The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 7

*Breathe*

You know you aren't in a good relationship when, the second you get home and away from it, you do a little dance, make a little love to yourself, get down, jump up, heel click, sigh relieved and wax poetic to your room ("Oh, my sweet, sweet room"). Then, you pet your sweet little kitties and say, "I'm free you guys! Freeeee aaaat laaaast!" before singing a montage of Queen's I Want to Break Free, Tom Petty's Free Fallin' and George Michael's Freedom (the choruses, at least). Finally, you sit down at your beloved old desk in your favorite comfy chair with a cup of iced coffee that you thank God isn't expired (because you've been away so long that everthing else in your fridge is) and you do that thing that has never failed you: write.



Watching Californication, writing, watching Breaking Bad, and getting a bit of reinforcement from a couple of concerned third parties have all helped me with my latest monumental turnaround. After swearing off men and starting this blog last November to help me stay on track, I strayed - far - off course...and became engaged. And I completely believed, at the time, that I was doing myself a favor. Not that there's anything wrong with being engaged - if you're mentally/emotionally healthy and find a mentally/emotionally healthy mate, with whom patience, soundness of mind and mutual understanding/love grant you a relationship that enhances both of your individual, stable lives - by all means, unite! But, if you're a total sicko in need of a lot of help, and you latch onto another total sicko in need of even more help and who latches back onto you even harder resulting in the exponential waning of your individuality, self-respect, stability, and sanity, holy shit - peel off before you leeches reduce eachother to unrecognizable, unconscious fragments of your former selves, and get some fucking help, mutha fucka.

Check.

Now, back to the giving of "props":

"Californication" is the bizzomb. I simply can't stop raving about it, as you know. It shows, for me, an all-too-relatable character fucking up his life: Hank Moody (David Duchovny). Hank gets involved with every woman who'll have him instead of spending quality time with his dauther, Becca. But, he is an accomplished writer, making bank off these sexcapades (oh, I wish!). And yet, despite his sexual meanderings and over-indulgence with various mind-altering substances, I clearly see him as a better father than I mother, and, certainly, a better (or at least financially-compensated and well-read) writer. It's enough to bring tears to my eyes and make me question everything in my life (as I'm wont to do anyway, but I appreciate the extra nudge).

I don't know if God really exists - I choose affirmatively, but, I don't know who God really is. But, if "Writing" were God, somehow, I'd thank the hell out of It, because It just saved my little ass once again. Writing has helped me to see everything in black and white - literally (tom-tom high-hat). It's much more difficult to delude myself or play pretend when I can actually see the insanity on the page.

My former situation with my (very soon to be ex-) fiancé is in fact just as bad, if not worse, as anything I've gotten myself into since my (first) marriage. It's a downright dirty mess. I'm finally starting the "outline" for my memoir because I think there's at least one woman out there who's doing the same shit I have and needs to read my story as a reflection, and hopefully it'll give her the motivation to turn her life around (girl power!). But even more importantly, right now, I need it to help me, too; I need to rub my face right deep down into all of that nasty ass laundry of mine (literally, again - tom-tom high hat). I don't want to forget what it smells like, and at the same time, I want to stop living in it. So, memoir, come to my (and others') rescue! (It is exciting - I all ready have outlined up through chapter 9! And this is just the beginning...tee hee.)

Speaking of rescue...Californication isn't the only show that has given me a tinge of leave-his-ass inspiration. It's ironic - I stopped watching TV shows when I left my husband in 2011 except for any time I've had a boyfriend since (because whoever it is gets me to watch them, too...and one of said shows, in turn, inspires me to leave his ass). So far, Jason's had me watch the whole series of The Big Bang Theory, a few seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Californication, and we're all caught up on Hannibal. All enjoyable to me, I can't lie (The Big Bang Theory is what inspired me to propose and accept Jason for his Sheldon-like self, interestingly). But Jason had also been wanting me to see Breaking Bad for the longest time. Yesterday I used the excuse of being too busy to watch it, and I was - I was creating a photobook on Blurb.com for a photography client. But more accurately, the "punk" in me didn't want to see Breaking Bad, at all, because everyone in the whole damn world raves about it.

But I guess if "everybody" agrees on something, maybe that something kinda-sorta has a chance of being true. Jason put on the first episode of Breaking Bad on Netflix, just to spite me, and...shit, I couldn't look away for even a moment! Whatever I was doing completely ceased to exist. I then insisted we watch the next episode, and the next, and the next, until finally I had to ask him to turn it off so I could finish my project and get it to my client at 3 am, and he did. But I had to watch more today. And the first thing I'm going to do when I'm done posting here is, I'm gonna watch it some more. That's right, baby...2 am? Psh - I had iced coffee.

But, so how did Breaking Bad change my life, you might ask? Well, it prompted me to ask of myself, what would I do if I was told I only had a few months to live? Would I be living my life the way I am now? The answer to the first question is a hell of a lot more complicated than the answer to the second, which is an easy Hell No!!!

Watching Breaking Bad, and, reading real people's experiences with cancer, makes one, naturally, consider her own mortality. I also thought about death a lot when my friend Margo killed herself last year. And who do you think the first person who comes to my mind when I think of death is?

One of the last things my son said to me this past weekend was, "Mom, Daddy loves me more than you do, because he takes more responsibility for me." Yikes. I have to admit, I've been so caught up in my latest addictive relationship that I hardly noticed the impact it was having on my son as usual. It sucks - I was the one who had it all together when his dad and I were still together, but now, I'm the fuck-up. The truth hurts when it looks you in the eyes with tears in its and says you don't love it. You're too busy looking away.

Well, along with my son's truth, here's some more truth from which I couldn't look away:

And that's not even half of it. Not even a quarter. When I had said that Jason was "cleaning his room" obsessively, in one of my last posts, it's because he was throwing piles of crap onto his bed and floor, bringing crap in from outside of his room to add to the piles. His internal chaos was externalized. Ceasing to see his psychiatrist and going off his 8+ medications for his bipolar, OCD, anxiety, and sleep disorders and just smoking weed as a replacement made for a horrible thing to witness.

I knew from the beginning that he was "crazy". He told me so. But did I really believe him, or understand what he meant? Not really. I thought, "Well hey, I'm crazy - great, two peas in a pod." No - he's a different kind of crazy. Diagnosed. My therapist thought I might have a general anxiety disorder, but other than that, I (at the time, at least seemed to) have a pretty sane head on my shoulders. Jason, though...I saw many signs of instability - 25, living with his parents, everything in his room had to be in its own little place (and I mean everything - until the psychotic break), only part-time temp jobs, and a giant drawer full of prescription bottles, some that he no longer even needed but kept around "just in case". Then he decided, "You know what? My psychiatrist is expensive. I'm not going to see him any more. And I'm not gonna take my meds any more either. Yeah, I'm just gonna smoke weed. That makes me feel pretty good." But his version of feeling good included staying up for a week with only short naps; snapping at his parents, brother, sister, and me and saying such horrible things that made everyone either cry, scream or run out of the house; speaking so erratically and quickly that at times nobody could understand him; stretching for two days straight (that was weird); and prompting his mother and I to want to call 9-1-1 and be taken by ambulance to Aurora, a mental hospital where she put him a few years ago (but he appeared to stabilize the other day, so, we didn't have to...but I fled, and his mom is still on edge).

Despite knowing his history, I still decided to go into a relationship with him. And not just any relationship - 5 months in, I asked him to marry me. Why? I don't know. I guess, once again, I got caught up in my most averse addiction: Jason "loves" me.  "Love" = my Achilles' heel. At least, it was my Achilles' heel, until I cut my heel on the sharp razor blade of reality (yes, there were a couple razor blades in those piles...but no, I only stuck myself with a thumbtack...there were like 70 of those). Part of me still feels like I should stay with him, that I do love him. But, his insanity drove me insane, and I'm all ready insane enough as it is without him making it worse. And I've done the research on love (thank you don Miguel Ruiz), and I know what it's supposed to look and feel like. So I told him today before I left: "If you really do love me, you'll let me go." It sounds cliché on the radio, but I meant it. And...finally...he did.

Okay, I just gotta do this again:

*Breathe*

Ah, better. Never before this very moment have I so appreciated solitude. God, don't ever let me forget it this time.

This morning, again inspired by my favorite writing prof, I sketched a rough draft of my memoir cover. (And Rocco, don't worry, if they ever make my memoir into a movie starring Elisha Cuthbert, I won't let them put her on the cover, no matter how much they want to pay me...or wait...shit...let me sit on that.) Ugh, I'm a horrendous artist. But, I woke up with this morning with this image in my head, and I just had to get it on paper, however poorly rendered. In case you can't tell what it is, it's a bride falling away from her husband and child off a precipice into a throng of men (I only drew 16, but there should be 30):

I'll do much better on it next time, lol. And I don't know why all the guys are wearing Heisenberg hats. But that reminds me - time for more Breaking Bad.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 6

"Aspiring memoirist" doesn't do a damn bit of good without any actual effort on my part. And I don't have a job right now, so what the hell am I doing? I've been scattered. Trying to start a business doing way too many things. Performing, voice lessons, tutoring, photography, editing/proofreading, publicity...and not making a cent yet.

I was just laying here on my fiancé's bed in his bedroom at his parents' house while he plays Ben Folds on his keyboard, and tears came to my eyes. "This is what I've come to...I don't recognize my life any more."

The life I recognized was with my dysfunctional family growing up, and my fervent educational pursuits as my escape. Then I recognized being in love with an alcoholic, who made me laugh and kept me up all night long, telling me stories, but with whom I also fought belligerently. Then, I recognized being a mother. All that other crap that came before...blech. But that last thing...that was what life was worth living for.

I wasn't a bad one, either. I use to take my son out every day to mommy-and-me classes, the ones where you sit around a circle with a bunch of other mothers (and a few fathers) with their babies and toddlers to sing songs for half an hour until you took your kid(s) out to the playground for a couple more hours. Those were the days of glory, where in my memory the sun shines bright like the mythical gate of some holy place and bounces off the glittering sand that I would scoop into buckets for my little guy to pour out all over the toys in the sandbox. Real-life toddler heaven, it was. Of course, home was hell. But, as they say...better the Devil you know. (Not really...I'm not being sarcastic or cynical at all in this post.)

These days, my son is four - five in August - and I only see him on weekends, sometimes only every other weekend. Any time his dad asks if he can keep him again "this" weekend, I act like I'm hurt, or sad, or pissed, or I react in some way that hides the fact that deep down I'm relieved as hell to be left to my own selfish, albeit failing pursuits. When I do get my son - when I'm not offered an "out" - I try my best to act like a mother for a couple of days until I "get" to drop him back off with the guy I never thought would be a fitter parent than I. But so it is.

So, yeah. I don't recognize my life. Somehow I'm actually worse a mother than my own was. She didn't pay much attention to us, but she was there, physically. Behind a closed door most of the time, but she was just a knock away.

No, what I've become is my father. Like his, my dedication is to an other on whom I place monumental significance, an other who isn't the parent of my child but who satisfies my need for "love" in a way only a "significant other" can. And I don't have to do all that much to take care of him, except be with him...all the time.

I stood by him during his pyschotic break last week after he'd decided to stop taking all his bipolar/anxiety/OCD/sleep/etc. meds (that's what all the stretching was, a couple posts ago, a precursor to absolute unrecognizable madness that I can't even begin to describe at the moment). Sure, he "loves" me more than anyone has since my husband, #1, and #20 (the other two boyfriends who at least said they loved me). But, I remember when I left my husband, and, when it didn't work with #1, I "knew" that "love just doesn't conquer all" (and that's why I settled with #20 for awhile, because I didn't love him, at all - but my son did, and that's the only reason it lasted as long as it did, until I just couldn't do it any more).

I'm not sure why I've put myself in this position again. I put "loves" in quotations marks, knowing full well that the true word that belongs in its place is "needs". I'm with someone who would completely lose it if I left him. (Hey, that's a song..."As long as he needs me...I know where I must be...I'll hang on steadfastly...as long as he needs me." It's from the musical Oliver! and so says Wikipedia, "It is a love ballad expressing Nancy's love for her criminal boyfriend Bill Sikes, despite his mistreatment of her.")

As a matter of fact, Jason's mental breakdown came on the heels of me packing up because I wanted to go home, just for a night or two, to get away from his all-night manic cleaning episodes. There was shit all over his room, and he was up day and night bringing more shit into it from all over the house, obsessively. Yes, it was part of his disorder gone haywire, and somewhat beyond his control (although, did I mention he's decided to stop seeing his psychiatrist, and just smoke weed from now on?). A good fiancée would stand by her man in his time of need, I guess. But not I. I had tried to get away at least three other times over the course of the week, but he begged me to stay each time. So I did, reluctantly. And so here I still am...miserable.

I just want to get back to my life. I want to open my mail. I want to clean my own room. I want to take care of my cats, instead of just buying bags of catfood and dropping them off for my aunt, with whom I (used to) live. Not only that, I want to pet my cats. And I want to have space, alone time. I want to write my memoir. This blog is just a gathering of ideas. I want to write the real thing. This isn't it. This blog is like a little girl's diary, really. It's just...there's been so much wreckage in the present that it's been hard to just write about the wreckage of the past. It started with Margaret's suicide. Then I dated again - damnit - and that's the irony - this blog was supposed to prevent me from creating any more present wreckage. At least, that was the idea, if you go back and read my first post. I keep acting like getting engaged to be married is the ultimate redemption. I find Jesus, get baptized, start dating a guy in church, have a slip and kiss someone else, so ooh, I know, I'll ask the guy I'm dating to marry me, that'll fix everything - game, set, match!

It's all wrong. I feel like a prisoner. Getting engaged to someone just so he'll "know" you aren't going to leave him and he'll therefore hopefully "let" you leave his house, without freaking the fuck out, is clearly - how shall I put it? - fucking dumb.

I should have been writing throughout the course of our relationship so I could have gotten honest with myself. I was on a roll before this one. I over-analyzed the shit out of the last guy I dated (#29).

(And sorry, I just have to take a moment to laugh about Jesus being #28. A lot of good that did me, lol.)

(Oh! PS, #29 just got married, actually. I saw it on facebook. I wouldn't have been happy with that one, either, so I'm glad it was someone else and not me.)

"Love" - I've made such a joke of the word that I can't even take it seriously any more. And yet I say "I love you so much" every day to...what's the fake name I assigned #30? Oh, Jason, I think. But when I say "I love you" to him, what I mean is, "I don't want you to freak out if I don't say it back, so I'm going to say it back and act like I believe it, so that maybe you believe it, too."

But then...when I'm away from him - when I do GET to go home - first, I feel utter bliss. But then I feel so alone that I can hardly bear it. Even with my son with me at my house, I feel empty. Like something's missing.

I guess that's that "need" again. It's apropos to say that Jason and I "need" each other.

But my son needs me, too, and that one doesn't belong in quotation marks. I'm sorry, but I need to get my shit together. Watching Californication has changed my life. I just finished Season 3. Hank Moody is a better father than I am mother, a better writer than I, too, and, he fucks a shitload of women...which makes me not feel so bad. But it's not cool what he does, and he's has frequent downfalls. His daughter is currently pissed at him, in the episodes I'm watching, for sleeping with her 16 year-old almost-step-sister. But he didn't know she was 16, and he's got a good lawyer that he's fucking, so it'll probably all turn out fine (sarcasm).

Any way, Hank is a fictional construct. But...watching him fuck so many women and and still pick his daughter up from school and out for ice cream makes me feel like a total shitbag. I haven't even fucked that many guys - many of the guys on my list, atleast #20 and forward, are guys with whom I was legitimately trying to get into the relationship to end all relationships.

But it's still fucking lame, putting relationships with men above being a mother to my now four-and-a-half year old boy. This past weekend my son told Jason he hated him, and told me that Daddy loves him more than I do, because Daddy takes more responsibility for him. Those were pretty much his exact words. I hate to say that the kid is right. After four rehabs, his dad is finally doing really well. I'm the fuck-up now. I'm sober, sure, but that hardly means shit any more. I'm not going to go drink or use, because that would make this whole thing so much worse, and there's no need for that. But I wish I could. And why wouldn't he hate Jason? I give Jason way more attention than I give to my son. Goddamnit.

I'm still holding onto the hope that I can get my act together. I started the outline for my memoir. I still don't know if I should write it as a novel, or, "truly". I feel like I'd be completely damning myself in every circle of which I am a part if I write it as a true story. But maybe that's what I deserve.

But I'm not thinking of that yet. What I'm doing now is, I'm just writing facts. I'm writing a summary of things I've done and putting them into little chapters to be expanded upon later. Not how I felt, or what I thought. (For the record, I know that's a sentence fragment, I just don't care. And know that's a comma splice. Again, I don't care.)

In my outline, there are no motives. No self-justifications or rationalizations or painting pictures of people that make me look like the victim (because I'm pretty sure I've done a shitload of that). There's no answer to "why". What is, just is.

Jason was saying, as we were watching the show together, "Poor Hank. He just gets shit on, all the time."

"No. I don't agree with that," I said. "He does it to himself. He can't just fuck everything that has a vagina and a pulse and not expect his daughter and her mom to just be cool with it. It's not about him, in the end. It's about them."

"No, it is about him," Jason argued. Jason doesn't know how much I identify with Hank. I was crying today at Albertson's and Jason asked me what was wrong. "If I told you, it would probably end our relationship."

"I'll never stop loving you, sweetheart. Nothing's that bad," he said.

I still couldn't tell him. I couldn't say, "Do you know you're number 29 (not counting Jesus) in a long line of guys I've been with in some capacity since I left my husband? Do you know I don't even truly know if I love you or if I'm just with you to numb my pain? I don't even know if I'm capable of loving anything. I don't even love myself."

Cheating on him and breaking up with him in the beginning didn't work. So I'm not going there again. But I'm in fucking deep, here. We go to the same church; the pastor announced our engagement to the whole congregation a few weeks ago, at both the 9 am and 10:45 am services.

So now what?

"I believe in you, baby," he just said to me. He knows I'm writing, but he doesn't really know what about. I did tell him I'm writing my memoir. I told him earlier, at Albertson's, that he may not love me so much when I'm done.

The truth will set you free, they say. We'll see.