Barnmaven

Two steps from success, two from disaster

Life is such a balancing act.

There are periods of time where I am calm, unperturbed, I have everything together.   There are other times when I feel like everything is falling apart and I'm just screwing it all up.  I would be lying if said that I was always more together than not, or that sometimes these barometric changes never occured once or twice within the same day. 

When SG was gone, there were times I really struggled to hold it together.  His prolonged absence and his occasional disgruntled reaction to my letting him know how hard a time I was having triggered my lingering abandonment issues.  I'd have days where I felt like nothing was ever going to be OK again, even when I know better than to think that way.

Now he's home, he's been home for more than a month.  I fall into the trap of being so completely content that I start telling myself that everything will always be this way, always be OK.  And that's a trap I don't need to fall into. 

I suppose there is tipping point between the dramatic rise and fall where I am grateful for all that is going well, I am coping moderately fine with the things that are difficult, and I know and accept that things could be a whole lot better or a whole lot worse, and probably will be some of both before my turn on the carousel pony is over.  I know there are a lot of things I'm able to cope with better than I used to.  There are a lot of things I've given up trying to control and other things I'm still working on letting go of.  There are also, truthfully, many things I know that could stand to be improved.  Some things I'll very likely gain ground on and there others I quite possibly never will address.

I'm challenged at home and at work right now.  Not with the husband, thankfully.  SG is relatively unperturbable, he is fun to hang around with and the needle is staying fairly reliably in the "awesome" segment of the dial.  Thank God for that. 

I've been very fortunate, particularly in the last few years, to report up a chain of command of people I respect and who have been more than willing to mentor me.   Like a lot of people, I've worked for a wide range of managers, some great, some horrid.  I really appreciate a manager who doesn't beat around the bush, who lets you know what you did wrong and then doesn't remind you about it forever, who lets you know when you've done well, and who gives you good advice with the sincere intention of helping you to be successful in your environment.  I have rarely worked in a place where I had the level of trust in my manager and my manager's manager that I do currently.  I'm pretty damn grateful for my job and my company.  It helps that I really love what I do.  I have mentors and I have some great role models.

But like every work environment, things can change.  No, let me rephrase that:  things WILL change.  No company or culture or group or individual can stay the same forever.  As we move forward with some big projects looking to grow our business, I know my little corner of the world will change.  I need to seek the opportunities that change provides, accept that change will come, and find ways to support my people in ways that help them succeed in an environment that requires flexibility and ingenuity.  We need to continually find ways to do things better, and sometimes that means blowing it up and turning it into something completely new.  I don't think I can be a good manager if I don't find ways to keep the moments of "OHMAHGAH I'M SO STRESSED OUT TODAY" from taking over my frontal lobe.  You can't have much order and serenity inside your organization if your leadership is falling apart.

It feels like a big responsibility.

On the home front, I've made a friend recently who is a wonderful, if somewhat exhausting person.  She's boarding her horse with me, and because of her circumstances, we are bartering some property improvements and chores for the feeding and provisioning for her lovely little horse. 

Did I mention that my ex and I rarely had people over?

Well, we pretty much didn't.  Like EVER.  And of course I've mentioned that since we split up I opened my doors a little more often, but to those of you who truly enjoy entertaining I probably still look like a complete hermit.  Then I met SG, and we've had friends and family over more often than I've been used to, but I like it. And it wasn't overwhelming, but it also wasn't every day.  Now I've got someone who is coming by almost every day and interacting with us, and I'm not saying its bad, because its not -- its just a big change for someone who is used to being able to walk around half undressed most of the time.  And there are many positives -- my daughter is getting riding lessons from someone who is much more patient with her than I.  Things I need to get to and don't ever have the time to do are starting to get done.  My old horse is getting some exercise.   I've made a new friend who is kind and funny and unique.

I can wish for my little pond to always look the same, every day, but the wise little voice inside me says that stagnant water pretty quickly fills up with green slimy things.  You need a system of flush and intake to keep the water clear and potable.  So it is with my house and my life.  Change is inevitable, and change is not necessarily bad. 

Still, about once a day, I find myself starting to pace and talk to myself.  Less frequently, thankfully, I get the sensation that I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to step off, and I don't know the first thing about how to put on a parachute so I have no idea if I'm going to hit the air floating or go splat!

Inner peace, baby.  I"m working on that.

 

So sensitive

I think of the bloggers I follow as friends.  Some of them know that, and perhaps feel the same way about me.  Some don't.  I feel they are friends because I have shared in their lives through the medium of their words and in them I have recognized myself. 

But sometimes I don't understand their sensitivity to the slightest insult. 

Perhaps my experience as a blogger doesn't lend to understanding.  It helps to have a small audience.

It helps to not be (s0) sensitive (anymore, after years of therapy and, one must say, getting old).

It helps that in almost five years of blogging I have probably only had one truly negative comment on this blog and one or two on posts elsewhere.

Even so.  I've had negative comments in other places that mattered way more than this space.  At work.  From friends or in organizations I belong to.  I'm no stranger to hearing really remarkable things being said about me - some true, some not.  Some nice, some ugly.  Whatever.

I don't care if you want to criticize me.  It's fine.  Go ahead.  I can take it.  If I weren't prepared to be disagreed with I wouldn't be putting my words on the internet for the world to view.  Offering opinion invites scrutiny.  Invites differing opinions.  Invites others to be amused, outraged, insulted, offended, enraged. (With any luck, not so much of the enraged. One hopes.)

Rarely am I critical of other bloggers, at least publicly.  I tend to be a supportive person, and I think that life's challenges for other people are for them to work out.  I think most people know what they really need to do to solve their problems, and the best way I know to help them is to just let them know I care.  I might have my own opinions about why they're in the pickle they're in, but personally I don't know that its helpful to share those opinions.  Besides, unless I know the person intimately, there are details of their particular situation that are invisible and unknowable to me.  That's the point where sharing an uninformed opinion might just make me an asshole. 

But just because someone's being an asshole doesn't make them a troll.

Very rarely will I leave a negative comment on another's personal blog, with the notable exception of Penelope Trunk, who absolutely makes me want to weep in frustration.  Other than that, mostly I believe I'm benign.  But I believe very firmly in the value of the critic. 

Insulting for the sake of insult is childish.  Taking umbrage or offering a different opinion is something different.  Perhaps others don't dialogue the way one would like them to, always, but the opinion that is offered is nonetheless often quite legitimate. 

 My sincerest advice to any blogger ( or friend on facebook or person on Twitter or coworker or RL person I love) is to let the voices of the angry horde blow by you like so much dust in the wind.  Listen to your own heart.  Do what you think is right.  It might not be right for me, it might be a bad choice that you make, but you have the right to make it and you have the right to ignore all advice to the contrary.  This is, though, only a first step.  Learning to put your life out there for the world to comment on means starting at step one:  Let it go. 

You could stay there forever at step one, learning to let what others think mean just what it does.  Staying at the first step is an option, certainly.  There's another place to grow, though, if you're up to it.  If you are secure enough to handle a little criticism, hear what is offered.  Receive it from a different place than one of defensiveness.  Listen to criticism with ears that are not  emotionally engaged.  Sometimes the simple act of doing this will grant you the ability to garner insight out of what you might have one time dismissed.  You don't have to take everything to heart, you don't have to take anything to heart. But don't be afraid to sift through it.  Dismiss what doesn't resonate, accept what might be worth digging in to a little deeper.  Do it without apology, without anger, without judgment.  Without EGO.

I appreciate the sense of community that being online offers.  I have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude to so many bloggers who have made me laugh, made me cry, made me think, made me mad.  Every interaction I've had has helped me to know myself better, helped me to grow.

But I think many times some of us fail to make the distinction between those that are critical of us and those that only wish to make us be quiet or be hurtful.  I think it is too easy to lump all negative commentary into one big cooking pot and label it "troll soup."

Yes, there are those that simply leave nasty words because for whatever reason at the time they wrote them, they felt joy in being destructive.  So what?  Unless they're threatening you bodily harm, their words mean nothing.  Hell, when I wrote the piece a couple of years ago about my daughter punching a boy  in the junk, the secondary syndication of that post on a nationally read platform actually had one commenter suggesting readers look me up via my BlogHer profile and pay me a visit.  (You bet, pal, I welcome you into my yard, so long as you're fine with really big dogs and if you don't mind the police officer who lives across the street may wish to handcuff you if you get out of hand.)  That kind of crap is out of line.  But whatever.  Someone calling me a jerk or a bitch or saying I'm a terrible parent or a terrible human being?  Those are just words.  Those words don't carry any more power than I lend them.  The ability to cope with the virulence of others, the responsibility to cope with the opinions of others , lies not with others.  It belongs to me.

Those who put their words in the court of public opinion have known this truth for as long as the written word has existed.  People will never as a whole respond to my words in the manner I hope they will.  I can deal with that.

I don't have to be angry with people because their opinions of me or my writing aren't what I hoped they would be.  Neither do you. 

Harder than it looks on film

I love how in the movies a character, usually portrayed by someone who looks a whole lot better than I do in blue jeans, will experience a transformative moment, immediately understand the whole point and the lesson in one fell swoop, and then BOOM!  Off she goes to live happily ever after.  More likely than not this is how she will cope with every new learning experience forever. 

OK, sometimes we'll see a character who takes the entire damn movie to learn the lesson, but what I never ever see is the character who learns it, forgets it, learns it some more, backslides, remembers, and continues to do this same tango forever ad nauseum.

Why is that?  Am I just doing it wrong?  Or are the people on the screen portraying something so patently un-doable that lamenting my inability to do the same is a pointless exercise?

Yesterday I wrote a completely tongue-in-cheek sarcasm-ridden paean to my ex.  No, it didn't go live.  Nor should it ever see the light of day.  But god DAMN it felt good to write it. 

It felt commensurately HORRIBLE to read it and understand how far I have failed to progress in my self-stated quest toward elightenment and compassion.

I continue to presume that I understand the reasons why people do things that affect me.  Good or bad, I assume intent.  Maybe sometimes I'm right, but how would I KNOW that?   Its not like I ask for confirmation or anything.  "Do you refuse to actually speak with me on the phone because you prefer parenting via text messages?"  And see, I'm still kicking around in the shallow puddles of hostility.

It still hurts, though.  I want to be better at this coparenting while divorced gig, and the truth is, the whole thing pretty much sucks ass right now.  My ex lately communicates solely via texts on the cell phone.   He still has yet to acknowledge the existence of SG.  On the rare occasion when he's had to be within the same vicinity as my husband, his main tactic is to simply avoid looking directly at him.  Is this because he hopes it will make him ACTUALLY disappear?  I have no idea.  And I assume intent. We speak on the phone and he speaks in monsyllabic monotone, and the writing on the wall screams "I DON'T WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU."

How do you parent your kids with someone who you've never been able to truly discuss problems with? 

I don't have the answers.  And I'm not really pleased with the way I'm reacting to things.  I don't feel I've grown very much as a person.  That bothers me.  I recognize so many times that I've ignored the high road, done and said things I take no pride in, wanted to continue to spread the pain around rather than let the healing begin.  I still seem to take an unreasonable amount of time wanting another person to be other than they are, which is a bloody useless effort.

If I had any balls at all, I'd calmly set some boundaries and leave him to respect them or not respect them.  If I gave some decent thought to what everyone's going through, I'd acknowledge that there might be a lot of reasons he's doing the things he does that have nothing to do with the motives I've so handily ascribed to him.  Maybe he's in pain.  Maybe his job is stressful.  Maybe he's having relationship problems.  Maybe the autism diagnosis is hard for him to wrap his head around.  Maybe a lot of things -- maybe none of them.  But the point I keep forgetting is that it isn't at all about WHAT HE IS THINKING.  It is a thousand percent about how I'm reacting. 

Maybe this is how the process of personal growth really goes.  Maybe I'm supposed to figure these things out one painful step at a time and everytime I think I have a grasp on something I'm supposed to then get complacent and lose sight of things. 

Maybe.  Or maybe I AM just doing it all wrong.

 

 

 

Shaming and blaming

In respect to the issue that prompted my last post:

I directly approached someone who crossed a personal boundary and asked them to be more considerate in the future.

I received a response in which I was told that they would, but that I should "lighten up."

I'm sorry, did you hear me giggle?  I giggled.  And I politely responded:  "You don't get to set my boundaries for me.  Thank you for [doing what I asked.]

See, here's the thing.  I get to decide what I will put up with and what I won't.  I certainly can't force other people to respect my boundaries, nor would I want to.  But no one can decide for me what those boundaries are.  I'm old enough and wise enough to be able to determine what is acceptable to me and what is not.   Its not as if I'm going to punish someone for crossing lines, that's not my job.  There's no implicit threat of retaliation.  Its a simple request:  Please don't do that in the future because I find it unacceptable.  The offender is free to continue to offend or not; that's really irrelevant to me.  I've called them out on something and I'll continue to do so if its warranted.  By the same token, I'm perfectly happy to let bygones be bygones and treat others with the same respect I expect them to give to me.

I didn't used to be good at boundaries.  I was married for almost ten years to someone who pooh-poohed my boundaries around a couple of issues.  No matter how I tried to explain that I was really uncomfortable with these issues, all I got in response was "you're being silly."  "It's really not that bad."  "You don't understand."  I got shamed, blamed, and for a long time I tried to ignore what my heart and my mind told me for the sake of keeping peace.  It sucked ASS.  It hurt me.  It hurt our relationship. 

I know better now.

When my heart and my mind tell me something is not okay, I'm going to sit down with that feeling and examine it.  I'm either going to understand why situation x is not okay with me, or I'm going to resolve my feelings around it so that it doesn't cause me a terrible amount of angst.  I'm willing to consider that I might overreact to some things based on my personal experience and history, but I'm also fully capable of understanding and verbalizing what things are not acceptable to me. 

I frankly don't give two shits if you think I'm being silly or if you feel compelled to tell me to "lighten up."  You don't get to set my boundaries for me.  I'm old enough, wise enough and comfortable enough in my own skin to determine what passes for acceptable treatment of me and my family.  If you cross a line, don't waste your breath trying to shame me for your trespass.  I don't play that game and neither should you.

The End. Period.

It may surprise some of you (especially those of you who are friends on Facebook) to know that technically I am not yet divorced.  My ex moved out well over two years ago, but we didn't actually begin divorce proceedings until August of this year.  I don't know why we waited so long, but when I look back at the patterns in my life I note a definite tendency to postpone the inevitable, so I guess I'm just being true to form.   I will rip off a bandaid, jump into cold water, endure the artist's needle, but I will not lend myself readily to painful emotional change. 

The not-quite-yet-divorced status should, if all goes as expected, change tomorrow.  The final paperwork has been signed by my ex, his attorney, my attorney, and myself.  The hearing is scheduled for 8:30 AM (which really means all the lawyers will be in court at 8:30 AM, there will be check-ins for those doing status conferences and eventually the lawyers who have motions to be signed will line up for their turn, then the status conferences will take place and THEN motions that need to be heard will be considered and hopefully they get done sometime before armageddon.  I suspect this is why attorneys charge so much money, its recompense for the stab-yourself-in-the-eye boredom they go through in court every week). 

The final death throes of the marriage took place over a number of years for a number of reasons.  Tomorrow will be the final, gasping breath of the brontosaurus shuddering on the carpet of the rainforest floor.

 

I don't know if I ever really believed that marriage was forever.  I know that I hoped it was.  I don't think there are many people that enter into a relationship commitment planning for its eventual demise, though we all have to realize that its a possibility. 

I am looking forward to settling into a different phase of my relationship with my ex.  I think that now  that we are no longer debating over exactly how to split hairs and then assign ownerhip to halves of hairs that the bulk of the discomfort will be over.  Worrying about what would happen and who would get what if we didn't agree was a soul-consuming experience.  As much as I am trying to learn to lean back and worry more about the ride than the destination, I'm still human and still reacting to my fear more than I would like.  I've struggled with anger and hurt and jealousy.  I've had to learn how to walk away without voicing upsets or concerns that aren't capable of being resolved.  I've learned to let my feelings be felt with the explicit understanding that there isn't a happy-ever-after, there's no reward or prize or mountain summit, just a continuation of life that will undoubtedly serve up fresh suffering after some time passes. 

Falling in love and beginning a new relationship didn't really alleviate those feelings.  It just allowed me to ignore them for longer periods of time.  Ultimately, though, I've got to acknowledge them and allow them to work their way through.  If I don't, they'll just keep causing me pain and there's no reason at all to let that linger longer than it needs to. 

After tomorrow, my ex and I will no longer be husband and wife.  We'll be coparents.  We'll be once-lovers.  People who walked a path together, side by side for a time, and who will continue to parallel one another to a small extent because of our mutual ties to our progeny. 

As our children become adults, I hope that they will be able to comprehend that relationships are complicated and fragile.  I hope that they can understand - and more importantly believe  - that a divorce was never something we envisioned for our family until we actually reached the point where it happened. 

I hope they will learn that when you're an adult living in a world you are coping with your past and your present in ways that often do not make sense.  That unless you give your relationship the time and energy - and compassion - that it requires, it will not thrive.   That once you stop communicating you begin sliding down a hill that only grows steeper the farther down it you travel.

I hope that they will be able to recognize that in the end we both made some hard choices in order to preserve our sanity, healthy, and dignity, and more than anything, I hope that they will forgive us for the impact those choices had on them.

I hope very much that they will be able to see their parent's divorce not as an altogether negative experience.    Divorce is painful, but at the same time, my failed marriage gave me a gift.  Through it I found impetus for growth and change, seeking new ways of interacting with others, with myself, with the world I inhabit.   

The impermanence of things in life offer us gifts.  Tomorrow marks the end of one thing, but offers a new threshold to cross.  

 

A light so bright it hurts my eyes

In the noise and chaos of dealing with too many balls in the air, I'm not overburdened with opportunities to think.  Between the kids, work and animals, usually any chance that I might slow down and string two coherent thoughts together about how I feel and where am I going in life are interrupted because a ball or two is about to go SPLAT!  Quick, catch the ball!  What was I thinking about?  I forgot. 

Suddenly Sunday night arrives and the kids are off to their dad's.  I'll see them after school four out of the next five days, which helps, but its evening, and then its morning, and holy crap, its dark out.  Fall arrived and I was so busy avoiding thinking about it that it I almost didn't notice it happening.  Lets just say now would not be a good time to run out of Wellbutrin. 

I have reason to believe that this winter will be better than last winter, which was better than the winter before.  That two-year-old winter, just post-separation, was fucking brutal.  The kids were fighting our family's circumstances with every fiber of their beings, I was facing nights where my kids were not with me and I had not yet done the work I needed to do to accept that pain as a part of my life.  It was dark, I was alone, and even though I was finally free of living within an angry and shattered marriage, I was not used to being alone.  I made it through, by the skin of my teeth it seemed sometimes, and by the time the next winter came around, I was doing better.  I was making progess in my personal psychological and spiritual practice.  I was finally comfortable with being alone, with periods of quiet contemplation.  I had things to do and friends to enjoy when I needed some time around other people.  I met SG, and for the most part, the rest of the winter seemed effortless.  I was happy, mostly.  The depression was there, of course, it always is, but it crouched inside its little mouse-hole, barely poking its nose out to sniff the air.  Occasionally it would skitter across the floor, only to be vaporized into black smoke by the shining bright light of my happiness.

This year things are somewhat different.  I'm with someone, and yet I'm alone.  It's hard, its a struggle, and let me tell you that every minor relationship issue feels greatly exacerbated when you can't see the other person's face when you're hashing things out.  So its both OK and not OK at the same time - and right there I am reminded of the twofold nature that I try so hard to embrace.  Life includes both joy and pain, and so this is just a natural part of being human. 

The other thing that changed is that my ex and I changed our parenting schedule.  We went to every other week, a situation I wasn't entirely happy with but agreed to because it was pitched so reasonably.  I have a friend that's a judge.  He says most parenting plans are like this and they don't like complicated parenting plans when you go to court.  And really, it makes more sense to limit that number of transitions they have to deal with, especially with our mixed bag of mental health issues.  It took a while, though, before I realized the real reason for it.  (When I figured out that our parenting schedule matches his girlfriend's parenting schedule and they are both surprise! kid-free on the same weeks, I had to draw a little +1 in his column in the imaginary scorecard I keep in my head.  Touche.  Nicely played.  Asshole.)  So before, the last the longest my kids slept somewhere other than my house was two nights in a row.  Its not all that bad, considering.  On the weeks they are with their dad I still pick them up after school until he gets off work.  I still get to be involved in dinner and homework and all the chaos and noise four evenings on the off week.  It helps tremendously.

Sunday afternoons are special.  I savor those last few hours with them, even if we're doing mundane things.  Yesterday we went up to Michelle's and spent horse time.  The drive is a little over a half hour. 

As we drove home, the light was beginning to thin.  My daughter laid her head on my shoulder, and grabbed my free arm to wrap it around my shoulders.  I hugged her, ruffled her hair, touched her soft cheek with my fingers. 

There are moments in time when loving my kids is both the sweetest and most painful thing imaginable.  I am awestruck once again by how incredibly fortunate I am to have these mysterious and quicksilver beings in my life.  I love them completely and without limit, and I know that our time is precious because it will too soon be less available.  They are with me for but a brief span of their lives, and they will drift further and further away from me as they learn how to be independent people.  They will still be mine, in my heart of hearts, but more than that, they are their own.  So I hold my daughter's hand in the car for as long as she will let me, squeezing it gently, savoring the sensation of her fingers entwined and our palms - hers soft and warm, mine calloused and hard - pressing together.

These are the moments I pull from my memory banks to hang on to when the night is dark.  They are the bright light that chases away the shadow. 

This winter will be better.

Both Hands

In my yoga practice I've been working on some hip opening poses.  I've got really inflexible hips, and creating more strength and flexibility does wonders for being a balanced rider on my horse.  In Pigeon Pose you go from a runner's stretch to having one knee bent near the palm of your hand, the foot and ankle flat and angled toward your other hand.  Then you lean forward and place your hands flat on the foor and allow your body weight to sink on top of that stretching hip flexor.  (Well, if you're me, you try to lay flat and you hope that someday, maybe years down the road, you might actually be able to do it all the way properly)  This morning as I folded forward on my bent leg and hip, even as I felt the discomfort of a tight ligament that was struggling hard to stretch, I simultaneously enjoyed the sensation of breath, of quiet, of relaxing every muscle in my face and neck. It was a moment of pure sensation, both pleasure and pain. 

I don't think its all counterintuitive that this discomfort, over time, creates great healing for my physical and emotional self.

I can't think of any time in my life prior to this when I wouldn't have spent the weeks leading up to SG's departures in a state of gloom and dread.  That's just what I used to do, I'd have imagined the worst, dwelt on how miserable and lonely I was going to be, and I would have hunkered right down into a cold, deep bucket of miserable.

I don't think I'm in denial.  I expect that the first couple of days after he leaves are going to be tough emotionally, and I'm sure there will be times when I will get to missing him terribly and it will hurt.  But I'm not afraid of it and I'm not dwelling on it. 

It occured to me this morning as I was brushing my teeth that we have just over a week left, and while I had a pang of sadness about it, I was also thinking about what a lovely weekend we've just had.  The sad feeling passed, more quickly than you might guess.  I have become a stranger to myself, but in such amazing ways.  I have experienced a transformation and while I can't pin it on any one thing in particular, I have some thoughts about what's led me here. 

I'm a parent of kids with special needs.  Being the mother of these two amazing human beings has taught me a lot about patience, about accepting that I don't have the answers right now, about being in the moment, about realizing that normal is really just a word that describes everyday chaos.

I'm reading David Richo's book The Five Things We Cannot Change and he talks about holding our opposites in a two-handed practice:  "I can hold my fear in one hand and my commitment to no longer act in a fear-based way in the other." 

Fear in one hand.

Serenity in the other.

One feels incredibly sharp, heavy.  The other light, no more than the exhalation of a deep breath.

Of course there are still things that hurt, that frighten me.  I honor the fear and allow myself to feel the grief of struggling with the bad days when the rages come and the medicine gets thrown back at me, and at the same time I enjoy to the fullest that sweet kiss on my cheek my son gives me at night and the feeling I get in my very center when my daughter smiles at me and her face is completely bathed in light and beauty.

In one hand, my sadness at saying goodbye to SG until possibly spring, in the other the contentment of time spent together, making music and talking about everything and nothing, reading, working.

It requires acceptance and surrender, and while I've lived a lot of years being skilled at neither, I am capable of learning to do both.    My children have disorders that make life for them and for all of us very challenging.  I can't change that.  Fighting it does no service to my kids.  Only when I accept it, when I say "yes" to it, can I do the things that can be done. 

Most of the parents I know who have children with special needs carry within them this same mixture of agony and hopefulness, anger and joy, fear and optimism.  Sometimes the balance tips one way or another, but we achieve a modicum of peace by acknowledging that this is hard while celebrating the everyday beauty, the successes small and large, the moments where things go well. 

Can you hold onto your challenges and your optimism with both hands?  Try it.  I bet you can.

Promises, promises

  

 

I'm an utter fool for romantic songs.   The few who are persistent enough to push past my hard, crusty shell will find that I am a completely sensitive and hopelessly romantic marshmallow.  Lately, though, my romanticism is being challenged by my determination to end my old codependent ways, and its turning out to be something of a drag on my love-song addiction.

Have you heard the song Marry Me by Train?  The song where the guy falls in love with a girl in a cafe and envisions their whole life together?  There's this part where the singer says Promise me you'll always be happy by my side and then I promise to sing to you when all the music dies.  And as I contemplate what it really means to love another human being in the kind of way that causes you to plan a life together, I realize that even though I love this song, even though I love its romantic implications, even so, those words are utter bullshit.

Who can promise to always be happy with their partner?  Happiness is a wandering set of goalposts.  If your happiness is dependent on your partner always remaining exactly the way they are today, on the circumstances of your life being just like they are now or reaching some future planned out goal, I think you will likely be disappointed.  I can't promise to always be happy.  I know that I feel happy when I'm with SG - at least most of the time.  Sometimes I'm not happy one little bit, but it usually has nothing do with him and a whole lot to do with me or with something that's gone sour. 

I love Khalil Gibran, particularly The Prophet.   I've quoted him before, and I will probably do it again in the future because he is wise.   I love what he expresses about the nature of relationships between adults:

But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.  Give one another bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.  For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, but not yet too near together.  For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I forgot before, if I ever really knew it, that my ex and I were not the same person.  I forgot that even if he did not like something I was allowed to like it.  I forgot that even if I really wanted to go to a certain place for vacation that didn't mean that he wanted to go there too.  I forgot that the life plans I laid in my head for the both of us weren't necessarily the ones that he had for us, and because we didn't really share them with each other, we were both doomed to disappointment.    After a while, when you expect the person you're with to be just like you, to be the one to fix what's broken within you, the reality that they are not and they can't grows bitter in the back of your throat.

And let's be honest.  Even if we love each other deeply and honestly and we have a wonderful relationship, there's no guarantee.  He might leave me someday.  He probably won't, but he might.  You can't make someone stay and you can't make someone love you the way you want to be loved. 

So what are we left to do?

I hope love will be forever.  I am not going to avoid love just because it could end someday.  I am going to choose wisely and I am going to check my expectations.  I'm not going to make promises I can't keep and I'm not going to ask my partner to make them either.  I'm going to accept the love he has for me at face value and I'm going to trust him.  I'm going to accept him as he is.  I'm going to appreciate him for who he is and for the loving things he does for me.  I'm going to value his opinion and respect his experience.  I'm going to be as loving to him as I am able because he deserves to treated with love.  I'm going to keep in mind that both of us are human and fallible and that it is too much to expect us to always have good days, always be at our best.  When I fail to be loving and he grants me the room to be crabby and then forgives me for the way I might speak to him then, I am going to be damn grateful. 

At least I'm going to try very hard to do that, but you know I can't promise.

 

We are who we are.  We don't need permission, but we do need acceptance.  We need someone who will forgive us our bad behavior but who will let us know when we have stepped on their feet.  We need someone who will see us when our dignity is shredded and walk beside us until we have regained our composure.  Love without boundaries, limits or control.   Promises are not love and love does not require promises to stay alive in our hearts.

Six

Months, that is.

S and I have been seeing each other about six months now.

For the first time in my life I'm not sweating the "next step."  I'm not worried about WHEN we'll live together, IF he'll want to marry me, WHETHER he thinks I'm too fat, too thin or too old.  I'm happy in this moment, happy with where we are and who we are together, and if it all ends tomorrow, I'll survive and look back on these months as a wonderful time of being in love, learning about myself and enjoying the company of someone I like and respect tremendously. 

There's also an incredible amount of chemistry, but I don't want to make the rest of you feel bad, so I'll not brag.

We don't even fight.

Well, we had one fight.

Okay, so maybe HE wasn't fighting, but I was certainly giving it my best shot.

I'd had this really horrible day at work.  I was mean and crabby and just looking for a reason to put my fists up in the air.  He was trying to explain a concept to me based on what he thought was a question I asked (it wasn't a question, I was BITCHING about something, how DARE you think that was a question, mister) and I just lost my shit.  I started crying, told him to stop patronizing me and if I remember correctly, I think I hung up on him.

I went into my standard "I don't want to talk about it, I'm going to be mad at you all night but I don't want to talk about it" mode.  You know, the thing where you give him the cold shoulder, expect him to try and make it up to you for whatever mysterious thing he did wrong, sigh a lot and say "I'm FINE" in that terribly terse tone of voice when asked "Are you OK?"

He put up with about 20 minutes of it and then carefully unfolded himself from the couch, put on his coat, and said "Look, this is uncomfortable for me and I don't think staying here is going to do either of us any good.  I'm going to go home and we can pick this back up tomorrow."

OH MY GOD.

What I love about being horridly codependent is that I don't hear what he's saying.  I don't hear "Hey, I like myself and I won't sit here and be treated badly by you.  I like you, and I think you need space to work through whatever it is that's bothering you.  Since you don't seem to want to talk about it, I'm going to go somewhere else until you feel better."  I don't hear any of that.  My codie brain hears "I hate you and I never want to see you again."

It was not a good night for me, certainly not one of my best.  Maybe not one of my worst, but definitely not one of my best.  And fortunately, for this relationship, it has not happened again.  I learned something from that night.  I learned that you don't have to try and carry on a conversation that isn't going to get you anywhere.  I saw and heard someone respect themselves so much that they very politely declined to be treated badly by someone else, and even if I didn't recognize it at the time, I remembered it and I learned from it.  I looked at my own behavior and I saw something I didn't like, something I wanted to change. 

The next day, and the following days, I also was treated to the solidity of a person who DID come back, who DID pick up the conversation, lovingly and without animosity.  

I learn a lot from this man, about knowing yourself, about how to be loving to yourself and to others, about how to voice your needs without being overbearing or pushy.

All that aside, I am also incredibly happy, incredibly loved and in love.  I am with someone whose company I enjoy to a degree that is ridiculous.  Whether we are out with others, home watching a movie, discussing something deep or laughing about something silly, I like being around him.  I like how he patiently listens to my kids and doesn't get his feathers ruffled by their issues.  I have no idea how long this will last.  I hope its forever.

So anyway, six months.

That's something.

Fluid

Its so easy when things are good to think "they'll always be this way."  When they're bad, sometimes we think the same, though the more optimistic among us may think "it will get better."  All I know is, enjoy where you are because somewhere along the line, something will change the equation.

I've probably said this same thing in about twenty different ways on this blog.  Its one of those essential truths that I keep turning around to find myself facing.  Change. Fluidity.  Nothing stays the same.

I want to believe that all change is good.  That even when things happen that seem unfortunate or even devastating, that eventually some good will come from them anyway.  I suppose that's true, in a way.   You run into a brick wall in life, you smash yourself against it a few times.  The bad part is you now have a big gash in the front of your forehead from repeated contact with brick and mortar; the good part is that eventually you recognize that your forehead hurts and you look for a different direction to go.  At some point you will find a direction that takes you somewhere useful.

I have reached a point lately where I understand that everything that has happened in my life in the last twenty-odd years has pointed me in this direction and that this is where I'm supposed to be.  Near my parents.  With this man.  On this horse.  With these kids.  At this job.  In this house. None of it is permanent, I know better than to expect that.  But right now, in this moment, I'm here.  And it feels right.

This man, I wish I'd met him a long time ago.  But would I have been in a place then where I could have appreciated what he brought to my life?  Would he have been in a place where he would have even seen in me the woman that attracts him today?  Perhaps not.  So its fun to imagine, but ultimately I think its even more fun to let go of the past and imagine the future.

There are challenges.  There are always challenges, and frankly the last couple of weeks have been up to the eyeballs with them.   Even so, the challenges themselves seem to be telling me "yes, this direction.  Without regret."

Its easy to look at other people and see what's wrong with them.  See the things they ought to change. 

You know what's even harder? 

Look at yourself.  Look at what's wrong with you.  See the things YOU ought to change.

Even harder than that?

Look at the person you have been judging.  Forget what you think they ought to change.  Accept them as they are.  Love them as a person, even if they're not particularly loving toward you. 

I know what my challenges are.  I know I'm learning what I'm supposed to be.  I know I'm where I'm supposed to be.

Its all good.