Stuff and nonsense.

I had written a whole blog yesterday about letting go and breathing and not clinging and finding my breath and stuff.

But that went out the window. I’m sure I’ll post it sometime soon.

What threw me off?

T.S.

My ex.

I find myself torn about this whole situation. We’ve been having lovely little “how are you and what’re you doing and, wow, you look great” kind of email exchanges. He’s on Myspace and put up some pictures of his family for me to see. I’m sure he’s perused the ones on my page as well. He looks great. He has two very lovely kids (almost adults now). And he’s still with the girl (woman) he left me for. They look happy. But everyone looks happy in pictures from Belize.

I don’t know. I guess it’s stirred up thoughts from the past, regrets about our relationship, weird longing that we never really got to have a real relationship because we were so young. It’s also dovetailing really well with my being alone at this point in my life. Lifetime movie fantasies of reconnecting with your lost love and discovering your whole life again. Yeah, we all know how much my life is like a romantic comedy. Does that make me Diane Keaton at my advanced age? (And “American Idol” is singing “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” in the background. Poetic? Tragic? Nothing at all?)

Part of me wants to give him my phone number and say call me. Maybe if I spoke to him I’d remember what a shit he had been. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do any more than say, hey, good to talk to you.

Part of me wants to keep this very surface, very light, very hands-off. He shattered my heart once, I don’t know how much I should let him in. But that was over 20 years ago. He’s a man now, not a boy. Married, family. He’s 2,000 miles away.

Part of me that is still 20 years old aches for him. It’s hard to believe he still holds my heart all these years and all these miles later. Do you ever get over your first love? Or do you just get past your first love?

I just know that right now, I have tears in my eyes, knowing that he’s online because of that fucking Myspace symbol that tells me he is. And I want to get on instant messenger and say all the things I never got to – why did you leave me and do you regret it and how much have you thought of me and did you miss me when I left and what did I do to make you leave and why didn’t we work out and did you really love me… and so much more.

So I’d better get off the computer, hide my head and hope that I come back to sanity very soon. Because I don’t need to go off in an entirely fantastical, ridiculous tangent. Because y’all know I can go there.

Boys.

This war is over

05/07/07

This war is over…

These last few years have indeed been a war.

A war with my ex that lasted over the last three or four years of our marriage as I fought for myself, fought for my dignity, fought for my self-preservation.

An emotional war as I struggled (and continue to struggle) to find my emotional core and figure out just who the hell I am with no significant other in my life and with changing everything in my life literally overnight.

A war with my heart as I try to figure out what I want, who I want and if I am ready to want.

A spiritual war as I try to figure out and discover if this is really what God had planned for me and am I following the path I am meant to follow.

A creative war as I fight to put all the negative input from my past behind me and try to find my footing in all of my endeavors, try to figure out if these are the endeavors I should be following and just what the hell I am doing in these endeavors.

What has led me to this is a song that keeps popping up on my Zombie Ipod playlist, a song by Melissa Etheridge called “This War Is Over.” The lyrics seem to be particularly impactful at this point in my life as I am beginning to let go of things and trying to just ride out my life and see where it takes me.

So I thought I’d share those lyrics with you and see if they resonate with you like they do with me. If you have this song, listen carefully next time.

THIS WAR IS OVER by Melissa Etheridge


"This War Is Over"

Take off my shield
Carry my sword
I won't need it anymore
Find me a sky
Give me my wings
Frozen and broken but free

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my shame
Bury it low
I won't need it anymore
Find me the sun
Give me it whole
Melt all the chains in my soul

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my pain
Carry me slow
I won't fight here anymore
Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

So this is what I've been doing...

Here are some samples of the artwork I have been doing as part of my training with Mission: Renaissance art programs. I've been in the actual art training just about two and a half weeks. Some of the stuff I've done I really love. Some of it looks like a fifth grader but, whatever.

Enjoy!

Musings on love (you have been warned)

It’s been a while and there are many thoughts in my head as of late, so please bear with me as I try to sort out the various paths in my mind. Be prepared, there may be more of these to come.

As you know, dear readers, my first husband contacted me recently. He said, as you’ve read, “In all my life I don't think I could find anyone who felt the way you did for me and for this I am sorry.” You have to understand, T.S. was my first – my first everything. The first man I truly, really fell in love with - heart, soul, mind and body. I thought you were supposed to love that way – in the way that you would give up everything for that person, take a bullet for them, stay with them if they were brain dead and on life support. Love them no matter what. He’s right – but in a weird way. I will never feel for anyone else the way I felt for him.

I thought I loved my current ex in the same way but I think I always knew that it was a little different. How could it not be? T.S. still had a piece of my heart, a piece that he will carry to his grave. I knew that the instant I opened this mysterious email message and saw his name on it. He still has that piece of my heart and I realized it in that second.

However, I did love my current ex with everything that was left of my heart because I didn’t realize that there was a segment missing. Maybe that’s why we didn’t make it – that missing piece of my heart. Oh, and his caustic, abusive manner may have contributed. But I gave him everything, because that’s how I thought you were supposed to love somebody – with every fiber of your being, ready to give up everything for them, take a bullet, etc., etc.

Then there was one who made me realize that I missed the passion and the spontaneity and the pure adrenaline that T.S. had possessed. Although we were never to be anything but friends, he stirred something in me long dormant – the desire to be around somebody exciting and who thought I was incredible and who could make me smile just by the sound of his voice on my phone. I tried not fall in very heavy “like” with this person but he had the passion my life lacked and that was so attractive. I knew there was no future, I knew there was nothing there except for this unexplainable thing he stirred in me. I knew so much of it was just that – he stirred something long dead in me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have good control of my emotions and my heart to not keep some of this to myself and not throw a huge piece of my heart at him, whether he wanted it or not. I tried to hang on to it but it got away from me. Things ended badly, although I never really knew why. Someone who knew us both through all this said that I was “too much” and needed to back off. I tried. Apparently, I failed because he withdrew, he attacked, and now he only is a beautiful, tragic, heart-breaking memory of one of the most amazing and terrible times in my life.

And my current OOMA has also retreated, pretty much completely out of my life now. What I feared for so long has come true – he doesn’t miss me, I don’t mean to him what I thought I did, and I did it again. I was “too much” and drove him away. And yet another piece of my heart went with him, a piece that I will never get back.

So, slowly but surely, my heart has been broken and fractured and shattered into a million pieces. Pieces that will never come back. Pieces that are where they belong, I guess, with those who took them. And I guess I have bits and pieces of each of theirs, tucked away securely so I can take them out and cherish them when my heart feels so broken and destroyed that I wonder if I can ever pull enough of it together to ever give it to someone again. Because there is so little of it left now that I don’t think I can chance giving any of it away again.

Because I still believe – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that love should be whole and deep and organic and unconditional. I still believe that loving someone should mean being willing to give up everything. I still believe that there should be love so pure and true and real that it takes your breath away to be in the same room with that person. That is what love should be. That’s what I think love is.

And I get glimpses of that kind of love, most of which is totally unconditional and comes from many in my life. They are seconds or maybe a minute or two and they are fleeting but they are what I seek.

Such as last night. Cute Boy (who I admit I still have a terrible crush on and secretly I still wish he’d dump his lovely but kind of dull girlfriend and come running to my door, despite knowing that we are worlds apart) gave me one of those moments. He hugged me good night in such a way that said, “I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad you came tonight, I’m glad you’re my friend and in my life.” He held me just a second longer that he probably should have, and I held him back, and he made that happy, affectionate noise in his throat that I know I have made when I hug someone I love – whether one of my dear girlfriends or the OOMA. In that millisecond, I knew I was loved, without agenda, without definition, just pure, true, unconditional. Those are wonderful moments and I treasure them. Monica has done the same thing to me lately several times.

It makes me wonder what would happen if we all just let ourselves go and just love. Just love. Just say, “I love you” to anyone you love. Not “I love you and want to fuck you.” Just simple – “I love you.” If, in that moment last night, Cute Boy had said, “I love you”, I’d like to think it would have meant just that to me – that he loved me, that he was glad I was in his life and that was it. Of course, I probably would have lost my mind and spent the entire night sitting up, wondering what he meant and if he truly loved me, etc., etc., because we’re trained by the world that people only say I love you if they want to be your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover. Not because you just do.

As I walked back to my car after this lovely moment, I realized something about love and me and my marriages and my life. I am too much and I love too much and I give too much and I expect too much. I don’t know how to do it any differently. I don’t know how to not give so much of myself to someone who seems to care about me, most obviously men who care about me. But, in the end, I always end up heartbroken and weary and wary and shattered. It makes me afraid to be fond of any men in my life. It has made me recently want to resurrect a wall around me and not give anything to anyone and just shut myself off. Particularly lately, knowing that the OOMA no longer cares enough to hang around. I don’t want to feel this way again, I don’t want to hurt this much again, I don’t want to risk anything ever again.

I have given up everything I had and I was and I wanted for two men, whom I married. I loved them deeply and purely and openly and with everything I had. And they took my love and they took what I gave and they took and they took and they took. Both of them gave back “as much as they could.” A phrase that should forever be removed from the English language. That simply means they aren’t capable of loving that person the way one should – without hesitation, without fear, without agenda. “As much as you they could” is not enough anymore, ever. It’s unfair and it’s disproportionate. If I love you with everything I have, you should give as much in return. One shouldn’t love more than the other. But it is often the case.

I guess what I really came down to is simple. I want someone who loves me the way that Cute Boy loved me in that millisecond last night. Unconditionally. No agenda. No fear. Not too much, not too little, just right. But someone who loves me that way always. Okay, now, I realize there are times when you want to throw a chair at the one that you love because they’re human and sometimes we almost deserve to have chairs thrown at us. But I want someone whose eyes light up when they see me, who cannot wait to see me to tell me all about his day and hold me and tell me how much he loves me – and who means it in that agenda-less, unconditional way. Someone who loves me despite my craziness and my over-achiever silliness and my spinning wheels of emotion. Because that’s how I want to love, that’s how I know how to love. I can’t internet date because I don’t want or know how to be that casual. I want real, I want true. I want it all.

But life doesn’t allow that. It allows glimpses just before someone runs away. It allows the pretense of that love, until “as much as he can” runs out and he doesn’t anymore. It allows the prevention of the mending of my heart and the rampant growth of my fear in that shattered organ. It allows me to stand on the side, thinking I need to change the way I love. It allows for me to be alone and afraid instead of allowing me someone who loves the way I need.

But I also realize that it is just a fantasy. There isn’t unconditional love out there, other than from my beloved Twyla. Even that is based on a clean litter box and the occasional treat. There are just men who are afraid and men who have to destroy in order to be fulfilled in some way. Men for whom “as much as they can” is what they give because that’s all that’s required of them. There is no one out there who is as “too much” as me.

That leaves me with a choice. Be “too much” and sleep with my cat for the rest of my life. Or be “as much as I can” and hold something substantial back, just to be in the company of someone else giving “as much as they can,” both of us being less than and both of us maybe wishing for more but unable to give more. Many have chosen the latter, which makes me sad. But I’m not seeing many other choices out there.

So, for now, I guess I choose alone.

Moved me to tears...

So, my ex-husband emailed me back and caught me up on his life. Married for the third time, but seems to be very happy, two kids (16, 17), two dogs, two cats. He's an engineer (of all things) and a GIS computer system designer. Wow. Stunned. He wanted to be a chef.

Then he added:

"On the side there something I feel I have to say. We had something wonderful and also tragic I don't feel I was even a knight (maybe a big toad or something)I was very selfish through all of the short time we had together. In all my life I don't think I could find anyone who felt the way you did for me and for this I am sorry. I hope we can be friends (like pen pals...cuz you are so far away). keep in touch."

He touched me so deeply with this. I loved him in a way that I don't think I've loved anybody since. We were so young when we got married - I was 21, he was 20. He had a very screwed up family and wanted to relive his teenage years, since he never really had any.

I'm so moved and touched and overwhelmed by the people who have come back into my life in the last few years - Chairman, Al Underwood, and now, Shawn. I don't know what it all means. I don't know that it's supposed to mean anything. i do know that, at times like this, I feel so blessed by these reunions of those from my past. With everything I've gone through in the last two years, it's strangely like going back to the years where I was most happy - the beginning of my relationship with Shawn, my time at Universal where I made some of my best friendships. Maybe it's the opportunity to return to the joys and the wonder of that time, letting go of the pain and the hurt of the last few years.

Whatever it is, I'm glad I've got it.

Yes, it was him...

The email from yesterday was from my first husband (a phrase I will never get used to). He didn't say much in his second email so I'm thinking I'll just drop him a line back, say it was good to hear from him, hope life has been treating him well and to stay in touch.

Strange how the internet keeps us all connected in the weirdest ways.

Here are a couple of badly scanned photos I was using for the original "Cinderella Drives a Pick-Up" book. Yeah, I WAS that young once.

Sing it with me... It's a small world, after all...

So this is an email I get today for "lifeonitsside" from Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up.

"Dear Life on its Side, I have happened across a synopsis of your book turned to film on the Web. It looks like a great piece of work and I am interested in either reading your book or seeing the film. Could you direct me to somewhere near my home that I could get a copy ?

Thank You,

T. Shawn Smith"

The email address is "mts" - Manitoba Telephone System.

Now, about 100 years ago, in another life, I was married to a Todd Shawn Smith. There are a couple of hits on my Cinderella site from Canada with the same amount of hits under a search for my name.

So I sent him a fairly innocuous email back, asking if he's in Winnipeg and if he is indeed the Shawn Smith I knew.

Wow. It's a weird world. I haven't talked to him in probably 10 or 12 years.

We'll see what happens. Wonder what he would do if he knew he was a character in "Cinderella", played by the awesome A.J. Bowen. He should be flattered by my choice of actors to play him.

Anyway, I'll let you know what happens.

I'm an art teacher!

Well, after two weeks of training, Mission: Renaissance has unleashed me upon the children of Los Angeles – well, Valencia and Northridge, at least.

I taught my first two classes today. I thought I was just going to assist today but, no, they let me loose on a poor, unsuspecting child named Zach. Six years old. Cute but waaay to serious. Anyway, I was very nervous and a bit tentative. But Zach didn’t know I didn’t know what I was doing and he trusted me entirely. The program director kept checking on me and made a suggestion or two, but nothing terribly outrageous. At the end of an hour and a half, Zach had finished a beautifully misshapen eagle, complete with American flag background, and he grinned foolishly as he showed it off in the art show at the end of class.

Then, the program director gave me three – yes, three – students in the next class. And it was actually easier with three than one, believe it or not. Two of them were a little ADD but the young one, about five, was focused and smart and actually understood the concepts of tone and texture.

At the end of the classes, I chatted with the program director and she was very happy with what I had done. She didn’t have any suggestions for me at all, so I hope that translates to a rave review to my supervisors on Monday.

I drove home, feeling better than I had in a long time. I’ve always wanted to teach, actually. In fact, I had considered this same program several years ago but I had too much going on to actually do it. I feel confident and sure of myself, which I don’t always feel. And it’s so easy. Oh, damn. Now I’ve jinxed it.

Tomorrow, I take on the children in Northridge. Teaching from 8:30 to 3 PM, which is something like four or five classes. I’m going to be beat by the end of the day but I hope it’s as fun and fulfilling as today was.

I’m going to figure out how to create a “virtual fridge” and post some of the really sad artwork I’ve created in the past two weeks. Nothing terribly exciting – some loose sketches, some fifth grade style watercolor studies. I’m working on watercolor next week in training and have discovered I really like watercolor. I haven’t done much but the whole thing excites me. Who knows? Maybe I’ve found yet another distraction in my life!

Anyway, thought I’d share. So glad I did this. So happy that I’m doing it well.

Lost

I'm sorry I lost you. I wish I could get you back but you've obviously found someone else's heart to rescue.

In the beginning...

I am sitting here, trying to ignore the Rubik’s Cube that is my brain, which is trying to put things together and I just don’t want it to. Because then I’ll have to look at things that I don’t want to look at right now. I’ll have to start facing the things that I have been so good at avoiding for so long. I’ve dealt with things in bits and pieces but now my psyche is demanding that I at least finish a side in one color before it will let me put the cube down and focus on the rest of my life.

So, these next few blogs might be scattered, they might not make sense and they might be hard to read. They’re certainly going to be hard to write. So I understand, dear reader, if you should choose to stop reading here, particularly if you are FOE – friend of the ex. Wow, interesting acronym. Anyway, this is my viewpoint and I’m sure he has his. So stop reading if you don’t want my viewpoint.

I clearly remember the day I first thought, “I shouldn’t do this. What the hell am I thinking?” We had moved in together, hadn’t been living together terribly long, maybe a month or so. Been dating about six months. He had said, “You need to move in with me so you can see what you’re getting into. I’m not easy to live with.” And I thought it was so refreshing that he understood himself that well and could actually verbalize those thoughts. That’s half the battle, I thought, that he understands he’s difficult. Guess I didn’t see the big red flag that went with that concept.

Anyway, he was making the bed one day and I was just learning about his compulsive-obsessive personality. The bed wasn’t cooperating, according to him, and the sheets weren’t doing what he wanted them to do. Exactly his phrasing – the sheets weren’t doing what he wanted to do. His anger flared very quickly, so quickly that I didn’t even see the build. The next thing I knew, he was screaming obscenities at the inanimate object not cooperating – the aforementioned sheets – and using cuss words that made me blush. Now, I am known to have thrown a few choice words around myself so let your imagination run wild. I cowered at the power of his anger, even though it was not directed at me. He literally ripped the sheets off the bed, tearing them almost in half. I can still hear the sound of the fabric ripping most than 17 years later.

In that moment, clear as a bell, I knew I had a choice. I could walk away in that instant. I could say, “You know what? You were right. You are difficult and I have chosen not to deal with a difficult person. I love you but my life is too valuable to spend it listening to you spend the next 16 years of our lives calling sheets cocksuckers and having you destroy property because you don’t have the patience to make the bed. Have a nice life. See ya around.”

But I didn’t. I chose to stay. I thought that I could handle his anger. I thought that I could help him learn how to become more patient and deal with things better. I thought I could change him. I also accepted his behavior because I had been raised with that type of personality in my family. Can’t get into details as too many of my family read this blog and I just don’t need the repercussions right now. Suffice it to say that this seemed almost normal to me so I buried my concerns and figured I could handle it. After all, his anger wasn’t directed at me. He even apologized, stating that he would never hurt me with his anger, that he was only angry at the sheets and I shouldn’t be concerned about it. It was just the way he was.

I can’t say I should have left him then. I don’t know what my life would have turned out to be had I walked out the door that day. I can’t regret spending the 16 years with him that I did because I can’t change it. But I can learn from it.

What I am struggling with is this – I chose to stay. I chose to stay every time he ripped sheets. I chose to stay in the not too distant past when he threw something across the room and it hit this beautiful piece of art he had gotten for me and framed so perfectly and knocked the artwork to the floor and broke the glass. I chose to stay when he began more and more throwing things across the room. Funny, they always seemed to be my things – my shoes, my books, my photos. His were always gently picked up and courteously moved to an appropriate spot. Mine were not and the throwing was accompanied by harsh, horrible obscenity, then that anger was usually turned on me. “Why can’t you just put things away? Why are they always here? Can’t you just… why can’t you… you’re so…” And on and on and on. But I wasn’t supposed to take that personally because he was angry at the objects, not at me.

I chose to shut down. I could have confronted him about how he treated me, and I did. But eventually, I allowed him to beat me down and I shut down. I stopped feeling because there was no use. He would use my emotions against me and ridicule and belittle them. And I allowed him to.

The hardest thing with any type of abuse is that, yes, we the abused have some responsibility in being abused. There were many times I could have walked away, I should have walked away, before I was too beaten down to be able to. The night he ripped those sheets. The first time he called me stupid. The first time he threw something valuable of mine across the room. I knew it. In my heart, I knew that this was the rest of my life. And I chose to stay. That doesn’t forgive him and that doesn’t condone what he did. It only means that I have to accept some of the responsibility for staying. Eventually, I was beyond that choice and that’s where his abuse takes a whole different turn. When I was strong enough to defend myself, I still had a choice. But when I lost the will to choose, that’s when I become a true victim.

I am sometimes so filled with shame for how I allowed him to treat me for so many years. I am ashamed when someone says how much they disliked him for so long and then asks me how I stayed with him for so long. I am embarrassed that I couldn’t walk away from him and that I gave him so much power over my life. I am ashamed to be so victimized and not able to say anything to anyone. In the midst of it all, I was so embarrassed when we would go out and he would behave the way he could and humiliate me in front of so many people and then accuse me of being in the wrong when I would confront him about it. It was always just me, the way I felt, that had no value. He was never in the wrong. I always was. I let him do this to me. And I feel so much shame sometimes over it that I cannot deal with it. So I put it in a mental box and it sits there until my psyche is pissed off and forces me to deal with it.

Shame is a huge thing when you’re abused. You don’t want pity. I don’t want you to feel sorry that I was emotionally abused by this asshole. I really don’t want to know how you didn’t like him because, fuck you, you never said anything to me. I don’t care if I loved him with reason. I thought everything I felt about how he treated me was in my own mind. It wasn’t until a friend finally spoke up and said, after a very disastrous, destructive dinner, “I can’t believe the way he talks to you. Does he always talk to you that way? How can you stand it?” That’s when I finally stepped back and pulled myself out of my victimization and tried to see objectively how he treated me. That’s when I started to notice that he talked to me differently when we were alone. He saved the humiliation for when we were in private, although it would occasionally crop up in a social situation. But mostly, those gems were reserved for behind closed doors.

And I think I understand where that came from sometimes. He said something in counseling once about being frustrated because I wasn’t the woman he thought I was. He was attracted to me because I was this take-charge, aggressive, together woman. He thought that was who I was and what I was going to be for the rest of my life. He apparently didn’t take into consideration that we change as we get older and life throws things at us. He never took into consideration that his constant barrage of criticism and harsh words would erode at the core of that strong, aggressive woman and turn her into a suicidal, depressed basket case who lost the ability to decide whether to make chicken or fish… oops… no fish allowed in the house because the smell bothered him. I couldn’t decide whether to make chicken or beef for dinner. He was disappointed that I turned out to be human, not this super-human being who had no feelings and no emotions. He was disappointed that I could be hurt and feel and fight back. He wanted passive woman who was aggressive and let him be who he was. I, however, was never allowed to be who I was. I had to be perfect. And when I wasn’t, he was there to point out the flaws, as a help, so I could learn and grow.

And I let him. That is my responsibility. I let him. I stopped fighting it and allowed him to destroy me. And if I’m not careful, I could find myself in that same position just as easily again. Finding someone, overlooking their flaws, and thinking I can handle it. It’s the cycle that I have been living over and over again in my life because that’s what I know. Living with my folks has sure shown me that.

My responsibility now is to not let that happen again. That’s probably why I never was able to confront the OOMA because I was and am terrified that, should we have hooked up, I would have done exactly the same thing – become what he wanted me to be, allowed his emotional distance to push me to an emotional distance and become closed off and shut down again, ending up counting pills on the kitchen counter years from now, wondering what I did to lose him and what I could do to hold on to him. I’ve already been thinking that just because I thought I was in love with him and he has pulled away – what did I do to lose him and what could I do to hold on to him. And we haven’t even kissed. It hurts to admit that he’s probably not good for me because that’s not what my heart says. But I can’t allow myself that much pain again.

And that means I will probably be alone for a long time. I can’t allow myself to leap into something because I can’t allow myself to be hurt that deeply again. I need to make sure that anyone I do get involved with is someone who will let me be me – emotional, cranky, occasionally weak and insecure, fragile, depressed, slightly bipolar. I have to make sure that I am allowed a full range of emotions, not just those that he thinks are acceptable. I need to make sure it is someone who won’t throw things across the room – whether or not they are aimed at me. I need someone who, yes, can be angry, but not in that obsessive, horrific abusive way that the main men in my life have been.

I have to accept the responsibility for controlling my own life from here on out. That means walking away from people who hurt, situations that are detrimental, men who only hurt not heal. I need to be responsible for me first, then someone entering my life. But the priority is me. If that’s selfish, then so be it. I’ve given up enough for so many years that it’s time for me to not give up. And I’m not ready to give up on me yet. I just need time.

As a side note, I also realized that I could have been a huge bitch and forced him to liquidate his huge book collection and taken half of that from him. I could have forced him to sell his collectibles and taken half of that. I could have forced him to do so many things that would have hurt him the way he hurt me. But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. So that’s it. I just had to put that out there.

Thanks for reading.

Looking for my “Corner of the Sky”

The musical, “Pippin,” is one of my favorites for many reasons. One of them is that my father recorded a PBS broadcast of it for me when I was about 20 and just discovering Bob Fosse. I had fallen in love with “All That Jazz”, the first film to make me go, wow, I didn’t know you could do that with film. Dad saw “Pippin” in the TV Guide, knew it was by Fosse so he recorded it for me because he knew I loved Fosse. I promptly fell in love with the musical and grew to adore my father even more.

And one of my fondest memories is of one of the broken pieces of my heart walking around the empty Ark Theatre before rehearsal, one of the first we had for my favorite play, belting out “Glory, Glory” and his gorgeous voice echoing through the small space. Gave me chills. Makes me smile, even today. (Yes, believe it or not, Mr. L., I still have very fond memories of you rolling around in my head.)

So I’m driving home tonight from a delicious Del Taco dinner with the fabulous Patty Jean, feeling a little better but still kind of mired in an unidentified funk I’ve been in for a while. Can’t really figure out why. The usual things are hovering – OOMA, not great birthday, still residual stuff about the ex, living with the folks. But nothing big, just stuff.

Then a song from “Pippin” came on to my newly resurrected Ipod. And I realized what was going on with me.

I’m trying to find my corner of the sky.

“Everything has its season
Everything has its time
Show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme
Cats fit on the windowsill
Children fit in the snow
Why do I feel I don't fit in anywhere I go?”

I have never fit in anywhere in my life. I never fit in with my family, the lone artist in a group of athletes. I never fit in at school, beat and battered through junior high, although I almost fit in during high school, thanks to band and theater. My first marriage didn’t fit. He wanted fun and frivolity, I thought we were growing up and into something more.

LA almost didn’t fit at first. I always felt on the edge of things, watching, waiting for the cool kids to let me in and let me play. I know so much of this hinges on my feeling like I don’t belong in my own family (my sister and brother were here last year for five days – not a single picture with me in it for their whole visit. Mom didn’t notice that until about a month later, after going through the pictures for the umpteenth time). I was always on the outside looking in, wanting to be the athlete with the trophies or the cool kid that everyone hung out with or the smart one or the funny one or the fill-in-the-blank one.

My second marriage made me feel like someone at first. But as time went by, it became what I knew – I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t anything enough. I didn’t deserve to play with him (aka the cool kid) because I didn’t live up to his expectation. Therefore, I was again on the outside, looking in, wanting to be loved, wanting to be appreciated for who I was, not some image of who I should be.

Wanting to find my corner of the sky.

“Every man has his daydreams
Every man has his goal
People like the way dreams have
Of sticking to the soul
Thunderclouds have their lightning
Nightingales have their song
And don't you see I want my life to be
Something more than long....”

As I began my new life, I maybe saw a peek into that corner. I began to feel like, for the first time in 43 years, maybe there was somewhere I fit. I was treated differently at The Ark Theatre than I had ever been treated anywhere before. People began looking at me as an artist, as something other than the loser on the edge, the one who didn’t fit. And I craved that.

That’s why OOMA had such a huge effect on me. He saw me as I wanted to be seen. He saw the person I was trying to become and he treated me like I was already that person. He SAW me. And the other pieces of my heart (broken and otherwise) also saw me that way. Then the women in my life started to make me think I could fit in, I could find that corner I was seeking.

But lately, in the past six months maybe, that corner seems to be further and further away. Creatively, I think I’m beginning to make it out but personally, I’m still the one no one wants in their pictures. I’m still the one standing on the side, watching the better and stronger take the glory and bask in the light. I’m still the awkward girl with braces and glasses being put down by the bullies and the bitches who tried to break my spirit at 13. I’m still the little sister who didn’t matter in the family of overachievers. I’m still invisible.

I thought that had changed but sometimes I don’t feel like it has. Losing the friendship of one of the people I never thought I would lose makes me feel invisible. The fact that I no longer am important in his life makes me feel invisible. The fact that he doesn’t seem to notice this makes me feel invisible. Having no one to hold me and love me makes me feel invisible. I’m back to being 13 years old and not existing. Even my creative life cannot fill that void.

“Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky.”

So I’m struggling right now, knowing and understanding that I am not that invisible 13-year-old girl hiding from the bullies, wanting to be just like my big sister, trying to overcome the very strong negativity from my mother, not belonging anywhere. I know I have a stronger home, a stronger core than I have probably ever had in my life. I know I am on the path to that corner of the sky. I know that I am not invisible and that I do matter and I am real. I’m struggling to hold on to that knowledge and make it real. Trying to realize that what I am doing is special and precious and extraordinary.

“So many men seem destined
To settle for something small
But I won't rest until I know I'll have it all
So don't ask where I'm going
Just listen when I'm gone
And far away you'll hear me singing
Softly to the dawn:”

So I’m looking for you all to sing along with me and help me along. Got to find my corner of the sky.

“Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky.”

Birthday blog - version 2.

So, this year, my birthday wasn’t exactly what I had hoped, but I’ve already covered that, kind of. Part of it was that I found myself keeping my mouth shut in a situation where I should have screamed out, “Hey, you, dickwad. Shut the fuck up for five minutes while I blow out my birthday candles and open my gifts and say thank you. Then you can start over again but, hey, it’s my birthday and my party, not yours, asshole.” But I didn’t, because I thought I should be considerate of the son-of-a-bitch who wasn’t considerate of me.

Karaoke was the same thing until I lost it. Some idiot decided to scream his song in my ear and I threw my drink at him. Unfortunately, he moved a split second early and I missed him. I won’t the next time.

Why do I feel that I have to be considerate to assholes, whether I know them or not? I think it’s part of my boundary issues that I am currently sorting through. Gonna try not being nice for a while, see what that does.

This birthday was definitely a series of great and not so great, some of which was in my own head, some of which was not. There were the amazing gifts of the intangible sort – mostly the whole day yesterday at Disneyland (pics here) and ”Grindhouse” on Friday night – and the intangible gifts of new friends helping me out (thanks, Renae) and old friends reconnecting.

So much of my life right now is a struggle and it’s colored everything this birthday. I was so optimistic last year but not this year. I thought things would be so much different and they’re not. Again, some is my fault, some not.

I don’t really know what I have or want to say in this blog today. Just that I am grateful and torn and angry and elated and blue and happy and frustrated and excited and so many other things all at once right now. Maybe by 60 I’ll figure it out. Right now, I’ll just get through today and see what tomorrow brings.

And God laughs...

So, I was feeling sorry for myself this birthday, as evidenced by my other blog that’s not on Myspace, and had coffee with the wondrous and wise A.J. yesterday. As I was lamenting things in my life that are not where I had hoped they would be, including living with my parents, A.J. said that I now have unlimited karma points just by moving in to take care of my parents and that I can be mean and nasty and ugly to anyone for the rest of my life and I’ll have the karma points to cover it.

As I drove away, all I could think was that A.J.’s karma theory was horribly flawed. If I had all these karma points built up, then why am I celebrating this milestone birthday alone and why do we have to postpone Mexico until later this year as I can’t afford to do it when we planned and why haven’t I accomplished what I want to do and why and why and why, ad nauseum.

My party last night was a huge disappointment for some very tangible reasons and for a lot of intangible reasons. Part of it was that the clowns in my head got loose for a while and were running amok earlier in the evening, making it hard for me to enjoy myself and there was a situation that pissed me off greatly but I chose to keep my mouth shut because otherwise there was going to be a very, very ugly scene.

So I woke up this morning, looking forward to going to Disneyland on Sunday with Patty and her friend, Brian, and Trina and whoever else. Then I went online to double check ticket prices while Mom and Dad took the change from my piggy bank (yes, I am 16 again) and cashed it in to cover my Disney ticket. I was figuring there had to be discounts, there always are, and it should be about $50, which I could just swing with enough left over to actually maybe eat something. Boy, was I wrong. Disney is $63. Doesn’t sound like much more than $50, but with gas at astronomical pricing (thanks, President Bush), cost for parking, the actual ticket and $6 sodas, there was no way I could go. Just couldn’t. I wept copiously. I was so looking forward to this. I thought back to A.J. and his karma theory and I thought, A.J.’s karma theory sucks. I called Patty and left her a message that I would not be joining her for the Mickey festivities.

I sulked all the way to the Ark Theatre tonight for the opening of Les Liaisons Dangerueses, not wanting to go but feeling obligated to be there. Chairman and Erik were there and Trina arrived later so it was a pleasant group and I kind of put my poutiness behind me. Then Trina mentioned Disneyland and I tried not to make too big a deal of it, saying I wasn’t going because I couldn’t afford it. I sulked to myself through the first act, being more and more pissed off at this birthday weekend that seemed to be sucking so very much.

The play was great, despite a few typical opening night technical glitches, and I hung around for the after-show reception. It is a great cast and I was enjoying hanging out with these talented people. But inevitably, Disneyland was brought up again. I tried to not sulk too much and brushed it off. I was chatting with Renae, talking about birthday stuff when I noticed by Erik’s watch that it was moments before my actual birthday. Renae sneaked off and got everyone to sing happy birthday to me right at midnight. That really touched me and began to pull me out of my sulkiness. It made me begin to acknowledge the wonderful people I have in my life and remind me of why I love working with this company of actors.

Then I overheard Chris M., composer and sound designer at the Ark, talking about how his car got towed just now and he needed to get a ride home. He lives fairly close to me so I offered, if he didn’t mind my very dirty, very messy car. As we talked, Renae joined us and she asked if I was excited about Disneyland. I told her I wasn’t going in not too pouty a way as I had accepted that I wasn’t going. She got this look on her face and ran off. I thought maybe she had a discount ticket or maybe, wonder of wonders, maybe she had a free ticket. This lovely woman, Renae, who I don’t know very well, who is an amazing addition to the Ark, comes back, a little grin on her face. She informs me that, since she had just come back from a free week in Disney World with her family, that I deserved to join my birthday twin, Patty Jean, at Disneyland, and she stuck a $50 bill in my hand. I tried to give it back but she would not hear of it. She pressed it into my hand and told me I deserved to enjoy my birthday. I burst into tears.

I left shortly thereafter as I could not think of anything else to say. I drove Chris M. to the impound lot so he could retrieve his house keys and then I drove him home. I thought, goody, more karma points. Actually, I think I’m paying back karma debits for the times people have helped me when I was stranded or broke down, etc.

And it occurred to me, as it usually does when I’m pouty and pissy and whiny, that God really does hear me. God has provided me with this incredible group of people who take care of me. Just when I think that my life is terrible and empty and void of what I really want, someone does something like this and it makes me ashamed of feeling this way because I am truly blessed with the most remarkable people, from my dearest friends to someone like Renae, and that all I have to do sometimes is allow myself to be seen, vulnerable, in pain, and someone will soothe it.

I am humbled tonight by the generosity of this spirit and by the grace that God has given me. I am so thankful that He gives me these moments where he just lets me whine and bitch and moan about what a terrible life I have. Then he does this.

And then God laughs at my humanness, my frailty, my disbelief. He laughs like a tolerant parent, not mocking, but with love. He laughs at my lack of ability to see the grace He has given me and He laughs as He gently points out this grace to me. And the disillusionment of these past few days dissipates and the clowns get locked back in their cages where they belong and I am left with just this profound sense of wonder at the life in my life and the generosity of spirit surrounding me. And I am humbled in the presence of a God who really does know what’s going on in my life, who really does understand my pain and my anger and my sorrow, and who knows sometimes, the best thing to heal what ails is to treat His child to a day at a crowded, noisy, over-priced theme park on the day of his Son’s crucifixion with one of her dearest friends. That is when I feel God the most and when I know that He laughs. And I’m glad he does.

On turning 45

This birthday has me extremely conflicted. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m finally processing some things about my life or if I’m facing new things about my life but I’m struggling to get through it and come out the other side.

One side of me feels like the woman so many of you see me as – strong, confident, radiant, talented, gifted, loving, caring, powerful. I get glimpses of this woman that supposedly exists and those glimpses are getting more and more common and easier to see sometimes. I can feel her inside of my heart, fighting to get a foothold in the real world instead of just existing within my soul. She is the one who gave me the courage to walk away from a marriage that was destroying me. She is the one who gave me the courage to get up and discover the joy of singing again. She is the one who, without hesitation, knew that moving in with my parents was absolutely essential and the only thing to do. She is who I aspire to be and am anxious to release on to the world. She is the one who wears the red Carlos Santana boots with pride and strength.

The other side of me, however, still holds on tight to my reality. It is the vestiges of the 43 years leading up to that moment almost two years ago when I took hold of my life. That side is the product of those 43 years and all the negativity that has been foisted upon me for all of those years. Now, that’s not a excuse, it’s an acknowledgement. I could have maybe found a way to push that negativity away and maybe I have, for the most part. But that negativity ate away at my soul and left me with huge, open, gaping wounds that have only begun to scab around the edges. That side is who I see most often in the mirror – weak, inferior, terrified, unfocused, unsuccessful, lazy, stupid, unlovable and unloved. That side haunts me at night and consumes me in the worst moments of my days. That is the side I am trying to cut out of my soul and lose forever. But two years versus 43 years is an unfair balance. I am hoping it won’t take me 43 years to find the other side of me.

This birthday is not what I wanted it to be. A.J. said some very profound things today at coffee about not letting things that we have no control over consume me. That I should not try to use comparisons or expectations as a bar of accomplishment. But then he also understood that one can’t help but do that.

The two sides of me battle over that. I can see what I have accomplished in less than two years, yet I can see the failures. I struggle with finishing the film because I’m terrified it’s not good, yet I know it’s good. I’m afraid that I’m a phony, that there is not talent there and no one has bothered to tell me, yet I know without a doubt I am a strong director. Two minds arguing constantly. No wonder the clowns have a field day up there.

The biggest thing about this birthday is that it is another one spent alone. Yes, I know I have amazing friends and many of them were around me tonight as the three day celebration began/continued. I realize how rich my life is because of these people. I would not be anywhere near where I am today without the people that I have listed endlessly in this blog. But that doesn’t help at times like this, when all I want in the world is the arms of someone who loves me to wrap me up and hold me tight. I wonder if giving up a relationship – no matter how horrible or empty or cruel it was – was worth this ache and pain and sorrow of being alone. I see so many friends in relationships that aren’t as full as I think a relationship should be but at least they have someone to hold them, be with them, and, yes, have sex with them. And I envy them that, even while I can see how their relationships are unfulfilling in other areas. What is the trade-off then? Settle for someone who doesn’t fulfill me but is kind of there and kind of what I want but not really but he’s there when I want someone and he’ll sleep with me and hold me, even if he doesn’t really turn out to be something worthwhile? It’s that the alternative to being alone?

And the one person who I thought would always be a friend and never, ever hurt me seems to have chosen to put a huge distance between us. I take a lot of that responsibility because I have broken the cardinal rule – I have been open and honest in a public forum about my feelings about him and that’s got to be unnerving for such a private person. I keep trying to find a way to tell him in person that I really don’t care about anything more than being his friend. Yes, something more would be great but if I have to choose between losing his friendship over this, I would choose to keep his friendship. He’s been so important to me and colors every frame of my life that I can’t imagine my life without him. But he seems to have chosen to step away, not completely, but enough that I can no longer consider him the close friend he once was. And that kills me more than anything. I have somehow contributed to driving him away and shattering this friendship. Yeah, I know he’s got some responsibility in this but I can’t seem to find the right way to fix this and make it better so I have to just stand by and let him go. And that’s one of the worst things I can think of because, when it comes down to it, I love him very much, as a drear, dear friend and an important part of my life. But my two sides cannot figure out what to do so nothing will be done. I miss you, I’m sorry, I hope you come back some time and we can start over again.

But there are those moments when I feel my destiny and see my future. When I’m running the meetings for the new film at the Ark and those five other faces are looking to me for answers, I know I have the answers they’re looking for. I am extremely confident in the script I am writing for my segment based on my Wraith blog, and the partnership with PRS is working out great on this script. I can say it’s probably the best thing I’ve written, with a great deal of that because of PRS’s input. I can see how good Cinderella could be, if I could get my shit together and finish it. And I see what I am doing for my parents, how important that this time is for us, particularly with what we’ve just gone through. time is counting down and every moment with my father is precious. I know, in so many ways, this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now, personally, professionally, everything.

So I hope to get through this birthday, put it behind me and find a way to let the soul self that is trapped right now run free and finally take me firmly on the path to the rest of my life. Maybe by 50. Maybe 60. I’ll let you know.

Early Birthday Treat

For those of you who don't know, my 45th birthday is Sunday. This seems apt for the moment.

God bless Keith Urban

Finally heard this whole song tonight. Had to pull the car over and have a breakdown, it touches so close to home for me.


KEITH URBAN LYRICS

"Stupid Boy"

Well, she was precious like a flower
She grew wild, wild but innocent
A perfect prayer in a desperate hour
She was everything beautiful and different

Stupid boy, you can't fence that in
Stupid boy, it's like holding back the wind
she laid her heart and soul right in your hands
And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans
She never even knew she had a choice and that's what happens
When the only voice she hears is telling her she can't
Stupid boy, stupid boy
Oh

So what made you think you could take a life
And just push it push it around
I guess you build yourself up so high
You had to take her and break her down

she laid her heart and soul right in your hands
And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans
She never even knew she had a choice and that's what happens
When the only voice she hears is telling her she can't
You stupid boy

Oh, you always had to be right but now you've lost
The only thing that ever made you feel alive
Yeah, yeah

Well, she laid her heart and soul right in your hands
And you stole her every dream and you crushed her plans
Yes, ya did
She never even knew she had a choice and that's what happens
When the only voice she hears is telling her she can't
You stupid boy, oh, I'm the same old
Same old stupid boy

It took awhile for her to figure out she could run
But when she did, she was long gone
Long gone, long gone
Ah, she's gone

Nobody's ever gonna love me like she loved me
And she loved me, she loved me
God please, just let her know
I'm sorry, I'm sorry
I'm sorry, I'm sorry
Baby, yeah, I'm down on my knees
She's never coming back to me



(Unfortunately, don't have this album yet but will soon!)

Mirror, Mirror

03/28/07 – Beauty

I caught myself in the mirror just now and you know what I saw?

Beauty.



Okay, sure, I saw the extra 20 (or 30 or 40) pounds that are sitting around my waist and my butt. I saw the lines around my eyes (my father’s eyes, apparently, and so, therefore, my father’s lines). I saw the toll from 16 years of an abusive relationship on my face. I saw the flaws and the imperfections and the areas that need improvement.

But, for the first time in the past almost two years of my new life, I saw a glimpse of the beauty I have. It’s something we all, as women, lose the ability to see in ourselves. The most beautiful women I know doubt that about themselves, no matter how confident, no matter how sure they are. They still doubt. That’s why we endless do crunches and subject ourselves to counting every calorie and every bite of food and constantly assess and reassess the size of our ass/thighs/waist/boobs.

But tonight, I saw the way my hair now lies – a little longer, a little shaggier, a little more feminine. I saw the faintest glimpse of cheekbone struggling to come through. I saw the light in my eyes – what I’ve always thought was my best feature. I saw a voluptuous woman instead of an overweight one. I saw a figure, not a flaw. I caught a glimpse of the woman I was at 25 and I could see that the woman I was then is still in the woman that I am now, as I face a landmark birthday 20 years later.

I saw that the years that the marriage put on me made me mature, not worn. I saw that the defiance I have makes me strong, not hard. I saw that the struggles and the choices and the disappointments I have faced in the past two years, as well as those through the end of my marriage, gave me a grace and a serenity by accepting and dealing with and trying to put those behind me. I saw the difference between a victim and a Wonder Woman.

I finally saw that, despite the flaws and the foibles and the weight and the wear and tear, I am a dynamic, incredible, beautiful woman who is slowly but surely coming into her own, regardless of the age, regardless of the time. I caught a glimpse of the woman I am becoming through the trials and the struggles and the loneliness and the pain and all of that. I caught a glimpse of the future me and she is astounding. I cannot wait to meet her.

Pooped.

Wonder Woman is tired. She’s tired of being strong and powerful and tough. She is tired of the expectation of the world because of the image she has put forth. She wants to break down and weep and scream how she is full of rage and pain and sorrow and worry and fear and uncertainty and terror. She wants to cry copious amounts of tears, rend her clothing at the unfairness of things and pound the ground with her fists. She wants to behave like a four-year-old, just for a few moments.

Wonder Woman is tired of boys in men’s clothing, swaggering and pretending to be grown-up when, at the heart of it, they are four years old and incapable of looking past their own noses and seeing there is something out there other than their self-concern. She is tired of Mr. OOMA who can’t get past his own fear and inexperience to just be a goddamned friend. Fine, don’t want to sleep with me but stop being so fucking schizophrenic. If you think I’m too much and you’re worried I’m going to pull a Glenn Close and boil a rabbit in your kitchen, then tell me that. If you’re scared and unsure and just plain confused, just tell me that. If you never want to see me again and you’re sorry you’ve invested the time in this relationship, the grow some balls and tell me that so I can get on with my life. If you read this (and I’m pretty sure you do, although, god forbid that you actually admit it), then just talk to me. Be a friend, because, at the heart of it all, that’s what I thought you truly were. And Mr. Cute Boy, willing to flirt and play and be coy while being with someone who obviously doesn’t do anything for you, yet not willing to put your neck out to try something that might make you happy, either embrace the one you’re with or get off the pot and do something. If just one of you would be a Superman and just open your stupid mouths, Wonder Woman maybe would be able to get some rest and stop trying to read your frigging minds.

And Wonder Woman is tired of being tired. Of seeking and wanting and needing and reaching and coming back empty-handed. What she wants is simple – inner peace, contentment, someone to hold her close and tell her it’s okay not to be Wonder Woman for a while. Someone to rub her feet and kiss her forehead. Nothing much. Just everything.

Mostly, she is tired of her broken heart, shattered by someone who should have protected it for all those years, leaving her incapable of trusting that fractured organ to be real, to feel real, to be true. She wants the pieces to be put together so they will stop sticking her in the ribs, keeping her in constant pain, every single day, every single moment, while she keeps on the face the public expects.

Or maybe Wonder Woman just needs to quit whining, accept her fate and wreak havoc on the world. That’s always an option. Wonder Woman goes Emo. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Warning - poetry ahead

Arm's length
has become
too far
to cross.

I'm tired of trying
reaching
finding
nothing
on the other end.

You win.
I'm worn out.

So
when you look for me
I won't be there
across the table
across the room
across your life.

And what breaks my heart
is that
you won't even
miss
me.

what i need...

tonight, what I need is to be able to get shif-faced, incoherently drunk. to have some warm, wonderful incredible man see my pain, understand, wrap me up in his embrace, take me home, tuck me into his bed (the option to curl up in said bed and hold me all night is open). Sorry, no sex tonight. Wake me gently in the morning, still holding me. Tell me everything’s all right and let me cry out everything I’ve held in the past few days. Wipe away my tears, tell me to come back when I need to, and kiss me sweetly and gently and tell me he loves me.

Instead, I’ll go and sing a few heartbreak songs, have a single drink, as I am driving the parents’ car tonight, and come home to my empty bed, shed a few tears into my pillow, get up and start all over again tomorrow.

That’s what I need to do.

Sometimes I forget...

The day-to-day drama that I create in my own mind and life sometimes makes me forget how lucky I am to have the life I have.

In talking to my aunt and uncle, who flew down from Canada yesterday, and regaling them with tales of my life with all of you - particulary Patty, Monica, Zadra, Peter, Chairman, and AJ (and too many others to name) - I am again reminded how lucky and blessed I am to have all of you in my life.

I'm sorry sometimes I'm crazy and manic and make a big thing out of nothing. I'm sorry I take some of you for granted sometimes. And I'm sorry that sometimes I don't feel like I am the friend to you that you are to me. Know you are loved and appreciated and that I would not have the wondrous life that I have without every single one of you.

I want a Superman

Men don’t want Wonder Woman.



They want the victims that Wonder Woman saves – the meek, mild, unambitious 25 to 30-year-olds who aren’t a threat and aren’t a challenge. Men admire Wonder Woman from a distance but are afraid to get too close to her, afraid that they’ll never be able to stand up to her superpowers. They are eager to have her around when they need her support and her help and her strength. But after that, Wonder Woman’s on her own. They’ll hover at her periphery, holding court, looking up to her, sleep with her if she’d let them, but when it comes to something more, there’s a man-shaped hole in the wall announcing their departure. But if Wonder Woman needs them or their support or their participation, they find an excuse and run to the victim, hiding behind her vulnerability and her fear and making sure that Wonder Woman can’t find them.

Wonder Woman is screwed.

I want Superman.



A man who is not afraid of my Wonder Woman-ness. A man with the balls to not be afraid of my super-powers and who is not going to use his gifts of evil instead of good. A Superman who knows when I need to be Wonder Woman and when I need to just be Lt. Diana Prince and let him be Superman and protect me and take care of me. I am tired of mere mortals like the OOMA and Cute Boy who don’t see the wonder that is me standing in front of them and who can’t handle a Wonder Woman in their life. Let them hole up somewhere protected and unreachable with the victims of the world while I keep up my search for a man to stand with me and be proud of the Wonder Woman I can be. A man who is just as strong, just as determined, just as ambitious as I am and who can handle my vulnerable days when being a superhero is just too much.

Because, days like today, I could use a Superman in my life.

Read into this what you will...

I had survived some weird, military, "LOST" sort of scenario in some far off island. I thought others had survived but I could not find them. Somehow, I was back in a military building, no one knowing that I had survived this thing. They were looking for me but I was in the lobby of the building and no one knew where to find me. And I couldn’t get anyone to tell me where I should go. There was this pattern on the floor in a circular pattern that were words but not words and they seemed to keep shifting. Every time I’d figure out what it said and where I should go, the pattern shifted again and the words were in a different order. They were words like “eleventh” and “management” and “services.”

The OOMA kept coming through the front door over and over again, not like Groundhog Day because things didn’t repeat. He just seemed to keep coming through the door. He was in full dress Navy whites, which is weird because he’s Air Force and I kept thinking exactly that – that’s weird, he’s in Navy whites and he’s Air Force. At one point, I was in some odd Star Trek sort of outfit that was a red jumpsuit with white patches and silver trim and he was trying to help me get the shoulders to fit right because they kept sitting oddly. He would adjust the shoulders and then they would slide right back to where they were. He was infinitely patient and it seemed fairly important that the shoulders were just so. And it seemed that every time he appeared, I was somehow closer to where I was supposed to be. He was infinitely patient and sometimes seemed to know I had been missing and was glad I was there and wanted to help me get to where I should be and sometimes both of us seemed unaware that I had been missing and couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to be. But he was unflappable, knowing that it would be all right eventually and I would get to where I was supposed to be. And Nellie Bly’s “His Uncheckered Life” kept playing in the background.

During all of this, I kept getting flashbacks of my adventure, which included getting some sort of robotic dinosaur thing to work and that’s how I got off the island. That part’s kind of blurry because I don’t remember much other than getting the thing upright and something about someone who was a negative essence – not really a threat, just very negative and I was trying to get away from him. I knew there were others on the island but I couldn’t figure out where they were or what they were doing, yet they seemed to know I was there with this dinosaur thing and they wouldn’t come over to where I was for no apparent reason.

Then I was in a grocery store with the OOMA and we were trying to get something specific but I didn’t seem to know exactly what it was. He kept asking me, “Is that it?” and I’d say, “I think so.” But then we’d put it back and keep going. I put a Caesar salad in my cart and that was the only thing that was consistent.

Then we were back in the lobby and we had dishes that had been used and couldn’t figure out where to put them. I finally put mine on the guard desk after we kept walking around and around but then couldn’t find the others to tell them where to put their dishes and it seemed really important to tell them where to put their dishes. And the OOMA came in again, in his dress whites, and finally seemed surprised to see me there because I supposedly had been lost in this weird astronaut crash landing thing.

And then Twyla jumped on my head in real life and woke me up.

I've made my own Freudian analysis, I'm sure you will, too.

Yeah, right.

I'm so full of shit sometimes. I actually believe what I say when I write it and then...

Well, anyway...

Doubt.

The hardest thing in dealing with emotional abuse is the lingering vestiges of doubt that invade your life. Even now, almost two years after leaving my ex, I still harbor huge amounts of doubt about my emotional life. Every single day, I ponder and obsess and wonder whether or not what I feel is true, from everything from my on-going struggle with the OOMA to how I am dealing with living with my parents to just happiness on an on-going basis. I have to run everything through a “test” filter almost to see and evaluate if what I feel is true. And the thing is, everything that you feel is true. It’s true to you and doesn’t matter if it’s “true” to anyone else.

I was lucky in my creative life to have outside verification of my intuition and impulses. And it’s easier to be objective about the truth of my creativity because it’s an external extension of my life. I see something on screen or on stage and the response of the people watching it let me know whether what I think about the piece is true. And I have been able to gain enough objectivity of my own that I know when something I do is good and when it could be better. My fears and worries about “Cinderella” are just normal, every day concerns I’m sure every filmmaker goes through so I’m handling that part of my life.

It’s the every day banality of life that still stumps me, particularly when it comes to the relationship with men in my life. Considering the fact that most of the men that have been in my life have been emotionally distant, it’s no wonder I don’t know what the hell to do or to feel when I’m around someone I am attracted to. And, wow, no wonder I’m attracted to emotionally distant men. My father, a lovely, darling man, is not that open emotionally. Through all of this stuff in the last two years, once in a while we have broached the subject of how I feel but mostly, it’s just the “we want you to be happy” approach to emotion. We have never discussed my depression or my almost-suicide. I don’t think he could. My brother also was extremely distant throughout my life. I think the deepest conversations we had were when he was using me as a hair model and we talked about my moving to LA. That’s about it.

My first husband, while passionate about many things, was not passionate about us. We never talked about our relationship or where we were going or anything like that. We were also so young. He said “I love you”, as required, but never tried to find out how I felt. He belittled my dancing ability, which eventually drove me to quit dancing. He belittled anything I did that made him feel less than.

Ditto with my current ex. “I love you” came frequently to his lips but did not always come frequently to my heart.

So now that I am thinking I would like to have someone in my life, I realize I don’t necessarily know how to approach that. I think my current lesson is learning about boundaries, because I have never been good at setting boundaries with the men in my life. I can say, “what you said hurt me” but I’ve never been good at the kind of confrontational end of that. That hurt me and you need to know and understand that it hurts me and you need to change the way you treat me because I will not tolerate it anymore. I always backed down, I always hesitated to convey the depth of the injury caused.

So now I have to practice what I’ve been learning. I have to learn to set boundaries with the OOMA because things recently have made me feel the way my ex made me feel, to a point. And this is where I get hung up. Do I feel bad because of the way he’s treating me? Do I feel bad because I bring a whole cartload of baggage to this and it’s not him, it’s me, because that’s what I was told for so long – it’s just how YOU feel so don’t feel that way. It’s not that he’s so much treating me badly but it’s that he’s got me at arm’s length again and it reminds me of where my ex kept me for so many years. In his life, but not IN his life. Valid as long as he needed me but not valid when I needed him. I was there when it was convenient but god forbid I should need him to be there for me. And the OOMA is on the receiving end of a lot of confusing emotions from me, some of which he causes, a lot of which I cause for myself.

So, in examining things lately, I realize that this is where I fail on my end of a relationship, because I have never had a lot of success with saying, “hey, what’s going on here? Why are you treating me like this? I don’t like it. Talk to me and tell me what’s going on. It’s okay, whatever you’re feeling, but you need to know and understand that this is how I’m feeling.” Because how I’m feeling has always been negated and never allowed to be accepted as true. I seem to be able to convey these things to the women in my life or to those men who aren’t as close to me as this particular one, which makes sense, I guess.

My work right now is on finding a way to tell him that I’m not happy with being at arm’s length, which doesn’t mean we have to be attached at the hip. I miss him. I miss spending time with him. I need to know if there is something I am doing that is causing him to hold me at a distance. I need to know if our relationship has changed on his end but he hasn’t bothered to inform me of that (men seem to do that – change what they think about a relationship and wait for the woman to put the point on it and then do something about it). This whole scenario terrifies me because my ex would never allow that discussion to go past “well, that’s what you feel, just don’t feel that way.” If I would push the issue, he’d end the discussion with, “I don’t accept that” or, my favorite, “That’s not true so don’t feel that way.” There was never a way to get past that with him and I’m afraid to have my feelings negated by the OOMA. But it’s got to be better than this unknown, unspoken tension between us. I may lose him, and I know that, because he’s not great with confrontation either. But maybe it’ll free something up in both of us. Maybe it’ll get us past this awkwardness and on to whatever the next phase of our friendship is. Maybe it’ll show both of us that open conversation approached with affection and honesty can lead to something better rather than just ignoring a situation and hoping it will go away.

The most important thing is that I need to learn to take care of myself first, acknowledge that something is not making me happy and confront the source of that unhappiness. I need to learn that the core of my feelings are true – I’m hurt by the distance between us, I don’t like being held out here with no explanation – and that the tsunami that these feelings stir up are the “untrue” parts of this whole thing. My challenge is to express the clear true feelings without the waves of other emotions that get tangled up in it. Be clear, be concise and be honest. Sounds simple. Soooo not simple.

We’ll see what happens.

Damn you.

(Warning - if you're a friend of my ex, you don't want to read this.)

Damn you.

Damn you for taking something so precious and so important to me – my jewelry business – and infecting it with your anger and your perception and your criticism.

Damn you for doing such a good job that every time I do a show/sale, like today, it only fills me with dread and worry and panic because nothing I have/do is good enough, despite the fact that people stop me on the street and chase me across stores to find out where I got my jewelry/purse/notebook.

Damn you for filling my boxes of supplies and stock with your negativism, so much so that I almost vomit with anxiety every time I open them up and start working with them.

Damn you for instilling so much doubt in me that even today, 18 months later, I still hear your angry, bitter voice in my head, making me not want to pursue something that is lucrative, creative, and fulfilling.

And damn me for allowing you to do this to me.

Well, today, I am damning you to the past. No matter what happens at this sale today, it has nothing to do with you. I damn your anger, bitterness and criticism to hell, where it belongs. Today is all about me, I will succeed or fail on my own merit. And if today is not successful financially, I’m sure I will find success in damning you into the distance, where you belong. And these events always have success – they always show me that what I do is valuable, even if it’s just to a few people, because those few people are the ones who will help me build a success. I’d rather have five excited customers than 25 unenthusiastic ones.

So, damn you to hell, where you belong, take your shit with you. I don’t need it here anymore.

The woman to be

I am beginning to see the woman I am to become. Something about stability in my life – as much as I will have – that seems to have brought this about. That and the lack of clowns in my head – although I do hear their tin cups banging against the bars, demanding to be let free. Luckily, the bars have held.

What I see is probably not that much different from what I was. Maybe just more defined. Ironically, without having someone in my life to be defined by, I am becoming more defined. There are no expectations except what I put upon myself. No one to answer to except for myself. Sounds great but I can be pretty hard to please.

What I see is the image of a woman done in watercolor or maybe done by Picasso. There are bits and pieces I can make out clearly and see what they are and they are incredible. But there are still bits and pieces that are not so easily seen and could be anything at this point, and they are shadowy and erratic. But without those, the picture wouldn’t make sense.

I see a woman in front of me who is strong, confident, fearless. Someone who doesn’t second guess (well, not too much) and has embraced her strength rather than find excuses to hide it. I see a woman who understands her emotions, doesn’t strangle them and conceal them, but who also knows how to wrangle them and work through them instead of letting her emotions run amuck and create destruction. I see a woman who laughs easily and loudly and doesn’t worry about being too loud. A woman who loves deeply those around her, without hesitation, without over-thinking, without agenda. A woman who understands that, to be whole, you have to be open to being hurt again. A woman who is no longer in hiding, who doesn’t cower, but doesn’t overpower at the same time.

That same woman is also vulnerable and easily wounded. That maybe is not as much of a weakness as it sounds. It means being able to love fully and completely, regardless of the outcome. It does mean pain and sorrow but it also means an incredible amount of feeling and passion. You can’t have one without the other, I don’t think. She trusts maybe a little too easily but it also makes her easy to trust. She is the pillar many others need and, in turn, there are suddenly pillars for her in her times of need.

She is creativity personified. Maybe to a fault sometimes with too many fingers in too many pies but there is such a deep passion and drive for this creativity that it makes up for all else. Embracing that creativity and learning to acknowledge her gift for it allows that passion to be released without qualification and so it becomes true artistry, not something that someone else thinks it should be. It is pure and from the source.

Mostly, I see someone who is unapologetic about who she is, both with good and bad, because we are all made up of both. There is no perfect. There is no right way to be. There is only who I am, with strength and weakness, with power and with fear, with grace and with goofiness. Ying and yang, one and the other.

There is still a long way to go to build this woman I see but I can also see the blocks that are there for this creature. I see it in the eyes of those around me, both my new friends and my cherished older ones. I am so unbelievably blessed to have those eyes around me because, without them, I wouldn’t have begun to see a reflection that mirrors what I see in my mind’s eye. I see the person I have wanted to be for so long reflected back in your eyes, all of you, and it’s astounding. With those reflections, with that love, with that support, I know I am on the right path and that the woman I am meant to be is just waiting around the corner for me to finish discovering.

Truths

Facing some truths today that I don't want to. No big revelation beget it. Just... life, I guess. Growth, maybe. Letting go of some things that have been so precious and so desirous. But sometimes, in the light of day, things are so clear and so without guile that you cannot deny them. But I'm not devastated, so I guess that's good. I'm just... dealing. Hard to put away things sometimes but it's long past time that I did.

Big, bad word.

Abuse is a big word. I always think that it should be written only in capital letters – ABUSE. There should also be a symbol for it, like there is for hazardous material.

Abuse is not a word to throw around. Accusing someone of abuse is very powerful, very dangerous and can be very destructive. Too many people throw the word abuse around because they don’t understand what it means.

Abuse means fear. Living every day of your life in fear. Every encounter with the person who abuses you is infused with that fear. You go to sleep in fear, you wake up in fear. You live, breathe, eat fear. You get so good at it that you don’t even realize that you’re afraid. And if you asked anyone around you, they wouldn’t see the fear. They wouldn’t see the abuse. They might see something is not right but they won’t ever put the word “abuse” to it because the word is that big of a word.

I think every man has the potential to be an abuser. Now, before you start coming after me, let me explain why. Most men are not very in touch with their emotions. Most of them wouldn’t know an emotion if it came up and kicked them in the groin. That lack of connection to that core essence is what makes me believe that most men could easily become abusers. On the flip side, I think most women will, at some time in their life, think that they are being abused because we live so much in that emotional state. Every stupid comment, every little slight can get blown out of proportion to the point that one could think it is abuse.

The difference is fear. If your husband/lover/boyfriend/significant other points to your outfit and says, “You’re not going to wear that, are you?”, he’s an ass. He’s stupid. He’s ignorant of the fact that this simple statement could send you into a crying jag that will last for hours. But you’re not afraid of him. You’re not afraid of what he’s going to do if you don’t change that outfit. You’re not afraid that all night, he’s going to be judging you and at the end of the night, you will receive a very harsh, blow by blow account of what was wrong with the outfit, why you shouldn’t have worn it and, god forbid something goes wrong with the outfit, you will be told in no uncertain terms why that thing went wrong, that it was your fault because you wore said outfit and you’re not going to be stupid enough to do that again, after he’s told you over and over again not to wear that outfit. Then you go to bed, with him being angry because you wore an outfit that you liked and didn’t bend to his will and change. The next morning, he’ll remind you again of what a disaster that outfit was and he will tell you that he hopes you did something about it. Like what, I’m not sure, but you better do something about it.

Abuse is when innocuous things that shouldn’t matter become the focus of every day battery, whether it’s physical or emotional. It’s when dinner becomes the focus of all of your shortcomings. It’s when a dumpster that has not been emptied – and that you can do nothing about – is the jumping off point for a screaming rage attack on you. It’s when, all day, every day, every sentence delivered to you by the person who has your heart is simply a reminder of how pathetic you are and what a failure you are.

It doesn’t sound like much. But it’s like drops of water on cement. Eventually, the cement will give way to the water. If, every time you do some little thing wrong, the person you love responds with “of course you screwed up,” you begin to believe that you are a screw up. When you are consistently on the receiving end of the rage he has been suppressing all day because Target was out of the soap he liked and you didn’t spend the ENTIRE day going from Target to Target to find it, you begin to believe that you are a screw up. When there isn’t enough money to pay the bills and he refuses to participate in any process that will lead to a solution and when he blames you because the bills aren’t being paid, you believe you’re a failure. And that means you don't love him anywhere near as much as he loves you because you are incapable of that.

Abuse is when you find those things that make you happy and fulfilled and complete and the person you love can only find fault with them. It’s when he violently throws your belongings across the room when he’s cleaning but gently picks up and places his belongings safely away. It’s the screaming and yelling and cursing at inanimate objects that are then hurled across the room – but only if they’re yours and not his. It’s when he threatens to take away from you the very things that provide you joy because they are not his. It’s when any moment of pleasure or joy or pride becomes about him and becomes negative and bad and empty because he cannot allow you to have joy/pleasure/pride.

Abuse is being told that your feelings and emotions mean nothing. If you’re angry, just don’t be angry. Oh, I’m sorry, if you’re angry at him and he doesn’t agree with you, then don’t be angry because your anger is wrong. He has done nothing wrong. He never does anything wrong. It’s you, all you, you’re too emotional, you’re too sensitive. You shouldn’t take his screaming in your face about someone’s car blocking the driveway as any sort of attack on you. That’s just you being sensitive. He never disappoints, it’s just you being over-reactive. Just don’t feel, just don’t feel, just don’t feel. Your emotions, your feelings mean absolutely nothing because they do not serve him.

Abuse is when you shut down because the person you love only loves you when you’re shut down. Abuse is when you can no longer feel because that’s the only way to get through the day. Abuse is when he’s happy only when you’re silent.

My ex will never see he was abusive. Many of our friends probably now won’t admit that he was. Because ABUSE is a huge word. To utter it is to admit that it was there. Better to not say it, better to not use it, in case you’re wrong, in case he wasn’t.

I still have trouble saying it. Because I could be wrong. Maybe I was too sensitive. Maybe I was too emotional. Maybe it was my own emotions that drove me into a depression so deep that I almost killed myself. To accuse him of being abusive is hard and harsh and terrible and wrong and painful and uncomfortable.

But he was. And until I can really acknowledge it and get a handle on it, I will still be his victim.

Broken but healing

(Okay, so I miss blogging. Don't expect this to be as regular as previously but I will probably be posting now and again.)

02/14/07

Broken but healing?

I am still broken, wounded, far from completion. The wounds are very deep and not yet scarred over. I am trying to heal based on some unknown timetable – when I “should” be healed. Whose timetable, I don’t know. But I feel the pressure to be fine, to be past the hurt, past the anger, past the tears. I see others around me moving on, finding someone for their life, not necessarily permanent but at least someone. And I stand by the side, thinking, that’s where I “should” be. I “should” have someone by now because others do. I don’t know why I “should”. To be complete? To be “normal”? To be a woman? Yet the reason I left him was to be my own person. Yet I feel compelled to find a man to be in my life to, in a way, define me. Because I don’t know what I am by myself. The dichotomy is feeling the need to be defined by the man in my life and yet fighting that very desire. Do I even know how to be with someone without being defined by them? Am I whole enough, healed enough, to be just who I am with someone else? Will I ever be?

I’m not sure how to go about healing. Is moving beyond anger where I need to be? How do I get there? I know I need to get past comparing every new situation to what it would have been with him there. I’m tackling that one right now. But will I ever heal enough to actually be able to let someone else in?

I understand why my heart lives where it does right now because, in some twisted way, maybe if I can reach him – the great unreachable one – then I can be reached myself. I think he reflects my own fear, my own wounds, back at me. And if I heal his wounds, I heal my own. But that’s where the trouble starts. Then it’s about him and his pain, not me and mine. It’s about making him whole first, then we’ll get around to me eventually. It’s about focusing on his needs rather than my own. I guess what I don’t know is whether or not we can heal each other together, not one sacrificing so that the other becomes whole. Can two wounded souls heal each other or is that just co-dependency in its finest form? Can I let him go, decide he’s not going to be that part of my life – whether by his choice, by my choice or by the universe’s choice – and move past him while I’m at it?

Can I be whole, complete and healed without someone in my life is what it comes down to, I guess. There are days when I feel that power, that completeness, and I know and understand my world. Then there are the rest of the days, where I am lost, seeking, grasping, hoping something or someone will save me.

And on this day of hearts and flowers and love, I am torn. Appreciative and grateful for this life I have created because it is truly mine, with all its glories and its blemishes. Wistful for the best of my past life because there was good there once. Longing for someone to fill in the holes in my life and help me find the next step I must take. Yet glad that there isn’t that smothering, controlling, unyielding hand that threatened my very existence. Missing someone I don’t have and not even sure if I want him or just want the thought of him.

Leaving me where? Thinking, looking, seeking an answer that Cupid and his bow and arrow cannot supply.

Only I can.

Just passing through...

Lately, I seem to feel like I have to apologize to people for many things. For not finishing the film yet, for not launching my jewelry site again, for not being there for them personally (that one I WILL apologize for), for many, many things. However, I once again find myself under the influence of the feisty full moon and just want to say, for the record, I’m not sorry. There’s a terrific female duo out of Northern California called Antara and Delilah that have a great song called "I’m Not Sorry" and that’s running through my head right now. Here’s the list of things I am not sorry for:

1. I am not sorry that my emotions tend to get carried away and bury me. Yes, maybe I should have better control of them, but you spend almost your entire adult life and a third of your entire life being emotionally battered and then tell me you can recover in a year and a half. I’ve been beaten, I’ve been abused. I’m not going to get over it. Deal with it. It took him 15 years to almost kill me, it’s going to take me a little while to put it in perspective.

2. I am not sorry the film is not done. In the 10 months since we started shooting, I’ve moved twice, dealt with serious health issues with my father, am dealing with moving in with my parents and watching my father basically die, am dealing with the effects of my marriage (see point #1 above). You’re lucky it’s as done as it is. It will get done. Just let me do it in my time.

3. I’m not sorry I fell in love with you. I’m sorry you can’t/won’t/don’t choose to see it or do anything about it. I’m sorry you feel the need to keep me close but on your terms. I’m sorry you’re jealous when someone else intrudes on your territory. I’m sorry that you can’t let me in. And I’m sorry that you’re going to turn around very soon and see that I am not there. But I won’t be sorry for walking away because I did love you, I gave you every chance and it was your choice to let me walk away. At least I learned I could love again. I am sorry that you won’t be the one to get that love. Sorry that you couldn’t do it.

4. I’m not sorry that I’m pissed off at you. You beat me within an inch of my life and left me to die. Fuck you. I will never get past it. And those of you who think I should get past it, fuck you, too. I won’t. I can forgive you, I can understand why you’re the bastard that you are. I can appreciate that you don’t see what you did. But fuck you anyway.

5. I am not sorry that I am complicated. I love that Anna said at breakfast yesterday that she and I are “too complex” for internet dating. Yes, we are. Let’s embrace our complexity and quit apologizing for it.

6. I am not sorry I chose to move in with my parents. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I’m not sure how I’ll get through it. But it was the right choice and it was the right thing.

7. I’m not sorry I stopped this blog. I needed to turn my eyes inward. It was so difficult, so painful, so overwhelming not to have this forum to spew forth all of my guts. But I needed to not spew for a while so I could deal with the things I didn’t want to face. And I’ve done that. And I think I’m ready to face the world again, clearer, smarter, not completely healed but at least bandaged.

8. I’m not sorry that I probably won’t post again here for a long time. I may return occasionally when I have something to share or to spew. I do miss you all and your supportive comments. I do continue to follow your lives, although it may be somewhat more silently than previously.

I think that’s it for now. Just felt that I needed to get that off my chest and share it with the universe.

There. I’m done. I’ll talk to you all again some time. Take care of each other.

Wraith of Love

Yeah, yeah, I know. Just click..



Also, check out the trailer for "Cinderella Drives A Pick-Up".