It Is What It Is

Four Day Weekend

2012-01-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

There is no experience into which human beings freely enter for which they are so ill prepared. A "what the fuckola am I doing here?" moment...after moment...after moment.
I am, of course, talking about being born...I mean, Parenting. I'm talking about Parenting. Or being born.
How do you know when you're doing it right?
It never feels right. And as soon as you do accidently feel right...when you suddenly develop a warm feeling in your chest, outside Aunt Annie's Pretzels watching your brood eat warm buttery bread and icy sugary drink, when you look in their radiant faces and feel something that might just be affection, and then you hear your own voice in your head saying, in slow motion, like that drawn out voice Will Ferrel does on animal sedative,
"Yoooouuuuu aaaaarrrrre aaaa goooood paaaaaarrreeeeent."
---you gasp.
You gasp upon the realization. The realization that you have just hit The High.
And what follows immediately after The High is The Low.
Lows last longer than Highs.
It's quantam ecophysinomics.
We don't know what we're doing. Any of us, at any time. Sometimes I am quite certain I am being a bad mother AND a good mother, at the exact same time.
Interesting.
Interesting days.
I really could never have imagined how parenting would feel in my soul. How self-doubt could be a constant companion.
I mean if someone would just SHOW me how to do it, I would do it. No problem. I swear. I can friggin copy that. I just can't always create it.
I can't create bliss and harmony. I mean, I know I wasn't promised bliss and harmony but why do I seem hard-wired to crave it? To think that things could be better, to want ease and comfort.
Days should not feel this long. So hard-traveled.
Moms, all moms, are ridden hard and put away wet.
Has it been this hard for all moms/parents? Hi Dads!
Has it always been this bone-chilling, soul-sucking endeavor?
We have it so much "easier" than parents a century ago so why doesn't it feel that way? Perhaps our burden now is that we have lives of convenience. We are really pleased when things are easy and efficient. That's "good design."
Children are not convenient. At all. They are anti-convenient.
And that's hard to tolerate. And all the repetition. Jesus, I just fed you how could youbehungryagaingoddamnit?
Is it because our little families have become too small? We are separated from the herd and now we're separated from our spouses. It feels thinnish family-wise. It feels thinnish fight-wise too so there's that. But I really walk around feeling like a missing half. I adore my independence and alone time, but it is not worth not having the other half. And I'm talking about the other half of my dreams. Not those other other-halfs.

My friend Todd and I were sitting at the park today and I was feeling very much my Irish. Angry, tense, peeved, emotional, EDGY. It was about 11am and the park was hopping. It was still chilly and morning foggy. In the middle of all the green grass and well-maintained play structures and clean, suburban sand, a golf cart food truck thingy rolls up right behind our bench selling chips, soda and uber-artificially-flavored ice creams.
Seriously. Fucking rolled up directly behind us. Not in the parking lot or on a path. He was riding on the grass and stopped behind us.
Children's ears heard the call. A father passing us at just that moment took his son's hand and simply said, "Forget about it, Miles". Within minutes, our children were tearing across the sand and we said, "Forget about it, Miles." My friend's son took off listening obediently to his father but my son threw fit #495802 of the day. Crying. Whining. Other children started in too. The once jovial park turned quickly into a chest-beating, hyperventilating park. A bunch of us told the truck driver to take a hike. A nearby father with his own writhing son said, with what I thought was an air of expectant agreement, "Don't you think it's a little early?" The driver just glared.
Soon, he sold a giant ice cream sandwich to an old grandma who handed it to a newborn. Having caught his prey he moved on.
Have we lost our souls?
We permit trucks to drive trashy foods around playgrounds and then we waste our hard-earned tax dollars on First Five Eat Healthy billboards.
We don't want to go without. And consequently neither do our children.
Sacrifice feels intolerable. We want so much more. We want it all.
But we burn out, have to learn to say no. Get spread thin and are no good to anyone. Like Katy Perry said, A house of cards...
What is this ego that yearns to stay out in front? To be seen, appreciated, to be MORE? Why don't I just accept my work, my load, my position? I'm the snack-fetcher, fight-ender, car-driver, dream-procrastinator.
Maybe in the past, way past, I'm talking past/past, maybe we were just happy the kids got out alive. (I am still in gratitude that I manage to keep mine alive.) Things were just simpler. Expectations were lower. Like in this video.

Tomorrow is another day (off of school). And laughter is a prerequisite.

The Abortion Blog - a lifetime in the conceiving

2011-03-22T23:12:00.001-07:00

"South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) signed a law Tuesday requiring women to wait three days after meeting with a doctor to have an abortion, the longest waiting period in the nation," The Associated Press reports.
"I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives," the Republican governor said in the statement. "I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices."

I don't believe elected officials are put in office to tell me to "make good choices." How about I tell them what a good choice is for me and they, representing ME, go to bat for my choice. And my choice is for legal and open health care for all women, including the right to an abortion.

In regards to the waiting period: an unplanned pregnancy, an unwanted pregnancy is a CRISIS. You do not send a woman home to worry and stress and be unable to work and live her life because YOU hope a waiting period will make her change her mind. If her mind is made up (and women are quite capable of making rational decisions for themselves), she should be able to get one as soon as a doctor says she can. This is between a doctor and a woman. Every woman, like every man, has the right to make any and all decisions about their own bodies, and that bars any possible exception known to us now and in the future.

We, as women, have all the freedoms a man has and some of our own. Because just having the same freedoms a man has is not good enough.

There are freedoms that are inalienably a woman's. These freedoms include the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Our bodies are not your bodies. Our female bodies do different things. There are different consequences. A man is not the first sex. A man is not the main sex. A man is not the default sex. Women did not spring from men. There are two sexes: female and male. There's no species without both of them. And they work different. They come with different responsibilities. They come with different outcomes. They're very fucking different.

Women learn early about the responsibilities that sit on their shoulders. To bleed is to be able to become pregnant. (And to bleed is to not be pregnant -- all-girl sigh of relief.)

Birth control is our domain. If I don't want to get pregnant, I'd better get some. If you are lucky, you learn early it's too important to leave in someone else's hands. And if I do get pregnant, that's my domain too. The whole thing. I mean, that's what women are made for. The egg is in us. We carry children in our uterus, they eat our food, share our blood. Our breasts feed them. The ultimate responsibility is ours. All ours.

To those who would think to limit my rights, to doubt my ability to make rational decisions, to know my own mind, to not understand the awesomeness of the impact of my decisions...think again. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS LIKE A WOMAN DOES. When you get pregnant, when you have this incredible experience, you understand in a way that surpasses understanding, you IMBIBE that you as a woman hold life and death in your hands. Or in your uterus.

This being that you have never met is so bonded to you, you are so in love with it, its importance more severe than you can imagine that you compulsively count movements, you dream horrible nightmares where your unborn child is in mortal danger, your unconscious trying to face even the faintest part of your comprehension that this being you love more than life itself COULD be harmed and even die.

This is a knowledge that lives in every woman. Maybe in the egg, maybe it's planted like a seed, maybe it's passed down, from the first moment someone sits a baby on your lap, you understand. You know the pulsing heart of what it means to be a woman, to be a potential mother.

Once you become a mother, you have to face this life and death reality. You stare down the possibility that you could walk into that doctor or midwife office and not hear the heartbeat. What would you do? What does that kind of devastation feel like? How would I even LIVE through that, you ask yourself.

But women do live through it.
All the time.
Women have miscarriages. Lots. Women lose babies at birth. Their babies have birth defects. Sometimes their babies die shortly after birth. Women lose children at every age. Women lose children to adoption. Women lose children to abortion. Women lose children to war and catastrophe. Women understand. This is every woman's story. They know how to face it. To love is to lose.
We live and die with our children. Their cells, buried deep within the uterine wall, are set free and float inside us for eternity.

What I'm saying is women know the GRAVITY of the situation they are in from the moment they can pro-create. And if they don't, they should. It is the language we speak. It is the fabric of our duty and role as women.

A story about the impact of the politicalization of abortion on a woman's health:
My mom told me this story. She's been a GYN nurse for over 40 years. Suffice to say, when it comes to birth, she's seen it all. At the time of this story she was the high-risk birth manager for a large doctor's office. This story is slightly graphic so hang in there.

A woman, in her second trimester, was sent to my mom. It was found through an ultrasound that the woman's baby had massive birth defects. The worst my mom and the docs had ever seen. The umbilical cord had grown tightly wrapped around the baby's body and the baby's limbs were mis-formed and sort of shredded, and even the baby's torso was twisted. That the heart was beating was surprising but clearly the child would not survive for long. The docs wanted to perform a D&C immediately. The woman and her husband were told and were obviously destroyed but of course agreed. Here's the catch: the woman's insurance company would not allow the D&C because the patient's life was not (yet) at risk and so the "abortion" would not be covered. This mom had to go home and try to live her life knowing her child would soon be dead and that she would be carrying it. Also she had to wait for her own health to deteriorate before she could get a medical procedure that would prevent her from getting sick in the first place.

The thing is this woman could get very sick, very fast and DIE. And an insurance company's political take on abortion was putting her life at risk unnecessarily. And actually, interestingly, it was the teacher's union behind her insurance company who had requested this policy.

This woman had to do this. Go home and wait to get sick. Which is what she did and thank God, she survived.

The point is THIS is women's healthcare. This is women's healthcare while abortion is legal! Can you imagine what it would be like if abortion were illegal? Or are we already there?

Changing gears.

Most of us I think are born pro-life.

I should say right out that I'm adopted and therefore, personally, I'm really glad that my birth mother actually HAD me. That's convenient for me. And she could have not, but she did. And so for that, I say thank you Mom and I'm all for not killing unwanted kids. Go unwanted kids, go!

When I was younger, in my twenties, I was roaringly pro-life. I would argue anyone you sat in front of me. Women, especially, I would take on with my "it's murder" approach. I was callous and I apologize now for the things I said then.

I was also raised Catholic and still am. I was certainly fed a pro-life argument which I don't think is un-sound. Abortion ends life. But no one knows when conception starts. Come on. No one. But I'm also not going to argue with the fact that someone who had the possibility of being alive will now not have that possibilty.

I think honesty is the best abortion policy. You don't need to agree with me. The concepts, our opinions don't really matter. We can argue all night and let's do it, but the law bats last. We humans have rights. Period. That's the law. But back to the argument for a moment and me as a young attractive Catholic girl...

So I was pretty damn comfortable with how I felt about not supporting abortion. (I was then and always will be all for birth control btw.) Then at 26, a friend asked me to take her to an abortion clinic. She was pregnant and wanted to end it and would I take her. She was crying, shaking, begging, pleading. I was totally thrown. My first instinct, believe it or not, was to say no. Of course not. I couldn't. Ever. Go. To. An abortion clinic.
But this was my friend. She needed me. My friend who was right in front of me. My friend who was in real trouble. My friend who had been there for me in a hundred ways.

So I took her. I made her listen to my really convincing, finely tuned abortion argument first (what an asshole) but she said she still wanted to, so alright.
We went. It was in a small office building. You wouldn't have really noticed it. The lobby was nice, like a doctor's office waiting room. My friend filled out forms. I sat with her. She cried, her head hard and bony on my shoulder. I prayed. They called her name and I walked her to the door. They wouldn't let me go in with her. I can still see her face as she walked away from me. She was totally thoroughly terrified. And utterly alone.
I sat in the lobby unable to not think about what was happening in there. There were two other couples who held hands and whispered to each other. And a woman alone. Crying.
I went up to her. She did not speak much English. She mostly cried quietly, nodding, bobbing her head up and down. She was thin with dark hair and bags under her eyes. She said she had four children. Her husband didn't want anymore. He had dropped her off and was going to pick her up. They didn't have anyone to watch the kids. She wanted to keep the baby. When they called her name, I walked her to the door. She cried the entire way and did not turn around towards me as she walked down the hallway as I hoped she would.
I sat in the waiting room and weeped.
A while later, a nurse told me my friend was ready. My friend leaned on me as we walked to the car. She was in terrible pain. I got her to my house as quickly as possible. I walked her inside. Put her in my bed. I made her soup but she wouldn't eat. She was in agony. She bled a lot. She cried straight for 48 hours.
And my mind was changed forever.
This is life. This is blood and snot and horrible choices and reality and women know this.
We handle this.
There are a lot of great men out there but there are a lot of men who walk away. Lots of men leave checks on kitchen tables before they disappear forever. A lot of men don't see their kids. A lot of men hope the girl they knocked up will say that magic word to them: abortion.
I am not in any way interested in railing on your sex. I love your sex and I mean that. But women handle this shit every damn day under incredibly trying circumstances.
It means something to us. It is etched in the reality of our bodies and what they do. Women do not need rose-colored glasses. We've seen our moms go through it. We've seen our sisters go through it. We've seen our girlfriends go through it.
My friend was a woman standing there in front of me and needing me and needing to take care of a situation. My obligation was to her.

I would like to dispel some myths here so I'm going to tell you this.

This was my friend's third abortion.

My friend was not a slut. She was not someone who "used abortion as birth control." She was a woman who got pregnant very, very easily (and had a lot of bad luck). When I took her for the abortion, she already had a child and would later marry and have two more children. Women are different. Some women can have unprotected sex hundreds of times and not get pregnant. Some women seem to get pregnant every time. There is no correlation between the number of abortions a woman gets and her sexual promiscuity.

I will make my own confession now.

I have had unprotected sex. I have had lots of unprotected sex. I am very, very, very lucky. One, I'm clean. Two, I've never had an unplanned pregnancy. I'm two for two pregnancy/child-wise. So...I've never had an abortion. That is not because I was super careful. That is because I was lucky. That's not because I'm a good person. It's because I was lucky.
Had I gotten pregnant, I don't know what I would have done. And I think that's the only truly honest answer any of us can give.

My dear politicians: I will not ask you to give me my rights. I already have my rights. I know my rights. You do not tell me what they are. I tell YOU. You will NOT deny me or my sisters the right to a medical procedure. I will consult with my doctor and midwife about my medical choices, not with my political representation.

My right as a woman is to make my own choices about my pregnancies.

If you don't believe in abortion, don't get one. Make your own informed choice. You are the one who has to live with the consequences.

But I will be here to both make you soup and babysit.

I'm behind you.

We watch with joy and pride when other country's citizenship fight to win their basic human rights and all the while ours are being stripped away. Pay attention.

Talk about it ladies. It's the only way. I'm all kinds of behind ya.

As always, thanks for reading.

Do You Get Me Now?

2011-01-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not done with my adoption. It is not done with me.

I feel like the Grinch baby.

I know that sounds severe but seeing that stupid Ron Howard "Grinch" movie - when that wailing, hideous baby is thrown off the bridge - it punctured my heart. All those stories and fables when the baby is discarded cause it's ugly and freakish is the starkest, realest feeling I can communicate to you through mass media about how my adoption/abandonment feels.

It's a fairly common story. A baby abandoned cause it's ugly and freakish. Think Benjamin Button. Girls in China.

This is raw. This is not good writing. but this is how i feel. Dressing it up feels disingenuous.

She gave up. That's the thing. I have nothing but sympathy for all moms and dads who make tough decisions. I know how life works. I know it's not simple.

But the first person to see me, the first person to know me, the one the good Lord entrusted me to, she decided to take a pass.

Take a pass on knowing me. Take a pass on my being worth the effort. Take a pass on spending her life with me. Even though she bore me, life would be better without me.

Let's just say it was a lot of judgment right from the get go.

Look at me mother and you'll think:
that's too much work
that's too hard
that's too tough a challenge.

Look at my baby face and you'll think:
she's ugly
she's damaged
she's deformed
she's unnatural
she's NOT WHAT WAS INTENDED.

Insert my entire life post-adoption which I'm labeling simply STRUGGLE TO BE HERE.

No one should enter this world without a guide.

Imagining being born to the mother who rejected me feels like entering the world through something rough and cold rather than warm and viscous. Birthing my own babies, and feeling the immensely gratifying experience of visceral love as well as the honor and privilege of being responsible for their very lives, has been healing.

But I now know how it should feel, and how it could NOT have felt to her for her to give me up. And again I know parents who give their children up for adoption can and most often do love them. Of course. I just get a distinct feeling that that was not the case for me.

This is my pain. Quite unique. Cloutish freak.

Your pain is not so far from mine.
We all face some kind of rejection. We all must build our own altars to love. There is no birth without strain. There is no growth without pain.

Mine has left me with this complete fear of being all alone and the gravelly knowledge that that is exactly what I am.

The demons circle like a campfire ghosts. I swing my stick into the darkness and hope to make contact. Knock a big one down. Drag it into the light.

I know my pain is different but it's the same.
You wanna be gotten.
You wanna be loved.
You wanna have a place to truly call home.
you wanna feel safe.

YOU
WANNA
SAY
FUCK
THE
FEAR.

I wasn't an ugly baby. I wasn't a disabled baby. Still something in me resonated: I was a bad fit.

How do you re-write a story for someone who cannot read? How do you talk to someone who is pre-verbal? How do you repair such a tiny heart?

But they do get repaired don't they? My lovely friends MS and DS are having their baby's heart operated on next month. They grow strong oxen children and their darling son will be fine...better even.

Hearts, even tiny ones, heal.

My injuries are so tiny but so early that they pierce everything. They're the root tap that leads to the fine veins that pumps blood into every ventricle, every artery. Even those that lead to something good.

I know it's dramatic. But if feels dramatic. It feels like an abandoned basket on a lonely, windswept farmhouse step. It feels like an abandoned basket on a dark and wet cement townhouse stair. It feels like being tossed into a cold, rushing river.

But...

It feels like a reedy Nile River marsh too. Like baby Moses...maybe my mother took care of me for those six months under extreme conditions, she hid me from harm and then gently set that basket where she knew the Pharaoh princess would find it.

maybe I was saved for better things...

Work in Progress

2011-01-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

When I was six years old and living in Georgia, a 17 year old neighbor boy forced me to give him a blow job. For years he had played with my brother and I, slowly grooming me, teaching me dirty words, how to play spin the bottle. He was attractive and older and his attention made me feel seen, even loved.
His family had sold their house and at this point it sat empty across from ours. Clearly out of time, Jeff intercepted me during a game of freeze tag. While my four year old brother sat outside on the porch steps, Jeff carried me in his arms, showing me around the freshly-painted, cavernous house. I believe he was pretending with me that we had just been married and he was carrying me over the threshold. I remember distinctly feeling like a princess.
Last, he carried me into the empty master bedroom and it happened there, on the floor, my knees scraped raw on the wall-to-wall.

I exited the house alone. I grabbed my brother off the porch, walked across the lawn, into the street and executed a masterful job of placing that gruesome memory somewhere far away.

I can see my six year old back ramrod straight under my t-shirt and I can feel my long ponytail hot on my neck as I walked my brother and I home. I can see my hand on his shoulder in a rare moment of affection and probably protection. I steadied myself then as I do now on that really normal image of brother and sister...

My mind must have been flying in untold directions, busted wide open. In memory, my brain feels like a shuffling deck of cards and I hear the sound of static like a swarm of summer mosquitoes.

The hot noon sun looked like it had never looked before. It felt like it had never felt before. The street we crossed was made of dirt and gravel...had I ever seen it before? I mean really looked at it? Had I ever seen the muddy creek our driveway straddled? What about that tree in the front yard, the cool garage, our dog? They were all new. Everything was new.

And while I recalibrated, I completed the filing.

By the time I had crossed that street, the memory was put away and I never told a soul until my college roommate confided her rape to me and I felt safe to reveal my story to her.

For over a decade, the incident had all but been erased from my memory, yet it had managed to vein through almost all my relationships and would continue to do so. I let friends and lovers choose me rather than choosing them. I had trouble seeing my way out of bad relationships. I was there to pleasure, not to be pleasured. I convinced myself that I could not prevent or stop painful events from happening, my job was simply to deal with them well.

And I was good at it.

That practice of dealing, filing, muscling through, of being pleasurable and pliant dogged me my entire life. Consequently, under-reacting became my game.

I remember the high school senior who trapped a freshman me in a stair well and asked, if I knew how to give a blow job. My thought bubble: since I was six years old you scum bag. My reaction: to let him kiss me.

At 16, I woke up one summer night from a drunken stupor (after downing what I hoped would be a suicidal bottle of Everclear) to find a person I'd just met earlier that night having sex with me. That sex-waking happened about four or five times that night and into the morning and with more than one person on top of me. When I found my way out of that nightmare and the 125 miles back to my parents' house, I didn't tell anyone. I made dinner for my parents and brother that night and put myself to bed. I handled the rape and the alcohol poisoning by writing Cure-inspired poetry into my childhood rainbow-adorned journal. For years and years this was a hilarious story I would confide to my friends, complete with a soundtrack: "Why Don't We Do It In the Road" (one of the places I sex-waked) earning myself the super-funny nickname: Gravelback.

I learned to handle these situations and many others like them with silence, strength, courage and humor and I wore that ability like a badge of honor.
But it was no honor.

Reacting with a numbed out perspective that this is what life is like no longer suits me. Under-reacting will not be my game. What served my wounded six-year old self does not serve me now.

I don't need to put myself in challenging situations just to prove how resilient I am or how much I can love. I do not need to prove my strength and courage to anyone.

And realizing that slowly, step-by-step, re-writing each jokey-story with honesty - letting each brutal truth have its day in the sun has been the journey.

There may be situations in this world I can't handle. I may fail. I may fall down. I may come with baggage. I may be irreparably damaged. I've done things I don't have answers for. But at least it's the truth. And for it I can be accountable.
But I retire from the pleasing, the bending, the filing, the sacrifice, the compromise that comes from my need to be in the company of what looks like love and that in turn forsakes my love for me.

I will try anyway.

I do love you crazy people, and this crazy planet, and I'm grateful for the God that keeps me tethered to it all. (Glad the Everclear didn't do it that night too.)

Pathetic

2010-12-13T20:19:00.001-08:00

Life gets better and better. Over the long haul. I mean the looooooooong haul. But in between it sucks. It sucks between the neurons. It sucks like gunk between your toes. It's uphill. You're blind AND deaf. At best you see those 3 feet in front of you like you are walking through life with a flashlight.
Hey it's better than total darkness, right? But it's still just a flashlight. You will not be able to fight off a jaguar in the rainforest with a flashlight.
Not that you have the first idea of how to fight off a jaguar.
Not like you're even in the rainforest. But it sure as hell feels like it.

How do you start a relationship this way?

Openness and trust takes on a life-or-death kind of feeling. Or perhaps I'm simply neurotic as fuck.

Perhaps it's the new birth control.

My daughter said, in response to me dating someone new and thereby reinforcing my no longer being with her father, "You had your chance at love."

She simply picked up on me and this guy's togetherness on a field trip (so did her teacher) and confronted me. She's mad. She's sad.
It makes me wonder.
I can at least console her by saying, "I will not be getting married ever." And then I hear myself say to her, "and I already told him that."
What kind of fucking conversation is this to be having with your ten year old?
And did I tell him that?
And who is him?
Him that is running ramshod through my life. Who is he? What's he mean to me? Why does he so suddenly mean so much?

I had to tell the ex-dh of course. Cause the ten year old can't tell him. And she will. And that's cool. Telling him is infuriating of course. And then there's a call from the principal's office. Molly's melting down.

This thing that's happening; it is page one of a thousand page book but okay, let's spill the beans. Let's face the music. In the words of Good Morning America's Advice Guru, "Let's make room for love."

Tonight and last night and even today, I felt sick of not knowing.
I felt sick of people hurting.
I realized how really bad I am at playing games.
Especially the dirty ones my mind is fooling with.

I want to know. I want to be sure. I want Certainty to be my middle name.
Is it so far from Audacity?

I want to smoke in bed.
I want to trade myself in for a new me.

I wonder why I'm in my pajamas drinking wine out of a plastic cup.

I want to reach you. I want to invest. I want you to rush in. I want you to convince me. I want you to commit while I squirm away.

I want you to see my worth. I want you to ravage me.

It's all about me pretty much.

I want to give up when it gets hard. I want to pull off the scab and make you eat it. I feel like quitting already. What was I thinking??????????????

Sylvia Plath never used fourteen exclamation points in a row.

I feel like I'm risking so much. Are there returns? For real? Are there? I'm not seeing it. But I smell self-sabotage. It smells like burnt hair in here. Why can't I enjoy myself? Cause really, what about this ISN'T ENJOYABLE?

Fear. Complications. Revelations. Insecurity. Embarrassing reveals. Sudden intimacy. Stumbles, Escalation, Love, Rush, Wait, Wonder.

It sucks being alone but it's easier. You know you get used to lethargy. That's the definition of it. You think, life will just be like this now.

But I DID NOT want that life. Page one is a good place to start. In fact, we may have gotten to page two tonight.

"Oh dear, out here.
Everybody stumbles on fear.
Who cares if we're scared?
Everyone is on there own."
Brandi Carlile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDpZrLciCE&feature=autofb

Family of Man

2010-12-04T08:48:00.000-08:00

We are a family of man. A tumble-torn, bruised and damaged lot. Our original sin is held in the heart, in its fragility, its ability to break, its inability to heal. We are handicapped by this organ that just wants to love.
We walk grey streets of remorse and denial, our motley pasts zipped into our packs. We walk alone although we are surrounded by people, our family. A family of brittle hearts. We struggle to communicate our love and longing and loneliness but share easily our pain and anger and frustration. Frustration at our inability to shape our lives into what we want them to be. Frustration that things don't work out the way we want them to. Frustration that people aren't what we need them to be. Frustration that the road is steep and long.
There's so much we have to work for. To fight for. To struggle for.
To gamble for.
We must extend ourselves, risk our joy, play our shitty hand, toss in our glass hearts, our flimsy souls.
I keep looking for a guarantee of happiness like it's a star in the damn sky somewhere.
I keep thinking that pain will recede yet it returns like a tide.
I keep hoping that I will overcome my faults and insecurities. I will stop stepping in the same potholes, the ones I swore I patched up.
But there are so many cracks in the infrastructure.

Consequently, I lean heavy on the power of prayer.
I pray for eyes open and raw and seeing. I pray that the blinders of my upbringing, my race, my sex, my expectations fall away even if it makes it a Visine kind of day. Because I so much want to see YOU. To see your experience, your heart, your raw and open eyes looking in mine.
I pray for ease. I pray that I don't make things harder than they have to be. I pray that the incline abates. That I get out of God's way. That my pain-popping ego stays in its place and stops dancing all over my primal wounds. That I don't become hard-edged and pessimistic. That I don't court rain when I need a clear blue sky. That I have faith in the universe's merciful leaning toward equilibrium.
I pray for quick lessons. As much as I want this journey to be grief-free, it seems impossible. There are dues to be paid. You must ante in to play. But when the darkness does come, I pray I learn what I need to learn quickly. And I wish the same for you.
You know what they recommend when you're going through hell.
Keep going. It's the only way out.
Be brave. Have courage. Face your fears. Bet your heart. And keep going.

Best Revenge - Live Well

2010-10-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

My parents moved a few times when I was in elementary school. Starting a new school was never easy and at one time they even moved me in the middle of the school year but the worst move by far was at the beginning of seventh grade. When I arrived at St. Anne's Catholic School I did not have a uniform and for some reason all the stores were sold out for the year so I had to wear "church clothes" which my parents saw fit to have my GRANDMOTHER make for me. Peter Pan collars. Split princess sleeves. Boxy heathered pastel vests with matching skirts hemmed mid-calf. I have no hesitation in telling you these clothes were hideous.
I was un-liked. And by seventh grade standards for very good reason.
But still, they didn't just not like me, they hated me. It was their job. Spitballs in my hair. Tripped in the hallway. Boys would gag when I walked by. The girls were the most brutal if only because they ignored me but because I wanted to be their friend so bad. I missed my friends at my old home.
Now at the school I had left, I was class president so this was a very long way to fall in the social strata. I just didn't get it.
The girls and boys hated me equally. They would cram into a single table at lunch so as to not have to sit at the same table as me. They would pass invitations to a party by my desk saying, "could you pass that over. there's not one for you." There was no shame in their dislike. I simply wasn't included. But like anything weak, it's an easy target. And after a while the games began. Boys would pretend to like me but when I started to trust them and made any move to reciprocate they would laugh in my face and shout, "As if!" (The game was called "As if.")
I had one friend, a lone wolf who had been bullied for years by these kids and she was kind enough to take me under her wing. But notes would circulate with she and I doing things to each other with the words "Lesbos" above it. We were even physically shoved around, especially on the stairs where we could potentially fall and hurt ourselves. Even teachers got in on the act. Hey, they want to be popular too. By eighth grade, I was pretty low and depressed. It's hard to admit but I had given up on myself. I remember wearing my hair in a ponytail and for days on end not bothering to take it out when I bathed and wearing that same ponytail every day without brushing it out. I just didn't care. Nothing mattered. I was hated and there was nothing I could do about it. I was even kind of designing myself in their image, rather than my own. And THAT'S WHEN IT HAPPENED. When a ray of self-awareness shined in and I deemed to wonder: why? Why did these people hate me when they didn't even know me? I was worthless I would sigh to myself, no doubt looking at my greasy ponytail. Plain and simple. And the ray of light faded.
One day, a teacher asked me to take something to the nurse's office but when I got to where I thought her office was it wasn't there and I couldn't find her new office and I hesitated going back to the classroom cause I knew I would be humiliated so I kept looking and next thing you know all this time had gone by and I'd made it so much worse on myself. I had no choice but to go back and explain what had taken so long and why I had not even completed the task which the teacher made me do in front of the class. She chastised me for being stupid and irresponsible and on and on and everyone laughed. She said she would send someone else with "half a brain in their head" but I begged her to just tell me where the new office was and I would complete my task correctly. I was desperate to get out of that room. Hot tears were about to fall and I had yet to let them see me cry.
She let me go and I hightailed it to the stairwell and collapsed in tears on those dusty linoleum stairs. And there for no good reason I had one of the biggest epiphanies of my entire life. And thankfully, it's never let me down.
I sat on those steps, crying, complaining inside: why don't they like me? They don't even know me? I've never even done anything to them. They don't even know me and they hate me.
They don't even know me and they hate me.

They don't even know me and they hate me.

They don't even know me and they hate me.

That was it. They are going to hate me no matter what. So why am I trying so hard to please them...to get in their good graces? Why am I bending myself into a smiling, pleasing, pleading, greasy freak when they will NEVER like me. They don't even know me. No matter who I am, they will hate me, so therefore, I AM FREE. I am free to be me. To be whatever me I want. THEY are trapped. I would watch the lowest among them, clinging to the underbelly of their popularity, desperate to maintain it. But I had no such need. I was free to be AS ME as I wanted to be.
And high school was 6 months away and there EVERYONE would be starting a new school. Many kids would come from far and near and they would all get to meet a new Erin. The real Erin. The true Erin. Like me, hate me...I don't care. I am free. And I am me.
I started immediately with my friend to remake ourselves and by freshman year our old classmates didn't know who we were. And by the following year, I was a free and happy new waver with wacked out hair and a wacked out wardrobe. I was not that girl who wore split sleeves and pastel dresses. I was a girl with a shit load of friends and a shit load of self-respect. I just had to cross over.
As they say, the best revenge is to live well.
Bullies act out of their own sadness and frustration and weakness. Most of my old classmates weren't even aware they were "bullying" me (we're friends on facebook ;-)
I think it might be easier and more effective to educate kids on how to react to bullying rather than trying to end bullying.
And maybe sharing stories of overcoming bullying will help kids learn how not to let someone else's opinion change how you view yourself. Respond instead by becoming more yourself. Don't hide. Don't be ashamed. You might even end up inspiring the bullies to break out of their fear, their cliques, their misunderstanding of how life really works and allow them to see their own path, worry about their own lives and become who they really are...FREE from influence. Accepted by yourself. Led by your own star. Deeply loved.

Any Way You Slice It

2010-08-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

First off: you and I both wish this were shorter. But it is what it is. ;-) Thanks for bearing witness.

I want to tell you a story. A funny story. A story I hope you’ll find funny. A story I hope to continue to find funny.

My friend Soph and I wonder if we enjoy our foibles too much and that’s why we have so many, so consistently! As believers in the law of attraction we hold that that which we give energy to persists. And if positive energy is the most attractive energy, it would stand to reason that if we find enjoyment in our problems perhaps more will come to us.

Of course I don’t know that we really believe this but the important thing is we all have our things we attract. Our issues. Our baggage. Perhaps ME more than others (as you might be convinced of at the end of this story) but, rest assured, and I do, we all got SOMETHING. Here’s mine du jour. May your life feel a little better in comparison.

Almost a month ago, my transmission went out on my 2002 RAV4. It took the mechanic over a week to fix and it cost a buttload of money. Too much I thought, but I had my car…which I need. As you all know, I’m a single mom and I drive all over this great city for my landscaping job and I need a car. Unfortunately, after a day of having my car back I realized it was not fixed. It drove the exact same, dangerous, herky-jerky way so I took it back and in a not-great mood. The guy fixing my car loaned me his car so I would not have to rent a car again. This car.

My gangster box. Of course, I appreciate not having to rent a car but this car is not great for transporting landscaping equipment as my SUV was. But that’s not so much of an issue cause I’m pretty much not working in August. My kids are out of camp and their father is on vacation and working for the entire month so I’m on my own with the kids this month.
Now I’ve been prepping for this month of August. I knew it would be challenging. No work means no money. And being with the kids 100% means no breaks and that’s just what August is. August to me is like December without Christmas. However, my long-awaited vacation will be coming in September and the kids will be back at school. All will be well. Nothing to do but muscle through, right?

Well…then the ex drops the bomb that I would not be able to take my September vacation as things were changing at his work and he wouldn’t be able to take the time off. (This being the day before he left for his two-week vacation.) AND he would not be able to take the kids overnight as he was going to have to be at work earlier. When he dropped this bomb I had to just turn and walk away cause I was not going to let him see me cry. The god-damned pressure of being a single mom/provider/human being is so, so intense. I need that fucking vacation. I need to live my life. I need to CREATE my life. I’m beyond frustrated.

The next morning my neck goes right out. Like…OUT. The pain runs down the back of my head, through both sides of my neck and down my left shoulder. I can barely drive my kids to their physicals at the doctor that morning (the gangster box does not have power steering). Since, I simply did not have the time or money to hit the chiro I call Soph and she reads to me from Louise Hays’ book Heal Your Life and the basic affirmation is about the need to be FLEXIBLE. (no, really? ;-) The affirmation goes: “I am at peace with my life,” and I say it over and over and over and I’m reminded that morning that I am blessed with super healthy kids and a wonderful pediatric practice and in the end I heal myself. My body tells me I should probably do some yoga that night but I think I just end up drinking beer and watching The Bachelorette.

Next day, I get a letter saying my dishwasher has been recalled (It could burst into flames!) and Maytag will only refund me my money if I buy one of their high-end dishwashers. Whatever, right? Be flexible. I’m at peace with my life. So I get someone to watch the kids and I head out the next morning in my gangster box to Sears to buy a god-damn dishwasher.

Let me stop here for some juicy backstory. Since separating from my ex, I have had five car accidents and gotten four moving violations - in two and half years. Prior to that I had gotten a total of two tickets my entire life and never been at fault for an accident. Things change. So after my fourth moving violation I got this letter from the DMV.

I would like to say in my defense, that (at the writing of this letter) I had never ever CAUSED a crash. So that first sentence is just not true. I feel that’s about as far as I can defend myself however. I had a little fender bender after that and before that I totaled my car by hydroplaning and crashing into a tractor trailer on the freeway but the truck didn’t even stop so that’s hardly causing a crash.

Let me also tell you that when I went to see a psychic last year, she said that I had some trouble with cars and accidents and I said yes. And she said I had a special guardian angel that had been protecting me through many lifetimes (What up. Gerome?) and she said that I kept him very busy. I told her to tell him that I was sorry about that and so she kind of mentally went away and came back and said, “Gerome says it’s okay. You were the same way on a horse.” Funniest line uttered by a psychic ever. Anyhoo…

A few months ago I got pulled over for speeding. A whole ten miles over the speed limit. I’m a menace I tell you. Luckily it had been long enough between tickets and I could take the traffic school option. Of course you have to “pay off” the DMV to keep a point off your license so that added $150 to my $350 ticket. Yeah. Awesome.

So back to our story: I’m at Sears and I get this big run around (they want to charge me to pull a permit for installing a dishwasher?) and I leave very frustrated and without a dishwasher. As I pull out of the mall parking lot I hear sirens behind me. I pull over to let the cop pass and he yells at me to pull through the next light and pull over. No. Fucking. Way. You know, maybe I have a tail light out. I mean this isn’t even my car. Wait. I don’t even have the registration. I don’t even know my mechanic’s last name. Uh. Oh.

So the cop claims I ran a stop sign IN THE MALL PARKING LOT which is not even true and he and I argue back and forth but then I have to start explaining about the car not being mine and now it’s “let’s step out of the car.” I TOTALLY LOSE IT. Yep. I’m one of those folks standing outside her mechanic’s car, crying on the side of the road while the cops writes me a ticket and threatens to impound the car. I sign for my ticket (not an admission of guilt, I’m assured), pull my shit together and go on my way with the knowledge that I am going to have to go stand before a judge in Chatsworth and plead my case just to keep my license. Holy Shitstorm Batman.

That’s Sunday.

Monday. I decide to get Molly a cell phone. Her father doesn’t tend to carry his and sometimes I’m not sure where she is when she’s with him so I like the idea of being able to contact her when I want to. And then I can cancel my home phone service which is still under the ex’s name and is inundated 10 -15 times a day by creditors. Molly’s thrilled and I’m up for a free Blackberry upgrade so we are ALL happy campers. We go back home, I spend 45 minutes on the phone using a “man’s” voice, pretending to be my ex canceling my phone service. I get the service cancelled, plug in my new phone to my computer and proceed to wipe out EVERY CONTACT I have on it. Somehow the software or whatever replaced everything on my phone with the contents of my computer address book which I only use to keep about 700 email addresses for Molly’s school and La Leche League. I jump on the internet to figure out what the hell I’d done and realize that I’ve knocked out my internet. My DSL was attached to my fucking home phone line! I have erased all my contacts and snuffed out my access to the internet in less than an hour’s time.

I really wish I could say to you that I did not have a giant, big-ass pity party for myself that began with the thought: if I had a HUSBAND to help me with this shit, none of this would be happening. Cause that’s an unfriendly road, my friends. And I don’t want to take you down it.

So Jana comes over and takes my kids so I can put out the fine china for the pity party. I go down to Verizon and they are gigantic losers and can’t help me and I just have to bear it. It’s a hassle. They are all just hassles. It’s a shit storm no doubt. But it’s not WHO I AM. It’s just crappy circumstances. That’s all.

I do finally listen that night and do yoga and meditate and read my inspirational books and get centered and make an appointment with my therapist. I hire a sitter to watch the kids all day the next day so I can go write and peace out and make things better in my life.

Monday.

Sitter comes. All’s lovely. I pack up my computer and put on makeup and look forward and upward. I get in the gangster box, start the car, pull away from the curb, my phone rings, I pick it up and hear:
WRRR WRRR WRRR WRRR.

I get pulled over on my own street.

My emotional state at this point kinda plummets. I really feel like there is a good chance I am living some other kind of parallel life. Like everyone else, I saw Inception and loved it. Loved the idea of the totem a lot and in fact, walking out of the theater after seeing the movie, I found a pendant in the pocket of my jeans. It’s a pendant my friend Anne got me. I have no idea what it was doing in my pocket but I decided to make it my totem and I enjoyed rubbing it and touching it all day…communing with my totem. Keeping myself in the real world. Well I forget once again that my totem was in my jeans and I wash the totem in the jeans. I then discover the totem in the dryer…broken in two.
HOLY SHIT! That means, you realize, that for me and by the extremely realistic rules of Inception, this is all a dream?

Moral of the story: keep track of your stinkin totems.

So as soon as I realize I’m being pulled over, I turn off my phone and throw it on the floorboard. It’s total instinct. I actually have no memory of this exact moment. I’m piecing it together backwards like a police detective.
So the cop pulls me into a parking lot and walks up and says he’s citing me for talking on a “handheld device.” I mumble something. No idea what. Maybe, “okay.” What other response is there at this point. “Okay.”

I’ve really taken the path of least resistance now and have just gone numb. It’s safest. Then I realize I gotta explain about the car again and we go through all that somehow. He then asks me to sign for the ticket (…not an admission of guilt…) and I do and he stops and looks at the ticket and looks at my license and says to me, “It doesn’t look like you’ve signed the ticket the same way you signed your license.”
Now there’s a fucking handwriting quiz?
I kinda laugh and say, “I’m sorry. I’m a little upset.” (To say the least, right?) And he says, “Care to try again?” and hands me the ticket. I do try again but it’s no better and he lets me leave.

MY BAD SIGNATURE

This is the beginning of my great day?
WHAT?
I get my bearings. Put my license away. And where is the damn phone? And I can’t find it. Anywhere. Okay. I start the car, drive away from the scene of the crime, relax myself somewhat and stop and look again. The phone is not there. I’m on my hands and knees looking everywhere and nothing. The phone is gone. The phone without the contacts. The phone that just got me pulled over (well, I didn’t do it…) THAT FUCKING PHONE. Nevertheless, I still need the fucking phone. But it’s just not there. Totem. Breaking.

So I drive to my friend’s house who lives nearby and to whom I know I can present myself in pretty much any state and she will have me. (This is true of all my friends actually. This is pretty much how I IDENTIFY my friends.)
I knock on her door and she’s happy to see me. She claps her hands and says, “I have a PRESENT for you!” She skips off and comes back with a beautiful bud in a baggy. “Humboldt!” she exclaims. I laugh and as good as it looks, I think, I’m probably the LAST person you want to give that to…

“Follow me,” I say. “I have a story to tell you.” I take her to my car and make her help me look for the cell phone and start filling her in. Thing is, neither of us can find it. We move the seats back and forth. We empty every bag in the car. We scratch our heads and look again. My friend slides her hand down between the bottom and back of the driver’s seat and all of the sudden, she pulls out a KNIFE. A knife that has been wedged in the seat and pointed at my back the entire time I have been driving this dude’s car!

THE KNIFE.

We spend the better part of five minutes laughing our asses off. We send her kids for a flashlight and find the phone immediately. Right under the seat.

This knife has been literally stabbing me in the back. So there’s that. There’s your totem. Your law of attraction. Your poison arrow. Your affirmation.

And I’m glad that knife’s no longer there. Life has been calm (i.e. regular shit storm) but I keep hearing in my head the words that came to me when I was meditating that night as an explanation of current events: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

I can translate this for myself in two ways: either I’m Spiderman (I do spend a lot of time around spiders), or my life needs to be much, much more than IPAs and The Bachelorette.

These days I feel bi-polar, caught between thoughts of suicide and the experience of transcendence. I feel close to God but mad at him. I want to be at peace with my life but I also want a peaceful life.

My friend Soph quoted our friend John Paul who said to her, “When the shit hits the fan you know you are in a sacred place.”

Guess for now, I’ll just go with that.

Nameste, bitches.

Bad things come in threes.

It Needs To Be Different

2010-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

My life is a big question mark and right next to the question mark is a big exclamation point. It’s all what if’s and man, I’m so fortunate and this is exciting but what am I doing's.
Cause I don’t know how to do it. This.
How do I move into this new phase? What’s the end game? What’s the exit strategy for stay-at-home moms? And, of course, my specialty: newly single stay-at-home moms? Now my situation is not SO different. It just shines the light on this problem a little brighter. All stay-at-home moms ask at some point: what am I equipped to do? Who is going to help me do this? What do I want to do? Can I even risk asking if it’s possible? Is there any other way?
And the kicker in my case is that the financial need for a job has crash-landed with my absolute need to pursue my dream job right now.
And this on top of the fact that I’m still 100% a mother. That doesn’t change. I’m needed in all the same ways. My chores and all the expectations are all still there. Now though there is so much more to do and worry about and achieve. It’s hard not to be a little resentful. I sit on my back stoop and I wonder.
Am I less a mother, am I less maternal, because I am ready to move on? Was I misrepresenting myself all these years?
Can a woman be more or less maternal? Or is maternal just maternal?
Something we’re born with. No more negotiable than our femininity. We’re female; we’re feminine. We’re mothers; we’re maternal.
Mothers, and women in general, get pigeon-holed this way all the time. Like the old Victorian chestnuts of needing to be lady-like and of being careful not to act like a man. How can I NOT be lady-like? And unless I’m wearing a fake moustache, how can I be ACTING like a man?
Quite honestly, I’m more than over it.
The double standard was present in my marriage and it’s present outside of it. It’s presently holding me back.
There are precious few paths to follow out of the forest.

What have women done in the past? How have they managed? What was the path of my foremothers? My guess is that that knowledge, that wisdom, has just not been considered valuable enough information to be passed on. What mothers do is invisible, un-rewarded and not just that, but suffering from a bad stomachache from all the trips up and down the ivory tower. Hard to climb in these high heels and lady-like dresses and acting like it’s all no big deal.
Golly gee, we could do it with our eyes closed.
It’s not that easy. It’s not easy at all. For anyone.
It’s shit work. Pretending it’s anything less diminishes it. And saying out loud that it’s a shit job doesn’t tarnish it. A surgeon with his hands up all’n up someone’s colon has a shit job too. It’s still a lovely vocation.
To not really look at moms through the lens of reality is to not see mothers as individuals. We’re not all going to do this the same way. No one’s life looks like anyone else’s. Moms are all connected by sleepless nights and wiped butts and a true understanding of the word “sacrifice”, but we are all different. Even within our distinct mommy war bunkers. The breastfeeding mom still loses her temper and gives her kids Doritos. The mom who brings home KFC every night makes her kids washes behind her kids’s ears religiously and never swears in front of them. That PTA President who thought she’d be a natural mother cries in the night wondering if she’s failing her kids.
For our own selves and the sake of future moms, we need to ease up. No one’s perfect at this. And God, it’s hard.
I know men struggle with the nature of masculinity, but it’s different. To become a mother is to change forever and never return to that other person, and not just inside, but in society’s eyes. You must re-make yourself in the public eye.
I don’t always feel ready for my life to change. I like the old routine. It’s familiar. And most of the time, I do not want to be apart from my kids. But my life is changing, forcibly, in so many ways. The push-pull right now is my biggest complaint. My neck flared up as I wrote that. Can’t seem to get anything DONE and I know that everyone feel that way, but I feel in caps that there is SO MUCH AT STAKE.
The pressure is INTENSE. And all I wanna do is write and make my show. That’s all that drives me. I am pretty much unhappy if I’m doing anything else.
I know, right now and forever, that I will fail at every venture that resides outside the scope of my greatest dream.
If this does not work out for me, if I don’t achieve my dream which I should stop calling “my dream” cause it makes it sound unreal and it is, in fact, very much here…if my reality doesn’t soon, very soon, begin to resemble the picture in my head than there is nothing in this world I understand. Nothing would make sense. Right now, serializing my life is the only thing that makes sense. I want to sit down in front of my computer, walk on a film set, hunker down in an editing bay…and never leave.

Desire, Ask, Believe, Receive

2009-07-21T20:37:00.001-07:00

Today I sat and watched the sun move shadows against my garage wall. I was alone and trying to experience the aloneness of being alone. The light was fine and I was enjoying the fading day. I felt really content. Then I was quite suddenly struck with this feeling of living for myself. Of living without being tethered to someone else's ideas and plans. Not that other's ideas and plans aren't awesome. But this was a message just for me. This was about taking control. This was a warning not to give myself away. And then these little words came out of/to me:
Don't be afraid.
You're only dreaming.
Don't fear change darling.
It's the natural passage.
It is nature's way.
It is best and
it is what is.
Embrace it. Why not?
You don't have to be afraid.
You're only dreaming.
You get a FRESH START.
You see it.
You're so close to it.
You are it.
You are love.
You know.
I am.
You know.
Take the power. All of it is yours. All of this is for you.
You get to choose Everything.
Who you love. What you do.
How far you go.
How skinny you are.
How audacious.
Don't let others decide. Take their counsel and their comfort but don't ever, ever give one single part of yourself away.
Follow your heart. Know your heart.
Know it inside out.
Build a temple to it.
Build an altar to yourself and your God.
To your heart.

And then I watched a massive black widow kill a june bug.

Now tonight I remember "give thanks for every wrong move." Remember to say thank you for your pain. I want to be thankful for mine. I want to laugh and say, yeah. Thank God for that.
I see candles flicker behind my closed eyes. My old cat insists on being on the yoga mat with me. I watch her spread out and lick herself and I stop and observe her and give thanks for the present moment. Thanks for time and it's awkward warping. It's tightly woven regrets, it's little jokes. It's irrelevance. It's experience.
Thank you to the everything for these seconds of pure happiness. For watching my cat, for the turns of my mind, for my invisible eyes.

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." Martha Graham

A Year in a Life

2008-12-23T10:42:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it has been a year (a YEAR) since this house was in upheaval. Chaos rained and reigned. Love was kicked around. Dreams were tinkered with until they no longer resembled themselves. Expectations fell down to basement level and were still not met. Every day was an adventure but not the good kind. These adventures were dark and dangerous. Violent. Empty and hollow. Jesus...I can't believe that was my life for so long.

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” St. Augustine

The fact is I don’t want to spend time with him this Christmas. I faked it last year. I don’t want to do it this year. And the nice thing is I don’t HAVE to. I am exercising my right to not have to.

“Yet it is not enough to seek the truth or even to know the truth. We must give ourselves permission now to live the truth as we understand it, with all its myriad implications for our lives.” Marianne Williamson

I believe everyone’s trying to find their equilibrium. Nature automatically looks for balance. We adapt ourselves to situations so we can survive. Like Darwinian fish, we try to find out feet. But much of the diversity of our world comes from genetic mutation. Not careful baby steps but totally random fucking shit (TRFS).

“Even cowards can endure hardship, only the brave can endure suspense.” Mignon McLaughlin

There’s something about being on the tightrope I really like.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau

My favorite word is freedom.

My favorite number is 4 because it is twice my actual favorite number which is 2.

Someone called me super mom today. Someone else said I was their hero. Someone else said I was full of love and the kindest person ever. Best. Year. Ever.

“After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.” Wallace Stevens

An aside: not for the squeamish…

One piece of advice: never ever ask your husband to look at your vagina after you’ve had a baby to “see if it looks alright.” It does not look alright and he does not want to see it.
I believe maybe that was the beginning of the end with the dh and I. Maybe. Free advice.

“We’re all on a sinking boat.” Me to Soph Jan. 2008

Health of the Mother

2008-10-19T11:56:00.001-07:00

I like having other people write for me:
http://flotsamblog.com/2008/10/16/more-wounded-that-eloquent-im-afraid/

2008-09-24T18:29:00.000-07:00

Hope Is Never False

2008-09-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, post-presidential election, was a very disturbing time for me. It seemed that it was impossible for Bush to remain President for another four years and I remember when Kerry lost feeling very distraught, grossly disappointed, confused and pessimistic about the future. What choice was there but to just kind of check out and move on? I felt terrible for the people who gave their time to get Kerry elected. If I felt bad, how must they feel? How depressing I thought, and I wished I had done more but, oh well. They'll always win, I secretly believed.
Then along came Barack Obama.
I love Barack. Love his power and grace. His calm and his fury. His ability to relate to everyone. His heart. His smarts. His willingness to dream. So I wanted to get involved. Wanted to. But how?
Last week, the kids and I drove to Culver City and I attended an Mama Camp Obama. I met leaders in the Democratic party, field officers who got Obama through the primary, people just like me who have dedicated their time and energy to change OUR world.
I remember one of the speakers mentioned that there were 45 more days till the election and whoosh! A fire was lit under me and I knew now, now, now was the time. It is not too late. Now is the time to act. To get involved.
Now is when you can get in people's head and make your little voice stay there till election day.
This last month could easily decide the election.

No one wants more of the same. We as a country cannot take it and therefore we cannot allow it.
We must act.
Now.
A bumper sticker is not enough.
Forwarding an email is not enough (although I hope you forward this one).
Every vote counts. Every person you talk to.
The next forty two days determine our future.
Commit.
An hour a week at a phone bank.
Better yet: have one at your house with five of your friends.
Be positive. We want to unite this country.
Be a good example to others.
Talk about Obama with enthusiasm and pride.
Don't get suckered into petty arguments about McCain and Palin.

Do this instead:
Visit: www.my.barack.obama.com and join a group or search for events in your area.

Contact your local Obama office right now and volunteer. Check out:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/actioncenter

Don't live in fear of the worst case scenario.
Do something.
Take control.
Let's push Barack up over the top.

I decided to have a Mama Camp Obama right here in the Valley next week so more moms could come and get trained in this grass roots effort.
Here's the link to my event.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gs7htc
(Men are welcome too.)

Please attend and pass on the information about it. In fact pass on all this information. Seeing these people at the training camp made me realize that, as usual, they are just like us. They have kids. They're busy and tired and overwhelmed. But this is our country and our future at stake and nothing less. Every vote counts. They are people just like you who could have thought to themselves, I can't make a difference.

But they are and so can you!

Watch these Women for Obama videos here (very inspiring!):
Women from all walks of life, coming together for Barack Obama:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid900837095/bclid900609698/bctid1757661310
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid900837095/bclid900609698/bctid1317865535

Here's the blog about the event I attended: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/sarahgallagher/gGgY9M

It is NOT too late to get involved. In fact right now is the PERFECT time. Only 42 more days and you won't have to do it anymore. Imagine how you will feel when there is a ground swell of support for Obama and you know YOU made that happen. Now imagine how you'll feel when Obama wins!

Here's the address for the SFV Valley Obama office:
San Fernando Valley Office
14529 Archwood Street
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Phone: 818-995-DEMS
Hours: 10AM - 6PM

Here is a website to make sure you are registered or if you need to request an absentee ballot: www.voteforchange.com

Here is a website to use when making calls or just talking to people. Acquainte yourself with the issues! Stay positive and know your facts!
http://www.fightthesmears.com/
or/and
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
or print out the great one sheet below and attached to this email.

And just for fun, here's a site I love for printing out Obama stuff or posting art to your blog or getting cool wallpaper.
http://www.barackobama.com/downloads/#

Here's the blog about the event I attended: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/sarahgallagher/gGgY9M

Thank you for reading! We can and will do this! Please feel free to email me with questions!
LOVE & PEACE & COURAGE PEOPLE!

Sarah Palin vs. Malcolm X

2008-09-10T20:44:00.001-07:00

This is my response to an article on Salon about the republican party lecturing us about sexism, the future of feminism, and of course, Sally Palin. Here's the link to the article and below, my letter.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/11/zombie_feminism/

What's really sad is that it's a woman we feel we can't root for. I always envisioned our first female president to be maternal, wise, witty, deeply instinctual and intelligent, peaceful, strong...not snarky, snot-nosed, insecure, inexperienced...
I want a woman I can root for.
That being said, and if you are still reading, I feel we must as women support all women. Before you think I'm putting flowers in my hair, read on.
It's like this: to be truly free is to be whoever you want to be. Blacks, women, gays...any person who feels un-heard, un-seen, mocked and ignored within the system. That person must be free to reinvent themselves, to be totally and uniquely themselves WITHIN the group. Even if they become someone that brings the group down. That shoves its face in the dirt.
Even if it is someone who brings shame. Even if it is someone who pretends to be something they are not. Even if it is someone who REJECTS THE GROUP.
To be shackled to the need to do what your group would want you to do is not freedom. It's not fairness. It's not liberty.
The right to be different, to be an individual, to write your own story, to make a mistake: they are all human rights. To not fit in. To not fit the bill. To fail.
Every woman has that right.
Every man.
Being a woman on the presidential ticket does not mean you have to be a feminist. Does not mean you have to support women's issues. You don't even have to have a clue.
Irony is that's the promise of the feminist revolution for every person: Self-empowerment. Self-expression. Self-realization. Self-reliance.
Now it's biting us in the ass.
No, we don't want to take her out for cocktails.
No, the suffragists wouldn't have invited her to lunch.
Yes, she makes me cringe. But that's beside the point.
When there is so much on the line, when the game gets this big, it's always this way.
Look at MLK. He had his Malcolm X.
Naomi Wolf has Camille Paglia.
George Bush had his John McCain. And look what they made McCain do.
Castrated him. Let's not do that to Palin.
Let her have her day. Take all the rope she needs.
Listen, someone is always there to tell ya you're doin' it wrong. But SP just be doing it her way.
(Cue Frank.) Her way.
Her fucked up, stinking way.
But that's her right.
And I applaud it.

Now let's get back to solving the real issues like real women do, shall we?

VOTE OBAMA!

You Mean the Wordle to Me

2008-08-23T21:38:00.001-07:00

Thanks Karen for this awesome site. Here's my blog on Wordle. Shit yeah.

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I Quit

2008-08-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

I would like to formally announce my retirement.

It was all just getting started but I feel my best is behind me.

And in case you don't know, writing is hard.

That's why writers drink. I have, tonight, seriously considered leaving the house and getting myself some Bushmills. (My favorite liquor.) I don't understand why I don't keep my (favorite) liquor in the house. Everytime I want some whiskey I don't have it. And there is just something a little desperate about buying liquor when you are really, really craving it. Like everyone can see.
Like when I buy ice cream, I think at the convenience store they are thinking, "Here comes that fat girl. Coming to buy ice cream AGAIN. What's she so sad about?"
See it's different if I'm at the grocery store and my cart is full of peaches and beans and ice cream and cucumbers and cereal and whiskey and peanuts and juice boxes. That makes sense.
But to just go buy a bottle of hooch or a pint of ice cream...it's like telegraphing my sorrow to the world.

Ok.
I just realized that is what I'm doing here. Right now. However! To write this, I did not have to put on a bra or go find my shoes or check if I have any cash. (Cause using a debit card to buy a 3.00 carton of ice cream is just a whole other thing.)
So there.

Back to why my cupboards are bare of the essential whiskey.
Today has been a rough day. I set aside the entire day to write about this something-something that is quite emotional for me (this isn't it). Just jotting down some notes on the subject really stirred my pot of insecurity and unloveableness and failure and suddenly I just couldn't deal with anything.
It's okay. It's process. I get that.
Anyway I'm feeling a little better now. And that will get written whenever that gets written.
Still I'd like to sip a little whiskey at my retirement. (Oh, yeah. I guess it won't get written.)
But I have no whiskey.
So instead I ate my weight in chocolate. Peanut butter cups to be exact. So maybe, I'm theorizing, that is why I don't keep whiskey in the house. Cause I'd drink my weight in it just as I have the chocolate.
And I ate my weight in chocolate holed up in bed while reading David Sedaris' new book. And that my friends is why I am quitting this writing business.

Writing makes you sad.
Which makes you want whiskey.
Which you never have.
Which drives you to chocolate.
Which you eat while in bed with the new David Sedaris book.
Which you realize is the funniest thing ever written.
Which means all hope is lost for you in the funny writing department.
So why bother.
I quit.

Part Two - Raining Maitri

2008-08-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

This is the second half of my original post but I wanted it to be separate. More people than ever may be reading this blog (ha, ha, I hope...getting ahead of myself?) and I like that but it's scary and it threatens to edit me, change what I want to write. At a time when I am trying to expand my damndest I am exposing myself all the more!!!! Aack!
Oh. Duh.
Right. That's how that works.
So I'm asking you to be patient with me. You might not like it. I have some strong opinions. Could be different than yours. But hey, that's fine. Just know I am trying to break out. And be me.
And be free.

Picking up from last time and jumping off the subject of fear, let's move on:

You (I) try to get to the point where you (I) no longer resist. Ekhart taught us this in "Power of Now." To be present. To not give in to thinking and the urges of the ego.
Dissolve that damn pain body.
Burn off the synapses that go to it.

I got it. I should no longer push against the circumstances of my life. And so I have learned to accept them for what they are. I've given in.
Given up.
Surrendered.
And to some degree and for some time, I kind of tolerated that practice. I practiced. I TRIED. But I can't say I embraced it. I can't say I lived it.

Then over an inexplicable time/divorce, I found myself looking from one mountaintop to the next. I saw that the next goal was to go beyond non-resistance and to be able to welcome pain into my life.
To expect it.
To be curious about it.
To be compassionate.
To lean into the sharp points.

TO NOT BE SCARED.

I had learned this once before. Well, twice before.
I am very fortunate to have two children as well as having had the experience of having my kids at home au naturale.

This was the experience of labor for me.

In my opinion, birthing children is the most under-valued and/yet most-ecstatic experience in modern human history. Birth is to labor, to bleed, to lactate, to provide, to pass, to create, to replicate, to sacrifice your very body and being for the continuation of the species, for your kin, for your kind, for your spawn, for your baby...your BABY.
To love your baby is to know real love.
So you do it all for your baby. You love so much that you can welcome more pain. You can know the experience of going to your end. And then to go past it.
That's to die, isn't it? To pass from one realm to another.
In birth, the woman brings the source of life into this realm. She transports a life from the un-seen, un-knowable place before birth into this bright, fast-moving reality in contrast. Into a modern world through an ancient path. The transportation takes place with grunting, shape-shifting, ripping, expectation blowing, running and hiding, boldness and courage, screaming and crying, laughing and climaxing. A warrior. A goddess. A vessel. Through this: a mystical. material, physical, animal/Godly person arises. A new person. Two new people.
That said. My friends:
I have to ask you.
Why would a woman want to be drugged for that? To not totally be able to feel the most empowering moment possible in life? I think it is a shame that our medical system doubts a woman's ability to manage her pain. That they feel the need to control her. To silence her. To numb her. And sometimes dumb her.
Women can take it. They're smart and strong. She is nature. She is the creator.

She can stare down fear.

Sure, it makes your blood run cold, empties your brain cache and creates you new. But it is a woman's birthright. It is her path.

Birth is an experience that is common throughout the world and over the centuries. Yes. But the opportunity to experience birth for myself was rare.

That's why I made my choice. And it taught me that I can do anything.
I can ask for more pain. I can ride the waves of that pain. Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo. I can bow to the divinity inside of me. I can rely on it. I can let the animal in me take over.
I can present myself: naked and vulnerable, stripped down and eternal. I can beg/scream for deliverance and mercy and strength and all by myself, I can carry my baby and me through death and into life.

Raining Maitri Part 1

2008-08-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

My friend TD and I "i-chatted" (or something) on FACEBOOK today.
What the hell is this? Or should I say what fresh hell is this?
In some ways, it's like that nightmare I used to have in college where every boy I had ever kissed suddenly converged at a party all at once and they met and shared stories and realized they'd all slept with me and as I turn around in slo-mo, I see them all staring at me.
That's FACEBOOK!
(I must say, and I don't want to break the mood, that OVERALL I'm friggin loving it. Ya'll got to do it. Seriously? Phillip S??? Crazy!)
Back to the cautious mood...
Tonight we're dealing with insecurity, fear, happiness, self-acceptance. All of it. For good. We're figuring it all out.
Cause you see...some of you know too well cause you actually have to deal with me, I'm a woman who hasn't written in like months and I lost my one day a week nanny/love Rosa (Saint Rosa) (Am I giving you any idea what this woman meant to me???) and it has been summer. Summer. Summer. Summer. HSM2!
Moms? High five. Summer sucks. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Oh yeah, back to TD, a mom friend on Facebook.
So TD and I were i-chatting and she was talking about how she feels/fears she'll have to get a "real job" (she's of course had the very real job of mothering her son) but she feels she'll have to get another job and then she won't be able to pursue her dreams of having a production company.
I totally get where she's coming from. It feels like there's so little time left you just want to get there.
I live it too. I teach yoga classes, looks like I might be selling Arbonne, doing whatever it takes to try to pull something together financially but damnit that's just not the whole of it. Not the whole of who I am. There's a much bigger picture. I want to write and direct films. Nothing in my life except the words that I type here resemble that possibility in any way. (Chew on that.)
I will be a director. I am a writer. Baby steps. Whatever. Being on a time table? What-ever.
We think we're chasing this dream and it's part of a different life and once that dream comes true we'll have this "other" life: the dream life.
it's really hard to see that there's just one life. All ya get. You better get busy living, or get busy dying. All the little things, the seemingly abstract things are all on "the path." It's all to pursue the dream. When your dream is living. Live it all up. It's messy. It's funky.
It even smells funky. (I'm in the throes of potty training.)
But it's human and divine.
Let me ask you this?
Do you see how we always seem to default to the position, to the observation, to the analysis (sweet analysis) that beats us up the most?
I'm unlovable.

Well that's mine.
Go get your own.

And how is beating ourselves up getting us any closer to our dream?

Earlier this year, I decided to try to get some more yoga classes going. I rented a small space for a couple hours a week (I pre-paid for three weeks) in a cool dance studio in North Hollywood. I was very excited. I emailed everyone (everyone!) I knew and invited the clients I already had and put up posters and made some calls.
Very excited.
First time: no one shows.
Ouch.
That's ok. It was good to have a practice run.
Second time I email, call, but no one shows.
My clients don't show.

My best friends don't show.

I'm fucking bombing at YOGA.

Oh yeah. This was gonna be grist for the mill, this was going to be good meat to chew. The ego does luh-huv to chew.
And mill sometimes. Mill the grist. Grist grain. Wheat. Whatever.
So I'm in the car, driving (milling) to the third class and I know, I KNOW, no one is coming to this class.
I am raining shit on myself.
I am worthless. Stupid. I'm humiliated and I have to go cancel this time with the studio and everyone there KNOWS no one came to my class.
What is wrong with me?
And I was rushing to get there in the car, in the damn traffic on the 101, in the shit rain, when...WHEN...
i was struck by the idea that "This is my life." It was like a whisper and a slap in the face. It was new information yet something I always knew. "This is my life."
Why in MY life would I do this to MYSELF?
My beautiful self.
I must take a commercial break and say that prior to this incident I accepted for certain, partly from watching "The Secret" (say what you will, it changed me, I highly recommend the DVD)--
I accepted that my life is entirely my creation. I already believed this. And that is a joyful thing. A burden at times and a challenge every other time? Yes. But joyful. It's Good News my friend. Good news.
"Ain't that news? Ain't that good news? Man, I know that's good news." (That man can sing. We are soul brothers.)
Okay, wrap this up. Mama's glass needs a re-fill.
Okay.
My friends, my sentient and holy beings:
Don't do this to your self!
Love yourself!
I love you!
Every single one of ya!
Make this YOUR life.
Speak YOUR life.
Live YOUR life.
Claim YOUR life.
Your life is this world all around you.
Very vast too. It's nice that way.
And you created it.
You continually re-create it.
Make it exactly as you want it to be.
Did I want to live in a world of humiliation, shame and judgement?
No.
Ok. Great...snap...now I don't.
Just like that.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
This is your life.
Joy. Joy. Joy.
End of story.
I walked into the dance studio with my head held high. So, the yoga classes didn't work out. Okay. That's the end of the story. Don't need to add to it.
And guess what?
What?
The people at the dance studio were lovely. And warm. They treated me as I would like to be treated (hhmmmm...).
There was no judgement on their side. It didn't work out, they said. They actually SAID that.
So.
End of story. They wished me luck and I went on my merry way and that was that. I was a changed woman for it.
And it hasn't left me. I can still, when I remember to, just click into that. Into that feeling I had in the car.
Peace.
When I feel some daily (ok, minutely) insecurity or embarrasment or God forbid, judgement, I can step back and say: "Your Life, Woman."
I project traffic on the fucking freeway and I'm stressed and running late: "Choose Your Life Riley." (I know.)
I eat like shit all day and I'm fat and I'm a lousy mother and aack! the house is a mess?
"Fucking Sue Me, This Is My Life."
So...I'm leaving it there people. Part Two of this strange saga manana!
Goodnight.
Check out a little thing I found tonight. She's eloquent and one of my heroes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-rRMUl04I
Love you.

Well, Hello Dolly!

2008-05-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have to get this blog written in May or there will be NO May posts. Holy canoli. Where did the time go?
I really have no good reason for not blogging. Let's blame Dancing with the Stars and American Idol and leave it at that (damn you David Cook!).

Where to start?

A non-sequitor.
I had the most amazing experience on iTunes the other night. I looked up the 1978 compilation and every song, I mean EVERY song moved me to the core, hit me like a ton of bricks and transported me to a different time and place. It was like time traveling. I give you Jefferson Starship's "Count on Me" and Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" and Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line" as some deeper cuts. This is but a tip of the iceberg my friends. 1978 was an unusually rich year for all kinds of music.
I've always known that at a young age I had a watershed of musical interest. Suddenly, I was aware of all the songs on the radio. I began to understand the emotional pull of music (thanks in large part to the "Saturday Night Fever" album I bought my mom for Mother's Day - for MOTHER'S DAY - hilarious!). I must have been 9 years old because the music of 1978 just SENDS ME. I suggest you check it out.

It's been fun.

I've also been cleaning a lot. A LOT. Along with that comes the admission that my house has been DIRTY. You see, first off, I can longer afford my twice a month housekeeper. So a few months of my doing the cleaning on my own has caught up with me. Then we got a dog. Then my kids had the stomach bug that kept them going at both ends. There was a week (those who are queasy of stomach might want to skip ahead) when I had my hands in the puke and poop of both my kids, my cat AND my dog. Enough already.
I feel almost obsessed with cleaning my house. Like the acceptance of a little dirt I had been working on suddenly plummeted and my baseboards, my baseboards, my baseboards! Who painted them black? Is that DOG HAIR? Is that DOG HAIR in my CEILING VENTS? Oh, and then I got cockroaches. You know how I had all that stuff in storage and then sitting in my garage for a year? Well, I finally got it put away and I was so happy and relieved for like a week, cause then it turns out all my stuff came back from the storage unit with cockroach eggs. Yes it did.
So I had to pack all that stuff back up and PUT IT BACK IN MY GARAGE so the nice man in the mask could come spray my house with poison.
While I was packing up my kitchen at 2am in a fog of bitterness and resistance all I could do was pray. I mean, Jesus! I don't want to do this, but I have to do this, but I don't want to do this. GRRRR. And then I had to slap myself. What am I COMPLAINING about? Moving all the wonderful stuff I own from my wonderful house to my wonderful garage and back again, okay...and back again?
Sometimes I just don't know about me. But, nevertheless, there I was. All ego. All disconnected. I was pissed. So I prayed. I prayed and packed. I gave it up. Gave it up to those without stuff and houses and garages.
And finally, I had the break-thru. I am cleaning up a lot of messes.
Sometimes if I take that one refrain that goes on and on in my head and just listen to it, really listen to it, without emotion (whining) and resistance, just listen to it objectively, the message can get through.
Yes.
I am cleaning up a lot of messes.
Yes.
I have a lot of messes to clean up.
Yes.
Things are a mess.
Yes. They are. They still are. And that's okay. This is a large mess to clean up.
Luckily I have a lot of experience cleaning messes and I can clean up this one. It just takes time.
Oh, that's my kicker. It takes time. It's a process. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'm listening now. It takes time. It's a process. I have a big mess to clean up. My life right now? It's about cleaning up messes. Got it.
But, I did finally get smart and put on a pair of rubber gloves so my hands can still look pretty. You don't need to have red, chapped, old-looking hands just cause your life is a mess now do you?
No you don't.

Mommy Wars (Give Peace a Chance)

2008-04-05T22:58:00.001-07:00

This is my response to Salon's review/interview re: the new book, "The Ten Year Nap" about stay-at-home moms. Here's the link to the story:
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/04/03/meg_wolitzer/index.html?source=search&aim=/books/int
And my response:

If someone gave you the chance to live a six or so year adventure where you’d get to live your life’s dream and go to exotic places and grow like crazy, but you had to leave your present job and take the opportunity right away because the chance wasn’t going to come again, wouldn’t you take it?

That’s what motherhood is for me. I always dreamed of being a mother. Mothering has taken me places I’ve never dreamed of. I’ve grown into a woman and it has changed me for the better in every way.

Wolitzer makes some smug cracks about the lives of stay-at-home moms. I must ask: since when is caring for someone not an “intelligent” or "purposeful" act?

It takes incredible intelligence to be a parent. And the areas in which you are not intelligent, shine through straight away, let me tell you.
Our society measures success based on the amount of your paycheck. The higher the paycheck, the more important the job. And since mothering doesn’t pay, well, you know what that means.
No respect.
Mothers aren’t "going" anywhere. We’re not really "doing" anything.
Well, I don’t give a damn what society has to say. Mothering actually gives you a wonderful excuse (read: opportunity) to opt out of society’s standards and processes.
I don’t care about moving forward. I don’t care if I’m “losing ground.” I challenge myself with boredom and tediousness. I push myself with the day by day. Like a monk, I sweep and cook and wipe butts and kiss boo-boos…and five minutes later I do it all over again.
I live a life of passion and intelligence. I’ve learned when to laugh and when to cry, when to empathize and when to discipline, when to give in and when to stand firm. I’ve learned negotiation skills that they should apply in the Middle East.

My everyday is lived with instinct, compassion, awareness, joy and heartbreak. Some days I recognize the freedom of my choice; some days I’m face to face with its limitations. No different really than any job. Except you get no respect. Just a Hallmark holiday and Orpah’s applause.
So please know, that just because I hang out with toddlers doesn’t mean I am a toddler.
I’m busy. I serve others. I’m a good citizen. I volunteer. I teach yoga. I help my friends. I accept their help in return. I write. I blog. I take photos. I try out new recipes. I garden. I talk to my neighbors. I recycle. I juggle the bills. I clean house, load the dishwasher, clean the litter box and do the laundry.
I dream.
Motherhood is my passion. One of many.
I’m passionate about living this short time in sync with my kids, walking in step with them on our journey. It will not, does not, last long. I have a seven year old and a two year old and already their babydom is a blip on the radar.
Now that’s heartbreak.
I’m not a corporate lawyer but I don’t need to have a high-powered job and an expense account and carry a briefcase to measure my intelligence.
God, no.
Patience is intelligent. Empathy is intelligent. Being in your highest self, holding space for your kids’ emotions and keeping a ten-point to-do list in your head at all times is intelligent. Just installing a car seat takes both an enormously high i.q. and the diligence of Thomas Edison. I’m in awe of my friend JH who instinctually can work her way around every car seat made by man and she has yet to get her degree in engineering…
But then mamas learn the best way...by doing. Trial by fire.
There are no degrees needed. No institutions of higher learning. You have nine months and however long your labor is to figure it out. Welcome to the rest of your life!

So don’t question my intelligence. Don’t question my passion. I am no dumb bunny. The days are long but the years are short. I know my time with my kids is limited. They will some day not be interested in coloring with me. They will some day not be interested in making cookies with me. They will some day not be begging me to attend their assemblies or assuming I know where their superhero cape is or looking to me to nurse them, bathe them and read them a bed time story.
I believe in nursing my babies.
I believe in sleeping with them.
I believe it makes a difference who reads that bed time story.
I believe it should be me.
I want it to be me.
I believe I make a difference.

Yes, caring for young children can be mind numbing, but all jobs can be mind numbing. And I’ve had other jobs. Lots of them. None as flat-out rewarding.

I don’t need to defend myself or my life. I know I’ve made the right choice for my kids and myself. Other people make many different kinds of decisions that work for them and their families and I respect that. We’re not the same. We’re different. Different things make us happy. Thank God.

So, for now, I love my job. And it is a job. A career, even. One I’ll never, ever regret.
No matter the other dreams I will chase in my life, being a mother has been an honor and a privilege and I’m a better person for it. Leaving my film "career" (har, har...as it was) for a full-time job as mom made some people in my life scratch their heads. To those people, I just quoted my Dad:
"If it begins and ends with love, it's okay with me."

A Somewhat Different Week

2008-03-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

Got back in town late Monday night. (The trip was nice and the kids always have a great time, but trips are tiring and I was thrilled to be home.) Hit the ground running first thing Tuesday morning. Got home from dropping Molly off at school to find Andre (my foster son who left my house last year) in a police cruiser in cuffs. Six police cars had responded when his adopted "mother" and he got into a fist fight outside my house. I talked to the sergeant and spilled the whole story of him being removed from her custody and her violent tendencies, my restraining order against her. The police took Andre out of custody and out of cuffs thank God. They then asked ME if he could stay at my house. Did I not mention the RESTRAINING ORDER?
WTF????????
No, I'm sorry, but I don't think so. Evidently my number is the only one listed under L.A. County Children Protective Services because criminally, they sent him home with her. He ran away immediately.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday was my writing day which went very well. Very productive.
When I came home, Andre's "mother" was outside my house again and yelled at me in front of my kids, breaking her restraining order. More calls to the police. Then I had mediation with the dh.
I was a half hour late due to terrible traffic. That's 100 bucks down the drain. On the way there I was panicing as I was so late but also because something terrible was starting to happen in my gut.
Cramping. Cold sweats. Must. Keep. Driving.

If you take something huge and horrible, like, mmmm...my marriage say, and you force this huge, horrible thing through a small space, like a coffee grinder, and it's so huge and the space so small that only a thin and vicious liquid can escape...that was what was happening inside my body.
I barely got into the mediator's office where they were waiting for me. I had to immediately excuse myself to the tiny bathroom.
That feeling is unlike any other. My insides were suddenly trying to escape through the southern route. I only wanted to be alone with my God, begging for mercy, but instead I was at mediation. I was late. They were waiting for me. It was like hurrying through labor with someone you're divorcing on the other side of the door asking, "Are you alright?"
Oh, the humanity!
I rolled my sweaty, tear-drenched face along the cool tile on the sink in front of me, one cheek and then the other, trying to comfort my soul. What is it with bathrooms and breakdowns?
I get myself in the room only to have my life, my marriage, reduced to a printout from a divorce software program. I hear my dh say he wants the kids half the time and I see myself fired from my job as mother. I keep crying and they stop and look at me.
"Are you alright?"
I continually excuse myself to allow a few more innards to grind into acid in the bathroom.
I do my trick where I picture my Jesus there. I see him sitting at the mediator's desk chair, playing solitaire on his computer, giving me the thumbs up. I'm here, he says. Always here. And you're doing fine.
When I hear the dismal financial picture, I envision huge piles of money falling all over the table.
My dh and the mediator view me skeptically. I'm not following along on the printouts...which I couldn't understand anyway under the best of circumstances. I'm checked out, praying for this meeting to end.
Thursday.
I'm so tired. I still haven't finished un-packing. I'm also a little depressed. JH invites me to the park with BC and then lunch and it's nice to be out of the house and in their company.
BLT pizza at CPK. Life's good.
I return home and see some stuff out of place in my bedroom. Weird stuff Ray doesn't usually get into but that's how kids are. One day they do something they've never done before. So I pick up the bedroom a little and since Ray's napping I go into the office to work on my computer. Only thing is my computer's not there.
It's been stolen.
Someone has broken into my house.
I call the police. I call JH. I call AL. I wait for help.
I wait to breathe.
In the end, I lost my laptop (a month's worth of writing), a couple diamond rings (my first ex's wedding rings - how ironic considering I've posted about those, and a promise ring my present dh got me on our first year dating anniversary), two digital cameras and a stereo speaker...couple small things too. It's all too weird to get into but the situation is all the more insane because the break-in was most likely at the hands of Andre or his "mother." Freaky. Crazy. Not cool.
I must shout out to SV who dropped off a spare computer that very night so I could have e-mail and blog. Thanks chica. Thanks also to JH who babysat my daughter AGAIN (you are officially up for canonization) and for AL for giving up valuable super-hero party-planning hours sitting and drinking wine with me.

I feel on one side like this stuff is gone forever and there are huge inconveniences and financial issues with that.
Then on the other side, there are the desperate emotional implications. My computer was a friend. A lifeline. My ticket to freedom. My rings were important to me. The digital cameras held pictures from Christmas we'll never have back.
Then there is the third side, the rarely viewed side, the metaphysical side, where I question my whole fucking life. What am I doing? Am I doing something wrong? I don't feel like I am but, man, the present situation seems to be reflecting some messedupness. And it could be residual, maybe...but was I that messed up even a year ago? Or do things happen randomly and without meaning? If so why do look for meaning in anything??? Because that very night I found that my grandmother's precious rosary was missing from my luggage. Most likely lost during an airport luggage search. There just can't be meaning in that. And if there is, I don't want to know it. I want the rosary back. I've slept with that thing for two years and I want it back.
But no.
These are the questions, this third side, this fucking doubt, that sticks in my craw the most.
Cause I feel alright. I feel okay. I feel taken care of and blessed and grateful. Now don't get me wrong. I cry all the time. All the time. I rush sometimes to get myself alone. Be it in the car or at home in the back yard or in the shower just so I can break down for a minute.
But I still maintain that I'm on the right track.
Am I kidding myself? Can I trust myself? Is this an aneurysm I feel coming on??????

Friday.
JH and HL and I go to UCLA and hear Annie Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert be their totally hilarious, smart, crazy, cranky, alive selves and all is alright. There is a God. Annie said so. Faith is alive. Prayer is the best course. Crazy is a normal state of affairs for most of us alive enough to realize it.

I ride this razor edge between joy and a little shy of devestated every day. It's been like this since December. Every day.
But joy wins out by a landslide.
And many of my tears feel like strangely happy tears. I laugh a lot when I get to reframe this shit with my friends (that includes you) and then it's reframed forever. It gets posted on the joyful side of the ledger (my printout if you will) and there's one more less thing on the side of devestation.
Maybe devestation is just a little pissed about that.
It will never win. I know that. And it can just keep falling short of its mission.
Because I'm unfazed and less than impressed with sadness and depression, shock, agression, resistance, self-consciousness and despair.
In fact, they can all just take a hike.
Might as well.
Cause I'm going to drive to the beach.

TGIF (Part Two)

2008-03-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

Back to our New York story...

My man Tom has hired me to help him publicize his short film at the New York Expo. I am having the time of my life and it keeps getting better!
My amazing, think-of-everything friend has gotten us tickets to the Independent Spirit Awards being held in Manhattan to coincide with the Expo. At the awards show, the IFC presents a lifetime achievement award and guess who the lucky recipients were that year? Well, since this is cleary MY WEEK...it's the inspiring, iconoclastic, personal heroes of mine: The Coen Brothers!
As my email address suggests, Spielberg helped me identify that I wanted to be a filmmaker. Watching E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark cemented my desire to direct movies but the Coen Bros pictures allowed me identify the KIND of filmmaker I wanted to be. Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink catapulted me into the world of independent filmmaking and my vision has never been the same.
The big night arrived and Tom and I got ALL gussied up. The event was at an old elegant hotel. There was a red carpet and Sigourney Weaver walked ahead of us so all these flash bulbs are going off all around us. We drank and smoked at this long old-school dance hall bar and everyone looked like a glamorous star out of the 1940s. John Turturro introduced the Coen Brothers and they made their typical short and humble speech. It was indy filmmaker heaven!
Then a dance band took the stage and everyone was shaking it on the floor.
Dancing!
And you know how I love to dance.
I danced with Tom.
I danced with Marc.
But I wasn’t done there. No. I, ELLEN PASQUALE, wanted to dance with Joel. Joel Coen.
Why the hell not?
So I went up and asked him. He looked down at me and said, “Uh, let me ask my wife.”
Joel checked in with his wife.
Frances McDormand.
She said, "Oh-kay," and smiled that sardonic smile. Thanks Frances!
So the next thing you know, I’m slow dancing with the guest of honor, Joel Coen! And the things I said to him, if I may be un-p.c. for a moment, were so retarded.
They were actually on the other more retarded side of retarded. I won’t quote anything I said. Let’s try to keep this positive.
The next morning I felt like friggin’ Cinderella with a Marlboro hangover. I had quit smoking a couple years back but had suddenly developed (quite by accident...) a pack a day habit. My mouth and throat were in physical PAIN every day. But it was worth it. Back in the convertible, back to work.
Work was wrapping up though (devastating!). To lessen the blow, on the evening of the last day of the Expo, there were going to be some killer, blow out parties. Three in fact. A fruit and cheese affair at the Angelika. A dinner and dance party sponsored by Kodak down at the piers. And then a kick-ass, after-hours party thrown by Miramax in a three-story club.
Tom in his infinite wisdom (only a filmmaker could organize so well) got us a couple hotel rooms in Manhattan so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving back to Jersey all hammered (again). We check into our rooms after the last film and put our going out clothes on again.
I had started promoting some other folks' films too during the Expo and had some stuff to wrap up. Tom said he had something to do as well so Tom suggested we meet up in a couple hours at the TGIFridays in Time Square.
TGIFridays?
Okay.
A couple hours later, when I got there, I saw the TGIFridays was a two-story affair. The second level housed a ginormous bar and it was all glass with panoramic views of Times Square. It was cool in a TGIF/Time Square kind of way.
I walked up the stairs to the bar and saw my handsomedapperdarling Tom sitting at the bar with a bouquet of roses and two glasses of champagne with strawberries on the rims. Tears jumped into my eyes. He turned and it was like the greatest scene in the greatest movie. The gesture was so unexpected, so genuine and sweet--the strawberries on the rims of the glasses slayed me.
To this day, it is the single most romantic expression I have ever experienced.
He had written a letter and he read it to me. He thanked me (thanked ME) for the greatest week ever.
It was.
For both of us. It is not too often in this world that two people get to experience their dreams in tandem like that.
We sat and sipped our champagne and had another. We re-lived every great moment and toasted our agreement that it would never get any better than this.
We canoodled so long at TGIFs that we were late to the next party. We hopped in a cab and it had begun drizzling and it was Manfuckinghattan and it was dark and the stars twinkled. We were buzzed on champagne and looking GOOD. I felt like Frank Sinatra.
The cab stopped outside the party at the pier. People milled around looking terrific and the music blasted onto the sidewalk. Tom helped me out of the car and I spotted Marc also looking charming standing on the sidewalk in the bright sprinkling rain. He grabbed his heart in that movie way (it was one big movie!) and then touched his finger to his watch.
“Where have you been?”
Wait. I have to take this in for a minute. A man, a cute man, is WAITING FOR ME IN THE RAIN OUTSIDE A TERRIFIC PARTY. Waiting for me.
“Where have you been?”
I turned to Tom as a way of explanation. Tom patted my back, smiled and pushed me slightly toward Marc.
“Have fun,” he said in his sly Sid way. Because when you are very, very married, away from your husband for one short/long week and you’ve already turned into a big ho, it’s nice to have your friend Tom turn into your friend Sid and refuse to pass judgment. Yes, it’s nice to have Sid around.
So he bee-lined it inside to the free drinks and Marc and I stood a moment, in the dark night, in the rain, under the sparkling lights of the restaurant and he said:
"Shall we?"
And I said, "Certainly," and he turned and behind his back, picture this please:
He extended his hand to me behind his back without looking.
Just reached his hand back without looking so I would take it and he could lead me into the party. Just like that. I'll never forget it.
Two romantic moments in one night. He wanted to hold my hand. He was confident I would take his hand. We were TOGETHER.
At that moment Frampton's “Baby I Love your Way" began to play from inside.
Who was writing this movie? God?
Indeed.
Certainly.
I took Marc's extended hand of hope and let him lead me inside.
The night rocked. We partied. Par-tayed. Marc was a great dancer (duh) and we danced from the pier to the after-hours party. Everyone we had met during the week was there. Robert De Niro was there. I did not ask him to dance (something tells me he's not a dancer, but for that matter, either is Joel Coen. SNAP!) Anyway I was busy. In a private room.
Yikes.
Later that night, God helped me talk my way out of having to spend the night with Marc. I wasn’t quite ready for that. I was Married. And even if in my mind I knew it was over, my dh didn't know that yet. It's fine line but it's a LINE okay?
The sun came up as Tom got back to the hotel and we decided to forgo sleep and get some greasy breakfast food, smoke, and re-hash the whole week one more time.
Tom drove me back home that night.
I was different on a cellular level. I walked back into my house a stranger. Who's house was this? Who's husband was this? No kids thank God. Who's cats were these?
I secretly called in sick the whole next week and listened to 70s Freedom Rock non-stop while my dh was at work. I smoked. Wrote. Processed.
When you have a spiritual epiphany, it's sometimes called an AWAKENING. That is what it was for me. Literally. I was awake. More importantly to me, at the time I was awakening I realized tragically:
I had been asleep.
I married someone while asleep. How could this have happened?
That's a shame I still deal with.
But once you do wake up, there's nothing you can do about it. Not that I wanted to. I was incredibly grateful. Astoundingly alive. I started writing that screenplay about the waitress. (It's called "Loserville.")
I spoke to Marc on the phone once for closure.
He said he wasn’t into married women.
Fair enough.
Me either.
I knew my marriage was finally, truly over. Now to tell him. I couldn't. A smattering of unforeseen events would keep our separation from happening for another, believe it or not, 6 months. But it was okay. I had already started my new life.
I am forever indebted to Tom. He saved my life. I love him dearly. We lost touch almost immediately after the Expo. But he’ll forever be in my heart.
I’ll never ever forget that champagne in TGIFridays, that rainy NY night.
God bless you. May you remain forever awake.
Love,
ellen

TGIF (Part One)

2008-03-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

A little story to tide you over while I work on processing the last couple weeks!

As I have mentioned in a previous blog, I was married before. I got married at 22 years old (I know, I know…but at the time it didn’t feel so young). Things weren’t good from day one and improved not one wit over the next two years. Nevertheless, I was in the marriage for the long haul and tried to make it work. My ex-dh and I even bought a house together hoping that would cement our future.
I was working as an assistant manager at a Christmas gift shop and as a bartender/waitress at a barbeque joint by night…anything to not be home I guess. My dh was a graphic/comic book artist who suffered much for his art. By day he worked as a manager of an indy music store where bitterness was bought and sold at a high price. Suffice to say I was not doing any writing. I was also not pursuing film work although I had just graduated at the top of my class at Penn State. I had really lost my way.

But there was one week that changed everything. Changed my whole life. Changed it so much that I could never go back to my old life again.
It changed everything.
One week.

As “backstory,” I received a call from a good friend from college saying accusingly but truthfully, “What are you doing with your life? When are you going to get back to writing? Have you given up on film altogether? Are you just a bartender now?”
Ouch.
I did like bartending. And in my MIND I was working on a screenplay set in a restaurant. Still, his call struck a chord. He was right. I needed to get back to work but I had no idea how.
Calling the universe…

A short while later, I got a call from my friend Tom Manning (this is his real name and I don’t care who knows it. He’s my hero.)
Tom Manning said that a short film of his was accepted into the New York Film Expo. Filmmakers bring their independent films to the Expo for publicity and of course ultimately, to sell them. The films are all screened at the Angelika Movie Theatre in Greenwich Village over the course of one week.

One week.

He asked me to go with him to the Expo and help him publicize his film. He would cover my expenses and pay me $300 for the week! I accepted immediately. I thought it sounded fun and I never said no to a new experience.

I had no idea what was ahead of me.

Tom and I spent nights in his parents’ house in Jersey and then commuted into Manhattan every morning in his old convertible, smoking, talking, laughing and listening to Dylan and Springsteen and Paul Simon (“The Boxer” will forever be our song). It was magical. Tom’s a great talker, a great listener and wickedly funny. We’d listen patiently to each other’s stories, waiting the whole time for our turn to tell a story that we’d secretly been writing in our head the whole time.

We’d drive into the Village and go hang out at the beautiful and historic Angelika all day, drinking coffee, smoking and networking with other filmmakers. We quickly found out that by supporting other people’s films you could get them to support yours. Hand out flyers for your new friends’ movie on Monday and they would pass out fliers for your movie on Thursday. And the best thing you could do was attend screenings. Everyone wanted a full and enthusiastic audience for their film so we got to see lots of movies, every dang day!
It was ah-mazing for me.
I was a filmmaker again (by proximity). I watched films no one else had seen yet, met indy filmmakers from all over the country, elbowed with famous actors, directors and cinematographers, and partied every single night with all my new friends, for FREE. Cause here's the icing on the cake: every night of the week, after “work,” in the city of cities, in some fabulous, chic and trendy restaurant or club, a party would be thrown just for us Expo participants, totally gratis and sponsored by some industry muckety-muck, thank you very much.

Just for fun, let me spell that out for you at home.

Free fancy drinks.
Free fancy food.
In fancy-schmancy Manhattan.
Surrounded by oh-so-cool indy filmmakers and the like. And I was like one of them.

I. Was. Getting. Paid. For. This.

Plus, Tom and I were totally bonding. We were living out our individual yet conveniently mutual versions of heaven. We pinched each other and gaped and drank and smoked and laughed. We watched movies and promoted movies and talked about movies and partied on the movies.
Every day fell into a wonderful pattern. Joy streamed like the morning sun on Tom’s convertible. I lived in the Village for a summer during college and it was great to be back in the Big City. Every song from Tom's car, every song in a bar was like the soundtrack to our lives. Tom and I "worked" all day, partied all night and dragged our asses back to his parents’ house to nurse our hangovers for another day.
I was 24.
It was heaven. Heaven!
And I was just a little bit developing a huge friend crush on my man Tom.

Let me explain something about “Tom.”

Tom and I went to film school together at Penn State but I actually MET Tom the summer after my senior year back in Lancaster, PA.

We graduated from different high schools but I was dating a guy from his alma mater, so Tom and I would often be at the same parties that summer. Back then, “Tom” was known as “Sid.”

“Sid” was a drunk, arrogant asshole that I couldn’t stand. He was always in my face at parties, challenging me, harassing me, being totally rude. I thought he was such a dick and I made no secret of it. (Little did I know that Sid wasn’t the dick, the guy I was dating was the dick.) I remember at one party, late in the summer, Sid practically spit at me in a loud, drunken stupor that he was going to Penn State Main Campus like me. “Ha! Ha!” he laughed, enjoying himself at my expense, “I’ll see you there!”
Oh gawd. Gag me. I rolled my eyes at him and walked away.
Well, good luck! I thought. At least among 30,000 Penn State Main Campus students, Sid and I stood no chance of running into each other. Ha ha yourself Sid. Joke's on you.

Well…imagine my surprise when it turned out that “Sid” was ALSO a film student! But “Sid” went by “Tom” now and so Tom and I got (re)acquainted. To his profound credit, Tom immediately acquiesced to being a jerk to me back in Lancaster, apologized and we started anew. We became good buds and he was always the funniest guy in the room. He was still acerbic and direct as hell but I really liked that about him and realized I always did.

And NOW! Now to be able to spend all this time side-by-side my man Tom/Sid was a complete compliment to my karma.

About mid-week Tom and I met a group of filmmakers from Chicago. A group of cute, fun, filmmaker guys. We did the whole cross-promotion things for them and met up at that night at the nearest Expo party. One of the guys was Marc.

Marc was a guy wholey different from anyone I would ever imagine being attracted to. He was pretty slick and a real jokester and short. But he was cute and clearly into me.
Into me. Into. Me.
Me.
This was a shock let me tell you.
After a couple years in a pretty much love-less, sex-less marriage it was a shock to be into-ed. I had gained 40 pounds in the first year and half of my marriage. Somehow I managed to find the strength and self-control to pick my face out of the Oreos and lose all the weight and then some. Still my self-esteem was pretty shattered from my relationship with my dh and it had not yet caught up with the new hotty I was...or so I thought.
You see, I think when I hit New York (and ya gotta HIT it) I suddenly felt like a SOMEBODY and all this shiny, new-found confidence just showed up one day. But I didn’t REALLY know that until I saw it reflected in Marc’s eyes.
As he watched me.
Sing karaoke.
To Ms. Aretha’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
In a basement bar crowded with industry folk.
Such a wallflower, right? Well, Marc thought I was something. And it was wondrous to me.
So Marc and his posse started joining us all the time. Now I had two dates to everything!
Cowabunga!
Tom and I were becoming closer and closer in that truly amazing, miraculous way you become totally intimate with someone in a very short period of time. He was funny, kind, generous and the life of the party. And he was taking me on the ride of my life.
And Marc! It was like having a boyfriend just while on vacation. While you are at your happiest and most relaxed and most attractive.
One night, the boys and I took a nighttime cruise around New York Harbor. Oh my sweet Lord!
NY Harbor on a boat in the dark of night. All the lights of the skyline sparkled like a million stars above us and their brilliance was reflected in the dark, murky water around us. As the boat cruised along the harbor, the captain gave an intimate, detailed audio tour of all the precincts and neighborhoods and their histories. We got up close to the Brooklyn Bridge and then, and then, we’re suddenly looking up from our watery G&Ts and staring up the nose of the Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island. It was beautiful and majestic and friggin HUGE.
There were all these American flags blowing in the night wind and as the captain shared stories of those early comings to America, we all got a little teary-eyed. And suddenly Marc pulled me in his arms and kissed me. Right under Liberty Enlightening the World.
Oh. Wow.
I was like an immigrant myself, discovering freedom and enlightenment in a new world. In New York.

Stay tuned for the exciting finale!

Eat, Pray, Love, Dance

2008-03-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Some people need to go to Italy to Eat.
Some people need to go to India to Pray.
Some people need to go to Indonesia to Love.
But we just have to go out our own back door.
Cause here in "the Nuys" we got it all baby. And then some.

I was a 30-year-old pregnant girl when I walked into my first La Leche League meeting. Before my baby (Mollster!) was even born, I had attended many meetings. The instant camaraderie, mutual respect, empowerment of women, the love, friendship and support...it was un-like anything I'd ever experienced...from women anyway.

And now, 8 years later, I have at least thirty wonderful women in my life I consider MY FRIENDS. 15 of them showed up at my house on Friday night to shake their booties DOWN. It was freakin' awesome. I love them dearly. I am their self-appointed social director and I am humbled to be so.

I didn't invent any of this, but when I walked into that LLL meeting and I felt it. Well...I knew one thing.
I knew I wanted more of THAT.
I needed more of THAT.
And so I got it.

So we EAT.

At restaurants, that have liquor licenses. First Thursday of every month. Come in your jeans. Gussy up. Give it up. Gossip. How are the kids? Tell me what your man did last night. Order more drinks.
Tell me how fat you're getting (you're not).
Tell me how skinny you're getting (size 6--shut UP).
Order dessert. Come on, we'll share.
Tell us you're pregnant, you're not, you're married, you're not.
Come on, we'll share.

We PRAY.

At the altar of ocean. At the ashram of sand. At the temple of sky. At the mosque of sun. At the church of friendship.
Beach Fridays every day of the summer and then some. Free Zuma. We're claiming it for Van Nuys! You think the dolphin show is something until you see the moms fly ass over teacup into the surf frantically but with much aplomb pressing their children to "stay on their feet."

The weather is always good over the heads of good friends.

Plus, it's a magic beach. Magic to me because of our good friend JJ (hope you don't mind, girl).
JJ was going through a divorce and the requisite financial crisis. She talked about, if not had decided on, moving herself and her two boys all the way back to Texas to be near her family.
I had her one morning in my kitchen and I could hear in her voice and see in her tired eyes that she had reached/hit despair.
Oof, despair. Oy.
In the hope of at least lessening her pain, I quickly asked the moms in our immediate group for a donation. She needed money now. There was rent and utilities to be paid and a dead beat, blah,blah,blah. She needed us.
In one day I raised $700! That's a lot in our little part of the world.
I gave it to JJ at Zuma the next day and it was so moving.
I mean MOVING. The earth MOVED people.
She was touched, obviously, but also inspired, changed. It was moving.
She realized in that moment that she HAD family...RIGHT HERE.
She didn't have to up-root her life there.
She had a life here.
The great thing about living like this...caring for each other without limitation, this total experience of friendship, this generosity that reaches out to take care of each other from a point of view of RESPONSIBILITY...is that we get to experience each other's moments. When JJ realized that we were her family, we realized it too. Standing next to her I moved right along with her. Her reaction, a sigh, an exhale, pushed my heart around inside my chest. All around. I felt the strong bonds of family like the big roots of a tree, like the perpetual pull of the tides at Free Zuma Beach. By the simple act of giving.

So we LOVE.

We love our babies. We love breastfeeding and natural birth and making the best of situations that don't always go our way. We love to push each other, to catch each other, to buoy, to banter, to cajole, to comfort, to laugh, to love each other.
We love our community, our world. We want to protect our children, our environment, all women's rights, all human rights.
And we love each other. We are different, different, differerererererent women. We CHOOSE to love each other.
We live each other's dreams.
I think this is something revolutionary.
I see it on Oprah sometimes. You know she gives these women cars, makeovers, shopping sprees, new kitchens, new houses and we, the women at home, not getting shit, are ecstatic for them! And I mean over the moon, crying tears of joy, clapping on the couch, you GO girlin', like it is happening to us.
This is what we do. We really live each other's dreams. And this is revolutionary, I think.

And now we DANCE.

We shake our hips, our shoulders, our tits, and our heads loose of the constraints of our everyday lives. We are sexy, free, funky and oh, so fabulous! We are mighty good at celebrating each other. I have so much to learn from these diverse, and between you and me, very dirty women. It is my humble desire that they continue to teach me and to dance with me.

I learned that fun is more contagious than the flu. (Watch out - it's fun season.)
Black leather boots and Sinead O'Connor are still hot.
Back pain and blisters mean you tore it up last night.
I'm not the only one who needs more of this.
And I learned that when you are surrounded by friends, those women you love, adore, fetishize and cradle, you let everyone wear the hat.

How do you get some of this you ask?

Dream their dreams.
Be their family.
Share their dessert.
And let them give you lap dances.

Eat, Pray, Love, Dance with me,
Your Little Red Corvette

Make 'Em Laugh

2008-02-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

So I thought it was time to share some lighter stories.
You know how when you got funky things going on in your life you attract funky random energy? That keeps happening to me.
First let me share the story of being at Hugo's with the flu.
I woke up after, let's see...chest infection in December, strep throat in early January, yes then the flu (later would develop into a full blown sinus infection - yeah me! Hey when does this get FUNNY?).
So my ds and I wake up feeling wretched on day five or so of the flu and my dd is over the flu but has woke up with some kind of FLESH-EATING infection on her chin. Most of her poor pretty chin is red with the skin peeling off.
We're off to Urgent Care!
So we meet our friend JH (bronchitis) and her ds (pneumonia - what's going on? When does this get FUNNY?) there and get seen pretty quickly. I have the flu and there's nothing (NOTHING!) to be done about it. Same with ds. Dd gets an antibiotic at my insistence. Whatever this is on her chin, it's not good. Must have pretty daughter!!!
After Urgent Care, I drag my sick-sorry-sniffling butt to the drugstore to get prescription for dd filled and some antibiotic cream for me. I actually also have these sores inside my nose from blowing so much and they are killing me. I'm worried about flesh-eating bacteria spreading from dd's chin and into my aching nostrils. So I bathe my red noseholes in this antibiotic cream. Very greasy stuff by the way. Read: NOT ATTRACTIVE.
While we wait for ds's prescription I have a great idea. Let's have breakfast at Hugo's!
Yes. Let's take our sick-sorry-sniffling behinds to a RESTAURANT.
(Seriously, what is wrong with me?)
Ok. We get to restaurant.
(Wait! Wait! Who makes it their business to go from URGENT CARE to a RESTAURANT?)
Just let me tell the story!!!!!
So. Ok. We get to the restaurant and get ourselves seated. I'm already starting to think this is a bad idea as we get seated next to Ione Sky. You know, Ione Sky, the celeb actress. She's super cute and nice...her daughter Kate went to Neighborhood School when my dd was there. So we wave.
"Hi!"
She's clearly sitting with some industry/rock-n-roll types. You know but they're all like friends and family and all ensconsced and they totally do this all the time. They love to just, like, eat (not much) and drink teas and juices with exotic infusions, and talk and be rich and cute and skinny, all while Ione's kid thrives at a fabulous school!
I, on the other hand, travel everywhere with my two sick kids, one with oozing blisters on her face and me in my stretched-out, old yoga pants with a hole in the crotch and a big, stained sweatshirt and some greasy ointment all over my red, burning nostrils. Attractive? Yeah, right. Way down deep inside, SOMEWHERE. Maybe.
"Hi Ione!"
I'm so NOT happy to be here. Well OF COURSE I am. Every instinct in my body must be screaming "Leave! Leave!" But do I listen? No. I just sweat.
I sit down. Smile at the trendy, skinny, rich, happy Hugo's clientele.
I pass out paper and markers for my dd. My ds has two new trucks to play with, just purchased at the drug store. I'm no slacker. I'm a good mom.
"Hi Ione!"
Suddenly, my SEVEN-year old dd throws the markers at me. "Why'd you bring these stupid colors? Why'd we come here? I hate it here!"
And I yell back:
"Shut up!"
Yes.
I said the "s-u" word. Out loud. In Hugo's.
Heads SNAPPED. WHIPPED, even.
Cue sound of crickets.
I am a bad mother. I didn't actually choose to make eye contact with her, but I'm certain Ione was looking. And judging. As she should.
God knows I was. I wanted to crawl in a hole. A long dark wet hole with TiVo and a box of truffles.
My poor, beautiful dd will be chin-less by day's end and forced to eat through a hole in her throat, and what do I do? Yell at her to "shut up" in public.
The waittress braves the social strata and approaches us. I quietly, discreetly, ask to be moved outside.
Happily re-seated on the porch, away from staring eyes and curious ears, like good little lepers, my children proceed to continue their rebellion and leave 8.00 of scrambled eggs untouched. Good Lord.
Thankfully, my angel AL arrives to at least prove to the Studio City social elite that I do have friends. She and I drink coffee and laugh and get through breakfast.
Okay. We go outside and she walks me to my car. My car is parked straddling the white line. Reason being, as often happens at Hugo's and other places with perversely small parking lots, people squeeze in wherever they can leading to an anarchy-ruled parking lot where lines are completely ignored.
Let me just say for the record, I did not design the parking lot at Hugo's in Studio City.
So AL and I are hugging goodbye at the car. She may never see me again because I truly feel I am dying. I am so sick and I'm still facing picking up a prescription at the drugstore. It's that kind of sick and tired when you just feel like begging to see St. Peter NOW!
Suddenly this strange woman is in my face. She's tall and oddly gorgeous in this exotic, foreign way. She could be French, Persian, Spanish, who knows, but she's got lots of hair and she's all eyes and cheekbones and a big nose that only looks good on really tall, skinny women and she has some kind of rug or blanket wrapped around her that probably cost $2500 and she giving me WHAT FOR.
What for?
I'll tell you what for.
It seems I didn't park my car between the lines and this is causing her and her friend in their car some consternation as now there is no clear place for them to park. And since as my bronchitis-y friend JH would say, "the sun rises and sets on my ass" this woman is giving me an earful.
"Have you seen what you've done? Look what you've done! Look! Look!"
I am so feverish I can't look. All I can see is a nose wrapped in a blanket, wagging a finger at me. My angel AL, queen of decorum in all situations, swoops in and begins handling it for me. So I just haul my kids into my car and within seconds my friend and this sherpa are now, like, best friends.
The sherpa walks away and AL pats my back as I drag myself into the car.
"Crazy bitch," she says.
I wonder, "Is she talking to me?"
Oh, well. Doesn't matter.
I'm now asking myself in all situations: WWID?
What Would Ione Do?

I'm Not Telling - Part Two

2008-02-25T16:07:00.000-08:00

It pains me to keep writing. It pains me to face this all. But Jesus, it's what I prayed for isn't it?
The Big Reveal.
With a side dish of betrayal.

This is crazy because it all just plays right into the very abandonment issues that have now been put on display. Like some crazy fucking someone from your past dragged into the courtroom as a character witness assassin while you're on trial for your life. Here! See? She's CRAAAAZZZZY.

So...
I freak when I get my mom's e-mail saying basically that she doesn't trust me, care about me or whatever. She's siding with my dh any way you cut it. She's made a choice. Marriage 1. Ellen 0.
I don't think I have talked to my mom for two whole hours since this thing even began.
Fickle mommy.

Mommies should not be fickle.

I write her a very calm e-mail asking for her love and loyalty and for her please not to speak to the dh.

She does not respond to this e-mail. Instead, she calls my brother??? who calls me to talk about it. It was a long, loving but difficult conversation. It's hard to hear people make assumptions about you. It's even harder when they act on them. It's hard not to be trusted by those closest to you. Not to be FIRST. God, that's a thing for me.
Yeah. Now I know why.

We get ourselves through the conversation but I've been yelling on and off, outside, in the rain (staying out of earshot of the kids) for 20 minutes so I say my goodbyes. As an afterthought, my bro says, "You know, take comfort knowing that your dh did most of the talking." "Yeah?" (Go figure, I think.) "Yeah," my bro says. "He even told Mom all this stuff about you having issues about your adoption."
Time stops. Rain freezes in place. The birds are quiet. It's cold. Color drains from my sight.
My brother's voice continues in my ear.
"I told Mom that isn't true."
I hear myself say, "It is true. I have to get off the phone now."
The world is literally tilting. I walk up and inside the house.
Place a call to my therapist's cell phone.

She and I are in the middle of negotiating a way for me to get out of the house without conversing with the dh (he has a visit with the kids that night) when I turn and he's standing right there. Listening of course.

God, I hate him.

I hate to hate. But I do. I do.

My mother's e-mail takes shape. Like words coming out of a fog. "When you were a child..." "You're depressed..." "You're the one who needs therapy..."

I leave. Get in the car.
Howl.
THAT WAS MINE! IT BELONGED TO ME!
He climbed the scaffolding of my growth, of my work, to get leverage with my parents. He crossed a sacred trust. There are things I have told my dh that I have not told any one else. That is sacred whether you are married or not.
He stole. He stole any moment I may have chosen to tell my parents in. He stole my privacy. He stole my growth. I can't think of any other more accurate way to describe it. That belonged to me. It was MINE. Not his.
You see, my adoption has two stories. One good. One not-so-good. One the story of a woman who has a great (?) family, who has been provided for and loved. The other story is of a six month old child abandoned repeatedly by her birth mother.
It's great that my family really doesn't "see" me as adopted. It's assumed I'm part of the family like anyone else. It is simply NOT AN ISSUE. That has its advantages. The disadvantage is it can lead to some insensitivity. But that's not their problem. Not until I chose to clear it up.
On the surface, one story does not negate the other. I had not yet felt the need to correct my family's version. It's not un-true. My version came after many years of therapy. It is the very definition of personal. It is a battle I have fought within myself. It has made me what I am today.
It is also not un-true. And it is certainly, CERTAINLY, not a SOMETHING to be batted about lightly. There is a hard nub there of un-worthiness. It is the dark, tainted, left-over stain of my self-loathing. A condensation of self-hate...for a BABY. But I have taught myself to look at it, and even at times, love it.

It is ironic that in the moment of this reveal...the reveal of my tissuey, pre-verbal issues of abandonment that I am actually, really, in the flesh abandoned.

There really is nothing to say more about that.

Let me just add, for the record: I would have done anything to save my marriage. It was of paramount importance to me. I loved it. I loved my husband. I trusted him. I will miss my marriage.

Remember, from the moment we're born, we climb aboard a sinking boat.

Bon voyage.

I'm Not Telling - Part One

2008-02-25T10:47:00.000-08:00

This post is going to take many drafts I think. Or maybe I'll just let it fly. Either way, you won't know the difference and I'm not telling.

I'm an angry bitch (if this stays in then I didn't edit). And I have good reason (editing fuck out between good and reason).

We're born alone and we die alone. I know this thought can make some sad, but for me it's actually comforting. First off, it's true. And I've been praying for God to remove my blinders. Please Jesus, wash away any and all last bits of untruth that I harbor. The mis-conceptions, the prejudices, the hurtful ignorance. I pray this prayer because I don't want to go through all this growth and truth and then trip on a blind spot.

My Jesus is swift. And I am open. Read: be careful what you pray for. Because my eyes have been opened. Doesn't mean you're going to like what you see.

I've learned/remembered how much I dislike having my life run by other people. I hate in fact not knowing the truth about my life. This is all very circular isn't it? I pray to know the truth and then find the truth being hidden from me. Infuriating. And then some.

Wednesday: Mediation. Went pretty well I thought. On the long drive there I was really nervous. Trembling. A tape ran in my head:
This is the end of my marriage.I have to sit withmydhanddiscusstheendofmymarriage.
Oh,God.Oh,God.Oh,God.
Then I stopped. Breathe. Breathe. I stroked my soul. I love you. Breathe. I told myself, It's okay lady. Don't be scared. Remember this is what you want. And grace, sweet divine grace, descended on me. No more trembling. A smile even? This is what I want. I want free. I've wanted freedom for a long time. And I'm getting it. It's basically done. Wow. Totally different attitude. Yes. I say yes.

Where do I sign?

So I was able to walk in (still) very, very nervous but my soul was intact and my heart was sure and my mind was sound. My dh says immediately, "You sure you want to do this?"
Answer: Inside: resounding yes. Outside: "Yes? Why are you asking me this right now?"
He shrugs.
He's so bizarre.

The mediator is terrific. A real pro. I feel like my heart is going to explode and my dh is sighing loudly every few minutes. But the mediator is calming and diplomatic and his eyes are on the big picture. Like hospice nurses and sanitation workers...who signs up for this job? And thank God they do. I felt confident about the process. He said stuff like "You don't want a judge making life decisions for you" and "Your children will thank you for going this route on their wedding day." Wow. My dh and I just have to be open and able to trust each other and we can get through this and provide the best life for our kids. Okay.

"Trust each other." Insert sound of throat clearing. Or maybe one of those record scratches. Or brakes screaching. Yeah. That's good. "Trust each other." RRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Son of a bitch.

My dh called me on the way home from the mediation bitching at me about an e-mail my brother sent him. I try to be kind. "Don't worry about it," I say. "It doesn't matter. Why do you care what he thinks?" But in typical dh-fashion he keeps coming after me.
I wonder about him. I mean mediation went WELL but I'm still REELING from the experience. The last thing I want to do right now is FIGHT with someone. Does his engine run on pain or what?
I finally say, "I have to hang up now" and he says, "What am I supposed to do with all this shit?" And I think, well there it is. His modus operandi. His reason for raging. He just doesn't know what to do with his shit.

Next day, Thursday. I e-mail my mom to assure her that mediation went well although my dh is acting kind of strange. She e-mails me back that she knows why dh is upset. SHE TALKED TO HIM FOR TWO HOURS PRIOR TO MEDIATION.

That explains dh asking me if I really wanted to do this because my mom told him it was her understanding (ha!) that I didn't want a divorce. It also explains dh's threatening e-mail later that day which says that things I've said to my mother will "come back to haunt me for years to come."

Back to my mom's e-mail (we're doing this through e-mail!?!?!) - despite having told her and my Dad about the abusive nature of my relationship, despite spilling my guts which was very hard to do while feeling broken and vulnerable, despite telling them the recent truths about dh closing our financial accounts, etc., my mother, MY MOTHER, tells me that I should get back together with my dh. That I am throwing away my marriage. That I should get back in therapy with my dh (and here...she goes on about something that I can't even understand so I blow by it...kinda like how they say the Indians couldn't see the Pilgrims' ships because it was something they couldn't even comprehend. Yeah, like that.) So I skip those sentences and go on to the finale. She writes: You need to do what's best for all FOUR of you.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

That's a moan people. A MOOOOAAAANNN. Later, in Part Two, there will be a howl.

For now, a digression.

I read a book recently called "The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show." It's by Ariel Gore and in it she tells her narrative by weaving in stories of the saints. (Aside: I liked her other novel/memoir "Atlas of the Human Heart" a whole lot and she is the editor of the cool zine "Hip Mama.")
In "The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show" Gore offers invocations for individual saints, including Mary Magdalen.
(Backstory: I've always loved Mary Magdalen. My cat's name is Magdalen. Mary and I even share an astrological sign - her feast day is July 22nd.)
As I'm sure you all know Mary Magdalen was portrayed as a prostitute for most of history. But 30 plus years ago the Catholic Church said once and for all that no such thing was true and that the bible didn't support the claim. Dan Brown took it one step further in "The Da Vinci Code" to say that the whole thing was a smear campaign to keep women from challenging the patriarchal system of Catholicism. (I couldn't agree more.)
Ho or not, what is know for sure is that Mary Magdalen was the first one to meet the resurrected Jesus. She showed up at Jesus' tomb the day after His Crucifixion and burial to find the stone rolled away and His body gone. She saw a man walking in the garden and asked him if he saw the body removed from the tomb. He turned to her and said, "Do you not recognize me Mary?" She didn't. And then.
And then.
She did. She moved towards Him.
"Do not touch me Mary. I have not yet ascended." (Happy Easter!)
Mary was the first one at the tomb and Jesus chose to reveal Himself to her first. That's a special lady.
I decided a couple weeks ago to order a Mary Magdalen medal to wear during these dark days. It arrived on Thursday - HOURS before this shit hit the fan. I was glad to have it.
Now dig what the fabulous Ariel Gore had to say about how to pray to Mary Magdalen.
Pray:
"'So that I may not waver at the sight of the divine.' To honor her, learn how to express your grief as well as your joy. Watch the sunrise or sunset and say our loud: 'I am fully and radiantly myself, IMMUNE TO SLANDER. I offer my unique gift to the world.' Stay open to inner vision and refrain from judgement. That woman you're calling a whore may just be the Lord's favorite apostle, and that gardener you hope to underpay might be God himself."

Riiight?

Reviewing the post I noticed that I neglected to give another reason why I take comfort in the thought that we're born alone and we die alone. So...
Secondly, it relieves me of the burden of finding a someone else to trust, to align with, to confirm my existence, to reflect my godliness. People might let me down. Even those whom I have entrusted all my love and respect, those who I have attached myself to with a taped-together umbilical cord.
Those people live their own lives. They're in their own sinking boat. They have their reasons.
And so it's a comfort to not lean, but to stand tall and firm on my own two feet. And know that no one can knock me down.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
More...now.

Tell Me About It

2008-02-20T13:36:00.001-08:00

The kids and I arrived home last night to find Andre sitting on the curb. (For those who don’t know, Andre is my 15 year old foster son whom I had custody of from Dec '06 - March '07. He was returned to his original home in October...which is right next door to me...a story for another time.)
He didn’t look good. He literally limped over to me and it was clear he was sick. He was waiting for his ride to take him to therapy.
He said he was sore from basketball, but he just didn’t look well to me. I had groceries in the car and offered him some nectarines which he gratefully took. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to take care of him, just for a minute. To give him a hug and a kiss and tell him I love him. To see him cup two nectarines in each hand. To feel his soft cheek on mine and see him smile.
And I love that boy so much.

This morning my daughter asked me "When is Daddy coming back home to live?"
I was rushing around, doing the morning thang and the question came at me like a bullet. I knew there was no dodging it, and that “I don’t know” was no longer going to cut it. (As my therapist said, “If YOU don’t know, who does??” Good point.) So I said, “Daddy’s getting an apartment.” She was not having it. She stomped her feet. “I know that but Daddy can STILL come home. And Daddy IS coming home to live! It was just a FIGHT Mommy! I don’t care about this “ADULT” stuff!”
Oh, man.
She left the bathroom (my kids LOVE to talk to me in the bathroom, particularly when I’m GOING to the bathroom) and set to pitching a fit in the living room. I held her. Let her cry. What else can I do?
There are no words to explain.
Hell, someone explain it to me, PLEASE!
I kissed and stroked her soft hair. Squeezed her.
She said, “It’s just so hard.”
I said, “It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to go through.”
And my lovely little lady looked up at me, tears pouring down her round cheeks and said:
“Tell me about it.”
And we both kind of laughed.
God, I love her.

My friend S (and my friend J!) is going through a similar experience in her marriage right now. We both can’t believe it. How did this TNT go off in both our lives at the exact same time? She has been available practically every single time I’ve called, and I call her a lot.
She makes me laugh and cry and then craugh and ly until it gets all mixed up. We both understand that this is EXACTLY what life is. The dark and the light. The tears and the giggles.
We crack each other UP and we confirm our fabulousness each time we talk.
It seems we say to each other every day: "It’s all good." And with a friend like her, that continues to be true.
(BTW, I could write twenty times twenty blogs about all my terrific friends and just might someday...so thank you EVERYONE!)

Tonight is mediation. Session 1.
Holy crap.
I find it hard to breathe when I think about it.
My dh sent me an e-mail yesterday that was quite nice. It said a lot of stuff about how great I am, and how much he loves me, and how sorry he is.
I really couldn’t read it though.
First, it just plain old hurts too much.
And two, it doesn’t make any difference if I read it or not.
I can’t/don’t put much faith in this kind of love letter anymore (I’ve gotten many through the years and I can see that is part of the pattern now too…he’s very good in print).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he feels this way. It does make me feel nice inside. Temporarily. It’s better than being hated certainly. But it is not symbolic of any kind of shift in him. I can’t afford to hope that this changes anything. He could still go off at any moment.

And third, somehow, between the lines, I can still read his criticism of me and that causes such a flare up in me that I have to mentally throw ice water on myself.
He writes, for example: "I know you don't want me anymore."
AS!
IF!
I WISH that were true.
Gaaaaawd.

One other line jumped out at me:
“The greatest, most loving challenge of my life is to let you go.”
I’ve been thinking about this.
For me it initially begs the question: “You’re letting me go? As if you had me to begin with.”
But that’s no way to be.
Yet, I look at that line and think: the greatest and most loving challenge he could have attempted would have been GETTING HELP for his anger and depression.
Can I get a witness???
And I keep coming back to that "letting me go" bit. Gotta think on that some more. Something sticks in my craw about that.

Then again, on some level, I agree with the comment too, because letting my dh go has been a great expression of my love. But an expression of my self-love. My love for myself has provided me with the strength to let go of my love for this man and for my marriage.

And here's how you let go of your marriage:
I had to fill out an intake form for our mediation tonight.
Damn. I mean, really.
A FORM.
A form that asks questions like: "Who was the initiator of the separation?"
"Was the other party initially opposed to the idea?"
"Is there any interest in reconciliation?"
"Do you anticipate a dispute concerning your children's welfare?"
DAMN. Damn. damn.

Perhaps I should just forward them to my blog?
I mean, REALLY!

Love,
Ellen

P.S. OF COURSE, I'll let you know how it goes!

Mirror, Mirror - Part Three

2008-02-10T22:53:00.000-08:00

It’s the first week of December. Crunch time. I just had, in one week, four, count ‘em, FOUR major birthdays, THREE of which required presents and cakes and special dinners and of course, PLANNING. And my parents were visiting and there was that holiday, Thanksgiving. All the while I’m barely holding my marriage together. And now the slipperly slide to Christmas.

AND my dh announces: he’s taking time off from work. Three weeks. Vacation.
“VACATION.”
What the hell is that?
Shit.
We barely keep our asses together while he’s at work. Now he’s going to be home???
So a few days into dh’s “vacation” a friend of his offers to take him to Europe for three weeks right after Christmas. Dh says to me. “Of course I told him I can’t go. You’d divorce me.”
His. Exact. Words.
Are you k-k-k-k-kidding me????
“Go! Please! And not just so you can get out of my house but so you can come back a new man. Find yourself. Find your calling. Release your depression. Fuck a Roman. I don’t care. Just come back different!”

But he said he wanted to spend time with his family. With his children. With me.
With me.
With me???

So far on this vacation he had not spent a minute with me.
He spent his days on his own, doing God knows what.
About this time I got a wicked chest infection – shocking I know! While I did the kids and did Christmas with the worst illness I had in years, my dh did what? Went to the movies? Went for hikes? I really don’t know where he was or what he was doing. He would take off in the morning and come home for dinner without nary a word to me.
He wasn’t helping me.
He was disassociating I know that.
Cause the crazy thing is, if he was off watching movies and taking hikes, and not helping me, I could almost deal with that. What I couldn’t deal with was his doing all this while claiming the whole time that he wanted to be with me, connect with me...and again the whole time he’s keeping his whereabouts a secret. One day he told me he had to get the cars smogged and what not and he’d be gone all day. A few days later he let it slip that the cars only took about 30 minutes and he had actually gone to see Golden Compass?? He had been gone ALL DAY! And who doesn't MENTION to their wife that they went to the movies? I mean just for the simple fact that it makes interesting conversation?
That was the first two weeks of December.
Then the kid got off school too. Oh Joy to the World. Everyone home for Christmas.
I’m laughing to myself right now just remembering it. What sweet holy Christmas hell!
So I make myself some mommy time. Make a dinner date with a mama friend. Shout out M.M.! (and sorry, again…)
The night of the dinner, the dh gets mad that I made the date without ASKING HIM FIRST. Say what Mr. Vacation? And you guessed it.
He rages. So bad I can’t leave him with the kids.
I have to cancel on my friend and I’m furious. I say it again. We have to divorce. Dh says ok. We’re on the floor. Crying. But it’s done. It seems it’s almost an everyday occurrence this breakdown.
I spend literally the entire night crying on the bathroom floor. (Paging Elizabeth Gilbert!) I stumble through every repercussion. Every depressing future moment of my broken family. This is forever. It is tragic. It is real.
I wake up with boxer’s eyes. Have I damaged them forever? Will a plastic surgeon be able to put them back? I wonder, as I gently tug my lids out of my line of vision.

But…but…but…the next day, I can’t do it. We can’t do it. Molly makes us a beautiful drawing of our family. The word “FAMILY” written across the top. My dh and I look at each other. Tears pour down our faces. Molly says, I want you to stop crying. So we do. We spend the day as a family. For real. And yes, we re-commit ourselves…God it sound like a joke now but in the moment it was true. And it was possible. And I knew I would continue to breathe life into the moment until all possible avenues were completely blocked. My dh brought home an expensive bottle of champagne to toast our new marriage at a special dinner I was going to make the next day.

The next morning, December 23rd. It was time to visit Santa Claus at the mall. Oh, how many marriages I wonder have ended on the way to this mecca of stress? Anyway, that morning was bad. Having a hard time with my daughter and more realistically with myself. I just couldn’t get myself together. WHY WHY WHY I wonder? Maybe because I was resisting a little thingy called reality? Oh, retrospect. But I know I was just living moment to moment (not unlike what I’m doing now, gentle reader…)
So I was really struggling. Feeling frustrated and depressed and spent and not wanting to take it out on my little girl but somehow needing to get us dressed and presentable for St. Nick. She pouted in her room. I sat at the table drinking tea trying to find my center. How could I use more reflective language? Be a more patient parent? How could I be a better mom I wondered and I cried in my chamomile a little.
Enter dh stage left.
He sat next to me, ignored my tears…such an expert at that he is…and he launched into a diatribe on how we need to punish our daughter more. We (read I) never follow through, I never discipline. Our daughter needs more consequences to curb this behavior of hers.
Well, I just couldn’t hear this right now and I said as much.
The dh does not like not being heard.
So a big fight ensues on top of EVERYTHING ELSE. I lose it. Crawl in the closet (my big dark womb) and fall into the abyss. But a few minutes later I crawled out. Must go on. Must fight inertia and the need to smoke cigarettes and listen to Pink Floyd for next four hours.
Kids must see Santa.
The kids’ clothes are found and put on. Tears dried. Hugs shared. We had just re-committed the day before, right?
On the way out the door, sniffling back my last tears and self-respect, I lean in to give my handsome if troubled dh a kiss and he pulls away.
He PULLS AWAY.
Like, no, don’t kiss me. Like, recoils. Like, don’t touch me.
Oh, no.
I lose it AGAIN. It’s all knee-jerk stuff now.
I have to retreat back into the house and fucking tear it down AGAIN.
Cry AGAIN.
Make the kids wait AGAIN.
It is not lost on me that this is bad. Not the life I want for me. For the kids. I’m a wreck.
But with love, sweat and tears and prayer I pull it together and actually get them in the car and to the mall. But my dh won’t be so easily dissuaded. He can’t speak to me or the kids at the mall. Won’t get in the Santa photo with us…oh, to have that picture now in Kodachrome…to be enjoyed for many a nostalgic Christmas. I’m laughing. I hope you are too! Stay with me!
At the mall, we get some mall food and the dh is GONE. At one point I ask him “What is wrong?”and he yells at me in front of the kids, God, the carousel worker, in front of everyone: “What the fuck do you think is wrong? We’re finished!”
A few minutes later, after my daughter doesn’t get the carousel horse she wanted to ride, she is running down the length of the mall yelling “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!”
Is Christmas over yet?
So we get home and dh has one of his WORST RAGES EVER. In front of our children he calls me a “fucking liar who never loved him.”
Okay.
I know.
It’s over.
I see you God.
I see Jesus.
He’s nodding. We’re nodding together. I understand. And what’s so confusing is that I made pot roast.
There’s pot roast in the crock pot.
It’s one of Dh’s favorite meals and I had put it in the crock pot that morning for us, for our special evening. Our special dinner.
Our marriage ended with pot roast in the crock pot. How can anything bad happen with pot roast in the crock pot?

I called my friends. Implored them to bear witness to my pain. They assured me, assuaged me. And I made my peace. I would cry no more. I would damage myself no more. I would put my kids at risk no more. I would put myself in harm’s way no more. I would lie to myself no more. No more. I hear you Jesus. No more.

Not even for that great bottle of champagne.
Not even for pot roast.

My dh disappeared till 2am the next morning.
The kids and I went to the bookstore and got hot chocolate. Drove around looking at Christmas lights. Came home and ate pot roast together. It was Christmas Eve Eve.
I love my kids.

I love you.

Mirror, Mirror - Part Two

2008-02-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

I was with my friend M.E., an acupuncturist and healer, and we were working on my feelings of shame about my divorce. We had worked my shame to a point where I felt pretty okay, but when we made a final pass at it, shame came on strong.
A new shame.
And by a new shame I mean an old shame.
A very old shame.
The shame of my birth. The shame of being a bastard child. The shame my mother must have felt.
First being pregnant with me, and then, the shame of having to give me up, of not being able to take care of me.
The shame enveloped me. The failure.
Don’t tell me those pre-verbal feelings aren’t real.
They are. They hurt. Even now.
Especially now.
The new shame attaches to the old shame. The non-verbal attaches to the verbal. And breathes life.

My husband is depressed. And maybe it’s even bigger than depression. I’ve tried to help him but the very nature of depression can keep someone from getting, or receiving, help.

In the eleven years I’ve known my dh, he has never seen a medical doctor. Not a single check-up. Every appointment I’ve made for him, he has cancelled.
In the past couple years, he hasn’t always taken care of himself. He was always my sweet love, but he didn’t always look good or even smell good. One evening at dinner a few months ago, my daughter said to him, “Dad, you don’t look right.” His answer was this: “I don’t look in the mirror anymore, sweetie. That’s not me anyway.”
I was so disturbed by this, but I didn’t know where to begin. We’d been down this road already. So. Many. Times.

Jump ahead. We tried a new therapist. I said right off as the session began that, as much as I loved my dh, this was my last try at couples’ therapy. I honestly felt the problem wasn’t within our couple-dom, but within my dh. And I dug deep, very deep, to be able to say in front of my dh, in front of the therapist and in front of God, who sat across from me, encouraging me, that I believed my dh was depressed, maybe even in need of medication. And to stay living under the same roof, I said, my bottom line was that he go to anger management classes.

It’s hard to understand how an effort so keen and so arduous can fall on completely deaf ears. But he didn’t hear me. It was frustrating as hell. Disheartening. And sad.

For three years prior, my dh and I had been coming apart, badly. During his rages I would try to communicate to him how he was destroying our marriage and that if things continued this way it would end in divorce. He’d yell for me to “Go ahead and call the lawyers.” He didn’t care.
Later when he’d “sobered” up, he’d say “Well, I guess we both say things we don’t mean.” I couldn’t get him to take me seriously.
About a year ago, I told him in the midst of a bitter argument (one I knew I could never crawl out of) that I, for sure, officially, wanted a divorce.
I’m not sure what happened next except that after a long conversation, where pain hung in the air like smoke, we committed to try harder and for awhile things were better.
But then, five months ago, I started to accept that things were not getting better, the rages were increasing and that I couldn’t fix them anymore.

A pivotal moment: Money was tight and my dh was obsessed about it. It was all he talked about and it was all doomsday scenarios…and, most importantly, it was all my fault. He proclaimed often that I wouldn’t do anything to help our financial situation when in fact I had cut everywhere I could think of. So one night I had been doing some serious brainstorming and I had an idea to save some money (small change but still) by changing how we rent videos.
As I began to talk to my dh about my idea, things began to move in slow motion. Something was wrong. It was wrong that I was filled with fear. It was wrong that I had rehearsed this conversation over and over again in my head before talking to him. It was wrong that I was trying to back-pedal and please and placate, when suddenly my dh flew off the couch, yelling and calling me names. “You are such a child! When are you going to grow up? When are you going to listen? When are you going to wake up?”
He followed me around the house, outside, inside, raging at me. Finally I locked myself in our office and fell to my knees. FELL TO MY KNEES. Hard. Hands clasped, I prayed a real prayer. The realest I’ve ever known. I emptied myself completely and I knew God would answer.
“Please God. Please Jesus. Just show me the way. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I’m lost. Show me the way. Tell me what to do and whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
And it was Jesus that came to me. And he said – wait, I don’t mean to be blasphemous so I’ll acknowledge this was filtered through ME, ok? So, Jesus said, “Throw the fucker out.”
And that’s what I did. The next day I told him I was done. I wanted a divorce. And he said, let’s go to couples therapy. And since I told Jesus I would walk whatever path he asked me to, I agreed to go.

And that's when we went to the new therapist. But my dh said the therapist was biased against him. He blew up at her during our second session and called her “unprofessional.” He didn’t want to go back and I didn’t argue. Walking the path.

Later that week I went to see HIS therapist with him at his request. Oh God, I’m walking the path. Whatever you put in front of me.
This was more difficult than I can describe. I was terrified. I was certain I was digging my own grave. It’s really painful and draining to continue to speak your truth in front of people who don’t want to hear it. And I had a good feeling that my dh’s therapist was one of those people. But I was willing to give everything and anything a shot.

Somehow in that excruciating session, my seriousness was broadcast and received. I was done with the status quo. I wouldn't do this dance anymore. We came home and decided to divorce. It was devastating. The reality was a crushing rock on my chest. I wanted to throw myself in traffic to end the suffocating pain. But in that moment my dh at least understood. And something happened in him. He changed. Right in front of me. He admitted his wrongs. He took responsibility. He promised to be a better man even if it meant losing me. And it wasn’t just words. There was a vibrational change. A deep revelation and I couldn’t help but believe in it.

So after a few days, we decided to give it another chance. For weeks it was all-new. Special. We took our first overnight trip together without kids. Magical. Renewing. Weeks turned in to months. We made US a priority and it felt different.
But, then—

One evening, my daughter wanted me to watch a TV show with her. I explained it was a school night and when she started whining I said, ”We’ll watch it over the weekend. I promise.” My dh stiffened and left the room. I could feel it. That old electrical charge was back. Present in the room. I quickly got my daughter to sleep and found my dh in the kitchen, upset.

“I wish you wouldn’t promise her things.”
“I don’t want you even using that word. Promise.”
“I don’t ever want her to know that word.”
“Because promises aren’t kept! Promises aren’t real!”
“You don’t keep promises! You made promises! Vows! And you didn’t keep them!”
And then, the love of my life, the man I had re-committed myself to over and over and over again, he punched himself. The most shameful of all acts between us. He hurts himself. He puts bruises on himself while I watch horrified. The sound is un-bearable. His fist makes contact with his lovely face. Nausea rises up in me. It’s repudiating.
My love is sick. He’s ill.
And despite all my vows, I can’t put him back together again.
And that’s failure.
And that’s shame.
And that’s my truth right now.

Thank you thank you thank you for reading me.
And I thank God for my well-lit path.
I love you.

(Mirror, Mirror - Part Three soon to come.)

Mirror, Mirror - Part One

2008-02-05T16:05:00.000-08:00

Let me start off by complaining. I'm sick. Again. I have been sick for most of December and January and now, February.
Moving on...
My sweet Catholic parents are having a hard time with this divorce thing. My parents met in high school and beyond a thrilling three-day break-up in Junior year when my mom went picnicing with my Dad's best friend, Ed (who I have called Uncle Ed my entire life), my parents have always been together. They have rarely fought in front of me. They have provided a very stable home environment for me. I'm sure it rocks them to the core that their "perfect" daughter turned out to be such a home-wrecker.
But there you are.
And they're trying to help, but they just can't ACCEPT it.

Mom and Dad say: "Don't give up hope."
Me: "Sometimes you have to give up hope."
Mom and Dad: "We hope you and your dh get over your personal problems."
Me: "Sometimes problems aren't personal."

Dostoevsky: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.”
Me: "So I'm finding."

You know you can only admit to others what you are willing to admit to yourself. There is more hidden than I knew...more events rationalized, more memories buried. But they are finding the light.
And their voice.

After a bitter and tiring weekend punctuated by equal measures of grace and anger, I found myself on Sunday night, after the kids were in bed, talking to the bathroom mirror.
Telling all.
Confessing.
I imagined myself talking to my family. Specifically, the women folk, standing and sitting in my aunt's kitchen. Their sincere faces pained, listening. Sympathetic arms around my shoulders and waist. Tears in their eyes. They helped comfort my mom too. Helped her understand.

I realize I'm ashamed. It's humiliating to be in an abusive relationship. I certainly thought I could and would fix it, eventually.
I also wanted to protect my dh...still do. I care about him. I'm worried about him. But I see that hiding the truth helps no one. And hiding the truth is so fucking symbiotic of an abusive relationship. And man, that's what cuts. I thought I was doing what was best for everyone and yet, I find, I was just following some cookie cutter abusive wife pattern. Ick. Big ick.
So...I'm working on that.
And I wanted to protect my family from the information. I've never been comfortable bearing my pain in front of them (read "information" in the last sentence)...and this is a doozy.

So I stood in front of the mirror, crying the shame away.
I have a story to tell. Like all art, it's a story I need to hear first and most importantly. Everyone else benefits by proxy. In the end, all our stories are the same.

I did most of the changing in our relationship, even though on the outside, it would seem my dh would have the most to change. In fact, that became the pattern. He'd rage. I'd cry and admit failure. He would hug me, build me back up by brainstorming ways I could change...for the better of our relationship. Everything from me getting more therapy to me watching less TV. He'd stroke my head, put me to bed and I'd promise to try harder.
My dh had lots of opinions about me. He liked to involve himself in the details of my life. I should practice food combining. I should meditate more. I should drink less coffee. I should use less toliet paper. I shouldn't have my own credit card. I couldn't be trusted with it.

The credit card thing was a big, big moment for me. And so typical in its abusive-wife pattern it makes me sick. Sick because I just couldn't see it at the time and that's frustrating. It's humiliating. Yes it is. But it's true.
He did not want me to have any credit cards. If I needed one, I could borrow his, he said. I won this fight after years of needling (and after our daughter was born...what if there was an emergency?) and so he finally added me to one of his cards after three years of marriage. A couple years after that, it dawned on me that this was not going to build MY credit. I needed to have a card in my own name, period.
So I applied for an American Express card. And got one.
Well...
You'd thought I'd stolen state secrets so deep was the betrayal.
Some of our biggest fights were over this American Express card. Not that I ran up non-essential purchases on it or didn't pay it off as soon as it came in. No. It was because I got the card, WITHOUT PERMISSION. But despite his hot breath, literally screaming in my face, I had an epiphany that would watershed over the years.
No matter how he yells, I can still, practically, do what I want. He can't yell me into cancelling my card. When I stood up to him, withstood the raging, and kept my card, it was a major victory to my spirit.
However, to maintain control, he would open my American Express bill when it came in the mail if I didn't hide it first. This was the case still, years later, up until the day he moved out.

Control was an issue.

His rage controlled me. It frightened me. Froze me. Having a chair smashed to smithereens in front of me is no different than a fist in my face. It's a warning. It says: don't push me any farther. Being spit on during a fight informed me that what I had to say didn't matter. Having a glass of water thrown in my face said: I am nothing. Being called names, having the truth of WHO I AM constantly perverted...well, it did something to me.

Until I said, "No more."

I knew it was going to be scary. But I assured myself, that it was just the territory that was new. I was the same old Ellen.

Me: "I can do this. I can change it all. I can tear it all apart and build it back up again."
Joseph Campbell: "You know the rule. If you're falling, DIVE."

XO
(Stay tuned for Part Two...it's a doozy.)

Thank you Oprah

2008-02-05T09:42:00.001-08:00

I was watching Oprah today and a therapist on her show said that "feelings are time travelers." I loved that phrase. It doesn't matter if what you experienced happened last week, last year or during your first week of life -- the feelings can still FEEL the same. And sometimes, when you don't deal with those experiences, you continue to re-experience those feelings from the past; so you can hit that nerve over and over again to provide your consciousness the opportunity to work it out.
I lived with feelings of abandonment, sadness and victimization. Unfortunately, my marriage offered many opportunities to experience those feelings.
After years of suffering and seeing no change or end in sight, I decided the only person I could change was myself.
Slowly I learned to experience those feelings OUTSIDE of my marriage. As the pain washed over me, I would say to myself, okay, this is MY feeling. I'm feeling un-loveable. My dh is not MAKING me feel this way. There is a situation here that is providing a lot of opportuntiy to feel this way, but it is not MAKING me feel this way.
But still I did have these feelings.
A lot.
Where did they come from? Why are they so real? As I began to just let the feelings come over me, un-attached and un-judged, I was able to find their true origins. And so I gave them a VALID place to live.
A place to live inside me that was big and roomy.
And compassionate.
I'd view them for what they were: a part of me. Not the whole me.
I learned to observe.
And eventually, I gave them the space they needed to heal. Those feelings now have a context and when they come up I recognize them for what they are. They are not the result of my relationship with my dh. And I don't need that relationship to validate my pain or to fix this damage in me anymore.
I can do that. And I have done that.
And he can no longer plug in to that outlet. It's just not there anymore.
I had hoped and prayed and hoped that there was more to our relationship than this painful dance. And there was at times. But not enough.
I had hoped too that we could grow together. But the past is hard to let go of.
Kind of like hope.

An acquaintance heard about my situation and I was shocked when she said to me, "God, I wish I could divorce my abusive husband. How did you do that?"
I told her, "Work on yourself. Improve yourself. Grow as much as you can on your own. And eventually, anything that is not growing with you or that does not make room for your growth, will become intolerable to you. And I think that's the first step."

My goal was never to end my marriage.
But growth was an inevitable part of my journey and I'm grateful beyond belief for that.

Feeding Frenzy

2008-01-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

That's it! I'm not cooking him anymore dinners!
Now, I don't want this blog to turn into a bitch-fest (unless I start letting my friends guest-blog) but I have to get it out people!
So...
DH says on Thurs night, after dinner (he came to visit the kids, got here earlier than I thought he would and so ate dinner with us), while I'm cleaning the kitchen, that he has cancelled our credit cards and closed our line of equity. Damn. Should have taken more money out of that thing.
You see a week ago I started to panic as our accounts were getting more-than-the-usual dangerously low. So low I had not enough to pay the sitter that day. So I went to the bank and took a measly $1,000 out of our line of equity and put it in a new personal checking account all my own. DH did get wind of this and got upset but I didn't take nearly as much as I was instructed by my girlfriends. Always listen to your girlfriends!!!
So dh closed the line of equity. He cancelled the cards. Said he wanted me to know "up front."
Well, not THAT up front because I found that out when trying to pay our HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUM and my CHIROPRACTIC BILL. Silly expenses. Silly woman.
I was at the chiro office when the card was "declined." Such a nice term. No, we won't honor this card at present. We decline.
The office manager started laughing after I had her run it twice. "I guess your husband is cutting up your cards." And the whole office cracked up. And that's when it hit me.
As I'm half-assed laughing with them.
Everything in slow motion.
He is. He is cutting up my cards. Holy shit.
Let the games begin.

????????????

2008-01-29T22:34:00.001-08:00

And here I thought we could be fuck buddies.
How's that for a title? Yeah, that's why I didn't go with it.
So my dh is hot to get divorced.

I've tried to explain to him that emotionally I need some time to recover before we rush into mediation. BTW, that word mediation looks a lot like meditation but is TOTALLY different.

It was two weeks ago yesterday he left.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the kids to bed by myself.
I still cry every single day for the little things (read BIG) that I realize have changed forever.
Who will I watch Lost with? By myself? How fun is that?
And all that shared history. Eleven years and counting. There's just all those gazillion minute moments of past that you shorthand with someone you've known for that long and with that kind of intimacy.
I don't know if I'm going to get that back.

I mean, SHIT.
I just got our health care taken care of and I'm going to be taken off the plan.
I am so not part of the plan.
I feel like I'm in Junior High. He doesn't love me. He never did. Not really.
It's a break-up. Clean and simple. He's gone. "Shut-down." Fini. It's rejection. It's "do I look fat in this?" Who will slow-dance with me? Every song on the radio suddenly applies to my situation. Donna Summer songs make me weep. I am no longer part of a couple. There's no other. Certainly no lover. Just a broken heart.

So he calls tonight to say he wants to "do this thing." Fuck me.

I explained to him, again, that I'm not ready. I need more time. My therapist said I need time to emotionally recover.
He says, "Yeah, I e-mailed your therapist to tell her how worried I am about you."
?????????????????????????????
I should say right here that this is all fact.
FYFI.
Reply in the comments if you have THAT acronym figured out.

So...I breathed...this was about 7:30pm tonight mind you...just trying to get the kiddoes in bed. A real challenging part of my day I'm trying to build from scratch. I don't need to get all riled up.
So he basically says, he won't sign the re-fi papers (which is happening at the end of the month...like everything else in my life...what is with f-ing Feb first???? And what is with the question marks????) until we're in mediation.
Let me help you there, he won't move forward on our impending re-fi until we're in mediation.
And I say, you're really holding my hand to the flame here, and he says:
(in ugly elevated rage voice)
LIKE YOU HAVEN'T HELD MY HAND TO THE FLAME!
click
I hung up that phone speedy quick I tell you cause I had to get back to reading Junie B. Jones with a totally different emotion than the one I was feeling.

Well, at least I'm not wanting him right now in that fuck buddy kind of way.
I can still cry about Lost. And the shared history. And how my heart is breaking like a humiliating Junior High, eleven-year-long, un-requited crush.
But him, specifically, not feeling it. Pretty pissed.

I was hoping we could do this without hanging up on each other.
But I've hoped for lots of things.
Pema (the Buddhist goddess) says hopelessness is a good thing because you forsake the idea of an alternative condition. This is it baby. The poop's on the platter. Well, she doesn't say that. But I get it. Hope isn't always your friend. Reality. Authen-fucking-ticity. Now there's a girlfriend you can count on.
Gotta love it.
And I love you.
In all ways.

Stormy Weather

2008-01-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

I have a lot on my plate right now.
And so it has been a rough day. I have cried many times, which actually I'm grateful for. It's a release to be able to stop every couple feet and let the tears fall where they may.
To weep.
The sky has been weepy today.
Right now it's actually balling, but I'm not. I'm okay. The light is fading.
Both kids are napping.
Ding Ding Ding Ding! :-)
My dh is coming over tonight to have dinner with the kids and put them to bed. I am going out with my bestest friendest J.H. to see some Johnny Depp....mmmm....
Speaking of mmmm....I made my dh (and kids) dinner. Grilled chicken with pesto (my specialty) and pasta. Crudite. French bread. Roasted root vegetables. Even opened a bottle of wine.
Why?
Cause I love him.
And I like to cook for him.
And even though it might be inappropriate, I want to show him I love him, and think of him and care for him and want to cook for him.
Plus, I don't think he's going to get the wrong idea.
He said yesterday that he wanted a divorce. It's time.
It was hard to hear. To say the least.
My head said, good. That's done.
My heart was pounding on the door. Don't leave me here! I WANT my husband!!!
Sounds silly, but it's quite true, quite desperate, very sad and un-nerving.
Plus, full plate stuff -- dealing with financial stuff (YIKES) and a re-fi and being dropped from my health insurance and looking like I'm going to get totally screwed on that front and etc. etc.
I know during times like this it is easy breezy to fuck up...to put it lightly. When you're off balance and emotional and vulnerable, it is very challenging to keep your light lit and your senses intact and your radar up and God's voice loud and clear.
Tonight, on my way home from the movie a big SUV crossed all four lanes of traffic on Sepulveda in a U-turn, and stopped right in front of me sideways. I was going about 40 mph and I'm shaking just writing this but it's true. I hit the brakes and down-shifted, but I knew I was going to hit him. It was raining like crazy and there was a ton of water on the street. I skidded and tried not to swerve into other cars and laid on my horn so he would move but instead he rolled down his window and stuck his big shaved head out and shot the bird right at me. I came to a stop just as my car kissed his. I was right on him. He didn't seem to care about that. He yelled "fuck you" at me and pulled away.
That is NOT the light coming in. That's the dark.
I got home and my dh was here and we had a good and bad conversation. It's all about the duality. It is what it is.
I couldn't stop crying. Not weeping. Crying. Like the sky is still doing. I just couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't hear about how "screwed" we are financially. I couldn't hear the details of how he decided he was done with our marriage. I couldn't hear about how angry he was (duh) or how sorry he is (okay) or how he wants to see the kids as much as he can (good) and how he promises to take care of me (good luck). It's too much. Stop already! Finally he said: I know you want me to leave but I can't leave with you crying. So I breathed and I stopped and he left.
And I started again.
Then I took some Rescue Remedy and ate some food and watched some TV and came in here to write to you.
Weather forecast.
More rain.
Love you.

Demolition

2008-01-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

This morning my dh called to talk to the kids. I was actually still asleep as I have this miserable cold and it was rainy and the house was warm...and you know how that goes.
So when we finally rolled out of bed, there was a message on the machine. "Daddy!" my daughter screamed when she heard his recorded voice. He said hi to her and told her how much he missed and loved her and then he said hello to our son. He told him how he missed him and loved him. And then he said goodbye and he'd see them soon.
I couldn't help but stand there a moment, looking at the machine, waiting for my shout out. My I love you. My I miss you. But it's not going to come. I know that. And it's as it should be.
But still.
But.
Still.
Still my love. Be still. Feel it. Losing love hurts. Loss hurts. Rejection. Passionate committed unrequited love. Hurts.
I'm not his number one. I'm not his girl. And I can't call him and tell him I love him. I can't tell him I miss him. I can't cook for him. Check in on him. Worry about him. Touch him. Hug him. Compliment him. Comfort him.
I can't rush in anymore. I can't do my thing.

I've had to, over the past 6 months, really pull back from my dh. He started to notice and called it "you don't like me anymore."
True.
But I love you. I will always love you.
I want to spike my coffee. Smoke cigarettes. Get a tattoo. Cut scars along my arms. Get skinny (if only). Die my hair blue.
Blog? Close enough (not really).
I will always love you.

But I stopped rushing in and fixing everything. I knew inside I had to let it go to pot. Because then he'd see. We'd see. I'd see.
I'd see I was really alone here all along. Once I stopped putting up the scaffolding, dry-walling the holes, touching up the paint, the whole damn house fell down.
I believe it usually falls to the woman to emotionally glue a relationship together but this is ridiculous.

I was at Home Depot over the weekend picking up fertilizer for the garden. On the way out, a little old man in the parking lot came over and gave me his business card. I looked down at the red, white and blue card in my hand.
"Demolition and Pick Up." Huh.
"Miss. You need any demo done? Any hauling?"
Hauling? Maybe. I got a garage full of boxes and shit. (Another story.)

But the demo I've taken care of.
Thanks anyway.

Sittin' at the Dock of My Pain

2008-01-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hello glorious and wretched readers...ha, ha.
Ha.
Nothing is really all that funny tonight I'm afraid. I'm lonely. There. I admit it. Give me a week without my man and I'm a wreck. This chic wasn't meant to be alone. I'm a Cancer, for God sakes!
I wonder how this happened. How did I end up alone? How the hell? What the--
And there is always something to remind me. I see "Flight of the Conchords" on my TiVO list and...well...
My dh used to do a killer impression of "Business Time." He could really channel Jemaine. And it made me laugh hard. Gotta delete that season pass. (Although I do have a very real crush on Bret so maybe it's worth saving...)
I think of all the movies we were going to watch together. The day trips we were going to take. The home improvements I will do on my own. Experiences I won't share with him.
I'm realizing in bits and pieces and fits and starts all the things that will remind me of him, of us. I'm reminded of how hard this is going to be.
And music! The friggin' music. For those who were at my wedding, you can only imagine what those two Stevie Wonder CDs are going to do to my heart.
What about Al Green?
Are you kidding? Have you lost your mind?
And Otis Redding? Otis! I'm a masochist (a.k.a. a writer) so I'm listening to the man right now and, well, okay, it hurts. It hurts like...like, love should hurt. If it's real. And true. And you thought it would be forever.
Tears burn, don't they?
Salt water in fresh wounds.
Okay, Otis. I don't care. Lay it on me. "These Arms of Mine" and "Pain in My Heart."
Even if you haven't recently lost a love, Otis will find some little hurt, some loss you thought you'd shelved long ago and expose it. So search him, download him, listen to him. We'll all practice a little Tonglen meditation together.
Oh man. Here we are at "I've Got Dreams to Remember." Oh brothers and sisters, feel it down deep. Lean into the sharp points if you dare.
We're all really alone in the end. And that's ironic to say considering the flood of friendship I have floated on this past week. This past year. My parents tonight said they take comfort knowing I'm surrounded by such a great community. Me too.
Sing it. It's true. And as my friend A.L. reminded me, "Singing is praying twice."
Finally...pour yourself some whiskey, add ice if you like...I do. I like Bushmills, if you're interested. I know it's Protestant whiskey but it kicks Jameson's ass!
Alright sorry about that. I'm drunk on Otis. If there weren't children in my house, I would go get some Bushmills but for now we'll have to pretend.
Okay.
So you get your glass of Bushmills with ice and put on "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)." Sway to it and shake it all over and sing along. Let the tears come down, it's okay. It's GOOD somehow. And sigh. And sing. And sway.
And then...and then...the pay-off. Are you with me? Yes. You blow your nose. Wipe your tears. Sigh some more. Notice you're out of whiskey-- And then you hear those familiar horns. This is Otis too?
Oh YEAH.
Yes, it is.
"Oh she may be weary. Young girls they do get weary. Wearing that same old (Target) dress. But when she gets weary. Try a little tenderness..." Hear that sax, people? That's your heart breaking.
That's Jon Cryer in "Pretty in Pink." That's "The Commitments."
It's all coming back to you now.
"It's not just sentimental no no no. She has her grief and care. But the soft words, they are spoke so gentle. It makes it easier, easier to bear."
Yes it certainly does.
I love you.
I thank you.

Gloriousness & Wretchedness

2008-01-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

I don't know how I would have gotten through the pain and confusion of the last two years without this new thing I've discovered. It's called Buddhism.
(And this is exactly why I'm keeping this blog anon because my Catholic father would have a caniption right now.)
I am especially indebted to Pema Chodron whose books have given me immense strength and a brand new perspective.
She really encourages her readers to embrace the pain of being human. Bring on chaos and change she says; these are invaluable gifts of growth. She chooses titles for her books like: "Overcoming Difficulty" and "The Places That Scare You."
I'm reading "When Things Fall Apart" right now and she talks about not running from our pain but really feeling it. Feeling pain will help us understand our human nature, will help us have compassion for other people and hopefully allow us to become less attached to the way it's all going to turn out.
Man, that detachment is quite a good tool. Bless and release. Praise be.
Right now in my life I am practicing "leaning in to the sharp points." I tell you it sounds crazy but it really helps. It is practice at not being afraid. (And the Buddhists love that word "practice." Like yoga practice, it isn't something to finish or master. It's all just practicing, learning, rehearsing.) My favorite Pema quote at the moment is: "When faced with annihilation, you discover in yourself that which is indestructible."
Annihilation -- woo hoo! Bring it on! Indestructible? Praise be!
I just love her choice of words. It comforts me to relax a bit and say, Okay. I'm human. This is supposed to sting a little. Sometimes...quite a bit.
I went to Free Zuma Beach today (Free Therapy Beach I call it) and it was glorious. A January miracle. Sunny. Warm. No wind. No waves. The tide was way out and it created roving tide pools and little islands 20 feet from the normal shoreline. The kids and the adults had a great time.
Shortly after arriving, we saw a pod of gleaming dolphins passing by. The pod was huge, 20 dolphins easy. They were leaping and playing and we were clapping and jumping up and down (ok, I was jumping up and down). Suddenly a big wave started to build, the dolphins organized, the wave lifted from the sea, the sunlight gleamed through it and there were at least ten dolphins all surfing the same wave, silhouetted clear as day, beautiful against the yellow-blue water. Magnificent. Praise be!
One last quote of Pema's before I bid you goodnight. Thanks for reading. The comments have been so inspiring to read.
I love you.
And remember:
"Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us."

Look at me! I'm Gesturing!

2008-01-17T15:34:00.000-08:00

I was reminded today, looking at the beautiful engagement ring on my finger, that I have another beautiful (albeit smaller) diamond ring and matching wedding band in a small red velvet box in my top dresser drawer. It is from my "first marriage." I was married back (way back) in 1992 in Lancaster, PA. I knew I shouldn't have done it but well, I wasn't really in deep conversation with myself at the time. That's another story.
The point is, I would have never, ever, in a gazillion years, ever dreamt that I would someday have two boxes of discarded wedding rings in my drawer. It is a strange and humbling thing to think of yourself one way -- a faithful person, a Catholic, a daughter to be proud of, a loving and committed family woman -- and then to find out, right there in sparkling black and white, that you are not that way. Again...not good, not bad. But different. How can I say I am not the kind of person who gets divorced when I will be divorced not once, but twice? That says SOMETHING about me, doesn't it?
Maybe it just says that there are no "kinds" of people. Maybe it says that what is going on in my life is not neccesarily what is GOING ON in my life. What happens up top -- the moving of things and people around, the hand wringing, the shape shifting, the endless errand running -- is not all there is. Isn't in fact, really, all that important. What is more important is the life under my life. The deeper life. The endless life that resides only inside of me. (And therefore resides deep inside all of us as we are all one but let's not get into that quite yet...save something for tomorrow.)
I get to say who I am. Despite appearances.
That's something I think.

I was also going to say that last year during some particular marital craziness, I took off my wedding rings for a few days. I was hoping my dh would notice. I actually just laughed at myself because now it seems so ludicrous but at the time I felt quite serious. You see, try to follow me here...if I take off my rings, if I make this GESTURE, he will NOTICE with much ALARM and DO SOMETHING to FIX THE PROBLEM (I'm hearing Sandra Tsing Loh's voice in my head right now).
Let me just tell you, that if you are ever in a position where you find yourself making what you would call a GESTURE hoping someone else will NOTICE and then DO SOMETHING for you...you might be on the wrong track.
That's a little advice gift, from me to you. Something I've picked up.
The fact that the whole thing smells like so much drama is not a good sign either. That's just good old-fashioned passive-agressive desperation right there. We have to do the SOMETHINGS ourselves.
And as I've found out: no one is coming. No one is going to save me.
But me.
And that's pretty good. Cause let me tell ya, it's good to have a girl like me on your side.
:-)
Love you.

My Mind Field

2008-01-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

So...four days ago my husband moved out of our house.
This is what I wanted. Freedom. A chance at joy. A time for growth and peace and healing. But this is not what I wanted. I want to be with him. I want to have a family. I want to have a future. I want a husband. I want HIM. I don't want to be alone. I want to be curled up in his arms and to feel safe and loved. I want to love him. I want to shower him with love. But the truth is that there is no such vessel for my love. It's a fantasy. I miss the best of my husband. I miss the house of cards which is the hope I have carried for over ten years. And I have watched that house crumble more times than I can count. So I'm a fool. So I'm in love. So I will always love him. And my love will float. With no place to land. With no chance of return. I know this but it still hurts. Man, hope is a gut buster.
I love my husband. Shit, I adore him. It seems impossible after everything. For I have hated him too. I have begged God to take the burden of living with him from me. And now that the burden is lifted I am floating somewhere between the fantasy, the dream of the life we were supposed to have together, and the memories of loss and despair and abandonment. It definitely sucks. I won't kid you.
But, I am proud of me. Of the me who found the strength and courage to face the life I really had. It was nothing like the fantasy. It was not a dream. It was mostly a nightmare. It was a one-sided marriage. I carried all of it.
Yesterday I was remembering (because memories can safely come to me now) a time maybe a year and a half ago when my dh was raging for days on end. I was scared. Sad. Angry. Confused. Depressed. There really isn't a word for it. I was frozen. Totally unsure of what to do, how to proceed, how to fix it. Helpless times a hundred. Anyway.
After the kids were asleep, my dh would rage for hours and then completely retreat and I would be left holding the emotional baggage. I couldn't sleep. I would try to sleep on the couch. Sleeping in our bed was an impossible thought. I'd lie on couch wondering what am I doing here? WHAT AM I DOING HERE? On this couch. In this marriage. In this life. Hard to sleep. Go figure.
I'd grab my grandmother's rosary and just pray. And try to pray a prayer that was empowering. I knew I couldn't just pray to be saved anymore. The saving wasn't coming. A miracle was not going to drop in my lap. Jesus wasn't going to appear like a mirage in front of me and pat my hand and magically change my husband and my marriage and my life. But how could I do it? I couldn't change him. I had grown to know that all too well. My love wasn't enough for both of us. And my past, my babyhood abandonment, had left me with easy, victim-y excuses for my life during a dismal, dark night: I was un-loveable. There was something wrong with me. No one cared. No one loved me. No one could save me. NO ONE WAS COMING!
So I did small things. This was what I remembered. This is what I had pushed back. But I can tell you now.
I could only sleep for short spells on the couch. I had to get in my bed, despite the fact that my raging adored husband's peaceful snoring was like a slap in the face. I needed to sleep in my soft bed with my special pillow and my white noise humming next to me. I had to sleep. I had children to care for. So I wrote myself notes. Simple notes on small squares of white scrap paper, folded and tucked under my pillow. The notes sometimes said: "You'll be ok. This too shall pass. Tomorrow is coming. The sun will rise on you."
Sometimes they were forceful: "You can get divorced. Fuck him. Hold on. This is your life. You get to decide."
But most often they said this: "You are loved. I love you. I love you Erin. I see you. I hear you. You're wonderful. You're loved. I love you."
I'd sleep with them under my pillow, along with my grandmother's rosary, hoping their strength would imbue my sleeping mind, my dreams. If I woke during the dark, troubled night my hand would find the note's soft crease and I would remember: I'm here. And I loved me. And that was enough to make it through the night.
Turns out though, that's enough for always. For all nights. That's all there is.
The next morning, I'd hastily jump out of bed and throw these notes away before the bed got made. I didn't want my dh to see them. I don't know why. I'll tackle that next time. This is enough for now.
It is what it is.
No judgement. No good. No bad. It's way too complicated for that.
Or is it just too simple for that?
Is it just life? Just humanity. Just breathing. Just loving. Just living.
Thank you Jesus. Cause you were there.
I know.
Cause I'm here.
Here I am.

I love you.