Muchness and Light

Wonder if I'll ever bury the hatchet inside.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hell, I wrote a book about some of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you already have."

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

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

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

 

Wedding Selfie #Sassafras #Rango #JenAndAli

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His heart replaced theirs in that memory space.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

You shout it out, but I can't hear a word you say.

When I started writing Muchness and Light in late 2010, DH was not happy.  I'd been toying with an old writing project, which later morphed into Persona Non Grata, and I'd been thinking for days about starting a blog.  I wanted a different outlet to hone skill and craft.  I was also in the beginnings of what would become this huge shift in how I saw myself and my place in my world. 

Initially, he was hurt and irritated that I hadn't consulted him about it.  It wasn't that I wanted to write, he argued, but that he could've helped me choose the blogging platform and the technology that would be best for my project.  I hadn't needed his help, though.  I was perfectly capable of researching these things and deciding what would work best for me. 

For a while, I didn't readily share my writing with him.  He would grumble when I did a new piece, seemingly irritated both at what I had to say and that I was saying it at all.  Yes, it diverted time and attention away from him and the children and whatever else I'd normally been doing for two hours on any given morning.  To delay the laundry or the dishes, to allow myself a little time to get inside my own head and see how it worked, was certainly giving my psyche a chance to flex muscles it hadn't used in about ten years. 

I was thinking for myself again.  I was doing for myself again.  I was still handling everything logistically in our world, but I was changing.

DH was not happy.

In hindsight, our marital problems were really amping up.  Of course I knew there were issues—that was part of the reason I was so unhappy.  It was very difficult to mend or even maintain our relationship, especially given the enormous change I was experiencing. 

Through all of the volatility, I wrote. 

As our marriage spiraled out of control, we would fight in the guise of trying to repair our damage.  Night after night of emotionally and verbally violent arguments, a constant battering of each other, trying our best to both attack each other and defend our positions.  Sometimes I would just sit and take it, letting him yell at me as punishment for the choices I'd made that had flown in the face of our marriage.  Sometimes I would yell back, vehemently reminding him of all the ways he had failed me and us, as well.  Sometimes when he was especially brutal, I would do my best to disengage and walk away until we were both calmer and more reasonable. 

DH never liked it when I disengaged.  It infuriated him that I would step out of his line of fire and walk away.  That was often when his words would become knives thrown straight at my heart. 

Late one night, when it was apparent that he'd worn me down to the point of just taking it, I realized there was no reasoning with him.  I was tired of being told I was wrong and said something about going inside to write for a while.

"Your writing is a joke!" he laughed derisively.  "No one gives a fuck about what you have to say!  Your blog is just your fucking diary about shit no one but you and your friends care about it.  You should shut the fuck up while you still have a shred of dignity!"

Make no mistake that it stung like hell.  After twenty years together, he knew how to cut me to the core.  I questioned my writing, my motivations, my talent, and my voice.  Since that incident over two years ago, I have heard those words in my head every single time I have been unsure of this path. 

I could tell myself that what I had to say mattered.  Sure, it matters to me.  It matters to my friends.  I have collected a small but loyal readership of people I've never met and never hear from, but I see the web traffic and get occasional messages from random people telling me that something I wrote touched them. 

I still questioned it all the time. 

Recently I started writing guest posts for DivorcedMoms.com.  Given what I know about being both divorced and being a mom, it seemed like a natural extension of what I do here.  Plus it would be an additional outlet to tackle some issues and say some things I might not want to constantly float on Muchness and Light.  (This is not a divorce blog, after all.)

I submitted my second piece, "8 Things Every Divorced Woman Should Do NOW!" a couple of weeks ago, as part of a suggested assignment on their contributor site.  I was thrilled when they not only ran the piece but also featured it that week in their newsletter and on their splash page.  I saw the link to the article tweeted and retweeted by the editors. 

Someone else was interested in what I had to say. 

Two days ago, I received an email from one of the DivorcedMoms.com editors. 

Hi Stephanie,

We are thrilled to tell you that your article is featured on mariashriver.com 

http://mariashriver.com/blog/2014/03/8-things-every-woman-should-do-for-herself-stephqj/

It a great article and we are so happy to see it profiled.  We love your writing, keep the posts coming:)

What?!?

And there it was.  Maria Shriver's site had picked up my article and reposted it.  There was a link back to DivorcedMoms and to my writer profile there.  She (or her social media person) had tweeted the link, which was retweeted repeatedly by strangers.  It was on her Facebook page, with comments from women I'd never known saying how much they enjoyed it, how it mattered to them. 

After the obligatory squealing and dancing and texting and calls to almost everyone I knew, I forwarded the email to my therapist. 

Someone else wanted to hear what I had to say. DH was wrong. I shouldn't have shut up and been quiet.

And I started to cry.  As I've admitted before, I sometimes cry when I write.  I'll hit some place of emotional truth, and the tears flow cathartically as the tension is released.  (Hell, I'm crying as I write this now.)

It wasn't so much confirmation that DH was wrong; it was verification that I wasn't.  My voice mattered to someone else, to someone other than me, and it had value even if only for a moment. 

I was right to write again.  I was right to question my life, then and now, and to work through my issues in the public forum I'd chosen all by myself.  I was right to believe that my words held strength and worth and truth outside my own busy, complicated head. 

I don't know what path I'd be on had I not chosen this one.  In the end it doesn't matter, because this is where I am.  It may not be right for anyone else.  It may not have been right for DH.  But it is exactly where I am supposed to be.

 

I got one hand steady on the wheel and one hand's tremblin' over my heart.

Today is Valentine's Day, and it's the day I hate most every year. 

From Persona Non Grata (Chapter 12):

I hate Valentine's Day.  On the surface, it seems like a sweet idea, a special day to tell your sweetheart that you love them.  When you're a kid, Valentine's Day is all about the heart-shaped box of candy from your parents, and the class party.  I remember making the Valentine’s mailboxes at school every year.  I always liked covering an old shoe box or a paper bag in handmade pink and red hearts and uneven paper doilies.  Then on the day of the Valentine’s party, everyone would walk around and drop their store-bought Valentine’s into each other’s boxes.  There was no surprise; you knew you would give one to everyone in your class, and that everyone would give you one.  Even the people you didn’t like.  It was like some weird, forced, social positive reinforcement.

And don’t even get me started on what happens when you like a boy and he doesn’t like you back, or vice versa.  It’s just creepy and a little degrading.

Every year since 1984, when I was 11 ½, something wretched has always happened on Valentine's Day, plus or minus a couple of days:

• my parents announce their divorce
• starting my period
• chicken pox
• apartment fire
• jail
• surgery
• tornado
• strep
• surgery complications
• fights with now-exes

This is by no means an all-inclusive list, and some of these overlap.  2001 was destined to finally break the cycle with the birth of my elder son, but even that was tempered by the above-listed tornado.  Last year was going to be hard—the first VDay without DH since 1992—so Hammer came to visit and join me for Mardi Gras in Mobile.  Of course I blew two cervical discs again, leaving me in horrific misery for weeks. 

This year, it's a two-day stomach virus and ice storm.  In Atlanta. 

Valentine's Day Curse?  Check!

I know it's a Hallmark Holiday, but dammit! I would like to have just one good Valentine's Day in my lifetime.  And it's not that there's never been a good day in those years—I have been the recipient of many cards and candies and roses and even my awesome Wonder Woman high-tops.  It's just that every single year has been hampered by some other crazy that detracts from it. 

I know, I know: the specialness of the day is artificial; there's no reason not to show your beloveds every other day of the year how much you love them.  I try my best to do that anyway.  In fact, I think it's cruel and stupid to limit that to an overly-decorated, inconvenient day that makes one group feel really special while making another feel somehow emotionally and socially inferior because they don't have someone else to buy them some over-priced, gaudy cardstock that tells them they're awesome. 

Part of me does miss having even the hint of someone special this year (and last), but I also have evidence to how many years having someone meant very little.  At least with someone else to help shoulder the burden, the chaos feels much more manageable.  I hate not having a safety net when I know some bullshit will be dropped on me during this week. 

There's no real way to plan for it, in part because it's always something different and almost always totally out of my control.  If I retreat in advance, put myself into a quiet, padded box, and sit quietly while the week passes, the world would still be going on around me.  There would be consequence to my self-imposed exile.  If I take it on full force and plan something amazing to distract me, some chaos would still randomly appear to break all my big plans.  (See above.)

I don't even know what I feel about it anymore.  I'm somehow a little distanced from the anger and loathing and anxiety and resignation, looking at it all from arms-length while I sigh, knowing it's all about to happen but refusing to care about it until it does.  It's one of the few things I can emotionally compartmentalize, though I'm quite adept at opening the box and checking the compartments' contents from time to time.  Like checking your phone to see if your ex has called. 

There is always good, too.  Max's birthday was yesterday, so we celebrated with a Funfetti cake and fresh snowcream after a snowball fight.  When the ice melts enough to get our car off our street, we'll get out into the world and see what we've missed for the last few days.  (I'd be afraid to drive had the Curse not already hit this year.)

The List of Vexes is also a series of reminders of the changes that can occur when I least expect it, of how the bad things can seem so horrible but then lead to something really wonderful that comes as some kind of amend for the wrong.  It's also a subtle reminder of the people I miss this year, of the ones I expected to be here to help carrying this year's burden.

So to everyone who matters to my heart, whether or not you're with me this year or any other, Happy Valentine's Day.  I love you.  You know this. 

 

My two cents is worth ten grand.

Childhood molestation.  Parental divorce.  Teenage date rape.  Abusive boyfriend.  Suicide attempts.  Morbid obesity and body image issues.  Marriage gone horrible awry.  Series of unhealthy romantic relationships with unavailable men. 

That's the quick and dirty laundry list of the bullshit that led me to now.  But that is not me.

Like so many other people, I fulfill a statistic.  According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, 9.2% of victimized children are sexually assaulted.  1 in 5 girls are victims of sexual abuse.  3 of 4 children who are sexually assaulted are victimized by someone they know well.  63% of women who suffer abuse by a family member also report rape or attempted rape after the age of 14. 

50% of children in America live through the divorce of their parents.  Adults whose parents were divorced are 50% more likely to divorce themselves. 

10% of high-schoolers are physically abused by their dating partner.  50% of youth who are victims of both physical and sexual assault attempt suicide.

15% of Americans are obese.  6.6% are morbidly obese. 

40% of people have maladaptive attachments in adult relationships, driven by the events of their past—with the seeds of dysfunction often beginning in early childhood. 

I am not special.

I talk very openly in public and in private about all of these things.  I didn't for a very long time.  There was certainly a sense of shame about all of it.  When I came to the understanding that keeping these things in secret only perpetuated that cycle of shame that never should've been mine, I began to attack these issues head-on and put them into a healthy perspective.  They've been analyzed and discussed and dealt with, at least until some other issue arises that is a direct or indirect result of what happened.

Muchness and Light was started, in part, as an outlet for dealing with the transformations that came from that self-scrutiny.  Hell, I wrote a book about a lot of it. 

But if you meet me in person, I will never offer you my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Stephanie.  I'm a victim."

I don't live like that.  I don't think like that.  Stephanie is not defined by her past, but she sure as hell is shaped by those events. 

Sometimes there's a reason to make parallels to something that happened with some new event in my life.  Usually it's because there's a problem.  Often the root of my problems surround how I crave and strive for intimacy and love from another person.  I do have times when I feel unloved and worthless, and that's when the self-analysis can become brutal.

I've written a few times about my sense of worth, both to myself and to the people I love.  Regardless of how it seems sometimes, I am acutely aware of my inherent value as a mother and a woman and a soul.  I get tripped up in my value to other people, especially when something has gone wrong. 

In my mind, as a combination of both head and heart, I have been worth very little to a lot of people in my life.  Other people's perceptions and mistakes and miscommunications shouldn't be a barometer of my value, but they often are.  And I know I'm not alone in this.

Even people who are in healthy, secure, romantic relationships see themselves in relation to their partner.  There's a natural loop of positive feedback—through words and touch and action, consideration and thought and care—that show you how your partner values you.  If they are attentive and thoughtful in their approach and recognition of you, if they are engaged with you, the neurotransmitters and hormones responsible for the physical emotion of love are released again and again.  You feel closer to, and more secure with, this other person, making you more willing to reciprocate in kind.  Then their body is responding similarly, and it's a wonderful cycle of love. 

You are important to each other and are showing the other their worth to you by supporting and cherishing and caring for them. 

But when words and actions don't match, or don't exist at all, it devalues the relationship.  Eventually it begins to undermine the self-worth of one or both partners.  If he loves me, he will care for me.  If he doesn't care for me, I am unimportant to him.  I am unimportant to the person I love, who is supposed to love me most in the world.  If that is all this special person thinks of me, I must not be worth very much to him. I must not be worth very much at all.  I am worthless.

One bad relationship shouldn't be able to damage your self-perceptions, but rarely is it one bad relationship.  There's is almost always a series of events—of romantic, erotic, platonic, and familial relationships—that build upon one another, piling on the sense of lessthanness. 

Look at it like an economy.  At birth, you're worth $1,000,000, just because you exist.  Your parents and family care for you and raise you and help you grow.  Eventually you're worth $2,000,000, and you set out into the world, socializing and developing your own interpersonal relationships outside of your family.  Your first boyfriend or girlfriend is pretty good; they add $250,000 to your value.  Your next one breaks your heart, and you lose $750,000.  Now you're at $1,500,000 when you meet your future spouse.  They add $500,000.  Your marriage adds $1,000,000.  Lost friendships deduct $300,000 each.  Kids add $5,000,000 each but have constant volatile flux for the first twenty years, so your value is in constant shift. 

When you find that you have trauma after trauma, especially when they've happened at the hands of the people who are supposed to love you most in the world, it eventually begins to feel like no one has ever or could ever help bring you back into positive territory.  No matter how hard you work to build your own value--$100,000 for graduating high school, $250,000 for college, $1,000,000 for the PhD, and $500,000 for the first great job—you're still constantly trying to overcome this deficit that's been in place and growing for as long as you can remember. 

What I want and will say I need (That's an entirely different discussion I'll get into later.) most is for just one person to step up and show me that I matter to them.  That I matter at all.  Because I was let down so many times, I don't believe in my heart that anyone is capable of loving me.  There are people capable of doing it, in general; I know many of them.  But of all of the people who have come through my life over its course thus far, it is with rare exception that anyone has ever shown up for me consistently and shown me that I am worth a damn to them. 

Even if I am worth $1,000,000 on paper, it means nothing unless someone is willing to barter for it.  It doesn't grow unless it's invested.  And if it's just used and depleted over time, it will eventually drop to $0.  Even the Hope Diamond is estimated to be worth $350,000,000, but it's just a shiny rock in a box until someone actually pays for it.

I recognize that it's not necessarily about me.  I am attracted to emotional unavailability, because it is what I have always known.  In my own maladaptation, in my own inherent brokenness, I search for people who are just as broken in their own, extreme way that is the polar opposite of my own damage.  Even if and when I learn new tools for handling that and making healthier choices, I will still be jaded by my past.  I can't forget that these things happened, and they will always be a constant, flashing caution signal as I move forward along my path.

If I build my house on a hill, I can build it with a level foundation.  I'm still building it on a hill.  There's a strong possibility that, given enough time, the foundation will shift and settle, needing to be jacked back up and supported from time to time.  I could always raze the damn hill, but that would require cost and energy to devastate miles of visible landscape to try to forget there ever was a hill in the first place. 

My hill is a slippery slope, but I fought my way to the top to plant my rainbow freak flag in the summit.  From here, there's a pretty damn amazing view.  But it's also sometimes lonely, and I'm tired of looking down and seeing all the people who shrugged and walked away from the clamber, who found themselves unworthy of escalation and therefore made me feel unworthy of their effort. 

So, yeah, sometimes I sit my ass down and cry, howling my lamentations into the wind.  Far too often it has seemed like a siren's call, bringing a reticent hero crashing into the rocks below; for rescue or marooned companionship, I don't know.  But maybe, just maybe, that song will be worth something to someone, someday.  And maybe someone else will be willing to fight their way to my summit and join me in surveying everything we've left behind. 

 

I'll love you in your dreams, but please don't try to hold me in your arms.

It's something of an understatement to say that I am an open book.

Everything about me, all of the stories that led me to be who I am now, have been laid bare in the pages of Persona Non Grata and on these blog posts at Muchness and Light.  There may be a few other outlets—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—that show snippets of my personality, but generally everything about my past is on public display.

When I meet people for the first time, especially men, I tend to throw all of that out there at once. 

"Hi, I'm Stephanie.  I'm a lot to handle.  You will one day say it's too much and that I overwhelm you.  They all do, and I have no reason to think you're any different.  Here I am—take it or leave it!" 

It's kind of like lobbing a grenade of muchness at them and daring them to take me on. 

For all of my talk of loathing the unavailable men whom I perpetually attract, is it really I who is unavailable?

I hate it when men I care about tell me I'm too much.  It strikes a nerve in me, both because it's true and because I warned them.  Just once, I'd like not to feel that pang of I told you so that inevitably comes.

But just because I warn someone of what to expect, and how to deal with me when it happens, does that make it okay?  Does my glittery Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here sign justify my reaction when they give up hope?

If I taunt men into letting me down, I am culpable, both in giving them reason to turn away and in delighting in being able to find those reasons when it happens.  I get a little jolt from pushing their buttons, and I probably try to do it from the onset of salutation.  It's like an experiment sometimes, just to see how much it will take before their façade of availability cracks and they scurry to close the gaps before I can get my hooks into them and force them to open deeper and wider than they'd ever imagined.

And that is exactly what I do.

I test men, looking to see who will fail me and how and why.  Sometimes I know within minutes that they aren't up to the challenge, and I dust their crumbling egos from my fingertips as I walk away.  Sometimes it takes longer, in which case I become more subtle, more unintentionally manipulative in my ministrations.  They rarely see or feel it coming, though, as I do seem to have the inexplicable power to sweet talk them into smiling submission.  (Dimples and destruction.)

I told Hot Pocket that it's one of Sassafras's superpowers, the ability to hide behind a plume of pretty, swirling smoke until they're so entranced they can't help but stare dumbfounded at the glittery chaos that bats her eyes and nods her blond ponytail as she wishes what she wants for their world. 

(This is one of the many reasons that my TARDIS would be the I Dream of Jeannie bottle.)

My girls, the Castration Committee, are the ones who can accept my muchness for exactly what it is, no matter what.  They will sometimes call me out for being too much, but they never judge me for it and they never, ever turn away from it or from me.  I constantly experience the depths of love from the people who adore me no matter what.

Is it too much to want that same connection in erotic love?

It's unimaginable to me that it won't exist for me, that given everything I have lived and done and seen and experienced, that there isn't a lover who can adore me and accept me and embrace my batshit while they kiss me breathless.  I have paid so much, done so much work, to get to the place that I have the ability to love as deeply and intensely as I do, and to do it willingly and from a place of utter awareness and selflessness.  Can it really be true that there is no one worth that price?  Is there no reward for having worked this hard? 

Even asking those questions feels arrogant and makes me think I have so much more work to do.

But I don't want my book to end now.  I don't want my stories to end at 40.  I want someone, maybe more than one if that's how my journey goes, who will make new stories with me—bigger, better, faster, more!  I want someone who reminds me to breathe when I'm so excited that I stammer over my own head, but who also smiles patiently and happily when I tell them for the hundredth time that day just how and why I love them.  And I want that to be the same someone who can sit in the quiet with me and let me cry out whatever my heart can't find the words to express.  The same someone who can make time stand still and the seas to turn to dust with just one kiss. 

It comes back to the idea of expectations, what's reasonable and what's not.  Growler and Absolem would advise me to be willing to lower those expectations.  Maurice reminded me when I needed it most that doing that will only lead to tears.  Bounder reminded me that my expectations can be met in the most painful and unexpected of ways.  But Hot Pocket says it exists for me, that there's someone out there who can and will love me like that. 

I hope she's right.  It feels like she is, like she just has to be, but maybe that's my tragically romantic heart being unreasonably optimistic. 

And maybe, just maybe, someone else will get the chance to tell me, "I told you so."

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

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

 

 Queen Frostine texted me just then:

Good luck today.  *hug*

I'm in a panic

No worries.  This will be brilliant.

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

I don't want to do it.

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

Hot Pocket and Growler chimed in via Facebook Messenger. 

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

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

              You are glittery goodness and not a wallflower.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of this was exactly what I needed today. 

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

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

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

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

 

She's in a daze, without a care.

Today is Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson's 41^st birthday.  Tierney and I share a lot of things—a dimple, really great hair—including a birthday. 

I had a talk with her last night about what the last year has been like for her.  She went into 40 with a new body and utterly revised outlook on life.  There have been substantial ups and downs:

She separated from her husband of now 19 years, working her way toward divorce.

She met Greg Dulli.

The story of the first 40 years of her life was released into the world in a very public way.

She finally saw Concrete Blonde live. 

She blew a disc in her neck again and spent another few months battling that chronic pain.

She had crazy adventures with her girls.

She went back to Wicker Park, where so much of her story began to change, and got her first tattoo.

She finally realized that she's pretty.

She fell in love again, albeit with another alcoholic. 

She literally laid both new and old ghosts to rest.

She's happily raising two amazing young men. 

She finally realized she's worth far, far more than even she ever knew. 

I checked in with her to wish her a happy birthday.  I told her that I understood fully what an incredible year this has been, and that I have a few hopes for her upcoming year:

I hope she can finally get finished with this divorce process.

I hope Junkture finally gets their new record out and that she loves it as much as the others.

I hope she finds the inspiration to create both new art and a new story.

I hope she steers clear of injury and pain.

I hope she and her girls laugh their way uproariously through their next year.

I hope she both gets back to Chicago.

I hope she's able to get that new tattoo she's considering.

I hope she sees her own beauty, inside and out, every single day.

I hope the next great love of her life is sober and emotionally aware and available.

I hope her ghosts stay dead.

I hope she continues to be the best mom possible to her amazing young men. 

I hope she is comfortable in who she is and that she is able to tap her own potential fully.

Tierney thanked me, giggling and grinning as we sat on my deck and chatted.  For me, she said, she wishes the same things.  And then she thanked me for lending her my strength, even when I thought there was no way in Hell that we would get through this year. 

In all seriousness, thank you to everyone who touches my life every single day.  You may be with me for a moment or a lifetime, but you are part of me.  Just being here to read my words is enough to make you matter to me.  Many of the successes of this last year have been wholly internal and haven't been shared in detail on Muchness and Light, or anywhere else.  But know that I am grateful for each person who offers me their time and their shoulder and their smile.  Your support has brought me this far, and it will help to propel me into what I hope is another unbelievable year. 

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Getting bigger and brighter, wider and lighter.

Another life for her to put down, pick it up any time she might find enough to get her high.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is there a better life for me?

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

Fate can be a fickle little bitch.

As I wrote both here and in Persona Non Grata:

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

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

So what now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Where to find Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture