Hold on my heart

So I'm in my new home. It is so beautiful. So quiet. No garbage trucks at 6am, no commuter traffic, no neighbors below and on the other side of the wall where I need to be careful not to make noise.

I pass the morning in peace without guarding against the noise of trucks, neighbor stereos, the apartment refrigerator 5 feet from where I work. I am on guard against these things and they are gone. I am waiting and on guard for what is next. My life has been taken from me. I feel robbed. I was in a good marriage and it fell. I thought I knew what I was doing and I didnt.

I do so well even brilliantly in my work. I've been at a high level in my string of careers. [Kids: this is chronological which is why you are third.] Music - Carnegie Hall. Medicine - Mass General Hospital. Children - they are so wonderful, the treasure of my life. Community - chairman of board of health. Church - board of elders. Public health - charity founder and president and saved 3000 lives, a number which to this day I can not wrap my head around.

That we saved the child from Chechnya I get. That we saved the baby airlifted from Dagestan I get. That we saved the patient with burns I get. But 3000 is beyond my ken.

Then to work with FDL - we are pushing the edge for human rights. End of torture as a national policy. Winding down the wars. Open government where people who speak their minds will be heard and not marginalized. Human rights for all. Covering the prop8 trial and in charge of our archives, it is history. Helping our authors make the case for foreclosure fraud. I seem to be able to do this work.

Where I fail utterly is in human relationships. I am at the level of a 7 year old. I seem clueless because I am clueless. I dont get it. I dont understand what other people understand. I have to ask for help in the most elementary ways and it is so humiliating. The disconnect between my intellect and my emotional intelligence is painful. I wanted this on the record so that people will understand what I have tried to do. God bless all who have extended mercy to me as I struggle.

Things which divide us

I have had a couple experiences today that illuminate the deep and perhaps impossible gap between human beings. We try to hide things from others so that life in family and community is possible. But what happens when the end result is consistently pain for one person?

The danger is substance abuse and extended periods of feeling sad and angry about this decision. I would describe myself as a pre-alcoholic, it will be a struggle to see which way this goes. To submerge my own needs for others, how far exactly does that go? And my religion is frankly not helpful here, as one is to put the needs of others above one's own. Being first big sister of 7 and then a mother and then a charity president who is responsible for saving 3,000 lives no pressure there.

Is there an alternative? To speak freely? What if speaking freely would hurt the person you love. If that person is a child or a sibling who is emotionally wounded, is it the better part of love to decide not to speak plainly? Where is the line.

What if the person is someone who is not responsible for the reservoir of pain I carry around. Do I speak up, say how certain actions are hurtful? Say nothing for the ten thousandth time? I feel that I am a person deeply in debt, emotional debt and I don't know if I will ever become solvent. In the meantime, I don't want to frighten and hurt those who are in my daily life.

Need to proceed very slowly and gently with healing, to protect vital relationships. I will not speak in anger lest I hurt someone I love. I am learning to whisper a tiny bit louder so that people around me know when their actions have pushed me under when I am already close to drowning.