Zen

Today's lesson.

The  city was still sleeping as the overnight hotel clerk took back the key, said thank you for the stay,  before we ventured out.   It was sunny and cold and still. The perfect winter day of cloudless sky, with the kind of crisp that keeps your hands in your pockets, but your face turned up,  basking for a moment before the wind of the next storm blows in.

It had to be that early, or the quiet of the tea garden could be missed.



I have been to the tea garden dozens of times. School trips as early as ten years old. Later, sneaking away across the park, leaving my high school classmates lounging on the steps of the academy of science, bored, waiting for the bus. Play dates here and there with tourist-designed friends. Even more recently leaving my ex's bed, him still asleep on holiday Mondays or random Fridays. While I eventually would try to share it with him, the magic needs both willingness and surrender. (I usually returned with Starbucks, snuggled back in before he knew I was gone.) Alone in this adventure more often than not.

It was a purposeful trek, because the gift of the garden, if I listened carefully, was always there, and I knew it. Always patient, as if it was waiting to reveal just one more piece of its secret for me in exchange for my early morning sacrifice. I never knew what it would be, but it always happened.  Today was no different.

My daughter and son were with me, also with their faces to the sky and hands in their pockets. Our conversations were quiet, and respectful, (even when the squirrel stole the cookie), deep, about things related to wishes and desires if all things were perfect. We talked about homes, and gardens, and the work that went into them. We talked about the types of gardens we were attracted to, and why.  We agreed that the tea garden was special in its deliberateness,  and how attempting to create one would have to be selfless, because only long after countless hours were spent would its real beauty be seen. The garden would have to be a person's purpose, the intimate reward being the effort of the job. The results could maybe be discovered by others, but maybe not. You could not force it. The garden demanded patience.  The garden demanded work.

True to the way things happen when I put in the effort, the garden revealed itself to me through their words.

Here's what I learned: If there are things I want to create, it would have to be the work I do to reveal myself. I would have to be like the garden. Patient with myself to see results, to share results. I would have to get up and listen in the quiet moments for what was being taught. I would would need to be willing and eager, but surrender to the process. 

And even more like the garden I would have to be deliberate, and public, but without me knowing if anyone would ever feel the magic or not.

So I present today's blog. Not because I need it to speak to anyone,  but because I need to practice both willing deliberate actions and constant surrendered patience if I ever hope to share results.

I hope tomorrow is just as quiet, just as crisp, with my face wanting to turn to feel the sun. I am not gonna wish for squirrels, but I might make some tea. I hope remember today. I hope the garden's lessons are portable. I hope I listen.

Dodge

I had a  dream nightmare about you.

We were in your car, and you were driving too fast on a really long wooden pier towards a docking platform for a ferry we were going to catch. The ferry wasn't there yet, and I kept asking you to slow down. This went on for a while. We were over the water a long time.  I was asking you over and over to just stop, get out, watch the water together for a while. You wouldn't.

Eventually you looked over at me, then sped up and crashed through the rail at the end, plunging the car, and us, into the water.

As the car went down, I reached my hand over and unclicked your seatbelt, then unclicked mine and started pushing on my door until the water balance allowed it to open. I swam up, and over, and reached a ladder that ran the depth of the  piling on the edge of the dock, and climbed out.

The water was really deep, but crystal clear, as I looked back down to surface level to see the car now sitting on the bottom, full of water and sunk, weirdly still running. I could see my open door. I could see you were able to move, but you just sat there, still revving the engine and banging your hand on the steering wheel.  I knew you were completely unaware that you were drowning, and very angry that the thing you had always thought you had been in control of was failing you.

There was no one else around, empty dock, no boats on the very still ocean. Eventually the ferry pulled in and blocked my view of the car.  I got on, and the ferry pulled away. I could make out the car for a little while, but then I stopped looking and went to the front of the boat.

I woke up and I cried. You know how that works. You have been there for them.



One day I hope you figure out how to stop being angry long enough to realize the car is going nowhere.  Your seatbelt is unbuckled. Your door can open if you push on it, and the other door is already open. Even if you can't swim there is a ladder on the dock, and you can, if you want to, climb out of the water. 

The ferry isn't coming back, and I'm gonna be fine even after the crash you caused. But maybe someday you will realize you owe me an apology because I tried, and you will know how to reach me. 

Dry off first. There is probably a pay phone at the far end of the pier.

I loved you.

There must be a reason, right?

 Writers block, writers block, writers blocks.

That is all I have to blame this three and a half year absence on. Probably that.  Maybe that. Could be that.  Or maybe it is just some laziness, or some huge fucking self doubt that anything I wrote will have a readership.  Do I need a readership?  Apparently, yes.

I had already decided not to enter the contest.  Because it both bores me and frightens me every single year.  How hard is it really to write a complete story in 101 words or less?  Really fucking hard if truth be told.  And yet I write them easily as soon as I sit down, popping out at least three of them without much effort, and knowing that if I enter them, at least one will be published.  Sad, but true, that I can now pick the one that will get to the final printing without any effort here either.  Because, honestly, they are good.  Well, at least one of them is always good. One is usually okay.  One is almost always crap, but finished just the same, so entered, along with the rest. One is all I need.

And one is what I got this year. Again. Another one published.  That makes at least one published every year I remembered to enter. I think the blahness of it, broke my desire to write at all. All the excitement I could muster amounted to shrugged shoulders.  The word meh completely defined.

I found out yesterday that one of the stories was published.  I opened the online edition and found the pages for the contest results, and poof, there it was. Black and white.  Proof that I am either a good writer, or a small crap writer with a good formula.  Still not sure which.

To that end, I am starting the blog again.  I need to write things longer than 101 words, and write them more frequently than once a year.  It has been a while since I sat down to type, and just let the words come, and have them mean something, or nothing, and not be worried about any potential audience.  The blog seems the best place. Especially as the new year is about to start, and instead of feeling thrilled about being published (again), I am disappointed that it is the only thing I did. Legit. Nothing else.  Not on my blog.  Not in word doc.  Not in my really beautiful journal. Zilch. Nada. Zero.

This is it.  Day one.  Writing so that I can say that I did.  Maybe work on my craft more than what I did for 99.99% of 2021. 

And maybe do some work on why I haven't bothered in 41 months.  I know there is a reason.  No idea what it is yet.

I don't even need a band-aid.

I thought I lost a friend this week. 

Turns out I didn’t “lose” anything.  I know right where he is.  And though it is a claim that he was walking away, and that I was going to be no longer allowed in his heart and life, truth is, he hasn’t been going anywhere but in circles under a wandering star for a long, long time, and I had been making steady progress on my journey of self-reliance and solid values, and he had not come along at all. And when it got hard, and required actual putting foundation into practice, test the stability he so desperately needs, he bailed.  

I thought I would be hurt.  Truly, I love him.  But what I feel more is relief.

In the past few years, I have had things happen.  If you have read this blog at all, you will understand the road, and know that getting myself out of an almost debilitating depression and codependency has been a tortured path.  I was not always successful, and had lots of times when I stood still, or took steps backwards.  This often happened when I was hit with a 2x4 to the back of the head, bleeding and damaged, and some ugly monster came out and tried to pull me back under. 

It was, and is always, a fight. It is not pretty. I can get moody.  And by moody, I mean fucked up neurotic.  I am selfish, and distant.  I get quiet, then unpredictably angry.  I forget things. I cry. I am not particularly helpful and have a hard time understanding your world while I am caught up in mine.  But, to my defense, while this used to be my norm, it is now my exception.

Let me say that again.  It is my exception.

Recently, I had one of the exception times show up full force.  My ex (you can read about him all you want in other blogs, and it will give you some insight into who he was/is and how I got out) decided to drag me back into court. The reason and justification for why is not even the issue, because honestly, he and I will not be happily co-parenting, ever, and this is just one more way I have to deal with him.  It was a 2x4, for sure. It put me on the floor, the way it does for most people when they are smack in the middle of their old lives without much choice but to get through it with some semblance of grace.  I was not succeeding in the grace department, but was blessed with knowing I would get out of it. I had before, I would again. I just needed the reminder.

The reminder came in the form of being held while I cried.  It came in the form of long conversations with my children.  It came in fun activities. And movies. And good sex. And a truly deep happiness that I would try to suppress, because, well, I am stupid about my own happiness sometimes. And stability. And being still.  It did not need to pursue anything else.  I already had the tools and the gifts. 

What is did not look like was the constant instability this friend lived in.  It did not look like pretty words without a lot of follow through.  It did not look like a list of desires without any work towards them. Or blame when personal actions caused the instability. Or like excuses for others who did not move forward together.  It did not look like having to find myself in a different place because I could not face any of the mess. 

On the literal contrary, it looked like actually being in the mess daily.  There was no avoidance on my part.  I was blunt, maybe to the point of shock.  I was non-accepting of people who were also a mess and doing nothing about it but felt empowered to try to drag me there, too.  There was no more desire for connection to people who did not meet the rules of the Yes List, or who were flat-out on the No List.  I would not develop relationships with rude alcoholics making noise in the middle of the night.  I would not wait for yet another phone call from a manipulative suicidal narcissist whose needs were so heavy that it stopped all progress toward other goals.  I would not try to get to know temporary romances from 1200 miles away that barely sparked of passion and could only be had in 48 hour blocks of time once every 6 weeks or so.  I was in no position to create yet another black hole emotion vacuum just for the sake of the newness, when I wasn’t making the stuff I already had my sights set on, work.  I was staying put.  Roots. Fight. Stability. Grounded.

This is not where this friend is. At least not with me. I had picked moving towards strengthening MY emotions with the people in my life who said they would stay. I had to trust them. I had said that I thought I didn’t have a tribe, but what I really found out was that I do have a tribe, just, sadly, one that did not include him.  I thought maybe I had just been too raw with someone else who was also too raw and that maybe we could not support each other.  But that wasn’t true.  I might have pushed hard, and been distant, but I never walked away, never said encouraging connected words only to not mean them, and I never used the excuse that there were others that thought I should eliminate people from my life and then actually listened. I have come to trust myself, my core of knowing where I came from, how it plays in my life, and what I am both willing and unwilling to do to keep it that way. My core about it is totally defined, and not at all by others, even when I listen to their counsel.

Nope, I take full responsibility for my own choices, supported or not, because that is part of my journey as well.  I am no longer interested in how things can’t be fixed.  I want to stomp and whine about them, and then put in the real work, even when it is hard.  Even when it looks like I am alone.  Then I want the people who say that they will stick by it to actually do that. If you can’t? Well, you can go.  I will not be examining it further except to realize I want the stability I have created.  My job that pays my bills.  My lack of bills to begin with. My house. My running car.  My amazing children and the learning they are doing, even with the bumps, and my role in that.  My belief in parenthood and everything I have done to make that as my first priority, regardless of the boulders that sometimes seem to block my path. My desire for communication inside my partnership, and having that get stronger every single day.  Love on a much deeper level.  One that knows that in order to actually have all the good stuff, you have to get through the bad stuff. And that even when it looks uneven, it all comes around to settled when it is working.  No books, no meetings, no unprecedented clarity. Just everyday ordinary heartbreak and redemption.  I take it. Life, with all of its compromise and thorns, and joy and forgiveness, and ache and laughter.  I get to have this. I get to stay.

So yeah, I thought I lost a friend. Turns out I didn’t lose anything.  He is right there, still spinning in his universe wondering what happened to get him to where he is at, and how he believes he will have to change his life and start all over. Again.  I am grateful for getting to stand perfectly still this time and just kinda wave as he floats away on yet another star. I am not going anywhere, and for that hard won stability, I am grateful.

9 years and 24 hours later.

My first breakdown happened almost immediately. 

I felt sucker punched with the irony of having the envelope handed to me by the same son who the letter was about.  It seems that my children’s father has decided to show up now. Now, after almost 9 years, is when suddenly his father-son bond desire has decided to kick in.  And my son, every bit of a 14 year old entitled teen, is buying it. Hook, line, sinker.  And sadly, it means, in his head, that I have never cared about him, never loved him, am trying to keep his life from being his choice, and basically stopping him from the amazing and one true relationship he is missing.  Yep, his dad. Like me, his sister, his best friends, his grandmothers, my partner, my adult friends, and well, everyone in my village who has shown up and covered that lack of relationship he has had with his dad for, um, ever, are somehow not really worth much.  It hit me hard to hear it.  Almost on the floor.  My reaction was to be angry, but that was just a mask for how sad and hurt I felt.  The breakdown, well it was loud, and then immediately quiet.  I wanted to cry, but it was stuck in shock.  I had been served with papers asking the court to grant his father custody. 

The second breakdown happened in the car while driving. 

I called my partner, and my best friend, and without even remembering to breathe, I was sobbing on the phone to each of them, separated by minute of cell phone time.  I don’t remember how I could have still been driving, and yet I was.  My SO telling me to be safe but get to him.  My best friend telling me to go let my SO hold me and reminding me to be grateful for the many people in my life that will have my back.  I would not go to a court battle alone.  This time, unlike 9 years ago, I would not be alone.  They knew better, and would support me, and prop me up.  I cried anyway, and drove, and tried to remember that, and not feel like a failure.

The third breakdown happened in the night. 

I had crawled in to bed with my boyfriend, and what I wanted was sex.  Yep, not gonna lie.  Sex, throughout my adult life, had been my go-to to feel connected. The need was raw.  I had shut off, felt too hurt to let myself cry or explain.  It, too, was my go-to, when emotions were too in-my-face and out of my control, and shutting off seemed easier that facing anything.  I wanted to be wanted.  I wanted my son to want me as his mother.  I wanted my ex husband to want me to continue to raise my son with all the wonderful things I could and have exposed him and his sister to.  I wanted to be the kind of woman that really could have and do it all. I wanted to know I was strong, and composed, and in the right.  I wanted to be powerful and aloof, and so above it, that I could fuck and have it not even phase me. No pain, no fear, no commitment to being a mom.  Just me. Oh yeah, and my BF was gonna have to be there.  Or at least the part that would get me to an orgasm was. The rest, well, it was not something I needed to be connected to, since I wasn’t connected anyway, in my shut off state, and I just fine with being just a body right then.  He was having none of it. He was not going to let me run away.  He was not going  to let me be emotionally vacant.  So, instead, he held me.  Turned me down flat, but held me as I balled, first not able to breathe, and then until the sobbing took over and shook me. Then as I fell asleep.

The final breakdown on day one happened while out shopping.

Everything looked like something I would buy for my son. Everything.  I didn’t even want to touch things because in my head I already would never even be able to show him any of it. He was already gone, like the court fight had already happened and no matter the outcome, everything had changed.  I could do nothing about it.  I would have to comply.  The shutdown was back in full force, and that is when I broke again. Something inside me said it was going to have to be okay, because it already was. I had not died, as if that was even possible, and I was not alone.  The world had not stopped. This breakdown happened silently. I was broken, but knew I would survive.

So, what’s next?  Court, I suppose. And trying to figure out what to do with this new space I have to live in with my son.  And my daughter. And my boyfriend, and my supporters, and my friends, and my village.  Not so broken down after all.   Bruised and still fragile, and completely exhausted by the last 24 hours, but present. This time around, unlike 9 years ago, I am writing about it immediately, owning it before it owns me.

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

 

 

 

 

The day to day of a working girl

Tomorrow marks the end of the first three weeks at my new job.  I am bored.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the new job.  I just already know it.  Like pretty much everything about it.  I have done this kind of work for years, and but for a couple little tricks and local policies, this is the same job.

The cons: 

The new office location is in the basement of a really wonderful building.  Truly, the architecture is wonderful, the grounds are wonderful, the artwork is wonderful. I just don’t have a window to see any of it. And worse, the basement means zero cell reception.  So while I can connect to the network and have internet on my personal device, I cannot receive any phone calls or texts. None.  Which meant that I changed all the emergency numbers for my kids’ schools to my actual office number and I now receive all of my school notices for things like PTA meetings and basketball games to my work voicemail.  The upside is that I have visual voicemail so it gets sent to my email to listen to or read.  The downside is I have visual voicemail so it gets sent to my email to listen to or read. It is funny that the same technology cannot enter TWO numbers at the school in case my child is bleeding to death, but it CAN call me 17 a day to remind me that my child needs a good night’s sleep. Basement location is a con.

The new office is super friendly.  Which means you say hi to everyone.  Every six seconds or so. We have a bell the clients can ring if, for some strange reason, we did not see you standing there, saying hi every six seconds. And more than a few people we have already said hi to think that ringing the bell is just sweet, like a noise that we would not find annoying because, well, they said hi while ringing it.  Super friendly like, and often while giggling about ringing it to begin with.  Three weeks in, and you would not believe how many people ring the bell when we are actually talking to them.

The work never changes.  There are no problems to solve (but for the little bit of learning curve already mentioned). It is the same thing, different person.  Truly it is the same questions, the same logic, the same concerns.  We babysit everyone, and (see above) they are super friendly about it, but really, three weeks in, and unless there is some specialized type of something that comes up, this will be it. Every day. Forever.

There is not enough work.  I know that this should not even matter, because I make the same money, don’t have to fight for parking, have a computer, nice coworkers, music to listen to, a fan on my desk, and a cool stapler. And a friend pointed out to me that maybe I just forgot what a normal workload looks like, because it had been so long since I had had a normal workload, that this just might be what people who have regular jobs do. Like they go home at the end of the day with a semi clean desk and having accomplished some things, and then the work just continues without being fucking stupid busy all the fucking time (clearly I still have some resentment about my last job). But I feel like I could use a little more work to fill my day.  Even if it was just more of the same, just a bit MORE would be good.

I see military officers all day.  Like fit, hardworking military officers.  Sexy, hot, funny, intelligent military officers.  This should not be in the con section, right? Um, yeah, they are all really young, relatively arrogant, and taken.  Yep, married/ engaged/ GF/ BF/ committed.  So eye candy, but not a single actual prospect for dates and stuff. 

The pros:

It is not my old job.

I have plenty of time to update my resume and apply for other jobs and it does not even effect my work.  Like not at all. Work is done, still got time. No one even questions it, like I am adult who can manage my time and all, all by myself. *snicker*

See this blog?  Yeah, I got to write it at work. Best. Pro. Ever.