Angels and Demons

My sister Nagela (I actually meant to write "Angela," but the typo is strangely fitting) and her fiancé Chester today sat me down for a talking-to. They do this with the best of intentions, each of them with their third beer in hand with many more to follow. The line of questions and comments was as follows:

"So you've been supporting Bernard all this time?"

"And you're going to keep supporting him when he comes up here with no job?"

"So why is it that he has no job and no money?"

"So this is his second DUI?"

"Do you know what happens when he gets a third?"

"And you're okay with that?"

"You need to make better decisions for yourself and your son."

"You have an opportunity here with Lucas' dad's life insurance to really turn your life around and do something good for you and your son."

"How do you feel about Ron's death? You know your sister Angela is here to talk with you. I haven't seen you talk to her about how it makes you feel. How does it make you feel?"

"You should get a financial advisor."

"You should work hard and get a good job so you don't even have to touch that money."

"You could find a good man up here, who works hard, who would provide for you and Lucas, who doesn't get himself into this kind of trouble."

"A real man provides for his family."

"If Bernard works the way you say he does, you're hardly ever gonna see him anyway."

"What about your meetings and sponsors and stuff actually helps you?"

"Are you going to find a place by the time Bernard gets up here?"

"You've been with him what, five months? And you think that's love? Do you know how many times we've heard this before?"

"Do you see how fast it's moving?"

There was more, but my stomach hurts. I'm pretty sure I undercooked the chicken that I put into the enchiladas before I rushed off to the meeting to meet with my sponsor and this cool old timer named Rufus. Total book-thumper, guru-type. The first meeting I saw him at up here, he gave me my now-sponsor's number and made me text her and ask her to be my sponsor right in front of him. I'm glad I listened. I have hope this time around that I'll actually get through all 12 steps. I didn't before and didn't make it. Didn't stay sober. Smoked weed over my resentment against Bernard.

Now, I'm on the 4th step again, on day 13 sober. I've never gone through the steps so quickly. But I'm doing it with the desperation of a drowning woman grabbing onto a life-preserver.

As far as all this other stuff, I have faith that God will work it out as I draw close to Him and begin to perform His work. That's how it works.

The Answer to the Previous Post's Title Question: A Big, Fat, "NO"

It might have been a whole two weeks before I begged him to forgive me and come back.

I made the decision to forgive him for whatever he did or didn't do, and decided I wanted to just love him.

Meanwhile, I had relapsed with Bernard on weed in October.

There're a lot of meanwhiles....

1. My sponsor dropped me because she said I was fucking my life up, and my best friend decided to stop talking to me for the same reason.

2. Bernard quit at the restaurant because the restauranteur wasn't respecting him.

3. Bernard, my son, and I went to Northern California to my sister's for a vacation.

4. We decided to stay.

5. I quit the restaurant via text.

6. We realized we should at least go back to clear out the apartment.

7. I came back up to my sister's (what fake name did I give her? Until I go back and figure it out, we'll call her Angela) with my son Lucas (is that the fake name I gave him?) so he could start school when vacation was over.

8. Bernard stayed behind to finish packing up and selling the entire contents of my apartment for a total of $300.

9. Bernard went to court twice to try and transfer his DUI case to Nor-Cal but was unsuccessful.

10. I haven't seen Bernard in about a month; he's serving this weekend and next weekend in jail, and then he can come up, maybe.

11. Lucas' died dad a week ago today.

12. I don't have a job or a place of my own to live; I had gotten two jobs that turned out to be Craigslist scams, since apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time I got screwed on Craigslist.

13. My sister and fiancé are annoyed with me because they think I'm fucking my life up.

14. I'm fucking my life up.

15. I'm now 13 days clean and sober again and have a new sponsor up here and have started over on the steps.

16. I'm applying to be a cook/dishwasher at an assisted living facility if I can get my depressed ass out of this trailer bed. 

Yeah. Here I go.

Done with the Executive Chef - So Can I REALLY Be Done with Men for Awhile?

A lot of people tell me they're worried about me. My sponsor in alcohol recovery doesn't; she doesn't buy into the drama. She's also a mindfulness practitioner, highly spiritual, and extremely intelligent, having almost completed a Master's degree in Psychology with an emphasis on Borderline Personality Disorder.

Other people though, they get scared I'll actually kill myself. I'll tell you right now; that's never gonna happen. I've had periods where I've legitimately wanted to cease to exist more than anything on Earth, but God didn't take me, presumably because I have a six year-old son left to half-raise. His dad is dying of congestive heart failure, so pretty soon that responsibility will fall fully on me.

But yeah, I need to stay away from guys. It's the common theme of the past over-four years since I left my husband of ten years (my son's dad). (We were together ten years and only married for the last three of those, but fuck technicalities.)

(And actually, we're still married. He does have life insurance, so I'm glad I never pushed the divorce through...)

Anyway, I just got out of yet another relationship, this time with my boss. Did I really fall in love wth him? I don't know. Am I capable of loving anyone, even myself? I don't know. Did I take his power away because he was a colossal dick at work and I had to neutralize him somehow? Damn right.

But did he try to cheat on me twice to my knowledge, stay a night in jail for a DUI, drink heavily every night, sneak around outside of work and not tell me where he was going or what he was doing, and make up stories and lies that he couldn't even keep straight? Yeah. Did he want to live in my apartment rent-and-bill-free so he could support his drinking and his smoking weed? Yeah. Did he offer my six year-old son a beer as well as provide a TERRIBLE human example to a kid who's like a sponge and started imitating him, cussing, while also telling me, "Mom, I don't like Bernard. Break up with him. I don't trust him"? Fuck, yes.

So I finally did it. I had tried a few times before; back in October when I found out about the cheating attempts through text messages on his phone between him and one of the waitresses at work, and he was pissed at me for going through his phone but he had all ready been lying to me (and it takes one to know one), I said, "You know, if you're gonna try to cheat on someone you should probably lock your phone." We had a big fight which culminated in our first "I love you"s and we didn't break up - in fact I thought it brought us closer.

But then recently he has been exhibiting the same behavior - lying about where he is outside of work (we work together but don't have the same schedule) - and I found out he had locked his phone, because one night when he was drunk he was trying to get into it, and couldn't remember his own damn password. That, and he and his buddies were talking about the other day that he hung out with them, "But don't tell Adora!" Bernard said. He didn't know I heard.

So I was just finally done.

Okay, lesson learned this time? Who fucking knows. I had been keeping the piercing fetish guy updated throughout my relationship, so when he found out about my breakup, he wanted to come over last night. I forget the fictitious name I gave him but you can check the column on the left. Vicente or something, I don't fucking know.

Before he came over, when he asked if he could, I said, "Sure, but I'm not fucking you, and no needles."

Goddamnit. We did fuck.

So what's next? Today I'm going to church, going to go see my son, and tomorrow I have to go back to work at the restaurant, although I don't have to work with Bernard until Tuesday. I informed the restauranteur of the break-up; he was worried I was going to quit and desperately texted me, "You can't quit! I choose you over Bernard! Please don't quit!" Because, again, Executive Chef Bernard is a colossal dick (even though he has a tiny one) and no one can actually stand him. I wanted to see through all of that into his precious human heart - and I did, briefly. Mostly I was swept away by his culinary skills - but you know what? 

I've lost my appetite.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 8

I usually take two tacks with relationships, lately - all, or nothing. With Jason, because breaking up with him wasn't working, back in February and March, I decided to ask him to marry me in May.

I know, that makes so much sense.

It doesn't, of course - I wasn't offered any tools or given any examples growing up to teach me to foster a healthy relationship with someone. But you know the saying, "Wherever I go, there I am"? If I don't work on myself, no relationship I have will ever be a success. Namely, if I don't work on myself when I'm with myself, I certainly won't be able to do it when I'm with someone else...and will therefore be quite capable of making two lives quite miserable.

The other day I became very angry with Jason for singing and playing music in his room when I was trying to write. I didn't let him know how I felt. Instead, I stomped outside to the backyard - and saw his bong next to the wicker bench. I wanted to go break it, but, because he went off his bipolar/OCD/anxiety/sleep meds and has decided instead to get a legal medical marijuana card, I decided not to break the bong, begrudgingly. But, since I can't handle being around a bong, I went back inside to the living room to write...where it was loud again. As the music was grating my nerves, I got an email from Ronnie, my ex-husband, telling me that I'm a disappointment to our son because I don't call Lyle every day at five like I'm supposed to, and Lyle is sad every day waiting for my call. Instead of admitting my mistake and telling Ronnie I'll make the commitment to call our son, I got even more angry, and when Jason came to ask me what's wrong very kindly and compassionately, I exploded. I got up, I threw my phone onto the floor, the contents breaking apart and scattering into the hallway, and I stormed out of the house without so much as a word, still wearing my pajamas, driving 30 miles back to my aunt's house a few towns away.

Um, yeah. Psycho...

I do the very best I can to justify my actions, to any one. Even to you, dear readers. In part 7, I justified my leaving Jason's house, and my plan to leave the relationship, without giving you all the deets.

The truth is, I'm a liar, and a rager. Growing up, my dad lied so often that it was a problem, and both of my parents' significant others flew off the handle in violent rages. I didn't learn the best communication skills, to say the least. I don't blame them, mind you. They were obviously fucked up by their parents, and them by theirs, and so on and so forth, back to the chicken or the egg or homo erectus or Adam and Eve or whatever you choose to believe. (Book nudge: The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz includes some great stuff about how our parents and society fuck us up as individuals.)

But maybe I just don't know how fucked up I really am until I try to live with someone else. Say I'm dating you, and I fall in love with you because you're special, and you feel the same way about me. We've both dated quite a bit - one of us was even married before - and we can safely say that we've never felt this way about any one before. Then, we spend a large of time together. Finally, we start to argue, and we realize we're actually both pretty messed up. "You're crazy!" I'll scream at you, hypocritically. Or, "I can't be with you, because I'm just too crazy. It's over!" And I run like hell, without hardly giving you a chance to say anything in the matter.

So I'm flighty, to boot. I really need to re-read my own "7 Ways to Avoid Getting Into a Bad Relationship" that I wrote just yesterday. "Love"...I've written about it plenty, from various perspectives. Sometimes I really sound like I know what I'm talking about, and other times I really have no freaking clue. I hold no Ph.D. in the subject. Hell, I ain't got no GED in the subject, neither. I'm like, in pre-school. And like a child, I want, want, want. If I really could just follow my own advice and "master love" the way Miguel Ruiz prescribes in The Mastery of Love, I wouldn't even be writing right now. Maybe I should read that book again, too.

Anyway...I guess what I'm saying is, the chapter on Jason isn't actually closed after all. I've embarrassed myself plenty over the past month oscillating from this-guy-sucks to he-can-be-my-boy-toy to I've-never-loved-someone-so-much to yay-happy-day-I'm-engaged to get-me-the-hell-out-of-this-shit-NOW. I know...crazy.

If you were in my shoes, dear reader, what would you do? Keep in mind, that, most importantly, you have an almost five year-old son who needs your love more than anyone.

Well, what I did was, I apologized to Jason for my freak-out, told him everything that was bothering me about our relationship, and I told him that if we're going to continue to consider marriage, before we even set a date - we need to undergo pre-marital counseling. And include Lyle. I got therapy with my son Lyle last year when Ronnie went to jail and rehab from May to August. It worked well for us.

All I want, in the entire world, is to be a good mom. It's more important to me than a relationship with any guy, and Jason knows this. If he's willing to let me put Lyle first, no matter what, maybe there's a chance for us after all. But he's going to have to support me when I need space to work on myself and on my relationship with my son, and, again, undergo therapy too, both individually and combined (and then we can call Captain Planet). And I need to follow #7 in my list: taking special consideration when dealing with mental and emotional disorders. Shit, I need to follow all 7 on the list. That's why I wrote it; because those are things I need to remember.

7 Ways to Avoid Getting Into a Bad Relationship

1. Be honest.

Too often we find ourselves "acting" a certain way to attract a mate. We're nicer than we'd like to be. We tell little "white" lies about ourselves, or we hide things. We laugh when something isn't all that funny. We lie when something hurts our feelings, saying, "It's fine." We delude ourselves into thinking that "this" one could be the one, before we've done the research. Some of us are so desperate to get away from our lonely selves that we'll do anything to latch onto another person - any one - including not be ourselves. Then, there comes a point down the line when the facade is broken; we just can't bring ourselves to lie any more. By then, we're months deep into a relationship with a person who doesn't even know who we really are - and chances are, we have no idea who he or she is, either (because all we wanted was to be "loved"). Ultimately, we find ourselves crawling out of our skin. We hit our breaking point, and we explode suddenly, surprising the other with some act of defiance, because the whole time, he or she never knew what was truly going on in this head of ours. Sure, we got someone to "fall in love" with us, we're no longer "alone" - but at what cost? We're not really the person our significant other "got to know" in the first place, which not only makes for a very bad relationship, it means we have to hurt that person for us to be happy again.

Save yourself this trouble by being completely honest right up front. I know, it's hard to say certain things. Some of those things might be, "I'm separated from my wife, but we're not yet legally divorced." Or, "I have a child who needs much of my attention, so I won't be able to give as much attention to a significant other right now." Or instead of saying, "No, I hardly date at all" to try and make him feel special or think you're more "pure", tell the truth, and say, "Yes, I've dated quite a bit over the past few years, but nothing has worked out"; or if the opposite is true - if you're trying to make her think you're a stud, don't - just say, "No, I haven't dated much lately; as a matter of fact, this is only the second date I've been on in the last year."

The list can go on and on. "No, I'm not interested in being exclusive right away. I'm just looking for something casual, a good time once in awhile." "I'm a recovering alcoholic and I go to meetings every day; it's a huge part of my life." "I'm Catholic and I want to be with another Catholic." "I see a psychiatrist and take medication for schizophrenia; it's a very misunderstood disorder." "I'm looking for someone willing to be a stepfather to my kids." "I may be ready to settle down with someone in a few years, but for right now I'm too busy working on myself, and probably shouldn't even be dating."

The first step of course is to be honest with yourself. If you think you want one thing, look again. Play the tape forward. Before you even go on a first date - what exactly are you looking for? Where do you want to be in a year? Two years? Ten years? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you not willing to sacrifice?

Whatever track you're on - once you figure it out - tell the person exactly what it is, and what your goals and intentions are. Yes, it may mean you don't get into a relationship with the person, or you don't get "laid". I know, you may not be able to see it now, exhilarated by the excitement of a new prospect - having someone interested in you can be very tantalizing - but being 100% honest is better than, again, letting someone fall in love a "you" that you aren't and can't be. You may not think you're even looking for love, but you have no control over the feelings of another person. So let the other person make an informed decision from the very beginning. It's the right thing to do, and you'll be doing both yourself, and him or her, a huge favor.

2. Love yourself first.

A good relationship develops naturally, over time. It isn't characterized by need or desperation. Do the things that you want to do. If you're a writer, write. If you're a photographer, go to the ends of the earth - or at least the county - for amazing photographs. If you are starting your own business, pour yourself into it and don't give up. Don't focus all of your energy on linking up with someone else, because guess what - it'll work, and you'll enormously regret wasting all of that energy you could have spent bettering your own life...and it won't be a good relationship! You'll end up resenting the other person, in the end, because you gave up so much to be with him or her. But if you remain true to yourself, do what makes you happy, and be honest with the other person, you may be surprised at what develops. On the other hand, if you jump into a whirlwind relationship and ignore yourself and your other desires and needs, it can burn out pretty quickly, and burn you out in the process. Keep this important tidbit in mind: If you don't have anything to give to yourself - if you can't make yourself happy - you have nothing to offer someone in a relationship.

If you love yourself first, however, you'll attract someone who also loves him or herself, and that's someone you'll want to be with - not a self-loather, a self-pitier. The latter is one who will be insecure, needy, clingy, someone who says bad things about other people because he or she doesn't like him or herself. That's the kind of person who will be afraid you're going to leave him or her for someone else any time you leave his or her house. If you don't like yourself, you'll attract this person, and you'll become each others' prisoners. Love yourself enough not to let this happen!

3. Be financially self-supporting.

Or at least, do your best to try to become self-supporting. People who don't support themselves financially are more likely to "need" someone else. And beware - "need" isn't love. I have two book recommendations for becoming financially stable: What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles and How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis. Take your time building yourself up so that no one can bring you down. In a sick relationship, if the other person is taking care of you, chances are he or she is rubbing it in and making you feel bad about it - but you need that person, so you can't do anything about it, right? Well, you know the saying, "If you love me, you'll let me go"? Apply it to your relationship. Start doing your own thing; make money for yourself doing something you love and are good at. See how your significant other reacts, and look for this warning sign: if he or she doesn't like you being happy "without" him or her - then it isn't love. You know the song, "Love hurts"? No, it doesn't. And that's another thing...

4. Don't take relationship advice from pop songs. 

They're riddled with messages of codependency. Read books instead (if you can afford them; if not, try to get the ones from #3 first, somehow). The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle are probably the two best self-help books out there for people feeling empty, alone and in need of a "significant other" for fulfillment and happiness. Miguel Ruiz teaches you how to truly love yourself and others (I love this line: "If you have a cat and you want a dog, get a dog"). If you apply what he teaches, you will never again be in "need" of anyone's love, ever again. Eckhart Tolle teaches you how to let go of the past and the future so that you can be happy, right now. And, again, if you're happy and fulfilled, you'll find yourself attracting someone else who is happy and fulfilled (but of course, you may just become so happy and fulfilled on your own that you want to keep it that way!).

5. Stay at your own place.

When we get into a new relationship, it's easy to get swept off our feet and over the threshold. We just can't get enough of what the other person has to offer - it just feels so good, and it's so hard to say "No". But do your best to sleep in your own bed and have the other person do the same. Otherwise, lines will be blurred, and you'll find yourself living with someone else before you're actually ready, or you'll have someone else living with you before you're ready to make that very big step that should be discussed at length - with words - before it's taken.

It's important to hold onto your individuality as you get to know someone else, especially if you have a hard time being honest, loving yourself, and supporting yourself financially. It's very difficult to be honest with someone else if you don't have time and space to think on your own. It's hard to love yourself if you have someone else around all the time needing your love. And if you aren't fully self-supporting financially (or if he or she isn't - it works both ways), you're going to end up either relying on someone or taking care of someone before you really get to know him or her or let him or her get to know you. And then you're in for a difficult change when you realize that you aren't compatible after all, when you actually-truly-finally get to know each other's "real" self.

I say, if you haven't accomplished steps 1-3, don't even think about moving in with someone (and if they haven't accomplished #1-3, don't let him or her stay with you!). I'm sorry to say this, but, spending three to four nights a week with someone does pretty much constitute living there. Trust me, I know from my own experience how difficult it is to take it slow with a person you suddenly have very strong feelings for and who appears to be totally amazing (and you just want to be around that person all the time). I'm the type who often, very early on, wants to just skip the dating process, nail him down and say "I love you" and "I do". But that's never worked out for me, because, honestly - I'm still not honest enough, I don't love myself as much as I could, and I'm not as stable financially as I'd like to be. So I'm passing along my learning to you, dear reader, from my own vault of experiences; take it or leave it. If you leave it, then you'll learn from your own experiences, which will still be very valuable to you (and will confirm what I'm telling you here).

6. Set boundaries.

Being honest with someone includes stating when something makes you feel uncomfortable; setting boundaries means standing your ground and not engaging in said uncomfortable activity, or enabling behavior that makes you feel bad. It's not caving in; it's being true to yourself. You're allowed to put yourself first, and someone who is sane will respect you for it. Unless it's your child or someone you love who truly cannot take care of him or herself, putting someone else first is called "codependency" (something I mentioned in #4). It means you have to make someone else happy just so you feel okay (or, it means someone else has to be responsible for your happiness in order for him or her to feel okay). For more information about codependency, visit the Mental Health America website.

As I said before, it's difficult to say "No". But it can be the very thing that maintains your happiness. Even though it'll feel horrible to say at first, once you feel and appreciate your own love for yourself, you'll never again want to let anyone take that away from you. For further illustration, there's a very good article in the November 2013 issue of Psychology Today called The Power of No. Says author Judith Sills, Ph.D, "No is both the tool and the barrier by which we establish and maintain the distinct perimeter of the self." Perimeter = boundary. Self = you. Now that you know what love is, thanks to don Miguel Ruiz, love that self of yours. Protect it. It's all you've got, really.

7. Take special consideration when dealing with mental and emotional disorders.

Whether we admit it or not - and most of us won't - all human beings are "sick" in some way. But some are sicker than others. Yes, we ought to be kind, compassionate, and understanding with people diagnosed with grave mental and emotional disorders. And they, too, "deserve" happiness - but not at the expense of our own. Before you get involved with someone either diagnosed or perhaps not yet diagnosed with a mental or emotional disorder (sometimes you just can't help with whom you fall in love), you need to be willing to work extra hard to maintain your own sanity (which, believe me, will be tested).

First, if you are someone diagnosed with one or more mental and emotional disorders, I'm sorry for your lot, but do yourself and everyone around you a favor and please, keep seeing your psychiatrist. Or, if you don't like your current psychiatrist, find another one. But don't one day just decide to go off your meds because you don't like taking them any more, or stop seeing your psychiatrist because you don't like him or her, or maybe you can't afford the treatment any more (in which case, see #4). You are in control of your own self and make your own decisions, but, if want an intimate relationship with another human being to work, you need to be honest about your condition from the very beginning. Discuss not only what you do for maintenance but also any change in treatment you may be considering and what effect it may have. What you do will affect someone in a relationship with you (see #1). And, I'm sorry, but you'll need to accept it if your date or significant other doesn't feel able to deal with a different version of you than the one he or she has come to know under your current treatment.

On the other side of the table, if you choose to date someone with say, bipolar disorder, do the research on the disorder. Are you able to keep your calm and be kind and compassionate when your significant other experiences his or her manic highs or depressive lows? Being in a relationship with someone with a physical imbalance of the brain can be very difficult and taxing emotionally, but you'll have to accept certain things you cannot change. Perhaps it's anxiety, and your significant other can't join you in any social situations. Perhaps it's a sleep disorder, and the person can't help but stay awake until 3 am and only sleep until 7 am on certain days. Perhaps it's obsessive-compulsivity, and he or she has a really hard time when you move his or her stapler - I mean a really hard time. Whatever the disorder (or cocktail thereof), just be sure you're ready to handle it kindly, lovingly, and calmly, because you are going to have to be the "sane" one.



Thanks for reading my first advice post! I've decided to throw these in once in awhile in between posting about my memoir or my own relationship foibles. I'm hoping to have less of the latter, under my "new awareness". Here's hoping!

The Memoir Outline: 1-3

1

Family outing to the Oceanside pier. In preparation, Ronnie drinks.

Instead of going to the pier with us as planned, Ronnie has me drop him off at the Headhunter Saloon. I take Lyle down the pier for a milkshake and fries. Sunset, pelicans, surfers. We race and I pretend to lose. He wants to take off his shoes, but I daren’t let him. Too many fishermen. And splinters.

We go back to pick Ronnie up. He’s standing outside the saloon in a circle of people, smoking. He doesn’t want to come with me. I get money out of the ATM and give it to him and tell him to take a cab home.

I take Lyle to Chuck E. Cheese and wait for Ronnie’s call. They’re open late. I play games with Lyle. 20 minutes, Ronnie calls. They kicked me out of the bar, he says. I need you to come get me, they’re calling the cops, he says. I say too bad, and I hang up on him. Lyle and I play some more. He calls a few more times. I don’t answer. He calls again. I answer and I tell him we’re on our way.

I pick him up and take him to Weinerschnitzel to get some food in him. At the drive-through window he says, please don’t be mad, but I kissed two women at the bar.

2

Ronnie’s drunk. He’s banging against Lyle’s bedroom door. Lyle and I are inside. I’m holding Lyle close to me and reading him a book on the other side of the room. Ronnie kicks the door in and breaks the door frame. Get away from us, I scream. I’m calling 9-1-1, I say. He takes my phone. I pick up Lyle and get by Ronnie but he grabs my arm and pushes me and gets in front of us and blocks the front door. You’re not going anywhere, he says. He puts a hole in the wall with his fist. He walks towards us. I take Lyle into my and Ronnie’s bedroom. We’re both crying. Ronnie is banging on our bedroom door.

Ronnie stops banging and yelling. I sing and rock Lyle to sleep. Lyle falls asleep. I open the bedroom door and Ronnie is passed out on the floor in the hallway.

3

Ronnie and I are fighting. He’s drunk. We’re going to the courthouse tomorrow morning to get a divorce, he says.

I get my phone and my keys and my purse.

Fine, I say. Actually, fuck you, I’m leaving right now, I say. I fucking hate you and I hope I never see you again, I say. I go over to pick up Lyle out of his high chair. Lyle’s crying. Ronnie gets to him first and grabs Lyle and picks him up. I try to pry Ronnie’s arms loose. He won’t let go of Lyle. I stomp on Ronnie’s foot. He doesn’t let go. Lyle is crying. I’m crying. Ronnie is yelling. Thank you for the worst ten years of my life, Ronnie says. You’re not taking Lyle, he says. You’re insane, he says. If you’re leaving, then leave, he says.

I leave Ronnie and Lyle.

I go to my car. I’m crying in the drivers’ seat. I turn the ignition and put it in reverse and I start backing up, then I put it in drive and start driving down the apartments’ parking lot.

I pull out on Mission Rd. I don’t know where to go. I’ve been texting my co-worker Evan a lot lately, complaining about Ronnie. At work last week he said I should leave Ronnie.

I text Evan while crying and driving. I did it, I say. I left Ronnie, but I don’t know what to do, I say. Come over here, he says. I say, I can’t, that’s too scary. Then let’s get to the scary part, he says. I say okay.

I drive over to Evan's mom and stepdad’s house where Evan lives. He meets me on the steps in front of the house. It’s the first time I’ve seen him not in his uniform and cap. He’s wearing a button-up plaid, long-sleeved shirt and jeans, and his hair is flat against his forehead.

I park and walk up to him, slowly. He kisses me. He lifts me up. He carries me into his house as we kiss. He takes me to the living room and he starts taking off his clothes. I take off mine. We have sex on the recliner. Then the couch. Then the floor.

When we’re done, we get dressed and he cooks salmon, collard greens and mashed potatoes. He pours me a glass of wine, and him a glass. After I drink my glass, I try to put the cork back in the top of the bottle. I don't usually drink wine. Evan laughs. Usually when two people open a bottle of wine, he says, they drink the whole thing. I laugh and pour myself another glass. I don’t like to drink much, he says. It hurts my stomach, he says. I finish off the wine. We eat the food and talk.

We go upstairs to his bedroom and we have more sex.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 4

We're engaged.

I'm just gonna give that some space.

I broke up with #30  - on February 14 of all days - because this sex and love addict from one of my meetings was obsessed with me and I totally bought into it (plus, I didn't like #30 that much, remember?). Nothing more came of it than a kiss (THANK GOD) and him leaving the state to go join the Navy (he was all ready leaving for that; it had nothing to do with me).

But anyway, so, #30 fell absolutely head-over-heels with me, by the way. He was heartbroken when I broke up with him after meeting with #31, and I was surprised. I didn't know he liked me that much.

I still broke up with him (#30...I'm calling him "Jason") one more time. He smokes weed, and I felt really tempted to smoke one day. He supports my drug and alcohol recovery, and so he does it out in the backyard of his parents' house and cleans himself up so he doesn't smell...but just me knowing that he was doing it was making me want to smoke so badly! So I broke up with him again in March, because I can't take that risk.

But he said I was breaking his heart, again, and we talked about how his smoking weed was affecting me, and we figured out some alternatives to ending the relationship. I am glad; I gotta admit, I'm so tired of being "out there" - you know, single, or serial relationshipping/dating, whatever - that I was willing to go ahead and keep trying with him. So he smokes a little weed? It's not the worst thing in the world. Plus, now we actually talk about things - finally!! He cries a little more than I do, but that's okay. He's sensitive (well, bipolar, you know - but that's okay, too).

Oh...

So, I decided to go ahead and propose.

Crazy? I know it would appear that way. And I never thought I'd want to get married again, least of all to a guy with so many mental disorders that he has to take eight different medications and see a therapist and a psychiatrist. But he is also so kind, loving, intelligent (high IQ's often come with an array of disorders, I hear), talented, fun, comes from a good (not-broken) Christian family who adores me. He was all ready talking about marrying me someday. It sounded almost too good to be true - until I bought him a ring, got down on one knee, and asked him to marry me, for real, then - and he said, "Yes," of course.

So that's it! I'm done, right? It's a victory story, the way I see it.

The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz helped to teach me what Love is. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it. I also spend a lot of time reading the Bible and working the 12 steps, and I still go to meetings (not the sex and love ones any more [sorry, but fuck those]).

I'm so happy today. I want to write a book!! It's time!! My classes are over for the summer, and so is my job, for now. I do have to find another job; Jason and I want to be married in a year's time and have a place to move into with each other. A two bedroom, so my son has his own room when he's with us (he and my son are developing quite the relationship, too! It's great!).

But....man...a book...can you imagine? I can...but until I get on it, that's all it'll be - imaginary! So, what should I write about? Should it be an autobiography? Should it be fiction, based on my experiences? If the latter, should it be first person perspective, or third? Should I write a series of short stories, with different protagonists, or the same protagonist? What's more interesting, my childhood, or my adulthood...or both? Or should I write creatively about something or someone that has absolutely nothing to do with myself? Now's the time to call upon my varied English education (and professors), whip out some old books, and pick up reading again, avidly.

All I know is, I have to write. I just have to. These past few months of focusing on school and securing my fiance have taken up all my time (yeah, you can laugh there), and now I'm exploding with creative desire. My photography class provided a great outlet for creativity, but I just had to give the loaner camera back to my school's Arts Department. I'm still singing, and Jason's going to help me record a CD (he's a sound engineer/singer/songwriter and has his own mixing studio and equipment). But it's writing that's always been my first and foremost passion, ever since I was four and learned how to read and write rhymes a lá Seuss and Mother Goose.

But, it does feel like I've turned the pressure valve a little to the left here, and I can *sigh*, smile, and get a good night's sleep. Oh, but I just want to say one more thing:

YAY!!!

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter, part 2

Well, shoot, now that I've started writing again, all of a sudden I have more to say.

After spending all day at Starbucks writing my post yesterday, I drove down to pick up my son from his dad's house. He fell asleep on the way back up to where I was headed for church choir rehearsal. I had over an hour before rehearsal would start, so I went over to my now-boyfriend's house for a quick kiss. I had spent the night there the night before so I'd all ready seen him in the morning, but, I wanted to see him again.

[The interaction between us that morning had both depressed me (as things tend to do lately) but also provided me with a revelation (as things tend to do often).]

That morning I received a call from a bill collector that got me out of my boyfriend's bed. Jason (not his real name, as usual) and I had just woken up, and I had all ready begun to express some dissatisfaction with certain aspects of my life. He shushed me and said, "We've only been awake for what, 20 minutes, and this all ready? Come on."

He doesn't want to hear about such things. I'm not sure if it has to do with him being 25 and living with his parents and being totally spoiled, with people taking care of him hand and foot and therefore him having no concept of what it means to nurture someone else, but, that's what I'm going with.

He complained when I got off the phone with the bill collector - I had answered and calmly set up a payment, which he didn't understand. "You should have asked them, 'What the hell are you doing, calling someone at 8 in the frickin' morning?' Geez!" I started to explain that I had previously scheduled that call, but he wasn't interested in hearing me speak. He interrupts me routinely, implying that he feels that his words have more value than mine. It's a trend I've noticed over the past few days since we became "boyfriend and girlfriend". I'm much quicker to pick up on these sorts of things now that I'm in recovery and am being "restored to sanity" one day at a time (some days are saner than others, for sure).

I meditated in the shower so that I could get my mind off what I perceived as his immaturity and how invalidated I felt. Or, rather, what I mean to say is I meditated to accept his perceived immaturity and to observe my feelings and figure out what to do with them other than what I would have done in the past (scream, kick, yell, punch walls, drink, use drugs, etc).

[Also worth mentioning is the fact that he takes medications for bipolar, anxiety and sleep disorders...so...his demeanor is probably a combination of the aforementioned living-with-his-parents-at-that-age and these latter conditions. But...nature, nurture, tomayto, tomahto...all that is really beside the point.]

If I don't kick and scream when I don't get my way, how do I make myself feel better when I feel "wronged" by someone?

I kill my ego. Doesn't sound like it'd feel good, but actually, it does.

And here's how I do it: First, I meditate, bringing myself wholly "present", taking my mind off the other person and focusing it on me (my body), my feelings (not my thoughts), and what's in front of me (literally: shampoo...soap...hot water...shower curtain...etc), and then, after becoming aware of my self and what is real (tangible corporeality) as opposed to what is not real (thought perceptions)...all that's left is really all there "is".

And then...I enter another realm. Y'all ready? That's right -- I pray.

Okay, this is where the atheist goes, "Aww, man, another crackpot." Or, "That is all so effing kooky, and way too complicated." But my mind is a complicated thing, and it gets me into trouble, time and time again. So what I do here is actually simple. And I need to simplify things so that I don't have to feel insane all the time (because, as of right now, I don't have meds to regulate whatever happens up there...but hell, maybe I don't need 'em, any way. Let's see...).

One prayer I use is called "The Serenity Prayer". It goes like this: "God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." One thing I've learned by now, although I have to remind myself every day, is that I can't change anyone else. And that is for damn sure. The only person I can change is me...but I can change me. (Though, still, not without some outside help.)

Then the next one: "God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will, always." I was an atheist for the first 28 years of my life, and I have to say, I much prefer spirituality these days. When I let go of everything and just trust it to be part of some Master Plan that I have nothing to do with, I get to experience a sort of simple, effortless peace and freedom...even joy.

Here's another prayer that I recite from memory, after the other two: "My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and to my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go from here, to do Your bidding." I take a look at what "defects of character" are driving me and making me "useless" (sitting in resentment and self-pity makes me "useless"; helping others makes me "useful"). These "defects" usually include selfishness, self-centeredness, dishonesty (most often I'm dishonest with myself), and fear. Doing God's Will, as opposed to mine, for me, means asking God to remove these "defects" and replace them with positive, useful attributes, like love, patience, tolerance, kindness, honesty and selflessness. Because, believe it or not, that makes me feel better than resenting someone for how they're treating me.

For the record, alcoholics like me actually can't afford resentments. Resentment is what leads many a recovering alcoholic to relapse. "Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink," the saying goes. During my interaction with Jason yesterday morning, I actually thought about how nice it would be to just "check out". I thought about smoking weed and how nice it would be to be high. I thought about drinking and how nice it would be to be drunk. After my nearly two years clean and sober, that is a very dangerous place for my mind to go; absolutely, under no circumstances, can I pick up a drug or a drink, or my life will be over.

And, so, here's the final prayer, the Mack Daddy of them all: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace! That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understand, than to be understood. To love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life."

Amen!

(I do need help remembering this one, though. HWDEDDS CUL SFD...lemme try that.)

After I meditate and pray, I do, at least temporarily, forget about whatever it is that someone did that bothered me. It's a lot of work, but it's a small price to pay to get out of a living hell.

I came up with another way to help me deal with Jason for when I'm around him, because I can't easily do all that meditating and praying when I'm actually around him - that'll take some practice. So before I left the bathroom and went back to his vicinity, I said to myself, "Okay, Adora: any time you're with Jason, shut your mouth other than to laugh at his jokes, to console him, to kiss him, to sing to him, or to suck his dick."

Fuck, I know. It sounds horrible, doesn't it? And my perception could be entirely wrong. But I'm gonna re-mind myself of the phrase my cousin coined when I left my husband to "be with" a co-worker, 2 1/2 years ago: "Enjoy your boy toy." Right now, maybe that's Jason's place in my world. And I really do feel, based on how he "treats" me, that the above five verbs about sum up the place I have in his. I'm not going to try to "get anything" from him other than what he's willing or able to offer (and my prayers do help me with that.) He's not a stepdad to my son (my son's dad is in his life, and okay, so I'll be doing it on my own when he's in my custody...fine). He's not a financial provider (I'm going to school and trying to finish so I can work full-time with a degree...so...I don't get a man to "take care of me"...fine). He's not a spiritual guru (he's an ego-driven, science-loving atheist...fine, I love science, too; ego, not as much, but whatever). He's a musician, and we have fun making music together. He makes jokes, and we have fun laughing together. He's sexy, and we have fun being physically intimate. And he's leaving for the Berklee School of Music in Boston for two years in July, although he'll be coming home for vacations...so the fun'll be over in six months save for intermittently thereafter...if we're even still involved with each other at that point. 

Boy Toy. Fun. Fine.

So, I went over to his house again before choir rehearsal for a kiss, since my son was asleep, and because I do like affection. I came up with another mantra on the way, where I reminded myself: "Save your crazy." In other words, I'll "save my crazy" for, or only talk about my feelings when I'm talking to sponsors, friends, my therapist, people in recovery meetings, or save them for when I write. But presenting them to Jason may not give me a favorable result; I've all ready found him to be a black hole. "Don't go to an auto mechanic for heart surgery," a saying goes. 

So Jason is, to me: "laughter, affection, and music". When I went back over there, instead of talking to him about my feelings, because experience has taught me that I can get nothing out of that other than frustration, I decided this time to just listen to him, laugh at his jokes while sprinkling in some of my own to make him laugh, show him affection, and nurture him. And it all worked out just fine. I didn't lose one ounce of serenity because of my acceptance and decision to just "give".

[And no, he won't read this. I'm hoping he ends up proving me wrong eventually, really. But we'll see.]

Then, I left, and I drove to the foster care facility where I picked up my 16 year-old sponsee Kassandra. She's recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, and I'm working her through the 12 steps. I also hired her to babysit my four year-old son for me during my choir rehearsal last night. I enjoy spending time with and being of service to her, whenever I can, and she enjoys getting out of the foster care facility any chance she gets (it's not a "home" with a family...it houses a large number of "former delinquents" without a home...and the place more resembles an apartment complex with a big office building in the middle than it does a house). Kassandra's doing a lot better now that she's not living in a motel room with her heroin-adddicted dad and now that she's not ending up in juvie over and over (she's been twice). Now, she's going to an adult school for her GED, she's involved in club volleyball, she volunteers at a mental health facility, and she gives me one more reason to stay sober and knock my own bullshit off. I want to be a positive example for someone.

Choir rehearsal was good. I enjoyed watching my director intently as I led the Soprano section. He's so good at letting us know when to be loud, when to be soft, when to cut off, when to come in, with his hands, arms, and face. I think I want to go on for a Master's Degree in Choral Conducting after I get my Bachelor's Degree in Music. I'll be done with my BA in a few semesters; I'm going half-time. Actually, when I woke up here at 4:53 am and decided I needed to write some more (I love it when my addictive nature latches onto writing as opposed to other things), this idea was the first thing that came to my mind.

I dropped Kassandra back off at "home" and drove my boy and I home, where we commenced to build a castle out of giant legos and had the bad guys tear it down and then the good guys beat up the bad guys for tearing it down. Then he asked to watch Max Steel on Netflix, so I set that up for him while he ate dinner, and I took some time to read don Miguel Ruiz' The Mastery of Love. I hadn't read anything for weeks (I was too busy obsessing about Jason and trying to get him to be my boyfriend), so it was nice to get out of my head some more. I picked it up while thinking about the last prayer that I'd quoted above, otherwise known as the St. Francis Prayer (or the 11th Step Prayer), thinking, "Hmm, maybe this book will teach me how to love." It was a Christmas gift from a girlfriend of mine in recovery, but I hadn't opened it up yet. And I only got through about ten pages before my son needed me again, but I read some things that I really appreciated. I have to open myself up to solutions from outside of myself as much as I possibly can. It's just the only way for me to go on.

Before I got to writing here this morning, I had also begun to read again one of my ol' writing professors' blogs. Whenever I go on a reading spree, I try to make sure his work gets in there somewhere. I'll be forever indebted to him for his inspiration; I always learn something from him, even though it's been, say, nearly ten years since I've taken the two classes I took from him (a literature class focusing on autobiography and a beginning creative writing class). Right now he's having to undergo chemotherapy; he's about done with it, and it's working, so I'm glad about that. But gosh, it's amazing to read his work, not just because as a professor of creative writing, he writes extremely well, but also because when I read his work, I always gain some new perspective on my own life situation.

One of the things he wrote about in his last post is the value he has found in community, as people gather to help one another in a common purpose. We don't have to do this thing alone. And that reminds me why I'm of service to those less fortunate - because nothing that I'm going through is really that bad. Other people have it plenty worse.

I need the death of the self (or ego) that St. Francis (attributedly) talks about. For example, I also help a crippled woman named Melia who's in her fifties and can't go anywhere without someone's help. I give her rides and bring her things and spend time with her, just because it gets me out of myself. She calls me every day, in a lot of pain both physically and emotionally. I can't do anything to alleviate her physical suffering, but it makes me feel good to make her laugh or to help her through her own resentments and self-pity (which are probably more founded than mine, though no more or less detrimental to one's well being).

Today I'm giving Melia a ride to the doctor at 2:30. Before that I'll be taking care of my son and reaching out to some people on the phone, to see how they're doing.

I'm gonna try to just be okay today, whatever it takes.

The Berklee School of Music Singer/Songwriter

So, it's been determined that I am, in fact, insane, but to what extent hasn't yet been decided by my therapist.

While trudging through the Dark Night of the Soul this past month, I finally decided to go ahead and make a damn appointment. I hadn't seen my therapist in over a year. I called every day from this past Tuesday to this past Friday, trying to get the appointment. I was being persistent because I was being told that she (my therapist) would call me back, and each day I was falling deeper and deeper into a sort of depression that I'd forgotten could exist, and she wasn't calling me back. Thankfully, she did, finally, and was even able to have a phone session with me on Saturday. The session consisted of me talking for an hour, catching her up on the past year, and her talking for 15 minutes, suggesting a couple things for me to do, as well as setting up another appointment for Wednesday (yesterday). And yesterday she set up appointments for Mondays and Wednesdays, based on my apparently tragic condition, so she can see me twice a week and try to figure out what the hell is going on that makes me want to do absolutely nothing.

I've heard about people seeing the world in shades of gray. About not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, or do anything, or go anywhere, or talk to anyone. I missed four days of work and my world was the color of feces. I just didn't want to be in it any more. No matter where I was, it just wasn't where I wanted to be. Nothing in the world was good - not even being with my son, which is the thing that's saved me so many times before. I even freaking got baptized. But it only got worse.

Today's finally sort of a little okay. I'm missing work again (my boss is sick, so there isn't anything for me to do there any way since they took all my responsibilities away saying that I'm over-qualified and that now I need to train my boss so he knows how to do his own damn job since I'm going to be graduating from school at some point and will move onto bigger and "better" - not 20 hrs/week $10/hour - things). My work situation has contributed to my depression a lot, for sure. They just made me stop doing all the things I do because I'm so much better at doing them than my boss is, and instead of letting me do them, they want me to show him how to do them, because don'tcha know, I'm a "temporary" employee, and since they can't afford to really actually hire me, they're gonna keep paying me less than this guy who I'm training. Yeah, it's depressing, all right.

Of course, you know that's not the only thing getting me down. Ahh...what we're all here for...relationships. This blog began as a relationship inventory. Relationships just haven't gone too well for me, understatedly -- namely, relationships with my parents and their significant others, relationships with my other family members, work relationships, relationships with "friends", the relationship with my husband, relationships with all the men I've somehow managed not to be successful at not getting involved with...these have all driven me completely insane, apparently (and well, again, the therapist and my doctor are going to decide the level of my insanity).

When I last posted, I had gotten back into a relationship with the boyfriend I'd left my husband for (the boyfriend with whom I'd broken up over and over in order to be with other men who'd wanted to be with me, before going back to him over and over when it didn't work out with those men - for two years - until he took off to Canada in September for three months and I finally had to face these demons without him).

I like to rewind and recap: So this boyfriend's name is Evan (#1) (and not his real name, of course). Those other men I just talked about are #2 through #26 (DAMN). After Evan left to Canada in September, I went and dated and had sex with a guy I'd pined over for like a year, who, afterwards, told me he had herpes (#27). I considered that a good enough rock bottom to want to really be done with men (and what choice did I have, I thought, if I might have contracted an STD?). I told my friend Margaret about it and she started taking me to meetings for sex and love addicts. Margaret's boyfriend was cheating on her, she thought, and he didn't want to be with her any more; she was so torn up that she decided she might be a love addict and thought 12-step programs would help her. They didn't (she didn't really try, IMO). After Margaret committed suicide (I had completed 42 successful days of "no men" and was going for 90), I ran into a guy who'd composed music for a video about suicide. When I talked to him about my experience with Margaret, he asked for my number, asked me out on a date, and we had sex even though I didn't want to. He was #29 (I'm counting Jesus as #28).

So, I went back to "Day 0". I've still been going to meetings, but I just haven't been able to get back to the whole "no men" thing. I haven't been able to put even one day together without some kind of pursuit of them (or at least without responding to them favorably). Margaret's death flipped me completely upside down; she was the one who was helping me with this "guy stuff"...or maybe I should say her death just put me back where I was. It was helping me to write about it...but once she died, I didn't even have the desire to do that any more, and it's been hard to get back to this inventory stuff.

I managed to stop seeing the suicide video/satellite communications engineer guy, but then Evan came back from Canada in December and asked me to the movies. I accepted, because that's what I do. But after a couple weeks I remembered, again, that I don't like him that much, and, more importantly, I don't like how unmanageable my life gets in my "relationship addiction", so, I operated via the standardly oft-repeated modus, and I had sex with the suicide video guy again, just so that I could get out of the relationship with Evan again...because gee, don'tcha know, I can't just be all, "Oh, yeah, sorry, dude, I forgot, I'm too fucked up for all this, and I don't want to be with you - my bad."

That was on January 1, go figure. Way to start the New Year, eh? I totally avoided writing about it, too, until now. But I do feel a bit better, doing so.

Oh, but - there's more.

I had called #23 (refer to the inventory to the right, somewhere) back in November when Margaret died, and we started talking again. His story is, when his wife left him six years ago, he wanted to kill himself, but instead of pulling the trigger of the gun that he was holding to his head on the pier, he checked into a psych ward and then a rehab and got sober. I hadn't talked to him since April, besides a few tens of obsessive emails I'd sent him after I stopped dating him (and I had stopped dating him because I got painful withdrawals from being away from him, and I figured it would be better to just end it and let go completely than to keep enduring those withdrawals...they sucked a lot of ass and hurt really, really badly). When I called him in November I used him like a therapist and spilled my guts, and would do so about every couple weeks, until a couple Thursdays ago, when I asked if I could see him in person, because I was depressed and needed a friend.

When I spent the night with him, I told him that I didn't want to have sex. He actually respected me. I think that's the first time that's ever happened with a male. (That statement belongs in bold.) So, the following week I went and spent the night with him again (this was last Friday, the day before I finally talked to my therapist on the phone, which I did from his apartment). And this time he was sick, so, we didn't even hug. We just talked. He just...totally...cared...about me...both times. It was shocking.

My obsession for him was lifted back in May, so these days he really is more of a friend. And he just showed me what a friend actually looks like. But I have developed a new obsession.

Of course, we'll call this one #30. He's the real reason I got rid of the other two guys (the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and the Satellite Communications Engineer), in one fell swoop, 22 days ago, by the way. It wasn't just me not liking those other guys, or actually finally trying to change for real now. Nope - along came Jason.

I've "known" him since July, when I started singing at the church he works at as the sound engineer. I added him on facebook on Dec 29, he said hi in a facebook message, we messaged each other for hours, and he suggested we "jam" because he's also a musician (he sings w/piano). The jam invitation, over these past few weeks, turned into daily texting, which turned into sexting, which turned into us hanging out, which turned into us having sex, which turned into him becoming my boyfriend a few days ago (on Jan 19).

Okay, I can't write about this any more for now. I'm glad I've gotten this much out so far, though. I hope to get back into writing again, even though my classes have started - I have three of them. And two jobs. And meetings. And a four year-old. And a boyfriend. And now...therapy that I'm paying for and will probably end up taking some kind of medication because of -- oh, but, well, I guess I shouldn't say that I'll be taking meds because of the therapy, but because of whatever "disorders" my therapist and my doctor decide I have. General anxiety disorder has been mentioned. The depression may be situational, she says, but she's not sure yet, so we're gonna keep meeting twice a week to figure this all out.

But I'm really depressed about it the whole damn thing, if you want to know the truth (sorry, I do love Salinger's Holden).

Ramblings on the Writing Process

It has been hard for me to get back into writing after I wrote my last post. I feel like my writing was sub-par. All over the place. Incoherent. Timeline unclear, jagged, going backward and forward with awkwardly long, frantic sentences. And the content itself was a bit...jarring. Overwhelming. Sickening. I couldn't find the wherewithal to keep going.

I've noticed that my writing wavers like a stick on an old-fashioned metronome, ticking back and forth between writing for catharsis and change -- and writing just to write. On the former side, my writing suffers with my own suffering: I'm charged with emotional recall; I don't care how the words fall off my fingertips and slap themselves onto the screen, just as long as they get out of me and onto it. On the other side, however, I couldn't "care" less "about" "what" I'm writing, so long as I'm writing -- but, even more importantly, writing well. Once in a long while, the ticker slows to stop for a moment, and I, suddenly aware, am suspended, poised in the middle between "meaning" and its signposts, between "content" and the characters that I'm using to represent it. Here is where I hope to find my writing identity.

The purpose of my blog is two-fold, and I find it difficult to stay in balance. One, I'm blogging things (or facts, events) that have "happened" in my life - focusing most intently on the past two years - as a means to prevent things similar from occurring. These things are ones that make me go "Ugh". But I'd much rather the things make me go "Ugh" than the writing itself (writing itself being the second half of the purpose of this blog, of course). My last post stopped my writing process in its tracks, because, that time, both the content and its form offended me terribly. I didn't like what I wrote or how I wrote it.

Here is a brief summary of my blog's "content", or the "what" of it: After watching my relationship with my husband crumble to the ground after ten years of steady erosion and a final heave-ho, I sifted through boyfriends, one-night stands...and before I knew it, was buried under a heaping, stinking pile of men. I enlisted myself in a program for "sex and 'love' addicts", thinking that my problem may be my "powerlessness" (i.e., my seeming inability to say "no" to any man who expresses any interest in me whatsoever). The founder of this program suggests, in his book written for one who identifies as a "sex and 'love' addict", to write a "relationship inventory". This inventory's purpose is to help one identify specific actions in order to discern patterns of behavior with the goal of unearthing motives (or seeing what one "gets" from people s/he has "used"...seeing what the "pay-off" is). Then, one should be able to see how selfish, dishonest, and afraid one has been and acknowledge how one has hurt others with his/her self-seeking motives and actions/patterns. This awareness, along with a surrender to a "power greater than oneself" and a willingness to "let" the behaviors and their propelling motives "go", is supposed to get one to make restitution/amends for harm done and aid other "suffering" "sex and 'love' addicts" which will, inherently, cause one to cease acting out in the patterns of behavior that created the events that made him/her go "Ugh" in the first place. And the inventory's purpose is fulfilled. Boom. Done.

When I found out I should write about all my relationships in order to "recover", I was pretty excited. I love writing! And a former writing professor of mine is writing a blog about his experience with cancer and its treatment (he also writes about bicycling across the U.S.). He also blogs about the writing process itself. It's very inspiring. So, I decided to turn my inventory into a blog so that I could use it both as my motivation to "change" as well as, perhaps one day, material for an actual memoir that I'll publish and have people maybe even read someday!

But...my very influential professor has helped me to see that how one writes is just as important as what one is writing about (along with the books I read in his autobiography-themed lit class in college). His writing appears to be in balance between its content and its characters of representation. It's not just a bunch of emotional rambling that pays no mind to the words being used...nor is it composed of meticulously placed words on a screen without any "real" content behind them.

In contrast, my metronomablog keeps ticking between the two. Here are a few insights I had gleaned about myself last night, before I started to care about how I was writing. I'm not going to do any editing, so you can see a true example of what my content is really like when I pay no mind to characters (as opposed to the above writing, which I've spent seven full hours editing!):



1. I get "high" from a man's attention. My heart beats fast. My body gets hot. My breathing is labored. It's a surge of adrenaline. I like it.

2. I get bored after the "high" is gone. I'm not actually interested in the hard "relationship" stuff. I tried that all ready, and it didn't work. Plus, I start to miss myself when I spend too much time with a guy. I never really got to find myself in the first place, I don't think. So I run to extremes and break it off instead of just try to slow things down.

3. I don't actually like the sex with the men all that much. Sex is just the thing I put up with after I get my "attention high". I do my best to pretend I enjoy it, so he still likes me and I can get "high" again the next time I see him, but then I don't get "high" again, or sometimes I do a couple more times, but soon enough, it goes away - and when that happens, so do I.

4. I still love the guy I ended up with after I left my husband over two years ago. I actually do enjoy sex with him, and, I still get "high" when I see him (or maybe it's not a "high" and is "real love"...who knows?). But it's hard as hell for me to accept him: he lives with his mom and stepdad and doesn't have a job and is about to have his car repossessed and his phone turned off and is more full of self-pity and devoid of motivation than anyone I know.

5. I want a guy to take care of me financially. But, when I find ones who are willing and able to do so, I don't want to be with them, after all. I fucked up by not getting my degree or starting a full-time career; I was being taken care of by my husband who received monthly money from his Indian tribe. Now I have to put my big girl pants on and go to night school and get a full-time job so I don't need a man to build a house on my grandparents' 20 acres (that's what James, the last guy, wanted to do, after knowing me for a week). No thanks, dude -- I can build my own damn house.

6. I'm so goddamn focused on the past and future that I don't actually do anything now to change my life situation. "Someday this will happen, and I'll be happy." "I can't believe all the shit I've done; I'm so disappointed in myself." You know what? Fuck that. I'll just be happy right now. 

Okay, this blog is taking a weird turn. But let's roll with it. Who fucking cares about the men I've been involved with over the past couple years? I don't even care any more. All I care about is what I'm doing right now. And right now I'm sitting merrily at my laptop, typing words - it's something I very much enjoy doing. But it's not making me any money, at the moment, which makes me revert back to insight number 5. Actually, I happen to be on a two-week unpaid forced vacation from my 20-hour-a-week 10-dollar-an-hour job.

So....it's time to get back into reading Mary Karr -- I need to finish her memoir, damnit...but every time I read it, I read like two pages and can't even keep going because I get all inspired and my fingers get itchy...which is cool, I guess. But it doesn't help me write any better if I don't keep reading actually good writing.

And as far as writing for change goes, well, guess what -- writing about the men I've been with over the past two years still hasn't stopped me from being with men. After the Propane Truck Driver, whom I considered to be my "rock bottom", there was the Satellite Communications Engineer, and now...well, you know that guy I talked about in insight number 4? The guy I wrote about me cheating on and leaving, over, and over, and over? Yep - the Pizza Delivery Boyfriend and I are back together, again.

But it's all good. At least I still have writing for the sake for writing. :)

Ugh.