Muchness and Light

Just close your eyes until you can imagine this place, yeah, our secret place at will.

On the first Friday in January, after my New Year’s Eve had gone awry, I was driving home from work, anticipating a long, lonely weekend. I was a little agitated, my anxiety still unreasonably high, worried about how another weekend alone would go. But Bumblebee called, as he often does in the early evening, asking how I was.

“I’m tired,” I lamented. I hadn’t slept well for several days, and it was starting to take a serious toll on my overall health.

“What will help?” he asked.

“Sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.”

“What if I’m there to sleep with you?” He paused. “I’m giving you three hours’ notice, as you’ve asked. I’m on my way.”

And just like that, he drove on a Friday afternoon from Birmingham to Atlanta to see me. We still missed a midnight countdown and champagne, but we did manage to see Bumblebee in the theater (as we’d planned for months) and to get pho (as we’d planned for two weeks). We managed to escape into our beloved bubble, tucked away from the world and focusing on us (We. Oui.) and recharging our shared battery.

All of my disappointment from the screwed up New Year’s Eve, which had ballooned a growing anxiety into an almost-panic, was assuaged by his showing up. As I’ve discussed so many times before, much of my anxiety both comes from and drives my fear of emotional abandonment. Often in my life, love meant leaving, it meant disappointment, it meant hurt—all of which my internal system interpreted as Stephanie simply wasn’t worth loving.

In October, the logistics of the long-distance relationship had started to take their toll. What I need from a partner is hard to maintain across such distance, especially my need for physical touch and consistent, reliable interaction. Hell, I’ve broken up with more than one local man for not being able to make time to see me, because “to date someone requires actual interpersonal engagement within a certain physical proximity.” I swore off the possibility of long-term relationships—until this started with him.

But looking back to the series I did last year on what I value in myself, in a partner, and in a relationship, there was no question that Bumblebee more than meets those criteria. He is brilliant and kind, humble and funny. He is extraordinarily patient, especially with me, and he is deeply and readily passionate. Even with the distance and the circumstances of our lives, the apprehension of love again after divorce, he acknowledges his fear and chooses to be open and available to me anyway. We maintain regular contact and conversation, although sometimes our schedules make it hard to have more than a few minutes of talk on a given day. He is physically and emotionally the safest partner I’ve ever known. The girls have welcomed him as a part of our family, and vice versa. We are slowly moving forward, together, even if we aren’t sure what exactly that will look like.

The difficulties of the distance were outweighed by the reciprocity and depth of emotion and care that we share, and we decided we could not let this relationship go.

But… long distance relationships are hard. We don’t get impromptu lunches or random Tuesday nights together. When I wake from a difficult dream, or just rouse to the Litany of Bullshit that Might Go Wrong, I don’t get to reach for him in the middle of the night. I don’t get to comfort him with a hug after a long day at work, or to care for him when he’s sick. Even if the physical distance of 180 miles isn’t that difficult to overcome, visitation schedules and divorce logistics and family commitments often interfere. Given the still-budding nature of our relationship, almost none of our mutual friends know we are dating, and our time together rarely includes anyone but us.

The inconsistency is both cause and effect of our current posture, and it can be frustrating. For me, it can drive my anxiety to ridiculous levels. For a girl who hates to feel like she’s trapped in a box, the necessary compartmentalization that comes from a long-distance relationship can be terrifying. Not being an active, open part of his day-to-day life can sometimes leave me feeling like an option. On the worst days, I feel like a dirty little secret, which can trigger years’ worth of trauma around shame. The parts of my internal system get conflicted, imagining different outcomes that almost always end in despair. Some days, I break up with him in my head a dozen times or more, simply out of fear that he might one day leave me.

But… the distance does give us opportunity to practice communication. Unless we can manage a FaceTime call, we are limited to text and voice chat. Without the benefit of non-verbal cues, we have to make a very concerted effort to listen to the other. Misunderstandings do happen, but we tend to address them very quickly. Having lived the damage caused by unspoken resentment in relationships, we are usually quick to politely air our grievances and move on, not allowing small scrapes and bruises to fester.

It’s impossible to foresee every twist and turn our relationship may take—and we have been sideswiped more than once by some pretty ugly unexpectedness. But we are both sensitive to not repeating the same patterns and mistakes that caused other relationships to fail.

“You know,” I said to him over breakfast on Sunday, at the end of a 15-hour visit, “maybe it’s good that we’re not in the same city. If we were, we’d be seeing each other every day and just doing what we do--”

“—settling into a groove.”

I shook my head disdainfully. “You know I’m never going to let that happen, right?”

“Baby,” he replied evenly, holding my gaze, “I’m counting on it.”

 

 

I wish you a happy New Year, darling. May your new love be bright and fair.

It’s not news to anyone that I am superstitious af about New Year’s Eve:

From December 31, 2017:

I am superstitious about a few things, and New Year’s Eve is at the top of that list. How I spend that night is often indicative of the entirety of the following year. I can regale with tales of New Year’s Eve Omens for almost as many years as the Valentine’s Curse.

From January 10, 2014:

But New Year's Eve, in particular, freaks me the hell out.  There's something about the day or so surrounding the marking of the new year that seems to set the tone for the 364 days that follow.  If it's a good night and following day, the year generally goes well.  If it's harrowing—a car wreck with friends or a two-hundred-mile distance in the middle of a strained marriage—the rest of the year always seems to follow suit. 

For a multitude of reasons, 2018 seemed to be an especially trying year for me and mine. It was a year of upheaval for so many. Pandy lost her grandmother and her father. Cookie got divorced. Queen Frostine survived a Mob hit while we were on vacation in NYC. Max graduated high school, cycled through a few fleeting relationships, spent a month in Germany, and we all survived his first semester in college. Another surgery and back problems for me.

And in the middle of the most difficult year of therapy to date, I stumbled into a long-distance relationship that has presented both unimagined challenges and unexpected joy.

I spent last weekend with him, Bumblebee, and with my girls. We all sat at a restaurant together, laughing uproariously in a back room where we hoped we wouldn’t disturb other patrons (and their children) with our loud, foul mouths. All of us seem to recharge a bit when we are together, whether one-on-one or in little groups of twos and threes. This was actually the first time the Castration Committee had been together in its six-part entirety in the same room.

In fact, Queen Frostine suggested a change in moniker, because “Castration Committee” has, taken on an unacceptable tone of man-hating. One or two of us have managed relationships with good men, and four of us are raising sons to be good men. Ideas were tossed around—from Jugaloons to Side Show by the Sea—and all I can remember for sure from the uproarious discussion is the word Psyrens. So there we are, a group of smart, loud, singing women who just know the others, no matter the distance.

And I needed the time with my girls. I’d just survived my first Christmas on my own, ever. The boys were gone. Bumblebee and my girls were all hundreds of miles away. I’d gone into it with the intention of being brave and calm, my Self leading all of my internal parts calmly and safely through an emotionally-charged 36 hours with mulled wine and good food and the cats.

It ended up being far sadder and more miserable than even I could have predicted, and I am not allowed to be alone like that again.

But New Year’s Eve was looming, no matter what. I’d been worried about it for weeks.

“If something happens,” I told Queen Frostine, “and we aren’t together for New Year’s—”

“Then you aren’t together,” she finished.

It’s not an ultimatum, of You-be-here-or-I-won’t-see-you. It is my perception of an emotionally traumatic history that happens to be cataloged by decades of bad New Year’s Eves (and worse Valentine’s Days).

And I’d been clear, that my coming to visit him for the weekend prior did not absolve him of being with me on New Year’s Eve. I love time with him whenever I can get it, but New Year’s Eve is its own category of agitating for me. We planned a low-key evening—early movie and dinner at the same restaurant we’d frequented since our first weekend together—to just be together. But I could not let go of the possibility (probability) that it would not go well.

“Try to let the fear go,” Pandy said on January 30th. “What if we expect the best?? Do we then invite the best into our home/heart?”

Shaking my head violently, I responded, “I can’t expect that best. I can’t. There’s waaaaaaayyyyyy too much history for that. That’s asking to get shattered.”

But I spent that evening readying the house. I made the grocery list and checked the showtimes for the movie. Bumblebee, of course. I laid out the Princess Bride Blu-ray for our breakfast viewing pleasure. I washed the special glasses I’d bought just for toasting with mimosas.

“I’m afraid I jinxed it,” I told Frostine mid-morning, New Year’s Eve.

“You didn’t jinx anything,” she chided. I could practically hear her blue eyes rolling in her curly head.

And then he texted midday, while I was getting ready to leave work early, that he was sick. He was violently ill, unable to travel down the street, let alone the 200 miles to my house. On top of it, he was upset about how this would upset me.

I understood. I know the illness that was plaguing him. Hell, our Thanksgiving got cut short by my being sideswiped by the flu. Of course it wasn’t what I wanted, but I knew this wasn’t intentional, not malicious or even negligent. Wholly unexpected and unwelcomed by both of us.

If he’d just not shown up, no explanation, or if he’d shown up late, no explanation, or if he’d shown up rude and mean, no explanation, and then expected me to accept it and understand it and not express any confusion or hurt or displeasure, or blamed me outright for it, then I would’ve been let down.

I know, because I have been let down in those ways by men who professed to love me. Over and over and over.

But he got sick, and he told me. We came up with an alternative plan to wear each other’s t-shirts and snuggle under blankets and talk and FaceTime kiss at midnight, to save the champagne until we are together and can get a do-over.

And I was completely cool with that. I was centered and calm, accepting and still felt both loved and loving.

And then the anxiety struck.

Fighting off a nasty cold, I didn’t feel well. A short nap on the couch was discombobulating. Given what had happened just a week before, I steered clear of the wine and sad movies. But by 9:45, I was well-ensconced in my reluctant acceptance that 2019 will be a year of sickness and distance and thwart and tears and anxiety, that we will likely find ourselves frustratingly separated by illness and trying to make up for it when our already-difficult schedules allow.

“Baby, do not do this,” he admonished over FaceTime, his brow furrowed. “This is self-fulfilling prophecy. We are not subject to the whims of a capricious non-entity.”

Of course I know that. I am too smart and too well-educated not to understand the logical fallacy of my fear of being thwarted by fate or Fate or the Ghosts of Relationships Past. But the reality is that I have been conditioned over four decades to expect disappointment. I have learned to set the bar for other people so low that I just need them to show up. I don’t need them to do anything or say anything or bring anything. I just need them to be there, to be present with me.

My entire system is on such high alert, constantly scanning the horizon for potential disappointment:

• Is this something that might hurt me?
• Is this something that is likely to hurt me?
• How much hurt could I feel?
• Does that possible hurt stem from a previous trauma?
• How do I feel about that trauma now?
• How have I successfully dealt with this before?
• Can I avoid the hurt altogether?
• Is there benefit in feeling the hurt?
• Is there possible reward that’s not hurt?

This is how anxiety works. It is a constant cost/benefit analysis of people and experiences and moments, examining how they may impact my emotions and what future influence they may impart. It is eviscerating discernment, and it is neverending judgment of others and of myself, in desperate attempts to stave off hurt.

“Eventually, I have to stop,” I told him.

“Stop what?”

Stop hoping. Hope means the possibility of disappointment, of more hurt, of more agitation, of more anger, of more self-recrimination, of more tears and heart palpitations. Hope is an inherent expectation of good, of not-hurt.

If I have no expectation, then the good that comes can be met with exuberant joy and delight. And I do feel those things, regularly. I love deeply, and I am deeply loved, by my sons and my friends and my boyfriend and my family.

But that is not enough, and may never be enough, to assuage the perpetual angst that all comes down to basic value judgments made about me by other people, before I had clear, conscious memory. I cannot undo those choices others made, and I struggle to rectify my learned responses. At times, it is a gaping psychic wound that may never fully heal, only close over for some indeterminate length of time. I am always on edge, waiting for the next slice into an ever-refreshening scar.

I know: only my reactions matter now. How I choose to treat myself and others in light of my emotional makeup is what matters. And I try, so hard, to be present, to be mindful, to be kind to myself and to others, to carefully bring my concerns into balance before I act on them.

But when you feel like you’re drowning, it’s impossible not to thrash toward the surface with a desperate breath. When the anxiety hits, it is like waterboarding myself over and over with my own tears.

I am not, generally, unhappy. I am not so afraid that I have trouble experiencing the world, as I was when Max was a baby. I do have occasional days, when the benefit of staying in to read and binge watch whatever is greater than the potential cost of detached interaction with suburbia. I am far more than merely functional in my life. I am engaged with my wonderful, active sons, my dear friends, a man I love deeply who loves me just as much, a job at which I am very good, and I just applied to grad school.

Sometimes, though, I trip over a deeply existential crack. Usually, I can right myself and carry on, maybe with a momentary limp or scrape. Every so often, I fall into the chasm. Mostly I’ve learned to hold onto the edge and pull myself back up. I have no interest in traversing those depths ever again.

We missed the midnight countdown. There was a brief FaceTime at 12:02. I fell into a cold-medicine-induced, tear-stained sleep a few minutes later, the sound of raindrops and neighborhood fireworks outside, wrapped in his t-shirt. I woke this morning, fed and pet the cats, started a new book, watched the last bit of Leap Year while I prepped a Gouda-and-bacon frittata, started chicken stock and chicken salad for later in the week, prepped vegetables for roasting this evening, and did the dishes.

I often do more by noon than a lot of people do in a day.

I don’t write about these things to shame anyone else or myself. I don’t write to find sympathy from anyone else. I write, because there is someone else out there who needs to know they’re not alone in feeling overwhelmed, especially at times when we are expected to be happy and joyful and hopeful. I write because it’s cathartic for me, to help me cull so many simultaneous thoughts and emotions into better focus.

And maybe, just maybe, there comes the day when it all makes sense, my Epiphany, when I can close those old wounds for good.

 

 

Please learn to rule with your head, not your fist, and those lessons that you learn will carry on.

After Max was born, I remember reading some parenting book (though I can’t remember which) that said not only does your newborn not know that it’s not an extension of you, it doesn’t know that it’s not you.

It makes sense. The baby’s entire existence has been literally attached to you, dependent on you for everything. This doesn’t really change for months, especially during those first vital weeks, when your entire life feels like a never-ending game of Keep the Freakin’ Baby Alive!

But there does come a time when your child starts to articulate its own personality. It was fascinating to me (still is!) to see the ways Max and Tricky both looked and acted like me or DH—and the ways in which they didn’t. No matter if your child has your dimples and the other parent’s cheekbones, they will eventually exhibit certain characteristics that are totally uncharacteristic of either parent. It was always fascinating to me to discover my children.

While mine are both biologically mine, I suppose parents of children who aren’t born of the parents’ biology have their won type of discovery. The determination of Nature versus Nurture would be necessarily different, though just as fascinating. In no way do I mean to denigrate that experience; it is simply one I have never had.

Regardless of how your child comes into your world, you have dreams and hopes and expectations for it. Of course, this is at the heart of construct of gender and social stereotypes, and the later pressures that can come from such constructs, but it also inevitably shapes the ways in which you parent your child.

I try not to judge other parents. There are, of course, parenting choices that I wouldn’t and didn’t choose, and there are choices other parents make that I would never make for Max and Tricky. Sometimes I do find myself privately harsh when speaking of those choices. But, generally, I believe each parent must make those decisions for their own child, knowing them and loving them in ways only a parent can.

One of the things I was adamant about when the boys were young—and got great support from DH on this—was not forcing them to be any certain way or to have certain thoughts. I always tried to give them information and to help guide them toward the decisions that were best for them, even if those decisions were counter to the ones that I would make for them or for myself. Of course, sometimes I had to use a parental veto, and that could be met with disdain or anger or outright indignation.

When Rango and I were together, we argued regularly about how his approach to the boys was counter to everything they’d come to expect. He expected them to fall in line with whatever he said, and respect was code for obedience. I have encouraged them to express their emotions, even in an impassioned way, as long as that expression was respectful. I do not tolerate name-calling and insults, though they have certainly slipped into heated conversations at times, whether toward each other or toward me. I am just as adamant that they make the repair after they inflict damage.

As I have said for years, I am not raising children; I am raising young men. I expect Max and Tricky to be self-actualized adults, who are capable of self-sustenance and educated decisions about their own paths. I hope that they are happy, healthy men, who successfully navigate whatever path they choose, but also who can admit to their mistakes and apologize for their transgressions, whether toward someone else or toward themselves.

All I have ever been able to do is to try to give them the knowledge they need to make the right decision for themselves, in line with their own moral compass.

Max graduated high school this year, spent a month abroad as part of a cultural exchange, and started college as a sophomore. Together, we made the decision that he would live at home this year. In many ways, it has given us both time to adjust to his burgeoning adulthood.

If he were living in the dorms, I wouldn’t have any clue what he’s doing in his spare time. I wouldn’t know if he’s eating healthy or getting a reasonable amount of sleep. I wouldn’t know about his extra-curricular activities. And so, I’m trying to give him the freedom to explore his new world, with the encouragement and support to do so safely.

In so many ways, it’s like when he became a toddler, demanding to explore the world on his terms but running back to me for a hug and a soothing kiss when he got scared or hurt. Sometimes I have to let him fall and then offer him a hand to get back up. I cannot take the hits for him.

Mostly I hope that I have given him the tools to make smart choices about which hits to take.

No matter what, Max and Tricky aren’t me. No matter how much they can remind me of teenage DH at times, they aren’t their father. They are wonderfully intricate, self-contained psyches made up of the best and the worst of everything they’ve experienced, including their parents.

This is at the heart of the teenage rebellion—a rejection of what you have mastered in order to establish your own identity. It is painful for both teen and parent, and adolescents can be complete assholes, but they’re essentially overgrown toddlers playing dress-up with incredibly high stakes.

I have no doubt that I defied my parents’ expectations. I am positive I was, at times, a complete disappointment. I have no doubt that they would have chosen differently for me, if they’d had a say in it at all.

And, the fact is, many of my choices were (and continue to be) in conscious, direct rebellion to their wishes. I am independent and stubborn, often flouting their notions of an ideal child. But I was left to take care of myself from a young age, and I bypassed normal childhood almost entirely. I stopped seeking their permission and their approval long ago, and I feel absolutely no obligation to meet their expectations of me—nor do I care to psychologize what those expectations are now.

In reality, I hope Max and Tricky will eventually do the same. I don’t want them to be grown men who need or strive for validation from their mother. (I’m sure I’ve done enough to screw them up that that doesn’t need to be another topic for their own therapist’s office.) They shouldn’t need my approval to make choices for themselves or their children, though I will always be happy to offer advice and support and encouragement. I may snark about their choices privately, but I will have done my job (and kept the freakin’ baby alive!) if they are in a position to even make those choices.

I will always be, as I have always been, present for my sons. I will always ask them about their day and listen carefully to their response (even when it’s just a grunt). I will always encourage them to make healthy choices and then take them to the doctor when they need it. I will always give them information and ask for their opinions regarding decisions about them. I will always try to give them what they need, not what I think they should need.

In the end, they are living their lives. It’s not me making those decisions or walking their paths, any more than they can walk mine.

But I will continue to offer them a hand and a hug and a safe, reliable place to return, because that is what good parents do.

 

 

I will wait for it. I'm not too late for it.

Absolem used to lament my penchant for hyperanalysis, especially coupled with my impulsivity.

“You don’t think, and then you think, and then you overthink!”

I mean, he’s not wrong. I can be suddenly and passionately reactionary, then take the time to process and ponder, then spend even more time breaking down every movement and choice of words and determining where I could have changed course.

What I’ve learned through a year of therapy using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model is that this is reflective of my parts—either “managers” or “firefighters” trying to protect some “exile” created from trauma—being blended with my Self. Some firefighter swoops in to act quickly, Self determines there likely could’ve been a better way, and some manager dwells on the minutiae for its own future reference.

In theory, it’s not necessarily a bad process to handle action and reflection. It gives those parts a chance to debrief and report back to Self. The problem comes when the parts effectively hijack Self, becoming blended, and the initial action is so reactionary as to be unhealthy.

And that hyperanalysis only ever stops if I am busy and distracted to the point of self-exhaustion.

Sometimes, though, it serves to let me evaluate a situation over time. In both my relationship with DH and later with Rango, our problems became so toxic to the relationship that things seemed insurmountable. But, in each case, I agreed to step back and take the time to move more slowly, to let us both reflect and reassess, to try to come toward the relationship and each other from a different perspective. In some ways, I should’ve broken up with Rango more than a year before I did. But giving us four months of separation, living apart, allowed for the time to try.

For me—hell, for anyone—ending a significant relationship is never easy. Once I’m attached to someone, it can take me a very long time to disentangle. This is part of having an anxious attachment style. So, when something happens that pushes me to feel vulnerable and emotionally injured (usually reminiscent of some past trauma), I can be quick to pull away, with every intention of ending the relationship. When I’ve had time to think about it, I’ll regret the suddenness of the separation, and then I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time in self-analysis, sometimes to the point of extreme self-recrimination.

I’ve spent the last year trying to learn to rewire my thinking, especially when it comes to how I react to emotionally-charged circumstances.

Taking the time to try to reconcile in those previous relationships made the eventual ending less painful. Choosing to end my 19-year marriage was hard as hell, make no mistake, but it was the right decision, in the end. While DH and I inflicted some serious damage on one another, I was eventually able to disengage. As painful as it was, I knew it was time and had no regrets about making the decision when I did. Similarly, taking the time to see if Rango and I could rebuild our relationship was absolutely the right choice, even if the result wasn’t what I’d hoped for. When that ended, I was sad for a time, but I also had zero question about whether it was really time to let go. Rango and Sass were dead, and I had no interest in holding onto that zombie.

Although my reasons for ending my relationship with Bumblebee were valid and healthy, I felt like the air had been sucked out of me. I have never missed someone as much as I missed him. While the reality of long-distance relationships is difficult to manage, there is no question that we love each other deeply. There’s no question that we have potential for a lasting, healthy, loving relationship like I’ve never experienced before. There’s also no question that the distance and the circumstance may be insurmountable.

But I have to try. I have to give this a chance to overcome the odds. Yes, it’s easier for me to move forward if I know there is absolutely no going back. But he also loves me in ways I have never before experienced.

So, the parts and I had a long talk. Could we walk away now, cleanly and comfortably, or did we want more time to see?

Above all else in my life, I do not want regrets. I would rather fail miserably at an opportunity I took than to let an opportunity slip away. And if I have reason to second-guess my decisions, I will.

So, Bumblebee and I have come to the decision to try. More specifically, to wait. He needs time to deal with logistics in his life. I need time to make sure I’m as healthy and well-equipped to handle a relationship as possible. We have agreed to wait for the other to be ready, to keep talking and maintaining connection, but also to remove other expectations and the pressures that come with them.

There is a love that we don’t want to lose. Maybe that still happens, no matter what we do. But there is also the possibility that we are able to weather this storm, together, and beat our own odds.

And I’ve never known anyone so worth the risk.

 

 

What if this storms ends? And I don't see you, as you are now, ever again?

Four-and-a-half months ago, I found myself in a confusing place. I’d just realized the new guy I was head over heels for was dating someone else. I realized the ways in which I used sex to intimate love and exactly what my role was in re-traumatizing myself, constantly exacerbating my fear of emotional abandonment.

I made the decision not to date. Period. Maybe ever. And it was a very difficult thing for a girl who believes so deeply in love to eliminate the possibility of it at all, and to come to some kind of internal detente with that decision.

But then, I met someone. He was someone I’d known tangentially for more than a decade, though we’d never met in person. An unexpected conversation turned into another, and there is a moment (the event horizon, he said) where each of us realized the situation had turned in another direction.

Unexpectedly, and utterly terrified, I fell in love.

I’d spent years, off and on, begging the universe for some relief from my loneliness. Even when I was in relationship, it was always with badly-damaged men who refused to try to be better. Either I’d tire of their inconsistency, or they’d tire of my trying to get them to see how much better their life (and my life with them) would be, if they would just show up. Show up physically sometimes, but mostly I needed them to show up emotionally. Consistently. Reliably.

There were many, many nights on my own, when I would be in tears, prostrate before a god I barely believe in, praying for peace. Yes, I would prefer to be with a partner, because I believe so completely in the beauty and truth of love. But I eventually resigned myself to wanting at least peace in my solo heart, to accept the rest of my life in singledom. I paraded every hurt, in lurid detail, through my mind and steeled myself to not being vulnerable to them again.

But then, he appeared. Bumblebee. Kind, generous, smart, funny. Damaged but speaking to me through song. We meshed so well. He knew all of my shit, all of my fears, understood my ongoing process of trying to rewire myself from the inside out. No one, with the exception of the girls, had every accepted me so fully and completely. So incredibly lovingly.

Of course there was a catch: he was 180 miles away.

I’d just sworn up and down two weeks prior that I could never do a long-distance relationship. My need for physical proximity and regular contact was too great. But he was worth the chance. Initially, we were making it work pretty well. We would visit each other in our respective cities, and we were happy just to be together.

Eventually the logistics—four kids, visitation schedules, family obligations—started to erode our time together. Unavoidable demands on him were preventing us from having consistent connection, and it seemed to only be worsening. I was more anxious about this relationship than I’d been in years. The anxiety could be abated by reliable contact, but his logistics wouldn’t allow for it.

Faced with living indefinitely in a perpetually-anxious state, knowing the damage my response to the insecurity and anxiety could cause, I made the decision to end the relationship.

Nothing about it feels good. Choosing the rock over the hard place simply gives me a perch from which to see a vast, lonely ocean, a place from which to sing my lamentations. It feels like yet another trick of Fate, dangling the gilded promise of happiness, only to snatch it away again, laughing in her delight.

I don’t expect to do this again. There is no more surface of me to scar or fracture without breaking me open irreparably. My fear of emotional abandonment is consistently reinforced, and I have a direct role in choosing the relationships that undergird my insecurities. I do not trust myself to choose wisely.

It was so nice to be loved for a while again. It was nice to be missed when we were apart. It was wonderful to see my worth reflected in someone else’s eyes, far beyond the value of sex. It was wonderful to able to love someone, actively and deliberately, and to have my efforts appreciated.

But I am back in the confusion. I no longer believe it was an inherent flaw in me that made me unworthy of loving care and attention. I do believe I was a young victim of other people’s failings, and that set the course for how I would see every relationship and exchange and emotion in the years to come. Other people’s actions set in motion consequences that played out in me. I, in turn, made my own decisions with their own consequences, and somehow I seem to be so bogged down that progress forward is tiring and difficult and sometimes illusory.

Today, I don’t believe that I will ever really find what I know exists. It is there to be found, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to touch what is perpetually under a veil of tears.

I will stop crying, eventually. I will move through my well-honed List of Shit to Do after a Breakup. I will eventually feel like I can breathe again, and I will be happy again, though I’m not sure that my definition of that will ever be what it once was.

But I hope Bumblebee is able to find the balance he needs. I hope he’s able to establish who he is, within and without other people’s constraints. He is a wonderful man, and I love him very much. I want good things for him.

And I want good things for me.

 

 

And I built a ship for two, it waits for me and you in the dew of the fields.

For me, love is the spark at the center of the universe, the absolute essence of truth and good. It’s the moment of origin at the Big Bang. It’s the snap of God’s fingers to create it all.

There is nothing more valuable to me, whether it’s romantic or platonic or familial. True love that cares and is concerned and active, not mimicry that makes someone seem a more palatable version of human.

Maybe it wouldn’t mean so much, and maybe I wouldn’t love so hard, had I not been hurt in the ways I was. For all of my exploration and self-evisceration, there is no way to know for sure. I don’t get a George Bailey Christmas, when I get to see how my life could have been different. I get the life I create from the rubble, sometimes balanced precariously across a glittery web of scars, littered with lost hopes and dreams.  

But through all of the discord, through all of the incessant buzzing inside me, there is a constant pulse, like a faint homing beacon at the center, echoing in my core, through the emptiest and most desolate parts of me. In me but outside me, like a marker for my path through and out to something bigger than me.

My path to God, to arcane truth and to wholeness.

Love.

If I’m quiet enough and still enough, I can find my way. There is a path. Maybe not for everyone, but it’s the only way I have left to go. Every other direction has been explored, defiantly and exhaustively.

My pasts are tangled like obstacles, certainly, and therapy has been vital in helping me to make sense of it all. To make sense of myself. And it is a process, occurring in the time in space in which I live. Even when I’m not in session, the work is still happening, consciously and un. A slice here and there of a valiant sword, and I can take another few steps. But sometimes it feels like those thorny vines close back up, fueled by their own blood and sometimes mine.

I’m fucking tired from the battle.

Sometimes I want to curl up and sleep, to let it all block out the sun. But every time I have relegated myself to dim solitude, I have been overcome with a greater fear of what hides in the dark, of the darkness itself. And I have taken one more swipe, in the desperate hope of finding someone, anyone, hidden in bramble, who will hold back the tangles for me to step ahead again. A simple man, tattered and bruised, but smiling and willing, offering me a hand to hold to steady me. His boots coated in stardust.

I don’t need him to slay my dragons. If there’s an evil enchantress in all of this, it’s me, desperately trying to protect my own heart.

But, God, that’s too much to ask of anyone. No mere mortal can be expected to love me like that.  And I don’t know that anyone could be ready or able, no matter how much he might want to be. I don’t know if I am ready to believe that someone else even could.

I am not selfish in my intent. I am willing to fight for him in the same ways, to cheer him on and to appreciate his efforts. He deserves someone who will wipe his brow and kiss his face gently and tell him that he’s on his own right path. He deserves someone who will protect him while he sleeps.

I want to be able to grasp his hand, to draw on his strength when I am lacking. I want to be able to call out in the dark and hear his voice as more than a distant echo that might just be my own.

I need the reassurance that comes from knowing someone who loves me is truly and completely there.

Consistency. Reliability.

I have stumbled upon men before, of course, as surprised to find them as they were to find me. But, in the end, they’ve all been nothing more than fever dreams, absurdities fleeting in the light and forgotten in detail if not in feeling. Distant echoes like a memory of thunder.

In my hurt, I have retreated, time and again, afraid of the fear that piles like more rubble, threatening to blot out the sun entirely in self-preservation.

Pandy says love isn’t worth having if we aren’t willing to risk self-annihilation. But I don’t think that destruction of myself is a measure of love. It’s a measure of fear, of protection from the pain of the burning sun on my skin after so many years of darkness. For me, it’s a way to maintain the darkness and comfort from the unknown. It is mimicry of martyrdom.

I want to live in the light. I want to be free of the tangles and the thorns. I want to let the sun burn them all away so that there is no more fight. To stop watering them with my own blood and tears.

I need open space and fresh air. I need the last battle through the brush to be freeing.

And I want to find the source of the pinging, in rhythm with my heart. I want to find the beacon that leads me home.

Because I believe that I will also find a simple man with dusty boots that shimmer. I believe that there will be an arcane, perfect smile and outstretched hands that glisten with dew.

And so I fight. Every day. Sometimes the battle is just to get out of bed and soothe my own fears. The hardest battles are fought in the middle of the night, awake and alone in the dark, knowing that what I want and need most is somewhere out there in a vast universe that is no larger than the breadth and depth of my heart.

The way out is through. I couldn’t go back, if I tried. So I keep moving forward, step after exhausted step, because I believe there is love to be found.

I believe there is love to be found for me.

 

 

And almost immediately I felt sorry, 'cause I didn't think this would happen again.

One of the things that inevitably comes up in dating is the topic of sex. Sometimes it comes quickly in the form of lewd flirting (sometimes leading to casual sexting). Sometimes it’s a more nuanced, philosophical discussion that may eventually lead to more intimate talk of pasts, of number of partners and STD testing. Maybe eventually to turn-ons and turn-offs.

But, inevitably, it comes.

There’s the unspoken rule of 3-5 dates. Depending on the attraction and the connection, that seems to be the idealized amount of time to wait before getting naked. Sometimes the first or second date seems right, if the conversation has been, as well. Every so often, it’s not about the talk at all—just the carnal need.

But sex is an accepted part of the equation. We are inherently physical, social beings. We need touch from others. We crave intimate connection—even for just a few moments, and not matter how emotionally avoidant we are.

“Why does everything have to be framed around sex?” a recent dating interest asked. “Why can’t people just be friends and then try to meet in those terms?”

He sounds wise, but he eventually asked me for a casual sexual relationship in lieu of emotional attachment. (I named him Ollivander, because he makes magic wands but turned out to be a douche.) His own fearful-avoidant tendencies keep him from maintaining emotional connection, and he has sublimated his desires into other work.

But that’s the thing about dating: we are all looking with the possibility of sex. Even those who wait for marriage have the hope that it comes eventually. That’s kind of the point.

For me, it’s so much more complicated. I have no conscious memory of not being sexualized. The molestation began at about the time long-term memories began to form. It is often tied up with what should be benign remembrances of lazy afternoons and family gatherings. But there are long stretches of years of average childhood that are permanently tainted by those events.

Just before I was ready to choose to be a sexually-active teen, I was raped by a date. I’ve discussed that aftermath at length, both here and privately. There’s no question that it altered my perceptions of myself and of sex in general. My next relationship was physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive. I stayed in it, because I didn’t know better. Love meant hurt, and there was no deeper wound to be found. Other, later relationships often involved withholding and degradation as punishment for my imperfections, especially emotional ones. I often spent months at a time in my long-term committed relationships being ignored and untouched, told it was because I was too needy or too loud or too demanding or too flawed in so many ways.

Over the last 5+ years of dating, I have met all kinds of men. Some were remarkable and fantastic, only to turn out to be incapable of maintaining the connection with me that they so adamantly claimed to want and need. Some were sweet but not right in any way but sexually. Some were just assholes.

But I have always been looking for the one who could maintain both physical and spiritual connection.

That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I hear from securely-attached, happily-married friends that it’s not. Sure, shit gets in the way, and there are ebbs and flows. Life happens. But a healthy couple is able to maintain their intimate relationship, no matter what seems to intervene.

Recently, I met a man. We hit it off immediately. It was intense and passionate, spiritual and deeply intimate. It was romantic and idyllic and powerful.

But after a whirlwind, it started to unravel. The first red flags began to wave when I realized he was drunk and driving. He’d made a viable excuse and rescheduled plans with me. Except he was elsewhere, inebriated, and I was yet again faced with a man who was using substance to instill distance between his feelings and mine.

“No,” I said. “This is not okay.”

I cut it off, hurt and angry. And then I found out he had a girlfriend of four months.

It all made sense. It was sickening and difficult. I never would’ve engaged him had I known—and he was well aware of that. I was not a consideration to anything but his twisted needs.

It was shocking, of course. It was fucked up, and the more I learned, the more fucked up it became. It was calculated and methodically manipulative.

But how the hell did I do this again? Hadn’t I had enough therapy to know better, to see better, to be better?

“But you saw it quicker and more clearly,” Queen Frostine comforted. “That’s good.”

Maybe. But how the hell did I get here again?

“You want to connect, in this way and this way and this way,” my therapist said. “Your system, some protector, is analyzing everyone, seeing what boxes they check. When all the boxes are checked, she’s done her due diligence. She steps out of the way.”

Of what? I thought. What other part is she protecting?

In the Internal Family Systems model, there are subparts of the personality that act is protectors. Managers manage, and firefighters come in to take care of shit. They’re doing the best they can to protect exiles, the emotional compilations that manifest in response to trauma.

That manager was protecting an exile: my sexuality.

Since my divorce, I have been in fucked up relationship after fucked up relationship. Bounder and Rango and Rex and Katniss and the list goes on. Most don’t have names at all. There are simply too many of them to readily remember at this point.

Every time, I was looking for intimacy. I was looking for redemption for past hurt. I have written extensively about what I want in a partner and a relationship, so my entire system is very, very aware of what I want and need.

Part of that redemption is, ultimately, for the sex. Yes, my body—hell, my entire being—has been a sexual object. But it is really the objectification of my vulnerability and my innocence that is the real crime. The simplistic compartmentalization of me into very basic terms reduced me to an almost inhuman state in their psyches. Sometimes in my own. In many ways, I internalized the same valuations of me and acted accordingly. If someone who said they cared about me saw me this way, that must be the truth of who I am.

I am overly analytical. I constantly observe and break down every detail of everything. I have a degree in multiperspectival, interdisciplinary interpretation. I spend inordinate amounts of time seeing how seemingly unrelated things are intertwined, peeling apart the meaning created by that relationship. People are especially a target of that analysis.The only time that stops is when I'm having great sex.

Once that protector sees the potential object of my affection as being what I want and need, she allows access to my sexuality. That exiled, traumatized aspect so desperately wants to be redeemed, to be loved in healthy ways, that she will preen until she’s a twisted, beautiful, origami delight.

They seemed safe, but they weren’t safe, and I had no way to know, because my protector was nowhere to be found.

For years, I operated from the place of fuck or be fucked. If I could control it, I had the power, and no one could hurt that part of me again.

But what I’m realizing is that even now, four decades after it started, I am still powerless. I am rarely Self-led or centered in regard to sex. I am perpetually trying to find validation, even when there isn’t love. I don’t inherently believe love is necessary for great or even good sex. I do believe sex is better when it is the manifestation and expression of commitment and trust and respect.

I just don’t know how often I’ve actually experienced that.

It’s foundationally unsettling to realize I am so deeply damaged. Yes, it’s impossible to get to mid-life without some kind of hurt and damage. I’m often proud of my scars, knowing what I’ve survived.

But I also realize that I may never be okay. I may never be healthy or normal. It is impossible for me not to see myself and my life through a libidinous lens. It is hard-wired into me, quite literally. And sex is a vital part of life and love.

How am I ever supposed to repair this hurt, heal these wounds, when I am perpetually tearing myself open from the inside? How will I ever be able to do such work outside of a relationship, when the bounds of sexual intimacy necessarily include another person?

This is the reality of sexual abuse. It lasts far, far longer than the act itself. With and without therapy, it changes the abused, alters how they see and respond to every single thing from that point forward.

I debated whether or not to post this. It’s a difficult read. It was difficult to write. But I started Muchness and Light both to give myself a voice and to let someone else, anyone else who needed it, know that they were not alone.

You, reading this, who needs to hear these words: you are not alone. I feel your pain. It’s a terrible shared connection, but it is real. Someone else gets it; I get it. You are strong and you are beautiful and you are loved.

We will find a way together.

 

 

Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon.

During and after my break-ups of recent years, I have lamented why I wasn’t worth their fight. There is a lot of good about me, so why wasn’t it good enough? Was there something inherently broken, or was there something about me that was so bad that it outweighed the good?

In part 2 of this series, I wrote about what I find valuable in a partner. In part 1, I wrote about what I find to be valuable about myself. In hindsight, I do believe that the men I’ve loved found me inherently valuable. Whether or not they valued themselves, I’m not even sure I know, though their actions would indicate they valued themselves above all others.

But one of the things I realized recently is that we didn’t necessarily value the same things in a relationship. Shared interests and similar social and political leanings cannot sustain romantic interaction, if both parties aren’t looking for similar things in romance.

So what do I value in a relationship?

I value communication. It’s important for me to be in regular contact with the person I’m dating. It doesn’t have to be constant, though I fully admit that I am a very active texter, emailer, and caller. I will think of something that I want to share with that person, and I’ll send it before considering any ramifications. I don’t expect that there will always be an immediate reply, but it is important to me to get a response eventually. Ongoing conversation builds rapport, expresses affection in subtle ways, and strengthens bonds. But it’s just as important to me that expectations—of plans, of emotions, etc.—be shared. Far too often, I have inferred one thing to be true, only to be met with irritation that my interpretation was not at all what the other person intended.

I value reliability. Interaction doesn’t have to be constant, though it does have to be regular. Just as importantly, I have to be able to rely on the person to be there. Both because it’s just downright irritating when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do and because I have this deep-seated fear of abandonment, I need my partner to show up. I need them to show up when they say they’re going to, but also when they should. Dismissing important events or forgetting to do the logistical things that you’ve promised to do is an indicator that something in the relationship isn’t worth your time and effort. If you tell me you’re going to do something, show up and do it.  

I value kinesis. I spent a lot of time during my marriage and later in my relationship with Rango sitting around and waiting. I was waiting for them to get up on a weekend or waiting for them to get home from working late again or waiting for them to finish what they were doing to join me (or me and the boys) to do whatever. I stagnated in my marriage, and I became stagnant again during that subsequent relationship. It’s not that I can’t just sit and chill sometimes, but I enjoy going for walks at the park or going to see a concert or a show at a museum. But I also value emotional kinesis. I need movement forward. Not necessarily toward a goal of cohabitation or marriage [in part because I don’t know that I’ll ever be willing to do either of those again!], but at least toward shared future. Happily ever after shouldn’t mean stopping at some self-imposed pinnacle and hoping the balance of my life stays exactly the same.

I value family. My boys are a huge focus of my life, and that’s not changing any time soon. My extended family is important to me, and my girlfriends are the sisters I never had. Whomever becomes a part of my life becomes a part of that. It’s vital that we forge our own sense of family, as well, and that necessarily includes my babies.

I value safety. Yes, physical safety is a big deal. I was in one physically abusive relationship and for far, far longer than I like to admit. But emotional safety, for me and for my partner, is just as important. The relationship needs to be a safe space to share feelings and thoughts and ideas, without recrimination. Far too often, I have felt punished by my partner for expressing emotions he didn’t like. In healthy love, there’s no tolerance for stonewalling or emotional abuse.

I value passion. Look, physical passion may well dwindle after that ubiquitous honeymoon phase, but the loss of physical intimacy is the death knell for a relationship. I know; I’ve been there twice. Sex is natural (and wonderful and fun) and is a healthy expression of emotion and trust between two people. For me, a loving relationship will necessarily be emotionally and physically intimate.

I can write about what I want or need, what’s important to me in a relationship. But until I’m actually in a relationship again, I have no way to put these things into practice. Queen Frostine commented that my break-up with Finn was probably the healthiest and most mature I’d ever had. I do believe that I’m capable of clearly discerning when something is not working for me, of giving it time to grow rather than starting from a place of intense, immediate emotion, and of evaluating clearly whether or not the other person may be a healthy, cohesive match for me.

So I’m going to try dating again. At least theoretically, I’m open to the possibility.

But I’m also going to keep spending more time doing the things that are fulfilling to me, even if I don’t have a partner to join me. I’ve done a couple of 5Ks this year. I joined a fantastic philosophy discussion group that meets monthly. I’ve started volunteering.

If I meet someone who wants to join me for some things, I’m willing to let someone into that space. But I’m also keeping that space well-defined. It has taken me a very long time to realize that I’m worth my own effort, and I’m not willing to let that stagnate again.

 

 

But I don't need a man who doesn't understand the difference separating need and trust.

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” This is not the first time I’ve mulled over that famous Warren Buffett quote. When I first started grappling with defining my own value and self-worth, I examined Buffett in relation to the Dutch poet Lucebert, who wrote, “All things of value are defenseless.”

The price any person is willing to pay to make themselves truly defensible, whether to themselves or to others, is at the core of their value.  Sometimes we do stupid things that tear that down, that devalue us in the eyes of others or in our own mind's eye.  Sometimes we do things inadvertently that drive up our value, and perhaps those acts are somewhat less important when we aren't really striving or sacrificing to make them happen. 

I think it's the acts and actions we require of ourselves to actively defend ourselves that make us valuable, that make us worthwhile.  And when those acts are performed in the face of adversity, especially self-adversity, they can often be those most costly while offering us the most to gain. 

Value is a manifestation of worth, which is some mystical, magical ratio of cost to benefit. But for something to even have a cost—or a benefit—it has to have been traded. It has to have been utilized in a market, in an exchange.

It has to have been subject to experience.

Relationships are all about negotiating each partner’s needs and wants. It feels kind of seedy to think of it as a debit-and-credit system, but it is a similar give-and-take. In healthy relationships, both partners do a good job of expressing their own needs, of fulfilling what they can for themselves, and of being able to rely on their significant other to be willing to fill in any gaps that they can. It’s delicately symbiotic. If any partner consistently takes too much or gives too little, it quickly shifts to parasitic, and one or both partners suffer as the relationship dies.

What is exchanged has both a cost and a benefit, which is totally subjective to each party to the exchange. That mystical, magical ratio is evaluated—sometimes over a long period of time, sometimes instantaneously—and out pops the worth for the evaluator.

When writing before about my own relationship goals—in early 2013 just before I met Bounder and again in 2014 just before I met Rango—the things I could articulate as wants and needs were themselves manifestations of more basic qualities of a person. I still agree with most of those desires, but I can see how those laundry lists are driven by providing relief from past experience. I cherry-picked moments from different relationships and looked for someone who could engage me in ways that were reminiscent of my past.

Now, though, I understand that the actions are expressions of traits I value in a romantic partner, and the worth I assign is based on my own lifetime of experiences, of gains and losses, and how I evaluate the costs and benefits of previous relationships. At the heart of each of those listed wishes, are there more basic attributes that I would value, regardless of the man who possesses them?

I value intelligence. Maybe it’s snobbish of me, but I just can’t date a stupid guy. It’s important to me to be able to engage in thoughtful conversation with my partner on a variety of topics both sacred and profane, and I don’t have the patience to have to define my vocabulary mid-conversation. I don’t expect someone else to know everything about the topics I do, nor would I want to know everything they know. But I thrive exchange of ideas, and that necessitates a certain intelligence.

I value patience. I am incredibly impatient. Motherhood has taught me a million ongoing lessons in patience, but I am still prone to jump headfirst into a moment without significant deliberate thought. (That tends to come after the fact, historically with self-recrimination.) It’s important for me to be with a partner who can remind me to slow down, who is willing to wade through my thought process to whatever realization I eventually come to. Sometimes I need the reminder to stay on task, in the moment.

I value expressive affection. In the realm of Love Languages, I have equal needs for quality conversation and physical touch. I both need to touch and to be touched. But there has to be emotion beneath the skin-to-skin contact. Hand-holding and hugs and random kisses are a physical manifestation of care and concern. I need to hear that I matter and why. Acts of service and gifts are nice, but they mean very little to me if they’re incongruous with words. For some people, outward expressions are difficult. For me, they are a necessity.

I value passion. Yes, sexual passion is incredibly important to me, but I also value a general passion for life. I want a partner who is passionate about his beliefs and his work, who combines them into a personal purpose. I love what I do, and it’s saddening when I meet people who don’t enjoy the work that consumes a third or more of their life.

I value compassion. Whether it’s toward me or toward themselves or toward the world at large, I find it valuable when my partner can feel and express empathy.

I value availability. Because I have a lengthy history with emotionally-avoidant men, I have been stood up, ignored, and dismissed more times than I care to remember. There are the logistics of availability, meaning our schedules have to match relatively well to be able to see one another. But emotional availability—a willingness and ability to be emotionally open and vulnerable—seems harder to come by. By this time of middle-aged dating, it’s virtually impossible to meet someone who doesn’t have some kind of damage. But I’m no longer willing to be trapped by someone else’s defenses.

I value bravery. Life is hard. Bad stuff happens. Sometimes it’s enough to make you want to shut down and crawl back under the covers until the world calms down. Everyone is afraid of hurt and failure and rejection. But there is strength in acknowledging the vulnerability that comes with fear and stepping forward anyway. I know the failures and the successes that come from facing your fears, and I cannot stomach another man who refuses to accept his own challenges.

Per our usual, Pandy and I have talked at length about my ideas of value. She asked me to turn the tables and think about what I’d want a partner to value in me.

“I don’t think it matters,” I told her.

I know what I value in myself, and that value comes from having paid a cost to become the person I am today. I also know what I value in someone else because of those same costs. I spent a lot of time getting my garden to grow. I weeded out the thorns, and now I’m culling the dead growth that could threaten to choke out my prize roses.

Someone else will have paid their own costs, had their own experiences before they come into my life. How they assess my worth to them will be based on their perceptions of their own needs and wants, their own successes and failures. Maybe my curiosity and quick smile mean more than my vocabulary. Maybe they place more value on my punctuality and dependability than on my tendency toward effusive, written expressions of emotion.

I’ve come to realize there’s something else that has its own set of values: the relationship itself. And what is valuable in one partner or another may not be at all what’s valuable in a relationship.

I’ll explore that topic in my next post.

This is the second in a three-part series. For the first post, please click here.

 

 

I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore.

I’ve been listening to this podcast, The Overwhelmed Brain: Personal Growth for Critical Thinkers, a good bit for the last few months. The host, Paul Colaianni, is a personal empowerment coach, whose offerings of advice and perspective are usually in response to a listener’s email. I find his advice to be accessible and easily-understood. There always seems to be something personally relevant, even when the topic is not one I’ve felt bothered by before.

A recent episode, however, dealt with insecurity. I was driving home from work and thought, “Wow, that listener could be me.”

Oh wait. It is.

It actually was my email to the show. Because I do enjoy his approach, I had written in to see what perspective he might offer.

I have struggled off and on for years with jealousy. Sometimes that jealousy has resulted in extreme behaviors that I’m not proud of. But where does it come from?

“When you’re jealous,” Colaianni says, “there’s something that you believe that someone else is bringing to the table, or that you aren’t confident about in you.”

Jealousy is a manifestation of insecurity. For me specifically, I am emotionally insecure. I am often afraid that my partner (when I’m in relationship) will leave and emotionally abandon me. I do sometimes require more reassurance and emotional attention than others. I can be needy—though I argue that word is loaded with sometimes-unwarranted connotation that has often been defined by the emotionally avoidant men on the other side of my equation—and when those needs aren’t being met, I become anxious and activated. I’ll spend far too much time analyzing the occurrence that led to the anxiety, usually a conflict with my partner:

What did he say or do? Well, what did that mean? Is what I think it means different than what he actually said or did? Is there a disconnect between his actions and words? What was my role in the situation? What words or actions did I offer that exacerbated the situation, or made it better? What could I have done differently? What should I have done differently?

It’s easy for me to list my own faults in the situation. That leads to a list my own deficiencies, in general. And if he sees these things as flaws in me—which he must because they’ve made him mad enough not to talk to me after an angry exchange—then he knows it’s a flaw because he has an unflawed point of reference, which is almost always an ex.

At least that’s how my thinking has usually gone.

I have found myself spending an inordinate amount of time comparing myself to my partners’ exes. Rarely were they women I knew. I often knew a good bit about them, because they’d come up in early conversations about past relationships. More often, they were just these nebulous, vacuous ideas of what his life had been like before me.

Ghosts.

So, if there is conflict between my partner and me, it must be because I don’t measure up to his ideal. His ideal is based on his own past experience. That experience was defined by his exes. I must not be as good as they are. What he had before is what he really wants. He is likely to leave me to be with one of them, or someone more like them.

But this idea that his previous relationships were ideal is fallacious. If they’d been idyllic, they wouldn’t be past relationships at all—he’d still be in one of them. So those women may have had fantastic qualities, but somewhere something went wrong in how those two people related to each other. Usually what I do know about them comes as self-reported flaw. The men with whom I’ve been in romantic partnership are self-aware enough to admit to at least some cursory, palatable version of their own mistakes, and they can usually point out their former partner’s mistakes, as well. So I’m only comparing myself and my relationship to their admitted interpretations of events that occurred years before.

I have often gotten caught up in comparisons of physicality. Being a 5’11 Amazon, I am taller and bigger than most other women, even when I’m not struggling with my weight. I am a physical outlier, for sure, and that means that their previous partners were almost certainly smaller than I am.

Was she shorter and thinner than I? Probably. Was she prettier? Did she have better hair? Was she so physically attractive that she could get him to push past the emotional boundaries that prevent him from being fully present?

But Colianni cautions, “If you’re gonna compare something you’re insecure about, you don’t compare it to the people that appear to be perfect, because you’ll always be unhappy if you do that.”

Somewhere in my own head, these women became idealized by my partner. Whomever they actually were is still unknown to me; I am basing judgments about myself based on my perceptions of his perceptions (and very limited admissions of that time in his past) of this woman with whom he had an unhealthy relationship that ended in emotional trauma.

So, if I am already afraid that he will leave me, because that’s what I learned to believe people who loved me do, those fears are underscored by wholly unreasonable beliefs about my partner. Using that standard of comparison can only lead to skewed results.

The only standard of comparison should be me. But I have struggled for years with my sense of self-worth. I’ve written several times before about calculating my value. It’s all too easy for me to pick apart what I think is wrong with me. What do I think is right? What do I find valuable in myself?

I am smart. Tests have said I’m very intelligent. I know a lot of information, and I am very adept at making connections between data, extrapolating further meaning. I enjoy learning, and I am constantly curious about new topics.

I am funny. I have a wicked sense of humor, though that’s somewhat subjective. I love to laugh, especially with other people about absurd moments we share together.

I am tenacious. It’s not just I go after what I want—at least once I make my mind up about what that is. I am unlikely to give up when I run into challenges. It’s what got me and my sons through the last five years.

I am brave. I have fears. Some are rational, some are not. But rarely do I let that fear stop me. If what I want is on the other side of that fear, I will find a way.  Sometimes I’m able to make friends with the fear and sing it to sleep, so I can step lightly past it. Sometimes I have to whip out my Vorpal sword and go straight through it.

I am loving. I feel deeply, and I express those emotions readily. I also try to act on those feelings. I try to do things and behave in ways that express my care and concern and affection. Admittedly, this sometimes butts up against my fears, and I can raise my defenses to try to keep people from hurting me. But I can never maintain that distance for very long, because I feel the people I love, no matter what.

I am self-aware. I have spent a lot of time getting to the root of my own heart. Much of that journey has been documented openly on Muchness and Light. Whether through therapy or conversations with friends or while I was on some meditational walk, I have learned who I am and what makes me tick, both good and bad.

Were those other women those things? Maybe. Were they as smart or funny or brave? Maybe. Maybe not. Did they share his same interests? Probably. Only his interests? Unlikely. Did they have insecurities? Probably. Were they able to put aside their own insecurities and needs, making him comfortable enough to be secure and happy with them? Obviously not for long, if they were.

But really, none of that matters.

All I can do is strive to be the best plausible version of myself. Trying to be the best possible leads me down a path of perfectionism and self-criticism. I will almost never live up to social ideals, nor to anyone else’s personal ideals. It’s taken me a long time to come to understand what is valuable about myself, to myself. The best way for me to honor that is to act in ways that support rather than undermine my value, and that includes the behavior that I will accept from others.

But I still have insecurities that sometimes are at least a catalyst for conflict within relationships.

Be vulnerable, Colaianni offers. Sharing my insecurities gives my partner the opportunity to access one of four things within himself:

• Compassion
• Acceptance
• Apathetic ignorance
• Judgment

Sometimes they’ve been compassionate about it, at least for a while. Really, though, it’s easy to offer sympathy and kindness to someone who reveals they’ve been abused. It’s rare that I’ve met an asshole who said out loud that abusing others was acceptable. And it’s not the abuse, per se, that is still an ongoing issue, but rather the tangential aftershocks that continue for so long—the fear, the sometimes-constant anxiety, the ways in which the abuse colors almost every decision the victim makes from that point forward.

Once my partner realizes the damage left me with more than just some shit to talk about over drinks, it’s very rare for their attitude to remain compassionate or to shift toward acceptance. When I asked to stop once during a romantic moment—unexpectedly triggered by a brush of a hand that felt all too terribly familiar—that partner yelled at me that the past is in the past and that I should just “get over it.” Needless to say, I didn’t see him again.

Most often, I’ve been met with apathetic ignorance. They don’t want to know, and they don’t want to care. Rango specifically told me my shit was my problem, to work on it by myself, and to keep it away from him. He was actually more verbal about it than most. My experience is that most of the emotionally avoidant men I’ve dated tend to pretend my damage doesn’t exist, distancing themselves when they realize I won’t be all rainbows and light all the time.

But, Colaianni stresses further, It’s a choice in them, not a problem with me. It’s a problem in me when I devalue myself because of it.

“They are choices, and they are in them. Because if you show up owning what you’re insecure about and being okay talking about it, now the ball’s in their court. They have to do something about it. They have to make a choice. Whatever’s going on at that point is going on in them.”

This is where my choice to value myself outweighs their choice. In a healthy relationship, I’ll be met with compassion and acceptance; I’ll be supported and actively loved (not just thought of affectionately). If I am again faced with apathetic ignorance or judgment, that is a huge red flag that I cannot ignore. It signals a conflict in values that is likely insurmountable and wholly unhealthy for me.

And if I expect anyone else to treat me with compassion and acceptance, I must do the same. I cannot apathetically ignore my own needs and must find ways to meet those needs myself. I’ve spent years hurling judgment from within, and many of my bruises and scars were self-inflicted. No one else is allowed to hurt me, and neither am I.

But my needs and assessments alone are not the entirety of the relationship. By definition, I have to be relating to something else, and that happens to be someone else. So if I know what I value in myself, what do I value in that someone else? What happens when those values clash, and is it fatal to the relationship?

This turned into a much longer, more in-depth process of thought than I’d imagined when I emailed The Overwhelmed Brain. I’m turning this into a three-part series on Value. Stay tuned.