Conclusion.

The Cousin, of teenage fame and love unquenched, is getting married.

The Cousin (cousin of my brother’s best friend) and I had a long-running on-again-across-oceans-again relationship begun when we were teenagers.

I found his photo recently when I was clearing out my “g-d box” of items taken care of by time and fate, and those still remaining in an unresolved stasis. I didn’t put his photo back in the box, unresolved though I felt it to be -- For the last month or so, it’s sat by my jewelry box, the image of 16-year-old innocence and a complexity masked by his easy grin. I’ve spoken to it, asked it where he was, if he was happy, what he was doing, if he thought of me, if we were through.

Last we’d truly spoken, I’d confessed that his moving to California to join me was likely not a solution to the untethered life he was looking to escape. California didn’t save me, I told him on the phone the night of our last conversation. I had to do a lot of work for that to happen.

Our previous dreams of running away together, of his coming to California with me when I initially moved, that painting of the white picket fence that was more fantasy than reality, the painting of a life I wanted to fall into with him, but knew was not supported by truth… All this was crushed when I told him, No, you can’t move here to escape your life.

Years passed. There was one phone call, miraculously coincidentally when I was home in New Jersey in 2011, clearing out my childhood home before the house was sold. A fitting time to call, as I packed up a childhood, and all its experiences. It was where we met, in fact -- in my living room, with my brother, his best friend, and his cousin, visiting from Ohio.

The brevity of that initial visit, a summer of love, to be sure, meant that there wasn’t a foundation of reality to build upon, a life to support our connection. And in that house, a few years ago, I packed up the life of the person who’d fallen so passionately and deeply in love -- as well and as messily as a 19-year-old can do.

Our phone call wasn’t long. It was more a confirmation that we’d allowed the strains of time and place corrode the thread that connected us.

But, I’ve never felt complete with that ending.

And so, his photo remained in the “to be resolved” pile in my mental hopper, and for the last month, on my dressing table: his cheeky grin, dark mess of hair, lips that rival a female porn star’s.

And that’s how I recognized him when I saw his photo put up on Facebook yesterday by his aunt.

Time had changed him. His hair receded, cut short long ago for a military life he chose when he couldn’t move here.

But his lips are the same. That pouting lower lip I clung onto for hours. That framed his eager smile, formed his caressing words, and confessed his inner demons.

And he looks happy. On a hilltop in Hawaii with another woman. Someone who is available to make him happy, who can be there on his journey when I can’t be, since I can’t be.

That’s our conclusion, then. It’s not the final phone call I make to congratulate, to plant another seed or water a long-dead one. I am not saint or enlightened enough to not want to love him still, but I am wise enough to know we can’t – in the present, in reality.

So, I can put it here. I can write my gratitude for his finding happiness, what I’ve really wanted for him, no matter my personal desires. I can put here that I am glad to see him alive, well, experiencing life. That this conclusion is fitting, acceptable, and perhaps a happy one.

But I can also put here this conclusion ends a chapter that has spanned nearly half my life, has fed me great happiness, and has let me experience a connection with another human that I thought eluded me – I can put here that as I turn the page on “us,” I pack up that painting of the white picket fence with a mournful finality.

Baking a Life Worth Living.

“It was the fantasy made so real that I teared up a few times, wanted to pinch myself, and thought over and over and over, how is it that I am here?

How did this happen?

And I can trace the arc of it and still be amazed to be this woman[…]”

This is a quote from my friend Carmen’s blog today, or last night actually, the woman who began inspiring me to write a blog at all, and then a blog-a-day (or, almost a day. Self-care [aka sleep!] comes first during this month, sorry avid readers!).

Our paths have been divergent but so parallel over these few years, I once proposed we co-share a book based on our blogs: Her adventures in Paris, having moved there for her 40th birthday, and her triumphs and struggles there; My adventures in Cancer-land happening at the same time, as I turned 31, and the strangely similar triumphs and struggles.

Today, was no different: She was visiting New York City for the first time. I am in a musical for the first time as an adult.

Her words make me reflect and become present once again with the amaze-ball nature of where my life and energies currently are.

But, I also was very keen when I first found out I was cast about the words I used. I made sure to not say, “I can’t believe it.”

Sure, I couldn’t believe it! But, I wasn’t going to say that. I believe in the Law of Attraction-style woo-woo stuff, and in my readings on it, when you say things like, “I can’t believe this is happening to me” or “This is impossible!” or “This can’t be happening” – even though they’re amazing things – it’s my belief that the “Universe” hears that, that you hear that, and if that’s really your belief, then they can fade or change to support your belief that these amazing things aren’t actually happening.

Who knows? I don’t. But I’d rather be on the safer side of things!

So, when I told my mom, I said simply, "I’m so excited. I'm so grateful."

I do have to stop saying, "I’m so nervous." SURE, I am nervous. I had another voice lesson yesterday, and it’s helping me feel more comfortable in the lower register of my voice, but I won’t yet say I'm confident. It still feels like straining and yelling. But I’m getting more used to that discomfort…which I guess is another way of saying, “Getting comfortable”!

I am astonished by and pleased with the woman I am and have become. And I also know the places where I strive to grow and build and commit, and lay foundations for an even more “me” life.

I know progress is slow. My voice teacher said that it’s about first finding a place to build the house, before you even begin to think about what it looks like or furnishing it. You have to find the firm ground to stand on before you can build anything on it.

And, I’m doing that, slowly.

It’s strange sometimes to be the age I’m at. About to be 33 next month, and feeling so much older than some, and so much younger than others. Explaining to the 11-year old Pugsley what a revelation the cordless phone was when I was a teen. Even my new co-worker, age 22, fresh out of college, and so bristling with energy.

And then, there’s most of my friends, who are older than me, who hear me talk about the brevity of life and how there’s so much more I want to do, and give me the “You’re so young, you have so much time” face.

I get the feeling that this is the center (or the beginning of the center) of adulthood. When you know you’re not a child, really learning the world and who/how you want to be in it; and neither are you a middle-aged person, knowing that you are pretty well set in your personhood for the rest of your days.

It’s a period of final gelling that I feel. (Though I know learning and growing and changing is a lifelong process.)

But I sort of feel like all the ingredients have been gathered, have been mixed, and we’re waiting to see if what I’ve assembled is a sourdough or cupcake batter.

I do hope it’s cupcakes.

I am the woman who knows she eats 90 eggs a month (yes, really). Who knows she buys only Ultra Soft toilet paper, but the super eco-friendly paper towels. Who knows how to pay her bills on time, and knows she still won’t do her dishes until pressed by her own revulsion!

The woman I am looks for the hope, even in the desperate times. She relies on friendships built during the “ingredient assemblage” time, and knows they are in fact ingredients of this current and future life.

The woman I am struggles with self-doubt, and celebrates her moments of self-encouragement. Falls short of ideals, and laughs about it when she can, and shares about it when she can't.

“How did this happen? How am I here?”

I don’t have to pinch myself. I don’t think this is a dream. I do have to remind myself it’s a nuanced, challenging, changing, and ultimately precious reality. 

And the woman I am looks eagerly forward to licking the icing. 

Day 21

Today ends the 21-Day Meditation “Challenge” by Deepak Chopra and Oprah I’ve been following this last month. Today’s “thought” is about Fulfillment.

And despite coming home on Tuesday night (finally tucking into bed after a chaotic day of work and a busy night of rehearsal) and bursting into quiet tears of overwhelm, today as I get ready for the day, the soft tears are of a different sort.

Fulfillment.

Two years ago on Yom Kippur I was diagnosed with Leukemia. Last year around this time, I hosted an “I Didn’t Die” party and played in a band on the bass I’d carried for over a decade but never learned to play. This year on and around the anniversary of my diagnosis, you’ll find me onstage in musical theater, another dream set down for over a decade.

Fulfillment.

In workland, I continue to feel like the hockey player who gets checked into the boards, my own path crowded out by the demands of others and by the very nature of the perpetually-behind game in which I find myself. I continue to know that things need to change, want to change them, do research on changing them, … and haven’t (yet) changed them.

I continue to desire giving myself the “right” kind of time to flesh out ideas for a different mode of working, one that means more fulfillment, less time, more stability. I continue to lament that the nature of the game I’m in doesn’t allow for pausing. Except when you’ve been sent to the bench. Which I call Netflix-binging. But that kind of pause isn’t productive, and I know this.

I am looking for the space in which to create a different kind of life, to have the space to dream and plan and implement. And, it’s not this exact moment. Which can be really hard for me. Believing as I do, that my stasis in this position (over-working and underearning) creates a dissatisfaction in me that bleeds into other areas of my life, and keeps me feeling less-than and stuck and not ready or viable or worthy.

And yet.

As I’ve spoken of it, one foot may be in the bear trap, but the other is passionately trying to walk anyway – or, as in the Addams show, to tango. I continue to have one foot in the direction … no – in the reality of a vision and a dream of mine. It’s not the direction, it’s the reality.

And truly, how different I know this is than it was. To be in it, instead of dreaming of or lamenting it.

Can you be half-way fulfilled? I dunno. But, I do know that the hours spent in band, in rehearsal, in laughter, and in friendship are times of pure engagement, presence, and self-forgetting (sometimes!). That absence of commentary, of doubt, feels like the presence of fulfillment.

If I have created, and worked hard toward creating, a third of my waking hours to be ones of fulfillment, I have to acknowledge that the scale is tipping. It isn’t there yet. I still lament and cry and question if I will pursue, but those hours spent in joy …

*insert silent wonder*

Doctor of Philosophy

If you have read my blog for any period of time, you may be aware by now that I seem to have a knack for interpreting the human species and their actions. I observe, report, make conclusions, and sometimes adjust my own behavior to meet the findings of what “healthy” or “happy” people seem to be doing.

Philosophically speaking, in all my deep-cover research on human behavior, I may well have earned myself a doctorate in human behavior.

However for every inner tube of polymer, there is a flat of pavement, and it is where the rubber meets the road that I become hesitant.

It is all well and good to observe, predict, and theorize, to take note of actions of others and even of myself as a predictor and indicator of action’s next steps. However, there is also the parable about the monk who spent 20 years in a cave becoming enlightened, and upon emerging decked the first guy he had a disagreement with.

It is only in practice that we actually learn. (Though, I do submit that research and reflection help.)

When my mom came to visit a few weeks ago, we began to discuss my romantic life. (Unworried, as she said she was, that I would have any trouble when I was finally ready. She's not the "where are my grandchildren" type, she said.) I told her a little about my extra layer of protection around my castle wall metaphor. I told her that my work currently is about coming to trust myself and my boundaries enough to let people close enough to know me.

I told her my doubts about feeling capable of a) letting those guards down, and b) evaluating approachers in a level-headed way. I told her that I am scared to learn to trust myself, because I’m scared that I can’t.

She responded with a story of her own. She’d taken issue, herself, with the word “trust.” The airy and elusive nature of that word. And she’s replaced it with the word, “rely.”

Several years ago, she signed up to be a part of a tour group that would travel to Scotland to see the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her friend asked her if she was nervous to go by herself, with no-one she knew? My mom replied, No. She knew that she could rely on her own effusive and collegial personality, and that she’d make friends.

She didn’t say that she could trust herself to do this; she said that she knew she could rely on herself. That she had her own back, basically.

And she invited me to think about it this way instead: Can I rely on myself? Do I have my own back?

… Well, judging by a very long history of self-abandoning actions, it’s hard to answer that with a complete affirmative. But, when pressed, I know that it is true—that it is true now: I am here for myself, even when things are hard… and even when things are great.

My own pattern of looking the other way, of procrastinating, of dismissing myself has begun to lessen. If I look at it honestly.

And so, can I rely on myself? Well, I think I can.

And, here’s the rubber/road test: If I do think I can rely on myself, support myself, be compassionate and encouraging and honest with myself… Then… it means I’m going to have to allow the sentries around my castle to stand down, and let my natural boundaries do their job.

I’m going to have to trust myself (word disparity aside) and take actions that are indicative of a woman who trusts herself, inviting in those who are supportive but also challenge me to be my best self, and inviting to leave those who are not.

I’m going to have to have my back.

And I’m going to have to let go of the reigns. My reigns have become most like bonds, and not the fun kind.

I am scared to try this new way of being out “in the field.” But I am also scared to continue limiting my connections with people. (And again, if you’ve read me for any length of time, you know that, mostly, I’m addressing the case of chronic single-hood I’ve managed to carry for as long as I’ve been of dating age. Chronic single-hood is most like being Typhoid Mary. You feel fine, but no one wants to be near you.)

I know that I can’t (and don't want to) go on the way I have. I’m too young to be a spinster, and too old to be a bachelorette.

In the observational reality of modern relationships, I may be deft at cataloguing and quantifying. But my absence of field research also means that all of my assumptions about my own viability, accessibility, and health are purely theoretical.