All I Can Say Is That I'm Sorry

Ok guys. I gotta confess. I rode the subway today. And not just today, I've been doing it. (Cringe.) I have been. I know, I know, I just went through this huge blaze of glory break up with it and everything, but you know how people can be with things like that. You don't always know if it's right. If it's you. If you just weren't communicating well enough. My friend Sam Fels said it was my fault. He's right a lot.


Well, on it today and sitting next to me was a woman reading The New Yorker.
The cartoon I was leering at over her shoulder had two therapists and a patient.
One of the shrinks was saying, via a bubble, "face your demons," the other one was saying "take your pills." I think the caption was Good Shrink/Bad Shrink.

Well, I thought it was apropos to my thoughts. My thoughts being, of course, that my demons wished they had some pills. Preferably pain killers.

I think about this still. I know it's borderline passe to think about "meds" these days and that Prozac was so 1990's, but as someone who has/had bouts with depression and have many friends who do/did, I think about it.

I think about what it means to work through your layers.
I think a lot about how we convince ourselves through the help of others and self help books and such that we can quietly get ourselves together. Self improve. Be a mellower us. Learn how to quiet our anger and not let it rule us and that there is a better us out there.

I have mixed feelings on all of this. As a woman on a spiritual quest. As a woman with a great deal of emotional activity.(That sounds nice doesn't it?)As a woman who, someone once said, must do a great dish smashing act. Heh. Well, I did throw a bagel once. He ducked.

Do you ever get better?

Even after you look at, face, name, color code, correlate, collapse, and combust your demons(Oh, I know mine. We've met before. Hello Sam. Hello George.). Then what?

What is the best that happens to us when we look at these demons?

I like telling my demons they look like they're putting on weight and that their old records were better than their new stuff.


So, I see you guys. You look lousy in track suits but you keep up with me very well. Where do we go from here?I mean I got these guys, what do I do, kill 'em?
Break up with them? We see how well that went with the Subway.

And anyway, if it weren't for my demons where would I come up with all the things I have to be sorry I say out loud?

No, but it's true. You gotta look 'em square in the eye. Then you can Tango. My demons look beautiful with roses between their teeth.

Sigh.

I look at my grandmother, a woman of what one might call a "Self Help-less" generation, and my grandmother would say there's nothing wrong with anybody. If you want to be happy you make yourself happy for as long as you are here on the planet. I have a strong feeling my grandmother read very little by the German Philosophers. And she takes a lot of vicodin. She is also not dealing well with the idea of her own death. Let's just say she didn't do a lot of "acknowledging impermanence" through out her the course of her youth. She doesn't think she has any demons.

What am I saying? Jesus, What the HELL am I saying?

I think what I'm saying is: that we're a bunch of beautiful children born to die who have to deal with that everyday. Us, with our pain and fear and ecstasy. And that the point of being here, as far as I can tell, today anyway, is to ease all the ugly with some love for ourselves, the people around us, and even those demons in their track suits. You and your demons are awesome.



Ok-ay. I will now take a break from reading books about Buddhism.

See, a riot, a total riot.