Muchness and Light

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

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

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

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

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

DH was not happy.

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

Through all of the volatility, I wrote. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still questioned it all the time. 

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

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

Someone else was interested in what I had to say. 

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

Hi Stephanie,

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

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

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

What?!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Your story sad to tell, a teenage ne'er do well--most mixed up non-delinquent on the block!

After twenty years, I'm back in college.

In 1990, I started college on a substantial scholarship.  My life choices got in the way of studying, and I blew my scholarship within a year.  I tried, off and on, to finish what was originally a Communications degree, but I never quite got it together.  There was a lot of wasted time and money before I finally gave up, choosing to live my life with DH.  With the divorce came the realization that I would have to take care of myself long past the point of alimony or child support.

So as of last month, I'm back in school full time, enrolled at a local technical college to pursue a degree in Paralegal Studies.  Queen Frostine has said for years that I'd make a great attorney.  Given my attention to detail and my dogged curiosity, she thinks I'd be especially well-suited for the mechanics of the law life.  In my old life in financial planning, I spent a lot of time reviewing complicated estate and human resources documents, and I thoroughly enjoyed that process.  Writing Persona Non Grata brought entertainment law into my realm, and I ultimately finalized my divorce pro se (without an attorney). 

Being a paralegal seems like the natural and logical next step. 

But being back in school is weird.  When I was a college student in my late teens and early twenties, work/life balance was about little more than fitting classes in around a boyfriend or getting wasted.  Now at 41, I have not only my schedule of on-campus and online classes, homework, and real work, but also my sons' school and social activities to contend with.  And now DH has moved 300 miles away, which means I have the boys for the vast majority of their time.  Plus somewhere in there I have to take some time for me, to relax and socialize with my own peers and get recentered so that I can take on the constant demands of this life I am trying to rebuild.

The schoolwork thus far isn't terribly hard, though math is kicking my ass harder than it did when I was 18.  The courseload for this first semester includes some pretty interesting (and sometimes infuriating) introductions to sociology, humanities, and the law.  All too often I am fascinated by some random thought in a discussion group or textbook and find myself off on a tangent, researching the fundamentals of space law or Goffman's dramaturigcal perspective. 

And now with a brilliantly gifted 8^th grader who is naturally inclined to the same slacking I was in middle school, I am paranoid about his life choices.  I've always said I didn't care what my children did for a living, as long as they were happy.  While I know that my prior choices led me to the place and time of having my sons when I did, I am also painfully aware that we are in a financial bind in part as consequence of those choices. 

Had I applied myself and finished my degree when that was supposed to be my main priority, my life would be very different.  I might be better prepared to handle the financial fallout of divorce in my 40s, but I also might not have had these children.  I probably would've gone on to have kids, but Max and Tricky could only be who they are because they were conceived and born at their respective moments in history. 

I can't get caught up in what might have been or should have been; I live in the here and now, both as a result of and in defiance of my past.  All I can do now is work my ass off to provide better opportunities for my kids but also for myself.  This is part of learning to take care of myself in a whole new way. 

When it feels overwhelming, I have to remind myself that this won't last forever.  In the same way that the boys will age and grow—bringing an end to child support and the necessity of complete financial self-sufficiency—I will age and grow, getting through this process and reaping the rewards that I can on the other side. 

 

I stand up, and I'm searching for the better part of me.

During the process of divorce, especially at the beginning, life becomes almost exclusively about your children.  Obviously for people who don't have kids or who have adult children, it's a different story, but I don't know what that's like.  Living through both my parents' divorce when I was 11, as well as the last couple of years, I only have intimate knowledge of what it's like from my perspective.

Like so many couples, DH and I had brutal, nasty arguments before the separation.  We tried our best to keep them away from the boys, though I know we weren't always successful.  While we did our best to keep the energy off of them, there's no way they didn't feel the tension.  Sometimes it boiled over and disrupted their lives, occasionally waking them or turning into a heated exchange in the middle of dinner. 

The night we told them that we were separating was the worst of my life.  In that moment, I remembered very clearly being the child huddled on the couch between my parents.  They were both sadly stoic, trying to explain clearly and concisely that they were divorcing, that our lives would change, but that we were still a family who would get through this together.  Watching the boys cry the night we told them, I knew exactly how their hearts were breaking and all of the questions they'd both ask me and keep quietly and painfully to themselves. 

At first, all of my energy went into keeping them calm and safe.  With very good reason, I was even more attentive and patient with them.  I tried to make every waking moment as quality as I could muster, while also giving them space to be able to breathe and think on their own or together, away from Mom. 

Eventually I had to start living my own, private life.  I had to begin to see what being a single mom and woman was like.  A big part of that, of course, has been dating. 

My parents were very good at this.  I was about the same age as Max, so four years older than Tricky, when my parents separated.  When they each started dating, they were careful to keep those new people away from me.  I can only remember meeting two men my mom went out with, one of whom is my stepdad of more than twenty-five years.  I met a few more women with my dad, though he has always said some were nothing more than friends.  He dated one woman for several years, and she actually lived with us for a good portion of their relationship.  Both he and I are still friends with her, even though they've been broken up far, far longer than they were together. 

When I started dating Bounder and saw the potential of something more important, having him meet the boys eventually became necessary.  It wasn't that I needed them to welcome their new daddy into their life; no one will ever replace their father, whom they love very, very much.  But if he and I were going to have a relationship, we would need to spend quality, physical time together.  And, no, I don't just mean sex.  (He never, ever spent the night at my house while the boys were home.) 

Dating and being in love would have to consist of more than constant texts and emails.  Regular phone calls couldn't replace regular hugs and kisses.  While quality time and conversation are of tantamount importance to me, I am bi-lingual (in The 5 Love Languages sense) for physical touch.  The small intimacies of handholding and kisses on the cheek are just as important to me as the loving whispers and soft laughs in my ear.  I need boisterous laughter, both in and out of the bedroom. 

Of all the men I've met and gone out with since I separated from DH, the boys have only met Bounder.  Initially, it was a ten-minute, "nice to meet you" moment one afternoon.  Eventually they were okay with his coming to visit me after they went to bed, then they were comfortable with dinners together and a movie after.  We would occasionally take them out and do something with them, together.  When he and I broke up, they were sad for me but also a little sad that they wouldn't get to see him.  I handled it well (at least in front of them).  They know that I still have occasional contact with him and ask me about him from time to time. 

It's hard enough to bring someone new into my life, but my life includes two boys.  They have to be a part of anything substantial.  Not only are they the most important people in my life, I am their primary caregiver.  They spend the majority of their time in my care.  With some potential changes on the horizon, I am likely to be responsible for them even more of the time.  If I try to wait to see someone I'm dating until a night when I don't have them, it could be weeks that we have to wait. 

Relationships can't function healthily like that. 

While it was best to make the boys the main focus initially, it does no one any good for them to be the only priority.  We live in such a child-centric time, but they have to learn that they really aren't the epicenter of anyone's world but their own.  They are of an age to begin to realize there's more to life than just them. 

Stephanie is more than Mommy.

Going back to school, working small jobs while I'm doing it, makes our life very busy.  I can no longer devote all of my time and energy to their schedules.  Our family calendar is sometimes a color-coded nightmare of homework and school events and appointments.

But taking the time to be me, content and comfortable in who I am and my abilities, makes me a better woman.  Being a complete woman, who is able to both express and receive love from more than just my children, makes me a better mother. 

And it's good for them to see that Mom can go on and have a happy, healthy, productive life.  They won't always been in the house with me, no matter how often they declare that they'll always live with me.  They will eventually move on to college and relationships and the lives that they build for themselves.  I will be here (figuratively or literally, I don't know yet), living and building my own future. 

When I am happy and healthy, living my life while incorporating them into it, I show them by example.  My goal is to raise healthy young men who can handle their own shit.  My hope is that they find partners who can do the same, in part because that is what their mother modeled for them. 

 

Welcome to the inner workings of my mind.

I am not perfect. 

I am smart and able and resourceful and determined.  I am exceedingly analytical, especially when it comes to relationships and my own role in them.  I spend an inordinate amount of time in my own head, breaking down the minutiae of every conversation, every encounter.  What did he mean by that?  Was there really a disjoint between his words and his expression?  What did I do to encourage or discourage him?  Why the hell am I feeling this?

Some days it's incredibly loud inside my head.  I will replay every detail over and over.  (Add obsessive and dogged to that list of qualities.)  Hiding behind every memory there is always a ghost, taunting me with the rattle of its chains and reminding me of every time I have been less than perfect. 

Truthfully (and with a bit of well-earned arrogance), I do most things I attempt very well.  When I set my sights on a specific path, I will follow it to the point of exhaustion, just to see it through.  It's the encounters along the way, the people I stumble across and sometimes joyously or painfully into, who help to shape that journey.  Because I remember the details of almost everything in my life, it's very unlikely that I will ever forget those people. 

I don't want to be forgotten. 

I wrote about this back in the summer, in the midst of the divorce and the midst of Bounder:

Sometimes it feels like competition, but you don't always know the specifics of what you're fighting, or sometimes even that you are.  This is why I try so damn hard to be bigger, better, faster, more.  If I can create something new, something unique, it is unforgettable in its own right.  If I am at the core of those memories, I only have to compete against my own ghosts.  When it comes down to it, there's only me to fuck with my own head, and I relish that hard-fought battle more than any other. 

I did have a conversation recently with Bounder about this.  I talked with him about a specific drama that had injected itself into my world—yet another fragile cat who went totally off the deep end—and how I didn't know how not to attract these fucked up men.  He argued that it's the reciprocity of attraction, that in the same way I always seem to be hunting them, they can smell me on the wind. 

"Because you are the alpha female, the lioness of lionesses.  It's built in somehow, parallel to how you're a badass mom.  Same psycho theory...."

If I care about these men, the souls they are beyond any sort of romantic relationship we have, is it wrong for me to be active in that when they are struggling?  It's right to do what you can to help the people who matter to you—that's how interpersonal relationships work.  And there are a very few whose souls have touched mine so deeply that they could get my attention and help no matter what.  Forever and always and no matter what.  I may have every reason to tell them to fuck off, but I care deeply and cannot bear the thought of not honoring that.

"You do honor it, Steph, just by trying.  You cannot do it yourself.  It will always take two."

"I don't know that I even believe that anymore, that there's another one who can be what everyone else so plainly believes I need.  So what's my option?  Be miserable alone?  If I'm gonna be miserable, I'd rather have it peppered with moments of incredible connection."

Bounder says the key is to not ever be miserable alone, to enjoy and thrive in those moments until the connections are there, intentional or not. 

"Trust," he said. 

"But that means I have to trust myself," I replied. 

While I am sometimes too free and quick with my emotions, there are a very few people in the world who I truly love.  I am fortunate that I have a list at all, but it can be very hard for me to let anyone in.  The list of people I trust is far, far shorter.  I have every historical reason for that, certainly, but the ones who have gained my confidence have been the ones who very strongly encouraged me to see something about myself that I couldn't or wouldn't face, good or bad.  That's part of why they matter to me and always will. 

If I can find people who trust me enough to let me care for them, then I hope for reciprocity.  I hope to see my own worth through their eyes, because I can only see my value, really, when it's shown to me. 

This is why I asked Bounder and DH and sometimes Absolem and others why I wasn't worth their fight.  Every time I think I am, that I have done enough and earned it from them or for them, I get the response that somehow I just wasn't enough—usually while being told I was just too much. 

"Who are you not good enough for?" Bounder asked.  "Certainly not the drunken cats or your ex or any of them and definitely not Daddy.  So who's left?  Who do you pale in comparison to?  You."

"I pale in comparison to those who've come before me, to those ghosts who can garner more attention that I can."

"Not true.  You believe it, clearly, but it's not true."

"Really?  If I never say the words I'm not her again, it will be too soon.  And, yeah, sometimes I'm not good enough for the drunken cats.  I'm not perfect, or even just right.  I get upset when I'm hurt, and I let them down.  I let you down.  I failed you, and so I failed me.  If I'd been a little quieter, a little calmer, more compartmentalized and covert with my heart.., if I'd backed down , been more pliant, less selfish, less open about my needs..., if I'd just seen you coming and been able to plan, then maybe—just maybe—you would've been willing to keep the cracks in the walls that let me and the light in, maybe I would've been good enough for you to accept that love and let yourself love me back."

But I didn't.  I trusted who I was, that persona of Stephanie that I toss at men and the world like a grenade, challenging them to disarm it or die.  I was defiant in all that I presented and felt and lived, and I lost another man that I loved.

Then I found myself alone and crying in the dark on my deck, sobbing because I am not perfect.

When you are a true perfectionist, everything takes on a gravity that most people can't understand.  They can't empathize with how consuming it is to constantly maintain the level of energy required to be not only your best but better than anything or anyone else, how the slightest of mistakes and imperfections can rock you to the core in such a way that it feels like the goddamn universe is collapsing on your head.  When it comes to love, your heart is all too likely to be crushed, sucked into the black hole of itself where not even your own light can escape. 

But to expect perfection in the realm of interpersonal relationships is a fool's quest.  It is absolutely noble to strive for the best, for better than best, but it's dependent not only on my actions but on the reactions of another flawed human.  That give and take is incomparably beautiful.  For me, it can feel deadly. 

One mistake, one minor misstep, and the person I love responds in kind.  The first, tiny ripple of incident creates waves and wake of hurt and ache, and somehow I am sucked down by the undertow, berating myself for having chosen A over B, for not having known ahead of time what would come as a result.  For being human.

No one is harder on me than I am, and I am a formidable opponent.  I am a force of nature.  Nothing wreaks havoc on Glamazon Island quite like Hurricane Sass.  Somehow I am constantly surprised when I ignore the storm warnings, ignore the windblown red flags, and dive into the choppy, churning waters.  It doesn't matter how I move, how perfectly I execute each stroke of arm and leg or each turn of the head as I gasp for breath; a storm like that will eventually exhaust me.

I'll still be berating myself for not being a better swimmer, for not being able to see through the riptide and stay parallel to the shore.  Even as I'm drowning.

 

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The chains that you break to be free, well they tear up the ground when you drag them around.

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

The license said you had to stick around until I was dead, but if you're tired of looking at my face, I guess I already am.

After more than 21 years together, 19 years of marriage, 14 months of separation, and 2 days in court, DH and I were granted a divorce yesterday—December 11, 2013. 

In the end, it all came down to numbers—what that time and energy and battling was monetarily worth, as decided by a judge who had never met either of us prior to Monday morning.  In a few hours, we both were granted the chance to lay out our cases and argue, again, why what we wanted was the best solution. 

My dad had told me months ago that in the end we would both feel like we'd lost.  He was right, of course.  I'm not thrilled with part of the judgment, and I'm pretty sure DH is unhappy about some of it, as well.  But because we couldn't come to an agreement on our own, this is how it had to play out. 

Leaving court, I kept my head up and looked straight ahead, trying to get as much distance between the two of us as possible.  I didn't want to have to walk out of that building where our marriage had finally died and have to be close to him.  I didn't even want to walk past his car—the one that had also been my car until just a few minutes before.  I didn't want to have to look at anyone in that building, afraid that I would cry or that they would somehow be able to peer right through my stoic facade and see my broken heart. 

Last week, while trading off the children for visitation, he and I had a conversation in the driveway, waiting for the boys to gather their things.  It wasn't about anything important, just chit-chat, but for a moment I could see a glimpse of the sweet, smart, funny man I had loved for half my life.  There was a glimmer of the same quirky guy I'd known I would marry from the moment I first saw him, when I was 14. 

It broke my heart. 

In all honesty, when the judge went through her list of questions about how long we'd been married, when we'd separated, and if I believed our marriage to be irreconcilable, I wanted to shake my head and cry.  I wanted to say, "No, your honor, I don't ever want to believe that it's irreconcilable with this man, with the guy who took care of me when I couldn't, with the man I loved so much that I fought my way through hell to give us two beautiful babies.  I don't want that to be over.  Ever."

But I knew it didn't matter.  The damage of everything we've done to each other and our relationship is too great.  It has overshadowed the joy and the beauty and the love in the most agonizing of ways.  We did it to ourselves, and we did it to each other, even though we promised time and again that it would never come to that. 

A recently-divorced friend told me yesterday that he read once that the people who get through this process in the healthiest way are the ones who have good memories of the marriage.  Make no mistake: I have thousands of good memories with DH.  Years of them, both before and after the boys were born. 

I loved him.

After court, I called my parents and the Castration Committee to let them know how it went.  I cried a little bit, but mostly I held it together.  I emailed my former attorney and our mediator and our marriage counselor, to let them know how it ended.  It reminded me of calling people in 2006 to let them know my grandfather had died.  It felt like writing the thank-you notes for funeral flowers. 

When I got home, there was a lovely Christmas cactus on my doorstep.  A very sweet friend left it for me, along with an even sweeter note.  Covered in buds, it's a constant reminder that something good and beautiful can always appear when you least expect it, that life will fight to flourish no matter what, and that even the most delicate of things can be far sturdier than they appear. 

The boys had known we were going to court, and I explained that the divorce was finalized.  I didn't go into details about the settlement or what had transpired during the proceedings.  Ultimately it's none of their business, and there are parts of it that I will never share with them. 

"Can you and Daddy get remarried?" Tricky asked.  His question was like a knife to the gut.

"We could," I said carefully, "legally, but that's very unlikely ever to happen."

"But what if you loved each other again?  What would happen then?"

I caught my breath.  "Well, if that were to ever happen, then your father and I would have to decide what to do.  But I don't want you to get your hopes up or expect that, sweet boy."

I stopped and asked both boys to look at me while I spoke to them.  "I know this has been incredibly difficult.  This is not where any of us thought our lives would be, but we are here nonetheless.  I want to make sure you both know, though, that Daddy and I love you very, very much.  We also loved each other very much.  I never want you to think for a second that we didn't or that you somehow came from less than absolute love.  No babies were ever wanted more than you were, and your father and I loved each other deeply when you were born.  Always know that."

In the end, the only number that matters is 2—Max and Tricky.  Our sons and what is best for them are my only real, lasting concern in this.  I have tried my best to behave and keep as much of the drama away from them as possible.  If I have done nothing else right through this divorce, I know that I have been a damn good mother. 

I also hope, though, that the finality of the process will allow DH the closure he needs to heal.  I hope and even pray that his heart finds the peace it needs to be the man and the father I know he is, deep inside under the rubble of our destructed marriage.  He was special and important to me like no one else, and I have loved that soul for a very long time; I want good things for him, especially as they apply to our sons. 

Ultimately, I want the same things for me, in my own time and in my own way.  As long as I've had to deal with it all emotionally, it was still shocking to find myself so sad and grieving again.  It's all too easy to fall into the dark place of thinking half my life was for nothing, that those 21 years were wasted.  I know they weren't, if for no other reason than those 2 little souls who found their way to us in the beautiful bodies that DH and I created together. 

I'm glad the process is pretty much over.  I'm glad to be out of legal limbo.  But I hate that it came to this.  I hate that we couldn't get our shit together and make it work.  I hate that two people who loved each other so much could get to a place of utter disdain. 

I'm going to take a couple of days and distract myself with work while I try to process it all.  Then I'm going to pick up the pieces and move forward, a little bit at a time.  I may want to curl into a ball until the crying stops, but I can't.  There are two babies who need me, forever and always and no matter what. 

May all your troubles soon be gone.

I'm having a hard time looking forward to Christmas this year.

I had the flu in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, which culminated in an urgent care visit Thanksgiving Day.  (I'm feeling much better, though still not quite 100%.)  The boys left that evening for their weekend visitation with their father, and I spent most of those days on the couch with my favorite blanket, watching Netflix. 

Normally, I would start getting the Christmas tree up while the leftovers were heating, but I didn't really feel up to it.  It would've been nice for the boys to come home to a blank tree, ready for them to decorate. 

I seriously debated skipping it altogether. 

Physically, I've been exhausted, and dragging the trees (We normally have two.) up the stairs was more than I wanted to manage.  But the thought of unwrapping each of the ornaments, of reliving twenty years' worth of memories was really more than I could handle.  Seeing each year's picture ornaments, or the ones bought for the boys in the years they were born, made me want to puke. 

Last year was my first Christmas without DH since 1992.  The separation was fresh and contentious.  I cleaned out the ornaments, setting aside the ones that were his or had been gifts from his mother.  They did eventually make it out of the house with him. 

I clearly remember wrapping the boys' presents in the den floor by the tree, crying my eyes out because I was doing it by myself for the first time ever.  He wasn't there to help choose their gifts or argue whether we had spent too much.  He just wasn't there anymore.

This year, I couldn't stand the thought of doing it all again.

Of course I didn't tell the boys any of this.  They knew I was sick, but they were gone for a second weekend with their dad, so I had time.  Tricky, 9, suddenly suggested we have nothing but homemade ornaments this year.  Max, 12, readily agreed. 

So we have spent the last few days making paper garland and covering cardstock candy canes in glitter glue.  We wrapped their few, comparatively meager gifts and put them under the tree.  Through it all, they are happy and laughing and hugging each other and me. 

I generally wait until they go to bed to cry about how I wish it were different, for me and for them, about how I hate that their lives have been so thoroughly skewed in the last year.  The guilt and lament can be overwhelming at times, though the tears make the white lights of the tree sparkle even more. 

I know what's important is that we are together and generally happy and generally healthy.  But this is not what we promised them.  This is not the life they, or I, were expecting. 

Somewhere in this, we are finding the beauty in all of the ugly.  We are finding ways to enjoy small moments, fully and together, because that is all we can afford.  We are finding the joy in each other and in this smaller, modified unit we have created over the last year. 

There is miraculous wonder, in that we have survived and in some ways thrived.  This year, just to get through the holidays in one, emotionally-healthy piece will be the true miracle. 

For your kindness, I'm in debt to you.

It's been a year, plus a few days, since DH moved out of the house.  That year has been an incredible experience for me, filled with both fulfilling and decimating experiences.  My primary objective has always been to be the best, most-supportive mother I could be to our two sons.  That had been my primary job for almost 12 years when we separated, though the logistics and the gravity of motherhood changed dramatically when I effectively became a single mom. 

Learning to live on my own has been eye-opening and sometimes difficult.  When I'm sick, there's rarely anyone there to help me out.  Each brother is dragged to the other's concerts and practices and competitions—often griping the entire time.  Gone are the days of anyone else getting up to feed the boys on a Sunday morning while I sleep in. 

You know what?  I'm okay with that.

It's hard sometimes, certainly, but I've also found an enormous amount of support from friends and family that I never could have anticipated.  When you're going through life-changing shit, people often say, "Let me know if I can do anything to help."

I have a circle of friends and family who will help, no matter what.

For me, it's incredibly difficult to ask for that help, though.  Historically, I've been let down by very important people in my life, left to fend for myself emotionally under the worst of circumstances.  I generally expect that people will disappoint me.  (I've had a lot of that this year, too.)  I tend to rely on what I can do for me, because people are usually unreliable.  Rather than be left with a half-finished mess than involves someone else, I would rather just do whatever my way and know it's done right from the beginning. 

But when I've had to open my mouth and ask, I've been surprised at the people who have stepped up.  It turns out that sometimes, when I let them know, they will actually come through for me.  Apparently some people really do want to be of assistance—they just don't know what you need. 

Letting someone else help carry my burdens, that's a hard lesson for me to learn.  But I'm doing it.  Slowly but surely, trepidatiously but grateful.

So to everyone who has offered their help this year, and to everyone who has graciously and selflessly given me or my boys something we really needed, thank you.  Sometimes it was babysitting or care after a surgery or money when I just didn't have any.  Sometimes it was nothing more than a kind word or patient ear.  All of it has mattered.  You matter to us. 

I don't want good, and I don't want good enough. I want "can't sleep, can't breathe without your love."

A few months ago, while discussing my ongoing list of things I'd want in a man and/or a relationship, Growler said, "You might have to settle.  You may have to be willing to accept 85% of what you want, if everything else is worth it."

I talked to Absolem about it a couple of weeks later.  "Oh, she's right," he said, complete seriousness on his face.  "You'll probably have to take less than what you want, if you want to be in a relationship.  Though I don't get why you'd want one, when you can have so many."

I reactivated my online dating account this week.  After I reviewed a few dozen potential new matches, the site told me I was too picky and should loosen up as far as my standards were concerned.

Even Queen Frostine urged me to go into my next relationship without such high expectations.  Her point, she stresses, is that I should be able to learn to be happy within the confines of who I'm with, for who they are, rather than constantly comparing them to the past or to my ideal.

"I love living in Chicago," said my well-traveled friend, "but I also really love San Francisco and London.  I could totally live in either of those cities just as easily as I live here."

"Sure, but you'd always miss some things about Chicago," I pointed out. 

And then there's Bounder.  He says he knows he can never be 100% of what I want or need, 100% of the time.  He wants to, has the desire, but not the capacity.

Well who the fuck can?

It's romantic to imagine a man could love me so much that he strived every day to be everything for me, especially one who could see me and reach me and touch me inside and out the way Bounder (and even sometimes Absolem) could.  I'd like to think that DH tried, but right now I'm still too caught up in the aftermath to really see it clearly. 

But romantic or not, it's fucking ludicrous.

No man will ever be able to be 100% of anything for me and certainly not all the time.  That's an unreasonable expectation to place on another individual.  We are beautifully flawed humans, and to demand perfection from someone is asking to be disappointed or worse. 

All I ever expected from the men I loved was that they be there how and when they could, and that they do it fully and openly and honestly.  By the time I really loved them, I knew who and what they were.  I knew their histories and their fears and their double-edged swords.  I knew the potential of their hearts, and I just wanted them to work toward that, both for me and for themselves. 

I never thought that was an unreasonable expectation.  Apparently I was wrong. 

Don't tell me I'm wonderful and deserve more.  Don't tell me you wish you were able to do these things, to be what I deserve, because I am special enough to be worth that.  If I have that value to you, then honor that.  If you love me and I am so deserving, then make the attempt to live up to the potential I see in you, that you say you see in yourself.  When you err—hell, even when you fail—if there's still potential and value, then keep working. 

My heart would not have seen yours if it weren't so very special, nor would it have loved you if you weren't worth my own hard work and effort. 

So it might be nice to imagine that prince among men, who would care for me and fill in the gaps I can never quite seem to fill.  The one who could kiss me like no other and love me no matter how hard the day was.  Who could be there at night when I both need and want him.  Who understands my sense of humor and appreciates my intensity, who loves me not in spite of my batshit but because of it.  The one who could love me for me and not for what I can do for him. 

That is the ideal I have to relinquish.  That's where I have to settle. 

I can find a playmate, a great lover, an outstanding kisser, someone who's sober, and maybe even an Irish guy who is bigger than I am.  But all of that in a man who can really love me for me?  That'll never happen.

I've met a lot of guys this year who were great, cute, and very nice.  But the kiss just wasn't there, for a variety of reasons.  Maybe they were too soft or too messy or too whatever. 

"Can you live with it?" Basket Case asked when I lamented recently about one in particular.

No.

There is so much in a kiss, so much truth of a person in how they move their mouth against yours.  Floppy, wet, forceful?  Too slow or too fast?  Chronic bad breath?  Do they touch your face or bend you into their kiss, rather than meeting you halfway?  Do they ever let you take the lead?  Eyes open or tightly closed?

In my life, the ones who've done it right, right for me, are the ones who've been least able to meet my expectations, even when I've lowered them in compromise.  If they can make me breathless with their kiss, they will eventually knock the breath out of me completely. 

It's not about kissing frogs to find my prince.  He doesn't exist.  And even if he did, I'd be too busy with the frog in the crown, just because his kiss could fool me. 

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

Things were simple when DH and I began our life together.  I moved from Birmingham to Huntsville to be with him when I was 20.  Living in a 600-square-foot apartment, there wasn't space for stuff—it was pretty much only us and some basic furniture, plus a kick-ass stereo and tons of CDs.  Within a few months, we moved into almost 1,100-square-feet and bought some bookshelves.  We got a cat.  Eventually we refused to live with less than two bathrooms and bought our first house, which was also the first house our boys called home. 

When we moved to Atlanta in 2006, we had more space than we knew how to occupy, at least for a while.  Two boys and a cat and even more stuff eventually filled our house.  And then DH left, leaving behind most of the things he owned. 

The beginning of summer triggered something in me that wanted to purge—to get rid of clutter and years' worth of crap that had outlived its usefulness to me.  I started cleaning out the boys' rooms, removing everything they hadn't worn or played with or really touched in a couple of years.  Some of it was just trash.  Some of it was given to friends whose sons would use the toys or clothes that mine had discarded.  And some of it—favorite shirts and Star Wars toys and Godzilla action figures—was packed away in storage boxes to be moved to the basement. 

But with all of DH's boxes and accessories still cluttering the storage room, where the hell was I going to put the things I actually wanted to keep?

I had to make space.  As I looked closer to see what could be removed safely (while still in entrenched in the neverending divorce), I was shocked to realize there were all of these empty boxes, stacked to the side and squirreled away amidst broken electronic devices and miles and miles of cabling. 

For years we would argue about my being a cluttered girl.  To everyone else, DH always seemed so simple and organized.  The reality is that most of our limited closet space was taken up by his stuff; my younger son and I actually shared a closet for a couple of years because DH's clothes and things took up the entirety of the master closet.  With his belongings out of sight, mine had nowhere else to be but out, which only reinforced the perception of my being a slob. 

And sometimes I can be, at least historically.  My desk is perpetually a mess, but I know where everything is.  I am undoubtedly a stacker and tend to have small piles in strategic locations.  But my desk is mine alone, and I have never liked to see everything I own spread before me all the time. 

As I started to go through the basement, I realized he never threw away anything.  (Okay, maybe that's hyperbole, but you know what I mean.)  There were receipts for stamps from 2006.  The files and desk accessories from every job he's had for the last twenty years are all in labeled boxes.  Hell, half of his clothes are still downstairs, even though he apparently can't wear most of them now.

The empty boxes, though, were what got me.  They were everywhere.  Large boxes were filled with small boxes. Crumpled bags held the empty boxes from some camera or game or computer part from three years before, where he'd kept it just in case there was a problem with it while it was under warranty.  But when the grace period expired, he never removed the box from the spot he'd originally dropped it.  The box for that Cingular Wireless Nokia 6010?  We still need that, right??

To date, I have recycled over two hundred empty boxes from the basement. 

As I looked through the remainders to see what was there, I started to think about the people I know who hoard things.  Almost everyone I know does it to some extent, whether or not they know it or even do it to the degree that it's disabling or destructive.  DH definitely hoarded things he might need again, much like my father and grandfather.  My mom hoards books and information and things that were once useful, long past their efficacy. 

Me?  I hoard memories. 

The things I keep are all reminders of some special time and place, some moment that was important to me.  There are boxes and boxes of photographs and special baby clothes and books that I read over and over to the boys when they were very young.  There are a couple of boxes of concert t-shirts that no longer fit, or souvenirs from high school, though there is very little from my childhood (by design).  Most of my music collection is a reflection of some specific point in time; my life undoubtedly has a lengthy soundtrack. 

Showing Bounder some pictures a couple of weeks ago, I realized I was waxing ecstatic about the memories behind those photographs, how I'd taken shots of my second son in exactly the same positions I'd taken them with his older brother four years prior. 

"I'm strangely sentimental," I commented, almost apologetically.

"There's nothing wrong with that," he replied.  "I don't understand why people shy away from sentimentality.  If more people were sentimental, the world would be a hell of a lot better place."

The things I keep are tangible embodiments of a small percentage of the things I remember.  I retain a lot of detail about so many things, notoriously and almost pathologically.  The boxes are filled with the proof of my life, of what I've seen and where I've been.  More importantly, they are proof of what I've felt, of some experience that either provided me a new emotional experience or reinforced one that was already special. 

But those hordes of memories are also peppered with landmines.  There are the pictures of ex-boyfriends and dead family members.  There are the videos that bring me as quickly back to a sad time as to a happy one.  There are the songs that make me miss someone who faded from my life so long ago.  Sometimes they are real and tangible things that need to be disposed.  Sometimes they are only ghosts that can still stop me dead in my tracks and reduce me to tears. 

Like everything else, they are reminders of whom and where and whence I came, of what brought me to the here and now.  As painful as some of it can be, I don't want to forget any of it.  I don't want to not be able to remember so many minute details of Stephanie that I can paint a mental image of her at any point in her time and be able to share that with anyone else who matters enough to share my story. 

But sharing my story also means having someone else share theirs with me.  And that's where the difficulties sometimes arise.  The process of moving forward sometimes includes being rear-ended by the past, by what you couldn't see in your rearview.  What you refused to look for over your shoulder.  Maybe it's your past; maybe it's someone else's. 

Sometimes it feels like competition, but you don't always know the specifics of what you're fighting, or sometimes even that you are.  This is why I try so damn hard to be bigger, better, faster, more.  If I can create something new, something unique, it is unforgettable in its own right.  If I am at the core of those memories, I only have to compete against my own ghosts.  When it comes down to it, there's only me to fuck with my own head, and I relish that hard-fought battle more than any other. 

Much the same way I'm afraid I will be forgotten by those who loved me, I am afraid I will somehow forget my own history, my own stories, my own past, or maybe that I won't remember it in as much detail as I'm accustomed.  I'm afraid that I will somehow forget myself; I've done it before and know exactly how difficult it is to remember. 

For every souvenir of memory that I box away, there are a thousand more (not hyperbole) that I discard.  Right now I'm especially fond of Instagram to be able to journal those unique moments of how I see my world, without having to keep every ticket stub or receipt or empty box. 

But for me there is no better way to remember than to write.  Sometimes what I write is a painfully detailed and exacting account of the chronology of a memory.  Sometimes it is jaded and water-colored to be more palatable to my reader or to me.  Sometimes it's a pretty lie with a minute kernel of truth hidden somewhere beneath the glitter.  All of that together makes my story.

And you will never find my story buried in an empty box. 

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