo....I feel changes, good changes, with his herbal formulas. I also encounter intense fatigue, intense emotions. My partner and I are together, in our co-dependent way, and lots of stress is happening. She gets her administrative director position, we are "moving on up to the East side" of Wisconsin and in salary, to start in July. I start thinking I will be able to take time off from work and heal this thing I got going on. Three weeks later, D's step sister commits suicide. We travel out to Delaware for the funeral. Two weeks later, she and her mom go to France for their long-planned trip together. I return to work three days per week. Exhausting. In August, D is working in Ashwaubenon, looking for a place for us to live. I am freaked out about living in the area, as I experience the air pollution from the paper companies along the Fox River and then talk with numerous people about the air quality. Not good. Brown County is in the 90th percentile as far as pollution levels in this country. I demand we live further out away from the city, west so that the winds keep the pollution away. She finds it aggravating, as she wants to live close to her work, but honors me and finds a neat duplex on the edge of the country. Dr. Guo tells me my work is too physically demanding for me, that I need to cut back....luckily I have a bead on a job in Green Bay, and would be able to work 2 days per week. I finish up the last of the house packing, and exhaust myself so tremendously that it felt as though I was functioning solely on will power as I drive to my Reiki class one night.

The people in my Reiki class were unbelievably gifted healers. I got up on the table, and people went to work on me. Particularly Debra, a native american shaman. She dug out the issues, the black energy, retrieved my soul, while the others held the space, sent me Reiki energy, filled me with light. Later on, Debra told me that she had the vision as I got up onto the table to begin, that I was crawling into my coffin!! An astrology reading a few weeks later, by Altazar Player, amazing astrologer, indicated that the stars/planets were in the arrangement that I could have died under the right conditions....he told me "your friends brought you back to life!" He had seen this astrological arrangement just a few times in his career with clients, and all of them except me had died on those days.....woo, hair standing up on my arms. Blessed by God, driven by determination and guts, an inner knowing, once again.

Off to Green Bay, I go, to meet up with D, renewed energy, renewed desire to be with her, excitement for our new life, yet the underlying intense fear of "cancer" present, fogging my mind, deeming my choices, informing my behaviors. I hook up with Beacon House for support, search out where to buy organic food (no organic food market per se in this town, we still focus on Madison's Willy Street Co-op when able to go down there), host my dad for 3 weeks (another story, but suffice it to say, Peterson family energy is just too much for my partner). I arrange to start my work after my dad leaves, so that I can have time with him, and also build up my energy from the move, as I continue experiencing exhaustion.

Work...it's good. I am a physical therapist. But, the work is the least "physical" than any work I have had in my life....very little therapy initially, mostly desk work, or interacting with drivers and office workers on ergonomic needs. I like it. The women I work with are nice. I find myself essentially having my own practice, without the financial or insurance headaches. I am enjoying it!!

Our life hums along. It seems D and I are getting along better. Now and then, some irritations come up, especially around my health care choices, my preoccupation with the internet, buying books. An ongoing discussion is this "equality" issue in our relationship....her feeling I need to consider her feelings and decisions ("get surgery") and my angry response is "my body, my decision." She is able to cite friends who side with her, I have friends who are aghast at her behavior towards me, the issue becomes shelved yet festering underneath. She is very busy with her work. I start to feel a bit like a housewife....my honey is the bread winner, I am the homemaker. The beginning of November, as we are driving up to Minocqua for a relaxing weekend with friends, after we had had an argument that week, she tells me about her frustration with us, and admits to feelings where she wondered if she wanted to be in relationship with me. We talk about this, me being the one who says "it is normal to have those feelings." She then asks me "can we just start over?" I say "yes," not fully taking in or discussing what she really was thinking. Little did I know how close she was to her edge. By this time, our level of trust and true communication was so blocked and I was so focused on my healing, that the ending came out of the blue for me.

A few weeks later, the shit hits the fan. She is driving back from a conference, hadn't slept well the previous night...she asks me to ask my brother who was up for dinner to leave before she gets home....I thought the request was selfish, as Dale and I had this planned for a while. I say no to her request, but that he and I would eat and then he would leave right after. She comes home, is very quiet yet civil. The next morning, she goes off to work, as I sleep in. I go to my T'ai Chi class, and one of the elderly ladies there asks me how long D and I have been together....I stop and internally reflect, feel this deep love for her, and tell her "8 years." She replies "oh, you two will be together for life." I said "yeah, we will." I really believed it. I make this amazing dinner for her that night. As we finish dinner, D comes out with it "Mariah, I am not happy in this relationship, it no longer feels equal to me, I am done. We are finished." I am blown away, totally blown away. But, I try to hang in there, acknowledge her feelings, admit my feelings of frustration. Pain, much pain. Then my anger and tears come out. Intense emotions. I am as much or more afraid of losing my picture perfect Stepford Wives life as I am of losing her connection.

To spare all the details, suffice it to say, we go through some back and forth, I eventually move out into my own little apartment, totally freaked out yet trying so hard to "stay positive" so that it doesn't "affect my cancer." Wrong. Boiling rage, bitterness, intense fear consume me. The lid is nailed shut on this relationship. We cease communicating. I have to force myself to keep going with my life. Friends do what they can to hang in there with my raging. Dr. Guo is quietly sympathetic, I cling to his herbal treatments.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How does one contact Altazar Player for an astrology reading? Thanks!