Barnmaven

Relationship math

 

I love to read relationship books.  Whenever I read something that reminds me of my relationship with SG I marvel at how intuitive, how clever, how well researched the author must be.  When I read something that doesn't fit us at all, naturally either the author is a charlatan or we are the exception to the rule.  My husband is more than a standard deviation from the mean, if you know what I mean. 

Anyhow, this current book I'm reading is all about how Attachment Theory is really what comes into play in our love relationships, that our primary relationship with our partner follows many of the same patterns as child/parent attachment.  Similar to the way a healthy parental attachment fosters a sense of security and the ability to be happily independent in a child, a healthy attachment in an adult relationship makes each partner feel safer about indpendence - both theirs and their partner's.  According to this theory, then, a clingy, jealous or insecure partner isn't just being a jerk:  they're dealing with abandonment issues. 

Makes sense.  It helps me see my distaste for SG's road job in a different light; a person whose standard motto regarding relationships goes something like, "Everyone leaves.  Period." isn't likely to feel too secure about having their partner off living the single life for a couple of months at a time. 

Time and love do much to cure the places we are broken, and SG and I have seen a lot of that happening over the course of our relationship.  I'd love to say that I'm completely without insecurity, but I would be lying.  I am, however, much more secure in this relationship than I can recall being in a very long time.  

Which is good, because we're pretty sure he's going to end up going back on the road.

Its not that his in-town full-time job is a horrible job, or anything.  But its not what he's used to.  Its not what he likes or wants to do.  He likes the road.  He likes his solitude.  It doesn't mean he likes being away from me or that he doesn't want to be with me.  But its work and pay that agree with him, and if being alone for several weeks at a time are the price, its one he's happy to pay.  Not everyone has the luxury of choosing what they do for a living.  Hell, at best we choose between several imperfect options and pick the one that's simply the least worst. 

We've had some very long and occasionally very intense discussions about this of late.  We've spent time exploring our feelings about our relationship, about ourselves, about what we want out of our lives and where we want to be ten or twenty years down the road.  We've talked about what's hard about him being gone for me -- being lonely very much the primary issue, followed by being overwhelmed -- and about what's hard for him about about the current situation. 

Compromises in relationships don't mean each party gets what they want and then they hold hands and skip down the primrose path while rose blossoms fall from the sky and birds sing love songs.  Oh, no.  Compromise means sometimes I have to give up more than I think I want to and other times the short stick gets drawn by my husband.  Compromise means maybe my husband goes on the road, but at the same time we get someone to come help with the housework and the yard so that I at least get a break to do things that I want to while he's gone.  Compromise means maybe he doesn't take the six month job that would bring a much bigger payout, but takes fall and spring work and spends the winter at home.   And lets be honest, the days he's here and I get to go gallivanting off on my horse while he stays home and wrangles my offspring there is absolutely no doubt about who is getting the short stick.

So little in life is absolutely perfect.  I would say, if pressed, that SG is the perfect man for me.  I think he would probably say I'm the perfect woman for him.  I know there are times both of us will tell you how the other is driving us insane or irritating the crap out of us, but even then there are billion reasons its worth it to get to the other side of the trying days.

Remind me I wrote this come fall, will you?

If wishes were fishes

I love the way memory is so intricately connected to the senses.  A smell, a taste, a song can take me back along the timeline of my life, often to a place or person or event I've not thought about in years.  There are times when the reverse is true as well -- a memory will evoke a sensory response.  I look at a picture of me cradling my infant daughter and I can smell milk and lavender-scented baby wash.    I can flip through an album of old remodeling pictures and remember the feeling of being caked with soot and fine black dirt from taking four layers of roofing material off our old house.

I have tons of photo albums full of images I really should put in digital format to preserve them.  For every picture that was developed and put into an album, there are about five more that didn't make it into the highlight reel of my life.  Those photos and all of the duplicates that didn't get given to friends, relatives or grandparents, they are all in a plastic bin in the extra bedroom.  The last time I really went through them is when my ex and I divided our belongings and I needed to go through and give him an equal sampling of our joint history as captured on film.  The problem with going through that box is that what started off as a planned one-hour project quickly turned into a four-hour journey into the recesses of memory.  I need to go through that box and get its contents put into a more durable format, and right now I don't dare.

I would love to tell you I live life with no regrets, but the hubris of saying so would only invite the Universe to go right ahead and unleash the Kraken. 

There are people I've lost touch with that I wish I hadn't.  There are people I've hurt that I wished I hadn't.  There are people I've loved that I wished I hadn't.   Choices I've made that were so monumentally stupid that I'm shocked it was me that made them. 

As many regrets as I may have, marrying my ex and having our children is not one of them.  Sure, there were times during our separation and divorce that I wondered if it had really been worth it, but that was mere misery beating its breast.  My children are the greatest treasure of my life, and I would not trade one moment with them for any amount of money, comfort, or success.  I don't make that statement lightly; In the past months I've had career opportunities dangled in front of me that were definite steps up the ladder in terms of title and income.  Two questions I asked myself: 

1.  Is there anything so wrong with my life right now that I would consider making a dramatic change?

2.  Would this career advancement make me less available to my children?

The answers were and are crystal clear.

My babies are not babies anymore, but they aren't teenagers either.  The years remaining where they will really need me the way they do now are few.    I see no gain in wasting what small time I have left of their childhood.   Its not selfless; I worry less what they would think of me if I treated my career as being more important than their needs.  I worry more what I would think of myself if that were true.

When it comes to my children, the only possible regret I have is that I have only two.  Before I met SG I didn't give it much of a thought.  In the last year or so, however, its been an oft-discussed topic.  I've examined every ramification and rejected all of them up until the realization that one reaches a point in life where it is no longer optimal to be pregnant or raising an infant.  I don't want to be depositing my youngest into Kindergarten when I'm 52. 

Its just water under the bridge now, but that doesn't mean my soul is yet fully convinced I should be done having babies.  If anything I wish that I'd started earlier.  I was already considered to be in "advanced maternal age" when I had my daughter.  Three months shy of my 40th birthday I delivered my son.   By the time it would have been about right to consider another baby, we were in the throes of a cross-country move which was soon followed by a string of diagnoses and eventually the end of a marriage.  

I'm left to imagine who a child of this marriage might be.  Every time the kids say they wished they had a little brother or sister I feel a sharp pang of loss for the alternate life's journey where I wasn't on the wrong half of my forties or had gotten my shit together a lot sooner.  An alternate timeline where I met SG more than a decade sooner, or wasn't so old now or where we hadn't chosen permanent options regarding fertility.

The days for babies are over for me.  All that's left to me now are pictures, videos and the occasional pang of regret.  The reality I live in is truly sufficient; I am fulfilled by my relationships with my family.   There is nothing that I need that I do not have in abundance.  Sometimes, though, its not the things you need that trip you up; its the things you think you want.

 

Being there

I love my job.  I love my company.  If I had to pick a commute (provided not commuting was not on the table), I'd pick this one over most - but grudgingly, what with gas prices exceeding anything resembling reasonable anymore.

Working or not working has never been a choice for me as a parent.  Like most parents, the kind of choices I can make have more to do with what kind of work I will do, what kind of hours I will accept, what kind of pay is necessary to keep us housed and fed and reasonably healthy.  Less often anymore is it a choice over whether a parent will stay home.  So many families are struggling to find jobs in this nerve-flogging environment of unemployment that for many families, both parents might be home full time. 

And when work is available, for most families, both incomes are necessary to pay for the necessities.  I have much respect for those families where parents have made the sacrifice of spending any time with one another to work separate shifts so that the staggering cost of child care doesn't make working untenable. 

When families do have a choice of a parent staying home, more and more Mom isn't the automatic default.  While I still think the career/parenting paradigm is more of a struggle for women than for men, I'm gratified to see many fathers being engaged in the nurturing and care of babies, some to the point of being the parent who is present for daily activities.

I used to think that if I had an actual choice to work or to stay at home, I'd always choose work.  Of course, back then I didn't have fence to mend, irrigation to repair, painting to do or horses to ride.  I know better now.  I am also faced with the fact that as my children age, the time is soon coming when their need for an available parent close to or at home will wane.  What if I had the ability to meet my family's financial needs and still be more available to my kids?  What if that came at the potential cost of delayed promotions down the road?

Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College, suggested in a article in Newsweek that too many women these days think they are supposed to do it all and do all of it perfectly.  That even when we know better, even when we tell other women its OK to not be able to do it all because no one can possibly be a full time career person, homeschooler, designated team driver and keep a perfectly immaculate house and have dinner on the table each night, we don't allow ourselves the same leeway.

Spar quotes a former student:

 'Girls need to have all their grandmothers wanted them to have, while looking as pretty as their mothers wanted them to look ... You try so hard to be who everyone wants you to be while attempting to maintain some kind of individuality and in the end you seem to lose everything.'

I think I'm old enough now to appreciate - and more importantly, accept - that there is no way to win the game when half the cards I'm holding are still face down on the table. 

The upcoming months signal a big transition for me and for my company.  When the rubber meets the road, I will likely be making some decisions about where I want to go right now career-wise, and it will probably be the nearest opportunity I have to work toward a path that - for now - means I do something that affords me the ability to be there for my kids in a way I can't at the moment. 

I think its OK to accept a career path that has a flat point in it for a while and then re-evaluate down the road a little bit what it is I'd actually like to be when I grow up.  And, truth be told, I'm ambivalent about what it really means to be "successful."  Does that mean making lots of money, having lots of power or having a personal life that is stable and enjoyable and where I have the leeway and time to be the mom I think I should be?  In a perfect world, those things wouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in the real world they most certainly are.  I don't want to take a back seat to anyone, but does taking a path where I have fewer people to manage and more time for my family really mean that I'm not still in the game?  Maybe it just means I've swapped out a few of my cards.

 

 

On being right

Who doesn't like being right?  Raise your hand.  Right now.  I want to know if there is anyone out there who doesn't like to be right. 

Right.

Because we all want to be right.  It starts young.  My children already have fights to the death over the most inane topics, all because one of them wants to be right and thereby prove that ergo,the other one is WRONG.  Sadly, the one-upmanship very often persists long past its usefulness. 

I know people who are perfectly OK being wrong about some things, but with most people, if you try hard enough you'll find at least ONE subject where they will doggedly persist in the correctness of their position even in the odds of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Its a fascinating concept, this battle over who's right and who's wrong.  There are a billion things that are matters of fact and record, which makes it easy to identify the winner in many of these wrestling matches of certitude.  But when it comes to people and emotions and situations, when perception is the only player in the game, all concrete wisdom flies straight out the window.  Absent of the ability to actually read another person's thoughts, we must rely on a different set of tools. 

I've noticed that the more time passes, the more I am willing to suspend judgment of intent.  But I'll own right up to the fact that this is not always the case.  Its a crazy-making thing, isn't it?   Someone does something that has a negative impact or connotation to you.   They forget to invite you to a meeting or a social event.  They acquire something that you intended to buy or apply for the promotion you were trying to get.   You make a pact or agreement with them and it turns out they can't (or won't) hold up their end of it. 

What's your first assumption going to be?

They did it on purpose. 

She KNEW I wanted that promotion and the only reason she applied for it was to spite me.  He lied to me on purpose.  They only got that expensive thing-a-ma-jig so they could make their friends feel jealous.

But we all know its not that simple.

Have you ever been cheated on in a relationship?  I have.  It sucks, doesn't it?  I mean really, down to the bone, hurts like a someone's taken a motherfucking buzzsaw to your heart.  And when you first find out, after your heart stops trying to jump out of your chest and you very carefully put down the baseball bat you found yourself carrying as you were marching up the sidewalk, the first thought in your mind is "How could s/he DO THIS TO ME?"  As if the indiscretion actually had anything to do with you at all in the first place.  Well, maybe it did, and maybe it didn't.  In my experience, infidelity seems linked more to a problem with the perpetrator.  Unless its a revenge thing, most people who cheat seem driven to do so by reasons they don't even understand.  They're not thinking about you.  In fact, they're working so hard to maintain denial about the moral slippery slope they're falling down, they try very hard not to think of you AT ALL.  Infidelity is a selfish and self-serving act, and has little to do with whether someone really loves you or not. 

Divorce is a situation where pain is unavoidable.  Its simply not possible to take any step of any sort without causing pain to your former spouse.  Intention to hurt may or may not exist -- but hurt is done, and the more hurt there is, the more bitter and angry people become.  I'm in the middle of it now, and there's so much I'd like to say and can't, but I can promise you that it is painful, that it is bitter, that it is angry.  It is a wandering line of suck that at times is unbearable and at other times thins to the point of being barely tolerable.    I hurt him, he hurts me.  I do something, he believes I'm only doing it to hurt him, he does something, I believe he's only doing it to hurt me.  Maybe I am and maybe I'm not.  Maybe he is and maybe he isn't.  There's really no way to know who's right.  I can judge by past history and the knowledge of a person that years together bring me, but I can't read his mind, nor can he mine.

All I can do is my best to be authentic and to do the right thing and not get sucked into bitter and angry.  All I can do is try to remind myself that it might seem as though things are said or done with ill intent, maybe they're not.  And all I can do is protect myself and my family and remember that even though things are bad, they could be so much worse.  Remember that there is a history here, that even though I feel like I'm experiencing death by a thousand paper cuts, that it won't last forever.  That I can swallow my bitterness and pain and focus on the things in life that are good and real and positive -- my kids tumbling up the sidewalk, coming home from time with dad to now spend a week with me; dinner and wine on a warm evening with good friends; strong arms of love that hold and support me when I need them; the love and support of family and friends; a bevy of wagging tails and horrid doggy breath waiting at the door for me; a long ride on a beautiful horse with a good friend. 

You may think I do this or that simply to hurt you, but if you really believe that, you'd be wrong.

On being the stable bow

I think life must be far simpler at age 6 than it is at 9.  I also consider the truth that my children are not the same person and each reacts to life's challenges differently, individually.

For instance:  My little race-car man capital L and italicized LOVES S.  They have been fast friends since shortly after they met and watching them together and listening to their conversations makes my heart go thump-thump in my chest.  So much love between them, and the love inside of me swells and surges up through me in response.   My amazonian princess is a bit of a different story.  Her reactions to S are more complex.  She is very reserved with her affections for him.  At first she was insistent that she liked him, but eventually her father informed me otherwise, which prompted some gentle conversations between us.  Its not that I insist she like S, not at all.  Her feelings are not mine to dictate.  I'd rather have a loving conversation about how she really feels than waste my energy ruining our relationship and ensuring that she never share anything important with me.  So we talk.  Its not that she doesn't think he's a nice guy.  She's not uncomfortable with him - but with the concept that I have a boyfriend. 

(I hate that word, honestly.  I'm in my middle forties.  I really don't think boyfriend is the appropriate term, but we don't live together and we're not married, so partner isn't quite the right term, friend is too vague, and both lover and special friend are just too...ewww....so I continue to use "boyfriend."  I just want you to know that I loathe it.)

Its not that she doesn't want S to be my boyfriend - its that she doesn't want anyone to be my boyfriend.

So we talk.  And I hear her and I acknowledge her feelings.  And I let her know, gently, that I understand how she must feel, still wishing that her parents were together.  I say that I am sorry that we hurt her by not being able to stay married to one another.  I say that I wish that it were different, but that it is not and cannot be.  And I let her know also, that I love and care for her so very much.  And that I am a grownup and that I am going to make grownup decisions for myself, such as having a boyfriend.  And she is more than perfectly welcome to share her feelings about that.  And we talk some more, and we hug each other and put our love for one another to words and we move forward.  I hope that someday she is able to cognitively separate her feelings about me having a boyfriend from her feelings from S.  In the meantime, this will do.  She is friendly to him, if aloof, and she is not rude or disrespectful.  I could not ask for better behavior, and I feel that all things considered, she's doing the best she can.  Its more than enough for me.

I'm learning too to put a tight lid on my feelings in regards to parenting time.  She loves her dad, so does my son, and their dad loves them.  There are times they want to be with me when its not my parenting time and there are times they want to be with their dad when they are currently with me.  Its hard sometimes to hear your children say, for whatever reason, that they'd really rather see their dad right now and not feel like you're failing at some level.  Its hard to put personal feelings aside, but nothing else will do.    Logic rarely informs the initial emotional response, and so I am learning to school my features carefully, to refrain from saying anything until I can put a smile on my face and into my voice and accept their feelings for what they are.  Even when I wish they felt differently. 

Its not just that I hope there is payback for this someday in the form of being loved more than the other parent, or that there is some sort of karmic return (although I wouldn't mind a winning MegaMillions ticket, thankyouverymuch) for being a good person.  I think maybe the motivation is more along the "do no harm" scale than anything else.  Common sense and experience tell me that if I attempt to dictate or control my children's feelings that I will be harming them, unforgivably.

Its just more of the growing pains of being a parent, I suppose.

 

 

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

    ~The Prophet, Khalil Gibran, 1923

I shouldn't post today

But I'm gonna anyway. 

Never fight when you're mad.

Never drink when you're mad.

Never, EVER blog when you're mad.

Instead?  Wait a few hours until the hot fire of mad dulls down to icy rage, reconsider doing all of the above, sleep on it and mull it over a bit longer until the icy rage melts down to a sad understanding that you've been played, the same way you've been played for years  by someone with control issues, and resolve that the last vestiges of the codependent crap you've continued to foster must - simply must - go.

If the last year or so has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that I can be my own person.  I don't need permission to make decisions for myself.  I don't need someone's approval or agreement to know when I'm doing the right thing.  Yes, I'm going to make mistakes.  I'm going to make decisions I'll look back on someday and wonder which cues I missed, how I failed to see the outcome.  That's my right as a human being, a right we all share.  But I have children.  Smalls who depend on me, and, the ripples I make when that decision hits the water overlap lives other than mine, so I'd better be careful and I'd better be right.  And I'd better not make decisions in anger.

I know, this is cryptic.  I'm sorry.  One of the purposes of this blog is to provide a way for me to understand my own thoughts and feelings. Its serving that purpose right now, as the words flow from my brain to my fingers to the screen.  I compose, I consider, I erase, rewrite, reword, rethink.  I begin to understand.  And after that's all said and done, people toss their comments in the mix, and those often give me yet more perspective. 

Still, I have to be careful what I say here, in this public space.  My words affect others, but most importantly my words have the ability to affect the two most important people in my life.  Being angry with their father isn't a good enough reason to hurt my kids by writing unkind things about him here.  But know that were I not restrained by those self-imposed rules, this post?  Particularly if I'd written it yesterday?  Searing epistle of rage. 

I guess its human nature to think that we are different from everyone else.  We are special.  We often don't recognize when we excuse ourselves from the expectations we carefully thread around others.  We all do it.  I do it.  And maybe we don't like it when people point it out to us.  Who knows? 

Another thing that is natural for people is the need to be heard, to be listened to.  To have our feelings acknowledged.  One of the biggest challenges of my life as a young girl was living with a father who was equally as emotional - maybe even more so - than I am.  And my dad, when he would get upset at something, he'd go silent.  I suspect now that he was burning, icy hot, and couldn't bring himself to talk about what was making him mad or didn't want to talk about it for fear of saying something he'd regret, but quiet he would go.  And when he was mad at me, that quiet was unnerving.  Nothing I did or said could make him talk to me about it until he was ready.  That was his way of handling it - and his right to do so - but the residue of that within me is a sense of utter desperation when I need someone to hear and acknowledge me and they refuse.  Its usually followed by blinding rage at being ignored. 

Some people know that about me.  And I think when they don't like something I've done, they use it against me.  Or maybe I'm giving too much credit - maybe not acknowledging me is simply the way they handle conflict and its a simple accident of fate that I somehow managed to marry the one person who could evoke that helpless rage of my childhood.  However, whatever.  Somehow in my recovery the one lesson I still need to improve on is the ability to sense when I'm too emotional about something, when I need to let go of having expectations of others, when I need to release myself from the expectations others put on me,  when I need to remember that nobody is responsible for how I feel and what I do but ME. 

I'm deep in that right now, and its uncomfortable as hell. 

I have some decisions to make.  I can't make them lightly.  They affect my kids too, and therefore every move I make must center around how to make a bad situation as good as it can possibly be FOR THEM. 

And while I strive to protect them as much as I can, I still have to honor myself.  I have to stand up for myself.

And so I type and read and erase and reword and backspace, go back and reread, and I ponder.

Its hard to understand how we go from the harmony and ease of the holidays to the current state, but here we are.  One thing changed, I met someone, and I suspect that's the biggest factor affecting the events of the last few days.  Never underestimate how hard it is for your ex to see you move on, even if they already started dating months ago. 

What you think of me is none of my business

Really, its not.  So I continue to remind myself, with ever-increasing frequency.

The post about the incident with my nutsack-punching daughter garnered a lot of comments when BlogHer picked it up, so I was curious to see the reaction from a larger pool of perfect strangers when TodayMom's picked it up.  As I expected, it caused a stir. 

The biggest part of recovering from codependency for me has been to learn to see myself through my own eyes and not the eyes of others.  Other people are not mirrors of my self - not my partner, my parents, my children.  Other people are separate and discrete and while its affirming to have people agree with me, like me, its not realistic to expect that to be the case.  My sense of self-worth can't be dictated by public opinion, and the moment that it is I might as well slink back into the morass of codependent self-loathing that my life used to be.

So I'm not over there commenting back to the commenters on my post.   I did over at BlogHer where the forum was smaller, more select and more comfortable.  It is easy to have a discussion with people when even where the opinions differ, they are offered with a coating of respect.  We can talk about anything in the world as long as we remember, you and I, that we don't have to agree with one another.  What we need to keep in mind is that as human beings we have differences and similarities - we probably have many things in common - and that our opinions are shaped by our experiences.  Just because you have a different experience than I do doesn't mean we should not treat one another with dignity.

Ultimately, I'm not going to change anyone's mind with the things I blog about.  This isn't a political blog or an activist blog.  Its just me working on making the words come out and seeking to make sense of my life and my world.  Its an outlet for my particular creative drive.  Some people paint, some people make music, some people sew and knit and craft.  Some of us write.  Not for profit, not for a living, but simply to engage in the act of putting together words and sentences to set free a thought that is begging to be expressed.  I have no expectation that the thoughts I share here are going to be universally agreed upon, nor that they will, in contrast, be praised.  But I realize, more so today than ever, that when by placing my words and my thoughts in the public domain, I am inviting people to respond.  To affirm or to negate.

Over there, on the TodayMom's blog, I'm not responding to comments.  I'm letting the dialogue happen without me.  There are some thoughtfully written opinions over there, both for and against, and there are a large number of trolls.    About halfway through the day yesterday I discarded my curiosity about what was being said and I stopped reading.   Really, its all happening in a delightful cacophony of words and opinions that don't need my presence to pollute the water.  Its a big bucket full of what makes the internet such a fascinating place to inhabit. And considering that in the not long ago past I would likely be wringing my hands and letting the negative voices be the loudest voices I hear - and letting those voices dictate my state of mind and sense of self-worth - I realize how far I have come and how grateful I am for my recovery.  I'm able to just exist side by side with this controversy.  I realize that more than ever, I KNOW who I am.  I don't need other people to be mirrors of myself.  With the knowing that I am both perfect and imperfect, that I exist as a child of God, loved regardless of anything I or others might do or think, I can choose my level of engagement with the controversy based on what I feel and need, not on others expectations.  (Ouch, that was a long sentence).

The journey to release my fear so that I could stop trying to control others in order to cope with it has been, second to being a mother, the most amazing journey of my life. 

 

.....

 

Note:  While I don't have any editorial control over at BlogHer or at TodayMoms, I DO have editorial control here.  I have never moderated comments on this blog and I hope that will never be the case.  I delete comments from spammers, but to this point have never deleted a legitimate comment from a reader, positive or negative. I welcome dissenting opinion, provided it is delivered with respect. Trolls will not be ignored, they will be summarily dismissed and, if overly persistent, blocked, not because anything they say might hurt my feelings but because attack without the expectation of reasonable dialogue isn't useful.

 

Honor thyself

It is fifteen degrees out this morning.  As I type this, three horses lean up against the pasture fence, blowing steam from their nostrils, wondering why I haven't shown up with armfuls of hay yet.  Hang on boys, I'll get to you in a minute.  I have something to say first.

There are lots of things I don't write about in detail on this blog.  They're off limits.  And I really don't like it when people are coy and they tell you they're writing about something they can't really talk about.  And now I'm a hypocrite because that's sort of what I'm going to do right now.

You see, I've changed.  I'm not the person I was ten years ago.  I'm not the person I was five years ago.  I changed, and yesterday I proved it to myself.

One of the biggest problems with being codependent is an frightening tenacity when it comes to hanging on to something even when its totally not okay, and sometimes even when its literally destroying you.  I have hung on to people and situations in my life so hard that by the time they finally exploded, there were pieces of shrapnel and body parts found hundreds of miles away.  And of course, in that kind of aftermath, I'd be simply unable to function for weeks and months.

I am so proud of myself today, and so grateful for my recovery.  I know I still have a very long way to go, but when I am able to look at a situation in my life and say "this isn't the right situation for me" and simply step out of it, without anger and without blame, I can honestly say that I've made progress. And yesterday, I did just that.  I was sad, and it hurt, but for once the fear of dealing with my feelings didn't stop me from making the right decision for me.  For me and me alone.

Today, while we celebrate the things we are thankful for, this is going to be pretty damned near the top of my list. The top slots are reserved for the usual sappy things, my children, my family, all those things in life that I am so fortunate to have and should never take for granted.  Somewhere floating around in that list,though, is a box next to the phrase "One step farther away from bat-shit crazy."  And it is checked.

 

 

 

Conundrum at Amazon **UPDATED**

I was going to take a break from blogging today.  Actually, I was going to be at work, starting early, and wasn't going to have time for blogging today, but my poor sitter is in the ER after having a bad reaction to a new medication, and so I'm here with my kids, praying that she recovers quickly (and not just for selfish reasons).

Watching the sun turn the clouds pink in a deep blue early morning sky while I drink my coffee, I am chewing over yesterday's plethora of tweets and posts regarding Amazon's listing of a book written by a pedophile that apparently provides "advice" for other pedophiles on having (this really turns my stomach) "better" relationships with their victims and how to avoid being caught.  I say "apparently," because I am not going to read the book to see exactly what the author says, and I am not going to link to the page for the book because I don't wish to drive any more traffic to this guy, and I'm not even linking Amazon here, because I don't feel like sending them any more page hits today.  (They should be sending ME page hits in thanks for all the money I've thrown at them over the years, really.)

However.

This is one of those times where my morals and my convictions have a little tug of war with one another, and right now I'm not certain who is winning.

Background and context, for starters.  I've written about my birthmother and family.  I've actually submitted a piece to Violence Unsilenced that I compiled interjecting my own narrative with chunks of a manuscript that my sister Vicki sent me several years ago.  It is her own story of growing up with a stepfather who is a pedophile. At some point in the future, I hope, that piece will be published.

I have five siblings.  Four living.  I was given up for adoption, the rest of them were raised (using the term very loosely) by my birthmother. My sister was raped by her stepfather for the first time when she was around five years old. 

Here is what happened when she told her mother, in her own words:

She slapped me so hard across the face that I was knocked several feet backwards and fell to the floor.  She screamed at me, that I was a liar and sent me to my room.  I sobbed, hurting from the pain in my bottom and the pain in my heart, knowing that I was going to die.  He was going to kill me.  There was no one to stop him.  So I did what all good Christian girls did:  I prayed to God that I would die in my sleep before morning.

That was the longest night of my life.  Somewhere in the night I fell asleep.  When I woke up, the Monster was smiling down at me once more.  My heart was racing and I knew I was about to die and he just kept smiling.  He puts one hand on either side of my head holding me down by my long brown hair, and smiling the whole time, he said, ‘She didn’t believe you, she never will and if you ever try to tell again I will kill you.’  Then, like nothing ever happened, he walks to the door, opens it, and calmly says, ‘Breakfast is ready when you are.'

I had a younger brother.  I never met him.  He called me once, a few years ago and asked if we could meet. He was just out of prison and was looking for someone to give him a hand in getting back up on his feet. It was the only conversation I ever had with my brother. 

"I wish I could meet you, wish I could offer you some help, but I can't.  I have children."

He went to prison for raping a little girl.  While in prison he contracted HIV.  Look, I'm not stupid.  Statistically, the recidivism rate for men who molest boys is twice as high as for men who molest girls, but those statistics are based on convictions and not the actual number of crimes being committed, and who in hell could know what those statistics are? Who's to say my brother hadn't also molested boys?  And honestly, did it really matter?  I wasn't exposing my children to a convicted pedophile.  Period. 

Two years later, he died of complications from AIDS.  As sad as I feel for never having met my sibling, I still stand by my decision to protect my family.

Remember the incident back in 1993, when Ellie Nesler shot David Driver in the courtroom as he was being tried for raping her son?  She was my hero, then and now.  If anyone and I do mean ANYONE hurt one of my children, it would take more than a legal system to keep me from hurting that person.  I have no doubt whatsoever that I would kill to protect my kids.  As much as I believe in second chances, in following the law, in respecting our legal system, none of that reason could override the animal instinct that raises its head in me when I consider what I would do to someone who hurt my child.  I think I would be capable of just about anything, including violent murder.

So that's where I stand on pedophiles. Reason and logic don't apply.  Look, I know most pedophiles offend because someone hurt them when they were children.  I know they are mentally ill.  AND I DON'T CARE.  My reaction is visceral.  I am being as honest as I can here. 

As a mother, as a human being who believes that the death penalty is a suitable punishment for people who rape children, I want that book GONE.  OFF THE SHELVES.  I don't want to give Amazon another dime of my money so long as they will carry that kind of filth on their website. 

And then there's the other thing.  The part where I believe in the constitution and the right of free speech.  If Amazon can carry a book that teaches people how to make bombs, if I believe that our constitution also protects that kind of speech, then I have to agree that so long as that vile piece of filth that passes for a book contains nothing that falls within the legally defined boundary of child pornography, so long as it contains no evidence of someone actually committing a crime in its pages, so long as it is theory and not practice, then it may be published and sold.  We can't call for it to be burned or banned or torn into little tiny shreds and stomped on with manure-covered jackboots.

Can we?

I don't know.

I'm torn.

I was so proud when Google said they were going to pull out of China because China's policy on free speech was in direct opposition to the company's values and to the principles of democracy and freedom.  So disappointed when they caved in to the almighty dollar.

Should I be proud of Amazon if they take the logical and legal position that free speech is a protected right and that as a seller of books, they take no position on whether a book ought to be listed so long as it doesn't violate the boundaries of the law?

Or should I be proud of Amazon if, after reviewing the situation, decides that they will concede to the majority opinion of their customers (and the weight of the consumer dollar) and pull the book?

You tell me.  What do you think is the right thing for Amazon to do?

 **UPDATE**

Amazon has removed the book from their online catalog.  Good choice.

Two things to add. 

First:  My friend Drew shared a quote with me on FB that is now being added to my favorite quotes list:  “I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking”
~Woodrow T. Wilson

Second:  There is a great discussion going on in the comments over at Adam Avitable's blog about this issues.   Come join in.