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  • love, enough

    [fiction short]

    An hour before I am supposed to leave, I start crying. I’ve had that fluttery, controlling, rigidity-soaked fear for two days now, and underneath that there are always two forms of grief – the actual grief, which hurts, and the tender grief about being so hard on myself, that the New Age Buddhists call radical self-compassion, which feels kind. The one hundred forms of fear force me to recognize, my brain is mean to me, and it is relentless. And I still have goddamn daddy issues.

    But crying is always better than meanness.

    I am sort of weeping, and it occurs to me that when I have these jags, I am usually alone. Sometimes, I am on the phone. But I am not being held – there are not arms to fall into when you live by yourself, or maybe even when you live with others. I cannot fall into Jay’s the way I think I should. He looks at me like I am crazy. There are just no guarantees. Are we really as disconnected as everyone keeps saying on the internet? Is it because of our mothers and fathers? What would happen if we really told the truth about how we felt? In America, they call that over-sharing.

    The tears are a relief, and I have one of those bizarre moments where I realize I am a person and that saltwater falls from my eyes, that I have limbs and toenails and a name. What a trip, just to be here, filling the sacs in our chests with air from the sky, and that is the only thing we don’t take seriously. With brains that can create visceral hells, or heavens. With identification so strong, we live our lives in squares instead of widening circles. (Was it Rilke or Rumi who said that?) We are strange creatures who do strange things.

    I wipe my eyes and breathe deeply. I’ll break up with Jay soon and try to pick a nicer guy, and even though dad is dead and I never got to forgive him, I think he forgave me. I move my feet. I am doing OK.

    —

    In the meeting, Cal shares his story. He’s got one of those mouth full of marbles Brooklyn-type accents, and he’s sober over twenty years, which doesn’t always mean something, but with him you can tell he’s done the work. It’s in the eyes. He has substance. He’s warm, too and reminds me of my step-father, and I wonder if he actually thinks women half his age will sleep with him. Some of them do, think that way I mean. And some young women sleep with them, especially if they’ve got money. Is that anti-feminist, to say that? You can’t say anything, anymore, without people being offended.

    I’m wearing a tight shirt and platforms, and the older men keep looking. Maybe I wore it on purpose. Daddy issues? I am trying to figure out what to do with my life, and sex appeal seems like the easiest thing. Have you noticed that literally everything is sexualized now? You take something real nice and spiritual like yoga, and you make it all about a hot woman with her legs spread. Everything eventually becomes about hot women with their legs spread.

    I drift in and out, listening to Cal, noticing every other noise, too, the crinkling wrapper, the snap of gum, the woman digging in her purse for longer than is polite. I feel tired from my good cry, and the room is warm, womb-like. Cal talks about the drinking days: the way it once was and how it viciously shifted. He woke up in Denver in the back of a car. He left the woman, young and pregnant. He tried to stop and couldn’t stop. He hated himself and wanted to die. I nod. He talks of recovery, the miracles. I believe in miracles, so I lean in closer. He mentions his ex-wife without a curl of the lip and explains how he learned to behave like a gentleman, while going through the gut-wrench of a protracted divorce. He talks about being a worker among workers at shitty odd jobs and choosing love instead of fear. He says, and now I’m going to talk about my father. His throat catches.

    Why is it always the fathers? Strangely, what is so lacking in one is often what I feel when I hear the term father: nurturing, cradling, comforting, kind. At least, it was lacking in mine. I picture a man in a sweater and a swelling profound heart, so committed and awake. It isn’t just about showing up – it is about actually paying attention.

    Sometimes the mothers are the sick ones, they’re cruel and vain and withholding of love, and that is a different sort of hell, one in which escape is least likely. We come from inside our mothers. We cannot get free if they poison us. I don’t know that world, but I know the father one. I know that throat catch and the deep breath he takes after.

    He says his dad was away at work, that he drank, gambled, ran around on the wife. That he loved baseball and smelled of an earthy cologne. That he just wasn’t there, even when he was there. I remember making bologna sandwiches for my little brother, he says, when mother was napping – she was always tired. I picture an apartment, humid, messy, with two young boys in white tees and ball caps, hanging on for dear life. I think, you’ve broken the cycle, Cal. At least, you’ve tried.

    What he then says will transform my life forever. There is no other way to explain it, except that at the end, something came loose in me that had been screwed too tight, all these years. It has remained unscrewed.

    I hated my father, for years, he says, a hatred I could see and taste and smell. A hatred I worked on. Then I started hearing about all this forgiveness stuff around here, and thought, I guess I could try that. But it didn’t work. I never knew how to forgive him. Every time I tried to, came close, I’d remember what he did to me. But then one day I woke up. I don’t know where it came from, or how, but I realized something. I never knew that he wasn’t OK. I just never knew, but then one day I realized it, and it shifted my entire world. All those years as a child and through adolescence and adulthood, I was sharpening my hatred for him like a machete, polishing my shield to defend against this monster, this villainous traitor. But I never knew that he wasn’t OK. I never knew that he hurt, too, that he was human, too, that his dad hit him, that he felt the need to defend himself against made-up monsters. It took me twelve years into recovery to get this and truly forgive the old man. But I got it. And then I became free.

    People around the room nod and cough in recognition, but I am wondering if they have just been leveled like I have. I picture young Cal again, eight years old, slathering mustard on Wonder Bread and already planting that hatred, unaware of the storms that would gather and wreck him, unaware of the stitching that would happen to his middle-aged shredded heart. I remember me at eight, huddling my sisters while dad raged. The storms passed a while back. I suppose I have work to do.

    Cal wraps up. He mentions his son and daughter, grown kids now and one with a kid of his own, and his daughter is struggling with alcoholism, too, and he says, I don’t give her advice anymore – I just listen, and I just love her. And you know he’s not lying. He loves those kids, and they know it. What a thing to know you are so loved. What a thing to love.

    —

    At dinner, Jay is chewing with his mouth open, and this is one of those traits stored in my vault of complaints. It is one, along with his refusal to say please, that sets off the cascade of wrong-doings and ignites in neon the desperate truth that I do not trust this man and that he will never make me feel loved. The last time I said something, he nearly slapped my face. I know I am going to leave him soon. I think about our last giant fight, how he attacked my entire world and implied I was a failure for simply faltering and having stops and starts. I knew in that moment, this cannot be love. We were sitting on the couch, and I was watching him scream at me, and I felt so wounded. Now, seeing him chew with his mouth open, I see a five year old boy, and I remember the stories of his father, and I remember our first kiss, and now I know I can leave him. Not from a place of hatred, but from worthiness, for us both. From knowing what we both grew up with and that love is sometimes leaving.

    —

    I call my friend Lucy, because she had a terrific father, the dream kind, whom I wanted so much to be close with growing up, but I could barely stand to watch them. When I slept over or he took us to the movies or to Dodger games I felt worse after, because I knew, this is not what I am getting. I came around less and felt triumphant surviving my home, learning to dodge the wolf at the door.

    Even in the midst of her freshman fifteen (more like thirty) and sneaking out in middle school and getting laid off from a high-paying job and having an abortion when she was twenty-two, he looked at her with eyes that said only, I love you, and I am here. And you know, that doesn’t even really explain it. I heard once in college that the father sets the tone and the mother supports it. I’ve known Lucy since we were little children, and you could feel it in her home, his energy. He listened and did not yell and said tell me more, and he wasn’t sick. Committed and aware, you know. Consistent. Snake-less. Not a Playboy in sight. (We used to sneak glimpses of my dads.) He helped me once finish a project that I completely forgot was due, and I got an A. After that, I came over less. I felt like a traitor.

    I ask her, what did that feel like, growing up with such a man, did you ever hate yourself or have terrible relationships with men (I already know the answer, we’ve had this conversation a thousand times) and she says no, but she reminds me that when he died her heart broke, and she is still recovering. I tell her, that doesn’t make a difference – when mine died, my heart broke, too. Death is always heartbreaking, even if it’s also a relief. She says, honey, it hurts for everyone, their relationship with their parents. If it’s healthy, the vulnerability hurts, and the loss. If it’s abusive, the hatred hurts. It just hurts, to be alive, she says, in that sultry voice of hers, and I get slightly annoyed because I want her to acknowledge that it is obviously more destructive to have a terrible father. But then again, maybe it’s a toss up. Not all of us get to wake up, when childhood is gentle. Not all of us get to have that moment of understanding, I never knew that he wasn’t OK.

    —

    It takes two more months to leave Jay and have no contact with him, and the next three guys I date are nice to me. I can’t take it. I turn into the mean one and push them far away. I feel so much like dad. Lucy says I have to find a balance, that women like me need a little edge. A sharpened butter knife, she says. I laugh and imagine putting that on my dating profile.

    Dad died last year. It was a heart attack, which made sense. His heart was done. It was heavy and infected and had no room, and that was what poisoned me and my sisters, but you know, you can heal that, there’s anti-venom out there. Judy carries it the most, and she won’t talk to me since I quit drinking. That was our ritual – blacking out together and reliving the hate. It got tiring.

    I think he wanted to love us, but he couldn’t bear it. He knew he wasn’t OK, and he never did anything about it, and then he taught us not to know, and so we called it normal and thought it was love. We thought it was love, enough, as children, but then I saw men like Lucy’s father, and I knew, something isn’t right here. Just like I knew the day I met Jay, this man’s heart is too broken, he will only break mine.

    In a way, it was love, enough. In a way, it is always love, enough. Because I am still here, and I still love him, dad I mean. I love them all.

    —

    I see this kid in the grocery store with his mother, and you can tell he hates being there. You can tell that something is wrong. She looks exhausted and he looks miserable, and the cart is overflowing with junk food and cans of Coke. Liquor bottles. She’ll tell the cashier, we’re having a party! Every kid I see now, I want to save and pass along my story. I’m like Holden Caulfield, if he did in fact recover from his breakdown and accepted the loss of innocence but still insisted on saying, it will get better. But what can I do? I cannot speed up this child in front of me in his dirty t-shirt and scowling mouth and get him to fifteen year old rebellion and twenty-four breakdown and thirty-one repair and forty forgiveness. I can’t do a thing. I think, Jesus, to just love. How?

     

     

     

  • Squeaky Clean

    I can remember the first time I felt truly clean, and I think I went off and wrote a poem about waterfalls and the color blue. Nerd. I was trying my best to express what it meant, that feeling of a freshly scrubbed inner space. Like linens washed in lavender water, or what I imagine a baby’s lungs might look like – delicate, shimmering, brand new tissues. Beyond the images of it, there is the visceral experience: the capacity to feel deeply without effort or judgment, to shed joyful tears instead of suffocating within stuffed rage and biting anxiety, that humming, high vibe feeling that might very well be ineffable but if you know it, then you know it. It’s the experience of murky darkness having finally dissolved. The blinds opened. The unclenched chest, the deepest breath, the coolest breeze. It is light, water, air. It is boundless.

    I got physically clean when I was twenty-five, meaning I completely stopped using drugs and alcohol as a means to try and manage and control my life. I didn’t do it to be good – I had no other choice. Not all of us are addicts and need to give up mind-altering substances in order to find peace and stability – but I sure did. I knew by sixteen that the way I drank was by no means normal, and I really knew by twenty-two that if I were going to have a shot at a happy, healthy, do no harm sort of life, I would have to be sober. As you often hear around recovery circles, to keep going with the substance abuse would eventually result in jails, institutions, or death, and I recognized this very clearly. The party was over. Addiction does not discriminate, and it did not matter that I meant well or had a decent heart or college degree or a car and an apartment – once I start drinking and using, I cannot stop, and I will obliterate myself and everything in my path in pursuit of more. So I got clean. In a few months, it will be six years since I drank or took any mind-altering drugs.

    But this did not mean the clean I am talking about above, the poetic plummeting waterfalls and deep transcendent breaths type clean. That took a different sort of laundering. What actually happened was that, once the booze and drugs were removed, I was left with all I had been attempting to self-medicate away and shove deep down into my bones. It started to come up. It grew hot and sticky. It was like exhaust fumes billowing from a broken pipe. Toxic, rotten, putrid. I was (quite literally at times) suffocating on fear, rage, and deeply buried grief. I was forced to face very old ideas about myself and the world. I had to see and feel my hatred. I had to see and feel my terror at being alive on the planet without so-called defenses. Drugs and alcohol (and other coping mechanisms I had picked up along the way) had allowed me to feel a false sense of safety and well-being that I never cultivated in childhood. Now, sober, I had to release all the pent up emotions and then learn to cultivate inner peace authentically and from scratch. Sound fun? It was not. It was soul surgery, without anesthesia, and I felt every single slice of the knife.

    But I did it, with plenty of support from others and various healing modalities, and I know many many others who have done the same. It can be done, and it will be done, if you have the courage and conviction and willingness. And if you, of course, allow it to imperfect. As one of my favorite singer/songwriter’s laments, “when you’re getting better, it’s a jagged line.” It isn’t really supposed to look like anyone thing, and everyone’s experience is different. It is certainly never fixed or static. I went in full force, ready to be stripped, because by twenty five I was done with all forms of checking out, including eating disorders, physical chronic pain, lengthy toxic relationships, cutting, and chain smoking. Some people go for the baby step variety when they first get physically clean, which is probably better, but this had been my third attempt to stay sober and get happy for god sakes, and I just wasn’t having anymore of half-assed recovery. I wanted to feel it all and heal it all. So I went for the jugular, and it hurt ten times more, but I believe the rewards I got in return were ten times larger.  And I mean, OK, it was baby steps at times. It took probably four years to really truly have complete freedom from disordered eating and food issues. (Which I really truly do.) That is just an impossible overnight matter. The recovery from chronic pain was slow and extremely up and down. I still find myself attracted to unhealthy men who mirror back to me old beliefs. But what I didn’t do was ignore any of that stuff when I got physically clean way back in the beginning. I went for it all, incapable of denial, knowing it would all be a process (as if that word hasn’t been beaten to death! I’ll try using “undertaking.”)

    About a year and a half in, I felt that cleanness for the first time, and it hit me out of the blue (blue!) while spending time with my little sister. I just wanted to hug her and kiss her smooth little forehead, and I couldn’t stop crying sweet happy tears. That was all I wanted and needed, and nothing else mattered. My chest opened. It was crying that came from reverence not grief, from gratitude not anger. No longer did I feel like a constant slave to self-hatred, rage, and fear. I started having these large gaps in the misery where I felt spacious and connected and so very serene. I began to experience my capacity for joy and self-love as well as my capacity to love others. My heart felt so large and swelling, like it would burst. It was a bit overwhelming but also so very welcomed. I knew it was my insides cleaning out. I knew it was the black sludge of trauma and suffering that was dissolving from my body. I knew it was about damn time.

    Four years after that first profound experience of inner cleanness, I continue to grow, evolve, and expand. I see more and more how the practice of recovery for me today is about how much I can open my heart and stop defending it against the world. My heart still wants to wall itself and pull up the drawbridge, and I have to practice softening and trusting. Working with that good ol’ vulnerability (about which Brene Brown so eloquently talks and writes.) And through all that imperfection and trial and error, the practice is how much kinder and forgiving I can be. As a dear friend often says, “God” to her is how much more loving she can be to herself and to others. Cleanness has little to do with physical sobriety anymore (although I am of course forever grateful and aware of the necessity of my physical sobriety, and freedom from hellish hangovers and withdrawal is always a plus.) I barely think about that world, except to remember how lucky I am and how far I have come. I never consider going back. Why would I? It all seems so very long ago. The physical clean was the start, the first step on the yellow brick road, but for me, recovery is all about that internal clean and the limitless expansion of the spiritual path.

    Am I right?!

  • To Thine Own Self, Be True AF

    My guess is that if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be all about not giving a fuck what others thought. (You know, in the healthy, anti-codependent, non-sociopathic way.)

    Let me declare, just to gain even more credibility here, that I used to be sort of obsessed with astrology. Give me a break, I was fifteen. And though I of course don’t live my life dictated by horoscopes or how much mercury is retrograding, I do believe some of it to be of relative importance in the law of attraction witchy woo beyond our earthbound comprehension way, whether or not it is solely supplanted in fact. One of my favorite astrology books breaks down each of the 365 birthdays into great detail, and at the bottom of each page, it gives some nuggets of wisdom and advice. What I read for the first time over fifteen years ago has never left me, and today its message holds more resonance than ever: Don’t be afraid to stand alone. And just as the old bard instructed, when we know ourselves and are being true to ourselves, we are better able to stand alone with courage and conviction.

    Like many of us who lose ourselves for a time, only to search and reclaim with such triumph it is heartrending, I came from a dysfunctional background of narcissistic abuse, divorce, and addiction. On top of that, I was already a highly sensitive, empathic, deeply emotional child who internalized everything and felt her suffering was all her fault or somehow deserved. I never really felt understood in my family, and there was a lot of blame and criticism simply for being who I was.

    I repressed all of my feelings and pretended to be fine, which is common in those who suffer childhood trauma (and even those who don’t. We are not a society that encourages or praises strong empathy.) I never learned to love and value myself simply for being, and so along the way I picked up various addictions and coping mechanisms that turned destructive by the time I was in my teens and twenties. I learned to (attempt to) control my environment so that nothing could hurt me, which eventually caused a deeper, more painful numbness. I rejected my true nature and grew to hate my (false) self, which is the end result of addiction and codependency. From this place, it is impossible to live a joyful, authentic life. I was lost. The idea of standing firmly alone with heart and certainty was impossible.

    Luckily, I always had an insightful, gutsy spirit, and so even in the midst of addiction and despair, I sensed there was a way out and was more than willing to move toward it. I wasn’t fearless, but I had courage. I wanted freedom badly, and I knew the only way I could have it was if I launched myself into the world of recovery. I was a seeker and one who wanted to cultivate true well-being. I had started doing some therapy at fifteen, was a voracious reader of anything and everything, and found yoga quite young, (which was the first thing besides getting high that helped me feel that ahhhhh, I’m OK.) I too always believed there was a benevolent force in the world that wanted me to be happy, despite sometimes finding it out of reach. All of this helped me have an open mind and believe that life could be different, that I could feel different. I was on the path before I even really knew there was one, but at first it was a long, winding and often dark road that I would never wish to walk again!

    By the time I was nineteen, I was dabbling with much needed recovery, although it would take me several stops and starts and ups and downs to find my feet planted in a place of willingness to do whatever it took to remain free from the gut-wrench of addiction and learn how to love, value, and care for myself. No white knight was coming. It was up to me.

    At twenty five I got clean (for the last time, God willing) and over the next five years I got to work. I overcame, and I mean really overcame the seemingly never-ending torture of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, I began to have some healing around codependency and self-punishment, I found solutions for many years of mind-body related chronic pain and illness, I moved through depression, anxiety, and insomnia without needing medication, I learned how to work in a career and become self-supporting, I learned how to be truly alone and without a toxic relationship, I dated (ish), and I started to love myself. A lot.

    Mostly, I found a faith that worked for me, a spiritual practice that nourished me and helped me move through sometimes excruciating pain and fear. When you stop checking out with addictions, you face all your feelings, and there is no way I could have done this and stayed alive (or sober) without a belief in a God of my understanding.

    There were and are many other modalities, all of which I trust and revere and mix and match, as needed: twelve step programs, therapy, yoga, meditation, prayer, visualizations, law of attraction, writing, talking with and helping others, running, screaming, chilling the fuck out and remember there are one hundred billion galaxies and this too shall pass, and basically reading every single book out there on psychology, spirituality, codependency, love addiction, narcissism, and family trauma.

    I felt sometimes, in the midst of this, a little embarrassed for being so into all this healing stuff. Did people think I was dramatic? Self-indulgent? Over the top? Weird? Some of ’em did, actually, and told me to my face, while others looked at me puzzled when I hinted at some of my philosophies. Los Angeles, despite its open and tolerant mindset, is also a hotbed of narcissism, cynicism, and coolness. God forbid I look like a dorky twelve stepper who prays to God and believes in innocence and goodness.

    Obviously, those inside my woo woo world totally got it (my cult fellows, right?! You silly haters) but I couldn’t shake my disappointment that certain people in my life did not understand. It was an isolating, alienating feeling and caused me to pull away a bit or pretend when in their presence. I noticed how I would shut down parts of myself that I felt were misunderstood, simply because I was afraid of what people would think. Classic codependent behavior. I realized, I had done this most of my life.

    But you know what has happened to me recently, at the ripe old age of 31? I straight don’t give a fuck anymore what people think, I am deeply proud of myself and my journey and trust it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and if people don’t get it, oh well. I also trust that maybe if I stand a bit stronger in my beliefs and walk of life, others in need of a similar journey might take note and reach out. My hunch is that if you know and celebrate yourself first, you’ll probably have a lot to share with others that is authentic and full of grace.

    These truths are resonating so clearly for me today because I am coming off a stretch of time where I was trying to get someone to understand me and respect my path who just couldn’t. I at first tried to morph myself, thinking, I can deny a little bit of this, pretend a little bit of that, this is my fault, I need to change.

    Bullshit. Hell no. Boy, bye.

    We are not here to pretend or be small or deny our true natures in order to get along with certain people. It is our right to find ourselves and stay true to whoever we are, even if others don’t quite understand or get it. (This of course, does not function as an excuse to be abusive or harmful.) Then it becomes our personal work, too, to accept others for who they are. Compassion is important, as is understanding why people behave the way that they do, and I can always understand this (you have childhood wounds? Me too!) but that doesn’t mean it’s our job to stick around and try to help them, especially if it doesn’t feel good.

    It actually might all be that simple. If it doesn’t feel good in your gut or your chest, it probably isn’t. If it ain’t true, it ain’t true. Warm, yummy, high vibes say a lot. Was it N’Sync who said be true to your heart? The nineties were so full of wisdom.

    Do not let others diminish what you know to be true in your heart. Do not let those you grew up with, especially when in the midst of great pain, dictate how you are supposed to think, feel, and take care of yourself. Never apologize, justify, or attempt to rationalize your path to someone who doesn’t understand. Fuck the haters. Do not sacrifice authenticity and warmth for the sake of coolness, detachment, or invulnerability. Those who understand you will follow; those who don’t, they’re on a different path. In fact, let go of the need to be understood by others altogether. Instead, understand and trust yourself. Understand and trust your goodness. Be a beacon of light and truth, and if you stand alone, don’t worry. The ones you’re meant to connect with will appear, and if you’re lucky, they’ll dig Shakespeare and astrology.

  • I’m Serious!

    You might not believe this, but I used to take myself very seriously. If you had suffered the way I had, well, then you would not be laughing at my tears. (Or drinking them, like Jessica Valenti.) I mean, my mom told me I was bad at soccer! My dad was too busy working to hug the promiscuity out of me! My older brothers made me watch the Chucky movies when I was eight! (That was traumatizing. Also, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Years of nightmares, my friends.) For quite some time I was a very talented sufferer. I could put on a Portishead record and feel the shit out of life. I had all the proper tools to be of the depressive sort: journal, cigarettes, crack pipe. (Three of those things are true.) Most of all, I had my story. And it was full of abandonment and bullying and a lack of trust fund money. I joke, but there really was some painful stuff. Picture an ultra-sensitive little creative type born into a sports-worshipping family split by divorce and dysfunction. Picture her learning very fast to not show emotion. Picture where that emotion might go. Ages eleven to twenty-seven consisted of a hearty chunk of low self-esteem with a side of self-loathing smothered in seriousness gravy (mmmm) and garnished with resentment. Needless to say, it was not easy to digest. (At least I had opiate milkshakes.) But then I grew up, woke up, and gave up my very worst addiction (and I’m not talking about broke boyfriends) – I gave up my addiction to misery.

    I have learned there is a nuanced difference between moving through pain and endlessly wallowing and retelling the sad tales of woe, or worse, being mean to ourselves and thinking we’re bad people. It comes down to the whole growth vs. fixed mindset thing (thanks middle school education professional development!), staying open vs. deeming something this way, for-ev-er. I can still struggle with that. When in pain, I can dig up all the evidence for why my life sucks and how it’s not fair and how everything is very serious and I’ll never I’ll never I’ll never! Jeez. I’ve gotten better, but I used to be such a miserable sap (while smiling, natch.) Not that you have or ever would, but might you stumble upon my other blog posts, you would see what a solemn buzzkill I can be. So many feelings. I certainly beat to death the words trauma and healing. But before you take me too seriously, understand that I empathize completely with suffering, and just because I have moved beyond a life defined by it does not mean that I don’t still feel emotional pain. Duh. I am alive. I believe it imperative for anyone who is hurting, regardless of their age, race, socioeconomic status, or gender (there are fifteen now) to have permission to feel their feelings and seek appropriate help wherever they might find it. We all deserve to feel better, and there are plenty of resources and avenues to support and recovery.

    Considering that I spent my teenage years numb on Smirnoff, blunts, and medicine cabinet buffets, and the first half of my twenties hiding in eating disorders, boys, and menthol lights, I needed some time and space to wallow in all that grief. I finally grew up around thirty, and much of what that means to me is indulging less in feelings and batshit-crazy thinking and living from a place of equanimity and reason. A healthy perception, which stems from a healthy sense of self, which I worked my ass off to build. I got to this place because I examined my pain like it was a jar of Nutella. (I am not sure if it was examining it that made it dissolve, or because I got tired of what I saw and gave it up. Both. Or neither. Who cares.) From twenty-five to twenty-nine, during what I call The Great Rebuild (I’m still dramatic) I had to surround myself with deep, “spiritual,” meditative, silent shit just so I didn’t go completely crazy. (I was newly sober and had just started my career as a teacher. So there.) I had to learn how to feel, which I stopped doing right around my first real good drunk at fourteen (and maybe even before when I found solace in Sour Patch Kids and Saved By the Bell.) I had to read every self-help book Amazon sold, on everything from addiction and depression, to the alcoholic family and narcissistic wounding, to introversion and personality type. (Poor thing. My Kindle must have felt so bad for me. But at least I wasn’t purchasing pretentious hipster lit.) I discovered that my introverted nature and hyper-sensitivity (which is a real nervous system thing, haters) made me super permeable and therefore more susceptible to pain. I discovered I had been affected by divorce and narcissism and fifty shades of family dysfunction (I may be the first.) I discovered teaching sucks the life out of you and kicks your ass and also fills you up with joy. In a word – overwhelming. I also accidentally read Salon and Jezebel articles and believed that I was highly oppressed due to my femaleness, but that I was also racist for being white. (My bad.) Very serious stuff, indeed, very serious times.

    Salon and Jezebel aside, it was all quite helpful for a time. I thought for so long that it was weak and indulgent to examine old grief, and I needed the validation that past trauma actually is a factor in how we feel and function, especially when we ignore or deny it. It all helped me understand why I was borderline paranoid when it came to my fears and sometimes extremely reactive in relationships or the work place and sometimes just so damn hard on myself. Why I seemed centered in self-hatred. (I mean, c’mon, check me out.) Why I was still afraid of authority figures and “getting in trouble,” as if I were a nine year old kid. (Nine: the end of innocence.) I had to go through the deep dark sludge of seriousness to get to the other side. I also wrote a collection of mediocre poetry, available at a Tumblr blog near you!

    I will be the first to admit that while taking life too seriously, I was much more offended by the world. I felt attacked in every direction and therefore armored myself heavily. I rarely felt safe. We tend to gaze through the lenses we believe in – life looks dark when we think it’s dark. Therefore, we have the capacity to change what we see. But before I knew this, I really believed that my murky perception was the reality. And yes, we all know that people sometimes suck and are either far too insensitive or annoyingly mawkish, but I really knew it, and I wasn’t afraid to tell you. (Or else retreat into myself and hate you in secret. Sometimes I still hate you. I mean, people, am I right?) Most of all, I thought I sucked. Not a good place to start. I was always on the hunt for something meaningful and real, and yet what I needed to change was the deep conviction that everything wasn’t good enough or quite right, including me. Maybe everything was just fine, as it was. What I am trying to get at (poorly) is that I needed to lighten up, man, and I am so happy that I finally did. I still need to lighten up much of the time, like when a client’s email is curt or I see another friend getting married, and thus begin researching which bridges are best to jump from. I need to lighten up but still understand there is a place for having the feelings. Repression ain’t no solution either. The best solution for me today is to acknowledge the feelings, learn from them, release them, and reconnect to the ultimate Truth (god help me) – that I am here and alive and for right now, it’s not so bad. In fact, it’s pretty nice. It’s nice, too, when we learn to spin straw to gold.

    Such suffering and seriousness was important for that very reason – it taught me. Instead of letting it harden me to stone, I let it catapult me into believing life could be different. It helped me deepen my faith, because I needed to believe in something fundamentally good while wading in the muck and mire of my indulgent muck and mire. Yes, I believe in God. Gasp! Relax, secular humanists. I’m relaxed about it. I don’t even know what it is. Maybe James Gandolfini. I just know that it makes me feel better. I’m not dogmatic or religious about it (and if you are, that’s cool) it’s just a feeling and a perception. You could even call it spiritual psychology if you want. You know, good vibes. The vortex and high flying discs (Google, my friends.) If it bothers you or you think it’s stupid, in the words of Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive, “I don’t care!”

    So, you might be asking, just what did you do to have a revolutionary change in thought and perception? How did I become so much less serious? Drum roll please……………..

    Well, in addition to having faith that it’s all all good in my mind and heart (I belong to the First It’s All Good Sect of Goodness Happy Vibes Church, population 1), I stopped giving a fuck! I. Stopped. Giving. A. Fuck. #IDGAF. In the words of the The Real World (Seattle and Hawaii were the best seasons) I stopped being polite and started getting real. I stopped worrying so much about other people and assuming they were good or bad or had to be (Ben Affleck called me gross and racist), and I also stopped worrying so much about myself in a profound intense manner. I let myself be, wherever I was, and tried to love what felt flawed. No more beating myself up. No more using recovery or therapy or the twelve steps as a tool to “get better,” as if I were this broken fucked up creature. Truth is, I’m not so bad. I am human and I am decent. (You probably are, too.) I don’t like everyone and everything and I sometimes have emotions and who cares. It became about self-acceptance and healthy action, not self-improvement and brute force. Fuck. That. I spent my whole life being mean to myself and then spent early recovery being mean to myself about things I did merely because I was a lost kid, and what I really needed was a big yummy hug. I started being honest with myself about what I really thought and felt and not what I was supposed to think and feel (and do) in this politically correct, perpetually outraged, grim, grievance-focused, too cool for school culture. Or in recovery, which sometimes becomes what I see as a place for people to be hard on themselves. Again – Fuck. That. I dealt with all the grief and pain of childhood as best I could, and even though it can still come up and make me sad and angry all over again, in my heart of hearts, I’m over it. Or getting there. I cannot change it. I know how to cry when I need to cry and how to love myself. (Both in and out of the bedroom, wink wink.) Obviously I still want everyone to like me (how could you not?) but I don’t give a fuck if you don’t. (Maybe I give a tiny fuck, but you’re probably lame.) And I let it be alright that I don’t like certain people. You know, like third wave feminists and the mean moms in my yoga class. I have come to accept that I came into this world a sensitive little creature with a ridiculous capacity for feelings (you should see my astrological chart) and that I need to just deal with that hand and play it accordingly.

    I strive to have more fun today, to do things that make me feel good, to be my number #1 advocate, fan, and friend. If I don’t do it, no one else will. I see ways we try to justify being hard on ourselves, and no matter what I just don’t buy it anymore. Even when I do make mistakes or am not my nicest, sweetest, best damn self, the solution is not to then punish myself for it or play the martyr. EV-ER. No No No. Sweet girl, what’s going on? It’s more like that. (Who am I??)  I try not to deny and ignore but not dwell and ruminate either. My life is really good, even when thoughts and feelings try to smear shit all over it. I try to meditate and practice yoga and run and play so I can better see that my brain thinks a whole bunch of nonsense a thousand times in a row because brains are shameless. (Talk about IDGAF. Brains don’t give a fuck.) Being alive is fun, especially when you refuse to wallow or follow rules that don’t really exist. Things like unnecessary guilt and fear are just, well, unnecessary and never rooted in reality. Sad stories are usually just stories, and stories are often fiction. Misery is addicting, but if I can stop popping Oxy-Contins like they were M&M’s (and stop popping M&M’s like they were M&M’s) then surely I can practice not misery-ing and being so serious. Basically the goal is to be the happy drunk girl at the party, all magnetic and warm and telling it like it is, but sober and less slutty.

     

     

     

  • Zoloft in High School

    somewhere in 2003, a girl

     

    I am seventeen years old, and I am depressed, and I think it’s a cliche.

    I want so much to be good, but I cannot outrun, outdrink, outfuck this fear, and this fear is making me bad. I can barely get out of bed in the morning.

    Warning: May cause dizziness. Do not drink while taking this medication. But what does it matter, because I am graduating high school.

    I am nothing like my mother. She was prom queen and head cheerleader. She was happy.

    —

    I think what happened on New Year’s Eve was some kind of rape, but I’m not allowed to call it that, and maybe it wasn’t. I should never have done tequila shots. My body feels numb, and when I sit in the halls and try to write a letter to him, everything feels rubbery and on its side. I used to roam these halls stoned and with my head up, and now I sit and watch.

    I am sometimes good. My teacher tells me I am a fantastic writer with a bright future, that I would make a great teacher myself. I have the highest grade in her composition class. Something ignites in me when I write those essays, even the ones about The Ox-Bow Incident and Obedience to Authority. I can skim a book and still write a killer paper. I read literature in Connor’s car during break, and I highlight and underline what seems important, and this makes me feel strong and proud and pretty. I read the dictionary late into the night and copy down the words I like.

    I still get stoned and pitifully drunk, but I do yoga, and I run, and I go to dance class, and I eat well, and men look at me sometimes. I think I am getting better.

    I tell my therapist of my fears, that I am sort of paranoid – it always feels like something terrible must be coming. I wait for it, armored and defended and wondering, today? I imply that the boys I hook up with don’t know how to make girls come. She laughs at this, even though she is old. I say, this guy on New Year’s Eve did something mean and I have never felt the same. I feel like my insides are made of black glue and I cannot talk to people. She says, write a letter. I tell her some truths, how I am probably an alcoholic, that I drink even when I don’t want to and wake up in strange places. I tell her that I miss my brother and am afraid of my father, and that I love books and have written nearly a thousand poems. She smiles and nods and gives me this knowing look. She says, one day you’ll be free. I tell her, I think I have a concussion. She refers me to a psychiatrist.

    Our lab sleeps in my room every night, because I think he knows I am afraid. He starts in bed with me and ends curled up on the floor in a perfect little circle. I leave my door cracked, because he gets up at 5am and will make me take him out if it’s shut. The house is empty without my brother and full at the same time. There is no more blaring music and strange voices and meth. There is room for me now, but I got used to taking up less space. I am fine folded into myself. Mom seems to see me more, now that he is gone. Mom seems lighter and prettier, her old self. She seems proud of me.

    I write in my journal and swear off drinking and commit to losing the ten more pounds. I am aware that I am in pain, but it is far away and muffled and cannot come out. Instead what comes are rules and guidelines and promises to be better. Song lyrics and heart patterns and pot leaves and DON’T EAT. And I still write poetry. Of course I do.

    I get drunk anyway, because I can’t not, and I feel guilty afterwards, and terribly hungover, and it seems that everywhere I turn I am looking for ways to punish myself. I remember drinking NyQuil and sherry when there was nothing else and swallowing strange pills just to see what would happen – how that must have meant something. I read a memoir about alcoholism, and it all starts to make sense. I take the quiz inside and answer every question, yes. 

    —

    I sleep over at dad’s, in the top bunk in Jack’s room. Jack has a nightmare and cries for mommy, but I want to help him, so I crawl into the lower bunk and he stares at me with this pacifier in his mouth and his eyes so clearly happy, so clearly relieved that I am there, and this makes me believe it can all be alright someday.

    I realize, I love children, and I am one of them.

    These old letters from my brother from the woods fill my desk drawer, so I sit and read them and remember. When he left I cried in front of all of his friends, heaving pathetic sobs, and he got in the car shielding his face. I don’t think he’ll ever understand what he means to me. It was this that started to show me what my heart was made of.

    —

    My girlfriends tell me I should show my body more, not hide it in sweaters, that it’s sexy hot, but I never feel comfortable exposed like that. They walk around school half-naked and humming. I show my belly a little but refuse to wear low cut shirts. I can’t tell which feels worse – being invisible or boys staring. I say, I rather them fall in love with my mind. My girlfriends shake their heads, laughing.

    We go to see Rocky Horror, but we can’t get in because Hannah isn’t seventeen, and so we get drunk at the back of the park, and some guys meet us. I take a few Adderall and we roll down the hill, and I hit my head hard on the concrete. I think I have a concussion, but I never see a doctor. I tell my parents, and they think I am paranoid. I know I am, so nothing happens. And before I hit my head, it had all been happening. He was there, and we were looking at each other, and it seemed to mean something. I don’t remember who he was – just someone looking, we were high and on the swing sets, and we were innocent.

    I lost my virginity practically blacked out. I wanted to get it over with. Afterward I asked Jane, is that it? She said, uh huh.

    Jane tells me I should be dating men, that men know what to do. I believe her, because when I met her, her boyfriend was twenty-four, and we were only fifteen. I think I am supposed to be having sex the way she is, like a woman, but I don’t feel like a woman. I think what I have done is just fucking. Not love. I don’t really understand it, and it makes me feel afraid. You should see the way men look at her. I don’t know what that would feel like. Sometimes I think I am beautiful, but when they don’t look I take it as proof – there are levels of beauty, and I return to what I started believing at eleven. I am good at standing by.

    —

    I notice I have this great capacity for creating, but I do not come from a family of artists. I am not daring, and the stories I write are stupid. They are about boys and getting high. In fifth grade they were about witches. They don’t mean anything. How do I write something meaningful? What do I have to say?

    I listen to music to try and understand. The Velvet Underground sing, you know her life was saved by rock n’ roll, and I understand this completely. Because I’m not afraid to die – the people all call me Alaska. Nobody gets when I say that, because nobody knows that song. I don’t understand my friends who only listen to hip hop. They are missing out on worlds. Everything changed when I heard Kid A. I play that Tool song, H., twenty-five times in a row, because it explains something inside of me. It makes me see branches and thorns and a dark misty forest. Deep rotting roots. My past life as a witch in the woods. I tell Jane’s new boyfriend Ray that I see auras in people, and he says, you are amazing, and his eyes mean it, and they scan my body. It’s the first time I see her jealous.

    I devour books that might break me open. I need to feel something, because I’m beginning to not feel anything. When I was ten my mom took me to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages, and my heart was broken for a month. I want that back. The books that are assigned in school, I don’t want to read. I read Joyce Carol Oates and Dave Sedaris, The Catcher in the Rye fifteen times. I remember the first time I read it, twelve, thinking it was a comedy. Sleep tight, ya morons! Now I understand.

    I know I could be an excellent dancer, an excellent student, an excellent writer and daughter and person, but I don’t have the courage to try that hard. I think I don’t deserve to be that good. I think I am not that good.

    —

    I am trying so hard to be good. I am taking medication now and I see a therapist twice a week. I go to yoga and ballet, and I am getting really thin and pretty. I only smoke five cigarettes a day, unless I’m drinking. I’m a decent writer and I read literature and I worship music and I smile at people. I think I see beyond.

    My therapist says, you have permission to feel sad, you don’t have to be good, you can stop now. I play with those velvety tassels at the end of the pillow and talk my way out of my emotions again, and she sighs and smiles neatly, and I think, I am just like my mother.

    I stop drinking and smoke pot instead and occasionally take mushrooms and speed. I miss alcohol because it was best at untangling me, but I am afraid of the next morning. I start drinking again, and it works, but it is never the same as it was in the beginning, fourteen and wide-eyed at having found what I thought was magic. I am too aware now. I should never have read that memoir or told my therapist or gone to that AA meeting where I related to everything the woman said.

    I am searching and desperate and insecure, and yet an eleventh grade girl tells me I am intimidating, that the other girls are scared to talk to me. I try to be nice to them at the graduation party, but they are fucking dumb and shallow. There has to be something more important to talk about. Is there anyone here who has something important to talk about?

    My two best friends are guys, and I tell them, I think I am an alcoholic. Just don’t get so drunk, they say, and they often try to sleep with me. I haven’t let them yet. Adam reaches into my purse and asks, what are these? and I say, anti-depressants, and he gives me an uncomfortable look, a sad one, and we are never friends again the way we were throughout high school, when we were almost in love.

    I see that I am afraid of love and chase the unavailable. I do not know how to be loved.

    —

    How do we learn to be loved? I ask my therapist. She tells me to look into my eyes in the mirror and hold it and at a five year old picture of myself, and I do, and it makes me cry a little but I don’t really feel it, and it doesn’t help me choose nicer guys. I tell her, I don’t think this medication is working, and she says, nothing will until you stop drinking and doing drugs and dieting and cutting. I tell her, I feel so numb. She says, you are. Do you want to wake up?

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Great Balance

    I’m no Rousseau. I do not believe that man in nature is inherently kind or fundamentally good and that it is simply society that corrupts and creates evil. Have you taken a look around at what nature does? It’s not just butterflies and watercolor sunsets. Nature is deadly snake bites and decaying corpses, violent hurricanes and ferocious grizzly bears who will gladly eat Leonardo DiCaprio for breakfast (regardless of his desire to save the planet one yacht fundraiser at a time.) Nature is life, but it is also very much death. Nature holds goodness, but it also contains evil. It is freezing cold and boiling hot and irrefutably indifferent to your feelings. It is breathtakingly beautiful and at times full of innocence and gentleness. It is also ugly. It is also a killer. And it does not posture as anything other than what it is. Society did not create darkness. It was here long before, and it is what we come from. Before the dawn of civilization some six thousand years ago, the human quest for survival involved quite a bit of killing. If you slowed the tribe down, you were killed or left behind. There were all sorts of crazed, barbaric sacrifices and rituals. Cannibalism. Flaying. Infanticide. As we have seen throughout our history, though violence may not be required in order to survive, man is certainly still violent.

    If this sounds depressing, perhaps it is, but I simply find it truthful. It is the reality of the dualism and complexity of life, both in society and in nature, and using society to expel these greater realities is a bit naive. The attempt at creating a flawless utopia, to eradicate all evil and darkness (both small and large forms of it, often subjective) always results in dystopian disarray. The shunning of the basic truths of life and attempts at controlling that which must not (and cannot) be controlled eventually causes a magnificent break and subsequent destruction far worse – the center cannot hold. This has been proven time and time again in various societies throughout history and has been reflected in literature, film, philosophy, and art. (It also applies to art in and of itself. Trying to make only beautiful and pleasing forms that ignore the ugly, profane, or disturbing creates, in my opinion, limited, mediocre work.)

    In society, as in nature, I believe there will always be tragedy and suffering, regardless of how good people pledge to be or whatever laws are created and enforced. Despite immense shifts of further tolerance and equality throughout civilization (and if you doubt this, read Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature) and despite many, many of us walking around mindful of others and not intending to do harm, evil exists. Man cannot defy all fundamental truths about existence merely because the act of trying to is a beneficent and noble one. Thank god humans try. We should keep trying. There are people who dedicate their lives to helping others escape brutality and violence and unbelievable suffering. There always will be. Goodness stands up strong to evil. But does it erase it? Can it?

    If one understands nature and one understands the scope of history, then perhaps one might understand humanity a bit better and the experience of being alive. Study any civilization since the Sumerians, and find a great mess of violence and peace. Humanity comes from nature (not society) and is inevitably complex and dualistic. We have compassion in us, but we also have beast in us. Our sexuality, this force that drives our species to reproduce has its own savage twists, while also including tenderness and love. And of course, many acts of violence in man come from a fierce need to protect and defend those we love. It is never so straightforward.

    We find such human truths in many mediums of artistic expression, especially historical literature and fine art. (This is a generalization, but I often notice how contemporary visual art denies the messiness and evil of life in favor of cleanliness and order, much like our current progressive mindset believes that evil is societally manufactured and can therefore be done away with if we perfect the system. Good luck!) Disney has made everything shiny and happily ever after, but those fairy tales, at their essence, were dark and ambiguous and sometimes filled with horror. The Renaissance was a feast of human emotions. Shakespeare always told the truth about human beings and our flawed, laughable, cruel, wicked, sometimes honorable and heartrendingly decent, loving natures. Both his villains and heroes were complex figures with whom we can relate. Emily Dickinson and Poe and William Blake got it. They knew of the sinister brewing below. Greek and Roman mythology spelled it out as clear as day (and you should have seen how my sixth grade students devoured the grotesque tales of Odysseus taking on the Cyclops and Hydra.)

    I have always been drawn to the tale of transgression, to anything with a sharp edge, because it cracks me open and wakes me up. I like movies and novels that rip my heart a bit or make me weep. Though I have shied away from horror films, I love a great ghost story. I like when the bad guy wins, because the bad guy sometimes wins. It’s honest. I have loved experiencing the series A Song of Ice and Fire (the Game of Thrones books, for the laymen) because of its refusal to contain cliched redemption, happy endings, and predictable character arcs. I don’t like suffering in and of itself, nor do I like exploitive horror or terror, but I do respect it and acknowledge its existence. I respect art that examines every nook and cranny of life and shows that wherever we look, we will find all of nature: ugly and decaying, beautiful and fresh, sometimes all at once.

    Because good and evil exists on these larger macro levels, it too exists on the micro in our “civilized” living and everyday thoughts and feelings. Many of us in living in modern civilization are not faced with such strong threats of violence and terror. We still, however, face the duality of good and evil, however minor the experience, which to me is indicative of the raw nature of man. Therefore, I believe strongly in the importance of acknowledging and feeling the dark side, the great pain and suffering of being alive, because for many of us, to avoid it keeps us sicker. Obviously we know humans have the capacity to kill and destroy. But even those of us who are (thankfully) more decent and civilized – we’ve still got some darkness, don’t we? There is a reason people like being tied up in the bedroom, watching slasher films, punching holes in walls, or unleashing vicious profane tirades while stuck in traffic – there is a reason that decent people compete and get jealous and lie and sometimes want to kill or die – that stuff is in us. Deny it all you want – it’s there. Maybe more serious in some for a myriad of reasons both psychological and environmental, but mark my words, humans are capable of both goodness and depravity (if only in their minds.)

    There is, however, a distinction between authentic pain and difficulty and perpetually wallowing in the mind of suffering, rejecting and denying all decency and joy, just as there is a distinction between acknowledging certain dark truths and encouraging people to be harmful and immoral. Natural morality is just as much in us as is the desire to defy it. The human mind’s need to fight an enemy is a bit anachronistic in that there is usually, for many of us much of the time, no immediate threat; to obsessively cling to darkness and fear is just as foolish as denying its existence in the first place. Chronic negative thinking is a leftover fight-or-flight mechanism that has allowed our species to survive hundreds of thousands of years and withstand the attacks of animals and humans, but it’s not that relevant in our day to day living. This took years for me to understand, unravel, and finally address. The boss, the lover, the traffic, the deadline, are not actual dangerous threats, but they feel that way because of the survival mechanism. And yes, sometimes there are very real threats, because danger exists. It becomes a balance of observing the mind and allowing the thoughts and emotions without repression or amplification. Not denying, but not dwelling either. Alas, we are not taught this very well in our culture. Things get super black and white and the grey area is largely ignored. As Holden Caulfield said, “people always think something’s all true,” and it usually isn’t. There is a spectrum of good and evil, and we all run the gamut. Some go further in either direction. We are all on the line.

    I have experienced how vital it is to accept that there will never be perfection or a constant flow of pleasurable experiences, that trying to force out the “bad” is a foolish mistake, that the positive and negative, the darkness and light, the good and evil will always coexist; but I have learned, too, that I can focus my attention on what is larger than such dualities, that there is a force beyond our earthbound feelings that I believe to be benevolent, while still acknowledging that the darkness is there, is sometimes necessary (and sometimes feels good.) We are meant to experience a range of emotions, both pleasant and painful, because there is no other way. It is what exists.

    Finding the the resting place in between (or beyond) both worlds has been a practice, and there is no perfect or right way to go about it. To paraphrase a wise old man, as long as we keep living, we keep learning to live. I had to suffer like a goddamn pro before I realized that much of what I thought was wrong,whether with the outside world or with myself, much of this darkness that clouded my mind was a misperception, muddied not only by hypervigilance and an overactive reptilian brain but also by trauma and childhood wounds. I also realized that I had the right to experience real happiness in the midst of human nature (because why not) and would maybe have to practice at it. Just because there was plenty to feel sad about didn’t meant that there wasn’t anything to celebrate. Joy can actually be harder to allow and sustain, because our brain is programmed to look for danger. On the flip side, just because I am feeling so damn good for a period of time doesn’t mean I am suddenly exempt from the human experience (fascinating how quickly I forget) and that to push down unpleasant feelings just makes them erupt louder and more painfully.

    Therein lies the great balance. The middle path. The moderate, neutral perspective. Which of course doesn’t sound that fun or sexy, because again, humans tend to be extreme; we want things to be either all this or all that. I want life to completely hopeless or completely perfect and to stay that way. Some of us really want to pretend evil is weak and easy to conquer. I think good and evil both have their stake in life. But it actually can be quite a rich experience, the volatile in-between, because it allows fully the whole gut-wrenching charade and the great wondrous mixtures of nature – the blustery, fierce brutality and the delicate, soothing, sometimes bursting goodness.

     

  • Little Children

    How often I feel like a confused child, looking skyward for guidance, desperately wanting to be told, “this is why things are the way that they are. This is what you must do.” There is no such explicit guidance, except maybe in a god or higher power, but even from that we are never really told why. We adults are little children playing dress up, paying bills, pretending we know what the hell is happening. We don’t. At least – not me. Sometimes I think I do, sometimes I really believe that my ideas and opinions are so rooted in fact and proof and truth, and maybe sometimes they are, but even inside of that there is the unknown.

    Yeats said, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.” The more I stand in a place of not knowing, a place of wonder and openness, the more I love. The vulnerability of it unlocks my heart, which I have noticed, prefers to close out of fear and self-preservation. Out of conviction. Ok, I can believe this one thing, despite sometimes deeply doubting it – that I am loved and deserve as much.

    In the wake of horrible tragedies, how much we want to know. How much we want our beliefs, be they political or religious or cultural or personal to be correct. Perhaps some people are right. Points are made, many of which seem valid. I have no answers, except that for as long as we have been living, evil and ugly have existed, and that for as long as we have been living, so have goodness and beauty. Can we prevent against such darkness in certain ways? Possibly. Is there a sure-proof solution? I don’t know.

    For now, I have to rest in the not knowing and holding my little child tight, because she is scared. We all must be. The angry people are scared and the ones with all the answers are scared. Even the strongest, bravest, most defended humans can never escape fear and danger completely. We are, as Ellen Bass wrote, “pinned against time,” and that “time is a goon,” as Jennifer Egan explained, and we don’t know when that goon will visit us. In the meantime, cliche as it sounds, I will try to love fiercely (which sounds so easy and honestly is not) and sit and listen.

  • Transportation

    Nothing transports like a song. Nothing evokes such memory. Like Proust’s famous madeleines, the hearing of one song has transported me back twelve years and sixty-two miles away, to a world I no longer inhabit, to best friends and lovers I no longer know, to places I will probably never see again.

    At nineteen I bought a Tori Amos compilation (a CD from a mom and pop record store in Studio City) that I listened to nonstop while spending three years living in Orange County. My favorite track was #15, “Playboy Mommy.” It came after “Bliss” and before “Baker, Baker.” I listened to that song over and over. I don’t know why I loved it so much. It’s beautiful, but if you ask most fans they’d probably say they love “Crucify” or “Winter” more, and they are probably right – they’re objectively stronger songs. To me, though, it was as if there was already a memory in it before I had ever heard it. Driving around in my old green Honda Accord, before iPhones and Spotify, before bluetooth in the car. When CD’s were still the norm, and the best we could do was tote around 200 count CaseLogics or burn mixes that were like opening Christmas presents with each turn of the track.

    That song still breaks my heart. How I listened to it. With Mark. Without Mark. High on Adderall. Drunk out of my mind. Completely sober. It made me feel loved. It still reminds me of innocence. It smells like early morning coffee and anxiety at the Harbor meeting. It tastes like Rockstars bought from the CircleK and Menthol Virginia Slims. It reminds me of relapse. Reminds me of Mark. Reminds me of Jessy, too.

    Mark and I loved music. It brought us together and kept us close, despite our tumultuous, toxic relationship. We saw shows every weekend and brought our CD players to the beach. We spoke constantly of our favorite artists and bands. We made mixes for each other (I don’t even remember how to do that…) and even he would admit that mine were better. I wrote him love letters scrawled with heart patterns and Led Zeppelin lyrics. He played guitar and I sang. He played guitar and I listened.

    Lying in bed listening to Sarah McLachlan, those lazy summer days… (Every day was a lazy summer day in Dana Point.) Mark had no shame about loving her music. He loved her more than I did. “Fear” and “Plenty” were our favorites. I will never not think of him, whenever I hear those tracks. Or The Pixies. The Mother Hips. Ben Harper. Grateful Dead. Our relationship was music, sex, food, the ocean. It was fighting. It was lying. It was romance. It was constant heartache. It was young and foolish. It was crazy love. Perhaps my biggest love, as a stupid, taking-life-too-seriously kid.

    Mark passed away a couple of years ago. I never really got to say goodbye, although the last time I saw him was significant and meaningful in its own unique way. There was a sort of goodbye in it, even though I assumed I would see him again. I hugged him and waved to him from the doorway, and then he left and took the train back home to Chico and died three years later. Oh, how I loved him. Like a fool. Like a girl. I will never forget the first time I noticed him, wearing a grey bandana, a Sierra Nevada t-shirt, and other ridiculous NorCal flare, looking quite thoughtful and affected by whatever was being shared at that Mission Viejo meeting. I will never forget our first kiss, at Salt Creek beach, how time surely did stop for a few minutes.

    And Jessy. When I think of my O.C. days, it’s with her, at our apartment in Laguna Niguel, making weird short films. Pulling all nighters with Folger’s coffee and Marlboro Reds. Charades with the sober crew. Watching horrible scary movies, because she loved them. Watching Carmen Elektra’s workout video while eating Round Table pizza. Swapping stories of high school and our many firsts. How she looked at me every time I brought Mark home again. Pity and love. Her silly vegetarian food that I always stole from the freezer. Her stinky Converse. And our music. That impressive child band, Smoosh. Fiona Apple. The Rent soundtrack. Rilo Kiley and Annie Lennox and Ani DiFranco like a motherfucker. She even made me sing songs from Annie to her… good grief. Hey, all the world’s a stage.

    We went through a Six Feet Under phase. I had watched the show off and on in high school, but that was before TIVO and DVR and committed binge-watching, and so it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I rented (from Blockbuster!) and gorged on the entire DVD set and then bought the soundtrack online (CDNow, probably) because the music was so excellent and was, naturally, a hugely important part of the show. That was where I discovered Sia and fell in love with Arcade Fire and heard Radiohead’s “Lucky” in an entirely new way.

    Jessy and I grew apart. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career, and I stayed to finish school in Mission Viejo. I wound my way through another relapse and another relationship, finally transferring to UCLA and embarking upon a new path, hearing more music, building more memories. With Christopher. With Tyler. With a great unraveling and a brand new start in 2011. Jessy and I shared coffee and cigarettes a few years ago. We talked about music.

    I never gave Orange County a formal goodbye. I have never returned in my body. But anytime I want to go there, I can – without having to sit on the dreaded 405. Certain places and time periods crack us open wide and change our lives forever, and whether we visit or not maybe isn’t the point – but remembering feels important. Remembering feels so goddamn important. And maybe that is why people make music – to help us remember. And I probably should pay it a visit. Make some mixes and sit on the beach. Maybe even smoke some menthol cigarettes. (Likely not.)

  • The Joys of Online Dating!

    If you’re a woman and you’ve had the luxury of online dating over the past few years, then you’ve likely seen your share of profiles and the fascinating words, phrases, and images men use to sell themselves. While scrolling and swiping, I often find myself saying one of three things out loud: douche, no, and are you serious. (On the positive side, I have caught myself saying, hello! and I’m going to marry you.) But often it’s the former, because I simply cannot understand what is motivating these gents to write such idiocy. Granted, I might be more discerning than the average bear, but I think most chicks (is that offensive?) would understand my sentiments. I’ve compiled a list of greatest hits here:

    “I enjoy good craft beer and whiskey.” I cannot tell you how many men put this in their profile. At least 75%. Sometimes that is all it will say. It is unbearably infuriating because it is unbearably dumb, as well as mildly pretentious. Who puts their favorite beverages in a dating profile? “I really love decaf Americanos and Diet Cherry Cokes.” Please. Sometimes they’ll say bourbon in an attempt to sound ultra edgy and hip. Well jeez, I’m sold. (I am hopelessly attracted to hopeless alcoholics.) Let me guess, you listen to gritty jazz records while you’re at it. You’re just one affair from being a dashing Don Draper, but, you know, a socialist Don Draper.

    “I live life to the fullest.” Cliche of all cliches aside, I don’t find this the wisest selling point, especially if you’re trying to meet a woman you can actually have a relationship with. I hear “life to the fullest” and I picture you in Vegas with a harem of hookers and expensive blow. Explain to me, please, what living life to the fullest looks like. Jumping out of planes on a bi-weekly basis? Taking up trombone lessons? Learning how to make pho? What if one is introverted? In that case, a book and blanket might take the cake. These life to the fullest guys often look like South Bay bros, so I guess what they mean is playing beach volleyball and dissolving a beer gut through low-carb diets and dead lifts.

    “I love to travel.” Real original. Me thinks you got wasted on a beach in Thailand and have a plethora of Eiffel Tower pics. I bet you know down to the number how many countries you’ve visited. I bet you put that number on Facebook. And I bet you make it very clear that you are a “traveler,” not a “tourist.” How’s the blog coming? Look, who doesn’t love to travel? (Well, me, actually, unless I have a plan and a non-irritating companion and a comfortable bed to sleep in and chic but practical shoes.) We all like seeing the world. But if you like it that much, if you are still nomadically backpacking across it and you’re over thirty-five, well, then you’re just sad. Or rich. Can I come?

    “I work hard and I play hard.” We know what you’re getting at, but under no circumstances should you say this, unless you’re under nineteen and taking a stab at irony. I also worry that you might be suffering from exhaustion and adrenal fatigue. One can only burn the candle at both ends for so long…

    “I live an active lifestyle.” As opposed to what? Not moving ever? Just how active are you? Do you run marathons every weekend? Power-walk around the office? Stand at restaurants? Are you a big fan of camping? I need specifics. Because if you’re waking me up at six on a Sunday to hit the hiking trail and brunch with buddies after, bye.

    “I’m a writer.” You might as well just come out with it: you’ve written two short stories loosely inspired by John Updike, and you’re broke. (I clearly should insert foot in mouth at this point.)

    And finally, the one’s who list eight hundred films, bands, and shows in their profile, as if the fact that we both like Radiohead and The Big Lebowski is enough for us to live together in holy matrimony. (Fine, I was guilty of this in my mid-twenties. After many guys were shocked at my lack of interest in them given the fact that we had so much in common, like watching The Wire, I learned my lesson. Also, people judged me for liking John Green books. I don’t blame them.)

    Another problem I have noticed with the online dating world is how these guys proceed in trying to win a date. Most of them give you their number and basically tell you to ask them out or meet them on their side of town. I realize we live in liberated times, but, unless you’re a second phase Millenial whose penis is a social construct and shops for rompers made of local homespun cotton, hone that masculine energy and play the dating game right. At least in the beginning. Now, often you’ll give the guy your number, bright eyed and optimistic – this time it will be different! – and here are the texts you will begin to receive from these charming princes:

    “Yo.”

    (Eight days later and close to 10pm) “Busy tonight?”

    Just a slew of emojis. Am I supposed to decipher this mysterious romantic code and report back? Do I report back in more code? Maybe real men emoji, but not on the first date.

    A Kindle sized update on the ins and outs of their lives. (At least here, red flags are offered up on a silver platter.)

    “I had a great day! Did some day drinking, which may or may not have lead to night time tattoos. I’d love to meet.” (I received this one recently, verbatim, and the guy is thirty-seven. Does he really think that I am going to swoon over that? What am I, fifteen?)

    “Where should we go?” I don’t really care – somewhere to eat food, I suppose. Bottom line is, you should come up with it, since you (sort of) asked me on the date. Come on, you drink whiskey! Be a man! I support toxic masculinity!

    “Well, if you’re ever in the area, maybe we could grab some coffee sometime.” What a line. What an available, considerate stud. What’s your zip code?

    If you actually score a date, and you actually manufacture a plan, and you actually actually actually meet each other and go out, who knows what might happen. My last boyfriend was brought to me courtesy of a swiped right on Hinge (is that one still around?) But more often then not, you meet, you exchange pleasantries, you give the whole where you grew up where you went to school what you do for work spiel, you have a pretty nice time, and then you never see each other again. (Or if you still drink or you’re in your sexual revolution phase, maybe you go home with him.) It’s pretty whacky when you really think about it. Swiping for a one-time companion. But at least we’re keeping bars and bistros in business.

    The nuanced madness of it all isn’t solely men’s fault. (I’ve certainly heard from the other side how L.A. girls tend to represent themselves: “I love wine!” a body selfie at the beach, artsy Venice wall photo, yoga pose (done wrong), a spiritual quote. Filters on top of filters on top of filters on top of Facetune.) I think we’ve grown confused. Strange days, indeed. But I won’t get into gender issues and the nature of today’s “feminism” (read: masculine hating) being partly responsible for our plethora of beta-males who have cuter clothes than I do and find everything oppressive. (And those hairstyles!) I don’t want to trigger you or accidentally micro-aggress. Or would it be macro? I don’t know the difference – I’m just a broad.

     

     

     

  • The Thinker

    “The less I think, the more I love.” -My friend

    I have come to trust, despite dubious moments, that there is no solution in rough and tough self-talk and obsessive thinking. You know. The thinking that warns and threatens. That runs the black and white tapes of rigidity and scarcity. The bad girl tales. Those are beyond tired. I am not a contestant on a gameshow facing sudden death if I choose the wrong door. That doesn’t mean I rely on some sort of sickly-sweet fairytale head in the clouds nonsense either. But when my thinking is healthy (or perhaps when it ceases), it is gentle and tender, non-clinging, and very lighthearted. It has humor and levity and great perspective. There is always a solution, always a way out. I doubt you would even call this Thinking. Good old Eckhart Tolle would tell me that this is my Being observing the Thinker. I trust that he’s right. For many years, Tolle pursued a depth and breadth of knowledge and discovered its inevitable emptiness. He is by no means a dumb or naive man, and he understood the value of thought and scholarship, (and if you ask me, more people need to gain resonant knowledge) but he also saw that it was not true wisdom. Thinking is not the ultimate truth. What could be?

    I get so tired of what my mind does. My mind loves to create all forms of hate. Fear, worry, judgement. Guilt, shame, dread. You name it. It loves to spin. To compare. To create teams and sides and keep a big score. It likes thinking it knows everything or else knows nothing and deserves to kill its host. Yes, I meditate. I practice yoga. I get my twelve steps on and pray to God and write in journals and talk to friends about these experiences. I try to help others and enlarge my spiritual life. Doesn’t matter. None of this gets you off the hook of the human condition. Next to a life dulled by heroin or a car accident rendering me braindead or some kind of sci-fi lobotomy, there is no getting out of this head of mine or getting this head out of me. Even the Dalai Lama has had shitty thoughts. Obviously Eckhart Tolle does. The mind is here to stay. But at least I can see it for what it is today and not constantly believe what it is telling me. And there is great relief and compassion in knowing that we all have this, regardless of our differing life circumstances. We may or may not all be one… but we all think weirdly. That awareness makes me more likely to forgive and love.

    The spiritual path is often described as one that narrows – “the razor’s edge.” I don’t love that definition, but I understand the idea. The path does narrow in a way, as we are no longer able to dull the mind with our old vices (despite our vain attempts), but I believe it leads to wider open spaces. Certainly different spaces. In the first couple of years recovery, I was busy enough schlepping away the very old garbage that had piled up and buried my spirit. The spirit was always there, as it is in all of us – this great hearth – but I cleaned the gunk out and built for the first time around it a sturdy foundation. And I was regularly able to shimmy past daily anxiety and despair and hide in that safe internal space, where I could feel that everything was alright. This was merely a beginning. This was all feeling and unfreezing grief and trauma and, honestly, surviving. Hanging on for dear life – trying to stay sober and not hurt myself in giant ways. Once I got out of survival mode and really started living, the thinking got loud – because I was finally awake enough to hear it.

    I didn’t know just how much my mind spun until I dropped all of my self-destructive dances. I could distract it with all sorts of food and body issues. Counting and measuring and weighing and buying are fantastic mind-controllers. Nothing works like disordered eating. Smoking worked for a time, and the race to finish the loathsome teaching certification courses. Workaholism – very effective. Our sad stories even work for a while, the hyper-focus on others and past traumas, both real and indulged. When I finally resolved The Eating Disorder and left the job that drained me of my life force, my thinking went into the high gear. Don’t get me wrong – my life opened up big and wide and I certainly felt happier and more whole. Codependent behaviors dissolved and I gave less of a fuck of what others thought, but I also became far more aware of the junk that was rolling around inside of my head. I always knew it was there, the incessant fear and worry and perpetual future/past glance, but there was no numbing it or outrunning it. There it was, and there I was, stripped bare. No sword, no shield. Turns out, I didn’t need any weapons. The Thinker is the emperor with no clothes, and it disappears when we stare it in the face. When we smile at it, actually.

    As a wise Buddhist once said, “just as the salivary glands secrete saliva, the mind secretes thoughts.” It just does what it does, and it’s impersonal. The Thinker is a prankster. A liar. It has an or else quality to it, a threat to open the trap door. And it is convincing. It is very hard to ignore and mistrust when it’s running its trap. It isn’t soft or gentle or open-minded – it is stark and blinding and in a great big urgent hurry. It seems afraid. As if something is holding a gun to its head. Like it doesn’t really like its tedious job of spinning silly stories. There’s no removing it. And yet in that reality, there is freedom, because you realize it isn’t all you. You are beyond it and above it – you can see it. You can look directly fucking at it. And when you pay close attention, it slows.

    It gets quieter. You get gaps, moments, sometimes longer stretches of serenity and contentment. There is that larger something whispering that definitely knows the truth. Call it Being, God, Spirit, Divine Goodness, whatever. It says, it is all good, dear one. You’re forgiven. Let go. Love yourself. Love others. Forgive. You’re loved. You’re love. I love you. You’re safe. Nothing is a big deal. Just be. Etc. Ahhh. That is the truth. The soft gentle voice. The Higher Self that is irrevocably connected. The One Who Knows. That’s the Reality. And you can learn to trust this and still balance a checkbook, get the AC fixed, feel bothered by annoying people. There’s no need for misty mountaintops and renouncing all earthly possessions. (You can do that, too, though, if you feel so obliged.)

    The more I seek and search to find freedom from this lump of matter between my ears, this Thinking beast, the more I discover that larger truth of why we are here: to experience love, both for ourselves and others. Even as I type that, I cringe. It sounds so lame and kumbaya. Or else it sounds so simple. Or trivial. Freaking Pollyanna. And hate in some form always seems justified. Sometimes, it is justified. But so what. Nothing grows from hate, and even if love isn’t always initially sincere or profound, in the long run it’s the only important thing, and in the short run it feels better. The less I think, the more I love, and loving is a lot more fun, once you get used to it. Again, and again, and again.