Word Pie

Being a real, live person is so unnatural.  The automatic instincts we have are apparently wrong, so we must adjust our behavior to give the appearance of normalcy.  There are all these rules and they're stupid, because rules are the only thing that separates us from the animals. 

I mean, offering comfort is a natural inclination, but obsessing over the ramifications of your method of comfort is just fucking insanity.

I'm not saying YOU are insane, I'm saying that HUMANS are.

(Dear Ruby, that is the end of my initial reaction to your blog.  Thank you for keeping me going)

But we are taught that there are rules on how to do these things.  Always with temperance. We cannot just go around having feelings about things, because we have to think about how having feelings affects everyone. 

I cannot eat when I am hungry, I must wait until the time when the sun hits a certain point in the sky because that's when the king was hungry 2000 years ago.

I cannot speak the way I think because it is too loud, fast, and intense.  Escalating conversations, apparently, mean you're angry, stubborn, and a big fat wit one-upper, when in reality I'm trying to find someone who can play.  Then again, I've never been accused of being a one-upper...I'm just always afraid I'll come across that way, when what I really want to do is have a word battle.  No, not a battle...a word farm, where we plant and grow and harvest and bake delicious word pies.  Together.   Blogs are like word pies.

I cannot be skeptical when I receive compliments, and must accept them graciously because I'm supposed to.  But instinctively, compliments from strangers and acquaintances (if I trust you already, I will be happy and affable as fuck) make me suspicious and unravel any thoughts of trust, because in MY experience people only use compliments for manipulative purposes instead of genuine appreciation. 


I cannot get angry at someone for calling me a 'fat cunt' (this is a new phenomenon for me.  Before people thought I was feisty, or a spitfire or something. But sure, you gain weight and your clothes don't fit right and the game fucking changes.  It is unforgivable to be heavier than your peers and also outspoken.  As long as you're within someone's acceptable body range, they find you clever) I am supposed to ignore it because society frowns upon anger, when everything in my gut tells me to attack, diminish, destroy.  And then everyone's all, "Calm down, that guy's just a douchebag" and I'm all "yeah, and if no one ever does anything about it he's going to stay that way." But if you do that you are crazy.  And then everyone wants to know why you're crazy.  MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU ARE FORCING ME TO SUPPRESS THINGS, SOCIETY.  EH?  YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT?  YOU EVER THINK THAT SOMEDAY I AM GOING TO WAR ON MYSELF BECAUSE MY NATURAL INCLINATIONS ARE INHUMANE?  Some people have the instinct to run, and I have the instinct to stupidly, ridiculously, stubbornly fight to the death. 

Fucking philosophy.  Philosophy is such bullshit.  All it does is lead to more rules that don't make any fucking sense.

It is natural for us to disagree and conflict with each other, why can't people see that?  Why can't they see that shiny happy people living in harmony is DISCORDANT WITH NATURE?  Sure, there are interconnecting patterns and if you slice a seashell in half it's made out of math, whatever, I get it, but polarizing forces are how things are shaped, it's how things grow, and the more people try to stop them out the more polarizing the outskirts become and the fucking crazier we all look, those of us on the emotional fringe.

The trick is to celebrate the differences and use them instead of getting angry about them.  Okay.  I will work on this.

...

So Fucking Tired

I am so tired of being a grownup.

I am tired of going to a therapist every week and working on my shit while my mother gets to smugly sit in her chair watching tv content in her truth that she has it all figured out. I'm tired of setting boundaries with her to keep me from absorbing her stuff. I amtired of working so hard to make sure the boundaries are firm but not vindictive, healthy but solid. I'm tired of being told by her that no one likes their mothers and let the past be the past. I know lots of people who like their mothers and the past isn't some vague, hazy time for me since I wasn't bombed out of my mind most of the time. My past is concrete and real and full of images I can still conjure like they are right in front of my face, things that still scare me as much as when I was a child. My past affects how I relate to people NOW, how I handle anxiety and uncertainty NOW, how I feel about myself when I make a mistake NOW, how I have to work so hard on believing I am worthy of the love my husband, children and friends give me NOW. I am tired of the hundreds of wrong messages that have been sowed in my head that I have to go through, one by one and yank and pull and fight until I can pull them out and plant new ones. Then I have to nurture those new ones and do the work so that they'll grow, that I'll believe them and that the weeds won't get a foothold. It is exhausting.

I am tired of giving my eleven year old pep talks and incentive charts and points and pats on the back to do what he should have figured out already. I am tired of my husband and I going back and forth trying to figure out how to help him figure himself out. I am tired my son fighting me on every single fucking thing, every fucking time. Yes, he figures it out eventually, but by the time he does, I am so fucking tired and not completely sure I still like him. I am tired of telling him the same thing, over and over again. I am worn out on worry, that we won't give him the strength and tools to handle and enjoy his adult life. I am tired of looking at it and trying to find the lesson and trying to conjure up the patience and affection I know he needs.

I am tired of being grownup and having to do grownup things like schedule my cat's euthanasia. I am tired of holding my kids while they cry over this cat that was so old they hardly saw him but nonentheless, they feel his absense and the weight of my choice to end his life and they feel a sliver of their own mortality. I'm tired of holding my seven year old as she sobs and crys out, "I don't want him to die mom" over and over again and I rack my brain for the right thing to say so she knows I hear her, that she feels supported and safe and that she can process her feelings when all I want to do is keen right along with her. I'm tired of making sure they see me cry, so they know it's natural and good to cry, for a cat, for anything but I'm tired of making sure I don't cry too much that it scares them or that they realize I am still grieving the loss of the mother I never had and some days it all gets wrapped together and I feel like I am drowning in the muck of sorrow and the weight of having to pull myself from it.

I am tired of having to explain to my angry mother in law why our kids can't come over anymore without us there while her brother continues to basically squat in her house. I am tired of explaining why we don't think it's good for our kids to be around someone who collects social security, sits in a room and gambles online all day and allows my children to watch. I am tired of trying to convince my son that gambling is not a job and that his uncle has spent more time sleeping under an underpass than being comped hotel rooms in Vegas. I am tired of trying to explain his uncle's behavior without completely throwing him under the bus. I am tired of all the fucking teachable moments asshole. I am tired of worrying about the kids over there because he's telling off color "jokes" to my seven year old daughter. I am tired of worrying about the kids being there because of the hundred different ways that he is proven that he is at worst, grooming my daughter to molest her and at best, completely unaware of how to appropriately behave around children. I am tired of defending my and my husband's concern. I am tired of her trying to substitute her judgement for our own. I am tired of her waving away our concern. I am tired of being the fucking heavy when it was her that brought her broken brother into the house becuase she is codependant and needs someone to take care of.

I am tired of being a grownup but I am a grownup and I know it will get better, because so much of it already has.

Begrudged

Here's a question--how do you get rid of grudges? How do you let go of the nagging voice in your head recalling all the bad things "they" have ever said?

Have you ever rid yourself of a toxic person?

Tell me how.

Tina Fey - Change of Life Baby

Today, on this very day, I had the rare opportunity to be without children under the age of 25 so I decided to read a book, carefully selected as a last minute impulse buy at Sam's Club.  Can you still technically call it an impulse buy when you've wanted to read it since the day it was released? I am a huge fan of Ms. Fey on so many levels, it's like one of those old fashioned high rise department stores where each area is on a different floor.

First Floor - Feminist issues relating to women in the workplace, working mom's, i.e., guilt. Or breastfeeding vs. formula, i.e., guilt squared.  Which sounds an awful lot like quilt squared but in this case it is important to note the difference.

Second Floor - Normal girl raised with real world values becomes success. She had a kick ass dad she obviously adored but with a healthy dose of fear.  I didn't have that.  My dad was kick ass with an unhealthy dose of fear and an addiction or two to back up the crazy ass shit he did.  Nonetheless, I am trying to act like a girl raised with real world values who becomes a success.

Third Floor - Brilliant writer - enough said. I originally wrote "nough said", but that didn't sound like something Tina would write so I edited it or dare I say Feydited it.  Being a brilliant writer is all I ever wanted to be, or as Oprah puts it, my "ultimate truth".

Fourth Floor - Wife, mother, honest and real. Tough shit - the doubt; always and forever - it simply does not die.  Am I doing the right thing or do I need to save for therapy instead of college?

Fifth Floor - Aging. I am just a skosh older than Tina.  With all honesty, maybe it's more like a tad older.  But I am certainly in the ballpark, sitting right behind home plate. Her references to having a baby at 40, formerly known as "a change of life baby" resonated with me.  I clearly remember my mom and dad talking about the next door neighbors who had a "change of life" baby.  Born 10 years after the elder two, they scoffed at the very idea of it.  I distinctly remember thinking this was a change of life for the worse, which was implied by the mere tone in which it was delivered.  I had the unexpected pleasure of recently connecting with the elder cheerleader daughter via Facebook.  She who had so patiently and graciously tried to unsuccessfully mentor me into cheerleading. To make it perfectly clear, her lack of success had nothing to do with her skills as a cheerleader or as a mentor but more in part because those fucking tryouts were rigged and Deanna Jimboy got in just because she had cool older brothers who were sleeping with the judges and fucking Brenda Gizzi could do back hand spring like her hands were literally HAND SPRINGS.  I was clearly out of my league.

Sixth Floor - Men.  She invades and conquers the planet, Testosterune.  She blazes a path through the world of comedy with a quirky, unconventional style that allowes her to sneak under their highly evolved border patrol, electronic fences, battery of TV remotes and fart gas.  She emerges out of it alive, and fully functioning with actual reconnaissance of how they pee in cups and jars because they are too lazy to walk to the men's room. Early in my career, I recall asking some of the more 'seasoned' women in my office why the men disappear for 45 minutes to an hour each day with a newspaper tucked beneath their arms.  I later dared to go into a men's room in my building, after hours, for proof. Color me repulsed when I discovered they actually had reading bins in there where they would place their used, if not slightly soiled Wall Street Journal or The Daily Oklahoman for example.

I don't need to travel up any further in this particular department store for I've been sold.  I came away knowing I'm not the only woman who dared to have a baby after the age of forty (going a step above, I had twins).  I'm not the only woman to scratch and claw my way through a man's world yet as hard as I've fought, she still found a way to teach me a lesson.  I am all riled up to the point of facing her Sesame Street challenge.  Do I figure out a way to go over, under or through these obstacles placed in front of me?

She pierced through my shroud of guilt for not being able to successfully breastfeed after so much effort, expectation and did I mention effort?  She made it okay for me to dismiss those that shamed me for not trying harder.  All I have to do is think of her aptly named Bret Michael's move (read the book) to know I did everything I could possibly do and then some.

Finally, she left me feeling as if "everything would be fine", no matter what happens with the rest of my life.  Which made me remember that all the cheerleaders who were selected in the 7th grade ended up pregnant by Senior year.  Not that I'm judging, God forbid, because my life hasn't exactly been by the rule book, the good book or otherwise but I just wanted to point that out, you know, how happy I am about Brenda's springy hands and Deanna's sexy as hell brothers.

As this is a website dedicated to the female gender's words, read the damn book.  If not for any other reason than to arm yourself with the perennial, "I don't care if you like it" philosophy. It's called Bossypants.  Don't let the cover put you off.

And you, Tina Fey, Greek Goddess of Baby Poop, conveyor of classically, funny shit shall live with or without a great deal of anxiety.  Tina, I loved you, even before I knew you existed. Rock on, you pear-shaped, overrated troll, for the rest of us apple-shaped overrated ogres will follow you knowing our journey will be made easier as ogres are not required to think of clever riddles.

My childhood neighbor's change of life baby went on to become a successful doctor, noted for changing the lives of countless patients. I suspect Tina Fey will be resonating with me in the weeks and months to come as I strive to be a brilliant writer and a guilt-free mom.  Whether I have to go under, over or through, I wonder....which one of these things is not like the other, which one of these things just doesn't belong. And that is the essence of the book.

They both do.

Faking It

I cannot fake it, ask my husband. When I’ve tried, it’s just a mess and everyone’s feelings are hurt. I have this thing about emotional authenticity. I can repress painful feelings and I can keep my mouth shut when I know that just because I feel something doesn’t mean I need to say something. But I cannot say something that I do not feel.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Ugh, it’s a sentence fragment, not even a sentence and it still provokes anxiety for me.

It is better now that I get a Mother’s Day full of breakfast and backrubs and clay handprints and macaroni necklaces and glittery picture frames and acrostic renderings of the word mother. It is better now that I have small, grape jelly scented hands thrusting presents in my face. It is better now that I get to lavish love and sexual favors on my deserving husband on Father’s Day.

But it is still complicated by those other two people.

They were not good parents. That doesn’t mean I don’t love them but if parenting were The Amazing Race, or Survivor, Dancing with the Stars or even The Apprentice(insert your own terrible reality show here), they would have been voted off before anyone really knew who they were. They were so young and their own parents did not prepare them for the important job of parenting. They succeeded in creating a child but the nurturing kind of stuff, the protecting, the safety, the love, not so much.

Still, my dad paid child support, $400 a month until I was out of college. That was four more years then he was legally required to. He sent me cards on my birthday. He told me he had so much guilt and regret about the past. I spent a good year in therapy and I have made peace with my feelings about him. I send him a card on Father’s Day. I don’t mind, I feel like I want to at this point but it is hard finding the right sentiment to capture the complicated feelings I have toward him. You were always there for me Dad. No, that’s not true. You taught me so much. Nope. You mean the world to me. Still not right. I have surrendered the past and accept you the way you are. I love you but am relatively indifferent to you being in my life. I hope your other family does something nice for you. Thank you for not expecting me to visit. There, that’s better.

As you probably have garnered from my recent extreme navel gazing posts regarding my mutter, we are going through a rough spot. I would like to say this is recent but really it is just the culmination of many years and me finally unable to manage it or handle it anymore. I am hopeful that someday I will feel for her more like I feel about my father, loving but benevolently detached. I am not there yet. It is the hope of that someday that I even sent her a card this year. We are not speaking but she is still the woman, no, the child that pushed me from her body.

I stood in the card aisle like an idiot for nearly twenty minutes trying to find a sentiment that was authentic but benign. I realized quickly that cards with flourishy writing were not the ticket. They held too many sentiments and platitudes, none of them fitting. Even the humor cards were off-target and I’m not feeling the funny at this moment. Can’t they have at least one card stripped of all that other stuff?

In my head I imagine what a my ideal card rack would contain:

Happy Mother’s Day, you are my mother.

I know you did your best.

Social services never came to visit, that counts for something!

Your dysfunction helped me develop humor as a self-defense mechanism and it’s great at cocktail parties!

The crazier you are the better my memoir!

Thanks to the medication, I forgive you!

Thank you for the opportunity for painful, personal growth.

Mother, your the reason my self-help library is expanding at record speed.

As days go by, I realize how lucky I am…. That you are not here to ruin it for me.

You are the anvils atop my wings.

Mom, without you, I never would have met my therapist.

I am the luckiest unplanned pregnancy ever.

Thank you for not getting an abortion.

I’m so miserable without you…It’s almost like you are still here.


M manipulative

O oppressive

M matron

Freedom

By the way, you may already know but I wanted to tell you that I had a chance to speak with John and I told him that Mr. Ruby and I would not be attending his wedding this summer.

Why not?

Mr. Ruby has a major work project at the same time and he won’t be able to leave in the middle of it.

Then you should come with the kids.

I thought about how to make it work but really mom, I am not comfortable traveling with the three kids by myself.

And why not?

It’s too hard. Big kid is too old to go into the ladies room with me but too young to leave alone and with three kids and one adult if something goes awry as it often does with kids, I’m on my own and it’s too much for me.

Then you should come alone.

No, Mr. Ruby’s project is so involved that I cannot ask him to watch the kids in the middle of it, he may even have to fly into the home office depending on how things evolve, so leaving the three kids with him is not an option.

Well, what about your mother-in-law Myrna, can’t you leave the kids with her?

No, she isn’t available.

Well, you managed to get her to watch them when you went to Vegas.

Yes, I did, and she already has her own plans for that week in July. Like I told you, I have already tried to figure out a way to get there and it just isn’t going to work for us.

Why can’t you bring the kids?

I would be alone with all three kids, it’s too stressful for me and I don’t want to do that.

Well, you were going to let me do it with no problem.

No mom, we had briefly talked about that as a possibility and when I thought about it more, I realized I wasn’t comfortable with any one adult traveling with the three kids.

Well you did.

And now I don’t.

You should just suck it up and bring the kids, so what it’s hard, life is hard.

Mom, it upsets me when I tell you something is difficult for me, and you expect me to do it anyhow.

Frankly, you should want to come. Your aunt has done a lot for you and missing her son’s wedding is very unappreciative.

Me not attending John’s wedding does not invalidate my gratitude for the things Aunt Melissa has done for me.

You have no sense of family and how important it is to be at family events.

Mom, I live two-thousand miles away. The reality is I cannot attend every family function, it isn’t possible and it isn’t reasonable to expect me to.

I am very disappointed.

I understand you are disappointed.

I would hope that you would think about this and decide that it is important and come.

Mom, I already have spent a great deal of time trying to figure out a way to attend and it is not going to happen.

I am really disappointed in you.

I understand you are disappointed that we won’t be able to make it.

No, I am disappointed in you. And I am not the only one.

Well, I spoke with John and he seemed to understand why we were not going to attend so I am okay with that.

He was just trying to being nice.

Okay.

Well, then I will fly out and escort you and the kids.

Mom, I already told you, we are not coming and I don’t want you to do that.

This is something you need to be at, these people all came to your wedding.

Mom, if I had been married in California instead of Chicago, many of those people, including John, would not have attended my wedding. How is this different?

If that had been the case then a bunch of people would have had to fly to you, this is just you coming out here.

But it is still me coming out.

You managed to get to Vegas just last month so I don’t understand why you can’t get out here for a wedding.

Yes, I took my husband to Las Vegas for his birthday.

Yeah, he has a birthday every year, this is a wedding for christsake. You need to come.

I have already made my decision mom.

Well great, this is just great. You are so fucking selfish I can’t believe it.

Wow mom, you are being really judgmental. Just because I am not doing what you think I should doesn’t make me selfish.

Well I get to have an opinion and tell you what you should be doing, that’s my job.

No. It is not.

Of course it is, I’m your mother.

Your job is not to tell me what you expect me to do, your job is to love me and support me.

That’s bullshit.

It isn’t bullshit to me.

You said you wanted an authentic adult relationship with me, well here you go.

I didn’t say that, you did and if this is what you think authentic looks like then no, I am not interested.

So what, I don’t get to have an opinion?

You get to have an opinion and yes, you get to feel disappointed, but you do not get to use name calling, judgment and hostility to try to manipulate me into doing what you want.

You are so full of shit, I can’t believe you.

Mom, adults with good boundaries do not try to tell other adults what they should be doing.

Whatever, more bullshit.

I understand you are disappointed but this is what Mr. Ruby and I have decided.

You don’t care about family at all, I thought you were going to work on strengthening your relationships with your cousins?

Those were your words not mine and I do care about family which is why I made the decision that it is better for my family to sit this one out.

You are unbelievably selfish, you just do what you want to do whenever you want to do it, you know you are going to have to live with this.

I gave this a great deal of thought and I feel I am being reasonable so I am very ok with this decision.

So I suppose you are not coming home this summer at all?

That is correct, we will not be coming to Chicago this summer.

Why?

Because Mr. Ruby would like to visit his sister in Colorado and we don’t have enough vacation time to do both.

His sister? Visit his sister? You don’t even like his sister!

Mom, I adore his sister.

You are unbelievable.

I don’t think it is unreasonable that I use some of our vacation time to go see my husband’s sister.

Whatever.

Mom, we have come to see you six summers in a row, we have not been to see his sister ever. It is important to me that Mr. Ruby gets time with his family too, not just mine.

Great, just great, this is so ridiculous, you are so ridiculous, you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself…

It is not good for me to let you speak to me this way so I am going to go.

Whatever, I can’t believe what a selfish person you are.

Mom, when you speak to me this way and judge me this way, it puts a wedge between us. You are being very judgmental, just because I am not doing what you think I should do doesn’t make me selfish and it doesn’t make you right.

You are wrong and this is bullshit.

Again, it is not good for me to let you talk to me like this so I am going to go.

Click.






I didn't obsess about what she said, I didn't wonder if she was right. I expressed my anger calmly, I didn't become a victim, I didn't let her manipulate me into feeling bad or changing my mind or melting into a puddle of guilt or anxiety. I didn't escalate even as she hissed her words and shouted at me. Yes, I took a small amount of satisfaction that the calmer I was the angrier she got but most of the time, I felt like an observer watching a child have a tantrum, escalating her behavior in order to get the candy.

And just like that, I was free. And I slept like a baby for the first time in four months.

Seems we’re all talking about virginity these days….

I found it hard to relate to the two previous posts on virginity, because I don’t remember losing mine, so it never got to be an issue.  Although the way I lost it became a VERY big issue for a while.

I’m amazed at how little I remember – I was 10 or 11 at the time, not a total child.  I’ve never known how to label what happened.  “Child abuse” as a concept didn’t exist at the time, and although it has since become a big subject in the media, it always seems to be in terms of wicked family members.

My experience wasn’t like that.  I had a little job delivering newspapers to houses before school.  The newsagent just got friendlier and friendlier.  He “promoted” me to helping me mark up the papers with the house numbers for the delivery routes, so I was on my own with him in the shop, and got even friendlier.  

And I was flattered – I assume. I actually have no memory of what I felt, I just know that no physical violence, threats or hothouse family atmospheres were ever involved, and don’t know how else to explain my compliance.

He had a dog.  I desperately wanted a dog.  My parents wouldn’t let me have a dog.  So I started going round to his house after school to play with his dog, or take it for walks. This led on to playing with him, and then to sex.  He must have been very patient and determined.

This went on for more than a year.  Of all that time, I have only four short “videos” in my memory.  Four.  They aren’t particularly shocking, except for the fact that I was 10 or 12 and he was 28 or 29, and weren’t, as far as I’m aware, traumatic.  But I don’t think I need to describe them here.

What WAS traumatic was when my parents found out.   Oh Lord, did the heavens ever fall in.   I hadn’t been forced, therefore I was a fallen woman, a shame to the family, a disgrace, dirty, untouchable.  My father couldn’t bear to look at me, whilst my mother was very vocal in her disgust, which spilled out all over the place.

That also went on for years.   The fall-out was quite spectacular and my feelings for my parents have never recovered.

It wasn’t until I was 24 when someone handed me a book on child abuse that I began to punch my way out of the paper bag of being a fallen woman, a shame to the family, a disgrace, dirty, untouchable.  But by then, of course, I had become so (in the eyes of people who believe in such concepts).  Having lost my virginity and any sense of connection with my parents at 10 or 11, it wasn’t difficult at all to look for acceptance and affection elsewhere using this new-found skill.

Of course, we only have one life, so it’s never possible to set up experiments with a control.  I can’t know what my life would have been without that experience.  I suspect I learnt far too early on to “service” in bed rather than share, but isn’t that many women’s experience anyway?  I can’t imagine trusting my parents, but I might have done if this hadn’t happened, and who knows how that might have changed my life?  Not to mention how my life might have been different if I hadn’t been cast in the role of untrustworthy scarlet woman so early on.  On the other hand, becoming independent and taking risks might have been more difficult if I’d had any kind of meaningful relationship left with them.   For example, the fact that moving abroad would mean I would see very little of my parents has never been a problem for me.   And in my wild sleeping around days (which I might have had anyway), I actually met some truly nice people who are still friends today, 30 years later.  And all of my long-term relationships (I’m on my third) grew out of one-night stands (do people still use that expression?).  Re-reading those last two sentences makes me wonder whether it's perhaps because I was introduced to sex so early on that's it's never been a really big deal to me,  and in fact has often been a way for meeting people and making friends.

In the end, it’s not an experience that dominates my life, but I’m aware it’s there, lurking in the background.  Witness this post.  There’s no conclusion, or even any real point to this post, but reading two posts in succession about virginity, well, this is what has been stirred up for me.