"Afflatus"
I have the dictionary.com app on my Iphone, and today’s word is ‘afflatus.’ Afflatus [uh-flay-tuhs] : noun, meaning ‘a divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.’ I’ve been asking god to help me stop hurting—to send love and light to those I don’t want in my life any longer, and to help me heal. Because I want to be the best person I can be, but right now I’m trying to get my bearings.
My life seems to be doubling up on me—these relational losses coming in twos every time. My divorce was final and I let go of my rebound guy six months ago. This current out-flux is also a coupling, paired as such: one person wants to stay, the other wants to go. They cancel each other out perfectly. It reminds me of a prophesy a psychic once told me about the babies I’m supposed to have; “You’re gonna have two, one right after the other. Boom, boom,” she said, “Just like that: boom, boom.”
For so long I’ve relied on other people to define me, believing since college that Confucian teaching that I am only as good as my relationships. I’ve tried to be the best friend I can be, the best listener I can be, the best ex-wife, lover, and daughter I can be. And this approach brought a bounty of blessings, but with so much of my attention on others, I have also stayed on the edge of myself.
Whenever I went on vacation for the past year or two, I’ve gone solo. I’ve sat at tables for one wondering about the eerie burned pier on stilts that still stands in Brighton Bay, eating Spanish paella off the Moll Costa in Barcelona, drinking sangria in Roses watching a rusty sunset, and drinking free wine at that Italian place in Long Beach with the bartender who looked like Johnny Depp. I’ve wandered and got lost in London happening upon a farmer’s market with ‘drunken’ purple cheese and every colored perennials. I’ve flopped past the Suva library’s three bookshelves just before the end of my marriage, Ulysses, staring me in the face; on that random page, “For you, Achilles, Death should have lost its string.” I’ve checked out Prague’s Charles Bridge and paused for as long as I wanted at each statue, cruised through Bobolli gardens in Rome, and shared the cool reprieve with Bernini’s marbles; the dust clinging to my sweating skin.
And rather than freak out in new cities all alone, I’ve actively sought out these refuges, finding solace in the sound of my own voice in my head. I even practiced being alone in this last, recently-ended relationship, only seeing him once or twice a week. Looking around my life, I don’t have to check in with anyone. I can cry for as long as I like without anyone feeling uncomfortable, and I can have nightmares without anyone there to hold me, or assure me everything will be okay.
Last night, I started awake weeping again. He told me he did love me, promising that he just wanted me to be free. “I don’t believe you,” I said. Because if he was partner material, he wouldn’t just abandon me during this time of flux. He wouldn’t cut his losses to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He would be brave. He would be my champion.
It occurred to me that the possibly cancerous nodule in his throat might be a reason for this breaking. He told me he was going to have it checked out over Spring Break, that he was supposed to have done it six months ago. But that’s not the reason he gave me. “I want to be free in case Miss. Right comes along. I want you to be free for Mr. Right, too,” he said.
I’m not a mind reader. I’m nothing but a girl who was starting to care too much for a boy who says he wants to be friends. Fuck, who wouldn’t? I want to be my friend because, truth be told, after so much practice and focus, I am a fantastic friend. I will have your back and tell you the truth and not judge you when you don’t take my advice. I am never jealous. I am practiced in the art of letting go, allowing you to take as much time as you need away from me and welcoming you back whenever you’re ready. I keep my crying fits about you to myself, waiting it out until I learn to see your perspective, even if you never attempt to see mine. I will write your story even though it breaks my heart, but I will come to you with solutions rather than complaints. I will accept you on your terms, allow you to be yourself, and be your biggest cheerleader in whatever you dream. I will make you laugh. I will let you cry. I will state my needs and understand if you can’t fulfill them.
Today an old friend I’ve known since I was eleven called me. He’s getting a divorce and he has three little boys. “What pisses me off the most,” he said, “is giving her my money to go back home, find another guy, and spend it with him.” Having recently been through something similar, having given my ex all my money so he could move back home and spend it on liquor and other women, I told him what got me through. “Money comes and goes, and you can always make more. What you can never replace is another person.”
And even though I’m literally paying the price of not keeping enough for myself to live, I have to trust that god has a plan for me—that this sureness, this ‘afflatus’ that I’m connected to every being in the universe—that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, learning exactly what I need to grow, from exactly the right people is the only way I got through today so far, breaking down only twice in the privacy of my car.
Which makes me doubt I can be friends with training wheels guy. Can we go back to being something we never were? Meeting on Match.com means our stated purpose was to procure something more than that. And this whole time I thought we were moving toward something that is no longer a possibility. Do I want to stick around to see him find Miss. Right when I thought I might be that? I don’t think so.
I think I may have told him how we could be friends, how I would show him, but that was before he lied to me then came clean about That Thing and referred to us as having a ‘relationship.’ Something shifted when that happened and I stepped over my boundaries to accept him on his terms. And maybe I over-gave, which is why I’m especially reticent to starting something that will likely only bring me more pain.
For now I’m settling into this not-having-to-be-responsible-for-anyone-else-ness, and it’s an odd feeling; something I imagine the green sea turtle felt when she decided that land was not her habitat. Floating for the first time, the weight of her shell lifting from her old bones, the cool of the ocean against her leathery skin, and her eyes affixing to the blue everywhere, she was probably a little scared she might like it too much, just like me.
What if she could live there, on vacation, forever? She’d need to find out what to eat, how to sleep without the snore of wind or the tapping rain, how to glide rather than tromp. She’d need to brace herself for missing the rough of bark against her cheek and the wet scent of grass, the sweet tang of flowers. She’d miss most of the mammals, but she’d still have the birds. In the end, she did move. And that’s where she resides today—on her own turf, by her own rules, with like-minded creatures.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Afflatus
March 28, 2011
I have the dictionary.com app on my Iphone, and today’s word is ‘afflatus.’ Afflatus [uh-flay-tuhs] : noun, meaning ‘a divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.’ I’ve been asking god to help me stop hurting—to send love and light to those I don’t want in my life any longer, and to help me heal. Because I want to be the best person I can be, but right now I’m trying to get my bearings.
My life seems to be doubling up on me—these relational losses coming in twos every time. My divorce was final and I let go of my rebound guy six months ago. This current out-flux is also a coupling, paired as such: one person wants to stay, the other wants to go. They cancel each other out perfectly. It reminds me of a prophesy a psychic once told me about the babies I’m supposed to have; “You’re gonna have two, one right after the other. Boom, boom,” she said, “Just like that: boom, boom.”
For so long I’ve relied on other people to define me, believing since college that Confucian teaching that I am only as good as my relationships. I’ve tried to be the best friend I can be; the best listener I can be; the best ex-wife, lover, and daughter I can be. And this approach brought a bounty of blessings, but with so much of my attention on others, I have also stayed on the edge of myself.
Whenever I went on vacation for the past year or two, I’ve gone solo. I’ve sat at tables for one wondering about the eerie burned pier on stilts that still stands in Brighton Bay, eating Spanish paella off the Moll Costa in Barcelona, drinking sangria in Roses watching a rusty sunset, and drinking free wine at that Italian place in Long Beach with the bartender who looked like Johnny Depp. I’ve wandered and got lost in London happening upon a farmer’s market with ‘drunken’ purple cheese and every colored perennials. I’ve re-traced my deceased father’s footsteps in Suva, flopping past the library’s three bookshelves and having his favorite, Ulysses, stare me in the face; on that random page, “For you, Achilles, Death should have lost its string.” I’ve checked out Prague’s Charles Bridge and paused for as long as I wanted at each statue, cruised through Bobolli gardens in Rome, and shared the cool reprieve with Bernini’s marbles; the dust clinging to my sweating skin.
And rather than freak out in new cities all alone, I’ve actively sought out these refuges, finding solace in the sound of my own voice in my head. I even practiced being alone in this last, recently-ended relationship, only seeing him once or twice a week. Looking around my life, I don’t have to check in with anyone. I can cry for as long as I like without anyone feeling uncomfortable, and I can have nightmares without anyone there to hold me, or assure me everything will be okay.
Last night, I started awake weeping again. He told me he did love me, promising that he just wanted me to be free. “I don’t believe you,” I said. Because if he was partner material, he wouldn’t just abandon me during this time of flux. He wouldn’t cut his losses to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He would be brave. He would be my champion.
It occurred to me that the possibly cancerous nodule in his throat might be a reason for this breaking. He told me he was going to have it checked out over Spring Break, that he was supposed to have done it six months ago. But that’s not the reason he gave me. “I want to be free in case Miss. Right comes along. I want you to be free for Mr. Right, too,” he said.
I’m not a mind reader. I’m nothing but a girl who was starting to care too much for a boy who says he wants to be friends. Fuck, who wouldn’t? I want to be my friend because, truth be told, after so much practice and focus, I am a fantastic friend. I will have your back and tell you the truth and not judge you when you don’t take my advice. I am never jealous. I am practiced in the art of letting go, allowing you to take as much time as you need away from me and welcoming you back whenever you’re ready. I keep my crying fits about you to myself, waiting it out until I learn to see your perspective, even if you never attempt to see mine. I will write your story even though it breaks my heart, but I will come to you with solutions rather than complaints. I will accept you on your terms, allow you to be yourself, and be your biggest cheerleader in whatever you dream. I will make you laugh. I will let you cry. I will state my needs and understand if you can’t fulfill them.
Today an old friend I’ve known since I was eleven called me. He’s getting a divorce and he has three little boys. “What pisses me off the most,” he said, “is giving her my money to go back home, find another guy, and spend it with him.” Having recently been through something similar, having given my ex all my money so he could move back home and spend it on liquor and other women, I told him what got me through. “Money comes and goes, and you can always make more. What you can never replace is another person.”
And even though I’m literally paying the price of not keeping enough for myself to live, I have to trust that god has a plan for me—that this sureness, this ‘afflatus’ that I’m connected to every being in the universe—that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, learning exactly what I need to grow, from exactly the right people is the only way I got through today so far, breaking down only twice in the privacy of my car.
Which makes me doubt I can be friends with training wheels guy. Can we go back to being something we never were? Meeting on Match.com means our stated purpose was to procure something more than that. And this whole time I thought we were moving toward something that is no longer a possibility. Do I want to stick around to see him find Miss. Right when I thought I might be that? I don’t think so.
I think I may have told him how we could be friends, how I would show him, but that was before he lied to me then came clean about That Thing and referred to us as having a ‘relationship.’ Something shifted when that happened and I stepped over my boundaries to accept him on his terms. And maybe I over-gave, which is why I’m especially reticent to starting something that will likely only bring me more pain.
For now I’m settling into this not-having-to-be-responsible-for-anyone-else-ness, and it’s an odd feeling; something I imagine the green sea turtle felt when she decided that land was not her habitat. Floating for the first time, the weight of her shell lifting from her old bones, the cool of the ocean against her leathery skin, and her eyes affixing to the blue everywhere, she was probably a little scared she might like it too much, just like me.
What if she could live there, on vacation, forever? She’d need to find out what to eat, how to sleep without the snore of wind or the tapping rain, how to glide rather than tromp. She’d need to brace herself for missing the rough of bark against her cheek and the wet scent of grass, the sweet tang of flowers. She’d miss the mammals, but she’d still have the birds. In the end, she did move. And that’s where she resides today—on her own turf, by her own rules, with like-minded creatures.
I have the dictionary.com app on my Iphone, and today’s word is ‘afflatus.’ Afflatus [uh-flay-tuhs] : noun, meaning ‘a divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.’ I’ve been asking god to help me stop hurting—to send love and light to those I don’t want in my life any longer, and to help me heal. Because I want to be the best person I can be, but right now I’m trying to get my bearings.
My life seems to be doubling up on me—these relational losses coming in twos every time. My divorce was final and I let go of my rebound guy six months ago. This current out-flux is also a coupling, paired as such: one person wants to stay, the other wants to go. They cancel each other out perfectly. It reminds me of a prophesy a psychic once told me about the babies I’m supposed to have; “You’re gonna have two, one right after the other. Boom, boom,” she said, “Just like that: boom, boom.”
For so long I’ve relied on other people to define me, believing since college that Confucian teaching that I am only as good as my relationships. I’ve tried to be the best friend I can be; the best listener I can be; the best ex-wife, lover, and daughter I can be. And this approach brought a bounty of blessings, but with so much of my attention on others, I have also stayed on the edge of myself.
Whenever I went on vacation for the past year or two, I’ve gone solo. I’ve sat at tables for one wondering about the eerie burned pier on stilts that still stands in Brighton Bay, eating Spanish paella off the Moll Costa in Barcelona, drinking sangria in Roses watching a rusty sunset, and drinking free wine at that Italian place in Long Beach with the bartender who looked like Johnny Depp. I’ve wandered and got lost in London happening upon a farmer’s market with ‘drunken’ purple cheese and every colored perennials. I’ve re-traced my deceased father’s footsteps in Suva, flopping past the library’s three bookshelves and having his favorite, Ulysses, stare me in the face; on that random page, “For you, Achilles, Death should have lost its string.” I’ve checked out Prague’s Charles Bridge and paused for as long as I wanted at each statue, cruised through Bobolli gardens in Rome, and shared the cool reprieve with Bernini’s marbles; the dust clinging to my sweating skin.
And rather than freak out in new cities all alone, I’ve actively sought out these refuges, finding solace in the sound of my own voice in my head. I even practiced being alone in this last, recently-ended relationship, only seeing him once or twice a week. Looking around my life, I don’t have to check in with anyone. I can cry for as long as I like without anyone feeling uncomfortable, and I can have nightmares without anyone there to hold me, or assure me everything will be okay.
Last night, I started awake weeping again. He told me he did love me, promising that he just wanted me to be free. “I don’t believe you,” I said. Because if he was partner material, he wouldn’t just abandon me during this time of flux. He wouldn’t cut his losses to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He would be brave. He would be my champion.
It occurred to me that the possibly cancerous nodule in his throat might be a reason for this breaking. He told me he was going to have it checked out over Spring Break, that he was supposed to have done it six months ago. But that’s not the reason he gave me. “I want to be free in case Miss. Right comes along. I want you to be free for Mr. Right, too,” he said.
I’m not a mind reader. I’m nothing but a girl who was starting to care too much for a boy who says he wants to be friends. Fuck, who wouldn’t? I want to be my friend because, truth be told, after so much practice and focus, I am a fantastic friend. I will have your back and tell you the truth and not judge you when you don’t take my advice. I am never jealous. I am practiced in the art of letting go, allowing you to take as much time as you need away from me and welcoming you back whenever you’re ready. I keep my crying fits about you to myself, waiting it out until I learn to see your perspective, even if you never attempt to see mine. I will write your story even though it breaks my heart, but I will come to you with solutions rather than complaints. I will accept you on your terms, allow you to be yourself, and be your biggest cheerleader in whatever you dream. I will make you laugh. I will let you cry. I will state my needs and understand if you can’t fulfill them.
Today an old friend I’ve known since I was eleven called me. He’s getting a divorce and he has three little boys. “What pisses me off the most,” he said, “is giving her my money to go back home, find another guy, and spend it with him.” Having recently been through something similar, having given my ex all my money so he could move back home and spend it on liquor and other women, I told him what got me through. “Money comes and goes, and you can always make more. What you can never replace is another person.”
And even though I’m literally paying the price of not keeping enough for myself to live, I have to trust that god has a plan for me—that this sureness, this ‘afflatus’ that I’m connected to every being in the universe—that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, learning exactly what I need to grow, from exactly the right people is the only way I got through today so far, breaking down only twice in the privacy of my car.
Which makes me doubt I can be friends with training wheels guy. Can we go back to being something we never were? Meeting on Match.com means our stated purpose was to procure something more than that. And this whole time I thought we were moving toward something that is no longer a possibility. Do I want to stick around to see him find Miss. Right when I thought I might be that? I don’t think so.
I think I may have told him how we could be friends, how I would show him, but that was before he lied to me then came clean about That Thing and referred to us as having a ‘relationship.’ Something shifted when that happened and I stepped over my boundaries to accept him on his terms. And maybe I over-gave, which is why I’m especially reticent to starting something that will likely only bring me more pain.
For now I’m settling into this not-having-to-be-responsible-for-anyone-else-ness, and it’s an odd feeling; something I imagine the green sea turtle felt when she decided that land was not her habitat. Floating for the first time, the weight of her shell lifting from her old bones, the cool of the ocean against her leathery skin, and her eyes affixing to the blue everywhere, she was probably a little scared she might like it too much, just like me.
What if she could live there, on vacation, forever? She’d need to find out what to eat, how to sleep without the snore of wind or the tapping rain, how to glide rather than tromp. She’d need to brace herself for missing the rough of bark against her cheek and the wet scent of grass, the sweet tang of flowers. She’d miss the mammals, but she’d still have the birds. In the end, she did move. And that’s where she resides today—on her own turf, by her own rules, with like-minded creatures.
Monday, March 28, 2011
March 27, 2011
"And So it Goes"
Yesterday was the official end of the ‘us’ that never was. Talking with my cousin on Skype today, she assured me that he was an ill-equip loser, that he should be falling over himself to be with me, that I don’t want all his issues coming to live with me. She said that he can’t handle a strong, independent, beautiful woman who is smart and compassionate—that I’m better off without him. And though it made me feel better for a millisecond, I remembered, She’s my cousin. That’s her job.
He said it had nothing to do with me—that it was him, but I call bullshit. I want to know why he doesn’t see us moving past this point—what it is about me that he can’t come to love. But maybe I don’t. I want him to tell me the truth if he’s seeing someone else, or has plans to see someone else—what it is about that ‘her’ that makes him not want me. Or maybe not. I want him to own his feelings—to admit he’s afraid that I might get accepted into an out-of-state Ph.D. program, that he doesn’t want to lose me, that he doesn’t want to feel something for me he can’t control. But maybe I don’t want to know that, either. If I move, it'll be harder than it already is.
What I really want is to stop playing this narrative in my head—this fear of ending up alone, of never finding a partner, of living my life without experiencing motherhood. I want the loop that keeps repeating ‘you’re not good enough’ and ‘you don’t deserve any of that’ to erase from my brain. And I want to stop thinking I know something about us being together that I obviously don’t.
Because we were on our way to something, or at least that’s how it felt. He told me things he hadn’t told anyone else; he made me feel like I was special, important—that he could potentially love me. So when I couldn’t catch my breath for crying on the phone, the tears slicking a trail down my chest, I didn’t understand how he could be so stunned at my reaction.
“I thought we could just go back to being friends,” before he attributed my violent sadness to the fact that I had just figured out I was done with my best friend for the past seventeen years. And it made me feel about a quarter inch tall—like he was the Jolly Green Giant scoffing at me for imagining I could ever be green. Or big.
It occurs to me that this is all karmic—that after sending my best friend away and feeling relieved to have resolved that I no longer required the damaging critiques and snide back-handed manipulations; after dissolving my co-dependant marriage and finally freeing myself to find a partner—I am now on the receiving end of someone who does not want me.
And it sucks. Because it doesn’t just hurt my ego, though that’s definitely bone bruised. It hurts because I thought there was a possibility of the ‘something more’ we’d talked about from the beginning—that thing he assured me no longer exists; that has not existed for weeks now. So aside from feeling like a completely clueless ass, I want to know why. Or do I?
Thinking about becoming numb puts me off. I’d rather feel and release, finding that when I don’t confront my feelings they end up squirting out the side like an over-ketchup-ed burger. Besides, it would be completely irresponsible to jump back into dating until I know where I’m going in the next six months. Cerebrally I know the best thing for me right now is to work hard toward my other goals and be comfortable being alone without the training wheels.
I wonder about this fear, though—of really liking singleness, of discovering that I don’t want to be with anyone, coupled with the trend I’ve noticed in myself lately—this impatience with other people, this desire to not have to deal with their neurosis, to get as far away from their collapse zones as possible.
Why then did I want to be there for him? Did I? Or did I just want to not feel so alone? Is that why I endured the abuse from my best friend for so long? Why I stayed married long past the time I wanted to leave?
And what is aloneness in the grand scheme of things? Maybe it’s just a break from people, maybe it’s something I need on the road to something else, maybe after a lifetime filled with others, I need to face myself. And whether that’s for a few weeks or five months—whether it’s for two years or forever, I have to swallow that fear remembering that fear is a horrible reason to do or not do anything.
So the Spring Cleaning Fairy has come through my life, swept out two of my most intimate relationships, and tossed them into the trash. It feels . . . weird, even though I think I was mostly alone anyway in both cases—trying to be the best I could without getting much back, each person a weight in his own way, and me perhaps not entirely being myself, either. But for once, I don’t have to deal with the other part of the figuring out what to do. I only have myself to live with, after all.
Yesterday was the official end of the ‘us’ that never was. Talking with my cousin on Skype today, she assured me that he was an ill-equip loser, that he should be falling over himself to be with me, that I don’t want all his issues coming to live with me. She said that he can’t handle a strong, independent, beautiful woman who is smart and compassionate—that I’m better off without him. And though it made me feel better for a millisecond, I remembered, She’s my cousin. That’s her job.
He said it had nothing to do with me—that it was him, but I call bullshit. I want to know why he doesn’t see us moving past this point—what it is about me that he can’t come to love. But maybe I don’t. I want him to tell me the truth if he’s seeing someone else, or has plans to see someone else—what it is about that ‘her’ that makes him not want me. Or maybe not. I want him to own his feelings—to admit he’s afraid that I might get accepted into an out-of-state Ph.D. program, that he doesn’t want to lose me, that he doesn’t want to feel something for me he can’t control. But maybe I don’t want to know that, either. If I move, it'll be harder than it already is.
What I really want is to stop playing this narrative in my head—this fear of ending up alone, of never finding a partner, of living my life without experiencing motherhood. I want the loop that keeps repeating ‘you’re not good enough’ and ‘you don’t deserve any of that’ to erase from my brain. And I want to stop thinking I know something about us being together that I obviously don’t.
Because we were on our way to something, or at least that’s how it felt. He told me things he hadn’t told anyone else; he made me feel like I was special, important—that he could potentially love me. So when I couldn’t catch my breath for crying on the phone, the tears slicking a trail down my chest, I didn’t understand how he could be so stunned at my reaction.
“I thought we could just go back to being friends,” before he attributed my violent sadness to the fact that I had just figured out I was done with my best friend for the past seventeen years. And it made me feel about a quarter inch tall—like he was the Jolly Green Giant scoffing at me for imagining I could ever be green. Or big.
It occurs to me that this is all karmic—that after sending my best friend away and feeling relieved to have resolved that I no longer required the damaging critiques and snide back-handed manipulations; after dissolving my co-dependant marriage and finally freeing myself to find a partner—I am now on the receiving end of someone who does not want me.
And it sucks. Because it doesn’t just hurt my ego, though that’s definitely bone bruised. It hurts because I thought there was a possibility of the ‘something more’ we’d talked about from the beginning—that thing he assured me no longer exists; that has not existed for weeks now. So aside from feeling like a completely clueless ass, I want to know why. Or do I?
Thinking about becoming numb puts me off. I’d rather feel and release, finding that when I don’t confront my feelings they end up squirting out the side like an over-ketchup-ed burger. Besides, it would be completely irresponsible to jump back into dating until I know where I’m going in the next six months. Cerebrally I know the best thing for me right now is to work hard toward my other goals and be comfortable being alone without the training wheels.
I wonder about this fear, though—of really liking singleness, of discovering that I don’t want to be with anyone, coupled with the trend I’ve noticed in myself lately—this impatience with other people, this desire to not have to deal with their neurosis, to get as far away from their collapse zones as possible.
Why then did I want to be there for him? Did I? Or did I just want to not feel so alone? Is that why I endured the abuse from my best friend for so long? Why I stayed married long past the time I wanted to leave?
And what is aloneness in the grand scheme of things? Maybe it’s just a break from people, maybe it’s something I need on the road to something else, maybe after a lifetime filled with others, I need to face myself. And whether that’s for a few weeks or five months—whether it’s for two years or forever, I have to swallow that fear remembering that fear is a horrible reason to do or not do anything.
So the Spring Cleaning Fairy has come through my life, swept out two of my most intimate relationships, and tossed them into the trash. It feels . . . weird, even though I think I was mostly alone anyway in both cases—trying to be the best I could without getting much back, each person a weight in his own way, and me perhaps not entirely being myself, either. But for once, I don’t have to deal with the other part of the figuring out what to do. I only have myself to live with, after all.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
February 26, 2011
"The Existing State of Things"
Yes, even writers get it wrong sometimes. Still the use of ‘status quo’ to define our state of things threw me for a loop.
“Hold up.” I said, half-way into discussing something else. “What do you mean, ‘status quo?’”
“I mean; it is what it is,” he replied.
“Right, but ‘status quo?’ That sounds like cardboard lameness. Please elaborate.”
We sat in the Japanese garden near a pink cassia tree planted by the Prince and Princess of Japan. The nearby stream whispered, “relax” and “breathe” as I watched the koi float and gurgle, weaving their way from one end of the pond to the other in red and orange strokes.
Obviously I was frothing up a bit, so he gazed into the bright blue sky for answers, laying there prone on his back, elbows behind his head like wings wishing to fly.
“Well, there are a lot of variables. It is what it is,” he repeated. “I mean, I don’t like thinking in terms of ultimatums, but the manuscript doesn’t mean anything to me—what you’ve already written is enough, and if you don’t want to do any more, I’m completely fine with that.”
“Let me start,” I curtly offered. “I agree there are a lot of variables. But feelings develop regardless of how much you try to control them. I’m not asking you to make any grand declarations—I’m merely saying that I care about you, and if I had to choose between the manuscript and you, I would choose you.”
“Hmmm,” he said, “I have to think about that. Let me write it out and I’ll give it to you later.”
“Oh no,” I chortled acidly, “it’ll be all I think about in the interim. Take your time, choose your words, and explain it to me now.”
I tried to breathe, tried to relax as a red ant crawled up my leg. Pincers at the ready, it searched for a juicy place to pierce my flesh. Stealthily, it made its way through the long hairs above my knee, pausing lasciviously next to a beauty spot on my inner thigh. I thought I heard it snicker a little as its sharp claws began to lower. But before it could sink anything into me, I smashed it between my thumbs and flicked the carcass off into the grass.
“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t have given this story to you if I didn’t think you could write it, and I care about you, too.”
I think he said more, but in actuality all I really heard is the, “I care about you, too” part, knowing innately that what we had was more than mere sex, but still needing actual evidence from his lips. Immediately, I un-tensed and noticed a butterfly floating above the rocks.
He went on to explain that the non-verbal pulling away I had noticed the last time we spoke was not because my writing had aptly described things he couldn’t articulate, but because he could feel something between us becoming more intense. Attributing it to me being a girl—how women tend to attach more easily than men—he averred he was still at the same juncture as the last time we’d discussed our relational position on Christmas Eve.
“I’ll let you know when things change,” he said.
And I don’t doubt he will. Because after the whole Christmas Eve episode, I am leaving that development squarely in his hands. If I want to stick around, I have to be okay with that, to gauge my ability to accept how he might never come around—how I might never, either. I’m not saying I’m trying to control my falling in love—just that I won’t without a little help. It’s a simple equation—either he gives me a good reason, or I’ll just go on loving without in-loving.
Because it’s totally possible that light bulb won’t ever turn on again. To be frank, I’ve often wondered if I could ever love—if I even have the capacity inside my heart to fall for anyone like that again. Maimed by a different guy with the same last name, I’m healed but unsure if lightning strikes twice where matters of my heart are concerned.
At the same time, I wonder about how much he’s projecting—how afraid he is of whatever it is he’s afraid of. I want to tell him my method for figuring out whether something is my issue: I ask that blunt question and try my best to answer it internally, but I stay silent instead.
“It’s just important that no one gets hurt,” he said again, causing me to wonder about how deeply he’s been hurt—how afraid he really might be, and how impossible it is to understand this if he won’t ever tell me.
“I’m not ready anyway,” I responded truthfully, trying my best to placate this obvious fear in him; that thing that makes him retreat into his cave, blow out the candles, and hide in a corner. “Besides, I just got divorced like five minutes ago.” I explained further how much I am finally enjoying this dating thing, even though it isn’t always fun. I divulged how I just wrote a piece about how ill-prepared I feel right now to declare in-loveness, and admitted liking this snail’s pace, this courting, this wining and dining because I’m getting all the fun without all the yuck.
And even if we don’t go anywhere, I think about all I’ve received: an amazing story to write, I’ve eaten well, been physically satisfied, and intellectually stimulated. He’s treated me like a woman and not a crutch or a mother or a princess. I’ve revealed myself without pretense, and given without expecting through knowing my limits.
Plus he’s actually paid four hundred dollars so I can process writing his story through the only outlet that actually wrings out my center: yoga—something I need if I’m going to get through the transference of his horrifying past, this tertiary trauma. Which means that he believes in me, and that feels wonderful—perhaps actions do speak louder than words.
Because the ‘existing state of things’ is the definition of ‘status quo,’ and even though it sounds like something more boring than staring at the same wall for five hours, it’s what it is, it’s where we are, and it’s all good. For now.
Yes, even writers get it wrong sometimes. Still the use of ‘status quo’ to define our state of things threw me for a loop.
“Hold up.” I said, half-way into discussing something else. “What do you mean, ‘status quo?’”
“I mean; it is what it is,” he replied.
“Right, but ‘status quo?’ That sounds like cardboard lameness. Please elaborate.”
We sat in the Japanese garden near a pink cassia tree planted by the Prince and Princess of Japan. The nearby stream whispered, “relax” and “breathe” as I watched the koi float and gurgle, weaving their way from one end of the pond to the other in red and orange strokes.
Obviously I was frothing up a bit, so he gazed into the bright blue sky for answers, laying there prone on his back, elbows behind his head like wings wishing to fly.
“Well, there are a lot of variables. It is what it is,” he repeated. “I mean, I don’t like thinking in terms of ultimatums, but the manuscript doesn’t mean anything to me—what you’ve already written is enough, and if you don’t want to do any more, I’m completely fine with that.”
“Let me start,” I curtly offered. “I agree there are a lot of variables. But feelings develop regardless of how much you try to control them. I’m not asking you to make any grand declarations—I’m merely saying that I care about you, and if I had to choose between the manuscript and you, I would choose you.”
“Hmmm,” he said, “I have to think about that. Let me write it out and I’ll give it to you later.”
“Oh no,” I chortled acidly, “it’ll be all I think about in the interim. Take your time, choose your words, and explain it to me now.”
I tried to breathe, tried to relax as a red ant crawled up my leg. Pincers at the ready, it searched for a juicy place to pierce my flesh. Stealthily, it made its way through the long hairs above my knee, pausing lasciviously next to a beauty spot on my inner thigh. I thought I heard it snicker a little as its sharp claws began to lower. But before it could sink anything into me, I smashed it between my thumbs and flicked the carcass off into the grass.
“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t have given this story to you if I didn’t think you could write it, and I care about you, too.”
I think he said more, but in actuality all I really heard is the, “I care about you, too” part, knowing innately that what we had was more than mere sex, but still needing actual evidence from his lips. Immediately, I un-tensed and noticed a butterfly floating above the rocks.
He went on to explain that the non-verbal pulling away I had noticed the last time we spoke was not because my writing had aptly described things he couldn’t articulate, but because he could feel something between us becoming more intense. Attributing it to me being a girl—how women tend to attach more easily than men—he averred he was still at the same juncture as the last time we’d discussed our relational position on Christmas Eve.
“I’ll let you know when things change,” he said.
And I don’t doubt he will. Because after the whole Christmas Eve episode, I am leaving that development squarely in his hands. If I want to stick around, I have to be okay with that, to gauge my ability to accept how he might never come around—how I might never, either. I’m not saying I’m trying to control my falling in love—just that I won’t without a little help. It’s a simple equation—either he gives me a good reason, or I’ll just go on loving without in-loving.
Because it’s totally possible that light bulb won’t ever turn on again. To be frank, I’ve often wondered if I could ever love—if I even have the capacity inside my heart to fall for anyone like that again. Maimed by a different guy with the same last name, I’m healed but unsure if lightning strikes twice where matters of my heart are concerned.
At the same time, I wonder about how much he’s projecting—how afraid he is of whatever it is he’s afraid of. I want to tell him my method for figuring out whether something is my issue: I ask that blunt question and try my best to answer it internally, but I stay silent instead.
“It’s just important that no one gets hurt,” he said again, causing me to wonder about how deeply he’s been hurt—how afraid he really might be, and how impossible it is to understand this if he won’t ever tell me.
“I’m not ready anyway,” I responded truthfully, trying my best to placate this obvious fear in him; that thing that makes him retreat into his cave, blow out the candles, and hide in a corner. “Besides, I just got divorced like five minutes ago.” I explained further how much I am finally enjoying this dating thing, even though it isn’t always fun. I divulged how I just wrote a piece about how ill-prepared I feel right now to declare in-loveness, and admitted liking this snail’s pace, this courting, this wining and dining because I’m getting all the fun without all the yuck.
And even if we don’t go anywhere, I think about all I’ve received: an amazing story to write, I’ve eaten well, been physically satisfied, and intellectually stimulated. He’s treated me like a woman and not a crutch or a mother or a princess. I’ve revealed myself without pretense, and given without expecting through knowing my limits.
Plus he’s actually paid four hundred dollars so I can process writing his story through the only outlet that actually wrings out my center: yoga—something I need if I’m going to get through the transference of his horrifying past, this tertiary trauma. Which means that he believes in me, and that feels wonderful—perhaps actions do speak louder than words.
Because the ‘existing state of things’ is the definition of ‘status quo,’ and even though it sounds like something more boring than staring at the same wall for five hours, it’s what it is, it’s where we are, and it’s all good. For now.
February 18, 2011
"Divulging"
I finally told my ex that I started dating again, and something strange and unnerving happened when I did: I felt guilty, like I had admitted something weird and unnatural. And though his response was, “that’s great, I’m glad,” I pressed him.
“Are you okay with that?” I asked in earnest, wanting to protect him from pain, wishing a bit that I could take back the words, that he could go back to not knowing, that I could go back to not having told.
“Of course,” he responded. “I’m fine with it. I’m happy for you.”
This was something I should have expected. From our history, I knew my ex hadn’t a jealous bone in his body, and if he cringed inside hearing that I had started dating, his poker face would not waver, now we are divorced. Because he is a private person. Obviously, free and needing to write about my entire existence, I’m not.
But it still made me wonder how I could have handled it better. He went on to ask about who he was—“you don’t know him,” I assured my ex. Incredulous, he expected me to pick up someone in our circle of friends—men I had never been attracted to in the least. Ever. “He’s not from here,” I explained, “I’m sure you don’t know him.” He prodded me about whether the newbie lives here, what he does, and how long I’ve been seeing him. And rather than completely change the subject, I divulged quite a lot—something I wish I hadn’t done. Because whether or not he tells me, I know my dating bothers him. I know it hurts him, because it proves he was right: I didn’t just leave him because I wanted to be alone. I left because I wanted someone else.
And now he has a name to google and a mental picture of this person—he has someone to imagine, something to concoct in his subconscious. Because perhaps unlike women, men do not mentally obsess about every detail while they’re occupied with other daily functions. But I’m sure those details will take on a life of their own when he’s not watching. In this way, the end result between men and women is the same—it’s just not expressed in the same way. Men can hurt, love, and be afraid, just like women. And we all do it despite our saner selves.
There’s obviously no way to un-say all I did, no way for him to un-hear it. It’s out there, floating around in the ether of his existence. Of course people break up and date other people. There were women before me and men before him. It’s unsurprising to hear he’s been interested in other women and yet, I can take that information and feel pretty good about it. Because although I don’t want him anymore, I want him to be happy—to find love.
It’s because I left him that I feel this way. Having spent some time on the other side of the equation, I know what it’s like to be jealous of the entity that took my place. It just happens that in this instance, the trace of that discomfort does not exist for me. And I feel guilty that it doesn’t, even though I’m glad I don’t.
I can move on without a backward glance because I tried my best, even though I was not perfect. And I know the answer is to feel that guilt and release it because it does not serve me. And I know holding on to things that don’t serve me is destructive. So I try squeezing my heart tight around the guilt, then unclasping it, and even though the taint is still sort of there, I feel better. For now.
I finally told my ex that I started dating again, and something strange and unnerving happened when I did: I felt guilty, like I had admitted something weird and unnatural. And though his response was, “that’s great, I’m glad,” I pressed him.
“Are you okay with that?” I asked in earnest, wanting to protect him from pain, wishing a bit that I could take back the words, that he could go back to not knowing, that I could go back to not having told.
“Of course,” he responded. “I’m fine with it. I’m happy for you.”
This was something I should have expected. From our history, I knew my ex hadn’t a jealous bone in his body, and if he cringed inside hearing that I had started dating, his poker face would not waver, now we are divorced. Because he is a private person. Obviously, free and needing to write about my entire existence, I’m not.
But it still made me wonder how I could have handled it better. He went on to ask about who he was—“you don’t know him,” I assured my ex. Incredulous, he expected me to pick up someone in our circle of friends—men I had never been attracted to in the least. Ever. “He’s not from here,” I explained, “I’m sure you don’t know him.” He prodded me about whether the newbie lives here, what he does, and how long I’ve been seeing him. And rather than completely change the subject, I divulged quite a lot—something I wish I hadn’t done. Because whether or not he tells me, I know my dating bothers him. I know it hurts him, because it proves he was right: I didn’t just leave him because I wanted to be alone. I left because I wanted someone else.
And now he has a name to google and a mental picture of this person—he has someone to imagine, something to concoct in his subconscious. Because perhaps unlike women, men do not mentally obsess about every detail while they’re occupied with other daily functions. But I’m sure those details will take on a life of their own when he’s not watching. In this way, the end result between men and women is the same—it’s just not expressed in the same way. Men can hurt, love, and be afraid, just like women. And we all do it despite our saner selves.
There’s obviously no way to un-say all I did, no way for him to un-hear it. It’s out there, floating around in the ether of his existence. Of course people break up and date other people. There were women before me and men before him. It’s unsurprising to hear he’s been interested in other women and yet, I can take that information and feel pretty good about it. Because although I don’t want him anymore, I want him to be happy—to find love.
It’s because I left him that I feel this way. Having spent some time on the other side of the equation, I know what it’s like to be jealous of the entity that took my place. It just happens that in this instance, the trace of that discomfort does not exist for me. And I feel guilty that it doesn’t, even though I’m glad I don’t.
I can move on without a backward glance because I tried my best, even though I was not perfect. And I know the answer is to feel that guilt and release it because it does not serve me. And I know holding on to things that don’t serve me is destructive. So I try squeezing my heart tight around the guilt, then unclasping it, and even though the taint is still sort of there, I feel better. For now.
February 15, 2011
"The Real Thing"
We’re approaching that shit-or-get-off-the-pot place, that fish-or-cut-bait place—the juncture where I’m supposed to have it all figured, or at least pretend to know what I’m doing. Because we’re nearing that oasis where most couples fall in love, and the tension is growing like speakers being turned all the way up—the buzz is in my ears as I inhale next to the mike, my breath echoing into the ether.
I have, of course, been here before, but the last time I faked it. He said it first, and I knew I wasn’t, so I took six or seven days to look deep inside my heart. I considered our first date, how we picnicked with wine glasses and a cold chicken salad. He had a black belt in Aikido, loved to cook, and massaged me so deeply I was bruised inside the next day (something that only happened once in our ten-year stint).
Okay, I shrugged, I love him.
And much like this moment now, I feel love for the guy I’m dating. But I am not ‘in love’ with him. I wonder what that even means, if I’ve ever visited that Shangri-la, if I’d recognize the landmarks seeing it again. Because much like a Novocain-ed tooth, my heart can’t tell if it’s loving that way. I love a lot of people. I’m lucky like that—family, friends, even my ex—I want what’s best for all of them, finding joy in pockets that people my life.
So what’s the difference between that and romantic love? I hate to be cynical, but I think it might have to do with higher expectations. While others can be flawed but still accepted, in-love-ness means we want someone who’s just enough like us that we can stand to spend the rest of our lives with them and just different enough that we don’t become completely bored. I won’t settle for a man who doesn’t meet my standards, but I’ll still love a friend who’s neurotic. But I don’t have to wake up to her clothes on the floor, her voice in my ear, her dishes in my sink.
Last night was Valentine’s and despite my apprehension, the guy I’m dating cooked a delicious meal, baked cookies naked (he has a super cute bootie), and gave me roses. We watched a movie while he massaged my feet—something he does whenever they’re in his lap—then went to bed. It was perfect. And I’m giving him all the signs that I’m falling—my offerings of affection include Feng-Shui charms, rosemary, thyme, mint, and a leafy plant; books, poems, and TED video links that make me cry. I want to be known, I think, want to get-to-know, too.
But this knowing might be terminal. And he keeps asking me if I’ve been accepted to the three Ph.D. programs I applied to—these options for my future that likely would not include him. He likes it here, and won’t move for me for sure. Practical, I assume he’s biding his time trying to figure out if I’ll stay for long enough to love me. I watch him pull back from giving too much, rationalizing the waste if I end up moving. The last time he picked me up, there was nervous energy in the air, and I felt the reverberations of restraint. That night I looked less into his eyes as we talked, wary of the onslaught of emotions I’m not ready to deal with just yet.
Because this time I don’t want to fake it. And yes, however much I don’t want to admit it, I have been to Blissful Loveland. It almost killed me. I got the tattoo, and not just the T-shirt. I spent my entire marriage plus the four years previous trying to salvage what was left of myself after the loss of that love. And even though I’m finally healed, finally ready to try again for real, I’m not ready to speak aloud “I love you.”
And I don’t know what it will take to get there—something I hope I won’t have to figure out until I’m sure I’m staying put; when we’ll both have to mike up and hope the speakers don’t screech or blow. Because maybe I’m reading him all wrong. Maybe he likes fucking me and that’s where it ends. Maybe he’s bored with my bland childhood, rolling his eyes inside at my lame stories about being abused and loved and abandoned compared to his mini-drama of a life story, replete with kidnapping, car chases, and terrorist attacks. Yes, it’s possible that he’s waiting ‘til we’ve reached our logical conclusion, aware that the pressure is building, and mapping out a way to let me down easy.
And if that’s the case, my falling won’t be an issue because I am not there yet. I need to see more, understand more. And he needs to offer it because I can’t know how he feels unless he tells me. And however much I’m assuming about what’s happening now, my educated guesses couldn’t ever come close to hearing exactly where he is. Actions may speak louder than words, but I am a writer. Without the words, nothing makes sense.
Besides I don’t think the leaving me is likely. Because even though I don’t know exactly why he likes me, I finally am sure he does. And I think it has to do with my enthusiasm and hope, the way I believe I’m blessed, how I know I always get what I need, even if I don’t always get what I want. Plus someone tells me I’m beautiful every day, which must mean it’s true most of the time. My tits are real, my body is beautiful, and so is my smile. Simply put, I am loveable.
Still I wonder about that moment, wonder about the ramifications—how things will change afterward. Am I ready to relinquish my singleness, especially since it’s so new? Am I done having my own time to myself, doing laundry for one, going where I please when I please for as long as I please without having to check in with anyone? And what will I gain with in-love-ness that I didn’t have before? Will loving him make me a better person? How?
Because I’ve had stable love and, yes, it gave me confidence, but that’s not disappearing. And I’ve given of myself, sacrificed my friends to make ends meet, taken care of someone else who couldn’t take care of himself, and shared my travels, laughter, and thoughts. I’ve been tender and compassionate, loving and brave. I’ve practiced compromise and imagined another perspective, made distinctions between where I end and others begin, ultimately doing the difficult thing of getting rid of my ex and deciding I wanted to be alone.
And yes, that was because I wanted to have a partner rather than a backpack. And yes, it was also because I wanted to have a baby with a man who wants to be a father. And yes, I wanted a confidant who was not convinced god is dead, who had the gumption to risk everything to make a difference, who was idealistic but not naïve. My guy is all these things and more. But he’s not perfect. Neither am I.
And even though I don’t know if I’ll ever fall in love with him, I am willing to accept and love this perfect moment for teaching me exactly what I need to know right now: that this time I’m not going to be rushed or pushed, not even by my self. I’m not going to pretend, hail Mary-ing it, and hoping it turns out to be the truth. Instead, I’m going to wait until he sweeps me up romancing me into falling, so that next time I’ll stay forever.
We’re approaching that shit-or-get-off-the-pot place, that fish-or-cut-bait place—the juncture where I’m supposed to have it all figured, or at least pretend to know what I’m doing. Because we’re nearing that oasis where most couples fall in love, and the tension is growing like speakers being turned all the way up—the buzz is in my ears as I inhale next to the mike, my breath echoing into the ether.
I have, of course, been here before, but the last time I faked it. He said it first, and I knew I wasn’t, so I took six or seven days to look deep inside my heart. I considered our first date, how we picnicked with wine glasses and a cold chicken salad. He had a black belt in Aikido, loved to cook, and massaged me so deeply I was bruised inside the next day (something that only happened once in our ten-year stint).
Okay, I shrugged, I love him.
And much like this moment now, I feel love for the guy I’m dating. But I am not ‘in love’ with him. I wonder what that even means, if I’ve ever visited that Shangri-la, if I’d recognize the landmarks seeing it again. Because much like a Novocain-ed tooth, my heart can’t tell if it’s loving that way. I love a lot of people. I’m lucky like that—family, friends, even my ex—I want what’s best for all of them, finding joy in pockets that people my life.
So what’s the difference between that and romantic love? I hate to be cynical, but I think it might have to do with higher expectations. While others can be flawed but still accepted, in-love-ness means we want someone who’s just enough like us that we can stand to spend the rest of our lives with them and just different enough that we don’t become completely bored. I won’t settle for a man who doesn’t meet my standards, but I’ll still love a friend who’s neurotic. But I don’t have to wake up to her clothes on the floor, her voice in my ear, her dishes in my sink.
Last night was Valentine’s and despite my apprehension, the guy I’m dating cooked a delicious meal, baked cookies naked (he has a super cute bootie), and gave me roses. We watched a movie while he massaged my feet—something he does whenever they’re in his lap—then went to bed. It was perfect. And I’m giving him all the signs that I’m falling—my offerings of affection include Feng-Shui charms, rosemary, thyme, mint, and a leafy plant; books, poems, and TED video links that make me cry. I want to be known, I think, want to get-to-know, too.
But this knowing might be terminal. And he keeps asking me if I’ve been accepted to the three Ph.D. programs I applied to—these options for my future that likely would not include him. He likes it here, and won’t move for me for sure. Practical, I assume he’s biding his time trying to figure out if I’ll stay for long enough to love me. I watch him pull back from giving too much, rationalizing the waste if I end up moving. The last time he picked me up, there was nervous energy in the air, and I felt the reverberations of restraint. That night I looked less into his eyes as we talked, wary of the onslaught of emotions I’m not ready to deal with just yet.
Because this time I don’t want to fake it. And yes, however much I don’t want to admit it, I have been to Blissful Loveland. It almost killed me. I got the tattoo, and not just the T-shirt. I spent my entire marriage plus the four years previous trying to salvage what was left of myself after the loss of that love. And even though I’m finally healed, finally ready to try again for real, I’m not ready to speak aloud “I love you.”
And I don’t know what it will take to get there—something I hope I won’t have to figure out until I’m sure I’m staying put; when we’ll both have to mike up and hope the speakers don’t screech or blow. Because maybe I’m reading him all wrong. Maybe he likes fucking me and that’s where it ends. Maybe he’s bored with my bland childhood, rolling his eyes inside at my lame stories about being abused and loved and abandoned compared to his mini-drama of a life story, replete with kidnapping, car chases, and terrorist attacks. Yes, it’s possible that he’s waiting ‘til we’ve reached our logical conclusion, aware that the pressure is building, and mapping out a way to let me down easy.
And if that’s the case, my falling won’t be an issue because I am not there yet. I need to see more, understand more. And he needs to offer it because I can’t know how he feels unless he tells me. And however much I’m assuming about what’s happening now, my educated guesses couldn’t ever come close to hearing exactly where he is. Actions may speak louder than words, but I am a writer. Without the words, nothing makes sense.
Besides I don’t think the leaving me is likely. Because even though I don’t know exactly why he likes me, I finally am sure he does. And I think it has to do with my enthusiasm and hope, the way I believe I’m blessed, how I know I always get what I need, even if I don’t always get what I want. Plus someone tells me I’m beautiful every day, which must mean it’s true most of the time. My tits are real, my body is beautiful, and so is my smile. Simply put, I am loveable.
Still I wonder about that moment, wonder about the ramifications—how things will change afterward. Am I ready to relinquish my singleness, especially since it’s so new? Am I done having my own time to myself, doing laundry for one, going where I please when I please for as long as I please without having to check in with anyone? And what will I gain with in-love-ness that I didn’t have before? Will loving him make me a better person? How?
Because I’ve had stable love and, yes, it gave me confidence, but that’s not disappearing. And I’ve given of myself, sacrificed my friends to make ends meet, taken care of someone else who couldn’t take care of himself, and shared my travels, laughter, and thoughts. I’ve been tender and compassionate, loving and brave. I’ve practiced compromise and imagined another perspective, made distinctions between where I end and others begin, ultimately doing the difficult thing of getting rid of my ex and deciding I wanted to be alone.
And yes, that was because I wanted to have a partner rather than a backpack. And yes, it was also because I wanted to have a baby with a man who wants to be a father. And yes, I wanted a confidant who was not convinced god is dead, who had the gumption to risk everything to make a difference, who was idealistic but not naïve. My guy is all these things and more. But he’s not perfect. Neither am I.
And even though I don’t know if I’ll ever fall in love with him, I am willing to accept and love this perfect moment for teaching me exactly what I need to know right now: that this time I’m not going to be rushed or pushed, not even by my self. I’m not going to pretend, hail Mary-ing it, and hoping it turns out to be the truth. Instead, I’m going to wait until he sweeps me up romancing me into falling, so that next time I’ll stay forever.
Feburary 10, 2011
"Valentine's Day is for Losers"
Like most people, I hate Valentine’s Day. There’s so much pressure, so much room for disappointment, and not much spontaneity. Still red hearts and bears, long-stemmed roses and chocolates, sappy cards with sad dogs or silly kitties mimicking lasting love with tongues lolling abound. Because Love Day is an industry, much like Christmas and Halloween, funerals and weddings. Whether we buy into it is our choice, except when a relationship’s new.
Which is where I am right now. Four months in, and I am wondering what will happen on this most detestable day. Will he take me out for dinner? Give me a gift? Admit that he actually likes me for once? And what if he doesn’t? It’s already the 12th and he hasn’t invited me out, which is not unusual, but is nonetheless unnerving. If it were up to me, I would ignore the entire affair and let the day pass with a quick phone call to my mom. But the point of fact is that he’s been acculturated to give a shit, if he gives a shit about me.
The television commercials and radio commentary keep spinning around “what to do for the woman in your life.” The displays at every grocery store are filled with red-foiled Hershey’s hearts and pink M&Ms. In other words, there’s no way he can plead ignorance, and there’s no escape. Which is why I feel slightly bad for him—because he’s got to do something. And even though he used to run into burning buildings for a living, from what I know of him, I think he might be freaking out a little. He says he can handle it, and I trust him. But I’m afraid of what I’ll have to assume if the moment passes without a little recognition.
Which is why for a quarter of a moment, I wish I were still married. Because my ex and I had it figured out. We’d stopped trying to get a table at our favorite restaurant, finding even the service in five star places completely lame. Instead, he’d make something fancy and we’d drink some wine, he’d get me a lei and I wouldn’t have to do anything for that one day out of the year. I wrote a card and he’d make whatever I wanted, then whip up some chocolate mousse. It was perfect.
But in the process I had conceptually given up on February 14th. Having traded in the idealism of grandiose professions of love for much smaller, quotidian bits of affection, I weighed the mundane and frequent much more valuable. And this is why it’s sticky. Because even though I’ve decided that cupid can take a flying leap, my guy (if I can even call him that) doesn’t know that. We’ve never had the conversation about the idiocy of dreaded V-Day. Had we gotten there, he’d know that all I want is to order a pizza, watch a movie, and have some nookie. The day need not require, like going through love customs, a declaration of what’s in his heart. We can stay here, on the cusp of not knowing, at the crumbly edge of figuring each other out.
So here I sit, frightened for him, frightened for me, wondering how we’ll get through this horrible ordeal of figuring out this dumb day. Because if I don’t hear from him until after the moment is passed, I will have to stop seeing him. And not just because it will kind of hurt my feelings, and not just because my friends will never forgive him (or me: if I put up with it—they’d send me to self-esteem boot camp), but because nothing means something. And what it means has more to do with being a man than it does with being a woman—because if he can’t face the gooey, touchy-feely, discomfort of being tender and still come out unscathed, he’s not the guy I want.
Like most people, I hate Valentine’s Day. There’s so much pressure, so much room for disappointment, and not much spontaneity. Still red hearts and bears, long-stemmed roses and chocolates, sappy cards with sad dogs or silly kitties mimicking lasting love with tongues lolling abound. Because Love Day is an industry, much like Christmas and Halloween, funerals and weddings. Whether we buy into it is our choice, except when a relationship’s new.
Which is where I am right now. Four months in, and I am wondering what will happen on this most detestable day. Will he take me out for dinner? Give me a gift? Admit that he actually likes me for once? And what if he doesn’t? It’s already the 12th and he hasn’t invited me out, which is not unusual, but is nonetheless unnerving. If it were up to me, I would ignore the entire affair and let the day pass with a quick phone call to my mom. But the point of fact is that he’s been acculturated to give a shit, if he gives a shit about me.
The television commercials and radio commentary keep spinning around “what to do for the woman in your life.” The displays at every grocery store are filled with red-foiled Hershey’s hearts and pink M&Ms. In other words, there’s no way he can plead ignorance, and there’s no escape. Which is why I feel slightly bad for him—because he’s got to do something. And even though he used to run into burning buildings for a living, from what I know of him, I think he might be freaking out a little. He says he can handle it, and I trust him. But I’m afraid of what I’ll have to assume if the moment passes without a little recognition.
Which is why for a quarter of a moment, I wish I were still married. Because my ex and I had it figured out. We’d stopped trying to get a table at our favorite restaurant, finding even the service in five star places completely lame. Instead, he’d make something fancy and we’d drink some wine, he’d get me a lei and I wouldn’t have to do anything for that one day out of the year. I wrote a card and he’d make whatever I wanted, then whip up some chocolate mousse. It was perfect.
But in the process I had conceptually given up on February 14th. Having traded in the idealism of grandiose professions of love for much smaller, quotidian bits of affection, I weighed the mundane and frequent much more valuable. And this is why it’s sticky. Because even though I’ve decided that cupid can take a flying leap, my guy (if I can even call him that) doesn’t know that. We’ve never had the conversation about the idiocy of dreaded V-Day. Had we gotten there, he’d know that all I want is to order a pizza, watch a movie, and have some nookie. The day need not require, like going through love customs, a declaration of what’s in his heart. We can stay here, on the cusp of not knowing, at the crumbly edge of figuring each other out.
So here I sit, frightened for him, frightened for me, wondering how we’ll get through this horrible ordeal of figuring out this dumb day. Because if I don’t hear from him until after the moment is passed, I will have to stop seeing him. And not just because it will kind of hurt my feelings, and not just because my friends will never forgive him (or me: if I put up with it—they’d send me to self-esteem boot camp), but because nothing means something. And what it means has more to do with being a man than it does with being a woman—because if he can’t face the gooey, touchy-feely, discomfort of being tender and still come out unscathed, he’s not the guy I want.
Monday, March 14, 2011
January 2, 2010
"Lucky Bunny"
In the beginning, I didn’t get it. The whole ‘taking it slow’ thing just didn’t make practical sense to me. Of course I understood the concept—I had, like the rest of the world, read The Tortoise and The Hare—but when confronted with the choice between dial up and 4G, who would ever choose the former? My life was infiltrated by faster downloads, DVR, and an internet of information on demand—I expected to eat within seven minutes of ordering, pick up my dry cleaning the next day, and look at my pictures as soon as I had taken them. Didn’t relationships also evolve at a trillion megabits per second?
So two months in, I was writing the line, “I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you if I didn’t think we could become something more.” I was calling him my boyfriend, morphing into what I so desperately wanted to get away from: Relationship Woman. You know the type—never single for long, always looking for the next man to define her, to ground her into being relied upon, needed, desired, and appreciated. She never gives herself a moment to actually breathe in her own skin, to be free of that role, to enjoy life without that external validation or the responsibilities that ultimately come with that Him.
Like the Hare, she races toward commitment, whizzing past the Tortoise at breaking-the-sound-barrier-speed. Somewhere between the beginning and the end of the relationship, she realizes that she can’t keep up with that pace—that there are so many other things in life to enjoy, become, and do. So she ends up slacking off, smelling the flowers until she’s drunk, and taking a nap. Meanwhile the Tortoise, who has been concentrating on each step, eventually crosses the finish first (likely on his way somewhere else and not really paying attention to the race at all) without having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.
This is the drama I’m trying to undo in my life—this over-doing that leads to divorcing, this all-out sprint to finish what should be chewed and savored. Because after four years of marriage, it was all I could do to get out of the house to find my groove. We had been together for seven years, but I looked at the life that was coming, and realized that I had taken the lead in everything. I had helped him get out of debt. I had paid the bills. I made all the decisions. I took the blame for all the mistakes. And he barely left the house, cooking, cleaning, and laundrying the days away. I didn’t feel like I had a choice, but the truth is, I did: I could have left then. But like the Hare, I thought I had it in me.
And I had been Relationship Woman for as long as I could remember. In fact, the one time I was single for two years, I spent the majority of the time desperately pining for an ex who’d had enough of my waffling between him and a summer fling. He had asked me to choose, and when I faltered, he left without looking back. My first love from eighteen to twenty, it had never been that way between us. Still, when I found myself boyfriendless for the only time between when I started dating at sixteen and now, I spent that ‘alone’ time trying to win him back. Surely he would return. I had power, didn’t I?
My insatiable ego needed him to love me so that I could feel like I was worth something. And so I slinked and swayed. I batted and blushed. And when I finally stopped chasing him, of course he wanted me back. But I had already moved on.
From then on, I decided that relationships were not what I wanted. How, then, did I always seem to find myself in one? I hated labels, but truth be told, I was always a girlfriend. Then I became a wife. And now, twenty years later, I can’t give much any more, even though I want to. And so I’m looking at my obsession with being needed and wanted. I’m spending the next year sober, aware, and open to all of the terrible, wonderful insights I plan to have about my patterns and psychosis. And I’m evaluating the fact that I am Relationship Woman—still kind of ‘with’ someone. But this time I’m lucky.
At first, I didn’t know what to do about this strange incarnation of a man. Monogamous sex, fantastic foot massages, and an interesting mind, I studied him critically for a few weeks. Then, like a drug addicted bunny, I escaped the reality of having to live with my mother and the pain of my ex husband moving to another country with the thrill and excitement of Mr. Tortoise, but he wasn’t having it. He kept me at a respectable distance, actually listening to what I had said from the beginning about not being ready for anything right now—about wanting my own space, about wanting my own life. Well, truth be told, it was likely convenient because he also wasn’t ready for all that, either. Regardless of the reason, we are taking it slow, which is was just what I need.
And something happens when I stand back and look at my actions over time. I realize how I repeatedly try to meld into a relationship, even though I know it isn’t what I want right now. Given five or six days between talking, I’ve had the time to reassess and back the fuck up.
Because what I want is someone who’s there, but isn’t really there—someone to hold my hand but not get in the way. I want someone who has his own life, interests, friends, and goals, so that I can have the same without feeling guilty. I want someone who is honest, genuine, and trustworthy, someone who tries his best and has the capacity to grow with me, someone who makes me laugh and cooks me lasagna.
And right now, I have that: a man I see once a week, who doesn’t get all up in my business, but who is interested in what’s happening in my life. And I’m finally realizing that I don’t need to stress out about taking lots of time to enjoy the present—that my thoughts are better used on paying my mortgage and spending time with my friends, writing and reading novels, chilling at home and listening to music, being at the beach or checking out a movie. I have so much in my life to enjoy without him that I wonder why I didn’t see how fantastic this was before—it’s like being single but without the random men and the loneliness.
Not that I’m the kind of girl who would have either. Because like it or not, I am Relationship Woman. If it wasn’t for him, I would find a another fantastic man and be in a real relationship, claiming the whole time I wasn’t ready for it, but giving my whole heart instead because that’s what I do. Then, after six months, or a year or two years—after I’ve spent no time alone, after we’ve fallen in love and decided to marry, I’ll be exactly where I was before this whole divorce happened—on the verge of suicide, feeling trapped and smothered by a man who needs me: a man I invited in.
I get it now—we are trying each other on slowly, and nothing at all could come of it. And that’s the best part, because what bothered me most about marriage in the first place was the presumption that we humans know what it means to say ‘forever.’ We’re always changing and growing, but in all honesty, we couldn’t and don’t know the future. I’m not saying that marriage is out of the question for me—I’m just saying that people who get married know just as much about guarantees as me and Mr. Tortoise: absolutely nothing. Because all we have is right now, and the faith in ourselves that we’ll get there (wherever ‘there’ is) when we get there.
So I’m finally where I wanted to be from the beginning of this particular race: I’m keeping what I’ve earned and sharing when I feel like it. Because I can’t do it for anyone else. And no one else can do it for me. I’m going back to keeping my own council, to understanding my needs without my friends’ opinions about what makes sense. Because to them, this situation is completely illogical. To them, there is no in between on the spectrum of singleness and relationship, and the later means losing the self, spending every waking moment with the other person, talking and texting throughout the day until all at once, they burn out. And like the Hare, they end up wondering why they were in the race at all since the sense of self that they lose is greater than anything they could gain.
Besides, I have a completely fulfilling and replete life, with or without Mr. Tortoise. So I’m set on remembering all the reasons for my bliss. I have a house of my own, a car I love driving, and a closet full of cute dresses. I have a passion to write and a child-like obsession with asking questions rather than making assumptions. I have space to think, time to learn, the experience and wherewithal to make money, and the determination to take care of myself. I have a family that totally takes care of me and loves me, a slew of fantastic friends (many of whom can easily talk me out of any funk I’m in), and respect from my colleagues. I have a healthy body that twists in yoga, sweats in spin class, dances, runs, and jumps up high, swims, makes love, hugs, and cries, sleeps, eats, and regenerates itself with every breath.
I have a healthy mind to dream whatever dream I want—the power to manifest those dreams into reality, and an alignment with god that makes me feel so close to myself, to my own divinity, that I am finally joyful and at peace again. I am finally optimistic and faith-filled again, remembering that the most important part of this existence is to humbly give thanks for ‘what is.’ Because I have so much. I am loved. I am held, and there is only the future ahead of me—a blank page I can write whatever I want upon. It truly is exhilarating and lovely—this lone-full-ness. Blessed be, blessed me. I absolutely am one lucky bunny.
In the beginning, I didn’t get it. The whole ‘taking it slow’ thing just didn’t make practical sense to me. Of course I understood the concept—I had, like the rest of the world, read The Tortoise and The Hare—but when confronted with the choice between dial up and 4G, who would ever choose the former? My life was infiltrated by faster downloads, DVR, and an internet of information on demand—I expected to eat within seven minutes of ordering, pick up my dry cleaning the next day, and look at my pictures as soon as I had taken them. Didn’t relationships also evolve at a trillion megabits per second?
So two months in, I was writing the line, “I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you if I didn’t think we could become something more.” I was calling him my boyfriend, morphing into what I so desperately wanted to get away from: Relationship Woman. You know the type—never single for long, always looking for the next man to define her, to ground her into being relied upon, needed, desired, and appreciated. She never gives herself a moment to actually breathe in her own skin, to be free of that role, to enjoy life without that external validation or the responsibilities that ultimately come with that Him.
Like the Hare, she races toward commitment, whizzing past the Tortoise at breaking-the-sound-barrier-speed. Somewhere between the beginning and the end of the relationship, she realizes that she can’t keep up with that pace—that there are so many other things in life to enjoy, become, and do. So she ends up slacking off, smelling the flowers until she’s drunk, and taking a nap. Meanwhile the Tortoise, who has been concentrating on each step, eventually crosses the finish first (likely on his way somewhere else and not really paying attention to the race at all) without having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown.
This is the drama I’m trying to undo in my life—this over-doing that leads to divorcing, this all-out sprint to finish what should be chewed and savored. Because after four years of marriage, it was all I could do to get out of the house to find my groove. We had been together for seven years, but I looked at the life that was coming, and realized that I had taken the lead in everything. I had helped him get out of debt. I had paid the bills. I made all the decisions. I took the blame for all the mistakes. And he barely left the house, cooking, cleaning, and laundrying the days away. I didn’t feel like I had a choice, but the truth is, I did: I could have left then. But like the Hare, I thought I had it in me.
And I had been Relationship Woman for as long as I could remember. In fact, the one time I was single for two years, I spent the majority of the time desperately pining for an ex who’d had enough of my waffling between him and a summer fling. He had asked me to choose, and when I faltered, he left without looking back. My first love from eighteen to twenty, it had never been that way between us. Still, when I found myself boyfriendless for the only time between when I started dating at sixteen and now, I spent that ‘alone’ time trying to win him back. Surely he would return. I had power, didn’t I?
My insatiable ego needed him to love me so that I could feel like I was worth something. And so I slinked and swayed. I batted and blushed. And when I finally stopped chasing him, of course he wanted me back. But I had already moved on.
From then on, I decided that relationships were not what I wanted. How, then, did I always seem to find myself in one? I hated labels, but truth be told, I was always a girlfriend. Then I became a wife. And now, twenty years later, I can’t give much any more, even though I want to. And so I’m looking at my obsession with being needed and wanted. I’m spending the next year sober, aware, and open to all of the terrible, wonderful insights I plan to have about my patterns and psychosis. And I’m evaluating the fact that I am Relationship Woman—still kind of ‘with’ someone. But this time I’m lucky.
At first, I didn’t know what to do about this strange incarnation of a man. Monogamous sex, fantastic foot massages, and an interesting mind, I studied him critically for a few weeks. Then, like a drug addicted bunny, I escaped the reality of having to live with my mother and the pain of my ex husband moving to another country with the thrill and excitement of Mr. Tortoise, but he wasn’t having it. He kept me at a respectable distance, actually listening to what I had said from the beginning about not being ready for anything right now—about wanting my own space, about wanting my own life. Well, truth be told, it was likely convenient because he also wasn’t ready for all that, either. Regardless of the reason, we are taking it slow, which is was just what I need.
And something happens when I stand back and look at my actions over time. I realize how I repeatedly try to meld into a relationship, even though I know it isn’t what I want right now. Given five or six days between talking, I’ve had the time to reassess and back the fuck up.
Because what I want is someone who’s there, but isn’t really there—someone to hold my hand but not get in the way. I want someone who has his own life, interests, friends, and goals, so that I can have the same without feeling guilty. I want someone who is honest, genuine, and trustworthy, someone who tries his best and has the capacity to grow with me, someone who makes me laugh and cooks me lasagna.
And right now, I have that: a man I see once a week, who doesn’t get all up in my business, but who is interested in what’s happening in my life. And I’m finally realizing that I don’t need to stress out about taking lots of time to enjoy the present—that my thoughts are better used on paying my mortgage and spending time with my friends, writing and reading novels, chilling at home and listening to music, being at the beach or checking out a movie. I have so much in my life to enjoy without him that I wonder why I didn’t see how fantastic this was before—it’s like being single but without the random men and the loneliness.
Not that I’m the kind of girl who would have either. Because like it or not, I am Relationship Woman. If it wasn’t for him, I would find a another fantastic man and be in a real relationship, claiming the whole time I wasn’t ready for it, but giving my whole heart instead because that’s what I do. Then, after six months, or a year or two years—after I’ve spent no time alone, after we’ve fallen in love and decided to marry, I’ll be exactly where I was before this whole divorce happened—on the verge of suicide, feeling trapped and smothered by a man who needs me: a man I invited in.
I get it now—we are trying each other on slowly, and nothing at all could come of it. And that’s the best part, because what bothered me most about marriage in the first place was the presumption that we humans know what it means to say ‘forever.’ We’re always changing and growing, but in all honesty, we couldn’t and don’t know the future. I’m not saying that marriage is out of the question for me—I’m just saying that people who get married know just as much about guarantees as me and Mr. Tortoise: absolutely nothing. Because all we have is right now, and the faith in ourselves that we’ll get there (wherever ‘there’ is) when we get there.
So I’m finally where I wanted to be from the beginning of this particular race: I’m keeping what I’ve earned and sharing when I feel like it. Because I can’t do it for anyone else. And no one else can do it for me. I’m going back to keeping my own council, to understanding my needs without my friends’ opinions about what makes sense. Because to them, this situation is completely illogical. To them, there is no in between on the spectrum of singleness and relationship, and the later means losing the self, spending every waking moment with the other person, talking and texting throughout the day until all at once, they burn out. And like the Hare, they end up wondering why they were in the race at all since the sense of self that they lose is greater than anything they could gain.
Besides, I have a completely fulfilling and replete life, with or without Mr. Tortoise. So I’m set on remembering all the reasons for my bliss. I have a house of my own, a car I love driving, and a closet full of cute dresses. I have a passion to write and a child-like obsession with asking questions rather than making assumptions. I have space to think, time to learn, the experience and wherewithal to make money, and the determination to take care of myself. I have a family that totally takes care of me and loves me, a slew of fantastic friends (many of whom can easily talk me out of any funk I’m in), and respect from my colleagues. I have a healthy body that twists in yoga, sweats in spin class, dances, runs, and jumps up high, swims, makes love, hugs, and cries, sleeps, eats, and regenerates itself with every breath.
I have a healthy mind to dream whatever dream I want—the power to manifest those dreams into reality, and an alignment with god that makes me feel so close to myself, to my own divinity, that I am finally joyful and at peace again. I am finally optimistic and faith-filled again, remembering that the most important part of this existence is to humbly give thanks for ‘what is.’ Because I have so much. I am loved. I am held, and there is only the future ahead of me—a blank page I can write whatever I want upon. It truly is exhilarating and lovely—this lone-full-ness. Blessed be, blessed me. I absolutely am one lucky bunny.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
January 8, 2011
"How to Be Sure"
“Maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?”
–John Steinbeck, East of Eden (69)
Bright red charcoal smokes from the metal cauldron our waitress drops into a fitted hole in the middle of our table. The bricks glow and gray, sending ash up before she covers the open flame with a grill. We are cooking our own food, like cavemen, like camping, and this personal fire seems strange indoors. The gray shrimp and bloody beef seep their own juices on the plate before they spit and sizzle, reddening and browning as they must.
I’ve forced my best friend to eat with me, citing a weak moment and playing a rare, ‘I need you’ card, making her leave her sick lover at home. She sighs, smirk-smiling at me.
“Susan Miller isn’t telling you to wait for life to happen. She’s letting you know about opportunities so you can seize them,” she says, jabbing her chopsticks in my direction, then flitting them up quickly in a backwards exclamation mark like a wand.
I have frustrated her for many years now, just as she has frustrated me. And perhaps that’s why we’re best friends—we both need reminding of the things we see in each other so clearly. Our divining rod is an Iphone app by Susan Miller, astrology guru, who’s proven to be extremely accurate, which she has consistently used to help navigate her life. I, on the other hand, have not been so faithful. Only recently when I realized how powerfully the universe has shoved me in certain directions have I consulted the site, www.astrologyzone.com
“It says, ‘with a little extra effort, the work you do in major broadcasting, publishing, marketing, or public relations now could become so impressive that it helps you get increasingly more important assignments related to your growing expertise in the future. If you are self-employed, this is doubly important news, as it will have a very direct effect on your income now and in the future.’ It also says you should put in your applications to those Ph.D. programs you said you were interested in. Promise me you’ll do it.”
“I promise,” I say. It’s what I need to hear—what I couldn’t read for myself—that I am afraid again, unsure again, consulting the stars to find my direction.
Our friendship began in our early twenties, but we’d known each other since the seventh grade. Before we could drink legally, before we could afford yakiniku, we’d spend our nights simply: a guitar, a blanket, and the moonlight. We’d sing and play anywhere to talk about our parents, our pasts, and what we dreamt of becoming when we grew up.
“Have you ever heard of The Missing Piece Meets the Rolling ‘O’?” she asked me one ancient day ago. “Shel Silverstein? You know, the missing piece keeps trying to find an ‘O’ to roll with but can’t because this one’s too big, that one’s too small—she has to break off her edges so that she can roll alone?”
I stared at her blankly. Sure, I had heard of Shel Silverstein. I had even recited his poem, “Sick,” at a speech contest when I was eleven, but I’d never heard of this book.
“You have to roll alone. Get it?” she’d said earnestly, eyes wide with concern. “I can’t be your rolling ‘O’—no one can.”
At the time, I remember thinking this was her way of telling me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. But she had become my life. We spent every day together, every evening together. She was my therapist and my confidant. She asked me questions no one had ever asked me before and made me reconsider myself in new ways all the time. How could I be without her?
And then I went away to college and she stayed home. Our time together matured and spread out as we aged, eventually turning into monthly, then quarterly catchings-up. A few years ago we gelled back together again, and recently we’ve been hanging out, just the two of us, about once a week.
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you forever,” she says in that frustrated, pained tone I’ve come to know so well. “You are a writer. You need to write. Stop worrying about how you’re going to get published—just keep walking towards it.”
It’s the same way I feel about her and the guitar—an instrument she picks up sporadically, if ever, these days.
I say, “My intuition tells me the same thing, but it’s hard to trust that it all won’t end up in futility. It’s hokey, really,” I sigh and breathe deep: charred sweet meat. “People tell me nothing means anything, so it makes me doubt what I think I know, even though I’ve seen signs, I’ve heard my wise woman voice, and I’m absolutely sure that god exists.” I pick a couple cooked shrimp from the hot coal stove in the middle of our table and put them on her plate: an offering. “I have a vision of my book in airport bookstores, but it’s the how that gets in the way.”
“Stop talking to people who don’t get it. Be discerning about who you let in. Be true. Be you.”
I hear her, finally. “And what about love?” I ask.
“Stop playing games. Stop worrying about control. It’s a new moon. Anything you start now will echo into the future.”
And I know she’s right: that I’m missing the guy I’m seeing, a guy I really like, waiting for him to call me because I don’t want to be the man in a relationship again. I want to be pursued. But I realize this is a game, this waiting. Just then, the third Earth, Wind, and Fire song of the night comes on, and we google the lyrics. This is another sign, these words that never made sense to either of us until this very moment when they so succinctly describe exactly how I feel right then—how physical desire clashes with a mind that wants reasons; how those reasons are more about pride than love. So after I drop her to her car, I call him.
“I don’t want to seem too forward,” I say into the phone, “but can I come over?”
“Who could say ‘no’ to you?” he asks me thirty minutes later after kissing me ‘hello.’
It occurs to me that I don’t know how to answer that question, so it’s a good thing it’s rhetorical. And magically with those six simple words, I’m back to being hunted.
“Like I said before, you’re always welcome here.” Again, I know what I always know when we’re together—that he likes me—something I always somehow forget when we’re apart. We’ve spent a lot of time apart, so it’s no wonder I’m regularly unsure about how he feels.
This time, we ease into our not having seen each other after two weeks. I’m sitting on his counter while he opens a beer for me and pours himself a glass of red wine. Visions of him disrobing me ripple through my mind in the interim. But we talk about what we did on our separate New Year’s Eves—mine here, and his in Vegas instead. Later on the couch, his forearm warms my leg as he flips through a photography book by Annie Griffiths Belt. An elephant stares at us from a two-page spread of rust-colored dirt and dead branches: a thin camouflage.
The rest, they say, is history. We stay up until four or five in the morning talking about our lives—how his greatest adrenaline rush was fighting fires, how he had nightmares about an asphyxiated cat he carried out of a burning building like a baby, how the flesh of a man’s arm slides off when it’s been charred bad enough. He tells me about the four women of his past—how all four married the same year he moved here.
And I tell him about the three heartbreaks of my life: one was a man I loved, another was my father, and the third was my brother—something I never realized until that very moment. I tell him about the four men of my past, how the last two were like salves to my first heartbreak, how I don’t even remember what one of them looks like.
The whole time we’re talking, he’s holding me, stroking me, playing footsie with me. And afterward, because I’m so happy, I can’t sleep. Which reminds me of the still-anxious prey who keeps running even when she’s no longer being chased. And what about this basic desire to be pursued? Why, as a strong, independent woman, does this animalistic, ancient instinct affect even the self-aware? Why do I want a big, strong man to make babies with me? Am I ready for the responsibility of love? Am I equip to face another husband? Another divorce? These are questions I stop myself from asking because I know I’m not ready to answer them just yet. Instead, I watch the houselights on hill outside his window for a long time, where my best friend lives, and it makes me think again about rolling alone.
“I need to take a page out of your book,” I tell him. “I need to learn how to be okay alone.” He tells me how it’s like Buddhism: constantly letting go of wanting and expecting. And it reminds me of what my best friend said about having the space to be naked and unjudged—something I had with my ex, having mistaken acceptance for love. But that sureness was deadening and it wasn’t free.
I tell him that if I wanted to stay safe, I would have stayed married—that without a little pain, there is no growth, no pleasure either. And I realize that I’ll never know for sure what I think I know when I’m in his arms. I realize that this is the pain, this is the pleasure; that he is never going to be me, never going to fill me up or sustain me, because that’s work I have to do for myself. There isn’t an incantation he could say which could secure me, even if we were serious and in love. I must roll alone. This is the spell: I must be self-sufficient so that I can be free, so that he can be free, too. It’s the breaking off the edges that’s the difficult part—the part I’ve already initiated—the loving myself in my own space that I’ve got to do now. And it’s exhilarating and terrifying.
Because that ebb and flow of panic still sets in—those moments I feel like I’m having anxious contractions from giving birth to myself—when I realize I’m completely alone in this house, in this world, and no one can feel that pain for me, grow for me, or love me more than I should ultimately love myself. And that’s the only way I’ll ever be sure of anything: by doing the difficult work of embracing my self fully and trying to love all the sticky, boring, and quirky imperfection therein.
“Maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself?”
–John Steinbeck, East of Eden (69)
Bright red charcoal smokes from the metal cauldron our waitress drops into a fitted hole in the middle of our table. The bricks glow and gray, sending ash up before she covers the open flame with a grill. We are cooking our own food, like cavemen, like camping, and this personal fire seems strange indoors. The gray shrimp and bloody beef seep their own juices on the plate before they spit and sizzle, reddening and browning as they must.
I’ve forced my best friend to eat with me, citing a weak moment and playing a rare, ‘I need you’ card, making her leave her sick lover at home. She sighs, smirk-smiling at me.
“Susan Miller isn’t telling you to wait for life to happen. She’s letting you know about opportunities so you can seize them,” she says, jabbing her chopsticks in my direction, then flitting them up quickly in a backwards exclamation mark like a wand.
I have frustrated her for many years now, just as she has frustrated me. And perhaps that’s why we’re best friends—we both need reminding of the things we see in each other so clearly. Our divining rod is an Iphone app by Susan Miller, astrology guru, who’s proven to be extremely accurate, which she has consistently used to help navigate her life. I, on the other hand, have not been so faithful. Only recently when I realized how powerfully the universe has shoved me in certain directions have I consulted the site, www.astrologyzone.com
“It says, ‘with a little extra effort, the work you do in major broadcasting, publishing, marketing, or public relations now could become so impressive that it helps you get increasingly more important assignments related to your growing expertise in the future. If you are self-employed, this is doubly important news, as it will have a very direct effect on your income now and in the future.’ It also says you should put in your applications to those Ph.D. programs you said you were interested in. Promise me you’ll do it.”
“I promise,” I say. It’s what I need to hear—what I couldn’t read for myself—that I am afraid again, unsure again, consulting the stars to find my direction.
Our friendship began in our early twenties, but we’d known each other since the seventh grade. Before we could drink legally, before we could afford yakiniku, we’d spend our nights simply: a guitar, a blanket, and the moonlight. We’d sing and play anywhere to talk about our parents, our pasts, and what we dreamt of becoming when we grew up.
“Have you ever heard of The Missing Piece Meets the Rolling ‘O’?” she asked me one ancient day ago. “Shel Silverstein? You know, the missing piece keeps trying to find an ‘O’ to roll with but can’t because this one’s too big, that one’s too small—she has to break off her edges so that she can roll alone?”
I stared at her blankly. Sure, I had heard of Shel Silverstein. I had even recited his poem, “Sick,” at a speech contest when I was eleven, but I’d never heard of this book.
“You have to roll alone. Get it?” she’d said earnestly, eyes wide with concern. “I can’t be your rolling ‘O’—no one can.”
At the time, I remember thinking this was her way of telling me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. But she had become my life. We spent every day together, every evening together. She was my therapist and my confidant. She asked me questions no one had ever asked me before and made me reconsider myself in new ways all the time. How could I be without her?
And then I went away to college and she stayed home. Our time together matured and spread out as we aged, eventually turning into monthly, then quarterly catchings-up. A few years ago we gelled back together again, and recently we’ve been hanging out, just the two of us, about once a week.
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you forever,” she says in that frustrated, pained tone I’ve come to know so well. “You are a writer. You need to write. Stop worrying about how you’re going to get published—just keep walking towards it.”
It’s the same way I feel about her and the guitar—an instrument she picks up sporadically, if ever, these days.
I say, “My intuition tells me the same thing, but it’s hard to trust that it all won’t end up in futility. It’s hokey, really,” I sigh and breathe deep: charred sweet meat. “People tell me nothing means anything, so it makes me doubt what I think I know, even though I’ve seen signs, I’ve heard my wise woman voice, and I’m absolutely sure that god exists.” I pick a couple cooked shrimp from the hot coal stove in the middle of our table and put them on her plate: an offering. “I have a vision of my book in airport bookstores, but it’s the how that gets in the way.”
“Stop talking to people who don’t get it. Be discerning about who you let in. Be true. Be you.”
I hear her, finally. “And what about love?” I ask.
“Stop playing games. Stop worrying about control. It’s a new moon. Anything you start now will echo into the future.”
And I know she’s right: that I’m missing the guy I’m seeing, a guy I really like, waiting for him to call me because I don’t want to be the man in a relationship again. I want to be pursued. But I realize this is a game, this waiting. Just then, the third Earth, Wind, and Fire song of the night comes on, and we google the lyrics. This is another sign, these words that never made sense to either of us until this very moment when they so succinctly describe exactly how I feel right then—how physical desire clashes with a mind that wants reasons; how those reasons are more about pride than love. So after I drop her to her car, I call him.
“I don’t want to seem too forward,” I say into the phone, “but can I come over?”
“Who could say ‘no’ to you?” he asks me thirty minutes later after kissing me ‘hello.’
It occurs to me that I don’t know how to answer that question, so it’s a good thing it’s rhetorical. And magically with those six simple words, I’m back to being hunted.
“Like I said before, you’re always welcome here.” Again, I know what I always know when we’re together—that he likes me—something I always somehow forget when we’re apart. We’ve spent a lot of time apart, so it’s no wonder I’m regularly unsure about how he feels.
This time, we ease into our not having seen each other after two weeks. I’m sitting on his counter while he opens a beer for me and pours himself a glass of red wine. Visions of him disrobing me ripple through my mind in the interim. But we talk about what we did on our separate New Year’s Eves—mine here, and his in Vegas instead. Later on the couch, his forearm warms my leg as he flips through a photography book by Annie Griffiths Belt. An elephant stares at us from a two-page spread of rust-colored dirt and dead branches: a thin camouflage.
The rest, they say, is history. We stay up until four or five in the morning talking about our lives—how his greatest adrenaline rush was fighting fires, how he had nightmares about an asphyxiated cat he carried out of a burning building like a baby, how the flesh of a man’s arm slides off when it’s been charred bad enough. He tells me about the four women of his past—how all four married the same year he moved here.
And I tell him about the three heartbreaks of my life: one was a man I loved, another was my father, and the third was my brother—something I never realized until that very moment. I tell him about the four men of my past, how the last two were like salves to my first heartbreak, how I don’t even remember what one of them looks like.
The whole time we’re talking, he’s holding me, stroking me, playing footsie with me. And afterward, because I’m so happy, I can’t sleep. Which reminds me of the still-anxious prey who keeps running even when she’s no longer being chased. And what about this basic desire to be pursued? Why, as a strong, independent woman, does this animalistic, ancient instinct affect even the self-aware? Why do I want a big, strong man to make babies with me? Am I ready for the responsibility of love? Am I equip to face another husband? Another divorce? These are questions I stop myself from asking because I know I’m not ready to answer them just yet. Instead, I watch the houselights on hill outside his window for a long time, where my best friend lives, and it makes me think again about rolling alone.
“I need to take a page out of your book,” I tell him. “I need to learn how to be okay alone.” He tells me how it’s like Buddhism: constantly letting go of wanting and expecting. And it reminds me of what my best friend said about having the space to be naked and unjudged—something I had with my ex, having mistaken acceptance for love. But that sureness was deadening and it wasn’t free.
I tell him that if I wanted to stay safe, I would have stayed married—that without a little pain, there is no growth, no pleasure either. And I realize that I’ll never know for sure what I think I know when I’m in his arms. I realize that this is the pain, this is the pleasure; that he is never going to be me, never going to fill me up or sustain me, because that’s work I have to do for myself. There isn’t an incantation he could say which could secure me, even if we were serious and in love. I must roll alone. This is the spell: I must be self-sufficient so that I can be free, so that he can be free, too. It’s the breaking off the edges that’s the difficult part—the part I’ve already initiated—the loving myself in my own space that I’ve got to do now. And it’s exhilarating and terrifying.
Because that ebb and flow of panic still sets in—those moments I feel like I’m having anxious contractions from giving birth to myself—when I realize I’m completely alone in this house, in this world, and no one can feel that pain for me, grow for me, or love me more than I should ultimately love myself. And that’s the only way I’ll ever be sure of anything: by doing the difficult work of embracing my self fully and trying to love all the sticky, boring, and quirky imperfection therein.
November 12, 2010
"Re-Christening"
There’s something inherently sad about my panini maker. It was a Christmas gift from a friend a few years ago for me and my husband. Since then, he has made delicious grilled eggplant, procciuto and mozzerella toasties, grilled cheese and tomato paninis, and more. It’s a Breville named after its founders, Bill O'Brien and Harry Norville, who mixed their last names together to create a partnership that has lasted since 1932.
Though my husband and I kept our own last names when we married, the panini maker was for us both. The thing is made from stainless steel, built to outlast anything. What makes it so sad—depressing even, is that the partnership under which we received the appliance no longer exists. He is moving out, or is supposed to move out in the next few weeks, and that panini maker is something I want to keep—not because I know how to make anything other than quesadillas, but because it’s only half mine and I want it to be wholly mine.
For months now, I’ve been dealing with our divorce, waiting for it to be final, wondering how it would be when we no longer lived under the same roof. It’s not like my ex and I spent every night together while we were married. Near the end we were even taking separate vacations. But the fact remains I have always lived with him. For the past nine years, our things have shared the same space, even if our bodies were on different continents. And just two days ago, I moved out.
Now, all of a sudden, it’s officially over. We don’t and won’t ever live together again. This finality was lost on me when the divorce papers came—the stamped documents that legally evidenced the break—the money I would have to shell out, how the motorcycle would go with him, how the car would be mine. Like I kept telling him, “we’re living like we’re still married,” and it was true. Our laundry was still being done in combined loads, our runs to Costco were from shared lists, and even though we had different checking accounts, our bills were still being paid from the same pool of money.
The day I left he got into an accident, going over the handlebars of his motorcycle and demolishing his helmet. It reminds me of the time just after his father died when he totaled a brand new Peugot. The day he got home to be with his half-way-around-the- world-mother he rolled it down an embankment and smashed the entire roof except for where his head was. I remember the panic I felt not being there with him, unable to feel at ease until he had spent his three weeks away, and had finally returned to my arms.
This was not the same. That afternoon, two days ago, he calls me first—before he calls the police.
“Are you bleeding?” I ask.
“I don’t know. . . Are you going to be there for me?” he harangues four or five times.
Which prompts me to promise him, “Yes, of course. I will.” But I don’t mean it. When I get off the phone, I call someone else to take care of him. I pack a bag and leave. No note, no phone call, nothing. I simply leave my marriage of seven years, our relationship of ten years. I leave my house, most of my things, and him. But this was not the way I planned it, not the way I wanted it. I had envisioned helping him sort out the serving dishes and glassware, sending him on his way with my good wishes.
Finally this morning, I stop by to grab a few things. I know he’ll be home because he barely leaves the house. It’s been this way for years, and one of the reasons I was unhappy; I couldn’t be his entire social circle. It was too much pressure, too pitiful, and too painful.
The puffy look in his eyes is like he’s just been thrown under a bus. He shows me the strawberry he got when he hit the pavement, and it occurs to me to hug him. But I can’t even gather the strength for that because the truth is I have nothing left for him in my heart. I have given so much, talking myself down from the ledge of leaving him so many times, I’m amazed I held out for so long.
“I would like the panini maker,” I say out of nowhere.
“But you never use it.”
He’s right. I don’t ever use it, but of all the things in the kitchen I want it, and I don’t know why.
When I get to my mom’s house I am completely wrung out. I don’t even have enough energy to ask her about the eye surgery she’s just had, to inquire about how she’s dealing with her doctor’s orders to spend the next two weeks horizontal and on her stomach.
Having volunteered to watch over her I have a valid excuse to be gone, but I should not have divulged this information to my ex. Given his ability to rationalize and his aversion to moving (it’s mid-November and he’s been living with me since the day in May when we broke up), any excuse for my absence might just incite him to stay until the due date.
But I felt sorry for him and I’m weak and I still love him, so I told him about the surgery to soften the blow.
“I’m trying to be gone by the end of the month,” he said, soft. And I hope he saw the look of relief in my eyes, and actually does it this time.
Because I wish to be alone, to deal with this my way, to feel the loss fully, to live in it completely for a little while. I go to the guest room and close the door because there are people everywhere at my mom’s house. My mother, the saint, has friends and family constantly hovering around her, filling up her water glass, making sure she takes her medication, fixing her lunch and dinner. And I have dashed all expectation to actually be responsible for her without giving any reason why, though she kind-of knows, like mothers usually know. So for now this guest room is my sanctuary where I am trying to mete out some sense of self.
Here, I contemplate how the bliss and giddiness of the new relationship I’m in has subsequently simmered down to a slow boil. I think my new guy must have a sixth sense. Either that, or he has his own shit to deal with. Maybe it’s a little of both. This solo-ness makes me wonder if it’s fair that I get to be so happy. Should I wallow and mope around, denying myself of male companionship for a more respectable amount of time? Should I send my new guy away until I’m ready to fall in love, or until my ex is ready to move on? Having spent the majority of my life un-brainwashing myself and refusing to swallow Roman Catholic guilt, I think on it for a time, ultimately deciding against martyrdom.
Instead, I ask myself questions about where my center goes when there’s someone else in my life—why I feel compelled to meld into this new person, even though I promised myself to keep my love life separate from my real life—at least until it’s a real relationship. My knee jerk reaction is to sew myself into his pockets, to make him fall in love with me. And I have to remind myself that I’m not ready for a new relationship because my heart is still breaking.
The best way I know how to process all of this is through yoga. Tonight, I break down when we do soaring pose: our stomachs on the ground, just like my mom has to be for the next two weeks. I think about how helpless this pose is—this proneness to someone stepping on me, this limbless-ness. And I decide that it has to do with the faith that a wind will come and scoop me up, cradle me into a brisk wisp of air, and I’ll feel weightless and whole again.
But it’s hard to gather the strength to hope when it’s been dashed so many times. I hoped my ex would snap out of his depression funk, finish his pilot’s license, and get a job. I hoped he would clean up underneath the house, install the stereo wires, stop complaining, and stop procrastinating, but none of that happened. The man I’m divorcing is not the man I married. The man I’m divorcing has lost his father, has decided that God is dead, has stopped believing in himself, and has finally, lost his wife.
But I can’t take on that burden. It’s my brokenness that hurts most right now. Sadness seeps out of me in eagle pose as I wring my muscles, my organs, my skin dripping with sweat, my drishdi on my third eye as I try to learn something from this pain, try to remember that I did everything I could to save my marriage.
Afterward, I sit in easy pose and make the wisdom mudra with my thumb and forefinger in circles on my knees, and in my calmness I search that place where I’m able to look at myself squarely. There, I hear my wise woman voice rise up from deep down and say, “You have time.” And this is the most beautiful moment in my entire day because it reminds me that I don’t need to figure all this out right now, that I can be present to this deep sense of losing someone who used to be my entire world. Hearing this voice gives me the permission I need to bang out this confused manifesto.
And exactly as I’m writing this, the song, “Just Breathe,” comes on Pandora, and I’m sure that’s the answer: that I must feel this sadness—that I must truly let it in so I can let it go. If I don’t, I know it will follow me, clinging to my heels and climbing up my calves, attaching to me, becoming baggage: another backpack. I want to finally be happy. And that happiness, if it’s going to eventually stay, can’t be tied to a new guy.
Yesterday, I was answering questions about said new guy to a girlfriend of mine, whose sister went through a particularly nasty divorce.
“So are you going to burn your wedding photos, now it’s over?”
“No, why would I do that?”
“You know,” she said, “to start over. Clean slate and all.”
I explained I don’t need a clean slate. I don’t need to erase my marriage or the past ten years because that would be doing a disservice to my journey that has ended up right exactly here. I’m not going to pawn my wedding ring or erase his image from my hard drive. And it’s not because I don’t want a clean start, but because some of the memories I have from my marriage are pretty damn good ones. Just because I grew too big to fit into that relationship doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the me I used to be, or wish at all to forget her.
Still the fact remains that this woman who used to be part of a unit is now on her own. There is no more O’Brien and Norville, just like there is no longer him and me. Instead, there is Breville. Instead there is just him. Just me. But whereas on the one hand there transpired an undividable union, on the other hand a severing occurred.
So what happens when we lose the partner we thought would be with forever? When the vow is broken? When we go back on our word? When we give up and stop trying? And why do I get to be an optimist—still believing in love and still thinking I deserve to be happy? I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy: I know the panini maker won’t make it all better. But there’s something in the thing—how I need to retrieve something of myself: to honor it and love it.
So I insist on keeping the thing, even if I have to scratch out the “Bre” or “ville”—even if I have to etch my own name in caps across it—because although I’m not married anymore, where I came from got me to where I am now, and I’m on the cusp of growing into who I’m going to be. As soon as I can stop this seeping. As soon as my heart stops breaking. As soon as I can feel all the pain I’m supposed to feel, I’m going to make something really delicious with the thing. Something that’s never been made on it—something totally mine, totally fine, totally sublime.
There’s something inherently sad about my panini maker. It was a Christmas gift from a friend a few years ago for me and my husband. Since then, he has made delicious grilled eggplant, procciuto and mozzerella toasties, grilled cheese and tomato paninis, and more. It’s a Breville named after its founders, Bill O'Brien and Harry Norville, who mixed their last names together to create a partnership that has lasted since 1932.
Though my husband and I kept our own last names when we married, the panini maker was for us both. The thing is made from stainless steel, built to outlast anything. What makes it so sad—depressing even, is that the partnership under which we received the appliance no longer exists. He is moving out, or is supposed to move out in the next few weeks, and that panini maker is something I want to keep—not because I know how to make anything other than quesadillas, but because it’s only half mine and I want it to be wholly mine.
For months now, I’ve been dealing with our divorce, waiting for it to be final, wondering how it would be when we no longer lived under the same roof. It’s not like my ex and I spent every night together while we were married. Near the end we were even taking separate vacations. But the fact remains I have always lived with him. For the past nine years, our things have shared the same space, even if our bodies were on different continents. And just two days ago, I moved out.
Now, all of a sudden, it’s officially over. We don’t and won’t ever live together again. This finality was lost on me when the divorce papers came—the stamped documents that legally evidenced the break—the money I would have to shell out, how the motorcycle would go with him, how the car would be mine. Like I kept telling him, “we’re living like we’re still married,” and it was true. Our laundry was still being done in combined loads, our runs to Costco were from shared lists, and even though we had different checking accounts, our bills were still being paid from the same pool of money.
The day I left he got into an accident, going over the handlebars of his motorcycle and demolishing his helmet. It reminds me of the time just after his father died when he totaled a brand new Peugot. The day he got home to be with his half-way-around-the- world-mother he rolled it down an embankment and smashed the entire roof except for where his head was. I remember the panic I felt not being there with him, unable to feel at ease until he had spent his three weeks away, and had finally returned to my arms.
This was not the same. That afternoon, two days ago, he calls me first—before he calls the police.
“Are you bleeding?” I ask.
“I don’t know. . . Are you going to be there for me?” he harangues four or five times.
Which prompts me to promise him, “Yes, of course. I will.” But I don’t mean it. When I get off the phone, I call someone else to take care of him. I pack a bag and leave. No note, no phone call, nothing. I simply leave my marriage of seven years, our relationship of ten years. I leave my house, most of my things, and him. But this was not the way I planned it, not the way I wanted it. I had envisioned helping him sort out the serving dishes and glassware, sending him on his way with my good wishes.
Finally this morning, I stop by to grab a few things. I know he’ll be home because he barely leaves the house. It’s been this way for years, and one of the reasons I was unhappy; I couldn’t be his entire social circle. It was too much pressure, too pitiful, and too painful.
The puffy look in his eyes is like he’s just been thrown under a bus. He shows me the strawberry he got when he hit the pavement, and it occurs to me to hug him. But I can’t even gather the strength for that because the truth is I have nothing left for him in my heart. I have given so much, talking myself down from the ledge of leaving him so many times, I’m amazed I held out for so long.
“I would like the panini maker,” I say out of nowhere.
“But you never use it.”
He’s right. I don’t ever use it, but of all the things in the kitchen I want it, and I don’t know why.
When I get to my mom’s house I am completely wrung out. I don’t even have enough energy to ask her about the eye surgery she’s just had, to inquire about how she’s dealing with her doctor’s orders to spend the next two weeks horizontal and on her stomach.
Having volunteered to watch over her I have a valid excuse to be gone, but I should not have divulged this information to my ex. Given his ability to rationalize and his aversion to moving (it’s mid-November and he’s been living with me since the day in May when we broke up), any excuse for my absence might just incite him to stay until the due date.
But I felt sorry for him and I’m weak and I still love him, so I told him about the surgery to soften the blow.
“I’m trying to be gone by the end of the month,” he said, soft. And I hope he saw the look of relief in my eyes, and actually does it this time.
Because I wish to be alone, to deal with this my way, to feel the loss fully, to live in it completely for a little while. I go to the guest room and close the door because there are people everywhere at my mom’s house. My mother, the saint, has friends and family constantly hovering around her, filling up her water glass, making sure she takes her medication, fixing her lunch and dinner. And I have dashed all expectation to actually be responsible for her without giving any reason why, though she kind-of knows, like mothers usually know. So for now this guest room is my sanctuary where I am trying to mete out some sense of self.
Here, I contemplate how the bliss and giddiness of the new relationship I’m in has subsequently simmered down to a slow boil. I think my new guy must have a sixth sense. Either that, or he has his own shit to deal with. Maybe it’s a little of both. This solo-ness makes me wonder if it’s fair that I get to be so happy. Should I wallow and mope around, denying myself of male companionship for a more respectable amount of time? Should I send my new guy away until I’m ready to fall in love, or until my ex is ready to move on? Having spent the majority of my life un-brainwashing myself and refusing to swallow Roman Catholic guilt, I think on it for a time, ultimately deciding against martyrdom.
Instead, I ask myself questions about where my center goes when there’s someone else in my life—why I feel compelled to meld into this new person, even though I promised myself to keep my love life separate from my real life—at least until it’s a real relationship. My knee jerk reaction is to sew myself into his pockets, to make him fall in love with me. And I have to remind myself that I’m not ready for a new relationship because my heart is still breaking.
The best way I know how to process all of this is through yoga. Tonight, I break down when we do soaring pose: our stomachs on the ground, just like my mom has to be for the next two weeks. I think about how helpless this pose is—this proneness to someone stepping on me, this limbless-ness. And I decide that it has to do with the faith that a wind will come and scoop me up, cradle me into a brisk wisp of air, and I’ll feel weightless and whole again.
But it’s hard to gather the strength to hope when it’s been dashed so many times. I hoped my ex would snap out of his depression funk, finish his pilot’s license, and get a job. I hoped he would clean up underneath the house, install the stereo wires, stop complaining, and stop procrastinating, but none of that happened. The man I’m divorcing is not the man I married. The man I’m divorcing has lost his father, has decided that God is dead, has stopped believing in himself, and has finally, lost his wife.
But I can’t take on that burden. It’s my brokenness that hurts most right now. Sadness seeps out of me in eagle pose as I wring my muscles, my organs, my skin dripping with sweat, my drishdi on my third eye as I try to learn something from this pain, try to remember that I did everything I could to save my marriage.
Afterward, I sit in easy pose and make the wisdom mudra with my thumb and forefinger in circles on my knees, and in my calmness I search that place where I’m able to look at myself squarely. There, I hear my wise woman voice rise up from deep down and say, “You have time.” And this is the most beautiful moment in my entire day because it reminds me that I don’t need to figure all this out right now, that I can be present to this deep sense of losing someone who used to be my entire world. Hearing this voice gives me the permission I need to bang out this confused manifesto.
And exactly as I’m writing this, the song, “Just Breathe,” comes on Pandora, and I’m sure that’s the answer: that I must feel this sadness—that I must truly let it in so I can let it go. If I don’t, I know it will follow me, clinging to my heels and climbing up my calves, attaching to me, becoming baggage: another backpack. I want to finally be happy. And that happiness, if it’s going to eventually stay, can’t be tied to a new guy.
Yesterday, I was answering questions about said new guy to a girlfriend of mine, whose sister went through a particularly nasty divorce.
“So are you going to burn your wedding photos, now it’s over?”
“No, why would I do that?”
“You know,” she said, “to start over. Clean slate and all.”
I explained I don’t need a clean slate. I don’t need to erase my marriage or the past ten years because that would be doing a disservice to my journey that has ended up right exactly here. I’m not going to pawn my wedding ring or erase his image from my hard drive. And it’s not because I don’t want a clean start, but because some of the memories I have from my marriage are pretty damn good ones. Just because I grew too big to fit into that relationship doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the me I used to be, or wish at all to forget her.
Still the fact remains that this woman who used to be part of a unit is now on her own. There is no more O’Brien and Norville, just like there is no longer him and me. Instead, there is Breville. Instead there is just him. Just me. But whereas on the one hand there transpired an undividable union, on the other hand a severing occurred.
So what happens when we lose the partner we thought would be with forever? When the vow is broken? When we go back on our word? When we give up and stop trying? And why do I get to be an optimist—still believing in love and still thinking I deserve to be happy? I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy: I know the panini maker won’t make it all better. But there’s something in the thing—how I need to retrieve something of myself: to honor it and love it.
So I insist on keeping the thing, even if I have to scratch out the “Bre” or “ville”—even if I have to etch my own name in caps across it—because although I’m not married anymore, where I came from got me to where I am now, and I’m on the cusp of growing into who I’m going to be. As soon as I can stop this seeping. As soon as my heart stops breaking. As soon as I can feel all the pain I’m supposed to feel, I’m going to make something really delicious with the thing. Something that’s never been made on it—something totally mine, totally fine, totally sublime.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
November 8, 2010
"Bitches Are Crazy"
“Bitches are crazy,” G says, her finger in the air, swirling an imaginary lock of curls. She has just chopped six inches of her straight black hair; enough to fill at least two heads easy. She’s smirking, rolling her eyes, on the verge of laughing at herself. “Last night I was rocking in a corner all alone. Rocking and rocking, when D came in and he just held me. Today, I feel fine.”
She tells me about moving to O`ahu and how different her life is there, how traffic makes her want to kill herself, how there are too many people and too much noise. It makes sense: for the past five years, she’s lived in Puna on the Big Island. “Where it’s quiet, where people pray in the forest and chant to the ocean.” She tells me about how she moved here to be with D—how she gave up her harmony and happiness to give this relationship a try, and it takes me a while to understand what she’s saying because harmony and happiness seem like a huge price to pay for anything.
That is, until I meet him. This guy is different. And maybe it’s because I went on Match.com to finally find someone who’s more aligned with what I think I need, rather than stabbing in the dark to find someone who is probably bad for me, or recycling old boyfriends who have proven track records that they actually are bad for me. Regardless of the reason, I’m starting to understand just how crazy I can be.
For instance, the clarity and calm that came after I decided I needed to get a divorce suddenly turned topsy-turvy in the past few months. I’ve been up, down, sideways, and backwards so many times, I almost forgot what going forward meant. I can’t even begin to count the nights I spent lying awake in bed, twisting and turning words and actions into understandable chunks of information. It’s mostly because boys are stupid. They don’t think of anything except how to get laid, and when it happens, they forget that there’s a person on the other side of their orgasm that needs to be attended to emotionally.
He tells me, “Bring on your crazy bitch. I can handle it.”
And though I’m doubtful, I trust him. “I didn’t think you were going to call,” I divulge. “My friend kept saying that you wouldn’t, so I made him channel the positive energy and tell me that you would. I stopped looking for signs, but there were bald men everywhere I looked; men who were dead ringers for you from the back. It tripped me out.”
He laughs. “Girls always talk about everything. It’s all good.”
Something inside me, though, still worries about being a giddy girl at this age. He knows I talk about him with my friends now, that I’m preoccupied with him. This can’t be good in terms of power dynamics. Plus, I get nervous when I’m on my way to his house. I get butterflies when he kisses me hello. My skin tingles when his hand warms my hip, my thigh, the small of my back, and I have to keep reminding myself not to mistake these physical manifestations for more than what they are.
You see, I’m not ready to fall in love. I just spent ten years in a relationship that hasn’t quite ended. My backpack of an ex-husband still lives on my couch, does my dishes, and coughs in the background of all my phone conversations, as if to make sure no one I talk with mistakes my singleness with actually being alone. I’ve told him he needs to move out, but the divorce decree I agreed to gives him two more months, and worse than that, I gave my word. We’ve had the ‘you’re taking advantage of me’ talk, the ‘you’re choosing money over our friendship’ talk, and the ‘you’re making me crazy’ talk. In fact, we’ve talked so much about the fact that I want him out, we don’t talk much anymore. Frankly, the best friend he once was, the one he continued to be through our divorce, has died. The longer he stays, the less I want him in my future.
No, I haven’t told the new Him yet, but I will. Tonight, in fact. I’m going to tell him that I’m moving in with my mother because I wouldn’t want to be seeing someone who was still living with his ex. I’m going to say that I believe in treating others the way I want to be treated. And I hope he gets it—that it’s complicated, but that it’s over.
But that’s all beside the point. What I want to know is, despite all my rationality and education, despite my renowned self-control (I recently finished a ten-day cleanse without any food whatsoever), how does the crazy bitch cut loose? I try to keep her in check, try not to think about him saying, “I’ll take you out next Halloween,” or “We’ll do that in December,” knowing that the best intentions are fraught with circumstance and complications. But these simple statements about the future infer exactly that: a future. And I’m trying to live in the present.
This man intrigues me. This man takes care of me (I haven’t had to drop a dime yet and we’ve been on five dates). This is in stark contrast to my ex, who has not worked for four years. He was a fire fighter: a hero, and I respect him. We have fascinating conversations about things that matter, and he makes me laugh.
So why can’t I just be casual about the whole thing? My friend who just moved to New York (a place she says could eat her alive) to be with her boyfriend, another D, says, “You can’t have casual sex with the same person.” And however much I want to be the kind of girl who gets out of a long-term commitment and sows her wild oats, it’s just not in me. Which simply means that I’m dating this fantastic man who I don’t need to provide for; who is interested in me sexually, who I really like, and I just need to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than stressing out about what comes next.
Because I’m kind of terrified about not having time to myself, and I don’t want to get married again any time soon. And yes, I do want to have babies. And no, I’m not getting any younger. I always ask god for what I need, and I try to understand what I receive in terms of lessons and blessings, but being heart-broken isn’t something I aspire to.
Then I remember how I believe that decisions made out of fear are always bad decisions, but what if I’m ill-equiped to handle another relationship? What if I really wasn’t cut out to be a girlfriend? A wife? See how the crazy bitch takes over? One minute I’m talking about enjoying the present and the next, I’m off getting married. It’s like I have no control over her. She just tells the sane me to fuck off, takes the steering wheel of my thoughts, and pitches me into overdrive.
So what to do about her? Do I punish myself every time she comes along with her fear of commitment? Beat myself up every time she takes over with her manic rationalizations? Batten down the hatches and head for the hills? Maybe for once, I could acknowledge that she’s part of me; that she’s part of every woman. I could try to love her for the insane bitch she truly is and delight in her hysterical antics. I could accept her quirky obsessions with finding signs and freakish fascinations with searching for minute details that actually have no bearing on anything. And I could try to trust him when he says he can handle it, and hope that he actually can.
“Bitches are crazy,” G says, her finger in the air, swirling an imaginary lock of curls. She has just chopped six inches of her straight black hair; enough to fill at least two heads easy. She’s smirking, rolling her eyes, on the verge of laughing at herself. “Last night I was rocking in a corner all alone. Rocking and rocking, when D came in and he just held me. Today, I feel fine.”
She tells me about moving to O`ahu and how different her life is there, how traffic makes her want to kill herself, how there are too many people and too much noise. It makes sense: for the past five years, she’s lived in Puna on the Big Island. “Where it’s quiet, where people pray in the forest and chant to the ocean.” She tells me about how she moved here to be with D—how she gave up her harmony and happiness to give this relationship a try, and it takes me a while to understand what she’s saying because harmony and happiness seem like a huge price to pay for anything.
That is, until I meet him. This guy is different. And maybe it’s because I went on Match.com to finally find someone who’s more aligned with what I think I need, rather than stabbing in the dark to find someone who is probably bad for me, or recycling old boyfriends who have proven track records that they actually are bad for me. Regardless of the reason, I’m starting to understand just how crazy I can be.
For instance, the clarity and calm that came after I decided I needed to get a divorce suddenly turned topsy-turvy in the past few months. I’ve been up, down, sideways, and backwards so many times, I almost forgot what going forward meant. I can’t even begin to count the nights I spent lying awake in bed, twisting and turning words and actions into understandable chunks of information. It’s mostly because boys are stupid. They don’t think of anything except how to get laid, and when it happens, they forget that there’s a person on the other side of their orgasm that needs to be attended to emotionally.
He tells me, “Bring on your crazy bitch. I can handle it.”
And though I’m doubtful, I trust him. “I didn’t think you were going to call,” I divulge. “My friend kept saying that you wouldn’t, so I made him channel the positive energy and tell me that you would. I stopped looking for signs, but there were bald men everywhere I looked; men who were dead ringers for you from the back. It tripped me out.”
He laughs. “Girls always talk about everything. It’s all good.”
Something inside me, though, still worries about being a giddy girl at this age. He knows I talk about him with my friends now, that I’m preoccupied with him. This can’t be good in terms of power dynamics. Plus, I get nervous when I’m on my way to his house. I get butterflies when he kisses me hello. My skin tingles when his hand warms my hip, my thigh, the small of my back, and I have to keep reminding myself not to mistake these physical manifestations for more than what they are.
You see, I’m not ready to fall in love. I just spent ten years in a relationship that hasn’t quite ended. My backpack of an ex-husband still lives on my couch, does my dishes, and coughs in the background of all my phone conversations, as if to make sure no one I talk with mistakes my singleness with actually being alone. I’ve told him he needs to move out, but the divorce decree I agreed to gives him two more months, and worse than that, I gave my word. We’ve had the ‘you’re taking advantage of me’ talk, the ‘you’re choosing money over our friendship’ talk, and the ‘you’re making me crazy’ talk. In fact, we’ve talked so much about the fact that I want him out, we don’t talk much anymore. Frankly, the best friend he once was, the one he continued to be through our divorce, has died. The longer he stays, the less I want him in my future.
No, I haven’t told the new Him yet, but I will. Tonight, in fact. I’m going to tell him that I’m moving in with my mother because I wouldn’t want to be seeing someone who was still living with his ex. I’m going to say that I believe in treating others the way I want to be treated. And I hope he gets it—that it’s complicated, but that it’s over.
But that’s all beside the point. What I want to know is, despite all my rationality and education, despite my renowned self-control (I recently finished a ten-day cleanse without any food whatsoever), how does the crazy bitch cut loose? I try to keep her in check, try not to think about him saying, “I’ll take you out next Halloween,” or “We’ll do that in December,” knowing that the best intentions are fraught with circumstance and complications. But these simple statements about the future infer exactly that: a future. And I’m trying to live in the present.
This man intrigues me. This man takes care of me (I haven’t had to drop a dime yet and we’ve been on five dates). This is in stark contrast to my ex, who has not worked for four years. He was a fire fighter: a hero, and I respect him. We have fascinating conversations about things that matter, and he makes me laugh.
So why can’t I just be casual about the whole thing? My friend who just moved to New York (a place she says could eat her alive) to be with her boyfriend, another D, says, “You can’t have casual sex with the same person.” And however much I want to be the kind of girl who gets out of a long-term commitment and sows her wild oats, it’s just not in me. Which simply means that I’m dating this fantastic man who I don’t need to provide for; who is interested in me sexually, who I really like, and I just need to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than stressing out about what comes next.
Because I’m kind of terrified about not having time to myself, and I don’t want to get married again any time soon. And yes, I do want to have babies. And no, I’m not getting any younger. I always ask god for what I need, and I try to understand what I receive in terms of lessons and blessings, but being heart-broken isn’t something I aspire to.
Then I remember how I believe that decisions made out of fear are always bad decisions, but what if I’m ill-equiped to handle another relationship? What if I really wasn’t cut out to be a girlfriend? A wife? See how the crazy bitch takes over? One minute I’m talking about enjoying the present and the next, I’m off getting married. It’s like I have no control over her. She just tells the sane me to fuck off, takes the steering wheel of my thoughts, and pitches me into overdrive.
So what to do about her? Do I punish myself every time she comes along with her fear of commitment? Beat myself up every time she takes over with her manic rationalizations? Batten down the hatches and head for the hills? Maybe for once, I could acknowledge that she’s part of me; that she’s part of every woman. I could try to love her for the insane bitch she truly is and delight in her hysterical antics. I could accept her quirky obsessions with finding signs and freakish fascinations with searching for minute details that actually have no bearing on anything. And I could try to trust him when he says he can handle it, and hope that he actually can.
December 18, 2010
"Breaking Rule #1"
The worst part is I can’t breathe. Never a victim of asthma, my chest is constricted, and it feels as if a very large hand has a vice grip on my heart and lungs. I hyper-ventilate when I’m driving places, in the middle of the night at about 3:00a.m, and when I wake up at 6:00a.m. When it happens in the car, I blast a song with lots of bass—to make myself feel like I’m not falling apart, to ground myself, and give the sensation an entity. In bed, I tell myself coaxing things like “it’s going to be okay,” and “you’re fine.”
This energy is nervous energy—like just before jumping out of a plane. “Whatever you do, don’t kick,” said the six-foot Texan with halitosis. I smiled lamely, not really understanding what he meant until the ground disappeared from beneath me. That horrible sensation was the worst I’ve ever felt. Being unable to hear myself scream with the atmosphere punching my face did not, as some had promised, release fun endorphins into my system. Instead, free falling with nothing to stop me from becoming a ketchup stain on the earth but a flimsy parachute and the gross guy I was strapped to is what I imagine hell to be like. That, or peeling potatoes and doing dishes for eternity.
This feeling is anxious energy, like when I was scuba diving in Fiji and didn’t know what I was doing.
“I have only ever dived with my husband, and he always took care of everything,” I admitted to the boat captain, a slight twenty-something girl with pony-tailed curly hair who seemed meek, but would turn out to be the boss. She translated for the Fijian man who was to take me under water. I did not know how to inflate my buoyancy compensator (BC), or read my gauges, or hook up my regulator. All I had ever needed to remember was the ear-popping thing and to never panic under water.
The ride to the wreck was a good forty minutes, and two American ex-pats were bragging to each other about knowing whose boat was whose, whose million-dollar villa was the best to party at, and what they were going to do about their dog when they had to return to Denver for ski season. I was thoroughly irritated by their endearment to the captain, calling her “girl” and “blackie,” but she didn’t seem to mind, fake smiling when she had to, but mostly ignoring them. Rather than being offended on her behalf, I was able to concentrate my thoughts on the aching rhythm of blood pumping through my chest.
I practiced the hand signals in my head. The ‘cut off his head’ motion was for if I couldn’t breathe due to lack of air. The two finger wrist flip was for if I needed to share air. The thumb bob was for if I needed to resurface. I wasn’t afraid of sharks, having seen lots of them up close. Instead, I was afraid of the bends—the inability to control my vertical movements because I’d never had to gauge how much weight and air I needed to continue on a steady course. I wanted to talk with my dive buddy, to create a more buddy-like rapport so that he wouldn’t end up sending me to the hospital, but we smiled at each other dumbly instead.
As we slowed to a stop, I reconsidered going in at all. A recompression chamber in a third-world country did not seem like something I could get to in good time. If I lost control and flew to the surface too quickly, a bunch of tiny bubbles could form in my blood, paralyzing or potentially killing me. Plus, it would be all my fault for not reviewing the stupid PADI book I had brought with me but failed to read. While the Americans deftly made adjustments to their tanks and hoses, laughing about the last few times they had done this dive, I kicked myself for not being more friendly. My buddy looked expectantly at me after checking and re-checking my equipment. But I couldn’t judge whether he knew what he was doing. At the last minute, the boat captain gave him a look, pointed at my apparatus, and said something to him in Fijian, to which he gasped, then hastily unscrewed something, flipped it over, then re-screwed it back on.
What the hell was I thinking? I told the captain I didn’t want to slow anyone down—that I could just stay on board, that I would enjoy the view from on deck just as much as being submerged, and she laughed, her pony tail jauntily bouncing at her back. She told my buddy something else in Fijian, and I was thrust into my gear, buttoned up, and thrown off the side of the boat.
Floating there, I remembered rule number one—never panic in the water—while my dive buddy affixed my mask and thrust the regulator into my mouth, deftly (and wordlessly) holding up my deflator thingie in the air, causing me to go down.
The finger between two islands looked entirely different under the particle-less water. Unlike Hawai`i’s salty but still clear visibility, this was like being in liquid glass. I hung on to the anchor chain as we descended, and my buddy’s ebony hand did not falter, did not release mine the entire time. With his other hand, he adjusted my BC, keeping me by his side as we carefully and slowly descended to the bottom of that muted, voiceless depth. "Just breathe," I told myself.
Eventually, the manic pounding in my chest went away and I could enjoy the black coral branches and grape-like bunches of seaweed; the bright pink and green corals. I toured a barnacled wreck with brilliant anemones that swayed with the current as the schools of silver needle fish zig zagged past us. And it became one of the most intimate experiences in my life. Even when the heat between our hands became a bit much and I wanted to let go for just a moment, his sure grasp told me that this was not an option. We were joined throughout this journey whether I liked it or not, and mostly, I liked it. He pointed out dragon fish and eels to me, took me through a cave lined with opalescent coin-like creatures, and waited while I examined spindly red branches.
Now I keep waiting for that moment to come—that sense of ease, of connectedness, of enjoying the view. Instead, I’m stuck with this fear—this being at the edge of a precipice with the wind blowing at my back, this having to jump out of the plane alone, be at the bottom of the ocean alone. I’m literally nauseous, constantly in the middle of an anxiety attack, and I worry about the stress I’m putting my body through—whether my heart will ever go back to pumping at a normal speed.
I repeat that I can take care of myself, that eventually I won’t miss my ex, who has been by my side for the past ten years. That one day, I might fall in love again and have babies. I tell myself that I'm not too old to start over again, that I am a smart, beautiful woman, that I’m lovable, and that I have good friends, but even as I write this, the tears are flowing and I can’t catch my breath or swallow this sense of falling and not being able to stop. I tell myself that moving back home—a home now empty of everything of his—won’t break my heart, won’t undo me completely, won’t send me to the recompression chamber, but who knows what will happen.
I know I am panicking; that this is the first rule of survival. I am a deer in headlights, destined to become road kill if I don’t regain my fight or flight instincts. I have to get hold of myself before I become un-tethered, splattering into a terrified, out of control, mad woman mess. But the grip on my torso hasn’t let up in two days. The talking to myself hasn’t worked, and my cheeks are becoming wrinkly with moisture.
I know I have to trust that, like Max Ehrman says, “the universe is unfolding as it should,” that this is all part of the process, that I am held, and that everything really will be okay. And I know that it’s true—that I have always been cared for, that this will continue, even when it feels like I’m completely alone. This is my salvation—the only way to slow my pulse and stop the crying. So I repeat to myself, “you are loved, I love you. The universe loves you:” my incantation for sanity. And I wait for the magic to work.
The worst part is I can’t breathe. Never a victim of asthma, my chest is constricted, and it feels as if a very large hand has a vice grip on my heart and lungs. I hyper-ventilate when I’m driving places, in the middle of the night at about 3:00a.m, and when I wake up at 6:00a.m. When it happens in the car, I blast a song with lots of bass—to make myself feel like I’m not falling apart, to ground myself, and give the sensation an entity. In bed, I tell myself coaxing things like “it’s going to be okay,” and “you’re fine.”
This energy is nervous energy—like just before jumping out of a plane. “Whatever you do, don’t kick,” said the six-foot Texan with halitosis. I smiled lamely, not really understanding what he meant until the ground disappeared from beneath me. That horrible sensation was the worst I’ve ever felt. Being unable to hear myself scream with the atmosphere punching my face did not, as some had promised, release fun endorphins into my system. Instead, free falling with nothing to stop me from becoming a ketchup stain on the earth but a flimsy parachute and the gross guy I was strapped to is what I imagine hell to be like. That, or peeling potatoes and doing dishes for eternity.
This feeling is anxious energy, like when I was scuba diving in Fiji and didn’t know what I was doing.
“I have only ever dived with my husband, and he always took care of everything,” I admitted to the boat captain, a slight twenty-something girl with pony-tailed curly hair who seemed meek, but would turn out to be the boss. She translated for the Fijian man who was to take me under water. I did not know how to inflate my buoyancy compensator (BC), or read my gauges, or hook up my regulator. All I had ever needed to remember was the ear-popping thing and to never panic under water.
The ride to the wreck was a good forty minutes, and two American ex-pats were bragging to each other about knowing whose boat was whose, whose million-dollar villa was the best to party at, and what they were going to do about their dog when they had to return to Denver for ski season. I was thoroughly irritated by their endearment to the captain, calling her “girl” and “blackie,” but she didn’t seem to mind, fake smiling when she had to, but mostly ignoring them. Rather than being offended on her behalf, I was able to concentrate my thoughts on the aching rhythm of blood pumping through my chest.
I practiced the hand signals in my head. The ‘cut off his head’ motion was for if I couldn’t breathe due to lack of air. The two finger wrist flip was for if I needed to share air. The thumb bob was for if I needed to resurface. I wasn’t afraid of sharks, having seen lots of them up close. Instead, I was afraid of the bends—the inability to control my vertical movements because I’d never had to gauge how much weight and air I needed to continue on a steady course. I wanted to talk with my dive buddy, to create a more buddy-like rapport so that he wouldn’t end up sending me to the hospital, but we smiled at each other dumbly instead.
As we slowed to a stop, I reconsidered going in at all. A recompression chamber in a third-world country did not seem like something I could get to in good time. If I lost control and flew to the surface too quickly, a bunch of tiny bubbles could form in my blood, paralyzing or potentially killing me. Plus, it would be all my fault for not reviewing the stupid PADI book I had brought with me but failed to read. While the Americans deftly made adjustments to their tanks and hoses, laughing about the last few times they had done this dive, I kicked myself for not being more friendly. My buddy looked expectantly at me after checking and re-checking my equipment. But I couldn’t judge whether he knew what he was doing. At the last minute, the boat captain gave him a look, pointed at my apparatus, and said something to him in Fijian, to which he gasped, then hastily unscrewed something, flipped it over, then re-screwed it back on.
What the hell was I thinking? I told the captain I didn’t want to slow anyone down—that I could just stay on board, that I would enjoy the view from on deck just as much as being submerged, and she laughed, her pony tail jauntily bouncing at her back. She told my buddy something else in Fijian, and I was thrust into my gear, buttoned up, and thrown off the side of the boat.
Floating there, I remembered rule number one—never panic in the water—while my dive buddy affixed my mask and thrust the regulator into my mouth, deftly (and wordlessly) holding up my deflator thingie in the air, causing me to go down.
The finger between two islands looked entirely different under the particle-less water. Unlike Hawai`i’s salty but still clear visibility, this was like being in liquid glass. I hung on to the anchor chain as we descended, and my buddy’s ebony hand did not falter, did not release mine the entire time. With his other hand, he adjusted my BC, keeping me by his side as we carefully and slowly descended to the bottom of that muted, voiceless depth. "Just breathe," I told myself.
Eventually, the manic pounding in my chest went away and I could enjoy the black coral branches and grape-like bunches of seaweed; the bright pink and green corals. I toured a barnacled wreck with brilliant anemones that swayed with the current as the schools of silver needle fish zig zagged past us. And it became one of the most intimate experiences in my life. Even when the heat between our hands became a bit much and I wanted to let go for just a moment, his sure grasp told me that this was not an option. We were joined throughout this journey whether I liked it or not, and mostly, I liked it. He pointed out dragon fish and eels to me, took me through a cave lined with opalescent coin-like creatures, and waited while I examined spindly red branches.
Now I keep waiting for that moment to come—that sense of ease, of connectedness, of enjoying the view. Instead, I’m stuck with this fear—this being at the edge of a precipice with the wind blowing at my back, this having to jump out of the plane alone, be at the bottom of the ocean alone. I’m literally nauseous, constantly in the middle of an anxiety attack, and I worry about the stress I’m putting my body through—whether my heart will ever go back to pumping at a normal speed.
I repeat that I can take care of myself, that eventually I won’t miss my ex, who has been by my side for the past ten years. That one day, I might fall in love again and have babies. I tell myself that I'm not too old to start over again, that I am a smart, beautiful woman, that I’m lovable, and that I have good friends, but even as I write this, the tears are flowing and I can’t catch my breath or swallow this sense of falling and not being able to stop. I tell myself that moving back home—a home now empty of everything of his—won’t break my heart, won’t undo me completely, won’t send me to the recompression chamber, but who knows what will happen.
I know I am panicking; that this is the first rule of survival. I am a deer in headlights, destined to become road kill if I don’t regain my fight or flight instincts. I have to get hold of myself before I become un-tethered, splattering into a terrified, out of control, mad woman mess. But the grip on my torso hasn’t let up in two days. The talking to myself hasn’t worked, and my cheeks are becoming wrinkly with moisture.
I know I have to trust that, like Max Ehrman says, “the universe is unfolding as it should,” that this is all part of the process, that I am held, and that everything really will be okay. And I know that it’s true—that I have always been cared for, that this will continue, even when it feels like I’m completely alone. This is my salvation—the only way to slow my pulse and stop the crying. So I repeat to myself, “you are loved, I love you. The universe loves you:” my incantation for sanity. And I wait for the magic to work.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)