Whip and chair time...

I’ve been holding the clowns off this week with a whip and a chair. It’s been a long week and hard to keep them at bay.

It’s really made me think about where they come from and what drives their little car, particularly in light of the last few days.

The week began with the birthday dinner and the attendance of my ex. Already covered that. But the feelings of anger and disassociation from things lingered all week, triggering bouts of blatant honesty, both with myself and those close to me (sorry, Zadra). I almost bit my tongue off a number of times to stop myself from saying exactly what I thought about choices others have made in their lives and the way that they handle themselves in social situations. I don’t know if it was lingering backlash of all the things I wish I had dumped on my ex or the fact that I couldn’t hide from the mirror in my head, reflecting all of my own choices back at me and making me contemplate the intelligence of them. I realized that it was a fun house mirror and the clowns were propping it up, hoping that I wouldn’t find them back there. But I did last night and they seemed to have beat a hasty retreat, their shoes making little flapping noises as they escaped.

What’s got me focused on the clowns, though, is the fact that I’m beginning to recognize the pattern of their appearances and am trying to figure out better how to keep them at bay. They seem to like to pick on my indefinable relationship at this point, seeking to undermine it and make me doubt it constantly. Their pattern of appearance seems to be deep, black depression followed by intense anger and bitterness followed by indigo melancholy and utter inability to appreciate anything good about my life. Throw in real life situations, such as my father falling Thursday and fracturing his shoulder, and there’s the circus. (Dad’s fine – the fracture is very clean and he’ll be in a sling for a month but he’s miraculously in no pain and worried about his golf swing.)

I understand where the insecurities that the clown leap upon come from. Being from a family of aggressive overachievers in one field and daring to break off into another, always feeling like I’m on the outside of things, both in family and when I was young and in school, my two marriages. I get it. I know the insecurities and I fight hard against them.

But what I need to look at is the irrational way the clowns go after this one particular relationship. They are responsible for triggering 90% of the ramblings on this blog about this relationship because it’s their focus when they move in. It’s probably because this is the most significant man in my life at the moment and therefore the easiest target. All women are insecure about their relationships with men, whether it’s one they’ve got or one they want, and it’s just an easy target. So it makes sense that when I’m feeling vulnerable and lost, they would pounce on everything he says and does and blow it completely out of proportion. This poor man has been the victim of my moods and my insanity so much in the last year, yet he’s still there, smiling at me, making me laugh, not afraid to lock his sea green eyes with mine and see what’s going on in my head. Every time I think I’ve managed to push him away with something irrational that the clowns have concocted, he’s still there.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy being around him. My feelings are still complicated and unresolved but most days, those are manageable because I’m very glad to have his friendship. But it’s weeks like this, when all of those complicated feelings seem to be on steroids (provided in oversized clown needles with brightly colored liquid) and these ridiculous scenarios get written in my head about him.

Last night was particularly difficult as it involved him, my ex, and a group of people who associate mostly with my ex and not me anymore. But I wanted to lend my support to his new project and be there for him, as he has been for me so much in the last year. But the clowns grabbed the leg of the chair I had been holding them back with and tried to wrest it from my hand. When I arrived at the venue, I ran into my ex’s new girlfriend, which was fine, but weird. Then the clownish whispers told me I didn’t belong there, I should leave because it was going to be difficult and cold and awful. I called Zadra to talk me off the ledge until Monica got there to keep me from the edge. All day, the whispers had been building about how he probably didn’t want me there, I meant nothing to him, I was kidding myself to think there was even just friendship there, that he tolerates my presence because he doesn’t know how to tell me to go away. Really horrible, insidious words floating through my head, almost preventing me from going. But I cracked the whip and they receded a step or tow.

But, as always, the night was great. He was great and I was very proud of him, as always. And afterwards, he couldn’t have been more of what I love about him and our friendship – sweet, charming, introducing me and Monica to everybody, avoiding contact with me ex when I was in the vicinity. He has walked the tightrope between me and my ex quite skillfully. I went home last night reassured that our friendship was still there, still strong, still one of the best things in my life, regardless of what else there is that I would like from him.

What I want to examine in the days ahead is how and why the clowns attack this relationship. what motivates them to undermine this friendship and have a field day with it. I managed to just barely keep them back with the metaphoric whip and chair this week but it was hard. I heard everything they said but tried to overcome it with my rational self, weighing everything they said with evidence to the contrary. I didn’t always succeed but it made me really aware of how subtly they slip in when I’m not paying attention.

So I want to focus this week on how to exorcise these little pasty-faced tormentors and banish them to Siberia. I want to chase them away from this relationship and just enjoy it, whatever shape it is in. I resent that I constantly find myself questioning it and trying to manipulate it. I have to learn how to control those irrational elements and reason them back to sanity. I know that if I really wanted something more from this relationship, I could take steps to make it happen but I am not ready to yet. So I need to learn to work on being ready for a relationship, enjoying his company and his friendship, and allow that to take its course instead of giving into the clownish rantings in my head and almost allow them to destroy something that is very dear and very precious to me.