Religion, Realization, and Introspction

Rambling Stream of Consciousness Alert!

Having just reread the biography Elizabeth and Philip about two people whom I greatly admire. It's perhaps odd then that what struck me most this time was a note at the end. Introspection is worthless, this person in the book asserted, speaking of how the queen and her consort find the ability to carry on. In a nutshell -- avoid it.

Coincidentally, today I read an online article complaning about people who draw themselves so far inward, they've forgetten how to play well with others and don't even realize what crappy friends they've become to those in outside world. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?

Interesting perspectives. I certainly spend a wealth of time on introspection, and while I hope I've achieved some measure of self-understanding, at the same time, the value of that understanding is moot if I don't play "with the three dimensional people," to quote Phoebe Buffay.

It's exhausting. We may, might, must address multiple responsibilities in a successful day of real life, all the while aspiring, striving, and yearning for more money, security, belonging by way of investing more time, more energy, and more focus on everything from holidays to pseudosocial functions at work. Beyond work, if I want my life to be successful, I have to go, fight, and win endless battles to be better, stronger, braver, a harder worker, and more determined than the people around me to favorably compete. And when I'm home and have no people around me, I'm supposed to fix that, too, if it's not what I want, by dating, mating, and procreating. Therefore, its essential to banish the gray, clear the skin, and dress according to the edicts of What Not to Wear, maximizing my potential.

Now I'm really exhausted. No wonder when I get home every day, all I want to do is sit on the couch.

There is more to life than this.

So I was looking at my pets and thinking about how much more I know about life than they do. I know what will happen to them. I know how long they'll live, all things being equal, and what their eventual health slowdowns will be like. I know they will be afraid as they age and feel pain they don't understand, and I know that however much it hurts me, I will probably have to euthanize them eventually, when they've declined to the point of fearful desperation.

And it connected in my head that God is like that. God knows what we don't know about our own lives the same way I know more about my cats. And beyond knowing, the future IS, which is an idea I've expressed before. God sees time in both directions, the future and the past... and realizing that truth, suddenly, the free will question evaporated from my mind. It's all decided, as far as God goes. What is IS. Always was. God knows if I will repair my Catholicism, God knows if I will find lasting happiness in a relationship with a man, God knows if I will spend the rest of my life sitting on this couch feeling exhausted by myriad hurdles. What's left is for ME to find out. Trite though it may sound, the value really is the journey. It's all about me, or more to the point, it's all about each of us. We have all our blessings. They're there for the taking. We just have to recognize them.

(Most especially, God knows the resolution of the religions and their discord, and he knows the nature of man and the frustrations of humanity... I am not confident enough to espouse a particular religion as the correct one, but I'm able to assert that God, whatever or whoever he or she is, is, in fact... but I can't and shall not misrepresent my belief that the Bible is as fallible as the human people who set it to paper, though it very well may be divinely inspired... but I can and must assert that I do believe that God is, though our human words and descriptions must fall far short of the actual, and I believe in the Bible as a book of how to live well, how to live right, and how to live successfully... however much people find the means to justify mean to terrible to terrifying behavior by way of its pages... it's a life book, and it's a source of answers... it's not a "get out of jail free" card.)

This idea came through poignantly at work today, where a student with more than his fair share of bad luck got even more bad news over the weekend. How much can a kid bear, especially when his family is suffering from past tragedies still and can't lend him the support or help to deal with his own adolescent and actual trials? But the gifts are there for him, if he avails himself to them. The school knows and cares about his welfare. He has love in his life, but he will have to be strong, a lot stronger than perhaps he can be right now. Stronger than he knows he can be, or stronger than he wants to be. But he has to do the heavy lifting in his life.

I've had to do it, too. And I hated it. I still resent it when I let myself think about it.

My neighbor says what I have left to do in my journey to wholly repair myself is find my passion. There's a problem with that. I don't have one, and that's a bit unimaginative of me, so I hate admitting it. I like to write, I love to read, and I've become rabid about exercising, but none of those interests are actual passions within me. Well, perhaps reading is a passion, but I don't recognize it as one because it's like breathing or eating to me, a necessary component of my daily life for survival. Either way, my love of reading isn't a way that I can find and sustain personal bliss, let alone support myself.

However, I know now to start looking outward. Looking inside myself isn't going to result in fulfillment. The blessings are in my life, out in my life, and I have to find them before I can recognize them.

Two Struggles

I am having a really hard time getting past a sense of futility that's flourishing in my head. It's not personal futility, it's sort of societal futility. The quantity of negativity in modern press begs the question, how bad are things really? If they're as bad as they sound, it's hardly even worth fighting to make anything better, because I think there's hardly a chance of improvement.

My preoccupation with the suckage of life in general has graduated to the degree that I've sworn off Foxnews.com entirely (the pervasiveness of perverted stories... people killed in terrible ways, animals tortured, bizarre goings-on with drugs, rapes, and other violent crimes has grown too distressing to see in the headlines there, let alone read in the articles... it makes me physically ill) and read only with great trepidation the rest of the news sites I frequented each day.

I really want to know, are more bad things happening in the modern era, or are we just hearing more about them? Was there really less bad news in days gone by, or did we merely hear about it less, as news traveled slowly and what counted as news didn't involve six hundred pound cows falling on cars or one man's effort to shoot a fifteen year old boy over road range?

Then it gets bigger... the news is bigger. Whether or not I endorse the global warming rationale of the earth's climate change, hearing the predictions of dying wildlife and fossil fuel shortages stress me exponentially. Christians and their warnings of eternal damnation unless I and everyone else accept Christ stress me. My broken fence... how people are paying for Christmas... my skin... Baby Grace... flooding in the yard... fires in California... flying in this terroristic era... finding someone to love... dealing with holidays... spending, gifts, regifting, parties, turkeys, travel... it all just freaking sucks and makes me frustrated, frightened, and furious all in equal measure.

Life happens! Life happens, and yet, we're supposed to fight it! Why can't we just live it?

There was a wonderful article on our hometown paper website not long ago about the migration of the peregrine falcons through the city. The article extolled the power of these predatory birds as they'd dive from the skyscrapers to feast upon pestilence-spreading rats and pigeons, both of which run rampant downtown, with no natural predators. Not a word about the struggle of the peregrine falcon to fight extinction. Not a complaint about the bird decimating the population of some obscure and terribly threatened source of prey. It was an article remarkable for its local relevance and enchanted tone. It's quite a contrast to most of the other articles that comprise modern news.

All these stories about tortured pets and other animals... why doesn't someone write about a wonderful, pampered pet? A story about a pet that lives a good life, and a story that doesn't include the pet's inevitable aging and eventual decline? Why do all of us have to suffer? Are we so lacking in a catharsis?

Some people are happy, I suppose... a couple of my gym friends, a couple of people at work, and a few of my relatives I'd put on that list... but a lot of people in my world seem to be suffering. Two friends are contemplating ending their marriages. Another friend of a friend has already ended hers and is embarking already on her next. Toxic personalities in my radar decry the establishment and maintenance of romantically exclusive relationships as unnatural and artificial. I begin to wonder... everything is so askew as I've seen it lately, well, maybe those people are right. While my upbringing and my nature has always assumed that close and significant relationships contribute to a person's sense of well being and esteem, everybody seems so screwed up. My ex husband. My ex boyfriend. Some of my friends, apparently. I will not find the stability I crave, because I am beginning to think I am my own stability I crave, and I refuse to invite a man in my life if the disease of instability is something he carries with him.

I think everything is just toxic. The society's toxic perspective is infiltrating the passionate natures of people I know, and rather than find strength from one another, they find one another part of the problem.

That brings to mind another issue that has been bothering me. The whole idea that we can't judge one another is bullshit. It's complete and utter bullshit. If I had faced the music when I was dating my ex husband, then I would have judged him and found him wanting. He was not an honorable man. Yet, because "judging people" is so evil or inappropriate according to modern dogma, I avoided holding him at all accountable for the things he did that didn't fit with my own values. These weren't things he hid from me, these were sins, so to speak, in plain sight. Incidents that I explained away by bathing them in the panacea of love. What a fool I was. I cannot, I must not do that again. If someone does something not worthy of my respect or admiration... then he does not merit a place in my life. My job is not to find a way to respect and admire him anyway. My job is to move on.

I've said this before in other posts, but I guess it bears repeating. In the last few days, I've tallied up the events from my relationship with my husband that distressed or provoked me, and it's as clear as anything that I chose to ignore, reframe, or dismiss some terribly telling choices he made. They include:

1. Ignoring the son he fathered by an ex girlfriend before we met. He claimed she was cheating on him, so he wasn't going to believe that child was his without a DNA test. Even when his paternity was a fact, he still ignored the child. I made this okay in my own head by figuring that the girlfriend had a new husband, so the baby had two "parents" in his life that loved him. I ignored the spiritual and character flaw my ex exhibited.

2. Hiding smoking from me... the smoking at all enraged me, and he knew that, so his solution was to hide it, not to stop it, and that enraged me further. My mom's advice was, "Go home to your husband, because you're married, and if he isn't doing this around you, it's not hurting you." She had a point. I was married; we weren't just dating. So I dealt with it.

3. Opening an online account that he kept secret from me. He said he was doing it only for the duration of the free trial, so I overlooked it. I told him I wanted him to close it, and so far as I know, he did.

4. Once when we were out at the rodeo or a concert or somewhere, he bought beers for the underage kids sitting behind us. I was so disgusted with him, I could barely talk.

These are the things that now, I realize were flags. Some happened after the marriage, when I was limited by the vows to influence, but there was no opting out. Short of abuse, addictions, or adultery, I'd never have left or even have threatened to.

Maybe I should just be grateful that he left, but he didn't drive me away by being cruel... bringing home a girlfriend to snort cocaine with him and then to join us in a threesome, smacking me around when I balked.

I'm just tired of negativity. This blog is pretty negative. I want to feel happy, not worried about the end of the world and all that leads to it.

Biblical Tradition

I was talking to a friend last week about homosexuality. She's a Christian woman in the best sense of the word. She's open, she's loving, she's affectionate, and she's both comfortable with and a testament to her faith, approaching it with humility and dedication that I admire. So, as the idea of homosexuality being "wrong" has been lurking in my mind recently, I decided to ask her what she thinks.

Sometimes, I get nervous asking self-professed Christians questions like that, lest they start spouting Biblical rhetoric with which I am unfamiliar or unprepared to analyze in context. Also, I get impatient with Bible-speak, because I want to know what the person thinks, not what the doctrine may or may not say. It unnerves me to suspect a friend has no genuine independent opinion and has become a parrot of an ancient text. But as I said, this wide-hearted woman of faith considers the data and works out her ideas for herself.

"I think it's wrong," she said immediately. "If I were, well, like that, I'd never act on it. I can't imagine violating the law of the Bible by having a sexual relationship with a woman."

This answer interested me, because she applied the rules as she understands them to herself alone. She didn't say homosexuals are wrong. She said, only, that she would not do something she believes is wrong.

I mentioned that the Bible also says things like selling your sister into slavery is okay, so long as it's not a neighboring country to which you sell her. She smiled a little. "The old testament has a lot of contextual situations that don't apply to the modern world," she remarked.

"But the homosexuality rules are part of the old testament," I said, being reasonably sure this was true from my Bible.com research. "What does the new testament say about it?" My friend didn't know, and again, I admired her ability to admit her lack of knowledge on this touchy topic. Most "Christians" I know are more eager to spout their beliefs than to consider the nature of an intelligent discussion on doctrine, at least with me.

Now, I know that in the beliefs of most Christian denominations, though not all, the new testament "trumps" the old. For example, Jews cannot eat pork or shellfish due to kosher laws, but most Christians can. Some don't, like the Adventists, but most believe all food is fine. Their rationale is that Jesus said that food is not what makes a person unclean. "Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man . . . Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated? But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man" (Matt. 15:11, 17f). So the Christians figure that people can't eat anything that renders them unclean, so eat on. New testament trumping the old.

So logically, whatever the new testament says about homosexuality trumps the old.

Jesus says nothing about it.

Now, I understand the rationale for the proposed Christian view of homosexuality, which is first cousin to its views on extramarital sex and birth control. The prevailing attitude is that sex is akin to life, and life matters. That sex is not just an expression of love or biochemical urge, but a conduit to the creation of life, a gift from God. As such, preserving the opportunity for life is an act with value worth preserving if not outright elevating. It's an act truncated in a homosexual relationship, which includes no opportunity for the creation of life. It's an act curtailed by birth control, by eliminating the opportunity for life. It's an act that invites opportunity for abortion -- the end of life -- or pain and suffering of the partners or their ostensible offspring when it occurs outside of a sanctified relationsip. Christians believe marriage is a sacrament to house the act of sex and the creation of life. Removing the chance for life turns the act of love into a mere act of fornication, an act merely for pleasure and physical gratification without humility, respect, or honor.

However hypocritcally it might seem to those who know me, I believe in that rationale.

At the same time, I believe that people are going to do what they're going to do, and sometimes, well, following doctrine isn't the most important consideration, or at least, it's not the most compelling one in given moment. If those decisions are mistakes and lead to suffering, then to great regret, maybe that person will repent in some cosmic way, finding his or her path to greater oneness with whatever God he or she understands. Will do better next time. All people suffer, but people who find humility in their decisions to elevate themselves and learn, instead of making the same mistakes over and over. I want to be like that.

At the same time, if Jesus didn't condemn the homosexuals, then who am I to do it?

Pushing a Rock Up a Hill

My uncle visited me about eight weeks ago, and we had an interesting conversation that I'm remembering today.

My uncle and my father are precisely the same age, and they have a number of similiarities. They're both Italian. They're health conscious, intelligent, and hard workers. Honorable men. Yet, their differences are more remarkable to me. My mother's side of the family, growing up, was more nurturing and traditional than my father's, so my uncle's foundation of supportive indulgence completely contrasts my father's beginning of deprivation and instability. In their adulthoods, the differences are positively stark. The insecurities of my father's upbringing emerge in his high emotionalism and emphasis on tradition. My uncle, on the other hand, assumes life will hand him lemonade, not lemons, and proceeds accordingly. Whether divorce (two), a fairly estranged child (one), interstate moves (four +), and job changes (too many to count), he is moving this very weekend from Texas to Pennsylvania. He's selling his house and, at the age of 64, beginning anew. Again.

I remember discussing with him the aplomb with which he faces changes like moves and jobs, as opposed to the paucity of change of my father. My dad worked for the same company for 36 years, and his retirement era job in the six years since is administering where he had his second job for many years. He's lived in the same house for 37 years. Except for college, he's lived his entire life within a two mile radius. Obviously, he's confronted challenges; he's sustained a 40+ year marriage to my mother, raised two fairly well-adjusted children, and earned a graduate degree and periodic promotions. But, most of the time, he has dwelled in the comfortable familiarity of the known, choosing his "next" from within the bosom of his family in the cradle of his hometown. Seeking out change is anathema to him, as it's been for most of the rest of my immediate family. Not unless there was a good reason, an abundance of support in the form of his family, and a reasonable return on the investment of effort did he even attempt a change.

But, my uncle is a horse of another color. And I mentioned to him this obvious difference between him and my dad, whom he's known for most of his life. My father ruminates. He (over)thinks. He wonders and worries. My uncle does not. Does my uncle see that? How does he explain it?

I remember we were driving when we discussed it, and I looked at him from my perch in the driver's seat. He glanced back at me, then looked out the windshield. "I took a philosophy class in college," he told me. "I don't remember much about the whole class, but this one conversation we had there changed my life."

I could hear laughing in my head, when I imagined my father's reaction to that initial statement. My father seems almost to resent my uncle as the pampered son of misguided parents who didn't even attempt to veil their preference for sons over my mother and her sister. "Philosophy class?" I could hear my father sneer. "He's in love with the sound of his own voice, isn't he?"

I ignored my father, and I asked what my uncle meant.

"There was this Greek myth we were talking about," he began. "The one with the guy who had to push the rock up the hill. The guy pushed and pushed, and when he'd get to the top, he'd lose control of the rock, and it'd tumble back down to the bottom, where he'd have to start over again."

"The myth of Sisyphus," I said promptly, the English teacher in me emerging.

"Yeah, right," my uncle agreed, though he was placating me; the name didn't matter. "My professor asked the class what we imagined the guy was thinking when he watched the rock roll back down."

My inner-father's daughter emerged next, and I said, "He was probably thinking, 'Dammit, I have to start all over again' and getting pissed," I guessed. I knew that's what my father would have said. I knew that's what my father would have been thinking in Sisyphus' place. He speaks often enough about his disenchantment with life's arduousness.

My uncle smiled a very little smile. "Everybody said that. But my professor said, 'What if he's just glad he has a break from pushing the rock, even if only for a little while?'"

I glanced at him again. "But he's just going to have to start pushing it again. He's got to dread that."

My uncle nodded, Dumbledore-like. "So why wouldn't he feel grateful that in that moment, he has a break? That he can notice something else, even if only for a little while? Why does he have to pollute that small break for happiness with thoughts of the difficulties ahead of him?"

This is a wise idea. Very wise. Sisyphys has a small window where he doesn't push the rock, so why waste it thinking about pushing the rock? Worrying about it? Dreading it? Why not grab that small respite and enjoy it until the pushing begins again? How much of life can a person complicate when, in essence, everything is quite calm in the moment. We live for moments other than the one in which we are living.

My uncle explained that since that class, he made a focused effort not to wonder about pushing a rock in the moments in which he is not, in fact, pushing a rock. He lets everything be fine when it's fine. He plans ahead and does his part, make no mistake, but in his view, why worry about living in Pennsylvania until he is, in fact, living there? Why not enjoy the beautiful day in Texas with his niece, and let the rest of life happen as it is wont to do?

I have found a perfect way to apply this borrowed wisdom in my own life. I get scared to date. Ahead of a date, I worry incessently. Sometimes, I even dread. Why do I dwell on pushing that metaphorical rock up a hill when I'm not even doing it in the moment? Why do I let my fear milk all the pleasure out of my window of respite? Never mind that a date is never so scary once I'm there. It's the idea that scares me, the idea that I allow to punctuate every intervening moment.

As I am remembering forgiveness, I am going to try and remember the Rock of Sisyphys. I am going to try to keep each moment for its purpose, not to let the anticipation or dread of what's to come cast a shadow on my present.

Who We Are

The original germ for this study of "who we are" came from Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat Pray Love. The second germ for it came from watching the Queen Elizabeth I sequel movie with Cate Blanchett last night. I sat there in the theater and thought about the violence and the rage within people, the jealousy and the frustration, and I saw some joy, peace, and love, too. I thought, "This is who we are."

In her book, Liz Gilbert describes the story of a psychologist friend who helped Asian refugees in America who'd survived terrible trials prior to their arrival. Despite their suffering, the women lamented breakups with their boyfriends, the stress of leaving behind men they'd met during their ordeal, the reality that their boyfriends in the home counry finding new companions in their absence, that their boyfriends still loved them in spite of new relationships or even new families. Liz thought their preoccupation with men was amazing, considering what they'd survived. "This is who we are," her friend told her. This interest is what defines us, humanity. Our connections to others are among our most serious and significant characteristics.

At the movie last night, I realized that just as much, that movie represents who we are, too. Elizabeth the Queen longed for a man to appreciate her for herself, but she couldn't and wouldn't have wanted to separate her femininity from her throne. She couldn't afford to. In the movie, characters wanted power and control. Conviction of rectitude led them to terrible acts, which they justified in the name of everything from God to loyalty to country to desperate emotion. This is Elizabethan England? It looks, sounds, and if I were there, it'd smell an awful lot like modern times.

Sure, there are evil people in the world. There are wars and losses and fears and frustrations and people who serve their own self-interests for power or attention over the basic truths.

I think of Al Gore, a leader who has obtained great power and authority over his interest in "global warming." However, Gore refuses to entertain any debate whatsoever on the issue, declaring it "over," shutting down the voices of legitimate scientists who point out inconsistencies with the relationship between carbon and temperature, as illustrated by Gore. If the debate is indeed over, he must think, then why should he listen to more people, especially if they disagree with him? But then, if he's so sure he's right, what's the danger in entertaining their theories? So much for having a free-thinking country. Entering into a dialogue with those who challenge him is a chance for learning, for the genuine truth to emerge; he has nothing to fear if it's the truth that matters to him. Doesn't it take educated debate, communication, over a long time with lots of tries and lots of tests, to determine truth? But it seems Gore must maintain single-mindedly focused on only his initial agenda, and I become further convinced that the only thing that will emerge is that he's an ass.

In the same way (and lest I be accused of partisianism), I see our President doggedly pursues his own path in our "War on Terror," a path that is generating far more questions than he deigns to answer. How can what's best for the people of America and the Middle East emerge without meaningful dialogue and concerted -- combined -- agreement and effort on action? Why should his path be the only and best way? Why doesn't he want to learn from those who think differently from him? The truth is our friend. But it seems he refuses to acknowledge any other choice but the one he's chosen, and the voices that long to dialogue with him get lost in the middle ground.

But this is who we are. We justify all sorts of questionable behaviors becase we "care so much," are "so sure" we are correct," or "fear so desperately" the time "lost" for true exploration and edification. We stop looking for new answers and become wedded with our original plans. We do it to save face. We do it because, for lack of choosing to learn over the chance to pontificate, we don't know any better.

I did this when my marriage ended. I spent three years insisting that life went on quite merrily, and I made life do that very thing, but was I happy? No. It was only when I began allowing the truth to seep into my consciousness, to emerge from the ashes of my old life, that I began to understand the way things really were and how I want to them to be. It took courage to accept that truth is different than I imagined it was, that my life in the future would be different, too. But to keep my finger on the pulse of this truth is a constant courtship. Truth is truth, but truth is not constant. What's true right now may not remain true in the future. Self-awareness. Self-knowledge. Honesty and little internal polling. That's the way to remain who I am, not what I think I am or wish I were.

I see a lot of moms in my world who do this with their children. Are they raising the children they have or the children they imagine they have? The gap between the two is the space where children can play their parents like violins. Parents can't face the truth. They can't ask the questions. Meaningful dialogue may present them with answers to questions they would rather do anything but ask.

But the truth is the truth is the truth. It's not good or bad, it just IS. Far better to operate off of reality than some imagined, projected, desired, or desperately needed misapprehension. But it's harder. Imagined truths are so much more comforting than genuine ones sometimes, it's no wonder that some people live with them almost exclusively. Too hard to face that one's husband is cheating, one's child is using drugs, one's parents are sliding slowly into dementia. Harder by far to admit that years of "work" in global warming are little more than a thinly veiled attempt to control American spending and free choice. Harder than admitting that the expense of American lives has done little to alter the environment of fanaticism and divine deaths in the middle east.

But this is who we are.

Humanity makes decisions from logic, from heart, and from soul. Logos, pathos, and ethos. They are not the same. When they work in concert, they work quite well. When one emerges over the other, the inbalance can wreak havoc.

Balance in all things. Balance and truth.

Good Things

Many good things are happening right now. I've gone on two "dates" without losing my lunch, and I even liked one of the men at the time. I'm busy at work and apparently doing a job that satisfies those in charge. I'm a bit creatively stunted, but once I get back to writing some more, I think I'll find my stride there, too.

I was rereading a divorce recovery page I found shortly after my ex-husband moved out, and I found a few related links I'd not noticed before. In one of them, the author described her almost 30-year marriage and the steady decline of her then-husband's behavior and treatment of her, culminating in him moving out to spend more time with his girlfriend. She was devastated. She was middle-aged and sure she'd never find happiness or family again (her children had already moved out). A few paragraphs later, outlining her life through the grief, she added that she was actually glad that he left, because her life is so much better now.

She is actually glad he ended it! More than that, she says that the divorce was part of God's plan for her, to give her a way to grow stronger and wiser in preparation for this wonderful life she's now enjoying, complete with a second husband who really does love and value her.

I did feel loved and valued in my marriage, but I wasn't. My feelings didn't matter to my ex-husband; though he professed that they did, he behaved differently, and I was fluent in the writing on the wall. I believed in my head that I mattered, but I knew in my heart that I didn't. When I look back on the marriage now, and even more, when I examine how I expect men to treat me in the present, I am astonished to recognize that I allowed my feelings not to matter in my marriage (but then again, I was already married and trying to make the best of it), and I forget that my feelings are supposed to matter now. That it was wrong before, when ex disregarded them. At the very least he should have listened to me and attempted to achieve some resolution in partnership with me that gave both of us a voice in our allegedly shared life. Instead, he taught me that having feelings is dangerous, because they are merely a way for me to lose bits of my soul as they die for lack of attention. I learned not to have feelings in relationships, not to have needs or expectations or even dreams, because they are alive, and without nurturing, they die, and me along with them. if I have them and the man in my life chooses not to respect him, well, then I have either to put up with that treatment or else jettison the man.

And that's the whole point, isn't it? To find someone who cares about me and my feelings. Jettisoning those who don't is necessary. Important. Logical. Expected. Acceptable.

But in moving forward, I am remembering the forgiveness. I am also going to keep in mind that God needed me to go through what I've undergone, to learn and grow and mature and find some humility, because if I'm open enough to accept it, he has something even better available to me in the future.

It's not only my job, but my destiny, to get beyond the stages of grief to open myself for the stages of joy.

Forgiveness

I haven't forgiven my ex husband.

I like to think I have. I think I've said in my head that I forgive him for his weakness. It's more accurate to say that in my head I forgive him for being a lying and betraying shmuck who got out of my life before he utterly ruined it with his irresponsible behavior and whacked out value structure.

That isn't forgiveness, I don't think. That sounds an awful lot like blame. And I think I have to forgive him. I think I finally see it.

I read the bottom of this article (http://health.msn.com/dietfitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100169440), and I realized in all honesty that if I had to say those words of forgiveness to my ex-husband, even in my mind and not to his face, I'd choke on them. I carry my fury like a badge: "I didn't want to get divorced, so let me prove my sincerity by remaining righteously indignant. It's not okay that he up and walked out. It's absolutely unacceptable." After all, doesn't forgiveness mean admitting if tacitly that what he did is all right?

I think that until I'm able to say, and mean, "It's OKAY that this happened, that you did this, and I forgive you," it's not really ever going to be okay. But it's been impossible even to say it, to verbalize it, all these years. Even to say it insincerely. My attempts at forgiveness are, or have been, thinly cloaked accusations to illuminate his failings of character.

But what's the worst that could happen if I said to him in my head, "It's okay, and I forgive you?" Immediately, I think, "He hasn't asked for forgiveness, so he is not remorseful, so he doesn't deserve it." I fold my mental arms and furrow my mental brows, backing up for a tussle. The the more evolved side of my mind would argue that this kind of forgiveness isn't about granting restitution and reparation with him. This forgiveness is about me, about letting go of the anger and its power and control.

It has amazing power over me.

So... can it be "okay" so that I can be okay? Can I still think divorce is wrong, and can I even think that what he did is wrong, but can I grant that forgiveness and let it be okay so that I can move on?

I look at him and say in my mind's eye, and I whisper, "I forgive you for everything painful that's happened to me through you. I grant you complete absolution."

And suddenly... if I think of my anger, I remember the forgiveness.

Try that out for a healthy change of pace.

Baby with a Rattle

A baby with almost no voice,
Whose will's misunderstood to most,
With feelings equally a flush
Of energy and struggling

Does not begin to understand
The gibberish that makes his world.
All the time. Confusion swirls
His little head; it's all a blur.

It makes him scared.

But those around may know him well,
And if they're gentle and are kind
They'll give him love and make him calm.
But they cannot tell him what he needs.

He wants to sleep, he wants to play.
He wants to eat but not eat that.
He wants some peace but not alone.
He wants attention -- not from you.

But.

He has a rattle, small and loud.
It's his wand to rule his sphere.
And when he throws it, he can cry.
And always someone gives it back.

Naturally, he throws again.
He doesn't know what else to do.
Happiness lasts but a glint,
And with a thunk, another howl.

At least with this game he may cry.
Frustration finds an out to vent.
And others notice his control
Can cross from his world into theirs.

He matters, and that much he knows.

And in my mind, my rattle's blue.
I throw it, and sometimes I cry.
While others may not know the game,
Their gentleness can salve my spark.

I want someone to get my needs,
Because like him, I just don't know
What they are; it makes me scared,
Though I am "old enough to know."

I play games like two year olds.

Babes' Mouths

I've been thinking about my last post. The one where I alleged that I've blown it.

And today, I read of all things, a TAKS-essay composition from a grading guide... and you know that old saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher will come?" It's true, but it's not because of the specialness of the teacher. It's true because that readiness is the same as ripeness for truth. Only when an audience is ready can anyone else entertain it, after all.

So this paper explored the value of "new ideas," and this mystery girl from somewhere in the state of Texas expressed her disenchantment, anguish, and eventual acceptance of her parents' divorce and her father's remarriage. I heard that "click" in my head that happens sometimes. Maybe... well, maybe I've gotten some more of my head on straight, because I know better than to allege that I've got it all on straight, you know?

But this girl -- well, her parents, in a form or fashion -- "blew" her chances for a happy and intact childhood family. That's something she isn't ever going to have, you know? I don't have the fairytale anymore, and she doesn't have a childhood dream. But her paper continued that after four years, she's able to be rather friendly with her new stepmother, and she has besotted feelings toward her new baby brother. She concluded by saying that without being open to new ideas, she'd never have found peace about her family being different than she expected.

Is this what I have to do?

Accept it?

It's patently obvious that I don't have peace inside my head, however much I try to believe that. There's peace so long as I don't stir up my emotions by trying to move on, to challenge my comfortable status quo by finding friendship and companionship with men in my personal life. It's obvious, if I admit the truth to myself, that on some level, my quixotic personality continues fighting what's happened to me. I can accept my marriage was largely a facade of my own creation that existed nowhere except in my head. I can accept that my ex-husband as well was a creation of my imagination, a shadow of a real person on whom I projected all sorts of Godly virtues he was ill-equipped to manifest. I can accept that I'm a strong independent woman with imagination and good character, although I'm divorced. But there's a part of me somewhere inside that resents this happenstance. That wishes it would simply not be a fact of my life or part of my history. That wants to deny it altogether. But I can't. And it's not fair.

But that charming writer whose family collapsed around her shrugged her teenaged shoulders and looked forward. No, her family wasn't want she wanted it to be. She hated the woman to whom she referred as "my father's girlfriend" -- because she thought it sounded disgustingly tacky to do so. When her father and his girlfriend announced not only their impending marriage but that they were expecting a baby and moving out of the country positively rocked her young world. She blew like a Roman candle... but then she stopped and thought about what maturity meant. What negative emotions could do to relationships. To what she could control, when there was so much she couldn't. And she decided, quite deliberately, that she could be civil, if not friendly. She could make an effort, at the very least.

Is that enough for me to do? Can I make an effort just to meet a man? Just one meeting? Can I be civil? Can I deal with the step after a single date when, or if, it arises? Do I know myself well enough as a mature and independent woman... my needs, my expectations, my values, my priorities... well enough to remain myself in the face of a potential relationship, I who was always the accessory to the man and his needs?

It's scary, but is that what it all means, what I'm supposed to do now?

Blowing It

Would you expect that on some level, I realize that I think I've blown it?

Blown what, you ask?

Blown it. Blown the chance at the fairy tale. Blown the chance to find genuine happiness from a relationship with a man. I really believe that on some level, I've completely blown it. That I don't have a chance anymore... at least, not in this time and place.

How on earth could you've blown it, you ask with a note of confusion. Just because you had what everyone now realizes was a really ridiculous marriage? Because you had a ridiculous divorce? So what? That doesn't mean you've blown it, you argue. You're the person who says that the only failure is in giving up. Doesn't that apply to relationships, too? So if you can keep trying, then how could you have blown it?

Because the it that I've blown isn't just the idea of relationships. I've blown my chance at the entire fairy tale. You know the story. Everyone does. Boy and girl meet, boy and girl have stars in their eyes, boy and girl believe that every happiness is possible for them, and boy and girl dance off into the sunset of mature love. But now that I've been married, or more properly failed at being married, I lost that chance to do it right for the rest of my life... and that chance mattered to me. I'm never going to grow old with the love of my youth who will adore me forever. I'll never be a genuine starry-eyed bride again, and if I find a great guy who navigates my barriers, who deserves to be my husband in all ways that matter, he won't ever be the husband, not with a living precessor running around who had that place first. So long as my ex is around in the world, there will always be another man walking around who was my husband, the husband. This sounds mighty Catholic of me, doesn't it? But it really is my value, it really is an issue in my mind.

I've blown it.

Okay, I can hear one of my friend's friends yelling that I didn't blow it, that my exhusband blew it, and that I need to get past the idea that it's my fault. Well, yeah. But some of it was my fault. If I'd picked more carefully, maybe I'd never have married him in the first place. But then, I wouldn't be divorced now. I'd have a chance, still.

Three and a half years ago, when my exhusband just left, a friend of mine (also divorced in her thirties but since remarried) told me that she grieved a while after her divorce that she'd lost the chance to do it right the first time. At the moment she told me, I didn't grasp the implications of what she said. I couldn't see past my own immediate crisis. But I've thought of her recently. I've thought of her story. That's how I feel, like I've lost the chance to do it right the first time. I'm leavings now. Although I recognize myself as a rare and special person, somehow at the same time, I wasn't good enough. Maybe I'm still not.

You know?

Winds of Change

It's been a pretty good couple of weeks. I have implemented many planned changes, and I think they are turning out quite well. I began my new position at the high school, which is working out MUCH better than my last foray into high school, and I'm juggling two teams with (so far) little drama. This achievement is an enormous shot for my confidence, and other than sleeping with dubious effectiveness, I'm handling all the changes with aplomb that makes me marvel. I am losing Scrabble game after Scrabble game online, though, and my rank's in the toilet. This losing streak bothers me more than I care to admit -- but it's quite possibly a good thing that the streak's worst thing going for me right now. How bad can life be? But it does indeed bother me.

On the personal life front, I don't think I've gone any farther in resolving what I'm beginning to see is a whole lot of anger about my divorce, relationships in general, and expectations for my future. I realized the anger as such about a week ago, when I was hanging out at my friend's pool with a third friend who was asking me about my counselor and possible available men at my school. My friend's friend is a social worker and adult-education advocate, and she somehow tapped the magma chamber of unresolved feelings inside of me so that they erupted. Anger bubbled to the surface, and I was shocked to find myself raising my voice to express my perspective and make myself understood. Vehemently. Rather than becoming offended at my reaction, this woman further surprised me by praising me, and she reminded me that there is no set schedule for how long these feelings take to achieve resolution. Maybe the full-blown anger stage of grief has ripened... now, three and a half years later.

The gist of my attitude problem was that love relationships are the stupidest thing on which to hinge any part of my future, as those are the one kind of relationships without any settled guarantees. Parents are always parents, even if relationships with their children become strained or estranged. Brothers and sisters are bonded forever, as even if they never see each other, they are always a part of each other, bonded by sharing the same parents. Friends can come and go, because the whole point of friends is having a collection of them, a feathered nest, and when one's time wanes, it's all right, as the ones who mean to last do last. But to find a man, to feel infatuated and excited, and to develop feelings -- feelings! -- for him and then make decisions and investments which affect my entire life, and which are suppose to sustain and maintain for the rest of my life... when I know how people change, how feelings -- feelings! -- are fleeting and change, when I know how people think they know themselves and their needs when they don't, when they mean well and don't have the character or integrity to back up their promises... no way. No freaking way.

My friend's friend accepted this. She just did. And somehow, the accepting of it made me angry. But I think the entire situation made me angry. I wanted her to argue with me, to fuss that I'm wrong, because I was prepared to fight with her that I'm not wrong, no matter what else everybody says. I make a hell of a lot more sense to myself than these starry eyed women who hinge their future happiness to the star of some man who, we all hope, is worthy of the faith she places on him. Double for her if she has children with him. And what if he is miserable, but his code of silence makes him stay?

The chances for finding a real relationship that provides joy and comfort, that fits my kinks as I fit his, where I want to be close and can trust that the person has my best interests at heart... that he knows my best interests and himself well enough for authenticity and honesty to prevail over the mercurial nature of feelings, the bad moods and attitude problems, the ways life can smack people down without warning... I just can't believe they exist. The chances. As such, no guy will prevail against my perspective right now. Chances are so extraordinarily higher that any relationship I attempt will fail to sustain itself, there is no real reason to search for a "right" one. And what the wrong choices I make in relationships will take away from me is considerable enough to entirely nullify the worthiness of even speculating on ever finding a right one.

So I see the anger, and through the red haze of my perspective, I see why my friends who do argue with me choose to argue. I myself would probably tell someone else who said these things, in my position, that she is ridiculous. That great guys would love to get to know her. That great guys have a lot to offer. That great guys could make it all better than it already is.

To myself, I say, "Whatever!"

I don't trust great guys. I don't trust, fundamentally, myself. I don't trust myself to choose better. I don't trust what I've learned since the divorce. I am just not ready.

Sometimes, It's Just a Cigar

I saw my counselor today for visit number two. Her thing is to get me to "experience my feelings," which on some level I find amusing, because I've worked hard to manage my feelings and not have them get in the way of what I mean to do or accomplish. I don't believe I deny them, in other words, I just refuse to give them "rent free" space in my mind to supercede my other priorities and obligations. After all, feelings are fleeting, and catering to something that changes capriciously doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it's fine to have feelings, but the way I see it, it's not so good to let them get the better of me.

The other level on which I find my counselor amusing is that she seems to want to provoke me, or at least to provoke feelings that I put to bed already. For example, she often expresses utter marvel at the idea of my ex-husband's flight of no return and what kind of terrible detrimental effect his choice must have had on me. That's just remarkable that he did that, she'll say, staring into my eyes as if willing me to break down and howl. Instead, I want to laugh at the soulful look on her face. Well, duh, it was remarkable, and it sucked. It was shocking and traitorous that the person who promised to love me forever decided he didn't love me after all and disappeared without backward glance. To have my all-important marriage come crashing down atop of me, crushing my hopes and illusions and leaving me to live amid its broken pieces hurt like hell. I was shattered, of course I was. Is that what she wants me to say? But saying it today doesn't make me cry. It happened three years ago. At the time, it hurt like hell, but that was then, and I'm not sorry if I no longer feel a need to cry about it now. In the end, my ex's seemingly spontaneous and complete departure from our life together was not really spontaneous, and really, in the end we didn't have much of a life together.

Today, I mourn far more for those lost hopes and illusions than I ever mourn for him. I can -- and do -- still hurt for them. For my lost ability to trust easily, to believe in real love, to imagine that someone out there really wants to know me fully, and for me to fully know him, and that in that complete knowledge we can accept each other in joy, not with reservation. I don't know that I believe in this ideal any more... and that, if I think about it enough, can make me cry.

I guess -- I'm used to it. What happened in my marriage is something bad that happened, and then it was done, and now it's over. Yes, understand that at the time he wounded me almost -- but not quite -- to the point of a mortal wound, and I realize I'm scarred now. It's those scars that are causing me some trouble, not the wounds that created them. But it's as if my counselor thinks that poking emotionally at the fact of the divorce will spawn some other reaction from me than disillusioned acceptance... that by rehydrating those feelings of abandonment and betrayal, I'll somehow see them differently or work through them differently. But nobody can reconstitute a mummy, and those feelings are verily mummified within me. They had their time in the sun, and they're reconciled. I can accept them. I can accept the history that unfolded since then. But then, I've had three years to do it.

Courage

After a date with a guy a couple of months ago, I came home and started crying. I was scared. Miserable. I immediately ceased all contact with him, and returned to flying solo with relief in my heart.

I thought I wanted to meet someone and was ready for a boyfriend. I believed that. This guy was lovely, and we had more in common than I'd ever have expected. He was funny, smart, and engaging. He took care of everything in the hours we spent together. Yet, my enduring memory of that evening is trauma. Wanting to get away.

What is it that scares me? The answer to that question is both complex and incredibly simple. I know I can make it on my own; this way, I'm okay. I don't know what someone else could do to me or the life I've fought to establish for myself. I don't know that I can fulfill what someone else needs, wants, or expects.

Failure. Disappointment. Regret.

The relationships I've had with men that lasted longest (college boyfriend, husband, and the "Hunky Latino") had few hallmarks in common.

The first, when I was youngest, was a passionate and tempestuous exercise in extremes, where each of us wanted to be "boss" and neither of us had the faintest idea or inclination to how to temper our frenetic youthful energy with compromise and concession. Nor should we have... after all, we were glorified children. That was immature love, and from it I learned that ostensibly positive feelings like love can generate secondary feelings like jealousy, anger, frustration, and panic. I look back now and fancy that our affection was sincere, but so was our inability to cope with the power of those feelings. We were a match made in idealistic hell. That relationship ended after four and a half years (years beyond what it should have), and I consider it an enormous growth experience that I was the one who ended it, cold turkey, no takebacks, despite the ensuing drama.

What from that relationship did I apply to my husband, whom I met about eighteen months later? Somehow, from it, I learned to equate maturity with control. My first boyfriend was an exercise in excess -- too much food, too much drink, too much arguing, too much laughter, too many tears, too much passion, too much fun, too many gifts, too much attention, just too much. Exhausting. But my ex-husband was a paragon of control. When I tried the drama on him, he walked away from me; such histrionics would not work on him. He was independent, with his own job, apartment, and car. He did what he wanted because he had the resources. He didn't need me for anything, so I could just be a good thing. A treat. A cherry atop the sundae of the life he'd already made for himself. He was a grown up, I thought. An intelligent man with a degree and a wonderful sense of humor that kept me constantly in stitches. Finally! And I was beyond judgement, because I could do -- or not do -- exactly as I pleased for him, and it was all just a big fringe benefit as far as he was concerned.

Little did I realize that his grownup-ness and sense of humor cloaked a raging inability to share himself fundamentally with another person. It's hard to get close and serious with another joke lined up. While he was good to me, and we had some good years together, but he stood steadfast in remaining entirely himself. I in turn, while bearing no secrets, learned that when it came to him, his reliability was fleeting, his attitudes mercurial. Sometimes, his behavior was equally mercurial as well as difficult to bear. But I had him, and that was enough. My one-sided and all-encompassing love of him was something I offered more to the idea of my husband than to the man who bore the title. His leaving me was no less painful for that. The hole he ripped into my soul when he left hurt just as much as if we'd been soul mates, even more because I didn't understand how he could possibly leave. I'd never asked anything of him, never prevented him from having what he wanted. How much could it cost him to stay with someone who asked for nothing? And got it, too, let the record show.

But then he was gone, but I found his twin in the form of "The Hunky Latino." The packaging was much prettier, the attitude much happier and joyful. This was a beautiful man who was used to the world giving him exactly what he wanted from it. Though he was far from my husband's literal twin, he was certainly his spiritual one. The self-sufficiency, reluctance to rely or lean on anyone else, the absolute disinclination to true intimacy, they all emerged in short order My old friends were there! They made me feel comfortable instead of frustrated. Here was another man who didn't need me, at least not for much more than a warm body around which to wrap himself on occasion. I didn't have to listen to his problems, stroke his ego, care for his home or health, or in any way make up for wherever it was that he found himself lacking. A hand or a shoulder? He made sure he didn't ever need those things. So did I.

What do these three relationships have in common? Very little. But perhaps the negative elements of the first taught me the frailties of emotions and not to trust them, let them guide me, or lend them any faith. That first breakup was ugly, for all its crushed youthful idealism, and it's a situation I'd rather chew off my own arm than repeat.

But the relationships that followed it bore out a pattern of choosing men who don't need "a relationship," because, then, how can I have failed to live up to their expectations of a relationship? They didn't have any expectations. That way, I couldn't fail.

But choosing men who don't need a relationship means that, well, quite obviously, we wind up not having a relationship. We might eat together, travel together, spend lots of time together, have deep conversations and attend social events as a couple... but we are playacting. Our minds and bodies are in context, but the generally good thoughts between us never cross from like to mutual love and high regard, never do we see each other's hearts and souls along with our faces and figures. Without trust, passion, intimacy, friendship, and investment, there is not an actual relationship, it's a functional facade of one, and such a thing actually diminishes me. That prefer it or seem to choose it indicates that I've developed a quite effective fear of what I already noted: failure, disappointment, regret. Easier to aim for something that cannot get close enought to evicerate me.

Jan Denise, my relationship guru, says that she doesn't believe those people who claim they want to find someone just to watch TV together in the evenings. Just companionship. She maintains that what we want is for someone to know us fully and entirely and to still think we're perfect.

I've always thought I had to try so hard to be thought perfect.

What happens if I don't have to try? What if someone just thinks I am?

Resumption

After writing regularly here for so long, and after my almost-two month hiatus, I feel like I owe the world in general an explanation. I closed out the school year and immediately began doing as little as possible after a quick trip to Colorado. Then I joined a writing group, which has provided an outlet for my writing creativity and continued my exploration into my own interests to make new friends. I am proud of myself for doing this, because I'm taking action to find what I want instead of hoping what I want finds me. Along that same line, I've found the beginnings of some interest with an eharmony guy. It's far too soon to say if something meaningful will happen, but the fact that I'm actually intrigued instead of traumatized is hopeful. All we've done so far is speak on the phone a few times, which is VERY EARLY. But so far, I like what I am hearing.

I spent the day at one of our city's esteemed universities in a professional development workship that proved to be a waste of time so far. I hope that the rest of the week involves more action and less time-filling. But it's important anyway to bond with my new coworkers and explore what they have to offer professionally... and what I can offer them, too.

My parents are coming for a visit in a few weeks, and after resolving some drama with my father, I think we're going to have a good visit. Such things are not always guarateed between my dad and me. However, I'm used to the drama by now, and I stopped taking it personally long ago.

I feel better, more whole, more relaxed, and more at peace than I have in recent memory. This down time this summer, with no work or arduous obligation, is a great gift for me to get to know myself the rest of the way on my new-life's terms to prepare for the oncoming future knowing who I am and what I have to offer -- and what I'm capable of doing. And, conversely, knowing who I am NOT, and WHAT I cannot or shall not tolerate or entertain for myself.

Now that I've picked up the mantle of the blog again, I will attempt to resume a more faithful relationship here. The mind needs its playground, and with the self-imposed rigor of my writing group, I myself need to remember to think and express for myself, not just for the characters and stories I create.

Free Will -- What's the Point of It if God Already Knows What We'll Do?

I haven't been consumed by this question for two days now, and maybe writing out my reasoning will help me to come to terms with some kind of answer. What's the point of human beings having free will if God is omnicient? So I logged on to the internet to look for some answer, and most of what I read involves a related argument... namely, that if God already knows what we'll choose, then how are we really choosing it? Aren't we then following a foreordained script like a bunch of agreeable puppets?

Well, I don't feel God manipulating me like a puppet. I make choices. As a result, I don't see the rationale of this question; mine is step to the side. What is the point of free will if God already knows what we're going to choose? If he's really omnicient, then he knows if we're going to mess up, he knows if we're going to triumph, and he knows when a piano's going to fall on us... why bother giving us free will at all... just to watch us twist in the wind?

I think... when we look backwards in time, we see clearly that some events are just facts. The Kennedy assassination. The American Revolution. The birth of Prince William and the death of Diana. My move to Texas or the end of my marriage. They are definite and immutable. How we see them in retrospect, or the power or impact they have over us, can change. Before my parents had me, the idea of a baby was just an idea... now, almost-36 years later, it's as though I always was. And I was. Always.

I think... for God, what's going to happen in the future is like us when we look at the past. It IS. We as people can look only backwards, but God can see everything in both directions. God knows, just as a mother knows her children, what we are capable of doing.

It's like... there's the person God means for me to be. Then there's the person I am. And then there's the person who has given up. That is what's up to me. God knows how far I can go if I trust the destiny that awaits me with the spiritual support that's available to all of humanity. He knows what will happen to me if I play it safe. And he has another path for me if I just stop trying altogether. Of course, he knows this for all of the people everywhere, and our paths cross, come together, diverge, and end, all in a great big concert through which he weaves himself, the chance to know him, and the chance to exceed our own expectations and perceptions of life on earth or off of it.

Does God micro-know or care about my free-will decisions? Free will gives us a chance to become the people we're meant to be, so there's no need for anyone looking over our shoulders or pressuring us. But God knows what's going on. He is always there. We have the gift of prayer (or meditating, or whatever anyone wants to call it) to connect us with the power of the universe (that sounds dramatic, but I don't know what else to call it) and to call upon those powers to guide our thinking and our decision making. But as for the decisions themselves... well, they're always made. I don't mean already made, but always. Just like I was always going to be here. Just like my cat was always going to go away. Just like a mother knows that her children will die (though hopes she won't be around for it), knowing that they will someday die doesn't negate the value of having them, loving them, teaching them, and raising them.

Perhaps in the face of God always knowing our destinies, that process of living that destiny is important for us to undergo. It's a step on a progression that we don't as yet understand. After all, if God knows... and I believe the design of the universe is bigger, wider, thicker, deeper, and more complicated than humans can understand... then God knows. There's way more to everything than science or religion can let us see.

Thinking Makes It So

William Shakespeare said, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." All day long, that quotation has run through my mind, and it runs hand in hand with Liz Gilbert's idea of controlling our thinking and not allowing our thoughts to control us, as presented to her by "Richard from Texas" in her memoir.

As I mowed the grass tonight (prime time to peruse the thoughts), I kept thinking about how disassociated my aerobics teacher stays, by choice, in order for him to expend his energies and attention on what he chooses instead of risking heartbreak by allowing himself to be "weak" (his word) or vulnerable (mine) by hyperinvolving himself with others. Blasphemy, my Italian ideology cried. Smart, insisted my post-divorce perspective. Is it so wrong for him to be like that? Would it be wrong for me to emulate him and thus avoid future heartbreak? Ah, there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Then I think about relocating my pet whom I loved, I think about my husband walking out, I think about throwing in the educational towel and going to law school or doing something else totally different; if I'm going to live another fifty years, I've got the time. All of these events or possbilities are wrong only if I think it so? The demon of relativism joins hands with my carpe diem quotations, and then everything seems muddy again.

I think I liked being in a relationship with a man because, well, if he thought I was worthy of loving, then obviously, I was lovable, and that made me feel good. I was lovable; his thinking made it so. He was someone who chose to love me instead of having to love me, like my family. So as I pushed around the mower, I thought, why doesn't my own thinking count? What do I think?

What do I think?

Damn it, I've never thought about it. That's my assignment this week.

Grief

It's been a week with a potent loss that I don't want to talk about, but I have to mention it as a responsible diarist.

The resulting grief has thrown an emotional wrench in my attitude and outlook, and I find myself actually punishing myself for my misery. I have no justification to be miserable, I tell myself sternly. I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and be a big girl. I need to recognize that in the context of world suffering, this is not something about which to complain. I am a lucky fortunate girl, my inner voice insists. Bellyaching about making a best albeit difficult decision is both self-indulgent and counterproductive.

After all, negative feelings have no place in today's society. They have lost against modern culture, where self-help is a lifestyle choice and counselors du jour provide a battalion of mood-altering techniques and medications to ensure constant contentment. Why feel bad when there are so many reasons/ methods/ solutions to feel good? Turn that frown around! But while it's bad to feel bad, I have indeed felt bad all week. I haven't been successful at quelling the encompassing desolation that's engulfed me over and over like a hyperactive tidal wave. It's a failure... and I've learned that atop the failure that generated the grief, the failure to handle my feelings positively renders grief squared, not added. I punish myself exponentially for punishing myself.

Have I enjoyed any of this? No, not on any level. I did find my divorce-grief fascinating, because I knew that someday I would prevail, and a part of me watched me outside of myself, waiting to see how it would all work out. Now, however, there is no curiosity. There is no confidence in my ability to remain afloat, no confidence in my instinct, even, to want to remain afloat. As I can't keep back the literal tide of water, and I cannot fight against an emotional one, either. I don't want to anymore. I want it to engulf me, toss me about, and either throw me ashore ready to begin again or just put me out of my misery altogether.

I think that's what it's come down to. I wrote tonight to my friend that I think "more changes are in store for me." I think, really, it's time for a total change. On some level, I have to give up the person I think I am, the one who's tied to the past and defined by preconceptions and indoctrinations. I have to bury her, figuratively. She is done. Then I have to start again, reconstructing myself authentically to who I AM, poking and testing and gauging what really does matter to me after all, what are my true prioroties, and understanding them, honoring them, living them out. I have to find myself dwelling authentically in The Way Things Are, not The Way I Want Them to Be, not The Way They Should Be, not The Way I Imagined They Are. It sounds dramatic, perhaps, but truly, I have to let go... altogether. Shed my preconceptions and the resulting frustrations. Remove my rose-colored glasses and the related expectations. Surrender any imagined or granted power or control over what happens next. Acknowledge my limitations and weaknesses and love myself in spite of them... because of them... while searching for purpose outside of myself and others, but in dedication to God and in alliance with my own creativity.

I can't reconcile my life now with what I expected from life five years ago or fifteen years ago. But instead trying and regain ground, which is how I've felt for so long, I can kiss the ground before me instead. This is where I am, whether it's anywhere I've ever expected. I've done what I've done, what's happened is happened, I do my best, and any regrets or sadnesses or second-guesses are normal indicators of transitions that I can begin to practice greeting with trust and faith, not with fear. After all, maybe my aerobics teacher is right that everything does happen for a reason, and that I have a purpose that's placed me precisely where I am because, unfathomable as it seems, it's precisely -- precisely! -- where I need to be, for all I've done or not done... or undone... to get here.

Truth to Ourselves

I heard from an ex-boyfriend tonight in an instant message, and many ready-for-resolution feelings are swirling inside of me as a result. I am angry at him -- people like him don't deserve everything they want over good people like me. I am sad -- I wanted things to be different for us, though I always knew they wouldn't be. And I'm frustrated -- he's WRONG about everything! Everything! How dare he be out there in the world pretending he's happy and well adjusted when I know better, when I know he'll make other women who want what's NORMAL and HEALTHY fall for him and let them believe that he *might* find them worthy of having it with him?

Oh, but I can't blame him. Not really. He's manipulative, he's warped, and he's devastatingly handsome. I always knew that. And I committed the same mistake with him that I did with my ex-husband. I thought that both men would see my sincerity, see my worthiness, and rise above their male fallibility and be the men I wanted, needed, and pretty much expected them to be. The men I believed they could be.

The first lesson in Relationships 101: People are who they are, and they do not change. Well, more pointedly, they can change in very rare, very special circumstances and only when it comes from their own initiative, their own inner motivation. Not unless. And nobody can graft her initiative onto them, however much "he'd be perfect, only if...." If he's perfect, there is no "only if."

The first lesson from the happy hour following the first lesson of Relationships 101: Any and all significant others, once they become "ex," need to suffer unstinting pain and anguish from bad bad things happening to them to learn the error of their ways, never daring to be happy in the weeks, months, or years to follow the end of the relationship. YOU are the only one who deserves good things and happiness, he (or she) does not... and he (or she) must regret eternally his (or her) stupidity in letting you get away.

Yes.

Absolutely!

That's my perspective!

And that's why that dork shouldn't ever talk to me ever again.

Reflections

So I signed up for eHarmony with lofty expectations that this computer program would serve me up a perfect man. How else am I supposed to find him? I work with women and children; what single men do float through the solar system of work burn with the brightness and tenacity of a 76-year comet, and my interest in them burns as brightly and wanes as quickly.

So I place myself among the glittering stars of the eHarmony constellation, and what do I see? Problem after potential problem. Men with jobs or even careers... that's good, yes?... and men with first families and obvious hangups and a fair helping of unreasonable expectations of a woman in their lives. All that glitters is not gold.

So little of what people say they ARE like really is what they are like. I can tell it. "What are you passionate about?" is the first question. I know that the bullshit they're writing isn't true, cannot be true. I see such philosophical fluff coming out of my ex-husband's mouth or even some of his successors' mouths, the mouths of men who speak what they believe is true or even wish were true, but which isn't true, which never has been. I DON'T see it coming out of the mouths of any of the "real" people who are part of my three dimensional life in the real world. Nobody cares so much about learning, growing, or evolving. I really don't believe that they do! Most people care about getting through the day, meeting their own needs (only after which do they care much about anybody else's), and being able to live in peace. That's their passion. Beyond that, caring about "leaving the world a better place" or "expanding my knowledge" or "helping others to live better lives" is wishful thinking at best and an outright misrepresentation at worst.

What did I write about? Quite simply, investments... finding, making, an sustaining them. That is true. All kinds of investments... not just financial, but spirituatual and emotional as well. And for me, that IS true. My sense of safety and security is contingent on the investments and dividends I draw from my resources of material goods, family, friends, and learning, and they are the primary thing of importance in my life. Throwing out my passionate need for security and faith to risk with someone whom I don't believe, some half-baked pseudointellectual who's not even in the same stratosphere with reality and who doesn't recognize the difference between how he sees himself and the objective conclusions drawn by this faction of a cynical outside world is, to put it mildly, not highly motivating.

How much of what I see in myself isn't true?

How much of it all really isn't the men? How much of it is the twin suns of insecurity and frailty shining on me, my own weakness merely reflected back in the faces of these men from the internet? In their alleged faults and flaws, I see my own, magnified. I see the detriment of my investment by compounding weakness upon weakness, and in my own weakness, I reject theirs.

I wish, in some alternative universe more perfect than this one, to find a man through my passion... while reading in a bookstore or library... while lifting weights at the gym... while swigging margaritas at happy hour with my friends... while living my life so I can see him living his, to see him living his and if we could mesh together. To build over time, without contrivance. The anti-eHarmony. The unmatter matter of relationships.

Fresh Page

When I was little, I imagined life-altering events in the story of a person's life were like turning pages in a book. As life went on, paragraph melded into paragraph, until an event was cataclysmic enough, like someone died or got married, and an entire section arched. Then, at the close of that section, a page turned, and a fresh blank one awaited the next part. Life went on. A whole new episode to write from which to draw endless possibilities. Beginning anew.

I'm not little anymore. We live, things happen. We try to write the story our own way, but effects linger. Sometimes, we achieve a well anticipated and planned milestone and are happy to incorporate the related perks into our lives; other times, less desireable events happen with an apparent randomness that can leave us breathless. Either way, there's no "starting over," wholly. The new pages incorporate with the old, life as eternal revision. Either we absorb changes or over time, happy and pleased, or we can be downright reluctant as they seep into our cells and become part of us, no matter how we feel about it.

When I was divorced, I hoped it would be a simple matter of ending that episode of my life and beginning fresh on a new page. Turning that page took over three years, over seventy previous blog entries, the endless patience of my friends, two attempts at relationships, and a whole lot of fear. Now that it's turned (not that I can't swear I won't go back and reread portions of what came before), I find that I don't know what to write.

I'm 35 years old, single, and living with my cats in the suburbs. To admit that I'm an English teacher is almost too much of a cliche. To admit that I like my life as it is is tatamount to blasphemy between my American-of-Italian-descent family who believe in cleaving and even the most liberated of my friends who maintain that "everybody wants to share her life with somebody." Yeah, I can't say that I wouldn't enjoy a date. Having a nice man pay attention to me for a sustained amount of time and appreciating the effort I make to be a pleasant companion sounds nice. Fun.

But my attempts to write a love story on the blank pages before me are cursory. I guess I want to date again. I feel like I do... I long for romance, I long for someone to touch me; nobody touches me anymore. But my attempts to find someone are mired in the previous pages that I can't stop from running through my mind. I don't really want someone, not really. "People are where they want to be," someone wise once said. I want to be alone. I WANT to want someone, but right now, I want to be alone.

It's a contradiction that I do want a relationship that fulfills me, but I don't want to deal with a relationship. I want someone who cares for me, but not to have to care for someone. I want romance, not routine or regularity. I've worked hard to build this life for myself, as I told my aunt. It's a life I built in the wake of my divorce, when it was important to get to know myself single and what I would be like alone. I've done a damned good job! I've turned my singleness into something that makes me proud. I have friends. I have a social life. I have a job I like. I have a calm, comfortable home. Before I let someone into it, I want to enjoy it! If I find someone, I very well could be attached to him for the rest of my life. This is a chance to have peace. Stability. To relax from the tension from divorce and graduate school and ill-fated attempts at relationships. Time simply to enjoy what I've created, until readiness if not outright boredom drives me into someone's arms.

The temporary price for this peace is a man who might be good for me. But he won't be good until I'm ready for him to do some good, and until then, there is indeed some touching to do. Namely, embracing! I need to embrace someone important, myself, a while longer. The love story in the coming pages will have to wait until I write sufficient exposition.

Surviving Single in the Suburbs

Welcome!

This is my inaugural post.

I am single. I am surviving. I live in the suburbs.