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And then suddenly and without warning, after weeks of exhaustion, I
have the urge to write.
So hello there! I've been gone a while, haven't I? Of course I'm
going to backfill some -- there are many entries from February that
need some polishing, but once polished they'll be up. In retrospect
perhaps the gap won't seem as long as it was -- but for me it's been
three weeks since I even tried to write.
But why, you ask? The usual reasons. I was having a rough time. Work
was really demanding, requiring a lot of concentration and a sort of
determined 'I will get through this' attitude. I was in constant
design meetings, plus in constant stress doing patch releases, plus
feeling a lot of anger over the lack of appreciation people seemed to
have for those of us who had knocked ourselves out doing the latest big
release. There was much stress, and I was bleeding it off by playing a
lot of video games and being reclusive -- not writing in my journal,
not reading anyone else's. It felt like I was surrounded by people at
all times throughout my day, so why on earth would I want to expose
myself to more people?
That was one source of stress. The other was that good old standby,
recovery stuff. I had another phase of intense work, followed by
intense denial, followed by intense weirdness as I started getting
triggered by the weirdest things (the smell of Jim's conditioner) and
had to spend a lot of energy on making sense out of everything. I
wrote several entries in my head, but they all seemed too scary to
actually write. If I put what was going on in my head into words
wouldn't everyone think I was crazy? Would I haven't to deal with the
reality of it all the time, instead of just when it was safe to look in
those corners? So the entries remained in my head and I never wrote a
word, despite thinking about it.
At this point I've come full circle, and am back in the work phase --
but I seem to be less frantic about it. I feel like I've got a good
foundation for a while, in that many things I had been avoiding
talking about because they were 'too melodramatic' are now out in
the open both with Norm and with my group, so I can make some progress
without backsliding into denial again. Hopefully.
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And then there's BAMM. What to
say about BAMM?
Well, it stands for Bay Area Model Mugging, which is all about
self-defense for women. Some nice guy spends a year in training, and
at the end of it he gets to wear a fully padded suit and 'mug' women,
who are taught full-force defense. There's a variety of classes; I'm
taking the basics class, which is 'fighting to a knockout blow against
a single unarmed assailant'. The class is 5 Sundays, and I've done the
first three so far. It's all women, except for the male muggers. It's
intense. The bonding thing happens in a big way; I have a sense of
closeness with the women in my class that I never expected. With
most of them it's inevitably transitory, but I hope that I come out of
this with the foundation for some real friendships.
None of which describes what it's really like. It's the first
fight of the day, and I'm standing in line, trying not to lean against
the wall, intensely nervous. Well, worse than nervous, so usually
there's someone beside me holding me hand, or hugging me, checking how
I'm doing every few minutes. The line is moving, and everyone is doing
their fights, and by this time I know everyone very well, how they
fight and where their strong & weak points are, so watching fights
isn't a passive activity. It's impossible not to cheer people on,
clapping and yelling and calling their name. When I see someone do
something that's hard for them I'm filled with this huge sense of pride
& triumph. It's wonderful.
And when it's my turn... I go out there scared but resigned, knowing
that I can do it but also expecting it to be awful. There's a minute
of talking to the instructor/coach, and then she tells the mugger I'm
ready and suddenly everything narrows down to this beautifully clear
set of thoughts: here is a body which is trying to hurt me, and I won't
let it. I've only had three weeks of class, and my body won't let
me be passive if someone is threatening me. Muscle memory works.
I find that more amazing than any of the rest of it.
Then it's over. The mugger is knocked 'unconscious', the instructor
has blown her whistle, and I'm back in line absolutely euphoric -- and
completely unable to remember the details of my fight. The euphoria
lasts for quite a while, sometimes long enough that I never get nervous
again -- but waiting in line for the very first fight is always, always
nerve-wracking.
That is BAMM. It is transformational. It is changing my life. It
is changing how I think about myself in almost every way. I highly,
highly reccomend it.
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