Just to be safe

Just to be safe

Safe
–adjective
1. secure from liability to harm, injury, danger, or risk: a safe place.
2. free from hurt, injury, danger, or risk: to arrive safe and sound.
3. involving little or no risk of mishap, error, etc.: a safe estimate.
4. dependable or trustworthy: a safe guide.
5. careful to avoid danger or controversy: a safe player; a safe play.
6. denied the chance to do harm; in secure custody: a criminal safe in jail.

Such a small word - safe. S-A-F-E. Four letters.

But so many meanings.

Safe.

To be safe. To feel safe.

Something we all want. To be safe, to feel safe. To be with someone who makes us feel safe. To make someone else feel safe.

Sounds so simple.

Safe.

I have never felt safe in a relationship. Neither of my marriages made me feel safe. My familial experience with safe is spotted at best. I thought that was just the way every relationship was - “safe” was a word that meant something but didn’t apply.

I’m not sure what would make me feel safe. I’m not sure I could ever feel safe at this point in my life. I do have people in my life who I trust -- mostly my girlfriends. But safe?

“Free from hurt, injury, danger, or risk: to arrive safe and sound.”

Free from hurt, injury, danger, or risk.

I want a relationship free from hurt, injury and danger. But I’m not sure any of us can have that. We all get hurt, we all hurt. Doesn’t matter our intentions, we hurt. That’s life. That’s nature. We hurt, we get hurt, we get injured, we injure. How can we feel safe if it is inevitable that we will get hurt, get injured and injure those we love?

I threw a life preserver (virtually) to someone last night, hoping to make him feel safe because I know that he doesn’t -- in any aspect of his life. And I want to be the one to make him feel safe, to make him feel secure and whole and valued and beautiful and loved. But I know he probably won’t let me because he’s been hurt and injured and he’s hurt and injured and maybe he thinks he will never be able to be safe again so he lives in the hurt and the injury rather than risk.

And I stand over here, pondering how to maintain a peaceful heart when all I want is someone to make me feel safe. Someone to throw me a life preserver - virtual or otherwise. But I know I won’t let them because I’ve been hurt and injured and I’ve hurt and injured and I’m not sure I can make anyone feel safe anymore because I’m not sure I believe there is a safe left.

And can I love even if it doesn’t feel safe?

Sometimes, I think safe is not trying to love, not letting someone in. If I don’t ever let him in, then I won’t ever get hurt. Or so I tell myself. And maybe he’s not the one hurting me, maybe I’m the one hurting me by not letting him in.

Safe is protecting myself and keeping my heart to myself. Safe is not letting him get as close as I’d like him to because then neither of us can hurt each other. We can stand at this distance, arms at our sides, heart buried deep inside, fighting the urge to risk, fighting the urge to hurt, fighting the urge to just not be safe for one single, delirious, beautiful moment.

Because that would be dangerous. That would be risky. And the definition of safe is “free from… risk.”

So how do we be safe and not safe at the same time? How do we do that? How do we put ourselves out there in the ether, praying it won’t hurt this time, praying we won’t hurt him this time? How do we risk when the cost seems so very high and when it feels safer to just stay home, just keep your heart tucked away, keep yourself and himself safe?

I risk so much every single day in the life I have chosen to live. I risk the system, I risk living the life I want to live. I risk losing everything every day because I can’t pay my rent and I can’t pay my bills, and I can’t even afford gas for my car this week. That’s risk. That’s danger. That’s pain and hurt and all of that stuff. But I choose to do that every single day because of love. Because I love my life. I have chosen a life I love and so I’ve chosen to not be safe.

But I can’t yet choose to not be safe with you. And you won’t choose to not be safe with me. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So we’ll both just stand here, at a safe distance, still hurt, still hurting, still wanting and aching and breaking and needing. But “safe”. Without seeing how unsafe we are not.

And maybe we’ll never be brave enough to let go of safety enough to be with each other as more than just good friends. Maybe there’s a safety in that that somehow reassures us and keeps us here. Occasionally, one of us risks the loss of that safety with a touch or a glance or a few moments of holding my hand, unexpectedly, overwhelmingly. Yet we retreat to our safe corners, to watch, to wait, to be safe.

Or maybe -- just maybe -- I say, fuck that and jump. Because I want the way it feels when it’s not safe. I want the risk, I want the unknown, I want the… everything that goes with not being safe. I want to feel. I want to live.

I want what this poem expresses so beautifully. But until I risk, until I stop feeling safe, I’m not sure I’ll be able to.

So I’ll end with a little e.e. cummings, who was never safe and always risked and left behind a legacy of words filled with un-safety and beauty. Because I already carry your heart with me now, whether you know it or not.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Let It Be

“Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. There will be an answer, let it be.”

Yeah. I’m not good at that.

Letting it be. Whatever “it” is.

I have to know. I have to know what the answer is. I have to know what the end result will be. I have to know. I have to examine every situation from every single angle and figure out all of the variations that could come from any situation so I can figure out what’s going to happen in the end.

I finally figured out where that comes from.

My family life growing up was chaotic, to say the least. I never thought there was anything wrong or different. I thought everyone lived like we did. Fighting. Arguing. Mom throwing things. Mom being just a little bit bipolar so never really knowing how she was going to react to anything. Whatever I thought she was going to do -- bad or good -- she always reacted the polar opposite of what I expected. And the rest of my family, well, let’s just say there were other challenges within that dynamic.

Then with both of my ex-husbands, who both came from alcoholic families and had all the tendencies alcoholics have, I found myself repeating this pattern. I had to figure out every angle on everything so I would be able to be what they wanted me to be, to do the exact right thing and be the exact right thing. Maybe not so much with my first husband but definitely with my second.

R was volatile at the best of times but if things didn’t go the way he wanted, there was hell to pay. Now, emotional abuse is hard to understand unless you’ve been on the receiving end of a vicious, cruel, screaming tantrum. You live to avoid those situations so you become really good at figuring out how to walk the minefield that has somehow become your life.

So I’ve spent most of my life dodging minefields and tiptoeing through relationships. Trying to protect myself, trying to make sure that everything stays stable and easy and that I don’t get my head ripped off because of some tiny, teeny, little, bitty thing I missed.

“Let it be, let it be…”

But now, when I don’t have that crazy, insane, abusive life anymore, I’m still hanging on to one or two vestiges of that life. And one of those vestiges is trying to figure everything out. Which is not necessary when life isn’t crazy and I’m surrounded by people who love me and respect me.

But when it comes to the men I care about, the ones (oh, let’s be honest right now, the ONE) who I want to be with, who I want to invite into my life, I still cling to those old habits. Figure out everything, analyze everything, make sure I know every angle of every situation and try to figure out how to make everything work out perfectly, no matter what the response from the other person is.

The problem is, the man I am currently interested in is not like my two exes. Well, in some ways, of course he is because there is something in each ma I’ve fallen for that ties them together. But he is not abusive, he is not angry, he is not vindictive towards me. He is gentle and sweet and challenges me just the right way. This goes for all of the men I have fallen for in the past five years. They’re gentle, they’re sweet, they respect me like I’ve never been respected before.

Yet I still walk on eggshells. I’m still afraid that what I’m doing is going to be wrong, going to drive them away, going to end up with me being screamed at and destroyed and ruined, all because I’ve done something wrong.

So I still spend hours and hours and hours trying to figure out what every gesture means, what every word means, what every single interaction means. Because if I can figure that out, then I can make everything perfect.

Except I can’t.

Because there is nothing to figure out. For the most part, these men - including the current OOMA (object of my affection) - are pretty much what they seem to be. They have issues, sure, don’t we all. And some of those issues are complicated and do veil things but not the way my brain thinks it is. So I obsess and I lose hours and create heartbreak in myself because I simply cannot just let this be. I HAVE to know. I HAVE to figure it out. I HAVE to have an answer.

But there are no answers by doing this.

“There will be an answer, let it be.”

I’m trying to learn to just let things be. I cannot control anything but myself, as much as I want to control him. I cannot make him do what I want him to do, no matter how many ways I think about how to do just that. I cannot understand what’s going on in his head because I can’t. I have to just let it be what it is. Friends? Something more? Something less? Every algebraic equation I come up with won’t solve anything. Won’t net an answer.

“There will be an answer, let it be.”

I have to just let it be. In so many ways. Not just with whatever is going to happen with this OOMA but with many things in my life. I have to learn to let go of the patterns of abuse and try to heal that last, lingering part of myself and learn to just let it be. Chanting helps. Since I’ve joined Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist sect, chanting has become a big part of my life and helps me let go some, let the universe know what I’m needing/wanting/lacking and trying to just let the universe take care of me. But I’m not good at that yet so I’m still pushing and twisting and bending.

“There will be an answer, let it be.”

Maybe once I learn this, I can leave the last of him behind me, the last of our life behind me. Maybe then I’ll be able to move forward with someone, whether it’s this complicated, enigmatic OOMA or someone else in the future, and be able to just let things be. Not try algebra for the simplest things, just let it be.

“There will be an answer…

Let it be.”

You'd think I'd learn

I apparently don’t learn very easily.

I like to hang my heart out like a piñata and hand the current OOMA (object of my affection) a big honkin’ stick and just let them have at my heart with all their might. I get fooled into thinking that this time will be different, that maybe there’s something there, that maybe THIS ONE will be the one who won’t break it but, inevitably, they do.

In five and a half years of being on my own, you’d think I’d see the signs. They’re always the same.

Guy seems to dig me. Tells me how amazing I am. How talented I am. They stand thisclose and feel so near and so present. The connection is electric and literal sparks fly. This goes on for a while until there’s that moment - that one moment that makes me go, ooooo, here it is, we’re one step away from something wonderful and beautiful. And I hold out my heart, stopping just short of screaming from the top of the nearest building, “Here! Take it! I know you want to! Finally! Yay!” And I create beautiful rom-com scenarios of how it’s going to play out and how we’ll fall in love and how wonderful it’s going to be, because it’s right there. And I’m on top of the world for a day or a week or, this time, a month.

And then…

Nothing.

It’s gone. Suddenly. Without warning. I wait and hope and think, “Next time I see him, it’ll be magic. It’s finally going to be what I want it to be.”

And then…

Nothing.

Actually, worse than nothing.

It’s nice. It’s lovely. It’s friendly. Most people won’t even notice the change.

But I do.

And my heart does.

And tonight, my heart is kicking me in the shins for letting it get dragged around and fooled again. It’s pissed off at me for not seeing the signs and letting this one in. Being fooled by a brief moment of almost, fooled by language and words and this-close-so-close-but-not-quite-there-intimacy and one single night filled with potential that ended with hope, if not anything physical.

And my heart is wrapping itself up in steel and chains and barbed wire and a big fucking lock and hiding the key, refusing to tell me where it is. It’s warning me that if I do this again, it’s going to break for good and never be healed. It’s warning me that I’d better prepare for a long fallow period because it’s not coming out for anything - ever.

Because I have been stupid with it and it won’t let me be that stupid again.

Help "Diary" come to life

I'm changing tactics on fundraising for the play, "Diary of a Mid-Life Crisis", opening May 2011 in Los Angeles.

I'm using IndieGoGo to raise money to cover a deposit for the show in May. So if you've enjoyed reading the story of my life over the past few years -- and god bless you for continuing to follow me -- please take a moment and toss a few bucks my way. Any amount will help - skip your latte and contribute $5, or send $500 and get an original oil painting from me.

If you can't contribute, I completely understand. Times are very tough. But help me out by sharing the IndieGoGo link on your Facebook and encourage your friends to read this blog and contribute if it speaks to them.

You know the whole reason this blog is being translated to stage? Because of your encouragement, my dear devoted readers. It's going to be hard, it's going to painful but in the end, I think it'll all be worth it.

Remember, 16% of profits will be donated to Sojourn, a shelter for domestic violence victims.

Oh, yeah, the link:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Diary-of-a-Mid-Life-Crisis

Thanks!