Muchness and Light

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me.

About a year ago, I was taking a class on women’s religious memoirs. While the women and their journeys were very different, I kept noticing a sometimes-subtle, secondary theme of self-compassion in each text. Mentions of the female Buddha Tara, a sublime personification of compassion and wisdom in female form, led me down a path toward the White Tara, which can be one of seven of the 21 primary emanations of Tara, representing the enlightened activity of pacifying. Sometimes this can be pacifying limitations of the physical body and overcoming illness and avoiding an untimely death. Sometimes it can be pacifying fears to overcome obstacles in a path to success or enlightenment.

In my readings, application of the teachings of the White Tara included applying those concepts to the self, especially for women, who seem more likely than male adherents to turn to Tara. I started to look online for “‘White Tara’ +self-compassion” and eventually stumbled across a book, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, by Tara Branch. (See how that path goes along?) Writing from her own intersectional experience as a Buddhist and a clinical psychologist, Branch offers Radical Acceptance as a spiritually-healthy alternative to the “trance of unworthiness” that we tend to fall into when faced with unhealthy or unreasonable expectations and demands of society, family, and ourselves. She analogizes Radical Acceptance as a bird, which can only fly with both of its wings--in this case, clear seeing (mindfulness) and compassion.

She also posits that the Adam and Eve story is at the heart of much of Western dissatisfaction. Even if it’s not part of your chosen religion or mythos, she asserts, the idea--of punishing the self to redeem your own sins (and thereby the Original Sin) in order to be returned into God’s paradisiacal garden--so deeply permeates Western culture that it’s almost impossible to escape its influence. People are assumed to be inherently flawed, to be in need of repair and redemption for sins that may not even have been theirs to begin with. By this measure, our suffering stems from the conflict between the ideal of paradise and the manifestations of our intrinsic unworthiness, and we are caught in a constant cycle of struggling to redeem ourselves.

Of course I started to think about this in terms of my own struggles. It’s no surprise that I have consistently gone back to emotionally- and logistically-unavailable men. Subconsciously, I am always hoping the next one will do what the others couldn’t--love me no matter what, thereby alleviating the deep-seated fear of emotional abandonment that stems from my childhood.

Not only do those unavailable men never fulfill my hope for redemption, that’s a wholly unfair amount of pressure and expectation for me to put on anyone else. So if they can’t make up for what was done to me in the past, and if the people who traumatized me to begin with can’t undo what they did and are unlikely to ever make any kind of real amends for their transgressions (see that sin thing happening again?), then how exactly am I supposed to get over my fears?

Where is redemption for me, for my inner child? What does redemption even mean for me?

Those things happened. I can’t escape the reality of having been sexually or physically or emotionally abused. While I have finally come to understand that they weren’t my fault, that I didn’t choose to be a sexualized object or to find the man I loved had moved his heart a million miles away from my own and blamed me for it, I do have culpability in how I responded to the trauma. Especially within the context of adult romantic relationships, I could be difficult and demanding, so desperate not to feel what I was feeling as a result of my insecurities coming into contact with theirs. I had moments of utter tantrum and a fatalistic view that if that relationship in that moment couldn’t be fixed in such a way that I felt secure, then I must be unlovable and undeserving of anything different or more.

But that’s just not true, either.

Yes, my insecurities are strong and numerous. So were theirs. That’s just a reality of lives experienced into established adulthood. Sometimes bad shit has happened, and we all have developed in response to those stimuli.

But the redemption comes not from meeting someone who can not do the stupid shit that undermines my tenuously-reintegrating psyche. It comes from my not making the same choices, not having the same limited emotional responses to similar stimuli.

I met Finn a few weeks ago and really liked him from the beginning. There’s a lot about him that’s truly wonderful, and it was exciting to see the possibility of something again. It was reassuring to find that I was attractive to someone else, both physically and psychologically.

But Finn’s schedule and my schedule don’t mesh. He works long hours on a schedule that’s very different than my own. Our time together had dwindled considerably. While I loved spending time with him, to date someone requires actual interpersonal engagement within a certain physical proximity. Logistical conflicts made seeing each other very difficult, and I made the decision to be open to other possibilities.

Reliability and consistency are very important for me. I am not comfortable with not knowing when I’ll see my romantic partner again. Rango accused me many times of wanting him “up [my] ass 24/7,” which was actually not the case at all. What I did want was to know that I was a priority--not the only priority--and that I would get concerted care and attention from him. I needed reliably consistent and consistently reliable. I needed to know that he would set aside time to show up and would actually show up when he said he was going to.

I didn’t take it as a personal affront with Finn. Whereas I might have previously seen his inability to spend time with me as a rejection of me outright, this wasn’t. His work schedule is hectic. He tried to make time for me, because he liked me and wanted to spend that time with me. He just wasn’t able to do it at times when I was also available.

I don’t feel abandoned by him. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t make our schedules work. I really, really like him, and I was looking forward to exploring more with him. I miss him a little bit. I’ve had a few moments where I felt a little sad that I don’t have time with him to look forward to. But I was constantly looking forward to time that wasn’t coming, that he couldn’t provide because his job is different than mine--not because he didn’t like me enough to want that time.

So I made the decision to do what was healthy for me. Rather than drag it out for weeks or months longer, hoping beyond hope that it would magically fall into place, I gave myself the freedom not to be bound by the emotions and unhealthy responses to them that would come from fighting futility. I didn’t have a tantrum. I made a Self-led decision and executed it without blame or recrimination--aimed neither at him nor at myself.

When the pangs do come, I take a moment and let them sit. Sometimes I’ll feel something and one sub-part will immediately chime in with her interpretation of what that emotion is and means.

“Oh, that’s irritation. That’s the beginning of angry, because he didn’t make time to show up to see you, and that means he wasn’t ever going to be able to love you like you need, and your needs aren’t unreasonable, and he’s an asshole for not seeing how wonderful you are--”

Shush.

Breathe.

“But--”

Shhhhhhh.

Yes, it might be irritation. It might be at him, or it might be at me, or it might be at the email I just got, or it might be at the scratchy tag on the inside of my shirt. It’s just an emotion, and it will pass almost as quickly as it came. There’s no need to turn the faucet on just to watch the water swirl. But you’re sweet to be concerned. You’re sweet to defend me and to protect me, and I love you for wanting to.

I try to be mindful of the emotions, to clearly see what they are, and to treat them compassionately, letting them exist without the endless overanalysis that always seems to end in judgment and recrimination. They are neither good nor bad; they simply are, and to let them just be is the healthiest way I can deal with them.

The same goes for the men I meet, and it goes for me, too. Certainly there are not nice people in the world, but someone else’s bumping up against my insecurities doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person. My even having or admitting to my own insecurities doesn’t make me a bad person. While I twistedly pride myself on being able to pick out the Fragile Cats quickly in a crowd, I can’t usually know how their issues will play with mine until we are engaging. Rather than hope beyond hope that an extreme avoidant will love me so much that it changes his attachment style--thereby helping me to change mine--it’s far healthier for me to work on myself and to politely disentangle from any relationship that seems very likely to be unhealthy for me.

The redemption comes not through someone else’s choices in how they love me but rather in my own choices of how I love myself.

It’s all still new. It’s an ongoing process, of course, and I won’t really know how I’ll respond to emotional stimuli until I am adequately stimulated. For now, there’s no agitation or anxiety, no desperation to quell an internal storm of fear or dissatisfaction or loneliness.

Today, I’m just aware, and I’m not beating myself up over it.

 

 

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Wonder if I'll ever bury the hatchet inside.

About the time Rango moved into the house with us, I started to realize that I was having a hard time with his past.

Due to the constraints of time and distance and the necessary logistics for the boys, he and I never spent a night in his apartment. He insists that the apartment was never more than a landing pad and that it never felt like home. While I do believe home for him became wherever I was within days of our meeting, part of me still feels like I never got the opportunity to... I don't know... mark that territory...?

It sounds stupid, I know. I feels stupid. Every time some ex comes up, I cringe.

I know part of my insecurity comes from my maladaptive attachment style, which was established in my childhood and then reinforced over and over and over (and over and over and over) in my adult dating life, especially in the two-and-a-half years after DH and I split. I'm a fragile cat, without a doubt, but so is Rango. Generally we are very careful and patient with one another's emotions, lovingly treading across the scarred battlefield of the other's heart.

But really, I have no idea why the hell I am so freaked out when some former relationship of his is mentioned. Because I took the brutally-open-and-honest approach while I was dating, Rango learned probably far more about me in those first days than maybe he wanted, especially my history with the fragile cats.

When you're divorced, or maybe it just happens at this age when you have a good deal of life experience, first date conversation inevitably turns to prior relationships. Were you married? Do you have kids? Why did you break up? First dates are basically an interview, after all—a chance to see if their fuckeduppedness will play well with your fuckeduppedness.

So he knew very quickly that I was living in the same house I'd lived in with my ex-husband. He knew my most painful ex lived just a few miles away and semi-regularly sees me in passing. He knew I'd had a very active dating and social life on the weekends before DH moved out of state and dropped regular contact with the boys.

Hell, I wrote a book about some of it.

In the semi-autobiographical Persona Non Grata, Tierney talks about how she has a hard time hearing about her husband, Sam's, relationship with his long-ago ex-girlfriend:

"I worried for years that you had loved her more than you loved me," I admitted one night.  I couldn't look at him when I said it.  I kept my gaze trained on the darkness in the woods behind our house.

"Why?  Why would you even think that?  Didn't I tell you every day that I loved you?  Couldn't you just believe that?"

"I believed you.  I still do.  But, Sam, you were so broken when you guys split.  I kept waiting for you to come home and tell me that she'd called, that she wanted you back.  I used to dream about it all the time."

I really didn't know that DH loved me more than he'd loved her until the day Max was born, more than seven years into our marriage.

And I know that love should never feel like a competition, but my head is sometimes a mess, and I sometimes feel like I am constantly at battle with the ghosts of the past. I am forever struggling to overcome my screwed up perceptions of how I think other people see me. Often this drives me to be bigger and better and faster and more. I feel like there is so much inherently wrong with me and about me, and that if I can perfect as many small things as possible then the huge amount of bad is still outweighed by lots of little good.

No one is harder on me than I am on myself.

I few weeks ago, I told Rango, "I won't feel secure until I've been with you longer than you've been with [your ex-wife]."

"But you already have."

I looked at him, puzzled. "You do remember that you were married for five years, don't you?"

"Yeah, but our relationship was over long before we even got married," he replied. "Emotionally, we were together for a week-and-a-half."

A few days later, we took our first trip together. Without the boys, we went to Texas for his sister's wedding, which also gave me the opportunity to meet and spend time with his family. We had a lovely couple of days in San Antonio, walking around Riverwalk and later dancing at the wedding, followed by a day in Houston.

 

Wedding Selfie #Sassafras #Rango #JenAndAli

A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on May 2, 2015 at 5:22pm PDT

DH and I had flown into San Antonio once, gone immediately to buy a car, and then drove straight home to Alabama. We passed through a section of Houston on the way. My 2012 trip to Austin by myself was my only real trip to Texas.

Rango spent his teen years in Texas, especially in and around Houston. He lived in various places before moving to Atlanta (to be with [his ex-wife]), but he still thinks of Texas as home. (Well, maybe until he met me.)

Although I'd never been to San Antonio, I set part of Persona Non Grata there. Tierney's life blows up (the climax without a climax) at the Marriott Riverwalk. I spent some time researching and wrote about what I'd never actually seen:

    I walked out from the hotel and turned onto the wide walkways along the river.  I knew there was a coffee shop nearby.  I ordered a frittata and took my coffee to a small table.  I ate slowly, trying to abate the nagging headache.

    I was tired but didn't want to hole up in my hotel room.  I spent a couple of hours exploring San Antonio.  I walked over little bridges and through lushly landscaped mini-parks.  I was impressed by the mix of modern and traditional, of historical and new. 

    I found a shady spot outside a coffee shop, sitting under a bright yellow umbrella.  It was still early, but the River Walk was bustling already with people ready for the new day.  I sketched the profile of a young woman sitting on a park bench, reading a book.  The face of the sleeping baby, parked in his stroller at his parents' table next to mine. 

 

Tierney is hanging out at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. #personanongrata #junkture

A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on May 2, 2015 at 11:21am PDT

Rango and I stayed at another Marriott a few blocks away. On Saturday morning, he happily walked with me to find the spot I'd written. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that was included in an earlier draft of PNG. (It was eventually cut and re-written because the scene was lifeless.) And while he knew this was a fictionalized account, that I'd never been to these places, he also knew we were living a moment from the fictionalized account of the events that triggered the metamorphosis that led, in part, to my divorce.

Never did he complain. Never did he express a jealous thought. Not once did he have to choke back an angry lump and leave the room to catch his breath and regain control.

But driving to Houston the next day, picked up by his best friend, some comment was made about an ex they shared. (Who am I to judge someone for dating their best friend's ex?) Sitting in the back seat of the car, I bristled at the mention, knowing full well that she was long, long before me, that the relationship was short-lived and didn't work for a reason, that he loves me more.

Days later, as we were talking about traveling again soon—something DH and I never did together—I told him I would never go to Sweden with him, because he went there to see a now-ex.

"But it's a beautiful country," he argued. "You would love to see it."

I'm sure I would, but I was never willing to go to New Orleans with DH (in theory, because we didn't travel together or take vacations) because India had lived there in her childhood and later gone on vacation there with DH.

I've talked before about how I am a hoarder of memories. Because I remember virtually everything, I hold onto a lot of shit on my big, broken brain. Combine that with my intense sentimentality, and my head is an emotional minefield that I can barely traverse—how the hell is anyone else supposed to get through?

What I realized is that I am more than willing to give Rango the chance to replace some of those memories. Sometimes, he does it and doesn't even know it. Maybe we're having an incredibly wonderful moment and a song comes on that would have previously tied me up in knots, a reminder of a past moment. While there are still songs I just can't bear to hear anymore, there are a few that are now associated with Rango. Maybe it's a trip to a place I've been before or only dreamt about with someone else.

His heart replaced theirs in that memory space.

His cautions that there are formative memories that cannot be replaced. Of course. No matter what he or I do, there's no possible way to replace everything, and I wouldn't want either of us to do that. What happened before is what has led us to here, to the place where our paths converged. It's all about the journey and not the destination.

Yes, I know that I am letting my own insecurities and fears get in my way. I loathe that I think and feel this way. I am repulsed by the dark, tangled emotions that swirl around inside me, ensnaring my thoughts and hijacking what should be a calm, normal moment.

The only way I know to fight the dark is with light. When I don't feel like my own, internal light is strong enough to illuminate the path, I turn into the disco ball, spinning and reflecting a broken, scattered mosaic of brilliance that can be as annoyingly blinding as it is charming in its kinetic chaos.

Through it all, Rango says he is more than happy to be in my shadow, to let me spin in the spotlight while he supports me. I want him to be where he is happy and comfortable. I don't want to ever lose him to the darkness that I refuse to face and enter.

But I really have no idea how to counter the jealousy. I don't know how to not feel like it's a competition, even though it's one I know I'd have won months ago. I don't have a clue how not to snarl back at any of his memories that I'm afraid are snarling at me.

 

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Let's have a disco ball, and let's be happy.

I'm not here for your entertainment.

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of my four-day, constantly-tearful breakdown of what established initial patterns in my relationships, I read Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—And Keep—Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.  La Bruja had recommended this book weeks ago, and I finally got around to reading it. 

Holy shit.

When she first recommended it, I did a little quick research online and came to the conclusion that I have an anxious attachment style.  "Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back."  I realized I mostly have dated and been in relationships with avoidants.  "Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness."

According to Levine and Heller, people with secure attachments—those who "feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving"—make up about 50% of the population.  Anxious ones like me make up 20%, while avoidants make up 25%.  The remaining 5% of the population is made up of anxious-avoidants, and I can certainly include a couple of my exes in that narrow margin. 

But when it comes to dating as an adult, the majority of secure people are in healthy relationships.  They're the ones you know who are still happily married after twenty years.  They're the ones I look to and wish I'd ever had a relationship like that. 

Secure men are generally not on the open market. 

There's a disproportionate number of avoidants in the dating pool.  This is part of the reason I am far more likely to encounter a Fragile Cat when I'm on the prowl myself. 

Anxious people are also more likely to be attracted to avoidants, as if something unconscious in us feels like we've found a missing piece of our puzzle.  Avoidants are usually reflective of a powerful, dysfunctional attachment in our earlier life, often from childhood.  Initially everything may seem really great, but then something happens and the avoidant backs away, which causes the anxious to move closer to close the gap, which causes the avoidant to back away even further.  Both partners are having their fucked-up emotional attachment needs met, but it's a pathological dance of getting close and backing away. 

In reading Attached, I was surprised (and thankful!) to learn I wasn't quite as screwed up as I'd thought.  Yes, I am anxious, though not nearly so off-the-chain as I could be.  (I'm less of an outlier than I normally am.)  Levine and Heller argue that there is a biological, evolutionary purpose and need for attachment.  Just as happens with parents and children, bonds are formed in the brain when we partner.  Synapses and neurotransmitters and a bunch of brain shit that I only understand as a layman come together to imprint that person on our brain as a matter of survival.  As inherently social creatures, especially ones who have sexual reproduction, we need other people. 

When an avoidant backs away from me, it activates that attachment system, and I've learned mostly unconsciously to do things and work in ways that will get a response from my partner, to deactivate that system.  (I'm talking phone calls and texts, not boiling bunnies, though I'd imagine this is exactly where and how stalking begins.)  When I don't get the response I need, it amps up my anxiety, so I step closer again and again until I'm either soothed or I get so worked up that love feels like a huge waste of my life.

Because of these patterns established throughout my life, emotional security is something I need in a different way than secure people.  That doesn't make it better or worse than anyone else—unless you're the avoidant on the polar opposite side of the need.  The avoidant's need for independence, their oft-refused acceptance of needing another person, is a defense mechanism and a way to fulfil their own established patterns. 

The avoidants' defensive self-perception that they are strong and independent is confirmed, as is the belief that others want to pull them into more closeness than they are comfortable with.  The anxious types find that their perception of wanting more intimacy than their partner can provide is confirmed, as is their anticipation of ultimately being let down by significant others.  So, in a way, each style is drawn to reenact a familiar script over and over again. 

My secure friends, and certainly my avoidant ones, have a very hard time understanding this.  They don't get why I can't always just suck it up and go on and get over someone, even when they've hurt me time and again.  But when that attachment system is activated and spinning out of emotional control, contact with that person can immediately soothe all of my anxieties, much in the same way an upset baby is soothed by the presence of its missing mother. 

Many individuals find it hard to follow through on their wish to break up, even after they've tried more than once to do it.  Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don't get to decide how long it will take.  Only when every single cell in their body is completely convinced that there is no chance their partner will change or that they will ever reunite will they be able to deactivate and let go.

One of the things Levine and Heller stress is that emotional dependency is not bad.  It is, in fact, a natural part of a healthy relationship to make your partner's needs more important than your own and vice versa.  It's okay and normal and good to elevate someone else's needs above your own when you are healthily in love. 

But I have this history of addicted men.  Alcohol, drugs, sex—I've seen and dated and slept with them all.  I've written before about how I am historically and enabler.  So what about codependence?  Isn't becoming so enmeshed in another person that your boundaries are blurred just dysfunctional?  Doesn't dependency on a partner make you lacking or broken or just fucked-up in some way?

Not necessarily.  

Need and addiction are not the same thing.  Codependency exists, and it is especially relevant in the realm of addiction.  The addict uses their substance as a tool to maintain emotional distance.  They drink or get high or sleep with other people as a way to cope with their own damage, and that often means they are actively inserting something between themselves and their partners.  There are other biological factors that come into play with addiction, as well.  The times I have refused to leave because my partner needed me to take care of them—whether to pick up their drunkenly-abandoned car or make excuses to their boss or friends about why they weren't showing up or to clean up whatever mess they created while they were fucked up—that's where the dysfunction of codependence can actually be applicable. 

Just because you need someone, that doesn't mean that you are addicted to them.

One of the things Attached recommends I do is date a lot of people, to go out with several at once.  That way if an avoidant sneaks (bombards his way) into my circle, I am reassured by the fact that I have someone else over here who wants to go out with me.  It's no big deal that this one fucked up, because there's someone else who finds me attractive and wants to spend time with me.  Historically, I am not a multi-dater, but I'll see how it goes. 

So I put myself back on the market. 

Friday night, I had a date with a new guy.  I'll call him S, because I don't want to reveal his name and—as you'll see shortly—he's not worthy of a jellicle name.  We met nearby at a billiards bar.  We had a couple of slow drinks and talked, though we never got around to actually playing pool.  He was cute and smart and funny.  We sat on the patio of the bar talking about sociology and music and dating as adults.  We walked around for a while, still talking and laughing, and ducked into another bar for a last drink.  I even messaged the Castration Committee while I was peeing that it was going really well. 

With about thirty minutes left in my night, that first kiss was looming.  Okay, you'll get a kiss, and it sounds like there's a chance you'll get another date.  I was looking forward to the prospect of seeing him again and getting to know him better. 

Cut to the chase, and he turned into a handsy ass.  Now, I'm no prude.  While I've been mulling imposing a Three Date Rule for sex, I have never been one to live by such social proprieties.  That doesn't mean I've slept with everyone I've been out with, and certainly not always on a first date, but I am comfortable going quickly down that path if I feel the situation is conducive to such intimacy.  Yes, sometimes, it's just a one-nighter.  I had to be home in an hour; this was not going to be one of those nights. 

For the first time in a really long time, I felt like a 16-year-old piece of cheap meat.  I felt stupid and also insulted that I was being offered a quickie in the backseat of his car, parked down a dark side street.  Again, not a scenario I'm unfamiliar with given my history, but I am not that girl anymore.  I'm a grown-ass woman.  I am worth far more than what this man was clumsily and uncomfortably offering me. 

And after writing two weeks ago and talking with my therapist this week, it was like I was watching this from above, from outside my own body.  For a moment, it felt like Stephanie was sitting there with Quinn as this recently-nice man imposed himself on us.  I could feel myself now, knowing this was just insulting, but I could also feel Quinn sitting silent and petulant, wishing he would just take his rough hands and slobbering mouth off of her. 

Something in me clicked and shoved him away quickly.  I got out of the car and said I needed to go.  I walked back to my car, a block away.  I texted Pandy to let her know it had gone awry but that I was okay. 

This is where I will also interject that I called Bounder.

In the now-14 months since we met, dated, broke up, dated again, broke up again, slept together, slept together again, dated others, slept together again, et cetera, we have continued to have this weird connection.  One of us reached out to the other, usually via text, at just that right moment when the other seems to need us.  We still sometimes dream of each other at the same time, as we'll find out a day or two later. 

But in all of that time, with all of the men I've gone out with, Bounder always seems to know.  He has never failed to text me while I'm with someone new, sometimes at the most inappropriate moments that I don't see until after the fact.  He's never failed to reach within than four hours after I've been with a new guy.  Whether he smells my perfume on the wind or has a bug in my phone (no, he doesn't), he just knows.

It is unquestionably the dance of an Anxious and Anxious-Avoidant.

I'd even joked on Friday afternoon that I wasn't blowing off this first date with S just to go sleep with Bounder.  (It wouldn't have been the first time.)

I hadn't even left my house for the date when his text came.

Totally innocent response to something else from days before.  I was leaving for the date when I saw the message.  The man is uncanny, really. 

And I didn't shut down this thing with S because of Bounder.  He really doesn't have the power to cock-block my dates from a distance.  I wasn't caught up in the idea of him that night; I was completely engaged with S until it turned weird.  (Let me stress here that at no time with S did I feel unsafe or in any type of danger.  I was simply very, very uncomfortable.)

My voice shaking and low, I called Bounder to tell him thank you for having never made me feel like I owed him anything.  Honestly, I was thankful it was a late-night voicemail and that I didn't have to talk to him directly.  For all of his faults, for all of the times I have done this fucked-up pathological dance with the man I love more than any other ever but who is such a heartbreakingly-close-but-terrible fit for me, he never made me feel sexually worthless.  In fact, as I was working through some pretty ugly memories and trying to get past some things, he was incredibly, beautifully patient and supportive with me.  He failed me in a lot of ways, but he never, ever made me feel anything but beautiful and wanted for exactly who I was, not because I should or might be something else, not because there was an expectation.  And that, in and of itself, is its own kind of love. 

So I'm still learning how to step differently, how to dance to a different beat.  It's not like reading this book would suddenly make me not maladaptive.  But it did open my head, giving me some insight and tools to work toward the healthy relationship I likely never would've possessed, had I not started this process of intense self-analysis and re-discovery. 

As shaken as I was when I walked away from that uncomfortable moment, I know I am fully engaged in this process.  I'm not watching from afar, checking out emotionally to just let things happen to me.  Healthy or unhealthy choices are my choices, and they aren't dependent on what Cissie or Quinn might want, though their needs are sometimes still my needs.

I drove us all home and to bed.  Alone.

And as La Bruja commented on Facebook as we talked about this date, "The good things that I see from this: 1) material—duh; 2) nothing happened and you're fine; 3) when you meet the right man, and some hot guy starts flirting with you while you're in line at Starbucks, you won't wonder if you missed any fun experiences by not dating more. You'll know you've got a great thing going and that 97% of all the guys who flirt with you would not come close to measuring up."

 

And then you call me, and it's not so bad.

This morning, about an hour before I was scheduled to sign copies of Persona Non Grata at the AJC Decatur Book Festival, I was in an utter panic.  The festival had been open about an hour, and not one copy of PNG had sold.  Everywhere I looked, I saw older women and hipster, urban couples with their jogging strollers—not my demographic. 

 

 Queen Frostine texted me just then:

Good luck today.  *hug*

I'm in a panic

No worries.  This will be brilliant.

No.  It'll be sad.  No one will buy it and I'll sit there for 10 minutes doing nothing.  That's how I expect it to go.

I don't want to do it.

She called me immediately.  I was on the verge of tears, pacing an alley behind the courthouse.  She reminded me that I could do this, that the worst thing that happened was no one came and I just sat there for ten minutes.  It wouldn't be the end of the world. 

Hot Pocket and Growler chimed in via Facebook Messenger. 

Me:        I just hung up with Frostine.  In utter panic about this and don't want to do it.  I will but am flaking out.

HP:        What, the signing?  Your book is awesome!  You can do this!

              You are glittery goodness and not a wallflower.

              Tell people about your book, like you would tell me. 

G:          Sass.  You will be fine.  I have made it through DAYS of book signings selling next to nothing and paying for my space.  You can do it for minutes.

              I panic, too.  All writers do.  You are not special.

I sucked it up, checked in at the Emerging Writers Pavilion, and then went and took my seat.  I was immediately joined by another writer.  She was tiny (at least compared to me), with short, dark hair that curled into a deep purple flame above her forehead.  Nose ring and skull-and-crossbones earrings.  Exactly the kind of woman I would like to hang out with under any circumstances. 

She introduced herself, and we started talking about what we write.  I must confess that I probably hogged way too much of the conversation.  But this writer, I. R. Harris, told me to remember what I had written and why, that my voice is able to reach women who often feel left out of contemporary fiction. 

"Besides, you wrote a book!  Lots of people say that want to do it and never do.  You did this!"

Then a friend from Facebook came up to the table.  I'd never met him (nor his lovely wife) face-to-face.  He was there to see me and get a signed copy. 

All of this was exactly what I needed today. 

There were a dozen little signs throughout the day that helped to cement some choices I had to make about the next couple of months.  It still means a lot of work is directly in front of me, but it also tells me that I know which path to forge and to trust in that. 

I received unexpected wisdom and encouragement from friends and strangers when I needed it most.  When there are impossibly difficult moments and I want to just crawl in bed and never come out, there is always something that is put in front of me, to remind me again of not only who I'm supposed to be but who I am.  Even when this life is at its hardest, I am thankful to have been given the strength and opportunity to live it as fully as I am willing and able.  I am fortunate and appreciative, even when I'm scared to death and so afraid that I will fail again or look like a fool. 

So for every little bit of goodness that was granted to me today, thank you.  I am humbled by the lessons I have learned and the serendipity that is a regular part of my crazy life.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

 

Someday when my crying is done, I'm gonna wear a smile and walk in the sun.

For months I've been toying with what to write next. 

I always knew I wanted to do something else from the Junkture stories.  I went to Mardi gras and Mobile earlier this year to do research for the next book, Mantissa.  (That's Alex Wheeler's first wife's backstory, if you're interested.  If you don't know who I'm talking about, read my first novel Persona Non Grata.)  Most of it would be totally fiction with bits and pieces of my youth and stories from friends' lives as well. 

There's also the story of Talia Wheeler, Alex's current wife.  Sequentially it happens just after Persona Non Grata but is told from Talia's point of view.  I knew a lot of it would reflect my real life in the aftermath of separation and the process of divorce.  I haven't had enough closure or distance to be able to delve into it quite yet.

I had a dream in the spring that was the catalyst for an entirely new story.  The details were swirling in my head, and I did hours and hours of research.  While utterly fiction and having nothing to do with Junkture, the tempest that is Sass and Bounder was strongly influencing how these characters were evolving.  This was true the first time we were together and even moreso the second time. 

I was stuck, though.  I couldn't quite see these new characters.  Queen Frostine was asking me regularly where this book was—she knew the gist of the story and wanted to see it come to fruition.  Even Hammer was intrigued by the idea. 

"It's all in my head," I would answer.

When Bounder and I broke up in July, I was on my way to Mobile again.  I needed time to think and wrap my head around what was happening.  The day after it finally happened, I drove out to Dauphin Island.  I sat on a mostly-deserted beach in the rain, listened to music, and cried.  I purged a lot of emotion that day, giving it to the wind and the rain and the withdrawing tide. 

And somehow over that tempest, I heard the names of the new characters.  Layla and Michael. 

From that point, they had identities.  I could hear and see them, knew how they acted and moved.  I borrowed Lady Hammer's laptop and wrote what would become the first draft of the first chapter on Sunday.  It took a few days, but I eventually got into the groove and the energy needed to write this story.

Like all writers do, I'm writing what I know.  Even though the story itself borders on paranormal romance (but is as about as genre-specific as PNG—which is to say, not at all), the emotions of Michael and Layla are effectively Bounder and me.  Like I did for the first book, and like I do for Muchness and Light, I am drawing upon my very real life to drive my writing. 

But just once I would like to not have to live a traumatic relationship just to get a book out of me. 

"Most women gain twenty-five pounds when they break up," my editor said.  "I'd say emotional writing is much more productive."

I agree, but it's hard to relive the good and the bad just to reframe the sense of emotion.  It's hard to see the texts and emails and then remember what was occurring in the midst of that.  It's as difficult to the middle-of-the-night "I miss and love you" messages as it is to see the "This is too hard, I don't think I can do it" ones.  It breaks my heart all over again to see all the times we were messaging simultaneously that we were listening to the same song, or to see when he'd text me that he was on his way to come and kiss his girl. 

In some ways, it leaves me even more confused about what happened.  He was there, plainly and constantly, and then suddenly not.  I knew when and why I think it happened, but I don't know how.  It seems like there was literally one moment in time when something shifted and everything fell apart.  If I mapped it out on a storyline, I can see the day that's pinpointed as the climactic turning point.  But there are still details I'm missing. 

I have to accept that I may never have that insight.  Writing Original Sin is kind of my way of making sense of it all, though our specifics are differently complicated than Michael and Layla's.  I get to build the monument to this as I see fit. 

"This is what your lightning strike was for," Hot Pocket said. 

She's probably right.  And I will take the lessons I learned from writing Persona Non Grata—step out of chronology, limit the emotional punch, break down the specifics to only what you need—and write this story as best I can.  The energy for it is abundant right now, and I'm let it flow openly and unabashedly.  If it's anything like my actual relationship with Bounder, it will come quickly and then be gone, leaving something entirely new in its wake. 

I had on my headphones along with those eyes that you get when your circumstance is movie size.

People come into our lives for all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes they're just passers-by, on their way from one point to another, whose path just happens to cross with ours.  Other times, they're milestones and markers on our journey from Point A to Point Me, an interesting landmark that catches our attention and makes us pause for a moment to examine our surroundings a little closer.  And other times, well, there's a purpose to their entrance into our lives; we are supposed to stumble upon each other and learn some lesson, to find some new meaning in ourselves because of something one of us has to teach the other. 

These aren't necessarily the people who will surround us for the rest of our lives.  That's a very lofty ideal, to find our souls' mates and have them with us ad infinitum.  So often, though, that becomes ad nauseum, and the time comes when the separation has to be made, when those people have to be culled from our lives.  That can be a painful process for one or both sides, but it is sometimes unavoidable if we are to move healthily forward along our path. 

I strive to find the purpose in virtually everything I do.  Experience is often mundane, and there's little hidden purpose in the activities that often fill our days.  Breakfast and transportation and sleeping all serve a very defined and insignificant-though-necessary intent.  It's when people cross my path that I am most intrigued, my overdeveloped curiosity piqued. 

I got home about a week ago from Glittery Girl Week.  This was my first stretch of alone time since the divorce began.  I flew to Chicago to see Tiff for a couple of days, then on to Birmingham to hang with Hot Pocket (née Mandypants) and Growler, plus a few other glittering beauties and glamazons-in-training.  Planes, trains, and automobiles—plus buses and a lot of cathartic walking—took me to new restaurants and bars and clubs and shows.  I took Tierney on a tour of Chicago, where so much of her action begins.  I got my first tattoo.  I watched Persona Non Grata sell at Quimby's in Wicker Park, where so much of Tierney's action begins.  Where so much of my own life began in 2010.

 

"Junkture is what you do. Wonder Woman is who you are." - Tiff

 

It was, perhaps, the craziest five days of my life.  (If you know me, or if you've read Persona Non Grata, you will understand why that's such a huge declaration.)  And I loved every second of it.

Sitting on Tiff's sofa on Friday afternoon, she looked at me and said, "I've never seen you so confident in your life, Steph.  Really.  Ever."

She's right.  I am.  That's why I didn't shy away from the 70-year-old woman in a full-length mink coat who told me my purple-on-blond was beautiful.  I graciously thanked every man who stopped me to tell me how beautiful I was—really feeling the sentiment for maybe the first time in my life.  And when Paul, the 40-something guy I met outside my hotel in Wrigleyville held me up for ten minutes to tell me how and why I was special and beautiful to him, a total stranger, I was happy to give him the coat-open, full-frontal hug that he requested upon the parting of our ways. 

With all of these new people skittering about me, I am watchful for the ones who may mean something.  There was Fragile, a beautiful, young poet from Denver whom I met while boarding my flight from Chicago-Midway to Birmingham.  Her life was so different than mine, but there was an immediate connection and reflection of so many of my own hard-fought lessons in this amazing young woman.  When I gave her a Junkture guitar pick from my purse, she smiled and said, "I've started to affirm the things I'm going to do, not the things I want to do.  I just affirmed that I am going to learn to play the guitar.  This is my first guitar pick ever, and I'm going to use it to learn to play."

I gave her the copy of Persona Non Grata that had traveled with me through Chicago. 

Tierney headed out for Glittery Girl Week.

Tierney going through security at Hartsfield.

Tierney with the Blues Brothers at Midway.

Tierney and Tessa having breakfast at Whole Foods.

Tierney dancing with Mr. Stolichnaya.

Tierney at the Double Door.

Tierney looking for Liz Phair at Reckless Records.

Maybe I am meant to come into someone else's life to teach them something as well. 

There are others who've crossed my path recently, and I'm delighted to realize this stage in my life is about practicing the skills I've learned over the last two years, of bringing those lessons to fruition and proving to no one but myself that the metamorphosis really was what was supposed to happen, that there was a reason I breathed life back into Stephanie, that I met (and left) Absolem, and that my marriage came to its unavoidable and sad end.  While I still have things to learn, I can sense with some of these new acquaintances what those things are—in one specific instance, it is trust in another person in the most intimate of ways— and I am realizing with each encounter that I have something to offer them.

Maybe it's a different kind of trust.  Maybe it's learning how to allay their own fears in the face of certain criticism and lurid judgment.  Maybe it's how to open their mouths and say what they want from me or someone else or their lives.  Maybe it's even how to embrace the truth of their selves and to integrate those truths fully into their daily toil.  And maybe it's something I will never know. 

As I was circled by crows this morning—an omen of being mindfully true to yourself and your opinions, of walking your own talk—I realized that it's safe for me to impactful on someone else, that I can do it in ways that are healthy both to me and to them, without having to resort to the shame of keeping or being a secret.  It is refreshing. 

And I'm sure the learning will be reciprocal.  I can hardly wait to discover what new thing is waiting for me. 

Merry Christmas!

Beginning today, Christmas Eve, and for the next five days, the Kindle version of Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture is available from Amazon FOR FREE. 

Maybe you've gotten a new Kindle for Christmas.  Maybe you have a new iPad or iPod and can't wait to download the Kindle app.  Even on your new PC or Mac, there's a Kindle previewer available. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year and through this process.  If you've taken the time to read Persona Non Grata (some of you, a dozen times each), thank you!  If you've been waiting, now's your chance.  Please let me know what you think afterwards.  You can even go to Amazon or Goodreads and leave a review of the book.

Merry Christmas!

Sex, lies, and rock 'n roll!

About six years ago, I finally started writing down sketches of some characters who'd been trolling around in my head for at least six years before that.  There was a girl, Tierney, and her best friends, Tessa and Jules.  There was also a boy, Alex, who was a singer in a band.  They were young—in their early twenties—and had all met up in college, at the University of Montevallo.

Two years ago, I started actively writing again.  I went back to my old Word documents and a dusty, purple journal, to find notes and ideas about these characters.  Tierney Cavanaugh was an Art major, dating a rich boy named Lawrence Neely.  There was a non-specific break-up, and Lawrence got another girl pregnant.  About the same time, Tierney met and fell in love with Alex Wheeler, a burgeoning rock star with a history of cocaine addiction.  The book was titled Junkture, named after the band.

In my head, there was a backstory that the band had chosen that name one night when the guitarist Paul, was doing an impression of Dana Carvey as George Bush, talking about how something "wouldn't be prudent at this juncture."  Alex retorts that it's just a clusterfuck, this junkture, and the band is finally christened. 

I was in rewrites on this book about a year ago, and there were things I just couldn't get happy about.  I really didn't want another insipid young girl as my heroine.  While a lot of the issues Tierney deals with were taken directly from my own past, I was having a hard time relating to her and writing her.  How I saw the world in my late 30s was nowhere close to how I saw it in my early 20s.  I wanted a protagonist who reflected that, and I felt confident that grown women wanted some of the same.  I couldn't be the only one who wanted a woman who was complicated and made mistakes and swore and drank and told dirty jokes with her friends.  I wanted to be emotionally and sexually frank, like a grown woman.  My own friends confirmed that they also loved Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, but that they really wanted someone like them.

During that process of writing the original Junkture story, I lost 115 pounds.  I came to difficult and hard-fought and sometimes painful terms with my past and my own history.  I had to look my choices in their almost-middle-aged face and acknowledge them.  Why?  Why did you decide to lose this weight?  What made you want to do this?  You should write about that!

Driving from Charlotte to Atlanta in the spring of 2012, the idea of marrying these two stories came to me.  I loved the heart of Tierney and Alex, but I didn't love the actual mechanics of them.  It was sweet, but it wasn't right.  So I changed it.  I wrote what would become the last scenes of Persona Non Grata as I was driving toward the Georgia state line. 

In a whirlwind, I rewrote the book.  Again.  And again.  Every time I thought it was done, something would come along and suggest I change it.  It could be a comment from the inner circle, or maybe even suggestions from my editor.  But it was culled down to the 600-page kernel of story that it now.  And it's done.

Persona Non Grata is fiction, though it does blur the line between realistic fiction and memoir.  Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson and I share the same birthday.  We share the same amazing, purple-on-blond hair.  She likes to raid my shoe closet from time to time.  But Tierney is not me.  She's a painter, whereas I can barely handle paint-with-water books with my kids.  I have a brother; she doesn't.  She's prettier than I am, and I am louder and more impetuous than she. 

No one in this book is exactly anyone else, but I certainly wrote what I knew.  Conversations she has with her friends mirrored exact discussions between me and the inner circle.  I did hours of interviews with multiple musicians to get a feel for the rock stars, to find out the difficulties of their lives as professional musicians at varying stages in their lives and their careers.  Mostly, it's just made up.  It's what I do.

And the music... almost everyone I know has had some band or artist that they just adored.  If they'd been given the chance to not only go to show after show, but to hang out with those musicians and get to know them, they would've jumped at it.  Like me, Tierney is no exception.  Her love of music is integral to who she is. 

But Persona Non Grata is more than a story about a groupie and a rock star.  At the heart of the book is the problem so many women face: how to be comfortable in your life as a wife and mother and a woman, fulfilling all of those oligations while still retaining some sense of self.  That dilemma is part of what led me to start really writing again in 2010, including Muchness and Light.  Finding my own self and my own muchness helped make me brave enough to finish this book and sending it out into the world.

Now I'm launching my Kickstarter campaign, to help release Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  You can go to my Kickstarter page and watch the video, check out the rewards that are available, and maybe you'll even decide to make a pledge to donate to my campaign.  It's a great way to pre-order the book and maybe even get yourself some Junkture swag while you're at it. 

 

Here's the thing, though: if I don't get the minimum amount of $1,200 worth of pledges by the time the Kickstarter ends, I don't get any of the money.  I have to get at least that amount to get the funds.  If I get more, great.  There are a lot of things to pay for to release this book—ISBN numbers and copyright fees, printing and conversion to eBook.  I believe in this project and am willing to take on the entire cost.  I'm hopeful that I won't have to.

If you're interested in seeing what Persona Non Grata is all about, you can download a free six-chapter teaser from my Junkture store.  Use coupon code PNGTEASER.  If you like what you read, consider pledging.  Also share it with your friends!  Chances are, if you like it, so will they.

Coloured lights and ideas stacked up high. Where's the diamond in my messy mind?

I finished my revisions.  Again. 

I'll get a couple of copies printed and delivered where they need to go for reading and proofing.  I'll let my copy sit for a few days and try to step out of the headspace of Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson, as hard as that may be.  There's a lot of me in her.  Her head is, in some ways, my head.  But there's also a lot that's fiction.

When I started this project, to write about my crazy journey of self-discovery, I intended it to be non-fiction.  Given the massive weight loss and the health changes and the amount of baggage I had to unpack to even start to deal with those things, I was often asked about what drove me to make those changes.  Honestly, I got tired of talking about it and thought it would be easier to write.

But the story was limited.  There were things that didn't make sense if you didn't live in my life and in my head.  (That's a cacophonous place to be, so maybe you should be glad you're not there all the time.)  So it was suggested that I fictionalize it.

I went back to some characters I'd started writing a couple of years ago, in what was the original Junkture story.  I repurposed them for this, and it worked beautifully.  There was a confluence of energy that lent Tierney and Alex Wheeler and the rest of the band to this story. 

But every time I think I'm done, something comes along and whispers quietly that I should tweak it one more time. 

Hopefully this will be the last major rework.  There will be typos and inconsistencies to fix, errors to rectify.  But the cover art has been mostly decided.  It will soon be time to format and finalize the details that will bring this project to fruition.  And then I'll be on to the next story.

In the meantime, I will wait for the inner circle to patiently read one more time.  I will let it sit, let Tierney rest, then wake her to have her tell me her story yet again, so I can make sure I get it right. 

She and I may be napping for the ne xt few days.  And listening to lots of music.  If you can't reach us, it's because we likely can't hear you with our earbuds in our ears.  Just give us a day or two.  We'll catch back up soon.

Come on, get your reasoning.

When I got suggested revisions for Persona Non Grata from my editor last month, I cried.

"She hates it," I told Tiff over the phone.

"She does not, Stephanie.  How could she hate it?  What did she say?"

Tiff and I went page by page through the draft, as I shared Leigh's comments.

"Steph, stop.  She doesn't hate it.  Some of her points are valid, and this is why you chose her."

They were both right, of course.  I have an inner circle of friends who've read one or more drafts, but I chose Leigh to edit for me because I knew she would push me with a perspective that was different from my own.  Some of her suggestions were absolutely spot-on.  Some I've opted not to take, which is totally within my prerogative as author. 

But, as she told me, she pushes me as hard as she would push herself.  She is there to help me make this into the best work it can be, not something that's just good enough. 

Within a couple of days, I started making changes.  Most of them were small, niggling details or typos that needed to be fixed.  As soon as I hit the hardest part of the work, though, my writer brain shut down. 

It wasn't that I was blocked mentally from the work.  I knew what needed to happen and how.  But I was having a really hard time wrapping my heart around these characters again. 

Writing Persona Non Grata has been incredibly emotional for me.  There's a lot of my real self in there—as well as a lot that's made up—and stepping back into the hearts and minds of those characters is exhausting.  I've been in and out of them so many times now that they are as intimately familiar to me as any real person.  Their lives and the story have a certain rollercoastery ebb-and-flow that can tumult my own heart at times, and I was very intimidated by slipping into that place again.

I sat for a week or more with about forty pages that needed to be reworked.  Some of it needed to be cut.  Some of it needed to be expanded.  All of it needed to be rearranged.  I couldn't just skip it and go back, because it would drive how I handled some other major turns of events.  Finally, I printed the pages and cut them apart, taping them back together in a solid framework of plot.  Then I was able to tweak those details and get going again.

Yesterday, I revised about fifteen chapters.  By 11:00 last night, I was wiped.  So I put it away for the night and will be back at it today. 

I'm 2/3 of the way finished now.  Then I have to reread the entire thing again before I pass it back to Leigh.  I'm trying to get it finished before my last surgery on August 1^st.  Even though I added an entirely new chapter (and several new or extrapolated passages), this revision is actually two chapters shorter than the last.  It's tighter and better balanced... exactly like my editor wanted.    

Turns out, her two cents is worth ten grand.