Travel Clarifies

I am sitting in the airport, waiting on a delayed flight, reading, writing and contemplating. All this led to me sending this email to the Ex:

I am reading a book and I came across this sentence: "True liberation comes when you quit the shackles you put on yourself."  This made me think of you and realize, finally realize, that this is what you did. My first reaction to the whole divorce was to wonder why I couldn't convince you that you could relax into your shackles. You were right. And now, with time and distance and change, I realize I owe you gratitude for not believing me, for forcing this big, uncomfortable, frightening and painful change. I have relearned so much that I forgot. Thank you. And I'm sorry that you had to be in that position. 

--------
Now I am shaking a little, as so much pent-up anxiety releases. It was a realization with all the force of a vision. I owe him thanks for hurting me. I owe him gratitude for giving me this gift of my life and caring enough to throw me into the fire so I could find it. Before I sent that message, I had to struggle to overcome the idea that contacting him was some kind of self-defeat. I felt like the full excision of him from my life was a freedom and a comfort. But maybe it was just another way to stay stuck in that relationship. 

I am starting to get anxious about what he will think and all the negative ways he could interpret the message. Will he see it as a random, attention-seeking bomb? That was not my intention, and I can't control his reaction. It is good for me to start saying what I feel to the people I feel it about. This needed to happen before I could really be ready to start a new, serious relationship. 

The shaking seems to be over. I'm left feeling relaxed, open, and a little exhausted. Travel clarifies for me. This is why I need to do it more often. 

Mapless on the Road

I started this whole blog as part therapy, part rough draft space for a larger writing project.  Dear ones, the latter part of that plan is coming together.  In just a few weeks, I'll be reading from this and other works at TheNewStudio in Evanston.  Come and hear my voice, and let me see your face. 

Don't. You. Dare.

I sat in my car, weeping like I hadn't done in months, and I wrote this text message:

"I fucking hate it when I can tell someone feels sorry for me."

Then I took some laddery breaths, let the tears sit on my face, and I deleted the message without sending it.  Because, really, what was I trying to do but get someone different to feel sorry for me?  Someone whose attention maybe I felt like I couldn't get any other way.  So I put down the phone and cried it out on the way home.

This is what started it:  recently I have come to the conclusion that I don't want conventional.  I don't want the job managed and directed by someone else, I want the life created by me.  I want this, even with the insecurity, anxiety, and in-car crying jags.  I want all of this, even though I know this makes it more challenging for me to find the partner I want.  (You know, the person who will make an effort to be with me even when I'm on my cycle and sex is not going to happen, even when my schedule doesn't match the standard adult corporate work schedule.)

In order to create this life, I need to let go of lots of things.  I've pretty well let go of the hard ones (caring what other people think, lifelong assumptions about what success means,) and now comes the more labor intensive ones.  I have started giving away most of the tchotchkes and fancy things that were surrounding me in my home, and I finally made the decision to move to a cheaper place.  

I went in to visit with my real estate agent to talk over the current condo market and how I should go about getting my place ready to sell.  You may recall her -- she's the one whose first reaction to the divorce news was: "But you're so pretty!"

We sat down and went over all the comps she pulled for me, talked about my building in particular, and occasionally butted heads over unrealistic things.  (No, I will not pay thousands of dollars that I don't have for someone to stage my condo.). It was immediately clear to me that she didn't quite know how to handle this situation.  House poor seller, trying to build a business, with little to no time or money to put into the prep of the condo, and no partner to pick up the phone when she was busy with a client.  Her conversation started getting peppered with "I know"s and "It's difficult"s.  She said these things because she didn't know what else to say.  She felt sorry for me, she felt pity.  And although this came from a good place in her heart, she didn't understand that pity is the last thing I need.  That I am quite contented with my single life (most of the time) and that the absolute loss of the conventional dream with the condo in downtown (über suburb) was not a tragedy for me.  It was/is a step into the future.

But I felt a little sick and off that day anyway, so I didn't have the mental strength to do anything but keep it together until I could get to my car and cry from sheer frustration, then from feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't think of anyone to call and get coffee with at that time of day.  Fortunately, my literary training kicked in and I recognized the irony before I got home and had to discuss my real estate plans with my new potential landlord.  Water, food, and a midday nap completed the reset, and now I can think of five or more people who I could have called.  

Don't feel sorry for me, real estate lady, because my life has not followed the conventional path that yours has. Don't feel sorry for the bumps and bruises I've had this past year.  And don't you fucking dare feel sorry for me that I have chosen to sell my place.  This is my choice.  And I will also choose not to feel sorry for adventures I have had that you have missed.

No. Just, no.

I am communicating with a lot of different people via text messaging these days.  Some of those people want to do sexy things with me, and I want to do sexy things with them, and we text about it.  Written consent.  What could be better?

The problem for a word snob like me, is that people -- okay, men -- sometimes use words they think are hot and sexy, and they just are really not.  Here is my PSA on a few of those words:

Yummy

Context: "Want to play tomorrow?  Sounds yummy."

Um.  No.  Does not sound yummy.  Sounds annoying.  Yummy is what you say to get a toddler to eat a vegetable, not to get me excited about spending adult time with you.  

Crave

Context:  "Let's get together Monday.  I crave it."

Intellectually, I totally appreciate the implied compliment -- that time with me is a desire that arises unbidden and must be addressed or otherwise one will think of nothing else.  But I just don't like the sound of the word crave.  (I warned you that I am word snob.)  It sounds whiny to me, starting with a hard-flung consonant and winding down into this long hissing end.  Not.  Sexy.

Mommy/Daddy

Context: "Come over here to daddy."

There are not enough synonyms for "ick" to describe the feeling I get when these words are used in the context of sex.  

Juicy

Context: <you can imagine>

I am not a fruit.  

Walk of Shame

It is 1:15 on a Tuesday morning, and I have just pulled in to my garage.  The man whose apartment I left has probably already fallen back to sleep, after seeing me safely to my car.  I am clear-headed and wide awake, and starving. I stop at the convenient store down the street.  The two clerks barely notice me -- one plugged in to his music player, the other talking pointedly to someone in a country where it is a more hospitable hour. 

Outside, a police officer is getting out of his car.  He greets me --"Good morning!" -- and I smile and wave.  No, officer, I am neither drunk nor in need of assistance.  Merely late/early home after making the choice to sleep comfortably in my own bed, at least for part of the night.  

I am considering unconventionality, and the freedom it affords me.  Freedom to enjoy another person's body and also enjoy my solitude.  To have my cake and eat it, even when I get that cake in the restocking hours at a 24-hour convenient store.  

But still. I yearn for the comfort of falling deeply asleep next to someone whose habit is to make room for me.  I want the absolute security of knowing that no matter what unpleasant, unconscious noises my body emits, someone will be there in the morning, laughing or gently scolding me for my unfortunate jalapeño habit.  

I am not ashamed to be walking out of someone's arms and into my door at this hour, I just wish I could be walking into someone's arms.  Imperfect, sometimes chafing, but mine to walk into, nonetheless.  Patience looks like a deserted street at 1:15 on a Tuesday morning.

Things That Kill Other Things

When I was content and hypnotized into feeling secure in life, I had certain assumptions about myself that never got challenged.  One of those was that I am a peace loving person, so much so that the idea of owning a firearm made me physically ill.

Then, someone snapped their fingers, I came out of my trance and into chaos.  There are no more assumptions, and I am seriously contemplating owning a pistol of some kind.  I don't want it for self-defense, I want because it is so fucking fun to go to the gun range and shoot.  

I went to the gun range for the first time in my life last week.  A friend took me there and let me shoot his revolver with his bullets.  As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I started shaking -- not visibly, just internally vibrating.  Guns.  With real bullets.  I imagined all the possible ways someone could be maimed or killed, even in a controlled environment like a gun range.  I could barely hold my pen still to sign the liability waiver.  As we walked to the range, ear and eye protection in place, I found it hard to control my hands.  We walked to our slot.  A couple of slots over, someone was shooting a rifle that made my abdomen quiver every time it went off.  

My friend took out his revolver, showed me how to load, hold, aim and shoot it.  He set up the target for me, took some shots to show me how to do it, then stood back while I tried.  His instructions sounded like underwater messages through my ear protection.  The first time I loaded and shot the revolver, I did not hit the target once.  Not even close enough to make the paper move in the breeze of a passing bullet.  I opened the gun to reload it, hands shaking, clumsy, thinking that if I dropped one round it would explode and leave bits of my face all over the range.  This time, I loosened my knees, breathed deeply before I raised the pistol and used its weight to steady my hands.  I started hitting that target around the edges, once or twice coming close to the center.  On my final try, I got 8 out of 10 shots in the target.  

When we left, my body was finally still, but my hands still felt like they were vibrating from within.  At home, I could still smell gunpowder on my fingers.  Eventually, the adrenaline crashed and I sat down staring out the window while my body reset.  

The next day, I immediately wanted to go back again.  I am a person who enjoys shooting guns.  Handling things whose sole purpose is to kill other things.  Even so, the idea that something in my hands could damage any living body still makes me physically ill.  This is a strange nuance of both my reconstructed life, and of the whole gun debate.  Peaceful people sometimes enjoy hobbies with the potential for violence.  I support every restriction, check and control measure proposed for gun ownership.  I like the smell of gunpowder on my fingers.  

I see this whole day as another discovery on my path of balance.  Each thing I have discovered and held goes on the scales, and they gently sway towards stability.  Some things will stay anchored there, some will be replaced, but I will always find the even place.  Today, a pistol goes on one side, peace and compassion go on the other, pulling it all into alignment.

Back There

"You don't have anything you can throw yourself into," my friend said to me.  About twenty minutes later in our conversation, I heard it.  Heard it and knew without a doubt that it was true.  

What do I throw myself into?  Being a life-loving, optimistic person, it certainly isn't going to be a river or a pit or anything like that.  What did I throw myself into before?  The Ex.  I threw myself into the Ex with absolute abandon and something I called joy. It was my mission in life to be part of that relationship.  So, maybe that is the thing.  I throw myself into a relationship.  I keep working and constructing a backup life, but my real job becomes finding a relationship to throw myself into.  

Except.  Until. There is this glimmer of an opportunity which pulls together things I am passionate about --creativity, wooded land, women (and men) stepping out of their lives to find transcendence.  Just a hint of a sparkle in my eye, and then:

(1) --I won a raffle prize from a local business.  The prize: a consultation with an entrepreneurial law expert.  

(2) --piffing around on the internet, I saw these things:

   "I just wanna go on more adventures. Be around good energy. Connect with people. Learn new things."

    "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.  --Winston Churchill"

    ". . . a new surge of creativity invariably emerges out of a period of instability, and life unfolds in greater diversity than before whenever it takes a shock wave in its stride.  --Margaret Silf"

(3)--I checked in with the person whose support I most needed, and their response was simply, Yes. 

It feels like the edge of a pit, or a high drop into a river.  But I want to throw myself into it. I think.