Queen Frostine is coming for a visit on Friday. She was supposed to have been here in September, but she was the victim of a bungled mob hit in NYC and got a broken knee. (She slipped in a puddle in the hotel lobby.) I’m super excited that she’s coming but also a little anxious. (surprise!)
She hasn’t been to Atlanta in almost five years. I’ve seen her in Chicago a few times, and in Birmingham when she’d come to visit family for Christmas. We met up in Boston and in New York for girly time. But the last time she was here I only had three kittens—not the four grown cats I have now—and I hadn’t even met Rango yet, let alone broken up with and kicked him out. The boys were smaller, and honestly, so was I.
But I texted her today, vacuum cleaner leaned against my hip, that my internal system is freaking out. “They’re freaking out that you’re going to judge us for our clutter and our extraneous grime.”
“Who?” she replied. “The cats? Tell them bitches to chill. If it’s your kids, tell them I am totally going to judge them, and they better clean the fuck out of that house.”
“They’re afraid you’ll think I can’t take care of myself when you see the bad paint and the external disrepair and the dirt at all the edges.”
She promptly texted me pictures of her own chipped paint and dirt and clutter. (And damn! She has a lotof Cheez Balls!)
I know all that matters is that she is here and that we enjoy each other’s company—still after more than 32 years. But parts of me are afraid she will be embarrassed of me, to see that I’m not holding it all together like I should. Like I used to.
As I was mopping an hour later, I thought back to 2014, to being in school full time and working three part-time jobs, including mopping other people’s floors so I could feed my kids. I remembered a summer day when Tricky was with me at a house. He sat on a bed that I’d just made, and I quickly admonished him to get up and stay on the hardwoods, where there would be no sign that he had been there at all. And I loathed every second of the implication that somehow my wonderful, amazing, fantastic child was less than because his mom could do no more to support him than to clean other people’s toilets. Never, ever did I want him to feel like he wasn’t good enough for anyone else, to be anywhere else, to sit on someone’s bed. For all of my belief that there is never shame in honest work, for all of my Sinderella jokes, I hated that moment more than most in my life.
The truth is, it has already been a hell of a year. As if work and two teenaged boys and four cats weren’t enough to amp up my anxiety on any given day, my long-distance relationship with Bumblebee has been complicated by his battle with a rare and aggressive cancer. (I can’t even begin yet to talk about how hard it is to be 180 miles away from him when he’s struggling with chemo fatigue.) And for some reason I thought graduate school would be no big deal to add on to everything. Plus my decrepit spine and chronic pain.
“You have got so much shit going on, if you didn’t have a bit of grime around the edges, I would be worried,” Queen Frostine texted.
So five years later, I am again mopping the fading kitchen vinyl, in the spare time between sessions of classes, battling the impulse to recriminate myself for every misstep that took me away from the easy upper middle class, with a cleaning lady and a lawn service and time to work out every day. I have finished two degrees and am working on a third (with a 4.0 after my first semester). I have a job I love and wonderful-if-challenging sons. I have great friends and supportive family and a boyfriend who loves me deeply.
But I am still struggling with my worth. I am still afraid that if she or Bumblebee or anyone really sees the clutter and bits of dirt at the edges that they will not want me. Somehow there is a part of me that still believes it is too dirty to be loved.
I don’t know if I will ever be in détente with my insecurities. I don’t know that I will ever not fear emotional abandonment. I think it’s hard for people who don’t fully empathize with it to really understand why I can’t just accept that I have people who love me and who will support me no matter what.
Every time I fall into this pattern of insecure questioning that I am lovable, Queen Frostine is there to remind me—literally every day—that I am loved, no matter what. She is the most secure relationship I have, and I still question it from time to time, but she never lets me forget that I matter, than I am good enough and accepted, no matter what.
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.
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.
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.
Last fall, I was nominated by one of my professors for the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership. According to the Technical College System of Georgia:
First launched in 1971, GOAL focuses on student excellence in technical education by focusing on academic excellence and personal achievement. A panel of judges selects one student, the state GOAL Winner, to serve as an ambassador of technical education in Georgia.
GOAL winners represent the “new image” of Georgia’s technical colleges. Students must recognize technical education’s critical impact on Georgia’s overall economic health, have a strong work ethic, a dedicated sense of loyalty, and a healthy enthusiasm for promoting technical education in Georgia.
GOAL winners are the best possible advertisement for technical education. They prove every day that the best technical education consists of more than manipulative skills. Technical education prepares us for the world of work. GOAL students are an indication of what technical education at its best can achieve and of the caliber of individuals who are choosing Georgia’s technical colleges.
The winning GOAL student serves as an ambassador for technical education in Georgia and makes many public appearances throughout the year including addresses to the Georgia General Assembly, Governor and TCSG’s Student Fall Leadership Conference to name a few.
34 of the 4,000 students at Georgia Piedmont Technical College were nominated for the 2015 GOAL award, which can most easily be described as Student of the Year. I was honored, but I was also nominated with at least two of my classmates who I felt had a much better chance of winning this award.
The process started with an early-morning interview before a panel of five faculty and staff members of GPTC. I had three minutes to tell them—with no note cards or visual displays that weren't permanently attached to my body—who I was, why I had chosen technical education, and how it was impacting my life and my life goals.
Three minutes.
If you've ever spoken with me in person, you know that I talk a lot, I talk very quickly, and I tend to gesticulate wildly while speaking. More than one boyfriend has been nailed in the jaw when they ventured too close to the Exotic Wild Glamazon while she was hyper-excited about the influence of Greek mythology on the DC comic book universe... or shoes. So it took a practice session with my professors and others to help hone my speech for both content and style.
Something stuck, though, because I made it to the second round of interviews, which meant I'd placed in the Top 10, along with my two classmates and seven other very talented, deserving students.
The second interview was just after Thanksgiving, by which time I was sick with an upper respiratory thing that we later realized was likely Whooping Cough. I appeared before the selection committee, a panel comprised of local business leaders and last year's GOAL winner for GPTC. To make sure I didn't start coughing on anyone, I loaded up on cough medicine and my inhaler.
Three more minutes.
During this three minutes, being so loaded on cold medicine, I think I told them who I was, why I had chosen technical education, how it was impacting my life and my life goals, a brief history of my children, what I'd had for breakfast, and as much as I could about the influence of Greek mythology on the DC comic universe.
I might have discussed my shoes.
But, again, something stuck. I was named to the Top 4 finalists. I was the only student from Paralegal Studies to make it that far, and I was thrilled to be able to represent my department. Now I had to wait over a month to find out who actually won GOAL for 2015, but I was offered a table for 8 at the awards luncheon on January 22nd.
I know I'm smart. I know Queen Frostine was right in pointing me toward being a paralegal. It is an excellent fit for my skillset, and I am thus far very good at what I do. That's really very difficult for me to say, as I discussed prior to the GOAL competition. It feels strange to me to openly discuss my accomplishments, as if I should be far more modest about what I've done.
But even with everything I've worked so hard to do over the last year and more, I honestly didn't believe I had any real chance to win this competition. The school GOAL winner goes on to compete at regionals in March, and the top placers at regionals compete at a state level in April. The state winner spends a year traveling Georgia and speaking as an advocate for technical education, which includes appearances at the 25 technical colleges in the system and addresses to the Georgia General Assembly, the Governor, and the Technical College System of Georgia Leadership Conference. (To help facilitate this, the state winner also gets a new car.) So the winner effectively acts as an advocate for technical education.
They have to be able to tell people their story and exactly how and why technical education is working for them, how and why it can and should work for others.
I have very well-developed thoughts about technical education, with a ton of data to back it up, but I will save that for a future post. I don't want to give away Glamazon trade secrets, and I need to protect my work product as I move forward into the next round of competition, because I won.
No one was more surprised than I was. According to my mom and stepdad and dad who'd all driven over from Alabama for the luncheon, plus Rango and the boys who were there, and my classmates and my professors, no one but me was surprised I won.
Mom hates that she didn't have her camera trained on my face when they announced my name. My mouth and eyes flew open. I had even whispered to Rango just seconds before that I thought the winner was a finalist from the Criminal Justice department.
I was wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong <insert wild, accidental whacking of my son>
The GOAL coordinator had told the finalists to prepare a short speech of acceptance. I'd made a mental note of who to thank if it happened, but I didn't expect to win. I had to wing it, but apparently I did okay. People were nodding and clapping. I didn't throw up or fall down.
Lots of hand-shaking, lots of nodding and thanking people whose names I hope I don't forget, and lots of smiling until my face hurt. But I won. I worked my ass off for this, and I continue to do so every day, with a 15-hour class load this semester including my internship at the ACLU of Georgia, which puts me at the state Capitol at least one day a week to speak with legislators directly about proposed legislation and how it would directly impact me and other Georgians.
Me. I get to do that. I get to make a difference in my world and someone else's.
Selfie with Button Gwinnett at the Georgia State Capitol
I've worked so hard. So very, very hard. I have faltered at times, and I have wanted to quit, so sure that I just couldn't scale the daunting mountain of work that was before me. It can be exhausting, and it often keeps me from the boys and Rango when I want nothing more than to curl up on the couch with them and binge watch Netflix.
Now I'm six months away from finishing my associate's degree, and I should graduate with honors. I won a $26,500 scholarship to finish my bachelor's degree.
So, for once, I'm going to say something I rarely do: I did good.
I'm taking a moment to congratulate myself and recognize that I am doing a good job, no matter how hard it is sometimes. It may or may not ever get any easier, but there is more reward than just knowing I worked hard. There is knowing that I worked right, that I worked well, that I am worth this reward.
This is my favorite time of year, these very early moments of spring.
Seasons don't follow a calendar here in the South. Plants don't check the date to see if they're supposed to bloom. So even though the vernal equinox won't happen for a few more days, spring has sprung in my world.
The daffodils come first, often in late January. We've had a snowier and icier winter than normal this year, but it hasn't seem to have deterred the first shoots and fresh buds from reaching for the sunlight. Every year, there are a few warm days followed by a few cold and then the first of the spring rains. As soon as the clouds clear but before anything has dried, my world is suddenly verdant. The lingering droplets refract the differently-angled sunlight, and everything is green and fresh in a way that makes my heart swell into its own brilliant smile.
It is the return of Perstephanie.
What started as an inside joke with Moonshine more than twenty years ago has become the moniker of a persona. Major life events always seem to happen for me around the first of March and the first of October, as the world is gearing respectively up and down for seasonal change—during the procession of Persephone from and to the Underworld. And even though the time around Valentine's Day is often cursed with chaos for me, I always know it is on the cusp of rebirth.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
This year, I have been lucky enough to have a significant paradigm shift with the return of lengthening daylight.
It came in the guise of a man, Rex. At this point, I am choosing to keep details about him and that relationship within the confines of the tightest of the Inner Circle. What will happen between us remains to be seen, but suffice it to say that he is the catalyst for a significant shift in my energy.
As has happened before, there was a bolt of lightning. Again, I am turned to face a man who is a reflection of me in this place and time—simultaneously similar and opposite. My current story is reminiscent of his past. Our neuroses and demeanors are so eerily alike that he commented that I'm him with expensive lady parts.
Yeah. He's me with a penis.
But he has experiences that I don't, as well as a male perspective that I will never be able to gain.
He came with brash admonitions to take the things that taunt me, the vices of my self-flagellation, and to put a fence around them, to keep them safely unable to harm me but close enough that I can keep an eye on them when I so choose. He brought the gentle reminder not to overthink anything and everything at any and every given moment. And he brought living proof that a single mom of two handfuls of young men can be a successful parent, even in the face of utter familial turmoil.
Rex is one of those people who are brought into my life to teach me something. Maybe a lot of something. I'm almost certain I have something to show him, as well.
But even if he were to be gone from my life tomorrow, he gave me this little gift of a tool to be able to slow my own head down, not to have to rely on someone else to bring me back to the ground when I glide too close to the sun. And when it happened, the shift and exchange of energy was so palpable that we both were physically moved and could touch it in that wondrous moment.
The spring storms will be here soon. I'm a little anxious about what that lightning brings with it. But where I felt trapped and unable to move forward just a few weeks ago, I am lighter and freer than I have been in months. Still stumbling along my path, I'm being rebirthed. Again. And I'm skipping my way into my spring.
When I started writing Muchness and Light in late 2010, DH was not happy. I'd been toying with an old writing project, which later morphed into Persona Non Grata, and I'd been thinking for days about starting a blog. I wanted a different outlet to hone skill and craft. I was also in the beginnings of what would become this huge shift in how I saw myself and my place in my world.
Initially, he was hurt and irritated that I hadn't consulted him about it. It wasn't that I wanted to write, he argued, but that he could've helped me choose the blogging platform and the technology that would be best for my project. I hadn't needed his help, though. I was perfectly capable of researching these things and deciding what would work best for me.
For a while, I didn't readily share my writing with him. He would grumble when I did a new piece, seemingly irritated both at what I had to say and that I was saying it at all. Yes, it diverted time and attention away from him and the children and whatever else I'd normally been doing for two hours on any given morning. To delay the laundry or the dishes, to allow myself a little time to get inside my own head and see how it worked, was certainly giving my psyche a chance to flex muscles it hadn't used in about ten years.
I was thinking for myself again. I was doing for myself again. I was still handling everything logistically in our world, but I was changing.
DH was not happy.
In hindsight, our marital problems were really amping up. Of course I knew there were issues—that was part of the reason I was so unhappy. It was very difficult to mend or even maintain our relationship, especially given the enormous change I was experiencing.
Through all of the volatility, I wrote.
As our marriage spiraled out of control, we would fight in the guise of trying to repair our damage. Night after night of emotionally and verbally violent arguments, a constant battering of each other, trying our best to both attack each other and defend our positions. Sometimes I would just sit and take it, letting him yell at me as punishment for the choices I'd made that had flown in the face of our marriage. Sometimes I would yell back, vehemently reminding him of all the ways he had failed me and us, as well. Sometimes when he was especially brutal, I would do my best to disengage and walk away until we were both calmer and more reasonable.
DH never liked it when I disengaged. It infuriated him that I would step out of his line of fire and walk away. That was often when his words would become knives thrown straight at my heart.
Late one night, when it was apparent that he'd worn me down to the point of just taking it, I realized there was no reasoning with him. I was tired of being told I was wrong and said something about going inside to write for a while.
"Your writing is a joke!" he laughed derisively. "No one gives a fuck about what you have to say! Your blog is just your fucking diary about shit no one but you and your friends care about it. You should shut the fuck up while you still have a shred of dignity!"
Make no mistake that it stung like hell. After twenty years together, he knew how to cut me to the core. I questioned my writing, my motivations, my talent, and my voice. Since that incident over two years ago, I have heard those words in my head every single time I have been unsure of this path.
I could tell myself that what I had to say mattered. Sure, it matters to me. It matters to my friends. I have collected a small but loyal readership of people I've never met and never hear from, but I see the web traffic and get occasional messages from random people telling me that something I wrote touched them.
I still questioned it all the time.
Recently I started writing guest posts for DivorcedMoms.com. Given what I know about being both divorced and being a mom, it seemed like a natural extension of what I do here. Plus it would be an additional outlet to tackle some issues and say some things I might not want to constantly float on Muchness and Light. (This is not a divorce blog, after all.)
I submitted my second piece, "8 Things Every Divorced Woman Should Do NOW!" a couple of weeks ago, as part of a suggested assignment on their contributor site. I was thrilled when they not only ran the piece but also featured it that week in their newsletter and on their splash page. I saw the link to the article tweeted and retweeted by the editors.
Someone else was interested in what I had to say.
Two days ago, I received an email from one of the DivorcedMoms.com editors.
Hi Stephanie,
We are thrilled to tell you that your article is featured on mariashriver.com
It a great article and we are so happy to see it profiled. We love your writing, keep the posts coming:)
What?!?
And there it was. Maria Shriver's site had picked up my article and reposted it. There was a link back to DivorcedMoms and to my writer profile there. She (or her social media person) had tweeted the link, which was retweeted repeatedly by strangers. It was on her Facebook page, with comments from women I'd never known saying how much they enjoyed it, how it mattered to them.
After the obligatory squealing and dancing and texting and calls to almost everyone I knew, I forwarded the email to my therapist.
Someone else wanted to hear what I had to say. DH was wrong. I shouldn't have shut up and been quiet.
And I started to cry. As I've admitted before, I sometimes cry when I write. I'll hit some place of emotional truth, and the tears flow cathartically as the tension is released. (Hell, I'm crying as I write this now.)
It wasn't so much confirmation that DH was wrong; it was verification that I wasn't. My voice mattered to someone else, to someone other than me, and it had value even if only for a moment.
I was right to write again. I was right to question my life, then and now, and to work through my issues in the public forum I'd chosen all by myself. I was right to believe that my words held strength and worth and truth outside my own busy, complicated head.
I don't know what path I'd be on had I not chosen this one. In the end it doesn't matter, because this is where I am. It may not be right for anyone else. It may not have been right for DH. But it is exactly where I am supposed to be.
"Maybe it feels the same way," my 13-year-old son math genius said, when I lamented outloud.
"I wouldn't blame it," I replied. "I've done nothing but badmouth it since I was 12 years old."
That's about the time it started. Pre-algebra. I'm okay with arithmetic, even solving for basic variables. But give me rational expressions, and my brain just kind of shuts down. I'll struggle through the homework, think I have it, and totally bomb a test. The problem is that I never really seem to get why I was wrong. For years my math grades were comprised almost entirely of partial credit.
College algebra is part of the reason I never graduated. Only part, I stress, because I know damn well that my choices had a lot to do with it. But when I was already inclined to blow off class and get into some other trouble, it was all too easy to blame my mutual hatred of algebra for keeping me from doing what I needed to do.
I was complaining on Facebook about my hatred of polynomials. I have three friends who are both geniuses (truly) and math teachers: Moonshine, Boogie Shoes, and Mathilde.
Mathilde, who teaches college math, had this to say in the course of our discussion:
It's true that there are many different levels on which one can "get" it, and you can feel like you've gotten it when you still really have a fairly superficial understanding. (It's a bit like the difference between being able to drive a car vs. being knowing how to fix the engine when it breaks.)
Of course I have some professional expertise here, but lately I've been thinking about this on a whole different level as I watch the different ways that my son and daughter approach math. They're both good at it, but they have totally different reactions when they hit a wall. It's really driven home for me how important it is to PLAY with it, look at a problem from all different angles, see what you CAN figure out even if you don't know how to get all the way to an answer. Don't be afraid to fuck it up, because you learn the most from coming to understand HOW you fucked up, and how to fix it. There are a zillion different ways to approach any particular math topic, and the more of them you explore, the more solid your overall understanding will be. I really believe that that willingness to get your hands dirty and engage with it is far more predictive of success than whatever your innate talent may or may not be.
Don't be afraid to fuck it up, because you learn the most from coming to understand HOW you fucked up, and how to fix it. I really believe that that willingness to get your hands dirty and engage with it is far more predictive of success than whatever your innate talent may or may not be.
Best. Advice. Ever.
It's how I try to live every other part of my life, so why the hell would I let this be my undoing? Why would it be okay to let a required math class or two be the one thing that could stand in the way of completing the degree necessary to move my life forward?
Had I graduated from college in 1994 as originally planned, I would've likely gone on to work in my originally-chosen field—Mass Communications. I would probably have still married DH, though we would've been living a different life. I very well might not have had the boys I have, who could only have been who they are because they were conceived in their respective moments. I might have something different and just as wonderful, but it wouldn't be Max and Tricky, without whom I can't imagine my life.
Just because I didn't get what I'd planned, just because my journey took a different path than anyone anticipated for me, that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile or in any way less than what I'd envisioned. In so many ways, I am more fulfilled as a woman and a soul than I ever thought possible.
I have the very real task of learning the skills necessary to get a real job, to take care of me and my boys. I have to relearn a lot of things I should've mastered a long time ago. To choose not to do it is to be ungrateful, again, for the opportunities I've been given and have made for myself.
So I can't be afraid to fuck it up. I will likely fuck it up. But I will choke down the disappointment and dust my hands off and try again. I will look closely at what I did wrong, which variable threw me off, and I will try it again and again and again until I can pass these tests. Maybe not with flying colors, but certainly with far more knowledge and insight than I had when I started.
And on the other side? There's an entirely different life ahead of me. It's not where I thought I'd be, not where I originally dreamed of being. But it will be goddamn good, because I got dirty and fought like hell to make it that way. I'll still struggle with math. I'll still catch my breath at the sight of a polynomial, and sometimes it will remind me of what my intentions had been when I was 20.
Then I'll remind myself that here and now is the only place I can live—not then and certainly not when. And I'll know that I can, because I bulldozed my own walls and powered through to an unexpected and promising future.
Childhood molestation. Parental divorce. Teenage date rape. Abusive boyfriend. Suicide attempts. Morbid obesity and body image issues. Marriage gone horrible awry. Series of unhealthy romantic relationships with unavailable men.
That's the quick and dirty laundry list of the bullshit that led me to now. But that is not me.
Like so many other people, I fulfill a statistic. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, 9.2% of victimized children are sexually assaulted. 1 in 5 girls are victims of sexual abuse. 3 of 4 children who are sexually assaulted are victimized by someone they know well. 63% of women who suffer abuse by a family member also report rape or attempted rape after the age of 14.
50% of children in America live through the divorce of their parents. Adults whose parents were divorced are 50% more likely to divorce themselves.
10% of high-schoolers are physically abused by their dating partner. 50% of youth who are victims of both physical and sexual assault attempt suicide.
15% of Americans are obese. 6.6% are morbidly obese.
40% of people have maladaptive attachments in adult relationships, driven by the events of their past—with the seeds of dysfunction often beginning in early childhood.
I am not special.
I talk very openly in public and in private about all of these things. I didn't for a very long time. There was certainly a sense of shame about all of it. When I came to the understanding that keeping these things in secret only perpetuated that cycle of shame that never should've been mine, I began to attack these issues head-on and put them into a healthy perspective. They've been analyzed and discussed and dealt with, at least until some other issue arises that is a direct or indirect result of what happened.
Muchness and Light was started, in part, as an outlet for dealing with the transformations that came from that self-scrutiny. Hell, I wrote a book about a lot of it.
But if you meet me in person, I will never offer you my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Stephanie. I'm a victim."
I don't live like that. I don't think like that. Stephanie is not defined by her past, but she sure as hell is shaped by those events.
Sometimes there's a reason to make parallels to something that happened with some new event in my life. Usually it's because there's a problem. Often the root of my problems surround how I crave and strive for intimacy and love from another person. I do have times when I feel unloved and worthless, and that's when the self-analysis can become brutal.
I've written a few times about my sense of worth, both to myself and to the people I love. Regardless of how it seems sometimes, I am acutely aware of my inherent value as a mother and a woman and a soul. I get tripped up in my value to other people, especially when something has gone wrong.
In my mind, as a combination of both head and heart, I have been worth very little to a lot of people in my life. Other people's perceptions and mistakes and miscommunications shouldn't be a barometer of my value, but they often are. And I know I'm not alone in this.
Even people who are in healthy, secure, romantic relationships see themselves in relation to their partner. There's a natural loop of positive feedback—through words and touch and action, consideration and thought and care—that show you how your partner values you. If they are attentive and thoughtful in their approach and recognition of you, if they are engaged with you, the neurotransmitters and hormones responsible for the physical emotion of love are released again and again. You feel closer to, and more secure with, this other person, making you more willing to reciprocate in kind. Then their body is responding similarly, and it's a wonderful cycle of love.
You are important to each other and are showing the other their worth to you by supporting and cherishing and caring for them.
But when words and actions don't match, or don't exist at all, it devalues the relationship. Eventually it begins to undermine the self-worth of one or both partners. If he loves me, he will care for me. If he doesn't care for me, I am unimportant to him. I am unimportant to the person I love, who is supposed to love me most in the world. If that is all this special person thinks of me, I must not be worth very much to him. I must not be worth very much at all. I am worthless.
One bad relationship shouldn't be able to damage your self-perceptions, but rarely is it one bad relationship. There's is almost always a series of events—of romantic, erotic, platonic, and familial relationships—that build upon one another, piling on the sense of lessthanness.
Look at it like an economy. At birth, you're worth $1,000,000, just because you exist. Your parents and family care for you and raise you and help you grow. Eventually you're worth $2,000,000, and you set out into the world, socializing and developing your own interpersonal relationships outside of your family. Your first boyfriend or girlfriend is pretty good; they add $250,000 to your value. Your next one breaks your heart, and you lose $750,000. Now you're at $1,500,000 when you meet your future spouse. They add $500,000. Your marriage adds $1,000,000. Lost friendships deduct $300,000 each. Kids add $5,000,000 each but have constant volatile flux for the first twenty years, so your value is in constant shift.
When you find that you have trauma after trauma, especially when they've happened at the hands of the people who are supposed to love you most in the world, it eventually begins to feel like no one has ever or could ever help bring you back into positive territory. No matter how hard you work to build your own value--$100,000 for graduating high school, $250,000 for college, $1,000,000 for the PhD, and $500,000 for the first great job—you're still constantly trying to overcome this deficit that's been in place and growing for as long as you can remember.
What I want and will say I need (That's an entirely different discussion I'll get into later.) most is for just one person to step up and show me that I matter to them. That I matter at all. Because I was let down so many times, I don't believe in my heart that anyone is capable of loving me. There are people capable of doing it, in general; I know many of them. But of all of the people who have come through my life over its course thus far, it is with rare exception that anyone has ever shown up for me consistently and shown me that I am worth a damn to them.
Even if I am worth $1,000,000 on paper, it means nothing unless someone is willing to barter for it. It doesn't grow unless it's invested. And if it's just used and depleted over time, it will eventually drop to $0. Even the Hope Diamond is estimated to be worth $350,000,000, but it's just a shiny rock in a box until someone actually pays for it.
I recognize that it's not necessarily about me. I am attracted to emotional unavailability, because it is what I have always known. In my own maladaptation, in my own inherent brokenness, I search for people who are just as broken in their own, extreme way that is the polar opposite of my own damage. Even if and when I learn new tools for handling that and making healthier choices, I will still be jaded by my past. I can't forget that these things happened, and they will always be a constant, flashing caution signal as I move forward along my path.
If I build my house on a hill, I can build it with a level foundation. I'm still building it on a hill. There's a strong possibility that, given enough time, the foundation will shift and settle, needing to be jacked back up and supported from time to time. I could always raze the damn hill, but that would require cost and energy to devastate miles of visible landscape to try to forget there ever was a hill in the first place.
My hill is a slippery slope, but I fought my way to the top to plant my rainbow freak flag in the summit. From here, there's a pretty damn amazing view. But it's also sometimes lonely, and I'm tired of looking down and seeing all the people who shrugged and walked away from the clamber, who found themselves unworthy of escalation and therefore made me feel unworthy of their effort.
So, yeah, sometimes I sit my ass down and cry, howling my lamentations into the wind. Far too often it has seemed like a siren's call, bringing a reticent hero crashing into the rocks below; for rescue or marooned companionship, I don't know. But maybe, just maybe, that song will be worth something to someone, someday. And maybe someone else will be willing to fight their way to my summit and join me in surveying everything we've left behind.
Oh, my heart is a brutal,
tempestuous little bitch sometimes—trapped in the delicate, fragile teapot of
my head.
I'm now three years into Muchness and Light—November 25th
will be three years exactly—and this forum has been as cathartic for me as my
therapist's office, though substantially cheaper. Sometimes I find myself covering old ground
again, about love and those life lessons I have tackled so openly during this
time. When I realize I'm circling back
to something I thought I'd exhausted before, I realize there's a reason,
something I didn't get right the first time.
There's always some catalyst—a new
drama or relationship or end of a
relationship—that sends my heart reeling and bouncing around the confines of my
head. My dad would likely make the
"bb in a box car" analogy. The
cacophony between my ears sounds like a thousand simultaneous, murmured
conversations with the bells and whistles of a pinball machine dinging above
the din.
It's overwhelming to me
sometimes. How could it not be too much
for anyone else? How could it not
exhaust someone else, to let them take a shot at the flippers?
It has become part of my
established, public persona that I am a lot to handle. My online dating profile even warned men that I can be intimidating,
that I'm "loud and voracious and a ball of batshit blond
energy." I've received hundreds of
messages, telling me how they appreciate my honesty and that they'd like a shot
at channeling that energy. Five minutes
later, when it's clear that they assume it means I just want great, casual sex,
I'm generally done with that conversation.
It's not usually that much different
in person.
When someone takes the time to get
to know me, though, they do get to see my softer side. I'm really very sweet and incredibly
affectionate, and I am fully capable of being quiet and still when the moment
demands it.
As confident as I am in who I am, though, I'm also very insecure
in how other people deal with me. I can
get my feelings hurt far more easily (and often) than I'd like to admit. In fact, I often hide that from the person
who has lashed me, knowing it's usually not an intentional assault against my
fragile façade. I'm a lot of
personality, which means my heart is a big, easy target. It's that much harder to miss when I've taken
it off my sleeve and am just carrying it openly in my hands, like a shield made
from an oversized box of Valentine's chocolates.
I'm not entirely fearless in my pursuit
of love, no matter how brave I may be.
I'm not afraid to let people get close; I'm afraid to let them stay close. I've been out with a lot of men in the last
year. Less than half of them have gotten
a second date. Of those that have, less
than a quarter have gotten yet another shot.
I tend to throw myself out there and then yank myself back from the
brink. In all fairness, it has usually
been because I could readily tell those men weren't for me, and I didn't want
to waste my time on those fruitless endeavors.
When I meet someone I truly like,
someone for whom I develop feelings, it's very hard for me not to assume that
they will disappoint me. I have a
definite pattern of finding emotionally unavailable men and trying my best to forge
a relationship with them anyway. It goes
back to my childhood (What doesn't? Ask
my therapist.), and I can pinpoint the unavailability in each and every one of
the men I've been attached to romantically.
All retrospectively, of course.
I do not want unavailable men. Maybe that seems like a
no-brainer, but I have this tendency to attract such beings into my life.
Whether logistically or emotionally, I am magnetically attracted to the men who
are least likely to be able to share their life or mine. Maybe it's
something about their being inherently broken—a fragile cat. They're soft
and pretty and purr when I pet them, but they can't give what I need or want in
return. I don't want that anymore.
So
why the hell do I keep going back to that?
My
heart knows better in theory but not in practice. My head knows it's stupid to even glance at a
fragile cat. But I do it all the damn
time, as if one day, just maybe one
of them will break that pattern and not be quite like the rest.
Hot
Pocket chided me in her drawling, gentle way that I need to get it into my
pretty, thick head that I deserve to be happy with good things. I know
this logically. I am human. I'm a good person. I have done nothing so unredeemable that it
makes me undeserving of love.
But
in my heart, I don't know that I'm
worthy of the affection and attention of a man who truly loves me. Everything in my past has shown me the
opposite is true. The people who love me
most will disappoint me and hurt me more than I ever could imagine.
It's
unfair of me to have those expectations of a new person, and it runs the risk
of becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. If
I am constantly waiting for them to
back away, perpetually on the edge of heartbreak, I am much more likely to
flinch and flee at the slightest provocation.
It also places an unfair strain on them, to be living under my
super-observant, watchful eye.
Somewhere
along the way, I have to learn to be here now, to let the present be not only
what matters most but what influences
most. I've let go of most of the hurt of
the past, but it's impossible for me to forget about it all. What I can't do is expect someone who has no
ties to that to live in trepidation that one of my ghosts will haunt them.
And
every time I think I've laid those ghosts to rest, when I am finally able to rest, the rattling of their dragging chains
clangs through the commotion in my head and sends me caroming toward the opposite
wall of the teapot, where my heart dings against the crackleware and the echoes
feel like a constant death knell.
There's
a comfort in seeking out what you know, in finding respite in what's familiar. Maybe that's why I feel snug within the
confines of unavailability. I can rail
against the men who compartmentalize me, who put me in the proverbial box that
I purport to loathe, but I am all too willing to climb inside, crouching down
excitedly until I can burst through the top like a girl in a giant cake. I do love the anticipation, the waiting to
see how they will react when I am suddenly and dramatically exposed.
In reality, they almost always freak the fuck out when it happens, when I am
fully and completely me. They make that
face of surprise, with a glimmer of oh-my-god-it's-just-too-much
before they wipe it blank and try to hide their apprehension. That
is the pinpoint of unavailability.
I can't and won't change who I am to
make them more comfortable. I've
discussed this many, many times—it's dishonest to me and to them. I can adjust and hold back a little bit,
trying not to inundate them with my muchness, but when my heart gets invested,
the floodgates will part and set the deluge upon them.
That's when it becomes sink or swim
for us both. I keep looking for the cat who can swim, who can disentangle me from the ghostly chains and bring me back to the surface, even when I know I'm the only one who can do it. But somewhere there just has to be someone who thinks I'm worth that battle, doesn't there? Doesn't everyone deserve a love that will fight for them, no matter what?
So I keep fighting like that for the men I love, even when I know they won't fight back. Maybe I'm hoping it's kind of like karma, that if I put enough out there that I will eventually have to get back what I've given. Like a cosmic love dowry--it takes a huge investment to get what you want.
Until in comes, I'll keep dancing and jumping around, waving my giant, red heart and offering my delicious confections to passers-by. Surely one of them will appreciate it, someday.
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.
The girls and I have agreed for ages
that Growler's husband, BC, is an über-Alpha male. In any given situation or room of people, he
will quietly take control and direct almost everything that happens. I'm sure he has moments when he can be an
utter ass about it, but I've never really seen that aspect of him. Granted, I don't live with the man. However,
I have spent a lot of time with him and in their home.
"You see, to be an Alpha
male in the traditional sense simply means the most dominant within a
group, or the strongest in a group or the most confident in a group. Not a
person who is necessarily strong or confident in the absolute sense; just
someone who, in a given group of people, most outwardly projects
strength or confidence. In other words, the problem with the definition of
Alpha isn’t really the assumed aggression or implied cockiness; it’s the fact
that the entire foundational principle for self-value is comparative analysis."
They outline seven characteristics
of the new Alpha:
1)
helpful but not condescending
2)
confident but not cocky
3)
vain but not conceited
4)
prideful but not arrogant
5)
humble but not self-loathing
6)
tolerant but not weak
7)
dedicated but not obsessed
After Bounder and I broke up,
Growler finally confided that BC never quite thought Bounder was the right
match for me. I trust BC's instincts for
a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he's a Fragile Cat. Like Bounder.
And like me.
"I don't date by committee,"
I said to him, meaning the girls (a.k.a. The Castration Committee), "but
I'm not dating anyone from now on until they get your stamp of approval."
He laughed and agreed.
And then it hit me: BC is the Lion King. We are part of his pride.
Let me be very, very clear that
there is absolutely nothing untoward or lascivious in my relationship with
BC. He and Growler and I all know
this. Where she is part of my girlie
heart, he is an extension of that and has become a very good friend to me over
the last few months. I can only hope I
am responsibly reciprocal in that friendship.
Growler laughed when I called him
Mufasa, but we talked at length about this concept of his protecting the women
(and even some of the men) in his life and how they all care for him in
return.
I
need that in my ideal mate, I thought.
Those are the traits I'm seeking.
But then it hit me again: I have those traits.
Even though I wasn't always
cultivating or fully utilizing them, they're part of my make-up.
And then I wrote on a piece of
paper, which I showed to Growler:
I am an Alpha Female looking for an Alpha
Male.
"Of course you're looking for
an alpha male," she laughed.
"Did you not know this?"
I shook my head, eyes wide. "I knew that. I didn't know—"
"You didn't know you're an Alpha female?? Honey, do you hear this?"
BC and Growler laughed and laughed,
watching me enveloped by this epiphany.
I called Hot Pocket that afternoon and told her; she laughed
uproariously.
"Tank [her husband] and I have
talked about that a hundred times. Did
you really not know?"
Nope.
It all suddenly made sense, the ways
in which I am strangely not like other girls.
1)
incredibly loyal but sometimes self-sacrificing
2)
well-aware of my abilities but sometimes
disabled by my weaknesses
3)
knowing I had damn good hair but absolutely no
concept that I was pretty
4)
proud of my accomplishments though I rarely see
that they amount to anything
5)
jokingly self-deprecating, sometimes to the
point of dire self-criticism
6)
intensely interested in people and how they work
but incredibly impatient
7)
dogged and obsessive but only about the things
that are important to me
I am loud and boisterous and full-on
energy, most of the time. I am
relentless but with dimples instead of a grimace. I am a glittery ball of blond batshit who can
be so insecure that she ends up fetal and crying on her own floor because no
one would talk to her when she went out.
I complain that men don't talk to me in public but know damn well that I
can be aloof. They tell me I'm
intimidating, but I never really understood why.
Now I get it.
In that competition of love and sex,
it's all about who's better than whom.
Who's stronger, prettier, sexier, smarter, blahblahblah. Women compete against each other and
themselves, just as men do. The genders
also compete against each other for placement in the immediate pack. It's not always
this way, certainly, but watch what happens in a crowded bar on any given
weekend night.
I
am an Alpha.
I tend to attract strong
personalities. Even Bounder once said
that any man who was going to even try to approach me had better bring the big
stones. When I am approached, I tend to
shoot men down pretty quickly. It
doesn't take me long to size them up and know which ones could never be enough
for me and my exacting standards.
All of my talk this year of what I
wanted in a relationship points to this über-Alpha male. All of my work for the last three years has
brought me the realization that I am looking for the biggest of the Cats. My insecurities have source in my not seeing
the plain truth of myself, yet again.
All of the monument-worthy men in my
past have been Fragile Cats, certainly.
They were possibly higher ranked than I was at some point. The moment when that shifted is the tension
point that ultimately led to the demise of those relationships. When there was no other option but
subjugating my own power to please them, the relationships fell the fuck
apart.
And the ones who said they didn't
deserve me, that I was too good for them, they
were right. I lowered myself to
their standards in order to compete with them, hence the turmoil. (It really was you and not me.)
Being who I am, I could see their potential. Even if they weren't living up to what I saw,
I would remind them that they could be better and more special and that I would
support that in any way I could, sometimes to my own detriment. What I realize now is that I don't just need
huge potential in a partner; I need a partner who is achieving his potential.
This also means that I have to work
toward my own potential. It may not be
what anyone else sees in me, but I have to be very honest with myself about
both what I want to do and what I
really can do. The last year of life on my own has shown me
an enormous amount of untapped possibility, and now it's time to work
that.
But I won't do it to make anyone
else happy or comfortable. I won't spend
my time fighting with someone else about why and how it could be better. I will be who I am, who I can be in my own,
huge heart, and that will be exactly right for me. If it also happens to be right for them, so
be it.
