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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My tongue gets tied when I try to speak. My insides shake, and there's no relief.

Yesterday, I reached out to the Hive Mind that is Facebook, and I asked about the logistics of post-divorce dating. Having been separated and divorced for five years, I’ve had some experience with it. Three years with Rango, the months that turned into whatever with Bounder… plus the dozens of others I entangled myself with to varying degrees.

But having unexpectedly met someone threw me for a loop. I am often hypersensitive to others, and I’m constantly on high alert for warning signs of disappointment (read: abandonment). I am persistently in a state of overthinking everything. Everything.

Ah, the joys of anxious attachment!

I wanted to know about the logistics of dating. I didn’t actually date in my teens and twenties. I married DH at 21. Though I’d been in a four-year relationship prior to him, it was abusive and tumultuous. Dating again five years ago was weird, for sure, and Rango was intended to be the last one.

Best laid plans, man.

So now having unexpectedly met someone, I have been struggling to determine if my feelings of anxiety and agitation are warranted, i.e., did he really pull back, or are those flutters and weird pangs in my chest just my own insecurities in a panic?

With rare exceptions, all of my romantic partnerships during the last five years started intense and immediate. We exchanged lots of messages, dates’ worth of information disclosed over the course of a couple of days via text and chat. Phone conversations were rarer, but it’s hard to talk when you’re both working and managing kids and lives.

Dating after divorce is hard. For everyone, there is the complication of past hurt, of trying to honor your own internal struggles and pain without getting caught in the same loops again. Those best laid plans were decimated, and it’s daunting to consider opening yourself to the possibility of hurt again. The demands of adulthood make finding time to connect even harder. And when one or both of you have kids, the scheduling difficulties and emotional concerns expand exponentially.

But what turned out to be my normal experience with dating again maybe wasn’t very normal at all. That constant connection felt fantastic, because it satisfied my tendency toward anxious attachment. While this new guy and I did have days of constant chatting and a couple of fantastic dates that first week, the communication dropped back. There are lots of logical reasons (see above), but the loosened connection made me agitated, sending me into days of hyper critical thinking.

Is the lack of constant, effusive attention normal, or is he an avoidant who's about to bail?

The thing about anxious and avoidant attachment styles is that they are inherently insecure--that’s why they’re not part of the secure attachment style. But secure attachment requires attachment to something (really someone). Even if I were secure in my own talents and attributes and accepting of who I am (which I’m plainly not), that doesn’t necessarily mean I could be securely attached to another person--though it would certainly improve the chances. An attachment is only formed in connection to an Other.

For me, this has most often manifested as this pathological dance between anxious Me and avoidant Them. We both want intimacy, and we connect immediately. When the feelings and connections become very intense, they run. Right on cue, I chase, trying desperately to maintain the lack of agitation that comes with being connected.

What I have finally learned is that the lack of agitation does not mean the attachment is secure. An absence of fluttery pangs in my chest does not equate to happily-ever-after. Because of the inherent insecurity on both sides, they are likely to bolt when they feel trapped by the intimacy they commanded. I’ve done the dance a dozen times and know the warnings signs, so I am always on high alert.

My rose-colored glasses can make even the whitest of flags look like they’re signalling the riptide that will drown me.

So did the new guy pull back, or is it normal dating behavior?

I don’t know.

I have polled my friends. I sought roundabout advice from the Hive Mind. No one knows, and I sure as hell don’t. The consensus is that I should wait and see, play it cool and just wait.

But I am impossibly impatient. Because I am not throwing everything at him at once, because I’m not demanding answers from him, I am agitated. At times, it feels as though my heart is about to claw its way out of my chest like a lovesick Xenomorph.

I don't know what to do with the agitation. I'm walking again, which helps. I'm down nearly 20 pounds since Rango and I split. I'm writing, though I recognize that almost no one but me sees these words. They are cathartic for me, however, and that has its own importance.  

But the writing and therapy have shined a glaring light on my insecurities. I know why they came about, how they were formed, just not what to do to make them better. And not doing things how I always have, not demanding that he give me the weight of answers I may not want to hear, is uncomfortable

What worked before isn't working now, because I'm not letting it.

But this is driving me crazy, and there seems to be no peace to be found. The firefighters are at odds with one another, fighting inside me over how best to help me feel calm. All I can do is plod ahead, hour by hour, and do the things I need to do. I know that’s the managers, though, distracting me with to-do lists and minutiae that feels all too important.

I may feel like I’m coming apart from the inside, but at least my toilets will be clean.

 

 

You never know until you try.

For months now, I've been quiet. It hasn't been intentional, I assure you. I've lamented to Rango and the Castration Committee that I just haven't had time or energy to write. 

That's not entirely true.

I have been extremely busy with school. Between three classes and a very busy internship with the ACLU of Georgia, my time has been mostly filled with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, various petitions for probate, and ongoing discussions with my professors and multiple legislators about the privacy concerns surrounding police use of body cameras.

 

Monday Morning Reflections on the Train #itsmarta #marta #train #Atlanta #manicmonday

A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on Mar 31, 2015 at 5:34am PDT

 

My regional GOAL interview seemed to go very well, though I won't know how well until next week. The state competition begins on April 22nd here in Atlanta. Finalists will be announced the first night, and they have to be prepared to compete again the next morning. While I had excellent feedback from my judging panel and others at Regionals, it could be that I'm not the right fit for the Technical College System of Georgia. Maybe I'm too opinionated or too loud or too brash. Then again, maybe I am the right fit.

Either way, I won't know for another week.

I've also been making the transition from single mom of two to attached mom of two. While Rango and I would've happily gotten married the weekend we met, we agreed that probably wasn't in the boys' best interest. After nine months of dating and entangling our lives, we sat down with the boys and asked them how they would feel if he moved in with us, making our home into OUR home.

They were agreeable. They were excited. They were ready.

There have been a few bumps here and there, but all in all it's going better than I was willing to allow myself to hope.

With most things, I tend to subscribe to the "Lowered Expectations" philosophy—expect nothing, and you'll never be disappointed. With regard to the GOAL competition, I'm living that mantra every single day. While I may be very well qualified to be the advocate for technical education in Georgia, there's only a 1 in 24 chance that I'm The One. So I don't get my hopes up. I don't plan about what color car I would pick out or which of our cars we would sell to pay the taxes on the new one.

 

But with Rango, I already have expectation. He has gently guided me to a place where it is okay to believe in someone else, to trust in someone else. And I do. I trust him to do what he tells me he's going to do. I believe that he will love me, actively, and be available for me, forever and always and no matter what.

And that's led me to have expectation for myself. Historically—at least over the last five years—I have hedged my bets. I always had a backup plan or the phone numbers of exes I stayed in contact with, just in case, even when those relationships were toxic for me. Even when those fragile cats would scratch and bite me, running away into the night, and then yowl loudly at my door a few nights later while I was still bleeding from their affront.

Now, there is no bet hedging. I blocked the numbers of my backup plans and made it difficult for them to reach me and vice versa. I took the remnants of old relationships—my wedding dress, the box of Bounder, the last bits of Absolem—and I burned them. I wanted to do something privately ceremonial, like burying the ashes in the backyard, but once the embers faded, I found there was no more energy to give to them. I was tired, and they didn't deserve my reserves.

That's all for Rango now.

He told me over the weekend that, for the first time in his life, he has no backup plan, either. We both always have friends and family we can turn to, but neither of us is propping open the door to possibility of failure. We're not stupid; we've each been divorced and know damn well what could happen.

But we also know now, after years of struggle and growth, what should happen.

We are open and honest, sometimes stupidly so. We are true to ourselves and to each other. We have forged a logistical and emotional partnership that is equal and based on mutual respect and care and love.

We argue sometimes. Sometimes when I'm especially bitchy, he'll just pointedly ask me if I'm going to be okay. He stays calm and lets my storm pass over him until it blows itself out.

At Regionals, the judging panel asked me where I thought I'd be in five years and how I intended to get there.

"I know you want a perfect answer," I replied, "but the honest truth is I don't know and I don't care. What I thought I'd be doing when I started my paralegal studies program is not at all what I'm actually doing a year later. Where I thought I'd be five years ago is nowhere close to where I actually am. So, yes, the answer is still that I don't know, but it's also that I'm excited to find out. I'm excited to explore opportunities and discover new talents and new challenges. I'll let you know where I am in five years."

Even if I don't move on to the next round or win another damn thing ever in my life, I am confident that I will continue to forge my path and make the best of whatever intersects with my journey. I have talent and skill and resourcefulness. I have two amazing sons and a spectacularly supportive life partner. I have loyal, wonderful friends and four warm, snuggly cats.

I don't need another thing.

 

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

I'm not here for your entertainment.

Blind faith, heartache, mind games, mistakes, my sweet fireball, my sweet rigmarole, I want it all.

I was watching something insipid on television a few nights ago.  (It's hard to remember which stupid thing I was clearing off the DVR between sessions of homework.)  But I remember watching these characters on a couple of shows, walking through their lives and hoping to fall in love.  They'd meet their currently-ideal love interest in some less-than-ideal situation and visibly fight the thought that just maybe that was the person for them.  They were all looking for magic but refused to admit when they found it. 

I want magic. 

I spent a glorious Saturday evening with Pandy (née Hot Pocket) this past weekend.  After hours of dancing and laughing and eating and a little too much whipped cream, we settled into the quiet while our babies slept down the hall.  Eventually the talk turned yet again to my love life, specifically about what I loved about each of the men who have impacted my life so dramatically.

"What do you want?" she asked.  "Not what qualities you want in a man—what things?  If you could make a wishlist, what would be on it?"

Pandy knows damn well I've written a couple of times about what I want—the affection, the attentiveness, the lack of addiction.  But I know Pandy, and this was her Practical Magic moment of daring me to put my wishlist out there where Fate might get ahold of it and take her chance at offering me exactly what I want.

I started to think about it in terms of these prior relationships—DH, Absolem, Bounder, Katniss, Rex—that had offered me something good in their way but had still not managed to be good enough.  Like thinking about what you want in your unborn child, I started to pick and choose from those men. 

From DH, I would want the care he could provide.  For all of his flaws, he was an exceptionally good, practical caregiver when I needed it.  Whether stopping at the grocery store while I was busy with a baby boy or carefully doling out medication and clean bandages after surgery, he took really good care of me.  Eventually I learned to care for myself, which was one of the many problems we were never able to resolve, but I would want that active, tangible concern.  (Check for both Bounder and Katniss for doing this, as well, in their own ways and times.)

From Absolem, I would want the clarity of vision.  He could peek readily through my façade and see me.  It was impossible to hide my truths from him, and he never failed to tell me exactly what he saw—even if I didn't like it.  Bounder was just as adept, though he often danced around sharing his thoughts.  I would also want the fearlessness, the adventure for life, that I have only ever found in Absolem.

From Bounder, there is so much.  He set the bar so high in so many ways, though he often let it clatter to the ground—sometimes abrading me with those collapsing expectations.  The depth of emotion, both his own and felt with me.  The strength and vulnerability that were intricately interdependent.  The mischievous, crinkling eyes every time he smiled when I told him I loved him.  The ease with which he could cry with me, for me, in front of me, and how he never, ever withheld my emotions even when they were more than he thought he could bear.  How he would patiently and without recrimination listen as I unleashed my crazy, circuitous head and heart, but how I never had to actually say what I was thinking because he always just knew.  And the kiss that could stop time and turn the seas to dust.  That kiss that may never be topped. 

From Katniss, the chivalry and the romance.  The single red rose the first time we met, and the choice of a perfect book for Christmas.  The stories he would weave for me.  The way he could calm me with a single word, dropped at the exact, magical moment when I needed it most.  The way he would watch me intently while I spoke, and the lullabies he would sing to me over the phone just before I fell asleep. 

From Rex, the largess.  Not just the physical size—though make no mistake that I loved the way his hugeness felt, wrapping me into a dainty package that didn't feel like it would break.  How his hands dwarfed mine.  But there was a largeness of character, of dynamic, that was simultaneously gentle and kind.  The way he could make me laugh at anything and everything, but also how he could shut down my humming brain and quiet my overthinking with a look.  In some ways he did outdo Bounder, and I was thankful to know the bars could be raised even further.  And I have never been so immediately comfortable with a man as I was with him. 

But my wishlist is missing the one trait that each of these men has in common: their ability to make me feel negligible.  The practical, magical one will be there, no matter what.  He will call me every day that he can, even if it's just to tell me he loves me and goodnight after a really long day.  He will text me random thoughts and pictures and be thrilled that I message him regular  love letters, equally romantic and raunchy.  He will lie with me in the floor and the firelight, letting me sing whatever song I feel that night, while he strokes my hair gently and whispers to me that I am beautiful. 

And he will be there in the middle of the night, when I wake cold and scared, afraid of what comes out of my dreams.  He will sleep comfortably, soundly next to me.  He will actively, happily love me, and he will fight Heaven and Hell to be with me.  He will do what no one has ever been willing to do for me before: he will value me, openly and honestly, and remind me every day that I am worth his fight. 

And in return, I will love him like no other.  Every fiber of my being, every moment of soul and joy and heartache, every laugh and every tear, every angry word and every whisper of adulation in the dark.  To fill in every crack, to give him strength to be vulnerable, safety to be dangerous, acceptance to be who he was meant to be.   

Maybe it's foolish to wish these things.  Maybe it's childish or naive to hope that I find what I want most, what I seek as doggedly as I have ever done anything. 

And maybe it's magic. 

Teach myself to be new in an instant, like the truth is accessible at any time.

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. 

 

 

I stand up, and I'm searching for the better part of me.

During the process of divorce, especially at the beginning, life becomes almost exclusively about your children.  Obviously for people who don't have kids or who have adult children, it's a different story, but I don't know what that's like.  Living through both my parents' divorce when I was 11, as well as the last couple of years, I only have intimate knowledge of what it's like from my perspective.

Like so many couples, DH and I had brutal, nasty arguments before the separation.  We tried our best to keep them away from the boys, though I know we weren't always successful.  While we did our best to keep the energy off of them, there's no way they didn't feel the tension.  Sometimes it boiled over and disrupted their lives, occasionally waking them or turning into a heated exchange in the middle of dinner. 

The night we told them that we were separating was the worst of my life.  In that moment, I remembered very clearly being the child huddled on the couch between my parents.  They were both sadly stoic, trying to explain clearly and concisely that they were divorcing, that our lives would change, but that we were still a family who would get through this together.  Watching the boys cry the night we told them, I knew exactly how their hearts were breaking and all of the questions they'd both ask me and keep quietly and painfully to themselves. 

At first, all of my energy went into keeping them calm and safe.  With very good reason, I was even more attentive and patient with them.  I tried to make every waking moment as quality as I could muster, while also giving them space to be able to breathe and think on their own or together, away from Mom. 

Eventually I had to start living my own, private life.  I had to begin to see what being a single mom and woman was like.  A big part of that, of course, has been dating. 

My parents were very good at this.  I was about the same age as Max, so four years older than Tricky, when my parents separated.  When they each started dating, they were careful to keep those new people away from me.  I can only remember meeting two men my mom went out with, one of whom is my stepdad of more than twenty-five years.  I met a few more women with my dad, though he has always said some were nothing more than friends.  He dated one woman for several years, and she actually lived with us for a good portion of their relationship.  Both he and I are still friends with her, even though they've been broken up far, far longer than they were together. 

When I started dating Bounder and saw the potential of something more important, having him meet the boys eventually became necessary.  It wasn't that I needed them to welcome their new daddy into their life; no one will ever replace their father, whom they love very, very much.  But if he and I were going to have a relationship, we would need to spend quality, physical time together.  And, no, I don't just mean sex.  (He never, ever spent the night at my house while the boys were home.) 

Dating and being in love would have to consist of more than constant texts and emails.  Regular phone calls couldn't replace regular hugs and kisses.  While quality time and conversation are of tantamount importance to me, I am bi-lingual (in The 5 Love Languages sense) for physical touch.  The small intimacies of handholding and kisses on the cheek are just as important to me as the loving whispers and soft laughs in my ear.  I need boisterous laughter, both in and out of the bedroom. 

Of all the men I've met and gone out with since I separated from DH, the boys have only met Bounder.  Initially, it was a ten-minute, "nice to meet you" moment one afternoon.  Eventually they were okay with his coming to visit me after they went to bed, then they were comfortable with dinners together and a movie after.  We would occasionally take them out and do something with them, together.  When he and I broke up, they were sad for me but also a little sad that they wouldn't get to see him.  I handled it well (at least in front of them).  They know that I still have occasional contact with him and ask me about him from time to time. 

It's hard enough to bring someone new into my life, but my life includes two boys.  They have to be a part of anything substantial.  Not only are they the most important people in my life, I am their primary caregiver.  They spend the majority of their time in my care.  With some potential changes on the horizon, I am likely to be responsible for them even more of the time.  If I try to wait to see someone I'm dating until a night when I don't have them, it could be weeks that we have to wait. 

Relationships can't function healthily like that. 

While it was best to make the boys the main focus initially, it does no one any good for them to be the only priority.  We live in such a child-centric time, but they have to learn that they really aren't the epicenter of anyone's world but their own.  They are of an age to begin to realize there's more to life than just them. 

Stephanie is more than Mommy.

Going back to school, working small jobs while I'm doing it, makes our life very busy.  I can no longer devote all of my time and energy to their schedules.  Our family calendar is sometimes a color-coded nightmare of homework and school events and appointments.

But taking the time to be me, content and comfortable in who I am and my abilities, makes me a better woman.  Being a complete woman, who is able to both express and receive love from more than just my children, makes me a better mother. 

And it's good for them to see that Mom can go on and have a happy, healthy, productive life.  They won't always been in the house with me, no matter how often they declare that they'll always live with me.  They will eventually move on to college and relationships and the lives that they build for themselves.  I will be here (figuratively or literally, I don't know yet), living and building my own future. 

When I am happy and healthy, living my life while incorporating them into it, I show them by example.  My goal is to raise healthy young men who can handle their own shit.  My hope is that they find partners who can do the same, in part because that is what their mother modeled for them. 

 

I don't want good, and I don't want good enough. I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love."

A few months ago, while discussing my ongoing list of things I'd want in a man and/or a relationship, Growler said, "You might have to settle.  You may have to be willing to accept 85% of what you want, if everything else is worth it."

I talked to Absolem about it a couple of weeks later.  "Oh, she's right," he said, complete seriousness on his face.  "You'll probably have to take less than what you want, if you want to be in a relationship.  Though I don't get why you'd want one, when you can have so many."

I reactivated my online dating account this week.  After I reviewed a few dozen potential new matches, the site told me I was too picky and should loosen up as far as my standards were concerned.

Even Queen Frostine urged me to go into my next relationship without such high expectations.  Her point, she stresses, is that I should be able to learn to be happy within the confines of who I'm with, for who they are, rather than constantly comparing them to the past or to my ideal.

"I love living in Chicago," said my well-traveled friend, "but I also really love San Francisco and London.  I could totally live in either of those cities just as easily as I live here."

"Sure, but you'd always miss some things about Chicago," I pointed out. 

And then there's Bounder.  He says he knows he can never be 100% of what I want or need, 100% of the time.  He wants to, has the desire, but not the capacity.

Well who the fuck can?

It's romantic to imagine a man could love me so much that he strived every day to be everything for me, especially one who could see me and reach me and touch me inside and out the way Bounder (and even sometimes Absolem) could.  I'd like to think that DH tried, but right now I'm still too caught up in the aftermath to really see it clearly. 

But romantic or not, it's fucking ludicrous.

No man will ever be able to be 100% of anything for me and certainly not all the time.  That's an unreasonable expectation to place on another individual.  We are beautifully flawed humans, and to demand perfection from someone is asking to be disappointed or worse. 

All I ever expected from the men I loved was that they be there how and when they could, and that they do it fully and openly and honestly.  By the time I really loved them, I knew who and what they were.  I knew their histories and their fears and their double-edged swords.  I knew the potential of their hearts, and I just wanted them to work toward that, both for me and for themselves. 

I never thought that was an unreasonable expectation.  Apparently I was wrong. 

Don't tell me I'm wonderful and deserve more.  Don't tell me you wish you were able to do these things, to be what I deserve, because I am special enough to be worth that.  If I have that value to you, then honor that.  If you love me and I am so deserving, then make the attempt to live up to the potential I see in you, that you say you see in yourself.  When you err—hell, even when you fail—if there's still potential and value, then keep working. 

My heart would not have seen yours if it weren't so very special, nor would it have loved you if you weren't worth my own hard work and effort. 

So it might be nice to imagine that prince among men, who would care for me and fill in the gaps I can never quite seem to fill.  The one who could kiss me like no other and love me no matter how hard the day was.  Who could be there at night when I both need and want him.  Who understands my sense of humor and appreciates my intensity, who loves me not in spite of my batshit but because of it.  The one who could love me for me and not for what I can do for him. 

That is the ideal I have to relinquish.  That's where I have to settle. 

I can find a playmate, a great lover, an outstanding kisser, someone who's sober, and maybe even an Irish guy who is bigger than I am.  But all of that in a man who can really love me for me?  That'll never happen.

I've met a lot of guys this year who were great, cute, and very nice.  But the kiss just wasn't there, for a variety of reasons.  Maybe they were too soft or too messy or too whatever. 

"Can you live with it?" Basket Case asked when I lamented recently about one in particular.

No.

There is so much in a kiss, so much truth of a person in how they move their mouth against yours.  Floppy, wet, forceful?  Too slow or too fast?  Chronic bad breath?  Do they touch your face or bend you into their kiss, rather than meeting you halfway?  Do they ever let you take the lead?  Eyes open or tightly closed?

In my life, the ones who've done it right, right for me, are the ones who've been least able to meet my expectations, even when I've lowered them in compromise.  If they can make me breathless with their kiss, they will eventually knock the breath out of me completely. 

It's not about kissing frogs to find my prince.  He doesn't exist.  And even if he did, I'd be too busy with the frog in the crown, just because his kiss could fool me. 

I am extraordinary, if you'd ever get to know me.

After Bounder and I broke up, I realized that not only was I ready but I was willing to date.  That is perhaps the most daunting aspect of my new, single life—finding someone to go out with.  The whole notion of "finding" someone seems so stupidly foreign to me anyway.  I didn't date much, in any traditional sense.  The guys I was with before I was married were all friends before I was with them.  They were in my circle, and it was natural to just start hanging out together all the time.  I don't know that I've ever had the experience of a new guy picking me up, taking me out, and bringing me home.  For that to happen, though, I'll have to step out of my neighborhood and into new places with new people. 

The chick with the pink-striped hair? That's me.

For years I identified myself as an introvert.  For anyone who knows me now, that's pretty hard to believe.  Looking back, I realize I wasn't introverted so much as I was shy.  Once I was comfortable with someone, I could easily talk to them and be my normal, boisterous self.  It just took me a while to feel at ease enough to open my mouth.

I'm still that way, for the most part, which is why it's hard for me to meet new people.  I'm also 40 going into this life.  After being with the same man for twenty years—a man who really was an introvert—I have no idea where to go and what to do, especially if I'm by myself.  There's free time now when the boys are with their father.  I don't have to fill all of that time away from home, or even with someone, but it is nice to have someone different to talk to once in a while. 

Having been fortunate enough to have some remarkably special men in my life, it's going to be difficult to find someone who really turns me on.  I can be a lot to handle, and I'm very picky.  It seems that any man who comes close to what I want and what's good for me will have be a very rare breed of human being.  I deserve to have someone that special—and that person will deserve me—but I also know I'm unlikely to encounter them at the same grocery store I see five times a week. 

Queen Frostine encouraged me to go out and try a few, specific new places.  A couple of male friends have volunteered to be my wingman on a night out.  All of that will be happening over the next few weeks and months, and I'm sure I'll meet some great people, along with the ones who aren't so great.  And just meeting someone, even if I like or date them, doesn't mean I want to love them. 

But the day will come (again) when I fall in love.  As I wrote recently, the bar for me has been set very high.  I know I can't compare one man to another—though women do that shit all the time.  It's not about finding someone as good as or better than somebody that I used to know.  However, because I've had some exceptionally profound experiences, I won't be settling for mundane.  A new relationship doesn't have to be full-on excitement all the time, but it also can't be so lacking in real chemistry that I have to constantly overlook flaws in an attempt to be content. 

I've been thinking a lot about what this as-of-now imaginary person might be like.  If they're important enough to me to really pursue something more serious, I can give them a copy of Persona Non Grata, though it's a little strange to hand a would-be the Zagat Guide to Stephanie.

Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

They have to understand that I am a mom.  My kids are always on my mind, and they are usually in my custody.  Although I do get time without them, they are my main priority right now and will be for quite a while.  Anyone who comes into my life has to be willing to accept them as a part of me, and vice versa. 

They have to understand that I used to be a fat girl.  I often still think like a fat girl.  More than a hundred pounds ago, I was miserable.  The weight loss brought the surgeries, which brought the scars.  And I'm still no small thing and never will be.  I am very cognizant of my body, and I'm still trying to adjust to what I see as myself. 

I'd like them to be bigger than I am.  That seems kind of silly, but I was often heavier than my boyfriends and even my husband.  Still an Amazon, I'm not usually attracted to men who are shorter or slighter than I.  I want someone whose hands and feet are larger than mine, who can make me feel physically small when he holds me.  There's a comfort in that, and I've only really felt it with one person. 

They have to be smart and funny and a little unconventional.  I am impatient and easily bored.  I constantly look to be amused in my life, but I have a dry, bawdy sense of humor.  I do not think or act like other girls.  And I talk a lot.  They have to be able to converse with me and laugh with me. 

They have to see me eye-to-eye.  It was recently brought to my attention that one of the reasons I can make people uncomfortable is that I see them for who they are pretty quickly.  I have always read people well, but after two years of really examining myself and others around me, I have developed the ability to hone in on the truth of people with relative ease.  Turns out a lot of people don't like it when others see through their facade.  But that special person has to be honest both with me and with themselves about who and what they are.  That's how I live my own life, and I expect nothing less from my partner. 

They have to be considerate of me.  My time and attention are finite.  I have a lot of responsibilities.  One of my pet peeves is people who are perpetually late or absent who can't be bothered to let you know.  It's not so hard to call or send a text to say you're running late.  Things happen; just keep me in the loop. 

They can't be an addict.  I've dealt with too many men who use substances as a crutch or even a wheelchair to manage their lives.  I can't handle it.  It's not that I'm opposed to drinking or other people's use of occasional recreational substances.  It's the addictive behavior and emotional stuntedness that are unacceptable to me. 

They have to accept that I can be emotionally high-maintenance.  I feel everything—for myself and my friends and my children and the others I love.  I can be insecure and temperamental.  I need emotional validation and attention, though it can be quiet and subtle.  A squeeze of the hand, a murmur of, "I hear you," is sometimes all it takes.  Sometimes I need someone to listen to me rail and cry for a few minutes.  It's not constant, and I'm always willing to reciprocate. 

Maybe this is a lot.  Maybe not.  I don't have a great frame of reference.  If I'm too particular about what I want, it's because I have years of having exactly what I didn't want.  I refuse to live that way ever again, if I can help it. 

So, whoever you are that may capture my heart next, know what you're in for.  This is only the tip of the iceberg, I promise, but start here; we'll see where this path leads us. 

And chances are that guy you saw me with is just my wingman. 

I know they're watching, they're watching.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I'm often ignored by men when I go out, perhaps because I'm a bit intimidating.  It was hard for me to understand, even fully aware of my Amazonian brashness. 

The last couple of weeks, I've had some really profound experiences, where I fell back on my grown-ass-womanness and went out, either by myself or with the girls.  It turned out that not all men (or women) were so quick to ignore me. 

It started with a weekend of intense (if private) exploration of the kind I love the most, where I'm able to really delve into whatever has attracted me and seek that deep understanding I so love.  I went out by myself and found that not only was I capable of doing it, I was readily able to find enjoyment in that selfness.  I was utterly in control of my head, my heart, my body, and my choices—and I was quite content in that. 

The Girls

The girls—Hot Pocket, Growler, and Boogie Shoes—came into town this past weekend for what we cheekily named Stripper Weekend. 

Originally, we'd planned to strip wallpaper at my house—with steamers, scrapers, scorers, and the like—though Hot Pocket jokingly suggested we hire some hot, male strippers (or Cupid37) to do it while we watched.  We also talked of going to the Clermont Lounge for disco funk dancing on Saturday night. 

In the end, we saw no actual strippers, though we did get to see a shirtless guy while another guy took his shoe off just for us.  (That was Yahtzee, who was very sweet and brave to play along with the crazy of the inner circle.)  We also laughed and squealed and danced our damn asses off all weekend.   We never stripped a piece of wallpaper, nor did we get to the Clermont.  We did, however, hit Metalsome Live Metal Karaoke, The Basement Theatre, and Johnny's Hideaway. 

I was by no means the only one, but I got a lot of attention this weekend.  Really, almost more than I could stand.  Men and women looked, smiled, talked, asked me to dance or meet their friend, and asked if they could come home with me.  (Don't stare.  Flash the dimple.  Hi, I'm Stephanie.  Dance again already?  No, thank you, I'm with my girls.  No, you may not.)  I got lots of sweet and not-so-subtle compliments, which also meant I gave out my plastic surgeon's name to about a dozen women. 

I even had the never-before-happened experience of a guy picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder, all caveman style.  He's a 30-year-old personal trainer, who I promptly named Cavey, Jr., after Captain Caveman's son. 

I didn't even let DH carry me across the threshold when we got married, because I was so self-conscious about my body and my weight.  Even now, after the weight loss and the surgeries, I am no small thing.  No man has EVER picked me up.

Sass and Cavey, Jr.

Cavey, Jr. was sweet and adorable and very, very cute.  He stayed with our loud, bawdy group all night, even though he knew I had no intention of taking him home.  He asked me repeatedly how I got to be so adorable.  He sang while he danced with me on the crowded floor, all Johnny and Baby style. 

Between the mirrors in the clubs and the pictures on my friends' phones, I could see what other people see.  I could see how my hair and face and body come together now, reflected back in someone else's eyes.  I could really see how my body moved, with its new, flat stomach and surgically-enhanced breasts and the long, strong legs so often encased in the boots I bought myself when I lost 100 pounds. 

I was told many times that I was pretty or hot or beautiful or sexy.  What I could finally understand from an outside perspective, though, was the strength and the confidence in how and where and when it all moved, even when I klutzily elbowed a guy in the jaw or tripped over my own huge feet.  (I can't even begin to explain how I accidentally kicked a guy in the side of the head.)  It didn't matter that I utterly sucked at karaoke—I totally owned what I was doing. 

 

Maybe that is what's both intriguing and intimidating to others, my ability to be me—fearlessly and unapologetically and openly.  I know where I've been and where I am now, with no real idea of where I'm going.  I know who I was and who I am now, and I know who I will continue to strive to be, understanding that it could shift and change as the circumstances of my life unfold. 

In every single mirror and photograph, what I saw looking back every single time was simply Stephanie.

Now I get it. 

At Johnny's Hideaway

Is there a better life for me?

In the past few weeks and months, as in the past few years, I've lived an extraordinary series of mostly-unrelated events.  They've been varied and crazy, giving rise to a whole new batch of Stephanecdotes, as well as providing some serious fodder for each of a few planned new books.  Sometimes they were things I sought—Mardi Gras with Hammer and Lady Hammer and Glee and Roadkill—as research for a new project.  Sometimes they were utterly random—the dozen balloons floating colorfully into the rising sun over Atlanta.  And sometimes they were fated—like a lightning bolt straight to the ass.

Fate can be a fickle little bitch.

As I wrote both here and in Persona Non Grata:

I'm a firm believer in Fate.  Some things are fated in the sense that there's only one viable choice, based on all of the previous choices you've made.  There's nowhere else to go but here, because you've come from there, and that makes it feel important.  But I also believe in Fate as an outside, blinding force.  Maybe it's because of other people's choices, maybe it's sheer dumb luck, but it feels like divine intervention, twisting and turning you wildly or slightly.  Either way, you can't help but look at what it wants you to see. 

I'm adamant that Fate is what brought me to so many watershed moments in my life, as in Tierney's.  My forty years have been significant and stellar, even when splattered with the remnants of my heart.  She hasn't stopped working her magic, or so I'd thought.  Then I was given a series of gifts, only some of which I was able (read: allowed) to keep for any significant length of time.  But I did and am continuing to do my best to take those simple lessons learned and move forward. 

So what now?

In the aftermath of several recent events, I was shocked to realize that I'm really, really scared to move forward again.  While I do actually have a choice in the matter, I refuse to be still any longer than necessary.  It's just not who I am.  But in my search for a deeper, more profound experience in which to immerse myself and fully comprehend, I am in a cycle of seeking out more varied experiences, in search of my next rabbit hole.  Given the things I've done and the people I've known, how the hell am I ever going to top this?

It's not that there's a competition, with myself or anyone else.  I don't feel especially driven to do more things.  Those actions and events are simply a delivery vehicle for experience and understanding—a mode of enveloping me in deeper learning and the psychic tinkering I so love. 

Some of these things I've lived, especially in the last three years, have left me with my bars set very high—the problem being that someone else placed them way over my head, just out of my reach.  And for an Amazon, that's pretty damn high.  Unfortunately, I have no control over where those bars rest. 

After the events of even my year so far, I feel taunted by what I want, that it was and sometimes is so damn close.  But when I reach for it, it falls away like sand.  Over and over, I'm in someone else's sandbox, but it's warm and velvety and strangely soothing, so I keep digging deeper. 

Okay, Fate: challenge me.  Dare me.  Give me reason and excuse to reach again, to reach for something bigger and better, something truer and more astonishing.  Because I know there's something there for me to learn, something important and pressing and profound, I will all but destroy myself to get to that locus, to that kernel of truth at the center.  It's something that's just for me, and sometimes I have to step into the journey through Hell to gain it. 

Even in my brashness, I am fearful that I will never again reach those same heights and depths of learning and love and sex and hope, that I have somehow stumbled upon something (and someone) so exquisitely good that any future attempts will, at the very least, fall short of those expectations.  The worst case scenario is that even trying to match that will be cataclysmic to my heart and soul, if only because it's doomed to be a fruitless effort.  While I know the real joy should be in the journey and not the destination, the last thing I want for the last half of my life is boredom and unfulfilment. 

"Maybe the point is to be happy and content in what you do have, to enjoy the person you're actually with as fully as possible," Queen Frostine advised.  "Maybe that's your ultimate goal."

That feels like settling, though, and I don't ever want to do that again.  As selfish and strong-willed as I am, I will actually compromise when the need arises.  I am very good at negotiating settlement, in general, though that's rarely so successful with my heart.  While my ideal isn't perfection, what if my idyllic can only ever fall short of faded and dreamy memory?

I knew what I wanted; I seemed to have it within my careful grasp.  Not as an object or a trophy, but as a treasure that was tarnished and neglected and buried under so damn much rubble, trying desperately to breathe under the crush of years.  But it slipped back into the sand and seems to be washing out with the tide.  So now I have to walk the shoreline again, combing through seaweed and jellyfish and craggy, broken shells, hoping to find another pearl yet afraid all I'll have are slimy oysters. 

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