I started this quest on 01 January 2014.  Today is 02 March 2014.  This not being a leap year, I calculate this as day sixty.

My posts have gone from litannies about things that bothered me as to which I bit my tongue in the moment, to memories of my long-dead brother, and celebrations of the blessings in my life. Along the way, I’ve tried to share stories of encounters that brought me joy,  prompted deep reflection, or challenged my resolve to live complaint-free.

My objective, too, has changed.  My original thought centered on simply engaging with others on a positive plane, rather than a critical one.  In these two months, my course has become one of a personal transformation, a confrontation of old ghosts and a decluttering of the closets in which those ghosts lurk.  I’ve started to throw open the doors in the backrooms of my mind, my heart and my soul.  I’ve hauled out the cleaning supplies, and have begun shaking the broom at the bats and cobwebs.

Everybody’s lives present challenges.  Life is not a competitive sport.  The trials and tribulations that I have experienced impact me no more deeply than any other person’s travails scar them.  Or, if they do, I am not more entitled to sympathy or consideration than any other person.  I’ve known people with greater physical challenges than I face; more chaotic childhoods; far greater financial distress.  Stripped to our essence, all of us deserve compassion.  Each of us needs support.  The dance of life demands choreography that entwines us in ways that allow us to lift one, then the other, rising and falling with the swell of the music.

Time and again, I reflect on one of my earliest literary influences,  Lillian Hellman’s book, Pentimento.  She describes the process of an artist’s covering one oil painting with another, and the later effect of the aging process.  As the oil paint flakes, the work beneath is revealed.  Hellman used the stories in Pentimento to expose her past and examine it.

I feel my evolution doing the same thing.  As I abandon negative ways of relating to people, the layers of paint with which I have coated the past begin to crumble.  While this process started for me without Hellman’s deliberate pursuit, nonetheless, I find myself drawn to what lies beneath the veneer.

I can’t say whether, as Hellman did, I will be able to examine my past with the maturity of age and its tempering wisdom.  When the top layer has all been scraped away, I cannot say whether I will like the picture which lies beneath.  But I raise a scraping tool, and flake away the crumbling surface.  This I know:  It has served its purpose, and now must give way to what lies beneath.

In de St. Exupery’s precious book, “The Little Prince”, the Little Prince travels the universe, and meets many people with different points of view.  One is a man selling a capsule that quenches thirst.  The capsule diminishes the time spent drinking and provides a savings on average of 53 minutes per week.  Asks the Little Prince, “And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?” Says the salesman: “Anything you like . . .”  The Little Prince thinks to himself, “As for me, if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.”(fn)

This morning, my friend Penny Thieme called to see how I am feeling after yesterday’s visit to a new cardiologist to get a second opinion.  I shared that we (my husband and I) learned a lot from the man, and liked his manner.  I talked about the procedure that I would have, its risks, its implications, the options. I listened to her account of finding a potential roommate and the jobs she strives to finish.  When the call ended, I wore a smile.  Not once had either of us voiced a complaint about anything, though we both know that each of our lives hold challenges.  The call lasted 29 minutes and 40 seconds.

I’ve still got 23 minutes and 20 seconds to spare.  I plan to fill them re-reading some of The Little Prince.

(Fn)  If you want to read The Little Prince and don’t have a copy, here it is online:

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I can be relentless.  A Jackson County judge once took judicial notice of this fact, sua sponte and with a great deal of heart-felt vehemence.

This fierceness manifests itself whenever I have to defend a position, or feel that I do.  It serves my clients well. I fight their battles and often win.  Well do I remember a bankruptcy judge who sustained opposing counsel’s objection to a question that I wanted my client to be able to answer.  I argued the point.  “I sustained the objection, counselor, move on!”   I argued some more.  “Counselor, I said, I sustained the objection!”  Then I offered a third rationale for the question’s relevance, and she paused.  “Hmmmm….” she muttered.  “Yes, I guess I can see that.  Objection over-ruled.”

I refrained from air-pumping but just barely.

I have come to realize that I employ the same method in my inter-personal relationships.  When someone tries to tell me how they feel about something I have said or done, my predilection takes over and I immediately start listing all the justifictions which back my position.

You’re asking me this question — I can hear you: “How’s that workin’ for ya?” Aye, well, in truth, not so much.  To be quite honest, it translates as more “I’m right, you’re wrong” than anything.  And in the context of my quest to go a year without complaining, the game of right and wrong has no place.

Complaint-free living honors the other person’s feelings, without putting yourself into the equation. If someone grouses at you, “I feel bad when you don’t talk to me!”, rather than meeting this with defensiveness (a complaint about their  honest expression of how they feel) you meet it with empathy.  I see you are feeling sad and lonely.  You have a need for conversation, and you would like me to stop running around, and be with you.  Is that how you feel?  You allow the other person to request  change in your behavior, and you consider whether you can freely give it.  It’s not about right and wrong; it’s about meeting needs, and understanding feelings.

I’m heavily motivated to embrace these changes.  Here’s a secret about me:  I have a bleeding ulcer which rears its ugly head when my life careens out of kilter.  I’ve been learning the physiology of ulcers, which unpleasantly involve massive influxes of Cortisol.   I’ve been told that I need to catch my emotions before they trigger the flood of Cortisol, and this means after the stimulus and before I respond.  You’ve heard the expression, “Count to ten”, and in essence, that’s what I need to do.  But here’s how I think of it:  Just breathe.  There’s no hurry.  My conversations with the people in my life are not on the record.  The jury isn’t watching intently, and the gavel isn’t lifted waiting to bang.  Just breathe.

And while you’re breathing, I tell myself, try listening.

I’m a work in progress.  And yes, Linda and Cindy:  The fish is still on the door.