Ma'am, Put the Phone DOWN!

The palm is itching, but not to spank a would be lover.  It itches to text, call or FB the former.  Trusted council demands:  put the phone down!  And I consider once again the delete key option.  The Delete Key, my modern, digital solution for saying Fuck You without ever uttering a word.  Oh, yeah... you want to be like that, send an email like that, be a tool like that?  Well take this you, you... you imbecile:  DELETE.  And poof!  Gone forever as long as I remember to delete or empty the delete folder.  


The Delete Key... also a knee jerk reaction.  A child's response to not GETTING WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!  What does a child want?  Attention.  Because somewhere in the architecture of my mind one or two scores ago I collapsed attention for love.  


Trusted (and some not so trusted) friends echo this sentiment:

• If I looked back through history to list what I found attractive in men, what would the common denominator be to their qualities.  What if I picked the opposite quality in the future?
• Reflecting on the ex and those before and since:  what do I notice (not that I have to dive into the big question of WHY).
• You want what you cannot have and if you get it you become bored.  

A week of reflection and survey says:  unavailable.  

In descending order:  R, P (legs Played Part One), D, B, A and Rob before all of that.  Unavailable because of lack of interest, lack of emotional availability, inability to  generate income, engagement or marriage to another.  When was the last time someone was truly available?  Was it 1991?  '93 maybe?  Hmm, I knew it and yet I didn't. 

So the opposite quality?  Available.  What does that look like I wonder.  I haven't a single clue, but just like you can start to uncover what you DO WANT by identifying what you DON'T WANT, I can start with taking a sharp right turn from the people (men) who share even the briefest utterance of the following: I have trust issues, I'm unhappy in my marriage, I've never wanted marriage or kids... blah, blah, blah.  And then continue by realizing that what B once said is the eternal truth.  Attention isn't love.

Step One - We Need to Talk

Lyrics from The Fray's, "How to Save a Life"


Step one, you say, "We need to talk"
He walks, you say, "Sit dow, it's just a talk"
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through


Some sort of window to your right
As he got left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame 
You begin to wonder why you came


Where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up all night
Had I know how to save a life


Let him know that you know best
'Cause after all, you do know best
try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence


Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you


And where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I wold have stayed up with you all nigh
Had I known how to save a life


As he begins to raise his void
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed


He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came


Where did I go wrong?  I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life...

Relationships Begin and Relationships End

And sometimes relationships go on pause.  It's the Ross and Rachel "let's take a break" phenomenon when a couple reaches an impasse.  It's a he-said/she-said interpretation of events that can move us to that proverbial next level of relationship or close the door altogether so that we have to say, "next," as we pull up our big-girl pants.


Friends and families advise to cut bait and move on, but there is a kernel of hesitation.  It's not the hesitation borne out of "what if I'm wrong."  Rather, it's the type borne from, "yes, there are some red flags here AND there's all of this other awesome, great stuff."  If we can calmly sit down to communicate face-to-face about the issues, then doesn't all of it - the red flags and awesomeness -  warrant deeper exploration before giving up?  I'm sure my best friends are screaming NO as they read this considering the degree to which I lamented all weekend long.


So here we are.  Is this the Drama of Dating or the Drama of Relationship?  For sure the landscape is dotted with mercurial mood swings, conflict and the need to be right.


Friends say we date [rather than marry right away] to learn whether or not another is a true match.  Others note that four months ought to give people enough time to evaluate "true-match" potential.  Somewhere in that four-month gap dating evolves into a relationship.  If only Facebook statuses had not been updated to "in a relationship" before this last breakdown... dammit!  I may sometimes feel no older than a 22-year old, but I HATE when I publicly look like one.  And lately I fear that I look like one a lot.  No comments from the peanut gallery please... I am hard enough on myself without hearing it from well-meaning loved ones.


Whether or not it's a drama all can agree that a break is required.  Others may jones for their nicotine during this time.  I'll be curious to see if I can navigate this gap without jonzing (sp?) for attention from the opposite sex.  

It's Not Bad Behavior per se, just an Awkward Match

Knowing who we are takes time.  How much time?  When do know that we have arrived?  I have spent my life thus far trying to accommodate, bend and BE what I think others expect me to be.  It is exhausting to say the least and equally frustrating because what others expect can change from one moment to the next.  

To answer the question of WHEN, it comes in a moment.  It's standing on the receiving end of a communication from someone and realizing that what they're saying isn't about me at all.  It is purely about them as they utter unflattering sentiment about my so-called character "flaws."  

It comes over a matter of months, realizing that the carrot dangling before me will only ever be dangling and not eaten.  It's letting go of the attachment to position, title and advancement. 

It comes after years of thinking there is something to fix in myself so someone else will accept me only to learn this week that this person never ever ever wanted to be married or have kids and resents that he "allowed himself" to be talked into something he never really wanted.  Seriously?  I mean... I guess this isn't a huge surprise.  I acutely recall how resistant he was to the idea of anything conventional, but he did come around eventually, right?  Did he agree to convention just to make me happy?  


Perhaps this was the undercurrent of our relationship, running in the background all that time.  If someone still tells themselves "they never wanted a family," doesn't that create an awkwardness or a distance... an impenetrable barrier to relating? And to think I've been beating myself up feeling guilty for "throwing in the towel."  There was nothing to throw the towel in on I see now.  

They say knowing who we are takes time.  Trusted friends and advisors have uttered this epitaph over the decades and it seems I have finally caught up with it... not needing to hear it again just knowing I am here.  

Our Work Here

Okay, more than two years have passed since my last entry.  On this side of time I am divorced and no longer working for the person I once considered a tyrant but who became a dear friend.  I have joked for much of these two years that if I had put half the energy into my marriage that I put into my relationship with Holly that I would still be married.  In hindsight though, that's probably just me being hard on myself... which I do... a lot.  


I've wrestled with guilt post-divorce and I have tried to understand why the guilt persists.  Am I the cold-hearted beast I fear I am or just someone who knows what I will and will not put up with in the next act of my life?  I choose to believe that it's the latter.  And as I contemplate the next act I question what I will or will not tolerate from this career I have built for myself in Corporate America.  


On the outside looking in I have more than what most women -- most people in general perhaps -- can imagine from a career:  a healthy paycheck, stock options, respect, the ability to work from home (which enables me to stay home with sick kids, start the work day when I want and leave to run errands and pick up my kids when I wish), a hands-off boss, the opportunity to travel and dine out at nice restaurants with intelligent and talented people... did I say nice paycheck?  It affords me a lifestyle as a single parent [whose ex is still not paying child support] to keep my kids in private daycare at a Montessori school, pay the mortgage and enjoy some of life's little perks.


That being said, I swear on all that is holy that if I don't exercise an exit strategy to do something more true to who I perceive myself to be that I will succumb to a depression far greater than what I have experienced in the wake of my failed marriage.  This lament is nothing new, but my resolve to walk a different path this time surprises me in the hour of my midlife.  Is it the clarity that comes with age, the ability to see the past 20+ adult years of patterns that motivates a different POV?


Two years have passed since my last entry and the weight form 14 years is off my shoulders.  I do not have to keep a commitment to this corporate career any more than I have to keep a commitment to an unhappy marriage.  Eight years in my job has netted enough drama to write a book in itself.  Weary of the politics, ass-kissing and posturing, it is time to let go of the expectations that a promotion, raise or any other entitlement will come this way.  I'm done whether it comes or not.  


Reading from, Women Who Run With Wolves, "be you [I] a Black wolf, a Northern Gray, a Southern Red or an Arctic White -- [I am] the quintessential instinctual criatura.  Although some might really prefer me to behave myself and not climb all over the furniture in joy or all over people in welcome, do it anyway.  Some will draw back from [me] in fear or disgust.  [My] lover, however, will cherish this new aspect - if he or she be the right lover for me."


When I or any of us begin questioning life we begin uncovering the condition of our relationship to our instinctual selves.  We begin to flesh out the wild woman that we were meant to be.  And this is my work - our work - here.

The Last Grandparent

Lucky was how I considered myself.  Lucky to have never broken a bone.  Lucky to have never been stung by a bee or wasp.  Lucky that all four grandparents lived through my college years.  These were the simple - if not at times childish - metrics by which I measured my fortune, my health, my future.

Of course, time passes and bones break.  Insects chase the tender flesh of others, but death rattles the door knob and one by one three grandparents pass followed now by the fourth.  If my parents follow in my paternal grandparent's footsteps there will be no nursing homes to visit, no tearful goodbye trips to arrange and no last ditch efforts to capture the genealogical history for the next 25 years (knock on wood). 

Funerals bring obvious sadness but they bring joy too.  They are impromptu family reunions for those who left the farm years ago.  In central Illinois my family roots are grounded in the soil of corn fields and I smile hearing the story of how Dorothy drove a horse-drawn carriage to school each day.  We all smile through tears to hear once more how a migrant farm hand from Sweden watched her drive by, telling his friends how he was "going to marry that girl one day."  Married for 72 years, eight years have passed since his own death.  Is he waiting for her with open arms on the other side? 

We know these stories like the back of our hands, but how well do any of us know these near-Centenarians?  

The wind howls. Temperatures drop to the teens outside the Hampton Inn on 51 and I ask my parents whether any of my grandparents were happy.  Could one or all of them look back on their lives and conclude that they lived their lives without regret?  What lessons do we take from their lives?  Can we apply them to our own?

In my mind's eye I see my father's parents walking across the threshold of our Topeka trailer.  The morning sun hangs behind them and light poors in as they greet my sister and me with cheerful hugs and kisses.  Grandpa speaks with that charming Swedish accent, mispronouncing his G's and J's.  I know at five that these joyful grandparents are different from the ones two states over. 

Through the years the differences remain.  One set grows melancholy and gives up by 75 while the other lives independently to 97.  The latter pair isn't perfect.  Dad's history of his life (and theirs) is strung with myriad threads of pain but funerals aren't a time for rehashing the could haves, should haves or would haves.  In the end my mom and dad agree on this:  my paternal grandparents never had much money, yet they lived lives rich in experiences, friendships and family.  Mom says, "I never once heard them complain that they didn't have something.  They never sat around wishing they had 'more'."

And her parents?

What mattered most to my maternal grandparents was working hard to make sure there was money left for the kids.  They had to make sure their bills were paid.  They spent their lives working and paying bills, working and saving, working and wishing for more. 

My paternal grandparents worked into their 80's.  They worked for the joys of working and having purpose.  Their final months and years were bitter sweet.  Both were more than ready to go, but it is the view of my mom and dad that Bertel and Dorothy could look back on their lives and conclude only one thing:  that they lived happy lives without regret.

I reflect on Grandma's Korean minister speaking at her funeral.  He butchers the English language and while I anticipate cousin Phillip's impersonation later at dinner I am struck by the fact that this man was more than some clown pulled in at the last minute from the nearest protestant church. 

He recalls a recent visit and how at 99 she grabbed his hand, berating him for an attempt to cut their visit short without hymns.  "You're not going to leave without singing are you?" she asked.  She surprised him further remembering every note, every word, every verse. 

Will I be like this at 99?  Will I grab the hands of those nearby to recount with clear conviction the songs of my youth?  Will I stand at the end of my days and reflect that I gave it my all with a joyful heart?  Or will I lament over how I could have made different choices, should have pursued the really bold dreams and would have loved differently had I been confident enough to do so? 

At age five I knew that if I could choose I would choose to model my life after my paternal grandparents.  At 40 I feel off track as I consider my craving for more.  Yes, times are different.  Yes, TV, movies and fast food supplant square dancing, sewing clubs and potluck dinners.  The more our society changes the more our desires grow; but the more our world matures the more our conscious mind evolves too, right?

Maybe.  My grandparents with their Swedish connections and simple lives were enlightened without knowing the meaning of the word.  They were masters of the now.  My maternal grandparents?  Puppets of the past and pessimists of the future. 

The last grandparent crosses to the other side and I grow silent as I consider whose example to model my own life upon.  It seems a given to choose hers and my immigrant grandfather's, but the genetic pull of more is strong.  The habit of complaining even stronger.

My frustrations over relationship and money boil over and while there is a certain inevitability regarding my longterm happiness, I fret over the short-term management of it all.

Heroine with a Thousand Faces

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lighting Thief came out last Friday, February 12th and film critic, Kenneth Turan, reviewed it on NPR's Morning Edition saying, "Here we go again. A boy goes to a prep school, and a teacher tells him he has magical powers... [it's] about a young hero with parental issues, who is marked as the chosen one by his peers." 

Another Harry Potter knock-off?  Or yet one more movie about the male's heroic journey?  Admittedly, my favorite movies include The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and - the latest - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Then there are the stories of mythology and classic literature with their emphasis on heroes recognized by Joseph Campbell in, "Hero with a Thousand Faces." 

I can curse Campbell (and Hollywood) for his rejection of the feminine journey, but as he noted toward the end of his life, "It was the men who got involved in spinning most of the great myths... [because] the women were too busy; they had too damn much to do to sit around thinking about stories."

So where do we turn for our inspiration?  Sex and the City, Bridget Jones or Titanic?  Or worse, soap operas?  Are our adventures boiled down to sex, drama and romance (both rompy and melancholy) because we're too busy building families while balancing households with careers?  Sex and romance - requirements for a feminine future but also the cornerstones to our transformation?  Do they net us the discovery of important self-knowledge?

Valentine's Night 2010 ends with a repeat viewing of Sex and the City.  Carrie Bradshaw (Candace Bushnell) sets up the movie with a 30-second review of each character's life over the past three years.  Her own review comparmentalizes her lovers into chapters.  Is there a modern woman alive who can watch that without reflecting on her own biography of lovers?  Is the seductive allure of someone new our call to adventure?  Will we reach enlightenment if we survive love's trials in his "unusual world of strange powers and events?"

It sounds a bit pathetic.  I mean, I'd like to think there's more to life than, "pursuing and getting a man," but my track record says otherwise.  My life is a study in sex, drama and romance.  Can I pass my lessons along to my daughters without sending them down the same watershed path?  I am waiting for an inspiring heroine to show all of us the way but the promise of a phophet is an empty one.  I -- we -- must carve out and share our own heroine journeys be they grounded in love or other more worldly pursuits.