Why I get up

     This doesn’t sound right, so bear with me until I explain it through. Prajna was gone for three days and two nights last week. I thought I could get along alright. I was just concerned that I might have trouble falling asleep at night. It turned out that I dropped right off both nights. It was the mornings that I wasn’t prepared for.

     Each evening I set the coffee pot to start brewing at 5:45 a.m. Next morning am usually up and about to hear it uttering its last gurgles as the smell of fresh coffee begins to creep through the front room. So what I’m saying is that most mornings, I am up at least by six in the morning, maybe before. Mondays I either write my blog or polish what I composed the previous day before posting it. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I write whatever my current project is. Right now I’m working on my memoir which I have gone on about quite a bit here already here. The other three days I get up early but don’t write and am over at Yucaipa Christian Church by 8:00 am either to work or because it’s Sunday.

     So Prajna was gone Tuesday and Wednesday morning last week. I woke up a little before 6 o’clock in the morning the way I always do, with no alarm clock. And both mornings I sighed and didn’t get up until after 7. The two mornings I woke up without Prajna next to me are the two mornings I stayed in bed. That really looks like when she’s not there I am content to lie there and when she’s in bed I just want to get out of there. That’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it really is about.

     When I realized that I was staying in bed, I felt I needed to examine why I did this. I knew it couldn’t be what it looked like. And it didn’t take a lot of contemplation to realize why I was staying in bed when she was gone. I love Prajna a lot. And knowing she is there is my motivation to strive to achieve.

     It’s like this: The easy thing to do is flip the pillow to the cool side and hit the internal snooze alarm. My brains can do astounding mathematics early in the morning and calculate how many minutes there are left to sleep. The difficult thing to do is shake off the blissful sleep and lift myself out of bed, and it isn’t even winter yet. Once I am writing I feel great, especially when the coffee starts to kick in. The transfer from horizontal to vertical can feel life-ending sometimes, but just about every morning I do it. Even on mornings I don’t write I get up. How and why? Because I have her in my life. And because I have Prajna in my life, what I do matters.

     This sounds a little codependent, finding my purpose in another person. And yes, it is a little. What would I do without her? Well, I’ve discovered the answer to that. I would stay in bed. I will try to keep this adoration healthy and not put my whole identity into another person and I will not demand or expect her to be my reason for being, or even writing. When it all comes down to it all, I write for myself. Having Prajna in my life is a blessing that makes me feel significant. Difficult things are worth doing.

     I am also blessed with the progress I have made on my memoir. It took several months and 24,775 words to get Naomi in Maui Memorial Hospital, she hasn’t been diagnosed yet. But I don’t regret any of this bloated first draft. I have made some astounding discoveries while writing it. I think that stepping back to look at one’s life will inevitably provide new insight. And insight is what led to this blog entry.

     So last week I didn’t write much. What I did write was feeble. I have 7 more weeks to work on my memoir before taking a break from it. I have another project in November that I plan to write every day of the month. I won’t go any more into that now. That’s not what this entry is about.

     I just wanted this to be about how a simple examination of my life revealed something that I wasn’t really aware of. Prajna is one of the reasons I feel I am able to accomplish things. For that I am grateful.

Self imposed Penance

     “How was your week David?”

     “Fine.”

     Fine. I know that answer tells people that it maybe wasn’t fine and that I may be trying to avoid answering the question or not thinking about it. Fine is an evasive answer and most people seem to know it.

     So if people ask me something like this, I pretend to consider for a moment and nod my head and say “It was alright… yeah it was good,” with a tone of realization.

     If I had a crumby week I don’t like to complain about it. If I had a good week then I’m telling the truth. And it saves me the trouble of trying to think back and reflect on things.

     One of my favorite answers to how I am is: “I can’t complain.” That’s always truthful. On the surface is implies that I have nothing to complain about. With deeper reflection someone might think I’m saying that complaining does no good anyway.

     It might sound like I’m boasting here about how savvy I think I am at being deceptive and false. But I have used my blog for this in the past. I’m trying to come clean. Confessing here may not make me stop, but I am hoping that by admitting it, then it’s not a secret anymore. And posting here gives people permission to call me on things that don’t sound sincere.

     So how has my week been? Busy. I worked six days this week. The first day was for only about five hours, the last two were about 9 hour days. Now that I’ve come clean I want to state that I am still being truthful here when I say that I had a great week. I don’t know if it’s a character flaw by wanting to be kept busy. But I like feeling needed. I like thinking that people rely on me. The first night I worked one small thing I did was make copies of forms. I had a key to the office and could work the copier. How many other people could do that? Quite a few actually. But I was there and available and willing.

     And here it is. I think that this desire to feel like people rely on me might go back to when I wasn’t so reliable. I’ve come clean once today, here is a little more confession.

     A few years ago I used to get home from work at 11 and stay up and watch TV. Prajna would go to work at 5 the next morning and I would sleep until 10 or 11. The kids? Oh yeah. They would get up and fix breakfast and walk the dog and homeschool themselves. I felt I needed to unwind after a long day at work and of course I needed my beauty sleep so I slept in. I usually woke up to the sound of Harrison banging out Maple Leaf Rag on the piano. I would get up and eat something. Then I would hang around the house until it was time to go to work. Prajna would get home usually a little before lunch. The kids were overjoyed at that. We didn’t see too much of each other.

     Eventually things got worse. More stuff happened and I finally hit bottom. I started going to Celebrate Recovery. I started getting up earlier. Then I got a new job with new hours. Now I get home from work at 10pm and try to get to bed as soon as I can. I get up at 6 or earlier and am responsible for breakfast. And I don’t feel right unless I’m doing something.

     I want to feel reliable. I want to be responsible. I wasn’t always like this. There was a time in my life when I was anything but that. I was irresponsible and selfish. I think I still feel like I need to make amends for that. I don’t get a lot of sleep anymore. Even though I am a morning person, sometimes it feels like self imposed penance.

     This is codependent behavior. When I was not doing well and sleeping in and being a negligent husband and father I felt rotten about myself. And now I try to be just the opposite of that, hoping that it will produce a feeling of satisfaction and wellbeing. But it doesn’t work that way. Typical of a codependent, I am looking for validation and contentment in giving of myself. When it doesn’t fulfill me, I start to feel like a failure and want to give up. But I fear that I will turn into the self-regarding swine I used to be. That keeps me from giving up. Sometimes I withdraw and just get snarky. Sometimes I share how I’m feeling with a safe person or group. Not often enough though. And here I am posting it on my blog.

     What is the point in my sharing this? First of all, I want to be truthful and real. This blog is about who I am. I’ve made it no secret that I’m working on a memoir now and I have had some startling revelations in the process of it. This deep stuff is on my mind.

     And second, some people don’t know what codependency is. They might struggle with it and not know or they might have to deal with someone with it. This entry was a glimpse of one manifestation of it, just a glimpse.

     I can’t cure myself of codependency. I can try to live a healthy life with good boundaries. That, like other life issues, can be an everyday struggle with some days being better than others.

     This has been someone healing to me to get this out in the open. I still have some stuff I don’t write about. I will be sharing my testimony at least twice before the year is up. Those in the San Bernardino area can come to the Celebrate Recovery meeting and hear it if they want.

     There is healing in disclosure. I also want there to be hope for anyone who hears it.

Nothing is impossible. Someone might need to know that.

Caught on a Catchphrase

     Whiteboards are remarkable. I saw the message and ignored it. When my friend filled in the blank at the end I objected. Then I relented. What I thought was an empty catchphrase became full of truth.

     Some of the cliché Christian catchphrases make me uncomfortable. I hear people announce clever witticisms like W.W.J.D. as if this is supposed to be a perfect signpost directing the right way to go. I wonder how many people realize that they can’t know W.J.W.D. without a good knowledge of The Bible. When I was working at a church one evening I had to ask some people to leave, telling them that they couldn’t operate their loud remote-control cars in the parking lot while a worship service was going on.

One guy leaned over and grinned. “You know,” he said. “I’ll bet Jesus would tell us we could stay.”

     I sighed and asked him when the last time he talked to Jesus was. It was probably hypocritical because I don’t think my prayer life was good back then either. What I should have told him was this: Jesus would probably suggest sell his remote control cars and give the money to charity. I didn’t know W.J.W.D. Maybe if I had talked to Jesus more often or read my Bible I would have thought of that.

     Yes, I am just as guilty of misinterpreting these sayings. At our last Friday night meeting there was a message left on the whiteboard from earlier in the week. It essentially asked what one must do when agreeing to serve God. The sentence ended with a blank line to fill in a personal answer. My friend wrote: Let Go, Let God.

     I objected. I called it out as just another feel-good catchphrase. To me, it meant that someone can just make no effort to do anything. It sounded like someone could just relax, like they were evacuating and letting go. Let God worry about everything, I’m just going to sit here and do nothing but let go.

     I’m not sure what I felt was wrong about this except that it sounded like a cop-out to me. Then I read over the lesson I agreed to teach that night. And right there in the night’s lesson were those very words Let Go, Let God.

     Great, was my first thought. I agreed to read the lesson out of the Leader’s Guide and the leaders guide was wrong. Well, maybe I could still salvage it.

     But then I re-read what the lesson was saying. It was lesson 14, READY. And it was all about submitting to the changes God would make in my life. Releasing control over to God means allowing God into my life. Suddenly there was context. Let go, meant let go of the control I am so very fond of. Let God didn’t mean let God go take care of things that bug me. Let God means to let God into my life. Surrendering things I hold onto like pride, mistrust, resentment, and so many other things that keep me from being who I am meant to be.

     The context made the difference. The empty phrase that looked like it belonged on a license plate frame became the fuel in the tank. I taught the lesson and got a good laugh from everyone when I admitted that I had learned from the lesson before I even taught it. Like the whiteboard, the writing on my mind had been wiped clean and replaced with truth.

     It’s amazing what some solid context will do to what one might think is just an empty phrase regarding a Christ-centered walk. It’s not enough to pull out what sounds catchy or even what sounds wrong in order to try to prove a point. And my lesson that night, my personal lesson in addition to the one I taught from the book, reminded me that partial surrender, like partial truth, is not enough.

     So I’ll share the question I’m pondering. What am I still holding onto that I need to let go of and let God into?

The time I should have thrown it In

     I hit on 13 words of truth last week. Actually they were handed to me like a Café Americano for my writing enjoyment. You don’t see the miracle if you throw in the towel. I was able to write about the value of hanging in there in order to see God’s work through. It was about keeping the faith. My writing and Monday blogging factored right into it. But I also mentioned that there have been times that I should have thrown in the towel, but I didn’t. I wondered how I could share the value of giving up.

     The incident that stands out was after we came back from two years on the mission field in Budapest, Hungary. I had taught English as a second language to public high school students. I came to like a lot of the kids that were considered troublesome by the rest of the faculty. I became known as a teacher not easily rattled and the more wild students took a liking to me. It’s quite an ego boost to come in as an inexperienced teacher from a small part of the world like Hawaii and do well in a big city in Central Europe. I was rather proud of myself.

     When we got back to Maui I was able to finally get a job as a substitute teacher. To get into the computer system’s joblist I needed at least one school to sign me on as a preferred sub. The principal of an intermediate school who had once been my high school councilor remembered me and gave me a chance. I started teaching in October 1998.

It wasn’t long before I ended up teaching a class where the regular teacher was on long term disability. I was thrilled that I seemed to have secured a long-term job. The teacher taught math but had asked to teach art. So there were two math classes and four art classes and one prep period. I learned that there had been several substitute teachers in this position already who had given up. I soon saw why. Not only was there a tremendous amount or planning and grading, (what subs don’t normally have to do) but the kids were… I can’t think of a polite description.  To put it bluntly, in all my years teaching before and after with rowdy Russian kids before and street gang members and emotionally disturbed kids after, the kids at this particular intermediate school were the worst kids I’ve ever encountered. They were rude and deliberately disruptive. Not all the kids, of course were like this, but enough that the whole classes seemed to feed in.

I thought that there had to be some good kids there that wanted to learn. I thought that I had handled worse. (I hadn’t) I made long-term lesson plans for the art class using art projects I had learned in college. I tried my best to teach algebra to a class of 30 something but couldn’t turn my back to write on the board without being hit with crumbled paper.

I came home to my little apartment each day angry and tired. Prajna was in her third trimester with Sarah, our fourth child. Harrison was having trouble getting along in kindergarten at the school that preceded the one I was teaching at. I should have walked into the office at my school and told them I would be leaving that class in two days.

     Instead I took a week off when Sarah was born and then went back to work with the same class. Some of the teachers I worked with got me a gift card as a congratulations present for Sarah. The teachers seemed to appreciate me. Even some of the students seemed happy to have me back and complained about the substitute for me. But within days the bad kids were worse than ever. Finally one day a kid was sitting with his chair pulled up to some side cabinets pounding on them with his fists. I walked over and asked him to stop and he didn’t. I calmly tipped his chair and he tumbled out onto the floor, smiled and splayed out his arms and hands. I had technically assaulted a student. The principal came to my classroom that afternoon and dismissed me. I should have been grateful to that kid for that.

     I should have walked away from that job as soon as they told me to do report cards in November. I was under-qualified for such a job. But I never would have admitted it. My pride kept me there as if I had something to prove. And something more than pride held me there, something I still struggle with today. I felt the need to be needed. I still struggle with this. It's called codependency.

     There is no question that the school desperately needed a good teacher in there that would create some consistency and care about the kids. That’s what I tried to do in earnest. And I was doing that, but all the while it was taking from me more that I gave. No paycheck would have been enough for what I did without support from the administration and leverage in disciplining the kids. I couldn't do enough for that situation or for those kids and I didn’t want to admit that I was powerless and just needed to walk away. And there was a part of me that felt that need to be needed and every day I felt so needed. 

   And here is the amazing thing: One would think that there had been a satisfaction in that job. But there wasn’t. Because in an unhealthy condition like codependency if I try to fulfill my need to be needed in an unhealthy way it will just drain me and perpetuate the condition, just like any other addiction, hurt, hang-up or habit. There is no satisfaction in an unhealthy situation like that. And I just went back for more.

And what about that miracle I would miss from throwing in the towel? Truth be told, by not giving up, I was relying on myself rather than God. That’s idolatry. The miracle was that we would survive without me sticking to that job.

     For the rest of the school year I taught at other schools. I ended up back at that intermediate school sometimes but never as a preferred sub and I avoided long-term jobs after that. At the elementary school that I had attended as a kid I did a lot of work for the fifth graders there and always looked forward to those kids.

     And today I am learning about codependency and boundaries. It’s hard to need to be needed and to try to find a healthy way to be needed where I don’t get burned out at the end. It was a long and rather unpleasant story today. Those kids are all in their mid 20’s now and I wonder how some of them are doing. It was a hard lesson I learned from them and I’m glad I am where I am today, not just thousands of miles away from that school, but hopefully somewhat wiser too.