How Much??

I'm trying to talk less and observe more, and also hide less and be out around people more. I've joined a couple social groups and let me tell you, it is one of the least pleasant feelings ever to step out of my comfort zone (books and coffee by myself, thanks) and be open to new possibilities (actually talking to another sentient being *gasp*).  There've been some hilarious moments and several uncomfortable moments and yet…I went again this morning and it was kind of…awesome, actually. Conversation flowed with several different people, contact info was exchanged, friendships continue to grow. It was almost like being a real live adult person.

Anyone who knows me as more than words on a screen knows that this is huge for me. I have wrestled for a long time with self-esteem issues and fears. I struggle with the direction my life has taken, since it is definitely not the direction that was on the agenda. Getting out of my house and meeting people and making friends has felt like the most impossibly uncomfortable awful terrible no-good idea ever. I spent a long time cultivating this very self-reliant, independent, I-don't-need-people (so there, Fanny Brice) persona, which as has already been discussed was a big fat mistake. Knowing that in my head and actually working towards fixing it is the gap I've been working on bridging.

I think most people shy away from prolonged introspection. I'm not talking about an egotistical self-focus - I mean a serious investigation of the whys and wherefores of one's behaviors and motivations and underlying beliefs and all the little hidden pieces that compose the total picture we present to the world. I want to put the very best spin on my situation as possible, and I know I'm not alone. Almost every conversation about past relationships (friendships, marriages, any kind of relationship) tends to focus on why the other person fell short and not so much on the brokenness contributed by the speaker. Everyone's ex-whatever is crazy/selfish/unpredictable/narcissistic/etc…it's rare to hear anything remotely resembling, "I wasn't what he or she needed/I failed/I messed up."

If knowledge is power, then self-knowledge is mostly powerfully painful. The price one ends up paying to gain said painful self-knowledge is always high. It almost always comes as a result of a mistake, a failure, a broken relationship, a lapse in judgement, a standard not met. An even higher price is paid when I ignore the lessons that these shortcomings reveal. If I remain clueless, if I approach every breakdown with a shrug and a tendency to assign blame elsewhere, I run the risk of assessing too high a price against another's patience or goodwill or personhood. So while my human nature winces at the price tag attached to becoming a better person, the price for continued ignorance is too steep and bears no resemblance to the mythical "bliss" of not knowing those unavoidable truths behind my facade.

Man, this "being an adult" stuff is hard. I'm feeling a retreat to the blanket fort and crayons coming on…

New Swear Word

I have a, shall we say, "relationship" with words. I bend them to my will…I can obfuscate with the best of them…I like the way some sound (Reykjavik)…I've been accused of using $100 words when $1 words would suffice…I've been known to invent new ones (in two languages no less)…and I have a tendency to declare certain, emmmm, undesirable words as "new swear words in my country".

You'll see the irony by the time you finish reading...

So, what denigrates a word to the new swear word list, you ask? It's usually based on certain annoying qualities that said word possesses or implies. For example: patience. That is about the foulest word that comes to mind right now. I do not have, nor do I wish to experience the process leading to, patience. We hates it forever!

Tonight, however, I came into contact with a word that gives patience a positively angelic connotation. Tonight I went to church (grumble!)…tonight the topic was *gulp* forgiveness.

*crickets*

I know, I can't believe I said it either. I hope this gets censored - somebody ought to blow the whistle, I mean, this is a family show (maybe, I don't know. I'm just talking, I have no idea who's listening). I'm being facetious but let's just put it this way…this word, this forgiveness makes me very uncomfortable.

The thing is, it was explained very very well tonight. It was elucidated, enunciated, exposited, eruditely encompassed (enough!). The speaker wasn't the most polished, but I tend to be suspicious of polished preachers anyhow (right, I know, I'm currently suspicious of almost all preachers, but this guy at least compelled me to listen, so full marks). He explained the concept so clearly I was fidgety and wondering if someone had informed him that I was there (I know it's not all about me but you know the feeling when someone's ringing your bell).

This is a hard word. This is a word that makes me cringe. This word shocks my self-righteous sensibility and challenges my worldview. This word…the power of words is almost incomprehensible…sticks and stones got nothin' on a well-placed, well-timed word. This word makes me re-evaluate…inspect…examine…consider…and I don't like what I see.

Forgiveness is not about the other person. It's not an excuse for mistreatment. It's not a glossing-over of brokenness. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card for habitual offenders. It's not giving permission for a sequel. It's not condoning another person's misbehavior. All of that sounds ok. I can handle that.

But then what is it, if it's none of those things? What about it makes it so hard to swallow? It's about not demanding repayment of a smaller debt than the one which I no longer bear. It's about putting down the poison I am prepared to drink in hopes that the other person will die. It's about letting myself out of the jail I construct and reinforce every time I mark another offense against me. It's about making sure that what I bring to the table is the best I can bring, and it's about not taking unwarranted responsibility for someone else's actions. It's about letting myself breathe freely rather than suffocating in my own discontent. All of this sounds hard.

So yeah, it totally deserves swear word status. It's a shocking, uncomfortable, messy word. It implies painful introspection and deliberate movement towards something different. It involves leaving behind the supposed comfort of a painstakingly constructed bomb shelter and facing a brave new world free from the danger of self-imposed solitary confinement. It involves change, a word that factors heavily on most people's swear word list.

I'm not a fan! And this conversation (unfortunately) is not over.

I Want To See You Be Brave

I spent a lot of time being good - the good girl, the good daughter, the good student. I tried to follow the rules, at least on the outside (but I was standing up on the inside!!). I felt a lot of pressure to be perfect ever since I can remember. I don't know how that started or where it came from, but it was a constant companion, the elevator music in the background for much of my life. It turned into a very delicately balanced house of cards, something that looked ok but was fooling no one - anyone could see that it was just a matter of time before gravity and other principles of physics proved that a house put together with air and leaning doesn't last.

When my house of cards came crashing down, I might have been the most surprised of anyone. I wasn't surprised that there was no substance there - I knew it was all air and leaning. But I thought I had disguised it fairly well. I also thought that it would surprise more people (to date, absolutely no one has been shocked by the way it all turned out. Interesting...). I immediately felt bereft - what did I have left if not the pursuit of perfection?

I've spent some time getting to know me again - not the trying-desperately-to-be-perfect poser, but me. I didn't think there was anything under the polished veneer, actually. I had started to wonder if it was all just smoke and mirrors. My self-confidence, which was never really all that strong to begin with, was completely drained by losing my career and my marriage and all that I thought was as important to my life as oxygen.

Recently a theme has been appearing in my conversations with different people. If it was just one person, I could totally roll my eyes and blow raspberries and generally ignore him or her. But it's people who don't even know each other, all talking to me, telling me that I just need to be more confident, to believe in myself more, to let people see me, that it's ok if people know I'm smart or funny or know what I'm doing at work.  Just tonight a friend asked why I was being so negative about myself - I had been going for the self-deprecating humor approach but apparently the ugly truth showed through the stupid winky emoticon.

I could totally take a Barney Stinson approach and declare myself awesome…but it would be another case of smoke and mirrors (just like his legen-wait for it-dary proclamation). Instead I have moments where I think I might have the potential to allegedly be a little bit awesome. And based on my life experiences, for me, that's huge.

I struggle with even thinking about this because I don't want to be egotistical or self-absorbed or just plain annoying. My heart stutters as I try to say how I feel about things and not what the other person wants/expects me to say. Asking for things that I need - in a friendship, in a relationship, at work - is terrifying. What if the other party isn't willing to acknowledge my request? What if they don't care? What if they decide that my contribution is not worth their accommodation?

Another friend has been helping me realize that it's not all about me (shocker). Sometimes it's about what the other person can or can't or doesn't want to bring to the table themselves. And so I've decided to suck it up, quit whining, and seriously, just be awesome. What do I have to lose? What am I waiting for?

I spent a lot of time being afraid - of the consequences, of hell, of what people would think if they knew what really goes on in my head. I figured that thinking poorly of myself got that out of the way so that when other people inevitably thought poorly of me, it wasn't new information. What a waste of time and energy. I don't know if I have it in me to be brave enough to just be. I hope so.

Memories of Things

It's weird, starting life over from nothing in your mid-30s. At this point you're supposed to know what you want to be and, well, be that. You probably have some stuff (okay, a lot) that's begun to accumulate, especially if there are children involved. There are families and relationships and life that happens, houses or apartments that fill up and fill out, experiences that hunker down in your memories for perusal at a later date. 

I had all of that. And then I didn't. And then I started over with some suitcases and a few boxes and some borrowed furniture. I used to have lots of great kitchen stuff - I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Now I don't spend nearly as much time as I really ought to, because when I'm there, I get mad. I look for something I just know I have, like a pastry blender or a little strainer, and it's nowhere to be found. I have the memories of all the things that I used to have, things that were mine, that I loved, that I used all the time, and that are no longer within reach. And then I look around at my new life and see memories of all those other things I used to have - and it's frustrating. 

I used to have this anticipation and excitement about the future. There was always a plan or a goal or a cause, and due to the nature of my former life, new places and adventures at more-frequent-than-normal intervals. Now I live here…in Nebraska…where I never really wanted to be in the first place…to which I swore I would not return for keeps if at all possible. 

A couple of weeks ago I had a really great conversation about what makes someplace "home". The question was, if I could live anywhere with no limitations, where would I like to be? Where would I find peace and that "I made it" feeling? If not here, where? And it was fun to talk about the possibilities and the things that would be deal-breakers. And then the conversation turned to the things that tie people to a place, things like jobs, families, familiarity, inertia. And the question then was, what would it take to make "home"? Do you pursue your career and hope it takes you somewhere you like? Do you pick a place you would like to live and find something to do there? So much has to do with attitude, with making a conscious decision to put down roots. Lots of people say they never thought they would end up in a certain place or that they would stay in a certain place…and there are not always formulated explanations for the whys. 

I wonder myself what it would take to find my home. I don't feel at home here. I have a long list of reasons, which most people who talk to me on any sort of regular basis can recite along with me. I have some ideas about where I would rather live. I definitely have ideas about some other jobs I would like to try. But my reality is, I have a job I don't hate that compensates me well enough to provide for my children, I have a place to live that is comfortable and more than adequate, my boys are tired of moving. I am blessed, even if the blessing comes with a lot of corn and snow. To my currently discontented selfish self, that sounds like a lot of settling, a lot of making do, a lot of "ok but not awesome". And I want awesome. I want to love what I do and feel like I'm making a difference, I want a lovely and love-filled roof over my head, and I want my kids to thrive. I want more than memories of things. And I want to have the courage to move towards home. It could end up being right here (I'm not giving up yet on more sand and sun, though)…but it better have a better backstory than "I just ended up here and here I am."

Not My Party

Christmas has always been a little bit of a weird time for me. As an earnest, uptight teenager, I remember coming home from my overseas trips and vowing to eschew all things material and American. I remember walking through the Mall of America and feeling overwhelmed and righteously (or so I thought at the time) disgusted by all the excess. I turned into an obnoxious version of this guy (although this particular picture is pretty cute):

I also remember the first year I was married. We picked a day early in December (the 2nd, to be exact) and went out to get all our Christmas shopping for each other done. I was so excited about what I had bought and how happy it was going to make him that we wrapped everything right away that night…and also opened presents. That night. All of them. And I remember when my marriage was floundering and heading towards total destruction, how hard it was to even care about a gift-giving opportunity but wanting, no, needing to make it grand for the littles.

I've gone back and forth through the years, sometimes annoyed by family requesting lists of things I want, other times so excited about it that I can barely stand myself. This Christmas, though…

This Christmas was a very big first. It was my very first Christmas in my whole life…that I spent alone. I had known it was coming for a very long time, since last Christmas actually. As it got closer, I just refused to deal. I kept saying, "I'm not thinking about that yet, October has to happen first," and then it was Thanksgiving, and then it was here.

My boys left town on the 21st of December. This was the year that I had them for Thanksgiving…and they went with their dad for Christmas.

I know that this is normal. Lots of people spend Christmas alone or with not their actual family all the time. Movies are made about it (I successfully avoided seeing any such drivel this year!) and songs are sung about it ("Christmas at Denny's", anyone?) and it's just reality for so many reasons for so many people. But for me, I had never not once NOT been with at least some type of family for Christmas.

Then, on Christmas Eve, my tree got smashed:

And there were no presents under it. And I had to work (all day until 5!). And my back has been hurting from a little car accident a few weeks ago. And I'm not gonna lie…I was feeling VERY sorry for myself.

So, of course I went to Midnight Mass (isn't that what every pathetic lonely Protestant girl does on Christmas Eve??). I love Midnight Mass. I try to go whenever I can. It's late and beautiful and feels like the perfect way to actually begin Christmas Day. And even though the bench was hard (my poor back) and the church was cold (cold feet and hands make it very hard to concentrate) and I didn't know anyone and I was apparently the only non-Catholic there…it was beautiful. And it reminded me that this is not my party. It's not about the presents and the people and the ribbons and the tags and the boxes and the bags…and not in anti-consumerism, shrunken heart kind of way either.

And I can honestly say now, that yes, it was weird. It was hard. It was very, very quiet. But it wasn't awful.

It was peaceful. And friends invited me for dinner on Christmas Day, and that was fun. And I have had and will have time to celebrate with family and friends on other days (and that's kind of awesome, actually, because it spreads the cheer out for a little while longer). I got to open presents with my boys and my parents this morning via Skype:

And it's okay. I made it. If I've learned anything these past couple years, it's that things I thought would break me have turned out to be survivable and even bring their own particular kind of joie de vivre. Not my party…no reason to cry…just an opportunity to learn another facet of the word celebrate.

Just Like That

Well. I got a little scared because I thought for a minute there I had actually run out of words. But then I remembered this:

 And this:

And words started coming back to me. I kept a lot of them in, which in and of itself is a miracle.

It so happened that the day before my divorce hearing was my 14th wedding anniversary. It took an astonishing scant 13 minutes for man to put asunder what I thought God had joined together. I'm not sure why I'm sharing that except, as Mr. Hemingway advised, I'm trying to write hard and clear. And that hurt.

Since it was such a long time coming, I think I was oddly disappointed that it didn't require more time. I filed on July 3rd. As of September 26th, a mere 2.75 months later...I'm divorced...just like that. I'm a divorcee. I'm not married. I'm a SWF. I will be filing taxes as head of household, single, 2 kids.

I've had time to adjust to this. Honestly, nothing really changed in my daily life or in my slowly emerging vision of what my future might look like. My boys have already started to adjust. I've started to move on. But I would be delusional if I said I didn't feel sad about it. It's still a loss, regardless of the varied emotions surrounding the process and the situation. It's still not the way I thought my life would unfold. It still hurts that it came to this.

I've already done a lot of grieving. I've cried and rationalized and argued and explained. I've written a lot and prayed a little and tried to imagine how I would feel and who I would be on this side of the signed paperwork. I've tried to keep my head above water and be present for my boys and I've even made some of the stereotypical interesting choices that people in this situation make.

And you know what...I'm ok. My boys are ok. I have friends, albeit not quite the same cast of characters as before. I've met new people. I don't have some sort of label on my head visibly listing my iniquities and warning off potential acquaintances. I'm still breathing. I'm employed and decently compensated. And my heart has ridiculously decided to wonder if perhaps, just maybe, this is not the end of its ability to participate in life.

Then last week there was another piece of news, the last piece of my former life falling away. It's hard to describe all the emotions - a little relief, a little vindication, a little confusion, a lot of sadness. I've scrutinized my reaction and I think it boils down to this: all the doors, windows, and gates that could have possibly reopened have not only shut but have blended back into the surroundings so as to be unidentifiable as possibilities. There's a clanging finality about it, louder than the judge's gavel, more definitive than the final paperwork, almost more heartbreaking than any of the preceding steps in the process. And while my life looks very different now, and "my former life" and "my former context" are frequently heard coming out of my mouth as I continue to move forward...I just have to acknowledge that it's weird....hard...sad...over.

And so...onward and upward...here's to whatever comes next...

Trail Magic

Sometimes it really is me, not you. I've tried to start this entry a bunch of times and for whatever reason, it feels hard. And that's not really the point.

This summer was the misspent summer of my youth that I never had. I spent my teenage summers doing remarkably earnest things, like believing I could change the world. I spent my college summers mostly thinking the same thing, except for that one summer - that particular summer could have been horribly misspent but I was disgustingly responsible instead and continued to march on. So that brings me to this summer...sort of...

There's no need for details. Let's just say I got a few things out of my system. I have no regrets, zero. My boys were safe in grandparentlandia and I was on my own for a bit. I'm going to leave all of that to imaginations everywhere, because the assumptions will be way better and wilder and more interesting than what actually happened and will trump anything I can write. 

I've been reading a lot of different things lately - books, magazines, newspapers, internet articles. One book that has been very interesting is Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It's a memoir of one woman's struggle to put her life back together while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. She talks about "trail magic", defined as "the unexpected and sweet happenings that stand out in stark relief to the challenges of the trail." So, here are some of my trail magic moments:

1. Sometimes someone's silence doesn't mean they don't care. It means they are human and are maybe not sure what to say or how to say it without sounding weird. 

2. Sometimes my perceptions of things are very wrong. (Yes, I did just say that I can be wrong.) 

3. People are not stupid. 

4. Purple flowers made my heart happy.

5. Church still hurts. The level of evisceration varies a lot. There was one time when it didn't totally suck. 

6. Sometimes it's a timing thing, and then you get that phone call or that second interview or *gasp* competing job offers when you least expect it. 

7. The end of the world as we know it might be the beginning of a better one, or at least one with new challenges. 

8. Trying something new can change your perspective (and leave you with very sore arms).

9. Sometimes being brave enough to ask the question is more important than the answer. Sometimes framing the question even to yourself is a good start.

10. Friends and good conversation can happen in the most unexpected settings.

None of this is rocket science or Nobel-worthy. It's more like a list of a few life lessons that were maybe not completely checked off on my list of "what I know", and are now firmly in the category of "what I know now."