Why Nice Guys Finish Last.

(Note: The following is one human’s opinion and not intended for relationship diagnostic purposes. See a doctor if symptoms worsen.)

You can add your variation of this sentiment to a long list of complaints we’ve heard over the years:

“I don’t get it; I’m a nice guy. Why do women only go for assholes?”

In my meditation on kindness today, I was brought to thinking about “nice-ness.”

In dating, what does “being nice” look like? Most times, we translate "being nice" as allowing the other person to make the decision:

“Wherever you want to go.” “Whatever food you want to eat.” “Whichever movie looks good to you.”

In the beginning, this seems like a great tack. Allowing the other person to choose, we figure, means that we’re being “nice” by saying that we respect and trust their opinion. We’re also saying (perhaps) that we don’t want to impose our will or assert our own interests or preferences, because we’re afraid that if we do, we’re going to proffer the “wrong” choice. 

I’ve had Mexican all week, and want to have Thai, but what if she hates Thai? I have absolutely no interest in seeing a chick flick, but if it means I get to spend time with her, then fine, I’ll sit through it.

We believe that we’re letting the other person make the choice in this situation, but actually, we’ve already made one: I am choosing not to disclose my desires for fear that my idea -- and therefore I -- will be rejected. Period. So, by contrast, if I let you choose, then I know whatever it is is something you'll like, and therefore you'll have a good time and you'll like me.

So, the "nice" guy says, "Whatever you want." Look how nice I am. 

This is a choice. But it's also a manipulation of the truth. And, in my experience, if you add enough of those up, what you wind up with is not knowing at all what the other person likes, what their preferences are -- who they are.

We wind up dating someone who is just trying to stay in our good graces, and in doing so, the "nice guy" begins to lose us, because there isn’t enough of “them” to keep us engaged.

I want to date you. Or at least, I want to find out if I want to date you.

I will add here, that of course, in the start of any dating situation, we’re all angling somehow – of course we want this to work! Who doesn’t want to find someone they enjoy and can be themselves with?

But there’s the rub. If we begin to date on a basis of people-pleasing, we’re not being ourselves at all. We’re being who you want us to be – Or more accurately, who we think you want us to be.

There is always room for negotiation, for compromise, obviously. (And sometimes, yes, you really don't care.)

But I think the (mis)understanding of “nice guys vs assholes” is that we set up a dichotomy that states: "Being nice" doesn't work, therefore women want an asshole. And, asshole becomes defined by the opposite: Someone who asserts themselves regardless of the other person's needs or wants. Someone who treats the other like crap.

And that is NOT what I’m saying is the successful tactic.

Certainly, someone who takes only their interest and desire into account is an asshole. And is not someone who I (or most people I know) want to date.

But there is a middle-ground for each of us between being a doormat, and being the one who makes the other a doormat.

Equality, self-esteem, honesty, fluidity. Uncertainty.

Yes, perhaps you see the chick flick on your second date. But maybe you have Thai beforehand.

Because, I want to get to know you, whoever that is, and whatever the outcome.

Incoming!

Enjoying my last moments of solitude in my studio apartment before I pick my mom up from the airport this afternoon. Delighted though I am that she’s coming to visit, I look forward to someday having an apartment where we both have bedroom doors!

Also, my voice is going, a combination of sickness, rehearsal + yesterday’s voice lesson, when it really began to go. My voice teacher advised that I avoid talking as best as I could during the next few days… I replied, (Fat chance!) You know my mom’s coming into town, right? 

That woman and I could talk until all the stars burned out and still have things to talk about that were interesting. It’s who and how we are. How we've been. But, I need to “rest my voice,” as the teacher put it, so either my mom will do the majority of talking, or she’ll get really good at lip-reading!

I’m excited to see her, to have her here. But, I also know that it means three and a half days of mostly “up” energy, or at least engaged energy, which is hard for me. Because it’s a “visit,” it means that we have a lot to talk about, and a lot to try to “fit in" to three days, since we see one another maybe once or twice a year. Oakland may be the Brooklyn of the Bay, but it doesn't mean I can get to her home of Manhattan by the Q train.

What I realize is that I’m going to have to police myself these few days, getting over a bad week of being sick still, but also, just for general self-care.

My mom, whether it’s the New Yorker or the mania in her, runs on an elevated frequency. As her child and a game partner, I tend to rise to her level. Some people call that level anxiety(!), but as someone once said to me, The difference between nervous and excited is breathing.

So, I’m going to have to remind myself to breathe, to take time to be a little more still and not quite as participatory as perhaps I might be, and to also let her know that's my intention. Also, I’m going to have to inwardly remember to un-constrict, to let her vibrate at whatever frequency she wants to without feeling I have to meet her there. That’s my part in this: she’s not asking me to be all abuzz with her; I’m doing that myself.

It’s hard, as I’ve said, when people change the rules to a game you’ve played for a long time; but I also don’t like partially dreading spending compacted time with her. It’s a litt-- a lot exhausting to try to match that level of up-ness and on-ness, and, well, it’s why she’s the one with bipolar disorder, and not me.

There’s also a crash when you’re up that high.

I’ve tried to learn to moderate my own extroverted and introverted behavior, balancing a few hours of out-ness with a few of aloneness. It doesn’t have to be inside my home, away from the world; just alone-ness is enough, on a walk, at a museum alone, at a movie alone. As much as I thrive on connection and conversation, and could indeed talk to the end of time, I’d be working on fumes by then.

Self-care will be the name of the game. I know that’s changing the rules a little from how we've always been and always communicated, but if I let her know that I’ve introduced a new rule to our relationship, at least for now—for even one hour out of the 16 we’ll be spending conscious with one another—I think it will be respected and absorbed.

It might not be a smooth transition into a different way of “being together,” but I think in the long run, it will help us both to be present with the other in a way that feels nurturing.

Which, I think is what a mother-daughter relationship is supposed to be anyway.

Horse Thief

There’s a phrase I heard when I got to certain rooms in San Francisco: If you sober up a drunken horse thief, you still have a horse thief.

Lately, I’ve been getting the chance to acknowledge where I still act from Horse Thief tendencies and impulses.

I was a thief in High School, probably in Junior High, and actually come to think of it, in college, too. It was sort of "a thing" me and my friends did, to see what we could get away with, and also, because we were only stealing from big conglomerate stores, we felt (or at least I did) justified, since they were always screwing the little man anyway – What did they care if Maybelline mascara went into my pocket? That’s a fraction of a cent they’ve lost in profit, and I’m standing in solidarity with the Chinese children they hired to mark the packaging. (Riii….ght.)

I was, however, pretty clear about not stealing from people, only from these big stores, because there was a line I felt I still had to maintain, a standard of behavior I adhered to. It wasn’t right to take from little mom & pop shops, or to steal from actual people I knew. That was wrong. Stealing from the mall was just expected, written into their budgets in some corporate headquarters somewhere, and therefore right -- or at least okay.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve stolen anything. Probably since before I moved to SF. But that doesn’t exactly mean that the Horse Thief has been repentant or ousted.

I have all the stores I’ve “reappropriated” from on a list that I am slowly chipping away at, to make amends to, either by sending in money for items, or “paying it forward” by donating to a charity. Each will have a conversation with a trusted friend around it when the time comes.

But, I’ve lately recognized that there is still a pattern of dishonest behavior and thinking that infiltrates my current life.

When I was working through a temp agency while in grad school, I got to open the invoices to see what the company I worked for was actually paying the temp agency, and it was certainly higher than the rate at which I was being paid by said agency (which, duh, is how they profit). So I approached the company I was working for, and asked if they would just hire me under the table. That way, my Horse Thief logic went, it was cheaper for them, and I would get a few more dollars, since it wasn’t going to be taxed.

Um… Yeah. That didn’t work out so well. Even though I was “working a program,” even though I could talk about the necessity of honesty and integrity in life, and seriously really mean it, this dishonesty was creating holes in my abundance, and in my sobriety/serenity.

Plus, I got caught. The temp agency found me out, and called the company where I was a receptionist, and when I answered the phone, she “surprisedly” said, Oh, Hi Molly…

Oops.

So, there were emails and phone calls and conversations between the HR at the company where I was and the temp agency I’d spurned. After talking with some trusted friends, I wrote an email to the agency, owning up to my part of this deception.

And, in the end, when tax time rolled around, I got a 1099 from the company, anyway, since I’d earned a significant amount in the 5 or so months I temped under the table for them, and I had to pay taxes on that money anyway. Which meant that I ended up earning less from my time there than I would have if I’d just continued working through the proper (read: legal) channels.

I have a moral line about not stealing pens from work, or using stamps I didn’t pay for. But there are other ways in which this fear of not being taken care of, this fear that my needs will not be met creeps out.

This poisonous fear seeps into my life, and I make choices based on that fear. And eventually, I am screwed by it.

It’s been interesting to notice that this is a pattern that has continued into my adulthood. It’s certainly rooted in a long-held belief that my needs will not be met. That if I behave along “proper” channels, I won’t get or have enough. That if I behave by rules and laws that are set down, I will not be taken care of.

So, I better get my fearful, sticky claws into something, I better come up with some better, sneaky ideas, or else I’ll be eating ramen again.

I get it. I see it.

And I hope to change it.

A trusted friend does a lot of work with affirmations to counter fear. So, this morning, I used that tool:

I fear my needs will not be met.

I trust that the Universe cares for all my needs.

I fear that no one is looking out for my good.

The Universe cares deeply for me.

Sure, maybe it’s bunk. But, right now, I don’t know another way, except to “act as if” these things are true. To try to behave in a way that really does align with my morals, instead of with my fears. 

I have also heard that, with every bought of true honesty or clarity or bill paid on time or phone call from creditor answered, that we are closing up the holes in the sieve that holds abundance. Each time my covers are pulled, I get the chance to be more honest, and thereby the chance to mend the bucket into which the fullness of life is surely always being and going to be poured.

I cannot turn a drunken horse thief (or a sober one for that matter) into an upstanding citizen. But I can try to trust that I don’t have to be one anymore. 

The Longest Lesson

There is a phrase around here that says something like, “Life is day at school: Some of the lessons are easy, and some of the lessons are hard.”

I went back into my email this morning to grab an old “Oprah/Deepak” meditation (because even though the last 21-day meditation “challenge” ended a while ago… the link still works!). The one this morning centered on the thought, “I attract that which I am.”

Sometimes I love this idea. I feel full of love and potential and vigor, and love that I am attracting that into my world and orbit.

Today, however, I heard that phrase, and my guts steeled a little. I attract that which I am.

This isn’t a tear-down of myself, but these few days, I’ve felt scared, inexpert, impulsive and mistaken. – I sent the blog that said I don’t want to “escalate” things with the 25 y.o. to the 25 y.o. … I wrote with it, There’s probably a better and more graceful way to let you know why I have to cancel Saturday’s date, but here.

And like pulling the pin on a grenade and handing it to him, I pressed send.

You can imagine this brought about a series of results and reactions, which I am now attempting to repair. Inexpertly. And perhaps unsuccessfully.

Yesterday morning, I did some writing about my motivations for doing this and had a conversation sharing this with someone else. It’s part of the reason I wasn’t able to write yesterday morning.

It feels sucky, is how it feels. It feels shitty to know that there are different ways to do things, and know you did it otherwise.

I feel sad because I (rightly) pulled the cord on a potential relationship, and I feel ashamed of how I did that.

It’s okay. I’m human and inexpert, and learning and growing and trying.

But, that also means I’m attracting into my world people who are the same – AND WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST BE FUCKING PERFECT?? Be kind, and honest, and simple all of the time? It would make this “lesson” much easier, wouldn’t it?

Can’t we all just get A’s, and “go to the head of the class,” and all be valedictorians?

Can’t we all just stop stubbing our toes against our own fears and hardships and boogeymen?

Can’t we all just have lives where we feel confident, expert, proud, self-admiring, and kick-ass?

Why, in order to get to all the above feelings, must we go through all the stubbing first?

It sense no make.

And I’m tired of being a flailing human being. I’m tired of doing it almost right, of showing up almost fully. I’m tired of almost feeling whole and complete and awesome.

Sometimes, I do. I won’t lie. Sometimes, I really really do. Sometimes it’s for minutes, sometimes for hours. And even a few times, for days, I feel like I’m really walking on a yellow brick road toward Oz.

And then the trees start to throw apples at me.

I *get* that “this is all part of the process.” But sometimes the process sucks.

And in my attempts to wriggle out of discomfort, I land in a higher degree. By being dishonest, abandoning my truth, trying to make someone else deal with feelings that are uncomfortable or pave a way for me that is less rocky, well—I know it’s the very absolute best that, as fallible, learning, human, I can do today. But I wish, well, I wish I didn’t take that person and potential friendship down in the process.

(End of tantrum)

(...maybe.)

State of the Union

Yesterday, I sat with a group of folks, and admitted that continuing to participate in activities that I’m not 100% invested in (or even 85%) is dishonest. That I was not being honest with my intentions or priorities—and was thereby wasting time. (You finite commodity, you.)

There was a meditation/writing portion of this meeting, and so I wrote a series of questions for myself:

• How is being dishonest with others serving me?
• How is prioritizing others’ needs serving me?
• How is NOT prioritizing my own needs serving me?
• What need am I fulfilling by not prioritizing and owning my needs?
• How is dismissing my desires serving me?
• How is devaluing myself serving me?

 Heavy, huh?

But, for me, that’s what pushing important things off to “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” is. It’s devaluing myself, what I have deemed important to myself.

Because I’ve been hemming and hawing a little on letting those folks know that I can’t come out and play anymore. Even though I am clear that my priorities and intentions have shifted.

So… Yesterday, I committed to those folks that I would make two phone calls. One was to the 25 y.o.

He asked, adorably, if he were in trouble, when I said I wanted to chat when he wasn’t in a café. I said no, but that it was sort of a “State of the Union” conversation, so to give me a call back.

He did. And we did.

I’d been feeling throughout this week that this couple-dom wasn’t on course for relationship-land. It’s a pretty appropriate assessment after a half-dozen dates. We’ve kept it PG-13, so there isn’t any animal-brain “must keep orgasm giver” going on.

But, I have simply felt like I’ve crystallized that I don’t want to date this person long-term. It’s just a feeling, not a fear, not a defense mechanism. Just a fact.

The big however is, I don’t want to stop seeing him. And thus, my hesitation.

I really enjoy spending time with this person, getting to know him, getting to know myself in relation to him. And I thoroughly enjoy our frisky make-out sessions.

So, that’s what I told him. Pretty much all of the above. I don’t see this heading toward relationship track, but I enjoy spending time with him, and I enjoy making out with him.

That the outcomes I saw were we transition to friends, or do that and try to keep with the sexy-time, or do neither. So, he asked me, then, what I wanted? If I knew what I wanted? And I said, no. I didn’t know, but perhaps in talking it out, and hearing his thoughts, we might find some solution.

He admitted and agreed that he was “along for the ride,” but not in a place to invest in a relationship. So that pretty much leaves us two options: continue seeing one another with the frequency we have been, or stop seeing one another.

I replied, honestly, that the idea of seeing him less was unappealing to me.

(And I have to admit here, that part of my hesitation in letting go of this couple-dom is that this person is the first I’ve met who is really in the theater world, has insights, and knowledge, and can point me toward plays and monologues and acting worksheets and websites—which he has—and if I let this go, I won’t have that access anymore.

And that, my dear friends, is scarcity mind. That this is the first person with those bodies of knowledge does not mean that he’s the last person, and to continue a relationship based on a selfish need and fear of loss is the definition of crappy. Doomed. Dishonest.)

So, at the end of this conversation, we agreed to continue to see one another on the semi-regular, as we have been, and that if the ambiguity “gets to” either of us, we can talk about that then.

I did say that I am a person who is wanting a relationship, and that he deserves someone who thinks he’s the sunandmoonandstars, but, for right now, no one is blowing down our doors, so… here we are.

I don’t think it’s “settling for less.” I think it’s being perfectly honest with my desires, honest with my intentions, and my continued task is to show up in the single world and be available.

That might mean a week more of the hot make-out sessions, it might mean a month. I don’t know. It is ambiguous. And we know how I LOVE that. But, I am not willing to let go of this connection yet, because of what it does for me on multiple levels, nor am I willing to let go of my intention to have a true partnership with another human being.

In the meantime, I have that list of questions to answer for and about myself, and some theater websites to explore.

Welcome To The Jungle--We've Got Fun & Games

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s Head,

Don’t Freak Out.

Dear Suspicious Lump Under My Right Shoulder Blade,

Don’t be an asshole.

Be a mutated muscle, embarrassing adult acne, a rogue tooth stem cell that formed in the wrong place in utero; even be a benign cyst that I have to go through biopsy limbo to confirm. Just don’t be an asshole.

Today, I go to the doctor. I am grateful and lucky to have the community who shows up for me, available at 6:30am-text notice. One of them is coming with me to the doctor visit--though I didn’t ask, I just "wanted to inform someone who isn't my mom and wouldn't freak out," she offered. I wanted to ask, but asking for help... especially help to attend to an amorphous, "Am I just paranoid?" symptom...

Yesterday at work, I spoke with someone who also has intimate experience with things like this. She said, it’s not paranoid. It’s not hypochondriac. We have reasons, and good ones. She said she gets alarmed too. And so, what do we do? We get things checked out.

I was trying to play it cool. Sure, I’ve just been really tired; it’s normal, you’ve seen my lists of activities. It’s nuhhh-thing. And MAYBE IT IS. But you know how I tongue the other side of "maybe."

So, I went to get labs drawn yesterday afternoon. My blood is all normal. Leukemia Negative.

But, this lump. I noticed a few days ago.

Is this too much information? Is this too soon to tell you anything? Is this just me mental-masturbating onto the page to diffuse some of my worry by spewing it onto you?

Maybe.

The same friend who will accompany me today once said, “Don’t Worry Twice.” It’s the best advice I’ve ever been given, and a thousand miles toward following it.

But, I remember it. I try to do that.

I’m as worried as the situation warrants. Which is, hmm, this is suspicious. I am not a doctor, I should get this checked out. The end. It’s why I got my blood tested finally; and glad that I did. It’s why I’ll see a doctor today, who may really seriously in fact tell me, this is just a really bad zit under your skin, Moll. Use some ProActive and get on with your life.

The thought that occurred to me this morning, waking up and deciding to get this zit-in-sheep's-clothing checked out, was “Rule 62.” Don’t Take Yourself So Damned Seriously.

A thousand thoughts go through one’s head when….

No.

One thought went through my head when, yesterday morning, I wrote my blog to you, got ready for work, and broke down crying in my closet. I’m so tired of being brave.

The thought that follows that is: I won’t go through this again.

The thought that follows that is: Of course I will.

Because tired of it or not, bone-weary or not, to gain a year of hell, perhaps five years of health, perhaps one perhaps twenty, I would do it.

I hate that I would. I hate that I love this all so much. I hate that I have such a burning, singeing ambition to do more. I hate that I want to have my own life story to hand to someone to type. To have someone record and note my life, my legacy, my experience of living a full and long life.

I hate that I love myself and most especially you and all of this so damned fucking much, that I would do whatever it took to stay.

And then, of course, I don’t take myself so damned seriously, I eat my daily eggs, and I don’t worry twice.

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s Head,

Don’t freak out. 

Reach out. Follow up. And get back to the business of being awesome. No.Matter.What.

P.S. It is a nice change from the 25 y.o.- should I/shouldn't I argument. So there's that. #SilverLining

Bollocks.

Through a series of work I’m doing right now, I sent out a stack of three letters to former employers yesterday, each with a variation on the theme – I was an unprofessional employee, I am sorry for how I behaved, and I aim to be more responsible in my jobs now and going forward.

The messed up, fucked up, I-don’t-want-to-do-this part of all that is… that now I have to stick to my word – the word about being a better employee going forward. This means, fewer endless hours on facebook while at work (if any at all); it means taking my breaks so I’m refreshed to actually do work instead of sit and stare at whatever I’m doing; it means being efficient in my work. I means, basically, doing what I’m paid to be doing.

I don’t like that. And, yet, I know how completely necessary it is. I’ve been talking here about responsibility lately, how I don’t want it, but that I do want the things that come to people who are responsible – in their work, extracurricular, and home lives. So, if I want what they have, then I must do what they do.

I don’t have to. Sure, I can say one thing and do another, but in truth, that feels, obviously, worse. Better to not say anything at all, and continue to slide along on half-steam, than to say that I’m making changes so that I don’t slide along on half-steam and then not do it.

Most recently, having the (rated G) dalliance with the married man, I got to see very acutely where I was either going to stick to the letter of my word or not. I’ve had to make many an amends to women whose boyfriends, and, once, a fiancé, with whom I’ve dallied. I told them each, specifically, that I was making changes in my life so that I don’t act like that anymore – that I was sorry for how I behaved, and that I wouldn’t do it again.

So, when I began talking in the flirtatious way with this man about a month ago, I knew – I felt – how off this was. How against everything that I’d set up over the last few years this was. How, basically, I was breaking my promise to each of them, and indeed to myself – having promised myself that I wouldn’t behave in ways around men that would make me feel bad about myself, or guilty, or ashamed.

And so, I stopped the dalliance with the man, and am now newly engaged in a body of work to help extricate and sever and lay to rest the last of the beliefs and behaviors that influence me to believe that this is all that is available to me, or what I deserve.

So, here I am, now, about work. About telling these folks that I fucked up in the past, and I’m trying to do better. That, specifically, I will be more responsible and work with more integrity. And, I know, now, that I’ll have to stick to it. I know how it feels from that recent experience to come right up against something I said I wouldn’t do – I know how icky it feels, and against my morals. And so, now, I must take that same self-line into the professional world.

And I hate it.

I know it’s good for me. I know it’ll open doors for me, and duh, it’s the right thing to do. But, Oh! My Beautiful Wickedness!, I don’t “want” to. Luckily, it doesn’t quite matter whether I want to or not. Pain will always push me in the direction forward. I don’t want to feel the pain of being a hypocrite, so I will work better. I don’t want to feel ashamed that I’m not living to my word, so I’ll stop accepting jobs that I know I’ll work half-steam at.

I don’t like it. It feels like an entirely new level of adulthood to go toward this direction of integrity. But it’s necessary, and it’s time.

I have no doubt that the opening up of this line of vision will amount to something more in my professional life. I have no doubt that by working to a better standard of duty that I’ll feel better about myself and less like a fraud. I know that this will take me somewhere different internally and externally. But, still, it sucks.

It’s like this is what teenagers experience when they get into their 20s maybe. Or, these days, 20somethings into their 30s. I’d love to learn this now. It’s late, but it is certainly a better late than never.

I also wrote an email last night to a recent former employer to apologize for how I ended my employment there, and to ask for clarity around some money they gave me to pay off the last of my braces when I had them a few years ago. He said that they had dental, so it was covered, and no liability to me. He said that he did think I “handled the separation badly.” And he said that if I ever needed a reference that he has “[my] back.” I’m glad to know that the money is clear. I agree that I could have handled things differently. And for fuck’s sake, I promise that I will handle them differently in the future.

Change sucks. Especially when it’s good for me. 

Chop Wood, Carry Water.

Two weeks ago, I wrote this in the Grownupness blog:

"I grasp at things I think I want, but I’m not willing to firm the foundation to get there – to mix the mortar, lay the bricks. Chop wood, carry sticks. That’s where I need to be at. Very simply, I need to lay hold of qualities and actions that I have tried to avoid."

And so, this weekend, I carried sticks.

The simplicity of camping, even in the complexity of “car camping” the bastardized cousin of “real” camping, was so easy. It’s so easy for me. What needs to be done next? Well, we’re heading out down the river for the afternoon while others go river rafting (a luxury expense I couldn’t afford), so what did I need to bring? Sunscreen, towel, book I didn’t crack, hat, water. That’s it.

It’s turning darker, what do we need to do? Get more firewood, build a fire, refill the water, not at the mercury-laden river’s edge.

There are things that I know how to do, and this weekend, I got to see that very clearly. I know how to build a fire, I know you need something like paper or brush to catch under the kindling to catch under the wood blocks that were neatly chopped for us in a bundle wrapped with plastic. I know that I need to slather sunscreen on myself and wear a hat because I’m paranoid of skin cancer since my encounter with the Australian sun – the sun won.

I know how to make coffee, and put up a tent and roll my sleeping bag and to remember to bring earplugs and tarot cards ;)

I know how to camp. At least, I know how to car camp.

When I unfurled my sleeping bag, in it was a long-sleeved shirt I hadn’t seen in two years, since I was in that tent, with someone else.

I played Ghosts of Camping Trips Past this weekend. Remembering acutely who I’d been with and when. Each and every one of the even mildly significant and more significant relationships I’ve been in over the last six years, I’ve been camping with that person. I haven’t slept in that tent alone in a long time.

This particular camp grounds, I’d been to maybe 3 or 4 years ago, when I’d been newly dating someone. It’s a beautiful spot on the American River, up past Sacramento, and almost to Tahoe. It’s amenitied out the yin-yang, but that’s alright. I remember the photo of me and that person in that very landscape, I remember the release I feel when I’m out there. Not with the person, but out there, knowing and feeling confident that I know even that little bit.

I haven’t roughed it. I haven’t hiked out into the woods and set up camp since I was 19 and leading a camp group overnight with our packs into the Appalachian Mountains. And even then, it wasn’t roughing it – That’s alright. I know it’s something I still want to do.

I wondered why it was, as I went through my previous camping trips over the last few years, that each had included a man I’ve been involved with. Was this my test for them? For “us”? Was I only able to be there with someone else?

No. The reason, I realized, is because I love camping. And I happen to go and be invited, and then I happen to invite the guy I’m with. That’s all. Turns out, camping is a hobby, I suppose. It’s likely the only same thing that has occurred with each relationship I’ve had over the last few years. The only “adventure” or “event” or excursion that has happened in each involvement. It just points out to me that this is an important thing for me. Something I love.

A way that I don’t feel I need to be any different than I actually am.

I feel confident out there (yes, even with the general store and port-o-potties nearby). But I feel like myself. I usually look like a wreck, and I don’t care. My hair matted and loved by the sweat and dust and river mist. Caked in various layers of SPF lotions and supportive sneakers. I don’t look like Xena, I look like me. Like the me I am in private, with no one to impress or stun or mesmerize. Like the me I am when it’s just me. Whole, and unabashed, and unprotected. And capable. I usually feel like a leader, or at least like a competent person when I’m out there. Something those of you who read this blog with any consistency can attest is not my normal M.O. out in the “real world.”

I needed that. I needed to feel worthy and valuable simply for who I was/am. Not for how I looked. Or for how much money I had. Or for what kind of job I worked. Or what cell phone I carried. Or degree I had. I could be valuable for my contributions to the group, be it building a fire, or fetching the water, or going off to sit and do my Morning Pages out on a rock in the middle of the rushing river so that I could be more present and emptied of my junk when I returned to the group. I could be valuable by bringing Madlibs to do by the fire at night – which led to so much hilarity, and stupid good fun. I could be valuable by making coffee the first morning when everyone was still asleep or grumpy. I could be valuable by breaking out the guitar one of us brought for a little while, and later, sing along harmonies with her, and remember that I have a voice.

I felt purposeful. I didn’t question who I was or where I was going or what I was doing with my life. I didn’t have any profound judgments or insights. I simply “chopped wood, carried water” (no chopping this trip, but you know what I mean). If I can take that simplicity, and that confidence, and that sense of pleasure from being precisely who I was/am into the world, I think I’ll be alright.

If I can dress nicely and put on makeup, and remember that it’s just a lens through which to see the whole that I am.

If I can breathe in the fire smoke scent of my balled-up clothing and recall what it feels like when I’m just me, then I think I’ll be alright. 

Sans Cape

For an unemployed person, I’m mighty busy, and double booking, or booking right after another.

So, I was honest with the painter yesterday and simply emailed her to tell her that I was feeling a little daunted at the thought of modeling for 3 hours after working a full day – I’ve been so tired, guys, normal people hours are weird – I almost wrote “wired,” which I suppose they are too. My caffeine reduction experiment tanked last week at the temp job with a return to 3 cups a day, but I’m trying again, and yesterday was only two.

A friend of mine said, when I told her on Monday night that I was thinking of canceling Tuesday’s modeling gig, that there was no way that I could cancel with this woman, the artist, that I had made my commitment, and that it was less than 24 hours notice, and that it would affect my “reputation,” and that if I didn’t want to model ever again than it was fine for me to cancel.

Whoa.

So, considering that this woman is someone I go to for council in other matters, I took what she said, not to heart, but to left ventricle maybe. But it didn’t sit well in my left ventricle. I am/was tired, and was not really going to be emotionally or physically available to do what needed to be done. This date was set up over a month ago, when I had no idea I’d be working 9-5 in SF. I went to sleep on Monday night contemplating lying to the artist, and telling her that I had a stomach issue, and couldn’t make it. Then, I let it go, and went to sleep.

I woke up, and decided to just be honest. So, I wrote the artist an email, said obviously I made my commitment to her and would be there, but was there another way.

You know what she said (of course you do), she said, NO PROBLEM. “I’ll paint instead.” And we rescheduled for a weekend evening next month. “No Problem.” Once again, I’m shown that when I’m 100% honest, it usually goes better than I could have imagined. I tried my very best to let go of the results after I sent the email yesterday morning – I brought all my modeling gear with me, and said to myself, if I have to, I have to, and I will – … then I habitually, compulsively, checked my inbox to see if there was a response. Then… I remembered that I was “turning it over,” letting it go, and I was actually at another job that was needing my attention.

And so it went for about 4 hours. I even left for lunch. Ha! I even let myself take my little breaks and walk around downtown, to relieve my poor spine of compression for a few non-sitting minutes. I let myself take care of myself, basically, even though I didn’t know what “the future held.” That’s sort of new. Usually, I’ll clamp down – I don’t know what’s going on, what’s happening, what will happen, I better stay here, worry, consume, agitate.

Nope. I took a walk. I wore a dress yesterday even, I think I’ve worn it once since I bought it, and I looked nice. I looked presentable. I looked Molly. Only nicer ;)

I come back from lunch, there’s an email from the artist, and, I guess I spoiled the surprise already, but, NO PROBLEM. I can’t stress enough what a relief that was. I was able to leave work and go to meet up with some of my peeps for an hour, we even sat in some 15 minute meditation, which was unexpected. I was able to come home, play with my cat, … attempt to get to bed at a decent hour.

I haven’t told my friend who chastised me for considering canceling that it all went well. I know that she’s human, and as another friend said to me recently, We can only see as far for others as we can see for ourselves. And, I “get” what she meant, that it’s not okay to cancel last minute – or rather, it’s not ideal, but it had to be asked. So, I will have to tell her – and maybe when I’m done with this set of work I’m doing with her, I’ll move on – she is helpful in a lot of other ways, and again, she is human. She has her own history, and beliefs and patterns. Whatever it meant to her to arise such a virulent reaction, really doesn’t have much to do with me, honestly. I’m glad I’m able to see what was mine, what was right for me, and do what was right for “Human Molly,” not “Super Molly.” I may look good in tights, but the cape is a little much.

One of the reasons I didn’t want to do the gig yesterday was that I wanted to continue to apply for work in the evening. I didn’t do that yesterday – I sat on my couch and read this book I’m reading. Man Seeks God. It’s actually hilarious, and informative. But one thing that came up at my workshop on this past Saturday was my answer to my question for the group – What, honestly, is your favorite creative block – or put another way, what is your favorite thing to do instead of being creative?

In the past, I’ve written facebook, or t.v., but this time, I think I got a little closer to the heart of it: Reading about other people’s lives instead of living my own.

Yep, that pretty much fits about all the manifestations of what I do instead of living my own – that’s what facebook provides, this book I’m reading offers, it’s what t.v. or movies do. Let me witness someone else’s life, instead of participating in mine.

Sure, there’s a time and place for it all – I’m not going Luddite. But I’m glad to be more focusedly aware of what it is I’m doing when I decide to read for 3 hours, instead of send out one resume.

That said, today, I commit to creating a teaching resume, and sending out one job application.

I also commit to taking a spinal decompression walk. ;) 

A Fair and Balanced View

There are a few things that are hard to reconcile. For example, prefacing your poem to your family by saying it’s mediocre as you did not have time to edit the first draft – and after reading it in public at the ceremony at school, having people come up to you afterward praising the poem and asking how they can get a copy. I gave a woman my card.

It’s hard to reconcile my view of where and how I am in my life with the clouds of pride and support that beamed from my family and classmates on Saturday, graduation day.

It’s also hard to maintain a stoic, stark, medieval view of myself when I have women around me who “want what I have,” and a woman to call who reminds me of the length and breadth of this process of school, and indeed the last 6 years.

A fair and balanced view. How to achieve that around ourselves, whom we hold to such impossible standards that we’re always falling short. Or at least I do.

Because I’m not falling short. My measuring stick is broken and outdated and subjective.

Not much has “changed” outwardly over the last few weeks as graduation occurred, and it’s hard to know if much has changed inwardly, but, I think it is, slowly. I think my awareness of my rigid and flagellating stance with myself will begin to bring change with it.

I also decided to change my workshop to sliding scale, instead of a set fee. I had the thoughts to either cancel the whole thing (as I had/have only one registered/paid participant), or to host at my house the few who said they wanted to come, or do it in the city anyway.

I chose the latter, partly because I want the experience of doing it in a more “formal” or official setting. I still want to share these tools, and help others to learn whatever they need to learn from this. And also… I’m worried if I just cancelled it, people might show up at the event the day-of, and be disappointed ;)

So, we’ll see what happens with that. It still may just be me and my one registered participant. And if that’s the case, and I eat the rental fee, so be it. Not ideal, but my ideas about how the workshop should be are obviously not working, so instead of edging toward “fuck it” and not do it, or toward “you MUST” and do it for the set fee, I’m finding a middle way. – That feels like progress.

Also, I got to talk with my mom yesterday at the ass-crack of dawn when we’d dropped my brother at his flight at SFO, and had a few hours to kill before her flight. So, we grabbed some coffee and sat in Terminal 2 in those Ikea-looking tangerine-colored winged chairs, and we talked.

I decided somewhere mid-conversation to tell her why I’d stopped talking to her on the phone for almost a year. I didn’t “owe” her the explanation, but I did want to share why. I reminded her of that last conversation we had, and how she “hi-jacked” the conversation (a term she used about her behavior when I’d finished). How suddenly a light and fun and mutual conversation jumped the tracks, the shark, the point, and careened head-long into “My Mom’s Issues.” I told her that I don’t feel able to hold the space for that stuff for her anymore, that it feels inappropriate, but that I didn’t have the words or wherewithal to tell her that in the moment. And so, instead of putting up a boundary, I put up a wall.

And it’s held. She said she had to just accept that we’d communicate via email and text, and that that had to be enough. And for this year it was. Seeing her, however, I really was reminded of how much I miss her. And she said to me after I’d shared what went on with me, that if I felt able, and it sounds like I feel more able now, to tell her that she’s hijacked the conversation to let her know. And we’ll see if I can.

We both know we’re still in new territory. Our relationship has swung the gamut from oversharing, overly enmeshed, over identification all the way over to not talking for months and months, several times. We’re still finding our center in our relationship, as I suppose we’re each finding our center within ourselves. Back to the fair and balanced view. The Middle Way.

How can I hold the contradictions? How can I allow for myself to be vulnerable without a hard shield of protection? How can I see myself as a simple, or simply complex, human, with assets and liabilities? And, how can I allow others that same generosity?

Dunno.  ;)  But I think I’m trying. 

Somewhere New.

For several months now, I’ve been working on a particular area of healing. For those of you who have read the “Savage Love,” then “Savage Beauty” blogs, you know that I’ve been working on healing my relationship with my sexuality, and my past behavior and experience in this area.

This is likely going to be a little heavy – for which I’m not thrilled, but I’m honest – so if that’s not what you want today, I’m sure Cyanide & Happiness will provide some levity today.

On my way back from the sweat lodge this Sunday, I was riding with my friend who was running the lodge. I told her that earlier this year, and late last year, each time I’d “go in” via meditation or shamanic journey work to ask what I need to do next to move forward, I was presented with the information that I needed to work on this stuff – sexual trauma and other murky stuff. I have been. Working with my therapist on EMDR for a little bit (though I’m not seeing her currently, due to finances), and in these other more alternative ways.

And most of all, through my thesis.

Basically what my thesis trails is a path through my sexual history. That story parallels my mental breakdown, and my parents’ divorce, but really, what is being excavated and brought into the light is all of that. The “highlights” or representative incidents.

Over ages 16 through 24 (a little earlier than 16, but that’s when it really took off with a very chicken-or-egg tag team with my drinking), is a napalm blanket of sorrow, shame, and dissociation. When riding in the car with my friend on Sunday, I said to her that I hadn’t “been in” to ask for a while if I’m “done” with this particular set of work or not, and wondered if maybe I was, but/and as I found out a little this morning, there are still some corners left to sweep.

I am grateful that I had the courage to put all of what I needed to onto paper in my thesis. But, I’m also aware that it goes much deeper and further than the stark, strobe-like glimpses that I give you, the reader. And this morning, in meditation, I began to psychicly clear out some of the cobwebs. (I just accidentally wrote “sobwebs,” which I suppose is pretty accurate for this morning.)

In fact, I did something pretty literal to sweeping out – in my mind’s eye, I walked through and into all those situations I remember, and unfortunately or not, I remember quite a lot quite vividly apparently -- more than I thought I did. I walked through these times and places, into these couplings and actions, and burned sage there. I carried this sage through all the circumstances I could remember, and asked them to be cleared of any energy which is no longer needed.

There are the few where there was kindness, and the kindness will remain, but there are the many that were out of a sense of obligation, or resignation, or force; or just wanting to feel better; or just wanting to feel anything other than what I felt. There are those that are truly tragic, and require some extra doses of compassion and witness, instead of repression.

I don’t know what may or not come of this work this morning. It was sort of “unbidden;” I didn’t have the intention as I closed my eyes for meditation this morning to do any of that – but I guess the Powers That Be had that intention for me, anyway.

One thing I asked for aloud in the prayer circle in Sunday’s sweat lodge during the final prayer round – the one where we get to pray for ourselves, out loud so others know what we need – I prayed for healing around physical intimacy. And that’s where the majority of my tears came on Sunday. My relationship with my body, my femininity, sexuality, sex, intimacy, being present in my body when being intimate – all of this needs healing. I’d still rather hide within my body – offer you it, but not what’s inside it; assume it’s really all you want from me anyway, so I might as well just give you only that out of spite – even if you in fact want more. But, hiding within myself doesn’t work anymore. Beating myself out of my body - or having someone do it for me - doesn’t work anymore. Not being present is painful now. And not voicing my physical needs to a partner is another way of hiding.

I don’t really know what to do about it yet. I know that I don’t do what I used to. But I feel like I’ve swung to the opposite side of the spectrum – from the vixen to Betty Crocker, as I’ve put it. But I know opening these doors, clearing these wounds, being willing to treat my flesh with care, and being willing to meet all of you with all of me are mile-markers of progress.

I’d like to be done with this work. I’d like to declare myself fit for duty. Maybe it’ll always be an ongoing process, maybe it’ll come to a place of plateau. I don’t know. But apparently I’m ready to clear the sobwebs, and arrive at somewhere new. 

R-E-S-P--...oh you know the rest

Things I have the power to change:

my hair color

my perspective.

That’s the list for now. Sure, it could be really long, but that’s what occurs to me at the moment. I haven’t, in fact, changed my hair color in a few years – after the blonde debacle, and subsequent re-browning – and, it sort of feels that i haven’t changed my perspective all that much lately either.

I met up with a friend in SF yesterday, as I went about my day flyering the city (note the gazillion workshop flyers on the lampposts of Hayes Valley), and basically, she told me that although she could see that this was important to me to talk about – where I am in my life, basically, … or rather, my opinion of where I am in my life – that she just couldn’t process with me anymore. That she herself, as I well know, is in a similar position, going through similar changes in her life, and I guess she’s just fed up with the whole “Let’s figure it out” routine. And so, she told me, gently, that I’m still in the problem, and not the solution, and that until I start to do things or see things differently, of course it’s going to be painful for me.

I was both disappointed, and heartened – our friendship is that strong, that we can let one another know when we’re being crazy, basically, and that the other just can’t bear witness to crazy right now.

I have a few marching orders, work I’m doing with a woman one-on-one, that I can proceed to progress on, and that’s where the change will come. But, for now, my friend is right – as Jung said (loose paraphrase): we cannot solve the problem at the level of the problem.

So, if all I have at the moment is my ground level view, it’s better for now to stop reporting back from the (perceived) bleak front lines, and do the work I have in front of me which will help me to get a foothold up and out.

Perhaps this all sounds sort of vague, but it’s all I got.

I was reflecting this morning on respect – that something that I can change is how I respect myself or don’t. Who am I to disparage myself for not being x y or z? How would I react if a friend came to me and “should” all over me? (You should know, it should be different, you should have figured it out already, you should be better…)

I’m realizing that all the time that I spend in lamenting this situation is time I’m spending beating myself up, and treating myself unkindly – and without respect. What would it be like to respect myself – to look at myself from an outsider’s view? To congratulate myself on my accomplishments, take real stock and account of things that I have done and talents that I have. What would it be like to take a more well-rounded view of myself? Would I ever disparage myself as in the above paragraph? Discounting all that I am? No. Because here are a few reality checks – a) I’m human – guess what, I come with assets and liabilities. b) I’m hosting a workshop that I’ve dreamed up, crafted, advertised and implemented all by myself today. (with due thanks to all my helpers!) and, c) I am poised to graduate from graduate school. I didn’t make it to my college graduation. I got high as fuck after my high school one. This time, I’m showing up – period. I’m showing up entirely differently.

I’ve changed. I have become someone worthy of respect – most emphatically of my own respect. If I can begin to take ownership of feelings like that – or rather facts like that – then I can begin to move from the problem into the solution. I do not need to know anything about what “will happen.” What I do need to be very careful I count along side of the things I have “to work on,” are the things that are worthy, lovable, respectable about myself.

Because in the end, I’m the person with the power to change my perspective. Because I will inform others’ interactions with me, Fate’s interactions with me, by leading by my own example of realistic, balanced, and earned respect. 

The end is nigh

I just like that phrase. So gothic and epic … and Mayan. Just kidding.

(p.s. Following yesterday’s blog and some other recent ones, I start to wonder what is TMI or inappropriate for this forum. But, although I may have walked up to the line, and even then, I may not have, I don’t think I’ve crossed it. So – onward!)

My school inbox is being flooded with emails about graduation regalia, thesis submission costs, thesis filing information, invitations to the end of year event, etc. You’d think there were something a brewin, eh?

May 12^th I graduate. That’s about a month from now, and I’m stoked and terrified. Not terrified, just unclear.

In an effort to get more clear, today I’m going to be taking up a suggestion. A time map. You may call it a schedule. Part of my fear is based on my inability to take action – or not an “inability” per se, but a fear, simply of taking action. What if I try my best and fail? What if I turn down underpaying jobs and end up broke anyway? Shel Silverstein was a wise man when he wrote the poem “Whatif.”

So, to combat vagueness, and the three P’s (Perfectionism -> Procrastination -> Paralyzation), I’m going to work today to create a schedule for myself to include things like revenue generating time (i.e. looking for work); creative time; and grocery shopping(!).

Because without any structure of a 9-5, I’m not doing much of anything with my days. Sort of floating along, with class punctuating the vagueness (and homework not). I don’t like it. I feel then stressed in the 11^th hour, and I don’t have to. So, I’ll work with someone today to create a plan that includes play and self-care and work and effort and the scary things that elicit the above questions.

In a stroke of unexpectedness, I got an email from a gallery owner I know. I’d emailed her nearly 6 months ago to ask if she had any part-time work available and had never heard back. She emailed me yesterday with apologies. This, is something of a surprise, and I’m coming to notice “surprises” as little “G-d shots” as it were. She said she’d love to chat in person. Not sure that she has any work, but that’s not the point.

I mentioned to some folks last month that I would sweep the floor in an art gallery. I would adjust spreadsheets. I would do whatever job would get me into a world of art, artists, creativity. And, suddenly, here appears my acquaintance. I will follow up with her. Little actions produce big results. Is it a coincidence that I’m finally taking some action around work and this email comes in? Maybe.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to the interview at the job I have no interest in today. Mainly, it’s just f’ing dishonest. I’d be lying my ass off to get a job I don’t want. I had the recent experience with the modeling guild of lying and having it coming around to bite me – I think I’ve learned. Furthermore, despite other people’s vocal fears to me which run along the lines of “Just take it,” that is not my value. Not my personal value system, or the monetary and energetic value that I have to exchange.

This surely produces fear (TAKE THE CRUMBS!!!), but fuck the crumbs. I’ve been like Hansel and Gretel in the forest leading myself to the fiery pit of someone else’s oven by following crumbs. I don’t need the crumbs. I need the wiser idea of the stones on the path – the firmer, more appropriate, more honest way of being.

I have help to lay these stones if I avail myself of them, and so, I’m asking for help on the baby steps today. Feels a little silly to ask someone to sit with me while I make a map of my time, but I haven’t been able to do it on my own, and I need help. So, I’ll ask, I’ll receive, and I’ll change. G-d willing. 

The Befogged Crystal Ball

You know that tired where you feel all dehydrated? Blech.

But, what must be done, must be done, and I have to head in to SF in a little while to meet up with a lady friend/teacher of mine. After that, this afternoon, I’m heading to North Beach to live model for a friend’s friend. This is sort of a trial run, agreed upon in a safe environment – one where I feel safe at least, not that the modeling guild wasn’t, but this woman is a more known entity. I’m not getting paid – as she’s basically agreed to see me and see if I ought to try to pursue this more, and for me to see if I want to try to pursue this more.

I had a moment in February when I was still considering whether or not to drop out of the modeling guild – before I’d been on any gigs – when we had live models in our painting class. And it was just so cool. It’s just really cool. Here are these people, and suddenly, they’re art. It’s fascinating and enticing to me, and I called a friend and was like, I don’t know what to do – if I continue with the guild, I have to rent a zipcar to get to the outlying gigs (as I’d lied on the application and said I had a car – as I knew that’d be a requirement – but I don’t, and that was coming around to bite me). Paying the cost of the rental really cut in to any money I’d make modeling, and it was beginning to feel like an exercise in self will, rather than the attendant “ease and flow” that can come when things are a bit more “meant to be.”

So, I dropped out of the guild, having not been on a single job, but having had a lot of good learning from doing the audition as well as the training sessions. And my friend put me in touch with a painter friend of hers, female, who uses live models and would be willing to see if this is a good fit for me or not. Then if it does go well, so the line goes, she’ll let her other painter/drawing friends know about me.

We’ll see. The nice thing about this one is that there isn’t as much pressure. If I need to stop, then I will. If it’s too physically grueling, I’ll learn that. It’s really f-ing hard to stand still for 20 minutes, and then do that for 3 hours in increments. It’s not all standing hopefully – some is sitting. But the “good ones” can do a lot of standing, I think. But what do I know. We’ll see.

I’m also in the process of learning how to pull my life-line tendrils out of San Francisco and root further into Oakland, in a “bloom where I am planted” effort. So, I may or may not be going in to see my teacher-friend weekly any more. I don’t know yet. I’ve been seeing her for more than 3 years now, we’ve been through a lot, she’s seen me through a lot, and there’s fear and sadness about changing the nature of our relationship.

I went over a friend’s for dinner last night – here in Oakland, surprise! – and we were talking about how hard it is to end, or change, relationships that aren’t “bad.” There’s nothing wrong. No one is to blame. It’s just not working any more. My SF teacher and I have had the conversation before, that soon enough, I might want to find someone to work with over here in Oakland, but each time, I’ve said Nuh Uh, I still get so much out of meeting with her. Which is true. I still, to this day, get so much out of meeting with her. But the commute is a killer and it’s dragging me down. An hour and a half to get there, to meet for an hour, and then an hour and a half back is … not an efficient use of my time, and despite my trying to “make it work” and let it be “okay,” it’s just not. And, I’m finally becoming willing to take action around this change.

It is weird to change the nature of a relationship, from one that is more mentor/pupil to potentially just peers/friends, without rancor or dishonesty or blame. There just isn’t that, and so it gets to just be sad, but also freeing as I get to be honest about my needs and what I’m available for.

I’m not sure if I’ll “pull the plug” today. I don’t know if that’s the most nurturing thing for me to do today with the end of school coming, and this woman having watched me go through all that it took to get to school at all. But, I’m approaching the place of accepting that this is necessary, and that I’m willing to make the change, though I’m scared of what happens then.

As someone said to me recently, “I have a crystal ball, but I just don’t know how to use it yet.” 

Cacophonous Joy

Yesterday, I finished my draft of my poetry thesis. It is dark, and humorous, and sad, and scared, and thoughtful, and loving, and aimed toward health. It represents a period in my life, which I’m glad to recognize as not current, even though the feelings may arise as current.

This is a memoir of sorts. It chronicles a period of time which, I see now, I do have a degree of distance from, in order to be able to write about it so fully. I know too it leaves gaps and holes, but I don’t mind – it’s show, don’t tell, right?

Yesterday, I sort of fell apart around 3pm, as I knew I needed more time to edit it, little visual changes and some word sorting here and there. But, I was also supposed to be at class from 4-6:30, and be at a poetry reading/open mic at 5:30 – 9. How was I to be in so many places at once?

Well, I couldn’t. And the reality of that fell on me at about 3pm. I made some phone calls; I was told that my main job right then was to finish my thesis – perhaps you remember some of the craziness when I hadn’t turned one in, and may not have been graduating in May? Yes, the thesis was my main job – all other things were secondary.

I spoke briefly to a few friends, wrote emails of apology to my class teacher and to the organizer of the open mic, and got back to work. I was not to use the club of self-flaggellation on myself, I was told. I was not to think that I’d done it again and over-booked, and I’m a bad person, and here was this opportunity to put my work out, and I’ve missed it.

I had one job. Thesis.

So, I left those internal critic voices at the door. Strangely enough, when I did, something miraculous happened.

I finished my thesis. I sent it in multiple document formats for maximum readability; I cc’d and bcc’d to ensure maximum accountability of the documents. I sent it off. It was now out of my hands.

I called two friends, let them know that I had sent it, as I’d told them 3 hours before that I would. And I felt relief. I felt relief as though it were that cartoon image of someone getting hot, and the thermometer level inside them fills up with red from the bottom all the way to the top and bursts out their head. I felt swallowed with relief.

I told my friend, Now, I’m going to drink some water, make a nice healthy meal, and watch a Disney movie. – That was going to be my celebration. She found that hilarious: “I’m going to drink … some water.” How times have changed.

So, I did, but as I was cooking my chicken and broccoli and yummy organic pasta, I had my iPod on shuffle, playing my joy into the kitchen. And Metallica came on. And for why, who cares, it was that moment. I began to bob and jam and jump around as I stirred that chicken. Then I abandoned the chicken to just rock out in my kitchen to the raging flare of electric guitar and passion.

The song finished. But I wasn’t done. I placed my delicate, hearty, thoughtful meal on a plate, and went into the main room of my studio apartment. I proceeded to happy dance. That thermometer level radiated out of me and I DANCED – I shimmied and kicked and ska danced and booty danced and jumped as very high as I could. I waved my arms like a lunatic and smiled till all of my teeth shone bright.

This was more than relief at finishing a project for school. This was pride and gratitude incarnate. This was my joy at having released a clog in my emotional arteries. I’d moved something. Something big. And I danced until I couldn’t dance no mo’.

I have released something big here – truth, despair, hurt, trauma – I’ve let it go. And I’ve opened it to you. I’ve let it have its own purpose outside of my experience. I’ve given it, and myself, life. It feels like I’ve surrendered something I’d been holding on to. The clogged artery metaphor feels pretty apt. But more, it was my throat, my voice, constricted by these stories – and now that they’re out, birthed, something new can be said, or seen, or felt.

I am humbled by the process of putting this out into the world. I do hope people enjoy it, or get something out of it, or find their own voice through reading it. But the personal gift I have gotten, I could not have predicted: the grin of sheer bliss as I tucked into my bed last night. … and woke up with again this morning. 

Occupy Life

Don’t worry, this won’t be a political diatribe.

As perhaps you’ve been garnering from some of the recent writing, I’m becoming more open to be available to my own life. To occupy it, as it were.

This has happened slowly, and is still a work in progress. But I remember back to the “Life of an Asparagus” blog, about beginning to sense that some of the seeds I’ve been sowing over the last few years are beginning to peek through, and show me their colors and flavors.

I’m excited by this prospect, and still, afraid of it. Will the asparagus be green enough? Tender enough? Snappy enough? Will I, as I begin to show you more of who I am, and what I have to offer, be enough?

The un/fortunate truth is that I don’t really have a choice to pull the emergency brake here, and say, WHOA buddy, let me make sure that this is all kosher and “molly-approved” before I put it out there to you.

When I’d been contemplating The Cousin (*not my cousin*) a while ago before we ended, I said to a friend that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a shelf, to pause him and our romance. I wanted the time to figure myself out, get “well,” get fixed, and then take him back down and continue the romance, with me as a whole, well person.

Problem is, life isn’t like that, and people aren’t like that. I don’t get to put anything on hold – others, myself, the world, school, my finances, time – so that I can get a better handle on it.

It’s a constant game of changing the tire while the car is in motion.

Constantly evolving means being willing to give up control; to give up the demands for the future.

In all of this “lifeness” that’s going on, however, things are changing, and have changed, and I find myself at a different place than I had been, having arrived here somewhat circuitously, but somewhere where things are, where I am, different.

I haven’t had to pause the world for me to get here. I’ve had to, in fact, jump on board with the fact that this train is leaving and will continue to leave, and I can ignore the fact it’s moving, or I can enjoy the view. And more than that, I can let myself be shaped by its movement.

That “letting myself be shaped” has been the hardest part. Or one of them. To accept that I’m not exactly sure what I’ll look like, who I’ll be, and if I’ll or you’ll like me on the other side of it. But keeping my eyes closed to the brilliance that is outside and inside, well, it’s kept me pretty lonely and forlorn. And in the end, it’s not fair.

Who am I to shut my eyes to what I’ve been given, what others are offering me? To the love that is being offered me – the help, and the hope, and the encouragement, and the desire I’m told for more… of me. Who am I to deny that?

I begin to think about this, and write this today, as I start to recognize this new path of thought and action. One which, although I may not be taking all of the action steps that are suggested, I’m becoming open to taking them ;) I see their merit – I see that these actions are helping me to fill out my life, like an underinflated balloon that could be buoyant and loved, if it only let itself get full.

Perhaps that analogy fell flat. But, I think I’m understanding what it means! It means that I’m changing. It means that I’m becoming more available to my life, and to my gifts, and to others. It means that I’m beginning to choose community and vulnerability as opposed to contraction and “safety.”

I’ve had to tell a few more people a little more about what I’m doing, and what I like to do, because those were the indicated responses. (I write, I sing, I act, I paint.) Every time I tell someone one of these things, there is the reactionary twinge of fear and the cavernous echoing “NO!!!” … but, I do it anyway, now. And every time I do, I’m staking one more claim to my own life, and allowing it to open up to me as I open up to it.

Adaptation.

In the movie Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman struggles to adapt a book for the screen. His struggle at adapting the book becomes a part of the screenplay, and in essence, he writes himself into his own movie. At this, he says, “Oh no.”

I have decided what my thesis will be – it will be my blog. At this, I say, “Oh no.”

Unfortunately, due to all the everything else I’ve been working on, my thesis draft due date came and went. Not that I didn’t know it was due, but more that I had no idea what on earth it would be.

It wouldn’t be poetry – as that’s not at all what’s coming out in my writing right now. It wouldn’t be the watercolor language and visual art – there’s not enough time, and I’d want to develop it and experiment with it more. And so, like Charlie, so consumed with the struggle of artistic production that the drama of that struggle became his body of work, so it is with mine.

Or, at least until my thesis advisor rips me another one on Monday.

This, is part of the problem of the honesty and visibility of this type of artistic forum – you may recognize yourself in these pages. But, so be it.

To catch you up on nearly a month absence from this daily blog, … well, i’m not entirely sure how to do that. But, I will say that I did miss this. I know that my ego loves it, but I know too that I love it – and, some of my friends love it too. I like this style. It works on the level a friend suggested I write: “You should write the way you speak.” I don’t know how to do that in “poetry,” but I know how to do that here.

The requirements for the thesis are as follows:

The thesis should be a minimum of 48 pages of creative work. In general, most theses average between 60-100 pages. The thesis should consist of the best work you have written while at school. You are encouraged to write a thesis that is risky, investigative, and confident.

I’m pretty sure that the work I do here is investigative, confident in its honesty to my wavering confidence, and risky perhaps in the unabashed woo-woo spirituality of it. And, likely, risky in that I let you know much of how I process the world, with all my foibles, fears, shenanigans, and humor. – That feels pretty risky (and thrilling) to me.

So, after a series of tense emails between my thesis advisor and myself, in which I was accused of “not taking this seriously enough,” I will be meeting with her on Monday following my submission of the first 3 months of this blog.

The irony, and the motherfucking craw sticker of her accusation, the thing that wounded me the most, was her assumption that I wasn’t doing any work.

On poetry, no, she’s right. On every other goddamned thing, for fuck’s sake, YES. I have been working my ASS off to address, face, and work through every goddamned thing that is holding me back.

EMDR with my therapist: check. Working one on one to get my financial life in order: check. Clearing out the boxes from New Jersey that contain the diaries of a madwoman and a sad child: check. Seeing a holistic chiropractor to address physical manifestations: check.

The truth is, I have been doing A LOT. And when her email came through, as raw and vulnerable as I’ve felt with all these processes going on, I was thrown WAY overboard. Suddenly, what someone else thought of me meant more. Suddenly, I felt that all of my current work was worth bunk. That my experience was being invalidated.

And that, for me, dear reader, is my very worst trigger. To feel that my experience is not valid, that what is happening for me is not important, or indeed is not happening at all, is a VERY old, and VERY strong catalyst into despair.

Did she know any of this? No. Did I let her know that I was unsure about my thesis? No. Does she have any idea whatsoever of any of the other work that I’m currently doing? No.

So, is it reasonable, therefore to assume that from her point of view, I wasn’t doing much? … Yes. Stupid perspective, Yes. 

It still hurt. And I’m still showing up anyway. I’m going to hand in the work I have. The work that I’ve written here since November charts a course, not of my daily lunch, but of my daily struggles, successes, progress, hope, and failure. Of my relationships, my loneliness, my gratitude, and my attempts.

This blog is the best work I’ve done while at school, because, ultimately, it has the very most of me.

Thank you for reading, and welcome back. :)