You’re of the opinion that I don’t know my place. I won’t deny that, but I’m amused that you see it that way when I’ve spared you the bulk of it. If only you knew…

I don’t know my place. I’m outspoken and I establish relationships with key people, and I can and will use those ties to my advantage each and every time I go to battle.

Maybe you haven’t noticed this yet, but I don’t enter into a battle if I’m not pretty damn sure I can capture the flag. Maybe you also missed the memo on bad things happening to people who try to make trouble for me to distract from their own weaknesses and failings.

I have suffered you for this long, and I will continue to suffer you for as long as it suits me to do so. Just know this: you may think that because your little box is over mine on the org chart that you have the upper hand, and maybe in a small way that is true, but I am using that very assumption to destroy you. You aren’t even going to see it coming, until you’re flat on your ass and seeing stars.

It didn’t have to be this way. You could have played nice. You could have played fair. You could have earned my respect, and I would have moved heaven and earth to make us both look good. You made this decision, not me, and you’re about to see exactly what a poor decision it was.

Which begs the question- could it be, perhaps, that you didn’t know my place?

Bring.  It.

no love and certainly no kisses,

one hell of a wolf in a sweet little lamb costume.

A long time ago, in a land far far away, I believed in soul mates and fate and fairy tales and happily ever afters. My evidence for these theories? My very own happily ever after. The wasbund and I were meant for each other; we were meant to be together, I was fated to meet him and marry him and live happily ever after. The philosophical and the personal fit in a neat box, tied with a pretty bow. We all know how that worked out for me.

When your marriage ends you largely set your philosophical concerns aside. There are property divisions to negotiate, broken hearts to mend, and the immediate and practical concerns of such a momentous change overtake anything abstract. The mere emotional processing of the split and the circumstances that led to it were more than enough to deal with.

So now that my poor little heart has some fresh pink skin where the wounds once were, and I face the likely possibility that love lies waiting beneath the last few frosts of early spring? Those philosophical questions tumble around in my head and heart while I’m cleaning out my oven and mopping my hardwood floors.

The whole idea of soul mates comes from Greek mythology; the story of humans roaming the Earth with four legs and two heads and getting too big for their britches, inspiring Zeus to cut them in half to force them into humility. So the story goes that we spend our lives searching for our “other half”.  It is a very nice story, despite a little gore, and it certainly resonates with the human condition…

I also think maybe it’s a huge part of the problem, the idea that we are half-beings searching for wholeness and completion. It is the kind of story that the wasbund’s wife would have loved and cherished and clung to.

This girl doesn’t feel like a half. She feels pretty damn whole, thank you very much. She would love to have a man in her bed every night, she would be very happy to cook someone’s dinner while he mows the yard, she loves to love and wants very much to exercise that part of herself.  She would still have a pretty sweet life if she never had those things, though. Wistful, sure, but lost and lesser than? No.

Still, I cannot let go of the belief that love improves us; it calls us to a higher self and offers us  joy and comfort that make us greater than we were without it. Even the possibility of love has already made me lighter, softer, less likely to throw things and yell at pe0ple. Well, a little, anyway.

The idea that there is one perfect mate for each of us is one I always ascribed to. Now that it has become personally inconvenient, I wonder- is there really only one right answer to the question of mate selection? Or are there only so many different kinds of puzzle pieces, thus meaning that any number of people might fit together well enough? Or is it a mix of the two- that there are people in this world that we are supposed to love? Supposed to love and lose? Supposed to love and keep?

So what about free will? I’ve long subscribed to the theory that love (as in the verb) is a choice, that we decide to nurture or starve our relationships. Do we exercise that free will independent of fate? Is it fated that we will exercise our free will to maintain or destroy the bonds of love? Does fate merely open the door, and we walk through it or decline to do so of our own free will?

Can it really be as easy as finding someone who delights you, that you share common values with and feel a strong attraction to and deciding to make something of it? Does your success or failure result from fate or free will, or a mix of both? Can you create your happily ever after?

I guess all of this philosophical meandering comes down to one very real and concrete question: how do you know when it’s right? How do you know when to surrender and give in and allow your heart to give your logical mind a run for its money?

If it comes down to an emotional and ethereal knowing, that scares me. Because I didn’t think that there was any more certain knowing than what I once knew. But as it turns out?

I didn’t know a damn thing.

At this very moment, I’m waiting for the sun to melt enough of the six or eight inches of snow in my driveway so that I can go to class tonight. Whether or not it will clear up enough remains to be seen. It looks promising- the sun is shining, the wind is blowing- these are all very positive signs. I don’t know right now, though, if there will be enough sun, if it will get warm enough, if it will be safe enough for me to forge ahead with my plans.

This particular situation in no way parallels any other situation in my life. At all. Certainly not a situation in which I’m a little more emotionally invested, or one in which I am so anxious to know the outcome that if it were a book I would read the last page today, or at least skip ahead a few chapters just to see where the characters are a little further along in the plot.  Not a parallel to be had, no sir, not at all…

Of course I realize that waiting is important. Necessary. An act of self preservation, of caution and prudence and maturity. You don’t take a cake out of the oven before it’s baked through, you don’t take a fiberglass and aluminum two wheel drive paid for car out if it’s going to be icy. That is when things get messy; when accidents happen, when poor decisions are made, property is damaged and people get hurt. Plus there is no cake, just a gooey mess that might give you worms. No one wants worms, especially when they are so easily prevented by just letting the cake bake till that toothpick comes out clean and you’re ready for frosting.

Some people are able to relish the waiting- they love the smell of a cake filling the house as it bakes; they want to want that first piece of cake so badly that they’re drooling before they cut it.

I’m the girl that scrapes every last bit of leftover batter out of the bowl with the spatula, eats the frosting with a tall glass of milk while she works, and has a wicked stomachache by the time the oven timer rings.

Oh baby don’t it feel like heaven right now
Don’t it feel like something from a dream
Yeah I’ve never known nothing quite like this
Don’t it feel like tonight might never be again
We know better than to try and pretend
Baby no one could’a ever told me ’bout this
I said yeah yeah

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

-Tom Petty “The Waiting”

You can look. You can appreciate. Staring slack-jawed and following me to my car? Not cool. I wouldn’t touch you with a 2000 ft. long cattle prod, but someone might be willing if they couldn’t smell you before they saw you.

NOT fondly,

girl in dire need of coffee who does not flirt before noon

Dear Walgreens Pharmacist:

I have taken birth control since I was thirteen. That’s over half of my life. I do not have questions about it. I know you have to ask. You don’t have to apologize for asking, and it isn’t awkward. It’s my body and my medicine, and my health, and if I had a question, I would ask you, even if it was really unpleasant. Obviously, you feel it is awkward to ask me if I have any questions regarding my birth control, and that begs the question…  why do you dispense medication for a living?

Respectfully,

that girl who’s cool with her reproductive organs, like on a first name basis and everything.

Dear He Who Must Be Tolerated and Managed Up:

Seriously, quit trying to engage me in conversation when I am trying to leave for lunch. You’re two hours behind me, and I’m sorry that when you get settled in and ready to pester me, I’m starving and bitchy or not even here, but a girl has to eat (and go to Walgreens). Also, why schedule a call for a two minute conversation easily handled by email? Modern technology- is like it!

Not so respectfully,

The Thorn in Your Side

PS: Unrelated- I need some of your finger clippings for a craft project….

Dear You Know Who You Are*,

Well. We established that you make me crazy in the good way, so it only stands to reason that sooner or later, you were gonna make me crazy in the bad way. I warned you that I was difficult, and you shrugged it off… until last night. I actually feel better about you than I did before all the crazy leaked out my ears, and I almost feel safe in saying that you feel better about me. Well played, my dear.

quite fondly,

The girl who warned you that she idled at difficult

PS:  um, i probably shouldn’t tell you this, but threatening to turn me over your knee when I’m being difficult is probably not the deterrent you think it is….

Dear Daddy,

You know that thing you do where you just send me money for no reason? Now would be an excellent time to do that.

all my love,

your spoiled silly daughter

Dear You Won’t Know Who You Are, Because You’re Too Humble:

I truly enjoy our friendship. You’ve taught me more in a few months than I learned over the last ten years. When the little chat box pops up from you, I grin. Every time.

affectionately,

The girl you keep on the straight and narrow

*We have not declared open season on the blog, so he is not reading here. Yet. I’m spoon feeding him posts, and if he doesn’t run away or vomit them up, then soon. Soon.

My discomfort always stems from the same thought- what if someone were to judge me just on that post? What if someone just clicks through here and this is their first impression of me? Or, more terrifying, what if someone who knows what my laugh sounds like reads it and it changes their perception of me for the worse? Of course, you know the end to this story- I always end up reassuring myself that not being true to myself is a much worse fate than losing favor with people.

Still, when I’m in the middle of reorganizing my kitchen cabinets and wondering what a fucking lunatic I am, I get a Twitter notification with a link to a sweet surprise.

Thank you, Angela, for the reminder that if you trust people with the truth of who you are, you’ll be rewarded by the ones who matter the most.

There is nothing quite like being driven to the edge of sanity by some drawer organizers. Well, maybe throwing a temper tantrum while attempting to turn a mattress or, worse- turning a mattress while also attempting to replace a bed skirt.

It isn’t that I can’t do these things. I’m certainly capable. The problem is more a matter of pride. I can’t stand to do things I’m not good at. My tolerance for doing things poorly or struggling is absurdly low.  You would think the rash of things I’ve had to handle that I’m not experienced with would have cured me of this affliction. You would be wrong. So very wrong. There isn’t anything character building about dissolving into tears over a few pieces of fabric and cardboard.

Putting things together is like a special kind of torture for me. Other people look at something and have some sort of spatial reasoning that allows them to conceptualize how the pieces come together. I develop a thin film of sweat and a lump in my throat.

It starts innocently enough. I saw some pretty drawer organizers, so I brought them home. There are two pieces; the fabric organizer with two compartments, and a stiff piece of cardboard covered in fabric to form the bottom and hold the compartments in shape. All I have to do is put the bottoms in.

Famous. last. words.

The bottom is really hard to fit into the back of the fabric. When one end is good and settled, the other end pops out. Wash, rinse, repeat. Take a deep breath. Try again. Shake hands loose. Try to laugh at yourself. Make another attempt. Stop and look at it. Try opposite corners. Fail. Throw item across room. Feel foolish. Retrieve item. Try three more times with perfect restraint, succeed the third time, pick item up out of lap only to watch the bottom fall out. Burst into tears.

Over a drawer organizer. Well, maybe moreso because there are two drawer organizers. I did finally succeed. Or so I thought. When I put the drawer organizers in the drawer, the bottoms fell out. I filled them up anyway, and am currently ignoring the fact that they are collapsing. I consider that a win. I’m also considering the use of hot glue.

The bed skirt, on the other hand, spanked my ass.

I could tell you the whole story, but I think the upshot captures it perfectly- me laying between my box spring and mattress on top of a rumpled bed skirt, muttering obscenities while hot tears slip down my cheeks. The bed skirt is currently on the top shelf of my closet. I’m going to call this a retreat and not a loss; I will fight another day.

After all, it only took me a month to master a corkscrew. Hope springs eternal.

I’m a little confused.

I like my therapist. He’s good at what he does.

The website was about abused children. It was about a therapeutic method under which adults who were abused and neglected by their parents or primary care givers stop sympathizing and empathizing with their parents and turn that unconditional love and acceptance on themselves. Her premise is that I cannot truly love myself if I forgive my parents, because I’m inherently repressing my rage and sorrow to accommodate a favorable view of them.

Okay, what?

That just blows my mind. It took me a long, long time to view love as coming from a bottomless source, to let go of the concrete idea that love is a limited resource and realize that loving creates more love. It’s magical that way. It also took me a long time to forgive my parents.

The undeniable truth is that I was abused and neglected as a child. Certainly, there are children that have much worse circumstances than I ever did. That doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been hit, kicked, throttled and otherwise physically injured and intimidated. That I didn’t receive critical medical care. That I was often left home alone all day when I was sick, or taken out of school to care for my sister when she was sick. That I endured verbal attacks and public humiliation at the hands of both of my parents. Those things happened, every bit of them, and they hurt. They changed me as a person, and I will never know who I might have been without the influence of abuse and neglect.

I could tell you the tragic stories of my parents’ own childhoods, I could show you the hands they were dealt while I came of age. I could tell you that they are, at heart, good people with good intentions. I could remind you, and myself that they love me to the ends of this Earth and would do just about anything for me. I could make a list of all of the wonderful things they’ve given me, taught me, shared with me, created for me. That would all be true.

Perhaps my issue with this woman’s premise is that it is so very black and white.

I didn’t deserve what I endured as child. No child does. That my parents did the best that they were capable of, given their own states of mental health and their own experiences growing up does not excuse or minimize my suffering. What they were capable of, what they were willing to justify and settle for is pathetic and disgusting. There simply is no excuse for it.

For my future children, for my adult life, I’ve chosen another path. I’ve decided that the crazy stops here, that I want to understand and overcome the influence of abuse and neglect on my own mental and emotional processes, so that I don’t unwittingly pass them to my children, or unthinkably, cause them to suffer as I have suffered. A critical part of that journey has been making peace with my parents.

They are who they are, and their ability to admit the truth without justifying or minimizing it is very limited. If they were capable of seeing things through my eyes, they never would have been capable of treating me the way they did. I have decided, consciously, to love them in spite of their flaws, in spite of their mistakes. Because they gave me life, because my blood is their blood, because they do love me so very, very much, and because I love them immensely.

As a grown woman, I’m still vulnerable to their special brand of hurt. The very minute my father begins to stumble around my home and slur intelligibly during our conversations, I cease being a thirty year old woman, through some kind of Alice in Wonderland type transformation, I fall down the rabbit hole until I am eight again. Anxious and unsettled by my father’s antics, hyper-vigilant, as well as resigned to falling asleep to the lullaby of my childhood: my father retching violently in the bathroom nearby. Trying to will myself to sleep and hoping that I sleep deeply enough to avoid a repeat performance as a morning revelry.  That old, tired dance inspires a rage and sorrow that still leaves me exhausted and anxious.

The difference is, my Dad knows how I feel about it now, and we don’t talk much about it, and I don’t make it an issue (as that would only serve to drive a wedge between us and not foster any change in behavior on his part), and he is sheepish and offers the same olive branches he offered that poor little eight year old girl: breakfast out, spending money, compliments, and casual apologies or denials. Another important difference- he leaves town, he goes home, and as his plane soars above the ridgelines, I pop up out of the rabbit hole and start to resume life as a functional, independent adult.

Maybe this woman would say that I’m still punishing myself by allowing my father to drink in my house, by allowing him such a large space in my heart, by choosing to love and adore the lovable and adorable parts of him. I don’t buy that. The decision for me was to learn to take my parents as they come or be a voluntary orphan. To have the best and closest relationships with them that I could, or to excommunicate myself from them. I will grant her, this forgiveness comes from a place of superiority to an extent- I have to look upon those parts of them that caused my suffering from a place beyond my natural perspective.

I had to come to understand those horrible parts of them as symptoms of their own suffering, and I had to accept and understand that they are not willing to break the trance of their delusions and demons in order to overcome them. So I did. Because I love them. Because they love me. Because I hope that my children will do the same thing, as much as I hope that I give them less to forgive me for.

“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

Obviously, I’m not abandoning one of the best parts of my life (blogging) for anyone. I told him about my trip to Vegas in May, I just failed to mention exactly why I was going. “There’s a convention there I want to attend” was all I gave him, and he didn’t push for more information.

I’m proud of this space, and I stand behind my posts- all of them. This a very genuine and significant part of who I am.

I’m excited to share it with him, I really am.

I’m also scared to death.

I will wait until we are breathing the same air to do it. I will sit him down at my desk, in front of my laptop, pull up this url and go cook dinner while he pokes around. There, but not over his shoulder.

Still. I fear his reaction to a three year archive of the crazy. As far as I know, he doesn’t have any equivalent data for me. Which is exactly why he doesn’t know this place yet- that would have been too unfair, on both ends- for him to have access to all of this without my having the same information.

So this is the part where you tell me how you “came out” as a blogger to your loved ones, and how they took it, and any other thoughts you might have about the situation, especially including any reassurance you’d like to give me that he will like me more and not less once he’s poked through my archives…

Go.

Not this time.

This time around, I’m stirred, not shaken.

The euphoria of attraction, of mutual attraction is alive and well, with all of the intensity I’m so famous for. I would eat, sleep and breathe this man if I could, make no mistake.

The difference is that underneath that wild excitement, there is a sense of safety, of security.

Instead of abandoning my logic and the essence of who I am, I carry it with me into this new part of my life. I feel safer and more grounded than I have since I was a little girl. Before the world taught me how cold and mean it can be.

There is no psychedelic flash of heat and light. There is no warping of the senses, no feeling of falling down the rabbit hole.

No, this heat and light is different. Slower. More even. This isn’t the last week of August, when you’re sweltering and your skin takes that pinkish tone after five minutes in the sun without a good coating of SPF 45.

This is the strong but gentle warmth of April, when the earth starts to thaw and you can smell the leaves of the previous autumn finally breaking down, enriching the soil. The kind of light and heat that sets all of nature to buzzing with energy, bubbling and slowly building steam, till the flora and fauna absorb so much of it that they explode with lime green growth and start about their spring business- nest building, gorging themselves to make up for the scarcity of winter feed, and perpetuating their respective species.

The ephemeral wildflowers are laying in wait, just beneath the surface, waiting only for the last retreat of winter’s cold before they spring to life in all their glory, giving a brief and stunning show with their delicate, intricate beauty. Before the summer’s canopy of tree leaves unfurl to shroud them in darkness and the larger, showier flowers take over.

That’s where my heart is- in those first few days of spring, when you’re almost sure the weather has turned, but you can’t rule out a few more chilly breezes. Still, you sense the inevitable approach of the next cycle.

I’ve always loved that time of year- the anticipation of warmer days and nights; the reassurance of the unending cycle of nature, the reaffirmation of life after months of dormancy. To experience it within my own heart and soul is an incredible thing, perhaps the most incredible thing I’ve ever known.

The blender is still in the cupboard. This, this whatever-this-is, has me feeling calmer, more sure of myself. When I think about the possibilities, and what they will mean for my future, I am carefully, tentatively optimistic. We will see, and that is more than good enough right now. Because we will see where this goes, and we will decide what it means, and we know what it takes to make it work. At least we think we do.

I can’t wait to find out.

I never did believe in miracles,
But I’ve a feeling it’s time to try.
I never did believe in the ways of magic,
But I’m beginning to wonder why.

Don’t, don’t break the spell,
It would be different and you know it will.
You, you make loving fun,
And I don’t have to tell you but you’re the only one.

-Fleetwood Mac “You Make Loving Fun”

This story comes to you courtesy of my Daddy, who we all know is probably my greatest source of TMI posts.

Where he works, they have a small cafeteria. For awhile, they had no cook, and so they had no breakfast or lunch available in the cafeteria. A new cook was hired, and everyone was eager to have hot food served at the office. They lined up to try his offerings.

The grits were his biggest hit by far. All the ladies ranted and raved about how incredibly delicious this guy’s grits were. Daddy got sick of hearing about it- that’s how impressed everyone was.

For the better part of three months, everyone ate grits for breakfast, and they were good, and all was right with the world. Until…

One day, they were out of forks or grits or something, and so one of the ladies wandered back into the kitchen to let him know…

… and found him working, um, furiously at finishing a batch of grits with his “special sauce”. The process by which he made this “special sauce” did not belong in the kitchen, and probably required a Playboy or a Penthouse to produce.

That’s right, folks- the women my father works with were over the moon for grits made with love sauce, which they unknowingly ate five mornings a week for three months.

The cafeteria is closed now.

Happy TMI Thursday!