“It needs to be burned, and when that’s done, I’m pulling the ivy that’s taking over my screened-in porch out of the front bed and giving it a place to do what ivy does- go wild and choke everything else out.”

He shook his head.

“I can’t do that. I mean, I could, but I won’t. Something could go wrong, and I don’t want to be responsible for burning your house down.”

He didn’t know it, but he was the third man in as many weeks to deliver such a message. Metaphorically, anyway.

I choose to see the refusals- all of them- as an overture of respect. There’s a certain amount of trust involved in setting fires; if someone doesn’t trust themselves or the fire or their fellow fire-setters, the kind and responsible thing to do is bow out before the match is lit. There is honor in admitting that you’re not willing to take responsibility.

My therapist once asked me why the ambivalence of others towards me provoked my legendary impatience and irritation.

“Well, what’s so difficult about it? Either you like me enough to see what happens, or you don’t. What is there to ponder on?”

He giggled softly (yes, he’s quite feminine and quite married, and it is these two things that allow him to patch up my weak spots without my falling in love with him).

“You don’t think that someone might need time to decide whether or not to take on an involvement with you?”

My irritation turned towards him and his smug humor.

“You make deciding to dating me sound like deciding to enter a religion. Seriously, am I that damn difficult?”

Now he openly roared with laughter, and this made me so angry I could feel my cheeks reddening.

“Dating you is an entirely worthy pursuit, sure, but not one to be taken lightly. You are a formidable woman, and your ignorance of it is amusing as it is surprising. You are just too much for some men, who might prefer a wife happy to fetch their slippers and keep a cold beer in their hand. You are willing to do that, I know, but the price they pay for the privilege might be outside of their emotional and intellectual capacities.”

I couldn’t be angry with him anymore, because I know exactly what he means.

On Friday, I read this:

“I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through.”

Really, as far as dating and marriage and family go, I’m not very interested in anything less than that ideal as the objective. I’ve seen the misery of love that falls short of it, and I’d rather be alone.

I’ll wait for the guy who asks me to get him a beer while he hooks up the hose, and strikes the match with a twinkle in his eye.

The Parkway is one of my favorite places in the world. So simple, so beautiful- in a world of double-tandem semi-trucks and seventy miles per hour speed limits, the Parkway is a haven, a refuge. My parents don’t call me their “little ridge-runner” for no reason.

I regretted my route once; when I found myself behind a car with Iowa plates on a steep decent with more than a few descending decreasing radius curves- a fancy engineering term for a bitch of a curve. A descending radius curve is where the road changes elevation in the curve- you’re not just turning, you’re also going downhill. A decreasing radius curve is where the turn gets harder as you go through it.  So, of course, a declining decreasing radius curve is one that combines a drop in elevation with a tightening of the curve once you’re in it.

What makes these curves so treacherous? The grade of the decent causes your car to accelerate, which makes you want to hit your brakes to slow back down, but that makes it almost impossible to steer into the apex of the curve. You pick up speed when it is the last thing you need.

After you’ve driven in the mountains for awhile, you get the hang of these nasty little curves. You learn to start into them slower than you would a level turn. The car sets itself a line as you start the curve and pick up speed, and your job is to interfere as little as possible with that natural line, steering only as much as necessary, and only braking very lightly just before the apex if absolutely necessary.

People from Iowa are perhaps not familiar with this technique. So they fight the line. They ride their brakes or hit their brakes hard in the apex, which makes steering much harder. I feel for them- they’re scared, they’re getting a lesson in vehicle physics that isn’t had in Iowa, they are white-knuckled and full of fear. (Not to mention that they’re melting their brake pads and running the risk of losing braking power altogether). It’s frustrating and irritating for me to ride behind them; they ruin my line when they fight their own, but I’m irritated while they are scared for their lives.

I wish I could tell them not to fight the line. To slow down a little more coming in, if they’re nervous, but once the curve starts, take your foot off the pedals and just steer. Fighting the line is actually more dangerous.

I’ve been stressed, scared, frustrated, angry and unsure of myself. The life I dream of is on the horizon, and the life I once cherished is ending slowly but surely, like the passing of mileposts. I cannot see what the road looks like from where I’m at to where I’m surely headed, and that element of uncertainty is what makes me crazy. I drive myself crazy trying to plan and plot and scheme and prepare for every possible outcome or pitfall or obstacle, drafting plans A through ZZ in a attempt to find some security in life-changing situations that are well beyond my control.

I’ve been fighting the line. I’ve been braking and freaking out and over-steering like a flatlander. I’m making things much, much harder than they have to be, and more dangerous too, in the sense that my health and emotional stability have suffered, are suffering, and that means that I’m not bringing my best self to anything I’m involved in.

Time to take my foot off the brake, loosen my grip on the wheel and trust the road.

“Feel the wind
And set yourself the bolder course
Keep your heart
As open as a shrine
You’ll sail the perfect line..”

-bob seger “in your time”

So I packed my favorite stuffed animals and sweaters into my Strawberry Shortcake suitcase, strapped on my roller skates and broke the news to my Mom….

…who promptly fixed me a sandwich, patted me on the ass and wished me good luck.

I don’t remember how long I stayed away. I remember finding a place to eat my sandwich and throwing myself a pity party.

Apparently, I go through this every twenty four years.

I’m planning an escape. Just for a few days.

Twenty four years later, I have a much nicer suitcase and a car in lieu of roller skates.

Also, there will be no pity party. Just some general hiding out, picture-taking and writing and maybe some wine drinking. Also, air conditioning.

Anyone wanna make me a sandwich and pat me on the ass? 

While I was waiting for the counter lady to finish with another customer, I absentmindedly picked an apple Jolly Rancher out of the candy dish. I do believe that little piece of candy is to blame for the rest of the story.

When I was done in Belk, I headed down the road for a pedicure.

The water was stupid hot when they were filling the tub, so I asked them to chill a little on the hot water and turn the cold up just a tad. They did.

Somewhere between removing the old toenail polish and trimming the talons I had been passing off as toenails, I started to feel dizzy.

It’s happened before. I have borderline hypoglycemia. Which means that when I was a teenager, I had an eight hour glucose tolerance test, passed with flying colors, and then fainted in the IHOP parking lot. Our family doctor said that meant that I had barely-there low blood sugar. Or something. My grandma was hypoglycemic until she was older, then she developed diabetes. My Mom is hypoglycemic. They have both spent most of their adult lives struggling with obesity. The message was clear to me: get fat, get diabetes. All that to say- I’ve had dizzy spells before. You’re standing up, and you start to feel weak, so you sit down. It would happen when I was cooking dinner, and the wasbund would bring me a cold rag. Most of the time, I could get up in a few minutes and finish the meal.

This was different. I was sitting. I was also sweating like a whore in Sunday school. Instead of feeling distinctly like I was losing my balance, my hearing was fuzzy. My vision was fuzzy. My stomach hurt. It felt like the heat was on in the chair. A sea of black dots washed over my already blurry vision, like someone was shaking pepper onto my face. My hands were numb and tingly. I tried to play it cool…

The pedicurist working on the lady next to me asked me if I was okay. I told her I felt a little woozy. It was then that everyone stopped to stare at me. I told myself it was just me being self-conscious; we always think people are paying more attention than they are. I also told myself that I needed to pull it together.

you’re alone, no one knows you here, you’re on the wrong side of town to call a friend, you’re all alone and you better figure this out and get over it. you have no other choice. two of your emergency contacts are at the beach and other can’t drive. quit being a drama queen and snap out of it.

What I didn’t know was that my face was as white as freshly fallen snow, and my lips were a lovely shade of blue, and I was now soaking wet with sweat.

The next thing I knew, a lady was holding my feet up over my head.  I was being handed a glass of Coke and a handful of chocolate. Someone put my sweaty mop of curls up into a loose bun, and someone else put a cold rag on my forehead.

The lady sitting next to me asked me when I ate last. I told her I had an early breakfast, and hadn’t eaten anything since, but that this had never happened before.  Not like this, anyway. The lady holding my legs was a nurse, and she said that it was probably low blood pressure. That my low blood sugar caused me to react to the heat of the foot bath.

When my color came back, the poor guy who was working on filing away all of my well earned callouses finished my pedicure. I sat there, horrified at the spectacle I made of myself.

Everyone- even and especially the other customers, asked repeatedly if I was okay, if I felt better. The lady next to me told me about the time that she passed out while making a sales call to one of her best clients. She suggested keeping candy in my purse at all times from now on. Oh, and, you know, eating. Like three times a day or something. The lady across from me warned me to get something to eat as soon as I felt like I could drive- she said the Coke and candy only give you about an hour to eat something decent before it happens all over again.

My pedicurist joked that he was just so damn good, he made me pass out. He also told me to eat more and take the vitamins. (I did not take my vitamins yesterday, because I take them when I eat a full meal. Heh.)

When I left the salon, I went straight home, ate dinner and consulted Dr. Google. Dr. Google and I decided that the Jolly Rancher was probably just enough sugar to trigger reactive hypoglycemia- when your body releases a little too much insulin and drives your blood sugar too low. Maybe the hot water had something to do with it. Dr. Google and I also decided that we should probably call Dr. Anderson on Monday, even though I will likely just get a lecture on eating more regularly.

What was one of the most frightening moments of my single life became an incredible example of how we are never truly alone, as long as there are good and kind people in the world.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go have breakfast. 

I am of the firm belief that you can’t have one without the other.

Things don’t just fall into your lap. You have to know what to ask for.

Sometimes you ask for things and you never get them. You may make every effort possible, but things just don’t come together.

Every once in awhile, though, you ask for something and it comes forth like manna from heaven.

All of a sudden, you get more than you asked for.

You tell your Daddy that you think you might be joining the pink slip club before the leaves turn, and when you tell him that no, you are not working on your resume, you’re working on a business plan, he gets all proud and excited and thinks it’s perfect.

You tell your friends that you’re tired of working for The Man, and if this Man lets you down, you’re going to blaze your own trail, and they encourage you. They put their support behind you, and they bring opportunity to your table on a silver platter.

Suddenly, everywhere you turn there’s a chance to add a piece to the puzzle.

All because you asked. For the right thing. At the right time. The Universe returns your request with “approved” stamped all over it in big green letters.

At this point, I will be disappointed if that pink slip isn’t as sure of a thing as we all seem to think it is.

Actually if things continue to build momentum at the current rate, it won’t even matter whether or not I receive my freedom or retrieve it forcibly.

Providence. I has it.

A conversation with my Mom (who has nearly reached her pre-chemo insanity levels, if you were wondering) this weekend revolved around my cousin’s reaction to my sister’s impending arrival in my home.

“I heard the girls are moving in together.”

“Yes, they are… <blah, blah, I will spare you because this would probably add 200 words to my post length>”

“Good luck with that.”

I think Mom brought it up because she couldn’t decide whether or not to be offended.

I wasn’t. In the first few months we dated, the wasbund once found it necessary to break up one of our sister fights; pulling me off of her as we both screamed and cried and I beat the tar shit out of her with a tube sock filled with tangerines. In my own defense, I cannot even publish what she said to me to earn that beating. You know if even I won’t put it out there, she got what she deserved.

Anyway. I can’t remember the last time I saw my cousin, but I believe she’s been married twice since then, so since she doesn’t really know either of us as adults, it’s hard to get my feathers ruffled.

What did I take away from this conversation, other than a splitting headache and the urge to cram my Mom in a shoebox and ship her to some third world country?

I think maybe “good luck with that” is the snottiest phrase ever. I know that I employ it frequently when I’m being snarky.

This has been the summer of inescapable wretched mind numbing madness causing heat. The things I’m sure of aren’t happening fast enough, and the uncertainties I’m facing are probably all going to resolve in the same two week span. As a result, I’m crabby.

It’s too hot to eat, too hot to sleep, and there is too much to think about.

So since I feel all crabby and snotty, I figured I’d tell some people “good luck with that“.

Thinking that women with any reasonable amount of self esteem and relationship experience will tolerate your douchebag antics?

Good luck with that.

Screwing with me in terms of my most basic requirements for well being?

Good luck with that.

Acting like you’re kind of a big deal when the only thing you’ve really got is a grandiose sense of self-importance?

Good luck with that.

Continually marrying men even though you know you’re more frigid than a case of Popsicles in a deep freeze?

Good luck with that.

Trying to bully me into solving a problem for you that creates a problem for me?

Good luck with that.

Keeping me in the dark as to your intentions so as to keep me motivated?

Good luck with that.

Bratting the hell out for no good reason and thinking you’re going to escape the requisite calling out I will undoubtedly deliver at the first opportunity?

Good luck with that.

Attempting to capture my attention with the lamest excuse for charm I’ve seen in the past year?

Good luck with that.

Underestimating either of my father’s daughters individually, or unthinkably, both of them united in a common agenda with said father’s backing?

Good luck with that!

I understand where they’re coming from, but I can’t escape the feeling that they don’t quite understand where I’m coming from. That it confuses and probably irritates my former mother in law is amusing at worst and delicious at best, but I wish my own family were less confused and irritated.

I would be lying if I tried to say that it has nothing to do with my maiden name being hard to pronounce and spell, because that definitely counts for a part of my decision, but it’s so much more than that.

My name is a part of my identity.

I haven’t been verybadcat maidenname since I was twenty years old. Verybadcat maidenname did not know how to cook. She didn’t understand the force and nature of her own power in this world. She worried more about earning your approval than whether you were worthy of hers. She believed in fairy tales and happily ever afters, and was blissfully ignorant as to exactly how much force of will and hard work they require from all involved parties. She was a great girl, but she was incredibly innocent and naive.

Taking back my maiden name feels like regression. It feels like an attempt to erase the past decade of my life. It feels like being stripped of my identity. It also feels like a big fat pain in the ass.

Verybadcat married name owns a house. She’s enrolled in college. She has a decent career. She knows how to cook, she can run a woodburner like no one’s business. She’s been through hell and back. Walked through fire, and seemingly, on water when she’s had to.  She’s loved and lost and picked the pieces up off the floor, dusted them off, and glued herself back together. She’s done things she never thought she could or would, and even the things that are not worthy of pride and praise have helped make her who she is.  She wants to make sure that you’re worth it before she concerns herself with your opinion of her. She’s realized the full worth of herself and her love. She knows better.

Sure, the wasbund gave me his name when we married. Over the past ten years, though, I’ve made it my own.

Ten years ago, I would have changed my name to please my father. I would have changed my name to avoid any conflict or misunderstanding with the wasbund, his family, and a second wife someday. I would have filed a bazillion pieces of paper with a bazillion businesses and agencies and changed my work email and my personal email. I would have resented it and felt humiliated, overwhelmed and victimized.

Verybadcat marriedname will roll her eyes when she gets a piece of mail from her family without a last name on it, and remind herself how much they love her. She told the wasbund just not to marry another Catherine if he was that concerned about it. She’s keeping her name and her identity intact because it’s what she wants to do and what she thinks is best for her.

That difference is precisely why I’m keeping my name.

I dare someone to tell me I haven’t earned it.

Those three hundred and sixty five days  seem like a decade and a breath all at once.

I’ve written a good deal about marriage, divorce, love, hope and faith in the past year, and today just doesn’t seem like a day for reflection, but I couldn’t leave the occasion unmarked here.

Perhaps the most fitting thing I can do is compare where I was a year ago with where I am today, and while I could struggle for the perfect words, it turns out someone beat me to the punch on both counts…

July 14th, 2009

I looked into your eyes
they told me plenty
I already knew
you never felt a thing
so soon forgotten all that you do
in more than words I
tried to tell you
the more I tried I failed
I would not let myself believe
that you might stray
and I would stand by you
no matter what they’d say
I would have thought I’d be with you
until my dying day
until my dying day
I used to think my life
was often empty
a lonely space to fill
you hurt me more than
I ever would have imagined
you made my world stand still
and in that stillness
there was a freedom
I never felt before…

-sarah mclachlan “plenty”

July 14th, 2010

Companion to our demons
they will dance, and we will play
With chairs, candles, and cloth
making darkness in the day
It will be easy to look in or out
upstream or down without a thought
and if I shed a tear I won’t cage it
I won’t fear love
and if I feel a rage I won’t deny it
I won’t fear love
Peace in the struggle
to find peace
comfort on the way
to comfort…

- sarah mclachlan “fumbling towards ecstasy”

“It’s not supposed to be hard. It’s not supposed to be like banging your head into a brick wall.”

She goes to retrieve something from the printer, and I notice her wedding photos, the pictures of her kids, the digital frame in the window that rotates through her family camping pictures.

We talk about life insurance. I ask her opinion about an aspect of coverage, she rattles something off- a stock answer. So I stop her, make eye contact.

“No, I mean what if I died tomorrow.”

She’s horrified. I’m confused at her horror.

“It isn’t likely, but it could happen. Tomorrow. And I need to know what would happen here.”

Now she’s confused, and I’m wondering if I let too much intensity come through. I explain to her that I’ve bore witness to young and tragic death, and she seems to understand.

We finish all of the paperwork, and I realize it’s after five. We’re the only ones left in the office. She unlocks the door to let me out before she gets ready to leave. As I walk past her out the door, she smiles.

“Everything will work out for you, you’ll see. You just have to have faith.”

Her words cut me deeply enough that I won’t think of the irony of an optimistic insurance agent until I’m halfway home.

The air is cool through my car windows.

The road winds next to the river. I watch the water rush through, over the rocks, against the banks, north into Tennessee. The Pigeon is one of the few rivers in the world that runs north;  the elevation here is 2400′ and gravity leaves the river no choice. Six years ago, when the wasbund and I moved to Asheville from Atlanta, a string of hurricanes brought hundred year floods to the area. The course of the river changed in places, but it marched on, running to the sea in its own way, effortlessly taking a piece of I-40 right along with it.

I’m thinking about how long this river has been here, about how long it will remain after I leave this world. It runs tirelessly to the sea and no matter the course, it ends up where it belongs at the end of its journey.

We are all that river. There may be moments when we think we know our course, when we believe we have reached the sea, but those are all illusions. Nothing turns out quite the way we feared or hoped, because our imagination is limited by our past and current circumstances.

My sister has decided to move in with me, and I couldn’t be more thrilled at the thought of having her here.

Some of our own relatives will react to this development with stunned shock, as there was a time when you couldn’t get us to peacefully occupy the same space. We are a little shocked ourselves, but it seems overwhelmingly right. We are both operating with a calm, deep knowing- that in this moment in our lives, we belong together. There was no knowing before now- there couldn’t have been. No one could have predicted her earthquake or my flood- two events of biblical proportion that changed our courses forever, but we found our rivers joined in the aftermath.

Surely, they will separate again on their way to the sea. When and how this will happen is unknowable, but it is inevitable.

This inevitability might have kept either of us from making the arrangements we’re making, but it didn’t. All we know is that for now, we want and need to be together.

That’s all we can know, and so it is enough.

“Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. Can one say more about the practice of faith? Someone else might; if I were a poet or a preacher, I might try. But since I am not either of these, I cannot even try to say more about the practice of faith, but am sure that anyone who is really concerned can learn to have faith as a child learns to walk.”

- Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Still, things are really starting to take shape. I’ve broken major ground on a project I’m really excited about. The barter deal of the century presented itself on Friday night, among fits of laughter and mutual admiration. Another very exciting possibility exists- and if this goes through? Game changer just doesn’t even begin to describe it.

There is a lot more to do. There are more ideas that need to be given the light of day and the hope of success.  I’m still not taking care of myself quite the way I ought to, but I’m making progress. I’m getting there. I still have to manage my responsibilities, and like it or not, that means staying on the hamster wheel.

I think (and hope!) that starting to build a better life off of the hamster wheel will make it bearable.

You know that feeling you get when a relationship you were excited about dies out before you’re super invested? So that you’re disappointed and confused, but not heartbroken? But at least you got out in the nick of time, before you got yourself really hurt again?

I think I’m almost over that too.

My reader is crammed full, and today is not the day to clear it, so please tell me:

What are you up to?