For What It’s Worth

“Something’s happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear…”

With all due respect to Steven Stills, I know exactly what’s happening here. I am unemployed! Arghhh. I took the leap into the abyss. I am free fallin’.  Swinging without a net. What other clichés are there? Oh yeah - I am up shit creek without a paddle.

Who in their right mind, at 60, would quit their job? Just because someone was abusive and bossy?  Thus begins the committee in my head that speaks to me in my father’s voice. Work isn’t supposed to be fun. Who told you you were supposed to be happy? Life is shit and then you die.

But Daddy-o, I try to tell him, I am not in my right mind, never have been, never will be. Oh, yeah, I faked it for a good 40- 50 years but it exhausted me. Exhausted. When is it okay to be myself? When is it okay to say No to crapola? When is it time to say

I am worth MORE!

Taking my 22 year old sophisticatedly cynical son to work this morning I heard my dead father speaking. “Why aren’t you looking for a job?” Aside from the fact that he doesn’t know shit about what I do with my time, I have been looking. Not applying, but looking. No, not true, I did have an interview to be a vet assistant for $9.15 an hour. Uhhh, no. Surely, I am with more than $9.15? $10? $20? What exactly am I worth?

I told him I was waiting for the next right thing.

I know on the “open market” I have very few sought-after skills. I don’t type well. I don’t know how to do any math past Algebra. (Hey, before you judge remember the last time I took a math class was 1967!) I am not “eager, money-driven, competitive with an edge.” This is what they are looking for. I’m telling you it’s like The Hunger Games out here.  Who would you kill for a chance to make mega-commissions selling insurance, gadgets, clothing , cars, yourself?

There is an ad on Craigslist for a “Telephone Entertainer.” Hmmmm, I wonder what that entails? I’ve been told I’m very entertaining on the phone. That was my secret to car deal success, make ‘em laugh. Somehow I’m not sure they would be willing to pay me the big bucks just for making folks laugh. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s a little more … creative than that. Know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Still, it is a “stay-at-home” job and I could tell people I’m in show biz.. Maybe I should consider it.

Back to cynical Joe in the car. I told him I was waiting for my Higher Power to show me what’s next. Talk about making someone laugh! He told me religion and spirituality are STUPID! I nodded and didn’t argue. How you going to argue that? Religion is stupid and evil and well, not a good thing for people or the planet. But I know I have a Higher Power, otherwise I’d be dead by now. Or married to that dentist in Ft. Wayne. Someone’s been steering the ship. Well, sometimes. I do tend to take over the pilot seat a little too much. I like to be involved. That’s what I tell myself. But the truth is I am very uncomfortable being still. And it’s not just my ADD, it’s my POSS (piece of shit syndrome.)

When I’m still it’s not the loving embrace of serenity that caresses me, it’s the certainty that doom is imminent and it will all be my fault. I’m not sure what I did wrong (being born with a vagina?) but I know it’s something to do with my epic, intrinsic, undeniable crappiness. I’m just not worth any better. Bottom line. I’m not worth it.

I went to a meeting last week. The topic was solutions but it devolved into a discussion of fear. How to deal with fear. Seems like everyone has a heap and some to spare. We’re scare of other people, poverty, death, bad movies and most of all, the still small voice that tells us we are getting only what we’re worth. And that ain’t much, baby! 

. What struck me about all the fear talk is that we were all sitting in a 12 Step meeting. With the steps plastered everywhere. Don’t we profess –in Step 2 –that we Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  And then we turn our will and our life over to the CARE of that power.

The CARE, not the derision. Not the sadistic tendencies of lesser gods. And certainly not our well-meaning but broken parents. They didn’t know any better but you know, I sometimes think they should have. Didn’t they see it in our faces? The shame, the fear, the disgust? 

It ultimately doesn’t matter except like Alien they are implanted deep in our bodies. Their words are said in OUR voices now. Their thoughts are my core belief’s; about the world, about other people and especially about my worth.

You may not know this but I was a pretty good actress in High School. I won awards. I did. Oh, I know it’s not the same as winning awards for sports or anything but it wasn’t nothing. A greater God would have spurred me to the next step. My father gave me two incredible pieces of wisdom; 1. Don’t declare a major in college, it will make it easier for you to slip into whatever your husband likes and 2. Become a “gal Friday.” 

I’m not even going to comment on that. I don’t need to, right? The Absolute absurdity is painfully obvious. 

My point –oh, there is one, just wait for it – is that I now have the choice of who I let into my mind. Will it be the old, sabotaging, belittling voice of smallness or the whispers of a Higher Power who CARES for me. Cares enough to say I’m worth more than the wage I am paid. More than the men who have left me. More than the wrinkles on my face. I am worth … well … I’m worth whatever I want. I am worth my heart’s desire.

 I am worth the wait.

The Blind Leading the Blind

I’ve been pondering a career change. Although my part-time job in the call center of a Toyota dealership is very fulfilling and I have helped many customers make the critical choices between a Corolla or a Camry, Hybrid or gas, I’m not sure I’m really being challenged.

I’ve been researching becoming a Life Coach. I’m assured by many on-line resources, who want to take my money to teach me to become one, that it is a real profession and of great worth to the population in general. But how would I coach someone to get a life when I don’t have one of my own? Would this just be the blind leading the blind? (Hence the title of this blog post.)

If I’m going to help others follow their dreams, I better get some closure on mine. That’s what I’m thinking.

I had been looking at going back to school to become a real counselor but, sheesh, it takes years and I’m already old. Besides I have no money which is part of the impetus for a career change.

I thought about supplementing my meager income with a stable and satisfying job as an actor. We all know this is a lucrative career. Why, in my hey-day as a professional actor in Seattle I made up to $50 a week doing 7 shows a week of “Leave It To Jane.” Surely with inflation that has gone up to $55 a week.

Those two great ideas are based on life-long dreams that may not be as life-long as I thought. When is putting aside a passion, such as acting, not a sign of failure but a sign of maturity? I’ve never been accused of maturity so I’m not sure what it feels like, but I have felt failure. Are they different? Does maturity suck as much as failure? If so, I’m sticking with Peter Pan and refusing to grow up. Oh, who am I kidding, a 60 year old Peter Pan is shockingly sad and I could never fit in those green tights now anyway.

When is it all right to admit to oneself that you will never, ever move to NY, live in a dinky studio and study with Uta Hagen?  Is it okay now that Hagen is dead? Can I finally admit the real reason I never went was my pathological fear of cockroaches? When can I stop beating myself up for being a scardy cat and a big, fat wussy?

I never followed those dreams. Not to any conclusion. How could I possibly charge someone to let me guide them? To what? A part-time job in a call center?

Still, I wonder if I do have something to offer, if only as a cautionary tale. I could pull out all my press clippings (all three of them) and show them my videos of my fabulous career in Community Theater and scare them into taking a giant leap into their lives. Look what will happen to you if you don’t. Gives me shivers just thinking of the likely impact.

John Lennon once said that life is what happens when we’re making other plans. And it is true I have been alive these 60 years and I was doing stuff. It might not have been in a straight line toward a stated goal but some of it’s been fun. I guess. And I have had some truly wonderful moments in my life, not all of them centered on my kid.

I’ve been asking myself, what have I done that has given me great and lasting pleasure? I can think of two things, other than being a parent, which is the greatest S and M in life.(Should be "fiftey Shades of Parenting")

The first is watching sponsees flourish. I have had the supreme honor of working with sponsees in Al-Anon guiding them through the 12 Steps. Most of them never finished but three of them have. All three of them have vastly more pleasant lives than when they started. Not just pleasant –really fulfilling. They are happy and when they came into the rooms they were broken. 

Of course, being a sponsor is a spiritual position. I was not speaking with my own authority but that of the 12 Steps and a Higher Power. Still, I showed up every week, sat in the rooms with them, usually over more than two years, and helped. I did help. What a joy it was to help people who wanted help. I had tried to “help” all my friends and lovers over the years and their standard response was “piss off.” But these three women showed up, notebooks in hand, ready to take the next step, literally and figuratively. If I died now this would be my greatest achievement.

I also had a shining moment in the summer of 1990. I had started a small summer stock company in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. We were in our second successful year of producing family friendly fare for the tourists and townies.

Because of a production I had seen of “The Miracle Worker” at my high school (thank you Kathy Paladino) I have loved that play forever. I never got to act in it but I decided to direct it that year. Would summer theater goers want to see a dramatic play after their Neil Simon? It turns out the answer was a resounding yes as every performance sold out. I had a great cast (thank you Annie Kaiser) and I think my love for the material shined through.

After a performance a grown man –in his 40’s probably –walked up to me. He was crying. He took my hand and thanked me for the play. It had moved him. To tears. And to take my sweaty summer hand. He thanked me. For directing a play I loved. He had been moved by a 50 year old play about a 100 year old story. No, it wasn’t Broadway. No, I didn’t make very much for directing it and the actors made even less for performing in it. But what a gift! To me.

Maybe I do have a little insight into following your heart. Maybe it’s not a grand plan but those decisions we make day to day just because our heart wants to. We don’t receive money, property or prestige. We get something better. We grow a soul.

Is that enough?

I want you, I need you, go away

Some of you might know that I’ve had a Kickstarter going this month for a web series I’m trying to produce. The series is called My Own Private Idol and yes, it’s about a crazy psychiatrist. I’m not here to beg you for money –we would need a frickin’ miracle for it to fund at this point (or one rich donor, hint, hint) but that’s not why I’m telling you about it.

I want to illustrate how a bi-polar –or maybe just I –process failure. 

My first thought? This is OVER! It will NEVER happen! I GIVE UP!

My next thought? Fuck them ALL. I’ll DO IT MYSELF! I’ll be the writer and actor and director and cameraperson, I’ll edit it and market it and won’t everyone be surprised. So THERE!

Black or white. In or Out. Up or Down. See the problem?

No in the middle ideas like –well, I’ll re-group, get some new people on board and try again. No –maybe I’ll ask for less money, or get two or three episodes in the can by myself and then try. No –I’ll find a rich guy to marry and he’ll give me the money.

See –good solutions to the problem. I’ve heard that for every problem there are at least 6 good solutions and 100 that are okay. But in my mind I either rely on people too much or I feel completely abandoned and vow to make it on my own.

This has been my life story. And it is an unmanageable way to live.

Getting back to the first step of the mighty 12 that I was talking about a couple of blogs ago – the first step has two parts to it, both extremely important to creating the impetus necessary for change. Once we can accept we have a disease –mental or physical – there needs to be a reason, a strong, compelling reason, to change our behavior around it. I accept I am overweight. I do have eyes and a scale. And a doctor who hammers it home. But they just took my blood and nothing too bad is happening. No diabetes (yet), no high blood pressure (yet) and they still make clothes that fit me (for now). Why on earth would I change my eating behavior?

I have heard this truth over and over; for real change to happen the pain of staying the same has to be worse than the pain of changing. 

So we have part deux of the first step; admitted we were powerless over (whatever) AND our lives had become unmanageable.

Being bi-polar isn’t my problem –acting like one, thinking like one IS. Never seeing even ground and hopping from one stupid idea to the next is my problem. Marrying three completely unsuitable men, spending myself into bankruptcy, moving from idea to idea within 10 seconds, making excuses for all the craziness around me –these are a few of my favorite things.

Someday I’ll tell you about the moment –the exact moment –when staying the same became more painful than change. It isn’t pretty and I don’t know you well enough to gross you out that much. Suffice it to say it involved food poisoning, a 3 month old baby and mildew. Sounds intriguing, you say? Keep reading., I’ll get to it.

In the meantime I am trying to bring myself down from the extremes I mentioned before. Trying to see the 6 good solutions and decide to work with one of them.

So don’t go away, I do want you and need you. It's because of you that I’m not as crazy as I could be.