Muchness and Light

The person you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger.

 

In the midst of my hormone-guided tour of my emotional landscape, I started to think (read: cry) about how people can hurt the ones they love. 

Look, everyone does it sometime, of course.  Whether intentional or accidental, we have all acted upon our inherent ability to hurt others.  Sometimes it's an overly-harsh word or a complete dismissal of someone and their feelings.  Sometimes it's even an overtly vindictive act of physical or emotional retaliation. 

Whether or not something is hurtful can depend entirely on your perspective.  What may seem detrimental to one person can be protective for the other.  Circumstances can dictate whether or not an action needs to be performed at a certain time, and the consequences of that action may create a Win-Lose situation for the involved parties. 

There has to be a limit to the amount of self-sacrifice any person is willing or able to make, even if it sometimes means you end up hurting someone you care about.  It seems noble (or something) to be willing to give up anything for someone you love, but the reality of life is that it can't really work that way.  To relinquish every bit of your own power as a human being in deference to another, no matter how much you love them, is to weaken yourself to the point of exhaustion and ultimate self-destruction—physical, emotional, metaphysical, or any combination thereof. 

When you're on the receiving end of the smite, it just feels damaging and cruel.  Knowing that you're the one inflicting that damage can also be incredibly painful.  It's that ripple of equal and opposite reaction and how the energy of your own actions bounces back toward you. 

Given so much of who and what I've lived this year (especially as it trailed the preceding years), it would be easier if I could find some finality, some crux in time, when I could close my heart to certain people and disregard them completely.  My head understands the benefit in being able to close a chapter and box it away, making the people who helped to write those pages mean nothing more than the historical compartment they reside in.  To have the deep emotions we shared be inconsequential as I move forward seems superficially like it would make managing my future much easier. 

To be able to be distant and calculating, allowing me to feel nothing when I inflict hurt on someone else, could indeed be beneficial as I move forward to rebuild my life. 

But I honest to God don't understand how anyone could be so wantonly callous with another person by choice.  It baffles every fiber of my being that anyone could so easily disregard another person they have cared about, especially on such an intimate level.  I both envy and fear that ability to slam up a wall in your heart between yourself and anything that might have been able to reach you, even for a glimmer of a moment.  And how that can justify the hurt it inflicts, I truly don't understand. 

Everything in me shakes its head in confusion at the thought of living like that for a second, and it makes me hurt to imagine it.  It's reprehensible and baffling to me, both because of what it would say about me and about how I attempt to honor what those people meant to me, even when it was in some other time and place.  Maybe that's little girl naive of me.

Hot Pocket says I'm not like most people when it comes to this, but it's the only way I know how to be.  I will forever give anyone the benefit of the doubt and hope that my expectations are somehow proven wrong.  I will likely be forever disappointed and remain just as confused as ever, even and especially when I can logically see the fallacy of what my heart intuits so very clearly.  Where this aspect of my heart previously seemed wistful and charming, now sometimes it seems detrimental and foolish. 

I make mistakes.  I hurt the people I love.  I try very hard not to do that intentionally, sometimes taking the full brunt of the pain myself just to keep the people who've mattered to me from feeling it.  When I do inflict damage, I try to apologize and learn the lesson to avoid repeating it.  I try to make amends when and where I can. 

But I can't be like most of the people I know, who can just cut off their emotions and live as if they're inconsequential.  To close off a part of my heart will undoubtedly damage other parts of it, as well, and the long-term consequences of that are far more frightening to me than the short-term abating of emotion would be relieving.  Numbing it only delays the inevitable and may actually damage everything else that butts up against the numb. 

Somewhere maybe there's a middle ground for me.  I'm not a girl who's happy (or comfortable) in the medium.  When this journey comes to its end, I want to know that I lived this adventure as fully and completely as I could, no matter the circumstances, even if it means having to feel the agony just so I can appreciate the ecstasy.

 

 

Learn to cry like a baby, then the hurting won't come back.

After the boys went to bed last night, I started to cry.  Almost fourteen hours later, and I haven't stopped. 

I've been on the phone with the girls for most of the morning, trying to get to the bottom of it.  And there is a bottom—I can tell it's there—but I haven't found it yet.  I know the freefall won't stop until I do.

There's so much going on right now.  I'm worried about my sons and money and my neverending divorce.  I have to find a job, but the boys were promised that I would still be there for them when they got home from school in the afternoons, that the basic logistics of their lives wouldn't change, that they'd still be able to do all of the things they've become accustomed to doing.  With one of them having been sick for several days recently, I don't know what would've happened if I'd been working. 

I'm worried about what I'm writing now, that I won't have it finished before I go into pitches with agents in November.  No, I know I won't have it finished.  But I don't want to do some half-assed job that turns out to be the chick lit that I hate.  The story I have is good, and I can do it justice, but it's complex and intricate.  It will take time to get it right, and I'm afraid that I will miss or outright blow an opportunity that maybe I don't have the right to even fight for. 

Everything is in process.  There's nothing stable or secure right now, and that is—today at least—unbearably frightening.  With everything churning at once, it feels like I'm in a freefall, down some fucking rabbit hole that I didn't choose.  This isn't like adventures before, when I've jumped in feet first and excited about wherever I landed.  Nothing under me feels solid or safe.  I feel scared like maybe never before.  I feel strangely helpless in this moment, and I am not a helpless girl. 

Today is one of those days when I feel paralyzed by own fears and insecurities.  I don't feel hopeless; I know that what ebbs must flow.  I am uncomfortably anxious about when and how that will happen.  I understand the why, so at least I can remind myself of that, for whatever good it can bring.

There's nothing profound in this, nothing important in what I'm sharing.  Muchness and Light has always been my outlet for writing about my own journey and the growth I gain throughout it.  I try to share some insight with my readers, usually because I find the same insights through my writing. 

Today there's nothing insightful.  I just needed to get it out. 

And then you call me, and it's not so bad.

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.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

 

She's in a daze, without a care.

Today is Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson's 41^st 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 met Greg Dulli.

The story of the first 40 years of her life was released into the world in a very public way.

She finally saw Concrete Blonde live. 

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. 

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Getting bigger and brighter, wider and lighter.

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

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. 

While I looked around for my possibilities, I was so hard to please.

Things take time.

The boys remind me of this nearly every day—each time I get impatient with how unquickly they're doing what I'd like them to do. 

"Things take time, Mommy," they'll say.  "It takes time to move through space and do things."

There's no denying their geeky understanding of how their world works, though my 12-year-old will often lament that physics is a bitch!

But there's so much truth at the heart of their admonition.  For everything we do, every movement we make, time must pass.  Each occurrence in our lives happens in a modern-day fourth dimension of spacetime, through which our lives must constantly move.

Just because thought seems instantaneous, it's not.  The process of electrical impulse passing across neurons happens in fractions of seconds, but it still transpires in measurable time.  The further process of bringing thought to fruition—walking, talking, getting a drink—takes even more time. 

When things don't happen in my preferred timeframe, I get frustrated.  If I tell the boys to put on their shoes right then, it shouldn't take more than a minute or two, even if they have to stop for socks and go into another room to find their sneakers.  And if they don't start that process immediately, instead being waylaid by innumerable distractions, it frustrates the hell out of me. 

Generally I get tense and will sometimes raise my voice.  Skip the non-verbal cues and go straight to the vocal warning of irritation.  You're wasting thirty seconds on superfluous minutiae, which means putting your shoes on your feet is taking 25-50% longer than it should.  You're wasting time.

But is it really wasted?  Maybe it's delaying us from being somewhere, but there is something that has demanded their attention, something that needs a moment to shift in their psyches.  Just because it seems inconsequential to me, that doesn't mean it's not important to them. 

It often makes me want to just jump in and do whatever myself.  Maybe it's grabbing the laundry or unloading the dishwasher or finding their shoes for them.  For a long time, they couldn't do those things; those were absolutely a part of my job as mom. 

As they're growing up, moving their bodies and those delicate psyches through spacetime, my role in their lives is shifting.  I've been working to teach them how to care for themselves—how to do the dishes and the laundry and clip their own nails.  It can be a painstaking process, and it often butts against my own infamous impatience.  Part of being their mother is teaching them how to be self-sufficient young men, just as it was to keep them alive when they were babies. 

At the heart of mothering is doing for them what they cannot do for themselves.

Much in the same way I had to learn to reparent myself after my separation, I have to constantly examine what they are and are not truly capable of doing.  While it may irritate me that they don't do things on my preferred schedule, they are only capable of doing anything in their own time and space, and ultimately in their own way.  What works for me may not be what works for them.  Only they will ever really know for sure. 

Standing back and letting them try, even when it's unbearably frustrating for us both, is part of my journey.  As badly as they need the lesson to do things, I need the lesson to let things happen in their own time.  I am efficient and impatient and often readily see how something is most likely to occur—my hummingbird-wing-dizzy brain is always running through possibilities and plausibilities.  Even when I'm confident in being right about an outcome, I have no choice but to let it just happen. 

In a way, it's a refinement of my previous lesson to be still.  It's not just a matter of calming myself in the chaos so I can wait; I have to actually find the good in that experience.  With the children, it's their own learning of how to manage the logistics of their lives.  With relationships, it's not fighting the other person's opportunity to meet me halfway.  With myself, it's allowing this energy to spread before me, time for the ripples to glide and bounce off of stones and shores and other ripples and make their way back to me in unique fractal beauty. 

While I may want these things—the chores, my children, my writing, my love—to be immediately what they can be, I know they can only happen in their own time.  Had anything that came before been different, it would not be the same experience now.  And it's that confluence of energy that makes each moment so incredibly special, so complexly beautiful that it sometimes makes my heart ache with its beauty and the joy that I get to watch and experience this unfold, that I have done something right sometime in my life and am being rewarded with this life and this experience.  These moments are for me.  I have earned them and I have to treasure each one as it burgeons, because these are the stepping stones of my path, for my journey—damn the destination.

Just as long as I'm where you're at, I'm gonna have a real good view.

A couple of weeks ago, I was moving on with my life. 

Happily, carefully, trepidatiously (if excited), I had met a couple of new people and scheduled a couple of first dates.  Summer was unofficially here, and I took a couple of days to get away and see some friends.  While out of town, I was trying to catch a cab in the rain and decided to call another friend quickly. 

I stepped into the edge of the rain and hit her name in my contacts, hit her number and heard the first ring.  Shifting my purse in my hands, I glanced down at the phone and saw not that friend's name but a face smiling at me.

Bounder.

The phone rang again. 

I hit END as quickly as possible, and my heart started to pound in my chest. 

Maybe it didn't ring on his end.

It rang twice.  He heard it.

Maybe he won't notice.

Come on!  It's Bounder we're talking about.

I texted him and apologized if it rang through, explained that I was out of town and trying to catch a cab in the rain. 

Ten minutes later, he replied, Fate really is a bitch.

Turns out he was at home, phone in his pocket.  He hadn't heard it ring, though he certainly noticed the missed call and subsequent text.  It also turns out that he was reading Muchness and Light, catching up on what he'd missed in the weeks since he'd seen and talked to me. 

An hour-long telephone conversation in the rain outside the venue led to his coming to see me the next night, after I returned home.  What was exchanged between us is ours, especially his, but suffice it to say that the conversation was intense.  So much so that we agreed to try this again, to not let the fear of emotion and connection and unplanned upheaval keep us from being together. 

With all of our problems and issues and concerns, there is this force that not only keeps pushing us together, but keeps reminding us that we are supposed to be together.  If I doubt for a moment—usually because I am overwhelmed by the fact that this amazing man loves me so intensely and that I love him back just as much—I get some reminder, some prodding of song or feeling or intimate memory, and he usually somehow gets it, too.  There's almost always an immediate text or call from the other.  We are very much in sync. 

And the thing is, I was done.  I was finished with the trying and the crying and the hoping that he would accept how very much we meant.  It was never a matter of his not seeing it; it was all about his being ready for it.  I was over keeping myself from calling or texting, somehow able to talk myself down and not react immediately to the emotion of missing him.  I had stopped waiting for his attention and fully expected that I would never see or talk to him again.

The hardest part was always knowing that I would likely never find that connection with another lover.  Not like that.  My time with him—those incredible moments of just the two of us—had altered my desires and expectations on so many levels.  I honestly didn't think I would ever be able to find it that good again, and I really don't just mean the sex.  And the reasons we were apart seemed ludicrously unnecessary.

As with every bigger picture, there were other, hidden reasons we needed that time out of each other's immediate orbit.  I knew he had things to work out and work through.  What I couldn't see at the time were the remaining lessons I had to learn before we could ever move forward.  Even when I did that work, I had no inkling that the process was making room for Bounder. 

Every day, I get some reminder from the outside, some little push or sign from the universe or Fate or my subconscious or his, that this is when and where we are supposed to be.  We are supposed to be here now.

Because I lost him once and have been given this second opportunity to be wholly with him, I refuse to waste it.  I am cognizant of our separate and collective pasts, cautiously aware of how close we came to not having each other.  I am thankful and grateful that I've been given the chance to be both truly myself and to be what he needs and wants, but also to have him reciprocate in all of that in a more honest way than any other has ever offered to me.  He is a remarkable man, and we are incredibly lucky to have this time.

So I'm still moving forward, just not in the way I expected three weeks ago.  It is truly better than I could've hoped or wished, and it is happier and healthier than it would've been three months ago.  I have more lessons to learn, more work to do in preparation for whatever path my journey takes from this point.  But now my lessons and my work take on a whole new dimension by accepting Bounder into my life.  It's not just what I get from this; it's what we get separately and collectively as we step onto this path together and head toward whatever is on that brilliant, shining horizon.    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Girls

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sass and Cavey, Jr.

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

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

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

 

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

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

Now I get it. 

At Johnny's Hideaway

Is there a better life for me?

In the past few weeks and months, as in the past few years, I've lived an extraordinary series of mostly-unrelated events.  They've been varied and crazy, giving rise to a whole new batch of Stephanecdotes, as well as providing some serious fodder for each of a few planned new books.  Sometimes they were things I sought—Mardi Gras with Hammer and Lady Hammer and Glee and Roadkill—as research for a new project.  Sometimes they were utterly random—the dozen balloons floating colorfully into the rising sun over Atlanta.  And sometimes they were fated—like a lightning bolt straight to the ass.

Fate can be a fickle little bitch.

As I wrote both here and in Persona Non Grata:

I'm a firm believer in Fate.  Some things are fated in the sense that there's only one viable choice, based on all of the previous choices you've made.  There's nowhere else to go but here, because you've come from there, and that makes it feel important.  But I also believe in Fate as an outside, blinding force.  Maybe it's because of other people's choices, maybe it's sheer dumb luck, but it feels like divine intervention, twisting and turning you wildly or slightly.  Either way, you can't help but look at what it wants you to see. 

I'm adamant that Fate is what brought me to so many watershed moments in my life, as in Tierney's.  My forty years have been significant and stellar, even when splattered with the remnants of my heart.  She hasn't stopped working her magic, or so I'd thought.  Then I was given a series of gifts, only some of which I was able (read: allowed) to keep for any significant length of time.  But I did and am continuing to do my best to take those simple lessons learned and move forward. 

So what now?

In the aftermath of several recent events, I was shocked to realize that I'm really, really scared to move forward again.  While I do actually have a choice in the matter, I refuse to be still any longer than necessary.  It's just not who I am.  But in my search for a deeper, more profound experience in which to immerse myself and fully comprehend, I am in a cycle of seeking out more varied experiences, in search of my next rabbit hole.  Given the things I've done and the people I've known, how the hell am I ever going to top this?

It's not that there's a competition, with myself or anyone else.  I don't feel especially driven to do more things.  Those actions and events are simply a delivery vehicle for experience and understanding—a mode of enveloping me in deeper learning and the psychic tinkering I so love. 

Some of these things I've lived, especially in the last three years, have left me with my bars set very high—the problem being that someone else placed them way over my head, just out of my reach.  And for an Amazon, that's pretty damn high.  Unfortunately, I have no control over where those bars rest. 

After the events of even my year so far, I feel taunted by what I want, that it was and sometimes is so damn close.  But when I reach for it, it falls away like sand.  Over and over, I'm in someone else's sandbox, but it's warm and velvety and strangely soothing, so I keep digging deeper. 

Okay, Fate: challenge me.  Dare me.  Give me reason and excuse to reach again, to reach for something bigger and better, something truer and more astonishing.  Because I know there's something there for me to learn, something important and pressing and profound, I will all but destroy myself to get to that locus, to that kernel of truth at the center.  It's something that's just for me, and sometimes I have to step into the journey through Hell to gain it. 

Even in my brashness, I am fearful that I will never again reach those same heights and depths of learning and love and sex and hope, that I have somehow stumbled upon something (and someone) so exquisitely good that any future attempts will, at the very least, fall short of those expectations.  The worst case scenario is that even trying to match that will be cataclysmic to my heart and soul, if only because it's doomed to be a fruitless effort.  While I know the real joy should be in the journey and not the destination, the last thing I want for the last half of my life is boredom and unfulfilment. 

"Maybe the point is to be happy and content in what you do have, to enjoy the person you're actually with as fully as possible," Queen Frostine advised.  "Maybe that's your ultimate goal."

That feels like settling, though, and I don't ever want to do that again.  As selfish and strong-willed as I am, I will actually compromise when the need arises.  I am very good at negotiating settlement, in general, though that's rarely so successful with my heart.  While my ideal isn't perfection, what if my idyllic can only ever fall short of faded and dreamy memory?

I knew what I wanted; I seemed to have it within my careful grasp.  Not as an object or a trophy, but as a treasure that was tarnished and neglected and buried under so damn much rubble, trying desperately to breathe under the crush of years.  But it slipped back into the sand and seems to be washing out with the tide.  So now I have to walk the shoreline again, combing through seaweed and jellyfish and craggy, broken shells, hoping to find another pearl yet afraid all I'll have are slimy oysters. 

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