Queen Frostine is coming for a visit on Friday. She was supposed to have been here in September, but she was the victim of a bungled mob hit in NYC and got a broken knee. (She slipped in a puddle in the hotel lobby.) I’m super excited that she’s coming but also a little anxious. (surprise!)
She hasn’t been to Atlanta in almost five years. I’ve seen her in Chicago a few times, and in Birmingham when she’d come to visit family for Christmas. We met up in Boston and in New York for girly time. But the last time she was here I only had three kittens—not the four grown cats I have now—and I hadn’t even met Rango yet, let alone broken up with and kicked him out. The boys were smaller, and honestly, so was I.
But I texted her today, vacuum cleaner leaned against my hip, that my internal system is freaking out. “They’re freaking out that you’re going to judge us for our clutter and our extraneous grime.”
“Who?” she replied. “The cats? Tell them bitches to chill. If it’s your kids, tell them I am totally going to judge them, and they better clean the fuck out of that house.”
“They’re afraid you’ll think I can’t take care of myself when you see the bad paint and the external disrepair and the dirt at all the edges.”
She promptly texted me pictures of her own chipped paint and dirt and clutter. (And damn! She has a lotof Cheez Balls!)
I know all that matters is that she is here and that we enjoy each other’s company—still after more than 32 years. But parts of me are afraid she will be embarrassed of me, to see that I’m not holding it all together like I should. Like I used to.
As I was mopping an hour later, I thought back to 2014, to being in school full time and working three part-time jobs, including mopping other people’s floors so I could feed my kids. I remembered a summer day when Tricky was with me at a house. He sat on a bed that I’d just made, and I quickly admonished him to get up and stay on the hardwoods, where there would be no sign that he had been there at all. And I loathed every second of the implication that somehow my wonderful, amazing, fantastic child was less than because his mom could do no more to support him than to clean other people’s toilets. Never, ever did I want him to feel like he wasn’t good enough for anyone else, to be anywhere else, to sit on someone’s bed. For all of my belief that there is never shame in honest work, for all of my Sinderella jokes, I hated that moment more than most in my life.
The truth is, it has already been a hell of a year. As if work and two teenaged boys and four cats weren’t enough to amp up my anxiety on any given day, my long-distance relationship with Bumblebee has been complicated by his battle with a rare and aggressive cancer. (I can’t even begin yet to talk about how hard it is to be 180 miles away from him when he’s struggling with chemo fatigue.) And for some reason I thought graduate school would be no big deal to add on to everything. Plus my decrepit spine and chronic pain.
“You have got so much shit going on, if you didn’t have a bit of grime around the edges, I would be worried,” Queen Frostine texted.
So five years later, I am again mopping the fading kitchen vinyl, in the spare time between sessions of classes, battling the impulse to recriminate myself for every misstep that took me away from the easy upper middle class, with a cleaning lady and a lawn service and time to work out every day. I have finished two degrees and am working on a third (with a 4.0 after my first semester). I have a job I love and wonderful-if-challenging sons. I have great friends and supportive family and a boyfriend who loves me deeply.
But I am still struggling with my worth. I am still afraid that if she or Bumblebee or anyone really sees the clutter and bits of dirt at the edges that they will not want me. Somehow there is a part of me that still believes it is too dirty to be loved.
I don’t know if I will ever be in détente with my insecurities. I don’t know that I will ever not fear emotional abandonment. I think it’s hard for people who don’t fully empathize with it to really understand why I can’t just accept that I have people who love me and who will support me no matter what.
Every time I fall into this pattern of insecure questioning that I am lovable, Queen Frostine is there to remind me—literally every day—that I am loved, no matter what. She is the most secure relationship I have, and I still question it from time to time, but she never lets me forget that I matter, than I am good enough and accepted, no matter what.
I am superstitious about a few things, and New Year’s Eve is at the top of that list. How I spend that night is often indicative of the entirety of the following year. I can regale with tales of New Year’s Eve Omens for almost as many years as the Valentine’s Curse.
But New Year's Eve, in particular, freaks me the hell out. There's something about the day or so surrounding the marking of the new year that seems to set the tone for the 364 days that follow. If it's a good night and following day, the year generally goes well. If it's harrowing—a car wreck with friends or a two-hundred-mile distance in the middle of a strained marriage—the rest of the year always seems to follow suit.
For a multitude of reasons, 2018 seemed to be an especially trying year for me and mine. It was a year of upheaval for so many. Pandy lost her grandmother and her father. Cookie got divorced. Queen Frostine survived a Mob hit while we were on vacation in NYC. Max graduated high school, cycled through a few fleeting relationships, spent a month in Germany, and we all survived his first semester in college. Another surgery and back problems for me.
And in the middle of the most difficult year of therapy to date, I stumbled into a long-distance relationship that has presented both unimagined challenges and unexpected joy.
I spent last weekend with him, Bumblebee, and with my girls. We all sat at a restaurant together, laughing uproariously in a back room where we hoped we wouldn’t disturb other patrons (and their children) with our loud, foul mouths. All of us seem to recharge a bit when we are together, whether one-on-one or in little groups of twos and threes. This was actually the first time the Castration Committee had been together in its six-part entirety in the same room.
In fact, Queen Frostine suggested a change in moniker, because “Castration Committee” has, taken on an unacceptable tone of man-hating. One or two of us have managed relationships with good men, and four of us are raising sons to be good men. Ideas were tossed around—from Jugaloons to Side Show by the Sea—and all I can remember for sure from the uproarious discussion is the word Psyrens. So there we are, a group of smart, loud, singing women who just know the others, no matter the distance.
And I needed the time with my girls. I’d just survived my first Christmas on my own, ever. The boys were gone. Bumblebee and my girls were all hundreds of miles away. I’d gone into it with the intention of being brave and calm, my Self leading all of my internal parts calmly and safely through an emotionally-charged 36 hours with mulled wine and good food and the cats.
It ended up being far sadder and more miserable than even I could have predicted, and I am not allowed to be alone like that again.
But New Year’s Eve was looming, no matter what. I’d been worried about it for weeks.
“If something happens,” I told Queen Frostine, “and we aren’t together for New Year’s—”
“Then you aren’t together,” she finished.
It’s not an ultimatum, of You-be-here-or-I-won’t-see-you. It is my perception of an emotionally traumatic history that happens to be cataloged by decades of bad New Year’s Eves (and worse Valentine’s Days).
And I’d been clear, that my coming to visit him for the weekend prior did not absolve him of being with me on New Year’s Eve. I love time with him whenever I can get it, but New Year’s Eve is its own category of agitating for me. We planned a low-key evening—early movie and dinner at the same restaurant we’d frequented since our first weekend together—to just be together. But I could not let go of the possibility (probability) that it would not go well.
“Try to let the fear go,” Pandy said on January 30th. “What if we expect the best?? Do we then invite the best into our home/heart?”
Shaking my head violently, I responded, “I can’t expect that best. I can’t. There’s waaaaaaayyyyyy too much history for that. That’s asking to get shattered.”
But I spent that evening readying the house. I made the grocery list and checked the showtimes for the movie. Bumblebee, of course. I laid out the Princess Bride Blu-ray for our breakfast viewing pleasure. I washed the special glasses I’d bought just for toasting with mimosas.
“I’m afraid I jinxed it,” I told Frostine mid-morning, New Year’s Eve.
“You didn’t jinx anything,” she chided. I could practically hear her blue eyes rolling in her curly head.
And then he texted midday, while I was getting ready to leave work early, that he was sick. He was violently ill, unable to travel down the street, let alone the 200 miles to my house. On top of it, he was upset about how this would upset me.
I understood. I know the illness that was plaguing him. Hell, our Thanksgiving got cut short by my being sideswiped by the flu. Of course it wasn’t what I wanted, but I knew this wasn’t intentional, not malicious or even negligent. Wholly unexpected and unwelcomed by both of us.
If he’d just not shown up, no explanation, or if he’d shown up late, no explanation, or if he’d shown up rude and mean, no explanation, and then expected me to accept it and understand it and not express any confusion or hurt or displeasure, or blamed me outright for it, then I would’ve been let down.
I know, because I have been let down in those ways by men who professed to love me. Over and over and over.
But he got sick, and he told me. We came up with an alternative plan to wear each other’s t-shirts and snuggle under blankets and talk and FaceTime kiss at midnight, to save the champagne until we are together and can get a do-over.
And I was completely cool with that. I was centered and calm, accepting and still felt both loved and loving.
And then the anxiety struck.
Fighting off a nasty cold, I didn’t feel well. A short nap on the couch was discombobulating. Given what had happened just a week before, I steered clear of the wine and sad movies. But by 9:45, I was well-ensconced in my reluctant acceptance that 2019 will be a year of sickness and distance and thwart and tears and anxiety, that we will likely find ourselves frustratingly separated by illness and trying to make up for it when our already-difficult schedules allow.
“Baby, do not do this,” he admonished over FaceTime, his brow furrowed. “This is self-fulfilling prophecy. We are not subject to the whims of a capricious non-entity.”
Of course I know that. I am too smart and too well-educated not to understand the logical fallacy of my fear of being thwarted by fate or Fate or the Ghosts of Relationships Past. But the reality is that I have been conditioned over four decades to expect disappointment. I have learned to set the bar for other people so low that I just need them to show up. I don’t need them to do anything or say anything or bring anything. I just need them to be there, to be present with me.
My entire system is on such high alert, constantly scanning the horizon for potential disappointment:
Is this something that might hurt me?
Is this something that is likely to hurt me?
How much hurt could I feel?
Does that possible hurt stem from a previous trauma?
How do I feel about that trauma now?
How have I successfully dealt with this before?
Can I avoid the hurt altogether?
Is there benefit in feeling the hurt?
Is there possible reward that’s not hurt?
This is how anxiety works. It is a constant cost/benefit analysis of people and experiences and moments, examining how they may impact my emotions and what future influence they may impart. It is eviscerating discernment, and it is neverending judgment of others and of myself, in desperate attempts to stave off hurt.
“Eventually, I have to stop,” I told him.
“Stop what?”
Stop hoping. Hope means the possibility of disappointment, of more hurt, of more agitation, of more anger, of more self-recrimination, of more tears and heart palpitations. Hope is an inherent expectation of good, of not-hurt.
If I have no expectation, then the good that comes can be met with exuberant joy and delight. And I do feel those things, regularly. I love deeply, and I am deeply loved, by my sons and my friends and my boyfriend and my family.
But that is not enough, and may never be enough, to assuage the perpetual angst that all comes down to basic value judgments made about me by other people, before I had clear, conscious memory. I cannot undo those choices others made, and I struggle to rectify my learned responses. At times, it is a gaping psychic wound that may never fully heal, only close over for some indeterminate length of time. I am always on edge, waiting for the next slice into an ever-refreshening scar.
I know: only my reactions matter now. How I choose to treat myself and others in light of my emotional makeup is what matters. And I try, so hard, to be present, to be mindful, to be kind to myself and to others, to carefully bring my concerns into balance before I act on them.
But when you feel like you’re drowning, it’s impossible not to thrash toward the surface with a desperate breath. When the anxiety hits, it is like waterboarding myself over and over with my own tears.
I am not, generally, unhappy. I am not so afraid that I have trouble experiencing the world, as I was when Max was a baby. I do have occasional days, when the benefit of staying in to read and binge watch whatever is greater than the potential cost of detached interaction with suburbia. I am far more than merely functional in my life. I am engaged with my wonderful, active sons, my dear friends, a man I love deeply who loves me just as much, a job at which I am very good, and I just applied to grad school.
Sometimes, though, I trip over a deeply existential crack. Usually, I can right myself and carry on, maybe with a momentary limp or scrape. Every so often, I fall into the chasm. Mostly I’ve learned to hold onto the edge and pull myself back up. I have no interest in traversing those depths ever again.
We missed the midnight countdown. There was a brief FaceTime at 12:02. I fell into a cold-medicine-induced, tear-stained sleep a few minutes later, the sound of raindrops and neighborhood fireworks outside, wrapped in his t-shirt. I woke this morning, fed and pet the cats, started a new book, watched the last bit of Leap Year while I prepped a Gouda-and-bacon frittata, started chicken stock and chicken salad for later in the week, prepped vegetables for roasting this evening, and did the dishes.
I often do more by noon than a lot of people do in a day.
I don’t write about these things to shame anyone else or myself. I don’t write to find sympathy from anyone else. I write, because there is someone else out there who needs to know they’re not alone in feeling overwhelmed, especially at times when we are expected to be happy and joyful and hopeful. I write because it’s cathartic for me, to help me cull so many simultaneous thoughts and emotions into better focus.
And maybe, just maybe, there comes the day when it all makes sense, my Epiphany, when I can close those old wounds for good.
One of the things I like about the Internal Family Systems model is that it doesn’t pathologize any of the subpersonalities. Even when their behaviors are seemingly destructive, their dysfunction serves a greater purpose, at least in their minds. Their actions and reactions serve to protect the Exiles, to prevent further harm from coming to the already damaged parts of the psyche.
When I am hurt or sad, and usually in response to infliction of hurt by someone else (and usually a romantic partner), one of my subpersonalities will fling terrible thoughts and words at me.
You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re gross. You’re stupid. You are unlovable, and no one loves you. You aren’t worthy of love and don’t deserve good things. You are a waste.
Now, logically, I understand those things may not be true. But why the hell would part of me continually tell other parts of me that I’m a waste of human flesh?
For a while, I wasn’t even sure who she was. I thought it might be Stephie, but she’s more likely to inflict her anger on others, not on me. And this one’s voice is no one else’s. It’s not my mother’s or my father’s. It doesn’t belong to any number of exes. It is a strangely-pitched, younger, strange version of my own voice. She knows how to inflect dripping sarcasm, spitting hatefully at me when I’m in the worst of the throes of pain. And just when I can’t take more, she hits with a final sucker punch, spinning me deep into tears and frustration.
She’s Harley.
Yes, it’s an easy moniker. And if she does her job well, she can get Quinn to act out, to seek out comfort in dark places.
And all of this to protect some Exile.
But what’s her purpose? I’m already hurting like hell; what good does it to do to inflict more, albeit different, pain?
Well, my first reaction to hurt and sadness is to close it down, to wall it off where it can’t reach me. Rango complained more than once that I would turn icy when hurt and angry. I can become very mechanical and refuse to feel emotion, let alone express it.
And that’s what she does: Harley forces me to feel something, anything that keeps me from returning to a dissociative state of numbness.
I spent the first ten years of my sons’ lives in that space. Struggling to find value both within myself and reflected from my husband, I shut down. My anxiety after giving birth to Max was so great that I started a low-dose SSR. It stopped the anxiety and kept me in the center, so I stayed on it until I couldn’t bear not feeling anymore. While the wild swings from joy to sorrow were abated, I generally felt nothing. When I got nothing in return, I became frustrated, and Quinn stepped in to give me some semblance of meaning again.
But because I am drawn to emotionally-unavailable men, Harley does what she can to keep me from becoming an avoidant myself. Given the last few years and recent relationship troubles, I get the appeal of shutting everyone and everything out. I get how it can seem beneficial to artificially limit what you’re willing to feel for another person, who well might break your heart. There is safety in walling yourself off from the Great Outdoors.
But I’m also a firm believer that love matters. It matters when we feel deep, caring emotion for another person, no matter the context. I don’t mean infatuation or attraction or simple affection. I mean the kind of love in which we are willing to sacrifice to help them reach their next goal. The kind of love that is so simple and pure that it expects to be cared for in return, simply because that is its nature.
It is unimaginable to me to walk away from that. It makes no sense to me that the people who’ve said they loved me could then walk away, could turn their backs on the thing they need most, which I just happen to be willing to give in droves. It’s nonsensical to have what you want most, what is good and healthy and true, right in front of you and to drop it carelessly on the ground on your way out the door.
So, the hurt for me comes from both the act of abandonment, whether physical or emotional, and the injustice of the leaving. And emotional abandonment is a very large part of the hurt for me. Hiding deep inside is a little girl who felt abandoned. Every time she felt it was safe to come out, trust someone enough to hold their outstretched hand and hope for love, she was let down again, over and over. She continually learned that she wasn’t worth loving, because people who love you stay and support you and care for you. They sacrifice for you, and no one sacrificed for her. She was, at times, a sacrificial lamb of sorts.
So, when the same wounds are reopened, Harley steps in to keep me from shutting down entirely. She steels me for an onslaught of disappointment and confusion. If I can already feel badly about myself, the abandonment makes sense. If they leave, it is because I am unlovable, so it shouldn’t be so hurtful or saddening. Even if what I feel is disgustful pain, that’s still better than feeling nothing at all.
While I know the things she says to me aren’t always true, there is, of course a nugget of truth to everything she says. I regained weight. I became complacent about my health. I can see myself aging both in photographs and in the mirror. I am emotionally difficult, hence my return to therapy. And even when those faults seem natural and overblown in my mind, there are long stretches of time in which I’m unable to find more good than bad, unable to value myself as more than my faults.
Pandy and I had a wonderful Saturday recently. I took her to see my beloved Afghan Whigs for the first time. Even though I’d just seen them in Atlanta a few weeks before, I traveled to Birmingham for what turned out to be the best Whigs show I’ve ever seen.
A few days later, she messaged me and asked me to look at the photographs she had taken of me that night. She asked me to see what she sees, what she was trying to capture, “joy, or strength, or tenacity reflected in you.”
You are exquisitely beautiful. I know you seldom feel the woman I see, but that doesn’t mean you are any less the one I see. Sometimes friends see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Those are the times we need to redirect our focus, and look with kinder eyes; look at yourself for a moment as I do. See yourself in my photographs of you, and imagine what I was trying to capture. I see beauty. I see sass. I see strength. I see might. In short I see a very real version of Wonder Woman. She is a woman I love, admire, and appreciate. She is you.
I looked at her photographs. I can see what it is that she sees, why those moments capture those qualities of the woman in the photographs. What I don’t see, is myself. I don’t connect to those women in those pictures. I don’t feel attached to or protective of them. I don’t feel that their beauty and strength and sass is my own. Because if I feel those things about myself, it will open the door to hurt. It will allow for the possibility of disappointment.
But no matter what I do, no matter how far I get from my own center, Pandy is there. She is with me through thick and thin, through skinny and fat, through aging and heartache and wonder. I love her, and she loves me. I know this. I feel it every day, even if I don’t talk to her. Even when I’ve been at my worst, she stayed and supported me and loved me anyway, even if it meant telling me truths I didn’t want to hear.
Sometimes Harley argues with Pandy. Sometimes she rolls her eyes and just lets her talk. But every so often, she stays still and lets me feel the love that comes from this woman who has no desire to ever abandon me.
She was 85, and she had been sick for a very long time. Steadily declining health had forced the decision to move her into a nursing home a few years ago. Hospice involved a few months ago. After a few days of infection she just couldn't fight anymore, she went peacefully in her sleep.
It was a difficult blessing.
I have a lot of thoughts about her, but I'm not ready to share them publicly yet. I may never be. Regardless, I know the woman loved me very much. She adored my children.
My Amazonian build came from her, my maternal grandmother. The long legs and large frame, the big hands that look so much like hers. My strawberry blond hair and wide open laugh.
But I'm not ready to delve into that yet.
The funeral was low-key and relatively quick, just like she wanted. My brother and cousins carried her pink-rose-laden casket from the hearse. My brother asked my 13-year-old son to help. It was first experience in bearing the pall, which is an honor and duty all Southern men must learn to carry. My dad and stepdad and uncles have all had multiple turns, burdening the final weight of loved ones as a fitting good-bye.
While the men did their duty, I kept Tricky, who is still too young and spindly to be of much use. He wanted to be with his big brother and his uncle, though, so I distracted him with my niece. Glamigail is almost three, and she has a 4-week-old sister, the Glitterbug, who was sleeping soundly, scrunched in a sling on her mother's chest.
The kids were sweet and quiet through the graveside service, through the remarks of the preacher and the final prayers. Head down and eyes open, as respectful as possible, I watched the two of them, making sure no mischief ensued in those few moments when no adults would be looking.
After it was over, Glamigail took off across the green expanse of the cemetery. Just two weeks after Memorial Day, there were flags on graves, waving at her on a hot, Southern breeze. The flags were tucked into vases of brightly-colored flowers everywhere. How could she not go and explore?
Tricky was back and forth between her and Max, still in that time between being outgrowing the child and becoming a man. He wanted to play with the little blond dynamo of a cousin, but he also wanted to stay with his brother, with the burgeoning young man he relies on and idolizes as fiercely as he sometimes punches him in the gut. He wanted to be with his uncle, who is goofy and cool and always has kind words for his nephews, especially when he knows their father is so conspicuously absent.
But it was Max who broke my heart. Gone is my fat, blond little baby boy. He is tall (5'9 already) and lanky, lean and long just like his father. From the neck down, he is DH. They have the same feet. They have two moles on their backs in the same places.
I could see how much he looks like his dad now. How he has the same gait and the same movement of arms, the same determined look on his face that accentuates the gorgeous cheekbones.
On Saturday, to escape the grief and the anxiety, I took the boys to stay with Pandy for the night. A quick visit to PandyLand is always good for me, but the boys adore her and her family. Tank is always so sweet to let us invade his home. It's hard enough when it's just Sassafras and Pandy together, but then add the kids—Max and Tricky, plus 2.0 and Leon and Professor X, then even Huffy made a quick appearance!—it is just goofball chaos.
But Tank talked to my kids like they were just people. Not kids, not condescending, and with the same liberal life views and geeky interests we have. He turned Max onto a couple of new shows, and he showed Tricky manly things from the tool box and the shed. He and I talked music like we always do.
Ultimately, it was Pandy teaching Max how to throw a football that was my favorite moment.
Pandy knew DH long before I did. She knows part of my list of the next great man in my life includes the one who would teach my sons how to throw a football. I waited for years for DH to do it. We waited for years.
I watched her, strong and patient, caring for and attending to my sons just like she does her own. My hoohas are her hoohas, and vice versa. And my boys adore her almost as much as I do.
I'm watching my babies grow into men, slowly and sometimes shakily. They are as unsure of themselves as I am. I know it's impossible for me to be everything to them. Honestly, to fill every gap in their lives with my own brand of Glamazonian crazy seems almost cruel, like I'm setting them up for a lifetime of ridiculous expectations.
But then I have these moments when I am blessed with friends and family who love my children, who love me, and who extend their own open, glitter-dusted palms to our hearts and grab on gently, refusing to let go even when I am stubborn in my attempts to be everything and more than even I can manage. The ones who see my exhaustion and know the truth of its source, who know how I am castigating myself for mistakes and missteps, drowning in a sea of OhGodhowdidIdothistomyself?
In those moments, when I see the past and the future colliding in these children, in the hoohas, I can't breathe. It is beautiful to see a little girl squealing at a half-deflated birthday balloon in the cemetery at her great-grandmother's funeral. It is stunning to see my sons growing into these perfect combinations of their parents, the intensely wonderful result of two fucked-up people who managed to give the best of themselves to another person long enough to make that perfection.
And it breaks my heart to know that I wouldn't see the beauty in this, that I wouldn't appreciate such smallness, in quite the same way had so much not gone horribly awry.
In forty years, it may be my turn. It may be my rose-laden casket and my golden-haired great-granddaughter. It may be my grandsons bearing the final weight of me. I hope beyond hope that my legacy is their being able to appreciate the beauty without having ever had to experience the pain of heartache like this firsthand. Maybe, just maybe, that their fathers will have learned some secret truths that the Inner Circle and I were able to share with them, that they listened better and learned better how to live and love without tearing each other apart.
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 went into thyroid surgery last
Friday expecting 3+ hours and the very real possibility of losing my
voice. Because of complications during
my first surgery in 2006, the surgeon was concerned about the laryngeal nerve
taking shock or damage. I was expecting
to be voiceless for a period of time, including the risk of permanent voice
loss. (Hot Pocket said maybe I would
just be a normal volume.)
Thankfully, after two hours, I
emerged groggy but my normal, boisterous self.
(Really. Ask Growler, who was
with me the entire time. Or the
multitude of nurses who seemed to want to hang in my room and chat for an
inordinate amount of time.)
Now I have to adjust to life with no
thyroid gland and a new dosage of replacement hormone. The surgeon told me to expect to feel
"like crap" until the hormones normalize and the dosing is stable.
He wasn't kidding.
I am an emotional wreck.
At my post-op appointment today, he
said I'm healing perfectly. (Yes,
Stephanie, that giant lump on the front of your neck will go away
eventually.) It's also okay that I'm
crying and cranky all the damn time.
Yippee.
Mainly I wanted to update you guys
with my recovery. Thanks to everyone for
the thoughts and well wishes and prayers.
Special thanks go to Growler and Big Cexy for taking such great care of
me for the bulk of 72 hours. Also,
thanks to my mom and stepdad for taking care of my boys while I was in the
hospital and in early recuperation.
This is also your warning that I'm
likely about to start an emotional rollercoaster here at Muchness and
Light. It's my outlet, certainly. I hope someone other than me gets something
from what I write. Either way, settle in—it
may be bumpy for a while.
Or I could wake up tomorrow, happy as a lark. There's always hope!
This morning, about an hour before I
was scheduled to sign copies of Persona
Non Grata at the AJC Decatur Book Festival, I was in an utter panic. The festival had been open about an hour, and
not one copy of PNG had sold. Everywhere I looked, I saw older women and
hipster, urban couples with their jogging strollers—not my demographic.
Queen Frostine texted me just then:
Good luck today. *hug*
I'm in
a panic
No
worries. This will be brilliant.
No. It'll be sad.
No one will buy it and I'll sit there for 10 minutes doing nothing. That's how I expect it to go.
I don't
want to do it.
She called me immediately. I was on the verge of tears, pacing an alley
behind the courthouse. She reminded me
that I could do this, that the worst thing that happened was no one came and I
just sat there for ten minutes. It
wouldn't be the end of the world.
Hot Pocket and Growler chimed in via
Facebook Messenger.
Me: I
just hung up with Frostine. In utter
panic about this and don't want to do it.
I will but am flaking out.
HP: What,
the signing? Your book is awesome! You can do this!
You
are glittery goodness and not a wallflower.
Tell
people about your book, like you would tell me.
G: Sass. You will be fine. I have made it through DAYS of book signings
selling next to nothing and paying for my space. You can do it for minutes.
I
panic, too. All writers do. You are not special.
I sucked it up, checked in at the
Emerging Writers Pavilion, and then went and took my seat. I was immediately joined by another
writer. She was tiny (at least compared
to me), with short, dark hair that curled into a deep purple flame above her
forehead. Nose ring and
skull-and-crossbones earrings. Exactly the kind of woman I would like
to hang out with under any circumstances.
She introduced herself, and we
started talking about what we write. I
must confess that I probably hogged way too much of the conversation. But this writer, I. R. Harris, told me to
remember what I had written and why, that my voice is able to reach women who
often feel left out of contemporary fiction.
"Besides, you wrote a book! Lots of
people say that want to do it and never do.
You did this!"
Then a friend from Facebook came up
to the table. I'd never met him (nor his
lovely wife) face-to-face. He was there
to see me and get a signed copy.
All of this was exactly what I
needed today.
There were a dozen little signs
throughout the day that helped to cement some choices I had to make about the
next couple of months. It still means a
lot of work is directly in front of me, but it also tells me that I know which
path to forge and to trust in that.
I received unexpected wisdom and
encouragement from friends and strangers when I needed it most. When there are impossibly difficult moments
and I want to just crawl in bed and never come out, there is always something
that is put in front of me, to remind me again of not only who I'm supposed to be but who I am.
Even when this life is at its hardest, I am thankful to have been given
the strength and opportunity to live it as fully as I am willing and able. I am fortunate and appreciative, even when
I'm scared to death and so afraid that I will fail again or look like a
fool.
So for every little bit of goodness
that was granted to me today, thank you. I am humbled by the lessons I have learned
and the serendipity that is a regular part of my crazy life.
Today is Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson's
41st birthday. Tierney and I
share a lot of things—a dimple, really great hair—including a birthday.
I had a talk with her last night
about what the last year has been like for her.
She went into 40 with a new body and utterly revised outlook on
life. There have been substantial ups
and downs:
She separated from her husband of
now 19 years, working her way toward divorce.
She blew a disc in her neck again
and spent another few months battling that chronic pain.
She had crazy adventures with her
girls.
She went back to Wicker Park, where
so much of her story began to change, and got her first tattoo.
She finally realized that she's
pretty.
She fell in love again, albeit with
another alcoholic.
She literally laid both new and old
ghosts to rest.
She's happily raising two amazing
young men.
She finally realized she's worth far,
far more than even she ever knew.
I checked in with her to wish her a
happy birthday. I told her that I
understood fully what an incredible year this has been, and that I have a few
hopes for her upcoming year:
I hope she can finally get finished
with this divorce process.
I hope Junkture finally gets their
new record out and that she loves it as much as the others.
I hope she finds the inspiration to
create both new art and a new story.
I hope she steers clear of injury
and pain.
I hope she and her girls laugh their
way uproariously through their next year.
I hope she both gets back to Chicago.
I hope she's able to get that new
tattoo she's considering.
I hope she sees her own beauty,
inside and out, every single day.
I hope the next great love of her
life is sober and emotionally aware and available.
I hope her ghosts stay dead.
I hope she continues to be the best
mom possible to her amazing young men.
I hope she is comfortable in who she
is and that she is able to tap her own potential fully.
Tierney thanked me, giggling and
grinning as we sat on my deck and chatted.
For me, she said, she wishes the same things. And then she thanked me for lending her my
strength, even when I thought there was no way in Hell that we would get
through this year.
In all seriousness, thank you to
everyone who touches my life every single day.
You may be with me for a moment or a lifetime, but you are part of
me. Just being here to read my words is
enough to make you matter to me. Many of
the successes of this last year have been wholly internal and haven't been
shared in detail on Muchness and Light, or anywhere else. But know that I am grateful for each person
who offers me their time and their shoulder and their smile. Your support has brought me this far, and it
will help to propel me into what I hope is another unbelievable year.
The girls and I have agreed for ages
that Growler's husband, BC, is an über-Alpha male. In any given situation or room of people, he
will quietly take control and direct almost everything that happens. I'm sure he has moments when he can be an
utter ass about it, but I've never really seen that aspect of him. Granted, I don't live with the man. However,
I have spent a lot of time with him and in their home.
"You see, to be an Alpha
male in the traditional sense simply means the most dominant within a
group, or the strongest in a group or the most confident in a group. Not a
person who is necessarily strong or confident in the absolute sense; just
someone who, in a given group of people, most outwardly projects
strength or confidence. In other words, the problem with the definition of
Alpha isn’t really the assumed aggression or implied cockiness; it’s the fact
that the entire foundational principle for self-value is comparative analysis."
They outline seven characteristics
of the new Alpha:
1)
helpful but not condescending
2)
confident but not cocky
3)
vain but not conceited
4)
prideful but not arrogant
5)
humble but not self-loathing
6)
tolerant but not weak
7)
dedicated but not obsessed
After Bounder and I broke up,
Growler finally confided that BC never quite thought Bounder was the right
match for me. I trust BC's instincts for
a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he's a Fragile Cat. Like Bounder.
And like me.
"I don't date by committee,"
I said to him, meaning the girls (a.k.a. The Castration Committee), "but
I'm not dating anyone from now on until they get your stamp of approval."
He laughed and agreed.
And then it hit me: BC is the Lion King. We are part of his pride.
Let me be very, very clear that
there is absolutely nothing untoward or lascivious in my relationship with
BC. He and Growler and I all know
this. Where she is part of my girlie
heart, he is an extension of that and has become a very good friend to me over
the last few months. I can only hope I
am responsibly reciprocal in that friendship.
Growler laughed when I called him
Mufasa, but we talked at length about this concept of his protecting the women
(and even some of the men) in his life and how they all care for him in
return.
I
need that in my ideal mate, I thought.
Those are the traits I'm seeking.
But then it hit me again: I have those traits.
Even though I wasn't always
cultivating or fully utilizing them, they're part of my make-up.
And then I wrote on a piece of
paper, which I showed to Growler:
I am an Alpha Female looking for an Alpha
Male.
"Of course you're looking for
an alpha male," she laughed.
"Did you not know this?"
I shook my head, eyes wide. "I knew that. I didn't know—"
"You didn't know you're an Alpha female?? Honey, do you hear this?"
BC and Growler laughed and laughed,
watching me enveloped by this epiphany.
I called Hot Pocket that afternoon and told her; she laughed
uproariously.
"Tank [her husband] and I have
talked about that a hundred times. Did
you really not know?"
Nope.
It all suddenly made sense, the ways
in which I am strangely not like other girls.
1)
incredibly loyal but sometimes self-sacrificing
2)
well-aware of my abilities but sometimes
disabled by my weaknesses
3)
knowing I had damn good hair but absolutely no
concept that I was pretty
4)
proud of my accomplishments though I rarely see
that they amount to anything
5)
jokingly self-deprecating, sometimes to the
point of dire self-criticism
6)
intensely interested in people and how they work
but incredibly impatient
7)
dogged and obsessive but only about the things
that are important to me
I am loud and boisterous and full-on
energy, most of the time. I am
relentless but with dimples instead of a grimace. I am a glittery ball of blond batshit who can
be so insecure that she ends up fetal and crying on her own floor because no
one would talk to her when she went out.
I complain that men don't talk to me in public but know damn well that I
can be aloof. They tell me I'm
intimidating, but I never really understood why.
Now I get it.
In that competition of love and sex,
it's all about who's better than whom.
Who's stronger, prettier, sexier, smarter, blahblahblah. Women compete against each other and
themselves, just as men do. The genders
also compete against each other for placement in the immediate pack. It's not always
this way, certainly, but watch what happens in a crowded bar on any given
weekend night.
I
am an Alpha.
I tend to attract strong
personalities. Even Bounder once said
that any man who was going to even try to approach me had better bring the big
stones. When I am approached, I tend to
shoot men down pretty quickly. It
doesn't take me long to size them up and know which ones could never be enough
for me and my exacting standards.
All of my talk this year of what I
wanted in a relationship points to this über-Alpha male. All of my work for the last three years has
brought me the realization that I am looking for the biggest of the Cats. My insecurities have source in my not seeing
the plain truth of myself, yet again.
All of the monument-worthy men in my
past have been Fragile Cats, certainly.
They were possibly higher ranked than I was at some point. The moment when that shifted is the tension
point that ultimately led to the demise of those relationships. When there was no other option but
subjugating my own power to please them, the relationships fell the fuck
apart.
And the ones who said they didn't
deserve me, that I was too good for them, they
were right. I lowered myself to
their standards in order to compete with them, hence the turmoil. (It really was you and not me.)
Being who I am, I could see their potential. Even if they weren't living up to what I saw,
I would remind them that they could be better and more special and that I would
support that in any way I could, sometimes to my own detriment. What I realize now is that I don't just need
huge potential in a partner; I need a partner who is achieving his potential.
This also means that I have to work
toward my own potential. It may not be
what anyone else sees in me, but I have to be very honest with myself about
both what I want to do and what I
really can do. The last year of life on my own has shown me
an enormous amount of untapped possibility, and now it's time to work
that.
But I won't do it to make anyone
else happy or comfortable. I won't spend
my time fighting with someone else about why and how it could be better. I will be who I am, who I can be in my own,
huge heart, and that will be exactly right for me. If it also happens to be right for them, so
be it.
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.
