Perceived Value

I was mad at him, at first. I thought he had sabotaged any chance I had at love with his letters and his promises and his offers of perfect romance. I thought it was unfair of him to interrupt my relationships by telling me he had more to offer. The boys always got mad, too. They would say, "he's confusing you, he's making me look bad," and various other excuses for everything they lacked. He understood my delight, however, when the item I purchased turned out to have an even smaller package within it. I remarked that I'd been had; I perceived a high value and bought something with more humble contents than I had suspected, but clever marketing intrigues me and I was even more satisfied with a meager amount than if I had received my money's worth. Somehow, by discovering what was inside, its value increased. Last night, the sun didn't want to set. He swithched chairs to block the light from my eyes so that I could look at him directly when he said, "You deserve someone who loves every awful, annoying thing about you." As it turns out, there is no substitute for love. To love a person, a thing, an idea, is to cherish and value its every part - the shiny outside and the bruised inside, as well.

It’s Like This:

We work, endlessly, to be the ones who discover the next break through innovation. We study trends, we worship products, we eat sleep and dream materials, directions and things - things which mean nothing - in effort to assist those who will receive credit for our work.

Tonight, she sat on my couch and candidly explained how she'll never work 9-5. She said she wants plenty of time for herself - and she said he understands this. She has a man who is willing to support these fantasies. She mentioned how she enjoys getting a paycheck, but how she really wants to raise a dog and run errands and take yoga classes. I choked up a little wine back into my cup as she talked, and I realized that this is what she has worked for. She passed her cotillion classes with flying colors, she highlights her hair, she diets and reflects perfection so that she can have the life millions of women have fought to overcome.

And somehow, as she spoke, her bangs fell over her perfect face, and she - the image of beauty and grace - ignited such rage and envy inside of me. 

I am the woman I always wanted to be. And now, I don't want to be her.

I pitied my mother, with her matrimonial duties and maternal responsibilities; I always thought she had traded a more meaningful life for something less significant. I thought that she had lost her identity when she allowed a man to be the primary source of income. I thought that by being a stay-at-home mom, she lost all dignity and all self-respect. I thought, "i will never be like her."

And on nights like these, I bite my tongue.

I was twenty minutes late for a meeting I was too busy to attend, but as I scurried into the conference room this afternoon, I overheard the publisher speaking of artists her company publishes. She was talking about how they vacation in Europe for months on end, seeking inspiration. I immediately tuned out this New Jersey publisher and mentally indulged in the life I could have had; I focused on all the inspiration I could find, if I still had the kind of freedom I sacrificed. 

He still stands by his word. And I still stick to my guns.

I have no idea why I - we? he? I? - put us through such torture. But, this is life. And life, after all, is like this.

What we did, when we did the things we wanted to do

He said, "I knew it, but from the minute it began, it was ruined." 

I didn't know that, though. The minute it began, we we like children, lacking the expectations and heavy burdens people our age tend to bring to the table. We laughed. We held hands. And it's probably true that when we said "goodbye," we should have remained only pen-pals.
But unlike children at summer camp, we followed through on our plans to meet again and clung to what could be; if only it would.

He frequently does me the favor of reminding me that his intentions are every bit as insincere as my own, and in doing so, he paints himself into a mirror reflection of every other man I've known. And I am just the same as always.

So he wants me to change; but if I changed, he still wouldn't want me.

We could talk until the sun came up and still resolve nothing.
We could mend all the broken bits, but the glue would not bind.

I guess these are the reasons why, when my favorite author writes words, he says just what I desire and the opposite of what I have.

"Love is looking at a person and knowing for a fact that they will eventually sag, wrinkle, and wreak of rot & spoil... it's looking at someone and knowing that you will fight them and they will fight you... it's foreseeing the unforgiving and tumultuous clash of your respective flaws and egos and knowing that you will, at times, hate this person... it's taking toll of everything you hate in yourself, in the world at large, and in the whole of existence and despite the overwhelming purposelessness of the struggle only being able to face that terrible future through the lens of another person's company. Love is knowing when you're not that person and seeing a truth so unbearable you ignore it and push forward until you burn out like a twittering, hopelessly over-romantic, annoying little candle at the end of its wick and only ever regretting that you have nothing further to throw into the flame."

He made it sound so easy; as if I didn't have to work for it.

But much like children, we only give what we feel we might receive. We hold back but feel ripped off when the other does so. We refer to tiny favors as sacrifices of enormity and we continually think only of ourselves.

And these are the reasons why there is no resemblance of love here.

Because all the poet's claims are true. And the most selfish part of me wants to cup my hands and hold them out, asking him to please fill them with the sweetest, most pure thing that I so desperately want, but so tragically will never reciprocate. I tried explaining this, that it will never be equal, that I will never deserve it. 

But he said, "Love's not about deserving something. It's about giving it out, even when it's not deserved."

Fighting. Kicking. Screaming.

I stopped for a split second to watch the tide roll in and wait for the lamest tears ever to make their escape. Whenever I blink, my wet eyelashes rub against the lenses of my glasses and they get all smudgey and then I'm like the sweaty ten year old with dirty nerd glasses and a koolaid mustache...only, minus the mustache, I guess.

So I was blinking and looking around and my lack of night vision paired with the bright lights and dark sky and my dirty glasses made my eyes sting and I said aloud, "so, who am I?" It was a question I've avoided for the past few months and I realized I was finally able to breathe again after having asked it. I'm not sure how people can journey through an entire lifetime without stopping continually to question their existence.

If the stars were not set in the sky to light the path along which I traverse, then why? And if my very being is just a coincidence then I should immediately ingest the contents of my medicine cabinet before sleep, because death alone would be sweeter than a life which lacks purpose.

If my days are meant for getting ahead, for hating anyone, for greed and apathy and characteristics most natural to me, then it would better if I never was.

If the beliefs of one differ so extremely from those of another, then the chasm driven by such differences will inevitably only grow.

But if he ties a rope around his waist, and I around mine and we fight for it then we might slow the tearing apart and have some kind of a bridge. But a bridge doesn't do much good when there isn't anyone willing to cross it.

And if one such merger were right, then it would feel right.


Right or wrong, I fight and I kick and I scream and I tell myself, "I will soul-search tomorrow, not today."

Everything but that which I seek most

I was digging through my clean laundry this morning searching for one item, and I must have handled every sock and undergarment fifteen times without ever seeing the purple embroidered object of my affection. This missing link led to an entire ensemble change at 8:12 a.m., which kind of set the course for an odd day. 

I got in my car and forgot I had put that c.d. in the disc changer earlier in the week, so the first words I heard were perhaps the most honest, albeit unwelcome. "I will be your best memory, the one that you won't forget; I will be your haunting. As good as it gets, I'll be gone through the door. You'll be lucky if you get third best – you'll be a begger but not a chooser." I don't know if I'm haunted by things of my past per say, but I'm certain it is in my nature to remember things a little rosier than they were and long for things that will never be mine. 

Again and again. The scenery is new each time, but the situation remains the same, as I am the culprit of my own frustration. "Be still. Cease striving." The words are embedded in me. "Give up your backseat driving; rest in the passenger's seat."

I am the horrendous, shrieking, tantrum-throwing two year old in the candy store. What I want is sticky and sweet; the sugar will rot my teeth and cause my glucose levels to soar. It will not gratify my hunger, and I will be far worse off having it than if I had been content.

It's apparent, to me, the cause of my dissatisfaction, but I find myself too stubborn to budge. When I'm working, I want to be home painting and when I'm painting, I want to be out running and when I'm running, I want to be laying on the beach, and on the beach, I want to be writing music . . . and so on.

She said that I will never find what I'm searching for in the places I'm looking for it. She referred to this as "the ultimate elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," and I will never say it better. It seems that amidst all my searching, digging, rifling, prodding, kicking, screaming, clawing and gasping, I find everything but that which I seek most

Spaceships and Chickens

We must have been in an upscale furniture store, that morning in '87. I remember the way the après-midi sunlight melted in through big picture windows and made everything look a little shinier – a little more forbidden. "You can look, Claire," my mother whispered, "but you cannot touch anything."

I'm not sure if the restriction to touch made everything a bit more appealing to me, but I know that I wanted nothing more than to scale the pillow top mountains and rescue ugly tchotchkes and porcelain bookends from display shelves. Any decorative elephant or eucalyptus twig I could gather would only survive the tumultuous lava flowing through the store's showroom if they joined me atop a couch cushion. "But," she had warned, "you cannot touch anything." 

So I stood by my mother's side as she looked around and buried my face in her legs when some balding salesman offered me a lollipop. 

I was better off with my eyes closed. They were closed a lot in those days. One morning that same year, I woke up screaming when I couldn't force my eyelids apart. It took both of my parents to calm me down and assure me that the doctor said I wasn't blind – that I would see again by the end of the day. I remember the hours I spent in the dark and how it was difficult to be in the sunlight after that. 

That's why, when I was instructed "look, but don't touch," it hurt me. I could have dealt better with "touch, but don't look," as it was in my very nature to touch things. The less I could understand with my eyes, the more I read with my chubby little hands. Feeling, to me, became a way of seeing. The more I desired something, the greater my urge to touch it became. As if to somehow partake in the beauty of well-designed things, I could run my hand along flocked pillows and silk curtains and hand-carved wardrobes and understand them a little more – see them a bit more clearly. 

I still touch the things I want most. I still see things a little differently than other people. 

I fell back into the grass that morning and welcomed the blinding sun to prevent me from seeing. I commented on the spaceships and chickens that were all around us in the park, but he didn't seem to notice. I could feel the heat on my skin and the damp ground beneath me, but I knew to keep my hands to myself. He had told me before that by touching him, I made it hard for him to breathe. I wondered if he knew that for those of us who don't see well, touching is sort of a life support system, an ability which - when without - we cannot breathe at all. I wondered that morning if there are some differences too great to overlook. I wondered if among the two of us, someone would always be choking.

when pretending is easier than the alternative

I was in a classroom full of boys in the fifth grade. Boys that age pretend to have quite the distaste for anything resembling femininity. Day after day, they talked about baseball, the Hardy Boys, politics and dissecting animals; and day after day I swore off dolls and pastels to find interest in the topics they discussed. Had I known that our differences were intended by design, I might be a different person today. I can't help but think that by declaring my independence from girlishness, I became dependent upon a façade and estranged from the person I was meant to be.

He was the closest thing to family I had, so I ran with.
Running, I got lost along the way; I thought I could handle it.
But handling each other turned into something, and something in turn became of nothing.
Nothing can change the words that were exchanged.

He said, "we won't make it," because I'm far too independent.
And I said, "I won't hate you," and you know – you know I meant it.

So. I said, "why don't you take a seat and let me explain.
Every lover says what you're saying."
He said, "if none of this is new, the common factor must be you.
You can be the change I seek."

Then I said, "we won't make it, because I'm far too independent.
And I know I will soon forget you; but you won't have the same luck I do."

It was Saturday when all this went down. Or, when I meant for it to go down. The problem seems to be we never really say what we mean to say. It's like the truth continues to haunt us, floating in and out of our conversations while threatening to silently tear us apart.

I told her how I continually watch every man turn from a charming suitor to a defenseless waste of testosterone, and she didn't have to say it for me to know that I'm the cause of this emasculation. They all say the same thing: I create these messes.

So she gave me a pep talk about letting a man be a man and acting more like a girl, but I kept thinking about how guilty it makes me feel when I don't pay. She said it should be a man's role to do the manly things, and I kept thinking of how I've never even met a guy who seems to have any of this figured out. Just as we concluded that the common factor among these mousey men is, in fact, me, I asked her if she thought that perhaps they are the ones lacking a backbone in the first place. 

The irony is that I am what I am out of love – not spite; but somehow I manage to paint the same face on each one anyway. 
I'm pretty sure I loved him. Why else would I have traded a style magazine for a comic book? I wanted him to love me, too. But we were only ten years old.

I said, "I'm trying to be what you want." And saying it out loud this morning, I was admitting to myself for the first time that I've been lying all along. The very thing that drew him in is the false impression he's grown to dislike; and it seems he lacks the interest to see what's really there anyway.

If I had sat in the shade making friendship bracelets like the other girls, I probably wouldn't know how to play kickball; sadly, it's a skill I never wanted to begin with.

"...look me in the heart and unbreak the broken; it won’t happen"

I heard something said about crystal: they said that its fragility in no way indicates its weakness. They said the fact that it is frail implies rareness and beauty and that is what makes it strong.

Once it was revealed that he never saw anything frail about it, I began to wonder: if he had known to tend to things with care, would he have bothered? Or might something fragile have been too delicate for him to handle?

Those things most rare and desirable are frail things, made strong by the respect they command from their surroundings. Left alone, they hold more value than when they are mishandled; but their true worth is fully realized when they are held gently.

He said, "You aren’t a side dish, much less parsley - you should know that. You’re not some measly left-over twig that only exists for aesthetic value, and you do not owe your worth to whatever is on the plate beside you." I wondered how a million conversations with one person left me feeling like rubbish, while a few moments with another could change my entire outlook. 

Rare and frail things will crumble in the wrong hands for lack of being made to feel strong. "What you need," he said, "is someone who knows how to hold you."

Ice Cream Soup

It was a really cheesy pop song. I always know something is wrong when mainstream music begins speaking to me. "My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation; and I think that I should let go, but I can’t." A foundation - chiefly a very recently-laid foundation - should have no cracks. In the event that weather or some stronger force should damage so deeply that one’s foundation is shaken, action must be taken immediately. Sometimes, the damage is slight enough that it can be undone; other times not. But a glue stick and the strength of a girl’s small hands are not nearly sufficient; and though such tactics as painting over the rough spots and sealing together chasms with safety pins seem worthwhile, a rocky foundation will almost inevitably give way to failure in the end. Perhaps this is why we are warned against building houses upon sand. 

If we didn’t have Neapolitan (our favorite), it was vanilla with chocolate sauce; but regardless of the flavor, we knew the key to unlocking the most satisfying means of ice cream consumption was as follows: you put it in a bowl, leave it alone for 3 - 4 minutes until it is about 15% liquid, then stir it around (but not too much) until it has the consistency of a thick paste; and then you eat it. 

Ice cream soup isn’t something one buys at the convenience store. If that happens, it is certain to be returned. What makes it wonderful is the fact it that begins as something good, and in time becomes something better. The only problem with the idea of ice cream soup arises within those consumers who believe in a perfected product, pre-purchase. 

There was a boy once who had such wild fantasies about the product he was after that he entered an ice cream shop and requested that his order be melted. Unfortunately, the boy was disappointed when he discovered it couldn’t be properly re-frozen. He had been so consumed with a perfected end result, that he never had the opportunity to enjoy the breaking-in, the comfort, the familiarity of the relationship process. He didn’t know that something wonderful is meant to become something more wonderful, more refined with age. In the process, he eagerly pursued a fantasy, which turned out to be . . . human. 

I wasn’t thinking of any of this last night, but that’s probably because these weren’t things I wanted to think about. When he said "I can’t wait to talk to you!" I wasn’t expecting the talk to be him telling me that I’m a better concept than reality and his attraction to me had plummeted. I wasn’t expecting to hear that, because I had convinced myself that our foundation was strong enough.

I am still every bit as big of an advocate of the old "save the best for last" motto that I was as a seven-year-old ice cream soup connoisseur. I still believe that good things get better and that strong things rely on the strength of a stronger foundation during storms. 

But maybe that’s because I’m really immature.

Rocks, Gravel, and/or Pebbles.

Image evoking terms often provide in our minds the poorest representation of their actuality. When he said "rock bottom," I imagined something similar to the blue pebbled floor of an aquarium. In my mind, I could see him floating gracefully down, encompassed by bubbles and the peaceful hum of the fish tank's cleaning system. When he got to the bottom, I imagined, a few blue pebbles scattered about, and the impact had the severity of a toddler dropping to his derriere on the plush carpet. 

We aren't babies, though, and our relative density on earth is much greater than that of an object, sinking in water. When a force greater than gravity grips a man from a height higher than a foot or two and sends him plummeting toward the depths, the man contains about as much grace as a caravan of elephants whose step is lost on a narrow staircase. The journey involved in "hitting rock bottom" is loud and clumsy; it is painful for every observer, but far more painful for those who somehow get tangled in the mess. 

I didn't know what the bottom felt like, but I wondered as I staggered along middle ground. Anytime I fell and skinned my hands on the gravel or forgot where I was going, i would run up the stairs to his old apartment and bury my head in his chest. I became so dependent on the knowledge that I had a shoulder to cry on, that I stopped taking responsibility for things. I could dig my fingernails into his shoulder and whine without saying words, and things would feel better; because suppression was the key to what was, I felt, emotional stability. It wasn't the solutions he offered that caused my tears to dry, but the fact that he was there. 

Our relationship became, to me, a less intimidating approach to life. Two was somehow easier than one. Later we agreed that we had both gotten what we were after: I had someone to lean on when I was doing poorly, and he was allowed to be a hero; I was a mute, so he never had to bother with listening; I wanted someone to blame for my mistakes, and he was willing to take the blame. Three dysfunctional years into it, we could both see that we had either martyred ourselves or slaughtered one another. 

So, letting go - that was the easy part. I walked away with a spring in my step and all was well until I hit a bump in the road. I tumbled down, my arms flailing, and I grappled for something secure to sink my fingernails into. Whatever I could latch onto would become my tower, and all the nicks and bruises along the way would be without explanation. 

I think about how many times since then that I have attempted to bury uncertainties under the shadow of a man, finding comfort in the idea that another's presence could fill in the gaps and paint over everything that is wrong with me. I often wonder if this is why we choose to become a pair in the first place - the attraction having less to do with affection and more to do with each person's ability to outshine the other's dull spots.

When he talked about hitting rock bottom, I could hear the vulnerability in his voice. It was the lowest of the low, the most exposed and painful of places - yet it was the starting point for his journey home. When he was down there, he came face-to-face with everything he had hidden. It was terrifying to face his fears and admit such defeat, but it marked an unforgettable point in which he saw himself for what he was really worth.

He was without influence, without substance, without grey areas. Though nearly worthless and violently worn, he realized down there who he was and that became the foundation for what he is now.

Whatever it was that shook him so hard he finally fell, I have yet to find; but as I cried myself to sleep last night, I could see an image of myself, dangling over a pit - my claws were buried in some stronghold, my face was pressed into the shoulder of some unsuspecting victim.

What was worse than the image of myself clinging to what I don't own for answers and support, was the confirmation in my dreams, telling me that as long as I am holding on, I am, by definition, another person. Until I let go, I am relying on his influence. 

I said I wanted a suggestion. I was frustrated. And then, I was in bed, admitting to my absolute confusion, when I realized my source of sanity will forever be a dead end until I let go.

uh...happily ever after, the end?

I developed a bad habit in middle school.

Any time I failed a test, got embarrassed or just wanted to check out of reality, I called my mom (who thought she was doing me a favor by tending to her supposedly 'ill' child), and she would rescue me from the depressingly tan walls and mold-infested restrooms of Douglas MacArthur Junior High School. 

Unexcused absences weren't as much of an issue in those times as they are now, so I spent the majority of my eighth and ninth grade days, catching up on science homework over rounds of penicillin at the kitchen counter. 

Moving into high school, it was the same story: unless I had a tennis match or a really thrilling art project to work on that day, I saw no point in being there. I could legitimately pull almost any ailment from my library of medical excuses, and I exercised this ability regularly. In college, I offered no reason for my absences, but my instructors repeatedly warned me against such slacking.

Even at my last dead-end design job, I had the liberty to take days off. Excuses involved "research," "creative exercise," "beauty therapy," "the flu" (or whatever illness I could conjure), and so on. There was no record of missed days. There was no pressure to schedule a day off two weeks in advance.

Now, I have five sick days per year and I think I've already used two of them. The questions increase with age. Is this what life is? Eat, Sleep, Work? Is that all? Is a job - is MY job - meant to be taken so seriously? 

I have trouble adjusting to the idea that a career defines me and infinitely more trouble understanding the concept that life is 70% work and 30% paid vacation, holidays and weekends. When I was in school, I worked double the hours but never felt so isolated and enslaved to any job. I never thought as much about quitting as I do now.

According to an article on Yahoo two days ago, U.S. citizens work more hours than citizens of any other nation. (I suppose such statistics exclude slave and child laborers.) My qualm, however, is not with being overworked, but with this societal conviction that one's worth should be calculated into a job title. 

Job shmob. I want to have a party. Or go to the park and draw pictures of dead trees. Or something.

Every day is a better day, when given the opportunity to smile.

We took advantage of the reduced price Valentines Day candy, as usual. Last night, I opened the box, selected a chocolate, took a bite and spit it back out - then I repeated the process about three times. They giggled that they had already eaten all the good ones and left the nasty orange and yellow filled ones for some lucky gambler. I threw the box of spit-covered, half-chewed candy into the trash and then the four of us sat on the kitchen floor and laughed until we cried.

I was right when I once determined that working is only justified by the fun I can have on the extra amount of money that doesn't count toward bills. Perhaps the real problem here is that I'm not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of adult life. I don't understand why being an adult has to be so boring. Is there nothing to look forward to?

Yesterday, he said, "I want to run away with you." He was probably kidding - making light of my never-ending search and constantly revolving plans to find the perfect locale and escape to it - but it was the first time I'd heard that sort of thing in years. Someone was actually encouraging my childishness, as opposed to admonishing me for being unrealistic - even if he didn't mean it.

Every time my dad gives me the evil eye for talking negatively about my work environment, I remember how dumb I am. It isn't that I can't hold a job; it's that I'd rather be willfully cleaning toilets in Peru than wasting my life away, doing nothing, here. Still, there is a constant war in my mind between what ought to be right and what I believe to be right, and I can't decide if I should suck it up and be a boring adult forever or live free and reap the consequences of a less-stable lifestyle. 

Are there only two options? 

A sleazy salesman came into the office today, carrying a briefcase and passing out very chic business cards (cards designed by some underpaid employee, no doubt). He said my name about ten times, insisting we had met previously, but I didn't remember. All sales men look exactly the same. Double chins, gummy smiles, receding hairlines. As he rambled on about whatever he was selling, I considered the notion that he has likely been a salesmen his entire life. Hell-bent on taking the opposite route of his divorced, alcoholic father, he married young, sold door-to-door beginning at age nineteen, and never looked back. His plump wife sings in the church choir, his kids are brats, they drive to the Florida panhandle for a vacation once a year. I'll pass.

Then I thought about the recently fired, middle-aged receptionist. She was doing what she could to get by on her high school education while raising six kids when she was fired for lacking the experience of a "career receptionist." I thought about how that could be me: the washed up, wannabe musician who couldn't stick to one boring career path early in life. She was too free-spirited to settle down, so she bounced from temp job to temp job until she was forty years old and still making six dollars an hour. She missed a lot of days before she got the can. That picture does not give me thrills, either.

There is no moral to this story.

"Settle: To accept in spite of incomplete satisfaction"

The reflection of the sun off of wet streets and parking lots was blinding that morning two weeks ago. It had been extra humid when I awoke, so I was drowsy and still dreaming a little bit on the drive. As I struggled to keep my eyes open and concentrated on fabricating another excuse for why I was late (again), the unseasonably hot air and meaningless background music transported me, temporarily, to another place. It was an odd mix of nostalgia: sadness for what is no longer, mingled with happiness that I have, at least, a memory of that place.

That autumn, when I returned from Bretagne, she could sense my struggle and made me promise her that I wouldn't let the knowledge of that place become a haven more familiar in my mind than my own home. She instructed me to remember it fondly, but not allow France to become the standard against which I gauged the rest of the world - as my current locale would never compare. 

A few months earlier, she had overcome similar fears but had no one to confide in. She said the journey to self-discovery is shadowed by fear and disappointment as one sees the world, reestablishes 'home' and decides daily to be freed and not oppressed by the knowledge of both self and others. I scribbled her words in the front of my journal and joined a band to channel some of that energy, but the habits I collected on my journey home made my voice hoarse. I was screaming into my pillow every night to block out the new voices. I was looking for a place to lay my head, because with my eyes open I could see things that had not been there before. As if victim to some hallucinogenic substance, I was able to experience more of life than I had in the previous years - and that ability, that experience, opened up the door to a world of dissatisfaction.

The last time I can remember feeling so alive, as if things made sense and I was exactly where I wanted to be, was the day we sat outside drinking gingerbread lattes with our English friends. It might have had something to do with the malapropos responsibility I had avoided in order to indulge in one such afternoon, but I felt free. I couldn't see the sun setting behind a sky full of charcoal colored clouds, but I knew the sun was setting. I knew what time it was, and I liked how it didn't matter. Christmas lights on timers awoke in the trees around us and, occasionally, a large drop of rain would fall on the shoulder of someone's sweater. We were laughing. The sky grew dark. We ordered more coffee.

The antithesis of moments like those occur often in months such as January and February. With little to look forward to and an overwhelming dread of many more weeks of grey skies, grey fields, dead trees and not-quite-cold-enough-to-freeze-the-streets weather, I find myself waking up a little less joyful and crawling into bed a little more sad.

I find every day a little more unsettling than the last.

On Saturdays, my desire to sleep in is often spoiled by associations with laziness and the socially ingrained idea that productivity = happiness. When I shake off those ghosts from my past and sleep late anyway, I wake up feeling worse than I would if I were greatly fatigued, because the guilt of self-indulgence enters my conscience the moment I open my eyes, leading to an even LESS productive day full of self-loathing.

But on mornings like the day we had tornadoes, with nearly eighty degree weather and the secret hope that my missing trait of punctuality might sabotage my career and be the very thing that frees me to live my life, I am reminded of how it feels to be at peace. I remember that that sense of elevation would not be known if I lacked the sometimes misdiagnosed element of sadness, discontent, depression. 

It was 1987. I was probably wearing a jumper with that navy cardigan and penny loafers. It couldn't have been later than three or four in the afternoon, but it seemed so dark as I turned the corner of the staircase. There were seventeen steps in all. I stopped in the middle of my descent to the living room and tried swallowing the lump in my esophagus. It hurt. Everything hurt, from the inside out. I felt empty, guilty, sad - and I drew immediate explanations from my personal four-year-old life as to why I was suffering for no apparent reason. The majority of my life, I have continued to search for the cause when things become inexplicably dark; often, my search propels me to dig up some unconfessed sin, that I might be released, and when the excavation finds nothing worthy of such oppression, I feel as if I have not searched hard enough.

I wonder in these dark times, "what is it that I am looking for?"

And there are other times when, without explanation, my happy emotions will so contrast the sad ones that I wonder how I could have ever been so low. We were leaning against a stone wall at the metro station, waiting, and I couldn't stop smiling and I thought, "if this is what life is, I haven't been living." I don't think he knew the way he lifted me, but I didn't bother explaining; and as we took our seats inside the weathered train car, he mentioned insecurity being his only issue. I thought, "he has no idea," and clenched my jaw in anticipation of days without sun, days when my own worthlessness will rain so heavily that he might get wet, too.

The relentless highs and lows that grip and stretch and fling me effect not only me, but overflow into my relationships. I was inadvertently reminded again that night that a person cannot know me without knowing both extremes: he told me that the eminence of being my friend is no parallel to the sheer agony therein, and that it has to end.

That was when the storm began. The day, which began unreasonably sunny and warm turned cold, icy. As soon as the hail stopped, the tornado sirens began, but he went out in it anyway. I sat alone on my couch, wanting to cry - wanting somehow for my emotions to come tumbling out as tumultuously as his. The weather was mocking me. Lighting. Thunder. Storms. I think I felt worse for not feeling bad enough than for ruining another friendship. I knew I had the emotions in there, somewhere. I tried to dig them up, but continued to feel so unsettled.

Last night, in two different conversations, they tried offering various explanations. One said, "This is your defense mechanism," and comforted me in the idea that I'm perhaps not so abnormal. The other related, saying, "it isn't that things are wrong - things just don't feel right. I'm unsettled, too."

This morning, I overslept (again). There was a sharp pain in both eyes as I battled my eyelids in the fight to force light into my pupils. The sun was shining in through my sheer curtain the way it shines in the summer - warm and abrasive. Before cursing at my faulty alarm clock or grumbling at the sun for being too bright, I made one decision. 

It is the inability to settle which drives me in life. In fact, the times I feel unsettled are the times when I am, indeed, settling. At approximately 7:21 a.m., I realized that the things which will add to the quality of my life are not the things my parents and peers deem important. Someone else - maybe someone more content with the comfort of 8-5 and the consistency of a routine - that person is a better fit for this life. For nearly twenty years, I have realized the importance of viewing life as a terminally ill cancer patient would (although I have never been a terminally ill cancer patient): time is running out.

Sometimes, I think, my heart beats faster than it should. I pick at my cuticles and my right leg shakes. I clench my jaw, grind my teeth, forget to breathe - I am anxious, not because I'm discontent, but because being settled in just doesn't feel right. Actually, the big fluffy couch makes my back hurt, and I'd rather be sitting in a plastic airport chair in some third world country. I like to keep my shoes on and a bag packed, just in case. Empty water bottles make me nervous and every time I hang another picture on the wall and feel more moved-in, I find that settling is the most unsettling thing I can do.

Pardon, Absolve, Forgive.

She said that the one positive aspect of having endured an abusive relationship is the fact that, once you find someone stable, you will cherish and respect that person for the rest of your life. Although I agree it's true that appreciation is a learned action - one that stems from the knowledge that things could be much worse, I believe there is a fair measure of baggage which accompanies the ability to appreciate. 

I didn't want to be an angry woman. I never had any reason to be. My memory is so poor that I forget to stay mad. I'm naive enough to forgive a million times, and nothing in my life has been too far outside the realm of stability. That is, until a year ago today. 

The details are a little cloudy, but the emotions are so vivid. I had a broken foot. It was cold, so that made it hurt more. I was at the big home furnishings market in Atlanta with some colleagues who wished I was just a little more southern like them, with a big mouth full of country slang and a chintzy decorating style. 

It had been about three weeks since I ended what never should have begun; but unbeknownst to me, it wasn't actually over. I found an empty stairwell and sat on the cold concrete for hours, trying to make sense of the preceding weeks. I had such resolve to do better, but a dark and unfamiliar force was drawing me back and eventually my own will was defeated.

Thinking of that today, I feel ill. But it's been a year now. I can and will be stronger. There are a lot of things that I thought I had let go of a long time ago, but now that I look back, I've found I have to reopen the wounds in order to understand where the scars came from. And then, they can be erased.


It was November.

I had almost fully recovered from the previous year and spent the preceding months making necessary changes – changes for the better. The promise of impending adulthood and right living set me straight; and for the first time in years, I was sincerely at peace. During the summer, I danced my last dance with immaturity and recklessness. I decided in August that it was time to set aside my childish ways, particularly in the realm of dating relationships. So as the months grew colder, I adopted a bedtime. I made new commitments to be more like my mother and less like the world. I grew up. I welcomed change. I turned down dates I might have otherwise accepted. I knew that I was yet to meet a man who was what I considered good enough and whose standards were high enough that the qualities I was developing were the qualities he was looking for.


Even though I had thought since an early age that I would more than likely live my life alone, that never cleared my desire for a companion. A companion is one whose understanding of his partner goes beyond a friendship; he is one whose presence adds to life and makes it fuller. That's what I wanted. A year before in Finland, I realized that I could go anywhere and do anything; but I wanted someone by my side. 


By November, I was ready to find that someone.

I wanted to be committed.

I wanted to brush aside all other options.

I wanted to love someone in a way I never had – without reservation, without fear. I was ready to give everything – all of my heart – to the person who would appreciate it the most; and now looking back, that kind of vulnerability is what caused me to be drastically wrong.


But from our first conversation, I was at fault. I hadn't anticipated making friends that day. But when I met him, I thought that because of the circumstances – because I thought I was mature enough do things the right way this time, because I was reading into signs and I mistook a casual meeting for something else – I thought that it was meant to be.


I was ready and willing to force it into being.


For an entire week, I couldn't concentrate. In conversations, I would drift off, thinking of him, of the possibility of us. I was so full of hope and anticipation that the week between meeting him and seeing him again felt like eternity. 

When I saw him on Friday, it seemed so perfect and so innocent. I wasn't able to allow the idea that this might not work to come into my mind. I was more excited than I had ever been about an opportunity; and maybe that's why, when I was disappointed, it hurt so much. No measure of sobbing, of explaining could make him understand why what he did was wrong, so I said, "he has no way of knowing what my expectations are. He had no way of knowing I would be so let down."

But I knew why I was let down. That should have been all I needed to know to see that any woman he encounters will probably spend the rest of her life in therapy after falling prey to his tactics. It seemed easier at that point to avoid confronting the issue, but if for one moment I had been honest with myself, I might have been able to reclaim a year of my life. I assumed that because things were good the first day, they would get better. 


But I was wrong. Things got worse. His approach was rough. He was demeaning. I didn't know what was happening as my self-worth plummeted toward extinction; and every time he touched me out of anger, I hated myself more. Every time told me I had no value, every time he pulled my hair, every time I lied to cover his tracks, I was a little more likely to believe that I really am as ugly as he said. At no time in my life have I felt more disrespected than when I broke vows I'd made to myself in order to be humiliated beyond words.


I was used to men being gentle with me; I didn't know what to make of someone who made me feel like I was nothing.

It made me crazy.

It almost makes sense for women who have been made to feel worthless their entire lives to allow something like that to continue. But for me, it made no sense. To this day, I cannot believe it was me. And while it seemed I was fighting to keep him around, none of the people who truly did love me could figure out what was wrong. I have an archive of letters and emails from concerned friends, asking where the person they knew had gone, why I wasn't funny anymore, why I didn't stand up straight. Somehow, I convinced myself I wanted him how I found him: possessive, selfish, controlling.

As a result, I was destroyed. 

I'm still working to rebuild that person I was over a year ago.


As much as all of this sounds like the ideal script for a lifetime original movie, it isn't that. It's what I face every time I look in the mirror, every time I feel I've accomplished something, every time I try to trust a man. Now, I look at myself and think, "awesome. I'm nice and screwed up, and I will spend the rest of my life, carrying around baggage and infecting everyone I encounter with this disease of a speckled past."


The reason that I made the recent decision to delve back into these things is because I want to be through with it. I don't want it coming back to haunt me in a day, a week, a year. 

I don't want to be an angry woman. I've never had any reason to be. My memory is so poor that I forget to stay mad. I'm naive enough to forgive a million times, and nothing in my life has been too far outside the realm of stability. That is, until a year ago.

And now, I know that the only ointment if I truly want to forget all those wasted months is to forgive him. I recently admitted to myself that I have no idea how to do this. There is no one-time forgiveness plateau. It isn't a matter of scaling the steeps of repression and achieving a mountain top forgiveness moment. No, forgiving him means that from this point on, I will forgive him every day, renewing - not hatred, but - a kind of love-for-the-unloveable. Each. and. every. day.

I don't want to be an angry woman. I've never had any reason to be.

The fact is, I and the rest of creation have been forgiven. I am the unforgivable, forgiven; the unlovable, loved. Christ was despised in my place; yet someone's slight against me seems completely abhorrable? I am without excuse.

The fact is, I've been the wicked servant, forgiven of my enormous debt but unwilling to forgive the slightest of offenses against me. Every time my heart was pricked, His side was pierced. Every time my emotions were bruised, His body was crushed. My trust was betrayed, but I've never known what it is like for my Father to forsake me.

I do like my mother's outlook on these things. She said that the one positive aspect of having endured an abusive relationship is the fact that, once you find someone stable, you will cherish and respect that person for the rest of your life. She also told me to forgive, as I have been forgiven. She said it is what will prevent me from becoming an angry woman because, after all, I never had any reason to be.

When the Inside of my Mouth Bleeds

It gets bad when the inside of my mouth bleeds. That's how I know I have unresolved issues, but being so efficient at brushing things off, I am often unaware of the fact that anything is even troubling to me until I my anxiety manifests itself in a physical way. 

I am of the 'ignore it and it will go away' school of thought. Among my advocates are procrastinators, suppressors, sluggards, sloths and all-around lazy bastards. My contenders consist of go-getters, self-starters, highly motivated class president types and those who refer to people like myself as a 'waste of talent.'

It gets really exhausting, being this lazy. Even though I deemed 2008 'the year of art,' I've yet to pull myself from this creative void I'm in. I think if I truly wanted a way out, I might look for one rather than wasting away in the dark.

There's a lot I like to blame on January. The very word makes the hair on my arms stand up, indicating that if I weren't so complacent, I could increase my body temperature by moving around. Instead, I am reminded of all the extra sleep I get this time of year, when I'm busy making every effort to avoid all resolutions. 

Highly ambitious people have always told me that if they had my ability, they would be marketing it and making millions. Then, they shake their heads and throw their hands in the air, as if they have any idea what it is like to be out of ideas, or how it feels to hate every second of my existence not spent pushing for greatness. Everyone has the special ability to recognize potential, but I don't think everyone knows how low life can feel in the aftermath of achievement - when all the volatile glory fades and there is nothing to be excited about.

My feet were asleep from sitting on them so long and I was hastily picking bald spots in the carpet and biting the insides of my mouth - anything to avoid crying. He tried to make eye contact, so I clenched my jaw harder, my back molars tearing impressions into the skin inside my cheeks, causing them to bleed salty blood; then I raised my eyebrows, hoping that if I kept my eyes open long enough, any bits of moisture daring to escape my tear ducts would evaporate before they could materialize. 

When he paused from his condescending blah-blah-blahs, my ears began ringing and I realized that if I didn't scream, my eardrums might explode. Just as I jolted forward and flung open my mouth, the temperature in my face rose above boiling point and I began choking in ridiculous, asthmatic gasps of air between sobs. "Do," (sob) "you," (gasp) "think" (sob) "I - I - I," (choke, sob, gasp) "like being this way?"

It wasn't our first conversation like this. He then gave me that look he's so famous for (the one that says, 'you are pathetic'), and softened his voice to a whisper. "So, change." If he were ever any example of the love I want, it was then. Disappointed in this child who could do better, his eyes grew red and he became overwhelmed with compassion, wanting nothing more than to welcome me into his arms.

But when he held me, I didn't hold him back. When he offered his love, I refused it. And now, thinking of all the times I allowed my pride to harden me, I feel not only ashamed but more worthless than before. 

I could do better. I could be better. But I've locked myself in my bedroom to sulk and when I don't come out for dinner, I'll somehow think I'm proving a point.

Someone said I was normal. Someone said everyone experiences this, as if my laziness and self-loathing are not unique to me. Someone else told me I was crazy. He said I'll never be like normal people, and for as many times as I've screwed up, I don't deserve any more chances. Still another voice said all of the above. That voice said that abnormal IS normal, that failure is not absolute, that living is about dying and perseverance though my mania is the only thing that will redeem me.

There was hope in the latter answer. There was something so soft about his stern words: "you are running away," and hope that if I stopped running and tried making peace with my current state, I might be able to write a song again.

We got these bracelets at the county fair - silly, cheap things, given to us by some old man at a philanthropy booth with a ridiculously soft voice. We struggled to hear what he was saying, but it didn't matter, since we knew what he meant. There is a reason I still wear mine. 

When the inside of my mouth bleeds, it's because I've been chewing on it. When I chew the inside of my mouth, it's because I'm avoiding something. When I start to taste the blood, I realize it's gone too far - but that realization alone isn't enough to motivate me to change. 

I took about ten ponytail holders off my wrists this morning before stepping into the shower, and then I realized I'm still wearing that bracelet. There is a reason I bear the name that I do. I think in my quest for open-mindedness and self-worth or fulfillment, I have let so many issues pile up that I've become ashamed of who I am. 

"So, change," he said, and I wanted to contest; but I have no argument.

head + sand = ?

Almost without transition and immediately preceding its newness. a thing, a person, a situation becomes stale, old, familiar. For some more stable people who are deterred by the awkwardness of change, there is great comfort in this. 

But as for me, I inadvertently become bored. My condition is a rather unfortunate one, because as soon as I learn the ins-and-outs of any given job, I desire another, more challenging one. Such inconsistency is not conducive to success in any way. It foreshadows, in fact, failure.

This I know.

So why then, do I continue to say, "...but it's the years, I must confess" as my excuse for commitment paranoia, as if investing years in something were a bad thing?
"It's the thrill of something new," I said. But he looked uncomfortable.
"Er...it's the thought of selling short for what's in front of you," I waved my arms. He shifted.
"Well. It's this - this internal conflict - when you ask me what I'm thinking that i am then subjected to." I was stammering but he was unconvinced.
"Okay," I continued, "you have been a sort of...study - in the subject of my will. I am finding I don't know myself (and thinking I do, still). You will wish you never knew me,"
"No, I won't!" he interjected.
I carried on, "We won't make amends."
But he argued, "Yes, yes we will!"
So, I said, "Let's forget 'the future' until then," and he obliged.

It isn't fair that I drag others down with me. I'm scared to death that I might stick with something, be it a location or a job or a relationship. And then what happens? If I find a city I like, I might never travel elsewhere. If I become established in a career, does that mean I will sacrifice the other things I want to do? Perhaps the most terrifying of these thoughts, though, is that, because I'm not as young as I once was, I might marry someone.

And then there's the idea that I might someday make a decision and follow through. I would like, more than anything, to be grounded; but it's difficult when fear and circumstance and absolute selfishness have me dangling from marionette strings that I'm too cowardly to cut myself free from.

This erratic behavior hurts those around me; sometimes I think I am capricious on purpose, in order to spare those who might otherwise get close to me from getting hurt when I drop into a week or a month or a year of solitude. 

Once, when I was four, I went into a local home furnishings store with my mother and immediately spotted a rack full of brightly-colored plastic dinosaurs at the check out counter. I rationalized that if I asked mom to buy some, she would probably only get me one. I wanted all species, though, not just the purple brontosaurus. In my usual hasty, thoughtless manner, I reached out my chubby little hands and stuffed the pockets of my red London Fog raincoat full of my new, free toys. 

I'm not sure what I was thinking later at home, when I hid them underneath my jacket in the playroom, but my mother-the-sleuth claimed to smell fresh plastic; and when she uncovered my first attempt at larceny, she marched me straight to the store owner's home to return the stolen goods and (gasp!) make me apologize for my wrongdoing. 

For two solid hours, my mother held me as I buried my face in her chest and sobbed, refusing to tell Mrs Duke what I had done. Obviously, she already knew; but it being one of my first real encounters with confrontation, I froze.

I carry that attitude with me today. But forgetting a problem is not the same as dealing with it.

I had read stories about children owning up to their dishonesty and being rewarded for coming clean, so I figured if I eventually mustered up a "s-s-sorry," Mrs. Duke would let me keep the dinosaurs I stole. This was not the case. I didn't even get one.

I quickly learned that, when caught in an act, I should change my story - avoiding the truth at all costs. So a year or two later in first grade, when my teacher Mrs. Downing called my mother at home to discuss the reason why I wrote "I HATE MRS. DOWNING" across my math work, I feigned utter surprise. "What? I wrote 'hate?' I meant to write love! I meant I LOVE Mrs. Downing!"

The next morning, Mrs. Downing greeted me with the biggest, most sincere hug I can remember receiving since; and when she passed away from cancer not too long ago, I couldn't help but wonder how anyone could be so unconditionally understanding and forgiving of a little rat bastard kid like myself.

Maybe it's the knowledge of my ownself, the discoveries I made about my inherently evil character as a child, that has made me the way I am today. I've hated myself for as long as I can remember, yet I've never done anything to change; and when things feel beyond my control, I either bury my head or run.

I have made it my goal in recent years to stop talking in code, to start telling the truth, to approach conflict head-on and stop being a baby; still, I can't escape this age-old pattern. I'm in the process of sabotaging my job, so that i can claim that I tried to stick with something but it just didn't work out. I'm excited about the prospect of something new and more challenging - so excited, in fact, that I've mentally finished my current obligation, which I do not think is a good attitude to have.

My head, it seems, is in the sand. I've done this before, I think. It feels familiar. Yeah, familiar. It's comforting. Stale. Old. As one who lives for change, perhaps the most beneficial change I could make would be a behavioral one. Perhaps, for once, i could stop running. it's worth a try.

One Boy. One Girl. One Story.

It's a vicious cycle, really.

A story begins with a boy and a girl. They sit down for coffee. They go for a drive. They meet unexpectedly on the subway. Whatever.

The story always begins with one boy, one girl and limitless magic. 
It's unexpected, refreshing, unlike any other story and it makes for a good read.
These are the kinds of stories that fail to mention the ugly things, like the boy's crippling paranoia and the girl's consistently retreating tenderness. He tells lies and she smokes cigarettes and they drive one another away with their massive insecurities. She runs away, feeling moved to run as he pushes to know more of her. It's then a tragedy, a mistake, a misinterpretation of what could have been and while the entire thing burns to the ground, they will turn their eyes, waiting for the smoke to clear so that a new boy and a new girl can eventually be integrated into the act.

Of course, the stories I read are generally pages filled with the highlights, the beginning, the sunrises and sunsets; they tell nothing of shattered glass and violent words. 

Decidedly, I am involved in one such story, struck by the perplexing thought that perhaps - every once in a while - this is really how it goes: the good might outweigh the bad. For once, it might be worthwhile. One boy. One girl. One story of things working the way that they should.

A boy and a girl sit on opposite sides of the table from one another, each recording images of the other's face. He through a camera lens, she with ink. A boy and a girl wake up and it's raining, but for the moment they care nothing of the world outside one another's arms - for the moment there is no other world. Together, they laugh and tell secrets; they marvel at their likenesses just like every other boy and every other girl will do. There is nothing wrong. There is no pain, but that felt for their future days apart.

But when the girl cannot concentrate on her personal affairs, she brings her fingers to her lips and considers all the reasons why this cannot be so. This time, just this once, a story is different from the others. This time, she tells her friend, it is spontaneous and unexpected, but it doesn't feel reckless and it only seems good. There's something different this time, she thinks. But she bites her fingernails anyway.

Because, one time, a girl sat on the floor and a boy sat at a drum set. They sat in a car. They drove places in the middle of the night and created things together. They spent years, they made plans and then one day, they were on opposite sides of the universe while he sat on the edge of her bed. With tears in his eyes, he wondered how it could be that she just left and never came back. With a pain in her stomach, she wondered how he could be within arms reach but buried beneath so many blankets, so many years of highly saturated emotions and substitutions, now disposable and depleting and sweeping the history of love into a scrapbook entitled "past."

That was before, and this is after. That was a different boy. A different girl. A different story. This time, it's a different one. This time, the girl wasn't planning on getting caught up in things. But, she says, amidst the exceeding happiness she has encountered, she feels clear-headed and certain.

That is why it is different. Because he is a different boy. And she is a different girl. This time, it seems, it is a different story.