Day 63: A Change of Thought

I saw a lady come in to the store carrying this LV Stephen Sprouse Collection tote. I couldn't believe how cute it was and told her so. When I came home to hunt down a photo of it and see how much it set her back, I found a plethora of believable look-alikes (left) all over the web and some real ones (right) being auctioned off a few months after their January debut. What's the difference between the two besides $400-$1000 buckaroes? You tell me. Yes, the right one would last a lifetime, but the left one just might too. Even though I love LV, I'm not sure I love him enough to spend that kind of dough. So, to knock-off designers everyone, I'm dedicating this outfit to you and calling it, "I'll Take the Fake...and the Cake, Too."

We are on to season five, and I have to confess I've seen every episode in it about six times. When I lived in Peru, you could buy a season for $3.50, so I bought all the ones I hadn't seen (five, six, and six part deux). The only catch was that sometimes they would play, sometimes not. Unfortunately I never got season 6 to work at all and didn't have the time or energy to go haggle my way to a refund. So, when I wanted my dose of SATC, I just re-watched an episode from season five. I pretty much know them verbatim.

But I didn't really remember the context, since I hadn't seen the first seasons for years. I was aware of the big things--that Miranda had Steve's baby and Charlotte and Trey divorced--but had forgotten all of the details and whys. So when I saw these two episodes again today, despite the fact that I have them nearly memorized, I teared up.

Miranda finds that motherhood is challenging her relationships with her friends, especially Samantha, who wants nothing to do with baby talk. Per Steve's request, Miranda gives in to the idea of baptizing Brady and asks Carrie to be his godmother. Carrie finds herself becoming cynical about dating and love at the same time a book offer comes along. She must decide whether she's an optimist about relationships or a pessimist and decides to keep the faith alive. Charlotte starts losing hope as well and turns to self-help psychology for help. When she convinces Carrie to join her for an "affirmations seminar," Charlotte sees just how strong her grief over her failed marriage has become. Samantha decides to give cheating, scumbag Richard a second chance, much to the dismay of her friends. However, she can't quite forgive and forget what he did.

Okay, let me explain the tears. It must be said that Kristin Davis (Charlotte) is a great actress. There is a moment when they attend the seminar when she stands up and asks why the affirmations the lady suggests aren't working faster. She says she wants to believe in love but finds it so hard after divorcing. She feels angry at her ex-husband for taking her hope away from her. The way she says it makes you feel everything she's going through--and makes you want to bomb the motivational speaker's home for making people believe it's easy if they just work really hard to see their situation in a new way. It's just not that easy. Ever.

After breaking up with Billy, I came up with my own philosophy about positive thinking: "Thinking differently about reality won't change it; it will just make you think differently about it." Positive thinkers everywhere will hate me for saying that. I did say it in a different context--relating more to trying to "think" an unhealthy relationship into being a healthy one without anything really changing--but it could really be used here as well. Usually we experience difficult emotions for a reason. Sometimes it's because we're grieving, which I think is a normal, healthy thing. Sometimes it's because we're angry, which can also be good as a catalyst for changing our lives for the better. Sometimes it's physical or hormonal, which can be helped with natural hormones and a little exercise (hey, it worked for me). Whatever their root, personally I haven't found "positive thinking" to be very helpful. Usually it just makes me feel like crap about myself.

And I should know. When I came back from Peru (engaged to Jorge, though he hadn't moved to the U.S. yet), I was emotionally out-of-whack. In retrospect, I see that I was suffering a bit from reverse culture shock, a bit from the train wreck of my relationship with Billy, a bit from the near-paralyzing task of rebuilding my life in Montana I had so suddenly abandoned a year earlier, and a bit from having gone off of anti-depressants for the first time in seven years (still off them, by the way, and that was almost three years ago). My mom saw my angst and suggested a book by Marianne Williamson called, "The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for Living Your Best Life." She said it was affecting her life dramatically for the better. So I gave it a try. As my mother said, "What have you got to lose?"

Well, a lot actually. About half-way through, I literally felt I had hit rock-bottom, but that was right before feeling like the book was really onto something huge. I read every word like it was the Bible, underlining things and writing comments in the margins. The author told me to love, love, love--that if I focussed on loving enough, I wouldn't feel angry or sad anymore, only peaceful. She said that negative feelings were just the ego's way of bringing us down. The ego told us we had things to fear. The ego separated us from God and love. Her premise was that all our "issues" were "inside our head."

I started listening to her radio program nightly with my mother (I was staying with my parents that spring before moving to New York for a summer job). I ordered her "Course in Miracles," a workbook to teaching people how to think differently about their situations, with exercises, affirmations (yes, really), and CAQs. At the time, I was really worried about the direction my life was headed, especially concerning marriage. I thought this book was the answer and decided to think positively about the whole thing.

Until I no longer could. I started to hate myself for feeling scared and sad about what had happened that year. I began to hate the book (and my mother for giving it to me) for basically blaming it all on my brain. Then, I would hate myself more for hating the book, because obviously that meant that I wasn't being loving enough, etc. It was a mind fuck if I ever saw one, and I eventually had to choose the book or my brain and its sanity. I chose my brain, even if it was less than perfectly loving at the moment. In the end, I figured, I didn't want to lead my life not trusting what my body and mind were telling me to feel.

Self-help is really appealing when you are lost. And let's face it, we're all a little lost. It's easy, because someone gives you the answer. Someone offers to take all that anxiety from you and turn it into a simple theory that you can hopefully live your entire life by without having to think too hard. The problem is that you don't really work things out that way. Not really. You stick a bandaid on the problem, but it's still there, lurking under the surface. I didn't want to live my life knowing I had a problem I wasn't facing.

So I let myself feel what I needed to feel. It brought chaos. Jorge and I fought. I cried a lot. I tried anti-depressants again and called my therapist weekly. Then, I quit my therapist, who just kept saying that I was doing fine and had the whole world at my fingertips (

What did I care? I was sad.), and switched to another student therapist, who really helped me work some things out and make peace with myself and my natural emotions and thoughts. I canceled another wedding, trusting my instinct whether my emotions were based on fear or not, I wasn't about to get married to someone I wasn't sure I loved and just didn't want to hurt. I took a hormone test and started taking herbal and hormonal supplements. I got off the new anti-depressants.

With time, I started to stabilize. I cried less and felt hopeful. I talked with friends about what happened in Peru and began to see the craziness of it all and the manipulative side of Billy. Up until then, I still had blamed the end of the relationship on myself. I began to--get this--even feel thankful for the whole experience and what it had taught me. I knew that some of those lessons--taking care of yourself in a foreign place, surviving a breakup without friends or family, trusting your voice (it was in Peru that I really started writing, even if I didn't share it with anyone)--I couldn't have learned any other way. And I learned them without any stupid book on change or forced positive thinking.

Well, here's to trusting ourselves--what we think, feel, and experience. If we don't, what can we really trust? I think even God would agree. I hope you'll be back. I will.