Aye Aye Captain

 My daughter and I had a conversation yesterday that paralleled a train of thought I had been having about personal identity and how it relates to activities, events, and plans. And how really unhealthy I have been sometimes about it.

I have been dating.  And as is required during the first few dates, there are the required interview questions.  Where do you work? What college did you go to?  Tell me about your favorite vacation? All good enough questions to help paint the landscape.  But the answers were sometimes awkward in my head because of the pronouns I assigned.

See, if I talked about graduation, or jobs, that was pretty easy most of the time. *I* went to college in Sacramento. *I* have worked for the government for the last 16 years. *I* write a blog that let's my innermost thoughts be critiqued by the random public. *I* have a pretty fucked up sense of self that is wrapped around approval and permission from others. But when I talk about events, or travels, or activities, it always defaulted to *we*.

It is as if I had not gone to the White House.  That was a We Went.  I must not have gone on the ferry to Alcatraz, because WE went on the boat together. I couldn't have seen a Broadway play because WE sat next to each other.  We rode the cable car. We saw the band.  We sat in the box seats. We saw the world's largest knitting needles. We ate the fresh baked french bread. We. We. We.  As if I had no memory of doing them myself without that identifier.  Fuck, really?  This was MY story wasn't it?  The person I was telling the story would only get the details I wanted, and yet, here I was still giving credit to my journey to a couplehood that no longer existed, and that I was specifically trying to have not be part of my moving forward love life.

Turns out, my daughter does this, too.  And she and I together thought it was both funny and sad that we did this for not just major events like vacations, but for everyday things as well, like taking public transportation or grocery shopping.  Were we really so involved in our significant others that we had legit lost ourselves into the identity being as a couple? Apparently, yes. The partners in our lives (or formerly in our lives) had no problems with the word *I*, even if it was a couple event. They could easily say "I went to a really great steak place", or "I bought some really great fresh blueberries", even if both events only happened because either she or I were that responsible party.

She and I decided this was pathetic, and something women do more than men, and realized that changing it was going to be harder than it sounded.  There would need to be events we owned, and activities we participated in, and conversations about them after that we would describe to others using individual pronouns on purpose.  *I* went to the museum in Kansas City to see the Caravaggio.  *I* went to the Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas right before the shutdown. I bought this really pretty poster. I saw my favorite band. I climbed the Lyon Street street stairs to find the hidden SF Heart. 

She validated for me that I had, in fact, done lots of stuff. That I was both capable of doing them, and had experienced them with my own memory without that need for others to always be in the same memory bubble conversation.  I validated to her that I had probably modeled that for her, and she was doing the same memory building for herself, with her own activities and life, even if they happened to have someone else along for the experience.  They could own it, too, without either of our acknowledgment, and it took nothing away from anyone's experience to have it belong to ourselves. Especially in personal pronoun format when telling our stories to someone else.  We did not have to be beholden, or even share in the joy.  Each of us could be *I*, and anyone else that sailed in our ocean could be an *I* as well.

I truly hope to become part of an US and a WE again. I actually like couplehood, and  I am holding interviews right now for the position.  But I also need to see how MY identity and memories are completely separate from that, and how that is actually a much more healthy way to be.  Maybe I could model it for my daughter, and she won't get lost to it either. Our *I* identities are counting on it and there is too much stuff for she and I to do!

Snapshot

I like taking photos. I always have.  I don't always like being in them because body issues and all kinds of fucked up excuses in my head. But I take them, and I will pose for selfies with someone most of the time. SelfieBeautyProject is a thing.

And of course, with the kind of headspin that makes the Exorcist look kinda lame, I have tried to figure out what I am supposed to do with all the photos I have of exes.

When my ex husband and I split, besides opening a bank account he had no access to, and reformatting the hard drive on our shared computer 12 different times to make sure that the chatroom (and the saved chats) he used to contact his girlfriend was no longer there, I also took care of our wedding photo.  You know the one.  The one in the crystal frame that was a wedding gift from some aunt.  The one where you are staring into each other's eyes,  wondering how lucky you got, dripping with happiness and promises.  The one you had in an 8x10 color glossy, sitting on your shelf at eye level for guests to see the first millisecond they walked in. The one you burned, after smashing the frame into little shards with a sledge hammer dropped repeatedly in the bottom of the trash bin. That one. Twenty four years ago.

It was easier then.  Photos were prints, and tangible, and semi-irreplaceable if you did not have the film negatives neatly sorted in binders to keep forever. There was one, maybe two of them to deal with, and you carefully put one print (maybe two, because the one with the puppy is just so sweet) into a box to never look at again.  Or it will be years, and by then you will be okay.

When my children's father and I split, after babies and almost 11 years together, the photos were also easy to deal with.  Sort them into the photos that had him in it, either digital or prints, pull them all onto a thumb drive and toss them in a box marked *save for H and M* and walk away.  Do it once, don't destroy anything, but never look at it again.  Keep all baby pics separate, and labeled, and I was good to go.

When my most recent partner and I split, part of the verbal vomit he threw at me was how he hated that I took selfies, and couples photos. This was news to me because while I knew he didn't particularly feel good in his body, and I had seriously curbed my public albums at his request, he smiled, kissed me, put his arms around me, and posed just the same anytime I asked. 

So  tonight, as I looked at the photos,  I started to delete the albums from Facebook so they wouldn't wreck me showing up on my memories, and wondered what do I do with all these photos now? Because reality is they are fucking everywhere.  They were on posts, and in my camera roll, and as part of cover photos and profile pics.  They were backed up in my cloud storage on three different sites, and on my laptop hard drive.  They were sorted with facial recognition software so I would never not be able to find them. One thousand, seven hundred and seventy three photos in the drive correctly labeled as him.  Him leaning against his new car.  Him at his desk at one of the six  jobs he held in the last five years. Him on the couch. Him at dinner.  Him in groups with my kids. Him with his mom, his daughter, his best friend, his brother.  But (and this is a big but),  one thousand, three hundred and eighty two of them are of him and me together. Nearly 1400 photos documenting our adventures, our togetherness, our lives. Seriously. Over,fucking,whelming.

So what the fuck do I do with them?  

I have no reason to believe they will ever be wanted. Not by him for sure, and not yet for me.  I can cruelly imagine all kinds of reasons for keeping them. Like for when he is indicted for fraud and murder in a very public trial and the news agencies want them, for large amounts of cash. Or maybe for the collage at his funeral after he is shot dead by some jilted mistress, or dead because of a fall from the balcony of his apartment that he was afraid to be on.  Or maybe for one of his daughters because for the last five years the only photos taken at all were by me, and no one has any others. 

Five years is a big enough chunk of time that I may want to keep the memories of MY trips, and MY outings, and MY love. I need to figure out a way to make this visual noise be quieter so that I can find MY life in there somewhere, but not have it feel so difficult, or so immediate. It is not like randomly finding a photo in an old box.  I have to actively delete them on multiple platforms, while deciding what I value.  Can I be okay with that great pic of the Lincoln Memorial with us standing together on the top step? What about the selfie at the Golden Gate Bridge, or from the window of the Rainbow Room?  I was there. There is visual proof. He was there, too. Just as smiling, just as present. One thousand, three hundred and eight two times. 

I pulled the photos labeled with his image into a folder marked "ex". I pulled the nudes I have of him into  a sub folder in the secure folder (under password protection), also marked "ex". He probably won't be happy I am keeping those.  I am okay with that, he has company.

What I really need to do is figure out how to smash the frame without cutting myself in the process.  I need a different kind of sledge hammer this time because it won't be as easy to just burn the photo at the end, and there will be no accidental boxes to find that prompt nostalgia.  Delete is so much more permanent. How much of me will be left?  I am guessing a lot, since I still have ones of me in my wedding dress, and me with my babies, and me that day at the beach.  Me. I still exist, and I am keeping the photos to prove it. Him maybe not so much.

I might actually print a couple of me just because. 

Piercing

 As I have been recently trying to navigate the dating world, deciding who to date, why to date them, if they are already interesting enough but also in the friendship category, I have been dissecting what I want to do differently if and when I get into another relationship.  Do I want to have a talk about finances early, or never?  Do I want my adult children to approve, or meet them only when absolutely necessary? Would I want to live with someone, or have the freedom of separate households? It worked for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, right? Would we have to have the same political views if we never talked about politics? What about free time, sporting events, sushi?  How much of myself do I share, and how much do I know there is no room for compromise? Who will they be in my world, and will I know if they are right for now, or forever?

Most importantly, I needed to know what was truly missing that I would want for sure from myself so that I would know if I was not getting it or giving it.

My answer: Earrings.

I wasn't expecting that to be the answer either when I started thinking about it, but it is true.  Everything could be summed up in whether or not I was willing to wearing earrings.

See, I love earrings.  I don't mean lots of earrings like on those multi packs from Claire's. I mean earrings that I put on because they make me happy, and feel pretty or sexy, or at least pulled together and caring about stuff.  Days I put on earrings are days when I have thought about what I look like, what I want other people to see, what activities I might be doing, and how much I care about the earrings being lost or taken off in the process.

I have a pair of stylized cat earrings.  The tail is the hook that goes through your ear, so you have to put them on from the backside.  They are silver and a little heavy,  but they make this great whoosh sound when I turn my head.  They were a gift from my boyfriend when I was 19, along with a cute little black dress I still own, so that I would have something he wanted to see me in to go out that night. It was a whim, and a total testament to youth and lack of planning.

I have a pair of light green Big Sur jade earrings.  They are triangles and dangle against my neck. They are always cool to the touch even in the hottest weather. They look best when my hair is up, or smoothed back in some way.  They are so thin, the light shines through them, and they feel like fragile pieces of china instead of stone.  I bought them for myself with money I had forgotten about in an account I opened the day my ex husband and I spilt in 1998.  I had opened my first account without him, and it was the first account I had that I didn't share with anyone else, and have never shared with anyone since.  I had "found" the money because of one of those "lost money to the state" searches, went in and closed the account, receiving cash, and spent it almost immediately on the earrings at the farmer's market that night.  I have been known to wear them on first dates.

I have a pair of earrings made from old typewriter keys with the letters H and M (my children's initials) on them. The earrings don't technically match, but look like a pair nonetheless. I got them from a small booth at an antique faire I went to alone because the person I was seeing was too hungover to get out of bed that morning.  He had wanted me to stay, but I went ahead and did our plans without him.  I wear those earrings to important events that celebrate my kids.

I have a pair of niobium rainbow sunset earrings. No idea where I got them but I have had them forever.  They hum when I walk.

I have pearls. I used to wear them to job interviews.  They live in the jewelry box now. I hear that when you don't wear pearls, they lose their shine.  I think they are too stuffy and expectant, and try too hard.  I am not sad that they are kind of meh.  Things change, priorities change. I keep them, like a gift and a touchstone, but I never wear them.  I don't need them anymore.

I have a single earring left of what is still my favorite "pair".  I bought them with my own money from my first paycheck at a summer job when I was 18.  They are drop squares, sterling silver, the perfect every day earrings.  I used to wear them daily, and for every occasion for years, decades even. I lost one of them at a strip club in Vegas just a couple years ago.  I had gone with my ex, because he had never taken a woman to a strip club, and was unsure I would like it. It was kinda a test. He had gone to them often, in different cities while on work assignments or living apart from his family, so he knew his way around.  He thought I didn't because I hadn't really told him everything there was to know about my mid twenties.  I should have known better than to wear earrings at all because true to their professions, beautiful nearly naked women enjoyed his lap, or the padded cocktail table in front of me, fondling and nuzzling.  It was super fun, until it was wasn't.  Might have been the alcohol.  Might have been the last couple of girls paying more attention to me than him.  Might have been me enjoying it a little less demurely than he had seen before, and being a woman on my own in what he had sorta deemed as his territory.  Years of doing that will give you that impression. We left, and an earring and a pair of sunglasses was the price for the ride. The rest of the night was a blur of being turned on and disconnected at the same time.  Lost and founds in strips clubs don't really exist.  I wear the singular earring now when I can feel something shifting, but don't have a clear picture of what it is. A blur of anticipation, knowing that whatever it is, I am in the space alone for a while. I have been wearing it most of the week.

Yes, this week is when I started wearing earring(s) again, as I have been writing and thinking about what I want.  I hadn't been wearing earrings for the last 18 months or so, stuck in my own head of not needing them, not wanting them, not wanting to lose them.  I had done it to myself (again) and forgot that I existed.  I started not wearing them because I thought they didn't matter.  My whole rack of earrings, collecting dust for the most part, only occasionally get spun around to see if something felt right here or there.  Without earrings on, I could be invisible. 

This week I remembered that every time I buy or wear earrings purposefully, I feel different.  Every time I wear earrings, I feel more myself and comfortable with my choices.  Every time I wear earrings I know I have tried for myself to get out of my head, out of my own way, to make a choice.  And own the choice, too, without having to explain it, even if it would never make sense to someone else. It is not their earrings. 

So what does this have to do with dating?  I realized that everything I do from now on, is wide open.  I can try the people on like earrings, and see if they fit.  That ever time I have something new, I get to form an opinion and a memory just like that. I can, if I want to, wear it for a while, and then not ever again.  All those differences for new people in my world, and what I want to do with them, can be like my spinning rack.  Maybe today, it is a the gold antique hoops. Maybe tomorrow it is the filigree and amethyst. Maybe it is just one, maybe it is a pair. Do I wear my hair back and show them off to a new date, or do I take them off and put them in my purse (not my pocket because we know how well that went last time, HA!)?

Maybe I will even buy a new pair.  

 

 

Roadblock

 It was raining when I left work today.  I was wearing a short sleeved shirt, and no socks with my shoes, and I hadn't brought a jacket. I had parked a little further away than usual this morning because it was warm when I had walked in, and the idea of taking a little longer to get inside was not going to be a bad decision.  I thought I didn't care about a little weather.

So when I started my engine, and cranked up the heat to warm my feet and dry my hands, I wondered if I could get away with driving down the coast a bit, and finding a warm latte before it got dark. Like all good spontaneous adventures I have ever had, I had no idea what I would find, or where, or if I would regret it or celebrate it when I was done.  Would there be a café open?  Would they have run out of decaf, but instead offer me a house special that was more chai and spice than what I had pictured? Would there be musicians just picking up guitars over there in the corner, stashing cases and coats before putting on their stage hats and heading to adjust the mic?  Would there be other tables with just one person at them, newspaper folded in front of them, and a pen attached to a journal with a large rubberband, peeking from the top of a slumped messenger bag? Would I talk to them about writing and getting published for over an hour and never ask their name?

All those were possibilities, because they had already happened once upon a time.  Them, and dozens more. And I had been open to the magic before, so it found me. I could almost feel the latte foam on  my tongue.  The craving, the desire, was real. I could taste it.

But then something else happened. I heard the voice in my head ask me what I was trying to get away with and from whom?  You would have no one to tell this story to, Elise, so why are you going?  Rain, well,  rain was just going to make the roads slippery, not more romantic, and you could get in a car accident.  And traffic.  It is just a regular old Thursday.  No magic here. And the rain without a coat suddenly seemed just wet, and cold, and ridiculously lonely. As immediate as the desire was, the reality was really different in my head. I couldn't shake it. Blocked.

And I didn't go.

I am kicking myself now, as I write this, having just watched the last of the light slip away too early, and for already having put on slippers.  I am trying to figure out what my brain did.  Was that fear?  Was that anxiety?  Was it plain old fucked up depression?  Had I hit this wall? Again? Fuck. I wanted a latte.  I settled for a glass of milk.  It is not enough. This space I am in is not enough, and I am fighting leaving it anyway. Sigh. Apparently today I could not get away with it, whatever that means. And I don't want to fake it. I do actually care, just not enough today to move in the right direction, as baby steps as a latte could have been. As easy as a drive could have been.

I will call and start looking for a counselor tomorrow, because I don't want this.  And I will write, I know that, because I have to again, and that sucks. I want the magic voice back. The one that I started with right after work. I want to listen. I want to trust.  This time feels rougher, but not as deep.  It will pass, I know. Wait five minutes the weather will change. The road will be free of traffic.  My latte will be waiting

But, fuck, I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow.