Scarred

Did you know that you can Google "how to get rid of a wedding ring indent?" and there will be dozens of articles and advice tips in less than a nanosecond.  I learned that today.

I was sitting on my porch, sipping tea, reading, sun just high enough to not be in my eyes, but still warm on my legs. and I look down at my left hand to see the dent on my third finger.  To be honest, it took me a second to realize what it was, then another second to be mad, then sad, then frustrated that it was there.

I wore a ring there for a little over four and a half years. I took it off to shower sometimes, or to sleep if it was hot.  I would take it off when my hands would swell if I was walking, or had eaten too much salt the day before. But for the most part, I wore it daily since the day in June it was given to me.

It was his grandmother's ring. A lovely wedding band type, set with channel diamonds in antique cushion cut.  Not expensive; the engagement ring to the set would have cost more.  He didn't have the engagement ring, he said, because the jewelry had been divided up when the grandmother died, and this was what he got.  He had never let anyone else wear the ring before, and had pulled it from a plastic film container he had retrieved from his junk drawer.

It never came with a question, and I liked it that way.  He had been married before, and so had I, and while we planned a future, the idea of matrimony never came up for longer than to work out if a certificate once we retired would make finances better.  It would be a transaction.

But as I looked at the dent on my finger today, and thought about the memory of the day he gifted it to me, all I could think was that the word transactional was actually the best word for most of our relationship.  

I gave him a ring later that year, just before Christmas.  At first he didn't want to wear it.  I asked him about jewelry, and he said that was not the issue, he had worn rings before.  I ask him about comfort, and he said that he was okay with wearing rings that fit him.  So I asked the elephant in the room question, and wondered how he felt about outward physical signs that our relationship was more than casual. 

This is where he balked. He wanted me to wear a ring, but he didn't want to.  He wanted the casual freedom of not having to be asked about his "wife" (the reason men wear rings on their third finger on their left hand) and then either have to explain that I was his girlfriend (that got some looks a few times), or cringe at the word. It was okay for me to have to explain, but he didn't want that. Because almost invariably the questions would become about why we weren't married, when we would get married, how long had we been married if we chose not to talk about girlfriend status.  Fielding them when we were together was easy, I had more language for the ways to answer.  And after a couple times when he had just rolled his eyes, or said something truly vile like "Oh God no she's not my wife!" my responsibility was clear. If he was going to wear a ring, I was to protect him from looking like a flake.  Men whose opinion he valued, and women whose attention he desired, needed to think he was shiny.

So on the day I gave him his ring, and he didn't wear it, I put mine in a bowl on the nightstand and didn't wear mine either.  This bothered him.  He didn't have my undivided adoration right then. Manipulative, maybe, but more than anything, I wanted us to be equal.  Partners without the paper.  If rings meant something to him if I wore one, I needed for him to have that same kind of faith.

He broke the first ring.  It was black hematite and shattered completely one day, without a good reason.  The next ring I got him was titanium. 

The day we ended, we had been out for a walk.  As I said before, my hands swell and, like had dozens of times before, I took the ring off and put it in the inside zipper pocket with my wallet of the jacket I was wearing.  It was his jacket, and I loved it almost specifically for the pocket that held my wallet and ring so perfectly.  When I left that night, I took my wallet, but not the jacket, and hadn't put the ring back on after coming home. When I left that night, I didn't take the ring with me.  When I left that night, he still had his ring on.

He told me two days later that he wanted the ring back. Another day went by before I told him he already had the ring, and where to look.  He informed me it wasn't there.  The ring is gone.  Maybe still in the lining of the jacket. Maybe on his floor near his dining table from it coming out of the pocket when I took my wallet.  Maybe on Market Street somewhere. I don't know.  I only slightly care.

When I returned his keys, dropping them with his concierge without seeing him, he texted later and asked about the ring again. I told him again that I didn't have it, but asked if he was willing to talk about something other than possessions.  He wasn't willing, and honestly, I am glad he was just as transactional this time as he had been with most everything else. He didn't give back his ring, so maybe it lives in the film canister now. No matter, I didn't ask for it or want it back. 

But what I have is this dent where the ring used to be. I took a photo to see if it was truly noticeable to anyone but me. It is, but barely.  Google says the only thing that truly gets rid of it is time.  I added lotion just in case.  I am hoping it just stops being there, and I don't notice when. Apparently, not yet.

I semi-wonder how long his dent will be there, but not really.

What does Proverbs 31:26 know?

I hope the decisions I am making stick.

That sounds like I could be flaky.  Maybe, but only to myself really.  I can’t tell you how many “eat healthy” plans I have started, how many resolutions I have made to exercise, how many times I have made plans to clean, purge, organize, only to feel like a failure when not one, but all of them have fallen apart. I have not finished (or even worked on) the novel.  I have not bagged up all those clothes that I hate (they are still on my closet/bedroom floor).  I have not cleaned my garage, or my Tupperware cabinet, or my bathroom cabinet (or floor, really). I own a really good set of hand weights and a treadmill.  I try to dust them periodically.  I think I still own a bike.  Somewhere. Maybe.

But that is such a different thing than what I do for people.  Everyone except me, it seems.

I make it to work every day.  I make sure my children have underwear and lunch.  I have gone on field trips, and baked cookies, and been the taxi for a lot of events. I visit friends who are only in town for the day, or travel to them when they are “close”, having come in from another state or country and really, California is not *that* big, right? I make phone calls to meet time zone requirements, even at the price of sleep.  I listen to heartaches and joys, sometimes when the space between us makes me ache to touch them.  Truly. I love doing it.  My children, my family, my friends. Connection. People are the reason I breathe. 

So why is this the wrong thing to do inside of potentially romantic relationships? Or actual romantic relationships? Or just dating? Or sex hookups?  Why is the connection not allowed?  They are people, right? These men I invite into my head and heart and bed, they *are* actually people, right?

But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I get really excited meeting new men.  Very much actually.  I figure I have weeded through 10 gazillion profiles, of men who are cheating on their wives (please don’t tell them), who are bi and just want a chick to hang out and watch them while they take it from the guy (maybe my boyfriend, you know, if I could just arrange that for him),  who are only looking for FWB-hookup-bootie-call-wanna-do-it-in-the-park-car-rent-by-the-hour-motel-could-you-pay-cuz-I-am-behind-on-my-child-support. So if I got past all that, to an actual date, I have to be both insane, and stupidly hopeful.  And one date is great.  Two dates is better.  Talking on the phone, texting to say hi, laughing as we get to know each other is perfect.

But maybe not.

Because I have got to date three or four a few times.  I have been hopeful that the guy meant the texts and comments that said they were enjoying themselves, and please could we see each other again.  I have for sure kissed them.  I probably had sex with them.  I have probably contemplated how to have a date that includes my friends (vetting, it is a real thing), and I have probably shared some of my disasters.  We will have laughed, because we are all just people, and people are more than likely similar, and have the same stories in different packages.

So when did it become a terrible thing that I actually WANT to be in contact with someone I am getting to know?  No, I did not invite you to move into my house.  No, I did not ask you to let me move in to yours.  No, I did not ask you to come to my daughter’s debate team luncheon (I barely want to go to these events, I would not torture you with it), or be an umpire at my son’s baseball game, or help me sort books at the Friends of the Library sale.  I didn’t ask you to pay my taxes, or drive three hours for a lunch date, or meet my brother, or even ask you to stop dating other people (yet.  We haven’t had that conversation.)  I didn’t ask you to get a tattoo of our anniversary date, or buy me a ring, or get on one knee.  What I asked for was to say Good Morning back when I texted, maybe just once every couple days.  I asked you to actually call when you said you would. Like at 9 or so, after the game is over, and the kids are in bed, and you are not too drunk to hit redial. I asked you to plan a date you said you wanted when you left on Sunday morning, sometime before I accept another one with someone else because you didn’t make plans. 

I am not clingy or needy or bitchy because I want you to be interested, too.  Get to know me, too. Is it too much to expect you to find out a little bit about why I told you I like the new Maroon 5 CD, or why I am pouring a glass of the new Napa Valley Riesling, or if you had ever seen a particular movie, or if after telling me you were gone hiking without cell coverage on Friday, though the weekend, that you say you made it safely out on maybe Monday or Tuesday?  I am not trying to take over your world.  I am trying to share mine by whatever means we have available to each other in the limited amount of time and space in our very very busy universes.

That said, the fact that you are not coming through says something.  Maybe it is me.

Am I just flaky, or are you expecting me to be because of what society has said to you about the nature of commitment? Should I be a FWB, GGG, DTF, BDSM, 420, BBW, DDF, and HUR? Is that what I need to be to get your attention?  How about instead of all that, I just be myself? 

So this goes back to my original line about hoping my decisions stick.  I have made some of the decisions about relationships, and weight, and exercise, and cleaning before.  Resolutions, promises, plans, blah blah blah.  What I think has been missing is a really true loving kindness to myself.  I am kind to others, why not to myself? Why do I need to be sexy, thin, seductive, demure, readily available yet distant and uninterested, a mom, a cheerleader, super forgiving, never angry, AND have a clean house, no baggage, and the self-esteem of a mosquito to meet another person’s requirement?  And more importantly, do I HAVE TO keep beating myself up about it because I am not perfect?  Of course you didn’t call back, because I know all my flaws and I could not possibly live up to being normal, much less fantasy, material, right?  I know it, because kindness and forgiveness to myself is not really possible in this body, in this house, in this history.  I don’t deserve you.

So the decision is to not feel that way with EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON I meet. It is about finding value in exactly who I am and in the amazing things I offer. While at the same time being kind and willing to see my flaws, embrace them and change the ones I can, without judgement. I seriously wonder what that is gonna look like in practice.  Maybe like a clean kitchen.

*She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.* ~~Proverbs 31:26

 

 

 

 

A little sugar on the side

I have come to the conclusion that there might be a chance that I am a terrible romantic partner. Like truly sucky.  Totally fucking clueless.

Let me back up a bit and tell you where this is coming from.

I love men.  Truly.  Men are amazing.  They offer things that women just can’t.  It is not sexist, or bashing in any way a woman’s abilities (women are more badass than most give us credit for) but men offer me a point of view about myself that I crave.  Is it lust, or fierceness, or certainty? I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong, I know where my boundaries are with most men.  Married men are off limits, though, honestly, I have seriously sexy married male friends.  The fact that they are in loving, monogamous relationships is probably one of the things I like about them most, and I would be stupid not to notice it.  It is hopeful that maybe, just maybe, one of those kind of men will show up and be like that with me.  It is not really that hard to imagine, because, contrary to the way I behave with some men, I am never ever stupid with my married male friends.  I respect them and their wife/lover/partner too much.  It is not an issue.

I also know what men are not right for me (or me for them, for that matter) for a variety of other reasons.  Gay, living in another country, in prison, underage, the maturity of someone underage, really long nose hair, drives an H2 for all the compensating reasons, hates their own children and has never paid child support, or votes based on Fox News endorsements all come quickly to mind.  I know better (you would think so, at least) that I would be able to clearly differentiate the “yes” and “no” list by now.

But maybe not.

I have, with the help of a very good friend, been exploring a concept I call “cupcaking”.  It is the thought that, inside of relationships, you give in completely to the other person’s desires, and even, if not intentionally, CHANGE who you are to meet their needs.  In the clinical diagnostic sense, this looks a lot like codependency. But being a cupcake can be deeper than that.  It is deeper because it is not always to the knowledge or desires of the person who is the cupcake, and it is not always bad.

For me, it happens almost exclusively inside of relationships where there is a romantic component.  I give too fast.  I give what they ask for.  I do not hold them accountable for bad behavior. I let them dictate how and when we see each other.  I ask for almost nothing in return.  I play the victim, I act perfect, I profess love and devotion, I spin perfect scenarios of community and connection.  Fuck, I must be exhausting.  Who the fuck wants that?  I mean, I am a cupcake.  I am pretty for a while, sweet as sugar, devoured in a temporary bit of normal human desire, and then easily licked or washed off as if I didn’t exist to begin with.  There are always more cupcakes, so what makes me special? Nothing. Nothing at all.

That is why I suck at romantic relationships.  I pick men who know this and will use it.  I am drawn to the devourers.  To the hot heads who confuse anger with intensity.  The ones who say they want something, ask for it even, but given the actual chance to prove it, will brush it off.  Not their fault, I picked them.  I know there are amazing men out there, and that boundaries for interaction are good (see a few paragraphs above for the things I know my place about), I just have no success at doing this when it comes to romance.

And I want it.  I want the men who are single, sexy as fuck, driven, passionate, honest, caring, focused, determined, trustworthy, to see in me what I see in them, and help me by not being an asshole in the process while we get to know each other, and accept each other because of and despite the flaws we both know are there.  Until then, I will probably continue to be fucking clueless.

I plan to explore my cupcake tendencies further.  See how many ways there are to cupcake relationships that I have been guilty of.  Try to work my way out of them, and ask for people (read that as both friends and men) to go ahead and hit me upside the head with a 2 x 4 when they see me doing it.

Today, I am going to go get my toenails all done instead.  I hope there is a cupcake bakery near the salon.

Honey-Dos

I haven’t written a blog since July of 2015.  Yep, six months ago.

At my last posting I had just had my heart stomped at the end of a 9 month affair with someone that was not really every right for me, but who I loved just the same.  I don’t miss him, not really, at least not the actual him, but more what I loved about being inside of an “us”.  I realize I like the idea of being married or partnered, if not the actuality of being married, and want the stuff that goes with the partnership (and not just the sex, though…).

I got to have what I call a “husband” moment a few times recently.  By “husband” I mean that a man helped me with something man-like, and did it because I asked.  It was not that I could not have done it.  I could have.  I am actually really good at lots and lots of stuff that is traditionally male, and so are my girlfriends (we actually excel at this as a group, so this is not a feminist issue at all).  But there really is something kinda great about having a man in your life, outside of the bedroom, to just do stuff.

My daughter is working on a project that needs construction.  This involves power tools.  I own power tools.  I have a miter saw, a tile saw, a sander, a skil saw, a router and router table, and a wood lathe.  What she needed was a jigsaw.  I do not own a jigsaw.  So I asked a friend if he had one.  He did. He came over, brought his jigsaw and pack of saw blades, and cut the item she needed cut.  Could I have done it? Absolutely! Could I have just gone to the hardware store and purchased myself another power tool? You bet! The fact that he showed up, did it with me, and that we talked and laughed and worked as a team just because I asked is was what made it a husband moment.  I love him for it.

I have a queen-sized bed.  Well, really, I have a queen sized box spring and mattress on one of those metal Hollywood frames.  The frame is up on cinderblocks for the footing because I wanted the bed a little higher.  This, however, makes the mattress harder to turn and move, and the frame squeaks. I needed to turn the mattress, and tighten the screws.  So I asked a friend to help me. He did.  We moved the mattress, he moved the box spring, and with tools he carries in his car (people do this? Oh wait, um, men do this), he adjusted the frame, added a stabilizer, put felt pads on the bottom of the cinderblocks, and helped put the bed back together.  Could I have moved the bed? Yep, too easy.  Could I have found tools in my garage to tighten everything and add a bracket? Sure, no problem! The fact that he showed up, did it with me, and that we talked and laughed and worked as a team is what made it a husband moment.  And I love him for it.

A couple weeks ago, my son finally had the beginning of what I hope is his light bulb moment.  He has been struggling for a while with puberty, loss, existential thoughts of his place in the world, and boredom.  I am his mom, and though I get it that he is changing, I am still female, and even with a wonderful tribe of strong women, our estrogen is not really going to meet his testosterone needs. I needed a male just to talk to him, figure out what is going on, and try to explain it to me so I can participate.  So, I asked for help. And set up a Skype call to one of my best friends, a guy who understands my language, and could translate my son’s language for me.  After the video call, I got the debrief and heard, from a male point of view, what my son is saying and doing.  Could I have been there for my son for all the things listed? Of course, and I am, and always have been.  Could I have found a way to talk to my son the same way? Maybe. But my friend is male and that was the part that made the difference.  The fact that he showed up, did it with me, and that we talked and laughed and worked as a team is what made it a husband moment.  And I love him for it.

So, how does this translate in to my real world, and my desires?  I know that it means I know that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and my kids. I think it also means that I can recognize in myself that just because I am strong and able, doesn’t mean I can accept assistance.  I think it also means that I absolutely appreciate the things that only men in my life provide.  No, I am not changing my absolute knowledge that women are amazing and worthy and really do run the world with their energy and abilities and skills.  I know that, deep down, I have zero issues in getting things done when they need to be done. 

There is not neediness in the statement that I like the partnership that men provide me.  I love men.  I’d love to have one (even any of the ones listed above) in my life in a partnership beyond what they already provide.  I can see it, without any of the requirements to doing it in any traditional fashion, or even any of the moves to make it happen.  None of it is so pressing that I am worried about it, but it did make me realize that I like it.  I mean like in a way that makes me open to having partnership in a real way.  For the first time in a while (could it be six months?) this feels like an okay thing. It might just be happiness talking, or maybe just being more comfortable in my own skin to ask for help, but I like it.

If nothing else, it got me to write a blog. 

Emotional seaglass

I went for a walk on the beach this afternoon.  Seems like the usual thing to do when you end a relationship, it’s Father’s Day and your dad died 7 weeks ago, it is the Summer Solstice, and, in the absence of any clarity, you just keep moving. 

This is not a bash-my-ex kind of blog, not really.  Anyone that knows me will tell you that I write to release emotions, tell my story so that I can find my own journey and responsibility, learn, in some written flash of brilliant insight, and stop the spinning in my head that keeps me from taking it to the next level.  This should be like that (keeping fingers crossed) because really I am not clear, possibly about anything, and this is how I cope.

So I was walking on the beach at Surf and Tide.  A wonderful beach for families and bbqs and all the kinds of things that you would expect from a summer weekend when the weather is nice.  Low tide meant lots of things to look at, and since I was there to avoid families (feeling a little like I don’t have one now, both by design (the break up) and uncontrollable circumstances (my kids with their dad for the weekend, duh, and my first father’s day without my own dad) I wasn’t really in the mood to people watch.  I was in the mood to find seaglass.  Like a ton of it. Nothing says emotional stability like broken glass, right?  I needed to have something to use to slit my wrists or at least cut my foot.  Pain, I was looking for pain.  Feel anything, Elise, anything at all.  I hadn’t cried about any of it yet, and with my biggest fear always being that I will feel nothing, and no one will come get me because I will be invisible, this was a rather pathetic goal. Wallowing and shallow, and completely twisted in its fucked up kind of misery, but a goal.

So I rolled up my pant legs, took off my shoes, and started walking. No glass.  I kept walking, closer to the shoreline. No glass.  I went into the surf, took off my sunglasses so I could see the reflection of the light.  Still no glass.  Surf and Tide to Wharf #2, almost 2 miles and NO FUCKING GLASS.

What I did get was out of my head.  I couldn’t think my way through this.  I was smack raw in the middle of emotions I had been holding under for a really long time, and now, all I was getting was anger. No glass, and I had been looking.  Trying. Knowing it was out there, I just needed to be smarter about it, more careful about it, more sure about it.  And nothing.  Not one thing.  Empty beach, empty heart, emptiness that truly had been there for months.

On Friday, in an attempt to just be out of my office and away from my boss (a sleazy oily little man with zero integrity) I had attended a workshop billed as an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship.  Starting business, finding capital, blah blah blah.  If you look up Steve Blank, or Phil Randazzo, you will understand that there were going to be some heavy hitters, and I could learn a lot, if I cared.  I didn’t.  I just wanted an excuse to have my place of duty be somewhere else, and this was perfect. 

I knew I was in a place of transition with my job, my writing, my now-over relationship, but hadn’t any clue how to start the conversations necessary to make the leap to the next level.  How quickly or slowly I made that leap was entirely in my hands.  I was stuck in old patterns of thought, though I didn’t know it yet. Though by noon on Friday, in the middle of a small-business workshop, I had just listened to a speaker who had nothing to do with any business dealing, talking to us about clarity, and moving forward, and finding authenticity, and making decisions about relationships, and not settling.

I had a light bulb moment, with not many skills to act on it.  I had made a decision about my relationship needing to move into something else (I had already defined it as friendship in my head by the end of the talk) and while this was not really going to be a fun conversation, I knew both Jim and I would be happier about it if we could stay talking as openly and honestly as we had for the last nine months, and could become an amazing life long friendship.  I was excited.  Petrified, and confused, but excited.

Oh yeah, I guess I need to say something about my relationship at this point.  I have been in a relationship with what I can only describe as a complex man for the last nine months.  We met online, he asked me out, and we met three days later.  Just breakfast. No real touching, but the conversation and energy (in my heart) had me knowing I was already heading into something deeper than casual dating.  I also knew he was an alcoholic.  He admitted much later, after he had been sober for a few months, that our first few dates he had been pretty much drinking heavily.  I knew that.  It kept me at a distance, and I even wrote a blog about it in a couple months in (if you want to go back and find it, it is in Nov 2014) But he was changing, our conversations were becoming deeper, meaningful.  We stopped being guarded, if we ever actually were.  I was totally present, always authentic.  I never, not even once hid who I am from him.  Our dates became days.  Our days became weekends.  We didn’t do much more than cook or hang out, sometimes going here or there, but always there was conversation. Intimacy that rivaled anything I had ever done, and he said it was new and scary for him too.  The physical was a chore, neither one of us being what had been usual for past relationships, but it was good when it happened, and (again, in my heart) based in love and true affection, the way I had always thought long term relationships ended up with each persons desires ebbing and flowing, and negotiable.  I was liking it a lot, letting the love portion fill me up as the emotional intimacy grew. 

That probably would have been fine, but for the addiction.  Turns out that old relationships can be addictive, too.  Bad ones.  Ones that feel normal because it is all you had ever known.  Ones that you seek when emotional intimacy scares you, and the physical with the other person was the best thing about your world.  That happened in a full blown, and completely caught in lie two months ago.  I should have walked away then, when already I was compromising some my more intellectual desires for travel and adventure, and for shared reading, and for activism.  I had already convinced myself that I could do without those things because the man was kind and open and as we grew we would find out own paths both separately and together and start sharing support and love in whole new ways.  I was sure of it until that moment, the lie, and instead of being a fucking bitch, I listened and kept and open mind and found the time to admit my own struggles and found a level of forgiveness I didn’t even know I had. 

I know this now to be my codependency showing up in this relationship too, and I was determined not to go down that path.  Delusional somewhat, (okay, calling my own BS, completely delusional) but it was okay because I would talk with him, we would work it out because that was what love looked like in our world, and in the world I always thought I wanted to create inside of relationships, different from what I have ever done before.  The real me.  The trusting me.  The authentic me.  And sadly, in the process, I taught him how to treat me.  It became acceptable to lie, and then the lie became inevitable.  No matter what we talked about from that second on, the possibility to lie would always be there. And, because of fear, addiction, not moving forward on his own clarity, I became invisible.

Invisible?  Yeah.  I knew everything about this other woman in his life, and she knew nothing about me.  Well, maybe about my presence, kinda sorta, but nothing what-so-ever about the relationship we had created.  Nothing about the conversations. Nothing about the promises and commitments.  Nothing about plans, though vague, and had each of us committed to staying, to asking to stay, to not leaving out any conversation, about never being afraid, and showing up and making the emotional intimacy the strongest most important thing in our lives.  Creating bonds, that even if not clear, would be strong enough and we would build a friendship that would be able to weather anything just because it could.  I already knew that kind of emotionally intimate bond could happen, because I gratefully have one with someone else (who, when he reads this, and he will, will know how grateful I am).  So I was sure that all my effort, all my staying in truth and love was totally worth it, even if/when our relationship changed. 

That seems to not be that case on his end.  Seems, when it came to conversation he was having with this other woman, I meant nothing.  In the version she got, I was barely a friend.  We had never kissed. We had never touched.  We had never made love. Our conversations were shallow. His attraction to me was nonexistent. His words of commitment and love to me (and my children) had never happened.  I was completely invisible in his life. Unloved, unimportant, and unclaimed.

Whether or not any of that is actually true, I have no way of knowing. But what I do know is that on Friday I knew something had to change.  Something life changing.  Something about me, and I invited him along to join me in this leap forward.  A chance for us to get MORE emotionally entwined, but in a more healthy way, something new for both of us.  Something that gave me my visibility and dignity back, and allowed him to step up his vulnerability and truth, both.  Change. The next level. Clarity. Serenity.

Saturday morning, more of the misnamed entrepreneur seminar continued.  I had invited Jim, signed him up, almost begged him to come.  I knew something amazing was about to happen, and I wanted him to be part of it.  I love(d) him that much that even as I was becoming more clear that our relationship would be changing, I saw it as a positive, where we could both grow and understand and find clarity in our path.  I heard more words of inspiration about keeping yourself in light and honesty. I was sought out by a teacher/coach who listened to me for more than a half hour explain my fears and short comings and taking myself for granted an allowing that from other people.  I was taught words and techniques and feelings about how to improve my life right that minute with a tiny shift of the compass needle (and a little help from Jesus and some black magic) I would move my relationship, my thoughts, my life into a 100% better place, even if the change meant doing things differently.  I was clear for the frist time in months.  I knew.  I could not go back.  I was excited to share this with Jim. To help him grow, too.  To understand there is enough joy and light and happiness in the world for everyone, and we could both have it and still love each other.

As is true in my world for every time I am in transition, that did not happen.  In the course of one evening, one morning, and one short afternoon, both of our lives had changed.  I was moving out of codependency and towards more authenticity, and he had allowed the presence of the other woman to change his path away from his spoken choices. While I was seeking friendship, he was seeking dissolution.  Every conversation about growth together, every commitment we ever made to staying honest with each other, ever scared and unclear step that we had made together, was gone in one very pointed telephone conversation.  I was not given the chance to share everything I had just discovered, because he walked away.  His fear and insecurity and inability to change his past had just evaporated the us we had created.  I had a place of strength.  He had gone back to his past. He did not give me the courtesy I had asked that we talk and share in person.  He emotionally vomited all over me, and did so without any courage, over the phone within earshot of the woman who was now in control of his world.  The selfish alcoholic he had been 6 months ago was back, even if he hadn’t picked up.  I was just one more lie.

So all this came to me as I sat there at the end of the beach, angry, without seaglass or any other implements to commit suicide (ok, I am not suicidal.  This is a blog, and I am a writer who has some emotional license, get real folks).  And as I started to cry, realizing I hadn’t yet, I looked up and saw a single shiny piece of copper amber glass, not two inches from my foot.   I picked it up.  I laughed.   There was my sign, right in the fucking middle of my path, that I was on the right journey.  I got up.  Stopped my head spin right then, and used the gifts I had been given over the previous day to steady me.  Strengthen me. Lift me.  Reframe my way of thinking. 

And I did.  My reframing got me to where my father was not suffering any more and could be, if I was of a heaven and hell kinda nature, be holding my son in some really comfy chair in the pasture of forever.  My reframing got me to where I could see Jim as flawed and worthy, but not someone who could meet my needs, maybe not ever, as long as he keeps himself in darkness, and I don’t have the ability to stay there. I like the light, it is not an illusion.  I know better.  And I could also see how his absence in my path, though heartbreakingly sad in this moment (and it is, I am kinda a mess missing him, if I am honest), just created a space for the next level person to occupy.  I had no ability to invite that into my world with my honesty if I was too busy keeping closed with me moving pieces, that didn’t quite work, around hoping to find the fit.  I will be worth it, and not invisible.

On the walk back to the beginning of the beach, along the same exact path I had come, I found dozens of pieces of glass.  Shiny. Easy to see.  Right there in my path.  I did not even have to look for them.  It was easy. Showing me that I need to remember that even things right in front of you can’t be seen without the right mindset.  And that once I change my game, change what is acceptable, the path becomes inevitable.  A whole collection of seaglass to prove it.

once you know...

I have a weight issue.

Before you think this is a whine about how people see me, or some sad tale of discrimination, it is not.  This is my story, but only as it relates to the way I am trying to live my life in complete honesty, completely in the present, more so than ever before, and how this one issue had (has) me living with fear, clouding my thoughts, and even running to a place that could best be described as hiding. 

I don’t like hiding, though as I tell this story, you might get some of why I did, and why I could very easily do it again.  I own it, I am fucked up. This is my shit.  All laid on the table.  If I can get all philosophical and empowered for a second, I am going to quote Maya Anjelou and say I did the best I could, and when I knew better I did better.  This is part of my doing better, more bricks and matches, building strong places to be, and burning the rest.

At my current weight, I am still a little over 50 pounds over the absolute top of the scale for “healthy” weight for my height and age.  This is actually a slight point of pride, because there was a time (admittedly while taking large amounts of hormonal fertility drugs, injected daily) that I was a little over 100 pounds over that top number.   No praise for the weight loss at all because honestly most of it came off when my marriage ended and I stopped taking the meds. Oh, and I stopped eating because everything made me want to throw up.  I was a mess, and only by the Universe’s grace did I not disappear completely.

I was a fat kindergartener. It was the first time I had the word obese put on my medical charts, when, at my 6 year old check up, I was 62 pounds, when the national averages chart had kids my age around 42 pounds.  Yep, 20 pounds over what I should have been.  I was a popular kid, had tons of friends, was already smarter (as measured by some other national averages chart) than most of the kids (okay, all of the kids).  I learned right then that I could hide behind being smart and clever, and if someone (even as an elementary schooler) would say something I didn’t like, I could burn them to the ground with any one of a dozen things to make them feel like idiots.

I didn’t like that about myself even back then, and changed the whole mean kid thing by junior high, when all of a sudden having people (read that as boys) actually like me for being a nice person seemed important.  I learned really quickly that if I made friends with the popular boys by getting them through their classes, then I would never be picked on for my weight.  I was strong, and semi athletic (I got chosen pretty quickly for teams), and had the backing of the academically challenged boys on my side.  I never did their homework for them, or in any way cheated, but I did tutor them, teach them on the side without anyone knowing, praised them completely, building up their self-esteem as the competent leaders I always saw in them.  For my effort, I had all the boys as friends, protectors, confidants. What I didn’t have was any boys paying attention to me in a way that let me be a girl.  I was already invisible that way, and the few crushes I admitted to having in a spark of complete honesty was always (almost without fail) met with “You are great, really, but….”.  I knew, already, that boys would always see my outsides first, and not see any more of my insides than I showed them.  Huge huge walls.

Around this time, I was also placed in a “program” for fat kids.  Once a week, my mom took me a meeting with other fats kids at the hospital.  There we were supposed to talk about nutrition, about having a good body, about how our eating patterns would get us judged, about shame and worthiness.  I don’t remember ever once talking about what we could actually do to get our parents (who all seemed to have food, alcohol, drug, or control issues) to buy something other that crap food.  It was 1978.  I drank real sugar Kool-aid and ate butter laden foods, and had a mom with completely messed up ideas about starvation and food-waste.  My dad was fat, I was fat, and my brother was stick thin because he refused to eat most of the time.  What I do remember about the class was that we weighed in every week, and as a reward for losing a ¼ pound at any given time, we were allowed to color a section of a drawing on a paper that would show our progress.  The most sick thing about that was that the drawing was of puffy bubble letters that spelled the word “FAT”. I am not sure I ever completed a whole page to fill in the drawing before my mom made me stop going because clearly her daughter was too unwilling to change enough to lose weight.

Unwilling.  Yeah, that became a pretty big accusation.  It must have been my stubborn streak and my complete disregard for everyone else’s feelings that kept me fat. I was told that over and over again.  I would be so pretty if I just lost weight.  I was so smart, too bad I was so fat.  If I loved you, I would just lose the weight so that you could be happy, be willing to be around me, and maybe, just maybe, love me back.  My mom, my sex partners, my husband, all let me be just my body, no matter how much my heart was breaking.

So I played the game.  If they were going to only see my packaging, I would not show them anything else.  My fat suit became my justification for no one ever being allowed to know me.  I built walls and told myself that I was safe.  A total fucked up lie, but my lie, and I was good with it.

Until I wasn’t.  Until the love I was giving to my husband became a weapon of verbal abuse.  I have written tons about this before, about my own sickness and depression, and how I allowed myself to stay there in some messed up safety net.  I didn’t want to have to change.  I didn’t want to have to think something new.  I had hit my own type of pathetic bottom, and finally left the marriage, battered and bruised and hurting, and no tools what-so-ever to cope.

So, I went back to old patterns. Give the relationships (read that as men) what they wanted, and they never had to see me.  And I could wear my fat suit, and justify being not seen, and I could just become whatever they wanted or needed.  A total fucked up lie, but again, my lie, and I was good with it.

Until I wasn’t. 

For a long time, I just did not get into any relationships. I recently had the opportunity to talk to some of the men I had been doing this with. I asked them “Tell me something you know about Elise?”  The answer varied.  Two men said I gave good blow jobs (Was that a compliment?).  One said that he liked that I didn’t mind that he left after sex (I did mind, but I never told him that.).  The most complex conversation (with a really intelligent man who I was fucking every other weekend) was about how he thought I was great, but that he never knew who I was, and that even when he asked me to move to another state with him, he knew it was only to meet his needs since that was all I ever did for him, and he had gotten used to me being that for him.  I told him about being told I give good blowjobs, and he laughed, and said yeah, duh, but that he wondered if that was just me hiding some more.  He never even knew my kids’ names.  We had “dated” off and on for 7 months.  He knew almost nothing about me.

Back when he left, my world started to change slightly.  I started to work on myself.  I started to reach out to make the relationships (not with men) start to work.  I opened my heart up to friends and started being super honest about everything.  I started working on building my village and finding support for my failings, and letting people call me out on my bullshit.  I got lucky, blessed even, that in that building of friendships some small shift in the way I saw myself changed, and all of a sudden my body was not the most important aspect.  My mind and heart, and dare I say my love, took over.  I thought, for the first time in a long time (could it have that time of recovery since my divorce?) that everything I felt about my body would and could be over ridden by enough love.

And I opened my heart to that complete possibility.  If you need to know the details, go read my blog titled “cracks in the mortar” about falling in love, and being really good with who I was, who I am inside of love.  I was free to love completely.  It was amazing, and has been amazing, to feel that kind of release of me not hiding.  All in.

But, back to my weight.  Very, very recently, that nasty little issue cropped again.  I am fat.  Let me say it again, at my current weight, I am still a little over 50 pounds over the absolute top of the scale for “healthy” weight for my height and age.  What the fuck.  No matter how much love I have to give, no matter how honest I am inside of relationship, I will still be fat, and that either needs to change, or I need to go back into hiding.

For the first time, maybe ever, I know better.  If I am going to live in complete honesty and continue to build real relationships, I need to want to do something different.

And for the last ten days, I have.  With the help of two serendipitously coincidental events, I have had yet another small shift in my world.  I admitted, with some tears and some fear, to the best friend I have ever had, that I needed some accountability to keep my health and my body from being yet another time that I go into hiding.  At the same time, I had some professional photos taken.  The photographer has always had a gift for finding the most amazing light and angles that leave the viewer breathless, and the subject in disbelief. 

Out of the set, one photo (of a whole group of amazing photos) still leaves me feeling the most beautiful I think I have ever felt.  You cannot see my face at all, but the front of my body, nude but for a silk robe, from my neck to the middle of my body.  My breasts are partially exposed, but not in a rude or vulgar way.  What makes this photo different is the other participant.  A man, who for all reasons unknown, I have been 100% honest with.  I have not hidden from him, not even once.  My heart completely open, completely vulnerable, completely willing to love him with no expectation of him ever feeling anything in return.  But in the less than five minutes that it took to get that photo, he was present to me, too, and it was caught on film. 

Knowing now, that in this moment of my life, my body is important.  I never knew that.  It has so often in my past been a source of cruelty and judgment, a tool to control, and a justification that I could hide behind. But, because of this small shift, Maya Angelou has hit me upside my head with one of my own bricks and said “enough”.  Take off your fat suit, get your shit together, and do better.  Not just the weight, but the whole emotional fucked up blockage that the fat suit brings. 

Okay, for the self love people out there, who are about to bash my thinking, don’t worry.  This is not an attempt at becoming thinner or measuring my body by someone else’s design.  I think I it is just me thinking that I want something different.  I WANT to feel the way the photo made (still makes) me feel about myself.  Loved. Honored. Beautiful. Worthy.

Now, what am I going to do about it? Well, I am going to do what I have been doing successfully with my emotions for a while now.  I am going to ask for help.  I am going to take every bit of advice I can learn, and I am going to trust the people in my world to love me.  I am ten days (and 6 pounds down) already.  See the photo below and know that it, and some amazing support, might just make all the difference.  Patience for sure, and time.  It will not be easy, I have no doubt, but that is okay. Everything worth having is worth working for, and I know that better now. Turns out, love is like that.   So maybe it was not a weight issue at all.

Hot Dogs and Burnt Bacon

A song came on the radio as I was driving to work this morning.  It talked about how if only the good die young, then he (the singer) would outlast them all.  This sorta goes with my theory of myself, that I have reserved seating on the party bus to hell (complete with a bbq, and vodka Jell-O shooters, and bacon, lots of bacon), and have applied, with conscious effort it seems, to be the intoxicated designated driver for this ride at the end of the world.

But I know that isn’t really true.  If there is a Hell, and no one actually has me convinced yet that I need to be worried about this, then the concept that I have been so terrible in this world that I would end up there just doesn’t fit.

Trust me that this is not me blowing sunshine up my own ass, or believing my own PR bullshit.  It is just a realization that I have already done both the Catholic acts of contrition, and the rites of forgiveness with enough programs, steps, and friends to know that the past does not get to define me.  I choose.  No fear.  All in.

Last night, in a rather amazing conversation (though why ALL of these conversations happen late at night while standing in the cold I have no idea. Worth it, but damn, couldn’t they happen at like noon, on a beach, with mai tais?) I admitted something that I hold really close to my heart.  It is about trust and the relationship that trust plays in my world, and in the love I have for people. And, frankly, what I know I am capable of in the really dark part of who I am.

Right up until the end of my first marriage, trust had never been an issue.  I have never been the “jealous-type”, always knowing that I had very little say over whether or not a man in my life stepped out of his committed words or not, and that my response to it was more often me blaming myself than to ever risk hurting him in any way. This is something I still struggle with, the feeling of never being good enough (or even just “enough”, without even considering the word “good”) while standing right in front of someone screaming notice me, notice me, notice me.  I have issues, clearly.  But trust was never one of them.  I either trusted you, or I didn’t. There was no gray scale here.  I suppose, with time and practice I might be able to learn to trust someone again depending on the infraction, but for the most part, I know when I won’t trust you.  The trust was always immediate, naive maybe, but never with any fear or reservation. Given.  Nothing else required.

Most people think that trust is earned.  I think that is one way to get it, say from and employer or from a paid professional.  A working relationship based on experience, a little forethought, and a great deal of follow through.  I don’t think trust inside of relationships works that way.

Back to my ex husband for a minute, and the whole conversation that brought him up at all.  When my ex and I split, two things had just occurred.  First, I found out that he had put his dick in another chick without the benefit of any form of appropriate protection against anything, and they were now set to spend the next nine months (or 18 years, depending on your perspective) with the consequences of their choice.  Second, he had left, taken nothing with him, and was now asking to come back, after asking me for a divorce based on whatever kind of guilt and desire was spinning in his head at the time.  My heart, unequivocally wanted this.  I wanted him in my life, back as my sweet and wonderful husband who made me stuffed French toast and knew my favorite color and left his socks next to the shower.  But that guy.  He was already gone. Because my husband could never have cheated on me, and the guy that was left in my world, had.  I loved my husband deeply, even in the middle of all of it, but knew that there was no way, way down where it counts, that I would ever trust him again.

I know, back to trust.  So when I say I knew that I would never trust him again, even as I loved him, I knew exactly what that meant.  It meant that I would torture him for being unfaithful.  I would make him pay for his mistake in a thousand different ways, even if I forgave him, and right then that was a huge if. In the future I imagined I might have questioned all the money transactions he made.  I might have questioned any overtime work he did.  I might have doubted his Christmas list, his choices from the Chinese restaurant menu, and the way he tied his shoes.  I would never have ever let him forget it that I was hurt, that I was scared, that I was lonely and unable to forgive myself for not being enough for him to hold on to me.  I would, everyday, then make him believe that mistakes cannot ever be forgiven, love cannot ever be given freely, that trust was not anything he deserved, and basically that he was worthless in my eyes.  The same kind of worthless that I was in my own eyes.  I had failed. And I would never have let him forget it, because truth is, I didn’t trust myself right then.  I didn’t trust myself to be faithful.  I didn’t trust myself to not give into whatever immediate desire I felt, because I couldn’t see a future.  It was dark.  And I knew, even as I made love to him that last time (which isn’t quite accurate, because it could best be described as a fuck, because there was not a whole lot of love involved) and let his arms wrap around me, I was already lonely. Grieving the man I adored who no longer existed.

So back to the conversation (you remember, the one in the cold, without mai tais), I figured out something about myself.  I no longer use trust as a weapon.  Somewhere along the path I have been on, my  belief in trust came back, and with it, the freedom to give it freely.  To trust and love without expectation, because I had learned, maybe on a really hard road, that I trusted myself again. 

The man that was there in the conversation, holding my hand, just as cold, just as present, just as vulnerable as I was, deserved more from me than my fear about ever really trusting anyone.  He already has his own demons, his own doubts about misplaced trust, his own reserved ticket on the bus to hell.  I am sure my ex husband had them, way back then, but I could not see them.  I was too lost in my own head and fears, that I couldn’t find love in his quiet words asking to come back.  This time, quietly, I am getting off the bus.  I am inviting everyone else to get off, too.  I am worthy.  The man standing in the cold with me is worthy.  Trust can be given and received, even in the middle of doubt and mistakes, even if the only person trusting me is me. 

I think am going to stop listening to the radio, or at least get a better playlist. And I am going to live a really really long time.  The future is fine, because the present is fine, and I kinda like it here.  Yep, turns out love and trust is like that.  I’ll bring the bbq tongs.

Is there an off switch? An off switch would be good.

I think I did it again.

I have been letting my heart lead, openly, and without any walls for a while now.  Like maybe 4 or 5 months.  In the reality that is my world, 4 or 5 months in NOT a long time.  I have been alive for almost 49 years.  I have children who are 11 and 13 years, respectively.  I was married once for almost 7 years.  I was *married* (not legally, but same difference) once for over 10 years.  I have been split form that same non-husband for over 5 years, the same amount of time I have been dealing with courts, and dating bullshit, and figuring out depression and dependency.  So you would think that maybe I would know that things in my world need time, and space, and patience, and that maybe, just maybe, I am moving in my head and heart too fast.  5 months?  Yeah, that is just a tiny sliver of time. Patience.

I went to lunch yesterday with a woman who has been in the *shoes* of my world in the most literal sense.  She was involved for years in the same relationship we both left, just a decade difference.  She understands, completely, that there are things inside that relationship and that person that we loved, and still find attractive.  Not the person.  He is toxic. But the attraction to who and what each of us believed him to be as we saw him.  It was, in both of our opinions, something worth having in new people, because the good qualities really were attractive, even if the person wasn’t. I don’t want to lose that piece of knowledge.

So I find myself thinking a lot about what I find attractive, what I know is good for me, and how to be vulnerable enough without losing myself in the process.  Please note, I am talking specifically about men here.  Men I want in partnership in my world.  I have an amazing troupe of people, women and men both, that are friends.  I have a really solid core group of people who I know I share emotional intimacy with, even on a deep deep level. The part that I have been vulnerable and open to is the desire to share all of that with a man I can also be physical with, enjoy his bed and body, and know that when I am not at my best (stupid, fat, and ugly, and, more recently, deeply lonely and missing being touched) he can be my soft place to land.

When I say I miss being touched, I probably should explain.  Sex with my exes never was an “issue”. We had lots of it. Daily for both of my marriages.  I have written about this before, so if you have read it, you will understand that.  This has almost nothing to do with being touched.  I want to be held.  I want to be kissed in a way that is both desire and comfort. I want to have my hand held, and my tears wiped, and  feel safe and warm and loved, even as I am falling apart.  I want to not be judged for it when I feel needy.  And by judged, I totally mean that inside my head.  My worthiness in someone else’s eyes.  I am good enough to be fucked, not good enough to be loved or touched in a way that belongs to me.  I want to be told, in all the ways available through words and actions and touch, that I am important. (Fucked up much?) How does it feel to want? 

I am sure this is part of my current spin.  The timing of everything feels so good when I stay in the present.  I am not jealous or clingy.  I am not in a hurry, or planning my future.  I am reveling in happiness and only making plans that enhance that.  I have actually gotten really good at that in the last few years (see, measurement in years again, damn) and even my children know that I am always present, with them as things emerge and evolve. 

So why the doubt?  I am important in a lot of different ways to a lot of different people.  I am the stable and resilient rock for my children.  Anyone who has ever met them will tell you that I rock that shit, and my kids are amazing little monsters growing into amazing people.  I can model for them and provide for them the strength I cannot seem to find in myself.  I am a confident and competent employee.  I know my job, can facilitate growth in others, and accept responsibility by figuring out what needs to be done, and just doing it.  I am sure my employer recognizes this, though they don’t pay me enough to justify some of the work they assign me.  I am just that good at it.  I am a pretty good friend, all in all, though I hope to continue to grow and learn.  People before things, and I always strive to understand and participate, and love with an open mind and heart.  I can honestly say that the mistakes I make are never ones of intentional neglect, so I ask forgiveness if you are reading this and think I have injured you through my own selfishness.  I am just an idiot sometimes, with a way of saying shit without a filter.  So again, why the doubt, when I am really, truly, fucking awesome!

Because every single time I “knew” that the man in my life was exactly where I should be, happy, I was blindsided by an absolute stop.  A boyfriend of almost two years, that I had spent the day with in absolute bliss, who left in the middle of the night.  A husband I made love to in the morning, and taught how to give me the shots for the fertility meds we were using to try to have a baby, who asked for a divorce the same day because he just found out his mistress was pregnant.  The father of my children, and a decade long relationship, on a date to talk about love and the future and holding each other as the best part in each other’s lives (my agenda for the evening, clearly, being in love and all, even after a decade), who told me he had no issues with getting married, he just did not want to marry me.

So back to the attraction part.  Every one of those relationships had something in common.  I wanted them.  I was attracted to all the same things.  Stability, focus, honesty. They each had some quiet places that felt contemplative, some energy that felt exciting and fresh (yes, even after years), and some potential and openness to growth and understanding whether they were actually working on it or not (and usually not, but that is a different blog).  This is about me.  My wants and desires in the face of extreme self-doubt.  I have decided not to beat myself up for wanting this, for wanting a partner that not only has all the things that I am attracted to, but a complete openness and willingness/desire to share that with ME. Again, this is where I freak out. 

Wouldn’t it just be easier to be NOT vulnerable? Not open? Not willing?  Shouldn’t I just tell the man (that I am attracted to for all the right reasons) and that I have been doing this new found patience and openness with that “Hey, yeah, everything is going just fine, but that means it is all gonna hit rock bottom any day now, so I am just gonna check out now, ‘kay?” because I have zero experience with it working.  I might as well just shut off now because any minute he is going to figure out I am actually a basketcase and run screaming.  Or worse (as has been the case before) is just going to be done in a way that I won’t see coming.  The one that says I am not enough and proves it with vacancy.  Self-fulfilling prophecy I don’t know how to control.  And I am scared.  Not scared of him.  He is great in ways he does not even realize and that I have no word for (and I always have words). But scared that in the process of feeling all of this I am going to go missing.  Scared that I will crawl back into feeling nothing because all the other emotions are so strong, so powerful, and (fuck) so new.  Just 4 or 5 months.  Nothing at all.  I am hoping for years to feel it, without shutting down, because I let myself be here this time, eyes wide open.  

So (friends, lovers, family) please be patient with me as I do this again, but differently, and with more love.  And kind.  And honest. And let me be a wreck knowing that it is my wreck.  If I shut off, come after me, because honestly, I am totally worth it. Right now, present, I am totally worth it.