Retreating

I'm about to leave town for a long weekend with a group of people I am supposed to love, no matter what. I'm afraid I won't love them, no matter what. And when, not if, this occurs will I hate myself?

I notice that I've been very critical and irritable lately, and put it down to lack of sleep, which has plagued me on and off, mostly on, these past 5 years. (Caring doctors have prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants, whose instant side effects were more aggravating than insomnia, so we have all agreed to dispense with the drug solution.) My recent bereavement seems to me the most likely culprit in my reactivity to certain people places and things. Rather, the way I am coping with the bereavement. It has opened old wounds and I'm sensitive to the touch of others, mostly others' attitudes, sometimes their physical appearance. I'm being unfair.

Yesterday I attended three meetings of completely unrelated groups and found fault in every single one. So I am exposing myself and my thinking as the real villains in the plot of my life. The personal experiment this weekend will be simply to observe myself and be quiet, if I can remember. This might be more easily accomplished as I won't have to cook, clean, answer the phone, check emails, pay bills, make plans, do laundry. I just have to listen to what others are saying and show up with clothes on.

I think I can do that, but knowing me, if there's a way to complicate this weekend, my mind will sooner or later impose an interesting idea on my serene mental screen, and I will trot along after it, dachshund following a sausage scent failing to notice how the dog of my being resembles the sausage of my mind. This is based purely on past experience, which, granted, is often the most accurate predictor of future behavior, yet my hope is that this time is might be different and I will stay true and present to the blank screen without having to chase anything.

As my dear old papa used to say, light a candle for me.