After a couple of days—weeks, months, I don’t know—of intense “discussion” (as my grandparents would say), Rango has finally said what so many before him have: I’m too much.
I suppose I should clarify that. Initially, it was that it’s not me, per se, who is too much, just my emotions. My overt expression of exactly what I’m feeling at any given time, especially when it’s not in line with how he would feel or express something, or how he thinks best suits me to feel or express it.
And when my expression manifests in ways he doesn’t like or understand, it makes him uncomfortable.
There is absolutely no expectation on his part that I behave in a set, specific way. He just doesn’t understand why I am often so stressed, why I hang on to issues and analyze them into unrecognizable minutiae, and why I am so prone to outbursts of tears when I’m overwhelmed by emotion.
For more than two years, I have done my best to find some full-time/part-time balance of student and employee, plus being a full-time mom. In all but one of the two-dozen classes I’ve taken in that time, I’ve worked for and gotten an A. (Algebra is still the bane of my existence.) My first real job in 15 years is for a prestigious state agency, and it challenges me and engages me constantly. My ex-husband has been out of state for most of that two years, barely in contact with our children and leaving me to care for them while cleaning up his emotional mess—all while berating me bitterly and randomly, usually about money.
I try to explain that I am still trying to learn to stand on my own two feet, and Rango counters that I don’t have to do it all on my own, that I have him.
Without question, he has been a huge support since we started dating. He has been the constant male figure in the boys’ lives, and he has been incredibly supportive of my schooling and work and time with GOAL. He understands fully when I need to take a little time to myself or with the Castration Committee, like I did last weekend.
He doesn’t understand why I berate myself about having gained some of this weight back, about not having time to work out even if I were cleared for weights after a lingering wrist injury from October. Another apparent blown disc is reminding me every day of how far down that slope I have slipped. Seeing pictures from four and five years ago compared to pictures from now is devastating to my ego. My head knows I was living in misery when the skinny girl pictures were taken, and that’s utterly dichotomous to the pictures of me with the Governor or addressing the Georgia Senate.
I should be easy on myself for holding all of this together as well as I have, and I should be nothing but proud of the accomplishments I’ve made. But somewhere in my fucked up head, I am often embarrassed to be me, to see how far I fell down a hole I never wanted to think of again, and to feel the snap! of one tenuous thread and to know how that can bring the whole damn thing crashing down around me.
Even now, while I’m writing, I’m crying. There is just so much that needs to come out.
I’m writing while he and the boys are asleep. I’ll wake them soon to go about our busy day of haircuts and errands and homework and cleaning and cooking and hopefully going out tonight to see a friend’s husband’s band because I was too damn drained last night to do it. I also know I am choosing this time to write because I don’t want him to see me cry. I don’t want him to tell me again that it’s too much.
I also know I choose this forum, because he doesn’t read what I write. Like so many before, he’s not a reader. If I send him something specific, he will read it, but he doesn’t seek out that side of me. Truthfully, that’s part of the reason I haven’t written much in the last year or more. If I couldn’t get the approval of the only person whose approval mattered to me, then why devote the energy there? There was already enough to deflect my attention away; it wasn’t efficient or productive to waste the time and effort.
Except it never was a waste, was it? DH hated that I wrote, and that I wrote away from and about him. Like Absolem and Bounder after, he would tell me I was a good writer, that I should do it, but that I shouldn’t write about things and in ways that made him uncomfortable. I should steer clear of truths that made him feel bad.
It was too much.
Fuck. That.
I feel what I feel. I pull it out and examine it and play with it. I may spin it all around like a Rubik’s cube and put it back in, or I may hang it on a shingle for the world to examine for itself.
But it is mine, and I have my reasons, and absolutely no one ever gets to tell me otherwise. Not if they want to stay.
I struggle, and maybe I’m struggling more and differently than when Rango and I met, over drinks on a holiday weekend when my kids were having rare visitation with their father. But there is a lot more at stake now—logistically and legally and emotionally—and I will never again be content to let anyone else be my sole support. It’s not that I’m unwilling to let anyone else be supportive; I simply will not put myself in any precarious position where I am unable to support myself.
I appreciate that he sees me as beautiful no matter what, that the size of my ass doesn’t tip the scales out of my favor. But if it is the weight of my tears that are too much, I can’t help that. All I can hope is that, in the end, both weigh less than Osiris’ feather.
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.
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.
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.
For months now, I've been quiet. It hasn't been intentional, I assure you. I've lamented to Rango and the Castration Committee that I just haven't had time or energy to write.
That's not entirely true.
I have been extremely busy with school. Between three classes and a very busy internship with the ACLU of Georgia, my time has been mostly filled with The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, various petitions for probate, and ongoing discussions with my professors and multiple legislators about the privacy concerns surrounding police use of body cameras.
A photo posted by Stephanie Quinn Jackson (@stephqj) on Mar 31, 2015 at 5:34am PDT
My regional GOAL interview seemed to go very well, though I won't know how well until next week. The state competition begins on April 22nd here in Atlanta. Finalists will be announced the first night, and they have to be prepared to compete again the next morning. While I had excellent feedback from my judging panel and others at Regionals, it could be that I'm not the right fit for the Technical College System of Georgia. Maybe I'm too opinionated or too loud or too brash. Then again, maybe I am the right fit.
Either way, I won't know for another week.
I've also been making the transition from single mom of two to attached mom of two. While Rango and I would've happily gotten married the weekend we met, we agreed that probably wasn't in the boys' best interest. After nine months of dating and entangling our lives, we sat down with the boys and asked them how they would feel if he moved in with us, making our home into OUR home.
They were agreeable. They were excited. They were ready.
There have been a few bumps here and there, but all in all it's going better than I was willing to allow myself to hope.
With most things, I tend to subscribe to the "Lowered Expectations" philosophy—expect nothing, and you'll never be disappointed. With regard to the GOAL competition, I'm living that mantra every single day. While I may be very well qualified to be the advocate for technical education in Georgia, there's only a 1 in 24 chance that I'm The One. So I don't get my hopes up. I don't plan about what color car I would pick out or which of our cars we would sell to pay the taxes on the new one.
But with Rango, I already have expectation. He has gently guided me to a place where it is okay to believe in someone else, to trust in someone else. And I do. I trust him to do what he tells me he's going to do. I believe that he will love me, actively, and be available for me, forever and always and no matter what.
And that's led me to have expectation for myself. Historically—at least over the last five years—I have hedged my bets. I always had a backup plan or the phone numbers of exes I stayed in contact with, just in case, even when those relationships were toxic for me. Even when those fragile cats would scratch and bite me, running away into the night, and then yowl loudly at my door a few nights later while I was still bleeding from their affront.
Now, there is no bet hedging. I blocked the numbers of my backup plans and made it difficult for them to reach me and vice versa. I took the remnants of old relationships—my wedding dress, the box of Bounder, the last bits of Absolem—and I burned them. I wanted to do something privately ceremonial, like burying the ashes in the backyard, but once the embers faded, I found there was no more energy to give to them. I was tired, and they didn't deserve my reserves.
That's all for Rango now.
He told me over the weekend that, for the first time in his life, he has no backup plan, either. We both always have friends and family we can turn to, but neither of us is propping open the door to possibility of failure. We're not stupid; we've each been divorced and know damn well what could happen.
But we also know now, after years of struggle and growth, what should happen.
We are open and honest, sometimes stupidly so. We are true to ourselves and to each other. We have forged a logistical and emotional partnership that is equal and based on mutual respect and care and love.
We argue sometimes. Sometimes when I'm especially bitchy, he'll just pointedly ask me if I'm going to be okay. He stays calm and lets my storm pass over him until it blows itself out.
At Regionals, the judging panel asked me where I thought I'd be in five years and how I intended to get there.
"I know you want a perfect answer," I replied, "but the honest truth is I don't know and I don't care. What I thought I'd be doing when I started my paralegal studies program is not at all what I'm actually doing a year later. Where I thought I'd be five years ago is nowhere close to where I actually am. So, yes, the answer is still that I don't know, but it's also that I'm excited to find out. I'm excited to explore opportunities and discover new talents and new challenges. I'll let you know where I am in five years."
Even if I don't move on to the next round or win another damn thing ever in my life, I am confident that I will continue to forge my path and make the best of whatever intersects with my journey. I have talent and skill and resourcefulness. I have two amazing sons and a spectacularly supportive life partner. I have loyal, wonderful friends and four warm, snuggly cats.
It's been an incredibly busy six weeks, and I've been sorely out of touch. Summer break for the boys was surprisingly busy, especially for Max who was gearing up to start high school. (High school! My baby is in high school!) I was working when I could, and I was constantly doing homework or in class—completing the 15-hour class load for the summer session. It exhausted me, but I managed to pull off a 3.8 GPA for the semester and both boys are still alive.
In the midst of all of that chaos, there came Rango. While talking during our first date, I was telling him what my hectic life was like.
"How do you manage time to date?" he asked across a ginger beer.
"I just do it," I replied. "If it's important to me, I find the time."
That was an issue with so many of the Fragile Cats before. They would often say they were too busy to be regularly available, but they also had the expectation that I would be happy and welcoming when they wanted to drop a dead mouse on my doorstep. As most of the Castration Committee will attest, I thrive in chaos; I am generally at my best when I am forced to prioritize and organize and be efficient in my decisiveness. I could always find time to spend with Bounder or Katniss or Rex or any of them.
They wouldn't always find the time to spend with me.
As I realized over the year-and-a-half of dating after my separation, I was mostly drawn to avoidants—the asshole Fragile Cats who justified running hot and cold and often made me feel like it was my fault for wanting or expecting them to follow through on their word. Yes, if you tell me you're going to show up or call, I actually expect you do show up or call.
Somehow they were always surprised when I felt hurt or angry with them for not doing what they'd said they would.
Eventually I learned it wasn't me at all that had screwed up in these exchanges. La Bruja told me months ago that I would eventually find an amazing guy who wasn't like that, at which point I would cease to even see the avoidants who were trying to get my attention.
She was right. Kind of.
I still see them; I'm me—I can pick them out of a crowd in five seconds flat. But I don't pay attention to them. I don't feel drawn to help or empathize or soothe. Usually I smile and nod politely while mentally running through my to-do list for the upcoming days. Sometimes I just roll my eyes and walk away.
Given my own hectic life, it's surprising that I even bothered to try one more time. I was determined that July 2nd would be my last date for a very, very long time. I'd intended that to be the case if and when it turned out that he was another avoidant asshole. Never did I expect the guy to actually be Rango.
Because he mattered to me, I had to make the decision very quickly to incorporate Rango into my life. He was willing to accept me and my crazy, plus my two sons and the logistical issues that divorced parenting brings.
Somehow, because I matter to him, he finds the way and the time to make me and the boys a priority. When a recent family illness brought an unexpected road trip to Alabama, he didn't hesitate to offer to go with us. He hasn't shied away from meeting my family or friends.
More importantly, when I woke in the middle of the night crying a few weeks ago, he didn't shy away from me. The logistics of my life were taking a physical and emotional strain, and I woke at 4 a.m. to a barrage of hot, angry sobs. He was awake elsewhere in the house, trying not to wake me with his own sick and sleeplessness.
I laid there for a moment in the dark, paralyzed with fear and hurt. All the nights I woke alone like that came crushing back, and I couldn't breathe. Then I remembered that I had begged the Universe for someone who could help shoulder that weight for me. I had prayed for someone to be there in the middle of the night when I was crying.
I padded down the hall to where he was in the kitchen. He looked at me, saw the glint of streaming tears in the dim light, and dropped everything just to hold me and listen while I sobbed against his chest. Eventually he put me back to bed and stayed right there with me until I fell back asleep.
Impossibly, he was still there the next morning.
Rango doesn't shy away from my heart any more than I do. I warned potential suitors that I was a lot to handle, and they always said they were okay with that. He is the only one who has consistently and unabashedly embraced the intense chaos that swirls in and around me.
He loves me not in spite of but because of that intensity.
Queen Frostine commented the other day that I had not once called her crying or lamenting some stupid thing Rango had said or done—totally unlike any of my other relationships.
"He grounds you," she noted. "He keeps you centered."
I quickly pointed out that I do the same for him. Even though it's a tenuous balancing act some days, it's easy to be with him, to love him. We are open and honest in our communication. We are true to ourselves and to each other. He is the same way with me that I am with him... that I was with the others who couldn't manage to get their furry heads out of their own asses long enough to realize that it didn't have to be so damn hard all the time.
Interestingly, he doesn't make me feel like I want to puke. Yes, there is the excitement and the giddy and the uprush of love. There are no underlying warnings, no red flags flapping above choppy waters that bring the seasickness.
Invariably, I am me. Stephanie is prone to moodiness and difficulty. She attracts sea monsters, curiously dancing with both Scylla and Charybdis, struggling sometimes to stay afloat in a hopscotch board of eddies.
Hurricane Sassafras is always swirling, in danger of whirling me under my own upsurge. My biggest fear is that I accidentally pull Rango into that riptide.
But this one has his own undercurrents, his own battles and strengths that pull against mine. Somehow we manage to moor each other into the safety of our own harbor, like Puerto Rango is the capital of Glamazon Island. (In my head, it kind of looks like the lagoon on Gilligan's Island.)
It's natural and easy. We just fit in ways that we've never felt together with someone else. Even with all of the awareness of the past and cognizance of the present, it feels effortless to love each other in the ways we each need to be loved.
Rango and Sassafras live contentedly in the eye of the storm, looking up at brilliant skies in the midst of so much buffeting wind. And if it means a lifetime of my cracking coconuts for dinner and his building radios from the hollowed shells, so be it. At least there will be piña coladas and music.
Last October, I was recovering from thyroid surgery and pining away for a man who couldn't love me like I needed. Pandy came to stay with me for a couple of days, to help get my head out of my ass and keep me happily entertained. With yet another recent snipe from Bounder, we talked at length (ad nauseum) about what my heart wanted and needed.
Watching movies in the midst of some giggly crazy that always seems to rule our world, Pandy named the next Big Cat to impact me: Rango.
Rango would come from the west. He would rescue the princess when she freaked out and couldn't do it herself. He would be afraid but refuse to walk out on his own story.
Rango would also be big; my ideal was 6'4, 240 pounds, blue eyes, dark hair but balding and shaved, western-European descent. He would be smart and a little geeky, funny and compassionate, respectful and gentle. He would be intense and look at me like I'm precious. He would laugh as loudly as I do and totally get my batshit.
He would not be an alcoholic, and he would not be afraid to love me. He would not hesitate.
Every date I had and relationship I started, Pandy and I would debrief and debate whether or not that one might be Rango.
On May 30th, I received a message on one of the dating sites I'd been trying for ages. The guy was a decent match, very cute, 6'5, and he was asking me about my writing. The conversation went back and forth for a couple of messages, and then I dropped it and forgot about it.
School, kids, work, my grandmother's death. And, as has happened so often in the last year, there was the inevitable back-and-forth with Bounder. I had a couple of dates, but nothing that was quite what I was looking for. I finally (yes, finally!) got Bounder out of my heart. Queen Frostine and Peanut and their kids came to visit for a few days. With so much hectic happening, I decided to screw dating and just focus on school and the kids.
But then last week I received another message from this guy.
"So I've been matched with you in two different places. Knowing that you're not into developing dialog through chat, how would you feel about meeting me for a drink sometime this week or weekend?"
Oh, hell! I thought. I totally blew this guy off for no reason. And I love to write-chat. Seriously? How rude of me!
I agreed to meet for a drink that night, but I also knew that if it didn't go well, I would be done with dating for a while again. He told me he'd be the tall guy in the Superman baseball cap and that he'd be hard to miss. I replied that I was an Amazon with a Wonder Woman tattoo; there was no way I would miss him.
Of course he was late. I was a few minutes earl. I was sitting at a pub table when I messaged the Castration Committee at 8:37.
"My 8:30 drink date is late. You know how I feel about this."
"He better have one hell of an excuse!" Pandy commented.
"There is no excuse! Release the Cuisinart!" added Moonshine.
Queen Frostine is always so direct in her assessments: "Nope. Next!"
But then came a text from him: "I'll meet you inside, assuming I made it to the right place. It's warm out here!"
I was trying to respond to let him know I was already at a table, when I heard a server greet a customer. I stood and turned to meet him at the door when I saw him round the corner.
I caught my breath and watched him do a double-take.
He had been sitting in the 90-degree heat, waiting for me because he was right on time. Three hours later, I'd agreed to go out with him on Saturday night. And Friday night. By 5:30 the next afternoon—after all-day messaging with him—I'm texted Pandy:
He's Rango.
And he is. Undoubtedly.
He got to me by 10:45 Friday morning. We didn't separate until very late Sunday night.
He's from Texas, though he has lived all over. He is 6'5, 235#, shaved head, gorgeous blue-gray eyes that flicker like a storm approaching over the ocean. He kissed me in the park under Independence Day fireworks. He bought two new Doctor Who shirts while he was with me at the mall, including one that is just like Max's favorite shirt. He totally encouraged my need to Instagram the absurdities in my world. We laughed until we couldn't breathe, and we talked for three straight days.
And while I don't like comparing men and relationships, how did he stack up against the Pandy-induced wish list?
He helped me cook dinner, and he cooked crepes for me for breakfast on Sunday. I watched him clean up spilled cat food from the kitchen floor. I lost my wallet on Saturday, and he drove me on Sunday to pick up the boys in South Carolina and paid for the gas and food and fireworks for the kids, because I couldn't. He met my sons and my ex-husband at the same time.
He saw me immediately, clearly. He has lived amazing adventures and wants more, but nothing is so adventurous to him as the possibility of me.
Rango listens to me intently, like my voice and words keep him alive. He is holding nothing back. Every emotion, deep and true, is mine to see and touch. It was he, in fact, who looked me in the eye—not a text or a phone call—to tell me for the first time that he loves me. To my face, with no hesitation.
And from the very first, he bested the kiss that I thought would likely never be topped.
He brought me flowers and a CD when he came for me. He held my hand and breath-sang to me—a country song that, for so many reasons, would have otherwise made me want to stick my fingers in my ears.
Rango is enormous. He has worked to overcome his own weight and health issues and understands mine intimately. His hands and feet are bigger than mine, and I touched his feet with mine the first day, which the Castration Committee knows is a big damn deal for me. He is loud and gregarious, patient and indulging. He picked me up and spun me around and kissed me like no one ever has before.
More importantly, he is present and available and willing. He holds my hand and rubs my cheek constantly. He texts me in the pre-dawn hours while I am still sleeping to tell me he loves me. He sends me links and pictures for things he thinks I will find interesting, and he sends similar tidbits for the boys, who both said he is awesome. He plays my favorite game of sharing poignant songs, back and forth, trying to explain our heads and hearts through music. He is taking me to meet his friends this weekend. He talked to Pandy on the phone and is planning to go with me to see her in a couple of weeks.
He looks at me like no one ever has, and he tells me I am precious to him. I can see and feel my worth to him in every single interaction, in every touch and kiss and look and word.
I had all but lost hope that I would ever find what I staunchly believed had to be out there. I knew in my head that the law of averages said it was likely to happen, but my heart just couldn't connect and was losing faith. I questioned over and over what I had done so wrong in my life that I didn't deserve to have the good I knew was looking for me just as hard as I was looking for it. It felt like my heart was dying.
And in walked Superman.
I am overwhelmed, and I am relieved, and I am grateful. Yes, to know that I was right and to get something really good when I needed it, but also because it's him. It's this man, who is so wonderful.
I see his specialness. I see those unique qualities that set him apart from other men, hiding behind the dork glasses and the badge on his chest. His strength is amazing, but his heart is just as strong.
While it might have been too much for other women, I'm an Amazon princess. I have my own enormous strength, my own muchness that has been too much. I have my own, invisible transportation and don't need him to fly me around, unless I've misplaced my driver's license.
More importantly, we see the humanity in each other, the imperfections and the frailty and the damage that led us to one another. We know we only have so much time, and we have each wasted enough having to rebuild from one destruction or another.
Had I gone out with him in early June, before letting go of Bounder, it never would've worked. I would've thought he was too nice. I wouldn't have thought I deserved something this good. I wasn't ready to accept a blessing.
But I asked for him. I dared the universe to send me something very specific, and just when I thought it couldn't possibly happen, I got what I needed when I needed it most.
When she first recommended it, I did a little quick research online and came to the conclusion that I have an anxious attachment style. "Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back." I realized I mostly have dated and been in relationships with avoidants. "Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness."
According to Levine and Heller, people with secure attachments—those who "feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving"—make up about 50% of the population. Anxious ones like me make up 20%, while avoidants make up 25%. The remaining 5% of the population is made up of anxious-avoidants, and I can certainly include a couple of my exes in that narrow margin.
But when it comes to dating as an adult, the majority of secure people are in healthy relationships. They're the ones you know who are still happily married after twenty years. They're the ones I look to and wish I'd ever had a relationship like that.
Secure men are generally not on the open market.
There's a disproportionate number of avoidants in the dating pool. This is part of the reason I am far more likely to encounter a Fragile Cat when I'm on the prowl myself.
Anxious people are also more likely to be attracted to avoidants, as if something unconscious in us feels like we've found a missing piece of our puzzle. Avoidants are usually reflective of a powerful, dysfunctional attachment in our earlier life, often from childhood. Initially everything may seem really great, but then something happens and the avoidant backs away, which causes the anxious to move closer to close the gap, which causes the avoidant to back away even further. Both partners are having their fucked-up emotional attachment needs met, but it's a pathological dance of getting close and backing away.
In reading Attached, I was surprised (and thankful!) to learn I wasn't quite as screwed up as I'd thought. Yes, I am anxious, though not nearly so off-the-chain as I could be. (I'm less of an outlier than I normally am.) Levine and Heller argue that there is a biological, evolutionary purpose and need for attachment. Just as happens with parents and children, bonds are formed in the brain when we partner. Synapses and neurotransmitters and a bunch of brain shit that I only understand as a layman come together to imprint that person on our brain as a matter of survival. As inherently social creatures, especially ones who have sexual reproduction, we need other people.
When an avoidant backs away from me, it activates that attachment system, and I've learned mostly unconsciously to do things and work in ways that will get a response from my partner, to deactivate that system. (I'm talking phone calls and texts, not boiling bunnies, though I'd imagine this is exactly where and how stalking begins.) When I don't get the response I need, it amps up my anxiety, so I step closer again and again until I'm either soothed or I get so worked up that love feels like a huge waste of my life.
Because of these patterns established throughout my life, emotional security is something I need in a different way than secure people. That doesn't make it better or worse than anyone else—unless you're the avoidant on the polar opposite side of the need. The avoidant's need for independence, their oft-refused acceptance of needing another person, is a defense mechanism and a way to fulfil their own established patterns.
The avoidants' defensive self-perception that they are strong and independent is confirmed, as is the belief that others want to pull them into more closeness than they are comfortable with. The anxious types find that their perception of wanting more intimacy than their partner can provide is confirmed, as is their anticipation of ultimately being let down by significant others. So, in a way, each style is drawn to reenact a familiar script over and over again.
My secure friends, and certainly my avoidant ones, have a very hard time understanding this. They don't get why I can't always just suck it up and go on and get over someone, even when they've hurt me time and again. But when that attachment system is activated and spinning out of emotional control, contact with that person can immediately soothe all of my anxieties, much in the same way an upset baby is soothed by the presence of its missing mother.
Many individuals find it hard to follow through on their wish to break up, even after they've tried more than once to do it. Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don't get to decide how long it will take. Only when every single cell in their body is completely convinced that there is no chance their partner will change or that they will ever reunite will they be able to deactivate and let go.
One of the things Levine and Heller stress is that emotional dependency is not bad. It is, in fact, a natural part of a healthy relationship to make your partner's needs more important than your own and vice versa. It's okay and normal and good to elevate someone else's needs above your own when you are healthily in love.
But I have this history of addicted men. Alcohol, drugs, sex—I've seen and dated and slept with them all. I've written before about how I am historically and enabler. So what about codependence? Isn't becoming so enmeshed in another person that your boundaries are blurred just dysfunctional? Doesn't dependency on a partner make you lacking or broken or just fucked-up in some way?
Not necessarily.
Need and addiction are not the same thing. Codependency exists, and it is especially relevant in the realm of addiction. The addict uses their substance as a tool to maintain emotional distance. They drink or get high or sleep with other people as a way to cope with their own damage, and that often means they are actively inserting something between themselves and their partners. There are other biological factors that come into play with addiction, as well. The times I have refused to leave because my partner needed me to take care of them—whether to pick up their drunkenly-abandoned car or make excuses to their boss or friends about why they weren't showing up or to clean up whatever mess they created while they were fucked up—that's where the dysfunction of codependence can actually be applicable.
Just because you need someone, that doesn't mean that you are addicted to them.
One of the things Attached recommends I do is date a lot of people, to go out with several at once. That way if an avoidant sneaks (bombards his way) into my circle, I am reassured by the fact that I have someone else over here who wants to go out with me. It's no big deal that this one fucked up, because there's someone else who finds me attractive and wants to spend time with me. Historically, I am not a multi-dater, but I'll see how it goes.
So I put myself back on the market.
Friday night, I had a date with a new guy. I'll call him S, because I don't want to reveal his name and—as you'll see shortly—he's not worthy of a jellicle name. We met nearby at a billiards bar. We had a couple of slow drinks and talked, though we never got around to actually playing pool. He was cute and smart and funny. We sat on the patio of the bar talking about sociology and music and dating as adults. We walked around for a while, still talking and laughing, and ducked into another bar for a last drink. I even messaged the Castration Committee while I was peeing that it was going really well.
With about thirty minutes left in my night, that first kiss was looming. Okay, you'll get a kiss, and it sounds like there's a chance you'll get another date. I was looking forward to the prospect of seeing him again and getting to know him better.
Cut to the chase, and he turned into a handsy ass. Now, I'm no prude. While I've been mulling imposing a Three Date Rule for sex, I have never been one to live by such social proprieties. That doesn't mean I've slept with everyone I've been out with, and certainly not always on a first date, but I am comfortable going quickly down that path if I feel the situation is conducive to such intimacy. Yes, sometimes, it's just a one-nighter. I had to be home in an hour; this was not going to be one of those nights.
For the first time in a really long time, I felt like a 16-year-old piece of cheap meat. I felt stupid and also insulted that I was being offered a quickie in the backseat of his car, parked down a dark side street. Again, not a scenario I'm unfamiliar with given my history, but I am not that girl anymore. I'm a grown-ass woman. I am worth far more than what this man was clumsily and uncomfortably offering me.
And after writing two weeks ago and talking with my therapist this week, it was like I was watching this from above, from outside my own body. For a moment, it felt like Stephanie was sitting there with Quinn as this recently-nice man imposed himself on us. I could feel myself now, knowing this was just insulting, but I could also feel Quinn sitting silent and petulant, wishing he would just take his rough hands and slobbering mouth off of her.
Something in me clicked and shoved him away quickly. I got out of the car and said I needed to go. I walked back to my car, a block away. I texted Pandy to let her know it had gone awry but that I was okay.
This is where I will also interject that I called Bounder.
In the now-14 months since we met, dated, broke up, dated again, broke up again, slept together, slept together again, dated others, slept together again, et cetera, we have continued to have this weird connection. One of us reached out to the other, usually via text, at just that right moment when the other seems to need us. We still sometimes dream of each other at the same time, as we'll find out a day or two later.
But in all of that time, with all of the men I've gone out with, Bounder always seems to know. He has never failed to text me while I'm with someone new, sometimes at the most inappropriate moments that I don't see until after the fact. He's never failed to reach within than four hours after I've been with a new guy. Whether he smells my perfume on the wind or has a bug in my phone (no, he doesn't), he just knows.
It is unquestionably the dance of an Anxious and Anxious-Avoidant.
I'd even joked on Friday afternoon that I wasn't blowing off this first date with S just to go sleep with Bounder. (It wouldn't have been the first time.)
I hadn't even left my house for the date when his text came.
Totally innocent response to something else from days before. I was leaving for the date when I saw the message. The man is uncanny, really.
And I didn't shut down this thing with S because of Bounder. He really doesn't have the power to cock-block my dates from a distance. I wasn't caught up in the idea of him that night; I was completely engaged with S until it turned weird. (Let me stress here that at no time with S did I feel unsafe or in any type of danger. I was simply very, very uncomfortable.)
My voice shaking and low, I called Bounder to tell him thank you for having never made me feel like I owed him anything. Honestly, I was thankful it was a late-night voicemail and that I didn't have to talk to him directly. For all of his faults, for all of the times I have done this fucked-up pathological dance with the man I love more than any other ever but who is such a heartbreakingly-close-but-terrible fit for me, he never made me feel sexually worthless. In fact, as I was working through some pretty ugly memories and trying to get past some things, he was incredibly, beautifully patient and supportive with me. He failed me in a lot of ways, but he never, ever made me feel anything but beautiful and wanted for exactly who I was, not because I should or might be something else, not because there was an expectation. And that, in and of itself, is its own kind of love.
So I'm still learning how to step differently, how to dance to a different beat. It's not like reading this book would suddenly make me not maladaptive. But it did open my head, giving me some insight and tools to work toward the healthy relationship I likely never would've possessed, had I not started this process of intense self-analysis and re-discovery.
As shaken as I was when I walked away from that uncomfortable moment, I know I am fully engaged in this process. I'm not watching from afar, checking out emotionally to just let things happen to me. Healthy or unhealthy choices are my choices, and they aren't dependent on what Cissie or Quinn might want, though their needs are sometimes still my needs.
I drove us all home and to bed. Alone.
And as La Bruja commented on Facebook as we talked about this date, "The good things that I see from this: 1) material—duh; 2) nothing happened and you're fine; 3) when you meet the right man, and some hot guy starts flirting with you while you're in line at Starbucks, you won't wonder if you missed any fun experiences by not dating more. You'll know you've got a great thing going and that 97% of all the guys who flirt with you would not come close to measuring up."
I was watching something insipid on television a few nights ago. (It's hard to remember which stupid thing I was clearing off the DVR between sessions of homework.) But I remember watching these characters on a couple of shows, walking through their lives and hoping to fall in love. They'd meet their currently-ideal love interest in some less-than-ideal situation and visibly fight the thought that just maybe that was the person for them. They were all looking for magic but refused to admit when they found it.
I want magic.
I spent a glorious Saturday evening with Pandy (née Hot Pocket) this past weekend. After hours of dancing and laughing and eating and a little too much whipped cream, we settled into the quiet while our babies slept down the hall. Eventually the talk turned yet again to my love life, specifically about what I loved about each of the men who have impacted my life so dramatically.
"What do you want?" she asked. "Not what qualities you want in a man—what things? If you could make a wishlist, what would be on it?"
Pandy knows damn well I've written a couple of times about what I want—the affection, the attentiveness, the lack of addiction. But I know Pandy, and this was her Practical Magic moment of daring me to put my wishlist out there where Fate might get ahold of it and take her chance at offering me exactly what I want.
I started to think about it in terms of these prior relationships—DH, Absolem, Bounder, Katniss, Rex—that had offered me something good in their way but had still not managed to be good enough. Like thinking about what you want in your unborn child, I started to pick and choose from those men.
From DH, I would want the care he could provide. For all of his flaws, he was an exceptionally good, practical caregiver when I needed it. Whether stopping at the grocery store while I was busy with a baby boy or carefully doling out medication and clean bandages after surgery, he took really good care of me. Eventually I learned to care for myself, which was one of the many problems we were never able to resolve, but I would want that active, tangible concern. (Check for both Bounder and Katniss for doing this, as well, in their own ways and times.)
From Absolem, I would want the clarity of vision. He could peek readily through my façade and see me. It was impossible to hide my truths from him, and he never failed to tell me exactly what he saw—even if I didn't like it. Bounder was just as adept, though he often danced around sharing his thoughts. I would also want the fearlessness, the adventure for life, that I have only ever found in Absolem.
From Bounder, there is so much. He set the bar so high in so many ways, though he often let it clatter to the ground—sometimes abrading me with those collapsing expectations. The depth of emotion, both his own and felt with me. The strength and vulnerability that were intricately interdependent. The mischievous, crinkling eyes every time he smiled when I told him I loved him. The ease with which he could cry with me, for me, in front of me, and how he never, ever withheld my emotions even when they were more than he thought he could bear. How he would patiently and without recrimination listen as I unleashed my crazy, circuitous head and heart, but how I never had to actually say what I was thinking because he always just knew. And the kiss that could stop time and turn the seas to dust. That kiss that may never be topped.
From Katniss, the chivalry and the romance. The single red rose the first time we met, and the choice of a perfect book for Christmas. The stories he would weave for me. The way he could calm me with a single word, dropped at the exact, magical moment when I needed it most. The way he would watch me intently while I spoke, and the lullabies he would sing to me over the phone just before I fell asleep.
From Rex, the largess. Not just the physical size—though make no mistake that I loved the way his hugeness felt, wrapping me into a dainty package that didn't feel like it would break. How his hands dwarfed mine. But there was a largeness of character, of dynamic, that was simultaneously gentle and kind. The way he could make me laugh at anything and everything, but also how he could shut down my humming brain and quiet my overthinking with a look. In some ways he did outdo Bounder, and I was thankful to know the bars could be raised even further. And I have never been so immediately comfortable with a man as I was with him.
But my wishlist is missing the one trait that each of these men has in common: their ability to make me feel negligible. The practical, magical one will be there, no matter what. He will call me every day that he can, even if it's just to tell me he loves me and goodnight after a really long day. He will text me random thoughts and pictures and be thrilled that I message him regular love letters, equally romantic and raunchy. He will lie with me in the floor and the firelight, letting me sing whatever song I feel that night, while he strokes my hair gently and whispers to me that I am beautiful.
And he will be there in the middle of the night, when I wake cold and scared, afraid of what comes out of my dreams. He will sleep comfortably, soundly next to me. He will actively, happily love me, and he will fight Heaven and Hell to be with me. He will do what no one has ever been willing to do for me before: he will value me, openly and honestly, and remind me every day that I am worth his fight.
And in return, I will love him like no other. Every fiber of my being, every moment of soul and joy and heartache, every laugh and every tear, every angry word and every whisper of adulation in the dark. To fill in every crack, to give him strength to be vulnerable, safety to be dangerous, acceptance to be who he was meant to be.
Maybe it's foolish to wish these things. Maybe it's childish or naive to hope that I find what I want most, what I seek as doggedly as I have ever done anything.
This is my favorite time of year, these very early moments of spring.
Seasons don't follow a calendar here in the South. Plants don't check the date to see if they're supposed to bloom. So even though the vernal equinox won't happen for a few more days, spring has sprung in my world.
The daffodils come first, often in late January. We've had a snowier and icier winter than normal this year, but it hasn't seem to have deterred the first shoots and fresh buds from reaching for the sunlight. Every year, there are a few warm days followed by a few cold and then the first of the spring rains. As soon as the clouds clear but before anything has dried, my world is suddenly verdant. The lingering droplets refract the differently-angled sunlight, and everything is green and fresh in a way that makes my heart swell into its own brilliant smile.
It is the return of Perstephanie.
What started as an inside joke with Moonshine more than twenty years ago has become the moniker of a persona. Major life events always seem to happen for me around the first of March and the first of October, as the world is gearing respectively up and down for seasonal change—during the procession of Persephone from and to the Underworld. And even though the time around Valentine's Day is often cursed with chaos for me, I always know it is on the cusp of rebirth.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
This year, I have been lucky enough to have a significant paradigm shift with the return of lengthening daylight.
It came in the guise of a man, Rex. At this point, I am choosing to keep details about him and that relationship within the confines of the tightest of the Inner Circle. What will happen between us remains to be seen, but suffice it to say that he is the catalyst for a significant shift in my energy.
As has happened before, there was a bolt of lightning. Again, I am turned to face a man who is a reflection of me in this place and time—simultaneously similar and opposite. My current story is reminiscent of his past. Our neuroses and demeanors are so eerily alike that he commented that I'm him with expensive lady parts.
Yeah. He's me with a penis.
But he has experiences that I don't, as well as a male perspective that I will never be able to gain.
He came with brash admonitions to take the things that taunt me, the vices of my self-flagellation, and to put a fence around them, to keep them safely unable to harm me but close enough that I can keep an eye on them when I so choose. He brought the gentle reminder not to overthink anything and everything at any and every given moment. And he brought living proof that a single mom of two handfuls of young men can be a successful parent, even in the face of utter familial turmoil.
Rex is one of those people who are brought into my life to teach me something. Maybe a lot of something. I'm almost certain I have something to show him, as well.
But even if he were to be gone from my life tomorrow, he gave me this little gift of a tool to be able to slow my own head down, not to have to rely on someone else to bring me back to the ground when I glide too close to the sun. And when it happened, the shift and exchange of energy was so palpable that we both were physically moved and could touch it in that wondrous moment.
The spring storms will be here soon. I'm a little anxious about what that lightning brings with it. But where I felt trapped and unable to move forward just a few weeks ago, I am lighter and freer than I have been in months. Still stumbling along my path, I'm being rebirthed. Again. And I'm skipping my way into my spring.
Two evenings ago, I went to the grocery store, as I so often do during the course of Mom Duty. I stopped to put gas in my car (which I hate to do more than anything in the world). Just as I switched off my ignition, my phone dinged with a message from an ex and another one drove by. Simultaneously.
Oh hell!
Over the last year, I've been out with a couple dozen men. Most did not get a second chance. I currently have a listed of 18 blocked numbers in my phone. (FYI, on an iPhone, texts from blocked numbers are lost in the ether with no response to the sender. Phone calls will go straight to voicemail. Anything recorded stays hidden unless you unblock the number, at which point they show up in a special voicemail directory.)
I didn't shoot them all down immediately. I'm still casual friends with a couple of the guys I met. (At least four of you are Facebook friends.)
But there were a select few who drew my heart into theirs. We moved past the point of casual chat to an actual relationship.
I've talked at length about my super ability to attract Fragile Cats. I swear some days it's like my front door is wide open, and they just saunter across my threshold and demand to be fed and pet, twisting their long tails around my legs and tripping me up before I even realize they're there. Ultimately they are skittish and unavailable, whether emotionally or logistically, though they'll almost always declare that's not the case. One even swore he wasn't a cat at all—that he was, in fact, a coyote.
When I realize they're skittish and about to run, I always offer them time and space. Always. They never take the chance. Inevitably, they freak out and bail and let me down in some ludicrously soul-wrenching way. I toss them out in my anger but always relent a few days later, letting them stew in the sun on my front porch. Where I leave them a saucer of cream. And the key to my back door.
(There are a lot of always in that paragraph. Note the pattern here.)
I am impossibly accommodating with these men. I am equally forgiving and supplicating, because I completely understand how they work; I get why they're so easily spooked, and somehow I continue to hope that they will see something special enough in me to be worth their effort to at least try to correct their behavior. For themselves and for me. I care about them—hell, I even loved two of them—so of course I would do everything possible to make it work, to give them reason to meet me halfway. Or at least a quarter of the way. (I'm a long-legged resourceful girl; I can close the gap myself.)
I'm unable to just cut someone like that out of my life at the slightest provocation. It feels inherently wrong to me, to disregard someone you care about so much. Because of my history and expectations, I have an unusually (annoyingly) high tolerance for douchebaggery. I'm incapable of writing them off right away, though God knows the Castration Committee wishes I would learn how.
But when they fuck it up again, that's when I'm done. Usually. Or I try to be. (Again, my issues with boundaries.)
What pisses me off, though, is the text or email or phone call a few months later, telling me how much they miss me, how they think about me and wish things had gone differently.
You miss me? Fuck you!
Every single one of them had the chance at something extraordinary. They knew it at the time and while they were letting it go. They would profess their care for me while throwing up their hands, apologizing for hurting me while they slapped me across the face. (Figuratively, not literally. The Castration Committee would harm me if I let that shit happen. Again.)
I'm not a toy to be discarded and brought back out months later, when you realize you'd forgotten how much fun it was to play with me. I am a really spectacular woman who cared deeply for you, and you dismissed me with a multitude of reasons and excuses. You told me to my face that I mattered while you crossed your fingers behind your back.
Fuck you.
And with all of them but one I am able to comfortably and happily live in a healthily detached state. It is still a struggle, every goddamn day, to keep that one in perspective, to actively remind myself of the bad that came with him and how it almost sucked the good out of me.
That's the one who appears when I least expect it but when I am least surprised. That's the one who lives the closest, who I sometimes pass on the road... the one who reads my blog regularly because he misses my voice and this is the closest he can bring himself to hearing me. The one who got away but it is never far away at all—even at 3 a.m. when we're both lying in bed missing the other. The one who altered everything, for whom I altered everything, but who can't get his big, beautiful head out of his ass long enough to admit that he fucked it up and shouldn't have given up so goddamn quickly.
He will read this. He'll know it's directed at him. He will likely continue to lurk, waiting for the time he sees that I've moved on with someone else and am in a safe enough space that he can be my friend again.
But he's also the one I can never be friends with, even though I miss him like mad. He's the one I loved so deeply and so passionately that the wounds of losing him are still sensitive and raw. They'll heal eventually, but I'll be left with more scars that leave numb, faded spots on my surface.
Maybe those are the mars I'll finally tattoo with chains, turning something ugly into something beautiful.
The rest of them can go to Hell. He's the only one I'd follow into those depths to bring out or join, whatever it took to keep him safe.
Some of the others will read this, too. They'll start to think it's about them and then feel the pang! when they realize they're mistaken. Again.
But to every single one of you, you had your chance. You can miss me all you want. It doesn't change a thing.
A couple of months ago, I met a guy online. We hit it off and agreed to a first date, which turned out to be fantastic. Schedules were a little tough to sync at first, but we did manage to eek in a couple more great dates. He was cute and smart and funny. We had long, engaged conversations and fantastic chemistry. Even though he was clearly into me, I knew pretty quickly that I didn't have substantial romantic interest in him. (I never even got around to giving him a nickname.)
I was mulling how best to go about ending it when the court date came up for my divorce. I was so caught up in that week that I didn't think much about it when I didn't hear from him.
Eventually I did get a text, though, asking how court had gone, how I was, etc. I caught him up quickly, while I was in the middle of working one of my three part-time jobs, and then asked how he was. He finally admitted that he hadn't checked on me because he'd gone on a week-long bender.
Red flags flapped ominously in my breeze. He knew my history of falling for alcoholics, and I knew his history—what he'd been very adamant was an ancient history of non-alcoholic addiction that had been long-ago dealt with. I knew I was ready to end the romantic relationship, but I liked the guy and wanted to be able to be his friend through the hard time he was having. I offered to be a sounding board.
Another week went by with no word from him. I was both busy and not unhappy about having a little distance from it. Then came the voicemail, telling me he had gone on another black-out binge and was hospitalized in a detox unit. He asked me to call him. He texted me the next day, asking if I'd gotten his voicemail.
I replied that I had but that I had to distance myself from the situation and from him.
"You know my history," I texted. "I am clearly an enabler. This is more than I'm willing to deal with right now. It's unhealthy for me and unhealthy for my children, given the energy shift it will create in me. I feel like a cad for not being your friend through this, but I just can't be around this right now. I wish you well."
Alcoholics aren't always, or even usually, the people who drink all day, every day and can't hold down a job. I've never dated a man who sat on the street corner, sipping anything out of a bag. (At least not more than a couple of social times.) My history, however, is peppered with functional alcoholics—those who lead productive lives filled with work and family and friends, who seem perfectly normal to anyone outside the closest inner circle. It wasn't just that they were alcoholic abusers, they were alcohol dependent.
When an addict of any kind begins the process of recovery, there are several paths they can take. Going it alone, private counseling, community-based therapy and support groups. Each has to find their own path.
In my personal experience and through my research for Persona Non Grata, there are two main thoughts about recovery. On one side, the addict needs to give all of their time and energy to recovery, at least initially and for some indeterminate amount of time, in order to stabilize and come to terms with themselves and the immediate consequences of ceasing substance. Different substances—whether alcoholic, heroin, cocaine, food, etc.—will have different effects on biochemistry, and withdrawal can be a bitch no matter your poison. Some addicts choose to immerse themselves in the process of recovery, sometimes to the point that the unavailability they showed their loved ones is just as prevalent even though it's in the name of meetings and sessions and getting better.
There's a second line of thinking, in which the addict has been a selfish bastard for so long that they need to immediately begin rectifying that damage to the people who've paid the highest price for it thus far. It's time to step up and show those people that you really do love them; it's time to start making amends for your asshole behavior of the previous weeks and months and years, balancing them with your own needs and therapy.
Often on the other side of an addiction is an enabler, someone who excuses and justifies and cleans-up and forgives the selfish, destructive behavior in the name of loving the addict. Someone like me. I've been known to give so deeply of myself to maintain the status quo that I would find myself frazzled and exhausted, a shell of who I was supposed to be.
If recovery for the addict includes stopping being a selfish asshole, recovery for the enabler is the time when they have to learn to be a little bit selfish, to take care of themselves before they care for the addict.
It feels completely unnatural.
When you are structured around this idea that "care" means self-sacrifice, you'll do anything for the people you love. Every detail of your life becomes about how you can help this person you adore, how you can make things easier so that they can accomplish their goals, even after recovery begins in earnest. It's all too easy to find yourself still in that pattern of compensating for the addict who has floundered for years.
But isn't that what you do for the people that you love?
If they're young children, absolutely. But even adults who were badly parented or never learned the life-skill of self-care are still adults; they have to be responsible for themselves.
It is hard as hell to turn away from someone you care about, leaving them to deal with the process of recovery without you. You, who has taken care of everything for so long, who has loved them like no other and for reasons and in ways maybe no one else would ever understand... you are abandoning them in their greatest moment of need.
You're a fucking heartless bitch.
As the enabler, you have to heal from this process of addiction, as well. You have to learn to care for yourself and how to devote time and energy to those who really need it, not just those who refuse to do it for themselves.
Given my history, my telling Bender (okay, so I named him just now) that I couldn't be a part of his process not only took my support away and forced him to stand with one less crutch, it allowed me to drop that fucking crutch, too. My hands are free to hold something else. Something more important—myself.
Even though that romantic relationship wasn't hugely impactful on my life, it came at just the right time to remind me that I am important in a relationship. My needs, my care, my wants are just as important as the other side's, even and especially when that other side is addicted.
Being cognizant of this, being fully aware of how necessary it is for me to make those healthy decisions means I have to follow through. To continue the behaviors and patterns when I absolutely know better makes me no better, but also no worse, than the addicts I have loved.
Even after Bender, there is another friend who is maybe in that process of sobriety and recovery. It's likely, though I don't know for sure because I had to make the decision to cut this person out of my life. And it is hard. Every single day, I want to know how they are, to hold them and listen while they talk through what I know is coming. Some days that connection still feels as strong as it did when we met so many moons ago.
I want desperately to reach out, to ask how they're doing. I can't, and it sucks. Some days, it hurts like hell.
They're no more irredeemable than I am. We've both always known that change would have to come from within them, no matter how much support I offered or shoved or emotionally blackmailed them into taking. But taking is not accepting, and I had to stop bashing my head against that beautiful brick wall.
As much as I hope they are taking the time to really face this and heal, I hope I am able to turn and face my own role in my life, my own choices to excuse and justify and encourage—all in the name of love. This time, I have to love me, in the same active way I have tried so fucking hard to love them.
Keeping them out of my life is supposedly the best thing for me. Supposedly it's also the best thing for them, but it smacks of abandonment and dismissal in the ways that feel most brutal to me. I hope to God, every day, that there's a healthy way forward for us, together or not, in each other's lives or not. I hope to hear that they're okay, that they're doing their work and dealing with what has been so long neglected. I hope I do the same.
Above all else, I hope we both can one day see that we are loved, not because of our roles in that dysfunction—not in spite of them—but for the people we are on the other side of the addiction and the history and the hurt.