“Your past is just a story now,” she said, her voice booming with confidence. She saw the look of disbelief on my face and nodded. “Are you saying you’re incapable of turning the page and choosing different behavior? If that’s so, go ahead and surrender to your patterns. It’s over for you.”
I was a little stunned that she was advocating that I give up.
“Get a piece of your crazy chalk, X, go outside, and make a chalk outline of your body, as if you’ve fallen forever. Look at it. That’s what you’re going to leave behind if you don’t make different choices. You know that the number of obstacles that hit you is never going to be zero, so figure out how circumstances are not your actual problem. You are. You wanted clarity and hit-you-in-the-face commentary. There you have it.”
I nodded with an intent look on my face. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before. The words, though, were incisive and harsh this time.
She continued. “I read your ‘reset’ promise. You said you’d give it a year. Do that. Every day, make a chalk outline and remind yourself visually that we all are going to end up with unfinished business. Get yours done already. You love to write? Do that. You want a connection that gives you presence and affection without qualification? Get that. If you can’t be successful, I doubt anyone who sees me can be.”
I laughed. “I wish you’d tell me how you REALLY feel.”
I pulled the piece of orange chalk out of my gray jacket pocket, holding it up. “I’ll get started when I leave, right in your parking lot. I hope no one gets the wrong idea.”
“There is no wrong idea. It will either be funny, surprising, or hurtful. You know that you can’t control other people’s filters. Stop trying. What was it you gave me? Like a mouthful of fire, who you are should be impossible to conceal. Your sense of humor is your secret weapon. Focus on that, X.”
After I left the office, I did what usually gives me a secret laugh. I knelt on the pavement and drew a rudimentary chalk outline of a body. I wrote “Yesterday” on the torso.
Somehow, I knew she would nod in approval at the small addition to my drawing.
Almost all of our lives are written in chalk. Entropy and time erase so much – but never the connections and moments we share as memories. Things are transitory, just as we are.
On the way home, I stopped and got nine balloons. I wrote a card that said, “Thank you for being you. -Anonymous.” And I tied them to someone’s car, someone I didn’t know. I laughed, knowing that whoever the car belonged to would find them and be filled with curiosity. And maybe a little glee. I gave them a story, maybe one that would linger forever in their heads.
I love sharing on social media. I do. It’s personal, revelatory, and I try to be honest without stepping on people. I tend to step on myself the hardest.
I learned to play the game of Chicken with my crazy dad. Do you know what his secret was? NEVER veer, even if you’re going to get killed. He told people beforehand, “I’m not going to veer. I’m not kidding.” And he never did, even when it could have killed him. People learned not to play Chicken with Bobby Dean. Not in cars, not on tractors, not ever. Never veering is a stupid way to play chicken – unless your goal is to stop people from challenging you. There is no truth I will not confide if it is in my heart to do so.
I wrote very personal posts on the 23rd and yesterday. Both were honest and revelatory. The one from the 23rd was an admission that I’m as guilty as anyone about being a revisionist. I’ve not hurtfully crossed the line needlessly about anyone – including my ex-wife. That’s not to say I couldn’t. Two of the components of my post were to mention that I appreciated the good years, as well as to mention that I could have engaged in a flame war during the divorce, even though I bore the responsibility for the mess. It’s okay to need to gain perspective and distance. Even if it makes me the villain. It’s not okay to wipe away the good times, the good things, or the concessions I made to mitigate my self-made disaster.
With my level of humor and stark, combined with my willingness and ability to literally say anything, it would be manifestly easy for me to shatter a lot of illusions and break eggs. Even while still admitting I’ve behaved like a lunatic at times. I’ve been considerate after-the-fact. I can’t erase the past. It’s unwise to argue with someone who buys ink by the gallon, or with someone who will respond to accusations by admitting even worse truths himself. No one can win a “let’s share secrets” war with me. I will go there – not out of spite, no matter how someone pushes me to inflame or respond to fire with fire. It’s a fool’s game, especially after the final whistle has blown. The players should exit the field, hopefully with the goal of learning from what happened. Even if they fouled forty times during the game. An examined life always yields lessons.
People trust me not to reveal secrets they share. Believe me, one of the most satisfying aspects of social media is that many people have shared some of the most intimate things possible using it.
As you’d guess, I caught hell privately for the things I shared. Even the post about my wife who died brought out a level of accusation that surprised me. None of those accusations touch the truth, though. Everyone was kind, loving, and supportive to me for both posts. Well, almost everyone. And I love that. Worrying about the critics is another fool’s errand. Because I’m a fool, I’ve been guilty of that at times.
“You’re the villain in someone’s story” has always been true.
Equally true is that telling me I can’t tell my story isn’t going to end well. I’ll be respectful – but not silent. Trust me to be both honest and responsible.
If you play Chicken with me, I will not veer, now or ever.
When people move away from a relationship or marriage, they become revisionists. It’s a natural human reaction. Because I don’t want hypocrisy lightning to strike me, I will be the first to admit I’ve done it too. When things go sour, we overwrite the good moments, and the sense of wrong and failure fill our heads. Most of us don’t go into relationships will ill intentions. There are exceptions; some people don’t see behind the masks of those they are with until later. It’s not their fault. Love drives us. We all pretty much want the same things. How we traverse the minefields of our own vanities and life determines how successful our relationships might be. When it ends, we’re left with a raw fringe that often transposes into a filter that overwrites all the positive things we experienced.
I haven’t written a tremendous amount about my marriage. In part, it is because I saw no need to inflame emotions or trespass across the boundary of where my right of expression would infringe upon her life.
As time passes, she’s told me more than once that she thought I was there for so long because it was an easy life. Such a comment is an indictment of what we actually shared. There was a lot of love there for most of the marriage. The end was a bitter pie, that’s true. Since I’m the one who added a lot of the bitter, it is my pie to eat.
When we first got together, I was trying to recover from the sudden and unexpected death of my wife. She was ten years younger than me. Her death was a stop sign in my life. The brutal truth is that had she not died, my life would have continued along that trajectory, probably forever. That’s not how life works though. It’s a series of blows, each of which we either confront or bury.
I made the decision to live life. The risk of me not doing so might have been my demise. “Get busy living or get busy dying” was certainly in my head. It wasn’t going to be easy no matter what choices I made.
One of the reasons the accusation of staying in the marriage because it was “easy” bothers me is that anyone who knows me knows that I am not money-driven. That’s both a defect and an advantage. I feel rich in a lot of ways no matter what roof is over my head or what car I drive. Growing up, I lost a lot. Houses burned, tornadoes came, and violent parents made physical comfort an impossibility. Security is never in the things that envelop me. There is no doubt that my conscious decision to ignore ambition has cost me in some ways. That same lack of ambition also provided insurance, flexibility, and more free time to fill in life’s spaces with ordinary moments. We live most of our lives in those spaces rather than in the grand ones that most people prominently use to illustrate their lives.
Before the divorce, I signed over the house to my ex-wife. I did it for a lot of reasons. I could have insisted that we divest everything and sell it. Had I done so, I would have had 40-50K in my pocket when I left. As it was, I left with $5000. Someone motivated by money would have never walked away from that money. She would have needed to move and start over exactly as I did. It didn’t matter who was at fault; that’s just the way it works. I don’t know many people who’ve willingly given up such a big chunk in order to let their ex have peace and security.
It bothers me that the love I had and the gift I gave her by letting her keep the house are now being characterized as untrue. But I understand.
I sit as the villain in her head. If that helps her have a good life again, I can accept it. During the last few months, I stayed as a roommate. Luckily, I was going to counseling. I learned to sleep and I learned that I didn’t need nearly as much sleep as I had been getting before something in my head snapped. Over time, the anxiety I wasn’t addressing built to a point where I had to either succumb or deal with it. I waited too long to get a handle on it. That was arrogance on my part. There’s no other word for it.
I learned some lessons, some of them unflattering about myself. But one of the lessons I learned is that no matter what your intentions, if you don’t express the hard things in your mind when they come up, they fester and burn you from the inside out. It is so easy to walk through each day, letting the details and routine gloss over the things that need to be said. And done. It’s obvious that I didn’t really learn some of the lessons deeply because I repeated the same pattern by swallowing my truths a few times, ignored the little voice inside my head saying “No,” or stopped striving for the demand of a normal kind of affection.
When I had my emergency surgery, it was my ex-wife who came to the emergency room and stayed with me until my surgery started. She got to witness me violently throwing up and yelling in surprise pain each time a spasm of internal tearing got the better of me. She got her karma that night! But despite that, she was there. And that’s not nothing.
I don’t want to ever come across as someone who doesn’t appreciate that or the good years we had.
I also don’t want to be the kind of person who feels like I’m ‘too much.’ I’ve learned that my ‘too much’ is exactly what some people want. And that is true for all of you, too. I was surprised to find that the things that give me connection are these: writing, a buttload of laughter, and the ability to sit in a chair, intertwined, with nothing but the comfort of someone who sees me as me. I’ll get there, in part because of the long past that lies behind me, including all the stupid things I’ve done and the times I let my arrogance or inattention to what matters lead me astray. I don’t want to be right. I want to be happy.
If you have a happy marriage or relationship, please whisper its truth in gratitude or prayer. Don’t let the valleys overshadow the inevitable peaks. And if your relationship ends, try to avoid the pitfall of painting everything as sinister or dark. We’re all complicated people and so often we find ourselves at the end of a road without a clear idea of how we got so far astray. We started in love.
As the noted philosophers of VanHalen said: “If love’s got you down, love can lift you right back up. Get up and make it work.”
Love, X .
P.S. Wherever I end up, there is going to be a swing. Without playfulness, the seriousness of what we experience would drown us.
If you’re like me, you read a wide variety of blogs. Not all are created equal.
I have two to recommend to you. Both are written by the same “clever girl” mind. She’s smart, focused, and also writing through her experiences as a human being. She isn’t a writer by profession; that will probably change over time.
The first is a blog dedicated to her ordeal, anguish, and recovery as she deals with her life intersecting with a villainous human being.
The second is one she recently started in response to the amassing stockpile of creativity she fills her head with. I expect great things to blossom from her second blog.
Note: this is a different kind of post. It’s not for everyone. Literally. Wink.
We rely on human nature to protect us. We prefer to think that people are like us. Kind, compassionate and reasonable, behaving as we would. When that fails, we turn to the law to mitigate the behavior of those who are not like us. The law has many shortcomings. Its bureaucracy is flawed with delay and a disregard for the victims asking for remedy and comfort. We created a complex system to protect victims and those wrongfully accused.
Its existence does not preclude a return to the chaos of personal justice that preceded it.
The same clever code words used to avoid the consequences of actions? Those exact words can be turned and used in the same sinister way.
If someone asks for peace of mind and safety, it’s their right. Because I’m familiar with toxic and twisted psychology, I know that there’s something wrong with some people’s brain chemistry. That defect doesn’t disconnect them from the commensurate responsibility of behaving in such a way that they don’t inflict further emotional trauma on someone who’s insisted that they have the fundamental right of peace and the pursuit of happiness.
Those it’s rare, some people don’t honor other people’s right to be free and happy in their lives. Some are simply irredeemable.
We all have an instinctive urge toward fairness.
In The Green Mile, Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb leans in to the villain Percy Whitmore: “…you mind me now. We’ll also see you beaten within an inch of your life. We know people too. Are you so foolish, you don’t realize that?” Percy had been so confident of his connections and deviousness to protect him, not realizing his cohort of fellow guards subscribed to a higher level of fairness and justice. On their plane of justice, people like Percy are given leeway until they have to face the consequences of their actions. If the Percys of the world don’t listen, they face the same fate as the dog that bit the little boy earlier in the book and movie.
It’s not personal. If the equation requires that the side abusing others be minimized, so be it.
Thinking that the legal system is the only remedy to protect others? That’s foolish.
I’m liberal and kind-hearted. But I have an iron rod of my dad inside me. That rod is premised on the old school belief that if you’ve given someone leeway to stop and they don’t heed the warning, then the precepts of Southern Justice come into play. It is no sin to defend yourself or someone else.
Unlike so many other people, I’ve seen behavior turn from trivial to violent. Many people underestimate its probability. I don’t. That’s why I hypocritically subscribe to the belief that it’s better to act precipitously at times without regard to the potential consequences that might befall me simply because I subscribe to a different sort of justice.
I honor the laws to the best of my ability.
My greatest allegiance is to fairness and justice. That allegiance plays by a different set of rules, especially when the intent of laws is being perverted or subjugated by someone who has demonstrated that he or she feels empowered to victimize others.
If you’ve already violated someone and still persist in harassing, intimidating, or making that person feel unsafe, the long arm of the law will get you. There’s a longer arm at play here, one with compunction to compel you to see the light.
There’s time to reconsider the error of your ways.
Please take the route that ensures that everyone is safe.
Otherwise, you are as unnecessary and unpleasant as a fruitcake without liquor.
Every once in a while, you get a compliment that goes beyond the kind we often exchange. Today, I got more than my share: “You are sunshine on legs.” It wasn’t about my appearance. It was about the energy I radiated. Whatever energy I had prior to the kind words, it doubled.
To be called “weirdo,” in a true and opposite way. “Dork,” too.
Prank pickles, spoon brooches, hugs, laughter, and the expectation that literally anything could happen: these things comprised a good day. That it’s in the mid-50s and the sun is shining is a dash of cinnamon to make it great.
I had something to complain about, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine what it might be now. A lot of people in my life have obstacles that make any of mine seem inconsequential.
My tribe grows and apparently we speak the language of snark and laughter.
We all get a turn waiting at the bottom of the well for the bucket to be lowered, don’t we?
The way I feel right now, were I at the bottom of the well, you’d hear me whistling or singing. I’m not alone down there in the bottom of the well. None of us are if we are but capable of remembering our turn at the bottom seldom lasts.
justice delayed is justice denied victims remain, anxious prey, each precious life adjourned
it was an accident, they intoned, shyly winking he resisted and found himself restrained cuffs on the cold bumper he was an unrepentant menace who found his home along the road
red snow bothers no one
the inevitable thaw comes erasing all vestige of his faint echo
If you behave as if you believe you’re confident, even when you’re not, most other people believe it too. And if you wear clown shoes and talk like you’re crazy, people question you a whole lot less.
Most of the great people I know also hate something about themselves. It’s perplexing. Why is it we can see the exceptional in others but so seldom in ourselves?
As for flaws, it is impossible for you to be certain that someone else won’t find them to be endearing or fascinating. Unless your flaw is personality-driven, as when you practice hatchet-throwing in my direction.
So, stop looking at yourself that way.
If you’re not going to change it, revel in it. You’re living life for yourself, so that other people can see you for who are.
PS It is really hard to get to know a facade. Breathe fire if you can, flaws and all.
It is indeed just a lamp post. Above it, the December sun warms me. Whatever I’m experiencing is almost the opposite of mindfulness. I clocked out at work to walk down the hill to my car. Minutes later, I realized I was walking south on the trail. My feet must have vetoed my routine because I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I was briskly walking, listening to the creek adjacent to the trail, and lost in my thoughts. Before finishing work for the day, I had two disparate moments. The first was a surprise bit of irritation thrown upon me, an undeserved one, from someone responding to words of kindness and appreciation I had offered. Momentarily, my head filled with confusion and disappointment. The second moment was a laughter-filled conversation. When I realized I was walking on the trail, I looked up to see that lamp post illuminated by the bright sun. A congruent and companion light went off in my head. Which of the two disparate moments before leaving work do you think filled my heart? All moments can have meaning, especially if we are intuitive or paying attention. At the apex of my unintended walk, I sat on a ledge overlooking the creek below. The sun sits to the right above me warming my shoulders, even though the rest of me sits in shadows provided by a huge tree. The concrete blocks below me are cool and refreshing. The creek runs swiftly enough to babble its own language. Strangely, I feel like I know what it’s saying: flow, movement, and destination. All that kinetic energy around the low water bridge and walkway that traverses the creek. On one side, a tranquil pool that hides motion. On the other, a boisterous discharge of water trying to find its place. I know I will have to get up and walk back to my car. I think I will keep the sound of the creek in my head for a while and feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders. I choose to remember the laughter and to forget the irritation. This walk was a stolen moment.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 