It's something of an understatement to say that I am an open book.
Everything about me, all of the stories that led me to be who I am now, have been laid bare in the pages of Persona Non Grata and on these blog posts at Muchness and Light. There may be a few other outlets—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—that show snippets of my personality, but generally everything about my past is on public display.
When I meet people for the first time, especially men, I tend to throw all of that out there at once.
"Hi, I'm Stephanie. I'm a lot to handle. You will one day say it's too much and that I overwhelm you. They all do, and I have no reason to think you're any different. Here I am—take it or leave it!"
It's kind of like lobbing a grenade of muchness at them and daring them to take me on.
I hate it when men I care about tell me I'm too much. It strikes a nerve in me, both because it's true and because I warned them. Just once, I'd like not to feel that pang of I told you so that inevitably comes.
But just because I warn someone of what to expect, and how to deal with me when it happens, does that make it okay? Does my glittery Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here sign justify my reaction when they give up hope?
If I taunt men into letting me down, I am culpable, both in giving them reason to turn away and in delighting in being able to find those reasons when it happens. I get a little jolt from pushing their buttons, and I probably try to do it from the onset of salutation. It's like an experiment sometimes, just to see how much it will take before their façade of availability cracks and they scurry to close the gaps before I can get my hooks into them and force them to open deeper and wider than they'd ever imagined.
And that is exactly what I do.
I test men, looking to see who will fail me and how and why. Sometimes I know within minutes that they aren't up to the challenge, and I dust their crumbling egos from my fingertips as I walk away. Sometimes it takes longer, in which case I become more subtle, more unintentionally manipulative in my ministrations. They rarely see or feel it coming, though, as I do seem to have the inexplicable power to sweet talk them into smiling submission. (Dimples and destruction.)
I told Hot Pocket that it's one of Sassafras's superpowers, the ability to hide behind a plume of pretty, swirling smoke until they're so entranced they can't help but stare dumbfounded at the glittery chaos that bats her eyes and nods her blond ponytail as she wishes what she wants for their world.
My girls, the Castration Committee, are the ones who can accept my muchness for exactly what it is, no matter what. They will sometimes call me out for being too much, but they never judge me for it and they never, ever turn away from it or from me. I constantly experience the depths of love from the people who adore me no matter what.
Is it too much to want that same connection in erotic love?
It's unimaginable to me that it won't exist for me, that given everything I have lived and done and seen and experienced, that there isn't a lover who can adore me and accept me and embrace my batshit while they kiss me breathless. I have paid so much, done so much work, to get to the place that I have the ability to love as deeply and intensely as I do, and to do it willingly and from a place of utter awareness and selflessness. Can it really be true that there is no one worth that price? Is there no reward for having worked this hard?
Even asking those questions feels arrogant and makes me think I have so much more work to do.
But I don't want my book to end now. I don't want my stories to end at 40. I want someone, maybe more than one if that's how my journey goes, who will make new stories with me—bigger, better, faster, more! I want someone who reminds me to breathe when I'm so excited that I stammer over my own head, but who also smiles patiently and happily when I tell them for the hundredth time that day just how and why I love them. And I want that to be the same someone who can sit in the quiet with me and let me cry out whatever my heart can't find the words to express. The same someone who can make time stand still and the seas to turn to dust with just one kiss.
It comes back to the idea of expectations, what's reasonable and what's not. Growler and Absolem would advise me to be willing to lower those expectations. Maurice reminded me when I needed it most that doing that will only lead to tears. Bounder reminded me that my expectations can be met in the most painful and unexpected of ways. But Hot Pocket says it exists for me, that there's someone out there who can and will love me like that.
I hope she's right. It feels like she is, like she just has to be, but maybe that's my tragically romantic heart being unreasonably optimistic.
And maybe, just maybe, someone else will get the chance to tell me, "I told you so."
Oh, my heart is a brutal,
tempestuous little bitch sometimes—trapped in the delicate, fragile teapot of
my head.
I'm now three years into Muchness and Light—November 25th
will be three years exactly—and this forum has been as cathartic for me as my
therapist's office, though substantially cheaper. Sometimes I find myself covering old ground
again, about love and those life lessons I have tackled so openly during this
time. When I realize I'm circling back
to something I thought I'd exhausted before, I realize there's a reason,
something I didn't get right the first time.
There's always some catalyst—a new
drama or relationship or end of a
relationship—that sends my heart reeling and bouncing around the confines of my
head. My dad would likely make the
"bb in a box car" analogy. The
cacophony between my ears sounds like a thousand simultaneous, murmured
conversations with the bells and whistles of a pinball machine dinging above
the din.
It's overwhelming to me
sometimes. How could it not be too much
for anyone else? How could it not
exhaust someone else, to let them take a shot at the flippers?
It has become part of my
established, public persona that I am a lot to handle. My online dating profile even warned men that I can be intimidating,
that I'm "loud and voracious and a ball of batshit blond
energy." I've received hundreds of
messages, telling me how they appreciate my honesty and that they'd like a shot
at channeling that energy. Five minutes
later, when it's clear that they assume it means I just want great, casual sex,
I'm generally done with that conversation.
It's not usually that much different
in person.
When someone takes the time to get
to know me, though, they do get to see my softer side. I'm really very sweet and incredibly
affectionate, and I am fully capable of being quiet and still when the moment
demands it.
As confident as I am in who I am, though, I'm also very insecure
in how other people deal with me. I can
get my feelings hurt far more easily (and often) than I'd like to admit. In fact, I often hide that from the person
who has lashed me, knowing it's usually not an intentional assault against my
fragile façade. I'm a lot of
personality, which means my heart is a big, easy target. It's that much harder to miss when I've taken
it off my sleeve and am just carrying it openly in my hands, like a shield made
from an oversized box of Valentine's chocolates.
I'm not entirely fearless in my pursuit
of love, no matter how brave I may be.
I'm not afraid to let people get close; I'm afraid to let them stay close. I've been out with a lot of men in the last
year. Less than half of them have gotten
a second date. Of those that have, less
than a quarter have gotten yet another shot.
I tend to throw myself out there and then yank myself back from the
brink. In all fairness, it has usually
been because I could readily tell those men weren't for me, and I didn't want
to waste my time on those fruitless endeavors.
When I meet someone I truly like,
someone for whom I develop feelings, it's very hard for me not to assume that
they will disappoint me. I have a
definite pattern of finding emotionally unavailable men and trying my best to forge
a relationship with them anyway. It goes
back to my childhood (What doesn't? Ask
my therapist.), and I can pinpoint the unavailability in each and every one of
the men I've been attached to romantically.
All retrospectively, of course.
I do not want unavailable men. Maybe that seems like a
no-brainer, but I have this tendency to attract such beings into my life.
Whether logistically or emotionally, I am magnetically attracted to the men who
are least likely to be able to share their life or mine. Maybe it's
something about their being inherently broken—a fragile cat. They're soft
and pretty and purr when I pet them, but they can't give what I need or want in
return. I don't want that anymore.
So
why the hell do I keep going back to that?
My
heart knows better in theory but not in practice. My head knows it's stupid to even glance at a
fragile cat. But I do it all the damn
time, as if one day, just maybe one
of them will break that pattern and not be quite like the rest.
Hot
Pocket chided me in her drawling, gentle way that I need to get it into my
pretty, thick head that I deserve to be happy with good things. I know
this logically. I am human. I'm a good person. I have done nothing so unredeemable that it
makes me undeserving of love.
But
in my heart, I don't know that I'm
worthy of the affection and attention of a man who truly loves me. Everything in my past has shown me the
opposite is true. The people who love me
most will disappoint me and hurt me more than I ever could imagine.
It's
unfair of me to have those expectations of a new person, and it runs the risk
of becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. If
I am constantly waiting for them to
back away, perpetually on the edge of heartbreak, I am much more likely to
flinch and flee at the slightest provocation.
It also places an unfair strain on them, to be living under my
super-observant, watchful eye.
Somewhere
along the way, I have to learn to be here now, to let the present be not only
what matters most but what influences
most. I've let go of most of the hurt of
the past, but it's impossible for me to forget about it all. What I can't do is expect someone who has no
ties to that to live in trepidation that one of my ghosts will haunt them.
And
every time I think I've laid those ghosts to rest, when I am finally able to rest, the rattling of their dragging chains
clangs through the commotion in my head and sends me caroming toward the opposite
wall of the teapot, where my heart dings against the crackleware and the echoes
feel like a constant death knell.
There's
a comfort in seeking out what you know, in finding respite in what's familiar. Maybe that's why I feel snug within the
confines of unavailability. I can rail
against the men who compartmentalize me, who put me in the proverbial box that
I purport to loathe, but I am all too willing to climb inside, crouching down
excitedly until I can burst through the top like a girl in a giant cake. I do love the anticipation, the waiting to
see how they will react when I am suddenly and dramatically exposed.
In reality, they almost always freak the fuck out when it happens, when I am
fully and completely me. They make that
face of surprise, with a glimmer of oh-my-god-it's-just-too-much
before they wipe it blank and try to hide their apprehension. That
is the pinpoint of unavailability.
I can't and won't change who I am to
make them more comfortable. I've
discussed this many, many times—it's dishonest to me and to them. I can adjust and hold back a little bit,
trying not to inundate them with my muchness, but when my heart gets invested,
the floodgates will part and set the deluge upon them.
That's when it becomes sink or swim
for us both. I keep looking for the cat who can swim, who can disentangle me from the ghostly chains and bring me back to the surface, even when I know I'm the only one who can do it. But somewhere there just has to be someone who thinks I'm worth that battle, doesn't there? Doesn't everyone deserve a love that will fight for them, no matter what?
So I keep fighting like that for the men I love, even when I know they won't fight back. Maybe I'm hoping it's kind of like karma, that if I put enough out there that I will eventually have to get back what I've given. Like a cosmic love dowry--it takes a huge investment to get what you want.
Until in comes, I'll keep dancing and jumping around, waving my giant, red heart and offering my delicious confections to passers-by. Surely one of them will appreciate it, someday.
Men love to tell me their shit. People, in general, will reveal private
information to me pretty readily, but especially men.
I can fall quickly into easy
conversation with almost anyone. For all
of my talk of being ignored when I go out by myself, it's not entirely
true. In the grocery store or out
running errands, I talk with strangers all day long. While I can be a little shy in the beginning,
I'm pretty loquacious once I'm comfortable.
But there seems to be something
about me that just puts men at ease, to the point that they will share their
deepest and darkest pretty quickly. I
have more unexpected details of random men's deviant pasts and sexual
proclivities than I could write about in a lifetime. (That doesn't mean it won't stop me from
trying.)
It has kind of become a joke within
the Castration Committee, that I can walk into a room of a hundred men and
point them out, the fragile cats, and pinpoint their damage on sight. There's something about the way they carry
themselves or a look in their eye; I just know who they are.
Something about me seems to strike a
chord, like they're seeing a kindred spirit for the first time. I certainly have my own dramatic past, and I
am more than willing to talk openly about it.
Even without revealing my own intimacies, they pick up on some aspect of
my personality that makes them feel comfortable enough to tell me all the ways
in which their parents and exes failed them, to describe how they clawed their
way to and from their own rock bottoms, or to whisper their most lurid desires
into my newly-acquainted ear.
Maybe there's some pheromone that
I'm releasing constantly. Maybe they really can smell me in the
air. Maybe it's just that I am so damn
attracted to the fragile, skittish cat and that I'm seeking them out without
realizing it.
Because I am a non-traditionalist in
so many ways, I tend to gravitate toward the fringes. I like strong personalities that lean toward
the left. I may be on the hunt for a
great alpha male, but he would never be a hardcore Republican corporate
attorney. That may be perfectly fine for
some people but not for me. I like
intense and creative and non-conformist, because that's where I find the
intellectual stimulation I need coupled with the passion I crave. Men like that, people like that, often come
from dramatic and traumatic backgrounds, especially now that we're halfway
through our lives.
Part of me loves being in that position, of being a safe place of comfort for
someone to off-load some of their strife for a while. I am especially adept at filtering other
people's energy and helping them carry what has become too much for them. In the end, it's their job and not mine to
deal with that baggage in the long term; I can't keep it for them forever.
When it comes to men, though, I
often find myself on the receiving end of sincere thanks, of hearing how I've changed and altered them and their
perceptions of their worlds, how I've helped them deal with some shit so they
could move on in a healthier way.
Seriously?
How the hell did I become someone
else's catalyst? What is it about me
that make me worth some time and a little effort, plus a hell of a lot of
intensity, but not worth a longer-term relationship?
I want to be that safe haven for
someone for more than a day or a week or a few months. I want to find that man who can share his
heart and his life as easily as he shares his bed and his secrets. I want someone who is willing to stick it
out, who doesn't say, "Thanks for helping me deal with my fucked up
head. Have a nice life!"
There will always be issues with men
like this. Even the most reformed of the
fragile cats remain skittish to a degree.
I'm the same way. Every so often,
I'm still surprised by a memory or recognition of something from my past that
collides brilliantly with my present. It
scares the hell out of me when it happens.
What I need is someone who can be patient with me through that process,
to continue to love me when I'm scared or angry or hurt, and not just because
it's what feels right that day. I want
someone who can face the worst of me and still love me the next morning. I expect myself to be able to love others
with full openness and reciprocity; it is really too much to ask for the same?
Those are the most ludicrous words
after a break-up.
It's not that I think men and women
can't be friends. I have lots of male friends, running the gamut
from casual to intimate. (Poor Hammer
knows waaaay more than he'd probably
like to know.) While I do tend to
gravitate toward women for those very close friendships, there are and have
been a few exceptions over the years.
Even within the bounds of
Stephanie-Dude friendships, sometimes the lines have become blurred by deep
emotional or spiritual connection. Sometimes
by both. If there's also a sexual
attraction, the relationship can become complicated rather quickly. Sometimes I've been able to pull back from
that and maintain the platonic relationship.
Sometimes not.)
Usually what happens, though, is
that I go through this experience with whatever man, and the relationship is
damaged by sex and love and what has most often felt like compromise that was
unevenly anchored to my side. Hot Pocket
would toss in the words "unevenly yoked" right here. Moonshine might suggest something about
unbalanced equations. My therapist would
kindly and gently advise me to determine what I'm willing to accept to maintain
a healthy relationship and where I can confidently draw my lines—with the
mindful acceptance that I must defend those boundaries if push comes to
shove.
Bounder and I went back and forth
for days that turned into weeks about how and where our relationship was
going. He says he's not an alcoholic; I
still question it openly and to his face.
Almost regardless of that, there's still the issue of my caring about
him. He is special to me. Tierney says it best, to Alex, during one of
their last conversations in Persona Non
Grata:
"Look, I don't
love a lot of people. I don't like a lot
of people, and all these people in my life have really hurt me over the
years. I have reasons to be wary of
letting people in. When I do, and
especially when I choose to let them in far enough to love them, they're
special. You are a very rare breed of
human being that I both like and love, and not just because I have to. That's why I get so mad about it all. That's why it feels so unfair. I don't want that to have been a waste of my
energy."
Part of the issue for me is this
idea of being compartmentalized, of feeling like I'm being shoved and cajoled
into a box that keeps me away from the other person. Yes, it is something men tend to do more than
women; it seems to be an innate coping mechanism for them. Again, Alex and Tierney discuss this early on
in their relationship:
[Alex Wheeler]
"That's how I am; if someone makes me mad or bothers me too much,
I'll just ignore them—won't answer their calls or texts or emails. I'll just stop."
"Are you that way with everything? Do you just ignore what you don't like?"
He thought about it for a moment. "Yeah.
I compartmentalize everything. I
have to, in some ways, being on the road all the time. It helps keep me sane. I'm really good at keeping everything in its
own neat, little box, where I can deal with it or not, as I choose. I'm probably too good at it."
"I think that's a guy thing," I
commented. He nodded in agreement. "I think it's much harder for women to
take their feelings out of the equation.
Men are much better at tucking their feelings out of the way."
When a relationship is ending for
whatever reason, what do you do after you've been through an intense period of
time with this person whom you both like and love (on whatever level), with
whom you've shared deep intimacies, and without whom you feel a little lost?
While I still occasionally have very
platonic contact with Absolem, he was always
an exception to the rule—though that was no real surprise given the nature of
our relationship. I know damn well that
I will always have that tie to him, that weird connection that brought him in
and out of my life as a catalyst to upend me and bring about my own
transformation. I owe him so much, and I
owe him nothing. But I know that even if
I weren't to hear from him for twenty years, he would know within moments of
making contact exactly how and where I was in my head and my heart and my
soul. We are, in so many ways, two sides
of the same coin.
I made the break, privately and
publicly, from Bounder, but he didn't disappear. It was confusing. It started with the careful arguing and the
constant discussing of what this relationship had meant and was supposed to
mean and how impactful it was for each of us and why, along with where and when
what went wrong—like an emotional debriefing with the only other person who
could truly understand it because
they'd lived it with me. The inner
circle was great about listening and advising and letting me cry when I needed
to do so, but ultimately the answers and solutions would only come from me and
from Bounder.
Our relationship could stop or move
forward in myriad ways. We could take
the leap of faith and delve into this and see what happened. We could agree to part ways for some period
of time and plan to meet back up, if the time was right. We could date slowly for a while and move
along at a more reasonable pace, ignoring everything that had pushed us
together in the first place. Or we could
just say our goodbyes and be done.
Eventually it was plain that we were
tired, dancing wide, serpentining lines around this place and time that wasn't
yet right for us. No matter how drawn we
were and are to each other, here and now
wasn't going be ours. Not like
this. And the seeming pressure of divine
intervention felt yet again like Fate had played a cruel trick, taunting me
with, "Oh? You want this? Too
damn bad! You can't have it!"
So, again, I told him no, that I can't do this, that I can't watch him
from some nebulous place of distant care and be flirty witness to his
life. I am worth more than that; at
least on this we agree. I told him to
find me if and when he was ready to accept the whole of my affections and to
reciprocate healthily in kind. I wished
him well.
"You haven't given me a chance
to tell you what I want out of this
right now," he patiently stated when he called.
Well,
I've given you plenty of opportunity.
It's not my fault you've refused to take it when it was offered.
"So what is that you
want?" I asked, feeling a little defiant underneath it all.
"I want you to be you, and I want to be your friend. I want to still see you and talk to you and blahblahblah."
"So you still want me in your
life and want to maintain that connection with me? But you can't commit emotionally, no matter
how badly you say you want to be able to?
And maybe you want to have sex with me, if it feels like the right thing
to do?"
"Yes."
What
the fuck?
The truth is I don't want him gone from my life. He is sweet and funny and smart. He knows me incredibly well and has seen
through my facade of bravado from the moment we met. Even though he is often willing to grant me
the freedom to maintain that glittery face, he also doesn't hesitate to call bullshit on it and on me. He's one of very few people (especially men)
who call tell me no. I want a healthy
relationship with him. I care deeply for
him, and he has impacted me in ways very few men, or people in general, have
been able to do. But I also don't want
to spiral back into the dark place of striving for attention, of flustering for
a fleeting moment of care and affection.
I don't want to be told no just
because he has the power to do so; sometimes I get to be right.
And as
Tierney sums up later:
Alex had kept me in a box, but within those
confines I could expose myself totally, free to explore the ever-expanding
boundaries of my soul without fear of judgment.
If he couldn't handle what he saw, all he had to do was close the
box. It was how he handled his own
soul.
To ask this of me, to negotiate
platonic friendship with the possibility of an eventual more, is unquestionably
an effort to compartmentalize me and our relationship. I
understand that the fragility of this cat is undercut by recent and deep
trauma, that he could very well crack at any time. It's a defense mechanism, undoubtedly, and he
has every right and reason to seek that comfort in his world in the hopes that
he can heal from what came before me.
I have every right and reason to say
no.
I'm
not going back in the box.
Having lived the life that brought
me to this version of Stephanie, I am very wary and sensitive to that kind of
one-sided consideration. I was left on
my own for years, emotionally, and
tend to gravitate toward people (again, especially men) who are selective in
their attentions. Whether their reasons
are emotional or logistical in nature serves only to explain the behavior; there
are reasons but no excuses.
Because of my sensitivity to feeling
dismissed or ignored, I will never not
respond to the boxers. I cannot ignore
their calls to attention. I know
precisely how that hurts and loathe the feeling so much that I would never wish
it on anyone I care about.
I will always be his friend, but
right now I don't know that I can be just
his friend. I want and am ready to be
special to someone else (though I am not actively seeking anyone to fill that
role), and we both thought at first that he was ready for that, as well—that we
were both ready to be special to each other.
But intention and fruition don't always fall in line with each other; no
matter how much it looked like this was supposed to be here and now, that's simply not how it's working, even though I
question his direct role in that creating and maintaining that obstacle.
The thought that I could go through
this with him, that yet again I could meet someone who could alter my own path
so dramatically, and that he won't be at the end of this leg of the journey
with me is simply terrifying. Right now, while I care about him so deeply
and want him to be healthy and content in himself, the risk of seeing him fall
for someone else when he's finally ready to crack his own facade for another
person... it's just too much. Maybe it's
not me, and it is him, as he's said so roundabout, but it's still me that faces the greatest possibility
of being hurt again. To keep me in his
web of care means that I will feel the vibrations of secondary movement. It could be him shifting slowly toward me, or
it could be him scurrying in another direction.
Either way, it leaves me stuck and slowed by his gossamer threads,
grappling at my feet.
But to turn away from him leaves my
friend in need.
I don't know where this is going any
more now than I did when it started. The
good part is that it has given me an opportunity to understand and accept that,
no matter how much influence I may or may not be able to exert on a force,
sometimes the situation simply isn't mine
to control.
So for a little while longer, he and
I are in this weird, nebulous state of... what?Friends? Not friends?
Not lovers? I don't know, and
I'm honestly tired of not thinking and thinking and overthinking. I will do what I do, be who I am, and
whatever comes from that is what will be.
While I won't attempt to unduly influence the outcome of this situation,
I'm also not sitting passively by, waiting for Bounder to take me out of the
shiny box and play with me.
Sassafras O'Malley has double-blind
confirmation of a new superpower: the unmitigated ability to attract alcoholic
men.
She's not especially thrilled to
have this talent, though I suppose it's an equal and opposite reaction to her
ability to dazzle small animals and children (and stupid people) into
submission with her disco ballness.
All joking aside, it's shocking to
my system, just how well I can not
see the addiction sometimes, how I can have come so far toward self-awareness
and integration and still be so willing to ignore the flashing red signs when
my heart is on the line.
The thing about addicts is that they
are selfish: self-centered,
self-aggrandizing, self-deprecating, self-loathing, self-mutilating, and
self-destructive. As Bounder said to me
recently, quite ironically, it's not that they don't want good things in their lives—they aren't trying not to love or feel or be available to those that seem to
matter most to them—it's that they can't;
they are so selfish in their addiction that they are unable to see past
themselves to the secondary and tertiary damage they inflict on those around
them.
It's one of the hallmarks of
addicts, to deny themselves the things and people who are truly good for them,
to push out anyone and everyone who might be able to serve as a lifeline to
reality and healthfulness. They will
instinctively surround themselves with people who support and facilitate their
patterns of addictive behavior, who tolerate and even sometimes encourage their
excuses and their inconsideration and their lies—enablers.
I don't get it, either. In my head I can understand how the
addiction, especially alcoholism, works and impacts the addict's entire life,
including the people closest to them.
But deep in my soul, I cannot fathom how a person could be in such
desperate need for something, or someone, and flatly refuse it when it's
presented to them on a shiny, silver platter.
When you most need it, you're given a gift from the universe of exactly
what you both need and want, and you
are openly thankful for that—until you realize it won't follow you to the
bottom of a bottle. Then you turn your
back on the good in exchange for the bad, like an ungrateful, petulant bastard?
I don't fucking get it.
What I do understand is the other side of it—the heartbreak and the
rejection and the feelings of being worth less than a fucking bottle to that
person who says they care about you. The
dismissal and the isolation that come when they start drinking. And it's dramatically juxtaposed to the
attention and the connection that's there when they're sober, when you let
yourself think for just a moment that just
maybe this time you will be enough, be special enough, to help them see the
light and to give them the goal and the strength to break out of those
patterns. But those moments become more
and more fleeting as time goes on with the addict, until it's a constant daze of
distance and excuses and emotional neglect that borders on malice.
Hot Pocket says it's not that I'm
worth less than that bottle; it's that he feels he deserves the bottle more
than he deserves me.
Growler says she understands why it feels
like I will never find another person to love, who loves me back in a healthy
way, but that it's just not true, no matter how hard that may be to see right
now. (I'm not looking, but I wasn't
looking this time, either.)
Queen Frostine listens patiently
while I rage about how I'm done with men, about how I hate the catch-22 of
being myself and attracting damaged men or going back into my own box just to
make a man comfortable in the hopes he loves what is ultimately a shadow of
Stephanie.
And I'm pretty positive I don't want
a romantic relationship with a woman. Women are crazy.
Yet again I find myself spinning,
trying desperately to touch solid ground and calm the nausea, to stop the
sickness that is surrounding me and invading every fiber of my being. I'm trying again to catch my breath, the wind
knocked out of me simultaneously by love and heartache. As much as I may want to fix this, to use my
incredibly unrelenting resourcefulness to make this okay, I can't.
This is not my battle, no matter how hard I fight.
Maybe it's not about me, but it sure as hell still feels like it's me that's taking the brunt of the damage.
So I'm pulling back again, shunning
men and shunning that sector of my heart.
I was pretty sure I was ready this time, pretty sure I was healthy, but
I feel like I missed something. My
trusting, naive, hopelessly-romantic nature let me, encouraged me, to believe
the unintentional whispers of another alcoholic. I can't do this again. I really would rather be alone that to go
through this another time.
Dogs are okay. I like other people's dogs. It's kind of the same way some people feel
about kids or grandchildren—you can play with them and enjoy them but can also give
them back when you're done, without having to clean up after them.
My real attraction, though, is to what I commonly call The Fragile Cat.
Fragile cats are beautiful and
strong, quiet in their complications, and they respond to my affections
readily. They know I'll pet them and
care for them, feed and affect them at their whim. But they're skittish and easily spooked. If I'm too attentive, they arch their backs
and puff up defensively, backing away with darting, slanted eyes and an
occasional hiss.
In case you don't get it, I'm not
talking about actual cats.
Some women have a thing for bad
boys. Not me. Granted, some of the fragile cats I've known
have also been dangerous and bad-tempered, but most of them have been sweet if a
bit mischievous. They're aloof. I am especially adept at coaxing them out of
their hiding places, whether with treat or a gentle scratch behind their ears. Growler deemed me to be a fragile cat hunter,
and we agreed that my autobiography will likely be called Fragile Cats in the Mist.
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish
them from other cats, and sometimes dogs, but there are certain characteristics
they all have in common:
complex, complicated histories with
some substantial damage, usually involving their mothers
history of sometimes-addictive
behaviors, whether alcohol or drugs or sex or love
craving of quality affection that
they've missed out on
deep need to share their own truths,
whether or not they feel safe enough in their regular environment to do so
intriguing, enigmatic personalities
with a craving to experience their lives
They're deliciously funny and
dangerously charming. They're generally
wry and self-deprecating, and they will deliver to my doorstep the most
scrumptious of morsels, often stalked and hunted in my own backyard.
I can recognize them almost
immediately, in part because I've had lots of experience with them. Even the ones who know they're fragile cats
and try to hide it catch my attention and draw me in, because I am a fragile cat. My intuitive heart feels the kindred spirit,
sometimes on sight.
I spent so much time and energy to
understand my own history and damage, and I fought like hell to move past it and
rebuild from a place of utter deconstruction.
I know the road that is offered before them by the time our paths cross,
but I also acknowledge that no one can be forced to take on their issues. Everyone must come to it in their own time
and place, at a pace that is suitable for them.
So I know better than to try to fix
the fragile cat, to try to repair their damage or bandage it for them before
they skitter back into a dark alley in the middle of the night. That's not my job. What I am, consistently, is a place for them
to bring that damage into the light of day without recrimination, without
judgment, without fear of being abandoned on the side of the road.
Sometimes they let me. Sometimes they don't. I've known fragile cats for years or months
or sometimes only days. That's their prerogative,
to come and go as they need. But the
most fragile ones almost always come back, no matter how long it may be between
their visits, because they know I won't hurt them.
I don't seek them out; they are just
the kind of personality that is utterly magnetic to me. They are the ones who cause me to peer again
into the darkness, searching twice for the glint of their glowing eyes. Every single time I swear I'm not doing it
again, that I promise myself I won't go hunting for the feral, some stray
caterwauls nearby and then swishes its tail, weaving between my legs. They seek me out because they know I can't
turn them away.
And what do I get from them? I get their
softness. I get the undeniable surprise
of their appearing when I least expect it, often when I'm at my lowest, and
rubbing their heads against mine while they purr, just to make me smile and
sigh. When those cats are self-aware
enough to see my catness, they feed
me and pet me and remind me that sometimes it's okay to curl up in a safe lap
and nap in the sun.