I Made a Mistake - I Watched the News.

I made the mistake of watching the news this morning. I should have turned it off as soon as I saw the graphic for a presidential election poll flash on the screen. The poll was a CBS News poll that showed Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton tied – 40% each. Think about that for a minute – 40% each. Twenty percent of respondents (1) wouldn’t say for whom they intended to vote; or, (2) don’t want either candidate. Then, I heard Speaker Ryan say that we have a choice between two candidates, and therefore, while Trump isn’t his first choice, he’s choosing Trump over Clinton.

We’re on a collision course with our own stupidity. We are in lock step with ignorance.

For good or bad, there will be no Mexico paid for wall, no new coalmines will open, companies will not be forced to bring back jobs from overseas, the Affordable Care Act will not be rescinded with the stroke of a pen. For good or bad, millions will not get free college tuition or healthcare, the rich will not pay their fair share, and Wall Street will not be required to pay for anything it doesn’t already.

Why not?

No one person, even the President of the United States, has the power in this country to either ruin it or make it great. Sorry. Our government is specifically designed to prevent that. Remember how the election of President Obama was going to usher in a new era of change, or completely devastate the nation, depending on how you viewed him? Raise your hand if your life has been so drastically changed by President Obama’s work that you no longer recognize the life you lived eight years ago… Yeah, that’s what I thought.

·         The President cannot introduce legislation. That is a function of the legislative branch. POTUS wants legislation, a Representative or a Senator has to do that. And it has to pass both houses.

·         The President cannot create national infrastructure without a bill that passes both houses of Congress.

·         The US cannot invoice another nation for US projects, unless, an agreement has already been made with said other country.

·         The President cannot revoke, in his or her sole discretion, a treaty signed by a previous President and ratified by the Senate.

Checks and balances. And the ultimate check and balance? The Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can pretty much wipeout anything that violates the Constitution.

So, let’s go back that deadlocked poll above – 20% of people did not pick a candidate. Both candidates also have very high unfavorable numbers. There’s a good chance that 10% on both sides could be swayed away if they saw a viable 3^rd party candidate. What does that mean?

If that poll is accurate…a viable 3^rd party candidate could easily win.

Let me say that again…

If that poll is accurate…a viable 3^rd party candidate could easily win.

In order for a 3^rd party candidate (3pc) to win, however, 3 conditions must be met:

1 – People have to realize that a 3pc could win. The Rs and the Ds will fight against this with everything they have. The mainstream media will help them. They will say:

a)      A vote for the 3pc is a vote for the opposing R/D candidate.

Truth: No, it’s not. It’s a vote for the 3pc. Get enough of those votes, and the 3pc wins.

b)      3pc isn’t a viable option. They can’t get enough votes to win; they’re a fringe candidate; they won’t get any support in office…blah, blah, blah. 

Truth: Most folks actually identify with the platforms of 3pcs more closely than Rs and Ds at this point. When you find yourself saying, “the lesser of two evils,” that’s the sign that you don’t actually align with a candidate, you just align less with the other. Once in office, again, the POTUS can’t introduce legislation. With our Congress squabbling over party power, could it get any less productive? No. So, a 3pc is exactly the message that needs to be sent.

2 – We have to accept that the one of the two mainstream candidates could still win. Yeah? And? Without a 3pc, doesn’t an R or a D candidate win anyway? Right now, there’s an equal chance, if you believe the CBS News poll that your “lesser of two evils” will not win. That being the case, and, the fact that neither party is running a dream ticket, makes this exactly the time to vote for a 3pc.

This is not Clinton-Bush-Perot. Bill Clinton was a wunderkind for the Democrats. Bush was lackluster. Perot was…Perot. Kinda goofy. Perot called it on NAFTA though; remember his, “that giant sucking sound” comment? Gonna bet there are some folks who’d like a re-do on that one.

There is a viable Libertarian ticket with two former governors. You have a viable Green Party candidate whose platform closely resembles Sanders’s in many ways important to liberals. Go look them up. You may be pleasantly surprised.

3 – This is the most difficult condition: People need to understand that if we don’t actively pursue a 3pc, even if that candidate is defeated, the only other way to change our government will be drastic measures. Look at how much power is invested in a handful of people. If you think you’re wasting your vote by voting for a 3pc, think of how little your vote counts for an R or a D. The two parties are arm-wrestling over small patches of territory, and doing nothing big in the process. Let’s look at one issue:

Abortion – Why are candidates still debating this? We have the ultimate stare decisis on this issue – the Supreme Court has spoken. Abortion is legal. No legislation will reverse that. What are the parties fighting for when they fight on abortion? Money and power.

Money, because the only way to restrict abortion at this point to is to restrict funding. That’s it. However, when you tack on unrelated funding to an abortion bill, there’s where the real money comes into play.

Power, because this is a polarizing issue. Personal beliefs are strong influencers when it comes to the ballot box. So, if a candidate can make you believe that she/he shares your personal conviction regarding abortion, you’ll assume that other areas of their platform match your other personal convictions, and you will vote for them.

Enough! It’s time to set this aside for what it is – a ploy. A vote-grabbing ploy. No one candidate will change abortion law in this country.

If we don’t challenge the system at the ballot box, the only way we have left is on the streets. We see some challenge to the existing powers going on already, and it’s not pretty. Changing a government in ways other than at the ballot box is even uglier.

In order to change the way in which politics are run and used in this country, we have to change the way we vote. It’s that simple. We have to be ready to accept the pyrrhic victory of losing the election to send the message. At this time, there are enough people not choosing, not happy with, one of the two candidates that this can be done.  In addition, even if the 3pc candidate isn’t elected and the greater of two evils is elected, think about how little is actually done by the most powerful person in the world, and breathe easy. The world didn’t end 8 years ago, nor did America reach Nirvana. We have every chance this year truly to change things. We just need to be smarter than we have been.

The Ropes You Earned are Untied for a Reason

     Today is cap and gown distribution at the high school and my son will collect his graduation garb in advance of Thursday’s ceremony. He's earned a gold cord to drape over his shoulders in recognition of his hard work. Perhaps I am lacking emotional depth, but I am not the least bit sad for him or for me. The years he has spent in compulsory education have been sufficient to prepare him, and he has shared his restlessness with me. He is ready to graduate, and I am ready for him to do so.

     Not surprisingly, I am, in spite of my dry eyes, hopeful that when my son starts college in the fall he likes it. I hope he enjoys college as much as I did (yep, that much). I hope he finds people like him, who are supportive of his interests and aspirations, as much as I hope that he finds people who challenge him to move beyond the place he came from and the person he is now.

     College is a place where he can thrive if he chooses, and fall flat on his ass if he chooses. I can listen and I can counsel, but I cannot make those decisions for him. Neither do I want to make those decision for him, nor do I feel any panic or remorse at the loss of control. The days when I could direct his behavior are over; they have been for a while. Now, I request, suggest, and advise.

     When my son was born, I felt terrified of him. In the hospital, I let the nurses bathe him. He was small, and I thought, fragile. At first, he didn’t eat and I had to hold down his squirming limbs so a doctor, younger and possibly even more anxious than me, could draw blood from my son’s thread of a vein. He cried himself into a red-faced, stiff-limbed ball of anger. When I held my infant, I feared I’d break him, drop him, or hurt him somehow. Strangely, my fear was something I hadn’t known as a teen babysitter. At 17, I handled other people’s infants with greater confidence than I was capable of with my own child, at 30. Once the squalling, slippery baby is your own, there’s an understanding absent from a paying gig. As he grew stronger, so did I. We became people together. Now, it’s time for us to become people separately.

     Who the people are that we will become, I don’t know. I resist projecting on him a persona that comforts me, but may be entirely wrong for him. My faith in him is strong enough that I can let him become who he will, assured that I have drummed into his head the idea that if he needs a place to regroup; he can come to me as long as I’m breathing. He insists that he will not need to because he is determined to make his way successfully from Friday, June 10 forward; but my offer still stands, and perhaps that’s why he has the confidence to go ahead.

     We’re supposed to teach our kids so much: right from wrong, responsibility, independence, kindness, compassion, how to ride a bike, how to swim, when to speak up, and when to say no. We have arsenals of books and expert opinions as to how to do this. We have guides by which we can plot out our child’s development at each stage, so we know exactly what to expect (good luck with that, there’s always a crapshoot element). But how are we supposed to teach that in which we are not yet proficient?

     I’ve bluffed my way through many of the almost 7,000 days since my son’s arrival. My poker face is still deficient. He knows when mom’s betting on an empty hand. Fortunately, I don’t have to bluff often any longer. I can tell him I don’t know, or, I’m not sure, and we can still get through whatever. That freedom comes with the kid’s age, not mine. He’s old enough that I can be honest about my fallibility, and I don’t lose my position as his mom. Actually, I think once he hit second grade, we started working past the mom is perfect illusion. Although, that might actually be a realization I made, not him – I figured out that I couldn’t keep that act up.  We survived.

     We will continue to survive, I believe, in part because we’ve become people in our own rights, not just mother and son. Our relationship, and hopefully I’m not deluding myself on this, is not merely parent and child, but two individuals who share more than blood. We share history, memories, and a bond that started out of necessity, and continues out of respect. So, when I don’t cry at graduation on Thursday, know that it’s not a lack of love, but an abundance of respect for the person he is becoming that prevents the weeping. 

Time for a New God?

Trigger warning: this post examines religion.

     I’m not one for religion, although I lean toward a universal spirituality. I’ve tried Christianity, several times, but it never stuck. First, there are questions I have for which I could never find satisfactory answers. “You just have to have faith,” and “Because God gave us free will,” always fall short of logical. I was told once that I was too immature to understand faith and just needed to trust the adults teaching me about God, and then I was told to go say five Hail Marys, and five Our Fathers. What I heard in that response was, “I don’t have the patience or the ability to explain this to you in a way you, at 13, will understand. Go away, annoying child.” If your god is so complex that you cannot explain it to a 13 year old, you need a new god. In college, a priest at Notre Dame told me, “You have no idea the life God has in store for you.” Part of me was thrilled that God potentially picked me out for something special; part of me was a little creeped out that God withheld the specifics, given the whole free will concept. Now, I think this was just another version of, “I don’t have an answer for you, go away.”

     Of late, I’m seeing more evidence that either (1) God doesn’t exist; or (2) God left the building a long time ago. Irrespective, the result is the same. I am not only discouraged by the behaviors I see from “God-fearing people,” but my questions are resurrected in the face of the ugly, mean, violent language and behavior promulgated in God’s name. There is a serious disconnect between people and religious philosophies based on omnipotent, loving God. If your god wants you to hate and exclude, you need a new god.

     The contradiction between omnipotent deity and free will has always bothered me, even more so since I met a twelve-year-old boy whose father beat him, as a toddler, with a 2x4, until the child was left severely mentally impaired, but not enough wipe the memory of the beating. Why would a loving, omnipotent deity allow this to happen? God gives us free will – evil is present in the world. That’s what we are told in response to horrible events and tragedies. But, I have to ask, to what end does a loving, omnipotent god give free will to a man to beat a toddler in the head with a 2x4? What free will did the toddler have in this case? If you’re an omnipotent deity, isn’t this a case where you draw the line and say, “Not going to let this happen”? If you’re omnipotent, you’re all-powerful by definition; if you created the universe, surely you can stop a man from bashing in the head of a toddler. If evil is stronger than omnipotence, why would you worship this deity? Our world is replete with examples to which this question applies, that I have to ask, isn’t this evidence that god is a human invention? If god is a human invention, perhaps we need to invent a new god.

     Even if the deist model of a clock-making god who created the universe and stepped back is one to which we ascribe, I ask, if God stepped away from us, why does God need churches? If you wish to pray to your god, go ahead, but the idea that God wants or needs your outward devotion, your public displays of faith, and your cash, just doesn’t work for me. Look around you, religion has been, and continues to be, co-opted for the personal gain of a relative few for eons. Isn’t it time that we evolve beyond that?

     I see a trend among the extremely religious, and I don’t think this is a new trend – I believe we’re just seeing a resurgence of an old crime. Religion, faith, is being used to suppress knowledge and understanding, and I don’t mean in the empathic, emotional sense alone. I look at those using religious principles to restrict the rights of people who don’t fit into a very narrow band they define as “normal," and have to ask why. Because the truth would undermine their fear of people who are not exactly like them. It would also erode the power of the few in charge - those with the direct connection to God. And it’s easy to use religion to do this. 

     The Christian Bible, with the heavily relied upon New Testament, was created, selected, edited, all before year 1,000 CE. Hardly an enlightened portion of human history. The cherry picking of authority from the Old and New Testaments serves only to reinforce the message of the one creating it. If that message is fear, exclusion, and ignorance, there’s plenty of available material.

     There’s also a lot of material that undermines fear and hate, but I see that being ignored, or worse, perverted. Love your neighbor as yourself has been narrowly defined to include only the person standing next to you as you picket the Supreme Court to allow you to discriminate against others. Yeah, see, Jesus didn't qualify the command, he just said to love.

     In my rainbows and unicorns world, I would like there to be a divine entity. Primarily because I would like to believe there will be a reckoning for a man who beats his child (and many, many others). I don’t want that person to get off so easily at the end of their life with a simple cremation or rotting corpse. I want that person to feel the retribution of a god that says you will pay for what you did to a powerless little boy. I would much prefer a god who actually intervened, but since intervention didn’t happen, I hope for punishment.

     If my deity exists, when we reach judgment, the question will not be, “How well did you keep the laws I laid down?” The question will be this: “How did you love?” Did you love in a way that relieved suffering or created fear? Was your love inclusive or exclusive? Did you love in a way that promoted love, or did you love in a selfish way? Did you love things more than beings? Did you promote those who propagate hate, violence, and fear? Did you protect those who hurt others? Because if you actually read the Gospels of the New Testament, the god described in there isn’t the one I see being pushed in front of us now. Maybe we need to push a new god.

Role Playing

     In junior high, a substitute teacher, who was also a friend of my mother’s, told me I was a “catalyst for trouble.” Thanks for that. That’s pretty much what every seventh grade girl needs to hear. In high school, a math teacher confronted me in a first floor common area and accused me of cheating by giving my graded math test to another student who had not yet taken the test. Yeah, because I was the keeper of everyone’s attendance and if someone asked to check how her test was graded against mine, of course I would already know she hadn’t been there on test day. Sure, you go ahead and believe that about me. Another high school teacher asked me which of my siblings I “was,” meaning, which I most acted like. Because, yeah, I couldn’t just be me, not when there were four others ahead of me.

     When I think back to middle school, and the substitute calling me a catalyst, I wonder where she got that idea. To that point, I had been in the principal’s office once in my life, for writing on the bathroom wall in second grade, five years earlier. Was middle school tough? It was the late seventies. What schools now acknowledge and attempt to fight as bullying was dismissed as kids just being kids. We’d build coping skills from dealing with it. Was I trouble maker? One time in the principal’s office? Nope. Not up to then.

     The problem was I believed that substitute. She was an adult; I was a kid. She was wise; I was dumb. I was a catalyst. I wasn’t sure what the word meant. I went to the library during lunch to look it up. I learned that as a catalyst, I was the cause, the agent, the facilitator of trouble. I was the reason, if someone called me “nigger lips” (true story), that someone did. If someone called me fat, or ugly, or bossy, it was my fault, because I was the catalyst. It was my role. When I wasn’t the smartest girl in the room, well, what did you expect?

     We like things to fit where we are comfortable with them. We strive to make our worlds fit into patterns and routines from which there are no deviations. We ascribe roles to people, and we work hard to make people fit into those roles, whether the role is accurate or not. Shrugging off a role is difficult because, for one, other people are reluctant to let us change our roles; and two, we’ve played the role for so long, we’re not sure what else to be.

     I’ve never laid a claim to perfection. I’m more inclined to inferiority than superiority. I’m not good at forgiving myself either. I have a catalog, replete with color illustrations, of the ways I am not good enough, and the mistakes that I’ve made. I’m an easy target to make feel badly. Like cooked pasta, if you throw something at me, it’ll stick. I may appear tough, but I am actually a very vulnerable person. And I am cursed with an indelible memory.

     Many people could not write the things I write. They do not understand the Hemingway quote, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” I understand that. In fact, it’s not difficult for me open a vein and bleed on paper, because what the hell do I have to lose? What the hell do I have to protect? My reputation? I’m a catalyst for trouble, remember? What kind of reputation is that? I’m “thank God you’re the last” on the first day of class. I’m the one who needs to build coping skills by experiencing bullying. I’m the one not good enough to be here even when my scores are high. I’m the bitch with “nigger lips.”

     Maybe I’m over-sensitive. Maybe others are under-sensitive. Maybe I need to let it go; maybe others need to think before they speak. Whose responsibility is it when we hurt? The person who did the hurting or the person who hurts? I’ve heard the responsibility placed on both sides. One thing I know, when I taught seventh grade girls, I never called any one of them a catalyst. No one deserves to be cast in that role.

     As far as my role, I’m tired of it. Like it or not, I’m letting it go. If you want me to be your catalyst, you will be sadly disappointed, because I won’t do it anymore. I won’t take that on. Yes, that requires isolating myself from most people, but I’m okay with that. Because I don’t want to live down to expectations any longer. It will be a relief to have nothing left to bleed about.

A Moment of Grateful Clarity

     The major renovations on the house are wrapping up, and listing day is approaching. Tiling the kitchen floor is the last major project, and after that, all the remains is packing, cleaning, and various little touch ups. I’ll plant some flowers today. The long winter delayed the garden from budding, but I have some annuals waiting to go into the ground. Annuals are inexpensive and make the garden look nice. We are moving forward.

     There isn’t much discussion between us anymore. For a while, I had doubts about my decision to leave. I wondered if I were being selfish, if I were taking away opportunities from my son. I wondered if there were a chance…

     There is not. The fight I waged for respect and agency before is laughable compared to what it would take now. Ideas I propose are dismissed before I complete a sentence. He is more anxious to get out than I am. If it were within my means to help him leave, I would. I would give him the freedom he wants so badly.

     I cannot understand, on an empathetic level, the anger. I cannot imagine my decision was a surprise; he asked if I were leaving for months. When you pose the same question multiple times, isn’t it because you already know the answer? Things were not going well, obviously. I often wondered if he was conducting a test to see how far he could push, how much I would take before I would finally break, and say, “That’s it; I’m done.”

     Okay, well, I said it. So if he actually looked back on his behavior up to that point, if he reflected, how does he justify this anger, this resentment?

     You cannot come to me, a week after I say I can’t do this anymore, and tell me you don’t want me to leave, when for almost two decades, you acted as if you wanted me to leave, as if I ruined your life, as if I were a horrible, ugly, fat, and unattractive person. The time to tell me you wanted me in your life, the time to say you love me is when I'm there, when the risk of me leaving is low. You cannot make me the locus of blame and then turn around and say, “But I don’t want to lose you.” Then you should not have treated me as if I didn't matter to you.

     Or, maybe you can, because if I leave, who do you have left to treat that way? What happens to the prince when the whipping boy dies? What an awful, misguided concept – the whipping boy. To have a stand-in for physical punishment, someone who takes a beating for you when you do something wrong. What a horrible thing. But I digress…or not.

     Achieving personal responsibility is a difficult balancing act. When children are raised in an unbalanced situation, where good is dismissively expected, and mistakes are punished – when there is an absence of praise and an abundance of criticism and punishment, children develop a self-protective, defensive instinct. If the only hope of not being yelled at, grounded, spanked, or worse, is not to be at fault, kids learn to deny that anything was ever their fault. Of course, that’s impossible. Mistakes are made. Sometimes, shit happens. When we create environments where mistakes are intolerable, where all shit must have an owner, we create environments where personal responsibility becomes something to fear.

     We have to find a whipping boy, or girl, or spouse. Someone on whom we pin the blame for things, be they mistakes, or serendipitous shit. “You ruined my life.” That person.

     Did I? Did I ruin his life by saying I couldn’t take it anymore? I could argue that, but here’s what I realized. There is no point in the arguing. If he’s the person who believes that I’ve ruined his life, if he’s the person who needs the whipping spouse, he won’t hear the arguments against that position. Not from me. Whatever I say, he will contradict from his arsenal of my defects. He will not confront his culpability in this. He will say that he knows he’s done wrong, but it will be because I somehow caused him to do wrong.

     Hear me out…I am not saying he is entirely to blame. I bear the weight of at least fifty percent of what has happened. I was, in many ways, on many days, wrong. I was wrong and I’m sorry.

     The difference is I want to let go of this, now. I don’t want to punish anyone for this. I don’t want to watch someone hurt. I want to live at peace and know that at the end of the day, the time is coming when we can go pursue the lives we really want. I won’t ask him for what he can’t give, and then resent not getting it. I won’t begrudge him what he wants to do, because I won’t make demands on him. And I’m willing to do that now. I have no investment in making him do anything, anymore.

I wonder if he knows that. Because if he does, and the person he is showing me now, if this is the person he chooses to be, then my choice to leave is more justifiable than ever. This is a moment of clarity. I am grateful for it. 

The not so Tenuous Connection Between Happiness and a Laundry Basket

There was very little sleep for me last night. Writing while tired is dangerous because I tend to go to the dark and twisty place where I dwell on things that are neither hopeful nor productive. I considered putting off writing this post until tomorrow, certain I would be exhausted tonight, sleep well, and able to compose an optimistic piece about how much I look forward to the future – on Tuesday. However, there is no guarantee that I will sleep well tonight, and I’m trying to stay on a disciplined path with my writing. Mondays are blog post days. Grit it out and get the gold star. Control what I can control and ultimately feel better myself. Today, I can write a blog post as determined by the schedule I created.

                Control is a strange concept. We have so little control of others, and yet, somehow, others exercise such incredible control over us. I can’t make you take up your laundry basket of clean clothes that I have washed and folded for you, yet, the longer you leave it in the family room, the angrier and more resentful I become. Have I given over control? Am I justified in my resentment? Why the hell won’t you just take up your laundry basket anyway?

                There is a phenomena I call “emotional over-lording.” Emotional over-lording is the effect that the person with the most volatile, negative attitude has on the environment. The angry person controls the room. The one we fear is the one who dominates. Bullies win through emotional intimidation. Why is that? Why are happy people the ones who are trampled? Moreover, why is that angry people want to dominate the happy, making everyone like them, rather than spreading the optimism? Are we programmed toward the negative?

                In my not-a-licensed-psychologist way, I have developed a theory that in fact; we are programmed to gravitate toward letting anger and negativity dominate our thinking, as a holdover from our earliest evolution when fight or flight was more important to survival than it is now. We simply haven’t evolved much and we’re still filtering our environment for threats. Negativity and volatility are threats. A happy person isn’t going to attack you or beat you up. A raving, furious person just might. Beatings lead to injury, potentially fatal injuries. You have to watch out for that. You have to protect yourself. Thanks for the warning, lizard brain.

                There are two ways to protect yourself: stay away from angry people, or pacify the anger by letting it dominate the environment. Anger loves control. Anger dictates, orders, and commands. Anger exhausts happiness into submission with volume and intensity. You simply cannot be happy in the face of someone yelling about how awful a person you are. Not possible; you’re too busy ducking and covering, at least emotionally. In order to preserve some sense of peace, you pacify the anger. You become what it is that anger wants – you become unhappy.  

                I wish it were possible to happy-yell. To be so loud and overbearing in happiness that anger is frightened into submission. Actually, I believe what I want we’ve labeled as insanity, and we medicate that. Isn’t that too bad? Seems to me the balance of accepted crazy is tilted excessively in favor of anger, not happiness. We need to start medicating the angry into submission. Ever see a happy person go on a shooting spree? Not me. Pretty sure anger is a common denominator in violence. Only Lennie pat the puppy to death in his overwhelming love for the dog. Now that I am reminded of Of Mice and Men, it does capture the dominance of anger over happiness, and how we, as a society have diminished happiness to the arena of mental defect. Huh, I never thought of it from that angle before. New found respect.

                Before I digress too far, I want to bring this back to the point: happiness needs to make a comeback. In my own life, at the very least, if not on a universal basis, the pendulum needs to swing back toward happiness. We need a culture shift away from anger. If our 2016 primary election cycle doesn’t underscore this, we may be hopelessly lost. I for one am going for happy in the future. I don’t think I can do otherwise and survive because my nature is that of a happy person. I know this not because of my past, but because of my present. Unhappiness feels so wrong for me. Unhappiness is an ill-fitting emotional suit that I cannot wear.

                Thus, I will choose happiness, even if that means I will be happily alone, and it means that for time being, I’ll bring that damn laundry basket up.

Lessons Learned

The other day, it occurred to me that while money doesn’t buy happiness, if I had the money right now, I could buy some peace. I would hire the contractors necessary to come and finish all the projects that need to be finished before the house goes on the market. Just thinking about how much stress that would relieve is tear inducing. It also leads me to thinking about advice that I would give my son: Don’t ever limit your independence and your options. Don’t let yourself be trapped. I learned many lessons about marriage and relationships in the past twenty years. Since sharing is caring, here they are:

Flexibility is crucial to keeping options open. If you can’t be flexible, it might be best to live alone. That way, you can have your home the way you want it. You won’t need to compromise or be conflict with another person. Granted, your tradeoff is that you are alone, and when you need someone, you may have trouble finding someone. Living alone, however, does allow you the most independence and options.

The other option is to recognize what it takes to make a relationship work: communication and compromise. You have to be prepared to listen, really listen, and you have to be prepared to negotiate. These things have to be done earnestly. The goal isn’t just to get your way…it’s to do what’s best for the relationship, and your family unit, overall. No doubt – earnestly communicating and compromising are the hardest parts of a successful relationship. Not getting your way can hurt, it can rip open old wounds, and we end up feeling like small, pathetic losers. If you find that you need to have your way or you feel like you’re constantly losing, you might need therapy before you go into a relationship. Ego is a bitch to tame.

The consequences of not putting aside our individual agendas and opening up to honest conversation and earnest compromise are worse than having to set aside ego. It starts with a coldness between the partners, and a “no-go” zone. We stop talking about certain topics because those are the ones that turn into arguments. It’s easier just to let the sleeping wolf lie. Resentment creeps in, because invariably something happens and then all the talking that should have been done earlier, is now forced into the open, but too late. Now, it’s a problem, not a plan. Now, it’s triage, it’s not compromise.

I think the worse marriage advice I was ever given was, “You do what you want, and let the other person do what they want.” That’s probably fine advice for dating, because if you’re doing what you want and the other person is doing their thing, and you keep finding that you’re doing compatible things, great. The problem with that advice for a marriage is that it assumes several important conditions that may not be there.

The “do what you want” theory of marriage assumes that both partners want to be a loving marriage, not just a marriage of convenience. In a marriage of convenience, you can be happy on your own; it just makes things easier if you have someone to share the workload. Great. Awesome. You do the laundry this week and I’ll cut the lawn. You cook; I’ll do the dishes. That sort of thing. But…what if that’s not all you want from your partner? Or, what if your partner feels that doing what they want is a one-way option? What if they feel they’re “thing” is more important than your “thing”? It’s very difficult for both partners to be working toward a common good when one partner feels entitled to choose what they or won’t support.

In a loving marriage, you may not like sushi, but every once in a while, you’re going to make sure that you say yes to the sushi bar because your partner loves it. You don’t say, “You go do that with your friends because I won’t eat sushi” every time your partner asks. Sometimes, you choke down some tempura because while it isn’t your favorite, your partner is relishing that salmon nigiri. Or, maybe you compromise and offer to pick up the take out from two separate places because then everybody does get what they want. In a real partnership, you’re not going to protest going to Lowes and looking at tools then bitch because someone doesn’t want to hit up TJ Maxx with you. Their drill bits are your cut-price purse. However, going along but pouting the entire time is just as bad. Go, smile, and hit TJ Maxx on the way home. That’s not to say you have to run every errand together.

 If you find yourself saying no just because it’s not on your agenda, be prepared to hear no in return. For a marriage to be real, for a partnership to be a partnership, you have to both want to spend time with other person. If you want to be in the relationship with that person, some of the stuff you’re going to want to do is going to boil down to “be with that person.” If it’s not, and you see the time you spend doing things that person wants to do as a personal sacrifice, you’re in the wrong relationship, friend.

So, if I were to take the “do what you want” advice and apply it to a marriage, I would say, “Be honest about the things you want to do, talk about them, and be ready to compromise, keeping in mind what’s most important. If having it your way is most important, it’s time to reconsider why you’re there.”

On the flipside, if you find that you’re suppressing what you want, or, you’re giving up on things that are important to you to keep the peace, it’s also time to reconsider why you’re there. There has to be balance, in all things, or the when the scales tip back the other way, it’s going to be a steep drop. Trust me; I learned this the hard way. 

Embracing My XX

Sometimes I wonder if I’m too old for this gig. I wonder if I should bother trying to make it as a writer or just go back to working a nine to five office job. Then I remember, oh, yeah, I’ve been out “the regular workforce” for at least four years now, so, uh, yeah, anywhere I go, I’m starting at the bottom. Why not start at the bottom of something I love doing? If I don’t make it as a writer, if I can’t afford to pay my rent and utilities writing, then okay, I’ll have to go get the job I would be looking at now anyway. I wouldn’t know if I could have made it, would I?

Financial security is a great thing, but for me, who has always wanted to write, financial security came at the cost of not doing what I loved. And guess what? I didn’t get rich from not doing what I loved.

I’ve seen a few blog posts lately about what advice I’d give my twenty-something self. There’s one thing I would say to my newly adulted self: Just be you.

The realization that I’m smart enough, talented enough, good enough, and strong enough to do what it is that I want to do, is coming slowly. I wish it would come a little faster because my twenties are long gone, and if I’m going to make up for lost time, I need to get on that…rapido. 

Yes, history is filled with examples of people who achieved great things once they’d passed forty. Frankly, I’m not looking for greatness; I just have a few milestones I’d like to hit. I have some goals I’d like to check off and I’d like to try some unfettered happiness for a while.

Just before I started at college, I was told, “Teaching is a good job for a woman.” That statement has pained me for many years, and the pain of it has changed as I’ve changed. At the time, I was eighteen, and what I wanted to pursue at college was writing. “You have to do something that pays the light bill,” was the reason I was given for not pursuing a degree in creative writing. I was young and insecure. I believed what people told me. I didn’t value myself and wasn’t able to summon enough strength to do what I wanted. I was unprepared to navigate alone.

At eighteen, what bothered me most about the teaching statement was that it said I wasn’t worth the risk of pursuing something extraordinary. The person who said it to me didn’t have the faith in me that I had the talent to achieve my goals. I needed to be someone ordinary to pay the light bills because I would never be extraordinary enough to be a writer. I wasn’t good enough.

The statement also denigrated teachers, many of whom I had and still have a lot of respect. “Teaching is a good job for a woman,” as opposed to “Teaching is a good job,” says that men are better used in another, better capacity. That teaching isn’t a job that requires strength or dedication, so let the women be teachers. When I finally did become a teacher, decades later, what I found was that teaching is a job that requires an inordinate amount of strength and dedication, no less than any other job, and more than so many others.

As I gained consciousness of bigger issues, I realized that the statement perpetuated a belief about me as a person that was also painful: as a girl, I wasn’t as a good as a boy, I wasn’t good enough for a man’s career. The belief bar, the expectations, had been set low from the outset because I was born female. When I helped my double econ-finance major apartment mate, two years my senior, with her papers and at her part-time job, as I wondered what her issue was. I did not recognize my own ability. When my Foundations of Education teaching assistant asked if he could publish the midterm I wrote in iambic pentameter, I shrugged it off, thinking it was clever but not that I was intelligent. As successive attorneys encouraged me to go to law school, I chose marriage instead because it was safer and what I was supposed to do, as a woman. I let the limiting belief that my gender diminishes me limit my belief in myself. I had accepted that belief unconsciously for a very long time, and when I recognized the truth behind it, the realization was wrenching. It remains painful to this day.

To raise myself, I needed new gods to foster belief in my inherent value. Gods that would reveal the truth: it has nothing to do with my gender; there is nothing wrong with having matching chromosomes. It’s not about deserving, because I deserve every good thing. It’s about belief. It’s about believing that I can meet expectations; no matter how high the bar is set, because being a woman isn’t a limiting factor. The limits are only where I set them. If I choose to put the work into writing, then my success stops when I do. I am every bit as good as a woman as any man, and frankly, better than some. I don’t have to accept a lesser life because I have a vagina.

Going back to the question of what I would tell my twenty-something self, I know what I would say: You go, girl. Don’t look back. Don’t ever doubt that you have what it takes. You just keep going.

Good Things will Come.

          I missed yesterday’s scheduled blog post because my kid had his tonsils out. The removal of said tonsils is a good thing because they’ve been an issue for him. He’s going to college in August, and really, anything that helps him be healthier and more successful is something I can embrace. Less sore throats in his future is a good thing. Today, he’s dealing with the discomfort, the medicine that makes him nauseated, and the boredom of having to take it easy. Not talking isn’t a huge problem thanks to our cell phones. Overall, I’m choosing to see this surgery as a good thing and an analogy for the future.

                Right now, there is pain and some discomfort. However, this is temporary, and I believe these things will pass. Once they pass, I believe good things will come back. This temporary detraction is part of the set up for a life to come. One filled with opportunity and the pursuit of happiness.

                When my son goes off to college, he will have the opportunity to make a life for himself and pursue happiness on his own terms at an ever-increasing rate. Over the course of senior year, we’ve talked about how there always seems to be a period of “stalling” before the next phase of life begins. High school ends with a year when the class load pales in comparison to the previous year, the goal being to keep your grades up so that if you have a conditional acceptance, you’ll meet those conditions. Sure, there are Advanced Placement classes, and not slacking is important, but, honestly, the pressure of senior year compared to junior year isn’t nearly as intense. The relaxed pace slows the year and creates gaps that are filled with other thoughts. Right now, he’s experiencing the anticipation of having to wait to begin the next phase of life, along with some anxiety that he’s leaving behind what is familiar.

                The anticipation is worse than the anxiety. He’s been to six schools in 13 years, so he’s learned how to navigate. The anticipation is worse because he has no control about how slowly time passes. He can mark off the days, keep up with his homework, and do the things high school seniors do, but he cannot make the days go faster. In that respect, we are in the same boat.

                The last few weeks were very difficult, and I spent much of that time lamenting my situation. I want to be done with that.

My intention now is to move forward by looking forward. I have a full To-Do list, and a son to help heal. I could spend my efforts moaning and worrying, but that only propagates the emotional weeds. Outside my office, I have three rose bushes, some bleeding heart vines, and a couple of coreopsis planted. Spring is coming. I would rather see blossoms than weeds.

                Intuition is telling me that buds are forming and waiting for the right combination of sun and warm temperatures to burst out with flowers because the rain has come down sufficiently already. I’m going to keep fertilizing, and weeding so that my Oklahoma roses will be Sooner red and the hydrangeas in front of the house will bloom soccer ball size.  

                Good things will come. Flowers, freedom, success. I’m happy with the progress on the book, and I’m working to find an agent who will see goodness in that, too. The days are getting sunnier and longer, so I’m able to get outside more. Before I leave Pittsburgh, I plan to explore a little more by walking in the city. I don’t want to look back and think that I should have done more, on any front, because when the good things do start coming, I want to know that I’ve earned them, that I brought them to fruition.

                The day my book is sold to a publisher will be a huge day for me. I’ve worked on this for years, starting with other manuscripts for which I apologize to anyone who suffered through them. I’ve had to learn vast amounts, swallow some pride, pick myself up from time to time, and keep going. When I say that the call from an agent telling me there is an interested publisher will be a life changer for me, I regret that words cannot capture true experience. It’s cliché to write that my heart races some, and I shake a little just thinking about that call. Cliché as that is it is no less true for the hackney of it.

The call will come; I feel it as certain as I feel the change in the air – the warmer feeling even when the temperatures don’t reach sixty degrees, even when the sun is still backlighting a cloudy sky. Graduation will be a warm, hopefully sunny, day. This summer will be filled with transition. Before Fall arrives, we will all move on from this place, this point in life. Moreover, good things will come. Good things always come, I just have to remember to make them welcome.

Worthless and Weak

              I just wiped out six hundreds words of my original post. I’ve been writing around the subject again, and the writing just sucks when I do that. The problem is I’m frightened. I’m scared to write what’s really in my head because I don’t know if I’m going to get into trouble for it. I don’t know whose reading my blog.

My blog was supposed to be a place where I could empty my “non-novel” thoughts that were taking up space in my brain. Often, I need to clear out the distractions in my head so I can work on my novel. Writing the blog helps me get to a place where I can flow with the book. But I haven’t honestly cleaned out the brain space because I’m worried that if I wrote what’s really in my head, I may lose everything. At the very least, there could be a very ugly argument. Right now, I’m just so tired of fighting, I try to keep things calm.

Maybe I’m paranoid and suffering under the tension of where I am right now. However, it’s so very possible that my blog is being read with the idea that later, it can be used as a weapon against me. It’s a trapped, helpless feeling and I’m nervous, and anxious. I dance on glass, hoping it won’t shatter under my bare feet.

Some days, I am full of bravado and don’t care. Most days, I fear what isn’t being said aloud.

We’ve never been good at calmly discussing things. As the years have passed, we’ve discussed fewer and fewer issues. When we cannot easily agree, we generally let things just fall as they will and deal with the consequences, without an attempt at planning first. I am choosing less and less to engage, and more and more to just acquiesce. Without any agency in the relationship, my thoughts and ideas are irrelevant and it is best to just agree and move on. Cross off another day on the calendar and breathe again.

I have been thinking about all the “should haves” lately, and I’m doing a lot of mental self-flagellation. I am my own best whipping girl. When I think about my list of “should haves,” I can boil them down to one overarching lesson: I should have been stronger.

Years ago, I was told that I should marry someone with a strong personality who could handle me. I wish I hadn’t listened. I wish I hadn’t let that idea sink into my brain and act as a filter. When I think of the nice people I knew, whom I saw as weak, from whom I walked away because they weren’t “strong enough” to be my friend or colleague, let alone my partner, I realize what I tremendous mistakes I made. I chose to place myself in this position, where I’ve sublimated myself to keep the peace, because the truth is I was weak. 

It’s taken me years to figure out that just because you made the bed you lie in; it doesn’t mean you can’t change the damn sheets.

I don’t really know what he’s thinking at this point. I think he’d give his right arm to walk away from me tomorrow and never come back. I am horrible in his sight. I am turning my back on almost twenty years of marriage. In his mind, I’ve said unforgivable things. I have asked for this divorce and to him the contempt with which he treats me now is what I deserve. Maybe so.

Maybe I am a horrible person for walking away. Maybe I’m a quitter and the loser that I was once called. Maybe I’m a bitch. Maybe I’m a terrible mother. Maybe I deserve to be poor and homeless, to be without a car and the independence that transportation brings. Maybe I am all of this and more. Maybe I should give up my writing and go work at Home Depot or Wal-Mart so that I’m not living off his money.

On stronger days, I tell myself that I work every day on my writing and I’ve even picked up a freelance job that pays. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s proof that I can make money from writing. I remind myself, despite what he says to the contrary, that we decided together that I would stay home to raise the kid, take care of the household, and work on my writing because, frankly, when I did work outside the home, we fought more than ever. The laundry was always behind, there were dishes in the sink from when I did cook, which wasn’t often enough, and dammit if I didn’t once forget to pick up the kid at school. Now though, I am just living off his money, proving how worthless I am.

This hurts. This whole damn situation hurts like broken limbs and failing organs. I wish I could convince myself, “You tried, you worked hard, but there’s no way you can be happy here, so you have every right to go.” There are moments when I can say those words, but belief is a different level of being. I wish I believed that I deserve to be happy. When I can, I release myself saying, “You did what you were told you had to do – you got your kid through high school with his family intact,” I feel a little better, because those are facts. I have done what I was told I had to do. My kid will graduate from high school before his parents separate. That’s a hollow victory though, because I feel like I could have done so much more, been so much more, and still have been a good mother. That line from On the Waterfront comes back to me every now and again, “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.”

I’m hard on myself, I know. I’m hard, and I’m cruel, because there’s a part of me that says I don’t deserve better. Have I tried? Yes. I tried to be everything I was supposed to be, everything that was going to make everybody happy with me. I did what you asked, I did what you wanted, and none of this has worked. So here I am, another Monday, thanking the gods that the weekend is over, and feeling very guilty that I am wishing away the next weeks and months until the day dawns when I am free again.

     I’m still frightened, not that I don’t know where I’m going to live, how I’m going to get there, or if I’ll have enough money to make it long enough to find a place to live and a job. I’m not frightened of those unknowns because if I make it to that day, I won’t have to be scared again. Not that I am physical danger, I don't believe that I am. The danger is that I am too weak to walk out the door. That I will turn back and beg to stay. But if I can stay strong enough the day will come when I will write what I want, publish what I please, and I have this feeling, the words will be happy ones. And that’s all I want, to be happy again.

This is not a love letter.

I know what you want. I know what you wanted. I don’t even begin to wish that I could be that person or do those things. I tried once. Remember? No, you don’t, do you? Because there was never a time that I was enough, that I was what you wanted me to be. You’ve told me many times and in many languages, that I am inadequate. I am inadequate, but only relative to you. Because it’s not about me. Who I am will never be enough for you because who you are, well, that person isn’t enough for you. The void that keeps you empty, there’s nothing that you ever find to fill that. Not even by swallowing me whole, can you fill that space.

You are a tangled collage that makes you cruel. From the beginning, it was about you, everything was a reflection of you, a reflection on you, and so, it had to be the way you wanted it. Not just as a reflection, but as a mask, or armor, a wall that you could you stand behind and hope people would admire what they saw. Smile, wave, and say goodnight, because the boutonniere has wilted and the corsage is drying up. We’ve lost that fresh pressed, creaseless appearance, and now, we have to retreat.

Lock the doors and hang the no solicitors sign, keep the shades drawn, because in here, well, we don’t want you to see what’s in here. What would the neighbors think? Crap! What if the neighbors are better than we are? That’s my fault too, because I’m not what she is, am I? Although, I’ll let you in on a secret: I saw her crying in her car once. I never told you, because I knew you’d be relieved to know that the neighbors aren’t better than we are, and I found that grotesque. The competition is horrible to me. I don’t want to play anymore.

I’m done now. I can’t pretend any longer. I’ve been done for a while, but I gutted up and did what was required of me. Now, I can’t do it anymore. If you don’t like what you see now, if you don’t think I reflect positively on you, then write me off, but let me go. Here’s the thing: I know you wrote me off years ago, you just wouldn’t let me go. Every “why can’t you” was another write off when you wished away a part of me hoping to replace it with someone else. The list of people from who you would have cobbled together a Frankenstein version of me is endless; there are always new candidates. Anyone is better than what you got.

You wrote me off for what I was – it wasn’t good enough. You wrote me off for I wasn’t – better, stronger, faster, stoic, and male. There’s no becoming less in your eyes. There’s no becoming more, either. You see me with contempt, and yet, you insist that you love me. That you will always love me, in a pathetic, pitying way. I am your ugly, three-legged dog that you alternately despise, then feel guilty for despising. If this is your love, there is nothing I want less.

Because what I want...is to be valued. I want for the people in my life to say, “You are enough as you are.” I don’t want people tell me what I need, what I should do, and how I should make my way through the world. There’s always something missing from those statements. Those “you should” statements never end with the truth. The truth is, “you should” ends with “to make me comfortable with you.” You should change you so I can be comfortable with you, because who you really are, makes me uncomfortable. You don’t fit in my vision of how my world should be. You don’t make me feel good about myself.

When I go forward on my own, I don’t think you’ll be able to be part of my life. I anticipate that you will find it uncomfortable, maybe even frightening, because the world in which you live is such a narrowly explored, narrowly defined place. I won’t live there ever again. I spent too long there already.

You say you’re worried for me, now. You fear that I won’t be okay. You worry I will suffer. Ironically, you don’t see the suffering I’ve already done trying to fit myself into the box in which you are contained. There was never room for me in there. Don’t worry: I don’t blame you…

I blame myself. I have a plethora of “I should” for my purposes, but I can wrap all of them into one: I should have been stronger much, much sooner. There’s a lot of catching up I need to do now. I’m starting my lists, thinking ahead, and working on my goals. Concentrating on what I have to look forward to helps me not to look back with regret too often.

I wonder how I will be when I don’t feel anxiety like a rat gnawing my stomach. Will I feel lost? Will I know what to do with myself? I’ve pulled so far into myself, I’m so curled within the nautilus, it may be days before I can ease out and straighten my spine. However long it takes, I will slip free of the shell and taste the world around me.

The saddest part about this is that you are not wholly terrible. You are not evil incarnate, or the worst, most vile creature to walk the planet. You’re human, you’re flawed; I am, too. Flaws are inevitable; acceptance is essential. If you had just accepted your own flaws, then you could have accepted mine. We could have worked past those flaws and become greater. Instead, the struggle became controlling and concealing the flaws. All the energy that was devoted to creating illusion, if it had only been directed to becoming better. That if only is the saddest I know.

A part of me is mourning these losses. My failure is sharp. My inclination to stay in the box, to stay safe, to please you, is something I am reminded of daily. Although, I am also reminded daily of how wrong this is for me, how this box will never fit. I know that I will never be what you want, and so, I’m asking you, please just let me go without making it harder. I will do the same for you.

Train Jumping

I jumped off a moving train one night. I swear to the truth of that statement. I once jumped off a moving train. The train in question wasn’t moving very quickly. The ground onto which I jumped was grass. The floor of the boxcar wasn’t that high off the ground. I was not alone, so had anything gone wrong, there were other people there to help. Although, considering we were all jumping from the same train, the amount of help the others could have provided might not have been all that…helpful. I bring up the train jumping incident not as some cautionary tale of youthful stupidity, because, frankly, nothing happened as a result. There were no arrests, no injuries, and we all made it to class the next morning. The reason I’m starting this week’s post with the train incident is that I have been thinking about the person I am versus the person I was at different points in my life. At one point in my life, I was fearless. Maybe not fearless, but much less fearful than I am now. Fearless is better.

I used to love roller coasters. The sound of the chain ticking and the feel of gravity as it pulled against my spine as the car wound its way up the incline. The way my stomach would clench and I would hold my breath in anticipation of the drop during that brief stall at the top. The wind blowing hair in my eyes and the screams of people around me as we plummeted toward the bottom. I used to love all of that. When I could finally catch my breath at the bottom of the drop, I would laugh to ease the tension.

I used to swim in the ocean without checking for sharks. I swam in the Great Lakes not thinking of the pollution. The lure of the water and the waves was greater than any fear of bite or illness. I’ve hiked on the PG&E Trail in the foothills near Los Altos, California alone. The peace and quiet of hike up, the narrow path on the face of the hill between the two stretches of woods. I never worried that something terrible would happen to me. None of that scared me.

This scares me: for the first time in thirty years, I have no idea where I will be in six months. I have no safety net below me if I slip off the tightrope. I have friends, and family, that would gladly take me in. Truth is I can’t do that anymore. I can’t go stay at my sister’s while I lick my wounds. I can’t ask my friends to help me out more than they have already. I’ve already relied on them enough. They’ve been as supportive as I could ask, and then some. That’s only part of the reason I need face the future on my own. There’s a more important reason.

If I let you help me, I can stay scared. I can be afraid in the safety of your home. I can entertain the fear, the uncertainty, and the insecurity as long as I know there’s someone there to catch me. I will live in a place of fear and anxiety if I don’t just go and make my way. Robert Frost wrote, “The best way out is through.” I’m paraphrasing that for myself: the only way out is through.

The only way that I get to reclaim that fearless person I was is to walk through what frightens me. So, I don’t have a job, okay, I don’t have a job. So, I don’t have a home, okay, I don’t have a home. So, I’m taking a risk – a bullet-train speeding over a bridge between peaks of the Alps risk – and I’m still going to jump. Why? Why do I have to be so damn pig-headed stubborn about this?

On the other side of fear is strength. On the other side of fear is honesty. On the other side of fear is happiness. Maybe not right away, maybe not on the nights when I’m camping in a tent with a sleeping bag and pouch of soy nuts. Nevertheless, maybe that will be exactly when the moment when I realize, if I make it out of this, then I’ve made it through. Finding my strength may mean battling against the ease of weakness. Living an honest, authentic life requires actually living, not just marking off the days on a calendar in the kitchen. Yes, it is so much easier to live in the security of what I know than to put this all aside and start over on my own. However, the security of what I know isn’t much more than marking off those days on the calendar hung on the side of a refrigerator in a kitchen I don’t even like, a kitchen that isn’t working for me – the fourth kitchen I’ve said I didn’t like but wasn’t heard because I lost my voice. I want my voice back, even if it means I am the only one who will hear it.

The train is creeping along the tracks now. I can’t see the spot where I need to jump off yet, but I know it’s coming. The best I can do while I ride this train is to prepare myself for the jump, to practice facing the fear and the anxiety that flash before me. I can imagine the worst, and then ask myself if I could live through the worse. When I do that, I realize that I can live through the worst that I can imagine. The only thing I can’t live through is death, and frankly, once dead, what do I have to fear?

If I weigh what’s possible against what’s certain, I find that the possible includes positive things, too. What’s certain is more the same, if what’s certain is even still a possibility any longer, which I doubt. Without many options left, I can feel the train slowing, and I know I’m going to jump, so why waste my thoughts on fear? 

Love is not a spectator sport.

I’ve been writing around the topic for a while now, and avoiding the words I need to write is not helping me be the best writer I can be. If you pay any attention to my writing, you might have noticed. I’ve been holding back from important, concrete words. The primary relationship in my life, my marriage, is dissolving. It hurts like broken glass in my fingertips. It aches in every joint, sours my stomach, and closes my throat.

No matter how often and how deeply I review the issues at hand, I can’t make this work. I can’t make this relationship into something it isn’t. There’s no point in laying blame and trying to exculpate myself from fault, because I know that I am at fault for a lot. However, relationships have to be partnerships, and partners negotiate, constantly. When partners stop negotiating, relationships stop working. Eventually, the time comes when there is nothing of what brought you together anymore. You find that you’re no longer looking in the same direction, and you’re just marking off days on the calendar. You’re just watching the days pass, not living them because the life that’s in them, well, it’s painful.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I used to love Valentine’s Day, especially the run-up to it. All that anticipation, the waiting, the build-up. Valentine’s Day is love’s answer to Christmas. If you were to ask me, and you probably shouldn’t, Valentine’s Day is for couples what Christmas is for children. The problem with Valentine’s Day is that, if you have no valentine, you have just another day when all around you, people are hugging it up. The day is even worse if you are in the middle of a floundering relationship. You are bombarded with everything you are not. Your failure accosts you.

Love is not something you “do” so that other people, people outside of your relationship see how awesome and amazing you are at love. Love, like character, is what you do when you don’t have an audience. When it’s just the two of you in the house, that’s when you know if there’s love there, or if it’s just an endurance contest.

There’s no question in my mind that marriage is a marathon. In a marriage, there will be the highs and lows spoken in vows. Maybe it’s the highs and the lows that are the easy parts. We can be cheerleaders when goals are achieved, we can open the champagne, give hugs, and raise a toast. We can equally hold a hand, dry a tear, and give a different kind of hug when times are tough. Those times aren’t actually the tough times – we have a purpose in our partner’s life at those times. Whether we’re cheering or consoling, we have a focused purpose in the relationship.

The other days, those are challenge. The doldrums of the relationship when there’s no rallying cry needed to get the kids to school, the bills paid, and the lawn cut. When life is just another day on the calendar with no special event inked in the box. Those days will make or break the relationship. Those days are the ones when, if you cannot pull up a kind a word, if you cannot find a reason to be grateful that you are in each other’s lives, if you do not see a reason for a hug…those are the days on which the partnership begins to erode.

Once the reasons for being together begin seeping out of the relationship like water between rocks, the cracks expand quickly. Fissures open wider, ice dams form, and the rocks split and fall. Nothing built on this fragile foundation will stand; and, when the structure collapses, it hurts like hell. Inside, there is always a ripping sensation. A slightly nauseated, yet compelled to eat to keep myself from talking or crying, urge.

There’s a part of me that wants to walk up to strangers and say, “Please, just listen to me; I need to talk.” That’s probably the part writing this post. In opposition to the attention-starved lonely girl who wants to talk is the scared, private woman that wants to shut everyone out and not let you see this shame, this failure. That’s the part responsible for writing circuitously around my life. This is a difficult dichotomy to resolve, but I don’t want you to solve my problems, or even offer advice. I find myself saying to those who keep offering their wisdom, ‘that’s not going to work for me.”

I just need to get these words out of me. The release is cathartic, therapeutic. I need to write them down and let them be what they are so that I release them and the emotions associated with them. You can turn away if you want or need to; I’m fine with that. Your turning away doesn’t add to my pain, nor does your watching and reading make this loss easier.

Love is not a spectator sport.

Finally Fitting into the Meatsuit.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post yet. I assume I will find a path as I walk it. It’s Monday, so today is blog post day. I set up a writing schedule for 2016 (this is the year I kick my own ass), and Monday is reserved for blog posts. Monday is my current favorite day of the week. I write from my house, so Monday is the day when everything resets for me. On Monday, I get things accomplished. Monday is quiet. Monday is peaceful. Monday is solitary.

There’s a little falling apart going on in my life. Not necessarily in a bad way. More of a “tear things down to build things up” way. Since I am in the tearing down stage, my thoughts are scattered and a bit raw at the edges. I would like to immerse myself in a manuscript and be productive, but my tolerance for sitting at my desk is low. Irrespective of the relatively mild winter, warmer weather cannot arrive too soon.  

To be honest, I’m not a fan of where I live. I recognize that I am not a city dweller. I am happy to layer-up and go walking in the snow, but not in the city. The return is not worth the effort. Not even for smaller thighs. Soon, I will be moving to a more rural area. I will walk in the snow there. The recognition that I am not a city/suburban person is a strong first step for me.

For years, I have been told who I am. I have been told that I am an extrovert, that I am an attention-seeker, that I am a drama queen, and even that I am a catalyst. I’ve been told what jobs I should pursue – teacher, lawyer (as specific as “You’d be great at agency law,”), and event planner. All jobs well suited for the extrovert.

I’ve had roles prescribed for me – mother, PTA volunteer, wife. I’ve heard a lot about what I should be, how I should act and speak. I’ve also been advised frequently what I should not be and how I should not act. One Christmas, I received two books: a biography of Princess Diana, and an autobiography of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. I was advised to read both, avoid behaving like Fergie, and emulate Diana. That Christmas pretty much captures my life. Be this, not that.

And I’ve tried. Really, I have. There’s just this little problem I have. I have trouble being anyone but myself, and I’ve concluded that I just don’t want to be anyone but myself any longer. What compounds my identity dilemma is that I’ve worked at being someone other than myself for so long, and so diligently, I’m not sure who I am.

I’ve been acting in roles for so long I sympathize with actors. I understand exactly how difficult it is being someone else when pieces of you are pushing at the elastic that holds the mask to your face. I understand how hard it is to know you are a disappointment to people who are important in your life. I have no doubt that I am a disappointment to people. There are times when I’ve disappointed myself. Hell, anyone who’s been on a diet since eighth grade should be to maintain a single digit size, right? That right there has been an enormous frustration I have with myself. 

          I wonder who I would have been if I’d been me for longer periods. If I’d been more accepting of that person in the mirror and not so scornful of the meatsuit staring back. Instead of pushing myself to be the extrovert, I thought I was supposed to be, maybe I should have let myself hang back and observe as I really wanted to.

There’s so much to change about the way I handle myself, and frankly, I’m worried that I’ve left it too late. I need to allow myself to just to be calm, and do what feels right to me. There are people cringing right now, if they’re reading this, and thinking, “oh no, please don’t, we know you.” Here’s the thing: You don’t know me, you really don’t. I wish you did. I wish that you would see me, not what you worry about seeing.

I’m sad that many people look at others through a filter of anxiety – they see others only in relation to themselves, not for what they really are. If someone is afraid that I’m going to embarrass them, they’ll ignore everything I do right up until the moment that they’re uncomfortable and then hold onto that moment as justification. Yep, you felt embarrassment over something I did. Let me ask you a question: why? What reflection is my action on you? Unless, of course, you bear some responsibility for the act?

If you urged me to be someone other than who I am, you have to take the outcome of that as partially your doing. If you’d just let me be, my actions belong to me and aren’t a reflection on you. I’ve heard the reasons. “I just want people to like you,” and “I only want the best for you.” I’ve come to doubt that, on both counts. I believe the truth is really, “I want people to like me, and I’m afraid if they don’t like you, they won’t like me;” and, “I want to be comfortable with who you are, so please don’t be someone I’m not comfortable being with.”
Going forward, I don’t think I can be anyone other than myself. I’m sure I don’t want to be anyone else. I accept that the future may be a week of Mondays for me: quiet, peaceful, and primarily solitary. I’m okay with that, because frankly, me, myself, and meatsuit – we’re not all that bad.