August 7th, 2012
Hung out with Jocelyn this morning at her mothers new place. It's a small house over on Valhal Avenue near the 'Fried Wonton', a less that popular Chinese restaurant. I had no trouble finding the place because I walk through that part of town several times a week. The furnishings there reminded me of my own mothers house. Jocelyn is in recovery and dealing with some verbal abuse issues concerning her mothers ex-boyfriend. She also recently had surgery for deep vein thrombosis which was probably aggravated by the sedentary lifestyle she has accrued from being a single mother of two. A boy and a girl. Despite her fresh scars, highly emotional state, and chronic fatigue Jocelyn is psyched to be living in the city limits again, rather than six miles out where she was cohabiting with her Mother. We talked about the verbal abuse briefly;
"Yeah he called a fat-ass all the time, like ' Get out of the house you fat-ass and cause I already have like..."
"Bad body image??" I put in when she paused.
"Yeah, body image issues. Because of that it was ten times worse." Jocelyn explained.
I know what it's like to have a low self image, I've had one almost my whole life. Now that I'm weightlifting, working my spiritual program and exploring Buddhism I've begun to repair my self esteem, body image being a critical part of that. I intensely dislike seeing other people down on their body image, perhaps because it reminds me of how I use to feel about myself. How I still feel sometimes. I sat on the couch for a while in silence, petting Jocelyn's puppy, a strange looking terrier. Good dogs seems to exude a sense of Zen to me. Jocelyn looked at me and then the dog.
"Technically he's my brothers dog. Buy my brother never took care of him right."
I forgot how relaxing it is to just sit on a comfortable couch and pet an agreeable dog. When I lived in my hometown my room mates had two dogs. One of them was very agreeable and liked nothing better than laying on me on the living room couch for hours and hours.
Jocelyn expressed an interest in Buddhism so I suggested she read 'The Buddha Within' without gushing about it too much. I'm very grateful that Lama Surya Das took the time to it. If he hadn't I might not have found my path. I might not be on it anyway, I still haven't reconciled with S.A.D. over our facebook tift. Feels like she's been ducking me at meetings and I certainly haven't made an effort to go out of my way to speak to her...yet.
I saw S.A.D. at the coffee shop tonight with some other recovery folks. I didn't say anything or even speak to her. I should have said something but I didn't.
No dice getting into the homeless shelter tonight, they are full up again. more pensive than worried really. Either way I've been fixating on my predicament far too much, what will be will be, a night on a bench won't kill me and I really don't feel like worrying to the point that I start adding unnecessary problems to this evening.
I don't want to discuss our conflict in front of the other recovery people. A small part of me doesn't want to deal with the satisfaction she might get from hearing that I'm sleeping outside tonight. It's not something I've had to do very often and not something I'm especially fond of.
Hung out with Jocelyn this morning at her mothers new place. It's a small house over on Valhal Avenue near the 'Fried Wonton', a less that popular Chinese restaurant. I had no trouble finding the place because I walk through that part of town several times a week. The furnishings there reminded me of my own mothers house. Jocelyn is in recovery and dealing with some verbal abuse issues concerning her mothers ex-boyfriend. She also recently had surgery for deep vein thrombosis which was probably aggravated by the sedentary lifestyle she has accrued from being a single mother of two. A boy and a girl. Despite her fresh scars, highly emotional state, and chronic fatigue Jocelyn is psyched to be living in the city limits again, rather than six miles out where she was cohabiting with her Mother. We talked about the verbal abuse briefly;
"Yeah he called a fat-ass all the time, like ' Get out of the house you fat-ass and cause I already have like..."
"Bad body image??" I put in when she paused.
"Yeah, body image issues. Because of that it was ten times worse." Jocelyn explained.
I know what it's like to have a low self image, I've had one almost my whole life. Now that I'm weightlifting, working my spiritual program and exploring Buddhism I've begun to repair my self esteem, body image being a critical part of that. I intensely dislike seeing other people down on their body image, perhaps because it reminds me of how I use to feel about myself. How I still feel sometimes. I sat on the couch for a while in silence, petting Jocelyn's puppy, a strange looking terrier. Good dogs seems to exude a sense of Zen to me. Jocelyn looked at me and then the dog.
"Technically he's my brothers dog. Buy my brother never took care of him right."
I forgot how relaxing it is to just sit on a comfortable couch and pet an agreeable dog. When I lived in my hometown my room mates had two dogs. One of them was very agreeable and liked nothing better than laying on me on the living room couch for hours and hours.
Jocelyn expressed an interest in Buddhism so I suggested she read 'The Buddha Within' without gushing about it too much. I'm very grateful that Lama Surya Das took the time to it. If he hadn't I might not have found my path. I might not be on it anyway, I still haven't reconciled with S.A.D. over our facebook tift. Feels like she's been ducking me at meetings and I certainly haven't made an effort to go out of my way to speak to her...yet.
I saw S.A.D. at the coffee shop tonight with some other recovery folks. I didn't say anything or even speak to her. I should have said something but I didn't.
No dice getting into the homeless shelter tonight, they are full up again. more pensive than worried really. Either way I've been fixating on my predicament far too much, what will be will be, a night on a bench won't kill me and I really don't feel like worrying to the point that I start adding unnecessary problems to this evening.
I don't want to discuss our conflict in front of the other recovery people. A small part of me doesn't want to deal with the satisfaction she might get from hearing that I'm sleeping outside tonight. It's not something I've had to do very often and not something I'm especially fond of.
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