Cold

Time for (the first of) my winter whining.

Today's low is 42 degrees. Tomorrow, it's 45 degrees.
With rain.

It's COLD.
I don't like it one bit.
I need to buy socks.
That is all.

Charisma Redux (I’m an Asshole)

If you think I’m a jerk in writing, you should meet me in person. I am WAY worse. All kinds of rude and inappropriate things spew forth from my mouth on a regular basis. That’s in large part why (as a general rule) I like to write. I’m usually a little better on paper. And trust me, that says more about my ability to speak than my ability to write.

So my Charisma post was potentially offensive in that you might have concluded (legitimately, based on my words) that I think if you’re single, you must be lacking in charisma. That is not what I think. Let there be no mistake. That would just be dumb. I am not dumb (mostly), just lacking in eloquence. Hard.

Charisma is not the right word. By its very definition, charisma is rare. You can’t divide the world into two categories along the lines of charisma. If you did, the world would be very unevenly divided and it would certainly not have anything to do with who’s married or who’s single.

So what was I trying to say? For starters, I think loneliness as well as happiness is a state of mind. When it comes down to how we feel as humans on a regular basis, when it comes down to what makes us happy and what makes us sad, it might have nothing to do with how or whether we’ve paired up. Sometimes loneliness is not about how many people share a house with you. I wanted to say that single, married, we are human together. Sometimes my single friends long to be partnered and sometimes my married friends long to be single, but ironically, both sides are often looking to solve the same feelings of loneliness.

I think my failure in the last post was to generalize. I started to theorize about people when honestly, I don’t know squat about people in general. All I know is my own experience. And in my little world, staying together is far more difficult than getting together. I am married and my husband and I work very hard to sustain what we have. I already have one failed marriage behind me. And sadly, that is who I come from: my mother, my father, my sister, my paternal aunt, uncle and grandfather: all married two or more times. That’s hard to say out loud.

So I guess, when I say it’s easier to get together than to stay together, I am not making some profound generalization about humanity. I’m talking about myself. It’s hard for ME. It’s terrifying. Maybe I can’t do it. Maybe I just don’t have it in me.

I was at a happy hour once with my friends Babs and Dipu (who are both single and fabulous) and I said something along the lines of “It’s not getting together that’s so hard; it’s staying together.” They both corrected me immediately and with a good bit of fervor. They said getting together was not so simple. It’s hard to find a good match: someone who’s intelligent enough, interesting enough, fun enough, and with whom you have chemistry on top of everything else. I buy that. That makes perfect sense. But you know what? At the risk of being a complete asshole, I confess: that was never hard for me. Does that make me charismatic? No. Better than my single friends? No. Not even close. I just seem to have other (huge) things to overcome. And maybe wording it the way I did in the last post allowed me to feel a little better about myself on a subconscious level.

Getting together has never been hard for me. I can walk into a restaurant or a coffee shop or another country and meet someone when I want to. I can see how good they are inside, find what I think I need in them, and fall in love if that’s what I’m ready to do. It’s sustaining that love over time that seems to be my issue. Maybe it’s everyone’s issue. It’s certainly easier to say it’s hard for everyone than to look in the mirror and say it’s just hard for me.

But there it is.

Charisma

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Commitment. How do people stay together? I’ve talked about the whole idea of marriage with friends, fellow mamas, coworkers, highly paid therapists and counselors. My God, it seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue, at the top of everyone’s blog.

I’ve got friends in unhappy marriages, a friend going through a divorce, a set of couple friends who are pregnant but are leaning toward not getting married. I’ve got friends in relatively happy marriages who are just lonely and ready to get back into the upswing again. There will be another upswing, won’t there? Yes, I think there will. That’s what keeps us holding on, right? If we’ve got a good thing going, we want to stay together. In the end, we want to be right there. Together.

The consensus seems to be that, outside of how well-suited two people are, separate from how loveable and wonderful a partner can be, completely independent of how much you really do LOVE your sweetheart, marriage is hard. Living together is work.

Motherfucker.

Shouldn’t someone have told us that when we were in our twenties and falling hard? Oh, wait. They did. The problem is you don’t GET it when you’re falling hard. And who listens when they’re only 25? I didn’t.

I have friends who are single and it’s a mystery to me as to why. They’re beautiful, handsome, intelligent, creative, heady, deeply and darkly funny; they’re wonderful. I love these people. Yet they feel alone. By society’s definition, they are alone. And I know men and women who are crawling with suitors, I know newlyweds, I know folks who have been married for twenty-plus years. And you know what? Sometimes they feel lonely too. More than just sometimes, in fact. Maybe that’s just part of the human condition. Maybe we just need to figure out how to be lonely without having to turn over the whole apple cart.

Before I dive into some ridiculous analysis of what it takes to make it work (as if I knew) I think I better start at the beginning. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes… But what comes before love? Something has to happen before you’re willing to go there. What is that?

Is it charisma? Could it be that simple?

cha•ris•ma: Personal magnetism or charm; a rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm;

Bill Clinton has it. The Beatles had it. Elvis. Hitler. Ted Bundy. Jack the Ripper, for all we know. The girl at the library, the guy in the coffee shop: They’ve got it. Why? Who knows? It has nothing to do with being good-looking, nothing to do with how smart you are. Either you’ve got it or you don’t. Whatever it is, maybe that’s all that amounts to the difference between folks.

If you have it, you meet people wherever you go and it’s so easy. You decide you’re ready, you fall in love, you get married, you have kids, and from time to time, you feel lonely.

And if you don’t have it, you decide you’re young enough, you keep dating, you spend time with your friends, you keep searching, and from time to time, you feel lonely.

In the end, we’re all right there. Together.

Humans Should Not Mate for Life

Not too long ago I asked my husband:

“Do you think humans were meant to mate for life?”

He answered me immediately without missing a beat:

“Nope.”

“Well, shit,” I said. “What are we doing then?”

“The best we can.”

Hmph. Well, Goddamn it. What do you think about that?

I could have had hurt feelings. I could have gotten angry, but I didn’t. I actually agree with him, and ironically, this made me appreciate him even more. Honestly, what if he had instead, launched into a diatribe about how we are soul-mates? What if he had said we were destined to be together, that I am the only woman on the planet he could ever love?

Excuse me while I vomit.

My husband and I are well past the point of naive romanticism. We’re very practical and by the looks of things, we’re well-suited to one another. Does that mean it’s easy?

NO.

But I suppose being easy has nothing to do with being worthwhile.

Whatever we were thinking at the time, we decided to mate for life. For life. Forever. Forever? Did we really promise FOREVER? What were we thinking? That’s not the way humans work. (Even my husband says so.) So… what do we do now?

The best we can.

Not Gonna Happen

A little over a year ago, I blogged a list of things I’ve never done. And with the exception of bringing several short stories to completion (Yay, me!) everything on that list is still true. And you know what? That’s OK with me. Some things, even the good things, just don’t have to happen.

This past summer, I ran and biked in the Danskin triathlon. I had been training to do the swim too. But after one afternoon swim in terrifying open waters (Yes, I probably exaggerate, but it was no less horrifying to me) I abandoned that goal and got a good friend of mine to do the swim for me. Sweet relief! My justification at the time was that I had not sufficiently trained, which was totally true. I needed swimming lessons. I needed time to deal with my fears (the irrational, illogical, emotional ones). I needed to spend more time at the pool, at the lake, at the beach, get used to being in the water. Great. I called it a plan and settled on next year.

I promised myself I’d think about next year’s Danskin in about five months, so that I could start training in six months because when it comes to swimming I have a LOOONG way to go. Plenty of time.

Oops, time’s up. That time is now.

SO. Now I’m thinking about it, just like I said I would. And you know what I think? I don’t wanna. I really don’t. Who gives a shit if I can’t swim half a mile in open water? I can swim to the edge of the pool, to the closest buoy when I have to and wait for help just fine. I can jump into a pool feet first, grab a baby if I have to and get to the shallow end. I can teach my kids how to wear a life jacket. And I can take them to the public pools with life guards on duty. That’s what I’ve always done, that’s what I’ll continue to do.

So there’s that problem solved. Whew. I, for one, feel MUCH better.

Now I just have to somehow come to peace with this decision, instead of feeling guilty about it. Instead of feeling as though I gave up. When is it important to face your fears and conquer them? When do you decide to accept them and let them go?

I am claustrophobic. Do I need to face that fear? Perhaps, but to what degree? I will never tour Natural Bridge Caverns. I will never explore the crawl space in my attic. I will never again attend a concert unless I am given my own seat so I can enjoy the peaceful bubble of space that my seat provides. Am I missing out on some wonderful gift that life has to offer me? Perhaps. But I really don’t give a shit.

I am afraid of natural bodies of water. When I was 18, I decided to face that fear. I got certified to scuba dive. I went diving in a lake with zero visibility. I was able to tread water in a pool for 30 minutes. THIRTY minutes. (In order to pass, I had to do it without hyperventilating. Third time was a charm.) I donned all the suffocating gear and went diving in Cozumel. More than once. So I tackled the claustrophobia and the open water all at once. Fear faced. Mission accomplished. Am I over it? Hell no. Do I need to readdress my fears again, nearly 20 years later, just to prove something to myself? To anyone else? I think not.

I am terrified of cockroaches. It is stupid? Irrational? Silly? Yes, yes, and yes. Do I need to go on Fear Factor and sleep in a bed of cockroaches so I can say I faced my fear? Um. No. Is it simply okay to instead, when I see a cockroach, run screaming from the room, curl into the fetal position, and wait for my husband to come home and kill it? Yes, actually. That’s just fine with me.

I got nothing to prove. Some things are just NOT gonna happen.

Some Days

Some days*, I wake up and wonder who I am, who I was when I didn’t like myself, who I will be tomorrow. I wonder if I’ll like her as much.

Some days, I look around my house, at all the things that rest inside and I think, what is that? Who does that belong to? That’s not mine. I don’t want that. I don’t need it. It makes me tired and heavy. I want to throw it all away.

Some days, I look at the people who live in my house, and I can’t remove my eyes. I love them. And some days I see them, and I think who IS that? Who are they? Who I am married to? Who is that woman in the mirror?

What am I doing here? Where have I been? Where am I going?

Some days I go to bed looking forward to my dreams. Some days, my dreams seem to be the best part of my world. Some days, Eli and Lena run into my bed in the morning and wake me up with hugs and kisses and tickles and absurd demands. On those days, my dreams are inadequate.

Some days, I ask myself how it all happened.

Some days, I wonder WHY?

And some days, the other days, I wonder, Why not?

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This post was inspired by my blogger hero, Nicole, at Sitting Still and her post on the same theme.

Thirty-Six

For me there are only two types of women: goddesses and doormats.
-- Pablo Picasso

I am thirty-six years old; I have been for six weeks now. Thirty-five was a hard birthday for me. You might remember my sudden preoccupation with the aging process. It was gruesome. I suddenly felt the clutches of all my days groping my defenseless flesh, clawing at me such that I really couldn’t see myself at all.

I looked in the mirror only to see crow’s feet, laugh lines, a pot belly, a more than ample back-side. I stared in silence and heard my reflection yelling back at me an excruciating monologue of failures, inadequacies, a lack of ideas, time, money, success, publication...

“You need to get off your ass.
You need to lose ten pounds.
You need to write.
You need to finish something.
Jesus Christ, you need a haircut.
You need to LIVE.”

I don’t see it that way today, a year into it. Maybe it’s because I’m a ridiculous optimist. Maybe it’s because I’m desperate to justify myself. Maybe it’s because my character is such that I feel obligated to reset my expectations, to change the filter through which I see things, through which I see myself, so that I can be happy. I need to be happy.

I am not afraid. I am not a girl. I applaud my flaws, even when they make me cringe, and they do. They are my humanity. What stories I can tell with my wrinkles, my laugh lines, my gray hair. There is a short story behind every stretch mark, a beautiful baby behind each of my tired breasts, a novel behind every scar on my body. I just have to write it that way, if I can manage to see it that way first.

I am not a doormat. I am living. I am being. I am my body. I am all grown-up and I turned out just fine. I’m thirty-six and finally, Goddamn it, I’m ready.

Let the Goddess years begin.

Here's the Thing about Horizontal Stripes (an Ode to Kyle Hoffer)

There was this kid in second grade. His name was Kyle Hoffer*. I liked him. A lot, really. He was a cool kid. One time, he threw up a yet-to-be-digested hamburger in the hall after recess. We somehow concluded, with our eight year-old logic that he was consciously responsible and altogether magical for the fact that it still REALLY looked like a hamburger. After all, I couldn't do that. Could you?

Another time, on a dare, he swallowed a dime. Immediately thereafter, the school-nurse took him by the hand and escorted him, wide-eyed and red-faced, out of the cafeteria. He didn't actually cry, although I saw the tears welling up as soon as the coin got stick right alongside his yet-to-blossom Adam's apple. He managed to hold it together though, at least until his mom arrived.

Kyle had brown hair and brown eyes (or maybe hazel, or were they green?) and pretty big ears, as little boy ears go. And the thing is, he always, at least as I remember it, he always wore horizontal stripes.

I do not wear horizontal stripes, and I cannot see horizontal stripes without thinking of Kyle Hoffer. And in tribute to my young friend, I have, for as much of my adult life as I can remember, referred to this kind of shirt as "a Kyle Hoffer." For example, if we are shopping for Elias, my husband will invariably pick up a shirt and the following conversation ensues:

JM: "What about this one?"
Tamara: ... [A certain expression and dead silence, because I tire of repeating myself.]
JM: "What? What's wrong with this one? Is this a Kyle Hoffer? Ugh..."

And we do NOT buy the Kyle Hoffer.

Not because Kyle Hoffer wasn't a freaking great kid. That's not it. It's just, well honestly, I don't have a clue what it is. I just have a thing about horizontal stripes. I'm like that. If you know me, you know that, well, sometimes I just get stuck on these things. And this is one of those things.

There's something about horizontal stripes that screams little boy in a not MY little boy sense. Is that crazy? Does that make any sense at all?

Whatever. It doesn't matter whether it makes sense. My little boy is NOT going to wear a Kyle Hoffer.

I have stood firm.

Until this week.

Behold, my little boy in a TOTAL Kyle Hoffer.

He looks pretty good, doesn't he?

Great. I better start hiding the dimes.


__________________________________________
*This is his real name, because as I have said before, I am an idiot. Maybe Kyle will find me. Kyle, if you are reading this, please don't take offense. (Sorry about the big ear comment.) The truth is, I had a crush on you in second grade. And you are a fashion icon.

Progress, In Progress

They are hammering away at my little road; they've been working on it for months now, such that I haven't experienced (what used to be) my beautiful daily drive for way too long.

Why do these things take so long? Nothing seems to be going on. I don't see big changes that I can measure every day. Hardly. Most of the time, it looks just as you see it here: rolled over, turned upside down, torn apart, and empty.

Occasionally I hear loud noises, things that sound like I might imagine a backhoe or bulldozer or cement mixer to sound if I was a little more versed in what those things sound like in 2007. Occasionally I see workmen and big trucks pulling past me into this tied-off area. Sometimes I smell tar or see a cloud of dust floating above my children while they play in the front yard.

But most of the time, sadly, my little street is just sitting here, unused. She looks tired. Harried. Lonely, and waiting for someone to come and fix her up so she can be made use of in the manner she was intended.

She is in between states, biding her time, waiting for the people that make her real to do what they need to do so she can move on to doing what she does.

Hey, would you look at that?

My little street is a mommy.