| Clearing out the cobwebs.... |
Jul 13, 2008 11:16 pm
789 Views | My step-daughter is evil. I just want to say that up front. She is evil and naughty and I have absolutely no idea where she gets her naughtiness from.
Jamie's been a part of my life since she was...hmmm...7....and I did NOT corrupt her. We moved into this tiny little house in Grand Junction...and she sort of came with it. She was the next-door neighbor who became my daughter's very best life-long friend. Her mother has always told me that Jamie is more my daughter than hers....and that she saw the bond between us the minute we met. That's probably true. She's been an integral part of my life ever since.
She's coming to be my slave on Wednesday. I mean...she's coming to visit and has offered to help with getting some of the house stuff done. I've already planned some cool ways to utilize her artistic abilities (does anybody know what kind of paint you can use on fluorescent light diffusers?)....and get lots of giggles out of the two of us. It's going to be a kick in the pants and I'm really looking forward to it.
So she called tonight to coordinate schedules. You know how it is...that conversations with me wander all over the place....well...this one wandered waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy the heck far. We started with my grandchildren...yes...they are great and wonderful and beautiful and brilliant...just like their grandmother. What do you mean the other grandmother? Excuse me?
From there we travelled to school...since we are both in college (Jamie's studying to be a nurse...and then thinking about moving up here)...and to boyfriends and love and...hmmmm...how the heck did we end up on sex? I don't want to talk about it...it just makes me think about it...and then I...well...you get the picture.
She's a rather brazen child. Well...woman-child...she's actually 28 and it makes me feel really old to think about how much she's changed in the past 21 years.
Brazen....difficult....mouthy.....and terribly comfortable with questions I would never have asked.
"So....how long has it been...if you don't mind my asking?"
"How long has what been?"
"You know....."
"I know what?" I can play stupid along with the best of them.
"Since you've had....sex..." I'd say her voice dropped to a whisper, but that would be a lie. Jamie never whispers. She's loudly brazen...or is that brazenly loud?
"Ummmm.....I have to think about that one."
"Think hard."
"I prefer not to....it just makes me drool.."
Giggles.
"About....do I have to be honest with this one?"
"Of course. It's just a question, Arreana." She never calls me Ari.
"Fine...it's been about 12 years."
"Holy mother of....do you have coochie cobwebs?"
"Do I...what?" I think I yelled. I was sure I didn't hear what she asked....and then I laughed...until I really needed some fairy wear. It seemed we'd get our senses back...and then one of us would giggle again and we'd be off and running.
"Oh no...you have Bob to do the dusting...."
"Oh please...at this point in time...I'd probably need a roto-rooter...."
"You have to learn how to be in control, Arreana. You can't let Bob take control or he will be spitting out some kind of stuff about how run down his batteries are."
I'm not even going to go there....you can see that the conversation degenerated from there. My poor innocent ears..... | |
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| The Concept of Marriage |
Jul 13, 2008 3:59 pm
676 Views |  | I recently began getting the newspaper again. I really couldn't care less about the newspaper because it so rarely has any real news in it....but I thought I'd give it a try and see if anything has changed in their format. It hasn't...but I have actually been taking a few minutes to read it. Sometimes I need an excuse to take a break.
I left half the paper laying on the floor beside my chair today so I could go do some work and come back to read a bit more. I forgot that when I let the dogs in. The puppy is an interesting challenge. If it's on the floor....it's fair game. She shredded the other half of my paper. It jumped up and swatted her on the nose. Perhaps she'll learn that papers and shoes don't like to be chewed on.
In the process of cleaning up the paper...I happened to glance at a comic. I don't know what comic it was...but it really made me think. It was a couple driving away from a wedding with the words, "Pacified Our Parents" written on the back of the vehicle. I have to wonder if that's what marriage has come to.
I don't believe much in marriage these days. It doesn't really mean everything you commit to one another...they seem to be just words we mouth and afterwards...the real us comes out. That's not exactly fair....but when you think of it from the perspective of a really unhappy marriage....it can be.
I look at the teenagers around here and see young couples eager to be married and start families. I often wonder just how much they understand about one another...let alone about the commitment of marriage. I didn't know anything about it when I got married. Heck...I think it was just a way to ensure I had a place in life.
Sometimes I think that I would never get married again. I'm not sure that's true...but before I did..I'd have to feel sure that the commitment was real on both sides. Marriage is truly an ultimate commitment...in my view. We commit to work together to build something successful, happy...and very real. We commit that even when life is hard...we will hold tight to one another and guide each other through it. We commit to be only with that one person for the rest of our days...even when we really don't want to talk to them for a day or two. It isn't just a commitment made within marriage...it can be made outside of marriage and be just as valid...but making it within a marriage seems to me...to indicate a deeper sense of commitment...of acknowledgement...and it certainly lets the world know that we've made that commitment.
Why bother to be married to pacify anyone? Is that truly what it's all about...to make your parents feel better about your relationship? Whose relationship is it? If you are old enough to be married...you are old enough to walk your own path...and deal with the consequences of your choices. I can't imagine choosing to bind myself to another....if I didn't deep down believe that they were the right person....and that I wanted to be walking by their side fifty years from now.
When I got married...I had all of that in mind. This is forever...are you sure? Heck no, I wasn't sure. I grew up Roman Catholic and I believed fully in the sanctity of marriage. Time has changed my viewpoints on that...a very unpleasant marriage changed them more. I don't disbelieve in marriage today....but I do think that people have interfered in the meaning of it...that we have made divorce so easy we have diminished any value in making that lifelong commitment. We hedge our bets...."I promise to love, honor, and cherish you....as long as you don't make me mad....and if you make me mad...I promise to get a divorce." Ok...it's not that simplistic...but it's not far off, either.
Are we on a road to eliminating any kind of lasting commitment between two people? Is there really any deeper meaning to the concept of marriage...or are those only words we say? Can two people commit...willingly and joyfully...to the idea of loving and supporting one another for all the years they have remaining? Or are we only fooling ourselves and creating a show to make ourselves feel....committed? I'm not really sure of the answers...but something in everything I've thought about today tells me that....if the circumstances were right...if the man was right...if I really believed I wanted to have him by my side forever....and to stand by his....I would do it again. But....if I had any doubt at all.....it's not a step I'd want to take...because to me...it's still a forever deal...as silly as that may seem.
What about you? Would you? Do you even believe in the concept? What does marriage mean...to you? |
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| Giving up Perfection |
Jul 13, 2008 12:48 am
616 Views | Perhaps if my life had settled into an ordinary routine....I would have learned then that I didn't have to be perfect...that perfection isn't attainable....that I could be...just me. But...my life was anything but routine and in the roller coaster swirl of "get out...I don't want to be married to you..." and "I need you"....I continued to try to do anything I could do to just get by. Getting by meant not getting hurt. It meant...being perfect..and as time passed...I learned that imperfection carried a very heavy price.
When you know that you are going to be punished for what you've done...right, wrong, or indifferent...you learn to be afraid of every little mistake. Hurtful words are often more distructive than hurtful hands....and easier to internalize. "You can't do anything right." "Why are you so stupid?" "No one could ever love you." "You are so boring." And on and on and on...until you believe you are every word you are told...over and over again. Is it a form of brainwashing? Probably. Is it intentionally done? To a certain extent...it breaks you down and gives them control...and the more you believe them....the more they control you.
Perfection....had to be the answer. I had to be perfect. If I dropped a glass...I would chew myself out before he ever got home. "How could you be so stupid?" "You retard." "You know you're going to get in trouble for that." "Why are you always so clumsy?" It became easier to become my own worst critic than to allow his words to destroy me. I'm often told no one can punish me more than I punish myself....and that's true. It was a carefully orchestrated mechanism to protect me from everything that had the power to break me even more than I was already....and still...in many ways...it failed. But it did cushion the impact.
Today....my life is changed and I don't have people actively in my life who are so destructive. I don't have to tell myself how stupid I am...but it's become such a habit...that even now...I'll make a mistake on a spreadsheet...find it...and observe..."How could you be so stupid?" I don't mean to do it. I don't even think about it....it's just a part of the person I've become.
In lots of ways...it's terribly self-destructive. Not that I haven't always had a fair measure of self-destructive tendencies....it's often seemed easier to blow myself up..than to allow others to do it for me. Still...I'm not entirely sure how to let it go and stop doing it...particularly since I'm often not even aware that I'm doing it.
Someone asked me last night...if I got some kind of pleasure from beating myself up. I don't get any pleasure from it. But I've learned that only perfection makes us....even a little bit lovable...and any imperfection....no matter how small...will be magnified and our noses will be rubbed in it until we want to vomit out any words that can mitigate the damage.
I know that I'm not perfect...and I know that it's ok that I'm not perfect...but somewhere deep in my heart...it's not ok...it's not acceptable...and I'm still not...acceptable. Letting go of behaviors that once may have served a purpose...but no longer do...is not as simple as closing our eyes and saying...I won't do that any more. It's much more complicated to let go of those patterns and step outside of the box we've stood in so long.
I'm focusing on stepping outside a lot of boxes these days. I wish I could tell you how very different I am today...from the woman who left Colorado nearly six years ago....and even more from the woman who finally found the courage to ask for a divorce....and even more from the woman who stayed married for a very long time....because she was afraid that every word she was ever told was true.... Change happens...one tiny step at a time...one tiny breath at a time. In the end....all I can do is to take each day on the best way I know how....to continue to do the best I can do...and to hope that...when I begin to beat myself up....I can see that pattern....and disrupt it before it goes too far. And even then...I suppose it's all pretty much a crap shoot. Can we...rework patterns...that no longer serve our purposes? Or are we always tied into those patterns which we have built...into a part of us?
Truthfully....I wrote this tonight looking for answers in myself...and I'm not sure I actually found them. Perhaps what I really needed to do...is to ask you....what have you changed about yourself....how did you do it...and was it successful for you? | |
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| Imperfection |
Jul 13, 2008 12:28 am
544 Views | I've been working through something today...and I'm not sure I'm any closer to an answer now than I was last night when the question was asked. I mean...I have an answer...and I have a ready-made excuse...but the real answer...how do I change part of my nature...even when it is no longer an essential piece of my life? It always seems to help me focus on what I want to accomplish...and how to do it...when I simply sit down and let my thoughts flow.
This is not a pity party...nor a trip down memory lane...but rather an evaluation of the reasons behind specific...behaviors/patterns...and the hope that I can find a way to move past those behaviors.
I was thinking about the lessons I learned as a young child/woman....that shaped such a large part of the person I am today. It's ok to think about those lessons now because they no longer have the power to take me apart at the seams. They are simply a part of what once was...and is no more. It's a nice way to look at your past.
One of the first lessons I learned in life was that love hurts. It is aggressive, forceful, painful...and scary as hell. I'm not really sure when I first understood that what I had been told was love...was really something rather more twisted than that....and I began to wonder why it was that I had been...fed to the lions, as it were. Perhaps my mother truly never knew...and I often prefer to think of it that way....but every time she sent me into my father's room to take him his medicine....I resisted...I cringed...I begged....I did not want to have to do it.
My father used to tell me that if I ever "told" my mother....she would hate me...she would never speak to me again. He often told me that he loved me best in the whole world and my mother would hate me for that. My mother has always been a cold and distant woman. Although talkative on a wide variety of impersonal subjects, she is not demonstrative, nor is she in the least bit affectionate. It wasn't long in my life before I began to associate those trips into my father's bedroom with my mother's lack of hugs and kisses; with her refusal to ever say she loved me; with the cruelty she used to inflict punishment. I wasn't loveable because my father loved me so much. As I grew older and began to understand what was happening in my life....I began to believe that I wasn't loveable because I was so dirty...so unacceptable...so imperfect.
Imperfection is a hard cross to bear. I wanted my mother to love me. I wanted her to just once tell me that I had done something....anything....well. I was far too young to understand that it was her problem...and not mine. All children need to be loved; need to know that they are wanted...and...at some point...we need to hear words of praise for the people we are becoming. I would give anything...and ultimately everything...for whatever morsels my mother would dole out. I would become....perfect.
I know that's an impossible goal, but when you are 7 years old....nothing is impossible. I learned that having the best grades in school would at least get my mother to tell other people how smart I was even if she wouldn't tell me that. In fact, she often tells each of us how much smarter one of our siblings or our nieces and nephews are than we. It wasn't love or even approval...but it was the most my mother can comfortably give me. I wouldn't understand that until I was an adult.
Somewhere in between...I learned not to care if my mother ever appreciated me...because there was nothing to appreciate about me. Don't feel sorry for those words...I don't live them today....but I did for a very long time. Deep down....I believed that I was simply....evil....bad...just a very hateful and ugly person. Strangely...along with that belief...I also somehow believed that someday God would make me a person worthy of being loved....and someone would love me. Sad when our perspective of ourself is so warped that our only confidence comes from other people's views of us.
It might have happened that way...except that I was too different for people to be comfortable with me. My blind eye bothered other students in school and when we see something different about others...our first response is often to laugh at that difference. It isn't usually done in a gentle and loving manner...but in the most hurtful way we can devise. No matter what else happened in my life...I always walked my own path...and that too was an oddity in a peer group of people all wanting pretty much to be the same...and to be acceptable. I had learned that I was never going to be approved of...so why should I care? It didn't stop me from trying to be the best, though....and even in that...I sowed the seeds for my own failure. I could be the best student in the school...but I was also the youngest....and I was strange and different...and people generally avoided me. I hadn't yet learned my place, you know....the place where strange people are meant to be. High school can be a very ugly place.
Do you remember how young and impressionable you were in high school? Do you remember your first love? Do you remember how deep and vivid and real it was? And when it faded....and you moved on to the next love....it was painful and bitter...and then sweet and loving again....such a roller coaster ride we all took on our emotions.
I didn't much ride that roller coaster. I was too afraid of boys/men....I didn't want them to touch me. And when I finally met the first man I felt...even a little comfortable being touched by...oh yes...I was in love. He was the man who would love me forever and save me from my family. Most of my friends were sexually experienced long before I ever came close. It wasn't that I didn't want to know the feelings they talked about...it was that...someone would touch me...and I would just freeze. I was so afraid of every touch.
I'm not really sure how we ended up married....when we met, he didn't like me. I was the older sister to his best friends very underage girlfriend...and I was often left to be responsible for my sister. He really disliked when I would have to go to their house to try to drag my sis home. It would be months....and lots of convincing before I went on a date with him...it was only as a favor to my sis...who asked me and our best friend to date her boyfriend's room mates one night. If I hadn't been drunk that night...I'm pretty sure I'd have still frozen up when he touched me...but...drinking loosens all inhibitions...and for the first time in my life....I felt those feelings my friends had talked about. I felt hunger....and desire....and for the first time...I felt my own sexuality.
Still...confusion was a byword of our relationship. He liked keeping me off center. "I'm not coming back again; I don't want to see you again...." and then three days later...the phone calls..."I love you...I'm coming up to see you this weekend." It wasn't healthy...it wasn't love...it was what I was used to...the idea that love hurt....that I was not good enough to ever be loved....and at the same time....he loved me. Once again...if I could just be perfect.....maybe I could be good enough...maybe I could be loved. | |
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