Since my thyroid radiation in July, I’ve been struggling with still feeling like general crap. Fatigue and brain fog have been intermittently worse. A pretty leisurely two-mile walk with Rango and the boys recently wiped me out for two days. My bloodwork shows wildly-swinging levels of thyroid hormones, indicating that the regrown tissue is indeed dying off, though it may be months before it normalizes.
With that has also come more weight regain and self-recrimination and outright self-loathing.
I have tried to get back into the gym even semi-regularly. It’s hard enough to juggle work and school and kids successfully, and trying to find even six hours a week for myself in that is sometimes unmanageable. Of course I know the exercise will actually help me to feel better, but the fatigue that comes with hypothyroidism can be unimaginably oppressive.
Recently I started a series of virtual races through Yes.Fit. Of course I chose the Alice in Wonderland themed races. After I complete so many miles, as tracked by my Misfit activity tracker, my medal is sent to me automatically. As of today, I’ve completed three of the six Alice races, totaling more than 60 miles.
As it does every day, Facebook was kind enough to remind me this morning of memories from this day in previous years. I find it interesting to see how life has changed over the last few years, but I tend to face those reminders with some trepidation. I love the pictures and funny quotes from my boys from their younger days. Sometimes the memories are useless or now meaningless, or sometimes even too painful, and I’ll delete them. Sometimes I leave the painful ones, knowing those ghosts will haunt me again next year, because I’m either not ready to deal with them or I know they’re so important that I will need the reminders again.
But today, there were two things, from 2010 and 2011. Not surprising, there were pictures from a 2010 concert, of a band I loved then and love now. It was the second in a series of shows that were seminal for the changes that would come over the following two years. A year later, it was the memory that was down 99 of the 115 pounds in total weight loss. Yet another year later, I’d just separated from my now-ex-husband.
I have said repeatedly over the last year that, for a variety of reasons, I felt like I was back in 2010 and didn’t know why I was reliving such similar circumstances. Regardless of the logistical changes and strides I know I have made, I have replayed the past in tandem with the present and come up with only confusion and emotional failure. I have continually grappled with figuring out which choice I didn’t make or should’ve made differently. I’ve tried to re-learn whatever lesson I obviously needed to repeat.
But somehow, I keep sliding farther and farther into the past. Where 2010 may have felt like a rabbit hole, 2016 is feeling more and more like the other side of a looking glass. Where then felt new and exciting and rebellious, now feels reflective and reversed and exhausting.
What is it? What did I miss? What do I need now that can only be retrieved from then?
It just so happens that Alice Through the Looking Glass comes out on DVD this week. Of course I saw it in the theater when it opened--how could I not?--but I really didn’t love it as much as I did the first one. It was beautiful, and I looked for the clues to my missing lessons, but the torment of Time was unsettling to me. I could willingly believe in a lost young woman traveling to surreal place and conquering her fears, but it was almost impossible for me to suspend my disbelief as the same woman mended old wounds.
But maybe that’s it. Maybe my path has been a big circle, and maybe the obstacle is an unturned stone.
Certainly I can pinpoint errors and mistakes and regrettable decisions, but I feel like I have done everything in my power to apologize and make amends for those actions. I would say I have done my best to move on, but I damn well know there are frozen moments that continue to haunt me.
I don’t know what it is, but there is something. It is maddening, appearing and disappearing, always just out of my reach.
So I’m starting back at the beginning, at Alice. I am literally retracing my steps, one foot in front of the other, until I can find a way to the next landmark on this destination. I don’t want to believe that I am personally destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over, that there is literally no way to avoid spiritual repetition. I’ve already seen the White Rabbit, I just passed the Cheshire Cat and am making my way toward the Mad Hatter. There is still the Caterpillar and the Queen of Hearts.
After that, I’m seriously considering the Pac-Man races, where I get to eat a series of brightly-colored ghosts.
I've been caught in a loop in my
head for the last few days. There's
nothing new about that, honestly, but my heart has been especially
unrelenting.
There's a lot going on right now.
Some days there are so many balls in the air that even a well-practiced
juggler would have trouble keeping track of them all. And if the actual logistics of my life
weren't difficult enough, there is still my shredded heart to contend with.
Tomorrow is October 17th. That doesn't mean much, except that I have
tickets for a concert. Hunter Hayes at
the Fox Theatre.
Oh
hell.
I have historically loathed country
music, but something with that shifted in the summer, directly because of my
relationship with Bounder. I fought the
twang as hard and long as I could, but when the man sang (quite off-key, mind
you) country songs and danced to said songs with me on my deck in the middle of
the night, it was hard not to get caught up in the emotional sap. A couple of songs in particular became stupidly
poignant—Jake Owens' "Anywhere With You" and Hunter Hayes' "I
Want Crazy"—and they always seemed to start playing at just the right moment.
When tickets went on sale for Hunter
Hayes at the Fox, I bought the tickets and immediately texted Bounder:
October 17th. I have plans.
You have an invitation to join me.
You
are a brat.
Apparently he was about to buy the tickets himself when the text came through. They were intended to be for our
collective birthdays, which were just days apart at the end of the summer.
"I'll give you your
ticket," I told him. "Just in
case."
"Just in case we break up
again," he replied, laughing in the dark on the deck that weekend, in the
middle of the summer solstice.
"We'll meet up—"
"—at the show—"
"—October seventeenth."
Oh
hell.
So here we are, and I have no idea
what to do. From the night we met, and
then at every turn, there was a strange sense of Fate shoving us together. Typhoon
Bounder collided with Hurricane
Sassafras in weirdly tragic, romantic perfection. And every time we think it's over, something
else happens that forces us into each other's orbit. (Fate,
you really are a raging bitch.)
We seem constantly drawn back to
this place of choice to make, of some junkture
in our path. Is this the place of
Fate (divine intervention) or fate (because of choices we've made)?
There are four primary scenarios:
I go to the Fox, and he doesn't
show. (In which case I will leave,
because I can't see it with anyone but him.)
He goes to the Fox, and I don't show
up. (Like doing your homework the night
before a possible snow day.)
Neither of us shows up, and we never
know if the other did.
We both show up, which creates a
whole new branch of this flow chart of possibilities.
Queen Frostine feels strongly that I
should skip it completely. Her position
is that I have come so far (so she says) in getting over this man, that to open
myself up to even a moment of heartache again has the potential to set me
back. She says I'm better, that I've
shown progress in moving on, but it's hard for me to see it. A step or two forward, maybe, but mostly I
feel like I've stumbled ahead and am still trying to get up from this path with
a skinned knee.
No matter what I do, it will
hurt. My heart will ache, and I will
still miss him. I don't know that I ever
won't. I can remember feeling that way
about other men, and I did eventually find a way to move on, given enough
time. But if the time to heal (as best
as possible) is proportionate to the depth of emotion felt for another, it will
take a damn long time to get over this one completely.
I loved Bounder. Deeply.
Maybe more than I've ever loved anyone besides my children. I still love him and likely always will. He is never not there, whether in my heart or my thoughts or my dreams. Most days are okay, but some are hard as
hell, when there's a reminder at every damn turn and I can feel him so
intensely. And the nights can be brutal.
No matter how I feel, there are
substantial issues with us. The perfect
storm is at times decimating in its cleansing of our worlds. As beautiful as the lightning is, it sometimes
strikes too close and sets the underbrush afire. Maybe it's just destructive, and maybe it was
needed to clear away the dead wood and allow for new growth. Either way, neither of us will ever be the
same again.
The thought of standing in that
darkened theater, listening to those love songs that seemed to mimic our
hearts, is terrifyingly beautiful, whether it's with or without him. Something ingrained in me can't help but love
the tragic romance of it all. But love
is not a love song. My heart will still
be racing and aching when the three-minute swell is over. I just don't know if it'll be dancing with
him in the dark.
Once again, I have let my arrogant, trusting heart bite me in the ass.
In the course of a few days, I dealt with my wedding anniversary—19th, but the first since DH and I separated—as well as the demise of my relationship with Bounder. Again.
I have been over it with him, with the girls, and in my own noisy head about a hundred times. Here was a man who said, “I am done being afraid. I love you. I am committed to you and to this. I want to be with you and not just so I don’t have to be without you. You are wonderful, though you deserve more than I can offer in my damaged, fragile state, but I am willing to try fully to meet you in this, with the goal of moving forward in our life wherever that may lead.”
But when it got real, when I got real and challenged his excuses for being suddenly and irrationally unsupportive and distant, I was told it was my fault—that I was just too much.
At every turn, I was blatantly honest with him. I told him from the very beginning that he would always know where he stood with me, because I would be sure to tell him. I was just as quick to remind him that I loved him and supported him and cared about him as I was to tell him I was upset or unhappy about something. Because of his own damage and his past, it was sometimes hard for him to understand how someone could actively love him, how they could do it not in spite of his plethora of issues but openly and accepting of those as what made him into this enigmatic mix of strength and vulnerability, of hurt and hope, of love and loathing.
Bounder and I met at an incredibly emotional time in our respective lives. We were each in process of divorce, which included the unmitigated difficulty of examining what in each of us had led to the unexpected death of dreams and plans and intentions. But we understood each other like no one else and were instantly, constantly connected. We could often seem to read each other’s thoughts.
When he came to me in June, he asked me if I really wanted this, meaning him and his baggage and the hardships that might come from that. I told him yes, that I loved him and that I was willing to take the risk of being hurt again because the potential for good far outweighed the potential for the bad. I asked him, again, if he was ready to really be in this with me and accept my own flaws and baggage and logistics. He was adamant that he was. But
there was always the issue of his sobriety. I wrote after our initial breakup in the spring that I was pretty sure he was an alcoholic. He denied it then and later. Truthfully, alcoholism can be tricky to determine. There is a difference between having a high tolerance, being a problem drinker, and being an alcoholic. Even when some people drink heavily or regularly, that doesn’t mean they’re alcoholic. It’s the impetus behind the drinking that determines whether it’s a problem or an addiction. There are alcoholics who’ve been dry for long periods of time but who make the same choices, perpetuating the addictive behavior, even without the use of substance. I’ve often heard it referred to as being a “dry drunk”.
Like so many others, he functions well and lives an active, productive life.
“You have to be sober for me,” I said.
“What does that mean to you?”
“You can’t let alcohol or any substance be the thing that allows you to create and maintain emotional distance between us. It can’t be the tool to drive me away.”
But when I needed him, and needed him most, he did just that; he let a drink become the excuse behind why he couldn’t be there for me. He let that be the place to escape his own tormented head and to drive the cycle of self-flagellation.
I know his history intimately and fully understand like almost no one else how and why he came to this place in his life. So much of our respective pasts is mirrored plainly in the other’s. We have always been openly cognizant of the pitfalls and respectful of the fact that we each had to tread very carefully and consciously in that minefield. But he assured me, time and again, that he was willing and able and ready to do that. He told me he loved me, that he supported me, and that he appreciated me.
In the end, the breakup happened over an email while I was 200 miles from home.
I didn’t go into this blindly or easily. I didn’t forget what had happened before. I did choose, consciously, to put those things aside and do everything I could to healthily support him and our relationship. I refused to constantly be waiting for him to fuck up, because that is no way to love or to live. Even when I was afraid during the last few days that this might be happening, I told him, asked him again to face me and talk to me, to tell me if it was more than he could handle. He reiterated again that he was in it, no matter how scared he was of disappointing me.
But his excuses won out over his intent. He let it be easier to push me away than to face himself and do the work needed to mend his own soul; he let it be easier to be overwhelmed by the fear of the difficulty than to actually make the attempt. His refusal to believe that he could ever be healthy or deserving of good things fueled his fears, and he bailed. Again. Rather, he pushed me to the point of saying I’m done.
It hurts, make no mistake. I loved him deeply and passionately and honestly in a way I’d never been with anyone else. All of the lessons of the preceding years, all of the work I’ve had to do to deal with my own past and mistakes, allowed me to go into this thing with him with my eyes open. I always knew I could get hurt. I had no specific expectation that I would be with him for the rest of my life—if it happened, so be it. I also wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with this man if I knew there was expiration date. There was no way I was willing or able to go into this without accepting the potential of something long term. Regardless, we agreed to see it through to the end.
Instead what I got was a man who wasn’t brave enough to face his own demons and who used excuses to justify running.
“I appreciate you and everything you’ve done in my life. I wouldn’t have come so far if I hadn’t met you when I did. I love you so much more than I can really express, and I’m afraid I will disappoint you.”
You disappointed me not because you decided this wasn’t right. Even if it was that I wasn’t right for you, that would have smarted but I get how that happens. It’s that you yet again chose to let your fear stop you from accepting what you want most: to be loved for who you are rather than who you should be or what you can do for the people you care about.
You did it knowingly and decidedly and didn’t try not to hurt me in that. You made excuses for refusing to move any direction in your life, and you intentionally misled me to your place of stagnation and then had the balls to both blame me and say that you’d always warned me it might happen.
It’s childish and toxic and cowardly, and you had no right to drag me down with you.
So now I’m back the place of grasping for stability. Eventually I will have to start the process of regaining ground, but right now I just want to ground to stop spinning beneath me.
Before, I wished him healing and peace and hoped that he would find his way to a healthy place, whether or not it led him to me again. Now, I just don’t care. I refuse to do it. When I did care, it brought me this. Again.
My heart hurts, undeniably. My head comprehends the how and why, really, but my heart is unlikely to ever grasp how this could happen again, given the intricacies of intimacy that occurred between us every single day. I wasn’t delusional about any of it, I am confident in that.
But maybe I shouldn’t have been, and I probably won’t be again. I don’t want to be. I don’t want to trust someone again, let alone love them. If you’re not in my inner circle now, don’t expect ever to be. I worked so hard to come to a place where I could even be willing to love another person again, and it got me this. Again.
Hot Pocket says I will meet someone one day who can love me like I deserve and want and need. She says I am a generous, light, and shining spirit who deserves someone who appreciates that.
I may be, but I feel pretty sure that person doesn’t exist. Every time I’ve come close to that, when I have someone who looks me in the eye and says, “I see you for who and how you are, and I love you for that,” they back the fuck away and let their own baggage drag me down. I feel stupid and humiliated. I don’t trust my own judgment, let alone my heart or my head or my gut. And I don’t want another person ever to touch me if it means they might have the power to hurt me.
So for me, it’s not worth it. It makes me question my own worth, undoubtedly, and whether I was right two years ago when I suggested that my lifetime value was bankrupted when I gave birth to my sons. Was my purpose in life fulfilled when I procreated? Did I really have everything I deserved at 32?
Life is complicated, and love is hard. I was willing to take on that challenge, for me and for him and for others before him. Now? No. So even if Fate herself appears before me and says, “Sass, you gotta do this. You gotta see this person and go this way. I’m going to make you,” I will tell her very clearly to fuck off.
I would rather incur the wrath of the gods than ever let my heart be open to another person again.
A couple of weeks ago, I was moving
on with my life.
Happily, carefully, trepidatiously
(if excited), I had met a couple of new people and scheduled a couple of first
dates. Summer was unofficially here, and
I took a couple of days to get away and see some friends. While out of town, I was trying to catch a
cab in the rain and decided to call another friend quickly.
I stepped into the edge of the rain
and hit her name in my contacts, hit her number and heard the first ring. Shifting my purse in my hands, I glanced down
at the phone and saw not that friend's name but a face smiling at me.
I hit END as quickly as possible,
and my heart started to pound in my chest.
Maybe it didn't ring on his end.
It rang twice. He heard it.
Maybe he won't notice.
Come on!
It's Bounder we're talking about.
I texted him and apologized if it
rang through, explained that I was out of town and trying to catch a cab in the
rain.
Ten minutes later, he replied, Fate really is a bitch.
Turns out he was at home, phone in
his pocket. He hadn't heard it ring,
though he certainly noticed the missed call and subsequent text. It also turns out that he was reading Muchness and Light, catching up on what
he'd missed in the weeks since he'd seen and talked to me.
An hour-long telephone conversation
in the rain outside the venue led to his coming to see me the next night, after
I returned home. What was exchanged
between us is ours, especially his, but suffice it to say that the conversation
was intense. So much so that we agreed
to try this again, to not let the fear of emotion and connection and unplanned
upheaval keep us from being together.
With all of our problems and issues
and concerns, there is this force that not only keeps pushing us together, but
keeps reminding us that we are supposed to be together. If I doubt for a moment—usually because I am
overwhelmed by the fact that this amazing man loves me so intensely and that I
love him back just as much—I get some reminder, some prodding of song or
feeling or intimate memory, and he usually somehow gets it, too. There's almost always an immediate text or
call from the other. We are very much in
sync.
And the thing is, I was done.
I was finished with the trying and the crying and the hoping that he
would accept how very much we meant. It
was never a matter of his not seeing
it; it was all about his being ready for it.
I was over keeping myself from calling or texting, somehow able to talk
myself down and not react immediately to the emotion of missing him. I had stopped waiting for his attention and
fully expected that I would never see or talk to him again.
The hardest part was always knowing
that I would likely never find that connection with another lover. Not like that. My time with him—those incredible moments of
just the two of us—had altered my desires and expectations on so many levels. I honestly didn't think I would ever be able
to find it that good again, and I really don't just mean the sex. And the reasons we were apart seemed
ludicrously unnecessary.
As with every bigger picture, there
were other, hidden reasons we needed that time out of each other's immediate
orbit. I knew he had things to work out
and work through. What I couldn't see at
the time were the remaining lessons I
had to learn before we could ever move forward.
Even when I did that work, I had no inkling that the process was making
room for Bounder.
Every day, I get some reminder from
the outside, some little push or sign from the universe or Fate or my
subconscious or his, that this is when and where we are supposed to be. We are
supposed to be here now.
Because I lost him once and have
been given this second opportunity to be wholly with him, I refuse to waste
it. I am cognizant of our separate and
collective pasts, cautiously aware of how close we came to not having each
other. I am thankful and grateful that
I've been given the chance to be both truly myself and to be what he needs and
wants, but also to have him reciprocate in all of that in a more honest way
than any other has ever offered to me.
He is a remarkable man, and we are incredibly lucky to have this time.
So I'm still moving forward, just
not in the way I expected three weeks ago.
It is truly better than I could've hoped or wished, and it is happier
and healthier than it would've been three months ago. I have more lessons to learn, more work to do
in preparation for whatever path my journey takes from this point. But now my lessons and my work take on a
whole new dimension by accepting Bounder into my life. It's not just what I get from this; it's what
we get separately and collectively as we step onto this path together and head
toward whatever is on that brilliant, shining horizon.
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.
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.
Those are the most ludicrous words
after a break-up.
It's not that I think men and women
can't be friends. I have lots of male friends, running the gamut
from casual to intimate. (Poor Hammer
knows waaaay more than he'd probably
like to know.) While I do tend to
gravitate toward women for those very close friendships, there are and have
been a few exceptions over the years.
Even within the bounds of
Stephanie-Dude friendships, sometimes the lines have become blurred by deep
emotional or spiritual connection. Sometimes
by both. If there's also a sexual
attraction, the relationship can become complicated rather quickly. Sometimes I've been able to pull back from
that and maintain the platonic relationship.
Sometimes not.)
Usually what happens, though, is
that I go through this experience with whatever man, and the relationship is
damaged by sex and love and what has most often felt like compromise that was
unevenly anchored to my side. Hot Pocket
would toss in the words "unevenly yoked" right here. Moonshine might suggest something about
unbalanced equations. My therapist would
kindly and gently advise me to determine what I'm willing to accept to maintain
a healthy relationship and where I can confidently draw my lines—with the
mindful acceptance that I must defend those boundaries if push comes to
shove.
Bounder and I went back and forth
for days that turned into weeks about how and where our relationship was
going. He says he's not an alcoholic; I
still question it openly and to his face.
Almost regardless of that, there's still the issue of my caring about
him. He is special to me. Tierney says it best, to Alex, during one of
their last conversations in Persona Non
Grata:
"Look, I don't
love a lot of people. I don't like a lot
of people, and all these people in my life have really hurt me over the
years. I have reasons to be wary of
letting people in. When I do, and
especially when I choose to let them in far enough to love them, they're
special. You are a very rare breed of
human being that I both like and love, and not just because I have to. That's why I get so mad about it all. That's why it feels so unfair. I don't want that to have been a waste of my
energy."
Part of the issue for me is this
idea of being compartmentalized, of feeling like I'm being shoved and cajoled
into a box that keeps me away from the other person. Yes, it is something men tend to do more than
women; it seems to be an innate coping mechanism for them. Again, Alex and Tierney discuss this early on
in their relationship:
[Alex Wheeler]
"That's how I am; if someone makes me mad or bothers me too much,
I'll just ignore them—won't answer their calls or texts or emails. I'll just stop."
"Are you that way with everything? Do you just ignore what you don't like?"
He thought about it for a moment. "Yeah.
I compartmentalize everything. I
have to, in some ways, being on the road all the time. It helps keep me sane. I'm really good at keeping everything in its
own neat, little box, where I can deal with it or not, as I choose. I'm probably too good at it."
"I think that's a guy thing," I
commented. He nodded in agreement. "I think it's much harder for women to
take their feelings out of the equation.
Men are much better at tucking their feelings out of the way."
When a relationship is ending for
whatever reason, what do you do after you've been through an intense period of
time with this person whom you both like and love (on whatever level), with
whom you've shared deep intimacies, and without whom you feel a little lost?
While I still occasionally have very
platonic contact with Absolem, he was always
an exception to the rule—though that was no real surprise given the nature of
our relationship. I know damn well that
I will always have that tie to him, that weird connection that brought him in
and out of my life as a catalyst to upend me and bring about my own
transformation. I owe him so much, and I
owe him nothing. But I know that even if
I weren't to hear from him for twenty years, he would know within moments of
making contact exactly how and where I was in my head and my heart and my
soul. We are, in so many ways, two sides
of the same coin.
I made the break, privately and
publicly, from Bounder, but he didn't disappear. It was confusing. It started with the careful arguing and the
constant discussing of what this relationship had meant and was supposed to
mean and how impactful it was for each of us and why, along with where and when
what went wrong—like an emotional debriefing with the only other person who
could truly understand it because
they'd lived it with me. The inner
circle was great about listening and advising and letting me cry when I needed
to do so, but ultimately the answers and solutions would only come from me and
from Bounder.
Our relationship could stop or move
forward in myriad ways. We could take
the leap of faith and delve into this and see what happened. We could agree to part ways for some period
of time and plan to meet back up, if the time was right. We could date slowly for a while and move
along at a more reasonable pace, ignoring everything that had pushed us
together in the first place. Or we could
just say our goodbyes and be done.
Eventually it was plain that we were
tired, dancing wide, serpentining lines around this place and time that wasn't
yet right for us. No matter how drawn we
were and are to each other, here and now
wasn't going be ours. Not like
this. And the seeming pressure of divine
intervention felt yet again like Fate had played a cruel trick, taunting me
with, "Oh? You want this? Too
damn bad! You can't have it!"
So, again, I told him no, that I can't do this, that I can't watch him
from some nebulous place of distant care and be flirty witness to his
life. I am worth more than that; at
least on this we agree. I told him to
find me if and when he was ready to accept the whole of my affections and to
reciprocate healthily in kind. I wished
him well.
"You haven't given me a chance
to tell you what I want out of this
right now," he patiently stated when he called.
Well,
I've given you plenty of opportunity.
It's not my fault you've refused to take it when it was offered.
"So what is that you
want?" I asked, feeling a little defiant underneath it all.
"I want you to be you, and I want to be your friend. I want to still see you and talk to you and blahblahblah."
"So you still want me in your
life and want to maintain that connection with me? But you can't commit emotionally, no matter
how badly you say you want to be able to?
And maybe you want to have sex with me, if it feels like the right thing
to do?"
"Yes."
What
the fuck?
The truth is I don't want him gone from my life. He is sweet and funny and smart. He knows me incredibly well and has seen
through my facade of bravado from the moment we met. Even though he is often willing to grant me
the freedom to maintain that glittery face, he also doesn't hesitate to call bullshit on it and on me. He's one of very few people (especially men)
who call tell me no. I want a healthy
relationship with him. I care deeply for
him, and he has impacted me in ways very few men, or people in general, have
been able to do. But I also don't want
to spiral back into the dark place of striving for attention, of flustering for
a fleeting moment of care and affection.
I don't want to be told no just
because he has the power to do so; sometimes I get to be right.
And as
Tierney sums up later:
Alex had kept me in a box, but within those
confines I could expose myself totally, free to explore the ever-expanding
boundaries of my soul without fear of judgment.
If he couldn't handle what he saw, all he had to do was close the
box. It was how he handled his own
soul.
To ask this of me, to negotiate
platonic friendship with the possibility of an eventual more, is unquestionably
an effort to compartmentalize me and our relationship. I
understand that the fragility of this cat is undercut by recent and deep
trauma, that he could very well crack at any time. It's a defense mechanism, undoubtedly, and he
has every right and reason to seek that comfort in his world in the hopes that
he can heal from what came before me.
I have every right and reason to say
no.
I'm
not going back in the box.
Having lived the life that brought
me to this version of Stephanie, I am very wary and sensitive to that kind of
one-sided consideration. I was left on
my own for years, emotionally, and
tend to gravitate toward people (again, especially men) who are selective in
their attentions. Whether their reasons
are emotional or logistical in nature serves only to explain the behavior; there
are reasons but no excuses.
Because of my sensitivity to feeling
dismissed or ignored, I will never not
respond to the boxers. I cannot ignore
their calls to attention. I know
precisely how that hurts and loathe the feeling so much that I would never wish
it on anyone I care about.
I will always be his friend, but
right now I don't know that I can be just
his friend. I want and am ready to be
special to someone else (though I am not actively seeking anyone to fill that
role), and we both thought at first that he was ready for that, as well—that we
were both ready to be special to each other.
But intention and fruition don't always fall in line with each other; no
matter how much it looked like this was supposed to be here and now, that's simply not how it's working, even though I
question his direct role in that creating and maintaining that obstacle.
The thought that I could go through
this with him, that yet again I could meet someone who could alter my own path
so dramatically, and that he won't be at the end of this leg of the journey
with me is simply terrifying. Right now, while I care about him so deeply
and want him to be healthy and content in himself, the risk of seeing him fall
for someone else when he's finally ready to crack his own facade for another
person... it's just too much. Maybe it's
not me, and it is him, as he's said so roundabout, but it's still me that faces the greatest possibility
of being hurt again. To keep me in his
web of care means that I will feel the vibrations of secondary movement. It could be him shifting slowly toward me, or
it could be him scurrying in another direction.
Either way, it leaves me stuck and slowed by his gossamer threads,
grappling at my feet.
But to turn away from him leaves my
friend in need.
I don't know where this is going any
more now than I did when it started. The
good part is that it has given me an opportunity to understand and accept that,
no matter how much influence I may or may not be able to exert on a force,
sometimes the situation simply isn't mine
to control.
So for a little while longer, he and
I are in this weird, nebulous state of... what?Friends? Not friends?
Not lovers? I don't know, and
I'm honestly tired of not thinking and thinking and overthinking. I will do what I do, be who I am, and
whatever comes from that is what will be.
While I won't attempt to unduly influence the outcome of this situation,
I'm also not sitting passively by, waiting for Bounder to take me out of the
shiny box and play with me.
Every so often, when you need it
most but expect it least, the universe gives you a gift.
Mine came three weeks ago, though it
began with the unleashing of a torrent of anger and resentment directed at me
that sent me curled into my bed for most of a day. I seriously debated just staying between my
cozy, flannel sheets for the weekend but decided at the last minute to go out,
to get out of my battered head for a while.
I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend.
That fell through at the last
minute. Instead what I got was a
lightning strike, straight to the ass at 1:34 in the morning.
Yes, it came in the form of a boy—no,
a man—who could see me for who I
really am. And I could see him. All within ten minutes.
Once again, Fate intervened and
turned my head to make me look at what it wanted me to see.
"What
the fuck?" I asked myself.
"Did that just happen?"
Why,
yes. Yes, it did.
It's like the universe looked at all
of the work I've done over the past three years, the lessons I fought so hard
to learn through my crazy time of transformation, and said, "Okay. Let's see what you do with this."
It's so plainly, painfully obvious
that I have to practice what I preach with this. I have to walk the talk. So which lessons are most important now?
Don't
hide yourself away. I am a force of
nature. Hot Pocket said recently that
even she has a hard time keeping up with me.
"It's like chasing a preschooler in the sunshine," she
said. "It's beautiful but
exhausting sometimes." I'm not
offended by that, especially coming from a sister from another mister. I know how I am. But I hid much of that from myself and others
for so long, and it almost destroyed me.
I have to be truthful to myself and let my inner disco ball shine
brilliantly. I seriously debated reining
that in, to keep some of the glittery, blinding brilliance from him at least
initially, afraid that I would overwhelm yet another man. To be less than I am would be detrimental to
me and wholly dishonest to him. And any
man who wouldn't want me to be completely Stephanie is exactly the kind of man
I don't want in my life. Turns out, he's
not intimidated and barely even fazed by my muchness.
Open
your mouth and say what you want.
I'm not a little girl; I'm a grown-ass woman. I have the right and responsibility to
express my thoughts and desires to a potential partner. No matter how in sync we may feel, he can't
read my damn mind. If I want him to know
something, it's on me to make that clear.
Again, it seems less threatening to dance around an issue or to
insinuate or imply. That's a sure-fire
way to foster the miscommunication that will eventually lead to distance and
anger. It's hard sometimes to let
someone else into the cacophonous din of my head and my heart, and I have to at
least offer to be their tour guide. He
not only understands why I am so open and forward—he appreciates it.
Stay
in the moment. Oh, being still is
the hardest for me. I like a plan; I
like to have expectations for the future.
Even if the best-laid plans go awry, I am flexible and resourceful
enough to shift quickly to a new, diverging path. But to be here,
peacefully, is very difficult for me. I
don't know where this will be in six weeks or six months or six years, and
every time my head tries to go to that place, I clamp down on those thoughts
and tell myself to shut the fuck up. He is here and now; that is where I will get
to know him and where he will really get to know me. And I find that,
historically, when I've had a serious expectation of long-term, that's exactly
the moment I begin to take my partner and that relationship for granted. Anticipation of a lifetime or longer has
often given me an excuse not to care for now,
because my missteps can always be forgiven when there's an indefinite amount of
time before me. Now, with this man, I
have to work to be present rather than projecting for a future. My frenzied head has to give up control to my
patient heart and let it lead me slowly toward whatever adventure awaits.
I realized this week that I spend so
much time reacting to emotion—mine or someone else's—that I often forget to
simply let myself feel what's
happening, good or bad. And what's
happening, right now, feels spectacular. He's amazing for reasons that would take me
days to express, not the least of which is that he is totally accepting of my
relationship with my girls. Growler both
unexpectedly met him ("That boy is dazzled, Stephanie.") and gave him
his nickname (Bounder, which I will not explain in this forum). Hot Pocket got the Tingle of Truthiness when
I told her lightning had struck again.
Even Queen Frostine has given him her stamp of approval from a
distance.
In the way he always does, Hammer
nailed me with the most honest appraisal of this point in my life: "You'll
never feel normal again because your normal has changed. This is great progress and I'm happy for
you."
Me, I'm afraid of the feeling of falling to my death in an
elevator, the dark, and strangers taking and harming my children. These are the exact reasons I can't watch Towering Inferno, Hellraiser, or The Minority Report. (Okay, so there are a multitude of reasons
for that last one, but stay with me.)
But what other fears plague you? And I don't mean phobias. And I don't mean the irrational bullshit
apprehensions—like not holding your breath when you cross a bridge, or frogs. (That last one's all me, I know.)
Fear can be healthy, certainly. Fear is at the heart of fight-or-flight: is
this situation dangerous enough that it needs to be confronted or avoided? Should I eat this morsel of unknown origin
that might or might not kill me? Should
I cross this busy street, filled with fast-moving, honking cars? Should I trust this stranger with candy?
There is a comfort in knowing what to expect, in being
fairly certain of the outcome of your actions.
The world makes sense when you can kind of guess how it's going to
go. If I do this, then that is likely
to happen, or not to happen.
More often than not, I think it's the fear of the unknown
that's really at the heart of our undoing.
It's the unidentified result and the anxiety of consequence that fill us
with the most foreboding.
Irrationally, anything and everything is possible—the consequences of acting or
not acting are almost infinite in their possibilities. It is the plausibility
of the outcome that is most likely to determine if we do or don't... and
whether or not we're willing to live with the potential consequences.
For years, I lived in fear of what my life might or might
not bring. It was easy to stay in the
comfort zone—of food or television or being fat. Even if I didn't necessarily like how that felt, I was so accustomed
to it that I could be okay in it. The numbness
of it all wasn't nearly as uncomfortable
as the thought of actually changing
it.
But where was that getting me? Where could I see my life going? What were my plausibilities, if I continued on the same path I'd been on
for-seeming-ever?
Disabling myself from moving forward felt horrible. Being staid
was wretched. But I was safely tucked away in my fright
until I ripped away a little part of the cocoon, just to see what I could
see. There was a life out there, outside
of my apprehensions and my four suburban walls.
In the end, the fear of not
seeing what might happen, of not
experiencing some unknown thing that may or may not even come to pass, was
more powerful to me than the fear of being stuck in who and where I was. I ran from plausibility toward possibility. I stumbled and I tripped and I busted my ass,
time and again, but then I picked the gravel from my bloody knees and got up
and kept going. I winced around the pain
and reminded myself that I was more afraid of what would happen if I didn't keep moving than of what would
happen if I stopped.
And where I am a year and two years later is extraordinarily
far from where I started. I can barely
even remember what the starting point looked like, let alone see it. But what I can never, ever forget is the fear I felt in that place, the fear that
kept me motionless and holding my breath, somehow waiting for my life to
start.
In Greek mythology, there were three Fates—Clotho, who spins
the thread of life and the things that
are upon her spindle; Lacheis, who measures the string of things that once were on her rod; and
Atropos, who cuts the string of things
that are yet to be with her shears.
It was said that Atropos, who was the shortest and the oldest of the
three sisters, was the one who could strike the most fear in the hearts of
men. Her abhorred shears chose the
mechanism of death and the end of the life cycle for each mortal, and even the
gods themselves were bound by the decisions of the Fates.
As much as I believe in Fate (and fate), it is the fear of
not living every moment as fully as possible, as fully as plausible, that keeps
me from stopping again and from settling back into the comfort of
self-constraint. I don't want to face
Atropos, even in the mirror as myself, and stammer how I could have done it so
much better if only....
For ease of understanding (both yours and mine), I'll go with the idea that fate is the inevitable and unavoidable ordered events of an individual's destiny. Destiny refers to the finality of events as they've worked themselves out.
Some things are fated in the sense that there's only viable choice, based on all of the previous choices you've made. This doesn't mean that destiny is predetermined from the get-go; it's not independent of free will. They can, and should, co-exist. There's a concept of Micaic Destiny, in which those seemingly-dichotomous notions are harmonious. The idea is that we make only one unchangeable choice each moment and that inevitable outcomes are possibly foreseeable, though never entirely predictable, because of those choices. There's nowhere else to go—no other destination—but here because you've come from there. There's a feeling of significance to these outcomes, though maybe that's trumped by destinies that seem to have nothing to do with your own previous choices at all.
I 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.
One of my favorite books is Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff. It's this genre of fantasy in modern times, which I totally love. There's something endearing and relatable about magic in the world I know, rather than some distant, mildly-recognizable land and time. One of the great characters of Fool on the Hill is Mr. Sunshine. He's this old dude, a Greek Original, with an infinite number of monkeys, typing away and crafting the story of what's happening to the protagonists. Sometimes what the monkeys write makes chronological sense, but sometimes, well, it's just Mr. Sunshine sticking his finger into the stillness and stirring, ever so slightly, to make the waters ripple in the way he knows is best for everyone's outcomes. Fate.
Certainly, especially if I'm bored or distractible, I've been the one to stir my own waters with my freshly-manicured finger. Every so often, though, these things happen—inevitable, unavoidable, and blinding—that completely alter my path and reroute my journey. I try not to see them as anything but good, Amor fati, and accept these events, to learn the monumental lessons they inexorably bring. They are, after all, edging me forward to my own destiny, to Destination Me.
But the Fates are vicious and they're cruel. (Monkeys can be a nasty bunch.) Sometimes it feels as though the thing they're forcing me to turn and see is nothing more than reflections in my own pools. And when the stirring brings the ripples, the reflection is imperfected, so I stay at the muddy bank, waiting for the stillness to bring its insights once again.
Maybe Narcissus was onto something. Maybe he was looking deeper than ancient storytellers and mythology writers gave him credit. Either way, I guess the cautionary tale of staying too long at the water's edge is still valid.
And what if we fight Fate? What if we choose not to look at what it's showing us? If it's strong enough, important enough, that it's supposed to alter our course, we will feel the slings and arrows of that battle until we concede and let the pain of it all wash over us and through us, surrendering to the inevitability of what we were always supposed to do. Or else we die. Unfulfilled, unhappy, uncontent.
Sometimes it's hard to accept what Fate has to offer; it's hard to be gracious in the face of incomprehensible upheaval. But I find, inevitably, that what it's offering me is profound and completely worth the initial confusion and discord. So I may spend a lot of time analyzing what I see, cautiously examining and re-examining—is it tangible or just a bunch of smoke in front of my mirrors? Even if it turns out to be a watery guise, the inescapable truths—often acute and exhaustive—learned through that time and effort are almost always the most sublime.
I received a phone call today, a little bit unexpectedly. I had been waiting (kind of) to hear from this person, but the actual mechanics of the phone call--when it happened, where I was, etc.--were totally out of the blue. In a good way mind you, just unanticipated.
He said to me that he hadn't called because it hadn't been the right time. The stars hadn't been aligned for it, he said somewhat jokingly. He also prefaced this by saying that he's not all about astrology or anything.
This phone call made me think that I should go and read my horoscope for today, which I did. (I'm a Virgo, by the way. Screw that nonsense about changing signs. Don't get me started. And as the Amazing Sloan said, "Once a Virgo, always a Virgo!")
From Horoscope.com:
Some problems might arise with equipment that you use at home or with the structure of the house, Virgo. Appliances might go on the blink or the plumbing or electricity could require repairs. This could be a drag. It might involve staying home to wait for help. Still it must be done. Find a good book and settle onto the couch. You won't have to worry about this tomorrow.
The day is almost over and <knock on wood> nothing has broken in the house. (It's really hard to type with crossed fingers, by the way.) I still haven't ruled out curling up with a good book, though.
From ProAstro.com:
A surge of independence, a need for freedom, and an interest in trying new and different things may take hold of you. Unusual or unconventional behavior, an interest in the exotic or in eccentric friends. During this time period your thinking is intense and penetrating. You tend to become impassioned about your ideas, and you are inclined to feel very strongly about your ideas.
Oh, yeah, I'm all about the new and different today. I did have lunch at a new Vietnamese place. Then I spent some time with my friend Christine, taking pictures of trees on the side of the road at a busy, major intersection. (The knotholes and scars on the trees gave them interesting faces.) I'm definitely wrapped up in my own, intense head tonight. I feel very strongly about this.
From Astrology.com:
You need to let the day take you wherever it wants today, even if you’ve got serious reservations. Sometimes struggling just makes things worse, and this is definitely one of those days!
The day took me to IKEA, though I'm happy to report that I didn't buy anything. It also took me to the gym. I definitely didn't struggle too much--when the 100's were too hard, I just refused to do them.
From DailyHoroscopes.com:
There will be beneficial opportunities at work and through co-workers to help you capitalize on some moneymaking matters. A combination of intuition, common sense and a couple of inspired ideas will bring you the answers for which you have been searching. Your thinking is clear for any project you may care to attempt. Give a stretch to reach for the stars through your thinking. Possibilities are open this year and this month of January is a time of planning toward the direction in which you want to take your dreams. You will have the universe and its energies on your side. If you are ready for romance, it may be a scintillating stranger has turned your head! If you are free to involve yourself in a new relationship, now is the best time!
Lots of projects have been in process today, in lots of good ways. Including the original, blog-provoking phone call. Hopefully some of those will pan out in financially beneficial ways, for me and the others involved. This blog post has me stretching to the stars through my thinking, certainly. A scintillating stranger... hmmm.... (I need to talk to Absolem about this.)
From NYPost.com:
There is good and bad in everyone and if you keep that thought in mind today you should be able to stay on friendly terms with just about everyone. Try not to be judgmental -- it never leads to anything positive.
I've bitten my tongue a few times today. I've also reigned myself in and not sent some messages that I really wanted to send. I absolutely took a moment to imagine the recipient's reaction, how that could pan out, and thought better of it. I'm not in the mood to upend anyone else's psyche today, and I really don't want or need the bad karma. Sometimes I think I get too concerned with the good in people, though. I would also argue that remembering people aren't perfect has its own benefits.
But is there something to this idea of star alignment, or kismet or fate, or seemingly random events that have meaning?
I like to think so. I fully believe that we have lessons we're supposed to learn while we're here on Earth. I don't think it matters if we're learning them for use in another life, in the afterlife, or in this life--those uses can be equally significant. But I definitely believe things happen and people come into our lives for a reason, whether or not we ever fully understand what that reason is.
The problem for me, I guess, is that I tend to see the import of events and people where it may not actually exist. I will sometimes assign significance to things that may not necessarily warrant it. I'm sure some will argue that everything has importance. I don't know that I believe this human condition deserves a value of that magnitude, given the expanse of the Universe, both literally and figuratively. To believe that I will ever know the truth of that struggle seems the height of hubris. I find it best, for me, to acknowledge that there are huge questions that I will never be able to answer, or even to fully comprehend.
That doesn't mean I don't try every day, to strive a little bit to understand something outside myself and my own nature. I get off on seeing what makes people tick, on figuring out what drives them to do the things they do and to think the things they think. I love to see connections between external things and events, but I especially love to see connections within the people I know.
There are a couple of people in particular who are über-fascinating to me, and I love to spend time talking with them, just to be able to touch the beauty of them, even for a fleeting moment. What I find, though, is that sometimes it's incredibly difficult for me to pull back from that. I'm so mesmerized and enthralled that I want to stay in constant contact with them, but also with the fascination of them. The allure is, in and of itself, engrossing and sometimes rapturous.
These are the people whose horoscopes I will also read from time to time. Sometimes I think that maybe I will see something special that's happening in their inner lives. And sometimes I will see correlation between their horoscope and my own and hope that I'm not imagining the connection between them and me.
I like to imagine that my stars are aligned with those of certain others in my life, at least for a while. I know that such connections are often fleeting. But if it means I get to gaze upon the beauty of the synergy, to let the synchronicity of us pass through my fingertips even for a moment, I will revel in the glory of such ephemera.
And I absolutely bet I can find a horoscope that says it's supposed to be that way.
