Back to our regularly scheduled writing.

It is the middle of the night.  Like insomnia Hell.  Too many thing rattling in my brain. If I were to write a blog right now, and I am still not sure this will end up as a blog, I would start by telling you that I HAVE been writing, just not here, and not about my life.  Maybe that is a problem. I guess I am about to fix that.  After midnight is a strange creature.

I have been working on short stories and novellas.  I hope to submit them, eventually, and that portion of my creative juices have been all over the map, much like my life, and I have been enjoying the process, for the most part, when it happens at like normal hours.  No such luck today, but whatever. 

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I have succeeded in registering.  That means only 10,000 words to go and I have more of the never-ending-novel done.  This is completely unrealistic, and deliciously un-doable, but I will be attempting it anyway. Not tonight, because the spinners are taking all my time.

So,  THAT writing process will not happen at all it I don’t get some of the things spinning in my head and heart out on paper first, thus, this blog. So here goes, a sorta stream of consciousness about where I am at.

I was dating a very *nice* man.  Yes, I met him online.  He is cute, has beautiful blue eyes (they melt me), has a job, is buying his house, has grown children, and likes puppies.  He drinks his coffee with cream, brings his dog breakfast leftovers, and knows how to fix anything on a car. He is a good kisser (more about this in a second), and is a gentleman when it comes to things like opening doors and paying the check (I tried to pick it up, he wouldn’t let me). I met him at his house one time, and (found out) he smokes heavily (like lighting one cigarette with the other one), his house smells like he chain smokes, with the additional lingering smell of “medical marijuana” (his roommate’s) mixed with stale beer (his, in bottles all over the counters and kitchen table). I have only been to his house that once, because previous to that one time, I had met him for dates at public locations, he didn’t smoke in front of me (never mentioned it actually, or had it listed on his dating profile), brushed his teeth and wore clean clothes,  making the kissing at the end of the dates very nice.  During those times he smelled like soap and laundry detergent, and coffee (we usually met for breakfast), and that good kind of man smell that goes with nice, hard working guys.  The time at his house was the most turned off (I didn’t even kiss him goodbye, and I liked kissing him) I have been in a really long time. It made me sad and unable to really talk to him because I haven’t yet figured out exactly how to tell him that I liked that being near him (yes, just the one time, the other times away from his house were fine)  but now it makes me want to take a shower.  Without him. At my own house. Immediately. I think I was in shock.  It goes with how much more I must really need to work on, because I can’t accept it, and don’t want to even try to move forward with it.  He has texted me every day since then, and I have answered, reminding him just how much I hate text conversations, and could he please call later that night after 9pm (kids in bed, priorities) and we can talk then.  He starts these texts (yes, every day) with “Sorry I couldn’t call last night.  Had a couple beers and fell asleep watching a movie”. I want to tell him why I won’t be seeing him again, but not via text. So I guess I have breakfast with him one more time. Publicly. No kissing.  I know this sounds like I am a bitch, but it would make me crazy on about 100 different levels to never be able to go to his house (presumable for sex, eventually, which would be a turn off, sorta defeating the whole thing, right?), and I don’t want to change him at all. I don’t even want to try to live with it.  I know, bitch.  But I have done this already, both the expecting a guy to change AND the saying nothing about it but living with it.  I am not saying that relationships aren’t compromises, but if something as basic as smoking and drinking is the thing that turns your partner off, shouldn’t you just acknowledge it and move on.  Politely (though how the hell I say “I’m sorry, can’t kiss you anymore, or come to your house, because you kinda smell bad.” is beyond me). 

I totally know that I need to be okay with this decision, letting go and all, so read on.

  

There is another man I met recently.  Not online.  Not in a bar, though we were drinking.  The conversation was funny, interesting, easy, flirty, and we both mingled, talked to other people, had a great time the whole evening. I stole his Karate Kid button from the front of his shirt, and he kissed me good night.  It made me feel tingly.  I know, that sounds so teenager, but I don’t have a better word to describe it.  I am sure he has zero interest in going out with me, and we didn’t exchange numbers or anything, so it is kinda moot, but it reminded that I love that feeling.  The easy attraction.  The laughter and no jealousy.  The end of a really good evening, and the idea that it could be that easy all the time.

I miss that.

Some of you will read this and think what a pathetic loser that sounds like.  Giving up a guy who is interested in you because it doesn’t feel right, and feeling squishy over someone who doesn’t know you exist in the real world.  But it doesn’t sound pathetic to me.  It sounds, for the first time in a long time, as NOT desperate.  That if I really thought about it, I want someone in my life who makes me tingle without trying.  Maybe it’s not the guy with questionable taste in 1980’s movies paraphernalia, but it is not the guy with the pot-smoking roommate, either. 

And it is not a bad thing that I want it.  I want someone who meets my values, my interests, my background, my work ethic, my desires, my past choices, my beliefs, and my plans for the future.  Is it really too much to ask to meet someone who has not been arrested for DUI (I never have been arrested, is it really that hard?); or who doesn’t borrow money from his parents to pay his electricity bill (I haven’t done that in almost 30 years); or who votes (yeah, like for President) and doesn’t think you are wasting your time when you do; or has a passport (because it is an important document for things like, um, travel); or who has books on a shelf anywhere in his house (books he might actually have read)?  I can do all of that for myself, so why would I want anything less from a partner?  Why would they want anything less for theirs?  I WANT the conversation and I want the lust.  I want the giggles and I want the shoulder.  I don’t want someone just to sleep with, but someone to wake up with.  I want someone who I love and trust when we aren’t sleeping together .  I want a best friend who is also a lover.  A lot to ask, but why not?  The other way hasn’t worked, and I’ve end up feeling stressed about not getting enough, or frustrated by giving too much.  And since I am clearly single, and not really that sad about it, why is picking something better than what I have had a bad idea.  The worst that could happen is that I would still be single, duh, and make choices for myself that I get to enjoy. 

But I would watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Maybe while writing, since, no doubt, this whole blog was just to kill time (and clear my head) instead working on my novel.  A little over 1400 words, too.  Just about what I would need to write daily for NaNoWriMo to have it matter. Good job, Elise, now that you are not spinning stuff in your head, maybe a good short story is in order. Or sleep, whichever.

Green is the new Black

This morning, when I saw my daughter after her weekend with her father, she ran up to me and gave me a big hug.  She then pulled me aside and whispered “Mom, I am wearing a new bra.”

As a woman, I totally understand how new bras make you feel.  Pretty, worthy, flirty.  Do I dare say perky?  They are expensive items that are often rare in a poor girl’s world.  I was totally happy for her.  She picked out a totally appropriate bra for her age and size.  She is 12.  This is not her first bra; she has been “developing” for over a year, and the “first bra” ritual was over a year ago.  The one she showed me, and the two she described, were pretty cotton,  no push-ups or lacey things, and the exact right size for her long and lean, but growing body.

Her excitement was palpable.  I completely understood.

So it took every bit of my energy and theater skills to not sink in utter desperation that she did this not with her dad, but with her dad’s wife.

I am going to out-myself right this second and say that my main emotion was a kind of seriously fucked up jealousy.  Not just envy.  This was a total green-eyed monster bitch that almost made me pull out an nail file and sharpen my nails.  How the fuck did the psycho bitch my ex fucking married end up having any kind of girl bonding moment with MY daughter?  I mean, how the fuck does that happen?  And why the fuck did my daughter go with that bitch anyway?  Isn’t buying a bra (not the give-me-money kind of buy, THAT would have been acceptable) the kind of thing you do either alone, with your mom, or with someone you are having fun with (girlfriends and lovers are in the category)?  So what the fuck. How was this not something I was a part of.  I am her fucking mom.  

 My.Fucking.Job.She.Is.My.Fucking.Daughter.So.Hands.Off.Bitch.

Yes. Thank you.  That was my rant.  I felt every single bit of that rage kind of emotion in the first five second.  And then, I bit my tongue, told my daughter how pretty she was and that she made a good choice, and choked back the absolute knowledge that other people get a piece of her and I get no say. Not one tiny bit.  She gets to pick who and what she wants in her life, and I get to stand back and watch.  I can choose to either be the supportive mother I hope I am modeling (93% of the time), or I can be the controlling, angry, mean, psycho that reared her ugly fangs before getting a grip (and a clue) and taking a stab at the highroad.

So in the 15 seconds of ugly, and the five hours since of it rattling in my brain, I came to conclusion that kinda startled me (yeah, what delusional world was I living in?) and maybe made me grow up just a little.  I figured out that my daughter gets to have her own life (duh!) but that maybe, just maybe, I get my own life, too.  She can figure out what she wants, who she chooses to get it from, how the interactions go, whom she trusts, why someone is in her life, and what her own boundaries are.  And, wow, if I can get past my own fucked up head, so do I.

She is clearly handling this better than I am, the letting go of other people’s choices that have nothing to do with me.  I still crave consistency and control, left over insecurity from the chaos that was my relationship with my daughter’s father.  I wrap myself so tightly into the identity of her (and her brother’s) mother from a time when if I did not have that identity, I surely would have spun off the planet into some dangerous nebula of toxic gases, leaving in my wake a type of destruction that only addicts and asylum patients can relate to. (You did read my rant above, right?  Yeah, Jack Nicolson’s got nothing on me some days.)

I will go home tonight, and do the good mom thing, and fix dinner, and do laundry, and read over homework.  I will play some board game, and read to them, and talk about our days.  I may tell my daughter of my feelings, admit my weaknesses, but probably not.  I think I will also text some friends, read some porn, watch an R rated movie with my headphones, and paint my toenails, and try, somewhere in the midst of all of that, to keep trying to find my identity, and not be afraid to have it be something else, that letting go of the fear might just help me find another place to hang on.  Maybe that next place will be kinder, and feel like a star instead of a blackhole. 

I also think I will buy myself a new bra.

A stronger place

A week from today, my sister comes to California. 

I will see her.  I don’t yet know how I will react.

The story, for those that don’t already read my blog and have heard about it is that I have three sisters, and three brothers.  As an adopted child, I never even knew about five of these siblings until I was in my late 20’s, just the one I consider my actual brother, raised in the same house, also an adoption.

The ones I was not raised with live in Germany.  I don’t know them, not really. I met one of my sisters, the same one that is coming next week, 11 years ago.

This is where my story gets to be rated as drama.

Back 11 years ago, when my sister decided to visit from Germany, I had only been talking to *that* family for about 3 years.  This had been through letters and emails.  We had talked on internet chat, and once, a phone call.  We had exchanged pictures and polite Christmas cards. The sister that was the most in contact (and eventually the one that came to visit) was naturally the one that has the best English skills, and the best access to computers.  It was exciting to talk to her, learn about the way she and my other siblings grew up, and had I not been adopted, would have been a part of.  The idea of meeting, in person, was the most perfect thing ever.

She came to visit when I was still married.  I also happened to be 7 months pregnant with my youngest child.  I was in my deliciously and delusionally happy phase of my relationship, with a toddler who made me smile every second of the day, and having an easy pregnancy even with my own deep-seated fears about death of a baby, and the unreconciled depression I had not yet dealt with from the stillbirth of my first son 3 years earlier.  I was happy to be entering this new relationship with a sibling, and introducing her to my family and friends, not to mention my husband and daughter,  and it was fitting in perfect with the way I thought I wanted my life.  It seemed like my trust and fear issues were being resolved in one planned 16 day vacation.  I was in heaven.

The first two weeks were delicious.  My husband and I had to work during the day, each for a few hours, me at my interpreting job, him at his office supply job, and my daughter went to her grandparents, while my sister borrowed my car and did all her exploring.  In the evening we went to dinner, or cooked, or went to friends, just like we did any other time, and she just came along.  We played with clothes and make-up and giggled.  We dressed my daughter (then only 18 months old) in funny outfits and went for walks. 

About 5 days in, she told me about her day at the beach, and about a man she met there, and how she was going back the next day to see him, and maybe they would have lunch.  I listened intently and a bit jealously because he seemed divine, and a summer fling would have been just my speed when I had been single.  I did not begrudge her anything because she had already told me about the very recent and tragically painful end (like 6 weeks before her vacation) of her 7 year long marriage to her first love.

So maybe you all saw this coming, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The man she met “at the beach” was my husband.  The time they spent together was time he secretly took off of work.  It was not until months and months later, after she had left, we had started counseling, and she met someone else did I really even begin to understand the depth of the betrayal.  He told me about it on the drive home from the airport when we dropped her off, and he could not stop crying.  He told me about it again when I found the emails he sent asking her to come back.  He told me again when he said it was all my fault for being so stupid fat and ugly, and her being so beautiful and smart and perfect, the he could not control himself.  He told me again when the $347 dollar phone bill arrived and I refused to pay it. I gave him a kind of ultimatum that said if she came back, I would leave, and take my beautiful daughter, and my pregnant-fat-ass-soon-to-be-son away, and that she could have him, but that no, I had zero interest in seeing either one of them again if that was their choice.  I did all this of course while begging him to pick me, telling him I would do better to make him happy, get thinner, have more sex, love him.

 They carried on via email and chat for several months after she left.  Then she met someone, and wanted it all to stop, and asked me to tell him to leave her alone.   I ignored the request, and let her deal with it on her own because by then I had a newborn and a serious depression taking all my time. I don’t think I ever really forgave my husband, even with the hours of counseling, and weekends away trying to be together.  I hid a lot of it, maybe for survival, because I never stopped being blamed for his infidelity.

She and I have never talked about it since then, not really.  She went on to marry the guy who she met after leaving, and having a daughter herself, and having that same husband cheat on her and leave her.  She has remarried again, her third, and together they are the ones coming to the area for their vacation.

My marriage ended five years ago.  I still have trust issues as some of the men I have dated will attest to. I am fine with that because sometimes it has helped me see the red flags I would have never noticed in my pre-affair days.  I am stronger because of it in some ways.

What I do next I am not sure.  I don’t even know what she and I will talk about, or even how much time we will spend together.  She contacted me, and asked to see me, which she didn’t have to do.  California is a big state and she could have avoided me without my effort, so I am trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that she is making some kind of amends.  I have yet to figure out what I want to say, because maybe it is too late.

My daughter, now 12, and my son, now 10, get to meet their cousin, now 9, and if nothing else, that is a good thing.  They just got swept in the wake and have no responsibility here except to themselves.  I am good with that, and will not deny them the chance to have actual family in their lives.  Me?  Oh, I think I will play it by ear and see if I am still hurting and afraid, or if I really am as strong as I believe I am.  Strong enough to get back a piece of a connection I was so happy about before.  Or maybe strong enough not to even need it.

 

 

Spilled Perfume

This took me three days to write, so forgive me that it is long, and kinda all over the map.  Maybe you will understand.

I woke up on Sunday morning desperately lonely.  Please don’t think this blog is now about some poor-girl pity party.  It isn’t.  Read on.

On Saturday, after having an experience that is all too few in my recent years (my last blog, if you want to know what happened), I went off and did some other wonderful things, all by myself. I shopped for clothes (something I rarely do).  I went for a drive up the coast.  I took out my drawing materials and played with watercolor pencils I hadn’t gotten around to trying yet, though I purchased them over a year ago.  I rode my bike. I went to the movies.  I read.  All completely delightful, and totally needed, and refreshing in a personal kind of way that we all need once in a while.  Especially in the happiness I had been feeling since early that morning, and the adventure I had opened myself up to. I could even use the word divine.

So Sunday, when I woke up, what I most wanted to do was share that.  And by share (I confirmed with a friend via Facebook) was collaborate.  I wanted Sunday to not be about me, per se, but about the possibility for connection and trust.  About giving and getting, without having to walk around any issues, or hide any feelings, or pretend to be something I am not.  Or to ask, and for no other reason than convenience, have your really basic needs rejected.  I wanted someone else to totally get what I was saying, and “share” their perspective and help me move forward, as I was helping them.  Staying in the moment, because if I don’t have the time to do it right the first time, when will I ever have time to fix it.

It took me a long long time to get motivated.  I had woke up alone, in my house that was empty, without any clue who I could find that piece with. 

I was gratefully enough to find one friend that dialed back after I had called him.  I hadn’t left a message, because my need felt too immediate to wait through a voicemail.  I was lonely, and before I could move, I needed a human voice.

It shocked me that at first, I couldn’t speak.  The word “hello” came out more as a sob as I realized I hadn’t actually spoken to anyone, not one person, in over 24 hours.  All that time I spent in my own head, and doing ONLY things for me had left a void.  It had not made space for real connection.  Real communication.  Real people. Voices and words, and not typing on a screen, or a post to the ether of a social media site.  I had missed that PEOPLE in my life are not just a function, but a necessity.

After he and I hung up, I made a plan for the day.  A little experiment based on things that I was unsure about from the previous 48 hours or so.  Social connection or solitude?  Friendships based in mutual dynamics leading to deep understand, or head-clearing aloneness?  Me? Them? Us?  How did it fit, what did I want, where are my strengths, and what is missing?  And when I have known what is missing, did I ask for it?  And more importantly, did I ask the right person?

As part of my now motivated quest, I made some rules for myself to follow for the rest of Sunday.

First, I had to try to see if what one person I know suggested would help.  (Trusting the advice of others is part of the whole building real connection thing I am going for here.) He said what works for him is going to the beach, and “seeing” the white noise.  My thought was that every time I have tried one of those “white noise” machines I have only heard nails on a chalkboard.  It annoyed me, like mosquitoes in my ears, and the idea of having that be my visual scared me.  Would I get lost in the noise, or would it, like it does for him, help you think of nothing? A perfect little tool of not having to have the noise in your head at all.

So I went to the beach.  I tried to think of the waves washing over me, the light being just a warm spot, of the noise from the crash of the surf as the only thing I needed at the time.  A way to slow down.

I failed miserably, if the idea was to see and feel nothing.  The thoughts in my head are always there, always require my attention.  I noticed the way the sand felt under my feet, the way it shifted, the grains, the change in colors as each swell retreated and the water absorbed back into the shore.  I noticed the people, swimming, walking, playing.  I saw them getting wet, the legs on their pants changing from pale to dark.  I noticed how their shirts pushed against their bodies in ripples as the wind shifted.  I watched as the birds did the same, moving their bodies to give them the balance and grace to stay aloft.  I picked up sea glass, but left the shells.  I smelled the seaweed and the ash from the night before’s bonfires.  I heard the laughter. 

And each little piece, each little space of someone else’s experience was interwoven with mine.  I knew the sand, and could remember days at the beach.  Foggy ones. Bright ones.  Rainy ones.  Days filled with talk and play, and hand holding, and searching, and every other thing I could have possibly done at the beach was right there with me, right in that moment.  There was no white noise.  The space was full.

I did learn a few things while there, though. 1) I have a hole in the bottom of my (formerly) favorite sandals. 2) I can’t touch the fronts of my knees and the backs of my heels together at the same time (admit it, you just tried).  If you just said “yeah, um, duh”, then I have to confess that I have never tried this before, or probably never even thought about it before Sunday.  And 3) I don’t want to find the white noise.  I absolutely, without a doubt, want to think, feel, see, hear, remember and know EVERYTHING.  It is all going to be there anyway, so trying to push it away in hopes that I can find nothing is not even remotely appealing.

So this brings me to my second “rule”.  I had to talk to people.  There were no rules about what this talking would entail, just that it would happen.  I was going to start conversations with anyone and everyone I wanted to. 

One conversation was between me, the sales lady, and another customer in an art gallery, about these beautiful artisan made earrings, and the story of calla lilies that inspired them.  We talked and laughed, and shared stories about our own favorite pairs of earrings, and getting our ears pierced and our daughters.   The lady and I each ended up buying handmade earring the sales lady had behind the counter.  She apparently had been making these earrings for a long time, and was too shy to ask her boss to put them out for sale, so she just had them in a plastic bag near the cleaning supplies.  This could have been a really good sale ploy, but I doubted it.  The woman was shy, and not at all confident about just how much her artistry would be appreciated.  She did not have them priced, and I paid $10 for my pair of silver and amethyst dangles.  I wore them all day, smiling.

Another conversation was with a man buying an antique lamp for his wife for her birthday.  He knew what she wanted (apparently she had picked it out the weekend before, good man!) and he just wanted to know why women liked these things.  I thought the lamp was ugly, and told him so.  He laughed and wondered how long it would be before he could sell it at a garage sale.  He hoped she was not putting it in the bedroom because it was a serious mood killer.

I overheard as the owner of another shop I wandered into left a message on someone else’s voicemail.  He told the guy (I assumed it was a guy) on the other end that he understood about never being able to reach him because of his overwhelming social calendar, but did he realize that when he died, there would be no one at his funeral because just because you are always busy with people did not mean you actually had any friends (I have no way to describe just how much sarcasm and humor was in this message, except to use the word “dripping”.)   This cracked me up, made me sad, and was the most perfect opening for a conversation I have ever heard.  I asked the shop owner about his message, and why the recipient of the message did not have any friends.  We talked about how friends actually share (see, there was a theme here) and connect.  I agreed, and told him that I did not expect anyone, and especially not friends or partners, to have a clue what I need if I don’t bother to tell them.  They are not mind readers, divining my desires out of thin air. We did both think that if we asked someone directly for something we wanted or needed, and the answer was vague, or worse, complete rejection, maybe we ought to decide if their role in our lives is friendship, or just an event on a list.  Both would be okay, but confusing the two is what we both had a problem with.  In his case, the person he left the message for really was just a social engagement, but that he enjoyed the little bit of smugness that went with reminding the person of just how shallow they really were.   I told him that in my case, it seems I was trying to ask for what I wanted, and I had recently either been getting crickets or flat-out refused.  We both thought that maybe picking that kind of “friend”, one who wouldn’t or couldn’t connect in any real way, could move over into the “pink pages”  (so glad he knew the Chronicle reference) of our lives.

After that conversation, I had one of those light bulb moments as I figured out the lonely part of how I started my day.  I want, no, I CRAVE the genuine connection.  Without it, I am feeling lost.  I don’t want a full social calendar if the people in it are superficial.  Dancing is fun. But it is always more fun if you have someone (even just one person) who also thinks the band is not really that good but will dance anyway.  Parties are fun.  But it is always so much better when you find someone (even just one person) who will sit on a couch in the corner and tell you about that summer they spent on a crowded train on the way to Paris.  A concert is fun.  But it is always so much nicer when you have someone (even just one person) who understands why you can’t sit on the blue blanket, or why you need a band t-shirt in mint green.  It would always be because some how you had a connection.  One that kept both of us in the moment.

There is a line (from a country song, of course) about the difference between being lonely, and being lonely for way too long.  I am somewhere in between, but seeking the connection. It is missing, and I know it. 

So I am asking.

Boldly going

This morning, while thinking about the potentially stupid way I may have acted last night, I decided to do one more potentially stupid thing.

 

I read that sentence to my breakfast partner, and he says that stupid is not a good descriptor.  Reckless, and serendipitous (there is a wonderful word in Spanish that I can’t even begin to pronounce that this is the best translation for, I am told), but not stupid.

 

Okay, so after drinking more than I should have, and putting faith in someone I should not have, I get this gift. 

 

Guiermo sits next to me, reading over my shoulder periodically as he types away on his laptop and watches the soccer game.  He is from Brazil. And only in Monterey last night and today for a few hours before heading off to LA.  I vaguely remember giving him my email, and potentially a phone number, though if it is mine I cannot say. (He is looking at the slip of paper.  Yep, mine. The fact that he had it in his wallet is shocking and makes me smile at the same time).  I completely remember the kiss (oh, I just made him blush, which got another kiss, so not so bad).

The reckless, serendipitous, potentially stupid part is that I did not go home with him last night, and instead hunted him down this morning where he was staying and brought him donuts. (He laughs). This could have backfired in a ton of different ways.  It didn’t.

 

This is new.  When I was writing yesterday about moving into the unknown without fear, this was not what I expected.  I was totally thinking about someone else, and trying to fit an open friendship into a space where none exists.  Sitting next to Gui, (a man I have now known for about 2.5 hours), as he checks his email, and drinks an Americano (he thinks this is a funny name for coffee with milk), is already more intimate and vulnerable than I have been in years.  He is 15 years younger than me, has beautiful green eyes, and when we kiss good bye after breakfast (he just asked if it will really be only a kiss?), we will more than likely never see each other again.  The conversation has been about love, and adventure, and being present.  It has been about risk, and about the benefits of actually being open to anything, in a way that is not words, and not selfish.  Donuts, it seems, is a very open gesture.  And the same thing that made talking to him last night amazing, is what makes me miss him already.

 

He makes me promise that I won’t forget what today feels like. That he knows that I know this, but that somewhere along the way I pushed it aside.  This part that is life, all flaws and unknown.  A kindred spirit. 

 

No rocks anywhere.

 

It is time for him to go.  I am excited for what the rest of my reckless day may bring.

Becoming Captain Kirk

I have some amazing friends in my life.  I cannot deny how grateful I am for them, daily, for love and support.  They constantly challenge my beliefs about myself, and, when necessary, make me think about it when words won’t come.  At least not words that make any sense while I am saying them for sure.  I am a pretty articulate woman, so when those times happen (and they are not explained away by the half a bottle of wine sitting on the counter), I have to go back and figure out why I could not explain what I really meant.  Did I actually mean it at all?

This happened the other night while talking to a friend. Granted, I had been drinking wine earlier in the evening, but I drove myself home, and hadn’t had any more.  So when he and I were talking, and the topic of relationships came up, of course, vulnerability was part of the conversation.

Vulnerable is one of those things we all have to be, while also being strong and in control.  It is the process of trusting someone else to not fuck you over if you share a part of yourself.  

So the conversation went something like this:  

“What keeps you from being vulnerable?”

“Fear.”

“Fear of what?”

 “The unknown.”

 (Yeah, he and I probably need to get past some of our one-word responses.  It is a process.  We will work on it.)

This is what had me inarticulate. 

Sure, we all have fears.  I am not a really big fan of snakes, or being in really really enclosed spaces (that might have snakes).  But the unknown?  I am not so sure.

So I thought about it.  Like, a lot.  And what came out of it (besides this blog) is that no, I am not fearful of the unknown.  I am completely and totally afraid of the known.  Not all the known.  Just the painful known.  Of the known, happening again. 

Imagine this scenario (because we are talking about vulnerability in relationships, right?).  You are on a date.  Maybe you have been on a few already, and getting to know this person is going well enough.  And then something is said.  Maybe it is something about a childhood trauma.  Maybe it is something about the way a former relationship ended.  Maybe it is a comment about weight or exercise, or parenting.  Maybe it is about alcohol. Or drugs.

 Whatever it is, all of a sudden, in my head, I know everything about this.  I have done all this.  Don’t like museums?  Yeah, one of my exes didn’t either.  Don’t have the patience for children being sick?  Yep, a guy I dated before didn’t either.  Been in rehab, had a “fat” wife, won’t get on an airplane, passed out at a cousin’s wedding, can’t read a novel, allergic to chocolate, hate cats?

I get lost in all this noise.  I hear all the things I already know spinning in my head.  I write the story before you tell it.  Have the questions and the solutions to any problem you have, and you don’t even need to ask me about it.  I got this.  I know what is going to happen next.  I have already been there.  In the cases of things I have no desire to repeat, the big red flag I threw for you without you even knowing it has just made me shut down.  Vulnerable? Oh hell no.  That giant pile of rocks you see in front of you?  Yeah, that is the scrap left over from the monstrous wall I just built.  You are not getting in, because I know how this ends.

So this makes the unknown my friend, right?  What is so scary about having something brand new? 

The known, for some, is a comfortable place to be.  It feels warm, and homey. Settle in right now, and don’t worry about the shit in the corner.  I don’t like that place (read some of my other blog posts if you need specifics).  The place most people feel comfortable, for me is lonely.  I know it too well.  I have lived in it too long.  It is not an old pair of jeans that fit all the curves, that you love.  It is pair of shoes with holes that keep getting pebbles.  I can throw the pebbles away, but the pain from having to do it over and over is old. I don’t want those blisters anymore.  I think I may have already run out of Band-Aids.

So, back to the gratitude I feel for friends.   They are showing me a new way.  Challenging me to think about it in a way I haven’t before.  The unknown.  It is actually a good place to be.  I am not fearful of that.  Creating a new world, one small blog post at a time.

 

Crackerjacks and Insulin

Last week, my father spent five nights in the hospital.

It was not the first time this year he was there, and I have no doubt it will not be the last.  He is 84.  He is diabetic.  He has had colon cancer removed.  He has a heart issue that can best be described as failure from an unknown cause.  He has severe back pain from years and years of climbing in and out of a dump truck and using the heavy foot-operated pedals to do his job.

He was a heavy smoker for almost 60 years, quitting only after his heart doctor could not hear his heart with a stethoscope through the congestion in his lungs. I think that might have something to do with all the shortness of breath, but no one wants to say that because he quit 13 years ago, and no one wants to admit that crappy choices for decades could have anything to do with right now.

And right now, well, that is all we are concerned with.  Comfort, prolonging, and more comfort.

Our conversations while I visited him in the hospital usually revolved around his medical condition, his medications, and his daily routine.  And baseball.  Always baseball.  So while looking up the scores for the day before’s games, we talked about the nose bleeds.  While comparing pitching stats, we talked about sugar levels.  While watching the play from third for out number two, we discussed how to get in and out of the shower, and if we need to install grab bars, or ramps for the outside stairs.

He did not want to have any of these conversations. I don’t blame him, I didn’t want to have them, either.  We will need to have more because my mom is exhausted, and worried, and couldn’t possible lift him to help him get to the bathroom if it comes down to that.  Right now he is home, and stable.  But he is tired, so tired.

In the midst of all this conversation about health and baseball, the one thing my dad did want to talk about was me, my kids, and what, in his opinion, I am not doing right.

It took all my effort not to yell at him, or walk out. Instead, I listened to him say that my house repairs are behind, my yard work and fence needed to be taken care of and made presentable, and how he had not, in his entire life, ever taken more than a two-week a year vacation.

All those things are true.  I probably should finish putting in my baseboards, and replacing the sink and toilet in the Master bath.  I probably should pull out the dead plants in my front yard, and take the ugly watering hoses to the dump.  I probably should care that I don’t have a lawn, nor will I be winning any Yard-of-the-Month awards from my city. I actually feel blessed that they have not ticketed me for leaving my garbage cans on the street for days after the regular pick up.  What is not true is that I have any regrets that I take my kids on vacation to wherever we can go at every opportunity I have.

I knew, as my dad was complaining about my yard, and my garage, and about my vacation choices, that he was not really looking for me to say anything back.  He wasn’t even really mad at me about what I was doing, and why.  I don’t think he was really expecting me to suddenly like yard work (I haven’t in 48 years, so not like I will be starting that up any time soon), or for me to put a priority on painting my hallway. I will get to it, eventually.  I always do.

 And while I know that he thinks I should probably not be taking my kids to Kansas City in July (our next road trip) in favor of spending the money on a weed-whacker and a good handyman, I don’t think it was about me at all.  I think the entire conversation was about him.  About his decisions.  And about him being scared that I was judging his choices, for a perfect yard and no vacation, as something missing in my life, and maybe, in the long run, something he missed in his, by doing something different.

I will admit, I made that choice a long time ago, to not be him.  Not because of any judgment I have that his choices were wrong, but just that I wanted something different with my children.  I am grateful for the home and the security of my parent’s house.  I never wanted for anything, all  of the basic needs taken care of, though we were not rich.  I had clothes and food. I had a bike.  I always had gifts and parties for birthdays and Christmas.  I also have zero memory of a movie with my parents, or a museum with them, or a trip to a national monument or place of interest.

Every year we went on vacation.  Two weeks of camping, and either fishing or hunting.  The camping involved a trailer and cooking every meal.  The fishing was trout, either stream-fishing or fly-fishing.  The hunting was deer or boar, but since I never went out with my dad, I don’t actually know what that was about.  My experience of it (contrary to the memories my brother is sure to have) is that I sat around a lot, bored because I never brought enough books or paper or art supplies, in the dust and heat of whatever remote campsite near a lake that we were at.  I should sound more grateful that I was allowed nature, and any form of recreation, but I feel like I missed something.

The memories I have of vacations with my dad is of him, as I watched from the bank, as he fly-fished.  I have one intense memory of a wasp nest swarming because we parked our trailer a little too close. I remember the rifle shot that echoed from the hillside as my father and brother went after a deer that was illegally shot by someone else, and was now suffering and dying because of it.  They never fired a shot, but the sound is still in my ears, and I am still a slight bit frightened by the memory some 35 years later.

I have never been anywhere else with my parents.  No skiing trips.  No drive-ins.  No city cafes.  We never took a ferry.  We never went on a train.  We never took a trolley, or a gondola, or a horse.  We did the same thing, every year, once a year, for as long as I can remember.  There is no judgment about if this is right or wrong.  It is just is.  I wondered why the memory I have of losing a fish from the line one year is so strong , when it struck me that it is just because there were no other memories to hold on to that could make this small one less significant.

I picked something different for how I spend my time with my kids.  We have been to Yosemite, and Washington DC.  We have taken a train to Denver and a plane to Seattle.  We have visited monuments and historical places, and taken ferries to offbeat islands with weird little artist’s colonies.  We have gone to plays and movies and festivals and concerts.  We have road-tripped, and accidentally met potters who gave us pieces of clay to play with, and poets who wrote haiku for us about the color of our shirts, and musicians who sang us songs they just made up, and laughed at all the silliness of the moments as we let ice cream melt on our chins from homemade stands on the side of the road.

So back to my dad.  I did not point out to him that I was making specific different choices based almost solely on the lack of choices I had as a child.  That would have been cruel. And I am not cruel, I love my dad.  So I sat there, and listened as he planned how I was going to have to buckle down and get my lawn planted, and how I should not be driving my kids half way across the country in the heat of summer.  I knew he was not judging me with his words.  He was, in fact still taking care of me, like he did when I was little, knowing maybe that his time to do this is getting short.  He didn’t want compliance.  He wanted validation that his choices would be remembered.

I get that, dad, don’t worry.  If there is nothing else we can ever say to each other amidst all the talk of medicine and home safety, we will always have baseball.  As a matter of fact, on that road trip you don’t want me to take to Kansas City this summer we will be going to a Royals game.  Stay out of the hospital long enough for me to tell you all about it when we get back, so we can have some more memories together, with baseball at the center. I'll bring the Crackerjacks.