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.

Use Your Words.

Today’s post is about semantics and investment. I want to write about how the words we choose convey more than just their surface meaning. I don’t mean connotation versus denotation, either. Semantics matter because they communicate personal investment. I believe an example would be helpful here.

For the sake of this post, consider the following phrases:

·                   If that’s what you want, I’m good with that.

·                   I want that, too.

On the surface, both statements convey agreement or accord. The responder is agreeing to what has been stated. For some people, reaching the accord is all that matters. Once an agreement is reached, once the deal is struck, does the language of assent really having any bearing? I say, yes; the language is important because it tells me your level of investment in the agreement, and that level of investment is key.

The first statement is what I would call “passive investment.” The responder is agreeing to the outcome. If you want pancakes for breakfast, I’m good with that. If you want to limit the production of fluorocarbons, I’m good with that. If you want to go to the Maldives on vacation, I’m good with that. Here’s the issue for me – where has the responder indicated that they too have a hankering for pancakes, want clean air, or long to see a far off archipelago? The responder doesn’t. No indication is given of the responder's desires. He or she is simply agreeing that they have no objection to the desire speaker has expressed. This response is passive and dispassionate. There’s no argument, but yet, there’s no investment either.

“I want that, too,” conveys something else. “I want” is not a passive agreement. “I want” is the responder saying, “I’m invested in your idea, your plan, your actions, your desires.” Those words convey the idea that the responder is invested in the speaker as well as the outcome. The responder isn’t simply agreeing without opposition. The responder is mirroring the speaker’s desire. The investment changes the feeling of the response from a tepid “okay” to an emphatic “yes.” Now, the two parties want pancakes together, they both want clean air, and they can share the dream of an exotic adventure. There’s joint investment. The two are looking forward in the same direction, with shared involvement. It’s the difference between going along for the ride and splitting the driving.

I’m not saying that the second statement automatically conveys the idea that the responder is ready, willing, and able to devote the time and effort to speaker’s idea that will result in fruition. The responder may not be a necessary or welcome part of the task. Michelangelo probably didn’t want anyone else coming near his unfinished Pietá with a hammer and chisel just to prove investment in his vision. Somethings are better left to solitary efforts. However, I believe that Michelangelo benefited from the encouragement and support, the investment, of someone who said, “I want you to sculpt the heck out of this marble, too.”

On the other hand, maybe not. Perhaps Michelangelo is the wrong person to employ as an example. I’ve met people who are so self-directed, so self-motivated, that the investment of anyone else is superfluous to their achievement. These are the people that if you doubt their ability, they’re going to go out and make sure they surpass even their own expectations. I wish I were one of those people. I admit I am not. I am a person who hears the semantic differences in the words.

Two words in which I hear a vast difference are “can’t” and “won’t.” The gulf between not able and not willing is oceanic. Can’t should be the result of prior knowledge or an attempt to accomplish or complete. Can’t should be shorthand for, “I tried, but I don’t have the skills/tools/ability to make this specific thing happen right now.” Unfortunately, I think that we’ve begun to accept can’t and won’t as synonymous. The two are different in that won’t indicates a refusal, or to literally break the contraction apart, a will not. The unwilling nature underlying won’t means that whatever inducement there is to accomplish a thing is simply not great enough or not valuable enough to inspire the attempt. The unspoken judgment that often accompanies “won’t” may be the catalyst for switching “can’t” and “won’t” as if they were synonymous. “I can’t” implies that you are taking the failure on as your own. “I won’t” implies that you have been asked to do something that you have no will to do. “I can’t love you,” is pitiable. “I won’t love you,” is cold. “Can’t” softens the blow that “won’t” delivers.

There are occasions when the emphatic nature of “won’t” makes it the nobler response. “I won’t let you hurt my children,” implies a determination that “I can’t let you hurt my children,” lacks. At the narrow, dramatic ends of the semantic spectrum, we tend to get the message across in an accurate manner. It’s the thick, muddy mess we make of our attempts to finesse language that convolute. See what I mean?

I’m weary of finessed language. I’m exhausted by the effort required to strip away carefully crafted semantics so I can understand the message. The message shouldn’t hide behind the words. The words should accurately convey your investment. If you don’t want pancakes for breakfast, tell me what you do want. If you can’t go to the Maldives with me because you have used all your vacation time for the year and will be fired if you take any more time off, tell me that. If the prospect of loving me for all that I am makes you want run screaming from the room, tell me that. If your lack of faith in me makes you unwilling to respect me, I need to know that, too. I won’t be good with that, but at least, I’ll know where not to invest.