Fighting Fear of Boredom

 

    Fighting Fear of Boredom

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Often I say that I am never bored. It’s true. Always I find plenty to do, things that I enjoy and want to do. Fortunately, I grew up learning to like whatever I am doing. I give credit to the good Sisters at St. Joseph’s. Even today I take pleasure in plunging my hands into warm dishwater or ironing creases into my cotton pants.

I’m not pure or perfect. I dislike touching sandpaper and a lot of things in my home would be better detailed had I not skipped a crucial step in a process of smoothing. I manage to rationalize ways to avoid a good number of my dislikes.

My new house, to which I will move, is finished. Before I move, two things need to happen. The patio roof needs to be built to protect my patio furniture from mountain UV rays, severe year round, not to mention sun and rain. And, my little section of yard must be fenced, to keep Lola, my pooch of various pedigree, from stress.

The owners of my new casita rescue dogs. Lola is quite happy, alone, protecting me and her own little kingdom, behind a wall. Or a wrought iron fence. The fence will keep Lola in and the other dogs out, although only a couple at a time are allowed in the common area. 

Consequently, it will be at least another month before I can finish my move. I’ve packed and moved every single thing that can be pre-moved and am living with my Buddha bowl, metaphorically. It’s not that bad, but every other day I realize I should have kept this or that or the other thing.

I’ve run out of things to do, to pack, to paint, to renovate, pre-move. At the beginning of the month, did you hear the calendar page turn and look out to see the leaves on the Fresno trees turn golden overnight? Did you hear me wailing, “October will go down in my personal history as the only month in which I was ever bored.”?

In my family, we do not do boredom. Thank you, Sister Mary John B. Thank you, Grandma.

Ask my children. They will tell you. Once and once only, each of them said, “Mom, I am bored.’” I swiveled my head and squatted down to their level, and gently said, “Oh, good. Here is a list of things with which I need you to help me.”

My kids might tell this story a little differently. They swear that my brown eyes turned flashing red and green, that my teeth grew into fangs, my fingers into claws and I exuded the stench of a fiery pit, as I gave them orders fit for road workers from a Louisiana prison in the 1800s, complete with snaps of a bull whip. Don’t you believe it. They made up their story. Pure fantasy. Fangs and claws, indeed.

When I was a child, boredom was not yet a popular concept. My words were, “I don’t have anything to do.” My Grandma was matter of fact. “Good. Start with washing and oiling and polishing the base boards.” In our 1920’s farm house, every room had base boards, about six inches high.

Interestingly, although I still did all the jobs Grandma gave me to do, I never again ran out of things to do on my own. Nor did my own children ever more than once suffer from ubiquitous boredom.

Along about the first part of October, I began fearing boredom. To counteract the fear, I gave myself a job. Washing windows. My house has more windows than walls. I live outside while inside. There are eleven large arched sets of windows to wash. Typically, this can take several days.

And it did. I eked out window washing three days. Along with other chores and opportunities which seemed to magically pop up. Here it is the 10^th of October, and my fear of boredom is unfounded. Thus far.

Each evening, like the good Shoemaker in the Fairy Tale, I lay out my job for tomorrow, hoping the elves will come and finish the job for me. The elves have not arrived yet, but I live in hope. And, so far, I’m not bored.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 10, 2024

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Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

 

            Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

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I am writing this, talking about this hard subject, for you, for that one person out there who needs to hear that you are not alone.

This is a topic nobody wants to talk about. Me, included. Let’s sweep it under the rug and pretend that lump isn’t real.

I’ve lost my son. Again. Last time I lost him, the County Sheriff picked him up in a ditch, beat up with broken bones, a backpack containing heroin and other contraband. Landed in jail. The County had a special program, unique, and he volunteered for it, wanted to get clean. It was a great program, combining individual and group counseling, work, AA and NA meetings, physical help, and more.

Once he left jail, the program continued with counseling, a safe house, a job, meetings, a rigorous routine.

From there this man, my son, managed to put together several years of sobriety. It wasn’t easy for him. He didn’t go back to his prestigious IT job. Bit by bit, we, family and friends, saw him getting better.

Then a couple years ago, we began to see troubling signs. Stories that didn’t quite make sense. But we wanted them to be true, right, so we made allowances. He quit going to meetings. He pushed away friends. A year and a half ago he quit talking with me. I had been questioning some of his decisions, those few I knew about, long distance. When he quit talking, I knew he was using.

Why am I writing about this now? Well, I just heard from a relative, some ugly details of my son’s life. Broke my heart all over again. Oh, yes, I knew he was using. But in the last couple years, I’d managed to compartmentalize the pain. Living 2500 miles away helps.

Two years ago his situation was bad. Now it is beyond ugly and desperate. One knows it is desperate when one hopes and prays that one’s son lands back in jail rather than die in a ditch. That may sound brutal. I don’t know if he will claw his way out of the pit he’s dug for himself. He can, if he asks for help. If.

My understanding is that to those who are vulnerable to it, heroin is like the ultimate bliss. My son, himself, told me that he never forgets, that nothing ever measures up to what he feels on the drug, that it sings a continual siren song.

There is help. For the User. For the Family. If my son had continued to surround himself with friends who didn’t use, had stayed in the job with people in recovery who valued him and supported him, continued with his counselors, gone to meetings, reached out to others who needed his story, had continued contact with his family . . .

This could have been a different story, right?

One of the ways I take care of myself, while crying and allowing myself to feel the pain, to feel it more deeply perhaps, is to throw myself into work.  Physical work is balm, for me.

I will take care of myself. I will not allow his addiction to crush me. I know that I didn’t cause it, I cannot cure it, and I cannot control it. 

So that is why I set about rearranging deck chairs on my own Titanic. I’m between homes at present, closing down my life in my little casa in Etzatlan, moving to another small casa up the road in Oconahua.

My house was a jumbled mess but I had figured to live in the mess a few more weeks. Then when my son was brought back before me in techni-color detail, I began doing what I know to do. Physical work. I decided to make these last few weeks in this house as comfortable as possible.

I rearranged the furniture, the clothing and food items, some of which I had stashed in boxes, the few patio items I had not moved. I worked until my legs, my back, my arms hurt. Compared to the pain in my heart, physical pain was a comfort. One day of hard labor and I felt better. The heart hurt will never entirely go away. I’ve learned how to live with it. (Counseling, sharing, friends, my Higher Power, see above.)

I will not stop loving my son. He’s my 47-year-old baby. I will not allow him to tear apart my life. It’s hard. It hurts. Heroin is a Destroyer. We do not have to let it destroy us and our family. I’m not giving up. Nobody, but nobody, has to go down with the ship.

Whoever needs to hear this: You are not alone. I hear you. I care. I love you.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 3, 2024

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Changes? What changes?

 

            Changes? What changes?

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My morning readings include a short poem by Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks. One morning this past week, I read:

Who makes these changes?

I shoot an arrow right.

It lands left.

I ride after a deer

And find myself chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

And end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others

And fall in.

I should be suspicious

Of what I want.

 

And that pretty much says it. My life in a nutshell.

Rumi has not become my daily horoscope. Some days his words mean nothing to me. Some days he is incomprehensible, like reading mud in my path.

As I’ve become older, some days I actually am able to think, let’s just see what happens, rather than wanting this way or that way and plotting to get it. Wanting, along with wanting to know the outcome ahead of time, is a pit so familiar to me that I’ve hung pictures on the walls and made the pit cosy.

It’s been a Rumi week for me. Another day the poet reminded me that it is good to take time before making decisions. Ha! Another trap I know intimately. He tells me to sniff like a dog. Throw a dog something to eat and he sniffs to see if he wants it. Me, I tend to face-plant into my wants. Rumi says to me, sniff, take three days, then decide. Three days! Is that not forever?

Another day the poet counseled constant slow movement, like a small creek that does not stagnate. Slowly, slowly, one step at a time. Ah.

That day I replied, “I think I will. Slowly. Step. Step. Step. Slowly. No decisions. No wants. Just wait to see what unfolds in front of me.”

 

Maybe Rumi is my Daily Horoscope.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my backdoor

September 26, 2024

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