"There's gotta be something better than this..." ~ Sweet Charity

Why, didn’t every 7th grader want to become a botanist and live in a tree to be away from people? 

I am at the radically awful and hopeful place of beginning to work on relationships, and my relationship to relationships. 

Coincidentally or not, the last time I started this kind of work, I was into the deep and dredging and combing-over-my-sad-history-of-self-abandonment-and-isolation part when I was struck with a bout of Leukemia, and had to stop.

Now that I’m through a round of work on my relationship to money, scarcity, “under-being,” under-earning, me and my mentor agreed that we could work on the other side of the “romance and finance” coin.

Color me thrilled. 

In fact, I am looking forward to it, … sort of. Not the work itself, but the results of it. 

I am not meant to continue my early patterns of self-insulation through isolation or self-abandonment/-destruction. Or, rather, I’m not content to. What I’m meant to do is really only up to me, isn’t it? And a few strokes of fate, I imagine. (hello, cancer.)

But, whatever role I can have in loosening the noose of “Trust No One,” I am signing up for it. 

I do feel that I am in a better place to begin this time than I was about 2 years ago. I’m working with someone who knows me well, who’s walked this path with and before me, and whom I trust and love.

Even though our particular histories are dissimilar, their endings and the feelings they’ve evoked in us became the same. 

She’s told me that my feeling of imminence, urgency & impatience with myself and "the world" will fade: I am a 33 year old healthy smart beautiful woman. Why the fuck have I never been in a relationship that’s lasted over 6 months, and only two of them at that? Why have I been unintentionally celibate for years on end or find myself particularly attracted to taken men? My “hot” years are fading; I want to take advantage of them!

And yet. I seem to land in the same place each time I try to throw myself into the ring, or try to avoid it. And so, it’s time to try something else. Something I know will work, because it works for thousands of other people who walk a path of recovery. 

I’m not stoked. But I am. 

It’s sad stuff to riffle through. There is a Trail of Tears that’s led me here. But I feel ready for this. No, not eager to riffle; yes, eager to heal, move on, move forward. Let whoever I’m supposed to be, or whoever I’m hiding, to integrate. 

Does this look like a bright shiny pot of gold(en haired children) at the other end? Likely not. 

I finished the work on money, and I’m still in the thick of the results of patterns that brought me here. But I imagine they’ll shift over time. 

So, too, I imagine with the love and relationship stuff. I won’t buy a wedding dress at the end of it. But perhaps I’ll buy date one. 

(p.s. this missive is in no way a passive request for dating invitations. but thanks.)  ;) 

Recalibrating the Bar.

Surely, normal is relative. I read some of my blogs about my past, and I think, Jesus, this is not what “normal” people have dealt with. I listen to some of my acquaintances share their histories, and I think, “Thank god things weren’t that bad with me.”

In some comparisons, my life has been saner and pretty charmed; in other comparisons, it’s been dysfunctional and tragic.

Yesterday, I came home from hearing tell of someone’s tragic past, “worse” than mine. Then I picked up where I left off in Autobiography of a Face, because surely the story of a little girl’s jaw sawn off through cancer is “worse” than my own story.

And I decided then, it is time for me to recalibrate my bar for normal and dysfunction.

I was feeling activated by the story I’d heard earlier in the evening. I was feeling protective of the children that story was being told to, and I was experiencing a hardening in my chest, made of anger and self-protection against the terror of that story.

And despite the fact that things in my life have been on the plus and minus side of well-being, I think it’s time for me to start marching toward those people and experiences that don’t trade in trauma.

There tends to be a uniting force among those in my crowd, knowing that we’ve, most of us, come from some kind of trauma. Wherever that may fall on the spectrum of horror. But, we feel an understanding with one another on the basis of a shared experience, and sometimes this unification posits us against more “normal” folk, folks who perhaps didn’t come from that seething primordial ooze.

The problem, and I’ve contemplated it before, is that when you trade in trauma, there’s no value in happiness. When you bond over tragedy, how do you boast your success?

Over the last few years, my threshold for violence and gore has lowered dramatically. Even “silly” crime t.v. shows that used to be my favorites, I’ve had to eliminate from my visual diet. I just can’t stomach them anymore.

As time has passed, I’ve become more aware and attuned to when those shows or images are getting to me – when I’m cringing, or closing my eyes – and I’ve taken note of those cues, and begun to drop them from my cue.

It feels the same to me with these stories that are around me.

I read Autobiography last night, despite knowing that I didn’t want to read it. The language is beautiful, the plot is compelling; by all counts, it’s a well-crafted book. But I don’t think I want to read any more – in fact, I know that, and I’m going to have to decide if I heed that information or not.

The same is true with some of the stories I hear around me. It’s going to be up to me to begin either seeking out or attracting into my life people, not who don’t have those stories of trauma in their past, but who don’t feel compelled to broadcast them. Who don’t feel compelled to do so inappropriately.

I am not saying that I will only surround myself with “normal” folks, or that the stories of our pasts are not important. I am, however, saying that my trauma meter is full, and I need to back away from media or people who will put it over the edge because of their own hemorrhaging boundaries.

I am, of course, an advocate for sharing of ourselves, as you've read over and over in my blog, but I stand behind the knowledge and hope that others click to read this on purpose, that this blog is chosen as a media source for them, that I'm not dumping it on anyone. I also think perhaps it is time for me to begin walking farther away from the retelling of these stories, as repetition keeps them powerful.

I don’t know what the line of balance is between honesty and appropriateness. But I do know there is one.  

The Dailey Grind

So, here I am, back to my Monday morning shift at The Dailey Method exercise studio! My 5:30am Monday morning shift...!

I arranged to have a sub for me during the weeks Addams Family was in performance (and then an extra one last Monday, since, hey, I was tired!). Now back to a 5am Monday morning wake-up call again. But I do think it's worth signing people into class and folding towels for three hours in trade for the free unlimited classes I get. Granted, I've been so tired and busy lately, I haven't been able to come at all. And my muscles feel it. But I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, I get to use this time (despite the thumping music in the studio room) to do job research, ... and do a little line memorization. Today will be the first run-through of Act 1. There's a lot more for me to learn, but I'm glad I decided to take it (more) easy this weekend.

I still didn't get done all of what I wanted, or study my lines as much as I'd have liked, but progress. I feel like I'm staving off the cold that I was about to succumb to. I got to clean some things up in the apartment, and I cancelled the non-necessity engagements.

Interestingly enough, I was approached yesterday after rehearsal with some potential work opportunities, but until there's more conversation, it's all ethereal. That said, it was gratifying to see that people notice what assets I can add and what skills I have. More will be revealed on that part.

It's also time to work on the final (for now) section of amending relationships that don't sit well with me. Third and final is, huzzah, work. Specifically my current employer.

Funny to me that I wrote this list back in the summer, and now as it's my last week of work there, I'm getting the chance to work on this now. There's nothing in specific that I need to necessarily "make amends" for; it's more about attitude. It's also about showing up on time(!), which this week will be harder, as I flit from dentist appointment to interview to... another dentist appointment.

Did you know that Covered California doesn't cover dental? I didn't! Until I was reclined underneath my dentist's light last Friday afternoon, and she said, Yes, you do need these fillings -- and then dropped the "not covered" bomb. Hence the several appointments this week.

So, that's more information as I continue on my "looking" path. In fact, my dentist had a great recommendation for an alternative private school, and I just applied to them a minute ago.

I have my second interview tomorrow with the alternative private school I met with last week -- whom I told I would only be available to work 30 hours per week. And that seemed to go over fine. With the wage I asked for (which I've been regretting I didn't increase), I'd be able to make the same amount as I do now working 40 hours a week. I have my fingers crossed -- but if it's a good fit, it'll happen, and if it's not, it won't.

The school is also located in the middle of an industrial park, office-building wasteland in Walnut Creek. Which is quite the far cry from the verdant landscape outside my current office in North Berkeley. But, sometimes you make compromises!

In the meantime, I'm going to focus on what I can do at the job I'm at now, watching my attention, (my facebook time!), and how I'm interacting with my coworkers. It's not any of their faults that I am not fulfilled at work and therefore it's not fair for me to seethe toward them, or show up late as a petulant rebellion.

I have no doubt that part of my amending my relationship with my current job is, a) to leave, and b) to understand what it is that got me into that relationship to begin with so I don't end up here again with another employer.

All of those on my list are relationships I have stayed in too long, out of fear, out of scarcity, out of an idea that I can't get what I truly need.

(I hope) I am taking action and self-inventory that will help me to move forward differently. That I'm gaining a semblance of understanding that I don't have to sell myself short; that with work and vision, I can get where I want to, and be the person I want to. I can have the life I want to live, and I don't have to demonize those who are not behaving how I want them to.

The only person's behavior I can change is my own -- and, well, I believe I am. (Come what may!)

Shel.

Author, Poet, Artist Shel Silverstein played a significant role in the formative literary lives of myself and many people my age. 

Who didn’t have a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends or A Light in the Attic, with his line drawings of a man who forgot his pants, or three children flying in a shoe? Who doesn’t remember a few lines here and there of that one about being sick but then, “What’s that you say, You say today is Saturday, Alright I’m going out to play” or “Pamela Purse Yelled Ladies First” and then ends up in a cannibal’s stew?

Shel’s poems are inventive, clever, imagination firing. And yet. It’s his two “full-length” books that I’m considering today. Books whose premise I simply don’t agree with, despite having heard others’ interpretations and admiration: The Missing Piece and The Giving Tree.

In The Missing Piece, we follow a Pac-Man-looking pie as he looks to find his own missing piece, the piece to complete him. Like Goldilocks, some are too big, some are too small, but in the end, he finds the one that’s just right.

In The Giving Tree, we watch as a small boy enjoys the bounty of an apple tree, the tree offering him fruit, a branch to swing from, its trunk, and then finally, simply a stump on which to sit.

Both of these books, to me, reek of codependence. ! And, yes, you might roll your eyes at me, analyzing a simple children’s book or reading too much into a story. Many people have told me how lovely and generous it is that the tree continues to give and give of itself until there’s barely anything of itself left, and then finally the boy, now an old man, comes to appreciate it.

Isn’t it a beautiful story of self-sacrifice and loyalty and steadfastness?

Erm…

How about the Missing Piece? All Shel’s trying to say is that we all walk around the world feeling slightly unwhole, slightly missing. We are all trying to fill in a place within us that feels empty. Sometimes we use things that we think will fit that place – sometimes we use people who we think will fit that place. But we continue to go through our lives looking for our missing piece, and when we find it, we are complete and we are happy.

Isn’t it a lovely metaphor for life, for our human striving for fulfillment and satisfaction?

Well…

As I said, I have a hard time appreciating these messages as they’re written, if they’re written with those intentions at all. I have a hard time integrating the message that we ought to divest ourselves of our needs in order to satisfy others, as the tree did. Or the message that we none of us are whole, and need someone to fulfill us, as the piece sought.

I recognize I may be being a little heavy-handed with my interpretation of these stories, but as someone who’s loved so much of Shel’s work, I bristle at the messages I glean from them.

In fantasy land, yes, it would be nice to have someone around who would give me everything I needed without asking anything in return except my eventual appreciation. Yes, it would be lovely to find a human who would complete me. But that’s not the way it works in reality land. And that’s not the way I think it should work.

I think it’s a strange message to pass along to kids, and an unrealistic vision of relationships that’s being set before us.

I was trying to explain “interdependence” to a friend of mine recently, and I sort of failed. But in the world of these stories, I guess the best I could say is if I am a piece rolling about the world, whether I feel whole or not, what I’d really want is another piece rolling alongside me, looking to make themselves whole, just as I am. And, in the end, mostly it’s about seeing that we already are, and discarding the skewed and broken glasses we use to view the world and ourselves.

If I were the tree, I’d hope to get to say the to boy, you know, I love you and all, but I could use some mutuality in this relationship, if that’s something you’re available for. And if the boy really needs to row a boat made out of my trunk, I’d hope for the strength to tell him … he’s barking up the wrong tree.

That all said, I will continue to pull out my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends and read a random poem. I will hope to read it to a new generation of readers, and I will hope to be an iota as creative and ingenious as he has been. But, I also hope to learn the lessons I would have liked these books teach. 

B’reishit: In the Beginning…

This week in the Jewish calendar, having unscrolled and read the whole Torah throughout the year, we come again to rewrap it all the way back to the beginning to read the very first word: B’reishit, “In the beginning.”

We’ve come to the end of something, and we wind it back to the beginning to start again.

I can’t think of a more appropriate coincidence and parallel for my own life.

Yesterday afternoon, Addams Family The Musical closed to a full house, once again. We said our final jokes, we emphasized things a little more. We cried at that one “Happy/Sad” song that reminds us that most things in life are a little of both. And when the final bows were over and the final patrons thanked, we came back to the dressing room for the last time, finally and pleasingly and thank god-ingly taking off our sweat-soaked costumes. The last time getting someone to help me un-pin the dress, the last time taking off the long and elaborate and hot wig, the last time returning my mic pack to the sound designer.

And when this was all done, and most of the makeup had been removed from our faces…

We began tearing down the set. The set that only a handful of weeks ago we’d built, and painted, and staged, and seen evolve right before our eyes. The same stage that only a few weeks before that, we’d all stood on for auditions in the remnants of the set from the previous show.

And now, here we were, making this, our set “the remnants of a previous show.”

Because To Kill a Mockingbird opens in 4 weeks.

I asked some of the old-timers if they got a little wistful breaking down something that was like another character in the show, if it was sad to have put it all up, just to take it all down? And each of them said, No. It’s part of the gig. They’re used to it. To the turn-over, to the letting go.

I’m not, yet! It was happy/sad for sure. It will be strange tonight to come to the theater for Mockingbird rehearsal and see the bones of our Addams set on the stage, picked clean of the character we’d built. And yet, if this isn’t a great lesson in the constant ebb and flow, creation and destruction, then I don’t know what is.

In the beginning, we were tentative and perhaps shy, getting used to one another’s personalities, contributions, moods.

In the beginning, we created something out of nothing, out of a few words and notes on a page, sitting in a small room with a piano, laughing a little, tense a little.

In the beginning, we didn’t know about the tech problems or the extra rehearsals. We didn’t know the petty arguments we’d have, or the number of times we’d have to control rolling our eyes.

In the beginning, we didn’t know the kind of joy and laughter we’d create on-stage or back-stage. We didn’t know the relationships we’d form, and the singular role each member of the cast and crew would take. We didn’t know that we’d come to love each other.

And now that we’ve unscrolled to the end, and we’re about to bring it all back to the beginning again, I am sure that we have learned something, something critical to the nature of life and love and joy and experience, that we didn’t know we would and that will carry us forward as we start once more with new words and notes and castmates.

In the beginning, we were strangers. We’ll never be that way again. 

Icarus at the Bus Station

There is an adage I’ve heard: A new bus can’t pull into the station if there’s one already there.

The point being, unless you let something go, you can’t grab hold of something new.

This often comes up when people are talking about relationships, but it can be sagely advised around anything. Today, though, it does mean relationships.

There’s a second category of folks that I need to amend my relationships with, after those who I’ve fallen out of touch with for self-preservation. This is a category entitled: Men I intrigue with but don’t want a relationship with. ("with whom I don’t want a relationship," yeah, I know.)

But. This list, when written earlier this year comprised of 6 or 7 names. Now, there are only two left outstanding. The rest have fallen by the wayside as I’ve changed the electrically charged way I interact with them or have expressly stated I want to change the nature of our lovely, but ambiguous flirtation.

It’s exciting to flirt. It’s exciting to know that with a few taps on my phone, I can spark the interest of someone. It’s a boost to the ego -- and it’s totally unfair to us both. It’s a lie, really.

Sure, it’s fun, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong; it’s just not truthful for me, when I know that these are men who I don’t want to date or pursue a relationship with. For whatever reason.

Some, I just “don’t feel it.” We were never more than friends, to either of us, but there’s something nice about that extra “like” on your status update or the comment posted somewhere down your page, where you know they’ve had to dig to find it. Yes, most of these “intrigue” relationships (meaning, flirtatiously undertoned interactions) are acted out virtually, and that enhances their ease, their prevalence and the reluctance to “break them off,” since, who are we really hurting? Everyone “pokes” each other, right?

But, for me, I know it’s not right anymore. It’s distracting from what I really want, and using someone else as a tool to bolster my self-esteem. Neither of which get me to the healthful relationship (with myself or with someone else) that I’d like.

Some of the men on my list are simply fucked up and/or unavailable, and strangely(?), the last two remaining are in this subset.

It’s not that they’re just my friends who I flirt with; it’s not as innocent as a few extra “likes;” these two are possibilities in relationship-land, except that they’re not. At all.

And these are so hard to let go of, because they’re the most ambiguous, the most possible, and the most delicious. Delicious Evil: the curl of the lip when you think about them, your flirtation with them, what you’ve done with them, because these are not Rated G acquaintanceships you have had.

You like the thrill, the quickening of the pulse, and the slight tensing of your thighs.

Who.Wouldn’t?

But.

Here is where my current work comes in. I don’t want to stop these flirtations/more than flirtations, but I know this bus is not going to get me where I want to go. These are not available people. And despite the purring coo my body radiates when I consider them, my brain and heart can’t really take it.

I do want a relationship, with someone available to me. It’s nice to get the milk for free, but I’m ready to invest in a cow.

I’ve spoken to a friend of mine who has similar patterns with men and relationships, and I asked her honestly if there was the same kind of Icarus-style pull in her marriage. If there was that same forbidden, lustful quickening. If there was that, We’re going to blot out the sun with the heat of our passion. 

And, she told me, Honestly, No. It’s different.

You’re not going to get a cocaine high when you’re sober. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth being sober; it just means, No, there are some experiences that won’t be replicated in a healthy relationship.

Sure, it’s just one woman’s opinion, but I trust her, and I understand her analogy.

No, you won’t blot out the sun, but you won’t go down in flames either.

It’s up to me to decide which life I’d rather live, and which course I’d rather take. I know where this current “intriguey” bus leads – right back here, again.

So, I’m going to have to make a choice to be brave, and let this bus drive on without me, and trust that if I do, there will be a different one coming. (pun intended.)

Oh My Dear, Who’s Ever Ready?

I tore this quote from the back of a playbill a few years ago, and taped it to my fridge.

The play I’m in, there’s a song about waiting: waiting for marriage, for children, for your husband to come home, and eventually for death. The character pleads with us, with her husband, with herself: How long do I have to wait?

The ideas I have for my future are not unheard of or unrealistic; I’ve just been telling them to wait for so long that they feel out of reach. If you’re not moving toward them, your dreams will always feel that way.

I’ve been thinking this morning about worthiness: Who would want to hire me? What do I have to offer? Why would someone pay me instead of someone with more experience?

And, as romance and finance are never far from one another, I’ve been thinking about replacing some of those words with the same sentiment: Who would want to date me? What do I have to offer? Why would someone date me instead of someone who has their shit together?

The theme of worthiness is the undercurrent for both places of lack in my life. Or, more accurately, both places of unrealized dreams.

I do know intellectually, and often in my soul, that what I have to offer is not only magnificent, but unique. It’s about showing that to the world (and myself) in a way that I can support – in a way that I haven’t been ready to support or stand behind.

But, my dears, Who’s ever ready, indeed?

There has been a lot of waiting in my life, too. Waiting for me to get better, to get healthy, to get stable, to get grounded, to get organized, to get … “approvable.”

And mostly, that approval is internal. Waiting for my critic to shut the hell up long enough to see the beauty and the awe (that we all have, by the way).

Why haven’t I ever submitted an essay to a publication? I’m scared I’m not good enough (aka unworthy). Why have I never applied for an English professorship? I’m scared I don’t know enough (aka unworthy). Why do I … well, why do I remain single despite my awesomeness? I’m scared: my “picker” is broken, I can’t handle heartbreak again, I’m too gun-shy to really try. Aka, unworthy of letting myself try.

These are not easy admissions, but they’re also not the all of me, yet they’re part of the truth of me.

You can’t wait for someone else to knight you “worthy.” To pour magic bravery potion on you that enables you to write something you feel proud of and submit it. Or for someone else to see a potential in you that you’re terrified yourself of seeing.

You have to see it for yourself, and you have to make decisions from that place.

I’ve read enough Brene Brown over these few years to know, a) we all go through this in one form or another, and b) that there is a way out: It’s through.

It’s the small steps we (I) decide to take. Why didn’t I ever apply to teach English? Doesn’t matter – can you do it now? Why haven’t I ever coalesced my ideas for children’s workshops? Doesn’t matter – do you believe in yourself enough now to try?

I will not wait until I’m ready, because that’s an illusion. We (well, many of us?) are going to question our worth now and then, but it doesn’t have to hold us back from taking action anyway. Readiness is an illusion, just like perfection. Because, surely, that’s what I’m meaning, isn’t it? When I’m finally good enough to try, to be original, to be seen, to be loved, then I can masterfully get on with my business of being awesome?

That’s really not the way it works.

You take the steps, and hope the rest of you catches up. You overreach yourself, and yes there’s a moment of will you make it or not, but if you’re not reaching, you’re waiting. And the next step will never ever get closer, no matter how long you do. 

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.

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. 

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.

Dic(k)tator

I had a boss once who was the consummate micro-manager. I would be asked to carry out a project, and as the week would go by, I would get inquiries about the state of the project, if I’d done a, then b, then c. Did I remember to? Did I contact? Where was I on it?

I spent nearly as much time on the project as I did answering my boss’s incessant questions.

At one point during my employment, I had come to the end of my rope about this type of management style, and I let my boss know that I was having a hard time with our communication – that I felt my boss did not trust me to carry out a job that was assigned to me.

Although it was stated that of course I was trusted to do my job appropriately, the actions that continued to take place showed that wasn’t entirely true. And even though it wasn’t exactly personal, I felt disenchanted with the duties I was performing, feeling my power of ownership, and therefore, my professional confidence, was being undermined.

In a total book-reader/movie-watcher's understanding of such things, I would say that it's like defending a castle.

There is usually an external wall built around a castle and its grounds, in place to prevent ingress and marauders. The citizens trust that the wall will defend them.

However, what if there is a monarch who doesn’t trust those walls to hold. Despite the greatest masonry, the height of engineering and construction, the monarch still feels at risk.

And so, she sends out sentries to patrol the exterior of the castle wall. There are boundaries, but these are not trusted, and so she employs a defensive and offensive line.

The thinking goes: I do not trust that the boundaries I have put up will hold, and so I will go beyond them, in front of them to fend off any attacks. I don’t even know if there are any enemies out there, but there could be. And I don’t think the walls I’ve built will hold.

I am not willing to have the boundaries tested. I must make extra defense.

Let’s turn the analogy to personal boundaries. If we don’t trust that our boundaries, our internal mechanisms, will be faithful, will perform their job appropriately, or have been built to the utmost of our knowledge, we will continue to send out sentries beyond those boundaries to defend ourselves.

What this does in the end is show that we do not trust ourselves and our boundaries. We never get to test those appropriate walls to see if they can in fact do their job. By not allowing them to do what we’ve built them to do, they will never get the chance to prove to us that they can, and we will continue to send out a forward offense/defense.

At the risk of being obvious, I am that monarch.

I may have spent years building and refining a system of appropriate boundaries, but I am loathe to test them. Instead, I employ an extra electric fence to ensure that those boundaries are never even tested. Because what if they fail.

I surround myself with an added, superfluous layer of defense and offense, because I am scared that if you get too close, my appropriate resources won't have the ability to measure and defend your threat.

But. If I don’t allow you to get to the wall of the castle, I will never know if you are friend or foe. Instead, I will always interpret you as foe, because I have paid my sentries to treat you as such.

I don’t trust you, I don’t trust my boundaries, and so I am insulated and impervious. To all comers. Benevolent or not.

I hated feeling treated as though I were not capable of doing my job appropriately. It felt diminishing and disrespectful and disheartening. I hated having an extra layer of checks and balances around a system that worked just fine.

The appropriate layer of boundaries I’ve built around myself, that we all need (that is permeable, and fluid, and always learning and gaining in refinement) has been long-sheltered and is tired of this trigger-happy band of sentries, “protecting” my own system of protection.

If I don’t allow you to pass that ridiculous layer of defense, I will never know you. You will never know me.

And I will miss the opportunity to learn to trust myself and to create relationships that will enhance the whole kingdom. 

pome.

Tour de Coeur

Here.

  Place your fingers — Here.
   Lower your head, breathe and

  press them in.

Do you feel it, soft and

  warm and — I'll arch my back —

  pliable. How the muscles shift around you,

learning you, too.

  Here,

Lay your head here, and I'll

  breathe, not freeze

  as you explore the hidden

edges and ridges.

I will try 

  to keep my eyes open

while you read my collarbone like Braille.

8 6 14

“I Hate to See You Go, But I…”

I will never stick around long enough to watch you leave. Like a forest animal who senses the seismic shift before an earthquake, I will run to high ground before you even know there’s trouble a’comin. Where’d she go?

I heard that a lot in my drinking days: Where did you go last night anyway?

I was always leaving. I left because I was antsy or bored or horny or wasted. I left because I could sense the swell of the evening had reached its peak, and I don’t stick around for the lull. I left because I knew you couldn’t give me anything more, and so I went elsewhere to seek it.

It was a different kind of dragon I chased, but one nonetheless: The perpetually up moment. The height of hilarity and connection.

In relationship, I am becoming aware, I do the same thing. Because relationships are never “Safety Guaranteed,” I try to figure it out: Will this “work” / will this not “work?” I will look at the barometer and try to figure out if we’ve reached our peak, and if it’s time for me to bail.

Before I do, however, I will engage in a lovely sequence of emotional aerobics: If I am standoffish, will you chase me and thereby prove you like me, and I’m safe? If I am more attached, will you reciprocate and, here, prove that you like me, and therefore I am safe?

Somewhere in the distance between initial connection and “the end,” I have attached my personal safety to this “working” or to my assurance that it won’t. Either way, certainty, I have believed, will keep me safe.

And if, through all my calculations, I still cannot devise whether this will work or not, or if I begin to spidey-sense that your interest in me has reached its apex, I will high-tail it so fast, you won’t remember the color of my eyes.

What a lonely way of being.

Particularly, because I won’t just leave: in order to ensure that I am doing the “right” thing, that I am following our projected course, simply in a truncated fashion, I will likely nuke the relationship first. This way, I know there will be no questions, and no “What ifs?” because it’s dead. I killed it. Hard.

And therefore, I am safe. Because I have certainty about things. About everything.

The horrible variable in this equation is humanity. The uncertainty principle.

Human relationships are not quantifiable by my fear-brain.

The flaw in it, too, is that I have attached, long ago, my feeling of safety to assurance in relationships.

I know where this cycle comes from. I know that having a formative environment that was unstable is not the foundation on which to build ideas of safety and trust. I know what it feels like to love, and have that love turn, viciously and swiftly.

And so, I have learned to turn first.

If I can only figure out the exact moment when we’ve reached our groundswell, I can outrun your abandoning me.

But sometimes, dear self, rain is just rain, and it doesn’t mean anything more. Sometimes you stay in the shallows while it storms, because after it passes, you’re witness to god’s great rainbow. Sometimes when you stay put, you learn how to sway in the storm instead of to rail against it or crumble beneath it.

I don’t learn these things if I leave first.

I want to. Believe me. In the simplest of encounters, like a phone call even, I want to be the one gone first. Because then I’m safe.

But, as I posited in “Safety Guanteed(?),” perhaps I can begin (again) to test the theory that “I am not in control, and I am safe.”

Perhaps I can begin to root my personal sense of safety somewhere within, instead of without, and then I never have to try to figure others out, manipulate my behavior, or believe I’ve predicted an end. If I can seat my personal safety in trust of myself, maybe I’ll become willing to see what happens when I stick around.

Because maybe the party isn’t over after all. 

Disarming.

I am having a languid, delightful time getting to know someone. A man.

The same someone who inspired me to look at how much I don’t want to let a romantic interest get to know me. And, for whatever this is or will be, it’s really, really nice.

I described to a friend what it felt like to be held – not spooning, or even the enjoyable resting of your head on the guy’s chest – but simply standing, holding one another, like the kind of extended hug that someone forces around you until you relax. Until they can feel your shoulders drop, and your lungs start to inhale again. Until you feel safe enough to breathe.

It’s like that, only without the imperative insistence of the extended hug. This feels, to me, mutual, natural, like we both are relieved just to stand there, heads tucked, arms wrapped, bodies together, and breathe for a minute, guileless. It’s similar to the feeling I sometimes have when I realize that I’ve been holding my breath or breathing shallowly for too long, and I finally take a nice deep breath into my belly. Filling out my whole body with awareness, instead of constriction.

It’s a feeling that you didn’t know how stressed or armored or anxious you were, until it falls away so fucking naturally and quickly, that it almost makes you dizzy. And suddenly, you’re just two people, two hearts, unaware you were looking for relief and comfort and ease, until now you’re experiencing it.

It’s benevolent, and it's grace.

For me, it’s also an awareness, I think, of how lonely and body-starved I’ve been. Not for sex, though sure, but for that kind of holding. To be held. It’s actually, now that I think of it, what I came to at the conclusion of my meditation retreat in January. I concluded that this year, I wanted to learn to let myself be held.

I almost always hold my breath, as I’ve written about before. Even in the safety and constance of my own home. I am always on guard, protecting myself from something. And it’s just so tiring, but I don’t realize it – didn’t realize it, until in this togetherness, I find it fall from around me, and experience feeling unburdened and relieved of that something. 

I am not Fate’s author, I am only the scribe. So, I can only report to you what I know, and share with you how I feel in the moment, today. As everything changes so quickly.

But recognizing for myself that there’s another way of being, that there’s an open way to be, that in fact that way of being feels like its own ecstasy, I think I’m learning that my armor is not as useful as it once was. And that being held, without that shield, is more healing, joyful, and filling than I could have predicted. 

Pushing the RelationShip off the Edge of the Earth

As I recently found out in “Well, Shoot…” there are things that I claim that I want but if they did actually happen, I’m not sure I could show up for them.

It’s embarrassing to be here again.

It just makes me feel really old and really weary.

And I’ll start with the perfect example that I’m sure I’ve told here before:

When I was in college, I was having a fling with a guy. It was purely physical, no “date nights,” no philosophical conversations; whenever both of us were into it, we’d contact the other. Easy peasy.

Then, one night, lying in bed after our activities, he told me he wanted to take me out to dinner. I was aghast, “Why?!” Because I want to get to know you, he replied, as if it were the most obvious and natural thing in the world.

And after that night, I never called him again.

Perhaps to most people it is the most obvious and natural thing in the world to want to get to know the person you’re being physically intimate with. But my years of practicing it otherwise have hardened me to the kind of softness real connection requires.

(I feel really vulnerable writing about this today, I have to say.)

See, there would be no problem if I only wanted to “hit it & quit it.” But I don’t. I would like a connection, I would like a relationship. I would like to be vulnerable and intimate with another person and have them be that way with me.

But when the glimpse of that possibility arises, I bolt. Too much, too scary, I can’t, I don’t know how, is followed by the justifications, You only want sex anyway, why don’t you just hit it & quit it? Stop trying to pretend you want to get to know me.

It’s very easy for me to throw up the barriers, and to put between us one of those cardboard cut-outs of myself: Here is my reasonable facsimile. Have fun.

No, really, just have FUN! Enough with the getting to know me bullshit. Light’s out, Nobody home.

And the trouble today is that I’m really tired of this M.O. And, yet, I’m really terrified to be any way else – the way else being “real.”

So, again, I come to a place where what I say I want (a relationship) in the light of that possibility I say fuck no.

I can lick the wounds of old hurts for many more years to come. I can point to those people to whom I’ve been real and vulnerable and been eviscerated. I can pile up the evidence to say, See, this and this and here is why I can’t show up fully anymore, I’ve been hurt.

But who hasn’t?

To tangent, once again:

There are several situations lately, where I’ve gotten to show up fully, stand in my truth, and not let fear drive me or hide me.

I was offered a job that would pay me minimum wage, but would be in a profession and a capacity that would be a dream. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I turned the job down. I’m able to show up for myself, I don’t have to abandon my truth.

I declined the invitation to my father’s wedding, despite the already rolling-in fall-out. After much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

I was offered the lead in a play that I didn’t want to be in. And, once again, after much thought, writing, and reaching out for help, I was able to turn it down, show up for myself and not abandon my truth.

What each of these are evidence of is that I am creating boundaries for myself, and a value for myself. I am able to weigh and measure how I feel in a situation, and parse out if it feels right for me. I don’t have to make snap judgments of yes or no, of people pleasing, or underselling, or hiding.

I've been scared to be vulnerable because I'm scared I can't show up for myself, or protect myself when I need to. I've been scared to be vulnerable because I think it lays me open to being attacked. 

But, what I have done in just the last fucking month is to back myself up. I have let myself be open to what was true for me, and be honest (enough) with those I had to create boundaries with.

Isn’t it possible then, that the same practice, the same muscles could be exercised in relationships? Isn’t it possible that I can show up with my truth, with all of me, even though, YES IT’S THE HARDER THING, but it’s the most rewarding of all?

I’m having a tough time at the moment accepting that I’m going to have to change my M.O. Not serving me well, surely, but familiar as all get out.

As a friend once sardonically said, “Everybody look at me, but please avert your eyes.”

Oh, you want to look at me. Oh, I find that I want to look back.

Well, Shoot. 

Excising a Lily-Liver

As part of my personal work, I am called to amend relationships in my life that are in need of clarity and repair.

As part of that work, I broke down my list of these people into three categories: People I fall out of touch with; Men I intrigue with; and My dad.

I’ve begun the work on those I’ve fallen out of touch with – it’s usually out of a habitual belief that I’m not good enough to show up for relationships and I self-prophesize that by allowing relationships that I value fall away. These are relatively easy to repair, and by doing so, I get to challenge these false and long-held beliefs by being consistent, responsible, and focused on the truth.

Amending my relationships with the second set of humans is more … well, I was going to say more difficult, but it’s not more “difficult,” it’s just harder because I have more invested in those. If you don’t know what intriguing is, it’s those little flirtations, vaguely flirtatious texts or conversations, or over-active “likings” of someone else’s Facebook page in a "winking" kinda way. It’s, for me, engaging in flirtatious behavior with people I don’t want to go any further with, and sometimes with people I have no interest in, but who I know I can reach out to when my self-esteem meter is low for a little infusion of “See, I have value: he wants me,” and a little hit of adrenaline from the oblique exchange.

This is a very old habit. And it’s excruciatingly unfair to both the men and to myself, especially any of those who think there’s still a shot. It’s unfair to me, because I continue to feed the delusion that my self-esteem comes from others, and to crowd the field of actual potential partners with distractions – albeit often very handsome, talented and hilarious distractions.

Since the time that I wrote down the half dozen or so names of those with whom I was actively engaging in this behavior, about half have simply fallen away through circumstance and lack of my engaging. They’re intrigues, not relationships usually, so they don’t require some big conversation like, “Hey, I’m trying to be more clear in my relationships, and I just want to say that I really appreciate you as a friend, and that I see us just being friends in the future.”

The funny thing about saying this is that, when I’ve given that speech in the past, usually the response is, “Yeah, totally! I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Which is fine. I love you and your egos, and I will help preserve them too; I’m not here to bust your balls. I’m just here to offer us both some clarity and let us both off the carousel of “Will we/Won’t we” so that we can get on with our lives.

But. For some of the people on my current list, that conversation is necessary, and in a truncated, “light” version, I had that talk with one of these men recently. And the backlash from it was … well, people don’t like when you change the rules in the middle of the game. And I’m having to show up for the fall-out of that, even though I just want to avoid it. I participated in the game, I should participate in the dénouement.—Oh, but how much easier to Cut & Run!! Oh, old M.O., how I love you! … and miss you.

Because I don’t really do or want to do that anymore. See: first subset of humans: retracting from relationships because I don’t believe I can show up.

It’s the same underlying belief in this second category. 

More will be revealed, and I have some writing to do and a conversation to have with some for whom I’ve changed the rules. It’s not comfortable, but neither is predicating a relationship on false hope.

The final category, I see now, has its foundation in the self-same belief that I can’t show up for relationships. In this case, with my dad, I’m being asked to be honest with him in a way that frightens the shit out of me.

I would LOVE to lie, avoid, detach, retreat, and retract. But each and every day since the invitation to his wedding came in over the phone, I’ve been called to take a different course. Because, I have been using the above mechanisms for how to manage this relationship. I’ve been detached and retracted, and avoidant. And, much like with the men, I’ve created a game that I don’t want to play. One in which my dad thinks I want or can have a relationship with him.

To tangent:

This morning, I will get an ultrasound of my liver to confirm or disconfirm cirrhosis. About two months ago, my liver enzymes came up elevated, and although I simply think it’s my body’s reparation from 6 months of chemo a bit more than a year ago, I am also very aware that in Chinese medicine, the liver is the seat of anger. And two months ago, I was very angry. For a long time. And this dad stuff only serves to aggravate it.

I was at my therapist’s last Wednesday, and I told her that I would really love to be able to forgive him, but I am not able to do that. I’m terrified that my lack of forgiveness for him is perpetuating the problems in my life, and creating holes in the foundation of my life and relationships and happiness -- and my health.

I told her, it’s astonishing to me that I can have forgiveness for my rapists, but not have any for him. Compassion, I have in crateloads. I know how this person came to be, and it’s a sad state of affairs. But, no matter what modes of self repair I try, I can’t find my way to forgiving him, and I feel that I need to in order to move on with my life.

She said something critically important: You can’t manufacture forgiveness.

If I’m not there, then I’m not there.

“But what about that he’s getting older, and what if he dies and this is unresolved?”

You can’t manufacture forgiveness.

I can’t bully or force myself into a feeling that I don’t have. She said that I have some word she couldn’t place that indicates deep disappointment. And betrayal. And this is true.

And I would love to “get over it.” But I’m not there yet, and beating myself up for not being at a place where I’m not doesn’t help me get there quicker.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll get to this place this lifetime. The very last time I was vulnerable to him and depended on him, he used it as a later opportunity to shame me for not being the daughter he wants. This is a Catch-22 relationship.

But. It’s not.

The catch is that I have to be willing to show up with my truth, which, like my friends and like those men, is that I don’t like who I’m being in this relationship, and it’s harming me. I don’t like to show up in a falsetto range “happy” conversation with him, when that’s not at all true for me, and so I avoid the conversations. But, he’s pressing now, and there’s a deadline.

The truth will out, as Shakespeare wrote. The work on my part will be to get ready to deliver it. To get ready by remembering I’m acting in an esteemable way by showing up for my part of the relationship. I’m also working on steadying myself for the fallout, of which I anticipate there will be much.

Again, people don’t like when you change the rules in the middle of the game.

But this was a game I started playing when I was a child. The rules have changed. It’s time for me to let the other players know. 

To let them know I've stopped playing.