Salt

I cannot shake this feeling of being lost.

And loss.

A year after my divorce from MathMan and my physical, and, if I'm even going to attempt to truth tell here, the emotional separation from my children, I am finally grieving.

No longer busy with a move or rediscovering old friends and old places or launching new relationships or learning a new line of work, I am finally forced to sit with my feelings.

Dangerous territory indeed.

I spent 365 days being mostly impermeable. Mostly. Oh, the trips from Georgia were punctuated with tears and internal raging, but I could stay anesthetized. If my mind skittered too close to the reality of what I'd willingly given up, I'd force it to glance off that first seizure of pain and focus, focus, focus on the matter at hand. The song. The audio book. The old comedy, tinny and silly, coming from the radio.

Things did get through, of course. My armor, while comprised mostly of mega-strength bullshit, self-deception and denial, had its chinks. I couldn't ignore the changes I'd wrought, the ways I'd reshaped my family and markedly changed all of our futures.

It wasn't the tears of my children or the pleadings from MathMan that I once again return to the family home, that got to me. Note, of course, that those things did not happen. These people are so vaccinated against my insanity that they aren't giving away much. If they were feeling the loss of a mother and companion, they didn't let it show much.

What got to me was the knowledge that they were all doing quite well without me. And not only that, but they seemed happier, calmer, and closer than ever before.

Now that I'm here in Georgia and must revisit my old life briefly as I pick up and drop off Sophia at her father's house, my former home, I am confronted with the consequences of my actions every weekend. This is harder than I expected it to be. But then, I don't know what I expected.

It became clear to me that I am squarely on the outside. Alone. Getting acquainted with loss like a head-on collision.

That's when it happened.

I let myself cry. I let go and the tears came. I cried. And cried. And then I worried that I couldn't stop crying.

Interspersed with the ugly crying was berating and name calling. Lisa on Lisa violence.

I cried while I ate dinner alone. I literally cried into my beer. I wept until the front of my tee shirt felt soggy. I sniffled at my reflection in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. I learned that flossing while all crybaby and snotty isn't easy. I sobbed as I wrote another email of apology and explanation to MathMan. I went to bed in tears and tasted the salt, felt the liquid pooling in my ears. I woke up in tears, furious that I had to be awake. I cried in the shower. I tried to put on mascara while bawling. That was fun.

I cried as I drove to work, the red taillights more of a blur than usual. I cried in my parked car because I didn't want to go into the office. My coworker stopped to say hello and I cried behind a wadded up tissue. I went to the bathroom and, you guessed it. More tears.

I tried to stay busy at work but that wasn't foolproof. At one point I stopped crying to hiccup "this is ridiculous" before I went back to quiet weeping.

365 days worth of tears all in a day. It was exhausting. And cleansing. Just like I'd always heard it would be.

Today I only cried a couple of times, both quite briefly, and only once in front of someone. Good thing, too, because I was starting to get a little too comfortable crying in front of people.

Tomorrow maybe I won't cry at all. I don't expect to be cried out, but at least I can feel the corner coming. I'm about to turn it. All those tears were some kind of purge. The dam broke, the flood came and now the waters will recede.

It had to happen. I know this now. Because until I finally let myself feel those things, I was never going to get off of this square of self-loathing and rage. And finally, I can see that this is how the healing begins.

And that's precisely why you buy the book

There's been a lot of why bother going around. Many days I feel the Grand Marshalette of that particular parade. Self-defeat thy name is Lisa.

I was preaching the gospel of get out there and try to Nate the other day. We were commuting together and he was going through the litany of things he wants to do, but doesn't think he'd be successful doing. This nearly seventeen year old boy is already a master at negative self-talk. Oy vey.

I don't have to look far to see which donkey's ass on which to pin the blame for that.

I'm the anti-Stuart Smalley. I stand in front of the mirror and tell myself that I'm never good enough, never smart enough and holy fuck, do you know how many people don't like you?

Then I lean forward and try to rub the line out from between my eyes.

Why bother writing?
Why bother talking?
Why bother listening?
Why bother voting?
Why bother fighting?
Why bother loving?
Why bother trusting?
Why bother trying?
Why bother?
Why?
Why?
Why?

Do it anyway. DO it anyway. Do IT anyway. Do it ANYWAY. DO IT ANYWAY.

You think you're one of a special breed, Part three

Continued from here.

I don't want to reach. Or push. I enjoy this lack of angst. This calm. Things that would have caused me major emotional upsets a few months ago now glance off me like I'm wearing armor.

Another friend, another conversation. This time about love and commitment. About freedom and recognizing your limitations. Like when you're good at the front end of a relationship, but fizzle when the expectations become too much and people get hurt. About being honest with yourself and with potential lovers. About how understandings crumble.

It doesn't matter what a woman says. She wants to be the one who makes you want to change. She has to believe she's special. If you can't quit the habit of getting in, then you have to be braced for what comes with getting out. And maybe you care too much or you don't care enough. Either way, you're caught in the ripple of emotion. It's unavoidable.

We want. We want. We want - what?

There's never a good time to break someone's heart.

I remember, but I can't recover the feeling. The broken heart. The suffering and self-loathing. It's out of reach. Maybe it's the anti-depressants. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's an unremembered blow to the head.

I'm reading Augusten Burroughs' This Is How - Help for the Self, Proven Aid in Overcoming
Shyness, Grief, Molestation, Disease, Fatness, Lushery, Spinsterhood, Decrepitude, & More
For Young and Old Alike. In the first three essays alone, Burroughs writes of letting yourself feel your feelings and calling them what they are. Anger, fear, hate, pain, joy, happiness, love.

Burroughs nails that self-help trope affirmation to the wall with one word. Bullshit. He beseeches the reader to stop lying to herself/himself and to others. If you've pasted on a smile for the benefit of others, Burroughs wants you to wipe that fucking smile from your face. It's doing more harm than good.

He, too, speaks of long marriages.

Long marriages have ended in ruin over tiny and insignificant grievances that were never properly aired and instead grow into a brittle barnacle of hatred.

brittle barnacle of hatred

brittle barnacle of hatred

brittle barnacle of hatred

brittle barnacle of hatred

brittle barnacle of hatred

Raise your hand if you've seen that phrase play out. The pebble in the shoe becomes a boulder you can't leapfrog, can't quite ignore, can't quite wish away.

Okay, hands down.

During my dreadful commute, I'm listening to Jonathan Franzen's collection of essays Farther Away. In it, he recounts his 2011 commencement address at Kenyon College titled Pain Won't Kill You. He also writes of his friend David Foster Wallace who, he concludes, was bored and thus suicidal. I'm being facile, of course. But that's the gist. Enough of it, at least. His point in both essays is that we have to experience our feelings because the alternative is what?

Numbness? Zombie-like calm? (I just typed clam instead of calm. Zombie Clams from the Zen Zone - a recipe for life as a reformed rager. This could be the title of what I don't do next.)

What is this? A conspiracy of library books? Franzen and Burroughs - pushers of feelings. The bastards.

Here I sit all counter-intuitive wearing all black on a sunny day. But my toenails are painted purple. There may be hope for me yet, Doctor Freud.

Mustering all the hypocrisy I could, I gave each of the children the "Your feelings of sadness are natural in a time of grief"speech. I took the day off work and spent time with Sophie who'd watched as Morris was born during hurricane season 2004. Now she'd experience his death. We cried together and talked about what we could have done differently to have perhaps saved him. We didn't know how sick he was. We pulled on our matching mother/daughter hairshirts and left the house to find something to keep Sophie busy.

When we reached the ice cream eating stage of grief, we finally indulged in some lighter thoughts. We laughed about Morris's kookier habits. How he was so spoiled as a kitten that he never learned to cover his leavings. The three older cats did it for him. How he didn't say much, but when he did, he spoke with an earnestness unusual to ginger tabbies who are typically wisecrackers. How he would trap the kids under his bulk and breathe in their faces.

When we started to cover the self-blaming territory again, I told Sophie we'd have to knock it off or I'd be in a corner cutting myself. She wiped away the one tear that slipped down her lashes and announced "I'm never having pets when I'm an adult. This hurts too much."

I pushed the hair back from her face, touched her soft cheek and felt it still damp. Her deep brown eyes were so sad. This is her first real loss. It almost feels like my own first real loss. As another friend put it, "The death of a cat who is like family hits you harder than the death of some family members because they're more a part of your every day life."

I finally allowed myself to feel the pain, too. To point at it and think what I'd been holding back. I wanted my fluffy boy back.  I wanted to walk through the door and see him on the silver metal table and say "Hey, bud." I wanted to see him waddle quickly across the room as Nathan called him Tub Tub. I wanted to see him make the great leap onto the dining room table only to slide to the other end and come skidding to a stop just in time.

Most of all, I wanted another day so we could see sooner that he was critical. I wanted another day to save him.

I suddenly wanted to rant and rave and kick something across the room. Break glass, beat my fists and let out the sobs I've choked back for days. Not the silent tears I hadn't been able to control, but the heavy, heaving sobs that make your head ache and wear you out. Those I'd been able to control. Funny how that works.

Instead, I took a deep breath, popped what was left of my ice cream cone into my mouth and savored the crunch of it. I looked at Sophie's bowed head, her hands folded together as if in prayer, but I knew she wasn't praying. Earlier in the day, she'd told me how she wished she could really believe in god and heaven so that she could imagine Morris somewhere besides just gone.

The sun was blotted out by a cloud and she gave a little shudder. In front of her, her cup of Superman ice cream melted into a tie-dyed puddle. I reached out and she took my hand.

Love and pain. Forever linked.

You think you're one of a special breed, Part two

Continued from here.

Last night I dreamed I was engaged to a guy I knew in high school. In the dream, his family lived on a big, successful farm. He left me behind at the house I grew up in and instructed me to take the car he left for me when I was ready to join him at the farm. I did as he said and as the car drew closer to the farm, I realized that I was no longer driving it. It was operating of its own volition. What I mean was, it was steering itself. I couldn't change its path or make it stop.

As the farm entrance gates closed behind me, I saw a breathtaking vista before me. I reached for my camera and tried to brake so I could get a photo of it. The car wouldn't stop and I missed the shot I wanted of an unobstructed view. When the car eventually stopped outside a tidy, low-slung ranch house where my fiance waited. I was struck by how I'd never found him attractive. The doors automatically unlocked and I emerged, furious at how my life was suddenly being controlled.

In dreams, I'm still capable of berating someone. Thank goodness.

Not every emotion is dulled. I'm in the middle of a sickening crush on MathMan.  The children are, of course, appalled.

In long-term relationships, this is cyclical. Sometimes I'm crazy, swoony in love and lust with him. Other times I'm playing out Merry Widow fantasies in my head. Sometimes he boos as I'm getting dressed because the Naked Show is over or he charms me by telling me that my panties are like candy wrappers. Other times he completely ignores me, so caught up in his own things and probably playing out Merry Widower fantasies of his own. He, however, has the good sense to never admit it.

He sends me texts in the middle of the day. I miss you.

I miss you, too. I want to be home in bed with you. It might be the most I write all day.

A friend took me to lunch. I won't call him old even though he's ten years older than he was when we met. So am I. I look different. He doesn't, but I tried not to obsess about that while we sat facing each other.

He said those words that give anyone who puts their writing out there both a thrill and a reason to cringe.

I read your blog.

He told me he thought it was really funny and, of course, I lapped that up like a big gray cat.

He wasn't finished. So what's happening with your novel?

I eyed him as I licked the compliment from my whiskers. I wanted to enjoy every drop.

"It's on hold. I don't think I'm a novelist." One by one I dealt out my excuses. Time, energy, depression, money worries. They fell flat on the table, scattered and meaningless. After a few moments' indulgence, he pulled that face that says I've heard enough.

The conversation meandered over smoked brisket until we wound back around to writing. He had an idea of what I could write about it. It's not a bad idea and I've already spent some time researching it. Man, that seems like two lifetimes ago. I've captured it in a notebook so I won't forget, but an idea isn't enough to prompt me to action anymore.

Continued

You think you're one of a special breed, Part one

I know that I'm best taken in small doses so this long post is divided into three parts.

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. - Stephen Sondheim

I've known artists who sought chaos first so they could eventually create their way out of it. Through the pinhole of judgment, I viewed the habit as an excuse to drink or get high or sleep around. To be an asshole was as much a part of the creative process as was anything else.

Even though I'm aces at being an insufferable asshole, I'd rather chew glass than claim my churlishness is due to my artistic nature.  When I'm being an ass, it's because I'm Scotch-Irish, my father's daughter, a product of my environment, because I never learned to deal appropriately with my anger, because I enjoy being that way on some level, because I am. I am simply and most-assuredly an asshole. I want to keep it to a minimum, but don't always reach that goal.

But being difficult because I'm creative? Please. I don't see myself an artist. I write to process things, not to create. Sure, I like to tell a story, to share something, to make people feel, to allow myself to feel through the words, but that's therapy not art.

When I wrote my now fallow novel, I attempted to transition from word self-medication to trying to create a new world, a new reality, a new order. I wasn't ready. That story evolved from one thing to another to another until it was unrecognizable. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think that's how cogent, well-written novels are formed.

Later, I began taking anti-depressants and found a job with a very long commute. Writing to process things became less necessary and time became more precious. My already struggling habit of writing suffered an immediate blow.

Now instead of immediately turning to the act of writing through my emotions, I pause and rest with them. What I've noticed is that they're blunted. There's a buffer between me and passion for the things that had once consumed my imagination. Even the sadness I feel about the death of Morris is smooth around the edges. I leaked tears when I counted out the food bowls - four instead of five - but there's no pain in my chest, no unstoppable keening, no hurt that translates to the physical. I wipe the tears with the back of my hand and move on.

Other emotions have cooled. No longer mercurial. I'm almost glacial.

My rages lack vigor to the point that they don't even qualify as rages anymore. They're more like yawn inspiring rambles about things that kind of annoy me. Nate provided some parental disappointment recently and I didn't even raise my voice. Instead I opted for disappointed looks and conversation about the practicalities of his boneheaded activities.

My passive aggression is about 5% aggression. How disappointing for someone who has truly enjoyed that label in the past. Now I'm the dreaded passive sentence.

My once well-honed ability to spread the misery lacks its former expertise. My loved ones are grateful.

Is this what contentment feels like?

Continued.