Muchness and Light

You can keep the key. I'll keep the ring.

When I would hear divorced people say, "Thankfully, we didn't have kids," I always assumed it was because dragging children through divorce is so painful for them.  That's true—I know both from my own experience and from living with my boys during this process.  It up-ends their world and makes them question everything they've ever known about comfort and security and trust, no matter how amicable their parents' split may be.  It does the same for the adults, but hopefully their parents have age-appropriate coping skills with which to handle it.  Kids are, after all, children. 

But I'm realizing more and more that the underlying sentiment is, "Thank God there's nothing left to tie me to that person for the rest of my life!"

As I've talked about before, people go into marriage with the belief that they will be together for the rest of their lives, if not longer.  Those vows are intended to be forever.  Somehow the sheer force of your love will let the two of you withstand the <insert booming voice here> Test of Time; it will be the kind of love that haunts the ages with its beauty. 

Marriage isn't about love any more than divorce is.  People who divorce still love each other all the time.  Somehow, though, they can simultaneously hate each other.  That's when the process of divorce gets ugly.

It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all, of trying to be the first one to move on or be healed.  You want to prove to them and to the world and to yourself that you've overcome this terrible challenge and done better than they have.  It's especially tempting to want them to see that you're winning.  It's far too easy to try to prove to them that they're the one who is losing.

Every detail of your collective life is suddenly scrutinized, if for no other reason than you have to legally split your shit.  You have your stuff and I have mine, but what's ours has to be divided.  Okay, I'll give up this in exchange for that, but no fucking way are you walking out of here with those. 

There's an emotional heaviness about every little thing.  Those candlesticks that sat in your spouse's office, that he/she loved so much and wants to take with him/her?  They were given to the two of you by your great-aunt who told you on her deathbed how you're her very favorite niece/nephew ever.  You can still remember how the gift looked wrapped in silver and white paper after your wedding, exactly what you wrote to her in the thank you card.  Well, fuck that! 

Don't even get me started on splitting up a CD or DVD or book collection. 

It's easy to let the emotion of it all jade your choices.  And technology makes it impossibly easy to surreptitiously track your ex's movements.  What money are they moving in the bank account?  What are they saying about me on Facebook?  Who's that in their picture on Instagram?

When the emotions haven't been handled and weighed and packed away healthily, it takes just a moment to let a twinge of jealousy or hurt turn into something much louder and darker.  Suddenly the memories of love mingle with the uprush of hate, and you're attacking the person you once professed to love more than anyone else in the world, the one you promised to cherish and protect forever. 

Eventually, though, you have to learn to bite your tongue and disengage from it.  You can't live when you're sweltering under the spotlight of the past.  Staying focused on what happened and what is still happening and what might happen because of your ex only keeps you trapped on that stage, where everyone watches through pinholes as you parade through a caricature of past, present, and future.  You're just a parody of yourself, on display for anyone who wants to shake their head and click their tongue at your choices.  (The peanut gallery and their comments could take up an entire post of their own!)

You have to get past the emotion and get down to the numbers.  Judges and courts don't care how you feel about your ex.  They don't care that sometimes you want to kiss them one more time, even if it means you're likely to throttle them when you're done.  They don't care that your ex moved on with a skank or that you've lost twenty pounds and gotten a new haircut.  And they don't care that you don't like how your ex chooses to live their life without you.

If you're still caught up in those things, they'll probably advise you to stay in therapy a while longer.

In the end, it all comes down to breaking apart the inanimate minutiae of your lives.  You have to get your shit away from my shit.  I have to take care of myself and list new emergency contacts.  And how I do that is none of your concern. 

Eventually, though, the emotions begin to take on less immediacy.  It's not that you don't feel the hurt or the anger or even the love anymore—it's that you have to conjure the emotions through memory.  That person's actions can still make you mad as hell, or even still sometimes break your heart, but the person... they aren't at all who they used to be to you.  They become a footnote to your life, like a neatly-stacked pile of expensive luggage that you store away in the basement until it's needed. 

But every time you haul that suitcase up the stairs, you'll note to yourself that it's something you got in your divorce. 

Pretty little girl, let your sweet thing sway.

I woke up a couple of days ago to a deep, painful, burgeoning zit... right above my eyebrows in the middle of my forehead. 

"I think my inner 17-year-old is about to burst through my third-eye chakra," I said to my therapist.

She looked at me pointedly.  "You might be right.  I think there's something there you need to explore."

We delved into my past, again, and talked about what was happening with me at that time, specifically about my sexual abuse, my teen sexuality, and my body image.  We talked for a while about what had been happening in my life the last couple of weeks—update on my divorce, update on Bounder, update on my adventures with the girls. 

"The more you're talking about this, the redder that's getting," she said gently.  "I really think you need to spend some time journaling or blogging about it.  You need to listen to what she has to say."

I've spent some time talking to her, the 17-year-old Stephanie, about what was bothering her then and what's bothering her now.  It doesn't feel like she's in control of my life, and she feels pretty calm and collected when she's looking through my eyes, but there's definitely some advice only she can provide. She knows nothing of having children or taking care of an adult life.  Her insights have to do with boys.  

Dating in my teens was non-traditional, as it was for most of my friends.  Our high school was small, and our circle of friends was sometimes smaller.  When I was interested in someone and they were interested back, it was almost always someone I already knew.  Our circle would shift to include that other person or the changing relationship, and we just hung out.  I never once had the pick-me-up-at-my-house-for-a-date experience with someone I hadn't already slept with. 

In the late 80s, that Stephanie was dealing with a lot of the things I wrote about in Persona Non Grata.  She had been raped at 16, was delving into a physically- and emotionally-abusive relationship with a dipshit, and she was a fat girl.  She never felt worth much, except when she was sexually precocious. 

Flaunting my sexuality in rebellion of my past, I'd found comfort in the back seats of cars and the dark corners of parks—places that didn't require me to be naked.  That didn't mean I wasn't constantly self-conscious about hiding my numerous physical flaws. 

[Tierney to Tessa] "Look, even at my fattest I knew I was a great fuck.  Maybe it was because of that.  I learned early on to work my body and use my sexuality to my advantage before anyone else could use it to theirs."

Maybe more importantly, she never really felt pretty.  She could see the pretty on the surface sometimes, but there was almost nothing there to give that insecure girl any kind of external encouragement or reinforcement that 1) she was indeed pretty, or 2) that it didn't matter because she was inherently worth more than that.

While I can quietly argue with that Stephanie that her beauty never came from how she looked, there is still something in every teenage girl that wants to know that she's physically appealing to other people.  Even on a biological level, physical beauty often plays a role in the attraction of potential sexual partners for procreation.  Feeling attractive to another person—whether physically, emotionally, or intellectually—bolsters your self-confidence, no matter how unvain or centered you are.  For a fat teenage girl who felt emotionally dismissed, abandoned, or even neglected for much of her life, having someone else see her as lovely could make or break her self-image and her self-worth at any given time. 

While I don't really remember feeling pretty until the last couple of years, I also don't remember being told I was beautiful until just over a year ago.  If I heard those words from my family or an ex-boyfriend or even my ex-husband before I lost the weight, it's not in my immediate recollection.  In fact, I told Bounder that he was the first non-stranger man to ever say those words to me without prompting or ulterior motive. 

"Well then I consider that to be both privilege and honor," he replied, a little surprised. 

As hard as this is for me to write, I've been able to see myself as pretty for the first time in recent weeks.  There had always been moments (no matter how fleeting or rare) when I would think I looked good or sexy or whatever, but it's when I'm most plainly me—no makeup, hair down, utterly comfortable in myself—that I can see it most clearly.  Seeing my attractiveness for myself, and saying it out loud, feels precariously comfortable.  It seems vain and arrogant to both think it and to say it; to put it in writing in such a public way feels shameful and likely to open me to attack. 

Within that realization, though, is the understanding of how and why my 17-year-old lighted under the attention of men.  With all of my issues of feeling dismissed or ignored, to garner even a little affection from an outsider was astonishing and felt desperately needed.  If it was received, reciprocity seemed mandatory, even if that ultimately led to unhealthy sexual and emotional couplings.  And if the attention was withdrawn, it could feel like the end of the world and that I was ultimately worth nothing. 

Uncharacteristically quietly, she has been reminding me of late that my sexuality is not all of who I am.  Because a man flirts with me or tells me I'm beautiful or hot or whatever, I am not worth more or less; my value as a sexual being is not determined by others.  I have the right and the responsibility to myself to say only thank you and to move on.  I am not required to be actively accepting of attention.  I am allowed to ignore it or decline it, just as I am allowed to encourage it if it's something I want. 

She's reminding me that I am in charge of my body and my heart, to accept the truth of me just the way I expect others to accept it.  She's also reminding me that I can say no and that having sex on my terms, being in charge of when and where and how and with whom, doesn't have to be retaliatory toward the past.  There's no need for my choices to bring me to a place of power; it's about finding healthy balance between attraction and desire and choice, coming to the place of sexual coupling on even terms with my partner and with myself.  With her. 

So now the zit is almost gone.  There's just a red mark that will fade completely in a few days.  (It sits, in fact, just below the forehead wrinkle that came with the weight loss and the stress and 40.)  But even now, no make-up and hair in a clip and in some slouchy clothes, I don't care.  I don't choose to ignore the mar; it just doesn't matter.  It doesn't change my beauty, inside or out. 

More importantly, that Stephanie sees it, too.

Really, Cupid?

Last week, I was talking yet again with Queen Frostine about my post-divorce love life. 

"Hot Pocket says I'll meet someone—the right someone, but I don't know when or where that's gonna happen," I told her.

"I'm not about platitudes," she replied.  "Maybe you'll meet someone, but you might not.  I mean, I doubt that's the case, but it's possible you'll never meet a right person again.  It probably won't happen in a bar or somewhere similar.  You need to try some new places.  Maybe you should try online dating."

"Oh gawd no!"

"Why not?"

"I don't think I'm that desperate yet!"

She went on to explain that she knew several people who'd had great luck with it.  I was dubious at best.  I did go that night to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for Cocktails in the Garden.  While the new Imaginary Worlds installations were amazing, all of the men I talked to were either gay or with their partners and children.  A couple of guys did look me up and down—with their significant others sitting right next to them.  (Seriously, guys? If I see that, I can promise you she does, too.)

I was home by 10:00 that night, eating cereal and watching television while I cried. 

I could've stayed in bed all the next day, feeling utter repugnant and rejected, but I went that evening to meet another friend, La Bruja, for happy hour at H. Harper Station.  She and I went to high school together, also with Queen Frostine and Growler and so many of the inner circle.  She's also divorced, though for longer than I have been.  She's dated far more than I have.  I mentioned the online dating suggestion.

"Oh, you should totally try it," she encouraged. 

She went on to tell me which site she thought was best, how to go about setting up my profile, why I should answer at least fifty of the profile questions, etc.  She also had some great stories to share about her own experiences. 

I also knew this was something I wanted to research for a character in a planned Junkture book. 

So yesterday I went to the site and set up my profile.  I included a couple of pictures that I've used publicly before—nothing racy or exceptionally personal.  I was very honest on my descriptions of myself and my interests.  I took the position that I would be my normal, brutally open self.

My message inbox started to fill up very quickly. 

"Hi I wish you lived closer I really like you."

"hi, did you have a fun night?"

"I think I fell in love!  Fell for that beautiful smile!"

All day this went on.  A few I replied to, though sometimes just to tell them no.  Some seemed mildly interesting. 

"Hey there lovely.  Interested in a younger guy maybe? ;)"

"Would you care to chat with me, gorgeous?"

"Wowwww.  Sexy.  Yes please."

"Wawww, very nice pics u r so beautiful ;)"

Oh, look!  There's a BLOCK button!

I could go on for days about this, especially as the process unfolds.  As I started to share some of these posts on my Facebook page, friends excitedly asked if I'd be including this in my next book.  Some of it will be, obviously, but there's just so much of it that I'd never be able to do it justice. 

So I've decided to start a new blog about my adventures in online dating. 

I will still be here, regularly, and I'm sure I'll make reference to Really, Cupid? fairly often.  But there is far more to me than what someone may see through an online dating profile.  I still have issues to work through, and Muchness and Light is the place I write about my journey and my rediscovery of my muchness. 

Feel free to join me on Really, Cupid? and follow along. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sass and Cavey, Jr.

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

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

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

 

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

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

Now I get it. 

At Johnny's Hideaway