Steal my joy

I've been listening to a song by Allison Russell called 'No Shame' and one of the lines says and I won't let him steal my joy. She's talking about an abusive father but I keep thinking about the words steal my joy.

I think it's quite clear that the whole notion of solitude has been on my mind since I got here. It has gone through different phases, from embracing the long time friend to rejecting they mysterious stranger lurking in the corner. I am trying to find balance in the embrace and the rejection. Embracing solitude is not easy, especially when we are conditioned to always be moving, racing, communicating, exchanging, conversing, sharing, competing, wanting more. There is no time for real solitude in a life that is driven by wanting more and in having more, impressing others. And when you've impressed others, you need to keep striving for more because what else is there?

I have always been a solitary person, even when I have been the most social and the most active. Always craving time to myself or just wanting to retreat in situations that call for too much of me. The difficulty for me has always been trying to sort out the mess of voices, words, requests, questions, commitments, and menial conversations. What I have learned about the way my mind works is that is moves slowly. I need things to go slow so that I can articulate, organize, think, clarify. When there is too much swishing around my brain it seems to just shut down. This is where the necessity for solitude comes in.

And now I have found it. I have found it like I have never found it before. This solitude is true, is pure and inescapable. I've picked up my favourite book again (probably the 18th time or so) which always comforts my madness. One of the first few paragraphs has always struck me with such intensity and truth. May Sarton says, 'the value of solitude - one of its values - is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion  against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular distress or depression.' I find that this is a constant struggle for me as I trudge through this new life I am creating. A constant shift throughout the day. The morning is warm and productive and by the afternoon I am questioning everything that I have come to. It's become a perpetual cycle of anguish and elation. One never knows when it will bite and how quickly it will heal. 'So sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands.' I am finding illumination at the tail end of spurts of depression numerous times a day.

Simple things trigger the doubt and the inevitable heartache. Today it's my weakling of a sewing machine. I am trying to do things that my sewing machine is not made to do. This leads to incredible frustration and a lot of fixing. Rather than just looking at the real problem (the machine), I take what is happening as a reason to quit. A sign that I am striving to go beyond what I am capable of. That's when I stop. This means I need a break, a nap or a smoke. Today, it means writing this. And even as I write this I am staring at this half completed bag wondering how I will finish it. The machine cannot do it. This calls for more creativity and even more problem solving. That's the thing about living in total solitude, it calls for a deeper sense of drive to get through each day. There are no cheerleaders to push me along or to assist in solving the trivial problem of the stitch. If I want to move forward, I need to pick myself back up and start from point A again. Point A being the point where illumination faded and depression took the stage.

Coming back to the notion of stealing joy, as all of this was crashing around me today I wondered how often we ourselves steal our own joy. By carrying around our own doubts and fears about who we are and what we are capable of, we are, in essence, stealing our own joy. We are depriving ourselves of what we want the most and yet, we (well, me anyways) allow ourselves to be attacked and eaten by these little demons that live inside our hearts, that feed on our insecurities and grow and grow the more we succumb to our doubt. What's been apparent to me is that I am making an attempt at catching my joy before I allow myself to steal it. Recognizing the fear and doubt for what they are and that I am choosing to let them win, or not win. It's constant but I feel I my victories are starting to outweigh my defeats.

I've just spent the past eight minutes or so staring out my window watching the guy across the way smoke and care for his tomato plants and I wondered if he was like me. Or perhaps I created a fantasy where we were living mirror images of our lives. That he was at home feeling anxious about his work and his life and all the choices he's made and that he's finding ways to comfort himself and to push through the constant struggle. That perhaps he likes to be alone more than with people but that his attempt at embracing pure solitude was a battle but one that the was willing to endure. I fantasized that he was a quiet guy that most people never quite understood but loved anyways because he was just so nice. I wondered if that bothered him. If he questioned where all this love came from and if he even deserved it. I watched him toss a tomato over the railing, a rotten one I assume, give a tickle to a leaf and go back inside. Back to his own solitude.

I realize that the way I portray my solitude and struggle with it, would lead to an idea that I may be unhappy or unsettled but I am just being honest. I think so often people mask their honesty or their truth to ensure that nobody sees their own weaknesses or their own struggles with themselves. I find that in being so brutally honest about my internal madness, I have found more peace with it. By being clear about what is actually happening and acknowledging all of it, I can better deal with whatever it is. I need to be able to say it out loud for it to become my reality. When we keep quiet about the happenings inside our heads, we are suffocating our own truth and without speaking our truth, we become ghosts. We will pass through this life with sheets over our heads, our features blank and unrecognizable. If I want to be seen in this life, for all my shame and all my glory, I need to be willing to tell my story, as it is through my own eyes and experience. This means admitting my hardships, my struggles with depression and being alone, my joy at the possibilities in life and my love for creativity and art. It means admitting that I am a walking contradiction but am working on standing more firm on these matters and it also means that I am willing to admit that I am human and that I believe my struggles, although they are born of solitude, are not solitary or singular. That although human beings may not be unified on so many important matters, we are all unified in our personal struggles. And, we all, from time to time, steal our own joy.

I will leave you with another quote by Ms. May Sarton:

"One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, as so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent.'

I've also attached the link to CBC 'Concert on Demand' for Allisson Russell's 'No Shame' song. I couldn't find it on youtube. I hope this works. It's #4 down the list.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20100312pogrl