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Me & Moomintroll
Mar. 11th, 2005 07:54 amIt's been a remarkably productive week. I've had a lot going, but very little that's appropriate for LJ. I am also writing in my paper journal again, which is a great pleasure, because it has always been my secret place, a place where I can write freely about anything, and not worry about anyone reading, or responding to it. Everyone needs a secret place. Mine has felt rather desolate for the past few months.
The past few months have been very self-indulgent and self-involved. I have gotten very caught up in what I want from other people, rather than what I expect from myself and life generally. We cannot control other people, nor demand from them what is not necessarily their's to give. I've been focusing entirely too much upon the action (or nonactions) of others, or situations beyond my control "making me unhappy" rather than trying to uncover what makes me happy, and what I can do to integrate that into a part of my life. I'm allowing myself to be too much defined by outward circumstance instead of being ontological me.
This is why I decided to get a therapist. My focus has gotten skewed. I'm running ruts into my well-worn grooves. It's time to start thinking and doing in different ways. My patterns and routines aren't working out for me, I need to find a new way of relating and interacting with the world.
I've been freely soliciting people's pity without examining what's important to me. It's a sad state of affairs when people respond more readily to our suffering rather than our joy. This winter I've felt like the lab rat who is rewarded with food pellets everytime it pushes the 'pity' button. This is one thing I dislike about the online journal style forum. People are much more likely to respond to negative posts than positive ones. Sometimes it feels like negative reinforcement.
Granted, it has been a rough season in a difficult year, but when have I ever been the kind of girl to wallow in self-pity and use it to gain advantage? I am not suited for tragedy, nor even vague suffering. I was born with a merry soul. When all else fails, I can always rely on my sense of humor.
(Dining with friends tonight, Josh said, "I'm really sorry about your job situation, but I haven't known how to respond. Everytime I get one of your emails, all I want to do is sit back and laugh for a half hour, and I'm never sure how to reply."
To which I said, "Good, they are supposed to be funny.")
Lately, it's felt like everyone is at last emerging from hibernation. I'm not entirely sure I went to sleep this winter, though I longed to. It put me in mind of Moominland Midwinter when Moomintroll wakes early from his hibernation and has to confront ths strange and alien world of Moominland in winter, which he has never seen before.
His aloneness and the very strangeness of the world inspire a lot of confusion, anger, and fear for Moomintroll. He has his first brush with death when the squirrel with the magnificent tail meets The Lady of the Cold and freezes to death. He lets his own ancestor out of the closet after being warned not to. ("You never know what that one might do," Too-ticky warns when Moomintroll asks why the being in the closet does not attend the midwinter bonfire.) He is discomfited by all the strange winter creatures that gather at the midwinter bonfire, "the lonely and the rum," as Tove Jansson describes them. He has to deal with the hunger of all the little creatures driven to Moominvalley by starvation. He has to confront the obnoxious atheletic Hemulen, the demanding Little My, and the confounding Too-Ticky. Then he has to deal with his own feelings of foolishness and inadequacy whenever his own actions and choices don't quite mesh with expectations. (Like when he ties gold ribbons on his ears and stands on his head to welcome the sun, which ends up being merely a sliver on the horizon, and quickly disappears again into darkness.)
I have felt a lot like Moomintroll this winter, confused by a new reality, while caught by expectations from the old one. The first time I encountered this book, was during my first year in New York. I identified with Moomintroll alone in his new environment. This time it is about being in a mostly familiar environment, but having to relate to it in a new way.
And like Moomintroll I am extremely grateful for the returning, and much longed-for spring, along with the returning presence of friends and family as they emerge from their own isolation and hibernation.
My tulips are coming up. Snufkin will soon be here. Soon it will be time for another summer adventure.
S
P.S. If you have never read Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books, I recommend beginning with Finn Family Moomintroll. My favorite remains Moominland Midwinter.
The past few months have been very self-indulgent and self-involved. I have gotten very caught up in what I want from other people, rather than what I expect from myself and life generally. We cannot control other people, nor demand from them what is not necessarily their's to give. I've been focusing entirely too much upon the action (or nonactions) of others, or situations beyond my control "making me unhappy" rather than trying to uncover what makes me happy, and what I can do to integrate that into a part of my life. I'm allowing myself to be too much defined by outward circumstance instead of being ontological me.
This is why I decided to get a therapist. My focus has gotten skewed. I'm running ruts into my well-worn grooves. It's time to start thinking and doing in different ways. My patterns and routines aren't working out for me, I need to find a new way of relating and interacting with the world.
I've been freely soliciting people's pity without examining what's important to me. It's a sad state of affairs when people respond more readily to our suffering rather than our joy. This winter I've felt like the lab rat who is rewarded with food pellets everytime it pushes the 'pity' button. This is one thing I dislike about the online journal style forum. People are much more likely to respond to negative posts than positive ones. Sometimes it feels like negative reinforcement.
Granted, it has been a rough season in a difficult year, but when have I ever been the kind of girl to wallow in self-pity and use it to gain advantage? I am not suited for tragedy, nor even vague suffering. I was born with a merry soul. When all else fails, I can always rely on my sense of humor.
(Dining with friends tonight, Josh said, "I'm really sorry about your job situation, but I haven't known how to respond. Everytime I get one of your emails, all I want to do is sit back and laugh for a half hour, and I'm never sure how to reply."
To which I said, "Good, they are supposed to be funny.")
Lately, it's felt like everyone is at last emerging from hibernation. I'm not entirely sure I went to sleep this winter, though I longed to. It put me in mind of Moominland Midwinter when Moomintroll wakes early from his hibernation and has to confront ths strange and alien world of Moominland in winter, which he has never seen before.
His aloneness and the very strangeness of the world inspire a lot of confusion, anger, and fear for Moomintroll. He has his first brush with death when the squirrel with the magnificent tail meets The Lady of the Cold and freezes to death. He lets his own ancestor out of the closet after being warned not to. ("You never know what that one might do," Too-ticky warns when Moomintroll asks why the being in the closet does not attend the midwinter bonfire.) He is discomfited by all the strange winter creatures that gather at the midwinter bonfire, "the lonely and the rum," as Tove Jansson describes them. He has to deal with the hunger of all the little creatures driven to Moominvalley by starvation. He has to confront the obnoxious atheletic Hemulen, the demanding Little My, and the confounding Too-Ticky. Then he has to deal with his own feelings of foolishness and inadequacy whenever his own actions and choices don't quite mesh with expectations. (Like when he ties gold ribbons on his ears and stands on his head to welcome the sun, which ends up being merely a sliver on the horizon, and quickly disappears again into darkness.)
I have felt a lot like Moomintroll this winter, confused by a new reality, while caught by expectations from the old one. The first time I encountered this book, was during my first year in New York. I identified with Moomintroll alone in his new environment. This time it is about being in a mostly familiar environment, but having to relate to it in a new way.
And like Moomintroll I am extremely grateful for the returning, and much longed-for spring, along with the returning presence of friends and family as they emerge from their own isolation and hibernation.
My tulips are coming up. Snufkin will soon be here. Soon it will be time for another summer adventure.
S
P.S. If you have never read Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books, I recommend beginning with Finn Family Moomintroll. My favorite remains Moominland Midwinter.
