Category Archives: Making

Because I’m Afraid

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Silence had broken out in The Garage, a workstation in a small town where nerds met weekly to plink away on projects and be nerdly in step together, never quite locking eyes in their imagined social landscape. This was actually almost inevitable, since my friend and her husband and I were the last ones left, and her husband was in another room, buzzing on circuits and code.
I finally decide to confront the feelings that have been choking me the past couple weeks.

 
“I don’t think it’s anxiety, but…”

 
This was in reference to a coworker of mine who had said “I don’t think it’s anxiety, I just have this sense of impending doom.”

 
That’s the goddamn definition of anxiety.

 
“I don’t think it’s anxiety, but I have this sinking feeling in my chest.”

 
“Is this a new feeling?”

 
Word vomit was my answer. “I don’t think it’s new in the sense that I’ve never felt it before but it’s new in the last couple weeks and I had been doing so well and I’m just concerned that I’m slipping backwards and what if…”

 
She interrupted. “Lock the door. Hide the key. Turn out the lights. Pretend you aren’t home.”

 
“Maybe it’s just loneliness?”

 
We ended up discussing this at length. How loneliness just is, how it shouldn’t bring such pain with it, how I need to learn to sit with loneliness, and historically have epically failed at doing so.

 
So really, at the root of it, what am I afraid of?

 
Because that’s the goddamn definition of anxiety.

 

On one layer of it, I am afraid to be alone.

 

But I’m also afraid to be with someone, afraid of the things that would come out, afraid of who I am when I’m also defined by someone else.

 

And along the way, I am afraid to put myself out there, to try with people.

 

Or, another example, I am afraid to fail artistically, so I take tricks and little advantages and cheats. I can’t get by without my reference photos and projectors and tracings. It makes the art more likely to be “successful” on the first crack, but I know my own limitations and weaknesses. I’ve guaranteed that I will never be able to view something as truly successful.

 

So, so, scared to succeed. That’s way worse. That’s why I self sabotage so expertly and so devoutly.
This is a tangent, but a relevant one. Dr. Bell looked at me one day and asked me what borderline personality was. I parroted back to him “It’s a personality disorder characterized by at least 5 of 9 traits, such as impulsivity, anger issues, lack of identity, suicidal tendencies, and a few others.”

 

His reply was “That’s just a list of symptoms. If I asked you to describe what diabetes was, you wouldn’t just say it makes you pee a lot.”

 

He went on. “Typically, in a borderline person’s life, someone was there that they looked up to, a person of authority, typically a parent, who would tell that person to do something but not how they wanted it done. And the child would try it their own way, because everyone’s got their own way, I’m a psychiatrist but my son’s an engineer, we have different ways, anyways, the child would try it and the parent would be upset that it wasn’t done perfectly in their image. The parent would say something like ‘No, you idiot, what’d you do it that way for?’ and that would be the smack. So the child tries again, and again, different ways, becoming a chameleon for what they think that person wants. Then they’ll grow up and do this for anyone important in their lives. That’s what they mean by lack of identity. ”

 

“But,” he continued, “these people, you are, very bright. And they’re afraid of failure, afraid of that smack, but they’re just as afraid of success. In fact, it seems like when things start going well for a borderline patient, like a good business deal, a graduation they’ll often self sabotage. Why do you think that is?”

 

This was hard for me. Precisely because it hit so close to home, and it felt like some real therapizing was about to happen. “Because…it’s easier…not having people expect anything of you?”

 

And there it was. It’s not just insecurities, worrying about what people thought of me, it was worrying about being a constructive member of society. About setting myself up to fail bigger down the road.

 

I’m afraid to have anyone rely on me.

 

Because I’m afraid I’ll let them down.

 

Because I’m afraid I’m not good enough.

 

Or simply not… enough.

 

Ultimately, I think that there’s something in me, that’s afraid to simply be. On a molecular level, I’m jittery.

 
I don’t think I’m alone in this.

On the Second Step

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My sponsor asked me to write a paragraph or two about my higher power.

When I close my eyes in the darkness and the silence, nothing comes to me. There is no still small voice. When I meditate, my mind wanders away like a neurotic puppy, and I bring it back, but I find no peace or joy in the activity. When I try to pray, there is no presence. When I grieve, there is no comfort.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

That’s Isaiah 55:8. It’s the verse that I most relate to.

So much spiritual abuse has been heaped on me. So much pain in the name of God. Manipulating, forcing, cajoling. Writing pages of the bible until my handwriting improved and I developed mild carpal tunnel. Not believing in mental illness, not getting help, watching me retreat further and further into myself until I was a shell and then trying to break me down with an exorcism. I regret not being stronger but more I regret needing to be strong. Needing to be protected from those that were only acting out of love, only doing what they knew and thought was best.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

No, I don’t find God like that.

But when I am making something, something fanciful takes over me.

I see God in the way an edge gets shaded just right,

or a piece of sheet metal bends precisely how it needed to,

or the twirl of a burr being removed,

or a cut falling away.

My higher power is not passive. I must worship at the alter of calluses and minor burns.

I must seek out the Muse. She is not a god of prayerful prone postures. She delights in mad midnight marches of over-caffeinated whimsy.

And with that, I close my prayer.

I wouldn’t touch that if I were you…

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I was proud of a particularly nice weld. It lay between each hunk of steel, puddles so tight and smooth that it looked like metal bred with liquid silk. I wanted to show it off, so I pulled off my helmet, which had no doubt left strappy sweat marks trailing through my hair, and went to where my brother, face contorted, was setting up the CNC mill. I watched the wiggler approach the shaft for a moment, then stop. I took my chance.
I asked my brother “Are you grumpy?”
He replied “I’m always grumpy. What do you need?”
“I just wanted to show you a weld that’s pretty special looking.”
As we walked over, he asked, “Does it glow in the dark?”
“It can if you give me twenty minutes. I do have that spray paint.”
He stood over the bench and examined the part. “Huh. That’s pretty nice.”
I would never expect higher praise from him.

By the sheet

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Heidi was before my time, she was around in the early eighties. She trained my grandfathers prized Arabian stud in dressage, or, as my grandma explained it to me “doin’ all that fancy steppin'” as she crossed and uncrossed her hands. I learned about Heidi when I told Grandma that some of the wallpaper was coming apart in my room when I moved something around.
“Yeah, Heidi did that room. I guess she took a class or something on how to do wallpaper and figured herself an expert. Don’t think she ever got it wet enough.”

Today I am pulling wallpaper down in a couple rooms. When I got to the blue room, I was so, so thankful for Heidi. This stuff just peels off in whole sheets.

A letter for me.

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“Write me my affirmations.” I directed Alyssa. There wasn’t a whole lot for her to do at the meeting while we fiddled with the laser downstairs.

“But I don’t have anything to write on.”

I sighed, knowing that I would gladly leap to solve any problem she had, but probably shouldn’t. “You are not helpless. You are a very clever girl. I have faith in you.”

“Okay, MARK.” She spat her husband’s name at me with a tone I recognized, on that I had used before, substituting the name Josh instead. It took me until this moment to realize what a weak argument that was.

“Wow, that’s really your response?” I had already started walking backwards out of the room and could no longer see her.

She raised her voice. “If you’re gonna say things like him, I’m gonna call you on it.”

“Maybe he’s just right.”

She yelled vivaciously from the other room, full of defiance and spitfire. “NO. THAT COULD NEVER BE THE CASE.” I smiled as I went down the stairs, wondering if she’d actually work on it. After all, I had given her the assignment of writing down positive things about me about two weeks ago.

–

She came down to the shop a little while later, and began playing with my hair. She smirked, saying that she was gonna “Pippi Longstocking” me. As she pulled my hair into short, tight braids, I sighed and resigned myself to my fate. Then, presumably bored, she traipsed upstairs again to see what Denise was up to.

I wandered the space. I found a chunk of plexiglas that someone had lasered something out of, leaving several inches of wasted space in the material. I picked it up and walked over to Mark. “One thing that I really hate about this place is that there’s not a single person that has a clue how to use materials effectively.”

He was less miffed, and being his traditionally sassy self. “Out of all the things that are wrong in the world, including your hair, that is what you focus on?”

“You’re one of them, you know.” I said, thinking back to several times that I’ve seen him set up materials.

“Yes, I’m one of the things that are wrong with the world.”

Despite the fact that he’s one of the most important and productive people that are involved with the makerspace, there’s no point in engaging with him while he’s having an incompetence fit. I headed back upstairs.

–

First thing I did was head to the fridge to grab a soda. As I walked towards her, Alyssa hissed at me and shielded the papers she had strewn out around her. I guess she really was working on my letter. I smiled and went towards Denise instead.

–

When the first set of puzzle piece structure was finished in the laser, I asked Mark “Is there a method to the madness here? Which ones are which?” Each segment had 6 pieces and the pair of them were slightly different. He explained the order and I opened up the laser to pick them out. Knowing the difference between the pieces, I felt confident that I knew what I was doing, so I just scooped them together and plucked them up randomly.

“So I guess it doesn’t matter even if there was an order.”

I smiled brightly and shook my head.

Mark sighed as he put in the next sheet. “Thanks sweetie.”

–

When Alyssa handed me an envelope, I beamed at her. I was very excited. It was thick with several sheets and had my first and middle name on it in cheery, loopy handwriting.

“If that’s not still sealed by the time we leave here today, I take back everything I said in it.”

“Okaayy…”

–

Denise left early, wishing us the best as it had taken her and Stacey 6 hours to put together the tab and slot structure. Mark went to the auto parts store, hoping to fix the forklift. This left Alyssa and I alone with all the paperboard pieces of the prototype. We worked industriously and listened to Andrew Bird.
After Mark showed up again, I stole his abandoned pair of glasses and put them on.
He didn’t when he sat down. I came to the end of the first side of the construction, and began to fiddle with the second spiral. “Yeah, you can do this part. I don’t wanna.”

Alyssa graciously began inserting and bending tabs, very quickly becoming adept at it. The spiral spun and spun and spun some more. Mark fiddled on his phone, periodically showing something interesting to us or reading bits of an article. Alyssa was reaching the end of the spiral again, about a half hour later when she exasperatedly said “Are you really not gonna notice that she’s wearing your glasses?”

“Why should I care?” Ever so generous, that one.

We spent a little time fiddling with the various lenses and then came the question.

“What do we do now?”

“I guess we go home.”

They began packing up. Mark stalked up behind me and wordlessly pulled his glasses from my face. I glared at him. “What?” There are times I feign anger just so that I get to enjoy the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles defensively.

We hugged, we left, I came home, I wrote. And now I have a letter to read.

I can’t wait.

Long day.

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I woke up early, under the advisement to see the day as an opportunity to create. The night before, Denise had been teasing me lightly about my last blog post via text. Very shortly, I was in her car, driving to a storage place as a GRMakers field trip. At one point during our conversation, I turn on my hippie voice and declare “I’m just one of those artist types, man.”
Quick and devilishly observant as ever, Denise replied “So you need constant reassurances and validation?”
She had me. “I don’t know abou- Yes.”
As we laughed and I made faces to exaggerate my hurt, I was actually feeling a little stung. She was quick to reassure me. “It’s totally okay, I am too.”

We reached our destination, a large brick building with an entryway of swooping curved metal. We were there to meet a guy who buys up the fixtures and furniture of businesses that close down and resells it. His warehouse is massive. The downstairs is rented out, and we passed factory workers, who would look up from either their phones or their work and watch us curiously. There were rows upon rows upon rows of racks filled with racks or barrels or little metal tidbits. The place seemed endless. Then we got upstairs, where we could really dive into the miscellany that we were there to look at.

~

As I walked up to rest of the group(inspecting desks), Buttercup broke from the herd to say hi and pulls me aside. “You know, as you were walking up here- today is the first time I can like SEE that you’ve lost weight. You’re like a different person.” Sometimes I think he says these things just to perplex me. It’d be within his personality to drop weird statements to throw me off. He’s one of my truest friends, but about 12% of the time he’s an asshole. There’s the 88% of the friendship where he builds me up and we joke together and muse about people, but the 12% can rip you right down(hence the nickname Buttercup). I didn’t get his motives, he had a funny look on his face and we’ve got enough history of us pushing each other that I’m generally second, third, and fourth guessing anything he says.

I don’t usually see the lost weight(about 45 pounds), I just see how far I have to go to. And I’m certainly not a different person. In fact, that’s the wall I keep bumping into with my mental health. I know that no matter how I progress or what changes I make, I’m still me. And I’d still be living my life. But the real key of this whole experience was that it’s winter. This is the first time he’s seen me without a hoodie or jacket on in months. Of course I finally look like I’ve lost weight.

~

As a fledgling makerspace, this place was ideal to outfit the place. We eagerly plotted about desks, chairs, materials racks, transformers, carts, saws, dust collectors, fans, cables, shelves, and a welding table. The two things that interested me most were the barrels of chain(for my chain horse idea) and these great big metal spoke wheels that were pulled from an overhead conveyance system. When I saw them, I saw Giraffecycle.

Giraffecycle is a very old idea of mine, I’ve wanted to build her since I was a small child. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A pedal powered vehicle in the shape of a giraffe. Preferably life size, and with an articulating neck.

Building her would be a dream come true.

Eh, probably never gonna happen. But there’s power in dreaming, and I was basking in that joy for the rest of the day.

~

 
After that I went to work. The slightest task can become a festival of tangents there. All I had to do was assemble two more parts to fill an order. I made the argument for setting up a machine to make new parts for an order, but my father insisted that I sand some polished display hinges to send them out, he’d rather get the order out ASAP. I didn’t want to throw away the work that someone had already put into polishing them, but I did as he asked. It involved chucking up the little lathe with a thin rod wrapped in sandpaper and center drilling one end. Then put the rod between the chuck and the live center support, and after more fiddling around, flipped on the lathe and started to sand the tricky inner curve of the part.

The sandpaper immediately shredded. We had center drilled the wrong end, so the sandpaper was wrapped wrong. More fiddling around, cleaning the rod and replacing the papers. But I got it done, went to the other buffing jack to sand the rest of the part, and reassembled the hinge. Then we realized there are no more flanges, and my father decides that if I have to make 2, I should make eight instead, that way the whole order will match instead of some having a zinc finish and some plain.

So I start welding flanges. At one point, I notice some moisture on my glove. I was baffled. I looked at the ceiling for a leak, I wonder if maybe I had wiped my nose or something without remembering. Then I look at the torch. The water cooled TIG welding torch. There was a leak.

I only had two more parts left, 125 amps of electricity and a leaking torch, bad idea, but surely it could hold out for two more parts? The next arc strike makes my hand tingle. BETTER NOT.

I watched for a moment as my dad repaired the leak. “I guess I’ll go vacuum or something.”
“Don’t you want to know how to do this next time it happens?”
“Yeah, but I also feel bad for not being productive right now.”
I stayed standing right there, productivity be damned. Learning is important too.

Repair complete, I finish the parts and my father and I had another discussion, where it was determined that we should indeed set up the CNC machine and run more new parts. Turns out that the 2 pieces I had worked so hard on had a different hole pattern than the rest. It took until after I sanded away the nice polished finish that I was so keen to preserve earlier. Sigh.

~

My evening was spent at Celebrate Recovery and ended with squeezing arms wrapped around my ribcage. Trudy came to visit me and brought with her a hand lettered card for me with a quote from Sir Francis Bacon. It represents our shared struggles and was really very sweet. It’s going on my wall.

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”

Right now I am certain of only one thing; that it’s time for bed.

Call it good.

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“I’ve been treading water.” I came into therapy with an immediate admission of guilt- I’ve not been writing. I’ve been sleeping instead of living. I lamented my laziness. That’s what it’s always been treated as.

Kathy immediately countered with “What if you’re not being lazy? What if it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism? Someone that’s abused has a hard time envisioning a life where they aren’t abused. So they seek out familiarity. You’ve said yourself that you don’t know what it means to be happy. It’s very normal for people to have a ‘default mode’ that they switch back to.” She alluded back to my first words. “You’re going back to your default to avoid having to swim.”

“If you don’t know how to move forward, you’ll seek familiarity. You’re learning how to be a new you, to be happy.” The shaft of light that’s been progressing across the room is getting closer to hitting her eyes and I wonder why she doesn’t shift to run away from it, at least for a little while.

I don’t know what a new me will look like. I don’t even really know what the old me looked like. Pretty sure I hate them both. I asked “How will I know that the me I am, the me I’m becoming, the me I will be, is a worthwhile one?”

“Good question. How indeed?”

“I guess I have to look to others because people that fall short of the standards that society sets, or the ones that aren’t contributing to the GDP or whatever, I still think they have worth.”

Her reply was a rigorous batch of finger quotes. I don’t think her fingers stopped wagging at any point. “Those that don’t ‘Measure up’ or ‘have value’ by ‘societies standards’ of ‘worth’ are still worthwhile and you know that. So on some level you must know that about yourself.”  She gives me a gentle smile. “I think you just give up on yourself too quickly.”

“Grandma saw your value, right?”
“I don’t know that.” I tend to view it as a sort of “gotcha” technique when she invokes the name of my recently deceased grandmother, but I don’t argue with the fact that it’s highly effective.
“Would grandma have wanted for you to give up on life? To kill yourself?”
This is an easy question. I actually start laughing through the tears. No, she absolutely would not have and several times she was the reason I didn’t.
“So you know that, even if you can’t quite put it into words. And if you can know that, there will be other knowings.” She finally shifts to avoid the beam of light. It was driving me crazy.

We transition somehow into the topic of creating.
I ask her if she tells all her clients to create or if I’m special.
“Yes, we are all creating. It’s what we’re supposed to do. I’m a person of faith, I don’t know where you stand with that, but I think God created us to be creators. To create with him. When you create, you are bringing yourself strongly into the world.”

“If you’ve stopped creating, if you’ve given up to just lie in bed, of course you aren’t going to feel purpose and joy. People create with words, things, ideas. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s like God says ‘I gave you this huge big world, enjoy it!’ Look at it from the perspective of ‘How can I go out in the world and create today?’ Co-create with God. Have fun. Enjoy life.”

“Some people like to live in very prescribed ways, they don’t want to be challenged. It’s safer living that way, though it limits their creativity. You are not one of those people, don’t try to live like you are.”

“Poets, prophets, artists, musicians, they are on the fringe of society because they think outside the box. Artists challenge society. But we can’t force them to think the way society does. You’ve been dealing with being different by assuming you are flawed or broken. I don’t fit in, therefore I’m bad. What you don’t see is that you’re brilliant. You have the ability to see beyond what’s there. You’re not bad, broken, lazy or flawed. Those are labels that you’ve accepted. I’m challenging that, I’m suggesting that it was never true.”

“Maybe you’re buying into those thoughts because you don’t fit into somebody’s idea of what it means to be productive(I use that word a lot). I wish I could just shake you!” She looks visibly exasperated while she gesticulates at the writing I’ve brought in to give to her.

“Van Gogh was never appreciated in his time and it caused him to be very depressed. I just wish that he could have listened to his critics and talked back to them a bit. ‘That’s not how you do it. Clearly it’s not. It is the way that I do it.’”

“So have your voice. Express what’s inside. Maybe people will judge, because that’s what society likes to do, but you have to remember that those are the insecure people who like to live in very prescribed ways. I have no intent of doing that or aspiring to be that.”

“Approach every day as an opportunity to create, and it brings with it a sense of peace and happiness.”

“There’s still our prophets, our creators, our edge live-ers. I’m okay with that, because they’ve got something to say.”

“You have a voice, you have creative abilities, please don’t stifle it. Please don’t take yourself out of the game. That’s what you are doing when you just stay in bed.”

“God made some crazy things, and he called them good. So create, and call it good.”

Making sparks

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benrouschpic

Just one of the many reasons that I love GRMakers.

The people there are an astounding community of thinkers, tinkerers, and do-ers. I can honestly say that I don’t know what I would be like without GRMakers, it’s been a year of learning, growing and connecting. Some of my most trusted friends are people that I have met at makers.

If you consider yourself a maker in any way, I encourage you to check out https://www.grmakers.com/ and see how to get involved. If you are in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area, come out to the space for the free social on Wednesday nights from eight to midnight.

Bugger.

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My father was cleaning up from the chaos that the finished Nissan and unfinished Chevy left when I called him over, proud of my welding. I wanted to show off a particularly nice part.

photo-1

The reaction was immediate when he saw the neatly pooled rings of metal.

“WOW. Keep it up.” And then, quieter, more to himself, “Bugger. You make mine look bad.”

That’s a special joy. I wouldn’t say that the student is surpassing the teacher, but I’m making progress. Now I’ve gotta get better than him at aluminum.

Unfinished

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photo

 

 

Today at work was directed by super effective frantic energy. From the time I go there to the time I left, huge strides were made on the Downs body, a 33-34 Chevy fiberglass shell that we were developing hinging and safety features for. I was elated when we finally got the door swinging after having worked on those blasted mounting plates and the jam. I wish I could say my father was as excited as I was, but he just immediately focused on the next thing without taking a moment to appreciate that victory, a supremely important one for me.

 

 

It was amazing how effective we were being. We got more done today than in the past week combined. The power of deadlines, I suppose.

 

 

My mom walked up at one point just after the first swing, and I forced her into sharing my elation. I got a fist in the air and a halfhearted “Whoo” but that was better than nothing.

 

 

When the guys came to pick it up, they were excited about what we had made. They talked about how cool it looked, and how more and more people were looking for the kind of features that we were designing. It was very satisfying, because for me it had just been routine, but they saw magic.

 

After work, I went to my CR step study. One of the members gave me a birthday present she had been working on since finding out that my birthday had been before last week. It was sweet and heartfelt and I felt totally undeserving. All of the girls wrote notes on the back of an art frame that says “You are loved.” They barely know me, why should they love me? And yet they choose to. It’s baffling to me.

 

 

The Downs body is going to a car show, as is, with all the rough stuff exposed. And I’ll keep walking through CR, and letting people see a bit of my rough stuff.