Barnmaven

Doing it for myself

Photo by Mary H Peret, 2013.  Coyote sets a good example for people who need to learn to depend on themselves.

Owning your feelings, actions and results can be so challenging at times.  Before I began to learn about how to be self-dependent and not co-dependent, I would find myself mired in thoughts of how things would be better if only other people would do something.  I thought healing was something other people did for you, that if I simply received enough bolstering at the hands of caring others that I would be OK.  Clinging to that expectation was actually one of the things that prevented me from really healing at all.

Its not that love and compassion don't help.  When I'm having a hard time it feels good to know that other people are thinking of me with love and concern.  Its uplifting to have a friend or loved one reach out.  Other people can be so helpful, but ultimately I'm the only one who can do what's necessary to heal and grow.

I think I will always be learning this process of sitting with my feelings and letting them happen instead of trying to avoid them by any means possible.  Feelings can be huge and scary and sometimes they feel like they're going to swallow me whole.  That's when it seems easiest and best to just avoid them altogether.  Distraction can wear a thousand faces -- a drink, a movie, exercise, getting together with other people to talk about things NOT related to feeling bad.  The list is long.  Distraction isn't always bad -- sometimes you need a chance to back off from that big dark emotional weight and let a little light into the room.  Eventually, though, if you are going to truly get to a place where that feeling no longer controls you, you're going to need to sit down and get cozy with it.  Let it happen.  

Once I was able to start letting feelings happen I found I was also able to start letting circumstances happen, and then...my whole life changed.

But it started with the kernel of an understanding: No one else can fix me.  It isn't their job. 

Believing that, I then began to understand that I also was not able to fix anyone else either.

I wanted to keep doing that, and so I argued with myself that not fixing other people meant I didn't love them or that I didn't have compassion for them.  So I had to struggle for a while to learn that in truth, having compassion for other people meant caring for them while they dealt with their own struggles, not trying to solve their circumstances for them.  Which is more loving?  Assuming another person is incapable of handling their own problems, or loving them enough to give them the freedom to find their own truths?  

I often wonder what my turning point was, when it was that the scales fell from my eyes and I realized that my struggles were my own responsibility.  I remember the very first time I was talking to someone who was having a crisis and when they told me of their pain, for the first time instead of offering myself as a resource, I simply said "I'm so sorry this is happening to you" and left it at that.  I resisted the urge to do or say more, and let them continue to talk to me about how they were feeling, continued to listen and offer empathy and made no offer of solutions.  After I hung up the phone I had to sit quietly for a little while.  It was a big change for me, and it felt simultaneously amazing and awkward.  I experienced some humility, because it finally occurred to me that I was NOT such an amazing person that I was the answer to people's problems.  I realized that when I acted in that way what I was really doing was trying to be important.  That stung, a little.  OK, maybe a lot.  It was a big first step, swallowing the fact that I was not the good person I imagined myself to be.

That was the rock that fell down the face of the slope that started the landslide, that started my journey.

Today, in my life right now, I have lots of emotions that I'm dealing with.  Anxiety, fear, loneliness are there.  But they are intermingled with joy and love and contentedness.  I can't avoid being lonely, but I can talk to that feeling, invite it in for a sit-down.  I can acknowledge it, touch the pain it brings, let it move through me.  It is a wave - it comes, it peaks, it passes.  Fighting the waves makes the swimmer tired, makes her gasp for her breath, drains all of her energy.  When she lets go and allows herself to float on top of the wave she is no longer in danger of drowning.

A lot of lovely friends and family have expressed concerns over how long SG will be gone on this job.  I hear them, and I cannot be dishonest and claim this will be easy.  But I know who my husband thinks I am, and that is the woman I want to be.  The woman he sees when he looks at me knows how to take care of herself both physically and emotionally.  The only reason (other than money) that he could feel OK taking a job out of state for such a long period of time is because he believes not just in himself but in me.  He's not immune to my feelings nor am I to his.  But he loves a woman he sees as strong and self-reliant.  I need to let that fact sink in and remember it during the times when I'm challenged by my loneliness and fear.   He can't fix it for me whether he's here or not -- I can only fix it for myself, believing that I have everything I need within me.  

And I do.

 

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Hypothetical Advice

Hypothetical Advice

If you were to ask me for my advice, which you won't, I'm not sure I would give it to you.  I mean, I could, but since you probably aren't in a place where you can accept what I'm saying, it would probably not be helpful.  Instead I'm here having this conversation in my head with a hypothetical version of you.  Maybe I'm just having it with a hypothetical younger version of myself.

I remember being where you are.  Many times.  In it neck deep with a person who either wasn't as committed to me as I was to him or who loved me but whose modus operandi was to seek distraction from life's pressures by seeking the attention of other women.  (No, I'm not speaking of any one person in particular and even if you think I am, remember this is a hypothetical conversation, so those were just hypothetical men. Or women.  Or cats.  Or whatever. I could never trust my cats to be faithful.  They'll let anybody pet them.)

In those relationships my younger self tried to fix the problem by controlling the other person.  My younger self didn't understand yet that she was substituting the love and adoration of another person for true self-validation.  You see, I didn't believe I was worthy of love.  I didn't accept myself and my flaws.  Somewhere inside my brain I thought that if someone else just loved me enough that meant I was good enough to be loved, and problem solved!  Except that the problem was even farther away from being solved than ever because I was approaching it backwards.  I was making my own crazy and even worse, I was telling other people it was their fault I was unhappy because they didn't love me enough or they couldn't stay faithful to me.  If what I did to myself was wrong, what I did to other people in my life was downright cruel and heartless.

Eventually I had to learn to let go of the need for an illusion.  I had to learn real acceptance of myself, of my circumstances.  I had to take an inventory of myself and discover not only things that are awesome, but to take stock of the flaws in my personality that aren't so pretty.  

What I would tell my younger self now?  This:  That guy you can't trust?  Maybe he can change.  Maybe he can't.  But as long as you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to keep him in the emotional handcuffs you are creating I can guarantee that the only thing you will accomplish is to make both of you miserable.  I know that riding herd on someone to make sure they're not doing something you don't want them to do will make you both insane.  Don't you respect them enough to let them manage their own lives?  If you assume they're incompetent and can't be trusted to do things right without you checking to make sure they are, what does that say about YOU?  Why would you even want to be in a relationship with someone you can't respect and trust?  

Loving and caring about someone isn't enough to guarantee that a relationship will work or that it will last.  You can love someone with all your heart and soul and that relationship can end for many reasons.  Maybe its a bad fit.  Maybe the other person is struggling with their own problems or addictions or weaknesses that make it hard for them to be a good partner right now.  Maybe they will never get any better than they are right at this moment.  Maybe you will never get any better than you are right at this moment (you probably will).

We all want the happy ending.  We love the fairy tale.  We want with all our hearts to believe that love really does conquer all.  And I believe that it does, but not in the way that most people think.  Being alone, being lonely, can really suck sometimes.  I've had times I was so lonely I felt I would die from it.  But I didn't die.  All that time I wasted thinking other people were the solution to my problems, and I had to relearn the truth that the only solution to my problems was ME.  I could run away from them, I could try to solve them, I could try to drown them in alcohol or pills, but ultimately the only person who belonged in the cage match wrestling with my demons was myself.

There is nothing in this world that will protect us from being hurt.  We'll make bad choices and have to live with the consequences.  Other people will do things that we don't like or that are painful for us.  Things completely outside of our control will have an impact on us that hurts like hell.  I tell you this now, hypothetically, that the sooner you are at peace with these facts, the greater capability you will have within you for true happiness.

Once your ability to be happy doesn't depend on other people, you are free to live your life.  

Your problems will still be there, of course.  This person who is still hurting you might still be part of your life.  But you can let go of him.  Who knows?  Maybe he'll keep walking right along beside you.  Maybe he'll grow into a really great partner, maybe he'll have some success wrestling with his own demons.  Maybe he'll walk away.  Maybe you'll walk away because you find its the best way to help yourself.  I don't have those answers.  Not even hypothetically.

 

Two steps from success, two from disaster

Life is such a balancing act.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It feels like a big responsibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

So sensitive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harder than it looks on film

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

Shaming and blaming

In respect to the issue that prompted my last post:

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

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

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

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

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

I know better now.

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

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

The End. Period.

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

A light so bright it hurts my eyes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This winter will be better.

Both Hands

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fear in one hand.

Serenity in the other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Promises, promises

  

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what are we left to do?

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

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

 

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